"My moon and stars.", he sent to
Srina Talon
.
"I have given our children strength, and offered a great mercy. I hope you do not mind."He knew she wouldn't. She knew as well as he did that any act of mercy against the alliance, any true act of mercy, would only make this war take longer. Cost more lives. Take more from them. Take more from him. It needed to be ended quickly, for the good of all people. If that meant the eradication of millions, than so be it.
Relief.
The message that crackled through the bond she shared with
Darth Empyrean
made everything slow down. The sensation that followed was instantaneous, powerful, and without name…But it was more important than the old man who challenged her. There was a flash of dark tenderness that would have likely confused most—Such dire affection, for a walking corpse. It didn't matter that he had wiped out an entire city, on a whim of being a good husband, because he had taken her words too literally. He was still himself. Still, her other half. Her better half.
<<You have been away from me and silent for far too long…That is what I mind.>>
He would feel her mind flutter, almost, as if his wintry wife was attempting to utilize wit to conceal the fact that his lack of response left her unsettled.
The Penumbra was no small thing. It was power for their cause, strength, for their children—But all things came with a cost.
<<I understand, meldanya. It was a necessary blow…We will use well what you have provided.>>
Her mind churned with a mixture of reverence crossed with grim resolve. In her heart, there was no room for regret—only the certainty that every act, no matter how brutal, was essential to their cause. They fought every war as if it could be the last, as if, they would never see another sunrise. If the Sith Order did not give their all in every battle there was no point. There would be no time to hang their heads low, to wonder, if they had pushed themselves to their limits while the Alliance trounced all over their land. Ruined, their people. There was only this.
There was only now.
Her daughter,
Quinn Varanin
, knew that. She could feel the little princess responding to the malevolent energy that threaded itself into everything she was. It lifted her up—
Exalted her. It was the duty of a mother to ensure that her children had access to everything they needed to succeed. Srina could not control the flow of battle in its entirety; however, she could provide tools to guide them. She would take the pain, the loss, the destruction of this world and force it
kicking and
screaming into something they could
finally find a use for.
Something new.
But, she needed to deal with
Judah Lesan
first.
The scent of burning skin was the first sign that the Jedi Master was intent on pressing the issue. Even with the blow he had taken, straight to the heart, he still found a way to excel at surviving. It would have been admirable were roaches not capable of the same feat.
"Do you ever tire of being wrong?", their blades locked again, and again, but Srina refused to give ground no matter how much stronger he should have been with his mechanical arm.
"I do not think the Alliance cruel. I think them blind—Incompetent. They flee from the truth…When we are all monsters, here."
Srina shifted sharply, before the crimson blade of her saber disappeared, letting him fall forward without her resistance. That particular tactic was thought to be a move for the weak. Disrespectful, to the opponent and the weapon. It was so hated and archaic that very few duelists even considered it a viable solution.
He wouldn't see it coming. His saber flashed in a downward arc, sailing past her, and her knee drove up into the ribs she had just blasted. The act would be rewarded with a sharp grunt of pain before her hands curled in his armor. She seized him, so small, but empowered by the death knell her husband had called for. By her daughter, rising to the sky.
She tackled Judah Lesan off the platform of the Landing Castle with bone-crushing force. The wind shrieked as they plunged downward and the ground came up too quickly to react to. The impact made the glass ground shatter, exploding around them in fine shards, sending a reverberating clang through the area. He was the heavier of the two and landed on his back, while Srina, pushed herself up and levered her knee into his chest. Gold-hewn eyes bore holes into him,
unforgiving, almost as if she were peeling back layers of who he was. Whittling him down, until he was bare.
"Yes. Tell them, Judah Lesan. Tell the galaxy that your life is ever in my hands. Tell them all that it is by my desire, not your will, that you still draw breath. Tell them all."
He wouldn't see it coming when her first curled in his hair and yanked his head back. Her face seemed to distort, shifting, and her jaw unhinged while beauty gave way to the face of something truly terrifying. There were too many teeth in her mouth, too large and sharp, with gaunt cheeks and yellow-corrupted eyes. Her head tilted as if she might bite his throat out for his audacity—But in the last moment, with a low, small growl she seemed to change her mind. Her face settled. The monster retreated.
She flipped the hilt of her lightsaber in her hand, slowly, testing the weight…Before she cracked it against his skull and he dropped like a rock. The battlefield itself seemed to tremble when she let him go and came to stand. Srina called upon the fallout from the landing castle and broken pieces of buildings, pipes, and shrapnel. She then dropped it around the Jedi like a makeshift sarcophagus where there would only be room enough for him to breathe.
If the blow to his head hadn't turned his brain into whisked egg yolk—It would keep him out of her way.
"Perhaps…I was wrong. Perhaps, you still have use, old man."
Her head tilted toward the Landing Castle, her voice still soft, as if, she hadn't almost torn into the Jedi with her teeth.
"
Taeli Raaf
…I know you are in there. Come. I require aid."
For reasons that would be obvious to some but painfully hidden for others, the Lady of Secrets had not traveled to Woostri on
the Requiem. Instead, she had chosen the far more perilous journey. There were experiments to be had that drew the Dark Councilor from her lab and the campaign wouldn't have fared well if certain parties realized the scientist had been in such proximity.
The Landing Castle worked autonomously, well. It worked better with an intelligent mind aboard to give directives in lieu of it defaulting to factory settings. Woostri was delicate, all things considered, and the castle literally consumed the world it dropped on and began converting all available resources toward creating droid units meant for occupation.
"You felt the Penumbra…The gift from my husband. There is much strength to be found, in death. It must be harnessed, molded—Shared."
She drew the back of her hand across her cheek and flicked thickening blood to the ground.
"Aid me, Lady Raaf, in gathering the suffering of this world."
The Jedi that had been fool enough to try and hunt her down would find that the Dark Side wrapped around him in his less than restful state. Her power sunk into his thoughts, like venom. He was so
willfully broken that his consciousness was child's play to unwind, plunging him into the abyss, where the shadow obeyed only her wish. The dark clawed at him, whispered, in voices he once knew, and twisted every memory into horror. Every failure, every loss, every wound became an endless cycle with no escape.
"His pain…His nightmare…Will start the fire."
Srina approached the darklit form of the woman who was responsible for felling an earlier generation of Jedi that had existed so many years ago. Her secrecy, her coercion, her deception was something of legend and myth. Few had ever infiltrated the Core so successfully. Her bloody, bruised, scratched hand waited in the air for the Lady of Secrets to take it. Pooling their skill, resources.
Claiming the
gift that the Emperor had provided them.
Jin' andnoa, rizûtizi sight— Dro dukwa, Nu imdtonizi.
There would be a chill for her children…The sound of her voice lingering in places it shouldn't have been. She could not fight for them; however, she could provide options for their ultimate conquest. The data that had been hidden away in the archives was the goal, it was important, but only in so much that she wished the Galactica Alliance not to have it. If the Order claimed it…
So be it.
If they could not?
Tijasa zûtasiji, tsakwa tnamri, Wtsia nirshosi, waria kirti.
The Empress would offer her people the strength and power to destroy.
To see through the cracks and fissures of such a damaged planet and tear it asunder as they saw fit. The Sith Order had not arrived to this water world for land, territory, or to impose their philosophy on an already indoctrinated culture. Woostri was a lost cause, a sacrifice, that they were willing to make.
The Sith had come to obtain what was required to win this war in its entirety.
Not only on this planet, but every battle to come.
It was time that they took it.
Nir Si
//
Corazona von Ascania
//
Ran Serys
//
Connel Vanagor
// Lycus Merita
Lysander von Ascania
