Gave Murlesson some nice loot from that side-quest. Might mean I ramble less about logistics and base management. A little bit. Yes, we are going to Belsavis next. It won’t take long, I’m starting to get impatient about Hoth.
For anyone wondering what Murlesson looks like in-game, I believe 
his appearance is:
Body Type 2
Head 2
Scars 1 (none)
Complexion ??? (probably 1?)
Eye colour 1
Tattoos 3 (although I’m not sure how canonical that is; supposedly the facial markings are applied at a coming-of-age ceremony, but given how he’s been a slave all his life, how could he have a coming-of-age ceremony? There’s a strong chance he doesn’t have tattoos, and I’m not sure how important he would consider them to get them just to match his character model) (EDIT: he got them in Part 4)
Horns and Hair 2 (15 before it grows out)
Hair colour 5
Skin colour 2
Before the above-mentioned Insignificant Haircut, his hair probably looks something like this. But with Zabrak horns of course. Although, that’s probably too much hair – he’s only had a few months to grow it out – but you get the idea.
Part 14: The Trouble With Hutts
Part 15: Insignificant Haircut
It was a bare five minutes later that he came skidding around the last corner in front of his office building, into a scene of outright war. Leppo’s troops were lined up in semi-circular lines in front of his front door, taking cover behind duracrete barriers and two or three armoured speeders. Leppo himself was in something almost resembling a tank but with big transparisteel viewports, ray shielded from the looks of the stray blaster bolts bouncing off it. The front wall of his building was a ruined mess; all the glass had been broken for three stories, and the entire front door was a crater.
Ashara stood in the centre of that crater, holding the line, deflecting everything that came near her with her sapphire sabers. From behind her, the newly-installed defence turrets were returning on their investment, although not as many of them were firing as there should have been. Well, some losses were inevitable. But it seemed Leppo hadn’t counted on a Jedi being there.
He plowed straight through the enemy lines, shutting off the speeder’s engine and sending it into a slight spin, then leaping from the pilot’s seat straight up about ten meters. The speeder gently twirled deep into the foyer between turrets, Liiddi curled into a little ball in his seat. The Nautolan would be fine. The Dark Side surged into him as he clamped his will down on it, floating slowly, majestically, down to the ground beside Ashara. “Where are Khem and Revel?”
“Side entrance a floor up, Leppo tried to get in there, too,” Ashara said. “Glad you’re back!”
“Let’s destroy this impudent upstart,” Murlesson said, as if he wasn’t technically the impudent upstart himself.
Leppo’s voice boomed over a loudspeaker from his tank. <Young Murlesson! Good timing, I was about to destroy your pet Jedi! Now I can kill you both at once!>
Murlesson bowed graciously. “You’re welcome to try, you cheeky devil. But your fate was sealed from the moment you met me.” He raised himself to his full height. “Let’s see what you’ve got.” Bring it, you witless son of a rabid schutta.
There had been a slight lull as he made his overly-dramatic entrance, but now the blaster fire returned with a vengeance. Murlesson grinned maniacally, channelling his power, raising his right hand before him. Blaster bolts struck his gloved palm and dissipated harmlessly, even the high-powered professional blaster rifle bolts. It stung, oh yes, it stung hard, but it was a small price to pay for the psychological victory. He’d douse his hand in kolto later.
This wasn’t going to be everything – no, here came the rocket launchers, the grenades, the cannon mounted to one of the armoured speeders. He braced himself subtly. “Do you trust me, Ashara?”
“Right here, right now? Absolutely.” Her warm smile nearly chipped his concentration, but he managed to maintain it. Here it came – explosions on explosions, Leppo trying to overwhelm him with sheer firepower. That would be difficult to deal with… for a normal person. Maybe even for a normal Force-user.
He was neither of those, putting up both his hands and making an ancient gesture for a long-lost shielding ritual. Energy washed over them, flowing around their bodies, heat and maybe a bit of shrapnel, but when the fire and smoke began to clear, they were both unharmed. And now…
The cannon fired, and he grabbed Ashara around the waist and lunged forward; she gave a startled yelp, but when they landed and the dust had cleared slightly, there was a new crater in the foyer where they had been standing previously, impacting on the floor below. Most of the turrets were down now. Leppo was going to bring the whole neighbourhood down if he kept being rough like this.
And if he didn’t, Murlesson would. “Ashara, cover me for a minute.”
“I got you,” she said, stepping in front of him with lightsabers held high. The Force shone in her as she sank into her battle-trance, deflecting shots bound for him. They only had a few seconds before the incoming light-show became too much for her to handle. But a few seconds were all he needed.
