[b]Crested killers, history books and blades[/b]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/ECIYE9R.jpg[/img]


[i]"Do you know what the meaning of the word Jedi?" 

"It means one serves" 

The look in the Woman's eyes caused Rheanessya to cast her gaze to the floor, sometimes she felt like she was a child again back at the temple, other times the look in her master's eyes scared her more than the Grand Inquisitors had, but it was the disappointment that always cut deepest. "You are correct, but it comes from the Palawan word "Je'daii which means mystic" though Je'daii is itself a corruption of the Dai bendu word "Jee'dai" which means?"

"forceful sage?" she was trying, frantically to recall lessons that she'd barely stayed conscience through as a child, below the haze of depression , and the pervasive haze of the darkside. three fingers touched her chin elevating her face so that she was looking down into a pair of purple eyes that held within them frustration, but for the first time in her life, no contempt stare back at her. "Force Wright"

"The precursors to the Jedi likened themselves to smiths"

This was news to her, but it also made an odd degree of sense. Wielding the force had always felt less like invocation to her and more like manipulation in a technical sense. "Sometimes, I feel stupid..Master, my knowledge base"

"You were lied too, though I doubt your first master did so malevolently, long before any of us or our foremothers and fathers, a lie was told enough that it became history" Do not despair of that. The Jedi deceived via ignorance" It [i]had[/i] reassured her. "You are dense Apprentice Aladar, you would not have come to such a sorry state were you not, but dense is not dumb and ignorance is only a sin when the ignorant chose to remain so"
[/i]
[img]https://custom.swcombine.com/static/2/6/34-123421-1548490611-large.png[/img]

-She's right- Rheanessya Aladar thought blocking a side thrust from the purple eyed woman who stood near a head shorter than her. A dark indigo blade collided with her crimson Lightsaber and the blow was furious, enough that it would have staggered many of her former peers, but Nessya as she was called in private by her master(where she chose to show an almost familial affection). Had always been much taller, much stronger than most women and a good deal of men within the order of the inquisitors and the force had only served to reinforce that. The blows were going to leave her sore, but they lacked the force the former Master Jedi could have brought to bear. -She's rusty- deadly, Nessya thought, a master of the styles she knows, but rusty. In the days following their initial exchange the former Inquisitor had eagerly thrown herself into her education, but the days were often spent attending reorganization meetings and greeting the newly made Grand Moffs and Grand Admirals and conferring on Hissa his new rank of Grand Vizier, Gilad Pellaeon Supreme Commander and to the surprise of and concern of her master and herself, merely reaffirming existing ranks for Ysanne Isard. Director general Raveem had been the easiest to please, he was content with his rank, but was given a bit more budgetary oversight and was compensated with a hefty bribe (Being given overlordship over a populated moon, that paid him taxes rather than the Empire) for his "modest contributions" which in reality were hardly "modest", without his movements none of that could have been possible. An indigo blade raked her cheek and Rheanessya Aladar barked out a cry of pain and stumbled backwards, rusty due to being of practice but even in matters of Lightsaber combat her new master was lightyears ahead of her.


She thanked her stars that the Woman's lightsaber came with a control dial that allowed her to turn the power down to sparring levels otherwise the bruise on her cheek would have been a missing face. Her lightsaber on the other hand, Miryia insisted that Nessya use it without any kind of modifier of filtration device, but to come at her with a lethal blade. She'd hesitated at first, hesitation which always made her the disgrace among the inquisitors and part of her feared similar derision but the woman merely flashed her an indignant look and asked her in a haughty voice if she believed her master was too weak to fend for herself. Once or twice, she'd flinched at that tone, memories of Miryia slaughtering her peers and pinning her to the floor bowed filled her head. But Miryia seemed true to her word! In the seventy two hours they'd been together she'd observed that the woman certainly got angry with her staff and her servants and the 501st, she'd lost her temper once with Nessya as well, but no violence ever came of it or venomous recrimination. -That trooper was as shocked as I was when she didn't force choke him, she merely called him a Bantha brained giblet eater and ordered him to do calisthenics to make up for his failure- a [i]military woman's punishment not a Sith's[/i]. Morale was up, they felt like soldiers again and Rheanessya Aladar realized she'd begun to feel like a Knight again. Their blades crossed again, this time Miryia switched her styles from Juyo to Ataru and the Apprentice's eyes widened, rusty she might have still been but this time it was an entirely different level of skill. -Was she fighting me in a style she was unfamiliar with?!- "How long has it been master?" She'd asked when their blades locked and they were within centimeters of each other.


