Private Enjoy the Silence

[Verie Lacroix]

The former ballerina watched the conversation, her gaze flicking from one man to the next and back. She listened as she munched her shortbread, pausing to wash down the crumbs with her tea. Carefully she lifted the cup and saucer to her lips and lowered them down again. "Perfect, as usual," she murmured to her husband with an appreciative smile.

She sat and absorbed. Verie Lacroix had spent a lot of her time around her husband absorbing. Not just because he was a boundless source of information and knowledge (though he was) or because he was an endless supply of warmth, humor, and affection (though he was that, too), but because his family tree was, to Verie at least, a thorny tangle of distant relations and friend connections. She had given up trying to memorize the outliers and relied on her husband to explain things to her.

But now, Verie needed another hint. Her status as an outsider was never more apparent than when when discussing shadowy figures. They both seemed to know who 'her' was. Without context, a few different women came to Verie's mind. She made no comment, but continued to work her way through her shortbread stick, again lifting cup and saucer to her lips once she finished it.

She set her teacup down again and looked up at her husband expectantly. "Is this something I should be concerned about?" she asked placidly. "Take-the children-away level, or charge-the-blasters level?"

 

[Drifter]

This was the part that would deepen the grief that grew within Draith's eyes. It wasn't just his own, but it was the combined tribulation that the former Moross God had felt on that day.

"I heard her voice, " felt her smooth skin, smelled the fragrant nectar of her hair.

Memories collided into one, intersecting, weaving upon his own, and that of the Sith Lord. Reliving that moment, the full strength of the emotions began to bubble towards the surface. Pain, regret, shame, longing, love - all of it had coalesced into a veritable bomb of explosive energy that had torn Cameron apart.

Just as quickly as Amorella had been given to me, she had been snatched away. ​

Draith's trembling would grow into visible shakes, a haunted expression carving sharp lines and shadows over his haggard visage.

"The... coagulation of the Force. Her presence. Her face, image. As if she stood right there. Close enough to touch, " his fingers would close into a tight, knuckle-white grip. The woman who tied the former false god and Draith together. The one they both, adored, cherished, and had grieved at her passing.

She had been right there, never felt so close as she had before her passing on what had been meant to be a joyous day.

I fought hard to keep her safe.​

"I... I..." Draith's voice gave a crack, tears prickling in his eyes, remembering, reliving every anguished second. A tempestuous dissonance across the love and affection he had held for a family member with that of a lover. It was as equally confusing for Draith as it was even to attempt to explain.

So he didn't.

Instead, a strangled breath, a distinct shift in Draith's body, and citrine eyes shifted into a silver-green hue swirl. Turning up towards Dissero and Verie Lacroix, his voice clipped, cool, but no less resonating with a different presence.

"...I had refused to accept the will of the Force in its decision to take Amorella from me. In doing so...I condemned her to a fate worst than death. A state where I did not fully know how to pull her from it."

 

[Dissero]

The sound of Cameron Centurion's voice was unmistakable as it left the young man's lips. One that this particular young man should not have been physically capable of speaking - roguish as he was, Draith was more an alto than the deep, thunderous baritone of Cameron. Dissero stood so quickly from his stool in alarm that it toppled backward and clattered to the kitchen floor.

His hand nearest to Verie found itself bracing against her arm, if not for reassurance than for a bit of her grounded support. He stared, the look of the paranoid man that had haunted his features for nearly five years prior to moving to Naboo suddenly reappearing on his face.

What Draith was telling him, explaining in strange detail, was dangerous but not impossible. It set his proverbial hackles flaring up his spine and made the blue of his eyes burn, "I don't know," he said to Verie finally, slowly turning to look at her, "Cameron was Amorella's husband. You met him once, back on the Moon of Vassek. A very old and very powerful Sith Lord that has somehow attached his soul to my nephew."

The man's eyes narrowed as they shifted back to Draith, "You can't take him and you can't stay in his body. Your corruption will kill him."

 

[Verie Lacroix]

Verie's eyes narrowed as her pulse quickened. Her heartbeat was like a drum in her ear. Slow but steady and powerful. She couldn't put a name to the sudden rush of fear she felt, the unspoken fear that caused the war-drums of her heartbeat to gather speed and force. Hers wasn't a startled panic, though she did start with alarm, but rather a smoldering fire of fear and something else -- it took her a few moments to identify it as rage, and once she did, to trace it back to its root.

