Private Grudges to Grind

[Siv Dragr]

G U N S L I N G E R
Eshan
​

Tag: Quinn Varanin

Siv had never been to Eshan before. The beautiful world lay out before the viewport of his ship, and as he descended with stealth systems activated and maximum effort to evade detection, glimpses of Eshani architecture began to peek out through the clouds. Ornate climbing spires rose from fairytale forests and fair lakes. He'd rarely visited a world he could call beautiful. Every planet had a certain beauty to it. Kestri and its frigid winters. Roon and her dangerous jungles. The few fading memories he had of Mandalore, before the genocide -- He shook his head as the thought of his home, before he became too sidetracked.

He had a mission to carry out.

On Abregado-Rae, Sith agents had ambushed the Iron Covenant as they began to set roots on the world. One of them had been Quinn Varanin, Queen of Eshan. She'd been with the cyborg Arris Windrun, and her data card showed affiliations with the Sith Order. A Sith in such a powerful position -- ruler of a world, perhaps under the nose of the Mandalorian Empire -- was a threat that the Iron Covenant could not ignore, but neither did they have the resources to strike Eshan. So Siv had volunteered to take the hunt alone.

Siv brought the ship down well outside the capital, in a fold of the hills where the sensor shadows ran thick, and with cloaking devices running, he set off towards the capital, covering the rest of the distance on foot. He found out quickly that Eshan's defenses weren't something he could simply walk past; picket ships in slow, deliberate arcs overhead, ground batteries dressed as garden follies along the spire's lower terraces, a Royal Guard that moved through the grounds with the unhurried confidence of soldiers who had never needed to be otherwise. Siv couldn't bust down the door.

He didn't go straight for her. Along the way, he left behind what he called "backup protocol": a charge pressed into the joint of a support column here, another tucked beneath a stairwell no one had swept in years, a third wired into the belly of the palace where its foundations ran deepest. Small things, easy to miss unless a man knew exactly what he was looking for, and Siv made certain no one did. By the time he reached the eastern spire, the palace above and around him was already wired to come down at the press of a button, and Quinn Varanin didn't yet know it.

Careful reconnaissance rendered a map, and instinct brought him to what he assumed was the palace's private chambers. Night now hung over Eshan, its moon bright in the dark sky. Siv peered through the window and slipped inside. There was a woman in the corner on an ornate bedframe, with a comfortable mattress. Biomarkers indicated slumber. Siv's breath caught, as he tried not to make a sound. He drew his blaster, and his finger went for the safety. There was a faint but audible click and whine of the weapon powering up. Feth, he thought. Should've gone for the knife.

An interruption in breathing stopped him in his tracks. Had she awoke? He raised the blaster level to the Eshani's stirring frame.

"Scream," Siv growled, "and I bring this whole palace down around both of us."

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Siv Dragr //:

For as quiet as the Mandalorian thought he was, he was not. She didn't need to sense him; she didn't need to see him to know that someone had entered a sanctuary that did not welcome the likes of his kind. Quinn kept her eyes closed, feeling the movement of something trying to hide from the Force. Danger was always around her; it was normal for someone like her to rarely feel safe.

But Eshan was safe — here and with those around her, she was protected.

The harshness of his voice, the threat of his words made her smirk. Eyes slowly fluttered open as she stared at the end of the barrel. It wasn't the first time she had a gun pointed to her face, nor would it be the last.
But she didn't fear it; she didn't fear him.

"Scream?" she whispered. Her eyes followed the length of the weapon towards its wielder. His armor was unlike the ones she was used to, an indicator that he was truly an intruder.

She mused that he had chosen such a day that the Queen had sent her head of security on a mission, and it was an evening she slept alone. CT-312 would have had a field day tearing the armor from his dead body.

Her smile widened, thinking that if he had chosen another night, he might have also had his head ripped off by the Empress of the Core's cursed arm.

Mercy wouldn't have let him get as close as he did.

"I suggest you don't either," Quinn laughed breathlessly as she made her way to sit up. Hands pulled at the shoulder strap of her thin camisole, lifting it back up her shoulder.

"You wouldn't want to wake Mother, would you?"

Her grin widened as she continued to ignore the excuse for a deadly weapon in her face and stood to walk away from the bed and him.

Another stroke of luck for him: Srina Talon had retired to her private quarters in the palace, not with Quinn. Only a few nights prior did Quinn demand the Empress of the Blackwall, her mother, to stay in the same room as her.

