| abstract | - Though he was too slow, and too late, the True Source was with Simon. With the entry ramp of the strangers' ship still ascending, sealing away Mailyn and her abductors, Simon draws upon the True Source. The pain in his head begins to subside. Every nerve ending that had been jarred by the blast from Nesin's weapon begins to slip back into a normal state. Simon's breathing comes easily. Like the shifting of a heavy weight, Simon's consciousness returns. Pushing himself to his hands and knees, Simon's head is heavy as he tries to lift it and look toward where Mailyn had been taken. The _Sable Seraph_ takes off, moving with speed and fury. Once more, Simon had lost Mailyn. Someone would have to pay for this. Soren peeks out from behind the ramp of the _Thunder's Log,_ his stark white face tinted light blue from the excited ions leaving the engine of the Sable Seraph. "Oh... oh dear." He pats his lips with the hankerchief, and jerks his head to the spot where Simon is struggling. His first step is tentative, undecided, as if it might be better to just run up the ramp and get to the controls and take off. Take off after the perpetraitors of course! Soren goes to Simon, but his step slows again when he sees the man get up. That was just not natural. Soren stops, but the air he was pushing in front of him rolls onward, washing Simon in a perfumed breeze. When the Viscount speaks, it's cracked and nervous sounding. "You've... got to help her! They got Lady Mailyn!" Getting to his feet comes more easily as the stench of Soren assaults Simon's nostrils, acting much like smelling salts. The trickle of blood and the pale light gives Simon's face a cruel, haunting look, like death. His jaw clenches tightly, and his hands ball up into fists. It wasn't merely the light and the injury; anger filled Simon's being, almost seeming to exude from his pores. "You!" Simon says, turning sharply upon Soren. His right hand opens, and once more, his wooden staff hauls itself through the air. This time, no stun blast comes streaming out of the night air, and the wooden weapon comes to rest in Simon's outstretched palm with a slap of wood on skin. Simon takes a step toward the pudgy Viscount. He continues speaking, but his voice goes low, and cold as a winter's morning. "You did this. You did something with Mailyn Raines' ship, and now she is gone." Soren flinches as the staff moves of its own accord. He must be seeing things. "Erm," he says, sliding backwards slowly, gritty sand hissing underneath his heels as he moves. "It was an accident, Lord Simon!" The Viscount holds up the palms of both hands. He licks his lips and glances from side to side. "Listen. You had better come now, maybe we can catch them or something. Or see..." He is getting quieter and quieter. "Where they are taking her..." And Soren makes up his mind. Simon is crazy. He runs. His bulk shifts, and his fat legs start pumping after one false start, carrying him back to the _Thunder's Call_. He has both his arms held out straight, hands open, like that will get him back safely aboard the ship that much quicker. "Aha ahahahhaaa..." the fat man howls balefully as he cuts across the tarmac, fleeing death. An audible snarl, guttural and feral, leaves Simon's lips, and his lips peal back to reveal clenched, white teeth. Soren had to have been the one to have caused the circumstance of Mailyn's abduction. He had seen the man there in the cockpit. The only other one on the _Thunder's Call_ that could have engaged the ship's weapons was Markus Lisardis, and he wouldn't be so foolish. Simon watches as Soren runs a few paces, then hurls his staff toward the man in such a way that it spins horizontally, a flat spin cutting through the air toward the back of the rotund man's legs. After letting fly his weapon, Simon leans forward and runs after the man. Soren's feet seem to slip and stumble as he runs. Strange that he would feel that before he felt the impact of the staff on his skin, the shock of it in his muscle and bone. With a thud and a short slide, a hump of perfumed velvet is on the decking, lying still. His cloak is draped over him in disarray and it seems that, for the time being, he might as well be dead. Except... quickly, Soren is back up, eyes wild, scratches on the palms of his hands. He fumbles for the staff on the ground, and grabs it by the end. He misjudges the weight of it -- it was heavy! -- and swings it desperately around with a deep whoosh, holding it by its end, toward Simon as Soren stands. Seeing the large man go down in a heap gave Simon some small amount of satisfaction. It also gave him the chance to catch up to the man, and deal with him more... in person. Slowing his run, Simon stops just before Soren. Simon didn't expect the pudgy fellow to reach for his own staff and swing it towards him. The wooden rod, heavy as it may be in Soren's hands, carries with it inertia as it is swung in a deep arc. It collides with Simon's body, just under Simon's raised left arm. There is a crack as of wood breaking, but the weapon in Soren's hand remains whole. Simon bends, a pained expression momentarily dominating his facial features. His left hand moves to his side where one of his ribs was broken. Yet the True Source was still with Simon, and the pain was put in check, wrapped in a void and deposited in the back of Simon's mind. Reaching with his left hand to grab the weapon, Simon steps forward towards Soren, his balled right fist moving with unheard of speed in a rapid punch. Again, a wolfish growl leaves Simon's lips, along with a line of drool that the Telgossian is clearly unaware of. Soren seems shocked to have hit Simon. When the staff collides with the fierce-looking man -- man? -- he is thoroughly confused. What now? Something sparks deep in his mind and he wants to turn. He wants to turn and run, make it just another few meters, call for L4-NK to start up the ship and make their escape. That spark dies a cold death as Simon's fist collides with Soren's face. The Viscount is knocked down again, sliding backwards this time, his oiled hair crushed when his skull thunks against the duracrete. "Nghhhh..." is the sophisticated man's groggy response. "Stah... stop this..." he slurs, on his back, knees apart, trying to push himself up to an elbow, breathing hard. The ferocity of Simon's punch was such that his knuckles hurt and bruised, already making it difficult for Simon to open and close his fist. He'd managed to knock the heavy-set man down