Title: Body Double
Fandom: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Rating: T
Length: 549 words
Challenge: Double
Content notes: Spoilers for the Sith Inquisitor storyline.
Summary: Most of Theron's fellow agents think that the pictures he's gotten of the newest member of the Dark Council are of a body double. He's not convinced.



That has to be a body double, the other operatives kept saying when they saw the pictures. No way it’s actually him.

It figured, Theron thought, scowling at the images. He busted his ass to get images of the newest Dark Councilor without his mask, and what do they do? They dismiss the images, declare that he’s wrong. That there’s no way someone like that would’ve gotten himself a seat. Granted, he sees their point; he’d been surprised too, when his source had forwarded him the first (slightly fuzzy) images.

All he’d known about him was that he was built like a strongman in a Hutt’s entourage, big and round and capable of throwing blocks of stone across a room even when he wasn’t using the Force. Not that much of a surprise, if he’d actually once been a slave, which was what the rumors suggested. But seeing him without his mask and hood was just jarring.

It wasn’t just the green skin, although for most people that was probably enough proof that this couldn’t possibly be the real Darth Imperius. He was obviously Mirialan - he even had the tattooes, slightly distorted triangles forming patterns under his eyes, largely faded from lack of maintenance. The other marks on his face and his arms - Sith patterns and runes, beside the occasional training scars - were newer, and a lot easier to see.

No, it wasn’t just that. His source had managed to get a picture of this man when he wasn’t angry, which was impressive; in Theron’s experience, most Sith were perpetually angry about nothing at all. There was no corruption, no glowing eyes, no pallor. He looked... cheerful. If you took away the runic tattooes, he would’ve looked completely at home on Coruscant. Big, jolly, the kind of guy who’d buy the whole bar a round after work and would always listen if you had a sad story to tell. It was not the face of a man who’d apparently torn the mind of his predecessor apart using a bunch of dead Sith spirits that he’d bent to his will.

Believing that this was a body double would’ve been easier than believing that they’d put an alien in one of the highest positions of government. But Theron had seen transcripts too, records of Dark Council meetings, results of old votes. He’d seen the shift in alliances, the way that certain seatholders were doing their best to push him out, only to have him return again and again to vote against their “traditionalist” agenda. Whatever they were doing to keep him out wasn’t working; he was smart enough, or lucky enough, to keep himself alive. He didn’t quite break the rules, but he bent them, found ways to circumvent them.

They could say he was wrong all they wanted, but this man looked exactly like the sort who’d smile to your face, then show up the next day with a loophole. He looked like a former slave who’d found his way into power and figured out how to use it. He was the real deal. He had to be.

Of course, Theron would probably never meet the guy. Too bad. He’d almost like to find out if he was right about what was going on in his head.