Farewell Letter | Vaas/Fortan

[Natasi Fortan]

The martial music played by the First Order military marching band played merrily, growing fainter and fainter as Natasi climbed the long ramp towards the visitor's center and exhibition hall at the Victory & Memorial Park in Avalonia. Minutes ago, she had pinned a shiny new rank badge upon the chest of [member="Ludolf Vaas"] -- lately General Vaas and now Field Marshall Vaas. Natasi would have liked to enjoy the moment, to recognize that despite their troubled recent past she and Vaas were integral members of the same team that would express the Supreme Leader's will on the galaxy, but events interceded, as they always seemed to do.

She remembered the row from the evening before. She could still hear the hurtful things she had said, heard, thought, as if it was a film playing back in her head. She had been made a fool, there was no two ways about that. She glanced at Sioux, subdued and silent a step behind her and to the left. What to do about Sioux? It was too short notice to get a new PPS -- who would coordinate the entire trip and keep Natasi briefed? But she didn't want to look at her onetime friend. She seemed to be destined to lose friends, and since her job and her personality made it difficult for her make new ones, the end result seemed plain.

She jammed her hands into her pockets, sighing into the cold Dosuun air. When did her life become such a mess? When had she allowed things to spiral? Perhaps she should never have confided in Sioux, but she couldn't unsay the words any more than she could un-drink the gin and tonics that had loosened her lips in those early days of her return to the good graces of the Supreme Leader. She couldn't un-cry the tears, un-think the damaging, hateful thoughts she had felt about herself and the woman she had come to consider a possible friend. She couldn't un-ask the questions that had tortured her for months about what qualities she lacked to attract, and what attributes she had in abundance that repulsed, and what it was about her that kept her home cold and her bed empty. Some of these questions had been answered at a tea house on Bespin. She had been forced to admit that her perception of Marzena Choi had been grossly unfair, but her manifest affection for the singer had done nothing to dull the ache.

Another dead friendship. Add it to the pile.

At least she was leaving, Natasi considered with relief. She was leaving Avalonia, leaving Dosuun, leaving the city she had built and the prison she had constructed for herself. There were policy reasons for it. It wasn't just to get away from them. But she felt relieved. No more events with the parade before her eyes. No more having to smile and smile until she felt her teeth might shatter against each other. For months, at least, she would be the master of her destiny and she would use that time to make every last man, woman, and child she met love her -- love her and the state she represented and be willing to die for both.

"Where is the car?" Natasi snapped at Sioux as they entered the visitor's center. The garage was stories below, but she hadn't heard the speeder pull up. "I want to get off this world as quickly as possible." She stopped outside the turbolift and jammed her finger into the call button, then repeated the gesture four or five more times in rapid succession. "By the Balance."

 

[Ludolf Vaas]

Field Marshal Vaas wished he could have had a clear mind during what had been the greatest promotion of his life to date. Twenty years ago he was an unknown Agent working for the Sith Empire; now he strode through Victory & Memorial Park as one of the highest-ranking military leaders in a burgeoning galactic power. He would have felt satisfied, or at least as much as his ambitious personality would allow, had the presence of [member="Natasi Fortan"] at the ceremony not been a constant reminder of the troubles that currently plagued his personal life.

Being a former Agent, Ludolf always knew how to sport an excellent poker face. He stood stoic and silent during the ceremony, betraying none of his inner emotion. But last night in his flat had been a different story, after hearing from his lover, Marzena Choi, about her falling out with Natasi. Marzena had regaled him with all the painful details of their argument, and after doing his best to console her, Ludolf had to come face-to-face with the consequences of his actions. The argument between the two women had been about him. He had known about Natasi's letter for quite some time, where she had finally poured her feelings for Ludolf mightily and spastically onto the paper, but he had chosen to ignore it - until now. As a result, Ludolf couldn't help but feel responsible for this mess.

Worse, he felt knotted by his own feelings, which only added to the guilt.

There was only one assessment for the current circumstances; unacceptable. Mission incomplete. He knew there was only one way to remedy the situation, and only he could do it. Though at this point Ludolf wasn't sure who he was doing this for - was it for Natasi, or himself? Perhaps it was both. As such, when Sioux excused herself to check on the status of the cab, Ludolf saw his opportunity to appear in the hallway behind the Grand Moff. His appearance had simplified since before; gone was the full regalia of his military dress uniform, and he was clad in the long, flowing black leather officer's coat that was bestowed upon First Order officers. At first glance, his black-clad visage appeared almost like a flashback from his days as an Agent.

