Thane of Caanus
Posted on Fri Apr 24th, 2026 @ 9:27pm by Sotah & Loren† & Darth Serus & Bomoor Thort & Amare & Thurius & Mentis & Rynseh Lahan
6,408 words; about a 32 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter IX: The First Verse
Location: Old Elenca Settlement, Öetrago
Timeline: Late Day Four
The first weight of the storm gathered above the largely abandoned Elenca settlement without yet committing to rain, a low pressure in the sky that pressed down upon the broken structures and empty walkways. The air had shifted with it. Warm stillness had given way to something tighter, charged, as if the world itself were holding breath in anticipation. Wind moved in slow, uncertain passes between the empty and smashed dwellings, stirring loose fragments of dust and ash into shallow spirals that never quite formed before settling again. No voices carried through it. No movement answered it. Whilst the shape of the settlement broadly endured, it was largely devoid of life.
Thane approached through it without haste. The hood of his dark cloak was drawn up, its edge casting his features into deeper shadow, though the faint red glint of the ocular implant betrayed him in brief flashes when he shifted his angle. His movement was measured, each step placed with careful intent rather than ease. There was no outward sign of the strain that travelled through him with every motion, but it was there, contained, regulated, forced into compliance with a will that no longer tolerated disruption. Somewhere beyond the hut, out of sight, Bomoor remained with Bruta. Thane did not look toward them. Their presence registered and was dismissed in the same moment.
He reached the threshold and entered without pause. The interior met him with a muted stillness that felt older than the damage outside. The air carried a faint mustiness, undisturbed by habitation, layered with something softer beneath it that had not yet fully faded. Organic fibres, dried food, the lingering trace of life that had once occupied the space without tension or vigilance. The structure itself had survived the conflict. Circular walls enclosed the room with a quiet completeness, the central tree-trunk table still fixed in place, its surface marked by use rather than damage. Seating remained where it had been left, displaced only slightly, as though those who had last occupied them had risen quickly and never returned.
Thane's corrupted gaze moved once across the room, not in search of memory, but in assessment. Entry points,lines of movement, structural soundness. The habits of a life he had not yet discarded, but had already begun to subordinate. Beneath that first pass, something else existed. A quieter layer, less defined, brushing against his awareness without invitation. The echo of voices that had once filled the space. Laughter, love, and even the sense of Bomoor as he had been, unburdened, present here in a way that no longer existed, even though his time in his youth upon the world and with his parents had been short. This was a place that had believed in connection.
He stepped further in, allowing the door to remain as it was, neither closed nor fully open, and came to the centre of the room. The table sat within reach and he positioned himself there deliberately. The scale of it was small and contained, built for lives that could afford to exist within boundaries.
The galaxy was not.
His hand moved to the hilt at his side, drawing it free in a single smooth motion. The electrum and silver construction still held its elegance despite the scarring that marked it, acid scoring along the length, faint discolouration where lightning had once travelled through it. It had endured - but that was not enough.
He placed it upon the table.
For a moment it remained there, inert, the last intact expression of what it had been. Then his will touched it. There was no gesture beyond the subtle tightening of his fingers as the Force moved through him, precise and controlled, and the hilt responded. Components separated with mechanical obedience, lifting from one another in measured sequence. Screws disengaged without sound and internal housings unfolded. The structure opened itself piece by piece until the core assembly was exposed, suspended briefly in the air between his hands before settling back down in ordered disarray.
The crystal revealed itself at the centre.
Violet, intact - and still unnyielding, more alien than the first time he has even touched it years before.
His gloved hands hovered for a fraction of a second before he withdrew them and began to remove the material layer between himself and the act. The gloves came away first, stripped back with slow deliberation and set aside without care for their placement. Beneath them, the partial prosthetic of his right hand caught what little light remained, the final two digits rendered in precise metallic articulation, still and waiting. His left remained flesh, pale against the darker tones of the room, veins faintly visible beneath the surface.
He reached to his face and the respirator disengaged smoothly at his touch, the integration points releasing without resistance as the system withdrew from his features. There was no sound beyond the faint shift of material. For a brief instant, there was nothing.
Then, the air reached him. It struck without warning, cold against damaged tissue, raw where it met the ruined edge of his right side. His first breath did not settle cleanly. It caught, instead, shallow and incomplete, forcing his chest to draw again, sharper this time, the sensation immediate and invasive. The air carried dust, stale organic remnants, microscopic irritants that his system was no longer built to process unassisted. His lungs resisted it and his body rejected it.
