Naboo

[Trushaun]

A small lapse of time had gone by in the Fosh's head. Something between her body and mind did not click right for the last few hours. Everything seemed off...But then the planet swung back into life. Something had been done. The Voorpak's danced behind the Fosh as they made their way back to camp.

 

It was a good feeling inside Trushaun's mind that they had succeed.

 

The camp came into view. Roen came into view, with a skip in her step she rejoined her suedo-master. His little pup nibbiling on his fingers. Her two new friends scurried around her feet. No words were spoken. Just yet..

[Roene Givrah]

Roene rolled over and grumbled silently to himself as Trushaun came merrily back into the camp with a few furry creatures scurrying after her. He didn't really register the Voorpaks and when he tried to look toward the source of the little noises, his Garrall's face came into view and started licking his nose.

 

”œCome on Tyue,”

[Trushaun]

Trushaun smiled, oblivious of what Roene had just gone through. She was glad to feel the warm breeze of Naboo once again. Extending her head dress feathers in order to fully feel the breeze against her skin. It was a great feeling. A sense of accomplishment washed over her. She sensed something wrong. Fatigue. It worried her. She did not wish for Roene to fall it. Not wanting to be trapped on the planet, Roene needed to be healthy.

 

She knew just the trick. Withdrawing a small vial from her bag, she mixed it with her canteen of water. Fosh tears were notorious for their healing power. They could heal almost any wound, or illness.

 

"Trushaun accompany you." She held up her canteen. "Drink this." It was more of a command rather than a request. Trushaun may have over stepped her bounds, but this was the best for the six of them right now.

 

"Water and Fosh Tears" She smiled. "Tears great for healing body and mind. Roene look tired. Trushaun can not have Roene sick."

 

 

((Wow, this is alot shorter than I thought it was going to be. Sorry.)

[Roene Givrah]

Roene accepted the offered vial and drank without question, as if his actions were on auto-pilot. Then he started walking off into the trees with his canine companion hot at his heels. His thoughts seemed abstract and distant as he walked, but he somehow knew where he was going.

 

Following the padded tilt of his fading pace upon the grassy terrain for what seemed like hours, Roene came to a glade in one of the oldest parts of Naboo's forested areas. It was a curious thing to be led by an invisible string to a place you'd never seen before, but the place called to him through his dreams while he lay in the path of destruction, moments before. The small taste his recovery trance and unconsciousness brought him, provoked a bit of curiosity that pushed action into Roene's mind. An energy concentration, far larger than Roene had ever seen or felt before, rested in a crook of the Nabooian wilds. It called to him before and it was calling to him more as he came closer and closer. The potency of the latent force in the call was enough to draw his attention, but once Roene began to near the enclosure, he started to realize just how overwhelming the force's presence in this place truly was.

 

The glade before him echoed with the ages of the trees and the history that perpetuated the space. The fading past of the trees began to grow up all around him and he could feel the echoes coalesce into a hazy mist that drifted in cloudy blurs throughout the area. The focus, however, seemed to be on a simple boulder in the center of the glade that had been there a sight longer than the other relics around it. It bore witness to the world in its stable and unchallenged place; quiet and solid, but with enormous potential.

 

"Here..." Roene whispered to himself. "It will be here."

 

Roene put a soft arm up to barricade Trushaun, indicating that she couldn't follow him into the glade, but instead, could watch from afar. He mentally pushed Tyue, his Garrall, and Tyue's companions into staying as well so as to avoid the possible interruptions their presence would induce. However, he allowed the other animals, the ones that naturally existed within their habitats, to remain without fear of his presence.

 

Once the preparations were made and Roene was content with the peace granted by his surroundings, he removed his shoes and took soft steps into the brush with his bag at his side. Each step was soft upon his feet, each step was planned in its execution and each step was taken so as not to crush the grass beneath it. Instead, each movement he took was impossibly soft. He glided upon the surface of the grass so that the tendrils of leafy green embraced his feet and accepted the weight of his stance, rather than crumpled beneath his weight.

 

Within this exercise at meticulously adhering to nature's vulnerability, Roene closed the distance between himself and the boulder, ending his movement with a kneel at its base. With the cold metal of his left arm and the soft touch of his right, Roene took up the bag he held at his side and slowly began to remove the contents upon the flat surface of the boulder ignoring the noises they made when they made contact. Then, after all of the objects were effectively emptied and spread out atop the gray stone, Roene gently took his bag and deposited it on a rough plot of soil to his right.

