Remnant of the Aether

[Karmack]

Very interesting.   I find it fascinating how the People guide and encourage the Vong to give up their caste system and rigid societal structure, all the while reinforcing their own.  That cognitive dissonance is going to backlash at some point.   Probably very badly...

For all that the details of the societies, even the way Melron used three of the dovin basals to mine blackstone...   they're all fascinating.  Nicely done! 

[TheDutchman]

Talk about a case of "never meet your heroes"...or perhaps "avatars"    Poor Reeda: she's a stranger in a strange land surrounded by strangers suffering an existential crisis the likes of which could lead to insanity...or worse.  And while Mili's "bandaid" has (somewhat) assuaged those concerns, something of such monumental importance isn't likely to give up the ghost that easily...

...After all, I don't remember reading anything about the Extolled in the current timeline (but then again, that just may be a matter of focus).

It's too bad, the chapter starts off full of hope: the possibility of a heterogeneous culture that would undoubtably enrich both the Vong as well as the Aethans...but of course, reality must set in, ESPECIALLY when you consider that BOTH adhere to such strict xenophobic ideologies.  Karm's assessment is spot-on:

I find it fascinating how the People guide and encourage the Vong to give up their caste system and rigid societal structure, all the while reinforcing their own.  That cognitive dissonance is going to backlash at some point.   Probably very badly...

EXACTLY!  And in this case, they might as well be obverse sides on the same coin where their cultures are concerned.

BUT that's what makes this chapter such a great read: there are just too many serpents within this lush garden to address; worse: ignore.  Yet, I think that Mili's revelation that the entrenched ad hominem logic that the Aethans follow will lead to further conflict.

Brilliant writing LSG!

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 6 — Where the Heart is — Instinct — Part 1

The Guardians

They met at the top of Mount Aelia, the summit remaining natural despite the extensive fortress within. 

The snowy winds swept about the last four Guardians of the Old Way here to discuss the training of the New.

“Well who teaches who?” Kiraea asked bluntly of Valens, Jarys and Melron

The old system of a select group of Guardians was not functional in the new environment – all had to be trained to the highest standard they could reach to protect themselves and the People.

This had already begun with Adaea and Lyaea trained mostly by Melron and Kiraea, but also Valens on occasion. 

Now they had six more to train, Selaena and Maeson had been informally taught much by Jarys during their time with the Sons, the focus there would be less combat techniques than emotional fortitude.

Sofa and Milaea similarly had substantive training in Jedi arts, but lacked the…ferocity…that People needed. 

All four had also completed a full 18 month course in the Chiss Academy with them, they were beyond highly trained by any standard, the lessons needed remove psychological barriers to their potential and teach control of the instinctual state of Aephrodaea’s Grace, a hormonal influx that dissolved mental barriers between their conscious levels and eliminated unnecessary thought processes, supressing even the vague red sensation that passed for pain in Aethans and diverted all  cellular resources to a physiological fight state.

On top of this were Kassyndra and Lydan – Kassyndra never a warrior, but maternal protectiveness could be used to catalyse aggression and she had shown rapid advances training with the Vong every second week.  Lydan, whilst physically and aetherically capable was always a quiet type to start off with, his traumas only making it worse.

These thoughts mingled in the group mind as they assessed their own limitations as teachers – Melron was oldest but still beset by his own struggles feeling inadequate at times, Valens whilst the most powerful and knowledgeable was a brilliant student but not a natural teacher and struggled to communicate lessons effectively, Kiraea lacked the patience needed at times….

Jarys best combined the power, experience and patient demeanour necessary, but he could not teach everyone, and to do so was not desirable as it reduced variety and opportunities for innovation.

This was also a special case in that they were all adults – the Jedi system of Mutual Apprenticeship, seldom practiced anymore, offered an example of how to proceed.

A consensus began to form, Guardian training was traditionally undertaken within families and was a very mutual process, each grew with the other over years, to get the People up to speed in this dangerous galaxy they needed to adapt some Jedi methods of formalised instruction.

“hmmm….” Kiraea was the first to breath out, thin air leaving a vapour trail, of course they hardly needed to breath more than once every few hours, and despite the sub zero temperatures were perfectly comfortable in only light clothing given the near perfect insulation a honeycombed fatty layer beneath their hyper-keratin skin provided.

“That is an unusual choice….” She noted

“We need to avoid the obvious ones...” Melron agreed with the consensus “There is much to innovate with…Morgukai, Vong, Sith and Jedi techniques….adding that extra layer of variance can only make the results even more unique.”

“I think you just want to avoid it altogether…” Kiraea accusation directed at Valens
“…afraid to get rough with your mate?”

Valens didn’t supress the irritation on his face

“You think setting the final task is easier for me?”

There was always a final task before completion of training, to be set by an independent Guardian – of course with so few of them it was nigh impossible – but if Valens was less able to be anyone’s main teacher he would at least be sufficiently clever…not to say merciless…with his final trials.

“Fine,” Kiraea huffed out, “Let’s get started,”

<<<<>>>>

Maeson

The air was unusually humid, rainfall still not quite settled into a regular pattern following the upper atmosphere terraforming – made all the more moist by the sweat on both of their bodies amidst the dripping foliage.

They were undressed apart from loin cloths, bodies red and purple with bruises as Gosalam watched on indifferently – millennia before they had been ysalamiri until taken by the Aethan Technocracy, genetically modified, selectively bred in queer competitive pressures to create the Gosalam, a ‘better’ version – they could not only supress the aether like ysalimiri, but also use it as a directional weapon – essentially ‘shooting’ a null field over up to 20 metres to disable a Vorynx of Vorsis aetheric tracking abilities – many Guardians had tried to learn this from the animals, and whilst they could create the null fields around themselves even Old Andis hadn’t been able to find a way to weaponise at range – yet - Melron intended to be the first one day.

But today was not that day.

Today he beat Maeson bloody as he was pummelled in turn, every few blows they would shift styles in the null field of the Gosalam.  One moment Maeson would strike with a Morgukai Djen-Sha-Ke blow, Melron would respond with Keshiri-Sith counter, Maeson breaking out with a Sons of Kessel CQC hold-break.

Without the aether they had only their natural strength and speed – that in itself was prodigious compared to the majority of outsiders and had saved them more than once…indeed without their unique biology they would not have survived at all – More reason to carefully hone it.

Maseon did well, his blows were firm, made maximum use of opportunities wasting no energy with flourishes or feints – the latter was something Melron would need to work on, Maeson had learned from the Sons, Jarys and most recently the Vong a strong direct approach to combat, but whereas Jarys had the brute force and endurance to back up such blunt assaults and mingled it expertly with stealth – delivering extreme blows without warning - Maeson did not, a failing to be corrected.

But first…there was a deeper flaw to correct.

A twisting double low kick forced Maseon to leap up, Melron rapidly spun up to slam him in the chest, a combo learnt from the Vong warrior Yhum.

Maseon simply grunted and responded with a more traditional hook jab combo.

“You’re still alive,” Melron noted between meaty smacks against his chest.

Maeson didn’t respond uncertain whether it was a taunt or question.

Instead it was a statement of fact.

Maeson was an efficient fighter, diligent and able aetheric manipulator if currently slightly below average in aetheric endurance which would improve with training – but his motions, his actions were all lacking - he got the job done -no more. This Melron needed to address before he could work on anything else.

“You’re family is dead,” he breathed into his pupil ear as they locked arms

“But you’re not,”

Again Maeson didn’t react.

“I know how it feels, to lose so much, to want to just give up, do the bare minimum, it’s what I did for too long…” Melron admitted openly sweat running down from his brow as he tried to trip his pupil, earning only a solid knee in the groin.

“You did well on Ord Mirit, protected the women as is fitting…but you need to carry that drive with you even when they aren’t in danger….”

Maesons mouth twitched as if to speak, instead he shifted his weight backward trying to throw Melron, but he broke the grip and flipped back, never missing a beat he jumped back to spring board off a heavy tree at him again.

“…You need to admit you didn’t die with them, that you are going to go on living,” his words were timed with each punch he threw, Maeson blocking but too low to counter attack.

Finally Melron connected with Maesons face sending him staggering back – but instead of a fury driven retaliation he simply crouched indifferently.

Landing fully Melron looked down on him

“I was like that once…a Morgukai…an outsider pitied me….that was my moment when I Knew Myself as the Lady of Wisdom enjoins…the women need your protection…”

Maeson looked up from the ground only to be met with a heavy slap from Melron across his face.

“You’re not getting up till you acknowledge you do have things to live for, even after all you…we…have lost.”

Maeson felt weighed down, he was a simple man and such things as this hit him harder for it…

He thought about Ord Mirit…the vision the Sith had forced on him, watching his orchard and his family burn….in a sick way he missed it – they might be burning to death in the dream but at least he felt he was with them as it had happened.

Yet Melron was right that way lay nothing but despondency and death for himself…and the others.

Maesons cheek stung from an insultingly dismissive slap.

Bursting up faster than the air could displace he smashed the older Guardian in the nose, the bone cracking underneath his hand, hot blood spurting from Melron’s nostrils.

Melron didn’t fall as the red blaze of sensation assailed him, his stance to firm.

He smiled as the blood trickled down

“We’re not dead…” Maeson finally spoke words and mind cold as ice as he finally attained the Instinctual state that had for too long been the preserve of the Guardians alone

“Just wounded…”

Melron nodded, now he could start.

<<<<>>>>

Selaena

Grey dust of the steppe filled her nose – not normally a problem it was becoming a nuisance – running, dodging and fighting for three hours she had to breath it in as oxygen ran low, her bodies ability to recycle carbon dioxide and power cellular respiration powered by radiation already at its limits.

Jarys hurled balls of pure energy at her from high above experimenting with an attack Valens witnessed Yoda perform turning aetheric lighting to a sort of ‘ball’ that could strike harder over a small area than an arc which attempted more pinpoint accuracy.

He was also experimenting with ‘Force Flight’ – seeing how long he could stay levitated and at what speeds he could move, advanced vestibular systems made it relatively easy to control but the aetheric drain was noticeable after twenty minutes.

His endless attempts to hit her she could understand, it forced her to move quickly, to use the aether, but more importantly her own tactical assessment to predict his next move, and avoid getting trapped in a dead end canyon as they sped around rocky outcrops, but the dismissive nature of his experimenting while training irked her.

Jarys could feel the fury rising, frustration, rage, hatred…Selaena had so many reasons to feel such…they all did…but as Karintha said – to be angry is easy – to be angry at the right time, in the right way at the right person…that was hard.

Skidding round a pile of boulders Jarys dismissively kicked the middle one from his levitating pose to knock the rest toward her, she effortlessly strafed the impact but caught a glowing aether blast on her shoulder.

The white cold burn leached past her already ragged outfit, leaving another patch of burnt skin.

Teeth gritted, hands instinctively unleashed a torrent of flaming azure – the blaze struck and twisted around Jarys before being flung back as another ball of energy.

Her own rage turned against her doubled it  Bounding forward she slashed like a Vorynx with her nails – with grace and speed that belied his size Jarys wove out of her path.

Again and again he just managed to avoid her by mere millimetres, her fury rising and rising with – and still Jarys seemed to have an air of…boredom

She pulled back as a dismissive carpet of lighting lit the dusty ground, her feet danced in the ethereal flames, he barely looked in her direction.

Completely incensed she let loose, allowing her annoyance and rage to fill her to the brim, her body tingling as her heart squeezed.

Rushing forward she summoned up dozen of tiny rocks to provide a screen of detritus to hammer him from all sides and cover her advance.

Jarys kept his face expressionless as she finally reached a decent level of anger…still imperfect

A hundred small rocks bombarded him at 50 kmph not enough to breach the skin but forcing him to create a solid telekinetic shield. 

Through the rocks shattering into sand against his shield face red with hate, eyes blue with energy, exhausted fists and legs flying rapidly powered by the aether twice her normal speed, with strength that would shatter the greysleet of the glacier dropped boulders all around.

Such fury was wasted as he wove, mind clear, calculating her next movements.

The more she tried the more she failed.  The more she failed the more frustrated she became, and the more frustrated she became the more she failed in a downward cycle of defeat.

Jarys was beginning to wonder if this was even the best way to achieve what he needed to teach.  As was the case with most of the others, their limitations were not in terms of skills or strength but focus and refinement. 

This was understandable, they had not been trained as Guardians since child hood as he had…but they needed to be better, to reach a state of self-mastery equal to if not greater than that possessed by the most capable Jedi and Sith…if not they would fall to them.

Her energy spent wastefully on a blinding flurry of attacks, physical, aetheric and mental, Selaena’s limbs began to tremble with exhaustion.

A simple move, side stepping an elbow Jarys simply gripped her throat and lifted her up, her limbs flopping like a dolls as he pressed her weary mind in on itself.

“Useless, weak…this is why your children suffered, this is why you were taken and abused…and why you will be again…”

Now for the final stab

“And why Lyaea and Lydan will be taken again…because you cannot protect them,”

Selaena remained silent, hanging like a corpse a meter above the ground as the skin around her neck bruised from his grip.

Inside her rage switched from red fire to cold hate. 

The threat to her children combined with the exhaustion and existing cocktail of combat hormones to trigger something she had never truly experienced firsthand. 

Aertemisin, Aephrodaesin, unique hormones created by the Technocracy squeezed from glands all over her body into her blood stream. 

Aertemisin - among dozens of supporting effects on her secondary and tertiary sympathetic nervous systems - locked onto muscles stimulating macrophages to double their clearing of waste products and stimulate contraction more smoothly,
Aephordaesin shut down various cortices, disabling sensations of pain – phsycial and mental to plunged the mind into an emotionless state as the hormone locked in all receptors almost eliminating a sense of ‘self’ – memories, skills, and experiences served as input for a body that would act on pure instinct.

Unable to be reasoned, dissuaded or manipulated.  It was no longer Selaena per se but a body serving the People Jarys had just threatened.

And most powerfully of all currents of the aether flooded her every cell, refilling her with burning raw energies to use as she saw fit.

A blast from her drooping body blew Jarys an easy 30 metres and smashed him deep into the canyon rock.

Selaena – if she could be called that – landed into a run straight at him.

Finally!

He dodged- barely - her fist broke not only the rock were his head had just been but likely a bone in her hand as well.

This was the state he had been in when the Jedi had surrounded him and Kiraea on Myrkr, that Valens had been in as he fought first Jo’Set’Mack, then Yoda, then Lucovis. 

Aephrodaea’s Grace only activated if sufficiently aroused by imminent threats, it enabled them to fight to the very last with clarity and power beyond their normal reach without the distraction of pain or aetheric overuse – for a time.

He raised his arms to block her strikes, they hit like grav hammers, fast, brutal, efficient no longer wasting an ounce of energy, each matched by a precision metaphysical dagger and phase shifting to distort his senses. 

All her knowledge and experience was perfectly integrated and powered enough to cause him to feel genuine danger.

This was what he needed, fist get her in that state then teach her then how to use it  at will.

In his own mind he recalled the moment on Myrkr the Jedi had attacked without reason, had tried to harm Kiraea, had threatened the People…that was the trigger to activate the state in himself At Will.

Cold primitive logic taking hold as his own hormones set in he struck back.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 6 — Where the Heart is — Instinct — Part 2

Sofa

“Seriously?”

“Just do it!”

“Fine….” An indignant breath out she lifted herself and two dozen rocks telekinetically – Kiraea had asked for six, Sofa wanted to prove she was more than capable of using the aether, she had been a Jedi Master after all.

“Wrong!”

<Don’t you dare you….> Sofa raised her hand too late, the pliable reed sliced air striking her face, Sofa and the rocks clattering to the stony ground.

