Private Lifestyles of the Rich and Alchemical

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Maybe the last exercise had unlocked something beyond what she and Dissero had intended. Making do conjured up and ushered in a host of old battles, long before she took her throne but after the Dark Side sank its teeth in her. What had that mudhole planet been named, the little one Coreward of the old Sith worlds? Mud, trenches - Runnel, that was it. Trakata with a lightsaber bayonet. Soggy boots, sodden socks, rotting feet, and more than a few of her first body's scars. That was the world that almost made her Darth Ashera in truth - her first false face, a teacher on the mobile Sith academy called the Stormblessed.

None of those proper nouns had cropped up in memory for decades, and not for lack of effort.

With such thoughts in mind, she sat down with the Stones. Body fell quickly, at long last, and Fire as well. And Body flowed into Self, cascaded really. All those reinventions had felt like escape, like discarding failure at some level. For the first time she could really see them as evolutions. Being Shira Karrde had taken her from hardline lawful to someone who could compromise, be flexible, make strange alliances and stranger friends. Being Ajira had tempered those qualities while stealing her tolerance for chaotic, well, evil. Being Anger - a guise she had not recalled today, deliberately - had evolved Ajira's strengths into the abstract and even the altruistic, in a way. And being Ashin again, being mortal again, had grounded it all and bound it together, free of the conflicting allegiances and worries and ideals and obsessions that had dominated her for so long. She could be simply herself again, and pursue what she wanted most without fear.

 

[Dissero]

He'd reached a point somewhere between waking dreams and listless, failing sleep where a wall sat before any further progress of planning. What he'd meant to do, to attempt, was not something he'd seen done before. There were no previous examples to study, no scrolls or tomes of research to devour. Uncharted realms of alchemy faced him now, and not for the first time, but something of this level of detail had him concerned.

Ashin was running on limited time, which meant so was he. The prospect of having to get this right the first time while not entirely knowing what he was doing was enough to turn his stomach. That didn't even take into consideration how he was going to convince Faenrovon to help him. Taken a few things from his vaults at home of the persuasion he knew the dragon to bend to, but there was no certainty in their selection. The Arkanian beast was as hungry for knowledge as he was for flesh and blood - he devoured new information with savage eagerness. In their working partnership this had been to the benefit of them both. Dissero's vaults were guarded by a Force-using Arkanian Dragon and his forges stoked by the dragon's flame; Faen in return had a quiet, peaceful home, a duty and purpose, and a constant churn of new knowledge to digest.

Things were not quite the same since he'd moved his family from the moon of Vassek. There were still items in the vaults there that Faen guarded - the sort of items he would never bring in close proximity to his children for fear of death. The sort that had no need to be lent to the galaxy at large. Yet he no longer had purpose beyond that, nor did he have his source of information. Dissero expected Faenrovon to cash in on the drought.

There was also the possibility that Faen may just eat him out of pure spite. At least he had given the dragon a choice when he left, and he'd chosen to stay.

His mind wandered then to Cerita and what had become of her. Their communication had dropped off significantly after leaving Vassek. Though he'd offered the castle for her continued use, he suspected she'd left shortly after. Cerita had never done well in a vacuum and, much as she liked to keep her peace and quiet he knew she preferred the company when it was constructive to her studies. He was about to step down the path of worrying over if he'd failed her as a Master but caught himself. Now wasn't the time - he could have that crisis later when the present crisises .... crisees... crisisi? had been handled.

If only he'd known what epiphanies Ashin was encountering in the cargo bay it might have helped take his mind off these troubles.

VASSEK
Third Moon
Grievous' Castle

"I'll get you set up in the training arena," Dissero wasted no time disembarking from the ship after docking in the hangar. Ashin had made good progress on the journey over and he didn't want that to halt now if she had a momentum going. He carried two of the stone cases, Ashin following in tow with the remaining two, and lead her through the darkened halls that smelled of dust and disuse. For whatever reason the empty echo of the old home soured his heart. He pressed on.

"With any luck Faen will be in his lair ... awake and amenable to helping."

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin came to a halt mid-vaulted-corridor as old scraps of memory came together.

