The Bronze Lady's Old Home

Posted on Sun Aug 30th, 2026 @ 8:15pm by Sotah & Darth Serus & Bomoor Thort & Thurius

6,230 words; about a 31 minute read

Chapter: Chapter IX: The First Verse
Location: Bronze Keep, Onderon
Timeline: Day Eighteen

The Bronze Keep had not been built to be comfortable.

Even during the Avalan Crisis, when its halls had been occupied by Prince Garius, his household and the armed supporters of his claim, there had been something austere about the place. It had been a fortress before it had ever pretended to be a residence, with thick ruddy walls, narrow passages and watchtowers positioned less for beauty than for the commanding view they offered across the forests beyond Iziz. The few concessions to nobility had belonged to another age even then: old banners, relics of Queen Mother Avala's time and the modest throne from which her grandson had once spoken confidently of independence whilst Jedi Masters, Republic officials and Rift sympathisers argued over the future of Onderon.

Eleven years had done little to improve it. If anything, the jungle had spent the intervening time correcting the presumption that the Keep belonged to anyone at all.

Night had descended across the wilderness beyond Iziz, reducing the distant capital to a diffuse amber glow occasionally visible through breaks in the trees. The old walls rose dark against it, their bronze-like colour deepened almost to black by moisture and age. Moss grew thickly through joints in the masonry and vines had found their way over parapets once patrolled by armed Royal Guards. One of the exterior watchtowers had partially collapsed into the forest below, whilst another remained sufficiently intact to provide a favoured roost for several broad-winged nocturnal creatures whose silhouettes occasionally passed across the stars.

There were still signs of occupation, however. A handful of old powered lamps had been coaxed into life around the portion of the Keep presently being used, their yellow-white glow weak but steady beneath layers of dust and oxidised fittings. Where the electrical systems could not be trusted, candles had been placed in alcoves and along the edge of a broad stone table recovered from one of the adjoining chambers. Several mismatched chairs surrounded it, none apparently belonging to the same set and one carrying the faded impression of some long-removed royal crest across its back. Bedrolls and travel cases occupied one wall. A compact communications unit rested nearby, powered down, whilst a collection of provisions had been stacked with considerably more care than elegance beside an old cabinet whose doors no longer closed properly.

At the centre of it all, a small fire burned within what had once been a decorative hearth.

Someone, many decades earlier, had clearly intended it for appearances rather than necessity. It had nevertheless proved serviceable after its flue was cleared, and a shallow metal pot now hung above the flames, sending the faint scent of vegetables, herbs and something vaguely marine through the old chamber. The effect was almost absurdly domestic. Two Jedi Masters, functionally exiled from the Order to which they had given most of their lives, had taken shelter within the abandoned headquarters of an Onderonian independence movement and were presently using it to cook supper.

Sotah rather liked it, but he was not inside to enjoy it.

Several hundred metres beyond the Keep's outer wall, where the remnants of an old stone path had surrendered almost completely to roots and undergrowth, the Selkath sat beneath an enormous tree whose limbs spread broadly enough to conceal much of the sky. The blue of his robes appeared almost black in the surrounding darkness, their lower folds damp from the humid soil beneath him. His hands rested loosely upon his knees and his eyes had been closed for the better part of an hour.

Onderon's wilderness refused silence. Insects rasped and clicked amongst the vegetation. Somewhere far above, leaves trembled beneath the weight of something moving carefully from branch to branch. Smaller animals passed through the undergrowth with sudden little bursts of noise, whilst deeper within the forest came the occasional hollow call of some larger creature announcing its presence to others beyond sight. Water moved somewhere nearby, not enough to be called a stream, but enough that Sotah could hear it slipping persistently across stone.

He allowed each sound to exist without attempting to separate it from the others.

There was an old temptation amongst Jedi, particularly those trained within the great temples of civilisation, to regard meditation as the creation of stillness. To silence thought, silence distraction, silence the world until only the Force remained.

Sotah had never entirely agreed. The Force was the world.

Here it crawled beneath leaves and hunted amongst roots. It slept in nests and drank from pools, and it flowered, fed, decayed and returned itself endlessly to the soil. The Living Force upon Onderon was particularly insistent, tangled through a biosphere that had been dangerous long before sentient beings built walls to keep it outside. One could no more silence it than silence an ocean by refusing to listen to the waves.

