This scene fits a couple of purposes, here. Heck, it's been muddling around in my head for a couple of weeks, really burning at me, even. I feel like I had to go ahead and share it, else I'd just go nuts. But I wanted to take a moment to explain, before tossing it up for you guys to consider.

Firstly, there's hints here of my Makeb arc. I only say that, because I've had several private messages asking me about the end-game events and story with my characters. So I wanted to clarify, here, that I do plan on writing up a story describing the course on Makeb, as I see it. I only want to complete the character stories, first, though. Here, the only one of my Legacy characters you won't hear mentioned, but who will make an appearance on Makeb, is Camiel.

Second, I've included a flashback memory scene, here. If I could go back and include it in "Forging", that's what I would do. But it fits, here, as well. It hints at an event in Khyriel's story, which is very important as it ends up effecting, really, every one of my Legacy characters. Still, Lusiel had a perspective on that event and I wanted to share it here, rather than try to force it into "Forging" in long, long retrospect. Which wouldn't really make sense, actually.

Anyway, that's just some thoughts from me. Let me know what you think, by all means.


Lusiel stepped into the room solidly, as if taking ownership of it. Which she was, really. And never mind that her brother was already there. He acceeded to her, as he always did. He only glanced at her from over his shoulder, smiling slightly as he stayed still there, leaning against one yawning window casing as he looked out over the estate's yard.

She sighed as she regarded him carefully, judging his frame and demeanor. It wasn't really unusual for him to appear in front of her looking tired, gaunt, and hollow-eyed. He'd typically smile or shake his head tiredly, remind her, "Not everyone can rely on the Force to barrel through an enemy, Lou. Besides. It was fun!" His efforts on Makeb had been methodically precise, though, and she'd followed his motions exactly. Especially since she couldn't be there to help more directly than to be a voice on holo.

She'd watched him, saw the glassy look that seemed to stay in his eyes, the stress that was wearing against him the entire time he was there. He'd appear on holo with his clothes stained with sweat and blood, dust and soil. He'd looked tired every time they spoke and frightened, too, not a few times. The strain on him had proved extraordinary, even beyond what she'd anticipated. But the security it won him was without measure. "Your brother was exceptional, Wrath. And I do not give praise lightly. We will make use of him in the future." The simplicity of the message underscored the real prize that was Darth Marr's assurance. That Khyriel's life would not be sacrificed to an executioner's gambit, that he'd not be hunted or otherwise destroyed. That he was safe from the Empire's wrathfulness.

Removing threats to her people was essential, before anything else.

Lusiel crossed the room to stand next to her brother, until her small figure was almost leaning into his. Khyriel looked down at her, grinning as he pulled her flush against his side. She reached up to smooth a slender finger against the dark circles that scored the tender flesh under his eyes, clucking her tongue. "It's nothing a few days rest won't cure, Lou. Hush." He almost purred the assurance towards her. She was familiar with the tone, called it "diplomatic" when she was in a good mood. But it was always contrived, a methodical manipulation and one that Khyriel cultivated with the most incredible skill she'd ever known.

Rare, though, that he used it in his dealings with her. She frowned up at him, "Tell me." A shuttered look fell over Khyriel's gaze, and he looked back towards the window, towards the figures moving about below. She glanced at them, at her tiny daughter as she trilled laughter through the muggy afternoon light. Jessa was playing some silly child's game with her apprentice, clapping her hands in delight whenever Jaesa suspended various objects in the air and manipulated them into spinning and bopping, like dancing figures, there. Soldiers and guards were nearby, ubobtrusive as the toddler played.

Khyriel grunted as he watched them, "You daughter is more content than you were at that age." He seemed bemused by the sight, actually. Lusiel watched Jessa laughing, thought how unlikely laughter with her mother would've been. Karen always insisted on the most proper standards, on strictures that exceeded even the norms of decorous behavior, with painful twists of the arm or hard, jarring shakes of the shoulders if her standards weren't met. Bad enough where Lusiel was concerned, because Karen insisted Lusiel was "sheer perfection, everything we could've hoped for." But she'd hated her son just as rabidly as she adored her daughter.

In her best moments, Karen dismissed or disregarded Khyriel. More often, though, she'd rail against him. She called him "an utter failure", as if she'd designed him very methodically and couldn't quite wrap her head around the product. His hair was never combed right, his clothes never seemed to fit right, his stance was never quite stiff enough, his back never straight enough - he couldn't even step, even speak without enraging their mother. He was just two years old when Lusiel realized her mother hated every single breath her little brother drew into his lungs, knew that, because that's when Karen began prodding her to "make him go away".

Lusiel's eyes darkened into near ebony slate, remembering that darkly terrible whisper in her ear, the smooth cadence of her mother's cozening whine. "How easy it would be, sweetling. Just a little nudge while you're playing ... just push him over the edge ... just hold him down under the bath water, just for a little while. It won't take long. It'll be so much better when he's gone. Then I could give you a better brother." Lusiel slowly ground her teeth back and forth, losing herself for a moment in the darkness of her memories, the rage-filled satisfaction she'd felt when she'd watched Karen fly, bleeding, out of the tall window of their apartments.