He reached up, directing the Force out to pre-determined foci he’d set up over the last couple days. He had hoped not to use them, and they were not very strong yet, but they were the best he had. It helped that rage and hatred were churning within him, the Dark Side barely controlled in face of the thought of Leppo daring to mess with him. Of Thanaton’s meddling. That someone was trying to take that which was his, whether it was his people or his life.
Dark power erupted invisibly from his hands, flowing down the channels, coiling around the inter-building footbridge that spanned the road, pure energy ripping it from its supports. Permacrete chunks flew and bolts splintered with gunshot-like reports and a tremor in the surrounding buildings as Leppo and his men looked up in uncomprehending disbelief at their impending doom. It seemed to hover for a moment, then tore free under its own weight and hurtled downwards. The screams only lasted for a few seconds.
He probably shouldn’t use this trick too often. That was two engagements in a row he’d dropped architecture on his enemies. Effective, but he couldn’t let it become predictable.
If he’d had this power when he’d first recruited his cult, he probably wouldn’t have had to rely on tricks to make them follow him. Except he probably would have anyway, because it was easier. Laziness was often efficiency under another name.
Ashara slowly relaxed. Either all their assailants were dead, or they didn’t want to fight anymore; either way, there were no more blaster bolts coming in their direction. Murlesson was already sauntering forward, to where Leppo flailed inside his transparent tank, uncrushed but helpless. It wasn’t a true tank; it couldn’t bypass this wreckage and rubble. The shields were still up, and would stay up for hours, but… he was a Sith. He didn’t need hours. He glanced back at the door of his commune. “We have triumphed!”
There was a ragged cheer, and a motley mess of cultists came tip-toeing out gingerly – the floor and roadway were no longer what he’d strictly call ‘safe’, with all the craters and structural damage, probably not helped by him dropping a fifty-ton footbridge on it. They came crowding around him, around Leppo, who now bore an unfortunate resemblance to a specimen in a zoo, especially with the bulging eyes and slack jaw and general agitation. Someone raised a blaster, and Murlesson wasn’t slow in yanking it away from them, holding it up in the air. “His shields yet protect him. Fear not, he can cause no more harm to you.”
Several cultists stared in more blank surprise at the levitating blaster than the trapped Hutt, and Murlesson stifled a sigh. He really needed to spend more time with them; he wanted their fear and awe, but not at every simple little trick he could do. He let it drift back to its owner’s grasp, but the cultist dropped it like it was hot, kneeling on the ground to stare at it fearfully. Okay, that was rather amusing.
<I’ll pay you triple to let me go free!> Leppo squawked. <I understand your power now. Darth Thanaton can go hang! I won’t cause you or yours any more trouble!>
“What say you?” Murlesson asked his cult mildly, and was greeted with a bloodthirsty yell. “Well, the people have spoken.” And he wouldn’t deny his own darkness stirred at their passion.
Ashara grimaced. “You know what, I’m out. I’ll see you later.” She slipped through the crowd and disappeared. He supposed he couldn’t blame a Jedi for not wanting to make a public spectacle out of an execution, but circumstances and his own temper dictated it was necessary.
“How do we kill him if he’s all bottled up like a stone mite?” Rylee asked, more curious than anything.
“Quite easily,” Murlesson said, reaching out with his hand. Immediately, the Hutt began to choke. He’d read somewhere they had big lungs and could survive without air for some time… but not if he were squeezing his lungs, too.
<The Hutt clans… will be furious if… you kill me! It was only because Darth Thanaton… paid me a great deal!>
“The Hutt clans have already given me permission to do whatever necessary in self-defence,” Murlesson told him coldly. “As for Thanaton… he’s next, don’t you know?”
<Please!> the Hutt wheezed. <Fifty percent… of everything… I own! All… yours!>
“It was never about the money,” Murlesson said, affecting boredom. “It was always about our right to exist, free from your control.”
<You’re a murderer! A monster!> Leppo gasped. What a waste of his last air.
He let a slow smile spread across his face. “You’re right. I’m their monster.” Rylee grinned, recognizing the call-back. “Goodbye, Leppo. I look forward to dealing with your successor.” He tightened his grip, and the Hutt thrashed uselessly before slowly slumping into his own slimy flab.
He turned to his followers. “And thus all who would harm you will perish by my hand.” They cheered deafeningly, uncontrollably, on the verge of rushing at him. He took a step away and held up his hand before they could mob him, and gradually they quieted enough to listen. “Now we must rebuild what they have damaged. How many were killed or injured?”
