Private Of Demons and Angels

[Damien Dooku]

SCOUNDRELS
CHAPTER II: OF DEMONS AND ANGELS
NEW CARANNIA, NIRAUAN
Wymar | THEME

The Ghosts of one's past rarely lay dormant forever.

This was something Damien was slowly getting used to. As the months following his exit out of Coruscant turned into years, he could only blame himself for how things inevitably went down. He was the Chancellor's Son at one point; the legacy of his mother and father was a burden that proved too burdensome to bear, even with the strength that coursed through his veins. So he did what any rebellious teenager did when put into that position. He rebelled. Damien struck out on his own, made friends and enemies, made frenemies who sometimes masquaraded as business partners when needed. He crafted connections with the seediest of the galaxy's denizens and inevitably escaped from the legacies that kept his chained to a life that he truly did not know was his own.

And so he left the Jedi, he left the Core for that very first time, and made the galaxy his own. He'd only returned when the burden of his parents came knocking at his front door, and through the force he found himself homebound once more. For even in his darkest of days, he would never abandon the ones he loved, not without an extremely good reason. Who would've known that his attachment to his family would eventually lead to him nearly being undone, though he feared a life behind bars less than he did a world without Auteme and Kyric . He did what he had to do, and a result he ended up on the run once more, but this time came without a way back to the comfy life that had always sat on the edge of his periphery, tempting him to come back home to a place of warmth away from the cold Outer Rim.

His life became intertwined with the underworld after that, and it is locked within a web of conspiracies that he'd remain, until his name could be cleared. Until the burden of legacy was unshackled from his body, once and for all. It was a chance encounter of Nar Shadaa that had brought him New Carannia, a city whose construction had been a planetary marvel of its time, given the state of Nirauan before Imperial-occupation. It was also the city that was named after the home of the only ruler it had ever truly recognized, Lucien Dooku-- his father.

The cursed man whose legacy still poisoned his son from the grave.

Assassins had struck at him, though it was unclear whether his newfound companion was initially the target, or one of opportunity. In either case, he was surprised to find out that the name Damien Dooku had persisted on their internal registrars as a person of extreme interest. He'd never been involved with the Imperials, nor did he know much of the legacy his father had carved out in thier name. He knew a few details from idle conversation with his mom, but the two never went deep into the specifics on just who his father really was. There was always the sanitized, propagandistic version of the man out on the net, but Damien didn't trust it at all. Being both a Noble Jedi and an Imperial had always rubbed Damien the wrong way, and he refused to believe that a Jedi could serve the Empire and not be corrupt.

Damien sighed, letting his mind briefly move away from those deeper, migraine-inducing thoughts that plagued him at times like these, whne he was alone on a foreign world, with danger knocking whenever he turned his back to the door.
​

Knock, knock, knock.​

An eyebrow perched, his head swiveling just enough to move the door of the rental unit well within his periphery. The doors slid open, revealing one of the C-series of droids with an Imperial-matte charcoal shell for its body. <"Greetings sir, you have a visitor. He says... you've been expecting him."> The droid spoke up. It was an older model that he'd picked up from a street vendor a few days prior. Aside from doing menial tasks around the unit, it was also a reliable way of communicating with his contacts on-world, when he needed a message delivered in-person. Damien swiveled on his feet slowly, moving his gaze away from the mesmerizing view of the city that his room provided. He nodded towards the droid as he moved towards one arm of the couch in the middle of the room and leaned back against it. "Let 'em in, C3." Damien eventually replied, and the droid scurried off to activate the elevator controls for their visitor.

The sound of boots eventually made their way down the hall. Each step was slow and deliberate, as if the wearer was just as relaxed about their rendezvous as the rogue leaning against the edge of his couch. The man entered shortly after, the C3 droid beckoning their guest in politely, and offering up refreshments in a clear display its inability to read the room. Damien's eyes would remain settled upon the visitor without a word being said. He quietly looked him over, sized him up, and thought of a few potential options to extricate himself from the room, if things went south. The blaster hidden between the cushions of the couch was one of them, but his intentions were always to play nice.