"Natasi."

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi went rigid at the voice of [member="Ludolf Vaas"] from behind her. For a few moments she stood silent, barely seeing him in her peripheral vision emerging from the shadows in a black overcoat. Maybe if I don't move, he won't see me. Maybe if I don't move, he'll go away. She stood, stock-still, her finger depressing the call button on the turbolift until it blared an angry alarm from being depressed for too long. Natasi knew the feeling. She removed her finger and jammed her hands into her pockets, balling them into fists instinctively. Her body was stiff, painfully so, but she forced herself to turn and face him. It was like a stand-off in an old Tatooine-themed holofilm. This town really wasn't big enough for -- well, no.

The town was big enough for both of them. It was perfect for both of them. It wasn't big enough for the three of them -- Ludolf, and Natasi, and [member="Marzena Choi"]. Natasi and Vaas would have done wonderful things together. They would have created an Empire of durasteel that would have lasted through the ages. Their names would be remembered as long as history was recorded, the two of them, Natasi Fortan and Ludolf Vaas, masters of all they surveyed. Partners, friends, lovers, champions of Imperial values. An unstoppable team. An unshakable alliance.

The sound of the band's martial music wafted imperiously through from outside, a faint echo, a shadow of what it ought to have sounded like. Natasi knew that feeling, too. She had lived it since she had discovered that they wouldn't be partners, friends, lovers. Their team had been well and truly stopped. Their alliance had shaken itself apart. Natasi couldn't count on all her fingers and toes the number of times she had taken her resignation letter out of her desk drawer and left for the Supreme Leader's offices. To be confronted over, and over, and over again with how disposable she really was, and how foolish she had been to even hope, was too much to bear. But something -- call it ambition, or stubbornness, or the knowledge that to live without Ludolf Vaas in her life in any capacity, even only as a signature line on a page and nothing more, would have been impossible -- had always prevented her from going through with it.

She realized that she hadn't spoken. She hadn't even really looked at him, and was instead staring over his shoulder towards the doors. For once, Natasi Fortan didn't know what to say, but she had to say something. So she said, flatly: "What?" As one would address a bank teller, or a cab driver. No import. No feeling, except perhaps mild irritation.

 

[Ludolf Vaas]

[member="Natasi Fortan"] surely wasn't going to close the gap, being frozen stiff like a deer in headlights, so Ludolf took the first step. His boots clicked against the finely polished floor as he moved closer to her, until he finally stood tall in front of her, looking down to catch her eyes.

"You were going to leave without saying goodbye," He said simply.

A few moments of silence hung between them, and when it became apparent that Ludolf wasn't going away, he could feel Natasi resign herself to his presence. Silently, his icy eyes peered into hers. Flashbacks pushed their way into Ludolf's mind gruffly; he felt fifteen years younger again in that moment as he stood before Natasi, much the same as he once had when he extended a hand to assist her in leaving the One Sith. When he had confronted her then, they had barely known each other, yet there was no one else in the galaxy to depend upon. Somehow they had survived that ordeal, through trials and harrowing explosions that Ludolf would rather not remember, and somehow they had created... this. The walls around them, the band playing in the background, and the city bustling behind the windows outside, moving and pulsing like a heartbeat. They had created everything but themselves.

"I... can't let you go yet," Ludolf blurted, somewhat clumsily. Then, from the recesses of his officer's jacket, he unfurled the letter that Natasi had willed to him when she 'died'. "We never talked about this letter."

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi wanted to retreat as he came closer, but there was nowhere to go, except up against a clean, white wall. She held her ground, but resisted looking into his face until he forced the issue. She flinched when they made eye contact, and she nodded her head simply. "Yes," she answered, her voice as dull and gray as the early winter sky from under which they had recently emerged. She had planned to leave without saying goodbye. She had planned to leave without saying a word to him, and to continue her life without saying a word to him, until she could be in the same room and not struggle to keep control of her own emotions. Or, until she died. Whichever came first.

He produced the letter from inside his jacket. Natasi's blood was like ice, then. Vaas would see the twinge in her cheek, the fluttering of her eyelashes, the flame in her cheeks as her eyes went from frosty brown to firelit amber as tears flooded them, but refused to be shed. Again, she froze as he held the letter, but this time she thawed more quickly. Quick as a sparrow, her gloved hand reached out and snatched the letter from his grip. She didn't need to look at it to know what it was. She had written it with her own hand. With her own blood, one might say. With her own gin, more like, the liquor having been the thing to make her brave enough to tell [member="Ludolf Vaas"] how she really felt.