“Many,” Rylee said. “But you saved us all.” She knelt to him, and as one, they all followed her, some of them making themselves prostrate on the ground.
He felt a bit of a rush, he wasn’t going to deny, looking around at all the heads bowed to him in obeisance. “We will hold a memorial for the fallen,” he said. “They died in defence of this home, and should be honoured. Now we must tend to those who remain.” And find a contractor to repair the street, pronto. He was suddenly feeling tired, and wondered if he had the energy left to re-enter the office in a dignified fashion. The wreckage was pretty high and clambering over it wouldn’t look very good. But he was too tired to levitate, either it or himself… “Rylee, if you would direct them…”
“Yes, master!” she chirped, jumping up, happy to be of use, apparently not noticing his exhaustion. He’d wait for them to go back in, then extricate himself by himself, possibly using his lightsaber to help.
And once he made it back inside the building, skirting the unsteady spots in the floor by a wide margin, he found himself confronted by Destris, holding Liiddi by the arm. Rylee, who’d just finished giving directions, hovered near, curiously. Khem was there, licking his chops and looking pleased with himself, or maybe pleased with Murlesson.
He’d nearly forgotten about Liiddi. “You needn’t hold him so, Destris. The poor fellow wishes to join us, after all.”
“Very good, master,” Destris said, letting go of him.
Liiddi bowed; apparently he’d seen something of the conflict. “Yes, yes, great lord, scary lord, I will work for you forever! And with your, um, nice followers.” He shot a nervous look at Destris, who was watching him with a distinctly unfriendly eye.
“All right, then. You could be of great assistance. I’d like you to begin by helping us to something out of Leppo’s accounts. He did cause great damage to my people and my property, and why involve other parties-” like Nar Shaddaa’s useless, Hutt-biased justice system- “when we can simply and quietly take what we deserve?”
Liiddi’s eyes lit up. “I can do that! Yes, yes, a straightforward task, not easy, but straightforward; how much would you like?”
Murlesson looked over at Rylee and Destris, and nearly cracked a smirk. “I seem to recall he was offering three million for this place… and fifty percent of his wealth for his life?” The few millions he’d been offered initially might be pocket change for a Hutt, but even that much would more than pay for repairs, major upgrades, the sanctum he wanted to build, bribes to Torga, and still have a healthy amount leftover to invest in the stock market. “Let’s not be greedy. Ten percent will be reasonable recompense for us, and leave plenty for the clans to recover, keeping us in their good graces. It will set us up for years to come.” How many millions would it be? Would it make his head spin? That might be pleasant. He was feeling very satisfied with himself, and wondering if he ought to be more wary, where the catch was. True, Torga hadn’t said he could help himself to money along with Leppo’s life, but if he got there first… finders, keepers.
Rylee clapped her hands, and Destris made a fist-pump motion. “That’s awesome, master! You really are the best!”
“I try,” he said, mock-modestly. “Get it done now, and let me know when you’ve finished.” He needed time to research his little bit of blackmail, anyway.
And to help the wounded survivors, at least a token effort – it would impress them. If he could dodge the ones who wanted to physically accost him and worship him bodily. He saw it in the wildness of their eyes, some wanted to. Anyone who tried it was getting Force-pushed across the room. They had to know that he was a generous master, but he was the master. They had to fear him.
Ashara was already there, but when she saw him, she got up and moved away. “Sorry, I need some time right now.”
“Okay,” he said.
“I know it was… you know… necessary, and unavoidable, and all, but…”
“You don’t need to explain yourself,” he said, turning his back to her to give her space and bending to help a cultist with a burned leg, unrolling a bandage.
He felt her eyes on his back for a while, and then she moved on to help others, silently.
Finally, after a slight rest and food to recover his energy, there was one thing left to do. He went back to Torga’s nightclub a few hours later, with Revel this time, since he didn’t need him to do something else and Ashara’s Force-sense was still bothered even from a distance.
“So what are you going to do now that you’re incredibly rich?” Revel asked on the way there.
He shot him a flat look. “I’m not incredibly rich. I’m moderately wealthy.” Revel rolled his eyes; apparently having twenty million was a lot for most people, but he’d already adjusted to having it. His head hadn’t spun for very long. He knew how much Thanaton commanded, he knew how much most Hutts hoarded. He was playing in the big leagues now; still a small fish in an increasingly large pond. “And I’m not planning anything that normal people would consider exciting.”
“Huh. You mean you’re not going to build that secret hideout you had ‘Shara working on?”
