Private Crawling Back To You

[Darth Empyrean]

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A man with white hair and golden eyes strolled through the Jutrand street. Faces passed by him with no recognition, and the oddity of that feeling, the irony in it, did not escape him. For the very Empire he built to not even recognize its creator was just another joke the Galaxy loved to play on him. Still, he would have it no other way - he had no use for an Empire any longer, no need for armies and violence and unbearable hatred.​

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Today he walked with no pain, something that had plagued him nigh on 20 years, to feel your death in every moment, the sundering of your heart played over and over again. Even looking at his broken, leathery hand reminded him of the face he tried to console in his last moments, how much he had betrayed her in his mortality. Today that hand was pale and lively, tucked neatly away into the loose pants he had stolen from a merchant some miles back, the makeshift get up of a street rat hiding hair all too well kept for.​

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He moved with the grace of no undercity-urchan though, but a man many decades into his prime. The Palace was a dangerous place for citizens, and one that looked like him could never enter without being strapped in cuffs. Somehow, he doubted they'd believe he was Empyrean if he tried to go in the front door. So instead, he took the easiest path forward - he punched a guard along the palace exterior and was hauled in. Before he reached his cell, he broke free - violently maiming the two officers who had intended to torture him for answers he didn't have.​

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The Palace he designed came with tunnels, secret passage ways, places only its Father could know. When the Master of the house returned, the great Palace opened to him unlike any other. He traversed pathways in isolation, quietly enjoying the efforts he had to go through just to come home.​

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A passage finally opened upon his touch, and he entered the royal apartment. He strolled in, pulling back the hood he had stolen to let his white hair braid fall to its side. His eyes, glaring golden, glanced around the room - hoping to find signs of life.​

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Srina Talon​

 

[Srina Talon]

TAG: Darth Empyrean
LOCATION: Jutrand [Bedroom]

____________________________________________________

"An intruder?"

Her voice floated up over a cup of tea that had long since gone cold, though she wouldn't be able to recall when the steam stopped curling from the top. The ivory-haired woman held it close all the same as if expecting phantom warmth to steep through bone and settle something that refused to quiet inside her. The Praetorian Guard that had come to report to their Empress seemed to tremble when she set the porcelain down on the low table, the clinking making them stiffen. She wasn't prone to violent outbursts, but they had witnessed her fury, unleashed, on both Coruscant and Brosi.

They did not question her. Not anymore.

"Your majesty…", one spoke, strong, but there was tension in the air that didn't belong. "Yes."

One elegant eyebrow raised.

"The wards are unbroken."

"Yes. They are fully intact. He was arrested for attacking one of the Wardens at the gate. We believe it was a ploy to gain access, as moments later we discovered both of his guards incapacitated.", the Praetorian paused, swallowing hard, while hoping the whispered benevolence of Srina Talon would hold. Hoping, that she would not kill those who failed. No one had expected such a fight from a street rat that was vaguely cleaner than the rest.

He was still just a rat.

"Maimed, my Lady."

She lifted her gaze, slow and deliberate, meeting the mirrored visor that reflected her pale features back at her. Snow-white hair fell unbound over one shoulder in waves, covering a black robe, which hid a crimson floor-length sleeping dress from sight. There was no crown, no armor, just soft silk with the skin the color of bone. The face of a woman who had not slept properly in weeks, months, if she felt like being honest. She did not. "…Raise the threat level and seal the outer corridors. Do you have a description?"

"Common clothing, male, white hair, golden eyes."

Srina snorted.

He had just described a male version of herself and half of Sith Nobility, not to mention about eighty percent of House Talon. She sighed and drew to her feet in one fluid movement, seemingly floating, while she crossed the room and headed toward the privacy of her bedroom to change. It seemed that she would have an excuse not to sleep tonight. "I will handle it. Take care of your men."

"But—"

She didn't need to say anything. One sideways glance was all it took for his back to bend and his head to bow. The Empress hadn't spoken…But she had. They let themselves out of her apartments while she stood in the doorway of her bedroom. The quiet woman shifted half a step, and her back leaned against the frame, arms crossing neatly over her bosom, while her eyes began to narrow. There was the sensation of lines of ants crawling along her skin, and the palace felt…Different. Alert…Or awake.

"I know you're there…"

The words fell into the dim lighting while the soft alto of her voice filled the space. As she moved away from the doorframe and into the room proper, her breathing caught in her chest. The likeness was uncanny. Indeed, white hair. Not red. Not brittle and thinned by death. A thick braid lay against ill-fitted fabric, but the body beneath it carried proper weight now. No decay. No dark miasma at his core that threatened to kill her every time she neared…But there was also no tremor in the bond she shared with her husband. There was a hollow, there. Emptiness. "Spare me the theatrics…I am already familiar with this game. You are not the first doppelganger the Galactic Empire has sent to break me. They failed before…You will not succeed now."

