Aftermath

[Rabbit]

He would eradicate the Archeri.

Destroy their very memory from the stars. Turn them into nothing more potent than a story told to children to scare them into obedience. With the might of the entire Imperial military at his command, Darth Invictus had narrowed his life goals down to one: to desiccate the insidious hive-mind that dared to threaten his Empire...and most surely, his Ascendancy.

Keelen couldn't sleep...not since that harrowing mission to the hell-scape that once been the beautiful resort world of Teth. Eyes open or closed, he could still hear the voices in his head. Could still hear the Conductor beckoning to him...then cursing him. He could feel the disgust and hatred that had been directed toward him when the Conductor had realized that he was Force Sensitive...and that the proud Chiss would not succumb.

Never. He would take his own life, all those around him, if it came to that. The memory of the bones beneath the fungus, the half-decomposing bodies that made the ground uneven and vile, would make him secretly shudder until his dying breath. Keelen had to force himself to not imagine how those poor souls had met their fate - if what he had read about the Plague was any indication, it had been unspeakably horrific, drawn out over days.

He wouldn't wish that on his worse enemy. If it came down to it, he'd defend damn Coruscant from such a fate. The Archeri, and everything about them, was the text-book definition of abomination. Just thinking their name made his skin crawl, made him want to run to the nearest shower and scrub himself until he didn't have skin that could crawl.

Those bastards will burn.

He wasn't even sure fire was an effective tactic against them. But, by the Red Flame, he'd experiment. Gleefully. Keelen had never let himself dive deep into the Dark Side of the Force - his inherent Chissness had always held him back. But, when he imagined pulling a clump of Astrid's rotting hair out of a layer of fungus beneath his feet...when he thought of Theenas dying slowly from the Plague...when he dared consider the possibility of his daughter's body being subsumed into a twisted tree of unholy fruit...

Oh, when he imagined such things, he felt his blood turn to pure ice in his fury. There were no words to describe what he felt, but his anger turned so cold it burned.

The scientists and Sith alchemists would examine the 'specimens' he, Astrid, Imago, and Zarene had nearly given their lives to collect. (In fact, he wasn't altogether convinced that two of them hadn't...both Imago and Zarene had sustained severe injuries from the Conductor and from what Keelen had managed to grasp from the reports, Archeri inflicted wounds were an open invitation to the Plague.) But, Keelen would find some way of examining the Archeri from a tactical and strategic point of view. He would dissect their hive mind if he could. He'd find the damn key to annihilating their damn "Chorus".

It would cost lives, that he knew. It would cost planets, and time, and resources. Mistakes would be made - mistakes would have to be made. But, he would analyze every move, every misjudgment, every loss...and he'd find their weakness.

He had to. He was Praetor Magnus, and he had an entire Empire...quite possibly an entire galaxy...that depended on him finding a way of dismantling the Archeri on every accumulating battlefield, until there was nothing left of them for future generations to remember.

This was what the military was for, after all. At its basest, a military conquered. At its finest, it protected. And by all the stars and systems around them, Inrok'eele'nuruodo would make any alliance, make every impossible choice, plumb the deepest Darkest depth of the Force, to protect.

He would lose himself to his fury, lose his life to the Archeri if he must...but he would not lose.

But, first...he had to take stock of this first encounter. He had to debrief, had to examine the mission from every angle he could think of...and before all of that, he had to check in on his apprentice.

Oh, his foolish, reckless, youthful apprentice. Keelen was only too well aware that he had almost lost her on Teth, and he had no desire to face that possibility again any time soon. Certainly not on their next encounter with the Archeri.

And there would be, most certainly, a next encounter.

He strode into the Revenant's med bay and waved his hand dismissively when all the technicians, nurses, and doctors in sight of him snapped to attention.

"At ease," he rumbled.

