I write tragedies; not sins.

[Disciple]

Bespin
Cloud City

The gentle sound of a piano carried lightly through the auditorium and it's attendant seats, which, for the most part, stood empty. Here and there was the shade of a silhouette, half glimpsed and ephemeral depending upon where one glimpsed them from. A spotlight shone upon the player and his instrument which rested atop a dilapidated stage.

What planet this was on escaped Disciple's mind, but it clearly wasn't important enough to commit to memory. Grinning beneath the ever-smiling mask he wore he clapped to get the pianist to stop. "AGAIN! That was horrendous!" In truth it was being played perfectly but if you had the warped senses of an ancient Sith Master you'd probably think it sounded like crap too.

Perfection was to be strove for in all things, and Disciple wasn't going to accept less than the best.

Nodding, the pianist began again, hands shaking in fear. The musician was just one of droves of people who'd disappeared in this city - in fact, the entire city had gone dark. It was a ghost town; the product of a civil war instigated by Disciple between the well-to-do and the downtrodden.

Class warfare had a succulent taste all it's own.

"AGAIN!", he cackles as the pianist begins to shake from both anger and desperation from being forced to restart once more. "I'm doing my best, you freak!", he finally roars.

"Oh come now, dear soul. I understand that the finer points of musical art are beyond you, but I'm just trying to help you improve."

"You're TRYING TO HELP ME IMPROVE?!"

There's a long pause. "Yes."

Struggling against the bindings keeping him strapped to his seat, the man does his best to get free from where he'd been locked in place. "Come now, my friend, this is entirely unnecessary."

The struggling grew fiercer. "Play again or you'll not live another moment."

That drew a pause to the struggles. Terrified eyes flickered to the explosives strapped to the top of the piano.

Slowly, hands shaking, he began to play once more.

Disciple smiled, leaning back in his seat.

 

[Ryori Holloway]

"What in the actual fuck..?"

Ryori murmured to herself, glancing around and taking in the sights... or, well, lack thereof. Last time she'd been to Bespin, she'd not recalled any ghost towns... but by the gods, there was one right here in front of her. She had really just stopped to see the place and see how it had fared after all the business with the virus. All in all it hadn't been too bad, at least in comparison to other places, but this one town... she wasn't even sure she could really call it a town. She saw very few face, and all of them hungered, and not just for food. She didn't stop to pity any of them or to help any of them... or even talk to them.. but she did become more wary.

Particularly when the sound of a piano being expertly played rang softly to her ears from a nearby theater, the sound causing everyone within earshot save for Ryori to instantly bolt in terror. What in the hell was going on here? Frowning, she walked toward the theater, suddenly glad that she'd been hiding her presence through the Force this whole time. Stepping lightly as she'd learned to do so many years ago as a slave, she entered the auditorium and snuck her way toward the sound of the piano. Eventually, she was able to see the scene before her.

Her hackles raised. There was a man strapped to a grand piano that was laden with explosives. He was shaking furiously as he played, completely oblivious to anything that wasn't the instrument and the music. Oh, and the person that stood near him, his clear captor. Wait... wait, was that...? "No way..." she whispered to herself. Suddenly, there was a small shit-eating grin on her face.

Disciple. Gods, how long had it been since she'd seen that crazy Sith? It had been at least eighteen years. After Ryori had stepped down from the Council and left the Order, she'd more or less gone missing for nearly two decades. Almost everyone she'd had contact with before then whether Jedi, Sith, Rebel, or Imperial would not had heard from her in that time. Not that Disciple was necessarily high on her list of friends... she still wasn't really sure what their relationship with one another was, but "frienemy" seemed to fit best. They were on opposing sides of the Force, and stood for two completely different sets of ideas. By all accounts, the two of them should have been enemies. But, they got along very well. He was insane, and for whatever reason Ryori just loved it. She never knew what to expect from him, but in a good way. An exciting way.

She leaned against the threshold, smirking until the piece was finished. Then, in the silence that followed the wake of the ending song, the sound of Ryori's slowly clapping hands rang through the vast auditorium. "Fabulous, maestro," she said, smirking at Disciple like the ghost from Christmas past. "Absolutely marvelous. My mortal ears could barely handle the pure divinity..."

 

[Disciple]

"Terrible, absolutely atrocious." Disciple stood from his seat, scoffing in anger as the rest of the lights came on to illuminate the audience - a mixture of cardboard cutouts and dead bodies propped into seats with masquerade masks placed upon their faces as though they'd simply been attending a party.

Sighing, he waved a dismissive hand and the man's throat exploded with a geyser of blood. Appearing from thin air was one of Disciple's many creations. Tentacles hung from it's face where a mouth would be, and it's four arms were simply chitinous blades. It hissed, the tentacles writhing grotesquely.

