A Standup Philosopher
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Crown of Slaves 023
🕑 Added 2025-05-20 17:00:10 +0000 UTCFortunately for me, my injuries were sufficient to earn me a brief stay in a bacta tank. Whether that was standard protocol for an acolyte in my position, advanced in the Trials and having successfully completed the trial that had so badly injured me, or it was due to some string-pulling by those above, I didn’t know. Nor, honestly, did it make much of a difference. The only thing that really mattered is that I was back on my feet in a day and back in my room, where my Kory was waiting for me. Though not Malora, which was unfortunate. I would have enjoyed releasing some of my stress into her as well, if only to give my Kory a break.
Not that she seemed to mind being alone at my tender mercies, judging by the fact that she had been kneeling, naked and soaked, on my bed when I had gotten back to our room.
“Ah, ah, ah~!” the redhaired once-acolyte squealed as I pounded into her, her head and shoulders pressed into the bed and her hips airborne as I stood on the mattress and fucked her at an angle that was entirely new to our trysts.
Her spine was arched beautifully like this, contorted in a way that most wouldn’t be capable of in the first place, her body trembling and her breasts bouncing violently with each heavy thrust. I gripped her hips tighter, my fingers digging into her soft skin, leaving marks that I knew from previous experience would be felt for hours at least. Not that she would mind, of course, and Force knew that I damn well didn’t.
"You missed me, didn't you?" I growled, giving her rear a sharp slap that echoed through our quarters. The red mark blooming on her pale skin was, as always, deeply satisfying, as was the sharp and thick spike of pain-infused pleasure that washed through the Force.
"Yes—yes!" Kory gasped between moans, her voice breathless from lack of air and the position of her body alike. "Every moment you were gone! When I felt your pain, I was so worried, and then I heard that you were in a bacta tank! I wanted to rush to your side, but I knew I had to stay here! So I got myself ready for you, dreamed of what you would do to me when you came back. I knew you would want me, knew you would need me.”
"And so you made yourself ready for me, hmm?" I said, voice thick with approval. "Such a good girl. Such a smart girl, you knew your place, knew what I would want and need. You were just waiting to lift my spirits and pleasure my body, weren’t you?"
My pace increased, the wet sounds of our joining filling the room alongside her whimpers and my grunts. I could feel her tightening around me, her body responding to my words as much as my actions. The Force swirled around us, charged with our mingled desire, amplifying every sensation. It was as intoxicating as it always was, and if I hadn’t already been libidinous in the extreme this likely would have signed my death warrant. Or my ‘little death’ warrant, as it were.
Heh.
Speaking of orgasms, it wasn’t going to take much longer for me to cum. As enjoyable as this angle was for her, letting me hit points inside her that were rarely touched even with as much of a stretch as I typically put her through, it was even more so for me. And Force knew that I really, really wanted to blow a load in her before a nice, relaxing night’s sleep. I needed the rest before I had to deal with my last trial, because goddamnit Khem Val probably wasn’t going to be a particularly easy enemy to deal with. Especially not if I had to deal with the Sith Warrior first, which I did and would, because there was no way I was letting that psychotic fucker get his hands on Vette or Jaesa.
Honestly, there were a number of concerns swirling through my mind, most of them related to the Trials (and trials) still to come, but right now they were all pushed aside in favor of the feel of Kory's tight, wet heat wrapped around me. I'd worry about all that shit later; for now, I was going to enjoy myself.
"Fuck, you feel good," I growled, one hand leaving wrap around her throat, clenching tightly as my thumb stroked along the length of her throbbing pulse-point. The choked gasp that escaped her was music to my ears, and I could feel her pussy clench around me in response. "You always know exactly what I need, don't you?"
"Yes—yes, Master!" she cried out, her voice breaking on the title as my hand flexed again, a throb of excitement pulsing through as both at the words and my physical reaction both. "I live to serve you, to pleasure you! All I want is to stay with you!"
The title sent a thrill through me, as it always had and always would, heightening the pleasure I was feeling, but it was the rest that had the most impact, because the sincerity that was pouring out of her was so thick I could almost taste it. It really did seem that a relationship that had started as transactional sex and fun had turned to something more, on both our parts, and I poured my own mix of emotion back towards her in response. The moment it hit, her eyes rolled back and she came, tightening around my length.
