A Swell of Cinders (Kress, Fett)

[Darth Fett]

Sadow, an ever recusant target, instinctively altered his position in a blur, as if a holovid missing frames between an action. It was not an unheard of visual phenomenon in the employment of certain dark arts or using the Force to enhance speed or precision, but it was always unnerving on a deeply biological level to observe.

The pod thudded against the center of the ancient's breastplate that had come to meet it as if magnetically drawn, along the glowing eye also prominently accentuated in each of the murals flanking the figure. A keen eye would have noticed the pod did not activate, yet adhered to the gem it had bullseyed.

The Dark Lord’s glare descended, his head bowing to the gem as it devoured the biological warhead. The two merged. Was this sorcery?

His traditionally sanguine eyes locked with his attacker’s. Childish amusement ravaged his lower face as the rest of his form locked into place.

His jaw hinged loosely on a gradually diagonal axis, “How generous, my children, to have come all this way to adorn me with such gentle tributes of flora,” his cadence in Basic was markedly different than it had been in Sith, but it retained its playful peaks and valleys, syllables intermittently lingering like feathers on a glacial breeze, reverberating well after the next word had sprung to life.

He released the sputtering holocron onto the arm of his throne.

He winked at the assassin before being taken aback by some internal distress. His legs buckled and his torso flexed. He heaved dryly, his arms clasping the edges of his breastplate of support. A flowering vine erupted from the warlord’s sinuous maw, as the payoff to some inside joke directed at Sa’ato. He ripped the outgrowth from deep in his gullet, considered it for a moment, then it withered into a mummified rope, and disintegrated into black dust by the time he tossed it over his shoulder.

Was this meant to stand in literally for Sa’atos pod, or was it a separate prop the sorcerer had summoned in a playful satire? These very vines had lined the walls outside the chamber and palace compound. It was not clear that he was actually attempting to counterfeit the Professor’s plant, but perhaps it had been a sardonic display.

“Now, what knowledge,” his words were packed with dual interpretation and ambiguity, “would you have of me?” Serving both competing possible meanings, his voice sung a generous offer, but his brow suggested interrogation.

[Kressara Thryn]

Perplexed, Kressara rose to her full height from a bowed stance and removed her hand from the hidden blade, then leaned into her dendroid companion to whisper, “The sith we seek is significantly more human than this one, yes?”


When her pondering went unanswered, the younger invading sith shrugged to herself and let her eyes wander around the room. The grandeur of a long since dead lord before them flew over her head at mach speed, though their surroundings surely did not escape notice. Something…no, someone was lurking in the far corner of the room where shadows prevailed, cloaking their figure just barely noticeable even to a trained eye. Smirking, Kressara pinned the shaded figure with a knowing gaze and began surveying other aspects of the throne room.

And then the Neti chucked a seed at the man, bringing his corvid company’s attention back onto him with electric anxiety. Sooner or later, this sith would grow tired of them lobbing objects in his direction! Expecting a full on outrage followed by a beating, Kressara’s thumbs busied themselves by fiddling with the rings on her fingers housing a secret offense. Defending or not, she knew better than to be the first person to draw a weapon…even if she really, REALLY wanted that comfort. His words could have been sarcastic, but did she detect a hint of mirth? A wink dissolved Kressara’s growing tension, earning a raised brow. That was unexpectedly playful and very much out of character for the act he led with. Perhaps conversation wasn’t off the table just yet, and most importantly he appeared to have a sense of humor. Both could be worked with.

Beholding the spectacle of this lord hacking up an entire vine before it disintegrated in his palms was…interesting. A chuckle bubbled up from the tight lungs of the assassin who muttered to Sa’ato, purposefully loud enough to be heard by others in the throne room, “That’s rough. You know the food back on my home planet would come up the same way.”

A question was addressed to the pair. While Sa’ato was the man with the plan, Kressara had that familiar, insistent desire to speak which she seldom could deny. It was instinctive charisma after all. Why risk swallowing that back? Gathering herself, switching on that luminous smile, and stepping out with a certain languid calm to her movements, she admitted plainly,

“Truthfully, nothing.”

