The First Lesson
Posted on Wed Apr 18th, 2018 @ 11:27pm by Thane & Amare
Edited on on Mon May 7th, 2018 @ 4:41pm
4,785 words; about a 24 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter V: Unbound
Location: Polar Region, Irrikut
Timeline: Day Three on Irrikut (over one week after Coda joins the crew)
Snow and ash swirled about the two figures with vigour, the ice-cold currents of the blizzard whipping up at their faces and obscuring all hope of seeing beyond their immediate, all-white terrain. The occasional crack of thunder could be heard above the din of the eternal storm, an unearthly sound that was both incredibly distant and unbearably close.
Although it was daytime, no sun could be made out in the bright, ashen sky; heat was entirely absent and any sense of time was impossible to determine in this most desolate of regions on the nearly-forgotten, scarred world of Irrikut.
An unspeakable cataclysm had wrought great destruction across the continents of the world in centuries past, with the wounds only starting to suitably heal in the last five hundred years or so. Much of its terrain was once again temperate and suitable for life, but a good portion remained sickened and plagued by horrific storms that tore away at any possibility for standard organic creatures to thrive.
But the two stood here, in the plains of Irrikut's polar region, deep within the regions still afflicted by the planetary disease, were no standard creatures.
The thin, practicably-unbreathable air gushed suddenly, flicking at the long black robes worn by the taller of the two figures, who held his arms across his chest as he regarded his female companion, who seemed to stiffen once more with this extra drop in temperature, which was already far below acceptable for either of their respective species.
Remarkably, the Human male seemed unaffected, and little snow or ash seemed to even fall near him, let alone even settle on his dark mop of hair.
Glowering down at the orphan, his unexpected and sudden new apprentice, Thane's pale features showed little sign of being affected by the environment in which they had been stood for nearly three days with no sustenance, nor did he even seem to show any regard or appreciation for her at this exact moment. Instead, he seemed to be assessing, and perhaps challenging.
"I have been to this world with Bomoor many times," he said, almost conversationally, his voice carried by the power of the Force to both the woman's auditory senses and her mind, which as she struggled ever more against the litany of suffering Irrikut threw against her, seemed to open ever more to the currents of the Force. "Much of Irrikut is now lush and teeming with life, alive and brilliant to behold with both one's eyes and within the Force. There is even an ancient Jedi enclave there, abandoned but for the few Knights and their errant cousins who know of its existence and appreciate their solitude. I could easily have taken you there, Zaracoda, and taught you how to lift some rocks, soothe some cuts or hop from a few high platforms, and you would have learnt quickly, I'm sure. But that is not where your power comes from."
He spread his gloved hands out from within his robe - a rarely worn piece for the young Sith student - and let electricity spark from his fingers, dancing from one tip to the next in a minor display of power. "It is not who we are."
As he watched the young Nautolan's tender features seem to grow ever tauter, he mused on how his words must sound archaic and lofty, reminiscent of dusty masters and prophetic annals only the most studious of pupils ever regarded, vaguely achievable and entirely pretentious. Inwardly, he actually wondered what was becoming of his goodwill and oft-ironic sense of humour - but those things were best saved for times outside of these lessons, of which he was every bit the pupil of as Coda was.
A frigid storm gust slapped Coda where she stood causing her to stumble and fall to one knee. She was bundled under a spare brown robe Bomoor had lent her, but it afforded scarcely any protection from Irrikut's arctic onslaught. Her teeth were chattering, and much as she tried to keep the hood over her head, the gale that blew it back refused to allow her such small comfort.
Three days of this hell and it only grew progressively worse. Once she realized Thane had no intention to speak to her as they journeyed day and night across the wastes, Coda had kept quiet most of the time, asked no questions, and blindly placed her faith in Thane's guidance. Now that faith was being shaken to the core and she started to wonder if this was a teachable moment, or a wicked demonstration of Thane's taste for sadism. The thought of the latter being a possibility terrified her more than she cared to admit.
"C-can you make f-f-fire w-with that p-power, m-m-master?" she tried to ask stammering in the midst of a fling with borderline hypothermia.
Under normal conditions, Coda would have been absolutely floored to see electricity spontaneously flow from a man's hands like that, but all she could focus on was staying warm somehow; she could spare no energy for amazement any longer. She didn't know how much more she had left in her. She was near her breaking point...
“It is good that you are curious,” the shade of Darth Bane acceded to the young Sith neophyte that had summoned him forth from his holocron just a short while before, “for if our venture is to be successful in this new age, you will need to look beyond the information merely contained within my artefact.”
