Private Sea-change

[Damsy Callat]

It had been a long time.

Maybe too long.

Damsy didn't think that anyone could really forget her—was that arrogance or self-deprecation?—but she was worried that Jenn had moved on from their very unconventional friendship. All the evidence that Damsy needed to suggest that possibility was now standing before her: a Mandalorian compound built in the Onderon Highlands. When she had only known by what holonet sources told her, there had been room to not quite doubt but question, but both the presence and scale of the Clangrounds now was undeniable.

Good for her.

The Sith Lady's smile, meant for no one but herself and the ghosts of her friends, didn't reach her eyes. Its intended emotion stagnated on her cheeks and she coughed out a single laugh, light despite the heaviness of all that was occurring to her at once:

They had been here before—in this situation, not the setting, what seemed like a lifetime ago—but the roles had been switched. Jenn had found Damsy somehow at The Reef on Coruscant when the Sithspawn Sanctorium had been the home she had forsaken Netra'yaim and House Verd for. If memory served, Jenn had belonged to a clan even back then, but it certainly hadn't been what it was now. Now, today, here, it was breathtaking. And Damsy was left wondering if Jenn would once again be able to see Damsy's worth through all her dishonor and corruption.

She suddenly stumbled out of stillness, one of her feet somehow slipping off solid ground. The soft sounds of burning grass only registered when she glanced down. Orange flames engulfed the short blades of grass that obscured her left boot and lapped at the grey leather. As she rose her heel, half-molten strings of mineral topsoil pulled up from the earth with her sole. "Bogan dujikri zhol..." She stepped her left foot away and brought her right down on the fire—once, twice, three times—to stomp out the fire.

I ain't mad, she tried convincing herself. I ain't mad. I ain't mad.

Though her mental tone intensified with each repetition of the mantra, she really wasn't mad. Instead, she was being firm, expressing her resolve. Anger wasn't what stirred in her body, what had wet this hellish mud like rain.

Though her mental tone intensified with each repetition of the mantra, she really wasn't mad. Instead, she was being firm, expressing her resolve. Anger wasn't what stirred in her body, what had wet this hellish mud like rain. It was a deep sadness. Disappointment. Self-hatred. And it was easier to explode than to implode. That's why Syreni took out their shared frustrations on their surroundings, be that the environment or other beings. Such a tactic still hurt the same but was less lonely regardless of if those who suffered with her did it willingly or not.

With an outlook like that, maybe she ought stop trying to pretend like there was any line separating her brand of Sith from the grand majority.

The fire had been snuffed out, but then exploded out from underneath her boots, both this time.

"Sudas!" she hissed as smoke rose all around her and reached up into the calm blue sky.

Jenn Kryze​

 

[Jenn Kryze]

Beskar'gam
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| Location | Onderon Highlands
| Objective | TBA
| Focus | TBA

Jenn had always taken great pride in her consistency. ​

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She could be relied upon, by friends and foes alike, to act in accordance with her morals, ready and willing to die standing upon the lines she drew in the sand. Simple, yet powerful truths guided her. Truths she seldom voiced to others, harsh and exacting as they were.​

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Honor is a double-edged blade.​

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Weakness is a choice.​

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Sith exist only to die.​

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Nothing lasts forever.​

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Even now, decades after the Excision, the Mandalorian's sleep was fitful, nightmares of a world ruined and a people slaughtered lurking within her mind. Waking up with a start, if not a scream, had become another inescapable fact of life. And from this grief and torment was borne a great, all-consuming anger, carried aloft into genocidal intent. Reason and restraint escaped her when it came to the Sith. As Jenn Kryze or The Redeemer, she would see their bodies shattered, their legacy smashed, their names forgotten, even if such an endeavor was to finally kill her.​

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And yet, engulfed as she was within this legendary rage, the Duchess retained a key weakness for the foe to exploit. No matter the unfathomable depths of her hatred for the servants of destruction and domination, the Kryz'alor remained steadfast and true to her friends, no matter the years, nor the distance growing between them. No matter how it aggrieved her, to betray herself so, the Mandalorian could not find it in herself to sever her bonds in the name of those morals.​

