A/N: Post 7.8.1, minor spoilers for the last sequence.
[f!Sith Inquisitor/Lana Beniko]
Vestra lay in the ship’s med bay with a drip and sensors hooked to an arm, her eyes fixed on the grey bulkhead above. Traces of poison were detected in her bloodstream on her return, but after an hour of treatment, the world had stopped lurching around her. She would’ve ripped every wire and tube attached to herself and left, if not for the wretched watch dog seated beside her bed.
She took a deep breath and sighed, attracting Lana’s attention. “I need to learn that.”
“Learn what?”
“Jadus’ hallucinations. I need to learn that.”
“No, you don’t.”
Lana’s reply was so quick and firm, Vestra’s mouth couldn’t help but quirk in amusement. “Why not?”
“Your power is potent enough.”
Vestra snorted. Oh, darling Lana. Sometimes she wasn’t as subtle as she thought. “You’re just saying that so I won’t become a handful.”
“You already are a handful. Two handfuls. And I refuse to grow a third to accommodate you.”
“Oh, you hateful little thing. You want to curb my potential.”
“Your potential gives me headaches,” Lana snipped back, leaning over to place a kiss on her temple. “Now, stop thinking and rest.”
“And forget everything I’ve said here, hm?”
“Preferrably. But if you don’t, I have ways of dealing with you.”
“Ooh,” Vestra crooned. “Then I shall not forget.”
Lana pinched her cheek as she withdrew. “Incorrigible.”
With a chuckle, Vestra refocused her attention on the bulkhead, which her eyes never left. Her mind sifted through the memory of each nightmare spectre she had seen, and she wondered if the Commander would have seen the same. If Aelirra would have had to…
Her smile faded. When she spoke, it was flat. “I killed you. In a hallucination.”
“Oh? Enjoyed yourself, did you?”
She was nearly killed in that vision, and barely saved herself by thrusting her lightsaber into not-Lana’s chest. The killing wasn’t real, but the tremble in her hands while she struggled to lift her weak knees from the floor was painfully so.
Even now she felt nauseated, and refused to look at Lana for fear that she would heave.
“A little,” she retorted, hating how weak she had not intended to sound.
Vestra braced herself when Lana stood, and she was proud to not throw up when her wife’s face came into view. Lana cupped her face, bare hand warm against her cheek.
“It wasn’t real,” Lana murmured.
Any vow or reassurance would feel weak on her tongue now, she knew. So Vestra settled for the next thing that came to mind, “I love you.”
“I know.” Lana smiled and gave her a gentle kiss. Sitting back in her chair, Lana twined their hands together, the cool touch of her ring settling between Vestra’s fingers. “Rest, love. I’ll be here when you wake.”
A quiet sigh, and Vestra closed her eyes. Perhaps it was not so intolerable to stay…for now.
ok this crumb is feeding me cos I’ve been aching my head over how to reconcile Vestra’s healing with Lana’s beliefs about the Sith and the Empire. this helps with half the issue buuut a little more is needed for the other half.
For background: in her Mental Health era, Ves will confront everything the Sith and the Empire did to her, and everything she did for them. The Empire was the reason she could be caught and thrown into slavery without recourse, and the Sith made her into one of them by breaking her first.
Suffice to say her coming to terms with All That won’t be pretty - she will be tearing down the very essence of the Sith she became, and her service as Councilor to the Empire. She will question her own values and beliefs, and it’s only a matter of time Lana is caught in the crossfire as well. After all, Lana is staunchly Sith, and still views the Empire favourably.
Now the first, easier subject - the Empire. Lana has proven willing to work with the Republic and non-humans since SoR, already going against two big Imperial no-no’s even back before the Empire started recruiting non-human species into the military. This doesn’t mean she is not prejudiced - her comment about Mandalorians in KotFE is one example (her haters looove to bring up) - it just means she is pragmatic enough not to allow such bias and taboos stop her from working for (what she deems as) the greater good.
