Junction The Divide | TSC & TSO & ME Junction of Carratos, Ank Kit'aar, Sarka | IC

[Kyla Deth]

Acier Moonbound​

A Sith who fights with her bare hands?

The way Ace described her almost sounded like he had experienced it personally. But what he said of her motives interested Kyla more.

"Well... She's not wrong on one part." The Jedi spoke. "There is a cycle."

But when Kyla thought about it, the idea of breaking that cycle seemed a fool's errand. She may not have been the wisest Jedi, but even she knew that Sith and Jedi would exist so long as the Force carried on. There would always be those who find its enlightenment, who experience the harmony of existence, and reflect on all things past, present, and future. Just as there would be those whose passions stir the Dark Side that resides in everyone. It was not a cycle that could be broken with ideology or dogma. There was no 'smart' way of going about it.

Of course, it still said a lot about the woman that she believed she could. Or that she even wanted to break it at all.

And again, it told her that Ace knew more than he'd already said.

Her attention turned back to the Mandalorians, however, when he explained they were a different group.

She had spent too long exploring worlds away from major centers of civilization, so she admittedly lacked a lens on galactic politics.

"No," she quietly disagreed and shook her head. "Do not excuse them with incapability." She looked at him. "You - me - no one. We don't know what goes on in their heads... or their hearts. The moment we accept a bygone conclusion is the moment we erase their individuality. That is dangerous thinking."

When you reduce people, you reduce your belief in them; you reduce the ways in which you're willing to handle a problem. More than likely, leading to a violent conclusion. She did not doubt that the Sith had committed a great evil, or that many of them would do it again, but she would not reduce the situation - nor her options.

 

[Varin Mortifer]

VARIN MORTIFER

Equipment: Durum Mantle | Black Blade of Chandrila | Eye of The Dragon | Heavy Sith Mace | Cross Guard Broadsaber | Wyrmfang​

The pat on the shoulder received a curious glance unsure if the pat was genuine or not. Varin had not received a lot of physical touch when it came to affirmation, in most cases feeling suspicious. But Varin kept his face.

But when the word General left her Varin’s brow lifted.

A promotion? On the battlefield?

Varin liked that a lot. The makings of not only his work but others that he worked with held the evidence of success. What better way to accept such a title.

“General? I guess that means I have an army.”

He flicked the last bit of the cigarette as she spoke.

“They will be ready for it. I will have some troops round up able bodied civilians from Abregado first. Their traumatic wounds are freshest, they will be easier to turn. Not only will they fight in Hell, but they will see it as just another day.”

His hands folded behind the small of his back.

“It will be done.”

Arris Windrun​

 

[Vess Sadragen]

Vess stared at the comm for a few seconds after the connection cut.

"I'm on my way."

That had been it. Lily hadn't answered the question, hadn't told her where she was, hadn't even given Vess the opportunity to respond before disappearing from the line. A tired smile worked its way across Vess's face as she lowered the borrowed comm. She finally got ahold of Lily and confirmed she was alive. An invisible weight seemed to lift off her.

Vess leaned back against the weathered wall behind her and closed her eyes, allowing herself a few quiet seconds in the relative shelter of the narrow street. Her good hand came up, fingers rubbing slowly over her face before carefully avoiding the bandage wrapped around the side of her head. The wound beneath it had been cleaned and sealed, but the headache remained a persistent companion, made worse by too much noise, too much light, or simply being awake for too long.

She looked like she'd been through it; her dark hair had been pulled back with considerably less care than usual, stray strands escaping around the white dressing at her temple. Bruises still darkened one side of her face and disappeared beneath the collar of her clothes. Her left arm remained immobilized in a sling across her chest, shoulder reset but still tender enough that every careless movement earned an immediate reminder.

Knowing Lily, Vess probably shouldn't have expected much warning; the thought brought the smile back. She pushed herself away from the wall, taking care not to jostle the sling, and stepped out where she would be easier to find. Her gaze moved through the people passing along the street, searching faces now without even pretending she wasn't.

It didn't take long before something familiar brushed against the edge of her awareness and Vess stopped. Her head turned, hazel eyes searching in that direction as the exhaustion in her expression seemed to lift all at once when she saw a blonde head moving her way. She called out and waved her good hand to get her attention.

"Lily!"



​

TAG: Lily Rhodes Allyson Locke

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Vess Sadragen

She felt her before she heard her, a weight lifting from her chest as her head whipped round and her breath left her in a soft sigh before she snapped from where she was, because running wouldn’t close the distance quick enough. One moment she was down the street, the next she was less than a foot from Vess, eyes snapping from the sling to the dressing at her temple and trailing over the bruises.

“Vess.” she breathed, her hands coming up taking her face gently between them as tears welled in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.” she whispered.

Everything suddenly rose up, guilt, pain, despair, all the things she kept trying to forget, that she kept trying to put a lid on despite being told to feel it, to let it all in. She stepped closer, letting her forehead rest against hers, drawing in a deep shuddering breath. Vess was alive, she was here, she was okay. Wounded, but okay. It could have been so much worse.

“I shouldn’t have left you. Arris called, she needed-” she stopped shaking her head “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

 

[Vess Sadragen]

Lily crossed the distance so quickly that Vess barely registered the movement before warm hands were against her face. Her eyes closed almost instinctively at the touch, and some last piece of tension that had stubbornly survived hearing Lily's voice finally gave way. Vess opened her eyes again and found Lily crying.

The smile that had been threatening ever since the comm call softened. She looked exhausted, battered, and held together by a sling and several days of medical attention, but for the first time since waking up in that snow, Vess looked genuinely happy.

"Lily."

Her good hand rose and settled over one of Lily's, keeping it against her cheek, then came the apology. Vess's expression changed almost immediately.

"Lily, no."

When Lily rested her forehead against hers, Vess stayed there, close enough to feel the shudder in her breath. Her thumb moved slowly over the back of Lily's hand as she listened, letting her get the words out until Arris's name caught somewhere in the middle.

"Lily, stop. You didn't do this to me."

Her free hand slipped carefully around Lily instead. The sling made the embrace awkward, forcing Vess to favor one side, but she didn't seem particularly concerned with that as she pulled her close.