“You Frelling bitch!” Sofa complained, how Kiraea kept managing to whip her when she got something ’wrong’ eluded her.
Worse Kiraea wouldn’t tell her what she was doing wrong.

In a flush of anger she grabbed the nearest rock and hurled it at Kiraea’s head, with Aethan strength it must’ve flown at least 300 kmph but still Kiraea dodged it.

She was meant to be learning the ‘Guardian Arts’, so far all she’d learned was Kiraea truly was the Galaxies biggest bitch, and Sofa wasn’t quick enough to attain the satisfaction of slapping her.

“Well what am I meant to do instead then?” she snapped

Kiraea blew out her hair pulled back tight as her black leather outfit as she stood on a rock outcrop ten metres away twirling her whipping stick in her fingers.

“You have to use the aether and let the aether use you!”

“Yeah let the force flow through you, it guides your actions, I’ve heard that one since I was six.”

“And you still clearly haven’t learned it,”

Kiraea understood the reason Sofa kept failing, it was easy enough to tell her, but that defeated the purpose, she had to learn for herself or she would revert back to old habits.

Inelegantly sitting back upright Sofa hissed out

“I don’t get why Valens couldn’t teach me….”

“Because he would be too easy on you,” Kiraea replied quickly “He loves you too much to be hard on you, one of his many failings,”

“…or Milaea,”

“She has her own lessons to learn. Now try again, only four rocks this time,”

Jaw twisting Sofa contemplated unleashing a broadside of profanity…but held off for now, settling into a lotus position she breathed in the living force as Soryu had taught her and allowed it entry….

She felt the aether from deep in ground well up and through her like a rich treacle, it sought to infiltrate every part of her, overwhelm her. She guided it away from completely inundating her heart, her head, and other sensitive places.

Kiraea watched as the same mistake was made, Sofa just wouldn’t fully open herself to the aether, she kept parts of her body and mind sealed off from it – this was a necessity on other worlds, but not here, not at home among family. 

While she continued to do this she could never achieve her full potential strength, which Kiraea had to grudgingly admit was likely at least equal to her own.

Sofa grasped at the rocks and imagined a lightness in herself to lift off the ground, but kept part of her thoughts ready to intercept Kiraea’s next strike.

“Wro….”

Snapping up her arm Sofa went to block a blow that never came.

Cold and wet slammed into her from above as Kiraea dumped a bucket of water, icy in the early dawn, on her head.

Hair covering her face in wet curtains, Sofa hit the ground mouth wide open with shock as the water soaked into her loose outfit and chilled her skin.

Hot anger steamed the water off in time with her leap.

“That’s IT!!”

This time Kiraea had to take the attack seriously, she’d incensed Sofa a little further than she’d wanted. 

In a flurry of wet black hair she twisted through the air into a round house kick that Kiraea had to telekinetically shunt herself to avoid.

Sofa didn’t let up, moving through the missed blow gracefully into another, then another as Kiraea wove across the rocks.

The pressure only increased as Sofa integrated elbow strikes and upper cuts aiming to knock the bitches teeth out, the flow of her limbs smooth with strength enough to shatter the rocks into granite flakes when she missed.

Kiraea had speed, but Sofa had strength and Kiraea had to admit better technique, no doubt carefully honed by Soryu over the years as a means of physical mediation and exercise, naively believing Sofa and Milaea wouldn’t adapt it to combat.

But that was all first and second level cognisance. Kiraea needed to hold out a little longer to achieve the higher level aim.  The more she dodged, the more Sofa drew on the aether to increase her speed, slowly filling all of herself by in a way she didn’t when asked – by instinct.

A tipping point was reached, Kiraea forced to block a low kick with her leg, the impact reverberating up her body as she snapped an arm to block Sofa’s elbow, the red sensation of pain flashed in her mind.

Lithe as a ballerina Kiraea arched her torso back, legs still in place rose into a flip kick and sought to grab Sofa’s legs as she spun around.  Sofa would have none of it, a quick step back then launching her knee forward slamming Kiraea in the back before she could complete the flip.

Kiraea skidded through the rocks of the canyon taking numerous grazes and bumps, twisting through the jagged blades of outcrops that lacked rain to smoothly erode the edges.

Kiraea recovered but not before Sofa had leapt from rock to rock to get over her and bring down a solid meaty slap to her face.

“That ‘Wrong’ too you tralk!” she screamed hair still over her face in wet clumped strands.

Checking no teeth were damaged Kiraea twisted her head to look up at the looming black haired woman, fury seething from every pore, but most importantly power filling every cell of her body.

“You finally got it right…”

“What by slapping your bitch face?”

“By letting yourself be able to.”

That answer stumped Sofa.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re the great Jedi Master you tell me,” the sarcasm was unnecessary, but the instruction was still important, Sofa had to work it out herself.

They simply remained motionless, Kiraea crouched, Sofa standing noting she had grasped all the aetheric energy she could to catch Kiraea, acting on instinct…she closed back off those parts of herself she didn’t want touched….

…then realised that was what had made the difference.

“I didn’t think…I just acted…let the power flow through me without restraint,” Sofa surmised

“Which is difficult for you to do…” Kiraea replied shuffling to her knees, Sofa extending a hand to help her up, she took it instantly, there was never any resentment between sisters no matter how they fought on occasion.

“You were violated hideously as a child, to open yourself fully is difficult, but not impossible,” Kiraea added

Sofa remained silent for a long moment.

“I want to protect myself…regain control, keep those parts of me safe…” she turned round surveying the damage done in her fury, it seemed unchanged, the rocks settled back as if they had always been there.

“But that cuts me off…from what I could do and be…if I hadn’t opened myself at other times, to Milaea, Valens…I wouldn’t have the life I do now…”

Her mouth pursed at the thought…Life might be easier that way… she ruefully considered.  Still she opened her heart to Milaea…or perhaps pulled Milaea into it, needing someone to care for and protect in a way she couldn’t protect herself at the same age…and opened her mind and body to Valens…

But still she didn’t fully let herself be subsumed by anything, not even the aether on this world where it literally ached to be allowed into every part of her.

“Is it really so bad if I keep a part of myself to myself?” she snapped more strongly that she had intended.

Kiraea didn’t answer, she could not make that decision for Sofa, only lead he to the realising that a decision needed to be made.

Exposing herself totally to the aether gave her power to slap Kiraea down…but left her vulnerable, guilty she made herself vulnerable by choice.

And what did she gain from it anyway, what did she need more strength in the aether for, Sofa could already protect herself…

But not against Kiraea whipping me…there’s always someone stronger…and if I can’t protect myself how could I protect…

And there it was…the reason she chose Valens and becoming and Aethan, left the Jedi…she wanted to be a mother.

“So is that the essence of it…I have to decide what is more important, protecting myself or protecting my children?”

Kiraea simply shrugged

The heady mix of emotions and thoughts brought her down, she slumped inelegantly onto the ground.

“…and what kind of mother would I be if I keep any of myself held back from my children…”

She stared blankly into the grey dust between the crags as if some wisdom was sealed in the metamorphic rocks when they formed billions of years ago.

“I don’t want my children to ever endure what I went through…” she glanced to Kiraea

“Or what you and the others went through…”

“And if that means I have to expose myself to protect my…our children…”

Kiraea shuffled over as the decision was made more potent for being unspoken. 

An icy focused calm settled over Sofa, it lasted only a few moments, but it was enough, Sofa had opened herself fully and had identified the key to entering the Aephrodaea’s Grace combat state. 

Now it was just a matter of practising unlocking it on demand.

Kiraea leaned forward and kissed Sofa’s cheek then held her hand.

“Rest up sister, tomorrow we begin the real training.”

<<<<>>>

Milaea

“Come on!” she called over the howling winds as she paused thigh deep in the snow atop the glaciers in the mist of a winter storm.

Her grandmother plodded behind.

Milaea had been surprised when Kiraea told her she was to train Kassyndra.  Still it made sense Milaea had Jedi and Aethan training, and was close with Kassyndra following her revival, and Milaea could add her own slant on what and how the teaching was done.

Things were not going to plan.  She had devised a careful and thorough training regime to improve her fitness and aetheric ability building to more advanced techniques, yet even with that Kassyndra struggled.

She had been too slow on the race along the plains, been banged up by even the simple traps Milaea had set and now looked positively exhausted. 

Her grandmother had not been raised to be a warrior, but she was an Aethan, bred and engineered at a cellular level to be better than this. 

Milaea kept going to the next trial zone, she would need to push her, force Kassyndra to draw on all the strength the generations of Technocracy design had left latent in her body.

She reached the peak, all around were grey jags peaking from snow interspersed with the bluish white of flat glacial platforms

“Mili I can’t…” the waspy voice just over the wind came as the first flecks of snow filled her hair.

Milaea could not be, in this moment Mili, the caring granddaughter…she had to be the master and Kassyndra the student, giving her no concessions or relief for no future enemy would.

Finally Kassyndra crested the ridge to the top…and Milaea struck.

Short swords in each hand she struck at her grandmother with singled minded fury. 

Kassyndra stumbled to the side, the pack with her training weapons still on her back dodging the first strike, staggering from the second by accident rather than design fumbling to get something to defend herself.

Milaea would not give her the opportunity, hammering forward Kassyndra’s only option was to turn hoping the backpack took the blows rather than her body.

A desperate and wasteful use of resources.

Milaea’s blades sliced through the straps and pouches spilling food and weapons onto the light snow.

Kassyndra dropped to the ground, instinctual kinetic barrier bouncing Milaea’s next blows to the side briefly opening her up.

Out of no-where Kassyndra blasted her in the breast with a heavy telekinetic wave. 

Milaea staggered surprised at the ferocity before charging again, substituting Jedi for aggressive sith techniques.

She was met with competent if wavering blocks from a training. 

Milaea allowed a few rounds of sparking clashes before stamping down as the snow storm turned deadly.

Red tendrils of precise telekinetic energy shot from Milaea’s torso piercing through Kassyndra’s shoulder and knees, smashing her to the ground nearly ten metres away burying her into the snow.

“Need to do a lot better than that…” she called snow now up to her waist as her nose tingled  with frost, secondary circulatory system flowing warm blood to her extremities.

She headed over to where Kassyndra had fallen, unable to see her given she was so deeply buried.

Milaea near froze stiff as she looked into the empty woman shaped hole in the snow.

“Where…”

Durasteel vices gripped her ankles and dragging her backward then face first into the snow…arms out to protect her head exposed her sides to a violent and swift kick that plunged her into the bank of white cold that now covered her.

She twisted herself back up…but didn’t recover in time to protect herself from the red blade of energy that struck her square in the sternum sending her back even further to the point she was worried she’d drop off the edge.

“I thought you were tired?” she gasped steadying herself.

“I am,” Kassyndra replied, “but I can still move…so I must,”

“So you must,” Milaea agreed rushing at her again palms open she used upper body combinations that Soryu had taught her, Kassyndra defected as best she could, blocking with the aether where she couldn’t,

“That’s it…combine the physical and the aetheric and don’t neglect the….”

A sharp blue stab behind her eyes forced Milaea to raise a mental block to keep the Aetheric Thorn from hitting her second level of consciousness

“…mental…”

“The three levels of combat…I understand…” Kassyndra grunted out as Milaea pushed her back, palms hammering her forearms and shoulder.

“…such is the way the Outsiders terrorized us…” the strength of her counters and blocks seemed to double instantly

“they overwhelmed us physically with their stun weapons, shattered mentally by abducting and separating us, and in the aether took us to places where we could not feel the touch of our Goddesses!”

Stunned by the ferocity in Kassyndra’s words Milaea missed beat and a counter turned into an elbow to her breast knocking her back again, only the ice cold of the wind taking the heat from it.

“Correct,” Milaea agreed circling around in the break as Kassyndra straightened as if a second wind of cold rage was propping her up.

Kassyndra, her grandmother was, in every other respect a gentle and patient person, but there had been moments where Milaea saw flashes of something far more assertive, first in the seiðr caverns and now again as they trained.

It was the raw maternal instinct, vicious to outsiders as it was protective to Children, the kind of ferocity and aggressive impulse that Selaena exhibited most obviously, Kiraea and the other women to differing degrees.

And no doubt I possess that instinct as well Milaea realized

In time with the piling snow Kassyndra’s instinctual aggression grew as they locked in hand to hand combat again, their foot work slowed by the now near waist high snow as night fell fully.

The instinct was strong, but not enough to compensate, medium block to Milaea’s low jab offered the opportunity, Milaea swung in with a head butt knocking her Grandmother in the temple then followed through with a back hand slap that sent her flopping into the snow which melted out the cold rage that had been building in her grandmother.

“That’s enough for tonight…we sleep here…” she rustled over to the pack to grab out a small shovel to carve a place to sleep under the more compacted layers of snow.

Within minutes their shelter was ready and they sat bodies still warm under same blanket, coals lit by the aether to warm grain bars.

“You trained often like this with the Jedi,” Kassyndra asked

“Not quite like this…even Illum wasn’t this cold, the Jedi training could be hard, but it was always tempered, Soryu could be tough, Sofa and Yoda tougher, but there were…limits…things they wouldn’t teach, paths they wouldn’t follow…”

“This Darkside you told me of,”

“Exactly…” she felt her hair begin to stiffen as the moisture froze and pulled over her hooded jumper.

“Lightning, Fire, many malacia attacks…they wouldn’t touch them, even telekinesis was limited to defensive methods…of course there were others not so restrained, the Sentinels and Temple Guard…but even so…”

“Seems wasteful…to not use all of yourself to defend yourself and your loved ones…” Kassyndra noted coolly.

“…so why do you do the same now?”

The suddenness of the -observation, criticism, attack? – stunned Milaea

“What…what do you mean,”

“You hold back Milaea…I’ve watched while you train with Sofa, or the Extolled, you don’t use those very things often and when you do begrudgingly…”

These didn’t seem like Kassyndra’s words, Milaea wondered if Valens hadn’t prompted a challenge - whether he had or not Milaea could sense Kassyndra believed what she said.

“I worry for you my baby, you father does too,”
By father Kassyndra meant Jarys rather than Soryu,

“I can protect myself, use those abilities if I need to…”

“How much more if you let yourself fully perfect them?” under the rug Kassyndra gripped Milaea’s hands her eyes glistening with nascent tears.

“I’ve lost two daughters already, I don’t want to lose another,”

It was then Milaea realised she was being tested too.

<<<<>>>>

Valens

Seated alone in the half constructed Bloodstone Aetheric Nexus aboard the Aethenaea in geosynchronous orbit Valens observed everything.

Sofa had moved onto learning precision Aetheric lightening, in the tradition of mutuality showing Kiraea her take on Soryu’s enhanced Niman form.

Maeson experimenting with new ways to allow the aether flow through him to enhance his slightly below average connection, Melron suggesting a means he had sensed from the High Sentinel Yshrrk on Ord Mirit. .

Selaena who tended to sniper and artillery roles was put through her paces acting in a healing and melee role against a clutch of Vosis with Jarys.

And shining brightest Milaea losing Jedi instilled inhibitions under the guidance of Kassyndra – her grandmother needed to learn how to expand, contract and control the temperature of aetheric fire, tune malacia attacks and use a Lighting shield - Milaea reached limits of teaching by reference to native animals that used such techniques - Kretor mites that made nests in burnt tree, Voschek scorpions that poisoned their prey with tail venom and aether – for so long and was forced to demonstrate.

Just as Valens and the other guardians had intended. 

With every use Milaea’s subconscious fear such abilities were a path to the dark side would lessen the Jedi dogma undone.

Kassyndra could turn Milaea more toward the Guardian and warrior she could be, free of ‘moral’ concerns, in a day than he or even Kiraea could in a year.

His time to set each their final challenge was closing in…it was almost as much challenge for him as….

