Work Text
We're in a dream in the happy house
We're all quite sane
This is the happy house, we're happy here [x]
They are carrying out bodies again.Stasia can’t really see them of course; they’re covered by sheets, but she'd only dared to try looking once. Right now though, the chrono says oh-seven-hundred, so she darts past the human-shaped forms on the hover gurneys that the service droids are pushing towards the side wing, heading to the main sitting room of the level. She's seventeen, so she's no longer made to wait in their quarters until Claria's done with morning accountability, she is to go find her here. Claria has come from her master’s gardens, which are towards the back of this level of the Master’s tier.The level’s sitting room, where Claria waits is less lavishly decorated than the ones in the residential levels, just a couple of black flow chairs, a black shaak leather chaise, and a small scarletwood meeting table to the side. Light streams in from the arched windows catching on the hardwood of the floor, but nothing but clouds can be seen if you were to look out of the transparisteel. They're too high up.Claria stands beside the table, clad in her usual loose pants that taper at the ankle, her long yellow tunic and wide tan belt cinching her up to just under her breasts. Stasia’s outfit is similar but gray, and unlike Stasia, today Claria’s face is painted white with shadow-ink triangles under her eyes. The black brings out their yellow, in a few moments the color will fade back to green like Stasia's own.If Claria has that makeup on and there’s bodies taken out, that can only mean one thing. Stasia’s heart skips a beat, but she controls herself. A smile plays on Claria's face, the usual mocking edge to it.“Your master will be arriving tonight.” Claria settles a hip against the table.“We will dine with him?” Stasia tamps down the eagerness in her voice.“No, his trip to the training grounds at Yinchorr took too much out of him. He will rest.” Claria’s eyes are knowing and Stasia looks away, feeling the usual mortification at being so easily read. “You will see him tomorrow.”Claria will see him tonight. Claria is older, Stasia tells herself to quell the bite of that sinuous feeling. Of course the master will go see her first.But, a voice whispers, Claria just returned to the Citadel a day ago. Had she stayed away, the master would have come to see Stasia instead. That’s not really true. “Which means,” Claria continues in her usual brusque manner, flipping her red gold hair back, “he will probably interfere with your schedule. So you have much to get through today and more assignments to complete before you see him. Go, Moff Desme waits for you at the library.”--Like most of her tutors with similar titles, Moff Desme is a moff of nothing -- not since the last decade when anyone who mattered fled here. The Collapse of the Second Sith Empire, as Claria calls it, brought them to Byss. Some of these moffs are called on to give lectures to Stasia at the main library on the study level of her master’s tiers. They do so with their eyes on the massive arched windows at either side or the tall holobook shelves built into the back wall with their rolling ladder, all to not look directly at her face. Stasia is long used to it. She takes copious notes since there are periodic assessments.Stasia is tutored in other areas as well, and not all subjects require lectures or are even held inside. Today there's flight and Stasia's advanced past the simulators, instruction has her soaring around the Citadel's massive spires, diving through its pointed arches in her V38. A towering meld of neoclassical Muunilist style and Naboo ornamentation, the Citadel's behemoth structure looms over the Imperial control sector around it, the main city of Byss, jewel of the Deep Core. She's been told there's other magnificent buildings like this in the Core, enormous cloudcutters that house beings of consequence and their armies of aides and servants. She's even seen some holos of the various skylines of Core planets, but Stasia cannot imagine any building more majestic than the Citadel. She's certain none of them feel like the Citadel.After flight, there’s a twenty minute break for lunch and Stasia takes it in the down at kitchens in the servant’s tiers, the collection of lowest levels of the Citadel, below the courtier's tiers. Those levels are busier and louder than the master's levels, the servants buzzing around in ceaseless activity. Claria taught Stasia a long time ago how to direct the servants' concentration elsewhere, so she doesn’t attract attention, and it's a necessary thing. Even after seeing her around the halls, the wreckage of her face makes the servants uncomfortable, certainly more so than their usual discomfort with dealing with members of the court. They probably fear their thoughts being read or some other nonsense. They've seen less of the true nature of the Citadel than the courtiers. Those servants that get an inkling to the Citadel's uniqueness are soon made to forget or sent to the training grounds at Yinchorr or Ziost. It's rare though.Stasia likes this part of the day best. The servants chatter between themselves about trivialities that seem exotic to Stasia -- the cousin who just purchased a shaak farm at the borders of the Imperial control sector, the sister who is getting married at the eastern side, and her favorite, gossip about her master. Today they titter that he has been gone too long, that his gait was slow when he walked into the Citadel, a heavy cloak upon him, its hood obscuring his face, cane in hand. Concern underlies the observation, Stasia thinks, but it need not. The gardens will refresh him as they always do.Talk other than that is slight today, sadly enough. The servants hurry to make advance preparations for the traditional homecoming banquet held two days after her master’s return. Mostly it’s just so the courtiers can pay their respects. Stasia has only been to one, and remembers it being a big bore.Her day ends with kinesthetics and target practice up in the gym level of the master’s tier. Stasia’s leaving just in time to run herself through the sanisteam and make it to the lounge level for dinner with Claria. She brings her datapad with her so Claria can examine her assignments and asses her progress. Claria scans the datapad as the service droid arranges their meal before them on the round cherise table. Stasia leans back on the plush chair, eyeing the squall fillet and herbed vegetables the serving droid puts in front of her. It lets out a mechanical "enjoy your meal" just before it leaves. “Don't slouch,” Claria says without taking her eyes off the screen. "Good marks in politics, well done." She snorts. “Your poetry report is less than insightful, but it will do.” The criticism smarts just a bit and Stasia straightens up and takes her utensils to begin cutting her meat. “But your last problem sets in thermodynamics and security were above threshold.” She finally looks up, radiating pleasure. “Go back down to the study level after dinner. You have viol instruction in the music room.”What? She's lifting the fork and stops. “I thought I’d get free time to start on my assignments.”“Your master is seeing you tomorrow, don’t you want to show him your skills?” Under the shadow-ink Stasia can't see Claria’s thin eyebrows rise, but imagines them all the same. “I thought you would be grateful for an extra opportunity to practice under Instructor Esau.”Stasia brings the fork to her lips and bites down. If she wants to get everything done, she’ll get to bed late, so she won’t be at her best tomorrow when she meets up with her master. She’s never done particularly well with Force instruction when she’s under-rested. But there is no point in complaining to Claria. Stasia glares as Claria reaches for the glass of blossom wine the droid left her, taking a sip before returning to her meal. She’s probably doing it on purpose to stack things against her. Stasia doesn’t even like the viol, but Claria insists art is a fundamental part of a Core education. The old master had slotted Claria herself into dance instruction for years -- something Stasia's pretty sure Claria hated -- Stasia's master, he had learn calligraphy in the classical Futhark style. While Stasia has never seen Claria dance, one of her master's scrolls hangs in the main library, beside the Palpatine family crest.Thinking of her master makes Stasia snap, “You’ll make me embarrass myself in front of him again.”“That’s up to you now, isn’t it?” Claria retorts without inflection. “Duties and obligations don’t stop. They only intensify. It’s a good lesson. You are too coddled.”Stasia doesn’t reply, she feels a kind of prickle at her face, at the three prosthetic fingers of her left hand, and shunts it away. Weakness. Claria changes the subject, going into her research. These days she’s reading about a Darth Gravid, an old Sith Lord who deviated into the light, and in a fit of insanity sought to combine the teachings of their Order to those of the Jedi. Despite her annoyance, Stasia leans forward as Claria speaks. “There’s no shortage of fools even in our Order, is there?” Stasia notes when Claria finished. She reaches for her water.“Be that as it may, it would be foolish to underestimate the pull of the light," Claria chides. "Sidious’ strongest apprentice fell under its thrall in the end, and almost brought doom to all of us. Now go practice.” It's a known story to Stasia and she goes downstairs. After her viol instruction, Stasia returns to her room where she sits at her desk in the sitting area, completing assignment after assignment until her eyelids droop. She wonders if she shouldn't have stayed at the study level. The dark of the maroon carpeting and the dim illumination of the wall light fixtures make her and Claria's quarters a difficult place to study. She rises from her chair and stretches, walking into the bedroom, passing Claria's vanity table on her way to the 'fresher. The service droids have already lowered the blinds.When Stasia emerges she notes that the chrono on the wall over the dresser indicates that she’s over an hour later than usual in readying herself for bed. Usually, Claria would already occupy the left side of their shared bed, but she is with her master tonight. The sinuous feeling curls tighter as Stasia turns off the lights and slides into bed, pulling the moon cotton sheets up. She can't see them in the dark but imagines the art objects Claria keeps in the wall niches beside her vanity table. They came from the old master, one is a ceremonial Gran wind drum and the other is a Triffian stone carving. Stasia's master isn’t even Claria’s master, Stasia thinks as she drifts off.Stasia doesn’t know what time it is when she wakes, feeling uneasy. It takes a second to sort out why. The bed feels too big and strangely empty. Claria still isn’t in. She might not come to bed at all tonight, Stasia remembers. It’s happened before...just a couple of days ago. Stasia spent all of last week alone and Claria hadn't given a reason other than a project she needed to finish, which was rare. But she'd never been away when the master was gone. All that week Stasia knew she should have felt liberated to be outside of Claria’s scrutinizing gaze, but it felt weird instead -- not to have morning accountability, not to have dinner with her, not to hear her soft breathing beside her at night.Before that, the only time Stasia doesn't remember Claria there was when Stasia’s master is at the Citadel. More often than not he is out at the Borderlands with the admirals, consolidating their forces, and leading the war effort. If not that, overseeing the training of their dark side adepts. If he's in the Citadel, Claria spends the night at his quarters, but he has never stayed for more than a few short weeks every few months. At least, when he's around he makes it a point of spending time with Stasia.To distract, herself Stasia reaches out through the Force. At least now she can locate Claria's presence. She's with her master, and Stasia can pick out his presence too. They aren't far. The quarters she shares with Claria are also on her master’s residence level, the highest floors of the Citadel. Through the Force Stasia feels more than just Claria and the master's presences. She feels the courtiers in their living spaces under the master's tiers, and the servants in their tiers below. Most of all, she feels the Force nexus that whips about the Citadel. That current of power is a hungry living thing to Stasia. There are days when it even plays with the elements, particularly when the master is around. That is as it should be. The whole of Byss bends to her master's will. From the clouds in the sky to the lichens in the canyons, everything is his. One word and they will wither if he so chooses. He owns Byss. He owns all of the Deep Core. The Citadel towers above all as a manifestation of his will.It's comforting knowledge, and that familiar whirlpool of darkness soothes the odd feeling that had surfaced when she'd realized Claria was gone.That dark energy wraps a tendril around her, a breeze that whispers without words. It feels like Claria, telling her this all could be yours too, as long as you desire it, you will never want for anything. Stasia knows, though, that power is fickle, the Force does not answer to any who cannot bring it to heel, and she is much too immature, too untested yet, to give into its siren call. The courtiers don't know this and both feed and are devoured by it, Claria has told her, held endlessly captive to its whims. For as long, as Stasia can remember she's been taught to keep herself apart."Touch," Claria has said, "But never sink into it. Not yet."Someday, Stasia promises the dark energy. She can still feel it, like waves lapping at her feet. First, she will surpass Claria.An odd current sneaks through the flow of power, jolting her. Stasia focuses on it. It’s not the concentrated curl of her master’s presence, nor Claria’s nestled alongside it. While the courtiers have some abilities in the Force, they are largely untrained, their powers are too minuscule for Stasia to feel them distinctly through the nexus.So is it a being?This energy feels different. Tenuous and yet...out of tune with the turbulent darkness around it. Stasia shifts a little on the bed, her forearm and shoulder hurts from practice with the viol, and her limbs are stiff and tired. Tomorrow she has her lessons with her master, best to try and rest. It’s probably nothing or something that only pertains to her master. She curls in on her side and makes herself find sleep.A dip of the mattress wakes her.“Shh.” It's Claria, but she smells different, not like her usual sweet willow. It’s not unpleasant, but different. Familiar, yet her head’s too muddled by sleep to place it.“How's the master?” Stasia's words have the quality of molasses.“Same as always,” Claria whispers, shifting to settle on the bed. “Looking forward to seeing you.”Stasia sighs, feels the play of Claria's fingers on her arm. “I felt you startle earlier.”“Was something,” Stasia hears herself mumble. “Felt something.”“Mm?”“Not you or him,” she rouses herself to say.“Shhh.” The mattress dips again and Claria's breath is warm on her neck as she exhales. Stasia doesn't open her eyes. “Go back to sleep.” Stasia does.--Early morning brings excitement to the Citadel. The air fairly crackles with her master's presence. For a second after her eyes flutter open Stasia lets herself drift in the rush of power, blinking against the light streaming through the arched windows to her left.But she can't stay, she has a schedule to keep, and finally drags herself out bed, tiredness like a persistent demon. Claria stands by the vanity table at far end of the room opposite the bed, knotting the wide gold sash that cinches around her dark blue gown. It’s not that different from her usual clothing save it’s a gown and that there’s gold embroidery running down either side. It looks nice, Stasia thinks with dismay.“You’ll find your attire by the armoire,” Claria says, meeting her eyes through the carved mirror.The outfit today is better than usual, sleek pants and a high collared veda cloth hunting shirt in gray. Stasia knows the fit will be perfect due to how exacting Claria is. Stasia's pleasure at the outfit is fleeting as always; nothing short of a veil hides the wreckage of the lower half of her face, the skin stretched unnaturally thin over her jaw, her half lipless mouth, and Claria doesn't believe in hiding her deformity. Last time Stasia wore a veil was years ago. Claria had called it cowardly and made such a fuss, Stasia didn't make it a full day with it.Claria has gone on to work on her hair, parting it at the center and gathering it at the nape of the neck, she’s currently splitting strands. A mass of small decorative silver rings, lie on the vanity to be affixed on the thin strands of her hair. Her more involved preparation means Stasia doesn’t have to go anywhere for morning accountability. It does sting to see Claria at her best while she has to contend with having the face of a ghoul. The reminder is invariably foul.“Believe me,” Claria says without turning. “I would much rather be wearing what you are. Even your face.”Stasia ignores the comment; that’s just Claria, and pulls on her boots. Claria had warned her back then, and she hadn’t heeded the warning. Claria is her elder and responsible for her care and education. “I thought the master preferred your hair loose,” Stasia says smoothing down the shirt. Claria picked the wrong hair style for that outfit, she's certain. That outfit requires something more intricate.“He does,” Claria replies easily. “Go have breakfast then flight as usual. Then come up to the gym level for a training round. Room Besh-four.”Stasia finishes dressing and takes the turbolift down to the grounds where Instructor B’fej is waiting, wearing the same kind of peasant hair style Claria had decided on for today. Stasia wishes she’d needled some more. For all of Claria's talk of propriety, she doesn't always keep to her own standards.Flight doesn't go as smoothly as it tends to. It’s Claria’s fault for having overworked her the night before, Stasia thinks glumly. She goes up to the master’s gym level and the room Claria indicated to wait. Soundly annoyed, she glowers at Claria when she enters the practice room. Claria ignores her, making a waspline to Stasia’s collar, her hands fluttering up to straighten it.Stasia pushes them away. “Off.”“It’s not crisp enough,” Claria hisses, lips turning down with disapproval. “And you should have given your hair another brush before pulling it up.”“Yours is still in a--” Stasia falls silent when she feels her master just outside. She draws in a breath. Shadowmoths flit to and fro in her stomach and she freezes. Claria continues fussing over her hair, muttering to herself. Her master’s tone is rich with amusement when he says, “Hello, Stasia.” Claria turns her face, and withdraws her hands, her sense shifting from annoyance to the usual sullenness she has in his presence. One of Stasia's first memories -- one of the few before her disfigurement -- is her asking Claria why she so hated him.Stasia bows her head, feeling herself flush. “Master,” she greets him. “I trust the adepts at the Yinchorr training grounds have pleased you?”"I don't hate your master. My attachment to him is deeper than love or hate. Simple feelings," Claria had told Stasia, as she helped her adjust her beading, her fingers nimble where Stasia's had been frustratingly clumsy; she'd been such a bumbling child, "are for simple beings. Power comes from what we feel, and we are not limited to the shallow waters of common beings. You'll learn this when you come of age."