One Shared Feeling

Posted on Mon May 4th, 2026 @ 10:44am by Bomoor Thort & Darth Serus

3,915 words; about a 20 minute read

Chapter: Chapter IX: The First Verse
Location: Dunari's Delight Space Station, Mayagil Secto
Timeline: Day Seven, Morning

Time and time again, the cargo bay of the Dunari's Delight lit up with brilliant flashes of blood-red and viridian as the two blades crashed against one another. The pure plasma made contact with a violent screech that scattered through the chamber and drowned the steady hum of repair machinery beyond the bay doors, where the Red Raptor waited in its berth, almost restored to flight after the catastrophe of Sleheyron. The air carried the clean sterility of the Mayagil station, touched faintly by coolant, metal dust and bacta residue, but beneath it lay something sharper whenever the red blade cut through the space: heat, ozone, and the faint suggestion of burned air.

Darth Serus moved quickly.

That was the first surprise. Not that he stood, nor that he endured, nor even that he had insisted upon taking up the lightsaber so soon after the surgeons had released him from more intensive treatment, but that his body, broken and remade only days before, answered with such speed when he commanded it. The dark side moved through him more cleanly than it had on Sleheyron or before, no longer crashing through wounded instinct or pride, but flowing along clearer channels, directed by will and reinforced by machinery. He advanced with sudden, precise bursts, his bloodshine blade held in one hand in the old Makashi line, though the posture was no longer quite what it had been. The right side of his face, though still scarred, had settled from raw ruin into something colder and more permanent, the regular bacta treatment offering some remedy. The photoreceptor burned red where his eye had been, adjusting in minute increments as it tracked Bomoor's movement, while the black respirator shaped each breath into a quiet, regulated rhythm that never fully belonged to exertion.

Bomoor's viridian blade met him again, catching a thrust aimed cleanly toward the Ithorian's centre line. The lock held only a second before Serus twisted his wrist and disengaged with a flick that would once have been almost effortless. This time, the motion was fast, even elegant, but the follow-through was not entirely true. His shoulder corrected a fraction late and his spine stiffened against the turn. The photoreceptor compensated for depth faster than his body accepted it, and his boot struck the deck harder than intended as he shifted back into range.

The red blade came up again at once. Darth Serus pressed the attack, not recklessly, but with a hunger that no longer needed to announce itself. His strikes were clean, sharp and forceful, a Makashi skeleton clothed now in something heavier, more direct, the beginnings of a new and heavier style that had not yet settled into name or discipline, hints of Niman and Vaapad. Bomoor gave ground under it, not overwhelmed, but driven into wider and more deliberate movements as the crimson blade tested the gaps between his guard. The Force gathered around Serus with each exchange, close and dark and efficient, answering him without the old friction. Yet the body carrying that power remained unfamiliar. Twice his breathing deepened too sharply beneath the respirator and the system corrected him with a faint, almost imperceptible modulation. Once, when he turned through a fast inside cut, the red photoreceptor narrowed and recalibrated as though the world had briefly become too precise to trust.

The third time it happened, Bomoor caught him.

The Ithorian shifted his weight with deceptive slowness, allowed Serus' blade to slide across his guard, then answered not with the saber but with the Force. The push was controlled, gentler than the old blows that had once sent Thane crashing into walls aboard freighter or in temple dojos, but it struck hard enough to break the rhythm. Serus slid back several paces, boots scraping over the deck, one hand lowering by instinct to steady himself as the shock travelled through his spine and forced a sharp, muted breath through the respirator.

For a moment, the cargo bay was still but for the hum of both weapons.

Serus lifted his head. The old half-grin did not come. The respirator hid the mouth that would once have shaped it, and the scarred tissue around the right side of his face held too tightly for easy expression. But, the remaining organic eye creased at the corner, faintly, and something of the old provocation passed through it, colder now but recognisable beneath the new form.

"That," he said, the words crisp and slightly compressed through the speaker interface, "was cautious." He raised the red blade again. "Try harder. There's still fight left in me."

Bomoor drew his blade up and towards him, observing Serus from across its pale glow.

"Perhaps I am not pushing you as I should," Bomoor observed, his tone contemplative rather than apologetic, "But do not mistake it for restraint. I know better than most how your body must be tested before we move forward."

He drew in a deep breath, tasting the recirculated air, peppered with the fresher oxygen routed from the arboretum throughout the station.

"It is simply that I no longer feel the fatigue I once did," he observed, "Where I once paused to gather myself in the light, the darker currents of the Force now answer without resistance."

Serus had now arisen, and they stood across from one another. A moment's pause settled as they adjusted and considered one another.

Then, with a nod, Bomoor lifted his blade toward his chest, its viridian glow washing faintly across his features, angling his body and raising his shoulders in a clear and open indication of the Ataru opener.