It then faded from view again as it's coat changed color to match it's surroundings.

Yup, the explosives had been entirely unnecessary.

"So, Brows. What are you doin' 'round here. Most folk don't take too kindly to your type 'round here." In typical Disciple fashion, he adopted a very 'country' drawl to say the words, slurring them partially as though entirely uneducated.

 

[Ryori Holloway]

She gave a wry smirk. Brows. Ryori had all but forgotten about that nick name. Moving from the threshold, she walked casually to the stage and joined him on it, with barely more than a raised quirk of her eyebrow at the dead bodies and cardboard cutouts. Guess she found where all the townspeople had gone. Stepping easily onto the stage, she stood next to him. The smirk remained.

"My type?" she asked him with amused curiosity. Oh, right, he probably didn't know she wasn't technically a Jedi anymore. In either case, she shrugged. "If you recall, I'm used to people not liking me too much. Thankfully, I've long since mastered not giving a shit. Besides, I really should be asking you that question...." Her voice trailed off as she made a show of turning and taking in the rather grotesque scene before her.

"Seriously, Disciple? Eighteen years and I find you hosting a one-man puppet show. I don't know whether to shrug this off as typical, or be depressed. Are you that bored? How long has it been since you've had social contact, with someone that you weren't trying to torture, maim, or kill?" Ryori turned and shook her head at him, amused despite herself. She really shouldn't be, not with all these dead bodies around, but... nothing she could do for those unfortunates. They were long gone, and probably thankful for it.

 

[Disciple]

Disciple waved his hands around with comic theatricality, encompassing in his extended arms and vibrant gesticulations the rather paltry and unkempt space he had for his magnum opus of piano playing. "How dare you chastise my work....", he slumps his shoulders and hangs his head before throwing it back and placing the back of his hand to his forehead. "I am so bored."

Walking to one of the bodies, he prods it with the Force, removing the stasis that kept the person all but dead. Removing the mask, he violently rips out the stitches that had the man's eye sewn shut. The poor man would have screamed... had his lips not been stitched too. The wild eye regarded Ryori with a look of abject horror.

"Frankly, the galaxy goes the way of the shitter, just like I want... and I'm left with this." This time, the gesticulation is decidedly disappointed.

Leaving the man there and turned back towards the stage where Ryori is standing, he shrugs as if to say 'what can you do'. "But no, no, my pale skinned and thickly browed child, this is quite typical. All a part of the plan...", nodding to himself and does a pirouette and poses mid-spin.

"But then again, plans hardly ever work out. It's why I've got back up plans! Like tormenting Cloud City." Turning back to the man who amounted to a hostage, the ephemeral glowing eyes of Disciple peered in close. "Isn't that right, puppet?"

Cackling faintly, he walks from the auditorium and reaches out with the Force once more to wake the rest of the 'bodies'. Almost immediately the sounds of bonds being tested could be heard as the hostages rocked about in their seats. "I mean, really. The Sith are attacking the Mandalorians and the Republic is a bunch of idiots. Honestly you'd think they'd have learned from the first failure!"

Sighing, the man lets his aura slip finally. Almost immediately, Ryori would realize the man had exponentially increased in power - the very extent of his abilities were a literal weight upon the air and her body. It was an aura of cold terror and grim malice.

"We should walk. I hear there's an art gallery opening nearby"

That certainly didn't bode well for any of the so-called survivors.

As they left the auditorium behind the sounds of scavengers entering the place to scrounge the people held prisoner within could be heard. Whatever fate Disciple had just left them too, well, perhaps it best not say.

 

[Ryori Holloway]

Ryori sighed, shaking her head. "We really should have gotten you a keeper.." she joked with dry humor. She was mildly surprised by some of the living bodies in the room, and by just how much Disciple's power had grown. As he walked around the auditorium waking people, Ryori rolled her eyes and approached the man whom Disciple had just ripped stitches out of. Ryori was a terrible healer, as Disciple would probably remember... but since this wasn't too serious, she could help the man a bit.

Listening to Disciple, she touched the man on the forehead and let the Force flow through her. The side effect, of course, would be that her own guards would drop to reveal that she was just as strong as she ever had been. If anything, the former leader of the Jedi Order had also grown in strength over the years, though perhaps not as exponentially as when she'd been an active Jedi. Ryori simply hadn't let becoming a mother or a wife slow her down. She was too stubborn. Keeping her skills sharp was habitual by this point. Still the fact remained that if any other Force users were nearby, they probably would be shitting their pants at the sudden appearance of two insanely powerful beings. Letting the Force flow through her, the bleeding on the man's eyes slowed and abated, the small wounds healing but not without scars. Then, whispering a small chant in Dathomiri, the stitches in the man's lips dissolved.

