Excuse Me, Is This Dust Taken? (Lmr)

[Kuhblam]

It was a bright day in the open training courtyard of the Sith Temple, Korriban's two gleaming twins suns burning bright over it's disciples. The place was just absolutely teeming with initiates training left and right. Some were training on their own, others with sparring, and yet others sat in a suspended state of meditation.

"What another boring day on this putrid planet,"

Virgil said as he chewed on the dried fruit he had procured from some unlucky initiate passing by with his pack open. His posture on the durasteel bench upon which he sat on was relaxed, with one leg crossed over the other and his free arm hanging casually along the back. He was dressed in his usual black garb, minus the cloak and hood which had obscured his return to the temple upon his encounter with Lord Ksavir, and red sand had permeated his formerly clean clothing. Today was a particularly lazy day for the supremacist as it was turning out so far. He had already run through the gamut of his training exercise for the morning, destroyed three separate training droids, and humiliated some insolent wretch who had thought he could make Virgil an example of his power. That boy wouldn't definitely need replacement cybernetic surgery.

Dumb fool.

A Nautolan and his Chagrian companion passed by Virgil on their way into the Temple, their gaze passing upon him as they moved by. It wasn't particularly vehement, but any look a non-human would afford Virgil was enough to make him angry. He snarled and growled in return at their scowls, and he could feel a little discomfort in the spine of the former. As a human, Virgil didn't have particularly dastardly teeth; in fact, they were a pearly white. But his bloodshot yellow eyes were enough to give even the most seasoned adversary a quiver of... uncertainty.

"That's right, worms. Keep walking."

He spat at their feet venomously as they moved on and took another bite out of the fruit as the suns continued to beat down on the courtyard, causing a slight sweat to break out upon his brow as the sweltering heat only seemed to keep rising. It seemed as if his entire day was destined to continue this way, eating fruit and then snarling at non-human inbreds. Well, it seemed like it would continue this way until he was assigned another mission by the Dark Lords whom he so incredibly aspired to join and surpass.

Soon. Have patience.

It was just one of those days, it seemed.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"Well, well, well. Aren't you just cheery today?" A voice smooth as silk said, a tone of amusement easily noticeable. It was as if she'd just heard something she found greatly enjoyable, and she made no effort to disguise that.

The source of the voice was a Togruta woman leaning against the wall a few feet away, her buxom form wrapped in revealing garments of black leather, long and bare legs folded over each other, toes idly stretching in the sandy soil. To many in the Sith Temple, the figure was instantly recognizable as Naraka, a rather seasoned Sith Master.

Not knowing her by name or reputation was also acceptable, as she generally kept to herself apart from intimacy and training sessions with those seeking a Master's teachings in telekinesis. Given her frequent absences, it wouldn't surprise her if this man didn't know her. And to be honest, she didn't know him either.

The Togruta did, however, find him quite amusing. For her, racism was one of those droll little quirks often seen in humans, and rather rare in her own species. Though she'd never seen an alien until she was nine, and never spoken with one until maybe a decade later, Naraka was no racist. She was generally rather equal-opportunity when it came to everything, though admittedly she didn't find species covered in fur or gifted with bug eyes to be attractive.

But calling a Chagrian and Nautolan worms? Hilariously narrow-minded.

Naraka let a smile flash across her full lips, revealing a glint of pearly-white fangs. She examined the nails on her hand, not dignifying the racist human with her full attention.

"Of course you are right about one thing at least, this barren pile of dust is certainly putrid."

It might have come as a surprise to him that she'd managed to come within a few feet of him in silence, but the Togruta woman moved in silence, something aided by her bare feet. On some level, she did hope she'd surprised him though.

[Kuhblam]

"Well, well, well. Aren't you just cheery today?"

A voice revealed itself from behind the corner of Virgil's eye, presumably a few feet to his right. It was noticeably feminine, and he could sense the sarcastic bluntness wrapped around each word. His mind was now poisoned: who would willingly try and pick a fight with him? They were either stupid or very self-assured. His gaze turned towards the direction of the voice, and to his disgust it was a rather well-endowed Togruta dressed in the dark leather trapping of a whore. Virgil found her feminine features attractive and stimulating, but quickly found her non-human aspects to be against his tastes. In addition, he had burned by a woman once before, and it wasn't about to happen again. Whoever she was, she wasn't about to get in his pants and turn him into some sort of plaything.

Truthfully, he didn't recognize her. He didn't know anything about her, other than that she was obviously playing the part of the seductress, and that she was an alien of all things who had just earned his ire. Thus, this buxom woman would be afford the same amount of respect as any other, which was none. She flashed a smile, revealing a hint of her quite clean canines as she inspected her nails.

