Colloquially known as Outland Station, Outland Transit Station was a large outpost situated above a barren planetoid within the Outer Rim Territories.

The station itself is divided into districts attracting anyone from traders and mercenaries. It's key attraction, however, is the Fight Pit.

Legends say the bounty hunter Jango Fett once fought a borhek in this very arena. One might question how, given these arenas were used for bets on beasts fighting to maim and destroy each other from all over the galaxy.

The arena itself is circular in shape, large, especially for humanoids, and surrounded completely by an electrical fence that deliverers painful shocks to any who are unfortunate enough to touch it. The floor is flat and even, a blank slate for those competing.

Today, you are the main event for the evening. The crowd has gathered, bets have been made, and they cheer and jeer to see you win, or lose, depending on where their credits lay.

Will you be able to overcome your foe in whatever form it may be? Or will you crumble like so many before you? The crowd at least hopes it will be entertaining.

Precise steps. Measured, even. No breath. Only silence. Slipping from shadow to shadow, between bodies, as darkness, as nothing.

He was nothing and no one.

He only watched, cataloguing data.

The air was stiflingly humid with the press of limbs and acrid stench of meat, blood, and raucous rancor. Urine, spilt alcohol, clouds of heated, glittering rot from the spiceheads among the mercenaries, bounty hunters, slavers, traders. His obsidian boots stuck to the blank, bastardized ferreocrete floors with drying vomit and the miscellaneous trash left to fester, fetid.

None of it mattered. He moved silently nonetheless, collecting it all, planning.

The Empress who thought he served her had heard rumors. Whispers of some anomaly in the fights here of recent. Combatants surviving miraculously. Medical marvels. Qor was called in.

So the Quarren stood, invisible and impeccable, and observed as one Besalisk and several Corellian hounds attempted to see which could tear the other apart sooner. He barely glanced at the unremarkable spectacle, instead turning to observe the virulent inanity of the crowd, the patterns of the outsized guards patrolling about in lackadaisical fashion, clad in their shanty armors and vicious, crude weapons, various gang symbology impressed upon the pieces. Predominantly Hutt, predictable, unremarkable.

In the Pit arena, the hounds brought down their prey, ripping into the man, whose screams rapidly escalated in pitch and pain.

"NOW THAT WAS SOMETHING! ARE YOU READY FOR THE PRIZE MATCH?"

Blue eyes turned unerring to the announcer, an unusually bulky Rodian male, emerald green, snout in a cruel and self-satisfied grin. He gestured grandly, standing on his table, an arrangement allegedly newly upgraded after some other incident with lightsabers and lightning; now the booth was surrounded by platisteel plating, the dull hum of an electric current for shielding tingling along Qor's still tentacles.

The crowd jeered and roared, the prospect of riches and bloodlust palpable in the air, oozing with it. Qor inspected the arena as he drifted among the heathenous ravel, silent, silent. Old and new bloodstains offered contrast to the flat, unforgiving metal. The Force was dripping with the echoes of fear, anticipation, panic, rage, agony. Many had died here. More would.

It was of no concern to a shadow, to nothing.

"THEN LET THE MELEE BEGIN! ANOTHER SPECIAL NIGHT FOR OUR GAME OF TOOKA AND WOMP RAT! WINNER TAKES ALL! HAVE YOU PLACED YOUR BETS?!"

Another roar from the crowd.

Another roar from elsewhere.

The Quarren paused, listening. That lone voice was different. It held no greed nor malice. It was—

At the edge of the crowd, a body went flying, fully flying overhead. More followed, and shouts arose, more dissonance in the cacophony. He could identify the yelling then as Shiryywook. A displeased Wookiee was no small threat, and he watched as a one-armed female of the species lofted a smaller Human and tossed him into other bodies, barreling her way through with continuous roars.

The Pit Master was still goading as he signalled for doors to be opened, for combatants to enter. And then another cry came, also Shiryywook, but much higher, smaller. Qor identified: perhaps an adolescent of the species. The Wookiee in the crowd heard the shouting, twisting towards it, and bellowed all the louder, snarling and gnashing, pulling a large rifle and shooting then and there. The ineffectual bouncers began to descend. The child's voice grew more panicked and clearer, coming nearer.