“A few of them,” the master answers, drawing Stasia from her memory. When she glances up, he meets her eyes with a bright smile. Her master has never indicated he’s put off by her facial deformity, though he must be. Claria says he never spares a thought for vanities of that sort.But how can Stasia believe her master doesn’t care when everything about him is impeccable -- from the shine of his boots, to the shimmering sazue capes, to the tunics of intricately embroidered brocart, veda cloth, and shimmersilk he wears to the golden highlights in his hair. Every time her eyes alight on him, she feels incapable of looking away. Incapabable of breathing.She thinks he's younger than Claria. He looks younger -- her age -- his face smooth, soft fair features belaying the dark power that gathers around him. Stasia is sure she only feels a fraction of it. She isn’t sure how old he is. Old enough to have been raised as the old master’s son before the old master died the first time. But age is a complicated thing in the Citadel. Stasia appears and feels seventeen, but it was only seven standard years ago that she came to be, the year the old master died the second time.“I do think you’ve grown taller since I left,” her master says lightly.She drops her head, stares down at her boots.“She has,” Claria intervenes, an edge in her voice. Pride, Stasia thinks. “And she’s improved in all areas. She’s been wanting to show you. Haven’t you, Stasia?”She feels the her master’s eyes on her. All of her own words have vanished. She hates Claria for speaking for her.“Here,” she says impatiently, and shoves box about as long as her arm at her.“I’ll activate the remotes.”That means a timer. It pulls Stasia out of her nervous paralysis. She bites the inside of her cheek as she anticipates the task. The spheres of the remotes will power up, rise, then shoot at her. The bolts can overwhelm the nervous system without doing permanent damage. Being on the receiving end is unpleasant. She tastes copper in her mouth.“Can I open the box?” She hates the sound of her own voice, clumsy, not confident like Claria’s husky contralto. “Of course,” Claria says.There are parts in it and a normal adegan crystal. It’s a training lightsaber. Stasia understands what is being asked. That restless feeling fades a little. She can do this.“You may begin,” Claria announces as the timer beeps. “Assemble it through the Force.”Stasia’s head snaps up.“Through the Force,” Claria repeats, expression stern.That sounds like an order, and Stasia turns her attention to the box. Within it lies a lightsaber, or more accurately, its components. Pommel cap, handgrip, diatum power cell, she picks out. The rest is the primary crystal mount, the blade emitter, shroud, and the main casing with all its attendant wiring. Stasia’s only done this by hand.Stasia manages to get the crystal into the crystal energy chamber, but she can’t get the other pieces to move according to her will, no matter how hard she tries. The tension in her muscles spikes, coils painfully tight, and she feels telltale beads of sweat form along her hairline. By the time desperation has her trying by hand, picking the components from the air, the training remotes are fully charged.The first bolt slams into her just as she’s getting the pommel cap on, throwing her down. The second one makes it an impossibility, sending the partially assembled lightsaber out of her hands. There’s a third that hurts more than it should as she reaches again for the lightsaber. She avoids fourth, calling the lightsaber to her hand, but the fifth shatters her concentration, and she curls away, the weapon soaring out. After the sixth and seventh, she can’t really get back to her feet.Claria calls for a stop. Stasia’s grateful it’s her and not her master. Embarrassment seeps out of her from between the pain. An excuse extinguishes itself at the tip of her tongue. “You are better than this.” Claria’s footsteps approach. Stasia draws from the Force to shove herself to a sitting position, recoiling at her words. She can’t look up, wants to hide her face.“Shall we move on to our lesson?” her master asks, and his voice carries no censure. Stasia feels some tentative relief. “Would you excuse us, Claria?”Stasia feels her reluctance, but she moves away. Claria’s presence grows smaller as she leaves, radiating reproof. Her master crouches down beside her, peers at her face. “Are you all right?Stasia nods, half embarrassed, half appreciative of the inquiry, fondness warming the cold mortification of her failure. She finds her voice in an echo of Claria’s. “I should have done better.” Her master oversees their dark side adepts, Stasia thinks, more embarrassment flaying her. She must have looked like a stupid initiate. Why hadn’t Claria had her demonstrate her skills at mind breaking, instead? “Have you practiced assembling a lightsaber before?” He helps her up. “Or bled a crystal?”“A few times, manually. With Claria. I...I haven’t worked with the crystal yet. I’ve mind sifted,” she almost winces, “Claria says it’s a similar operation.” “To a degree,” he agrees, blue eyes serious. “Bleeding a crystal is more complex that bending minds in general. The crystals are tenacious. Without true clarity of purpose and will, they won’t bend. Not unlike the Force itself.”What she hears is you've shown you're not ready yet. He cocks his head at her. “You’re disappointed.”“In myself, Master. Claria was probably much younger than me when she bled her crystal and I can't even...,” she lets her voice trail off.To her surprise, he chuckles, a warm, rich sound. Her chest squeezes at it. “Claria was a few years older than you, actually. This was after she was called back to Byss. Most of her training was the equivalent of your basic training before then. Her skills with the Force came later, under the old master. You’re much more advanced now than she was then.”A smile breaks on her face. She didn’t know that. “Was the first crystal she bled a Jedi’s before?” A certain pedigree comes in bleeding a crystal from a Jedi’s lightsaber -- that is what the Sith texts say. Stasia bends to pick up the parts on the floor.“No,” her master’s eyes glint when they catch hers. “Only mine is.”She stands with the parts in her hands, makes them hover in the air with the Force. Before she can try her hand at assembling them again, her master says, “How familiar are you with the individual components?”Her master lifts his hands to the casing, and runs a slender finger along its side, letting it keep floating between them. “Because before you know them through the Force, you must know them with your hands. The Force is a tool like any other. Mastery is in the wielder’s hands. The wielder must know the conduit, the vessel, inside and out, every curve and crevice. Only then is there mastery. Only then is power absolute.” His hands move gracefully, plucking the blade emitter, inserting the blade shroud and the rest of the parts before moving onto the casing, inserting the energy circuits into the energy channel. Stasia hardly breathes as he lifts the assembled parts with the Force, leaving them suspended in the air while he works on the crystal energy chamber and slides the power cell in the handgrip. With a few clicks, he’s done. The handgrip and attached pommel cap rise beside the other hovering parts, larger pieces slipping seamlessly together, until the fully assembled lightsaber drops into her master's right hand. He shifts it to his left, evaluating its weight. “Now.” He offers it to Stasia. “Try again.”Stasia reaches for it through the Force. Her master stops her. “Know the components.”And he is right. She'd only worked manually with the lightsaber a few times. So she reaches with her hands, fingers brushing against his when she takes hold of the casing, a thrill rippling down her spine. A sudden desire to wrap her hands around his blooms, making her breathing hitch. She freezes and the master gifts her a smile brimming with secrets. Her hold tightens on the hilt “Will you attend the court's welcome?”It feels like being doused with ice water as she takes the lightsaber. She looks down at the casing. “No.”He tsks. “You have nothing to fear. The court doesn't care for vanity.”Stasia knows that. Plenty in the court bear marks and scarring worse than hers. Many do so with pride. But then again, they'd earned them, despite being simple dark side adepts. She disassembles the main components again, leaving the blade emitter to float as she takes apart the rest of the casing.“You could wear a veil if those trivialities concern you,” he says offhandedly.Stasia doesn't answer, eyes on the crystal energy chamber, and he chuckles but it's not a warm sound this time. “You have Claria's silence.”Her head snaps up towards him. “I would rather be in court because I earned my place there, Master.”His tone is cutting when he continues, even if his expression doesn’t change, “And you sound like her too.”Stasia turns back to the lightsaber parts, mouth pursing. The rest of the court has shed blood for her master or has family that has. She thinks of that pretty Inquisitorious boy from Msst Claria had savaged a few seasons ago -- he had traveled with her master to Honoghr for the yearly retribution. The boy’s demeanor had been insolent about the privilege, and he'd had the misfortune of Claria having sensed it. She doesn’t suffer impertinence from any underling.After the boy had recovered, Claria had asked her master to invite him to dine with them. She'd painted large curling shadow-ink designs on her face for the occasion, and it'd been amusing to watch the boy pale and avoid looking in Claria's direction, projecting barely controlled terror. Stasia supposes he’d since learned his lesson about his place. Claria says it's good to remind those beneath them where they stand. Her master's campaigns in the Borderlands are this kind of operation writ large. Empires are not just of acquiring, but holding in subjection. Her old master, Claria claims, had forgotten this over time, unfortunately.Stasia finishes with the primary crystal mount. She doesn't want to be in court for her relationship to Claria, or even the Master. If she is to go and be looked at she wants to be feared, for herself and her own power. She wants them to quiver before her like that stupid boy did before Claria. Like they do before her master.“I wish you wouldn't compare me to Claria, my lord," she finds herself blurting out. It sounds pathetic in her own ears. Like a child.Her master's expression is curious, as if she were an intriguing specimen. “Why not?” she feels the Master’s hand under her chin. His eyes are intense, but his fingers are soft, much, much softer than Claria's. “We’re different,” is all Stasia can manage, breathless. He runs his thumb slightly over her half-lipless mouth. “She’s the closest thing you have to a mother.”The spell is broken there as she stiffens, her master’s hand draws away. “She is not my mother.” Stasia begins on the handgrip. “That would make you my father.”Her master laughs, a full resonant sound.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Charlotte sometimes builds a wall around herself
But it's always with love, with so much love
It looks like everything else [x]
"You're focusing too much on speed," her master warns. "It makes your swings sloppy. The tip of the blade must not go lower than your wrist. Back to the middle.""Yes, Master." Stasia’s arm is shaking, and she’s soaked in sweat. She returns to middle guard, tapping on the Force to steady herself. Her master's even more exacting than the blademaster Stasia usually practices under. He oversees their dark side adepts, of course he would be."Speed will come once your motions gain fluidity. Focus on fluid motion." He nods at her, eyes evaluative. "Begin."Stasia breathes and pushes her right leg forward with her left, swinging down, her blade straight. She repeats the swing and step to return to her previous position, and repeats the motion. Unlike him, Stasia has never so much as seen Claria activate a blade. She thinks Claria can. She’d clipped one to her belt before leaving on her long trip last week, and put it back in her drawer when she’d returned. But she's gathered Claria doesn’t think much of dueling. She has told Stasia that mastery of mind breaking means a lightsaber is only needed when your cowering victim is to be given a finishing blow.Stasia's willing to bet her master doesn't agree. She continues repeating the swings until her concentration on the Force itself begins to waver and she finds it hard to keep her strength up, her strikes growing more uncoordinated, footwork less precise.Finally her master calls the practice to an end, and the servants bring them a simple lunch. Over the clear dumpling soup, he inquires about Stasia's studies and tells her about their victory at Fondor. Once that is done, they go into the master’s meditation room towards the back of the gym level. It’s dark and cool there, no furniture save for a glass cube -- a meditation cube -- at the center roughly the size of a Wookiee. Its side panel slides open. She’s used to variations of this exercise and undresses automatically, folding her clothing and placing them in a stack on the ground. She fights the impulse to cover herself at the awareness that her master is conducting it this time, not Claria. That would be childish. Here she is to demonstrate how her body is merely the consummate vessel for power. Besides, they'd done it once before months ago.The master gestures her into the cube. She goes and sits on her knees. Her stomach tenses a bit as the wan lights grow dimmer until the whole room is plunged into darkness. It’s always unpleasant. Claria has forced her through round after round of this, she reminds herself.Stasia knows what to do, lets go of her doubts, and focuses on the ground beneath her. Her will.Her master's presence feels closer. She lets her eyes slide shut and inhales slowly, deeply. The dark power of the Citadel beckons.No, she tells it. You’ll come when I call. Not a moment sooner.Her master speaks, his voice reverberating melodiously. “Are you at peace, Stasia?” She imagines him pacing slowly in front of the cube, his hands clasped behind his back.Her voice is firm as she recites, “Peace is a lie. There is only passion.”“And what is your passion for?”A hydraulic hiss. The door has closed, she is now locked in the cube. Stasia doesn't open her eyes. This exercise is about focus.“Service,” Stasia says.“To what?” He’s not speaking any louder, but she can hear him more clearly despite the glass. “To the dark side. To my master. To my own desire.”“The dark side doesn't tolerate weakness,” he cautions. “Neither do I.”Water begins pouring down in fat drops. She breathes in. Releases her breath. No doubt. “There is no weakness, my master.”“That is what we shall see,” he retorts, durasteel in his voice. “I just witnessed you fail. Worse than an initiate.”Something in her trembles, but she focuses on the ground beneath her, empties her voice of feeling. She is to be will and will alone. “Failure only strengthens me.”“Failure does nothing but prove your deficiency, your shortcomings.” His voice turns mocking. “How can this be a strength?”“My failures anger me,” she recites, tuning out the needling of cold water against her bare skin. “My anger gives me power.”“Does it? Tell me what Claria did to you.”The reminder scalds her from within for an instant before Stasia reigns the feeling in. She makes herself consider his question like an oddly shaped object in her hand. Under the falling water, her face stings, but it isn’t real pain. Not like then. It’s a ghostly sort. Only the memory. A memory under her control.“I disobeyed her and she burned me.”“Specifics. Burned you where?”“My face.”“She marked your face. It's a wonder she didn't blind you. All who see you recoil.”Stasia inhales through the pain the words inflict. It’s not the first time she’s heard them. The water rains down harder, covering her knees already. She starts shivering. The temperature has dropped several degrees. “Did you deserve it? Do you deserve the reminder now?” When she delays, the cold scratching at her focus, he commands, “Answer me.”“Y-yes.” The chatter of her teeth makes speaking difficult. More freezing water pours down. The taunting is a matter of course, but it has the capacity to hurt. If she lets it. It hasn’t hurt for a long time, regardless of whoever conducts the exercise. “I deserved it.”“Why?”Stasia tries to center herself. The water is so cold it burns. She reaches to the Force. It is time. “Weak,” she pushes out on a breath as the Force draws away from her grasp and she sets her will to it. This is a balancing act, to push aside the pain in her body, while gathering power for herself. The Force is a wily power, slippery as an eel, stinging like it. A Sith knows pain from the start. A Sith utilizes pain from the start. Claria had taught her.“Because you are weak--”She inhales. Focus. A test. She’d failed with the lightsaber earlier, she’d failed in this too, months ago. She will not fail again. This power belongs to her. “No.”“I do not hear you,” her master chastises. “Are you too weak to answer me?”“No,” she pushes out louder, struggling for focus -- over her chattering teeth, the dull throbbing of her skin from the cold, water running into her mouth, it tastes cold, but sterile. The storm of memories. She’d failed this trial once. And this time--“What did you lose, Stasia?” The Force resists. She breathes deeply. The Force will answer to her in the end. It will give her the warmth she seeks. Concentrating on grasping it as it evades her keeps Stasia’s current agony at bay. The Force will answer to her. “F-fingers. Three.” “Because you failed. You should have been denied them.”Another deep breath. She wrenches the Force down, and finally it yields. A trickle of warmth runs through her numbed flesh. “Yes.”“And you deserved to lose your fingers.”“Yes.” Her focus roots down to the ground and around her, tepid warmth seeping inwards from the tips of her fingers and her toes. Too scant. More. She brings more of her will to bear.“Like the disgusting scarring on your face. If you lose the rest of your hand? What would it be like, Stasia? Your face, your hand, a foot, a leg.” His voice is vicious, modulated exactly to hurt, to distract her. “And are denied a replacement? If you failed now you would be denied a replacement. You wouldn't deserve one.”Her focus is rooted down to the ground, to the very foundations of the room, and past the stonework of the Citadel. More warmth. She demands it from the Force. Nothing else matters.“The body is nothing.” Her voice doesn’t tremble. She barely feels the cold although the water, she is aware, is at her ribs.Her master sounds neither approving nor disapproving, only faintly curious. “Nothing? And if it dies?”“It is well deserved.”“You give it to the dark side?”The water is up to her shoulders, but when she inhales, all she breathes in is dark power. Mine. The power is whipping around her. More escapes her grasp as she tightens it.“Only so I can take from it,” she clarifies in a stuttering voice. “And if you can’t?”The water now covers half her face, numbing the scar tissue that mars her skin. She can no longer speak. But their adepts don’t in battle. Or if they do, it’s through distances, through the touch of minds, guiding their forces, building their bloodlust until their troops are implacable. She is just as good as their adepts. She is better.Stasia ignores the part of her full to the brim with panic at the ice cold water now submerging her. Her control over the Force wavers precariously before she summons even more of her will to press down on it, keep it within her.Then I die, she tells her master wordlessly.Do you wish that? comes back.She can’t inhale, her body suspended in ice cold water. Her fingers twitch. Warning signs she has trouble suppressing surface as warmth gushes from her. No.Her lungs burn. When her fingers twitch again, she feels the texture of the water differently. It’s slush. She moves her fingers again and finds the water resisting. Panic erupts, eroding her focus, like water on limestone. The Force slips from her hold entirely.The water is freezing. Freezing around her. Trapping her.
Prove it.