"Since I've wielded a lightsaber in battle? excluding the millennia I slept, seventy years" That last bit was uttered, with something almost akin to shame. Rheanessya yelped when they broke blades and her master suddenly switched to Makashi and she was "stabbed" in the thigh. Miryia tried again, Rheanessya managed to block that time and her follower up but the third hit her under the right breast and wind had been knocked out of her. Miryia had one, only one scratch on her clothing, a burn mark between her shoulder and breast where Rheanessya had gotten off the start of a strike before the woman's reflexes pulled her back. To her shock, her master appeared thankful. The candor was a balm to her soul, Miryia was always so guarded, except around the (now) 501st General Cardinal and her, though she showed traces of the same with the Bothan and Supreme Commander Pellaeon, though it seemed at times calculated with the old man. "You're learning apprentice" "and the rust is falling off your scales master"

A small smile graced her face "A snake am I?" she asked, a tone that seemed to be lyrical with laughter. Her blade disengaged and she walked over to the taller woman and pulled some errant strands of hair out of her face. Rheanessya had changed out of her inquisitorial garb and was wearing a green tunic with similar colored stormtrooper armor in a breast plate below her garb. Those gestures of affection, interspersed between moments where she was vindictively cold with others had confused her at first. It was odd, how she could be so tender towards her student and allies, but so, Sithlike in other ways. -only never call her Sith to her face- Or to her behind either, in reality. 

Doors swung open and two regular army soldiers entered, her 104. Behind them, a member of the Royal guard adorned all in crimson, his robes masking his face and a force pike at hand. Miryia turned at an angle, inclining her head to look down at the personal royal guard of the man she'd just crushed to death upon his own throne three days ago and who served the heretic freak before him. Grand Moff Hissa had insisted she take a detail of the Royal guard and fly in one of their capital ships. Miryia was not about to take a kriffing Star Destroyer unescorted anywhere again nor was she going to take an entire ISD battlegroup anywhere near Pentastar space and so she opted to let him have his childish show of force displays and need to "heap prestige" by his own hand upon her and opted to take a Dreadnaught class Heavy Cruiser..one hilariously painted in the colors of the Royal guard...A reminder, that they were broken now and existed on their sufferance.


-A people should know when they're beaten- Miryia had told her. -As I knew- she countered and when her master nodded and asked her why she decided to rise above it, the reason for such harshness became clear. It motivated and her treatment of sentients who did find the strength to rise was always cordial at worst, outright friendly at best. "We're about to come out of hyperspace, we shall enter orbit five minutes after that...Invictus...Janus"

Ah yes, it was insisted that Miryia not merely revive the inquisitors or some other preexisting Imperial title. If she was to be the mother of a new force using order, one sworn to uphold the tenets of Order and keep the imperial peace then they intended to do what the Republic had, make that order the spiritual and cultural "Capital" of the Empire, the codification of its way of life as the Sith had been. The Rank of "Pontifex Invictus" was created for her, she would be the head of a new cult and the commander of its legions, all to reinvigorate the Empire. But that didn't mean the Crimson guard had to like it, nor did it mean she was magically going to forgive them for siding with weakness and in doing so, nearly costing the Galaxy everything.


Invictus Janus, it meant the Imperial Remnant was now ruled by a tripod of power. A thing Rheanessya knew to be incredibly unstable, fortunately she was her mistress' support as it seemed were her allies.

Ysane Isard had proposed that title, the former title of the Supreme Commander of the Humanocentric, Jedi killing cult Pius Dae that had been wiped out some ten thousand years before the coming of the Sith and had been in their day. The woman's passive aggression backfired when she gladly took the title "to claim it in the name of those they sought to destroy"

"Have you begun broadcasting the signal?" 

"As you have instructed Invictus Janus"

"Set us down, someplace sunny, he rather liked the sound of tropical birds"

The Crimson clad praetorian looked up, but Miryia dismissed him with a gesture before slowly curling in a turn, allowing her robes to wrap about her body in a way that indeed, reminded Nessya of serpent scales. "You have questions apprentice"

"Won't enemies notice the call?"

Miryia waited a moment, allowing Nessya to process what she'd just asked and then the woman blushed "forgive me..any personal code you transmit would be two thousand years old" though, she thought, it might still be on record, a database of cold distress and call signals maintained to ensure no rescue vessels were dispatched chasing ghosts from millennia passed. Sensing this Miryia inclined her head in an almost imperceptible nod. "But this was a code of mine in no records, for only one other person in the Galaxy used it"

Nessya raised her eyebrows, who, from those ancient times could still be alive? Beside her?