Her climax triggered my own, and I buried myself to the hilt inside her, hands gripping her hips hard enough to leave fingerprint bruises as I emptied myself into her waiting (and thankfully protected) womb.
Panting, I withdrew from her and collapsed onto the bed beside her, pulling her into my arms. Kory curled against me, her body still trembling with aftershocks of pleasure, her skin flushed and gleaming with sweat. I ran my fingers through her red hair, enjoying the silky texture as it slipped between my digits.
"Thank you," I murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "You were right. I needed that."
She hummed contentedly, nuzzling against my chest. "I could feel it, the moment you entered our quarters. The tension, the worry." Her fingers traced idle patterns across my skin. "Your next trial weighs on you."
I sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "Of course it does, it’s the last one, and I almost died in the last one. Granted, that was due more to Harkun’s little plot than anything else, but this time I have to face off with an entire tomb of would-be rivals and a fucking dashade. As if that wasn’t bad enough, because Force knows fighting something born and bred and trained specifically to kill and eat Force users, this one was the personal companion and assassin of Tulak Hord himself. I can’t even imagine how many Jedi and Sith, far more powerful and trained than I currently am, he’s killed.”
Kory shifted against me, propping herself up on one elbow to look down at me with concerned eyes, a small frown on her face and a tinge of self-flagellation washing across her. I had been in a good mood, after all, until she brought up the trial. Little did she know that I didn’t need her to remind me about it in order to have angst. I would have gotten there pretty quickly on my own. "You're really worried about this one, aren't you?"
I snorted. "Wouldn't you be? I mean, I knew the Trials would be dangerous, but this is..." I trailed off, gesturing vaguely with one hand.
"Beyond what should be expected of an acolyte, even one like you?" she finished for me, her fingers now tracing the fresh scars on my chest from my last trial, a sharp and strong spike of hate and wrath towards Harkun flooding her presence briefly before a gently kiss to her palm and a soothing pulse settled her down again.
"Exactly right. But it doesn't matter. I'll face it, and I'll win. I don't have a choice." I confirmed, meaning every word and fully aware of the approving, listening presence of my ancestor lingering in the back of my mind.
She studied me for a long moment, her green eyes reflecting the dim light of our quarters, and concern turned to faith. Faith in me. "No, you don't. But that's what makes you different from the others. You've been through more than any of them could imagine, done things that they can’t even understand. They would fail because they can’t imagine success. You’ll succeed because you can’t imagine failure.”
How poetic. And, honestly, there was truth to that. When it came to the Force, determination and self-manifestation could actually change reality, so it wasn’t as if it was purely poetic nonsense. Besides which, and this is what I had always assumed about the game and was banking on for myself, Khem Val would be badly weakened and out of shape due to having been in stasis for the last three thousand and some years. And not even the fun kind of stasis, where you were totally unaware. By all evidence, he had been awake and aware the entire damn time, he had just…not been able to move anything besides his head. And then had been told that his master/companion/friend had died several millennia previously, leaving him abandoned and alone for the intervening time.
Might go a long way to explaining his temper, now that I thought about it.
Unsure of what to say, I settled for simply giving her a firm, passionate kiss, and settling myself more comfortably into her embrace. Perhaps a nice, slow, relaxing fuck before sleep was called for…
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Jedi Temple
Tython
Tython System
Sector Five
Deep Core
Being escorted through the Jedi Temple in shackles by an SIS officer and flanked by two Knights and their Padawans was not, exactly, how Fay had intended to pay a visit to her mother. Especially not after almost two-weeks stuck in lock-up on an SIS infiltration cruiser that was taking the long way back to Republic space, twiddling her thumbs and trying very hard to spend too much of her time thinking about the Sith-that-weren’t-Sith that she had met on Korriban. For a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is that getting aroused while thinking of her imprisonment -or parts of it- and her captors -or, at least, some of them- was not likely to end well for her. That would smack of being compromised, and while she was pretty sure that she wasn’t compromised, at least not in any particularly overt way, she had no interest in being disappeared into a deep, dark hole. Or worse, end up on Belsavis. She’d only ever heard rumors of that place, but even the tamest of those rumors were enough to make someone lose their damn lunch.
