Private Around the Fur

[Zaavik Perl]

I don't get it, should I ignore the fashion or go by the book?
Maena, 3 hours after Jakku
Darth Mori

---

---

​

Could Zaavik call that a success? He wasn't down a body part, and had returned without any bumps in the road. Yet, no tangible loss was coupled with no tangible gain. Vexation was an understatement.

Invisible, he slipped quietly into the monolithic estate he'd recently, reluctantly called home. In a vague, where he rests his head sort of way, at least. Not a clock in sight, but the sky and relative inactivity proved that he'd made good time. In and out before Darth Daiara could even so much as wake up to piss. Had it not been an inordinate bust, he might have been pleased with himself. Instead, frustration reigned every corner of his presence. One more bridge burned an not any closer to learning what he wanted.

Thankfully, conniptions were wrung out of his system on the flight back. Otherwise he'd have everyone within a mile on their feet by now. A burnished hand went flat on the door he'd come in through, gingerly pushed it shut with caution spared against making noise. Colors shimmered in the interior twilight, abruptly revealing his still dusty figure. Sharp sigh released tension like a valve. He deflated, leaning with one overhead arm against the closed door.

At least I made it, he thought. After last time, the fight that would ensue if he got caught was fated to be so severe that it nearly discouraged him from going altogether. Nearly. Unlike last time, there were no expectations for a waking hour. No obligation to be anywhere in punctual fashion. Combine that with pre-somnial activities, and the illusion of a mutual bedtime, and time became an ally. Part of him felt remorseful for being so dishonest, so cunning, but ultimately the ends justified the means.

Or so he kept telling himself.

Another small sigh, and he pushed himself away from the door. Several steps backward heralded an about face before he made his way back for an honest sleep. Home free.

 

[Vesta]

welcome to wonderland​

It had been so long since she had last tasted the darkness as this - the literal beast that lingered in the shadows. It had been her favorite guise, once, the haunting specter that seemed to have her eyes shine back from every dark corner all at once, and the nostalgia of it wasn't ruined by the link it shared with the girl she'd tried to scare with it. Perhaps it was coincidence that the guise had been donned in the same place both times, only this time it wasn't to try to frighten Quinn Varanin but instead to stalk her apprentice's lover following his return at quite the conspicuous hour. She didn't care that he came and went, nor was she ignorant to the other times he had thought himself unnoticed, but she hadn't been aware of where it was that he'd gallivanted off to in the past, either.

The rust-colored sand that clung to his clothes, however, cast suspicion at the timing of his departure and subsequent arrival and coaxed her from her seeming complacent attitude towards simply leaving him be.

She watched, from each and every shadow he walked through and by, the measure of caution he had in the way he entered the estate and wandered through it. The sigh that betrayed his stiff demeanor escaping from between his lips gave her pause when she thought to step out from the darkness, seeing in him something she didn't quite like but also couldn't quite explain.

She didn't like that he put her on edge, acted so suspiciously, and especially so in her own home.

"If you'd came by in an hour I would have been asleep." She said softly, taking his diminishing precaution as the best point of entry. Perhaps he'd be taken aback by the sudden voice, she wasn't quite so sure if he knew hers or if he'd even seen her in person before to recognize her, but the imbalance in awareness here was something she was more than happy to take advantage of if it had. "The girl is still in bed, in case you were wondering." Vesta added as her figure came into view - taller than most expected her to be, considering the diminutive height of her mother, and just as thin. Her eyes, Sith, were perhaps the most noticeable, and they were also the least concealing of her truer nature. "Fancy arriving home nearly simultaneous with you."

"Pity I don't believe in coincidences."

Zaavik Perl

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Cold snap. Zaavik froze mid-stride as an unfamiliar voice slithered into his ears. A split-second past audible perception was all the time it took to identify it. Minute hairs on the back of his neck went rigid, stood at attention. Feet consolidated their positions, planting firmly against the tile to stand straight rather than lean in against an unfinished step. As she appeared, he turned to face her slowly. Head-on, square, stalwart against her continued words. Zaavik's single magmatic iris made eye-contact, reluctance masked by feigned insouciance.

