Private Iron and Blood

[Sibylla Abrantes]

​

Theed Palace
Office of the Voice of Naboo
Aether Verd

The holographic image froze mid-flicker.

Silence followed -- not the gentle kind, not the merciful kind. It was the sort that pressed hard and without relent as Sibylla's hand hovered where the controls had been. A fine trembling washed through her, settling into her bones with the deepest chill of winter. And even with the broadcast paused, the echoes refused to fade as the woman's screams seemed etched into the air, reverberating behind Sibylla's eyes, ringing in her ears as if sound could stain memory.

Shock took her first.

Then horror.

The implications hovered just beyond reach, distant and unreal, while the images themselves struck with brutal clarity even as her heart thundered, each beat loud enough to feel intrusive, throat tightening until breath became an effort rather than instinct as her chest began to heave.

She was not unused to death. Nor to blood.

Assassination attempts had taught her how quickly a room could become a battlefield. Wielu had taught her how swiftly order could collapse, how councilmen could fall, and lives could be nearly extinguished in the same breath. Theed had burned. The Senate had bled. She had watched the Black Sun's broadcast of Kalantha's bruised and bloody visage with a cold, horrified resolve she had not known she possessed.

But this.....this was something else.

This brutality did not reconcile with the man she thought she understood.

In her mind, Aether had always been balance made manifest. Strength held in check by restraint. Power wielded with judgment, reserved for moments when consequence demanded it. Mand'alor the Iron was a title she associated with resolve, not excess. With order, not spectacle. With the Iron Fist that would cast judgment as needed, but not unwarranted. She had sat and witnessed this herself with the rest of the Alors when Aether had asked them what they should do to determine the Will of the Empire, when it came to the Diarchy, and for the blood spilled for the death of the Mandalorian Child.

She knew House Wars. She understood what they could unleash when old bloodlines and ancient grudges were stirred. She had studied them, prepared for them, accepted their inevitability when diplomacy failed...but this was not war between Houses.

This was suffering seemingly visited upon civilians, seemingly to the lives of those who may have had no hand in the Diarch's betrayal. Perhaps no voice in the choices that led to the death of a Mandalorian child or authority over the execution of the commandos whose fate had sparked this fury.

Had the punishment been leveled solely at the Diarchs themselves, Sibylla could have followed the logic. She could have understood it as a grim calculus -- an act meant to sever future defiance, to prevent further bloodshed by making an example of those truly at fault.

That would have been harsh, but it would have been comprehensible.

Instead, the rage had seemingly spilled outward, indiscriminate, crushing those who lived under Mandalorian oversight but bore no guilt of their own... save to have ties to the Diarchs by some means.

The thought sat heavy in her chest and made it difficult to swallow.

There had to be more.

There had to be context she lacked, a truth obscured by the brutality of the images. Surely Aether would not have gone to such lengths without cause. Perhaps those civilians had been complicit. Perhaps evidence had surfaced, some hidden alliance with the Diarchy, some atrocity that justified the severity of the response.

There had to be.

It was the only way her mind could make sense of it, the only thread that kept something inside her from splintering outright.

Sibylla exhaled slowly, then cut the broadcast entirely. The room dimmed, the holographic light collapsing into nothing. Without hesitation, she turned toward the secure console and activated the direct line granted to her as Ambassador to Mandalore -- to Aether himself.

If there was more, she would hear it from him.

And if there was not... Sibylla's fingers stilled for just a fraction of a second before the holocall connected.

Shiraya help them all.

 

[Aether Verd]

Wearing:
Beskar'gam - Darksaber​

MANDALORE

The secure channel accepted the connection without ceremony, the ambient light of the chamber shifting as a Mandalorian presence resolved itself into being. Aether Verd appeared as a hologram framed in iron and shadow, beskar armor unmarred and unadorned, his helm deliberately absent as though to deny the galaxy the comfort of anonymity.

