Private Between the Silence

[Avalore]

Avalore drowned a piece of fresh drengir root in blue acid, poking it down with a set of tweezers every time it boobed back up. Banishing them to the Netherworld had been an idea that had sounded better at the onset.

The more Avalore dug into it, the more she found components she didn't understand. Total banishment of a race into another realm was a feat that Avalore doubted Ashin could manage, but what if they didn't have to do such heavy lifting? What if it only took the loss of a dozen, or a hundred, until the drengir were rendered innate again?

What happened to the hivemind when key members were severed by the realms of life and death?

Avalore did not know, but she had asked for help to try and find out. She worked silently besides Ashin, preparing a set of fresh samples to be tested. Her persistent, sour mood had finally lifted and she seemed a bit more at ease today.

She was glowering less, at least.

"Why did they call you Empress of a Thousand Words?" she mused, breaking the silence with the title Mercy kept using behind Ashin Cardé Varanin back. "You don't speak."

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"It's a misremembrance of a misremembrance. I don't see much point in dwelling on past glories, such as they are. It always comes off as insecure."

Ashin shrugged and kept rasping Drengir root against a grater.

"Since you ask, they called me the conqueror of ten thousand worlds because of how rapidly the Sith Empire expanded while I held the throne, and the Lords of the Fringe after that. That's all there is to it. As I said, I don't find past achievements worth dwelling on. Many Sith Lords obsess over things like that. It's an easy way to cover up lack of vision for the future. It's all of a piece with the tendency to collect a set of perfect toys, become terrified of losing them, and never take a risk again."

Avalore

 

[Avalore]

"Some might say you take too many risks," she countered, her pointed words hidden behind the twitch of a smile.

Only Avalore said that.

She held the drengir root under for extra moment more, pretending it was one of the rats she'd drown in a bucket behind her hut. The infestations back then really were annoying. Too bad the drengir weren't so easy to kill.

"What about this academy ... your family? Are you not worried about it?" Her voice flexed with subtle curiosity, the girl glancing up from behind her hair.

She was.

Worlds made much more sense.​

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Of course. I care about my family and I've invested years into the Pomojema. Fear is a natural response to the risk of losing what you care about. And I do minimize risk to my family — but a family and a single ship aren't a pocket empire."

The pile of grated Drengir root continued to grow.

"That said, you're right. I have all the same tendencies. The difference between someone like me and someone like that is focus. The fundamental and often-forgotten truth of the Sith way is this: find out what you want most, and sacrifice anything to get it. If what you want most is everything, you become willing to sacrifice nothing, hence weak. It's why I was interested in taking on a girl from your background as a student. You know what it means to prioritize, sacrifice, and not have it all."

 

[Avalore]

Avalore blinked and fell silent, occupying herself by fishing the root out. The color had bleached from its surface, leaving it a pale white noodle that almost looked fit for consumption. She wrapped it neatly in foil baggy.

"And here thought it was because no one would care if you had me sacrificed." Even as she told herself she wouldn't say it, she did. The lead had been one of the many Ashin had pursued to rescue her wife, its existence left forgotten in the collection of literature Avalore had recent taken from Ashin.

Avalore wasn't sure it was meant for her, but she had her suspicions. She looked up and watched Ashin's face.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Ah." Ashin set the grater down and gave Avalore her full attention. "You know about that, do you. Yes, one of the reasons I took an apprentice — my first since Spencer — was in case I needed a serious sacrifice to free her. I don't regret that any more than I'd regret, oh, choosing her over you if I could only save one of you from a Drengir attack. I was relieved that I didn't need to sacrifice you, and since we brought her back from the Netherworld I haven't given it a second thought. You're quite safe from me."

 

[Avalore]

"I know," Avalore said simply, with confidence she hadn't had a week ago. "But thank you for admitting it."

What Avalore didn't know was the whys. Why keep her. What did she still have that Ashin wanted? With the conversation opened, Avalore had every opportunity to ask. She didn't. She surprised herself with the realization that she didn't care.

The answer wouldn't change a thing.


A subtle squeak came muffled from Avalore's person, a baby ship rat poking its head out of the collar of her shirt. She ignored it and grabbed two petri dishes, stealing a sample from Ashin's shavings.

"I don't promise she's safe though. If she's slow, or gets in my way-- I'm not losing anymore flesh." The she was heavily implied.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Mercy? Yes, I almost spaced her after she took your eye. If you remember the first time I met her, I gave her an order to bring you back here and see to your safety. As far as I'm concerned that order was still in force when you two tore each other apart.

"But Mercy has...potential. Imagine her as an extraordinary enforcer, or a complementary foil for your training. A partner even, unlikely as that outcome seems just now. You know, most Sith train to fight alone. One of the reasons Spencer and I have a reputation is our experience fighting alongside each other as a team, in complimentary ways, neither of us trying to do or be everything.

"No matter what the future holds, right now she brings out strength in you. So I keep her and I watch what she's becoming, and I watch what you're becoming around her. And for now, the eye aside, I like what I see.

"When you train alongside her, you're training to fight alongside me. Think of it that way, if it helps."

 

[Avalore]

"It doesn't," she replied primly, before relenting-- "...But I will try."

She twisted a thin coil around a pinch of grated root, then straightened it and twisted the other end around the metal foil packet. She paused for a long moment, tension building around the silence as she struggled against a request.

"Will you help me? Make me a new one."

