Seasonal The Feast!

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade
​

He studied her in the hush. The precision of her stillness. The way every movement she made seemed measured to the millimeter, not out of fear but habit someone who'd learned control as both armor and art. Her lowering hand, that single elegant refusal, said more than most people could manage with a blade in hand. It was the kind of discipline he respected…and the kind that made him wonder what it cost her to keep it.

"Knowing the cost." he said at last, voice quiet but steady, "Is the only way to stay alive in our line of work." He took a half step closer not enough to invade, only enough that his words reached her without the need to raise his voice. "But the right investments don't come cheap, Shade. Sometimes they take a piece of you before you even sign the deal."

His gaze lingered on her face, searching not for weakness but for intent. There was something about her calm that fascinated him the kind that didn't just hide the storm, but was the storm, waiting for the right pressure to break. When she spoke of emotion, of sentiment's lack of profit, the faintest shadow of a smile crossed his features, the sort that could belong to a man who'd told himself the same lie a thousand times.

"Profit's never been my only measure of gain." he murmured, tone dropping a fraction. "Sometimes the loss is what teaches you where the value really lies."

"Sentiment is a weapon." Cassian continued, as the dance continued between them. "Dangerous when wielded carelessly, yes. But in the right hands…" He looked back to her, the glint of humor tempered by something far more serious. "It can open doors that brute force never could."

He tilted his head slightly, studying her in the half-light. "You've built walls. Smart ones. I'd expect nothing less. But you know as well as I do—walls don't last forever. Not in this business. Not with the kind of people who play for keeps."

The waltz swelled, a final note reverberating through the open air before the applause below rose to fill the silence. Cassian let it pass between them like a tide, then added, quietly.

"Maybe we both just like pretending the cost is still negotiable."

He gave a faint smile, genuine but tempered. "Still, unexpected returns, you said. I can work with that. I've made a career out of long odds."

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Remembrance"

Tags - Helix

Virelia did not move for a long moment.

The word assimilated hung between them like smoke, thin and lingering, curling around the soft hiss of the brazier. Her six violet eyes dimmed, then refocused slowly, their pattern shifting — narrowing to a single line of light as if in thought.

"Assimilated," she repeated quietly, the modulation of her voice carrying the faintest wisp of amusement. "No, Rellik would never have said that. He would've called it learning."

She turned her head toward him — not sharply, but with the patient inevitability of a sensor locking to its mark. "So, Helix." The name came not as an accusation, but as an observation. "Even ghosts cannot resist the urge to talk too much."

The false Rellik's outline danced in the firelight, the shape still convincing, the illusion still near-perfect. And yet, now that she knew, she could see the seams — the way he held his shoulders too evenly, the way his eyes moved like calibrated instruments rather than with human curiosity. She almost smiled beneath the mask.

"You wear him well," she said softly. "Perhaps too well. I almost miss believing it." Her claws flexed idly around the edge of the book, talons reflecting the flame. "We are all pretending, in our own ways. You simply do it with more... honesty."

She leaned forward slightly, the glow of her armor dimming to a slow pulse. "I don't begrudge you the disguise. The Diarchs have long memories, and you've made your share of enemies. But I never counted myself among them."

The mask tilted a fraction. "You were a curious man once, Helix. I wonder — are you still curious, or only collecting data now?"

For a heartbeat, the fire cracked louder, and she looked away again, back to the sky where lanterns floated like drifting souls. "You're right about Rellik. He stands among his people because he remembers what they are. I… have forgotten that, at times."

Her tone softened, something almost warm beneath the steel. "Still. I'm glad it's you, and not another specter come to drag me back into the old wars."

 

[Shade]

For a moment, she let silence answer him.

The applause below faded into a soft murmur, swallowed by distance and the shimmer of light across marble and glass. Only the echo of his words remained — deliberate, disciplined, the kind that lingered longer than they should have.

Her gaze lifted again, calm and unflinching. There was no challenge in it, no surrender, only the measured precision of someone who'd made a study of stillness.

"Loss teaches," she said quietly, "but not everyone survives the lesson."

