#valath legacy

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In which my Sith Inquisitor continues her trend of taking in wretched alien kids, but this time the word 'kid' is not at all hyperbolic or condescending, and also I firmly believe Andronikos Revel is a big fucking softie. (I mean he'll kill you. but assuming he doesn't want to. softie.) (fuck it i've had this written for eons and i'm not about to get my personal canon of what's happening with the Empire any clearer than this until i have decent internet again so. just handwave any nods to what's happening politically and look at Exchei and Andronikos adopting a baby)

“Andronikos,” was the first thing she said over the holo. He leaned back, one eyebrow raised. The sharpness of her tone was nothing new. The thinly-veiled excitement on her face was.

“Hello, Sith,” he said. “You miss me that bad? I thought your bounty hunter dropped by the other day.”

It was always fun to see her reaction when he needled her about Rig. They ranged from impatience to teasing to the occasional fond smile – that last not so frequent Andronikos ever felt much more than his own fondness for her. This time, though, the joke seemed to go completely unnoticed.

“As I recall, you offered to help me train my apprentices or raise any children I might have.”

He couldn’t help but sit up straighter.

“He knocked you up?” he growled. It wasn’t that he was jealous. He’d just always figured, if anyone was going to, he’d like to be the one to do it. Or the first one, anyway. Andronikos was smart enough to know that if Exchei got it into her head to have a bunch of little baby Siths, there’d be no stopping her.

Still.

“If you care about Rig that much, I can arrange a night for just the two of you,” Exchei said irritably. “Would you focus? I’ve found a child.”

“You – found a child,” he repeated. “Exchei, you’ve lost me.”

“Wrath shot my transport down again,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “I had to walk across half of Dromund Kaas. But I found an abandoned child!”

Some distant, foolish part of himself wanted to ask if she’d made sure the kid was abandoned. But this was Exchei – she had more pieces of a moral compass than anyone else in either half of this fractured Empire, except maybe Ashara. And Ashara had been picking pieces up of Exchei’s system for over a decade now, anyway.

“So you’re… keeping the kid you found in the trash,” he said.

“He wasn’t in the trash,” Exchei said scornfully. That familiar wicked humour sparked in her eyes as she smirked at him. “He was hidden behind it.”

Andronikos groaned.

“Half your own council is gunning for you,” he said. “Without your civil war with Wrath getting into the mix. That kid won’t last much longer in the Sith Stronghold or sanctum or whatever you call it than he would have out on the streets.”

Exchei tipped her head to the side, still visibly amused. Not a bad thing – he’d half expected his protest to prompt a round of pissed-off lightning – but unexpected. And a little patronising.

“What?” he growled. “What am I missing here?”

“I already asked you,” she said. “Did you really want to help me with my children?”

Oh.

Maybe it made him an idiot, but he hadn’t thought about that until this moment. Andronikos had been maybe too traditional in his expectations – a busted condom, maybe a ward taken in after another Council member was assassinated, apprentices like Xalek and Ashara. Something he could expect.

He suddenly wanted to see this boy more than anything in the galaxy. Not that he was necessarily ready to make some snot-nosed infant call him “dad” or anything, but – but it was Exchei’s kid, apparently. Andronikos had decided that would make a kid his, too, long before the option was real.

“I’ll be there,” he said. “Nobody knows about him yet, right?”

“I think Wrath’s spies have told her,” Exchei said, her lip curling. “But we both know Vette would never let her hurt a child.”

Andronikos didn’t want to let a child’s fate rest on the ability of those two to communicate effectively, but at least that gave him time to finish the job and shove all his pirates off somewhere they wouldn’t bother him.

“Three days,” he said. Having learned his lesson after their time apart, he added, “I love you.”

Exchei’s smile came in many forms: vicious, calculating, smug, soothing. But the one that spread across her face so widely his own cheeks hurt to look at her?

That was his favourite.

“I love you, too,” she said.

The kid was smaller than he’d expected, and a Cathar surprisingly enough. Then again, it was Exchei. Of course she’d find an alien. At least this one was too young to be tormented like Ashara or murderous like Xalek.

