Private A Stitch in Time

[Eurydice]

It wasn't a difficult task, per se. Or rather, it should not have been. Not if she'd had two hands.

When Eurydice found the discarded suit jacket, it didn't take her long to figure out who it had belonged to. The garment was large, tailored for a woman's build and well…large. Far more broad at the shoulders than most women she knew.

Sewing was trickier when you only had one hand, but her stitches were just as neat as they'd always been. She just had to move slower, more intentional. It was almost like a prayer.

Eurydice had spent several nights mending the torn shoulder seam with a steady hand. At times, she placed a few tomes on the free edge of the jacket to create the tension she needed to work. She found a measure of peace through the familiar, grounding movement of pushing a needle and thread through rich fabric.

Mercy had been kind to her, despite her varying inadequacies. And while that kindness made Eurydice suspicious - because what would a proper Sith want with a useless tool? - the lonely girl was particularly receptive to positive energy.

And so, Eurydice hemmed and hawed as she stood just outside of Mercy's quarters, silently fretting. Would she look silly? Stupid? With her wealth, Mercy probably had a dozen similar jackets in pristine condition. Suddenly, this seemed like a very poor idea.

Eurydice didn't feel her own hand moving, and the rapping of her knuckles against durasteel seemed to frighten her.

Well, no turning back now. She swallowed thickly around the lump in her throat.

"Empress?" she called. "I…I've repaired one of your garments. If you'd like. I er…I uh, apologize if I've overstepped."

 

[Mercy]

MERCY

EMPRESS | WARLORD | STAR-ARM

Location: THRONEWORLD | Tags: Eurydice​

.

Coincidentally she had been looking for the suit jacket all over the place.

It was her favorite one, but somehow it had been misplaced. She had left it in one of the garden areas of Throneworld and when she had come back for it, it was gone. None of the attendants could explain it either. They had looked all over multiple times. In the end Mercy had set it out of her mind, it would probably turn up sooner or later.

The door slid open and a large shadow fell over Eurydice.

Burning amber eyes, like caverns in a Mountain, stared her down and the Empress of the Core did not look amused whatsoever. She listened to her hemming and hewing.

Eyebrows rose up finally when the Sith spotted her outfit in Eurydice's arms- scratch that, arm.

"What the fuck happened to your arm?" Mercy blurted out without even thinking about it. It was probably a sensitive topic, but the Mountain was hardly the most sensitive person out there in the best of times. She stepped to the side. "Come in, girl, you can put the jacket over the chair there." Gesturing towards a chair resting at the fireplace.

Mercy walked further into the room herself, going for the beverages. Initially she went to pour them both a whiskey. Then the Empress took another look at Eurydice and opted for the sparkling lemon water for her glass.

"Here, drink up, you need some liquid courage by the looks of it."

The sparkling lemon didn't actually have any alcohol in it, but maybe something with a little sharpness to it would rouse her from her anxiety.

"You know we met before I took that title, right? You can just call me Mercy. So, the arm?" Amused there as she gestured for Eurydice to sit down on the couch while she took the chair.

.

ERASE THE PAST

 

[Eurydice]

Oh no.

Oh no.

Mercy didn't even have to say anything; her presence said it all. Eurydice never met those amber eyes, shrinking behind the proffered jacket. Of course the Empress would be upset with her. Why wouldn't she? The girl had gone out of her way to be a nuisance after Mercy had been generous enough to grant her entry onto Throneworld.

"What the fuck happened to your arm?"

Eurydice blinked. Her arm? She'd been without it for several months now, long enough for its absence to begin to feel normal, short enough for her to still forget. Before she could stumble over an explanation, Mercy beckoned her inside, and the girl followed.

She took her time adjusting Mercy's jacket over the appointed chair, ensuring that the fabric sat neatly. Mercy's question introduced a different sense of dread unto her: failure. She'd allowed an enemy, a Jedi, to not only get away, but to maim her.

Eurydice stared at the offered drink. She didn't move. Didn't speak. Surely there was a third person she had yet to register, and that was who Mercy was speaking to.

When it became apparent that was not the case, Eurydice reached for the glass. She sipped, then pulled back in surprise at the tangy fizz. It hadn't been unpleasant, just unexpected.

"I lost it," she croaked, as if admitting that she'd stolen the last cookie for the cookie jar. "It was…removed by a Jedi during their attack on Tython."

Eurydice stared down at the glass, watching the little bubbles drift to the surface of the sparkling water.

"If I may be so bold, I…believe that loss of limb is punishment enough for my inadequacy.”

Mercy

 

[Mercy]

Eurydice

Even as Eurydice draped the coat over the chair, Mercy's eyes fixated on it. She'd come back to that topic later. Right now it seemed that the mystery of the lost arm was a touch more important compared to the already solved mystery of the lost jacket. It did look like she had done a great job of fixing the tear.

"I lost it," she croaked, as if admitting that she'd stolen the last cookie for the cookie jar. "It was…removed by a Jedi during their attack on Tython."

"Oh, no, you poor thing." Mercy murmured in sympathy, reaching out to squeeze her hand, before remember it was gone. Her other hand was currently occupied by the glass and so the large woman redirected her trajectory.

Suddenly Eurydice's head was being patted.

By Mercy's murderous hand that shouldn't be capable of a kind or gentle gesture.

"If I may be so bold, I…believe that loss of limb is punishment enough for my inadequacy.”

She tilted her head lightly.

"My dear, you are an apprentice. It is rather expected of you to fuck up and land on your face." She let go of her head and leaned back into her chair. "Do you like the drink?" Drawing her attention back to the glass in her hand, even as Mercy herself took a sip from her whiskey.

