Private Of Shield & Scar

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Srina Talon //:
//: Attire //:

Jutrand had not always been home. What had been home was Srina. The woman was the anchor in the young Echani's life, pushing her, teaching her the skills necessary for what was to come. Quinn could feel it, the galaxy shifting, powers flowing differently than before. The Sith had always been powerful, even in times where they clung to their last breath… they always returned.

The Darkness never fully receded.

That itself was a lesson. While Sith didn't always mean evil, it had the connotation of light-siding rivals. Where the two entities often needed each other for balance, Quinn found herself questioning that lesson. She wondered if her affections were being drawn as they were first to Reina and now to Bastila… if that was part of the balancing act of the Force.

Too many complicated emotions swirled in her chest as she sought the comfort of her mother. Though Quinn wondered if she could be of aid to the woman as well. Her mind flickered to the brief interaction back at the club on Coruscant. She hated not being able to be there for her, to be reminded that her tantrum had only made things difficult. Quinn hadn't thought of Srina in the moment she had lost her…

Instead, she let the grief consume her and threatened to make the forsaken planet pay for it.

Why hadn't she stopped? Why didn't she try to find Srina not just through the Force but with her own eyes?

Perhaps she was nothing more than a child… perhaps that's why she remained just the Princess behind the Blackwall, not the Empress.

Exhaling softly, she pushed through the wide doors of the palace hallway.
Here she followed the pathway through the private areas to her mother's location. She fondly remembered running, her feet slapping against the ground as she cried out for her mother… cried out for the person who always had time for her.

Srina was the only one who never forgot Quinn.

"Mama?" Quinn called out to the woman; today, she made sure she was fully clothed and appropriate… her mother's eyes, and the way her face softened with worry for just a moment when she was found in the club.

Never again would she let Srina see her like that, never again would she see what she had seen in that club.

Brushing her short hair back behind her ears, she cleared her throat, coming upon where the woman seemed to be waiting.

"I'm home…" She cheerfully called out, but too often she was away from the palace, especially now being part of the council. She stepped closer, her arms moving — wanting an embrace, but she paused.

She bowed her head carefully, giving respect to her mother, her Empress…

Her entire life.

"I've missed you… I…" She stopped and lifted her eyes for a moment to look upon her.

"We have a lot to catch up on… but I'm worry about you…" She shifted her stance, moving closer, becoming a child trying to forget the mortality of their mother.

"Are you well…? I sense… I feel something different."

I'm scared. ​

 

[Srina Talon]

TAG: Quinn Varanin
LOCATION: Jutrand [Garden]

____________________________________________________

Vaelcryx was still recovering after Brosi.

Secured and secluded in one of many gardens the Palace on Jutrand had to offer lay the drake that had sustained so much damage at the hands if Imperial scum. Her scales were still soft in places where they had needed to re-grow and Srina was careful to ensure she had a safe place to do it. Her meals were curated, lest, she begin to feed on the nobility but she was well-behaved for her caretakers.

She was intelligent enough to understand when someone was trying to help her versus someone trying to hurt her. Though—Both she and Small Lady now seemed to have an unnatural attachment to her youngest. Lunaria was soft. Vaelcryx could be understood but Small Lady was a different sort. Just as brash as her owner, though, perhaps it was just a telltale story of what lay beneath the surface of a deeply misunderstood Warlord of the Core.

Srina hummed softly for a moment and brushed her hand down the middle of the drakes' nose before her head lifted, sensing, her eldest. "Here, my love…"

The words would float toward daughter and lead her through the quarters of the Empress with the casual lure of soft perfume. Jasmine and rain with an earthy undertone of petrichor. It was a pull of sweetness, hiding, the subtle venting of power absolute. Srina turned toward the Queen of Eshan and Vaelcryx huffed, large and judging, before she took flight from behind the diminutive sovereign. Srina had never taken over the rooms Empyrean had used to occupy, though, they too had been made for her comfort.

They held a bed he never slept in.

A table he never ate at.

Clothing he cared little for, trinkets, that he saw fit to weave into her hair. Small artifacts that likely had some sort of value but it was mostly a place where they might cohabitate without the prying eyes of the sepulchral. Srina was never there if he was absent—And thus she retained her own space. Metallic eyes flared with a little too much light when her daughter bowed her head respectfully. Not because she had done it…But because it was unusual.

