Private Nobody Wants to Party with Me

[Meliant]

CORUSCANT - SITH ACADEMY
CHAPEL OF THE DARKENED VERGENCE
​

When the Empire took Coruscant, the Dark Side Elite had gone out of their way to corrupt the nexus of Force energy that swirled about in the depths of the Jedi Temple. By channeling the apocalyptic horror that Imperial forces unleashed on the planet, they had succeeded int tuning the nexus acutely to the Dark Side of the Force. ​

​

Then, only a couple scant years later, when the Sith Covenant had taken the world... Well, it wasn't as if it would be fixed. If anything, the corruption had gotten worse. More death. More misery. More Dark Siders, milling about, doing what they do. The whole planet was under the thrall of a golden and capricious Emperor and vicious, petty warlords.​

​

All the chapels the temple once held were still there. These were now places for novice acolytes to ruminate and reflect on the Dark Side. But for Meliant, these were places to feed on the nexus. He would come as close as the layout of the room allowed and sprawl out on the floor, his glorious crimson cape spread out like a smear of blood beneath him, basking in the pall of the Dark Side. Sometimes he would seethe if he was in the mood for it. ​

​

Very rarely did anyone bother him, the way you don't want to bother a big lizard when it's basking under a heat lamp.​

​

Only now someone did. Perhaps unintentionally. The doors slid open, and Meliant craned his head to look at them. His neck bent in a way it shouldn't - one of the many benefits of not having any bones to speak of.​

​

"Oh, just look at you. Clueless," he rasped. "Don't try to back out now. Have a seat."​

​

There were a few dusty and disused pews. Most people didn't come here, because most people knew the Emperor had a habit of haunting the place. The Emperor's golden head returned to the floor with an audible thunk.​

​

Nysa Veilwalker ​

 

[Nysa Veilwalker]

The doors sighed shut behind her.

The room carried a weight unlike any cathedral she had known. Not reverence. Hunger. It pressed against her skin, settled into the quiet spaces between heartbeats, asking to be acknowledged. She let it exist without giving it an answer.

Only then did she look toward the figure draped across the floor.

His posture might have been comical if not for the unnatural bend of his neck. Her gaze lingered there a heartbeat longer than politeness allowed before drifting to the crimson cape fanned around him.

He had called her clueless.

Perhaps.

She crossed the distance at an unhurried pace, boots whispering against ancient flooring.

"I wasn't leaving."

Her voice was soft enough that the chapel itself seemed to carry it farther than she intended.

"I didn't realize the room was occupied."

Another pause.

"Or that it belonged to anyone."

Her eyes wandered over the fractured architecture instead of lingering on him. Whatever corruption nested beneath the temple breathed through every stone. It reminded her of a wound that had been stitched closed while rot continued beneath the skin.

Beautiful things could decay.

Sometimes they simply learned to hide it.

Nys knew who he was by reputation. He was the Emperor. The Golden Emperor. The Butcher of the Empire. Her willowy figure paused and she flinched as the voices raised their volume as she went deeper into the room. They were demanding. Overwhelming. Many had died and their whispers - some were screaming - threatened to overwhelm and drown her.

A shallow breath and then another as she tried to give them space. There was a reason why she'd avoided this room for so long. Perhaps even now she wasn't ready for it. Her control was an illusion.

 

[Meliant]

Nysa Veilwalker

​

"This is Coruscant, girlie. Everything belongs to me," he replied, with a sort of idle grumpiness that implied the entitlement, if it were even accurate, had lost a great deal of its novelty.​

​

Meliant needed to find a grand vizier or something - a person who would actually run this useless metal ball for him. Arris was carving up the underground and Mercy was building castles in the sky. Meanwhile, the actual Emperor was too busy doing -this- to mount a similar effort.​

​

He groaned dramatically as he sat up. She was wandering closer still, evidently focused on something. Communicating with, perhaps, or merely listening to the nexus. She flinched and breathed quickly, apparently nerve-wracked. Meliant laughed at her. Surely that would help.​

​

"You shouldn't yap with dead people. If they had anything useful to offer, they'd still be alive." Meliant adjusted one of the little golden plates that comprised his gauntlets. There was, in fact, no contradiction here as far as he was concerned. "Are they talking about me?"​

 

[Nysa Veilwalker]

Nysa didn't answer immediately. Her head tilted ever so slightly, listening to something that did not belong to the corridor. The silence stretched until it was almost uncomfortable.