There were comforts that only a Mother could give her child.

A hand moved through her white-blonde hair as she moved towards her vanity to grab the silken robe to cover herself from the man's prying eyes.

"So what is it that you want, that you felt it so necessary to sneak in like a common burglar?" Tilting her head, she once more laughed quietly at him.

"And here I thought Mandalorians had a sense of self-respect and honor."

 

[Siv Dragr]

G U N S L I N G E R
Eshan
​

Tag: Quinn Varanin

The Sith arose as if roused by a friend, or lover; a harsh contrast from the reality of facing down a barrel. Siv's finger tightened around the trigger of the weapon; it was as if Varanin didn't even recognize him from Abregado Rae. His blaster followed her as she rose from her bed, sauntering over to the wardrobe, all the while taunting Siv. His eyes narrowed from behind his helmet at the mention of mother. Varanin spoke of her as if she were a threat Siv should fear, and he filed that away to investigate later.

"So what is it that you want, that you felt it so necessary to sneak in like a common burglar?" Tilting her head, she once more laughed quietly at him.

"And here I thought Mandalorians had a sense of self-respect and honor."

Siv raised his blaster, leveling it at her head. "What would you know about honor?" If his helmet wasn't on, he would have spat. That this twenty-something Sith would presume to lecture him on honor was so ridiculous to him that it bordered on offense. He then noticed his blaster had imperceptibly wavered off-target as anger had welled up inside of him. The veteran bounty hunter forced himself to swallow, quenching the adrenaline in his system, and his blaster returned to face the Queen of Eshan square-on. "Tell your mom, kid," he heard himself saying. "She shouldn't have raised a Sith."

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Siv Dragr //:

Quinn kept her eyes on him, watching the way he moved and how the weapon waved. There was emotion bleeding into what he was doing. His hate brought him here, but what stayed in his hand? He had his target; she represented everything he hated. Yet, he chose to respond to her.

The Mandalorian's actions made no sense to her, but she decided to entertain him a bit longer.

What he didn't know, what he couldn't feel from her, was the fear that lingered in the pit of her stomach. There was a point in her life, the moment where everything spiraled out of control, and the scene was fairly similar. The Mandalorians raided her home, threatened her life, and ruined it in the same process.

The words of her Uncle echoed in her mind; they gave her strength, and having her Mother close also aided in that quiet confidence. He began to speak; his words cut through the silence of the night. She listened, but also took her seat at the vanity. A light flickered on, illuminating the porcelain complexion of the Echani. Quinn wiped her face, cleaning it from the sleep that was interrupted.

"I see." She nodded, opening a small compact of her foundation and began to pat the powder along her face. He finished speaking, the gun now leveled at her head once more.

Quinn didn't care and continued to put her makeup on.

"You know," She started as she finished applying the small wing with her eyeliner and twisted the tube of red lipstick.

"The Sith Empress not raising a Sith?" Quinn leaned forward slightly and began to apply the red lipstick. She didn't look at him at all, but her senses were aware of the weapon he kept pointed towards her.

"If you believe wholeheartedly in your convictions, you can tell her yourself." Quinn closed the lipstick and looked towards him. "She's right down the hall." Shrugging, Quinn tucked her makeup away and continued to sit at the vanity.

"As for knowing about honor," She mused, a little smile curling at the corners of her lips and a little wrinkle of her nose.

"I know it's not very honorable for a grown man to sneak around like a coward into the room of a sleeping 23-year-old woman. Point a gun at her head, threatening her when she's unarmed and in her undergarments."

Quinn shrugged.

"So what is it that you want, that you waste my time? Did you expect me not to wake up?" She stood, her presence suddenly flaring to life as the room's weight began to grow heavy.

"Or did you expect me to beg you for my life? I suggest you string actual words together, or we're going to learn how long a Mandalorian can live without his head…"

He had entered her room uninvited and somehow expected he would walk out of it.

 

[Siv Dragr]

G U N S L I N G E R
Eshan
​

Tag: Quinn Varanin

Siv let Varanin talk her piece. The more one spoke, especially when cornered and a blaster in their face, the more their true self came out. The Echani had a lot to say, too. The Sith Empress was her mother? His mind raced as Quinn continued to speak, although he was now trying to connect the dots rather than listen to her. Echani. . . Talon. Humbarine flashed through his mind. He remembered the Empress's pale skin and bone-white hair, and taking a second look at Varanin, he saw the resemblance. How had he not connected the dots sooner?

