Private Censures and Damages

[Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt]

​

Location: Outrim Territory, Esstran sector, Dromund Kaas


Kaas City had been an unusual location in the Colonel’s mind, at the heart of the Sith dominated planets she did not expect to find the Lord General; let alone his personal residence. Yet there again, it was a metropolis and not some backwater planet they haunted in the early years of their deployments. It’s wealth and importance left it attractive enough, if one could stand the nigh infinite storms that plagued it. In her approach, Lyra was struck by how heavily the air space was patrolled and the landing protocol had threatened to draw out until they processed the Imperial codes attached to the Excursor. The channel had been tight-lipped and Lyra slipped through the atmosphere into the storm circling the Capitol, leaving it a dreary sight at night. Dromund Kaas was another Sith world, with a single glance one could describe the traffic and towering cityscape as..busy. Yet in her descent she felt a greater pull, on that stretched past the neon highrise. It was all too eerily similar to that of Korriban.

The matter at hand carried greater importance, and to deviate was not even a thought; Force be damned.

Streaks of rain painted the cockpit, a chill radiating off the transparisteel. Lyra merged into the stream of ships as she referenced the coordinates sent to her by Irveric. She had considered the private comm link with a great deal of resentment; he already knew she was on the way and what did it matter. Their reunion of sorts was long overdue, weeks had bled in to overall months since their brief sighting. She missed the man, repulsed, and enraged within a short few minutes despite the warnings that crept around in the recesses of her mind; then there was the guilt. Lyra expected new orders half past midnight to cut their meeting short. Traversing the city through the ship lines, the address took her far past the lower dockyards into the upper city districts. When the ramp had hit the concrete, it was only then did she stsrt to consider relenting, landing in the private dock yard.

The air carried electricity here, and lacked the smog she had come to associate with the city. Lyra had stood there admiring the rain, soaking in the feeling before she was spurred to join the mob that was out in force, the city was breathing but she was holding her’s. All walks of life enjoyed the night life despite the weather. Tucked under an umbrella and heavy coat, the cold didn’t bother her much here. An odd mix of hot bodies and the geographic setting left the weather almost tolerable. Lyra heaved to herself as she navigated the streets, the click of her boot steady almost reassuring. The apartments were not far and Lyra could stew all she wanted but sent Irveric a short message;warning him of her imminent arrival. She knew he wasn’t okay, and selfishness was beneath her. Arriving at his doorstep within minutes of the transmission, fleeting nerves danced under her skin when she hit the buzzer.

Irveric Tavlar

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

//FOCUS// Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt
//THEMATIC// Intension

---

---

---

Each and every wound still burned from Mandalore. Worn in his mortal armor - Tavlar had been put through suffering scores over. Kintan and Mandalore both left him alienated from the strapping Officer who'd led his men to victory on Garel and Folende decades earlier. War had shaped him into something else. His resolve tested, beaten into a sharpened implement several times over. He had proven himself, spilled gallons of his lifeblood on the field and yet still it never seemed enough.

It was by his own doing that he temporarily relieved command of his forces not days after he was promoted to Lord General, one of few within the Sith Imperial ranks. It was a task that came with little revelry in itself - manning the Empire's instruments of war at a Galactic scale. He had great power and authority but even still it seemed to pale in comparison to what the highest of Sith Lords seemed to deem themselves worthy of. No rank bars nor titles would unmake him as what he was. A mortal man in a court of gods. His spilt blood, missing limb and shattered visage seemed to mean all but nothing to any of the Dark Creed. That shard of his armor embedded into his head - Tavlar had it left as a reminder. It would be as much a part of him as his flesh and bone.

After years upon years of toil he granted himself a faint reprieve. His "home" in Dromuund Kaas was barely so - all but barren of any personal effects. An apartment set within one of the wealthier districts of Kaas City, Irveric regarded as little more than a warm bed while he was planetside. The Epitaph set in orbit above the world acted far more as his home than anything else anymore. Returning to Dantooine felt like a pipe-dream, his place of childhood joy in ignorant bliss - marooned from the hellish suffering he would endure for years to come. For now this place suited well enough for the veteran battlemind.

"My Lord, someone is here to visit you. It appears to be the Lady Lyra Voi'kryt- shall I let her in?" The protocol droid still within its factory durasteel paintjob baring Sith-Imperial markings inquired to Tavlar as he stood within the living room of his domicile - peering aimlessly through a lone eye still baring mottled haziness in his gaze as he had yet to recover from what had been inflicted unto him days before.