The Alarms screeched as an unidentified Vessel breached Aethas atmosphere.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 6 — Where the Heart is — Instinct — Part 3

Lydan

Momo gently hummed as they sat atop a grassy hill, the rest of the gormin herd below chewing on the long grasses.

He kept his eyes on the edge of the forest nearby, if any vorynx were tempted to pounce on the herd that was where they would come from.

Lydan had been looking after the herd by himself for nearly a month now, his physical recovery essentially complete, but still he disliked being anywhere near machinery that served to remind him of the cybernetics imposed on him.

This made it difficult as Adaea was spending much more time off world on Aeda working on the Black Obelisk system…she had encouraged him to come and have a look at it but…for now he just couldn’t.

Perhaps he never could.

Momo grunted, big watery eyes staring at him sensing his disquiet before nudging him with her snout.

He probably should take a wander around. 

Standing up he took up his shepherd’s staff. Soon after his healing he had found a large fallen tree with number of solid branches, with Maesons help he had  fashioned his own staff, bow and arrows to protect the herd and help the recovery of his fine motor skills.

The staff was a simple piece of Obirion Wood, taken from the core of the tree it was just over his normal height with engraved hand holds so he could wield it with both hands or one as needed. He had been practising with Valens, Jarys and others as they visited him over the weeks and had been improving they all said…but he was not so sure.

Wandering round the herds he took in the sounds and smells, eyes wide open to pick out any movement in the nearby shrubs and hedges.

Just a few weeks ago so much stimulation would’ve been overwhelming…at times it did and he wore his large draped hat…but now that was only a few times a week rather than for hours on end.

Gently patting the gormin he kept an eye on the ground for any tracks that were not theirs, kneeling to sniff at the earth that he rubbed between his fingers.

Nothing smelt off, nothing looked off still he sensed something amiss…he just needed to…

A hammer smashed him in the left side…another in the right…he was pressed between the two invisible walls and pinned as half a dozen Vorynx, blazing teeth and glinting pearls that channelled the aether on their sloped heads rushed out of the trees.

The gomin reacted swiftly leaping and trotting into a large group, the bulls heads down to show their horns as they filled the aether with warning shouts and blocky telekinetic barriers.

The vorynx went straight past Lydan as if he were of no real concern.

He certainly felt of little worth.

The grass was in his face as low rumbles of panic from his herd boomed, his body ached…but he couldn’t let them be harmed…everyone of them was precious when there were so few.

Pushing up painfully, his ribs and chest feeling as though they had been under a boulder he gripped his staff and shouted enhancing his voice with the Aether.

“HEY HEY OVER HERE!”

The Vorynx paid no mind rapidly closing on the gormin as they wove between the telekinetic shields they could sense, banging into the once they couldn’t, and shattering others with their own energy blasts

Frustrated he gripped his staff mid-way and raised it up in a line with his right eye aimed straight at the vorynx nearest a gormin…pushing the aether into the staff he focused his mind on two other places…just ahead of the spear and just behind the vorynx head…

Like a spear he threw it through the aetheric opening just in front it vanished from sight exiting just behind the vorynx head some 100 metres away to hammer it in the back of the skull. 

The Vorynx skidded to a halt shaking its head confused as Lydan rushed forward grabbing his bow and arrows – while only of wood and with no sharp ends they were still heavy and strong enough to hurt.  He leapt up without thinking firing off three quick shots into another Vorynx – the first two hit it in the back, the third it deflected.

He landed among the six vorynx of the raiding party. A pack would usually have at least twenty members…he hoped they were not nearby.

Spinning his recalled staff it in a rapid defensive flourish Milaea had taught him, her techniques calming and centring as the Vorynx realising he was a genuine threat circled him.

“Momo back to the farm!” he ordered the matriarch grunting in acknowledgement as the gormin assembled behind her. 

Two of the vorynx spun to pursue…Lydan would not allow it.  Arm outstretched he used an aetheric counterweight manoeuvre Valens had taught him – rather than grip them directly which they could more easily sense, he bounced a see saw like beam of telekinetic energy up from under them flinging them into the air…then brought the other end of the see-saw round in a full 180 to slam them to the ground.

Hissing and howling the other leathery beast punched at him all at once.  Diamond sharp claws backed by muscled legs as large as his torso slashed with strength enhanced by the aether, he wove between them with the flexible Niman Style Sofa had shown him, using it’s open and opportunistic nature to strikes bellies and sides.

Even through hard leathery skin he did damage, muscles firmed from weights exercises with Jarys, staff enchanted with help from Adaea to make it stronger than natural wood, able to teleport and telekinetically move with much less power.

But still he was outnumbered six to one, the two he had slammed re-joining…if they could not take a gormin he might do instead.

A furious barrage of teeth, claw and poisoned tails rushed at him as he parried, countered and dodged in their midst, sweat dripping as his heart heaved, all twelve chambers squeezing hormone rich blood through him.

There was an excitement, and exhilaration to the fight, to knowing he was protecting his head, his People, his…

They are part of the planet too…

The thought caused him to pull his blows back, distracted him enough for a poison dripping claw to scratch his face.

Immune responses to seal the area kicked in leaving his cheek numb and devoid of blood flow, he pushed out an indiscriminate blast of telekinetic and electric energy ina vortex to turn the predators upside down to gain himself space as Lyaea had shown him.

The Vorynx rapidly righted themselves snarling and hissing as they circled.

He lowered his staff.

“There is nothing I can spare for you,” his voice was laced with the aether pressing minds as Valens taught with a sense of reason and firmness as Sofa had shown him.

“The herd is too small to lose even one, you will need to find prey elsewhere in the upper valley, the Goyruts are more numerous, but they too must be rationed.”

The Vorynx intense yellow eyes became inquisitive, he could feel their semi sentience turning over the meaning and vision they painted in a frame of reality the animals could understand.

The largest one, a female based on the lighter fur around the head made a low growl and backed away a few steps, then suddenly looked to the sky.

The rumble of engines cut through the still of the standoff.  Through the clear blue sky a bulky square ship covered in tangle of pipes and beams descended right toward where Momo and the flock had fled.

He stopped dead.

Memories of what had been done to him by the Black Sun crept along his spine in black chills, being made into the cybernetic slave Surge…doing horrible things under the electronic compulsion of half woken senses.

He couldn’t do it…he couldn’t go near such machines again, even thinking about technology made him worry he would suddenly regrow metal limbs…

The ship descended from his view behind the hill…he felt in the deep undercurrents of the aether Momo and the herd panic.

His herd…they were attacking his Herd…and he stood there frozen.

The Outsiders have come…first the Herd, then Adaea, Lya, Mother…
No the others will fight them off, Valens, Jarys, Milaea they can turn Outsiders to dust…

As loud as he could he screamed and searched in the aether…there was no response.

Heated blood filled his body as panic set in…
The others would’ve stopped them in orbit…they would never let them reach the surface unless…

Unless they are gone…

The black trickle up his spine became a river washing through him…he was alone the machines and outsiders had come, the herd was under attack…he had to act…he had to…

Trauma dissolved beneath the hammering impacts of Aertemisin that flooded his brain and Aephrodaesin severed any sense of fatigues from fending of the Vorynx, the Aether rushed through him like a tsunami sharpening his senses and buoying his strength.

He looked back at the Vorynx, stutter and doubt subsiding under the cold need to protect the Herd and the People.

“COME!” His word was joined with a dominating push in the aether that caused the Vorynx to cow before him…an instant later they were sprinting by his side.

<<<<>>>>

The wind split in rushing waves around as he crested the hill, taking in the scene below with…not just his own…but the Vorynx and Gormin’s eyes as well…

We are all joined

The ship was hovering above the herd, ugly bulky gunmetal creatures with six legs and four arms herding the gormin beneath the ship.  They clanked angrily with sharpened spikes on each leg in the ground, their torso’s spinning round rapidly arms waving and firing yellow blasts as 360 red visual sensors detected him.

He felt forward and sensed no life among them…they were all machines, false, lifeless things.  He would destroy them all.

A spray of rapid fire almost inviable in the bright afternoon sun desecrated the area with its artificial ‘tvuump’ sounds.

Spinning his Obirion staff he blocked the shots, the faux energy soaked up by the enchantment to power the staff even more in the manner his mother had taught him to deal with blaster fire when lacking a lightsabre or shield.

He charged Vorynx at his side.  The fire kept coming and more droids deployed, the rain of fire bouncing off his staff as he raced down, or the Vorynx telekinetic shields – the kickback slowing the vorynx more than Lydan who simply absorbed the energy.

Halfway down the hill he leapt staff over his head.  Just as Kiraea had shown he took the charge of energy the enemies weapons had given him and released it striking forth a huge bolt of lightning – their blue shield flickered and buckled before shattering, the power melting them into blobs of popping croaking metal.

Their attention now fully on him he landed with a roll back into a run and gripped the hovering ship with his mind drawing it toward him…Size matters not Valens had said…the Vorynx caught up as he reached the front line of droids.

Repositioned in a semicircle that partially flanked him they unleashed rounds of fire from each of the spinning arms, many he blocked some got through, but in his focused state he could feel nothing, only smell the hyperkeratin of his skin singe.

The charge met the line. Tooth and claw rent metal into keen edged shreds as his staff battered onto of the cylindrical heads then he spun to bash the spinning torso apart.

The outsiders…are soft…less dense bodies and materials…they break against us Melron had advised.  He made them beak now.

Pragmatic, precise and perfectly timed strikes dealt irreparable damage, his aether enhanced strength enough to topple some over despite their six bladed feet stuck into the earth. 

They struck back four arms switching configuration to two blaster two blades, spinning constantly and slicing and firing.  He took hits by choice and by mistake, arm, chest and face covered in thin lines of rich red…but he inflicted three times more than he suffered.

The vorynx tore into those he bowled over, shredding the creatures that did not smell of this world into scrap.

More deployed from the vessel as Lydan spun through the last on the ground, only now seeing behind him the twenty others he had crushed or melted.

No time for melee he turned the heated momentum of his charge into pure energy – blue lighting ripping from his fingers and striking the droids…he grasped each arc of lighting and guided it inside the machines just like Kiraea had taught to overload critical systems. 

The four machines simply dropped tiny explosions inside their bodies leaching smoke as the other four lobbed grenades amidst the yellow fire, he grasped the grenades and used his staff to block the bolts – but it had been a distraction.  Another hatch on the ship opened up releasing a hundred drones no larger than his thumb in a swarm.

They ploughed straight at him, his lighting response hopeless as like a shoal they wound with one mind around the blazing arcs.

Peppered with thousands of tiny blasts, his kinetic shield taking the brunt forced on the defensive, the Vorynx circling protectively about him scratching the drones to no avail, their thick hides the only thing keeping them alive.

The drones were hundreds, tiny and precise…like all the circuits Adaea worked with on the Obelisks…he drew upon the memory of how she kept so many things in mind at once, finding the commonality to them, linking and threading them together like when she sewed…

He focused on the shape, dead metal in the aether, bringing them all together in one common stream…then slammed them all together. 

The writhing shoal turned to a single slick block of metal in an instant, even as a few shots of the larger droid hit his back he slam-forged the drones into a ball he hurled straight up into the ship.

Instantly back to the main droids he flung two vorynx on telekinetic strings behind them and hurled his staff straight at one with gripping the other three into position for the res to the vorynx to rip into.

The last droids defeated the ship began to lift away the whirring sound of charging cannons raising ill memories in his mind.

He would not allow it to hit them from above.

Leaping straight up the grasped onto the pipe and beams of the underside, easily climbing round to the side just as Maeson had taught him on the cliff faces in the upper valley.

His fist charged with the aether seeking out the flow of energy and lines of weakness – the shatterpoints his sister had been determined to teach him. 

With his first punch a vast plate of doonium shattered, exposing the cables pumping energy across he ship beneath. A weaker being would be killed by the voltage, but Aethan biology as Valens explained was capable of withstanding otherwise fatal radiation and electrical surges.  He grabbed at the cables and ripped them out, hammering more blows as he crawled inside the vessel.

It was tight, airless, dense but for storage areas, a droid ship with no need for life support.  In the belly of the metal beast he tore it apart from within, shatter point blows cracking casing on critical instruments, aetheric lighting overloading key conduits.

The ship shuddered and sunk unable to resist the pull of gravity any longer.  Spinning round he kicked with shattering force on the plating on the opposite side from where he had entered, the wind rushing up and in to meet him as he leapt out.

Free falling he felt free, calm…even as the ground rose up to meet him, the gormin her trampling the dead droids the Vorynx howling toward him eager to have joined in on the destruction. 

The yellow plumes of destruction as the ship fell told them all it was time to leave.

Lydan hammered himself to the side with a teleport shunt just as Jarys taught, gaining distance from the ship and arcing his decent to land as safely as possible as far as possible.

Body covered in scratches, oil, blood and metallic dust he crashed into the thick stalks of grass turning to watch the ship fall…

Then stop dead.

Instead of a thundering collapse it gently lowered to the ground a few hundred metres away.

He was puzzled…had the droids landed somehow? 

Either way he needed to rid his home world of this filth.  Getting back up without thought for the fatigue that his hormones suppressed he raced toward the sparking dying ship as smoke filled the air, then condensed back onto itself as if being…packaged away.

At the foot of the ship was a lone figure hand outstretched aether flowing strongly.

“Well done Lydan,” Valens called across the field littered with broken droids

“Still some things for you to refine and sharpen, but not many, and more importantly…”

He turned to regard the haggard looking younger man

“When the threat was there you fought instead of froze against your trauma, though it would’ve been no shame had you done the opposite, or fled even,” 

Lydan heaved out as his heart slowed its squeezing, it had all been a…

“Trial yes,” Valens was by now beside him
“As you recovered we’ve all been training you, We all need to protect the People, we all need to use our instincts, our hormones our bodies to the full, the biggest barrier to that is here,”

Valens tapped his temple

“My doubts and guilt’s are my weakness, your trauma and natural introversion yours, all the People have their own,”

He placed his hand on his bloodied shoulder

“Do you understand the nature of the final trial?”

Heat radiated off Lydan’s body from the burst of activity, the violence of the last few minutes, and now the rapid need to understand what Valens was trying to communicate.

“Those flaws are always there…things I can’t heal…” Lydan flexed his hands, it had been nearly a month since he had any tremors or stutters, physically he was recovered fully…that was the test of the Vorynx to affirm he was strong enough to fend them off but also wise enough to know when to stay his hand.

His fist clenched.

“…but I can ensure they don’t bring risk to myself or the People.”

Valens nodded and handed the younger man his staff, noting the weapons balance and firm enchantments in the runes approvingly.

“A solid weapon for protecting the heard…but tomorrow we will go together and begin forging you a weapon more suited to the threats offworld…for now///I think your mother wishes to see you…”

Selaena

Her greatest terror, her deepest regret was not being able to protect her children from the Outsiders.  It was the very situation that made her hormones pump and she had honed with Jarys to ensure she could control her activation of Aephordaea’s Grace.

In Valens vicious final trial she was forced to endure all of it again, watching as Lydan faced the terror of machines, the bladed claws of Vorynx, and was forbidden from helping her son in anyway.

Only by using what she had learned in controlling the heightened combat state could she restrain herself.

But that was over now, and she nearly knocked Lydan leaping across fifteen meters to grasp him tightly around the neck with arms that would never stop fighting for him and now - after two months training with Jarys - were twice as able to.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 6 — Where the Heart is — Instinct — Part 4

Maeson

Weary from the road he almost didn’t notice the slight change.

The door to his long house was ever so lightly off compared to where he had left it so many weeks before, subtle traces of a mouldy not to say rotten scent in the air.