She can’t move now. Can’t open her eyes. She kneels in an icy tomb, even her nostrils filled with solid ice. Her mind blares white for an instant.Stasia thinks of the three fingers she lost. She thinks of the blast of pain from the remotes that Claria hadn’t prepared her for. She thinks of Claria’s one hand holding her in place, the other talon-like before Stasia’s eyes, electricity crackling from her fingertips as she sears through Stasia’s skin for her disobedience. Echoes of scorching pain rise like a high note plucked from string. Stasia is not helpless now. She will never feel that helpless again. She grips the Force, holds it, bends it. Solid ice encases her, but all she needs is to hold all her ambition, all her rage. Hold it like a breath as it burns, boils within her. Stasia presses down with the violence of a hand on an enemy's windpipe. Caging the flailing energy of the Force, then releases -- A loud cracking sound, brief weightlessness, then crashing.Everything hurts, but she's still holding onto the Force.She is the eye of the dark storm, she thinks.Stasia sways as she straightens, her eyes opening. The glare of the room’s white fluorescent light saturates her vision, but even that makes her grip on the Force tighter.Ice crumbles down her shoulders as she stumbles up and forward, feet crunching on the pieces. Her master is a blurry dark form.She collapses a good two feet away from him, hardly realizing why. As she pushes herself up on her hands, she notes the pink swirls on the thin layer of icy water on the ground, shimmering -- ice? No, glass -- atop it. She turns her head back. There’s no cube behind her, only a pink path through translucent ice and glass. She should be cold.She only feels the Force burning its dark power within her.Stasia turns back and her master’s boots are in her line of vision. He hasn’t moved. The Force burns ever brighter.“You wouldn’t wish to die,” her master speaks, a sarcastic edge to the words.Stasia means to stand, but like before, she can’t move her hands, can’t move anything now. Weakness of the body. She has yet to gain enough mastery to overcome it, though she reaches as far as she can into the Citadel, grabbing more of its energy. She resists its siren call to submerge herself in its current. That is folly. Even this might be too much power for her to hold. She's hit her limits before. It's somewhat dangerous. But no matter.She uses the last of her energy to lift herself on her hands. “No,” she says, holding on to that power. It senses her waning strength, longs to go away, lashes at her. She won’t be able to keep it long, and when it goes, so will she. She looks up to her master and narrows her eyes. “Let everyone else die instead,” she rasps.
Including you, Master.
She feels his pleasure at her reply before her arms give out and the world goes black.--Stasia wakes up in a cot. She recognizes one of the rooms within the gymnasium. A blanket covers her, her clothing is by the wall shelf. She sits up and examines herself, taking stock with relief that the worst of the damage is at her feet. They have deep cuts in them, glass embedded. A depowered medical droid waits in a corner. Stasia reaches with the Force to turn it on. It approaches, and asks, "How may I help you Mistress Stasia?""There's glass in my feet. Take it out.""Of course," the droid replies.Stasia breathes in over the pain as it works. It's minimal compared to the stabbing cold of earlier. But she'd done it. She'd set herself free. When she'd woken last time, she'd been bound, her fingers dead from the cold, frostbitten to uselessness. The droid had approached and she'd known to take what was offered.A Sith knows pain from the start.A Sith utilizes pain from the start.Stasia feels the master approach now as the droid starts on the bandaging. Her hand tightens on the blanket she holds against her.He stops just inside the door, watching the droid work for a few moments.“You have progressed since I last evaluated you,” he finally says. He draws further into the room approaching the cot, she's on. The droid withdraws with the tray of bloody glass.Stasia smiles. She knows she has.“But you do have need for more training before you can join me outside of the Deep Core.”Her heart sinks. “More training? With Claria?” “Of course.” He catches her disappointment. “You are too advanced for the training grounds in Yinchorr, but not enough for Ziost. And I would not want you mixing with the adepts there either way. You're cut from a different cloth.” The last soothes her a bit, but then he adds, “For now Claria is the most suitable teacher for you. It is to her credit that you have advanced to this extent.” Stasia tamps down on a scowl. She’d thought she was so close. She’d felt it when she shattered the meditation cube. “This angers you,” he says lightly. “Good.” He reaches a hand under her chin as he had only hours earlier. Her skin tingles and she closes her eyes. “But you should be angrier.”She swallows, wary of breaking the moment, of his hands drawing away.“Should I?” she whispers opening her eyes. “I've seen her scars. They run down from her shoulder to her belly." She takes a chance and leans into his hand with a sigh. "My master took his revenge for me.”“Maybe so, but she can hide them easily,” he murmurs. “Yours you cannot.”“That my master punished her at all is enough.” But something else curls within her, much as she tries to bury it.“Stasia,” her master warns. “To know darkness is to know the truth. Self-deception is childish.”She withers at the criticism. It has the ring of assessment, as if this too was a test.Her master chuckles softly, but it’s not a warm sound, more like Claria. “Everything is a test, Stasia. You know this. Now, the truth.” He withdraws his hand. “She…warned me, master.” To say it now without the water, outside the meditation cube feels different, an oily slick feeling she hates. Weakness. “It would not have happened had I not gone against the rules.”His eyebrows raise. “Ah yes, Claria and her rules.”“Perhaps one day,” Stasia offers hesitantly, “My master will grant me leave for my own revenge.”--Her master indicates she is to join her at another room at the level when she's ready. Stasia dresses and plods to the room with aching feet she ignores. The Royal Guards have brought a traitor so she can demonstrate her advances in mind breaking. She does beautifully, but as the Royal Guard takes the catatonic Bith female away, her master seems to take her success for granted and only offers her mild praise. The day winds to a close with a few minor control exercises, and the master goes down to the courtier's tiers where he will dine with his advisors. Stasia goes up to the lounge level to take dinner with Claria.“Well,” Claria turning from where she's standing by the side windows. Stasia had expected her at the table where she always is. Her voice sounds strange too, more strident, words more rushed than their usual. “How did it go? You’re in one piece. Definitive improvement over last time.” Her voice sounds odder still when she barks, "Why are you limping?"Stasia glares at her as she sits. She wants to keep the knowledge to herself, hoard it like treasure because Claria covets it, but she can’t. She wants to tell too, and there's no one to tell but Claria. “Scratches on my feet." She drops the napkin on her lap and looks at her plate of roasted wheat salad with herbs. "He says I’m not ready.”Claria makes a dismissive sound as she sits, her demeanor more subdued. “He would say that.”Stasia knows she shouldn’t but she snaps, “You didn’t prepare me for the lightsaber assembly-- it was a test --”“Everything is a test,” Claria retorts, picking up her utensils. “And you will rise to them.”Stasia reaches to grab some cheese from the middle plate and plops it on her plate. “It is unfair.”Claria leans over and slaps her.The shock of it startles Stasia. She stands instinctively wanting to lash out, only to be pushed down again. Claria shakes her head. “Fairness is not our way, Stasia. We believe only in strength.” Stasia manages to pry the hold away with the Force and glares. To attack her would be stupid, she knows now that she's more clear-headed. Dark power smouldering within Claria. She can bring to bear more than Stasia can handle, but this bit of insubordination she tolerates. True to form, Claria's lips curl slightly. “Your instincts are good and your powers have grown considerably despite your showing earlier. Perhaps there’s hope for you yet.”Her words are more aggravating than any slap. Of course, there’s hope for her. More than that. There’s more than hope. Destiny.“One day,” Stasia seethes. The master said she’d already surpassed Claria’s level at her age. “The master will give me leave to do to you what you did to me.”Claria nods slowly. “I would expect nothing less.”They resume dinner, Claria asking about her sequences and her meditation. Stasia gives grudging silence, for a few of them, but finds herself answering before long. This is not the first argument they’ve had, and the pattern of tumult and quiet is familiar like a worn quilt. Once dinner is over and the droids have taken away the dishes, they go into their quarters. Stasia reclines in one of the plush chaises in the sitting area with the holonovel she is to read for next week. Maybe an hour or so passes before Claria comes out in a different dress, a charcoal color, silvery sash glimmering around her waist. Unlike her last gown, it ties at the front. “How convenient,” Stasia gives it a sidelong glance, without looking away from her raised datapad. “But why bother with a sash? You’ll end up naked anyway. I could smell him all over you last night.”Claria makes a disgusted sound. "Just because we have savages at court doesn’t mean we have to act like them.”She leaves, and Stasia traipses through her nightly rituals, soundly irritated that Claria is to be with her master while she'd proved today she wasn't ready. Her own inadequacy chokes her, aided by that sinuous feeling that Claria will always have everything. For Stasia there’s nothing left. What is the point of ambition then? She thinks sliding into the bed. Is she here merely so Claria can delight in her superiority? Surely she has the rest of the master's underlings for that. Someday Stasia will be better, she knows this, but that day feels more and more distant. Maybe it'll never come.While Stasia lingers in her gloominess, she feels that glimmer again through the stormy dark of the Citadel. She feels for it in a more targeted manner. It must be coming from a lower level in her master’s tiers, she thinks. The Citadel has many levels Stasia has never been to, her assignments, tutors, and practice making her too busy to go exploring.Even if she weren’t, her curiosity has already cost her. And her feet. She wiggles her toes under the sheets, feeling the prick of her wounds. She opens and closes her hand with the prosthetic fingers. She's had worse.That isn’t to say she hasn’t explored some areas. Stasia isn’t a child anymore. If Claria gets everything, then surely she can’t begrudge her a little excitement from time to time. Wincing as her feet hit the carpeted floor again, Stasia puts on a robe over her shift and looks for the emergency glowlamp in her bedside drawer. Claria doesn't tend to find her unless she's actively looking for her and she's bound to be occupied anyway.She cautiously creeps out of the room after making sure the halls are empty. She doesn't need the lamp for the halls, the murky blue-green light from Byss' five moons through the clouds provides some illumination through the glass windows at either side. It's not too much; the cavernous height of the halls and the occasional tapestries swallow a good portion. Holding her glowlamp low beside her, Stasia slips into one of the small libraries beside the lounge. The placement of it means less light than the hall and Stasia clicks on her glowlamp approaching the bookshelves on the back wall. Her eye scans the in-laid shelves until she finds The History of Kursid, a thick red datacard -- it’s not the real history, that one is downstairs in the study levels. She removes the card. Behind it, there’s a small button on the wall. Once she presses it, the wall beside the shelf slides to reveal an opening. Stasia walks in, her glowlamp creating tall shadows in the stonework walls on either side of her. The old master loved having those secret passages, Claria had told her. All of his residences throughout the galaxy have them. The old master, like Stasia’s master, often required his court to visit or for family members to come live on the premises. Reprisal was easier to mete out through these darkened passageways in the case of treason. Claria had used to serve that way, but she doesn't like talking about that, or her time under the old master before she was called to the Deep Core.That was when the Empire blanketed near the whole galaxy. Claria tends to the master's private gardens now. Stasia thinks of the bodies taken out, adults probably. At least Claria's no longer tasked with poisoning courtiers or their progeny while they sleep, though Stasia isn’t sure who she disposes of for her new master today. Probably traitors. There’s no shortage of those. She thinks of the Bith whose mind she'd broken earlier. She'd started screaming even before Stasia had started. Must have been her face. She wished her master had been warmer in his praise.Stasia stops, trying to gauge where she is. She hasn’t been in the passageways for months, but the musty smell of them calls back memories, an anticipatory thrill that settles at the base of her spine. The master’s rooms are down the corridor, a part of them visible through a spyhole. Stasia has never been inside the master’s rooms, so she doesn’t know where exactly in his quarters the hole is located, but guesses it’s unobtrusive. Nervousness tightens Stasia’s belly. She is here only to ensure Claria is with the master and won’t catch her wandering, Stasia tells herself. She will not waste her evening here like last time, she thinks once she reaches the spyhole.She remembers the sitting area, an ornately carved closed door across the room. The furnishings are as lavish as those of her and Claria’s quarters, the navy blue chaises and upholstered chairs are arranged around a wide dark table with a holoprojector at the center. The bedroom lies deeper inside the accommodations, accessible through another spyhole further into the passage.Stasia crouches down and looks.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
I see you glowing
Got those electric eyes [x]
Stasia’s master and Claria stand to the side of the wide table, their faces reflecting the light of the projection as they stare at the holographic map. Stasia lowers the glowlap as she looks through the spyhole.“First, the Pentastar Alignment, the Ciutric Hegemony, and the Antemeridian sector,” Claria is saying, pleased, her head tilted up. “Now Fondor.”Her master has a hand on his chin, pensive. “Thrawn suggests we turn our eyes to the Lusankya, neutralize it before proceeding any further.” "What did the moffs say?""They concur, but think we do well to keep our eye on Abregado-Rae."Claria's voice sharpens. “And what of Coruscant?”Her master looks at her for a moment. “Thrawn already tried a year ago. We cannot allow the Borderlands to become unruly.”“He nearly succeeded, and he had nowhere near the resources that he has now. Our resources, our adepts--“Are not enough. They are an asset to Thrawn’s forces, but they are battle meditators, not warriors. I won't spend them as such. Not with the few we have.”“They have a single Jedi, barely left standing after an encounter with a mad--" “As I told you: You forget your first lessons,” her master says with an air of exasperation. “Patience.” Stasia feels Claria's ire rise.But he turns to her before she can speak, reaches to pull her face towards his much as he’d done to Stasia. “A full scale attack is unwise, especially now that the New Republic suspects Thrawn has more than the Ruling Council's support. They’re marshaling more allies already. We won’t keep finding victory as easy.” “Let them,” Claria sneers. “The New Republic’s been in disarray since Bilbringi. They will crumble completely any moment now while worlds rush to join us.”"It's not only the New Republic we have to contend with. Those joining us might not be altogether sincere." Her master’s hand slides down her chin to cup Claria's neck. “Did Sedriss’ subjugation of Balmorra not please you?”She lifts a shoulder. “Somewhat. But that’s different. It’s reprisal, much like Honoghr. Not an actual test.”“Is that what you call it?” Her master sounds darkly amused. His voice drops. “I call it necessary after Sidious' neglect. Our control of the Borderlands is not yet iron-clad."Claria bristles, a scowl coming over her face. "Surely you're not laying that at my master's feet.""Why shouldn't I? His last years he spent them looking to the horizon where he should have sought an orderly house." His hand trails down her shoulder."He always planned for more.""And you would have been in his confidence to know?" Claria looks away. "It is always on the eve of his death that you come to me with plans for more bloodshed.” Stasia's master looks down to meet her eyes, chiding, "It's rather maudlin, Mara."“Don’t call me that,” she snaps. Stasia knows that used to be Claria’s childhood name. She suspects it was a nickname from the old master, but Claria doesn’t speak of it. The first time Stasia heard it was the last time she’d been here, lurking in the shadows, watching.He chuckles. “That rank sentimentality is not like Sorzus Syn or whatever sorceress you’re emulating these days. They wouldn’t have thought twice about betraying their masters, would they?”Claria looks away. This is unlike her, and Stasia watches, enthralled. Her master is the only one who speaks to her in ways that make Claria feel this way, a current of anguish under the self assurance Stasia knows well. Stasia discovered it last season when she finally had the courage to explore the passageways by herself.Her master's hand keeps moving down over Claria's breast, glides down to curve over her hip. While his turning towards Claria means Stasia can’t see his face from her vantage point anymore, Stasia imagines his hands on her like that, thinks of his eyes darkening, his lips curving into a slow smile.“Didn’t he betray you first? There you were, a loyal vassal making your way here with nothing.” His tone is light, a tease. “And he gives you away like a present. One would think you’d hate him for it.”“He didn't give me away,” Claria objects, but even to Stasia the protest sounds half-hearted, oddly fragile under the harsh tone. "He taught me--"“To remind you of your failure.” “You’re not--”“But you hold no resentment, right?” He draws close to her, runs the back of his fingers down her cheek. Stasia likes that gesture far less than his hands on her body. Claria doesn’t seem to like it either, turning her face away. “He’d never have made you his apprentice.”Stasia feels the words strike Claria like a blow.“Hatred for one’s superior is intrinsic to us. But he didn’t quite cultivate that in you." He steps back slightly, eyes appraising. "You could be my apprentice.”Claria's face has gone blank. “You waste your time. Any of your adepts would be honored. And you have Stasia, if none of them are to your taste.”Stasia hates Claria saying that. She’s not second rate. “Is that what you wish?” Her master’s fingers skitter down Claria’s arm.“I don't care.”“Really. I would beg to differ. You do better work when you’re pleased.” He turns to his own hand, lifting it from her, flexing his fingers lightly. “No one quite has your touch--”“I’m not interested in the Rule of Two. The minute you take an apprentice, the focus changes, from Empire to survival.” She's back to the Claria Stasia knows best there, combative and short. “Only leads to destabilization in the long run. You forget your histories.” She makes a disapproving sound. “It ensures the figurehead is truly the vessel of the dark side,” he corrects. “More than that, it leads to a legacy. The preservation of the Order.”“Beautiful words.” Claria's lips tilt in a smile, but there's no humor in it. “Whose legacy? Legacy fades in absence of a ruler." She raises her chin, smile laced with irony. "I have no desire to rule, Iska; my life is yours if you wish it.” “I know.” His hand strokes up to her neck. “But you're very foolish if you think apprenticeship is only a red-in-tooth-and-claw contest.”"Like Plagueis offered my master?" Her expression turns coy, lashes lowered slightly. “My aptitude runs to alchemy. I have no interest in managing the lives of the living.”