Private Before The First Move

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Level 111

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

The man hit the wall harder the second time. Not because Ace needed to, but because he hadn't answered. Durasteel rang out through the narrow corridor, the sound swallowed quickly by the weight of the lower levels. No one came running. No one ever did, not down here.​

​

Ace kept one hand fisted in the front of the man's jacket, holding him upright more than anything else. The other hovered just off-center, close enough to strike again, but still. The man coughed, something wet catching in his throat. Blood, probably. His hands clawed weakly at Ace's wrist, not really trying to break free. Just reacting.​

​

"You're done." Ace said, voice level.​

​

The man shook his head quickly. Too quickly. "I--I didn't--"​

​

Ace's metallic knuckles connected with his jaw. Less force this time. More… emphasis.​

​

"Quiet."​

​

Ace's grip tightened slightly, lifting him just enough that his boots scraped against the floor.​

​

"You've been shaking down the same block for weeks." He continued, tone unchanged. "Old workers. Vendors. People who can't afford to lose anything else."​

​

His dark eyes didn't leave the man's face. They were reading, measuring, the same way he always did. Then, his head tilted slightly.​

​

"Next part matters. So think about it before you say it."​

​

The man swallowed hard, panic finally cutting through the bravado that had probably carried him this far.​

​

"I--I'll stop--"​

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"Yeah." Ace cut in. "You will. You're also going to give back what you took. Or enough of it that people stop looking over their shoulder every time you walk past. And then you're going to disappear."​

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The man blinked, confused. "Dis--?"​

​

Ace leaned in slightly. Not aggressive. Not rushed. Just close enough that the words didn't have to travel far.​

​

"If I see you again…" He said quietly. "It won't be a conversation."​

​

There was no anger or threat in his tone. Which made it worse. The man nodded fast and Ace held him there a second longer. Then he let go. The man dropped, stumbling as his boots hit properly, nearly folding before catching himself. He didn't run at first, just backed up, eyes wide, like he was still waiting for permission. Ace didn't give him any.​

​

The man bolted and footsteps faded quickly into the layered noise of the Underlevels. Silence settled back in and Ace exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulder once as if the whole thing had been… routine. Because it had. More and more, it had.​

​

His gaze shifted, scanning the alley without turning his head fully.​

​

"You're late." He said after a moment, voice carrying just enough to reach without forcing it.​

​

He didn't react outwardly but his attention had shifted. Locked onto a presence he hadn't acknowledged until now, one he'd felt it before he saw her. He didn't turn right away, or rush to face her. Just stood there a second longer, letting the moment settle into place.​

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"What is it this time?"​

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Not what do you need. Not what's the mission. Just that. Because lately? There was always something, and it was never small.​

​

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound​

Slow metal steps announced her after everything else. Of course, she read like a fusion bomb in the Force; screaming with anger and guilt. Something was up. This was unstable, even for Arris Windrun, the neurotic left hand of the Covenant.

"No hello?" She asked dryly. Of course, her smooth demeanor would never give it away.

"Our golden boy has been making moves. We're in a state of... Truce," she gestured vaguely, as if that word was in the alley with them. "With the Republic."

She knew Mercy hated the idea. The titan always preferred flash and action over the dull movements of spycraft and political intrigue. It wasn't that she couldn't play the game. Arris knew she could. She suspected that Mercy preferred to wrap her hands around the problem and squeeze instead. Maybe that's why Star-Arm had ran off to the Holy Worlds again to bum it out.

Things have been quiet in the core with Arris left in charge. But it wasn't the sort of quiet that left you feeling relaxed. Quite the opposite. Everyone was getting restless.

"What was that guy all about?" She referred to his earlier moment.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Level 111

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Ace didn't respond to her tone. He stood where he was, attention settled more on what pressed outward from her than on what she chose to say. It wasn't subtle. It never was with her. The weight of it carried ahead of the words: anger, guilt. Seemed that was her permanent emotional state these days.