The doors to the Grand Council Chamber swung open, admitting herself and her escorts into the Jedi Council’s seat of power, and she felt their collective steps falter when her mother, and her mother alone, stood waiting for them. Her mother, dressed in the same grey-and-gold tunic that she had worn for, as near as Fay was aware, her entire life. Her mother, whose eyes fell on the shackles and hardened subtly enough that Fay was sure she was the only one who saw it. A flick of long fingers had them opening and falling to the floor with a clatter.
“Leave us.” her mother intoned, folding her hands behind her back, and though the Jedi guards acquiesced immediately, withdrawing with bows to the head of their Order, the SIS officer didn’t.
“Master Shan, Captain Shan was in Sith custody for some time on Korriban itself. The chance that she is compromised and poses a threat is significant. Allowing her unfettered access…” he started to deny her command, which is exactly what it had been, only to fall silent as her eyes narrowed enough that even someone unfamiliar with her expressions would notice it.
“She has been in the custody of the SIS for two weeks, questioned rigorously and doubtlessly inspected and searched to the point of humiliation at best.” she didn’t growl the words, nor was her tone anything but calm and even, but Fay doubted that an absence of those facts would have made her any more frightening to the man in this moment. “You never would have brought her here if you believed that she had suffered conventional brain-washing, and there is no one else in this galaxy as qualified as I to inspect my daughter’s mind for manipulation by the Force. So, once again, leave us.”
The agent hesitated for a moment longer, but under the steely gaze of the Jedi Grand Master, he finally acquiesced with a stiff nod and an even stiffer bow. "As you wish, Master Shan. I'll be right outside." The unspoken 'just in case' hung in the air as he departed, the doors closing behind him with a soft thud.
For a long moment, mother and daughter stood in silence, the vast chamber somehow feeling both too large and too confining at once. Fay shifted her weight from one foot to the other, suddenly feeling like she was once again nothing more than a child, gangly and scabby-kneed, waiting for her mother to chastise and comfort her both. Really, the only thing that was missing was Theron standing beside her, but her twin was on the far side of the galaxy doing…whatever it was the SIS had him doing, these days.
"Mom, I—" she began, only to be cut off as Satele closed the distance between them in three swift strides and pulled her into a tight embrace.
"I thought I'd lost you, sweetheart." Satele whispered, the emotion she so rarely displayed to anyone but her own family -and even then, not so often as most parents would- displayed in full force as she cradled her only daughter close. “When Theron sent word that you’d missed your check ins three times in a row, I feared I would never see you again. The only thing that kept my heart buoyed was the fact that Theron and I could still feel you in the Force.”
Fay could only wrap her arms around her mother in response. For all that she and her twin lacked sufficient potency in their heritage to be full-fledged Jedi, there was a metaphysical connection between them that no distance nor chemical could deaden or silence, and though some would have grown out of such ever-present awareness, neither twin would have ever wanted that thread between them to be snipped. Especially not once they joined the Republic armed forces. After a long, long moment, the embrace broke and Satele stepped back to scrutinize her.
"You look tired." Satele finally said, her voice softer than it had been moments ago.
"Two weeks in an SIS holding cell will do that to you." Fay replied dryly. "Not exactly five-star accommodations. Though it was a large step up from the two months I spent in Korriban’s dungeons."
“Yes.” was all her mother could say, the word full of a mixture of turbulent emotions. There was silence for a full minute, before the older Shan shook her head and took Fay’s hand, leading her towards a smaller meditation room off to the side of the main chamber. Gesturing to a pair of plush armchairs, she waited for her daughter to take a seat before doing the same. “Now, I know you well enough to know that you have no interest in being doted over right now, too recent are events, so tell me what’s going on. Your report mentioned the Sith had done something to you, but you were warned by an acolyte?”