Only for a single beat did it stray to scan her up and down. She wasn't at all what he expected. Not haglike, dirty, or even sinister. It only occurred to him within instant hindsight that his presumptuous image was tainted by a pre-existing bias. How she appeared looked more- The concept evaded him momentarily. Deliberate, was the word. Not due to any flaws, but rather his own intuition. Had Aradia not told him what she was, it might have startled him more than the faint unsettling it achieved. It would have felt genuine too, no doubt. That face she wore was the façade she wanted him to see, he figured. Then again, if she had looked exactly as he had envisioned, that would have likely still been the case.

Damn shifter.

"You're shorter than I expected," he remarked in spite of her truthfully generous height. Rounded-vowel eloquence from his vestigial Zeltronian accent contrasted his rough appearance. That soothing voice seemed almost artificial when emanating from a face that seemed more likely to mug someone than read them a poem. Opening with a quip disregarded everything she'd said to him, and added to his illusion of being unbothered. Zaavik couldn't change shape, but no part of this masquerade was a game unfamiliar to him.

"I know where she is," he dismissed, finally acknowledging being accosted.

"What's it to you, anyway?" he challenged in regards to her observation. A metal hand slapped his shoulder sidelong, brushing dust and sand into the floor. Granules clicked against the ground with a quiet hiss. Eye-contact didn't break, he knew exactly what he'd done. "Next are you gonna tell me you don't believe in minding your business, either?" Belligerence was his most reliable defense mechanism. Something in him wasn't going to let him so readily look this spook in the eyes and pretend to be amicable. Even if he'd promised Aradia otherwise.

Too much rancor had built itself up for this inevitable encounter. It wanted to be noticed.

 

[Vesta]

In all honesty she had little to base her expectations of him on, but the rather petulant behavior was something she had at least assumed he'd share with her apprentice. Unfortunately for him, however, she didn't enjoy either youth's attitude, and she especially didn't take to his behavior in her own home. "Anyone else.. and I don't think your mouth would still be attached to your face..." She muttered under her breath, loud enough perhaps for him to make out if he cared to try to listen close enough - she didn't seem to care whether he could hear her or not. The master-apprentice relationship she had cultivated with Darth Daiara had been a difficult one, there'd been several road bumps and several had been of her own making, so it was well within her best interests not to lash out at Zaavik Perl unprovoked - and even then she was rather certain it'd need to be an egregious issue for her apprentice not to turn tail and run in such a hypothetical.

"Everything that affects me or my apprentice is my business." She said evenly.

Making a sweeping gesture with her right hand towards the walls of the estate that they stood within, eyebrows raising expectantly, Vesta tilted her head to the side and blinked - as if to wordlessly state the obvious, that this was her home and that he was her guest. "Usually I ignore the two of you when you come and go, you in particular, but I don't typically come from what I suspect is the same place." She prattled on, her arms crossing under her chest, as she took a step or two towards him - though she minded a gap between them, she didn't quite like the picture it would paint if Aradia were to wake up for some force-forsaken reason and happen upon them, even though there wasn't a single hair on his head or a patch of skin on his body that she found even the slightest bit attractive.

Red eyes searched over him, from his feet to his head, and she didn't even bother to try to restrain the frown of contempt that stretched across her face. She let her gaze fall directly into his, as if she was looking for something, and then spoke with what quickly appeared to be an interest in his reaction. "I hope I didn't murder one of your friends, assuming you have any, that is." Vesta offered, coolly. In truth she didn't expect any of the younglings she'd murdered to have been at all attached to either Aradia or Zaavik, tangentially or otherwise, but the man Aradia had described to her was someone who was searching for a darker road just as her apprentice was, in a way she was testing the waters.

See if he'd actually fallen, or if he'd just fallen for the girl.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Hard to argue with that first point, although part of him still wanted to try. Zaavik's continued presence on this estate had been facilitated by nothing more the shifter's graciousness. If you could really call it that. Such a privilege with no obvious contention was suspicious to say the least. He'd always assumed it was for Aradia's sake, and had been content to leave it there, despite his incredulity. It was that, or it'd simply been fortuitous. Though, it was hard to imagine that even her Master was exempt from Aradia's rougher edges.

