Private Heading Up High

[Ivan Zhukov]

Valeska Sarnova

Ivan appreciated the simplicity of the Covenant.

Slaughter, kill, take control with no excuses or arguments of good governance. There was no propaganda behind it, no lies. Just the message of: we are stronger than you are, so either you submit or you die.

It was the next step that bothered him.

What was the point of conquest, if you let everything descend into pure anarchy? The point of power, of authority, was to make things comfortable for yourself. To increase your own joys and pleasures. To take advantage. But how did you do that when everything was on fire? When it was all rubble, when basic needs weren't functioning and you had to watch your back at every moment?

He wasn't sure if he could accept those two points existing next to another.

"It's a vinyl. A long, long time ago, people used these to play music." Ivan pulled her with him to the old-timey player. Pulling up the needle. "Here, put it on there."

Once Valeska complied, he'd put the needle down. "Ready?" A glance towards here. Then turning on the device. It scratched first, but soon enough a warm tune began to filter through the room. It sounded... better, somehow. This device had been meticulously maintained or made from scratch. It had warmth to the tune in a way that digital one's and two's just lacked.

"How could you make that digital?"

"That... I don't know." Shaking his head but then... lacing his fingers into hers, drawing her back to the open space. "Do you dance?"

 

[Valeska Sarnova]

Valeska examined the vinyl curiously, as if she didn't believe him. She had never seen such a thing. Then again there hadn't been such a thing was a music room at the Academy. There was hardly any time for it anyway. She followed him over to the machine -- a contraption with a cantilevered raising arm, at the end of which was a thin piece of something. She frowned and turned the thing over in her hands and then put the disc down on the spindle in the middle.

She watched with curiosity as he set the needle down and there was a hesitation out of the speaker before a tune sounded. She didn't recognize it, but that didn't mean anything. She listened to it for a few moments, her eyes closing as she searched to see if she could remember ever hearing it, but she came up empty. Ivan's hand found hers and she glanced over at him.

"Dance?" she echoed incredulously. "Don't be ridiculous. When would I learn?"

Ivan Zhukov​

 

[Ivan Zhukov]

Valeska Sarnova

"Everything we have ever done is a dance." Which would sound hilarious coming from a stern and cut face such as Ivan. If there was anyone who would not be seen as a dancer or someone even approaching dance, it would be him. Yet he seemed entirely serious as he pulled her back more, towards the open area, where there was enough space.

"When we fight, we dance. When we kill, we dance. When we..." His ember eyes met hers. "Well, we dance." The murmur a bit softer, a bit more meaningful as his arm went around her waist.

Fingers lacing into her hand as he guided it up.

"I discovered a datapad." He finally admitted, maybe a touch defensive. "In that attic. It had... some lessons. It taught me flexibility and timing." Both valuable lessons in a fight.

Even if this was not one.

"Or would you prefer to do something else?"

Yes, defensive, as if his mind was starting to follow up to his body. Fingers slowly starting to unlace from hers again. As if he was starting to think this was a bad idea after all.

 

[Valeska Sarnova]

"Ivan Zhukov," said Valeska, humor tugging at the depths of her voice, her lips twitching up at the edges as if someone had just whispered a joke to her. "I never knew you to be such a poet. I don't seem to recall seeing much dancing in that magma tunnel," she observed. "But I suppose that if a dance can be long and graceful it can also be short and powerful and blunt."

She allowed him to lace his fingers through hers, his arm circling her trim waist. His words were warm breath on cheek and neck and shoulder. "Dancing lessons?" she asked, eyebrows furrowing. What a strange little liminal space that attic had been. Part meditation chamber, part private room, part dance studio. She wondered what else they might find there if they ever returned.

Valeska felt his fingers loosen but she did not let them free of hers. Her hand settled on his shoulder. "Show me," she said. Not a command. Not a question. A wish, perhaps. "If all of life is a dance I ought to know a little more than nothing, don't you think?"