Many things happened at once, and he watched them all, silent.

Into the ring emerged several fighters of several kinds, armored and armed, various species, all battle-scarred. In the booth was a flash of brilliant colors as a figure was hauled in and the announcer grabbed them, his platform floating on hovertech. The Wookiees screaming for each other, mother to child, crescendoed.

Qor looked up and realized that it was no Wookiee.

It was—

"YOU ALL KNOW THE RULES," the Rodian crowd, fisting his hand in metallic, iridescent locks and lifting the skeletal creature by hit roots. The lilac hybrid of Kessurian and Ryn and many more species squeaked in pain, biting holes in his lip to stifle a scream that bled and dripped. Qor knew that those small wounds would heal in moments. He had seen the healing factor in action.

Qor knew this man.

Rue, he thought, and was a shadow no longer. Another faceless individual in the many, yes, but his cloak dissolved in that sole moment of shock, the silence between heartbeats. His next thought was: No.

"THE FIRST TO CATCH OUR LITTLE MOUSE GETS IT FOR THE NIGHT TO DO WHATEVER THEY WANT WITH IT! HAVE A SERVANT, CUT YOURSELF SOME LOCKS OF GOLD TO SELL, FRAK IT, AND HEY YOU SICK KARKS, WATCH THIS."

He lifted a vibrodagger in his other hand and pressed it to Rue's cheek. The hybrid made not a sound as his flesh ground and tore, blood and dermis spraying across him and over the crowd. There before all eyes was the display as the silent, silently weeping man's facial muscles twitched and crawled, beginning to knit back together across the gaping hole that revealed his gums and teeth.

"YOU'LL HAVE TO TRY REAL HARD TO SEE YOUR BRUISES, FOLKS! ARE YOU GOOD ENOUGH?"

That encouraged laughter, hooting, jeering. Of course, the Wookiee took issue. A spray of blaster fire would have riddled the Rodian if not for his shields, and shortly the female was being crushed under a pile of bodies, guards all leaping on her to take the infamously strong creature down. The announcer laughed too and tossed Rue off the platform, down into the ring. He hit the floor with a flesh-muted crkkrk of a crack and lay still, though Qor saw he was breathing.

"BEGIN!"

The combatants lunged for each other. Some ran at Rue where he lay only to be waylaid by their opponents. It was madness, structured for maximum chaos and bloodshed, with Rue dangled as the prize.

Silent as the shadows he became, Qor drew his daggers.

Precise steps—

—sliding between bodies—

—shadows aflame.

"Admit me," he commanded the technician controlling the fence gates, arriving next to the lackey, inevitable and cold as nightfall. He pushed harder, something deep within rising and welling. "Open the gate, and then walk into the fence."

The man's face twisted, twitching, wide-eyed fear, before it settled into blank compliance. He pulled a lever, and one gate opened.

Qor strode through it without a blink nor backward glance. The stench of frying sinew and fat trailed him, but he was once more nothing, a trick of the light, a phantom, wrapping the Dark around him. He stepped precisely, silently towards the center of the ring where the combatants had mostly tangled, slipping up behind one of the outermost, a grizzled Bothan, and reaching around to slice his throat.

Swift, clean, severing. Bright arterial blood sprayed from severed jugular arteries and leaked from veins. The body toppled forward, no more than meat, now.

It was not logical. Not planned. Completely unlike him.

However:

Rue, on the ship they had both visited, speaking softly. Kindly.

Rue, offering herbs for energy when he complained of the lack of caf.

Rue, hearing his disgust at the stench of a particularly putrid experiment, and gifting him a flower. His gentle, joyful tones telling Qor later that night: "It is hibiscea Seleniousa. A beautiful species. Like all hibiscus, it symbolizes beauty, charm, youth, blooming love, and the shortness of life. This one thinks you are also beautiful." How that flower had, for a moment, reminded him of Dac, of times in the ocean before he was made into what he was now. Softer memories, a soft orange color.

Rue's smile, genuine.

