Grand Moff: Candid
The Never Ending Quest - Episode 84984
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"Yes yes," he says after a pause, completely deadpan. "Oh. Well..." Felina says a little awkwardly. "I'm sorry then." After another pregnant pause, he finally says, "That was a small joke. You know, about the 'recursive' thing." "OH." she says, a tone of mild relief in her voice. "I mean, it's just a name. I come from a military family. 400 generations of little Moffs, running off to join the Republic navy as soon as they got old enough. I suppose my parents felt pretty hopeful, so..." He doesn't bother to mention that Hyle Moff, his father, was actually a raving lunatic who had tried to lead a military coup when Grand Moff was still a child over a new regulation banning the sale of liquor in Republic military installations, nuked the moon of Terragel into a glassy glowing rock in the process, and had died on the toilet of a massive case of dysentery brought on by getting smashed on toilet-tank prison rotgut while awaiting trial for planetary genocide...or that his mother Janira was, in her own way, arguably even more insane. This skunk-woman-whatever really doesn't need to know that. He isn't even completely sure why he feels so open about telling her even THIS much; it might have had something to do the fact that she is drop-dead good-looking in an exotic sort of way."I bet you got picked on a lot when you were a kid," she says. "Children are cruel." "Ohh yes, I received more than my share of teasing over my name. But I'd like to think I got over it. A little therapy worked wonders for me." He neglects to mention that the "therapy" method he'd hit on had consists mostly of spending his spare time quietly tracking down each and every one of his childhood tormentors and having them AND their entire families either arrested for one trumped-up charge or another, or simply kidnapped, and then killed in a series of increasingly brutal and grotesque ways. The twelve most hated ones still occupy a place in his mansion on Coruscant--or at least their still-living heads do, sealed away in their decorative life-support casks in his private trophy-room. They stare perpetually at timers, their only way to pass the time until the pain-amplifier implants driven deep into their skulls blast their brains' pain centers with a solid minute of DC current, once every hour on the hour. The Zeltron interrogation-guru who had come up with the idea assures him that it perfectly simulated the sensation of being incinerated alive for the subject, with none of the associated physical risks--and the implants themselves prevent the victim the relief of catatonia or true insanity, even after years of constant misery. He finds it quite relaxing and visits his trophy room whenever he feels depressed or otherwise out of sorts. "Adulthood helps put things in perspective, I think," he said. "With a name like mine, there really WAS only one path for me. I'd like to think I've grown into it," he says breezily. "Made it into a name to be proud of. You know?" There is nothing at all in the tone of his voice, his words or his face to suggest anything other than someone who peacefully came to terms with his own past, but nevertheless, Felina feels a strange sort of chill slowly walk down her back to the tip of her tail. *A goose walking on my grave, maybe,* the skunkette thinks. *He SEEMS nice enough...I guess...* "Yeah, I can relate." Feeling a little foolish, she decides to change the subject anyway.
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The Living End
1/5/2009 4:44:34 PM
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