#Toth'Onira

[tishinada]

Dance in the Shadow of Honor, Chapter 54 - “Drifting Smoke”

(lovely art of Ucevi and Quinn by Sleepwithvillains!)

Summary: Ucevi knew exactly who she was and how her life should have gone. Powerful, arrogant, strong in the Force, born to a Pure-blood family whose lineage stretched back past the settlement of Dromund Kaas, past the start of the Great Hyperspace War. True Sith. Then in a moment, everything changed, and she was forced to play a role, blackmailed into becoming the sword in someone else’s battle. She walked a fine line between her duty to the Empire in the shape of her detestable master and the honor of her family and its Shadows…until she could reclaim her name and freedom.

Then she met Quinn who had the same sense of duty to the Empire that she did and a stubborn sense of honor as tenacious as her own. A man with a debt of honor to the very master she had bargained to destroy, who was clearly meant to be a weapon to be used against her, in more ways than one. But caution couldn’t prevent their growing respect, trust, and attraction, leaving each to struggle with the question of whether they could both find a way to fulfill honor and survive.

Notes:    Mostly canon retelling with my own twists. Slow burn. Baras dies, obviously. Probably not that graphic, but cautious. Profanity. May eventually change to explicit rating. Most characters belong to Bioware. Ucevi, Joran, Toth’Anla, Toth’Onira, Tan’Koto, the Old Man, Sgt. Fesnil, Zusae, RSD-13, and the Parits are all my OCs.

This chapter was also co-written with @cinlat, which has been SO much fun! With Verin, one of her Mandalorians from Meet me on the Battlefield, reappearing!

(Also, lots of thanks to @cinlat and @sleepswithvillains for comments, brainstorming and just for being so supportive!)

Pairings: Quinn x f!sith warrior, f!sith warrior x others

Warnings: possibly graphic violence. Profanity. Some explicit language.

>>>>>>>>>

Chapter 54 - “Drifting Smoke”

Onira’s son tossed wry comments over his shoulder from time to time as Onira continued to chat amiably with Quinn about tea, drawing him out. Each time he briskly emptied an urn and moved to another, someone would silently enter and remove the empty urn. Moments later, they’d return with a fresh one. At the same time, Twi’leks in a variety of elegant traditional Sith-blooded clothing flowed in and out, removing fragrantly steaming tea pots.

It all flows like a well-oiled machine, not a movement wasted, but timed so no one is rushed,  he realized. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given how respected this tea house is, and the atmosphere seems to be as much part of the service as anything else. He finished his second cup of ash tea---from Onira’s pot, not his own---and set it down, inhaling the faint hint of smoke and spices that were beginning to feel familiar. This is...surprisingly comfortable. If I arrived to take up a new assignment on a ship or space station with an atmosphere of such calm, confident efficiency, I’d conclude I was remarkably lucky.

“Now, you can go down a level to Scarlet Importers and pick up the supplies to practice making ash tea. They’re our major supplier since we can’t go to Korriban ourselves to negotiate with growers.” Onira finished her own cup with a sigh.

“You are very welcome to come back here in the mornings whenever you can, Captain. We’ll show you the service entrance so you can avoid the dining rooms, and someone will bring you to me. If you can arrive earlier, we can both assess how your skills are progressing,” she grinned at her son, “if  he’ll deign to get up before lunch” He snorted, but didn’t defend himself from her fond jibe, though Quinn noticed one of his lek made an odd motion that clearly amused Onira.

Read more at AO3

[tishinada]

Dance in the Shadow of Honor - Chapter 51 - “Embers of Home”

(lovely art of Ucevi and Quinn by Sleepswithvillains!)

Summary: Ucevi knew exactly who she was and how her life should have gone. Powerful, arrogant, strong in the Force, born to a Pure-blood family whose lineage stretched back past the settlement of Dromund Kaas, past the start of the Great Hyperspace War. True Sith. Then in a moment, everything changed, and she was forced to play a role, blackmailed into becoming the sword in someone else’s battle. She walked a fine line between her duty to the Empire in the shape of her detestable master and the honor of her family and its Shadows…until she could reclaim her name and freedom.