In a display entirely unlike all previous interactions Thane and the gatekeeper had, the fallen Dark Lord had presented himself without his orbalisk armour adorning him, his bald, gruff visage entirely exposed, albeit with the artificial red hue that always dominated his appearance to the fallen Jedi. Angular tattoos curved about his eyes, which appeared to shimmer with the dull, orange glow typical of dedicated pupils of the Dark Side of the Force.
The pair had shared an increasing number of conversations such as this since Thane had formally pledged himself unto Bane’s teachings since recently leaving Jericho, committing his person and philosophy to those of the millennium-extinct Order of the Sith Lords that had ended with the death of Emperor Palpatine and the First Galactic Empire – a note which appeared to remain a sore topic of conversation for the gatekeeper.
“Generations of Sith Lords succeeded me when I finally fell to Darth Zannah, accumulating huge swathes of power – both within the mundane and arcane – and my successors, although varying in success, horded much Sith lore in their time. Much of this was lost due to the machinations of the Order itself and its many enemies, whilst it has been centuries since the last true Sith Lord managed any archives of any sort.”
Within the newly-put together vault aboard the Red Raptor, installed prior to their current onward journey back to Nar Shaddaa, Bane was stood before Thane, taller, broader, more grizzled and undoubtedly more muscular than the living Human. However, gone were the grimaces that passed for the dead warrior’s smiles, and instead something more akin to a genuine mentor ‘stood’ before him, tutoring, guiding and informing his new apprentice.
“I imagine it will be difficult to uncover teachings and artefacts of much worth; most planets steeped in the dark side will have been long plundered or guarded with fear and jealousy by the Reborn Crusaders, as you so rightfully describe them.” Bane’s remark on the Reborn Jedi carried more than a hint of disgust, the gatekeeper’s contempt for the contemporaneous Jedi Order seemingly exceeding that which he had held for his own generation’s. “And I am but an imprint of Darth Bane, ‘though I carry his memories and beliefs.”
Thane inclined his head to the shade. Although he accepted that this visage of Darth Bane was but merely a Force data echo, for lack of a better description, he nevertheless honoured its knowledge and the legacy it contained. A legacy he had taken unto himself to forward, for reasons both selfish and purposeful.
“There is much information you can still teach me, my Master.” It still felt odd to the former Jedi to address him as such, for only one man had truly held that honour in his mind previously, and he wondered if his referral to Darth Bane as such was a betrayal of Sotah. “Your recollection of the ancient archives from Korriban and your teachings of the dark arts have already increased my powers exponentially. Your philosophies-“
“Yes,” Darth Bane interrupted, “you already resemble many of my philosophies, once in mind and now in both that and spirit, and in ages past you would have been inducted into my Order as an apprentice to a true Sith Master. Your sacrifice was pure and your convictions run deep. You are the sole dreamer of the Sith nightmare now, but you must remember the one true tenet of the Rule of Two: a Master…”
“…and an apprentice,” Thane concluded Bane’s sentence thoughtfully. Once more, flashes of Bería and his own infancy within the Sith struck him. “But am I ready to take on another so soon?”
"That's not the question you need to be asking," Thane replied matter-of-factly, deciding not to dwell on matters of pyrokinesis as the sparks subsided. "Surely is it not enough that, in what would have killed any normal creature of this galaxy, you have survived three days in the most inhospitable of environments, your reliance on sheer will alone and the Force as your tool and your ally?"
The former Jedi took a couple of steps closer to his companion, and placed a friendly hand on her shoulder, the first physical contact between them since they had arrived. "That is the lesson here; your power is your own and comes from within. Your will to survive and those base instincts serve you better than any whistling wind or cawing animal. Already, when your life was threatened, you have drawn out your inner fury and touched the Force with a passion most Jedi are too frightened to even consider, because the fear the sort of power it metes out - they fear what could be done with that power, the change it could bring."
Coda silently held her trembling gaze at the ground, her large obsidian eyes blinking far more rapidly than was typical for nautolans, the dry icy squall greatly irritating her vision. She felt the familiar hunger pangs of starvation wracking her insides, her chapped lips broken and bleeding from dehydration, and could only think of finding shelter and warmth. She was more grateful for Bomoor's spare robe than she ever was in the past few arduous days.
