Egregious Revelations [7 years prior]

[Necro Stormborn]

Music

The patter of footfalls echoed quietly in the hallways as the glaring white faux lights illuminated the corridor down which two individuals, who couldn't see the chasm that had begun forming between them, continued until coming to a stop in front of thick silvery durasteel doors. One of them, a Tall looming man wearing a dark trench coat of a particularly black sheen reached out a steady arm and depressed a small circular button recessed slightly into the marbled walls that decorated the ornate palace where which moments before an execution had just been carried out. Silvery blue eyes, unblinking and cold, stared at the wall waiting for a confirmation chirp to signify the turbolift had been called. clutched under this man's arm was a thin datapad and two dossiers on Republic operatives that had been flagged for retrieval after being discovered leaving Ord Radama and spotted entering the Thila system. They had been a top priority for discussion, if the republic had operatives this close to Ziost and Korriban.. it needed to be addressed. Normally it would have been, but suddenly it had become far less of a chief concern compared to what had just transpired minutes before. What this man had just observed was slowly, like a toxin rushing through his veins, destroying the sense of calm and control held within. A dryness took hold in his mouth and as a shrill tone heralding the arrival of the lift washed down the corridor, Darth Eurachis could feel his jaw tightening in response to a sense of confusion and anger welling inside.

He could feel her gaze scanning him, trying in vein to read some emotion from his face, some hint that he'd approved of or was onboard with what she'd just done. She got nothing. Cold and distant stares against the back of the lift while doors parted would be all she'd glean. Renata's form stood next to him as they stepped aboard and watched the lift close. He could hear her tap the pad set against the inner wall and he could feel the room begin to move as it sounded confirmation of its destination, but that was all he could feel. Everything else inside him was becoming infected with anger and disbelief. Surely this woman hadn't actually just executed one of his sisters, someone who'd come up in the ranks with him together, someone he'd come to know over the few years they'd worked together. It couldn't have been possible that a Dark Lady of the Sith could be so easily thrown to ravenously vindictive aristocrats as a scapegoat, and then, so quickly used as a stepping stool for one's own need for power. Sure, Darth Eurachis had plenty of unnecessary blood on his own hands in his rise to power and in his occupation to win this war, but this was someone closer... and it was, acquaintance or not, a sister.... a word he didn't use lightly. A word he gave the utmost deference.

In the end it had happened and he couldn't undo it. His frustration was beginning to boil beneath that tanned peach skin of his, and it took all his discipline to keep from showing even an inkling of what he truly felt about this whole situation besides the distant steely resolve he maintained on the surface. What's more, when he'd discovered what was to happen, he'd been unable to stop her. He'd arrived too late, his ship the Inevitable had been several jumps away when word had come. He'd tried to question her openly in the throne room, amongst hungry onlookers, ready to devour their infighting, but she wouldn't have it. She'd rather aggressively, and pointedly, ended the spectacle and in the process attempted to make him small, to push aside his need for answers, and so now all she would get is stoic silence, regardless of how much he wanted to slam the wall and scream relentlessly.

No.

That was something she'd have to wait for, something he'd dispense the moment they were in her quarters, perhaps even before the door had fully closed. It was coming, and she need to be knocked down a peg. He hadn't even started to think about her comment of being empress, and taking over. She was most likely speaking ahead of herself, she must have meant the two of them, her as empress and he as emperor. She must have meant they would rule as a unit. That was something he'd need to ask about, and the more he thought on it now the more he could feel his fist tightening and his violent urges thriving. How good it would feel right now to pick her up by the neck and slam her into a wall and watch the fear creep into her eyes and redness flush into her pale cheeks as she gasped for air, wondering if he'd actually do it, wondering if he was capable of doing it.

No.

For now he stared at the wall in front of him, as her eyes swept him up and down and as her body mere inches from his, stewing in the chasm that had formed between them. Soon she'd get her answer, however, it might be an ugly one.

[Meira]

He was ruining everything.

It had all gone according to plan. She had not wanted to do what she had done, but it had to be done. The fate of the Empire, of the galaxy, balanced upon it. He would see. As soon as this... this fit had run its course, he would see.