Displeasure was visible, contained rather than volatile, the expression of a man who had already measured outrage, condemnation, and the recoil of distant powers and found none of it surprising. Behind him, the chamber was stark and utilitarian, a place forged for judgment rather than performance, its walls catching faint reflections like embers buried deep within stone.

This had never been indulgence.

The crucifixion had been restraint made manifest. When Mand’alor the Iron ordered the Nite Owls to apprehend the constellation of souls bound to the Diarchy, he did so with a ledger already filled. The spark had been struck on Vexis Station, where a Mandalorian child was killed, not by accident or misjudgment, but as an accepted consequence of Diarchal authority. That death had ignited the conflict, but it had not stood alone.

On Daro, when a ceasefire was declared as a gesture of civility, the Diarchy had shattered it within hours. Mandalorians were executed without cause, without evidence, without trial. Their only crime was their armor. Their only guilt was identity. Civilian status had been stripped from them in full view of the galaxy, and their deaths had been presented as order restored.

Still, Mandalore had held.

The offenses that followed were quieter, more insidious. Plainclothes agents and so called civilians tied directly to the Diarchs were loosed upon Taris, stirring riots, provoking violence, seeding sedition beneath the pretense of unrest. Each act was designed to fracture stability while preserving plausible deniability, each one another mark against a ledger the Diarchy pretended did not exist.

Even then, Mandalore restrained itself.

Border skirmishes. Military targets. Controlled responses meant to contain rather than consume. The Mandalorian Empire had answered provocation with discipline, refusing to widen the conflict despite mounting evidence of coordinated malice.

The line was drawn only when the Diarchy slithered into the shadows and parlayed with the Black Sun Syndicate, seeking not victory, not leverage, but genocide. The hope to erase entire Mandalorian worlds was not rumor, not conjecture, but intent made clear.

At that point, restraint demanded demonstration.

The galaxy recoiled as anticipated. The Diarchy lamented barbarism while carefully omitting the child on Vexis, the executions on Daro, the riots on Taris, the appeal to Black Sun for annihilation. The Imperial Confederation advised caution, as though Mandalorian space had suddenly become dangerous rather than resolute.

None of that unsettled him.

What did was the silence from those who should have known better.

Aurelian, once king and now chancellor of the High Republic, issued advisories and quiet condemnation without so much as a word exchanged. Weeks earlier, they had worked in tandem, tracing Death Star III and preparing for a threat that loomed over the galaxy entire. Times were shifting. Masks were thinning.

Still, Aether did not act on rumor. He would not trade discipline for impulse. Facts would be gathered in full, always, even when trust began to fracture.

Thus, when the call from Naboo came, he had been ready.

His eyes settled on the projection before him, steady and unyielding, and when he spoke, it was calm, even, and utterly without apology.

“I thought you would have called sooner.”

The chamber remained still, Mand’alor the Iron present in full, waiting not to justify, but to be understood.

Sibylla Abrantes

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

​

The hologram flickered with its blue white light and Sibylla found herself pausing without quite intending to.

Not from fear but from recognition.

She took in the details quickly, almost instinctively -- the absence of his helm and showed the dark angles of his face, filling the space with his presence even as light and projection. Those dark eyes found hers at once with that familiar, unwavering gaze of one who bore duty and responsibilities upon his shoulders since birth, and in them she saw neither regret nor spectacle but something far more difficult to name. Resolve, certainly. Control.. and beneath it, a restraint that felt tested rather than abandoned.

"I called as soon as I could," Sibylla replied quietly.

There was no pageantry in the admission nor diplomacy she was trying to hide behind. The truth of it showed plainly in her face, in the worry she had not yet sorted into neat lines, and the concern she did not wish to conceal because the shadow of the broadcast was still lingering in the set of her mouth and the tension in her brow.

But she didn't turn away. Not from Aether's gaze, not from his presence.

"What happened, Aether?"