Then she glanced up, looked at the wondering expression on her brother's face. She reached over to softly pluck at the lobe of his ear, where the flesh was pared into a smooth nick. Like someone had taken something sharp to the skin, there. It had bled so much, too, she remembered. But she smiled at Khyriel today, refusing the memory, felt her eyes glitter with pleasure as she assured him, "Raina will be a far better mother, Khy."

Khyriel leaned his dark head backwards, laughing, "Minx! You didn't allow me to get the words out!"

Lusiel laughed softly as she stepped away from him, turning until her back was straight against the window casing across from him. She watched him, gauging the emotions flitting over his face. "That's what made it so much harder on Makeb. She was pregnant even then. I read the reports. You must have been slowly going out of your mind."

Khyriel sighed, reaching up to smooth his hand along the line of his brow, rub gently against his temple. As if such a motion could wash away the memory of the headaches she knew he would've struggled with while he was on that world. And he didn't even mention everything, to boot. "Damn brat wouldn't leave the planet. Not with me on it, she said. I might have pushed the issue. But I truly needed every bit of help I could get. And there were other issues, too. It was a nightmare."

Lusiel crossed her arms over her chest, glancing sideways towards the window when Jessa suddenly shrieked some gleeful noise as Jaesa held her aloft in midair and the soldiers began yelping from around the perimeter of the yard. Her daughter spun in slow circles, control that showed a truly impressive bit of Force ability. She would have to test Jaesa's abilities even further, perhaps. "Kastiel was with you. I thought it would be enough." That Khyriel admitted it was difficult was telling. She clenched her fists as she realized how close she must have come to losing them both, two of her siblings, even.

Khyriel shrugged away from the casing, moving back from the window towards the desk set against a nearby wall. He tapped his fingers against the datapad he'd placed there when he entered the room earlier, watched as Lusiel crossed over to pick it up. She scanned the information carefully, before lifting troubled eyes towards her brother. He leaned his hip against the edge of the desk, looking down at the floor. "There are times I wish our mother had survived. Just long enough, mind you. Because I would truly enjoy the chance to break her myself! Nonsense like that wouldn't happen, if he'd been raised properly. Damn well secure enough, at least!" He looked over at her, his dark eyes bitter and cold. "Can you imagine the Imperial he would've made?"

Lusiel nodded firmly, grim-faced, her lips compressed in solid anxiety. "Nothing to be done in that regard, however." She stared down towards the datapad again. "Will he live?"

"Of course he will! Our damn brother is too much a dunderhead to die from something as simple as a mesa collapsing out from under his fool feet as he tried to saved idiot civilians! Hell, he practically danced across the surface!" Lusiel stopped, her eyes slowly breaking into twinkling amusement as she watched him shoot straight to begin pacing back and forth in front of the desk. He called Gaibriel several more choice names, even. She thought "hardheaded simpleton" was the best, though, and even waved one hand as she told him so. "I don't find it funny in the least, Lou. Kas pulled him out of there at the last possible second. He nearly lost a limb! And never mind the risk to her!"

Lusiel finally choked on a laugh, unable to help herself when she heard Khyriel mutter something about how much better it would be if Gaibriel managed several choice knocks on his damn head, rather than his leg. The two of her brothers had been enjoying a truly marvelous rivalry since their very first meeting. Gaibriel confounded Khyriel, with his seeming cavalier attitude and his penchant for drawing everyone around him into bemused gales of laughter. "Ah, Khy. You adore him! How sweet." Khyriel spun around, almost stabbing the air with a pointed finger as he began to shout some sort of invective. Probably a slew of them, in fact. Seeing him nearly dissolve into discombobulated fury was very much the final straw, and Lusiel almost fell over herself laughing.

Khyriel ended up blustering a tired sigh as he stood there, his arms crossed over his chest, scowling at her, "I am not amused, Lou."

"And I do not believe you. You're well able to keep me from sensing you, Khy, as a general rule. But our brother does tend to needle your poor sensibilities. Makes it much easier for me to see you, that way." Lusiel chuckled as his pale skin flushed with chagrin. "Admit it. You didn't think you'd actually like him, did you?"

Khyriel shrugged, "He despises the Empire."

"Not surprising, is it?"

"It should be concerning, though."

"But it isn't. He'd lay his life down if it prevented us from being hurt, Khy. That's all that concerns me, in regards our little brother. It's the same for you, no matter how much you stomp your foot where he's concerned."