 

Objects of metal, of wood, of leathery hide, and of crystal, stood with impunity upon the rock. They were each shaped individually by their environments and carved or manipulated using forces of nature and will. Roene bowed his head to the stone as if reverent to his collection, but regardless, took note of each piece where it rest.

 

He looked upon each piece, taking images of each into his mind, and closely examined each physical form. Slowly then, guided by unwavering patience, Roene changed his posture from a tensed kneel, to a relaxed, cross-legged seated position. He breathed in and out smoothly, mocking the flow of a stream and the blowing of wind through the trees. His body swayed with the green grass and the bark as breeze after warming breeze poured over him and pushed him into shifting his weight. Roene's legs slowly began to root themselves into the ground and joined the dirt beneath them in his unyielding stance.

 

The known world around him, subjective through the precept of his eyes, began to melt into a wide array of beautiful colors. The most pronounced color was of a light green hue but was nonetheless as brilliant as the others that gleamed around him. He would not let himself be distracted though. For, even in the abstracted shadow of his concentrated thoughts, he pushed his mind away from further abstraction and didn't allow his mind to halt until he had found the objects on the stone once more.

 

The stone, if it could be called a stone anymore, rested as a giant tablet, telling of past events that were available with the barest of touches. It was a sentient being in its own right that rested, large and gray, upon the forest floor.

 

Each item lay before Roene atop the rock tablet's back, echoing with the memories and history they possessed. The hide of a fallen Dewback, the bark of a corrupted Kashyyykian old growth tree, crystals from a cave on Tython, electronics gathered from the Tython Jedi temple and metal made from rock forged in the depths of a volcano. All of these elements and fixtures, save a few small additions, had been gathered by Roene himself and vividly evoked the touch of his efforts through their gleaming light.

 

Each piece represented something alone, resonating with an assortment of different colors and magnitudes, echoes and whispers, but similar in some small way.

 

Each led Roene closer on his path to Knighthood and each would coalesce into something greater than their stoic, seemingly immutable, forms.

 

Soft hands stretched from his mind as he rested within the energy inherent in the world around him. The words of the trees whispered to him while he worked and took hold of his ghostly attempts with sensitive care, guiding his movements and providing him with more tools. The power of the trees aided the husk of once corrupted bark as it wrapped, creating the outside of the hilt in an organic curved pattern that matched the hands that floated above. Vines rose to the top of the rock in lifelike rows of a green procession, pushed by the trees to add the veins from their bodies to the constitution of the Cerean's saber. This flux of the force, lingering from the vines to the saber, offered a small compromise as the vines began their march forward and on to the small beginnings of the wooden hilt that lay upon the rock with the supplementary electronics inside it. Each vine, preceded by the next, began to wrap around the inside of the wooden husk and embrace the dead wooden shell once nestled inside. Before long, the power cell and emitters were consumed with veins of emerald and connected through the will of Roene's environment. Although no wire-based electrical connections came of this synthesis, the vines were a suitable surrogate. By virtue of traveling synapses through plant greenery, the life that grew inside Roene's saber could send electrical signals just as well as neurons in a brain. And they did very well with restoring the bark that, until now, rested upon the stone with hollow longing.

 

Each piece of metal that once lingered, still upon the rock, began to grind to the stone without an obvious direction. Each piece of metal had its own duty and its own shape to achieve, providing a consistently smooth pace to ease the rough sounds of their movements.

 

When the metal pieces were of the right fit with different sections of the hilt, which had sprung into sentience of its own as the tree bark regained new life in response to the new organic inhabitants, each piece rose and fell into place, clasped by the vines as they fell and were welcomed as yet another piece to the puzzle. Intricate charcoal colored metal accents were formed upon the wood and green of the vines; intricate metal sockets and facets were carved even further and shaped to preordained specifications, to fit the natural forms of each focus crystal.

