A Table Set for Four

Posted on Tue Sep 8th, 2026 @ 2:59pm by Sotah & Darth Serus & Bomoor Thort & Thurius

8,516 words; about a 43 minute read

Chapter: Chapter IX: The First Verse
Location: Bronze Keep, Onderon
Timeline: Day Eighteen, Nighttime (Local)

Bomoor stepped fully into the chamber, letting the warmth of the hearth wash over him. He observed how it cast the two figures who resided near it in an irregular, twitching shadow. His eyes fell on the table: the four seats, four places and the simmering pot set to accommodate them all. There was something simple and innocent about it and it gave him reassurance. Whether or not they were to meet allies or ghosts from the past, the setting was open and not hostile.

"Thane..." came Sotah's words, along with the unmistakeable horror that tinged his tone and his aura and Bomoor's eyes snapped back to the figures, slowly coming into focus as the weary figures of their former masters. The silence that followed the utterance was heavy, almost physical.

While clearly the natural response from most beings in the galaxy, the reflexive fear and disgust at seeing his companion's reconstructed appearance irked the Ithorian. He knew, while Serus bore it well now, each look, every gasp, was a reminder of what was lost and what could never again be experienced. Why could they not, like him, see the strength and the pride in his new visage?

As they had walked the long, dark road towards the Bronze Keep, he had never once considered any weakness or any deformity in his companion. Born again as Serus, this was simply him and it did not change the bond between them in the slightest.

Of course, for the rest of the galaxy, they would need to learn to see him as Bomoor did.

Inclining his trunk slightly towards Serus, hearing the gentle respiration, he answered the hushed naming.

"Thane's time has passed, Master Sotah. He is not lost, nor are the teachings you imparted upon him, but they are reformed into the man before you: born of pain and forged by a will to be greater, he stands before you as Serus."

He inclined his head back more, his faintly-clouded eyes meeting Thurius' gaze, obscured below a heavy brow, "As ever, I am Bomoor, but no less changed by the path we have travelled since leaving the Order."

He straightened up slightly, "We received your communication and determined there was merit in hearing your words, free from the shackles of the temple walls and the eyes of Quellus."

For several moments, neither of the older Jedi answered.

Bomoor could feel the silence settling differently around each of them, although there was little need to reach into the Force to recognise it. Thurius remained where he was, his expression difficult to read beneath the heavy lines that age and recent strain had drawn across it, whilst Sotah seemed caught somewhere between the impulse to approach and the instinct not to intrude. His dark eyes had not left the Human standing beyond Bomoor, and although the old Selkath had recovered enough composure that the first naked shock no longer sat so plainly upon his features, sadness had replaced it with considerably more permanence.

"Serus..." Sotah repeated at last, testing the unfamiliar name quietly rather than challenging it, the syllables emerging with the soft distortion of his aquatic Basic.

Bomoor saw the old Master's attention settle again upon his companion as though the act of naming him differently might somehow allow the altered man before them to resolve into something more comprehensible. For an instant, Sotah appeared ready to continue, his mouth opening around the beginning of another thought as one hand shifted slightly from the folds of his robe.

"I am-"

Whatever sentence had intended to follow never came, and Serus gave him nothing to work with. The Caanan had not moved from the place where he had entered, his dark figure remaining just far enough from the hearth that the strongest of its light reached him only unevenly. One side of his face caught the warmth of the fire and the weaker glow of the old lamps, whilst the respirator and artificial eye remained partially obscured beneath shadow. His posture carried no overt challenge, nor any obvious rejection of Sotah's attempt to address him, yet there was an unmistakable finality in the stillness with which he received it. His organic eye remained fixed upon the Selkath, attentive without warmth, whilst the photoreceptor beside it made another minute adjustment and the respirator continued its quiet cycling between them.

There was no anger in it that Bomoor could see. That, perhaps, was what made the distance so complete.

Sotah seemed to recognise the boundary almost as soon as he encountered it. The unfinished words faded without embarrassment or insistence, and his broad hand slowly returned to the folds of his robe as his attention shifted back towards Bomoor instead. Whatever grief remained behind the movement, he did not attempt to disguise it beneath false cheerfulness, although some of the old gentleness returned to his expression when he regarded the Ithorian.

"Then I am glad you came," he said, his tone low enough that it seemed designed not to disturb the delicate equilibrium that had formed within the chamber. "Both of you. Whatever else may be said tonight, that much is true."

His gaze passed briefly between the two former Jedi before moving towards the table, where the four mismatched chairs still waited beneath the light of the candles and the little pot continued to simmer above the hearth with almost comic indifference to everything surrounding it.

"We meant what we said in the message," Sotah continued. "There are no terms here, Bomoor. No Council waiting beyond these walls, no demand that either of you explain yourselves before being permitted to leave, and no argument from Rynseh hidden beneath kinder language." A faint wet breath escaped him as he glanced towards the old stone around them.

For the first time since their arrival, something approaching Sotah's familiar humour attempted to surface. It did not quite reach the warmth Bomoor remembered from years earlier, but neither was it entirely forced.

