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driftinginninesFandom: Star Wars: Expanded Universe, old cinema and... Godzilla...?
Characters: Jaina Solo, Zekk, Kyp Durron, Jagged Fel, Jacen Solo, Tenel Ka
Word Count: 3731
Date Finished: August 9, 2004
Author's Notes: I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WAS THINKING WHEN I WROTE THIS BUT I DID
Beasts of the Olde Galaxy
Her brother was married to a Queen. But he sure didn't act like it.
Straightening his bifocals, he continued to rest his heels up on the edge of the worktable, pushing his chair backwards. The front legs were lifted off of the floor as he balanced himself there, his left hand batting hair out of his field of vision and his right hand floating roughly a foot in front of his face. His fingers were spread apart and a lopsided grin was set across his boyish features.
A clear creature, long and fragile, slithered around his fingers and wrist, over the palm of his hand and up to his fingertips, where it stared plainly into the mahogany eyes of the man. It was his favorite pet, the crystal snake that he had rescued while he and his wife were on a voyage around the galaxy.
His wide brown eyes studied the animal as it worked its way around his bare forearm and over the rolled up cuff on the sleeve of the sandy button-up shirt he wore. The top buttons of the shirt were undone and the dark chestnut suspenders that were clasped to his pants dangled loosely at his sides, off of his upper body altogether.
"Jacen."
His attention suddenly shifted to his twin sister, who was standing in front of his chair. Her arms were crossed over her chest, the silk of her delicate dress making soft noises as she shuffled about. Her hair was done up in an intricate style, pearls from Mon Calamari woven into the twists. They matched the necklace and earrings she wore.
"Hmm?"
"I shall be leaving now, little brother," her heavy accent of Olde Coruscant slid into his ears. "Please do tell your wife that I shall be arriving early tomorrow night to dine with you both."
He nodded, dropping the legs of the chair to the floor with a resounding smack that caused his sister to wince.
His accent matched hers, his voice octaves deeper. "Shall I walk you back to ---?"
"No thank you, Jacen. You should get some rest. Do not stay up and play with your animals too long."
He snickered as he grabbed the creature from its newly discovered resting place around his neck and placed his hand in the pristine wire cage, letting the crystal snake slither back off into its artificial habitat. Then standing, he embraced his twin and began guiding her towards the outside door of his study. "Do be careful, dear sister. I have never liked you walking alone at night."
"I shall be perfectly fine."
A shrug, "So be it, Jaina. I trust you."
She kissed him on the cheek and nodded her thanks before grabbing her cloak from the hook beside the door. Pulling the black velvet over herself and throwing the hood up, Lady Jaina Solo was off into the cool night air, tendrils of low dense fog parting and joining around her. Jacen watched her vanish into the night.
Turning back to the heated interior, Jacen shut the creaking door behind him and began up the stairs in the back of his study. They led him up a winding, dimly lit passageway which dropped him off in the hall near the royal bedchambers.
He knew his wife wouldn't be asleep yet and he suddenly felt the urgent need to speak to her.
Entering the throne room of the Palace, his home, Lord Jacen Solo gazed upon his wife, Her Majesty Queen Tenel Ka Djo. Her features brightened a tad as she glanced across the long chamber, watching him enter.
"Darling." The word crept out of her lips, her crisp Hapan accent sending shivers up his spine.
She was sprawled out lazily across her throne, dozens of creased and ragged papers in her lap. Her head rested against one of the massive satin covered arms of the royal seat and her legs were stretched out over the other.
His eyes narrowed through the clear lenses of the bifocals. "You look worried, my love. What is it?"
Her gray orbs met his in response and she let the papers flutter to the ground, tilting her head back with a sigh. It seemed to echo in the lonely chamber. "Trivial things." She noticed the creases in his face, the places where his expression was crunched. All in places of worry. "I could say the same thing of you. Are you alright?"
Jacen looked out of place in the lavish throne room, his shoddy everyday study uniform, pale and ragged against the silk and satin decor. The Queen watched him tread towards her and when he knelt down to pick up the documents she had dropped, she motioned for him to not bother.
The left side of her body was pressed up against the back of the throne and her shoulders were bare. She had stripped off the outer layer of her dress, something she did when she was alone, mulling over problems and politics. It gave her a better level of comfort. Jacen saw the forest green of the top layer crumpled in a pile beside the throne. She still seemed to be in an insane amount of clothing, the only bare skin shown being her feet and her upper limbs, shoulders and all. The only thing covering any part of her arms was a simple band of silver that was clasped around the stump of her left arm, above her elbow.
