-Coruscant: Imperial centerShe looked nervous, The Jedi turned holy woman thought. Nervous to descend into the Tarisian underworld and face many things that would remind her of her past, many things that would tempt her to call upon the dark, to indulge again in the exhaustive energies that ravaged body and soul. That was when the serpent like woman gave the taller female a hug and promised her that she would hold fast to her new convictions, because they weren't truly new. Aladar was simply, reigniting the fires in her heart of old.
They could be so easily manipulated at times, the lost wretches who fell through the cracks when short sighted subsentients sat in judgment of their natural betters. But that time, she'd hugged her because she'd meant it. More and more, she was growing attached to her apprentice, the words she'd uttered to Admiral Sloane were words from the heart, nearly spoken on impulse and only saved from looking like an outburst by her rhetorical mastery.
It wasn't that she felt this way that galled her, love, filial love was hardly a weakness. devotion to another could be as powerful as duty or conviction and when it was only when it became possessive that it debased both the force wielder and the codes they served. A thing, both the Sith
and Jedi alike never understood.
No, what bothered her was how pathetic it seemed, to be awake and cling to the first comically tall cute thing that came your way because it reminded you of a daughter that died millennia ago. She could allow herself to feel, to admit to being lonely and to love others, but not so soon. That appeared weak.
And she wasn't weak, she was a hurricane of devotion to the righteousness of her own cause. She was the serpent at the end of the rainbow, the glimmering fangs in the dark.
As the Twi'lik slaves began to dress her for the company she'd invited over, Pontifex Invictus Miryia of the House Janus allowed her mind to drift in the force, sensing the moods, the movements of the great world city as she began to calculate the odds of one clever Bothan, being clever enough to see the truth behind her scales.
He'd been clever enough to entice her into rebellion, to support her rise to power while bolstering his own....He'd been smart enough to leave a copy of "memoires of the Thousand Year war" by a Hutt Jedi named Bontus Evorian.
Bontus had been a padawan the decade before the war and battled at her side for decades and had been among the few to survive to the very end when Lord Hoth sent his Army of Light to die against Skere Kaan when Jedi and Sith both were consumed.
Bontus had postulated that the war itself, was not alone the legacy of Darth Ruins madness, but that it was his madness that created an opportunity for a far more sinister intelligence to manipulate events, to guide both Jedi and Sith along the path of holocaust.
Bontus blamed the Bendu, an order that was largely extinct save for one hermit on a world filled with arachnid filth. Typical for the Hutt species, to come so close to the mark yet crash around it to a vague approximation of masterful accuracy most of their dimwitted, pawn clientele would confuse for the real thing.
And yet, Raveem leaving that...spoke to far more clarity, masquerading perhaps as an approximation.
Unless he was merely being manic and presenting her with a gift he thought she'd find interesting as it was likely the last work of a peer of hers to be published before time and the force robbed her of all her former friends.
All, save one.
For this specific occasion, Raveem had picked an outfit he had not worn for some time. It was a traditional Bothan suit woven by his mother before her mind was consumed by an extreme form of dementia. The jacket had a series of swirling patterns that contrasted well with the purple attire. Each of the circles seemed to stand on its own and had been woven directly into the fabric. He always thought the design resembled what happened inside his head. The seemingly random but beautiful circles appeared to perfectly outline his thoughts. Part of him thought that Miryia would perhaps pick up on what the outfit represented. She had seen his mind. Surely, she would be able to.
That aside, he couldn't wait to see her again. Ever since that fateful night, where he unleashed her upon the Empire's self-proclaimed leaders, he had been wanting to sit down and truly get a sense of who she was. While he had his theories and assumptions, he truly wanted to get a feeling for the Pontifex Invictus as she called herself now. There was something so fascinating and enthralling about her presence, the aura of a being so powerful she could simply snap her fingers and render him unable to defend himself. The gambit he had taken at Coruscant had paid off, now he wanted to see what it is that he had gambled with. The true character of Miryia of House Janus.
When he arrived at her palace, he couldn't help but grin. Even when he was out here, he could sense her power. He never believed himself to be Force sensitive, nor did he care to advance his abilities in the case that he was. Regardless, he had an unhealthy addiction with attempting to court beings that were levels of power above him. There was a certain thrill to it all. A certain enjoyment of putting his well-being and even his life in danger just to unleash it and see the results. Now, he only had to watch to see what Miryia could do.
The former Presidential palace rose into the midday sky, ominous and august as it always had been and yet where for centuries passed it had been largely a great museum there seemed to be a buzz of activity. Luxury speeders, ordinary speeders, military issue craft came and went, touching down to seek an audience with the woman who had stepped out of the past and into their future. Reporters from Imperial approved propaganda outfits stood eagerly outside wanting to hear the "official story" from the mouth of the woman present. After all, the report circulating was that Sate Pestage attempted to declare himself emperor and while many joined him, it was a loyal contingent of non humans martialed by the Arkanian Jedi who claimed to be the hero of the early days of the New Sith War who "rallied in defense of the Imperial Throne". The propaganda machine was spinning this two ways, one that non humans had finally proven themselves through loyalty and perhaps doors would be opened for some.
