Private Reason of State

[Loske Treicolt]

BASTION // RAVELIN // COMMERCIAL SECTOR // IMPERIAL GATE → THE FREE DISTRICT
Maynard Treicolt
ON SUBVERSION INSTEAD OF ELECTIONS

​

“So how many imperial blockades did Outrider get through in his smuggling days?” She asked with a pin between her teeth, finalizing the blonde twist and encircling it at the nape of her neck.

Usually loose and wavy, her hair was pulled tightly into a low, restrictive knot. A few whisps defied her scraping and insisted on framing her face. It was an unofficial requirement, but she felt it appropriate. More immersive to be wholly restricted and constrained –– but maybe she was projecting. It was hard not to, given even the attempt to emulate an accent had Amea’s sardonic suggestions for how to force a more Imperial sound. And then there was just.. every other pre-baked notion too.

“Just dig deep into the xenophobia and the belief that genocide is a legitimate alternative to conquest.”

At least the New Imperials were a wave that wasn’t so xenophobic. The soldiers they’d fought alongside through the Braxant run campaign were all shapes and sizes. United by purpose, rather than species. A resolve that kept them focus on the ultimatum, taking over and eradicating The Sith. A vision that might be diluted by the necessity of greed and growth.

She’d heard first hand from Allyson the organization of Bastion when it had been under the control of The Empire. Patrols, disguised as security enforcement, rigid hierarchies, it sounded difficult. Of course, Bastion was the capitol. People that lived within the city chose this life, it might have been enforced but it was still a choice. And maybe one of the best immediate examples of Imperial sovereignty.

Maybe not the best place to feed judgement, but it was a start.

“Usually I’d say something about a man in uniform but, I’m having mixed feelings about it,” Loske admitted, blending flirtation with the distrust to their former counterparts she was feeling. Still, she could appreciate the ease on the eyes rather than trying to make an emotional paradox.

Where the Alliance uniforms did little favours, the Imperial’s tailored approach was admittedly an improvement. And a departure from how she usually saw him. It’s not that Maynard was scruffy, but rugged and rakish were more complemented by the Alliance’s less fitted approach to clothing.

The Imperial’s garberwool quality was inarguable, maybe even double woven. The right kind of snug with little room for irritation, but just enough for imagination. Certainly more flattering and pristine than the typical flight suit, or fatigues she usually donned.

Especially different were all the buttons. They were well concealed behind the tunic’s double breasted wrap and smartly crisp seams. But they were there. Probably to help keep the dexterity of phalanges as officers aged and refused to retire. “Those are going to be annoying later.” She remarked coyly, managing to wedge the end of her finger an invisible gap of his fasten, barely able to penetrate and stealing an appreciative kiss. She’d wanted to do this. See what the Imperials were like, and he’d obliged as willingly as he always did.

“I’m betting,” Toying with the length of the tunic’s sleeve she gave it a thicker cuff, rotated her wrist and decided she liked it better at full length “What, twenty-five minutes before we’re asked for identification? You want to up or lower that? Table’s open.”

So far, the spaceport would be classified as luxurious but not suspicious.

It was big and mostly grey, with fuel depots, registration stations, landing strips and amenable services; mostly anything a spacer could hope for. The more civilian side, where they’d entered, had storage options for visitors with luggage, merchants, and a variety of services for both travellers and ships.

The general foot traffic they fell into step with felt like a practiced rhythm. Their company mostly comprised of electric carts, droids, and technicians in lightweight grey uniforms. Now and then, someone could be caught tilting the brim of their cap exchanging small, curt, short nods. It wasn’t unfriendly, it wasn’t jovial, it was just...efficient.

She was used to more noise.

 

[Maynard Treicolt]

T H E _ W O L F
THE GALACTIC ALLIANCE
BASTION | RAVELIN
THE IMPERIAL GATE
T H E _ M A N _ W H O _ S O L D _ T H E _ W O R L D
Loske Treicolt

While the Galactic Alliance was still a rigid government all its own in so few shades difference of the New Imperial Order, still that added degree of rigidity added by the field grey gaberwool of the Imperial uniform still felt like a burdening restriction to the country boy spacer's spirit. For the first time in a long while, he looked just like everyone else around him. Maybe that was the point. The strength of the collective, 'e pluribis unum' and all that.

"Just enough for me to want to try it again. Well...varies on the 'Empire' how kind they are to smugglers, something tells me the NIO are more the capture and confiscate kind than the bribe and slide kind." Maynard remarks. Sob stories and virtuous lies went a lot farther with Republic-esque regimes than Imperials. The law was the law to them. In the hypothetical 'getting food for my family scenario', the Imperials held the rigid and fair outlook of 'if you really cared about them you wouldn't risk losing everything by breaking the law' outlook, as cold as it was, it was a logical perspective.

To the remark of the man in uniform, the drab grey Maynard couldn't help but grin as he gave her a visual appraisal all her own, a gaze of admiration bathed in the mystique of the same concept draped over a woman all the same.

