Private Conqueror in Training

[Varin Mortifer]

The construction of the temple on Coruscant was well underway, slaves and covenant personnel had been working diligently and nearly nonstop since they had started. Though the Temple was constantly under work, the reconstruction would still take time. Varin made sure each and every person, droid, machine or creature was pulling its weight. Punishing those who slacked off, or executing any slaves that dared to stand up to security or even tried to escape. He strung up the corpses on crucifixes outlining the construction area as examples. Slow and painful deaths would soon follow them.

The prior troopers and personnel of the Galactic Empire were hard pressed to bury the bones of their once proud embodiments of Coruscant to build monuments to the Covenant. After witnessing the cruelty that Varin could inflict they seemed to have no problem either converting or staying to work. Thus was the first step of claiming an empire, break the people. Drive them to the dirt, humiliate their leaders and shatter their will.

Varin watched over it all. He never took a break, keeping his watchful eye over everyone.

Until he received an urge.

He looked over to his Nagai commander he had started to grow fond of, ordering him to keep watch. The commander saluted him and assumed command until Varin’s return.

He made his way through the shattered temple towards an elevator, the Skyhook to Mercy’s throneworld. Stepping in the craft shot towards the sky. He did not move, even when the feeling of his gut seemed to slam to the floor from the momentum, he simply crossed his arms, feeling the slight dent that he had repaired over his chestplate, from the last time he had words with Mercy. He had repaired it since, but the armor was still compromised, he would need a new set.

Smoke billowed from his back as the craft rocketed towards the throneworld, finally the doors opened, and like rushing waves of clouds, the smoke spewed from the opening as Varin stepped out. He didn’t need directions, he simply felt where to go. Mercy’s signature was tricky, unlike most Sith Lords who always kept an outward appearance of their signature, Mercy had none. But he could feel a choking void in the distance. Cold and bare. Lifeless.

He followed the feeling. Gravity seemed to push towards his shoulders as he ventured deeply before he met a set of doors. In front of the doors standing like sentinels were a few Graspborn, standing guard in opposition to any who would try to attack their masters.

Varin stepped past them as they let him inside, he had no intention of trying to attack a mountain again. Today at least. And Mercy had proven capable to shrug off deathly blows.

That was partly why he was here.

He stepped through to see the massive throne. Pieced together from the spoils of conquest, impressive and awe inspiring to the young man. Sitting upon that throne was the massive mountain of the dark side, Mercy.

He stopped a bit of distance away from the throne, arms clasped behind his back.

“I have some questions.”

He spoke directly to her, not realising if she was already busy with something or not, but to Varin, this was important. Something he needed to know, something that clawed in the back of his mind for some time now.

He waited patiently for her attention.

Mercy​

 

[Mercy]

Varin Mortifer

Mercy maintained a relatively open door policy.

To an extent, anyway.

Not everyone was allowed entry. Her Graspborn, useful she was loathe to admit, somehow managed to feel their Master's moods and desires. They knew almost instinctively if one of her visitors was someone she would want to see or not. And if they forbade someone from entering and they couldn't press through anyway?

They weren't worthy of her attention.

"Ah, the lad with the mace." Mercy drawled lazily as she looked up from her datapad. She was lounging in her throne. A throne that was made to pass judgement on and intimidate people, but Mercy was simply lounging in it as if it was a couch.

"What brings you here?"

Her attention returned to her datapad.

But the indent in his chest underlined that even if she didn't seem like she was paying attention, that didn't mean anything at all.

 

[Varin Mortifer]

Varin’s gaze wandered the room, taking in the sight of the walls, flooring and back to the very present throne after she finished her question. Not wanting to keep her waiting he pulled his mace from its holster on his back and leaned it on to the floor, placing his hands over the pommel almost in a casual stance, but one still disciplined.

“How were you able to wield this?”

He started off, a moment of pause before he continued.

“The Sith Sorcery that blessed it makes it so only those of epicanthix blood can wield it effectively, anyone else it becomes nothing but dead weight and excruciatingly heavy, yet you carried it with efficiency and savagery.”