The other, a Jedi removed from Yoda's treason, from Luke Skywalker's grandiosity had at last redeemed the Order and showed true loyalty to the legacy of the Emperor healing at once the great sectarian rift between Jedi and Sith and in response Grand Vizier Hissa ordered the construction of a glorious and new order of force users that represented both ideals.
Of course, if any of these regimental mouthpieces dared to utter such offensive nonsense in her presence, Invictus Janus would have killed them instantly. Others, came armed with skepticism, desirous to see if the woman was truly the Miryia Janus of the history books and not some clone or imposter, skepticism gave way to fear, then awe which yielded to fanaticism. To a cynic this would have looked like a naked power grab, to a more trained eye something far more dangerous than mere shortsighted ambition.
As Raveem's transport grew closer to palace, it would have been obvious what she was doing, that in a time of such turmoil when all was uncertain and nothing was decided. The desperate often went renegade, the ambitious often went mad and entire civilizations could drown in hysteria, or find themselves in religion. At the dawn of the old Republic, before the holonet and hyperlane maps the Jedi had filled that role, by avoiding it entirely and creating out of the Republic a religion, venerating the Republic with the Jedi as its heralds.
Enormous banners fluttered in the wind, rising on durasteel columns covered in synth ivory and onyx, on each side blew the banner of the Galactic Empire, behind them the military insignia of each member of the armed forces that had assisted in the coup and the personal banner of House Grant, the banner of House Janus and the purple and black of Clan Vash'Ah.
Many grew silent in a mix of awe though as Miryia Farlina of House Janus, Pontifex of this new religion, the religion of Order, of absolute and eternal Justice, of Imperial law. Exited the grand doors, a long purple cape flew in the wind, black armor with the Imperial on her breast shimmered in the light as violet robes fluttered about the armor. But what none failed to notice was the new symbol, embroidered in a platinum finish over her heart. The symbol of the Jedi Order, yet silvered, the wings of the ancient phoenix were vibrant flame and a lance shot up from the center piercing the heart of the star burst pattern. Where the New Jedi Order symbol was the Jedi Phoenix and saber unfurled in a shield over the star this was a radiant fire thrusting into its heart.
The crowd gasped as an enormous banner of the same symbol unfurled falling about the castle, resting above the entry of the main gates in a deep blue.
"Welcome! Sub Director General of Imperial the Imperial Security Bureau! Raveem of clan Vash'Ah! The only soul with the clarity of mind to see what treachery befell us! A credit to non human citizens and a champion of Order, Imperial Justice!"
Her eyes flickered like gems, whether an artifice of the force or through Arkanian genetic engineering, her voice boomed across the palace grounds. "Patriot! Hail and well met!" she called, giving the traditional core world elite greeting.
In that moment, between self destruction and devotion, the Serpent turned Jedi, turned zealot pushed madness through and religion was written in the eyes of Coruscant.
The Religion of the Empire.
The crowd outside of the Presidential Palace was larger than Raveem was expecting. There were reporters and members of the public standing behind barriers guarded by soldiers. But that was small compared to the display before him. That had gotten his full attention, and he realized this must have been Miryia's plan. To surprise him with this magnificent display before the masses. So, this was the religion Janus had spoken about. The replacement for the Jedi Order and the Sith. The Bothan covered his mouth, supressing the urge to giggle as he felt a sudden rush of joy. His gambit had paid off. All his efforts had ended in all this. A new and reformed Empire. Once he had composed himself and done the appropriate waving for the Holonet cameras, he approached Miryia. Taking at look at her outfit, he immediately picked up on the purple patterns used by his Clan. By the look on his face, that little detail had caught him off guard. If it was someone else, perhaps they would have missed it. But Miryia had enough experience to see it. His right eye twitched twice, and his left index finger tapped the side of his thigh. It was too specific to be a normal reaction.
"Hail and well met, indeed Invictus Janus!" He replied, giving her a short bow. The greeting was done in his usual extravagant fashion. "Quite the display you have arranged here." The Bothan remarked, glancing at the different banners displayed around the palace's entrance.
-So this pattern, is that his mind?- She'd touched the edges, the border of his psyche not wanting to utterly maul his essence and sense of self for she'd always had trouble with more subtle mental probing, but what she encountered inside was akin to a nebula on fire or an ion storm or an exploding black hole. a whirling vortex of order within the patterns of unbridled chaos. He was truly fascinating, if a bit grasping and dangerous, in many ways he reminded her of a drug addict yet unlike the Sith. His was a fortified mind, an addict who gained function in dysfunction and what would normally be an affront to her presence became something of admired curiosity. As he no doubt wanted to observe her in action, so too did she.