Her expression had shifted into something unreadable, not hateful, but so cold that it bordered on beautiful cruelty. She took in this man with clinical precision, as if she were looking at a droid or a computer. A book. An inanimate object that was unlucky enough to hold her focus. She thought about leaving this clone alive, to return him, so that he might deliver a message to the rest of the scattered Faithless remnants. The Empress was coming.

But…The petty part of her couldn't stand the thought of some thing walking around with the face of her husband. Her words came like cool water, rain, falling from her lips. "Give me one reason—"

"—Not to reach down your throat and rip out your spine."

 

[Darth Empyrean]

The Man who once wore many faces quietly walked into the open, hands raised to show he meant no threat - but he knew she'd kill him if he reached for a weapon. Not that he had one - he left his staff somewhere in the palace, and it refused to join him. It probably thought this was funny.​

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"One reason?", he said with a coy consideration.​

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"I'd put up a decent fight, my moon and stars."​

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He hadn't considered the idea that someone had attempted to clone him to fool her - it put a noticeable roadblock in his path to convincing his wife he wasn't some cruel trick of the mind. Hopefully, if nothing else, he had a way with words when his throat actually cooperated with him. Death never did let him ooze charisma.​

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Srina Talon​

 

[Srina Talon]

TAG: Darth Empyrean
LOCATION: Jutrand [Bedroom]

____________________________________________________

"I'd put up a decent fight, my moon and stars."

My Moon and Stars.

For one terrible heartbeat, she could not breathe. It wasn’t that her breathing hitched or that it held, but simply that nothing happened. Not because she immediately believed the doppelganger, but because it made her remember. His moon and stars…Her sun and sky. It was once a pet name they had turned into a call sign that meant nothing to anyone else. Just sweet murmurs between husband and wife—But for Srina?

It was confirmation that Empyrean was still in there somewhere…That the Worm hadn’t devoured him.

Those words were the sound of a quieter life that had first been whispered in chambers that weren’t intended for war. On Ryloth…Or in one of their many homes. In the brief, fragile space, before his mortality was stolen from her and he returned as the true Sith Emperor—crowned in blood and decay. She had not buried him and instead had watched him rise in abomination. The pale woman had adapted, choosing to stand beside the Corpse King…And love him anyway. Always.

They had promised.

Always.

Her jaw tightened.

“You should choose your words more carefully.”

There was no tremor in a voice that had flattered into something cold enough to frost glass. She moved closer as her eyes traced his raised hands, the sign of surrender, before returning to his face. The distance between them closed until the lamplight illuminated his features with cruel clarity. The first clone had been someone from her past, not Empyrean, but that craftsmanship paled in comparison to this. If it weren’t for the fact that she could not feel him…

She would have sworn this was Rhysion Talon.

It was her perfect dream—And her perfect hell.

“…Knowledge of his speech patterns does not make you, my husband.”, her eyes raked over him still, clinical, and unforgiving. Her hand lifted, steady, before her fingertips touched the strong line of his cheek. Palm pressing inward until it went flush with his skin. It was agony. Not that this puppet would know or care…But it was agony. It felt like someone was twisting a knife between her third and fourth rib, deliberately, digging deep. “It makes you someone with a very good teacher, someone with a very good chance of pissing me off."

The Force around her stirred, not lashing out, but coiling, with violence barely restrained. The urge to strike was immediate and visceral. To erase the mockery. To rip the shape from him before it could settle too deeply into her vision. Because it hurt.

It hurt in a way she had not allowed herself to feel in two decades.

“You are warm…”, she observed quietly, still, relying on logic rather than emotion, “You are whole. You are not missing an eye…You do not carry the stain of death.”

A faint, humorless laugh escaped her.

“He did.”

Did the Faithless not think that she could tell the difference? She stepped closer until there was barely any space between them. Close enough to feel the heat of him. Close enough that every fiber in her being twitched with a need to destroy that which harmed her.

“I cannot feel you.”

There was no acknowledgement in a bond that had always burned fever-bright in her soul. There had come a point after his departure where the link had thinned, leaving her cold, but some sinful part of her had only thought it was the result of distance. There was no pull. No fractured soul that answered her own. Ever since Coruscant…Something inside her had never fully reseated. Dying had split her open in ways that even the blackest of alchemy could not mend. She had come back…thinner. Sharper, harder. If he was real…

She did not know how to survive it.

