Private Measure for Measure

[Hal Vaiken]

Flat Mountain,
Yavin IV

The fourth moon of Yavin IV was classed by the Imperial Bureau of Stellar Charts and Surveys as a 'FERAL WORLD'. Uninhabited, for the most part, and untamed. What little it provided as civilization was a private cabin offered by a less known, opportune tour operator from Faerie Junction. Bring your own supplies and sign a contract lifting all liabilities from the company in case something harmful comes your way.

Nothing more fitting for two stormtroopers on shore leave.

Away from the glitz and glamour of the awards ceremony at Fortress Imperator to far more familiar waters. They came early in the morning, and hurried to catch the light for a day of hunting in silence before unpacking and setting up the lodge into something habitable at night. It was a nice change from the cramped up and spartan quarters of star destroyers and cruisers. Far easier to stretch out unbothered.

Day two found them on a hike up the Flat Mountain of Yavin. Legend has it the summit had been blown off by an Imperial Star Destroyer from orbit eons ago; it seems wherever they went the Empire hung over their heads. No hunting this time. Just the clean air wide open waiting for the piled up to be discarded between the two.

Sarge set a foot on a large boulder protruding from the ground, throwing a glance across the green landscape from their vantage point. He produced a cigarette from inside his vest and lit it up - not a rolled one this time; the deployment bonus had been generous. A lodge just for the two and a pack of cigs from the waypoint station on the journey here.

He offered one to Lily, after which he directly asked: "What was that all about?... Back on Veroleem."

Lily Stevens ​

 

[Kelinna Tryn]

REAPER
THE EMPIRE
FLAT MOUNTAIN | YAVIN IV
TAG: Hal Vaiken

CIGAR​

Yavin IV.

It was a good holiday to just immerse in the static while hunting. The silence with only the nudge of a rifle and the whisper of a slug. There was no better shore leave. It was like being at her old home. The glamour of the city just wasn't her.

Hunting was where it had all started for her, after all.

For the longest time, there was only the quiet. The two veterans were more than comfortable in that silence. It was a mutual one shared between the two of them. It came with their line of work and the amount of ops they had been together on over the years.

But there was still that unspoken air.

The hike up the mountain the next day was still quiet, each immersed in their thoughts. Or Lily was stuck in her static at least. The snap that had caused the constant, perfect white noise since everything had started to go belly up. It was like constantly being stuck behind a scope with a target in the crosshairs. She preferred it that way instead of the reality.

But the laundry needed airing.

When they reached the top, Lily leaned against the dead tree stump while looking out over the landscape. All the years of vantage points and it never escaped the Reaper of how beautiful they were - even scarred. Whether they were green, ice covered or desolate. They each held their beauty. Even if you knew you had to mar it with the blood of a target. That liquid was temporary. True beauty in nature never faded.

Before long, Hal pulled the packet of cigs from his pocket, offering her one. And then his voice finally broke through the static.
"What was that all about?... Back on Veroleem."
In a rare instance, Lily took a cigarette. Igniting it, she drew deeply and exhaled in silence, allowing the ducks to get in a row first. The static had scattered them every which way in her mind that she hadn't realised had happened.
"I don't know." she said softly. Not a lie either. Another breath of smoke. The deep blue turned towards him then. "Neither one of us were really ready for that op and it screwed us good." A simple truth. She hadn't been right and neither was he. Not since Ilum. If Leto hadn't showed up when he did, there was no telling how it would have ended. She had suppressed it, but it was still there on Veroleem.

Along with her father.

 

[Hal Vaiken]

Flat Mountain,
Yavin IV

It was rare to see her smoke. And usually never a good reason attached to it; the hilltop outside of that damned ISB black site where her father had drawn his last breath came to mind. Her response was candid as it always was with her, but also soft -- a piece of her that seemed to have turned to ash on that fateful day; the piece that was her father.

What both soldiers had, this relationship, had merely started as an output for all the stress, pressure and angst that their line of work burdened them with. A sweet release of everything that sought to end their lives daily before it had grown into something just a bit more than simple camraderie. At least to him; the man who knew no life but that of his service to the Emperor and His Empire.