The second breath deepened under force of will, dragged in and held, the pain blooming through his chest in tight, constricting waves. It spread outward from the centre, a pressure that demanded reaction, demanded adjustment, demanded retreat back into the safety of the device he had just removed. He stood within it instead,and compressed it down into something usable - something that could be directed. The discomfort did not lessen, but sharpened and refined, each intake of air a controlled act of defiance against the limitations now imposed upon him.
His head lifted slightly. The molten gold of his remaining eye fixed upon the crystal, the ring of red at its edge catching and reflecting the faint ambient light. The implant on the opposite side glowed steadily. Together, they settled on the object before him with absolute focus.
He extended both hands and they came to rest either side of the crystal. The Force gathered there, not as a surge, but as a gradual accumulation, dense and controlled. He felt it meet resistance almost immediately.
The crystal's remained intact, its infuriating identity unchanged. It held to what it was with quiet continuity, unaffected by the first probing contact of his will. It did not yield and not fracture.
A flicker of recognition passed through him.
On Sleheyron, as in the months before, it had refused him, but never in such a damning or critical moment.
That memory did not rise as anger alone, but with the full weight of everything that had both followed and come before; the failure to control the outcome, the loss of Mumin, even Bomoor's subsequent slip into darkness, rawer than his, driven by grief that had initially consumed rather than directed. He thought of his own destruction beneath Axion's hand, reduced to survival by instinct rather than command. Each moment existed not as separate events, but as a single line of failure that ran through both versions he now viewed of himself, since burning through the crucible of Sleheyron.
The one who had held back, loyal and principled.
The one who had lashed out, vengeful and prideful.
Neither had been enough.
Neither had ever been enough.
Thane had not been enough, even when playing at being Serus, underworld magician.
His fingers tightened slightly, not in physical grasp, but in the unseen pressure he exerted. The Force deepened around the crystal, no longer exploratory, but invasive and cruel. He imposed himself, pushing into every lattice, every groove, every hidden recess and memory held within the ancient jewel.
The awareness of Korriban surfaced briefly, unbidden but acknowledged. The furnace they had seized and kept on their old ship. The simplicity of constructing a synthetic crystal, of bypassing resistance entirely through design and control - it would have been efficient, still Sith, even. Predictable - almost safe in its outcome.
He dismissed it.
This crystal had been his. It had failed him. It would not be replaced.
It would submit.
The Caanan's breathing tightened again as another wave of strain moved through his chest, sharper now, the edges of it cutting deeper as his body continued to resist the unfiltered air. He did not correct it, bjt drew it in further, allowed the pain to crest and settle within him, feeding it into the same narrowing channel through which his will now flowed. The sensation became part of the process, indistinguishable from the rest.
He was not discarding what he had been. He was not ignoring the restraint that had once guided him, or the fury that had nearly consumed him. Both remained, present, acknowledged, and brought into alignment under a single directive. They were not identities to choose between - they were components.
He would define what they became. He would refine.
"I... de- ecide," he said quietly, the words barely more than a strained whisper without the respirator to carry them, yet absolute in their intent.
The Force answered.
Everything he carried, every failure, every loss, every fragment of anger and clarity and rejection, was drawn inward and directed with precision toward the single point between his hands. The crystal remained as it was for one final moment, its violet hue steady, its structure whole, its persistence unbroken. Then, the pressure reached its threshold.
The light in the room dimmed, not as a gradual fading, but as though something had stepped between the world and its source. The edges of the hut softened, detail collapsing inward as the space itself seemed to recede from him. The crystal's glow became the only fixed point, suspended in gathering darkness, its colour deepening as the Force closed around it completely-
-and then the world gave way.
Light returned without transition. There was no sense of movement between states, no passage from one reality into another. One moment there had been pressure, darkness closing in upon a single point of defiance. The next, there was air.
Clean.
It filled his lungs without resistance, cool and measured as it passed through him, settling deep without obstruction or pain. The first breath came unbidden, instinctive, and it held. No constriction followed - no tearing sensation across damaged tissue. There was no internal demand for control. It simply existed as it once had, natural and complete.
Thane drew a second breath, slower this time. He did not need to force it. The absence of pain was immediate and absolute.
