Private Mind the Flowers

[Srina Talon]

LOCATION: Jutrand [Solarium]
TAG: Isley Verd

Her roses were dying.

Sunlight poured through panes of reinforced transparisteel, warm and pale, catching against white stone. It turned the glass walls almost golden. The air smelled of damp earth, growing things, and the faint sweetness of flowers that were quite poisonous when ingested. It was rare that Srina cultivated anything without purpose, but these particular blue roses were transplanted from home. They were out of place in a sea of red…

But was she not the same?

She trimmed leaves that had begun to yellow, kneeling before the thorned plant with her skirts pooling around her knees. Heedless of the soil that stained fine fabric or the deep brown apron that was tied neatly around her waist. A small hand rake had been abandoned as she worked through the earth delicately, loosening the compacted soil around the roots before pressing fresh sand, salt, and clay into place.

It would drain excess water so the roots would not rot, while keeping it hydrated, and supply rich nutrients to hopefully arrest the sudden decay. She hadn’t been away from Jutrand that long, but protocol droids, apparently, could not be trusted.

This work was…Strangely mundane, for an Empress.

Mercy had only barely permitted her to leave Throneworld, and the Seat of the Sith had been left open for a little too long. That meant that there were fires to put out, work to be done, and an endless stream of vexed Sith that demanded to know her condition. Some…Cared. Others were just looking for an opportunity under the guise of concern. Her battle-sister would lose her mind if she knew she was “playing in the dirt” instead of resting.

The thought brought the faintest twitch to the corner of her mouth. As if she needed permission to do what she wanted, when she wanted, but she humored Mercy because she was…Mercy. Srina had returned to Jutrand beneath just enough medical advisement to please the flame-haired woman, but her body bore the evidence of why.

The sleeves and high neckline of her dress concealed a wound that had not fully healed and the white bacta patch that was sealed over it. But…There were shadows beneath golden eyes that sleep had yet to banish, and she moved with deliberate care. She didn’t turn her head too fast. Didn’t move too quickly. Thyferra had left its mark. The true absence of the Force had been one, but everything that came after was another.

She dug her fingers deeper into the earth…But paused. Looking down at her project.

The change in her private solarium was infinitesimal, but she felt it. Ever since she’d been severed from the Force, even briefly, she felt everything tenfold. Every presence left her skin feeling raw and every shift in energy, no matter how small, caught her attention. She didn’t reach for the rake or another weapon, but slowly started working again.

“I know you’re there.”

Her voice was soft and unhurried, not frightened. If anything…It was a little tired. Her exhaustion was showing because, contrary to what some of the Iron Covenant believed, she was far from a god. Far, very far from immortal. Srina was tougher than the everyday human and metaphysically, biologically enhanced, but if she got shot in the head?

She was still dead.

There were no other bodies to climb into, no ways out, and death…It was courting her. Srina had felt this ever since she’d succumbed on Coruscant when Darth Carnifex and Mercy forced her back from the brink. She brushed loose dirt over an exposed root and pressed down gently with her fingertips. Silver-white hair slipped over her shoulder when a sigh escaped her…Eyes closing. Thyferra was still too fresh. “I didn’t kill him, Isley.”

“And…He wasn’t the one who tried to kill me.”

It was complicated, standing on opposite sides of a war. Her heart, black and broken thing that it was, hated it. Acier Moonbound had been on her mind ever since. Thinking of all the ways this encounter could have gone. How did one discuss that? Should she just…Pick up a comm?

There was some small part of her that held on to the fact that he hadn’t finished what Lorn Reingard had started. She remembered the look on his face, his eyes, and how they twisted into something she never wished to see again at the sight of her body on the ground. She remembered the arms of her nephew…His desperation that she not die.

"Stay with me. Please..."

Her shoulders tightened while she worked, growing silent, while memory of her failure burned like ash in the back of her throat. She should have seen the shot coming with or without the Force at her back. For some reason she’d simply assumed that the Jedi was down and out because he’d been beaten so thoroughly. It didn’t occur to her to look behind Acier…When all she could see was her nephew. How she had, clearly, failed him. “They have a device that turns off the Force, you know, the Republic. It’s…”

Her throat still hurt, voice strained, but she tried to cover it up by searching for the words.