His eyes took in the display, grasping its obvious intent and seeing beyond. -Now you understand why the throne does not interest me?- her goals, her grand plan commenced two thousand years ago, was perhaps a century away from its end game. -I slept for too long, things flowed without me-
"I thought it was high time you beheld the majesty of your work" she turned, her body seeming to twist as one and she began to walk ahead, leading him through a grand entrance flanked by members of the 501st, each standing at parade style attention. "Aladar and my old friend are not with us, I've them hunting in Coruscant's underworld. Shame that you did not bring that radiation fried behemoth of yours, it would have been edifying for your creature" Raveem may have been force sensitive, Miryia realized, now more than ever. But she felt herself stop at probing that issue, as if teaching him to refine and smith the essence would detract from his true glory. Somehow, making him lesser.
"As for gifts, I appreciated yours" She leaned in slightly and whispered that in his ear, noting the subtle twitches in his body language that gave away how much the gesture affected him, playing the dangerous game he too played. "Though, I wonder if it was truly a gift and more"
The doors closed behind her and a subtle glance made the Twi'liks bow and leave. "If it wasn't a question, Sub Director"
When Miryia leaned in and referenced his gift, he felt a strange warm feeling in his chest. It made his ears twitch and his body trembled a little. What a strange sensation. He had always felt joy in the presence of beings such as Miryia. It was thrilling to sense their power and witness their feats. But this was different. Something to think about later. Miryia saw it, him briefly losing that composure he so carefully crafted for himself. Perhaps, if that mask was removed, his mannerisms and voice would make him sound deranged. One had to wonder what the
real Raveem behaved like. What was under those layers of organized chaos in his mind and ISB training and indoctrination.
"Perhaps it was too on the nose?" Said Raveem, more to himself than anything. As they walked, he turned to look at Miryia. There it was, that warm feeling his chest again. Odd. "I thought you would appreciate the gesture. A prelude to this..." He spun around, gesturing at rhe great hall around them. "...greatly anticipated meeting. It cost someone his hard earned treasure, mind you. Poor sod owed me a debt." Raveem giggled after saying that. For a moment, he was there. Prying the tome away from a poor merchant's hands who had bought favors from his family to keep his business afloat in Bothawui. Was it petty? Yes. But necessary if the Vas'ha's were to keep their reputation.
"From the smallest family in a shack in the hills of Bothawui to stars, knowledge moved by direction, move by ambition" Miryia's voice held an almost cheery tone as she came close to singing those words out in her usual melodic voice, only where in public it held an imperiousness to it that was measured by compassion. Here, hints of the madness within intermingled with that image of a noble Knight of old. As if something, bestial was tiring of the ruse and wanting to strike at whatever it could.
"I believe that was the clan phrase of the Vash'Ah in my youth." She remarked attempting to sift through the long years of memory hidden behind a youthful face to find the name of the Bothan of Clash Vash'Ah she'd protected as a Padawan, whose views on the stagnation of the Republic and even the Jedi kindled something in an idealistic youth.
Idealism, she'd fought for it once, bled for it once. Even through the dark, when she brushed against Sith doctrine, Sith power, when the profane material whispered to her in the night, she'd held strong. She was once a great Jedi, she'd cared for the code and devoted herself to the light as some savage worshipping a powercell from a ruined ship crashed down on a primitive world. Now she was something else, a true warrior for the Light, the light of civilization, of order. -All those provincial simpletons who could have continued the great works in my absence.- "a bit too on the nose" Raveems words cut her from her thoughts and purple eyes flickered to him, dangerously at first. -Does he truly see?- his second phrasing seemed to imply it was a mere flight of fancy and yet below the conditioning and training she sensed..an awareness.
"Bontus, when we first met he was no taller than my thigh, by the end of his life I hear he grew six times the size of an ordinary Hutt"
As they moved across synth marble floors, passing busts of Republic heroes long dead and Imperial military leaders, they arrived at a room as large as some Coruscant penthouses, a veritable treasure trove of water and plants in laser lit fountains appeared before them. Water, which on Coru was valuable as it was on Tatooine, more than aurodium, it spoke to the wealth the Empire still possessed...the old capital still possessed.
"The Hutts I have observed, have an interesting habit of coming exasperatingly close to the truth only to fall slightly short of the mark" And there. She'd done it, the one secret only The Highsinger if not outright confirmed, implied. They were in each other's webs now, Raveem was privy to a thing that was supremely dangerous, a truth that bound him to her, as it bound her to his ascent.
It was a truth, the woman whose cape hugged about her body like a cobras hood would try to annihilate every living soul on Coruscant if she had too, to conceal.
Or...proclaim to the stars.