The question was asked not as an Ambassador nor the Voice of Naboo. The question came instead from the woman who had spoken with him before, who had listened, who had believed she understood the balance he carried. It was in her tone, in the way she held his eyes, asking not for justification but for truth. The unfiltered kind.

But she asked all the same, because she needed to know...and because whatever the answer was, she would face it.

Because there was no denying that the images still unsettled her; she could not pretend otherwise. Not with the way they sat heavy in her stomach, seemingly refusing to be reasoned away with. Nor could she deny that this was a matter she would need time to sort through with care and clarity, as any young diplomat worth her salt must.

The Diarchy had, after all, committed its own public atrocity. The execution of the Commandos had been broadcast without shame and baited the Mandalorian Empire, an act Sibylla had condemned outright. It was the sort of provocation that demanded a response. Of that, she had no illusions. Reprisal in a manner that was measured and deliberate would have been expected.

What she had not expected was this...and perhaps that was why it struck her so deeply, why it left her more shaken than she cared to admit.

Because beneath the horror, beneath the disbelief, a far more unsettling question had begun to take shape.

Would she have done the same?

Aether Verd
​

 

[Aether Verd]

Wearing:
Beskar'gam - Darksaber​

MANDALORE

The Mand’alor released a slow, heavy sigh as her words reached him, the sound carrying through the chamber like air drawn from a bellows before the forge roared anew. It was not irritation directed at her, but acknowledgment of the reality that framed her station, a role bound in process, consent, and the careful tyranny of schedules not her own. Democracy and bureaucracy could elevate an Ambassador to remarkable heights, and just as often leave her standing in the aftermath of decisions already made, treaties strained beneath realities no vote could soften.

His gaze did not leave her projection as the breath escaped him, and when he spoke again, it was not sharp, nor dismissive, but edged with something darker than his usual calm.

“What happened,” Aether said, his brow furrowing as restraint tightened visibly along his expression, “was the result of accumulation. Of lines crossed so often that they ceased to be accidents and became doctrine.”

He straightened slightly, presence filling the chamber even through light and projection.

“The Diarchy has been trying to kill us.” he continued, voice steady, iron beneath every syllable. “Not me alone. Not the Great Heathen Army. Entire worlds along our borders. Trillions of innocent lives reduced to acceptable losses in pursuit of leverage.”

His eyes hardened, the controlled calm giving way to something more severe, though never unmeasured.

“My Nite Owls intercepted intelligence of a meeting between the Diarchy and the Black Sun Syndicate,” Aether said. “In that chamber, the Diarch did not hedge or bargain. They demanded genocide. The extermination of Mandalorian populations en masse, not for strategy, not for survival, but to make Mandalore squirm.”

He let that truth stand, unadorned.

“And the so called civilians you saw,” he continued, “were not innocents caught in a tide they did not shape. They were instruments. Pawns used repeatedly by the Diarchy to destabilize Taris. They received orders through plainclothes agents, incited riots, rebellion, sedition, and murder. They circulated poisonous spice through the poorest districts, attempting to kill the destitute by the thousands, all in service to their liege and their narrative.”

His jaw tightened as he spoke the next words, not in anger, but in certainty.

“They were a cancer.” Aether said. “Guilty of treason under the laws of Taris, guilty under the laws of the Empire, and guilty by the ways of Mandalore. Tumors are not negotiated with. They are cut out.”

Aether paused then, folding his arms across his armored chest, the motion slow and deliberate. Another breath followed, quieter than the first, but no less laden with resolve.

“The Empire is preparing for a two front war.” he said. “What you saw was the first and only warning to the Diarchy and its allies. Mandalore will not issue it twice.”

His eyes lifted fully to her projection, unwavering.

“It is one thing for mercenaries to fall on contract. Or for soldiers to fall in battle. We have kept our clashes to the borders, to military targets, to forces that chose the blade knowingly. But the Diarchy escalated beyond that. They executed Mandalorians for wearing armor. They broadcast it as theater. They plotted the eradication of our people.”

