Private Victory Ball

[Maeve Linahan]

"Close would be an exaggeration," she replied, allowing Cale to top off her glass with another rare smile. "I've served alongside the Nobles in a mission or two. Slaying Sith or cleansing their hideouts. I'm a Knight and they're the Council, so I do what I can to assist." Her brandy swirled in her hand. "I'm more of an admirer than a friend."

She didn't have many friends, period. Other than really Amani or Hayes, and even then, those two were more comrades than confidantes, and she knew very little about their secrets or their past. Maeve liked to think it was because she just didn't spend much time with them, but honestly, it was more because she never bothered to ask.

But she was learning how. Starting to, at least. With a little nudging from Valery, and with help from someone just as reliable: alcohol, sweet and relaxing.

The brandy warmed her chest the more she drank, and while she'd began filtering out its contents through careful use of the Force, it was a struggle to keep up, being the lightweight she was. Part of her was glad to though. It made talking so much easier, and conversation so much more enjoyable. Or was that just Cale? Maeve couldn't tell.

"I'm sorry about your friends," she said. "Waking up in a different time and then in the worst war of our century? Most Jedi would break at the strain, but you are stronger than you look." Maeve offered a thin and reassuring smile. "You fought at Exegol, right?"

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

Admiration wasn’t so bad, there was a lot to admire when it came to the Noble’s and those like them, those that never seemed to flinch from the light. He wished he could’ve been more like them, or maybe he was wishing that he still was.

“Sounds like you’ve been busy.” He remarked, drinking slowly from the glass, swirling the dark liquid absently as he pulled it from his lips. The conversation was pleasant, genuinely, and it almost hurt him to let out a bitter laugh at her next words. He wished they were true, wished that he could say that the Maw had been the worst fight he’d ever seen, but it wasn’t. They’d still won in the end.

“I only missed a few years, some of my friends were still around. Just not for me, couldn’t be for me. Would’ve been easier for all of them if I was dead.” He shrugged, speaking as casually as one might’ve when talking about the weather.

“This wasn’t the worst, we won this one. People don’t like to talk about it, don’t like to remember, but thirty or so years ago this place wasn’t ours.” He remembered it all, every waking second, and every horrific nightmare. “The worst war was the one we lost.”

His eyes were on Maeve, but they were looking somewhere else entirely, somewhere impossibly far away. Sometimes he remembered the Republic, and the tinge of nostalgia blotted out all the flaws that had plagued it, other times all he could think of was how blind they’d been to what was coming.

“To victory.” He muttered with a half smile, coming back to the present, and throwing back the rest of the liquor as he tilted his glass high.

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve hesitated. She hadn't been alive during that war, the war they lost, when the enemy ran rampant over the Core and spilled blood like it fresh water. She'd read the disturbing tales in the Jedi archives about it, and Cale wasn't wrong about how it paled in comparison to the war they'd won.

Had he lived it? Seen firsthand the atrocities committed? Even in the edge of intoxication, she felt that prickle of concern in her mind, understanding now why Cale smoked, and drank, and looked generally like a man who hadn't slept in days. Ghosts haunted those eyes, she could see it clear as the morning.

"To the survivors," Maeve replied, then polished off the last of her glass, draining it in a single tilt. She wanted to make more conversation, to ask more about him, but then she felt it. Felt her.

A chill ran down her neck. She turned from the bar, looking to the party, and among them, a figure strode in, as if conjured from the shadows. She was beautiful. She was pale as bone. She was a red blotch, trickling across the dance floor and between watching guests. Her dress was crimson, and it was like she'd taken a wedding gown and dipped it in blood.

"Do you… feel that?" Maeve whispered cautiously.

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

It was one thing to be haunted by ghosts, another to have been the ghost that haunted yourself. It made it harder than he could put to words, and somehow on a night celebrating victory he had begun to feel as low as he had in a long time in spite of the pleasant company. Cale almost let himself slip, let himself get muddled in the melancholy and the drink, but like her, he felt something cold. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on in, and all the fog seemed to clear as his gaze snapped to the newcomer.