Then she met Quinn who had the same sense of duty to the Empire that she did and a stubborn sense of honor as tenacious as her own. A man with a debt of honor to the very master she had bargained to destroy, who was clearly meant to be a weapon to be used against her, in more ways than one. But caution couldn’t prevent their growing respect, trust, and attraction, leaving each to struggle with the question of whether they could both find a way to fulfill honor and survive.

Notes:    Mostly canon retelling with my own twists. Slow burn. Baras dies, obviously. Probably not that graphic, but cautious. Profanity. May eventually change to explicit rating. Most characters belong to Bioware. Ucevi, Joran, Toth’Anla, Toth’Onira, Tan’Koto, the Old Man, Sgt. Fesnil, Zusae, RSD-13, and the Parits are all my OCs.

(Thanks to @cinlat and @sleepswithvillains for comments, brainstorming and just for being so supportive! And thanks to RiaJade for the inspiration for the opera outfit!)

Pairings: Quinn x f!sith warrior, f!sith warrior x others

Warnings: possibly graphic violence. Profanity. Some explicit language.

(this is longer chapter than most of mine but I didn’t want to split it. I don’t think anyone will mind, lol.)

>>>>>>>>>

Chapter 51 - “Embers of Home”

“I’m home!” Vette bounced into Ucevi’s office, lekku jumping with excitement. “And I got  presents!”  This is gonna be so much fun!

Ucevi frowned, dropping the datapad into a desk drawer out of sight. “I thought you and Meli were having lunch?”

“Yeah, we did that too.” Vette leaned back through the door, glancing around before she shut the door.  No Quinn, good! Don’t want him to see this yet.  

Ucevi raised a browstalk at Vette’s almost theatrical secrecy. “But Onira recruited me for a very important mission.” She set the flat gold box she'd had under her arm on the desk with a flourish, as if she were presenting the lost relics of Ryloth's pantheon.

Hesitantly, Ucevi lifted the lid, inhaling sharply when she saw the contents.

“Guess you told her you were going to the opera because she asked yesterday if I had your size.” Vette grinned, almost bouncing on her heels. “I like Onira, by the way. All she’s gotta do is smile and ask in that soft voice of hers and people jump to get things done.” Plus it was a lot of fun to hear her talk about you like you were a little girl, but I think that better stay my secret.

Read more at AO3

[tishinada]

Dance in the Shadow of Honor - Chapter 57 - “Hearth Fires”

(lovely art of Ucevi and Quinn by Sleepswithvillains!)

Summary: Ucevi knew exactly who she was and how her life should have gone. Powerful, arrogant, strong in the Force, born to a Pure-blood family whose lineage stretched back past the settlement of Dromund Kaas, past the start of the Great Hyperspace War. True Sith. Then in a moment, everything changed, and she was forced to play a role, blackmailed into becoming the sword in someone else’s battle. She walked a fine line between her duty to the Empire in the shape of her detestable master and the honor of her family and its Shadows…until she could reclaim her name and freedom.

Then she met Quinn who had the same sense of duty to the Empire that she did and a stubborn sense of honor as tenacious as her own. A man with a debt of honor to the very master she had bargained to destroy, who was clearly meant to be a weapon to be used against her, in more ways than one. But caution couldn’t prevent their growing respect, trust, and attraction, leaving each to struggle with the question of whether they could both find a way to fulfill honor and survive.

Notes:    Mostly canon retelling with my own twists. Slow burn. Baras dies, obviously. Probably not that graphic, but cautious. Profanity. May eventually change to explicit rating. Most characters belong to Bioware. Ucevi, Joran, Toth’Anla, Toth’Onira, Tan’Koto, Toth’Jana, the Old Man, Sgt. Fesnil, Zusae, RSD-13, and the Parits are all my OCs.