Jacen had accidentally sliced her left arm off in a sparring match when they were younger. The knights of the Order were trying to teach them how to fight and it happened, a live saber, right through her flesh.
It didn't seem to bother her one bit.
He sat himself down in front of the throne, resting his arms up on the seat she occupied, his fingers toying with one of the many lace strings that tied up her corset. It was odd to find her in here... alone, with no one annoying the breath out of her. And he felt oddly aroused when he realized all... all of her attention was on him... and not some inane problem the city folk needed help with.
This is my bread, he stole it.
She killed the flowers I was growing. She should go to jail.
He's been sleeping with my wife! Throw him to the vornskyrs!
"Jacen, love?"
He snapped out of his trance and fingered his bifocals up onto the top of his head, peering across the silk brocade of her corset to her visage, which had a slightly confused expression plastered over it. He spoke.
"It is Lady Jaina."
"Is she coming to dinner tomorrow evening?"
"She is. But that is not it, your majesty." He always added 'your majesty' on the end because he knew she despised it when he did so in a playful sort of way.
He could see a smirk pass over her features, before he continued.
"I am worried about her walking back alone. I offered to accompany her on her way back to where she was staying, but she refused."
"Oh Jacen," the Queen sighed, placing the fingers of her right hand under his chin, "She will be alright. She is strong."
"Tenel Ka, she is my sister. I am worried about her, strong or not. What if she runs into one of... them?"
"She can take care of them herself." Her fingers trailed up his cheek and into his soft mess of brown hair. She removed the bifocals from his head, placing them on her stomach and then her hand went back to his hair, where her fingers absently ran through the silky strands. "And if she cannot, she always has her companion to call upon."
Jacen seemed to take this fact into his mind. He nodded slowly and dropped the subject. Resting his head on the cushion beside her, he was now completely content to just sit with his wife, alone, basking in the simple feeling of her running her fingers through his hair.
His sister had more urgent things to worry about.
Through the cobblestone streets, she paced, her heels clicking softly against the damp ground. She could sense the bottom hem of her hoop skirt, soaking up traces of the moisture from the stones, but she wasn't worried about that now.
Ships passed overhead, arriving and leaving to and from the docking bays behind the front row of small buildings along the street. The lights from each passing ship created blurred shimmers on the wet surface of the cobblestone.
Her eyes shifted back and forth, her nerves jittering throughout her system. She attempted to keep them in check and stay calm, collected even. It wasn't that far to the Inn. Her gloved hands were white-knuckled inside the crimson fabric, one clutched at the neck of her cloak and the other holding the front of her skirt up a bit, so it didn't drag along too much. She didn't want to move slower than she had to. Jaina didn't mind that the hem had been trailing through the moisture, she was lifting her skirt up for a different reason -- she needed speed now.
She had refused her brother's offer to walk her back and part of her was regretting it at that moment, as a crisp night breeze blew from the north. People passed her. Wanderers, travelers, other beings rushing back to their homes after a long day. None of them even gave Jaina a second glance. She was just another person, speeding back to the indoors, to the safe haven of a place with warm rooms and walls, out of the foreboding blanket of night.
Narrowed green eyes followed her every step as she passed the open mouth of an alleyway. Tendrils of darkness seemed to snake out and grab her... but she just kept on walking...
"Go on, you nerfherder," the green-eyed man mumbled to himself, a thin streetwise accent marring his words. "Go on and talk to her..."
"I can't!" His voice jumped an octave or two higher, a bit of a whine seeping in, as he replied to himself.
By this time, Jaina was a few standard meters ahead of the gaping black hole that the alleyway created. She stopped herself and turned around ever-so-slowly, the grip on her cloak and skirt tightening. "Who's there?" The shaky whisper floated into the alley, luring the timid yet undeniably handsome man from the shadows.
"It is only me, Lady Jaina."
Solo straightened her posture, out of the frightened, hunched over stance she didn't even realize she had put herself in and bowed her head a tad.
"Dr. Zekkyll."
Dr. Zekkyll nodded back, "How are you this fine evening?"
She inhaled deeply as her eyes ran across him in a quick once-over. She had met him roaming the city once, a long time ago, his carefree ways and sarcastic attitude drawing her to him, seducing her. They had grown apart over time. Now she couldn't even remember his first name.