Then she mentioned him Golden Boy. Lysander. Ace's gaze shifted, and this time he turned fully to face her, not sharply, but enough to bring her into focus.

A truce. He took that in without reacting outwardly. It made sense. The way things had been moving, the pressure building in the Core, something had to give before it snapped. If it was Lysander contributing to that pause, then it wasn't wasted.

"...I heard." He said after a beat, voice steady. "He's on Naboo right now, yeah?"

Naboo meant something deliberate: not force yet, and that sat better with him than the alternative, even if he didn't say it.

When she asked about the man, his attention drifted briefly down the lane in the direction he'd fled toward.

"An idiot." He answered. "He'd been hanging around this block for a while. Making things harder than they needed to be for people who already don't have much."

That was all he offered. No elaboration beyond that, and no attempt to frame it as anything more than it was.

He shifted, taking a step closer. Not closing the distance in a way that challenged her, just enough that the conversation didn't feel stretched across the space between them.

"I'm guessing Lysander isn't on Naboo just to break bread." He said, tone unchanged. "What's the Triumvirate planning. Or, what are you planning."

He paused, hooking his thumb and index to his chin, then lowered his gaze in thought.

"Can't imagine Star-Arm's happy with things being quiet."

He left it there. Waiting for what she chose to say next.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound​

Arris grinned, if only a little.

"Yeah, I guess you can say I'm trying to move some pieces. A welcome home present for when she's back."

Or a peace offering. It was hard to tell what mood Mercy would find herself in with the cyborg's behavior, but action against the Republic? That could carry the Covenant a long, long way. Assuming the rest of them weren't getting too lazy playing gods with the people of the core.

"House Thul," she began. "Some hotshot rising in popularity reached out to us. He wants someone to back his play... The king of Alderaan has been busy. Missing?" She shrugged. "Not quite sure... But their queen? Acting ruler in his place. She's apparently a Jedi. Does the name Serys mean anything to you?" She asked.

Naturally, it was time for her to light a cigarette. She took a nice, long drag. Maybe a little longer than usual just to tease him.

Despite her off-putting attitude and seeming laxity, this was Arris Windrun, the woman who sank Edic Bar.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Level 111

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

He'd asked about Lysander's movement on Naboo, hat the bigger purpose was, and she'd let it slide past without touching it. She didn't answer or deflect, she just... left it. But he didn't push it, didn't mean it sat clean though.

If this was what they were calling a partnership, then gaps like that mattered. Not enough to challenge her over, not yet, but enough to file away and remember. So he let it go for now.

His attention settled back on her as she started laying it out: House Thul, Alderaan, a missing king, and a queen stepping into the vacuum. A Jedi. Ace shifted slightly, lowering his arms before folding them across his chest, posture tightening just a fraction as the shape of it came together.

"Serys?" He said, giving a small shake of his head. "No. I never really ran with the Jedi like that. Can probably count on my fingers how many I actually know."

He went quiet after that. Not disengaged, just thinking. Ace's gaze drifted off her for a moment, settling somewhere lower in the alley as she lit the cigarette. The glow caught briefly in his periphery. The drag lingered longer than it needed to.

"...Okay." He said eventually, voice measured. "So. Shadow politics. That's new."

His eyes lifted back to hers then, steady again, taking in the whole of it: the explanation, the framing, the way she was carrying it. A moment passed before he continued.

"Why do we care about Alderaan? What's the advantage?"

He didn't move from where he stood, arms still folded, weight settled evenly.

"Last I checked, this wasn't what we were aiming for." He went on. "You said we'd point the Covenant at tyrants. Butchers. People worth putting down."

There was no bite in his words, the calm edge remained. Ace continued to hold her gaze.

"So help me understand why this isn't just… a distraction or a waste of time and resources."

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound​

Ah, well, he didn't know of her either. She thought to tease him - 'What did you do when you spent time with the Jedi, then? Nothing useful, apparently.' But she let that thought go.