She approached the steps of his shadowy dias to make direct eye contact and explained. “We came here to speak with a particular man and you don’t match his description in the slightest. Not even a little! Did you kill him and take his place by chance? It’d be a shame if you did, seeing as we needed someone possessing his skill sets and interests. While I’m sure you could offer all kinds of horrendously powerful, untold secrets of the darkside passed down through the years…we aren’t here for that.”

Like a stroke of genius, or sheer stupidity, Kressara was taken by the muse of her own uncontrollable need to dumbfound others into taking an interest. Even if Sa’ato shot looks in an attempt to call the chatty bird back to his side, she was too committed to the dance now. Fear of death and harm could not dissuade her from the game. Lifting her hands and specifically eyeing the corner of the room in which she’d seen someone watching from the dark, Kress removed a pair of vibroblades from her hips and laid them down at the foot of the dias as a show of peace. “Sorry. I know you probably could flick these dull old things into the abyss like nose gold, but I wouldn’t want to upset your stealthy little friend in the corner. Assassin’s honor and what not.” That said, Kress took a step up as if testing the waters and actually sat down at the foot of his throne! The batty dame had audacity in buckets, sitting nearby with her back mostly to the sith lord while she continued speaking, so casually, using hands to exaggerate her words.

“We mean to upheave an entire government to instill a new form of government via the uprising party, while secretly pulling strings and gaining influence over the region. It’s a rather large scale endeavor and it’ll be absolutely chaotic. Complete insurrection, mutinies in great numbers, probably a couple politically planned beheadings… I’d see to it, but I simply lack the forces and funds and this is sort of time sensitive. Wasn’t that right. Sa’ato? That’s Sa’ato. He’s asked me along." Eying the remnants of the dried husk of a vine that scattered along the floor, Kress dug into her pocket to produce a small container of chewable tablets. “That looked gross. Antacid?”

[Darth Fett]

“Truthfully, nothing,” the witch began, her voice hinting a brassy monologue was imminent. Sadow inconspicuously yet intently fingered the many ostentatious gems lining his lax, flowing sleeve. His sunken eyes and their rapacious gaze locked with her own swaggering perusal as she advanced.

Playfully slinking around, performatively disarming, folksily gabbing while her eyes darted shadow to shadow.

Her skills at covertly assessing surrounding threats and playing the game were… middling on their face, but that was of course merely a placatory cover. It was a layered performance, a kabuki within a pantomime, only containing far more speaking than either.

She sat at the decrepit relic’s feet, turning her back to him as likely none had done in millennia. If he flinched, it was not visible; perhaps his eyelids were not lubricated enough to allow the motion. His body maintained its rigid composure while yet he thumbed something obscured by his bejeweled sleeve.

She knew her every move was being measured, and her every exaggerated acknowledgement and acquiescence was performative. She was aware that their performative purpose, too, would be scrutinized. The level beyond that, however, that. That was the stage on which she was unwittingly the sole performer for the true audience.

The Lord of this palace could read the tells behind her bluff, almost as if he were seeing the hand she’d been dealt from another vantage point. In truth, he had seen too many players of her ilk to be gammoned. She had a natural talent, charisma, and fluidity in spades, to be sure, but lacked the cultivation to truly sell her confidence in this gambit.

Beneath the sass and the spice, the observer had already sussed out the cliche that would follow.

This was all a faithful rendition, a skillful melody, but one to which he knew the resolution. Why slog through when he could add an unexpected note and gift the student performer with subversion?

“That looked gross. Ant–”

The blade sang out in queer vibrato. Its frequency resonated with the marrow in her bones, the pulp of her teeth. Its fidelity cut through the very words still hanging on her lip.

Despite its unexpected breadth, the sith sword was razor thin. Its crossguard cradled Kressara’s neck from behind while flanking it like a vice on the sides.

Its entire length was visible, extending over her right shoulder, as if she were being knighted before the throne in some stately ceremony. However, where its broadest point along its base intersected with her body, the ancient weapon was unmistakably embedded, three quarters of the way through to the other side.