He paused a moment, though, and watched as the others relaxed - or, relaxed as much as any junior officer or enlisted person relaxed in the presence of their commanding officer. He was about to speak, when the Chief Medical Officer practically materialized at Keelen's right elbow.

The Chiss always marveled at Dr. Marloff's talent for doing that. He had finally decided, after too many times of being privately taken off guard by the older man, that it probably came from a military career built on a career with special forces. This was Marloff's first ship-side command - in all his previous twenty years of illustrious service, he had been in the field with the Empire's most elite.

"Your apprentice is this way, m'lord," Marloff stepped up and away from Keelen, toward their left.

The Sith nodded in acknowledgement and allowed the doctor to guide him through the rather extensive medical bay that the Revenant boasted. Astrid was in the back of the bay, last bed on the port-side. Her privacy was respected by crisp white dividers that were set up between all of the bay's beds. Unlike most, though, there was one in front of her bed that served as something of a door-on-wheels; Marloff pulled it aside for Keelen and then went back to his previous duties on feet as silent as ever.

Keelen watched him go - he at least took the satisfaction of observing Marloff's departures, if not his arrivals. Then, he stepped into the tiny cubicle that was barely big enough to fit a bed and maybe one technician and a doctor on either side of said bed. Astrid lay in front of him, her skin pale against the sheets, and her dark hair a startling contrast to the medical-white pillow beneath her head.

He sidled up to her right side (he could barely move without brushing his back against the durasteel bulkhead behind him) and eyed her thoughtfully for a moment. A touch of rare humor touched the corners of his lips and warmed his usually-brisk tone.

"You're becoming entirely too familiar with this part of the ship, Apprentice. What do you have to say for yourself this time?"

[tenkalus]

The world was a blanket of darkness. There were moments where Astrid would wake up and her comfort of blackness would be whisked away, lost to the blinding and sterile white and polished silver of the med bay. In those moments, Astrid knew pain again. Occasionally, she woke up to find herself suspended in a kolto tank with a mask fixed to her face for air circulation, but then she’d just fall asleep again, obeying Doctor Marloff’s orders to rest and relax her body.

What would she say when Keelen finally came to see her? Would he see her? Was he angry that she’d taken a dangerous or potentially fatal risk, even for the success of the mission? She couldn’t exactly tell him that she’d willingly sacrificed herself so that he could survive. She couldn’t tell her master that he was more important to the Empire than she was. His loss on Teth would have been devastating, while hers would have barely been felt.

It wasn’t something an acolyte had authority to say or even believe. They were to follow orders and learn. Astrid hadn’t waited for orders. She’d acted impulsively and with her heart, not her mind. At least not initially. Tactics had in fact played a part in her decision to draw attention to herself, even if it had been a mostly subconscious decision.

For hours, she just lay quietly in her bed, sleeping off the negative effects of the warriors cocktail and the injuries she’d sustained in combat. In that medical bed that she was now oh-so-familiar with, Astrid began reaching for the illusive edges of meditation that Keelen had started to show her before that mission to Teth. She tried to forget the scraping whispers of voices in her head back on the planet. The voices that wanted to invade her very soul. They remained in her thoughts, though it was nothing more than psychological trauma fed from fear, according to the good doctor. Biologically, Astrid Blackspyre had been given a clean bill of health. Technically speaking.

The thought amused her and frightened her at the same time. “Clean bill of health” meant she’d not been infected by the Archeri. But it also didn’t speak to any of the injuries she’d sustained. Two broken ribs, one cracked one, a fractured radial bone in her left forearm, severe muscle tissue damage in her left arm from the dislocated shoulder she’d popped it back in the socket herself, along with multiple additional muscular trauma’s in that same region when she’d tried to use said appendage so quickly and put more strain on it. A laceration across her hairline from an Archeri arm blade, though Marloff assured her it wouldn’t scar (she wasn’t sure why it wouldn’t, but he was the doctor after all). She was also bruised all over her torso now, looking effectively like she’d contracted some kind of disease with all of the blue and purple patches spotting her skin. Oh and the icing on the cake was the minor concussion she’d given herself when she’d slipped down the ladder to the turret well and smacked her melon against the wall.