"Yes..." Irveric muttered before soon enough the blast door hissed open to reveal the protocol droid to the woman.

"Lady Voi'kryt - The Lord General has been awaiting you...please come this way." It spoke, baring a light but masculine voice draped in a core-Imperial accent.

"I shall leave you two be - do let me know if anything is required of me..." The droid said before leaving with staggered steps of its hissing servos. Irveric only glanced back, only barely revealing the sight of his eyepatch and foreboding beskar horn protruding from his skull to her in the dimlight from the skyline from the otherside of the transparisteel, glancing back outward.

 

[Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt]

The introductions..droids always seemed to possess some amusing programming but it was met with sharp indifference from the Colonel. Sweeping into the home without second thought. Lyra’s imagination only stretched so far, a little butchering perhaps but the shard of shrapnel..it would be forever burned into the deep recesses of her mind. Lyra took a few aimless steps into the atrium, it was barren..predictable. The Colonel’s eyes did not stray from Tavlar's form, outlining each ridge of him. It was the image of a man she knew but something had been snapped, broken, put back in place-missing every key component. Bodily harm seemed an afterthought most days. Many legionnaires survived the odds, for Tavlar it may have been a simple hiccup in his conquest but where did the bull of a man become victim to? They weren’t vain creatures but pain was justification for many things. There was life beyond these four walls, and he was but a black spot amidst it all. What a ratification, so strong and terrible that it left her physically sick to her stomach.

If she were to reach out, she would only be grasping at air. What do you do when you open your eyes one day, and your partner is..dead. There was silence, stretching out between them and she did not dare advance nor retreat. The woman wanted to drop her shoulders and scream with anguish.

The umbrella snapped shut, and she drew a line, abandoning it at the corner beside the door. If the Colonel was going to stare she may as well view the storm howling outside. Acting as as if he were some foreign abstract thing out of place? Unacceptable, she refused to think any more of it. Her movements slow and purposeful, prying the gloves off her hand and gently setting them aside. She could be calm, without fret. Her finger dragged along the small table butted up to the wall; not a speck of dust to be found.

Had he been left here to waste this whole time? Irveric had always been a marble statute, she could see through the cracks he left here and there. She mustered her admiration, though the greater part of her mourned for the man she knew, he was standing wasn’t he? There had been reports from Mandalore that she could only graze over at the time; knee deep in lesser deployments. She had no right sending transmissions seeking personal information, asking after their General. What was the quickest way to blacken and tarnish a career then getting caught? Their's was a precarious relationship, something at the core of solace amidst the war, but walking a tightrope of command and human being.

Lyra crossed the room with a sure stride, bordering mechanical as she undid the long row of buttons upon her coat. The layer shed and tossed aside upon one of the seats. Her appearance joining him in the rain dotted reflection of the transparasteel. She touched his elbow first slowly, hand trailing down his arm to pry out his hand and take it..She had no words to offer him yet, what could really be said after a long march through the inferno?

Irveric Tavlar

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

//FOCUS// Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt

---

With a low hiss of the servos, the fingers of his cybernetic arm curled to take ahold of her hand, offering a cold metallic embrace where once true flesh occupied. A dim, permanent reminder of his service in vain to the Sith Empire. Just as the beskar horn protruding from skull and cold olive gaze cut right in two. He was broken on the anvil of endless conquest several times over yet here he remained. It was difficult to discern from his eyes but his will, his resolve burned brighter than the fires around him that buried the metal into his skull at Mandalore.

The medical staff could've managed it, to rid him of his grotesque burden even if it might've been a delicate and difficult process. He yearned to keep it, fought for it. It was his grudge he'd wear like a crown, a reminder of what his true ambitions were. He could never fully articulate that to Lyra. It was an internal argument he had with himself or rather, less an argument but a bedgrudging agreement. A gruesome image of what he'd been through in his tenuous service. It had been only a few weeks or so since he'd last seen her and even then it felt odd. She'd been a constant for years in this career but as he ascended and she stayed her course they'd grown...distant.

"Wasn't sure you'd come all this way when I called you here, if I'm honest..." He said, shifting his gaze to her for a moment, barely able to discern the details of her face before shifting his gaze back out to the hazy, shimmering colors of the rain-soaked skyline.

