Around town to the Arms- Friday night

[notconflicted]

It was weird. It was very weird.

Sia was beyond glad to see her father again, as she remembered him. It had been a sudden loss, and it had essentially wrecked her life ever since. It'd also been a sudden loss under horrible circumstances, which had included him turning to the dark side, turning on her, and her needing to beg her ex/his student to kill him. Her first order as Empress was to order an execution to cover up his death, and she'd never really had a chance to process it all, because she'd been too busy taking over his job, which she had never felt equipped to do. And now he was here, and she was trying to figure out how to process it.

She'd taken Roan around the island. He'd been unable to visit in the years that Sia had been a student here, and it really was nice to be able to show him where she'd lived. (She'd left out Caritas and how much time she'd spent there with an older former Sith. Dead or not, there were certain things he did not need to know.) She could actually pretend for a while that there wasn't something incredibly heavy hanging over them.

Sort of.


[For Pops, though can be open on the way! Topic of conversation NFB, please!]

Comments

[fel3]

Roan watched his daughter, taking that in, and noting her reaction. Which wasn't much of a reaction at all.

"I wouldn't have figured that of you."

He didn't disapprove.

[notconflicted]

"I did what needed to be done to protect the Empire," Sia told him. "My personal feelings had nothing to do with it."

[fel3]

"Then surely you can understand that I did what needed to be done," Roan countered.

[notconflicted]

"It is not the same thing," she said, sternly. Maybe more forcefully than intended. "What you did was dark side. We told you that at the time. You serve the Force before all else- or you're supposed to. Your actions would have destroyed billions of lives. We would have lost the capital, our forces, all our allies, leaving us with nothing. That says nothing about the lives of all the innocent citizens on the planet. The Empire would be dead, not because you were protecting it, but because you wanted revenge on the Sith."

[fel3]

"There's a reason I didn't involve you in this," he snapped.

Sia was good. She was the one who'd insist on running into battle herself rather than letting others die for her. She didn't know how to let others take the fall when needed.

[notconflicted]

"I'm involved because you died! I'm involved because you kept me aboard that ship and expected me to just go along with genocide!"

You know. That.

[fel3]

"No, I kept you on board to protect you." She wasn't supposed to know what happened until after it happened.

[notconflicted]

"Right," she remembered, nodding. "It was Antares you expected to go along with it."

[fel3]

"Antares was supposed to be loyal." It still stung that he wasn't. He hadn't expected that, post-death. "I should have known he would follow you."

[notconflicted]

Sia knew what she was supposed to read into that, and she didn't like it. She'd had ideas about why Roan had tried to interfere in that relationship, doomed as it was: Antares put her over the mission, had gotten his judgement clouded, and she'd gotten killed hurt. She hadn't really considered that Roan might have instead thought of it as a competition. Maybe it wasn't about Antares' loyalty to the Empire, but his loyalty to him.

"We won't accomplish anything this way, so I'm going to leave," she said simply, in that kind of calm way that was more of a warning sign than yelling. "I assume I'll see you tomorrow. And I need you to think about the fact that you won't believe the word of the person who is actually alive to see the consequences of your actions, who is stuck dealing with them."

These were her quarters for the weekend. She didn't care. She'd find someplace to go, and he likely wouldn't be there when she got back.