Just Bomoor

Posted on Wed Jul 23rd, 2025 @ 4:10pm by Bomoor Thort & Thane

4,302 words; about a 22 minute read

Chapter: Chapter VII: Uprooted
Location: Abandoned Jedi Temple, Irrikut
Timeline: Start of Week One (Four days since leaving Öetrago)

Faint morning light trickled through tall arched window panes, long since having lost whatever glass once sat in the frame. Along the corridor, dry pine needles huddled into the corners, scurrying away from the winds and the furious Ithorian that now paced the halls.

Here came the footsteps again: powerful, quaking, beastial stomps that rang out across the old stone passages. At times, they stumbled, shambling with slight hesitation or misdirection before proceeding on again.

Then came the man himself: draped in a simple shawl over the loose med-bay garments he had been wearing since he emerged from the bacta tank and lay in a fitful sleep under "Useless'" perpetual gaze. He stumbled again and reached an arm out to the wall to steady himself, he drooped his head out of the window, looking out at the tall trees waving gently, stretching out as far as the eye could see in every direction. The ecological disaster that had devastated the planet hundreds of years ago could not hold back the raw power of nature on this planet, particularly in this temperate region of the globe.

His mind drifted between the wisdoms of the Jedi that would have been taught here countless generations ago, to that great destruction. Even their great power, their knowledge, could not prevent the destruction wrought on this world, just as he could not use his own powers to save his mother.

What good was the anger he now felt, the strength he knew it brought through the dark side, if it could not be utilised at the very moment it was needed?

He breathed in the cool air and stiffened up slightly, trying to shake away the doubts that chased him from Öetrago, now haunting him through these once-tranquil halls. He marched on, acutely aware that his body still ached and groaned from his wounds. His face still burning from the heat of Voq's explosion.

He winced, thinking of the power that had flowed through him as he had torn the Devaronian's cyborg limbs off. He had been in pain then too but it meant nothing at the time. Now, even with days of recovery in the Medbay, it all felt so raw and fresh.

He reached the end of the corridor and turned into a chamber: a long room with tables and benches but also shelves around the corners; perhaps a library or archive of some kind. A gap in the ceiling cast light down that fell upon a round basin in the centre of the room, where an old, dead tree reached up to the light, before drooping down. Around its roots, smaller plants had begun to emerge, weaving around the old roots and forging their own path up towards the sun's rays.

He slowed slightly as he walked through, sensing a familiar presence, even through his conflicted mind. Another being now so closely bonded to him that he wondered sometimes how they ever found themselves apart.

Thane had been standing in silence beneath the collapsed archway nearby when he sensed Bomoor’s presence draw near. He did not move as the heavy footfalls approached, each thudding step like a soft tremor through the stone floor. When they paused in the chamber, Thane finally turned his head, revealing himself.

The air here was laced with the scent of old moisture, mineral-dust, and the faint sweetness of life attempting to reclaim the dead. Ivy-like flora traced shallow cracks in the walls, studiously resisting and overcoming the decay that was being extinguished from this ancient world. Light cascaded in through the breach above, catching flecks of pollen in its beam and casting them like gold dust across the old basin. The dead tree at its centre cast a fractured silhouette.

Thane stood beside the edge, black and grey robes drawn neatly across his chest, arms folded - not in judgment, but restraint. His pale face was pensive, and though he had rehearsed no words for this moment, his voice emerged low and level.

“I wasn’t sure when you’d want to see anyone,” he began, gaze still upon the withered tree. “You often found your Living Force strongest where life clings hardest - I was confident you'd come here.”

He finally looked to Bomoor, letting the stillness settle between them. There was no smile, but something softer around his golden eyes, a flicker of shared weight. The Caanan's fingers curled slightly at his sleeves, knuckles pale. The light caught on the silver clasp at the collar of his cloak, subtle and severe. It was almost symbol of the changes already creeping into his bearing, but certainly not as stark as the golden glint that shone from his eyes, ethereally gleaming from the shadow he stood within, giving him an almost predatory appearance.

