Populate Oath and Iron | SO Populate of Kiffu

[CT-312]

//: Quinn Varanin Eira Dyn Darth Hydra //:
//: Attire //:
//: Obsidian Spire //:
//: OBJ I - THE WOLF's REVEL//:

CT-312 kept to the side of the grand hall in full gear, untouched by the pageantry. The celebration moved around her like something from another world. Her visor turned slowly to the dance floor, where the Princess moved among the figures of status. The Scout remained where she had been placed, quiet and watchful. BARCA kept working, tracking movements of those around. CT-312 found herself standing at the edge of her role.

She had felt this before. It wasn’t necessarily all the same, but the thought of Eshan’s coronation flashed in her mind with the same quiet rearrangement of space that surrounded the Princess. CT-312 blinked behind the visor. Across the ballroom, someone approached the Empress ( Srina Talon ). A man, cutting through the crowd. The Scout noted the space around him moved in small ways. Something about him scratched at the back of her mind. It was familiar…

The bond stirred, an abrupt flare of irritation that rolled over to relief and warmth. CT-312’s eyes moved back on to Quinn, noting the recognition in her eyes. Her composure had changed for a moment. Following where the Princess was staring, CT-312 watched as the Empress and the man began to dance. The two silently became the center of attention on the dance floor. She watched the steps, turn, and the spacing between them. Her mind kept clawing at the familiarity until it clicked. The man was the Emperor ( Darth Empyrean ) who had vanished without a trace. Returned.

CT-312 looked at the Princess, who was with Mercy. Quinn was watching them, the Empress and the returned Emperor. A family reunited, in some form. Her people. The word in CT-312’s mind had an unfamiliar weight to it, family. A dull pressure began to gather underneath, it wasn't pain. It was as if the hall suddenly became too large and herself within it too small.

She blinked again. When CT-312 opened her eyes, her focus went away from the dance floor. Her legs moved before she knew it. ‘Patrol.’ she told herself. The Scout resumed a slow path through the crowd as her visor swept through over the guests. It didn’t take long for her to find another familiar face. Eira Dyn . The Princess’s apprentice stood with a glass in hand. She looked different from the memory that came to CT-312: the club on Coruscant, the declaration as her friend… and the bar fight that had followed with all the inevitability.

Silently weaving through the crowd, “Already getting ahead of the game?” It was an attempt at humor. CT-312’s voice came through her helmet’s modulator as she pointed with her helmet to the glass in Eira’s hand. She’d remember how BARCA insisted compliments amongst friends was a good thing. “You look different tonight.” The words were simple. Compliments did not come naturally to her. “Not in a bad way. It suits you.” CT-312 could tell Eira had made an effort. The Princess’s apprentice looked like she belonged in the court instead of merely stalking through it.

The Scout’s attention turned once more toward the dance floor where the Princess remained within sight, then returned to Eira. “How have you been? Hopefully not too bored.” Around them the music carried on. The Emperor and Empress moved beneath the eyes of the court. CT-312 could feel, but not fully understand Quinn’s emotions. “What do you make of all this?” Tilting her helmet towards the celebration. Her tone came out in a flat and faintly bored through the helmet’s modulator. “The anniversary and the feast. Everyone pretending they only came here to remember Woostri.” CT-312’s visor drifted over the crowd again. Who knows. Perhaps the evening would be generous enough to offer another familiar face along the way.

 

[Eira Dyn]

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Outfit: Dress
Equipment: Lethal Pursuers (concealed)
Tags: CT-312 | Darth Hydra

Eira was given the grace to enjoy her drink in peace, leaning slightly against the table as she observed the ongoing dances and interactions. Taking note of the Empress and the returned Emperor, Quinn with the supposed Empress of the Core, though Eira was not one to accept titles of those who seem to compete with the Sith Order, and other apprentices talking and dancing. There was a brief sense of loneliness as she did not acknowledge long. Instead, Eira forced herself to assume that her new appearance and the dress were far too intimidating and beyond beautiful for any of the Sith around here to approach. It was the best justification that Eira could think of on why she was remaining to be without company.

