Private King of Lies

[Diarch Rellik]

Rellik's Private Chambers – The Crucible Tower, Bastion. Night

The door hissed open with a quiet release of pressure, granting Rellik entry to the sanctum where few ever tread. The lights were low, only the muted red strips along the floor guiding his path. The air inside was cool, still, and thick with silence. He paused at the threshold. Something was different. Not dangerous, he would have known. Something familiar but as if he had never felt it directed at him.

His eyes adjusted quickly. There, seated within the shadows at the far edge of the room between the ornate meditation dais and the sealed viewport waited a figure wrapped in stillness.

Indra.

Her armor caught the faint light in glints like obsidian beneath moonlight. The visor was down, impassive, unreadable. Yet he could feel the intensity behind it. He didn't speak at first. He simply closed the door behind him and crossed the room slowly, his cloak sweeping across the marble floor. He stopped a few paces away. Not imposing. Not towering. Just... Ready.

Has she broken so quickly from programming. Does she forsake me already? He thought to himself. Had she come with her armor off, he might have mistook the moment. Yet, her feelings alone were enough.

"I take it you have something to say." It wasn't a question. It was a demand of reason for her being within his personal chambers exuding the feelings in the force currently vibrating off of her very being.

The silence that followed was heavy, but it did not unnerve him. He had trained her. He had seen her born anew in his shadow. Yet, something had shifted.

Rellik's gaze lingered on the visor, on the edges of the armor he had commissioned, on the silent blade that had followed him into shadow and flame. A moment passed. A sharp feeling fluttered in the Force like a wire pulled taut between them.

Indra Quin

 

[Indra Quin]

Hours had passed in sullen contemplation. Every possibility had occurred to Indra in her journey back from Naboo. She had taken time to recover from her confrontation with Balun Dashiell and had perused the data pulled from the Jedi Master's quarters. Nothing pointed to Rellik. Nothing pointed to Indra.

The mystery was breaking her soul.

When he stepped in, Indra did not move for several moments. When she did, her hands rose slowly and carefully to her helmet. The hiss of decompression was the only sound after his statement.

The helmet came off, revealing the tied-back curls that so defined her, and had previously offered her a sense of identity. It was an identity that had been shattered by the facsimile that was Ala Quin. There was a soft clatter of helmet against ancient wood when she put the helmet down on the shelf next to her chair.

She finally looked at him. There was no expression. There was not even a twitch of the eye. "Ala Quin," she said. She watched his face, seeking clarification from his reaction to the name of the Jedi Master that held her likeness.

Who was this Jedi? Her twin? A clone? Rellik's old lover that he had recreated in Indra? No. Indra was his Lordsblade. But the way he had spoken to her that day. The way he had looked at her. The way...he had wanted...her.

Her stomach churned at the possibility that she was a shadow of something he had lost. Despite it all though, he loyalty held on. Rellik was her Lord. It was encoded within her. She could not betray him; not merely would not.

Her eye twitched as she watched for his response.

| TAG: Diarch Rellik |​

 

[Diarch Rellik]

Rellik's brow furrowed, not in guilt, but in confusion. Genuine, deep confusion. His eyes didn't flick away from hers. He let the silence linger a moment longer, measuring her. She had come here raw, helmet off and honest.

"Ala Quin…" he repeated at last, slowly. Like a man testing a foreign language for the first time. "That name means nothing to me."

And it was true.

"I've never heard it before. Not in council. Not in war. Not in the archives. Not from you." He stepped closer now, but cautiously without a trace of threat. His eyes searched hers now. The readiness. The restraint. The grief dressed in suspicion. He thought of every moment that has lead to this one.

It was this mistake that would cost him. As he looked into her eyes he remembered. His eyes got wide, it was clear to see he had a revelation. A memory that came to hit him like a boulder.

When he purchased her from the Vibi Hutts, he was given a list of available imprints. Combat profiles. Behavioral frameworks. Not faces, names. Indra was the imprint chosen but there were others. He rattled them off in his head. Leaving the one he knew was there for last although he knew it was there. Afraid to think it real in this moment.

Kythra, Violet.... Ala

Damn. He thought to himself.

Then, softer still, almost reluctant he opened his mouth to voice the truth of Indra's past but he choked for a moment. Scared to lose her. Than he steadied himself, straightening his back and looking at her directly in the eyes.

"I know your name is Quin. If you wish to find out who this person is Indra, than we can do so together. For I have no idea who this Ala is."

Indra Quin