Logged Jan 26, 2001 Logged by Sato Prine Titled: The Report ****************************************************************************** Sato Prine sits upon his throne in seeming repose. He looks out on the Thethu court of sycophants and intrigue'rs with his ear and mind peer, wandering for any whose guard are down to let hear their plotting thoughts. A Minister of Finances finishes up mundane report on that status of Thethu wealth and its increase in this relative time of peace. Sato grows weary of hearing about numbers and such and waves the man away. For the first time she can recall in many moons passing, Chai'tyn Zaan is afraid. Fear pricks at the corners of her soul, taunting her as to her failure, seeping her normal confidence from her. But she walks proud through the tall doors of the throne room, gray light from the dark day outside spilling into the hall as they part breaking the yellow, flame lit glow. Her escort of four loyal Massassi warriors recruited from Sadow's former ranks flank her, keeping watch for her enemies in Cabal's court. When she approaches the newly risen Sith Lord of her clan, she halts midway down the aisle to his throne. Her voice interrupts the next in line for his eminence's audience. "I claim the next writ of hearing!" she pronounces in their common tongue, glad to leave behind her tainted attempts at basic. Sato Prine arches a skeptical brow at first as newly arrived claims right of Writ. But he softens as he recognizes who has returned to the fold, Oh yes this will prove far more entertaining than the mundane reports of the day. He shifts his body in the throne and beckons her, "Darth Cabal will recognize you child." The consonants of his words drip as if serpents venom from his lips and he reaches out with his mind for subtle hints to concur with her body language to ascertain the positive or negative aspects of this pending report, "Darth Talon, we meet again." there seems to be some pleasure in his words. "Much has transpired here at court since your leave taking, pray speak, fill mine ear before prattle fills your head and distracts the plainness of what you would now tell." He beacons again this time it is also an unworldly call to him. Talon is drawn to him down the carpeted path towards the Dais, she realizes only partially of her own free will. It is only when she arrives at his feet that she notices the whisper sources of court and shoots them appropriate glares of cold fire from her orange eyes. "Master," comes her desperately respectful address when she again finds her focus on Cabal. Her body lowers, not simply to bow but to lay prostrate before him, flat on her belly like a Xixi snake. The Jedi's dabbling had propelled her here from her mission and she had followed that compulsion blindly. While the smell of the dank rug fills her nostrils, she gathers her words to deliver the Republican defender's message. She presses her palms to the floor and rises to her knees, sitting back on her heels. Her head remains down staring at the red painted claws of her fingers. "It is true. They know of us. Their Knights bid us come forth and speak to them. They believe us afraid of their light." There, it was done. No mention of the ships, the data, nor anything she was likely to expect to report. Cabal stays at heightened senses as she prostrates her self upon the carpet that if damp is likely so with some displeased soul's blood that was inadequately lapped up. He reaches down and gives her raven locks an affirming pet and with his face thus near to her own hisses as he suddenly grasps a handful of strands, "All being fears we take strength from the truth of it not corrupt its purity banally naming it evil." He releases her and rising back to proper seated position says rise and tell us more of their thoughts, how deep did you probe?" The muscles of her neck steel involuntarily against the pull of Cabal's strong grasp, the pain flowing into her like a balm. Calmly, she raises her head and meets the darkness of his hooded gaze, then stands as bidden in a single, graceful motion. "The being I met...possessed great power, my master," she admits with chagrined hesitation. "I could not penetrate his thoughts, expect to find his blind....love?" She searches for this last word, as if Chai finds it foreign to her tongue. "He seemed to believe we might...absorbable," she answers, twisting Master Jarfet's words from an invitation to the light to the dark and hideous concept melding with the Jedi seemed to her. A sophisticated but nervous chuckle burbles forth from Talon at such thoughts. "They view us as lost brethren," she scoffs. Cabal hears her out though his impatience with her guesses seethes, as does his simple breath from his breast. He settles into the chair with his hands upon the lion's paw handgrips at armrest's edge. "Could not penetrate his thoughts and yet your brief report was to tell me what they thought?" He asks in simple clarification but wit Cabal nothing was simple, plot upon twist each word had duality of meaning with him always. "I merely interpret his -words-, master!" Talon's impudence shows through as she defends herself with a pinch of cheekiness. "Not his thoughts. He babbled about 'the true meaning of the Force' and 'returning' to them. 'Learning the -Jedi- ways,'" she spits out the Republican defenders names for themselves with vinegar. "And 'find true happiness'." Just repeating the old man's words caused the bile of disgust to rise in young Talon's gullet. "He was all -words-. Words, words words!!! And smiles," she sneers. Cabal's hooded expression is not readable as he tits his head stealing that from her. "Words take time, both in the crafting and in the deciphering of meaning and interpretations. Time paralyzes them and is our ally. "Return to these unenlightened worshipers of light and if they will, dance so with words, put on pretty face and faint heart and dance long with them. Let them think we entertain their mergings for indeed there will be a merging as we spread over them in encompassing doom!" He bellows this word and it reverberates in the minds of each present. If a spirit as dark as Chai'tyn Zaan's can soar, so it does on bat-like wings at Cabal's words. His instructions breed eagerness in her and diabolical delight dances in her flame-colored eyes. "As you wish, my master." Talon's red lips spread from ear to ear across her sallow face, the grin exaggeratedly grotesque. Then a veil descends on her features, softening them and bringing her back to the beauty she once naturally possessed, before her corrupted soul began it's slow corrosion of her shell. "For the glory of the clan," she says, bowing just her head this time, her hand flattening below her throat in salute to the Thethu leader. Cabal turns back to her in a swift birdlike movement and reveals his countenance to her in show of return respect for her show of loyalty to him and the clan. "Yes the clan." He repeats hitting the s hard. "For our outdated Jedi kin, there is no clan, you are sent from the Sith lords themselves as one. See that you mind your own thoughts and words my Talon. Though I wish you to be an insignificant waste of time your task is hardly insignificant see that it gain them nothing but your seeming favor. Take what you will." A sweeping hand with trailing cloak waves at the palace at large. And be gone lest our kin begin to wake from their sun bathing and start to think." he brushes the air as if sending her hence with a gesture. Without further words, Talon lifts herself from her inclination and turns on proud heels. Even some courtiers, caught unaware of their lack of respect for the Sith Lord in doing so, bend their knee as she passes them in a whirl of long black cloak and hair. Her Warriors fall into place with her. Together they exit once again through the massive doors. The room seems suddenly dull without her presence. But in the garrisons below, the glamour and scratching is just beginning as her would be servants of the night begin to vie for the prestige of serving in the small army she will take back with her. This time to Coruscant, to lull the Jedi into treating her as a welcome ally.