Faction Beneath the Iron Sun - The Empire

[Zorah Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

"Every ruler should have a garden. It's always useful to draw lessons from nature...From a garden one learns to cull the weak and unfit, and to encourage the strong and the vigorous. An inferior bud soon feels the strength of my pinch!...Each receives its proper allotment of space and sunlight, and no more. That's fair, don't you think?"―Gilad Pellaeon​

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Sunlight dappled the redolent flora that grew in neat, manicured rows around the Iron Sun at the center of the garden. There was Ajara and Carlac, Kibo and Queen's Heart, and there, peeking out between the glowing blooms of Candlewick, tall, lazy stalks of bright pink Uneti blossoms. The gardens were quiet. Peaceful. Orderly, even, but only just so. The Hospitaliers had kept to Pellaeon's philosophies in their cultivation of the flowers.

The Knight-Errant would have rather the rows of flowers were trimmed a bit more neatly. Federalism had no place in the empire her cousin had wrought.

She knelt in the eye of the Iron Sun, warm in her off-white armor. A pair of slim, used pruning scissors rested on the ground beside her. Once upon a time, Rurik Fel had tended to certain sections of this very garden himself- she could almost see him leaning over the stalks, clippers in hand. Did he hum while he worked, or had he pruned the stalks and buds in silent contemplation? Had his lines been as rigid as hers, or had he allowed the plants more leeway to grow how nature intended?

She was to deploy to Iridonia on the morrow. It would be her first engagement as a Knight-Errant, and she had felt it appropriate- nay, important, to visit the gardens and see if she might find, in the quiet rows of Ajara and Kibo and Candlewick, the same iron solace and stolid strength that had seen Rurik Fel rise from Knight-Commander to Emperor.

She closed her eyes and reached out to the Force. It was a glowing ocean of power, vast and untamed. For now. There is only one truth; order. She would carve that intrinsic truth into the fabric of the universe itself, one stroke at a time if need be, until unity and harmony reigned, within the Force and without.

In time.

She was no Jedi to contemplate compassion, nor a Sith to ruminate on rage- she was a Knight, and the Force was her weapon and armor both, an omnitool that could be shaped for any task. It was the whetstone with which she sharpened her blade and her mind, the foundation of her might; she turned her gaze inward, to the luminous light within, and cast it out into the ocean of the Force. Her senses expanded, and she realized-

She wasn't alone.

Rurik Fel Jorus Fel @Imps​

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[Jorus Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

​

Damp, muddied boots tramped through the pristine pathways of Pellaeon's Gardens, leaving a mire of steps desecrating the hallowed grounds. The rich aroma of plants and flowers withered away in the wake of the passing cloud of tabac, booze, sweat and maybe a little bit of spice. Shore leave on Bastion till the chiefs figured out where to throw them next. Worst place to pick unless they wanted them out of commission for a while. The Jewel of the Empire shone brightly across the realm but it is in its shadow where the fun began.

Whatever fun meant these days.

Jorus wasn't sure what really dragged him to the Gardens or perhaps he forgot. Either way, the Honor Guards outside the palace nearly had his head on a pike. Turns out you can die for the Empire but you sure as hell can't freely see who you were doing for exactly. Don't worry, that hypocrisy extends beyond the borders of the Empire. Flashing an ID with the name of Fel got him in; at least, that name was still worth something good.

He briefly halted, contemplating over the gardens and wondering whether there was some truth to what was said before -- that Rurik Fel did indeed take care of these Gardens. Jorus could never believe it; the man looked nothing beyond a thing cased in steel going around and spreading the will of the Empire. An executor, by all means. The gallantry of the man seemed to have been cursed to obscurity by the damned coffin of iron he donned. A man of steel with a heart of gold. How funny.

And still, he couldn't help but admit the gardens looked wilder now. A reflection of an Empire gone feral in strife.

The corner of his vision caught a familiar figure kneeling before the Iron Sun, eyes briefly widened in 'nope' and he turned heel to leave.

Zorah Fel Rurik Fel @Imps
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[Zorah Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

​

Zorah grit her teeth. The harmonious order of almost perfectly manicured nature was shattered. She sensed her brother enter the gardens, his presence like a drop of rancid oil in a pool of clear water. Jorus the Incapable. The mantle that was hers had been meant for him, but he had buckled beneath the weight- buckled and broken. With her senses stretched so far she could smell him even now, drenched in the putrid aroma of his vices.

Her lips curled. Why was he here?