Rue leaping from his seat in excitement at calling Qor friend, at Qor's agreement.

The warmth of Rue's body as he hugged Qor, an unexpected touch, anamolous but somehow, this once, not unwelcome.

No, this would not continue, the shadow decided.

Qor spun and stepped, thrusting out his hand to slam into the trachea of a Hutt-branded Pantora woman. She choked and gagged as the cartilage splintered, dropping her vibrosword in favor of clutching, gasping pathetically, at her throat. Before he could deliver a finishing blow he was forced to retreat, sliding smoothly away from a swung fist. Two fists, from yet another Besalisk.

The Quarren backed further away, intending to retreat to Rue and guide the hybrid out the door. His mind was unfit for strategy such as this but raced, calculating, nonetheless. There were too many enemies in too confined of quarters, and the tools at hand too few. A surgeon knew when a patient was doomed not to waste their time.

But when he glanced over, Rue wasn't there. A wild look around found the hybrid instead having dragged himself over to one of the combatants who had been shot in the back trying to get to him. He placed his hand on them and his golden eyes briefly rolled back, and the surge of the Force, of the pure, unadulterated Light that surrounded him, kind and cleansing, was nearly blinding to the out of place Shadow where he stood.

The mystery of the Empress' intelligence, it seemed, was Rue, making rescuing him infinitely more difficult.

Of course.

Qor hissed, a rare flaring of his tentacles with frustration, grip tightening on his dagger. The blank Rue had just healed pushed themselves up and immediately lunged for him. Rue skittered away, fast when he wanted to be, and huddled in on himself, looking around.

The Quarren watched the moment Rue saw him. His fear-paled face opened in recognition, a wash of hope, of happiness, quickly drowned by stricken horror. He finally made a sound, calling out, "Qor! You— are here? No, no, you mustn't be, get to safety! Goddess, help us…"

Rue's prayers were trite.

Qor advanced and sliced the blank's biceps femoris tendon one after another, observing as he collapsed yet again, shouting and hamstrung, but alive.

"Do not heal them," Qor snapped at his…friend. His voice was rough. "We will leave this degenerate place. It seems your Wookiee companion already plans to take you. Comply and leave them."

"But, Qor—" he began to argue, and that was when the Force crawled its way up the Quarren's neck, leeching like a cold breath, and they both turned to face a barrage of blaster fire.

The plasma splashed along translucent coronas of sparkling, dewy light, Rue's barriers blossoming into existence one heartbeats too late. Most of the shots dissipated, but the stink of burnt hair and skin was unmistakable.

Neither man made a sound, silent, silent. Rue cringed slightly over his side, the only hint of his wound. Blood dripped down Qor's arm as the flash-burned hole punched through the meat of his outer bicep ripped right open, not fully cauterized. But the pain was nothing.

They were alike, in this one regard. Pain could not hurt something that was nothing.

The barriers collapsed, and Rue swayed where he crouched. Qor, gripped by foolishness, took two steps and stood in front of him.

The combatants wrestled with each other, eyeing their prize. The shouting was endless. The Wookiee woman still yowled. The announcer yammered on.

He clutched his daggers, ready.

Precision and control were the kings of this arena, while fountains of fluids oscillated back and forth across the arena’s metallic floor. A Zabrak swung their mighty axe in an over-arching and lethal attack. The Quarren, with the temptation of panic or shock sinking into the nothing, twirled out the way and sliced through the warrior’s upper arm. Another artery severed cleanly. Another two combatants charged, their vibroblades raised, their faces snarling and frothing, greed being their motive. The Shadow shimmered from existence again, dissolving into the darkness, while the two grunts slowed and halted in their attack. Sweat, blood, and fury trickled down their skin as they scanned the arena for the small, annoying, orange target. Two flashes of dark steel emerged behind them, followed by more blood, and the two combatants fell to their knees. Behind them, Qor stood with a dagger and a throwing knife in hand. Panting lightly, he reached across to the Kessurian-Ryn hybrid, yanking the collar of his apparel, and dragged him to a nearby corner of the electrified coils. He forced Rue onto his feet and stood in front of him, Sith Dagger pointed to the chaos of the group and body parts.