 

As this mystical fusion based birth took place upon the rock, Roene's personal, color and kasha crystals stood aside from the sentient hilt in admiration and respect. They waited patiently until the last metal socket was made, before being individually picked up and placed carefully into each slot. Once touched, once called, the gleaming force crystals surged with powerful and colorful beauty both within the force and the physical world. Purple, the color of his soul crystal, went to the base of his hilt to provide a stable base in himself so he would never forget who he was and what he stood for. Off-white, the color of his kasha crystal, would go to the center and provide balance to his mind and heart in the heat of even the largest of conflicts. Veridian, the color of the color crystal, glowed brilliantly with the same hue as the rest of the force energy around him and would serve as the symbol of his strength in peace.

 

It will be true strength of will to never show the color of my blade; the strength of someone who believes peace can exist in the heart of man.

 

As the shape of the hilt neared completion, the assembled parts called for the parts that remained on the cold stone. The small parts of leathery hide, taken from a deceased Dewback, which previously rested inert on the rock, slowly began to move and shape itself. Parts of it folded and combined, condensing the rough scales into the thick comfortable padding that would rest beneath Roene's hand. And when the journey ended, the Dewback hide rose from its spot and froze.

 

For a few moments, the piece of molded hide that resulted from the transformation, stood alone in the air and sought counsel from the hilt that was still actively moving around on the rock. It sought magical counsel and to commune with the hilt. It moved closer and closer, inch by inch. And, before long, it made it, stopping only to embrace the latches of vine hands that were reaching out to soften the impact and fasten the hide to the surface of the hilt, pushing it and forcing it to grasp the wood.

 

The Dewback hide, when it came into contact with the revived Kashyyykian bark, felt rejuvenation and fell suit with the other hilt pieces. The lack of independence and strength didn't suit the character of the hide's previous owner, but it capitulated regardless of motive and molded onto the hilt with little to no touch of artifice in its application. Then, after one final breath and some minor adjustments, the sentient hilt slowly shifted down to the bare stone and stopped moving. A sense of pride and accomplishment washed over the Cerean, though his expression betrayed nothing.

 

Roene's ghostly hands, made manifest through the force, wrapped from afar upon the hilt and felt the moisture of the hide as it likened to its namesake even when molded into a mere tool. His fingers depressed the carved metal button and with a small sound, a brilliant light green blade emitted flawlessly. Its ignition put forth furious uproar within the internal parts of the hilt, pulling a furious air to every gesture made by the active blade. When the light green blade was sheathed though, the life of fury that erupted before ceased its rampage and remained quiet. Sounds of breathing still emitted softly through the haze though because, as Roene slowly began to realize, the sentience of the hilt wasn't merely a formality.

 

The Cerean set his saber back on the boulder though, and let himself re-emerge in the physical world, causing himself to feel the presence of passing force fluctuations pushing rapidly against him. When finished, his mind and body felt a small pulse in the force, emitting from the center boulder where his hilt lay, resting.

 

Even though he made the saber and could see it clearly in front of him, he was almost afraid to touch it. Looking back at it from where he sat, in between it and the glade's exterior, was terrifying, but exhilarating. It was, after all, a tool of war, something he was innately opposed to, but something that brought agenda and ambition to virtues like trust and admiration. It was originally a machination of the Sith and such power as it lay barely feet from his hands, seemed risky to say the least.

 

The Cerean struggled with his leads and his motivations and strove to find some saving grace in his mind. It took a moment or two to regale himself on his teachings, training and remember the years of knowledge gathering he had done before joining the order and although comfort could be gathered, he had to settle for the hard truth. If there was peace to be had in nature or the galaxy, and it could not come through the pleasance of words or the kindness of alternatives, then it would fall to fine strikes and keen defenses of arbiters to bring messages of peace to a galaxy in peril.

 

So I will take up my blade”¦ Roene thought to himself nervously as he spied the object that seemed conflictingly alluring. His hands groped outward for it as he grew near. His eyes widened with anxiety and shock, but when his hand finally touched the moistened hide of the hilt, that fluxed and adjusted at his touch, Roene felt connected to it.

 

He felt connected to the life within his saber and connected to the will of the galaxy.

 

And I will bring peace”¦

 

Roene's words drifted into the glade and managed to gain some distance before dissipating into canopy. Roene slid the new light saber hilt in the tight cloth band around his waist and walked slowly as before, back to the waiting crowd of his apprentice and the growing group of animal companions.