If he was false, as suspected, the galaxy would not survive her.

Srina had been alone a very long time. She had learned to breathe in the quiet without him. She had learned how to sit in a throne she never wanted, learned how to cobble a small circle of people to be the walls of the home she existed to defend. “Prove it to me.”

“If you are not a lie…Prove it.”

Or die.​

​

 

[Darth Empyrean]

"The Galaxy has been kinder to me, than it has to you.", he said with a touch of sorrow in her distrust. She knew who he was, even if she could not feel him - or she would have killed him already. She was not blind to truth, but she was afraid of it. There was much he had missed in his time gone - time spent solving the true crux of their problems.​

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"I can not prove who I am no more than I can use the Force.", the man before her said with a small clench of his jaw. He avoided returning her touch - just for now, until she was ready. Instead he took a step back and looked around the room. It had been left much the way he had made it for her - gilded like a bird cage, but it wasn't the room that kept her captive. It was him, her love for him, for their shared vision of a future. The Empire was the cage, this was merely the decoration.​

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He brushed some of the dust from his pants before taking a moment to sit on the edge of the bed.​

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"Do you remember how I would read to you here? When I would bring food to this room, even though I couldn't eat with you? I enjoyed the company - it was the briefest brightness in a dark day that had no end.", he said, still glancing around, feeling where everything was.​

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"There is much I need to tell you.", he offered back to her with a sad, watchful gaze.​

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"But, the good news first -"​

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He pulled from his collar a black chain, meeting at the end with a small, glowing crystal cut cleanly into a hexagonic column, slanted at the bottom like a blade vearing off to one side. His thumb held it high, like a prize.​

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"- The Worm is gone. I am not whole, but I am me."​

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Srina Talon​

 

[Srina Talon]

TAG: Darth Empyrean
LOCATION: Jutrand [Bedroom]

____________________________________________________

He couldn't use the Force?

How incredibly convenient.

Not entirely unusual, Srina, said absolutely nothing at all. The room had gone very quiet with the unique stillness that only seemed to exist when the white-haired woman was on the verge of implosion. Hawkish eyes followed the motion of the crystal as the cut caught the lowlight, but she didn't make any move toward it. Not to touch it, not to reach it. If it was what he claimed it to be…

No one should be near it at all.

Instead…She watched him.

Not the way a lover would. Not with pain…When he pulled away from her touch as if it was nothing. Not the way a wife who had been reunited with her husband after years of isolation might. She watched him the way a tactician studied a battlefield, or even, the way a scientist looked down the tube of a microscope. Her head tilted when this devil spoke of the room. Of reading to her. Of the food he could not eat and the bed he could not sleep in…Swallowing, hard. Because the memories were correct.

Painfully, so.

She could almost hear the sound of a page turning. The low cadence of his gravelly voice when the rot in his lungs made long sentences difficult. Her fingers curled faintly against her palm. Nails…Digging so deep that they left bloody crescent moon marks. Time had been kinder to him. If he was real and her meldanya could sit so far away from her, unbothered, while the world was crashing down around her…Time had been so much kinder to him. "That was a long time ago."

It didn't matter that it still made her heart beat faster.

Made sluggish blood in her veins move…

Against her will—Of course.

She took a slow step sideways rather than forward and began to pace the room in a shallow arc, almost as if she needed to see him from all angles. The silk of her robe whispered across the marble floor while her thoughts spun, leaping chaotically, from one assumption to the next. He remembered the palace, this room, that made sense…If he used that knowledge to move through the hidden passageways. Who else knew about that? Who else would know how to move swiftly from the holding cells to her quarters?

Most would have those that she would have taken over his rooms…

But they still sat untouched. Everything save the Staff of Ascension was exactly where he left it.

Her gaze gradually became less cold and more…thoughtful. She blocked out emotion as well as she was able, but the sadness in his expression made kept driving it deep. He had always pierced that part of her cleanly, past the logic, and into the woman that lay hidden behind walls of iron. "I have spent my time leading a nation that specializes in espionage, manipulation, and cruelty. You will forgive me if this is."

"Hard to accept."

Orbs of gold slid over his form as they had, now, again and again. She couldn't help it. Even if she was looking for imperfections that didn't seem to be there. When the Worm had been its own entity…When he had still been himself. Her Maliphant. There was something beneath his skin that called to her like sunlight to a rose, like air for life, and it was that sensation she was looking for. Needed.

Was it still there?

"The Worm is gone…That's a remarkable claim. What did you tell me I would need to do to quell him?"