Every step Mori took toward Zaavik saw him turn his chin up inch by inch. As much as he wanted to step back, keep the distance unchanged, he had a notion that was exactly the kind of subtle inflection of fear she was looking for. Both feet remained still, yet he wasn't at all at ease about her getting any closer. It was either enmity or lechery, and neither of those could be met with anything less than a blade. Despite the brewing conspiracy to do it anyway, putting plasma through this thing was low on his list of essential to-dos. It even found its way into the rarely used part of his brain that staved off the detrimental impulses.

For now, anyway.

Vesta's final sentiment evoked a glower from Zaavik. "So, you caught me, and that's the worst you've got? Gloating and baiting?" He scoffed. No denial of where he'd been. That jig was up, no use holding onto it. Instead, he took the crumbling of his deception with adversative grace. "I expected more from a Sith Lord." Scowl became mocking grin. One would be forgiven if they didn't think he'd heard her muttering with how hard he pushed it. He did. Circumstance within the complicated triangle of love, hatred, and mentorship gave him a buffer of consequence that he was willing to test in his usual reckless fashion.

"I hope you did," he contended, meeting her contemptuous look with an expression just as equally derisive. Both of his hands balled into involuntary fists. "The fewer people there are inclined to come for me, the better."

 

[Vesta]

Expectations had always been her downfall, she supposed. Maybe he had thought more of her, in some manner or another, and it appeared she hadn't quite lived up to whatever image he had conjured in his head from what little he had appeared to learn from her apprentice, not that she minded. Disappointment in this way meant he still didn't know nearly as much of her as she did of him, though the blame for that was likely at the feet of the people who spilled every last ounce of detail she needed to piece together the puzzle that was Zaavik Perl. Certainly she didn't know his motivations, beyond the emotions and rebellious streak that drove him, but she didn't need to - keeping the subjects of her attention uncontaminated was paramount in ensuring she never let them get the upper hand on her.

She had learned that with her previous apprentice more recently.

"If you were so keen to visit the ilk you ran from, then perhaps there is more in store for the man my apprentice speaks so fondly of." She answered, seeming to ignore his insult, internalizing the words instead. She cast a glance towards the direction of the girl's room, willing her expression to take on something that resembled curiosity. "She tells me you are more interested in walking down the same road as her, though, looking at you," Mori explained, turning her gaze back towards him with open contempt, "I don't quite see the person she described to me." She added with the wrinkling of her nose, the look on her face shifting to disgust or something of the sort.

"Just another pretender, promises of becoming something you won't."

Her expression softened, neutral now, and the hint of curiosity returned but only at the edges this time. "I'll be frank, I don't think you're willing to do what she is - has been - doing." She said with a shrug and arch of her brow, almost gloatingly. "Of course if I hadn't noticed your little venture.. and the rather unfortunate timing of it all.. I might have been inclined to just ignore it. Let the two of you make your own mistakes." There was purpose in her eyes now, which were trained on him, glancing between his face and where he kept his hands, like some kind of predator. "But I don't believe in coincidences, as I'm sure you understand, and I don't trust anyone." Menace was there, if even only implied, and her eyes narrowed as she took a step towards him again, the sound of static - of electricity running through the walls - becoming mute, like sound was being kept at bay by the tension building in the air.

"So I'll make you an offer, one which will make my life and yours just a little bit simpler."

Zaavik Perl

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Whatever she meant by there being more in store for him, he wasn't sure, but the phrase felt ominous. Zaavik's fingers twitched, servos in his manufactured digits whirring as the anticipation to free his weapon bled even into artificial nerves. His indeterminate expectations shifted when Vesta cast a glance toward where Aradia still was. Solitary eye narrowed with perturbated understanding. She would stoop that low, he realized. Hard to imagine that Sith were above very many courses of action. For Zaavik, at least. There was an irony in the presence of his lingering Jedi-influenced view of them when considering his relationship. It wasn't at all lost on him, either. He knew first hand even the depths Darth Daiara had and still would go to.

I don't quite see the person she described to me. Just another pretender, promises of becoming something you won't."

