The Sequel
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Nihilus Radentia
Nihilus Radentia
Posts : 2
Join date : 2018-10-31

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Wed Oct 31, 2018 6:30 pm
The nights on Zara were impenetrably black and lonely. For the past few months, Lord Nihilus Radentia had resided on Denya IX as the guest of House Orooszi and at the behest of its Siridar, the House Ganeva. The years endured during the Collapse had not been kind to the House of Radentia. A proud House, once known for its industriousness as much as its controversy had all but been shattered in the sudden devastation that had consumed the Imperium. These days, the former Great House resided as a shell on the good graces of a former Vassal and an Emperor wary and suspicious of all his Subjects. Radentia teetered on a razor's edge. One small slip and the edge would sever the only lifeline Radentia had left.

For Nihilus, the silence was welcome. He enjoyed the solitude and did his best to keep himself to himself. For the most part his only visitors had been his on-off lover Evigeniya Asimova and her immediate superiors, the Baroness Orooszi and the Marquise Ganeva. Unsurprisingly, the few Radentia that remained kept their distance from him, more concerned with their own survival than the fate of their shattered House. Nihilus did not begrudge his relatives for staying away. As a Swordmaster and a Radentia, he understood the necessity of personal survival more than most. Were Radentia in a more favourable position, they might have rallied to the cause, but as it stood, they had lost everything.

In the eyes and minds of the survivors, Radentia was finished, all except in the eyes and mind of one, that is.

"Uncle Nihulus, please!" Lilith begged Nihilus as he strode down the long corridor to his office. Her little legs carried on two inch heels clicked on the marble as she chased the much taller Radentia down the hall. "Listen!"

"No!" Nihilus barked, stopping suddenly to turn and face his niece. "I have had enough of this, Lilith."

Lilith caught up with the man thankful he had stopped. The tall Radentia males were notorious for their white hair, stylish greatcoats and their rapid pace, their pace more so when they were vexed, which her uncle clearly was. "You need to stop and think, please." She pleaded again, raising her hand to his shoulder and bending over a little to catch her breath.

"Who put you up to this, hmm? Elena? The Order?" He inquired, brushing her hand off his shoulder.

Lilith straightened and scoffed, rolling her eyes. She all but tapped her foot and folded her arms to indicate her disappointment.

Nihilus noted the signature gesture and smirked. "Or is this you plotting for your sons?" He stooped and spoke in her ears while circling her as a predator would his prey.

The insinuation prodded Lilith, she reached out to grab the scruff of his neck, but she kept her cool at the last second and curled her hand into a fist and retracted it to her chest instead, resting it there. Using the same hand, Lilith brushed past her uncle and quickly traversed the rest of the hallway toward Nihilus' office, prompting him to follow.

Realising he had struck a nerve, Nihilus regretted his words. He looked after the advancing Reverend Mother and followed. In less than a minute, the pair were inside the office. "Look, Lilith, I'm sorry." He offered sincerely, raising his hands apologetically.

"Save it." She snapped in retort, closing the door to the office. It was a rather spacious office, not as big as the Archducal Office on Thanis but a nice space none the less. The glowglobes illuminated venered walls adorned with exotic art collected from all over the realm.  Antique tables played proud hosts to ornaments that were centuries older than the room's occupants.  She advanced toward the desk, stopped and turned to face Nihilus. At the distance between them, Lilith could look into his eyes without looking up or straining her neck to do so. Taking two shallow breaths, the young woman calmed herself.

"Explain to me why you will not listen." Though her demeanour was calm and cool, she spoke with the tone of iron resolve that she was renowned for. In the company and in the privacy with family, the Revered Mother allowed herself to be herself. She was angry and distraught. They had lost everything on both sides of the fence. Mikel was still lost and Anacia had disappeared with her father years ago. Despite the losses of family and friend, Lilith was determined not to give upon on the shattered remanent of her House and Family.