“Well maybe yes that, but it’s not like the cult is suddenly going to start dining on roast nerf and namana fruit, and gild the walls in Naboo gold. I’ll give them a small reward, but they can’t be allowed to grow lazy.”
Revel snorted. “Fair enough. What about you? Any interest in personal luxuries?”
“Not much. I don’t want to grow fat and lazy either.” His voice sank. “I won’t deny it’s tempting. To have anything I never could have before… but I can’t lose focus.”
Revel patted him on the shoulder, and he moved away to prevent that from happening again. “You’re not wrong, kid. Money don’t buy happiness. It don’t buy freedom, or loyalty, or much that really counts in this screwed-up galaxy. But it can buy an awful lot, I’d just like to point out.”
He grunted and fell silent.
Torga was more than happy to greet him now. <That was noisy, but effective. As promised, the Hutt clans will not seek revenge. He was, after all, meddling in affairs that weren’t his. You can even keep the money, it’s nothing to me.>
Score. “As you say, Great Torga.” Should he tell her it was all Thanaton’s fault? No, that would call his Imperial ties into question. “Then by your leave, we shall continue to live in this neighbourhood…”
<I was actually wondering if you’d consider working with me,> she said. Great, here it came.
“If it’s all the same to Your Greatness, I’d prefer to remain independent,” he said mildly. “I serve the Empire…”
<But your people are not Imperials,> Torga said shrewdly. <You’re a funny one for an Imperial, but your people and your business are not. Why not let me invest in your little factory? You could expand to half this sector with my help.>
“Thank you, but I must respectfully decline,” he said coolly.
<Don’t be foolish, young Sith. You have a head for power, but I have a head for business. I could see to it that the Imperials don’t want your little chips. And… you know, we both have a head for violence…> Around them, safeties began to switch off; behind him, Revel stayed chill as ice, trusting in him.
Murlesson gave her a flat stare; the metaphorical gloves were half-off. “You seem to misunderstand, Great Torga. I’m not the least bit afraid of you, or your underlings. I could kill everyone here, but that wouldn’t be very useful, wouldn’t it? I have a much better plan that you’ll like even more than dying or acquiring the Screaming Blades over my undead body.”
<Do tell,> Torga said, clearly amused, not taking him seriously, and slightly angered that he would turn her down.
“I will of course show my gratitude for your generosity… repeatedly, and in monetary fashion,” he said. One reason, perhaps, she was so unfussed about him taking a small fortune – some of it would inevitably come back to her. “And, incidentally, I won’t send Leppo’s little box to anyone.” He smiled toothily. “I think we can come to an amicable agreement, don’t you, oh Great Torga?”
Torga paused, staring, then boomed a laugh. <Oh, I like you, young Sith. I like you a lot. I think we can do very good business together, in spite of your stubbornness.> She waved a hand. <Go on, then, keep your little fanclub. Grow your business slowly. Live your short little life. I won’t interfere. I’ll just take good care of them after you’re gone.>
Murlesson bowed. “Of course, Great Torga. I’m glad we had this talk.” Ha, she was turning to hate him, as anyone would hate a person who held power over them. He would have to be vigilant against her from now on, but also secure that she wouldn’t try anything unless it was catastrophically successful. Or insidiously subtle. “I will bid you farewell then, by your leave.”
<Farewell, Murlesson. Don’t come back.>
Revel breathed a sigh once they were clear of the outer guards. “Damn, you pulled it off. I wasn’t sure you could.”
“You doubted me?” Murlesson asked idly.
“Not many sentients can go toe-to-toe with a Hutt like that and keep their cool unless they’re stupid or very experienced. You handled that like a pro.”
Murlesson shrugged. “I looked for the best possible option. It wasn’t that difficult, in this case. Thanaton will be harder.”
“’It wasn’t that difficult’, he says, having done something almost no one else can do,” Revel snarked. “Say, can I ask a favour?”
“You want a raise?”
“Sure, but that wasn’t the favour I was going to ask. See, I just got word earlier today that a bunch of my former crew got picked up by the Republic recently. While some of them I’d be perfectly happy to see rot, some of them I kind of want to see freed. And while I could probably handle it on my own, they are on Belsavis…”
“What’s Belsavis?” Murlesson asked, trying to remember if he’d studied that one in galactic geography.
“Republic prison planet. Weird place, by all accounts. Covered in ice, except where hot spots have burned through and left habitable areas. Only the very worst end up there. Like my former bunch.”
“I need to spend time with my fanclub, and then go to Korriban before Zash blows something. Or after, it might be an improvement. Would it be acceptable to send you off to reconnoitre and then rejoin you in a couple weeks?”