The time for their near-drunk exchange suddenly was at an end, and Cale's senses sharpened all at once. She was certainly a sight, beautiful to be sure but something in the way she walked detracted from it, corrupted it. It made Cale want to look away, there were far nicer people to look at close at hand, but somehow the red woman also drew his gaze. She drew him in and repulsed him in the same breath, and that was more than enough for him to know.

"Feel her, you mean?" He asked, his eyes flicking to Maeve and then back to the woman, looking over her for some sign of a weapon. He didn't see anything, but that meant little. "Where's the senator?" Cale had lost track of the man, but suddenly he worried for him. Then it occured to him, that if the woman wasn't there for the senator, then she might've been there for them. Perhaps he was jumping to conclusions, perhaps he needed to have another drink.

But every instinct screamed for him to reach back for his saber.

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Panic seemed to wake Maeve up from her reverie and she spun around in search of Senator Yin. He was a big man with an overachieving belly and draped in so much gold he may as well have been a walking chandelier, so finding him wasn't too difficult. Getting to him was the problem. The man sat halfway across the ball room, seated at a table blanketed in pale linen, just as mesmerized as everyone else by the woman in red.

"He's over there preening like a bird," she said, nodding where Yin sat, then her eyes narrowed on the woman approaching him. "And it looks like he's about to get eaten."

Maeve rose from the bar. She took a purposeful step forward, one hand gravitating to the lightsaber hidden up her sleeve, and then, she staggered. There was a slight hitch in her step. An uneasy balance. The alcohol still ran hot in her system, and although she was calling on the Force to filter it out, it had done barely enough to keep her standing.

Suddenly, she regretted drinking while on duty.

Forgetting about Cale and too focused on the woman in red, she moved toward Senator Yin at the same time. The mysterious lady, outwardly, showed no threat nor seemed to be in any rush, but Maeve could sense those dark ripples in the Force, and it put her close to the edge. Whoever that woman was, she had dark intentions planned for the party and for the senator, and Maeve was determined to find out what.

If only she could make it across the dance floor.

"Shit," she muttered. "Why is it now of all times that I get drunk?"

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

"So much for filtering it out." Cale chuckled hoarsely to himself, stepping after Maeve only to realize he too had perhaps indulged too much too quickly. The steps were uneven, shaky, and he found himself missing his absent arm that might've helped to balance him. This was a bad situation on the verge of being much worse. Action would have to be taken swiftly and boldly.

Cale closed the gap between the two of them, and took one of her arms in his, flashing a smile at an overly curious guest and continuing along their heading. "Just play along, keep one another upright." He whispered, thinking how it all would've been funny if he wasn't concerned about Senator Yin being murdered in plain view. The entire situation would've been an embarrassment to the order if it found out, but between the two of them Cale imagined they'd laugh when remembering this.

Presuming they stopped whatever was about to happen.

"So nice of you to help a helpless cripple along, very Jedi of you." He added teasingly, though his eyes had locked onto the woman in red, and refused to break away. Who or what was she? What did she want?

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"Oh, don't start lecturing me. That brandy was a lot stronger than I expected."

It was. Cale seemed to have stomached the alcohol better—whether because of his build or his experience, she'd no idea—but that didn't mean he was exactly fit for a confrontation either. They were both drunk and stumbling disasters. If the woman in red was what Maeve thought she was, then they were in for quite the surprise.

Still, at the very least, she had Cale to rely on. Sliding an arm into the crook of her elbow, he helped her regain her footing, guiding her through the mess of bodies dancing and swirling across the ballroom floor. They blended in perfectly, as if they were engaged in a waltz themselves, and as entertaining as that might've sounded, Maeve was a little more concerned for the senator about to be murdered.