"Really? Because politics aside there's no denying the look." Maynard admitted, though the military uniform had become less and less of a change of pace as time went on with more and more events calling for him to don the tan and blue of the Alliance dress uniform. Somehow, the more authoritarian the reigme, the better they knew how to look. With an exception coming with the Sith Empire in recent days.

That stolen kiss was a nice ode to the people they were as soon enough they'd be wearing false guises in a foreign land and he offered a smile in its wake that warped the jagged scar pulling from his chin and through his lips after his graze of death at the hands of Tathra Khaeus. Luckily, these sort of imperfections weren't any flaw here. With the large percentage of military servicemen and women here from the Third Imperial Civil War, such scars and wounds wouldn't be so rare a sight.

If anything, it made them fit the bill a bit better.

"Twenty five? You're being generous. But we nailed the look at least, maybe that'll get us a little farther. But I doubt it...I'd give it ten. I'm almost worried just how good you look in that Imperial grey, blondie." But he'd better put away that sort of attitude now. Lest they decided to roll with the story of a relationship even under their cover identities. Regardless, whatever agrarian, Wilde Space tinge his inflection carried, as much as it'd been widdled away at in his time in the Core had to go to help better his visage of Imperial discipline.

As Maynard claimed, twenty five minutes was a bit too generous, their first checkpoint coming toward the exit of the space port as one of the funnel ways set up to process individual travelers. Many of them in the same field grey as they were, even down to the greenish piping of the Imperial army (not the Stormtrooper Corps) of Maynard's uniform, though Loske's had seemed to be supplied with the argent white of the New Imperial Armada. There seemed to be a jovial tone among them, soldiers returning home. Or maybe not even returning 'home' but taking advantage of new opportunities opened up to them that came with Imperial control of Bastion.

"Wonder if they're moving into where the Sith used to live here. Used to be the 'Sith Heights' but since well...the battle, the New Imps cleaned out all the property and made it available to any combat veteran of the Order. Hell a lot of the territory they conquered is easy land to settle for the soldiers returning him as far as I'm aware. Bastion, Muunilinst, Dubrillion...all ripe for the taking." Maynard remarks to Loske, trying his best to display a Core accent more than anything, more familiar than the Imperial Remnant lineage of the Outer Rim.

Standing in the broad queue they slowly flowed toward the front, among the sea of grey there would be the occasional civilian in street clothing with those of more prominent wealth being Muun in species. Such was the coinpurse of the New Imperial Order were the Muun colonies at the mid way of the Braxant Run. No surprise they'd arrive here all the same to help manage Ravelin's rebuilding economy or reap the benefits of open power vacuums within the financial sector of Ravelin itself.

Eventually they reached the front where the checkpoint officer, flanked by two stormtroopers with crimson red pauldrons draped over their right shoulders were there to recieve their entry to the New Imperial eperopolis.

"Next, forward." The officer sounded out behind the static distortion of his microphone. A quick glance at him gave the impression this wasn't his chosen position. He was an older man, human, easily in his late fourties with searing tibanna burns and a milky blind left eye marring his features.

Behind the fortified glasteel screen and metallic desk of the officer a port opened for the two to insert their code cylinders, an article provided to every Imperial soldier which carried all the information needed to identify them and allow them entry to secure areas. Where as civilians would have to produce their IDs, this was a means for military personnel to get a broader access to the city and avoid more of these checkpoints as they continued, a convenience more than anything.

"Welcome to Ravelin, Lieutenant. Just coming back from the front? I see those're army colors. What sorry pit did High Command send you lot this time?" He inquired to Maynard just as he inserted the code cylinder into the port, the computerized sounds notifying them both that it was processing the information on it.

"Kalee. I'm 224th. Tough fighting...Sith terrorists and the like, trained up some of the Kalee to fight with them. Hadn't been in the shit like that since the second wave at Harnaidan." Maynard remarked before the code cylinder processed in a manner that mirrored the information brought by Treicolt.

Griff Strage, Lieutenant, 224th Armored Division 'Mud Jumpers', Imperial Army. Wasn't much more to it aside from scannable yet false serial numbers but it was plenty enough to get him through.

"I heard. Had a few ahead of you that came from the same spot. Well...enjoy yourself, they've done a hell of a job reshaping Ravelin if you've yet to visit since the battle." The officer says.

"Thank you, sir." Maynard says through a nod and smile before continuing on, his gaze snapping over his shoulder to take in the view of Loske as she approached the checkpoint.

"Welcome to Ravelin, Junior Lieutenant. Heard there was quite a bit of the Navy being stationed here. Keeping a watch of the front and our precious Braxant Run, go figure." After his words, she was expected to follow the same gesture as Maynard and luckily, it managed to pull up her false identity and numbers all the same.

