Mamba

[Jairus Starvald]

​

[member="Aria Vale"]​

There was death here.

The moment Carach had stepped foot on this world he had known this. A paradigm of two separate entities vying for control just underneath the surface - one the whisper of a once mighty riverbed coming to a stop, and the other the roaring of a vast ocean slamming against a mountain over and over. Death had its purpose. And yet, the Voice of the Dark Lord wondered.

Had there not been a different way?

No fights existed between the lady of sorrow and him, poisonous her lips and sharp her talons. They had a mutual understanding in their disagreements. Formed over the years as their bond grew and turned into what it was now, whatever it was.

Had there not been a different way?

Darell Irani would have known the answer. Darth Carach, the voice of reason, would have guessed at the answer drifting slowly before him.

But Carach? Carach could only kneel on the pavement, his hand brushing past the dirt and feeling the broken duracrete. Almost did he hear a whisper there, before realizing it were just the spirits trapped inside him, where once his blood had flowed.

Behind him - on the landing pad that was freshly constructed - a shuttle just landed. He reached out already, two occupants... one was twisted and dark, but there was still hope for her.

If she took the steps necessary.

But she would not.

The Sith Lord knew her heart, before she even stepped out of the shuttle. Knew her face, before she even landed and her soul... well, her soul was not important here- it would be ground away soon enough.

 

[NightSister]

It had been a long flight.

She'd taken to the skies, as she so often did, to kill hours through circling Maena in an aimless orbit; it was one of a few methods Aria employed when she needed to clear her head. That, too, was a frequent occurrence. Today, nothing in particular had brought about the desire to take a flight around the planet - rather, she'd woken up pensive and gone through the day pensive, until she decided she'd be better to sit with her thoughts in a small ship as she floated through space, and so that was what she had done.

Maena always looked pretty from space. Aria had grown quite fond of the planet in the months she'd lived there - perhaps an odd sentiment, considering its inherent eeriness, but nonetheless her opinion - but she'd always found it was best appreciated from above. So of course, landing on the planet once the cobwebs were cleared always guaranteed a pleasant view. Breaking her chain of daydreams to pay attention, Aria watched eagerly as Maena came into focus, driving the starship carefully downwards until the craft dropped onto a landing pad and the rumble of its engine came slowly to a stop. She hopped off the landing ramp quickly, looking around instinctually.

Well, she was hungry now. And surely, she could find herself something useful to do. Fun as it was to find new ways to daydream, Aria was trying to get her act together, and it would be hard to consider piloting around Maena any good way to do such a thing.

But Aria, being Aria, managed to get so caught up daydreaming about why she shouldn't be daydreaming that she forgot to look where she was going -

-and collided with a tall stranger at once.

She flushed. "Oh, sorry."

[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aria Vale"]

It was as if she had walked into a mountain.

Immovable, unchanging and utterly unimpressed by what had walked into it. A large hand quickly snapped out and kept her from falling on her face and turning this situation too awkward. If there was one thing that Lord Carach could not abide by, it was awkwardness in any shape or form.

"Forgiven." The Sith retorted, before briefly looking past her and towards the shuttle. Sleek angles, good design, it surprised him she had not crashed it yet with her attention-span deficit.

Then Carach looked back, looked down and frowned. Topaz was already bleeding into his eyes - these days his emotions seemed to roll just underneath his skin, a coiled snake ready to lash out to anything and everything that stood in his path.

"It is dangerous to walk without looking. Who knows what you will walk into."

But this girl was no enemy of his and apparently Matsu was fond of her. Fond enough that he couldn't break her entirely and had to be at least passably careful. That recognition made the blue break through his eyes again, steadied his breath and made his look less intense.

Marginally so.

"Aria Vale?"

 

[NightSister]

Accustomed by now to the unintended consequences that her absentmindedness occasionally brought about, Aria had been ready to scurry off and be on her way. She was suitably embarrassed, of course - she really ought to learn to take her head out of the clouds - but it was a habit of hers, after all; she was untroubled by the occurrence, really.

Then she heard her name.

Well, even considering...recent events...hearing a stranger speak her name came as something of a surprise. Already half leaving, she whirled around abruptly at the sound, this time properly acknowledging the man she'd run into.

Powerful. Darksided - possibly Sith? Quite likely Sith, although that guess came more from instinct than from any sort of deduction. Dangerous, then. Just her luck.

And very tall.

"Uh - yes," she replied after a beat. "I'm sorry, how do you -?"

[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aria Vale"]

His head cocked as he watched her try to actually... leave?