She had never required Quinn to be subservient, especially, not in the privacy of these walls.

"…Aya…Foolish child."

Srina closed the distance and wrapped her arms around the young woman and pulled her in with full intention to smother. There was an uncertainty in her tone and a fear in her that reminded her more of Lunaria than the Sith Princess who reigned not only in Sith Court but had become the Red Crown of Eshan. She was a Queen in her own right…But in the moment? When Srina touched her, smoothing her hair, tightening her hold…

She felt like she was barely zero and ten.

"There is nothing to fear…"

A soft kiss was pressed to her brow to ground her child in the moment, rather, than whatever worry she might have been indulging in the shadows. "I am as I have always been…"

Steady—A mountain in a storm. Immovable and vast…There was nothing that the Sith Empress could not do and nothing she couldn't handle. Even if her light dimmed, it seemed, that she would rise again and again. It was true that she had been tired these last few weeks but that could be blamed on war efforts. It was not a quiet thing, nor, was it patient.

If the Sith Order would not attack their enemies quickly enough for her?

Srina would it herself.

"What troubles you?"

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Srina Talon //:

The hug was welcomed, something she desperately needed but would never have asked for. Quinn often wanted to appear as an adult, someone who could take care of themselves and not need the tender touch of her Mother. Yet, in moments like this, in times like this, the only thing the girl wanted was to be smothered and adored by her.

The moment Srina's arms wrapped around her, Quinn felt her body melt. She held tightly to the only one who never looked at her like the monster she was.

Quinn was difficult to love, but Srina never allowed her to see how difficult she was.

Slender fingers gripped the fabrics of her Mother's clothing as she clutched tightly, even as the gentle kiss brought her back to a calm that she hadn't felt in months. The Mother's words were steady as they always were; they were meant not to inform but to comfort. Quinn knew better; she saw through them, and when the embrace ended, she looked at her Mother, trying to see what had changed.

When it had changed…

Why did she miss it?

"Amme…" Quinn fought to sink back into her youth, to fall apart like a child in her Mother's arms.

"There's everything to fear… I'm scared of everything." Her grip tightened again on her Mother's clothing. Nothing made sense anymore. The emptiness she felt on Coruscant lingered and festered in her heart. But how would she tell this to her Mother — she didn't want the woman to blame herself.

"I stopped... You were gone. I didn't know what to do…" Her voice quaked as she remembered back at the nightclub, the way she watched her Mother's distant stare. Quinn blamed herself that night; she blamed herself for Coruscant…

She blamed herself after Ata left…

Then to hear that someone else had to save her Mother and not her only salted the already gaping wound. Quinn had realized the way she felt wasn't right, running away as she had been doing to the Republic Space was the worst she could do. But there — she didn't have to be what she was, she didn't have to stare fate and destiny in the face.

Here, she had to see herself in the mirror. She was difficult; she had always been difficult.

"I'm sorry, I keep making things difficult for you. Father is gone, and Coruscant was… terrible. I— I couldn't even…"

She wanted to ask why Mercy… why her Mercy — but she knew there was no claim to the woman. But Mercy's tone and the burning grip on her wrist lingered. To be reminded that someone else had taken care of her mother, that someone else had to step in and do what she should have done. It proved to Quinn that she was far from ready for anything this galaxy chose to place in her pathway.

To know the mortality of her mother... that was the deepest fear she never knew she had.

"Something is wrong, I saw how you were, your mind went somewhere else... at the club."

Quinn remembered as a child, the moment that Srina had shifted. Her fear rooted in that shift, wondered and wanted to understand like she did back then.

"I can feel it — please just tell me…"

 

[Srina Talon]

TAG: Quinn Varanin
LOCATION: Jutrand [Garden]

____________________________________________________

If Quinn had not pulled away, the wintry woman would have been content to hold her until the colors of the artificial sky changed from off-blue, to deep orange, and finally black. Until the stars rose and the synth city that surrounded them took on a red hue from the thick cloud cover that filtered cosmic light in an almost unnatural way. She would have held her until the morning if that was what the youngling required—Because that was the nature of her love. It was absolute.