"I haven't seen Faenrovon in twenty years. I exiled him for internal violence in the Lords of the Fringe. I'd completely forgotten. I exiled...quite a few people back then in one way or another. Ashelotte, Circe Savan, Isis Fontana, Ahani Najwa, I think maybe Carnifex before he was Carnifex, a few others - and your dragon friend. Perhaps I'd better steer clear."

 

[Dissero]

That got a brow raise and a backwards glance, "That so?" He'd not been aware of that.

Had it really been twenty years?

"Jared introduced us after he overheard me talking about looking for something to guard my vaults. Faen was all too keen on the position when he heard what I did for a living. That greedy lizard's either going to eat me or drain me for every last holocron and box of crystals I've got. That was the deal..."

Knowledge and shinies for his continued watch and use of his firebreath.

"Not to worry, he won't even know you're here if you steer clear of my workshop and his lair. So far as I can tell, he's not particularly well-adept at sensing Force signatures." He'd be more likely to recognize Ashin's scent ... if she still smelled the same in this body, that is.

He passed by the various statues of Grievous, gave them each a moment of attention, and pondered why it was that he had actually missed them. The echo of footsteps deafened upon reaching the door to the arena: massive slabs of metal that groaned in aged protest as he keyed in the access code on the control panel nearby. The chamber beyond was expansive. It was cold in here, the dampness seeping in on a level of discomfort he found he did not miss. "Unfortunately I disassembled the meditation room I had in here when we left for Rudrig, but you have run of the arena. Can set you up over there on the matted area if you like. Only a few stones left to attune, yeah?"

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

She would, in fact, smell the same: this body was a clone of the alchemical one that Val'Ryss Zankarr had made her not long before the Fringe began.

"Only a few, yes. Life and Spirit I think." She frowned and called on the Force to enhance her ahort-term memory, something she found herself doing all too often. "And Mind." A grimace. "Might need to prioritize that one."

Jared Ovmar - now that was a name that brought memories. Good ones too, albeit lacking in detail like everything from that era.

 

[Dissero]

"Truly extraordinary," Dissero said to himself as he set down the cases and carefully began extracting stones to set in a circle, "I didn't want to say anything before, but only one person has ever connected with every stone in less than a year. What you've done in the last few weeks is nothing short of remarkable."

He'd both feared and respected her before for her many public exploits and obvious fount of power. Overcoming so many stones in such a short period of time only proved to him that she was something else entirely. "Makes me all the more grateful that we are friends and not enemies," he chuckled, setting the last stone in place, "what a scary proposition that would be."

Cases set aside, he stepped out of the circle, "Well, I'm not sure which is the greater challenge to befriend presently - three stones or a dragon. Good luck to us both."

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin brushed off the praise and settled into the heart of the familiar circle. "It's a Padawan exercise. If you were coming at it clean, for the first time, knowing what you know now, you'd do it in a few weeks too. Not a doubt in my mind. As for enmity...let me let you in on a secret. Some of the worlds I've taken over would disagree, but in the big picture I've never once chosen an enemy who didn't deliberately make themselves my enemy first. The Republic marched to take me down at Roche and O'reen, the One Sith tortured Spencer, the Sith Empire killed her. That's what it takes to move me past eye for an eye and get me genuinely, implacably aggressive."

A lopsided smile. "Somehow I don't see you getting anywhere near that line."

 

[Dissero]

A small smile responded in kind and the man nodded in agreement, "You are right. I am far too fond of living and I care too much."

The smile curved into a smirk, a rolling tap of his knuckles along the topmost case followed, "I would prefer to live and see the day when you accept a compliment with grace." He chuckled and slowly turned on his heel, allowing the expression to fade only once he faced away from Ashin. Steeling himself against the challenges that lay ahead, the alchemist strode from the chamber not with haste, but purpose.


The route that lead down to Faenrovon's lair was long enough to allow his imagination to run away with him, but short enough not to let it get too far. By the time he reached the entrance he was convinced all blood in his veins had been replaced with molten metal. His hand cleared a heavy layer of stone dust from the control panel and he recalled while slowly punching in the access code that at times he thought he'd rather be here than facing down the cold fury of his wife for whatever manner of transgression he'd imposed - fabricated or real. How naive he'd been in those moments.

