Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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First Reply Cracks in the Ice

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Outfit: Clothes, Earring, Bangle
Weapons: Walking stick / Lightsaber Pike


The ruins had long since turned to dust.

Nothing here had burned in recent days — the stones had been cold for years, maybe longer, their scars weathered smooth by relentless seasons. Snow piled in the corners where the temple walls once stood, half-burying the faded sigils of a forgotten Order. Even the echoes had fled.

Aadihr Lidos sat in the hollow of the central courtyard, motionless save for the slow rise and fall of his chest. The blindfold across eyeless face was damp with melting snow, the threadbare hem of his robe stained dark where it clung to the frozen floor. Above him, the sky was a dull smear of grey, offering no light and no warmth.

The pain in his side throbbed with every heartbeat — a deep, lingering ache from wounds not fully mended. He had been stubborn. He had been reckless. He had bled for a cause he still struggled to name aloud. For Azurine. For the hope that she could be saved. For the hope that he could still save anyone at all.

But now, with the rescue complete, in the aftermath all that remained was the cold and terrible, gnawing silence inside his own mind.

Aadihr’s hands rested limp atop his knees. Trembling slightly. Faint bruises still marked his knuckles, reminders of a fight he could not entirely remember — not all of it. Not cleanly. There were black gaps in his memory where rage had overwhelmed him, where the old scars the Jedi taught him to bury had torn open like fresh wounds.

His Force presence, once tightly controlled, leaked around him in quiet spirals: exhaustion, guilt, fear, a flickering anger that he could not quite cage. He had been relying more and more on the rune Kahlil placed as a crutch.

A stronger gust of wind tore through the ruined archways, scattering ice crystals like broken glass. In the distance — faint, but real — he felt a disturbance. A ripple. A presence approaching.

Maybe it was an enemy.
Maybe it was another ghost.
Maybe it was nothing.

Aadihr didn't rise. He didn’t reach for his Pike. He simply stayed where he was, the snow rising against his legs, breathing slow and shallow as his mind's eye wandered further and further away. Once confined to meters, then kilometers, and now stretched further and further into other systems, other planets. He didn't stop wandering through the force for whoever — or whatever — was about to find him.

First Reply - Open.
 




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"Eye for an eye."

Tag - Aadihr Lidos Aadihr Lidos




The snow whispered beneath her boots.

It was not the kind of place she would have chosen to visit—bleak, colorless, bone-deep cold. The kind of cold that didn't just sting the skin but settled in the marrow, a quiet thief that numbed thought and stole feeling. The ruins were old, forgotten even by those who once called themselves wise.
Aadihr's kind of place, really.

Serina moved through the remnants of what had once been sacred, trailing pale smoke from the heat of her breath beneath her hood. The long folds of her cape drifted behind her, brushing against the stone with an almost spectral grace. In the silence, the only sound was the soft, rhythmic crunch of snow underfoot.

She had felt him hours ago—broken, bleeding inward, drowning without water. She wasn't sure why she followed the thread. Maybe because it was familiar. Maybe because it was pathetic.

Maybe because she'd been there once. Maybe still was.

The Miraluka was seated where the altar might've been, barely moving. He looked like part of the ruins—weathered, lost, waiting for some divine conclusion that would never come.

How poetic.

Serina stopped a few meters away, letting her presence fully bleed out now. The Force wrapped around her like perfume, dark and warm, faintly sweet with power. There was no hostility in it—just the low thrum of something coiled and alive, watching.

She crouched near a crumbling wall, removed a small thermal igniter from the pouch at her hip, and tossed it into a ring of gathered wood that hadn't been there moments ago. Whether it had come from her own supplies or conjured with a flicker of will, it didn't matter. The flame hissed as it caught, crackling to life in defiance of the cold.

"
Come sit, old friend," she said at last, voice low, amused, oddly warm. Her hood remained drawn, framing that pale, wickedly carved face in shadow. The glow of the fire flickered across her crimson-and-magenta armor, highlighting the sharp edges of her gauntlets, the soft curl of her hair as it caught the light. "Or do you plan to freeze into a monument for dead causes?"