Ivan Zhukov​

 

[Ivan Zhukov]

Valeska Sarnova

A snort there, but he didn't pull away when she kept her hold around him, coming back to her instead.

"What was it the old man said? Every killer is a poet, blood our ink, the knife our pen." Ivan shrugged as his hold over her waist tightened ever so slightly. Even if it hadn't been such a nightmare for Ivan, that time had left its scars on Ivan all the same. "I have read some books. They told me I didn't need the words, that I only needed my lightsaber."

Brows furrowed there.

"I never believed that."

Slowly turning her in his arms, until her back was to his chest.

"Yes... I will teach you what I know. Dance... is about rhythm, the same as a kill. Finding the right steps, but instead of the heart, it is music that determines the pace." Again turning her, until their noses brushed once more.

"Do you hear the beat in the current song? Can you determine the pace?"

 

[Valeska Sarnova]

"The old man was a sociopath. Who talks like that?" Valeska said, shaking her head irritably. "I'm sure he fancied himself quite the poet. I think he thought of himself as some sort of renaissance man. Poet, dancer, philosopher, lover. By the Force, he was ever such a loathsome little toad."

She seethed internally, still feeling the stain of Yaroslav's eyes on her, his hands on her -- always somewhere that couldn't be deemed inappropriate if others happened by. But Valeska knew the context behind it, the intention, and they both knew it. The discomfort was the point. "There is no one whose death I can imagine mourning less."

She turned her head up to look at Ivan. Was he so different? In some ways, he was Yaroslav's perfect pupil, the manifestation of Yaroslav's philosophy in a single man. He saw what he wanted. He reached for it. He overcame boundaries to take it. Then he held it. Ivan was better at it than Yaroslav was. He understood negotiation and coercion in a manner that was more than merely physical strength, might makes right.

He was no less dangerous for it.

"I can hear it, of course," Valeska said, looking up at Zhukov's scarred visage. "What does it mean, determine the pace?"

Ivan Zhukov​

 

[Ivan Zhukov]

Valeska Sarnova

A sociopath, yes, but Ivan wondered if that wasn't what it took to succeed in a Galaxy such as theirs.

Then again, he was dead, and they were alive.

The old man hadn't succeeded and even when he had been alive... what was the measure of success? Being entombed in an academy on a remote planet, harassing apprentices from the moment they were old enough to carry a saber? It was a strange thought, something that Ivan hadn't considered before.

But he didn't reject new thoughts... he just took his time to consider them.

"It was good that we killed him." Ivan agreed there without concern. "Do you wish we had done more? Killed more of them?" Curious there. She had rejected the idea of going back there to destroy the Academy.

But that was not the same thing as not wishing they had done more in the moment.

They turned, Ivan's hands holding her confidently as he mulled her question.

"You can dance to the beat. You can dance at twice speed, or half speed, you have to feel the beat in your chest and then decide at what pace you want to take it. Do you want it fast... or do you want it slow?"

 

[Valeska Sarnova]

She regarded him blankly, as if he had asked her whether she breathed oxygen, whether she ate, whether she slept.

"Of course I do," Valeska said. "Those people butchered my entire village and abducted me. They took my entire identity and then put me in a prison with a bunch of other murderous little lunatics. We should have killed them all then and there and set a bomb under the whole place. It is madness that we didn't do more, except that we were in a hurry."

It was surreal, perhaps, to be in what might have been an intimate embrace in the absence of the music, and speaking about mass murder. Well, killing, in any case. Justifiable homicide, as far as Darth Rusalka was concerned.

"Just keep me upright for now," Valeska murmured, ceding the lead to Ivan.

Ivan Zhukov​

 

[Ivan Zhukov]

Valeska Sarnova

It was curious how different their experiences were... or rather their perception of it.

