Chapter Text
“May the Force ever serve you…”
K’Surda swallowed the words in her throat, watching Lana turn away from her.
Her body felt held together by string and she tried to keep her breathing even and steady, to little effect. There was a weight in her gut like pitch and pebbles. She wanted to reach out but for what?
There was nothing to grasp for in this situation, she had to keep moving forward, had to keep fighting regardless.
Do you think it will be so easy, uli’kha?
It came on too fast for her distracted mind to repel and K’Surda yelped, clutching at her head like a thousand nails assaulted her skull.
Vaguely she heard Lana’s voice and doubled over, fingers snarling into her hair as the pain grew into a searing knife edge against her thoughts. She knew this pain, like a layer of skin that prickled and burned, tugging at her insides with toxic hooks.
His voice she had no words for, she couldn’t conjure them. Physically hearing him was different to this, inside it felt inescapable and she mentally thrashed, pushing against the net that tried to close on her.
“It would seem she genuinely caught his attention.”
Scourge.
She could hear him and the hum of a lightsabre at her flank, a few steps behind her.
She knew this too well. Vitiate knew it too, he was just trying to mess with her. He was trying to stall them.
Pressure touched her arm and shoulder and she tried to focus on it, use it as an anchor. She couldn’t return to the void. She couldn’t. She couldn’t.
Something gave in like tearing sinew and the pressure faded with a derisive hiss of caustic words she knew weren’t actually there.
K’Surda blinked the momentary darkness from her eyes and lifted her head to see Lana staring at her, brow furrowed. “K’Surda?”
She swallowed thickly and tried not to pay attention to the shake in her hands, letting them fall at her sides. Her insides trembled and squirmed like eels, the slimy lick of nausea coiling up her throat. K’Surda clenched her teeth and swallowed again, her thoughts disjointed, not registering what was in front of her as the shock and fear skittered through her.
Lana’s hands tightened on her arms, a small tug to bring her to the present before she had the chance to slip into memories.
K’Surda blinked and cleared her throat, taking a deep breath. “He tried. He failed,” she muttered, her voice sounding raw in its vulnerability. She shook her head, frowning deeply. “He’s still coming.”
There was a terribly guarded look to Lana’s eyes, cutting at K’Surda for the five seconds she said nothing. A minor twitch in her expression – regret, worry, simple stress, K’Surda couldn’t know – and she let go of K’Surda’s arms. “We need to hurry.”
She ignored the sting, pushed it away somewhere deep and dark to look at later, and nodded shortly. “Right…”