Drive a sword through his heart.

Kill him herself.

She stopped moving near the chair that the Sith Emperor used to favor, and her hand found the back of it. The gesture was unconscious, and she could almost see the red-haired figure sitting there, holding a book, reading while she watched him from the bed. He always kept his distance to spare her senses from his decay. They were only close when she initiated it…

Her thumb pressed into the worn wood.

"You see the problem, I assume."

She sighed and fluttered down into the chair with her hands folding in her lap. A swatch of crimson peeked out from beneath her black robe, and ivory hair glimmered iridescent. Srina had always held the grace of a little queen…But being Empress, standing alone, had changed something in her. "If you are lying, then you are the most carefully constructed deception I have ever encountered…"

A beat passed.

"And if you are you…If you are mine…", the words trailed off, softer than intended. Her certainty that he wasn't who he claimed to be was wavering. There was a very dangerous part of her that wanted to believe him, and her eyes grew distant. There was a vulnerability to her that could only be matched by the inherent danger she represented. Why hadn't she killed him straight away?

There was a flicker. So…Small.

Just a flicker of the golden-threads that had once bound them. It appeared and faded so quickly that she might have imagined it. Her tone was far away. Bracing for the impact of betrayal and hate to flow when he inevitably turned to try to kill her. Of course, he would. It was the only logical answer to any of this, for any reason. The galaxy had made it plain for nearly two decades that he could not have his body back…That he would never be himself—Never the man she married, never again.

Her throat ran dry.

"Are you…mine?"

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Perhaps it was habit then, that he sat away from her now. He told himself that it was because she needed time to know it was him, but there was always a deeper fear in Empyrean - even in Maliphant. That when things fell out of his control, out of his ability to manipulate or wring into accordance of his will through sheer violence, he was powerless. It was a binary mind he had, and right now he felt all to powerless. He knew what she was looking for, and he knew that the sensation was faint. It was there, but he had long ago lost the ability to trace it - he could not guide her to find it now.​

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"I said...", he began wringing his hands together as he leaned forward.​

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"That for the galaxy to forgive you, forgive us, that the Worm must be killed - and thus, I must be killed. That was true, but the look in your eye when I asked.", he shook his head briefly, "It was enough to hold that plan off. In my studies, with the assistance of Darth Carnifex , I discovered a way to seal the Worm - but it wasn't without cost."​

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"Even if you can not tell it is me, even if you can not forgive me for my sudden absence, I am yours - in this life, or the next.", he said with a faint smile up to her, still at a distance.​

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Srina Talon​

 

[Srina Talon]

TAG: Darth Empyrean
LOCATION: Jutrand [Bedroom]

____________________________________________________

"Even if you can not tell it is me, even if you can not forgive me for my sudden absence, I am yours - in this life, or the next."

That faint smile was the worst part of it.

Not the crystal around his neck, swinging, like a gilded noose that masqueraded as freedom.
Not the explanation that implicated Darth Carnifex more than she thought possible.
Not the distance he kept from her.

It was the smile…Because it was so, him. It belonged to someone she hadn’t seen outside of her dreams in nearly two decades. The recounting of his plan to sacrifice himself to end the Worm brought back a distant ache that she had thought herself beyond. She remembered feeling her eyes sting when he asked her to drive a sword through him, feeling her chest constrict, while he did the one thing he had always promised he would never do.

Leave her alone.

Echani eyes knew that smile, the sharpness of his jaw, and she had to look away. Her teeth were pressed tightly together. Not from anger but from holding back a flood of emotion that had been steadily building for longer than she could remember. Her husband would well know that feeling was a miscalculation in her being, difficult because she felt far more than anyone would ever know, yet lacked the means to express it. It was a hole in her armor. Her weakness…He…was her weakness.

Seal the Worm.
Lose the Force.
Shunt their bond.
Return newly made by sneaking into the Imperial Palace in broad daylight by starting a fight.

The explanation was absolutely absurd…Which made it infuriatingly possible. Her gaze drifted for a moment toward the edge of the room, not the center, where memory lived and breathed. For years, she had lived with a strange, quiet intimacy that was always distant. It was a case of two people who were so codependent that they refused to surrender the last fragments of the life they knew, even when it began to visibly rot. Her head tilted to the side, and her eyes closed again, face crumbling beneath the weight of it all. Pain. It was too much. Worsened by hope.