Avalore didn't much like altering her body with alchemy, she had made it very clear in the past. There weren't many tendencies she had carried with her from her village, but superstitions..

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"That's a broader request than you might think. I've needed to replace any number of body parts across any number of bodies, and you can approach it any number of ways. Cloned replacement organs — you'd never know you lost it except for the scar. Technological, biological, alchemical prosthetics. Concealed or open mods. The functional, the aesthetic, the symbolic. What don't you want your eye to be? Let's start with that."

The Drengir experiment was forgotten. Ashin bundled up the pile of grated root and put it in a stasis compartment.

 

[Avalore]

Avalore glanced up, perturbed. "So many..." Too many, if you asked her. Her people didn't believe in body modifications. It let the evil in. Then again, they had dubbed her a witch and tried to burn her in her own hut so. Maybe that ship had sailed.

She fell into a troubled silence and pulled out a gadget, occupying herself with it as she chewed over the question.

"I don't want it to be obvious," She started. "I don't want anyone to look at me know-- it's like a target and I want it gone. ... But I also don't want it to happen again." Her words had turned to flint, barely concealing her anger over what had been done to her.

"Is there something that could ... be installed. If she tries that again and I'm not prepared, she will kill me."

She needed to be smarter, she understood now she would never be stronger.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"All sensible thoughts. Something low-profile, then. Low-profile and dangerous. I think we have just the thing, right aboard ship."

Ashin looked around the alchemy wet lab with new eyes, so to speak. The stasis compartments held all kinds of things. She went over to a terminal and, after a few moments, displayed a holo of a Sithspawn. It looked much like an eyeball, but it unfolded into something like a flower.

"This is an adzurek, a bio-alchemical prosthetic. Most of the time it looks exactly like a normal eye. The Pomojema's alchemists invented it a few years ago. It shoots and regenerates a Sith poison dart — either a quick shot with reduced accuracy, or a more accurate shot if you take a few seconds to let the flower open."

 

[Avalore]

Avalore struggled to mask her distaste. A sithspawn thing, living in her. Well, she had asked for a failsafe.

She leaned in to study it more, her work with Drengir forgotten as she scrolled through a summary in a file. "I suppose it would work," she allotted, unenthused. "It hits the brief."

She sat up and frowned. "...Yes, fine. That. Could you have it made for me?" She picked up the gadget and clipped the prongs into the wire. The display flashed red-- a good sign.

She checked again.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin shook her head.

"You're a Sith Knight and my apprentice: that's enough standing to go ask the alchemists yourself. Have you taken any classes with Saavat Kishan yet? He's senior among the permanent bio-alchemy faculty. More of a poisoner than a beastmaker, admittedly, but a useful person to know. Just don't be presumptuous with him and you'll be fine. Attitude might or might not get you poisoned. Again: a very valuable contact if he takes you seriously. He can arrange an adzurek or something custom."

Avalore

 

[Avalore]

Avalore huffed in acceptance.

"Well then, I hope he takes me seriously." Maybe she should wear the mask.

She readjusted some wires. The screen flashed red again. She moved the device closer. Still red. She dared a smile and took off the wire from the foil packet, connecting it to the second petri dish of fresh dengir root.

Sans acid.

"You see this?" Green.

She reattached it to the foil packet. Red.

"The neurons for the hive mind. They aren't firing." She allowed herself a moment to double check her conclusions, then smiled in full. "The Netherworld just might work."

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"For an individual Drengir, I do believe you're right. The Drengir hive mind is smart, though. Luring a mass of them into a Netherworld rift is unlikely to work if the frontrunners get disconnected from the hive mind. Still..." Ashin crouched close to the experiment, stared closely, tracing the cause and effect of Avalore's work. "...exploitable."

She straightened up. "As for Lord Kishan taking you seriously, that's entirely up to you. But I think this experiment might win him over. He hates Drengir as much as I do, largely because they're so resistant to herbicides."

Avalore

 

[Avalore]

Avalore snorted.

"And I because they want to consume my brain. See, things in common already." She packed up her little experiment, a pep to her step as she raveled up wires and flicked off machines.

"I will see him now then, this foil will dissolve if I don't get it--" She hip checked a draw closed. "In stasis." She turned to leave the room, a dirty beaker left behind, only to slow as she reached the door. She turned with a question on her lips.

"...What was the date when you retrieved me?

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"From Sorgan? I could look it up."

Lovely planet in its way. Gleaming concentric pools, iridescent blue liquor, forests. Ashin opted to be considerate by not rhapsodizing about the world where Avalore had gone through so much abuse.

She packed up the rest of what she'd been working on.

"If you're asking how long you've been my apprentice, I honestly couldn't tell you offhand. At least three years, sometime in 870 or 871 maybe. You were twelve or thirteen. Why?"

 

[Avalore]

Avalore stewed, attempting to translate her memories into years. It wasn't simple. Sorgan was a planet that cycled through it's seasons far slower than the galactic standard.

"I've decided..." she started, matter of fact. "... That I'm sixteen. As of last week." She nodded, pleased, and left with a swish.

Accurate or not, it was now her truth. She would owned it.

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Hm."

Ashin left it at that and a nod. Her Master/Apprentice relationship with Avalore was a complicated, spiky, unpredictable thing, much like the young girl herself.

Force alone knew how circumstances would spiral if Ashin let it slip that Avalore had done something cute.