It demonstrates a flexibility and willingness to examine her own (and the Empire’s) beliefs, and her comment here in 7.8 is proof that it happened long before SoR. Tying this into Ves’ reckoning, I don’t think they’ll have much conflict here. Ves’ primary grievance is the slavery, of course, and I feel it wouldn’t take Lana much to concede on that point. Perhaps not completely, but in a ‘I see its utility, but I also recognise its injustice and the benefit of not building an Empire reliant on slave labour’ sort of way.
It’s a compromise, but Ves is not looking to change her partner, bend her out of shape. She doesn’t need Lana to go on a crusade, merely acknowledge what’s been done to her and anyone else who’d suffered the same, and avoid engaging with it.
Now…we come to the Sith. They won’t clash over Sith philosophy, its creed of might is right. Ves has benefited from this very philosophy, having proven her power and ascended to the Dark Council to rule the Empire. She still believes that being Sith is able to give one great power and the liberty of self-determination (albeit with its own limits). If seized and used well, it can elevate even the most wretched of society - herself being an example, of course.
What she cannot come to terms with is personal - that she had to be broken down, utterly, in order to be reshaped into a Sith, broken pieces and all. The person she is as Sith is powerful, dominating, yes - but she also hurts constantly, incessantly, and she doesn’t know how to deal with all of it, so she just buries it and hopes she’ll continue to survive with it.
I think Lana can and will sympathise with Vestra’s pain - she did go through the same trials, after all. She understands (at least partly) what Ves went through. But where they’ll differ is whether this pain is necessary, whether this path is for everyone. Because to Ves, even with all the power she’d attained, she isn’t sure if it was worth all the pain she’d suffered. But for Lana, yes, it was worth it, and no one is Sith without it.
Even beyond the literal meat grinder that is the Sith Academy, the Sith ranks is a brutal, dog-eat-dog world. No one survives here without suffering some sort of pain, without having to sacrifice a part of themselves for the dark power they need and crave. Lana may seem to have adjusted well, a true believer raised in an environment that reveres the Sith, but I believe it has taken a toll on her as well. I mean, the corruption has reached her eyes, hasn’t it? (Beautiful as they are.)
(Also personally, I think Lana is depicted too ‘clean’ sometimes. And her Sith identity has lost its bite after Iokath. But that’s a discussion for another day. If I ever get to it.)
Lana and Ves will reach an accord over this, separating the reality of Sith and Ves’ personal experiences, but it will be a rollercoaster ride getting there. Because Ves’ questioning will turn from: ‘So what happened to me was necessary?’ to ‘Is this why you love me? Powerful because I was broken? Will you leave me when I’ve healed my wounds?’
Chapter Summary: A downpour brings an unexpected moment of intimacy. Vestra gains custody of Lana's jacket (unwillingly but also very willingly). [Lana Beniko/f!Sith Inquisitor]
[art by skullinacowboyhat]
Vestra stalked over to the lone bench by the cafe's window, satisfied to find it relatively unsullied by rainwater, and settled herself down. She wiped damp hands down her bare arms, and paused when Lana stood before her, swinging a jacket around her shoulders.
"Lana." Incredulity in her protest sharpened when she saw that Lana's green top was sleeveless as well. "Keep this for yourself–"
Lana caught her hand when it reached up to take the jacket off. "It's on your shoulders now. Don't bother."
Once OC is satisfied that everyone else is okay/has been treated, they lead the group on. Still riding the adrenaline high, they're not aware they've been injured themselves.
Other character notices they're following a small blood trail that's slowly been forming along the path only to realise it's been dripping from OC's clothes/trailing down their legs the entire time.
For whichever OC you prefer but it's me so obviously there's a Sol bias.
thenk for prompt <3 sol bias hmm???
The doppelganger’s pale visage twitches in agony, its spindly fingers reaching up for the neck impaled on a drow’s dagger. A sneer curls Solistre’s lip, and she seals the creature’s shame with a brutal twist of the blade, forcing its knees to buckle before kicking the corpse away.