His voice echoed from the walls after he spoke. He removed his helm and set it aside to reveal his honest face to her. Not hiding behind armor, but to show that he came not only in genuine and curious nature, but to show that he had enough respect to show his true face.

“I even had it tested on non-epicanthix individuals, each one crumpled before its weight.”

His gaze never left hers, looking her in the eyes, not in challenge, but to give her his utmost attention.

Mercy​

 

[Mercy]

Varin Mortifer

"Oh, was it?" Eyebrows going up, but she didn't look up from her datapad. "I have often found that any sort of magic folds in the face of persistence and physical force."

She scrolled to the next page and then looked up to Varin again.

"Planetary force storms, enslaving the minds of armies, teleporting across the galaxy, these things are out of reach for me." That last bit was not entirely true. She certainly could with the assistance of her... wings. But that was neither here nor there. "But I am strong... stronger than most." That was an understatement.

They both knew it.

The way her eyes gleamed, she enjoyed downplaying it.

"Doesn't matter how heavy it becomes, lad. I will always be strong enough to carry it still."

 

[Varin Mortifer]

Varin’s eye looked over to her as she asked her question so nonchalantly, looking through her datapad. The way her eyebrow cocked, the way she stayed relaxed.

It seemed just like a normal day for her.

Calling herself strong was a laughable understatement, she had proven that with his mace.

He stepped forward some, as if to make himself more known.

“How?”

The simple question escaped him before he could catch it. He picked up the mace once more, dragging it behind him.

“How did you learn this power?”

He took a breath.

“If I am to be a Lord, I must have great power, much greater than what I already possess.”

His voice grew in frustration as he spoke, the grip on his mace tightened.

“For my goals, I need to be stronger, Mercy.”

The mace scraped along the floor before he let it drop with a clatter that cut the quiet air around them.

“How could I bring glory to the Covenant like this?”

He gestured to himself, the ruined armor, the faults of his body and psyche laid bare.

“I need to be more than a weapon, I need to be a force of reckoning!”

His breathing grew heavier as his fists tightly clenched to his sides.

Mercy​

 

[Mercy]

Varin Mortifer

Oh and the quality in her eye shifted at the change in his tone.

She leaned in, elbows on her knees, hunger in her gaze apparent.

On a normal day Mercy looked inhuman. A mountain that moved, part of the world, until it shifted and you realized... yes, all of that was truly Mercy and not part of the scenery.

But in that moment, as she felt the urge of the Dark Side, as her approval flowed through her body and her eyes flooded with amber... she looked positively monstrous. Here was a creature who began a movement that slaughtered ancient noble houses and brought down the Tapani Sector, only as a jumping board to take the Core.

And all for what?

Because Mercy had felt slighted. Had felt like she was done wrong after the Kaggath. Had felt like she was owed her due. And for that how many had been slaughtered in those two regions?

Innocents among them. And Mercy cared not.

“How did you learn this power?”

"Do you truly wish to learn from me, young Mortifer?" Revealing that Mercy knew his name. First and last. That he wasn't just 'lad' to him, or 'boy', or 'child'.

That above everything else Mercy had taken note.

Mercy rose up, looming over him even from a distance somehow.

"Learn how to break, how to destroy, how to look in front of you and not see people but obstacles made of meat ready to be reduced to gore?"

 

[Varin Mortifer]

He paused, eyes tightening after she said his last name. A name he forgot what sounded like, some time ago. Almost like it were almost truly lost from him.

Her question was not lost on him, the only thing he did not think to care about was the possible cost of learning from Mercy.

He looked down at the mace still clung into his hand then dropped the handle.

“All I see…are obstacles already. Obstacles that I cannot yet topple.”

His eyes stayed fixed on her, the monstrous size of her looming over him, but he did not avert his gaze. Not out of challenge or disrespect. Power like that, deserved respect and it deserved attention.