"Um, let me see." Nihilus said, losing his own cool as he strode into the room. In that moment as he trotted along hand in his suit pocket, he looked very much like his brother. That care-free sarcastic swagger broke through the restraint as it acknowledged the truth of circumstance. "Thanis is gone, your father hasn't been seen for two years and most of our relatives are either dead or fighting for their own survival..."

"Nihilus." Lilith spoke, promting her uncle to stem his approch but not his mouth.

"No!" He said, raising his finger and waving it as though he were chiding an unruly child speaking out of turn. "You wanted an explanation and I haven't even got to the best part yet." Nihilus paused and lowered his hand to put in his trouser pocket. "You come here in the middle of the night, lecturing me on legacy and duty when fail to see what is in front of your face."

"Nihilus." Lilith spoke again, slightly louder this time but still it did not stop him from espousing his excuses.

"Radentia is finished. We are so done, Lilith, that we exist as a dilapidated shell on the backwater of our former Vassal, and the only reason Ganeva allows us to exist here is because she wants the only thing Radentia has left." He snarled, releasing all of his anger and frustrations into the open. "Just like you and everyone else that comes to see me on this festering hole."

"I am not everyone else, Nihilus." The young woman replied, clearly offended at being defined as just another vulture. "I am your niece, your brother's daughter and I want what is best for you, Nihilus."

Nihilus felt the warm sincerity of her words in his ear and softened a little.

"Look, I know you are angry and frustrated..."

"You know what your father would call us now, if he could see us bickering like this?" He asked, cutting her off. Nihilus closed the distance between himself and Lilith, but remained far enough to allow her to maintain her equal gaze. "He would call us sad, weak and desperate." He said softly, nodding his head to affirm the truth he believed. "We are finished, Lilith, because he said we are."

As soon as the words penetrated her eardrums, her Truthsense and Analyst training kicked in. She assessed the data, weighed the man that had spoken the words and in response her eyes widened. "W.. What?" She asked, stammering just a little before recovering.

"We are tainted, everything we touch, we destory. Severus was wrong, we are beyond redemption." Nihilus quoted his brother the last time they met. Watching the revelation dawn upon the young woman, Nihilus closed the distance and pulled her into his embrace.

The truth she heard battered at the iron resolve of the Lady Lilith. Her eyes filled with tears as she was forced to recognise reality. Those words, she knew that been spoken by her father. She could picture him clearly in her minds eye condemning Radentia to its fate. "When?"

"About three days before he disappeared." Nihilus answered, letting her go and stepping back. "I agree with him, it is time for Radentia to truly to turn and walk away from power."

"No!" Lilith shook her head and turned away from her uncle. Something was wrong here but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. "The Archduchy still means something!" She protested even though the truth was staring her right in the face. "It still respresents..."

"Still represents what, exactly?" Nihilus snorted, throwing his head back in disappointment. "Failure? Destruction? Infamy? Two dead Empresses and no heirs?" He tried once more to impress upon Lilith the grandeur of their failure and the impossibility of their situation. The only thing the Archduchy could do for Radentia now was to secure Asylum or buy their passage to Tupile. "The list goes on, Lilith. When will you wake up?"

"You're wrong. It still represents us, industrious, creative and loyal. Do you honestly think the Empire would be better off without us?" She demanded, trying to make her uncle see sense. If he gave up now, Thanis will have been destroyed in vain. Radentia owed it to the survivors and their allies to endure.

"I do, as does your father. Now you need to go, Lilith." Nihilus warned. "You have your own affairs to deal with." At an end with his niece on the subject, he dismissed her without compromise.

Astonished beyond words, Lilith closed her agape mouth and shook her head in bitter diappointment. Disgusted with Nihilus attitude and his willingness to simply accept fate, she strode past him, chin raised high, he gaze far above his own. He wasn't even worth her time.

"Take these words with you are we part." Nihilus called after Lilith as she approached the door. "Radentia's fate is sealed."

