Private Rogue One || Kolyri

[Var Talon]

TAG: Kolyri Dace

Illyria was a chess board.

On the surface, the planet was the picture of progress. Once, it had existed under the thumb of an unfit monarch. The people suffered. The economy was in shambles. By every metric, the world was once a joke. That is, until House Malvern arrived. In but a few brief years, the world was transformed under the new ruling house. On the surface, all the problems of old were a thing of the past. The people could live out joyous lives and suffer no more. Commerce and prosperity ran through the cities. Illyria had become a beacon to the southern community.

But just beneath the surface, there was Darkness.

The High Court was a maze - a persistent game of nobles and ambition. It was like a rip tide underneath a picturesque sea. One false step...and one could be torn under the waves. In recent history, an Echani had found himself struggling to keep his head above the water. Once a mercenary, a job went awry had put him on the wrong side of the Malvern's sword. They had him, imprisoned, underneath the bowels of their palace. Had him dead to rights. In that moment, it didn't matter how famous his sister Srina Talon was - he had broken the law and, by all accounts, his life was to be forfeit.

But, instead of cutting his throat open, he was forced upon the chessboard. A pawn in the palm of a powerful player: Faye Malvern . She personally saw to the restoration of his body. The insertion of powerful implants. The augmentation of his abilities. She turned him into a sword - and made to illusions about how quickly his body could melt down at the snap of a finger. All those talents that had gotten him into the Palace were now at her disposal. For her ambitions, he would fight. Some would call it penance. Var?

Well, suffice it to say there were many nights where he wanted to plant a bolt in his brain out of spite. But he would endure this. He'd make it out of this fething sea of chit if it was the last thing he did.

As for tonight, it was another day on the job.

Like usual, the bike came to a halt within one of the Palace's hidden bays. Descent gripped the platform thus, taking him into the lower levels. For the moment, he wasn't alone - for there was a man-sized sack draped over the front of his vehicle. A sack that was kicking and making muffled cries. In truth, the Echani pitied the poor sod. Unlike Var, the mark had truly offended the family. He doubted he would ever make it out of the Palace alive. And if he did? It would be in a far worse state than he came in. "I'd save my breath if I was you." came the Echani's advice.

"You're gonna need it."

Var advanced through the lower levels with the sorry soul tossed over his shoulder. He only stopped to flash one of his signature calling cards at the various guard points. The sigil of his "employer" was more than enough to gain him entry. It wasn't until he came before the Sisters that even his calling card wasn't immediately enough. Fortunately enough, he was there to deliver this sod into their loving hands. "Package for you." he said, dumping the man before their feet. The lead Sister at the moment stepped over the man and eyed the Echani.

"You're not supposed to be here." she hissed.

"Boss's orders, not my call."

"Spare me. You always cross the line. There are protoco-"

"Boss didn't tell me to follow any of the stupid you've got going on down here. Now be a good Sister and clean up the mess." To add credence to his point, his boot collided with the sod's ribs in a solid kick. He then turned, striding out in the opposing direction - middle finger raised per the usual. It wasn't until the blast doors slammed shut behind him that Var made a solid exhale. Relief seeped into his bones - he was "free", at least for the time being. Until that buzzer inside his head started ringing with her voice again. What to do what to do...

He was about to stride off back towards his bike when the flurry caught his attention. A wall of glass stood between him and the source: a training bot wielding a staff and a woman who was clearly new to using one. The Echani chuckled at the sight and admitted himself within. Protocols be damned. "Y'know, it's better to train with a live target." he began, opening his arms wide in greeting. "Droids don't take feedback well."

​

 

[Kolyri Dace]

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Cast: Kolyri Dace & Kidstable
Location: The floor of a Training Room // Illyria
Time: has lost all meaning (/dramatic)

"Defend yourself."

She had dreamed of that voice. The tinny whine of the thing repeating its processed orders as it advanced, staff held aloft in one of sixty-six programed starting stances. A far cry from the capability of Marksman-H combat remote she'd kept on the Sun. Her response was almost as lackluster as it had been the very first time that she'd been forced to train with the useless, dead weapons, though the wince that flickered across her face as she raised the quarterstaff betrayed a bruised rib or two.

"Defend yourself."

"Yeah, yeah..." She muttered as she began to move, the soles of her bare feet no longer feeling the cold of the training room floor. Her hands tightened around the training weapon and not for the first time, she lamented the absence of her energy batons and her blasters. It would have been over so much quicker had she been allowed to use her guns. Alas, she'd used one a little too much several days previous, and the smoking bodies in the public hangar of the royal docking yards meant that she likely wouldn't use them again any time soon. Not here, anyway. Not on Illyria.

She was lucky to be alive, she supposed. Yet despite the breath in her lungs and the thud in her chest that reassured her a little when she was alone at night, she could not quite quell the belief that she was about to hit her bottom. Disregarding, of course, the many times she'd been knocked on it during the last few days of "training".

Kolyri might have been buried in the self-pity spreading within, but she still missed nothing. "Five-two," she identified as the droid leaned over, twisted at a 45° angle and jabbed with the staff. "To one-one-four." She stepped away from the oncoming poke as she continued to reel off numbers. The limited programing contained sixty-six possible starting points. From there each branched off into seemingly randomised sequences of two hundred and twenty-eight potential moves in its repertoire, and Kolyri, in her boredom and refusal to open herself up to anything else, had counted and numbered each one to such an extent that she could recognise each before any of them hit. The problem was, she couldn't really stop them from hitting.

She swung her arm around, using the momentum from her evasion to parry. It was a weak, barely-there attempt. She knew what was coming, she could see it coming, but she had absolutely no idea how to deal with it. That's why she could feel the hard slap of the floor against her back before she ended up laid on it for the one hundredth time. She'd counted the knock-downs, too. "To twenty-one. That was new, well done, Kidstable," she ground out, her jaw clenched and the heat in her cheeks growing from the exertion of hours of this crap. Then she blew impatiently at the loose tendrils of hair that had escaped from the knot at the top of her head and reached out to take a hold of the quarterstaff that had clattered to the floor next to her. She used it to hoist herself up. It was good for that - glorified walking stick.

"Y'know, it's better to train with a live target."

Kolyri straightened immediately, eyes flashing toward the approaching man. Not bothering to hide her intense interest at the intrusion, not least of all because none of the others had been exactly friendly thus far, she stared, sizing him up, and taking a moment or two longer than strictly necessary. He came forward with arms spread outward, presenting no apparent threat, but Kol had learned that Illyria housed vipers, and she was stuck in a pit. "Droids don't take feedback well."

"I'm not allowed the live ones," she deadpanned. Despite her derision for it, Kol's hand tightened around the quarterstaff as she waited for the man's true intentions to reveal themselves. Many here thought she should be dead. Or rotting in one of the dungeons. Her standing on the planet was tenuous, and she feared she was one wrong move away from losing any sort of mercy that the Sister had granted her. "Because of the incident in the hangar."

She dropped her gaze, ready to play the role of contrite guest. "For which I am truly, humbly sorry." She wasn't. "A thousand apologies, etcetera, etcetera." For the briefest moment, the corners of her mouth twitched upwards.

"Defend yourself."

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Var Talon​