At the very moment it felt like a victimless and fanciful magic trick, a stream of red and black gushed down the blade, tainted by an otherwise enchanting and fanciful glitter.

Sadow fixed his gaze on the Neti, jaw loosely unhinging as he instigatively pursed his spasmodic lips.

His labored guffaw circulated deep in his abdomen before escaping, “any resemblance to the landscaper pruning your relations, Lord Professor?”

[Kressara Thryn]

“Ant-” interrupted by the deadly quick swing of a razor thin blade passing over the bottle in her hand and connecting to her unprotected throat, Kressara’s eyes stared off in utter shock when the glimmering blood began to pour. A jolt of horror crawled over her skin, mind going fuzzy and her body following suit. The blade crossed her shoulder and came out the other end of her neck, her murderer gloating over the killing blow of a student to their teacher.

Throughout history, many beings have reported moments in their life in which they saw nothing but red, overcome by a forceful emotion that consumed their senses. Well, forget red and every shade of it. The world went stark white, the sort of colorless whiteout that comes with full blown nuclear warheads detonating five feet in every direction while your last thought couldn’t even come quick enough to register the disintegration of all you are.

…And holy hell, did it piss Kressara off!

That meltdown from the core outward roiled from the center of her chest and white washed every vein in a surge of superheated hatred unlike any she’d ever felt before. Even with a blade plunged far enough through her throat to sever her head, Kressara rose up defiant beyond the final hour. Lacked the confidence to sell her act, did she? His sith blade peeled back the layers of her niceties with rapid precision, but beneath the cyclone of emotions she wore on her sleeve like jammers to any mind that might attempt to compute the intentions of her heart, there laid one fail safe. Defiance. Defiance of loss. Defiance of abuse. Defiance of suffering. Defiance of life and death, and every rule it imposed against the souls it toyed with. Dark lords would come and go, and they would all have their blades at her neck, but…

You

Can’t

Kill

ANARCHY.

Kressara Thryn’s abdomen twisted and her legs tensed, hand dropping the bottle to reach for something far less beneficial to the offending lord. Feeling the sting of metal biting around her neck, slicing like a can opener, she launched from her seat on his stairs like someone ignited hyper drives within her lungs. The scream that shredded her vocal cords was not one of fear, or pain, but RAGE, the very essence of human tenacity. Glitterstim hazels flickered molten gold, the color around her pupils flashing like mirrors capturing midday sun as her frame cleared the distance. Her open hand snatched Sadow by the collar of his pretty jeweled robe and legs found their strength beneath her as they planted onto each step leading up to him. Defying even the laws of high and low ground, the assassin turned subatomic berserker let all of her anger travel from the tips of her toes, up her spine, and into the arm that yanked his majesty from his dias to the span of lowly floor beyond it.

His body crashed into the ground with a metallic clatter and the firespout in human form leapt from the stairs in a whirl of fabric and platinum hair. Armored boots and their talons hit him with enough force to shatter his rib cage, if he had one to break in the first place. Metal met metal, sparks flew, and the screaming assassin descended on the flickering image of Sadow like that old classic painting, Prometheus. Her unignited vibro dagger rung down against the illusion wielding droid’s chest, piercing and sinking into it with a screeching of metal, the sheer force of a woman who believed she was fighting on her last breath powering her strike. Her thumb ignited the blade and scorched its inner workings, wrenching it free to stab the machine again. It struggled against the onslaught, helplessly pinned by plunging durasteel claws and the sunken in concaves where her previous momentum had hit it the hardest. When the vibro dagger broke off within it’s demolished core, fists flew, beating the droid’s facial region until his ocular displays were coated in her own blood and busting out of it’s head.

This went on for the better half of two minutes. Uninterrupted violence against a remotely commanded droid finally came to a halt when the eviscerated thing had the audacity to push her back with what remained of its function. Its abdomen curled and it grabbed her by the bloody throat to try and deepen a (surprisingly minor) wound around the circumference of her neck. Kress barred a killer smile, leaned in close to its exposed tubing on its own throat, and sunk her teeth into the wires that supplied power to its cybernetic brain. Calcium broke electrical tubing and punctured a coolant line, cold fumes billowing past her teeth and venting from each corner of her now bleeding mouth. Her spine arched, body rising, ripping out a mouthful of interior wiring from the droid with a mechanical cry of finality and an arc of electricity that lit the room. It died on the floor in a pool of its own coolant like any other low life nobody would, and somehow, the dauntless crow sat over it victorious.