After all, there were two other names on the list, besides his own. One was Kyric , his brother, so he wasn't all that surprised. The two had been inseparable for a good chunk of their lives, after all. But the next one threw him for a loop, as the name he saw was one that he'd seen plenty of times alongside that of his father's very own name. He'd even heard it once before from his mother, though she'd let it slip on accident back then. The name was unique within the galaxy, similar to his own. Many could claim it, but only the few would bear the weight of the legacy it carried. Some might even argue it was worth killing over, much like his own. It was for that reason that he requested the meeting, with no short amount of favors and resources expended to ensure it would happen.

"Stennis Fel."

Damien's lips curled upwards with the words. He offered out a hand to the stranger, slowly enough in case the newcomer was on the edge. "...Or should I say, Wymar?" The stranger was alot different than what Damien was expecting, given what he'd gathered from those intel reports siphoned from that Imperial network. But still there was something undeniably familiar that coerced Damien to relax, even just for a bit.

"I believe we've got history; History that's worth killing and dyin' over." The rogue twiddled with a datacard in his other hand, idling toying at the trove of information he'd stolen from his former pursuers.

"Ain't that right?"

That devilish grin remained steadfast in his expression.

"Cousin."

​

 

[Wymar]

NEW CARANNIA, NIRAUAN
REMNANTS OF THE OLD EMPIRE
902 ABY​

The shadowy corners of New Carannia were home to much the sort that Stennis portrayed himself to be. It was relatively trivial to slip in and be lost with the crowd. The black cloak and hood strewn over his black and scratched Imperial Knight armor and sallet was masqueraded by the image of a Chiss spacer projected over his helmeted gaze. Much of the nostalgic, old and broken images of the Empire still lingered upon this world, the origin of the Will of Defiance. Flags, monuments, the iron sun was still evident here. An ode to a broken era.

Much as these two forlorn and wayward sons were. Fel was well aware of the price that lingered on Damien’s head, just as a mark was wrought upon his own. The Bastion Imperial Remnant of which the Knight Commander Stennis, much above his station with what remained of the 501st Stormtrooper Legion and the Seventh Fleet. His momentary commitment to the Lightsworn had sowed distrust of Fel’s intent among his retinue and the encroachment of other remnants, new governments and Sith had withered away at it all until it was flashed into the night of the Galaxy like dust into the wind.

Stennis was alone and deeply embedded in this identity in a final cry of defiance. To reignite what had been entrusted to him from birth. He approached the lobby of the building, a wave of his hand and a brief prod into the mind of the woman working the desk and he was allowed entry. Moments later, he was stepping down the hallway in the slow, meticulous gait of heavy footfalls. Those ears well honed or untrained might’ve mistaken the gait for his father’s even if he strode taller and broader than the late Ferrata.

The door opened with a metallic hiss and the dark and towering silhouette of the man clad in black armor with his vantablack cloak strewn over his helmeted head and armored shoulders was revealed. Were he not confident in the identity, Damien would very well believe a Sith Assassin had arrived to claim its mark- but his familiarity, even if in name only was well founded.

He evoked his name. His name truer than any other. He had half a mind to snatch his hand forward for Dooku’s neck when he spoke it. Whether it be in nefarious means or negligibly flaunting his true identity beneath the visage he wore. But instead, he was still, eyes unseen beneath the visor easing down to the offered hand before his own gloved grasp seeped into Damien’s grip with an uneasy firmness. The hand then slipped back his form, both of them grasping at the curved edge of his sallet, a hiss of its seal breaking before he slowly pulled it away to reveal the man beneath.

Stennis Fel. Images of Rurik prior to the battle that left him encased in Iron were sparing but a glossary research would unveil the resemblance pale skin, perhaps a bit deathly so as he consorted with the darkness along with the darker pits around his eyes, the streak of white from the left edge of his hairline fading into black, another tell tale vote of confidence in his identity.

“So we do…” He spoke, his voice deep and thrumming with the inflection inspected of an Imperial raised in Ravelin. Both of them a reflection of both of the Old Imperial seats of power and the accompanying lineages that were later enthroned upon them.