She’d seen her armor when they’d stripped it off of her as they got back to the Revenant. The sight of it’s sorry state had given her pause and made her reflect on exactly how close she’d come to death. It was dented and scratched all over, as if she’d ran into a storm of blades and somehow emerged out the other side. Entire sections were missing, most notably the plate over her heart. The enemy had apparently deigned to take Astrid out in the end, instead of trying to convert her. If the fight had gone on longer, she’d have had a blade run through her ticker and out the other side of her back. Even her prized bracers were scrap now. Though she’d screamed at the techs when they tried to take them away. Keelen had given her those personally. One had made it through relatively undamaged but it would never be pretty again. The other? Well. It was very evident that the armor was the only reason she still had a left hand. It was crumpled horribly, and they’d actually had to take a plasma cutter to it to remove it from her arm. Still, she’d refused to let the techs get rid of them, and the broken armor now sat sadly on her bedside tray, next to a very dirty and slightly damaged lightsaber.

All to say, Astrid was in a sorry state. Luckily, she hadn’t needed any surgery to fix the damage and Marloff had told her in his detached way, that she’d be fine in a few weeks, and also not to scratch at her healing cuts, (she couldn’t help herself when the doctor wasn’t looking. Rapidly healing cuts sealing up with help from kolto were itchy damnit!). But now, she was wrapped up in her bed. Bandages on her forehead and cheek, her left arm immobilized by a compression sling against her chest and her forearm set and casted, held fast by the sling as well. All she could really do on her left side was manage to wiggle her fingers freely.

It wasn’t like she needed to move anyway, any movement hurt so bad that she felt as if a new ensign had parked the Revenant on her chest. The broken ribs were on her right side so she couldn’t roll that way, and couldn’t roll left because of her shoulder. She was helpless.

But still, Keelen hadn’t made an appearance. He was probably furious with her. Or busy. Or furious and busy, though no one could probably tell the difference by looking at him. She’d tried to get out of bed to seek him out one day and the scream she’d involuntarily let out as her ribs flared up in protest had promptly gotten the medical staff to push her back to bed. After that, they’d upped her pain meds to keep her mostly sedated through the healing process. The only time she was allowed to be cognizant and moving was at meal time, when they fed her with an IV bag linked into her right arm. She’d been so excited the first time the medic had told her it was time to eat. Her mouth had watered so bad she’d drooled on herself. But she quickly realized that they weren’t bringing her food. And why should they? She couldn’t even get out of bed to use the fresher. She also didn’t need her stomach inflating when she put solid food in it because it would put pressure on her ribs.

The real downside to being bedridden was that she couldn’t even reach out to her master with the Force. Since the pain meds had knocked her (metaphorically) on her ass, she couldn’t focus enough mentally to connect to Keelen. So even that end was dry, and she felt very alone.

An entire day had gone by without anyone seeing her. She tried to sleep through it all, and that was made a lot easier with the medicine making her loopy. Marloff had decreed she receive no visitors until she was done with treatment and he was able to see how she was responding to it. But Marloff was just a man. He was no match for the will of the 316th Marine Battalion, special forces division.

Or rather, the marines had waited until he went to sleep that first night and snuck in after two of them gently distracted the med tech on duty, allowing their sergeant to slip in unnoticed. Breena Omahri had arrived just as Astrid was starting to doze off again, and sat with her a while whispering affirmations to her as she slept. She wasn’t even sure it had happened, she was so doped up it was just as feasible that Astrid had imagined the entire thing.

The following morning, Astrid refused to get excited about breakfast as the tech told her it was feeding time. She watched in a silent, puffy, grumpy rage as he hooked a new IV bag to her stand. He smiled at her.