“There you are,” Exchei said as soon as Andronikos entered her chambers. She strode toward him, settling the baby in his arms before he had a chance to say anything. And he was a baby. The points of the Cathar’s furry ears curled slightly, and he hadn’t even opened his eyes. Andronikos scowled.

“This kid was on the street?” he said angrily.

“I’ve looked for whatever shit excuse for a parent did that,” Exchei told him, sweeping back across her office to stand in front of the massive window. It looked down on Kaas City. Andronikos was sure similar windows existed so the Sith Lords who looked out of them could remember how strong they were. He also knew that for Exchei – for Darth Imperius – it was an exercise in making out every citizen’s face.

Especially the slaves.

“No luck?” he asked as he followed. The kid’s fur was patchy. Was he sick? Was that normal for babies? He hated to admit it, but he might have to contact Jorgan. Andronikos trusted an actual Cathar over the Imperial HoloNet any day, at least on this.

“No,” Exchei growled. Lightning arced off her fingers with a sharp pop, and she clenched her fist to still the Force. Andronikos bumped her with his shoulder, wishing he had enough hands to take her by the hips and pull her away from the window while still holding the kid.

“He had a blanket,” Exchei said. “His name was on it. Why would anyone leave a child like that?”

Andronikos had always been able to count on one hand the times she had sounded small. Reluctantly, in his mind’s eye, he put another finger up. Exchei didn’t give him a chance to say anything, though; her holocomm beeped, and with a roll of her eyes she turned away to answer it.

“So you’ve already got a name, huh, kid?” he mused as he waited. Exchei kept her voice low – either it was one of the rare calls from people she didn’t despise, or she was actively trying to keep a lid on her temper around the kid.

“Mah!” the kid said, flinging a tiny fist. Andronikos grinned.

For all that his furry, feline features were nothing like Exchei’s more humanoid looks, there was a strange sort of resemblance between them. His fur was a dark grey patterned with white, like the inverse of her pale tattooed skin. Baby fat rounded his cheeks out in a way that put Andronikos in mind of Exchei’s own soft frame, though there was no telling if the kid would hang on to that the way Exchei had. It made him wonder, though.

The blanket – the one the kid was loosely wrapped in, he realised – was nice quality. The kid wasn’t underfed. But if his parents were alive, they didn’t want him, and they didn’t want to be found. Andronikos sighed and shifted his grip on the kid, trying to get a look at the name embroidered on his blanket.

“Aidasta, huh?” he said. “Well, I guess you’ll carry on the Revel family tradition: long, shitty names that start with A.”

“Rrah,” Aidasta agreed. Andronikos stroked his hand over the kid’s tiny little head, helping the fur lay flat, and waited for his wife to be ready to talk again.

When she hung up the call and looked back at him, there was a strange look in her eyes.

“What do you think?” she asked. Andronikos realised he’d seen her make that face once before – the night they got hitched. After all their nights together, all the playtime and the sweet nothings and the danger they’d faced, she’d had a moment where she thought he’d cut her loose.

As if he ever could.

“I think the kid’s gonna need to learn his blasters early, growing up with us as parents,” he said. “We can’t all shoot lightning out of our asses.”

“You joke about that one more time, and I will invent the technique just to spite you,” she said.

He smirked at her. Like they hadn’t had a little Force-play before.

“Promise?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said.

Andronikos could have reassured her, but he wasn’t that kind of man, and she’d hate to be so transparently vulnerable. He shifted Aidasta into the crook of one arm and used the other hand to tug her close, cupping her ass once she stood nearly flush with his chest.

“Don’t go thanking me for doing my job,” he said. “There are better ways to ruin your reputation.”

She smiled up at him, snaking one arm around his shoulders and letting her other hand rest on Aidasta’s head. With a fond glance at the baby, she pressed even closer.

“Later,” she said. “You’ll have to show me.”

She stepped back and he let her go reluctantly. Still. There was a baby now. Probably better to keep some things a little more private than they were used to.

Ashara would appreciate that. Maybe she’d take the kid when Andronikos and Exchei wanted some time together.

“You’re already plotting,” Exchei said fondly. “You have the same face when you’re planning to hit a ship as you do when you’re… what, exactly? Babyproofing the Fury?”