 

[Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt]

“A miscalculation of my character then Irveric..” Lyra’s tone lacked any teasing bite, serious and a flint of her ire crossed through her eyes. She took it for the insult it was and wasn't interested in soft words. She had cared, but now his words had laid out an old fear; had they just been sleeping around? She wasn't keen on undervaluing their time. Lyra leaned to the side, trying to catch his eye but he was fixated on the view of the highrise; grey eyes searching his face. Where had he gone, she had not been herself after Folende; she recognized the symptoms.

Lyra swallowed what other choice words she wanted to throw at him and accusations. The..spike that now sat upon his brow, she chalked it up to him being..him in the fullest degree and inhuman; war. She was not above the desire of the battle field, the call of domination and pride in it but this was extreme.

Her own anger simmered and she left it to be, behind closed doors she’d manage the misshapen tragedy and loss. For now the slight rise and fall of his chest, minuscule as it was, provided a sliver of reassurance that he was here and she wasn't speaking to an apparition. His hand, curling and mimicking and absent appendage was easier to understand and she held it close; gently. It was a necessity, one that could be learned to tolerate. Deep down Lyra was still waiting for the veil to lift, maybe reality would prove it all to be a cruel joke. There was another beat of silence before she exhaled heavily; refusing to balk. Her other hand slipped under his chin, turning his face to look at her.

“You’re not well, and I need you to tell me what has happened.”

Irveric Tavlar

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

"No- no you're right..." Irveric replied with a faint shake of his head, to himself more than anything. His trust was faltering, not so much in her but in the entire environment around him. His trade grew increasingly meaningless with each battle that left him marred and wounded, lifeblood trickling to the earth beneath only to leave with another part of him lost, another brutal reminder her of his arbitrary service to a nation that didn't care to regard him as a more than a tool. This coldness rubbed off on him in spades - serving only to chill his already frigid demeanor to be nigh unbearable.

Turning himself wholly toward her he was barely able to match her gaze with his, his visual sensory intake recovering still. Cloudy and hazed over at best as he sought out her eyes with his lone gaze. It was empty, glazed over -- his nigh blindness apparent in how he looked at her.

"After Kintan they had me sent to garrison Mandalore...had about a week or so before Mandalorian terrorists laid siege. Sundari was where I was...about the thickest of the fighting. We met them beyond the walls but they overwhelmed us so we had to pull back...fought hard...their fleet, something targeted my position, at least that's what Major Virhirn told me before everything went black -- my ears deafened, my eyes shut...but I could still feel the pain of it all, my chest caving in from the explosion...my helmet exploding and sending this...shard into my head. I could still feel the pain more than anything I've ever felt in my life. Above all...I felt death, for the briefest of moments." Irveric admitted, letting silence linger between them before he spoke more, bringing her hand clasped within his metallic counterpart between them, somehow finding comfort in the artificial digit of his thumb offering a cold caress of the back of her haid as he toiled with contemplation.

"I was scared for a moment...felt a pit of dread fill my stomach. I had never been that scared of anything so real but then...I accepted it-- I felt a presence of...comfort. My mother, father...my brother, the comrades I'd lost...I could feel their presence. They were welcoming me...welcoming me back. All I could feel was an intense fear melt into...love, comfort but...some other part of me deemed that it would not be the end and I was drilled into consciousness again to feel that pain again. I remember being able to take off what was left of my helmet and stand up. All my men in charred, burnt piles of gore around me...all I could do was scream." Irveric stated candidly. Those words even weighed heavy on himself for a moment as he sucked in a deep breath, looking back to her.

"I still don't know how I feel about that-- about being alive. I know now...my fear is calcified...I've seen the end and I don't fear what it is waiting for me." Tavlar admits.

---

Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt

 

[Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt]

“I do not fault you for your resolve Irveric you have survived the worse…I am sorry..you faced such hell-scape alone,”‌ Lyra uttered, reeling in light of his agony. She had no refined words to offer, grand promises would only fall short. How much pain was it to summon his own words and silence followed her words before she inhaled deeply. "I was terrified for you, after Kintan. Now this.."

He wasn’t going to walk away from any of it and the woman feared what would follow. They had seldom spoke of family, but fellow brothers..Irveric had been in the race, a better decade then her; how many ghosts was he carrying? Searching his vacant gaze, casting her eyes aside torn between diagnoses and summoning any comfort for the pain. They all had their demons, but they were not infallible against them. Even after hardened and molded under the Empire's hand.