"Arris needed you, so you went. That's what you do. You couldn't know what was going to happen after you left." Vess rested her cheek against Lily's and closed her eyes. Unfortunately, closing them still brought Abregado-rae back with uncomfortable clarity.

The pyres.

People who hadn't been dead when they'd started burning. Things that had once been people crawling through the battlefield afterward, twisted by something Vess barely understood. Red ash hanging in the air. Acid. Screaming. The smell of burned flesh that had somehow followed her all the way back to Empress' Peace, even after she'd scrubbed the blood and soot from her skin. Through all of it, Vess had stood her ground; that was the part she hadn't come to terms with yet.

She'd known what the Covenant was doing. Not the full extent of it when she'd arrived, but she'd seen enough soon afterward. She'd looked out from behind their barricades at what had been unleashed on Abregado-rae and understood exactly which side of those defenses she was standing on. Then she'd raised her lightsaber and defended them anyway.

Because Lily was there.

Because Arris was there.

Leaving them behind had felt impossible; Vess hadn't found a way to reconcile those things yet. Every time she tried, she ended up back at the same question, and she wasn't ready to follow it wherever it led. Not with Lily trembling against her, Vess tightened her good arm around her instead.

"Hey."

She pulled back slightly, her hand finding Lily's cheek this time. Her thumb brushed beneath one of the tears there, and despite everything turning over inside her, that tired smile returned.

"Look at me." Her hazel eyes held Lily's.

"I'm alive. And so are you." The words felt different after everything she'd seen. There were thousands of people on Abregado-rae who couldn't say the same. Somehow they could. Vess let out a quiet breath, that was almost a laugh, and shook her head gently against Lily's forehead.

"We're here. That's enough for me right now."

Right now.

There would be time for everything else. For what happened on that battlefield. For why she'd stayed. For what it meant that the people she'd come to care about could stand beside something like that. But none of those questions changed the simplest thing she knew. She loved Lily. Vess leaned forward and kissed her gently, just needing the simple certainty of something that hadn't been swallowed by Abregado-rae along with everything else.

When she drew back, she didn't go far. "I was here because I wanted to be." Then she remembered the question Lily asked before they landed on this planet.

"Would now be a really shitty time to tell you that I love you?"

The timing was impeccably bad, but now Vess had the time to give her an answer. "I am here because I love you."

​

TAG: Lily Rhodes Allyson Locke

 

[Astra Sadow]

Astra chuckled to herself when Veyla spoke of not trusting everyone because there'd been words the Mandalorians' had collectively liked (as Adonis put it). Just as well, really. Those that were too trusting were quickly abused, and conflict (or enslavement) inevitable. If they wanted a working relationship, as they'd said, then a little questioning served them well. It was better when partners showed the grit necessary to stand side-by-side among their Sith counterparts; it kept life far more dynamic and intriguing.

She spread her hands out to either side with a broad smile. "Of course. And I would be glad to demonstrate my personal commitment by entering into a limited time arrangement with an individual or group. A 'trial run' as some call it. Formal discussions of something at a grander scale can go through all the proper channels and get the Mand'alor's assent, provided everything is in order." Sanguine Enterprises did have its legitimate business purposes, after all. Quite a few of them in various verticals. Astra was confident an equitable trade deal -- small or large -- would be possible.

That was the benefit of not being constrained by a single life time. There really was no rush to try and force people into agreements they were otherwise uncertain of. One deal at a time they'd come to see value in her services.

Her eyes slid over toward Helix. Astra was personally happy the two groups were addressing the less diplomatically pleasant topics. Oh, there was great risk that either side could say something monumentally stupid exploring such delicate topics, but the rewards were worth the risk. The Mandalorians weren't idiots. They had thoughts, opinions, biases, and concerns about dealing with Sith elements given their collective past. Pretending they didn't would have only kept the two people dancing around one another saying 'polite' but ultimately worthless comments.

Astra sampled the local drink on rotation as Helix addressed the crowd. When the glass fell from her lips, she allowed her eyes to slide across the faces -- or helms -- of those present. "Opportunities." A brief pause allowed mental gears to turn. "The Imperials. The Republic. Even our own that may not agree with anything we, here, take away from this encounter. Challenges that will grant us the opportunities to demonstrate our commitment. There will always be rabble rousers and the disgruntled, but as we come to understand one another discerning friend from foe, and enshrining means of communication will become easier."

Golden eyes slid aside to look at Leontis then with a smile. Hopefully the man was enjoying the conversation. It was pleasant to see him there even though she'd given him leave to enjoin whatever conversation he wished. They'd had plenty to discuss later, she expected.

Dral-Kar'ta Saandyr | Siv Kryze | Adonis Angelis IV | Leontis Antalis | Veyla Krinn | Helix​

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Vess Sadragen

For a moment, even as tears rolled down her cheeks, Lily felt real relief. She felt something of the happiness they’d had on Commenor, when the rest of the galaxy didn’t exist. When it was just them. Vess pulled her close, their cheeks pressing together as she murmured comfort and Lily let her eyes close, relaxing into the awkward embrace as her hands slid down, wrapping instinctively about her waist.

Vess was alive.

Vess was here.

She was here. Here, where it all unravelled. Here where she’d helped commit genocide. Where she’d funnelled power between Sith and given them everything they needed to destroy everything and everyone beyond Empress’ Peace. She drew back, meeting her gaze, but something had shifted in Lily’s as she realised that she had hoped Vess was gone, that she’d walked away. But she was still fucking here.

Her finger tightened clutching at her clothes when Vess kissed her, soft and gentle and Lily returned it, despite the realisation slowly dawning on her.

"I am here because I love you."

Whatever emotion had been ready to rise up died in the wake of those words, her heart soared and for a moment, she let it, a soft breath escaping her before she closed the distance between them once more, lips meeting Vess’s with a fervour that wasn’t there before, one hand sliding up into her hair.

"I'm a monster, aren't I? The only way you can ever feel the real me is by reaching inside my skull and digging around with your fingers."

“Yes,” she replied, her head tilting. “You are a fucking monster.”

“But you’re the monster I need.”