The woman, much thinner and smaller, trailed behind the man. She cocked her head as her eyes gazed at the back of his head, at his shoulders. Normally, she could sense what lay beneath. She'd never tried to really reach into him, but she could usually pull those surface thoughts or emotions out, if she wanted to. Now, he was solid as stone. He was keeping it all from her. Not just his deeper thoughts, guarded as they should be and inappropriate for her to delve into, all of it. She bristled. Her brows knitting together in disappointment and just a touch of insult. She almost spoke, there in the corridor. She'd opened her mouth to question him, but stopped. No, not even here. If he had closed himself off so completely from her, then he was... preparing? Collecting himself, perhaps. He never liked feeling off balance. The days events must certainly have been a surprise to him.

Following him into the lift, she turned and pressed the button for the penthouse suite. Her quarters now. She stood beside him, glancing sidelong once or twice, her mind reaching toward his, but he was as still and unresponsive as a slap of duracrete. She sighed, rolling her eyes back toward the lift doors and watched as they rose ever higher toward the top of the palace tower. She could understand that he would be surprised by the execution, even upset. But he'd been gone, off doing his duty to the Order and to the Empire. Could he not see, or at least trust, that she was doing the same? Could he not, at the very least, concede that he did not have all the information at the moment and that she just might be able to fill him in on the details?

Her own anger began to surface, moving across her skin like a fire. How dare he! He'd come in late, making a spectacle of himself and she had to clean it up. It had all gone so perfectly and he had ruined it! She should have expected something like this from him. Perhaps it was her own fault for assuming he'd act rationally. Eurachis could be relied upon to be cold, calculating and rational in all matters pertaining to battle. But he had no finesse, no mind for politics. She should have known that such a surprise would put him off his balance. He didn't like to feel that way. it bruised his ego and Eurachis' ego was a delicate thing. But she'd had no time to coddle his feelings! The Empire needed action, needed leadership. It needed and Empress.

He wanted to keep her out of his mind. That was fine. She was no fool. She knew that behind that wall he'd thrown up, he was reeling. Let him reel. Renata, for her part, made no effort to hide her anger toward him. He was behaving like a child. The lift chirped out their arrival at the penthouse and the door opened soundlessly. Renata stepped forward and moved through the small entry hall into the main lounge. Her senses reached outward, searching for any stray servant or guard who might be present, but finding only the solid mass of nothing Eurachis had made himself. They were alone now. The nearest glint of life several floors below them.

"Would you care to explain that little outburst of yours?" she said, her voice soft and controlled.

[Necro Stormborn]

The dossier under the Dark Lord's arm began to bend and crinkle with pressure as he squeezed his arm closer to his body trying harder and harder to quiet the rush of red, billowing towards the surface with each step he took as he exited the lift and entered the penthouse. His gaze centered on a dresser made of dark krennel wood and focused there for a moment as his hands tightened into fists. he began to turn his neck slowly and uncomfortably as her words drifted through the room, panging off the walls and squirming their way into his ears. Her voice assaulting him like the cacophonous clatter that follows when metal pans fall and dance loudly across the floor.

The sound of knuckles cracking and his skin tightening in his fists permeated the dead space that followed after she'd finished her question. Is she kidding? Dark and hate filled eyes swept slowly across the room until they settled like crosshairs on her, staring deep, penetratingly into her own, screaming what he really thought but hadn't said. The rage behind them was unmistakeable. Locking his eyes with hers for a moment he huffed silently through flaring nostrils before tearing his gaze away from her and approaching the dresser he'd spotted earlier. It was one of her favorites...a prize from Jabiim, and an expensive one.

Eurachis's hands settled slowly on the flat wooden surface as the file between his right arm slid quietly to the floor, no longer important. As it lay flat upon the floor, the documents inside slightly spilling out from the edges, the Dark Lord tilted his head upwards and rolled his neck, cracking it with slight pops and crunches. As dark eyes bore holes into the ceiling his hands gripped tighter against the wood in front of him, his knuckles whitening as the sounds of wood beginning to collapse under pressure creaked silently through the atrium.

"You want me ..... to explain myself?" He paused momentarily, to suck in a heavy breath of air, before exhaling in a low puff, attempting to keep his cool..for as long as he could. "Me? Do you even know what you've done? How far you may have just set us back?"

