Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Tin Cans and Glowsticks (Emberli)

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
Mandalore

One woman alone, unarmored, carrying only a lightsabre at her belt -- hardly an imposing image. But hardly a supplication.

The majority of Mandalore was agrarian, strewn with family farms and local forges. The world had its cities, and of course the beskar mines, and the resources to back tens of thousands of supercommandos, but none of that was visible here. The meeting place had been arranged by intermediaries: A farmhouse without a farm, merely the sort of place where clandestine meetings could be conducted.

Ashin found the door unlocked. Opening it, she knocked on the frame as she entered.

"Good evening, Mandalore."
 
Emberli sat at a small, circular wooden table in the kitchen. The farmhouse was an old bit of disused property he'd owned many, many moons ago. Wearing a dirty white T and a faded black pair of pants, his broad shouldered frame lost much of it's imposing menace without it's armor.

And yet, even without his armor, he was still built like a tank; the armor didn't add any size to him, that was for sure.

He'd shown up here, not in armor, as an expression of some good will. That didn't mean he was without protection, though.

"Good evening, Sith.", his quiet whisper of a voice intones back. It was curious, his voice. Rarely was a leader the quietest person in the room, and yet it carried effortlessly to all corners of the house despite being weighted with authority. A calloused hand motioned to a chair across from him.
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
Ashin surveyed his choice of clothing with an approving nod. She had a similar dress ethic, though she'd played it a little safer -- a black button-up, and slacks loose enough to move. She took the proffered chair and rested her elbows on the rough table, scratching her ear as she sized him up. So this was the man who had led the battle on Junction while seducing a Sith Mistress, or perhaps it had been vice versa -- Sirella might be an old friend, but she was liberal with the truth.

"I want to hire you, Mandalore. You, personally, and ten thousand supercommandos."
 
The man simply nodded as though this was a casual discussion of the weather and took a faint sip of the water contained in the glass his hand gripped firmly. Lips set into a thin line, paired brown eyes drifted upwards towards the woman seated across from him.

"What makes you think I'd so something like that."

It wasn't a question. It was a statement. A statement that he thought she was a nutjob, or, perhaps, stupid. With his reputation for pragmatism, however, that likely wasn't the case.

Call it amused curiosity.
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
"Because I know your price. I've done my research, and I'm prepared to guess what you want most of all. You want security. You want your territory to be a fortress -- you want Concord Dawn back, too. That much is obvious.

"You know a little about me, I'm sure. My name is Ashin Varanin. I have been called Dark Lord of the Sith before, and I will be again. Currently I rule almost half of the Tion Cluster from my home on Lianna, and my function within the Sith Empire is to enforce the Emperor's law and authority.

"I intend to face Emperor Moridin personally, and make myself Empress. I will end this utterly pointless war and give you your peace, your security. I have the connections and, more importantly, I have both the power and the experience. I have ruled before, deep in the Unknown Regions, and my rule was free of this Emperor's flaws.

"All I need is your cooperation. I've named your price. Is it sufficient?"
 
"Well, Ashin. You know as well as I that swinging that many men, quietly, is impossible. The PR I'd have to do would be tremendous..." His lips part as he gives a slow exhale and sits back, one arm resting across the back of the chair, a booted foot tapping a cadence upon the old wooden floor.

Eyes drifting momentarily, he closes them and nods once, stiffly. "I get my peace. My worlds... and you'll leave me alone...?" The man was tired, weary. Despite his boyish looks, he was clearly experienced. From the throat slitting scar across his throat to the saber burn diagonal across his nose, he'd clearly seen his fair share of contests.

"My people are tired. Wounded. My best isn't enough for them, because their best is inadequate. The virus made us soft; inexperienced. I don't like it. But you'll have your support."

There's a pause as he takes another gulp of the liquid. "I can't believe I'm doing this."
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
"Believe it. You know as well as I do that Moridin's next move would have used Concord Dawn as a staging point to strike at this world. You've seen the waste, the pointlessness of all of this. The opposite of war isn't peace, Mandalore -- it's creation. You and I have very similar visions for our respective territories, I suspect."

