Ask Dathomir Evolution

[Renfry]

It had been months since Andruil had taken part in the sacking of Ajan Kloss. The difference within the Sith Lord from then to now was immense. The darkness that had only been a speck at Kloss had grown and expanded like a blackhole. It had begun to swallow up everything within her and culminated with her final transformation during the conquest of Dathomir.

Since then, her entire life had changed. When she'd left her clan, she was without responsibility to anyone. She'd simply lived on the fly, going and doing what she wanted when she wanted. While the Nightsister Clans were still quite autonomous, she now had responsibilities to ensure their safety, advancement, and, yes, compliance.

Until now, she'd doubted her ability and fortitude to bleed the crystal of a Jedi Councilor, and while she'd be a fool not to still treat it very seriously, she felt she was prepared now.

The location she'd chosen was far from anyone else, wanting absolute solitude for whatever might become of this situation. She made her way into the small remnant of the ruins and prepared to begin.

She drew a circle in the dirt and several runes around it before placing the crystal in the center. She could hear its song already, a warm and relaxing tune that wasn't unlike the call she heard from Dathomir itself.

Around the outside of the circle she set the other components of the saber. It was not the original casing of the Councilor, but one crafted for her own purposes that would contain the crystal when the process was done. The only remaining step was the crystal.

From her readings, the saber was an extension of oneself and one's will, and she could feel the life within the crystal. It didn't appreciate her, its song in vague discord with the one within herself. From what she understood, the process was not so different from reshaping a mind or the subjugation she had performed with Siph. Not so different, and yet anything but easy.

 

[The Gatekeeper]

It had been months since Renfry had participated in the cruel attack of Ajan Kloss. Since then, Sada-Nau's kyber had lain idly in her possession, a warm and gentle presence. At a glance it was far less bright than the star of the Grandmaster, but things were not often as simple as they appeared with such beings as Jedi.

The Nightsister drew her runes and symbols, the crystal seeming almost to wake up from the life that surrounded it and the attention it was being given. The song was warm summer breezes, the dancing of flowers and leaves on the even of autumn, and it blended well with that of Dathomir despite the obvious different in Light and Dark. It seemed almost a humble and passive crystal, far less determined than the one Asminys had clashed with, risking his very connection to the Force in the process.

Oota had been a wise and powerful healer, but who had Sada-Nau been? A diplomat at heart, a negotiator, a keeper of the peace who sought most often to find an amiable arrangement. She'd cared deeply for the lives and happiness of those under her care, and so fought to defend them.

Still the kyber sat in place, placid and calm, until the very moment Renfry reached out to grasp at it with her will.

Sada-Nau had also been a deadly bladeswoman, the greatest on the council at the time. When diplomacy failed and weapons were needed her sword had always been the quickest. Where her tongue was soft and silver her sword stood sharp and stoic. As contact was made between the heart of her weapon and the Nightsister the calm pools and gentle winds gave way to a whipping hurricane.

Even accessing the crystal was difficult, gales of will blown into spiraling defiance that threatened to strip the Nightsister of her conscious mind and scatter it to the four winds. In this place of life, chaos and yet harmony, this little stone thrived. It was clear that Darth Andruill was not the only one to derive strength from Dathomir.

@Phoenix

 

[Renfry]

Andruil didn't truly know what to expect. She'd dominated animals and sentient minds alike, but overtaking a kyber was its own unique challenge. The instant she reached out to place pressure on the crystal, her mind was carried away into a hurricane.

It tore at her as if to keep her at bay, and it was all she could do to remain where she was. Such violence from a Jedi, but they were like any animal: when backed into a corner, they fought hard, and should not be underestimated. The councilor had killed a Sith Lord, and one Andruil been fond of as well.

And the Nightsister had taken her vengeance. It was what anchored her now. The crystal had power, a reflection of its owner and perhaps even a piece of that owner remained. But it was a piece. The councilor's soul had been defiled and split. There was no power for the crystal to draw on beyond the Veil. No connection with its master or owner.

Andruil's eyes turned up, flashing green in rage and flowing with the power of this world. Her world.

Cin gar- baw rod plural rodyn hi! she shouted, voice carrying over the tearing wind and echoing with power in the Force. It was the tongue of her people, the tongue of spells, and the tongue of the spirits. The crystal would know what she said. It would feel the words resonate.

She could feel the wind tearing at her mind, trying to pull her away and lose her sense of self. This world, though, was one of darkness. The crystal could draw on it all it wanted, but as with all power of the darkness, it was corrupting. The crystal would defeat itself, tempted by its own good intentions.

Cín herdir na- lelya-! He na- Lesrof! Lesemna! Lesestle! Elth bui i gaw! she shouted, fist clenching as the wind tore at her. There was powerful truth in Andruil's words. The ritual she had done had stripped the once-councilor of everything a being sought beyond death. She was many fragments of her former self, and would never find her peace. It was why the ritual was forbidden among her people.

She pressed on, letting the weight of her words, the weight of truth lessen the resolve and thus the power of her enemy.

 

[The Gatekeeper]

The crystal of Sada-Nau listened, but it could not speak, not really. But it still had its own way of communicating, and bleeding a kyber was no simple task. The dead and bound councilor had not been a healer like Oota Boan and it was not healing that it defaulted to when under attack. True, the woman who wielded the crystal was no more, may never find peace. But it was a thing of the Light all its own, and it was far from truly defenseless.

For now, at least, its resolve held firm.

Renfry so dearly loved the world she stood on. It had been her home, and now she sat upon a throne as Queen of Dathomir. She'd taken it for herself, ruling over the vast jungles, deepest swamps, and the tallest mountains. The Darth was attached to it, and in that moment of connection such an attachment was made clear. Then, while both kyber and Sith were connected to the same energies of her world, the clash began.