(Thanks to @cinlat for comments, brainstorming and just for being so supportive!)

Pairings: Quinn x f!sith warrior, f!sith warrior x others

Warnings: possibly graphic violence. Profanity. Some explicit language.

>>>>>>>>>

Chapter 57 - “Hearth Fires”

Quinn struggled to hold perfectly still.

I can do this. I will do this. After all, a decade of answering to Baras should have been excellent practice at controlling myself.

That thought wasn’t as much help as he’d hoped. This was harder in its way. Much harder.

He and Vette had arrived back on Dromund Kaas last night. And he’d taken advantage of the relative solitude---and Lord Ucevi’s absence---to practice the complicated process of making ash tea during the early morning to refresh his memory for this test.

At the moment, Toth’Onira was evaluating his latest attempt, and somehow her opinion  mattered  to him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d struggled so hard not to fidget.

Read more at AO3

[tishinada]

WIP Whenever

I was tagged (most recently, I apologize for all the others I missed recently...) by @sleepswithvillains thanks!

I’ll tag @rainofaugustsith and @starknstarwars​ and @actualanxiousswampwitch and @swtorpadawan​

I haven’t gotten very far yet on the next chapter, and what I have is pretty rough. So a snippet from a future chapter of Dance in the Shadow of Honor (have fun guessing who Onira’s playing :D )

>>>>>>>>

To the point, as usual. He accepted the cup of tea, adding a generous amount of honey, then silently accepted a cookie before activating the Tave Kojasi holoboard, setting up a master’s level game and raising an eyebrow at Onira. 

She studied the holoboard briefly: seven levels above the table and two “underground”, complete with both permanent and temporary “cover” squares. He could see her taking note of his hunter and pack of five and her hunted plus two decoys. We’ve never played a master’s game. It will be interesting to see her strategy. Then she met his eyes calmly, clearly accepting the challenge. As hunted, she moved first, sending all three pieces on her side into cover, and the game was on.

They played in silence for a few minutes, and he only caught brief glimpses of one of her pieces as it darted from cover to cover, shifting constantly between the levels. She’s good. Very good. But I already knew that.

She put all her attention onto the game, never asking why he was here. Finally, when he thought he had one of her pieces cornered---divide her attention---he produced a datapad.

[tishinada]

100 Days of Writing - Day 5

Day 5 of #100daysofwriting

Twi'leks in the Empire in my universe are mostly Lethan (red-complexioned) and have a culture that diverged quite a bit from that of the Twi'leks from Ryloth (pretty much all other Twi’leks.) Of the non-human species, their situation (if free and a citizen) is slightly better than most other non-humans, mostly because of their long association with the traditional Sith-bloods in Old Town.

I decided on a naming convention for Imperial Twi'leks of surname-apostrophe-given-name. The apostrophe is used for one or two Twi'leks in Hutt space, I think (in fact Toth comes directly from one of those names), and surname first is fairly common in the real world. So Toth'Onira's daughters are named Toth'Uma and Toth'Anla and her son is named Toth'Fero (of her children who've come into the story.)

And I used the Tythonian Twi'leki example to decide Imperial Twi'leks are mostly matrilineal, if not matriarchal. So Onira's children have her last name. Tan'Koto is her grandson, but not by a daughter, so he has a different surname.

(Day 4 here) (Day 6 here)

[tishinada]

Dance in the Shadow of Honor, Chapter 53 - “Falling Ashes”

(lovely art of Ucevi and Quinn by Sleepwithvillains!)

Summary: Ucevi knew exactly who she was and how her life should have gone. Powerful, arrogant, strong in the Force, born to a Pure-blood family whose lineage stretched back past the settlement of Dromund Kaas, past the start of the Great Hyperspace War. True Sith. Then in a moment, everything changed, and she was forced to play a role, blackmailed into becoming the sword in someone else’s battle. She walked a fine line between her duty to the Empire in the shape of her detestable master and the honor of her family and its Shadows…until she could reclaim her name and freedom.