Her apprentice had come a long way in such a short time, which seemed to be a marker of the Covenant's success; a new generation of Sith to replace the old. But Acier, like her, wasn't exactly a Sith... not like Mercy or Vestra, anyway. At least, that's what they told themselves.

The cyborg's attention snapped back to the present when Ace dug into the Covenant's motives for Alderaan. It was clear from her seconds of recalculation that she was distracted by her own thoughts.

"It's Alderaan," she said plainly as if that alone was the answer, but she did elaborate for his sake. "The same families have been ruling that world for what... thousands of years? Longer? Regime after regime changes, and yet an Organa still rules from a throne." It was the same blanket problem that 'justified' their invasion of Tapani, but only this time they weren't plotting mass murder.

"We want to reveal that corruption, and how what the Republic is doing isn't for the greater good. It's for their own personal gain, just like everyone else... They, like the rulers of Alderaan, expect us to arrive and conquer - to prove that we are the enemy they say we are."

Well, they weren't exactly wrong, but that was the whole point of their new strategy.

"What if instead we come in and support fair and popular governance?" A rare look at her political literacy. She smirked, resting an elbow on a crossed arm as she smoked. "Tie the corruption of Organa and the ancient houses to the Jedi, and show people that's what the Republic came to protect."

House Thul may be their way in, but their newfound client was just a tool. "We support this guy long enough to get a foot in the door, figure out what's really going on with Alderaan, and make the right move."

Mercy may hate the method, but Arris suspected she'd revel in the outcome. Messing with people was a hobby. Especially when those people were uptight and undeserving nobles.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Level 111

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Ace let her explanation settle without interruption, his attention staying on her even as the smoke drifted between them. The longer she spoke, the less resistance there was in his expression. Not because he accepted all of it outright, but because he could see the shape of what she meant. What stood out first wasn't the politics. It was the absence of open war.

"No fleets over cities." He said after a moment, almost as if testing the thought as he spoke it. "No campaign built on burning your way in."

There was no approval in his tone exactly, but neither was there objection. His gaze moved briefly down the alley, then back. Ace shifted slightly, arms still folded across his chest, considering the thing from another angle.

"Moving through influence, using fractures already there, putting pressure in the right places and letting the system bend on its own." He said, eyes narrowed just slightly as he verbalized his thoughts.

But then his focus turned. "If House Thul is the way in, what stops them from becoming the same problem once they're in power?"

It wasn't skepticism for its own sake. It was the practical question that followed naturally.

"You expose one ruling class and replace it with another... what makes this one different besides being useful to us?"

He let that hang there for a moment before continuing.

"And past Alderaan, past undermining the Republic. The Jedi… what does it give us? More reach in the Core? More control? More room to move against people who actually need putting down?"

That, more than anything, seemed to be where his mind had gone. The method itself didn't trouble him. The purpose behind it did.

"The Republic, they're not tyrants or butchers. Useless and weak, maybe. But they shouldn't be the top of our list right now." He added.

It wasn't defense of the Republic and its affiliates. More like prioritization of the real problems. Ace's gaze held hers steadily.

"If we're building leverage in the Core to move against something worse later… that I understand. But if this is just spending time trying to prove a point to the Republic…" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm still not seeing the return."

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

Arris listened, though there was a certain inattentiveness, as if she knew something he didn't. Still, she waited for him to finish.

"First - Thul is a temporary thing. A foot in the door, yeah? You should really read between the lines." She also could've been more forward, but... "Anyway, I think this time it's me seeing shit you're not."

She tossed a holopuck onto the ground. It flickered on, displaying the image of Aurelian Veruna, King of Naboo.

"Know this guy?" Genuine question. She had no idea about Ace's connections. "I've run into him a few times. Class act," that last part she said sarcastically. "Last was on the Trinity." Their play on that luxury liner not long ago.

It was then that Lysander snuck in a deal with the High Republic's Chancellor. The very detail that made the plot on Alderaan possible in the first place.