A faint movement disturbed the moss beside him, but Sotah did not open his eyes. The creature had visited him twice already.

It was a small reptilian animal, squat-bodied but long-tailed, with a fan of flexible spines folded flat along its back and two disproportionately bright eyes adapted to the forest gloom. On the first evening it had watched him from several metres away. Yesterday it had approached close enough to investigate the edge of his robe before retreating when Sotah shifted position.

Tonight, it climbed directly onto the broad stone beside him. Its claws made tiny scratching noises against the rock.

Sotah continued breathing and the animal settled.

Several minutes passed before something larger moved in the canopy overhead. Both Jedi and creature reacted at almost precisely the same moment, heads angling fractionally toward the sound as a shadow passed from one tree to another and disappeared.

Only then did Sotah open his eyes.

He looked first toward the darkness above, then sideways to his small companion. A few quiet words left him in Selkatha, soft enough that they barely disturbed the surrounding chorus.

The reptile blinked and Sotah's wide mouth parted into the tooth-filled approximation of a smile.

"I shall accept that as agreement."

He remained there a little longer. It had become a habit since their arrival. Thurius tolerated his disappearances into the surrounding wilderness with the patience of someone who had known Sotah for too many years to question them, although the Selkath suspected his old friend remained unconvinced that communing with Onderonian wildlife contributed materially to their present problem.

Perhaps it did not - not everything needed to.

There had been enough questions lately whose answers seemed determined to alter the shape of the galaxy.

The Bastion Document had spread beyond containment. Bothawui had become the first great fracture, but certainly not the last. The Outer Rim Alliance and Third Republic now watched one another with the increasingly careful language of governments pretending they had not begun preparing for the possibility of conflict, whilst worlds caught between them reconsidered loyalties established generations before. Onderon was no exception. The independence movement had never truly vanished here, and voices once dismissed as nostalgic remnants of the Avalan Crisis had begun finding younger and more receptive audiences.

If the Alliance broke from the Republic again, some wished Onderon to follow it, whilst others wanted no master at all.

Sotah had heard enough of the arguments during their discreet journey from Iziz to know how familiar they were becoming and Tlthat recognition carried its own discomfort.

Eleven years earlier, he and Thurius had walked these forests with Rift Guardian Sazar under the watchful rifles of Commander Regnal's men. They had come as Jedi of the Republic, nominally at the request of GalactaWerks, though Sotah had insisted even then that their duty extended beyond whoever happened to have summoned them. Somewhere behind them, two young Padawans had been sent upon another part of the investigation, trusted to manage themselves and, Sotah had hoped, learn something from those whose beliefs differed from their own.

Thane had been sixteen.

Sotah remembered the boy's expression aboard the transport descending towards Iziz; the irritation at crowds, the distaste for GalactaWerks and the barely concealed homesickness provoked by Onderon's old royal architecture. He remembered resting a hand upon his shoulder when the enclosed shuttle became uncomfortable. He remembered telling him not to judge the Onderonians too harshly because, beneath ideology and banners and old grievances, most people wanted very ordinary things.

Peace.

Security.

Prosperity.

A future for their children.

It had seemed a sufficiently wise lesson at the time.

Sotah wondered now whether the galaxy had simply become more accomplished at making ordinary desires impossible.

His eyes lowered. The little reptile beside him had curled its tail around itself and appeared to have gone to sleep.

"Perhaps you have the better philosophy," Sotah murmured.

A distant sound carried from the direction of the Keep. Nothing alarming - merely metal shifting, perhaps a door closing or one of the old fixtures finally objecting to renewed use.

It reminded him why they were here. They had been deliberately cautious since arriving. Supplies had been purchased in small quantities from different districts and settlements, enough that no single merchant might wonder why two elderly offworlders required provisions for several days in an abandoned fortress. They had avoided the Royal Court entirely, despite Sotah having little doubt that Queen Omina would have remembered them and might even have quietly accommodated their presence. No message had been sent to any possible local Jedi. No invitation offered to those debating Onderon's increasingly uncertain relationship with the Republic.

The Bronze Keep had been chosen because it belonged to the four of them before it belonged to any present cause. Or, perhaps, because it belonged to a memory of them.

Sotah slowly unfolded his legs.

Age announced itself immediately in his knees and lower back, and he remained half-crouched for a moment with one hand resting against the stone until the complaint passed. The indignity earned another faint smile.