Ivan didn't have any true hard feelings about what had transpired at the Academy. It had turned him in the man he was today. Strong, unyielding, someone with the tools to take what he wanted, when he wanted it. He saw the same in Valeska, even if she didn't want to admit it. She was fierce, formidable, she could do anything she liked.

What were they before that?

Sniveling creatures not worth their salt. And what would they have become if not for the Academy? Disgusting to even consider.

"Just say the word." Ivan finally said, quietly. "If you decide you wish to return and plant that bomb. I will be there with you." Because his personal feelings in the matter didn't matter.

They were in it together as far as Ivan was concerned.

That meant her enemies were his. Including the Academy that had forged him into a weapon.

"Just keep me upright for now," Valeska murmured, ceding the lead to Ivan.

"I always do..." He responded as he turned them again, before turning her in his arms, until her back was against his chest. His arm looped around her waist now.

"I do believe I can get used to the creature comforts of this apartment. It's nice, isn't it?" Whispered in her ear.

 

[Valeska Sarnova]

The Rusalka had the sense that she was alone in her resentment of the Academy.

It wasn't that she missed her life before. She didn't know it. Couldn't remember hardly any of it. Her earliest memories were of the fire that consumed her village, of the pile of bodies that she must have recognized but couldn't remember anymore burning in the square as the basket she stood in floated to the shore, water gently lapping at the sand. Sometimes she wasn't even sure she could remember that, or if it was implanted.

The murmur of a name that cut like a razor, spoken by a soft, feminine voice. She could almost imagine that someone had loved her, once. Someone had wrapped her in a blanket and fed her and whispered her name and sang her to sleep. Even then, Valeska couldn't be certain. Even then, she couldn't be sure that she wasn't making it all up, some sort of self-soothing mechanism designed to protect her from the knowledge that the Academy had wanted her to embrace. That she was no one.

That she was nothing.

Cast into the river by people who didn't care like the trash that she was, that she had always been destined to be, until Darth Yaroslav had recognized something of value in her. Plucked her from the refuse pile. Made her his own. And would never let her forget that she owed him everything.

Valeska was lost in these thoughts, tears welling under her eyelids, when Ivan turned them. She closed her eyes then, breaking the surface tension, and the hot tears escaped, flooding down her cheeks and disappearing into her hair. Better that way. No evidence. Nothing for Ivan to pull her up on. "It seems very comfortable," she agreed, and was pleased that her voice didn't sound like crying. Valeska took a steadying breath and felt the oxygen feed the fire within her. Yes, the Rusalka was a creature of water and air, but she was Sith. Resentfully. Regretfully. Reluctantly. Still a Sith. And emotions fueled her as they did any of her compatriots.

"We will have a clearer picture after we have slept, I think," Valeska reasoned, leaning back against him, continuing to move with his movements.

Ivan Zhukov​

 

[Ivan Zhukov]

Valeska Sarnova

He couldn't see her grief for the person she could have been.

And Ivan wasn't a mentalist either, but this close, he felt some of the shadows of it. The disturbance in emotions, it caused him to lean in and kiss her neck gently.

That was the only thing that Ivan did.

It was unworthy of either one of them to make a point of it. It would shame her, something that Ivan didn't want for her. And it would embarrass him because if Ivan didn't crush those gentle feelings, he would not be a Lord of the Sith himself. So it would be best to simply ignore it as much as he could.

"Perhaps... a drink and then to bed then?" Ivan said softly, slowly turning her in his arms, until they were again face-to-face. "It's been a day and a half."

Moving to turn off the music.

But looking back with a smile.

"We can dance more often. It's... quite good for the body and the reflexes."

 

[Valeska Sarnova]

"If our siblings could see us now, they would say that I made you soft," Valeska observed sardonically as Ivan switched off the record player. "Drinks and dancing, how droll." She wasn't sure whether she liked dancing, but that would be a conversation for another time. Instead she moved past him and into the kitchen again, looking through the cabinets until she found the liquor cabinet.

She set about making drinks.