Darth Eurachis's head turned back down as his body pivoted to turn towards her, he needed to look her in the eyes when he said his next words. "Do you even care? Does consulting with me... the man WINNING OUR WAR, THE MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FLUSH LIFE YOU CAN NOW AFFORD YOURSELF... did that not even cross your mind? Or perhaps it did...and you felt I wasn't important enough to bring into the tent. PERHAPS YOU THOUGHT YOU'D MAKE MY DECISION FOR ME?" As he finished his last words he raised his palms and slapped them back down onto the wood, reaching beneath the lip of the dresser with both hands, slamming it hard into the wall and tossing it to the side, sending it careening across the room behind him, rumbling and fracturing loudly as wood splintered off every which way until a final BANG as it collided with the back wall adjacent to a viewport, cracking it.

"YOU WANT ME TO EXPLAIN MYSELF?" he shouted angrily at her while the muscles in his neck twitched and shot blood rushing fiercely through him. He tried to bring himself back down to the ground and lowered his voice as he stared coldly. "Please, say that to me again...It really gets me going."

[Meira]

His control was slipping, or he was letting it. With each moment that passed after she spoke, the anger began to seep from him more and more. The dead silence in the air seemed ready to take any spark and engulf the entire room in flame. He moved to the dresser at the wall opposite where the transparasteel windows overlooked the city and the surrounding jungle that was constantly threatening to reclaim it. She could see the coiling of his muscles, the bulging of the veins in his neck. She had seen him angry, had seen him consumed in rage and the force in battle. But she had never seen him like this. For a moment, her own anger faltered as her mind searched for a way in.

"Do you even know what you've done? How far you may have just set us back?"

And just like that, her anger returned. "I just saved us!" she scoffed, one arm gesturing toward the lift to encompass the Aristocrats they'd just left behind. But Eurachis had turned around, his eyes a storm, and spitting words like blaster fire.

"Winning the war?!" she shouted back at him, even as he continued. "We aren't winning the war! And if we were, what good is it if the Empire crumbles while you're out there winning it!"

But he was still yelling. Renata's nostrils flared as she clamped her mouth shut to keep from just screaming at him. He moved, and her senses sent a warning shooting up her spine. She stepped nimbly to the side as he threw the dresser across the room, shattering it to pieces and cracking the window. She watched it sail by, then turned her eyes back toward the man, teeth grinding together. He shouted again, and then seemed to try to bring himself back into some semblance of control. She shook her head at him, incredulous.

"There's more to this war than playing general and slaughtering your enemies. If you think this life is so flush, then by all means, stay and prove it to me." she spat, stepping closer to him. "Maybe then I would be able to consult you. Maybe then you could have a say. But you WEREN'T HERE!" she emphasized the last two words, pointing a long, thin finger toward him. "A decision had to be made. Our future had to be secured!"

She stopped, stepping back and beginning to pace as one hand moved to her hair, wiping it from her face. The other she lifted, in exasperation. What was she supposed to do? Sit by idly, waiting for him to come home and give her permission to act? Did she need his consent now? She shook her head, resolve and fury rising within her and driving her back toward him.

"We are bleeding resources." she said, her voice softer but still sharp with anger. "At this rate we will be lucky to maintain the systems we have, let alone continue your outrageously expensive campaigns. You want to be the war hero, but you don't want to do the real work of running this Empire." She squared herself toward him. "I'm not setting us back. I'm pushing us forward."

[Necro Stormborn]

Nostrils flared as air was sucked in rapidly and expelled just as fast. The anger Eurachis had tried to control, rage he'd disciplined himself against, was slowly winning a war of attrition inside his mind. His eyes darted across her face, down to her mouth, back to her eyes and then swept across the room as she leveled accusations at him, pointedly expressing her disinterest in the battles he'd been fighting or the war that he was trying to win. His hands flew outwards in mock exaltation as he lowered his head patronizingly.

"Oh, so if I'd been here... then you'd have consulted me? Because a tight beam message sent through one of our hundreds of relays was too difficult, right?" He swirled back towards her and stepped closer, a few feet away but still looming over her like a dark tower. He lowered his voice, appearing both calm and reasonable while his body language and rage inside him coalesced and began spilling out into the room. "You're probably right... without you we wouldn't have the money to enjoy the freedoms my efforts are affording us. Without you we might not be able to catch the next episode of 'All my Zabraks' or sit down under winelight and escape into a holozine about the best in Mygeetan fashion.." He scoffed and looked down her arm at the pointed finger she'd thrust out painting him with childish audacity as the villain, after she'd just executed an inner-sanctum member. "pfft...Our future... you HAD to make a decision about OUR future? Really? That's fucking great Renata... really. Fucking gold."