Thurius held his back firm, shoulders squared in a way that made the lines of his tall frame seem even more severe in the wavering firelight. Bomoor shot him a couple of glances, subtle but searching and each time he found the Cerean’s eyes fixed almost exclusively upon Serus. Whatever disturbance Sotah had been unable to hide, Bomoor sensed far less of it in Thurius; the older Master’s presence felt taut, analytical, as though he were quietly mapping out the angles of a threat he had not yet decided existed.

It was not quite fight or flight. Bomoor knew Thurius well enough to recognise the difference. This was the posture of a man making a tactical assessment: weighing possibilities, contingencies, and the shape of a future that had suddenly become far less predictable.

But when Bomoor stepped forward and placed a hand upon the back of one of the mismatched chairs, the small domestic gesture seemed to break whatever spell had settled over the Cerean. Thurius mirrored the movement almost reflexively, fingers curling around the back of the opposite chair, though he did not yet sit. His gaze shifted from Serus to Bomoor, and some of the rigidity in his posture eased.

He spoke his first words to Bomoor since the pair had entered the hall.

“I hope,” he began, voice low but steady, “that we can meet you today as equals.” His eyes flicked briefly toward the empty chairs, then back to Bomoor. “After meeting like this, we undoubtedly have no positions within the Council to return to anyway.”

He drew a slow breath, the kind that carried years of unspoken regret.

“But if exile is the price for speaking plainly with you… for finally saying the things we should have said before you both walked away from that life… then I do not resent the cost.”

His fingers tightened slightly against the wood.

“As you well know, life within the Temple walls is complicated. Ever more so since Rynseh’s return and I regret that we allowed that complexity to keep us silent when clarity might have mattered.”

He looked toward Serus again, but the intensity had softened; the assessment had become something closer to recognition.
“I regret,” he continued, quieter now, “that we did not reach out sooner. That we let our positions hold us back from speaking as men. But that is what I intend now… if you will hear us.”

The smile that failed to truly form on Sotah's face was small and tired, offered without expectation that anyone else share it, and faded naturally as he stepped aside from the table rather than nearer to either of the newcomers. He gestured with one broad hand towards the two vacant chairs, leaving the invitation open rather than directing anyone into them.

"There is food if you want it, and water." His gaze rested first on Bomoor but then began travelling, almost involuntarily, back towards Serus. "You are welcome to sit."

Bomoor completed his gesture without hesitation, pulling the chair back and settling confidently upon it before anyone else in the room. Whatever reluctance lingered in the air, he wished to signal his comfort openly, as though to confirm to the room that this meeting was one of peace.

“Thank you, Master Sotah,” he said, inclining his head. “While we have recently had a short chance to recuperate, I will not pass up any opportunity to rest and take a meal. Though I will keep it light as Serus won’t be able to join me.”

His gaze drifted to the empty bowl before him, but he did not yet reach for the ladle to serve himself. In truth, he did not feel particularly hungry; the weight of the moment pressed more insistently upon him than any physical need.

“It seems our period of rest has come to an end,” he continued, voice steady but carrying a faint weariness beneath it. “We were forced to move on from our last location, after trouble once again found us. We did not wish to bring further danger to those who had offered us shelter.”

He let the words settle, his broad hands resting loosely upon the table, the fire crackling softly between the four of them.

Serus did not move. There was nothing theatrical in the refusal because no refusal was actually given. The Dark Lord neither shook his head nor offered some cold explanation of why he preferred to remain standing, and he made no display of suspicion towards the chairs or the meal. He simply remained exactly where he was, one dark shape set slightly behind Bomoor and removed from the warmer centre of the chamber, as though the invitation had been heard, assessed and found to require no response - whilst the respirator continued with its subtle hissing adjustments.

Bomoor had already ceased to hear the respirator in quite the way others did. Aboard the Red Raptor and the several days journeying to Onderon, its soft rhythm had become as ordinary as the cycling of ventilation systems or the distant hum of the drives, another sound embedded into the texture of daily existence until silence in its absence was often more noticeable than the machinery itself. Here, however, with Sotah's gaze repeatedly drawn towards it and the old Masters still adjusting to the sight of what had happened, Bomoor found himself conscious again of every quiet intake and release.

Sotah appeared to catch himself looking once more at the pale scar tissue disappearing beneath the apparatus, and this time he deliberately lowered his eyes. It was not shame at having stared so much as an effort to stop turning Serus' injuries into the centre of the reunion.

His expression grew more thoughtful as he continued, the familiar measured quality of the old Consular returning by degrees now that he had something less immediately painful upon which to focus.

"We know very little with certainty, and perhaps that is appropriate. We know, also, that wherever you have gone, Axion's servants have not been far removed." His eyes hardened slightly at that, not towards Bomoor but at the name itself. "That much of your purpose seems unchanged."