It hits a wooden table with a final, almost comical thud, and sends wine bottles crashing to the floor. Taking a slow breath to ground herself, Solistre turns to look over the ruined remains of Cora Highberry’s wine festival. Doppelgangers slain by her group lay strewn across the patio, face-down in pools of wine and blood, surrounded by broken bottles.
How disappointing; she’d expected more from Bhaal’s assassins. Instead, one had fled the instant he was exposed, leaving the rest to mount an impotent assault. In Menzoberranzan, they would’ve been laughed out of the city for being nothing more than upstart toddlers flailing for recognition.
She waves away Shadowheart’s offer of healing, though the cleric frowns and walks in a circle around her anyway, intent on a visual examination. Leaving her to it, Solistre gestures for Karlach and Gale to move – the latter accepting Cora’s profuse thanks and pouch of coins with a gracious bow.
Solistre walks away, reaching into her pouch for the Bhaalist’s note, even as she runs through the list of targets in her mind. Before she steps one foot out of the patio, however, she finds that her fingers can’t secure a proper grip on the folded parchment in her pouch. The city slows around her, with her, and she is dimly aware of Shadowheart calling her name.
Turning her senses inward, she feels the strained, rapid beats of her heart, the leaden quality of her limbs, the slight nausea indicative of the war that her drow-cultivated immunity is waging against a foreign poison.
Poison. Nothing had passed her lips during the fight, not even blood. But she does remember being nicked somewhere on the back of her thigh, shrugging it off as a scratch.
With effort, she looks down, and finds a small pool of blood under her boot, dripping down her leg. She tries to move, and manages a sluggy shift of the heel. Huh. So it is not the world that has slowed, it is her–
Solistre falls forward, only half-stiff thanks to her body’s stubborn refusal to give in. Warm, bulky arms catch her neatly and lay her down. It’s Karlach, and Shadowheart is there in less than a heartbeat, kneeling beside her. The cleric touches her thigh, healing its wound.
“Paralysis,” Solistre forces out of her frozen mouth, and Shadowheart casts its cure without hesitation, hands arching in graceful passes to invoke the spell’s power.
Control over her body restored, Solistre sits up with Shadowheart’s hand on her back, grumbling under her breath, “Ugh. Embarrassing.”
Her scowl is made worse when Karlach ruffles her hair and stands, though Shadowheart’s chuckle and attempt to tame the mess keeps murderous thoughts away.
“Are you quite alright, dear?” Cora has come over, concern plain on her face. Gale steps in smoothly, holding her back with a smile before she can be scared away by the drow’s grumpy disposition.
“She is well, Lady Highberry. We will see her back to the inn and–”
“Oh, nonsense! My house is right here! Come in, and allow me to repay your heroism…”
Beaming, Karlach follows Cora into the house, while Gale shrugs at Solistre in good humour and does the same. Despite the drow’s low growl, Shadowheart helps Solistre to her feet, and keeps an arm around her waist – less to give support, more to relieve her own concern.
“I’m fine.”
“I know. I’m just making sure you won’t hurt anyone in your bad temper.”
“Shut up,” Solistre groans, trying to ignore Shadowheart’s lop-sided smile – and succeeds.
The glint of sunlight from an empty vial on the floor catches her eye. Solistre bends down when they reach it, picking it up for a careful whiff of its once-contents. Sharp, pungent, almost like molten metal. Her nose tingles from the odour, and she lowers the vial, reasonably confident that this was the cause of her paralysis.
“Why are you keeping that?” Shadowheart asks, when she slips the vial into a belt pouch.
“Research,” Solistre says simply.
“You are not ingesting that,” Shadowheart states, voice flat as the stare she levels at Solistre.
“There’s nothing left.”
“I have no doubt that you will recreate it…somehow. At least make sure I’m around when you try to build your immunity.”
Shadowheart’s dry look cracks a sly smile over Solistre’s placid mask. This half-elf knows her all too well, and it makes her drow heart crow in delight.
“We can build immunity together.”