"...No."

Another pause. "They don't speak very much." She blinked and looked at him as though only just remembering he was there. "They remember."
Her gaze drifted beyond him again, toward the walls.

"There are so many of them here. They don't seem to know where they're supposed to go."

She frowned faintly, reaching out to brush her fingertips against the cold metal beside her.

"I don't think Coruscant belongs to anyone."

A quiet beat.

"I think it keeps everyone."

Then, after another thoughtful silence:

"They noticed you. Some are jealous. Some want to take over what you have." Her dark eyes had tiny-green circlets around the pupil that seemed to glow for a few pulses before fading. "Some want to learn to walk the world like you do." A pause as her dark eyes studied his golden-armored form, thoughtfully.

"Do you ever miss it? Your corporeal form?"

 

[Meliant]

Nysa Veilwalker

They don't speak, they remember? Coruscant doesn't belong to anyone, it keeps everyone? Great. He was talking to some kind of space cadet. Too many cups of vision quest tea or the wrong strain of spice had fried her brain. Probably the ghosts had her tweaked out of her skull too.​

"They noticed you. Some are jealous. Some want to take over what you have." Her dark eyes had tiny-green circlets around the pupil that seemed to glow for a few pulses before fading. "Some want to learn to walk the world like you do."

Meliant scoffed. "Real losers. Just like I said."​

"Do you ever miss it? Your corporeal form?"

"And just who the fuck are you to ask me that?" He snapped, suddenly, visibly irritated. ​

​

He was rising now, the plates of his armor clicking and clacking as he drew himself to his full height. ​

​

"I ought to toss you right into that nexus. Maybe you'll miss your 'corporeal form' enough for both of us."​

 

[Nysa Veilwalker]

Nysa's narrow but tall form did not move away. That was perhaps the strangest thing about her. Most people, when faced with anger, learned quickly to retreat. To raise their voices, raise their hands, raise something between themselves and the thing that frightened them.

Nysa only tilted her head up at the Emperor's masked face. Those dark holes that held no eyes. "I don't think they are losers," she said quietly.

Her eyes drifted past him for a moment, not looking at him so much as looking through the space beside him. Listening to something no one else could hear. "They are lonely."

A small frown touched her pale face.

"Some of them have been lonely for a very long time."

She looked back to him, studying the anger she imagined she might see beneath his mask, back once upon a time, with the same curiosity someone might give a strange flower. "I didn't ask because I wanted to hurt you." Her voice softened.

"I asked because I wondered...everyone misses something."

Her fingers curled slightly against the fabric of her sleeve.

"Some people miss a place. Some people miss someone they loved. Some people miss who they were before something happened to them."

Nysa kept her eyes fixed upon the Emperor's golden helmet. Her own reflection shattered and broken within in. And somehow, she found that beautiful.

"I thought maybe you missed being alive in the way you used to be alive." There was no pity in her voice. Somehow, that made it worse. She wasn't looking down on him. She was simply accepting that his pain existed. "And if you throw me in there..."

She blinked.

"I suppose the ghosts will be very confused." A tiny, almost apologetic smile appeared. "They already think I walk the world strangely. I don't think they know what they would do with me if I stopped walking it at all." She studied him for another moment. "But you don't actually want to put me there."

A quiet certainty.

"You want me to stop asking questions." Her smile faded a little. "Because the answers hurt." Another pause as she tucked midnight curls behind the shell of one ear. "I'm Nysa."

 

[Meliant]

Nysa Veilwalker

"I didn't ask because I wanted to hurt you." Her voice softened. "I asked because I wondered...everyone misses something."

"Some people miss a place. Some people miss someone they loved. Some people miss who they were before something happened to them."

"I don't miss anything!" Meliant barked, sort of like a kicked dog. "Stop monologuing like a fortune teller!"​

​

He didn't want to think about that. How could he? He missed food. He missed what it felt like to exert himself - to feel muscles strain and air fill burning lungs. He missed touch. And if Meliant ever stopped and seriously considered any of that, his regrets would swallow him up. He would have underwent this transformation for nothing.​

​

Meliant might not have been literally quaking with anger, but his metaphysical presence certainly was. He really did seem poised to strike this woman, back-handed, but there was that niggling feeling that it wouldn't make him feel any better. Might make him feel worse, actually. He'd had a lot of that feeling these days and, as usual, didn't know what to make of it.​

