Private Convergence of Dark Tides

[Naniti]

Naniti hated shuttles. They were cramped. Devote of anything visually or audibly stimulating. Mediocre food service at best. Years ago she wouldn't have even noticed the food quality. Food fueled the body and mind. It was a necessary tool to survive. Then Lysander and her kept indulging in culinary pursuits and started cooking their own... Turned out just like she'd expected. It was difficult not to notice when the food wasn't properly seasoned, properly cooked, or fresh instead of flash-frozen for interstellar transport. All thoughts and sensations that only made the trip more unbearable; she couldn't get away from thinking about what had happened.

She was alone on the shuttle. Lysander had always run off on missions and pursuits, and she'd had a few background things herself, but she could always find him again when she wanted to. Now? Her efforts at building some kind of spy network didn't amount to much when it came to launching an invasion on the Republic to get him back. Infiltrating confinement facilities hadn't been a priority. What Sith planned to be captured? There'd been more pressing concerns.

At last, the shuttle docked aboard Throneworld. The violet Togruta stood to her feet and made her way down the ramp without sharing a word with another soul. They were even less important to her now then they had been before Jakku -- back when the only person that matter had been Lysander. With him... held by the Republic now she found other people even less tolerable. They weren't useful to her. Their blank stares and self-interested pursuits only made Naniti want to literally tear their heads off and stick them on a pike.

Fortunately, and perhaps completely normal under the circumstances, the guide didn't offer to escort her to a room to rest first. The Empress Mercy was awaiting the Togruta's arrival. Ordinarily she'd spend considerable time turning that over and trying to discern the outcomes. Maybe peek at the future to find the right avenue. Not that divining the future had allowed her to see Lysander getting swept away on Jakku!

Naniti's sharp teeth clenched as her hands balled up at her sides. Each stride was full of vigor; not an ounce of lethargy or hesitancy to be found summoned to the Empress. Lysander had been her student. Was her student! If there was someone with the power and interest to help free him of the Republic it was her. With that thought, her fingers relaxed, but the rhythm of her pace remain the same.

 

[Mercy]

MERCY

EMPRESS | WARLORD | STAR-ARM

Location: THRONEWORLD | Direct Tags: Naniti​

.

Jakku should have been a simple affair and in the end it had proven costly.

As she understood from Arris Windrun , Isobel Serraris had left the fold, which had been hard to understand because Windrun had a whole hole in her body which made her a little bit dramatic. Why it was so difficult for her to put down Acier Moonbound was beyond her. At a certain point you were simply playing with fire.

But not her circus, she had her own trouble.

Lysander von Ascania had been captured. That should have been simple too. The Jedi got him, so Mercy should have raised a fleet and gone after them, destroying everything in her wake until Lys was safe again.

Except.

Finally, he worked his neck side to side and put his eyes back on the other blonde noble. "Feel better now?" His jaw closed around the taste of iron. "If not.. keep going."

The dare ended as quickly as it began. Every protective nerve he owned hummed to life along the spine. Whatever found his sister, the sensation arrived first, image catching up a half step behind; by then, the sword was already leaving the ground. He didn't care. His lead foot drove into the sand and the body committed, blade tracing upward, the whole of everything narrowing down to the gap between them.

In that brief moment, as Mercy had been responding to Corazona von Ascania , something had shifted within her former Apprentice. Even now Mercy wasn't certain who he had tried to attack. His sister? Lysander said he had been there for Cora. But that attack... she had turned the memory around, over and over, in her head.

One inch more and it would have taken her head clean off.

Mercy couldn't get around that, because Lysander was not sloppy.

Something spiked inside of her, a fury born from ambiguity, something that Mercy was never good at. And the throne room trembled in response to her anger flooding out of her.

The floor cracked and right as Naniti was given entry, the expensive marble and mosaic was ripped to shreds from Mercy's fury, creating a line that ran straight from the large Throne she was sitting in, towards the doorway itself.

Mercy looked up, amber eyes bleeding with the Dark Side, and the atmosphere in the room was oppressive. She did not often radiate the Dark Side, it was almost always packaged neatly inside of her. Hidden away out of sight. But now, it was everywhere, her anger, her fury, her desire to rip everything to shreds.