Drawing his newly forged sword he cautiously approached, he knew to expect his final trial from Valens soon…it could be anything…

Past the budding trees of his orchard awaiting the winter rains to seep down into the warmer earth and stimulate the fungi which would join in a mycorrhiza with the roots so they would grow rapidly in the spring he creaked the door open just slightly.

He had expected a hard trial from Valens…but not his hard.

Three bodies tightly wrapped in dank fabrics that had the ruin of years upon them lay on the floor. 

He knew who they belonged to, and why they were here. 

His Wife, his son, his daughter, killed by the outsiders, interred by Valens so many years ago while Maeson was slaving in the Red dust mines, returned from the Caverns of Persephaea to hammer into him once more he was alive and they were not.

Beside the door were fresh bolts of cloth. 

He could’ve fainted, ran…or driven his own blade through his heart to join them.

But he was alive and there were still women to protect, new generations to raise.  He would never forget his family, but he needed to, quite literally, bury them.

Sending his mind into the state of clarity and emptiness needed to perform such an overwhelming task he began.

<<<<<>>>>

Hours later he left the house, carrying the three freshly wrapped bodies, the smell of dried decay all over him as he walked, and walked, and walked to the caverns.

Adaea was there waiting, it was important that a woman be present to be witness for the Goddesses, something denied them at their first burial.

Torch lit they slowly made their way down the deep black caverns past the other victims of Outsider horror, their niches covered by red cloth except for one large carved space where the cloth curtain was opened ready.

Sprinkling water and flowers upon the stone and bodies, carved bloodstone totems around the necks, Adaea stepped back as Maeson fulfilled his task, as Guardian, Man, Husband and Father and finally, with his own hands, laid his family to rest.

<<<<>>>>

Sofa

“Well?” her voice carried irritation as she tapped her foot on the rugs covering the wooden boards the fire warm long house that served as their ‘house’ until Sofa could have Valens build her something more refined.

Said Valens was on a bench jotting notes as he read through three books on 8th dimensional physics simultaneously.

“hmmm…” his indifference irritating her.

“You’re meant to be giving me my Final Trial or whatever?”

“Oh…I considered various options but decided that given you’ve already passed Jedi trials and faced your fears and such more than enough times you don’t need one,”

Her eyes widened

“So that’s it, I spend two months with that pathologically violent bitch Kiraea preparing for whatever you’re gonna test me with to prove I’m ‘Guardian worthy, and this is all I get?”

Valens only motion was jotting down some abhorrently complex equation.

“That was a question not a statement!” she complained

“What more is there to test, you were already a Jedi Master, expert in Niman forms, able to fight Jedi, Sith, Yuzzhan Vong, you just needed to refine a few non-Jedi abilities and control combat hormones which Kiraea assures me you have done,”

Sofa stood perplexed not knowing where to go, there was logic to what he said, but also a sense of disappointment she didn’t get to prove herself.

“Was there anything else, I need to concentrate on this,” the dismissiveness of his tone made her want to slap him.

Frustrated she huffed and turned to leave to cool off at the waterfalls or something, then paused at the door.

“So there’s absolutely nothing else I’m just a Guardian, no formal ceremony or anything,”

Valens sighed

“You have my affirmation, the others will pick up next time we link our minds…”

“This sucks…I thought I’d have to do something,”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, crazy vision quest, hunt a giant Vorynx, find some magical amulet, solve some clever riddle….”

Valens sighed finally putting his stylus down,

“Would it make you feel better if I set you some task?”

“Well yes!” she replied turning back around.

“But why, it would be so, superfluous, what difference would it make? Why do you need to do something more than you already have?”

“I don’t know, maybe it would just make me feel normal, properly accept if I’m tested in the same way as all of the others, no special treatment from you cause we’re together, or because I used to be….”

She pursed her lips

“This is it isn’t it…you’re trying to see if I want to be accepted as part of the People, if given the option just to coast will I insist I prove myself instead.”

His face tightened, usually when they were alone she only saw the softer side of him, now she saw the grim adamantium expression he wore around outsiders.

“Do you feel you need to prove yourself?”

Sofa knew she was hitting the right point now, but it was driving straight into her.

“No…but…yes, I don’t want everyone to look at me and just see the ‘remade human’, the ‘half Aethan’ or whatever…”

“Just you?” his words drove the blade in deeper still

“No…” her voice barely above a whisper he waited for her to say it.  Valens was well aware that for Sofa almost everything came back to the same goal she had cherished for so long.

“I don’t want our children to be thought of as…lesser, semi Jedi or whatever, cause Goddesses know I’ve thrown off everything the Jedi forced on me, more than Milaea,”

“To prove your one of us?”

“No,” she snapped “Cause their a bunch of dogmatic twits!” her frustration rising as her loyalty was questioned by one of three people whose confidence she always relied upon.

“The best the Jedi have, not that they listen to him, is Soryu, and he’s more living force hippie than anything else…” her face turned into the shadows of the flickering fire.

“I wonder how he is…” she shook off the thought, the sad reality of likely never seeing him again stung.

“So yeah, despite everything I’ve done, I still need to show I’m just as Aethan as Aethan can be so no one can doubt me or my children, honestly its tiring.”

His face finally softened

“To admit that openly at last is enough, none of the others think of you as less than People, once they and the Goddesses accept someone that is all, your power on Vultper showed the latter beyond doubt…” he finally stood and wandered toward her, strong hands comforting on her shoulders as she let her head droop to nuzzle her cheek upon his hand.

“Any remaining doubt is yours alone…” he took her fully into his embrace
“But you have all your People to allay it,”

<<<<>>>>

Milaea

The pin slammed in with the familiar shriek of metal against rock and she quickly looped the rope up, a quick tug securing the knot.

Among the many more ‘practical’ things Milaea was teaching Kassyndra was rock climbing – not a typical Jedi skills compared to general parkour – but one that could not hurt.

The winter sky was a deep grey, almost black with cloud that held its rain tight as they raced to the hidden hanger doors above them on the outer face of Mount Aelia before the down pour began.

The days had flown by after their nights on the mountain, each learning from the other even more than they had the first few weeks after Kassyndra had been healed and awakened.

While Milaea could teach physical skills and aetheric techniques, Kassyndra in turn continued to teach her what Milaea never quite learnt among the Jedi or with Soryu, a more grounded and homely way of thinking.

Much as she loved her father, Sofa, and Yoda for raising her, they had done so as Jedi, their compassion diffused to all beings, morality high.  Even Soryu’s focus on finding the simplicity in listening to the will of the Living Force, was, in it’s meditative methods still deeply steeped in mysticism.

Kassyndra, like the People, had a morality – or rather fundamental biological instinct, ‘morality’ being merely a term of convenience - that encapsulated only hearth and home, flora and fauna, a practical steady approach to all issues born of a subsistence lifestyle in which errors or introspection over the niceties would be punished by the weather or wild predators.

Like Melron she would tell Milaea stories after a day or evening practising Saber Forms or aetheric flows, her stories less concerning the Goddesses and mythology than homestead tales of practical wisdom, and at times witchcraft, how the seior was used to prepare for a forthcoming drought, a wise woman chosing the best worker and farmer as her mate.

It was grounded, earthy, and something Milaea wish she had earlier.

She had spent so long fretting over the fate of galaxies, trying to scry out what was right or wrong in a situation, worrying about whether using a certain technique would be giving into the ‘dark side’.  These were the things a Jedi would worry about, debate and even draw blood over…

Here clambering up the mountain side still wet from the previous night’s rains there was no time for thought just action.

As she lodged in pin after pin on the assent, Kassyndra throwing them back up to her as they went higher, she felt more free than ever.

Cresting over a jutting rock face she noted the small nest built high up by Snow-hawks, a few eggs nestled – life was returning, hope was returning, if anything was worth defending with all she was capable of it was this.

<Everything alright?> Kassyndra probed the winds at this altitude too strong for voices.

<Fine just some nests…>

<We are close…Valens is waiting…a task…our Trials…> Kassyndra’s words were not the result of observation but prescience, as they trained and Milaea taught her more ways of drawing on the aether Kassyndra’s seior abilities had strengthened significantly, her ability to predict the near future in combat by Milaea’s calculation up to 87 per cent.

At the start of their training Milaea had clear advantage of skills and experience, this was now dwindling as their Aethenaea cortices merged knowledge and Kassyndra found her own style using her seior arts to fight several dozen beats ahead, further than even Valens and Jarys typically would.  Milaea had to catch up in turn.

<Well lets get moving then>

The two women acted as one in seamless accord moving up the ever more sheer cliff face, their connection instinctual through blood and increasingly culture. 

Somewhere in the back of her minds Milaea knew she was dropping Jedi morals and concepts by the day, ‘dogma’ Valens would call it…and more deeply connecting with the innate biological patterns of thinking of the People. 

She was comfortable with that, even Soryu on Ord Mirit had moved far from the Temple Jedi ideal, and she finally had a safe, unhurried place to synthesize her own thoughts instead of racing crisis to crisis.  She thought briefly on Reeda, wondering how she was faring on the Jungle isles, the parallel not lost on her.

Finally they reached the millimetre thin jagged cracks that marked the secret opening to the mountain hangar.

Without a word Kassyndra gripped it in her mind, the embedded Blackstone recognising a Persons touch and yielding effortless despite the tons it weighed.

Quick flips and they were in just as the firs rains hit the polished ferrocrete, Kassyndra flowing warming and restorative energy to Milaea – Kassyndra’s martial abilities had developed to a solid level but it was clear her expertise lay in seior arts and healing.

As predicted Valens was waiting for them, his countenance usually iron had a grim shade as he strode forward in his ‘casual’ black leathers, bow and sword on his back as if preparing for…

Kassyndra lashed out with a blast of lighting just a millisecond before Valens could draw his blade, her shot hitting his elbow with such force it sent the neurons in his arm twitching.

The telekinetic response was enough to blast Milaea’s hair wildly about as it struck Kassyndra’s shield…but she wasn’t even there stalking around the side, driving her own training sword into his ankle before he could pivot.

The rapid fire blows and movements that followed were astounding to see, Valens was actually Behind Kassyndra in time, taking numerous hits and all his attempts to strike back missing or foiled. Yet she still couldn’t quite land what would be a critical blow.

It lasted thirty more seconds before something shifted in Valens, his aetheric draw increased by half in an instant and Kassyndra’s elbow toward his face was anticipated, caught even as her arms was moving into positon and twisted unnaturally even for an Aethans joint range.

“Impressive,” he said releasing her, the older woman rapidly recovering, innate biological healing enhanced by her aetheric expertise.

“If you can hold out for thirty five point six second against me you can deal with a regular Jedi…for two months of formal training that is exceptional, well done both of you,”

Milaea knew the brief skirmish was not the trial Valens had in mind.

“No, it is not…” he confirmed her thoughts

“The last trial for you both, is this…”

He fixed Milaea’s gaze a regretful sympathy in his eyes.

“You must tell your Grandmother exactly what happened,”

“No…” Milaea said almost at the same instant
“It’s not necessary, it’s,”

Kassyndra looked utterly perplexed at her granddaughter.

“She deserves to know Milaea, painful though it is for you both,”
“Isn’t it enough already, without all the details”

“What details? Milaea?” Kassyndra tried to interrupt

“What does it prove!” Milaea snapped the anger rising “What does it achieve other than making us hate Outsiders even more!”

“The truth might be difficult to hear, but it must be spoken.” Valens replied using Soryu’s preferred paraphrasing of the ancient Jedi axiom.

Her tone changed from defiant to defeated in an instant

“I don’t want to…to think about it, speak about it…remember it” the whisper echoing in the vast cavern

For a moment Valens wondered if he had gone too far in this test…yet the fact Milaea wanted to avoid it in around about way justified his choice…only he and Milaea knew the full truth…Valens had been there Milaea had Seen it flow walking.  It was a burden to them both, but Milaea would benefit from divesting herself of the secret far more than he would.

Milaea knew she had to, knew she would eventually…

“Alright, but let’s wash, get changed, find a quiet place to…”

“Now Milaea,” Valens would not permit her to procrastinate, the exceptional circumstances of a Guardians trial the only instance he could tell a female what to do.

Kassyndra might’ve wished to remain ignorant of what Valens insisted Milaea tell her.

As soon as her granddaughter began to speak, she had to shore her strength with Aephrodaea’s Grace to hear it, Milaea to say it.

Kassyndra knew her daughters had died, she had felt it while still enslaved halfway across the galaxy. 

What she did not know, what only two of the People did, was exactly how that had happened, what the Outsider Dark side Cultist the Quarren - the fiend didn’t deserve the honour of a name – had done to Shilea and Cilina.

The conversation was short but seemed endless as the depth of pain the memory held.  The shock was deep, the anger cold. The tears and embrace between grandmother and granddaughter warm in their wake.

The burden was not lifted but at least shared, across a dozen pairs of shoulders trained and tested to bear it. 

<<<<>>>>

[TheDutchman]

I've always enjoyed the various "training montages" that we here in the Forums seem to enjoy writing (and reading  ) about so much but these last chapters are that much more compelling as a collective character study into both our individual Aethans as well as the culture in general.  And while I like cheering them on for their individual successes (especially Lydan: good job emerging from the shell^^), I'm a little disheartened by the motives (READ: NOT THE WRITING/STORY/ETC; THESE ARE AWESOME!!!): the Aethans have had to learn and adapt in some of the worst conditions (slavery, kidnapping, murder to name a few), retreating and reinforcing an innate insular nature while trying to prepare for the worst that the galaxy has.  And each and every one of them have to learn those lessons the hard way...

Again, what's so compelling about this story is that we really get a peak behind the Force demigods and instead are able to see them in the realm of mortals, as real people.  And like all people, they have their dreams, aspirations, and foibles driving them and their actions.

A bit of a personal favorite scene: Maeson's "test:" given the overwhelming feelings of despondency and inadequacy he's suffered, he's confronted with one of the most painful object lessons that one can learn.  Great writing LSG, powerful chapters 

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 6 — Where the Heart is — Unions — Part 1

Valens

The vibrations chained through the grey-sleet as they stood dead still in the near lightless passage ways.

Genetically perfected eyes caught rough outlines in a grey-green as they sensed the movement with gravit-vestibular senses that detected motion and movements of mass within and around them.

There were at least five Volurks nearby, four half a metre long one nearly two metres, possibly the mother, the depths of the melt formed tunnels beneath the eastern mountains were filled with the pallid but vicious creatures that plied the dark still waters for eyeless fish, or any terrestrial creature foolish enough to try and take shelter here from a storm. 

Passing out of range Valens stood, his brown hair and firm features tinged by the subterranean cold as his brother rose in turn, Lydan behind him with somewhat stilted movements.

<Stay close> Jarys telepathically added to Lydan. Volurks were not overly dangerous individually, but with poisoned claws and natural abilities to stalk silently though the tunnels could ambush and overwhelms an Aethan in numbers, they had avoided them by sticking to tunnels where they had recently fed or hunted and unlikely to return to.

Moving slowly and quietly, aetheric presence supressed to an infinitesimal point they checked the rock strata for the layers they sought.

This was a new tradition that Valens had devised to make Sofa feel more at home, Jarys and Lydan essential to its completion.

In the damp stale air they plunged further and further, the strata changed to the more jagged metamorphic layers replete with jutting quartz even the odd hexagonal staurolite, Aethas geological history was a varied and chaotic one tossed to and fro at the whims of the deep cores extreme gravity.

<Keep your senses tuned for anything that seems to scatter the aether back…> Valens noted,
<And anything that seems bright…>

Valens was in front, Jarys centre and Lydan at the near, the caverns began to narrow further and further, crouching now half their attention was on looking for required materials, the other half the growing number of volurks nearby.

A kind of…sparkle…in the aether bounded off a small area just by Valens feet.