It was a lie.​

“…I cannot be forgiven…”

The shape of her beloved swore himself to her as he had time and time again, beneath moon and stars, but everything had changed. He had changed. This was either the most selfless act he had ever committed or the most reckless. He had hidden it from her. The golden-thread that had once been brighter than the sun was almost translucent now while it flickered in and out. There was a time when she had felt all that he was in every waking moment. His being was a second skin, the dark, baleful miasma…Home. He had a choice now. “My husband never tolerated being powerless well.”

Which was how this whole mess had begun. Power. The call of it—The seduction of it.

The Worm had made promises.

Maliphant hadn’t turned away.

At last…She rose from the chair. The movement was achingly graceful in a way that came naturally to her, even while the world she knew felt like it was cracking to pieces. Carnifex and Empyrean had been keeping secrets from her, and it burned like fire. Silk whispered against marble as she crossed the small distance between them again, stopping just short of where she sat. Standing in front of his knees, her head was only slightly higher than his. Close again…

She could only see Maliphant. Rhysion. The man who had come home to Eshan with her so long ago.

The man who had asked her for a family of their own.

Her hand lifted once more before falling still. This man had already pulled away from her once, despite the declaration that he was hers. It suddenly all made sense, now, when he had not arrived on Coruscant when the final dark had come to claim her. Distant eyes turned toward her hand and the wedding ring that glimmered almost innocently beneath low lights. She never went anywhere without it…Rarely took it off. He hadn’t come…

Because he hadn’t felt her die.​

“…Why are you here?”

He was shiny, new, and faultless. He could blend in and disappear…

She could not. The bedroom that he had crafted for her suddenly felt too small. Her throat felt tight while true loneliness began to seep into her bones as the truth settled. Why would he want to risk being at her side now?

Her head turned away.

The best thing she could do for her family was to rule…Rule…

Or die.

“Why now?”

 

[Darth Empyrean]

"Because I won.", he said simply, gently, carefully, reaching his hand up to hold hers, to run his thumb across the ring he had made her - that still echo'ed his soul, pieced and bartered out in his creations like it was infinite. The finitality of that soul had come to roost, and he paid the cost - but that gentle pressure on the ring, and it called back to her in the way she knew. She could feel his soul surge into her mind, her sensation, her very being. It was not as sharp as it could have been, not as powerful as it was when he yet remained on this plane in death, but it was the thread she grasped for - still there, still strong, only hard to see.​

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"I didn't hide from you or the Empire out of cruelty, I feared what the Worm would do when cornered. I had been... fighting with him. For so long.", he said, squeezing her hand tighter.​

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"Did you know that in death, the mind still needs to sleep?", he said after a quiet moment. "For years, he stole that from me. Him and all that he was, all that he had stolen, threatened to tear what remained of my body and mind apart in every moment. I felt my death, drawn out, repeated in every movement. I was... tired.", but that was an understatement.​

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He had been destroyed by what the Worm had done. What he had to do for so long just to keep his family safe, to pay for the crime of ambition. Even as he died in every moment, to return to her he did what even a living soul could not. He forged an empire, built wealth, conquered half of the galaxy, all in a terrible attempt to find the secrets of the Sepulchral and end his constant violence. There was a desperation that was every so carelessly creeping into his every decision - to go so far as to ask for his wife to end his life. He said it was for her sake, but he time to consider that - and he feared it was because he feared how long he could keep that fight going. How long he could survive it.​

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"When I learned of how to seperate our souls, of how to contain him, he redoubled his efforts. There was power he was hiding, waiting and building towards winning our struggle, I imagine. I had no choice but to leave, because I knew you would have followed me - and I don't know if I could take control again, I wouldn't risk you for my crimes. Not again."​

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"So, I won. I beat the Worm, and I came home. Less of an Emperor, but more of a man.", he said as he continued to gently run his thumb over he hand. A hand he had been unable to feel in years - the nerves in his dead fingers had long since only felt decay and pain, but her tender touch was intoxicating.​

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"I can not be the Emperor I was, nor the Emperor you need. I am not 'The Dead God' the Sepulchral made me out to be anymore. I am just a man, but that is all I ever wanted to be. I just didn't realize what kind of man that was until it was too late."​

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He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it gently, tenderly. With her allowance, he rested it against his cheek, closing his eyes as he appreciated a warmth he had not felt on decades - but he would not contain her. She was not his bird in a gilded cage - she was, very simply, his reason for being. For all the death he had endured, decades of torture, even this would be enough. The soft pallid lips of a woman he loved, and the soft presence of her hand.​

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Srina Talon​

 

[Srina Talon]

TAG: Darth Empyrean
LOCATION: Jutrand [Bedroom]

____________________________________________________

She didn't pull away.