 

”œIt is time to leave”¦”

Edited August 18, 2018 by Guest

[Trushaun]

Trushaun was distracted left and right with the three animals. Roene had blocked her off and went to do his own thing. But a sense of maturity came through to the young Fosh. She sat down to meditate. Fresh leaves came about in the wind. Various fruit sprouted around the Fosh.

 

The animals swarmed the Fruit. Trushaun sat in silence listening to the birds and various wildlife that were joyous to be back in what could be called a Early-Successional Forest.

 

It seemed like hours past by with the way the winds shifted.

 

Arising from her meditation, she felt amazing. She collected an empty vial and coaxed her Tear Ducts to fill the small glass bottle. Then, down to the small creek that flowed by, filling her canteen. She placed both of these in the necessary spots on her body.

 

Then Roene came upon her. It was time to leave. She left to the camp, packed up and followed Roene Off World.

[Roene Givrah]

Roene was a little interested in the depth to which his padawan was reaching into nature and stimulating growth its growth. He could feel her exploration tickling the back of his mind during his lightsaber building process and wondered exactly how deep her ability extended. She wasn't after all, his padawan, and if his original impression of her years ago was any consolation, she was growing much too old to be that role anymore.

 

He didn't know her though and he needed to gauge her talents before he could conceivably pass any judgment upon her.

 

So that was what he was going to do.

 

Roene took all the necessary things from the campsite and had relatively little need for his bag now that he made his light saber, but carried it around his right arm anyway, stashing what he could inside of it and wandering off toward the ship with Tyue and hopefully Trushaun following behind him.

 

He knew his other apprentice Elnia was still comatose in the ship and was concerned for her, but until she came back to him, his main priority was Trushaun.

 

"We are heading back to Tython. It is where I am most familiar and it is where I will gauge your ability and educate you further should you need it." Roene said with nonchalance as he packed the remaining things onto the ship, tucked Elnia in a little more, made even more take off preparations and lifted off toward Tython.

[ObliviousKnight]

Naboo had clearly suffered since the last time Armiena had visited this beautiful world. Although some of her memories of the planet were now tainted with bitterness, this place had always been a jewel amongst the rough of the Rim. And despite the fact that it had almost no strategic importance to the rest of the galaxy, it tended to attract all sorts of trouble. As her shuttle came out of hyperspace and the blank surface of the cockpit filled with the constellations of Naboo's orbit, Armiena's lips thinned in a bitter smile.

 

”œWant to hear a bad joke? Too bad.”

[Cas Holloway]

On the way to Naboo, Cas filled Armiena in on the intel CoreSec had. It wasn't much. Just a few clips pulled from the holonet and some preliminary identity matching that didn't show much.

 

As they came out over Naboo, Cas shook his head. Once a brilliant jewel of swirled blue and green, Naboo now had several brown spots of scorched earth. It was a shame, and it made him philosophical. I wonder if there is something about the beautiful worlds that attracts violence? That the more lovely the planet, the more likely it is to be a target? It wasn't a pleasant thought, but it did seem to have an inkling of truth to it. After all, you never hear of planets like Raxus Prime being attacked.

 

Armiena interrupted his thoughts with a bad joke, but it showed that she was thinking along the same lines he was. He shook his head in mock dismay at the bad joke, but it was actually really sad. Truth of the universe, Cas. Truth of the universe.

 

He handled the communications with the surface, introducing themselves and being open about their mission. He also requested an audience with Queen Memara. After the mess with Apophenian, he was always careful to go through proper channels. With any luck, the Queen would have some leads as to the identities of the terrorists.

 

((OOC: Didn't know if I should put the request here or in the Royal Palace thread.))

[Queen Namari]

Various communication technicians relay permission to land back to Cas Holloway and company. ”œThe docking bay is cleared. Proceed to the Interim Palace.”

[ObliviousKnight]

”œRight”¦”

[Raven37]

The Black Raven touched down gently near the swamps of Naboo. Drake thought it best to avoid landing in the city seeing as he was on a reconnaissance mission. He powered down the engines and exited his ship looking towards the distant city of Theed which was a few miles away. Drake sighed and began his trek towards the city.