“New. It’s not like void stone or the lizards…It’s gone. Well and truly gone until…”

Well—Until it wasn’t. The Sith still had no idea how the Republic had done it…They just knew that they had. “I always thought that would be us.”

 

[Isley Verd]

R E U N I O N​

Wearing: x | x
Location: Solarium, Jutrand

His rose...was dying.

Watching had been the totality of the Sith's ambition for what had felt like eons. His touch, which had bent the fates of trillions, had been intentionally removed from the cosmos. He kept his hands at his sides and his eyes on the horizon, intent on witnessing how they shaped the future. And, for as long as he tarried on the edge of creation, his observation was well rewarded.

There were moments of fierce pride which swelled in his chest.

There were moments of intense joy which brought water to his eyes.

Yet. In recent memory...there were moments which caused his blood to almost run cold. Instances where his breath caught in his throat and his hands raised from their stillness. Darth Metus trusted in those who bore his blood. He trusted in his alabaster daughter, born of darkness. He trusted in his ferocious son, born of iron. He believed that the future was theirs to command. Yet.

When the river of thought and feeling betwixt father and daughter wavered? When death had knocked upon her door twice? Stillness was no longer satisfactory. Did she need his presence in order to conquer? Did she need him in order to be the same woman of Dread that he knew her to be? Heavens forbid. This was a want. The selfish desire to keep one far away from the grip of death was the ember. Sparks. And soon, an inferno of action consumed him.

For...his rose was dying.​

Distance meant nothing. The arbitrary laws which governed creation were mere playthings before his grasp. And as the very Darkness gave rise to his presence, her voice greeted him for the first time in ages. She knew he was present, long before his boots materialized upon the solarium's earth. Darth Metus took a step forward, sulfuric gaze assessing the space he now occupied. It was...not what he anticipated.

But at the same time...it was unapologetically her. A sanctum of quiet where the work of her hands could be unbothered. A place where the alabaster daughter could create, think, and breathe. Yes...this was very much like her.

When she spoke anew, his gaze abandoned the sweep of the space and settled upon her. Ah how she had grown. It was one thing to feel her might from afar, ferried by their ever-present bond. Yet to bask in it? To behold it? Even when she was recovering? The difference was palpable. Good. The future belonged to her, she would need strength. But for the sake of his own desires, she would have more.

Her words spoke of what he had felt on Thyferra. It was never the dream of a father to see his children on opposing sides of any conflict. Yet, he was no dictator. He did not grasp them by the throat and demand that they follow his design. Their path was their own, even if it led to damnation. The sable-skinned man approached then, careful not to crush any of her roses underfoot.

"He has much to be grateful for." came his answer. Srina had not laid low his son on Thyferra. "As does the one who maimed you. Death would be a kindness."

He drew ever closer before descent gripped him. The Sith was silent, save for the quiet rustle of his cloak settling upon the earth anew. He knelt beside her, gaze settled intently upon her as she spoke again. He could see the tension within her. The weight which laid upon her shoulders. All of it was ignored...deflected, even, when she turned her thoughts towards the weapon of the High Republic.

"You grew in the shadow of such devices. This is nothing you, or your children, can't handle."

It was then that Darth Metus stretched forth his hand and set it upon the earth. His fingertips clutched and found and intruder: a single weed which had no place in the presence of his daughter's masterpiece. It was a thief. An interloper. A cancer which drew life away undeserving. The fact that it was green within his fingers was an insult.

"I see you. For so long, you have toiled in your garden. Carefully, you have sown. Lovingly, you have watered. Yet, for every rose, there is a weed which dares to rise from the dirt." His gaze moved from the pest within his grasp to Srina. "I was content to watch...to see how your garden would take shape within your hands. It is a thing of beauty, far greater than any I've planted. You deserve the peace to grow your garden without sparing a thought towards these."

His fingers tightened. The vibrance within the weed became pallid at once. In but a breath, it withered and crumbled into nothing.

"Let me be your winnower, oh daughter mine. I will pluck away these weeds so that your hands may do as they will. Allow me to stand beside you, as you had for me all those years ago."

Srina Talon​

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