When his thumb brushed the ring of his creation, the reaction was instinctive. Not in her mind, not in her reasoning, but somewhere deeper, somewhere older, somewhere raw that lived behind the iron defenses she had spent years constructing and maintaining. The metal warmed beneath his touch, and the echo that lived inside it stirred like some sleeping beast beneath a curse.

It felt faint.

So faint…That she might have dismissed it if she hadn't known exactly what her husband felt like. Her breath stilled while she internally clamored to remember the way it had once been. The thread did not blaze as she knew. No longer was there an anchoring storm between them, brilliant, violent, comforting, and impossible to ignore. It was frayed…Split apart. Like sunlight filtered through deep water.

Srina breathed in too deeply, too fast, and a strangled cry pushed out of her throat. It was small. Her body couldn't allow for more than that because she was a creature that had been taught to think, not feel. Anguish bubbled up despite his victory against the Worm because the price was still high. He had come to her on Ryloth when her spirit was broken, perhaps, following the sensation of her pain through the sword her had crafted for her. Perhaps…following fate. The link between them was not innate.

It had been tended to, carefully, and nurtured until it was strong.

They chose each other.

But this…? This emptiness where he had once been? How could he stand it? Her ivory-crowned head leaned in, and her forehead pressed softly against his while her eyes slammed shut. It was good that he couldn't feel her. It was good that he couldn't feel this. That he would never know how it felt to keep losing him over and over, even while he was sitting right in front of her. He was so close…But so far away. "Meldanya…", she whispered achingly, more on reflex, while trying desperately to bury everything else.

He didn't need to know.

She let the room not exist. It was senseless, thoughtless, because anyone could have driven a weapon of their choosing through her spine while her hands were full of him. She had withstood the image that the Galactic Empire had sent her on Atrisia, a vision from her past. She had endured that. She could not endure this. It wasn't a case of being strong enough…She just didn't want to. She was exhausted, drained, and he was the oasis, offering himself without consequence.

The pale Echani had spent so long learning to breathe without him. The palace, the empire, the war, the duty, the burden, success, and failure, faded beneath one fragile sensation. She had thought herself past emotion. Past such cruel frivolities that lesser beings engaged in…But his touch pressed against her and forced everything back in against her will. His soul had always been unmistakable to her. This was the reason she kept the Staff of Ascension so close…It was a jagged thing. Vast, unchecked, and terrifyingly alive.

It was still there.

He was still there.

When her eyes opened, shades of gold clashed from the nearness, and his face remained blurry. The violence and distrust in her had not changed, nor would it, because one night did not undo decades of loneliness. It did not change that in his absence, an entire nation had come to look for her for guidance and protection. That—Quinn was expected to carry on for both of them when…

She was just a little girl. Her little girl.

"You won…"

The words were repeated softly, so close, that if her head tilted just a little more, she could have kissed him. Claimed him as she had so many times before. There was a difference here that was sparked with more emotion than she knew what to do with. They didn't sound…Triumphant. Proud. They seemed to carry the weight of something secret when his lips touched her hand. The gesture was gentle in a way she remembered all too well, something reserved, for when the galaxy wasn't watching.

It was infuriating—Because it was disarming. She hated it.

Because she both loathed it…

And wanted him to do it again.

"You left."

Whispered softer, still. She had carried this Empire because there had been no one else capable of holding his legacy intact. Because he had been fighting something she could not see, could not reach, could not kill for him. Because the man she loved and adored was dissolving piece by piece inside the body of a monster that he could not control. Her hand balled into a fist and struck him in the shoulder. Hard. Before it hit again…And again. "You left me."

Because when the final dark came for her on Coruscant, keeping his dream alive?

He had not been there.​

Logic dictated that it shouldn't bother her. It was the necessary course of action to ensure the survival of their children. What they had was not sustainable. Flesh and corpse. Logic said that his anger as the Dead God would have eventually destroyed every bit of loyalty and affection they had for one another…But she was not pragmatic while breathing the same air he was. She was not logical when she could sense his pulse, feel, the warmth beneath his skin. "And now…"

"…I am what you were…"

Now—She was inhuman, the monster. It was true that he was no longer the Emperor that she required, but she was no longer the wife he'd left behind. He did not know what she needed with their roles suffering a complete reversal. His hand on her cheek caused her to quiet, and her eyes closed once more. Overwhelmed again, drowning in complexities. Her head shook slowly before her body crumbled into his with every soft curve finding familiar angles…Puzzle pieces, fitting.

It was weak.

It was weak.

It was weak.

It was weak.