“Stasia’s life.” His fingers duck along the inside of her arm. “Does she not qualify as living?”Claria straightens up slightly. Stasia sees her master's hand drop, but she can't see where. “That’s only one. And I do it for you.”As she should, Stasia thinks as the belt cinching Claria's dress falls. Her master might endure, but Claria won’t. She doesn’t even wish to. Stasia’s known that for as long as she can remember.She watches as the dress loosens. Her master pushes it off Claria's shoulders and it pools at her feet. Stasia can't see more than Claria's shoulders, but imagines her body like her own through a mirror -- save for the tangling thread of scars standing out garishly from Claria's naked shoulder to stomach.“Do you look at her and remember how your master forfeited your life to one of the Inquisitorious?” His hand lowers and Stasia imagines one of his fingers tracing one of the spindly scars down her torso. Claria's chest rises with her breath. “A statement from your beloved master. Nothing but a plaything.”Claria's pain feels like oil seeping into cloth. The sullenness of her expression melts away to a blank look as she stares straight ahead. "My life was his to have. Like Stasia's is yours."This is true, Stasia thinks. For now. His hand draws up her collarbone, thumb rubbing across the hollow of her throat. It reminds Stasia of plucking viol strings for that one perfect note.“Loyalty does not become a Sith.” He cups Claria's face, drawing close enough that he might kiss her. “Not an apprentice,” she pulls away, “which you don't need. None of the other lords knew essence transfer. You’ve risen beyond the Rule of Two.”“An apprentice need not be a threat to keep one sharp.”Her eyes flicker to him. “I've already made you one.”“She was your gift, Mara," his voice lowers, cajoling, "She'll be exquisite in time, but I tire of waiting.”Warms blossoms at his words over the disappointment. Exquisite. Stasia can hardly think of anything else as she watches Claria's head snap towards him. “Who has to be patient now?” Her expression grows colder. "No.” Her master hisses from between his teeth. “Even now you’re his pet.”“You’ll never understand.” Claria smiles, mask-like.“What, because he raised you?” He laughs. “I had nursemaids like you did -- like Stasia would have had if you weren't so sentimental.”“How little you know never ceases to surprise me.”Stasia frowns at the slight, but her master only laughs. “You’re most transparent when you provoke, Mara. But I don’t feel like humoring you tonight.” His hands rise to frame her face. They tangle in her hair as he kisses her like he means to devour her, pulls her head back as he bares her neck to his seeking mouth. Claria's hand flutters beside her as if she doesn't know whether to pull or push him. The last time this was enough to have Stasia reaching between her legs, her back against the stonework of the passage, her own breath echoing in her ears, pressure hot and swift between her thighs at the sight of her master touching Claria, taking his due. For all that Claria’s older and beautiful and powerful, she’s his subordinate.This time, Stasia stays still, the pulse between her legs sharp, her master's exquisite ringing in her ears. She’s here to learn if Claria will be coming back to their quarters. All she needs is that certainty and she’ll be gone. She will. She will.But her eyes fix on her master as he kisses Claria, Claria’s hand finally settling on his shoulder -- a token surrender. It was like that the last time too. It's her master's magnetic pull. Claria feigns not to feel it, but it's a bald-faced lie. Stasia doesn't even need the Force to see it, not when they’re like this. Claria's eyes already glassy, her mouth softening as his drags over her skin.And because of that her earlier reticence is more than a lie; it's ungrateful -- Claria is -- and Stasia wishes he would hurt her, really hurt her, like when he gave her the scars. She’d imagined that scene before she ever saw them together like this, and it’d always made her skin prickle. She can’t put a name to the dark swirl the thought conjures in her, the thrill that whispers from it, but it no longer baffles her.Her master pushes Claria back onto the table, his mouth on hers, her legs spread at either side of him, the blue of the holo map a shimmer on the dark green of his tunic, on the side of Claria’s face. Stasia’s fingers curl slightly as he crowds Claria, laying her out before him, and Stasia glimpses the skein of scars before her master draws closer. Claria's face is in view past his shoulder. Her eyes have taken a liquid cast, dark like shadow ink.“Tell me again,” her master asks, cadence soft like shimmersilk, "how you betrayed him." His hands slip under her thigh, drawing the leg to a bend. He does the same with the other, splaying them out, putting Claria on display for him. Stasia wonders if it’s embarrassment that makes Claria flush or just the feeling of those soft hands stroking down her thighs. Stasia’s own skin tingles imagining it.He'd asked her about the old master last time too, and like last time, Claria’s eyes squeeze shut. Stasia glimpses her master’s hand somewhere along her torso, but his back blocks most of her view. He could be spreading his palm over her midriff, gliding his fingertips along the undercurve of her breast, tracing a rosy aureola.“Tell me.” A clear order, menacing. "I won't ask you again."Her voice is low and strangely hesitant. “You asked me…when I would see him."“Go on.” Stasia sees her master’s hand on Claria's knee."You had matters to discuss before you left to Dromund Kaas," her voice deadens, tone flattening. "He was too busy to give you an audience.” “And you were?”She licks her lips, lashes painting shadows on her cheeks. “Keeping...files. Records on his," her breathing hitches, "-- his experiments.”Stasia imagines her master’s hands on Claria's thighs again, smoothing up, then down, his fingers at the seam of her, slowly dipping within her.“He’d asked you to join him later to update him,” her master adds. “So when the door opened, he expected it to be you. So unguarded, he didn’t even bother to look up.” He huffs a laugh. “And you say you didn't suspect. But you must have.”“I didn't.” Her words become breathier, half-gasped, a thread of agony in them. “You were nothing... but --”“But what?”It’s a curious thing, how Claria opens her eyes, tries to focus, how her eyes lose just a bit of that glassy haze, her voice stronger from the angry spark in it. “A copy,” she pushes out before she inhales harshly. “Sample B-two-three-three-two-five-four.”Stasia frowns at the edge in Claria’s voice. She’s making no sense, but that’s unsurprising here.He lifts a finger. “An apprentice, over you.” He trail it across her parted lips, and he leans down over her, his hair dappling under the lights. “And you, a glorified clerk," his hand glides down her side, crosses her hip to vanish from Stasia's line of sight, "sometime butcher of all the vessels that didn't --”“Being in his presence was enough.” Claria turns her face again, bits of the blue holomap superimposed on her naked shoulder, a ghostly shimmer of light. "It was." His head dips under her chin, traveling down to the curve of Claria's breast, his hair dark against her skin. Stasia wonders at the feeling of his mouth over the scars he gave Claria. She can't possibly be thinking of that. Or is she? Stasia's thoughts feel muddled, formless like melting glass as Claria arches under her master, breathing raggedly. She tries for words, her voice strained. “You...wouldn’t know.” His hand slides up her neck, curls around it as he pulls away. “Wouldn't I?”She shakes her head and he kisses her again.Stasia doesn’t understand all of it, she doesn’t even understand most of it. For some reason, her master wants Claria, not just to manage his gardens, but in his bed, like this. And it has something to do with the old master. Stasia can't pin it down past that. To her, Claria speaks of her old master like she does of Tenebrous, and Plagueis, like distant history. There has to be more, obviously, Stasia knows, but asking about this feels wrong, like peering at bodies under the sheets. Because Claria betrayed the old master, she'd pieced that much together. But that’s not surprising. Sith have been betraying each other for centuries, and if Claria did so under her master’s thrall, who could blame her? The Force itself decided it was time for his ascension. Claria should delight in being a vessel for fate. Stasia would.He steps away quickly to shed his clothing, and Claria lifts herself up on her elbows staring at him with hungry eyes. Does he want her for the same reasons courtiers want special favors -- because they can’t have them? He bends down over her soon after, seeking her mouth again. But of course her master has Claria. They kiss in a way that should be repulsive, a wet crash of lips and tongue, but Stasia's only aware of the tumultuous beat of her pulse, and a knife-edged yearning that feels like it'd cleave her apart. Spread as she is before him in spite of her dismissals, Claria still bends to her master’s influence. Of that Stasia is certain. More than bend, Stasia thinks as Claria's hands sink into his hair. Something deeper. Attachment of neither love nor hate, she'd said. Stasia can't think of what it could be.She stares at the cut of her master’s back as his mouth rakes down to her belly, and stops caring about that. Last time Stasia was at the passageways he'd had Claria in his bed, and Stasia recalls the sinewy muscle of his tanned back under Claria's clenched hands, the strength in it. The lights here show a smoother fairer expanse of skin, more like the statues in the lower galleries, as if chiseled from an artist's design. Would all of his skin be as pleasant to the touch as his hands?Stasia is almost sure, and that sinuous feeling pulses again, equal parts ache and hate. Claria has him and doesn't want him, not in the absolute way Stasia does. It’s beyond unfair.She’s thinking this as he pulls Claria forward with both his hands until her hips sit at the edge of the table. One hand stays there while the other goes back to her neck. Claria’s mouth parts further, her chest heaving. “I think you missed me,” her master pants down at her. A shift of his hips makes Claria gasp. The next thrusts make her moan, arching. “I'd hoped you’d die.” Claria's eyes fall shut, her hand reaching up to her master's forearm as he holds his hand at her neck. Claria makes a short cracked sound, her hips shoving up against him. The table Claria is on doesn’t move, but Stasia sees the force of thrusts through the snap of his hips, the wring of Claria’s body as she takes them. Stasia think of surfacing when Claria’s face contorts and her head falls back. Strange, given her master's hand is around Claria's throat. A sound falls from Claria, so uncharacteristic Stasia doesn’t believe it, but there it is again -- a kind of low hiccupy, broken noise, utterly pathetic. Stasia’s thighs clench at it, at her master’s hand around Claria’s throat, the grip of Claria’s hand wrapping around his forearm as he drives into her. She jolts, writhes as if she’s struck, hips rising against Stasia's master’s with each thrust, her neck curved back, a struggle. Her free hand lifts, and Stasia expects it to strike her master, but no, it only slams once, twice on the table before it lifts to her master's side, and claws down in a way that makes Stasia suck in a breath. Her master hisses, but Claria's sudden shriek drowns it out, and Stasia can’t decide if she wants her hand around Claria’s throat or her master’s on her own, the indecision winds her up more, and Stasia's hand darts down between her legs. Through the clothing she presses at her damp underclothes, sneaks her hand to her center. Her breaths scatter as she pushes against her own fingers, eyes on the ungainly kiss her master shares with Claria while he takes her, and Stasia's tension snaps away, too fast. Stasia sags a little as the tingly feeling fades. She refocuses on the scene. An airy groan falls from her master as his thrusts shorten. Stasia's thighs tense despite the heavy way her body feels. Under her master, Claria gasps then draws in loud lungfuls. While Stasia's thoughts are disordered she can only think she wants more. Her master stills, only breathing hard, his hand remains around Claria's neck.When he releases her, Claria sits up. Her master shifts slight away, he bends his head down and turns, scanning the side where Claria had scratched down. Stasia feels the flare of power an instant before Claria's shoved back down by the Force, the movement sudden enough that Claria lets out a startled yelp, the back of her head cracking audibly against the table. “It’s just a little blood,” she purrs from where she lies. “You’ve spilled enough of it. Don't be so sensitive.”Stasia imagines his look of warning as his gaze shifts to her. “Not tonight, I said.” Claria jerks away. Her lower lip's a bright crimson, Stasia notes as Claria slides off the table, reaching for her dress.“Leave it.” Her master gestures to the bedroom with a tip of his head. “Go inside.”Claria throws him an insolent look. “Stasia will be wondering where I am.”From her hiding place, Stasia stiffens, Claria's words dragging her out of her stupor. She didn't go into the passageways for this. Not this time. She’s forgotten herself. She stays long enough to hear her master say, “She knows exactly where you are” before she grabs her glowlamp, stumbling out and back into the library. Her face burns at her damp underclothes. She'd gotten distracted so easily. She'd meant to follow that odd current in the Force, no idle her time wanting what she can't have.Use your desire, Claria has told her. Don't be used by it. Stasia shakes her head. She's certain she just fell into the latter, and she's no brainless initiate.Annoyed, she starts for the turbolift at the end of the hall, but impulsively opts for the stairs. Rubbing at her face, she thinks the pain at her feet from the extra walking and the exercise in general would do her good. A few steps down, there’s a cramped doorway, much too low for the the lavish vaulted ceilings of her master’s levels. It has no identifying number.Must be a half-floors then; they don’t exist on the turbolift’s panel. She continues down the steep icestone wrought stairs. She reaches out, but senses no living thing. The next sets of floors are like that. She does feel a deep Force energy emanating down here, but it takes a while for her to figure out what it is. Her master's vaults, she thinks with some sheepishness. Of course. She must be near them.It's been a while since she's been at the vaults. All manner of treasure and spoils have been secured there, amulets from Ziost and Korriban, effigies from Dathomir, centuries-old plunder from Tython, and Ossus, moved here from the old master's collections around the galaxy. Claria has shown her some of them, but sedimented power has never drawn Stasia. Strong as it may be, it feels inert, insipid to her -- especially compared to the devouring maelstrom around the Citadel. Claria had shaken her head at her. In time Stasia would develop her taste, she'd said. Maybe that odd current was just a new artifact her master brought in. She stops by the closed door. That doesn't merit investigation. Stasia's about to go up again when she feels again that odd current, an out of place glimmer in the Citadel's dark storm. It feels different from the thrum of the treasures. She closes her eyes, feeling the locking mechanism through the Force. In a few instants the door hisses open, revealing a long corridor. It's a lot more bare than the other corridors, no richly patterned rugs on the ground, no tapestries on the walls, no windows. A presence flickers through the Force, that same out of place quality to it, and Stasia makes a turn, another and finds herself looking into a spacious, empty room. Not completely empty. She makes out the figure of a man in the gloom, suspended between two magnetic bottles, held captive, aloft by a containment field. Dim light washes down on him, eaten up by the dark of the rest of the room. A prisoner.“Hello?” he calls.Stasia stops. The detention level she's most familiar with is between the courtier and master's tiers. These are the floors used for the vaults. Why would there be a prisoner here? It's a danger given how the vaults interfere with the prisoner's Force presence. It makes him too easy to miss. Why are there no guards or security droids?"Hello?" he repeats. "Where -- where am I?” It's a weird drawl she's not familiar with. He gasps when Stasia steps into the light. She thinks of the screaming Bith female and guesses it's her face. She advances, leaving her glowlamp behind. Good. She stops in her tracks.The prisoner has her master’s face.He's recovered from his surprise too, Stasia feels no fear from him, but her sense through the Force is derailed as her eyes rove over him. No, he doesn't have her master's face. It’s more lined and there’s faint scars across his cheek where her master’s face is unmarred. He’s dressed in a simple dark flightsuit. Stasia doesn’t think she’s ever seen her master in anything so shabby.“What -- what is this place?" he attempts again, weirdly conversationally. "It’s so...”“Who are you?” she whispers. He pauses. "Luke," he offers, and she leans forward. “Skywalker, and you--”“Luke Skywalker,” she echoes, tilting her head."You recognized me? Just now?" His words sound slower and less crisp than her master's, less melodious, though the voice is similar. Stasia hesitates. An impostor, brought in by her master for punishment? An odd disquiet begins to gather at the pit of her stomach. Kept in the vaults."This place...feels so dark," his expression goes slightly pained, "I've never -- I've never been anywhere like this."Stasia purses her lips. Dark? Obviously. That's the Citadel. There is no disquiet to be felt. He's an impostor, a bad one, and a prisoner like any other. Given that, she can’t see why she shouldn’t tell him where he is, stoke his fear more. She paces a little in front of the containment field. He is unlikely to escape. No prisoner Stasia has encountered here has ever escaped. Even if he is able to feel the Force, the containment field keeps it within bounds.He continues as if making small talk, "I've been to other places where the dark side was strong but --"“Byss is unlike anywhere else in the galaxy," she finds herself saying, squaring her shoulders, and raising her face to meet his eyes. "Byss? This place is called Byss."She nods once, clasps her hands behind her. "You are in the Citadel of His Imperial Majesty. Awaiting correction, it seems.”The man looks at her with a confused expression, as if she’s no longer speaking in Basic. “Imperial Majesty?”“Iskarit Palpatine.” The prisoner should be impressed. Byss was created by the old master. It belongs to her master now, and one day, when she is old enough to have earned it, it will be hers too alongside him. She will be beautiful again and all will bend before her. Claria has told her many times. When the time comes she will overthrow her master too, and everything will be hers. She'll have her own apprentice to hold in subjection. That is her destiny. Just thinking it settles that odd uneasy feeling.The man’s eyes widen, it makes him look less like her master. “Palpatine? As in Emperor Palpatine?”“His heir.” How can he not know? Stasia is not that clear on the details of the war effort, but Claria has mentioned that the Ruling Council and the Grand Admiral are the faces of it. Her master’s power, like the old master’s before him, lies shrouded in shadows."I wasn't aware he had a son." Confusion remains on the prisoner’s face, but he turns to another question, “And you are...?” Stasia circles around him.Force sensitives in their territories are sent off to the training grounds to be culled. Those that are troublesome are disposed of. Perhaps the resemblance makes the man special enough to be brought and kept here before reprisal. Perhaps her master means to make an example of him.“I was brought here by a woman, but she was taken away,” he ventures hesitantly. “Do you...do you know of other prisoners? Is she near? I can’t...feel her in all this dark.”Stasia shakes her head. A woman? Taken away? He should be more concerned over his own plight, being kept here. “No. I haven't felt anyone else.” Distress in a prisoner is always good. When there's two prisoners brought in together, reprisal is first meted to one so that the second might suffer more. "She's probably dead." The man -- Luke Skywalker, he'd said -- stares at her fixedly. “The woman I came here with," he starts and she gets the impression he's weighing his words, "told me about a girl...with a scarred face.”Stasia stops.“Who are you?” She narrows her eyes, reaching for a tendril of the Citadel’s power, using it to push into his mind, falling into the pattern of mind sifting.She glimpses a mishmash of images in quick succession: the shadow of a medical droid, a sunny window, an infant's cries, no two --
You could have joined me. I called you to join me.