“Sure, sounds like a plan. I’ll need a ship, since I assume you’re keeping the Viper with you – she’s yours, after all.”
“I’ll get you something,” Murlesson said absentmindedly, already concocting a scheme. “Do try not to get caught. I’d hate to have to replace you.”
Revel smirked. “Hey, I might not have crazy blaster-proof magic powers, but I am a pro.”
“Hence the fact I’m giving you a raise.”
Revel seen safely off with a used but stealth-equipped freighter, Murlesson now had time to breathe. He couldn’t remember when that had last been, but he welcomed it. Even dealing with the crazies who followed him didn’t seem so bad. Although he didn’t forget – Thanaton had sent a Hutt after him. What would his next move be? Ought he to secure his Commenor base against violent assault? Surely Thanaton wouldn’t be so crude when Murlesson wasn’t even in the vicinity? He appreciated artefacts too, didn’t he? No, he couldn’t let his paranoia go too far. Thanaton didn’t even know about the Commenor base. Though surely he must suspect Murlesson had more than one.
Naga Sadow advised total security, but it was easy for him to say… He was just starting out with his power spread half-way across the galaxy in small, disparate blobs.
Although… now with Liiddi’s help, he could create false identities, false companies, and invest heavily in whatever he liked without it being nearly as easily traceable back to him. Which meant his power could grow invisibly. And the first thing he did with that was to invest in an even better research lab on Commenor, in a much higher percentage. He was going to transition the factory towards producing quality, specialized products if he could. Which meant refitting the factory… retraining the workers…
After holding a memorial for everyone killed in the Hutt raid, he spent a lot of time in the upper floors of the building of his commune, while the lower floors were being repaired – and upgraded, now even though the place would be just as shabby as before, by design, there would be hidden turrets, pop-up barricades, blast doors. And up there, he taught, trying to explain in small words about what it meant to be Sith, to follow Sith, while still maintaining his mystique and distance. Fortunately, his audience was terribly uncritical. And he passed some much-delayed judgements on disputes that Destris had kept in limbo for him like a good kath hound, keeping up a calm iciness that intimidated his cultists appropriately.
Although Ashara still wasn’t talking to him. It was a bit awkward for him. But he let her be. If she didn’t come to terms with what he had to do, that was her problem, not his.
He thought she might show some interest when he brought in a small team to begin constructing an elevator shaft from the back of the main level of the commune down, down, down… to bedrock, as he planned, though it was going to take some time to get there. But, nothing from her yet. Perhaps she would be more intrigued when the actual cosmetic work started and her own contributions became evident. He could be patient. In the meantime, only Rylee and Destris were truly in on the meaning of the construction, and they were ecstatic over it.
He would have to keep a better eye out for Thanaton’s movements. He had weathered this jab, but Thanaton had a lot he could move against him, and he intended to side-step as much of it as he could.
So much to do, still so little time.
They were two days out from Nar Shaddaa, heading back to Korriban at Zash’s frustrated prodding, and he was supposed to be researching this Belsavis planet, when: “You need a haircut,” Ashara said, leaning over him where he sprawled on the common-room couch with his datapad.
He flinched, probably more than was strictly necessary at the prospect of something trillions of sentients did every day.
She looked worried. “What? What’s wrong? Is that bad?”
He inhaled slowly and sighed, running a hand over his admittedly-long and in-the-way hair, sitting up a little. “For years, the chic, fresh look for slaves on Commenor was a shaved scalp. When I became a Sith, I told myself I wasn’t cutting it again.” He frowned. “I’m not sure I meant ever again, but I’ve earned the right to hair.”
“You sure have!” She smiled brightly. It was nice that she was treating him normally again. “It’s really nice, too, you do take good care of it. It’s just long and kind of, I don’t know, emo-looking. And you have horrible split ends. You can absolutely have hair – I am super in favour of you having hair – but it could look even better.”
“What’s split ends?” he asked.
“The ends of mammalian hairs can get dried out and split if they’re too old. The only fix is trimming them.”
“Gross,” he said. “How do you know about that? You don’t have hair.”
She smirked. “Lots of my friends at the enclave had hair, not just the humans, there were also a couple Cathar and Bothans and Mirialans and female Rodians and even a Zabrak like you; I learned a lot about it. When we were younger, we’d do each other’s hair before bed on the weekends…” Sleepovers? Like in that Five Jawas and a Speeder sitcom he only watched five episodes of before giving up in boredom? She trailed off, mournfulness touching her spirit. She was thinking about all her friends that she couldn’t see ever again because of him. “S-so I could even do it myself, if you don’t want to see a professional.”