 

Some time later Theed's great walls were in view the main entrance would likely have a few men stationed there to regulate who, or what, entered the capital. Drake smirked as he approached the checkpoint and was pleased to see that the door was open for a group travelers. Drake activated his stealth field generator and concentrated on the Force. Everything seemed to slow down drastically and even though the Gate was now closing Drake knew he could make it with plenty of time to spare. He sprinted forward passing through the gate undetected and relaxed the effects of the speed subsiding. The gate shut behind him with a dull thud and he continued into the crowded city still.

 

Making a point to observe everything Drake ducked into a side ally and pulled a pair of goggles from his pack. They would record everything he saw and heard. He slipped them on and slipped quietly back into the crowds. He was still invisible but that didn't mean intangible and he carefully avoided running into anyone or anything. Drake sighed and went further into the capital in search of Corsec and the jedi.

[Raven37]

OOC((3 days))

 

IC:

Drake continued his search over the next few days eventually dropping his stealth in order to better move around the crowded city. No one gave him a second glance he was just another off-worlder in Theed's market. Drake was surprised, there was hardly any crime here. Usually in a large city like Theed you could expect a bit of crime the occasional theft possibly a murder, but it wasn't the case. Drake speculated it could be jedi influence on this planet but he had found no incident of jedi or CorSec involvement anywhere. Drake decided he had seen enough and thought it high time he report back his findings, which he had none, to Lucifer. He exited the city and made the mile long trek back to the Black Raven once inside he inserted the data chip from his recording device into his comms system routing it to Lucifer's ship.

[Karys Narat iv-Adas]

A highly encrypted message arrives for Drake (Raven37) from Darth Lucifer informing him to go to Coruscant and wait for his arrival at the docks.

[Nishant]

Some time later, Nishant opened his eyes again to find Naboo ahead of him. This time, however, he had not been sleeping. He had been steadily reshaping his inner world, painting a new mental picture of where he was, atop a jutting cliff spur above dense planet-wide forest, and only higher-reaching cliff wall behind him. There was no way he could have logically gotten here, yet here he was. As he was, in reality.

 

The transport landed in Theed, and Nishant soon learned, through casual questioning with the honest reasoning that he had not been home in several years, that the deceased Queen Amidala's tomb had been destroyed. He was not sure why this failed to shake him, though he recognized the stirring to see this, knew that it would touch him in some way.

 

It took time to remember how to find the place, and when he did, he could not withhold the rawness that he had been quelling since he had left the Gala Praxeum. He wept, briefly, and then let that feeling become rage, and let an emotion he had not felt in years sweep back into him. It was agony, it was lightning cracking in his gut, rooting him to the floor and wracking him the a weird knowledge.

 

The kind of person who could do this, could do whatever they wished, could desecrate, this was perplexing to him. He realized why he had come home. Why his home had called to him. He had enough of the Light to last someone two lifetimes, even if he did not have the power to express that. But he had not allowed himself to know the Dark since he had first learned to harness emotion. And now that he admitted that his passivity and peacefulness had been nothing more than naive control, he sunk to his knees on the floor of the ruined tomb and closed his eyes.

[Lord Ar-Pharazon]

Ar-Pharazon's most recent arrival on Naboo had been punctuated deeply with an all-out attack on the city of Theed from the guns of the Marie, or so he remembered. Now, he was in the cockpit of his own ship, the DUVUCUS. As his ship descended into the atmosphere, he looked into a mirror. Staring back at him was the false visage of a Naboo man that did not exist, an illusion of the Force.

 

Landing his ship in a public zone, Ar-Pharazon left behind most of his usual armor, donning a generic robe instead. Masking his own Force signature, he pulled a dark hood over his head and proceeded slowly through an extensive network of gardens, appearing as a typical man of Theed, just going about his business. He was keen on seeing the lasting fruit of his vandalistic handiwork. Eagerly, he strolled toward his destination. When he finally came across the ruined fane, it seemed mostly empty. An old woman was weeping, as she looked over a smashed statue of the famous young Queen.

 

”œWhat sort of monster would do such a thing?”

[Nishant]

Nishant had paid the old woman no mind, aside from an awkward feeling of attaching his rage to her in frustration over her whimpering whispers of grief. However, his thoughts drifted away from her, and he was so distanced from her shuffling that he didn't notice her leave, even though he'd heard words spoken between her and a man's voice.