"You're hardly helpless," she replied curtly. "I can feel your lightsaber jabbing my side." She eyed the hilt of his blade hidden underneath his suit. "Besides, I'm sure you already know well how to use it even without your right arm. You're a Jedi, are you not?" Unless he'd retired and lost it at Exegol, Maeve thought, suddenly feeling flushed. Or was that just the alcohol?

Oh, by the Force, she could hardly think straight.

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

"Allegedly, I am." A Jedi Master now, though that title still felt strange. Cale wasn't sure if it really fit him, he'd trained Aleks to Knighthood sure, but it didn't feel adequate. He didn't feel adequate.

"You never know, maybe the gruff exterior is all an act, maybe I've never fought a day in my life." He added with a sly smile. Cale wished he could've focused more on the moment, enjoyed the back and forth, but his attention was dialed in on the woman. Some part of him longed to have never fought before, to be like the pompous attendees of this soiree, to not know just how to strike a Stormtrooper's helmet so that it shattered, and what gear to wear so that fragments of bone didn't did into your hand when you did it. But Cale knew. Sometimes he thought violence might be all he knew, and that the best thing he could do for the galaxy was be pointed in the right direction.

He was a piss-poor peacekeeper.

"Maybe she just wants to dance with him." Cale mused as they drew in closer. "Nothin' wrong with dancing with a...beautiful woman." That didn't seem like the right word for the woman in scarlet, and when he said it he almost phrased it as a question. Was it beauty? Or was it something more sinister? Why couldn't they just leave the snob to whatever he had coming and just...do what? Drink? Dance?

Cale's mind was all over the place, and he was thankful for the beard that hid the color in his cheeks, he just had to focus. Before he knew it, they were right behind the woman, and he was torn between drawing his saber right there and just fading back into the crowd.

"She better be up to something." She was, and they both knew it.

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"Allegedly?" she repeated. "That is far from a reassuring answer."

Striding across the dance floor, they slowly closed the space between them and Senator Yin. Gowns and dresses swirled around her, and while Maeve tried not to tear her focus from the senator ahead, she found it hard not to gravitate back to Cale and that stupid, drunk, sly smile of his.

"Don't patronize me," she scoffed at his teasing. "You know too much about the Nobles not to know how to fight, and the way you drink? Only a veteran can ingest that much brandy without hurling it back onto the floor. You're a Jedi alright. I just pray you're a good one."

As they neared Yin's table, the woman in red came back into view, standing out from the crowd like a knife in the dark. Her hair, blacker than ink, shined under the lantern-light, and Maeve wasn't unaware of the persisting stares she was getting from those around her—Cale included.

Maeve jabbed her elbow into his gut. "Focus, would you?" She rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath, "Men." Of course, she couldn't deny how beautiful the mysterious woman was, but looks could be deceiving, and the Force was telling her that there was something very wrong about her.

By the time they made it to Senator Yin, though, the woman had already done the same. Still, there was no hidden dagger up her sleeve, nor a weapon to reveal. The woman in red simply smiled at Yin, then curtseyed like a royal lady in court, harmless as a fly.

"Evening, Senator. My name is Ravenna. But my, what a privilege it is to finally meet you."

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

"I never patronize." Cale lied, apparently he did it more than he thought according to Aleks and Ronan, but unlike with his companions, he was only looking for a laugh here. She scoffed at him like some instructor on Tython when he'd made a joke in the middle of instruction, but unlike them she thought it was funny. At least a little.

Again he looked over the woman, trying to find some sort of weapon, or worse still, to feel the dark side move within her to strike. Besides the cloud of darkness that seemed to hang around the woman though, all Cale actually felt was Maeve's jab to his stomach. Maybe he was just drunk, or maybe he just should've expected even more than he had, but she struck hard. She must've known he could take it, at least that was what he told himself as the jolt made him wince.