"Enjoy your stay in Ravelin. Hope the Navy doesn't put you anywhere too dreadfully boring. " The officer remarks with a grin before moving her along, his gaze instantly shifting to the next in line.

With the pit of anxiety swelling in his gut all but wearing down Maynard turned to her now that they were in true and proper fresh air of the resurgent Ravelin.

"Looks like I was right...and what did we bet on that again? If you don't remember I can certainly make something up." Maynard asked teasingly, glancing her way before his gaze shifted in the direction of the sprawling city before them. It lacked that neon enticement that Coruscant had but it was still a bustling urban sprawl with a life all its own in the same manner. Though some how, a far more organized chaos than the overpowering sensory envelopment that was Galactic City.

"Where was it you wanted to head first?" Maynard asked of his wife, his eyes continuing to scan the surroundings. Streets they once fought and bled over they now roamed with a tinge of un-welcome around them.

 

[Loske Treicolt]

"Twenty five? You're being generous. But we nailed the look at least, maybe that'll get us a little farther. But I doubt it...I'd give it ten. I'm almost worried just how good you look in that Imperial grey, blondie."

Mutual appreciation for the tailoring was shared, and Loske shook her head at the idea of it being a more permanent look. “Strictly roleplay only.”

"Wonder if they're moving into where the Sith used to live here. Used to be the 'Sith Heights' but since well...the battle, the New Imps cleaned out all the property and made it available to any combat veteran of the Order. Hell a lot of the territory they conquered is easy land to settle for the soldiers returning him as far as I'm aware. Bastion, Muunilinst, Dubrillion...all ripe for the taking."

The concept of trading land for time and blood seemed orderly enough, and she partly wondered if that process was a typical approach for any sort of victorious government after a planet is reclaimed and some of the locals eradicated. The Alliance hadn’t done anything so aggressive yet to test that theory.

Less than Twenty-Five minutes came quickly.

It was a strange circumstance the pair were in. Maynard’s concentrated Core inflections and accented notes were a testimony to the absurdity of their decisions. Everything about the Concordian was unapologetically himself, and he’d made his name by being a blunt force object and tackling problems headlong. Buttoned into foreign apparel and falsifying the inflections of his accent wasn’t something she was used to seeing; and the same for herself. The truth was always easier. Heart on her sleeve, open book, the world of subversion and covert operations was only something she was familiar with by association.

Associations she was recalling to help steel her nerves. Whether their intentions were known or not, Loske the fast-learning sponge had been taking tips from the big spy dogs. For all her questions and curiosities to the masters of espionage, she’d never asked if they got scared while undercover. Forcing the knot that had gathered in her throat down with a swallow, she tore her gaze from the arbitrary archway she’d zoned out on.

How long is your operation? Djorn Bline voice asked. Short, she answered to herself, seeking the memory that was associated with a short operation. She was quick to discover the advice that was filed away: Simple story and focus on the objective. Don’t overthink the persona. Identify the geography and understand the people.

Her objective was to understand the people. Frustrated, the faux junior lieutenant reverted back to some more practical advice from Allyson Locke . Observing came first, seeing how others in the line ahead of them behaved and interacted. Some looked tired, their padded shoulders sagged but straightened when speaking to the person behind the barrier. Nobody saluted or gestured much with their hands, and everyone’s faces looked neutral. Listless and non-committed to any emotion. The crowd delivered cues, and Loske tried to recognize and adopt them.

Maynard went first, easily navigating the conversation as he had on Thyrsus. Little quips and details bled seamlessly into the dialogue and made the engagement feel natural.

Maybe the process was similar to Alliance soil. They usually promoted before someone landed, and in all fairness, she was usually flying in and out as part of the defense corps. And The Renegade’s docking costs were enough to be well known among traffic control.

"Welcome to Ravelin, Junior Lieutenant. Heard there was quite a bit of the Navy being stationed here. Keeping a watch of the front and our precious Braxant Run, go figure."

“Hm,” Her voice was solidly forced in shades of manufactured confidence. The less information she gave, the less she’d be accountable to. Still, she offered an amenable smile in return to the rapport the officer extended: “We tend to travel in fleets however or wherever we’re placed.”

The falsified details of her persona were digested by the customs officer, who seemed to find no issue.

"Enjoy your stay in Ravelin. Hope the Navy doesn't put you anywhere too dreadfully boring. "

“You and me both. Thank you.”

She couldn’t prevent the exhale of relief, and clench and unclench her fists when they were several feet from the checkpoint. They probably could have entered with their own information —- but the detention would have been annoying and frustrating and probably escalated to unnecessary strata of communication. Why would two militant representatives of The Alliance be snooping around the Imperial capital? Not to mention their identity and typical garb ultimately being a blocker to the actual immersion of Imperial-to-Imperial relationships.

Like oil spilling through a drum, the streams of visitors and residents filed through the gates and moved about their business. Some continued walking straight, happy to travel on foot, while others sought other means of transportation to get them further into the city.