Bomoor inhaled, as though to speak but found that the thoughts colliding inside his head could not be blurted out so simply. He allowed the air to leave his lungs, instead pacing forwards and placing himself down on the rim of the basin in the centre of the room, beside the long-dead tree.

He cast his gaze upwards, much like the plants themselves, seeking nurturing from a greater power, before wearily leaning his arched head more towards Thane.

"I'm not sure I want to face anyone again, Thane," he finally stated, although his tone was not convincing, "What happened to the certainty we used to have as padawans? It was so much easier to see morality as absolute and unwavering. It seemed the only obstacle was our ability to convince others or put them in their place. Were we misguided or has the galaxy become a murkier place?"

Thane stood still, letting the moment speak first. The distant sway of trees, the whisper of leaves through fractured foundations, even the creak of old stone underfoot - all of it lingered like ghosts in the silence. The old temple had not withstood the centuries in defiance; it had endured through surrender. It had learned to be hollow, to let things pass through.

He looked to Bomoor — or what remained of him. Not in flesh; the Ithorian had survived worse injuries, even as recently as Jericho. But grief had carved deep, unclean hollows within him, too. Something in his gait, in the way the shawl hung about his shoulders - Thane could sense the heaviness of both death and revelation.

The temple, Bomoor, and the Force itself all bore the same quiet truth: survival did not mean preservation - and neither of them had been preserved.

“I used to think the galaxy was growing darker,” Thane said, his voice steady but low, as though mindful of the old stones still listening. “That each war, each betrayal, like the horrors we saw on Onderon all of those years ago, from the Conflict and from the Avalan Crisis, pushed us further into that miasma.” He turned, regarding the light filtering down through the ruined ceiling above the dead tree. For a moment, his expression softened, and he spoke again. "But it isn’t the galaxy that’s changed. It’s us. We see more. We know more. The veils are gone, and the faux comfort that came before.”

He stepped down, closer now - not dominating, but steady, an attempt at being a fixture amid uncertainty. "We were told that clarity, at least as the Jedi understood it, meant peace. But clarity is never peaceful. It is a violent, destructive process... It cuts through lies. Through the facades. Through the shadows cast by the light. And, once you see things clearly… you can’t go back to the old fallacies.”

He turned his glowing eyes fully on Bomoor now, his friend, and so frequently his mirror - a man shuffling forward under the weight of something far older than grief.

Thane said no more for a moment.

Instead, he let the quiet hang between both former Jedi - not for lack of words, but because he knew the weight of what had already been spoken. And he studied Bomoor now, not with pity, nor clinical detachment, but with the faint, measuring stillness of a man searching for signs. Not of recovery - but of shared clarity, for the Ithorian had changed. That much was certain. His pain had a texture to it now - raw, but perhaps not directionless or chaotic. There was an edge to his silence, a new weight to his shadowy gaze.

So, Thane did not press. He simply observed, and behind his quiet eyes, there was the trace of something else. It was neither relief, nor the certainly he exhibited in the medbay with Amare, but the kind of quiet expectation reserved for a door, half-opened, waiting to see which way it would swing.

A cloud moved across the sky and the light through the ceiling faltered, the pair now sunk into shadow and everything felt colder, seemingly magnified by the sound of the biting wind howling through the tall trees all around them. Bomoor felt the cold ripple down his spine and he shook reflexively.

"I always wanted to be stronger," Bomoor answered, his voice still low and devoid of its usual warmth, "Not just for myself, but so that I could preserve the things in this galaxy that matter to me. The things that are not corrupt, the things that brought me joy, the people that matter."

He wrenched himself up and stumbled over to the crumbling archway Thane had been peering through when he arrived.

"These last few months have seen so many highs and lows: Krayt's lessons, the Force bond, the shards, finding Amare and Mentis: it felt like we were building something that could change everything for the better, all the while I felt my power, our power, growing like never before. But it scared me: the Vaa-Thalda I killed, breaking Thendleton's mind, the abilities we unleashed on the bridge of that Star Destroyer. Whenever I felt that power, I also felt myself losing control..."