"It's funny, this guy and I were talking, right? And in all of it, he knew what I was. What I had done. And he offered me amnesty." She chewed on the word with more than a little disgust.

Her tone shifted, she tossed the cigarette on the ground, and destroyed it underfoot. "Sweetened the pot, too." She stepped closer, dropping her tone just a little. "Threw a title in." She stepped back and snickered. "Me, a noblewoman, could you imagine?"

Well, technically, Mercy had named her Princess of Empress Teta - a joke, a punishment, a test.

Her amusement faded there, replaced by a scowl. She crossed her arms. "Useless, weak...? Naw, Ace. It's a playground for birthrights and elitism. Where democracy can be sidestepped on a whim."

She glanced off to the side. "Do you think I deserve amnesty?" She asked.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Level 111

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Ace let out a slow breath through his nose when she told him she was seeing things he wasn't. The frustration barely showed, more a faint tightening at the jaw than anything overt. Maybe she believed that. Maybe there was some truth in it. He wasn't convinced.

His attention shifted when the holopuck hit the ground between them. His eyes tracked the flicker of light as the projection rose, and the moment the image resolved into Aurelian Veruna something in his presence stirred sharply in the Force. A flare of disdain.

"Unfortunately." The word came flat after she'd asked if Ace knew him.

Naboo. After the siege, after learning Sibylla had been hurt on Corellia. Veruna's posture. His entitlement. The way he carried birthright like it excused arrogance. Ace remembered standing there thinking, with a coldness that surprised even him at the time, that if the man hadn't meant everything to Sibylla he might have reduced him to ash where he stood.

The thought passed. Then Arris mentioned the Trinity and his gaze flicked toward her. For the briefest moment, memory hit harder than he expected. A corridor under emergency light. Sibylla's voice. Lorn. The duel. And the two soldiers. Something raw moved through the Force before he crushed it down almost as quickly as it surfaced, burying it where he'd kept it.

His expression never shifted much. Only his silence did. He listened while she spoke of amnesty and Aurelian's offer. One brow lifted faintly at that, disbelief edged with something closer to dry incredulity. He could believe Aurelian would make an offer like that.

When she started talking about elitism, democracy bent on a whim, something in it struck closer than he expected.

"Yeah." He said, glancing off for a moment. "Tell me about it."

His hand closed once at his side before folding back in again. If men like Veruna represented the Republic's higher ideals, if those at the top made exceptions for themselves while preaching law to everyone else... then maybe Arris wasn't entirely wrong. Maybe the rot sat deeper. Maybe the Republic needed reshaping before it deserved defending. That thought settled in him uncomfortably.

Then the conversation shifted. This display of vulnerability again. It was becoming a pattern with her. She would move from doctrine to something raw with almost no warning, like strategy was only ever one layer over a wound she kept half covered... and it bothered him.

Not only because vulnerability made him uneasy. But also he never knew whether she meant it, or whether she was placing something in his hands to see what he'd do with it.

Her question hung there. Did she deserve amnesty? Ace looked back at her, brow lifting slightly, as though the answer should have been obvious.

"No." He said it plainly. "You don't. What happened on Coruscant. That purge order." His gaze didn't move. "You lost that chance."

Then he folded his arms again and let out a quieter breath, something closer to acceptance than regret. Tapani moved through his thoughts. Then Coruscant. The Trinity. Balmorra. One after another.

When he spoke again his voice had lowered. "If it means anything…"

He paused, eyes dropping briefly before lifting back to hers.

"None of us deserve amnesty."

There was no bitterness in it, only something long accepted. The kind of conclusion reached and revisited too many times to argue with anymore. What they had done? What he had done? It had never been part of a life that ended clean. He had made peace with that before she ever asked.

A sacrifice for something larger. Whether that made it noble or tragic, he no longer knew.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

Arris thought on what he said for a moment, eyes cast to the ground. When they looked up again, they found her apprentice's face; there was little change. This was not a woman wrapped in guilt or shame any longer.