​

Whatever rising furor was coming up suddenly died. A fist unclenched. Spiritually defeated by himself yet again, this time with help from a mystery woman.​

​

"Nysa. Great."​

​

He suddenly turned from her, shuffling away into one of the pews and plopping himself down.​

​

"I am going to make your life here difficult now," he said, without much enthusiasm. "Get out of my chapel."​

 

[Nysa Veilwalker]

Dark green eyes that held patience beyond her age followed the spirit trapped in armor as he approached, prepared for the strike. As quick as a breath, he back down. The chapel settled around them in the silence he left behind. Dust drifted through pale light where broken stone welcomed the morning, and for a moment she watched it instead of him. It was easier to understand the dust. It did not pretend to be anything but what it was.

His anger had shaken the air more than his voice had. She could still feel the echo of it lingering against her spirit, though it had already begun to unravel into something quieter. Something heavier.

She looked toward the golden Emperor as he sank into the pew.

"My worry is not for how difficult you'll make my life. It is how difficult you are making yours."

There was no triumph in the observation. No rebuke. She spoke as though naming the weather.

"You said you do not miss anything."

Her eyes rested on the worn floor between them rather than on him. Perhaps that was easier. The floor was the floor.

"I do not think that is true."

A small pause.

"I think there are things you miss so much that saying it hurts."

Nysa lowered herself ever so slightly. "I was wrong to speak as though I already knew you. I do not. But I am a good listener." At last, she turned toward the chapel doors.

She took one quiet step before stopping again. "If you decide you would rather be angry with someone than alone with your thoughts..."

A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips.

"...I do not mind being that person."

Then, the young nightsister left.

---

A few days later...

Nysa found herself surrounded in the necropolis outside the temple. She'd been so distracted with the voice of one particular spirit, she had not heard or noticed the three sith knights stalk toward her. Xander was one of them.

"Well, well, well. Freakazoid Nysa alone at last. Not very smart of you to show me up in alchemy class. And I think it's time to pay the price."

 

[Meliant]

Nysa Veilwalker

What passed through the Golden Emperor's mind as Nysa departed the chapel was difficult to say, but it must not have been rage, since he remained seated, and it must not have been dismissive pride, since his hollow eyes were now pointed at the ground.​

​

---

​

Xander and his goons (a pair of mid-wits without much talent - thus how they found themselves in his orbit) were maybe a minute into the galaxy's most pitiful beating when the air in the nceropolis suddenly caught and went still. There was now that subtle, gnawing, interminable pull making itself felt in the Force that always heralded Meliant's arrival.​

​

Well, Xander reckoned he favored his odds hiding among the ghouls and ghosts of the necropolis. He said something unkind and they went capering off into the gloomy maze of sarcophagi and mausoleums. ​

​

They were only a moment gone when Meliant found Nysa there in a sad, beaten heap. ​

​

"Oh no, what happened?" He squatted, elbows resting on his knees, so that his lifeless, gilded face could be better perceived. "Having a tough time getting along with the other 'corporeal' kids, huh?"​

​

It certainly sounded like his usual pointless cruelty, only now it came out without any real bite. It was almost like a force of habit. And if he had not come just to be mean, then it must have been something else that dragged him out of the throne room, or the chapel, or the deep cistern, or those other lonely places Meliant spent his free time. ​

​

 

[Nysa Veilwalker]

Nysa shifted her face to the golden mask that was so close to her own. At the dark void within that gilded cage. She looked on a quiet moment as if she could see the corporeal form he'd once been.

"That is a rather cruel way of asking if I am alright."

Her voice was soft. Not accusing. Just tired. She was beginning to understand that Meliant was not always as simple as he wished to appear.

"I am beginning to think you do not know how to say something kind unless you hide it beneath something unpleasant."

Not quite a smile touched her face. A nasty looking cut across one of her pallid cheeks, blood dripping down her face. Slow, as if she didn't have enough blood in her body. As if a part of her was already something else.

"Though I suppose that would require admitting you intended to be kind."

She shifted slightly, gathering what remained of herself. It was difficult to tell if she was hurt more by what had happened to her or by the exhaustion of constantly having to endure it. She managed to sit, her back leaning back against the rough stone of a tomb as she went eye-to-eye with the crouching Emperor.

"They saw something they did not understand, and decided that made it something they were allowed to harm. I suppose that is not an unfamiliar story."

Nysa looked back toward him.