She glared irritably back.

Someone must have changed her med rotation again because while she was laying there with her eyes closed, focused on trying to meditate, she felt a fresh wave of cool, crisp numbness tingling through her veins. The walls were moving again, one even peeled away and flew away into the clouds when she opened her eyes. Had the ship always had clouds? It must have, for the barrier to just fly away like that. Astrid decided it was a legitimate thing, but immediately questioned reality when the barrier was replaced by a hovering blueberry wearing a uniform. Slack jawed and crazy eyed, Astrid tried to make sense of the blueberry and why it was here. Had Keelen conscripted fruit into the marines?

Were they tasty?

But then her eyes decided to focus slightly through the glaze and she saw her masters face. She had to tell him about the blueberries! Maybe there was pie too…mmmmm pie…

The Keelen-berry was talking to her. What was he saying?

“Something something blah ship something. Blah blah say for yourself something about pine?” That didn’t make sense, who used pine in pies? That was wood. Did berries grow from pine?

But something kicked her consciousness from its delirious phase and made her blink again. Her Sith master, had just asked her what she had to say for herself. It had nothing to do with pie at all.

Her eyes narrowed conspiratorially and her face screwed up in concentration, trying not to burst before she spoke to him. She let out a long, strained snort and pushed her head back into her pillow, shaking slightly with effort before slurring the words with a thickened tongue made lead by the drugs, “.....You shood see da othur guy…..?” and then promptly cut loose in a cackle.

Only to wince and lurch forward in pain when her ribs reminded her that no amount of meds would change the fact that they were broken.

“Owwwwwwwwwwwwww.” she squealed in a breathless voice, suddenly very sober as she placed her only good hand on her bandaged abdomen in agony.

[Rabbit]

Keelen gazed sadly down at his apprentice - she was in worse shape than he had originally thought. It'd already been several days since they'd returned to the Revenant, and she was still out of it mentally and physically. He had apparently misjudged his timing, as she didn't look or act at all ready for visitors.

All the same, he sat down slowly in a chair that had been set at the left-hand side of the bed. The Chiss considered her carefully for a moment longer, then leaned forward and placed a hand gently on hers. He made sure not to add any further pressure to her stomach; his skin practically hovered over hers, barely touching her.

It was a strange feeling...to be a Sith, a Pillar of the Empire, to have so much power at his fingertips, and to feel absolutely helpless. Healing wasn't Keelen's strong suit by any stretch of the imagination. He could effect some of his own physical needs when necessary, but those of another person? Out of the question. The best he could do, was to let his medical staff continue their work on Astrid.

In the meantime, though, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to sit with her. Though...that made Keelen feel a little awkward. He had come to talk to her, but what could be said when she could barely shape words with her tongue?

So, he just awkwardly patted her hand, taking care to keep his touch as light as possible.

"You did well, Apprentice," Keelen said softly - it was the only thing he could think of to say, given the circumstances.

And it was the truth. Youth had definitely lead Astrid to act a bit impulsively on Teth, but she had fought with strength and courage, and she had prevailed. What more could one ask of an apprentice of Strife? What more could he ask of his own apprentice?

[tenkalus]

“You did well, Apprentice.”

Astrid was only vaguely aware of contact on her skin. But the words echoed in her mind over and over again in that familiar voice. The voice brought her comfort on a subconscious level and her body relaxed, allowing her to drift off into a numbed sleep.

Astrid dreamed.

She dreamed of Panatha, and of her father. She dreamt of the warrior and the slave, and how they had been eradicated in her mind, yet they both showed up in the dream, whole and watching her with judging eyes. She had to turn away from their gaze. She turned her back on her former selves and walked toward Keelen. They were firmly in the past and needed to stay that way. They had gotten her through some trying times, but it had been Keelen and his training, discipline, and yes, his love; that had gotten her through the hardest trials yet. He’d fostered the latent talent that had lay beneath the surface of her awareness. She’d gained confidence again from the understanding of her own strength. With Keelen, she’d learned how to touch the Force, and learned she wasn’t a total loss with a lightsaber. In fact, now she was almost a cut above her peers, all of which had looked down on her and sneered before.