But Jorus was not the presence she had sensed. It was hard iron that had been shaped into wind, the presence that she had sensed, ephemeral like a ghost. Not the loose, broken presence of her brother, like a rotting tree sinking into a swamp of mediocrity.

Perhaps it was a ghost…

She sensed the turn of Jorus’ thoughts the moment he saw her. He turned abruptly, intending to leave. Good, she thought. She had no desire to punish herself with his presence. He was a disgrace, and it shamed her that they shared the same blood.

And yet…

And yet he was her brother. Disowned or not, his blood was hers. That meant something.

To her, if not to him, for all that she hated it.

“You stink,” she called out into the silence of the gardens before he could scurry away, her eyes still closed. “And you’re filthy. Have you no pride? You’re a member of the 501st. Have some respect for yourself, at least, if for no one else.” She sniffed deeply, like a hound catching a scent, and let out a snarling scoff that sounded like a growl. “Have you been smoking spice?!”

She felt her blood rising. He wasn't just shaming himself and the family, he was shaming the Legions as well!

Jorus Fel Rurik Fel @Imps​

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[Rurik Fel]

E M P E R O R
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
THE IRONCLAD
Zorah Fel | Jorus Fel

​

Of all the Galaxy one might have chosen to tap the ethereal strings that thrummed the fate of all mortality- few places would've struck a cord harsher to the lingering spirit of Rurik Fel than the Gardens of Pellaeon. It was his place of triumph, of peace and contemplation. It was within its halls that he shed his true self to the Galaxy before breaking the body of Darth Prazutis and was for years his venue of self reflection. While it had been maintained since its death, it was slightly unkempt- less neat and orderly than when the Emperor personally stewarded it.

Each and every bushel of flora, every miniscule blossoming flower saw his curious eyes and caretaking hands. It was a delicate, monotonous task unfit for the Man of Iron undertaking it. The will of the Empire made manifest in a tortured form encased in Iron but ultimately- it was his sole respite from an existence of chaos and suffering that constantly begrudged him.

He manifested himself here- even in a form incorporeal, these corridors offered a familiar comfort and longing but not nearly enough for him to yearn to be amongst the living once more. Rurik in his mortal state was as steadfast as any, ever braving hell with grit and unwavering resilience. But alas, his fight had ended and the fire within him had burned out.

His place of serenity however, had become run amuck with miscreants. Before he would ever unveil his spiritual body- he would first appraise who dared to invade his place of peace.

Both of them held a familiar tether to the Force. A knight, one of them yes...the other...no...something deeper. He prodded with a disembodied voice that rung through the chamber of the Iron Sun.

"You dare...disrespect...my place of solace..." He said, his ever ethereal voice ringing out through the chamber with a haunting reverb as he spoke, awaiting their reaction.

 

[Jorus Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

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"You stink,"

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

His eyes shut close and a long sigh escaped the soldier's lips as he halted in place. Here comes the lecture. Where their father and mother barely uttered a word in his direction, Zorah would serve as their mouthpiece. Such had been their upbringing, and as much as he damned it to hell and back, the days of little Z running about the palace's gardens, with raven locks flailing against the Serennian morning breeze, were long past.

Now she was not only a Knight of the Empire but an heir to their parents' holdings and titles and subsequently a potential claimant to the throne of the realm; a position that had been once his - the firstborn son. He could've scurried away, none the wiser, but a part of him, unyielding to the nihilism that enveloped the soldier, still saw in her blue eyes the distant form of a little sister unburdened by the weight of bloodlines and legacy.

Jorus turned around and reluctantly approached her. In typical, petty fashion, he plucked a bronze tin box from the pocket of his cargo trousers and produced a rolled cigarette that he lit up. The hanging plants and flowers around him seemed to coil back from the cloud of smoke the stormtrooper exhaled.

"And what if I was?" he challenged her plainly, with that same emotionless tone he was known for.

Jorus was about to open his mouth again when a voice boomed through the gardens, its source invisible to the trooper's eye.

"You dare...disrespect...my place of solace..."

He looked around before leveling his inquisitive gaze back to his sister. "You hear that?"

Zorah Fel Rurik Fel @Imps
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[Zorah Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

Jorus turned to face her. Being the malicious, spiteful creature that he was, he pulled a rolled cigarette from his little tin box and lit it then and there. Zorah trembled with rising fury. The sheer disrespect- she could not fathom it. He took a hit, exhaled a plume of smoke, and spoke.