How could he of been left like this? They had plied her with medicine but her state of mind hadn’t been..defeated. Folende paled and was the better part child’s play. The cold of his servo haunted her skin, how much longer before he was just another name dragged under. The flaws of her singular mindset now revealed, this was beyond her control. If she were to try, she would never truly be able to protect him. No matter how many times he would chose to wade through the fields of death and battle; searching for something indomitable.

The orders that bound them and dragged them aside were equal enemies just the same. Lyra bit her tongue, in the wrong company those thoughts would see her damned…steeped with treason. Her hand had slipped from his chin and rested carefully upon his shoulder before she gathered him in her arms. What was left of him at least, gone was the spark she could pick out in the dark room.

“You may not fear the end now..but please do not seek it out,”‌ Lyra warned. Her own fallouts would only hurt him now, and guilt ate at her. “You need to rest..I’ll be here, what ever you need.”

Irveric Tavlar

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

"I'm not suicidal...I just know what's waiting for me." Irveric said, uttering those haunting words with his characteristic stoicism. When she took him into her arms he slowly took her into his own embrace, his metallic digits grasping the back of her coat tightly as his other wrapped around the small of her back. Breathing out harshly through his nose as he leaned his head down near her shoulder, speaking closely to her ear, shutting his lone eye aside to rest his own sensory intake, his gaze painfully seeking out details in the darkness he snuffed his vision in favor of his embrace of her against him.

"A part of me wants to leave this all behind, I'm able to now...I've done all that can be expected of me." Tavlar said, eventually rearing himself back in her arms to peer into her gaze once more.

"I can't do anyone any good that way any more if I do. If I'm not there for them, others will take my place. I'm just a cog, someone else will take my place and do all the more worse than I will...they'll get more of them killed, they'll cut a bloody swath through countless innocents because I wasn't there. I can't live in peace and I can't live doing this anymore...I'm not doing the bidding of those ticks and leeches, the Sith, any longer." Tavlar admitted candidly.

---

Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt

 

[Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt]

“While that may not be the case, cloistering yourself up here does it’s own kind of damage...,” Lyra began, pausing and swallowing the rest of her words in the wake of his confession. She inhaled deeply as his head rested upon her shoulder, listening. When his hand twisted against her back, she held him tighter. The faint smell of cigar still lingered on his person and his presence grounded her there. Even if she reached through the force and found a cold gap in the fabric of the entire city, he was here. Her eyes stung and she screwed them shut tightly.

Relenting only when he pulled back, untangling her arms and casting her eyes aside briefly to reign herself in. His stubbornness had come to rear its ugly head and her shoulders sagged. This..brush with death had renewed his vigor. Gazing out upon the bleak horizon of the city, her head jerked back meeting his gaze as he spoke of the Sith..Lyra’s brows knitted together and she considered him carefully. He had no idea..Perhaps she had underestimated him then, and fear whispered in the back of her mind. Now they were treading on ice.

“Irveric..what do you mean? What..are you planning?” Her words were no louder than a whisper.

Irveric Tavlar

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

"I'm planning...defiance, insurrection." He says, raking metallic fingers through her hair as her gaze matches with his once more. Speaking forthright he seemed wholly confident in his words. Her reaction would be difficult to appraise immediately as he said them, but with his thoughts of death as he made them clear moments before, this revelation couldn't have surprised her.

"I can't...I can't do anything else. Everything I've fought for...everything we have fought for- a rotten, evil machine. I can't- I can't do it. I will die if it means that this evil not go on any longer." Irveric stated outright, always ever adherent to his convictions.

"I'm not sure if I can expect you to side with me in this, I can't blame if you just...want to walk away but- I feel an obligation. To my soldiers, to the Empire...to myself." Tavlar admitted.

---

Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt

 

[Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt]

“A revolt....Tavlar a military coup-are you?” Lyra stared at Tavlar, serious, it was left unsaid. Only he would try, unwavering in the face of the Sith. His conviction was what scared her. A revolt didn’t do his mission justice, slaves revolted, but an entire military division? It was uglier, but it didn’t matter how you described it. They were standing in a shadow of a behemoth that would crush them. You either survived by adopting a numbness in the face of bad orders..and Lyra weighed his confession. She wanted to agree forthright, but how many lives besides his own would it cost?

