Log:The Queen is Dead
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A RolePlay Log by | |
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Title |
The Queen is Dead |
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Date |
Saturday 24/Feb/2018 |
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IC Date |
Satunda 18/Selona/1158 |
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Location |
Ceremony Hall - Royal Palace of Theed, Naboo |
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Appearing |
Harmless Maeve Zavir David Ironside Dosk Asiir Cuul Lioria Thrace Kirit Xiptil Sar Yavok & Trillian Taim |
As if heralding the death of the Queen and the ancient democracy of Naboo, the cold of winter settles in over the planet, and all there is left to do is say goodbye to the young girl who had so bravely led her people. As it said goodbye to the martyred Amidala, so do does it say goodbye to Ailana Pareja, another martyr to the cause of peace.
This is a large chamber with a domed ceiling. The top is painted with fine artwork depicting different scenes, large angels floating around in the cloudy skies over Naboo almost swimming in the airs that surround the city of Theed. In the center of the room is a large opening, a bit below where people stand, but there so that everyone can see it. There almost seems to be somewhere where ceremonial burnings can take place, whether they be offering, or they be saluting fallen soldiers with one last honor for their bravery. There are no seats in this room, when people are here, they stand above the center to pay honor to fallen or to be solemn in an honoring occasion.
Death has come to Naboo, bringing it with it the cold veil of winter. The Queen is dead, and the city is dark save for the torches that smolder from the parapets and the streets, and candles that every citizen of the capital - and from all over the planet, it seems - hold in their hands. As snow falls softly from the flat gray sky, the light that they produce forms an avenue of fire as proof against oblivion. The carriage comes - elegant, alabaster, emblazoned with the seal of the royal house and all its glittering trappings - drawn by two teams of guarlaras, their horns as gilded as the rest of their dressage, and in its bed its sad cargo can be seen by all who've come to mourn.
As if carved from the very snows that fall, the corpse of Ailana Pareja, late Queen of Naboo, is ferried, wreathed in a bed of pale yellow flowers, across the bridge toward the palace. She is as noble in death as she was in life, but the lack of royal makeup on her fair face shows that what too many people have forgotten: that she was but a child, a young girl murdered for a cause. Peace, liberty, whatever it might have been for her, it is a different thing for every face that beholds her. So is the nature of the people of Naboo, whose peace and tradition see as grim a future as this poor creature.
Over the bridge she goes...and with it, the eyes of all, toward the gates that swing slowly open to await her.
With a candle cradled between her gloved hands, Maeve Zavir stands with the countless others beneath the gray skies that seem, with the drifting flakes of snow, to be mourning as well with one feathery snowflake tear at a time. Her expression is remote, fine lines of regret and grief shared with the people of Naboo and all those across the far flung galaxy that bear witness to this loss.
Dressed in a formal RSF pilot's uniform, David stands near the rest of the Naboo pilots, not close enough to encroach on their terrain but not far enough away to be easily spotted on his own. His gloved hands are folded in front of him, his head dipped respectfully as he blinks the snow out of his eyes and the dark thoughts out of his mind.
Dosk walks in calmly, Grabbing a candle and moving as close as he can towards the procession, keeping another of his hands covered over the flame to keep it from going out, he stands randomly amongst the crowd.
Standing in stark contrast to the pale gray and white of snow, Asiir Cuul is draped in leather. A hooded leather trench coat is draped over his shoulders, the hood pulled up to ward off any falling snowflakes from finding his head and thus soaking his hair. He watches the procession with feline eyes, amber colored orbs tracking the corpse as it is brought through the street. His expression reveals that he thinks her loss a shame, an unneeded loss that quite simply did not need to be. The Cathar holds no lit candle in hand, evidenced as he crosses his arms over his chest.
Lioria stands with her gloved hands clasped in front of her as her hooded head dips respectfully as the Queen passes in front of them in the procession. The tall Chiss at her side, Varian, holds a candle for him and his sister as they stand amongst those who have gathered, but not too far from Asiir in the crowd.