It would be like a weight settled on the Togruta the moment she walked in.

Bearing her down.

.

ERASE THE PAST

 

[Naniti]

Naniti stepped through the door with her blue eyes straight ahead as a line stretched forth from the throne. Mercy's rage was enough to crush many and choke most. The Togruta, however, immediately dropped to a knee as if that'd always been her plan as the weight settled about her. Distribution of force made it more bearable though the young woman still had to use her own power to endure the strain. Her head was bowed as if in tribute to the Empress' authority; and it might have been if it weren't merely one less muscle group she had to push to its breaking point.

The violet woman had only told Lysander about her ability to foresee events. It didn't mean she could always shape the future as she otherwise would wish, but any advantage in the right circumstance was better than none. In this case, it bought her the wherewithal to kneel as if of her own accord rather than be flattened on the ground.

"Empress Mercy." Or was it 'Empress, mercy'? Who could tell.

"I come concerning our shared concerns." At that point it'd be best to see whether the woman was in the mood to talk. No point launching into a monologue just to get Force choked at the pivotal moment because they hadn't heard a word you said.

Mercy

 

[Mercy]

Naniti

Golden eyes watched the kneeling shape of Naniti.

At the best of times Mercy was an animal that had to restrain herself aggressively to keep the peace around her. This was not the best of times. And who best to get a pound of flesh from, if not someone as close to Lysander as Naniti herself? Mercy knew exactly how close they were. It would be so easy, it would be the right thing to do.

The thing everyone expected her to do after what had transpired on Jakku.

The fury in the air only magnified at her submission. No excuse there either. The weight in the air increased. In that moment Naniti would get a glimpse beyond the veil, so to speak.

Into Mercy's mind.

The violent storm that constantly raged there instead of a normal thought process like everyone else. Srina Talon had experienced it on Humbarine, she had wondered how Mercy could even function like that.

In these moments Mercy wondered the same thing.

Then-

The weight left Naniti's shoulders, the pressure abandoned her lungs, the heavy atmosphere dissipated and the only storm still left was safely packaged away in Mercy's mind.

"Speak, then." The large woman said from the equally large Throne. "Do you talk as well as you carve your way through pirates?"

Naniti had impressed Mercy back during the Tapani campaign. It had only increased her disappointment when the Togruta had become more akin to background scenery afterwards, not in sight, not conquering or becoming a name worth reckoning with. So unlike the others of her time. Mercy wondered if she should have Varin Mortifer shake some sense into her after all this was done.

Now there was a boy who knew what the shape of Lordship was.

 

[Naniti]

Naniti clenched her teeth as the Empress' ire bore down on the Togruta. She leaned heavily on her upright knee to remain kneeling under the pressure rather than a flattened mess on the floor. It seemed a bit much for Mercy to take it out on Naniti with Lysander's capture, but she wasn't aware Mercy had contemplated whether he'd tried to kill her in the final moments.

The Force could help one survive without oxygen, and survive undo pressure on the lungs, but that didn't keep the violet woman from a little gasp as the air finally managed to get pulled between her lips. It wasn't the first time she'd endured such, but it was perhaps one of the strongest cases. The strongest most likely. Doubtful her Master had the strength to measure up to Mercy. Certainly not the madness.

Her head lifted, and she straightened her back in order to lift her eyes and meet the gaze of Mercy on her throne. The Togruta didn't stand to her feet just yet, however. Mercy said she should speak, not rise or draw nearer. "Empress, the Jedi stole a critical part of this Covenant from us on Jakku. They intend to flaunt this abduction on the holonet as a trial. I ask for your leave to take a force and put a stop to that farce."

Bright blue eyes shone as they fixed on Mercy. Naniti would gladly raze every guard post, installation, and fortification between here and there to retrieve Lysander from the clutches of the High Republic. All she needed was a military force capable of doing so now. There wasn't time to plan out a meticulous means of sneaking through those defenses and extracting Lysander. She didn't have a strong network built up in that region for such a thing, and getting them both killed in a futile effort would be a pathetic way for them to go out. He deserved better.

Though dying while trying to escape was better than rotting or being executed. If Mercy refused... Naniti would have to do what she could.

Mercy