"Hah. Big talk from a shapeshifter. You come up with that face yourself?" Disgust was mutual. "So, what, did she tell you I was a nice boy? That I was kind and sincere? That I was excited and enthusiastic about the prospect of eating lighting the first time I rub you the wrong way?" He still hadn't forgotten the marks that had left, nor had he forgotten his personal vow to feed the cauterizing recompense for that down the Shifter Lord's throat.

Zaavik grinned in an inordinately punchable fashion. It was his signature, derisive mien. One that gave the twenty year old an immature and boyish air of self-satisfaction in having irritated someone. "If my reputation has deceived you, well, what can I say?" came his mocking rhetorical. "I was trained for that." In any other circumstance, it might have come off as an admission of guilt were it not abundantly clear that he was trying to push her buttons. Despite that, or perhaps in spite of that, the Shifter continued to explain he position.

Of course the Sith lord didn't think he was genuine. He wasn't. If Zaavik had picked up on one thing, though, it was that she wasn't unwilling to come around to the possibility. Otherwise she would have, or at least tried, to kill him by now. No doubt it was Aradia's influence that kept that from happening. He recalled she'd said as much herself when the prospect of Vesta's tutelage had come up. That lifeline would be unceremoniously cut if Aradia were to find out about this, though. That was the only thing that kept him bound in this odd standoff. It was even more restricting than the possibility of the Shifter lashing out.

He had much deeper fears than that of Darth Mori.

"I don't trust anyone."

"How can you?" Zaavik posed knowingly. "Woman like you? People gotta be crawling over eachother to get to you." As Vesta took a step forward, Zaavik's chin pointed toward his chest in retreat as his posture over-corrected for distance. "To put a blade through your chest," he clarified. That grin from before returned in with vestigial force. A jester amongst the gallows with an audience of two, and only half of it thought the remarks were at all amusing.

"So I'll make you an offer, one which will make my life and yours just a little bit simpler."

A raised brow regarded Mori through the silence. He hadn't expected an offer. In fact, he'd assumed this confrontation would be a brick wall to a brick wall. Looked like there was more of that willingness to come around than he initially figured. "What offer?"

 

[Vesta]

It was so simple, it always was.

Pretend to know the truth of the matter, offer vague gestures towards the things people opened themselves up to, and they folded like a deck of cards. Oh, there might be fallacious jabs at her ego, and hollow attempts to guide the direction of conversation towards another way, but she always found what she was looking for - always got her way. She shook her head, a small grin peaking through at the corner of her lips where they grew just a tad bit more tight then the rest of her relaxed face, and submitted to the humor he was poking at her with by way of a stifled laugh, a chuckle or a giggle - something between the two. She contemplated the thought of acknowledging his striking a sore spot, but she decided against it - she already had exactly what she wanted, there wasn't any use in giving him a way to provoke her later, assuming he didn't realize how close to the truth he had been.

"Charming, just like she said." She said dryly, her restrained grin an open smile now. She tilted her head forward, then placed her hands on her hips - feigning the notion that she might have been coming up with her offer on the spot, a means of improvisation rather than a plot. "I.. my colleagues and I will be visiting your lovely Jedi temple on Coruscant. I've been asked to allow myself to go without.. restraint.. and I am certain the rest of my more prominent allies have as well." Mori noted, absolutely nonchalant in the matter despite spilling what was likely secrets of the greatest importance to the Sith with whom she belonged. "She, Aradia of course, will be going with me. The girl will be reluctant to leave you behind if what she has told me is true. Fortunately for you, I am .. reluctant.. to leave you out of my sight for any extended period of time." She explained.

"You will be coming, then."

It was said like she expected him to just comply, though it was obvious she anticipated some degree of pushback based on how she carried on anyway without regard for the likelihood of his impending protestations. "Or I will inform your little bird how her devious little worm of a boyfriend intends to betray her and her master to his friends." She said, reciting the lie without missing a beat - like she had practiced the line in a mirror for ages. In truth she nearly suspected that was his ploy, to be the idiot she knew lovers to be and double-cross them in an effort to pry Aradia out from under her. She smirked at the thought, the look on their faces when neither turned out to be who they thought they were. Her gaze lifted as she tilted her head back up, staring him in the eyes.

