Thump-thump.
Fear.
The sensation of every single nerve ending in the body being absolutely alive, alive like the lightning that speared storm-darkened skies. The feeling of pure, undiluted power arcing in every muscle and pore, so much wild tension that, by all rights, it seemed flesh ought to be aglow. An incredible rush thrumming in the blood, making it boil, making it sing.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Fear.
The feeling of all that raw energy frozen in place, immobile, just like every ligament and bit of sinew. The feeling of every fiber of tissue aching to move, to flee, but unable to do so. It is unthinking and imprisoned — but inside, screaming. Screaming. Such warring entities rage within, that power and that poison. They go thrashing about inside, breaking, choking, playing circles with gray matter and making boweties of intestines. They cut off all coherent thought, obliterating all rational and logic and letting instinct run free.
Thu-thump., Thu-thump.
Fear. Terror.
Thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump.
She saw it, that fear. Not just that of the man he hunted, but his. She saw it as she stared at him without eyes. Rancid and sour, like sickness, an illness all its own, deathly and paralyzing. She could taste it like the cloying stench of slowly rotting flesh that coated the nostrils and tongue — the smell that hung in hospital beds and old sheets and on the breath of dying men, indescribable except for its wrongness and the way it never washed out.
Thu-thu-thump, thu-thu-thump, thu-thu-thump.
But not just fear, no. Anger too. Anger is quick and anger is fire. Fire is bright and fire is clean. Fire purges the dismay before it can even take root between the sulcuses of gray matter and turn synapses to stone. Angry ones, they yell. They scream. They curse at the world and swear vengeance above and the below. They chase old men into the dead of night when truly, they are the ones running. Running from the heat, the pain. Running from the fear.
Thu-thu-thu, thu-thu-thu, thu-thu-thu.
She could feel his anger, so strong it seared her blood where they touched, hot like fever. His rough skin burnt with the heat under her fingertips. If fear was the sickness, then rage was the symptom. Fear was what was going to eat him alive, but rage would do the killing.
Atyiru adjusted her grip just slightly as she twisted the Gungan’s arm behind his back, bent low over him as his ears and her braid brushed the floor. They stood prone and tense, like dancers of a final act, bidding the world farewell as the curtains collapsed their dream into darkness and ate them whole. If she wrenched her grasp to the right, she would snap his wrist at the thumb. If she pivoted left, he’d be freed.
“Listen to me, friend,” the Seer spoke slowly, just loud enough over the music that no one but he and the Gods could hear. “More blood will not silence your ghosts. Believe me, it never does. Revenge is an ashen thing, empty. Listen. To. Me.”
The Force came to her like an old friend, wrapping her in a warm embrace. She reached out, swaddling the Gungan in it too.
“Listen to me,” the Arconan repeated. “Let him go. Let him go and come with me.”
For the flicker of space between thunder-crashing heartbeats, it seemed to work. The Jedi’s muscles uncoiled, and he went limp like a dead fish beneath her. The horrible shrieking of his anger, his fear, his pain, it all went quiet, shattering as though the nightmares of an awoken child. Atyiru smiled, loosening her hold.
For just a heartbeat—
Rage roared up in a riptide, rushing over her. The bloodlust howled in her mind, pure fury boiling forth and screaming under her skin, crushing her senses under its fiery weight. It clawed at her chest, clawed at everything and everyone, seeking more, seeking something to hurt, something to maim and tear and break. Such unspeakable anger that there was nothing left for the rage to do but rip her open and bleed her out. No, not her. Not her, not her, him—
The Gungan’s bones became durasteel, his muscles whipcords meant to break. He broke her hold and tossed her bodily into the with all the force of a hurtling speeder. Her screech of pain was ripped away with the air from her lungs as she crashed into a mess of tables and chairs, shattered drinks and startled shouts raining down around her. Agony bit into her spine and lanced through her chest, skin splitting under cut-glass kisses. Atyiru gasped in a breath, instinctively inhaling the Force along with it, and gave a cry as her ribs ground together at their cracked edges.
A bubbling, otherworldly caterwaul unlike any sound she had heard before pierced the clamor as the blaring music cut off and suited bouncers began an advance through the crowd. The Consul struggled to her knees, glass cutting into her palms, and gave a shout, “NO, DON’T!”
But she was too late and the men too slow to listen.
The yowling Gungan, spittle flying from his mouth, swayed forward like a rabid animal, boney daggers appearing in each of his hands. He launched himself at the tavern’s guards, limbs flailing in a rage-drunk tangle, and tackled both to the ground at once. A breath later, he became not as water but as stone and death, the writhing pile of muscled bodies churning into a bloodied, wailing mess. The swift snap of bone echoed to the harmony of blood splattering the floor and the tearing of skin, and Atyiru could but cover her mouth and feel relief as the Humans’ lights disappeared into the Void with haste.
Others who watched begun to run, panic spreading through the crowd as flame through brush. Aliens of all kinds rushed for the door, the higher tiers of tables, ducking behind the bar and each other for shelter. Some went down, trampled. Some cried and whimpered, and some stood in frozen silence, unmoving, unthinking, driven mad, mad with—
Fear.
Atyiru climbed to her feet and drew her weapon from her belt. The seraphic, sky-hued blade unfurled with a bell-chime cry, her blood dripping down its spiraled hilt in steady rivulets. Her left foot slid backwards, her body pivoting as wind, arm steady as she pointed her weapon directly at the Gungan who rose from the carnage and fixed ferocious eyes — tired eyes, terrified eyes — on her.
“No more,” whispered the Miraluka, saber spinning into a whirlwind as she dove for her opponent.
“YOUSA ALL WILL PAY,” keened the enraged Ranger, tendons flexing as he leapt high into the air, clear over her head, and raised his life-stained daggers, falling like a comet to meet her.