He felt that surge of pain and anger again, knowing Thane must feel it too.

"...and that is just not acceptable!"

Bomoor whacked his palm on the archway, causing another couple of the chiselled stone blocks of the structure topple down. But he did not pay it any heed and turned around towards his old friend.

"What happened on Öetrago just proves it," he exclaimed, his eyes sinking into an unhealthy pallor that exposed the veins beneath, "I had the power: the dark side allowed me to tear Voq to pieces in an instant but I could not focus it to save her. She was still alive, Thane. She was right there and yet she just slipped away. What purpose does it serve me to gain this strength if I cannot protect one person? My own mother."

Thane did not flinch as the stone cracked and fell. His gaze didn’t even shift from Bomoor. "She died pointlessly," he stated. His voice was clear, but not cruel nor loud, and stripped of ceremony or pretence. "It was wrong. Pathetic. Not just the act itself, but the smallness of it. A petty strike from creatures who think themselves significant. They took her because they could, because they wanted to hurt you... That's it. No grand cause... No ripple in the Force. No great design."

He took a step forward, and the light briefly caught his face again. There was no warmth in it, and his pale pallor was more akin to chalk now, its appearance even slightly alien to Bomoor in this moment. It was a changed visage, perhaps a mirror of his own, in the time since they left Bastion behind them.

"You want meaning, Bomoor?" Thane then challenged, gaze narrowing just slightly. "Then we make it." He took another step. Not looming - deliberate. "You and I. We cleanse the filth. We carve away the scum that rot this galaxy from the inside out. The cult, the liars, the parasites who dress themselves as senators, Jedi, prophets - we grind them into ash, and the galaxy will be stronger for it." He held now, just a pace away. His voice, a near-whisper, was flint-on-steel. "They want us to grieve. They want us to doubt, to falter, but we won't!"

Thane turned his head slightly as he let the diatribe settle, his eyes gleaming with faint expectation. "You said," the Sith finally continued, "that you wanted to preserve what mattered, but preservation is the language of the weak, of 'reborn' Jedi and 'third' republics. We build; we decide what endures. And if the old orders couldn't protect your mother, then we must create something that can."

He extended his hand - not outstretched nor pleading, but open and present. It was ungloved, the metallic structure and artificial digits that extended from the palm chittering almost silently in the brief interlude. "I can't give you comfort in this. Only companionship and purpose. Take it - with me. We are family, Bomoor - beyond blood and bone, beyond the confines, even, of mundane words and language... Let's not carry this as their legacy. Let us bury it beneath ours."

The Ithorian's eyes looked at the hand: the wound he had inflicted on his friend when a different rage had overtaken him. Not of the dark side, but of drugs and synthetic hormones. An eternal reminder of what happened when madness overtook him, yet here was that same fragile Human hand offered to him, as it had then and again when he had admitted he had spied on Thane to the council.

Bomoor's own hand wavered; long fingers suddenly felt the effects of slamming upon the stone and he clenched and unclenched his fist.

"And what happens when I lose control again?" he whispered in a moment when the howling wind grew silent, "I want a better galaxy, but I don't want to forget why. I don't want to lose the ones that matter in creating it."

The silence lingered, only to be replaced by the faint pattering sound of rain droplets falling through the open ceiling upon the stone floor. In the distance, a gentle thundering rang out and echoed softly about the empty hallways. A storm was brewing.

Still somewhat jittery, Bomoor withdrew reflexively as the droplets quickened upon his palm, but realised Thane still held out his hand, unflinching and unwavering. A thought occurred to the self-exiled Jedi: the order spoke so often of 'balance', even dating back to the ancient texts of the first pre-Jedi on Tython. So often it was interpreted as light versus dark; Ashla against Bogan. But in his friend he saw the balance of self: powerful yet restrained. A discipline of self-control that he rarely saw even in those who spoke only of the light side. Thane really was master Sotah's pupil, even now.

Bomoor did not hesitate again and he reached both hands out and cupped Thane's own hand within his just for a moment. He felt the cold metal on his skin and seemed to feel it in the Force as well, as though the hand were his own.