"You won't even need to kill anyone, just as long as you keep the girl safe while she witnesses history."

".. And then maybe I'll forget about Jakku. Maybe point you towards a Sith lord who matches your crassness, if you intend to keep up this charade of becoming one of us."

Zaavik Perl

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"Charming, just like she said."

The urge to roll his eyes wasn't easily resisted. He tried, fought it, and lost. Eyelids twitched under the strain. He didn't need her tone or the look on her face to tell that had been a jab. Whatever he had, it wasn't charm, that much he'd figured on his own a long time ago.

Having that step up on her hardly mattered, if it ever did to begin with, once she began to explain her offer. It was hard to hide his disbelief. A flurry of blinks fluttered over his single eye, features alluding skepticism, though it just as quickly shifted into something more inquisitive. Visit was the word she used, but even an idiot could see the meaning between the lines. Sith didn't visit. Last he heard, the Empire was in shambles, and he'd only heard of and very briefly seen the Sith Order that lingered in the unknown regions.

He didn't let himself think about the very very select few people he regretted leaving behind. His mind occupied itself otherwise with analytics. Did they really have the strength, or even the means to attack the Jedi temple? Coruscant was an entirely different animal than Jakku. It was either hubris on their part, or he was missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. What was there to miss? If they were crazy enough to fall on the swords of the triumvirate, he might not be too surprised, truthfully.

Regardless, it appeared if he didn't want the Shifter to spill about Jakku or concoct some fabrication that Aradia was probably inclined to believe, he didn't have choice. Zaavik squinted, not satisfied or perhaps convinced about his lack of a choice. "Lets say I believe that you and your- friends are even capable of that. Why tell me? For someone who doesn't trust me, you don't seem too bothered about running your mouth."

 

[Vesta]

hush​

The girl would have figured her out by now, understood the reason for this degree of openness - it was an intrinsic quality of any proper Sith to withhold any information that might compromise the advantage they might've gained if it could be worked around by a clever enemy. For her to have revealed something that could deliver such a shock as the notion of an assault on the Jedi Temple on Coruscant of all places did would only mean one of two things; either she had been corrupted by arrogance and believed the boy stupid, or she had already taken the probability of his betrayal into account. Though she supposed she hadn't quite made it clear which Sith, his words were evidence enough that he hadn't known quite as much about the events that transpired on Jakku as he might've liked - though she supposed it was likely more to do with her family name rather than the obscurity of the New Sith Order.

She clasped her hands together at the front of her waist, tilting her head to the side questioningly. "Oh? I thought you were better than that." She retorted in a sugary voice, mocking his earlier insult to his expectations of her behavior. "More clever, anyway." She muttered with the roll of her eyes. "I returned from Rhand before Jakku, dear." Mori said, referring to the failed Confederate incursion into the Maw smugly. "Surely you understand what I am a part of now?" She asked rhetorically, though she was honestly uncertain if he knew quite enough about the outside galaxy beyond his little bubble almost wholly encapsulated by his lover. "Coruscant, its Temple, and everything on it will burn. Nothing you say to anyone will change that, except revealing to my apprentice that my cautionary tale of treacherous lovers is more fact than it is fiction."

She shrugged.

"Or perhaps you'd rather I tell her what you've been up to, and she joins the New Sith and the Maw on Coruscant alone."

She seemed pleased at the thought, tilting her head to a side with a teasing smile.

"This is how the game works, though I'm unsurprised you don't understand. The pieces are already in motion, there is nothing you can do to change what will happen on Coruscant besides maybe trying to kill me now - if you could even succeed at that, though, I suspect you would've already tried.. and it still wouldn't have kept the rest of my friends, as you call them, from purging the galaxy of your Order and its hope."

"So you will come with us, you will keep her safe, or I will make sure that she hates you more than I hate my own ex." She said bluntly, pivoting to the side. "Or are you still questioning whether or not the notion that you might warn someone ahead of time hasn't occurred to me?"

Zaavik Perl