"Come then," he bellowed, blade rising in challenge, "Let us see which of us breaks first: your body, or my endurance."

Serus did not answer his old friend. The silence held for only a moment, but it was deliberate. His blade lowered by a fraction as he adjusted his footing, the line of his body shifting out of the familiar Makashi posture into something less refined, less orthodox. The elegance remained in part, the precision of his stance still rooted in the discipline he had spent years mastering, but there was a change to the posture. The lesson of Sleheyron lingered too sharply, clearly. He did not return to Niman’s openness nor to Makashi’s purity. Instead, he drew inward, narrowing his presence, his shoulders settling lower, his weight shifting more centrally over his frame.

Around them, the cargo bay seemed to respond in kind. Overhead lumin-strips flickered intermittently, their pale white glow struggling against the harsher spill of red and pale green light cast by the blades, leaving long, fractured shadows crawling across the deck plating. Beyond the half-sealed blast doors, the skeletal frame of the Red Raptor loomed in sections - hull plates removed, wiring exposed, gantry arms extended into its opened flank like surgical limbs mid-operation. The distant clatter of tools and the low murmur of automated systems bled faintly into the space, softened by bulkhead and distance, but never fully absent.

The change in Serus was subtle, but it carried intent. The red blade angled across his body. The respirator gave a faint, measured intake as he stilled, the photoreceptor flickering once as it refined the distance, recalculating not just where Bomoor stood, but where he would be, although it still did not yet quite respond as keenly or precisely as needed. A droplet of condensed moisture fell somewhere behind him and struck metal with a soft, hollow tick that seemed louder than it should have been.

Then, the Sith Lord moved.

There was no flourish to it, no warning beyond what Bomoor could see. Serus closed the distance rapidly, the red blade snapping forward in a tight, direct line that forced Bomoor to meet him immediately rather than prepare. The exchange collapsed inward at once, the wider arcs of earlier passes replaced by close, controlled movements, each strike economical, each correction immediate. He did not allow space to reform. He remained within it, pressing in, forcing Bomoor to react rather than advance.

The rhythm was different now. Where once he had relied on flow and adaptability, this was something more compressed, more forceful, each motion feeding into the next with a contained intensity that bordered on volatility but did not quite spill over. The dark side sat close to the surface, not raging as it had on Sleheyron, but held in a tighter circuit, feeding his movements in controlled surges that sharpened each strike. The bloodshine blade cut through the thin vapour near the deck, leaving brief, glowing distortions that curled away behind each motion before dissolving into the cooler air.

Bomoor caught the blade again, turning it aside, but the moment of contact did not hold, as Serus broke it instantly. His left hand came free from the hilt and drove forward without hesitation, striking hard into Bomoor’s side with a sharp, controlled blow that carried more weight than the motion alone should have allowed, and harder than the Human had ever intentionally struck at Bomoor before in any of their earlier sessions.

The impact landed with a dull, resonant thud against layered fabric and corded Ithorian muscle, echoing faintly off the bay walls. Bomoor’s footing shifted against the grated floor, the metal giving a brief rasp beneath his weight as he adjusted. Darth Serus followed immediately, pivoting through the motion, his leg driving outward, supplemented by the alterations wound about his back and limbs, in a low, forceful kick that struck against Bomoor’s lower frame and pushed him back across the deck.

Bomoor slid several steps, the metal grating carrying the force of the impact before he rebalanced, his stance widening as he absorbed the motion. A loose tool somewhere near the edge of the bay rattled in response, disturbed by the force of the movement. The viridian blade rose again at once, steady, his recovery rapid despite the sheer force of the kick, its softer glow now cutting a clearer line through the drifting vapour between them.

Serus did not pursue further. He remained where he had halted, the blade held low at his side, his posture tightening briefly as the aftershock of the movement travelled back through his body. The delay was slight, almost imperceptible, but it was there; a fraction too long in the reset, a controlled breath drawn through the respirator as the system corrected him once more. A faint mechanical modulation followed the inhale, smoothing it, containing it, denying it the unevenness his body tried to impose.

Then, his lightsaber lifted again. The ocular implant burned steadily, fixed upon Bomoor, recalibrating and waiting, its glow reflecting faintly in the Ithorian’s dark eyes across the dim, industrial space.

This time, Bomoor moved first. The Ithorian dropped low, his mass sweeping forward in a blur of momentum, the viridian blade skimming the deck in a wide, rising arc that sent a ripple of displaced vapour rolling ahead of it.

Serus caught the sweep, but only just. The bloodshine blade met it with a sharp, jarring hiss, the impact travelling up through his arm and into the still-settling lattice of cybernetics along his spine. He leaned back to absorb the force, but Bomoor did not remain in front of him.