Lily withdrew sharply, from the kiss and from Vess, placing two feet of space between them. Vess was here because of her, not just because Lily had dragged her along to Humbarine, but because she loved her. Lily's heart shattered.

We are the end of this planet… and the next one. And the next…

“No.” she breathed, closing her eyes and shaking her head. She couldn’t be the reason, she wouldn’t be the reason Vess fell into this trap. Lily opened her eyes and looked up at the sky, the great silhouette of Tyranny looming in orbit, and the red scar of the rift to the Netherworld.

Finally her gaze settled on Vess, her expression unreadable. “Vess…” she began her voice was no longer emotional, something colder had settled in its place. “I didn’t look for you. When the battle was over, I didn’t look for you. I left with Arris.”

 

[Vess Sadragen]

The second kiss caught Vess by surprise, and for a heartbeat she went still before whatever hesitation remained disappeared, her good hand catching gently at Lily's waist as she kissed her back. There was relief in it, warmth, something achingly familiar after days filled with very little of either. For those few seconds, Vess could almost imagine somewhere else. A kitchen where dinner had been abandoned for considerably better ideas.

Anywhere but here.

Then Lily tore herself away.

Vess's hand remained suspended between them for a moment before slowly falling to her side. Confusion crossed her face as the distance opened, the smile disappearing with it.

"Lily?"

Something had changed; Vess could see it before Lily said anything. The tears were still there, but whatever had been behind them a moment ago had withdrawn somewhere Vess couldn't follow. Her own expression grew more guarded as she waited, suddenly aware again of everything surrounding them.

The ruined streets.

The blood that hadn't entirely washed away.

That impossible wound across the sky.

The shadow of the Tyranny hanging above all of it.

Then Lily told her.

I didn't look for you.

Vess didn't move for several seconds; she wasn't certain she'd heard correctly.

"When the battle was over, I didn't look for you. I left with Arris."

Her hazel eyes searched Lily's face as though there might be some missing piece there that made the words fit differently.

There wasn't.

"Oh."

It came quietly; her gaze dropped between them. The battlefield returned with brutal ease. Lily's amber blade disappearing into the chaos. Vess called over the comm and got nothing but static. Looking for her between every attack, every few seconds stolen from trying not to die., every few seconds stolen from trying not to die. She remembered waking alone afterward. Her arm useless, blood running into her eye, her head so scrambled that the circuitry inside her own cyberdeck had looked foreign. She'd wandered through the snow trying to find the rear, trying to find a working comm.

"You left." Her good hand caught absently around the edge of her sling. "I thought you were still out there." That part hurt. There was no pretending otherwise. "I kept looking for you. After you disappeared, I kept thinking I'd see your saber again, or you'd answer the comm. Then afterward..."

Vess stopped.

Afterward she'd barely known which direction she was walking. Her eyes shifted away from Lily and toward the ruined city around them. The red scar overhead painted everything beneath it in a light Vess suspected she'd remember long after she left this world. And suddenly her thoughts weren't about Lily at all.

They were about the pyres.

About people screaming while they burned. About things crawling through the ruins that had once been people. About red ash sticking to her clothes and the smell of charred flesh that sometimes still seemed to be there when she woke. Vess had seen it. Not afterward. Not in some report where distance could turn atrocity into numbers. She'd stood there and watched it happen. And then she'd raised her lightsaber and kept fighting. Her jaw tightened.

"I saw what they were doing, Lily. I knew it was wrong."

There were explanations. Orders. Loyalty. Arris. Lily. Survival. The enemy trying to kill her. A dozen different things Vess could stack between herself and the simple fact of what she'd done. None of them changed it.

"I could've walked away."

Vess swallowed.

"I didn't."

For once, there was no clever answer waiting behind that admission. No problem she could reduce to components until it made sense. She looked back at Lily. What Lily had admitted still hurt. Vess wasn't sure when that would stop hurting. But it wasn't Lily's burden to carry what Vess had done before the orbital strike.

"I love you." Her voice softened around the words despite everything. "And yeah... finding out you left without looking for me, karking hurts." Vess took a slow breath. "But what happened out there isn't on you." Her eyes wandered toward the ruins once more. "That's mine." This time, Vess didn't look away.

​

TAG: Lily Rhodes Allyson Locke

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Vess Sadragen

Lily watched her face fall, watched the truth land with the hurt she’d intended and for a moment, for one precious moment she thought it would have been enough. Vess’s eyes drifted away, finally looking around and for the first time since they’d met, Lily let the barrier down, she let the whisper of Vess’s mind brush against her own, reading intent and surface thoughts.

It was a violation she had promised herself she wouldn’t do, she didn’t need to know what was in Vess’s head, she never needed to know.

Until now. Now when she needed to know which button to press, which thread to lean against to push her away. She couldn’t be here. Lily wouldn’t let her stay.

“Not they, Vess.” she whispered. “We…Me”

Her mouth went dry, self loathing rising within her, but she pushed forward anyway. “They were able to do what they did with foundations that I laid with the Governor. I kept you out of the web so your hands would be clean, so you wouldn’t know all of it…”

She took half a step forward and stopped herself. Then she said it again, and self loathing shifted into anger. “Stop saying that.” she snapped. “You can’t love me Vess. I’m not what you think I am.” She wanted to close the distance, to shake Vess into understanding, but Lily didn’t trust herself to keep herself together.

“That girl you met, the one you stayed with on Commenor, she’s not real. She’s just the person I pretend to be when I don’t want to face the truth. This,” She gestured at the ruins “this is who I am. This is who I have always been. This is who I have been running away from.”

Her chest hurt, like she was driving her own knife into her heart and twisting it with every word she spoke. None of it was a lie, not really. But all of it was exaggerated, but she couldn’t stop.

“It won’t end here. Arris thinks she’ll stop this shit from happening again but she’d just as fucking bad as Mercy. It will keep going, one world after another. And I will be there. Every step of the way.”

Lily swallowed. “You don’t belong here, Vess. You cannot love me.”

 

[Vess Sadragen]

The correction stopped Vess cold.

Not they.

We.

Me.