The Sith Doctor’s keen eyes sweep the unfolding chaos across the arena. His sharp, blue eyes noted the opponents still standing, fighting, dying, and consistently filled with adrenaline. In the heat of the moment, Qor connected with the Force and branched out his mind, as if intravenous syringes snaked through the crowd and planted themselves into the mass of bodies. Heartbeats racing far beyond what they're capable of, some halved and lying on the duracrete floor. The Shadow’s eyes catch lacerations, contusions, and abrasions across those left standing. He noted those spots as prime entry sockets for his dagger.

GAAH! MY ARM!

The fighting Besalisk’s lower right arm was caught by a Zabrak axe, arterial spray fanning out and glistening in the arena’s light, like a crimson rainbow.

Qor pulls his focus back onto the present and begins to turn hell towards the open gate, with his prize in tow. Before his foot could move him any further, the bloodied Besalisk roared and launched an open palm for a grapple. A harsh slap against the shoulder caused the Quarren to stumble, knocking his other arm and shoulder against the nearby durasteel coil, and a sharp jolt pushed him back inside. He crouched down and rolled himself away, then launched above his opponent and struck a quick hand chop into his neck muscle.

UGH!

The Besalisk’s eyes rolled back as he fell forward, like a collapsed banana, his head catching the arcing zap from the electric fence. Qor looked for his ally, but only found emptiness. His eyes scanned the chaos in a rush and saw him near the back. Another opponent, a stockier Zabrak, coiled into a ball as Rue planted his hands on him. Eyes glowed a bright gold while his hands gave off a lilac hue of warmth. The Zabrak began to relax and feel fresher, sturdy, and his breathing slowed calmly. Qor blinked out of existence and found himself close to Rue, grabbing his arm and yanking him quickly from danger. A spear pierced the ground where the hybrid was.

“I won’t say it again. Do. Not. Heal them,” The Sith Doctor shook his head slowly as he stared into Rue’s watery and wide eyes.

The roar of the mob flooded their ears, drowning their thoughts and their hearts, as their gluttony for punishment and confidence in violence overtook their senses. Another cut and another spray of blood from a kneeling opponent in the arena. Blaster fire pinged passed Qor’s head and slotted into the chest of another combatant. The stink of burned flesh and hair invaded the Quarren’s gills unnecessarily.

”WHAT’S THIS? DOES OUR WOMP RAT HAVE A DEATH WISH? OR ARE THEY PLAYING THE GAME!”

Grunting and shuffling sounds catch the attention of Qor as Rue tugs the Besalisk away from the electrified fence. The Hybrid’s hands were glowing that annoyingly useful lilac hue, closing the lacerations and fixing the contusions, while his eyes watered and grew wide. Qor rubbed his face and gripped his dagger firmly.

Why did this mouth-breather defy me? He thought, as he parried another’s attack away and jabbed them in the groin, causing their balance to falter. Another escape plan was destabilised.

Before Qor could make his way back into the rescue, the Besalisk quickly forced himself up and charged.

Duck, the Dark Side warned Qor, as he followed suit. A stray blaster shot flung itself into the fold and into another opponent’s weapon, then pinging away. Stomping feet vibrated the floor while the Besalisk reached full sprint. Qor flips his dagger to a reverse grip and swiftly pivots away from the charge, rolling underneath the opponent’s curling arm. A large Gamorrean came from the right and slammed a warhammer into the chest of the Besalisk, snorting and chuckling with bubbles as he was clotheslined.

“Here,” Qor points at his feet and glares at Rue. “Now.” This wasn’t a choice anymore.

The crowd gasped as the Besalisk went down, while more opponents fell to their brutish hits. That was the key he needed to escape. The Quarren inhaled sharply as he sheathed his weapons and extended an open palm. Dark threads and needles weaved and curled towards the Gamorrean’s mind, piercing his willpower and forcing his gaze towards the crowd. He saw a flicker of it, just at the back. Another opponent, the Gamorrean’s weapon in hand. That can’t be, though; he was holding it. Wasn’t he? Then the opponent smirked and extended his hand with a profanity gesture towards him.