“Shit,” Andronikos said. He hadn’t even thought of that. “We gotta lock up your lightsabres.”

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My first inquisitor's family is a mystery to her (and me) - the closest to family she has until the class story is a fellow slave she grew up with, a guy she'd hate if she knew him any other way but as it is they have only had each other to rely on their whole lives. Exchei never really thought of herself as someone with roots or a past, and is kind of affronted to be claimed by Kallig in the start of the story because he's talking about sith bloodlines and to her it matters more than anything that she's not human and still more powerful than most sith she sees - she doesn't want to think it's something she inherited, and isn't used to having the context of a past in her life really at all.

My other Sith Inquisitor, Vyme, is obsessed with his family and past - he has a human slave for a mother, a Sith pureblood who wants nothing to do with him for a father, and his younger brother is a Jedi who escaped life as a slave with the help of Vyme's best friend when the brother was five. Caibos (the brother) didn't see him for thirteen years after and was convinced Vyme left him behind to pursue life as a sith, while Vyme constantly looked at the life he led first as a slave then as a sith as the price he paid for ensuring his brother was safe. The first and last wholly selfless thing he did was get himself caught so Caibos could be free, and he holds on to the knowledge that Jedi are kind to their apprentices every day. He convinces himself it's safest not to reach out, but the instant he has an excuse (and that excuse is protecting the friend who's as good as their sister) all he can think about is everything he wants to ask his brother. (He doesn't ask.)

Fun little character question for all the SWTOR Sith Inquisitor fans out there:

Is your SI's family still alive, or do they only exist in the SI's memory? Did your SI ever even know their family, or were they torn from them when young? Do they ever dream of them? Wonder about them? Or do they not care anymore?

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I tend to ignore combat mechanics for the most part in characterisation except for like. Basic stuff like what weapons they use, or that Nalyan is always a healer. But there's two important things about how I play as Ven that really speak to her as a person:

1, that when I get surrounded by enemies and just do a mortar volley in the area around me, that Ven is absolutely unhinged enough to do that. "I don't touch the Force" she says, dodging her own mortar shells like she planned where each one is going to land. The worst part is how fully she believes her own lie there

And 2, that the ability with the pushback effect is some janky thing she rigs up with all her blasters that you are categorically Not Supposed To Do with anything but she learned how to do it as a child freedom fighter and insists that it's totally ok and it's only blown up once, and she had enough warning that time to toss it into a crowd of enemies and all her allies were ok afterward. "My hands only got a little burned!" She insists as Elara looks sceptically at her undeniably scarred palms.

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I haven't kit posted in so long oh god. Did you know that in the Alliance Ven tries to keep him out of the fighting as much as she can so he can recuperate in a way he never got to, except that's exactly what happened when Kaoja went after answers re: Valkorion and Ven and got herself captured, so he blames himself for that and seeing Ven repeat this pattern just convinces him of his own untrustworthiness and worthlessness and then. Then of course anytime he's actually sent out to fight he thinks his only value is that he's a killer. So why fight the anger and fear in him? Why bother not using the dark side when it's all he's good for anymore?

Theron: Kit love please take a nap

Kit, scratching up his own montrals in frustration: no because apparently I need to kill something

Theron: apparent to WHO

And then Kit is already climbing out the window to go shoot lightning at some skytroopers or something, while hyperventilating, because he believes every decision he's ever made is a mistake but he's given up on trying to make different ones

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Regulations (a snippet)

Or, five times Ven and Nalyan surprised the people around them with an affection for rules and orders, and one time someone knew exactly where that habit came from.

Before the captain left the ship, Corso in tow as always, he'd slapped a datapad into Risha's hands.

"You're on this ship, you pull your weight. Here's the rules. Start with the assigned duties - roster Besh."

Risha had raised a cool, unimpressed eyebrow at him.

"My ship," he'd said. "My rules. Or find somebody else for your treasure hunt."

"Somebody else to get back at Skavak?" Risha had prodded.

"I can live without revenge. Can you handle living without whatever it is you really want?"

That had startled her enough to let him go, but not enough for her to start on the chores he'd given her. As though she didn't do enough for him. He'd obviously done just fine on his own, since by the sound of it Corso had only signed on a few months before her. He could handle the disappointment.