Then she met Quinn who had the same sense of duty to the Empire that she did and a stubborn sense of honor as tenacious as her own. A man with a debt of honor to the very master she had bargained to destroy, who was clearly meant to be a weapon to be used against her, in more ways than one. But caution couldn’t prevent their growing respect, trust, and attraction, leaving each to struggle with the question of whether they could both find a way to fulfill honor and survive.

Notes:    Mostly canon retelling with my own twists. Slow burn. Baras dies, obviously. Probably not that graphic, but cautious. Profanity. May eventually change to explicit rating. Most characters belong to Bioware. Ucevi, Joran, Toth’Anla, Toth’Onira, Tan’Koto, the Old Man, Sgt. Fesnil, Zusae, RSD-13, and the Parits are all my OCs.

Surprise! Not quite 8 days between updates!

This chapter co-written with @cinlat, which has been SO much fun! After all, who else can bring a Mandalorian cantina and bar brawl to life so well? Also much thanks for the loan of one of her Mandalorians from Meet me on the Battlefield...

(Also, lots of thanks to @cinlat and @sleepswithvillains for comments, brainstorming and just for being so supportive!)

Pairings: Quinn x f!sith warrior, f!sith warrior x others

Warnings: possibly graphic violence. Profanity. Some explicit language.

>>>>>>>>>

Chapter 53 - “Falling Ashes”

Quinn hesitated, staring at the door to Trovas Chwûk for a long moment before steeling himself and pushing it open.

At least this early, there are unlikely to be many Sith-blood customers being served. I think I might lose my nerve if I had to ask within their hearing.

Just inside, a young Twi’leki woman was inspecting the gleaming wood of a table in the empty dining room while a pair of droids were cleaning and polishing other tables. She glanced up in surprise at the sound of the door, eyes widening. Odd. I noticed before that some of their staff seemed uneasy with me.

“Excuse me, but I wondered if I might speak to one of the owners or managers with a request? Or rather, a question?”

The woman hesitated, then nodded silently, tapping something into an odd wrist unit. She pointed at a carved bench near the door, indicating that he could wait there. How odd. She hasn’t spoken a single word. Like our server the other night.

The young woman vanished through one of the doorways as he settled on the bench, feeling rather like a cadet called to the commandant’s office for unknown reasons. In fact, he had to stop himself from checking his uniform nervously or sitting at attention. Or bolting. 

I...this was impulsive. But I want...I need to do something for Ucevi for Lifeday, to thank her for that lovely evening at the opera. I know she would enjoy this, and I can’t think of anything else. She and Apprentice Zas have plans for most of the day, so this is the perfect opportunity.

Read more at AO3

[tishinada]

WIP Wednesday

I’ve been tagged probably a dozen times in the past week or so for different things, and I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t kept up with all of them. But @sleepswithvillains​ and @starknstarwars​ and (I think) @kunstpause​ have tagged me most recently. I apologize to anyone else who tagged me that I’m overlooking.

No pressure tags (especially if you’ve already done this:) @cinlat​ @rainofaugustsith​ @kunstpause​​ @starknstarwars​​ @swtorpadawan​​ @semper-draca​​

From the next chapter of Dance in the Shadow of Honor (very rough draft but moving into the editing phase, yay!):

>>>>>>>

Fero helped himself to a couple of the cookies, then leaned back to pull something out from behind his cushion. “So, Captain, I’m sure as a graduate of an Academy, you’ve played strategy games like holochess. Are you familiar with Tave Kojasi?”

Quinn frowned, rummaging through his memories quickly, then shook his head. “No, I don’t believe I am.”