His voice remained even, but the severity of it was unmistakable.

“That spat in the face of every restraint we exercised.” Aether said. “And so an answer was given. Not in chaos. Not in indulgence. In clarity.”

He held her gaze through the hologram, neither demanding agreement nor offering apology.

“You asked what happened...” he concluded. “This is what happens when restraint is mistaken for weakness, and when Mandalore is forced to remind the galaxy of the price of blood.”

Sibylla Abrantes

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

​

Sibylla did not interrupt him.

She stood still as the words came, listening not only to what Aether said, but to how he said it. To the tightening of his brow, the weight carried in the pauses, the way restraint drew itself visibly across his expression like a hand closing around a blade. This was not a political exchange, not truly. She did not hear him as Mand'alor speaking to an Ambassador, nor did she listen as a representative tallying justification.

She listened as someone who looked up to him.

As someone who believed, perhaps naively, that open dialogue could always bridge the worst of divides.

If that was a flaw then it was one she owned.

Biases were human. She had learned that early, in courtrooms and council chambers alike. The danger was not in possessing them, but in failing to recognize them when emotion threatened to eclipse judgment. Sibylla knew this. She had practiced composure until it fit her like a second skin.

Yet as he spoke, Sibylla began to realize with a quiet, uncomfortable clarity that composure was far easier when the stakes were abstract.

It was far harder when the person before you mattered.

The more he spoke of the Diarchy, the clearer the shape of their intent became. Not provocation. Not brinkmanship. But extermination. Genocide spoken plainly, without euphemism. Her chest tightened as the weight of it settled, feeling the indignation flare and collide with the memory of the broadcast she had watched only moments before.

Then he spoke of Black Sun.

Her lips pressed together at that in an involuntary reaction. The name alone carried too much history, too much rot. The image of Kalantha's bruised and bloodied face rose unbidden in her mind, the helplessness of not knowing where she was, whether she still lived, twisting anew. That the Diarchy would consort with them felt like confirmation of every fear she had not yet given voice to.

And truth be told, part of Sibylla understood.

She knew what happened when pressure did not relent. When restraint was met not with respect, but with escalation. There came a point where bending became breaking, where the needs of the many eclipsed the pleas of the few, where enough truly was enough.

Sibylla's jaw clenched, the knot in her throat tightening as anger, horror, frustration, empathy, and no small measure of agreement churned together, leaving her nauseous with the effort of holding them all at once.

She knew this had not been an impulsive act.

That was the most difficult part to reconcile.

This had been considered. Weighed. Measured. The judgment rendered was deliberate, meant to demonstrate that Mandalore would not be pressed, prodded, or quietly erased. Part of her stood with him in that certainty.

And yet...

Another part of her recoiled from the brutality of it being broadcast to the galaxy, from the spectacle of suffering made public, no matter how carefully justified. The two truths refused to settle neatly beside one another.

How was she meant to reconcile that?

For a moment, words abandoned her entirely. It showed in the way she drew a breath and held it, in the tension along her jaw before she finally released it in a slow and unsteady exhale.

When she spoke at last her voice was quieter than before, stripped of diplomacy, threaded instead with something incredibly earnest and raw.

Family, he told her. That is how discussions and Mandalorian councils worked. They spoke like family.

And in her unfiltered expression that showed exactly how she felt and how torn she was on it all, Sibylla spoke in the manner Aether had taught her.

Like family.

"I hear you," Sibylla said. After a brief pause, her hazel eyes held his, the unease lingering there in quiet, unmistakable measure. She was still working through it all -- she knew it, felt it -- but the question would not leave her.

"Did it have to look like that?" she asked simply, without rhetoric, her tone carrying the weight of a genuine wonder that there might have been another way.

Aether Verd​