The girl's mind was a mixture of anxiety, awkwardness and other high-roiling emotions. It surprised him that this one had potential according to Matsu, but he trusted her judgement - she wasn't ever wrong. Maybe sometimes a bit too zealous about certain targets, but they always had their thing.

"Matsu asked me to help with your training."

Topaz bled slowly into his eyes as he studied her up and down.

If there was any doubt that she was dealing with a Sith Lord that glance and the amber specking into his irises would probably remove them quite quickly.

"It seems you wish to become Sith."

 

[NightSister]

She made a small 'ah' sound at the realisation.

You mean you just ran straight into someone who's supposed to be helping train you?

Not important!

"I do, yes." Aria was suddenly more aware of everything she did. After all, she was no expert on how the Sith worked - or how a wannabe Sith ought to come across in front of somebody supposedly helping her with such a goal.

Well, for starters, it couldn't possibly be to her benefit to appear so obviously embarrassed.

Aria let her stance relax a touch. "Can I ask your name?"

[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aria Vale"]

Names... names were dangerous.

Give a person your name and you give them power over you.

Perhaps this is why the ancient Sith took monikers to replace their real names, to clad themselves in a new identity that was separate from their old ones and to avoid giving people power over them. It was surely a more reasonable explanation than "I thought this sounded cool." at least in Carach's mind. He studied her for a brief moment, gauging what kind of person she would be.

"Carach." He simply responded, but in that response Aria would learn much.

Carach, the Voice of reason, they had called him sometimes. He had fought thousands of battles for the One Sith, sank Ahto City and stole a Jedi's army from under his nose, before setting it against their former allies. Carach, the man who had channeled the Dark Lord's power. Carach, who never was seen without his golden simple mask wherever.

"Come."

He walked past her and inside, through a corridor and then entered a room. Simply furnished, but with two seats for them already set out. The Sith Lord did not know yet if he wished to train her, but he would soon find out.

Once they sat, he looked at her again.

"What does it mean to be Sith?"

 

[NightSister]

She followed warily, eyeing her surroundings, and sat when prompted.

Then she paused at the question. What does it mean to be Sith? Straight to the tricky questions, then. Hmm.

Aria deliberately took a few moments to formulate her response - only in part because she wasn't entirely sure of the correct answer, or even of her own interpretation of the answer. After all, for all the experience she had in interacting with Sith, becoming one wasn't something she was well-equipped for, and it was unfortunately likely that she'd have the wrong end of the stick. It would only make it worse if she appeared certain of her correctness.

Still, she had an idea of what to say. She'd been subject to plenty of monologues regarding the Sith, especially during her Jedi days; she had a starting point, at least.

"To be Sith," she said eventually, slowly, carefully, "Means to be always becoming more powerful, and to be always making the Sith more powerful."

Then again, she was paraphrasing Darth Vitium. For all the respect Aria had for the late Sith Lord, she was indeed a late Sith Lord. Which quite possibly defeated the point.

"I think."

[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aria Vale"]

Power.

Wasn't that the ancient old answer to the question? Ask anyone what a Sith about and the first answer you would get is power, followed close by strength and wealth and a host of other assumptions. They weren't strictly wrong, of course. Most Sith did hunt for those things, but that did not mean that being Sith revolved around those.

"I see." It wasn't disappointment that colored his tone, because at the end of the day it was a rare person who would answer correctly immediately without any lessons learned.

"It was a good attempt, safe, I suppose."

A head cocked though, because the later portion of her answer wasn't all that spread out. No, most Sith did not care much about helping other Sith, in fact they probably thought that was anathema to being a Sith. After all, helping a rival only weakened your position in the end.

"Who taught you that last portion?"

 

[NightSister]

Aria let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding in. Not the right answer - unsurprising, of course - but not, evidently, the worst of wrong answers, which would do.

Then her eyebrows twitched at the next question. This one was easy enough - the idea of Sith strengthening their cause was one she'd picked up from her first exchange with Darth Vitium - but, once again, Silara hadn't exactly died with a shining reputation among Sith, as far as she knew. The part about dying couldn't help the usefulness of quoting the Sith Lord.

But what else would she do? For whatever skills Aria might claim to possess, lying was not one of them.

"I learnt it from Darth Vitium," she replied hesitantly, "Before her death, of course. I'm guessing you know of her?"

Well, useful or not, it couldn't be worse than walking straight into him.

[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aria Vale"]

Vitium? Interesting.