 

It was difficult for him to perceive clearly now, but there was something askew in the room, aside from the fact that it had been gutted by someone previously. But this was present, a tilt, something sidestepped. He heard the man speaking, somewhat to the air, perhaps to him, where he was kneeling on the floor.

 

When the man said, "...assassins..." Nishant's focus piqued, a memory was tugged forward in his mind, a memory of rampant imagery of death and dying. A flash of black behind him, a blood-red rosary, a Sith, a name of Furion, all mangled with this one word spoken by a man who seemed to know much of the dealings of dark people.

 

"The Sith are everywhere," Nishant murmured. After all, Furion had walked into the Jedi temple unmolested. History gave great credit to the ability of Sith to choose when and where to show themselves, to be anywhere, to be unexpected. Something about the man's tone, something beneath it, seemed toying, playful. Nishant ended up believing that his own suspicion was more ridiculous than the actual possibility that this man was teasing about destruction.

 

But why would teasing about it be bad?

 

"Sense," Nishant said. "It makes more sense." What makes sense may not always be reality. Nishant turned his gaze to the man near him, had the urge to look at him with the same sight he had learned from Skye, the sight that dove to the heart of things. He did not, however. "I was called here," Nishant said. "There's something here for me." He turned his head away, leveled his gaze on some broken stone lopsided on the floor.

 

"Who are you?" he asked.

[Lord Ar-Pharazon]

”œMy name is Alen Morin. I'm one of the engineers that has traveled to Theed, to assist in building the new Royal Palace. As you might have noticed, we've recently finished. However, I've been interested enough in this city to stick around for a while. In a sense, as you said for yourself, there is something here for me. It's difficult to articulate, but I was drawn to the aftermath of this destruction as well.”

[Nishant]

Nishant watched the man, listened to him explain. It was not uncommon for cybernetic modifications to the body to be seen in citizens. It was also not outside the realm of Nishant's experience for people to have unexpected knowledge of Sith, or Jedi, even their names; or to speak of them openly, casually. His father had done so with him, numerous times. Nishant wondered if being so much around Force-users in the last few months had made him wary of "normal" people.

 

But he had an instinct that spoke of being wary now, and despite the turmoil of his present state, he had never had a good reason to ignore his instincts, almost especially about people. He let it be, though, as he knew was best. Let the moment be, and watch, steady.

 

He watched the miniature camera emerge from the curious arm, heard the three questions pointed his way, decided to answer them each in turn. "Yes," he said, confirming the first.

 

"I say it because it's true. They move about, with or without purpose, it doesn't seem to matter. They're nature makes their presence anywhere an immediate infiltration, should a moment arise where action is necessary. My own experience has confirmed this for me." He hesitated about the last question, glanced away from the man, remembered his comment about his "hobby" and the broken statues. He said he was an engineer, which meant building, but building is either to fill an emptiness or in the wake of destruction. Nishant wondered if the man was implying something.

 

"I was trained, for a time," Nishant said. He didn't care to elaborate.

 

"Old injury?" he asked suddenly. He looked pointedly at the man's arm, to emphasize his question.

[Lord Ar-Pharazon]

Ar-Pharazon responded. ”œIn my younger days a ruthless Sith Master forced me to undergo surgical modification. Like me, many of us were mutilated,”

[Nishant]

"They're in denial."

 

Nishant had no idea where that statement came from, and he stared blankly at the man as he realized what he'd said. But that seemed to be the culmination of his thoughts. He was so tired of ideals. He was so tired of philosophical standards that could never be met, that were all attempts at reasoning how someone should live, when the reality before those who wished to see it was that anyone could do whatever they wished to do, at anytime, in any place, and the only thing standing in their way was an idealized system of rules that would never do what they thought they did.

 

Nishant suddenly laughed aloud. "I don't care right now for how I use the Force. I just want it to speak its truth to me. I just want to meet it, wield it, and enjoy my life." He realized that, even though all the Jedi he had met had seemed quite peaceful, quite like what he was describing (well, most of them), they were bound by a system of rules that they only thought existed. In fact, existed only because they were thought up. They were not, in fact, part of the fabric of the Universe, as the Force itself was.