Kirit Xiptil wasn't quite certain what to wear. Verpine doesn't really consider such things. But. She did at least launder her flight suit and polish it's buckles and catches. She took off any Slayn & Korpil insignia.. on the off chance someone recognized her she didn't want them implicated. Tall as she is, she stands towards the rear of the crowd, bug eyes and antennae being the only thing visible in the throng.
Elsewhere in the city, First Order Stormtroopers patrol the streets, guarding against trouble. There are none here, however, or none that can be seen - as if the planet's new overlords at least had the decency to allow the citizens to mourn their passing of their queen and their democracy in peace. And pass she does, over the bridge, through the gates, and as if some great and subtle signal touched the hearts of every citizen, the long lines of mourners, led by the nobility who line the streets so closely to the palace entrance, begin to file in a slow processional behind her.
Somewhere, deep within the palace, a chorus begins to sing. The high, crystalline voices of children announce the queen's arrival into her old home.
Blinking away the snowflakes that continue to drift lazily downward from the gray sky, Maeve Zavir moves with the rest of the mourners once the crowd begins to file in slow processional in the wake of the Queen's funeral carriage. A great sigh of sound sweeps through the crowd, whether it is a sound caused by the stirring of so many people moving at once or a genuine breath shared by all, the doctor cannot discern. The first notes of the song that lifts through the air moves the doctor to another quiet sigh of regret.
Somewhere near the front of the processional, David falls in with the other members of the RSF. He'd seen the stormtroopers, of course. Part of him wonders whether they're all gone because they have to change into their dumb snowtrooper gear. Another part wonders whether anyone in the RSF even has a job at this moment. From the darkest corner of Dave's mind comes a thought as he steps along slowly.. it was his fault the queen is dead. Gnashing his teeth quietly, he walks into the palace.
Dosk follows in suit with the crowd around him, a bit behind the procession as he pays his respects and blends in as much as a 4 armed being can amidst the snowfall. Standing a bit taller than the group around him, he bows his head as one to two of his hands move to block any wind from the candle as they move.
Asiir moves with the crowd, his feet carrying him along with the rest of the procession. The Cathar's eyes shift toward those around him, marking Lioria before skirting along at the others moving toward and inside of the palace. He does not sing, does not make a sound to join in with the vocal song of the mourners. Instead he just walks and watches.
Lioria gives a look to her brother when the crowd begins to move and she unclasps her hands to tuck one into the crook of his arm. Varian's red eyes give her a look to make sure she's alright, but he doesn't say anything. He simply nods and then continues to move with the rest of the nobility that had come to pay respects to the Queen. Lioria's bright violet gaze is drawn to the palace when she hears the chorus start to sing. Usually the sound of children would cause her some sort of joy, but this doesn't. It just brings sadness as she enters the palace.
The bug keeps pace. Her long lanky limbs more shuffle than walk considering the press of the people around her but that doesn't bother her. She can feel the collective mourning. This is a people. Unified. It reminds her of home. Of what might happen to them should the First Order target Roche for their.. insolence. It's a good thing that few people know how to read Verpine emotions. She's mad. Sad, too, but mostly mad. Resolved. Much like the Empire before them, she means to see every member of the First Order enjoy the sensation of having their organs explode outward in the vacuum of space. Yes. This thought is pleasing to her. Her mandibles spread into something of a smile.
Being a dual-citizen, Sar Yavok is in attendence at the funeral, wearing his Sunday best. I.e; Maeve picked something out for him. He was late, but he tactfully made his way through the crowd to walk by Maeve's side. There's a look in her direction that communicates that he's likely very sorry that he's late. He'd never had any direct interaction with the Queen, but had heard by all accounts that she was everything a figurehead should be.