A chorus of grinding gears and screeching sliders heralded his arrival, and as the gates slowly parted before him the shifting form of a hulking dragon met him on the other side. At first it appeared as great mounds of gold, dulled from a short age of sleep that had allowed dust to settle and lichen to grow. It writhed slowly at first, stiffly jerking against the unfortunately rousing serenade of metal. Dissero felt his jaw set and every fiber of his being seized with anticipation. He forced his feet to carry him forward.

The dragon uncoiled from where it lay, hunkered at the center of the cavernous lair, unfurling his great crowned skull with a guttural rumble. The foundations of the castle shook as it gained its stance, the lancing whip of its tail passing before Dissero with mere feet to spare.

"Faenrovon," he called to the dragon, blue eyes carefully watching for any further errant limb, "Radiant Guardian of my Vaults, I have come with a task of utmo-"

Didn't quite get to finish that sentence. Faenrovon the Radiant whipped his majestic, gleaming skull around and spewed his firebreath upon him with a mighty roar. Dissero swore loudly, crossed his arms before him and engaged a ward of Force energy around his body in much the same way he protected himself from the heat of the forge ... only with a bit more oomph.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Now, let's be real here. Ashin had spent half a century becoming strong instead of insightful or otherwise sense-y. So when things went very wrong for Dissero , Ashin felt exactly none of it. She did, however, hear an adult Arkanian dragon roar like an adult Arkanian dragon. Her eyes snapped open and her focus on the Life Stone vanished utterly.

She knocked over a couple of the other stones as she scrambled to join her friend. A chip went flying off the Mind stone. Feth.

She skidded to a halt just shy of a stone doorway due to an abundance of caution. A heartbeat later, dragonfire sluiced through the doorway like a lake through a broken dam. The flame crashed into Ashin's trademark Force Protection. Baking heat dried her eyes and crisped her eyelashes. She smelled burnt hair.

The blast went on; she walked into it. It petered off as she entered the chamber.

"Everything alright in here?" she said, entirely willing to kill Faenrovon if necessary. It might even be fun.

 

[Dissero]

"More like-" Dissero coughed as he pushed himself up from a knee, "well done." His entire figure was smoking, and not in the indecent way. The edges of his clothing had singed, he pawed burning hairs from his beard, his hands and edges of his face were blackened with soot. The man muttered something about dumb decisions under his breath before heaving a sigh, "Something about not waking sleeping dragons..." He cast a sidelong glance at Ashin, quietly glad for her presence, and looked back to the dragon.

"Faenrovon, my deepest apologies for waking you, but I beg you - hold your fire, for now. I need your help so that I may help another in turn."

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"If thou askest on her behalf, thou shalt ask a long, long time." The Arkanian dragon's eyes slitted both horizontally and vertically. Ashin felt herself in the crosshairs. Her lip curled in an approximate smile. She released the Force protection that warped the air close to her skin. Faenrovon the Radiant was free to take that gesture as peaceful intent and/or contempt.

"It's been twenty years, Faenrovon," she said. "Not that much to you or me, but long enough."

A seismic grunt sent smoke rippling up to the charred ceiling. "Know this, Varanin. The pledge I made our mutual host doth not bind me to thine aid. Perhaps he would not demand tribute of thee, but I am not thy friend. What wilt thou bring to my trove as recompense to mend what thou didst break?"

To finish Dissero's needle, her single best chance for finding Spencer when every other method had failed? Ashin met the dragon's eyes squarely. "Anything."

When a dragon laughs, it registers on the Richter scale and triggers soft-radiation alarms from half a world away. "'The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,'" Faenrovon quoted. "'And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!'" The dragon's head and neck shot forward- "'Nothing beside remains.' Thou hast nothing left, thou shade and shell of worthiness, thou conqueror of twenty thousand worlds where thy name is forgotten."