Kress spat mechanical guts onto the ground with a splatter of red, breathing heavily while the pain of cut up lips and gums slowly overcame the numbness of her adrenaline and dying rage. A shaking, blood leaking hand rose to feel her neck wounds, only to realize the familiar lines of a weapon that bends rather than cleaves. It’d been part of the illusion. The sword that “killed her” was a yielding one, wrapping around her rather than cutting clear through while the illusion appeared to be far more grim.

Eyes that faded back to hazel fell on Sa’ato.

“...my mouth hurts…”

[Darth Fett]

“I have just the salve for that,” the silver tongue and gravel throat were not nearly as at odds as they should have been, “truly, any family of antiseptic or narcotic is well stocked here,” his subsequent emphasis came with a self indulgent and audible curl of the lip, “assuming you’ve left any single drop unpilfered.”

There he stood, no pomp, no ostentatious introduction, no desperate attempt to intimidate, no grand reveal, flamboyantly descending from the ceiling. A mere man, wrapped in a shapeless black robe that belied his physique and the unforgiving exoskeleton of armor surely nestled beneath it.

[Professor Mors]

Even for the night-ageless Sa’ato, the past seconds had registered a pained, agonizing eternity. Throughout the knife’s-edge dance of life and death, all the professor could manage was to keep his slender fingers wrapped tightly around his saber hilts, waiting for an opening that was not guaranteed. And yet, without warning, all the tension left the room even more quickly than it arrived. Finally, the target of many ceaseless hours of searching had revealed themselves like some inscrutable chandelier. It was only sheer lack of hostility in the robed man’s voice that gave the Neti reason to let his hands fall slack to his sides.

“The previous spectacle does credit to your legend”, Sa’ato commented with a nonchalant air, taking careful steps to close the gap between himself and the otherwise intact Kressara, “I wish the rumors had bothered to mention your aversion– or at least, your unique position on diplomacy”. Furtively, the Neti cast a scrutinizing eye over his companion. Indeed, she did not appear to be in mortal peril. Their host had not smote her on the spot, which was good. However, in flexing his mental and psionic abilities, the hidden warrior had evinced the capability– or rather the ease with which he might dispatch the visiting duo.

“I can assure you, we did not seek out your residence with the intention of theft”, the retired scholar continued, lifting an eyebrow at his still-airborne query, “We have come with a proposal– one of mutual assistance and mutual benefit”. What exactly the two neophytes could offer a being of such power, at the moment, was beyond Sa’ato’s ability to discern, or fabricate in such a short period of time. The offer– the gamble was dependent on the rogue lord’s temperament, even the throes of their boredom. The statistics of the situation were not favorable, but the old teacher had made it this far, and that had to count for something.

“Assuming anyways”, Sa’ato moved to conclude, bringing his full attention back to the black-clad man, “That you are in fact the master of this fortress: the one known as Fett”...

[Darth Fett]

Fett.

It was certainly a name.

It was the moniker by which he had best been known throughout the last few decades, solidified by his tenure in the Sith Praxium, and culminating in his reign as the Dark Lord of the Sith.

That was not to say he had adopted it late in life; it was a part of him at birth, as much as his limbs and self righteous irreverence.

His father had not been born with any name at all, a clone with the first of many etchings incising his flesh with his identifier in lab experiments: Sigma 10. In the months after his escape he was known only as “Sten,” barely concealing the unstable, often volatile force sensitivity he had been bred to possess. His face was simultaneously instantly recognizable the galaxy over and a mask of total anonymity, that of an ignored veteran of the Clone Wars the average citizen would just as soon ignore as mere scenery.