Then he and Corso had come tearing back onto the ship, panting, blaster fire scoring the sides of the ship as the captain frantically closed the hatch. Risha drifted after them as they charged toward the cockpit as much out of bored curiosity as anything - though some of the sounds from outside were starting to give her pause.

"Did you clean the bunks?" the captain panted as Corso started up the pre-flight tasks.

"Is this the time?" Risha said, affronted. "I'm not your maid!"

"Did you - fuck!" No sooner had clearance been transmitted did the captain send them shooting up out of the spaceport, twirling wildly to avoid something Risha was glad she couldn't see from this angle.

"Who did you two piss off?" she demanded. Now it was starting to be more than curiosity. Now they were putting her life and the job she'd given them on the line.

"Future reference, Rish," the captain said as they breached the atmosphere and levelled out. He twisted to look at her, ignoring the way she bristled at the nickname. "We don't fly until the ship's good."

"We were under attack," Risha said testily.

"Yeah," the captain said. "So next time do your duties before I decide to give you to the angry guys with blasters."

(Read the rest on AO3, featuring Arcann with paperwork, Lana Beniko NOT cleaning a ship, and time travelling clones for whom time travel is the least of their worries)

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...found this post on my own main blog while looking for something else and. i know in my heart of hearts that this is basically what went down when Ven was on Rishi pretending to be a pirate.

True oc question: who is most likely to pull the psych "hwheevil" bit as their grand master plan

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Folan Drayen has always been a very sweet and chivalrous guy, which his mother of course blames on Corso. There's a whole complicated backstory about how he even got born in the first place that boils down to him being Risha's favourite political move she ever made (a joke courtesy of his much less sweet best friend) and also something of a memorial to my smuggler Nalyan who of course later turned out not to be dead. This is a lot to put on a kid even inadvertently but he did get three doting parents out of the deal.

More important than the circumstances of his birth of course is his personality - affable to the point of most people thinking he's not very smart, he does actually know that people are insulting him or plotting against him or any number of things the kid of Risha Drayen, pirate queen, might face. He just doesn't let on, and prefers to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, he has his best friend and eventual partner-in-crime Rityesa to intimidate anyone who crosses a line, meaning he can devote his time to making sure she and his family are well taken-care-of.

If asked what he wants or thinks, he usually deflects. He picked up the habit of managing his parents' feelings, and then Rityesa's and his cousins', until his own were buried under thick layers of empathy he's a little afraid to touch. But if you ask me, his creator, what he wants most of all is the thrill of an adventure without the moral issues that seem to bog down everyone around him. If he could live a life like an action hero, unquestioning of what he does or how he does it except to say "does it look cool," he'd be happy. Just because he can examine things deeply doesn't mean he likes to, and he puts off those deeper questions whenever he can get away with it, and even when he can't. He is deeply bound to the people around him, to the point where he doesn't know who he'd be if he wasn't around them. But that is introspection, which he despises, so he pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind and continues to do whatever his best friend or his cousin Jesse ask.

(side note for anyone wondering, his appearance is based off companion customizations I use for Corso and Risha, who I do not exactly ship but are his biological parents. More on that... Someday. It's messy.)

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because @magicallulu7 has been working very hard to compound my brainrot about Kitiver, I now have a sappy little piece about him and Theron set shortly before Umbara. So. I made the sap angsty. anyway

Theron awoke to the feeling of a montral bumping up against his nose. Kit had curled up again, seeking out Theron like a tooka hiding in the crook of their owner’s knee. Theron smiled and wriggled back slightly to get a good look at him.

There was a little puddle of drool on the sheet beneath Kit’s face. Probably not what any of the Force-users who gave Kit a wide berth in the Enclave would expect, but he’d always been contradictory. Terrifying one second and sweet the next.

Not that Theron hadn’t been surprised when they first met, too. The dossier on the man who killed the Emperor had been thorough, listing his most heroic moments and his cruellest in even, clinical terms. Made an honorary general but never a Jedi Master, due to Satele’s concerns about Kit’s fall, he had seemed to accept the decision. The folks who compiled the dossier hadn’t been so sure, which was how Theron knew now that none of them had ever spoken to Kit. He hated the title of General, and he hated not being a Master – but he didn’t blame Theron’s mother. He blamed himself.