"Oh don't men me, you're looking too." He shot back. "We're just doing our jobs after all." He looked away from the Senator and the stranger, and gave Maeve a particularly stupid smirk. Cale caught the name when the stranger spoke it, Ravenna, it wasn't familiar which he supposed was a good thing. Or maybe that was worse. It very well might've been worse.

The Senator seemed totally enamored, and Ravenna no doubt had hoped for just that. The drunken Jedi had a plan. "Keep playin' along." He whispered.

"Ravenna! Is that you?" He called out to the woman as they approached, his tone warm and familiar as though he'd known her his entire life. "It's been so long, how have you been?"

This was going to either go very well, or very poorly, but Cale was sure Maeve could come up with something better than this idea if it failed.

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"I was not ogling her," Maeve shot back, which was, of course, a lie.

The woman in red stood as if she'd been carved from marble. Most people would've killed for a complexion that clean, and Maeve had to wonder if that was exactly what the woman had done to earn her looks. It didn't seem natural. It didn't seem real. But for morons like Senator Yin, that didn't seem to bother him, and instead he smiled at Ravenna's curtsey, charmed.

Before he could say anything though, Cale butt in. Whatever he was doing, he'd caught the woman's attention, and she turned slowly to face him, one perfectly manicured eyebrow raised, nails sharp as knives.

As Cale distracted her, Maeve stealthily disengaged from his arm and strode around the table until settling at a comfortable position by Senator Yin. The man was completely unaware of her arrival, instead focused on the woman in red like a salivating dog, though he looked disappointed at seeing her notice slip away to the other Jedi.

Maeve stood behind Yin, just out of Ravenna's periphery but visible enough for Cale to see the bewildered look on her face. She mouthed to him in a panic, What. Are. You. Doing?

It was far too late to question him further. Ravena's eyes were on him now, watching him carefully before she smiled and said, "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

“Sure you weren’t.” He didn’t blame Maeve, Ravenna was as aware as everyone else about how she looked it seemed, but Cale trusted that wouldn’t win her any advantage with Maeve or himself.

As Maeve mouthed him a question, and Cale had no answer. He'd dove into this gambit headlong without any real notion of how to see it through. It was an unusually impulsive play on his part, yet there he was, doing it anyway. He gave a smile, meant for his fellow Jedi more than the stranger in red, but if Ravenna thought the coy thing was meant for her that was fine by him.

"Oh come on don't be like that Ravenna! We had fun!” Cale tried to think of what the end goal was, the woman hadn’t actually done anything yet, and he couldn’t take her down on a gut feeling. He thought of a hundred different things to say in the heartbeat between when he stopped speaking and when he opened his mouth to start again.

“Look, I get I’m a little short-handed these days but come on don’t tell me you forgot your old pal?” Cale fought back a groan at the pun, throwing his one arm out to his side and feigned taking offense. Maybe it’d make her leave, maybe it’d make her strike, or maybe Maeve would boo him aloud.

It was too early to tell.

Maeve Linahan

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve winced as she watched Cale stumble through his distraction. Although successful, worry stabbed at her side. She didn't like this one bit.

Strangely enough, Ravenna didn't seem the least confused. Instead, she kept on that too-sweet smile of hers, the red on her lips like pulped cherries.

"Old pal?" she said, her voice smoother than silk. "Come, darling. I would say that you are confusing me for another woman, but frankly, there are no women like me." Ravenna slowly closed the space between them. "You and I both know we have never met before. I would remember. Who could possibly forget a face as handsome as yours?"

Maeve rolled her eyes, half at Cale's terrible pun and half at Ravenna's shameless attempt to seduce him. The feeling worsened when the woman raised her hands to Cale's neck, adjusting his collar, both their faces barely inches apart. Maeve felt the urge to lunge at Ravenna then, her hand itching for the lightsaber up her sleeve.

The woman in red smiled and smoothed out the wrinkles in Cale's suit. "If you wanted to introduce yourself, that's all had you to say. What's your name, soldier boy?"