A nightime forest, tall aliens with four arms each and a shiny, bluish-crystal skin emerging from under trees, the glint of metal beneath an overhang of rock, shorter aliens that resembled rocks, an absolute unnatural void, a ponderous voice --
Instead you chose death. Their deaths. Your own.
Slighter gray-skinned aliens bearing long knives and crossbows approach, a green blade, rockfall. Another voice, matter of fact --
You need help. I will help you, but you must let them go. Or you will die.
A burst of blue energy, searing pain, an expanse of it, a new voice, now female--
You have to rest, it took a lot out of you.
That same sunny window, light shimmering off of speeders, between the shadows of cloudcutters, and another female voice, stricken --
Help me, please! I must free my dau--
Stasia's shoved out hard, enough to go flying, her back crashing against the duracrete wall, the wind knocked out of her hard enough that she wheezes as she hauls herself up."A -Are you all right! I-I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" The prisoner blurts out, "I didn't mean to do that! You --you just shouldn't--"Numb from the surprise attack, Stasia lurches to her feet. He shouldn't be able to do that. None of the prisoners she's dealt with alongside Claria had been able to do that. And through a containment field...It's wrong, something's wrong. She thinks of those human shapes under the sheets. Before she knows it she's grabbing her glowlamp and darting out the room.“No, wait!” the man calls after her. "Wait, please --" The door closing behind her mutes his voice. Who is this prisoner? She finds herself rushing up the stairs forgetting her bandaged feet, the piercing pain. Why had he been able to summon such power against her? Her nightgown is soaked in sweat, her palms cold when she finally gets back to her quarters. Human shapes. Shapes under the sheets. She doesn't want to think about that. Not like this.Her quarters are empty. She should feel relieved Claria isn’t there, but Stasia feels the opposite, on edge enough that her stomach hurts. She washes her face, and paces restlessly. Should she get Claria? Interrupt her and her master? And say what? She found a prisoner and he -- he what? Attacked her? She feels blood rush to her face.Had she made an error in mind sifting? Another failure? Is she truly incompetent enough that a prisoner in a containment field should get the better of her? She can imagine Claria mocking her before her master, crimson-mouthed, her hair disheveled. Stasia grits her teeth at the thought. She hates her.Best to forget it, she decides crawling into bed. She wasn't meant to go looking around the Citadel. What her master brings to it is none of her concern.Claria should be here, she finds herself thinking as she tosses.Stasia stays awake a long time.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
When I fall asleep you take a peek indoors
I will take what's mine, you will take what's yours[x]
Stasia dreams of Claria when she finally falls asleep. An odd dream. Claria’s eyes are very wide and a brownish green, but that could be the light in the room. It glimmers off her loose hair.“You have no idea where I’ve come from and what I’ve seen and I…” Her eyes squeeze shut. “I’ve no right to ask, but you must help me...”Of course Stasia wants to help. Even within the dream, she knows that’s strange. Light melts into black with a smattering of stars. Stasia's looking out a canopy now. In a ship. A shuttle.Claria sits beside her. She's in her flighstuit, a band of Imperial red at her upper arm, her posture rigid, her hair in a tight braid down her back. And Stasia would reach out to Claria's shoulder. Claria turns her head and smiles, melancholy. “Nothing's ended up as I've expected.”Before them lies the vastness of space, long gone fathers, of the light of shining stars so far away.Her voice softens even more. "I've modified my expectations. Altered them."A premonition curls in her gut, just like months before. That ended up okay, she tells herself, ignoring the thrum of phantom pain, wills away the image of brown eyes, a stiflingly concerned “What are you doing?” sharp in her ears. But it's about Claria this time. Like she won't see her again. No, it will all end up okay, and Stasia opens her mouth. “Nothing’s turned out the way I expected either.” Her voice sounds different, lower. It's not her voice at all.With a gasp, Stasia jerks awake.--“Nightmare?” The sound of Claria’s voice eases a knot within her. It's Claria's real voice, a little mocking even in that single word. Stasia nods, fighting her grogginess. A dream. A discomfiting one. Claria butters her pastry beside her, the serving tray on her lap. It's unlike her; Claria finds it slothful to take meals in bed. When she puts the knife down and lifts the pastry, Stasia’s eye falls on the ring of bruises the color of aela petals around Claria's neck, over the collar of her robe. Memories of Claria with her master surface. Maybe she's tired.“I didn’t feel you come in.” Stasia pushes the covers from herself. The droids left her serving tray on the bedside table.“Of course you didn’t.” Claria takes a bite of her pastry. “You sleep like the dead.” Stasia ignores her and head to the 'fresher. Claria is still having breakfast when she emerges and gets back on the bed, reaching for her tray. She decides to leave the tea behind on the bedside table. “I didn’t expect you back at all.”“It does not bode well that you’re so easily surprised. Surely I’ve taught you better.”Her session with her master yesterday.
You do have need for more training before you can join me, he'd said, and Stasia’s chest wrings at the memory. “You must temper your ambition with patience,” Claria chides, pressing the napkin to her lips.Stasia tears off a piece of her own pastry. Her master had told Claria the same thing when Stasia looked in on them, but now that she's more awake, thinking about that now with Claria beside her is too odd, she decides. Her thoughts veer into the prisoner.“I heard something last night,” Stasia ventures.“Apart from what you saw?”Stasia busies herself chewing, avoiding looking at Claria. “I showed you those passageways. You think I wouldn’t know?”“I felt-” Stasia feels her blood rise up her cheeks.“What?” Claria doesn’t sound or feel angry, only faintly amused, which makes Stasia want to push the tray off her lap and leave the room.“A man,” Stasia blurts out quickly, now to keep Claria from saying anything more. She picks up the jar of berry cream and opens it, happy to have something occupy her hands. “From the lower levels." She picks up the knife to slather the berry cream on the pastry. "Said his name was Luke Skywalker. I -- followed his Force presence to the cells. He has the Force." He'd pushed her out, she almost tells her, but finishes with, "You didn't tell me we were having prisoners. ””Wait.” Claria leans slightly forward, the amusement completely gone. "You didn’t damage him -- " Her eyes have lightened to the color of shuura, a dark current roils around Claria like gathering tide, sudden and vicious.Stasia's heart leaps into her throat as she draws back, stomach plunging, the sudden movement makes her grip on the knife slip, the knife clattering down to her tray. “Of- of course not! I wouldn't work on prisoners without permission! You know I wouldn't! He has the master’s face! Talked about arriving with another woman. I left after that! I didn't touch him, I swear!”Claria’s posture loosens. The energy around her dissipates, her eyes returning to their usual mossy green. "Claria?" Stasia whispers hesitantly, after a few moments pass in silence. "Claria." It's not like Claria to lose herself to the Citadel like this. “Was she with him?” Claria asks in her usual manner, reaching for the teapot and pouring herself some tea. “The woman.”Stasia looks at her oddly. Claria's expression is only mildly curious, as if nothing were amiss. “No, he was alone, seems to think she’s been taken elsewhere.” Claria takes a sip of her tea. “If his companion is Force sensitive it is no mystery why they’d be separated. I'll have to see what your master wants with them.”“Why..." It occurs to Stasia that perhaps this topic is dangerous if Claria's reaction is anything to go by, but precisely because of that she can't restrain her curiosity. "why are we keeping an impostor at all?”“The master must have plans for him. It’s not our place to question them.” Her eyes lower to Stasia's nightgown. “You spilled berry cream on yourself."Stasia looks down at the pink stains on her white nightgown, and sucks in air through her teeth. Must have happened when she dropped the knife. "You startled me." She picks up her napkin."And this man, you say he’s an impostor.”“A bad one.” Stasia sniffs, as she dabs at the stains. That won't do. She puts the tray back on her bedside table, grabs her napkin and goes to their 'fresher. “Scarred and older," she calls out as she wets it. "Even through the Force he feels different." She returns to the bedroom dabbing at her nightgown, now with the wet napkin. "Weak.”Claria leans back. “The Citadel colors the Force.”“So you’ve said." Stasia climbs back on the bed. "I don’t see what this has to do with that.”“The Force outside the Deep Core has not been the same since Sidious’ first body died at Endor.” Stasia is about to say ask her to explain the connection, but there’s a haunted look in Claria’s eyes that Stasia does not like. That's enough. Better to leave it.Claria puts her own tray back on her bedside table, apparently done with breakfast. “Well, this is the master’s business anyhow.” Her tone lightens. “I thought you were too old to be snooping.”“It’s not snooping. It just felt strange for days,” Stasia protests, feeling her cheeks redden again. She turns away, going for her own tray, tea and all. “I wanted to know where the feeling came from.” “Maybe being around other people will help," Claria prods. "You're too solitary a child. The court’s welcome --”Stasia makes a face as she pours herself some tea. “No.”Claria takes another dainty sip of her tea. “A pity, the master will be disappointed.”Her master had wanted her to attend, but if not as his apprentice, Stasia supposes, to exhibit her as a kind of initiate to follow Claria. Claria herself doesn’t conceal her hatred of the posturing of court displays, so Stasia doesn't know why she'd ask. “You aren’t going either.”“As a matter of fact I am.”Stasia stares at her. “It’s been a long time. The court has been talking too much.”“Since when do you care?”The ghost of a smile plays on Claria’s face. “Perhaps they need a reminder of who I am.”The court knows Claria. Well, those who survived her master culling it of those unflinchingly loyal to the old master. They say she's a Sith sorceress who'd plotted for years against the old master. “So you will accept the master’s apprenticeship. Publically.”“Yes. You remember what I’ve told you about the apprentice who killed my master? The first time.”Stasia feels her lip twist and puts down the tea cup. “Seduced by the light.”Claria nods. “Destroyed my master and himself. A fool’s death. True to the Jedi he was. Had it not been for my master unlocking the secret of essence transfer, there would be no Sith to carry on his legacy. That is a greater sin than merely dying. My master, it seems, chose the wrong apprentice then.”She straightens her shoulders, her voice growing more solemn, and Stasia cocks her head. She remembers the discussion between Claria and her master, but doesn't remember it resolving. “It is a lesson. Long before Sidious reached his zenith, Plagueis had sought the kind of apprenticeship your master seeks, a partnership of sorts. And my master denied him.”Claria fiddles with her own cup on her tray. “That's the apprenticeship your master offers me." Stasia thinks she senses some reluctance in her fingers' tapping on the cup. "It's never been my interest, but if he is that restless, it seems my time has come.” Stasia looks down at her tray, the elaborate design on the tea set. Claria doesn't even want it. The words loop in her head. She doesn't even want it."I wasn't ready." The knowledge is cleaving. It would be her as an apprentice if she hadn't failed her test.“Patience," Claria chastises. "Above all, patience. Your destiny remains unchanged."Stasia purses her lips. It certainly doesn't feel that way. Claria doesn't even want the apprenticeship. She takes a another sip of her tea, it tastes even more bitter. The idea of going to the court's welcome, being in the same room as Claria without the honor of purpose while Claria stands at her master's side, feels even more abhorrent."It would have been no weakness to enjoy a tryst or two discretely," Claria changes the subject. "When you advance you'll find your apprenticeship all-consuming, you'll have little room for frivolous pleasure-taking." "I've never been drawn to frivolities," Stasia retorts impatiently, if she were she could have simply used one of the servants for it, but this is a stupid line of conversation, and incongruous from Claria of all people. She's just mocking her again. As usual."An ascetic?" Claria puts her tray back on her bedside table. "The old master wasn't given to those trivialities either."Stasia's had enough. She puts her own tray back, slides off the bed and heads towards the 'fresher. This time Claria's gone when she comes out.--Activity increases throughout the Citadel as the servants rush to prepare the Great Hall. Stasia sees them as she goes through her lessons in the lower levels of her master's tiers. It’s a normal day for her with a tight schedule, but not attending the court's welcome means she won't see her master nor Claria at the end of it. Her master has meetings with moffs all day, Claria joining him. This means Stasia won't see her for lunch or dinner. Like last week when Claria was away leaving her to her lessons, the days endless. Will that be how things will be now that Claria is the master's apprentice? Stasia's chest tightens and she pushes the thought away.Luckily, anticipation rises from the courtier’s floors like a gradually quickening drumbeat, distracting her. Not sufficiently because by evening she wonders if she should ask a servant for an outfit. Stasia imagines Claria decked in wide skirts and a headdress weighted down with Corusca gems, Stasia trailing behind her. Proof that the master can have the old master's charge serving him now and even create her successor for when she might no longer serve.No. Stasia does not want to go to the court’s welcome, she decides as she eats her dinner alone in her sitting room. She readies for bed, but can't sleep. Practice with the viol might settle her.She goes for the instrument and finishes a song. After, she reaches out with the Force, tracing the contours of Claria's presence down at the Great Hall. Her master is with her and Stasia feels the swirl of energy from the mass of courtiers. Cutting through the excitement is that odd glimmer through the Force.The prisoner. The one with her master's face. She'd almost forgotten him in the fanfare of the court's welcome and her own dreary thoughts.Who is he? she wonders. The presence feels like last time, out of place, almost smothered under the weight of the Citadel's darkness, and yet persistently threading through it. Luke Skywalker. She repeats his name to herself. Where did he come from? If the master wanted him dead, he would be already. What does the master intend for him? She remembers Claria's reaction, the swift way she'd called the Citadel's power to her, bent on reprisal. Why? Stasia resumes her playing. The man had been disturbingly resistant to mindbreaking. She'd seen too little of his memories, nothing she could make sense of before he'd pushed her out. No prisoner has ever pushed her out before. Not even the few adepts brought to her and Claria. So how could he?All these questions distract Stasia from her viol. She loses her place, screeching out notes. Before she loses her nerve, she puts her viol away and grabs her glowlamp. Claria and the master will be busy, perhaps she'd do better getting answers straight from the source. She won’t be taken by surprise this time.Stasia cautiously leaves she and Claria’s quarters. She goes straight downstairs this time, back to the room where she’d found the man, down the stairs to the mid-level and through the big blastdoors, manipulating them open with the Force as she'd done last time. He’s no longer there. Stasia stares at the containment field. How could he have broken out? She searches further and finds a broken access panel.No alarms are ringing. How he broke out isn’t important, she tells herself, a mix of wariness and excitement bubbling within her. Should she look for him? She thinks to being flung against the wall. No. Outside the containment field he has full use of his powers. He might be too powerful for her