Faction The People v. Lysander von Asacania

[Verity Stuyveris]

LOCATION

THE HIGH REPUBLIC HALL OF JUSTICE

COURTROOM 2

MORNING

♫ GROCER'S DAUGHTER — THOMAS NEWMAN

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The High Republic Hall of Justice was an exemplar of Theed architecture: golden stone topped with a great green domed roof, with five other smaller domed circular structures arrayed around its perimeter. The atrium was packed with observers and the press as Verity Stuyveris entered with the other members of the prosecution, with members of the press straining at the barriers that had been erected, calling questions, asking about whether she thought the Republic would win this case.

Verity ignored them, her glacial demeanor resisting the thaw. Of course, she wanted to exude an air of confidence, and realistically this should be an open-and-shut case, but there was no telling with Sith. They had their fingers in all kinds of pies, and though great efforts had been taken to keep the judge's and the jurors' identities secret ahead of the trial for safety purposes, it was difficult to guarantee anything in a pluralistic democracy such as this one.

So she didn't make promises that she couldn't keep.

She went through the extensive security process, shucking her blazer, her earrings, a bracelet, and her Senate lapel pin, tucking the jewelry into her handbag before putting it through the security scan. A few minutes later, she was entering Courtroom 3. She set her briefcase on the table and snapped it open to retrieve some documents and notes, and made chitchat with her second- and third-chairs. They were more seasoned attorneys, with an extensive practice record. Verity had been asked by the Attorney General to stand in. Something about her prosecutorial nature and effective communication style.

The reality was that there were significant concerns for anyone involved in prosecuting this case. Verity Stuyveris had already poked the Sith Covenant in the eye in every conceivable way -- publicly, rhetorically, legislatively, and very nearly literally during her encounter with Mercy -- and lived to tell the tale. Thus, it seemed wise not to expose anyone else to the risk when the Senator had so ably placed herself in danger of her own volition.

Faced with the request, Verity had felt like a rat in a trap, but on further reflection and now, in the glare of the lights, she had to concede perhaps she was instead -- the cheese.

Conversations went on in a hush. The defendant was escorted in. Verity had insisted that Lysander von Ascania not be trussed up and wheeled in in restraints on the theory that it would prejudice the jury. Her eyes lingered on his hair momentarily before she turned back toward her co-counsel. "That's... a choice," she murmured to second-chair with a wry smirk; the other two attorneys chuckled under their breath, grateful for the sarcasm to cut the tension.

It didn't work.

The Bailiff stepped forward and called, "The court will come to order. All rise for the honorable Judge Avara Bel'kor." An older Bothan woman with a silvering russet coat, carefully groomed facial fur, and a pair of spectacles perched on her snout entered. A respected institutionalist by reputation, she was understood to be methodical, politically difficult to categorize, and fiercely protective of judicial independence.

"Good morning," she announced, her voice gravelly. "You may be seated. The court does call the case of the People v. Lysander von Ascania. I will take appearances for the record. People?"

Verity stood effortlessly. "Verity Stuyveris for the People, Your Honor."

"Defense?" The Bothan looked across the court room to Lysander's table.

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WITH

Lysander von Ascania • @Other Interested Parties

 

[Astra Sadow]

"Astra Sadow representing my client Lysander von Ascania , Your Honor." Dressed in an expertly tailored, black suit with an equally black tie, her burnt golden eyes met those of the Judge with her chin high and shoulders squared. Being in this place was no great concern of her's. They had nothing on which to charge her. Oh, the intelligence community might grumble otherwise, but a Republic couldn't go around baselessly accusing people, could it?

Speaking of which, she spared a sidelong look at Verity Stuyveris . Kind of her to 'insist' on Lysander not being wheeled in strapped down like some sort of wild animal. Astra might have had quite a bit of fun at their expense over such a thing. So, a woman able to keep her baser desires in check. Not a fool selected at random for a show trial? Should keep things interesting.

She leaned in Lysander's direction to whisper -- confer -- with her client, "You've settled on your plea?" A smirk pulled at her lips. Somehow, Astra got the impression the man was going to be quite the troublemaker in court. Hopefully he'd be kind enough to know when the court's patience was reached and to step back.