"Of course you are right about one thing at least, this barren pile of dust is certainly putrid."

What a stunning observation.

In the brief time he had looked away to inspect his chrono, she had moved closer without his notice. Much closer. Virgil had heard a little bit of a shuffle across the dust, but the distance didn't match. It made him slightly uneasy how smooth and suave this alien was, how her character was more than a match for his steely nature. In any rate, she was probably ridden with all manners of alien diseases native to whatever backwater planet she was from and he didn't like her. He shifted away with an annoyed scowl along his brow, sliding down the bench a few inches.

"Go find some other hot-blooded steamer to bother, hornhead. Not interested. And this particular section of dust is reserved,"

Virgil said, tracing a semi-circle in the dust with his boot around his person as he took another bite from the rather flavorful fruit and turned his gaze away from her again.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"How troubling," Naraka purred as she lowered herself onto the branch next to him. She had the distinct vibe he felt ambivalent about her. The stray thoughts that flowed off his mind revealed that much.

Yes, he knew she was beautiful. He had an interest on some level, but he was going to dismiss her as a prostitute or perhaps diseased. He'd make up excuses to marginalize her, his own racism blocking any chance of intimacy, or so he undoubtedly thought.

Naraka, however, was going to look on him as a little challenge, an exercise to see just how good she'd gotten at worming her way into someone else's affections. Perhaps she'd succeed and be rewarded by some intimacy tonight, or perhaps she'd fail and have to work again and again to wear him down.

She didn't anticipate failing in the long term, and she had the patience to deal with that.

Now sitting on the bench next to the human, Naraka folded one leg over the other and idly stroked one of her two lightsaber hilts with a slender finger, her eyes resting lightly on the man as if he wasn't any threat, merely another presence she found neither interesting nor dull.

"Hornhead. That one might hurt my feelings. I suppose this is the point where I run away to my room to cry and devour chocolates?"

The Togruta woman stared at the man, her rich brown eyes taking in his features. Rugged. He had several scars, and a letter of some kind tattooed on his brow, though it wasn't the Aurebesh clearly. All in all, he wasn't NOT handsome, and she wouldn't kick him out of bed.

"Go ahead, why don't we find a few more terms for me? You've got my attention now human."

[Kuhblam]

"How troubling."

She had lowered herself onto the bench to sit beside him. He shot her a glance, snorted, and looked forward again with a casual ease devoid of any empathy. He could feel the tendrils trying to probe his mind, attempting to search through his thoughts and prod and poke. Fitting for a temptress to play head games. But he could do it too. Virgil erected mental barriers with the Force, closed his mind to outside influence, and shut down the possibility of any unwelcome access. It would stop any trivial meandering amateur looking for a lock combination, and so he would see just how well-trained this alien was.

"Hornhead. That one might hurt my feelings. I suppose this is the point where I run away to my room to cry and devour chocolates?"

He took one last bite out of the fruit indifferently and tossed the remains into her lap.

"Pretend it's chocolate, you know the way to your quarters."

She didn't move. Rather, he could feel her eyes were still watching him and this time they were doing a little more than just waiting for a reply. All things considered, his apathy towards her might be generating a little more interest than he desired. The buxom Togruta's presence was transforming from that hate to one of sheer annoyance, and although her temptations were failing she was still somehow worming her way into his mind just by being here.

"Go ahead, why don't we find a few more terms for me? You've got my attention now human."

Since she was posing the question, Virgil took it as food for thought and chewed on it a minute. However, he quickly realized there were deeper reaching implications with this dialogue. He realized he was being sucked into a conversation of equal footing with her, and he would never admit that an alien would ever have twice the intellect of a human being. Prior to now, he wouldn't be caught dead fraternizing with one of these... things. It was against everything he stood for, and it was going to end now.

"No. I have better things to do than indulge you with nicknames for the disgusting grime and filth of your species."

Like survey other plots of barren dust for occupation.

This time, he didn't shift down the bench. Rather, he stood up. He brushed his tunic off, checked his chrono needlessly once more, and started walking straight through the courtyard into the mist of hard-working initiates.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

He flicked a fruit onto her and made a snide comment, one that he presumably thought would make her emotional or hurt her feelings. He was quit thoroughly wrong if he thought that however, as she genuinely found him amusing and little more.

Her response was to flick the fruit off of her lap and into the dust, and to chuckle softly. Did he really think she cared?

His next words were equally amusing, perhaps even more so. Racism was so very amusing, particularly when she doubted he knew just one fact about her people. In fact, he was probably under the mistaken impression she was poisonous, a rather common sentiment from the fangs and brilliant colors.

However, even apart from ignorance, the comments were still highly amusing.

"Grime and filth? Then I'm a dirty girl am I?" Naraka laughed.