The Ithorian’s form blurred past his flank faster than Serus’ organic eye could track, and only belatedly parsed by the implant as a cascade of red-tinged telemetry. He turned into the next strike a fraction late. Bomoor’s blade hammered in from the opposite side, then again, lower, driving him into a one‑handed guard that favoured speed over stability.

This lock held longer; Bomoor pressed down, powerful arms angled to bear directly upon the Human’s centre. The pressure bit into Serus’ posture, the spinal implants tightening in a rigid, involuntary brace that denied him the fluid escape he once commanded.

A final shove forced him toward the edge of collapse and then Bomoor was gone from the ground entirely. The deck vibrated with the force of his launch, a rippling distortion running through the metal beneath their feet. Serus saw the twist in the air with perfect clarity, the photoreceptor narrowing as it plotted the descending line of attack, but his body lagged behind the calculation. His spine refused the torque he demanded of it.

The viridian blade came down. Serus brought his own up too slowly.

Bomoor landed behind him with a heavy, controlled impact. Before Serus could fully turn, a wide, ebony hand closed around his wrist. The grip was hard. Not enough to break bone, but enough to halt motion entirely.

Serus tried to wrench free. Bomoor’s fingers tightened once in response. Pain flared along the nerves of his forearm, and his own fingers betrayed him, opening against his will.

The bloodshine blade fell. Its plasma hissed out as it struck the deck, the clatter echoing sharply through the bay.

Serus’ gaze snapped upward to meet Bomoor’s. The Ithorian’s eyes were stern, bloodshot, the vessels around them spidering like cracked stone.

The pressure did not lessen, as Bomoor’s grip held firm around his wrist, immovable, the strength in it not crude but absolute, rooted through stance and mass rather than effort. Serus felt the angle of restraint, the way it denied leverage rather than simply overpowering him. His fingers had already opened. The absence of his weapon was notable, a hollowed space at the edge of his awareness where the blade had been a moment before.

His spine resisted as he tested it, a controlled attempt to turn through the hold that met the same refusal as before. The implants along his back tightened in response, bracing, correcting, but not yielding what he required. The movement stopped before it could properly begin. Again, he was fraction too slow - a fraction too constrained.

He stilled, less out of submission and more to understand it. His respirator drew in a measured breath, smoothing the unevenness his body tried to impose. The photoreceptor flickered once, refining the space again, Bomoor’s position, the line of his centre, the placement of his feet against the grating. The organic eye followed a heartbeat later, slower, less precise. The two did not quite agree - not yet, his brain marginally confused by the dissonance of it all, in spite of the advanced interfaces seeking to compensate and integrate.

There were options, though. The Caanan could feel them as clearly as the pressure on his wrist.

A discharge of lightning at this range would break the hold. It would also fill the confined space, uncontrolled once released, arcing across metal and conduit, into Bomoor, into the deck, into himself if the modulation faltered. The systems along his chest and throat would carry it, but not cleanly. Not yet, as far as he understood. The output would exceed the frame that housed it. He dismissed it.

He could also take the deck from beneath them. The grating was already compromised in places, the substructure exposed where parts of the station were open for repair or access. A focused Force wrench would tear it free, destabilise Bomoor’s stance or collapse him entirely. It could also remove his own footing, force him into recovery he could not guarantee, turn precision into imbalance where he was already struggling. He dismissed that as well.

The container behind Bomoor sat half-secured in its cradle, weight locked but not anchored. He could feel it, the mass of it through the Force, the pain allowing his senses and power to heighten in sublime and focused ways, and he could almost feel the way it would carry through space if hurled at his old friend. It would strike with sufficient force to break the hold - to end the exchange entirely and give him the advantage or victory.

Imprecise. Excessive.

Beneath the purpose of the exercise, he knew, which was probably already fulfilled.

The blade lay on the deck somewhere behind him, its presence still there, distant but reachable. He reached for it without moving, a tightening of intent in the Force rather than any physical motion. The connection responded, butBomoor would feel it too, and would undoubtedly adjust. The opening would close before it formed.

Serus let that go, too. All of the options resolved and fell away in the same moment they were considered. Each viable in isolation - but each misaligned with the constraint he had imposed upon himself.

His wrist shifted once more in Bomoor’s grasp, a final test, not forceful, but exact. The grip held and angle did not change. He was contained, and not by strength alone, but by position and timing - and by the limits of what he was actually willing to do here, now, in this place.

Serus' gaze lifted to meet Bomoor’s fully, the red glow of the implant steady, the gold of the organic eye catching the dim light. There was no strain in the look, no frustration carried into it - only the clear acknowledgement of the state of the exchange as it stood.

There were no acceptable solutions.

"I concede."

The marble eyes held a moment longer, peering into him with weighted consideration before the pressure was dropped and Bomoor took a careful step back. Not to distance himself, but as a clear, polite acknowledgement that the sparring had concluded.

