Trial of a Lorrd: Paradox
Posted on Wed Nov 21st, 2018 @ 12:15am by Amare & Thane
4,395 words; about a 22 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter V: Unbound
Location: The Sands of Time (abstract location), Lorrd
Timeline: Follows "Trial of a Lorrd: Genesis"
Tags: Serus, Amare, Darth, Lorrd, desert, sand, coarse, rough, irritating, gets everywhere
OLD:
“Amare…I am…Amare,” she answered with a smile whilst feeling a strange, yet pleasurable surge of icy energy quickly run down the length of her spine.
“Hello, friend Amare,” young Zaracoda said happily to her future incarnation. “Would you like to play a game with me?”
NEW:
Korriban, following the "Creature of Darkness" events
Coda: You've heard me say in front of Bomoor that what happened after the younger me asked to play a game with her is that I passed out and awoke later in a hospital. That is only half-true. What I need to say to you now must remain between us, master. It's about the Sith.
[There is a punctuated, considered pause.]
Thane: Aren't all things?
"Yes, I'd like that very much," Amare relented with a gracious smile for the younger Zaracoda's sake. She would have done the same for any child, but she recalled how often she was resented by the men in the Wolph household, so a chance to brighten her own past, even if it was all just an elaborate illusion, or a figment of her own imagination. If this was going to be her last night alive, she was determined to salvage any kind of joy she could find.
"Yay! You're so good to me, Amare!" the little child version of Coda cheerfully clapped before reaching over to a small cloth satchel and blissfully diving her tiny blue hands inside. One by one, she withdrew several strange six-inch figurines, some of which were carved out of ivory, and others in dark volcanic glass. They were very reminiscent of the figurines she saw somewhere before...
Am I? Amare thought to herself with a frown. Have I always been this good to myself? I don't know...and these toys. I don't remember having any of these at that age.
Amare shielded her face as a small gust of wind cut across between them to push aside some sand revealing a square board checkered in white and black. Little Zara seemed completely unfazed by the wind or the desert environment around them, and placed the rest of the pieces she had on the board, almost with no regards to the arrangement or rules of modern chess.
"I like this one a lot," Zara pointed to one of the dark figurines, a male figure in a long black robe with a strangely shaped mask with large black eye sockets on it. At first, Amare thought it was a member of the Givin species like the odd bookstore owner she met on Sheva, but on closer inspection, it was indeed a mask, and not a Givin's macabre head. "Nihilus isn't afraid of anyone. He's big and strong and takes what he wants, but he's really lonely. His only friend was a blind lady. She was an apprentice, just like you."
"Like...me? How do you know--?" Amare started to ask, but Zara kept introducing her inanimate friends.
"And this is Mr. Mace. Big shiny head! Teehee! I soooo love that he had a purple lightsaber. Very pretty colour! I think I'll make one for him later and glue it to his hand. Oh...oh no. His hand. I forgot one of them broke. How did that happen? Oh well. Hey! You brought your own pieces this time. Lemme see! Lemme seeee!"
"I-I did?" Amare turned left, saw nothing, then turned right, and sure enough there was another cloth satchel by her side. "Huh...I guess I did." She unbound the black string tie and opened it up to see the first two figures inside: the same exact same female Nautolan figurines she saw before on Irrikut from that strange Sith altar, right before she had fallen into that hidden dark dungeon underneath. One appeared weak and ashamed, the other slightly taller with a strong and more fit build, hands at her side with a wide diabolical smile as if she were basking in some kind of raw source of power. And just like before, both were coloured black. "These two again," Amare said shaking her head at them as she placed them on her side of the board.
"Aww, they look cute," Zara said. "Are they sisters? I like this one's smile. She looks really happy. I bet she could do anything. Maybe she's a queen!"
"I...like her too," Amare confessed, although she knew she was still the sad and weaker figurine. That had to change. She wanted to be that stronger goddess of a woman. She wanted to feel what the figurine was portraying in its image, to know what made it smile so triumphantly. She felt an intimate taste of it when she drained that human woman on Sheva in that filthy back alley. Was there even greater power in her future, she wondered.
"Did you bring any more?" Zara asked impatiently.