And so you go, through the palace gates, and it is here the Stormtroopers begin to show - where the Royal Guard once stood post, the white, deaths-headed soldiers stand with their rifles at port arms, silent and faceless as the Queen's body is drawn past and the mourners stream behind her. Where the banners of the Royal House hang, so too now hang the banners of the Order, side by side, a dark marriage. Through the palace, then, spurred on by the voices of the children's choir, until you arrive in the ceremony hall and begin filing into the seats that ring the ceremonial pit.
Here the nobles step forward, and grasping handles that protrude from the sides of the coffin serve as pallbearers for the fallen queen, carrying the coffin down to a bier draped in black velvet that has been set up for the occasion. Placing her there, they whisper brief and private litanies, last words of memory or regret, and file out into special seats reserved for them all.
The choir stops, and then there is a ringing silence.
Once Sar arrives, Maeve Zavir passes a candle to him to carry, lighting his from hers as the crowd files through the palace gates and past the banners. The normally mild mannered Corellian physician makes a very quiet sound that could almost be termed a hiss of disgust at the sight of the banners of the Order defiling the walls of the palace as she finds a seat though remains standing as the crowd is continuing to press forward.
Quietly, David passes into the palace, his eyes averted from any banners. Passing by the stormtroopers it takes all he has to not stick his vibrodagger in the vulnerable parts of the armor. Still clenching his jaws, he looks at the dead Queen he'd yelled at a month before when she declared she would not aid the Resistance. And then she did, and there she is. Taking his seat, his eyes fall on the (former?) guard, his friend Katha Tarr. Their eyes meet, and they give eachother the slightest nod of mutual acknowledgement. More isn't needed at this time.
Dosk opts to not to enter at the sight of Stormtroopers, instead filtering back through the crowd, he had a cargo run too make anyhow.
Varian leaves Lioria's side to take his place as a pallbearer. The tall Chiss giving his baby sister a few murmurmed words in Cheunh as he does. He does take note of the Stormtroopers, but he doesn't let them deter him from doing what he set out to do. Once the Queen has been safely placed on her final resting place. Or the one before the final preparations. Lioria reaches up and pulls her hood back before trailing after her brother, her head bowed and offering quiet words of prayer and other things.
Kirit Xiptil can't cry. On account of having no tear ducks. But she does hum the deathsong of her people. In frequencies nobody but nearby droids might hear. 'The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.' Her people have a queen. Ish. At least, the heart of her people. In the hive. There is always one. Only. Now the people of Naboo.. have no queen. This is more than injustice or enslavement. This.. this is an attempt to destroy all that is Naboo. Her right claw flexes a little.. but really.. how can you tell with so many people around.
Sar Yavok nods in head in thanks for the candle that Maeve was holding for him. Then there's stormtroopers. That's no good. He's not exactly an unknown. So, he'll do his best to keep his head down. Because he /definitely/ isn't armed at a funeral. As Maeve comes to a stop, Sar does, as well.
From behind the mourners comes a number of ministers, who come round the bier to stand in a half circle about the front of the coffin. Chief of them all, the Governor - some relation to old Sio Bibble, no doubt - stands and begins to speak words of lament, of honor, of remembrance. The words aren't important so much as the effect that they have on the audience, which is to say, not much. Not when a Star Destroyer hangs in orbit, not when Stormtroopers stand where the murdered Royal Guards once stood. They know that they're not just burying a queen here tonight, not even a young girl. Naboo, in some ways, is going into the ground with Ailana Pareeja.
Outside, as Dosk takes his exit, the sight of a LAV bearing Order colors might surprise the smuggler - but perhaps not. A squad of Stormtroopers, six in total, stand around the vehicle as the gates swing shut behind Dosk, and for a moment one might think something dark is to befall those within the palace...but for the noises on the other side of the bridge. A small mob approaches the bridge, ablaze with torches that they carry, shouting slogans whose words all blur together from their volume and their distance. The tone rings through, however. They are angry.