Opening the door along its arc, she turned back and offered him a slim smile. "We will see about that." Lilith said, taking one final look at her weak uncle. Curling her lips in disgust, she walked out on Nihilus and left him to ponder his folly, and his fate. Slamming the door shut, she took her leave from Zara, resolved to salvage what remained of her family in any way she could.
Nayla II
Nayla II
Posts : 34
Join date : 2018-10-29

Shatterpoint Empty Re: Shatterpoint

Thu Nov 01, 2018 11:23 pm
IF anyone could understand decline, it was Lady Evgeniya Asimova.

Thousands of years ago, her family had not only ruled their homeworld, Denya VII, all its lands and attendant moons, but had commanded a powerful Great House Archduchy that had spread across six fiefs in total, one of which had been Arrakis itself, the Jewel of the Imperium. Yes, her ancestors had been Siridari of Arrakis! It seemed impossible to believe. Now they were just vassals, they had been subjected to centuries of servitude, the killing instruments of more the powerful houses on Denya, the Bereninas, the Donskoys, the Ganevas. Millenniums of slow decay in Narva had led to up her own lifetime, and it was only in dusty and worn history books that she could read of her family's once sumptuous substance and breath-taking glory. Like a dream it had faded. The living dream of the verdant jungles had been reduced to mildewed papers. The tides wear down even the most dizzying cliffs.

Evgeniya understood decline perfectly. She might have been the last of her once-famous bloodline. Had things gone a bit differently, if perhaps she had been killed while serving the House of Ganeva, out on some dangerous assassination mission on some dirty little planet somewhere, Asimova might have been extinguished finally and completely, and she might have been its last scion. Growing up, she had always thought that she would be the last scion of Asimova. She had always assumed that she would be the Asimovan full stop.

Perhaps it showed that after decline, things usually rose again, or at least tried to. That dawn was born from night, Spring from Winter. Her sister, who had been orphaned and assumed dead during the Revolutionary War on Denya, was now an Empress. Empress of a Million Worlds! And Evgeniya, if nothing else, could claim to have saved the life of a future Emperor. She still had the red bars on her hands to prove it. Perhaps it showed that you can't keep a good dog down. Perhaps. But House Asimova was nothing and would remain nothing. Just two individuals plodding their paths forward. Exceptional individuals, perhaps. But just two. Fate had strange ways, that was clear – but Asimova would never be great again.

Radentia, though – who knew what might spring up from the white ashes of Thanis? The nights on Zara' were short, mercifully short, and she could only think of the ever-whirling winds of change here.

What seeds that wind carried, she could not have said.

For now, she just got on with things. The life of an assassin was not easy. When she thought of all the Muadra blood that had flowed through her fingers, flowed thickly and hotly like the lavas of Kyatch, she recalled what Suk Doctor Czub had once said to her: “We can't make our own moral laws.” She did not agree with him, of course, that idiot doctor, that weakling neutered buffoon, but it was something she often wondered about and battled with. What was right and wrong? Who had the right to live, and who deserved to die? Those of noble nature, the exceptional ones of society, did make their own moral law; or so Evgeniya thought. The exceptional ones choose their own path. They decided such issues. They had the strength and vision to know. Loyalty, vengeance, duty; those were the things that were important to Lady Evgeniya. And pride, pride in her sister and what she had become.

She was very proud. But for herself, she just got on with things. Perhaps there was some kind of future for her, perhaps there was some kind of future for Radentia. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

Lilith was gone by the time she got to Nihilus' office. She smiled, seeing his handsome face - a slim smile, and perhaps too brief, but a smile nonetheless. He was ever-so handsome. She sat on the desk, opposite, sideways to him, one thigh lifted up for balance, her hand spread out on the wood, and turned her head, turned her cold blue eyes upon him. The little diamond stud in her nose glimmered. Her golden hair was tied back in a neat ponytail, she still had the big fringe, and she was dressed informally in a skin-tight tracksuit.