<Here…>

They moved quickly, Valens and Lydan kept look out while Jarys, physically strongest by a small margin over Valens and a larger one over Lydan who was still 15 years from his second and final growth phase, chipped around the cluster with a Blackstone chisel, prying with a crow bar when it was free. 

They supressed the vibrations and attendant sounds as best they could, the heat as well…

<Done>

Half of their quarry collected they carefully pushed deeper.

The last component was the rarest, but most critical for what Valens had planned…yet he was keenly aware there was a strong possibility there would be none exposed.

Another twenty minutes and the caverns were becoming overly tight for them to fit

<We should head back, if the Volurks strike we can’t maneuverer> Jarys said

<Just a little further> Valens replied, Jarys rarely saw his brother so…unwary

Love makes us do strange things he mused on an Outsider concept that had no real parallel in Aethan culture.

If Valens were obeying Sofa’s order he would understand, but Valens was trying to…pre-empt her in a strange way he could only rationalise as an unusual means of courtship.

Now almost on his stomach he final sensed it, the bright film so thin, barely the size of his palm it would be just enough, indeed possibly a little more if they were cautious.

He gently pressed the aether in blade thin lines around it pressing inward to ‘saw’ it…

>EEEEEEE<

Jarys winced, Lydan tried to block his ears and eyes comically as Valens hit a jutting piece behind the rock he had been cutting, the brightness and sound of the Whitescar reflecting his energy back.

Often termed the opposite of Blackstone, Whitescar was in fact a different form of ultrasende mineral that was a blinding white and ‘bounced’ the aether back at high luminosity.  It was rare even on Aethas – so rare none of them had any experience with it, only what they had read in books of their ancestors.

Whatever its properties Valens had to move fast, the Volurks had heard just as well as they did and were moving, a tangling writhing horde of slick legs bounding through lightless caverns.

Not time for subtlety Valens ripped the chunk from the wall.

Lydan was already moving, Jarys close behind. 

Cuts and scratches came by the dozen as their exit became the clumsily mirror of their cautious entry – you could not hide once the Volurk knew you were as the bones in small alcoves they had found surrounded by dried blood attested.

In the lead Lydan came upon an intersection they had passed, instantly hurling up a barrier on the left as at least a dozen volurks exploded toward them, sonar senses sharp as poison filled fangs.

They bounced against the kinetic wall, gnashing and scratching with thin long white limbs.  More came from the right…then behind…Lydan threw up more shields as they gained distance…till they suddenly stopped bashing his shields…

<They’re moving through the thinner tunnels all round!> Jarys realised, they whole mountain was crisscrossed with fist sized holes in the main cavern walls that the Volurks swam through.

Senses all round with every step they threw up another barrier in front of one of the Volruk holes, some began to be bashed upon, others untouched – but they could not risk removing a single one if they were to slow them.

The caverns widened further, their increase in speed matched only by the number of Volurks that sought them from every angle – they began having to release their blocks, allowing Volurks to spill out of their small tunnels 25 meters behind.

Of course they communicated this to their fellows.

Thermal, sonar and auditory senses were filled with the mess of Volurks about them in between stumbling through the caves that seemed so much more cramped when trying to move fast.

This was the Volurks territory, and they were intent on capturing the three increasingly warm bodies.

From under their very feet the rumble of their gliding motion came, the first of their ‘calls’ part vibration in the rock part gurgling screech was heard..

At the next confluence of half a dozen tunnels the first ones got in range.

Valens feet pounded unsteadily over the uneven ground as he wove to avoid the bladed claws and jutting fang filled heads, hurling bursts of lighting backward that the dark dwellers ate up just a greedily as they would his flesh.

More began to leap from their tunnels on the side, Jarys and Lydan weaving and shaking to avoid them.

Their responses differed as the plague increased around them, Jarys lit a shield of lighting, Lydan sucked in his presence to a null field barely a centimetre from him hoping the lack of the aether made him less appealing to eat, Valens simply hurled vortex’s of telekinetic energy.

They didn’t stop, nearly tripped, a dozen times each one of them nearly lost their footing, shored up by each others aetheric nudges.

Finally the bright of the sun outside peeked ahead, the fangs glistening behind them.

So close they could risk it all three in perfect co-ordination broke off some of their defence and teleport shunted nearly 25 metres ahead, in the half reality Valens pivoted and grasped not the Volurks- their aetheric hides too slippery – but the air and compressed it.

Releasing a whoosh of outside air poured in – they could not see the sun but they could certainly taste the unusual mix of micro particles in outside air.

The heat of the sun pressing against the Aethans backs the Volurks realised they had gone too far from their climes.

Warily backing up tot eh cavern mouth Jarys slapped a weary hand on Valens shoulder.

“Thank Goddesses out women are worth it…”

<<<<>>>>

Sofa

“uuunnnngggg….”

With more than a little drool on her pillow Sofa kept her eyes shut as something irritatingly woke her up

Snapping her fingers she telekinetically hit the light switch illuminating the small room she called her own within Mount Aeila, the Long houses the other preferred not exactly to her liking.

Her toes twitched away from something slighting pointed…nibbling…

“What the Frell…” she shuffled up sensing no threats, at the end of her bed was a furry Gobril that had been pecking at her foot.

“How did you get in here?” its black glassy eyes blinked as it stood on its hind legs, then like a rocket it darted off the bed and sat at the doorway of the neat blue grey and white Chiss interior designed room with the odd personal piece of Hapan or Alderaanian decoration.

Feet hitting the rug she groggily wandered over where it sat expectantly.

She figured better catch it and take it outside, Mount Aelia was still partially under construction and the poor thing could try and eat a plasma conduit or something.

As she reached out it darted into the hall.  That puzzled her, most Gobrils were fairly welcoming of playing with People, they were a companion animal, Adaea had a pet one Debi, Lydan had built small straw filled mini barns near each long house for them to rest in between trips foraging for berries and such.

“What are you up to…” she stepped forward and it darted back again.  Normally if a Gobril was afraid it would create a dozen illusions of itself running all over the place to throw of predators…

“So you don’t want me to pet you but you’re not afraid…”

Its beady eyes blinked and it motioned with its head, then darted off down the hall.

“Alright…no more games,” she sprinted after it.

Gobrils were little and quick, even able to run near on 100kmph without the aether the little furball took her on a winding trip through the main living quarters, the currently near empty armour and workshops, round tight corners and double seal blast zones designed to trap intruders in the event of a breach till it final lead her to the vast open door to a huge only recently excavated void.

There she finally grasped it. 

Puffing slightly as her finger felt the warm fur as the whole vast void was filled with coloured lights that spun like a discoteck then finished pointing at herself and a figure up ahead as a steady pop beat blared through an archaic ‘boom vox’ at the figures feet.

“Looking in your eyes I see a paradise,
This world that I've found is too good to be true”

In black synth leather jacket and swoop biker denim Valens sung the first line and spun around reaching out theatrically every movement in time to the music

“Standing here beside you, want so much to give you
This love in my heart that I'm feeling for you”

The smile on her face was almost painful, the absurdity of the role play as hilarious as the gesture was Romantic.  Mass murderer, psychopath, xenophobe, Valens was all those things – but also the most dedicated and hard working partner she could ever wish for.

The shock wearing off she managed to reply in tune without missing a beat.

“Let 'em say we're crazy, I don't care about that”

A sassy swagger in her step she slid up beside him with a flourishing teleport spin.

“Put your hand in my hand baby don't ever look back”
They did just that

“Let the world around us just fall apart,
Baby we can make it if we're heart to heart!”

Her head on his chest they went right into the duet

“And we can build this thing together, Standing strong forever
Nothing's gonna stop us now,”

He spun her out hands together

“And if this world runs out of lovers, We'll still have each other, Nothing's gonna stop us…”

Arms crisscrossed he pulled her back in
“Nothing's gonna stop us now”

They went through the whole song in all its over the top romantic pop soft rock excess, the light set up flashing and spinning in time with Valens choreography and the song, as it faded he spun to his knee a small box in his hand.

Her heart near stopped squeezing, as it opened to reveal the ring.  It was not necessarily what she would’ve expected…blinding white with a black band and three small inset purple diamonds – Aephrodaean Diamonds as she recalled, quite rare, the white mineral she had never seen…and laced with protective and communication enchantments.

“Sofa Neirai, will you marry me?”

<<<<>>>>

Kiraea

The elation and excitement beaming off the distant Mountain was almost too much.

“She does get excited doesn’t she…” Kiraea said to herself.  There was no precedent for any kind of proposal in Aethan culture, marriages were always arranged to avoid inbreeding, Valens was truly dedicated to making Sofa happy to be so innovative.

Back to her task she carefully sharpened the blackstone arrow head with a bloodstone polishing stone that imparted a glaze of aetheric suppression to the outer to make it hard to detect…

Speaking of hard to detect…

“You’re getting better…” she called

Jarys sighed and stepped out from behind a Obirio tree, on Myrkr he had been more than able to keep concealed from the Jedi, even in their own camps, but still couldn’t seem to sneak up on his betrothed

“But not quite good enough yet my love…hmm isn’t it nice Valens doing this outsider proposal thing…”

“Don’t often see him so incautious…”

“Oh so that was what your little trip was about…”

“A new tradition of sorts…I made this for you an engagement present Valens calls it” he held out the small pouch which Kiraea greedily took.

“Engagement present…hmmm….” Setting down the arrows she took out the carefully crafted necklace, Aephordaean diamond in Blood and Blackstone, White not really Kiraea’s colour, turning it in her hands.

“What does it do?” a hint of suspicion in her voice for anything she had not carefully prepared herself.

“Enhances your speed relative to the surrounding temporal environment, the Bloodstone stores the main aetheric charge, the Diamonds focus the energy into a localized temporal reduction…”

“And the Blackstone?” 

“That you need to imprint with your presence so only you can use it.”

Valens had suggested including an element of a tracing – Sofa liked to have her mate watching over her – Kiraea would not appreciate such a function at all.

“Like so…” she pushed her aura into the thin chain of blackstone, the primed ultradense mineral soaking up the unique signature and chaining it through the other components.

With a single swift motion she put it round her neck, activated it, and leapt the three meters in an instant of static time to knock him off his feet onto the ground, her thighs tight around his sides as her hands pressed his shoulders to the ground.

“Seems to work….” She whispered leaning to his ear,

“Let’s see how well it makes moments last…”

<<<<>>>>

Adaea

All that could be seen by a passer by was two perfectly toned buttocks and thighs sticking out from access panels in the wall of the vast Obelisk Array Ventral chamber.  One in red the other black leather.

Inside the cramped access void Adaea and Milaea were busily connecting up heavy bundles of blackstone conduits mixed by eldritch technique to Chiss circuitry.  Their fingers were sore, backs tight, for this intricate work there was no other way but getting right into it.

Admittedly they were doing more than was necessary in laying all the connections and cables for all Nine Obelisks when they only had one, and that still being worked on, but doing everything now would save time later.

The black hollow was filled with the endless sparks of aetheric lighting from their eyes or finger tips as they tuned the aetheric cabling just so then insulated it from the other eight identical cables to avoid interference.

Adaea had lost track of how long she had been hunched over, long enough for even her seemingly endless focus to tire.

Their full six levels of through focused on the task they only noticed the presence of a visitor at the last minute.

“Lydan!” Milaea creaked out of the small hollow surprised,

The shy boy offered a nod, his body jittery, but no longer from the largely recovered spasms he’d suffered after his healing…no this was nervousness.

“Hello, Milaea, sorry if I interrupted, I wanted to talk to Adaea…but I can come back later,” 

“No…” Milaea replied shifting out fully “We needed a break,”

She gave a gentle slap on Adaea’s rear

“Ada you have a visitor,”

“Hmmmm…oh…just a minute…” came the wall stifled echo of her high pitched voice.

Milaea rolled her eyes - a minute for Adaea when she was working on something often turned into an hour.

Dusting herself off Milaea headed off, Lydan was an open honest young man, his romantic intentions not at all concealed.

“I’ll leave you two to…” Milaea just smiled and headed out rather than finish the sentence.

He patiently waited until thirteen minutes later Adaea popped her head out

“Oh! Lydan what’s wrong?” she said hopping up bones righting themselves once more.

“Nothing I came to…give you a gift…a special engagement gift, If I may of course,”

“An engagement gift…like in the Holomovies…” she smiled  “Of course, how did you get here did Selaeana fly you,”

Adaea was well aware what a big deal coming to the facility built into the small planet of Aeda on the far edge of the Aethas system was, Lydan still had a terrible phobia of technology from his forced cybernetic mutilations long since removed, the flight here would’ve been very intimidating alone.

“No I…I flew myself, I’ve been learning from Sofa and Valens while you’re here working…so I could surprise you…oh…” he rummaged in his leather satchel, he was still dressed in his usual simple clothes.

“Here is your present…” he handed her a small intricately carved wooden box.

Already stunned by his presence, then his learning to fly, she was even more surprised by the two small Purple Aeprohdaean Diamond bracelets within.

The diamonds were in a blackstone chain the hum of enchantment buzzing off them.

“Lydan…did you make this,”

“Well…Valens and Jarys helped me with the first one…”

“Of course but still…” Tired though she was she scanned the objects, the enchantment was a simple but effective one,  by channelling aetheric lightning through the bracelet rather than her finger each diamond could act as a focusing crystal giving her twelve precise arcs from each bracelet when programming other aetheric objects. 

Instead without pause or warning she leapt up arms and legs around him, his strong frame built over months of fending off vorynx and vosis, building barns, felling trees and carrying young gromin easily holding her 270 kilograms and carrying her to the small kitchenette for the picnic he brought full of the produce he Maeson and Melron with Extolled Assistance were farming.

It was a gift perfectly suited to her work, a perfectly deferential surprise visit - her only regret was being too tired to thank him in the way she wanted…

<<<<<>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 6 — Where the Heart is — Unions — Part 2

Bridal Party

“…and over and through, and over and through…”

“OK I get it!” Sofa snapped

Sofa loved beautiful clothes and furnishing, Hapan, Naboo and Alderaan styles in particular. 

Ever since she was little she had drawn pictures of beautiful elaborate dresses, much to the disapproval of Jedi tutors for her ‘vanity’. And most of all Sofa loved buying beautiful clothes or having them bought for her.

She was not so keen on making a dress herself.

Yet for the last three days she had been spinning, weaving and stitching to do just that under Kassyndra’s guidance. 

Her main motivation now for pushing through this chore was not to get it ready in time for the weddings but to beat Kiraea who across the hearth was advancing much more rapidly on her wedding dress.

Tradition dictated that every woman would sew her own dress for her wedding, and stitch their own family ribbon.

In the absence of any blood relations Sofa had wanted to take Milaea’s colours, but the Black and Blue would be inappropriate - given Valens was all Black it would appear incestuous - so instead she took pure bridal white, meaning her children would have a pleasing black and white for their ribbons.

“That is better,” Kassyndra noted as the instinctive aetheric connection flowed experience between them, yet Sofa could sense the sadness beneath.

The last time Kassyndra did this it was with her own daughters, Shilea and Cilina, to marry Valens and Jarys respectively….there was a sadness to her aura but no anger.

Adaea having long finished her dress was sewing a larger tapestry with Milaea, Selaena and Lyaea in and out with fire wood and small celebration cakes.

It was terribly homely and cliché like a scene from a period drama, yet for all that felt warm.

“So…is there any kind of party the night before?” Sofa inquired ehile keeping her eyes keen on each stitch

“Party?” Kassyndra asked

“You know like in holo-drama’s where all the bridesmaids go out and get drunk at strip clubs on the night before the wedding,”

“Oh…well usually there would be a feast at the Gathering of all People from across the valley before the weddings…” Kassyndra explained sadly.