"But you are here." A simple observation. One she seemed to find more interesting than she should have. Head canted to the side, that path of blood changing as it slowly dripped toward the corner of her lips. "Why?"

 

[Meliant]

Nysa Veilwalker

There she went again, reading him like a book. Not even a particularly good book, either. Probably he was something with only a few pages and lots of pictures. Well, he couldn't complain, could he? He was the one who wrote the damn thing. Meliant absently cupped Nysa's chin with a hand, and smoothed the blood away from her lips with a little motion of his thumb. Surprisingly gentle, but that golden hand was so cold as to nearly hurt.​

​

"I did tell you I was going to make your life difficult here now, didn't I?" He tilted her head one way and then another, the way one inspects a gift horse if they are being performatively rude. "Lucky you, kicking the shit out of people doesn't make me feel better any more."​

​

Oh, if he could go back in time - back when he was just some lowly errand-scum, free from the twinned horrors of responsibility and introspection. Then dishing out a few beatings, rooting out a few Jedi, that would have done him just fine. Now it wasn't good for anything. Nysa didn't know how easy she had it, even if a few pissants roughed her up now and again.​

​

Meliant withdrew his hand.​

​

"Let's say I dragged those shitbirds back out here. Are you willing to kill them or not?"​

 

[Nysa Veilwalker]

Meliant

Nysa watched his golden hand retreat from her face. There was something peculiar about the way he'd wiped away the blood, as though it had surprised even him. She was quiet for a moment. The frigid feeling remaining on her skin long after it was gone.

"I've noticed people often believe pain can be balanced," she said at length, glancing down at the blood staining her tunic. "As though enough of it, given to the right person, might make the world feel fair again." Those dark, verdant eyes drifted back up to his eyeless mask.

"I don't think it works that way." Pushing her palms against the rough stone of the ground, she stood, fingers reaching out to steady herself against that cold golden metal fo the Emperor's arm. They lingered for a moment until she withdrew.

"There are other paths than death and I have one in mind for them." Long neck craned across the above-ground cemetery. "Would you like to see?"

 

[Meliant]

Nysa Veilwalker

"I've noticed people often believe pain can be balanced," she said at length, glancing down at the blood staining her tunic. "As though enough of it, given to the right person, might make the world feel fair again." Those dark, verdant eyes drifted back up to his eyeless mask.

"Yeah, you don't have to tell me," Meliant said, dryly, almost crestfallen. "I was people."​

​

Something piteously human twitched in him when she touched his arm. Something he thought had been bludgeoned to death quite a while ago and that he did not dare conceive a name for. It should have been gone with all the other baggage of being a meat-person, and here it was again. ​

​

There was an animal impulse to fling himself into a coffin and stay buried there until it went away. Only a very tenuous sense of imperial dignity kept him where he was. That and it would dirty-up the cape.​

​

He wanted to tell Nysa that she should really just snap their necks and be done with it; that murder was really the only language worth speaking around here. Meliant did not need any prophetic powers on his part to see that was a waste of speech. And besides, he was curious.​

​

"I'll watch. Sure. Show me."​

 

[Nysa Veilwalker]

"Alright," she breathed, shifting her gaze to the maze of catacombs and tombs where her tormentors had run off. And hidden from the Emperor's arrival. Elegant fingers strummed the air next to her. An ancient language of the witches tumbling from her split lip. A shadow figure appeared from the ground. A nether-hound. It's eyes glowed an eerie green and a low growl erupted from its throat.

Without a verbal command, it launched itself into the maze of walkways and stone.

Not long after, yelps were heard and the boys were herded back toward them. One had a nasty-looking wound on his leg. But it didn't drip blood. It dripped something fowler. An ichor. Nysa cocked her head and watched them. The hound emerged from the darkness behind them, enormous and silent, its shadowy paws barely touching the ground as it herded the boys back toward Nysa.

They stumbled over one another in their hurry to get away from it.

Nysa watched them with mild curiosity. "Oh, don't be frightened," she said softly. "He only looks frightening when he's hungry."

Nysa smiled, a blood-stained smile.

"He says you taste like fear anyway." She tilted her head toward the Emperor before returning to the trembling figures. She took out her ancient obsidian-bone dagger and stalked forward. Her own footsteps barely touched stone. Otherworldly grace - for once. The boys blubbered and glared at her.