Lysander von Ascania | Verity Stuyveris​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Astra Sadow Verity Stuyveris Aurelian Veruna Danger Arceneau Sophelia Ardemark Corazona von Ascania | Open​

Time stopped announcing itself as days; Lysander’s mornings came and went to the sound of boots against durasteel and inspections. Jakku might as well have been eons past. Just a chapter the galaxy flipped through without so much a glance in his direction. Nothing to authorize, no envoy duties, not even a command roster. Solitude, once his chosen weapon, felt like chains here.

In every dark corner of his mind, the faces he trusted crowded in. Naniti, Varin, A’Mia, Meya. There were so many. Memories stalked him until sleep fled. Were they alive? Had the others escaped that dust-choked hell? Even Luciana drifted through his thoughts, a niece he barely knew. Did Acier writhe in a reflection of this same cage? Was Cora cursing his name between prayers? The unanswered questions cut deeper with every passing hour.

Years spent clawing through the Black Wall for freedom, only to realize the universe never really lets you leave. Now every choice was part of a script written by strangers. Lysander believed he was beginning to watch his own funeral.

There was once a time when doors opened because he carried authority. Now they only opened because someone else had the code.

Then the cell doors opened; the world became.. painfully real. Two marshals stood waiting. Force-dampening binders were cinched tightly. Not a single word passed between them. Gone were the Sith blacks, the pretense of power. He’d been stripped down to a prisoner’s tunic. That familiar fear that typically radiated off sentient beings in his presence was nowhere to be found.

Stepping into the courtroom, the blonde's vision blurred beneath the onslaught of stares. Amid the swirl, his gaze snapped to Verity. That face landed like a punch to the gut, yanking him back to their debate at Summer Palace and the volley of short-lived letters that followed.

Once escorted to the defense table, the bailiff soon called the room to order.

Leaning closer to Astra, warmth returned in the form of a smile for the first time in weeks. "Not guilty, yes,” the words barely cleared his teeth. “You almost sound worried, Astra," Pleasantries never stood a chance with them; their conversations always drifted toward philosophy. There seemed little sense in breaking the habit now. "The plea isn't an escape, it's just.. the first sentence of whatever comes next." The levity eased him more than he expected.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora sat primly in the gallery's front row. Everything about her was meticulously neat; her hair, her clothes, her folded hands, and even the bandages wound over the right side of her face. Given present circumstances, the corruptive injuries she'd sustained on Jakku had been slow to heal.

Nothing in her demeanor gave away the fact that she was having an out of body experience.

When Lysander appeared, Cora pulled in a quiet, shuddering breath. Everything about this hurt, but she couldn't deny the necessity of it all. A grim conversation she'd shared with Aurelian, eerily on the eve of Lysander's capture, was the singular sliver of hope she now clung to. A life sentence was the best case scenario, he'd said.

She hadn't thought this possible. Any of it. Not the capture, not the trial, not the better part of the galaxy turning it's eyes onto the sordid Ascania. Perhaps Lysander himself didn't either, given his meteoric rise to power among the Sith.

Something about the brightest stars burning for half as long.

Cora's fingers found the Ankarres sapphire he'd gifted her, brushing over the gemstone and fiddling with the band. Her other hand reached for Fatine's. The brunette had gone uncharacteristically silent next to her.

Together, the sisters quietly stared at their brother. He looked well enough after weeks in Republic custody, not a twinge of nerves about him. Still, those shackles cinched tight around his wrists might as well have been around Cora's own heart.

There was still good in him. But despite that good, he'd helped to build one of the galaxy's most violent war machines.

CC: Lysander von Ascania

 

[Srina Talon]

LOCATION: THE HIGH REPUBLIC HALL OF JUSTICE [Courtroom]
TAG: Verity Stuyveris | Astra Sadow | Lysander von Ascania | Corazona von Ascania

The courtroom smelled of lemon polish, rare old paper-bound books, and those insufferable Rominaria blossoms that Naboo insisted upon planting everywhere. Sweet enough to make lesser creatures think the scent innocent and beautiful…But to Srina? They created the cloying scent of a baby-powdered funeral home.