Just as quickly, she moved to stuff the letter into her pocket. "What letter?" she asked coldly. "I don't know anything about a letter."

 

[Ludolf Vaas]

In an instant, [member="Natasi Fortan"]'s fingers reached out and snaked the letter out of his grip. Not that it mattered; what was seen could not be unseen, which was why Ludolf did not protest. He had already practically memorized the letter. Perhaps Natasi had forgotten that he had the ability to encode messages in his brain, thanks to his brain implant. But judging from the Grand Moff's squirming, it seemed it was just a knee-jerk reaction to her state of anxiety.

Ludolf sighed. "This isn't helping, Natasi," He breathed finally.

"You might not have anything left to say to me, but this discussion is long overdue. So if you don't want to talk, then I will. And you can just listen. Fair enough?"

He pressed in closer, his black-clad form looming over her, practically pinning her against the wall.

 

[Natasi Fortan]

"How dare you," Natasi said coldly. Her words were passionate, her voice trembling with emotion, but her tone was icy. "Field Marshall Vaas, I have been trying to get your attention for months and you've ignored my very existence. What's changed now? That ungrateful woman came running home to you spinning some tale of my betrayal. It's nonsense. Nonsense," she repeated fiercely, her eyes flashing wider. "That's all it took. Not our decade of shared history. Not the fact that we've grown this Empire from nothing -- together. Not that have been friends for years. None of that could inspire you to talk to me, but Marzena Choi crooks her little finger and here you are. How dare you?"

She stared up at him, not flinching as he advanced. "That's close enough," she said firmly as he loomed over her. Where in the hell is that elevator?

"What, Field Marshall? What could you possibly have to say to me now, after months of silence?"

[member="Ludolf Vaas"]

 

[Ludolf Vaas]

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

"I'm not here because of Marzena," Ludolf answered. "I came here on my own volition. This was a long time coming. But you're right, I should have done this a long time ago."

All the time he'd spent searching for the right words to say to Natasi seemed like wasted months now. The time had only caused the problems to compound together and create an impenetrable mass, and he had nothing to show for it. He was still trying to find the right words off the cuff.

"But there's a lot of should haves between us, isn't there?" He never took his eyes away from her, although Ludolf's voice began to soften. "That letter, all those things you said... I, I had no idea you felt that way about me, Natasi. If I had known..." His voice trailed off momentarily.

"When you died, or so we thought, I felt I had lost more than a friend. I felt I'd lost something far more, and worse, I'd lost the last opportunity to tell you." Ludolf reached out and took her hand. "Everything you said in that letter... I felt it too. Perhaps I still do."

 

[Natasi Fortan]

"I'm not here because of Marzena."

Liar. Natasi felt her eyes frosting over again, the unshed tears threatening to escape her eyelashes and roll down her cheeks, but she refused to hasten their progress. Was the timing coincidental? She supposed it could have been. But in truth, even if she hadn't said a word to her lover after her row with Natasi, Marzena was the only reason he was there. Her presence, however innocent, however well-intentioned, however lovely, was a spanner in the works. Natasi didn't blame her, despite her outrage with the singer; Marzena was the spanner, but it was [member="Ludolf Vaas"] who had thrown it into the machinery.

"If I had known..."

Liar. She stared at him defiantly, the color draining from her cheeks. For a moment she allowed herself to indulge in the fantasy of what would have happened -- if he had known. The whole, glorious future she had envisioned: their empire -- yes, the Supreme Leader's, too, but theirs most of all -- reaching as far as the eye could see. Children -- perhaps a little blonde boy with his piercing eyes, perhaps a little chestnut haired girl, the very miniature of Natasi. They boy would roughhouse, knock over tables, and shout. The girl would study, and play piano, and sing. Perhaps there would be more than two. Natasi and Vaas, who had no family to speak of, would be all the family either needed. Theirs would be a match of equals -- just alike in intellect, work ethic, dedication, passion. But just as quickly as it had come, the vision dissipated, because he hadn't known. She took a breath to steady herself, and by this time he had taken her hand.

"I felt it too. Perhaps I still do."

Liar!

Only when she heard her voice echoing off the polished marble walls did Natasi realize that her anguished thought had unknowingly become an anguished cry. Her lower lip trembled until she pressed them together in a horrified white line, hot tears now rolling from her lashes down her cheeks, unbidden. She wasn't crying, hadn't lost control of herself, but blinking had broken the surface tension of the water in her eyes, caused it to cascade. "Of all the lies you could have told me, that is the worst. You cannot feel for me as I feel -- as I felt," she amended quickly, trying to pull her hand away. "If someone had told me you were dead, I couldn't have given up hope until I held your cold body. Probably not even then."