The chamber around him was intact, unmarred by conflict or abandonment, its stonework clean and precisely maintained, every surface holding the quiet authority of long-standing order. His solar, he somehow realised, within Vaarthul. The proportions were familiar in a way that required no recollection, even though it had been his father's in his youth and he was sure he had not returned since. High ceilings arched overhead, carved with the subtle, flowing motifs of House Verus, their lines catching the ambient light that filtered in through the wide, open balcony doors beyond. That light carried with it the unmistakable hue of Caanus itself, a soft, diffused violet that settled across the room in calm gradients, neither harsh nor dim, but steady.
The air moved freely through the space. A breeze entered from the balcony, cool and consistent, carrying with it the scent of early spring. Floral, faintly sweet, grounded by the damp trace of recently turned soil and distant greenery. It reached him fully, unfiltered, and he felt it across his skin, across his face.
His face.
There was no interruption along the right side, no distortion in sensation. The wind passed evenly across both sides of his features, unbroken. He did not raise a hand to confirm it. He did not need to. The absence of difference was confirmation enough.
His awareness settled quickly. Disorientation presented itself only as a momentary misalignment, a subtle delay between recognition and acceptance. It did not persist; his mind adjusted with the same efficiency it had always possessed, absorbing the environment, the context, the state of himself, and aligning it without question. There was no struggle to reconcile memory with present reality.
This was simply where he was.
Sound carried from beyond the open doors - voices, fakmilar, unguarded, engaged in discussion without urgency. They did not carry tension. There was no weight behind them beyond purpose and clarity. He turned toward them without hesitation, his movement unimpeded, fluid in a way that required no conscious correction. His footing was exact. His balance absolute.
The weight at his side registered as he moved. The lightsaber remained where it had always rested, secured at his hip. He did not reach for it. Its presence was noted and left alone, part of the structure of himself rather than a point of focus.
He crossed the chamber and stepped out onto the balcony. Vaarthul opened before him in full. The sky above Caanus stretched wide and uninterrupted, its lavender tones deepening toward the horizon, layered with thin, high clouds that caught the light in soft gradients of violet and pale gold. The air carried that same quiet vitality, the sense of a world in balance, alive without strain. Below, the grounds of the keep extended outward in ordered terraces and natural growth, stone pathways winding between cultivated sections of flora that had been allowed to grow with intention rather than control.
At the centre of the balcony, the projection was already active. A galaxy map hovered above the circular table, its light crisp and stable, systems marked in layered detail, routes and territories clearly defined without clutter. Figures stood around it, engaged, their attention fixed upon the shifting data.
Bomoor stood among them, as he had once been. His posture was firm, composed, his presence steady rather than burdened. There was no fracture in him, no instability beneath the surface. He spoke with measured certainty, his focus directed entirely toward the matter at hand.
Sotah stood opposite him. The older Selkath Jedi’s expression held its usual calm, attentive without being passive, his stance relaxed but grounded. There was no shadow of doubt in him, no lingering sense of something lost or unresolved. He listened, then spoke in turn, his voice carrying clearly across the space.
"The developments within the Senate are aligning more quickly than anticipated," he said, his tone even, analytical without detachment. "Paralles stepping down creates an opening. Damask Hul has also agreed that an election is necessary, given all that has changed, in no small part to your good efforts, Master Thort. They expect a unification candidate to rise, one sympathetic to and accepted by even the ORA."
There was no tension in the exchange. It was discussion, controlled and purposeful, the kind that belonged to a galaxy under restoration.
Thane stepped closer.
The movement drew no immediate reaction. His presence was not disruptive here - it was expected, integrated into the space without resistance. He came to the edge of the table, the projection casting faint light across his features as he looked down upon the map.
He opened his mouth to speak but approached from behind him. They were light, unhurried, carrying no caution. He did not turn immediately. The presence was familiar before it was seen, recognised in the same quiet way as the rest of this place had been.
Loren entered the space.
She moved with easy confidence, her posture relaxed but assured, the weight of her role carried without strain. There was no tension in her frame, no guardedness in her expression. The environment did not demand it. She belonged here fully, unbroken and alive.
At her side walked her padawan - Zaracoda Wolph.
The young Nautolan held herself with growing assurance, her movements measured but not restrained, her attention sharp as it moved between those gathered. A bead-bound padawan braid hung from one of her lekku, the detail precise and deliberate, catching the ambient light as she stepped forward.