Next Renfry looked she would find herself before a symbols and crystal she had made. Sunlight filtered down through clouds black with ash and death, the smell of burnt carbon filling the air. The ground was cracked and black, brittle beneath her feet. All around were the remnants of what had once been vibrant life, the shattered corpses of trees and mountains ground to dust beneath the weight of cannon fire.

The remains of hutts and houses and temples lay in every direction, the faces of every Nightsister she'd ever met staring up at her half-buried in the ash. Their eyes were horrified and accusatory, following her if she moved despite each body laying burned and broken. Nothing lived now, the landscape barren, dead, and flattened.

When she looked again at the crystal instead there was a pole, dark and polished durasteel from which a flag waved in the air. The symbol of the Sith Eternal adorned it, red and black and stained with blood. Renfry had brought the Sith to Dathomir, and for all her efforts, all her loyalty?

Now she sat on a throne of glass. Ashes and dust, and nothing more.

@Phoenix

 

[Renfry]

Andruil could feel what went on around her. She could see the desolation left in the wake of the battle - or perhaps massacre was the better word - and empty eyes stared back at her. Lifeless and cold. Her sisters who she loved and had fallen victims of the desolation.

Her hands trembled as she walked forward through the barren landscape, ultimately letting her eyes fall on the flag in the ground. Betrayal, though whether hers or the Sith's she couldn't tell. She'd brought the Sith here, opened her world and its secrets up to them, and then subjected... no. No, none of this had happened. None of this was real, nor would she allow it to become reality.

Her hand clenched at her side, nails digging into her palms and knuckles turning white with rage. The crystal played on her fears, making them a reality in her mind, and though she told herself it was fake, a part of her was nagged by the question "what if." What if it happened? What if she couldn't stop it? What if she'd made a mistake? What if, what if, what if?

She walked through the ruins, her heart breaking for those who lay dead despite knowing it wasn't real. It felt real on a visceral level. She knelt near Síle's body, staring for a moment into dead eyes.

And then her blood began to boil. This thing. This object that resisted her would have happily done this. It set these thoughts in her mind to make her doubt, but that doubt itself was what would bring this about. Her weakness was the only way that Dathomir would be harmed.

She stood and spun toward the flag where the crystal had been. She let her rage flow through her and lashed out with the power of her will. Her hand glowed green and slammed down into the ground as her voice invocated a purging fire. The green would begin to tear through the illusion, burning it away until she could see the crystal once again.

You will yield, she said, letting her anger flow through her and into the crystal, redirecting the fears and anger that the crystal had invoked back into it until it would suffer as it tried to make her suffer.

 

[The Gatekeeper]

Renfry turned toward the flag with fury in her eyes, pulling the magic of Dathomir mere along the threads of her will. Emerald flames burned away the glass, the very air around the Nightsister scorching and turning to ash like the smoldering edges of an old photograph. What replaced the vision was the sight of the familiar forests, the green grasses and leaves and the same dark and cloudy sky.

But the flag was still there, flying defiantly in the wind.

The Nightsisters were not dead, but wore uniforms and robes of gray and black, standing at attention. They stood on the bones of clans who failed to fall in line, snuffed out like a candle before a hurricane. The flag dipped and fluttered, and next Renfry looked there stood a tall and armoured figure. It stood stoic, the presence it gave off as cold and indifferent as the deepest winters.

The mask it wore was ancient, a symbol of war and conquest. Its visor stared toward the Nightsister turned Sith, unknowable and unreadable. Renfry would find herself looking up at the figure, suddenly larger and life and towering as the mountains. A gloved hand lightly held the Dathomirian woman's diminutive form, gazing down at her in what she would recognize as impassive appraisal.

"I will get there with or without you," the figure said, voice distorted through the mask. Its hand slowly rotated to the side and allowed Renfry to slip down its palm. "The cost will not be high for me." Below the woman lay a bleak, black nothingness, the void where she would be forgotten.

"I can't give you what you seek." The glove hands finished turning and would allow her to fall, visor turning up and away from her to view the planet that now belonged solely under its domain.

"I don't need you anymore."

@Phoenix

 

[Renfry]

The crystal was persistent, and the line between reality and falsehood was not at all clear. It could see her deepest fears and the things she dreaded, and it made them reality. Even as she burned away one nightmare, another reared its head.

I will not yield. The words stuck in her mind. She'd come too far, given too much, and changed too drastically for that.

Her eyes swept over the Nightsisters, bound to another's will: Raze, who now tossed her aside. Each of the words he spoke she recognized. They were words that had haunted her and it had taken weeks for her to process. She understood now, and in that, she found strength.

Her heart pounded, the fear within her made her feel weak, and she felt herself falling as she was cast aside, waiting for the Void to swallow her.

She didn't know how long that falling lasted, but it felt like an eternity, leaving her to fester with her own thoughts.

But she rejected it. She rejected what the crystal showed. She would not allow it to happen. She had come this far, and wouldn't be turned back. If this lead to her death someday, then so be it, but the Nightsisters would last beyond her. Some of Emryc's words might have haunted her, but there were others that didn't. "You must ensure it rises again with your legacy." And it would. She would make sure of it.

She closed her eyes, her mind ordering once again. The flow of fear and doubt were her old ways, and they had no place anymore.

I don't fear you, she said quietly, breathing deeply and as soon as she did, the falling ended. She stood once again on solid ground inside her own mind, seeing the kingdom she had built. It stretched out before her, the light touching everything. It was hers and would remain hers.