He stepped into the room, blue eyes peering over the surroundings before they beset themselves on Damien again. “For that…there is little dispute. The question is not of who we are…but if we’re going to run and hide from it…or make do on what has been promised to us.” He set the helmet and cloak aside, Stennis all but a darkened and battered image of an Imperial knight now, saber hilt at his hip and all.

“From what has been told to me…you’ve been hiding, amidst the underworld… though I’d be remiss to say I haven’t been doing the same.”

Damien Dooku ​

 

[Damien Dooku]

theme​

“For that…there is little dispute. The question is not of who we are…but if we’re going to run and hide from it…or make do on what has been promised to us.”​

Damien wanted to laugh. Not out of disrespect, or disbelief, but instead out of the hilarity that ensued in his mind when he considered where he was, and who he was with. Out of all the people in the galaxy that the force could've led him to eventually being on the path to meet, it was one who in many ways would appear to be his most opposite. Stennis represented everything that perhaps in a different life, through alternate chains-of-events, he may have become himself.

He'd heard the...well, he wouldn't call them rumors as the truth was always there at the surface.

Serenno.

The legacy of his father inherently tied him to that world of pain, misery and suffering. Just as he assumed it was with Bastion to the Fel occupying his line-of-sight. Damien didn't want titles-- it didn't matter if it came with royalty attached to it or a god damned lightsaber. He'd longed pined after a life of normality, but to be born of two worlds so inherently tied with the will of the force....well, that ship had sailed much long ago. Damien just refused to accept his reality without putting up as much of a fight as was possible. He'd been fighting for nineteen years now, and though he'd occasionally allow the force to guide him, he was a long way from accepting his destiny.
​

“From what has been told to me…you’ve been hiding, amidst the underworld… though I’d be remiss to say I haven’t been doing the same.”​

Damien nodded solemnly, his posture showing no signs of alertness other than the slight fidge of his fingers around that very same datacard from before, the moment his helmet left his shoulders. "What do you know? About... the past." Damien grabbed a dataslate off a nearby stool, inserting the datacard and handed it off to his guest. "Our past." He continued on, watching as the screen came to life, flooding with bits of data that soon parsed themselves into an intelligence report bearing the seal of an organization known simply as COMPNOR.

"...I thought these guys were dead in the water, y'know? Long gone." He shrugged, taking his seat back against the couch's shoulder. "Until they went gunning for me and a.." He paused short of calling Morrow a friend. "...Business Partner, back on Nar Shadaa. Took me a while to sniff out their trail, but lo' and behold, turns out they're a lot more alive than most folks think. Even got themselves a little watch-list, and apparently a kill list to go with it."

Damien gave Stennis the time to absorb what he was saying before he reached the conclusion to his point. "Your name was on that list." His lips curled again, and he chuckled as both arms extended in an exaggerated gesture of nobility.

"Stennis Fel."

Damien only put on the charade for a few moments before returning to that cool and collected demeanor. "Had I not seen you in person, I'd think you were a myth. I thought the Fels had died out. Back when...you know."

He didn't need to touch on that subject any further, pivoting away shortly in case it was too close to home. "Look-- I know what you're thinkin' dude, but I didn't come here to dredge up some over-done Imperial cause that i've got no stake in. My father...Lucien Dooku. Couldn't put 'em out from a crowd, if it came to it. I don't know the first thing about the shit he's done in the name of the Empire. Everyone's got their sanitized persona on the net-- but you're the first one I've met who's kind of like me..."

Damien lifted off the couch, facing upwards towards the gigantic Knight.

"You're a legacy. You carry the same burden that I do. The same weight. The same pain. I can see it. Difference is, I have no clue what to do with it. No clue where to start.. so I fight it. I make bad decisions, and end up in situations that I hope will drive me far away from Lucien's shadow, yet the force pulls me back all the same. Brings me into the orbit of folks I would've missed otherwise." Damien let out a sigh that was only partially exaggerated. Though he usually left an amusing tint upon his words, he was clearly airing out some deep thoughts that had long remained dormant, nonetheless.