Loren’s voice carried across the balcony as she approached, warm and direct, touched with the familiar cadence of the lower levels of Coruscant.
"You should see the state of 'em," she said, a faint note of amusement threading through her words. "Every enclave we’ve come across has been barely holding together. Half of them surrender before we even engage, the rest fall apart the moment pressure’s applied. Whatever structure they had, it’s gone." She glanced toward Sotah briefly, then back across the group. "Rift Jedi's been sweeping through 'em cleanly with us. No resistance worth talking about. It’s like they’ve already lost and just ain't realised it yet!"
Her gaze shifted then - it settled on Thane. For a fraction of a second, something passed across her expression. The smile fell for a second, blood and sweat marring her features just briefly, before they shifted back to normality.
Thane held her gaze.
There was something in it. Not confusion - not entirely. A fracture too subtle to define, a moment where the alignment of this place and the memory he carried did not sit cleanly together. It pressed at the edge of his awareness, seeking form.
He contained it. Ignored it, maybe. The adjustment was immediate. The misalignment corrected, forced into place with the same quiet precision that had governed everything else since his arrival. His expression settled, the trace of something unspoken smoothed away before it could take hold.
The moment passed - and he as good as forgot.
He drew breath again, steady and unbroken, and turned his attention back toward the table, toward the discussion, toward the structure that presented itself as whole.
From the far side of the solar, where the light fell softer and the air did not move quite so freely, another presence made itself known. It had been there all along, settled into the space with the same quiet certainty as the stone and the sky beyond. Wulhart, his father, sat slightly apart from the others, angled toward the balcony rather than the table, a simple cane resting within reach of his hand. Age had not diminished him so much as distilled him, his frame leaner, his movements slower but deliberate, every line of him carrying the weight of years lived rather than lost. His gaze had already found Thane, not with surprise, but with a patient, almost amused recognition, as though he had been waiting for this moment to resolve itself.
"You've taken your time, son," he said, the voice deeper than Thane remembered, touched with fatigue but not weakness, its warmth unforced. There was no accusation in it, no demand for explanation. Only a quiet acknowledgement, and a faint, knowing humour that did not press for an answer.
Thane simply smiled, not giving his father any extra ammunition. He intentionally ignored the sarcastic man and turned to his friends.
"He likes to take things slow," Bomoor laughed a deep, hearty laugh that spoke of a deep satisfaction as it emerged from both mouths, "But he gets there in the end, does our Thane."
Releasing his hands from the map table, Bomoor bowed faintly to Sotah and meandered his way towards Thane, taking position beside Wulhart.
"But finding peace is not a single hyperspace jump away, it is a slow, subtle journey of self-realisation," the Ithorian crossed his arms, eyeing Thane with an admiring glance, "But I am glad he found what he was looking for here."
"A lesson I think you should consider learning, my old padawan," the tall visage of Master Thurius ducked under the hanging banner of House Verus and came to rest a palm upon Bomoor's shoulder, "You spend so much time running back and forth that I fear you will do yourself a mischief."
The Cerean's eyes smiled under his thick bushy brow and soft chuckles punctuated each word, directing them towards Thane with pride, "The Rift-Reborn reunification pact won't fall apart just because this one takes a single day off."
"It might, if you keep trying to prove to Zam that you're still the better swordsman," Bomoor rubbed his hump sheepishly, "He's almost as proud as you."
Padawan Coda casually approached Thane and bowed to him, "Your royal highness," she greeted to him softly hoping that the long cut of formality didn't make his skin crawl too much, but that was part of the fun as she knew he wasn't big on royal protocols. "It's been some time, hasn't it? Nice to see you rested and handsome as ever. I remember you looking like hell when we first met." She seasoned that remark with a wry nostalgic grin.
Thane’s smile came easily, unforced, settling across his features with a familiarity that did not feel borrowed. He inclined his head slightly to her, the title passing over him without correction, as though it belonged to the structure of this place rather than to him.
"If I am not mistaken," he said lightly, the faintest trace of amusement threading through his tone, "the first time I saw you, you were hunched in the cargo hold of our ship, covered in grime and helping yourself to rations."
The memory sat comfortably, without edge and studied her for a moment longer, the bead-bound braid, the posture, the composure that had settled into her.