again, though, which was what he'd been hoping for. That is, if one caught in a feverish haze of rage could hope for anything. Moving in several quick strides, Simon goes to plant his feet on either side of Soren, to keep the man down. Had this not been Tatooine, perhaps one of the few remaining people in the starport would move to offer Soren some aid. From the look of his clothes, he might have money. Perhaps there'd be a reward. But this was Tatooine, and the chaos from the blasts from the _Thunder's Call_'s weapons had not yet settled. No one lifted a hand to stop Simon from brutalizing Soren. Breathing heavily, flexing his sore fingers, Simon speaks to the man he stands over. "Do you have any idea what you have done?" Simon's voice is rough, the words barely intelligible as his thick, Telgossian accent rounds all the edges of the consonants, mashing one word into the next. "Do you know why it is dangerous for Mailyn Raines to be around me?" As Simon waits for Soren to answer, his left hand goes to the black cylinder clipped to his waist underneath the folds of his tunic. Drawing the weapon out, he holds it with the business end pointed toward the ground near Soren's head. Soren squints up, the same swelling that Simon is feeling in his hand now happening along his cheek and brow. In time, left untended, that eye would swell shut. Now, Soren feels only tightness, but the feeling is so foreign and strange to him that it might as well be pleasurable, he regards it with such curiousity. "I am not an animal!" he screams, trying to work his arms so that he crawls backwards, but not making it more than a foot or so before dropping his shoulders and running out of steam. It seems his own bulk, the slight injury, and desperation has pinned him there, left him in that spot to deal with Simon. Soren gives the wolf a kick in the shin, but it is without speed, without strength. "I am not an animal! You can't do this to me! Now stop it, you... you... criminal," he pants the words between rasping breath. Simon shifts so as to continue standing over Soren as Soren tries to shift and move. He may not be an animal, but in Simon's eyes, he wasn't human. The kick offered by the man strikes Simon's shin sharply, but Simon neither flinches nor moves from the brief blow. He would likely have a bruise there, but next to everything else that had happened that evening, it was nothing. A blade of green light lances out from the weapon in Simon's hand, cutting through the arid air and basking Simon's face in emerald grimness. The laser sword was only a few inches from Soren's face, its buzzing and humming terribly close. Simon leans forward slightly, and answers his own question he'd posed, ignoring Soren's protestations. "It is because I love her," Simon says. His eyes, flat gray in this light, show white around the irises. Simon's countenance was such that it would seem that the word "love" should be replaced with the word "hate" in his declaration. Perhaps to this man, love and hate were the same thing. Simon's left hand moves, and the tip of the lightsaber swings toward Soren's face. It misses by millimeters, its motion stopping when it is pointed toward the ground near the left side of Soren's head. Simon continues to flex the fingers in his right hand, his knuckles popping audibly. "You will never know how precious Mailyn Raines is to me, you stupid fool," Simon says, his eyes flicking toward the bruise forming on Soren's face. Yes, left alone, it would obscure Soren's vision. Simon didn't intend to leave it alone. Thrusting his right palm toward Soren's face, Simon draws upon the True Source. Invisible hands hold onto Soren's head, holding it still, holding his body to the ground. Simon needed the man motionless to do what he planned to do. And then, the tip of the green blade moves again, only this time, it does not miss Soren's face. The smell of seared flesh begins to fill the air, and Simon speaks as he works. "You will not know how precious she is, but every time you look in the mirror, you can be reminded of her. An M, for Mailyn. For your murderous foolishness. For your mistake, tonight." Soren's eyes widen at the lance of light, and he jerks once more to escape it. "You're mad!" he calls nervously, laughing inanely at the bizarre circumstances. It wasn't real. This couldn't be happening. If he is frightened at the appearance of the lightsaber flashing near his face, the invisible fingers wrapping around his head are even more terrifying. It is more like he has lost control of his own motor functions, his brain issuing the command to turn away, to escape it, but his body would not do it. The lightsaber bites into his skin, and he makes a low gurgle, a scream, and then he is quiet. Something important gives way inside of Soren, a small door that was clasped, a weak link in the chain, a box, tucked away, full of regret and ambition, dark secrets rushing up and out, wrapping themselves around his mind. Perhaps it was that now this impossible, traumatic event that is now so obviously, so painfully possible, his definition of reality itself has changed. Simon's mark is crooked and mean, but the marks on his face, even the bubbling of his flesh, are superficial. Simon's cut goes far deeper. Soren chokes and gags on the stench of his own face cooking, wanting to cry, but tears flowing from only the other side of his face. Can't breathe... heart pounding... the Viscount passes out, takes the only escape he can find, an escape from the awful pain, an escape from staring death in the face. With the completion of the letter, the green blade retreats into the shaft at Simon's command. Thin wisps of smoke rise from Soren's unconscious face. Simon cocks his head slightly as he observes his work. It was not the best letter he'd drawn, but it was recognizable for what it was, which was saying something. Especially since Simon had drawn it with his left hand. Putting the weapon away, Simon steps away from the Viscount and shakes his head. The mad haze of heating fury was gone, spent upon the flesh of Soren. The stench of the rotund man's perfume could still be detected through the smell of his burned skin. It is then that Simon realizes the depth of his cruelty. He considers this, just as he had considered the damage he'd inflicted upon Soren's face. It was strange, that he could know what it was that he'd done, and feel no pressing regret. All he could feel now was a certain curiosity.
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