Khyriel slowly nodded, thoughtful in a cautious, pondering way. It was just so Khyriel, that expression of his. He'd once told her his mind worked like that, in carefully coordinative mannerisms, like a programmed machine. Like a computer. Mathematical, analytical, and scheming. Always scheming. She imagined he was mechanically calculating everything it is he knew of Gaibriel, in precise detail, even as he stood there. Admirable, she thought, watching him. He murmured, finally, "It's just, that he's ... different. I can't really understand him. But he does amuse me, yes."

Lusiel regarded him for several long moments, her features suddenly serious again. "Is that why you cut the throat of that braggart who claimed he'd owned him at one point? When he was eleven, I think he said."

"No. I cut his throat after he told me how much he'd enjoyed carving his brand into Gaibriel's stomach, rather. I do believe I proved to him my skills with a blade were far superior." Khyriel lifted one shoulder, nonchalant, "The look on his face was rather priceless, to be honest. But we no longer need to be concerned over those details of his life being used by his enemies, either."

Lusiel only smiled slowly in dark agreement, "Carve them into pieces, Khy." She didn't wait for Khyriel's response, only walked back towards the window to watch her daughter at play. She smiled as she watched Jessa Force-pushing her apprentice across the lawn, with Jaesa yelling out in some shock at the child's sheer ability.

Threats to their own were intolerable, she thought, lifting her chin as she stood there. It was as simple as that.


Lusiel pushed the door open, peering around the edge towards the plump cushions of the bed set against the wall on the far side of the room. It was difficult to see at first, so that she bit her lip to catch back the distressed moan that would break the nearly palpable silence of that space. But she was finally able to look past the shadows that stretched over the nighttime quiet.

Lusiel sucked in a shallow breath when she caught sight of her father, slumped in a weary posture along the edge of a chair he'd pulled close to the side of the bed. Lucian's uniform was badly wrinkled, and spotted in several places with small smears of blood. He had dropped his forehead into the palms of his hands, which he'd braced on his elbows against the top of his knees. He was still wearing his boots, so that the toe of one hard-edged boot just barely nudged the soft bag that contained his personal medical kit, tumbled there on the floor against the bed.

If he'd been any later returning home ... Lusiel shuddered as she eased further into the room, creeping forward on her tiny feet until she could make out the tiny form of her baby brother on the bed.

Khyriel was huffing softly, obviously upset even through the sedation Lucian had administered. She examined him carefully, every square inch of him she could see that wasn't covered by the thin blanket his father had pulled over him as the boy finally drifted into unconsciousness. Khyriel had pulled his small knees up into his stomach, until he lay there in a curled position like some tiny unborn thing that floated in the womb. The gesture was purely protective, as if he was afraid of being hurt even when he slept, when he drifted in the dark of his toddler dreams.

Lusiel's lips quivered as she fought to keep from crying, her dark brown eyes drifting over the signs of trauma on him, the nicks and scratches where the sharp-edged shears had ripped over her brother's head. Huge hunks of hair were missing in several places, either lopped off in jagged tears or otherwise torn from his scalp. Cuts marked him where the scissors had snapped and clipped too close - along the line of his neck, there on the top of his head right up against the scalp, and a single chunk of flesh missing from one tiny curl of ear.

He'd screamed so loudly, she remembered, shaking as she dropped her gaze down to the floor. She wrapped her slender arms over her stomach, her chin trembling as she fought to keep herself from crying in terrified wails. But she still edged closer to the bed, determinedly protective of him.

"Ah, precious girl. Don't be afraid, Lusiel. You did so damn well today, I'm proud of you." She looked up into her father's dark eyes, felt herself warm under the approval of his brown-eyed gaze. So much like her own, his eyes. And she sighed as she looked up at him. Lucian held out his arms, reaching to catch his daughter as she flung herself against him and let loose a solid, pitiful whimper before her voice firmed into a small, angry venting.

"She'll make him go away, she told me so! I hate her, Da! I won't do it, I won't do what she says! She can't make me!"

Lucian stiffened, until his body felt hard and straight there against her cheek where she was pressed into his chest. But his fingers remained carefully gentle as he stroked the dark braids against the side of her head, murmured to her using soft comforting sounds. He leaned closer, so that his mouth was tucked against her ear. "Shhhh, Lusiel. Calm, now. And tell me." And he listened to the whispers she offered him, the whimpered fears she shared. The terror of the weeks, months, where the only thing that stood between his son and the mother who wanted him dead was the small, trembling form of her own tiny three year old self.

Her strength! What Hell she'd make against the Empire's enemies! His own daughter! Yes!

He leaned back into the chair, laying his head against the chair back as he lifted Lusiel up until she rested wearily against his chest. He felt her relaxing, felt her small body easing closer to sleep. He sank into the quiet stillness, listening for any steps coming towards the room, and smiled with darkest satisfaction when his wife stayed away, rather. Cowardly bitch! He only patted Lusiel's small back with one large hand, murmuring comforting sounds, and watched as Khyriel eased into real sleep. And he swore to his oldest child, "Hate her, Lusiel! I'll not let her take your siblings from you. I'll kill her if she tries!"