He paused for a moment, as if his brain were telling him to think of the price, and his jaw locked. He clenched his fists once more, arms shaking from the tightness in his muscles.

He thought of everything he had been through, the rises, the falls, the faces of those he could not protect because he was too weak to do so. He growled quietly to himself l.

*Boy, think really hard on this.”

Ignati's voice bled into Varin's mind and he shut it out, as quickly as it came, the advice vanished.

He took a deep breath, the fiery colors in his eye, pulling down to its natural dark brown, a color that he did not wear very often anymore.

“I…wish to learn this power from you, yes.”

Mercy​

 

[Mercy]

Varin Mortifer

Mercy smiled there, teeth sharp and hungry, pulling out her pipe.

All of a sudden the monster was gone. Only the mountain remained and it seemed satisfied, as if Varin passed a test that hadn't been written down. She began to stuff it with herbs as she walked down the steps.

"Walk with me, Mortifer." Mercy said as she passed him.

As the pipe began to burn? Varin would notice something strange. Each time the smell reached him, he'd feel his connection in the Force weaken, dampened.

Farther away.

But Mercy was breathing it in deeply and with obvious relish.

“If I am to be a Lord, I must have great power, much greater than what I already possess.”

“For my goals, I need to be stronger, Mercy.”

“How could I bring glory to the Covenant like this?”

She mulled those words even as they walked.

"To be Lord means to know yourself." Mercy finally said as they stepped out of the throne room. Instead wandering the richness of Throneworld. A true monument to Mercy's accomplishments... or to her sins... or to her greed. "Power does not matter to a Lord, not really. It is an illusion to suggest someone with awesome power is a Lord simply because of such."

A glance towards him.

"Is a bomb a Lord? Is a Star Destroyer? Is a man with no ability in the Force, but who has hundreds of thousands of followers less of a Lord than the one who can warp reality?"

She breathed out again.

"When I was young, I believed that what made me strong was my ability to endure punishment and break things with my fists. Now, I realize, that true strength is in your ability to identify your desire and be ready to do anything to accomplish it. To cut off your arm, if need be. To break your heart, if you must."

Mercy smiled as they passed a viewport that showed Coruscant looming in the background.

"Break your chains, Mortifier. This is not a platitude, even though Sith treat it as such. It is the entirety of our purpose. If we are not breaking chains, we are slaves and slave owners alone. And there is no Lordship in that."

 

[Varin Mortifer]

The shift in her was noticeable, but it did not seem physical. The imposing presence seemed to withdraw only a bit. He watched her prep her pipe as she walked towards him down the steps.

Varin followed beside her, the smoke that trailed to him caused him to cough lightly as his hold on the force seemed to dampen. He cleared his throat as he followed. The smoke seemed to…weaken him, not physically, but he could feel a change.

As they neared the door of the throne room doors she spoke to him, that Lords know themselves, not just a recognition of power, but a recognition of themselves. He glanced over to her as she spoke this lesson, a lesson that he took in deeply a passion to learn and a passion to build.

He remained silent as she spoke, only responding with nods or the shaking of his head, he would not interrupt her with his voice unless she had given him the proper opening or the permission to do so. His discipline deemed it to be that way.

His eyes sharpened when she spoke of sacrifice for your goals and ambitions, how far would he be willing to go? The thought lingered with him as they approached the viewport over Coruscant.

“I have many chains to break. Many goals to fulfill.”

At the mention of chains, his thoughts went back to his mindscape and his imprisonment from Ignati. Though she may or may not be speaking of physical chains, Varin knew the kind of pressures that were bound to such things.

“I had already broken one chain. Four remain, one of those four are weakened, but I don’t know what needs to be done for the others. So I look for strength and I look for power, in hopes to break them under my own force and might.”

He gazed out of the viewport, taking in the sight of the planet below them. Already he started to go deep into thought.

Mercy​

 

[Mercy]

Varin Mortifer

It was interesting to see when Varin became contemplative.