Her eyes were focused on Lily, confusion giving way to clarity. The Governor. The foundations Lily had laid. The web she'd deliberately kept Vess outside of. There were pieces here Vess hadn't known existed, things that had been happening around her while she'd remained almost completely oblivious to them.

"You knew." It came quietly. Lily had known what they were doing, or at least enough of it to decide Vess shouldn't be involved. Enough to keep her outside the web so her hands would stay clean. Except they weren't. Vess had still stood behind that barricade.

She opened her mouth, but Lily's voice cut across whatever answer might have come.

You can't love me, Vess.

Vess flinched. Her good hand tightened around the edge of the sling as Lily continued, each word stripping something away that Vess had thought she'd understood. Commenor. The Pilgrim's Rest. All those quiet moments when the rest of the galaxy had seemed very far away. Lily called that girl a lie. Vess shook her head.

"No. No, she wasn't."

She didn't have some clever explanation for why. Vess couldn't pick Lily apart and separate truth from whatever Lily believed about herself. Maybe she'd missed more than she realized; given what Lily was telling her now, she obviously had. But Vess had been there. She remembered Lily curled against her. The sound of her laughter. Cooking dinner that neither of them had actually managed to eat. Wine and a forest beyond the windows. The way Lily could make the Pilgrim's Rest feel less like a ship and more like somewhere Vess belonged. "You can tell me there were things you hid from me. I believe that." Her jaw tightened. "Clearly." Her eyes met Lily's again. "But don't tell me what we had wasn't real."

Then Lily told her it would happen again.

Vess fell silent. Her gaze drifted past her toward the ruins. One world after another. The words brought the battlefield back before Vess could stop them. The pyres, people screaming while they burned, red ash settling across everything, things crawling through the ruins that had once been people, the smell of burned flesh mixing with smoke and something sickly sweet that Vess had never managed to identify. Her stomach tightened. She'd spent days trying not to think about it, trying to tell herself that Abregado-rae was over, that whatever had happened there was something she could figure out once her head stopped hurting and her shoulder stayed where it belonged. Lily wasn't telling her it was over.

She was telling her this was what came next.

And then the next world.

And the next.

Vess looked down, her thumb rubbing slowly against the fabric of her sling while her mind searched for some other interpretation. There wasn't one. "I don't understand." Her brow furrowed. "Why?" It wasn't some grand moral question Vess genuinely didn't understand. "Why would you do this again?" She looked around them, as though the answer might somehow exist among the ruined buildings and stains that hadn't yet washed from the streets.

"Look at this place." There was more emotion in her voice now. "I thought this got out of control. I thought..." Vess trailed off, frustrated when she couldn't even put together what she'd believed. Maybe she hadn't believed anything. Maybe she'd simply avoided asking because she hadn't wanted the answer. Her eyes returned to Lily. "But you're telling me this is going to happen again." Vess swallowed. "And you're going to help them do it."

That hurt differently than being abandoned. There was only disbelief and the beginnings of something Vess wasn't ready to name. When Lily told her again that she couldn't love her, Vess shook her head.

"You don't get to decide that." Her voice softened despite everything. "I love you. I don't know what you want me to do about that."

There was no sudden understanding of what Lily was doing, no realization that every word had been carefully chosen to push her toward a particular conclusion. Vess heard Lily tell her who she was and, despite desperately wanting to believe there was more to it, she had no reason to think Lily was lying. But she knew what she'd seen.

Her gaze wandered toward the ruins again. "I can't do this again, Lily." That realization came slowly, but once spoken, it felt frighteningly certain. "I can't stand behind another barricade and watch people burn. I can't keep helping this happen just because..." Vess stopped herself. Because you were there. She'd already made that excuse once. Her eyes lowered before returning to Lily.

Vess took a step toward her, closing only a little of the distance Lily had created between them. "Don't be there next time." Her voice had lost some of its uncertainty; now this was something she understood how to do. If something was destroying you, you got away from it. Vess had spent most of her life doing exactly that.

"Come with me."

The words were out before she'd considered what with me even meant. Vess didn't have somewhere else waiting for them. She didn't have a plan. A few days ago she'd been unconscious in the snow and hadn't even known whether Lily was alive. None of that seemed particularly important.

"We can go anywhere." Her good hand lifted slightly between them. "You don't have to go back to Arris. I don't have to go back to any of them. We can just..." Vess faltered there. Start over sounded ridiculous. Too easy for something this large. "Leave." That was something they both understood. "You said this is who you've always been because you keep running away from it." Her brow furrowed, struggling with Lily's own words. "Fine. Then run away from this instead."

There was something almost painfully earnest in the simplicity of it. "Come with me, Lily." Vess's hand remained there between them, offered but not quite reaching for her. "I don't care where." Her eyes flicked toward the devastation surrounding them before settling back on Lily. "Just not here."

​

TAG: Lily Rhodes Allyson Locke

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Vess Sadragen

Lily swallowed and looked away. Vess was right, she couldn’t tell her it wasn't real, but that person? The one Vess loved? She vanished somewhere on this battlefield, when hatred became easy to reach for, when anger became a weapon. She wished she hadn’t, she wished she could go back to Commenor and they could pretend none of it was real and get lost in that daydream.

Why?

Pale brown eyes slid back to her, the quiet accusation in Vess's tone, the emotion that made her voice tremble twisted Lily’s gut. Why would Lily do this again? She opened her mouth to answer, but closed it when Vess continued.

Come with me.

Her eyes dropped to Vess’s hand. Run. Run away from it. Don't be here. Don't go back to Arris.

"Fine. Then run away from this instead."

Lily let out a soft breath of a laugh, her gaze falling momentarily to the floor as she swallowed the lump in her throat, tears welling in her eyes. She blinked them away, and sniffed.

“No, Vess.” she said softly, looking back up at her with a small shake of her head. “I spent the last few years running. There's no escaping this, there's no escaping what's in my blood. No matter where we go, the fact that I am a Marr will always follow me.”

Tears escaped, barely making it down her cheeks before she swept them away, shoving her hands into her pockets to stop herself from reaching for her, to keep her where she was.