The other man set a board on the table between them and touched the control that turned it on, grinning. “It’s a traditional Sith-blooded game. If you go through the dining rooms between the lunch rush and the dinner crowd, you’d find most of the tables occupied by older Sith-bloods playing this and drinking ash tea. Not just here, either. Look around some of the outdoor cafes.” He chuckled wryly. “When it isn’t pouring rain, at least.”

Quinn studied the controls and realized that they were very similar to those for holochess, and the board itself was laid out in a grid, though larger than a holodchess grid. Three grids, actually, stacked vertically, like an abbreviated version of 3D holochess. But there were spaces he couldn’t see at all due to a smoky screen and other spaces glowed from his side. Interesting. If I’m reading this right, the glowing spaces appear with a smoky screen from his side. So...we have to remember pieces that were moved into hiding. 

“Tave Kojasi just means “The Hunt,” by the way.” Three figures flickered into view on Quinn’s side of the board: a tiny Sith-blood, a sleen, and an odd creature he realized must be a tu’kata. “There are different levels of difficulty, so we’ll start at the lowest level. I’ll play the hunted,” a single Sith-blood figure lit up on his side of the board, “and you can be the hunter. My goal is to reach your edge of the board. Your goal is to catch me first.” Fero winked. “Hunter is easier than hunted, so I’ll let you play hunter until the first time you catch me.”

[tishinada]

4?

“I should have told you a long time ago.” 

Ah, thank you! Hmm, I can think of several conversations that would be appropriate in, but it would also be spoilers, lol.

Hmm, this is the draft of something coming up very shortly, and most of the information is already there in Dance so it isn’t much of a spoiler.

>>>>>>>>>

Vette was still off-balance when they entered a private room and the woman closed the door. Abruptly all pretense dropped away.

“My lord, it’s really you!” The elderly woman stared at Ucevi, trembling hands over her mouth. Then to Vette’s utter astonishment, the Sith-blooded woman took the woman’s thin hands in her own, bringing both of them to her chest, then her lips and forehead in a sign of affection and respect that she’d never seen from her friend. Too much so, judging by the woman’s reaction. She shook her head in denial, eyes flitting to Vette briefly in panic.

“My lord, you shouldn’t…”

“Hush, Onira. It’s safe.” She bent down to kiss the Twi’lek’s red cheek. “Vette, this is Toth’Onira. Onira, this is my friend, Vette.”

“Um, nice to meet you. I’m guessing you’re another part of my lord’s house?” Vette nodded politely then raised an eyebrow at the Sith. I can’t wait to hear the explanation for this!

“Remember I mentioned that my grandmother’s best friend raised me? Well, Toth’Uma was Onira’s oldest daughter.”

Vette’s mouth dropped open. “Wait, your foster mother was a Twi’lek? And you never thought to mention that?”

Ucevi kept the elderly woman’s hands in hers, both women’s faces alight with some emotion that Vette recognized...and wasn’t sure she wanted to think about at the moment.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you a long time ago, I guess. But I was just so used to protecting Onira and the rest of Uma’s family...” She shrugged. “I haven’t dared to see them directly in over eleven years.”

Onira chuckled, pulling one hand free from Ucevi’s tight grip to pat her cheek with a fondness that made Vette’s heart ache for her own mother. “Koto swore you wouldn’t have changed much. He was right, except you’re much taller.” She pulled her eyes from Ucevi’s face finally to smile hesitantly at Vette. “If my granddaughter says we can trust you, then I trust you.

Granddaughter. The word echoed in Vette’s mind. Who ever thinks of a Sith as being anyone’s grandchild?

[tishinada]

100 Days of Writing – Day 9

Day 9 of #100daysofwriting

Continuing yesterday's topic of voluntary trials (kovothis) that Sith-blood children can choose: These have come up in Dance in the Shadow of Honor at two points and were also mentioned in a short story that hasn't been published on AO3 yet (https://tishinada.tumblr.com/post/639813012560150528/this-is-a-gift-for-someone-but-im-not-going-to).