She’d killed Armin, an elevated Sith who had tormented her at the academy. And that was the biggest victory of all. She was firm in the knowledge that she could kill those who wished her harm. It was that thought, that turned Astrid around to smirk in triumph at her weaker self. But her eyes went wide in shock as those aspects of her were gone and replaced by an Archeri warrior, it’s scythe arm coming down for the coup de grace.

A single sharp breath woke Astrid again in her hospital bed. She didn’t scream. She didn’t bolt upright or make a move to block the phantom enemy. A quiet, intake of air and the focusing of her pupils to the low light were all the masked the hammering of her heartbeat. Her training kicked in and she glanced around, familiarizing herself with her surroundings.

Medical bay, on the Revenant, stuck in bed from injuries. Keelen meditating in a chair.

As the information processed in her brain, her heart began to slow back down to normal. She forced herself back to calm before opening her eyes again to regard Keelen sitting beside her.

The drugs were starting to settle down now. She was throbbing all over but blissfully, it was a very dull roar of protest. She was able to relax and actually form rational thought now. She discreetly looked back up at the IV drip and noticed it was about half empty now. Maybe 45 minutes to an hour had passed since Keelen had come to see her.

When she turned her eyes back to her master, she could feel water gathering around them.

He wasn’t mad at her. He’d stayed a whole hour after she’d passed out.

He was now sitting rigidly in the chair beside her bed. Eyes closed and feet planted firmly on the ground, his back was straight (as usual) and his hands rested lightly on his thighs as he meditated quietly. His face was passive per his norm but from this close, she could feel one emotion pulsing off of him in waves down their bond.

Concern.

Before he could open his eyes, Astrid sniffed hard and swiped at her eyes to clear the tears forming with her good hand. But then she could feel, rather than see, the red orbs honing in on her. She turned her head to the side and eyed the broken bracers and damaged saber hilt on the bedside table, unable to meet his gaze.

She was unable to hold back the anxiety in her voice however, as additional tears threatened to spill over her eyelids. “I’m sorry Master. I broke your bracers. I promise I’ll fix them! I didn’t let the techs throw them out so I could fix them… and your lightsaber too...” she rambled out before looking at her fingers, fiddling with the nails on her opposite hand and lightly brushing over the cast holding her arm in place. “I…. I know they were special to you.” She finished, clamping down her jaw and pressing her lips into a determined grimace to keep from breaking out into sobs.

Truth be told, Astrid had no idea how she would manage one, let alone both. The left bracer had been ripped apart with the plasma torch to get it off of her arm in the first place. She knew less than nothing about metallurgy or how to work steel in general, nor did she know anyone who did. Somewhere in her mind, Astrid knew that the bracers were destroyed and no longer usable. But she wouldn’t accept the fact. She’d painted the floral pattern on them a week after Keelen had given them to her. A pattern was now skewed and ugly.

She was lucky Keelen hadn’t ordered the medical staff to strap her to her bed after the fight she’d given when the techs had started in with the cutter. She had wanted desperately to keep the bracers whole, and pretty. At the time, Astrid would have taken a saber to her own arm to preserve the precious gift Keelen had given her. 5 medics holding her down and a sedative later and the armor was off of her. But they were ruined now, just a twisted wreckage of scrap metal.

The lightsaber was a different story. She knew enough now about maintaining the weapon to know she could fix the internal workings with the right components. But the visibly caved portion on the upper section of the hilt spoke volumes about the damage beneath the surface.