She did not need empathy to know that her child seemed exhausted, stretched too thin, and the way she nearly dissolved into her arms…The keen senses of an Echani picked up volumes. Srina let Quinn look at her as long as she liked, as long as she needed, to understand that while war had taken a toll…The pale monarch, the eternal warrior, was still her mother. Nothing would ever change that, nothing, not even the birth of Lunaria and Soldane could diminish it. Blood or water…They belonged to her. Quinn—Belonged to her, to Empyrean, or what was left of him.

Srina did not interrupt.

She let the words come as they needed to, uneven, tangled, and spilling over themselves in the way Quinn always tried so hard to suppress. There was no correction in her posture and no quiet insistence that the Sith Princess "steady herself" in the way others might have expected. She just remained where she was, close, with one arm still wrapped around her lest she drift too far. When the voice of her daughter faltered and the weight of everything she had been carrying finally pressed through the seams…Her hold tightened. Not to trap her…

Just to love her. It was what Quinn had always needed more than anything else. More than guidance—More than training. Just love…

So that she might learn to love herself.

Her free hand rose to settle softly on the back of her youngling's head, fingers threading lightly through short-cropped hair, as slowly, she drew her inward to press another kiss to her forehead. Quinn wanted to be strong, rather, wanted to be seen as strong. Srina didn't doubt her strength, but she also wouldn't ignore base instincts that told her the girl was hurting. Srina knew she couldn't bring herself to ask for these things…So she would be her shelter, always, whether she wanted it or not.

"There is nothing to fear, pitya min. I am here."

Her words repeated, not unkind, but firm nonetheless. She let her hand fall from Quinn's head and instead it moved to affectionately brush white-gold hair from her eyes while a bird-like trill resounded in the back of her throat. It was considering and full of infinite patience. "You feel so much, so quickly, and you try to carry all of it as if it belongs to you alone until it overwhelms…But that does not make you difficult. It does not make you difficult to love—And I would not change, you."

Her eyes were silent, even though, her actions were as tender as they could be. Expressing herself in a way others could understand had always been troublesome, but with Quinn, there was a shared heritage that meant words were only part of the story. She would pick up on every touch, every glance, the way her heartbeat settled into a steady rhythm when her daughter was close. "Know that you do not make things harder for me. You are one of the few things in this galaxy that has never been a burden…Not even when you were small. Do you not remember, how often I would carry you?"



One might have thought Quinn's legs were broken, considering, one of the first things she did was sweep her up. Srina had not always known the right thing to say, a child raising a child, but she could hold her. She could keep her safe. At the mention of Coruscant and Darth Empyrean coming up something in her gaze did change, however, not distant or withdrawn as it had been at the "unfortunate venue" but sharpened. Partially from memory but also because none of her children knew that their father had returned. "You did not fail me…You were faced with something you did not understand and protected yourself the only way you could. You lived. That is not weakness, child mine."

It was survival, and that, was more important than anything else. "If I had not tried to stop the attack from the Faithless it could have killed you, Mercy, and anyone else in the vicinity. You must understand that I will always choose our people…I will always choose you. No matter the cost."

Srina did grasp that the Queen of Eshan thought it was her duty to stand between her and whatever dangers lay waiting, between her and death, but that wasn't the case. Quinn was never destined to shield her, rather, she was destined to replace her even if it was against her will. The wintry woman was not unaware of her activities in Republic space…But she knew better than anyone that trying to wrangle her child was an effort in futility. She only learned, when someone broke her heart.

Her chest rose and fell while she drew a deep breath before letting it go slowly. There was more to address, more she wanted to say, but there was so much ground to cover in what Quinn had offered that she was trying to parse it into easily digestible fragments. Her tone softened around the edges but her brow creased while she tried to think of a way to explain. It wasn't that she didn't want to tell her…She just didn't know how to word it.

"When we met at that unfortunate establishment…You are correct. Something was…Not in alignment."

Srina didn't deflect or dismiss it, though, the distance in her was returning. Her mind started to disassociate when she delved too deeply into those memories…

"I am not always entirely…Singular.", she admitted, the phrasing careful, but honest. For all the many horrific things she had done in her lifetime the Echani did her best never to lie. Omit from time to time…but never lie. "There are parts of me that do not sit quietly just because I ask them to and there are moments when other worlds creep in…It is memory of my death—And it is not."