Not just a brute with a big mace after all, but the boy needed refinement. Luckily he had just the master for that, Revna Marr . If anyone knew how to shape a huge chunk of marble into a refined statue it was that woman. After all, she herself had Darth Strosius as a master. So she was used to dealing with men of high emotions.

"Have you now?" She drew from her pipe again, loving the sensation of a fight in her body. The herbs trying to kill her connection to the Force, while her cells were fighting against it.

It was different now.

She had experienced their grip over and over again in battle, but with large lulls between fights. It hadn't allowed her body to properly acclimatize. Now she was smoking the different sort of herbs day and night.

"And what chains still remain on you, Mortifer? What holds you back from Lordship in your view?"

Just his opinion on the matter would be illuminating, right or wrong.

 

[Varin Mortifer]

The smoke from her pipe made it seem like he was breathing from a much higher elevation. A little harder to breathe, but not wheezing or out of breath. The smoke did make him feel a bit more…tired.

He looked at her after she asked her question.

“The honest truth?”

He looked back out of the viewport as he thought hard for his answer.

“I think it’s me. My limitations, and the fear of where my plateau could be.”

His hands folded behind his lower back.

“But, it is also something else entirely as well.”

He grew quiet for a moment as a hint of rage boiled within him.

“I am but a captive in my own bones and flesh. The chains that I wear are not only for restraint, they are for subjugation from powerful forces. He only deems me worthy of breaking my chains.”

His fists clenched.

“I need to change that. I need to bring Him under my boot.”

The fiery orange color began to bleed in his eyes, washing away the dark brown color and replacing it with hatred and malice.

“I refuse to be chained by Him any longer.”

Mercy​

 

[Mercy]

Varin Mortifer

She listened thoughtfully and with interest.

It was funny to her how similar Varin's struggles are to where she had been all that time ago.

"There are no limitations in the Force. Anything you desire to do, you can, as long as you believe it yourself." Mercy said finally, leaning with her hip against the edge of the viewport. Watching closer, enjoying the view, now that Arris Windrun had wrecked her viewport in the throne room and it was still being repaired.

So rude.

“I am but a captive in my own bones and flesh. The chains that I wear are not only for restraint, they are for subjugation from powerful forces. He only deems me worthy of breaking my chains.”

"I need to change that. I need to bring Him under my boot."

"I refuse to be chained by Him any longer."

"I once had a similar issue." A glance towards the Hatred seeping into his eyes. Mercy grew amused there and reached out, to twap Varin over the nose if he was not fast enough to dodge it.

"Do not let your emotions control you." She sighed. "Yes, yes, something a Jedi would say, you'd think. But it is very valid in our specific edge case, Mortifer." She drew her pipe from between her teeth and gestured towards him with her chin. "We are similar in some ways. Warriors, brutal, we draw strength from our passions."

But those passions could rule them too.

"-through those, the creature inside of you can rule you too. A Lord is always in control of him or herself. Understand this. It doesn't mean being a Jedi, pretending your emotions don't exist. But it means being the one who lets out the fury when it is required... and packaging it in for when it is not. So unless you are about to smash through the viewport with your forehead?"

Mercy shrugged.

"No need for Hatred now. Understand?"

 

[Varin Mortifer]

He was mulling over her words on the possibilities and the applications of the force. That she had similar issues as him. A confused look came about his face before

thwack

The flick came unexpectedly and Varin’s head twitched to the side a bit a hiss of a wince escaping him, then a slight run of blood down his nose. He let it go. Not just the blood, but the malice and the hatred that tried to consume him the moment prior. His eye returning back to its natural dark brown state.

“My Father used to tell me the same thing.”

His fingers slowly came up, touching the blood, smearing it to the side a bit before he looked at how it coated his fingers.

“Emotions and passion are powerful tools. But in the end, that is what they are. Our weapons, Our tools. But we must temper and control them to wield them effectively. To wield them as weapons not just as feelings.”

He fell silent for a moment.

“He was assassinated before we could continue my training in control.”

He took a breath, as he looked out at the viewport.

