Private Where We Align

[Calyx Sundrift]

T E M P L E -O F -T H E -S I T H
C O R U S C A N T

It had been home once.

It felt like a lifetime ago when he'd last wandered the halls of the great temple. It had been a bastion of Light back then. Back when his laughter still meant something. Now, despite what the Sith said it symbolised, Calyx could see nothing but desolation.

The absence of joy, safety, and purpose.

He'd resisted the transfer to Coruscant. It was only for a few weeks, a temporary station because the capital needed manpower and they were expendable forces. Still, he'd not wanted anything to do with it.

Calyx drew in a slow breath as he climbed the final steps of the eastern stairwell. At the top stretched a broad hall that led toward the aquatic complex and the grand library. No lifts connected to this section of the Temple, which meant it had always been quieter than the rest.

A humourless smile tugged at his lips. Jedi or Sith, it seemed no one preferred stairs to elevators.

Neither did he, if he was being honest. But the solitude was worth the effort. The quieter corridors were a welcome reprieve from the Temple's main hallways. There, clusters of acolytes prowled in search of easy pickings. Lords drifted through the crowds in dark robes, selecting unfortunate souls to serve them for the day. And everywhere lingered ghosts of the past that Calyx could never quite escape.

No. The quieter halls were worth every step.

Calyx wandered on, slipping into the shadows of the grand pillars only twice to avoid notice. But up ahead was the entrance to the grand library. A place bound to be busy, even at this time. He wouldn't be able to avoid the temple's inhabitants there.

With quiet resignation, his attention drifted to the towering windows lining the hall. Beyond them, Coruscant glittered with countless lights from distant skyscrapers. The ecunomopolis never truly slept. Even in the dead of night, darkness never fully claimed it.

Mesmerised, he almost missed the figure standing beside the glass.

Snow-haired. Always seemingly brooding.

A familiar face, though not one that - in his eyes - belonged in the temple.

He spoke before he could stop himself. "Moonbound? Is that you?"

Acier Moonbound

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Sith Temple

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

Ace stood near the window with a datapad in one hand, but he wasn't reading it. The screen had dimmed itself twice already. His attention lingered somewhere beyond the glass instead, following the movement of distant traffic between the towers. Not because it interested him, it just gave him something to look at.

The last few weeks had been busy between Covenant tasks on Coruscant, and business on Bonadan. For once, nobody was asking anything from him and Ace intended to enjoy that while it lasted.

But then, he felt something. The sensation reached him before the voice did. Familiarity through the Force wasn't unusual. He'd spent enough time around Jedi, Sith, and everything in between to recognize people by presence alone.

This was different. Closer. Not stronger or louder, just... nearer. Like something that had never went away. Ace's brow furrowed slightly. For months he'd felt traces of it. Fleeting impressions at the edge of awareness. A shadow stretching across impossible distance. Always enough to remind him something was there.

It was infuriating. And because it was infuriating, he'd gotten very good at ignoring it.

Ace closed his eyes briefly and exhaled through his nose. There went the peace and quiet. He turned from the window and found exactly who he'd expected standing there.

"Calyx."

The last time he'd seen him had been on Arcana. Before Genarius. Before the Covenant. That was where they'd learned the truth. They were a Dyad. Two people bound together through the Force in a way neither of them had fully understood. Different from every other connection Ace had formed.

Different enough that even now he could feel things he had no business feeling. Unease, reluctance, and something heavier beneath it. Ace ignored all of it, just like he'd been ignoring it for months.

"Yeah, it's me."

His gaze lingered on Calyx for only a moment before drifting back toward the city beyond the glass.

"Covenant got you too?"

The question came easily, but his thoughts had already moved elsewhere. Isobel. Apparently he wasn't the only ghost from his old life wandering these halls anymore.

Calyx Sundrift​

 

[Calyx Sundrift]

T E M P L E -O F -T H E -S I T H
C O R U S C A N T

Acier Moonbound.

Calyx never quite knew what to make of the man. Acier was the sort of person who built walls at the first hint of distrust. Calyx could not remember seeing him smile even once. Then there was the truth neither of them cared to acknowledge. That the Force had bound their fates together.

He had grown accustomed to the constant presence lurking at the back of his mind. Of the emotions that weren't his and the dreams vivid enough to brush against memories he knew he had never lived. Like murdering an entire clan of Nightsisters. Or losing a hand - that lingering numbness had haunted him for weeks.

Yet the bond had never brought them closer. If anything, it had done the opposite. Their relationship was defined by distrust and caution. Calling Acier an ally was generous. But a friend? That was laughable. Still, there was a kind of mutual understanding between them, for the lack of a better word.