 

He supposed, similarly, the Sith were bound by their own rules, though he didn't know what those might be. Perhaps they were not. At least, perhaps they were less bound. Maybe the unspoken rule was embracing emotion. Perhaps, for some, that led to butchery and death, or power-mongering, but that didn't have to be a guarantee. If it was embracing all, knowing all, actually experiencing, instead of doing things by the rules, Nishant wouldn't mind such a thing.

 

He realized he had been silent for some time, and looked at the man.

 

"I don't want to strive for ideals. I just want to be." He looked away. "What's wrong with that?" he murmured, to no one in particular.

[Lord Ar-Pharazon]

”œOf course! There's no need to waste away within the dogmatic confines of some ancient religion.”

[Nishant]

Nishant found himself agreeing with the man's first statement. Confines, he thought. I don't want to be confined. He turned an almost scathing look skyward when he was called "Master Jedi", and for a moment was about to cut in with an objection, but held back the remark as the man kept speaking.

 

Balance. Secretly, this was what he had intended to find all along. He had never meant to define himself or what he did by the Jedi Code, even had he become a Knight, or a Master, in time. It had always been about the Force, and about himself; he and the Force, in relation, together, and that was all. He was surprised to have forgotten this, or perhaps he had never really known what it meant.

 

However, he found himself chuckling over the idea of Anakin Skywalker. The ancient messiah-complex of the Jedi. But the man himself, to fulfill that prophecy, to bring balance, had to go from one extreme to another, and the Jedi thought he had failed in "turning to the Dark Side." But Nishant, even young as he was, knew this to be an ignorance of the Jedi, who perceived that their's was the only right way, and in that view it only made sense to them that the prophecy would favor the Light.

 

Take that statue..

 

Nishant kept getting hung up on the man's use of the word "neutrality." He didn't like the word. He knew of Jedi who had been "neutral". He found the term to be more indicative of lack of commitment, lack of action, lack in general. There was choosing to do nothing, which was a perfectly appropriate choice at certain times. But deciding that one was good, or neutral, or bad, and this is how it always is, this was stupid.

 

But the man was talking about balance through the word neutrality, and Nishant was trying to understand this through the metaphor of the statue. A Jedi would call the act one fueled by aggression, and how aggression is Dark and corruptive. Nishant knew that aggression must be natural, but he had forgotten how to be aggressive. But was the act neutral? What did that mean?

 

His confusion was evident on his face, but he was determined to puzzle it out. Nishant's focus jumped to the Sith, what would a Sith feel. What would Furion feel, blasting the statue apart? Nishant had no idea.

 

...how would it feel?

 

And then, Nishant could not retain a bellowed remark of, "I am tired of ideas!!" And from his crouched position, he turned his gaze on the statue of his former queen, and looked at her statue, and felt a hesitation. But this was unnecessary nostalgia over a woman he'd never met; this was a hesitation born of social normality and social expectation; this was a hesitation born of the caged human that he was, but he did not want to be confined.

 

"It is a statue," he said to himself. It's a statue. That is what it is.

 

And he raised his hand to it, and felt the Force within him rapidly answering his call, and felt the Force around him following this notion, and then, with a movement of his hand, it was as if the statue were still clay and he had swung a blade through Amidala's neck. He watched the statue's head fall to the floor as if time had slowed, and when it crashed and broke he gazed at the pieces.

 

"How does it feel?" he murmured. And then he realized what the man must mean, about neutrality. Or, how Nishant could now perceive it. The action was simply action. The action was the action. It was ideology from one person or another that fixed to an action some virtue or vice that they felt would lend them moral clarity.

 

But the reality was, the action was the action.

 

He had cut the head from the statue of his homeworld's most celebrated queen. And he felt not a moment of remorse, and he felt no wondrous excitement over the act, but he felt a smile coming to his face and a sensation of pleasure at having rediscovered something he should never have forgotten.

 

What happens, happens.

 

He turned his gaze to the man, smile firmly planted, and said, "You know a lot, for an engineer. And you seem to have spent a lot of time contemplating the actions of Force-users...for an engineer..."

[Lord Ar-Pharazon]

”œGood,”

[Nishant]

...surrender to your instinct...

 

This remembered utterance was thrumming through his body as Nishant watched the man stand and destroy the body of the statue with lightning, heard the crack of the element's collision, saw the beautifully erratic wave of Force.