First, Cameron Centurion was here, in her kitchen.

Second, his presence was dangerous -- to Draith, at least, but to who else? Did Draith know? Did any of them?

Third, her children were asleep upstairs and her husband was standing mere feet from Draith.

"I remember," Verie mumbled automatically, dark eyes flashing. She didn't look away from Mero's nephew. "The children need to leave. If there's even a hint of a possibility that his spirit can get out or infect them, if there's even a chance that this could touch them, they need to go somewhere safe." Her eyes narrowed at Draith, her knuckles white on the edge of the counter, her tea and shortbread all but forgotten. Finally, she half-turned her head to look at her husband, her face stony.

 

[Drifter]

Dissero Verie Lacroix

At that, the man imprinted with the soul of Lord Ashmedai slowly came to his feet. Amusement lined the haggard features of the man whose body the former Sithlord came to occupy. A dark brow rose, setting that steely stare from Dissero towards Verie. While his silver-green gaze certainly drank in various details, he couldn't say his eyes lingered much over the kitchen he'd once visited in the past. As always, his attentions focused more around fully understanding his environment from a more tactical standpoint.

Slowly, he shifted his gaze to the woman and smiled pleasantly. "Your children are safe. It is this child that is the one afflicted." he gave a roll of his shoulders, as if still not quite fully in control of the body nor its leaner shorter frame. Draith certainly didn't have the full height Cameron had known in the past.

"It was not planned, Merovign." the time leading up to that fateful event had taken its toll. Several agonizing months pretending that nothing was wrong, building upon a type of stress that the former Sith Lord had never trained in. For a man that detested weakness, like a novice he had let his emotions run the course, culminating in an act that had split the FIS Kuragin in two.

"The situation is what it is. What happened to me could be of some similar nature of what occurred to Amorella." The Force worked in mysterious ways, taunting him with its irony. She was out there, somewhere, in some manner or state that he did not fully know how to pull her from. His jaw flexed. Turning towards Dissero, that deep voice would state flatly, "As for this child, he has much to learn."

Whether or not it will kill Draith remain uncertain. However, the constant struggle for control had done its toll. At one time, Cameron had been a young man, largely new to the Force and its manipulation of all things. Through his suffering, he came to understand the lure of the Darkside, to the power of death. He'd trained Draith, watched him grow, only to confirm that the boy was going to get himself killed with his recklessness. This was an opportunity. Draith needed to learn to rise to meet death as Cameron once had. To learn to make the Darkside his tool.

 

[Dissero]

A thin line formed on his lips, brow setting low. Regardless of what Cameron said through Draith's body, Dissero was not want to trust the man. In life, before the untimely and horrific death of his sister, Amorella had been the key component to trust in Lord Ashmedai. Now, without the certainty of her presence in the galaxy and only a whim to drive the dark Lord's spirit, it made him suspect.

He felt the cold stare of his wife without needing to look, but he looked anyway. Turning into her, clasping a hand at her shoulder, he nodded in agreement, "They can go to Kira and Sol on Borleias. Why don't you give them a call in my office."

There was nowhere else in the galaxy he trusted that they would be as safe except in the presence of their own parents. Kira loved children and Sol would protect his blood with the same ferocity as he would. Might've sent them to stay with Desdemona if she was still Beastia on Onderon ... but he wasn't about to entrust them to her on Thral.

Dissero squeezed her shoulder, nodded in reassurance, then turned back to his nephew and the spirit contained within him.

"So your purpose is what? To search for Amorella?" frowning, the alchemist folded his arms at his chest, "And if you find her, then what?"

 

[Verie Lacroix]

Verie watched her husband, her eyebrows furrowing. Their eyes locked for a moment, then she nodded. She stood on her toes to kiss his cheek and whispered, "Be so careful." She squeezed his forearm before reluctantly stepping away. Verie half-turned to Draith and, clearing her throat, said: "Do help yourself to something to eat if you're still hungry. There's leftover banthaloaf in the 'fridge."

The former ballerina left the kitchen and took Mero up on his suggestion to go to his study. But she didn't pick up the communicator and her husband's book right away. Instead, she perched on the edge of his office chair for a few moments, then leapt off it and paced towards the window, then back, making a circuit of the carpet between the door and the window. Was sending the children to Kira and Sol a good idea? She took the idea apart in her mind like it was a lightsaber, examining the component parts.