"Lily..." he began, a soft gaze locking with hers before it only slightly hardened. No matter what, that service -- that oath -- always seemed to come on top in its tussle against Hal's pursuit of something intimate and close to the heart beyond the Empire. Something he had always been missing but never knew.

"... I don't need to tell you that a day may come when you'll need to follow the order to the tee." the commander took a drag of his cigarette. No matter what, not even his life.

Lily Stevens​

 

[Kelinna Tryn]

REAPER
THE EMPIRE
FLAT MOUNTAIN | YAVIN IV
TAG: Hal Vaiken

CIGAR​

Another draw of the cigarette.

It was a heartbeat of quiet while both looked at the landscape in front of them. Until the soft mention of her name broke the silence. Lily looked at him then, the hand holding the cigarra resting on her thigh. His soft gaze before it hardened was almost disarming. Almost.

Always the Empire before all else.

It was all they had left.

"... I don't need to tell you that a day may come when you'll need to follow the order to the tee."

Another puff of smoke before the deep blue turned to cold steel.

"Don't worry. The moment all other options are exhausted, I'll put a bolt in your head to prevent intel from falling into the wrong hands." she said truthfully, looking back at the valley while the sun dipped lower, casting everything in an ethereal gold. He knew. Better than anyone else. She was capable. At the expense of everything that made her human, for sure. But she was capable.

Empire above all else.

A final smoke before she flicked away the stub into the valley below.
"Just don't ask me to become a machine while there are still other options left." she said, looking back at the man that had become a near constant for her. That had been there when everything had crumbled. That had been able to see through the marble and that had not judged her for it. "I'm not yet ready to be a machine, Hal." she added a bit more softly, that small bit of vulnerability shining through then. The last shred of what made her human was just enough that she wasn't yet ready to let go of it. The moment she pulled that trigger on another one of her own was the moment she would cease to exist as Lily Stevens.

They could use whatever excuses they wanted, blanket it under whatever life threatening situation that hung over them the following day, the fact remained that it had become more than just two colleagues in a squad. Two shadows for human beings that completely understood one another, that had no purpose outside of war. If one element was removed from the equation by whatever means, there was no turning back from the road of complete damnation.

A sigh before a resigned tone.

"I told you to make it count."

 

[Hal Vaiken]

Flat Mountain,
Yavin IV

Selfishness was an abhorrent trait; one reserved for the hypocrites of the Core. Their pursuit of individual goals above anything else was a catalyst of chaos, an enemy of order. The collective came first; the collective that manifested in the form of the Emperor. Such was what they were taught, such was what they knew. But his guts couldn't help and lightly coil at Lily's cold, hard statement. A minuscule sliver of him had hoped she would've said otherwise. His eyes were averted to the emerald landscaping sprawling across the horizon as if somewhere there in the distance was another time, another life.

"I'm not yet ready to be a machine, Hal." his gaze shifted back to her.

There was no other time, no other life out there in the distance.

It was right here standing beside him in the form of a woman with golden locks tied into a ponytail.

The nights spent in each other's warm embrace were the sole gate to that different time and different life. In her, he found the escape from the blood-filled trenches and the haunting eyes of all the men he had buried with a gun or a knife. On that cursed day in that ISB blacksite, the Empire had nearly taken it all way but she had persevered and managed to preserve what remained of Lily Stevens. Sarge wondered whether what kept him going in fulfilling his oath and marching through all the tests and tribulations of war was those same nights spent with her; making it count.

He couldn't tell... or rather refused to.

He stubbed the quarter that remained of his cigarette at the rock on which one foot was planted and approached her, lifting a callous hand to cup her cheek. The rough palm that had been toiled to the grit of sandpaper softly caressed her skin.

"We will." Hal said with a hushed tone. "When this is all over, maybe we can buy off the lodge here, hmm?" a sliver of a smile pulled the man's lips. It was as much as a beacon of hope as it was a lie, its final definition dictated by variables far beyond their reach. But sometimes the truth wasn't good enough. Sometimes they deserve more.

Sometimes they deserve to have their faith rewarded.

Lily Stevens ​

 

[Kelinna Tryn]

REAPER
THE EMPIRE
FLAT MOUNTAIN | YAVIN IV
TAG: Hal Vaiken

CIGAR​

A heartbeat of silence.