Metallic orbs drew back down to her daughter while trying to decide how to explain the rest. Quinn seemed to be rather sensitive about a certain Empress of the Core, though, Srina did not grasp why that might have been. "I believe that it is due to the method of my restoration."

"Kaine used the power of his phylactery. It has been in my possession so long that it recognizes me as more than just a carrier…But to jump-start my heart? Mercy …"

A pause. The memory unraveling…But she could control it when the Titan wasn't nearby. She could control it when her blood wasn't smeared all over her face, when that coppery scent wasn't floating around her in a dark miasma. It was full of magic that let her heal rapidly, even now, but there was a price for all that it offered.

"…Used her blood. I believe that the effect will fade in time..."

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Srina Talon //:

Each gentle touch from her Mother eased the storm that churned inside her mind. Too many scenarios and feelings warring with each other. At the center of it all, Srina had always been the anchor. She always brought Quinn back down, held her in place when nothing felt solid. In that moment, not feeling her, Quinn felt as if she would never be able to feel the ground under her feet again.

It was terrifying.

An eerie reminder of her loneliness.

Quinn let herself ease into her Mother's warmth. She reached again to pull her close, needing that reassurance beyond her words that she truly was standing there — alive. Too often, the girl had been plagued by entities of the dead, making her remember fondness only to have it stripped away. Quinn closed her eyes, letting Srina become that anchor again for her. The storm began to settle with each delicate exhale.

Still, the warmth in her Mother's embrace lingered, and Quinn desperately did not want to let go again.

A smile crossed her face as she recalled memories of the small Echani woman carrying her as a child. At times, Quinn found her toes dragging against the ground as Srina did her best to wrangle her. For so long, the woman had been her entire world, the person who listened and comforted. There was no one else for the young Echani, as sad as it was to be told she was leaving Eshan — knowing where she would land made it okay.

But that was what Srina always did for her; she made things better, she made it always okay.

"I remember." Quinn acknowledged, a small huff as she was reminded of others telling the woman to put the girl down, that she needed to know how to use her legs if she was going to grow strong. Of course, that never stopped the woman; Quinn had always felt it was the two of them against the galaxy.

If there was ever trouble, Quinn always had Srina; she always had her real Mother.

Even now, her words provided comfort. It allowed Quinn to forgive herself just for a moment. Even if Quinn still felt like she had failed, it didn't sting as much seeing a different perspective. She wouldn't argue with her Mother on this; Quinn knew it would have been a losing point. Although she wanted to, deep down she preferred her Mother's point of view.

"Next time, I'll do better. I won't allow it to happen again, ever. I know what to do now, I just have to control it." Words that she half believed, but it sounded better than her mewling. Quinn was not a fan of the last bit of the woman's statement. The cost didn't matter to her, but it mattered to Quinn. A part of her wondered why her Mother would sacrifice everything, especially to leave her, Luna, and Sol without a mother.

Maybe this was something she wouldn't understand till she had her own children, but right now it didn't make sense.

Her mind often wandered, letting scenarios play in her head. Now wouldn't be different, but the moment her Mother spoke again about what she felt in the club drew the young Echani's attention once more. The words she spoke, Quinn understood. No one else had ever described something like this before, to the point that the girl looked at her Mother with almost a knowing softness to her face.

Quinn's mind drowned with voices, some she could recognize while others were often harsh and clawing. Most were with her since birth, driving most of her basic needs and wants. The phobis core breathed its own life, but it wasn't like what Srina was completely explaining. This was the same, yet very different.

Eyes watched, seeing the shift and the pause. This was similar to what she had seen, and Quinn was doing what she probably should have done in the club that night — before Mercy could interfere. She hugged her Mother, she hugged her tightly as she regained composure, control.

Quinn listened, letting the woman's heart calm herself in the same breath. A sound Quinn often remembered, as it was accompanied by the jasmine and rain. This was her Mother, not whatever brewed under the surface and plagued her mind and memories.

