Public Homecoming King | Parade on Alderaan

[Aurelian Veruna]

Tags: Sibylla Abrantes

Her knack for wedging logic into his thick skull was nothing short of legendary. She had a way of dismantling his rigid perspectives, forcing him to see the gray areas he preferred to ignore. This confusing interrogation had been a trial, a lesson in empathy he hadn't asked for but clearly needed. Standing in the shoes of those he judged was uncomfortable, yet he finally understood. If Sibylla were the one lost to the dark, he wouldn't just mourn her or let her be; he would be the one holding the torch while she burned the galaxy down. He would do far worse than Cora ever could with her brother just to stay by her side.

Everything made sense now, filtered through her stubbornness and impossible questions. He grasped the weight of her loyalty, though he still maintained a healthy, specific spite for Acier Moonbound . Feth that dude. Some things were non-negotiable.

As her hand settled against his chest, the warmth of her palm anchored him. The vulnerability he usually masked with a dangerous smile began to seep through. She was choosing the wreckage and the repair alike, promising to walk any path as long as he gave her the truth.

Honesty had never been a native tongue for a man raised on political theater and shadow plays. It felt heavy and clumsy in his mouth. "I have tried," he finally admitted. "I have really tried to be better, ever since we found each other. You know that."

Memories of his darker impulses threatened to surface, the ones he kept locked beneath the floorboards of his mind. He wasn't a man of half-measures, and his past was littered with the consequences of that intensity. Being with her was the first time he had ever felt a reason to check his own blade.

"But there are things I have done that are unforgivable, Sibylla," he said, his gaze dropping to hers. The air between them felt thin, charged with the gravity of his confession. "I have already crossed that line you're looking for. I crossed it a long time ago. But you... you are the only one pulling me back from it."

Gently, he moved a stray strand of hair from her face, his fingers lingering against her skin. The admission felt like shedding a layer of armor, leaving him exposed in the middle of a foreign fething garden. He didn't have a plan for this level of sincerity, but for her, he would learn to speak without the script.

"If the truth is what you want, then that is it," he whispered. "I am a man of many sins, and I suspect I will collect more before we reach that yacht. But as long as you are the one holding the line, I will keep trying to find my way back to you. Always."

​

 

[Braze]

Tags: Open​

Braze settled a hand on to a stone balcony and a vision of the past washed over his awareness...

The small Nezumi skittered along the balconies and buttresses overlooking the main parade route, taking care not to attract too much attention from the 'too bigs' that had come in their multitudes to see the return of their king. Few would ever truly pay attention to a creature as small as the Nezumi, and this one called Latchghost had spent several weeks in Aldera City alongside a colony of fellow Nezumi operatives. Up until now, Latchghost had busied themselves with planting covert listening and surveillance devices across the city in walls, pipes, and anywhere the Nezumi could reach.

A memory clung to the balcony like oil to a waxy surface: small claws over carved railings, quick little bodies slipping through places larger hands would never think to search, the soft scrape of a panel lifted and set back into place. Braze's gaze followed the path the vision left behind, up along the banner brackets, across the buttresses, down toward the pipes tucked beneath the garden's decorative spillways.

Braze reached out and found what had been left behind... a tiny device snapped free from beneath the lip of a stone planter and sailed into his palm, no larger than a beetle's shell, its casing painted to match the masonry.

His expression went very still... Braze had spotted the hidden device exactly where the vision of the past had shown it to be. With careful fingers he turned it over in his hand, studying it with exacting attention. Then he sank into the tiny machine through the Force, pressing into its circuitry until he understood the carrier signal, the relay path, and the hidden network to which it belonged.

A devious little smirk spread across his features at the realization of what he had stumbled upon.

Rather than simply destroying the bug outright, he chose something crueler. He forced it to remain live while twisting its own feed back through the chain, making every stolen whisper, burst of crowd noise, and strand of comm static repeat, sharpen, and poured energy in to the network, amplifying the surveillance system sharply and suddenly as the entire network threatened to collapse into a shrieking, squealing loop of useless, ear-piercing sound.

Anyone actively listening would have to cut the feed, mute their receiver, or abandon the channel altogether… or endure the punishing feedback as the hidden devices betrayed themselves with their own noise. Decisively, he pressed outward through the Force, feeling for the other bugs linked to this one, and began spreading that screaming static rippling outwards from one concealed listener to the next until the whole spy-web was poisoned turning in upon it's self.