...did he even have a first name?
He was still as gorgeous as ever, his dark ebony mane groomed perfectly to his shoulders, now pulled back into a loose tail. The tall hat he wore and the cane he carried were the same midnight shade. His jacket matched his eyes and stretched over his upper body, shifting with every tiny movement.
"I..." She couldn't pull her eyes away from his emerald depths. "I am fine."
He stepped a bit forward, out of the slight shadow, Jaina catching her breath in her throat at the sight of him. He was beautiful.
"I must be going." Spinning on her heel, Lady Jaina turned and began walking away from Dr. Zekkyll, down the cobblestone streets to her place of slumber. The Doctor's eyes narrowed as he shoved his right hand in his pocket.
"Dammit Zekkyll, what is your malfunction?" He pulled out a vial and uncapped it with his thumb and forefinger --- then he downed the contents, immediately regretting it after the liquid cleared his throat.
And behind her, far but not too far, Lady Jaina Solo heard a painful cry. She didn't stop to look, she just began moving faster. Faster.
She was running now, her feet clicking hard on the stone, her skirts trailing behind her as much as the weight of them would allow. Something was behind her - it felt like Dr. Zekkyll, but no. It wasn't. I couldn't have been, could it? It was more animalistic, more violent...
More angry.
Solo could hear herself panting as her eyes scanned the streets, looking for a way out of the night. Ahead of her, as she ran, she saw that she was coming up on a large building. The Chezan Opera Hall. Just the other night, she and her brother (as well as their parents and the Skywalker family) accompanied the royal Court to that same building. They had all been dressed up fancy and had watched a beautiful show - there had been singing, dancing, great music. The show was brilliant.
Jaina wished she could rewind back to that warm evening. The building was so welcoming and inviting. Now it just looked cold and barren.
But anything looked better than the snarling she could hear behind her, chasing her.
Dashing into the Chezan Opera Hall, Lady Jaina threw all of her weight at the huge door to shut it, before the Zekkyll creature had reached her. She heard him slam into the wood and growl a bit... then everything went silent. Pulling the bar down to lock the door, she paused. Why was the door open in the first place. The thought of it being locked hadn't even crossed her mind while she was running dead on towards the Opera Hall.
Breathing out a sigh, Lady Jaina turned towards the dark interior of the hall, her eyes widening at the sight of it. When it wasn't full of life, people talking and interacting with others, lights strung across the ceiling of the lobby... it was desolate, disturbing and dark, a true fright to anyone as shaken up as she was now. Starting further into the building, she felt herself wince every time her heels clicked on the marble floor. The sound echoed, it carried, breaking the dead air. It was the only noise Jaina heard - until she stopped walking.
A faint voice, low, hypnotizing - wafted throughout the dim lobby, slipping into her ears. She was drawn to it somehow. Her head told her to turn around, find a side exit and slip out -- but a fist clenched around her heart and began to drag her towards the entrance to the actual hall.
Stumbling towards the intricately carved doors, Jaina felt her hands latch on to the handles and turn. Both doors were thrown open.
The voice continued, like it hadn't even noticed that the doors were opened. A man on stage, Jaina's eyes landed on him. His side was turned towards her as he faced the left side of the chamber, singing to someone or something that wasn't really there.
She studied what she could see of him as she stopped in the middle of the center aisle, staring up to him as he continued singing. His ebony mass of hair cascaded in wavy strands around his face, shimmering in the dim lighting that was trained on him. The bottom tips of the locks tickled his lips as the melody stopped, his jade gaze trailing to the woman that stood before him, his audience.
"Lady Jaina Solo." His speaking voice was just as rich as his singing voice.
As he turned his head to look at the Lady, she saw that the side of his face that was previously towards the back of the stage was covered in a black mask - black to signify all the deaths...
It's him!
Black to signify the deaths he had caused...
She was almost drawn to him because of his voice, his vocal charm that he used to mask the fact that he, now called The Phantom of Carida, was a murderer. He never meant for it to happen, but what happened did, and now he was doomed to be shunned forever.
Jaina began backing up, away from the stage, almost tripping over her own two feet. She could hear herself whispering incoherent thoughts out loud as the man started towards her, stepping down from his perch on the stage.
"Lady Jaina, please, wait..."
Before she turned and headed down an aisle of seats, away from him, she could see a sneer form on the visible part of his face. That just caused her to move even faster, dodging rows of seats and weaving in and out of them as she made her way to the side exit, the emergency exit.