"Would it be just her blood?" Quinn asked quietly. She didn't know much about the phylactery; she just knew it was important — sacred to her Mother and to her uncle. It was something beyond her means.

But the blood, it was what concerned her… in particular, the closeness she shared with the Titan. Fingers grasped fabric as she kept close to the woman.

"What is Mercy… that her blood would have this effect?"

Her own mind began to race, trying to find something that would tell her, hint at this revelation. Had she missed something important? Did she ignore it because she was infatuated with the woman?

"Is something wrong with her…?" Quinn did her best not to let her emotions bleed into her words; the thought of losing Mercy now felt like a noose around her heart. As much as she tried, she cared perhaps too much.

 

[Srina Talon]

TAG: Quinn Varanin
LOCATION: Jutrand [Garden]

____________________________________________________

Silence reigned supreme as it often did when the elder Echani was involved. In truth…She would have been content to spend the rest of the afternoon this way. Surrounded by her poisonous garden, with little but artificial wind, and her small princess pressed so close that they might merge together. Were it possible for her body to shield her children eternally with a cage of flesh and bone she might have put more thought into it…But a cage, even one made of her own heart, was still a cage.

Srina wouldn't do that to them.

She could feel her daughter starting to unwind, soften, and she was loathe to bring something up that might disturb her again. Her shoulders lifted slightly while she breathed but her fingers continued on a slow soothing path through a cropped bob of white-gold. Within the circle of her arms there was something precious, something, that she could not do without. Quinn might not have been able to understand her perspective just yet, but one day, she would feel it. The things in this life that she would move heaven and earth for. Become anything, to protect. The things she would live for.

The things she would die for.

"You will control it when you are ready…If that is now, it is now. If it is not…Control will come in time."

Did she think that Darth Carnifex and Darth Prazutis had simply appeared magically from the womb standing as tall as they did now? That Darth Empyrean had always revered? That the mightiest among them had started off their journey with every facet of their abilities under complete control? There had been a time when a single vision from the Force had felt like a spike being jammed into her cranium. Like a botched lobotomy. Srina hadn't known how to control it, even if, she'd hidden it well enough.

She could remember fear as a girl.

She could remember watching warriors perform feats that she failed at time and time again. The endless evenings training to become slightly faster than the sister beside her. It was good that Quinn had never been forced to live beneath the cruel hand of her Naneth. They had met, spent time together, but the wintry woman had deliberately never left the Eshan Princess alone with the woman who had birthed her. None of her children, not even the twins, who faced trials designed by the All Father would ever be forced through the regimen Aeris Talon had designed.

Particularly, because Srina wasn't looking forward to adding matricide to her growing list of sins.

"Would it be just her blood?"

"What is Mercy… that her blood would have this effect?"

"Is something wrong with her…?"

Once more, the pale Empress did not answer immediately. Not because she lacked an explanation but because the questions themselves revealed more than Quinn had likely intended. The way her daughter held on to her dress, the careful neutrality she tried to force into her voice whenever Mercy's name arose, and the fear, the tension, that lingered beneath every word…It was all painfully familiar. Quinn had always loved fiercely. It was one of her greatest strengths and one of the wounds the galaxy would continually try to exploit. "Oh, pitya min…"

Her cold words were tinged with affection, though, there was a faint sadness that breathed through the motherly epithet. Golden eyes lowered to study Quinn's features, and for a moment she could envision the youngling that insisted she check beneath the bed. Not realizing in all manner of innocence that the true monsters were already inside. Not around them. Within them, within her. "Mercy is fine…There is no invisible thing coming to take her from you.", her thumb brushed the young woman's temple. A slight smile tugged at the kiss of her mouth before it faded, as if it had never been. It would have been a lie to say that Mercy was in no danger…But that was exactly where she wanted to be.

"Mercy is…Mercy."

It might sound like a non-answer, yet somehow, knowing the Titan…It would make sense.

"She is powerful. More powerful than most understand, perhaps, even more than she knows. Her blood has been altered in ways I could spend a decade trying to discern…But when Kaine's phylactery rekindled my heart it anchored me and punished me for my….weakness…", her tone was growing softer by the moment, once more, disassociating from the event. It was as if she had seen something she could not understand and her mind was trying to protect itself.

