I was tagged by @emotionalsupportsith and @sunsetofdoom. Thank you!
Your muse’s name: Mara Thrask
A favorite picture/faceclaim of your muse:
This isn’t so much my favorite picture so much as the one I have access to at work, but it’s still pretty good.
And because I feel like giving you all some extras, her face claim is Deepika Padukone, and this gif is basically what Quinn sees every time he looks at his wife. (Maybe not the hawt strappy dress, but the sexy windblown hair and preternatural beauty? Even in the middle of combat that’s what he sees.)
Two headcanons you have for your muse:
She’s a gifted, classically-trained singer. In another life she would have pursued an opera career (and THERE’S an AU to write holy crap - Phantom of the Opera AU coming right up, except Mara is both the ingenue and the monster).
Even though Mara is nearly the same height as Quinn and as her Human father - she’s just under six foot tall - she’s short for a Red Sith. Her mother and aunts all push seven feet. I’m certain Red Sith from more traditional families think she’s a mixed-species runt, but no one would ever say it to her face so long as her house remains politically powerful. Also any children who said it to her face when she was at the Academy got their asses beat, so.
Three things your muse likes to do in their free time:
Watch trashy holofilms with Vette, Jaesa, and Pierce. Quinn has no idea how someone as cultured as his wife can find value in such insipid entertainment, but there we go.
Reading - subjects run the gamut from historical non-fiction to trashy romance. One of her favorite ways to relax is parking on a plush couch with Quinn, the thunder rolling outside, and each reading their own book and sipping their own whiskey, snuggled together and ignoring each other like amiable cats.
Cooking. It’s one way she shows affection to her loved ones - whether it’s teaching Quinn the finer points of Korribani cuisine or deep frying sleen tails for trashy holofilm night. She serves the sleen tails with an ungodly spicy sauce and a heavy Ziostian-style stout.
Seven people your muse loves/likes:
Her extremely devoted, adorable, idiot husband.
Their four children
Her father
Her aunts and cousins
Vette and Jaesa
Dysprosia
Daveth
I have no idea why I grouped them like that but there you go.
A phobia your muse has?
She does NOT like being in or near water too deep to see the bottom. She can swim, but she just... doesn’t like it.
Tagging... @semper-draca, @tishinada, @inquisitorhotpants, @aliyamirat, @valeryanroot and anyone else who would like to consider themselves tagged.
The High Queen
Cultured badass
Bare Your Midriff
Amazonian Beauty
Battle couple
Light Isn't Good
Good Is Not Soft
Bi The Way
Team Mom
Tranquil Fury
The Slow Walk
Broken Pedestal
I have no cultivated arting skills, so all I can contribute to Sith Fashion Week is a moodboard for Mara. She’s a fashionable Sith bitch (with Deepika Padukone as her faceclaim) and I love her.
She’s a charming, confident bitch who loves Dromund Kaas forests more than most things, will totally chuck a speeder at your head, is possessed of a roiling, violent inner fire, and frequently considers aggression and foreplay to be interchangeable.
I guess I gotta tag some folk, so.... @aliyamirat; @tishinada; @wrathetc; @ravenclawnerd; @fluffynexu... and anyone else who is interested.
Baras reflects on his dealings with Alderaan and with House Thrask, and takes an additional apprentice.
Alderaan, 1327 Imperial
“Good morning, Darth Baras.”
“Darth Avari,” Baras returns, glancing up from his datapad.
In theory, he should stand and bow; she’s his assigned superior on this mission, and a pureblooded High Lady of the Sith Empire besides. Those are the exact reasons he resolves to remain seated unless absolutely forced.
The tall woman’s red skin and bone spurs are the sole reason she was granted leadership of this mission. True, she’s a renowned member of the Diplomatic Corps; she brought over at least three Republic star systems by virtue of her silver-tongued negotiations alone, and if this were truly a diplomatic mission, her presence would make sense. But Baras knows, thanks to his master’s position on the Council, that this is not merely a diplomatic mission, and Baras’s own hybrid military and diplomatic experience make him the ideal leader. Still, the appearance of earnest diplomacy must be maintained, and so here she stays.
Mara is formally raised to the position of head of house. Quinn sees more of her than he bargained for, and in the background Ria takes some liberties with the timeline of the inquisitor story. Smut happens toward the end of the chapter.
“Captain Quinn!”
Quinn turned to see Major Sicaritae hurrying toward him. Like Quinn, Sicaritae was wearing his dress blacks, red piping on the trousers and coat sleeves glowing the light of the chandelier of Chwûkûsk’s greeting chamber. Quinn snapped to attention despite the crush of Sith, diplomats, and other military personnel milling about. Sicaritae chuckled.
“This is a social occasion, Captain, please,” he said, turning to Quinn’s mother and giving a sharp bow.
“Major Daveth Sicaritae, my mother, Vorsila Quinn.”
“A pleasure, ma’am,” Sicaritae said. “Captain Quinn and I served together on Balmorra. I hope you won’t mind saying, he is an exceptional officer.” Vorsila smiled and inclined her head. Sicaritae continued, “Lady Thrask has requested I accompany you both during the ceremony; she anticipated you might benefit from explanation.”
He led them through the house, barely pausing to glance at their surroundings, as if the warm white marble of the floor and columns, the sumptuous rugs and draperies, the eclectic art and exquisite woodwork, were all commonplace. And perhaps they were; Apprentice Thrask said the two had grown up together.