The sound that the crowd makes now that as many people as possible that can fit into the seats have done so makes the Corellian doctor a little unsettled. The dim, at first, sound of angry voices that gain in volume as those shouting slogans draw closer to the Palace has the doctor looking slowly around. At first, it could appear that Maeve Zavir is just looking around with curiosity. Except that she's noted each exit at this point, done a count of the visible troopers seeded through the crowd, doubled the math on the presumption that the Order isn't as stupid as their wardrobe choices make them appear, and shared a sidelong look with Sar.
Dave hears the faint buzz of the crowd as well. He however knows the palace well enough to know each way out, and the code to the Queen's shuttle won't be a secret to him if he has need for it, that much is clear to him from his welcome last time he spoke to the guards. Before this. Before all of this. At least he might still pass for one of the pilots, even with their jobs made obsolete. This sitting quietly business is having a hard time growing on the young pilot and he shifts uncomfortably.
The sound of the crowd outside has no doubt reaches Asiir's ears as well. He looks to the people speaking, and then around to the others in attendance. He is looking for someone, and after finding her, he seems to relax somewhat. He does begin moving, slowly pressing his way through the standing bodies as he shifts toward a wall. Not looking to make an exit, apparently, for when he gets there he just leans back against it.
Lioria's head lifts when she hears the distant sounds of an angry mob. She's heard that a few times before. She gives a look over to her brother and there's a bit of a frown, "We can hope no one does anything silly." she whispers to him. And well, it was the truth, yelling at the First Order would get no one anywhere but shot. She then gives a look to the Stormtroopers in the room with them before looking around to see who else was in here with them. Once she makes sure that she hasn't lost someone there's a look back to her brother, "If anything should happen don't go running off." she tells him.
Kirit Xiptil is tall, lanky, and has pointy edges. It means she's having a hard time finding a seat. So.. she stands. Near a First Order flag. Wait. She looks up at it then looks back to the funeral in progress. Her spindly arms lift to wrap around her torso and her claws caress her carapace as if trying to give herself solace. She doesn't so much notice the murmurs of anger beyond the palace. They're just the voices in her head given form.
Sar Yavok reaches over to give Maeve's arm a squeeze, his eyes remaining focused on the ceremony at-hand. He breathes a sigh. Funerals are never fun.
The speeches go on. Around the ceremonial pit, where the Queen's body lies in state, more dignitaries and nobility come up to pay their last respects, saying the sort of thing that even people who never met the girl in their lives would be safe to say - focusing on her accomplishments, her potential, all that kind of thing. The other guests are kept in their seats, only to look on as the ceremony continues.
Outside, the mob approaches, cresting the bridge. Some two hundred or so young people make up the group, carrying holosigns with slogans that are not only anti-Order but anti-Royal, and their words clamor against both parties. They roar, they stamp, they boil upon the crest of the bridge as the Stormtroopers form a cordon across the gate and take up firing position. From the LAV, words are shouted - warnings lost over the sound of the wind and the roar of the mob.
Something goes wrong. A rock gets thrown, maybe a bottle. Someone gets the idea that there's only six of them, what can they do? The crowd surges forward a moment, and then death comes a second time.
Deep within the palace, the mourners can hear only the distant but unmistakeable sound of blaster fire. Rifles, then the rapidly strobing thunder of a repeater. Then screams.
Dave, from his position to the side, has the immense luxury of reacting to the sound outside without having to turn his entire body around to make a scene. Luckily, there's plenty of others in the room to do that for him, and he leans towards Katha Tarr, the man responsible for getting him his meeting with the Queen that day that feels so long ago now. "That doesn't sound good." he whispers to the man. "You reckon it's those same kids, with the same protests, getting met with a new style of defusing such protests?" This is where he'd usually feel for his blaster, but it's definitely not the smartest idea to reveal you're packing in a room full of mourners and also trigger happy Stormtroopers. So, David scans the crowd for any more familiar faces, hoping to at least attract the attention of one of them.
Dosk opts to head back to his ship and start as he watches the stormtroopers start doing work on the protesters. Making his way through the mostly empty streets.
Dosk watches as things unfold before his eyes, moving off to the side and crouching near a building so he can observe. No need in him getting involved in a Riot on Naboo unless he can help it.