That only lasted a while, then she noted that the familiar armoured presence of her friend CT-312 was approaching. It seemed that either the soldier was on duty or that even Quinn couldn't convince CT-312 to remove the armour for this event. Something that made sense since it was being in a room surrounded by a lot of Sith of various levels of proficiency. The comment on getting ahead of the game drew a smirk onto the full lips of the Sith as she looked over to CT-312. While her hair was partially covering her face, the glow of her red eye still pierced through the black hair. A gaze that attempted to see what was beyond the armour, the stone wall that CT-312 built for herself but also softened at seeing the friend.

"Well, I had to find something to do. No one has come to offer me a dance." Eira spoke with laugh soft in her voice.

Tilting her head, the comment on looking different was strange. Like something was being attempted but not really succeeding. "Well, you look the same as always. On duty, today or did the outfit Quinn select for you seem too outrageous for you to even try wearing tonight?" Eira probed gently, seeing if things were progressing between the guard and her Master. She was not blind to their connection and the feelings, though she was starting to suspect both of them were blind to it themselves. Mostly CT-312 but seeing Quinn with Mercy on the dancefloor, Eira was starting to think her own Master was not as aware of the connection as Eira would have thought she would be.

"Not now that you are here to talk." Sipping her drink once more, "though I was hoping others would take more notice of this. Perhaps I am being too hopeful that my progress out of being feral would be celebrated by others." Eira mused, wondering if she had been setting expectations too high. She was still a Sith apprentice and had not really made much of a name for herself yet.

Looking around at the celebrations as CT-312 gestured to them and questioned Eira on her thoughts, the Sith apprentice gave it much consideration. Woostri had been so long ago. It had been a strange time, she was fairly new to the Sith. She was very new as Quinn's apprentice and she ended up in a fight well beyond what she could handle at the time. Quinn had demonstrated powers beyond what Eira thought possible and the apprentice ended up unconscious in trying to demonstrate her power. It was not Eira's declarative moment of being the Sith she wanted to be. "I do not see celebrating a moment like Woostri when there is still work to be done. Yes, the Galactic Alliance fell, the New Jedi Order fell. But the High Republic is growing, their Jedi seek to bring us down. There are pockets of smaller Jedi groups still out in the galaxy as well."

"Until we secure utter domination over the galaxy and complete annihilation of the Jedi. All of this is performative, premature." Eira mentioned as she looked back to the soldier, "they act as if we have won, but all this could come crumbling down tomorrow unless she demonstrate to all that there is no chance anyone could rival us."

"But tell me. What are your thoughts?"

 

[Allan Alhune]

Did the living really need a reason to celebrate?

The question reached him and a small smirk crossed his face.

“I believe having a reason makes celebration all the more sweeter. Accomplishments celebrated, names etched in the stones of time.”

He picked up a glass from a servant who had been passing by, his metal fingers gently clasping the crystal as his clawed hand gently flicked the rim in perfect placement to sound of a crystal clear ping.

He noticed young Lechner's slight stiffening to the cold, but he also noticed the extra pair of eyes that stared into him from beside the young man. A young woman with dark hair.

He gently tilted his head towards her.

“I tend to try to know as many people as I can. Keep up to date on the latest happenings, stay informed. I have heard of some of your exploits. Quite interesting indeed.”

His violet eyes flicked between the two of them, a cold dark smile upon his lips.

“Including the latest…incident…on Brosi. Such fire and fight residing within you. Yet…also dangerous in such close quarters around us.”

He could sense the stirring of the creature within the young man. He could sense its hunger, and at the time of the incident he felt its bloodlust.

“Power always starves for something. Doesn't it?”

Aerik Lechner | Skadi Lightbane​

 

[Torvald]

TORVALD

oof tough crowd here

The thought came to him as they spoke. Many big words, many rival-like words to poke at each other like a cattle prod on cattle. Provocation coming from both ends.

During a party of all times.

A slow but audible sigh left the old wolf before he tipped his head back along with his glass, downing the sweet liquid like it were water.

“Ugh, they could have brought something better.”

His gaze looked over both individuals before him.

“So a councilor now? Do you talk with people to make them feel better? Their childhoods and how their parents did not raise them properly? That is a councilor right?”

A small smirk cracked his lips showing slight fangs that glitter in the light.