Quinn, on the other hand, found himself craning to look into the doorways that lined the hall. They passed a sitting room strewn with low couches and cushions in bright sunset colors, a training room whose ancient weapons spoke of a ceremonial as well as a utilitarian purpose, a massive ballroom, and a dining room. The latter two were alive with staff - and they were staff; the individuals were a diverse collection of species and none wore collars of any kind - putting last minute touches on the decor and setup of each room.
Mara and Quinn celebrate their second Life Day since meeting, and their first since becoming lovers. Mara introduces Quinn to a Red Sith winter tradition and its accompanying myth. Takes place late in chapter 2 of the warrior story.
“I brought you something.”
Quinn looked up to see Mara smiling down at him, amber eyes twinkling, hands tucked suspiciously behind her back. Behind her, through a window, snow blanketed the ground outside the cabin they’d rented. He laid aside his datapad.
“I thought we exchanged gifts already.”
“This is something different,” she replied, sauntering over to the couch, careful to keep her back facing away from him. Quinn cocked his head, a mixture of intrigue and nervousness running through him, as she sat. Suddenly her hand was between them, brandishing a damp-looking plant of some kind.
He jerked backward involuntarily when she thrust it at his chest. It was a root, its flesh red - nearly the same color as her skin - split ends joining just below a bulb whose top sprouted long, black leaves. In truth, it looked like a miniature Red Sith bound together with a sparkling, black ribbon.
“What is that?”
Mara frowned. “It’s tsipak root. Highly poisonous, but extremely meaningful in Sith winter celebrations.”
Suddenly the root floated upward until it dangled above them. She gave him a warm, inviting smile, amber eyes searing his as she waited for… something.
“Darling,” Quinn began, clearing his throat. “I’m not sure I… understand.”
“You’ve never heard of tsipak root?”
“I thought I just-”
“Most non-Sith have never seen it, but I thought the tradition itself was well known.”
Quinn shook his head.
“Oh. Well then.” She scooted closer until she could drape her legs over his and settled back into the cushions. “You know of Marserha and Ahmurn, yes?”
“I know everything you’ve told me,” he answered.
“So you know that, while she was mortal, Marserha bore many children by the god Ahmurn, demigods who were the first generation of Sith.” At his nod, she continued, “after she died and Ahmurn made her a goddess and his wife, she had only one more child, Tsyaraj.”
“Sith are a perfect amalgam of our immortal parents, and so was Tsyaraj, except he lacked the burden of mortality that weighed upon his siblings. It was not long before the oldest of the mortal Sith, Vorotsis, grew to hate him for his divinity. He conspired to murder Tsyaraj and reclaim the Mother’s undivided love and attention. But Marserha was cunning and wise, and so she learned of the threat to her son’s life.
"She loved Vorotsis as her firstborn, and so instead of punishing him, commanded the flora and fauna and the very rock itself of Korriban not to harm Tsyaraj. They acquiesced, and Marserha was pleased that Vorotsis therefore had no weapons available to harm his immortal brother, and that both her sons would live.” Mara nodded upward at the root floating above them. “She forgot about the tsipak root. It only grows in the winter season in a small region of Korriban, and the Mother exacted promises from Korriban during the warm season.”
“You said it was poisonous,” Quinn said. “Vorotsis poisoned his brother.”
Mara nodded. “Marserha was devastated; her grief and rage rent the sky, covering the planet in endless thunder and lightning. Ahmurn’s lover, the serpent goddess Bashara, was so moved by Marserha’s grief, she hunted Vorotsis who, like the spoiled child he was, had run from his Mother’s pain. Bashara found him cowering in a cave. She hauled him out into the sun where Marserha could see, wrapped him in her coils, and strangled him.”
“That… does not explain this tradition,” Quinn said. Unless she’s suggesting we try something rather new in the bedroom….
“I’m not done yet,” Mara replied with a smile, the glint in her eye suggesting she’d understood at least some of his train of thought. “Marserha had come to Korriban to punish her traitorous son, and arrived to find Bashara in her naga form, all fury and vengeance, lightning glinting off her black iridescent scales as she held Vorotsis aloft above her head, squeezing the life from him. She was breathtaking.”
“And Marserha, filled with righteous anger, radiating the pure power of the Sith… in that moment Bashara knew she’d been moved to avenge Marserha not just out of sympathy or a sense of justice, but out of love; out of passion. When their eyes met she knew Marserha felt the same.”
Mara turned her gaze back to Quinn, a warm, wistful smile on her face.
“And so she drew Marserha to her, and as Vorotsis exhaled his last breath over their heads, they shared their first kiss.” She’d leaned closer to him, her voice dropping to an intimate whisper as she finished the story. “And so every winter we remember the warmth passion and love can bring in the coldest moments of life. If you find your lover standing beneath the tsipak root, you must kiss them, or earn the Mother’s antipathy.”
Quinn stroked her cheek, feeling her bone spurs against his palm, and ran his fingers through her mahogany hair. “Far be it from me to disrespect the mother of all Sith,” he murmured.
She only had time for a brief chuckle before he claimed her lips hungrily.
Some notes:
The Sith pantheon of gods - Ahmurn, Marserha, and Bashara being the primary trinity thereof - is world building work done by @fluffynexu
The names of Marserha's sons are a mish-mosh of vocabulary developed as part of @inquisitorhotpants‘s conlang efforts. Vorotsis translates loosely to 'firstborn Sith', and Tsyaraj means 'eternal child', but in this sense I mean child as 'offspring' rather than the specific early period of life before maturity.
The tsipak root is mine; it's a mix of mistletoe (in terms of holiday function) and mandrake root (in terms of look).
This is an adaptation of Norse mythology with the Greek pantheon penchant for violence between divine parents and children; content notes for fratricide and infanticide typical of ancient mythology apply.