"Yes, yes," he muttered toward the sleeping creature. "There is no need for commentary."

It did not stir and Sotah left it where it was and began his walk back toward the fortress.

---

By the time he returned, the fire had settled into a low orange glow. The chamber they had claimed stood several rooms removed from the old audience hall, close enough that the surviving power conduits could be persuaded into usefulness but far enough within the Keep that their lights could not easily be seen from outside. Candlelight moved gently across the rough walls, overlapping with the steadier illumination of two powered lamps and casting long shadows behind the recovered furniture.

Thurius was there. The tall Cerean's presence seemed almost naturally suited to the place, although Sotah suspected his friend would object to the comparison if he voiced it aloud. Their few belongings had been arranged with practical simplicity around them, and the little fire continued to warm the pot hanging above it.

For a brief moment, Sotah remained in the doorway. There was something strangely pleasant about the sight. No Council chamber. No Shadows waiting in disciplined ranks. No Grand Master, no Republic officials, and no arguments about mandates or decrees or surrender.

Only an old fortress, a warm meal, and his oldest friend.

For all the gravity that had brought them here, Sotah found himself reluctant to disturb it.

He entered quietly instead, removing the damp outer layer of his robe and hanging it over the back of one of the mismatched chairs. His gaze passed briefly toward the communications equipment before settling on the empty places at the table.

Two more chairs had been brought in than either of them required and Sotah regarded them for several seconds.

"They may not come," he said at last. There was no despair in it - only acknowledgement.

His hands settled against the edge of the table as he lowered himself into one of the chairs. The old wood complained beneath his weight, but held.

"We asked them to meet us without terms, after spending months following them across half the galaxy," he continued, his dark eyes resting upon the empty seats. "They have every reason to wonder whether we mean what we said."

The fire cracked softly. Beyond the walls, Onderon's jungle continued its endless night-song, indifferent to Jedi and Sith, Republic and Alliance, independence and empire alike.

Sotah's gaze wandered toward the doorway leading eventually to the old central hall.

"I was thinking about the first time we came here," he said more quietly. "Garius sitting in that little throne of his, so certain the Republic was weakening, the Alliance lacked purpose and GalactaWerks would exploit whatever remained between them." A faint wet breath escaped him, almost amused but without much humour. "We thought him very young." His fingers moved idly against the worn table.

Thurius, who stood silhouetted against the inky black mix of forest and sky outside the keep’s window, half turned, allowing the glow of the hearth capture his weary profile in muted amber light. He seemed to have acquired several new creases in his sizeable forehead since their departure from the Order and his features were locked in a state of uncertainty, somewhere between a frown and a worried expression.

His eyes darted back to the pot momentarily, keeping an eye on the bubbling he had been attending to in Sotah’s absence, before allowing them to drift towards the Selkath.

“I remember…” he said, pausing, as though wondering if it was worth continuing the recollection, “I also remember Sazar and her death shortly after. It seems all the more futile now that time has marched on and the people are once again drawing lines in the sand over the matter of independence.”

He shook his head faintly, “I know, I know, nothing is meaningless in the Force when intentions are noble,” he seemed to predict some response from Sotah, even though his friend merely watched him silently, “But the longer I live, the more I fear I must watch the same tragedies play out time and time again and still expect to believe some progress has been made.”

He walked over towards the hearth and gently lifted the spoon, the broth falling off it just a little too watery still, so he returned it and gave it a hefty stir before setting one hand on his waist.

“No, they may not come,” the Cerean echoed his friend’s initial words finally, as though all the conversation in between had not even occurred, “Perhaps it was selfish even to ask. Perhaps it was enough to simply follow their path and now they must carry on without us.”

Sotah did not answer immediately, allowing the soft crackle of the hearth and the bubbling of Thurius' broth to occupy the space between them whilst his dark eyes remained upon the two empty chairs gathered around the old table. There was no denying that his friend's suggestion had occurred to him as well, more than once during the quiet days they had spent waiting within the Bronze Keep, and the thought had returned most insistently whenever he wandered beyond the walls to meditate amongst the trees. It was entirely possible that they had mistaken their own desire for reconciliation as some greater prompting of the Force, dressing an intensely personal hope in the language of duty and compassion because that was how Jedi learned to justify the things they wanted most deeply.