 

[Ludolf Vaas]

"Are you going to stand here and tell me how I feel?" Ludolf responded, still not letting Natasi take her hand back. He had winced as she shouted audibly, admittedly frustrated by her display. Her emotional reaction was quite expected, but Ludolf's coldly rational mind could not help but see how unproductive it was.

But he had learned a lot since he had left his programming by the One Sith behind. He had begun to understand what it was like to actually feel emotion, something that had been deprived from him for so long - and he had learned more about humanity, and himself, in the process.

"I know now why you cry," Ludolf said, taking his free, gloved hand and catching one of Natasi's falling tears with it. "Before this, it was something I could never do. I was not permitted to feel in that way. But when you died - or so we thought - I knew that my conditioning was broken. Because I realized that I wanted something I had never been granted - I wanted you as my companion. Even while you were alive, I realized that I kept that feeling buried, I trivialized it, hoping it would go away. It didn't. And I continue to keep it buried today."

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi swallowed audibly, her throat constricting painfully around the lump in her throat. "I know," she replied as he described his inability to process emotion. "Of course, I know. I've known you almost my entire adult life, Field Marshal. I -- " Her voice caught and halted, and she shook her head mutely, as if she could no longer bear to speak. She couldn't; it was physically painful. She nearly recoiled when he touched her cheek, capturing one of the tears that had so treacherously escaped her eyelashes. It felt -- intimate, somehow -- and Natasi absurdly felt that she was betraying Marzena by even being there. But if it had been her choice, she would be aboard the Frontrunner by now, heading for the Concordia, preparing to leave [member="Ludolf Vaas"] and [member="Marzena Choi"] behind for the next several months, at least. He had stopped her, he was preventing her leaving.

She had nothing to feel guilty for. And yet...

The Grand Moff could not believe the rest of what she heard -- literally, she couldn't make herself believe that what he was saying was true. He was trying to placate her, surely. Perhaps he was trying to get her to stay her hand where his precious starlet was concerned. Not a chance -- she had said she wouldn't meddle and she wouldn't; all she had to do was wait for Minister Calinda to sack Marzena and that little headache would solve itself. Or perhaps he just wanted Natasi to go away without making a fuss. Who could tell? But she didn't believe Vaas for a moment; how could someone who felt that way about her replace her so quickly -- so quickly -- and spend months not speaking to her?

"What do you want me to say?" she asked through a stifled sniffle, looking away from him and up to the right, willing the flood of tears to stop.

 

[Ludolf Vaas]

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

Regardless of whether or not Natasi believed him, there was little Ludolf could do to change that. The fact of the matter was that he had never left her because they had never been together in the first place. It was a cruel misstep of fortune that the two of them seemed to evade each other at just the right time. And now, well... now there was this. Natasi was sobbing in front of him, barely able to keep herself together, and Ludolf felt like his spirit had a gaping hole in it.

"I don't want you to say anything," He finally answered. Ludolf placed his other hand around her then, drawing her closer, not quite into a hug but almost there. His eyes never left hers. "We never could get on the same page with each other, Natasi, despite how we both felt. I consider it one of the worst mistakes I've made."

Ludolf ventured a hand upwards to stroke her chestnut hair briefly. "I would have gone with you, Natasi. Part of me still wants to. But now... I can't. I have obligations to Marzena. And I cannot forsake my honor by leaving her. I intend to marry her."

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi's gloved hands went to Vaas' chest -- not in a gesture of tenderness but in a motion of resistance, exerting pressure to push them apart. "Please, don't come any closer," she said gruffly. Her left hand came up to wipe at her eyes, smearing her mascara in the process of brushing tears from her cheeks. When he continued to speak, Natasi pulled herself free of him and and pulled her now-damp gloves off, stuffing them in her pocket to be dry-cleaned later. When he mentioned Marzena, she tried and failed to suppress the roll of her eyes. Marzena Choi -- as if someone of their caliber could possibly have obligations to someone like her.