There was no mockery in it—only the edge of dark humor, the kind born from too many nights spent bleeding alone in unfamiliar places.

Serina leaned forward slightly, extending her fingers to the flame as if she actually needed the warmth. Her nails were painted black, glossy against the orange glow. She gave a slight roll of her shoulder, the angular cut of her cape shifting with the movement.

"
I came to return the favor," she said, tone casual, as if she weren't dressed like some divine executioner with murder in her smile. "You pulled me out of the ocean when I was more blood than woman. I figured I owed you a rescue. Or at least a fire. Not quite as dramatic, I know."

She looked over at him, her blue eyes sharp, calculating, but not cruel. Just present.

"
I'm not here to play counselor, don't worry. But..." She gestured vaguely to the hollow of his chest. "You look like you've got a story to tell. And I'm positively starving for something miserable and poetic to listen to."

Her smile deepened, teeth catching the firelight.

"
So."

She patted the stone beside her.

"Tell me what broke you this time."



 
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Outfit: Clothes, Earring, Bangle
Weapons: Walking stick / Lightsaber Pike


"[...]You look like you've got a story to tell. And I'm positively starving for something miserable and poetic to listen to. Tell me what broke you this time."

The first words brought his attention back, the shadow suddenly appeared as suddenly as if acloud passed over the sun.

A shadow, but not malignant.

"You've grown," Aadihr replied, " since we've last met."

The warmth of the flame was not unwelcome. Aadihr approached, but elected to kneel across the flame from Serina, for no reason other than the warmth it provided.

Despite himself, Aadihr let out a sardonic smirk. "Miserable and poetic does seem to be my specialty."

His robes were the same he'd always worn over the last two years. They served as an apt metaphor for himself. Once-bright linens and wools now frayed and grayed, worn thin from too many careless messes and harsh scrubbings.

"I'm... I'm tired. To my bones. Not of any cause I serve or the people I help. I tire of myself. Things were easier when I could blame a curse, or a cause, or some stranger I deem to be a villain. It is easy to blame something, anything else for my lack of peace, of restfulness."

He paused, feeling the warmth of the flames across his skin, almost nostalgic for the living flame that inhabited his arm for so long.

"As each obscuring veil is lifted, the truth of the matter becomes clearer. The common denominator is myself. I... "


The words for what ate at him were frustratingly evasive. It was something innate and existential and deeply personal. "I am an outsider, no matter how welcomed I am. It is a state of my own making, real or perceived, I feel it just the same."

He was idly reaching into the flame now. "What broke me this time? Something long ago, I think. I simply never repaired, only ever evaded myself as long as I could."

The lingering words of his master — Luka Felcado Luka Felcado — still swayed his actions. Her words, internalized, became his thoughts. Her derision became his identity. Her beatings became his burden. If he he did not push past his limits, he was a failure. If he could not keep up, he would be left behind. In his mind, he deserved it, an ingrained flagellation of his psyche.

"Day after day I must either push myself to the brink of death, or else I decide that my life is not worth living. I cannot exist in a state of moderation, of balance. Of living without pursuing death. The state where everyone else — all who would welcome me — reside. I can't bring myself to speak of it to them."

He was afraid of being seen by them. Seen and judged and deemed wanting, as his master had deemed him. Seen and forced to surrender the control of their perception of him.

 




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"Eye for an eye."

Tag - Aadihr Lidos Aadihr Lidos




The fire crackled softly between them, casting flickering shadows against the broken stone and snow. Serina did not move immediately. She watched him, unmoving, as if the act of listening were sacred. As if this moment—his moment—was something she had not only expected, but meticulously allowed to bloom.

When she finally spoke, her voice was a low, velvety thing. Not soft. Never soft. But measured, like she was tracing every thread of his confession with her fingers, testing its texture.

"
You wear your damage like a creed," she murmured, not unkindly. "All that power, all that potential, and yet your greatest act of faith is in your own inadequacy. Beautiful, really. Tragic, but beautiful."

