Red Dawn Across Dark Blue Skies [EM7, Closed]

[Sharn]

He buckled the sabre and embraced her from behind, nuzzling softly in her hair. "Ultimately, an idiot. Small-minded people tend to spew nonsense with great conviction."

[Runi Vizsla]

She let out a breath, relaxing into his arms with a smile. "Yeah... you're right."

"My mom's alive. Did I already mention that?"

[Sharn]

"Now you have. Is it in any way bad news for you?" Holding her was like being in Nash equilibrium: there were other options but none of them immediately better. There were issues ahead before they could get Pareto-optimal.

[Runi Vizsla]

Runi leaned back and kissed him on the corner of his mouth lightly. "I'm not sure yet. I have mixed feelings. She's with the Imperial contingent on the planet. An inquisitor."
She paused. "I offered to introduce her to Nygmus."

[Sharn]

"A fine balancing act that gives us manoeuvre." Sharn returned the kiss, savouring the moment. Every physical contact with her was like a small nuclear fission, with exponential energy boost as the nuclear tethers reformed. On the other hand, he had no special feelings about the Inquisitorium. They hadn't caught him when it could have been fatal for him, and that is all that counted. Now that Lord Vader was gone, they were likely quite clueless how to proceed on a strategic level. That, and he was hardly a Jedi. He could likely discover affinities with Runi's mother. In fact, he wanted that. "Unless Nygmus can sway your mother into believing he can take Vader's place. But if she is anything like you, Runi, I don't find it likely."

[Runi Vizsla]

"I honestly don't think that's his goal," she replied, leaning back into him comfortably. "Though... To be honest, I wouldn't be completely shocked if Mom's goal was to take Vader's place. Or the Emperor's."

She shrugged. "You steep in the Dark Side, and eventually enough is never enough." She turned toward him and chuckled. "Though enough knowledge was never enough for you anyway. Just don't go driving a combine harvester through a crowd for it, is all I ask.."

[Sharn]

He embraced her from a new angle and kissed her forehead. "You know, Runi, as the chief executive of Kuat Systems Engineering I designed weapons systems for countless capital ships and fighter aircraft. I was there doing reactor conservation when Tarkin blew up Alderaan. I practically built the laser and the reactors for the second Death Star, improving on Galen Erso's work. And I did so willingly, under no duress. I am implicated in so many deaths that the blood of the deceased could fill a small ocean. I have come here because I didn't want to give the New Republic a chance to choose between considering me an irreplaceable asset for their fleet buildup, and a war criminal. But I carry no bloodlust in me, nor would I consider murder to be the best solution for the majority of problems. The questions of good and evil are a false dilemma that Force religions have imposed on us across millennia leading to a perpetual chain of unreasonable mismanagement of energy, matter and sentience. I think it's time to leave them buried in the past and move forward to a more scientific age, and to harness the Force rather than be a slave to its dicta."

He chuckled wryly. "I certainly have no intention of becoming a maniacal farmer! I have just three simple goals in my life. To scientifically understand the multiverse in its entirety. To pass the understanding to those capable of comprehending it so that my work can live on i.e. my children. And to accomplish those two with you by my side." He sought her lips, smug smile appearing. "As well us on me and under me. Before me and around me. However you like."

[Runi Vizsla]

She chuckled at that, returning it. "Fair enough then."

[Sharn]

"I assume 'fair enough' is a step before 'it's a deal'." He took some hair from her ear and blew a warm kiss-puff at her temple.

[Runi Vizsla]

She giggled at that, turning and kissing him. "I don't foresee anything getting in the way of it at the moment."

[Sharn]

"If it does, I'll be inclined to obliterate it." He nuzzled a little after the kiss, breathing her scent in. "Violet delights have violet ends?"

[Runi Vizsla]

She smiled and chuckled a little. "We can only hope. Or some unusual combination at some varying point in between blue and red. But it will be quite fascinating to find out, won't it?"

[Sharn]

"Finding out is going to be at least as fascinating." He glanced uphill, toward the ruins they had found the book, and where he had made the sabre the previous night. "What was it about you digging dark and creepy feel?"

[Runi Vizsla]

She laughed as he hearkened back to then. "Oh... I don't get scared easily, so I find dark, creepy things kind of fun."

[Sharn]

He couldn't resist kissing through the laugh, twining his fingers with her, and then pulling her up the slope. "Come educate me in your idea of fun then."

[Runi Vizsla]

She returned the kiss and followed, smiling. "Sure."

[Sharn]

After a short climb, they found themselves among the lichen-covered skeletons of antiquated structures. Even though it was sundown and the landscape was tinged stark orange-red, a permanent shade seemed to linger among the ruins. Still, Sharn was more focused on her than on environs, the lenses of his cognition turning away from the macrocosm toward the binary microcosm of red, blue and all in between.

"Hence I render myself studious." He smirked, tracing with his finger along her triangular jawline.

[Runi Vizsla]

She smiled at that and nuzzled into him briefly before turning toward the ruins. "Besides, old places like this are interesting. How people lived before us."

[Sharn]

"Do you want to start an archeological dig here?" He was serious, despite his lips and hands showcasing preference for a different endeavour.

[Runi Vizsla]

"Mm... probably not, as much as I'd like to," she sighed as they head toward their destination. "Lots of other priorities."