To some, the sights may have been resplendent. Loske just felt cold.

"Looks like I was right...and what did we bet on that again? If you don't remember I can certainly make something up."

“Winner’s terms.” Came the sly admission, and exchanging a brief wink before she followed his gaze through the cityscape. The first time she’d been on Bastion had been far past the city gates, focused on the palace. There’d been little appreciation for architecture at the time, though. The memories were more focused on the smells of scorched earth, burnt metal, acrid smoke, ozone and the chaotic bellow of commands. In hindsight, if she tried to remember, she’d admit the citadel had been an impressive structure, with ornate spires that threatened to pierce the atmosphere. The building itself had still been under reconstruction when they’d visited for the celebration of reclamation. But today, there was no trace of fanciful details. The angles were severe and strong. It was clean, too. Small droids navigating along the gutter lines and nullifying any offensive mess.

The grey crepuscular streets seemed to stretch on and on, only allowing deviations for shop fronts randomly spattered amidst the stonework and finely seamed metal. This had once been a nucleus of Sith activity.

“More residential area.” Absently, she pat a pocket along her hip as if the gesture would remind her on the map Frank had been able to share with them. The main civilization of the planet had been broken into chunks. “Or. somewhere less best-foot-forward than the main entrance. Maybe those Sith Heights, see how the veterans and the locals manage to mingle. Heh –– We can pretend we're buying.”

It probably could have gone unsaid, but: “At this point, I‘m projecting for that Triocolt homestead. If it’s out of the perimeters of the Alliance's Blue space, I want to see if we can live with that or if..” the sentence trailed off. “If Sunstrider’s vision is the always reality.” Saying rebellion on Imperial soil felt dangerous. As if everything were bugged and listening. She suppressed a shiver as a chilling sensation crept through her spine at the thought.

“In that case, this might be our shuttle,” she observed, taking a few seconds to read through the glowing scrawl of inner-city designations. Several stops and times were plotted on the board. After a certain point, it would require federation credits to extend the ticket. “A bit of a change from doing the driving yourself.”

 

[Maynard Treicolt]

“Strictly roleplay only.”

He dug his teeth into his bottom lip at the suggestive statemen, glancing toward her once more before his expression froze over once more to reflect the metal and grey around him. Through the exiting stages of the space port the evident Imperial overtones began to show itself in stark spades. The bold image of New Imperial Stormtroopers stood sentinel for a crimson banner donning the Imperial sun atop a rocky mound with the caption 'Triumph over Sith Tyranny' . It was a stark, endearing image. Paying homage to sacrifice. Somehow humanizing that indomitable gaze. The gaze of the Stormtrooper.

Flanking the image, two men, one human and one evidently Zabrak, sharing a cigara and regaling the other over stories from their past assignments, their packs of belongings at their feet. There was no doubting that the New Imperial Order had a personable face, a relatable nature to it. It was this elusive malice that came with their ideology that was the crux of their sudden schism. To the pair of Jedi, to the Alliance, it was this shrouded enigma of reasoning and intent. To them, it was whatever it took. To secure their dream, their New Order.

“Winner’s terms.”

He glanced back once more, arching a brow to the figurative 'blank check'.

But now might not have been the best place to let their guard down, not like that. He needed a clear mind, use that classic spacer's perception best used in picking up visual cues of underlying deceit in the underworld's more lovely patrons. It'd proven effective many times over, last recalling the use of it in such an overt manner when he'd shook the hand of Djorn Bline the last he was ever here and the only other time he was here under more than war-like circumstances.

So far, outside of the obvious change in societal dynamic, architectural and fashion aesthetics, people went on about their lives as they would anywhere else, albeit, along more rigid paths with measured steps.

"Can only imagine its more of the same, just more living space. Could be worth a look though, see how they actually live." He spoke in regards to the newly decreed Maximilian Heights. A stellar concept in theory, granted there was no testament to how it worked in practice. How good the living conditions truly were, if there was enough lodging for all those who qualified. But he supposed that was what the rest of the unsettled and rebuilding New Imperial Order would be used for. Nirauan, Prefsbelt, Entralla. All those worlds were breeding a stalwart industrial base to flow into the Braxant Run, the river beneath the Iron Sun which these Imperials sourced a great deal of their wealth, the Alliance's Hydian Way and Core prosperity.

His expression dimmed even past its cold placidity when she mentioned that wayward dream of their homestead on Concord Dawn. Just the two of them and their eventual child, or children living in peace. Away from ideological struggles and endless conflict. Only working for themselves, doing all that was right by them and no one else. The closer he seemed to get, that light at the end always seemed to swipe itself farther and farther back. He'd almost resigned to never seeing that picturesque life for the two of them. He would've, if it wasn't the only thing he really cared to fight for anymore.

He could only hope, when it was inevitable that the Iron Sun rise over Concord Dawn that they'd be given that respite in their dream. To live out in peace and quiet. Something ached at him that that'd never be the case. That it was a dream, nothing more. An idealistic goal but hardly one attainable. Not now at least.

