Lord of Temptation

Valentine's Day on Dromund Kaas, punctuated by a fatter Darth Baras and a love infested Dark Council, well, as far as Dark Side love can go anyways.

Lord Ravage liked to believe himself to be an insightful man, a person able to see the slightest change in anyone. He prided himself on knowing people, maybe not as much as Baras and his spy network, but he was still able to keep tabs on a whole manner of people. If there were people Ravager liked to spy on, it was his fellow Dark Council Members, especially people such as Darth Baras, with some limited success. Still, if there was any information Ravager could rely on the most, it was the data he gathered with his own eyes, and as Baras strode into the Dark Council Chambers, the Sith Lord couldn't help but notice some slight differences in the other Lord.

The Lord, once a wall of pure muscle and strength, was now slightly more rounded, with his gut jutting out slightly more and his legs wider than how they had been only a week ago. Ravage titled his head slightly with curiosity, frowning with confusion as The Lord conspicuously sauntered to his seat, getting a small feeling of unease in his gut. Baras must have felt his eyes on him, as his helmeted head snapped over to him and bore into his face. Ravage coughed under his breath and turned his head, but kept Baras in the corner of his eye. Baras was filling out his chair more than he usually did, his minutely more rotund figure filling the expanse of the seat with ease.

Ravage mulled over the conundrum for a long moment until another Sith Lord, Darth Mortis, sat next to him calmly, politely folding his hands in his lap and closing his eyes in light meditation. Determined to get a second opinion to verify his observation, Ravage leaned over the armrest of his chair and prodded Mortis with a slight nudge with the force, awakening him from his musings. The Sith Lord slowly turned his head and regarded the fellow Councilor, "What do you want, Ravage?"

Ravage didn't appreciate the condescending tone, but ignored it to instead focus on his goal, "Have you noticed anything . . . different about Lord Baras?"

Mortis turned his head, glancing at Baras from the corner of his eye. Finally, he shook his head, "What am I supposed to be seeing, Ravager?"

"You don't see it?" Ravage asked disbelievingly.

"Don't tell me this is another one of your little games, Ravage."

"I'm serious, Mortis. Just look at him, he may as well be a different person."

Mortis shrugged callously, "He appears to be the same."

"But," Ravage insisted, "He looks so much more . . . fat!"

Mortis arched a brow incredulously, "You're not being serious, right?"

"Look at him," Ravage gestured subtly at the Sith Lord, "He's looks lumpy."

"I highly doubt a powerful Sith Lord like Darth Baras could possibly be described as 'lumpy'."

"Just look at him, his fat rolls are practically falling out of his chair."

Mortis rolled his eyes, "I don't have time for this foolishness. Look, Darth Marr is already here, so just be silent and listen."

Ravage tossed up his hands in exasperation, "I can't believe you don't believe me, just look at him!"

"Shut up."

Ravage scowled angrily, but held his tongue as Marr's cold voice called the meeting in order, using only half of his concentration to listen to what Marr was saying. The rest of his focus was set on Baras, who sat stonily in his chair and simply twiddled his thumbs restlessly. Finally, after about five minutes of partially hidden staring, Ravage slowly, suspiciously, turned his head back to Marr and listened intently. After only a few minutes, his suspicions of Baras faded into the background of his mind, and by another ten seconds, it had faded almost completely.

However, after five minutes, a single sound was beginning to grate on Ravage's senses. It was an odd sound, a small resounding crunch that was a consistent buzz in his ear. It was a constant, gratuitous crunch that irritated him beyond sense. Ravage was usually a cool and collected man, but in the midst of a boring meeting between people he didn't particularly like, his resolve had considerably shrunken and his tolerance diminished into virtually nonexistence. Finally, he pounded his armrest, "What is that infernal racket?"

Marr broke off from his long speech, and glared brazenly at the source of the disruption, but the sudden silence managed to emphasize the crunching sound echoing within the chamber. Darth Zhorrid frowned with confusion, "What is that noise?"