to deal with alone.Stasia reaches out for a scan through the Force. Nothing calls her attention, he must be hiding his presence. He couldn’t have gone far, not weakened and disoriented from days in the containment field. She doesn't want to be foolish about this. Best to simply let her master know.With this thought, Stasia takes to the turbolift to the access floor. There are security systems in place to enter the Great Hall. Non-Force sensitives are not allowed as a rule, especially in moments like the court’s welcome -- for their own protection. She uses the Force to activate the locks that lead to the Great Hall. The last line of protection, the Royal Guard, recognize her and wordlessly pull the wide doors open. A massive room of silverstone and narrow arched windows and long dark tapestries at either side, the Great Hall swallows her up. Several gargantuan chandeliers providing light, their illumination sparkling off the sequins and precious stones of the multitude of courtiers, and the glasses in their hands or paws or tentacles. Music suitable for post dinner conversation floats through the air. The musicians have not yet transitioned to the soaring songs more suitable to dancing. Stasia glimpses a few twirling bodies from between the gathered courtiers as she steps between clusters of beings.Her master’s throne is at the end of the room, but more masses of beings block her path the closer she gets, all manner of species dressed in voluminous silks and rich velvet of maroons, dark blues, and purples. Many sport towering headdresses, which take Naboo influence too far in Claria’s opinion. They turn as Stasia weaves through, eyes scornful and hungry on Stasia’s long white nightgown for a few seconds before they look away, recognizing that the power in her is not like theirs. It is trained. Consecrated. The whispers start in earnest then over the master's charge, the girl with the scarred face, the smarter ones putting two and two together.The courtiers, for all their finery, are little more than disposable hosts for the power of the Citadel, Stasia reminds herself. The Citadel is filled to the brim with dark energy, and energy needs an outlet. It flows through the courtiers, then cycles back to the Citadel in a feedback loop that could turn explosive if not for her master. He is the bulwark. The old Rule of Two is simple, Claria has told her. There is always one to serve as bait for the dark side, and another to be the vessel.Her master is the vessel.As Stasia presses forward, most silently step out of her way. One Chagrian is not so discerning, the Force slight in him, and he stays right in Stasia’s path.“Lost, young one?” he asks, peering down at her. It is a spectrum, Claria has told her. Too little of the Force and the Citadel will rule you, too much of the Force and the Citadel will rule you. True mastery operates at a midpoint.Stasia raises her face, half covered by her disheveled hair, and scrutinizes the Chagrian courtier. Chagrians are amphibious, this one stands two heads taller than her, more if she counts his towering horns, adorned by a mesh of precious stones that drip down his voluminous brocade tunic, its crimson hue odd against his blue skin. She catches the moment when he senses the power of the Citadel bearing down on him, within him. He takes a step back from her with a quiet gasp, his forked tongue nervously flicking out. Stasia doesn’t take her gaze off him, pulling more from the Citadel. Other courtiers turn to look just as he crumbles down with a groan, unable to speak. Stasia steps over him as he starts spasming, drooling on the floor. Amphibians are prone to overheating.It’s a lesson. The sea of courtiers parts for her like waves ebbing from shore. Fear rising behind her, along with excitement, and respect. They are beneath you, she can hear Claria’s voice as Stasia continues briskly towards her master. Someday they'll tremble before you.Soon her master comes into view, indolent on his throne, half-reclining, clad in a long jacket of dark green brocart with shimmering gold embroidery. One hand rests on the lightsaber on his lap, the other is perched atop the armrest.Claria stands to his left, wearing a heavy black silk cloak, a tabard with Sith symbols embroidered in gold all the way down. Her hood is only half over her face, so the curling black designs on top of the white makeup stand out. She does look like a Sith sorceress, like the first officiants of their line.Stasia reaches the dais and kneels before her master, white nightgown billowing about her. The musicians have stopped playing.Claria speaks first, breaking the spell with her scolding, no longer mythic, but she speaks quietly enough that only Stasia and her master hear. “In your nightgown, Stasia? You needed only to have asked a servant for proper clothing.”“Hush,” her master says, voice warm. “It is enough she join us. No one cares what she wears.”“I did not come for entertainment, Master," she hurries to add, annoyed at feeling herself blush. “The man, he is loose.”“The man?”Stasia raises her head. Her master appears puzzled, and Stasia looks over at Claria who sighs with exasperation. “The Jedi. He was a gift.”Her master cranes his neck to look at her. “You brought me a Jedi?”Claria gives him a self-satisfied smile. “The last of his kind.”“And apparently you lost him,” he retorts, turning back to Stasia. “Our Lady Claria has many talents, but gift-giving is not one of them." He lifts his voice so that the courtiers might hear. "Come up, Stasia.” He gestures to his right. “He was meant to be the evening’s entertainment,” Claria objects as Stasia grabs hold of the excess fabric of her nightgown and climbs up to stand beside her master. The music has resumed, but the courtiers in the halls stare. Stasia finds, to her surprise, she doesn’t mind. This is not what she imagined. Far from it. Claria has no sumptuous skirts or voluminous headdress, only a long black cloak and a face full of markings. Stasia has her white nightgown and her bare feet, her loose hair, her scarred face. They look nothing alike. Not to each other nor to the excessively coiffed courtiers. Let them look, she thinks suddenly. Let all these underlings raise their eyes to her master, to Claria, to her. “Oh? Do tell,” her master prompts, “how is this Jedi to entertain us?”Claria appears unruffled. “Same manner Jedi have always entertained us--” Caught in the moment, Stasia interrupts, “Oh, we hunt him.” It sounds like splendid entertainment from where she stands.Her master laughs indulgently. “Stasia probably has a less subtle approach in mind.”Stasia offers him a sheepish smile. Claria shakes her head slightly as she replies to her master, “Probably.”Claria has told Stasia of a Sith Triumvirate long before, Darth Traya, Lord of Betrayal, Darth Nihilus, Lord of Hunger, and Darth Scion, Lord of Pain. It didn’t last because nothing lasts. Nihilus and Sion turned against Traya. But they must have been majestic while they ravaged the galaxy, Stasia dares to think. Like gods.“Which is a problem," her master breaks through her thoughts, "because if this Jedi is as powerful as the old master said, he can easily hide his presence. What would you do to draw him out, Stasia?” Her master tilts his head at her.Stasia ponders it. “He must know where we are, so he must be orienting himself away, but he does not know the Citadel and we have larger numbers. We can mobilize the guards--”Claria makes a snorting sound that makes Stasia close her mouth and glare at her. “Have you learned nothing from what I’ve told you? It need not be that complicated to bring him to us.” She waves to the mass of courtiers. “Pick one. Any one.”Stasia purses her lips, not quite sure of the larger idea. She looks over to her master who nods at her, and she scans through the courtiers. A red-skinned Devaronian female draws her eye for the Force energy that swirls in her. “You,” Claria projects an instant later, before Stasia can say anything, her sleeve falling to reveal a long fingered hand, a talon-like nail ring on her index finger encrusted with bloodgems. “Come forward.”The Devaronian hesitantly approaches the dais and kneels as the music comes to a stop again, her skirts forming a sea of deep yellow around her. She looks only at their master, though Stasia feels her aware and frightened of Claria. Of her. She wears a golden chain adorned with glittering gemstones between the vestiginal bumps in her forehead. Her brown hair is arranged up in a shape that vaguely reminds Stasia of a spiderweb. Large yellow gemstones have been affixed to where several of the strands meet. “How may I be of service, sire?”“You are to help us instruct our charge,” he tells her, gesturing to Stasia. She finds she does not mind being referred to this way. Not now with the courtiers looking up at them. And Stasia thinks she understands what Claria is getting at finally. She's right. It’s not complicated.She catches her master smiling at her. "Exactly," he says.Stasia just has one concern: “But the dark seeps from her, too. She is no innocent.”“Stasia, Stasia," Claria chides, "they don’t have to be innocent to draw out Jedi.” She fixes her eye on the Devaronian and Stasia feels the Devaronian’s unease growing. Any minute, Stasia thinks, she will run. Well, she can try. Maybe she knows better.Power surrounds Claria, an outpouring of the Citadel towards her. Sensing it, the Devaronian turns and dashes towards the exit, trailing skirts fluttering, courtiers moving out of her way. A few don't step away quickly enough, and the Devaronian flings them back with the Force, desperation in her sense. Her master watches Claria. His gaze on her makes Stasia feel like she did watching them last night. But Claria is focused. It's like when she's taught Stasia at the detention levels. Stasia knows she is waiting for the Devaronian to get close enough to the doors that she thinks she may escape. Claria is looking for that burst of hope-- "They just have to hurt," her master murmurs.A few feet from the doors, the Devaronian collapses with a shriek.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
So what's it gonna take?
Silver shadow believer
Spock rocker with your dirty eyes
It's a chance gonna move
Gonna fuck up your ego [x]
The Devaronian twitches for a while, her mouth bloody where she’d bitten her tongue.Onlookers forming a tight semi circle around the body radiate both fear and excitement. The voracious energy of the Citadel thrums through them, heady and intoxicating. No sign of the Jedi yet, but it almost doesn’t matter. Stasia doesn’t remember the court’s welcome being anything like this the first time she attended years ago. It could be Claria had hastened her out after the dinner, depriving her of the rest. Stasia won't miss a homecoming banquet again.Will there be more, the courtiers seem to speak with the Citadel’s voice. Please let there be more. Who will it be? Glittering eyes skip furtively along the adorned beings beside them, focus, both thrilled and dreading, on the cooling corpse a few steps from the dais, where Claria had dragged the Devaronian female before she put her to use. Plagueis had always said execute one, terrify a thousand. A Jedi might be worth more.The Devaronian's extravagantly coiffed hair is a bedraggled mass absent of the amber gemstones. Those had been the first to be taken by the surrounding courtiers, descending upon her like flame ants, even as she writhed. Shreds of her dress had been next once the body stilled, and Stasia discerns pieces of the bright yellow fabric wound around arms, necks, and head gear. Tokens? Stasia wonders. Talismans? Maybe courtiers are a superticious lot.It cannot be me, they could be whispering. The rustle of headdresses melds with the murmurs of the mass.Let it not be me.But it could be, Stasia thinks giddily. As Sith, nature has bequeathed it to them that they should cull the flock from time to time. Stasia casts a glance at her master, sitting with feigned lassitude on his throne beside her. Stasia knows he’s pleased too, by her, by Claria, by his court, wholly in his element.”Your court has missed you, Master,” Stasia croons, bowing her head.”And I the court,” he replies, quirking a smile.Past him, Claria stands very straight, a severe line of black, her hood leaving only a sliver of profile visible. ”I would like to choose the next bait. Perhaps the Jedi was too far, and didn't quite feel--””Or you were wrong,” Stasia needles. Maybe the Jedi is wiser than Claria intimated; he understands that the court is her master’s to do with as he will. “And perhaps the guards --”Stasia notices tension in the set of Claria’s mouth. ”I am not wrong.” Stasia’s master chuckles lightly. “My lord?” Claria presses.”By all means." He gestures forward to the crowd. “And Claria is correct. The Jedi is for us. To involve the Royal Guard would be wasteful. He is, after all, a gift.”Stasia is not about to contradict her master; she savors the sardonic note he directs at Claria. That and the court’s anticipation seep into her blood, a rush not unlike diving between the Citadel's spires. She wants more.”Let me deal with whoever she picks this time, Master." It’s only fair if Claria had the first. “You may," he grants as a courtier plods towards them from between the crowd.This bait is Tholothian, fleshy head tendrils protruding from his crimson headdress. Visible effort contorts his face as he nears with uncannily clumsy gait. Stasia feels his terror as he resists. It’s a fascinating thing. He must know he is no match for the Citadel, for Claria, who makes his limbs work against his wishes, dragging him from within to where they wait, just as she did with the Devaronian. No one has your touch, her master had told Claria. If the Jedi fails to show, Stasia thinks, Claria's touch with bait will be severely diminished in his eyes.Claria brings him to a stop right beside the Devaronian’s limp form. Will she forget that it is Stasia’s turn and finish the Tholothian as a matter of course? She turns to Stasia.”Well?” she prods, tone mild. “What will it be?”Stasia is conscious of the eyes of the court on her.Everything is a test. Claria’s voice had admonished her. And you must rise to them.
So, Stasia reflects, it shouldn’t be just any mindbreaking. It should measure up to the crucible Claria put the Devaronian female through. It should be magnificent. Awe inspiring.She inhales and begins to pull on the Citadel, its energy pouring into her faster than it has before. There is so much of it here, now. Briefly, she ponders going beyond her limits to sink in its torrid current.But what lies before her isn't that. Stasia closes her eyes, wrenches Claria’s hold on the courtier away, gracelessly taking him for her own. He lets out an inarticulate noise, probably meaning to beg for mercy before Stasia silences him, his mouth opening and closing like a marooned fish.She will make him see things, Stasia decides. Things that will have him plucking out his eyes for all to see.Stasia spreads her hands, grasping harder at the power of the Citadel. While it could be visible, while it would only take a minute amount of further effort to make the court see power from her in electrifying blue or green, she thinks it'll be a better effect when they see her hands outstretched, but feel the unseen power gathering.She’s only begun to focus that power on the courtier when a voice shouts, “Stop!”The call is followed by a whoosh, her hold undone, the power of the Citadel loosening with what Stasia feels like a low rumble. The Tholothian starts his delayed screaming, running to the exit. Unrestrained power prowls around the cavernous room as he does, akin to a caged beast, blowing through the tapestries and clinking through the dishware on the distant tables before her master brings it to heel, straightening up slightly in his throne. Apprehension ripples from the courtiers.”And the Jedi arrives,” her master murmurs.”Finally." Claria interlocks her hands behind her back.Heat floods Stasia's face. Claria's always been good at providing bait.But why did he have to interrupt her? Stasia thinks as the throng of courtiers separate, letting the Jedi through the Great Hall. Gingerly, Stasia reaches out with the Force, her curiosity greater than her embarrassment. Even with this cursory scan he feels different from her master and Claria, his Force presence jarring like her viol notes had been just an hour before. Unpleasant.Stasia scowls, breathes in to find her balance, endeavoring to attempt again. Her master’s touch at her arm halts her. His eyes have found the Tholothian.Disappointed, Stasia watches the crowd melt even further away from the Tholothian and the Jedi. The Jedi stops and angles himself in front of the Tholothian as if that makes a difference now that her master's set his sights on him.With something like a squeak, the Tholothian falls to the ground.