"…I hate you…"

 

[Darth Empyrean]

There was a sad irony in that the very thing she had hoped not to be became her fate. Empyrean wanted to ask her to abandon this place, abandon the Empire - walk away with him to start a farm far from all of this, but he knew that wasn't fair. If not for them, for their children - who still needed them. They were stuck in the cogs of the machine he had made, and the sickening reality of that started to eat at him like the Worm had. If it wasn't one mistake, it was always another - but now he didn't have the power to change it.​

​

When Srina fell into him, he carefully wrapped both of his arms around her, a feeling she had not felt in nearly two decades. There was warmth, a touching closeness that had always been a curse for them both - his body had been the truest embodiment of his strength, but that strength drove everything he cared about away. It was a smothering strength, a disgusting aborration that the Galaxy punished him for every day - and would continue to do so it would seem.​

​

"You're allowed to hate me.", he offered her quietly, gently brushing her hair from her face.​

​

"I will love you regardless."​

​

He could not show her the strength of their bond anymore, but it comforted him she no longer doubted him. The danger of tomorrow could wait, a new plan to free themselves from his constant torment a problem for another day. He only hoped she would be strong enough where he couldn't - where he had failed. There was a dynamic their regime had held, him the power that cowed an entire Empire, her the soft word that kept them enthralled. Now what was he?​

​

A pretty face, and nothing else. She needed more than what he was now, needed more of the Empyrean that protected his family - but he had spent that strength just coming home again. A shame he came home to find it still burning.​

​

"I left, but only so I could come back.", he almost whispered. He adjusted her slightly, letting her ear fall on his chest.​

​

"Do you hear it, my love? A heart that beats for only you - steady and rythmic. I will do everything in my meager power to stay by your side - and if I ever leave, know I will return. Time and time again - in this life or the next. The galaxy is not strong enough to keep me away from you."

Bump. Bump. Bump.​

​

Srina Talon ​

 

[Srina Talon]

TAG: Darth Empyrean
LOCATION: Jutrand [Bedroom]

____________________________________________________

"I do."

She heard it.

"Oh, Srina - I am him. We are Maliphant, and Maliphant is us.", he said with his voice."Can you not feel our bond? Our Love? My disgust for you?"

She heard it.

"He belongs to me. You belong, to me."

Srina remained folded against him, her ear resting where he had guided, while the slow cadence of a heartbeat filled her up. It hollowed her because it was all she had selfishly coveted during sleepless nights, alone, where prying eyes couldn't reach. It was a secret. Her deepest sin. When her husband rose from the grave and attacked her, she hadn't pushed him away or branded him a lost cause. She had been able to recognize the difference between the Worm and her other half. Knowledge that he was still bound to her had driven the red-haired abomination to its knees…

Where she held his head to her body—Claiming him again. Even corrupted.

She had never turned from all he had become, but there were moments when she longed for the simplicity of being. Of this. Of being able to rest her head on his chest, hear him breathe, and feel a hand that was not leathery and cold. To witness him with eyes that did not see every ounce of the pain his resurrection had left him in. For all her strength, she'd been powerless to help him. What kind of partner did that make her? That she wished for a living fate for him? What kind of wife did that make her?

When most women became widows…It was final.

The utter agony of her other half was searing. Blinding. The transition, the change, whatever it was that the Worm was putting Maliphant through was erasing him. She could feel it when pieces of his soul were sloughed off like dust blowing away from a grindstone. He was being reduced. Remade.

"…Maliphant…Please…Help me…"

Help me, help you. Help me, save you.

She should have been grateful. And she was…But…

The mundane sound of a heartbeat reminded her that she had been too late to save him. That she had arrived in the exact moment some piece of Jedi filth carved him in half, like an animal, and had only been able to hold his remains. Useless. He had spent his last breath trying to comfort her…

His face contorted into a pained grimace as he raised his other hand, slick with his own blood. He pressed it against her cheek as involuntary tears of frustration and pain fell from his eyes - and he could offer her no words. Trying to do so was met with nearly inaudible gurgles and blinding pain - so he simply mouthed the words that mattered, the only words she needed in the moment. I love you.

What had she done? How had she helped him? How had she stopped it?

A heartbeat, truly, was a mundane sound that every living creature carried without thought. But to her…It felt impossibly loud. It felt as if the entire room was filled with it, and everything else faded away. Her fingers curled into the fabric at his side, tightening there, as though she needed something to anchor herself. This was all she had wanted for him. All this time. This was the life she had longed for in silent moments, and now, it was out of reach.

It made her angry in ways she could not explain.