"Wish I could say different." Calyx said. There was little point lying to Acier. At this distance, the Dyad would expose any deception before the words had fully left his mouth. "You're the last person I'd expected to find here, though." Calyx murmured. "Always pictured you as more..." He searched for the right word. "Heroic. Noble, perhaps." He shrugged. "Anything but Sith, I suppose."

Keeping close to the wall, Calyx drifted nearer. The shadows had concealed most of him until now. Here, beneath the city lights spilling through the tall windows, they offered no protection and the kolto patch over his ruined eye became impossible to miss. So did the filthy, fraying bandages wrapped around his head.

He scoffed at his own observation. "Not that they gave you much of a choice, I imagine." Stopping beside Acier, he glanced through the towering window and out into the darkness beyond. "So what's brought you out here at this hour?" He could sense that Acier's mind head already wandered to a different subject. Dismissing him as easily as the acknowledgement he'd given.

A faint smirk played about his lips. "You strike me as the brooding type, but if that's your game, you picked the wrong wing." He nodded toward the distant corridors. "West wing has a much better view."

Acier Moonbound

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Sith Temple

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

Ace remained exactly where he was, shoulders squared toward the towering window, gaze fixed beyond the glass. Calyx's voice carried easily through the quiet, but Ace offered no immediate acknowledgment that he'd heard a word of it.

Heroic and noble he'd said. Ace couldn't decide if Calyx was lying or simply being deliberately obtuse. Either option felt equally possible. Their bond would have shown him enough by now. More than enough. The dreams, the emotions, the memories neither of them had volunteered. Calyx had seen pieces of him that most people never would.

The blood on Dathomir. The things he'd done since. The things he'd justified. If anyone should've known better, it was him.

"You haven't been paying attention then." The response came flatly.

Only then did his eyes shift sideways as Calyx drew nearer, though his head remained still. He took in the filthy bandages wrapped around the other man's skull. The kolto patch covering one eye. For a moment, something clicked

Ah. So that was why his right eye had felt strange lately. A while back he'd been in unbearable pain for a few days. But recently, it just felt... wrong. Like it existed and didn't at the same time. A phantom sensation he'd never quite managed to explain.

The realization settled quickly and the memories followed. Dreams that weren't his. Isobel and a crimson lightsaber driven through an eye socket. Ace exhaled softly through his nose. Suddenly those dreams made a lot more sense.

Another memory followed close behind. Isobel's voice from weeks ago.

"Another was forced to bleed, to be maimed, for my weakness."

Calyx continued speaking. About choices and the Sith not having much of one.

Ace shook his head once. "All the choices I've made were mine."

The correction was immediate. He wasn't going to make excuses or attempt to lessen it. Nobody had forced him into the Covenant, or to stay. Nobody had forced him to become what he was becoming.

The silence that followed stretched for a few seconds. Then Ace ignored everything else Calyx had said. The joke, the west wing, he ignored the attempt at conversation entirely.

Instead he asked, "What did you do to get Isobel to ruin your eye?"

For the first time, he turned his head enough to properly look at him. Calyx had always struck him as the sleazy sort. The kind of man who smiled too easily and confidently, flashing perfect teeth and effortless charm while quietly working an angle somewhere beneath the surface.

Ace had known dozens of people like that growing up on Bonadan. Con artists. Fixers. Middlemen. Men who treated trust like currency. You learned quickly not to give them either.

The fact that the Force had somehow decided to bind him to one was irritating enough on its own.

Part of him wondered whether Calyx's nature had simply caught up with him. Whether the missing eye was the inevitable result of pushing the wrong person one step too far. Though that explanation felt incomplete.

Because despite everything, Ace struggled to picture Isobel doing something like that without reason.

Calyx Sundrift​

 

[Calyx Sundrift]

T E M P L E -O F -T H E -S I T H
C O R U S C A N T

Calyx said nothing for a moment.

"I..." He shifted his weight from foot to foot. "I thought I'd try to be like my better half for once." He gave Acier a sidelong look. "Y'know. Noble. Heroic..." A knowing smile followed. "A man who makes his own choices."

There was a truth to Acier's claims. The air around him seemed colder, as if his presence itself dimmed the warmth of the room. But Calyx refused to believe he was wrong entirely. Reading people was what he did, even somebody as infuriating as Moonbound.

"Guess that's the thing about making choices. They come back to bite you." He smiled through a clenched jaw. He wasn't sure if it was his own frustration or Acier's that he felt.

Another silence followed before he spoke again. "I stepped in to protect her." He admitted it quietly. "As punishment, her hand was chosen to wield the blade." The smile turned mirthless. "I still don't know whose punishment that actually was." He shook his head. "That girl- she doesn't belong here, Moonbound."