Likewise Axl’s mother had been torn away from her parents and siblings, conditioned to forget her own surname. Her battered and twisted mind had managed to salvage a single splinter of that shipwrecked former life, a name: Vasilisa. Her alabaster skin, obsidian hair, slate grey eyes, and dagger-tipped ears demonstrated the dominance of her Nagai heritage over that of which she had deeply suspected to be Mandalorian.

Vasilisa, better professionally known as the Seventeenth Sister, had defected from the Imperial Inquisitors on a mission to execute Sten and erase any trace of the program and doctors which had concocted him. She instead ran away with her mark and forged a path through various criminal enterprises with incentives to shield their activities from the Empire.

They had adopted the name Fett; Sten would have insisted it was a decision to separate both from their previous identities and to drum up business due to some prestige the name held in the underworld. It certainly had aided to keep others in line who may have thought to challenge or doublecross them. When the pair had had their two children, Sten would expound on tall tales of Clan Fett of Mandalore and Concordia alike. Although they were likely fabrications invented on the spot, they meant the world to a young Axl. They, as fiction, had led him to understand his father better than he’d have ever been able to by asking earnest questions. That fact remained: deception was an invaluable tool to finding deeper truth.

Accordingly, Axl had come to understand the adopted surname was no simple marketing ploy or stolen valor, although Sten had never met his namesake. He would never have admitted it, but Sten clutched to the name as a birthright robbed of him and reclaimed in blood. It was likely the only inheritance he would leave his children. After which, they would have to forge their schemes and invent their own legends.


The Dark Lord kept his gaze on Kressara as she recovered, noting her easy resilience as her adrenaline surge surely waned and reality crept back to her. Fett had made a show of keeping the Neti beneath his immediate concern. Indeed, perhaps Sa’ato had felt his new acquaintance was not even listening to his dull pretense, niceties, and promises of reward.

“Mutuality remains to be seen,” he addressed the tree still at his periphery, “when you’ve interrupted production and stalled us for a day.” An assistant handed Fett the counterfeit holocron which had been imprinting when the pair had ventured in. She whispered into his ear and they both glanced at the leaking wreckage that remained of the droid formerly known that week as Naga Sadow.

The assistant accepted the holocron back into her care and rushed clear of the major players in the room. She scooped up TC-SC6891’s torso, only for it all to come crashing back to the stone floor, components rolling outward.
He cleared his throat, “three days.”

Fett leaned forward, extending his unarmed palm to the blonde assassin with the aching jaw and mechanical oil dripping down her neck. Hazel to gold and back– her eyes reflected those in his own visage: slate grey irises until they gave way to crimson on black in moments of heightened emotion or focus.

“How embarrassing for me that you both came in through the dungeons and glimpsed something of my… unconventional tastes,” he lied; he wasn’t the least bit embarrassed, “though perhaps not as exotic as your own?” his gaze traced the drops of coolant and splintered shards and shavings of copper and durasteel embedded in her lips and cheeks.

“Exceptional,” he offered a smile, his extended palm unwavering.

[Kressara Thryn]

Remarking on her newly acquired facial wounds, their at last revealed host descended into their midst. In the flesh, he was far different from the facade he greeted them with. Pilfering...Kressara peered up from her puddle of mechanical guts, coolant, oil, and blood, her expression still holding an almost sad form of surprise. It was a small, shocked, pained look never before seen on the apprentice’s face by anyone in present company. Believing herself a dead woman in earnest knocked the otherwise chatty assassin down a peg or two by the looks of it, but that brief moment of weakness was slain like a second victim to her teeth, forcing her damaged lips to curl upwards at the approaching sith lord.

“...There’s the bell of the ball now.”

Just like that, her child-like, earnest dismay was covered once again by a quite literally killer smile, and her metaphorical mask rose to shield whatever soft thing still lived under her skin. Sa’ato came to stand between her and the approaching sith lord, a notion of defense that didn’t go unnoticed by the downed crow.