She kept on, trying to inject her logic into things... trying to suggest that she'd done something noble, that she had no choice, it was too late though. He'd offered her a lifeline, the Dark Lord had asked her a question, one in which he'd made himself vulnerable, and all she had to do was confirm that they were on even footing. He'd asked if she'd even thought about including him, if he was even important...and she had jut glazed right over it with reason and logic... like she always did. How can she just do that, He'd have put her first, or at least he'd have told her his plan. But no, she didn't tell him, and wasn't going to. He'd found out about this from one of his Admiral's. What a lie this whole thing seemed now. How self absorbed she looked in just that moment.

He pivoted and slammed the wall in anger with his fist, sending marble cascading across the floor as puffs of dust and debris slowly drifted towards the ground. He shouted at her as he retracted his bloodied knuckles, "I DON'T DO THE REAL WORK? FUCK YOU! YOU THINK IM NOT DOING REAL WORK, YOU THINK WHAT I DO IS EASY!?" He roared at her as his hands twisted tighter and tighter in fists....and then she said it.

"I'm not setting us back. I'm pushing us forward."

His tone dropped low and soft to the floor again as his eyes bore into her, specks of red slowly creeping into the silvery pools of blue that shined under the faux florescent lights, bathing the walls and floor of the Dark Lady's living quarters. "Pushing us... or pushing you forward?" He blinked after a long pause punctuated by an even longer stare. He stepped quietly closer to within an arms reach of her now.

"You just killed one of us... a member of the inner sanctum, like it was nothing, just to appease some scrooges that have money. We can find money elsewhere... we don't NEED them. They bow to us, not the other way around.... " his voice seemed tired but the air was still stale and filled with anger as he spoke. "This was so foolish of you. Who's next? ME?" He paused once again before continuing after making a point to list himself as a target, since clearly he wasn't as important to her as she'd been to him. "Vesperia? Perhaps we just keep going down the list, no one's safe right? "

[Meira]

The sarcasm that came from him might have been more infuriating than his physical lashing out. While his loss of control was contemptible, his utter dismissal of her words was beyond bearable. "Yes, OUR future!" she interjected. What was so difficult about that to understand? Did he find it so surprising? Did he think so little of her, that he didn't even believe she was capable of considering them both in her plans? She watched him now from a new angle, as he paced away, returned. As the control he'd worked so hard to maintain crumbled around him.

He turned, throwing his fist into the marble wall. He shouted. He cursed at her. Any other day, even with the insults, she might have gone to him then. She might have found a clean towel and water to soothe his hand. She might have understood the outburst, even as she disapproved of it. But today, Eurachis had revealed a truth to Renata. And that truth was quickly hardening the heart that had softened toward him. That truth spoke of a man who did not trust, for all his outward imitations of it. For all his gifts and doting. For all his so-called vulnerability, Eurachis did not trust Renata.

"Pushing us... or pushing you forward?"

Her eyes met his. The same dark energies that flowed into and through him filled her as well. Where he splashed and flailed around it in, she simply drew it in, allowing it to stoke her rage with quiet intensity. Dark blue and electric blue both slowly gave way to crimson.

"Us." she said, lifting her chin defiantly toward him. She had meant the word. He was the one that could not believe it.

He stepped closer, each word meant as a knife to dig into her. To hurt her. Was he trying to shame her for her decision? She scoffed, a smile tugging at the corners of her thin lips. There was no satisfaction in that smile though, only disgust and disbelief at his ignorance. Renata pulled her anger inward, compressing it to allow her outward presence to seem as if it had been bested. She made herself small. It was what she was good at and, she now realized, what Eurachis seemed to need. How had she missed it? How had she allowed herself to assume he was different than any other man in the galaxy. She moved toward him, closing that arm length gap to mere inches. Renata reached up her hands, touching hesitant fingers to his chest.