He hadn't thought of Silara for many years now. Back in the day she had been one of the Voices of the Dark Lord, tasked with administrating his domains and casting judgement. Not a bad Sith, he supposed, just not really one that mattered in the end. Her touch on the Galaxy hadn’t been prominent and Carach struggled to remember what her achievements were.

Didn't she kark the old CEO of Titan Industries? Some non-forcer who was running a different company, if he recalled correctly.

"Yes." Carach simply responded. "I was not aware of her death though."

He wondered how he felt about her death.

After a moment of introspection the Sith Lord could only truly feel empathy about the entire matter. He gave it a bit more thought, before shrugging.

"How did she meet her end?"

Maybe she redeemed herself with a worthy death. A good death could erase many mistakes and sins of the past, Carach believed.

 

[NightSister]

"Recently."

She hadn't visited the subject of Silara's death since...well, at all, really. It was rather a sensitive matter, after all, and while it'd admittedly served as a good motivator, that had been as much as Aria wanted to keep the wound open.

Again, though, it would probably be best to answer the question.

"I don't know who the other Sith was. He challenged her to a duel, and, well...he won." To say the least. "I saw most of it. He killed her, and her daughter - there was quite a big crowd."

Her voice was quite small by the time she finished.

"But before that, she - Vitium - helped me with using the dark side." A hand went instinctually to the bracelet at her wrist; the most tangible example of the help in question. "So, I learnt that bit from her."

[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aria Vale"]

It did sound like her, both in her death and in her tutelage.

No, to say that Carach had any fond memories of Vitium would have been a lie. He did not have any true memories of her - just a figure of the past, always in the background and never bold enough to step into the light. Never willing to take the bold choices that would have cemented her name in history. But thankfully she was executed before she could infect this one with her mediocrity.

"There is a reason she is dead." The Sith Lord cautioned patiently. "Take heed of that. Every lesson she has imparted in you is suspect- every word spoken capable of leading you towards the same end she met."

He leaned back in his seat and studied Aria for a while.

What was there to see? What kind of Sith could this one become? Would she be a Matsu Xiangu? Or would she be a Silara? It was too early to tell, but Carach liked to make these kind of little bets with himself.

"To be a Sith... our purpose is simple and yet complicated. If there is one thing you remember of our talks and training ahead, remember this: To be a Sith means to take a goal, any goal, and to do whatever it takes to accomplish it."

That was it.

There was nothing more to it.

It could range from wishing to rule the Galaxy to becoming the greatest scholar the Galaxy has ever known. But the method was always open-mindedness and to never let yourself be blinded by mindless scripture. To do what it takes to accomplish your goal: to be a butcher who slaughters an entire village - without emotion and with calculation to the path ahead - or to be a philanthropist, who is hailed by all as one of the best society has to offer.

Many roads led to Coruscant, so they say.

"Do you understand?"

 

[NightSister]

He had a point.

For all the respect Aria had for her, Silara had failed. The other Sith, whoever he was, she certainly despised, but there was no logic behind her grudge; his only crime, logically, was trying successfully to kill someone he no longer deemed worthy to live. Aria certainly wouldn't disregard how helpful Darth Vitium's guidance had been, but that same guidance had been how Silara had died, and it would be how she died.

Yes, he was definitely right in that respect.

Aria nodded in understanding, about to acknowledge the advice aloud before she realised he hadn't finished. Alright, so the right answer - to Carach, at least - would've been the one he was giving now; to do what it takes to achieve your goal, whatever the goal might be, whatever achieving it might require. She hadn't been a million miles off, to be fair to herself.

But she liked that definition. It didn't make her want to be Sith any less, that was for certain. Was it a way of being that Aria could fit into? She'd shown she could be determined, she supposed. She felt she could in any case. It would take work, hard work...but she felt she could.

"I understand."

[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aria Vale"]

Perhaps she was telling the truth or maybe she was just saying it to make him try and believe it.

The Sith Lord didn't truly care enough to reach out and find out though. Because at the end of the day the lesson he had just imparted in her was for her own good - not his, no, if she kept on hoping for power? She would only be easier to manipulate and turned into a tool for one gain or the other.

Not that Carach was planning on that either. Matsu would probably be annoyed about that and this one wasn't worth enough to generate annoyance with her.

"How much has Matsu taught you already?"

That would presumably tell the Sith where he would need to start with this one.

 

[NightSister]

"Not much," she admitted, trying not to look uncomfortable. She had the smallest of frowns on her face - being Aria, she had no good idea of whether she'd been well-received. Whatever Matsu had told him might've helped - but then again, there was plenty the Sith lady could've said about her that wouldn't help his impression of her at all.

