Private The Weight of an Endless Absence

[Iandre Athlea]

The atmosphere on Bastion had shifted into something unrecognizable. It wasn't broken, not yet, but it felt hollow, as if the very soul of the planet had been scooped out, leaving only a shell of its former self. To a casual observer, the world still functioned. Officers continued to bark orders, and the pulse of the world hummed on, but the foundation had vanished. One breath, the Diarchy stood in its full, terrible glory. The next, it was simply gone. There had been no final stand, no grand escalation to mark the end, just a sudden, deafening vacuum that left the survivors wandering through corridors that now felt like a tomb.

Iandre Athlea moved through those corridors with a ghost's grace, her steps measured and her presence intentionally quiet. No one stopped her, and she drew no attention. The air was too thick with unanswered questions for anyone to find a focus. Beneath the surface of every hushed conversation lay a burgeoning confusion that bordered on panic, and deeper still, the scent of opportunity. The scavengers had already begun to circle, probers and watchers testing the fractures for a way in, but Kallous had ensured their intrusion was short-lived.

She found him standing in the center of the settled disturbance, where the remnants of the brief incursion had already been reduced to a heavy, stagnant silence. There was no lingering chaos or excess in the wake of his work, only a clean absence that seemed to suit him perfectly. Iandre stood still for a moment, her gaze sweeping across the space to read the aftermath before finally letting her eyes settle on him.

"Efficient," she said softly. It wasn't praise, nor was it a critique. It was simply a cold statement of fact.

She stepped closer, stopping just within a conversational distance. Without her armor or the visible markers of her rank, she felt stripped of the certainties that had defined her life. The mantle of a Diarch's wife, a woman of status and power, had evaporated overnight, leaving her as nothing more than a widow in a falling empire.

"They didn't expect to find resistance here," she added, her voice calm despite the hollowness in her chest. "The next ones will, but they will come regardless of who stands in the way."

A heavy silence passed between them, one weighted by their shared history and the sudden, precarious nature of their futures. Iandre drew a slow, controlled breath, her decision already made and solidified in the quiet of her mind.

"I will not be here when they arrive," she said, the lack of hesitation in her voice acting as its own kind of armor. "I need passage, Kallous. To Veradune."

She didn't elaborate on the name. She didn't need to. The destination carried its own gravity. But as she spoke, the rigid composure she had maintained began to fray at the edges, revealing a glimpse of the raw, disoriented woman beneath the mask of the Athlea name. For the first time, her steady gaze wavered just a fraction, a subtle shift that betrayed the vulnerability of a friend reaching out in the dark.

"And I would prefer very much not to make that journey alone."

Her eyes searched his, offering him neither a desperate plea nor a command, but an invitation into a shared exile, a quiet hope that in this new, empty galaxy, she wouldn't have to navigate the silence by herself.

Kallous Vulpesen

 

[Kallous]

Kallous hadn't had much time to internalize and process what had happened.

one moment, things were largely normal. He was entrenched in his studies, those around him went about their usual business, and the Diarchs were working on another one of their experiments. He'd understood it was a dangerous one, but he had confidence that the two Diarchs had sufficient power and experience to handle it. So he hadn't worried. But then they just, vanished. They ceased to exist, and their absence was almost tangible. He'd gone to see, and found nothing remaining of either of them.

From there it had been a blur, he instinctually knew there would be vultures and opportunists that would try to take advantage of this once it was discovered, and that they would be too inept to do so successfully and would only cause pandemonium. So he began his work straightaway, from Scholar to Assassin he purged the opportunists that would be looking for the opening once it came. He cut each of them down with cold savagery, leaving them no chance of survival, and making sure that when found they would put fear into the other, lesser men that would try to follow the same route. Both to clear the weeds, and to kill whatever others were readying to take root.

It had been a brutal affair, but it had been swift. And soon enough he was left standing over a gathering of them, when they had finally discovered that their sovereigns had vanished they'd congregated to plot appropriately. He'd ensured that none of them left that council alive.

He sensed someone approaching, someone who had the sombre presence of one who'd just been wounded. He wasn't sure he wanted to see her, she was a grieving widow who had lost the husband she'd only just wed. He didn't want to see what kind of expression she had. But also he knew that she had few others she could turn to at that moment, and it was his duty to see to it that what remained of his mentor's family was safe.

She entered the room, and made her request. The look of wavering dignity in her face nearly broke his heart.

"Of course," He answered her, pushing aside his own complex emotions in that moment. "It's the least I could do to escort you to safety. The Stingray is still housed in the Academy's hangar. I can take you there on that."

Vulpesen Iandre Athlea

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre lingered in the doorway a moment longer than necessary, as if crossing the threshold required a certainty she no longer possessed.

Her gaze drifted over the room, absorbing the aftermath with a quiet, hollow recognition. She understood what had happened here; the air itself felt heavy with an absence that didn't need to be named. When Kallous spoke, her shoulders eased, not because the weight had lessened, but because it had finally shifted into a shape she could carry for a few more steps.

"Thank you," she said, her voice steady but thin, held together more by decades of discipline than by any current strength.

She stepped further into the room, though she maintained a careful distance. It wasn't a matter of formality, but of caution, as if getting too close to anything, or anyone, might cause the fragile glass of her composure to finally shiver and break.

"I cannot remain here," she continued, her words slow and deliberate. "Not like this. Not while the silence is this loud."

Her eyes flicked toward him, never quite anchoring, searching for a place to rest that didn't hurt.

"There is someone I trust. A friend...someone entirely removed from the reach of this shadow." She paused, her fingers curling faintly at her side as she grounded herself against the sudden, sharp chill of the decision. "I need distance, Kallous. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere where I can finally..."

She let the thought trail off, the unspoken conclusion hanging in the air between them.

Her gaze lifted then, meeting his with a sudden, flickering clarity that pierced through the haze of her shock. "I am not running," she added, the statement a simple, raw truth. "I will return. But I cannot face what comes next, I cannot do what the Diarchy requires, until I understand what remains of me now that he is gone."

Rellik's name wasn't spoken, yet his ghost occupied every breath she took.

She inclined her head slightly, a gesture that acknowledged both his offer of help and the grim burden he had already shouldered in their sovereign's absence.

"If you will take me to the hangar," she whispered, her dignity wavering but holding firm for one last walk. "I would be more grateful than I can say."

Kallous Vulpesen