The dents were distinctly the shape of fingers, and was precisely over the exact spot Astrid knew one of the two blood red crystals to live. When she played it back in her head, she’d unconsciously squeezed the hilt with all her strength as she tensed before her scream. With the added raw power of the Force flowing through her body, Astrid had squeezed so hard that the hilt had bent slightly. Even without looking though, she knew the crystal below that slight curve was cracked or shattered, unusable. Now, the best any master could hope for was to cut the hilt in half and make a single bladed weapon out of the assembly.

Overall, the weapon as it was, was ruined. And like Astrid after surviving Teth somehow, would never be the same again.

[Rabbit]

Astrid's emotions were - as always - a lot to take in at first. Keelen had been monitoring her the entire time he had been meditating. She had felt placid through their connections, but at some point, her dreams had taken a sharp turn. Fear, horror, dread - these and more slammed into Keelen's consciousness. His eyebrows creased together for a moment, in a moment of concern, but his expression returned almost as quickly back to his usual passivity. His apprentice would be fine. She inevitably righted herself.

Although...she was different, now. The Archeri changed all that they touched, of that Keelen had no doubt. He had sensed it in Imago and Sagitta. When he focused more fully on Astrid's aura, he could tell the same of her. He was the only one who had escaped any wounding from the vicious hivemind's "soldiers". He bore a great relief, actually, that Astrid hadn't been more seriously wounded, that the scrape along her hairline hadn't opened a doorway for the Archeri Plague to gain a hold on her.

If there was one thing Keelen never wanted to do, it was to kill his own apprentice. He strongly suspected Astrid would be his first, and his last. He didn't know if there was room in his life and in his heart, for another. They had crossed a strange line, the two of them - a line that neither the Sith nor the Jedi considered. Most Sith, from what Keelen had been able to tell in his years in the Order, simply didn't seem to think that love and affection had a place of any sort in their personal relationships, much less a starring role. The Jedi disavowed such attachments, though Keelen suspected that of the two, the Jedi were perhaps most likely to make hypocrites of themselves in that regard. Astrid was as much his daughter as his own Kyri was, far away in Ascendancy space as she was. In fact, it could be argued that at this point, Astrid was more his daughter than Kyri - after all, it was in Astrid that his legacy would truly live on.

The Chiss opened his eyes slowly and considered his quietly sobbing apprentice for a long moment. She was trying desperately to her tears, but he had felt the surge of emotion in her before he had fixed her with his silent scarlet gaze. He listened to her stutter and hiccup through those tears without any expression crossing his face - not even a twitch of his eyebrows, or of his lips. It was only once she had fallen silent, distraught by what had sustained damage on her behalf, and overcome by her grief over all that had changed within and without her, that Keelen showed his own emotions.

The line of his mouth, usually stern and strong, softened; so did the lines around his his eyes. He kept his palms down on his thighs, but he loosened the tension in his arms. A Chiss father did not gather his child into his arms after a certain age, but there were other ways to convey empathy and kindness.

"Astrid," Keelen paused for a long moment after speaking her name, in order for the significance of that to sink into her.

This was now the second time he had addressed her by name. Many things had changed on Teth. But, one good thing had come out of it.

He was no longer afraid to call her by name, to close the distance between them as apprentice and master, and to let the nature of who they were to each other finally shift to father and daughter.

"You did well," he repeated himself slowly, making sure to enunciate each word with a quiet forcefulness. "The destruction of material things does not over-ride that."

He tilted his head slightly to the side and actually offered her a smile - a slight one, for sure, but one that could not be mistaken for anything but what it was.

"Those bracers were made to protect you. A lightsaber is a weapon...which is also meant to protect you. Both can be replaced."

The Chiss lord paused and shifted ever so slightly in his seat. His smile disappeared and his red eyes considered Astrid somberly for several long seconds. Finally, he leaned forward toward her and spoke, his voice low and intense.

"Do not shed tears for such things. The time has come for you to consider..." again, Keelen paused, and his eyes practically pegged his apprentice to her pillows. "...New bracers for yourself, and a new lightsaber."

