It is and is not the kind of battlefield he knows. He's walked the blasted plains of Balmorra, the crumbling streets of Corellia; seen bright red blood burned to ash in the heat of laser fire, shoved men's innards back inside them, heard enemies gasp out begging for home with their dying breaths. This -- this is less awful, more personal. The things that hunt them lunging in close desperate for a taste. Darth Imperius, who has lived amid death and stubbornly beat it back for all his short life, who fancies himself the master of it in some small arrogant corner of his mind, is... comfortable.
It's a familiar feeling that coils inside him as he stands next to Lan Wangji spattered with dirt and ichor, one so strong perhaps it's tangible to those with the right senses -- reckless and dark and rich and delicious, one he's felt through a thousand such brushes with destruction. Death nipping at his heels, an enemy before him. Ready to be crushed, brought low and humbled for the crime of thinking it could ever toy with him so.
Oh, the dark side can be a joyful thing, in the right moments. Oh, it can sing.
He doesn't flinch as the sword comes at him and stops, glancing Wangji up and down for a moment, briefly assessing, before he gives a slow nod.
His eyes turn toward the single horse that waits in the near distance. To one side another shambling undead tries to interrupt, vaulting in their direction, and he flings it off to tumble backward through the snow with an absent wave of his hand.
"I have your back if you have mine," he says over the noise of battle and the howl of the dead, and a small unwell sort of smile curls over his lips, and if Lan Wangji has ever wanted to truly know this frustrating stranger then perhaps in this moment he can find some weary insight at last.
"Let us lop the head off this serpent. If he deigns to show his face, it would only be rude not to welcome him."
Lightning dances on his fingertips as Archeval raises his saber for the charge, a sickly neon beacon amid the chaos. He can feel the sick sensation bearing down upon them, the darkness the creature is wreathed in. A familiar sensation, that, after all these years of murdering Sith masters, of carving a path through all the dark powers that thought they could step on him.
At last, this place feels a little more like home.
i.
It's a familiar feeling that coils inside him as he stands next to Lan Wangji spattered with dirt and ichor, one so strong perhaps it's tangible to those with the right senses -- reckless and dark and rich and delicious, one he's felt through a thousand such brushes with destruction. Death nipping at his heels, an enemy before him. Ready to be crushed, brought low and humbled for the crime of thinking it could ever toy with him so.
Oh, the dark side can be a joyful thing, in the right moments. Oh, it can sing.
He doesn't flinch as the sword comes at him and stops, glancing Wangji up and down for a moment, briefly assessing, before he gives a slow nod.
His eyes turn toward the single horse that waits in the near distance. To one side another shambling undead tries to interrupt, vaulting in their direction, and he flings it off to tumble backward through the snow with an absent wave of his hand.
"I have your back if you have mine," he says over the noise of battle and the howl of the dead, and a small unwell sort of smile curls over his lips, and if Lan Wangji has ever wanted to truly know this frustrating stranger then perhaps in this moment he can find some weary insight at last.
"Let us lop the head off this serpent. If he deigns to show his face, it would only be rude not to welcome him."
Lightning dances on his fingertips as Archeval raises his saber for the charge, a sickly neon beacon amid the chaos. He can feel the sick sensation bearing down upon them, the darkness the creature is wreathed in. A familiar sensation, that, after all these years of murdering Sith masters, of carving a path through all the dark powers that thought they could step on him.
At last, this place feels a little more like home.