The faint curve of her mouth wasn't warmth so much as acknowledgment — a flicker of something that might have been wry, if it hadn't carried weight instead. "Weapons and walls both fail eventually. What matters is knowing when to let one become the other.""You already know the cost isn't negotiable," she continued, her tone soft but precise. "Still — long odds have their appeal."

She drew a breath, slow and even, the sound nearly lost to the pulse of the city beyond the windows. Her hand rose briefly to her collarbone, where the faint scar caught the lamplight, a line of memory rather than vanity. A reminder of what survival required.

When she turned, the motion was unhurried like a blade sliding back into its sheath. The tension that lingered between them didn't vanish; it only changed shape.

"Dinner's on this level," she said, her voice quieter now, carrying the weight of calm after a storm. "We could put the knives away for an hour. Speak as professionals."

A pause long enough for the applause below to fade into laughter and clinking glass, long enough for the air between them to steady.


"Pretend we remember what normal feels like."

She let the words linger, not as an invitation, not exactly, but as something that might become one if either of them ever decided to stop fighting what they were. The light caught in her eyes as she turned toward the stairs, reflection and reality blurring in equal measure.


And for a fleeting instant, she almost looked like someone who believed it.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

He watched her with the stillness of someone who'd spent years practicing it, the kind that came from command briefings and council sessions where one wrong breath could change the outcome of a world. The play of lamplight across the marble cast her features in halves light and shadow, conviction and weariness. That scar, faint though it was, drew his gaze for a fraction too long. Not vanity, no. Never that.

Weapons and walls both fail eventually. He almost smiled at that, though it didn't reach his eyes. "They do." he said quietly, after a long moment. "But they also buy time. And time's the only currency I've ever managed to make work."

The words came slower after that. He shifted his weight, hands clasped loosely behind his back, gaze drifting toward the glass and the city that shimmered beyond it. The laughter rising from below felt distant a different galaxy entirely.

"Professionals." he repeated, testing the word as though it were foreign. "I think we can manage that."

His reflection met hers in the glass both slightly blurred, both still standing. He didn't follow immediately when she turned toward the stairs; the delay wasn't hesitation, but calculation, as though stepping after her meant acknowledging something neither of them had decided how to name.

Finally, with a quiet exhale, he spoke more to the empty air between them than to her directly.

"An hour without knives." A low sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "We'll see if either of us remembers how."

He fell into step a few paces behind her, the distance deliberate, respectful. They found a seat for themselves among the crows of others, it wasn't too bad, it felt just perfect.

"So, tell me about yourself?" He said with a small smile, as they waited for their server to appear.

 

[Shade]

The music below softened into something older — strings and piano threading through the low hum of conversation, a melody built for ghosts and memory. From their table near the balustrade, the dancers looked like a tide moving in rhythm, all light and distance and illusion.


Shade sat in that quiet between notes, posture composed, every movement deliberate — a soldier's grace honed into elegance.


"You asked who I am."


The words slipped free with a calm that almost sounded gentle.


"Nys'rei Tal'voss. Once of Csilla — before it burned. My family were strategists, nobles of the Csa'tauri line. We believed in order, in precision… in the kind of discipline that kept chaos at bay."

Her voice grew quieter, as though the sound of her own history required less volume to exist.

"When the Ascendancy fell, I was off-world. I heard the end through static. Three days of silence before I understood there was no signal left to wait for."

The crystal of her glass caught the light as she turned it between her fingers, reflection glinting across the faint scar beneath her collarbone.

"After that, there was no Tal'voss. Only Shade. Function, not inheritance. Purpose, not belonging."

Her gaze lifted again, the poise still there but something gentler threading through it now — something almost human.

"But perhaps for tonight… we can pretend otherwise. Two professionals. No knives. No masks. Just a table, a meal, and the illusion of normal."

The faintest curve touched her lips — a shadow of what might have been warmth.

"Tell me, Cassian…" her voice lowered, melodic against the hum of the waltz below, "what about you? Who were you before all this?"

Below them, the orchestra swelled — strings shimmering against the marble like starlight reflected on water — as if the music itself waited for his answer.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian's first instinct was silence. Not the polite kind, nor the guarded one. The deep, interior quiet that came when something genuine brushed too close to the bone.