It was the first time they'd touched since he'd returned and stormed into the grand hall, since he'd left on campaign months prior. The contact burned through her. All the anger and betrayal that he felt but was trying to hold back from her. It washed over her, leaving her gasping. She pressed her palms to him, intent on diving through his surface pain. She touched her forehead to his chest as her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, as if she needed to anchor herself to him. Her mind moved through his, knowing some of the pathways by heart, but looking more intently now down the other, darker paths she dared not ever tread. Not for fear of the man, but for respect. Those were paths that she trusted he withheld for good reason. Just as she withheld her own from him. She found the care he held for her, a bruised and nearly broken creature. How small it was, she realized. And surrounded by so many forbidden paths. There was nowhere for it to go that brought it closer to his soul. She withdrew from that care, from him. She pulled her presence from him so quickly, so coldly, that there was no doubt that he felt it through him, like a shock of ice water thrown over flame.

"If you think this was only about money," she spoke into his chest, "or about who bows to whom..." Renata lifted her eyes so that they connected with his as she stepped back away from him, her hands breaking the contact last. "Then I am assured of my decision. You are a great leader of armies, Eurachis. But you are no Emperor."

[Necro Stormborn]

His voice banged through the room, drilling her, assaulting her with sarcasm but clearly burning with condescension. He poured his frustration out all over the room, filled it with his ugly twisted feelings that were welling up inside him. Dark eyes peered down at her wiry frame, as his hands ground against themselves, fingers digging deep into palms as fists bore white knuckles and forearms etched out a veined muscular pose. She was beautiful in her purple satin dress, that flowed like water on her, and he hated that he still, even while being crowded in his own mind with hate and thoughts of betrayal, he could still appreciate her appearance.

She moved closer to him, and reached out shaking and uncertain fingers. Eurachis stared down at them as they moved slowly through the air closing on his chest. He wanted badly to swat them away and continue yelling at her, to make his point..that this was not just a slip up... that this was a grave error in trust, but he also hadn't felt her in months. His hands unfurled and slid down hanging limp as he finally felt her warm hands push against his chest. The Dark Lord's eyes softened at the touch as he looked down to look upon her face as she moved in and pushed tightly against him with her palms, pushing her forehead against his chest, fingers wrapping tightly in the cloth of his shirt. Hesitation gave way to inaction. He was conflicted. Eurachis knew that he was right in this, he had to be. Overreacting, maybe.... but she'd definitely overstepped. He'd trusted her, and he thought she'd respected him enough not to make such a drastic decision without at least roping him in, especially killing a sanctum member. What was she thinking? And what was this Empress bit? that kept coming back up in his mind, he wanted to ask but he was still uncertain and didn't want to pour fuel on the fire that was already burning like an inferno between them, furthering what felt a chasm forming placing them on different ends of the room, even when just inches apart with her forehead just below him, burying itself in his form. Hesitation again, gave way to inaction. He wanted to stop this fight, even for just a moment, even if he felt like she was so wrong, and he so right. The urge to bring a hand up, wrap it around her cheek, and slide it to the back of her neck and cradle her against him was very potent, and if this went on for just a few moments longer he would definitely....

Then it was cold again. Eurachis's eyes blinked open again as he looked down in surprise. she'd reeled back and away from him like he was some gruesome sight before her. It almost made him feel small. She'd brought him back down, if only for a moment, and calmed him...belaying the tyrant's roar that was no doubt ready to bellow in her direction any moment, and then just as quickly she'd ripped it away. He felt like She'd just tore roots out of him, that somehow in the seconds that were there own minor eternity, she'd ingrained herself in him and then in her haste to pull away she'd tore free meters worth of roots, ripping with them blood and emotion. "Renata.." Eurachis mouthed silently as he watched her twist back from him while she spoke into his chest, continuing with a dry tone, cold and emotionless, as she stepped back far enough to gaze into his softened eyes, pulling away her hands last.

He stood before her, towering yet shattered by her last statement. It was as he feared. Eyes widened as understanding finally coiled itself around his heart and his stomach suddenly gave out and dropped low leaving the taste of iron and dryness in his mouth as a pit rapidly materialized in his chest. The sinking feeling made him incredibly uncomfortable. It was a feeling he'd not had in years. Darth Eurachis stared at her and started to say something and then paused a moment to stop himself from stuttering. He exhaled deeply, and cleared his throat. "Wow... just like that." His body went rigid again and the Dark Lord stepped away for a moment to stare sideways into the mirror above where the dresser had been, his chest, shoulders and eyes, despondent. "mhmm..", he sucked in his lips, almost as if he were biting them and then his hand tightened again back into their ironclad fists. Suddenly, fast...with speed enhanced by a force rage and burning hatred, his hand cut through the air and slapped her wide, and hard.

