Faction To the Victor || Mandalorian Empire

[Ivalyn Yvarro]

Ivalyn did not interrupt, doing so would have been discourteous. More importantly, it would have been inefficient. Instead, the Grand Vizier observed.

The healer's arrival disrupted the careful stillness of the room like a stone dropped into calm water. The started gasp in the corridor had carried through the half-open door the owman appeared, dusty robes, tired eyes and the unmistakable urgency of someone who had been working far longer than her body preferred.

Ivalyn shifted her weight slightly but otherwise remained where she was, her hands loosely folded before her. Her guards remained where they were, one beside her the other three now outside. The Grand Vizier observed the interaction between Ms. Bastiel and the healer with quiet atention.

Ms. Bastiel's composure remained largely intact, though the healer's interrogation clearly tested the limits of her patience. Interesting, Bastiel carried authority well, but she tolerated very little nonsense when pressed.

The healer, on the other hand, seemed entirely immune to intimidation. That alone earned a faint flicker of approval.

When the brace was finally applied and the tension in the room began to settle. Ivalyn slipped her gloves free from her hands one finger at a time. The soft leather folded neatly into her palm.

A small gesture.

However, the room was warm, and the air carried the sterile sharpness of bacta and antiseptic beneath the lingering scent of propellant drifting in from the outside.

She flexed her fingers once, slowly. The knuckles eased as she did so.

Warzones always carried the same peculiar atmosphere. Smoke. Blood. Determination. A strange mixture of chaos and discipline that reminded her faintly of certain legislative chambers back home. It also brought forward a rather unsavory memory, the days of youth as a rather young idealist, a journalist who wanted to fight the system... Then her father had landed with a contingent of men and enough firepower to level a planet.

She dismissed the memory as her gaze drifted briefly toward the fractured iwndow where distant activity continued across the newly conquered world.

Yaga Minor.

A system likely taken in hours, an impressive feat.

Yet, victory was the easy part.

Stability was where most empires discovered their limits.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a quiet approach at the door way. Her assistant had returned, once again escorted in under guard. The young woman paused respectfully a few steps away before speaking.

"Pashá."

Ivalyn inclined her head slightly.

The assistant leaned closer, voice lowered so the conversation would not intrude upon the healer's ongoing lecture. "Pashá, mínyma apó to Diváni. Prokatarktikés anaforés apó Sundiáta kai ta agro̱tiká symvoúlia. Zitoún epivevaíosi gia tis provlépseis tis syngkomidís payángo.." There was a brief pause, Ivalyn waited as the assistant went on. "Écho episís anaforés apó Majang kai Mangwon stin Seoúl, schediká me néες praktikés ktinotrofiás, pou symválnoun se áνοδο ton timón tou voíou kai stis politikés rythmíseis. Ena zítima échthike apó to topikó epípedo pros to Diváni."

"Enimé̱ro̱sé tous óti to zítima tha exetastí ótan epistrépso." She murmured in return to her assistant, "Kai thymíse sto symvoúlio óti oi agro̱tikés prosarmogés den eínai epeígouses ypothéseis."

The assistant gave a bow of respect with her head and said, "Vevaí̱os, Pashá. Tha metaferthí akrivós." The assistant withdrew without further comment, escorted quietly back toward the corridor. Accompanying guards went back with the assistant, while the Grand Vizier and her assigned contigent waited.

Ivalyn returned her attention to the room just as the healer finished fastening the brace. The young woman departed with a final glance in her direction. Curious. Understandable, Ivalyn had grown accustomed to that particular look over the years.

When Adelle finally rose to her feet and announced that the meeting room was prepared, the Grand Vizier inclined her head in acknowledgment. "Excellent." She stepped forward at an unhurried pace. Her gaze flicked briefly toward the slight limp. Ivalyn said nothing and simply fell into step behind the envoy.

Adelle Bastiel | [Audience Tag: Mia Monroe | Aselia Verd ]​

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Occupied Barracks District, Vjunhollow
Tags: Ivalyn Yvarro

The room was, all things considered, nice by Mandalorian standards. It sat in a different building, first floor—thank Whills, stairs would’ve been hard—but on an exterior wall facing away from the square the warhost had commandeered. With the end of twilight approaching and night falling, its large transparisteel window offered a less destructive scene. The room itself had, miraculously, survived untouched. It had clearly been a conference room, a sleek black table dominating the space with similarly styled chairs of some kind of animal leather around it. Someone had the forethought to put glowlanterns in the room, enough to see clearly. Adelle saw streaks on the black mirrored surface, and corners of the gunmetal gray floor still had dirt in them. Someone else thought ahead to clean, at least marginally.