”I’LL GUT CHA YOU MAGGOT!” He squealed and roared.

Then the Gamorrean rushed through the gate and towards the crowd, dropping his weapon in anger. Panic and shrieks echoed through the stadium as the crowd tried their best to part, but the Gamorreans’ fists caught the crowd, while teeth and blood sputtered across their faces. This defiance of the rules caused the guards to step in, their blaster fire targeting the Gamorrean, but with difficulty. Viewers and merchants dived and sprinted across their line of fire, jumping away and throwing items in their hands. Anything to keep the raging combatant away. More fighters flooded from the arena. As they too chased the Gamorrean. The chaos now spilled outside the arena.

“This is our chance,” Qor grabbed Rue’s hand firmly and raised it to his own face. “We have to flee now, or risk never leaving this detritus of stupor!”

His hand still extended, the threads of needles departed from the Gamorrean and now into the nearby guard. His vision blurred softly and was wavering in hues of blood. Flickering left to right, he thought he saw a hostage. He swears he saw it. Then a pair caught his eye in the arena. A Zabrak is gripping the hair of a female teenager, with a knife to her throat, and cutting slowly. A drooling snarl grew on his face.

“No!” He shouted as he fired. “You monster!” The blaster fire sliced through the apparition and into the wiring of the stadium. Darkness bloomed across the venue, wrapping itself around everyone with a cold embrace. Including Qor.

Welcome back, old friend, the Sith Doctor smiled, oh how I’ve missed you.

Darkness descended.

In the enclosed space, the lack of light was immediate and complete, absolute, as Darkness should and would always be. Fear and fervor festered around them, roiling as the cold of the black seeped in, familiar and endless to Qor.

And yet, the fine-boned, delicate hand he held cupped to his face was so warm it burned. Each long, steady finger and the curve of that impossibly gentle palm was a brand, searing into his skin and changing him, irrevocably, as that embrace in the bar had. Even through his sleek, sable gloves, he could feel the notch of each knuckle, that terrible, terrible warmth.

Qor had not known warmth since his earliest days on Dac, barely remembered. He had been forged in the crushing, freezing abyss of trenches where no light had ever reached, reshaped and remade into an abyssal creature himself. Cold was all he knew, carried with him in every step, every shadow, every stroke of a scalpel in surgical sterility, master of death. He controlled life, taking it or allowing it to persist, "saving," even, but life did not touch him.

But Rue touched him. Warm, radiant, caring Rue, with flowers blooming in his steps and smiles in his songs, a contradiction to the old, soft grief in his golden eyes. He was Qor's new and only friend. The surgeon had no intention of having that stolen.

"Qor," the hybrid whispered, frantic, though his fear didn't seem of the dark; it tasted like concern for those around them, a rent compassion hemorrhaging with every pulse of blood under the thin skin of the wrist that Qor's tentacles curled around. Rue's bleeding heart was spurting all over him. "We cannot flee, they're hurt, Hunyi, others— this one— no!"

Indeed the chaos continued. Porcine screams from the Gamorrean combatant were high-pitched peals overlapping with shouting and cursing and the rabble of many bodies trapped in a box trampling each other in their press to blindly escape. Animals in a cage, their pain and primal fright no longer echoes but wails, klaxons blaring to senses. Useless distractions, all of them.

The doctor's impeccable memory gave him at the least a direction for the exit. He gripped Rue's wrist tight and dragged him along, hissing when the hybrid fought him for every step, digging his heels in and scrabbling at the hold.

"No, no no no no, no! This one— I won't leave them! I don't want to! Pl-please, please, let go!"

The possibility crossed the Quarren's mind of turning the dagger he held on Rue himself, not to maim but to contain. The toxin coating the blade was neurotoxic and would inhibit movement, making the hybrid that much easier for Qor to drag away from this madness and less likely to continue 'helping.'

But Qor had seen for himself in their previous night of carousing exactly how resistant Rue's biology was to poisons and toxins, as the experiment himself had explained. It had taken four times as much alcohol in his system to even begin showing any effect, unlike their fellow bar crawling compatriots.