"...It's hard to cut yourself off from the force, when the force is unwilling to let go."​

 

[Wymar]

NEW CARANNIA, NIRAUAN
REMNANTS OF THE OLD EMPIRE
902 ABY​

He took the dataslate with a gloved hand, easing down into a nearby cushioned seat with a slouched posture that betrayed the rigid and knightly nature he’d portrayed himself with moments before. He flicked through the files and documents, good few swathes of the information redacted, images of his father or at least the Ferrata exterior that the Empire had grown acclimated to as its Emperor and of course, his uncle, several other individuals and events of note. “I know a good deal of it. I’d never met him…my father, or yours for that matter. At least…not in the flesh.” He said, clicking the display of the datapad off before he set it aside, dogged eyes shifting to meet Damien’s. “The Empire…exists, if only in spotty remnants of what was, renegade cells, terrorist groups, mercenary companies…the persistence of ‘COMPNOR’ is…fascinating but not surprising. Both of your fathers had accrued a great deal of threats both within and without the Empire and our existence implies…legitimacy, a claim to what was…” He explained, slipping the thick black leather gloves from his hands after undoing the metal clasps that sealed them to his wrists. Tucking them into his belt his eyes would stray from Damien’s in thought, content with a lapse of silence before he spoke again.

“From my understanding of the education I’d received on Bastion- the Imperial Knights, what was left of them then regarded him as both a renegade…and a hero, a pillar to the New Order. The stratocrats saw him as capable but…deviant in ideals. They both had a hand in building the knowledge base I have now.” He explained before his eyes met his cousin’s once more. “I would not come to enlist you in my own ambitions were you looking to walk a different path, for the one I’ve chosen is one of peril, despair…pain…isolation.” He said, a hand gesturing over his blackened armor.

“There is a chance, however slim, that I will bask in the sunrise I seek to make.” He said in cold, placid words. “It being so that I have no wholly crestfallen, perhaps vindication of the Will of the Force. That I continue my path…and that we meet, here.” He iterated before he slowly stood up, movement slow and strained, still in recovery from the sapping of his life force at the hands of a Sith. “I have marched now in both the armies of light and dark…though my aim has not strayed in intent. I seek vengeance. To close the book on what was left lingering in my father’s shadow so that I might carve a legacy of my own outside of it.” He iterated.

“The Iron Sun rises again…though, warped, manipulated by the same darkness which machinated its downfall. The very same that had slain my father, Rurik Fel. I will put it down. Forever.”Stennis said firmly, crossing his arms as he approached a window overlooking Nee Carannia, the reflection of passing speeders, neon lights and bustling urban rush reflected in his eyes. Once more content to reflect in silence for a moment before he spoke again.

“Should you wish to embrace the Will of the Force and choose not to reject its nature. I can teach you what I know. It will be difficult but you will be more capable as a result..and perhaps form a more coherent vision of what you must do.” He offered as he turned toward his cousin.

Damien Dooku ​

 

[Damien Dooku]

theme​

Damien moved away from his wayward cousin, walking across to the fridge and pulling out what appeared to be two cans of something carbonated that had came with the room. He was listening nonetheless, clocking information regarding the remnant Imperials in his mind and filling in a few blanks for some lingering threads of information. He swiveled slowly to look at the Knight, but not with the eyes currently focused on the view of the city behind him. He didn't want to admit it, but his cousin's presence was overbearing through the force. He wasn't sure how to explain the exact metaphysical reaction that caused him to seek distance away from his presence-- if only for a time.
​

"Both of our fathers had accrued a great deal of threats both within and without the Empire and our existence implies…legitimacy, a claim to what was…”​

An eyebrow perched a bit higher than the other at the mention of their respective sires. "I see." Damien would begin, slowly beginning the process of returning within the gravity well that stood a bit ominously within his living room. A hand reached out towards the Knight as Damien slowly offered him one of the beverages, doing his best to keep some semblance of normality to an otherwise abnormal situation. "So we're both the scions of two assholes who couldn't bother to stick around long enough to preserve their Empire-- or their families." The words didn't leave his mouth, but the emotion behind them were empathized through the force regardless.