She reached into the fire too—not to mimic him, but as if she too had been burned before, and didn't care if it happened again. The orange glow danced across the dark phrik lines etched into her gauntlets, the intricate runes drinking in the light.

"
You want to be punished. Not saved. Not seen. Just punished."

Her gaze met his across the flame—sharp, discerning, piercing.

"
You know, I used to believe that people like you—martyrs—were the easiest to break. All I had to do was twist the knife in a way that made you feel noble for bleeding."

Her smile was thin now. Feral. Pained.

"
But then I learned better."

She leaned back slightly, adjusting her posture with a languid ease that made her armor glint like wet ink in the firelight.

"
You don't bleed because you want meaning. You bleed because the silence afterwards is the only peace you've ever known. Because if you stop, if you rest, you might have to acknowledge that no enemy did this to you. That it wasn't the Sith. Or the Jedi. Or even that master of yours—Felcado, was it? No. It was you."

There was no malice in her tone. No judgment. Only truth.

"
You accepted the wounds and decided they defined you. You wear them like absolution. And worse still…" Her voice lowered, curling like smoke, "you think that makes you honest."

The silence between them returned, heavy but not oppressive. It was filled with things unspoken—shared things, dark and raw.

Serina shifted slightly, her hood casting deeper shadows over her face, though the faint smirk on her lips gleamed with firelight.

"
I'll tell you something you don't want to hear, Aadihr."

Her voice was slow, deliberate, like a blade being unsheathed.

"
You're not an outsider because they can't reach you. You're an outsider because you won't let them. Because you've grown addicted to being unknown. Because that lets you control the narrative. That lets you pretend you're still being judged by some phantom mentor, when the truth is—"

She leaned forward, voice like a whisper pressed against the edge of his mind.

"
No one is watching anymore. Except you."

She let that sit. Let the truth of it work into him like poison.




 
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Outfit: Clothes, Earring, Bangle
Weapons: Walking stick / Lightsaber Pike


"You don't bleed because you want meaning. You bleed because the silence afterwards is the only peace you've ever known. Because if you stop, if you rest, you might have to acknowledge that no enemy did this to you. That it wasn't the Sith. Or the Jedi. Or even that master of yours—Felcado, was it? No. It was you."

Sick little pieces fell into place. The spite that motivated him. The moments of rage and paranoia that soaked through otherwise calm moments.

She had found a core of it, He was an addict. He had put himself in harm's way for anyone; not purely to help, but from a twisted need to suffer more than any other present. The pain was how he knew things would get better - it was the release between moments of tension waiting for the next slip up, the next tragedy. If he did not suffer, then he had not done everything he could.

But something lay deeper. Behind more veils that he had to peel inwards, what he feared to observe about himself. He had seen it in him before, and perhaps only because of the odd circumstances of this reunion could he voice what he had learned.

The realization brought a full grin to Aadihr's lips. His sardonic chuckle escalated from mirthless to manic.

"That's it."

He let the laughter out to take a breath.

"That's what's broken." He took a moment to compose himself. "It's not the silence after that I long for - it eats at me as well. The quiet moments are filler."

He grew focused once more, facing the flames as if he could stare into them.

"No one needs to see it. I hadn't been able to see it. Whether I broke it or she did - I need to suffer. I need to find a hopeless cause, to find a hill to die on and put everything into it, every fiber of my being. I enjoy it. Every ounce of pain, every burden I choose to bear is proof of my existence. I am drawn more to the sacrifice than the gain."

He spoke like a madman - unknowing whether the words he spoke were a lie to himself to maintain an illusion of control or a deep seated illness within his mind. At this moment, it was both and neither.

The revelation, the divine contradiction of it all was ecstatic - and he returned to his laughter. The relief of some form of self-understanding — regardless of it's truth — and the sheer absurdity of it, of existence itself, was too much to bear straight faced.

 




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"Eye for an eye."

Tag - Aadihr Lidos Aadihr Lidos




Serina didn't laugh with him.

She watched.