Amare checked again, and this time found an exquisitely detailed one of Bomoor Thort looking stately and wise under the hood of his Jedi cloak. The figurine was originally ivory, but it seemed to have lost a lot of its lustre and shine. It was scuffed and scratched and smudged with faded dirt, as if it had been used many times by others with filthy, uncaring hands. After placing it on the board, and receiving nothing but silence from Zara, Amare reached in for the last figurine.
"Oh? Now who might that be, hm?" Zara asked with a queer, almost knowing tone, as if she already knew the answer. It, too, was ivory, but it had a shine, undamaged, but it was scrimshawed with a carefully inked-in design that further enhanced its features, as if it was intended to appear more alive than any of the others on the board. Every detail of his bold handsome face, his robes, and even a lightsaber carved into place at his side, all enhanced with ink. An image of black drawn masterfully atop a stark shape of white.
"He's...a good man," Amare said with nod at Thane's figurine. "I owe him--" She almost finished when she turned back to see little Zara gone. She was breathless with shock and awe upon seeing whom it was that took the place of the child. For all of the strange and horrifying things she had seen since leaving Nar Shaddaa, this was truly the first time she thought she was looking at the impossible. The pallour of the skin, the cybernetic breathing mask covering the lower half of his face, one eye blazing like a yellow star, the other a menacing cybernetic replacement with its pupil mechanically focusing on her, the overwhelming aura of power...it was nothing less than the absolute heart of the Lorrdian darkness that surrounded her. "--everything," she barely managed to finish, frozen in her disbelief at what she beheld; dread personified.
A darkness seemed to spread from the dark figure, oil-slick shadows stretching out from all about his person, consuming the entirety of their surroundings. A cold air blew against Amare's skin, chilling her and forcing a breath to escape her paling lips. The sound of her own breath even echoed about them, though nothing now was visible but her and the grim hooded visage staring into her. Whilst the condensation of Amare's own breath was apparent, nothing seemed to escape from the figure's respirator and its two foreboding specks of glowing red light.
"He is a creature of fear, blinded by obsession," the man spoke, his dismissive voice both disturbingly familiar and other at once. Reverberating with each word, his mechanical voice echoed and shifted in the miasma of their uncertain and wisping surroundings, although each word was meticulously precise and articulate - cultured, even. Of course, this did nothing to allay the malevolent undertones that punctuated each prosthetic word that crept from the figure's unseen lips.
Although it was difficult to discern the finer details of the finery draped over the man, tendrils of shadows running across and off of his angular form, the quality of the material was undoubted, and an absolute match for the sinister wearer beneath. The pool of molten-gold that encircled the figure's single organic eye narrowed, inspecting Amare with a cruel-yet-considered intelligence.
"Do you utter the truth to innocence," the man now asked, bringing his dark-gloved hands up to pull back the hood from over his head, "or do you simply peddle falsehoods for the sake of conscience?"
With the hood removed, confirming young Amare's suspicions, the full scarred countenance of her companion was revealed. Running alongside the length of the man's face, consuming the entirety of his cheek, jaw and eye socket, but stopping short of the hairline, were horrific scars, creviced at depths akin to years-old burns. Propping up the remnant of the socket was a metallic eye prosthetic, its laigrek-red centre shining almost as brightly as its foreboding organic counterpart, which - like the rest of the man's gaunt and chalk-pale visage - showed extreme symptoms of dark Force corruption, of the kinds documented from millennia long passed.
Thick, dark, pushed-back hair still rested atop his head, a stark contrast to the white and disfigured mien below, but whilst the trim of his hair remained deeply-reminiscent of Thane of Caanus, entirely gone was any trace of the wry humour or dry sarcasm that often crept into her master's words and expression. To look at him objectively, the Caanan appeared only a few years older, but his ravaged complexion betrayed the many rigours that had clearly taken their toll upon his youthful features and vigour.
Amare...nay, she resisted the allure of that name. She was Zaracoda. She had to be. She felt her insides turning, and put both hands on her head wincing with a rising migraine. This had to be some terrible illusion. Was it that old spirit come back to haunt her again, or was she on the verge of death in the desert?
"No...this isn't real," Coda assured herself through the pain, looking away from the dark spectre with a nightmarish version of Thane's face. "Nngh! It hurts! I don't understand what you are--aahh!"
