Location: Desevro
The dorm was silent except for the holotransmitter. Ace sat on the edge of the narrow bed, elbows braced on his knees, shoulders slightly forward. Dead, dark eyes transfixed on what the transmission displayed.
Thump... Thump... Thump.
Ace didn't look away. He watched the way a surgeon watched a cut: focused, detached, cataloguing damage without indulging in reaction. His face stayed neutral as the voice spoke, calm and deliberate, as if the galaxy itself were something that could be corrected with patience and force.
When the image finally resolved, Ace's expression remained the same. There was no sharp intake of breath, no tightening of the jaw. Just a subtle stillness, like something inside him had stopped moving.
Aether Verd hadn't lost control. He hadn't snapped. He chose this. Planned it. Built it like a message that couldn't be misread. Ace felt the familiar, unwelcome pull of understanding. Protection taken to its furthest, ugliest conclusion. The belief that if you made the cost unbearable enough, no one would ever dare touch your people again. He'd stood on that edge himself once. Clan Vethrisa burned behind his eyes, the way the guilt had eaten him alive, and how Aether had praised him for it.
Ace could see the logic, and that was the problem. Fear scaled, traveled, worked. The galaxy had always listened better to pain than principle, and Aether knew it. Mandalorian resolve stripped of ceremony and mercy, hammered down to its most brutal truth.
But those weren't warriors on the crosses. They weren't soldiers who'd made a choice knowing the risks. They were collateral, innocents folded into a debt they never agreed to owe.
Ace leaned back slightly, one hand resting against the edge of the bed, metal fingers cool against the durasteel. His gaze stayed on the projection, but his thoughts slipped to another face. Darth Metus, calm and absolute, convinced that retribution sanctified everything it touched.
Metus' fire burned in both of them, in all of his children. He'd always known it, he'd felt it flare in his own chest more times than he liked to admit, especially now, living among Sith who mistook cruelty for clarity. He'd told himself he was different because he chose restraint. Because he still saw lines... but lines moved.
Ace exhaled, slow and steady, eyes finally dropping as the transmission ended and the room fell back into silence. Loving Aether had never been the question, but could he continue to stand with him if he became as ruthless as their father?
His voice, when it came, was low, tired, and raw in a way he rarely allowed himself to be anymore.
"What are you doing, Aether…"