"Yeah. My point exactly." She agreed.

"The Republic is a problem. You think too much about these things at their whole, Ace," once again a lesson in Windrun's political literacy. "You're afraid of people getting hurt. I get that."

She paced slowly, if only to give her body something to do. She thought and talked better when on the move.

"You know - I used to be a bit of a swoop jock. Sure, I was a runner, so I didn't get to participate in any of the big races, but I had a bike of my own, and I remember tweaking it every night. Always trying to get a little more out of it. I was so concerned with performance that I didn't consider that my gains were also destroying the bike. Slowly, not quite visibly, and the funny thing is my mentor, a mechanic, knew the whole fucking time. Didn't tell me until one day my engine blew and the bike threw me. I was pissed, y'know? I asked him - "why the hell didn't you help me?!" - and he said," she had to stop and consider it verbatim, and answered in a mock masculine tone. "'Cus, Arris... It wouldn't have changed the way you look at your bike. But this does."

If they just tried to go in and fix the Republic, as so many idealistic politicians do, then people will never see why the system was broken, or the actions that contributed. "They need to see it break, Ace." Or else they will continue believing that every problem was some expert's solution away from being solved. "They need to feel something when they look at the people responsible, and actually think about it."

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Level 111

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Ace watched her pace. Followed the rhythm of it, the way she worked through things when she needed her body to keep up with her thoughts. He'd seen it before.

Arris's analogy resonated. He didn't interrupt or pick at it while she was still building it out. Systems pushed past their limits. Damage that didn't show until it did. People not changing how they saw something until it failed them hard enough to leave a mark. He understood that intimately.

A slow breath left him through his nose and his jaw tightened slightly. For a moment he didn't say anything. Aurelian's face came back to him again. Ace imagined the offer. He could see it too easily - Aurelian's posture, the ease, that quiet certainty that it was his to give. Like none of it touched him. Like the rules bent around people like him without ever needing to be questioned. Arris's point didn't feel like a stretch after that.

"…Yeah." He said finally, flat and thoughtful

But he wasn't comfortable.

"They won't see it until it breaks."

The words came easier than he liked and he glanced off for a second, then back.

"If that's what it takes…" He added, slower now, like he was weighing it as he said it. "Then I get why you'd let it happen."

That was as close to agreement as he'd give. His hand flexed once at his side before stilling again, it didn't mean he was settled. Ace's gaze held hers, something quieter sitting underneath it.

"But... once it starts going." He said. "You're not going to be able to control what comes out the other side."

He hoped she understood this.

"People don't stop and think about who caused it. They grab whatever looks like it'll hold. Sometimes that's worse."

He let that sit there between them, biting his jaw and turning his head - absently looking at nothing in particular.

"But, I guess that's what you want. The thing they grab on to. For it to be us."

For once, there was uncertainty in his tone. Like he understood the logic, but something still alive within him resisted.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

"No."

Maybe Mercy would disagree, but unless she interjected to take control, then Arris wasn't concerned with that.

"We're not gonna step in," She clarified.

There was an almost lighter air to her when she said it. Clarity in her voice. This wasn't some angle she was presenting for a larger scheme.

She settled in her steps until finally, she came to a standstill.

"The Republic will face itself, and then our attention ends there - exposure is enough, yeah?"

Arris was a reluctant conqueror at heart. The Core... What she had done in the Emperor's image, his voice; that haunted her. Never again. All she wanted to do was grab Kirie and Nilira and go, but....

One metal hand balled into a fist.

She couldn't walk away from all that power without satisfying it for herself. And in that, she was vulnerable again. Arris Windrun was cracked glass.

Her eyes found Acier and they were angry, but not hateful.

"I just... I want them to leave it all alone." Her voice would be shaking if that was possible.

She missed that, actually. The imperfections in her tone, the cracks in her voice, the inability to tell a perfect lie; raw emotion bleeding into her syllables. She missed feeling short of breath... Impulsive sounds. Laughter.

