Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Private Throne of Perfume and Blood




Prologue: The Scent of Treason

The scent of pressed silk and war hung heavy in the parlor of House Veruna.

The shutters of the high windows were drawn against the midmorning sun, casting Remus Veruna's office in a perpetual half-gloom that smelled of old wine and veiled threats. Aurelian stood just inside the arched threshold, half lit like a character in an unfinished painting, hands behind his back, posture textbook-perfect.

Across from him, in a high-backed chair carved from wood and upholstered in hide, Remus Veruna sat with the ease of someone who thought the galaxy owed him interest. And beside him, in shadow, still and silent, was the Noghri. It didn't breathe. Or maybe it did, but too quietly to register. Its claws tapped faintly against the polished stone floor, a metronome counting down the minutes of someone else's life.

"You summoned me," Aurelian said dryly, breaking the stillness. "I assumed it wasn't to discuss the grape yields."

Remus didn't look up. He was reading from a datapad, or pretending to. "You waste my time, boy. Do you think your little parlor tricks in the Assembly make you useful to me?"

Aurelian gave a small, theatrical bow. "I've been known to dazzle. It's a curse."

Remus finally looked up. "You're a moron in a soldier's boots. You play diplomat because you lack the spine to be a king."

The words landed with the quiet sting Aurelian had grown used to. They didn't hurt anymore. Not really. Like needle pricks from a physician who never healed anything.

"Ah," Aurelian said, strolling closer, "and this is your prescription, then?" He nodded toward the Noghri, who still hadn't blinked. "What is this, diplomatic outreach? Or is the plan to improve Naboo's standing in the High Republic by murdering your political competition in their sleep?"

"She's not competition,"
Remus growled. "She's an Abrantes."

"That wasn't always disqualifying."

"It is now." Remus
rose, fingers clenched around the datapad. "She's young, idealistic, soft. The High Republic will devour her and sh*t out her bones. And I will not have that weakness representing us."

"You'd rather send your pet blade-beast after her than beat her in the Assembly?"
Aurelian scoffed. "How traditional. Remind me, do we poison the wine at her coronation feast too, or has that gone out of fashion?"

"You think this is a game?"
Remus slammed the datapad on the desk. "You think you're safe because you charm the peasants and preen before senators. You are a disappointment carved in velvet. If I'd known how you'd turn out, I would've invested in a son with less eyeliner and more ambition."

Aurelian blinked, slow and unbothered. "If you wanted a blunt instrument, Father, you should've forged one. You don't ask a scalpel to bludgeon."

The Noghri shifted, just barely, and both men paused.

It was a reminder. A punctuation.

"I won't be party to this," Aurelian said at last, quietly. "Assassination is the last refuge of men who cannot win the room. Sibylla Abrantes might be young, but she isn't blind. She's made moves. Smart ones. She has a coalition, she has presence, and Shiraya help me, I think she might actually care."

"You admire her,"
Remus sneered.

"I think she's playing the same game we are," Aurelian replied. "And unlike you, she doesn't seem to need a monster in the shadows to win."

The air between them stilled again. Remus said nothing. The Noghri tilted its head, slow and strange, and Aurelian wondered, not for the first time, what scent it was following. Bloodline, perhaps. The rot in his own.

"You will do as you're told," Remus said at last. "Or you will be discarded like all the other relics in this house."

Aurelian looked at the Noghri, then at his father.

And smiled.

Then turned and walked away, leaving the predator and the patriarch alone in their darkness.

If Sibylla Ynez Abrantes was going to die, it would not be by his hand.

Not yet.

---

Act I - The Smell of Lightning and Filth

The prison beneath Parrlay was not designed for the delicate sensibilities of nobility. Which, naturally, is why Aurelian enjoyed visiting.

It reeked of ozone, recycled air, and desperation, the kind that clung to the walls like old paint. The durasteel corridors buzzed with flickering lightpanels, and every footstep echoed like a challenge. It was the kind of place where ambition got shanked for looking someone in the eye. And yet, here he was, in tailored black, coat swishing behind him like some melodramatic specter of privilege.

His boots clicked slowly down the corridor. Guards watched from their posts, very politely pretending not to be uncomfortable. They always did when a Veruna descended the stairs. Legacy had a certain gravity to it. Especially when it wore perfume.

Aurelian stopped. Turned. Surveyed the cellblock like a connoisseur at an art gallery of wasted potential.

"No," he said to himself, pausing in front of one cage that held a bruised Weequay. "Too punchy. Definitely smells like he eats raw meat."

Another cell. "Nope. Eyes too twitchy. Don't need a sabacc cheat who can't bluff."

He stopped again.

And there, leaning against the far wall of his cell like the whole world bored him senseless, was a Kiffar.

Aurelian crouched, elbows on knees, head cocked like a hawk sizing up its next regret.

"Afternoon," he said, voice smooth as varnished vice. "I don't suppose you're the murdering, smuggling, no-regrets type with just enough self-control not to stab the guy paying you?"

Aurelian smiled, the one people usually compared to vibroblades or loaded dice.

"Would you like to earn your freedom?" he asked, casually. "And a sum of credits substantial enough to put a permanent dent in your list of poor life choices?"

He leaned in closer, fingers steepled, tone dropping to something conspiratorial.