Two places had been set at one end of the table, durasteel cups and plates that had to have been sourced from a local messhall set on the surface with all the formality of a family dinner. Which, to be fair, passed for formality with most Mandalorians. They even found clean utensils.

Whether the Grand Vizier thought it passed muster was a different story altogether.

Adelle stepped inside the room and off to the side, allowing the Grand Vizier to step inside and pick where she sat. The other chair slid out easily and she eased herself into it. The further she got from the chaotic energy of the day, the more the pain flared through the painkillers she’d already taken. A young soldier, helm off and hair dampened with sweat from the day, rushed through the door shortly after they had sat. His arms held four long-necked bottles, a couple covered in dust and grit. He couldn’t have been older than eighteen.

“N’eparavu takisit, al’verde,” he said, setting the bottles down on the table. “Ibic cuyir an mhi mar’eyir.”

It took Adelle a moment to sort out the languages in her own head. “Vor entye, verd’ika. Bal kai’tome?

“Bat rie mava.” He brushed off the grit from a bottle before setting it down with the others. Then he was off again, striding out of the room like he was delivering mission critical datacards to the frontlines. Clearly someone who was coherent and uninjured enough to play fetch. Adelle pushed herself to standing and inspected one of the bottles.

“You said you expected more champagne with a Mandalorian celebration, Grand Vizier,” she said as she began to peel off the seal around the top. “Can I interest you in a Diarchy vintage champagne?”

Someone in Vjunhollow had been saving this for a special occasion. At Yvarro’s request, she poured drinks for them both, the gold liquid fizzing in the metal cups like Corusca gems set in a pewter ring. Two more Mandalorian privates entered, managing a hovercart with bowls and plates of food from around the warhost’s camp. Some of the plates looked suspiciously like well-cleaned and polished chestplates. Everything did, however, come with a serving utensil, even if most of them were ladles, and for that she was thankful.

Adelle sat down carefully, the burn pain in her leg flaring up, and raised her cup in a toast.

“To victory,” she said, “and the future. Oya Manda.”

Later, she was writing an apology and an invitation for drinks to Aselia.

 

[Aselia Verd]

The corridor outside the officer’s quarters was quieter than the room she had left behind, though the air still carried the same lingering scent of scorched metal and propellant that hung over most of Vjunhollow. Aselia stepped out into it without hurry, the door sliding shut behind her with a soft mechanical hiss. Only once the sound faded did she draw a slow breath through her nose.

The helmet helped.

It gave her something solid to retreat behind, a familiar weight that pressed gently against her temples and narrowed the world to the calm, steady readouts of her visor. The faint red glow of her HUD flickered to life as it sealed, muting the distant noise of the camp and giving her a moment to let the tension bleed out of her shoulders.

She didn’t look back toward the door.

Instead, she rolled her gauntlets once at the wrist, checking their seals out of habit more than necessity, and started down the corridor toward the wider courtyard where the temporary command camp had begun to take shape.

The place still looked like a battlefield, wearing the first thin mask of order. Mandalorians moved through the compound with the efficient restlessness that followed victory, clearing debris, hauling equipment, establishing perimeter relays and communications uplinks, while others directed the steady trickle of civilians and prisoners being processed further down the street.

Aselia stepped into it without ceremony.

A pair of younger warriors were wrestling with a damaged sensor relay near the edge of the courtyard. She paused long enough to crouch beside them, gloved fingers lifting the cracked casing to expose the fried circuitry beneath.

“Wrong contact,” she said after a moment, voice even through the modulator. “You’re feeding it into the auxiliary port.”

One of them shifted sheepishly while she reached past his shoulder and reseated the cable properly. The relay flickered back to life with a weak blue pulse.

“There,” she added, straightening again. “Try not to blow it up a second time.”

She moved on before they could respond.

Further across the courtyard, a supply crate had been split open during transport, its contents scattered across the stone like a spilled armory. Aselia knelt briefly to gather the loose power cells and stack them back into the container, sliding the lid into place before nudging the crate closer to the staging line, where the rest of the gear was being sorted.

None of it required her rank.

None of it required orders.

It was simply work, the quiet kind that kept a camp running while others argued politics and trade agreements inside half-ruined officer quarters.

Eventually, she drifted toward the edge of the compound where the broken wall overlooked the darkening valley beyond Vjunhollow. A communications tower had been set up there, its antenna rotating slowly as it searched the sky for friendly transponders. Aselia leaned one shoulder lightly against the stone beside it, arms folding across her chest as she watched the lights of distant ships moving through the atmosphere.