There wasn't a lot there. Mostly liquor. A few cans of soda water. The fridge had a few limes.

She fetched a knife and a board and made each of them a vodka soda, then carried them into the living room where she handed one to Ivan before settling onto the sofa next to him. Valeska took a sip and then tossed her head one side to the other as if weighing the drink's value.

"It's better than the moonshine they used to make in the bathtub at the Academy," she concluded, then took another sip. "Marginally. But that still counts."

After drinks, the pair retired to bed. When eventually Valeska fell asleep, she dreamed of the river, like she often did.

The following morning, Valeska rose early and went to meditate. Like any Sith worth her salt, that involved ruminating on the grievances that had brought to where she was now. For Valeska, that was anger and revulsion at the state of the galaxy. Envy, she didn't always get a lot of juice from, but anger was always reliable. When she rose from her meditation, her dark eyes were tinged at the external rings in a vivid molten gold, and she was nearly crackling with energy and power.

Ivan Zhukov​

 

[Ivan Zhukov]

Valeska Sarnova

"Soft?" Eyebrows went up. "Maybe, until I shatter their knees for making assumptions."

The following morning, Valeska rose early and went to meditate. Like any Sith worth her salt, that involved ruminating on the grievances that had brought to where she was now. For Valeska, that was anger and revulsion at the state of the galaxy. Envy, she didn't always get a lot of juice from, but anger was always reliable. When she rose from her meditation, her dark eyes were tinged at the external rings in a vivid molten gold, and she was nearly crackling with energy and power.

And Ivan was already standing in the doorway.

Watching her.

How long had the tall Sith been standing there, watching her, watching over her? It was a mystery. But when their eyes met, she'd know that he liked what he saw in her eyes. The fury, the anger. It was exactly what had attracted him to her in the first place. Because she made fury and wroth look elegant and deadly.

Nobody else could match up to that.

"Want to go out for a bit? We didn't get to explore the city. Most people are keeping to their homes while the chaos is sorting itself out, but I don't think we have anything to worry about."

He didn't comment on the fury radiating from her.

If she wanted to share, she would, otherwise Ivan wasn't going to intrude.

 

[Valeska Sarnova]

​

Valeska felt Ivan's presence, of course, but his voice still startled her.

Her head whipped around to find him there, watching.

"That would be a good idea," Valeska answered. "We should map additional routes to the spaceport in case we need to make a quick escape. We should also see about buying more supplies. We can't live on leftovers forever. You think we'll be able to get anything out there now? I don't see any new fires since last night."

She gathered her hair into a glossy tail, began to carefully pin it back.

"What else will we need, do you think? Toiletries, I think. I'm not convinced about using a stranger's soap."

Ivan Zhukov​

 

[Ivan Zhukov]

Valeska Sarnova

Nodding along with the things she summed up.

"Sounds about right." His mind went elsewhere however. "We need to make sure power keeps coming into this tower. The last thing we need is stocking this place up and making it a comfortable base, and then whatever company or organization that was supplying the power to this structure decides to cut things off."

Then a blink and he looked sheepishly.

"Or am I thinking too far ahead? We might not wanna stay here for long."

It was strange.

He oscillated between two modes.

Forward, blunt and with momentum - that is when things made sense to him and he pushed them forward. But then sometimes he felt like he was out of his depth.

"Do you ever get the feeling you are supposed to know what you are doing but in reality you are just making things up as you go?"

 

[Valeska Sarnova]

​

The Rusalka felt Ivan's uncertainty in the Force, the frustration that was attendant upon it.

"I get the feeling I am making things up as I go along," Valeska said. "But I don't get the sense that I should know what I'm doing. How could I? We weren't raised to make a life outside of the Academy. We were raised to kill each other for the pride and pleasure of the Masters. So as far as I'm concerned, we are probably doing reasonably well."

She went into the room to get a tunic, which she shrugged into as she re-entered the room with Ivan. "I mean, we haven't died yet, have we? Take a win."