She followed him, getting as close as she could. She knew it would probably infuriate him, but she blocked his path and did her best to press herself up against him.

"Does a dirty girl need to be... Disciplined?" She asked with a purr in her voice, and a seductive smile.

She wasn't expecting him to take her up on the offer, but she knew she'd be getting into his head a little, and maybe she'd make him feel dirty by extension.

And it was also just fun. So much fun.

[Kuhblam]

The temptress's advances were becoming increasingly persistent as time passed, and the annoyance was shifting back to anger at a rate of change much too quick for anyone to measure.

"Grime and filth? Then I'm a dirty girl am I?"

At this point, she was following him like a dogged little kid expecting some sort of hand-out from an adult. Alien or not, she was doing her best to try and keep his attention; tailing him step for step, pressing up against him. It was like a comical scene from a holo musical, almost, except that instead of some heart-warming melody of love the man was about ready to lop the woman's head from her shoulders.

"One of your inbred pawns that you use for pleasure can answer that question."

But now, she came around to the front of him, pressed herself up against his body so incredibly close it all but ended his progress out of the courtyard. He was infuriated; for all her charm and dare he admit, even the slightest ounce of beauty, this sex-addicted second-rate Sith didn't know when to quit! It was driving him nuts, and he was about to send his purple blade burning through her gut if he had to endure one more second of her presence any further. They were at a stand-still face to face now, literally an inch in length across with him looking down at her by virtue of superior human genetics. She muttered one more sentence, one that finally drove his patience down the gutter.

"Does a dirty girl need to be... disciplined?"

He couldn't take it anymore; his whole face contorted into a snarl. His yellow eyes burned even more intensely, the blood rippling as his anger finally broke the boiling point. This time, Virgil turned around abruptly and moved a few feet before finally an explosion of anger erupted from his persona. He turned back on a swivel like a cobra, the electrum hilt of his lightsaber flying into his gloved hand as a deep royal purple blade sprang to life. His pace back forward to her again was swift, and he quickly brought the blade to stab cleanly through the bottom of her skull---

And stopped.

The point of the blade was immobilized, fixated right under her chin; Virgil had paralyzed himself. He moved his face back to within an inch of her's, gazing deep into that chocolate brown of her's, and muttered a shaky question with little to no conviction extremely uncharacteristic of his personality.

"...Just who are you?"

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Predictably, her pressures on him brought him to a breaking point. Naraka had been around a plethora of people in her years of life, ranging from relaxed Togruta villagers to sleazy Hutt enforcers, and of course, Sith. It was her experience that those who had flocked to the Sith banner were volatile and angry, ready to fight at the slightest provocation.

She wasn't one of the typical ones. In fact, the Togruta woman was extraordinarily patient, and nine times out of ten it was hard to inspire anger in her. Naraka was far from the typical Sith, while it seemed this human man was a bit more conventional.

He whipped out his lightsaber, and as he drew his, she pulled out one of her own, activating the blue blade and resting it lightly against his purple blade, stepping back from his reach slightly. She was ready to deflect any stab he made.

Naraka was flirty, and she lived dangerously, but that didn't mean she would passively allow herself to die. No, she had no plans to ever be that accommodating.

He asked for her name as he drew closer, staring into her eyes.

It was possible to say that the Togruta woman had a hypnotic gaze. Deep, mysterious. Her chocolate brown eyes often reflected amusement or fire, and right now they were enigmatic as could be, twin riddles without a hope of being solved.

"Naraka," She said. "Sith Master. Resident flirt and telekinesis instructor. And you would be?"

Her voice was as calm as could be, as if this were a casual conversation between friends. She was seemingly unaware of all the other initiates staring and the tense silence that had fallen apart from the humming of their lightsabers.

[Kuhblam]

The corner of his eye noticed a blade as icy as the northern reaches of Korriban come into its own, lightly touching his his own blade and ready to push it away if the tensions escalated.

Those eyes... everything about them screamed a mystery, as if all the secrets of the planet were lying right before him inside the irises of this... alien. That last word kept resonating through his head; he was enthralled by her, immensely intrigued. Not sexually, of course; she had her features, but her non-human aspects were still inherently hideous. She had a certain aura to her, however, that reminded him of someone that he had not thought of in quite some time... he quickly discarded that latter thought. She worked through sabotage and finesse, worming her way about through the cracks; he worked through pure unbridled anger, the sadism that erupted from throwing one's self directly into the fight. She was pure Sith in mind and he was pure Sith in heart. In this, his own anger had been turned against him. He knew this, and she had to know that he knew.