For a while, she simply stood there, the wind tugging faintly at the loose strands of hair escaping the back of her helmet seal, blue cap fluttering in the wind behind her.

TAG: Adelle Bastiel
​

 

[Kurayami Bloodborn]

Two more bouts of 'Never have I ever' rang out in the halls. Beskar and winning a war. Well thanks Mia Monroe now he had to try and sort through Force knows how many years of memories. He was wearing beskar right now, and winning a war... hmmm that would take a bit more thought. It was fun to quantify exactly what Mia meant in that sense. Singlehandedly he couldn't be sure that he had or hadn't by this point, there were times everything seemed to just blur together...especially anything before 828. Fuck it. He raised his flask in a salute to both and took a drink.

"Mia you know well, the Manda has a twisted sense of humor. There is no respite from their childish antics. Not this evening. Even as their uncle, don' place blame on my shoulders, Mia. I had only sparse interactions with most of them while they were growing up. "

He then turned his gaze to Dreidi Xeraic as he addressed her. "My nephew may be relatively gifted on the battlefield, but he is not so keen in all areas it seems. I would have been more surprised had he taken a drink after his challenge ma'am."

Dice total 15

Maya | Itzhal Volkihar | Aether Verd | Xerxes Verd

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Occupied Barracks District, Vjunhollow
Tags: Aselia Verd

The conversation and impromptu victory dinner had gone well, all things considered. Adelle still had no idea who had invited Yvarro and the options for drinks had left much to be desired, but obligations had been fulfilled and the requisite wining and dining done. With the Grand Vizier safely stowed away on her own ship, Adelle walked through the command camp, distinctly out of place with her plainclothes among the armored warriors.

Everything had been set up in short order, in spite of the ongoing celebrations, with clean military precision. Absently, Adelle wondered if that was Aselia’s doing. The woman breathed efficiency and precision, even while she was blowing the battlefield to the hells and back. Adelle limped along and headed for the nearest med-station, pain lancing through every step and soreness settling in her muscles now that the painkillers had worn off. She stopped when she saw armor in a familiar shade of red and black at the edge of the command center, away from people.

Right, she’d meant to send a message tonight.

Adelle walked slowly over to the broken wall Aselia leaned against and looked out over its edge at the pitch black valley below. Night had fully fallen and lights from the communications tower, cookfires, and residual fires of battle gleamed like beacons. She said nothing for a while, partly because she was trying to find the words to say and partly because the quiet felt comfortable.

“Sorry about earlier,” Adelle said finally, figuring an apology first would be best. “If I had known— If someone had said something sooner— Who the hells invited her here? The timing of it. Even taking hypergates into consideration, she’d have had to have been invited before the Diarchy began retreating.”

She blew out a breath, pain and frustration in equal measure. Tonight had been incredibly unfair.

“We should’ve been celebrating tonight.” Adelle gave a small chuckle. “We both survived our questionable life decisions.”

 

[Jonah]

For a time Jonah said nothing at all.

The courtyard breathed around them with the steady rhythm of celebration, warriors laughing beside the fires while the scent of spice and roasted meat drifted through the evening air. Yet within that small pocket of space between two battered crates, the moment felt quieter, more deliberate. It had been a long time since Jonah had spoken openly about such things. In truth, there were very few people he could have said them to without consequence. Duty had a way of turning every word into a report, every doubt into a liability.

Here, sitting beside a smuggler who had already stolen his dinner once tonight, the pressure loosened. It felt strange. It also felt good.

Jonah listened carefully as she spoke of her mother, of the quiet damage that came from deciding the fate of others day after day. He nodded slowly while tearing a small piece from the bread roll and dipping it into the stew, chewing thoughtfully as her words settled.

When she finished, he offered a faint smile that carried more appreciation than humor.

“You make it sound so easy.” He studied the surface of the stew for a moment before continuing. “You’re right though.” he admitted. “I’ll give it some serious thought.”

Then his eyes flicked up to meet hers again, and the glint of mischief returned.

“But fair warning..." he added calmly, lifting his spoon in mild accusation, “If the Mand’alor asks who put the idea in my head, I’m telling him it was the pretty smuggler who ate my drumstick.”

The remark drew a quiet chuckle from him as she answered his question about food. He nodded along as she listed the kinds of meals she preferred, hearty things that took time to prepare. His gaze dropped briefly to the bowl she was already working through with visible enthusiasm. Her preference definitely tracked, given how much she seemed to be enjoying her current meal.

Her mention of bantha burgers, however, earned a sharper grin.

“I’d be happy to get you one right now.” he replied dryly. “If that’s all it takes for you to be mine.”