"Tell me, what do you know of Ewoks?" She proffered, changing the subject as they neared a table and a pair of chairs. Her eyes flickered with a silent mirth. Oh, how she enjoyed playing a game of words and hints with someone who wasn't genetic trash.
"Or more specifically, how tenuous do you believe The New Republics alliance with that particular tribe to be?" Here she took a seat, her hips bent and she leaned at a slight angle, reclining, her cheek resting upon knuckles. "And what do you know if the Nightsisters gathering at a Castle therein?"
Slowly a feral smile crept over her face "And what do you know of Gorax?"
The Bothan froze for a moment. So it was true. Any and all doubts in his mind had vanished. He stared at Miryia as she kept on walking without him, sitting down at a nearby table. Raveem giggled as everything in his head clicked. He had to hold himself back and compose himself before joining her at the table. When he sat down, Miryia saw him wince the moment his back touched the backrest. That blaster wound from all those days ago was probably still bothering him.
"Ah, the Ewoks. A proud and primitive race of cuddly little bears with enough firepower, it seems, to take down Stormtroopers who underestimared them. I like to think that it eas their cuteness that caused all this. It is funny to think about. The mighty Empire defeated at the hands of a primitive tribe and a group of Rebel infiltrators. A hard earned lesson." Raveem's eyes darted around as he spoke. His thought process was fascinating to look at. He seemed to speak while at the same time recalling sounds, images and touch. Every word was marked by a unique movement of the hands. He physically grasped at concepts and used his hands to help explain whatever he was saying. There was a brief pause.
"The Gorax!" Raveem shouted, standing up and making himself seem as big as possible. "Big, strong, and very dangerous. The Ewoks have been fighting for years. Which lead me to believe that the Ewoks respect strength. Their hardships. The survival skills required to survive in the forests of Endor. It had defined their culture and their mindset. They respect the Rebels for their struggle against the Empire."
Raveem paced around the table, and pointed toward one of the windows.
"We must... we must present ourselves before them differently. Their allegiance to the Rebels was based on mutual respect. They must be shown that the Rebels are treacherous and dishonorable. And that the Empire are true honorable warriors." Raveem turned to Miryia, a grin plastered on his face. "Will we take Endor, then?"
The Bothan seemed to omit the question about the Nightsister. He seemed more preocupied with the potential acquisition of Endor than with some witch.
As the Bothan took a seat, The former Jedi turned religious leader watched his body language with the same aloof gaze she'd always maintained when assessing others. His reactions surprised her, she expected a surprised murmur, horror perhaps and if he'd been a fool glorification of what she considered to be an unfortunate necessity to redeem the Galaxy and purify it of the heresies and failures of the sanctimonious hypocrites within the temples and palaces and dusty halls of a hundred different force using cults whose blood, sins and bad ideas went into the creation of the Jedi and Sith, the lost orders as she would henceforth call them. But what Raveem reacted with was more, the childlike excitement of a madman or a researcher whose theories were proven right, or proven wrong in a more exciting and opportune manner.
Behind their chair fountains shifted their laser display to match the changing of the Coruscanti skies, dancing in darker greens and blues as the sun began to set. The whirring servos of the protocol Droid interrupted the silence between her query in regards to the Ewoks and the scion of Clan Vash'Ah's reaction. A bronze tray was set down with a glowing pink liquid within an ornately carved decanter made of Arkanian crystal woven with stained glass patterns and affixed at the top with inlay of white aurodium.. The content of the bottle was a rare Alsakan brandy laid down in its casks only once every half millennia. The cost of such a liqueur could equip an ISD battlegroup and provision it for a month, that Miryia was able to acquire suggest that she'd been allowed to resume her position in the dynastic hierarchy of House Janus. Or, that her own assets and wealth had been wisely managed and invested for two millennia by the IBC, or that the moment Sate Pestage gave the Arkanian Jedi access to a computer terminal was the moment the Galaxy's richest gained a new member.
Or perhaps all of the above.
She did, after all, need to bring something of her own to the table beyond her charm and power.
As Raveem spoke and danced about the room almost the woman leaned back in her chair, purples eyes flickering with consternation but not quite disappointment. As though she was content that he'd seen what he'd seen of her plans for Endor and guessed a fair approximation. "The Imperial troopers shot them for sport, something some Ewok tribes took no offense at. Being that they are a culture of barbarian killers who, as you note have had their entire being shaped by warfare and the dangers of the Endorian wilderness. However, it seems the early landing facilities for the construction of the shield generation and some of said Generators barracks rested over a sort of, warriors monument" Miryia allowed that to hang in the air, after the victory at Endor the Ewoks butchered and ate and ritualistically slaughtered some two thousand members of the Five Hundred and first and while the particular tribe the Rebels befriended respected them. A peace loving, democratic people they were not.