Anyway, the stories had led Theron to expect a skilled fighter with a predilection for violence that outstripped the Jedi way. Kit was all those things, but in conversation he was shy and retiring, always asking for clarification or looking to someone else for instructions. Theron had been a bit too distracted back then to put the pieces together about him, but he’d figured it out when they met up after Tython: Kit turned all his anger inward. Every perceived failure had compounded to make those yellow sparks in his eyes. So long as a person didn’t do something wrong, he wouldn’t blame them.

The thought wasn’t as comforting as it had been a year ago. Theron had done something very, very wrong. Just because it was the right thing to do didn’t change that.

Still, Kit didn’t know yet. Theron was selfish enough to take advantage as long as he could.

“What are you looking at?”

During Theron’s reverie, Kit had woken up. He uncurled his spine, wincing slightly as he stretched. He always held awkward positions too long in his sleep. Now that he had a clear shot, Theron gave in to the urge to put his hand against Kit’s warm, strong chest. Kit looked bemused, but he wriggled a little closer.

“Memorising you,” Theron said.

“Are you planning to go somewhere?”

Yes. Theron swallowed.

“I do this a lot,” he said, not lying. “You don’t usually wake up.”

“Oh,” Kit said. He looked genuinely surprised – as if all the things they’d said and done still didn’t add up to one hopelessly in love Theron Shan. Theron wanted to prove to him, once and for all, that he was worth it. He also knew that all Kit would see for a long, long time was someone who’d thrown him away.

“I…” He needed to say it. No hesitation, no distraction, just vulnerable honesty for once in his life. “Kit, I’m not great with the grand declarations, but you know I love you, right?”

He looked even more startled.

“Wow,” he said. “You’re – I know. You told me that last night, too.”

“That was a little different energy,” Theron said. Kit laughed.

“I love you, too,” he said. “Even if you are weirdly sentimental this morning.”

“Hey, you bring it out of me,” Theron said, only too happy to leave the sincerity out of his tone and return to the usual teasing. For a little while longer, at least, Kit would know the truth.

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Ok but actually Ven on Balmorra is so. She's a freedom fighter from a young age, literally her life goal at age five was to commit the biggest political assassination in the galaxy, and the Balmorran resistance... Generally doesn't want her? Different people react differently but she has to talk to Ardon, who resents her for being Republic and not really caring about the Balmorran plight beyond what it can do for the Republic, and that's not true but nothing she says or does will ever convince him of that. She's chasing Tanno Vik all over listening to Balmorrans talk about how he's a hero and at the very end getting definitive proof he's just a profiteer. She gives the weapon stash they recover to the resistance because she knows what that means. And it doesn't matter. She leaves Balmorran still just a Republic soldier who couldn't and wouldn't do enough for the planet, for the real cause of liberation, because she's sworn to a war of power struggles and "wipe the other side out". And it's what she chose, the Republic is what she believes in even if it doesn't always live up to its potential - but being here forces her to confront for the first time the fact that she is not the same as she was. The guy who betrayed Vik and got him captured whose name I already forgot (rip) was a collaborator. She kills traitors and collaborators without a thought - but this guy, this pathetic bastard who got a lot of good people killed, she spares. He'll get picked off by Balmorrans real quick, she knows - but she won't be the one to kill him, because she's not some scrappy underdog anymore. She is the Republic, not a rebel, and they need her not to compromise the ideals she's fighting for no matter how much easier it would make their job in the end.

It's the beginning of the end for the violent maverick she was, and the seeds of the Alliance Commander who always gives a second chance. And she's so worried afterward that her family might think less of her the more she changes and softens but god her father would be proud.

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Arismanya Trell was raised by her aunt after a mysterious something her aunt refuses to speak of resulted in the disappearance of her parents and her twin brother, Aidasta. This family reaches an almost mythical status for her as she grows up in the poorest parts of Dromund Kaas, and when the Empire picks her up to make her a spy she sees it as an opportunity: finally, she can find out the truth.