The flames threw erratic shadows across
Aadihr's face, his manic grin cast in flickers of gold and darkness, and she simply watched—not with sympathy, not with disdain, but with the unblinking curiosity of someone who had seen too many men come to this very edge. The moment when understanding no longer offered clarity, only madness.

And still she said nothing. Not until his laughter had waned into the ragged rhythm of breath.

"
There it is," she said at last, her voice a low ripple across the fire, "the confession you didn't even know you were crafting."

She shifted, not toward him, but with a languid grace—crossing one leg over the other, letting her cape pool around her like ink in the snow. The firelight danced across the lines of her armor, the glowing runes breathing faintly like something alive.

"
You've mistaken your pain for proof of life. You've turned your capacity to suffer into your identity."

She said it not as an accusation, but as a scholar might comment on an ancient relic they'd finally decoded.

"
You needed the wound to know you were real. And so you dig yourself deeper, over and over, just to be able to feel the shape of the blade."

Her gaze was calm, cold, cutting.

"
There's power in that," she continued, "don't get me wrong. A certain kind of power. It makes you relentless. Terrifying. Useful. But it's not noble. And it's not beautiful. It's desperation masquerading as devotion."

She leaned in, just slightly, voice dipping lower.

"
And the worst part is that you enjoy it."

Her lips curled—not into a smirk, not quite, but something quieter. Knowing.

"
You like being the one bleeding on the altar. Because if you bleed first, no one else has to. Because if you suffer the most, then you're the strongest. Because if you're always in pain, you never have to look at the pain you caused."

She let that one hang.

Let it slide in under his skin.

Then, with the casual cruelty of someone who knew exactly what kind of chord she was plucking, she added:

"
Including to yourself."

Serina sat back again, letting her hands rest on her knees, fingers drumming lightly against her thigh. The fire crackled. The snow drifted softly in the distance.

"
You're not mad, Aadihr," she said, more softly now. "You're just finally aware of the script you've been acting out all along. And you're too intelligent to keep pretending it's someone else's play."

Her voice grew quieter still, thoughtful, even gentle.

"
Now the question is: will you write a new one? Or will you keep dying on every hill that dares not beg for your sacrifice?"

She turned her gaze fully to him now, and there was a strange sort of reverence in it. Not admiration. Not pity. Something older. A deep, grim understanding.

"
You have all the tools of a great martyr, Aadihr. The passion. The discipline. The need. But tell me something..."

Her voice dipped to a hush, so low it nearly drowned in the fire's breath.

"
If the galaxy forgets your name, if no one sees you burn—"

A pause.

"
Will it still have been worth it?"

She smiled then.

And this time, it was warm.

Cruel, yes—but warm. Because she already knew the answer. And it wasn't hers to say.




 
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The wind shifted again. A low roar between the broken columns. Snow hissed as it struck the flame, vanishing into steam.

Aadihr said nothing at first. He let her words settle, let them echo inside him the way truths do when they finally find purchase in a soul that’s ready to receive them. No fury rose to meet her barbs. No denial. No recoil.

He only breathed. A slow descent from the madness into a sobering stillness, his mind jarringly clear after the noise and confusion.

When he did speak, his voice had lost its edge. It was soft. No longer broken. Not exactly distant. Just... still.

"If the galaxy forgets your name, if no one sees you burn—"
"
Will it still have been worth it?"

"Yes."

He didn’t smile this time. Didn’t grin or laugh or retreat behind cleverness. He simply agreed, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"I do enjoy it. The pain. The burden. I’ve chased it like meaning, bled for it like faith, and, for a long time, I convinced myself that it made me righteous. That it made me real."

His face was unfocused, but steady.

"But it was never righteousness. It was need. And need is not holiness."

A breath.

"Neither is it evil."

There, the first flicker of conviction. Not defiance. Not pride. Conviction.

"I am not the Jedi they wanted me to be. Not the tool my master meant to forge. I do not bleed for glory, or suffer for others to witness. I do not desire peace."

He shifted, just slightly, folding his hands together.

"I will bleed because it is who I am. Because I can. If there is agony in the galaxy, I would rather take it for myself than watch it be passed to someone else; I doubt many would decline an offer. Fewer still that would understand this morbid greed that I possess."