"The Ewoks are masters of jungle and forest warfare, they've faced the Gorax for centuries and when they win they murder Gorax infants in their cribs. Ewok tribal chieftains are known for spitting the infants of their rivals in other tribes ..Had the Empire not defiled their monument, it is likely that even your thoughtless, Sith pretender of an Emperor would have been able to sway them to your side" Miryia raised a few of her slender fingers and the glowing liquid began to float from within the pitcher, up its neck and then from the mouth into two aurodium goblets with crystal cups. While she absolutely would not serve someone who wasn't her social superior or equal by hand, she would grant Raveem the honor of service of another sort.
As he began to speak of convincing them the Empire represented strength Miryia chuckled "Perhaps not to that degree, we need only convince the other tribes and then call a conclave with that particular tribe that aligned with the Rebels. It is my understanding the Skywalker...abominations...Protocol droid mistakenly..or deliberately claimed the Rebels came to Endor to Punish the Emperor for his many dishonors, which they did. But not the Ewok's, prove that they were used, their honor, the bones of their fathers exploited to use their vendetta to serve a political end and I believe they will demand the Republic Depart Endor" Her eyes flickered when Raveem asked if they were going to take Endor.
She leaned forward and her violet eyes flickered. "No,
I am going to take Endor, this mongrel Charal is playing with a power she does not even know she possesses and I wish to understand Nightsister sorcery, the Five Hundred and First, the One Hundred and Fourth and you, my dear secret policeman...shall prove once again that non humans can be a bonus to the Empire by handing it victories its not seen since Endor" then she paused and leveled her gaze at Raveem and a voice whispered in the winds -What things we shall achieve, what works we shall forge-
"I mean to turn the entire system into a bastion, a holy citadel for the Imperial Knights, a center of faith..for now..for our flagging people and I intend to gift our dear Grand Vizier Hissa with a rather lovely staging point at the new Republics back and..towards the outerrim"
Her smile narrowed into a feral smirk and her body seemed to tighten and coil and a long, soft hiss escaped her nostrils and throat.
Now why, would an empire of the core wish to over extend themselves? In Darth Vader's old palace, the chief Spymaster, Ysane Isard was asking herself the same question and coming to the wrong conclusion.
Or perhaps the proper one.
"You're not a proponent of Bacta tanks?" Miryia added, reclining her eyes flickered to his posture, how he seemed to be favoring one part of his back over the other. We all pay a price in blood for our convictions, she thought, some paid that price in body, others in mind, some in soul.
Raveem stopped pacing the moment Miryia began to speak. He listened intently, finding his storm of thoughts go silent momentarily as he picked apart Miryia's words. This Nightsister she had mentioned earlier. For the first time he found himself at a loss. After a quick scan of his memories he couldn't recall a Charal. Was there something he had missed? A detail he had simply forgotten? Impossible. While the Bothan knew of the Nightsisters he wasn't aware of their presence on Endor. If Miryria sought to learn from them however, he couldn't wait to witness it. But, they were an unknown variable to him. That train of thought suddenly came to a halt the moment she mentioned his injury. He instinctively corrected his posture, but that was a mistake. A shot of piercing pain hit him across his back and neck. It wasn't too bad. He had been trained by the ISB to resist pain, but, the injury was admittedly interfering with some of his duties and noticeable to the trained eye.
"Well..." For the first time, Miryia spotted hesitation in his words. "When one is busy preparing for upcoming events, and those preparations keep you awake at night. It is easy to ignore the nagging needs of the flesh. I didn't see it as important enough."
As he spoke, Raveem picked up the glasses with the Alsakan brandy, he offered one of the glasses to the Arkanian. That little mistake had thrown his mind into a frenzy. What could have perhaps been a gesture of his loyalty to her became open to interpretation. His neglect to attend to an injury could have jeopardized Miryia's grand plan. And now, this small gesture could have been seen as a desperate act to ask for forgiveness. But by the time Raveem realized all this, it was too late.
Her head canted, violent eyes flickered with keen interest and perhaps concern? -He overthought- she realized, focusing entirely too much on the problems he could solve (Though an important trait for his trade, though stifling if one wished to follow her beyond a mere, supreme commander of deathsquads). The Pontifex watched as that mind raced from euphoria, to despondency, crashing like a Hutt's sail barge piloted by an intoxicated Dug. -He suffers from some sort of neuro-chemical mania?- she wondered, harkening back to her original assessment of him as a functioning addict. Much of his inner thinking reminded her of stim junkies and yet he was debilitated by it at all.
Order in the chaos.
He twitched again, realizing that his misstep with her commentary on the Nightsisters resulted in him being caught off guard by her observation. The woman's eyes flashed again, this time they were chiding, reprimanding but they held no disappointment. Concern for a colleague, solidarity and reminder not to slip? A gesture of friendship? Whatever was behind those eyes shifted into near, appreciation for his sense of decorum.