The fire gave a low pop from within the hearth and sent a tiny spray of sparks upward, drawing a fleeting glance from Sotah before he returned his attention to the Ithorian. The room had remained warm throughout the exchange, yet Bomoor could see how the old Master's posture had changed since their arrival. The ease with which he had inhabited the abandoned Keep only minutes before had not entirely vanished, but something more careful had entered him now, as though every instinct to reach out had to be measured against the possibility that reaching too quickly would only drive them further away.

"There are many things we do not know," Sotah admitted. "More, I think, than we understood before tonight."

This time he did look towards Serus, although only briefly. His gaze passed across the respirator and artificial eye without dwelling there, then settled upon the organic amber-gold eye that watched him. For a moment, the old Selkath appeared to search for some trace of the boy he remembered, not because he doubted Bomoor's declaration that Thane had become something different, but because decades of affection could not be restructured by the introduction of a single name. Whatever Sotah found there did not encourage him to speak directly.

Behind Bomoor, Serus remained silent, framed by the old stone doorway and the uneven light of the Bronze Keep, his presence still pressing cold and heavy against the Force whilst the faint rhythm of machinery continued to mark the seconds.

Thurius had remained standing, one hand still resting upon the back of the chair he had not yet taken, his tall frame held in that same rigid poise Bomoor had noticed earlier. But now, with the four of them gathered around the old table and the fire casting its muted glow across Serus’ scarred features, the question that had been tightening the Cerean’s brow finally broke free.

“Was it the Cult that did this?” he asked, the words emerging with a quiet severity. “This manner of cruelty... it is beyond what even the most depraved tyrant or gangster would inflict. Beyond what most people would survive.”

The chamber seemed to still around the question. Even the fire cracked more softly.

Bomoor paused, gauging the weight of it and the sincerity behind it. He felt no urge to deflect. If they had come all this way to speak plainly, then plain speech was owed.

“Axion himself delivered the wounds upon Thane,” Bomoor said at last, his voice steady but carrying a faint undertone of remembered pain, “and they were indeed great.”

He drew a slow breath, his gaze lowering briefly before rising again with quiet resolve.

“I felt them too. Since we last spoke, the bond between Thane and the young woman we found on Nar Shaddaa has... transferred to me. It is a large part of why the identity of Thane had to end and be reborn as Serus. Thane was not enough but Serus will be greater. That is what is needed to rid the galaxy of Axion. That is what the galaxy needs right now.”

A hint of sadness crossed his features, subtle but unmistakable.

“Perhaps, one day, it will no longer need Serus.” He turned slightly toward his companion, still standing stoic and silent, the orange firelight burning against the stonework behind him. “But that day is far from now.”

For a time, Sotah said nothing. Bomoor could see the old Selkath absorbing the words rather than merely waiting for his turn to answer, his dark eyes moving first to the Ithorian and then, almost despite himself, back towards the silent figure standing beyond the warmer reach of the table. The name Serus still seemed to sit strangely within the room, not because Sotah had rejected it, but because nothing in the years he had known Thane had prepared him for the idea that his former apprentice might one day regard himself as sufficiently changed to require another name altogether.

The explanation that followed only deepened that unease - Axion himself. For all the months Sotah and Thurius had spent following the broken trail left by the Red Raptor, for all the reports and rumours gathered from worlds where violence had already passed, the truth of what had happened to Thane and Bomoor had remained beyond them. Now it stood several paces away in black regalia and scar tissue, every quiet adjustment of the respirator giving mechanical voice to the consequences of a confrontation they had not even known had taken place.

Sotah's expression tightened faintly when Bomoor spoke of feeling the wounds through their bond, but it was the language that followed which seemed to trouble him more profoundly still.

Thane was not enough. Serus will be greater. That is what the galaxy needs right now.

The fire shifted behind him, sending another low flare of orange across the Selkath's face before withdrawing again. His eyes lowered towards the table, and one broad hand came to rest lightly against the worn stone edge as though the simple solidity of it might help order thoughts that had begun to pull in too many directions at once.

"I am sorry," he said eventually, and there was no ambiguity as to what part of Bomoor's account he meant. "For what happened. For what you also felt through that bond... and for how far behind we were while it happened. Had we been wiser, we would have stood with your during your quest, helped you train that girl... Brought strength and counsel to your trials."

His gaze lifted again, but this time he did not attempt to address Serus directly. The Caanan remained where he had been from the moment of arrival, silent and composed. If the mention of Axion had disturbed him, nothing visible betrayed it beyond the same terrible stillness he had carried into the room.

"We have understood much too late," Sotah continued. "There are many things for which I believe we will all be answering in the years ahead." He paused, and Bomoor could see the direction of his thoughts shifting away from the immediate horror of Serus' injuries towards something larger and, in its own way, no less troubling. "But the Bastion Document has made certain comforts impossible," Sotah said. "That, at least, I think you intended."

There was no accusation behind the observation, only a weary acknowledgement of something both sides of the table already understood.