He screamed.

Ryori clamped his mouth shut using the Force, cutting off the shrill sound. "Seriously? Don't be such a pussy. Go home, now. Don't stay. There's nothing you can do to save the rest of these people. If you try, you'll die. Go." Ryori knew Disciple well enough to know he probably boobie trapped the place. Part of her heart ached as she looked around and knew that these people were likely all about to die... but her heart had hardened a bit over the years. Shit happened, and where once Ryori used to over extend herself trying to save all the unfortunate souls that she'd never truly given a fuck about, now she simply accepted her limits. Whatever Disciple had planned, it had been put in place long before Ryori got there. She doubted she could save anyone more than this one man. He'd have to do. Thankfully, he tore off running.

She turned and followed Disciple out of the auditorium, cutting the place off from her Force senses just in case. Ignorance was bliss. Shoving her hands in her pockets, she strolled along with her odd companion. "People never learn, Disciple. You know that. Especially the Republic. I gave up a long time ago. Is there a pub still in tact around here, or did you destroy it?" She could go for a whiskey while they chatted. Alcohol always made her more sociable.

 

[Disciple]

Disciple literally stopped and spun on his heel with an abruptness bordering on 'I'm going to murder you'. Leaning in close, head cocking to the side, his ephemerally smoky eyes regarded her curiously. "Do I look... like I drink?", he asks slowly, the words rolling off his tongue in an oddly serious version of sarcasm.

And just as suddenly he'd turned around and started walking off once more. She'd saved one man, and it hardly seemed to perturb the Sith. Audibly, he sniffs the air. "I smell... children. Have some kids? Please tell me it was with some scumbag, too. You always seemed the type to marry down, as it were."

Disciple really had no clue who in the world she was dating or whether or not she had kids. Or maybe he did. "I remember there was the one crazy man. Interesting fellow, he. Opposites attract, but there's something enticing about the ones as fucked up as you, isn't there?" The relish in some of those words meant Disciple may have had something to do with the crazy part. It would fit his modus operandi - find someone, torment them until they break; move on.

"No keeper needed. Done just fine for the last 16,787 years THANK YOU VERY MUCH."

Pausing, he gestures to a door. "If you need alcohol, there might be a bottle in there. Looters have been scrounging for everything though, so good luck."

It was true, every shop front they'd passed had been picked clean. There wasn't a single lick of food anywhere within sight, and the odds of their being alcohol were probably less considering most people would turn to it to drown out the miniature war that had no doubt engulfed the floating city.

 

[Ryori Holloway]

She rolled her eyes, smirking. There was no possible way he could smell that she'd had kids, particularly now that they were adults and she wasn't swaddled in baby accessories. Plus, she'd managed to work off all of her childbearing weight soon after giving birth. So, she didn't fall for Disciple's bullshit. She did, however, humor him. "Hard to marry up when you're at the top of the list," she joked dryly.

"I suppose you'd consider him a scumbag. Then again, who don't you? He's a smuggler. Two kids. Twins. A boy, and a girl; Callum and Kaia. Both of them are eighteen now." If Disciple was smart, and she knew he was, he'd likely figure out that pregnancy was the reason she'd just suddenly dropped off the radar all those years ago.

Crazy man, crazy man.... she frowned slightly, trying to think of whom he might be referring to. "If you're talking about Narevni, no. He and I are close friends, but I did not marry him. My husband's name is Noxu. I don't think you met him." Pausing outside of the ramshackle pub building, Ryori grimaced. Yeah, no way there'd be any alcohol in there.

Oh well, guess she'd just have to dip into the reserves. Reaching into a pocket, she pulled out an impressive looking flask that had clearly worn a bit with age and use, but was still noteworthy. It was clearly made out of Cortosis. The metal was too rare and distinctive to mistake. There was an engraving of a sunrise on it, and an inscription that was covered by her hand. Twisting the cap, she took a swig and continued walking alongside him.

"Only 16,787 years? Well, don't you look like shit for your age..." She gave him a wry smirk. It was nice to be back in the presence of someone that knew how to have a good, solid insult-fest. "Do anything of note since I've been gone? Outside of spreading the Gulag Virus, which I'm still not convinced you didn't create, by the way." Ryori was joking, mostly. She didn't think he had, but she really wouldn't put it past the lunatic.

 

[Disciple]

She could smell bullshit all she wanted, but if there was one thing she knew it was that Disciple didn't deal in bullshit. He dealt in the appearance of bullshit. Somehow, the man knew just about anything and everything that was going on in the galaxy at most points in time. Although after the virus the infrastructure to allow this had crumbled like so many breadcrumbs.