She tried to push his hand from her hair. "Don't touch me," Natasi said waspishly. "And you should never speak of this. Not to me or to anyone else." She pushed her hair back under her hat and straightened her back, looking up at the Field Marshal again. Even now, when he was telling her that a decade of shared history meant so little. His words told one story, his actions another. "I don't know what that woman told you, but I would never dream of intervening. I wouldn't ask you to leave her, and I wouldn't have you if you did. The ship for us sailed the moment you took up with that..." Her eyes shut as she summoned some self-control. "...woman. Now that I know what I meant to you -- " which was to say, she added silently to herself, very little " -- there's nothing left for me there." This, at least, was a lie. She felt equal parts of grief and anger, frustration and exhaustion.

But as exhausted as she felt now, there was a lifetime to go. That was the thing about this situation -- the on and on-ness of it. She would never be free of it. She could marry Irani and have children and be otherwise delighted, but she would still feel that painful, icy squeeze in her chest every time she saw Ludolf Vaas and Marzena Choi together. She folded her arms around her slender frame -- like she could hold her emotional self together with enough pressure around her body.

"Look," Natasi said coolly. "I say this with no ulterior motive, no agenda, no hope to change your mind. Frankly, at this point, if it weren't for your position in the First Order, I couldn't care less what you do if there was a pill to achieve it," she said, looking at Vaas with a chill in her eyes. "But I feel -- I don't know, obligated, based on our years of shared history. It means something to me, anyway. But the point is, you're about to commit yourself to this woman. You must understand by now that she's not one of us. She's a little person, Ludolf. She's beautiful, and talented, and I thought she was very nice until she -- well nevermind -- but she's a little person. She's not in your league." She shook her head, as if to clear it, lifting a hand to rub her forehead.

"Anyway, you win. You both win. I'm leaving the capital," she said abruptly, looking back up into Vaas' face. "And I don't plan to return to stay until I can look at you across a room or a conference table and not resent your choices. So, perhaps never." She smoothed her jacket with her bare hands, collecting herself more. "At any rate. I will serve in this new office for one year at which point I will offer my resignation to the Supreme Leader, and it will be the end of all of this... unpleasantness." Very tidy, indeed.

[member="Ludolf Vaas"]

 

[Ludolf Vaas]

Ludolf, looking rebuffed, crossed his arms stiffly in front of [member="Natasi Fortan"].

"You don't care," He repeated her words while shaking his head, "And yet all of this is causing you to not only tell me who I should and shouldn't belong with, but to leave your job. Forsake your duties. Interesting," Ludolf offered one final scoff.

There was clearly no reasoning with Natasi at this point so Ludolf was not even going to try. He'd said his piece, he had offered an olive branch, but whether or not she would accept it was completely up to her. He knew it was unfair to expect her to completely come around anyway. Despite what little he knew of love, he knew that Natasi was heartbroken, and in fact, so was he a little. By all means, Natasi and Ludolf should have ended up together. Perhaps in some parallel universe, they were together. But events in this dimension had conspired to keep them apart. They could choose to handle the matter like professionals, or they could let it ruin everything.

"My honor is my loyalty," Ludolf said finally. "Marzena is carrying my child. And I will not leave her alone, even if she is a little person."

Ludolf decided that now was probably the time to leave. He turned from Natasi and made for the elevator.

"We have a nation to run, Natasi. We can either put these events behind us and continue with our vision, or, well... you can do what you plan on doing. Delete yourself from the First Order."

 

[Natasi Fortan]

The Grand Moff recoiled as if [member="Ludolf Vaas"] had physically struck her, her mouth agape. She reached for his arm, pulling it down before he could touch the turbolift call button. "Ludolf, you have to marry her. Now. Before anyone finds out. Carrying on behind closed doors with this woman is one thing, but you cannot imagine even the First Order's censors can stop the whispers from that. Clearly you don't care about your own reputation, nor she for hers," she added with an eyeroll. "But you have a responsibility -- to the Supreme Leader -- to the First Order which you represent. You cannot let this unfold like some sad daytime holovision show."

She released his arm as she heard Sioux's heels clicking on the floor, approaching.

"You know, it's easy to say put these events behind us when you have a pregnant lover to go home to," she said coldly. "Less so when you've been rejected by the only person you've ever loved." Natasi strolled over to the door, but paused before pulling it open, looking over her shoulder. "You know, when I was being tortured on Hoth by that dreadful man... you were the thought that kept me going. And when I came back and found the entire First Order establishment thought I had cracked or leaked, I didn't need a lover or a father for my children. I needed a friend -- I needed you. But I suppose that was a lot to ask, compared to the charms of Marzena Choi." Natasi pulled the door open. "Goodbye, Ludolf. Remember what I said -- take steps."