"The manipulation was deliberate, sustained and allowed to continue because too many people found the consequences of confronting it less convenient than the corruption itself." His eyes moved briefly towards the darkened window beyond the chamber. "And now Bothawui has broken open, the Alliance and Republic look at one another as though each is waiting for the other to admit what both already know, and even here on Onderon people are beginning to speak again of which side they will choose when the old arguments become new wars." A tired breath escaped him. "We told ourselves for years that these things were separate problems. Corporate misconduct. Local grievances. Political extremism. Failures of diplomacy. Each one could be contained, examined, corrected in isolation." His dark eyes settled again upon Bomoor. "They were not separate. You and Thane were right about that. You were always right about that."

The admission seemed to cost him something, not because he resented giving it, but because Sotah had never been a man who found satisfaction in being proved wrong only after others had suffered for it.

"The Order allowed itself to become part of that failure," he continued. "We became part of that failure, too. I taught within those walls for most of my life. I defended them. I asked others to trust them." His gaze moved again towards Serus. "And I can not pretend that trust was always deserved."

The Dark Lord remained motionless. For a few seconds, the only sound between them was the soft bubbling of the broth and the faint mechanical respiration from beyond Bomoor's shoulder.

Sotah's attention lingered there longer than before, although this time the sight of the ruined face seemed secondary to what Bomoor had said about it. There was something newly wary in the old Master's expression, not the horror that had greeted Serus' arrival, but the dawning recognition that the physical transformation was only the most visible part of something far more extensive.

"That is why your words trouble me, Bomoor," he said at last, Thurius allowing his friend to continue speaking. His tone remained gentle, but the grief within it had hardened enough to carry conviction. "Not because you intend to destroy Axion, nor because you have lost faith in institutions." Sotah's fingers tightened slightly against the table. "It is because you speak of what the galaxy needs now."

The phrase was repeated carefully, without mockery, but a small sadness returned to his eyes, and Sotah looked to his former padawan again.

The Caanan's presence remained as it had since he crossed the threshold, cold and immensely concentrated within the Force. He no longer stared at the respirator or the scars. His attention had shifted beyond those things now, towards the will that held them all together.

"Perhaps Serus is what is needed to defeat Axion," he said quietly, and the unfamiliar name came with greater ease this time. "Perhaps you are right." For the first time, Sotah's gaze remained upon the silent man while he continued. "But Axion is not the only shadow gathering." Sotah finally looked back to Bomoor. "You have released truths that cannot be gathered back into secrecy. You have gathered people around you whom the Jedi would regard with fear, and you have continued to move towards a conflict that now seems larger than the Cult you first set out to destroy." His voice softened, but the question beneath it sharpened. "You speak of a time when the galaxy may no longer need Serus."

He allowed the words to settle into the chamber before asking the thing that had clearly been forming within him since Bomoor first spoke.

"Who decides when that time has come?" Sotah's eyes remained on Bomoor, not challenging him to defend himself so much as asking him not to evade the question. "When Axion is gone..." He paused, a faint crease forming across the thick skin between his dark eyes. "What then?"

With a creak, Bomoor pushed his chair back an inch and half rose to reach the ladle resting upon the table.

"Your concern is reasonable," he said, trying to keep it as much of a simple statement as possible, as he spooned a portion of the broth into his bowl before sitting back down, "It has become increasingly clear that the disorder of the galaxy is not due simply to a rogue band of dark siders, but the dangerous blend of corruption, power struggles and institutional failure that threatens to cause more suffering than any conflict in centuries. You must feel it too - lingering on the horizon. Whether it is a dark side uprising, a GalactaWerks coup or another Outer Rim conflict, the only certainty is that the weak will feel its sting the most and so we must be the strongest versions of ourselves in this moment if we hope to emerge the other side."

He settled and closed his eyes as he brought a spoonful of the broth to one of his mouths: it was hot but not scalding and the robust flavour of fungui and hardy greens, supported by a delicate seasoning, felt like a reassuring hand steadying the helm.

When he opened his eyes, he addressed Sotah directly, "You want to know when the time has come to step back from that strength? When Serus is no longer needed? I cannot answer you that."

Bolstered by a force from within and the flavours on his tongue he added, "If you seek to tinge the galaxy in absolutes, perhaps you should not have left the Order. The time will come whenever it does and, if it does not, then at least we can say we have done all we can to face the future rather than hide from it."

Thurius’ brow tightened, the faintest crease forming across his tall forehead.
“That is not fair, Bomoor,” he said, the words quiet but carrying the weight of a man who had spent a lifetime defending the ideals Bomoor had just dismissed. “We are not here because we are hiding from what is happening. We are seeking to avoid becoming a part of that collapse.”

For a moment, Bomoor simply regarded him. The protest was earnest, almost pained and something about it stirred an unexpected flicker of amusement within the Ithorian, not out of pity, but an unexpected sympathy. A year ago, he had stood in precisely the same place Thurius now occupied: clinging to the belief that stepping away from the Order meant stepping away from a growing danger, from servitude to a people that would have him wrong his friend. He had learned since that danger still pursued him. Now their old Masters stood where he once had, and the symmetry of it was not lost on him.

He leaned back slightly, the bowl warm beneath his broad hands.

“Then you have made the first leap,” Bomoor said, his tone steady but without mockery. “But you cannot take one step outside and consider yourselves saved.”