"Forget what I said," he spoke more plainly, before releasing Thane's hand and gesturing back along the corridor, "I could speak myself into oblivion. Come, I want you to show me what I have been missing. I want to see the dark side as you see it."

As Bomoor's hands fell away, Thane noticed a faint tremor in them. The Ithorian's echoic voice continued to faintly resound around the chamber and corridor beyond, caught between stone and storm. For a moment, the only sound between them was the gentle patter of rain, growing steadier as it continued to kiss the ancient stone. His expression did not change in any pronounced way, either, but for Bomoor, who knew his friend well, the set of his shoulders and the slightly narrowing of his eyes suggested a hint of relief, or even gratitude.

Nodding, Thane stepped past Bomoor and led the pair back the way the Ithorian had come, taking a passage that would lead to one of the outer platforms of the abandoned temple. The air had grown heavy with the earthy scent of rain and pine, and the pair moved in comfortable silence until they reached the threshold to a familiar sight. Arrayed upon the storm-battered platform were the Munturr stones. Whilst the rotunda was overgrown with moss and had been assaulted in some measure by vines, the impossible smooth surface of the five-tonne boulders were unblemished - the vines even appeared to ring around them, as if unable to physically touch them.

To the Reborn Jedi and the orders that came before, this storied test had been revered and known to even the least-experienced younglings. Whilst the truth of the test's intention may have been lost to the aeons, they were regarded now to test one's ability to balance; to move the unmovable, in understanding of the serenity of the self and cosmic eternity - to commune within the Force to engage with the universe around you.

Thane looped his cowl over his head and stepped towards the nearest stone. Whilst he exhibited no reverence, he placed a hand upon its surface. The last time he and Bomoor had been here or attempted to move the boulders, they had been accompanied by Bería, in a futile, vain effort to foster her talent and potential in the Force. Bomoor could clearly sense a degree of ire rising within his friend, a shade different from his own torment, but no effort was made to conceal either of their feelings within their Force bond from one another.

"Either by shifting yourself to it... or by bringing it to you..." The Caanan said quietly, echoing the words he had uttered to their wayward pupil about the Force. He turned his eyes, glimmering beneath the shadow of his hood, back towards Bomoor.

Mirroring his friend's emotion, the Ithorian spoke dryly, "She never really cared to understand our teachings, did she?"

He stepped forward lining himself up in front of each of the weathered stones and their pedestals. Reaching out a hand, he began to see the objects before him not with his eyes, but in the Force and he closed his own eyes to allow him to focus only on the Force. While stone boulders were not alive with midichlorians, the universe's energy field still surrounded them and penetrated them; some called it the 'Physical Force'.

He felt them all but, even in the Force, it was hard to focus on all at once, to see them as interconnected, even though he knew the theory all too well. He retracted his hand and opened his eyes. He turned again to Thane.

"So, which would the Sith teach?" he asked, "Become one with the boulders or make the boulders one with you? Or is it something different entirely?"

An eyebrow quirked almost imperceptibly within Thane's cowl, golden eyes peering. "Are you Sith?"

The Ithorian's eyes widened at the sudden query. Both of them had learned much of the teachings of the Sith over the last year, but only one of them had set out to assign their identity to the ancient dark side order.

Bomoor turned away from the boulders and frowned at his friend, a deep line forming across his brow.

"I am no longer a Reborn Jedi, same as yourself," he said, his voice firmer now, "But I never chose to wear the title of Sith either."

He stepped lightly over one of the roots that had found purchase on the ancient stone floor, gaze drifting briefly across the storm-dark horizon before returning to Thane.

"As I said on Korriban: I accept you as Sith because you’ve shaped that name into something personal: something drawn from all you’ve endured. You spoke the name 'Serus' to the door that day. I know that Serus is a construct built not just on Sith, but on a man named Thane and his experiences of betrayal, friendship and the kindness of a Selkath mentor."

"But me?" His eyes narrowed slightly. “I don’t want a new doctrine. I don’t need a new name. Even now, while part of me wants to run and pretend all these things happened to someone else, I never want to forget what I am and what has shaped me.”