“And what if I was?” he said, as if he didn't have a care in the world. He wasn’t smiling, but she could see the smug grin behind his eyes, as if everything was a joke and only he knew the punchline.

He infuriated her. It was like talking to a child. His maverick nature had thrilled her as a frivolous young girl... but then she grew up.

Teeth grinding, she pinched her fingers and the lit end of the cigarette went out. It had taken countless hours of focused training to reach that level of control; just a year or so ago, and she might have gotten his face as well. He was opening his mouth to speak again when an iron voice cut through the gardens, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It resonated in the Force- if she was deaf, she'd have heard it still.

“You dare disrespect my place of solace…”

The presence she had sensed was back, stronger and more solid than before. The anger left her; confusion came first, but then a theory began swirling and tumbling in her mind, and she started to wonder.

“Iron shaped into wind,” she whispered, the words slipping unbidden from her lips, like a secret. Could it be…

“You hear that?” Jorus asked.

She ignored him and addressed the voice instead. “No disrespect was intended,” she said, kneeling where she stood. “Your Majesty.” She had no words for her brother but a single, solemn, telepathic message:

Kneel, fool.

Only the ghost of a Fel would dwell in these gardens.

Jorus Fel Rurik Fel @Imps​

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[Rurik Fel]

E M P E R O R
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
THE IRONCLAD
Zorah Fel | Jorus Fel

​

Their reaction was an entertaining one at the very least. The visage of Rurik’s consciousness could hardly impart in the amusement however. His focus was solely on identifying the two who’d come to this place of sacred tranquility that he’d carved by hand from the chaotic hellfires that the Galaxy had often conjured around him.

Not a moment after she knelt to nothingness, his image was conjured but a few feet in front of her. Buried within his skin of iron and an argent cloak and cowl he approached with silent footfalls, looming over her with narrowed eyes beneath the glimmering ethereal sheen of his spirit's projection.

"Rise." He said, motioning with a hand. There was no use in kneeling to a ghost of a man.

"I am Emperor no longer...but there is a familiarity to you...you...are Fel." He remarked to her, glancing to the other with the immediate realization coming true for him as well as he arched a brow beneath his ethereal mask.

"That is why you've come here..." He states before his dim, ethereal eyes begin to trace about the rest of the garden surrounding them- his burning memories flashing to the moment of his triumph over struggle by defeating Darth Prazutis.

"Where have you come from?" He asked outright, his gaze snapping back to the both of them.

 

[Jorus Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

​

His head coiled back at the cigarette that had suddenly been extinguished. The trooper gazed daggers at his sister and before this could turn into yet another sibling squabble, Zorah knelt and answered the voice Jorus believed was a figment of a spiced-up imagination. Smokes had taken his head off with deathsticks earlier, the sweet fumes still lingered in the nostrils of the disgraced heir of House Fel.

Kneel, fool.

Telepathy was, objectively considered, a gift. But when it was one-sided, and the side that could use it was Zorah Fel, it was intensely exasperating. Mildly said. It was comparable to a mute man communicating with a deaf one. In petty response, Jorus remained standing.

The sudden manifestation of a looming visage cast in ethereal iron made the stormtrooper stagger back.

By the Emperor's ghost!

Literally.

Rurik Fel.

The fallen Emperor.

Their kin.

It was not the will of the disinherited scion to kneel but the hardened training and etiquette of a stormtrooper instilled through the gruesome and rigorous regime at Fort Rex, home of the Corps, that shoved Jorus down on one knee. The discipline of steel, the discipline of an Imperial.

He rose at the Emperor's command, once more mechanically like an automaton, and the rebel inside breathed in, heaving as if a stormtrooper's boot had lifted off his throat.

"Where have you come from?" He asked outright, his gaze snapping back to the both of them.

"... the... entrance?" Jorus pointed a thumb back at where he'd come from, then plainly looked towards his sister for answers.

Zorah wasn't simply red.

She was crimson.

Fiery crimson.

"Serenno." he cleared his throat, yet still unsure of the question posed to both siblings.

Zorah Fel Rurik Fel @Imps
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[Zorah Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

She lifted her head to behold the Emperor's ghostly form as she rose to her feet. Rorik Fel appeared in death much as he had in life, encased in hard iron, even his face, a cloak of fine silver falling from his broad shoulders. She could almost see his strength, even in death. It was humbling and inspiring both.

And then her brother opened his fool mouth.

Idiot!