"It suits you," he added, more quietly now, but no less certain. "You have taken to it well. You could not ask for a better master." His gaze shifted briefly toward Loren, a flicker of something like acknowledgement passing between thought and speech. "She is more patient than I ever could be," he continued. "More willing to teach what needs to be learned rather than what she expects to see." A faint exhale followed, almost a soft dismissal of himself. "I was never built for it."
Coda turned and was visibly cheerful as she strode up to greet her lovable Ithorian mentor who helped guide her in those early days before Loren became her master. "Master Bomoor! It's been so long! I could almost hug you, but...that wouldn't be a good look in front of Master Thurius, would it?" She turned and winked playfully at the Cerean sage.
Before Bomoor could fully respond to Coda’s remark, Sotah moved with a quiet ease that carried just enough theatrical intent to be noticed. The Selkath stepped between them slightly, one blue hand lifting in mild protest as his posture angled just enough to obscure the Ithorian from immediate reach.
"I believe you'll find the role of aquatic embracer has already been claimed," he said, his tone measured, though the faintest undercurrent of dry humour touched the words. "And I find I am not inclined to share." He glanced sidelong toward Thurius, the suggestion of amusement present without breaking the calm line of his expression. "I am, as it happens, a jealous creature."
A chirp on the console embedded in the table interrupted the reverie, and Loren, seeing the signal, wasted no time in patching the communication through.
A full body projection of Rynseh Lahan, the ranking Jedi Weapon Master of the unified Temple, winked into view. He was a strikingly tall and svelte Cathar man of corded muscles, proud long auburn hair and mane, and tawny fur.
"Your majesty, highness, and esteemed Jedi colleagues," he began in an at-ease pose with hands clasped behind his back. "I'm pleased to report the Watchtower over Korriban is secure. We arrived in the nick of time with reinforcements. Most of the cultists have been neutralized. Some escaped, but we'll find them soon enough. It's with great relief there were minimal friendly casualties. The intelligence Prince Thane's operatives provided saved many lives this day. We owe the Caanan Royal Family a debt of gratitude. On behalf of the Jedi Council and my fellow knights, we thank you." Rynseh bowed low to Thane with profound respect and gratitude.
Coda's expression was filled with delight as she exchanged warm smiles with Loren, and then turned to Thane, her dark alien eyes filled with joy for him, but then Thane thought he saw a vague disturbing hint of red and gold light lurking deep within her twin orbs.
Thane allowed the words to settle as Rynseh bowed, the praise received without resistance, without deflection. It fit. It aligned with everything this place presented to him. The systems intact, the Order unified, the conflicts contained and resolved through effort and cooperation rather than fracture. He drew breath, steady and unbroken, and inclined his head in return, his expression composed as he began to respond.
"You honour-" The word faltered as something shifted.
Rynseh’s posture altered by a fraction, the bow holding a moment too long, the angle of his head changing just enough that the line of his features no longer sat correctly. The respect remained in the shape of it, but beneath it something else pressed through, something sharper - a snarl that did not belong.
Thane’s hand moved before the thought fully formed, instinct drawing it down toward his hip, toward the place where the lightsaber rested.
"Thane?"
Loren’s voice cut across the moment, halting the action, and he turned to her - and the world shifted again, as it had with Coda and with Rynseh.
It was brief. A flicker, nothing more. The clean line of her form disrupted, colour darkening across her robes where no stain should be. For an instant, there was blood at her mouth, her expression strained beneath it. It was gone as quickly as it had come, replaced by the same composed certainty, the same unbroken and easy presence she had carried when she entered.
He staggered back, and Sotah moved without haste, closing the distance with the same calm precision that defined him. One familiar, reassuring hand came to rest against Thane’s shoulder, firm but not forceful, grounding without restraint, as it had done since childhood - in those weeks after his mother and Ventul-
"All is well," the Selkath said quietly. There was no doubt in his old master's words - only certainty. "You have done what was required."
The pressure in the moment eased. The distortion receded. The edges of the world reasserted themselves, clean, stable, complete. Loren stood as she had before. Rynseh remained composed, his posture correct, his expression respectful. Coda's eyes were black, healthy and youthful.
Sotah’s hand remained for a moment longer.
"The galaxy is settling," he continued, his lisping voice low, even. "Not without difficulty, of course. Not without cost... but it is finding its balance. People have chosen what matters."
The hand withdrew and Thane drew breath again.