The fire cracked, spitting cinders into his hand. Aadihr did not flinch.

"They need not understand it. It could be rationalized as desperation masquerading as desire. It might be so. But the cause is irrelevant now. It is beyond the point of denial, that mask has molded into me, and I can simply... choose... to wear it without shame."

He turned his head slightly toward her — not fully facing, but acknowledging.

"I don’t need the galaxy to remember my name. I don’t need anyone to see the ashes in my wake. I need only feel the flame for myself."

His voice grew quieter. Not colder. Not darker. Just more certain.

"I will burn, Serina. Whether the galaxy watches or not. Whether the cause is noble or not. Whether it changes anything or not. I will burn — because it is what I choose."

There was no grandiosity in it. No dramatics, no desire for remembered martyrdom. Just the truth.

And in that truth, he looked not like a man undone, but a man who had found the darkest corner of himself and decided not to avert his gaze.

 




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"Eye for an eye."

Tag - Aadihr Lidos Aadihr Lidos




Serina listened.

Really listened.

No interruptions. No coy remarks. No well-placed sighs or arched brows. She let him speak—truly speak—with the quiet gravity of someone who understood how rare such moments were.
Aadihr's words weren't a defense. They weren't a plea. They were the kind of confession one only ever makes to the wind, or to the fire, or to the dark... and perhaps, just this once, to her.

When he finished, she didn't speak right away.

The fire popped between them. The snow hissed against it like breath through clenched teeth. She could feel the truth of him now—not the surface shape of his Force signature, but the core, stripped bare. Not the Jedi's projection. Not the martyr's mask. Just
Aadihr. Broken, yes. But no longer flinching from the mirror.

It pleased her. Not in a way she would admit aloud—not in a way that mattered. But there was something clean about it. Something sharpened, like a blade tempered by its own flaws instead of despite them.

When
Serina did speak, her voice had changed. It was quieter now—no less seductive, no less poised—but stripped of theatrics. Intimate. Not performative.

"
You've made peace with your fire," she said, slowly, as though she were weighing each word before giving it breath. "Not the kind others would recognize. Not the kind that grants absolution. But peace, all the same."

She tilted her head, studying him—not like prey, not like a puzzle, but like a phenomenon. Something ancient, something unspoken.

"
That's rare," she continued, her voice low and warm, almost admiring. "Most people spend their whole lives trying to outrun that kind of clarity. Or they dress it up in false virtue. But you…" Her lips curved faintly. "You've stripped it of meaning. You've let it be just what it is. Suffering. Choice. Nothing more."

She reached down, scooping a handful of snow, watching as it melted in her palm before tossing it into the flames. A brief hiss. Gone.

"
I won't lie to you," she murmured. "There's no reward for that kind of truth. No cosmic scale will tip in your favor. You'll die, one day—unseen, unremembered, unsung. It won't make the galaxy kinder. It won't stop the next war. Your pain won't make anyone better."

She looked up, eyes catching his across the fire, glowing faintly with reflected heat.

"
But you already know that."

A pause.

"
And you choose it anyway."

She gave a small, appreciative hum, her expression unreadable now. Almost serene. Then, with the faintest curl of her lips, she leaned back, resting one arm along her knee in that same effortless, imperial posture she always fell into when the truth had revealed itself and she had no need to press further.

"
Self-aware madness," she said softly. "That's the kind I respect most."

The wind picked up again, tugging at the edges of her cloak. She didn't flinch. Neither did he.

Serina smiled.

Not cruelly. Not mockingly. But with the calm, unshaken pleasure of someone who had long ago accepted the darkness in herself... and found it mirrored in another.

"
You'll burn, Aadihr. You're right. Whether the galaxy watches or not."

She turned her gaze outward, past the fire, past the ruins, toward the snow-swept horizon.

"
And I'll be there, somewhere, in the smoke. Watching."

A beat.

"
Not because I care." Her voice, again, dipped into that lyrical fatalism that clung to her like perfume. "But because the flame always draws its kind."




 

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