"She is resisting the link, my lord," said a voice in her head, low, calm, barely more than a whisper, and definitely feminine...almost sounding like Coda's own voice. "The dark side was...is strong in that desert, and she is drawing from its power. I can control the flow, keep her from hurting herself, but the link will not hold for long."
There was a pause from Thane's spectre, his single eye widening maliciously before he spoke again. "I am your beginning, girl, as you may yet be my end," his vocabulator reverberated. "I am the Apex of the Last Republic and Ruin of Quellus; I am all that you deeply covet, that I jealously guard." The shadow around Thane appeared to expand and shudder, with thin licks of crimson flame splitting through the shadow's cracks, casting an ever-increasingly dire and grotesque ethereal appearance to her master's warped form, and his tone now took on a sharper, aggressive tone, his true voice cutting through the artificial warble of his mouthpiece. "I am Darth Serus, Dark Lord of the Sith - and I am no sickness of your mind."
"Listen to him, Sith," insisted the soft Coda-like voice in Coda's head. "His words are your salvation. If you resist him, you will die forgotten in an empty desert, and you will have failed your master. The sacrifice of your family...all that suffering on Nar Shaddaa, the battles you fought since...for nothing."
Coda's breathing slowed as the pain in her head gradually subsided. "I...I don't want to die here. I can't. Not now. Not like this." She slowly looked up to lock gazes with the Dark Lord, and no longer felt any desire to look away with fear, but rather look upon him with confusion and even sadness. She reached a hand up to try and touch his undamaged cheek, or at least the part of it that wasn't covered by the intimidating mask he wore. "What has happened to you, master?" she asked him, compassion mixed with anguish in her voice. "How did your face become so...?"
She wasn't sure how to describe it, but to her, it already felt like a failure. She wasn't there to save him from harm again. She wasn't there to heal him like before on Vaa. It had only been a day since Thane left her on Lorrd. Such a vast physical change seemed impossible in such a short time.
Darth Serus' golden organic oculus widened once more, a gleam of ruby flashing around the shifting iris as his ire was betrayed to Coda, although the flames around him subsided into his dark form. "Your compassion and concern is futile - a stagnant remnant of your puerile former existence. It does not become you, Zaracoda Wolph, to wallow in such pitiable sensibilities. It is not those who show compassion, adhering to the accepted standard of goodness as-so-perceived by the beggarly masses of the sentient galaxy, that forge the great works of our existence. It is those willing to unshackle themselves from the perceptions of the pitiable creatures whom squabble beneath you that work the engines of destiny."
The Sith spectre crossed his arms, two gloved hands and wrists tucking themselves into one another, wisps of shadow rising from the limbs as they shifted. "A Sith Lord's life is sacrifice; it is pain and pride; it is... transformation. My visage, as am I, is a product of the raw might of the Force. Unlike the Jedi and those that came before, we accept consequence and this power unto ourselves." Serus watched Coda carefully, before concluding, "Save your pity, for it does nothing but weaken you and those you claim to have concern for. It is presumptuous - and debilitating."
Coda shook her head and ground her teeth together with triggered frustration at yet another cold Thanish rebuff of her feelings towards him. "Then if I'm not supposed to care about the man who gave me a second chance at life," she retorted, "a man whom I admired and wanted so much to explore the Force with, then what would you have me do instead?" She added with a dash of sarcasm, "Hate you? Scare little children? Kill more thieves in back alleys? I wanted to learn the ways of the Force to help you slay Axion. Instead, you gave me a broken weapon and chose to leave me out here to die in some kind of sick twisted test!"
"Apologies, my lord," said the mind-voice to Serus. "It's most embarrassing reliving this all over again. She is a fool and doesn't know any better."
"Who are you calling a fool?!" Coda angrily shouted at herself, clamping her hands on the sides of her head again. "And why do you sound like me? I'm so sick of spirits talking to me! Get out of my--" Suddenly, her voice became only as air. She tried to speak again, but it was only a string of silent exhales.
"Passion... is good," Darth Serus said, measured and slow, still not addressing the second voice.
