The Jagged Fel- later Monday

[notconflicted]

It wasn’t that Sia didn’t get emotional ever, it was that she usually couldn’t, not in public. And when she had just seen her father killed after he turned to the dark side, suddenly leaving her with the job she’d always dreaded having to take, she really couldn’t lose it in front of anyone.

Well, maybe Antares, but there were many reasons she didn’t want to.

She handled things, with help from him and Treis. It was easy to blame Darth Maladi for Roan’s death and say that he had sacrificed himself to rid the galaxy of a Sith threat, because from a certain point of view, it was true. Maladi couldn’t defend herself anymore. Krayt's death had caused a shift in the battle, with Sith soldiers losing it without him controlling them, and their splintering forces had ended up going their separate ways in the middle of everything. Sia did get in touch with Cade to confirm that Krayt really was dead; he was, and his body had been flown into a sun, just to make entirely sure. She’d contacted Stazi and K’krukh, letting them know what had happened and announcing that she would be taking things over from her father.

Most Force sensitives fighting would have felt the deaths of Krayt and Roan. Still, Sia had had to deliver the message to the returning forces that both things were true. And then she excused herself to her quarters, where she could lock herself away for a while and not face anyone except those who she would actually want to see.

She’d taken off her armor, leaving just the black garments underneath, and was sitting on the bed with a datapad, making notes of all of the things she still had to do or find out. Maybe it was just busy work. Eventually, she was sure she’d feel something again, but right now she was just numb. But numb was good. Numb would get her through the day.


[Feels a little weird to not have this family trauma in late summer for once. For those hanging out in the GFFA!]

Comments

[suitably_heroic]

"Let's just say I had a bad feeling about today and leave it at that," Atton said, refilling her glass.

He didn't fill his own until he'd passed that one over again.

[notconflicted]

“I didn’t see any of it coming,” Sia said, and it was going to bother her for a long time that her father could turn and she didn’t see any signs. “I just walked into a room and everything went insane.”

[suitably_heroic]

"That's usually how it goes down," Atton said. He took a sip of his drink. "It sucks, doesn't it? Not having control?"

[notconflicted]

“The control thing actually never crossed my mind,” she said. “I don’t suppose the rumor mill’s started debating what happened yet?”

She doubted it, but apparently when you were involved in a cover up, you worried about that sort of thing.

[suitably_heroic]

"As soon as things settled," Atton said. "You know the rumor mill. It never changes."

He took another sip.

"So what did happen?"

[notconflicted]

Sia went quiet for a moment, sipping her drink. She almost warned him not to tell anyone, but it wasn’t like she didn’t know he could keep a secret.

“My father kept myself, Antares and Treis out of the battle, wanting those loyal to him around,” she said. “He’d turned. He tried to use a Sith-created toxin to wipe out all life on Coruscant to be really sure he got Krayt. Antares had to kill him to stop him.”

[suitably_heroic]

Atton, veteran of the Mandalorian Wars, sighed.

Just... sighed, and took a big gulp this time.

[notconflicted]

Yeah, pretty much.

“He was actually angry that I wouldn’t go along with it,” Sia went on. “With mass murder. Of a planet you and Jessica and all of our allies were on. I can’t... I don’t know what to do with that.”

[suitably_heroic]

"It's always the ones you respect most," Atton said. "It makes sense, in a Sithly kind of way."

[notconflicted]

She really was talking to the right person about this.

“I suppose,” she conceded. “Of course, the first thing I did afterwards was order a coverup and the second thing I did was order an execution, so.”

[suitably_heroic]

If by 'right person' she meant 'guy who turned Sith when someone he respected pulled this on him', sure.

"You don't want anyone to know about your father?" Atton said. "I guess that's an easy way to get a riot started."

[notconflicted]

Sia shrugged, “What’s the benefit in allowing it to get out? It tarnishes the reputation of a man who otherwise really did try to do the right thing, it kills morale, it makes it harder for me to do anything when everyone’s questioning the motivations in his decisions... And I don’t want to deal with any of that.”

[suitably_heroic]

"Until they find out some day," Atton mused. "But if you're lucky, the fiction'll have held up for long enough, right?"

There went the rest of his drink.

[notconflicted]

“It might never get out, either. We lucked into a plausible story. And we’re Imperials. We repress,” she said, drinking.

[suitably_heroic]

"These things usually do get out. But sometimes it takes a hundred years, and you'll be dead by then," Atton said.

He refilled his glass.

"But it's good you stopped it. That much death would've really gotten the Sith going." Beat. "And I like being alive, so there's that."

[notconflicted]

"A running theme with us lately," Sia said wryly, before turning more serious. "I really want to thank you for everything you've done. I just showed up again one day, and you helped anyway, and you didn't have to. It means a lot."

[suitably_heroic]

"I have to earn my Jedi points somehow," Atton said.

He eyed his glass.

"I promised you I'd help way back when," he said. "It felt wrong to back out."

And he'd lost one too many women he cared about to grand galactic events already.

[notconflicted]

"I should have taken you up on it back then," she said. "I'm glad I did this time."

Alcohol plus trauma equaled honesty, apparently.

[suitably_heroic]

"You seemed busy," Atton said.

[notconflicted]

"Things haven't really let up for a while," Sia said with a shrug. "At least now that's done, I suppose."

As was her glass.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton held out the bottle, a question. "And you're empress," he said. "That's going to take some getting used to, your royal stubbornness."

[notconflicted]

Sia visibly winced at the ‘empress’ word, so yes, she was handing her glass over for more.

“I’ve already had to start,” she said, pursing her lips. “I really thought I had another twenty years before I had to deal with this.”

[suitably_heroic]

"I don't envy you," Atton said, pouring more into her glass. "All you can do from here on in is screw up."

Great pep talk, Rand.

[notconflicted]

“It’s like you’ve been listening in on my internal monologue,” Sia said, actually a little glad to have it verbalized.

[suitably_heroic]

"Okay, one, I am not trying to do that," Atton said, just to emphasize that for a second. (He was still touchy about anything mind-related.) "Two, good. If you're actively terrified of it, you'll screw up less. You have a grace period going forward, anyway. Everyone loves the new Empress until she's not so shiny anymore."