Kira was Draith's mother, her recollection of her husband's complex and expansive family tree told her. That in itself didn't make the idea suspect. But while Draith had this visitor, she had deep concerns. Add to this the fact that her husband had made the recommendation within the earshot of Draith and his spiritual tumor made Verie nervous. But then, there did not seem to be any indication that the spirit had any particular animus towards the children; Verie's major concern was proximity, and she was sure that was Mero's take as well.

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose for a few moments, then returned to the desk, sat on the edge, and picked up the contact book.

 

[Drifter]

Dissero Verie Lacroix

"That will depend on if I find her, and in what state." the Sith Lord replied, although that was said with a slight grimace. It only grew more evident as the seconds went ticking by. Perhaps, Kira and Sol's names were what would trigger the young man whose body struggled with the taint and presence of Cameron to fight. It was a good thing Verie had left the kitchen, seeing what would ensue would only be a flashback to a troubled, dark past.

"Would you let the --" a sudden jerk of the body, a twist of Draith's torso. He went stumbling back, bumping against the table. His chest began to heave, rising and falling with a studdering draw of breath. "No, that's eno--" another twitch, "I am not do -"

A hand went slamming down on the table, "Just.. no! " torment seemed to glitter within Drifter's eyes, their hue caught in a switch of viridian and orange, before barely hanging on to the latter.

It would be a familiar scene to Dissero, one of the past where he too had struggled with the control of his body. When the sense of self and identity bled into another, making him forget who he was, controlled by the Jedi Master whose soul he had caught within that wretched locket.

Panting, head cast down, the ragged dark mess of long hair would hide Draith's face, but it would not veil the turbulence and trembling that ran along the length of his body. What had once been a jovial, sarcastic, optimistic young man had been reduced into struggling not only for the control of his body but slowly tainted by the Darkside.

"I... care for him. Her." the low, hoarse voice began, stammering, referencing Amorella and Cameron. Family was family, strength as well as a weakness when it came to Draith. He didn't want Cameron to die, but the months of having him within him had been an ongoing struggle between discerning which were his own thoughts, desires, and which weren't.

"But... it's getting harder to manage. I can't... I can't use anything I've created. " he would stare down at his hand, fingers curling in on the table, fisting tight. For one who had been able to control the Force using the Lightside of the Force and Jal Shey techniques, it was troubling. Sure, he spent time training with Cameron, absorbing as much information from Dissero's archives and curious findings, his father explaining and going through the temptation of the Darkside and how it was a daily struggle, one that he had to wear a specific ring to keep himself in check.

"Nothing, Merovign. " he stammered as if the thought alone was a wretched existence, the anger, and frustration coiling to the point that he couldn't help but slam his fist down angrily onto the table. A burst of emotion and anger that was foreign to Draith. "And I can't fucking find Nohei without them!"

More information. More news. What did this have to do with Draith's younger sister?

 

[Dissero]

Dissero felt his expression fall as his wife whispered her warning and left his presence. As much as the man was a strong independent spirit, in times like these he found that having Ve within close proximity anchored him best. He'd spent their years together fighting the same fight Draith was now - forcing down the inclination to lean into the Darkside. At first a losing battle, back before he was certain that Verie was on his side.

It took having her there to support him to gain any ground.

He knew exactly what the younger man was going through, down to the very syllables passing through his teeth in sharp clarity.

Turning quietly to pick up the toppled stool and round the island counter, Dissero paused as the news of finding Nohei finally surfaced. His frown deepened, "Nohei? Is that what this is all about?" Heated tension surrounded the younger man who had once been the same boy gleefully romping around his archives and getting into scrolls and tomes and artifacts he had no right getting into. Draith had always had a penchant for trouble, but it seemed this time he'd bitten off far more than he could chew.

A hand reached up to grip Draith by the closest shoulder, a firm hold to ground him, "Look at me Draith. Look at me."

Dissero settled a sobering look upon him, warm despite the severity of the situation, "You're not alone in this. Any of it. I'm going to help you, so will Verie, and the first thing you need to do is sit down and eat something. Okay?"

 

[Drifter]

Dissero Verie Lacroix

It was that assertation that would break Draith. Those bright orange eyes, staring into Dissero's seemed to collapse into a tumulous vortex of confusion, anger, frustration, pain, and finally relief. Draith knew that his family would support him. That they would do their best to help him work though it; however going back, the way he was, failing at being able to control the imprinting of Cameron's soul was too much of an overwhelming weight on his shoulders. He knew how his parents would react. He couldn't handle being in that smothering environment; they meant well, but this wasn't something he could turn to them now.