The calm settled into him with a depth he had not felt in years, not forced, not constructed, but present in a way that required no effort to maintain. The brief fracture, the distortion, the sense of something misaligned, it all receded beneath that steadiness, rendered insignificant by comparison.
There was demand to impose - no need to rise up in combat, to fight against myriad foes and wage conflict against confused ideologies and corrupted ideals. There was only the quiet, persistent sense that everything was as it should be.
For the first time since Sleheyron-
Sleheyron.
The word did not belong. It did not settle into the calm that had been so carefully constructed around him. It did not dissolve beneath Sotah’s reassurance or the steady rhythm of his own unbroken breath. It remained, sharp and intact, a fragment that refused to be smoothed into place.
Thane’s gaze moved across those gathered. Bomoor, whole and unburdened. Loren, steady and alive. Zaracoda, bright with purpose. Sotah, unchanged, guiding as he always had. Even Rynseh, composed and respectful, a figure of order rather than fracture. The galaxy beyond them, stable, resolving, conflicts contained and processed through systems that functioned without collapse.
It was all... correct.
There was no strain in it - no breaking point, with no moment where will was forced to assert itself against inevitability. The conflicts they spoke of were being managed rather than endured or survived. The cost existed, yes, but it was measured, acceptable, distributed in such a way that nothing was truly lost.
His breathing remained steady - too steady.
This world did not demand anything of him. It did not require transformation; it did not force decision beyond reasoned agreement, beyond the slow alignment of capable minds working toward shared resolution. In this place, he was not necessary as something more. He was simply... included.
The thought settled with quiet finality.
This ends without cost - this is not real.
His jaw tightened. He had thought sacrifice meant loss. Loren. Ventul - even himself, if required. He had believed it was measured in what was destroyed to achieve something greater.
He had been wrong. Sacrifice was not just what was destroyed or personally surrendered - it was when decisions were made about what others could and could not be, in the opportunities that they had to be denied to achieve supremacy and victory. It is easy to destroy something or to surrender something of yourself for a higher purpose - but far more taxing to deny another their right to exist, to feel, to decide... to never reach their potential.
His gaze returned to them, to the ease in their posture, the certainty in their voices, the absence of fracture in the way they stood together. This reality preserved them. It did not define them at all; it robbed them of their value and importance in being changed, in being used and spent to truly change the galaxy and find purpose - it removed the need for what he must become.
A slow breath left Thane, deeper now, the first that carried weight rather than ease. The sensation returned, faint at first, then sharpening at the edges, the memory of strain, of damage, of survival forced through broken structure. It did not belong here - and that was how he knew it was real.
The Caanan's hand tightened at his side, not reaching for the saber now, but grounding himself in something that resisted rather than complied.
"No..."
The word came low, roughened, not by the ease of this place, but by something breaking through it. The smooth clarity of his voice faltered, replaced by the faintest echo of the damage that should not exist here, threading through the sound as it left him.
It did not rise in volume, but deepened.
"No."
"Yes, master," Coda said gently as she approached Thane with a peculiar black respirator mask in her hands which she offered to him. The others in the room didn't seem to react at all to what she was doing or saying. "I know who you really are. You're the Sith pretender who sold me lies and thought he could prevail against a god. You stupid fool. You even let your blood brother die. You couldn't save him when he needed you the most. Ventul perished because you were too weak, too incompetent. Just a failed Knight chasing a fantasy written by corpses rotted in old tombs. You couldn't even save yourself let alone your family or me! You are NOTHING!"
The words struck. They found the fractures already present, pressed into them, widened them with deliberate precision. Each accusation carried weight not because it redefined him, but because it echoed something he had already measured and found incomplete.
Failure. Weakness. Loss. None of it was new. And mone of it changed the conclusion.
Thane’s gaze held on her as she spoke, the mask in her hands an offering, an accusation, a mockery of what he had become and what he had yet to be, all very clear to him again in this place that was wrong, despite its glowing veneer. The others did not move or react. The world held its shape around the moment, indifferent to the rupture forming at its centre.
Ventul.
The name settled differently now, no longer as any sense of guilt - but as proof.
His jaw tightened, the calm that had settled over him moments before now fracturing from within, not collapsing, but being displaced by something colder, sharper, more exact. The vision did not fail because it accused him - it failed because it presumed he would accept it, that he would accept this version of events where everything aligned without cost, without necessity, and without the imposition of will required to shape it.