“I’d rather you do it,” he said immediately. “What do you suggest that’s… not emo?”
“Ummm…” She stroked his hair, lifting a lock to see its length and texture. He tensed, trying very hard to remain still and not bolt – though whether it was because he hated anyone touching him, or because he almost liked her touching him, he wasn’t sure. “Like… back-of-the-neck kind of length, just generally trim everything down to a couple inches, it’ll look neat and tidy and it won’t get in your way, and it’ll still be… uh, cute.”
“I’m not cute,” he said darkly. “I’ve fought Jedi for saying that before.” Really, what was it with people using that word on him??
“Really?” She giggled and grew bolder. “How about… sexy?”
“Um.” He froze, uncertain what to do with that information, eyes darting back and forth nervously.
But apparently she just found that funny, too. “Okay, okay, I take it back. But you’ll look good, if I don’t mess it up. I promise.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’m not sitting in a chair, though.” Too many flashbacks.
“I can work with that. Want to do it now?”
He glanced at his datapad. “How long will it take?”
“Twenty minutes?”
“Give me another half-hour to finish this.”
In half an hour he was hunched around a pillow in the middle of the floor in his cabin, swathed in a big black towel, Ashara crawling around him with scissors and a comb she had dug out of somewhere. He wondered, wondered strongly – Revel kept his head shaved, and Khem didn’t have hair, and Ashara didn’t have hair, not that she’d brought any personal possessions from the enclave anyway, so where did it come from? All he himself had for haircare was a brush, a soft one that went around his horns more easily than a stiff-bristled one.
She seemed to think that he might chat like her Jedi sleepover friends, but he just grunted at all her attempts to make small-talk. If he wasn’t playing a part, he didn’t know how to make small-talk.
“I think Rylee likes you.”
“Huh.”
“Do you like her?”
“Hmph.” Not in that way.
“I like her, she’s nice. She’s kind of cute, don’t you think?”
“Hn.”
She snipped quietly for a while. “Are you annoyed?” she asked eventually.
“No.” Honest. He just didn’t know how to respond.
“Then why are you being so rude?”
“You’re not saying anything that sparks my interest.”
She pouted and snipped around his left ear. He winced and held very still. Strands of red hair were drifting around him and scattering across the deck. They’d better not end up anywhere sensitive. “Your love life isn’t interesting?”
“What love life?”
“Your prospective love life, then. Well, what do you want to talk about?”
“Do I have to talk?”
“It’s friendly! And cozy!”
“No one’s applied the word cozy to me in my entire life, and with any luck, no one ever will. And live.”
“Well, aren’t you a gigantic grouch.”
“Now you’re on the right track.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “It’s all part of the aesthetic, isn’t it? ‘If it’s not the most grimdark thing ever, it doesn’t fit my personality’.”
He snorted. “I hate baby gizka, didn’t you know?” That wasn’t true, and she knew it by now too.
She snickered, and then was quiet a moment, though the scissors still went snip snip snip, around his other ear now.
“All right, serious topic, then.”
“Yes?”
“You keep talking about ‘dying young’ and ‘not expecting to live past five years from now’…”
He would have shrugged, but he didn’t want to disturb her work. “I’ve been studying the greatest Sith tacticians in history, and I appear to have a knack for applying their knowledge to my own life. I’ve cheated death a hundred times over by now. But they had time to establish themselves. Even with everything I have, my education, my cunning, my strength, my resources, I might still make a fatal mistake. Everything’s getting more complicated, more difficult to juggle. I might miss something, or make a bad decision. Maybe I already made a bad decision that I don’t know about; I probably did, in fact, if not several.”
“No one’s perfect,” she said, exasperated.
“Lack of perfection is why Sith don’t live very long,” he answered. “I intend to fight my fate as long as I can, and when I lose? I’ll be dead, so I won’t give a frak anymore. Statistically, it’s unlikely I’ll die of old age.” She said nothing, but her forehead scrunched up in distress and sorrow radiated through her spirit. “Will you stop with the pity? I won’t care either way.”
“I’d care,” she said quietly, defensively. “You say you don’t care a lot, and I wonder if it’s always true.”
He was tempted to say he didn’t care again. “I don’t know. I think it usually is. I only have so much energy to care about things. I like to prioritize.” He paused, made a toothy grin. “Anyway, there’s always the possibility my sins will catch up with me and I decide none of this bantha shit is worth the effort.”