“Go, Vess.” She whispered. “I've made my choice.” She didn’t dare say it, she didn't want to hear it out loud. She didn't want to see Vess’s face when she realised that Lily had chosen Arris. "And you don't belong here."

“Leave. Don't look back.”

 

[Madrona A’Mia]

​

Tag: Anet Raine

"Favor me with training. With challenge." She gestured to the horizon, then the rift beyond, which hovered like a wound against the sky. "That's why this all exists, Master. I. At least. At least that's what I believe."

Anet crossed in front of A'Mia, standing awfully close.

"I don't know how to accept things." She murmured.

A'Mia merely listened as the girl processed. Tinges of approval finding their way into her mind.

"Very well."

Without further ado or warning, A'Mia lashed out with a backhand aimed at Anet's head. It was less of a strike meant to wound and more to test the security of that mask on her face. At the same time, she danced backward over rough, broken terrain as she readied for a fight. New arms springing from her back and wielding familiar phrik punch daggers.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Abregado-rae

Equipment:
Jedi Robes | Beskar Chainmail | Shoto | Tic

Ace nodded slowly. The cycle argument was never the issue. Mercy was right, the pattern was clear enough. Her answer to it was just fucking insane.

Ace moved farther into the ruined building, stepping over a fallen support as he slipped through what remained of an interior doorway. Tic shifted against his back with the movement. From here, another break in the outer wall gave them a different angle on the encampment without leaving them exposed on the same perch.

He listened as Kyla followed, his expression gradually flattening. Ace exhaled through his nose. Another Jedi talking about what people might have in their hearts. He'd tried that. Again and again. He'd appealed to people in the Covenant. Tried understanding them. Tried reaching whatever part of them he thought had to be buried underneath everything else. Sometimes all he'd gotten for it was another lesson that this was exactly who they'd chosen to be.

By now, he was fucking tired of learning it. At some point you have to believe people when their choices repeatedly tell you who they've decided to be.

"Listen, if you'd dealt with half the shit I have, you'd understand why I think this way." Ace glanced toward her. "And trust me, my conclusion didn't come from a small sample size."

His attention returned to the opening in the wall. Below, the celebration continued.

"You see it yourself. They're celebrating." Then he looked back at Kyla. "What's your answer to why they are, then?"

Kyla Deth ​

 

[Vess Sadragen]

Vess's hand remained between them for several seconds after Lily said no. She hadn't expected that, maybe she should have. There were probably a dozen things written across Lily's face that someone better at this would have understood, but Vess only saw the tears Lily wiped away and the distance she stubbornly refused to close.

Then Lily mentioned her blood. Vess's brow furrowed.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Marr is a name, Lily." Maybe that was an oversimplification. Vess knew enough history to understand what that name meant to other people, but standing here, surrounded by the consequences of choices made by people who were still very much alive, blood seemed like a remarkably poor explanation. "You aren't stuck here because of who your family is." Her hand finally lowered, though she didn't move away. "And so what if you've been running?" Something in Vess's expression tightened. "So have I."

That was one thing they had never needed to explain to each other. Different streets, different circumstances, but the lesson had been the same you learned when to keep your head down, when to disappear, when the person across from you was stronger, meaner, or simply had more friends than you did. You ran. And if you were good at it, you lived long enough to decide what came next.

"That's how people like us survived."

Vess gave a small shake of her head. "Running isn't the problem. Sometimes staying is." Her eyes wandered toward the ruined streets around them. "This seems like a pretty good fucking time to run." There might have been humor in that once. Under almost any other circumstances, Vess probably would have found some way to put it there. She couldn't now.

"We know how to disappear." Her voice softened. "Kriff, Lily, we're a thief and a slicer. This is practically the one thing we're both professionally qualified to do." That almost managed to pull something from her, the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth that disappeared before it could become a smile. "We could go back to Commenor. Or somewhere else. I don't care. Pick a direction, and we'll figure the rest out when we get there." It wasn't much of a plan. Ordinarily that would have bothered her. Vess liked plans, liked knowing where she was going, what she needed, what could go wrong, and how many contingencies she could build before touching anything. But they'd both started with less.

I've made my choice.

That finally quieted her. Vess stared at Lily. "What choice?" The question escaped before she could stop it. Lily hadn't said. But there weren't many possibilities left standing between them. Vess glanced toward the Tyranny hanging over the city before looking back at her.

"You're really staying." Her voice had gone quieter. After everything Lily had just told her, Vess still couldn't make the pieces fit. Lily hated this Vess could see that much. She was standing there crying while telling Vess that this was some inevitable thing written into her blood, that she'd follow it from one ruined world to another. And she was choosing it anyway.

"Why?" The emotion she'd managed to keep under control finally cracked through. "Why are you choosing this?" Her good hand gestured toward the city around them. "You're standing here telling me that person on Commenor wasn't real, but this is? That this is somehow more you because your name is Marr?"

Vess shook her head. "I don't believe that." Maybe she was wrong the thought came immediately and hurt enough that she pushed past it. "I don't care who your family is. I don't care what you've done. No. That's not true. I care about what we've done. I just don't think it means you have to keep doing it."

Vess took another step toward her, stopping short of actually reaching for her.

"Come with me."

Quieter this time.

"Please."

The word felt strange coming from her. Vess wasn't accustomed to asking people to stay. Most of her life had taught her better than to depend on them doing it. "You made a choice? Make another one." Her voice trembled despite her attempt to keep it steady. "You're allowed to do that."

Then Lily told her to go. Vess went very still.

Leave. Don't look back.

For once there was nothing complicated about the words, nothing to unravel, no hidden meaning she could find if she stared at it long enough. Lily wanted her gone. Vess looked at her for a long moment, hurt visible across her face.

"I don't want to."

It was barely above a whisper. Her eyes dropped before she forced them back up. "But I'm not staying here." That much, at least, she knew. Not after what she'd seen. Not after Lily had told her it would happen again. Vess swallowed hard. "We've both spent our whole lives running when we had to." Her eyes stayed on Lily.

"Run with me this time."