Oh well. The point wasn't to have someone sugarcoat her strengths and hope it sufficed - the point was to prove that she could be Sith, that she would be Sith. If she couldn't do that by herself, any endeavour on Matsu's behalf would be both pointless and entirely non-existent. Aria had managed to work out that Sith didn't like to waste their time on a lost cause.

"Using the Dark Side more effectively, mostly." Which, in fairness, was what she took to be the most important part, but still. It wasn't exactly a long list of abilities, but she had those already. It was the Sith part of the equation Aria didn't have; that was the aim here, after all.

"Oh, and some of the mentalism voodoo...thing."

[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aria Vale"]

His head cocked to the side.

It surprised him how... awkward this one sounded. It wasn't usually what he came to expect from the students she send to him, but at least Aria managed to see the truth rather quickly compared to some aspiring acolytes. There were no arguments or attempts to convince him of her point. Perhaps he shouldn't be too strict about it all though. At the end of the day Vitium had gotten her hands on this one far earlier and that contaminated the entire thing.

There would have to be time spend, before Vale would recover from that.

"I see." The Sith responded after a while. "You were a Jedi previously?"

He could practically smell it on her.

It was all in the stance, the way her head moved and her brows furrowed, it was all in the way her mind turned and churned by the thought of her former Master's death.

Time... it would take time, yes.

 

[NightSister]

Of course he'd know.

There had been no reason to expect that he wouldn't, of course - if Matsu hadn't told him to begin with, she doubted it was hard for any Sith Lord worth their salt to pick up on - but still, she'd have much rather it hadn't come up.

It wasn't as if a childhood with Jedi parents and five years serving the Silvers particularly helped her underline her potential to be Sith. Not that it made her goal impossible, either...but it certainly didn't help. Besides, though admittedly less important, she was trying to wash her hands clean of her Jedi days. That chapter of her life had hardly been a bad one, all in all - in fact, until perhaps the last year or so of her Jedi career, she'd thought herself perfectly happy to remain in such a profession - but, quite simply, she rather disliked the Jedi nowadays.

Well, he knew she'd been a Jedi, and he hadn't yet declared her a lost cause. That was something, at least.

"Mhm." Another nod. "For about five years officially." And eighteen years unofficially, but she'd let Carach figure that out by himself. "I left...just under a year ago?" Really? No, that was correct. Ten or eleven months - she forgot the exact date. Goodness.

She smiled ever so slightly at the statistic.

[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aria Vale"]

Tick tock the time went and it still did not seem as if Carach had made a decision surrounding her.

Why not? What was he waiting for? Was she doing well? ...was he going to kill her?

It was difficult to pin-point his mood behind those topaz eyes. The intensity of his gaze was unwavering as he observed her every single gesture, every little detail of her expression. It would be unnerving, like a panther steeling itself before the eventual kill. The truth was that Carach had already made his decision - they wouldn't have been talking here, if he hadn't.

Right now the Sith Lord was simply testing her out. Trying to see how long it would take for her to snap, before her patience boiled over and all that was left were raw emotions lashing out.

"Why?" He didn't answer her smile, didn't do anything besides lean back a little as he made himself comfortable.

Almost as if Carach was fully engaged in sitting here the entire day and firing off one question after the other. Until she had tired and exhausted herself, until no more answers could come up within. That was the idea anyway. It would be interesting to see what kind of tactic she would employ against him, if there would even be a tactic at all.

Maybe she didn't mind the talking or maybe her fear to piss off Darth Carach would be enough to keep her sitting at the edge of her seat.

Who knew?

 

[NightSister]

Oh, for kark's sake.

She'd have rolled her eyes under different circumstances - it was as if he was simply unaware of the Jedi's eternal reputation for suppressing emotions. Or for being generally a bit useless. Or just about anything that was said about the Jedi by non-Jedi. Why? It seemed the most obvious and most completely pointless of questions.

Of course, Aria hadn't even begun to consider that there could just possibly be a point to the interview. The why most likely should've been when she started putting two and two together, but her mind was in the process of overthinking another matter; how likely was she to offend him? More importantly - what happened if she did? The last time she'd annoyed a Sith Lord, she'd ended up with a cracked rib and a holiday cut short.

But really? Why?

"The same reason any Jedi quits." The sarcastic edge was creeping in, but she tried to stay impassive. She was trying to act like an adult here. "No emotions allowed. Kind of takes the fun out of it."

That had better be it.

[member="Carach"]