"Just got to see for ourselves, I guess." His voice felt off when he spoke. Could've been just a tangling of visages between himself and 'Grif' or...whatever his supposed Imperial persona was.

"Yeah..." He offered in curt response and soon enough they boarded the shuttle, taking a seat as he faced the otherside of the tram. Across from him, for a moment was a reflection. A face and an officer's uniform printed in the exact same colors as his but the rank bars were...different. Four red over four blue. A major general. When he looked into 'his' eyes again it was Waylon looking back at him, that vision manifesting itself in the seat across from him in full view, seeming to be living, breathing, alive.

A pass under some object shrouded the cabin in darkness again and that vision of the pristine Waylon Treicolt, appearing just as he did on JanFathal warped into a charred and burnt corpse in the tattered chunks of scorch white duraplast, half his face obscured with the shattered remains of his characteristic helmet.

"You come back here...to where I died? For you? That's some sick shit..." Waylon's voice sounded out in his thoughts, the lips on the vision moving in unison with the sentiment before another pass shrouded the cabin in blackness once more and then there was nothing across from him at all.

He let off a heavy exhale of a shuttered breath before leaning back in his seat, screwing his eyes shut in an attempt to snuff out the memory of his mind's machination, only for that charred and burnt gaze to envelop his thoughts again. Inescapable.

"Where the fuck are we? The next stop?" The Administrative Sector evidently by the display above the seating in this cabin, peering out to take in the view of a now revamped Fortress Imperator, the Fel Redoubt. All the New Imperial impressions made unto the once testament to Sith glory.

A better change of pace, but for now, he needed some air, anything.

The shuttle eventually came to a stop, with a hydraulic hiss of the vehicle before the doors pulled open on either side and he rose to exit, the stop leading to the very epicenter of the district in the shadow of a gargantuan statue depicting Vaulkhar, the late Lord Executor of the New Imperial Order.

But past them, a figure in black strode in a nigh frantic pace, in all his internal strife, he ignored it in favor or looking up toward the figure in the open square filled with more people walking back and forth to various places within the district across the widened corridor. He was nearly brought to tears from the intense hallucination, the hazy memory of the very day that Darkness Fell.

"Sorry...I needed fresh air, something. I don't fucking know..." He says, bringing a hand to scratch his fingers along his temple ash e peered down to the smoothly paved metallic earth beneath.

"But...while we're here..." He says, peering back up to the several buildings enveloping where they currently stood. Imperial Headquarters, the Fortress Imperator.

"Anything you might wanna see?" Maynard asked. That tone of voice still staggered, 'off'. All in all it always had been since Bastion, just a bit...jarred. He almost reached for the metallic box of cigarra in his fatigue's pocket. He didn't smoke but he elected to take them in case they needed to pass them off as a bribe or take faux inhales as if to add an increased degree of normalcy when talking to others, assuming they were up to the same. He almost wanted to indulge the taste and bite of the herb now, any sort of buzz to clear his head.

Loske Treicolt

 

[Loske Treicolt]

"Just got to see for ourselves, I guess."

"That's the dream." Loske reminded him with a tone that countered the unhopeful inflections, glancing warily in his direction.

The doors hissed open, long enough for them to board alongside another individual. Civilian garb. A tightly cropped black jacket, over some equally neutral tunic and slacks. Their shoulders were loose, relieved from the stress of the shift they were completing and returning home. Home to Maximilian Heights.

While the present faded away for Maynard, Loske was experiencing every ounce of it. Through the glassports of the pearlescent interior of the tram, the streaking shops outside were prominent. The entire commercial sector blurred around them. People meandering on the grounds, looking idly through shops and markets became nothing but blurs. Those racing lines bled into something more abstract and consuming until sharp skylines reappeared.

"Where the fuck are we? The next stop?"

Alarmed by his outburst, Loske looked his way wide-eyed. Quickly, that conceded expression was re-painted with concern painted and saturated the stare that looked him over. "Yeah, soon. The next stop is.." looked like he was figuring that out well enough.

An indistinguishable, tesselated pattern echinulated at the corners of their bond. It was nigh undetectable, but some sort of unseen alert bled into that constant connector.

"Sorry...I needed fresh air, something. I don't fucking know..."

"Are you okay?" Abandoning her seat was an instinctual reaction. The passenger that had boarded with them remained seated, though watched their departure with vague disinterest. They were a pair of just-over-a-handful that chose to exit here.

She wanted to reach out to him, wrap his hands in hers and extend whatever protective compassion she could exude. Whispering his name to check in on him was inappropriate. The suggestion of a persona, a naval lieutenant and a soldier seemed beyond their guise; A satire of their eternal necessity of balancing duty and desire.