Arris Windrun mourned for the person she was. A woman. A street rat. She missed the churn in her gut, queasiness after drinking too much. Getting too high, muscles locked against a couch. The chaffing of fabric that was a little loose, and the soreness when it was too tight. Nostalgia for nosebleeds in the bone dryness of winter, and the luxury of a hot shower.

That punk teenager from Talus. What a fool she was, reckless, stupid, the progenitor of the great mistake that still haunted her. But she lived.

Arris caught herself staring at the reflection in the puddle. And for the first time in a long time, she saw who it really was staring back at her.

She smiled, then looked back at him.

"I'm everything I need to be. And I'm gonna get it done."

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Level 111

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Ace stayed quiet after she spoke. Contemplating, like always. The Republic exposing itself. Letting people finally see the cracks instead of patching over them again and again until the whole thing collapsed under the weight of its own hypocrisy. No invasion fleets. No worlds burned into submission. No empire planted over the ashes. He could accept that.

The chaos that followed would be ugly. He knew that already. Systems didn't break clean and people rarely reacted rationally when they did. But at least there would be meaning behind it. A chance, however slim, that something better might come after. That the right people might finally take what was broken and rebuild it into something worth defending.

Ace lifted his gaze from the puddle near her boots and looked back at her properly. The anger in her eyes was still there, but there was no hatred behind it now. Something else had settled in its place. Acceptance. Not peace or absolution, just... acceptance.

When she told him she was everything she needed to be, that she was going to get it done, something in him respected it immediately. Not because it was hopeful, but because it was honest. Most people spent their lives pretending they were something cleaner than they really were.

"Good."

Ace held her gaze for another moment, his expression steady and thoughtful. Whether the guilt and self-hatred she carried was truly gone or simply buried beneath everything else didn't matter to him. Guilt didn't change outcomes. Self-hate didn't undo what had already been done. What mattered was focus. Purpose. Getting the job done.

"The sooner we accept what we are." He said quietly. "The sooner we make real change."

And he believed that. Or at least he was trying to.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

She nodded once in agreement.

"Oh yeah," she then reached into her jacket and pulled out a datachit. "Saw in a file that you were interrogated?" She tossed it to him.

Arris knew little of who this Madelyn Lowe was, but apparently the woman--a mere contractor--was making pretty significant moves behind the scenes. Already, the Covenant's intelligence apparatus had become far more efficient, making use of the ISB infrastructure in dangerous ways.

"Wanted you to be aware of what we know, first off." She said. "So - Mand'alor's brother, huh? Y'know. We've been meaning to make contact for some time. Care to take a little trip?" It was either that or she'd go without him. Her grin said so.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Level 111

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Ace caught the datachit cleanly with one hand, more out of reflex than attention. His eyes stayed on Arris while he turned the small object once between his fingers.

"Yeah." The answer came flat.

Truthfully, most of the interrogation was a fog in his mind. Questions half-remembered and responses blurred together beneath the skirtopanol. But he'd gotten through it without exposing what actually mattered. That much he knew.

At least, he thought he had until she mentioned Aether Verd . Ace's expression didn't change immediately, but his thumb slowed slightly against the edge of the datachit. A quiet realization settled in behind his eyes. He must've said it during the interrogation.

A slow breath left him through his nose as he rubbed at his chin with his free hand, gaze drifting briefly off to the side. The frustration stayed contained, buried under habit before it could reach the surface properly.

Sloppy. He hated that.

Eventually his attention returned to her. "Make contact." he repeated. "Why?"

Something tightened in his posture then. The fingers of his prosthetic hand curled slightly around the datachit, metal creaking faintly under the pressure before easing again.

"If you're trying to go against my brother, I'll kill you."

The words came harder than anything else he'd said that night. They weren't emotional, they were certain. His gaze held hers steadily now, challenge sitting plainly beneath it. A line drawn without hesitation.

Whatever else Ace had become, whatever compromises he'd already made for the Covenant or the mission or the larger picture he kept trying to justify to himself, that line still existed. And if it came down to it, he would choose Mandalore. He would choose his brother.