“Crazy as it sounds, yes.” Fay confirmed, shaking her head a bit with a smirk as she considered the aforementioned report. It hadn’t even been an actual report, as the military would consider the words, but a private letter laced with very specific phrases and code-words. One of the many things that her brother had helped arrange for their family, to make sure that they could always talk to one another as honestly as needed, no matter how circumspect their words might have to be. And no matter who might be snooping on their communiques, for that matter. “A young woman named Vestara Khai, who also helped me escape and recovered my equipment for me. She hacked into my datapad and put some warnings in it for me. According to her, the Sith couldn’t break into my mind directly, so they tried something a bit more clever. Time-delayed memory manipulation, taking weeks or even months to slowly muddle and smear what I remember until what I would report and what actually happened are completely different.”
Her mother didn’t say anything aloud to that, only reached out to cradle her cheek, and she let her walls fall away as Satele’s presence washed across her mind and soul. She felt her mother search, gently but meticulously, and she felt the cascade of changes as one trap after another was found and eradicated.
“Some of your memories have already been changed, to a greater or lesser degree, but most of the traps hadn’t finished their work yet. It seems that the inquisitor who placed them thought themselves particularly clever and allowed that arrogance to sabotage their efforts. Thank the Force for the nature of the Sith.” Satele finally sighed, nearly an hour after she had begun the process, sitting back and looking as drained as Fay suddenly felt. “As reluctant as I am to admit it, however, I don’t know that I would have found all of them if I had not known that they were there. It seems we both owe a debt to Khai.” she paused for a moment, before meeting her daughter’s eyes. “Tell me everything.”
So Fay did. She told her mother about her capture, her imprisonment, the tortures and humiliations that she had endured. She told her about Vette, about how she had formed a bond of sorts with her fellow prisoner, about the appearance of an acolyte that had hurt her and threatened to do more. How Khai had appeared and forced him to leave, that -though it had, as Khai’s notes had told her, indeed been a ploy- the enmity between the two Sith and Khai’s desire to help her had been all to real.
She glossed over Kory’s detailed explanation of their sex life, mentioning only that her fellow red-head had spent a great deal of time in the prison with them while her mistress was out in the tombs, doing her best to keep their spirits up, but she wasn’t sure how well she disguised the blush that came with the memories. Her mother certainly seemed to notice something, judging by the arched eyebrow and the faint glimmer of amusement in her eyes, the slight quirk at the corners of her mouth.
She talked about Vestara’s story of her life, about the glowing rifts torn in her body, the damage to her presence in the Force that even Fay, far from a wielder of the Force, could sense. The way that she had earned her freedom, fought for her place, continued to fight for survival against all odds and a house that was deliberately stacking the deck against her. How she had risked her life to keep Kory safe, and how she had finally escorted Fay to safety without demanding any sort of reward. No sexual favors, no money, no intelligence, nothing. And then Fay finally, finally said the second-most important thing: that Khai had known, all along, who she was…and done nothing. Even warned her against being deployed in such a way again, lest she be caught and discovered, and Fay admitted that she could not imagine a single scenario where letting her go free -with or without the intelligence on the traps laid in her mind by the Inquisitors- would prove more beneficial for the Sith than keeping her, had they known her ancestry.
Finally, her soul mostly unburdened, she fell silent and waited for her mother’s response.
Satele was quiet for a long moment, her expression pensive as she considered her daughter's words. The silence stretched between them, but it wasn't uncomfortable; rather, it was the silence of a woman who had spent decades weighing the fates of worlds carefully considering something of far more personal importance. A woman that had been there when the Sith Empire had returned to take their ancient homeworld back, who had left her master behind to die, who had felt him pass into the Force at the hands of the very same man who would nearly kill her on Alderaan years later.
"This Vestara Khai." she finally said, her voice thoughtful, contemplative. "You believe her to be genuine? Not merely playing a longer game, hoping to exploit you some way in the future?"
Fay considered the question seriously. "I do. And not just because she helped me escape. There was something... different about her. She doesn't feel like a Sith, at least not what I've been taught Sith are supposed to be. She's ambitious, yes, and she has anger in her, but there's more. Honor, compassion, what seems to be a firm framework of morality, even if it’s by the standards of her people and nation rather than our own.” she responded after a full minute. “And I know that she is planning something, and I’m sure that I -and my connection to you- features in it somehow. When I asked her to come back to the Republic with me, she said that she couldn’t and that I would understand why someday. She…she knew something, Mom, just like she knew who I was.”