The Pontifex took the goblet, holding it in her hand appraisingly, allowing the moment to extend, permeating the room with her awareness, sensing the conflict the roiled within. Miryia rose and slowly took a drink from the glass. He was no weakling to make such a gesture in a pathetic attempt to save face for showing "weakness" and to worry about showing such a thing to her was where the insult came, she was no small time predator.
And he was no coward.
"A son of Clan Vash'Ah is of far too superior stature to conceal a blaster burn for fear of weakness. You debase yourself, in doing so, you defame your work, your achievements." She set the glass down, then moved her hand to trace across the Bothan's shoulder as she walked towards one of the fountains.
"When I was seventeen, I earned my Knighthood, my master a Dreathos known as Croo wept with joy. He said I'd broken some sort of record, but given the sheer age of the Jedi order I find that dubious...Still..to a teenaged girl who'd come to love an inferior as though he were a second father, well I too wept" The words, far away, her voice soft, nostalgic. As though she was choosing to show another side to herself, though whether to galvanize Raveem as she would a follower, or to simply show him a part of herself as recompense and to hammer her prior point home with a parable was hard to tell.
For a brief moment though, in the flickering of the sunset and the prismatic effect of the lasers on water, one might have been able to see the idealistic, wide eyed, gentle Knight and stout hearted warrior she was. "For a year we wandered the outer rim and the unknown regions he and I. For a year we righted wrongs, faced dangers and held together broken peoples and mended broken worlds. We were set upon by a clique of beings powerful in the force an inner darkness I'd never seen before"
The honor, perhaps dubious as it was, would have been given only to two others. History remembers the death of Jedi master Croo as one of the moments that led up to the New Sith Wars, as with his death the Jedi moved from deliberative slowness to the indolence and cowardice that allowed for the rise of Darth Ruin several decades later. But here, Raveem would be the third sentient to know what truly transpired. "I was injured, I concealed it, as you did at first, out of shame and then out of distraction and in the final battle, that injury slowed my thoughts, slowed my flesh and clouded my wits"
Miryia's eyes met the flickered pools of water a grimness about them. "Allies do not conceal their flaws, their injuries from each other Raveem of Clan Vash'Ah, it is how they betray themselves and in doing so, betray the glory of our cause" She turned now and walked forwards him. Her features imperious but lacking of any scorn and possessing. perhaps an approximation of empathy. "In death, my master taught me the most valuable lessons he'd ever taught me. The most paramount of which is that righteousness comes not free and without pain"
His shame was needless, this was an acceptable cost of doing business as they said, or so she conveyed. "I too have bled in the service of absolute justice"
"And I've no doubt we'll both pay that price again and again. So long as the heretics, the traitors, the fools and the sycophants bleed a thousand times our blood, so long as our sacrifice makes a better world, it is not weakness"
Raveem's mind was racing. Thousands of thoughts, memories and other information were flying at light speed through his mind. But there it was again, Miryia's voice. Hearing her made the storm dissipate, and once again she had his full attention. When she approached him, Raveem instictively took a step back but he managed to not make it obvious. The training he had been given by the ISB was starting to kick in. However, he put all that to rest. He managed to wrest control of those instincts. When she briefly touched him, it made him tremble. Once more he felt that hot feeling in his chest. These new feelings were completely foreign to him. And while he would never express it out loud, he didn't understand them.
At that moment, she told him a deeply personal story. By the way she spoke and met his gaze, he could tell that only a tight circle of trusted confidants knew about this. There was something in her voice and movements that made it obvious. Even as she walked off toward the fountain, he could still feel the sensations from earlier. The pain was gone now, replaced by a sudden surge of curiosity by her final words. She was right. The road to their goal would be soaked in blood and littered with sacrifices. Part of him strongly believed he wouldn't live this through this. But right now, all he could do was agree. Taking a sip from the brandy, he took a few steps in her direction. Briefly, that usual mad stare he had vanished. For once, he may have passed as just another Bothan...
"You're right." He said softly, glancing at the marbled floors for a moment. "It is beneath me. Something I will unlearn for the sake of the cause. My ancestors did not stand where I am now. In an environment in which they could simply trust others to not take advantage of their weaknesses. I can assure you, it will never happen again."
"I was bodyguard to a progenitor of yours once as a child. Strange, how one moment of rhetoric can make such an impact but I cannot recall his name" Her eyes gave no indication that she'd noticed the change, but the slight twinge in her facial features denoted an approval, both of the revelations welling within him and because the shock of her gesture seemed to have steadied his mind if only for a fleeting moment or so.
"If we look back to our history, it's no wonder why the Sith continue to plague us! Why Jedi and Republic alike have been brought so close to utter ruination by them more than once!" Her voice grew in a richness, an intensity, she did her best to mimic the intensely slurred nature of the high class Bothan, who was a firebrand known for delivering his political speeches like sermons and was almost always intoxicated.