Slowly, Keelen leaned back in his seat, until the bottom of his massive shoulders hit the back of his chair. His breath almost caught in his throat - he had come down to talk to her about the Archeri. But...the conversation had naturally moved to another place and topic. One that he was barely ready for himself.

Though, the Empress had certainly deemed him ready for such a discussion. And if the Master was ready...so to, must be the Apprentice.

"Do not fret yourself over trappings of the past. The Archeri have changed you - changed us both. It's time for you and I to take up new mantles on behalf of our Empire, and our Empress..."

Keelen took a deep breath.

"I am to be made Praetor Magnus. As such, it is my right and privilege to ascend my apprentice, as well."

[tenkalus]

As soon as her name was said, Astrid’s eyes snapped to attention, focusing on Keelen intently. He’d used her proper name so sparingly since they’d first met, that the vocalization of such usually startled her, as it did now.

Intellectually, she knew what her Master was saying was true. The armor was just armor. It’s job was to keep her intact and for all the devastation that had torn them apart, the bracers had done their job. She was still whole in all the ways that mattered. A few broken bones and a host of bruises perhaps, but she hadn’t required any cybernetics. Astrid Blackspyre still had all of her fingers, toes, and original organs.

The lightsaber as well, was a weapon. A soldier didn’t cry over having their blaster wrecked in combat. A soldier would improvise until a new weapon could be obtained or issued.

But emotionally, those two things had meant much more to her. They had been the very first gifts she’d received since being a child. That they’d come from someone she’d learned cared about her, only gave them more weight in her mind. What’s more, they were useful gifts. Gifts that gave her status and purpose, and had been given to her by someone she respected and loved. They were very personal.

The bracers had been purchased with credits, and so they would be the first to lose their sentimental value for Astrid. But the lightsaber had belonged to someone. Someone who had likely been close to Keelen. Someone no longer around. So while her master was correct, that it was a weapon to protect her, and that it had done its job and served its purpose, she knew it was still some kind of heirloom. Now destroyed.

But then he suggested replacing them with her own.

Astrid’s neck straightened as she leaned back, confused, but processing. What was he talking about? A new lightsaber? She had the two hilts from a long time ago when she’d struck down Armin and his master, gifts or trophies given back to her by her master when she’d presented them to him.

But they were two individual hilts and Astrid was absolute shit with a single blade. None of them felt comfortable to her. Keelen was a dual wielder of course and had tried to instruct her that way, but while Astrid Blackspyre was talented and dare she even think it - gifted, she’d not been gifted with total ambidexterity. Swinging a staff around was different of course. She could wield that effectively in either hand because for the most part, you usually had both hands at its center. A staff (or in this case a double saber) was the culmination of the body coming into harmony with itself. Even if she had the right tools, the prospect of welding those two clunky hilts together gave her a foul taste in her mouth. Not to mention they’d be supremely ugly and mismatched, as well as unbalanced with each other.

There wasn’t exactly a lightsaber store on Dromund Kaas she could walk into either, to pick out the latest fashion and style of hilt.

Was he talking about making her own? The thought enticed her but confused her at the same time. Creating a lightsaber was a Jedi tradition. A rite of passage in their ranks. Sith usually used hand-me-downs and had mass produced weapons, as she recalled.

But the idea of creating her own satisfied a very carnal desire to be an individual. Astrid was too aware of herself to accept the idea of placing her fate in the hands of a tool she hadn’t seen created personally. She wouldn’t know how much time was spent putting it together and what its nuances were. The prior weapon she’d wielded had been different. It had certain personal touches to it that fell closely in line with her own, and while the focusing crystals had been synthetic and didn’t give her absolute clarity in battle when she channeled the Force, it had been a very near thing in recent months. If she’d had more time with the stones, their power would have eventually bent to her will and the two would have become a single unit.