Back in their days training in the Reborn Temple, under the careful tutelage of Master Thurius, the gesture may have included a bow. But they no longer needed to make a show of the respect they had already reaffirmed time and time again.

"Good," Bomoor nodded simply, his form holding and breathing only slightly heavier as he relinquished some of the summoned energy he had been channelling. The metal of the station creaked gently; it too settling back into an inert state.

"I could see no clean way forwards," he added, echoing Serus' own internal conclusions, "But, with time, you will be able to take greater risks."

He looked down at the hand that had just been holding his friend's wrist and massaged it gently with his other hand; the strength of his own exertion catching up.

"Your implants still stand apart from you in the Force and reveal a shatterpoint to exploit," Bomoor's voice was steady and interested, considering Serus as an sculptor considers his next strike into granite, "But this will not always be the case. As you begin to know them more, they will become less visible to your opponents."

He cocked his head, a lighter note entering his twin vocalisation, "Even from me."

Serus did not move at first. The respirator drew in a slow, measured breath, the sound faint and even, though the body beneath it had not yet fully settled. Where once he may have been sweating and his chest heaving, the power of the Force and his cybernetic intrusions betrayed no such exertion - but he was in pain.

"It does not obey," he said, the words level, unadorned, offered without defensiveness or excuse as he summoned his hilt to his hand. His gaze remained on Bomoor, steady, analytical - the edge of frustration visible in his one eye. "I see the movement before it forms. I know the correction I must make. The timing is there, in my mind's eye, in the muscle memory - and in the Force." A faint,thoughtful pause followed. "My 'new' body refuses it. The systems interfere, compensate too late. This so-called eye resolves distance faster than I can act upon it. And the pain is… inconsistent. At times, it sharpens. At others... it fractures focus."

He shifted his stance slightly, testing it again without breaking eye contact, as though continuing the assessment even now. "It is weakness," he added after a moment, quieter, but no less certain. "It is misalignment, even if temporary as mind and machine become one." There was a hint of disgust in his tone, the familiar disdain Thane held for machines-as-life and intrusion seeping into this Dark Lord's synthetic voice. "Until it does, or until I can master myself again, I am forced to fight as though I am divided - damaged and slow."

A chime rang out across the bay, low and melodic, signalling the end of the day shift. The hue of the station lights shifted to a slightly warmer tone as they simulated the light of a standard setting sun. Over towards the Raptor, the faint sound of chatter could be heard as the workmen downed tools and wrapped up their work until the next day's shift.

There was a clean simple order to the life of the station: every action was predictable and controlled, more so than could be possible planet side, with a million more variables to consider.

"But you can still fight. That is acceptable for now," Bomoor looked over at the figures slowly drifting towards the exit, towards their nightly routines, "We have the rare luxury of time here. Tomorrow, we will practice again and you will be less divided, then again until you are whole."

He clipped his blade to his belt and stared at Serus a moment longer, thoughtfully, "I have been thinking more on Mentis' request. Perhaps it might aid you to face a different opponent as well - it would also give me a chance to instruct him further."

Serus vaguely listened to the low murmur of departing workers settling into a distant rhythm as his attention remained fixed on Bomoor.

Mentis.

The Rattataki had survived where others had not, had endured pressure that would have broken lesser men, and had shown, in moments, a clarity that bordered on promise. Thane had come to recognise that over time, and Mentis had made an active choice to retrieve him and Bomoor from the factory when he could have left them behind, and abandoned the cause he had joined to find a new life, safe and comfortable, free of cultists and Sith. Darth Serus did not dispute Mentis' worth or ability - but neither did he value it, not as he perhaps should have.

There was, however, a certain utility in the prospect. Mentis was not Bomoor. He did not carry the same weight, the same understanding - nor the same restraint. He would err in different ways, more restrained in some and less contained in others. Serus, in turn, would not need to limit himself to preserve him, and that thought settled cleanly. There would be no need to measure each strike, no requirement to hold the line at the edge of injury, or to not improvise when his own broken form failed him. The equation was simple, and in that simplicity, something close to anticipation formed, quiet and controlled, in his mind. A flash of enthusiasm threatened to grow.

"I will face him," Serus said at last, the words even, unembellished. "Without constraint, though. It he adapts, he will be stronger for it. If he does not…" The sentence did not quite finish, nor did it need to. The outcome was already understood.

His gaze held on Bomoor a moment longer, steady and certain.

"Tomorrow."

"Very well," Bomoor nodded once again, agreeing without dispute regarding Mentis' involvement, "Then tomorrow, we continue."

There was a brief pause, his eyes still steady as he looked towards his friend.

"Rest now and let the body absorb the lessons the mind already knows."

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