She stopped, put the scissors down, took his face in both hands. He tensed, wanting to pull away, not daring to move, but here he had no choice but to look in her concerned brown eyes. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he demanded in a whisper that was almost scared. Him, scared of a Jedi and her feelings-!
“Don’t you dare kill yourself,” she pleaded with him. “You’re… Force, you’re hurting so bad that it’s painful to feel you, even though you hide it so well, but you’re brilliant. You’re amazing. You’re… worth living. So don’t stop.”
He stared at her, wondering what she saw in his eyes, in him, terrified of this sudden, unfamiliar emotional vulnerability she was forcing on him. Wondering if he should just Force-push her out of the room and go hide in the Dark to make himself feel better; it was churning in his belly along with sudden nerves anyway. Knowing that it wouldn’t make him feel better at all. “You don’t know my life. What I’ve done just to get here.” And she never would. Though she probably guessed from how he went about the Hutt execution.
“I don’t have to.” Her fingertips on his cheeks were warm, and slightly rough, and the most gentle, trusting thing he’d ever felt in his life. “You use the Dark Side, yes, but you use your pain to fight against injustice, and you make the galaxy a better place with it. Just keep living. I’ll walk beside you, as long as you want. It just might take me a little while to accept the darker things you do.”
He pulled away, back into himself, away from her hands. “Just finish the haircut, please.”
She withdrew a little, awkward herself now, and kept going in silence, moving behind him to get the back of his head. Her fingers brushed his slave collar scars on the back of his neck and she paused, but he was determined not to flinch. He’d known she’d find them. After a moment, she kept going.
“I-I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you,” she said at last.
“I’m not upset,” he said, whether it was true or not. Although, he guessed if he were really upset, there would be a lot more mental screaming. There usually was. “If I really wanted to make the galaxy a better place, I would cut to the chase and kill myself. Fix it right up.”
She squinted at him over his shoulder. “Was… was that a joke?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “I like my humour the way I like my Force and my caf – black and bitter enough to choke a rancor.”
Her eyes grew wide, then her face creased in a huge grin. “Well, I like my humour in the same way as my Force and caf – bright, full of rainbows, and double cream and sugar.”
“You like rainbows in your caf?” He made a face. “I thought Jedi never got further than a dozen shades of brown.”
She giggled. “When I’m in a really good mood, I’ve been known to fart rainbows on occasion.”
“Gross. I’m throwing you off my ship, we don’t need the contamination.”
“I dunno, I don’t think you could bear to part with me at this point.”
“Want to bet? The murder, mayhem, and galactic domination hasn’t driven you off?”
“Who would give you a haircut if I wasn’t around?”
Fair point, if minor. “All right, how are you then? You’re really not regretting joining me yet?”
“No, not yet.” She smiled. “Although it’s forcing me to grow in ways I never really expected.”
“Like what?”
“Umm… Well, I have to remember to do my own mindfulness and meditation. At first it was nice, not having to stick to a schedule – I got to be really lazy and it was fun.”
“Sith do what they want,” he snarked.
She giggled some more. “I wouldn’t call being lazy terribly Sithy, definitely not after watching you. Lots of people are lazy, and they’re not Sith! But then I started getting bored, and missing the structure the Jedi used to provide for me, so I decided that I had to figure it out myself. So it’s been good for me, in that respect.”
“That’s good,” he murmured. He was actually feeling kind of relaxed as she combed through the back of his head; it was unusual for him, but nice.
“I’m not perfect about it, because I’m bad at self-control… but I still want to remain a Jedi. And now I have to figure it out for myself, and the meditation is really good for that. I think I’m taking it more seriously than I ever did at the enclave, which is really weird, come to think of it. Makes me wish I’d taken it more seriously before.” She sat back. “There, done!”
He got up and shuffled over to the little mirror by his refresher. “Huh.”
“You like it?”
“Not bad. Looks respectable. Thanks.”
She smiled. “You’re welcome! Hooray! It worked!”
Zash-in-Khem’s-body smiled knowingly when she saw him in the conference room a little while later, reading the news. “I see you let her clean you up.”
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“It’s different, isn’t it? The atmosphere on the ship, since she came.”
He grunted noncommittally.
“It’s the presence of a young woman. Women change everything, you know. The galaxy needs femininity to be in balance.”
“Well, you’ve never been feminine,” he groused. Random thoughts of rainbows intruded and he pushed them away.
“Murlesson, dear,” she scolded. “When I still had my nice human body, I was very feminine. I even kept my illusions that way, unless you were too blind to notice – though it seems you’re not too blind to notice her.”
