Surrender

(( Huge, huge thanks to the player of Untruth for this awesome scene! You always make me look so good. ))

Aittera stepped up to the door of the penthouse suite and knocked. She hadn't called first or told anyone what she intended to do. Selus would have wanted her to wait until he returned from the business that had taken him away from the moon, but it was bad enough he'd made her agree to let her vendetta against Ragious go in the first place, so damned if she was going to do this with him holding her hand like some obedient little girlfriend. Her pride was already stretched far too thin.

Khor answered the door once more in his workout attire, his chest bared.  His lightsabers hung from his belt, and he seemed to have been practicing at a high level, judging by the sweat that glistened on his skin.  "Aittera, this is a surprise."

She quirked an eyebrow when she saw him, unable to help the suggestive smirk that came to play on her lips. In truth, red was never all that attractive in members of the opposite sex, but his chiseled chest and muscular arms were impressive, and she couldn't help the sultry note in her tone. "Is this a bad time?"

"Not at all, you merely caught me in the midst of a workout.  Please come in."  He stepped aside to allow her entrance, closing the door behind her. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"

"I'm here to take you up on your offer," she answered simply, slipping the trenchcoat from her shoulders to hand to him before sauntering toward the seating area, hips swaying. Alright, this was a little much, she knew, but the way he'd smiled at her when he'd first opened the door was inspiration to flirt if ever she'd seen it. Besides, she wasn't above a little feminine manipulation to smooth negotiations.

Khor moved to the closet near the door and hung her coat inside, his eyes tracking her movement, glad to be able to use his already somewhat heated state to hide the arousal he was beginning to feel. "I rather expected to meet with you and Selus.  And to have Ali with me when we did.  What changed?"

He sat in one of the chairs opposite her.

"I've had the chance to really think about what this will cost me, and I think you're right. No matter how this goes, the price I or Selus will have to pay is too much." You can take the liar out of SIS...or however that's supposed to go, she thought with a glance toward the liquor cabinet. "Do you have anything other than Chimbak?"

"Of course, I'm sure you can find something you would enjoy, please make yourself whatever you would like."  He stayed seated, contemplating what she had said and wondering what could have changed her mind after the reluctance he'd sensed in her during their last meeting.

"Some host you are," she chided, getting up to stroll over to the liquor cabinet.

"To be honest, I wasn't sure you would agree to my offer.  I sort of had you pegged as so set on revenge that regardless of what I said it wouldn't be enough."

"You were right. There was nothing you could've said. Selus was the one who said it." Aittera located the Whyren's and retrieved two glasses to bring back to the chair with her. After opening the bottle, she poured them each a drink and handed one of the glasses to him.

He gave her a grin as he took the offered drink then held the glass up to her. "Forgive me, I wanted an excuse to watch you walk again.  You are quite enticing you know. I'm sure you have some terms you'd like to discuss?"

The compliment elicited a coy smile, and she tapped her glass against his before knocking back the contents in one go. "He doesn't go near Selus, and nothing Jheryth Chrystopher does comes back on me and mine. That bastard's been trying to get me to help him, and now that he knows I won't, I'm sure he'll concoct some hair-brained plan to frame me to keep Ragious from looking in his direction."

"Why not cut Jheryth off at the knees, then?  Work with my family against him?"  Khor seemed to be thinking aloud. "It would be the last thing he and my father expect, and you can be certain that my father would consider himself greatly in your debt."

Aittera gave a quick shake of her head that sent thick waves of red into motion as she refilled her glass. "I won't act against him either, and I don't work with Sith. You're on your own when it comes to Jheryth. Consider the news that your father isn't the only person he's after as a gift for helping me make this grudge war go away."

"That's unfortunate, I rather think you and I could have got on quite well."  He gave her another grin before taking a long drink from the glass. "I can make what you ask happen.  But I would like to know why Jheryth is once again plaguing my family."

"Oh come now, Khor'deth, I think we're getting on very well right now," she flirts before addressing Jheryth. "I really couldn't say. When we spoke, he went on and on about how your father broke Renn'a. Apparently, before he became obsessed with me, he was obsessed with her."

"Actually, I believe it was at the same time.  And Renn'a is not broken.  If he continues to speak such nonsense my father will be the least of his worries."  Khor seemed genuinely upset at the characterization of his father's pet, and for the first time in her presence, his usual even temperament gave way to a tone that she could easily associate with a Sith's rage.

Aittera remained passive as she waited for him to take another drink to collect himself, keeping her thoughts focused on the task at hand and as far away from the subject of Jheryth's interests in Renn'a and her sister as possible.

When he continued, he returned to the friendly nature he'd begun the conversation with. "And I agree, we are getting on quite well, but I am ever the optimist for better relations."

"Maybe he just has a thing for redheads," she offered coyly as though the temporary loss of control didn't happen at all, and finished the second glassful of amber liquid.

"Yes, well, I hope that anyone that admires him will still be able to do so when he becomes about a foot shorter. Though I can't imagine that is any great number of people."

"I doubt anyone admires him nearly as much as he does."

"Well, I guess he wins after all if he persists on his current path, because his head will be in a much better position to admire the rest of his body."

Laughing, she leaned forward to pour herself another glassful of the whiskey. "Well, regardless, I've washed my hands of him." Once the glass was full, she looked up at him with a serious light in the depths of her cool blue eyes, leaving the subject of Jheryth behind. "I also want Skyka to be left alone. She's been through enough."

