Leandros Solus
SWRP Writer
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2018
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Mandalore
Sundari Throne Room Ruins
Sundari Throne Room Ruins
- N I G H T M A R E
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Leandros woke with a start, weary eyes scanning his surroundings. It was dark; his eyes adjusted to the lack of light and he could faintly make out the craggy surface of the rocks above him. Slowly, his vision traced over the sleeping figures around him: three shadowy beings lay huddled in thick furs on beds made of straw and stone, and it wasn’t until he looked over the smallest body present that he became acutely aware of how cold the room was. His breath escaped his mouth in a thick haze, and the sound of the howling wind outside alerted him to the nature of where he stood.
The cave seemed familiar, and it took him a moment to realize that he had spent time in it once before long, long ago. When he was a child escaping an attack on his village with his cousin and the slave he affectionately called “Uncle,” he spent quite a while in this frigid cave during the harsh Mandalorian winter in the mountains. Leandros looked down at his arms where the scars of his crucifixion permanently reminded him of his punishment for theft. He raised his head and looked at the bodies, curious.
He approached one and knelt down, gently and cautiously pulling the furs from its face. It was his cousin, a small girl whom he had not seen in… gods, decades, it must be. Her lips were pale with hypothermia, and she shook intensely, but still clung to life. He moved to the second body and did the same, recognizing the face of “Uncle,” and smiled gently, remembering fondly how the man sacrificed everything to keep the younglings with him alive. His face was weathered by time, each crag and scar writing his story for the world to read. Leandros always wondered what it was he did before becoming a slave, but never had the courage to ask.
Leandros approached the third body and apprehensively reached out, worried for what he might find. As the layers of fur were unwrapped, a gauntleted hand shot out and grabbed him by the throat. Surprised by the sudden and tight hold on him, Leandros gripped the hand and pulled against it to no avail. Rising from the furs was a crimson armor he recognized immediately. A wave of confusion shot through him as Raz lifted him into the air with supernatural strength, choking the life from his body. ”You abandoned me,” she growled at him. As his vision began to dim, a fourth figure towered behind her, his immaculate T-visor and ceremonial armor striking Leandros with terror and awe as the Destroyer god Kad Ha’rangir looked on at his servant with indifference as he watched one Mand’alor choke the other to death.
Leandros opened his eyes and gasped for air as the hold was suddenly released and he looked around, coughing and blinking tears away. He unsteadily rose to his feet and took in his surroundings. Imperial corpses lay strewn across the battlefield and explosions rocked him to his core. Mandalorians were engaged in battle with Sith in the streets. The city was being destroyed by a Sith siege, and he immediately recognized this as the death of Mandalore.
His blood ran hot as he noticed a battle occurring right in front of him. Several Sith had Raz surrounded as one other masked Sith insidiously and calmly circled her, ignoring the masses of bodies around them from her final stand. Leandros could do nothing but be a participant in the crowd as the duel went on and, when the Eternal landed that final killing blow that cost him his own life, Leandros could do nothing but scream, though no sound came from his throat.
His legs felt like lead weights and refused to carry him to his wife’s side and his arms were pinned to his body. He glanced to the side in a panic, noticing that there were no more Sith in the crowd. The spiked metal armor and glorious helmet of Kad Ha’rangir replaced robes and masks, and suddenly Leandros felt very afraid. The Destroyer god said nothing to him once more and merely turned his many heads back to the corpses in the center of the crowd. Each one raised its head and looked at the Mand’alor, their bodies cracking and twisting as they slowly rose to their feet as if death and gravity were nonissues.
"Why did you let us die?” Dan asked.
”Why are you so weak?” Dio challenged.
"What kind of Mand’alor would leave his home while it burned?" Wyatt questioned.
”You dishonor the gods,” Rud declared.
Leandros went pale as the corpses of his dead comrades accused him of cowardice, impiety, weakness, and inaction. Before he could retort, Raz’s body turned its head and stared at him for several moments before rasping out a disembodied, ”You’ll face judgment.” His tongue felt swollen and thick, and he could say nothing back to his wife in response, and the Destroyer merely looked on, again, with indifference.