“Shut up,” he said. “Unless you have anything actually useful to say.”
“You don’t trust me, Murlesson,” she said chidingly.
“Frakking straight I don’t,” he bit back. “I can trust any help or advice you offer is ultimately to help you over me, so no, I don’t trust you even when you’re correct.”
“I’m hurt, Murlesson dear.”
He looked up and snarled full on. “Don’t pull that with me. We’re both Sith. We both know that trust is fatal and emotions are liabilities.”
She smiled, peeling Khem’s lips apart to reveal jagged teeth. “Ah, you have so much to learn about both. And it’s the kind of learning you can’t simply tell yourself to know like you do so well. You’ll have to let the galaxy teach you, slowly, painfully.”
He stared at her. “Are you done pretending you’re superior?”
She smiled and walked away. She was so smug… Even if he had hated Khem, which he didn’t, he would never let Zash have sole control if he could help it.
Korriban was just how he remembered it. Arid, pitiless, utterly depressing. But now everyone bowed to him. Nice. He was still a little nervous, but he wouldn’t run into Thanaton now; he was still running about being mysterious on Dromund Kaas right now, according to his intelligence.
Four acolytes were lined up in Harkun’s office, mostly aliens, and he was abusing them verbally, as usual. “You are the slime, the filth, the wretches of society. You are what Sith Lords scrape off their boots.”
Murlesson leaned against the doorframe, his face the picture of dour boredom, hiding his irrationally intense surge of hatred. “Ah, Harkun, good to see you haven’t changed a bit.”
“Well, well, my lord,” Harkun said, folding his arms. He could feel the loathing radiating off him from here. The acolytes all turned to look with various levels of curiosity and fear. “I certainly never expected to see you again. You clean up well.” Good, Ashara’s haircut was helping. “Are you here for an apprentice, or were you just feeling nostalgic?”
“I’m certainly not here to see you,” Murlesson said, countering sarcasm with more sarcasm. If the acolytes picked up there was no love lost between the two of them, he didn’t care. Most of them would die, anyway, and even if one of them managed to do something with that knowledge.. he’d almost be more interested to see it than pretend everything was hunky-dory in the World of Sith.
“Still as prickly and arrogant as ever, eh, slave? I mean, my lord.”
Murlesson’s gaze darkened, and his fingers twitched. He could choke out Harkun a little bit, and no one would say anything. He’s not worth the effort. He’s not worth the effort. He’s not worth the effort. “I suggest you start introducing your lot before I remind you why they made me a Lord two months after I graduated.”
Harkun’s face didn’t change, but his Force sense did – much more obsequious. “Yes, these are the acolytes – a worse bunch than yours, if you ask me. This worm is Seferiss. They found him in a Hutt’s palace, crushing prisoner’s heads for the Hutt’s entertainment.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, my lord,” said the red-skinned Twi-lek.
“Shut up, slave,” Harkun snapped. “You don’t talk directly to a Lord of the Sith unless he asks it.” He turned to the next one, the one with three eyes on short, fat stalks. “This beady-eyed monstrosity is Argog. Don’t know where on a kath hound’s backside he’s supposed to come from.” Gran, usually from Kinyen, Murlesson recalled his high-school studies. Funny how those came in handy. He’d known a couple Gran as a slave, himself.
<Not far from where you were born, I think,> said the Gran.
“Sorry, what was that? Can’t understand a word it says,” Harkun said, and pointed to the third. “This gangly creature is Jaxun. He’s no Sith, but he’s at least human.” He froze, apparently only just remembering he was still on thin ice from his last insult. “Er… no offence.” He turned quickly to the last one, a type of alien Murlesson neither recognized nor recalled. “And this bone-faced one. Well, I can’t pronounce whatever gibberish he says he’s called. We call him Xalek.”
“Master,” said the alien softly, unsettling reptilian eyes watching him closely. He stared coldly back.
“Don’t let him fool you,” Harkun said. “Too wild for his own good. There were two others, but we made the mistake of leaving them alone with him.”
Murlesson cast one last glance over them. “That’s all. I’ll check back soon.”
“Check back as often as you please. I don’t expect it to take too long to chew through this bunch.” He turned to the acolytes. “What are you staring at, wretches? You know your trial for today. Now go!”
They filed out past him, filled with the Dark Side, angry, fearful, weak. He looked back at Harkun one more time. “I realize it has not been very long since I walked these halls in their boots. But you really should watch your tongue more carefully.”
“Yes… my lord.” Harkun really, really despised him.
The feeling was still mutual.