These are a bunch of unconnected shorts to do with Vette and Darth Merce (Brant) getting to know each other.
As always, though I try to recapture the spirit of the original character from SWTOR, these scenes are entirely new and my own creation.
Author’s Note
Brant first met her on his way into the extensive prisons under Kaas City.
He and the other apprentices had captured intruders on the planet’s surface — allies to the Jedi, they believed, though none of the intruders appeared to be Force-sensitive. Their allegiance to the Jedi was what saved them, though only from the attentions of the apprentices: Jedi ilk were to be delivered, unsullied, to the detention block, there to be tortured by more skilled Sith for information. Any others could be left in the jungle to die as they would, and frequently that would be to satisfy the blood-craving of some unhinged apprentice seeking sport between their duties.
Brant, as he did all things that involved the other apprentices, kept himself aloof from dealing with intruders, and so it was partly by chance he found himself in the detention block that day, bringing in a string of them who had sought him out, rather than the other way around. It was as he loitered, waiting boredly for the warden to update the prison log with his catches, that he caught sight of… her.
She was a Twi’lek: a common race among slaves, but this one had an uncommon attitude. She would strike up conversations with the guards, and rather than their threats silencing her, they made her more enthusiastic. She seemed to make it a game, to take their insults and turn them in on themselves, and some of her clever puns even had Brant smirking. There was something different about her teasing, something almost pleasing, like a reminder of sunlight and clean air instead of the slow steady drag into the bowels of a dark stone tomb…
In short, it was… fun.
She only, finally, went quiet when Brant’s own Master, Darth Plothar, stepped into the block. Brant straightened to show him respect, internally wincing when the Twi’lek called out to this new Sith and began her teasing on him, too.
Her catcalls turned to screams as Plothar turned to her and lit her body up with lightning. Not even his expression changed as he went through the whole sequence: entering, shocking the slave, inspecting Brant’s catches, then leaving, all without saying a word.
Brant lingered some time after he was given permission to return to his own quarters, pausing near the slave’s cell.
“You really should learn the difference between master and servant,” he told her.
“You’re only a slave when you act like one,” she retorted.
“No, I mean, the Masters can shock you a lot harder.”
She just looked at him with a dawning expression, like she realized he was something different. Brant didn’t honor her with another glance though, and he swept from the detention block.