No, wrung out of every other option, he only had Merovign, with his endless halls of knowledge and lore. Draith gave a small, jagged nod, his chest rising and falling to take a deep breath, attempting to control his emotions again. Inside, Lord Ashmedai would stir in discontent. For him, the adults had been discussing important matters that children should not interject themselves into.

I'm not a child, Draith would race through his mind, followed only by an internal, sardonic laugh. You are. In more ways than one.

Sinking himself into a seat, Draith ran a shaky hand through his damp hair. Sweat beaded his brow, saturating his temples. As for Nohei...

"She hasn't responded to any of my messages. For a while. It isn't like her. She'd always write back. Something, anything. They told me that she was fine, that they knew she was alive, but that perhaps she's finding her way. But she wouldn't stop talking to me. It isn't like her. No one can tell me where she is and tracking her down has become a needle in a haystack because I can't use any of my tracking talismans. Everything burns my hand-- they register the influence Cameron inflicts upon me. " he gave a hollow laugh, looking at the package of black forest Alderaanian ham. His hunger was gone," My safeguards to prevent any darksider from using my creatures shot me in the ass. I can't use anything or make anything new. Not without a forge."

 

[Dissero]

Dissero listened with wrinkles of concern etching themselves across his brow like a misguided chisel across stone. When the younger man finished he sighed, broad shoulders sagging, and offered a nod, "I've a mind for that problem," he offered, idly itching at the scruff on his jaw. There wasn't a large number of people in the galaxy who understood that particular failure of creation. Himself, Rave, perhaps Ashin. There might have been others but he couldn't name them. It was a big galaxy, afterall, who was he to discount the unknowns.

"Alright," he moved forward, taking over the task of building an adequate sandwich for his guest, "that's a lot to take in. I'll make you a deal: eat this sandwich, get some rest in the guest suite, and for Force sake, take a bath," the man leaned down and sniffed with a grimace, "you're giving Ivy's kath hound a run for his money on offensive odors."

A smirk, he pieced together the last ingredients and lightly stamped the bread on top, "In the morning we'll go down to my workshop and get to work."

 

[Drifter]

Dissero

From under a mop of overgrown dark hair, the man would peer up at the scruffy, swarthy face of his elder. He took everything in. The completion of his sandwich, the distinct sniff at Draith's present lack of hygiene, the lingering smirk that would dance upon the corner of his lip. Yet most of all, Draith soaked in the permeating resonance of a sensation he hadn't realized he had desperately needed for so long; understanding. Recognition that this was something more than mere love and affection could assist with. His kin adored him, for sure, but their love at the moment felt smothering. As much as his mother would attempt to help, she would never understand. His father, on the other hand, while aware of the internal struggling, wouldn't quite know just how the present affliction affected him. Dissero could.

A nod, and perhaps, a glimmer of the Draith of the past would appear in the faintest of a crooked upward turn of Draith's lips. "Yes, well... only so much a sonic can do." A flat attempt at a joke, but it was something.

Food in his belly. A bath to wash the grime and dirt. Clean clothes. But most of all, a glimmer of hope. He had no desire to cast Cameron aside, but at the same time, he could already feel him spreading his fingers, reaching to permeate throughout the young man as he could. As arrogant as Draith could be, this was a matter he could not handle alone.

A pause, then finally, a quiet murmur, "Thank you, uncle."

 

[Dissero]

"Hey, any time, Buck." Dissero offered the younger man a warm smile, "All you have to do is ask. ...and call ahead next time. No more of this breaking and entering." He clapped a strong hand on his nephew's pauldron and gestured back to the far end of the house, across the open expanse of the living area, "Guest house is thattaway. I'll get you some clothes, though they might be a little big for you."

Draith wasn't quite as tall or as built as he was - never had been. Slight, like his father, but at least not as tall as him. Di didn't care what anyone said, Sol was a giant.

