The Lupine, the Empire, and the Mirror

[R. S. Esalis]

Coruscant. Imperial Center. Such a paragon of government control and order. Or so it gave airs of, at least. With the death of the Emperor and the second Death Star, the inner workings of the Empire had been thrown into such a chaos as no one was prepared for. Outwardly, a calm visage and one of collected revenge against the blow by the Rebels was shown, while inside turmoil ran rampant.

The tumult however, thankfully died down into a slight murmur, and for the moment the situation had cooled down from its' previous boil to a slow simmer. Such was life, always going on - such was time, never stopping.

Ministers of war raged against the Rebel Alliance still though, demanding the vermin to be hunted down now, exterminated with no quarter given. Others called for patience, and the need to regroup and rethink strategies. They had seen might fail, and felt that subterfuge and tricks were needed. Something new, some new way to combat those ever resourceful, ever hated Rebels.

And so arguments raged for the time being, none willing to acknowledge the input of another.



R. S. Esalis had grown tired of such bickering, intent on going forward with her own plans. She'd had the relics pulled from the archives, had them studied, and presently delivered them to the one man she knew would know how to appreciate them and afford them the value that they truly deserved. For they were the beginning of something she knew would place the Empire atop the Galactic ruling seat once more. Imperial armies would be unstoppable, and strike fear into their enemies.

She had given him the time and materials he desired; given him the tools he would need without question.

And now, she had the one tool that she knew he wanted most of all. One half of the Lupine mirror. Arya Ravenwing.



Ravenwing had been deposited into a solitary cell deep in the heart of the main building occupied by Imperial Intelligence. It was a clean, spartan room with only a cot, open fresher, and a table that sat against a transparisteel wall. A simple metal chair was tucked against the table, waiting to be pulled out. The other three walls were nothing but durracrete, cold and impersonal. The floor was durracrete as well, with no rug.

Drugged since her capture, Ravenwing was placed on the cot and left alone. No counterdrug would be given; she would wake from her slumber of her body's own volition.

Beyond the transparisteel wall, two chairs sat unoccupied. The corridor they sat in was dark and empty.

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya's eyes flickered open, and then closed against the dim light of the room. A few moments later, she opened them fully, letting them adjust before trying to move. As she lay there, she became vividly aware of a few things.

For one, she was completely naked. Second, and significantly more startling, the room she was in was devoid of almost all odor. There was a forced sterility to the air which left a slightly metallic tang in her mouth. The last thing she remembered was a stun blast... Imperials. It had been a while since she'd been found smuggling, but they'd never been able to make any charges stick.

Arya slid her feet off the side of the cot, and sat up, her head pounding at the change of altitude. Her bladder explained that the room wouldn't be odorless for long, and the smuggler limped over to the open refresher to relieve herself. Her body was scraped up from the rough duracrete of the hanger where she'd been captured, but the contusions were already mostly healed. She guessed that she'd been unconscious for two days, from the look of her scratches.

After she finished with the refresher, Arya padded over to the table. A set of grey clothes were folded neatly. She didn't mind being naked, especially when the air wasn't cold, but she wasn't a savage either. And if she was going to be read her rights and questioned about her smuggling contacts, it would be better to be clothed. She stretched a bit to loosen up muscles that were still cramped from the stun blast, and pulled on the elastic waist pants. No drawstring - wouldn't want the prisoner hanging herself with it. There was a matching grey tanktop, and a loose shortsleeved shirt as well.

Arya pulled the tank on, but left the shirt. Walking around the table she pressed her face against the transparisteel and tried to peer down the darkened hall. The dim light she was bathed in did not stop her from seeing clearly - she'd discovered long ago that her vision was much better than any human's.

She'd never been in a cell like this one before. Arya rapped her knuckles on the clear wall, experimentally.

[R. S. Esalis]

Far down the corridor, a sliver of light appeared, grew wide, then closed once more to bath the hallway in darkness once more. Only this time, the distinct click of bootheels hitting durracrete could be heard coming ever closer.

A soft glow - no doubt from a datapad in use - bathed the visitor's face in a soft pale blue glow that grew more apparent the closer she got.

It was a woman, her soothing feminine features hiding the calculating mind within.

She remained intent upon her readings as the distance between her and the conscious Lupine grew smaller, and even as she slowed to a stop behind one of the chairs on her side of the transparisteel her eyes remained on the 'pad.

Finally she clicked it off, carefully tucking it and a small bundle in the crook of her arm. She lifted her icy eyes to Arya.

"You my dear," she started matter-of-factly, her voice like a silk cloth draped over steel, "are a Lupine."

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya stepped back away from the transparisteel as the woman approached. Her eyes were pale blue, but they seemed to glow in the light of the smuggler's cell.

Arms folded across her chest automatically, the prisoner's face was blank. "A what?" She noticed that her air supply seemed separate from the hallway - she could smell nothing of her visitor. Which was a distinct disadvantage.

[R. S. Esalis]

"Lights."

A simple command that yielded simple yet momentarily uncomfortable results.

Even before the word had left her mouth, both the hallway and Arya's cell were bathed in an abundance of light.

[Arya Ravenwing]

She squinted her sensitive eyes, pupils dilating somewhat painfully. "Look if this is about the fight on Corellia, I learned my lesson and I'll never do it again. I just fell in with a bad crowd, you know how it is."

Arya felt the absense of her medallion acutely, and added, "What did you do with my things? And my ship?"

[R. S. Esalis]

"A bad crowd indeed."

Nothing else was said as Esalis stared at Arya. She let a silence hang between them before answering the other woman's question.

