The Dark Academy on Korriban

Zeno is seated on one of the large boxes in the cargo bay looking over his datapad, his helmet is on and loud music can be heard coming from the comlink embedded in it, probably streaming from the datapad.

Zeno wasn't the only one with the thought of going somewhere away from everyone else to listen to music. Shaisha had woken up when Sylvain first left the room she shared with him and Kristal, and unable to fall asleep again, she had dressed herself to go wandering about too.

As she walked down to the cargo bay to avoid running into people, her headphones were still playing through her mother's collection of Sith opera. For most people, it was probably outdated, but for her it was a warm memory of the past. She suspected that the scene in the shipwreck earlier today, with the dead child and parent, had something to do with her feelings of nostalgia and longer for her own mother.

Spotting the one who was kind of on her mind, Shaisha walked at a calm pace towards Zeno, raising her hand in greeting.

He didn't notice at first, intent on his reading. It wasn't until she was close enough for him to notice her feet in his peripheral that he looked up, a little surprised to see someone else down there, but a bit happy that it was Shaisha. He slips his helmet off, music still playing audibly if a bit deadened by being within the helmet. He pats a spot next to himself on the crate he was sitting on as he greets her.

"Is it good morning yet?" he asks with a smirk.

"Maybe?" she smiles as she slips the headphones down and let them rest around her neck, so the music was still audible and somewhere between them the music clashed together. The high musical notes of the soprano, against the power of the electrical instruments.

"Didn't think I'd see anyone down here. Seems we both had the idea to find a quiet spot for music."

"A bit of studying for me as well. Not much else to do on this ship," he replies. "Have a seat Shaisha."

"An exciting morning, no?"

"What are you studying then?" she asks, hopping up to sit next to him. "I take it it's not musical lessons?"

"Lightsaber modification," he says as he shows her text on the benefits and means for curving one's hilt. But he then tucks the pad away.

"I need elegant weapons for more civilized brutality," he says with a devious grin.

She takes a look at the text. "Nice. Always like the look and feel of those hilts myself," she nods approvingly.

"And this is the music you'll committ civilized brutality too?"

"No. This is just for relaxation," he replies with a smile. "This and some harder stuff. When I'm killing I prefer something a little more... ironic? I don't know if that's the word."

He slips out his datapad to switch over to a different playlist.

"Like this."

As the tune comes on, she recognizes it, and laughs. "Oh, good one. And I thought the hard stuff was what you'd prefer when brutalizing too. At least I wasn't wrong in guessing that you liked hard music. Guess we got that in common then."

"So classic rock and heavy metal. What else you got on there?"

He chuckles. "Yeah, songs about having fun for killing things. And songs about killing things when having fun," he says switching his song again.

She mutes her own music first, then listens to the new track on Zeno's playlist.

"It does sound very fitting to you," she says with a smile. "Did you grow up listening to this kind of music, or was it something you discovered on your own?"

"The Deathwrights tend to have a taste for heavy music during training and war, my mother included. My father didn't really listen to music for fun," he replies. "How about you? Was that classical you were listening to? I don't listen to that often."

She nods. "My mother often listened to opera when she was home, and I was given some singing lessons from a young age. It's not exactly my kind of music, most of the time, but... after today, I guess I've been feeling like I miss her even more. Usually, it doesn't bother me, but sometimes the feeling of missing someone hits you when you least expect it, I guess?"

He was looking at her at the beginning of the explanation, but by the end of it he was looking at his datapad mindlessly. "I suspect that you know I do understand that."

"I know," she says with a quiet voice and picks up her own datapad to find a specific tune on her playlist.

"... Is it something you want to talk about?"

"It's something I can talk about but never really want to," he says with clear sadness in his voice, not looking up as he flips through his datapad to find a picture. It was of his mother holding a baby that was clearly sith-blooded. He passes it to Shaisha.

"Alecta," he says. "Murdered by one of my father's rivals in an attempt on our entire family by an assassin. She hadn't even met her second year. A lightsaber hole burned through her chest."

Looking at the picture as Zeno speaks, Shaisha feels her rage burn. "I hope the bastard met his end in a gruesome way..." she murmurs, feeling it all hit close to home for herself too. "Death is too good for someone who harms children."

"You won't find records of the people involved anymore. Erased from history. My father's enemies learned a valuable lesson after that incident," he says, the sadness still not gone as he can't really shake the though of holding Alecta as a child.

"He found out who was responsible within weeks. Less than 48 hours later every known associate was dead and a squadron of the Deathwright reserve tilled the city that they used as a powerbase into the earth with cluster bombs. We've never had an assassination attempt against us since then. Power plays and fights, sure. But the response from the assassination of his daughter, my sister... His wrath was complete."

Returning the datapad back, Shaisha reaches out her hand, offering it to him.

"It hurts. I know..."

"It does. A bit more than you might understand as well too, though maybe you do. I don't know the circumstances of your youth. His wrath was complete. I was too young to contribute to the vengeance for the loss of my sister. And I'll never have anything but the feeling of loss and helplessness and far too few happy memories when it comes to her."

"... I was just a child when my mother died. When I lost all family, but my father. I was seven years old." Her smile was melancholic. "I know what it's like to feel helpless, to be able to do nothing to protect or avenge the ones that mattered the most to you."

The headphones were plugged out and she sat the datapad to play her mother's favorite aria.

"My parents went their separate ways before I was born, but stayed in touch throughout my childhood. Mother earned a place as a member of the Imperial Guard, and father had his own ambitions that he pursued, when she wasn't home on Ziost, I was with her family. Occassionally father would visit and once he took me to Domund Kaas even."

"Then, when she was supposed to come home, someone else came instead. I couldn't hear everything that was said, as it was between the adults, and I didn't understand a lot of what was happening either, but I remember I just knew... mother wasn't coming back. Ever. She was gone." She heaves a heavy sigh, wrapping her arms around herself. "I was later told that she died in service, but... it doesn't make the feelings go away."

Zeno nods. It appears they both fully understood that pain quite clearly. It and it was piercing, dulling and created an emptiness that would never disappear. Not even with time and no matter how many creatures or people he killed.

"A terrible burden. It is comforting in a way to have someone who understand and to be able to open up to. To know that you are not the only one that has that pain. But it does nothing to make it go away."

As she curls up, he puts an arm around her shoulders. There was quiet as the song played and near the end of it, as though fate decided to just slap them around even more, his playlist moved on to something else.

He just closed his eyes and listened.

Shaisha likewise let the silence between them linger as the music filled the void instead, filling in for the words that would just feel shallow. They both knew the pain, and as she had said to Jo'ren earlier, it was a pain she suspected most Sith had experienced or would experience in their life. And unlike the Jedi, who would pretend the feelings didn't exist and become nothing more than merely flesh-covered droids, a Sith found strength in the emotions that life gave them.

"... It will never go away," she says, her words soft, "but it's what makes us strong."

"I don't think that it will never go away," he says quietly, thinking back to earlier. "Certainly not in life, possibly not in death. But I can tell you that the sadness disappeared earlier after our actions. "Not entirely comforting but it is good to know that the sadness is not necessarily eternal."

He leans his head against hers, still resting his eyes, potentially just to keep tears from forming for a second time in the same day. "I think that shows there is a chance at respite at the end of our journey. But you are right that those feelings give us our power during that journey."