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When darkness arrives on their path, it is unceremonious. But that, perhaps, is simply its nature. It creeps up on one's self, something unnoticeable till you yourself are engulfed. Engulfed, trapped, unable to escape.
Oriande had seen the dark, long ago, and so when its first tendrils brush against her, they immediately pause mid-step, alarming Ahsoka quite a bit. The alley they're about to enter is unassuming and as plain as all the back alleys in the underbelly of the golden city. A hearth burns in the depths of a trash can, but that is all that leaves it to stand out from the rest. And yet, and yet, when they look up, they see the echoes of a shadow perched over the bridge above, hands at the ready to draw twin ilen, hooked at their hips, both whose muffled kyber scream and struggle.
Silently, as inconspicuous as possible, they lag behind, pausing at the edges of the alley entrance, letting shadows bathe their glowing moonlit flesh. Their Togruta companion does not notice as she continues forward, only to sharply turn when the figure they'd noticed leaps off of the bridge railing, swinging on the powerlines to gain momentum and kick Ahsoka fiercely in the ribs.
As the Jedi goes crashing backwards, the figure flips midair and ignites a pair of ilen unlike anything they'd ever seen before : a bloody, raging red, bathing the alley in a tragic, mournful glow. They cross the blades one over the other and leave long, ugly molten scars across the stone floor, tightening their course so that their final destination is in a lock over the Togruta's neck.
The figure begins to speak, in a low, tectonic buzz, clearly a modulator. From afar, Oriande cannot hear the conversation, but they creep forward, letting Exulan wrap around themself like a second skin, hiding their presence and their echoing footsteps, as they inch closer and closer to the armed perpetrator and the furious Togruta. The waves of anger from her companion taint their fingertips as it seeps across the closed end of her bond.
It's quite obvious that the pair are familiar with each other, snippets of their rapid-fire argument floating to their ears as they slink through the shadows. Clearly, it doesn't seem that they were ever friendly. But it's inconsequential to linger on fading thoughts, for they have arrived right behind the huntress and her hostage.