“Miss Ka, I did not even know you had that in you. Last I heard you were Kainite, I have been away for quite some time it seems, but a kainite upbringing and you become a councilor. Can't say I saw that coming.”

He then looked at Darth Strosius.

“Chin up there lad.”

As far as Torvald knew, he was older than Strosius so the name felt appropriate.

“The Wonosans have proven time and time and again that they refuse to just roll over and die. You may not have the strongest army, but that will to survive has proven to shatter numbers. I have seen it before.”

As a master raider, Torvald lived in being outnumbered and outgunned. He may not have seemed like a smart man, but he did not live to be this old by accident.

He looked back to Lirka.

“Miss Ka, please tell me, how did you achieve such a status?”

Darth Strosius | Lirka Ka​

 

[Darth Strosius]

Tags: Lirka Ka / Torvald / Open!
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An eyebrow quirked beneath His mask at the Councilor's armor apparently being of her own design and construction, He'd simply assumed that it had been another garish Kainate project on her behalf. Which to be fair it still was given that she had made it after all, so the assumption still stood accurate. Clearly she had no taste at all what with the jab at His ornate robes after all. "I don't have tailors, wretch. I make my own vestments as is befitting my needs."

Her next words drew an immensely offended scoff from Darth Strosius, one laced with more scorn than air. "'Made something of yourself?' Lirka Ka, everything about you is a Zambrano invention. Without Carnifex you'd be nothing. You're not someone with achievements, you're a tool that's been given a different shelf to sit on. Your betters are the ones stuck in the past, reliving old victories and alliances instead of paying for the mistakes and failings they've made in the present."

At the remark of Him being a miner though the masked man fell unusually silent. His head cocked to the side to regard the Councilor, such an angle and quick movement making the lower prongs of His mask briefly scrape against the armorweave of His robes in the process. The stare that He fixed her with was unreadable but palpably infuriated, to the point that for a moment yellow pinpricks where His eyes would be within the dark visor flashed and burned with a bright hatred.

A gaze that flickered to Torvald as he spoke, although truthfully He wasn't quite certain if it was meant to be an intentional misinterpretation or a simple symptom of his inebriation. His words, no matter how slurred they might have been at times, did somewhat soothe Darth Strosius from the path of immediate violence and retaliation that Lirka's statement required. For now at least. Although naturally He wasn't quite soothed enough to keep His tongue still at the question that Torvald posed.

"She begged for it. Like an animal being rewarded for dragging in some roadkill. And her betters gave it to her because they didn't want the job themselves."

 

[Darth Hydra]

TAG: Eira Dyn CT-312

Hydra was bored. Social occasions weren't his preference, nor his area of expertise. Acting the Sycophant in order to gain some small piece of praise or notice from the Emperor and Empress. It was the part of the Sith that Hydra distained the most. When it came to the Sith, Hydra acknowledged that they were stronger together than separated. Too often in history when Sith Orders fell the Sith had been isolated, hunted down targets of their Jedi counterparts. Of course there had been times when the reverse had been true. Order 66 was a notable successful executed manoeuvre by the Sith Lord Darth Sidious after all.

Hydra shook his head out of his historical musings, searching the room for something to occupy himself with. Yes the Sith were more powerful together, he could even acknowledge that social events such as this one were necessary for the social cohesion of the Sith. The pretense hardly mattered, it was an excuse to get together, celebrate, to congregate with your fellow Sith, form contacts. In short be less isolated.

It was this perspective that Hydra continually reminded himself of. Over his long life, the chief barrier for his own advancement through Sith ranks was his own isolation. Hydra had rarely bothered to ingratiate himself with those in power, as such he was easy to dismiss or single out as a weakness within the Sith ranks.

His position as a Master of Korriban Academy gave him a certain amount of respect, but more akin to a respected scholar than a true asset of strength one that could be utilised for the greater strength of the Sith. For most of Hydra's life he had even preferred it that way. Recently however he had begun to come to the conclusion that his own recalcitrance from Sith Society left him alone, isolated, easy pickings for both his enemies and perhaps even other Sith.