"Ya know, I was expecting 'smuggler', but I think 'spice dealer' fits you better.", he says, clearly about to ramble a little and completely oblivious to her flask - or he at least appeared to be. "I mean, really. Everyone and their mother is a smuggler or married to one. Where's the spice dealers? The death stick addicts? I sometimes wonder if there are any dentists left since everyone is busy smuggling. Is it really smuggling if everyone's doing it? Isn't that just shipping you're in denial about?" Yup, rambling.

Noxu rang a bell, here and there, within the crazy man's head. "No, no, never met the man. Rarely meet anyone. When I do they tend not to come back around and I can't for the life of me fathom why." Gee, Disciple, can't imagine.

"Oh, the Virus? Yes, it's all Disciple's fault the galaxy went to shit. Couldn't be any of the other murderous psychopaths that populate the galaxy. No, never. Is it because I am the only one who actually ACCOMPLISHES ANYTHING?!?! Everyone else is too busy being edgy by murdering random people and I don't know... fornicating in the blood or something."

Rolling his eyes, although Ryori couldn't see that, he leads her into a building with a noticeably damaged front; noticeable enough to stick around from the rest of the destruction. "Nope. Let's blame the man in the Jester outfit who has no history of trying to kill every living thing in the galaxy. Great plan."

The man's arms hadn't stopped moving the entire time he was talking, gesturing this way and that and at times nearly flailing to accentuate points.

 

[Ryori Holloway]

"Oh, the Virus? Yes, it's all Disciple's fault the galaxy went to shit. Couldn't be any of the other murderous psychopaths that populate the galaxy. No, never. Is it because I am the only one who actually ACCOMPLISHES ANYTHING?!?! Everyone else is too busy being edgy by murdering random people and I don't know... fornicating in the blood or something. Nope. Let's blame the man in the Jester outfit who has no history of trying to kill every living thing in the galaxy. Great plan."

Ryori just grinned wide at him. "Protesting a bit much there, Disciple?" She chuckled and took another sip of the whiskey before putting the cap back on and stowing the item away again. "You started it. Calling it right now." She said it teasingly, but she totally meant it. Disciple legitimately had too much time on his hands.

"Hey, the smuggler thing isn't really my fault. All the interesting criminals died from the virus, since all the drugs and shit weakened their immune systems. It was either a smuggler or a Jedi, and I sure as hell wasn't picking the stupid Jedi." More sarcasm, of course. Ryori loved Noxu, and would never pick anyone else over him. But one didn't simply catch up with Disciple. That would require him to take any part of the conversation seriously, and he was one of the few people Ryori could think of that potentially gave less shits than she did. And that was saying something.

Taking a look around inside the building, she noted the crumbling infrastructure on the front with mild interest. "Should I be worried about exactly what kind of art gallery you're taking me to?" She wasn't, really. Granted, she was always ready for Disciple to turn and stab her in the back, or leave her to die. He was a Sith, after all. A rather demented one. But she figured, as long as she was aware enough to not let herself get trapped in something dire, she wouldn't have to worry about any of those things. She didn't think he'd really go out of his way to kill her, but at the same time she also figured he wouldn't go out of his way to help her, either.

At least he kept things interesting.

 

[Disciple]

Keeping things interesting was probably one of the few things Disciple was good at besides . . . murder (both direct and indirect), genocide, plague making, raising the dead, being insane, entertaining others, picking out dresses and a whole host of other things. But at the very tip top of that list (right behind basketweaving) sat 'keeping things interesting'.

"Oh cmon, smuggler or a Jedi? You easily could have gotten dying plaguebearer, no problem! I mean, you look like you are on your way to see a mortician anyway!" He pokes his mask's cheek to point out how pale she was. Not that she needed reminding.

Clapping faintly, there was the scurrying sounds of feet hurrying away from shadows barely within eyesight. Disciple's presence around here made every area void of scavengers immediately; he was a literal boogeyman to these people . . . and rightly so. "The best kind, clearly."

The rictus grin of the man's unnatural facial covering regarded her with that same insanely painful amount of happiness and creepy cheer it typically did. Pushing open a set of double doors with a triumphant puff of his chest, he motions with his hands for her to behold the studio.

It was as dingy as everything else, with rubbish and blood scattered across the floors and walls like some horrendous painting. Fitting, really.

In front of them were four seats, each with a single light shining down directly upon them; no other lights seemed to be in working order. Four canvases, half covered in a mixture of reddish colors, were evident in front of their respective painters. The side of one's face could be seen, and his stare was entirely vacant, but shadows obscured the rest of what was going on.

Still, their palettes were barely visible being held down near their waists. Robotically, hands reached down to dip into whatever paint they were using before lifting just as stiffly to apply haphazard strokes where there was already paint. Red was their color, and while their was a little variation to suggest it wasn't blood, there wasn't a whole ton.

"Whataya think?"