"If you need anything, you know where to find me. I'm heading back to bed, make yourself at home."

~~~

Mornings started early in the household. Magda was always the first to wake, which inevitably meant that Saelia was the next up. Gabe was reaching the age where he was starting to lose his excitement for mornings. Waking him, at times, was a battle and a half. Not today. He'd caught wind of their visitor and was especially curious to find out who it was. Di had to usher him back into his room to pack for his trip to Aunt Kira's three times.

"I called Hazel last night," he said to Verie while helping her dress and pack for the girls, "luckily she was just in the next sector over. She'll be here within the hour."

Hazel being his trusted Mercenary for Marrow & Illskins. She'd become a regular face around the household and even Draith knew her fairly well by now. Hazel ran most of the deliveries and product shipments for M&I.

Verie Lacroix
Drifter

 

[Verie Lacroix]

Verie examined the suitcase that sat open on Saelia's bed, half-full of things. She didn't know how long their children would be away from home, so she wasn't sure how much to pack for them. She didn't want to saddle Kira and Sol with children as well as laundry, nor did she want to give her husband's relations the idea that her children would be staying indefinitely. She worked her jaw as she stood, another pair of pants in one hand as she considered.

Mero came in and told her about the mercenary Hazel's involvement. She nodded silently and sighed, pushing the pants into the bag. "Good," she declared after a moment before picking up another tunic and pushing it into the bag. Verie glanced towards the door; she could swear she'd heard something in the hall. She went to the door and peered out into the hall.

Nothing.

She turned back to the room. "Magda, put that down. You aren't taking your lamp." She glanced at her husband with an amused smirk, then returned to work next to him. She lowered her voice so they could speak confidentially, her tone good-natured. "You know, I was sure before I married you that I was going to be the troublesome one. You were -- well, you: a prince, more handsome than anyone has a right to be, an accomplished scholar. But me? I was common and not an intellectual and my mother was -- well, the least said the better about her I think." She zipped up a bag and turned back to Mero.

"I thought for sure that you were doing me a favor. Turns out no. The craziness of Avadreia Lacroix was peanuts compared to... whatever the hell all this is," she said, gesturing vaguely towards the door. "Maybe I should have known after that trip to see the Noghri." She paused and wrapped an arm around Mero's waist, pressing a kiss against his shoulder. "I wouldn't trade it for anything, you know." She squeezed his middle and straightened.

"So -- what time is everything happening?"

Dissero | Drifter​

 

[Drifter]

Verie Lacroix Dissero

It had been a somewhat restless night. Draith could barely count on his fingers - of his remaining hand - a time where he managed to get a full's nights rest. In the past, he would spend these restless nights over a forge or workbench, focusing on crafting a new piece of armor or trinket. It once brought him a measure of peace and contentment that would wrangle his wandering thoughts and managed to focus them into creating something new. Useful. Trinkets that his family and friends could use to assist them with what they would need.

Now he could barely even touch his tools without the searing heat of the Lightside of the Force burning his palm. Once embedded in all of his imbued creations to prevent the Sith or a Darksider from using it, the man's security system was now a double-edged sword. He could no longer create. No longer use his skills. Nevermind that he lost his left arm in the wake of the combustion of the Force from his uncle. Now just a shadow of what he'd once been.

Dark circles were a purple smear under vibrant citrine eyes that held a scowl more often than the laughter they'd once shone. What else could Draith do to keep the voice at bay and provide some sense of sanity but physical exhaustion?

By the time morning came, the man was dripping in sweat, bare to his waist, breathing heavily as he grunted through repetition after repetition of one-armed push-ups. Without the armor, one could see the haggard line of his thin body, paler than usual, and the remnants of the black alchemical tattoo with the family emblem across his chest and upper right shoulder.

A slight noise stirred Draith's attention. From under a dark fringe of damp hair, Draith's eyes rose, slowing his push up to pan around the guest suite. While the Force had managed to make harnessing all the more difficult, it still would ebb and flow throughout the drifter. Heightened senses were not dependent on the Force; he had his father's side of the family to thank for that.

Quietly hoping to his feet, the man stood still. Breathing slowly, he'd narrow his gaze, canting his head slightly to the right. A twitch at the corner of his mouth would perk.

"Well, you're a quick little, Jeco..." he murmured, his senses prompting him to turn his attention towards a large desk at the right side of the guest house.

While it may have taken Dissero three times to coax Gabe to pack for his trip, the child took advantage of his parent's discussion to sneak off and investigate the disturbance in the house on his own. He was quiet and had managed to slip into the guest house, quietly taking a few peeks at the newcomer.

"Curious, aren't we?" Draith would call out, grabbing a spare towel he'd set to the side.