It was cloying, annoying, and made her nose twitch as if to sneeze.

She loathed Naboo.

It was on this planet that a child who had never drawn breath had been laid to rest beneath immaculate marble and blue roses that never seemed to wilt. At the time, the Confederacy had thought the phenomenon was born of some deeply buried compassion, but the wintry woman had only ever known it to be one thing. The grave of her firstborn child.

A daughter she would never see, never hear, and never have the chance to care for. Stolen from her by the Jedi of old because of a scorched earth policy against the Sith. She had hardly understood the concept then, and certainly hadn't grasped the truth about the zealots that the Light and the Dark carried. She hadn't learned her lesson about the cruelty of goodness until her diplomatic mission was turned into a massacre.

Until a trap was sprung and the bomb went off.

Srina hadn't learned her lesson until she was buried in rubble, ironically, beside her Jedi fiancée and losing the one thing that mattered most. Her daughter. Now—Now the Light had brought yet another of her children to this happy, shining world, for sentencing for crimes that hadn't even caused an eyebrow to raise. Why would they?

Her pristine ivory robes drifted through security lines without any urgency, stitched with ancient runes so fine that they appeared no more than decorative embroidery. Their purpose was both concealment and certainty while they passively caused the minds of others to believe that she belonged exactly where she stood. They smoothed over suspicion before suspicion could even be born…While her features, Echani to the last, were nearly identical to those of her people.

Her genetics had no originality. Mothers looked like daughters, sisters like sisters, neighbors like neighbors. It could be impossible to tell them apart.

With that…She passed quietly through the halls. There were no weapons on her person that could be detected, and authority bent around her presence as naturally as water flowed downstream. Guards found no reason to question her, and clerks assumed the paperwork had already been filed. Identification badges already registered—Even though no such thing had taken place.

By the time anyone might have thought to wonder…She was already seated in the back of the room.

Hawkish eyes settled upon the courtroom with all the warmth of winter. The prosecutors, the judge, and any of the spectators who had come to watch a man be measured like livestock before slaughter. Such gentle, sweet people.

The High Republic seemed determined to teach her that there could be no peace between them. Before this—it was the treatment of Quinn Varanin that made her turn her focus toward this bastion of truth and justice for further inspection. Her eyes, mercurial silver instead of yellow-gold, finally settled on Lysander von Ascania and she exhaled softly.

Srina did not reach out for him with overwhelming power. There was no violent intrusion, no display worthy of frightened Jedi tales. Instead, she merely allowed the quiet thread that connected a student and teacher, a mother and child, to become visible. That was the wavelength that she spoke through…Even if he could not reply.

<<You did not call for me…Did you thimk I would not appear?>>

He would know that she was there long before he was able to find her by sight. Her voice brushed across his thoughts with the softness of falling rain, impossibly gentle, against the coldness of her personality. <<…Let me take you home…>>

It would seem like a peaceable offering. Something…Soft. But Lysander would know her better than that. Nothing about the Blackwall Empress was "soft," and nothing lit her ire faster than one of her people being in chains. She did not care what he had done, what he would do, but was fully prepared to burn this building to ash if they did not let him go.

Never question, not ever, what a mother might do for their young.

Not even a Sith.

 

[Meya Liefi]

Tag: Lysander von Ascania​

Her bridge's quiet was broken only by the steady hum of engines and the muted chorus of consoles speaking to one another in soft electronic chirps.

Blue displays illuminated the room in uneven pools of light that rolled across polished metal and the faces of her men absorbed in their stations. One of them glanced up as a holoprojector beside him flickered to life, its image struggling for a heartbeat before resolving into the unmistakable seal of the High Republic.

"Lady Meya," Meya looked up from the datapad in her hands. The gang member rose from his station to face her properly. "The High Republic has begun broadcasting the trial." Whatever report she had been reading ceased to exist in her mind.