“I understand, Lord Mercy.”

He looked down at the mace behind him, then back to the viewport once more.

“How could I tame such a being?”

He spoke quietly, almost muttering to himself than asking out loud, as his eyes searched the surface of the planet.

Mercy​

 

[Mercy]

Varin Mortifer

"Your father knew what he was talking about then." Mercy said with a satisfied nod, drawing in more from the pipe, loving the way it was slowly filtering through her body.

It made her cells feel more alive.

As they struggled and fought against the necrosis of the anti-force drug. This was the training she was doing, forcing her body to adapt and become more resistant to those that tried to take the Force away from her. It had happened to her far too many times. She couldn't even count it anymore, which is why it had been annoying her so much.

"That's better. Good boy." Drawled as she watched the smoke curl up into the air between them.

The question was a fair one.

Mercy had struggled against her own demon, fiercely, until she finally broke the eldritch creature. That was what she told herself anyway, the truth was that she had played a game of guile. Playing one entity against the other, until they were both weakened enough that Mercy could take over permanently from both.

"Identify that which feeds this demon inside of you. Deny it its sustenance. Once it becomes weakened, take the battle to it, break its spine and reassert control of your body."

A shrug there.

"Or find yourself someone adapt in the games of sorcery and alchemy. They might have more ethereal means... but I have always preferred relying on my own strength of will, haven't you?"

 

[Varin Mortifer]

“He was a wise man.”

He spoke quietly as he wiped the blood over his armor from his fingers, the smoke of the substance she indulged in lingered between them. The smoke itself made his head fuzzy, and weighted. As if he were stuck in some net.

He looked over to her as she described how she dominated her demons, and offered another suggestion of sorcery or alchemy, to which he shook his head.

“If I can’t bring him to heel myself, then I may as well be a slave. If I am to keep him under my rule it has to be me. My strength, my will.”

He thought.

“I know what he feeds on. Unfortunately it’s what I feed on as well.”

He paused for a moment.

“We both love battle, combat and driving our enemies to the dirt. Theres a sense of completion, satisfaction when it happens. Like everything just makes sense, or that we truly feel whole or as one.”

The smoldering cloak on his back fluttered ever so slightly when he mentioned a feeling of mutuality between him and Ignati.

“It’s the only thing we truly agree on.”

He looked back at her as she smoked her pipe.

“What is that?”

His head tilted as the scent hit him again.

“Could I try it?”

He stood so he fully faced her, eyes locked on hers not in challenge but as someone with enough respect to look someone in the eye.

Mercy​

 

[Mercy]

Varin Mortifer

The concept of 'wise' and 'man' in one sentence was still one that Mercy had a hard time believing in, but she had to admit that there could be rare, extreme situations where it was possible.

She just hadn't met them herself yet.

“We both love battle, combat and driving our enemies to the dirt. Theres a sense of completion, satisfaction when it happens. Like everything just makes sense, or that we truly feel whole or as one.”

She sniffed there and shrugged.

"I understand that love all too well. There is nothing better than the splatter of heat when you tear through someone's throat and watch the life fade out of them."

But it did make it a bit tricky, if that was the exact thing that was feeding Varin's demons. A tough tough question, one that she wasn't necessarily sure she was equipped to handle. Perhaps it was something that Vestra Tane could assist with. She was always the philosophical creature. Arris Windrun hardly knew ass from hand at the best of days, so she crossed her off of the metaphorical list immediately.

“What is that?”
"Could I try it?"

Mercy glanced bemused at the boy and his sheer cheek. She drew from the pipe, drawing in the smoke and then puffing out rings into the air, one passing through the other.

"A herb that kills the connection to the Force. Imperials are fond of using it, throwing it in your face. Drawing it directly will immediately sever your connection to the Force." Your connection, she didn't say our connection. Because her eyes were still burning amber, even after having smoked the pipe from the moment Varin entered the throne room to now.

"But sure, why not, have a taste."

And Mercy offered the pipe, interested if he'd still take it, knowing what it was.