Two fingers could be seen to be raised from his crossed arms, even though no tangible pressure was being exerted upon Coda - it was simply as though she had been robbed of her voice.
"But not when that same passion relieves you of your senses," the Sith shade berated her, although there was no ire now, even if the echoic voice remained intangibly maleficent. "Tell me, Zaracoda Wolph, what is it you seek by allying with Thane and the Sith? Surely you do not throw your lot in with a renegade band on a whimsical quest merely because it was an easy ride off of Nar Shaddaa."
An odd, almost sickening pop was heard and felt within Coda's throat at the site of her larynx. She gasped, accidentally inhaled a drifting plume of desert sand, and immediately coughed several times. Her throat felt more dry and sore than she'd ever known her whole life. It was difficult to answer, for it was a damn good question from the Dark One. It was an important query she had given some thought in the short time leading up to her ordeal on Lorrd.
She was to give him the usual story about getting revenge on the pirates that sold her and her brother Capo into slavery. It was true, vengeance was a major motivation to trust and follow Thane and Bomoor on their adventures and learn the ways of the Force. Perhaps that's how it was at first, but that changed on Vaa. She had changed at that moment when she healed Thane from his injuries using that strange power that sucked the pain and poison out of him, and infused him with a temporary gift of strength and vitality. She realized she found a real tangible part of herself that day. It was like finding a piece of her soul she had been missing her entire life up to that point.
"If you're anything like he is," Coda slowly began to answer, "anything at all, then you know how I feel..." She stopped herself from saying 'about you', and added what she thought he wanted to hear, which was also the truth, "...I seek power, my lord," Coda said to Serus, with pleading eyes, "for personal reasons, but much more than that, I desire purpose. Thane gave both to me, but I need to be stronger for him. I need to survive this place and get back to my master. I'll do anything, my lord. Please, tell me, how must I do that? How can I be the apprentice he deserves?"
"If anyone deserves your loyalty, then they will seize it through their own merits themselves, whether that be the power they could impart to you, or even the purpose you rightly covet. You can determine whether you aspire to the standards these beings desire, or if they deserve your interest through the gains they could offer you," the shadow replied simply but slowly, still showing no outward sign of displeasure or acceptance.
For the first time since the ghastly apparition of her master had appeared, the man began to pace, stepping around Coda with slow and menacing steps, although his legs were almost imperceptible within the misty shadows engulfing them. "As for your quest for power... these are your first true steps, Zaracoda. Seek the meanings, true or false, in the objectives imparted to you; struggle and compete for every morsel of knowledge and wisdom you can from all wellsprings available to you, never stalling in your quest to better yourself. With that power, your whims will determine whom will survive or perish, whether they be friend or foe."
The figure having paused, it took Coda a few moments to realise that the illusionary Dark Lord had halted his patrol of the circumference behind her, his dark presence previously notably absent, and then presently overwhelming. Dark hands crept up behind the Nautolan, the skin beneath her clothes tensing as they drew menacingly closer towards her neck. Although they had yet to touch her, the very nature of Darth Serus swarmed her entirety, a wave of apocalyptic and spirit-crushing power crashing down upon her very core.
Finally, when the two dark hands swept onto her shoulders, giving purpose to the malign storm, the warped voice of Thane spoke once more. "Your master is still within the juvenescence of his path towards mastery of the Sith. In many ways, you find yourself uncovering the majesty of darkness together, plagued though your minds are by menial concerns and infantile relationships. As you both discover the enormity of the path he has set you upon, you will come to appreciate the humbling depth of your sacrosanct position. Tens of thousands will be Jedi - a mere handful may ever be Sith."
His touch was undeniably electric. The Nautolan's body shuddered briefly under the stimulating surge of his ethereal conveyance of power that felt very real and tangible. She was deathly afraid of his presence, her breathing rapid, her eyes wide and full of terror. And yet...she welcomed his dominance. Respected it. Though she didn't know it, Serus' fingers had palpated on very precise pressure points on her shoulders, points of contact in her physiology where the midi-chlorians coalesced in a secondary limbic system that facilitated her connection the Force, and now it was fully in Serus' control. Another wave of power subtly overwhelmed her tension, cast down all her resistance, and her breathing slowed, her eyes closed, and her head bowed, yet she remained keenly aware as Serus held the fate of every atom in her body in his unearthly hands.