Asiir hears the gunfire, and the screams, but he does not seem to react outwardly. His eyes close and he leans his head back against the wall he's leaned against with a dull thump, his hood coming down over his eyes and leaving just his nose sticking out for a moment. Straightening his head back upright, his eyes sweep the crowd inside the palace, curious if anyone is to try and join the protest outside.
Lioria's attention is drawn towards the entrance that they came in when the sound of the blaster rifles go off and there's a moment she looks like she's going to move. That's until the Chiss sitting at her side reaches out and gently pulls her back into her seat and directs her attention back towards the funeral that's still going on around them while the protesting goes on outside. There's another soft exchange of Cheunh and then the two nobles from Coruscant go silent as they watch the others speak on the fallen Queen. The white haired woman with growing tears in her eyes as she does.
Kirit Xiptil has. No. Tear. Ducts. She has no collective with which to commune. She stands there. Alone. Against the wall. Beside the flag of her sworn enemy. The enemy of anyone who isn't a human. While humans mourn the loss of a human. But.. just sit there. When the entire planet should be in open rebellion. She looks to a window. Her eyes tilting upwards. There. In the distance. Is the wedge shaped silhouette of a star destroyer in synchronous orbit. Sure. It's a spec but it's a triangular spec. She'll find out it's name. It will be painted upon her starfighter.
A slim woman raises her head at the sound of blaster fire. Her dark hair, pinned up in an elaborate hairdo shows off a slim neck and frail shoulders. As she looks around the room, her dark green eyes glitter. She does look somewhat familiar... wait... that looks like Trillian Taim... in a dress? Trillian dabs at her eyes with a tiny bit of cloth and smiles sympathetically at the older Naboo statesman she found herself seated next to. As the reports of blasters come floating across the the room, she unconsciously makes a move to stand up from her chair, but instead folder her hands nervously in her lap.
The unmistakable sound of blaster fire makes the Corellian doctor shudder, visibly paling as she turns toward the sound of gunfire and, even worse, the screams the follow immediately after. Maeve Zavir turns back, scanning the crowd, picking out the known faces nearest to where she and Sar are standing. The doctor is always armed with a medpack, always. She carefully extinguishes the candle she's holding and begins to ease her way through the crowd toward the doors.
The screams are cut short then, as is the weapons fire - and despite themselves, a collective sigh passes through the crowd. Tension of passing terror, that sort of thing. The ceremony goes on.
Eventually, it is done. The young queen's body is draped in a gauzy shift of black shimmersilk, and the doors of the ceremonial hall are opened to the exit - where unknown carnage awaits.
That's Maeve. Isn't it? Dave squints his eyes at the movement in the crowd, nudging Tarr next to him. "You don't happen to know the current code to the Hope, do you?" he whispers. "I got a feeling we're going to need it sooner rather than later." Sit down, Maeve, Dave quietly wills her, his eyes never leaving her as she moves to the doors. There's a Verpine in the back, though. Stop her! Don't let her get out in the open by herself, at least? Dave starts moving through the row of pilots, the uniforms indistinguishable from eachother as he passes each one. Gotta stop people from doing stupid things here. Especially unarmed people.
Dosk makes his way across the bridge as directed by the multiple armed troopers evacuating the area, his four arms raised, though he stopps and looks back once the troopers quit hastling and he looks back from whence he cames.
Lioria gives a bit of a relieved look to her brother when the service is over and the Chiss at her side offers his arm. She tucks her hand into the crook of his arm and rises. Varian moves towards the exit just as others do. Yes, there's probably some death out there, but that's the way to get out. Lioria gives a look to Asiir and a nod to the man as they head for the exit.
Kirit Xiptil almost doesn't notice that the service is over. She'd stopped watching. Her bulbous black eyes had become transfixed on her target. It's only when she's bumped by people moving by that she looks back then down and sees people slowly shuffling out. Resignedly, she joins the throng. Yes. She has a mission. Strangely enough, it's her next order of business. Her mandibles slowly chew at nothing. There will be a reckoning.
