15 for the dialogue starters 👀
S5 E17: BURY ME TIL' I CONFESS [57:06]
Two weeks scratched off on the calendar for the newlywed Cadera spouses, alone with no contracts to complete and no Sith calling up their holocoms to bother them, on the beautiful planet of Makeb. Luxury oozing out of every wall! Flying in style! Infinity pools! Droids waiting on them hand and foot! It's a dream come true — until the groundquakes start. A Sith inevitably comes calling, a Jedi pulls her out of a landslide, the Hutts are doing stars know what and suddenly the fate of a dying world rests on the newly named Tala Cadera being able to keep a secret.
cw: canon-typical violence. wc: 2k.
prompt: "you're quite a troublemaker." (ask) accompanying art here!
“Get — hey! Get your fucking hands off me!”
The little hunter is barely a struggle to get under control when they yank her forward on her knees, as much as she thrashes in their hold and dares to try to push their arm away. When they dig the edges of their nails into the plush of the skin on her face, she hisses at the pressure, then curses when her bronze skin breaks under his first finger’s sharp nail. Crimson oozes from the cut, dribbling a pearl of blood onto the black of his cuticles. It only makes him smile when she wilts, possibly realizing that there was no way out of this, regardless of what she did.
So easily defeated. The force blind were so fascinating. Not even the thought of scheming her way out mired in all that mess in her head that Erzilith tries to sort through in that brief moment. If he really had the time, he'd search more to see exactly what he was working with, but the cursory glance reveals nothing.
How weak.
“You’re fucking sick.”
“Aren’t we all?” Nox asks, unperturbed by the barbed insult thrown at him while he dips his head closer to Deneru’s to get a better look at the still scowling woman beneath them. She’s a pretty little thing, indigo eyeshadow smeared over her eyelids, false lashes clinging onto her waterline. A skilled hand clearly did the liner, sharp and done quickly, thin enough to only appear when she blinks. Well, except for the long black line scrawled across the left side of her face. Clearly startled when he'd appeared. They hadn’t had the chance to look upon her earlier, but among her artistic skill and the tiny imperfections that marr her face near her implant, Deneru is a curious creature. Mandalorian, if she remembers correctly. Winner of the Great Hunt. Occasional employee of some minor lords that milled about under Nox. No wonder she was so bold when faced with the power of a Sith themself. There was something so fascinating about her in particular that keeps them from killing her outright, “I’m sure even deep below all that conviction of yours, you’re hiding away something that makes you just as ill as I am.”
She scoffs, yanking her head to the left before grimacing when Nox pulls her back to center. She's strong, but not strong enough to go much of anywhere. Is that fear lingering on her being? Nox is more than interested in prodding at that, "Like hell I am. I ain't nothin' like you."
"No, not at all. It would be an insult to the Sith if someone like you were. But no one can really hide their nature forever, can they?" Nox pitches his voice up, a cackle escaping his vocal cords at the very thought. Deneru certainly couldn't hide to save her life, not when he'd tracked her down directly after that fight in the mines. Quietly tracking, quietly following and stalking his way to eventually find her suite in the capital city. Slipped in without her even noticing until he'd dropped his force cloak. They'd make lovely use of her from now on, and considering she doesn't put up much more of a fight when his thumb sinks into her jaw, he sees it as an opportunity to continue, "You're such a little troublemaker. Thinking you could simply play both sides, collect a paycheck from not only the Republic but also the likes of Imperial Intelligence? You're bold, Deneru. I like that."
"I don't give a shit what you do and don't like. I don't fuck with you Council types. The deal is that you don't fuck with me 'long as I stay out of your way."
Nox tilts his head, not unlike a predator animal sizing up the small creature in its posession between its claws. Pushing, pulling this and that way. He raises a brow, surprised. No one had ever told him as much. Just how self-important did she really think she was?
"Oh. You don't care what I think?"
"Couldn't give a gundark's ass what you throw around in that empty skull of your's."
Such colorful language. Yes, she just would have to stay in his menagerie of minions at his disposal. If only for the entertainment aspect, really. How many more lines of visceral anger and disgust could he get lobbed at him? Glancing around the suite, he imagines he could unlock quite a few more if he presumes correctly about the beskar'gam laid out on the desk.
"And your mandalorian?" Nox asks, never breaking eye contact with the deep pools of auburn that grow to the size of dinner plates when Deneru realizes that they're aware of their little getaway. Of who else resides in this very room. Her pupils shrink as whites of her eyes become very, very obvious, "Do you care what he thinks, my dear corellian star?"
Deneru's expression flickers through fury, fear and desperation all in a split second, before setting her mouth in a firm line, "You're barking up the wrong tree, asshole."
"That is a lovely set there too. Too small for the likes of you … oh, your darling little slicer. I remember her," The blood drains out of Deneru's face when Nox glances to the lounge set haphazardly laid out on the suite's bed, and Nox knows that he's struck gold. Yes, it's all coming back to him now. The sweet woman he'd met a few years prior, messy hair pulled back in a hairband that could barely contain it all when they'd crossed paths on Belsavis. The blonde mandalorian that had been following Deneru about, a few feet back with a look he thought could kill. How darling, had Deneru finally done something about that behavior? Rather than culling it, does she use it to her own benefit? "Tell me, Deneru. Is she getting a cut of the job's hazard pay? Excited about the prospect of getting an upgrade to the suite? A bigger ring?"