"I do not believe in corporal punishment when my apprentices fuck up."

A pause.

"Not that you are officially mine, but I do feel a kinship with you, since I was the one who initially grabbed you by your neck and dragged you along into the Covenant."

She considered briefly there.

"I suppose that makes it also my responsibility that you lost your arm to begin with. I dragged you into a place that is dangerous and then frankly just left you to your own devices."

That was concerning to consider.

 

[Eurydice]

Eurydice blinked, long and slow, as her head was patted. The gesture reminded her of the way Meliant had ruffled her hair on Hunbarine, the former being gentler.

"Oh," she said, her attention turning back to the drink. "I do." Eurydice sipped the fizzy lemony concoction again out of courtesy - she wasn't lying, it did taste nice. She just didn't feel like drinking when her stomach was in knots.

Mercy taking responsibility for something that wasn't her fault struck Eurydice as odd. Nefaron hadn't said anything about her missing arm, but he didn't seem displeased by it, either. It was a lesson. Everything was.

"Is that not how this works?" she ventured. "The strong survive, and the weak either learn to be strong, or they die."

It was brutal, but simple to understand. Looking at Mercy, Eurydice figured that she'd always been strong. That was why she was an Empress.

Mercy

 

[Mercy]

Eurydice

"Is that not how this works?" she ventured. "The strong survive, and the weak either learn to be strong, or they die."

It was the Sith philosophy, to some degree, Mercy could not dispute that.

It was simply not her philosophy.

That is why Mercy was frankly a piss poor example of a Sith. One of the reasons anyway. After beating the self-declared Sith'ari in a Kaggath for the Core Mercy should have taken the title for herself. She had declined. Another example of her being a shitty Sith. What self-respecting Lord of the Sith didn't crave to grasp that title and take it for themselves?

"Some lessons aren't worth learning." Mercy finally said, taking another deep swallow from her own glass. The fizz was a bit more pronounced than Eury's drink, but Mercy didn't react to it outwardly.

"You lost an arm. What is the worth in that? How does it make you stronger, going mutilated through life?" Of course, the Empress didn't know the context behind the loss. The fact that Eurydice had lost her edge in the heat of the moment, left herself open and a Jedi taking advantage of it. There was a lesson in that, yes, but not one that Mercy would consider an equal exchange.

Her eyes went to the coat hanging off of the chair.

To her sharp amber eyes it looked wonderful. She could count every rung, every line of fabric.

"You did well. Thank you." Mercy's attention shifted back to Eurydice. "You deserve a reward."

 

[Eurydice]

How does being mutilated make you stronger?

Eurydice thought about that for a moment. Inherently, having a limb removed made someone weaker.

“I suppose that it ensures I will not make the same mistake again,” she mumbled. Really, there was no avenue in which she did not feel pathetic. The girl couldn’t even feel sorry for herself anymore, but the lust for power that had most Sith climbing the ranks had yet to manifest in her. Would it ever?

Eurydice followed the line Mercy’s gaze back to the coat. The seamstress never rushed through a project, and each stitch was secured precisely before the next. She was glad that Mercy seemed pleased with her work.

“A reward?”

Her brow crinkled here, faintly. Eurydice hadn’t been after anything other than the idea that she would be useful enough not to discard.

Mercy

 

[Mercy]

Eurydice

“I suppose that it ensures I will not make the same mistake again,”

"Oh?" Head cocked there. "So from now on, you will be able to avoid any situation where your last arm is at risk? Or just the ultra-specific situation of a Jedi cutting it off when you least expect it?"

Eyebrows going up.

"I suppose the lesson could have been 'never trust a Jedi'. But I suspect you would have learned that too if they punched you in the face."

Mercy sighed and ran her fingers through her hair haphazardly.

"Suffering can be a lesson, but when it has permanent consequences that leaves you weaker, it is not." She knew of Lords that mutilated their students, claiming it was a lesson. She only had contempt for them. They ought to be in the business of making Lords. If you couldn't make one without harming and weakening them, then you weren't a good teacher to begin with.

You couldn't make a sword out of a spade. Trying to do so by breaking one, only leaves a weaker other.

“A reward?”

Mercy smiled and nodded finally.

"Yes, I do believe you have earned one." Then she gestured with one finger. "Come here. This will..." A head tilt there. "Yes, this will be suffering for you, I am afraid. But keep in mind what I told you, yes?"

The smile turned predatory with sharp teeth in the cast light.

"The suffering isn't the point. It is what occurs afterwards that determines what it means."

 

[Eurydice]

Eurydice remained silent as Mercy spoke, blushing a little when the Sith Lord challenged her concept of a lesson learned.

The Empress of the Core thought that the loss of her arm was unnecessary, for whatever lesson it tried to impart. Darth Nefaron, the girl’s true master, had said little. His lack of displeasure was taken for silent approval, for the Dark Lord certainly would’ve made his irritation known.

Sith appeared to live on a spectrum, she’d gathered. Some took their deeply entrenched pain and suffering out on others. Some craved power. Some were hedonists. There was a little bit of kindness mixed in there, too. Just enough to make it hurt all the more when that hope was taken away.

A monster didn’t have to be a monster all the time to be a monster.

When Mercy beckoned Eurydice forward, the girl remained still. A reward through suffering? Light caught the dangerous gleam of needle-like teeth. Eurydice swallowed, forcing the motion through the sandpaper walls of her throat.

“Wha…” she rasped, fighting the urge to stumble back and away. “What is this reward, exactly?”

Mercy