The curled lip became a genuine sneer. "If paying in humiliation-"

"The hand," Faenrovon roared, "that mocked them."

A slow exhale. "Ah."

She raised her chin. And her fist.

Faenrovon snapped like a turbolaser strike. It was over in less than a heartbeat.

 

[Dissero]

Seven hells.

He'd caught on to the dragon's fee perhaps a little faster than Ashin, but there was nothing to be done for it. Never once had Faen threatened harm of life or limb against him, but they'd had no reason for such quarrels in their history. The snap of the great beast's maw staggered him on the spot and he felt his heart leap up from his chest, knotting deeply and uncomfortably in his throat. Didn't stop the shock of it reaching his face.

"Ash-" the instant Faen withdrew, Dissero was pulling his belt from his waist and moving to cinch it around her arm above the remaining stump to stop the flow of blood. All color had drained from his face and a deeply set frown implanted itself behind his beard, "you have to be alive to bring her back."

"Is the payment done," he called next to the dragon, looking over at him grimly, "will you help me now or do you require further tribute?"

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

She kept her feet; she held her tongue. Nothing else mattered. Deep in her mind she scrabbled for the pain-control techniques she'd used so often, but she couldn't find the appropriate presence of mind. The rush of blood steamed on the hot stone floor. Then Dissero was there, improvising a tourniquet.

She managed a step back toward the door, then another, not breaking eye contact with Faenrovon. The dragon licked his lips mockingly. "Thy boon is granted, o host of mine. Thy forge shall blaze brighter than it ever hath."

Only once Ashin and Dissero had left the room did she sag against the stone wall. "Any cost," she said through numb lips. "And I meant it. A medpack and some rest, and I'll be fine. The hand - who knows. Droid, clone, alchemy, or stranger - that's a problem for another day." She gripped his shirt with her remaining hand. "You want to help me best, finish the needle."

 

[Dissero]

He wished his sister was still alive. Could have used her and her powers right about now. Stooping at Ashin's side he held the tail of the wrapped belt to keep it snug and tried desperately to both listen and think on where he would most quickly find the medical supplies he needed. The ship, perhaps, but he knew he'd left some behind here for his errant visits and projects somewhere in the home. The kitchen, he thought. Ashin's hand at his shirt snapped him back and he blinked down at her, lost on words in that instant.

"Of-of course," a shaky nod followed. He wasn't as fearless as he once was. A hand passed over his face, smearing Ashin's blood in the process, and he willed his heart to stop racing, "it will be done, I promise you that."

Dissero heaved another heavy breath, glancing back toward the doorway of the lair, "I have an idea. Hold the belt. Come on-" then reached his arms around her back and under her knees, lifting her from the floor. Having expected resistance, he was pleased to be met with nothing more than the stiffness of a woman who had mastered the art of keeping her distance from others.

He carried her back up the corridor and into the castle proper, crossing the open space of the Sanctum Overlook that housed the studio-style common areas of the home. There he deposited Ashin into an overstuffed armchair near the floor-to-ceiling grand windows that overlooked the foggy gorge beyond. Though the furniture had remained, it obviously had not been used in some time; Ashin presently sat on a white sheet covering the chair. Dissero moved next to the kitchen area where he began searching through cabinets. He found what he was looking for in the pantry and nearly keeled over with relief.

"Thank the Force ..." a medkit presented itself, though some items were missing, but more importantly next to it were two Velokrons. He knew as soon as he picked the cube-shaped one up that it was of the nature that he needed: Force Heal. The kit he set on the counter, the Velokron he brought to Ashin and placed it on the armrest of her chair.

"Try not to move too much," Dissero spoke as he took several large steps backwards back into the kitchen. After a sufficient distance had taken him outside of its radius, he lifted his hand and gestured toward the artifact, "draebesh."

The Velokron activated with a bright outpouring of white light and a healthy dose of Force Heal. Not enough to heal her grievous wound completely, but enough at least to stop the flow of blood and ease some of the pain.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Ohhh yes, these things..."