She was going to kill him. There was nothing to it- Jorus was going to die. She would be damned as a kinslayer, cursed to a fate worse than an ignoble death, but it would be worth it for the shame he caused her. How one man could be so casually insolent, she would never know. It was almost like he couldn’t help himself; like he had a condition, some malady of the brain hitherto undiscovered and undocumented.

Truth be told, she didn’t know exactly what the Emperor had meant either, but she wasn't childish enough to even entertain the thought that he'd been asking them how they got to the gardens.

But if he meant their lineage-

“We are the children of Rodrik Fel and Janora Fel, my liege” she said when she calmed her temper enough to speak. “They fled the Empire when it became too dangerous to remain, and returned shortly before you rose to power.”

Jorus Fel Rurik Fel @Imps​

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[Rurik Fel]

E M P E R O R
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
THE IRONCLAD
Zorah Fel | Jorus Fel

​

Rurik seemed to glance in a nigh apathetic disinterest of Jorus when he spoke up, not sporting any reaction in particular to his jest before looking to Zorah. On mere appearance alone, she deserved his focus more anyway. He wouldn't waste his time entertaining Jorus with a response. Time he had an infinite amount of.

"Rodrik and Janora Fel...and so you are of my blood." He remarks, approaching the both of them with silent, ghostly steps.

"When I reigned, there was none other who claimed the name Fel who overtly roamed the Galaxy, not to my knowledge. And yet now, after my death...you choose to come unto the open. While I can no longer impart the honor of meeting either of you in the flesh...it is perhaps a modicum of comfort to know Fel still lives on..." He remarks, sizing the two up once more before looking back to Jorus.

"Serenno. Yes...of course you would come from Serenno." By that, he nearly seemed amused.

"So then...if you are Fel...it is only fitting you would come here...to this place. Years ago...I entered this chamber in its disgraced state, when Bastion was the crown world of the Sith Empire and the cursed Zambranos...I waited here in meditation..." He said as he lifted his spectral hand towards Zorah's face- imparting the vision of said memory to her.

"I reached out to him here...the Demon, one of many to claim Dark Lord of The Sith...Prazutis."

"And in that encounter I stood before the gaze of death...defiant- I revealed to them...who I was...Fel."

"And while I may have been brought close to my mortal end there...I'd slain him."

​

And soon enough, the memories of a cataclysmic duel between then Knight Commander Fel and the Dark Lord faded away back into reality.

"It was here...that they knew who I was...that they knew our name had returned, they had thought us slain, abandoned to forgotten tomes of history...but it was then that they knew that I...that we would not so easily fall to the darkness...that we would endure. These halls...are our legacy. Bastion is our home but just as swiftly as it was defiantly claimed by my hand...it was stolen from us...by the Sith. The time for hiding...has long ended...the Galaxy still lies in chaos." He remarked.

 

[Zorah Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

The Emperor's ghostly hand rose to her face, iron fingers outstretched...

And Zorah saw.

It was a clash of titans, one wrought of darkness and one of iron. She could taste the blood and smell the smoke as if she was there herself. It was almost too much, the sensations too overwhelming, too powerful...but in the end, when the vision was over, she felt strangely empty, exhausted even, as if she had been fighting the Dark Lord herself.

Yet her mind had opened. Such power...It boggled the mind to consider that she might one day reach such heights of strength, that she might wield that same iron might as Rorik had once wielded.

"It was here...that they knew who I was...that they knew our name had returned, they had thought us slain, abandoned to forgotten tomes of history...but it was then that they knew that I...that we would not so easily fall to the darkness...that we would endure. These halls...are our legacy. Bastion is our home but just as swiftly as it was defiantly claimed by my hand...it was stolen from us...by the Sith. The time for hiding...has long ended...the Galaxy still lies in chaos."

And the galaxy would always lie in chaos, Zorah thought, until the Empire reigned across all the stars. Only then, could there truly be order.

But such power was beyond her. She was strong and true, with a heart of steel and a fist of iron, but she was green. Barely a woman, in truth, and hardly equipped to conquer the galaxy. She held no commands and had gained no honors. Not yet.

"What would you have me do, your Majesty? I am only a Knight-Errant."

Jorus Fel Rurik Fel​

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[Jorus Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

​

He could feel the murder in his sister's eyes as she shot daggers at the mutinous brother, but the imminent fratricide was averted when the ghost of Rurik Fel intruded into their minds. The memory walk was far more real than reality itself. Jorus could smell the soot and ash in the air, the anguish of steel forged into flesh and the burning need for vengeance in his gut. The Dark Lod had fallen to Rurik's blade of vindication. Retribution and duty to the Fel dynasty long, long overdue finally served.

