Private Blooms of Oblivion

[Cassilde Vortayn]

The Preservation Gardens, Throneworld

In the past month, Cassilde had visited six times. It was five times more than she should have, and a great many times less than she wanted to.

The gardens, like the entire monstrosity of a station, were a monument to conquest. She had learned now that this was formerly a seed bank, funded by mega-corporations who had been systematically extracting from across the galaxy to stock it. Vast collections of looted flora presenting itself as aesthetic preservation, as if to say the collection of monstrous tyrants, depressed cyborgs and otherwise damaged societal outcasts considered ecological conservation to be a priority. No, she saw it for what it was: a great trophy garden of planetary scalps, held prisoner in a vast forest liberally accompanied by Tapani marble.

She liked it for the light. It was the only place Cassilde had found so far that wasn't plunged into mood lightning for the miserable. Every day here was a fight for Hapan eyes, too dark, too opulent, too... everything. The plants and trees were exceptions to the rule. It was not kind; it was practical. They could not compromise on their need for lumens, so they got it, on a routine schedule of day and night timed down to the second. The first time she was caught in the cycle, she had the chastening experience of fumbling herself out in the dark.

Everything was chastening here.

In an ideal world, she would have spent all of her free time here. She certainly didn't lack it, with Mercy's tendency to go gallivanting across the galaxy in the name of committing atrocities in a manner so pig-headed it beggared belief. Cassilde was ornamental; the cupbearer was not practical to pop into the luggage for the next bloodshed, although she didn't put it past the tyrant to consider it. However, the reason she did not spend all her time here was that it demonstrated want, something she liked and therefore something that could have been taken away. An old court habit, really and Cassilde presumed, that in spite of Throneworld's vastness and her insignificance, there was always somebody watching,

She lived every moment now under that presumption; even alone in her quarters she did not loosen the mask. No matter how sick she was of smiling.

Millaflower lay in a bed the length of a court, a field of fragrant red growing in their ranks because that is all they were asked to do here. They were beautiful and did to her what she did to other people, only better, as flowers did not have to think about it. Cassilde stood over them, eyes downturned in observation that looked a lot like peace. She was barefoot, half-boots off and set aside, the warm, wet marble underfoot in a rare moment of slack in spite of the rest of her.

The dress she had packed herself. In the halls it was black, but here in the light, it showed its true colours. A dark, low green, like deep water under cloud. Silk, cut on the bias, an expensive fact that would have been wasted on most of the company she found here. The square neckline exposed her throat; the scandal of the low cut reserved for the back; the perfect posture of her spine drinking in the garden mist; and her bare arms folded across her midsection, an errant thumb tracing soft circles on the flesh of her arm. It was weightless and silent, with the only small indignity coming from the humidity, which caused the garment to cling in places.

If she had known that Mercy would hold her captive in a sprawling metropolis complete with a trophy garden, she might have packed something more appropriate. As it happened, she didn't, and she hadn't, and there was little point in ruminating.

Her mind drifted a moment, away from millaflower and towards the fact that there was nothing of Callamar here. A pity, really. Her home planet was famed for its gardens planted in white and silver; pale roses and moon-flowers. The city of Aviene was a monument to their blooms; terraced flower-valleys and perfume-houses were the industry at large, amongst other, quieter crafts. Cassilde supposed that there was no reason for it. One does not carry off trophies from a world that opened its hands. There was no glory in it. Every other planet found represented in these beds had either been worth preserving or put up enough of a fight to be worth robbing.

There was only her, and perhaps bleakly, the Hapan considered the reason she felt at ease here was that she was just another trophy.

---

Quinn Varanin

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Cassilde Vortayn //:
//: Attire //:

Wandering Throneworld was nothing new for the Echani Queen. She often found herself here when the rest of the galaxy had decided to be too much for her. Too many people, too many demands, and yet she often felt alone. It was a familiar feeling; others often wanted only pieces of her, never everything.

Some wanted power.
Some wanted beauty.
Some wanted a weapon.
Others wanted parts and pieces…

But in the end, she was never enough.

Yet, Mercy and Throneworld never requested anything of the Echani. Only to exist. She was enough for that; she could do that, but what did it really mean in the end?

Quinn had no answer, except that Throneworld offered a peace that she needed at times desperately. So, she lingered after her business was concluded. Today was no different as she wandered into the gardens — a place she often felt at home in. Wherever she was, she ensured she left something beautiful.

Jutrand.
Eshan.
Naboo.

Her garden on Jutrand was hidden, a world blooming with life amid the dark dreariness of duracrete and durasteel. A once beautiful escape, tarnished by Quinn opening up to another.

Eshan was its own beauty; she only added to it, while the same was for Naboo — yet even then that world was stained.

Here on Throneworld, she at least had this place.

Wandering in, Quinn was under the impression that she would be alone. Perhaps the place was too bright, too much of a reminder of what was being destroyed. Still, no crowd ever admired the beauty of the flowers and plants collected. It was easier to be lonely in an empty room than it was to be lonely in a crowded room.

Quinn wandered in, hands carefully clasped behind her back. Today she arrived on Thoneworld as the Face of the Dark Council. The daily dealings of the Sith and how the Covenant and the Order were only growing closer. There was a very quiet semblance of gratitude that there was no princeling who stood at the forefront of the Covenant. If there was, she understood duty.

As she approached, her eyes wandered to a barefoot woman staring at the flowers. Quinn's eyes widened slightly, seeing that she was not the only one here to admire the delicate beauty of the flowers. She quietly moved, keeping the sound of her heels nearly silent. She would hate to disturb her company's deep, pondering thoughts.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?" she spoke quietly as she finally approached. Her eyes never left the flowers, taking them in and finding a sense of kinship. It was always easier to become part of the scenery. No expectations, only to be beautiful, only to be looked at, but never touched.

Maybe that was her role in life; maybe that was what she was supposed to do to avoid being hurt.

"Such a simple life…"

 

[Cassilde Vortayn]

The thumb stopped tracing circles on her arm.

There was a moment. The beat of a heart, hard, twice. The soft inhale of breath. It was the moment of a woman being found in the private sanctity of her own thoughts, in a place that might have eaten them.

Cassilde's face never moved; it was too well-trained. Only her own biology was startled by the voice. Either she was so concerned with the nature of the millaflower that she had shed her senses, or this woman was quiet beyond measure. Perhaps both. What frightened her was not the woman now in the room with her; it was that she had not noticed her. How long had she been here?

She allowed the moment to pass, arms still folded.

"Simple." A pause, considerate. "They were carried a great distance to be simple here."

Like much of these gardens.

Like her.

The thought was a little too on the nose, and Cassilde finally took the time to turn her head to look at the interloper, a flash of red fabric finding her gaze before the person did. There was a second, then two, then three, when the Hapan recognised a face and couldn't quite place it. In her mind, there was a dossier of nobility across the stars. Standard practice: you may never have met most of them in a lifetime, but it was important to be prepared because you never knew when you'd be caught admiring the garden. Her face remained the same, as if she were studying another flower.

In the end, it came humiliatingly late.

Queen of Eshan.

"Your Majesty," she said softly, with an incline of the head, practised and precise. She'd not be getting a curtsy out of Cassilde, not in this dress. "I would stand on ceremony, but I'd have to put my boots on first."

---

Quinn Varanin