“A sweet offer, but no. Thank you.” Shadowheart squeezes about her waist, half in warning, half in jest. “You can try to kill yourself, by yourself. I will be there to laugh when you do.”
So… about that character not realizing or hiding that they’ve been hurt… prompt for vestra or lana?
(if you still feel like it otherwise completely fine, have a good timezone, mwah byeee)
combining this with @scrollstrash's. thenk for prompts <3
Vestra woke with a choked sputter, triggering a chain of uncontrollable coughs that turned wet in her throat. Wracked with bone-deep pain, her chest spasmed relentlessly, lacing her dust-coated tongue with thick copper.
The torture ended with blood, mucus, and spittle pooling on the floor under her mouth, finally expelling the last speck of dust she had inhaled from this…enclosed pocket of space?
Resting her head in the crook of an arm, she scanned the small space where she lay amid duracrete rubble. Thick grey slabs overhead threatened her death, held back only by a half-broken chrome desk. So that’s what saved her when Zakuulan gunships destroyed this tower around her. Not that it mattered much, if she remained trapped under rubble that held her lower body down.
Vestra wiggled her toes, relieved they could still move. The movement set off some discomfort, but it was hardly noticeable under the constant thrum of pain in her body. She tried to prop herself on both elbows, intending to test the weight atop her, but the effort only made her swoon, and she relaxed before darkness conquered her vision and senses again.
This was not good. She was half numb and half in agony, and she couldn’t pinpoint the source of it. Her best guess was that damned rubble piled on top of her, so she focused on that first. If she had to die, better it be in view of the sky than trapped in this makeshift tomb.
The Force was slow to respond, but she gripped tight every sliver that gathered to her, using pain-stoked anger to crush as much Force as possible into a tiny nexus within her hands. When she’d gathered enough, roiling energy raring to break free, she let it loose.
The explosion rocked the floor she lay on, and she nearly lost consciousness when the debris atop her was ripped away, torso wracked with acute agony. Hands curling into tight fists, with faint ringing in her ears, she heaved to hands and knees, whole body screaming as she staggered to her feet. The world threatened to spin around her, but she forced calm onto her senses and gazed up at the sky.
Judging by the mellow sunlight spilling over her, it should be late afternoon, turning soon into sunset. She closed her eyes for a moment, drawing in a full, clean breath of air, before looking around her.
She stood on the third floor of the tower, in a hollow niche she’d blasted out of a slope of debris. Her crew was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t matter. Opening herself to the bond, she felt Lana’s heart leap on its other end, pulling her towards it. She broke into a wry smirk at her love’s dizzying rush of relief. Trust Lana to worry overmuch.
Pain still clouded her head and slowed the dexterity of her limbs, but Vestra picked her way carefully down the rubble, half-climbing in Lana’s direction. Her attention was wholly consumed by the physical exertion, until a shout in the distance tilted her head up.
There they were, jogging up a street ruined by missiles and blasterfire – her crew. Their pace slowed as they stared at her, as if in disbelief, and she took the chance to look them over. Lana, Khem Val, Ashara, Talos, Andronikos, Xalek. All here. Save for the few kolto patches and bruises, they seemed to have survived Zakuul’s bombing run intact.
She called out to them, a jibe for taking so long to find her – before realising their relief had turned to slow, mounting horror. Their pace quickened, trailing after Lana who led the group at a run. Her gloved hand flew up to the side of her grey robes, clutching it subconsciously.
Curious, Vestra mimicked the motion and–, oh. Blood. A hole. Not a small one.
She looked down and saw that ragged hole torn through her side, giving her a glimpse of bloody innards – but they didn’t yield to gravity and spill out, as if they shared her defiant incredulity at the situation. What in the world did that? Was it part of the rubble? That acute pain she’d felt when the slab flew from her…perhaps there was some extrusion that–
The strain hit her then, cutting short her runaway musing. Her insides hadn’t spilled out because she had been using the Force to hold herself together on instinct, keeping herself up and moving. Darth Avriss snubbing her nose at the mortal limits of her own body, playing at invulnerability through sheer obstinacy.