"What would you have me do, your Majesty? I am only a Knight-Errant." he heard Zorah ask.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

"Us." Jorus corrected her. "What would you have us do." the obligation to his family, to his father, may forever remain fragile, but the oath sworn to the Emperor and the Empire on that rainy day at Fort Rex was unbreakable.

Zorah Fel Rurik Fel @Imps
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[Rurik Fel]

E M P E R O R
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
THE IRONCLAD
Zorah Fel | Jorus Fel

​

They had the burden of a dynasty impressed on their shoulders nigh immediately following the vision he imparted on them. He could immediately see it in both their eyes. They stood, whelps in the spectral gaze of an Iron Emperor who willed the Galaxy to his command. A man who, for a brief moment had all eyes on him in fear, respect and worship as the lone scion of Order riding the spiral of a galactic realm captured in the flames of chaos.

"My reign has ended." He stated simply. He could no longer bare the weight of the title of Emperor any longer. He was freed from that obligation as he was also freed from his mortal bonds.

"You two...are far more fortunate than I ever was, however. I tread my path cast away- an unwanted soul. It was only through my sole self worth, determination and endurance that I would ever come to reclaim our legacy again." He slowly drifts his spectral form with silent footfalls over the center of the Imperial crest etched into the ground below.

"That I would ever live to reign as Emperor. Know though...this path that I tread...is not carved for you to follow. Nothing was given to me...and nothing will be given to either of you. Destiny is yours to seize. But you have earned nothing if you do not first serve as I did. Legacy is nothing that is given...it is earned." Rurik states firmly.

"I can not tell you by what specific terms what you must do...only that you must carve your own path and tend to the flames of Empire...of Order. Darkness and chaos will come to seize both of you in your weakest moments...but you must endure." Ever the characteristic motto of the slain Emperor, he turned to make his way from the Gardens before suddenly his spectral form vanished with the blink of an eye.

 

[Zorah Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

Zorah hid her surprise. She hadn't expected Jorus to stand with her. The young Knight-Errant listened with bated breath as the former Emperor spoke; watched as he marched silently to stand in the eye the iron sun at the center of the Imperial crest. It was a moment to be etched in time. Zorah felt like she was dreaming, and at any moment she'd wake up in her bunk at the Fel Redoubt.

Self-worth. Determination. Endurance. Worthy tenements for an aspiring Guardian like herself, they were the ideals that had helped forge an Empire. Nothing is given. Everything is earned. His advice only reaffirmed her own beliefs, made her more sure of herself and her path.

You must endure...

The Emperor's ghost vanished. Silence reigned in the gardens as Zorah mulled over his words, but only for a moment. Within seconds, the anger was back. She rounded on Jorus abruptly, face twisted into a deep scowl.

"The entrance?! Really?! You absolute bonehead!"

Jorus Fel Rurik Fel​

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[Jorus Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

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Jorus wasn't listening.

"What?" he blinked back to the present as the ghost of Rurik Fel faded away leaving only the two scions of Fel in the Gardens.

"You heard the way he worded that question?" the stormtrooper rhetorically gestured at where the late Emperor had vanished before shaking his head. "You always get too aggravated over these hokey religions, Zorah."

"Tsk, still waiting for the day you realize things out there in the galaxy are far simpler than you believe." he remarked, plucking a rolled cigarette from his tinbox. The rudimentary lens on life had been forged over his eyes from the long, rigorous days at Fort Rex. She could see his hazel eyes, but she might as well have been staring into the void gaze of a visor.

Zorah Fel ​

 

[Zorah Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

Hokey religions?!...simple?!! He spoke as if the Emperor's ghost hadn't just manifested before them, as if he hadn't just shared his memories from beyond the grave.

This wasn't anger. Anger wasn't a powerful enough word to express her feelings. It was too limited. Too little. Children got angry. Anger was quick and fleeting-- a flash of fire, a puff of smoke. But Zorah-- she was apoplectic. If she ground her teeth any more harshly, they might shatter. She counted to ten, and then twenty, but she still wanted to strangle him.

Master yourself. You are a Knight, and the Heir of Fel. She didn't reach into the Force so much as pull it to her, thinking thoughts shaped from iron.

Jorus wasn't worth her rage, but he knew how to push her buttons like none other. Staring into his blank eyes, she felt only disdain. She didn't think of the boy he had been-- she wasn't one for sentiment. She thought only of the man he was meant to be.