"Perhaps it was selfish," he conceded eventually, his broad hands folding together within the sleeves of his robes as the firelight moved in warm reflections across his mottled aquatic skin. "Age does not cure us of such things, I have discovered. It merely provides us with better arguments for them." The faintest trace of amusement accompanied the admission, but it faded as his attention returned to the empty places before them. "Still, if they have learned to continue without us, there is something almost proper in that. A Master should hope, eventually, to become unnecessary. I only wish the lesson had not been taught through absence."

His gaze lowered for a moment, memory drawing him backwards through years that seemed much more distant here than they had within the Temple. "When Thane was young, I often wondered when he would stop looking towards me before deciding what he thought. Not for permission, exactly, because he was never especially gifted at seeking that... but for some indication of whether I agreed with him. I imagined I would notice when that habit disappeared." A quiet, wet breath escaped him, carrying little humour now. "Instead, I suspect the moment passed whilst I was occupied elsewhere, and perhaps Bomoor did much the same with you. They are grown men, Thurius."

Sotah leaned back slightly, and the recovered chair complained beneath his weight with a long wooden creak that earned a brief glance from the Selkath before his attention settled again upon his friend. "If nothing else, I shall tell everyone the soup was excellent."

Thurius cast a final glance back the arched window into the shadowy forest before offering the faintest of sighs, barely perceptible but felt clearly by Sotah as the Cerean eased himself into a seat at the table. His spine shifted as though to relax his body, though the man still clearly kept most of his muscles tense and ready for anything, even when at rest.

He was silent for a few moments, not looking at Sotah, although something clearly was attempting to bubble up in his thoughts. He shuffled, crossing his arms tightly, before uttering:

"Better than anything in the temple, at least," a corner of his mouth threatening to soften slightly, "I could still go for one of the grilled specials at Café Diathim though."

The fire continued to burn between them with the same low orange glow, sending occasional sparks upward into the old flue, whilst the powered lamps maintained their tired electrical hum and water somewhere deeper within the Keep continued to fall through a fracture in the roof at irregular intervals. Even the old table, the mismatched chairs and the little collection of provisions remained exactly as they had been in the moments before, mundane objects gathered together beneath warm light in a fortress slowly being reclaimed by wilderness. Yet, Sotah's attention had begun to drift away from Thurius before he properly understood why, his dark eyes eventually moving towards the nearest window as some subtle alteration in the night beyond drew upon instincts refined through decades of listening to the Living Force.

He had spent enough time amongst Onderon's wilderness over the preceding days to become familiar with its rhythms - not in any scientific or comprehensive sense, but in the intuitive manner by which repeated sounds gradually ceased to be individual noises and became instead parts of a broader living pattern. There had been a low, resonant call sounding intermittently from somewhere high within the canopy throughout the evening, answered each time by another animal further into the jungle, whilst closer to the Keep several competing colonies of insects maintained overlapping choruses that shifted constantly without ever fully disappearing. Sotah had stopped consciously noticing any of them until, all at once, he became aware that one call had gone unanswered.

Nothing immediately followed it, and for a time the omission might have been dismissed as coincidence, but several seconds later one of the nearer insect choruses diminished without another rising to replace it. A persistent clicking that had followed them through the evening from somewhere along the outer masonry ceased soon afterwards, and from the surviving watchtower came a sudden frantic eruption of wingbeats as several broad-bodied nocturnal creatures abandoned their roost together, passing in dark shapes across what little sky could be seen between the trees before disappearing towards the deeper forest. Somewhere beyond the wall, a larger animal pushed hurriedly through the undergrowth, branches cracking beneath its passage, and another movement further off seemed to follow in the same direction.

Sotah had risen by the time he became conscious of doing so, his chair displaced several inches behind him whilst his gaze remained fixed upon the darkness beyond the window. The jungle had not become silent, nor had life somehow vanished from around the Bronze Keep, but its activity was changing in a way that felt less like retreat from an obvious predator and more like countless creatures responding independently to the same instinctive warning. Some continued their ordinary movements without concern, whilst others withdrew abruptly or stilled themselves entirely, leaving gaps in the familiar texture of the night that Sotah could suddenly perceive with uncomfortable clarity.

A faint scratching came from the lower edge of the doorway behind him, drawing his attention down towards a pair of bright eyes staring from the gloom. The little reptilian creature that had visited him beneath the tree had somehow followed his path back towards the Keep, its squat body held unusually rigid now and the fan of flexible spines along its back standing upright rather than resting flat as they had during meditation. For the briefest moment it remained there, not looking at Sotah at all but past him, towards the walls and whatever lay beyond them, before darting beneath a broken section of masonry with such sudden force that its claws scattered grit across the floor and its tail vanished into the darkness almost before the Selkath had time to register the movement.

