Hoth: Blood and Ice

[Lord Draahg]

The killer always returns to the scene of their masterpiece, or so the trope went in the trashy holo-novels. He knelt down and touched the floor, the droids had cleaned this place thoroughly. He had to reflect on a life of service, one in secret and then one in the open to a creature that was more lies than flesh.

Draagh was not a victim, he was a willing participant, with the chance at power dangled before him.

He stood and walked over to the pool that dipped his hands in the hot waters and sighed. Even if he survived it was not his victory, in fact he under-estimated the Minister, he was a powerful and strangely peaceful Sith with admittedly good ideas.

Some of them.

Luth’s betrayal was obvious, but the greatest betrayal was that of Baras, oh it was to be expected that the spider would eat its young one day but he never expected the spider to actually love. That was a bitter dagger in his back.

There was a lesson there, one he would have to spend the rest of his life untangling. Not the power of the Light or the Dark, he was no great philosopher, no it was something simpler. This could have gone a much different way if the spider had simply been honest to himself.

Instead he lied to everyone, even himself. He would have to be a beast of a different coat.

[Tethys Carrack]

Tethys's boot soles click on the hard flooring in the passage. Perhaps something is drawing her back down here too, although she's not sure why. Some sense of symmetry?

It's been such a simple and honest pleasure just to have access to this space over the last couple of weeks: real, warm, liquid water, deep enough for people to immerse themselves and even, for the children and smaller individuals among the refugees, paddle around a little bit. Tethys rather doubts she'll ever want to use it for that again herself. Perhaps it's fortunate that most of Echo Base's inhabitants are likely to disperse off-world soon.

When she steps through the threshold and into the steam vent chamber, though, she doesn't find any late-night bathers, just one pensive man. Or Sith.

"Ah. Hello, there."

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D8 EN-- fluff Force vibes check: 3eF 6 Light Side

[Lord Draahg]

This place is stained by the dark side, though there is a source of light where the Sith died… but the stain of the dark side holds sway here, fear, anger, ambition. Draagh turned and said, “Yes I returned to the scene of my triumph, and yes it is as..”

He paused looking down at the spot where his master died before saying, “Well you were there, not sure why you were there, but you were.”

“Do you really believe that Luth can simply turn good… or whatever it is you Jedi seek?” he said calmly. “It seems far too easy.”

[Tethys Carrack]

Tethys steps further into the chamber, robes swishing above the perfectly clean floor. "It's not easy at all," she says, with the slightest shake of her head. "It will be very hard for Luth to walk out of the darkness. She knows that."

[Lord Draahg]

“I hold no animosity for your interference, master Jedi,” he responded. “I feel not much of anything, which in itself is disappointing. But this is for the best, sharing of power is always messy. It becomes a struggle,” he explained.

“I toyed with taking on his title, by right it is mine now… but that seems pretentious.”

[Tethys Carrack]

"I didn't intend to interfere, as long as Luth wasn't in danger." Tethys's brows draw together, twin lines forming above the bridge of her nose. "...If she was already leaving, if you wanted Baras dead, why kill Torsin? Perhaps I'll never understand Sith." There is, possibly, the slightest plaintive note underlying that last statement.

"Is this really what you want? Or have you been in his shadow so long that you can't remember how to want anything else?"

[Lord Draahg]

“I’ll never truly understand Jedi,” he said in reply.

“In time I think it will be, I am not Luth, I don’t have some great moral epiphany coming. This is the life I know, and crave, it may seem chaotic and insane to outsiders but there is a simplicity in the brutality. Oh it’s probably self destructive but it does weed out the weak… usually.”

He sighed and said, “But for now, my chains are broken. I am free to do things my way.”

[Tethys Carrack]

"Not all epiphanies are big ones," she says, the corner of her lips quirking just slightly. "Just... take care you're not reforging the same chains to wrap around yourself, all on your own."

She paces closer to the warm pool, then crouches down on her heels to dip her fingertips in the water, as Draagh had done earlier (though she doesn't know that). The waters still feel tainted by the violent emotions that filled this space earlier, but they're moving, flowing; they will rebalance themselves more quickly than the duracrete and stone.

She turns her head to look back, and up, at Draagh. "It truly doesn't alter your ambitions at all, seeing how it ended for him?"

[Lord Draahg]

"No, though I will try and do things differently but ambition is part of the Sith arsenal, Strength is a virtue," he responded.

[Tethys Carrack]

"There are many kinds of strength." Tethys sighs and flicks her fingers one last time on the surface of the warm water, making a little splash and sending ripples on a gradual journey outward to the pool's far edges. She wipes her hand on her sleeve.

"I have ambitions too, you know. We're not utterly without them, on the other side from you," she says, with a reflective air, settling back to sit on the hard floor with one leg folded under her. "They're not so... violently consuming, is all. Usually." She winces a little, thinking of Layne.

[Lord Draahg]

“What are the ambitions of a Jedi, Master Tethys? Help Luth see the Light?” he asked.

[Tethys Carrack]

"Help people build a better life," Tethys says, simply. "Lives without needless suffering. Places where people can live in balance with one another, where no one needs to fall when someone else realizes her ambitions."

"Also," she adds with a gently wry smile, "I'd like to have a sailboat of my own one day."

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PS. is that meant to be Luth? Is Tethys hallucinating, or was that a slip of the 'reassign post' button?