Moot point now, of course. One of the synthetic crystals was probably pixie dust in the casing now.

"I am to be made Praetor Magnus. As such, it is my right and privilege to ascend my apprentice, as well."

Astrid’s face lit up in joy. The lightsaber dilemma was all but forgotten and she squealed with delight, then hissed in pain as her ribs reminded her of their plight. But she recovered quickly and fell back into the happiness of the news. “Praetor Magnus!!” she whispered loudly and quickly looked around to see who else was in ear shot, as though it were a big secret. She, of course, only saw white sheets and no one else around, courtesy of the patient borders. But her eyes went wide and her mouth opened in awe when she looked back at her master, the rest of the news had been lost on her, naturally.

“That’s amazing master! Congratulations! That’s… that’s the entire military! You’re like, war master! Course, we aren’t specifically at war right now, besides with the nasty, smelly, insectoid mushroom people with blade arms. And the Empress hasn’t openly declared war on them yet, even if we are constantly kicking their asses... not exactly conventional right?” she yammered on, puffing her chest up and sitting a little straighter in bed. “I’m the war master’s apprentice.” She declared haughtily. “The smaller war master. Warrrr… mastrette. Prae-torrrr Mag-neeee. Mini-Praetor…” She toyed with a few names with a devious grin.

It was then, and only then, that the last bit of his statement started to sink in. Keelen was being elevated to Praetor Magnus, the face and overall leader of the Imperial war machine. All peoples within the empire who carried a weapon in the name of the Empress, would answer directly or indirectly to him. Naval personnel, as well as Sith within the Cult of Strife were now his to command at will.

And it was apparently his will, to elevate Astrid as well.

The grin slowly evaporated from her face as she looked back at him. All humor had drained from her as the realization sunk in deeper.

She was no longer going to be his apprentice. He was acknowledging her, in the deepest way a master could. She was going to be a real Sith. Not just the apprentice of one. A Dark Knight of the Empire, in service to the Cult of Strife. She would no longer be attached to Keelen’s hip. But she knew she had so much more to learn about being a Sith and a leader, what then did that mean for her?

She gulped hard. “Does…” she started slowly, flicking her eyes to her covered feet. But she immediately picked them back up to meet Keelen’s gaze. A Sith faced their fears. “Does that mean,” she started more confidently this time, “I can’t be with you anymore? There is so much I still don’t know or understand. Am I to go back to the Academy?”

Again, the thought sickened her at her core. She hated the Sith Academy. But she was also much stronger now. If going back was her fate, she’d face it willingly, and crush anyone who tried to take her down. She’d likely be a target, going back as well, having been the former apprentice of the Praetor Magnus. Trainees and other Acolytes, and perhaps even the instructors themselves would want to test themselves against her, to prove their strength. Back then, when she’d been a student, that would have daunted her. Scared her to death. It would have been a death sentence.

Now? She’d take on all challengers. If only because she had been the student of the Praetor Magnus. None would beat her. She’d see to it. She’d use her newfound saber skills and acumen to take on anyone. And if she didn’t have a weapon, she’d pound them into a fine paste with her bare hands.

But that didn’t take the edge off of her voice as she asked if they’d be separated. Sith were given missions, if not more training. Missions that she’d have to do solo, or in command of a force. Would Keelen elevate her, only to transfer her to another commander? It didn’t seem likely, as by now, she’d discovered his love for her matched her own for him. But it was always a possibility. She wasn’t ready for her own command yet or her own ship. That she knew solidly.

Someday maybe. But that day was definitely not today. Teth had proved that. She was still a bit too reckless, and needed to learn how to play better with others. Her actions had been self centered, and her feelings for Keelen had placed Sagita and Imago in danger, and left them vulnerable. Had she stayed, she might have made just enough of a difference in the combat scales to have prevented them both from being injured.

She’d have to live with that guilt for the rest of her life.

But she vowed to learn from it.