After a second of a searching, they managed to pinpoint the source of the noise . . .

. . . This also happened to be exactly where Darth Baras, who, coincidentally, was completely ignoring the meeting and instead focusing on the bucket in his hands, was sitting. Unabashedly, the Sith Lord reached his gloved hand into the bucket and pulled out a decadent chocolate. He titled his mask up, revealing a pale chin, and popped the candy into his mouth, chewing loudly. Mortis and Ravage glanced at each other as Marr cleared his throat loudly. Baras suddenly realized the resounding silence and looked up, "What?" He asked innocently.

Marr sighed and pressed his palm against his mask tiredly. Vowrawn decided to step forward and ask the question that everyone was thinking, "Darth Baras, just what are you doing?"

Baras shrugged, "I was bored."

"How could you be eating chocolates in the middle of this important meeting?" Ravage asked, exaggerating the importance of the meeting he himself had no interest in.

Baras recoiled, hiding his chocolates in his arms, "I eat when I'm bored. Zhorrid eats Puff Cake during War Meetings."

The female Sith Councilor's jaw slackened and she subconsciously smacked her lips, "How did you even . . .?"

Baras leaned forward slightly and scrutinized the woman, "In fact, you have some white cream on the right side of your lips."

Ravage smacked his forehead while Marr jumped between, snapping out commanding words before a fight broke out, "Both of you are to be silent, or else I'll eject you both from this meeting. And Baras, Zhorrid's eating patterns are not your concern, especially considering you yourself seemed to have become a little more rotund in the stomach area."

"Hah!" Ravage exclaimed, turning to Mortis to shove his triumphant finger into the Councilor's face, "I told you!"

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Baras whined, sounding on the verge of tears as he popped another candy into his mouth.

"Wait a moment," Thanaton interjected, speaking for the first time since the argument began, "Are those candies shaped like hearts?"

Baras quickly hid the box deeper in his arms and glared at the Sith Lord, "Maybe, why do you care?"

Thanaton jumped up from his chair and scowled furiously, "I had a bucket of chocolate hearts on my dresser the other day, but then they were gone this morning. Did you take them?"

"Thanaton," Marr snapped, "Sit back down."

"Oh, these were yours?" Baras drawled, pulling something out of the folds of his robes, "I suppose that would explain this little tag that was stuck on the top of the box."

Zhorrid stiffened in her chair, a look of petrified terror on her pale face as Baras raised it mockingly in the air, "Don't read that!"

"To my handsome Valentine," Baras read, changing the inflection of his voice into that of a woman's, "From Z, hmmm, I wonder who Z is?"

Ravage glanced at Zhorrid, who seemed to ready to positively faint in her chair from embarrassment, and promptly burst out laughing. Thanaton's face darkened with rage and he used the force to throw the laughing Sith Lord out of his chair, "Shut up, Ravage! Baras, I'll destroy you for this."

Marr smashed his fist onto his armrest and snarled, "Thanaton and Zhorrid, you two may handle your sexual and highly superficial relationship later. Baras, sit down and shut up, now!"

"I want my chocolates back," Thanaton hollered.

"And I want Baras' head on a pike," Zhorrid screeched.

"Don't worry about your chocolates, Thanaton," Ravage shouted from his position on the floor, "I'm sure Zhorrid will give you some nice chocolate after the meeting."

"All of you shut up!" Marr hollered, "Sit down, right this instant or I will eject you from this meeting!"

It took several minutes, but order was eventually restored, and all the Sith Lords returned to their respective seats. Marr took several calming breaths and resumed talking with grinding teeth. However, before he could fully delve back into the meeting's topics, Darth Mortis leaned forward and spoke, "Zhorrid, might I ask where you got those chocolates?"

The Darth Lady crossed her arms guardedly, "What's it to you?"

Mortis glanced at Darth Hadra, who was smirking back at him with an almost evil glint in her eyes, "It's a long story."