He turned the stem of his glass slowly between his fingers, watching the amber light fracture and reform across the surface. The question wasn't unexpected, as Shade didn't strike him as the type to waste words but it still landed heavier than he'd anticipated.

His gaze drifted over those that danced below, the waltz moving like a living map of everything he'd spent his life mastering: control, poise, the choreography of diplomacy disguised as art. And yet, every perfect turn, every polished gesture seemed suddenly fragile..

"I used to think I was my just my father's son." he said at last, his voice even, almost measured. "House Abrantes built things,, trade networks, contracts many things, that lasted longer than marriages. Since I was first able too, I was living the life of a soldiers, and had become one. Honor, duty, family sacrifice. That's me now, Honorable Cassian Abrantes, the honorable Fool...."

A small, mirthless smile flickered and died. "When the wars came, I fought, trained, stormed the trenches. I never did it for personal glory, but for my house and my family. When peace returned, Somewhere in between, I became just a soldier, that was my identity. I lost sight of a part of me, I become just a fully fledged soldier, just Honorable Cassian Abrantes, the honorable fool....."

He looked at her then, really looked past the precision and the cultivated calm. There was steel in Shade, yes, but it was tempered, not raw. Her story of Csilla spoken like a eulogy she'd long since accepted stirred something uncomfortably familiar in him. Loss turned functional. Purpose replacing identity.

"I suppose I'm not much different from you." he said quietly. "The name remained, the man didn't. Cassian Abrantes became what the Republic needed — a negotiator, a shield, sometimes a weapon when the first two failed. The rest… ash on the wind. It took someone trying to take my life twice, for me to realize there is more to me than just being a soldier.""

He wasn't referring to their fight they had, there was the time on the beach, and then the most recent ordeal with Aurelian.

The orchestra rose again, slow and full a melody stitched with longing. Cassian's gaze lingered on the dancers, their movements framed by gold and shadow.

"But." he added after a long pause, his tone softening, "If we're pretending if tonight's meant for illusions then perhaps I'll say I was a boy from Deeja Peak once. The vineyards were endless in the summer. The air there tasted like sunlight."

 

[Shade]

Shade studied him in silence, the way one might watch the slow burn of a star — distant, but not untouched. The din of conversation and the rise of strings from the orchestra faded at the edges of her awareness, leaving only his words and the stillness they left behind.
When she finally spoke, her voice was low, controlled — but not cold.
"Honor and your word," she said, eyes steady on his. "Those are the last things anyone can take from you. Everything else—title, uniform, purpose—they strip away easily enough. But your word, once given, that is yours. Even when no one remembers the reason you spoke it."
Her gaze drifted toward the window, to the reflected light moving across his armor, the faint suggestion of the river beyond. "You still carry that. You might call yourself a fool for it, but it’s rarer than most think. Rarer still to keep it."
A pause, then—so quiet it might have been meant only for the space between them.
"Deeja Peak," she repeated, as though testing the sound. "A place like that doesn’t leave you, even if you leave it."
Her tone softened just slightly. "Maybe the boy from Deeja Peak and the soldier from Csilla both learned the same truth in the end—honor isn’t about what survives. It’s about what you choose to keep."

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

He'd heard the word honor used a thousand different ways: in oaths sworn before banners, in senate halls dressed up as morality, in dying soldiers' last breaths. It had become currency in his world traded, promised, betrayed. But in Shade's voice, it didn't sound like a slogan. It sounded like an act of endurance.

His gaze lingered on her across the table the composed posture, the poise carved from something older than training. There was no pretense left between them, not here, not now.

"Maybe." he said quietly, "That's what we mistook for victory. The belief that if we stood long enough, fought hard enough, the meaning behind it all would follow."


He turned his glass slightly, the reflection of the chandeliers catching in its rim like the edge of a blade. "But meaning doesn't come after. It's in the choice the one you make when no one's watching."

His eyes flicked toward her scar, then back to her face not pity, not curiosity, just recognition. "Purpose without belonging. Maybe that's what I've been doing too calling it duty so it feels less like exile."