Only then did Sotah fully open himself to the Force.

Onderon met him at once in all the abundance he had spent days relearning to appreciate, a vast living interchange of roots and wings, blood and water, hunger and growth, decay feeding renewal in patterns too intricate for any single mind to comprehend. Nothing had ceased to live merely because the forest had grown wary, and for an instant he felt almost foolish for allowing the behaviour of a handful of animals to disturb him. Then another presence entered his awareness, familiar enough that recognition arrived before he had consciously identified what he was sensing.

Bomoor Thort.

Sotah had known the young Ithorian for the better part of two decades, often through the proximity of Thurius and Thane rather than through formal mentorship, and the shape of his presence within the Force had become as recognisable as the voice of an old friend. There had always been a breadth to Bomoor, an almost environmental quality that suited his species and temperament alike, something expansive and rooted that seemed to reach outward rather than turn endlessly upon itself. That quality had not vanished, and Sotah could still feel enough of it to know immediately that the approaching presence belonged to the same person who had once meditated alone in the Temple gardens whilst stones orbited gently around him.

Yet it had changed far more than Sotah had expected.

Darkness ran through Bomoor now with a depth that could not be mistaken for passing anger, grief or the temporary stain of some recent trauma. It had taken root within him, woven through the old patience and curiosity until those qualities seemed harder, heavier and more purposeful than before. There was anger there that no longer appeared ashamed of itself, conviction sharpened beyond the point where it sought permission from doctrine, and something increasingly possessive in the way his presence held itself against the wider currents of the Force. Sotah felt no loss of intelligence or compassion, nor any suggestion that Bomoor had become some hollow servant of darkness, but the transformation was unmistakable enough that the old Master found himself drawing a slow, involuntary breath.

"Bomoor..." he murmured, scarcely aware that the name had escaped him.

The word had barely formed before he became aware of the second presence travelling beside the Ithorian, and for one fleeting moment his mind refused the recognition that followed.

It was too dark.

Sotah had lived through war, stood against fallen Jedi and felt the aftermath of violence so steeped in hatred that the surrounding Force remained disturbed long after those responsible had gone. He had encountered enough of Axion's influence now, directly and through its consequences during these past months and years, to recognise the invasive quality of corruption that fed upon others and spread itself through fear. What approached the Bronze Keep was nothing like that. There was no sense of a presence pushing outward indiscriminately, no psychic contamination seeking purchase within surrounding life, nor any uncontrolled furnace of rage proclaiming itself through sheer excess. If anything, the thing beside Bomoor felt quieter than it had any right to be.

That quietness made it worse.

Power had been compressed rather than expelled, gathered behind a will of such cold and disciplined focus that almost nothing seemed wasted. Anger existed within it, certainly, as did grief, pain and a depth of resentment Sotah could only glimpse from this distance, but each had been drawn inward and rendered purposeful rather than allowed to flare openly into the world. Where Thane's presence had once been restless, contradictory and full of competing impulses, this one seemed to have been subjected to some terrible process of consolidation, as though every uncertainty had been hammered repeatedly until only conviction remained.

The Living Force did not recoil from it, because the Force was not a creature capable of fear, but the lives through which that great current moved were another matter. Sotah could feel animals shifting away from the route of the approaching figures without knowing why, guided by instincts older than thought, and the effect gave the dark presence an almost gravitational quality. It did not sever the living connections surrounding it, nor create absence where life ought to have been. Instead those currents seemed to bend around it, countless minor decisions altering themselves in response to something whose will had grown sufficiently dense that the surrounding world appeared to accommodate its passage.

Sotah stared into the darkness beyond the Keep and searched within that weight for something familiar.

He found it.

Not as a face or name, but as fragments of recognition buried beneath everything that had changed: the restless boy who struggled through prolonged meditation because stillness had never come naturally to him; the flare of pride after mastering a difficult sequence of blade-work; irritation carefully suppressed when another youngling disturbed a lesson; the sudden bright amusement that preceded some dry observation which Thane already knew he should probably keep to himself. There were deeper memories too, less humorous and more intimate, including the constriction of fear within a crowded transport above this very world and the quiet ache of homesickness brought on by Onderonian towers that reminded him of Caanus.