“Hmmm…since your preliminary report was turned in, SIS and other intelligence branches have been looking into your apparent savior. There isn’t much we can confirm about her just yet, not least because asking too many questions about a former slave that hasn’t yet become significant in the grand scheme of things could draw undue attention. And asking too many questions about a slave that led a revolt isn’t likely to lead to problems as well.” her mother remarked, and Fay’s eyebrows rose. It was surprising to see assets dedicated, even in the loosest sense of the word, to a mere acolyte. A slave acolyte at that, because Force knew Fay wasn’t naive enough to believe that the Republic would consider a slave any more important than the Empire did. “As far as we are able to determine, there is no small amount truth to her story. We’ve been able to confirm that she was a slave, that her parents were slaves, that she became the personal companion to a Sith heiress named Asmu-Nikal, of House Luwian, and that she revolted against the House’s Lord. Details outside of that are…inconclusive, but we also know that Asmu-Nikal, her mother, and her younger brother were all spared during the rebellion. We also know that Darth Marr himself was required to put the rebellion down, and that he was sufficiently impressed to send Khai to Korriban instead of executing her.”
Fay blinked, her lips parting in surprise, not really having expected Khai to have been telling the truth about that particular detail. And she hadn’t mentioned that he had intervened in her rebellion, only that he had found her in the aftermath. "Darth Marr himself got involved? That's...significant."
"Indeed. The Dark Councilor responsible for the Sphere of Defense of the Empire doesn't personally intervene in a slave revolt unless there's something extraordinary about it. With no insult meant to the efforts of slaves trying to free themselves, it’s quite literally beneath his position to do so, given the width and breadth of his responsibilities. A lesser Lord or a local garrison should have been responsible for doing so instead." Satele's expression was thoughtful, her eyes distant as if seeing beyond the walls of the chamber, which was a distinct possibility. Foresight was not the most powerful trait in the Shan bloodline, even with Revan’s involvement, but that didn’t mean that they lacked it entirely. "What's more interesting is that House Luwian hasn't suffered the expected political fallout from such an embarrassment. If anything, their standing has improved."
"That doesn't make any sense," Fay frowned, more than familiar enough with how the Empire operated to understand the issues at hand. "A slave revolt of any significance should have destroyed them, especially one that required a Dark Councilor to quell. And for that matter, if Khai rebelled against the House, why did she spare most of it? And why didn’t Marr finish them off for their failure in maintaining order?"
"Unless it wasn't viewed as a failure, but as something else entirely." Satele tapped her fingers against the arm of her chair, and Fay blinked at her in confusion. "There are whispers, unconfirmed ones, that there is more to it. That Khai and Asmu-Nikal were particularly fond of one another, and that the girl sided against her own father for Khai’s sake, but we don’t know for sure. It would explain, however, why Khai spared her -and, doubtlessly, at her insistence her mother and brother both- and why Marr spared them as well. If Khai impressed him and argued in their favor, he might be using them as incentive or leverage. He is certainly pragmatic enough, and calculating enough, to come up with such a plan.”
“…so, what do we do now, then?” Fay asked quietly after a long, long moment of absorbing all of that, and her mother gave a wry half-smile and shrug, making a slight sweeping gesture with her right hand.
“Now, we listen, and we wait. The circumstances and the consequences will fully reveal themselves in time. For now, you and I have the rest of the day together and a holocall to Theron to deal with. After that, you’re going to Coruscant. General Garza has plans for you, now that your face is known to the Empire. Black Ops are out, but she hopes to have you heading up Havok Squad and perform more…direct commando actions. Amongst other things.”
“Havok? Did Uncle Harron get injured or something?” Fay asked, only to flinch at the tangible spike of pain that lanced through her mother’s heart, creasing her face and weighing down her shoulders.
“It’s a long story, sweetheart, but I’m afraid it’s worse than that. You see…”
Comments
TheCoolest7248
Hmm. So Shan is going to replace the player from Havoc. Interesting how you made that tie in. I liked the interlude style chapter.
Myrddin
Interested to see how she deals with the treason harron tavus is about to commit