Any of the initiates watching this breathtaking spectacle could see the vast differences between them in their eyes. The tank of a man's bloodshot yellow were the embodiment of anger, madness, destruction. They had a deep golden hue ridden with scarlet veins so incredibly unnatural that only years of evil done and wrought could have produced them. And yet in stark opposition, the rich creamy brown of the Togruta, no more stronger than the hue of chocolate, was seemingly able to unravel that darkened yellow of his into spindles and threads of consciousness, picking them apart. He could almost feel it, and yet he did not resist.

Finally, she spoke.

"Naraka," She said. "Sith Master. Resident flirt and telekinesis instructor. And you would be?"

Those words cut the trance like a knife through butter, returning Virgil's mind back into the realm of the living. Names were powerful things, and they left food for thought.

Naraka.

One of the Dark Lords. It made so much more sense now. Anger seethed it's way back into the marrow a little bit at the idea of a non-human surpassing him, but he quickly remembered the length of his absence and his nerves cooled once more.

Naraka.

He took a few more seconds then stepped back away from her and deactivated his lightsaber, the purple blade disseminating into nothingness. This time when he spoke, conviction had returned to his words.

"Virgil. My name is Virgil."

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

After a short silence, he stepped back and deactivated his lightsaber. In response, Naraka matched the gesture, returning her own blade to her waist.

He did provide his name, and she nodded as she rolled the rather unusual name around her mouth. She couldn't say that she'd come across it before, but admittedly she didn't often socialize with humans. If anything, she preferred the company of non-humans, for reasons like this.

Humans were the most prevalent species in the galaxy, which led to the potential for boredom, and they also seemed to have these hilariously racist elements in them more than most. Except Arkanians, who were deliciously racist. At least this one was interesting, in a droll manner.

"Virgil," She repeated casually. "That's a nice name."

The Togruta woman decided to strike up a conversation now that she had him as a rather captive audience. Alas, there was no actual bondage involved, but he didn't seem about to run off again. She could assume he was staying for a little while at least.

"I can't say I've ever had the pleasure of your acquaintance before Virgil," Naraka purred happily, emphasizing pleasure, and savoring the irony of it. "And I know I'd remember someone like you. A girl doesn't meet too many men like you."

Thankfully, She quipped internally, a knowing smile on her exotic features.

How exactly he handled this would be interesting indeed. He seemed to recognize she was a Sith Master and reluctantly defer, but somehow she doubted it was all that simple. Nothing was ever that simple in the Sith Order.

[Kuhblam]

She matched his gesture by deactivating her own saber, which lowered the tensions between the two of them. It appeared all was calm and peaceful again, at least for the moment.

Around them, however, the initiates continued to observe and watch as if some new holo-movie had just aired. Virgil noticed them out of the corner of his eye, and sent little telepathic nudges one by one to each individual. A flick of uneasiness here, a prod of memory about something they had to do, or perhaps even a hint of anger designed to foster enmity from a previous encounter the other day. Slowly, the crowd dispersed back to their normal routines. A flick of his hand and a storm of crackling lightning would have achieved the same effect, but he was going for low-profile at the moment.

"Virgil. That's a nice name."

Of course it is. Unlike whatever brutish alien lingo you were originally graced with before being named to the Dark Lords.

"I can't say I've ever had the pleasure of your acquaintance before Virgil. And I know I'd remember someone like you. A girl doesn't meet too many men like you."

Her words reeked of an almost putrid fakeness, like she was trying to coddle him like some damned child meeting a teacher for the first time. Virgil folded his arms and snorted, unimpressed with her change in manners. Who in their right minds would try to infuriate someone and then make them feel special?

"Save the pleasantries.

He hooked his lightsaber hilt back to his belt with a click before returning his steely gaze to Naraka.

"You did not pick me out at random. Either you have a point to all this, or you've mastered wasting time in addition to trickery. Which one is it?"

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"Oh this is just a social call," Naraka said calmly with a smile. "I have absolutely no business with you. Merely a passing and capricious whim that tells me to flirt with you."

"And you know," the Togruta whispered softly as she got a little closer again. "It's worth it to work my way into your mind. You'll remember me. You might just lie awake at night thinking of me. And you'll hate yourself for it."

Her seductive tone ended, and she laughed, turning and walking away with slow and measured strides.

Normally they said turning one's back on an enemy was foolish, a dangerous risk. It was one Naraka was willing to take, as she could tell every thing happening behind her thanks to her race's keen spatial awareness. If he made an offensive move, she'd be able to react in time quite easily.

This was also a calculated move. Leaving abruptly could signify, among other things, authority, if she initiated what wasn't invited. Now she wasn't about to stop. If he followed, she might carry on the conversation. Or else she'd just ignore him.

And if he didn't follow, she'd just move on anyway, and hope she popped up in some very naughty dreams.