All of it remained somewhere inside what was approaching.

Sotah's breath caught.

Thane.

The certainty of it struck harder than any mere conclusion drawn from evidence could have done. He and Thurius had followed enough reports, broken enough trails and listened to enough increasingly grave testimony to know that something profound had happened to their former apprentices. Rynseh had spoken openly of Sith, and Sotah had warned others against refusing evidence merely because the conclusion caused pain. None of that prepared him for the intimate reality of finding Thane within the Force and discovering that the familiar presence had become almost unrecognisable beneath the sheer depth of darkness now surrounding it.

When Sotah had last seen him in person nearly two years earlier, Thane had already been disillusioned, angry and increasingly estranged from the Order until finally leaving, but there had remained something searching about him, a constant friction between what he believed and what he feared he might become. The young Knight had been full of edges, questions and unfinished convictions, pride wrestling uncertainty whilst compassion and judgement competed endlessly for precedence. What moved towards the Bronze Keep now seemed to contain almost none of that visible struggle. Whatever had happened since their quest against the Cult of Axion had commenced had not emptied him of identity, but concentrated it to a degree Sotah found far more troubling, leaving behind an appalling abundance of self held together by purpose, suffering and will.

Beside him, Thurius had also fallen still.

Sotah did not need to look towards the Cerean to know that he had felt something of the same approach, although whatever Bomoor's transformation meant to his old Master belonged to a relationship Sotah had no desire to intrude upon. He remained facing the window instead, both hands now lowered loosely at his sides, listening through the Force as the two familiar and profoundly altered presences continued towards them.

The two presences moved with no sense of urgency, whilst Sotah became increasingly aware of the domestic absurdities around him: the broth still simmering over the fire, candles burning patiently within their alcoves, damp robes hanging over the back of a recovered chair and the two empty places at the table they had prepared without knowing whether anyone would ever occupy them. He had imagined this arrival many times since sending the invitation, but never like this. In those private rehearsals there had always been words waiting, some careful greeting or simple acknowledgement capable of allowing four estranged people to cross the first difficult distance between them.

Now he could think of none.

Eventually, the old corridors carried the first sound of approaching footsteps, faint at first and distorted by stone passages designed generations earlier to confuse and channel intruders towards defended positions. They disappeared, returned closer, and disappeared again as the approaching figures navigated the forgotten interior of the fortress, whilst Sotah's senses tracked them with far greater clarity than hearing alone could manage. Bomoor remained easier to comprehend, his altered presence disturbing in ways the Selkath suspected would take much longer to understand, but it was the immense cold weight travelling beside him that dominated Sotah's attention despite every effort not to permit it.

Then another sound joined the footsteps.

Sotah initially mistook it for some tiny surviving mechanism within the walls, perhaps an ancient ventilation system waking intermittently under the restored power, because its rhythm was too precise and somewhat regular to immediately suggest anything living. A muted mechanical intake travelled through the passage beyond the chamber, followed by a quieter release and a brief interval before the cycle repeated itself. It sounded almost like a small valve being adjusted, minute releases of pressure or tiny hydraulics being released.

Sotah's eyes narrowed as he tried to associate any sense of this noise with the approaching men, but could not yet place it. At the same time, something cold moved through him that had nothing to do with the darkness he could feel within the Force.

They had never actually caught up to their former padawans or their companions. By the time Sotah and Thurius had begun properly following the Red Raptor's movements, they had become accustomed to arriving after everything important had already happened, gathering fragments from people who had seen only portions of events and trying to fit them together into a picture that was always missing its centre. They knew Bomoor's family had suffered terribly and understood that the Cult of Axion had left devastation behind wherever their former apprentices encountered it. There was no report of whatever this sound may be.

The footsteps drew nearer, and firelight shifted across the far corridor as a large shadow passed briefly over it.

Bomoor entered first, and Sotah recognised him immediately despite the years and the darkness now woven through his presence, the Ithorian's immense frame filling much of the doorway as warm light from the hearth and lamps reached him. He looked older than the calendar alone could explain, changed by experiences Sotah could not yet name, but there remained enough of the man he remembered that recognition carried none of the confusion that had accompanied their encounter within the Force. For a brief moment Sotah's attention rested fully upon him, affection and concern threatening to rise together before the continued mechanical rhythm beyond the doorway pulled his gaze towards the figure still waiting outside the light.