Isobel was different. She'd come here of her own will, yet seemed to lack a sinful bone in her body. The only ones comparable were Jedi, but they never quite overcame the traumatic shock of their abduction and forced conscription. It was like seeing a flower bloom on Mustafar.

He let out a slow breath, shoulders dropping. "But I can't protect her from this far out. I did what I could, left her in the best position I could manage. Killed three. Maimed one." He glanced at Acier. "I never quite learn." Amusement washed across his face. "How's the eye?" If Acier's arm was anything to go by, the sting of it likely hadn't left him yet.

There was a matter he had still not addressed. "Could use some help with the revenge plot, though. Sith Lords are notoriously hard to kill." His tone was cool and detached, even as the words themselves were anything but. "And I've been reading. About us. What we are." He lowered his voice. "There was apparently a trove of knowledge on Exegol. It's lost now, unfortunately. But what little remains of the collection is interesting. Ace, I don't think it's just shared feelings and memories. I think we're stronger together. Near each other." He made a face when he realised how ridiculous that sounded. "Whatever you make of that."

Acier Moonbound

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Sith Temple

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

Ace simply stared at him. The glare arrived first at the mention of heroic and noble again. Then came the part about choices and consequences. Ace's jaw tightened. The look didn't disappear, but it shifted. His eyes drifted away from Calyx and back toward the city beyond the glass. Of course they came back. Every choice he'd made had. Some just took longer than others.

Then Calyx explained what really happened with his eye. He was... protecting Isobel. For the first time since the conversation began, the harshness eased from Ace's features. Not softened exactly, the tension and anger remained, but something in his expression relaxed enough for him to look at Calyx again.

He studied him quietly and his admission sat uneasily in his mind.

"That girl- she doesn't belong here, Moonbound."

The words echoed. Because he'd thought the same thing. Many times. Just now, even. Which raised a question Ace found himself increasingly unable to answer. Were those truly Calyx's thoughts? Or Ace's influence? The Dyad had already blurred enough lines between them. Dreams. Emotions. Memories.

Could it affect motivations too? Instincts? Convictions? How much of Calyx's desire to protect Isobel belonged to Calyx? How much of it belonged to Ace? And... how much of Ace belonged to Calyx? The thought irritated him.

"I know."

The answer came quietly. Because he did know. Better than most. His gaze drifted away again.

"My eye's fine."

A lie. The sensation wasn't painful anymore, but it was annoying. Constantly present. A reminder of something he neither understood nor wanted. Frankly, it pissed him off.

The mention of revenge pulled his attention back, however briefly. A Sith Lord was the one responsible. The thought lingered longer than Ace cared to admit. Not because of Calyx, but Isobel. If someone posed a threat to her, Ace didn't need a revenge plot. He could deal with it himself.

Titles meant very little to him these days. Lord. Knight. Master. Most were just words people hid behind. Few people in the Covenant gave him pause. And whoever had done this... Ace found himself strangely certain he could kill them.

Then Calyx moved on. About Exegol, and further information on their Dyad. Ace listened in silence and the more Calyx spoke, the less he liked what he was hearing.

Stronger together. An advantage born from dependence. The entire concept rubbed him the wrong way. Ace valued independence above almost everything else. He trusted very few people and needed even fewer. The idea that he might somehow be incomplete without another person was irritating enough. The idea that person was Calyx Sundrift was worse.

"Fantastic." The word dripped with dry sarcasm.

His eyes remained fixed on the city. Then he shifted topics entirely.

"Who is this Sith Lord? One of the Academy's instructors?" Finally he looked back at Calyx. "Don't worry about some complicated revenge plot.
The Covenant loves all that "survival of the fittest" banthashit."

His tone remained calm and matter of fact. Then, a faint shrug followed.

"Just challenge them. Let me know when you do."

Calyx Sundrift ​

 

[Calyx Sundrift]

T E M P L E -O F -T H E -S I T H
C O R U S C A N T

He pursed his lips into a thin smile. "I know, right?" He hated it. The idea that someone else had any effect on his hard wrought strength. And that it had to be the one person he couldn't steer or manipulate.

What made it worse was knowing Acier felt the same way.

That was probably why he'd changed the subject.

"Just challenge them?" His brow arched, the smile curdling into a bitter smirk. "I'm an acolyte, Moonbound. How I go about this does matter." He let out an exasperated sigh. "I have no agency. If I were an apprentice, at least, I could point to the Knight or Lord I serve. And in the event I do manage to kill her -" He glanced at Acier. "I'd be killed anyway. They can't have an acolyte humiliate a Lord and live. The Sith are too petty to let that stand."

Still. There was truth in what Acier said. He'd spent too many nights plotting and gotten nowhere to show for it.