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

“Maybe I wasn’t as handsome then,” Cale was seemingly playing right into her hands. “Or maybe I’m from the future, where we’ve already done something memorable. Has to be one of the two, ‘cause you’re right there is no one like you.” Flirting back came easy enough, as did the smile he put on, but keen observers might notice how it didn’t reach his eyes. An act, but a good one. Cale had gotten better at pretending than he was at the real thing.

The force sent a tingle of apprehension through him as Ravenna came in close, the smell of her was sweet, but like everything else about her there was an edge to it. Something not quite right about it that only he, Maeve, or others like them might have noticed. But as she stayed close, Cale played his part, making the distance between their faces just a little smaller.

“It’s Cassian, Cassian Feryn.” Cale slipped on the name like a glove. He’d lived under it for a few years once he’d been free of the One Sith, flying Starfighters for the Alliance Navy under the false name until he’d exposed himself and lost his arm in the exact same night. “Alliance Navy Starfighter Corps, retired.” He added the last word with a small chuckle.

“Is this the part where I ask what a girl like you is doing in a place like this? Seems like you might be a bit out of its league.” He hoped Maeve had a fast draw on her lightsaber, and that Ravenna would be too slow when and if she acted.

Maybe they could get her away from the whole party, maybe then they could ask her some real questions. Or, maybe she’d cut his neck right there, and he’d be too slow to do anything about it.

Maeve Linahan

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve resisted the urge to grumble as she observed Cale and Ravenna's flirting. The distraction was clearly working, but part of her would have much rather preferred to dogpile the woman before anything else could be done. Maybe that was the brandy talking, or maybe she just didn't like seeing the other Jedi ogle and banter with a woman who obviously stank of Sith.

Senator Yin seemed to be in the same boat. He'd been enraptured by the woman's beauty, and now that Cale had stolen her attention, the drunk politician was now glaring jealously at him, pouting like a wet dog.

"Cassian," Ravenna said, as if tasting his name on her tongue. "How fitting. A pretty name for a pretty face." She flashed a smile and toyed with the lapels of his suit jacket. "You are so right, though. This party is more drab than what I'm used to. Shiny drinks and fireworks can only entertain a girl like me so much. But not to worry. I have every reason to believe things will liven up very soon."

"Do you want to know a secret, handsome?"

Much to Maeve's displeasure, Ravenna leaned up to him and pressed her lips to his ear, one smooth hand caressing down his chest. "I'm really just here to have some fun," she whispered, her voice like a bed of roses, her perfume like a basket of crushed apples. "And to spoil yours."

With that, the Force exploded from the hand she had pressed to him, a blast that would throw him back across the room and directly into the bar.

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

There was a warning, but it came too late for him to do anything with it. Kinetic energy punched into his chest and hurtled Cale across the room, tumbling in the air as he soared. But he was no stranger to being thrown around. He stabilized himself, called on the force, and shielded himself from the worst of the impact.

Wood splintered, glass shattered, and fine liquor stained the suit’s jacket. There was pain too, a hundred pinpricks of heat, a nasty bruise no doubt welling up across his back, but Cale didn’t seem bothered. Just the opposite in fact.

No more pretending, no more facades, just the part he was good at. The lightsaber snapped to his hand as the Jedi rose up from the ruined bar, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. His eyes narrowed in spite of the stars that had exploded across his vision, and he willed himself to see. The weapon ignited, a blade of cobalt blue painting him with its glow as all the emotion seemed to drain away from his face.

“Finally.” He whispered, surging forward with unprecedented speed and bringing the blade out with a wide slash, hoping to reinforce whatever counter Maeve might’ve launched.

Maeve Linahan

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve's eyes went wide as the woman in red erupted with the Force. "Cale!" she shouted, just as he was hurled across the room, shattering into the bar. Drinks toppled over and guests backed away screaming. Worry stabbed at her gut and she wanted to rush over to see if he was alright, but the monster before her was still there, still grinning, and still hungry for more.