Leandros blinked and now stood in the ruins of his home, his daughter sitting on a duracrete slab across from him. He hurried over and wrapped an arm around her, clutching her tight, shaking with fear from what had just happened. Lily gripped his hand and looked up at him, her face frozen in a rictus of disgust. Her father recoiled slightly from the expression, concerned that he had done something to her.
”I hate you,” she spat venomously, punching her beskad into his heart without warning.
Leandros woke with a start, cold sweat forming on his face. His hands had instinctively reached for his beskad even in his sleep, and he now gripped the weapon intensely, his knuckles quickly beginning to turn white. The nightmare had not been the first of its kind. For the past two decades, his thoughts were plagued with guilt, shame, hatred, and all manner of foul emotion. Where he was once jovial and proud, he was now bitter, spiteful, and paranoid. The dreams began about fifteen years ago, and each night he suffered from fits of these visions and nightmares, each one slightly different than the last. Tonight’s did not bode well, and he quickly inspected his chest for any sign of a beskad wound.
There had been a trend, though, and that was the Destroyer Kad Ha’rangir watching him each time. He interpreted this as a sign of the god’s watchful gaze taking a more tangible presence in his life. Leandros would spend hours daily meditating and praying, pondering the nature of the dreams, before concluding a few years ago that it had to be his selection by the god to be his mortal vessel. For his entire life he’d been searching for death in battle, only to emerge a survivor in each one. Someone who could not be killed so readily despite throwing their bodies into battle with reckless abandon had to have the blood of the divines running through their veins, and Mand’alor the Crusader knew this to be true for him.
The Mask helped calm his mind. It offered soothing anonymity, turning him into the faceless warmonger the galaxy knew him to be, just like the Destroyer. It gave him power, and he was never seen in public without it on, even among what few family and friends he had left. Even Lily would go years without seeing her father’s face, but it had been a long time since he spoke to the girl. Her duties as the Forgemaster kept her busy, and his duties as the Mand’alor kept him distant. He hoped she still loved him, but tonight’s dream made him doubt that possibility as likely.
He rose from bed and gathered himself, spending a few minutes staring into the mirror at his weathered face. Around his neck was Raz’s wedding band, reclaimed from the temple on Korriban twenty years ago. The pale glint of the light from it twinkled dully in his eyes briefly before he shut them and put on the mask, closing him off from the world. Leandros died whenever he put the mask on, but Mand’alor the Crusader arose from the grave and took control. Leandros was a paranoid old man, but the Mand’alor was a symbol for the people that now whispered behind closed doors of their ruler’s apparent insanity. He was a wrathful man now, and the worlds under his control often experienced some measure of that wrath as he forced his culture on their people.
His eyes studied the mask for a few moments before they were drawn to just over his shoulder at the two figures who now stood there. Raz, in her crimson armor, stood over one shoulder behind him, while Kad Ha’rangir stood over the other. Both looked on in silence, as still as gargoyles, but it said enough to Leandros. He turned around to face the empty room, shaking his head and leaving for the meeting, his fingers twitching over his beskad. One day, he prayed, the god would speak to him again, just as he did on that mountainside when he was a kid.
He summoned the clan Alors back to their home on Mandalore to discuss the future of their people and to shut down dissent. His sand-gold armor stood in stark contrast with the rest of the destroyed throne room he selected as the meeting ground. His four honor guard stood in solemn silence around the room. It seemed fitting for this gathering of his people’s leaders to occur in the ruins of their civilization. Despite there being a table with chairs in front of him, Leandros stood and waited, deep in thought. Ash and dust had long since settled within these destroyed halls, and it felt like disturbing a grave by merely being here.
But being on Mandalore meant he could speak to the Destroyer more easily, and he would need the god’s guidance for what was to come.
@Insalius @Darasaurus @Faster Than Light @Logan @Faded