She sat back in the chair. "You're right, of course -- mobilization is an issue. Thankfully, the war itself has already taken care of some of that, in terms of gathering your people from all corners of the galaxy. But you would know your capabilities better than I. I won't ask for details at this stage -- thus far I've given you precious little reason to trust me. All I need to know is this. If I make my move in two weeks, how many people can you deploy within the Sith heartland?"
 
A hand reached up, a faint scritch-scritch noise filling the room as he began to scratch idly at the stubble on his face. "I'm a Mandalorian. I need war. But it needs to be someone else's war; not my own." Again, he gave a thoughtful exhale of breath.

"Two weeks? Enough. I can deploy enough. I won't risk stripping my defenses; but you'll have your support." He couldn't promise much to Ashin, just as he couldn't promise much to the Republic in return for their assistance. But he'd give what he could without compromising other important considerations.

Drawing a deep breath in through his nostrils, he downs the last of his water and sets the glass aside. Standing, he walks past her and towards a beaten glass window, dirty with grime and dust from ages upon ages of being an abandoned home. "You know as well as I how desperate my situation is. But I pray this isn't a trap; not for my sake. But for yours."
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
She rose, then, and crossed the room to stand beside him. The dirty window looked out on the rolling landscape of Mandalore, a somewhat depressing vista. But free. For now. It spoke to her own desires for freedom from limitation, freedom from interference. Moridin would have such desires, but that was the truth of being Sith: Prioritizing one's own goals above those of others.

"An assurance that needed to be made, I'm sure. I'll make no boasts nor give my own assurances. Trust me exactly as much as you see fit." A grim smirk stole over her mouth, visible in her reflection on the dirty glass. "Mandalore, I've seen a lot of campaigns in my twenty-eight years, maybe as many as you. Maybe. I'm tired of marching to someone else's tune. If there's one thing you can trust, after all, it's the ambition of a Sith. Your agents will have told you what I did on Bastion, how many of your men I fought at once, so you know I'm too strong to settle for satiating my ambition with some harebrained plan to betray you. No, Mandalore, I am the genuine article."
 
Emberli shifted his attention to look... down, at the Sith. He often forgot how tall he actually was; and how short every woman he met was, although granted she was taller than most. "Mmm, agents.", he snorts. Mandalorians didn't really have intelligence agents; they got their news elsewhere.
"Anyone willing to come here is the real deal. You'd be dumb to come otherwise." He simply shrugs those massive shoulders and those haunted brown eyes lock with hers as a paw of a hand rests upon her shoulder.

"Yes, I can trust ambition alright. I can also trust you all to implode sooner or later. It's a matter of how long until the implosion occurs." He frowns faintly, squeezing the woman's shoulder in a vice grip - although that seemed more of a normal thing for him. "But while you're tired of marching to someone else's tune, I'm just tired. It's been a long four centuries."
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
Ashin blinked, then blinked again. That part of things was most certainly not public knowledge in the circles she frequented. Nor was his hand on her shoulder unwelcome. It had been a good while since Tam Ranox -- several years, in fact -- but Sirella had told her about Junction at some length.

She realized then that she would quite willingly sleep with the Mandalore, and she knew he could see it in her eyes, but the idea of sleeping with someone who had been seduced by Sirella Valkner was simply off-putting. She could, after all, catch Dutch Elm.

"I'm not like them," she said quietly, evenly. "I'm not some ball of fury waiting to implode. I'm cold, Mandalore. My rage is cold, my judgment calls are cold...I'm nothing if not deliberate. Otherwise I'd not have let you touch me in the first place."

She stepped back and let his hand fall.

"And one of these days, I may even return the favor."
 
The man's eyes searched hers for a moment, and then a weary smile graced his lips as he turned his attention back out the window, hand falling. Clasping them together in the small of his back, he takes a few moments to think about things. "In that we can agree."

Shaking his head, his eyes glaze partially. "I have, in the past, destroyed the populations of entire worlds - literally. Everything in my life is calculated, planned, thought out. All ramifications of actions are planned, totaled and considered." Brown eyes drifted towards an indistinct point upon the horizon as he tilted his head towards the side.

"You too know then that the colder you are, the hotter the fires burn when they come." Anger, Lust, Joy: all things he was referencing. "I often said there was a reason things started to burn again the colder they got."

He snorts, a palm running over a cheek in thought. "I may take you up on that at some point, Ashin. I've a habit with Sith, as I'm sure you know. It's always been that way."

