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'Let me tell you a story, Captain.'
Brynaerith was pacing, in front of him; her sabers at her hips, her expression inscrutable beyond her cold fury. Quinn swallowed, but said nothing; he'd never enjoyed her stories. Few people did; fewer still who were in the position Quinn was now in. He knelt before her; tidied up a little from the mess he'd been in after she'd finished dismantling his plans to kill her, but still denied the comforting sleep of kolto or the painless release of death.
'Once upon a very long time ago, on Korriban, Baras gave me his first task as his apprentice. I was to present him with a very particular trophy - proof of my own Overseer's demise at my hands.'
'Did you kill him, Master?' Jaesa was here to watch the show, mostly. Ordinarily, Bryn would never have stood for someone disrupting one of her stories - but this was no ordinary storytelling. It was for Jaesa as much as Quinn, even if Bryn was starting to draw the conclusion her apprentice was too obtuse to appreciate much of what she tried to teach.
'His hand,' Bryn added, after a long moment - that was all he'd wanted. A hand. It was practically an order to disobey him; a test, she'd long since realised. 'That was what my Master wanted. Not his heart, or head. A hand.'
Tremel had been a fool; short sighted, blinded by his own petty ambitions. Letting him live had not been mercy - Baras had not specified which hand he'd wanted, so Bryn had taken Tremel's saber hand. She hadn't even considered him worth killing, and had left him unable to defend himself. He was probably still out there, if some other Sith hadn't already finished him off.
'You once thought to offer me your hand in marriage, Captain. Am I wrong?' Bryn continued, addressing Quinn.
As if she would ever have accepted. Quinn was pretty, but Bryn had other plans for her bloodline; she certainly wasn't about to marr it with some Force-blind nobody. Especially one who had conspired against her - with Baras, of all people.
'I would never presume-' he began, his voice and his gaze low.
'Li-ar,' Jaesa sang, grinning wickedly. 'Lying liar who lies and lies. Perhaps you should take his tongue, Master.'
Bryn just chuckled. 'Perhaps I shall, at that. Answer the question, Captain. Honestly.'
'I- there was a time where I desired it, my lord,' he confessed, hating himself all the while - hating them. It tasted like bitter chocolate, and only made Bryn smile all the more.
'Give me your hand.'
Quinn hesitated, doing nothing - after a brief moment of this, Jaesa zapped him, and he hissed in pain.
'Your hand,' Bryn repeated, more darkly this time.
After another long, wary moment, Quinn moved - reached out, offering up one hand, still refusing to meet Brynaerith's gaze. He was visibly tensing - had half worked out what Bryn had in mind, and was trying to brace himself for the pain. Trying to tell himself, Bryn supposed, that it was somehow better than death - as though she would grant him that kind of release so easily.
She didn't move to strike him, though. Instead, she took his hand in hers - held it gently, caressing his skin. She was not a kind or gentle person; even in her intimacy, she was brash and confrontational, but this touch was something else. It was the touch of a lover - of the kind that he'd wanted, that he'd dreamed about, an acceptance and an exploration and a forgiving understanding.
She smiled at the confused relief that started to spread through him; Jaesa, who saw both her intent and his misreading of it, giggled manically to herself.
'Relish this feeling, Captain. Commit it to memory. It is the last you will ever have.'
Before he could respond to that, she'd moved - taken a saber in her free hand and struck him, slicing through cloth and skin and bone like they were soft butter. A single neat stroke, leaving his hand in hers and his arm cauterised - hanging there, severed from his hand and stinking of cooked meat.
It took him a moment to realise what had happened - for the shock to begin to kick in, for the numb, burning pain begin to register. Picking through the minds of others was not a skill Bryn had ever had, or nurtured; she skimmed the surface, but even his was obvious to her - the way it blossomed through him, like a fungal bloom. Hideous and inevitable and destructive and utterly beautiful.
He ended up grimacing - trying to blink back tears, trying to swallow back pain, trying to bite back a cry of anguish, and did not entirely succeed. His repression was almost as sweet as his indulgences; his terror nearly as intoxicating as his desperate attempts to pretend that he was not afraid.
'Here,' Bryn said - tossing the hand to Jaesa, who caught it awkwardly - hadn't quite seen that coming. 'Have this sent to Baras. Tell him he can add it to his collection.'
Jaesa looked at the hand uncertainly. 'You don't want to keep it, Master?'
'I have the rest of him,' Bryn replied, glancing over Quinn with disdain. He was staring at the two of them - dumbfounded, watching with a growing disbelief as Bryn treated his- his hand - with such indifference.
'If you say so, Master,' Jaesa replied, slightly dubiously. She, unlike Bryn, was holding the hand like it was a dead fish - touching it as little as she could, and making a faintly disgusted expression.
'I do,' Bryn replied, entirely flatly. 'As for you,' she added, turning her attention back to Quinn, 'Lie to me again, and I will take your tongue. So much as think about betraying me again, and I will take your head. Do you understand me, Captain?'
'My lord,' he just managed - gasped, clutching his arm to his chest, as though he could protect it - as though doing so could dull his delicious pain.
'Good,' Brynaerith said - smiled, mostly to herself - before sharply turning on her heel, and was gone.