Resistant in body, resistant in mind, and yet still somehow the perfect simpering slave, conditioned over a century. Disgusting, how very much his newfound ability to choose was being explored now.

They pushed through the throng, the Shadow slashing with his dagger blindly and shoving or tripping bodies that shoved into them, following the cold metal curve of the outer wall. The announcer was bellowing, an ineffective insect inside his little bubble with no microphone. Somewhere that Wookiee was still yelling too, and suddenly Rue yelled back in Shiryywook again.

"Silence!" Qor snapped. "You will give away our position!"

"Qor—"

"I told you to be silent." It was a command, pressed into the hybrid's mind, into his bones, his soul as the Quarren yanked them flush together, the abundance of close contact revolting but necessary in this dark. He fisted his grip in that long hair and brought their foreheads together as if to press the order into an evidently thick skull. "Be silent and come with me."

Rue went rigid, his rapid, panting breaths stuttering, held, shallow. For a heartbeat, he was quiet, and slowly unspooled, pliant, under Qor's hold.

But then—

A stirring. It rose, tremulous at first, as a sprout through soil, fragile and barely standing. But small as it was, it pushed against Qor's mind, against his will, and then in a rush it burst forth, erupting into bloom, roots run so much deeper than they first seemed— not a mere bud, but the seedling of an ancient tree. It towered towards the sky, branches and leaves stretching to eternity, to the sun, to the—

Light.

"I s-s-said," Rue's breath fell against Qor's tentacles, his mouth, "I won't. Le-eave. T-them. Hurting."

The hybrid wrenched away, uncaring of how the move ripped a chunk of his hair and scalp off in the surgeon's hand. His cry of pain was silent. His scream to his friend was not. A rush of Wookiee words was stamped by repetitions of that name, "Hunyi! HUNYI!"

Roaring came from nearer than it had before in the dark. Qor's jaw tightened. His mind raced with calculations, shutting out the bloody cacophony, the disorder, the cancerous twist of emotion in his envenomed heart. Every equation fell short, his options rapidly deteriorating. The logical course was to excise this tumor of a friendship now and disappear like the phantom he was.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Warmth.

And Light.

It spread, blossoming, washing over Qor, assuaging his pains, mending bruises and cuts. A ripple of noise and emotion went through the crowd, dying moans and the choking gurgles of those drowning in their own blood turning to full-fledged gasps of glad air. Relief rose in a tide. Scared voices stumbled with surprise, anger muddled by confusion, by the absurdity of being, somehow, alive.

The fool was healing them all. Them all.

Amazing power.

Idiotic. Pestilent. Astounding.

An acute agony, unlike those the harrowing chasms had ever induced, knifed in the Quarren's sternum. His foot slid back, soundless. One step, then another. He retreated, one step, then another. Melting away, back into the only true friend there was, back into the dark, the cold.

One step, then another.

The slap of stumbling bare feet, the thud of thin knees, the small gasp of breath, they all chased him. The shallow murmur of his name.

And if his next step was slower, producing a scuff, then—

Warmth.

That willowy, trembling body crashed into his, arm and tail wrapping around him, unwelcome, uninvited, a betrayal. It was a betrayal. Rue had made his choice: them, not the doctor.

And yet.

The faintest scent of hibiscus tickled his tentacles from Rue's hair, nearly exterminated by the stench of sweat, filth, blood. The hybrid tucked his face into Qor's shoulder, nudged to pull Qor into doing the same.

"Close your eyes," Rue begged, clutching at him. "Qor, please, close your eyes."

Trust me, he was asking.

Impossible. Abhorrent. A ridiculous and pithy indulgence.

The Sith closed his eyes.

Even with the precaution, he could still see and feel what came next. Blinding white radiance. A careful glance revealed as, for a brief moment, the club was illuminated, as if a miniature sun had been conjured into being above them, cupped in the palm of Rue's uplifted hand.

There: the spectators, the guards, the combatants, the depowered fence, the announcer booth, the doors.

There: the Wookiee friend, arm shielding her face from the signal, roaring in recognition.