To rile up some sort of false hope..A passing ship’s lights washing bright light over them, the storm worsening just outside the glass windows. Disbelief picked at the corners of her face, and her eyes wide and she rocked back on one foot, pulling away if only a fraction. She was seized at both ends and would be ripped apart in the end; the words of truth hung on her tongue. Lyra’s mouth was dry, there was no mercy under the crimson blade and she considered her parents in the fall out; when she would inevitably fail.

“I don’t see anything stopping you,” Lyra observed bitterly, it was a personal hurt but she did not withdraw from his presence. It was not a feasible idea yet in her mind, she had been raised in the throes of propaganda. Even as the Sith raised many concern, the bias she had been raised. They were the Empire, and it had been a foundation for nigh every choice to lead her today. Leveling him with a stern look, her jaw clenched her steel was useless against him. “But..I understand. Though I have my reservations..plenty of them in fact. Please tell me you’ve planned this well, I care for you deeply but do not think I would throw my life away without a fighting chance for us or any soldier.."

---

Irveric Tavlar

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

He'd toiled in planning, in orchestrating. Even if she knew well that Tavlar was not a man all too afraid to adapt himself on the field, he'd shown capable of that time and time again to ride and die by his tempered mind and resolve, even if it more often than not landed him in the thick of danger. In all truth, while she spoke of caring for him deeply, he was far more frigid in his demeanor toward her. That much had been evident through their collective interactions.

Ultimately, he was afraid of attaching himself to something he could easily lose. He'd never once said he loved her, because he didn't. He couldn't do that to her, or himself. Especially not now -- fully aware of the consequences of what they faced in the shadow of the Sith Empire.

"I have planned and we have a chance. I will not risk wasting this chance." Tavlar said, clearly forthright in his convictions.

"Even if not - I can not live if I do not pay retribution for the evils and injustices I have committed in the name of this Empire. I will see to it that expend every fiber of my being to see it fall and bring about a New Order." Irveric stated flatly, he knew well she didn't like when he spoke like this. With full disregard of his own being. If Tavlar was anything -- he was rigidly honest. He would not shroud the truth in white lies and false narrative, certainly not to Lyra.

---

Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt

 

[Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt]

If Lyra was to be honest with herself, the brutality of his words plied with warmth that they shared by vicinity was growing tiring. Speaking in such absolutions only served to stack another log on the fire burning in her chest. Fondness couldn’t outweigh the grating it did upon her nerves, there was no real choice in the matter for her. They were going to war no matter what and follow your commander reluctantly took root in her mind. As if she had not just been shaking hands in the rancid valley of their dark sires.

This wasn’t really love, as if she were that naive maker help her, the lines of command and companionship were blurred and this was nothing like a proper relationship. Just some imbalanced liaison. It made everything uglier to deal with but there were battles one could not win. She loathed to tolerate it, dissuading selfishness that was always there. Lyra practiced some ounce of discipline if for her mother’s sake, she regarded the woman more fondly; constant and unwavering in her own way. Shaking her head to herself, a miniscule action as she dropped her chin. She inhaled deeply, baring her teeth to her boots.

Lyra had numbed herself to survive orders the last decade no different to him, though she had found herself shielded from the brunt. And now it was to change, what a time to have some morals? The pact she had made might come back to haunt her, but she had made it clear she drew the line somewhere..It wasn’t dissimilar to coming off a buzz.

“Right..Genesis should fall in line at the very least, any skill and resource I have is..at your disposal.” Lyra offered him, reluctant and playing her part as the Officer on his staff. Lyra removed herself from his hold, the comforting weight of his touch no longer desired, she had no more comfort to offer him. Anger was thrumming up and she needed to put space between them as her lungs begged for deep breath and reprieve. She took a few wandering steps away, standing apart as she raked her nails through her hair, sweeping it back.

It was cold, and simply too quiet here.

“You know..you’re not just asking soldiers to fight a regime but to risk their families too right?” The single thought flowed from her lips and she whirled around to regard him. Grey eyes narrowed, trying to dampen the stinging sensation that blinded her. “..Do you have anyone one left they’ll use against you Irveric? I remember you said you came from Dantooine once upon a time, your mother or father?”

