Private Power and Those Who Crave It

[Kirie]

In a dark and imposing place
With Mercy

Her footsteps echoed across the tiles, sounding so much larger than the young woman who sent the sound bouncing around the cavernous hallway. Here in this palace, so measly in her fine dark clothes, she could have just as easily been back in the Order, a servant walking through a royal residence of some Sith elite. But, Kirie was not a servant anymore. The lightsaber thudding against her thigh as she walked reminded her of that.

Accursed thing. She would have thrown it away already if the person who gave it to her didn't mean so much to her. A barbaric instrument of death, one she would refuse to wield as long as she could get away with it. Eventually, she knew, they would try and make her. The Sith of The Academy did not like half measures.

I am a Lord in training. Kirie told herself.

She would show them that she didn't need a saber to be strong. When they were bleeding, they would need her, and they would thank her. She would find lost techniques and found new ones, become the greatest healer in a generation- one not shackled by the limitations of the Jedi nor lacking the imagination of the brutes amongst her.

I am a Lord in training. A ruler-to-be. I will be great.

From the periphery of her downcast gaze, Kirie caught a glimpse of the throne and the great woman who sat upon it. The woman who was waiting for her.

Kirie's head lifted along enough to meet the gaze of the Triumvir, muddy brown eyes meeting the richest gold. Kirie dipped into a low and courtly bow. She had wondered how Mercy would feel about such formalities. Arris Windrun had certainly not appreciated her deference. But, the respect was certainly due, and at worse it was a way to conceal the fact that her legs were shaking.

She straightened up.

'My Lady.' Kirie signed. The voice that projected out of the translator droid that floated over her shoulder was calm and low and level. Once, Kirie had considered it a close-enough approximation of her voice. Similar in tone but lacking a certain humanity. By now it had replaced any memory she had of how she had sounded.

'I was told you wished to meet.'

 

[Mercy]

Kirie

Chin rested on her hand as she watched Kirie approach.

The woman was a picture of weakness.

A mute, knees shaking, eyes barely meeting hers. At the height of her strength Mercy could practically hear the heartbeat of those around her and Kirie's certainly was taptaptap'ing more than was necessary to fulfill its bodily function.

"Lord." Mercy said quietly in the wake of Kirie's words. "Not Lady. Lord. Just as you will be, if you work your little heart out and prove yourself worthy of the title and power that comes with it."

One leg crossed the other as Mercy leaned back. Pulling out her pipe, lighting it up but her amber eyes never left Kirie. Enjoying making her uncomfortable for reasons that were most likely obvious to them both. They both had a person they knew. Closely. At least before it all went to shit for one reason or the other.

"Arris had a lot to say about you." Invoking Arris Windrun 's name was a test in itself. Would her heartrate spike even more, would it calm? "But Arris is always in her feels about one thing or the other. Very emotional, that one." Mercy practically purred there. "I wished to see for myself if you had any potential or not."

Head tilted there lightly.

"Have you killed anyone yet?"

The question seemingly out of nowhere... even as it cut straight to her heart.

 

[Kirie]

'Yes, my La-' Kirie swallowed heavily, cowed. 'I mean, yes, my Lord.'

Just like Arris, Mercy bore little resemblance to a Dark Councillor of the Sith Order, she did not value deference nor contrition, she had no patience for ritual and rule. Kirie, too, was not the same person she was. She kept forgetting she was no longer supposed to be a servant girl, kept forgetting that acting like one would get her nowhere. But that was how she had survived so long, she didn't know how to be without it.

Yet, she lacked the backbone to stand up straight and look Mercy in the eyes. She could not sell her ambition or any sense of confidence. She was scared, and it was obvious. How would she ever earn her place like this.

"Arris had a lot to say about you."

Mercy's words broke Kirie from her stewing. She looked up at the woman, her face contorting into a picture of confusion, then disdain, before slipping back to her usual placid mask.

'Arris Windrun doesn't know a thing about me.' Kirie retorted, taking the bait before her better judgement could shut her up. Kirie started to continue, but Mercy's next words stopped her in her tracks. Her mind spun with a thousand ways to answer, how to get Mercy off her back, how truthful she should be. No doubt the Triumvir would sense deception if she tried it, but the truth twisted around in her gut like a knife.

"Have you killed anyone yet?"

'I... am a handmaiden, not a soldier.' Kirie told her, clearly reticent. At least now she was able to keep her head up, converse without worrying about her legs falling out from beneath her. For now, anyway.

'But, yes.' Kirie pursed her lips. 'Twice, accidentally. Once to defend my life. Never in cold blood.'

A moment passed. A decision hung between them, as visceral and visible to Kirie as if it were physical matter. A shatterpoint, or just her sense of her own fate? Kirie could not read it, but she decided to risk it anyway.

