Can Swallow This [EA9]

[Sylvain Torsin]

"Your mind is no more free of chains than it was in the past... you've just traded the aesthetic." He shrugged. "Demanding you to form your life around a certain set of moral principles is and always will be chains... no matter what the textbooks say."

[Moyr Ahaya]

"I at least there are no shortcuts in being able cast away my chains and to be free to make a difference. I wonder if your arrogance shrouds this simple truth from you." She elegantly pushed a morsel between her crimson lips and chewed on it for a while.

[Sylvain Torsin]

He chuckled, "The Dark side is the shortcut. It's ways are easy and require no thought. Blind faith will never be my thing... call it arrogance if you'd like."

[Moyr Ahaya]

"All I see is two ideologically entrenched discussants trying to argue that it is the other that lacks rationality or intellectual maturity." She chuckled after a moment of thoughtful chewing. "I don't think we'll resolve our differences via persuasion."

[Sylvain Torsin]

He nodded, "You always were a challenge."

He smiled slightly, "In a good way."

[Moyr Ahaya]

The words sounded so very wrong to her, like gloating of someone who had overcome the challenge and had reaped the prize until he re-discovered sweeter fruits back home. Maybe it was not what he meant, but it felt like a dagger in her stomach anyway. She stopped eating and took a swig of whiskey to burn down the feeling. It helped, a little.

"How are the peace talks going? The cooperation with Darth Xevious is smooth enough?"

[Sylvain Torsin]

Sylvain's tone would have suggested something very different, but he had no control over how he was interpreted in someone else's mind.

"Well enough... Xevious is not particularly helpful... but things move forward."

[Moyr Ahaya]

"Would you go as far as to say that he does not believe in the positive outcome of these talks?" She mused. Her thoughts on him had been forcefully patterned in her mind to make them bearable, and even this conversation was like a stress test to her cultivated resolve and indifference. Deep emotions never die in a Sith's heart, they transmute in the murk of the subconscious.

[Sylvain Torsin]

He shook his head, "Deliberately noncommittal either way. I assume it to be his tactic, but usually one would include their associates in on such a thing... as such we all are granted a certain level of plausible deniability I suppose."

[Moyr Ahaya]

"So peace is a barefaced lie." She mused with schadenfreude. "Maybe he's here to just provide stature, and delegates and Salreia are meant to do the heavy lifting. Have you worked closely with her?"

[Sylvain Torsin]

"I've met her. She's more an incisive cutting tool than a heavy lifter though. Friend of yours?"

[Moyr Ahaya]

"I met her two days ago. She was mostly a flirt, not what I would expect of a Chiss. I have been wondering what's beneath."

[Sylvain Torsin]

"I'm afraid my assessment is the same as yours; I have little to add." He replied.

"She appears to be a capable aide." He shrugged.

[Moyr Ahaya]

"Which basically means she lives up to the reputation of her species. If it is someone as prejudiced toward aliens ad Xevious who works with her, that probably is an indication." She said quietly and resumed eating. "And the children of the Grand Moff? Are your experiences equally positive?"

[Sylvain Torsin]

He tilted his head, "Anhel, is a weak man... relatively malleable. Haydriss is more capable, I've recently worked out a deal with her for an exchange of information on knowledge about the Force."

[Moyr Ahaya]

"She's actually been helpful? You have probably lucked out. He's not even into men, so I don't even factor your charms in." She took a small sip, and her lekku twisted slightly in mid-section. "Congratulations."

[Sylvain Torsin]

He nodded chuckled, "I'm not all my looks and fancy words."

[Moyr Ahaya]

"I probably mostly forgot what you are." She said quietly, making a pause for several more contemplative bites of not looking at him.

[Sylvain Torsin]

He nodded contemplatively, "That is one feasible way of dealing with what happened."

[Moyr Ahaya]

"You and I didn't exactly have the same sets of options. I got by the way I could." She replied quietly, without posturing.

[Sylvain Torsin]

He nodded, "I came to know you a little bit in our time together. You're a survivor. You undoubtedly have moved past some arrogant ass like me long ago."