​

TAG: Lily Rhodes Allyson Locke

 

[Tobias Dib]

The hounds of the Nether watched as Seren approached to kneel among them. Their forms were those of great danes of the plains of Korshek, long of limb, with deep chests, noble heads with pointed ears, and glowing eyes. Their forms shimmered within the energy fields the Force manifested. Some called them ghost dogs; others described them as energy spirits, while still more called them astral demons from the Nether. All were wrong. And all were right.

The large, statuesque sentinels merely watched as she waited among them. They would not bend their knee to an unworthy master. And they would consume the energy of anyone who sought to tame them, bribe them, or buy their allegiance. Yet they rose from their haunches and approached the young woman, their snouts stretched forward to press against the woman's head, blue sparks of electricity flashing between the hounds and the woman. Tobias allowed a smile to lift on his lips.

"Your hounds are following your memories. They look to see what kind of soul seeks to align with theirs. If it's too dark, they'll try to take your soul. Too pure, and they'll try to take your blood. They exist in shadows, neither light nor dark—an identity defined not by title or name, but by action and choice. I believe you have chosen well, Seren. The unfortunate downside to your current bonding experience is that the monstrous pack sees easy prey in you and your potential hounds. Even now, they approach with intent to strike. And there is nothing you can do as you bond with the sentinels."

The monstrous pack slavered electrical drool as they circled the sentinels and the kneeling form of the woman. Ethereal creatures understood what was occurring between the woman of the corporeal world and the sentinel pack. And it gave them plenty of opportunity to ravage, destroy, and consume their life forces. The alpha and five massive monsters stood before Seren, fangs elongating and claws stretching forward to sever flesh and energy field alike. No mercy lived in their darkened eyes.

Then a blue lightsaber blade split the alpha in twain before beheading and gutting the rest of the monstrous pack in a handful of swings. The lightsaber was deactivated just as quickly. Nemesis watched the hunter packs grow near, eyeing them. Only when he moved between the carcasses of the dead Phantom Hounds and where Seren bonded with the sentinels did the hunter packs move forward to drain the energy from the much larger creatures. One of the reverse twisters grew near, yet all Nemesis did was take a knee and wait, glowing blue eyes watching Seren's form carefully. Soon enough, the hounds would decide whether to accept her. Or rejection of her. Nemesis suspected which way they would decide.

One of the hunting hounds finished gorging and moved beside Nemesis, who did not spare the creature a look. That didn't stop the hunter hound from dropping to its belly and waiting beside the massive giant. A wary eye stayed on the woman as the giant kept watch on the distant gate. The thick, greasy fog in the valley between the mountains detached from the shadows in the cleft and began to creep toward where Seren and Tobias had crossed. Still, there was plenty of time before the fog's proximity became worrisome. However, the soldiers on the other end of the mist were certainly acting a bit timid. The scene almost caused a smile to crease his lips. But he would wait on that until after he acquired what he wished from the forest of stone.

Seren Gwyn

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Vess Sadragen

Vess was still hanging on, still clinging desperately to the possibility that she could save Lily. She probably could have before Abregado-rae, there were a dozen opportunities for them to walk away; it's not like Lily didn’t know what they were walking into. She’d been on Coruscant. Hell, she knew before Coruscant. And yet she still made the choice and she’d make the same ones.

"Run with me this time."

Something inside Lily snapped, anger rising like a roaring tide in her ears. Why wouldn’t she just go? Why did she have to make this so fucking hard.

“I’m tired of running!” Her voice raised as she took a step forward. “I’m tired of being grabbed, of being stepped on, of being used. I’m tired of people taking from me over and over. It doesn’t matter where we go, Marr is not just a fucking name, is a heritage that I have been fighting, keeping a part of myself locked away because I was too fucking scared to see what it could do and now look!” Her hand swept outwards.

There wasn’t pride, there was horror and shame. She hated everything about this but she knew it would happen again, maybe not like this, maybe in a different way, but it would happen. And if she was here, maybe she could stop Arris pulling the trigger, or maybe she could get people out, but if she told Vess either of those things she’d stay.

Lily ran a hand through her hair, exhaling a heavy sigh before she closed the gap between them, hand taking Vess’s face again, forehead pressing against her. “You deserve so much more than I can give you. You are good, you are kind and gentle. You are beautiful and I love you.”

Her stomach twisted. “But I choose Arris. I choose to stay. And I will keep making the same choice until there isn’t a single fucking boot in this galaxy that can step on me.” She tiptoed, pressing a kiss to her forehead before stepping back.

“We can’t survive that choice.”

 

[Vess Sadragen]

Vess flinched. It was small, little more than a tightening through her shoulders, but there was no hiding it. Lily had never raised her voice at her before. Not once. Vess had seen her angry, had watched that temper turn toward other people, heard the sharp edge Lily could put into her voice when she wanted to. But never at Vess. Her mouth closed. Whatever she might have said disappeared in the face of Lily's anger, and for once Vess didn't have an answer.

I'm tired of running. I'm tired of being grabbed, of being stepped on, of being used.

Those were things Vess understood all too well. Running had kept her alive more times than she cared to count. Then Lily swept her hand toward Abregado-rae, and Vess's eyes followed. The ruined city. The smoke. Everything left behind after the pyres and the screaming and the things that had once been people. Memories Vess had spent the last few days trying very hard not to see whenever she closed her eyes. That was where Lily's answer had brought them. Vess looked back at her. Tears were threatening now. She blinked them away before they could fall.

Then Lily crossed the distance between them. Vess didn't move when those hands found her face. Her eyes closed almost immediately when Lily pressed their foreheads together, and despite everything, some stubborn part of her still leaned into the familiar touch.

You are good, you are kind and gentle. You are beautiful, and I love you.

"Lily..."

Her voice broke slightly on the name.

But I choose Arris.

Vess opened her eyes. For several seconds she simply looked at Lily. There wasn't anything complicated about those words. Lily loved her but Lily chose Arris.

"So that's that then."

The kiss against her forehead nearly broke what little control Vess had left. Her eyes squeezed shut, jaw tightening as she swallowed against the pressure building painfully in her throat. She wasn't going to cry. Not here. Not in front of Lily. When Lily stepped back, Vess's hand twitched at her side. She almost reached for her.

We can't survive that choice.