Ravenna spun with dark fury. Revealing a lightsaber out of thin air, she ignited it and slashed directly toward Senator Yin's rolling neck.

The man might've lost his head right there, but Maeve reacted swiftly. Blade already in hand, she met Ravenna's in a shrieking clash. Sparks flew as her lightsaber met the Sith Lord's, like blood against ice. The senator nearly toppled out of his chair a moment later, gasping and guffawing. Maeve thought he might've even tried hugging behind the skirt of her dress as he struggled to get away from them.

"Jedi?" Ravenna said, not in the least surprised. In fact, she seemed ecstatic. "How wonderful. And here I was afraid things would be easy."

A second lightsaber appeared in her other hand, just in time to catch Cale's slash from the other side. Now, the Sith Lord stood facing them both, her smile radiant and bright. She must've possessed incredible strength to be holding them both off, a gift she no doubt mastered with the Dark Side. "Two on one," the woman mocked. "Do you really think that'll be enough?"

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

She was Sith. That brought questions to mind that Cale feared to answer. How had she gotten here? How had no one noticed? What if they had and she’d simply removed them so they couldn’t talk? What Order did she belong to? Who sent her? Had she sent herself? His mind ran rampant, but as his blade met Ravenna’s, his hand stayed steady.

“I’d call it overkill.” He grunted in reply, gazing flicking to Maeve and then back to the Sith. The force moved through him, the empty sleeve at his side seemed to fill, cloth falling around the shape of a phantom limb. Cale drew back, then followed through. With his saber he held Ravenna’s blade at bay, and with the ghost of a fist he launched a sucker punch with no less force behind it than the Sith had used to hurtle him across the room, right for her stomach.

All it had to do was stun her, keep her daze for half a heartbeat, Cale trusted Maeve to do the next part. Better they ended her there and then, the Council could whinge about them executing someone later.

Maeve Linahan

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Understanding dawned on Maeve as she and Cale shared a look. She read it in the blue of his eyes: Be ready. And she was. Blades locked with Ravenna and heart kicking in her chest, she watched with astonishment as the Jedi's empty sleeve filled, like an arm was sliding through, and just as the Sith's gaze whirled towards it, the phantom limb crashed directly into her gut.

With an almost comical 'oof,' Ravenna skidded back across the floor. It was a testament to her strength and control that she hadn't flown through the nearest wall, but she was clearly dazed and off-balance, leaving them with a perfect opening to land a killing blow. A chance to end this duel.

Maeve whirled on the woman. Charging towards her, blade coming up at her like a loosed arrow, she threw all her might into that attack.

She failed.

All the wine and brandy she'd drank still lingered, and despite the adrenaline pumping in her blood, alcohol continued to cloud her mind, and Maeve didn't move as she should've. She charged too slow, and Ravenna responded too fast.

Recovering from Cale's bone-breaking blow, the woman in red raised both her lightsabers and met Maeve's in a furious clash. Layered in the Force and with the weight of an oncoming speeder behind it, the strike threw Maeve back, hurling her the same way Cale had been and throwing her at a curtained table.

Ravenna's laughter rang out. "Could you be any more disappointing?"

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

“Maeve!” It was his turn to be worried as she was hurtled through the air by the Sith’s raw exertion of power. He closed the gap between them with two long strides, his saber cutting through the air in a succession of blue arcs. Cale went for her legs, then an arm, then a slash to her chest, all the while maintaining his own defense. Decades of fighting guided every strike, experience he’d earned by choice or otherwise instructing him in quiet whispers.

They were at the heart of the light, far from whatever remaining dredges of the Maw should have been lurking. What did she want here? What was the goal.

“You came a long way to fail.” He muttered dismissively. “Is this your grand plan? Get all dressed up just to get stopped before you start?” He was mocking her, the half smirk under his beard more cruel than amused.

“It’s a shame really.”

Maeve Linahan