Arismanya is loyal to her superiors, who are loyal to the more traditional (and therefore wildly violent) Sith of her era's Empire. While Tavansa, the Empire's Wrath, marshals those who stand against reform and proceeds to let them break themselves apart with their own infighting and ambition, Arismanya is one of the few people in Intelligence who doesn't realize the slow self-destruction of these traditionalists is purposely orchestrated. Not at first, anyway.

As she rises in the organisation and more is revealed to her, eventually she can't avoid it. She also finds the answer to part of her longstanding question: her brother was raised from infancy by the Sith who leads the reformist branch of the Empire, Darth Imperius. It's hard not for her to think that her whole family has been made the playthings of a few Sith who wanted to make a game of ruling, knowing now that Tavansa and Imperius have a history that's more positive than not. She knows that people in charge are setting their fighters up to fail or win according to their beliefs, colluding with the other side whenever the other side is actually willing to do so, and this knowledge leads her to break from her masters because she's loyal not to leaders but to the people she serves. It leaves her aimless for a long time - she knows what she wants, but has no resources to get it, and no orders left to take when that was all she ever did. Finally she decides to chase her brother down, because at least she knows where he is.

In fact, the one thing she doesn't know is the only one that's not really a secret: Darth Imperius, or Exchei, never knew what happened to Aidasta and Arismanya's parents either, and only raised him because she cared. When she finally tracks her brother down, it is that one fact that keeps a gulf between them, no matter what she says.

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Feeling insane about Vette/Tavansa and also sibling relationships, as I usually am, so here I am again

Someday Tavansa will be actually present in a scene whoops

There was a Twi'lek standing there in the darkened room, one hand on the Carbonite slab holding Tavansa captive. Sarrant lengthened his stride. Ven would kill him for pulling a weapon on one of her people, but if she had a grudge against his sister he would.

"Vette?" Ven asked. The Twi'lek startled.

"Oh! Commander! And... Some guy. Sorry, I just heard - there's all these rumours flying around that one of the people you pulled out was - was Wrath. And I just had to see - it is her, isn't it?"

The lights were too dim for Sarrant to assess her expression. Ven seemed at ease with the other woman, and she seemed nearly apologetic. That didn't mean he'd write off her potential threat.

"Did you know her?" Ven asked gently.

"Ha!" Vette barked out a laugh that sounded almost angry. "Oh, yeah. I know Tavansa."

"Who are you?" Sarrant asked. "You're no Imperial."

"I'm nobody," Vette said. "Just - I used to work for her."

"A slave," Sarrant said. He'd wondered if his sister would keep them. There was little in his own life that hadn't been touched by slave labour. Still -

"She freed me," Vette said simply. Sarrant blinked, startled out of any plans he might have had. He could have talked down an angry ex-slave. He could have distracted Vette, given the chance to learn more about her.

But what he'd seen of Tavansa, the new Tavansa he'd travelled alongside in the early days of Arcann's rule, had done nothing to prepare him for the idea that she might still somehow be kind. His mistake, perhaps. And a good development - Ven would be more likely to support his bid to keep Tavansa around.

He just wished he could have seen such a vestige of his sister, his real sister, when he'd had the chance. He was quite sure she'd hate him for the rest of their lives.

"You were close?" Ven asked. "Did she listen to you?"

Vette laughed again. The sound bordered on hysterical.

"You could say that."

The ghost of a memory crossed Sarrant's mind: a twelve-year-old Tavansa, looking up at a pretty human girl like she'd founded the Empire. He thought again about the way Vette had reached toward Tavansa's silhouette, and suspected he understood.

"Then you can tell her how much the Alliance needs her," he said.

"Excuse me? What makes you think - who are you?"

He turned the lights up slightly, smiling wryly. He could see on Vette's face the moment she saw Tavansa's features in his.

"Sarrant is Tavansa's brother, and he's a friend," Ven said. "Vette, if you think you can help keep Tavansa calm when we wake her, we'd owe you a lot."

"Of course," Vette said, struggling to take her eyes off Sarrant. She seemed unnerved by him - perhaps she hadn't known he existed. He tried not to care. "She's - she was my best friend. It'll be nice to talk again."