He had not been strong enough. He had not been ruthless enough.
But, that was not a condemnation - it was instruction.
His hand lifted, fingers spreading as the Force coiled through him, no longer contained, no longer refined into quiet pressure. It surged now, violent and absolute, drawn not from loss but from certainty. The air itself seemed to tighten, the illusion straining at its edges as something real forced its way through.
"No..."
The word came yet again, stronger now, the distortion in his voice no longer hidden, the damage beneath it pushing through the false perfection of the vision.
Coda did not flinch. Neither did Loren, nor did any of the others. They remained as they were - the final flaw of this imperfect-perfect world.
"No!"
Lightning tore from his outstretched hand, not as a controlled arc, but as a violent eruption, branching, splitting, filling the space with blinding, searing light. It struck them all at once. Loren first, her form breaking under it, flesh and fabric tearing away in flashes of white and red. Sotah followed, the calm expression dissolving as the energy consumed him, form collapsing into nothing beneath the force of it. Wulhart did not rise nor resist. The older man simply remained as he was - and then was gone.
The projection shattered and the balcony fractured. The sky tore open above them, violet splitting into black.
Bomoor remained for a moment longer. Zaracoda too, her form pulling back, not consumed or destroyed, but drawn into something deeper, something that did not yield as the others. Shadows gathered around them instead, swallowing them whole, removing them from the destruction rather than subjecting them to it.
The ground then vanished beneath him, the balcony, the sky, the keep itself tearing away as though it had never been anchored at all. Thane fell, the sensation immediate and absolute, no resistance, no transition, only the drop.
Heat surged upward to meet him, the stench of metal and industry - and that sharp, chemical edge of processed air.
Sleheyron.
The synthspice factory rose around him as he fell, furnaces burning, structures looming, the same environment that had broken him once before. It rushed up to meet him, unrelenting, inevitable.
Like before, there was no time to correct... no time to impose, cushion or change his fate, as the metal came to meet him-
And the world snapped back.
Thane hit the floor of Mumin’s hut with a force that drove the air from his lungs, his body slamming back against the wall where he came to rest in a collapsed, seated position. Pain followed instantly, sharp and overwhelming, his damaged spine screaming under the sudden return to reality, every nerve alight with it.
His breath came in harsh, ragged pulls, rasping, hissing and barely whole. The air burned as it entered him, every inhale a reminder of what had been lost, of what had been endured and what had been remade.
The hut remained standing, but the large table at the centre did not. It had split cleanly down the centre, a jagged fracture running through the point where the hilt and crystal had been suspended moments before, the force of what had occurred tearing it apart.
Thane did not move immediately, almost could not. His head hung for a moment, breath dragging through him, each intake excruciating and loud. The red glow in his eyes burned fully now, not the subtle ring that had remained before, but something deeper, more complete, saturating his gaze entirely as awareness returned in full.
His hand was clenched and he looked down. Slowly, deliberately, he opened it. The final two cybernetic digits twitched as they extended, not entirely smooth in their motion, some exertion or issue in his mind causing the misfire, but precise enough as they revealed what lay within.
The crystal. It was longer Hurrikaine violet - but bloodshine Sith red.
It did not simply reflect the light around it, but generated its own, a low, internal glow that pulsed faintly, as though something within it had been ignited and would not be extinguished. There was no resistance left within it. No persistence or identity beyond what had just been imposed upon it.
It was his - truly and entirely.
He pushed himself forward, the motion slow, deliberate, every shift sending fresh waves of strain through his spine, through his chest, through the ruined structure of what he had become. He rose, unsteady for a fraction of a second, then stable.
The components of the hilt lifted from where they had fallen, drawn together by the Force with the same precision he had used before, though now there was no resistance and no delay. Each piece found its place without deviation, locking together flawlessly.
The completed weapon settled into his hand. He held it for a moment, regarding the familiarity of the hilt, its weight and shape. The weapon that had brought him this far in their war against the Cult, that had been with him when he genuflected before the holocron of Bane, when they had found Amare - and when he had fallen to Axion. He activated the switch.
A sharp snap-hiss cut through the silence of the hut, deeper than it had been before, the tone altered, the resonance lower and heavier, as the blade extended into existence.
Crimson light flooded the dark space and stained the shattered home of Mumin Mozo.
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