Valeska finished doing up the fasteners. "Electricity seems like the right thing to prioritize. We can always order takeout if that takes awhile. There are a bunch of menus in the drawer by the comms."

Ivan Zhukov​

 

[Ivan Zhukov]

Valeska Sarnova

Ivan nodded there thoughtfully.

She was right, of course, but that didn't make it any easier to accept.

They had been forged to become weapons. Lessons on becoming rulers and lords... those had been in short supply. Making it up as they went along, that was about right, but it was frustrating to Ivan. Things had come so easily to him then. Kill what was in front of him, crush and destroy. Those were the things he knew.

He went to change anyway, rubbing elbows on the way to the wardrobe with her, slipping into something a bit more hardy.

"Yeah." Nodding there. "How do we want to approach it? This new Covenant group seems to not care about policing, laws, anything of the sort. They are letting every world figure it out for themselves."

That was to say, it was unlikely they'd have to deal with law enforcement that wasn't directly paid out of pocket.

"Could come down hard on them, make them fear us." That was his usual go-to. "Or we could try and get in good with them. Make sure they give us preferential treatment."

 

[Valeska Sarnova]

​

Valeska was almost certain that she was being tested.

There has always been that doing about her, from the moment she arrived at the Academy: was she too soft for this life? Even after all life has taken from her, Valeska has never led with violence. Violence was a bell that could never be unrung, undone. It could only be papered over with false kindness or genuine kindness, but the muscle memory of flinching would always remain.

She preferred to keep as many options open as possible. Not because she was soft. Not because she was not every bit the Sith the Masters had tried to beat her into the shape of.

The truth was that violence was a resource. It was most effective when it was merely silhouetted. Creating the apprehension of damage was key.

"We can force compliance if they decide to require it," she said stiffly. "I see no reason to default to that. Not if they aren't inclined to make things difficult already." A beat. "Am I not sufficiently Sith?"

Ivan Zhukov​

 

[Ivan Zhukov]

Valeska Sarnova

Ivan was not a mentalist in the slightest.

His mind was warded off and that was the end of what he was able to do from the perspective of the mind. Someone as accomplished and experienced as Valeska could easily slip in between the cracks to get access to his thoughts. This meant two things: that her question caught him by surprise, because he had not been following the inner thread of her thoughts. And secondly that if she cared to, she'd sense that his surprise was genuine. An eyebrow raised up as he shifted to glance at her.

"Why are you asking me that?"

They kept walking forward, but his mind went back over their conversation, trying to figure out where the question was coming from.

"You are as much Sith as I am as far as I am concerned. We both killed the old man, so we both have a claim to the title."

You killed the old and claimed their power for your own ends.

Of course, this wasn't what Valeska was talking or thinking about, but Ivan did not know this.

 

[Valeska Sarnova]

​

"Because no one looking at you and listening to you for any significant period of time could be confused as to what you are," Valeska answered frankly. There was no judgment in her voice, no accusation, just a flat statement of the truth. "You are Sith. You see a problem and you will solve it -- violently, if possible, because those who stand in the way of the Sith forfeit their chance to live."

She took the key from the side table by the door and walked out of the penthouse with Ivan, then locked up the door behind her.

"Yaroslav thought it, too," Valeska went on. "He did not keep his guard up around me. I think he wanted me to see his -- his thoughts. His inner wants. He had some idea that I was not a natural Sith, and that I would debase myself to him for survival." Her pale cheeks colored slightly as she touched the elevator control panel to summon the car.

Yaroslav had been half-right; he just had it wrong as to whom the Rusalka had debased herself for survival.

"So I suppose I wonder if not wanting to answer every question with a cracked skull or a lightsaber burn means I am not one of you. If you feel that I am not of a kind to you because of it." She stepped into the elevator car when it arrived, waited for Ivan to join. "It doesn't change who I am, you understand. I am curious about your perception only."

Ivan Zhukov​