The first direct reference to these voluntary trials was in chapter 23, “To Live in her Shadow,” when Toth'Anla refers to Ucevi's facial scars. To quote:

“There you were, bleeding all over the armory floor and your brand new armor---your first armor that I’d just finished making the day before, if you’ll recall---glaring back at her as you tartly informed her you were no idiot. You'd spent a month observing a sleen’s nest, thank you very much, and knew exactly when the parents and the rest of the pack were away before you nipped in to steal one of the half-grown hatchlings. Armed with nothing but that pole you trained with. You'd considered everything.”

“Everything except the hatchling deciding I was food.” Ucevi laughed ruefully. “But I made it back with her.”

And that's the reason she kept those scars. They were a symbol of her success in that trial (which is the one I described in my last post, btw.) She then raised and trained that hatchling as a guard for their compound (and her beloved pet.) She was in the process of observing this nest for this trial in the short story with her sibling Liomi and Grandmother.

The second “trial” mentioned was when Ucevi and Zusae talked about trying to eat pure Krayt dragonpepper as children (chapter 46 - “Fire's Dance”.) Admittedly, children tend to dare one another more than simply choose to try this, but it's considered relatively harmless.

Then Toth'Onira mentions this to Quinn in chapter 53, “Falling Ashes”:

“Some of our customers claim that the closer to the original Sith species they are, genetically, the more spice they can tolerate.” Her eyes twinkled. “Which has gotten more than one youngster in trouble, trying to prove their worth, eating powdered Krayt dragonpepper straight from a spoon.”

These trials are one of the main customs they’ve been able to retain from the pre-Conquest Sith cultures.

(Day 8 here) (Day 10 here)

[tishinada]

100 Days of Writing – Day 11

I'll be continuing with yesterday's topic about the Old Town Imperial Twi'leks then slavery (in my universe, in canon, and in the real world) for several posts. Please read the entire post before you assume I'm downplaying slavery in the Empire (and wait for the future posts as well as I explain some of the historical basis for the differences I draw and explain why reality and theory in my version of the Empire are two different things.) This is a complicated topic (and no, that isn't a way of soft-pedaling it, I just mean slavery wasn't a monolithic institution and took different forms in different times and places for different reasons), and it isn't helped that the writers of SWtOR canon had their heads up their you-know-whats in their understanding of a complicated historical subject.

Even though some Old Town Twi'leki families have been free for centuries, at least ninety percent of the Twi'leks in Old Town were themselves a slave at some point or had a parent or grandparent who was born into slavery. The percentage is even higher among non-Twi'leki “aliens”.

This isn't a barrier to getting ahead in Old Town. The traditional Sith-bloods have, at most, a lukewarm relationship with slavery: some simply don’t actively support it, most dislike it but are passive about it, while some actively oppose it. They don’t generally hold someone’s status as a former slave against them because they’re also more aware than most human Imperials that the theory and reality are very different... (see my earlier post on Sith-blood families - they’re likely to have had direct contact through family with a former slave.)

In theory, Imperial slavery is limited to those convicted of a crime, which includes any military opposition to the Empire (a very gray area at best.) And this was supported by some things in the original stories (but not consistently.) In theory, and officially, it's not supposed to be based on species or inherited (in my version of the Empire, at least.)

While the reality of Imperial slavery is significantly worse than the official version, the result is that, at least in Old Town, former slaves and their children can get ahead...if they can get their feet under them when they start out. And in fact, the older free Twi'leki families aren't necessarily the leaders in Old Town. Toth'Onira is an example of this.

This is not intended to soft pedal Imperial slavery. Slavery is really bad in whatever form, and the institutional structures of the Empire make it much worse than it is on paper/flimsi. But the theoretical basis of Imperial slavery, which is all 95% of Imperials know about it, is more limited than in Hutt Space.

(Day 10 here) (Day 12 here)