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Not to Alina Tremiru , though the Sangnir had since fully assumed her role in the Galaxy as Sith, rather than the repentant one she had met in what felt like a lifetime ago. ​

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And certainly not to Damsy.​

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Damsy who had given her shelter when she needed it, Damsy who guided her through the terrifying first weeks that followed her undesired metamorphosis, Damsy who chose kindness, compassion, and mercy, even before one whose creed dictated that she revile her as an accursed oathbreaker, a thing to be shunned for turning her back on the Resol'nare. ​

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Damsy was dar'manda.​

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Though seemingly content to observe the strange figure lingering outside the village from atop the palisade wall, the New Mandalorians on watch that day were eventually moved to action. Sorcerous displays, from a source none truly recognized? Either a loathsome Sith, or a Jedi in need of a reminder of the stance adopted by the protectors of Onderon when it came to unidentified meddlers. Either way, a squad of four beskar-clad figures soon soared into the air from within the village, rapidly approaching the lone figure as they unholstered their weapons. And yet, they did not quite point their weapons at the stranger just yet, even as they landed all around her. If she drew a lightsaber, overlapping fields of fire would see them triumph. ​

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"Su cuy'gar, aruetii. What brings a sorceress to the home of the House of Kryze, haven of the New Mandalorians?"​

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Damsy Callat ​

 

[Damsy Callat]

The brushfire had died down again, this time for good, when the sentries landed.

"Hope," Damsy answered, looking mostly at a Mandalorian who spoke but glancing at a few of the drawn blasters, "'lieve it or not."

She took a breath between shallow and deep. "I'm Darth Syreni, but I mean ya an' yours no harm." She held one of her hands up high in a motion of surrender, and waited for a few long seconds to pass before she reached her other hand over towards the hilt of her pronged lightsaber. Her fingers slowly wrapped around the metal and picked it off of her belt just to toss it off to the side into unburnt grass. "I'd like ta see your alor."

Damsy rose her other hand towards the sky. The smoke was almost completely dissipated. There was no evidence beside the small patches of ground underneath Damsy's feet that anything had happened here. "I welcomed her inta my home once, when she was 'lone an' scared. I don't demand nothin', but I was hopin' for the honor o' reciprocity." She flicked her chin out in a nod of sorts. "Whatcha say?"

Jenn Kryze​

 

[Jenn Kryze]

Beskar'gam
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| Location | Onderon Highlands
| Objective | Welcome an old friend

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Darth.​

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Their reaction was as visceral as it was instant. The four of them raised their blasters, aim taken towards her and fingers slipping to rest against the trigger, ready to fire. To kill. Though superbly disciplined, they remained Mandalorians, and quick to fire. That they had not already done so served as a testament of their restraint, compared to some among their kin. ​

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"Dar'jetii", spat one of the warriors to her right, disgust wrapped around each syllable. Of all the foes they had faced, none had wronged them quite like the Sith; some in the House of Kryze, such as the Alor herself, were old enough to remember the horrors of the Excision. The methodic brutality of it, the wholesale genocide of their people at the hands of the dark sorcerers. The massacre and rout at Echnos against the Kainites had done precious little to endear this current iteration of the New Mandalorian movement to those wielders of the Dark Side, and yet... when Damsy disarmed herself so clearly, so evidently, they remained silent. ​

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Aware as they were of the immeasurable might one such foe could bring to bear without their lightsaber, they saw no reason for her to have performed such a strategically unsound maneuver. Should they be killed, the entire might of the House would descend upon this hated foe and tear her limb from limb; and yet she might very well just be the vanguard of a larger force. Exchanging a conversation between their squad's communications that went unheard by the woman before them, the first to have spoken eventually brought two fingers to the side of their helmet, ostensibly to clue the stranger in on the fact that they were now communicating with someone. ​

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And then, they waited, silent as the grave, letting Damsy's question go unanswered. Not once did they appear to shift, keeping their aim true and their ironclad will ready to resist any overt attempt at influence. A few minutes passed uneventfully, until...​