His gaze moved between the two older Jedi, lingering a moment longer on Sotah.

“I sense you still hesitate to do what is necessary to face what is to come. Neither of us harbour you any ill will but we also have no need of apologies.”

The fire cracked softly behind him, casting shifting amber across Serus’ silent form.

“What do you offer now?” Bomoor asked, the question landing with quiet force. “What do you really want?”

For several seconds after Bomoor's question, the chamber seemed to wait with him.

Sotah's mouth had opened as though some answer had already begun forming, but the words never emerged. Before the old Selkath could gather them, another voice entered the room for the first time since the two former Jedi had crossed its threshold.

"Absolution."

The single word came from behind Bomoor. Serus had not altered his stance. He remained where he had been throughout the conversation, removed from the warmth of the table and framed partly by the deeper shadow of the old stone passage beyond it, yet the sound of his voice changed the atmosphere almost as abruptly as his presence had done upon approaching the Keep. The respirator did not render him unrecognisable, but it had altered what Sotah remembered: the familiar Caanan cadence survived beneath a roughened quality shaped by ruined tissue and the mechanisms assisting every breath, making something once intimately known seem to arrive from a considerable distance.

Sotah's eyes fixed upon him, but Serus continued before the old Master could answer, his tone lacking any obvious anger and carrying instead the same cool certainty that had characterised his silence.

"That is what they want, Bomoor. Not surrender, and not reconciliation. They want to know that arriving late still counts as arriving." His organic eye remained upon Sotah, although he had answered the Ithorian. "That recognising the failure now somehow absolves them of having defended it when recognition might still have mattered."

The words were unfair enough to wound precisely because they were not entirely without foundation. Sotah had already admitted as much himself, and Serus offered him no mercy for the admission.

"You misunderstand us," Sotah said quietly.

"Do I?"

The interruption was soft. There was still no heat in Serus' voice, and perhaps that made the question harsher than anger would have done. He allowed another measured breath to pass through the respirator before his gaze moved briefly towards Thurius and then returned to Bomoor.

"They have finally stepped beyond the Temple walls and discovered that the galaxy did not become simpler once they crossed the threshold. They see the corruption now and the war coming behind it. They regret the years spent hoping better men could remain inside a failing institution long enough to save it from itself." His damaged features gave almost nothing away as he spoke. "That is regrettable. It is not useful."

Sotah's broad fingers tightened almost imperceptibly against the edge of the table.

Serus did not appear to notice, or chose not to acknowledge it.

"Perhaps this is the best place for them," he continued, his attention lingering upon the old Masters now. "Away from the Council. Away from Rynseh. Away from whatever follows when the Republic and Alliance finally exhaust the pretence that neither intends to move against the other." His gaze travelled briefly across the ancient walls surrounding them. "There are worse places to remain while others do what must now be done."

Something changed in Sotah then. The sorrow that had followed him since Serus entered did not disappear, nor did the old confidence suddenly return in full, but a faint firmness emerged beneath it, enough that his posture straightened and his eyes stopped drifting away whenever they found those of his former apprentice.

"We did not come here seeking your forgiveness," he said. "Nor did we leave the Council so that we might find somewhere comfortable to watch the galaxy burn."

The Selkath's voice was quieter than it would once have been, and the words seemed to require more effort than any argument he had made before their arrival, but he did not withdraw them.

"We came because we should have come sooner. Because whatever has happened since, you were both owed more from us than silence." His gaze moved briefly towards Bomoor before returning to the figure behind him. "And because understanding what happened to you does not require us to pretend that everything you have done since was necessary."

For the first time since Serus had begun speaking, something almost attentive entered the stillness with which he regarded his old Master, and Sotah saw it. His expression tightened, and for several seconds the Selkath seemed to struggle with whether to continue at all. When he finally did, the words came without the careful structure that had characterised the rest of the conversation.

"What you did to Loren, Serus-"

"Darth Serus."

The correction was almost conversational - but its effect was not.

Sotah stopped. There was no gradual understanding this time, no careful weighing of meanings or attempt to fit an unfamiliar statement amongst what he already knew. The change upon his face was immediate and profound, a stunned vacancy passing across features that had already endured more revelation that evening than he had been prepared to receive.

For a heartbeat, he simply looked at Serus, but then his eyes moved towards Bomoor. It was not quite a question. There was no accusation in the glance and no obvious appeal for contradiction, only the instinctive movement of someone confronted with something so impossible that he sought, for the briefest instant, some indication that he had misunderstood.

Nothing in the chamber made the word less real.

Darth.

Sotah had known the title throughout his life in the way any Jedi knew it. He had studied the histories, walked through archives containing records of the old wars and listened to preserved voices belonging to enemies whose bones had been dust for a thousand years or longer. The Sith endured only in artefacts, in forbidden teachings, in holocrons and ruined temples, and in the endless succession of dark-side sects that borrowed symbols from traditions they could never truly claim - but the Sith themselves were gone.