Thane let a small smile creep across his face as he regarded the shivering orphan, sure and decided in his actions and confident in this course, as opposed to flinging Coda in front of a training remote. With that smile still there, he suddenly tore away the borrowed robe and turned in one swift movement, allowing the harsh environment unbridled access to the Nautolan's exposed arms and shoulders.
She was aghast at the swift takeaway of her only elemental defense. She reached for it, but was far too slow and knew it would be foolish to try and fight Thane for it. She lowered herself on both knees and crossed her arms over her chest and gripped her shoulders tightly as numbness slowly cascaded through her extremities. Her entire body was unceasingly shivering as another frigid blast whipped past her, blowing her head tendrils to the east for several seconds. Her simple light travel clothes were no match for the power of Mother Nature.
"If you so wish it, you will be able to do so much more than simply toy with the elements," her new master went on, his voice raised but vaguely inspirational. "Now, tell me Zaracoda, as you feel the icy grip of death grasping tightly about your throat and body, what can you feel of this planet?" He left that query there for a moment, before also adding, "What can you tell of what I am thinking?"
In her traumatic desperation, Coda felt her thoughts plunge into a dusty old compartment tucked deep in her mind where an old cloudy memory she had forgotten for many years glinted invitingly amidst her hazy past before the slavers had captured her. It was a memory from the earliest days of her childhood: a pair of soft gentle blue hands alight in a crimson red blaze reaching out into an impenetrable gloom. She locked her mind's eye in that eldritch fire, drew inspiration from it, and heard the shots that killed her parents again in her mind. Those shots were like some kind of sanguine exclamation point meant to punish her for daring to look where she wasn't supposed to.
"M-mas-t-t-er," she said through chattering teeth. She slowly raised her head up and released her left hand from her right shoulder and shakily reached up to touch the side of his face.
Thane's first instinct was to recoil, just as his initial belief in how to approach Coda's training here on Irrikut compelled him to do so, but instead he permitted her to let her near-frozen skin brush against his cheek.
You are the planet, Coda mentally projected to him feeling the ice on her hand touching him slowly warm up and regain feeling. She ignored it, and took all of her thoughts away from herself and devoted the entire moment to Thane of Caanus. This was her element. She felt the bond between them before when they first met, and so she craved that connection again. The feeling of him. The closeness. It gave her hope that he did not deny her touch. Its wounds are your wounds. Its ice and fire are a song that speaks to you. I've heard it since we arrived. I learned its language. It wants to kill me. There is jealousy in the wind. 'She' wants you to suffer.
The words came clearly to the Human, just as he noticed with how much ease the Nautolan now tapped into the currents of the Force, her skin warming of its own volition and the inner voice she spoke with now was one of calm maturity, but a spark still danced provocatively and voraciously beneath it. It was also not lost on him how she had used her talent to focus upon him, as opposed to the world around them.
This was good, and it revealed more of where Coda's abilities would lie.
"I am impressed," Thane said honestly, electing to not address the words she had uttered Forcefully as he took the hand held against his cheek within his own, taking it away from his face. "The pain you have experienced here, have felt here, has sharpened you. Not only have you staved off certain death, what you have seen has exposed you to the rawness of the Force, of the emotions that can drive its power and you and thereby bring you closer to the Force - and," he now paused, considering his next words, "the dark side."
“It is not enough to simply dabble,” Bane rebuked. “Whilst power is an end in itself, for as Sith we are unafraid to submit ourselves to consequence and change, pragmatism must remain at the heart of our plan. Even now, the Sith name will carry a dark legacy, marred as it was by the megalomaniacs and falsely recalled by the misinformed. To effect true change on this plagued galaxy, you will have to conceal your true nature, whilst embracing facets of your character you may not yet be truly comfortable with.”
Thane eyed the gatekeeper with a wary interest, whilst also remaining mindful of his own lingering dedication to ending the threat of Axion. “My identity is known to the Republic, and the Jedi have already declared me a threat.” A hint of self-amused irony crept into his final words.
Bane frowned, but it was not clear if he was frustrated by what Thane said or simply by the situation. “Even a thousand blades can fell one Sith,” he observed dryly, “and whilst you have raw power and even the means by which to influence the factions of the galaxy, you are but one man. The Sith must be a patrimony, passed from Lord to the next, lest the dream die, as it once did, destroyed by a man who rejected the Rule of Two in his arrogance and rejection of death. Had Darth Sidious continued to develop his power rather than seek to simply preserve his existence, he might well have outlived any successors justifiably, unchallengeable, but instead he allowed weakness and dissent to develop within his own, and so collapsed the would-be fruition of the Grand Plan.”