"Shut the fuck up about my wife!"
Nox smirks, "Wife? How sweet, it seems my invitation to the ceremony was lost in the mail. Unfortunate, I really do look lovely in guest attire."
"Leave 'em alone, Sith. They don't have anything to do with any of this."
For a bounty hunter, Deneru was wildly quick to show her hand. How fast love turned gambling men into fools was truly impressive. He supposes he doesn't blame her, considering the worry now etched into her expression. The position she's in does threaten to compromise her and her wife's safety. Considering the intimacy of the room, he can only fill in the dots on her new husband's presence as well.
It does click a moment later once he realizes the angle he can play, "So not only does the scrambling Republic not know you're playing for both teams, but your darling partners don't either. A hilarity, Deneru, color me oh-so surprised. A liar and a cheat, not only to the galaxy but also to the people that should be able to trust you the most."
Deneru grinds down on her teeth, and its almost audible. Fiesty, "I didn't ask for your fucking judgement. What's all this shit to you anyway? You break into my room, terrorize me and then have the audacity to laugh in my face? So what? I come out on top regardless and they're none the starsdamn wiser."
"Ah-Ah, but I could use insurance on my work here, my dear Deneru," Nox releases Tala's face, instead gently caressing her jaw as his nails scratch gently over the reddening skin there, "This is my operation now, and you are a liability because you know far too much. It is your lucky day that I am in a mood to hire and not to hurt beyond recognition."
A little lightning jumps out of his fingers on a whim and Deneru flinches, yelping at the shock. Nox only pulls her in closer, even as she damn near growls at him. Reactionary then. Unfortunate, but that could easily be trained out of her for long-term purposes, "What the fuck do you want with me?"
"You'll work for me now. Whatever arrangement you have with the little Republic force here you will now use to my benefit," Yes, Nox can see it now. With Deneru working to expedite their removal from the planet, and Niar's plans to stabilize as much of the remaining vistas as the could, they would be on-track to mine out the isotope-5 for years longer than predicted. How much more firepower the Empire would have as a result does excite them. A proper edge over the Republic that's certainly grown too bold as of late. Deneru blanches at the request, "Oh don't look at me like that, dear. I'm not asking for you to kill any of those poor people. Not yet, at least. If they were to pose a threat our work here, then I'll ask you to do what you do best."
"These people just want to stay in their homes, Sith. I'm not —"
"You will do as I ask because I demand it," He has no delusion that the small grin he wears is anything outside of unsettling, but the fear that does permeate Deneru's signature is a certain sort that he knows he can mold with his own hands. Just how far would she go to protect her spouses? "And if you don't, I have no qualms with making use of the collateral that you've so kindly brought here with you."
Pleading is a new expression that Nox isn't sure if he likes on Deneru's lovely face. The way it makes her eyebrows bunch together and pull her plump lips down into a frown is just terrible. She folds far too fast on the subject. He thought there would've been more struggle on crafting her leash, threatening her to obey his commands rather than simply watching her falter at his feet when he releases her face. She doesn't even scramble to her weapon, which admittedly isn't that far away from her sitting on a nearby nightstand. Simply stares at the ground, gatehring her wits again while Nox absentmindedly twists one of the rings on his finger.
This, was the winner of the Great Hunt?
Nox can't say that he isn't disappointed considering he'd heard so much about her exploits across the galaxy, but perhaps is a bit moved by just how much she cares for them. How much she's willing to give up to keep them safe. It's sweet, in some weird way when she eventually faces him again, brushing the blood away from the cut on her face with her thumb.
"One job. I'll do this one job for you and play your double agent or whatever the fuck it is you want from me. But my terms are only good as long as you leave them alone. If Mako or Torian gets hurt here and I find out it was because of you, I'm blowing your whole shitty operation wide open, damn your consequences and your Empire."
"It is sweet that you think you can negotiate terms, Deneru," Nox pretends to think for a moment, making a show of raising his eyes to the ceiling and fixing his hair where it'd come to sit oddly on his shoulders. Then, returns his gaze to the bounty hunter, "Still. Say I will humor you. You tell no one, not even your sweethearts, that you're working for me. You follow every order down to the last letter, and you can walk off the planet when every last Republic settlement has been evacuated without a word that the planet has been stabilized. Are these fair terms?"
Deneru bites her bottom lip, conflicted clearly when she pushes herself to her feet. She must be slightly taller than Nox if he weren't already in heels, but she looks so small there when worry is etched all over her face like the ink that trails up and down her arms. Morality's grasp truly did end when affection was involved. Oh, he would be entertained by this course of events. Not only was he getting the bounty of the century, but also a little plaything at his beck and call.
"Fine, Sith."
"It's Nox. Darth Nox, dear," He nods, cloaking himself in the force again when Tala's eyebrows shoot up off her face, spinning around looking for him. His laughter is sharp at her bewilderment, "I'll call when I need you. Do be sure that you answer when the time comes."