Every time.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

Arris blinked at his response, and then laughed.

"Oh... Ace. I dunno what's funnier. The threat or your assumptions."

The humor left her quickly. She crossed her arms.

"No. As I understand it, Mandalore is on good terms with the Order. I just think it's time they finally met the other half." She explained.

"Mercy and Srina - they're something akin to battle sisters, yeah?"

Arris didn't know the full story. Never asked. But Srina showed for Mercy on Coruscant. The invasion, then again at the Second Conclave. And Mercy showed for her at Brosi, the battles for the Holy Worlds. Something meaningful drew them close... and then, of course, there was Quinn.

"If you don't wanna go..."

Her eyes fell on him like a question.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Level 111

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

The tension in Ace eased slightly the moment Arris laughed. Not gone, but enough for him to realize almost immediately that he'd misread where she was going with it. The grip around the datachit loosened and the faint metallic strain from his prosthetic hand disappeared with it.

His gaze stayed on her while she clarified herself. Mandalore and the Sith Order.

"...They are." He answered simply.

No elaboration followed. Nothing about the Sith Empress's long history with his family, or the fact she had once stood beside his father as an apprentice before becoming something closer to family herself. Those were connections Ace had learned to keep close to the chest.

Then Arris mentioned Srina herself. For the briefest moment his eyes narrowed, a flicker of suspicion moving through him before logic caught up with it. He'd almost thought she had reached into his head somehow, pulling the name straight from the thoughts he'd just buried.But no, it was merely coincidence. Probably.

"Battle sisters?" He repeated, the phrase unfamiliar enough to pull him briefly away from his own thoughts. That information was new to him.

Ace rubbed at the back of his neck slowly, shoulders loosening another fraction as the conversation settled back into something less confrontational. When he finally answered her invitation, his tone had lost most of the edge from earlier.

"No. I'll go." A small pause followed before he added: "Having me there would be the smarter way to go about this."

Practical and tactical reasoning. It was easier to say out loud than the other truth sitting underneath it.

He missed his brother.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

Arris nodded at his question. Unsure if it was just for him, or directed at her. Still, she felt it best to clarify anyway.

"Yeah. Y'know people bonded by battle? We're in a galaxy full of warrior cultures." She said, as if they weren't just talking about Mandalorians. "I don't think they're an item... Not in that way... But they're close, that much I've picked up. Mercy will fight for her. Maybe even die. And I suspect the feeling might be mutual."

That might've been the key difference between Arris and Srina, assuming the cyborg wasn't completely off base, which was entirely possible. She would not willingly throw her life away for Mercy. Put it on the line? Certainly. But not sacrifice. Or maybe the Empress to the south was just as unkillable as she herself was... or so Arris had come to believe, anyway. No one had proved her wrong, after all.

She smirked when Ace suggested that her efforts were better off with his presence than without.

"That's what I thought."

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Level 111

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Ace listened quietly while she explained it, his attention settling more fully now that the tension from earlier had bled out of the conversation. Warriors forging bonds through battle wasn't exactly foreign to him. If anything, it was something he knew intimately. Shared violence had a way of stripping people down to what they actually were.

His gaze drifted briefly toward the alley beyond her shoulder as he turned the thought over. Mercy and Srina. That was definitely something to chew on. And complicated things.

When Arris mentioned Mercy dying for Srina, something in Ace's expression shifted faintly. Not outwardly enough for most people to notice, but enough that the thought had landed somewhere deeper than expected. Because he understood that part instinctively.

He'd do it too. Not for the Covenant, causes or ideology, but for certain people? Without hesitation. That realization sat strangely beside everything else they'd spent the night talking about.

Ace rolled the datachit once between his fingers before slipping it into his pocket. Then his eyes returned to her again, calmer now, he adjusted the cuff of his glove over the prosthetic beneath.

"When are we leaving?"

Arris Windrun ​