He let the line hang there just long enough to betray the playful tone beneath it before taking another bite of stew. When she turned the question back on him, Jonah leaned back slightly on the crate and considered it for a moment. “Me?” he said.

His spoon traced a small circle through the bowl as he thought, then he nodded once.

“I prefer things that were once alive..” he said evenly. “Now dead, smothered, covered, and fried to a golden brown.”

He tore off another piece of bread and dipped it into the broth before continuing.

“Preferably with some sort of bread or biscuit nearby.”

Jonah took the bite and gave a satisfied nod.

“Can’t go wrong.”

Tag: Tessa Thayne

 

[Tessa Thayne]

That little glint of mischief in his eyes made her grin before the words had even left his mouth. She chuckled. “Well, I’m sure the Mand’alor will understand how you fell for her wit and charm.” She held his gaze, popping another morsel of bread in her mouth.

A wave of heat rushed through her that had nothing to do with the spice in the stew and everything to do with the way he had said ‘mine’. She held his gaze, her smile moving from mischievous to something ardent “Careful, Jonah,” she said softly “you might wind up with something you can’t handle.”

She lowered her gaze, grinning down at her stew as she refilled her spoon. The conversation shifted back to food, though that heat never quite left her chest, settling into a warmth resting just beneath the surface.

His fondness for fried food almost made her feel bad for stealing the drumstick, but it wasn’t quite enough for her to really feel guilt.

“Dead and deep fried.” she echoed, with a nod. “I get it. Simple and you can get something deep fried pretty much anywhere if you’re not fussy.”

She paused tilting her head in thought. “When you’re not consumed by being Warmaster, do you ever find time to hunt?”


Jonah

 

[Jonah]

A low chuckle escaped him.

Jonah's gaze remained fixated on the smuggler's, watching as she popped a piece of bread into her mouth. Drinking every syllable which fell from her lips. "Oh, I'm sure..." he began, circling his spoon within the stew aimlessly, "He'd say I'm just like our father. Infinite cosmic power. Useless before a pretty woman."

He was enjoying the banter...the back and forth...when the smuggler's tone changed. Her smile shifted into something different; yet it was still genuine. And her tone? It was softer now. Intrigued, Jonah's eyebrow lofted ever so slightly as he listened. And her words? Well...they didn't do a damn thing to dissuade the man. If anything, they encouraged him, as evidenced by the sly smirk which returned to his face. "If I can't handle you?" came his eventual answer, "Don't send for help. Don't pry me from any misery. I'm right where I want to be."

Of course, their chat eventually moved to focus upon the meal between them. When Tessa commented, Jonah snapped his fingers in affirmation. "You get me." he said simply, before tossing a chunk of bread into his mouth. He chewed it over whilst she tilted her head. The question was...different.

"We talking Bounties or for Sport?"

Tag: Tessa Thayne

 

[Aselia Verd]

Aselia didn’t move when the uneven footsteps approached. The helmet hid most of her expression, but the slight tilt of her head was enough to show she had heard Adelle long before she reached the wall. She let the apology hang for a moment before answering.

“Don’t apologize,” she said at last, her voice steady through the helmet’s modulator. “You didn’t summon her out of hyperspace.”

The words carried a dry edge that softened them just enough, though the irritation from earlier hadn’t entirely faded. At the question of who might have invited Ivalyn, Aselia let out a quiet breath and looked back out over the valley. “If she arrived that fast, the invitation went out before we even finished breaking their fleet,” she said. “Which means someone was planning diplomacy before the smoke cleared.” That thought clearly didn’t sit well with her.

She shifted slightly against the wall, her attention flicking down briefly to the way Adelle was standing before returning to the dark valley beyond the camp. Even without seeing her face clearly through the low light, the stiffness in her posture and the careful way she carried her weight were impossible to miss.

“You should be in the med station,” Aselia said, not unkindly. “Those painkillers wore off hours ago.”

There was no scolding in it, only the straightforward practicality of someone who had spent enough time around injured soldiers to recognize the signs. Adelle’s comment about what the night should have been drew a low breath from her. She stayed quiet for a moment, watching the scattered lights of the camp and the lingering fires across the valley floor.

“Yeah,” she said eventually. “We take a system in a few hours, crack the Diarchy hard enough they run, and instead of celebrating we end up hosting a trade negotiation in a half-burned command post.”

The irritation was faint, but it was there.

“That wasn’t exactly how I pictured the evening going.”

She turned her head slightly toward Adelle again before adding more quietly, “Though you’re not wrong. we did both survive despite our enemies best efforts which. Well were lacking anyways.”

TAG: Adelle Bastiel
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