"So what is it that you want, that you waste my time? Did you expect me not to wake up?" She stood, her presence suddenly flaring to life as the room's weight began to grow heavy.

"Or did you expect me to beg you for my life? I suggest you string actual words together, or we're going to learn how long a Mandalorian can live without his head…"

The Mandalorian drew back to the present confrontation. "You got me curious," he allowed, hushed and gravel-voiced. There was no fear in Siv's voice or his body. "Your luck. And don't cry about being some innocent little girl. I don't need to guess how many real innocents are dead on your count. More than enough blood is on your mom's hand -- I don't want to know about yours." Humbarine had been hell-made, not by the Mandalorians. Siv's own eyes had witnessed the Force Storm that had ripped through the city, watched as the Sith Empress's dark magic had caused the panicked populace to turn into mindless savages. Siv's muscles tensed, then relaxed. He was acutely aware that unlike Humbarine, there was no extract here. "For now, you're worth more to me alive than dead." A hostage and a source of information. He could use the Echani as bait. "You know, you're lucky the Mandalorian Empire doesn't know what you really are. If they knew the Sith were under their nose, Eshan would burn." Siv was more of a stranger to politics, but knew the Empire controlled Eshan officially. Mandalorian hate for the Sith ran deep; it was hard to erase the imprint of billions murdered at their hands.

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Siv Dragr //:

"You got me curious,"

"I'm not interested," Quinn smirked as she turned her attention back to her vanity.

The man decided he wanted to listen and began to talk about his thoughts and beliefs. She was already bored. It was nothing she hadn't heard before. He condemned her for things that were out of her control, painted her with the blood of supposed innocents, and assumed knowing about her.

He didn't even know who her mother was.

The blood of innocents - she didn't know how many had been victims to the terrors of her force storm. She had felt death drowning in the violence of the chaos of the storm. Quinn ran her fingers delicately through her hair, twisting bits of her elegant bob so that it would curl at the right angle.

From the corner of her eye, she looked at him, still with his gun at her head. She didn't care anymore about the weapon and wished he would put the useless thing away. But it made him feel brave, she guessed. He continued to drone on about how the Mandalorians would crucify her for being a Sith, that they didn't know what she was.

Then he said it.

He threatened Eshan.

She exhaled, and whatever light that bled into the bedroom from the night sky soon flickered out. An unnatural cold cut through the thinning air as the Queen of Eshan remembered silently the fire that burned Eshan so long ago. Siv assumed his precious pistol would protect him.

"Mando." She spoke, her voice darkening, cold and emotionless.

"The only blood I've bathed in is the blood of your pathetic comrades who decided to fight a Sith Lord with the ignorance of beskar and idiotically crude death traps strapped to their backs."

She stood, as only the moonlight now cut through the darkness, the room now unbearably cold.

"I will tell you what I did to them." She stepped forward, her irises shifting and yellowing at the sudden surge of the Dark Side.

"They charged, and before they could fathom drawing their weapons, I threw a spear that cut through their armor as if it were flesh. Before they fell, I was upon them drawing the same weapon from their chests… twisting it to make sure it was the most painful… and agonizing death I could give them."

She smiled.

"Before your god… or whatever foolish thing you animals believe in… I took their souls… consumed them… bound them to my being to continue to serve mine and the Force's bidding."

Quinn stopped, a few feet from Siv as his weapon remained on her.

"Why did I do this? Not because I'm a Sith… no. Because Mandalorians burned Eshan before; they terrorized my people, killed my people, burned through the palace to eradicate everyone that stood in their way."

Ice began to form along the walls of the bedroom; the quiet evening breeze that flowed from the open window brought death's chill with it.

"My life was uprooted because of Mandalorians, like you."

Quinn paused, watching him. The darkness didn't protect him, despite his armor having a gentle pulsating void in the Force — he was the only thing absent of it. He would be easier to track. She knew who he was, what he was, and now she wanted him to bleed.

"As for the Mandalorians that put a crown on my head," she sighed, almost exasperated by this conversation.

"The Mandalore, he is my cousin… we are family. He knows exactly what I am; he knows what my mother is — the woman that helped raise him. The Mandalorians who are better in every way than your pathetic lawless filth would never dream of burning Eshan."

His information was very wrong, dated, and old. Quinn was happy to let him know that he would find no allies in this part of the galaxy.

"Now leave. Your continued survival is of no consequence to me, and I will not hesitate to peel the flesh from your corpse."