---

Irveric Tavlar

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

When she drifted away from him it was then that he felt the weight of what he truly set out on. He deserved it, even he could realize that. As much as he was ever espoused as a leader, personal detachment was an immense feat. Though he might've had a host gathering around him, he was well and truly alone. Friends were fleeting if there at all and lovers...weren't any better. At his core he was a difficult man to endear to, even if he well enough had the strength and capability to be a leader he often failed well ahead of the finish line when it came to being a good person, not so much morally as much as a man who could lower his guard around anyone, even to her he was shrouded to an extent.

"I'm well aware of what I'm asking and the weight of it but we don't have any other option. Failing in our crusade means an identity washed away a galaxy rendered under complete suffering under these inhuman monsters." Tavlar stated outright.

"I don't have anyone..." Tavlar stated outright, his blurred gaze peering out of the window to try and piece together the sight of the rain drops streaming down the transparisteel panes.

"My father...I never knew him. My mother was constantly ailing from sickness when I grew into adolescence until she was eventually paralyzed completely. Rendered...incapable. I had a younger brother, Sayben. When I was a teenager I more or less raised him. My father of course...wasn't anything to me and my mother could only be so helpful. There a came a point when our homestead was unsustainable and I had to leave for Ord Thoden to work in the shipyards. It was grueling work but...better than anything on Dantooine. Then it was there I was conscripted managed to parlay my technician status at Ord Thoden into the officer academy, hoping I could send the extra wages back home but eventually my transfers stopped being received, not even after my training was done. Its why I stayed I went back once and there was nothing left of what I knew. I only assume the worst and so I remained in service...probably so I wouldn't ever have to think about anything else." Tavlar said, carrying himself with characteristic frigidity to his words, letting silence settle for a brief moment before he continued again.

"Its why I care so much I think...why I wouldn't let the Sith take you, why I've probably risked my own life hundreds of times to pull someone else into cover...it wasn't until I was trusted with high command that I realized what we were fighting for was nothing but to perpetuate a wicked system that strips men and women of their humanity in order to serve an echelon of force cultists. Nothing else matters to me anymore, I'd let myself die if it meant I could undo all the crimes I've done, let everyone else live in peace and happiness. Those men and women who march with me may not realize that now but...the very fact the Sith threaten those closest to them may very well be all they need to clobber this system bloody until it is undone." Tavlar says outright.

---

Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt

 

[Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt]

It was abundantly clear nothing else mattered. Irveric’s disposition was infuriating. Pain radiated from her clenched jaw and Lyra’s face morphed, unbridled by an Officer’s calm disposition. It was her rage shaking it’s bars, begging the jailor to just open up. The woman was engulfed in it for a minute perhaps..but it stretched out before her and she felt it radiat from her hands and her skin burned hot. Maker she was angry. A soldier signed up and knew the risk, they were just betting, hoping, and desperate to beat the odds and make it home. It didn’t sign up their mother..there sister, or child though.

His honesty..it explained alot and it was a rare moment she saw a shade different in the man but then again it made it all the worse. They each had different odds stacked against them, their own skin in the game but he didn’t. Frozen where she stood she listened to the tirade pour from his lips and despair bubbled in her throat. She hadn’t known about his family..Lyra couldn’t look at him, pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes. Every corner, the drab look of his eye, to the passing lights outside was too much..Logistics were passing through her mind, what if-

“You..are you sure?..It’s not an identity, it’s lives Irveric. Perhaps you're one of the lucky ones, with out as much to lose, I don't deny you dedication to the twelfth but don’t make this out to be...just some deeply twisted path to redemption just for yourself alone, and-Did you even hear yourself just now? The men and women that march for you now don’t realize it yet? Are you giving anyone else a damn option Irveric?,” Lyra sucked in a deep breath, words dripping with venom. The rational side of her knew their hands were very well tied, she was going to be following him into this fray? She suppose command staff has personal resources at their disposal, but non essential evacuations wouldn’t be a priority for the rest, not even feasible she bet.

“What are you going to do for your men when the culling start en mass and they lose heart, because Intelligence can track plenty of people down Iveric. The Sith can. I need you to answer me honestly are their families a necessary sacrifice? Yeah they’ll fight Irveric, but for some it won’t matter who’s holding the blaster to their head. Where are the contingencies for them?”

Irveric Tavlar

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

"This is all far more than that...." Tavlar uttered, heaving down a heavy breath as he lowered his blurred gaze once more, eventually raising it back toward the window leading out toward the skyline of Dromund Kaas.

"I -..." He paused for a few moments, letting silence snuff the tension in the air for a moment as he shut his eye, lifting his chin as he considered his next words carefully.