By tradition weddings were all performed once a year at the Gathering on the first nine days of the spring, the last stores of winter used for a large feast that was paired with a meeting presided over by the Guardians to decide any important issues for the coming year and address any disputes.

Of course with only twelve People….

“I don’t think it’s possible for us to get drunk anyway,” Adaea noted absently stitching an intricate pattern laced with the aether

“Our stomach acids are too powerful, symbiotic bacteria too efficient and enterocytes too selective for foreign proteins to reach our blood streams, and the blood brain barrier is”

“I get it…” Sofa cut her off, they all had the same encyclopaedic eidetic memories, Adaea just seemed more prone to actually receipt from it, especially when nervous, which despite outward appearances she was.

She had been with Lydan for months following his renewal, spent so much time with him on walks and picnics in-between their training her work on the fleet and obelisks, his with the Vong and looking after the herd….but there was one thing neither had ever done and they were very much expected to after the wedding….

“Don’t worry so much…” Kiraea noted to her unspoken thoughts, “You know how it all works, just take your time to see how it works best between the two of you, plus, errnnn”

Kiraea scowled at the missed stitch quickly glancing to see Sofa catching up on her. Yorna had always been better at cottage crafts than Kiraea when they were children…always making shoes when Kiraea lost hers…she wished her blood sister was there tomorrow in more than just spirit.

“plus…you get better at it as you go so don’t worry if it’s not perfect, even Jarys and I first few times were not so brilliant, such a surprisingly slow pace to start off with even when I squeeze my…”

“Kiraea….please!” Sofa interrupted again not wishing to know the overwhelming details she so freely shared.

“Hmmm…I know…just…I worry about him getting nervous too, which would make me nervous,” Adaea finally spoke

“Just channel Aephrodaea within you, she’ll take care of the rest if you need help,” Selaena suggested Sofa slightly discomfited by the likelihood Selaena would start offering her soon to be daughter in law bedroom tips.

“There done!” Sofa triumphantly held the dress up to avoid such a conversation

“Oh yes, done!” Kiraea cut in

Kassyndra looked at the two dresses, there were a few minor errors, but overall they were well done…the last time she had looked over such was….

Milaea’s hand was around her shoulder even as the thoughts of her lost daughters bubbled up.

“I’m sorry girls…” Kassyndra’s voice wavering “this should be a time of celebration,”

“It’s alright mother,” Milaea comforted “They are not forgotten…”

A brief moment of reflection passed across the women, for those two girls and all the others lost to them.

For now… Milaea thought, her work on healing the People by repairing the Obelisk was progressing quickly now. She knew they would not find many, but even one would be enough.

“How about some music before the blessings?” Lyaea broke the silence, always up for a good time,

“Oh yes!” Adaea beamed “Let’s sing the Hymns of Fecundity,”

Sofa nearly gagged at the thought of chanting about the ‘soils of her womb’ fortunately Lyaea intervened

“ermm…maybe later how about something different…more…pop?”

Taking out her iholo, still an object of fascination to Kassyndra, she put on some karaoke tracks.

It was hardly traditional music in any sense, but with the engagement gifts Valens had instigated they were already changing.

Alone, in pairs, or odd groupings they sang to the well known ballads, pop and rock songs, even Selaena added her surprisingly light singing voice to a few as they drank back litres of Gormin milk and ate dozens of small pies and pastries.

Milaea taught Kassyndra how to make aetheric ‘fire works’ to light up the long house in fluro blue’s, reds and purples, Lyaea removed all but the barest of her clothing dancing very suggestively with Kiraea, Sofa kept to her usual soft-rock inspired moves.

Levity and laughter filled the house until the moon light peaked in at the appointed hour and Selaena brought a temporary halt to the festivities for the final part of the tradition.

As a group the walked the short distance to the Caverns of Aephrodaea, the last night of winter’s air chill enough to cause their dancing heat to wisp off them.

Kassyndra as eldest lead the way with a torch and quickly lit the braziers within the cavern.

Wordlessly everyone removed their clothes to enter the sacred space.  Sofa wasn’t sure exactly what the Blessing involved but the way Kiraea playfully pinched Lyaea after their more than friendly dancing made her eyes widen.

“Alright Sofa you can go first,” Kassyndra explained directing them into a small side cavern the walls etched with images of Aephrodaea of Fertility and Birth, a small pool in the middle.

The older woman pointed to the pool, with shrug Sofa stepped in.  The water was absolutely freezing as her toe dipped in as instructions flowed into her mind direct from…

Not the other women…the cavern itself…but…more than that… Sofa realised, enchantments were common in Aethan society…but this seemed more in a way she couldn’t explain, like a voice/

She had to stand naked in the special pool right as the other women lined up to perform the Blessing of the Womb. They knelt in front of her and kissed her abdomen in line with her womb after reciting a blessing thereby indicating their love and support of all her children before they had even been conceived.

Strange as it was there was something very heartfelt about it Sofa liked.

Milaea strode off to the back of the line as Adaea stepped forward and knelt before her.

“I bless your children with the wisdom and foresight of Aethenaea” she said before her quick but warm kiss…It wasn’t so bad, a pre-emptive bridesmaids baby shower…

“I bless your children with the strength and courage of Aertemisaea”, Selaena followed

“I bless your children with the compassion and beauty of Aephrodaea” Lyaea after that

The first three were always the same ritualised blessings given to every child.

“I bless your children with the ability to hunt and kill like Aertemisaea, the cunning and trickery of Aethenaea, and the sexual prowess of Aephordaea,”  Kiraea’s blessing kiss lingered a little too long for Sofa’s liking…or perhaps not long enough, Kiraea winked from below as she parted.

“I bless your children with long life and good health, may they always remain close to the Goddesses as safe in their embrace,” Kassyndra followed on, again there was unconcealed sadness for the last time she had performed this ritual was with her own daughters. Again Milaea was quick to offer some comfort to her grandmother before kneeling herself.

“I bless your children with all the best qualities of their mother and father, the generosity of their grandmother Lyssia, the dedication of their great grandfather Andis, and the compassion and gentle spirit of their grandfather Soryu,” Milaea’s kiss was the warmest yet and seemed to flow heat across Sofa’s torso…

Suddenly Milaea leaned forward and hugged Sofa at the hips her cheek resting on Sofa’s stomach and her long red gold hair brushing Sofa in places she never would’ve imagined her former apprentice’s hair would touch.

“I promise, with all my power I’ll keep your and all the new children of the People safe as I can” Milaea added, with that she stood, Sofa gave her an appreciative hug and with that the entire ceremony was over.

“Thank you Mili, I appreciate it,” She added as she stepped out of the pool onto the various towels and rugs placed around the sacred area. 

“Right now it’s my babies turn for the blessing…” Kiraea leapt up as Sofa left the pool and gave her a suggestive wink…

here goes…

<<<<>>>>

Bachelors

The Memorial statue was lit by the nine ever burning aetheric fires ahead.

The brothers began a slow procession each cradling a small candle.

Though they might have moved on, they still remembered and would honour their first wives memory, and all the dreams they had never to be fulfilled.

Lock in step Jarys and Valens placed the blue burning candles before the large statue, the two female figures cradled by the Goddess were modelled on their lost loves likenesses, Cilina and Shilea, an ever present reminder to them.

Though they had only each had one night together before the Devastation, they had grown up together, friends perhaps more than lovers…they simply never had the time for it to fully grow.

Their burden sitting on the stone tile – at least in part – they turned to each other and embraced.

One day the two of them would go to Nar Shadda where their wives had been tormented and killed, one day they would have their vengeance if not on the now long dead individuals, but the entire Hutt and Outsider culture that had perpetrated the sins. 

When they did it would be at the head of an Army of Aethans followed by Legions of Extolled and Sons and Kessel to liberate and purge in equal measure.

“Come brother,” Jarys said after a few moments looking to where Maeson and Melron were setting up under the light of the first full Spring moon.

“We must keep living…there is still much to be done,”

Both tonight and in the years to come. Valens thought.

<<<<>>>>

Union

Aethan Weddings were less solemn vow giving and receiving than public acknowledgement of a betrothal or existing relationship.

Even so it still had elements of ceremony.

Milaea and Lyaea covered the ground in petals and spring growths of specific plants used in fertility potions, Maeson and Melron erected a twinning arch of branches, Selaena as a woman the only one able to add the sacred Triquetra atop it.

The three brides in their newly fashioned white gowns, coloured by their Aephrodaean diamonds engagement gifts, stood on the left opposite the grooms in newly stitched leathers on the right, lined before a statue of the goddesses at the focal point of a large semicircular open air theatre. 

It still showed a few signs of the two decades it had been abandoned to the elements despite the men’s efforts to clean and repair it over the last two days.

Kassyndra as the eldest stepped before them to perform the simple task of declaring the union. 

She had been hesitant to do so, Selaena had offered to take over if she needed, but Kassyndra needed to do this herself, to help move on.  Looking to her granddaughter for strength and comfort she began.

“We come to all witness what the Goddesses have already enjoined in these couple, Kiraea and Jarys, Sofa and Valens, Adaea and Lydan, let all know they are wed from this day. 

May they and their children be wise as Aethenaea, strong as Aertemisaea and fertile as Aephrodaea, and their lives as one be blessed…”

She gestured forward and the pairs raised their hands to meet between them.

Aetheric lighting flowed from both bride and groom, mingling and twisting over each other’s arms then bodies, their aetheric presence tightening, two rivers joining as one till the connection that drew the energy from within and without was fully one.

The bonding ritual complete and witnessed by the People, the Planet and their Goddesses Milaea flicked her wrist with a red glowing flourish for an innovative surprise. 

Half a bloodstone dozen orbs she had been experimenting in stolen moments with for her own secret Project Persephaea erupted with flares of aetheric energy in the morning key creating fireworks of luminous purple and red against the white spring cloud backdrop, the tips of the Northern Cordillera behind.

The Ceremony over they headed to the large table for the feast, Valens theatrically carryover Sofa who tossed a bouquet for reasons that left everyone but her and Milaea perplexed.

Covered in some of the new growth fruits, berries and seeds from the Extolled enhanced soils of the Jungle isles, as well as some meat in the form of Gopin breast Lydan and Maseon had prepared. 

As always the centrepiece was a large stew voraciously consumed as they sat beneath the glimmering sunshine.

The afternoon was filled with traditional games and dances, a caber toss that everyone had Jarys pegged to win was snatched by a meter by Lydan stunning everyone and making Adaea more than a little excited.

A stone put game in which they hurled a small rounded grey sleet rock through a ring barely half a millimetre wide enough to fit it.  Selaena, ever the sniper, unsurprisingly won that one getting four of five shots through.

An archery competition came down to Lyaea and Kiraea each of their hand crafted Blackstone bolts ramming into the heavy target like drills, by the end it was decided Lyaea had won after Kiraea frustrated shot blew the target apart – they couldn’t tell if it hit the mark from the wreckage.

Maeson and Kassyndra played off in three simultaneous games of Go-Stone a chess and checkers like game over six interacting boards, keeping all six levels of conscious thought active and integrated. Melron recited new Saga’s he had been writing chronicling their own life stories, there were certain elements of exaggeration – Grand Master Kimar renamed the Kim-Uur a fearsome six horned beast that reigned over the Jedaai warriors and ironically made the Ikotchi backstabber sound far more noble than he had been, and his final battle more evenly matched.

“These are the truths as we see them,” Melron explained “And will keep the young ones more entertained.”

By the time the sun was setting Milaea had begun sketching a picture of the assembled party that she would later turn into a tapestry, imbuing a small memory orb with the aetheric aura of the day as it progressed so the feeling could be etched in gormin wool and flax for future generations to recall, the first Wedding since the Devastation.

As the time for the evening meal approached Adaea was barely restraining herself after Lydan won another competition, this time the wrestling against Valens – Milaea suspected in both victories the fully developed post second puberty adult men had gone slightly easy on the younger one, but not noticeably, Lydan was certainly developing strongly, compared to the half alive lump of flesh he had been it was astounding to see.

Their goodbyes made Adaea and Lydan headed to one of three small cabins traditionally reserved for new couples some three kilometres away in a small gully, each surrounded by trees and a creek for privacy – though it was inevitable Kiraea would talk on what occurred for weeks after and pry it out of Adaea and Sofa too.

The small baked cakes Lyaea had made finished, things wound up, Maeson clearing the tables, Kassyndra piling up the scraps she didn’t feed to the curious Gobrils that that attended the wedding since the morning for the gopins.

The final waves passed they each headed to their homes or cabins, Jarys and Kiraea however vanishing – quite literally with their buried presence techniques – into the forest, Kiraea making good no doubt on her desire to make love with her husband beneath the open sky.

It was not exactly the wedding Sofa had imagined as a girl, but it was certainly better than the absence of one she would’ve had as a Jedi.  Wandering along the path to the cabin she let her hair run loose in the breeze.

Valens closed the door the cabin sharply.

“One more surprise…” he whispered heading to a small table in the wood and rug filled single room wher there was a very out of place Chiss satchel.

Drawing out the contents he handed it to Sofa,

Her eyes beamed as she scanned the documents,

“Are…I mean is it safe to go?” she near squealed

“Of course, we have to keep a low profile but Lyr has arranged everything up front for maximum discretion,”

Her arms near broke his neck in the hug.  She wouldn’t have minded a few days in the cabin together as a honeymoon but this…this was even better.

She was finally getting to not just holiday – honeymoon! in Hapes!

<<<<>>>>

[TheDutchman]

OK, this is easily one of my favorite chapters, LSG 

Once again, I like seeing the...softer side of your characters.  It's telling that the Aethans would incorporate Outsider traditions, all for Sofa's benefit.  Yet the sharing is not just one way: we see how Sofa adapts to her new culture, courtesy of Kassyndra's needlework.  And by such, we see the extended family draw together that much more tightly.  Speaking of...

It serves as a reminder that the Aethans didn't start out like how they've become, forced by circumstance and the base intent of those that would have them enslaved.  And that's what makes this so enjoyable: it could be a celebration between husband and wife ANYWHERE.  The fact that we see it in a galaxy far, far away is just as endearing 

Oh, and the ordeal to just obtain those diamonds is testament to the mens' commitment to their wives-to-be^^

...Besides, how much more appropriate is Valens' musical choice than StarShip?   

[Karmack]

Finally had a chance to catch up...

Honeymoon in Hapes?   Why does this seem ... omninous?   ;-)

Great chapter, love the peeks into the "real life" of the Aethans.  The continued need for vengance expressed by Valens and Jarys is down-right terrifying in a way, though, if only because of the very power they are talking about wielding...

[TheDutchman]

Special thanks to LSG for trusting me with his characters^^
This chapter is dedicated to him 
****************************

Chapter 7 – Where the Heart Is – In Good Times… – Part I

Sofa

Sofa lay forward, her naked skin touching Valens’ chest as their steady breathing slowed, already in rhythm as their lungs efficiently processed blood oxygenation.  Inhaling, Sofa luxuriated in the comforting pleasantness of her husband, vaguely aware of the significant differences that her Aethan biology provided her, in this case, lovemaking.

Valens’ hands caressed her back, the sheen of sweat only enhancing the feel.  Sofa smiled lethargically, her thoughts affixed on the contradictory senses that his touch elicited: his hand and arm felt as hard as durasteel yet his stroking fingers were as gentle as the Hapan summer breeze.  Beneath her cheek, Valens’ chest rose and fell steadily where, again, the firmness of his muscles seemed more relaxing than even the softest bliz plumage-filled Zsajhira pillows under-head.  And every time she opened her eyes, she couldn’t help but stare wonderingly at the gorgeous white and black wedding band adorned with three brilliant purple Aephrodaean Diamonds.

