The Victory Day

[Meatslopper]

The Victory Day

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"I am Esme Roi.

I am a Daughter of Orsus and I am Sith.

I walked your streets, I attended your schools and for a time, that was all I did. That was until the First War, when Orsus was set aflame I was deaf to the cries of the galaxy. I'd read the histories. I'd read our histories and I'd heard of the noble purpose of a Warrior, but I didn't understand it, not until that day. Where I was lifted up by my comrades, lifted up by those who cared to make a difference, to not settle into abject misery, to reject the galaxy for what it was and instead see it for what it could be. Orderly, safe, for you, your family, for my people. This is not me ordering, not commanding but asking and offering you the same purpose... That. Lifted. Me. Up. I believe it's in each every one of you, to realise that the Republic is wrong. That they have contorted our history and removed our very soul.

We used to be Warriors! Look around you now?! Do you feel you matter? I don't think you do. I know you don't. But you can matter now, the enemy is at our doorstep, for a moment you had jobs again, the damage wrought had been rebuilt and in a single second, they've ruined everything we have done! So stand! Stand alongside the Empire! Become Imperial! Prove that Orsus has not lost its way, that there is a Warrior spirit inside you all! If you have a Blaster shoot at the Republic Invaders! If you don't scavenge from those that fall! If you have nothing but your hands. There are people you can save, bind their wounds, help them to shelter. Save lives. Whatever you do today... Stand with purpose and conviction! We will carry your dreams to victory! We will stand together because we... No, I always have and always will. If nobody else believes in you, I will."

-Apprentice Esme Roi, on wideband across the planet at the Second Battle of Orsus

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My name is Esme Roi.

And I stand at the height of my power, on the bridge of my warship, overlooking the desolation beneath me, my home of Orsus in ruins, I watch, weary with cafa in hand the reports that flood me, a wash of data, immediate decisions to be made. Th’Ditmansi stands ready, at a single order Orsus can be in flames. I could ask and it would answer, I loved my home so my voice forbids it, my reason forbids it but the power to do it and the power to choose not to was in my hands now and beneath it, beneath it all, were the so-called unimportant, whose myriad faces I struggle to recall, struggle to see from atop my mountain.

Those I could wipe from the map with a single word.

Those who lived in the tiny specs of crumpled and crooked steel, in bent and battered buildings. Those who fled on roads flush with lingering shards of glass. We sit above it all, it's our shadow that is cast long and far blanketing their land, our land, my land. I had promised those people, those people comparatively insignificant victory if only they believed. I answered their prayer and now in this aftermath, chasing the Republic from this world, I could sit here apathetic about their sacrifices. I could chase it from my mind and pretend, like part of me always wants to, that beyond my sentiment, beyond my thoughts in the chaos of the universe, they are unimportant, a single planet amongst billions, one that had been traded between Empire and Republic. That there isn’t time to remember the unimportant. They mattered to someone but not to me. That is what I try to tell myself, try to make it easier, but it never stops me lingering…

Eran Stalworth.

That name. Something makes me stay, makes me linger, my attention sapped and enraptured. He was one of mine. I pull up his file, small and brief, so much still to be written, that now could not be. One of the first to join the Sons of Orsus Guard, one of the first to join the Infantry. Found with a makeshift bayonet plunged into a Republic Sniper's chest, trapped in his ribcage, he was brutalised with a vibroknife. They’d fought in someone's living room. Someone's home, it had been violent and simple but he'd done just what he'd been trained to do, if he hadn't been there, how many more would have felt a blaster bolt? He was one of mine, a true Sons of Orsus and an Imperial Hero. 

They had believed.

They had believed.

Esme’s Roi’s message had been heard all over Orsus. It was their dreams upon my shoulders, their sacrifices ones I had to make. 

Because as much as I tell myself they don’t matter. I always find it too simple an answer, for that answer strips the colour from the galaxy, an answer born from the fear of caring, the fear of loss, the fear of passion and emotion. The fear of being Sith, of the expression we represent, to tighten the grasp, to constrict yourself until you no longer really feel alive. It is a small death where you tell yourself that your emotions just don't matter in the grand design, that you should build yourself purely on the rational logic, that lets you bypass everything that makes you who you are. I deny that falsehood, I reject that reality. It is cowardice, it is an answer you want really hard to buy just because it's easy, it's simple, what better way to hide from yourself than that? Some may call it Mastery, some may call it control or discipline. That is a lie, discipline is doing what is necessary to achieve the goal set out by your passions, not in disregard of them. 

I choose my reality. In my reality, Orsus matters. In my reality, the people beneath my command matter. In my reality, I am the one to bear their burdens, to take choice from their shoulders, to give them the easy world that I can no longer share. For our people's lives to be easy, to be free of choice, free of responsibility, the Sith are those to take that burden. I am the one to take that burden and that is why I have been promoted while many others have not, because I am willing to take it, and I am willing to lead, so many others have taken positions but shown none of that, they don't lead, they merely operate tools of the system not even worthy of the title, they will be burnt away to build this utopia, my utopia. That’s the truth I believe, the truth I manifest. What is meaningful is what we define, what we feel, there is nothing more important, nothing more integral to a Sith than self-defined meaning, self-defined purpose.

I choose to use my power for something meaningful.

I choose to use it for that which matters. My feelings have not, will not abandon me. 

I will remember them, I will try. A true Sith never forgets, not the scars or the loss nor the victories and their costs. I will never surrender to apathy and oblivion again. I’ve been there and that’s just not a path I’m ever walking again. To lose meaning, to lose passion, to refuse to feel, is a crime only permissible in those who are already dead.

My name is Sith D’oemir, I ascend today a Household Sith and a Blademaster.

But so am I still a Daughter of Orsus. 

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