Glancing back over her shoulder, the shuttle was starting to pull from view and take a turn that fought the laws of inertia. By the time she looked around, his face was taut with heavy emotion. That tingling prickliness had sogged, dampening and becoming heavy and clinging. For the hands she'd fretted about her waistline, wringing, she hovered them now, unable to pull them back to herself nor reach out fully to offer solace.

"What just happened to you?" Though Maynard seemed eager to recover, it was a trend lately. Compressing whatever the trigger had been into a tight stowaway compartment. The jury was still out on how enthusiastic she was about that response and what it meant for his humanity.

While the city had earlier felt a little chillier than other environments, there was something more gripping here. Akin to prickles that danced along the skin without settling, influencing the interpretation of the area.

Of all the stops on the train, she hadn't planned on visiting this specific one. The heart of the Imperials, a source of their latest unease, they'd returned to the scene of victory and the fields of pain. A world contaminated with personal calamity.

It seemed the most inflexible of all and the one with the most opportunity for an unfortunate interaction. It was the nucleus of most of the Imperial organizations as far as she knew. She frowned, looking around and not appreciating the stretch of sediment that threatened the clouds above before looking back toward him, apprehension making her arms and legs feel rigid. His tenseness was a steep gradation from the earlier easy charisma of the former smuggler who said what needed to be said to get by.

They'd never done this before. Operating under pretenses. It wasn't within their operational scope to venture to the realms of espionage or true clandestine infiltration. Verily, they might need to explore the reality of that being a portion of their duty, but for now their presence was unaffiliated. It wasn't from anyone's commission but theirs. But hers. Her request.

A tinge of guilt shot through her, and she pressed two fingers to the space between her eyebrows.

If they were here by decree of their government, they'd likely find themselves trying to enter the fortress itself and sneaking out information on technologies and strategies if possible. So this was a test run for both domestic observation and potentially pivoted secular immersion.

"The moment you enter this world, enter my world. Your world is over. You're putting Maynard in trouble."
"If something happened to him, would you be able to live with yourself? If something happens, it's all your fault."

Preoccupied with her husband's reaction to something unseen –– an unknown source until he let her in –– and the number of pedestrians, the swift shadow in the distance was also lost on the Kiffar Knight.

"But...while we're here..."
"Anything you might wanna see?"

"Yeah. You feeling better." Her face twisted into a disquieted knot, the comment's tone just short of a marital tut tut.

"I uh.." she stumbled for a moment, wanting to encourage the attempt to distract himself but also sorting through her thoughts enough to give him an alternative to getting back on the train. "This wasn't really on the agenda.." This was probably one of several courtyards surrounding the area, although it was unlikely much varied in size across the architecture. Balance and symmetrical motifs seemed favoured by Imperials.

What was somewhat out of place seemed to be the emotional sculpture within the complex. Serenity and pain carved forever within his stoneface. A Force user, and with him memorialized and dead, she wondered about the unrestrained conversations that took place within High Command.
The present. Focus on the present, and don't bring the future before it's time.

"Oh yeah. The Imperial Knight Corps is trained here, although I doubt they allow for observers to walk through the halls who just might be curious about their policies. And I guess they'd be able to detect our Force presence, too." She closed her eyes in thought. They'd both been taught how to conceal their presence with Art of the Small but that seemed..like a lot.

"I mean, I'm not sure how much access we have here." Everywhere was slate coloured. So much severity was composed within the architecture and aesthetic that Loske believed on a sunny day it would feel foggish and dank. Perhaps the only source of colour was the distant splash of crimson, likely main offices of which they should be wary.

She couldn't suggest getting back on the train so quickly. Might as well. Yeah. They might as well.

Act like you belong there.

"I guess similar enough to The Alliance back in the day of these ranks. Let's walk a bit. Get more air."

 

[Maynard Treicolt]

T I M E

"No...I'm not okay. Sorry- I'm just not." He stated, a true and genuine resignation to his feelings, disregarding the cold visage of the Imperial in favor for his true and naked sentiment. She didn't deserve anything less than that. Even if it staked their disguise on the risk of being revealed. Here, within the heart of New Imperial power the rush and passing of people around them shrouded them into Ravelin proper. There was little in discerning them from the rest of the Imperials. By reason of state, there was no plucking them from out of the crowd, even as her touch eased over him in an comforting gesture, as she was always so eager to place on him.

Again, so lingered that self doubt. Ever the perfidious beast, his dragon to slay. Though over time it seemed far more akin to a hydra. One head severed, two more appearing to take its place in a seemingly endless battle of wills. They were surrounded, in a place seemingly hostile to them. And he was letting her down, here, again. Just as he did Waylon. Failing to curtail his emotional strife, failing to leave him, them weakened in a place where they were all too vulnerable. Exposed to the wolves, in all his weakness.