Her breath left her slowly. It was warm and small against the cloth covering his chest, and for a few stolen moments, she just existed where she was. Crushed into the perfect circle his arms made, without thought, without the weight of the throne bearing down on the back of her neck. She took in the familiarity of him, remembering something new with every moment they remained close. She remembered…Feeling safe, remembeed, that he was her sanctuary…How long ago had it been since that had been true? How long?

Slowly…Her head pulled back, and her chin tilted upward.

"I hate you."

There was no venom in the statement…Just more emotion than she knew how to process. Everything that had happened, they had done to themselves. The Sith Order had not been forced on either of them. The wars had not simply appeared. Every fleet that burned across the stars, every battle, every terrible decision that had turned their names into something the galaxy whispered about in fear…

They had chosen this path.

Her hand slid up slowly from his side, only to press against the center of his chest where a new heart lay.

"I hate you, Meldanya…", she trailed off, leaning in to his touch, despite the permission he had given…"Because I don't hate you at all."

Her hand slid upward, resting lightly against his collarbone, fingers spreading there as if testing the reality of him again. Searching for the lie. He was alive, warm, and infuriatingly understanding. Her thumb brushed once against the hollow at the base of his throat where his pulse lived. He couldn't promise that he would always return, but the sentiment was noted, showing in eyes that weren't soft or forgiving…But they no longer held the empathy of a barren wasteland.

"You don't know that…", the admonishment felt like a familiar response to grandiose claims that he had made in the past. Often…To trick her into smiling despite herself. The notion of the galaxy conspiring to keep them separated was ironic and a little too close to home. He had loved her first, perhaps, had loved her best…But things had changed. She had changed. Her eyes flickered with something that had no name. It was a mix of sadness and resignation. "But you must understand…The wife you knew…"

"She is gone."

Not wholly the wife Empyrean remembered…But the wife Maliphant remembered. That woman who believed in small mercy and benevolence had been buried with him when he died. Sher had progressively hardened while adapting to new realities. She lifted her chin slightly, and some of the distance returned to her eyes as she began to disassociate, the Empress, settling back into place around the woman beneath it.

She could not be weak.

Not even for him.

"I am not certain there is anything left in me for you to love."

 

[Darth Empyrean]

​

Hate was a fickle thing - the hate that empowered them, the hate that cowed them. There was a flavor of hate that fell in every spectrum of the emotional wheel, hatred that perferated and hatred that kept things safe. Hate that burned, and hate that was cold. Empyrean knew them well, he had hated the Galaxy more than any being alive - or so he felt. Hatred for the life he was born into, hatred for the fear that abuse put into him, hatred for the monster he became, hatred for the Jedi that persisted the lie, hatred for the very Empire he built. More than anything, more than all that - the only hate that truly rang true was the hatred he held for himself. He was the one that drew them into this life, the one that made the mistakes, the one that forced Srina to suffer under the weight of his ambition.​

​

And more than that - how many lives had he destroyed in the selfish desire to undo his mistakes, only to make more? Oh, hate was a thing he was so very familiar with, because hatred was the only constant his life ever held.​

​

But not for her.​

​

"I know that death could not keep me from you.", he offered her again, smiling slightly at the thought. It was a simple affirmation, and perhaps one she did not believe - but to him was true. She couldn't feel it through their bond, his very thoughts, anymore - but if she did, if she could, she would know that there was nothing but determination in his words. Whether it was true or not didn't matter - he would bend truth until it broke to his will, as he had done a thousand times before, as he would do a thousand times again. For a man so scarred with the sins of his past, of his actions, he could survive a few more if that meant he found the happiness he wanted - if it found her the happiness he wanted for her.​

​

A galaxy to burn so that he could be with his wife. That was all that ever mattered to him, and he would continue to rampage against anything that dared stand in his way to his goal - in this life, or the next.​

​

When she spoke of there being no wife to return home to, he simply shook his head - not dismissive, but firm.​

​

"And the husband you knew is no longer here - time is a fickle being, but it will not stop no matter the power we hold. We change, we grow old, we make mistakes and we grow. The wife I love is still here as she ever was, even if you can't find her. You who stayed with me even in death, who never doubted us in even our darkest moments. I am not Maliphant, and I am not Empyrean."​

​

"But I am Rhysion. I am yours, in name, body, mind, and soul. Even if I can not be your strength, I can be your rock - as you are mine."​

​

Gently, he kissed her above the brow, cradling her tightly as he continued;​

​

"Say the word, and I stay. No matter the cost. Say the word, and I go - I am yours, my love. My moon and stars. All I ever needed was to be with you, I ask for nothing more."​

​

Srina Talon​