“They’re beautiful…” She whispered, not for the first time.

“So are you.” Valens voice was uncharacteristically soft, his eyes as vivid as the diamonds on her ring.  Cupping her face, he kissed her passionately, deeply.  She felt once again the stirrings of excitement within her, first from her toes up her legs, then from her navel up to her neck, a warm sensation pulsing from down below.  Biting her lip, Sofa moaned softly as Valens’ hands seemed to explore her entire body, all at once both hard…and gentle.  “Again?” Valens amused tone had a hunger about it, one that was only partially due to the hormonal influx produced by Sofa’s Aethan biological imperative, known as Aephrodaea’s Desire.  The glint in his eyes became almost predatory…

…Consequently mirroring Sofa’s own desires.  “Oh yes…” She purred.  “I can tell that you’re already up to the occasion.” She laughed enthusiastically, quickly joined by Valens’ own husky chuckle.  But his expression changed soon enough, intent upon the sensuous task he’d given his complete attention to.  Sofa once again allowed herself to focus all six consciousnesses, all at one with her husband and in the moment.

A moment that lasted a considerable time.

Laying on her side, Valens’ strong arms wrapped around her protectively, Sofa smiled broadly as Valens whispered in her ear.  “Honeymoon wishes for you.”  It wasn’t often that she heard that particular jovial tone come from his mouth.  She savored it, enfolding the memory in the Aether so she could recollect it anytime at whim.

“Actually it’s ‘happy honeymoon.’” She teased, her eyes lazily closed as Valens’ finger traced a line from her throat downwards.  “Mmm…” She arched her back.

“Outsiders say the strangest things…” Even though she couldn’t see his face, Sofa could almost see the half-serious look on her husband’s face.  Of course, a “honeymoon” was a foreign concept to the People, especially one as collective as the Aethans.  But, much like his proposal, Valens had wanted to honor and surprise his wife-to-be with something that she’d always wanted: a vacation to Hapes Prime.

As a former Jedi, Sofa had been told that any dealings with the Hapes Consortium would be…problematic at best.  At worst?  Well…there was a reason that the Order had all but ignored the Consortium for centuries, one that even now saw Jedi as little more than dogs in the eyes of the Hapans.  But Sofa had so wanted to experience the incredible opulence that the Consortium boasted, from fine Pogam-blood wines to the expensive byrlewood furniture and panels found only in the most prestigious of rooms, most of those belonging to House Royal.

Most…but not all.  Should one, say, have the connections—and of course the wealth—then one could secure one of the lavishly gorgeous suites offered by the Royal Courtesans’ Willow Château located in the Hapan capital of Ta'a Chume'Dan.  Aside from the prestige and provenance of the rooms themselves, the Willow Château also held the distinct (and indeed, singular) honor of overlooking the actual Castle of Per’Agthra, the Queen Mother’s own Fountain Palace itself.

It was a sight of majesty that Sofa had long dreamed of seeing, one that she now held before her eyes as she focused upon the tableau conveniently displayed outside the Bridal Suite’s balconies of Willow Château.  Almost as beautiful as her ring…

Turning, she lay face-to-face with Valens, a satisfied smile touching his lips.  “If we continue like this, there won’t be much of a ‘Bridal Suite’ left…” His eyes looked around the room deliberately.  A curious look on her face, Sofa followed Valens’ gaze.  “Oh, frell!  What…how…?” She tried to stifle the laughter that even now threatened to erupt forth, only partially successful.  “Was…was that…us?” She hid one eye behind her palm, both incredulous and amazed.

Almost every single standing piece of furniture showed signs of disrepair, many broken, and even a few—like the priceless Zsajhira vanity, its mirror actually an amalgam of Kamarian crystals laboriously fused into one reflective surface—completely obliterated.  “I…I just didn’t realize…” Sofa’s voice trailed off in disbelief.

“You’re welcome.” Valens’ normally stoic voice had a decidedly pleased tone to it.  Sofa playfully slapped his shoulder, causing both to collapse in laughter.  And as they lay entangled in one another’s limbs, the worries of the galaxy forgotten (at least for the moment), they knew only that they were woman and man, their shared love shielding them from their burdens.

They were well and truly married: a wife, a husband, and their goddesses.

               

<<<< >>>>

Honeymoon Couple

“By the Goddesses…” Sofa’s voice trailed off, in awe of the sight before her.  “It’s gorgeous!”

As Sofa looked at herself in the three-way mirror, she gave a little flourish, the radiant gossamer fabric of her dress covering her from neck to ankle while leaving nothing to the imagination. 

Form-fitting yet comfortable, the garment was made of special hisp-silk native to Consortium worlds.  Reactive to sunlight, the dress was almost translucent, hinting what was covered yet also accompanied with a perpetual aura that surrounded the piece; in this case, a ruby red long-sleeved affair with a slit up the right side, exposing Sofa’s long leg.  It was the perfect marriage of fashion and technology, an aspect of Hapan culture that was as innate to them as breathing.

“Excellent choice, mistress…” The male attendant’s—Merkil he’d supplied when introducing himself—tone was full of unfeigned approval.  “And might I be as so bold to opine: crimson really is your color.”  With expert precision, he gave a light fluffing to the skirt, smoothing out any imagined wrinkles that the fabric would never in reality acquire.  “I also have these rare blood-diamonds that accessorize this outfit perfectly.” He held out a pair of earrings, three stones of increasing size that hung from aurodium ropes.

Sofa looked at the earrings.  “…Those are beautiful…but I was in the market for something a little more…rare.”  She saw Merkil’s face go blank.  …So that’s how he wants to play it… She smiled inwardly, looking forward to the game.  “Something…royal.”  Sofa fell silent, having said the correct phrases in both order and inflection.  The attendant was good; Merkil’s face remained completely impassive.

His reaction in the Aether, however, was altogether an entirely different situation.  She could feel the spike of anticipation stab outward, radiant waves of eagerness fueled by his avarice.

“…I see.  So mistress, you wish to peruse the special?  One moment.”  Merkil disappeared, leaving them alone in their opulent private changing parlor.  After all, they were visiting nobles from the Core Worlds…or so he’d been told.  All that really mattered is that they’d shown proof of funds.  As soon as he had processed the datanode attached to their account, Merkil’s smile had grown twice as large.  Hence the private parlor.

But that was only half of what would help Sofa obtain what she had really wanted from her Hapan Honeymoon (well…besides her time with Valens).  And now that she’d spoken the correct cypher—pulled from the head of one of House Royal’s ministers courtesy of Valens—Sofa’s stomach felt as if it were full of butterflies.  After all, it wasn’t every day that one got to see a gemstone that was worth more than a Mon Calamarian cruiser…

Upon Merkil’s return, Sofa saw that he’d not come empty-handed.  “Here you are, mistress.  Our house special, endorsed by the Queen Mother herself, may Her Radiance illuminate eternal.”  Holding up a forcefield cube, she could see that held within the center of the security device was a small yet brilliant gem that seemed to glow from within.  “This is our one-carat rainbow gem.  If you would be as so kind as to choose the setting of your desire then I shall fabricate the diadem for you.”

Rainbow gems.  Not true jewels, they were actually silicon-based lifeforms that only matured after thousands of years.  Their value was beyond what most people could imagine much less afford.  And according to rumor, Ta’a Chume had an entire crown made of them.

A crown worth more than an entire star-system.

Ironically, rainbow gems could also be used in lieu of a kyber crystal to power lightsabers.  Almost every single Padawan had told stories of how they’d “find” a rainbow gem to build a legacy saber, one that would ensure their immortality in the stories told by future generations, themselves the galaxy’s chosen hero, naturally.

…Foolish child’s dreams… Sofa couldn’t help but think, capricious imaginings from a more simple time.  A girl from a more…innocent time.

Mentally she shook her head; there was no reason to go down such dark hyperspace lanes.  She was happy, her husband by her side, indulging in her every desire.  Speaking of…

“The bezel setting, flanked by two blood rubies, please.” Sofa wanted to squeal; regardless of her earlier self-rebuke, this was a dream come true!

Valens stood opposite the attendant, a small smile playing upon his face.  From the corner of her eye, Sofa took in the sight of her husband.  Even she had to admit that he—like the dress—was quite a vision himself.  Attired in bespoke trousers and sleeveless leather shirt, both black with a mother-of-pearl veneer which gave one the impression that a rainbow played across the clothing according to the wearer’s movements, Valens looked every centimeter of what locals referred to as “krasavchik.”

Which, roughly translated, meant “a Queen’s man”…as in “the Queen Mother, may Her Radiance illuminate eternal.”  It was the most prestigious compliment that a Hapan woman could give a Hapan male, and in a purely matriarchal society like Hapes, that was saying a lot.

…Of course my man would be considered such… Sofa reflected, pride beaming from her.  With his muscular arms, masculine face, athletic build—nice backside, she thought mischievously—Valens could be quite…intimidating.  …Good thing, too… Her smile faltered slightly, thinking of the morning.

Heading out from their Bridal Suite, Valens had “suggested” that the room’s furniture was not appropriate for a woman of Sofa’s stature and that it should be “replaced immediately.”  All of this to the maître d' of Willow Château who had come knocking last night with “noise complaints” even though the Bridal Suite took up the entire top floor. 

After only 30 seconds with Valens, the man had changed his tune from “imperious” to “contrite.”  No, that wasn’t really it.  More like “penitent.”  And that was with only a touch of the Aether, used to expedite the cleaning and not for intimidation.

Valens could do that all on his own.

Leaving Willow Château to continue Sofa’s honeymoon itinerary, the two of them took an open-air speeder carriage to the Market District where any male HAD to be accompanied by a female in order to enter, much less purchase anything.

Ambling from shop to shop deliberately at their leisure, Sofa perused EVERYTHING: from high-end makeup (a holdover from her time as a Padawan), then lush foods (especially the confectionery), and finally expensive clothes.  All the while, Valens was a permanent fixture hovering just over her shoulder, consequent of his protective nature rather than because of any adherence to Hapan dictates…

Although ironically the social mores between Aethan and Hapan culture were more aligned than many others within the galaxy; after all, both were matriarchally dominate.  However, one notable difference was that Aethan meritocratic values gave males a form of respect and status; her own husband, much to the delight of her ego, being “Warchief.”  Hapan males were universally and definitely relegated to second-class citizenry.

The only thing worse than a male who did not defer to a woman was a Jedi.

Anti-Jedi sentiment stemmed from the depths of Hapan history when millennia before there ever was a Hapan Consortium the Jedi defeated the Lorell Raiders from which all Hapans were descended from, driving them back into the Hapes Cluster, never mind that the Raiders were the aggressor.  But history is always rewritten by those with an agenda.

Every Jedi knew the stories, knew that even their occasional diplomatic envoys were barely tolerated, the only mitigating factor being that mutual trade was not only lucrative but indeed almost a necessity: with virtually unlimited wealth at its disposal, the Consortium was a prime source of vendor resources, able to prop up governments…or bankrupt them.  And anytime the galaxy at large heard of the more…violent incidents of anti-Jedism coming out of the Hapes Cluster, such condemnations were quickly forgotten or silenced by the influx of seemingly endless Consortium credits that poured forth into the galactic economy.

And unfortunately for Sofa, even Aethans were victims of forgetfulness.

Merkil escorted both of them to the retailer’s executive (a female of course), bowing himself out of the exquisite room to complete Sofa’s order of the Rainbow gem diadem as well as her considerable cache of lavish clothing.

Speaking in posh-if-pretentious Basic (free of the almost universal indigenous Hapan accent), the executive introduced herself as Xqiu Flen.  “I trust that Merkil was adequate in his assistance?” It sounded more a statement than a question.  “You’ve made some excellent choices.  Of course, the Queen Mother—may Her Radiance illuminate eternal—frequents our establishment.  You’ll find nothing wanting.  Your datanode, if you please.”  Again, not an interrogative.

“Of course.” Sofa practically beamed, casually opening her purse wide for anyone to see into.  And Xqiu Flen did exactly that.

Immediately Sofa could feel the difference within the Aether.  “Actually, we will not be accepting your business.  You and your male are to leave.  Now.”  The look in the executive’s eyes was one of open hatred.  …What the frell…?  Sofa’s eyebrows drew inwards towards her nose in a frown.

“What?  My money isn’t good enough here?” Something from deep within stirred.  Suddenly, she remembered the ridicule that her fellow padawans—Jedi even!—would mock her with, cries of “Six-credit Sofa!” all too clear in her memory.  “Listen, I could buy this entire store you kriffing—” She started to say only to be rudely cut off.

“NOTHING about you is ‘good enough’ here…you Jedi-loving quim!”  Xqiu Flen’s tone was equal parts accusation and disgust.  “Leave now before I call Security you tralk!”  Her finger moved to activate an unmarked button.

“Stop.” Valens was suddenly right there in front of the Hapan woman.  Sofa could see that he’d done…something with the Aether.  It reminded her of Delving but…but it also looked like…like some kind of Compulsion?  Whatever he’d done, Xqiu Flen’s eyes glazed over, her tongue hanging partially out of her mouth with her entire body frozen.  “You will conclude the sale for the items that my wife has chosen.  You will then contact the owner and tell them that you resign in the rudest way possible.  You will remember nothing of this incident or us, only as wealthy if unremarkable patrons.”  For all the emotion in his tone, Valens could have been discussing Galactic Trade Agreements or else some other boring topic.  But the look on Xqiu Flen’s face was priceless.  Valens paused before adding, “And you will give my wife a substantial discount for your discourtesy.  Go.  Now.”

Sofa couldn’t help but smile, grateful for her husband’s loyalty and chivalry.  But it was all too fleeting amidst the mood of the moment.

Exiting the building with their considerable baggage in tow, they made their way back to Willow Château via speeder carriage in silence.  Yet Sofa’s emotions were a roiling tempest burning within her, memories she’d thought long suppressed or dealt with threatening to overwhelm her.  That and damning herself a fool.  She knew exactly what her mistake had been.

When she’d finally passed her Tests, Soryu had been so happy, so proud of her.  To commemorate the occasion, he’d personally made her a medallion of homogoni wood in the form of the Jedi Order’s emblem.  What made it so special wasn’t the fact that its cells were bound together by the Force but that it was one of the only presents that Soryu had ever given her, one that she had kept…

…In her purse.

It wasn’t until Sofa and Valens had taken the turbolift up to the Bridal Suite, the doors closing silently behind them, that they spoke.  But that wasn’t exactly right either; Sofa did not speak.

She raged.

               

<<<< >>>>

[TheDutchman]

Chapter 7 – Where the Heart Is – In Good Times… – Part II

Sofa

“I HATE her!” Sofa’s voice echoed throughout the immaculately clean and refurbished rooms, and not for the first time.  Soon after having stepped foot within the Bridal Suite, Sofa let forth all of her rage, everything that she’d endured: the names, the ridicule, all of the hateful mockery that came in waves of jealousy…

The collected padawans would point at her, shrill, judgmental proclamations of “Slufest Sofa Ryloth-kissed a Selphi!” following her across the quad as everyone looked at her, their disapproval heavy in their eyes. 

Sofa could feel her jaw clenched so hard that her grinding teeth could be audibly heard.  “I hate them all…” The volume of her voice almost normal.  That particular slur had followed her for years.  And just as bad—in fact, even worse—were the so-called masters; the ones that would tell her in no uncertain terms that she was to blame…

“Of course they would call you that; no true self-respecting virtuous Jedi would dress in such a…provocative manner.  Now go wipe that paint off of your lips and face.”  The tone of barely concealed disgust incongruous with the almost-kindly faces of her teachers, accusations all but outright stated.