He paused, glancing again at the stones as the rain began to pick up; soft but persistent, each droplet drumming on the mossy stone like a ticking chronometer.

"I’ve changed, yes," he admitted quietly, "I’ve seen what power can do when you stop pretending it only flows one way. I’ve used it. I’ve bent it, called it to me like the Sith teach. But I did it because I wanted to… not because I wanted to become someone else."

He turned back fully to Thane, his twin mouths tightening.

"So, when I ask what the Sith teach, I really am asking what you would teach me. I want to understand the power that moves through you; the strength that carried you through everything they threw at us. But I won't pretend I'm whole right now. I won’t pretend I’m not afraid of what I might become with it. But, whatever may come, I will always be Bomoor."

His hand opened slightly at his side, the tremor more noticeable now in the pale light, but he did not try to hide it.

"I still want to walk this path with you. But I walk it as Bomoor. Not as Sith. Not as Jedi. Just… me."

Thane remained still, one hand at the edge of his cowl, eyes shadowed beneath its rim as he listened.

As Bomoor finished speaking, the storm gave its own brief response - a gust of wind curling through the columns and hurling a scatter of needles across the edge of the platform. The scent of damp moss and dusted stone filled the air. Thane’s cloak shifted slightly in the breeze, but he did not move to adjust it. His golden eyes stayed fixed on the Ithorian.

"I wouldn't ask you to be anything else," he said at last, his voice low, barely above the whisper of the wind. "You are not here to become me. You never were." He stepped lightly around the edge of one Munturr stone, his fingertips briefly brushing its surface again, as if sensing the echo of past trials imprinted in the rock. "You’ve seen what I am now - what I am becoming, even. The names and titles... the ones I have claimed and the ones I have abandoned, are ultimately words There is some power and pride in them, meaning ascribed without true weight..." He looked up. "But I never stopped being who I am. I have never stopped being Thane. And I have never stopped being your friend."

His gaze drifted toward where the heavy boulders stood like titans in slumber. The falling rain ran in narrow rivulets down their rounded surfaces, softening their outlines but not diminishing their presence.

"I don't need you to name your path," Thane continued. "Only walk it with purpose, and without shame." He looked back to Bomoor, letting silence fill the space again, but not to serve as any distance or discomfort between them. "So, now show me. Not what you believe, and definitely not what you fear."

A faint edge sharpened his voice. It was not challenge, but a push, tinged with curiosity and a goading faith.

"Show me what you know."

The command struck Bomoor and he felt a strength rising within him. He knew not whether it was simply Thane's words or something more their bond granted him but he immediately set his mind upon the task. He did not need to close his eyes; he took in the boulders, the whole room and more. There was a gentle rumble as all the molecules around him felt the order to rise.

The boulders shuddered but did not yet lift and he felt the action straining his own body, wrenching at the fresh wounds and stinging his burns. It made him think again of those that wronged him and of what they had taken. He had not been focussed and his power was unstable but he would not let that happen again. The thoughts were powerful, but dangerous. Just like in that fevered dream some nights ago, he would never progress by flailing about. It was time to swim, not sink.

He saw the five boulders before him but he felt them too; they were his limbs to move and he would lift them. There was a rumble again but, this time, it was the groaning of the stones against their pedestals as they were commanded to move. They shifted, wrenched and then, with scarcely a sound, they lifted.

Barely in the air for a second and little more than an inch above their pedestals, but they had all lifted.

Then they fell.

Four of the five boulders crashed back down with a great groaning thud, while the one on the far right rolled slightly and collapsed off its pedestal with a crunch just as Bomoor collapsed down as well, his breathing deep and heavy.

His eyes flickered and he watched Thane approach him. The Ithorian's dark eyes flicked to his face and he saw a small, but genuine smile on the man's lips as he extended his mechanically-augmented hand down towards Bomoor.

The pair slowly and purposefully left the room of the Munturr stones behind. That final stone now bearing a thin crack across its surface where it lay on the ancient floor.

END

RSS Feed