The holofeed in front of her changed immediately to the courtroom. It materialised in shimmering detail, packed with spectators, reporters, and officials. Her eyes skimmed over them without interest until they found him. Her expression hardened.

Around her, the bridge had grown quieter. Twin Sun members who had moments before busied themselves with navigation and communications found themselves stealing glances toward the projection. None of them spoke. They knew well enough what they were looking at.

"Look into this court." Several members immediately turned toward her.

"The judge. Every member of the prosecution. Every clerk attached to this case." Her fingers curled slightly against her chair. "I want everything concerning the Republic's judicial system. Judicial procedure. Sentencing practices. Appeals. Jury selection. Judicial ethics. Every notable ruling. Every public criticism. Every commendation."

Meya believed the Republic liked to present itself as the opposite of an Empire. It condemned tyranny, corruption, exploitation and greed, yet so much of its prosperity likely, no... more than likely rested upon corporations that amassed fortunes because factory workers accepted salaries too small to ever stand beside those who employed them. Senators condemned slavery while defending economic systems that left entire sectors trapped in generational poverty.

Perhaps that was governance. Perhaps every civilisation eventually reached the same conclusion—that someone would always bear the cost of another's comfort.

She knew she did.

The Twin Suns existed because she profited from suffering. Smuggling. Spice. Protection rackets. Markets respectable governments refused to acknowledge until they required something from them. She had never hidden behind noble language or pretended her hands were clean. She demanded loyalty and payment. In return, her people were fed, protected, employed, and avenged when wronged.

Honesty did not absolve her. Neither did lofty ideals absolve the Republic. Not in her opinion. She found hypocrisy more offensive than brutality. Her attention returned fully to the courtroom.

"If he is convicted..." Meya finally looked away from the holofeed.

"If he ends up in a prison," she said evenly, "I need to know which facilities are capable of holding Force-sensitives within this region of Republic space." Men began immediately typing. "I want every prison within transfer distance."

"Maps." Another command. "Architectural schematics." Another. "Security protocols, guard rotations. supply deliveries, maintenance schedules." She paused only long enough for each order to be acknowledged before continuing. "Find me former prisoners who served inside them. Former guards. Construction contractors. Maintenance crews. Medical personnel. I want anyone who has walked those corridors."

 

[Mauve du Vain]

Few things captivated the public eye like a trial. And a trial of a Sith with noble and Jedi connections? Well, this would be all the Core talked about for the next three months.

So delectably messy.

A smirk curled the corner of Mauve’s plum painted lips. She sat at the back of the courtroom, observing. As “Lady Tapalo” she had connections now within the High Republic. Status. Legitimacy.

Even if she still spent most of her time on Nar Shaddaa.

She would have given it all away for… well. It didn’t matter anymore.

Like a wilted flower thrown out after feeling bad it died.

Tapping her stylus against her lips, Mauve adjusted her grip on her datapad and looked around at the other observers. There would be whispers in the hallways outside the courtroom. If she picked those up then it would be a scoop. But the feelings from those around her, their reactions to the information as it came out… that would be far more valuable to her.

 

[Persephone Dashiell]

SHELL PILE, SHELL PILE

Persephone had tucked the sunglasses into the neckline of her black dress. Legs crossed in front of her, a style of boots completed her outfit. Stylish in her eyes for a court day, but one couldn't be caught in the Core looking like a haggard ragamuffin. She was seated next to Mauve du Vain , spending the later half of her summer as her intern at the Art Institute of Nar Shadda. So far it had been a lot of dusting and even more cataloging art into various systems.

When possible she picked Miss du Vain's brain for business practices of being an art dealer and weaving in and out of society. All in all, despite wanting to put a bounty on the woman at one time, Persephone found herself learning quite a bit.

Persephone had no idea why her summer mentor wanted to be at the trial of Lysander von Ascania .She personally hated the idiot and hoped he would get tossed into a hard labor camp. A girl could dream after all.

Taking notes - why she had no idea - Persephone wrote a question to Miss du Vain on her pad and tilted it in her direction.

Why are we here again?