"You gotta remember...what happened here, for me." Rendered nigh death, unable to defend his love, unable to defend his kin. A failure. In what should've been...what could've been the absolute grand stoke of his redemption, his return to the New Jedi Order, his vindication in the Alliance. To plant the golden starbird on just a small patch of Ravelin as the Iron Sun eclipsed the darkness around them. To embrace Waylon as kin, victors. To deem that moment the time to scrape off Matson in favor of Treicolt for his beloved. The very culmination of his all his toil, all their time in the fire.

Instead, he was denied that moment and he'd been hopeless ever since. Loske saying that fateful yes to him on Scipio was a momentary reprieve but since, it'd been dazed and confusing tribulation.

"It just- shit...I don't know if I should've agreed to it. Especially...here. This place...it's just- I lost him, I failed him. Aside from you...he was all I had left...and I let him down. Hell, you were there, you did all you could and I just laid limp...pathetic. Bastion it- in the end, I'm glad its...whatever the New Imperials are here and not the Sith. We have our distances but hell...they find us, we're extradited or ransomed back or- I don't know but the Sith would kill us without question. We're Jedi. I don't know what to think anymore. I want that dream, that dream of us on Concord Dawn but- shit- ...that was so damn important to Waylon, it was why he joined up with the New Imperials at all. He just wanted his home back. But he's gone now. I wanna do right by him, bury him beneath the Concord sunset...but I'm not even sure we'll be able to manage that...and even then, live in a place we might not be welcome? Sure, it seems the Mandos would be given control of it under the Imps...only after warring for it again." Maynard states, inhaling a shuttered breath.

With all the sights around them, he just wanted to walk, with her. Clear his head. Maybe the fresh air enveloping his senses would clear the haze in his thoughts.

"I almost wanna ask that same shit you asked me, after Harnaidan. Why we even bother...but I know I'd talk myself out of giving up. I've given up too many times to just walk." After veering them from the constricted path he stopped the pair, reaching his hands to take ahold of hers. Save for the fieldgrey fatigues, there was no attempt as fixing a visage over himself, not now.

"I feel like...Concord Dawn... I can't believe that'll be the end. The end of- all this shit. The wars, the work, all of it. I can see the writing on the wall, no peace is coming any time soon. We run, the war will chase us. We already figured that out...but it doesn't hardly feel like there's much of anything to stick around for...that isn't you. These ideologies...what does it matter what the hell we're even fighting for if we're just sent again and again into the fray. We've had barely any time to breath. Since Bastion, Muunilinst...any of it. I don't- I don't know anymore what the hell I want. Where I want to be." Maynard states, tears threatening to well up in his eyes. He was sick of this feeling, pulling it into his subconscious in droves since Bastion, only able to subvert with those brief and fleeting moments of blissful isolation with her or his time behind the sticks or with his cobalt saber in hand, bearing down on the enemy.

He eased a hand from his grip with hers, settling it over her stomach, the other moving to run through her blonde locks as he peered into those deep blues in a deep admiration. A coveted love.

"Soon...I think-... I think we should try. For-...a part of the dream." Maynard suggested, doing his best to manage a smile as he pieced forlorn into hope once more with her. After all, she was his light to lead the way, past all this darkness.

"If you're ready, that is." He amended.

Loske Treicolt

 

[Loske Treicolt]

"No...I'm not okay. Sorry- I'm just not."

"You gotta remember...what happened here, for me."

Any hope of forced undercover normalcy was dashed with his heartbroken admission.

Wave after wave pounded against the shores of his confidence, eroding any strength the stony foundation had built. There were so many thoughts wound up within him that they were both becoming tangled and tied up in the connected and rogue strings.

“May…” she started, attempting to soothe the deluge before it broke entirely. It was to no avail — he was overwhelmed with the links to memories Bastion brought. She’d been worried about that, but it had been a non-issue up to this point. His cavalier exterior only
destroyed by something he’d seen on the transport.

“What did you see on the train?”

Some sense of spatial awareness seemed to register, and she readily followed him to a more discreet location to let him pour out the rest of his burgeoning grief. An emotion he hadn’t manifested about Waylon save for an instant of weakness above Mandalore. Where they’d been so close… but so far. An inconclusive and unsatisfactory rebellion. She gave him the space to vent, silent and listening actively to every pained sentiment that passed through his scarred lips.

His touch against her stomach sent a trill of indiscernible emotion through her. For one, it was a reminder that he was hers above all else and they had the power to grow and produce. At the same time, his embrace was desperate and pleading for her to save him from the burdens he buried himself in. As soft as his hands were, they were like claws, grabbing at her for salvation from his mental depths.

The vignette of her vision clouded, darkening at the overwhelming roller coaster he brought her on. This pattern had the potential to be upsetting. The first time he’d kissed her had been after an emotional breakdown reflecting on the slaughter of his family, his proposal after the death of his final kin. Every monumental milestone shared for their relationship was contaminated by his loss, constantly putting her on that pedestal to give and fill in those spaces. This might have been the first time she felt a flicker of resentment for that framework, which was instantly suffocated by worry and how he might actually see her, and then quickly reassured with something that focused more on the promises he made to her.