 

Sith. Nishant could have smacked himself. Obviously. This is what comes from not following your instincts. Had you only looked...had you not decided to believe this man was just a man, and disregarded your impulse, you might have known.

 

And yet Nishant, turning to look at the man, standing to face this Sith, wondered if he could have seen through whatever illusion had been hiding this man. Even had he looked, this man claimed a power that could be beyond Nishant's ability to perceive. And he was the one who had attacked Naboo, he was the one Nishant had heard of.

 

"You're Ar-Pharazon?" Nishant said. He did not need an answer, but to say it, this was the only reason he uttered it. He was surprised at his own lack of a response to this claim. By his word, Ar-Pharazon laid claim to having taken the lives of people on Nishant's on homeworld...but what did that mean to him? Nishant knew none of those he loved personally had died. Could he empathize? If he tried. Did he want to? Not particularly, no. He could not explain why.

 

When a beast hunts its prey, the prey either dies or escapes.

 

This thought creased Nishant's mind, and he made a face at it, wondered at it, longed to know it firsthand. He leveled his own gaze at the Sith before him, took in his appearance, decided. He felt no fear. He wondered if this was a sign of himself, or if the Sith was not trying to bring it out in him. He knew that in that realm, at least, in the realm of the mind, Nishant's own racial capacity for resilience was beyond most anyone's.

 

"I couldn't kill you if I tried," Nishant said. "I think I have lost my freedom. I want it back." He eyed the Sith. "You killed many people here. It is likely they were all normal citizens. But I know the Force. And I was a Jedi. Why haven't you killed me yet?"

[Karys Narat iv-Adas]

A message comes in from Darth Lucifer to Lord Ar-Pharazon informing him he will be there shortly after his current business is dealt with.

[Lord Ar-Pharazon]

”œKill you?”

[Nishant]

Nishant was inclined to agree, yet again. Even if his body did not die, he felt as if he had, for several weeks, been in a lifeless monotony. He knew that there were some who truly found Life within the realm of the Jedi, but it was no longer an option for him, by whatever had engineered his changing heart. And Nishant caught that Ar-Pharazon did not say the word "trust", but "hope". Nishant would remember that.

 

"Have you ever dabbled in the dark side of the Force?"

 

"No," Nishant said. "I have experienced it, but not of my free will. Yet." He is right, Nishant thought. I have already divorced myself from the Jedi, whether I have accepted that or not in my life. But I have done it, so I must accept it.

 

Decide, Nishant.

 

"If you show me, I will learn well." This was a guarantee.

[Lord Ar-Pharazon]

For an extended moment increasingly yellow eyes stared down at the now former Jedi. Ar-Pharazon smiled. ”œExcellent! Then, at this moment, you are an anathema to the Jedi Order, but more importantly you are my apprentice. The Jedi are the past. You, yourself are the future. Strive for greatness and trust in your instincts, and pray to me that you do not fail, and I will teach you powers beyond anything that the light can provide. I will bring you to understand even the great mysteries entirely unknown by even the most powerful and learned Jedi. However, if you would learn from me, then you must serve and obey only me. Not any other master of the Sith Order or even the Hutt himself. Not Haphaestus or Shadowlord or anyone else. Only me. Only I can show you the fullest depths of the dark side of the Force and lead you toward true freedom!”

[Nishant]

There was something that drew Nishant, a very raw, a very powerful magnetism that drew him to the idea of serving only this one man in learning. And there was something powerful in this man stating quite simply that learning required obedience. The Jedi Masters he had learned from had never stated this outright, though it had been implied in the grander scheme of things. Ar-Pharazon's immediate and present honesty about the situation at hand was highly appealing.

 

Nishant remembered Haphaestus, knew that was the Dark Lord that Qaela had brought him to when he had entered the Sith Temple on Coruscant. After what had happened last time, he would find it quite easy to ignore that one. And the rest of them. Even if Ar-Pharazon was a Sith, he appeared to answer to himself, and this was an admirable trait. Nishant was beyond caring about Light or Dark. He wanted the Force, that was all.

 

I am this man's apprentice.

 

"My name is Nishant," he said, "And as you say, I will obey only you."

[Lord Ar-Pharazon]

”œThen, my apprentice, you will be known as Darth Sidus,”