They had been gone for more than eleven centuries. Krayt's brief empire had fallen into history; the One Sith and earlier iterations had vanished with it or before and no true or recognisable chain had survived into this age. There had been fallen Jedi since, certainly. Dark Jedi, cultists, prophets and tyrants who reached into the same places and sometimes convinced themselves they had inherited ancient mantles, but none of that was what stood before him.

Sotah could feel the difference even if he wished he could not. There was no performative grandeur in the correction, no adolescent fascination with forbidden history and no suggestion that Thane had simply decorated his fall with an antique title because it frightened others. Serus had spoken those two words with the same absolute conviction with which Bomoor had described the death of Thane and the necessity of what replaced him.

The Sith had not survived. They had been restored.

Sotah's mouth opened slightly, but nothing emerged. The colour seemed to drain even further from the softer portions of his aquatic features, and the hand resting against the table loosened as though its owner had briefly forgotten why it was there. Whatever small measure of composure he had recovered during the conversation disappeared beneath the enormity of what he had just been told.

He had clearly prepared himself for a fallen apprentice. For darkness and even for murder, having drawn his accurate conclusion of Loren. He had even seemingly been prepared for a man so changed by suffering that even his name had been abandoned.

But, not this.

Bomoor's eyes flicked to Thurius as he felt the Cerean's muscles tighten along with his grasp on the chair, which he still had yet to sit at.

For the first time in their discussion, Bomoor could sympathise with the reaction. He knew all too well to connotations that came with the Sith, particularly for a Jedi but, if they were to move on, they would have to get past the historic bias just as he had. He hoped they could open their minds enough to see why this mattered to Serus. Why Thane was no longer enough.

His eyes continued to watch Thurius, curious if the warrior in his old master would draw out his blade. But the free hand stayed steady.

"Darth..." The word escaped Sotah almost without breath behind it.

He looked at the man he had raised and, perhaps for the first time that evening, appeared genuinely unable to find any path through what stood between them. His eyes searched Serus' face with none of the earlier curiosity about scars or machinery, seeking instead some contradiction within the remaining organic features, some small indication that the title meant less to its bearer than it must inevitably mean to him.

There was none, and Sotah lowered his gaze. When he lifted it again, what remained was not argument. The larger questions about the Republic, GalactaWerks, necessity and the coming war seemed suddenly too distant to grasp. Instead, there was only an old grief, and beneath it something smaller and more fragile: the stubborn desire to find one boundary Thane had not crossed entirely.

"Darth Serus..." he managed quietly, voice croaking, and the title sounded almost painful in his voice.

The Caanan watched him as Sotah swallowed.

"You did not need to kill Loren."

There was very little accusation in the words. If anything, their weakness made their meaning clearer.

Bomoor sat between them while the silence that followed seemed to narrow around the two figures, and within the bond he shared with Serus there came, at last, the first unmistakable disturbance beneath the cold discipline his companion had maintained throughout the meeting.

It was not anger or shame, nor even the hard conviction with which Serus had spoken of necessity. Something darker and much smaller moved beneath it instead, an ugly flicker of satisfaction sharpened by the intensely personal nature of the wound Sotah had chosen to touch. It carried none of the grandeur of the Sith title he had just claimed. There was something almost petty in it, the brief gratification of a man who had spent the evening watching those who once judged his choices discover, one revelation at a time, how completely events had escaped them.

The organic eye changed, albeit slightly. The skin at its outer edge contracted and the surviving cheek shifted upwards beneath the line of the respirator. The machinery concealed his mouth completely, but no one who knew the expression beneath it could have mistaken what was happening.

Serus was smiling.

Not the dry half-smile Thane had once used when some private joke threatened to escape him. Not warmth, nor the faint satisfaction of a point successfully made.

A real smile. A malign one.

Sotah saw it. Whatever fragile hope had accompanied his words seemed to falter even before Serus answered.

"No," the Dark Lord said, the cruel smile infecting his tone with twisted humour. "I did not."

The effect upon Sotah was immediate. His kindly features went utterly still, the horror there quieter than it had been when Serus first stepped into the firelight and somehow far more complete. One hand remained against the table but no longer seemed to support his posture whilst his dark eyes stayed fixed upon the corrupted gold one opposite him as though he had finally found the thing he had been searching for all evening and discovered that he would have preferred not to. Without warning, he then slumped back into the nearest chair, as if the very strength of his body abandoned him in that moment.

Serus' smile remained hidden beneath the mask throughout, his solitary eye grinning in its own macabre way at the diminished Selkath, who suddenly seemed all of his seventy-one years.

Thurius moved before anyone fully registered the intention behind it.

It was not the sharp, defensive motion of a man preparing to fight, nor the instinctive recoil of someone overwhelmed by Serus’ cold presence. The tall Cerean stepped forward only enough to reach Sotah, one long hand settling upon the Selkath’s shoulder with a steadiness that seemed to anchor them both. Sotah did not resist the touch; if anything, he seemed to draw breath more fully beneath it, as though the simple contact reminded him that he was not standing alone before the figure in the doorway.

