Private Artifice

[Thessaly Veruna]

The chair in which she sat was oversized, but its arms — though starting half her width from her resting spot — swooped back in for her arms to rest. It gave the chair an almost vase-like silhouette. Within its circular shape, Thessaly sat aright, posture pristine and gaze aloof.

A young former-handmaiden looked her way, but Thessaly barely acknowledged her. Despite the snub, the girl still smiled. She was ambitious. Good. Ambition was useful when housed in one so inexperienced. Beside the young woman sat her new husband, the former Veruna guard Isembard Roan. He had taken to his new life of luxury quite well. Thessaly saw to it that he was persistently rewarded for his compliance.

Before then, in the arena below, bloodsport played out. Muscular, sweat soaked warriors of various species spilled on another's blood for the pleasure of the onlookers. Eliad was a vile place. But she had come to understand its utility. Barbarians playing aristocrats were just as useful as the opposite, just like her brother.

She was not watching the blood running in the colosseum, instead her eyes were focused on logistical read outs and news reports from Naboo. The attack on Genarius had accomplished its purpose. Port Veruna's primary shipping customers were struggling to acquire necessary tabana gas, delaying each shipment and increasing the eventual price tag. The price of imports on Naboo was going up. The exports on Naboo were filling storehouses, awaiting ships that might be too expense to take the goods to customers.

Oh, Naboo had plenty of food. It was just all their own produce. Changing everyone's preferences and desired cuisine was leaving the citizens of Naboo either disgruntled and fed, or disgruntled, fed and broke. Either way, Aurelian's popularity was taking a hit.

Her attention was drawn subtly by movement to her left.

"My lady. Your guests have arrived," said a gaunt looking Twi'lek man, a servant of some repute.

"Leave us," Thessaly said, with a half-hearted wave of the hand.

The Roans stood. As did the other guests to her pulvinar. Soon, all, including the servants, had left her alone.

A chill ran down her spine. A thrill rose in her core. And she stood, slowly, and turned her head only enough that her eyes could turn look askance at her guests.

"Welcome to Eliad. And congratulations on your success on Genarius. Please. Sit. Drink. If the sport enchants you, by all means, indulge."

Arris Windrun Vestra Tane​

 

[Vestra Tane]

Tag: Arris Windrun | Thessaly Veruna

Vestra hated how naturally this came to her, sometimes.

"Welcome to Eliad. And congratulations on your success on Genarius. Please. Sit. Drink. If the sport enchants you, by all means, indulge.

She wore robes worth more than the shuttle she and Arris had flown in on - all red and gold, loose and flow-y, the custom for her homeworld - and slinked into one of the the oddly-shaped chairs with a predatory ease. It was the only thing she had to keep herself from going insane; the predator's aspect. More social than literal, for the time being. But that could always change, if she grew sufficiently bored.

She took a glass of whatever had been laid out for them - something overpriced and tasteless, she assumed - and raised it in a toast.

"You have our thanks. It was a pleasant and profitable endeavor, and certainly the first of many."

She wondered if Arris could sense her irritation.

She wondered if Arris enjoyed it, too.

Now she lounged, and sipped.

​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Tags: Thessaly Veruna | Vestra Tane

Arris arrived with Vestra on Eliad. A world she had never heard of before. Their lengthy travel to the galaxy's edge was one of silence, or at least, Arris was never one to make small talk during space travel.

She broke decorum - betrayed all expectation. For Arris did not wear her usual spacer fit... Her trademark leather jacket and slacks were nowhere to be found. Instead, the blonde's typically unkempt ponytail was let down, revealing thick waves and length that fell well past her shoulders. She wore a suit, nothing fancy, just a grey jacket left open over a white shirt underneath, and matching grey pants tucked over black boots. The long jacket sleeves were let down, and at a glance, her dark cybernetic hands looked like sleek gloves.

The Talusian took the offered seat, but slid her beverage towards Vestra. Instead, she drew a cigarette and lit it.

Her attention was on the viewscreen. Bloodsports. "What - no smashball?" She complained. It was hard to tell if she was being serious.

When she looked at Thessaly, Arris blew a cloud of smoke her way. "Oh come on, you don't want to toast this. I imagine success is a fleeting joy for a woman like you... Don't you want more?"

She inhaled again and leaned forward, letting the fog roll slowly past her lips, speaking without moving her mouth.

"Do you wonder what else you can get away with?"

Arris was fake as shit. Performance for an audience of two, each with different tastes and expectations. She knew Vestra could catch the banthashit act a parsec away, but Thessaly? This was how she met the Dark Horse in the... well, flesh felt a bit inappropriate.

She leaned back, laughed, and took a third drag.

 

[Thessaly Veruna]

Thessaly's head turned, and tilted in acknowledgement of the effort that the Sith made to fit among the elite of Eliad. Her eyes lingered, but for a moment, and yet their appearance was committed to memory. They were pleasant enough upon the eyes, in a rustic, refusing-to-be-downtrodden sort of way.

"Your thanks is accepted, but most unneeded. This is a venture by which we both profit. Platitudes are unnecessary when plain talk is best suited to forwarding our goals."

The smashball comment passed without note. And she refused to blink when the smoke stung her eyes.

"You would not be here if there was not more to accomplish," she said, eyes turning back to the data readout presented before her. With casual grace, her fingers swiped over the screen, letting the information scroll freely. She was not really reading it. Instead, she just played the game.