Serus' grip then tightened on the woman's shoulders, and his voice dipped, taking a more menacing tone, which was grimly conveyed by the mechanical groans of his respirator. "Shake free the shackles of your existence as Coda Wolph, and embrace your life as Sith - you must accept this transformation, as Thane must accept his. Your attachment to the conceits of mercy, compassion and unconditional loyalty will undoubtedly undermine your true potential!" The Dark Lord's voice, whilst still full of power, sounded as though it were beginning to fade, like it was being carried from a greater distance than before. "Walking the path of moderation," he continued airily, the grip on Coda's shoulders also loosening, "will only end in your destruction, consumed utterly by the venomous fury of the dark side. There are no half measures in this enterprise."
"Thane...is a good...man..." she echoed her words from a few minutes earlier to the image of her younger self. "I am willing to embrace...this power, but...will he feel the same? I'm afraid of him...afraid how he'll react. He may not want to be...like you...master." She began to sense Serus' touch growing lighter, almost nonexistent. She didn't want him to let go. Serus could have killed her right there, and she wouldn't have minded at all.
The spectre spoke once more, but his voice was ever more distant, quieter and echoing weakly. As it grew close to silence, the reverberations of the mouthpiece seemed to dissipate, leaving only the gravelly but familiar voice of the man whispering beneath. "We cannot become what we want... by remaining... what we are..."
The connection was lifted, and where there was the touch of fingertips on her shoulders, there was only a tingling sensation where they had been. The strange glowing streams of sand-laded air flows, the illusory part of the floor of Coda's old bedroom, the figurines, the Dark Lord...all vanished from the stage, and Coda found herself staring at her yellow crystal in the palm of her hand like she had never stopped looking at it the entire time.
Everything was completely still, silent, Lorrd itself patiently awaiting Coda's next move. It yielded the opening colours of dawn, the opening contraction of faint purples and hazy reds giving birth to a new daylight horizon. Slowly rose up to her feet, watched as the inner light in the crystal faded to a mere, almost imperceptible twinkle at its core, and pocketed it. Half a minute passed, her body still as an oak tree, staring at the faint hint of her shadow. Then, as if a woman possessed, she gradually lifted her gaze, her large black oval eyes meeting dawn's early light. She knew who she was, was completely aware of all she had witnessed, but now there was something new she never had before; something that mattered above all things in the universe:
Purpose.
Coda had omitted the details about Serus that she didn't feel were relevant including the description of his face and his Darth title. She focused on the message and hoped it was enough for Thane to understand how committed she was to the cause of being Sith. She also wondered if her master ever intended to relay the tale of her encounter with the Serus entity to Bomoor, and if the Ithorian would ever learn the truth that his best friend was in fact an aspiring Sith Lord with a Nautolan Sith apprentice...
Coda: It was my first true lesson on that planet, but it was the most important of all. I think the people and things I saw that night were all just a series of images playing in my head as I stared into the crystal, but there was no doubt the Force itself was speaking to me through them. Different faces, one voice. I had been searching for meaning in my life, and it found me in the emptiest of places. You look troubled, master. Did I say something wrong?
Thane: No, you said nothing wrong, Zaracoda. It was... right of you tell me this, and in such detail. However, one should always be wary of visions, and most of all prophecies; they are rare and oft-times dangerous - but not insofar that they hold grim tidings for the future, but because of our apparent desires to see them come to fruition... or not, as some cases may be. Remember that the future is fluid to be whatever we make of it. Students of the Unifying Force - the belief that all things, future and past, dark and light as one, are fundamentally connected as an entire whole - often become blinded by their fixation upon the future, oblivious to the events unfolding in the here and now.
[Thane chuckles, a surprisingly lighthearted sound from the man.]
Thane: Listen to me, sounding like Bomoor or even old Master Sotah. No, Zaracoda, you have said nothing wrong. You are already showing great wisdom since your return. Do as you have done, and continue to analyse and question what you have seen and heard, but do not let it dictate your actions. Be inspired or be warned, but do not be beholden. As I said to you all of those months ago on Nar Shaddaa: never be a slave.
TBC
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