'I have no interest in killing.' She set her jaw and stated back at Mercy with a level gaze, projecting what she hoped was at least a spark of defiance, even if she could not muster up any confidence.

'My Lord, I know I could prove my worth in other applications... If I were no longer forced to run around pretending I know how to use a lightsaber.'

Mercy​

 

[Mercy]

Kirie knew she made a mistake the moment she spoke, because Mercy's expression became positively predatory.

'Arris Windrun doesn't know a thing about me.'

One would get the distinct impression that the Sith Lord in front of her would have licked her chops. As if this was a meal to savor. Mercy wondered if Kirie knew about her relationship with Quinn. Knew how close they were and that even now, she was distinctly wondering how upset Quinn would be if she tore Kirie's head off.

She had made Quinn upset and while Mercy did not truly understand emotions like that, she did not entirely appreciate it when others managed to elicit emotions like that from things she believed were hers.

"No?" A smile followed suit. "My mistake then. I shall discard everything she said about you and start off fresh, a clean slate." Mercy purred those words without offering an indication what Arris had said (if anything). What if Windrun had been complimenting Kirie? Now those compliments were gone in the bin along side any other hypothetical commentary.

'I... am a handmaiden, not a soldier.'

She sniffed there.

"You are neither. You are a Lord-in-training. I should not have to remind you of that." She waved her hand at the rest of her words. Mercy knew there was no killer in front of her.

Knew it because of what Quinn had told her. You didn't need to break up with a soft weak fragile thing if that thing could defend itself. And knew it from the moment she walked into this room. Arris didn't need to tell her anything, because just hearing the beat of Kirie's heart in her chest filled the gaps of Quinn's hints.

"To assume the mantle of Lordship has nothing to do with an interest or lack thereof for killing. Don't be a child." She brought the pipe to her lips and drew some toxic filth out of it, letting it flood into her lungs, allowing it to kill flesh that would regenerate almost instantly.

Entropy, controlled and chosen.

"Being a Lord means understanding when it is the time to kill... and when it is the time for different methods." Which might have come as a surprise from a creature like Mercy. A nightmare sitting in her throne. With fists carved for killing. How many had she killed over her career? How many more would she kill still?

"However... you will never be a Lord while you cling to your little pretenses. While you pretend that the feeling of bile rising in your throat when blood runs down your palms makes you more virtuous, wiser or deserving of rule than those who do not lack a killer's instinct."

 

[Kirie]

"To assume the mantle of Lordship has nothing to do with an interest or lack thereof for killing. Don't be a child."

Kirie sniffed and ran her tongue across her teeth. Genuine anger flickered to life inside her. At Mercy 's dismissal, at her overconfidence, at how clear it was that she thought Kirie was nothing.

It was a dangerous feeling, and she pushed it down the moment it reared its ugly head. She wondered if Mercy noticed. For all of Kirie's Sith friends, for all her protectors and people looking out for her on the sidelines, there was absolutely nothing that would stop Mercy from crushing her skull with her hand, if that was what she wanted. She had still been operating on the notion that she was still the Sith's favourite pet. No, now she was one of them, the lowest of them. In the Covenant, Acolytes died in droves in the search for those who were worth something. Nobody yet thought she was worth anything. She was dirt.

Kirie swallowed.

Inside, her resolve hardened, looking into Mercy's callous and uncaring eyes she felt herself make a decision, something she had been hovering back-and-forth about. She couldn't do this, wouldn't allow herself to become a puppet for Mercy, or Arris, or anyone else. The cost of becoming someone of note in the Covenant was just to great- and why would she want that anyway?

"Listen... We're hitting Coruscant... Soon. Everyone is coming along - you, Neriah. Everyone."

Kirie pursed her lips.

'After Coruscant, you will see what I'm made of.'

She resisted the urge to smirk, hopefully that would get Arris in trouble.

'Did you have any more need of me, my Lord?'

 

[Mercy]

Kirie

She rested her chin on her knuckles.

Patient, amused slightly, the annoyance deeply rooted inside and hidden from sight.

'After Coruscant, you will see what I'm made of.'

It was clear as day what Kirie had been trying to do. In a way, the same thing that Mercy had successfully done to her. Raise the name of someone close to them and fashion it into a weapon that would elicit a response. The difference was that Mercy was old, wizened, and had seen this sort of scene play out a hundred times before and would observe it another hundred times after.

"Rats will never be Lords, little handmaiden." Mercy drawled finally, after letting the silence draw out past discomfort. "Especially rats with large airs and little capability."

Shoulders rolled, a shrug, the way a mountain rolled above an earthquake.

"Show me what you can do... or not. I do not force people to become Lords. Some are simply not made for it, that is how the world is."

She waved her hand.

"I have seen enough. Carry on, try not to die, our darling Quinn would still be hurt by that, I believe." The knife embedding and twisting. One last punishment for trying to use Windrun against her.