Although he listened intently to Bane intoning on the failures of Emperor Palpatine, it was not the first time the gatekeeper had touched upon the story. Equally, whilst he saw sense in the Sith vision, he was unwilling to wait a thousand years to see any his labours bear fruit.
“The truth of what you are must fundamentally change,” Darth Bane continued, now more personally addressing the former Jedi, “as you must continue to become that which you have sworn to be. And yes, you will require an apprentice – an alliance born out of a desire for supremacy, change, but tempered by envy and conceit, so as to keep the partnership flourishing and growing in power.”
At first, particularly at the mention of a partnership, Thane’s thoughts wondered to Bomoor. Every part his intellectual equal and a man who essentially agreed with the same concerns and philosophies he had regarding the state of the Jedi and the Third Republic, he could not think of someone he would rather have at his side in undertaking such a venture.
But he knew that was not what Bane’s holocron was considering, and the Ithorian was not someone he wished to engage in competition with.
Although Thane would welcome Bomoor’s support, and was still largely confident he and his friend would remain at one another’s side, he was unsure if the existence Bane was a proponent of would ever be something the Consular could subscribe to, even in a half-measure. Regardless, there was no reason Thane could not do as he wished in time. There was no reason why Bomoor could not be a part of such plans.
His plans.
“And where would I find such a person?” He asked, honestly.
Before Coda had a chance to query or challenge the last comment, Thane swiftly added, "And so you have already seen how you can perceive the universe around you through the Force. Just as easily as you have saved yourself and touched upon my essence, so too can you easily will objects to move at a thought, or hasten your pace, or influence the minds of the simple."
Watching the woman before him, Thane saw that she was no longer shivering, even if ash and snow still dared to wisp about her. "This is because you do not simply touch one thing at a time - because the Force isn't just affecting any one thing at a time. It exists in all things at once, and so you must draw yourself in tandem with this, either by shifting your essence in line with it... or by bending it your will. You and I, Zaracoda Wolph, can serve as agents of change, and should not be afraid to make the Force serve us. Gifted as we are to even touch it, I believe it would not do for us to sacrifice that gift by entrusting ourselves unto its whimsical and unknowable will."
Euphoria anointed Coda's senses and gave respite to her fatigued body. The Force graciously wrapped around her like an invisible blanket; the unseen fire in the hearth; the shelter from the oncoming storm. She saw no reason to question the power that was restoring her back to health, but she didn't understand Thane's claim to bend it as he so declared.
"I understand," she said with a sigh of joyful relief that her physical hell was finally subsiding. "Yet, I feel so small compared to this world, to you, to everything. Why would the Force give us power to use it like a..." she hesitated to say the word. "...slave?"
“It is a rare time,” the holocron explained, his deep baritone voice brimming with a confidence that somewhat frustrated Thane, but he made no challenge to the artificial being. “As happens only ever so rarely in history, the dark side is rising to meet the complacency of the light. If I have been able to realise this, then so surely have you and the Ithorian; the Jedi’s ability to perceive events around them has been clouded, and they have already split their Order and the Republic in their blind devotion to their self-imposed position as arbiters of a failing democracy.”
Bane’s voice then became quieter, and doubly sinister as he dipped his glowering features towards Thane. “And, my apprentice, the dark side is working in tandem with your destiny.” In response to the narrowing of Thane’s eyes, the gatekeeper continued. “An errant knight born to a wealthy political dynasty, the dark side runs deep in your history. You came upon my holocron at a time that was right, entirely without meaning to, and your quest for the kaiburr shards is not without success.” He set his shimmering artificial eyes upon the young Caanan, a cunning malice boring into him. “A candidate will present themselves in short order, and whilst my holocron will remain an heirloom to guide you, it will fall to you to enact our will upon the galaxy… as you rise to mastery of the Sith.”
Thane maintained the grim silence that fell between him and the gatekeeper. A swell of unexpected excitement had flourished within him as Bane had spoken at the thought of embracing this identity, of inheriting this legacy the ancient lord was promising him. In a galaxy full of Jedi, mere dozens had ever been deemed fit to be inducted as Sith Lords in generations, and none for over one thousand years. It was simultaneously daunting and thrilling. Here he was, conversing with a dead man to embrace the ideals of an extinct organisations that served as a betrayal of all he had been trained to believe in – to corrupt both himself and others in the pursuit of something ironically purer and more powerful, both for him and the galaxy around him.
