Act I: Initium

[Asharad Graush]

A few weeks before the Liberation of Coruscant

Empress Teta,
Royal Distract,
Royal Palace


Perhaps it should've been considered as too much, the transportation that the young Sith took to visit the planet of Empress Teta.

An Imperious Star Destroyer. One of the decommissioned ones, but it certainly didn't look that way.

Some would think it as showing off, an attempt to threaten, perhaps even a show of the potential strength of his House.

It wasn't. A'sharad may have been cocky and arrogant, but he was not of the illusion that his House was more powerful than the rulers of Empress Teta.

Not yet anyway.

The Star Destroyer stopped at a distance that was close enough to the planet that the shuttle carrying A'sharad and his cadre of attendants and guards would have enough fuel and power to get to their predetermined landing pad.

That is to say, the sizeable ship was too far from the planet to be acting as threatening. It was just... There. As if shadowing the planet.

Garbed in his new white custom tailored clothing, the shuttle descended towards the planet below. The ship was heading for the Royal Palace directly, to one of the landing pads there rather than the mainstream Spaceport. Of course, it was discussed. A'sharad hadn't bothered to pay attention to whatever plans had been made. Usually during such things his feet were up on a table and he was lounging, as if he were the most important person in the room.

In a way he was, as the Heir to his House.

That had been the way he acted in his own home however. Guards, attendants, even extended family may have expected him to conduct himself in such a way in the presence of the Heiress Apparent of Empress Teta. The young Hybrid thought otherwise. Appearances were everything on visits such as this, no? But it wasn't as if he were there for marriage. He was there to explore, to gauge the loyalty of those within their Empire. Who would flock to those that would see them destroyed in the event the whispers claiming the One Sith was failing were true.

The shuttle was landing at one of the pads, rotating around to present the rear of the ship to the Palace as the repulsors underneath and the thrusters on the side of the ship the only thing keeping it afloat in the air as it lowered to the pad a few metres below it. Touching down, the wings on the side folded up and the ramp slid downwards, and A'sharad was the first to walk out off of the transport.

And we arrive.

[member="Lily Kuhn"]

 

[Ellie Mors]

For as long as she could remember the One Sith had been a looming presence on Empress Teta. And ever since their second victorious battle fought on the planet, in which both of her aunts were killed, that presence grew only tighter - like the grip of an old dotard in his death throes. In her youth she was fortunate enough to not be forced by her parents to mingle with the younger members of the Sith order, fortunate enough to live a somewhat normal, if privileged, life on Teta.

Raised as royalty, the reluctantly chosen heir to the throne of Empress Teta following her mother's takeover of the Krath regime, Lily had always known the pressures that the Sith had put on her parents and the planet's government. Her mother, a Sith Lord at one point herself, had been driven to the point of insanity - an edge that ended her life - had made it abundantly clear that, even though the family was "favored" by the One Sith for her mother's loyalty and former place as the Dark Lord's Voice, acting secondary in importance to the Sith from the outside was more important that appearing like first-class citizens to the people of Teta.

Simply put, keep your head down and the planet gets left alone.

Well, her mother was dead - goes to show how much reason and logic there was in the delusion that the Sith were at the top, and just how far that took you. Little over two months ago and the infamous Dark Lord was killed. You know, the man that was supposedly immortal, untouchable, and could never stay dead for more than a few minutes - not that many people knew that he'd died once before. Part of her warned her to be wary of his purported death - what with the constant reappearances of Sith Lords that many thought had passed on.

Needless to say, Lily was certainly wary of Sith presence, and even more cautious when one of them came to visit the planet on anything remotely related to official business.

But that didn't mean she shared her mother's sentiments. For as long as she could remember the Sith had won their uphill battle against the Galactic Republic, having grabbed the entire galactic core from them and almost never lost a fight... but the stagnation of never-ending success was all-too-evident. Case and point, the death of the figure that so many Sith had used as a propaganda piece and rallying cry for - almost immediately infighting had occurred. Even now, the famous Darth Vornskr and his apprentice were nowhere to be seen. Many rumors had spread that the upper echelons of the One Sith had abandoned the empire to swallow itself in its gluttony.

