Hoth: Blood and Ice

[Aphr Ahaya]

With everything coming to a head, Aphr knew there was someone she had to speak to before it all went bad. Carrying a bottle of wine she'd nabbed from the stores, not a great one but it's still drinkable, she made her way to her sisters ship. Hoping to find her nearby or there already.

[Darth Bellious]

She was apparently in there, and the ramp had been lowered before Aphr truly arrived. Moyr walked out; ; she didn't play status games with her own sister. Her lekku were wiggling slightly with gladness as she had apparently had the same idea as Aphr about seeing each other.

"Come on in, dear." She said quietly. "You're just in time, the Bitch's cleaning has just finished."

[Aphr Ahaya]

Aphr smiled when she saw that. It was nice to see her sister was thinking the same as her.

"I was just thinking an evening visit with my sister would be good and everything fell into place. Cleaning you say? Everything ok with the ship?"

She approached, holding up the bottle of wine.

"I'm pretty sure this stuff is gonna be terrible but it'll be cold at least. Like everything here" she laughed, following Moyr in.

[Darth Bellious]

"The Bitch is a hard bitch, if she goes then she goes, but I thought every lady needs some personal care before a big day."

As they went in, Moyr kept the upbeat mood. She invited her to the central room with the Yavin holovid. Glasses were out already.

"I bid you to plan what we do after all this reckoning. We still haven't gone skiing."

[Aphr Ahaya]

"I was thinking the same" Aphr said with a grin as she put the bottle down next to the glasses "it's not going to be a fun one coming up. Makes skiing actually look appealing, and I'm fast becoming sick of snow!"

She opened the bottle carefully.

"So after all this...I want to get away with my family. You, Galen. This is all going to end badly, I just know it."

[Darth Bellious]

"How far are you willing to get away, dear?" This was actually a meaningful question as far as Aphr could tell by the tone, knowing her sister, as if some of Moyr's decisions hinged on the answer. Still, she poured calmly. "So far that you won't be able to return?"

[Aphr Ahaya]

"How far is far enough" Aphr said with a small chuckle "I don't have an answer to that. I just...don't you tire of it all? This galaxy, these worlds, everything that people put forward as a reason is often just self satisfaction and I really wonder if it's worth it all sometimes."

She looked back at her sister.

"You've been through far more than I have Moyr. Is it worth it in the end?"

[Darth Bellious]

"If you make it worth it, dear. You dictate worth and meaning. There are no external definitions." She paused. "There is never far enough. If there is a way to go somewhere, sentient beings should go there. Life in the galaxy will survive not if it concentrates, but if it scatters. And let this scattering be without limit. For me, chasing the infinity is worth it. Even if I only manage to pass a fraction of that distance in my lifetime, others are supposed to continue my journey, not to sit and wait for demise."

[Aphr Ahaya]

"No matter where you go there will always be beings" Aphr agreed, pouring the wine as she thought.

"It's not the getting away from people I guess...It's more..." there was a frown "everything. Republic, Imperial. Jedi, Sith. Light and dark, everything. The universe is so vast, with so much you can see. So much that could be explored, if people could just put such irrelevant focuses to a side. That's what I want to walk away from. Put that to a side and just be able to exist. Is that a silly hope? Perhaps, and maybe it's selfish, but I just tire of the bickering. Even when facing the end, there is still pointless judgement."

[Darth Bellious]

"We are very like-minded in this, sister, even if I'd give different words to it. Unsurprisingly, I'd say. I am also tired of shallow partisanship and infighting over increasingly irrelevant labels. I swear by grand Sith philosophies, not stupid orders of corrupt powermongers like Baras and manuals of oughts and oughtnots fashioned by some narrow-minded bureaucrats of the current Sith Empire. A true Sith is hungry for freedom, and sitting in trenches is the antithesis of it. So if you want to move beyond good and evil and just be and go on your own terms wherever you feel like being and going, then I couldn't be more proud of you, Aphr." Moyr raised her glass in a toast.