The orchestra's rhythm shifted below, the waltz thinning into something more fragile, as if even the music had grown tired of pretending.

Cassian leaned back slightly, studying her through the soft light. The formality between them hadn't dissolved, but something quieter had replaced it a stillness that belonged less to strategy and more to understanding.

"For what it's worth." he said after a long pause, "If the soldier from Csilla and the fool from Naboo have learned the same truth maybe there's still something left worth believing in."

 

[Shade]

Shade's hand fell slowly, brushing against the edge of the table as the first of the dishes was set before them. The servers moved with silent precision, carrying platters that gleamed under the soft chandelier light, steam curling in delicate ribbons above carefully prepared arrangements.

"It seems even here," she said quietly, voice measured, "they preserve a kind of choreography." Her gaze swept the table, noting the symmetry of the plates, the timing of the servers, the subtle spaces left for ease of movement. Every detail was intentional. Every gesture deliberate. "Everything is staged, even sustenance."

She allowed herself a fraction longer than usual to inhale the scent of the food and note the texture and precision of the presentation before resettling into her seat across from him. Her eyes returned to Cassian, crimson, calm, and unreadable, though the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth betrayed the slightest curiosity, the human impulse to observe and catalog — even here, among civility.

"Truth," she said after a moment, tracing the line of her scar beneath the collarbone with the edge of her fingertips again, almost unconsciously, "is rarely found in what we accomplish. It is recorded by those who survive, by those who write the history after the fact."

She watched him, measured and precise, the quiet acknowledgment of the scar unspoken yet present. "Purpose without belonging," she murmured, voice just above the ambient hum of conversation, "is the only currency the truly independent understand. It buys freedom, though never comfort."

Her gaze drifted briefly to the waltz of activity beyond the table — the diners, the staff, the soft light playing along polished surfaces — before returning to him. "Perhaps… then there is still something worth believing in," she continued, slower now, deliberate, "if only because we can choose the measure by which we keep our word, even when no one else does."

Shade reached for her glass, tilting it just slightly so the amber liquid caught the light. The motion was controlled, precise, almost ceremonial. In the quiet between words, she noted the faint shift in his posture, the ease he allowed himself only in her presence — small, subtle, telling. And for a moment, the formal table between them was less an obstacle than a shared stage, a place where two warriors, so alike in discipline and survival, could exist without drawing blades.

Her hand finally fell to the table, resting near the edge of her plate. She would eat, observe, catalog — not indulgence, not pleasure — but acknowledgment. And in the rhythm of service and silverware, the quiet understanding between them persisted, unspoken, exacting, and enduring.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade
​

Cassian watched her hand trace the edge of the table not the motion itself, but the restraint within it. Every gesture she made was purposeful, composed. A soldier's stillness refined into civility. He understood it far too well; it was the same discipline that had kept him alive in conference halls more dangerous than battlefields.

He set his napkin aside with the precision of habit, the kind of elegance learned young the movements of a man who'd grown up in rooms where etiquette was another form of strategy. When he looked back up, he caught her crimson eyes the faint light of the chandeliers catching the reflection there like the memory of a star.

"History belongs to the survivors." he said after a moment, quietly echoing her thought. "But survival rewrites the truth as it pleases. Those of us who live long enough to be written about rarely recognize the man on the page."

He lifted his glass, tilting it just enough to meet hers across the space between them. The faint chime that followed was delicate, restrained like everything else tonight.

"Purpose without belonging." he repeated, voice lower now. "Freedom without comfort. You make it sound almost noble."

He let a faint smile touch his mouth, but there was no mockery in it. "But perhaps you're right. Comfort dulls the edge. The independent learn to survive without it or in spite of it." Cassian took a slow breath, feeling the rare ease that came not from safety, but from recognition. It wasn't peace, exactly but it was something adjacent.

"Belief." he said softly, returning to her earlier words, "Is a luxury. But the measure by which we keep our word that's choice. And choice, in times like ours, is the closest thing to faith we get."

A small pause followed the kind that only came when words were no longer necessary.

Then, more quietly, almost to himself: "For once, I'd like to remember what it's like to eat without calculating the next move."