"The blood, however…"

Her silence was stark. To look at her face would have been the moment to see multiple worlds crashing in, colliding, the same way she had described, before she blinked…And the chaos was gone. She was collected and the same immovable presence she had always been. Her arms wound a little tighter around Quinn…Suddenly, protective.

Even if she might be the thing her daughter needed protection from.

"I cannot explain it fully, but it did not merely heal…It left an impression. I feel it like two songs sharing the same chamber. From time to time…I hear both, even if only one is being played."

Srina breathed and not for the first time, mentally, doubled down on the effect fading. It wasn't a Force Bond but it was something and her soul already had too many people playing around in it. How many times had it been broken and repaired? How long unto the cracks in her being became too wide to hide?

"I hear her…Not her thoughts…Just, her."

That had only happened once before. It was less intense this time…But it was too familiar, too raw, to ignore. It wasn't something she could explain at the moment so she simply left it at that. For some reason she didn't think Quinn would take it well to know that Srina suspected, though she had no proof, that Mercy could hear her in kind. To the point that she might be able to track her across the galaxy, if need be, without doing anything but following that frequency. That sound. Exhaling…

She leaned in and kissed the crown of Quinn's head.

"Now…Are you going to tell me why else you've been acting so strangely? Or must I pry it from you?"

 

[Mercy]

On the other side of the galaxy, mid-battle, Mercy halted the swing of her bleeding fist and tilted her head.

Her ears were itching.

As if two people she had decided to care about were talking about her.

Then Mercy shrugged and brought her fist down again, causing something to crunch that should not be crunched.

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Srina Talon //:

Quinn was quiet.

She listened and tried to understand, tried to not feel hurt. For so long, she had tried to understand Mercy at the level that seemed to come easily for her Mother. Maybe that's where the line was drawn and why her foolish desires were exactly that… foolish.

She would accept the answer, but she wouldn't understand it.

But what she did understand was her Mother's attempt to explain it in a way that wouldn't break the younger Echani's heart. Quinn was thankful for the kindness, but it only left more unanswered questions.

Answers that Quinn would never understand.

She would leave it at that. Knowing too much more would only drive her crazy or send her spiraling in a way that benefited no one.

Quinn nodded, acknowledging her understanding. Fingers loosened after a moment; she hadn't realized her frustrations were manifesting so physically. Still, holding on to Srina like this, keeping her Mother close, wasn't unusual. Quinn would stay here if she could, let the woman protect her from everything.

While the Sith Order slept peacefully behind the Blackwall, Quinn had her own sanctuary beyond that.

She wished she had never left.

Her Mother's question made her pause; there were so many things that weighed on her — but one… One that would and could shatter the peace she was suddenly feeling.

"Peace is a lie…" her voice quiet. Quinn had gone to the Republic to do one thing… learn.

"I went to Naboo, as Queen of Eshan; I'm considered a warden." She continued to explain her status within the Mandalorian Empire.

While the crown had been given by the Mandalorians, she was in essence her own sovereign.

The crown allowed her certain things her place in the Sith did not.

"I went to Naboo, to learn, to see how other worlds governed outside of the Blackwall…" Quinn frowned, her grip on the woman growing tighter as she burrowed herself tighter against her Mother.

"At first, I felt welcomed, then suddenly there was no more kindness… once the Jedi discovered or realized who I was… what I was. They made themselves known along with their hate for my existence on their world." She shifted, her voice still quiet.

"I should have left… but I didn't want to… I did something stupid," the reason for Quinn staying made her voice crack, knowing that she should have known better.

"A Jedi, a Sal-Soren…" She paused, "I developed feelings for her, unlike the others she seemed to care, warned me to keep to myself, but in private… she would meet with me, and things were different... we weren't two opposing sides. She was confident, beautiful and I thought she felt the same..."

Quinn brought her hand to her face; she wanted to cry as her thoughts played through the almost playful fight they had. The Jedi had kissed her, and through the combat — Quinn thought she understood.

But the Jedi didn't speak their language; she didn't understand its meaning.

"I was wrong… she's just like them… I thought what I was didn't matter to her, but it was everything."

Quinn cried, burying her face into her Mother's protective warmth.