Thurius’ gaze lifted toward Serus and, for the first time since the Dark Lord had entered the chamber, the older Master’s expression carried something more than caution. It was not anger, but a kind of moral urgency that Bomoor had seen only rarely in the man, usually when some deep conviction had been pressed too far.

“Whatever is wrong with the galaxy,” Thurius said, his voice low but unwavering, “Whatever is coming… the correct answer to it is not cruelty.”

The words landed with a quiet force that seemed to thicken the air between them. Serus did not move, but the stillness around him altered, tightening in a way Bomoor felt more through the Force than through sight.

“You may reject what the Jedi teach,” Thurius continued, “and you may resent it. That is your right. But do not pretend for a moment that you never cared at all.” His hand remained firm upon Sotah’s shoulder, grounding them both. “For Loren. For your Master. For justice in this galaxy. Those things mattered to you once. They mattered deeply.”

Bomoor heard the words, but he was also caught by a pulse of dark satisfaction from his bond with Serus. It rose within him, sharp and cold, like the echo of a blade drawn in anticipation rather than fear. It was not his emotion, not truly, but it moved through him with enough intensity that for a moment he could not tell where Serus ended and he began.

Yet another part of him, sturdy, rational, shaped by years of patience and foundational ethics, processed Thurius’ words and recognised their truth. Not the accusation, but the plea beneath it. The reminder that Serus had once been Thane, the boy who cared too much, not too little.

The conflict between those two impulses met inside Bomoor with a sudden, jarring force and something snapped.

The bowl struck the table with a sharp, wet crack, broth sloshing over the rim as Bomoor threw it down and surged to his feet. The sound cut through the chamber like a blade, startling even the fire into a brief sputter.

“Enough of this,” Bomoor said, the words emerging more sharply than he intended. He turned first toward Serus, the bond between them still humming with cold intensity. “Serus, we did not come here to pour salt on old wounds.”

Then he turned to Thurius, his broad frame looming above the table, breath tight in his chest.

“And neither did we come here to seek counsel.”

The silence that followed was taut but Bomoor forced himself to settle, brushing a fleck of vegetable matter from his cloak with a deliberate, steadying motion. The gesture was small, yet it helped anchor him against the pull of Serus’ presence.

“I am pleased you have been able to step away from the Order,” he said, his tone regaining some of its earlier composure, “and I realise that the facts we present to you are difficult to acknowledge, coming from that world.”

His gaze moved between the two older Jedi, lingering a moment longer on Sotah.

“But I can assure you, we seek only to defend and preserve the things that matter. We are not alien to the pupils you trained. Only honed into what we need to be in this moment.”

The fire cracked softly behind him, casting shifting amber across the four of them, three of them now standing again while Sotah still sat carefully in his chair.

Thurius’ composure wavered, just for a moment. His hand slipped from Sotah’s shoulder and he took a half‑step forward, as though pulled by something he could no longer keep contained.

“Bomoor... you speak as though necessity is a virtue,” he said, voice roughened by emotion he rarely allowed to surface. “As though becoming what the galaxy demands is the same as becoming what is just and right.”

His gaze flicked to Serus, the firelight catching the reflection in the artificial eye, before returning to his former padawan.

“We did not come here to lecture you and we did not come to be absolved. We came because we still care. Because we remember the men you were and it is only right we take pause at the vision you present. What you see as the men you must become.”

He swallowed, the sound barely audible.

“If that makes us hesitant... then so be it. But do not mistake our hesitation for weakness. If you did not want this reaction, this observation... then you would not have come when we called.”

The expression around Serus' surviving eye had already begun to change by the time Thurius finished speaking.

The malign amusement that had briefly distorted it did not collapse into shame, nor did the Dark Lord offer any sign that Bomoor's rebuke had wounded his pride. It simply receded. Whatever small satisfaction he had taken from Sotah's distress seemed to exhaust itself as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind once again the controlled, unreadable stillness that had characterised most of the evening.

For several seconds, Serus regarded Thurius without answering him, then his organic eye shifted towards Bomoor. There was no resentment there. If anything, the brief look seemed to acknowledge what the Ithorian had already made clear: they had not travelled to Onderon so that Serus might reopen every wound available to him simply because he had discovered that he still possessed the means to hurt those who once mattered.

"I desire neither of you harm," Serus said at last.

His attention moved back towards the two former Masters, and whatever sharpness had coloured his earlier remarks was gone from his voice. The statement was not warm, but neither was it evasive.

"Nor have I forgotten what you taught me."

For the first time since entering the chamber, one of his hands moved beneath the folds of his robes. The motion was sufficiently unexpected that it drew the eye immediately, though whatever object Serus sought was not the weapon carried at his side. His partially reconstructed fingers disappeared briefly beneath the dark fabric before returning around something considerably smaller.

A lightsaber hilt which was not his own. Age had darkened the leather bound tightly around its grip, and the braided detailing that wound beneath it had been worn smooth in places by years of use. There was nothing ornamental about the weapon beyond the peculiar intimacy of those imperfections, each mark belonging to someone whose hands had known it long before it passed into Serus'.