Trillian Taim fidgets in her chair, growing more distressed as the murmurs run through the crowd. Abruptly, she stands up, fumbling with the candle that she had been given. Blowing it out, she places it on her seat and heads out of the row as well, just as another lady is doing it around her. She makes it to the end of the row, but Trililan has foolishly decided to match her non-flight suit funeral-worth attire with fashionable, but non-practical heels. She almost makes it to the end of the row and her ankle gives out on her for the umpteenth time tonight, and she falls. "Oh!" exclaims Trillian as she loses her balance, stumbling in front of the other lady.
The dread of their queen's passing has been magnified tenfold with the sound of the blasters - but the crowd forges on, led by the nobles, wailing and grim as they might be, and through the guts of the palace the lot of you go.
The gates are waiting for you all, and ahead, there is a great intake of breath, as if every lung were wired to react to the cold in the same way. Someone wails. Men groan. The Stormtroopers stand on either side of the road, silently urging you on. The procession mounts the bridge and proceeds to cross, but what lies ahead is enough to cause the entre line to sag like a hot metal wire.
Bodies.
The youth of Naboo lies dead in the street, bloody corpses piled haphazardly alone the sides of the bridge, male and female, human and otherwise, students, young nobles, rich and poor. Their signs lie trampled in the dirt, the stairs running red with blood where their wounds were not entirely cauterized. Everywhere, dead eyes staring up in accusation at the passing throng, open mouths hung open and tongues lolling where they were not blessed to die with some form of dignity. Some thirty, fifty corpses here, like obscene rails, piled up for all to see.
And this what the First Order does for those who speak. Behold it. The future of Naboo.
Having slipped through the crowd for the doors before the end of the ceremony, and to be fair she won't have been the only one that made for the doors at the sound of conflict and injury, Maeve Zavir is perhaps one of the first dozen or so who exit the gates. The doctor is certainly not the first to see the piles of dead bodies, nor are they the first piles of dead bodies the physician has ever seen. But the callous way in which they are piled, like so much rubbish, has the physician go pale at first then swiftly colors with a burst of rage that makes her hands shake. She turns slowly around, staring at the blank faces of the helmets that these thugs wear before she walks to the very end of the pile of bodies and begins checking for vital signs, one body after another.
As the general public starts leaving, Dave remains where he is. Not out of fear, though. He is in fact eerily calm. To the point of freaking himself out with his calmness. Dave doesn't have to go with the crowd to know what they're looking at. He heard the shouting, the shooting and the silence. Finally he works up the energy to drag himself out of the room, through the gates and past the piles of corpses. See. Didn't need to see to know. Then Maeve is there, and he decides to help her do her medic thing. He's no good with treatments but Dave can surely find a pulse if there is one anywhere in this one pile.
You can't really prepare yourself for that level of shock on any day. Lioria grips her brother's arm a little tighter when the sight outside comes into full view. It's not like they can turn back around. So they have to proceed forward. Her eyes look down to the stones as the blood of the slain soaks into the hem of her dress and there's a shot of anger that runs through the half Zeltron, making her skin color a deep shade of red for a moment before she's being lead away from the procession so that they can depart for a less chaotic place.
Kirit Xiptil is an alien. More than just an alien. She's insectoid. Her expressions are so far beyond the normal range of human.. well.. she's a bug. More importantly, she's not from around here. So when she takes a small datapad from her utility belt and begins poking at Verpine menus.. well.. it's verpine. Eventually, a little map of Naboo appears on it with a red dot suggestive of 'you are here'. Yep, the alien is probably lost and having no clue where to go now that things are over and there's nobody to follow. It looks around. Panning with the datapad up before it's eyes. But keeps walking. Every now and then it taps the pad and the screen changes. One time, it flashes a list of known restaurants. At least, locals would recognize the images from advertisements. There's, apparently, nothing to see here. But maybe, she can see the palace waterfall before she leaves town?