"As I previously mentioned, my father has found other places for his Twi'lek interests anyway.  But I will be sure to mention her to him."

Aittera sat back to watch him over the rim of her glass. "Then, we have a deal?"

"We always did, Aittera."

"Are you in frequent contact with him?"

"My father?  Not really.  I mostly pass messages through his adjutant, but for this I will make the trek back to the homeworld in person."

"I would tell you to give him my best, but we both know that'd be a pile of bantha dung," she joked, taking a sip from her glass as her gaze remained fixed on his face.

"There is one small matter though.  You will probably still feel some presence from my father, it works both ways if I understand it correctly, and isn't a conscious act.  My father mentioned that it may even be a side effect of Skyka's well intentioned, but not so...effective...shielding attempt."

"Will he stop showing up in my damn bedroom or any room in which I'm not completely dressed? A girl tends to appreciate her privacy."

"I'm sure he will. That part is something he can control."

Aittera smirked - albeit more good-naturedly than cynically. "It'd be nice if he started excersizing that control."

"I will do all I can to impress upon him the importance of it."  He returned the smirk.

She leaned forward to extend her hand toward him. "Then, I am finished trying to make him pay for what he's done to me."

Khor stood and moved to take the hand, holding it in less of a handshake and more as one would hold a ladies hand.  He bowed, bringing it to his lips. "I am glad that we were able to find a way to achieve peace, Aittera.  And I hope that this will not be the only thing we ever meet to discuss."

She stood when he did, regarding the gesture with an amused grin. "I appreciate that you're a gentleman, Khor, but I was hoping to shake hands on reaching agreeable terms," she chided playfully with a little glint in her eye. "Of course, if you're that eager to get rid of me, I can go, and you can put this all in writing and send it to me."

Laughing, he gave her the handshake she teased about before moving to sit again, this time in the chair next to her. "I was actually hoping you'd want to stay a while."

Aittera looked down at the half empty glass in her other hand, then back to him. "Oh? Why is that?"

"Why would a handsome man want a beautiful woman to continue to keep him company?  I'm wondering if it wouldn't be quicker to list the number of reasons why he wouldn't."

Despite her better judgement, she sat back down, chuckling. "Well, keep flattering me, and I'll stay as long as you like."

Khor turned to look at her, his knee touching hers. "If you're not careful I'll attempt to flatter you into never leaving."

She turned in her chair so they could talk face to face, inadvertently sliding her knee against his, and studied his face for a moment with a curious smile. "It's uncanny."

He gave her a rather charming smile as he moved his hand along the back of the chair behind her, "What is?"

"You have your mother's eyes and your father's smile, but beyond the physical, you're nothing like either of them. How did that happen?" She finished the contents of her glass, aware of the shift in his interest - as well as the placement of his hand and the open body language - knowing that she should put an end to it before it could go any further.

Khor took a drink to finish his glass and leaned over to place it on the table in front of the chair.  When he returned his gaze to her, she found his smile still there, mixed with some curiosity of his own. "They say we're products of how we were raised.  I was brought up to value education, and I hope you won't find me arrogant when I say that I am quite a bit smarter than most.  I can see the pitfalls of the traditional Sith attitudes and way of things.  Don't get me wrong, I don't advocate any kind of peace with the Republic that requires any concession on our part.  I know what happened in the last war, how we were hunted."

"I have decided to walk a path that let's me be Sith, without being like either of my parents, and I believe I am doing quite well for myself on it."

Aittera dropped her gaze to the glass in her hand thoughtfully, and the light, playful nature evaporated as she spoke a part of the thought his answer has evoked. "I hope for your sake that you don't lose that vision then."

"I hope it does not frighten you when I say that I can be every bit as ruthless as my father when it is required, and I am every bit as cunning as my mother.  I simply have...a gift for seeing when I need to employ those particular tools."

Normally, she'd return with a quip about not being afraid of anything, but instead, she simply looked up at him again and nodded with a small smile. "Now, if you could just convince the rest of the Empire."

"The Empire is what it is for it's very survival.  I'm afforded the ability to walk the path I do not in spite of the Empire's reputation, but because of it.  I could show you histories Aittera, and not just Imperial, but histories of the Jedi Order that they've tried to cover up that shows just how big of hypocrites they are when it comes to what they would do to us if given a chance."

"Do you think that there would be no war if the Jedi weren't involved?"

"That depends on what you're asking.  If the Jedi never existed, there never would have been Sith."

"I'm not sure what I'm asking at this point. To be honest, I think I'd like to go back to the decision I made in the first place to sit out the rest of the war. I signed a lease on a flat above the Promenade a few days ago."

Khor moved his hand from the back of the chair to brush along her upper back through the fabric of her top - something almost unconscious as his fingertips lightly rubbed against her shirt. "I think that is a good decision, I would hate for you and I to ever find ourselves on opposing sides of a battle."

The touch brought the coy smile back to her lips, banishing the serious contemplation and along with it, the shadow that had cast itself over her features. "Oh, I can put up one hell of a fight."

He laughed. "Of that I am quite certain, but I imagine sometimes there are much better ways to go about something than fighting."

"Heh. Yeah, but none that I'm good at."