His attention returns to her. "I think it's because I, like Sith, live off emotion. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm a creature ruled by basic instincts, and it's only my intellect that keeps me in check."
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
"You're right -- I've been known to combust. Even at my worst, though, I have control. Even at my most...raw, intellect defines me. For example, I would happily forget myself with you, but intellect tells me that you recently slept with a friend of mine. Well, friend, enemy, former Master -- Sirella Valkner is someone I could never share a man with, no matter how briefly. I won't lie, Mandalore."

She turned away from him, hunched over, and rested her hands on the table, staring at the scored wood as if at a battle map. "When she told me what she did and why she did it, I was less than impressed. She successfully delayed you, allowing Moridin to fight the Grandmaster alone. In terms of professionalism, I'd imagine you've done better. But as you say...sometimes we just get tired."
 
Emberli snorted, although there was a chuckle mixed in there. "Your friend is... amusing. She was a hair away from a flamethrower to the face; but she got other passions ignited on accident. Not my proudest moment, but things will happen as they will."

He shrugs. "Everyone makes mistakes. But I'm sure now she thinks Ill be an easy mark of some variety - that I'll have a weak spot for her." A hint of a twinkle appeared in his eye. "It hardly works like that."

A grin appeared on his face. "The real question is though; did she really delay me?" The Grandmaster had a score to settle with the Emperor, so who was Em to deny him?
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
"...or did you occupy her. Yes, that has occurred to me. And yes, in confidence, she believes you're under her spell. I assume you were treated for spores after you returned from Junction? One of her favorite tricks is to transfer spores or seeds with a kiss, so that later, if necessary, she can kill you from the inside out. I've mastered the trick of finding them and nullifying them, if you have less than complete faith in your medicos."
 
"I was near deathly ill. They checked me for everything - if you wish to do a more expert check, however, be my guest. I'm fully aware of her game though; she's not as good as she'd like to think." There was a bit of a smirk.

"She may be just a bit rusty." He holds a thumb and forefinger a scant millimeter apart for emphasis.

"No, the game she is playing can be easily played by two."
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
Ashin caught herself smiling. "I can appreciate that," she said. "I've been playing her, and being played, for a long, long time. Here, let me just make sure they caught everything..."

She took a seat again, eyes half-closed. Emberli might feel a chill in his lungs, windpipe, and other systems, as her Force Drain techniques sought out leftover spores, seeds and bits of plant matter. As Sirella's former student and consistent rival, Ashin knew alchemical plants inside and out. She had done this particular decontamination many, many times.

At last she relaxed and leaned back in the chair. "Your people are good. I only found a handful of spores, and of course they're no longer an issue."
 
"It must be a tiresome game.", the man rumbles as he leans back against the wall, arms folding over his chest as he crosses his legs at the ankles. "She won't be getting much from me, if I can help her. I'm not sure how much you know about her, but the seduction game she plays is horrendously weak."

He shrugs, "We'll see how it goes though. Maybe that's part of her plan." He smiles, briefly. "Thank you for that, however. I'd rather not start puking up blood again. A walk? The house is a bit stuffy."
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
"Certainly."

The rolling fields had their own trails, but Ashin set out through the patchy trees, in what seemed to be an interesting direction.

"I know her well. I know who and what she has seduced. Honestly, I'm surprised I'm not treating you for Dutch Elm." She grimaced. "She's been trying to seduce me for years. Kisses me every time she sees me. I'm fairly certain I'm her only friend. It's strange, what the Sith ideals can do to a brain. If I hadn't had years of Jedi discipline, I wouldn't be able to control myself.

"To defeat Moridin, I hope and I pray that I won't have to lose control. I would rather win on my own terms."
 
"I'm surprised too." He admits, long strides allowing him to easily keep up with her as she lead them through a spotty series of woods, which began to gradually thicken the deeper they got. "Should be a creek (read: crick) somewhere near here.", he muses faintly, evidentally enjoying nature.

He pauses, looking through a break in the canopy and towards the sky. "Wish I could say I was surprised she doesn't have many friends, but I can easily see why." He snorts, starting to walk once more as the babble of shallow running water begins reaching their ears.

"I doubt you'll lose control. Even when I lose control, it's a controlled loss. Just aim for that and you'll be golden."
 

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