He met her gaze again, steady, unguarded now a soldier and a statesman sharing the same quiet exile beneath the illusion of grace.

And as the music drifted around them, Cassian reached for his utensils not in pretense, but in acceptance. For tonight, survival could take the shape of civility.

 

[Shade]

Shade's gaze lingered on him, steady and controlled, absorbing the rare ease in his posture, the subtle openness in his voice. Her crimson eyes traced the spaces between his words as much as the words themselves, cataloguing the quiet understanding, the shared acknowledgment of lives measured in survival.

"History is seldom honest," she murmured, her tone calm, reflective. "And truth…is often the luxury of those who do not survive."

Her hand flexed lightly over the table, a motion of readiness rather than need, the discipline of years distilled into controlled gestures. She let his words settle—themes of purpose, freedom, choice—allowing herself to consider them without judgment, merely noting the rare intersection where two survivors could speak in measured civility.

"Choice." She said softly, the single word deliberate, "defines the hunter as much as the hunted."

Her eyes met his across the table, calm but alert, registering the unspoken acknowledgment of this fleeting normalcy. There was no overt vulnerability, only the subtle recognition that moments like this were rare and precise.

"Even for those who survive," she added after a quiet pause, "it is…unusual, to simply exist at a table, without every movement measured."

Shade exhaled softly, a faint acknowledgement of the fragile civility between them. Then, with the same measured precision she applied to everything else, her fingers curved around the silverware before her. Slowly, deliberately, she lifted the fork and knife, ready to begin eating, accepting this rare moment of ordinary ritual alongside the extraordinary presence of the man across from her.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Chassian Sleepsong]

The crowd was louder than he expected. Chassian had assumed "festival" meant a handful of Diarchy soldiers drinking too much and pretending to be on guard. Instead, there were hundreds of lights, booths, and music. Even a mock parade winding through the square.

It was good, though. At least now, if anyone asked, he could compliment Rubia on his costume. The prosthetics and makeup for his zombie look had been her doing, and it was… impressive.

As they began to meander through the feast, his gaze drifted across the stalls. Despite everything, the smells still tempted him. Not locked to blood alone, Chassian had always kept a fondness for food.

"No," he said under his breath, half to himself. "No cake. I must be strong."

He laughed softly and offered his hand to Rubia.

"Do you want to head to the main square and see if they've got some kind of show or sit down and eat? We could people-watch and rate everyone's costumes."

Whatever she chose, he'd take her hand, leading them to their destination. It had been a long time since he had a cute holiday like this. It would be nice to enjoy the night.

Rubia Sleepsong

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian lifted his gaze from the plate, following the deliberate precision of her movements the measured turn of the wrist, the controlled arc of the knife. Even the way she breathed seemed intentional, as if the smallest loss of rhythm might invite the galaxy to intrude. He understood that instinct intimately. Every motion at this table each pour of wine, each exchange of glances was a negotiation between habit and the faint ache of wanting to be human again.

He picked up his own utensils, mirroring her pace more than her precision. "Choice defines the hunter as much as the hunted." he repeated, voice thoughtful. "Perhaps. But I've started to wonder if they're ever truly different roles. Sometimes we hunt out of duty, sometimes out of habit. And sometimes…" He paused, eyes meeting hers, "…we're hunted by the things we chose not to walk away from."

The faint clink of silverware punctuated the quiet between them. The servers moved in the background, their presence choreographed but no longer noticed. Cassian's tone softened. "You said freedom buys no comfort." He inclined his head slightly. "Maybe comfort was never the goal. Maybe it's the stillness a moment where the world doesn't demand blood, or strategy, or penance."

The waltz rose again, the sound distant but tender, threading through the calm that was between them.

For once, Cassian didn't analyze the silence that followed. He simply allowed it this brief, impossible stillness shared between two individuals, perhaps drawn by a common purpose.

 

[Shade]

Shade's gaze followed her own hands as they moved with deliberate intent, the subtle flex of her fingers, the quiet rotation of her wrist as she lifted her silverware. Each gesture was precise, a language of control she had honed over years where every motion could mean survival or death. The waltz of the room, distant and soft, seemed to bend around her, a rhythm she neither commanded nor surrendered to.