“I would anoint you, but not as Thane of House Verus, former Jedi Knight,” Bane interrupted Thane’s thoughts and prideful reverie. “But as the verity of that which you are and have been for longer than you know – Sith.”
Considering Bane’s request – or command, as it rather sounded – Thane did not find himself quite as ill at ease as he would have expected. Centring himself within the Force and closing his eyes, he sought deeply within his essence, and searched the annals of his mind and feelings as he mused over the gatekeeper’s demand. After several long moments, from somewhere concealed in the darkness of his mind, a feeling rose and confronted him, as if the Force itself had presented some scrap that had been lurking profoundly and discretely within him.
“Serus,” he finally breathed.
"If you ever divine the answer to that, my young friend, it is you whom I will apprentice myself to," Thane replied to Coda with more than just a hint of mirth now, pleased at the woman's considered and critical assessment, even at this early stage of her true exposure to her power. "But the Force can resist our desires to influence it at times, whether it be through active resistance against the user, or another unseen repercussion. Just as with fire and water, they can be beneficial tools yet just as quickly resist our desire to apply them and burn or even kill us."
Thane let some of his own Force energy dip, his own tiredness beginning to creep into his body, calling for food and rest. "But it is normal to feel small by comparison to the Force, or even to one such as me who is more experienced in his application. I have lost count of the amount of times I questioned my own existence and place in the universe after losing myself in the currents of the universe."
He now stepped closer to Coda and began to place it about her. "But I also want you to appreciate that this power we are both seeking, born more of the dark side, as it is called, will mark you apart from the Jedi and other Force users. The things I would teach you will expose you to a power touched upon by only a scant few in millennia. You will not be a mere drop in the ocean, Zaracoda." Placing his hands on either of her shoulders, he looked into her aquatic eyes with deep purpose and allowed the spark of his ambitions to surge forth towards her. "You will be the tsunami."
There was a rolling thunder across the shattered plains that followed Thane's words. No, more than words; a promise.
"A wave o'er a torrent sea..." Coda whispered the words partly to herself as they flowed from her lips at a subconscious level. Flashes of memories bombarded her in the form of voices as the swirling patterns in her eyes shifted rapidly, an entropic maelstrom of subtle transformation. Among the voices one spoke loudest...
Darlin', after I take off this here tracker anklet, you go an' make darn sure you never gets yerself collared again. Ya hear? Go on, git! Yer a free bird now!
The memory of Saucy Feril's declaration that Coda was free from slavery triggered a small exchange of knowledge from Thane as she was lost in the gravity of his intense blue eyes. She was imbued with a part of the ancient words of Sorzus Syn that she was drawn to:
"...My chains are broken," she said slowly and softly, an arcane reverb mildly altering her voice. "The Force shall free me."
Despite himself, a genuine smile, partly prompted by more than a hint of surprise, crept across his pale features, tugging unfamiliar lines into his face, only slightly more worn than his young apprentice's. "And so concludes the first lesson."
As the Sith apprentice uttered the word, he had not been convinced it would first pass his lips; a sense of deep trepidation quite unfamiliar to him had gripped his throat and turned his stomach, as though he were presenting himself before all the galaxy in stark judgement. Bane, however, did not seem displeased.
“And so you are, Dar-“
“No,” the Caanan cut the gatekeeper off with a sudden confidence, evoking a deep frown from the echo, who even bared his simulated teeth, eerily white though they were. “Master,” he added, although his tone did not slip, “I have pledged myself to your teachings, to embracing the dark side, making myself powerful and to seeing our will be done. All this I will do, but there is yet another goal that must be achieved before I will be…” What? He challenged himself, his stomach still tight. Worthy? Powerful enough? Ready? “Before I make that statement to the Force, and to myself.”
Incensed, Darth Bane’s avatar nevertheless kept from releasing a torrent of frustration upon his living apprentice. “Axion,” he surmised, to which his companion nodded. “So be it. End this pretender and his middling empire of chaos and debauchery if you must, a test of your growing wisdom and power within the dark side, if nothing else. But do not forget, Lord Serus, that when the time finally comes, it will be but yourself you must rely upon. These attachments that linger still… they will weigh you down, and make you a slave to your baser instincts, as opposed to awarding you the true mastery over entropy you so keenly seek.”
And with a final flourish of his artificially-calloused hand, the avatar of the Dark Lord of the Sith dissipated, leaving Serus alone in the room once more - as he had always truly been.
__________________________________
ZARACODA WOLPH
▬ Force Ability Increase
RSS Feed