The words were too faint for her to mean it. Not with the way she looked, or moved, or even any of the other things she'd said. But if there was one thing Sarrant knew personally, it was the tangle of emotions loving Tavansa could bring up in a person. He didn't know how to do right by his sister, or even if he should. He wouldn't expect that of a stranger, either.

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Aidasta Revel was found as a baby behind the garbage, inexplicably well-fed and cared for given he was abandoned in the rain on Dromund Kaas. The Sith who found him, Exchei, did search for his family, but with nothing other than the first name on his blanket to go off of she couldn't figure it out and ended up taking him in. He split his time growing up between hidden spaces in her office as she worked her way toward being some kind of Empress and running amok on Andronikos' pirate ship.

He learned a strong, if peculiar kind of honour from his parents. He doesn't lie, except to hide who his parents are so he can't be used against them, and as a bounty hunter he never leaves a contract unfinished or cheats the person who hired him - unless, of course, it brings him up against slaves or people at risk of being made slaves. His mother being who she is, and having gotten the Empire embroiled in a civil war largely because of her insistence that all slaves be freed, that is a line he would never cross.

He knows Rig, the previous champion of the Great Hunt, but even though the man grew up with his mother Aidasta would never trust him. His bounty hunting is a career he strikes out in entirely on his own, eschewing support the pirates could offer and as many Imperial contracts as he can in favour of proving that he can be something other than a nepo baby. Most people perceive him as serious and cold, but he is loyal to his friends and allies and calls his parents frequently. He just refuses to waste time on people he doesn't trust.

In spite of his unconventional family and upbringing, he's probably the least messed-up of his generation. He wants to make it on his own, but he's not too proud to ask for help. There's no dramatic traumas in his past save the mysterious one that landed him in Exchei's arms, and while he is curious about his birth family he's also content with his adopted one. He doesn't think he has to live up to anything, or live anything down, and for all that he's hard to get close to he does let people close. Naturally, none of this makes for an appropriately broody anti-hero type people would want to hire to kill other people, so he spends most of his time doing his best impression of someone who has a deep dark secret and hoping nobody catches on.

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Jesse, whose last name legally is Dorne but likes to flit through their parents' last names more frequently even than they do pronouns. This screenshot does them no justice - Jesse's general philosophy in life is that if you're not enjoying yourself you're doing something wrong. In a family of incredibly serious soldiers, one might expect Jesse to stick out like a sore thumb, but if they feel that way they refuse to let on.

Born about half a year after Elara was forced out of Havoc Squad, Jesse spent the first few years of his life speaking occasionally to his father on holocalls and knowing his other mother Ven only through the stories Elara could tell him. In spite of this and the complete lack of genetic relation, Jesse takes after Ven the most: prone to joking around, motivated by a gut sense of "right" and "fair", and even Force-sensitive.

Most people think Jesse is flippant, and put little stock in her ability to take things seriously. That's how she likes it - willing to take responsibility when it's necessary, but not asked to on a regular basis. She doesn't see herself as a leader, but unlike most of the people around her she also doesn't see herself as a weapon. The best word might be "explorer" - of the galaxy, of the Force's limits, of experiences. Jesse figures someone in their family has to properly remember that happiness is the end goal of their many wars, when even their parents tend to say it but forget what that means for them.

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My next mess of a character, Rityesa Iresso (yes like that Iresso). Originally I just made her as some random person who happened to be a dark side smuggler, and then I started fleshing out her mother Kaoja more and discovered that Yesa has some very severe mommy issues. As one does.

In keeping with the kotfe/kotet stuff, those characters of mine who follow the canon class stories also disappear around the five year gap, commander or not. Rityesa's mother Kaojacol was one of them, having gone after answers about Zakuul and the emperor in order to protect her best friend, Kit, from his own past with the emperor. She thought she'd be gone for only a short time; she was gone for years, during which Rityesa's father Felix was also (incredibly reluctantly) called away and Yesa ended up in Nadia's custody when she went into hiding with other Jedi.

Not being Force-sensitive, no amount of care and affection from people who'd known her since birth could make up for the fact that she was among Jedi who were used to raising kids in a Jedi way. The more she learned about Kaoja, Felix, and even Kit from Nadia and Doc, the angrier she got. They shouldn't have left her. They should have come back for her. Where is her mother's best friend, and why didn't he take care of her when it was clear her mother was gone.