"I know...I know what I'm asking of them. Do you really think I'd ever go into this lightly? No...if we don't do what must be done then it isn't a few families held hostage...it is the Empire, the Galaxy. Its not fair, what I ask of them...it isn't. But this is not a battle of politics...this is existential. Each moment a Sith emperor seats the throne is another world under the threat of annihilation. I can not, I will not stand idly as this great inhuman evil is brought upon the Galaxy. These Sith preach order but the only way they know peace is the death of anyone who might ever oppose them. Its sacrifice. They're soldiers...no matter what they will either live and die under the banner of the crimson saber, being ground up in this horrid machine to gain ground in this very manifestation of evil...or they'll die freeing the Galaxy from it. The choice isn't an easy one, I won't pretend it is but don't ever dare think I don't care about them. They're everything to me, if I haven't made that clear since the moment we met...I don't know what will." Tavlar all stated in outright conviction, the cynical seasoned veteran she'd met on Folende had warped. Warped into a man who would challenge the very throne they'd bled at the foot of for decades. This had seemingly been brewing for what felt like an eternity. Looking her in the eye once more he spoke up again, his voice seemingly strained.

"I'm sorry...I wish-...I wish we could've had it better." Tavlar says, slowly making his way toward her with careful yet heavy steps he seems to raise a hand slowly and carefully, offering a tender caress of her cheek, pressing his true fingers against the burnt and scarred flesh long healed over.

"If we win this...in the end...I still want that for you." Tavlar says, speaking in the specific term if only because he doubted his own mortality in the coming war.

---

Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt

 

[Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt]

“That’s it then..” Lyra stared at the man vacantly, “They are a necessary sacrifice then.”

The sounds of the city echoed faintly in the distance and the woman brushed his caressing hand off with a flick of her own. Her mind lulled, the truth wasn’t sugar coated and how had she been in the dark this long..? The reality between them was sour as the waste in the streets in her eyes. If he was gone she'd miss him, and there he already went.

Her chest rose and fell border erratically, she hadn’t heard a good lot of what he said to be honest. She was chastising herself, how naive... It was all noise in her ears and the woman shook her head. If she had not seen it all this time, why did she still feel lied to? Lyra’s eyes focused upon him keenly then and she bore her teeth at him like an animal.

“I’m so kriffing through with your propaganda!” she screamed.

The stacks of frustration and sorrow poured into her voice; disturbing the ‘peace’ of the apartment. Lyra had been a young gun sucked into the military by the fliers, the romanticism painted in red on the durasteel highrise of Bescane and she saw the pattern before it. It had gotten her blown up.

“Don’t give me that shavit! Take your martyrdom and stuff it, you’re a man Irveric not an ideology-You wake me up with your damned snoring and listen to this heavy droning music that’s barely tolerable! I don’t want these half baked wistful words, you're distracting from the truth both from yourself and this damned plot! I want you to see the consequences and plan accordingly you idiot! If you wanted to be so untouchable, untenable and a god of a man you’ve done it. I can’t even sense you anymore! Do you know how kriffing difficult it is seeing you, but not! You’re a void and I..I don’t even know you are right now!”

Irveric Tavlar

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

Propaganda. Was that really what it was? In all truth, Irveric would never tell her anything other than what he saw as the plain truth. He was deeply flawed, imperfect man. She knew that better than anyone else by now. Her words were biting, even past the frigid exterior of the Lord General he was well and truly...hurt, in a way he hadn't felt. At least not that he could ever recall.

The last he'd felt well and truly alone was the very day that he stopped receiving word from home or the day he went back to Dantooine to dead ends and distant memories. He mean't everything that he said and he well and truly wanted what was best for her and anyone else who'd dare follow him into the crucible. The risks seemed to mount day by day as the perspective of what he truly set out to do set in. She'd also was the first person to truly be so distraught by his self imposed separation from the force. It never served him, nor did he serve it.

"I-..." He let out, his gaze facing the window pane once more as the idle rain battered over her, Lyra seeming to scorn any physical contact with him.

"I'm sorry...I just...I don't know what else I'm supposed to do. I know the consequences, I know that I'm asking...too much perhaps but..." Tavlar says before he lets a brief spat of silence grip the air. Looking back toward her he speaks up once more.