I-, its all ours. What you and I are...we are because of each other before anything else. I love you. I don't know what the way there will look like but, I just want that end. What we've always talked about. Settled somewhere, peaceful, the Triocolt. Whatever I do, it's for that, for you, for us. I love Ryv, I love Allyson, I'll always be there for the Alliance, I made promise to that but...I'm not gonna let anything keep us from that in the end...whatever it takes."

The whatever it took was undefined and would continue to be as long as they were constantly drawn back into the fray.

Promises were easy to speak and share, giving them mutual hope for a future they could build together. As easy as they were to say out loud, to whisper to one another in private isolation, they were less easy to act on. Priorities shuffled to focus on the prominent demands of the galactic government they fought for. Those words had always felt so full and solid, and in this moment they felt hollow. The reflection deepening her reaction to his unfurling.

"I almost wanna ask that same shit you asked me, after Harnaidan. Why we even bother...but I know I'd talk myself out of giving up. I've given up too many times to just walk."

"I feel like...Concord Dawn... I can't believe that'll be the end. The end of- all this shit. The wars, the work, all of it. I can see the writing on the wall, no peace is coming any time soon. We run, the war will chase us. We already figured that out...but it doesn't hardly feel like there's much of anything to stick around for...that isn't you. These ideologies...what does it matter what the hell we're even fighting for if we're just sent again and again into the fray. We've had barely any time to breath. Since Bastion, Muunilinst...any of it. I don't- I don't know anymore what the hell I want. Where I want to be."

"Soon...I think-... I think we should try. For-...a part of the dream."
"If you're ready, that is."

“May..” she started again, mouseish and somewhat disconcerted. Her hand slipped over the back of his, tracing the ridges of his knuckles in a temporary pause before she flattened to overlap him.

“Soon,” she admitted with a slow nod against the hand that cradled her head. Words budded in the back of her throat, thick and heavy. They were almost too dense to rise to the surface. All she wanted was that family with him, the chance to cultivate everlastingness in a shared influence. Honouring the best parts of one another in a shared creation, something made purely out of love. Not science. Not convenience. Only unconditional affection. That had to be the source –– not seeking escapism or recompense to voids. She should have been delighted by his suggestion and feeling butterflies in her belly instead of boulders. They should have been able to melt into one another, instead of keeping constrained to only the strictest versions of their physical affections. And they should not have been in Imperial garb, on a planet that felt unwelcoming and unsupportive of their objectives and fantasies.

Finally, those heavy words took shape and found sound. Negotiating distance between his wants and their reality. It hurt her to say anything other than yes, and the softness of her expression was barely a window to the difficulty of prolonging her dreams.

“We’re not ready. Not now. If we made that decision now, you would have to walk away. We both would. It wouldn’t be fair to think we could be part of both worlds.”

Platonic discretions were abandoned by the way he held her, the way they spoke. There was a softness in the exchange that transcended the tailored dress code.

Gratefully, them maneuvering from the main ebb and flow of the city centre and talking behind corners concealed much of the interaction. Worst case scenario, their covers were star crossed soldiers — placed in different stations and forced away from one another. Reunited on Bastion.

She reached up to touch his cheek, following the cues of abandoning their otherwise cool exterior.

“I love you more than anything, seeing you like this...all I want to do is fix it.

And you know that’s what I want for us too. What I’ve been fighting for. We keep saying in the end. We already know what that end is, what we hope that end is, we have to decide when it is for us.” She drew in a breath, biting her lip for a moment and closing her eyes, tightening her grip on his hand. “The galaxy will keep turning, it will keep struggling. But we.. we can carve out what’s important to us and protect it. That readiness needs to be decided before we..” Denying him felt wrong, and she looked down and away, frowning “.. how can we raise someone when our decisions are so subjective?

To me, it’s not giving up. It’s what you said, being brave enough to fight for what we want and protect it. It’s another way to fight, to have the audacity to just live out the dream. That might even be harder for us than.. actively defending it. It’s entirely out of rhythm and expectation. We don't have to start a family on Concord Dawn, we can get there eventually.

You have nothing to prove to anyone other than yourself, and you’re..hurting so much right now. You haven’t had to space, or given yourself the time to really come to terms with Bastion. Our honeymoon was wonderful, but a distraction and..” it was a needed one, for both of them, and grief tended to sneak up at the strangest times when unchecked.

“You’ve lost so much, you have gaps everywhere family should be and you... trying to fill those spaces before they’re fully healed won’t make you happy. I think you’ll always have this lingering..pain. How do we shake you of your guilt and hurt? Without putting that burden on a child?”

She’d wanted to come to Bastion to see how the Imperials treated their citizens, what their way of life was like. Instead, it had unravelled the harshness of their own reality and all the denial they’d been ignoring. The only truth they'd existed in was the one for each other. He was her purpose, she was his peace.