"My father is dead. My brother killed him. This knowledge is not public. It is known by only seven people. Aurelian. His henchman. The guard that saw it all, and the woman I employed to seduce him and get the information. Myself...and now both of you."

Her eyes lifted towards the arena, as a long blade pierced the chest of a muscular warrior, now defeated and slumping to the ground as the crowd roared. "You do understand how valuable this information is..."

She looked at the Sith, eyes narrowing.

"...and how timing of its release is paramount."

Vestra Tane Arris Windrun​

 

[Vestra Tane]

Tag: Arris Windrun | Thessaly Veruna

[...] the arena, as a long blade pierced the chest of a muscular warrior, now defeated and slumping to the ground as the crowd roared.

Sloppy.

Vestra sipped again from her glass, lazily eyeing the ongoing spectacle. Not that it provided her with much entertainment. She liked a good brawl as much as the next lunatic, of course, but...

This sort of thing was always so fake, to her. Like a slicer watching a bad holoflick, she couldn't help but single out the things that were unrealistic. A flourish here that was clearly trained because it looked good to the crowd, a technique there that only worked when your enemy was playing along...

It struck her as something that was in slightly poor taste, to make show-fighters duel to the death.

And worse, it was boring. It was good Thessaly was here, then -

"My father is dead. My brother killed him. This knowledge is not public. It is known by only seven people. Aurelian. His henchman. The guard that saw it all, and the woman I employed to seduce him and get the information. Myself...and now both of you."

The political ramifications did not escape Vestra. Chaos in the hyperlanes, plummeting support for the status quo, an interstellar nation rocked by doubt...all very profitable, and she cared almost nothing for any of it in the moment. Now the SIth leaned forward in her chair, towards Thessaly, and her grin went from easy-going to nearly feral.

"So. Does our little murderer have a birthday coming up? A wedding, maybe? I think, if we want to go for maximum instability, we ought to pick a special day."

This was a chance to ruin some rich, noble prick's life.

​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Thessaly Veruna Vestra Tane

Cybernetic eyes flicked back to the data readout that consumed the Veruna woman's attention.

To hear now that Aurelian was accused of patricide? Arris laughed, quite loudly too, enough to warrant a few stares from passersby. She dragged her cigarette again, this time down to the roach, before she shoved it into the ashtray and lit another.

"So... you want to ruin his reputation?" Arris figured. "You know, his bounty still stands, as I recall." The thought of going after it had never quite left the cyborg's mind, even if she was moving onto bigger and better things as it were.

Her head turned towards Vestra, who aired her ideas, then back to Thessaly.

"What do you need from us?" To the point as usual.

 

[Thessaly Veruna]

For a fleeting second, a predatory amusement shimmered in the depths of Thessaly's gaze. She found Windrun's directness...invigorating. A grand spectacle was indeed the most elegant choice, though Tane's birthday lacked the necessary weight. No, to unveil it on Sibylla Abrantes 's birthday would have been far more delightful — a truly delicious ruin. But precision required patience.

"No, my dear," she murmured, her voice carrying a dangerous weight. "Not a birthday. Not a celebration. We shouldn't want to be cruel without purpose. Besides, festive blood spills too...messy a political trail. True destruction isn't a sudden explosion. It's the quiet erosion of everything a man believes he owns."

She watched Windrun with an intensity that felt like a physical touch. The air between them hummed.

"My brother is a creature of the Republic's diplomacy. Imagine. A prospective ally, perhaps someone he's spent months courting, leaning across the negotiation table. Not with an accusation, but a simple, devastating inquiry. Oh...the agony of that moment."

Below the booth, droids hummed as they scoured the arena floor, erasing the visceral remains of the latest bout. As the crowd's restless roar rose, Thessaly's fingers grazed a control on her console. Sound vanished. The resulting silence was an sickly sweet hush. In the sudden void, she could hear the rhythmic thrum of her own heart and the breathing of her companions.

"I will provide the capital through a ghost corporation," she said, her eyes never leaving Windrun's. "I can pull the necessary levers to slip a new advisor into the Aurelian's future ally's inner circle. We will simply let the truth do the heavy lifting. We merely need a specialist for the role...someone with a gift for worming their way into a mind and having it act as we will."

Arris Windrun Vestra Tane​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Thessaly Veruna | Vestra Tane

Arris decided to jump the gun before Vestra could.

"Brainwashing?" She laughed. "I don't think... That is either one of our specialties." Yes, she assumed on Vestra's behalf. It just didn't seem her style.

That didn't mean there weren't candidates available. Mercy was the first one to come to mind. Her graspborn displayed an unnatural level of unquestioning loyalty, though she had never seen the source in action and doubted that Mercy was some secret mentalist all along. Besides, if the graspborn were anything to go by, the outcome might be less than desirable.

An outlier came to mind, however, in the form of Madelyn Lowe - whose name had recently come up in meetings as a 'go-to expert' on matters of ideological control.

She would approach Mercy first. Right of first refusal and all that. If nothing else, it would help to get to the bottom of her hidden talents. Barring that, it might be time to bring in outside help, assuming Vestra wasn't hiding something crafty up her sleeves.

Arris looked between them, then continued. "We have options. You'll get what you need from us."

She stopped. "I do understand this correctly, right? You want us to brainwash someone and have 'em slipped inside? Or were you expecting us to slip the brainwasher inside?"

In that case, there was an obvious solution after all. Anet Raine , recently confirmed Senator from Belazura, and secret Sith Acolyte.