Breath shuddered out of her in stages as the healing effect took hold. Her body refused to acknowledge that it could reasonably relax. Part of that might have been the extensive Dark Side energy woven into her body in one way or another, but the Velokron's focused, well-prepared power won out. And it wasn't like she wanted to resist. Not even the part of her, deep down, that knew she deserved all this.

Between the Force healing and the medkit, soon enough her body came out of shock. A deep fatigue set in. Blood loss might be a factor, albeit mitigated by the tourniquet. She eased Dissero's belt off her truncated forearm with her remaining right hand.

"This is probably the best time to tell you I chipped one of your stones when Faenrovon roared."

 

[Dissero]

There was no good time to learn one of his ancestral stones had been chipped. He fixed Ashin with a look of drained disbelief, brows arched high over weary eyes. "That... uhm," he wasn't sure what to say, or how to process that information, so he settled for passive understanding in the face of her lost hand, "it's fine. I'll look at it later, while you're resting."

He didn't know if a chip would effect the stone. They were quite old, by hundreds of years if not older, surely it wasn't the first stone to weather such a long time of use. The only way he knew how to tell was to connect with the stone himself and see if he could sense anything. A deep sigh simmered his worries at the surface while he picked up bloody gauze and bacta-patch wrappings and tossed them into the incinerator chute.

"Come on, let's get you somewhere more comfortable, the guest room I think," the offer to carry her was given, "now that you won't bleed all over the place."

"Just don't tell Spencer I took you to bed. I don't want her to get jealous."

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin snorted at the joke but that was the extent of her reply. She faded to fast to come up with anything interesting to say, and as a general rule she tried to avoid saying things that she, at minimum, found boring.

***

Sleep, when it came, sucked. She dreamed of Spencer stuck in some Zambrano gene farm soaring on a manta-winged Ithullian wasp. She dreamed of chewing on holocrons while the crystal matrices cut her gums and throat and the soft flesh under her tongue. She dreamed of tottering on a swing between thin crystal spires, some half-remembered bit of history plus vertigo and no sense of proportion. And she dreamed that while she slept, the final stones crumbled to gravel and Dissero's needle snapped with the deep ping of stressed steel, a sound that presaged a ricochet and a scream. Dreaming this wildly, this off-balance, felt like sickness.

 

[Dissero]

While she slept he returned to the training arena and the toppled circle of stones. With care he righted the ones that had fallen and found with little difficulty the damaged stone in question. The Mind stone, it had to be the Mind stone.

Since his battle with the spirit of Jedi Master Brom Burnside, Dissero had found great challenge with this stone in particular. Burnside had taken over from within, a side effect of yet another dumb decision on his part. Seemed he was becoming more prone to making them and he wondered if that was part of getting older or caring less about appearances for appearance's sake. He found the chip and pondered the implications of it, gently pressing the broken piece into place along the jagged edge. It didn't stick, of course, but he hadn't been expecting it to.

Moving to the center of the circle, he took the Mind stone and its chip with him. He sat, set the stone before him and assumed a meditative position with the chip resting in the upturned palm. Though calmer now, he was not without a sense of tethered anxiety for what had just transpired, what he had yet to accomplish, and the promise he needed to keep. He wondered, briefly, if other Alchemists had ever found themselves beset with such trepidation.

Then he took a deep breath and imparted the practiced art of clearing his mind.


...


The hatch in the floor of his forge hall gaped open into the lair of Faenrovon below. Because the dragon so coveted knowledge as much as he coveted things of physical value, discussing his alchemy projects had become something of a routine with Faen. From his lair, through the opening, Faen could observe and listen and learn. Sometimes, he even pitched in his own knowledge and advice. Faen had a mind for memory and Dissero awed at the knowledge the dragon could recite with pristine clarity despite having learned it hundreds of years ago.

It was Faenrovon who suggested the use of Agrinium as the cure to the energy pollution between needle and user.

It was his firebreath that melted the ingots of Ultrachrome into the first phrik-plated mold.

"This will form the spine of the needle," Dissero explained to him as he worked, "to allow the passage of energy inwards and outwards like a hyperlane through space allows the passage of people. As an open channel, there will be no need for the user to focus on the blade, but only on the energy they wish to track."