Next came the tears.  “No more…” She whispered.  As rivulets ran down her cheeks unchecked, unforgotten distraught pain giving way to unbridled rage, Sofa began to sob while incoherent syllables worked their way from her mouth.  But what lay beneath those memories was the doorway that led to the darkest thoughts…

“Now, now, you can trust me; I’m a Jedi…” Master Pyl’s gentle voice soothed while his breath quickened, touching her in places that made her feel uncomfortable.  “You want to be a good girl, don’t you…are you a good girl?” He’d said, his tone lethargic and satisfied.  “What do good girls do?  They stay quiet.”  He’d cupped her chin, his tender touch revolting.  “This shall remain our secret.”

“NO!!!” It was as if all of the fury had returned, Sofa’s raging scream preternaturally loud as she released all of her pent-up anger, loathing, and shame in a shout like a thunderclap.  Mirroring this, her emotions powering the Aether, a violent wave of destruction erupted forth.  Had Valens not been ready, mitigating the worst of the devastating telekinetic pulse, the entire building of Willow Château would have been pulverized.  As it was, all of the furniture in a five-meter radius was completely destroyed.

As quickly as it had appeared, the Aetheric surge dissipated.  And with it, Sofa’s anger…leaving only pain and shame.  Deep, racking sobs shook her as she collapsed to the floor, surrounded by the detritus of broken furniture and shredded silk linens.  Hugging herself tightly, she began to rock back and forth as tears poured from her eyes.

Powerful yet tender hands gently touched her shoulders, arms like ferrocrete encircled her, comforting Sofa.  Leaning back against Valens’ chest, Sofa continued to quietly cry.  “I…I will not be a victim!  I will not let them hurt me!  Not again, never again!”  Every time she punctuated each exclamation by pounding on her shoulders while repeating what she’d said as if whispering a litany.

After some time, her sobs quieted although tears continued to roll down her face.  As each memory invariably led to another, reopening old wounds, Sofa would repeat her mantra, every single incident burned into her mind.  “I…I will not be a victim!  I will not let them hurt me!  Not again, never again!” 

She finally quieted, emotionally exhausted.  And all the while Valens had remained silent, instead offering support with his comforting embrace, his powerful body all at once soothing and reassuring.  Tears drying on her face, Sofa looked over her shoulder to stare at her husband.  There she saw within his eyes a look she’d never seen before: pain, pain from the knowledge that there was nothing more than he’d already given and offered to give her comfort.  At least, that’s what he thought.

But what Sofa knew—what she felt—was that everything and all that she needed was precisely what he DID give her.  Before she could speak and as if reading her mind, Valens stated quietly, firmly,  “Sofa Neirai, I love you.  I was lost, fighting in a world that was not mine, against enemies that affronted me on all sides, all the while searching for my lost People.  For every member I found there were too many years between the discoveries, too much conflict separating times of peace, too many lost against what was found.”  His fingers gently stroked her cheek, brushing back the strands of black hair that had fallen across her face.  “But I had you.  There I was, a stranger in a strange land, without family, confidence, or friends…and then, there you were.  Regardless…no, because of your past, know that I love you, unconditionally, for now until we are united with the Goddesses.”  His eyes gazed lovingly into hers.  “And you are no victim; you never were.  You are my wife, my goddess.”

Amazed, Sofa stared into Valens eyes.  And for the very first time she could see—really see—that he’d laid himself bare, entirely naked before her.  Valens was many things: warrior and protector, soldier and killer…but right here, right now he was none of those.

He was her husband…for good and ill, forever.  “I love you, Valens Lyssiason…and I always will.” She said before grabbing his head, kissing him fiercely, passionately.  The shame that she had felt was a small thing now, a trace of the specter that haunted her while her rage had completely evaporated, her sobbing both cathartic and calming.  It was a strange feeling for Sofa, one that was completely new and foreign to her: she no longer need worry about the expectations of others, the hypocritical dogma of those that would marginalize her while paying lip-service to some esoteric and vague self-serving ideology.

No, now she felt empowered.  Not just emotionally, she realized that there were few in the galaxy that she need fear anymore.  She would no longer be terrorized by those in power, threatened by those stronger, frightened by those who would do her harm.  Now it was she that was a force to be reckoned with, both as an individual and as a member of a…no, HER family.  Case in point: the man before her.  She would never have to wonder about his fidelity, or ability to provide…anything concerning his character.

Valens would be the constant in her life that she’d always wanted…just as she would be his.  Saying as much, they both luxuriated in one another’s company as they realized that they would never, ever be truly alone ever again.

And by the three Goddesses, with her husband as her witness, Sofa vowed to never, ever again feel any shame for the hollow morality that others would attempt to shackle upon her.  Even as she gave into her passion, flaming her husband’s desire as a result, Sofa made herself a promise, one that she knew that she would and could uphold: it was like Valens said, she was no victim…

She was a goddess.

[Lord_S_Gray]

My thanks to Dutch for this incredible chapter, bringing new perspectives to my characters integrating their existing backstories so perfectly and an entertaining exceptionally detailed little episode in itself. This is what collaboration and quality look like. To the Chapter itself the contrast between elation and despair, and how quickly that can be triggered, how shallow some wounds are beneath the skin so easily reopened is very well done but that is not the real focus as well written as it is - the key is how within their relationship they have the balm for just such situations, Sofa for Valens and Valens for Sofa, there for each other in good times and in bad is perfectly captured here. I think Dutch has the edge on all of us writing such intimate scenes between couples (Zearic/D'Allyana, Kazic/Saani having numerous examples) - and wanting the best possible honeymoon sequence for my characters there was no question he had to write it, my thanks again!

[Lord_S_Gray]

Remnant Part 2 — Elimination

Decay and degradation were common place for Sith worlds…

But its cause was no lethargy and indolence, rather more immediate concerns of imminent threat. 

System lords would devote their resources to building tanks, capital ships, weapons allowing civilian infrastructure to decay with the overcrowding of slave workers. 

They had been dilapidated yes, but not dormant.

The blue green crescent of Byss radiated the hopeless miasma of tarnished former glories as they approached.

None of them had been here…or at least not before their Reactivation, a few might have been as part of Marauder squads sent by the Technocracy to sabotage and steal from the Sith system lords as part of their long successful strategy of keeping them fighting each other and never noticing the Aethans…

The last message they had recovered from the facility replayed in Sixths head, Aethas Under Siege, All Units return Aethans Dominabutir Astris”.

If the system had been under siege it could only have been the Sith, the demagogues and Jedi Lords further out cared nothing for the petty still born states of the deep core.

<I sense nothing substantive…in orbit or on the surface> Fourth advised her thoughts now slightly wavering with hunger.

None had eaten in the twelve standard days since they awoke. 

The ‘food’ at Mamzer station was deemed too contaminated, and there were no provisions at their facility left…they had been in the hangar that had caved in centuries ago. 

They were designed to operate at optimal levels without rest or victuals for up to a month…they were not designed to awaken after 700 or more years of cryogenic stasis to such hunger.

Already waste products were accumulating in their bloodstream and cell vacuoles at an advanced pace, rest cycling was keeping the worst symptoms at bay for now.

“Mimir This is Byss control please state your intentions” the rattling voice out of an old rusted speaker surprised them all with its crass inelegance.

<No Sith would ask this…> Seventh noted kneeling where the pilots chair had been, they were simply too large to use standard humanoid furniture.

At 3 metres tall and 600 kilos each they were keenly aware of their ‘enhanced’ status more so than any other of the Technocracies Gene Generations had been. 

<This planet is no longer ruled by the Sith…> Fourth surmised unnecessarily.

Of the six of them there were four males, Sixth, Fifth, Seventh and Third, and two females, Fourth and Ninth who was designated Primus in pursuit of Purgatio Astra. 

First, Second and Eighth’s cryo tubes had, at some point over the intervening centuries become damaged or lost power…three sisters passing silently in artificial sleep, bodies mummified in the thin stagnant air of the facility as it seeped through micro cracks in the broken tubes. .

Vincit Omnia Aethani

Sixth wished it had been him and knew the other men did as well.

<We will soon learn who rules> Ninth’s authority was evident in her every action, calming and steadying against the disorienting situation.

That entire conversation had lasted little more than a split second, indeed Sevenths response startled the Byss traffic controller for being so fast for the few seconds he retained any sense of individuality.

<You will contact your most superior officer> Seventh bludgeoned into the petty single consciousness mind tracing the aether through the beings voice

“I will contact my most superior officer…” the words were vacant of life

Moments passed as the planet grew in their view port, the path here had been long and irritating, the navigational abilities of the creatures that inhabited Mamzer station were rudimentary at best, none of them were in the mood to delay more than needed.

“This is Captain Ool’Nbd Servant of His Eminence Baron Tl’Obo’lil XVII of the Emirate of…”

<You will provide us with docking clearance to the place nearest your seat of government…you will arrange for purified demineralised water in as large a volume as you can supply to be present along with iron rich foods stuffs conforming to the following specifications….>

Sixth broke his attention as Seventh detailed explicitly what was required to the no doubt dribbling ‘Captain’ - imagining this Ool’Nbd’s drooping head and rolling eyes humoured him.

He glanced past the edge of Byss to the bright mists of nebulae that pervaded the system lit by the blinding stars of the deep core behind as curved, blobby and pointed ships went to and fro, over engineered in design they were clearly not built for battle but luxury…

The consensus was soon reached between them – Byss was now a backwater where lesser beings exploited the hard work of generations past to live in indolence and leave decayed infrastructure and debt to future generations.

<Two hours> Seventh confirmed.

 

<<<<>>>>

Everything about this place disgusted her sensibilities.

Bulbous buildings that curved into sharp points, vertical and horizontal, were hued in purple mists beneath the lurid blue and green sky as they wandered the promenades paved with rounded tiles that when not completely missing were cracked and grotty.

They were stared at by the natives, humanoids with pointed mixed racial features jutting from half hooded robes of dozens of layers crowed with curved and pointed silver head pieces. They were followed or carried on palanquins by one eyed Abyssin slaves, gangly two fingered creatures whose extermination would be joyous. 

Fourth could sense an innate tendency to violence in these creatures that was slowly being eroded by selective breeding imposed by their new masters. Regression not progress.

The city was built in layers, like some sedimentary process, the lower levels raised by ancient explorers and colonists, hardy and practical.  Atop that were the more refined but still clunky towers of the early Kings in the days of the Great Hyperspace war, then a period of curious blobby structures followed by the heavy handed slap dash militarized architecture of the Sith warlords. 

The levels that she now walked through were the most recent, but even these were soiled with age and neglect.

Her assessment was after the Sith were overthrown there had been some period of indigenous renewal and reconstruction lead by generations enthused with a spirit of freedom and purpose…a spirit that had been diluted into apathy by following generations content to merely enjoy the splendour their ancestors built rather than improve upon it.

Ahead was the tallest of the structures, the Citadel of the Barons – according to the now brain dead Ool’Nbd it was the seat of government, where the petty nobility that ruled this planet plotted against each other and were profligate with the earnings from their distant estates and inherited inefficient industrial monopolies.

As more and more eyes gazed at them it was a trial to not implode their heads or crush their organs internally. 

After finally getting some sustenance at the landing port she felt a renewed vitality in stark contrast to the listless overly preened beings that clustered about the once grand walkways.

In the back of her mind were half remembered images of Aethas, the gentle feminine domes and columns of white marble, the clean cut stone arch ways and rotunda’s between libraries and laboratories, statues of their civic mascots, the three so called ‘goddesses’ that represented what they never ceased in striving to attain.

It was a doubly distant memory now…it had been another life when she – or rather the person she was before Reactivation – had lived on Aethas, and now it was a further 700 or more years away…had it too fallen into such pathetic self-indulgent decay?

They reached the vast doors at the end of the promenade, flanked by what would normally be towering Sentinels with red eyed helmets glaring down from voluminous robes hiding armour as pitted and worn as her own – though Fourth doubted they had the excuse of it being 700 years old.

In her Aegis Armour she overshadowed by a head these Sentinels, if they felt worry it did not show, whatever queer code they followed they remained mute simply crossing their vibro-axes to block their path. 

She felt out the mute creatures in the aether.   There was the taint of Sith Alchemy there...but bastardised, imperfect…

<I sense it too…> Ninth noted beside her

<Mutants Sentinels originally designed by the Sith that this wretched generation cannot properly emulate>

<They reek of stimulants and artificial growth hormones> Seventh noted

<And lack any sense of self identity> Sixth detailed

The ornate doors of aqua and blue they were guarding ground open with clattering screeched as the crowd of curious on lookers behind them grew.

Flanked by four more Sentinels was a thin male humanoid in tightly layered robes, sharp beak like nose and squawking voice to match.

“What is the meaning of this who….”

His sentence would not be finished.

<<<<>>>>

The Council of the Baron’s was, as usual a sweltering pit of whispers, back stabbing and influence trading, as in the centre of the oval shaped room domed by a pale blue marble above lurid jade steps and seats, the Master of the House warbled procedural details from the Speaker’s podium out of a drooping mouth above three chins that were as layered as his robes in the current fashion which dictated more layers of expensive fabric showed more wealth and status.

While no one listened to him anyway, they all paid attention when the Chamber door exploded inwards and the Bearer of the Axe – a symbolic position for the assembly in charge of security – flew head first into the Master of the House over the heads of the assembled Barons and courtiers.

The Sentinels at the door immediately reacted sweeping to block the path…

Only to be lifted off the ground then slammed by invisible fists once…twice…three times into each other until they were a mess of vat grown meat and rusted metal slopped on the floor, blood running down each jade step to the central podium so recently vacated.

In their place stepped six warriors taller than the Sentinels and bedecked in light sucking armour of a material only scene occasionally in jewellery on Byss.

Ninth strode forward confidently to the centre of the room, her boots cracking the jade floor with each step, the others circled the outer edge of the room taking up positions at the five cardinal points behind the gaping Barons of Byss.

The Sentinels had proved little challenge – there was potential there for a threat, but they were a lazy imitation of what the Sith Lords who had first designed them must’ve intended and easily dispatched, sending the crowd that had been peering at them running screaming.

Reaching the podium she grasped the rim – and pulled it from the floor cracking the jade further then tossed it indifferently aside.

“Where is your Lord?” she asked
“Where are the Sith?”

The assembled throng of nobles were dumbstruck, for all they heard was a twisted archaic dialect spoken too rapidly to comprehend

Whaea-be-thy-Lo’rd-Whaea-be-thou-Sithai

“Very well, one of you dies every minute until I get an answer,”

<Begin>

Without warning Sixth reached over the rail to the upper seats and plucked a noble at random, he squealed and struggled and for a moment it seemed Sixth might drop him simply because his various layers of clothing were drooping, but Sixth caught the neck and then slammed the head against the wall once to splatter the skulls contents.

“The Sith are gone!” one elderly looking baron with a wispy floor length beard called out finally making senses of her words.

“Driven out centuries ago, we are a free people, we will not be intimid….”

His words stopped as she grasped his throat and raised him up with the aether, making no gesture as she did so.

She pulled him straight toward her, quickly replacing her telekinetic grip with a physical one as her hand clasped his throat just gently enough to let him still speak.

“When were they driven out?”

“I…don’t know exactly, four, five hundred years…they killed each other or the Jedi Lords drove them out then left in turn…”

“And who replaced them?”

“No…no one, the Jedi gave up their demesnes and titles, the New Republic didn’t care about the Core, we forged our own…”

“Your ancestors forged, you sleep walk into decay,”

She consulted the others, all were in agreement at their next step.

<These creatures are of no value to us even as servants — Purgatio Astra>

With speed and precision the massacre began. 

In screams and trampling rushes of fists banging loudly against telekinetically sealed doors it continued.

With blood and silence it ended.

<<<<>>>>