Then Kaoja and Felix come back, each with their own sob stories, and she's a preteen who never wanted to be a Jedi or a hero or anything other than safe. It's easier for her to accept her father back into her life, as much as it hurts, but her mother is famous with everyone for her devotion to family, and her mother is trying way too hard to prove how much she cares about Yesa. She takes shelter with other "alliance brats" and avoids Jedi, striking up a friendship with my smuggler's son that's just barely reciprocal.

As an adult she is profit-oriented and callous. Her friend and partner-in-crime Folan is her main moral compass, but he looks up to her so much that he doesn't always challenge her, a dynamic she purposely cultivates at times. The compassion instilled in her from a young age will jump out, usually in moments she'd call inconvenient, but she does her best to present a front of being the most disappointing child a Jedi could have. If she disappoints her mother enough, maybe Kaoja will finally stop trying.

(she never will.)

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Going back to some of my "next generation" assholes with Ungete Aikal, padawan of my main consular Kaoja. Where her master made for a good Jedi because of her personality, Ungete has made herself into a good Jedi. She is always considering what projects the best image for herself, not just what she thinks is right but what observers would consider the right thing, and presenting herself in ways that match with a sort of broad ideal of a Jedi.

She is vain as well as a perfectionist, taking great care with her hair, clothes, and makeup - the clothes are least obvious, since she still has to look Like A Jedi all the time, but her robes are always neat and pressed and only the most flattering neutral shades for her. It takes a little bit of work and more feedback from others than she's comfortable with, since the Force is not necessarily going to tell her what colour things are - but if appearances are everything and the average person isn't familiar with Jedi cultural values and signals, she has to meet those average people on a level of appearance they do understand.

Ungete wants nothing more than to be some important figure among the Jedi like Kaoja before her - Barsen'thor being the obvious one, but she'd accept a more usual council position or even the honour of being named an honorary general that my knight Kit received. (She is of course appalled that he fell so blatantly, but can't understand why he might be ashamed of anything good that fall earned him. If anything it ought to be a consolation.)

Part of this is just her as she is - a perfectionist, self-interested, hoping to be seen as the best person in the room. Part of this is that there is one person whose approval she craves above all others, her master Kaojacol. Kaoja, however, has spent more time than she's known Ungete trying to win her daughter over after inadvertently giving said daughter abandonment issues, and while she treats Ungete fairly and with affection it is always intensely clear to both girls that there is a favourite, and it's not the one who actually wants Kaoja's attention. The fact that both Ungete and Kaoja's daughter Rityesa want Kaoja to focus on her Padawan does not stop them from despising each other, of course.

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Exchei! The kind of Sith Inquisitor who zoned out during most of the Sith Code out of a petty hatred for the Sith who were using her but zeroed in intensely on the "through the Force my chains are broken" part. Undeniably Sith in emotion and method (big fan of killing people who piss her off), she refuses to allow slavery or any similar thing in her presence and prefers to let people live if they don't spark her hatred, building her power base through gratitude and trust rather than out-and-out fear.

Some of my more merciful Sith are that way out of pragmatism, knowing that gratitude means people will do things for you; Exchei is on some level aware of this kind of thing, but she does things solely because they feed her feelings. She will kill you if she hates you, and she will spare you if she feels sorry for you or you've impressed her. Her time as a slave means that, although she very much craves power, she refuses to subjugate others to get it. She spends a lot of time with Khem being like "ok but what if we weren't bound to each other. what if I just said 'go do whatever' and then we can just be friends" while Khem is like. "Did you miss the part where I want to eat you?"

Her relationship with Andronikos is a good example of how impulsive her feelings and actions can be - she goes from "this is some guy I guess. nice to flirt with. we might have sex." to "I have never loved anyone like this" in the span of one conversation, because he gives he a gift and no one has ever done that before. Luckily for her, he backs this up with various other kindnesses and affection, but her quickness to trust people who are good to her has definitely hurt her at times. She's jaded enough not to trust Zash, as she sees her apprenticeship as being a continuation of her enslavement, but when people she sees as equals are revealed to have lied to her it blindsides her every time.