Why, then, not make the entire needle out of Ultrachrome?

"Because it cannot focus and compound, it can only conduct. The blade itself ... it will provide these attributes through the combination of several things. You know of the crystals often used in Lightsabers, but did you know some types can be used for so much more?"


...

After several hours of fine-tuned work and discussion, the dragon departed his lair to hunt and the alchemist departed his forge to cook. The selection was small - he only had access to what supplies and ingredients he'd packed in the ship for the journey over. He gathered what he could in his arms, including fresh medical supplies, and headed back to the kitchen drum up an easy meal: dehydrated eggs and skillet sausage. He ate quickly, then made a plate to take to Ashin.

"Ash?" a gentle knock at her door before he stepped in to the dimly lit room, "I have food, pain killers, and antibiotics."

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

The Life stone had resisted her since the start. She'd faced the reality that she'd missed so much of living - her daughters, primarily. Coming to terms with that had failed to unlock the stone.

Coming to terms with her own longstanding urge for self-destruction, however...

When Dissero came in, he found her dead asleep cradling the Life stone in her one remaining hand, a rare smile on her Dark-ravaged face.

 

[Dissero]

"Oh..." the man hushed himself immediately and stared for a moment. Dissero couldn't recall any time in his life seeing Ashin so still and ... pleasant. As if happiness for her truly was only a dream, one he wasn't about to wake her from. He set the plate and medical stim aside, then quietly moved to pull a blanket from the closet shelf. The chill and dampness of the gorge was always encroaching in the least welcome places of his old home. Now with the castle being empty for so long it almost felt as though it had taken up permanent residence.

He draped the blanket over the sleeping Sith, noting finally the presence of the Life Stone nestled in the nook of her arm. How... he wondered, but pushed it from his mind. A hand gently touched its back to her forehead to check for fever, and the alchemist departed once he was confident she could continue her rest without worry.


...


The Mind Stone.

Too concerned before. Too wrapped up in anxiety. Couldn't find his baseline, couldn't clear his mind. Had to remember his training - words of guidance that seemed so long ago. A repetition of statements and questions meant to push past the obvious and into the esoteric. The mind worked in strange and mysterious ways.

Let's begin with your name.

Merovign Amadeus Shamalain Darke.

Have you ever believed in the Darke.

My blood is black with the nothingness of Darke.

Do you remember the first sight of red.

Bleeding red.

Let's move on to your history. Do you feel it in your body.

Bleeding red. My blood is black.

Do you remember what it was like to live before.

Bleeding red, he called me son.

Does anything in your body reject your past.

Memories.

Have you feared the loss of your memories.

Memories.

Do you bleed black in the dreams of your memories.

Dreams of black.

Let's move on to faces.

He called me son.

What was the color of her hair in the Darke.

Her hair was red.

When she smiled did her teeth show.

Within bleeding dreams of red.

When you choked from her curse did you see red.

Bleeding red memories.

What color were her eyes when you broke her heart.

Faces in memories.

Can you tell if the pain started in the light or the Darke.

Painfully.

When the shard cuts your palm do you bleed black.

My blood is black from the start.

Are you fated to bleed black forever.

Within the memories of my blood.


....


Do only mortals use these stones?

Dissero looked to the Mind shard in his hand and the healing cut left behind from the wrapping of his fist. He considered it for a moment and the way it resonated with the lingering images in his head. This second round of meditation had shown him the damage done effected the stone's use none at all. What's more, he was beginning to feel the stone had been fated to chip.

He smiled at the undertone of the dragon's question, "I am certain if you wished to use them, you could."

What a dragon had need of the stones for he could not say, but Faenrovon was not a typical dragon ... or so he'd made a point of in his own way.

"Agrinium..." smaller ingot blocks had been cut from the main brick. Dissero slowly added three blocks to the left side of an antique balance scale. To the right he carefully deposited three small Kasha stones, four Kunda stones, and a Qixoni crystal. The scale dipped just slightly to the left, swaying off-balance.

"Do you believe in fate, Faenrovon?"

He added the Mind stone shard to the right and watched the balance level.