"No. I won't challenge her openly," he mused. It was strange, thinking aloud with someone else present. But then, Acier wasn't quite someone else. "If it can't be traced back to me, if there's no proof, I can walk away clean." He looked at him. "In the night, with your help. I'll have my vengeance, and Isobel will be out of that blasted woman's reach." He nodded, satisfied with the simplicity of it.

Then caught himself.

He was already taking Acier for granted. He could read the man's feelings, or perhaps his own reflected in them, but that didn't mean the other would necessarily agree. How a man thought and how they acted were two entirely separate things.

That lead to another spiraling thought.

"Who is Isobel to you, anyway?" he asked, abruptly. "I can't think of a reason you'd want to protect her that fits your whole..." he gestured vaguely at Acier. "demeanor."

He sat with that for a moment.

Then turned to face him fully, studying his other half openly for once. "What's really brought you here?" His eye narrowed. "What's your angle?"

Acier Moonbound

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Sith Temple

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

Calyx's objections weren't unreasonable. Rank mattered, so did politics, and knowing when not to move. Right now, he was exercising that same caution himself. With Mercy .

The difference was scale. Calyx spoke about a Sith Lord the way a man might speak about a predator lurking in the dark. Ace thought of Mercy, the throne, and the impossible weight that sat behind those golden eyes.

One was a flame. The other was a wildfire. They weren't comparable. His mind drifted briefly to their conversation on Throneworld. Mercy hadn't spoken like someone obsessed with hierarchy. If anything, she'd seemed to admire initiative, strength, and the willingness to take what one wanted and accept the consequences that followed.

Calyx's assumption didn't quite fit the Covenant Ace had come to know. If an acolyte managed to kill a Sith Lord? The more likely outcome was promotion, not execution.

Ace sighed, eyes remaining beyond the glass. "I understand caution. But I don't have time for plotting and scheming. I've got my own problems to deal with."

There was a faint edge of irritation in his voice now, and only then did he glance sideways toward Calyx.

"If you want her dead, let me handle it." The offer came with almost casual certainty. "I'll just say I forced you."

And that would probably be the end of it. At worst he'd earn a lecture, or maybe a warning. The Covenant tolerated a great deal from people who produced results.

Silence settled between them again. Then Calyx asked about Isobel, and Ace looked away immediately. For a few moments he didn't answer at all, but when he finally spoke, his voice was quieter.

"She's a friend. From before."

He didn't elaborate. He assumed Calyx would know what he meant. His gaze drifted back toward the city, but he felt Calyx studying him again. His next question made Ace's brow furrow. The connection between them was already invasive enough without Calyx deciding every silence needed digging through.

Even so, lying was pointless. The truth had a habit of leaking through the cracks between them eventually. So vague would have to suffice.

"I'm here to change things." The answer was blunt and intentionally incomplete.

The silence that followed stretched several seconds longer than necessary. Then Ace exhaled through his nose.

"I didn't miss that." For the first time, genuine annoyance slipped into his voice. "All your damn questions."

Calyx Sundrift​

 

[Calyx Sundrift]

T E M P L E -O F -T H E -S I T H
C O R U S C A N T

Calyx tilted his head. "You don't need to make time for schemes. I'll take care of that part."

He couldn't help but thinking that, perhaps, Acier had the better strategy after all. That blunt honesty seemed to get results. It made everything look deceptively easy, like killing a Lord. "You done that before? Killed another Sith in some sort of dispute?" He thought for a moment. "Or are you planning to?"

Surprisingly, asking about Isobel got him somewhere. Just four words, but they told him everything he needed to know. Isobel had been with the Hidden Path. Calyx frowned slowly.

"That... surprisingly makes a lot of sense." He could see it. She had the poise for it, the kind of grace that fit the Path's gala he had attended.

And as for why Acier was here? That required more digging, the cryptic answer left too much open for assumptions.

Calyx let the silence stretch deliberately, hoping it would do the work for him. It didn't.

"Oh-ho? So there are parts of me you missed too?" The smile came quick, then faded into something more serious. "Listen, Moonbound, I don't care enough to spill your secrets." He sighed. "But if you're doing something stupid, you need to let me know."

"I've got no idea what happens when one of us dies. But this?" He gestured to his eye, then to Acier's arm. "This isn't a good sign. So whatever you're planning, as far as I'm concerned, it's my hide on the line too." His voice dropped. "Means I've got your back. Whether I think it's stupid or not. Got it?"

He huffed, then turned on his heel.

"I'll kill her at night. Wont have any witnesses. I doubt I can manage it alone, though." He glanced back. "Hope to see you there. Give it two days. I'll wait at Pelagon's west-wing barracks." Two days would give him enough time to get his hands on his lightsaber. "And if you're planning something equally stupid- do me a favour and schedule it after. I hate doubles."

He strode off, as confident as he could make it look.

[EXIT]

Acier Moonbound