Stasia feels his life fizzle out through the Force, a less drawn out death than the Devaronian female’s, whose body lies a few yards away. The Jedi turns around, confusion and horror visible even from afar as his eyes land on the Tholothian's body, as he kneels by it. She should laugh at him seeking signs of life when he must know there are none, but Stasia sighs instead at having her performance foiled. At least her master’s hand is still on her arm. She dares to bring her own tentatively over it, suffusing the touch with apology.“I wanted to give them something memorable.” She hopes she merely sounds crestfallen, not childish. Before them, the Jedi stands and rushes forward. He pays no mind to the courtiers who have come to stare at him in surprise, recognizing his features, degraded as they are.It’s Claria who replies, “In time, Stasia.” But Stasia takes heart in the way her master squeezes her arm. When she meets his eyes the fond expression with which he regards her eases a bit of the disappointment.”He is my gift,” he reminds Stasia as he gently slides his hand away.She nods and looks to where the Jedi draws to them, his face has the rigidity of one entrusted with great purpose. But he stops at the Devaronian’s corpse, much as he had with the Tholothian’s.”So this is the fabled Luke Skywalker?” her master asks Claria as the Jedi kneels by the Devaronian. “The original,” Claria replies an odd weight to both words. “What do you think?”Her master’s face darkens. “That you are an intolerably impatient creature.””Why does he waste time with the bodies?” Stasia interjects. Jedi can heal, unlike them, Stasia recalls. But...“Both are already dead. Surely, he could feel them die as we did.”If it had been the courtier's dying anguish that had brought him out, for what purpose? Both are dead now; had hardly been worth saving while they breathed, venal courtiers like any other here, Stasia didn’t need to know them to be certain of that. Their pitiful existences had been pledged to the Citadel and now those overseeing the Citadel, her master and Claria, had claimed them. All the Jedi had accomplished was to reveal himself. Exceedingly foolish.”Sentiment,” her master answers. “A persistent Jedi stumbling block.” He stands, his unlit blade in his hand, and calls out sonorously, “Welcome to Byss, Luke Skywalker.”The Jedi has reaches the dais. He looks up, blinks at her master’s face. “What a terrible place you have here.”Stasia can’t help a laugh at his sincerity. A squint and a tilt of his head follow her peal of laughter. The Jedi must remember her, had seen her just a night ago and here she is, wearing her nightgown again. She sneaks a glance at Claria who stands solemnly, and her humor dies, regret blossoming at calling his attention with such a childish display. She forces herself to straighten her posture as Claria has taught her, rolling back her shoulders as she waits for the inevitable moment where he will turn to Claria, when he will see their similarity, find that one of them is lacking where the other is not.”Come now, surely you don’t mean to insult our hospitality.” Her master catches the Jedi staring at Stasia. “Our Lady Stasia.” He extends a hand to Claria at his right. “And my apprentice, Lady Claria.”The Jedi gazes on Claria, appearing to parse through the winding, shadow-ink markings on her face. His stare doesn't return to Stasia immediately, but rather loses itself tracking down Claria’s cloak in puzzlement. Stasia thinks she hears him say, “Arica?”Claria smiles a typical Claria smile, like there’s a joke and you are it. “You should have never come with me, Luke.” He gestures to the dead courtiers around him, clearly at a loss. “They’re your...lackeys, aren’t they? They felt like everyone here.”Stasia thinks, To trap you, obviously, but Claria says, “Because the Citadel hungered for them.”Revulsion twists the Jedi’s features. Knowing Claria, that is precisely the reaction she wanted. “The Citadel?””We are the Citadel,” she replies. “And the Citadel is us." She pauses. "Lord Iskarit is Master of the Citadel.”“Lady Claria styles herself as Sorcerer of Tund.” Stasia’s master offers the Jedi a genial smile, and a shrug. He turns to Claria, “Or is it Queen Amanoa tonight?”Stasia is sure only she and her master caught the flicker of irritation as Claria's eyes cut at him. “My lord has little patience with history, even his own. I think a study of our--””Your history? Sith history?” the Jedi retorts, dagger sharp, “That's stolen from us and twisted into nonsense.” A gasp swells from the court, like a rush of water, but the Jedi isn’t done. “And that lightsaber,” he points to the blade in the master’s hand, “doesn’t belong to you either.”Stasia leans back a little, not expecting the outburst. Claria advances near the steps.“He is unfortunately correct,” she projects for all to hear. “For all the conquests, for all that you have gathered, my lord,” she gestures to the Jedi at the bottom of the steps who stands in a squared stance, “the last Jedi who wielded your blade still lives. It is a curious oversight.”More murmuring spreads through the hall. What is Claria doing? Baiting her master when they’re among themselves is different than doing so in public.”Is it? A lone Jedi. And if our spies are right, one who barely stood against a deranged version of an Old Republic relic.” Stasia’s master takes one step down from the dais to address the Jedi from closer, the difference between them marked. “How are your wounds, Skywalker? Calcification is not an easy thing to recover from." A few chuckles lift from the court. "The dark ravages a body. I rather hoped you would have grown into your destiny. Present me with a flock of Jedi I could pit my adepts against.”The Jedi’s brows draw together. “You talk like him.”Her master nods. "My master had much to say about Jedi, about you.” Recognition passes through the Jedi's face. "I believe it. I don't suppose he taught you to construct your own lightsaber though.””This is my blade." Stasia's master activates the lightsaber, crimson blade igniting to life. "Now."The Jedi doesn't skitter back. His expression hardens as he looks at the blade. "Right." His words are clipped. "You take things. Twist them. Because you can't make anything. All you do is destroy."Her master chuckles. “Really? I expected a lack of vision, but this is surprising. Look around you. My court.” He extends an elegant hand to gesture towards the gathered courtiers, to Claria. “My apprentice.” And finally to Stasia, who feels herself flush in pleasure. “My line. Tell me, Jedi, what have you made? Of yourself, of your line? All these years, I’ve so wanted to ask.” The Jedi only lifts his chin to Claria, “Arica,” Stasia doesn’t know why he keeps using what is clearly a false name, “your daughter -- ” Claria raises a talon-ringed finger and shakes her head slowly. “I have no daughter."Something solemn, almost pitying passes through the Jedi's face, and this is when his gaze returns to Stasia. It's a weird expression on his face, her master's face, even with his imperfections. "No, I guess you don't."Stasia wishes her master would make him scream already.Her master turns to Claria. “Ending his life now would be profligate. His successors are infants.”At this the Jedi snaps, “You won't get close to them.”"A fine threat," her master responds as he gestures to the guards, "But we've no need for them."“You need not end his life either,” Claria tells her master as the guards approach. “Your court would enjoy the entertainment of simply seeing a Jedi diminished. To that end --” She removes something from her cloak, and the object goes flying out of her hands to the Jedi’s. With a snap-hiss, a green blade materializes. The Jedi holds it before him, falling into a warrior’s defensive stance.A lightsaber.The guards stop their advance.Her master regards Claria coolly. “I grow tired of your impudence.”“He will resist, no matter what you choose to do. No matter who restrains him. I thought your intervention might be more...efficient.” She speaks to the Jedi, "You won’t win this. Not against him. Not here. My master made this place impervious to the light.”“The old Jedi once tried something similar in the Core. Purity," he sums up offhandedly as if he isn't surrounded by enemies, "is overrated." A muscle twitches in the Jedi’s cheek. "But I'm sure your master appreciates your faith in hi--”“Never speak of my master.” Claria's voice has lowered and is colder than Stasia has ever heard it, her hands clenching into claws before she arrests the motion, the energy of the Citadel snapping at the tips of her fingers. "Do so again, and I will attend to your sister's children myself, to hell with the consequences." Startled, both Stasia and her master stare at her. The Jedi himself looks taken aback by the reaction, shock not just in his face but palpable through the Force.Her voice quickly pitches up, demeanor oddly deferential when she asks Stasia’s master quickly, “What say you, my lord?”All the humor has seeped out of the master. It is as if he has seen something in her, Stasia cannot guess what. His voice is pure menace as he tells Claria, sharp as a scythe. “I will deal with you presently.”Claria bows her head, but her voice maintains that Claria-note as she whispers, “I await your pleasure.”He lifts his hand and Claria is tossed to the ground. ”Arica!”Stasia hardly registers what has happened. Claria slowly raises herself on one arm, a hand to her face. A wonder, Stasia thinks, that the impact hasn't made her tumble off the dais. The crackle of blades pulls Stasia’s attention away.Her master’s red blade smashes into the Jedi’s green one, a direct strike. The courtiers disperse like splashing droplets, now bunching to the walls of the Great Hall to give her master and the Jedi room.The first strike is a test, she knows, a show of might. Her master might have picked a more defensive form for Stasia, but for himself he prefers striking head-on in a highly aggressive style. The viciousness of his first strikes throws many off balance, Stasia’s blademaster included.But not this Jedi. He parries the strike, and counters it, a step and he's forcing her master back. Stasia gasps. The court continues to spread out behind them. Delighted whispers abound; a duel has never been witnessed in these halls, bloodletting in various forms, certainly, but not dueling outright. Not only does this Jedi resemble the master, Stasia can almost hear the courtiers whispering, but he is using the same fighting style as he is, and has managed to stage a counterattack.Her master lunges again, his blade forming a sweeping arc before it clashes against the Jedi’s. Cutting just a little slower through the air, the Jedi’s strokes are less crisp. Stasia need not to have worried. The containment field has probably had some effect or perhaps that convalescence they mentioned, or the Citadel's influence. Her master draws back, baring his teeth as if he smells blood in the air.“This is Byss,” he declares, projecting his voice throughout the hall. “Where the Force bends to those who serve the dark. You cannot win.””There’s something I haven’t heard before." Wryness colors the Jedi's voice. His offense becomes more aggressive, his counterattacks pushing the master back once more.Unbelievable, and Stasia looks over at Claria. She has stood once more, her hand on the lower side of her face, dark liquid on her hands. It takes her a second to discern it’s blood. Her nose?The blades crackle, drawing Stasia’s attention. Her master shoves the Jedi back, but soon stops striking directly, opting for more spins and glancing blows, footwork light.Stasia recognizes the change in style immediately. It’s her form. Her master’s playing with him, much like a whisperkit with a mouse. She can't help a trickle of unease. A serious opponent you strike to kill at once, Claria has told her more than once. Delight in your triumph only after it's a certainty.A feint, a leap, a strike difficult to follow with the eye, and her master extends his hand, lightning crackling from it. The Jedi catches it on his blade. It disappears.Stasia’s hand has crept to her mouth. How?“All you have is an Empire in pieces." The Jedi holds his blade before him in a two-handed grip, the dissonant power in him like a thin, but persistent thread. “Shadows.” His voice doesn’t waver, but Stasia perceives heaviness in his steps. The dark side whips and whirls around them and against him. He must feel it too, the way the court's own bloodlust focuses it, labors to smother whatever power burns in him.All this power, the Citadel whispers to her. She should be the one to claim it, but Stasia doesn’t quite know how. Her master scoffs. “Brave words for one who lives because I will it. Because I have willed it. The second I stop, you will die.”The master whirls into a lightning fast attack, which the Jedi counters. Stasia doesn’t see the opening exactly. At one moment, her master is lunging, the Jedi parries, and her master follows through with a strike -- a flare of white.The Jedi lets out a cry and is lifted up to smash down onto the floor. Stasia's eyes widen. The Jedi lies prone. His lightsaber rolls away.Like that? she thinks. The last living Jedi? Stasia expected a grander confrontation. She looks to Claria beside her master's throne, but can't see much of her face though the hood and the cosmetics. What Claria brought was little different from a hawkbat granting her hatchlings a quar rat after breaking its legs.“This was why you were absent for a week?” Stasia snarls at her, sudden anger lancing through her. All her concern about the threat the Jedi posed had been worthless. She had even troubled the master with it. “Even as entertainment, he is worthless. What were you thinking?””Quiet.” When Claria turns to her, Stasia notices her nose has stopped bleeding, but the red is smudged and garish on her face. Her voice sounds strange. “I will not be upbraided by a child in her sleeping shift.”Her master’s commands ring out before Stasia can respond.“Carry him out, put him in the lower cells. The first Jedi to step into the Citadel deserves a special welcome.” He climbs up the first two steps, eyes on Claria, deactivated lightsaber in his hand. “This the form of your betrayal?” “Betrayal?” she echoes, undaunted.“You vanquished him easily. As I foresaw you would before your adoring court.”Her master gestures and she rises a solid two feet in the air. The power around them is being pulled towards her, around Claria. Murmurs run anew throughout the crowd, beginning to close in now that the Jedi has been taken away.“And was that what you wanted?” Her master’s voice is mild, but Stasia can feel the pulse of latent outrage. “Why you brought Luke Skywalker into this court. My court. And armed him?”“This is...Byss,” Claria speaks with difficulty, her voice sounding ground and dusty. “He would’ve never...won. How little...you are. Would have never...disturbed…my master.”“Your inability to let things go reduces you,” her master states. “Your old master is dead. Your vengeance was hasty and poorly thought out. How right he was about you.” Stasia is still staring up at Claria, her cloak whipping about her, the Force like the roil and crash of a current around her, only bounded by Stasia’s master. The court gazes at her hungrily. The would rip the talon rings off her fingers, Stasia knows. They would tear off her cloak in search of more totems.“But not all your gifts are as lacking as you are.” Claria’s face is pale, her hands fluttering around her throat as her master calls, “Stasia?” Stasia can’t look away, feels Claria’s struggle for the Citadel’s power, foiled over and over by her master, the encroaching court.“Why are you here, Stasia?” her master asks.Claria’s fingers press against her own throat. Her master's grip must be there, Stasia senses it through the Force. Tonight her master’s grip is invisible, without the comfort of flesh and blood. ”Stasia?”Stasia licks her lips, forces herself to look over at her master. “The prisoner. I--I told you, Master.””The real reason,” he prompts. “Was it not to vie with Claria for the apprenticeship?”Stasia holds still. It could be. It is.“I wish to give you a gift.” He gestures at Claria who has begun to claw at her throat. “Advancement.”Over her rush of excitement, Stasia feels Claria trying to summon a hold on the Force. Her master thwarts her, keeps it just far enough from her as she struggles. Bait, pull back. A petty cruelty. Humiliation.Stasia’s dreamed of this moment.“Do you feel ready to be my apprentice?”Unbidden, Stasia sees herself beside the master. It’s the apprenticeship she’s trained for since she came to be, since she’d blinked up sticky liquid from her eyes to stare up at Claria, as she said, "You are Stasia, and in the whole of the universe there is none like you," Stasia's chest rising spasmodically with her first agonizing breaths of air.This is what she’s always wanted. What she’s come to be for. Her destiny. Her master smiles. Claria’s making a harsh rasping sound and Stasia thinks distantly that Claria is to die. Left for the court. Claria is to die. At the master’s hand. He’s tired of her, her barbs, her resentment. She is too. Claria’s talon nails scratch red against the white of her throat. She will die and it will be Stasia in her place, Stasia beside the master, Stasia in his bed, Stasia--She’s not altogether conscious of what she’s doing. It still won’t make sense to her after the fact, but right then, it’s a matter of reaching through the Force and unweaving the master’s grip -- much like she did Claria’s the night before. The master looks at her in confusion as Claria drops to the ground. Claria rises swiftly, with a sweep of her arm, the cloak left behind like the skin of a snake. She’s a flash of black and alabaster white, shooting forward too fast for the eye to track. A ragged cry tears through the air. Her master’s cry. A snap. Claria’s extended arm, flinging away something. Something heavy that clangs on the silverstone.And her master falls with a dull sound.The object Claria had thrown lies a few feet from Stasia. A hilt, one used to hold a glass blade. A Sith assassin’s weapon of choice. Stasia’s vision shimmers before she can make sense of anything.A Force shield shimmers as it weaves around her as the whole room shakes, a whirlwind of energy whipping about, lights snapping up above them, the chandeliers crashing against the windows, tables and chairs slamming against the walls, tapestries ripping to the cacophony of the courtiers' cries of fright. Bodies of various species, slight and heavy, are flung through the room as frigid wind invades the room, as the torrent of energy roars all around them. Jagged streaks of violet blue flash in the darkness.Stasia sees Claria, a blurry form, there then gone amid the intermittent flashing, her legs bare as she crouches on the floor. The flashing becomes less haphazard. Energy circles and circles around her, drawing ever closer as if she is the vortex. Stasia catches strobing glimpses. Darkness. Energy outlining Claria. Darkness. Her hair lifting and waving. Darkness. Claria's blueish outline brighter and brighter until Stasia has to look away. The last thing she sees is Claria, throwing her head back with a reverberating scream that might be of ecstatic triumph.Or pain. Darkness falls for a protracted moment where everything crashes down. The very foundations of the Citadel tremble from the impact. Through the Force the feeling is worse, the terror of a freefall into an abyss. For a frightening moment, Stasia feels the Citadel itself teetering, about to topple before it settles back into place. The universe itself realigns with it.The Force shield dissipates. Silent darkness.Gradually, pinpricks of light crackle to life at various points in the room. Sound and movement returns; in the final shattering of off-kilter glass, the sizzle of broken light fixtures, more rumbling as courtiers shift, dislodging debris over them, beside them, and under their feet, disbelief and horror permeating the battered room. Some fallen bodies don’t get up.The Citadel is filled to the brim with dark energy, Stasia thinks, realizing she's shaking. She lies on the silverstone, nerves on edge as she trembles, her body registering something her mind hasn’t caught up to yet. Her master is the one who controls the feedback loop between the Citadel and the court, the one who keeps it from turning explosive. The one who keeps it.Stasia tentatively lifts her head. Her eyes find his figure sprawled below the steps, surrounded by a shallow dark pool slowly spreading from under him.No, she thinks. No.“Guards.” Claria lies past him. She raises herself laboriously up on her hands, her head bowed, hair over her face. Her fingers might be twitching, faint smoke curling from her form, but Stasia might be imagining it in the dimness. “Take Lady Stasia,” she rasps the Force under her words implacable and commanding, “to her quarters. Make sure she stays there.”