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The gates leading to the Clangrounds were pushed open by a pair of Nite Owls. The greatest warriors of the House, peerless commandos, and the Alor's honor guard. And yet they were left to line those heavy doors, standing at parade rest, as their august leader strode on out of the warmth and comfort of home, walking across the empty space beyond their walls, where one could simply stride under the moonlight and let the beauty of a wild and untamed world caress them.​

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If her armor was any indication, Jenn... had changed. The metal of her armor was the same, by and large, but its shape had changed, and so too had its paint. A different image was projected now, one where she came into her own, confident and bold in her embrace of her nature; the blue of her beskar almost seemed to shimmer under the moonlight, alike the waves of a tropical sea. Striding past her warriors without stopping, she stopped before the self-proclaimed Darth Syreni, drinking in the sight of her-​

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And wrapped her arms around her in a tight embrace.​

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"I missed you, ori'vod."​

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The sentries lowered their blasters.​

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Damsy Callat ​

 

[Damsy Callat]

Damsy could feel the unrest of those around her, choppy like the enduring quality of Kamino's ocean, and she knew that she could withstand it. So she stood-stark still, a luxury that she only had on land, and waited.

Only when Jenn strode into the radius that the sentries had established around Damsy did the hybrid move. Her head turned to regard her friend, then her body followed suit to face in the direction of her gaze.

The sudden embrace was received like a full-speed tackle from a saberjowl. Damsy's heart dropped into her feet—which would have been her tail fin had she actually been in the water. Fine muscles on either side of her neck where her gills would be began to flex desperately against her skin. All at once, her body felt ice cold with dread, like this reunion was a death sentence, like the weight of how bad of an idea this had been was crushing her.

For a long while, she didn't say a thing. She couldn't remember how to speak, not even one of the few languages she knew. Her tongue felt too heavy to move, the cords in her throat too frozen to pluck. Finally, both thawed and she managed a stable, albeit fragmented, whisper, "I...forgot...to miss you...back."

Drawing out her reply was all that she knew to do to keep herself from crying. She didn't mind if she exposed a weakness to strangers, even Mandalorians, and she knew that Jenn would stay dry as her beskar'gam would protect her from the droplets of water, but there was no telling what else would come of the Sith's unabashed grief.

"I'm...sorry..."

Jenn Kryze​

 

[Jenn Kryze]

Beskar'gam
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| Location | Onderon Highlands
| Objective | Welcome a friend

The last time Jenn had heard from her friend had been on Coruscant, learning of a Jedi's edict - a list of those who had wronged the Order, listing her dear friend as a target. Guilty for the so-called crime of sheltering Sithspawn. That piece of news had sent the Ersansyr into a rush of blind anger, quickly followed by abject sorrow. And now... here she was. Dar'manda, Darth lord of the Sith, and yet the Kryz'alor looked past those things, her memories of Damsy clashing with such violent truths. When she was in need, Damsy had welcomed her, no questions asked, expecting nothing in return. That was goodness - true goodness. ​

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"Oh, Dams'ika", whispered the Ersansyr softly, the tender melody woven from her voice somewhat lessened due to her helmet's vo-coder, though pleasant nonetheless. "It's okay. I promise, you're okay. You have nothing to apologize for."​

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Even as she broke the embrace they shared, Jenn kept an arm wrapped around her friend, gently guiding her towards the Clangrounds themselves, the sentries returning to their station with a burst of their jetpack and the Nite Owls closing the gates after they had crossed the threshold. Should Damsy find the werewithal to drink in her surroundings, she would find herself amidst a quaint little village; humble, unpretentious housing made of basic materials served as the homes of the Duchess' people, their livelihood evidenced by the smithy, the hunter's workshop, the agora... those Mandalorians seemed to live a simple and placid life amidst the highlands.​

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Not that her host cared to steer her towards such public spots, still alive under the evening sky, bringing her to her comfortably austere dwelling instead. Humble, but comforting in its honest simplicity. Helping her onto the couch, the Alor sat herself down next to her, though she retained her helm. ​

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"Talk to me, Damsy."​

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Damsy Callat ​