Adrenaline bereft hands scooped up the hilt of her broken vibro dagger to reunite it with the rest of her weaponry before it was carted off with the rest of the demolished droid. With a trembling breath, the glitbiter fished out her stolen aphrodisiac fogger and popped out the cartiged before twisting it free of its lid and knocking it back like a fracking shot. Not foolish enough to swallow that high of a concentration, she swished its contents around for a few seconds while the professor spoke, then spit the majority out onto the already soiled floor. It did the trick numbing her tongue and lips, if only a little. She wouldn’t admit to it a second time, but her mouth really did hurt. The headrush of whatever drugs found their way down her throat was an added bonus, soothing the chem rattled nerves of a thoroughly bamboozled addict apprentice, only adding to her otherwise flirtatious demeanor. Thankfully, she could control herself under the influence of most “common” mood enhancers.

Circumventing her comrades’ attempts to insert himself between her and their host, the one known as Fett reached out a hand to the glass and metal peppered woman. Eyes that held all the luminosity of sunshine through a rainshower in his dim lit throne skewered him, glimmering as only glitterstim veteran users do. Her scarlet dampened chin, throat, and chest sparkled with the thick presence of that spice variant so commonly responsible for lost minds, enough of the stuff in her veins to thieve a grown man of his sanity thrice over. Hers was an intense stare, but prey to flattery all the same.

Dark eyes were a weakness to the glitter impaired sight of the addict on his floor. They reflected light like star sapphire cabochons, never failing to steal the attention of a woman who’s mind operated like a corvid in the presence of gems.

Unwilling to show fear of any kind in the presence of a potential enemy, Kressara steeled her gaze, fixed her grin, and took the man’s hand regardless of the vast gap in experience between them and his previous illusion against her. Odd how such small hands could yield such destruction. Taking the offer, but not using his help in the slightest to lift herself, placing her fingers overtop his palm was merely a show of dauntless spirit. A silent way of saying “I’m not afraid and I’m not defeated.”

Of course, her voice carried an entirely different tune.

“Oh, not nearly.” The purr in her tone was hoarse, remnants of her previous rage causing the slightest treble against her attempts to appear entirely unphased. “Can’t you tell? I simply can’t go a full twenty-four hours without orally dismantling a droid.” Coy, she danced around the true meaning he’d been pointing at. She knew he knew. Most who know enough about spice did. Keeping her hand in his and waiting for him to retreat, the flaxen assassin stated, “But truly, we came to talk business and a few foreign objects embedded in my lips never stopped me from getting a job done…so I would be most obliged if you would hear my partner out.”

Fett’s disregard for the Neti didn’t sneak past her radar. Sa’ato had more than earned her respect. As such, she was loyal in the fact that she’d encourage others to do the same in his presence, or take up arms against a far more dangerous foe than herself to defend him as he so often did for her.

Like a crow dive bombing lumberjacks after her favorite tree.

[Darth Fett]

She swigged and swished the vial of Zeltron pheromones and spit out the bulk of it. That vial had been the total yield from extraction of a subject over the course of a month. Sensual play had released some trace material from the subject, a holdover of latent biological function, but Fett and Reana had found extensive torture produced the most robust deposits. As the subject pleaded and vainly bargained consciously, subconsciously their body released its entire payload of pheromones in a desperate gambit to manipulate their captors. Naturally Fett had taken precautions for this, and Reana was naturally immune, being non-biological. The harvest itself had mostly been for Reana’s operations as the Hand of the Dark Lord and the occasional black op for what remained of the New Black Nebula syndicate. She carried a lightsaber, moved like a sith assassin, and was the most calculating, competent being Fett had ever encountered. She used her cunning, considerable strength, and her looks to her frequent advantage, but felt at a loss in further convincing marks she was an actual Force User. While the bottled pheromones released from a sterile bottle and not freshly imprinted with a specific biological imperative were significantly less potent, their concentration was enough to open a strong willed target to her verbal suggestion.

Unlike Reana, however, Kressara WAS biological. Whatever amount of concentrated compound which had entered her system would likely open her to suggestion, but significantly more fascinating was the prospect of her own body imprinting on and releasing those most potent pheromones. She of course was not a Zeltron, but her will was clearly strong and her mouth was torn to have given the concentrate ample opportunity to rush into her bloodstream. And judging by her eyes and other indicators what other arrays of chemical agents laid active or dormant in her system, ready to create some volatile cocktail to be released on herself, her companion, and her new acquaintance. What fresh hell would their bodies concoct when the alien pheromones mixed with her own, mixed with her blood-spice content, formed compounds and found a viable delivery system to the others? Would the particles be carried on the air, transmitted via sweat or blood? The anticipation gave him a rare flutter.