There were tears in her eyes now she'd managed to keep them there so far, blinking them back again, but there wasn't much distance left between holding herself together and not. Her gaze dropped between them. She rubbed quickly beneath one eye with the heel of her hand, embarrassed when she found moisture there anyway. Lily had made her choice. Vess had spent this entire conversation looking for another one, some route neither of them had noticed yet, some way they could pick a direction and disappear until all of this was far enough behind them that they could figure out what came next.

There wasn't one. Not anymore.

Because Lily didn't want it.

Vess swallowed. "Then..." Her voice cracked, forcing her to stop. She looked away for a moment, jaw tightening as she fought to get herself back under control. When she finally looked at Lily again, whatever composure she'd managed was thin enough to see straight through. "Then go." There was no anger behind it Vess couldn't seem to find any. Just hurt. "You made your choice." Her lips pressed together, trembling despite her best effort to stop them.

Vess's hand shifted at her side. For one brief moment it looked as though she might reach for Lily again, the instinct apparently refusing to die even now. Instead, Vess stepped back only one step, but it felt much farther.

"I just wish it had been me."

Then she took another step. Her eyes finally left Lily as Vess turned slightly away from her, toward one of the quieter streets nearby, somewhere she could look that wasn't Lily's face. She wasn't ready to leave yet. Maybe she wasn't ready for whatever happened when she did.

Vess drew an unsteady breath through her nose and wiped beneath her eye again, more roughly this time. It didn't accomplish much another tear escaped anyway, tracing down her cheek before she could catch it. She stared down the empty street. For once there was no backup plan, nothing left to say that could save it. Lily had made her choice.

Vess just wished it had been her.

​

TAG: Lily Rhodes Allyson Locke

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Vess Sadragen //: Lily Rhodes
//: i r in da shadowz //:
//: Attire //:

Maybe I should follow…

Allyson thought to herself as the kid wandered off to deal with whatever she needed to. Her gut told her this was personal —something Allyson didn't need to be privy to—but remembering how she found her… Allyson figured.

It couldn't hurt.

Standing, she dropped a few credits onto the table and moved in silence. While Vess was learning under her, she wasn't ready to be better than the Master. As Allyson stepped away from the table, she flickered out of existence. Her presence, her figure, all of it disappeared into the quiet of the Force. She had moved quietly, giving Vess space the entire time. Allyson hated following like this; she wasn't curious enough for this, but whoever she was meeting was important.

Still in the shadows, she hid a distance away, letting Vess and this Lily have a moment.

She hated it.

She hated how familiar the conversation felt.

Silently, she hoped this girl would realize what she was saying, what she was doing, and how she was hurting someone who cared.

Someone like that… they were hard to come by. Allyson leaned against the wall that separated them. She felt her thumb trace the wedding ring on her finger beneath the archer's glove. Those words were eerily familiar; she had said them so many times before to Taiia. She had pushed the woman away too many times, and yet Taiia Locke had held on to some ounce of hope that Allyson would come home.

She stopped listening. A part of her couldn't bear to hear the heartbreak unfolding, to relive her own painful past in this parallel.

As much as Allyson had planned to leave Vess with this girl, knowing she had been searching for her since picking her up off the ground in that alley… Allyson couldn't just drop her now.

Hands dragged along Allyson's face as she silently screamed, knowing that she was stuck with this kid, responsible for her now that she was seemingly alone in this galaxy. Memories of Zaavik and how much of a mess he had become, and how much she had failed him.

Here she was again, with someone just as broken as herself needing her.

Force, she hated this Lily girl and hated this situation. Hopefully she'd come to her senses sooner rather than later — but what the fuck was Allyson supposed to tell Vess?

Wait for her?

Ah fuck her?

Allyson internally screamed again and again.

Taiia was better for this, but Taiia wasn't here.

 

[Srina Talon]

OBJECTIVE 1: THE WAR COUNCIL
IMMEDIATE TAG: Mercy | Arris Windrun | Aether Verd | Adelle Bastiel | Acier Moonbound
LOCATION: The Tyranny

<<OhfortheloveofKadI'llcomebyafterthismeeting.>>

<<Promises, promises...>>

The words would pass through his psyche as if they were an evening breeze. She unapologetically guilted the much younger man without an ounce of shame, only deigning to raise an eyebrow in his direction. Aether knew what he owed his Dral'buir and knew she would come around to collect. It was only a matter of time before his excuses of 'I'm running an Empire' got old, and she countered with 'Me too' and a hand upside the back of his head.

Her gaze found Gerwald Lechner when he spoke of the Confederacy, and the slightest inclination of her head passed between them. Of all those present, he required no explanation from her. They had both watched a nation survive the constant disagreement of wildly different peoples simply because, when it mattered, they honored the same banner.

Seeing that Adelle Bastiel had accepted her gifts and was trying them, she refrained from crossing the table to help her open each one and insist that she partake. The decorum that might have been expected in a meeting like this was entirely lost on her. Why should she put on a show for people who were known to her? What did they really expect? Title reading, dehydration, and starvation all day long?

That seemed less like an agreement of "mutual support" and more like an agreement to punish one another. Were that the case…

Srina would rather be held at the pointy end of a sword.

Or get shot in the neck again. Either or.

A curl of her finger gave an invisible push to nudge another little package closer to Ambassador Bastiel…More determined than ever that she should have her fill now that the first token had been accepted. It was a very important part of being "friendly," was it not? Srina had armed the Mandalorians, paid them, and quite frequently fed them.

Was that not the definition of Dral'buir

Her hand turned over on the table so that Mercy's touch did not go unacknowledged. Something had changed during the events of Thyferra. Something that she couldn't quite see—But she could feel. Her battle-sister was every bit the boisterous heathen she had always been, but the diminutive Echani had caught her more than once glancing in her direction when she thought Srina wasn't paying attention. That in itself wasn't odd…

It was the fact that she tried to hide it.

Pale fingers momentarily tightened around that of the Titan to remind her that she was still there. To push back the creeping grief that she found so abhorrent without announcing to the room that something was amiss. Gold-hewn orbs flickered down to the surface of the table when Mercy struck it, not surprised that the surface cracked beneath the pressure…But the hand that the giantess had covered remained safe. Protected.