"That's what i am to you? You think you're going to step over Novus's neck and onto mine next? You Will NEVER be my Empress, and I will NEVER be ruled by you. We were supposed to be a team, partners.. something more... I thought, clearly I have indeed misplaced more than just my feelings for you."

He stepped closer, his hands rising slowly ready to smack her again. This was absolute nonsense, and now it felt as though he'd been used. Crawling into his pants, worming her way into his heart, warming his icy surface only to make him an easier target to twist and press to her bidding.

"That out there.... I will not allow that to happen. You don't get to ascend the mountain without me, and you definitely don't get to play with my heart and think I'm not going to turn the blade quickly back on you...." All she would see was his form lumbering closer, empowered by his rage now, as if he'd found something to latch himself, abate his hesitation, and replace it with resolve. her gaze would no doubt see his hand twisting towards his belt... his saber was in view now too. If she hadn't thought him serious, perhaps now she would. perhaps now, the fear thousands had felt on the battlefield would work its way into her and take hold. The Dark Lord was on a warpath now, and if she couldn't bring him back down, she was going to experience first hand the animal he unleashed on his enemies.

[Meira]

It hadn’t been anything like what she’d done to Novus. What had grown between Renata and Eurachis had not been something so formal as a Force Bond, but it had still been powerful. As she pulled away from him, full or certainty though she was, Renata still felt what she tore away. Like peeling away skin to leave the muscles and nerves, their connection still held but it was exposed and raw. Her mouth fell open a few moments after her assertion, and she could feel the tears threatening to well in her eyes. But Renata drew in her breath, shaky at first but stronger when she released it. He had been the one to push them to this point. Had he trusted, had he asked instead of demanded, it would not have had to be this way.

”Wow... just like that.”

Renata flexed her jaw, standing herself up straighter. Yes, she thought, just like-

The blow came so quickly, so suddenly that she had not time to move. Eurachis put the full force of his body into the slap and once it connected, it spun Renata almost completely around. Her vision exploded in bursts of white. Her left ear was ringing as she collapsed to her knees, hands flailing out to catcher herself before she fell entirely to the floor. The skin of her face, from her brow to her chin burned with the sting of the blow and she tasted copper as blood poured from the cut on her lip that his ring had opened up.

He was shouting at her, but she could hardly hear him. As her vision steadied, her eyes counted the drops of blood as they fell and pooled on the stone floor. When she felt like she could move again without throwing the world around her into another dizzying spin, she brought her left hand up to her cheek and turned her head back toward Eurachis. Through the hair that had fallen down over her face, she could see him, his height seeming colossal from where she had fallen below him.

He stepped closer, his hand raising again and Renata shrunk back in reflex. She swept her hair back from her face so that she could see him clearly if he should strike out again. Her eyes were wide as she tried to push herself back and away from him. Her hand slipped in the blood and she almost lost her balance but she pushed with feet and managed to slide away from him as he advanced. Wide eyes saw his movements, his hand moving to his saber and Renata lifted her own hand, covered in blood and with a yelp of fear she unleashed a wave of the force to push him back. She was pushed as well, and with the distance between them increased she scrambled to her feet, one hand moved to the slit in the skirt of her dress, quickly retrieving the lightsaber held on a garter at her thigh. The other reached out, seeking her shoto saber through the force where it lay in the splintered pile fo the dresser. It shot through the air and into her left hand as she took the other into her right.

“You will not allow it?!” She shouted back at him, spitting out a mouthful of blood onto the ground between them. “I never wanted to rule you, Eurachis.” she said, her nostrils flaring. “But they need clear, singular leadership. You have compromised that. You should have trusted me.” she practically screamed the last at him, her composure quickly dissolving.

”Empress…” The voice came from a comm on the wall. ”Is everything alright? Do you need assistance?”

Renata’s eyes turned back to Eurachis, her jaw clenching. She could feel his anger boiling over. Don’t, she thought. Don’t do it.