"Noted." Was his eventual reply.

For the rest of his cousin's time speaking, Damien had chosen to remain quiet enough outside of the occasional "mhm" to keep the conversation from getting too stale. The more he listened and paid attention to his words, the more Damien grew to empathize with his cousin's plight. The two had come from dissimilar backgrounds, but it wasn't so different that Damien couldn't see a situation where it might've been him wearing that armor as well. He had never been one to channel his pain and anger constructively, and if not for that rebellious streak that pushed him from the Order, things might've looked different in the run-up to this meeting.

Damien's eyes narrowed a bit, his attention shifted away from empathy and focusing upon a piece of information that sounded far too prudent to just simply gloss over.
​

“The Iron Sun rises again…though, warped, manipulated by the same darkness which machinated its downfall. The very same that had slain my father, Rurik Fel. I will put it down. Forever.”​

"Tch. Sith." Damien cocked his head towards Wymar, his expression riddled with disbelief and sudden confusion. "It's always the Sith, when you least want 'em around. They crawl back like roaches emerging from the shadows." There was a long pause as Damien connected the pieces to the puzzle that Wymar had long before completed. Measured steps moved across the room, his arms crossing over eachother as he looked out upon the city once more.

"He should've been dead, cousin."

Damien sighed. He'd read through the reports and done enough research to understand the weight of the information that had just been deposited onto his shoulders. His mind drew inwards as the force overwhelmed his thoughts once more, forcing him to hold himself steady with a hand against the window. A vision washed over him, each feeling and sensation, each memory that followed the next being the exact same chain of events that had led to him coming back home two years prior.

It was the same vision of danger that nearly forced him out of this life that he was now indentured to serve, and yet the details still remained too hazy to fully parse through.

​

“Should you wish to embrace the Will of the Force and choose not to reject its nature. I can teach you what I know. It will be difficult but you will be more capable as a result..and perhaps form a more coherent vision of what you must do.”​

Damien raised back up as the pain dulled in the back of his head, and his vision returned mostly to form by the time he swiveled over to face his cousin. "I uhhh...don't have a lightsaber anymore." He'd admit with a bit of hesitation at first. "Lost it in a swoop-bike race on Taris a year ago; Fell right over the edge." It wasn't his finest moment, that much he'd admit. But his lightsaber had never been more than a tool that served him when it proved useful, nothing more, nothing less.

"If we're going to do this, I'm goin' to need another one." ​

 

[Wymar]

NEW CARANNIA, NIRAUAN
REMNANTS OF THE OLD EMPIRE
902 ABY​

He cracked a rare smirk at the offered beverage, taking it within his hand with a careful grasp before popping it open and knocking back a sip, lofting it out to read the label before he tilted his head and took another. Alas, some humanity shone through some cracks in the rigid, armored exterior. Son of Rurik he may have been, yes. But separated from the Jedi training and upbringing that fostered and molded his father’s stoic and cold nature forged into Imperial Iron.

“It is always Sith. A persistent and perfidious plague upon this Galaxy. They gather en-masse and build horrid and mangled foundations or they linger and manipulate from the shadows. There is no ridding of them, only to play the game better at every turn than they can manage.” He explained, sipping once more from the beverage before he set it aside.

“If a lightsaber is what you require…we can acquire you one.” He said outright, shifting his attention wholly to Damien as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Even if you don’t wish to take to my teachings, my path…you are kin and I will see to it that you have means to survive…and kill, for many seek both of our heads.” He stated firmly, shifting his gaze to the cityscape before them once more, blinking as the neon light reflected in his eyes. “Dantooine would be our best means of retrieving a crystal.” He said, turning once more to Damien.

“Scorched by war, yes- but largely untouched since the reign of the Empire ended. And if you’d wish- I can teach you to purify the crystal as the Knights of The Empire do…” He still possessed the argent crystal but ventured into the very same caves to retrieve another, which he’d bled into the blade he wielded now, though it took a good deal of his will power and strode him dangerously close to wholly embracing the darkness within. He would not teach Damien to do the same in spite of the crestfallen exterior he portrayed.