There: the Pit enforcers' blasters now pointed their way.

Detestable.

Loathsome.

Qor reeled his gaze and cloaked his face into the Hybrid’s soft shoulder, fighting his proximity away from the ball of sunlight. While eyes stinging and his dry lips curling at the vehemently overtly power before him, the Quarren pushed himself from Rue’s grasp. His hand instinctually reached for the Sith Dagger once more, gripping the hilt and eager to end the invasion of his ocular region. To end the invasion of his ophthalmic domain. He craved to bring an end to something. Anything. Hands twitching on the dagger, breath heaving and panting. How alien the light feels. How wrong the light feels.

The decibel increased to a horrifying level, as the crowd’s panic brought Qor’s concentration back into the fold. Bodies slammed against the steel walls. Knees knocking, fractures more common here than any Accident & Emergency department that Qor studied in. The wailing and shrieks of the crowd echoed and pierced ear drums, cementing the intensity and urgency of the crowd exiting the arena’s precarious venue. Blaster fire begins to ricochet across the platforms and ring, pinging and screaming through the steel beams.

Oh no.

While the Doctor Warlord begins to dodge and roll away from the incoming fire, reluctantly pulling Rue with him, he feels the stability of the venue give in. Refusing to hold strong any further, the walls groaned, the support struts buckled like elderly knees. A cloak of beige and tan sweeps across the venue, dressing everyone in a thinly translucent silt. Qor’s gills wriggled, the earthen smell of air wafted into his face. The metallic tang of blood invaded his senses. His ankles seemed to feel weaker somehow, as the vibrations of the venue crumbling reached his stance.

“GET OUT OF THERE!!” The announcer begged the crowd and guards. But it was too late.

Like a sarlacc pit erupting in unsatiated hunger, tables folded unwillingly. Gamblers and enforcers alike were added to the stewing pot of chaos. Rubble and sand mixed and blended them together, as a stream of red followed them closely from their demise. Qor shimmers into the nothing and pulls himself back from the carnage. He kept himself away from the horrific event before his eyes. His dagger cutting his way through the escaping survivors of the pit. Before retreating fully into the darkness, the Quarren slowly turns to the hybrid.

“Ever the ignoramus of mercy, you will die slowly,” he whispered to the hybrid.

Although due to the intensity of the clamouring may have drown it out. Rue’s light simply didn’t shine – it detonated. It tore through the impending rubble and darkness. Splintering the dark into shards of silence. The pit convulsed, its edges fracturing like brittle bone. Chunks of earth tore loose, tumbling into the abyss with a sound like distant thunder.

Rue latched onto the Quarren like a lifeline, fingers clawed into his arm with a grip that defied gravity and reason. The ground split beneath them, but they didn’t let go - didn’t even flinch. Their eyes burned with raw defiance, and with every tremor, every collapsing edge, they dragged me closer, not out of fear, but sheer, unrelenting will. It wasn’t a plea - it was a demand. Their desperation had teeth. Qor wanted to steer away, to flee into the dark, the most comforting for his kind. But that smell. Tarty. Floral. Fruity.

Rue…I can’t.

His words were a lie, an outright defiance against his creed, but a complete opposite to his motivations. It wasn’t just fragrance; it was gravity. Each breath pulled him closer, not by force, but by inevitability, as if his body remembered something their mind had forgotten. A velvet fog that blurred thought and sharpened desire. It wrapped around Qor’s senses, whispered through his blood, and before he knew it, he was moving away - drawn not by footsteps, but by something older, deeper. A tether made of scent and longing.

They moved through the wreckage like ghosts stitched together by longing. The pit behind them roared its final breath, walls crumbling into oblivion, but neither turned back. Rue’s hand gripped his with a desperation that felt sacred, as if letting go would unravel the last thread holding reality together. His light - once blinding, once defiant - flickered beside them, dimming with each step, its glow bleeding into the dust like a dying promise. It didn’t vanish all at once. It faded slowly, painfully, as if mourning its own end. And still, they walked - enchanted, yes, but hollowed by the cost. The world had broken, and so had they, but in the ruin, they clung to each other like the last truth left standing.