“How are you?” she asked her former, and perhaps current, fiancé. It was hard to sum up the equation of their relationship at any given moment of time. But she had come to Zara', her least favourite planet in the Imperium, to see him, and that must mean something. Especially now, she hated the place: with the Tangerine Palace hemmed in on three sides by the Kossack barbarians and by the irrepressible crime syndicates of Kuri on the fourth, it was horrible. House Ganeva's hard work, Evigeniya's own hard work to change this place over the years, had all been wasted, set back by the Muadrua incursion and the resources it had drained away. Zara was as grim and out of control as it had been two decades ago. It was just one more issue that needed to be addressed.

She smiled again, a kind of wicked grin, fond memories of before the war creeping into her consciousness.
Nihilus Radentia
Nihilus Radentia
Posts : 2
Join date : 2018-10-31

Shatterpoint Empty Re: Shatterpoint

Fri Nov 02, 2018 12:16 am
By the time he Evigeniya joined him in the office, Lilith had gone and Nihilus had just finished one of the last bottles of Thanian Fire-whiskey in existence. The arrival of the famous beauty was unexpected but entirely welcome. As he gazed upon the beautiful Asimovan Lady, he recalled seeing her for the first time and how she had captivated him the instant she registered in his awareness. While their relationship had never been the most stable, Nihilus did relish the moments she walked through his door without a word of warning. She never failed to impress herself on him whenever she returned to grace his life with her presence.

Raising his feet to the edge of the desk, his world of worry seemed non-existent now that she had descended upon it. Evgeniya perched herself on the edge and leaned back whilst inquiring how he was.

Nihilus did not answer straight away, instead he swept his eyes across her figure, the thighs, hips, breasts and those lips, so lush and attractive, magnetic almost. He could have complained, moaned about his meager lot but that would have been a waste of precious time, for who knew when Evgeniya would simply strike camp and wander off into the Universe once more? No, it was far better to spend that time in appreciation of the magnificent creature that had descended upon this hole for whatever reason.

She was one of the very few sparks in his life that could conjure an inferno. Lilith's visit had left him bitter but already he could feel himself emerging from it, warmed by her radiant glow.

"I think its better to show you how I feel." The soft spoken Baron beamed an uncharacteristically cheeky smile and grabbed his lover and lover by the wrist and pulled her off the desk onto his lap. Though tall, busty and strong, Evgeniya was light and when caught off guard, it was easy to pull her into his embrace. His hands fell on her back and stomach, curving their way around her waist to hoin with each other. Once his fingers met, they interlocked, securing the beauty in place.

Without hesitation, Nihilus pressed his lips against Evgeniya's. The first kiss after a long time apart was always the sweetest. Given their backgrounds, it also added a deliciously forbidden allure to their reunions. She the dastardly Assassin and he the dashing Swordmaster, two Codes in moral opposition, the Protector of Life and the Taker. In moments like this, all that did not matter. The Creed of School could never hope to stem the attraction of two individuals unwilling to admit the truth of their circumstance.

They were afraid.

Lips parting, Nihilus licked his lips as he leaned back, right hand rising to that beautiful face, the backs of his fingers brushing her cheek just to make sure that she was here, that she was real. Breathing shallow, he looked up at the woman, lowering his hand to place it on her thigh.

"I am fine." Nihilus answered with that signature Radentia smirk and matching humour. "What about you? How have you been?"
Nayla II
Nayla II
Posts : 34
Join date : 2018-10-29

Shatterpoint Empty Re: Shatterpoint

Sun Nov 04, 2018 12:45 am
“Mgh,” Evgeniya intoned in response to Nihilus' question once they had stopped kissing, “Normal. I thought I'd come over and see what's going on here, see if you need any help with anything. Or just see you.” She shrugged.

Her tracksuit was velvet and as dark blue as the night sky had been the first time they had made love on Novrebrun, that beautiful humid summer night that she could still recall so easily. She must have felt very soft to his finger tips, feminine and velvety. She leant forward, while his hands clutched her hips, took her shoulder bag from where it rested on the desk, opened and up-ended it so that – amongst other paraphernalia – a box of Melange snuff, a cigarette case filled with Scythian No-Sticks, and a large bronze lighter fell out with a clunk.