Weakness was to be abjured whenever found. No matter how tedious his efforts such as events like this one were. Nor matter how futile they seemed to be in achieving his goal. Looking around Hydra sighed to himself, only to himself of course, a true warrior scholar showed minimal emotion in public, even boredom.

Hydra caught sight of a familiar figure across the dance floor and after a moment of consideration, began to make his way over to CT-312. She wasn't a particularly high ranking Sith and Hydra wasn't entirely sure he wasn't making another futile effort, nevertheless Hydra believed she might be a familiar face, not that he knew what her face looked like. Hydra was amused by the thought his lip twitching in a slight smirk.

"CT-312. A pleasure to see a familiar face in a crowd of strangers." Hydra inclined his head in a gesture of greeting and respect.

"Darth Hydra, I'm a Master of Korriban Academy." Hydra introduced himself to her companion with another deep inclination of his head.

"I'm afraid I am rather out of place in the halls of social circles we attend, would you mind terribly, if I ingratiate myself with the two of you for the duration of the evening. I shall endeavour not to be a tedious or boring companion."

 

[Lirka Ka]

TAGS: Torvald Darth Strosius

Poking, prodding, and generally causing some modicum of strife at a party was Lirka’s idea of fun. She didn’t get to enjoy things the way the rest of them did in her self-imposed asceticism. In the end she was to be pleasantly pleased with the presence of Torvald to temper everything from possibly drawing their host’s ire as she, perhaps foolishly, toyed with the Lord of the Wonosa.

She strummed over his words for a moment, and with a coyness masked in mechanized monotony

“Yes, I suppose that is correct from a certain point of view.”

Briefly did she make the slightest of gestures to Darth Strosius

“Difficult if they refuse to listen though.”

Oh if only they knew. Lirka had lived a life of miserly servitude of decades, a notch in the machine. Just another monster in an endless menagerie - she had a tally of millions to her name, but who didn’t? A million souls dead by the swipe of your hand was not an impressive score in these chaotic days. One day they would know the depths of depravity she would delve to secure the power she craved.

And so much of where she stood today, kick-started by poor Kirie and her voice stolen away by wicked claws.

But she responded with a platitude, one of many pulled from a mighty repertoire of a zealot’s prattle.

“To thrive beneath Darkness Primordial is to be transient. The transience of strength warrants the evolution of changing tides.”

With the barbs from Strosius, Lirka couldn’t help but grin beneath her helmet. He was a funny man, all full of vitriol like the pitiful little curmudgeon he is. Charming really. She understood why he hadn’t been disposed of properly.

“Well, dear Lord of Wonosa, you should take a sewing class.”

A simple barb to butt in with sheer childish mockery. It was almost disgraceful for supposed nobles. But what was politics if not a chance to throw barbs at each other?

She determined her calculus quickly, the beginning of the equation: she did not even deign herself to acknowledge the Wonosan’s prattle, instead looking straight to Torvald

“You see, it’s an important to remember that Strosius is simply expressing old grudges. I tore that ugly mask off his face and bludgeoned him into a slightly more appealing mass of red in the name of the Eternal-Father. Frankly, he just can’t seem to let bygones be bygones. So long ago our little Sith spat.”

A swirl of the drink in her hand, acting as if she was apart of the gathering and wouldn’t just find some poor plant to dump the cup in later.

“I think I must’ve smashed in part of his brain, damage to the memory. Or he’s still seething that in his moment of triumph, the name of Dzara ripped it away and left the Tsis’Kaar in ruins. With it not shrouded by Strosius’s raving obsessions with the Kainate, let me regal you with the rather drab simplicity of it.”

And of course, hiding away the dark deeds that contributed to it.

“I was recommended for the position by an ally within the Council whom has the Empress’s ear due to my work. Of course that work is a long tale, perhaps Strosius can regal us with it? He is quite the fan of my history after all, considering he seems to obsess over it.”

Another obnoxious swirl.

“It’s a shame really, if he weren’t such a curmudgeon he might actually win something for once.”

And with a quick up and down glance, a butcher’s gaze dissecting Torvald for anything she had recalled within her calculus for the various persons of the Empire - this was ultimately an unfamiliar face.

“But what of you, my newfound friend? Yours is a face I do not yet know. A member of the Dread Wolf’s entourage?”

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