The Dark Academy on Korriban

The same? the words echoed in his head. You won't share.

Thoughts and feelings bounced around his mind so much he didn't realize he was staring.

"Is there something else?" she asked. Seeing his gaze still turned toward her through her peripheral. However, it was distant, it didn't feel like he wasn't really looking at her.

It seemed like he didn't hear her as he became fully inwardly focused. His gaze drifted as though he had nothing really to look at. And seconds after she asked the question he looked up. "No... no, I don't think so."

How do I accept that? She didn't even tell me? She would have me join the house as I promised after she completely left me out of the loop and led me on? After I had promised my devotion? I've never betrayed a comrade. You don't do that. Sure, they die... sometimes you just aren't good enough or in the right place to save them... but betrayal.

At some point he started walking off without a word.

For a moment Kristal remained there as she watched Zeno start to walk off. Not feeling in the spirit of chasing after people she turned back toward the kill and Sylvain. Returning there with no rush at all.

"Sylvain," her words held an even tone, "Go make sure Zeno doesn't get himself killed."

He nodded, "Of course Kristal."

Then walked over to where Zeno was, "So what is going on Zeno? You look out of sorts."

"I've got a lot on my mind. Before today, I had never been betrayed by someone I trusted. I lost control of my rage. I nearly lost control of myself entirely," he replies without concern. There was nothing pressing, no immediate mission as before, so he was being forward. He's at least himself in that regard. Though he doesn't look at Syl directly. It's almost like he's talking to himself out loud with a serene anger, as though he had accepted it as part of his being.

"I loved her... and we spoke of the future... and then I was betrayed. Now she's with child to someone that I wouldn't even consider worthy of calling a sith."

A pause.

"Do I kill him? Both of them? Leave it all behind me and find a new path forward? Find a way to kill the baby and let them understand the rage I feel? I don't know the way forward... I don't know how to repay betrayal like this."

His undercurrent of rage definitely uplifted his voice that both of them could hear it.

Sylvain listened carefully. He knew Zeno to be a hot-head and interested in violence, but this was a point that seemed excessive to him.

But still he listened carefully and nodded, "Betrayal is not easily overlooked. Who is it that you speak of?"

"Jun-Tsu. I had given her my word to join her house, to purify myself and suffer the rituals of the Farrow, to work with her for mutual benefit far into the future. We had discussed children and she said I needed to go through the rites first. To have patience. That it would happen. I believed her. And then she told me that she had already conceived with Remmington. That pathetic excuse of a wanna-be sith. Practically a servant or slave to her house. She never even spoke of it to me until she revealed it had been done."

He finally looks to Sylvain. "And so I do not know how to move forward with her. I don't believe I can. And the funniest part about it, is that the problem is not the child. It is the lie. Had I been aware, kept in the loop, been informed I likely would have found a way to accept her goals and intentions. But she did it all behind my back after I had offered her everything."

Sylvain nodded and looked concerned. He certainly wasn't the one to give lectures on deception and betrayal at this moment in time.

"Lady Farro is a strong-willed and visionary woman. She exudes confidence and self-contentment... but her ways are not the ways of the Force. They are the decrepit and dying ways of a house long past its glory. Dangerous, and potentially quite useful yes... but their ways would subject you to a state like that pseudo-slave Remmington has taken on for himself."

"It is not easy being lied to... and to tell you the truth, I have done my fair share of them. If it was her intent to hurt or make you some pawn in her game with her deception, then she does not deserve your mercy. Did she describe her intent behind her lies?" He asked.

"To create a powerful child. As though that fool's seed would be powerful enough to create anything of worth," Zeno replies, almost spitting the insult.

"But I am still considering my options. I could let it go... make it not my problem and forget it. Perhaps when the time comes, when I rule the Deathwright family, I can show her what squadrons upon squadrons of starfighters loaded with cluster bombs and controlled by the greatest pilots in the galaxy are capable of doing to her precious Korriz... reveal the power that she decided to forsake with her betrayal."

He removes his helmet and looks up to the planet they were orbiting.

"She has created a primal rage in me that she seemed proud of, and likely thought could be to her benefit. Probably just another manipulation. Or perhaps I could forgive, and move forward with her as intended, accepting the child as just another path to power she sought and continue to seek such power together."

"Do you feel the kind of emotional bond that would make that possible? To be betrayed and then turn around and accept them fully... that takes a kind of action that is either incredibly noble or incredibly foolish." He said.

"What has she done that would qualify her of your trust like that?"

He looks back down from the sky at him.

"Nothing of substance that I could not have accomplished with others. I can respect her drive for power, but when it was supposed to be us and it became them... that is the lowest of my options, and it is merely one among many. I myself have never betrayed someone that I have promised my camaraderie to, but neither have I ever been betrayed. I have to consider my response in this instance, because it will set the precedent for such responses in the future. If I were my father she would already be dead, he would be dead, and their home worlds would be burning."

He nodded, "I have found that kind of camaraderie is hard to come by... but even if there are bumps in the road it is worth it to extend the effort to bring it back. If you do not share that camaraderie with Jun-tsu... I don't know if she'd be worth the effort."

"No. But she might be worth the effort of an asymmetric response," he replies with a darkness in his tone.

"That is for you to decide. You are Sith." He replied.

"Exactly. I have to make a choice, and that choice is not lightly made," he replies. "Betrayal for betrayal... leave the deception behind me and concern myself with my own pursuits... something. And then there is the issue of the one who helped bring me out of my unyielding rage induced state," he replies. "We accept and let feelings drive us. She weathered my storm to bring me back from the brink of insanity."

He nodded, "Take it from one who has made several mistakes recently by acting on the flow of emotion... Think about whatever you do... think about all the implications. You don't want to end up poking out your own eye to spite your face." He said as he put a hand on Zeno's shoulder.

"Agreed," he replied. "But a few more scars to see some damage done wouldn't be terribly bad."

"I think we'll have plenty of opportunity tomorrow. Reports suggest that one of the Massassi tribes are massing just south of the Temple complex. It seems we've shaken a hornet's nest of sorts." He said with a smile.

"Let them come. They will die in waves," Zeno says with a confidence bearing the mark of rage.

He smiled and patted him on the back, "I'll set them up for you to chop down in bushels. I will see to it you are given a position of importance."

"My position doesn't matter too much. Too many will die and I'll end up having to move to them." He really apparently is looking forward to killing Massassi.

He chuckled, "Good. I'll make it a central one so you can move around where your rage is needed."

Zeno simply nods at that, then exhales through his nose.

He then glances to Kristal. "What's her issue? She's shorter with me than normal for our conversations."

He let out a bit of a sigh, "I told you I made some mistakes recently right...? She's not pleased about them."