The drunkenness' seemed to add a dimension of reality to his warnings. Warnings which events five decades from that speech would prove prophecy. "We overcome our enemies only to rest on our laurels, we recover from calamity, a burning crucible only to allow our metal to settle and rust. We stagnate, while they reinvigorate and they too, begin to stagnate and on and on it goes for neither of us wish for something new. There is comfort in the cycle.."
That last bit applied in the end, to Palpatine too,deformed thug that he was meeting his end when he attempted to lord power over a weaker being in direct contravention of all his order of pathetic heretics stood for. Her posture returned to normal and a look of annoyance flashed over her eyes at the pitiful self indulgence, of even mimicking the accent as if she was no better than a common rube. Whatever she was going to say was murdered in her breast as she craned her head towards the Bothan noting the elevation in heart rate and intensity, this was more than mere revelation.
But before she could draw attention to his nascent infatuation the twin Twi'lik brought in a man who looked like he'd been left in a room with a particularly horny Wompa. While he was dressed in the blood colored dress uniform of the Crimson Guard, his face a mess of swollen tissue and was propped up more by the servants than his own bones.
Then they left and he began to slump over only to be caught by an invisible force and he groaned in agony as a broken leg was set so he could be forced to one knee. "Do Bothans of your era still value the ancient blood oaths?"
Tonight seemed to be filled with the oddest of sensations and occurrences. For a moment Raveem swore that his mind had cleared and his thoughts were once again in order. But that was brief. Soon the storms returned and his attention turned to something else. Miryia's servants brought in another soul. The Bothan's first reaction was to approach him to get a better look. Upon closer inspection, the wounds weren't done by his agents. No, they would have been more precise and permanent. Nothing a bacta tank could fix without significant scarring. It piqued his curiosity.
"I don't believe the guest and I have been properly introduced." He bowed in the man's direction, before turning to Miryia with a smile. "Would you indulge my curiosity first? I do like to meet new people, especially ones with an interesting backstory."
For a second, the Jedi turned holy warrior raised an eyebrow "Truly" she began, only to find herself laughing softly, that vicious, half feral laugh from before. "Animal" she hissed and the man winced and raised his head "Y...yes..m'lady?" her eyes flickered with malice, was he extending learned courtesy and addressing a superior form of life and social baring? Or had he just conflated her for a Sith..again.... "The Cervid asked you a question" Her tone was absolute, final, dripping with contempt. "I'm..I'm Captain Jhado..of the Crimson guard..the..Emperor's" "That deformed catamite is dead..." "Sate Pestage..m'lady" "That twitching, simpering, diseased commoner is also rotting in a waste dispenser unit" Oh a casket had been given a funeral, but to hammer the point home Grand Vizier Hissa insisted on declaring a post mortem treason sentence after a farce of a trial where Miryia was forced to "arbitrate". Among her more unsavory duties, but one she endured for the sake of deferring to the man who was their leader after all. "Why are you on your knees before me as opposed to serving in Grand Vizier Hissa's honor guard?"
The man said nothing, until he caught a look of her eyes and he panted before answering "Because..I...I do not serve Xenos nor their Jedi whores! The Galaxy belongs to the Sith you vile witch! Your time has passed"
My time? She thought; her eyes beaming with something, deep, twisted and blazing.
this is my time you fool!Raveem stood there, giggling madly at himself as he witnessed the exchange. Yes. This is what he was here to see. The results of Miryia's cleansing of the Empire. It was beautiful to witness and he honored to be there to see it all unfold. Of course, this was small but every bit counts. After all, it is the small things that bring about the biggest of changes. Or so his father told him... or his uncle... or his cousin twice removed. He couldn't remember.
"Oh!" Suddenly Raveem recalled Miryia's previous question. "Why yes. The Vas'ah's have always kept to the old traditions. Ar'krai..." The Bothan shot a hungry gaze at Jhado. At that moment, Miryia could have thought that the Bothan was about to leap in and finish off what someone else had started. Instead, the Bothan simply approached him positioning himself behind the man.
"Shall I dare ask... Why?" There it was... that dangerous curiosity that served as fertile ground for his equally dangerous strategies. Perhaps it was this curiosity that made him make that fateful decision back then.