"All I require is that you be dangerous, discreet, and slightly less stupid than you look. Can you manage that?"
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Kyric Kyric | Sibylla Abrantes Sibylla Abrantes

 
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Twelve hours prior to Aurelian Veruna's arrival to Parrlay Prison...

Six strangers stalked the streets of Parrlay's Low Market. They carried themselves with the confidence found in local peasants who knew nothing more than the confines of their insulated cities, neither brave or wealthy enough to see the greater galaxy. But these men were no peasants, nor did they care for the likes of Parrlay. Their personas were carefully crafted for their infiltration. Silk selected exclusively from local markets masked non-descript garments of black and gray. Shoulder holsters housed elicit blaster pistols and vibro-knives sat poised and ready within indiscernible boot-sheaths.

There was blood in the water—Kyric Karis' blood—and these sharks had no intention of letting their mark escape.

They waited patiently for Kyric to stumble out of the Port of Glass and into the city proper.

Though the young Jedi bore scars of his time in an imperial prison, Kyric's presence had not diminished. He moved with the grace of a dancer and spoke with the authority of a seasoned general. If not for the long blade sheathed at his side, or the ragged attire carefully stitched together via bandages and duct-tape, he may have slipped away from his assailants and escaped elsewhere into the city. But there was no mistaking one of Darth Solipsis' most wanted.

Kyric felt them coming like an encroaching storm. Hatred oozed off the six, intermingling with a killer's intent that could put an Acolyte to shame. They herded the lone Jedi and his tiny ward with the ferocity of wolves on the hunt. No matter where the Jedi turned, he felt them adjust face and follow suit.

"This ain't good," Kyric mumbled to the echani child walking alongside him.

The boy, Xenith, looked up at Kyric and tilted his head to the side. Xenith's brilliant golden gaze found Kyric's single blue eye and he inquired not with words, but feelings, as to what the Jedi meant.

"We're bein' followed. Six men. Not sure who or why, really," Kyric explained calmly. He scooped up Xenith and turned from an alleyway onto a larger thoroughfare of the market. "I gotta find us somewhere to hunker d-"

A blaster bolt erupted from a rooftop two dozen paces ahead of them. Red plasma thudded uselessly against the streets as Kyric swept Xenith aside, placing himself between the boy and danger.

Screams erupted throughout the market as nearby citizens raced away from the altercation.

"Give it up, Karis!" the shooter called. "Do as we say and we'll let the kid walk."

"Nah, I'm good!" Kyric called back. "Y'all can still walk away, though!"

Two men charged from nearby stalls. One threw himself at Kyric's legs in an effort to trap him, while the other raised their vibro-knife and drove it down toward the Jedi's neck.

Kyric raced for the shooter instead.

The closest attackers pivoted after Kyric and gave chase. The shooter leveled his blaster rifle and fired another shot aimed for the kiffar's chest. Three others dove behind a landspeeder to Kyric's right, drew their blaster pistols, and unleashed a flurry of wild shots that all uselessly flew wide.

Resolute exploded into action as Kyric squeezed the trigger built into the sheath and a sound like thunder echoed throughout the market. The blade sliced the bolt in half, which soared past Kyric and slammed into the two men only a few dogged steps behind him. Kyric caught the blade before it was lost to him, planted a foot firmly on the ground, and actually threw his sword like a poorly-weighted javelin at the rooftop shooter.

The weapon sunk to the hilt in the man's chest and he stumbled off the rooftop. His body slammed wetly into the street to a chorus of broken bones as the three remaining attackers stared slack-jawed.

Kyric thrust his hand forward and a telekinetic wave lifted the speeder up and over them, before it splatted them like bugs beneath its bulk.

"Huh..." Kyric blinked in surprise. He didn't expect the fight to end so suddenly. "That was mighty lucky, if I do say so my-"

"Hands up!"

From a nearby street, a squadron of armed security officers hurried to intercept Kyric. Much like his attackers, Parrlay's police force, whoever they may be, led with the threat of violence in the form of sleek, Naboo weaponry.

"Well fuck me," Kyric groaned and raised the hand not currently wrapped around Xenith. "I surrender."



Prison... Again.

The sound of approaching footsteps pulled Kyric from his quiet meditations. His one good eye settled on the squatting man with the same indifference Kyric reserved for stormtroopers during his last stint in the box.

"Afternoon," the stranger began, his handsome features alight with scarcely contained machinations. "I don't suppose you're the murdering, smuggling, no-regrets type with just enough self-control not to stab the guy paying you?"

Kyric opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again in an effort not to say something stupid. He still didn't know what happened to his ward, Resolute, or the one article of clothing the kiffar couldn't replace; his father's poncho.

"Would you like to earn your freedom?" he asked, almost too casually for a man standing in the middle of prison. "And a sum of credits substantial enough to put a permanent dent in your list of poor life choices?"

When he leaned in closer, Kyric mirrored the gesture. He wanted to appear the part of a trapped, yet hopeful criminal too naïve to realize he was staring down a starving vornskr.

"All I require is that you be dangerous, discreet, and slightly less stupid than you look. Can you manage that?"

"I reckon I can do that," Kyric answered weakly. "You can keep yer credits, though. I want what I arrived with. My sword, poncho, and the boy."


Tags: Aurelian Veruna Aurelian Veruna | Sibylla Abrantes Sibylla Abrantes
 
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