And Lily? She shared that view, to an extent. However, she saw the bigger picture and the state of the empire as it was - not as it was told. Sith Lords disappeared not because they were betraying the One Sith, though she had no doubt that it was a variable to be accounted for, but because the empire was falling in on itself and they knew it. In more common language, they were fleeing the sinking ship, a sinking ship that was threatening to drag Empress Teta, Coruscant, and the rest of the formerly illustrious deep core worlds down with it.

Not that she would let them.

-

"Lily - Miss Kuhn - your guest will be arriving - is arriving - any moment now." A man said behind clenched teeth - a man that was one of the many people that Lily Kirsche Kuhn employed as both Empress and head of Koros Spaceworks. "Are my shoes on yet?" A feminine voice, one of a Lily Kuhn, asked rhetorically - she was sliding them on as she asked the question. "No, but - " He countered, though he was interrupted by a frustrated hand gesture that only earned a groan of annoyance from the aid. "No 'buts', Bant. Wait for me to put on my shoes and we can out to greet them - him. Out of the two of us, I am royalty. Patience is a virtue, so calm down." She said with quite a deal of annoyance, slipping her second shoe on soon afterwards.

A quick look in the mirror, sitting adjacent her and the chair she sat on atop a table, and the very recently crowned Empress of Teta was on her feet. "Well? What're you waiting for?" Lily snapped, shaking her head with a roll of her eyes as she hurried out of the room and into the hall. "But I just - You - oh forget it." Bant grumbled with a sigh, following her out the door a moment later.

Had the Tetan and her assistant stayed up in her room up until this point, as the shuttle carrying [member="Asharad Graush"] descended, they most certainly would have been dismally late. That, of course, was the importance of having a changing room on the ground floor of the Iron Citadel. Stepping out from the rear of the citadel, blazing red hair tied into two tight buns, she, too, sported relatively expensive clothing. While the dress was generally reserved for special occasions, she felt her casual wear was a little less appropriate for an empress, especially when meeting new and somewhat important people. Following close behind her was her attendant, Bant.

 

[Asharad Graush]

Naturally, A'sharad was waiting impatiently, though his face remained impassive as he closed his eyes in wait. Clearing his mind of the even more so impatient huffs and puffs of his own attendants, he ignored them, tuning them out until they slowly faded into a void of nothingness. With his primary focus being on telekinetic abilities and manipulation of small objects, the Sith Hybrid barely had any skill with expanding his presence in the Force. Of course, he tried to do so, to reach out for something.

Anyone.

He even reached out to one of his own guards and made an attempt at squeezing.

Fortunately for him, nothing happened.

Had he even been doing it right?

Whatever.

By the time he opened his eyes, he was met with the appearance of [member="Lily Kuhn"] before him. Stupefied for long enough to have made himself the fool, the Sith Acolyte bowed, all the way to the waist and slowly rose up again, but as bold as ever, he had never removed those golden orbs from her own eyes. His Father had taught him to be mindful of those that were his 'betters.' Smiling as he rose back up, he approached after spotting Bant, how could he not? A'sharad was tall, but not as tall as her male attendant. Still, he approached nonetheless and he extended his hand to her.

Not to shake.

Had she been gracious enough to have gifted her hand to him, he would've pressed his lips gently across her knuckles as he said, "It is a singular pleasure to be within your presence, Lad- Queen Lily Kuhn," he would've stepped to the side to wave at his own attendants.

There was a beckon, and two of them came off of the ship with a glass box surrounding a single white flower. A'sharad turned back to her when they stopped a metre or two away and he said, "I admit, that I do not know uch about you, Queen of Teta, and so I deliver a nightlily to you." The smile he gave to her was pleasant enough. He made sure throughout the exchange that his right hand remained in the small of his back. Leading with four fingers wasn't exactly the best idea with most people, especially when your other hand had the customary five. Of course, that left hand also held plenty of scars crisscrossing over the flesh.

Clearly fresh ones too.

Perhaps a hint to the danger of the plant, no less.

It was unsettling to be in the presence of a girl, or rather, woman such as her, but he still intended to drive forth with the confidence he had set out with.

"It'd be a great honour for you to accept the gift."

Blinking, he realized, "And officially, I-I'm," Feth. "A'sharad Graush."