This had the potential to become a riveting drug trial, one with simply too many variables and potential for pure bedlam not to whet his mind’s ravenous appetite.

All this had factored into Fett offering his bare hand. He’d honestly expected her to bat it aside or circumvent the gesture entirely and rise defiantly and showily. He had hoped to get her emotions pumping again, her skin to radiate, and her hairs to stand on end. Only what she had instead done was so much better. It was all of that in spirit, only she made skin to skin contact, freshly torn gashes along her gloved fingers.

The power play, the challenge was instantly apparent. It read like poetry, etched and glittering in her corneas. As she stood there, fully erect, he endeavored to turn as many pages as he could in that manuscript buried within her outwardly steeled glare. Deeper entries would no doubt be harder to read– journals and obscure tomes under lock and key. Yet the Dark Lord's inclination to delve into each appendix, forward, and footnote was piqued.

He sidestepped, encircling the assassin’s gate while his hand remained steady, locked in a singular point in space. His left foot crossed his right twice, until he had positioned himself in a prime spot to make eye contact with either. And yet, with their locked hands, his arm now created a barrier between her and her ally.

It wasn’t some bestial show of machismo to attempt to claim her as some prize or thinly veil a looming threat to her well being, but to test the Neti’s boundaries. Sa’ato had an air about himself that came on so very thick, full of empty protocol and heaping praise and superlatives on those whose throne rooms he found himself having to grovel in. Fett had as little patience for propriety as he did being spoken to as if his ego were little more than a cheap porcelain tchotchke.

Bastards atop thrones deserved not even the unearned artifice of comfort. Even if that bastard was Fett himself.

The assassin exerted herself whilst still maintaining her second wind of composure and good humor, even as she made it abundantly clear it was floating on a shallow pool.

“Why, oh why,” his song danced with a gaity in its facetious ennui, “do they always come to my door when they need,” he stretched the word, “revolting?”

He broke eye contact with Kressara and cocked his neck almost beyond its snapping point, exaggerating the effort it took to behold the professor instead, “it’s enough to make a hermit wonder if it’s something personal.”

[Professor Mors]

Sa’ato remained silent as he took in their host’s theatrics. Giving a cursory amount of attention to the spiel, the Neti roll tapped the pad of his right thumb against his more slender index finger as he contemplated how to proceed. “I had not realized your services were so frequently sought– or so frequently given”, the professor answered softly, “Someone has clearly done a lackluster job of chronicling your exploits and fees”. Sa’ato was not oblivious to the difference in dynamic between the two when compared to Fett’s niceties– even playfulness towards Kressara. The bite in the academic words, though subtle, were an attempt to clear the air.

No grand speeches or verbal etiquette. If the man wanted to cut to the chase, so be it. “We have not traveled here to busy you with grunt work or banal bloodshed”, the Neti continued, glancing at Fett with eyes that seemed as if they were looking for something specific, “We are offering a unique expedition. A volatile agenda of treachery and warfare that will shatter the foundation of an entire planet”. Sa’ato paused and held up a flattened hand, lest his prospective ally grow weary of the finer diction, “But more importantly, for you, I extend a cure for boredom. A vacation from this decadent malaise–”.

Sa’ato gestured at the walls and ceiling to emphasize his point, before adding, “I refuse to believe you’ve grown so tired of the galaxy that you’re content to haunt intruders until your dying breath”. Having finished his little flourish, the Neti locked his hands behind his back. Though he did not smile, as the academic moved to conclude, his voice betrayed a certain enthusiasm, and a glimmer of pride, “My associate can attest to my capacity for both planning and flexibility. I can promise you, My Lord, the revels we orchestrate will be most invigorating”. Of course, Sa’ato had no bearing the depths of breadth of what sort of revels most delighted the secretive darth.

He only hoped that bargaining on the merits of pleasure would be more successful than reason…