“No!” Stasia scrambles to her feet, rushing to her fallen master, trying to rouse him. Save for the wound at his side and the surprise frozen on his face he looks the same. Even as she passes a hand down his face, unable to bear his unseeing gaze, she thinks that he will gasp and rise.Arms yank at her, and she draws from the Force to toss the guard back. She does the same to the next, but soon too many arms grab at her. Before she knows it, she’s being dragged back, her bare feet skidding on the cold stone.“Master!” she calls, stricken as she struggles. He must rise. He must rise and he must punish Claria for this. Make her burn for this. He must rise and she will tell him she never doubted he would. If she is to be punished too, so be it, but he must rise. “Master!”He stays completely still. Stasia screams, watching her fallen master grow smaller and smaller as she is dragged away by the unflinching grip of stronger hands on her shoulders. She struggles, kicking and striking, even uses the Force, but her hold is as off balance as she is. Eventually the massive doors to the hall slam shut behind her with a thunderous sound. She doesn’t stop struggling. Her vision’s long gone blurry. Her nightgown’s cold and wet. She looks down to find it drenched in red, her hands dripping with it.Stasia’s wails mingle with the screams that rise from within the Great Hall.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Stasia wakes up with her eyes swollen and throat raw from crying.Claria didn’t even come to bed last night, she thinks numbly. It’s a ridiculous thought. Claria murdered Stasia’s master, plunged a poisoned blade into his side. If what she felt last night was any indication, Claria then proceeded to rid the court of her master's most loyal. It’s Claria’s court now.Stasia hates her more than she ever has.A soft knock comes from the outside of her and Claria’s quarters, and Stasia dresses with clumsy fingers, emerges from the bedroom into the sitting area, finding the guards already gone. She opens the door a crack.That Msst boy stands tall in front of her, not one perfectly combed sun-lily blond hair out of place. A smirk lurks on his face, and if Stasia ever pitied him after Claria dug her claws into him, the feeling transmutes now into a seething contempt. Of course he lived through last night's purging.“Mistress Claria would like to see you,” he informs her. “After you finish your breakfast, of course.”Stasia shuts the door in his face, drawing back into the room. The droids left her some fermented milk with tulip berries and tea in the sitting room table. Stasia has no apetite but forces the food down, tamping on her queasiness. Eating is something to do, something repetitive and mechanic. Spoon, swallow. Cup, swallow. Repeat.After she’s done, she sits staring into space until another series of insistent knocks filter through her murk.The Msst boy is still there outside the door when she opens. He tilts his head in inquiry. “Do you need more time, Lady Stasia?” His eyes are blue, but not as blue as her master’s. Faded blue. Inferior.She shakes her head.“Good. Mistress Claria will be waiting.” He extends a hand down the hallway.She hates the obsequious, pathetic sound of his voice. To be led by a creature such as this is near intolerable.Stasia swallows her pride and follows. They take the turbolift down, Stasia following in a haze. Crossing the floor, they end up at some blastdoors, and the boy enters a code. She would have used the Force, Stasia thinks. She doesn't need codes like this stupid boy does. As they enter and walk deeper into the yawning space behind the doors, Stasia becomes gradually aware of their surroundings. They’re in a dimly lit room full of lucent tanks, their insides lit in eery blue.“Beautiful aren't they.” The boy stops at one and raises his head look, staring into the glassy surface. Some organism lies inside, small, no larger than Stasia's hand, vaguely humanoid and curled, its head close to the size of the rest of its body.Stasia squints at it. She cranes her neck around, half turning. “Where are we?”“The gardens of course.” The Msst boy gestures to the tank. "No longer Lord Iskarit's, I'm afraid."Her patience snaps at him daring to mention her master. She flings him to the side with the Force. He slams into the tank with a resounding crack and slides down. It’s a simple thing to make him try to put his head through the floor. He might have thought he had shields; their adepts get rudimentary training. Stasia looks on with clinical curiosity, staying away from the splattering blood and gore until the body collapses.“You could have spared his face.”Stasia lifts her head. Claria's voice is a gravely rasp as she emerges from the interior. Stasia startles in spite of herself. Claria’s face is hooded, so Stasia can’t see it, but she appears to be staring to the ruin of the boy. A dark cloak lies over Claria's shoulders, her back hunched slightly as she leans on a cane. When she moves forward, her steps appear less than stable. Nonetheless, darkness sings around her. The depth of it makes Stasia take a step back, a chill skittering down her spine. Only her master had felt like that. “It was a beautiful one.”“I have little use for beauty.” Stasia straightens. “And neither does he now. You’ll have no shortage of errand beings. What do you wish of me, Claria?” She wonders if Claria will kill her, but it’s a passing thought.“To congratulate you on your becoming.” Claria shuffles over to Stasia. As she steps forward the wan light shows her her face both lined and swollen beyond recognition, skin with a cadaverous pallor, her eyes a bright amber. “You are an adult now.”But all Stasia thinks of is her master's voice to the Jedi. The dark ravages a body.Claria’s lips contort into a smile. “Treachery is the way of the Sith. Always one to embody --”“--the darkness, the other to crave it,” Stasia finishes tonelessly. “I thought we were done with the Rule of Two.”Claria waves her free hand. “I don’t care about the Rule of Two.” Stasia purses her lips, but numbness prevents her from arguing the matter. “The Grand Admiral will not follow you," she says instead. "The Empire will collapse.” Stasia closes her eyes. Her master’s Empire.It no longer matters.“Oh, but Grand Admiral Thrawn has been appraised of the contingencies of our Order," Claria explains. "Provided the head of the Empire heed his counsel on military matters, he considers incidents such as these a family affair outside his purview. He follows the Imperial Majesty, not an individual. He has since Iskarit overthrew my master, and is quite satisfied to lead our military arm. Rest assured our Empire is robust.”Lies, Stasia thinks blankly. Her master had been the Empire.“Thrawn had use for your master to consolidate the fleet at the Chomell sector. He courteously asked me to refrain from disagreements until the end of that campaign. Likewise our adepts with the fleet will fall in line, as well as those at our training grounds. Already word is reaching them, I expect.”“You fucking traitor," Stasia spits, but it feels like a line, mere words she’s expected to say. “Your master's mistake. He thought essence transfer granted him immortality and grew careless. My master, too.” She made some awkward movement that might have been a shrug. “Carelessness is just another form of weakness.”“You’ll bring doom to all the old master made." This feels rote too. "He was right to pass you over.”Claria chuckles. “We know so little in our youth.” She bends her head conspiratorially to Stasia. “I now suspect my master was merely ... shaping me. Maybe someday you'll understand." She raises her head. "But I did not ask you here to talk about the past. I wish to look to the future. Your apprenticeship.”It hits her like a weight to hear. To hear it from Claria, and her numbness dissipates at the onrush of memories. Last night she'd tossed and turned over the shocked look in her master’s eyes. Would she still have saved Claria if she'd known it would end with her master's murder? Would she have stood and watched Claria struggle for breath and die?She doesn’t know. That’s the worst part. She hates the reminder, hates Claria for ripping through her numbness so easily. “You could have let me die at his hand." Claria cocks her head, never one to pass up digging into a wound. "You'd certainly wished it enough. But you didn't. Do you know why?”Stasia doesn’t want to listen. "Stop."“You are like me,” Claria says softly. "But your potential is limitless."“I should have let him kill you.” Stasia clenches her jaw. She isn't like Claria. She'd loved her master. “It was a mistake. A mistake.”“Correct it then.” Claria spreads her hands. “I stand here unarmed.” Lies. The dark side is now fully at Claria’s beck and call. Stasia’s hate spreads, feels like muggy air in a closed room, her eyes filling with it. “You took everything from me.”Claria's amber eyes are bright. “Did I?”Stasia wipes roughly at her face and looks away.“Come,” Claria beckons her, turning to pass between the tanks, moving deeper inside the room and away from the savaged body on the ground. She leads her to another tank as dimly lit as all of them, staring into it with such intensity Stasia slowly nears to look. The being inside is no fetus, but distinctly a youth, perhaps a few years younger than Stasia, human, male-- Stasia gasps loudly. Floating in the murky water of the tank, the boy's perfect face is tranquil, knees against his chest, his hair gently undulating in the liquid. His eyes, if he opened them, would be a sublime blue. A whimper leaves Stasia as she reaches out to the glass in spite of herself. She yanks her hand back. He isn’t. He isn't her master.More lies.“He was," Claria pronounces, reverence in her voice, "Your master was once this. Everything he became thereafter was because my master granted it to him. His cruelty too." She turns her head to Stasia. "All of his house has it. It was his gift to us, his heirs, not by blood but something deeper. Belief."Stasia’s mind reels as she gazes at the tank, wanting to reach through glass and liquid to feel the warmth of skin and breath."Belief that we have been selected for a grand destiny,” Claria speaks with the Citadel’s voice. It is a terrible thing to want things. “You have the will for such a destiny, Stasia, for I have nurtured that in you. You need only reach for your desires.”“The Citadel,” she murmurs, eyes riveted on the boy.“More -- if you complete the task before you.”Stasia turns away from the tank to look at Claria. “To kill you.”A small dry chuckle rises from her. “You have a path to journey before that. Show yourself worthy of the Banite line, from which you came.”Stasia swallows. “How?”"It will involve the Jedi."“He lives?" But of course he does. There are worse things than death. "His mind--”“Is intact. He is wounded. Not lethally though he will need care." Claria's face has her usual solemnity. "Care that you will provide as you journey back with him to the Core, endeavoring to gain his trust.”Stasia leans towards her in disbelief. In all her years she has never been asked anything close to this. It's antithetical to everything she's trained for. “What?”“He has powerful friends. You won't find it impossible to turn the tide of this war in our favor." Claria stops, evaluative. "You need not stop there.”Stasia’s mind swims. Impossible. Even if she could do such a thing...“He's here. You could just kill him. You yourself have said that you strike to kill without tarrying. You don’t need more. He leads no armies, no ships, has no Order to speak of to head.”Claria smiles. “But I want more.” She turns to the tank. "We are at an interesting juncture in galactic history. Our Empire's pains are not because of enemies afar, but those within. Skeptics. The Empire lies divided among itself while the New Republic consolidates, its own triumph far from a given. A match close to even, perhaps. Obviously we labor for our Empire to remain ascendant, but we cannot forget that these are profane institutions, our Order's sights must also be on something higher." She may as well be speaking gibberish. ”I don't understand.”"We Sith have always created our enemies," Claria explains. "A student at their zenith, embodying the perfect balance of knowledge and passion, the exquisite enemy, but others too. One could say that the careful cultivation of enemies is as much our calling as our will to power." There's a waspish quality to her stare. "Our power grows through our adversaries, Stasia. As much as we are called to fell them, invariably there comes a time when we must grow them too."Stasia's eyes widen. "I wish for the Jedi Order to be reborn. I will allow it to. I will spin their thread myself." Claria exhales. "So those after me can make the perfect cut when the time comes. That is what should occupy your thoughts, Stasia. My master's time was one of reaping." She smiles again, irony sharp in it. "It seems ours is for sowing."“What? But --" Stasia stammers, "the Jedi will never trust me, you brought him--”“Those who follow the light are not like us. Their natures harbor less suspicion, an excess of faith in the Force, one they follow, rather than direct. Make he and his ilk pity you, Stasia. Make them love you like a bird with a broken wing. Task yourself with spreading poison all the while.”Stasia shakes her head. “Best to kill him. I can--”Claria lifts one pale finger. “We've long left our future as unattended as the Jedi has. To continue as we are is to court complacency. Stagnation. Never forget that life is a struggle against the boot of the Force at our necks.”Stasia thinks of the master's pleasure at his court, feels a dull pang at the center of her.
Claria steps forward, her hand settling on Stasia’s wrist, bony and cold, as unrecognizable as the rest of her. The dark ravages the body.“You are the very best of me,” Claria whispers. “All of my strengths. None of my weaknesses.” Something unreadable passes through her misshapen face. “You must undergo your own trial if the darkness is to choose you. You must seduce it, transform yourself into its consummate vessel by choice not habit. Only then would I welcome you back to the Citadel and teach you secrets beyond imagination. Learn them well enough and you may avenge your master, if you wish." Her eyes narrow in challenge. "If you can.”Stasia lowers her head. No. She doesn’t want to leave the Citadel. Not now.Not ever. “I would stay.” She pushes the words out. What’s one more betrayal? Claria was right. Her destiny remains unchanged. “And continue learning from you.”“You will not," Claria pronounces. "We all have to leave our childhood behind, step into the larger world, and suffer its temptations. I would kill you myself if you remained here.”There’s an awful taste in Stasia’s mouth. Claria lets go of her wrist. “Go to skydock twenty-three. The Varyx is being prepared for you with the ailing Jedi as we speak. You are to act as if you stole it. Take nothing with you but the clothes you wear. Place yourself at the Jedi’s mercy from here on in.” Her pause is freighted with something unnameable. That she doubts her? Stasia only knows that this is not the path she wants to journey. “It will not fail you.”“Claria--”“Tell him that your life would be forfeit if you stayed. Tell him where your disfigurement came from,” she says insistently, her words gathering speed. “And be sure to tell him,” she lifts her chin, her visage swollen and horrible, “That you hate me for it.”Stasia balls her hands into fists, jerking towards her. “Claria, he will know everything!" It is a ploy that won't work and she's lost too much. "I've mind sifted--” “My presence is harder to conceal than yours,” Claria reaches for her arm and clasps it again her grip bruising. “and I spent considerable time in his company. My master spent years surrounded by the elite of their Order. He left them in pieces.” Her voice gentles and for a strange instant her eyes darken slightly, shading to their usual color. "I have taught you all you need as the Citadel allowed." Her voice is odd when she asks softly, “You'll defy me, child?”Stasia shuts her eyes tight, feeling the burn on her face. Claria had only called her that once before, the only time she'd seen Claria cry, something more terrifying than the searing pain of having her face ravaged.
Can you see, child? Tell me you can see! Please!
The memory is even more loathsome than her punishment. More contemptible than her scars.“Is that why you scarred me? For your plot," Stasia ventures at last. "To hide me in plain sight. But if the master had you to tend to his garden." A last ditch effort. “Who will tend to yours?” She inches forward. "I can. I will." She continues, scarcely daring to breathe, “You do have a garden, don’t you? You’ll die if you don’t. The dark side ravages. And you -- the dark has never been stronger in you, but it’s -- it’s consuming you like --”“I will destroy you myself,” Claria whispers, her voice slow and heavy. “You will not stay. Go. Go now.”But Stasia can’t. Not before she’s done. “I thought my scars were a reminder. So I wouldn’t look in on all the other versions of the master you killed. The ones who didn’t pass your tests. Why would you care if I saw or didn’t? I knew. I always knew. Just as I know that the thing in there isn’t for me.” She gestures to the tank furiously, stinging pain pulsing within her ribs. What lies before her doesn't feel like purpose. It's exile. Worse. Replacement. Not her master. Never. Claria wants no master. The bitter swell of emotion stings her eyes and chokes her. She wants to choke the life out of the floating boy in turn. “It’s for you!” "No," Claria murmurs, eyes lightening. “For both of us.”Stasia stiffens, but something else whispers that this is only her due. That she could become that powerful. That all of it lies within her reach. Everything. The dark side vortex of the Citadel could one day answer to her whims.Claria’s voice draws her back. “That isn't why I scarred you.” Claria places a hand on the glass, looking up at the boy’s ethereal face. A few beats pass before she says, “It bothered him to think there was another out there with his face, one who had come before him. My master would insinuate that should he ever confront Luke Skywalker all his weaknesses would be bared, his insurmountable deficiencies exposed for all to see.” “Over and over, he'd suggest it." Claria tilts her head in remembrance. “And Iskarit hated him for it, as if Luke Skywalker's existence were a burden, however distant. One he'd wanted to forget.”Stasia's brow knots as she thinks about the scarred man in his shabby flightsuit before her master. Luke Skywalker to her master as Claria is to her? But no, while Claria had been older, more powerful, more beautiful, she'd never been distant. Close, rather, close enough to whisper that Stasia could have all those things, be all those things. In time. She’d always known she could. If she followed in Claria’s footsteps. Grasp the dark of the Citadel. The secrets of Claria’s alchemy. The whole of the Empire. The galaxy itself if she grew strong enough.Claria darts forward, a skeletal hand cupping Stasia’s face before Stasia can register the movement. It feels like being a child, caught in the mix of craving and resentment she’s known as belonging. Stasia squeezes her eyes shut. ”I tell you what my master never told yours: You are no copy, Stasia. You are an evolution.”When will she see the Citadel again? Feel its whispers of power?"It will be different," Claria murmurs, "Out there. You won't be able to call on the dark side as readily. Your powers will be much diminished. Paltry. No one will understand where you come from, where you've been. You'll know what it is to be alone, besieged by doubt." Stasia pulls away."This is the path you must travel to supersede me, what you've always wished. Take it and do what you will."Stasia's gaze seeks out the boy again, rancor claws within her chest despite the pull towards him. He's not her master. Only an interloper. One who will stay and flourish under the Citadel, under Claria, while Stasia struggles alone in the degraded universe outside. She will do as Claria bids her, Stasia decides, clenching her jaw. She will enact her own string of betrayals, leave her poisoned seed, and return, polished and sharpened like an Echani blade, deserving of their line's legacy, ready to seize it.And yet, something squeezes under the rage and humiliation, under the banner of purpose she is to hold as comfort, a throbbing wound that keeps filling her eyes with weakness. She stays silent, save for her spasmodic breaths, for an interminable moment, waiting for Claria to reprimand her for it.But Claria only prompts, “Through power...”Stasia takes a sobbing breath. The Qotsisajak, their code, first put down by Sorzus Syn, passed down by Darth Bane for centuries through the unbroken line of masters and apprentices all the way down to her own master. "I-I gain victory."Down to Claria, who continues, "Through victory..." “My chains," Stasia finishes tremulously, "are broken.”“So go,” Claria commands, turning away, vanishing into the shadows of the tanks, her voice echoing in the darkness. “Be free.”
.end
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