He took a drink from his cup and stared up at the drinks behind the bar on the wall. "For what it is worth... and I admit it's nothing... I regret the way things played out. You were there for me in some of the darkest moments of my life... and I didn't repay you appropriately. I should have done a lot of things very differently."

He chuckled once through his nostrils and shook his head, "Don't let my fuck-ups keep you from anything... I trust you won't."

[Moyr Ahaya]

"It's hard to say something to this... Sylvain." She used his name for the first time, and evidently tensed to say it dispassionately. "Beyond stating the obvious that I have survived you and I somehow have moved on there is a lot more that could be said. But I am not sure if saying that will lead u... this anywhere." She shuddered lightly and shrugged as if someone had just pulled an ice cube along her spine.

"This 'it's not you, it's me' talk is demeaning though. You were my decision, my bet and my mistake. I hold myself responsible for breaking myself by means of Sylvain Torsin. And I hate myself for having done that, falling victim to strange sentiments that should have had little place in my life as a Sith. That me I abhor and I hope she will never return, that I may diffuse and suppress that part of me which wants me to write songs for men who shouldn't be hearing them. I can't still decide whether that life lesson has made me better or worse off. I am a stronger Sith but... no matter. That painful confusion is your most long-lasting legacy."

She finished her whiskey in one swoop but stayed pu, staring at the counter.

[Sylvain Torsin]

"If that's what you heard out of that, then I don't think there's much I can say that your mind won't twist into something completely different from what I'm saying. I was never 'your' decision any more than you were mine; you told me to get out, and I chose to leave. You fail to realize that you are not the only actor in the universe; that everyone has some degree of agency and the way you behave doesn't always dictate the outcome... no matter how much you try to coerce it. Your approachable, conversational, romantic, and committed side is the Moyr I was drawn to; the one that drew me out and lifted me up... Not this philosophical shell you've constructed. Your urge to possess, tear down, dominate, and an overall failure to respect others is not who I genuinely think you should be and it's that woman I walked away from." He shrugged.

"Perhaps killing the one side of you that isn't this 'Sith' you have been convinced you need to become is actually what's causing this lasting confusion... Makes more sense than originating from some fascist prince who didn't fully have his shit together. If I were you... I wouldn't kill the Moyr in there that sings her romantic songs. That Moyr was happier, more free, and focused than whatever it is you are becoming by killing her. She was perhaps less philosophically pure... but she was far more interesting and wonderful to be around... she got more shit done than not and was far more comfortable with herself..." He too lifted his drink and finished it off.

"But I have a feeling my words are about to come back to me in a distorted way... I'm the boogeyman in your mind now.. incapable of doing or saying anything of use." He rolled his neck a bit to stretch it out.

[Moyr Ahaya]

As he continued speaking, she pushed the shades firmer onto her nose as he spoke and arched back on the tall chair. When she spoke, there were cracks in her resolve traceable in her voice even though it was descending into a whisper so as not to reveal it's shifting colour.

"That woman that gave you all the love she had... she is gone. She died in the desert later that night. She is only a ghost that haunts the survivor sometimes. But even if she could return, there's nothing to come back to." She forced an unnatural laugh. "At least I have a clear answer that what's left is worse. So..." She slipped off the chair, somewhat limply, supporting herself with a whitening hold on the rim of the counter. "...I will keep living this least favourite life..." She turned away from him. "...until the Force shall free me."

[Sylvain Torsin]

Sylvain turned to look at her as his features softened, "I hope you resuscitate her as best you can. Because if in the process of 'freeing' yourself, you lose yourself... then you've lost the only true thing worth fighting for. I will believe in Moyra'haya over the Sith Code any day and in any circumstance." He pronounced her name perfectly this time.

"Call it weakness if you'd like... but I will always be there to help Moyra'haya if she needs it. I would contest that I was always honest with you... so you know me... and know that I will ferociously protect those I care for deeply no matter what they have done or will do to me. That's the way I choose to live."