Hoth: Blood and Ice

[Darth Bellious]

"If an opportunity arises, but not as a priority. Even if comeuppance was within my grasp, It would just return me to the pattern of petty infighting I've lost interest in. Last time I had striven to become someone within the Empire was on Ziost, and we both know how that competition for new Darth positions ended and why it had been set up by Vitiate. I've charted my own path ever since. If anything, Zash's harsh lessons have been useful to me. Since I lost my mask, I've relied less and less on material crutches."

[Layne Hoshin]

"I've accumulated rather a lot of material crutches," she said; the cold wind blowing with a fury she had barely even noticed all this time. It didn't bother her in the slightest, thanks to some of those crutches.

"They serve a purpose. Though, I've always focused myself down the path where those things would matter. The physical, rather than the mystical."

[Darth Bellious]

"Then I suppose I am on the other side of that coin. It's still probably the same coin." There was a questioning inflection at the end of the sentence to indicate that Moyr wasn't assuming too much, just referring to a common enough agenda.

[Layne Hoshin]

"I wonder sometimes, what would've happened if I hadn't left," she said, wistful. "Would I've gone a different route in my training? More balanced between the mystical and physical? Or been even more of a thug? I think... I'd probably have killed Baras by now, though. Somehow."

Maybe

"Maybe not. Darth Layne sounds too stupid to risk being saddled with afterwards."

[Darth Bellious]

"I wouldn't mourn him. Otherwise, I can't tell. Past is what it is, future is yours." Moyr chuckled. "Come on, you could do better with naming, like... Darth Furiosa?"

[Layne Hoshin]

"Too pretentious sounding," she said.

"I never liked that part of being Sith. The pretentiousness with which everything had to be done and said. Even if I constantly did it myself too... still do, I guess."

Or perhaps, if she was being kind to herself... doing *again*.

[Darth Bellious]

"I like my aliases. They're like clothes."

[Layne Hoshin]

"I'm guessing you have many, then. I think you were always suited to the shadows, as I recall. Back at the academy. Not like the rest of us, beating our chests all the time."

[Darth Bellious]

"Looking back, it can be described this way I suppose. It doesn't always work, but when it does, you can get far ahead without much resistance. I had a master than operated similarly, so I was taking early cues from him. Besides, before I got a chance to become Sith, I had been a slave of the Hutts, then a smuggler." Moyr sighed. "There were indeed many names. These days I don't need some of them, some were compromised, some forgotten. It feels like more than one lifetime at this point."

[Layne Hoshin]

"A lot of ex-slaves in our class," she mused. She'd been one herself, of course. "I always resented how they looked down on us for it at the academy. The noble born had it so much easier. In that sense the Republic and Empire aren't so different from one another, I've found."

Her eyes slowly scanned the ground for another rock again.

"At least you managed to get somewhere I guess. Despite that prejudice."

[Darth Bellious]

"That much is true. The prejudice rarely comes up these days though. Being a Darth has its perks. The slave stigma, however, is in part why I make worlds rebel. To give the downtrodden a shot, even if it is a far cry in most cases. I imagine that for throngs that die or end up worse, there will still be some Laynes, Rumuns, or Moyrs who will prove they have what it takes to change the galaxy one day. Korriban was a trial by fire for us. I want ten thousand Korribans across the galaxy. It is for a slave that the Sith Code resonates the strongest. Those who are born to privilege won't ever understand what it means to break chains. And so privilege should disappear. Revolutions do that."

She paused. "And you're right the colour of the regime doesn't make much difference. I was sold into slavery as a prospective sex toy for a Republic Senator with a sterling public reputation. She never received me as I managed to escape en route, and I took my revenge eventually. But after Coruscant had fallen, I decided enough was enough and my life is worth committing fully to greater pursuits."

[Layne Hoshin]

She scoffed at the first part of that; or some part of it at least which didn't sit well with how Layne saw herself. Something that hit close to home.

"...I was sold into the spice mines on Kessel, myself."

She left out the part of her childhood that came *before* that. The part that made her scoff.

"Until a wannabe Sith Lord went looking for slaves to use for his amusement and as a path to growing closer to the Dark Side. He noticed my connection to the Force, bought me, tortured me and whatever for a while, until he started talking about making me an apprentice. I didn't know what the hell anything he was talking about meant, and he was a psychopath, so... I killed him. People found out, I got thrown in an isolation cell for however long it was, and then they dropped me on Korriban with no clue what was happening. I guess someone thought I had potential."

[Darth Bellious]

Moyr nodded in acknowledgement, smiled faintly at similarities. Their early personal stories were like trillions of others, and yet it was the two of them that were there, not those trillions. Moyr had explored early on why this could be so. The Force was not the answer, at least not in isolation...

"Vitiate had perverted the Sith. It should never have been about obedience. At the very core, it is about defiance. Oppression is only means to that end."

[Layne Hoshin]

"I suppose..." she said.

She wasn't sure she fully agreed, or disagreed for that matter, but something else started rattling around her brain instead.

"...Can I ask you something? What do you think of Darth Baras? Really?"

[Darth Bellious]

"He wants to make the Empire his bitch." Moyr said simply. "I am not privy to the details, but he may be succeeding."

[Layne Hoshin]

"Hmmm," came a considering hum, followed by silence.

"...what would you say if I told you I am Sith again?"

[Darth Bellious]

"Welcome back." Moyr chuckled. "Now I want to witness what you'll do with it."

[Layne Hoshin]

"Nobody ever reacts to my revelations with the shock I want them to," she said.

It was a quip; but one with a fair bit of truth in it. She really didn't like how nobody ever just had their jaw drop anymore. It used to be so much fun when that happened.

[Darth Bellious]

"By this point in out conversation it is no longer that revelatory. More like a confirmation." Moyr smirked. "It's momentous nonetheless."

[Layne Hoshin]

"I suppose it was always going to end up like this," she said, "But... perhaps I could offer another. Just to see if I can get that reaction after all. Yavin is special to you, yes? You were close with the queen there, I believe?"

[Darth Bellious]

"This is all correct. You have my attention." Moyr wasn't joking.

[Layne Hoshin]

"She was my grandma," she said, just as seriously.

"Well, not grandma exactly. That was just what I called her. She was my ancestor, to be precise. Come back to life."

[Darth Bellious]

"...not that random a background after all. I'd say, as a compliment, that blood runs thick in that bloodline. I appreciated your ancestor greatly. She was a woman of principle and purpose, and exercised her power to salvage ancient Sith lore. She was my window on the roots of my - our - ethos. I still use methods she taught me." Moyr had raised her brows initially, but then smiled nostalgically. "Does it make Yavin special to you as well?"

[Layne Hoshin]

She sighed. "Still no slackjawed surprise."

Her head swiveled around again, eyes looking low. Still no rocks around.

"But no. Yavin was only her adopted home. She was from Korriban originally. Which my other ancestor helped conquer as one the first group of Jedi who came to the Dark Side and became what would turn into the Sith. Yavin was a path to renewed power for her of course. But I think it was mostly because they reminded her of what her own people were once like, instead of what the Sith Empire had turned them into."

[Darth Bellious]

"You know what's shocking? That you ever left, with a spiritual Sith pedigree of this magnitude. But then again, defiance." Moyr looked into the wastes. "Thanks to her the Massassi live and prosper, having spread beyond Yavin. They may be here even. I oversaw their reintegration into the Bex Company, and its small detachment may be still on Ziost right now, though I have yet to to make contact."