When she spoke, her voice was as cold and frigid as death. "And you are the simplest of all. You speak of things you could not possibly understand." What did he know of the Force, Living and Unifying, of the place between spaces and the moments between time? She scoffed. "You've played a fool so long you've become one. Hopefully the Legion will make something of you." Maybe they will succeed where Father failed.

Perhaps, in the Legions, he might find his own faith.

Jorus Fel​

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[Jorus Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

​

"At least the Legion's my own choice--" he took a drag from the cigarette, "--has anything of this ever been yours?" the daughter of an Imperial Knight, an heir whose claim came to fruition only when the brother had been disinherited.

"Times are changing, sister... how long before father pushes you to press your claim?"

"... and how much of it is your desire and how much is it... his?"

Zorah Fel ​

 

[Zorah Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

"You think any of that matters? That choice matters? There is no want. There is no need. There is only what must be. If you understood that, then you would still be the heir."

But he wasn't because he didn't. Choice, desire-- they were but monuments wrought from the failings of selfish people, those whose thoughts were only for themselves, those who lived in small worlds, trapped in even smaller minds. And he's still smoking. She pinched her fingers-- another cigarette snuffed out.

"And you misunderstand me and mistake my relationship with Father if you think this is all for him."

Truth be told, none of it was for him. Not really. It was her duty as a daughter to honor her father, nothing more, nothing less. It was her duty. Her father's ambition was to see his blood rule the Empire-- he wanted it more than anything as far as she knew, and she obeyed his whims and internalized his lessons because she saw their benefit, because it was the best way to honor him, but she herself had moved beyond simple wants.

It started with a vision. Not a wish or a hope, but a dream that came to her while she was sleeping. She had dreamed of an iron hand wrapped about the galaxy,; from one angle, it had seemed to be a shield, the hand of a guardian, but from the other angle, the iron hand looked more like a fist, poised to crush the galaxy in its grip. She had believed, in her heart of hearts, that she was glimpsing the future. Her future.

Then Jorus was cast aside, and her path forward seemed clear. Destined, even She would be the shield, the guardian, but to become the shield, she would first need to the hand. And so her father's desires and her dreams of destiny had aligned.

Now here she was.

"Why are you even here? Actually, I don't care to know." She turned away, eyes roving the plants and flowers, though she couldn't see them-- all she could see were the thoughts dancing behind her eyes, of the future that might be. "Just leave. Smoke your t'baca elsewhere."

Jorus Fel​

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[Jorus Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

​

Remarking on his fall out of grace and subsequent disinheritance surprisingly stung like a shiv through his gut. To be removed from the line of heirs and all the duties that befell an heir of House of Fel had been liberating; as if an invisible burden weighing the galaxy itself had been lifted off his shoulders. Jorus had always painted it as a victory. A desirable outcome of his own choices and wishes. And yet, a small part, perhaps confined in the kinship between brother and sister, remained... unfulfilled. Regretting, even. It clawed at the sleepless nights on menial deployments with nothing but time on his hands. For to be free of the heavy mantle of an heir, he had paid the heavy toll of being cut from his blood.

He allowed her remarks to be snuffed out along with the cigarette he had been pleasantly enjoying. The stormtrooper dropped the stub on the floor, softly stomping it with his boot.

"We shouldn't be talking about this here anyway." Jorus stated, throwing glances across the Gardens. The walls had ears, especially true here of all places. Talks of claims in an age of strife and a time of an empty throne were a recipe for disaster; this much he remembered from his lessons as a child in court. "I don't know why I came here in the first place--" he admitted. Something had dragged him to the Gardens after leaving that dive on level 1727. "--but..." he took a determined step forward closer to Zorah, "... whatever you think of me, whatever has... happened... remember that you're still my sister." his gaze lingered over her for a while longer before the stormtrooper silently headed for the Gardens' exit.

Zorah Fel ​

 

[Zorah Fel]

The Gardens of Pellaeon

"... whatever you think of me, whatever has... happened... remember that you're still my sister." his gaze lingered over her for a while longer before the stormtrooper silently headed for the Gardens' exit.

She waited until he had left the iron sun to turn and watch him leave. And you are still my brother. The words went unsaid, the feeling in them unexpressed. What did it truly mean, she thought, to share blood? There was duty and obligation yes, but when those were cast aside, what remained? She didn't rightly know.

She knelt in the center of the garden and called on the Force.

F I N.​

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