With well-practiced gestures, she unclipped the lid of the ornate silver snuff box, releasing the rich smell of its contents, pinched a lady-like amount of the fragrant orange powder between her finger and thumb, and inhaled it slowly into her nostril. Her eyelids flickered as if they would cool the heat of the Spice, and almost immediately she sneezed very softly, feeling the relaxing warmth of the Geriatric Melange spread up behind her eyes and into her brain. She left the box open for her lover to sample if he wished.

Then she pulled a cigarette from the case, and leant back and relaxed against him as she lit it, letting it hang casually between her fingers. She felt an eager hand squeezing at her breast. The Spice cigarette increased the warmth she was feeling, each puff made her body more receptive.

Evgeniya could tell that Nihilus had been drinking. He was a good drunk. Much more willing to touch and to feel, and to risk admitting his desire for her, once he'd had a drink or two. Much more physically outgoing. Besides, his breath smelt of whiskey, a smell she was not too keen on, but which she was willing to abide, seeing how he was affected, how it warmed him up. Evgeniya was almost tee-total. She very rarely drank liquor. She didn't like the loss of control. She did not need to lose control to engage in sexual acts with men, if she felt a strong enough desire to do it. Sex to her was more like a workout, for the most part, a way of releasing some of the animal energy within her, the physical aggression. But she enjoyed sex with Nihilus.

She enjoyed doing many things with him, which was strange. Mostly, she liked to spend her time alone. Brief contacts with other people were thrilling for her (which usually meant she was beating them up or killing them), but finally she would need to be alone. She had a lot to do, she had to keep herself prepared. She was sullen, often angry; usually if she talked it was to bark orders or to otherwise make her will felt. She could be quite impatient with others. She was always turning away from people, real people, toward her duties as a noble. It was her sense of duty that gave meaning to her life, it was her commitment to the noble way of life that inspired her. She had to do her bit for her house, her planet, the Imperium. She had to absorb herself in her role as assassin, field agent, avenger.

And then, she strove for physical perfection. She spent hours every day strengthening her body, making it more agile, looking for an extra edge. She was fully focused, knowing that her life depended on it. It was like she had her own mystery, a part that she liked to keep to herself, that she couldn't have explained to someone else even if she'd wanted to. And that was why at times she would despair of him, when they got too close, and he might see too deeply into that mystery, and she felt that her precious independence and all that it revolved around was threatened. Then they would find some excuse to fight, and usually she would storm off and leave him be for a while. It would all get too complicated, and she would have to run off to hide, go back to Idmiston Hall and do her own thing, and try to forget about him for a while.

But she knew she could not live entirely alone. She knew that now. Perhaps it was because she was getting older, because her body was beginning to age. She began to feel that one day, she would not be as self-reliant as she had always been. After a long time of being alone, be it weeks or even months, the emptiness began to crush her. It was almost like a pain. And she would need Nihilus there, to fill the gap, she needed him to keep her balanced, to stop her freezing in her own ice-cold spirit. She needed to see his handsome, if rather dour, face, and hear that seductive voice of his, that sublime voice that smoothly flowed like mountain honey, ready to be spread on a biscuit and eaten.

What could Nihilus do to change her?  How could they make it work? She had a great affection for him. She respected him. She liked to be around him.

She stubbed out her cigarette, puckered her lips and kissed him again, tasting the fiery breath of whiskey, exchanging it for the ashiness of burnt Melange and tobacco. Perhaps he just needed to take control of her, to show him that manliness that he had showed her in flashes, to demand more of her. She liked it when he dragged her across the desk, showed his Swordmaster's strength and will. She liked it when he emerged from the shell of shyness. She liked his hands moving insistently over the secret parts of her body, the parts that ached most to be touched, the parts that he had discovered during their spells of passion over the years.

Now that the war with the Muadra was over, perhaps she hoped for something more from him, for him to pin her down once and for all. Perhaps part of her wanted to assure the continuation of the Asimovan bloodline at last.

She took a deep breath, relaxing more, subdued by the cosy warmth of his body and his arms around her. “What are your dreams now, Nihilus?” she asked him.
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