Oh…they’re going to be insufferable.
Lana reached her first, sprinting forward to catch her when her legs finally gave out. Vestra let herself go limp, surrendering to the inevitable fussing and nagging and–
She cried out when Lana lifted her in sturdy arms, setting off a hundred aches in her bones and flesh. Lana carried her to the street and laid her down on the sidewalk with much more care, and Vestra bit on her tongue to keep from lashing out at her rescuers.
Despite the pain, she released her desperate hold on the Force, relaxing as she handed control to the worried faces hovering over her.
“How do you feel?” Lana asked, the rhetorical question spilling out like a bad habit as she touched Vestra’s stomach, beside that blasted wound.
“I’m fine.”
“Your guts are showing, idiot,” Ashara bit at her, kneeling opposite Lana. “You’re not fine.”
“Says you.” Vestra pulled her lips into a smile when Lana cupped her face. Her love’s heart raced beside her own calm counterpart. Funny, that.
Despite Vestra’s stubbornly casual mien, Lana’s expression didn’t lighten as Ashara called on the Force, weaving it around Vestra in preparation for healing.
“I’m fine,” Vestra repeated in reassurance – because she was.
How could she not be fine with these overbearing fools around her?
Ok I love Kira's date 'night' (the sun is up hewwo??) for including some much needed character growth for her. She has been Knight for so long, probably stagnating in her development as a Jedi since Zakuul came into the picture.
It is waay overdue for her to take on a mentor's role, to become confident and comfortable enough in her own knowledge and abilities to guide and nurture younger Jedi. So I really like the direction here.
And. I also love it because I can tie this so nicely with my plans for Aelirra.
I've always pictured Aelirra breaking away from the Order (though still keeping ties with them) and creating her own sect, setting up an enclave on Odessen.
Her first followers will be from the Alliance, and perhaps a few Jedi in the Order who admire her and don't mind leaving to join her. I imagine more followers will arrive from word-of-mouth, and Kira's search for younglings will definitely contribute to the sect's numbers too.
Because Kira will help Ael establish the sect. Her relationship with Ael aside, she has always shown an independent streak, having her own ideas of how the Jedi should act ('Jedi should get political', etc).
It always seemed to me that she's loyal to the Jedi Order because it's the better alternative to the life of a Sith runaway on Nar Shaddaa. Now that she has options...well. I'd like to think she'll be open to other paths. In this case, her lover's sect that she can have a hand in shaping.
Now, tying this all in with Aelirra and 7.8.1...sigh. I'd thought of cutting my fics' timelines before the whole Nul holocron plot happens. But now there's DA:I Trespasser writing all over the walls, and I suspect the Alliance will either be entirely absorbed into either faction or dissolved.
This works for Aelirra breaking away, but it'll be so much more painful and heartbreaking. My original plan involved an amicable parting from the Order. 7.8.1 would steer Aelirra towards a more explosive, angry separation from both the Order and Republic.
I mean, what better way to push away your most loyal weapon Jedi than to turn on her and everything she'd done for the galaxy and you?
I had Ael lashing out at the Chancellor and her Republic escorts in this update, which was a surprise to me, but felt oh so right in her journey to become independent. Not just a Jedi, but a person in her own right, with her own needs and wants.
And it's so fitting that she would only stop helping someone when it is they who throw her hand back in the first place. Aelirra still has the heart of a hero, a saviour, willing to help anyone in need. But she has learnt to draw lines in the sand, to step away from where she is not wanted.
Having the Republic and Order turn on her will hurt much more for Ael, but hey I'm an angst hoe and I see the tragic poetry in this. Now I just gotta decide whether to go with the Happier or Drama route lol
Chapter Summary: Darth Avriss announces her intent to destroy a Star Fortress. Lana is forced to confront an unconscious fear seeded by her love's fleeting brush with death. [Lana Beniko/f!Sith Inquisitor]