Bomoor knew it, the last person other than Serus to see it, the same truth finally unveiled to him in the days before. And, across the table, Sotah recognised it, too.

The old Selkath did not speak, though. He had scarcely moved since lowering himself into the chair, and now the sight of the weapon seemed to reduce him still further. His shoulders had lost the quiet breadth with which he ordinarily carried himself, his hands resting without purpose near the edge of the table whilst his dark eyes followed the hilt in Serus' grasp. There was no sudden grief upon his face, no fresh horror comparable to that which had followed the Sith title or Serus' answer concerning Loren. There seemed to be very little left in him capable of displaying either.

For the first time Bomoor could remember, Master Sotah simply looked old. Not elderly in the benign manner of a teacher whose age had accumulated into patience and wisdom, but worn down by it; a seventy-one-year-old Selkath sitting in the ruins of a place where he had once stood beside younger friends and younger pupils, confronted now by the remains of one apprentice and the transformed figure of another.

Serus stepped forward only far enough to reach the table. He placed Loren's weapon upon the stone, and the contact produced a small, solid sound that seemed strangely loud amongst the fire and the soft hiss of his breathing.

"This belongs with you."

Sotah's eyes remained upon it, but his hand did not rise.

Serus watched him for a moment longer, then straightened.

"If you will not stand with us, then remain here."

There was no sneer in the words and no suggestion that safety itself was contemptible. If anything, what followed possessed the nearest thing Serus had offered all evening to concern.

"Stay clear of what is coming," the Sith added as quietly as his modulated voice would allow. "You may be safer for it."

No answer came from the chair, but Serus appeared not to expect one. His gaze moved briefly across Thurius, then returned once towards Sotah and the old leather-bound hilt lying between them. Whatever passed behind the gold of his remaining eye did not alter his expression this time.

Then, with the briefest glance to his Ithorian companion, he turned away. His dark cape and robes moved across the uneven light as Serus left the warmth of the hearth behind and passed back towards the corridor through which they had entered, the faint mechanical rhythm of his breathing accompanying him into the older darkness of the Keep.

His departure left a strange stillness behind, as though the air itself had yet to decide whether it should relax or brace for whatever might follow.

Bomoor let the silence settle.

He did not immediately follow, nor did he attempt to fill the space Serus had vacated with hurried explanation. Instead, he drew a slow breath, feeling the weight of the moment shift onto him alone. When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than before, but steadier.

"I should say this plainly," he began, his gaze moving between the two older Jedi, "I am not Sith."

The words were simple, but they carried a curious depth that made Thurius’ tilt his head almost imperceptibly.

"That does not mean," Bomoor continued, "That I have not learned much from their teachings. It would be foolish to deny it. But whatever darkness I have walked through, whatever strength I have had to claim... I have not abandoned the sacred nature of life."

His eyes lowered briefly, not in shame but in reflection.

"If anything, I hold it more dearly now. Reconnecting with my roots on Öetrago, with the family the Order denied me, reminded me of what life is meant to be protected for and the price of losing it."

He paused, almost cracking at the thought of what he was leaving behind. The firelight caught the curve of his features as he drew another steadying breath.

"As for Loren..." His voice softened, "I do not know if her death could have been avoided. I believe Thane would never have reconciled it, not truly. But Serus..."

He glanced toward the corridor where the Dark Lord had vanished. "Serus was born out of that pain. You must understand that if he is callous about such things, it is because he carries them differently. Because he had to."

Bomoor stepped back from the table, his broad hands resting briefly against the worn stone of the hearth before he began to turn towards the doorway.

Thurius moved as well, not blocking him, but following with a hesitant step.

"Bomoor," he said, the name spoken sharply, almost with a defiance, that quickly retreated as quickly as it had been summoned, "Is this truly where you wish to leave it? The darkness you walk in now... it will harden your heart too. Almost all lost Jedi were noble of intention, but they found they could not walk that line before it consumed them. And the Sith...."

Bomoor interrupted him gently, but firmly.

"Are nothing to fear."

Thurius froze, the words striking him with more force than Bomoor had intended.

"Their failures are lessons," Bomoor continued, "and unlike when the Jedi fail, they do not bury their missteps. They wish only better for those who follow. Perhaps you should consider wanting the same."

Thurius’ expression shifted, not anger, but Bomoor could tell there was some hurt. He was quiet for a long moment before he finally spoke.

"We do wish for better," he said, "For our apprentices and for all who come after us. But our time is not done yet - we are not yet ancient relics of the past."

Bomoor’s eyes narrowed, issuing a challenge to his former master.

"Aren’t you?"

He turned toward the corridor, toward the dark hallway Serus had disappeared into.

"Then I hope," he said, his voice low but carrying, "you can show us that next time we meet."

With that, he too stepped into the corridor, the shadows swallowing his broad silhouette as the warmth of the hearth fell away behind him. The faint echo of his footsteps mirrored the distant rhythm of Serus’ respirator, fading gradually into the deeper quiet of the Keep.

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