A second shadow lengthened across the floor before he or Thurius could speak, and Thane stepped into the chamber.

For several seconds, Sotah did not understand what he was seeing. His former apprentice had never been physically imposing by conventional standards, even after reaching adulthood, and as a Padawan had occasionally seemed determined to compensate for his modest stature through posture, confidence and sheer force of personality. The figure who emerged behind Bomoor had no need for any such effort. Dark robes fell cleanly around a body held in controlled stillness, their severe lines broken only by the occasional suggestion of metal and machinery beneath fabric, whilst a dark respirator enclosed much of the lower face and throat with none of the ornamentation that might have allowed Sotah to mistake it for ceremonial armour. Seals and fitted components disappeared beneath the collar, and with every measured intake the mechanism answered for flesh that apparently could no longer perform the task unaided.

Sotah's gaze rose slowly.

One eye met his, and the sight of it alone might have been enough to confirm everything the Force had already revealed. The familiar blue was almost entirely gone beneath molten shades of amber and gold, dark traces of corruption standing out against skin made unnaturally pale around it, even by Caanan standards, whilst the other side of the face had been altered more profoundly still. An artificial photoreceptor occupied the place where an eye should have been, contracting by minute degrees as it adjusted to the uneven mixture of candlelight, fire and ageing powered lamps, surrounded by pale scar tissue that travelled across the face before disappearing beneath the respirator.

The old Master's gaze dropped despite himself, following details he had no wish to catalogue and yet could not prevent himself from noticing. One visible hand was no longer wholly organic. Something about the alignment of Thane's shoulders and back appeared too exact, not rigid enough to suggest simple discomfort but precise in a manner that spoke of reconstructed movement and mechanical support. The scarred tissue visible where flesh met the apparatus around his lower face made increasingly clear that the respirator had not been adopted as some declaration of dark side identity.

It was keeping him alive.

Sotah had prepared himself to meet a man immersed in the dark side. He had spent days attempting to accept that Thane might reject every principle the old Selkath still held dear, might speak openly as a Dark Jedi and offer no regret for the path that had taken him away from the Order. He had considered anger, accusation, bitterness and even indifference, and had repeatedly reminded himself that the purpose of this meeting was not to demand repentance or reclaim an apprentice who no longer belonged to him.

He had never prepared himself to discover that someone had apparently destroyed Thane's body.

For a long moment he simply stared, all the composure accumulated through decades of diplomacy, warfare, teaching and grief failing in a manner so slight that anyone unfamiliar with him might not have noticed it at all. His broad mouth parted fractionally and one hand, which had begun unconsciously to rise from his side, stopped before completing the movement. The memories that came were not of philosophical disagreements or their final arguments with the Council, but painfully ordinary things: a boy complaining about crowds in Iziz, an impatient young man pretending not to be frightened inside a cramped shuttle, a hand resting upon his shoulder and the certainty that there would be years enough to guide him through whatever difficulties adulthood might bring.

The man before him allowed Sotah to look.

There was no gesture towards the respirator, no inclination of the head that might suggest embarrassment or discomfort, and no attempt to conceal the artificial eye or the damage surrounding it. Thane simply stood several paces behind Bomoor within the warm light of the Bronze Keep and regarded his former Master with an unreadable stillness, whilst machinery measured each breath into the silence between them.

What Sotah had sensed outside remained unchanged by the physical revelation. If anything, the contradiction made the presence more disturbing. A body altered so catastrophically should have appeared diminished, yet the darkness held within it seemed almost too large for the damaged frame that contained it, concentrated not through physical strength or health but through a terrible certainty that Sotah could feel pressing quietly into the Force around them. Whatever had happened had taken flesh, an eye, natural breath and portions of the body that had once carried Thane effortlessly through the world, but it had not made him smaller.

For perhaps the first time in years, Sotah found that no measured observation arrived to protect him from the immediacy of what he felt. There was no useful metaphor, no balanced acknowledgement of competing truths and no gentle philosophy capable of placing the moment into perspective. He looked at the ruined face of the boy he had raised, felt the cold immensity of the dark presence that boy had become, and managed only the name that still existed beneath both.

"Thane..."

The organic eye settled fully upon him whilst the artificial lens tightened almost imperceptibly beside it.

Another breath passed through the respirator.

TBC

 

RSS Feed