“Where do you plan to go? From here? You can’t remain on Nirauan- that you already know I am sure. It ties too closely to the legacy of your father, to the Old Empire. No doubt those who seek you as their mark have their eyes close on New Carannia.” He explains.

“I know of few enclaves for those of us…in-exile. There are even few who would regard those with such strong ties to lines such as Dooku, Fel and Tavlar as friends…but…they do exist.” He explained with a single nod of his head. He then stared once more out the window in silence though his eyes in truth looked elsewhere. He reached out with the force around them like fingers grazing over the spines of books, seeking any disturbance or unwanted presence that lingered nearby. He knew well that Solipsis’s Galactic Empire may very well keep close tabs on him, Dooku along with those who would rather snuff them out in the aim of claiming the Old Empire’s legacy themselves or to eliminate any trace of it that remained. He wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him, or they truly were being watched closely.

His cold blue eyes then shifted to Damien. “I’d not stay here much longer, cousin.” He said in a rather foreboding manner- letting a silence linger in the air.

Damien Dooku ​

[/QUOTE]

 

[Damien Dooku]

The Sith.

Damien had said the name of the Order before, but his dealings with the SIth had been limited solely to what he'd seen in holovids on the net. He knew they were evil-incarnate, that their presence had led to eons of conflict within the galaxy despite the efforts of heroes of many ages to put a stop to their existence. Both their fathers had joined the ranks of the many who'd tried, and their best efforts had only resulted in leaving a galaxy ever more broken than the one that previously followed. Decades of war had been wrought upon the Outer Rim to see the threat of the Sith Empire reduced to ashes, yet in the end it was the Sith who remained, and not the Imperial fathers of the two men in the room.

Whether thanks to his father's vigil over the Empire, or his mother's influence within the Core, somehow Damien had been insulated by the very same horrors that his cousin had not been able to avoid. Damien wanted to return to the easier life of high-flying criminality if he could, but ever since Coruscant...everything was changing right before his very own eyes. He'd gone from the murky skies of Nar Shadaa to a hidden jewel once warded by his very own father, and yet he still felt no connection to the legacy that Lucien had left behind.

What remained of the Empire seemed to want him dead, and what rose from the ashes of Solipsis' previous attempt to strike at the Core now threatened the safety of the only woman he'd ever loved-- his mother.

That is at least if those visions he had were to be taken as truth.

He shook off the thought for now, joining his cousin by silently watching the cityscape beneath them whilst he spoke. His gaze seemed to soften up in curiosity at the mention of Dantooine, a world he'd heard spoken of a few times in mention of their respective fathers' Empire. Damien kept Dantooine in the back of his mind, responding silently to Wymar with a nod of his head. That would be where the two cousins would meet again, if he managed to pull himself out of his predicament before he had no way out of Black Sun.

Wymar followed up with more questions, probing Damien's intentions moving forwards, while providing even more information about the nascent remnants of an Empire that had only been spoken of in tales and legends to him before them. "I'll have to head back to Nar Shadaa in a few days or else my...employer-" He gritted his teeth through the word, spite clearly staining his tongue. "...gets paranoid and decides to send half the syndicate after me before i'm ready to make a move."

His cousin was right, though. As beautiful as this world was, it was far from the bastion of safety that he was looking for. Whether it were the Sith or their Imperial-aligned remnants, or even the hidden eyes of Black Sun, it wouldn't be long until someone spotted him if he lingered on world for too long. It was comforting to hear that there were others like them, though. Sons and Daughters of an era long past, who would perhaps be friendly to those whose blood ran as complicated as the two in the room.

"I'll make my play after I get back; Nothing short of a fool's gambit will break me from the syndicate, and I can't sit around and linger with them for too long. If the Sith's gonna be as big of a threat as you say they will, I won't be worth more than Krayt Dragon bait without my freedom."

Damien turned to face Wymar , staring up at the Knight with no guile resting on his usually easy-going visage.

"A month-- maybe a bit more. Then we'll meet on Dantooine." ​