Her crimson eyes flicked up to meet Cassian's, absorbing the nuance in his voice — the weight behind his words about choice, about duty, about being hunted by what one refuses to leave behind. She didn't answer immediately. Her lips pressed into a faint, controlled line, the only outward sign that she had registered his thought.

"Perhaps," she said finally, voice even, measured, threading just a hint of something unspoken, "the hunter and the hunted are less defined by circumstance than by what they refuse to abandon."

She let the fork hover for a heartbeat above her plate before descending, punctuating the sentence with action rather than sound. Her movements remained precise, but there was an almost imperceptible softness now, a concession to the moment that was not usually granted.

"Stillness," she added quietly, eyes briefly tracing the dance of light across the chandelier before returning to her plate, "isn't comfort. It's a luxury we only allow ourselves when the world isn't watching."

Her glance lingered on him for a fraction longer than necessary, curiosity and a quiet, unwanted acknowledgment of the thread between them threading through her awareness. Then she leaned slightly forward, deliberately, and picked up her silverware fully, letting the act mark her acceptance of the moment — fragile, human, and fleeting — before the world demanded strategy once again.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Helix]

Objective I
Tags: Darth Virelia ​

"To the contrary, I can't even place the Diarchs among my ten direst enemies." He shook his head. "We understand one another. For the moment. Enough to keep the violence on the battlefield."

"No, the costume was to avoid the entry fee. I didn't get rich by giving away all my plunder to the galaxy's less fortunate." Helix decided there wasn't much point in keeping up the disguise, at least for the moment. His surface rippled, then regained his usual gangly shape.

"You count correctly." He said, resuming his normal resonant snarl. "I have more than enough catastrophes to juggle without adding you to the list. Seems like it grows every day whether I wish for it or not."

He nodded. "Curious, maybe. I certainly can't think of any other reason for coming to enemy space but to see how they live and operate. Sometimes there's no better teacher than an adversary. I'm teaching them something in return by coming alone and unarmed, or as unarmed as I ever am. They don't frighten me."

The colony leaned back in his seat, idly scraping two blade-fingers together. When he shed his fleshy disguise, the fire's warmth no longer felt particularly pleasant. So deep was the colony's mimicry that it descended past the skin and into the nerves, blood, muscle.

Without that, heat was just heat. Neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

He shook his head. "Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to envy him, Ms. Calis." Helix used her familiar name, as ever, dispensing with the titles. He'd known her before the birth of Darth Virelia, after all. "The love of one's people is a fickle foundation to build on. One day, they'll be building statues of you in city squares, then burning you in effigy the next."

The colony extended one hand not just towards, but into the fire, holding it there for several long moments. When he withdrew it, it wasn't even blackened. Just the same vague, violet-iridescent gray as the rest of him, like the shell of a beetle. He studied the pristine hand for a moment before continuing.

"The Sith are correct about very little, but most of them rightly deem affection, ideology, and loyalty to be weaknesses. Gaps in one's armor for a dagger to slip through. My solution is a little more nuanced: don't build on either. Half my little catspaws are obedient by nature, the other half are only there for personal gain. A steady income flow is a lot easier to maintain than love or fear."

"Anyone you can't control, command, or at least convince, is just an enemy who hasn't fired a shot yet. I hear you've figured that out for yourself these days, built your own circle of self-interested backstabbers. That's good. It's honest. Everyone knows what to expect and where they all stand." He nodded in approval, then made an odd facial expression at her last statement, blinking each of his three eyes in turn. It might have been surprise, or confusion.

"Not many say they're glad to see me. I guess better the devil you know, and so on. For what it's worth, the feeling's mutual."

 

[Saul Whesai]

Saul sat by the fire as the chattering of people surrounded him. The noise, including an animated conversation that had risen above the crowd and then subsided again, was being blocked out by his earplugs. Liin Terallo had wanted to go alone on this one to focus on her painting which he didn't blame her for. She was probably tried of his sparky hands and voice after having lived together for abit. Hell, the Android would too if he had to live with himself everyday. And so he just tried to enjoy his free time and the free food, putting his feet up as he looked into the fire.

Tag:Open​