As she threw the door open, she found herself in a small hallway. Glancing up and down it, she noticed the exit was to the north of her, glancing quickly to the south, she saw the Phantom running up fast.
"Kriff!"
Not something a noble Lady would usually say, not that she cared at the moment. Careening down the hall, skirt smacking the walls and her legs, Jaina kicked the exit open, breathing in the musty night air. The fog was thicker now as she jumped down the few stairs that led back to the cobblestone of the main streets.
She could sense him on her tail, hiding in the shadows, dodging the halos of the light raining down from the lampposts scattered along the streets.
If only I could make it to the river!
Solo continued her all-out run as well as she could manage, bunching her skirts up in her hands. She knew the fastest way to the river was through one of the alleyways on her left... but did she really want to risk it?
She could sense that the Phantom was behind her, as well as Zekkyll - or whatever it was he had turned into - they were both behind her some distance away, watching her, plotting...
Spinning on her heel, she dashed into the closest alley on her left, instantly regretting it as a dark figure swooped down from Force knows where, to stand in front of her, blocking her path.
"And where are we going in such a hurry, Goddess Solo?"
Her feet stopped as well as her breath. Not him too... no... She couldn't find words, sound, anything - she just stood and stared.
Letting go of his cloak that was currently wrapped around him, the sides fell to reveal an impeccably dressed man. His short midnight hair cut through with a strip of white that matched his pearly smile. Green eyes locked on Jaina as he stepped forward, towards her, causing her to back up into one of the slimy alley walls.
That's when he grinned...
"Sure you can't stick around for a bite?"
"J... Jagula..." Her breath shuddered as she tried to catch it. It wasn't an easy thing to do in a corset.
His smile grew even wider as his tongue lashed out over his fangs. That's when she slipped around him and began running again, down the alley, towards the river. Jaina heard him curse when she did it and it just pumped more adrenaline into her system. She never thought it was possible to run this fast in heeled boots, but now she knew that she was always thinking wrong.
Breaking out of the confines of the alley, back into the open streets, Lady Jaina could see the river. Crossing the seemingly endless stream of cobblestone, she ran to the railing beside the dark body of water and peered down into it, her eyes searching for signs... The lamps lining the street only illuminated a few feet out, which didn't help at all and a ragged cough broke her gaze from the liquid and caused her to spin back around to face the merciless city.
Spotting the rows of buildings ahead of her, she could see the randoms maws of darkness, where the alleys ended. Out of all of those, three were occupied and their occupants were exiting into the halos of the street lamps. Three different alleyways, three different men...
Three different beasts.
Lady Jaina's breath slowed as her hands clenched around the railing behind her.
They were closing in on her fast, all sauntering across the cobblestone, sneers and snickers and sly smiles plastered across their gorgeous yet disturbed faces. They paid no mind to each other, as if they had formed a mental pact to make her night a living hell.
She heard the waters behind her stir and a smile that mirrored theirs crossed her face. Her eyebrows arching and her posture becoming relaxed. The men stopped, feet away from her, quizzical expressions taking over their smarmy ones.
From behind her, from the depths of the water came a huge creature, who stood, towering over them for what seemed like miles. His fur dripped with river water and his teeth were barred, a growl erupting from his throat. He stood behind Lady Jaina Solo like a shadow...
"Lowzilla!" Jagula cried, his lips continuing to work around soundless words after he had already quit speaking.
"Run!" The Phantom of Carida was the first to turn and bolt off down the streets, with Jagula coasting behind him.
Dr. Zekkyll sneered at the two and then turned to follow his fellow beasts, the effects of his serum wearing off as he stumbled behind them.
Lady Jaina turned and peered up to her companion, a grin spreading across her face. "Thanks Low!"
With a grunt of satisfaction, Lowzilla smiled to her and returned to his slumber under the river's surface. Lady Jaina finished her trip to the Inn.
Back up in the Palace, Her Majesty Tenel Ka flanked her husband on the left as they stared out the majestic window of their bedchambers, that overlooked the city, towards the river.
She placed her right hand on his shoulder and pulled herself to her tiptoes, tilting her chin over her hand. She placed a gentle kiss on his cheek and then chuckled a sigh. "I told you."
She turned and made her way to bed.
Lord Jacen Solo, arms crossed over his chest, stared out the window, nodding ever so slightly. "You did, love. You did."