"I swear - she deserved it. We didn't do anything we weren't supposed to," one of the X's said. Moving rather quickly, Nysa whipped her dagger across any patch of exposed skin they had. Each time she did, the darkness swelled around her. Her dagger pulsed with power. And each boy fell to their knees after the cut.

"WHAT THE FETH! I'm going to FETHING KILL YOU NYSA!"

A drag of air through her lungs, she stepped back. "Your souls decided they like me better." A quiet breath. "They belong to me now."

 

[Meliant]

Nysa Veilwalker

She started talking nonsense again, only now this nonsense was actually unintelligible to Meliant. It must have been a spell of some stripe, since some kind of hell-hound started taking shape in front of them. Meliant reflected on what a convenient trick that was. If he wanted guys to do something for him, he had to have them flown in. ​

​

The troublemakers were herded back into view in short order. Meliant took a few lazy, meandering steps so that he stood behind them to head off any possible escape. Mostly he was just sizing them up. There was a pecking order of losers here at the academy. Meliant guessed they were somewhere in the middle. Maybe they thought bashing Nysa to death would improve their standing. ​

​

Well, it looked like she was moving up in the world instead. Funny how that happens.​

"I swear - she deserved it. We didn't do anything we weren't supposed to," one of the X's said.

Meliant back-handed the back of Xorvin's head. The sound produced a satisfying ca-clunk. It happened so quickly Meliant almost immediately forgot he had done it at all. "Shut up," he said, but it was an absent-minded command. He was watching Nysa. Apparently closely - with interest.​

​

Nysa went among each of the group and gave them a cut with some ritual dagger. Meliant recognized sorcery at play, felt the connections of the Force twist and re-wire themselves under the weight of the Dark Side. Something had happened here, but he lacked the vocabulary to describe it with certainty. He had not dabbled in this sort of enterprise since he reorganized his Night Legion...​

​

Xander was yelling something.​

​

"WHAT THE FETH! I'm going to FETHING KILL YOU NYSA!"

Meliant swatted him in the same manner. "Stop screaming," said in the same sort of tone usually reserved from the disinterested parents of unruly children.​

​

Once the Lead X had quieted down to a few pitiful sniffles, Nysa spelled out what she had done. Three whole souls. Meliant cocked his head at her.​

​

"And now what? Do you make them dance? Carry your books for you?"​

​

 

[Nysa Veilwalker]

Those dark green orbs of her shifted to the golden Emperor.

"Perhaps."

The boys whimpered.

"I'll think of something. When the time is right." Head cocked to the side, dark locks of midnight dripping down one of her slim shoulders. She seemed to gaze past them. Deeper. Into the very things she now called her own.

"You may leave." It was a quiet sentence. But no mistaking the command behind the words. The sniveling trio rose and scampered off. There was still one that look at her with murderous intent. If Nysa was worried, she did not show it. Eyes drifted back to the glowing green blade is it faded and she sheathed it with great care. Her flesh was already brusing from their attack. Angry greens and blues spreading across her ghostly-white alabaster skin.

The nether-hound padded back to her side, leaning against her long legs and giving the golden Emperor a wary and assessing look.

Nysa stroked the dark black smoke-like fur absently. Eyes clashing against where the Emperor's would have been. Beneath his gilded cage. "Why do you wear armor at all?" Curiosity now, in the apprentice.

 

[Meliant]

Nysa Veilwalker

"I'll think of something. When the time is right."

"You're awful patient," Meliant opined, and otherwise watched the proceedings in silence.​

​

He ignored the ghost-dog. Pets were never his thing. That was more the interest of one of his siblings. No, not that one.​

​

The reprobates were soon fled. Since he had started to make a conscious effort to not say mean things all the time, Meliant found that he had substantially less to say, so it was eventually Nysa who spoke. Again with the questions.​

"Why do you wear armor at all?

He almost said something nasty - that almost certainly would been what occupied the pregnant pause that instead ensued - but he ended up answering. "It's easier to hold a sword if I'm in the shell."​

​

Well, maybe that was an elucidating answer, but Meliant immediately regretting giving it. He took a few idling steps around the area and kept yapping.​

​

"And if you're wondering why it's gold, it's... the old boss, that decrepit little bastard," he kicked the edge of one stone crypt, as if to indicate Fossk himself were somehow in there, "All he wore was black. Black robes. All the time. Well, I thought that was stupid. Shouldn't the most powerful man in the room look powerful? Look rich? He looked like a fucking bum all the way to the end. No wonder he lost everything."​

​