Work Text:
Dark Lord,
Darth Imperius paused, her fingers hovering over the keys. Both the salutation and the addressee were familiar. She had written him hundreds of letters over the years. The only difference was that this time, she didn't expect a reply.
I hope this letter finds you well.
Ilyra smiled faintly and deleted the line. The addressee no longer needed to concern himself with his own wellbeing. Or with anything else, for that matter.
There was no one to read the letter, which meant there was no reason to choose her words carefully.
I'm writing this knowing you'll never open it. Perhaps that makes me weak. Perhaps it makes me human. Some people still cling to the phrase "missing in action", but I prefer not to comfort myself with false hope.
That was why she wrote to him. Because Darth Marr could no longer judge her. Because he was now the only one she could tell the truth to without consequences. Because Ilyra felt that if she kept it all inside much longer, she would start making mistakes — and mistakes were a luxury she could not afford.
If you were here, you would have demanded a report. I imagine you'd want to know this first, so I'll start there: the Empire still stands.
It has been several months since Arcann declared war on us. I couldn't remember today's date at first. Days are no longer marked by sunrises, but by which planet we have lost. The Eternal Fleet has not yet reached Dromund Kaas. The Empire holds — though not in the way you were probably accustomed to using that word. It holds like a man with every limb shattered, yet still standing. That seems to be all we are capable of now. Holding on.
Morning was approaching. Ilyra couldn't remember the last time she had truly slept rather than collapsed from exhaustion, only to be jolted awake by the next wave of dispatches from the front. Her mind refused to shut down even when she finally had the time to let it.
The Council has grown worse without you; it has turned into a snake pit where the vipers are too terrified to bite anyone but each other. You always knew how to keep them in line in ways I cannot. I waste words where you would have needed only a glance. I say this with no pleasure, and with no desire to flatter you.
Your seat on the Council remains empty. Everyone who was worthy of taking your place died in the first months of the war. Now there are scarcely any volunteers left at all. To head the Sphere of Defense today is to be a living shield, held up to take the blow while the Empire loses system after system. Above all else, the Lords love power and resources. There are neither left here. Only death.
In the early Council sessions after his disappearance, Darth Imperius still found herself turning her head toward Marr's chair, expecting to hear a verdict that would cut through the pointless bickering. Still half-wanting to ask them to wait a few more minutes for Lord Marr to arrive.
But with each passing month, more seats in the Council chamber fell vacant, and the remaining Councillors no longer bothered to fill them. Gradually, Darth Marr's absence stopped drawing attention and became part of their new reality. She felt no particular grief for the fallen colleagues — many of them had sat on the Council for far less time than she had, and she sometimes struggled to recall their names. Darth Marr, however, felt as though he had always existed. He was there when she first received her title, he attended every session, he was practically part of the chamber's foundation.
Now, the void was her only constant ally.
"If Darth Marr hadn't gone looking for a threat where none existed, we'd all be living as we did before," one lord had muttered the other day. Apparently old enough to have forgotten that she could rip a man's tongue out with a thought.
Some on the Council believe it was your obsession with the Emperor that brought the Eternal Fleet to our borders. But most citizens are mourning. Your name has become a symbol of the Empire we are losing. On Aovis II, they erected a statue of you. You would have liked it — the locals had poured something more than just resources into it.
The inhabitants of that small Imperial colony had pooled what credits the war had left them to cast Marr in duracrete. The statue had not stood for long.
A distress signal came from Aovis II several weeks later. By the time Ilyra dropped out of hyperspace, the settlement no longer existed. It was a field of ruins, and, in the middle of it, left untouched either by miracle or by cruel mockery, the statue of Darth Marr looked out over mounds of ash-covered rubble.
The monument now stood outside the Citadel, facing the spaceport where ships departed to defend the Empire. Every time Ilyra saw it from her office window, she winced at how little it resembled the original. Not in appearance — the sculptor had done exceptional work, capturing every detail of the armor and its wearer's commanding posture with striking accuracy. It looked as if Marr himself had stepped out of a holoprojector and been frozen in stone forever.
And yet the statue was infinitely distant from the man. The Darth Marr she knew was always full of ambition and passion. The duracrete Marr was too still, too silent. Too decorative. Too dead.
I miss you. As a colleague. As someone I could disagree with, knowing he wouldn't betray me for it, because betrayal would be irrational, and you were pragmatic in almost everything.
They had argued often enough for it to become a routine part of the sessions. She would gladly argue with him right now. About anything at all.
But more often, I hate you. You left the way you probably always wanted to: as a hero, in a blaze of glory. You left, and I sit here trying to hold together whatever remains, with less than half the resources you had.
You don't have to make decisions anymore. Wherever you are now, you no longer have to deal with the consequences of other people's madness. You were right. Heroism is a luxury, and I don't have the right to a heroic death. (And frankly, Marr, neither did you.) I have to choose which world to surrender next just to buy us one more day. In Council sessions I always pretend I have a plan. You knew how to rule without pretending. Or perhaps you were simply better at pretending than I am. Some of the plans work, and for now that's enough to keep people following them. But behind each success, there's Aovis II, and a dozen other worlds I failed to protect.
I'm tired of pretending. Not in front of the Council — I'll keep that up for as long as I have to. I'm tired of pretending to myself.
I'm afraid. I wouldn't admit that to any living person. But you'll hear it, because you no longer care. I'm afraid that one morning I'll walk onto the bridge and they'll tell me Arcann's fleet is in orbit above Dromund Kaas, and the only question left will be the terms of our surrender.
Sometimes I think I envy you. What is it like — to lie dead and no longer be responsible for anything?
Darth Imperius closed her eyes. Soon the ship would shudder and drop out of hyperspace, and the next day would begin, and someone would walk into her office with a report full of new numbers. She was good with numbers, especially when she wasn't thinking about the lives behind each one.
It was irresponsible of you to leave us alone. I want you to know that.
She looked at the lines on the screen and deleted the last two sentences. Then typed them again.
Rest well, Darth Marr.
—Darth Imperius, temporarily fulfilling your sphere's duties
She deleted that signature too, sighed, and typed a shorter, more honest one:
—Ilyra
There was a soft knock at the door.
"Dark Lord."
Her adjutant's voice was, as always, calm, but she had long since learned to read the shades of that calm. This one meant: urgent, but not yet catastrophe.
"Come in," she said.
Darth Imperius glanced at the screen and sent the letter without rereading it. The recipient would never receive it anyway.
Beyond the door, a new day of war was waiting.