[Aphr Ahaya]

Hearing those words did so much in that one moment to calm her thoughts. She wasn't sure how her sister would have reacted, but she hoped Moyr would have similar thoughts to her.

"I'm glad that we're of similar minds. But please, don't give the Sith the credit for you being you Moyr. They're not Sith philosophies, they're all you and how you've always been."

She moved to sit near her sister, holding a glass of wine.

"Whenever I'm unsure, or I doubt if something is the right path, I ask myself the same thing; what would Moyr do? It got me through...the worst times of my life, those terrible years of slavery as well as the time in Korriban. Even if I always approach things in a more thorough way, sometimes I need to take inspiration from my sister to find the right way" she smiled, raising her glass.

[Darth Bellious]

"Quite the burden on me to only do things that could serve my dear sister as an example." Moyr chuckled, sipping the wine and embracing Aphr with one arm in a sisterly hug. "But I think you are standing on your own more and more, like with your gambit with Vaylin. I don't think I would have chosen that path. And yet it seems to not have been a bad one so far."

"As for the Sith, I don't give them any credit other than the initial impulse. I took the tradition and made it my own. It is I who defines what is Sith now, not conniving bums like Baras, and I'll do what it takes that it is my reading of the Code that prevails through ages. I want to make sure that eons from now the Sith will see Vitiate's time for what it was: a dead end brought upon the Sith through addiction to power, and the ultimate goal of sentient existence is not ultimate power, but ultimate liberation."

[Aphr Ahaya]

"The Vaylin situation...it was complicated" Aphr looked down at the drink "I had a piece of something, but it wasn't a clear piece of anything. It didn't fit anywhere else, and the rest of the pieces had to be found before there was anything to it. By the time the full picture unfolded I had to follow it through. Standing in Zakuul, even through a memory, it was incredible. Facing the Emperor however was less so."

She took a small breath before nodding.

"Redefining the Sith is a very lofty goal, I'm not surprised though that you would reach for something so big. I wonder if it's worth it though, or if the Sith are too far gone to be redefined in such a way. There are many groups now outside the Jedi, outside the Sith. Maybe it's time to leave the past in the past and create a different legacy, one not defined by such names."

[Darth Bellious]

"Some are too far gone, no doubt. But I don't plan on saving any of those. I want renewal, with whatever causalities and castaways it may generate. It is time indeed to create something, but I abhor the legacy talk. I just want the world to keep its potential for liberty and change, and the Sith philosophies are the only solid foundation for it. Normally those things could be taken for granted, but Vitiate proved that it can't be, and his creation - which has made such an impression on you - makes liberty imperilled even after his death. I can hope that this Vaylin you seem to have some fondness of lives up to her chaotic nature and doesn't allow this project of timeless autocratic perfection to be completed. Or rather, I hope someone can talk her out of that."

[Aphr Ahaya]

"Legacy might not be the right word" Aphr conceded with a nod "but I understand what you mean with liberty and change. However I question whether any form of liberty can be reached while the galaxy continues to operate under a veil of distrust and greed. Even today, with us knowing what threats we face, still those exist who will not change. It's holding this galaxy back."

There was a small tilt of the head.

"Zakuul from what I've learnt has done much to allow people to be free of more menial tasks and do more, but still operates under a cloud of control much like this galaxy does. I can't deny that the small amounts I've learnt did impress me, even if there are flaws in their approaches. As for Vaylin...I'm not sure. She has been freed from the Shadow of the Dragon but what she intends to do after that is a mystery. I just know anyone as powerful as her to the point that even the Emperor feared her is someone to be on the right side of."

[Darth Bellious]

Moyr laughed. "It looks like you might be the smarter one. I've always been spitting against hurricanes." Then she sighed. "You realise that we may never see each other again, Aphr? We are choosing very divergent paths."