Ah yes, the predator comes forward, watching Raveem conduct himself, his thought processes it was akin to watching the tidal surges of a singularity that was beginning to form inside a nebula. an endless haze of chaos roiling around a centered anchored in a sea of darkness. She'd waited for him to answer her original question, an honor she seldom bestowed, but one she was willing to do in tribute to a man whose madness and curiosity belied a need to correct the flaws of the one center for absolute justice and order in the known universe. "In my youth I witnessed a wretched old Sith draw the life force out of his own child to buy himself a century of life, if such a pitiful existence could be called that. Their essence draining techniques often left the life thief addicted, intoxicated and slowly weakening. Their lives going shorter and shorter with each theft. In the days before dogma, indolence, arrogance and stagnation overran the Jedi, they're alchemy permitted one of sufficient mastery to rob life from plants, trees and in dire emergencies animals. While this was done to regenerate grievous injury the more, proficient masters learned that it had begun to retard their aging, adding hours, days, sometimes months with every deed. It had no negative effect on them...Beyond the conflict with their philosophy. It is thoroughly unpleasant and exhausting either way...Though easier with sentient life"
Which was the problem for the Sith and summarized their laziness, their arrogance and ultimately, their stupidity.
"Of course the Sith, ever the cowards, feared death more than anything and it did not occur to them that sentient life could be harnessed the same as an animals when brain function began to diminish" slowly she extended her left hand, her index and middle finger pointed forward. Sith lacked the focus to do such a thing and only Jedi healers partook in what she was about to do with any regularity.
Miryia's fingers twitched, if one were force sensitive and present one would have seen a shadow obscure her face only for the light to come roaring out of her body, enveloping the shadow, burning it, scalding it, mutilating it and..reforming it.
Jhado's throat opened "Die then vermin and be at once with your masters..and in death, serve their executioners!" blood gurgled and sputtered from his throat and nostrils, from his mouth and he seemed to be held in place solely by her will.
Her right hand reached out, tracing the outlines of her fingers along Raveems snout, allowing the stolen life force to pass from Jhado to her being, her cells and the bulk to Raveem, mending the wound on his back and perhaps adding a decade or so to his life. "This my Ar'Kai, the blood pledge of a force wielder A force-wright not a mere puppet of raw material..a servant to a cosmic energy source"
Her eyes flashed, she stood drawing herself up as Jhado's corpse was tossed away, blown across the courtyard and flung out into the refuse heap.
"And that, is what I shall do to the heretic, the deceiver, the liar, the carrion eaters, the cynics and idolater..to the embezzler, the coward and low predators...And to every single force wielder in this universe that does not accept my gospel..the Gospel of Imperial justice..That is my blood oath to ..you...to every sentient in the known universe!"
All Raveem could do at that moment was stare in awe. He had to keep himself from drooling. From what little he knew... Raveem could tell this was a corruption of the Force that would shake even its most extremist of practitioners. It brought him joy to see Miryia in action. He grinned and held back laughter as he felt the captain's life force enter him the moment Miryia's touched his snout. A few moments passed between that and his reaction. The Bothan stood there in complete silence, staring out into the distance. Slowly, he reached for his snout as Miryia dictated the terms of their blood oath. He then reached for his back and midsection, the pain was gone and so was the soreness in his back.
"It will be an honor, Invictus Janus. I can imagine... no, I see it. The true New Order. Your vision for the Galaxy... it is truly glorious. Order in the chaos." He smirked, glancing outside to the city and back at Miryia. "I have never felt this way..." Remarked Raveem after a moment of silence, more as an off-hand remark. "
Miryia Farlina of House Janus, Pontifex Invictus of the Imperial remnant allowed herself to sink into the inferno she'd created within the force, about her she could feel a bleed, a sort of tear where the energies of light and dark mingled, a bleed growing more and more intense, saturating her very cells and, pushing the limit of her being, threatening to overwhelm her senses.
Yet, this was the grand test, the moment where her crucible became an immense forge galvanizing the impure to produce magnificently sharpened, polished steel or ruptured and consumed its smith in flames and slag. For the briefest of moments it would have looked to outside observer like she was hyperventilating and a flicker of fear washed over her face. She swayed, but refused to buckle, buckling meant being consumed by the force, becoming a sentient wound.
That was for weaklings like Surik and mindless gluttons. It was not for a scion of house Janus nor the Master of the Order of Imperial Knights, nor the religious leader of a nation. Fists clenched as she visualized the tear in her mind, felt the ripping seams along her very soul and through them began to trace astral fingertips along the unraveling threads of the force.
It was time!
Her force of will clamped down. she held firm onto the reaction and bore down with all her might, forcing the cascading energies to slow to a halt, to congeal, to shudder and...to take shape, a shape guided by her will alone.
Blood vessels ruptured, flesh tore but she used the errant energies, the bleed off to mend them and focused on the roiling wound until at last in one final flash of sparks..it cauterized around her and cooled within her until the bleeding clotted and began to mend.
All this may have transpired in an instant, the only evidence of her titanic struggle was a single drop of purple blood that fell onto the knuckle of her index finger.
"Nor have I" she conceded at last to Raveem, her voice was almost youthful, exuberant and her eyes flickered with a deadly certitude.
"Now, to Endor we must...go" she let out in a hissing breath.
To the second act of this long play.
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