A heartbeat of so much unspoken between the two of them, but it needed no vocal expression. They understood one another better than they should have as ordinary people. Years of serving together in the worst of situations was most probably to blame. Years of bloodshed and death at their hands that had driven them together in a deeper psychological way than one would think.

And beyond, it would seem.

In a fit of irony, they had found escape in one another - the two harbingers of Death. Perhaps it wasn't so ironic - no one else would be able to understand. Not fully. The need of just silence coupled with warmth. The faces that plagued the night time hours. Faces that had no light left in their eyes - eyes that you didn't know and some that you did. It was those moments that an understanding soul meant more in its silent comfort than any spoken word ever could.

He finally moved. Movements she usually knew so well. But this time, it was different, almost careless. The rough hand that found her face was more tender than it had ever been before as blue gaze met blue.
"We will. When this is all over, maybe we can buy off the lodge here, hmm?"
A very rare smile broke onto her face at his words.
"Now that'd be something." she chuckled as the image crossed her mind. "Hal Vaiken settling down in a country lodge, waging war on the local wildlife in his past time."
She lifted her hand to hover over his as her face softened even more as she looked at him.
"That would be an image to look forward to." she said, though the brief mirth started to fade from her voice. She knew the likelihood of it becoming a reality was slim to none. The lives of billions as well as death hung like an increasingly darkening cloud over them. The chances that he knew it too were pretty damn good.

In the end, there really was only living in the moment in the shadow of the Iron Sun. That Imperial Dream her father had spoken of was just that.

A dream.

 

[Hal Vaiken]

Flat Mountain,
Yavin IV

Hal Vaiken remained a name of uncertain background. The man bearing the name could not recall if that had been his name once, given by his parents, or one given to him by the Empire. Maybe years ago he would've recollected that knowledge with clarity of mind but the years since then had been marred by the grueling service to the Emperor leaving him solely with the only identity he truly knew -- Sarge. Anything prior remained veiled under thick fog, even his early days as a simple infantryman of the Stormtrooper Corps.

But when she called that name, it materialized a definition not born of the past but of the future. A dream so close and yet so distant. Whether it was a mirage, like an oasis in a barren world, or whether it truly was a destination to reach mattered little. As long as it was there, the faith remained in spite of the grim reality.

A scoff escaped his lips as his hand was lifted off her face, "Don't hear ya complainin'. So I'll take it you'd rather have this than round up goons as a cop on Ravelin."

"Eat of the land, sell the surplus--" he shrugged with a smirk. "It's a simple life but I've always been a simple man."

"What? Tell me with a straight face you won't take up that offer."

Lily Stevens
​

 

[Kelinna Tryn]

REAPER
THE EMPIRE
FLAT MOUNTAIN | YAVIN IV
TAG: Hal Vaiken

LATE GOODBYE​

It was a pretty picture until he started speaking.

He was really serious. The brief smile slid from her face as she drew away from him, stepping back and turning her face back to the valley below them. How ironic it was. Only a few days prior, she had made amends with her mother and sister only to bid them farewell without actually telling them goodbye. And here stood the man that she never expected to hear the "simple life" words leave his mouth. The one person that she had shared the shadows with. The one that had seen the lights leave the eyes of way too many, just like she had. No emotional ties - no weaknesses. She didn't know how she felt about this new side of him.

Lily's jaw clenched.

"I used to live that offer before it was taken away from me." she said, her voice merely stating facts without an inkling of resentment. But the marble exterior, the resolve, didn't want to remain in place even as she stood a pace away from him. "You really believe people like us can have a simple life like that? Without...consequences getting in the way?" she asked him, hope dripping from her words and face despite her best efforts to hide it. She didn't need to elaborate. She knew he would know what all those consequences entailed - the Empire being the biggest factor.

Buried beneath all that stoicism and fear and loss, there was still that woman that wanted to go back to the tedium of tilling the land and working the livestock alongside those she cared for. But even as she knew that it was nigh-on impossible to go back to a life like that, there was still that deep buried part of her that hoped that it would be possible. That needed it to be possible. The hope that it would finally lay the ghosts to rest. Or that she would at least have someone that would weather them along with her.

She hadn't dared think of a future like that until he had spoken it aloud just now.

But how much was the actual future and how much was merely a dream in order to survive another op?