"Your ship has been brought back to Coruscant and impounded. Your belongings - those that are worth any importance that is," a slender finger tapped at the bundle she held, "... are right here."

The Director took a seat then, setting the 'pad and the bundle in her lap. "Sadly, they are really not much."

The parcel was lifted gently atop the 'pad, and Esalis pulled a journal from the cloth wrapping, holding it up for Arya to see. "Unintelligable, unfortunately.

"Would you care to shed light on this problem, Arya Ravenwing of the Lesser House Ravenwing?"

[Arya Ravenwing]

She felt like laughing, but restrained herself as it would have come off as slightly hysterical. "Lesser house what?" Arya helped herself to the chair that was on her side of the transparisteel wall. "I think you've got the wrong frelling woman."

The small leatherbound book was stamped on the front with the same bird symbol that was on her father's medallion. The silvery inlay had long since flaked away. Not real silver, of course. Arya waved her hand dismissively, "I'm insulted that all you found interesting in my ship was my mother's journal. Don't you have better things to do?"

[R. S. Esalis]

A patronizing smile.

"Oh this isn't the only thing of interest that was found."

From her jacket pocket, another cloth-covered was brought to the light. A sharp glint of her eyes was given to Arya as Esalis held it.

"It seems you had one other thing that I found just as important, though it seemed you kept this much closer to your person."

Carefully unwrapping the white linen, the Director was mindful of the Lupine's reaction. She looked at the other woman over the tops of her eyes.

The cloth was placed gently atop the journal, and Esalis held up the medallion by its' chain. It shone beautifully in the sterile light.

"We also found this."

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya's lips parted as the woman held up the medallion, her eyes fixed on it. The smuggler swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. "You have no right to take it from me."

Her only link to her father, the medallion was the only jewelry she wore, and she never took it off. She had vague memories of her mother telling her stories of her father, before the woman's mind had completely broken. The journal was Lysa Ravenwing's, her mother. The script she wrote in was unlike anything else Arya had seen, but she'd learned how to read it.

Unfortunately, it was as useless as the woman across from her had said. Even when one could read it, nothing in it made any sense. Her mother had been as helpless as a child, and completely mad when she'd finally died. Arya had had to keep her chained up nearly the entire last year of her life - Lysa had been unable to control her changes and in vornskyr form her madness had translated into untamable agression.

She whispered, steel laced behind her words, "Give it back."

[R. S. Esalis]

"I'm afraid that you're in no position to make demands of any sort."

The medallion was lowered gently to her lap, and Esalis covered it with the cloth linen before folding her hands over it.

"But it seems to me that this trinket holds much more importance to you than the journal. I would have thought that both held an equal amount of significance, but I see that is not the case."

The Director sat back against the metal chair, settling herself a bit more comfortably as she watched Arya. She said nothing, only locking eyes with the other woman.

Esalis pursed her lips, then spoke once more.

"I have a very dear friend on his way to meet you. He is very excited to make your aquaintence, and I would very much like for you to be civil with him. Cooperate, and I may return this trinket back to you.

"Do you understand?"

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya glared, a sheen of golden light overtaking the blue of her eyes. She blinked, and they returned to their normal color. "I understand, although I still don't have a frelling clue why I am here."

[R. S. Esalis]

That same patronizing smile returned.

"You're here because you are the last of your species."

[Arya Ravenwing]

She settled back into the metal chair, and raised an eyebrow. "Like I said, what?" The back of the chair was uncomfortable and dug into her shoulder blades painfully. Arya ignored it.

"I don't know what in Corellia's nine hells you're talking about."

[R. S. Esalis]

Esalis stared at Arya - a mirthless gaze that needed no words in accompaniment.

"There was another, like you, you know. She was a Jedi, but it seems that she met her fate in the Purge. She left behind a journal, much like yours - though thankfully mostly in Basic.

"A fascinating people you are, I must admit. So swept up in conflict; in chaos and order."

[Colonel Karrnage]

"Perhaps I can help you."

From the interrogator's side of the room, a door opened, and Colonel Karrnage entered discretely, holding a briefcase with a gloved hand as he closed the door behind him.

"Miss Ravenwing, my name is Erasmus Karrnage. I'm a professor of genetic anthropology at the Coruscant academy."

Karrnage took his seat aside Esalis, and glanced around her cell, his brow seeming to furrow behind his spherical dark glasses.

"These lights, are they uncomfortable?"

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya shrugged. "No." Her nostrils flared slightly as she instinctually tried to catch the newcomer's scent. Lack of scent of no, there was something in Karrnage's posture that was instantly offputting.

Another like me? That sentance had piqued her curiosity, because she'd never run across another shapeshifter that was confined to only one other shape. Frankly, 'shifters were hard to find, period. "Genetic anthropology, professor? I'm afraid I don't know anything about that field of study." Her words were clipped - almost forced.

[R. S. Esalis]

Esalis went silent, allowing the Colonel to interact with the Lupine on his own, and without interruption. She herself was curious to see how Karrnage conducted himself with Arya.

[Colonel Karrnage]

"Essentially, I study those who in the past have engaged in the science of genetic manipulation."

He chuckled lightly.

"It isn't a terribly prominent field of study, so your confusion is entirely understandable.

Miss Ravenwing, may I call you Arya? Is there anything I can get you before we begin? I have a series of questions."

[Arya Ravenwing]

"Some water would be nice." Her throat felt like she hadn't drank anything in two days, which was probably accurate. Her stomach was starting to protest as well, but she'd settle for water.

"I've never 'engaged in science of genetic manipulation' in the past or the present."