"You know what they've made us do...you know what they did to Kintan when they left in defeat, the Dark Council came in force and did nothing to support my soldiers and still they left devastation that I caused in its wake...why?! I killed innocents there! For nothing! I lost a part of my self so that women and children could get chewed up like chattle for the slaughter!" He says, lifting his starkly cybernetic limb into the air.

"I nearly died for the Empire! My men were put through hell on Sundari and we beat them back! What do they do?! They annihilate it! The people I was ordered to defend, the planet I was given military governance to protect was put to the sword for nothing! These demons...I've looked into their eyes, Lyra. You've looked into their eyes! They don't care about us! Any of us! It's a dilemma between my consciousness and doing what is purely sane for any man to do...those soldiers which I'm asking to follow me...they don't care about them, they aren't there for them. We are! We've been there since Folende together! I...I can't live to propagate this slaughter any more, Lyra! I can't! They've broken me!" He said, clutching a tight fist near the 'horn' of Beskar steel that protruded from his skull, left as a reminder of his sacrifice.

He didn't ever get like this, so impassioned. He'd almost always kept an even keel, even in the field of battle. Something she said...be it one component of it or all of it clearly dug into him. With his muscles aching and flesh stinging with pain still from his near death dealing blow on Mandalore he slowly made his way to sit into one of the sofas of the room they spoke into, staring blankly at the crackling fire of the artificial hearth that burned idly in contrast to the beating rain, the red glint of the fire barely kissing his features as he peered toward it half blinded.

"I wish I could...slink away from all of this. Every day since I decided to remain in service I've questioned if it was the right choice, each time I try and sleep and I hear the screams of agony decades stacked over one another. I...I don't have anything left but this...ambition." Tavlar says, speaking a broken man.

---

Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt

 

[Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt]

“You don’t have to convince me.” Lyra bit out each word.

She could hear the change in his voice, the desperation of rationalization. The kriff was she supposed to say? When he had retreated she turned away. Her hand rose, digging her fingers into her scalp and sweeping through her hair. Trying to tame the anger manifesting under her skin, she only needed to reach out; throwing it all out at the wall to get some satisfying release…The woman may have crooned and tried to hold him close before, but she had reached her own breaking point. There were some wounds you couldn't heal.

”I can’t fix you, I don't know how but I know one thing Irveric, I know what they’ve done to you and I am sorry. I can't take this pain from you, nor say it will get better..This is a broken wheel. I know the Sith are horrendous, I know this is necessary. You need help though and I am not talking as a Colonel now. You need help, you’re going down a path of martyrdom and willingly and I can’t condone that..I can’t condone the sacrifices of men’s families. This mindstate you’re in is maniac, if you want to lead this successfully..”

Broken men don’t get back up on their feet and spit in the eye of their oppressors-
but maybe she was just being too heartless.

“I told you I would stand with you but I am putting out emergency mandates under security breach suspicions to give some of the men’s families a chance to relocate..I’ll be on standby for whenever you give the call for..”

---

Irveric Tavlar

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

I can't fix you. That statement alone shook an unnerving feeling through his spine when she said it. He was broken, she couldn't fix him. He'd very well have to do it himself or barrel into the grave in the process. She might've seen him low, but she hadn't seen him as he was now, at his lowest. He'd been parceled together after Mandalore, had he as slow of access to the proper medical facilities that she did on Folende, he might not even be breathing at all after what happened. He was suicidal, he knew that much of himself. It was difficult to continue to chart this course when each time he closed his eyes his vision would be filled with the faces of innocents before they'd explode or marr gruesomely under the weight of explosions and gunfire.

If it was too silent for too long he'd hear those same screams he'd heard dozens of times before, screams begging for him to help and save them or the screams of those in pain, suffering and anguish under the weight of devastation he'd caused. If this war mean't really anything to Irveric, it was a crusade of penance. Regardless of what he had to do, it would be worth it in the end. Regardless if he had a legacy of glory or dust, he would expend every part of his will in ripping down the very regime he'd served to keep in place. It didn't all too matter what the cost was in the end, as much as he cared about the men and women who looked up to him for guidance and leadership, proving time and time again that he did genuinely care about them.

He could only offer a glance toward her in return, his gaze misaligned with hers as his ailing senses were unable to shape more than just her silhouette before he shifted his eye back toward the crackling fire.

"I just want it to end..." Tavlar said, rather ominously. He could've said concerning a great many things, the Sith Empire, the collective suffering, his own ailments or even his own life. In a way, it all applied the same.

---

Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt