I'm Going to Clip Your Wings

[Caid Centurion]

Bastion of Ren
Virgillia

Soft footfalls echoed against the ground of the large edifice presently serving as the epicenter of activity and training for the Knights of Ren. Ciardha Ren had disappeared well before construction was complete on this particular location, but he found it to be...adequate, supposedly. There had been so many one-off locations and temples catering to the needs of the Ren. In fact, a great many of those locations still existed insofar as Caid could tell. He just couldn't tell whether or not they were much utilized these days.

The young Centurion's presence on the planet was not born so much out of personal desire as necessity. Having only recently returned from a reconnaissance operation deep into the Unknown Regions, Caid required a number of things to proceed. Most importantly, he required information on a missing Disciple. Something...tangible. Something that he could utilize to help isolate her specific presence on an otherwise sweeping world mostly foreign to him.

Turning a corner, Caid's silver-green eyes peered out from the darkness provided by the hood of his cloak. Unlike his choice in earlier times of training and operation, Caid rarely utilized a mask anymore. In a matter of moments, he located the room for which he'd been searching. Most of the items, curiously, remained untouched, obvious signs of dust beginning to collect. With a strong desire to be on his way, Caid selected a single item that seemed the most personal and began to make his way towards an exit.

As a matter of habit, the Sith Lord followed a route that differed from the one he'd used to access the room. Turning down an adjacent corridor, he could plainly tell that he wandered into the section of the large structure that catered to training and physical exercise. A number of presences touched his senses, most of them seemingly belonging to budding levels of strength in the Force, but he managed to ignore them.

That is...until Caid's curiosity got the better of him, and he turned his head only to see a flash of blue and black dart across the open doorway. Abruptly, the Sith Lord stopped, mind immediately jumping to [member="Athena Heron"] as if her being was literally on the edge of his awareness. However, the entity he sensed inside was certainly not Athena. Quietly, the large Sith stepped across the threshold, and cast his gaze towards the ceiling. Another avian humanoid of some sort? Caid wasn't real well-versed in the bird cultures of the galaxy, but he certainly knew more than your average sentient being.

For now. He simply stared, allowing the full weight of his presence to compress against the creature, groping around its metaphysical presence. There was nothing malicious in the act, merely the way that Caid evaluated all beings upon first contact.

He never went without a plan to kill someone or something at a moment's notice.

[member="Kira Solvani"]

 

[Dante Sotari]

Working on aerial manuvers under the supervision of the Ren was a complicated thing for Kira Solvani.

For the first eighteen years of her life, she had been trained the same as any other would be Disciple. Mostly. Beneath the pride and the loyalty to the Ren, there had always been an undercurrent of 'it is acceptable that you are not human. It would be better, however, if you were.' Sometimes, more than an undercurrent, in truth. The First Order, the Ren, they were family. The only family she had ever known, and likely would ever know. The colour of her skin had marked her within the S'Kytri as an abomination- something not worth allowing even to hatch. While the First Order could not change the minds or hearts of the denizens of Skye, they had done what they could at least to change their policy. Undesirable eggs or hatchlings could be turned over to the Government, no questions asked. It was worth it for them to take these unwanteds, rather than see them destroyed. Especially when so many of them turned out to be Force Sensitives.

Caught somewhere between the S'kytri and the humans of the First Order, Kira and others like her had been raised separately- loyalty to the Order integral and necessary to instill first before bringing them back together to train as a group. She had grown up, largely alone. One friend, yes, but otherwise the sense of otherness had been a defining feature of her up bringing. It had manifested in the young woman as a deep and pervasive desire to fit in, to conform, to be as human as possible. And her trainers had encouraged it.

One of her secret shames was, oddly, the pride she took in her wings. The freedom she felt when she flew, how, if there was no other time she felt more whatever she truly was, it was in moments of soaring flight. Stolen moments. Hidden moments. After all, how could she be properly human if the wind spoke to her more clearly than any lips ever had? Rare experiences, woven between the larger strands of trying to behave. Trying to conform. Keeping her wings tight to her back, arched to prevent the wingtips from dragging across the ground and being stepped on. Anything to minimize those great black shadows that followed her everywhere.

So now, to not merely be given leave to use them, to soar, but to be ordered to train with them as a basis for combat? Eighteen years of the very opposite at war with that secret shame of pride, mixed now with a liberal dose of simply wanting to please her teachers. It left for an emotional mess she had no notion of how to even begin to cope with, so she did what she always did.

She buried it and pretended it didn't exist.

It had worked for her so far anyway.

Her right wing had been broken on Hoth. Today, and for the next several weeks, the only work she was meant to be doing was strengthening that wing after the injury, and working on extending her stamina and maneuverability in the air. While she thought she'd be able to better do that out in the open, her instructors had been firm that she stay inside. It made getting up to any sort of speed impossible, necessitating sharper turns than she would risk in the open. True, it challenged her. But it was also at stark odds with how best to utilize her abilities. Apparently the secret was more important for now.

She felt something shift around her, and she glanced around in confusion for a moment, letting herself glide while she tried to figure out why she suddenly felt as though a weight had wrapped around her. It made her wings heavy- not literally, she realized, the sensation entirely mental-

"Faster Kira!" One of the older Ren barked up at her, and she drove her wings harder as she shot across the space.

"Bank right!"

She started to follow the instructions, and immediately things went wrong. She realized even before she completed the maneuver that the instructions ordered could not be completed in the space he had given her. Between speed and turn radius, there was no way she could avoid impacting just past the corner. The calculations came and went in a heartbeat, and instead of slamming into the wall ten meters up in the air, she clasped her wings back and allowed herself to fall into a dive. By angling pinion feathers ever so slightly on just one side, it allowed her to rudder away from the wall more smoothly, in a better arc, though she lost nearly half of her altitude before her wings snapped back open with enough room to avoid impacting the wall.

"What the hell was that?!"

She cringed, back beating her wings and slowing down before her feet touched the floor.

"I couldn't make the turn safely-" she started to explain and then flinched, eyes shooting to the floor when the yelling started. Her wings folded back behind her, hard. It wasn't easy for a nearly two meter tall being with enormous black wings to look *small*, but in that moment she did. After all, she had not followed directions. She had not banked when ordered, and he could tell from where he had been standing that she had plenty of room for the maneuver as ordered. Was she questioning his judgement?

"Of course not. I'm sorry," she muttered, trying to keep her tone even.

"Get your ass back in the air, Kira," he said in disgust. "And stop wasting my time."

She nodded, not entirely trusting herself to speak. One, two, three running steps and she launched herself back up, driving her wings down hard.

Spiraling upward, she noticed the newcomer for the first time. She didn't recognize him, had no idea who he was or what he was doing here. Their eyes met for a moment before the curve of black wings angled her away and back into the practice flight pattern. But in that heartbeat, she realized that he was watching her. And that the weight she had felt a moment before had been the weight of his attention.

There was no way to grow smaller in the air. No minimizing her presence or the shadows cast by wide wingspan. But if she could have, she would have disappeared in that moment. Whoever he was, for whatever reason he was watching, he'd seen the whole thing and now she was pretty sure she would rather sink right into the floor than keep flying in front of these people.

She hadn't thought that there was any way to take away the joy that flight had been for her.

Maybe she was wrong.

[member="Caid Centurion"]

 

[Caid Centurion]

Caid stood silently with his hands clasped behind his back. It was a curious display, really. The woman looked like a caged animal being prodded by its overseers on the ground. He recalled the intensity of the training staff within the Ren. Ironically, they were not typically very senior members of the organization but experienced in their own way. It always seemed like a death sentence to Caid, but he knew most of them would eventually go on to be Masters of Ren. Those with true influence, however, never seemed to really leave the field, molding younger members through consistent actions and operations throughout First Order space.

That was what limited them in Caid's eyes. They knew only that which Sieger permitted them to learn, they acted only in accordance with the will of another person. The lifestyle was akin to being a droid; created to perform flawlessly in a limited range of functions.

Programmed warriors.

S'kytri. It made the most sense given the First Order's operations on Skye. While Caid wasn't exactly an avid student of such a species in his past, recent events certainly piqued his curiosity. She had blue skin, much like Caid's winged lover. Unlike Athena, however, that meant the woman before him was a mistake...shouldn't have even been alive. Unless, perhaps, she too was an Omwati.

Bright orbs followed Kira's trajectory as she attempted to execute a relatively impossible maneuver. Whereas her failure brought about her instructors anger, it only caused Caid to roll his eyes. The woman either was so utterly pathetic in her own skin, or she was so utterly conditioned to obey that she knowingly engaged in stupidity.

Once Kira's chastisement was over and she took the air once more, Caid exhaled heavily before clamping the power of the Force down on the instructor's neck. Abruptly, Caid tightened the invisible noose as his deep voice touched the air of the chamber. "Bird lady. Come here." There was no need for introduction as the Sith Lord stepped forward and released his grasp on the instructor. The moment he did, Caid looked at him. "Leave us."

The man could choose to engage Caid, obviously. It just would have been a foolish exercise.

[member="Kira Solvani"]

 

[Dante Sotari]

She'd been called worse. But there was no mistaking who he was calling for when he said 'Bird Lady', and she winced internally while trying to keep her face neutral.

Kira had a lot of practice pretending that the subtle barbs reminding her daily that she was *different* didn't bother her, after all.

She banked several meters up. To say that she was accustomed to following orders, well. It was more that she was conditioned to follow them. But the look on her instructor's face sealed it, and she glided to the ground without an argument. Not, however, without obvious trepidation. She hoped she wasn't going to get yelled at again, but, realistically?

That was probably what was on the table.

Blue eyes glanced over at the instructor as he practically slunk off. That did nothing to ease her concern, if anything only heightening it. Black wings clapped tightly behind her back. They still arched high behind her, making her look taller than she already was. Something she wished she could do something about. Too tall, too noticeable, when all she wanted to do was shrink and go over looked. Not today, it seemed.

Despite that, she didn't slouch as she approached him. That was, after all, another good way to get yelled at. She was a bit taller than he was, but that wasn't a surprise. She was accustomed to that- also to the reactions it tended to illicit.

Everything would be easier if she were shorter, wingless, and....

Human.

She sighed internally.

Without hesitation or even thinking about it, she dropped to one knee, bowing her head as she had been trained since infancy. There were proper ways to greet those that were owed deference, and as far as the Ren were concerned, Kira Solvani owed it to everyone.

She waited, not looking up.

"What do you need of me sir?"

It seemed safe enough.

[member="Caid Centurion"]

 

[Caid Centurion]

Caid, however, seemed decidedly unphased by Kira's appearance - be it her height or the wings behind her back. The Sith was not so uneducated or lacking in exposure to a variety of cultures for the differences of genetics to be much of a thought. Every sentient in the galaxy had a past, a history. There were genetic markers that Caid would never be able to escape just as was the case for Kira.

In fact if there was anything wrong with her from his point of view, it was her obvious, blatant inability to just be. When the tall S'kytri bent a knee, Caid rolled his eyes. "Unless you're going to put your mouth to work while you're down there, get off the fething ground."

Silver-green eyes gazed down at the woman, but there was no sense of amusement either in his voice or his features. It hadn't been a joke. Still, Caid didn't really wait for a retort or compliance. Instead, he proceeded with a query. "Why did you do that just now? Attempt to make a turn that even a wingless person could tell was not possible?"

[member="Kira Solvani"]

 

[Dante Sotari]

It took a moment for Kira to register the words and what they meant beneath the annoyance in his voice. Mostly because it was a tone she was all too familiar with, but what he actually said?

"I- um- wait. What?"

As soon as she absorbed it, however, she flushed violet and stood up immediately. If not physically, she was already mentally off balance, not really knowing how to appropriately react or respond.

And then he dropped his actual question and she wanted nothing more than to sink into the floor.

Azure eyes glance to her right, where the instructor was waiting, glaring at her- she assumed because he was too afraid to glare at [member="Caid Centurion"].

There was no right way to answer that, she realized with a small churn of panic. If she were entirely honest, and her instructor heard, well, she didn't know what he'd do, but she didn't want to think about it. He would be furious. But somehow, she knew that if she lied, that would be an even worse option. There was nothing she could say here that would make all parties happy, or deflect the attention off of her somewhere else. No matter what she said here, it would be wrong.

"If I didn't follow my instructor's commands, I would have been.... remiss." She chose the word carefully. "Sometimes, being given an impossible order is simply a way for them to test our ability to think..... on the fly." That actually brought a ghost of a smile to her lips.

"When he ordered me to do the impossible, while it could not be accomplished in the way he asked, I was still able to find a solution to the problem, and execute the spirit of, if not the exact wording, of the command."

Such a careful answer.

 

[Caid Centurion]

Such a pathetic answer.

When Kira had finished, Caid allowed a slow, deep exhale to escape between barely parted lips. Keeping his bright gaze focused on the tall Ren, Caid issued a simple command. "You." At the sound of the word, Caid raised his left hand, index finger pointing directly at the instructor. Slowly, he rotated his wrist and then beckoned said instructor forth with his finger. However, in truth it was but a small visual indication of what he did with the Force. "Come here."

The strength of the Force was undoubtedly well known to the other Ren. Caid knew perfectly well that you did have to make some kind of impression to be entrusted with the task of guiding Disciples. However, the sheer abruptness of the manipulation no doubt caught Kira's instructor off guard as his body was pulled harshly across the expanse of the training arena.

The moment the man was within arm's reach, Caid slipped his hand behind the man's neck, adding his own physical strength to that of the Force as he forcefully smashed the man's face into the ground. Landing a knee squarely on the man's shoulder blade with the entire weight of his presence, Caid found temporarily immobilizing him was little trouble.

The fact that the instructor probably had a serious concussion in the moment didn't hurt.

"Let me summarize what you just said to me. 'I was given a moronic instruction, so I thought it would be best to just try and execute his stupid request in the least ignorant way possible. That way I could be spared admonishment or worse.' That about sum it up, Blue?"

The instructor began to stir slightly beneath Caid's body, but he placed a hand to the back of the man's head and smashed his face hard into the ground once more. "Tell me. Does this man, squirming in my grasp, seem worthy of your fear? Does he know what it means to take to the air, to feel the freedom of flight? How can he teach you to be what you are?"


What happened to the Ren...

[member="Kira Solvani"]

 

[Dante Sotari]

The whole thing happened in the blink of an eye. She had enough time to step back, but otherwise couldn't have reacted even if she had wanted to. Not that she would have stopped him- there was a small part of her that took a certain grim satisfaction in seeing her instructor's face kissing the floor. Of course, what flooded after was shame and horror at herself.

The Ren were the closest thing to a family Kira had ever have- and likely would ever have. No matter how unpleasant a couple of them were, they didn't deserve to be manhandled like that.

Complicated emotions tend to function poorly at best. Or more likely, not at all. In this case, there was really only room for one thing to filter through. It could have been fear, confusion, guilt- she could have shrunk back or ducked her head, retreating like she normally did when the Ren themselves treated her that way. But it was none of those things.

The anger that came filtering out was, oddly, not entirely aimed at him. There was a lot of it, settled deep beneath the surface that had absolutely nothing to do with him at all. Wrapped up in self loathing and that deep seeded feeling that she would never truly belong somewhere, the hard edge in her voice seemed to materialize out of no where.

"It's not about fear. It's about being part of something bigger than myself. It's about not letting my own ego get in the way of maybe learning something from someone, even if I don't think they have anything to offer- because there's always something to learn. Who the hell is he to teach me? Who the hell are *you* to pretend you know me at all? At least he's earned the right to teach me something. You just walked in here and assumed you deserved to have me listen. The Ren are my family. I don't always have to like them-"

The stopped then and there, suddenly, as if she were going to say more. Carefully, deliberately, she reigned in the outburst. Her wings had flared out when she had raised her voice, and now she brought them back again.

There was fear. Underlying it all, even if she refused to admit it. Fear that without the Ren.... Kira Solvani was nothing. That ran deep, the undercurrent of everything. The loyalty to the Ren moved on the surface of that fear, and both laid the foundation for everything she did.

Though she stopped, she didn't apologize for raising her voice. She just stood there, mouth set in a firm line.

The fact that he was right? Nothing to do with the anger.

Sure. Nothing at all.

"And don't call me Blue. My name is Kira."

[member="Caid Centurion"]

 

[Caid Centurion]

Caid laughed deeply, warmly for several moments. It was a sincere laugh that rolled from the very pit of his stomach. It was...perhaps an entire twenty seconds before the laughter subsided. In fact, the cessation of laugher was punctuated by an equally poignant sound; the sound of Caid snapping the instructor's neck.

Casually, Caid stood to his full height, smiling. "You know nothing child. Not about me, your so-called instructor, or the Knights of Ren." Caid offered the S'kytri a smile that would have been sweet had it not been laced with venom and a measure of disgust. "Rest assured...you are not Kira. You are, in fact, nobody and everybody. You are a tool, a weapon, and from what I've seen...not exactly an effective one. You will always be that way if you hide behind some foolish notion of subservience or esprit de corps as an excuse for being an idiot. Do you honestly think Sieger Ren has use of a Ren that blindly follows any instruction even if they know it to be wrong?"

Caid paused only long enough to shrug. "If you do, join the Auxiliary. Otherwise...follow me and you might yet actually learn something from a Master of Ren, not a peon sentenced to instructor duty because they were deemed less-than-effective in the field." Turning, Caid initiated his retreat to the exit.

Kira could, of course, choose to remain behind. To become an undoubtedly integral part of the running joke that had become the Knights of Ren.

[member="Kira Solvani"]

 

[Dante Sotari]

Certain things cemented in that moment for Kira Solvani.

The most obvious was that brutality was no way to influence others. Another, that those without self control, without discipline, were dangerous and not to be trusted.

The winged Ren stood over the body of her instructor. Perhaps she should have felt something in relation to the body rapidly cooling at her feet, but if she were being honest, there was simply a mild sense of horror at the casualness someone who proclaimed to be a part of their order had displayed at ended that man's life. The fact that the order functioned as a well oiled machine, each cog fitting into place where it could best be utilized, had been an undercurrent of her life for as long as she could remember.

Wonton destruction of a tool, even one that might seem to have no immediately purpose, seemed wasteful and wrong to her.

If there hadn't been witnesses to the series of events, the S'Kytri probably would have been far more alarmed. But there was no chance this would be seen as her doing or fault, which kept some of the potential upset down.

It was, she supposed, a clean death. And perhaps a small part of her was bothered that it didn't bother her more than it did, but that was something to be picked apart at a later date.

Ultimately, Kira did not follow him. Trading the known quantity for an unknown when cruelty and brutality had been displayed in far greater amounts was beyond foolishness. It was suicidal.

He was trying to make her an offer that held nothing over her. Kira didn't care if she became powerful.

She was simply hoping to be useful. And that made all the difference.

[member="Caid Centurion"]

 

[Caid Centurion]

Yet - her naivety about the reality of not only the Knights of Ren but the First Order as well was precisely the reason she would never be either. Power was not a destination. It was a byproduct, a result of finally seizing control of one's life and mastering every level of weakness that existed. Similarly, the ability to do so required the utmost of control, discipline. [member="Kira Solvani"], however, could not possibly hope to understand any of these realities in her current submissive and utterly useless state. It was a growing acceptance that he'd begun to find quite troubling in some of the newer incarnations of the Ren.

Pausing just by the door, Caid slowly turned, clasping his hand behind his back. "You have pledged your loyalty to a thing, a concept you quite clearly do not even understand, child. You see yourself as having been elevated from certain destruction by your own species, redeemed and delivered by the the Knights of Ren. The rhetoric has, in fact, played so intensely in your mind that you cannot even begin to see the truth. You are not a valued member of anything nor are you regarded in any real right of usefulness, necessity."

Caid paused for a moment, motioning to the man on the ground. "Sequestering someone in a veritable cage and forcing them to perform tricks in a controlled environment is not an effective or even preferred way to train a Disciple. You accept it, like you accepted his instructions because of what? The fact that someone told you to do so? At no point during your time with the Ren will it ever be expected or accepted that you follow orders blindly, without rationale thought. There is a very thin line between disobedience and stupidity, and you clearly have not learned to see it."

Shrugging, Caid managed only a thin smile. "However, if this is what you choose to be for the remainder of your life, pathetic and misguided, then I sincerely hope you enjoy what will undoubtedly be a short life. Someone very important to me is part S'Kytri, similar in skin color to yourself, and she would never let another person or organization treat her like a caged animal for any type of pathetic rhetoric. You will always be their pet if you continue to pander to moronic whims. Oh and your instructor? He had been sentenced to death." The last bit was a lie albeit a convincing one. Kira would learn just how forfeit the lives of so many Ren often became in time. The 'well-oiled machine' appearance existed because faulty, ineffective parts were ripped out without fanfare or acknowledgment.

A simple nod was all that the Supreme Leader's apprentice offered Kira before turning and retreating fully from the room. He had other things to look into, goals to accomplish for the Supreme Leader and that of the First Order before his own...debt was paid in full. They did not include taking time out of his schedule to convince someone of what qualities made successful members of the Ren. No matter, Kira would undoubtedly be a pretty little toy that Sieger could simply smash when he was bored of it. That was what she was allowing herself to be molded into. That was why she'd even been saved from certain death.

Such a waste...

 

[Dante Sotari]

When a person has been told since birth that they are imperfect, but that they have the capacity to be useful despite that, it sets a certain reality in place. A reality that cannot be shattered by a single moment, by mere words. But what those moments and words can do is plant a seed. Doubt, grown and feed, sending roots down to crack the foundations more surely than anything else could.

There was no indecision in Kira's stance- there was no chance that she would follow him. A Master of Ren he had said- but never once had she seen him or heard of him. The fact that he had ordered her instructor- and ultimately killed him without any of the other people training even batting an eye meant that she had little doubts that he was who he said he was. If he had given her a direct order, she might have followed it. But ultimately, that route would have changed nothing, after all. But given a choice between a frightening unknown, and the perhaps merely uncomfortable known?

There was really no choice there. Not now. Not yet.

He was almost at the door when a single word followed him.

"Why?"

There was a pause and then:

"Why was he sentenced to death?"

[member="Caid Centurion"]

 

[Caid Centurion]

Caid paused only briefly at the threshold. Slowly, he turned to regard Kira. Exhaling slowly, Caid eventually offered the young woman a response. "My master values only competence. Your failure over Hoth has not escaped his awareness, Kira Solvani." Caid's use of Kira's full name was neither an accident nor luck. He knew full well who the S'kytri was, recognizing her almost immediately once he'd seen her. Had Caid's primary mission at the Bastion of Ren been to exact judgment on the girl's mentor? No, not at all. However, he knew it to be a standing order, and his own involvement with a person of similar descent prompted him to intervene, to educate.

"You will have another opportunity in short time. I wish you greater success...lest you have to see me hovering over your body just before the last vestiges of life escape you."

[member="Kira Solvani"]

 

[Dante Sotari]

That wasn't an answer. Not even remotely. It was an implication, yes. A threat? Certainly. But an answer? No.

Kira sucked in her breath through her teeth. A hundred reason why Hoth hadn't been her fault roiled in her head, in her heart. They all knew that Solvani and Arcana hadn't been ready. Their training incomplete. But the prolonged war had forced the hands of the upper levels, putting pressure to send even those who had not yet earned a Ren name out into the field. They had been dropped with no support, into a battle field they could not have hoped to triumph on. She and her friend had done their best- and been seperated for it in the immediate aftermath.

But none of those words found form on her lips.

She had been trained too well to accept the full weight of responsibility, even if it was not solely hers to bear.

In that, the Ren had done their job all too well.

"I won't fail again," she murmured, as much a promise to herself as any sort of response to him. It was a ridiculous promise. There was no growth without failure. And even Seiger Ren would not discard a pawn so casually.

Not when it could continue to be thrown against their enemy.

But it suit everyone but Kira just fine to have her believe that was not the case.

[member="Caid Centurion"]

 

[Caid Centurion]

Caid heard the young woman's declaration, but he paid it little mind. He had wasted enough time attempting to educate the S'kytri outcast on this particular day. His initial impression of Kira was that she had been exceptionally well molded into a devout follower of Sieger Ren, believing that he genuinely cared about her in any way. The truth, of course, was far harsher than most ever knew. Sieger Ren could care less about any individual Ren be it from a standpoint of effectiveness or well-being.

If the Knights of Ren succeeded in executing his will in very generic, overarching terms, the Supreme Leader was, at best, content. It was when their collective failures either reflected upon him, the First Order, or impeded his objectives that he cared - even going as far as to personally get involved.

In the end it was not the Supreme Leader or even the Grandmaster of the Knights of Ren that determined the fate of individuals. No - that was invariably allowed to be managed by the various Masters of Ren. Thus Kira Solvani's life was clearly far more forfeit than she chose to accept.

All of the Knights of Ren would learn this harsh lesson in very short order.

[member="Kira Solvani"]