Anyone who accused her Sith'ari of lacking finesse or precision was incredibly stupid.

Or—They just weren't paying attention.

Srina's expression remained perfectly composed while the offering was spilled over the table like a bag of bones. The faint tension in her body returned when Mercy spoke of what she would have done to Mand'alor the Infernal had the situation been different. Not because she disagreed—But because nothing could have held more truth. She supposed that Mandalore as a whole was waiting for an apology from the Sith that would never come, not ever, because she was of the mind that the Kainite had acted practically.

Accordingly.

Still…Mercy arrived at the point in the most Mercy-like fashion possible. There was something to be said for creatively putting weight behind a non-apology rather than simply expecting their guests to thrive on the unknown. Her attention slowly lifted when Aether Verd took her warnings in stride.

He offered a similar truth—And answered her question.

"Your children are in no danger."

Her head inclined.

The statement wasn't strictly true because her children were always in danger. Typically…of their own making. None of them had ever met a Jedi they wouldn't mouth off to and a member of the Iron Covenant they wouldn't try to infuriate. Not to mention that outside the Commonwealth, "Imperial" was a term that got throats cut. Her younglings were full of fire and passion, generally speaking, super-powered beings that were unused to being told "no" for any reason. But…Knowing the Mandalorian Empire wasn't in league with their cousins?

It was, at the very least, a small burden lifted from her plate.

When the Mand'alor asked for information or history on the "Great Betrayal," her head tilted in consideration at the admittedly odd request. Lirka Ka volunteered before the Echani could answer, though she didn't disapprove. Taeli Raaf followed with far more immediate context, laying out old wounds, old grievances, and the opportunity that Darth Carnifex had seized.

Hearing about one particular Mandalorian Clan, Australis, made her jaw tighten. Lady Raaf had delivered the information in an exceedingly neutral fashion, but it didn't stop her pupils from narrowing to pinpricks. The air in the room grew chilly, dropping by degrees, while the Dark Side swelled—Drawn by the totality of her hatred. Not for all Mandalorians, no.

For Australis. For the Infernal.

Her pale features seemed to shift, and for a moment the Sith Empress seemed to have a few too many teeth, with her white skin becoming translucent across her jaw. The longer the Dark Councilor spoke of those "things," the more memory returned.

Such filthy abominations should never have been allowed to walk this galaxy as long as they had—

And as Empress Talon can attest, times have changed.

Her head tilted, and her shoulder rolled, willing away her rage and the skeletal nightmare that appeared and left so fast it might have never been there at all. "My Lady of Secrets is correct…", she exhaled, and some of the unholy light died in her eyes. Forgetting that the old moniker was probably not something many referred to Taeli Raaf by in this era.

"Times have…Changed. I am of the mind that we have two choices. Adapt—Or die."

Her gaze shifted to those who had come to represent the Mandalorian voice and drew in a light breath. Srina had not belonged to the Sith Empire when their homeworld was razed to the ground. She would not pretend to hold the same intimate knowledge as the Kainite. Her experience with Mand'alor the Infernal came from elsewhere…During the years when the Confederacy had been locked into navigating through several galactic powers at once.

"We will grant what you require…But if you want to avoid the mistakes of the past Aether—Talk to your Father.", Srina offered quietly, clinically, in that way that drew the conversation when there was room to do so. "But it is very simple. The Infernal…Was weak."

The singular word had so much venom that it made the air burn. The Mand'alor was weak, and her second-in-command was scum. It was unusual that something irritated the Blackwall Empress enough to draw any sort of reaction, but these were two subjects that would always ignite her ire. "Not to mention that she lacked any finesse for the political games she elected to play. I witnessed her attempts to cultivate relationships with Sith Lords with the explicit notion that she could control them…And surprising to none, playing with the equivalent of walking nuclear warheads backfired."

She reigned in any further commentary and instead reached up to brush her hair behind her ear. It was the epitome of "play stupid games, win stupid prizes," but she didn't think that would be received appropriately by their guests. Even if it was so true that it was painful. Still. It was asked and answered. If all Aether Verd asked for was information?

It was easily arranged.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, Srina became aware of something else. Rather…Someone else.

Her focus remained on the War Council, where it needed to be, but the Force was a complicated entity that disregarded basic laws of the universe as if they had never existed at all. Abregado-Rae was a wounded place, saturated with death and the residue of suffering that made individual presences difficult to distinguish from the whole.

This one she knew.

Acier Moonbound .

Srina did not reach right away for her youngest, treasured, wayward nephew. She did not invade his thoughts or whisper through the distance to announce that he had been found. There was no need.

Acier would simply feel it.

The unmistakable sensation of unseen eyes settling upon him from somewhere impossibly far away. A familiar pressure in the Force that carried the faintest impression of jasmine, rain, and something darker underneath that was reminiscent of ozone. Her power did not descend upon him or curl around his throat.

It remained at the edge of perception, quiet and strangely patient.

Waiting. Always…Waiting.

It was…Hello.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Vess Sadragen Arris Windrun

Lily almost broke, when the first of Vess tears escaped her, when the composure finally cracked. She almost closed the distance, almost gave in, almost took it all back. Her jaw tightened, teeth clamping in an effort to hold it together when Vess looked back at her, the hurt hidden behind a thin veil.

In her mind she was screaming, beating fists against the floor till they were bloody, but on the surface Lily was calm. The words ‘I’m sorry’ dancing across the edge of her tongue as Vess stepped back, the movement opening a chasm between them and Lily’s shoulders slumped slightly and she nodded, but she didn’t move despite Vess telling her to go, she stayed to watch her walk away, disappearing down a side street.

“Goodbye, Vess” she whispered, knowing the words would never reach her.

Her eyes lifted to the Tyranny as the darkside swirled around her. She wasn’t going back there, nor was she going to stay here. She reached across the distance, finding the comforting hum of Arris’s co-processor before reaching behind it.

<< “I’ll see you back on Coruscant.”>>

Then she was gone, ripping through space, the wound closing instantly behind her as the darkness clawed at her heart, rooting deeper as she left behind the one good thing she had ever truly had.

[Exit]