Ask Ajan Kloss Voice of the Fallen

[Indy Sati]

The box laid open before her. She squared her shoulders, and took a deeper breath. Same as the Council Masters, she could sense the open wound in the Force, the void that it was. It called to her even from Jedha, luring her to the planet. But not to heal it. No... what millennia of darkness, of anger and pain, perversion and fury contained within that crystal sang with pain, with more lives to slake it.

She exhaled softly, feeling the light side answer her call, pooling in her hands as she sat cross-legged before the box. When she was ready... she reached for the blade hilt, walls around her mind and her focus sharp, her heartbeat calm.

It was time to begin.

@Nefieslab

 

[The Storyteller]

The air audibly snapped around Indy as shadows began to pour from the hilt, sliding off of her hand like liquid as they fell. Puddling around her, the shadows were cold but not wet despite how they behaved. Instead the cold was dry and harsh and bleak and so utterly part of the Dark Side that it could hardly be called surprising.

Shadows rose from the puddle, wrapping around Indy like a cocoon, with the limits of the shadows half a meter away from her at any given time. If she made to move, the cocoon would move with her to ever be half a meter away from her no matter what actions she took physically. The hand on the hilt itself would be coated in the liquid shadows, causing her hand to stick to the hilt to keep her from dropping it.

It was clear without any announcement that it was not about to let her just let go.

The walls of the all-encompassing cocoon pulsed regularly, in time with a heartbeat that had long since been stilled. Even the shadows sticking Indy's hand to the hilt held the heartbeat of the long dead Sith. Darkness leaked from the substance around her like oil in water but it made no further moves.

There was anger and fear and hatred and suffering from the shroud of shadows but there was another emotion that Indy would be able to sense above all others.

Anticipation.

Shadows receded slightly from the hilt to uncover a single part of it - the activator.

And the Shadows, the Darkness, waited.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

Like a winter blizzard, the cold clung, encased, stropped sharp teeth into her bones. Her nostrils flared, but she waited calmly. It melded into her hand, clung to her, and no matter what direction she looked, there was perfect Darkness. Just beyond, Maxims was waiting. These were her trials, but she would request backup if it called for it. However... the Darkness waited.

She would act, but not as it wanted.

Instead she settled back on her heels, her breath leaving in a slow exhale. Even in the heart of darkness, she was grounded in the Light, in the calming presence that, until now, was simply taken for granted.

"Not yet," she answered calmly, with the faintest hint of a smile. How did you heal something that resisted care? How did you challenge something that relished the pain and violence it was inflicted with, and inflicted others with? After all, kyber crystals were as like living things as well.

To heal it took patience, took calmness, and above all... it took strength. Instead, she traced a thumb over the activator... then pulled it away, instead resting the blade hilt on a knee, pointing away from her body, gazing at where the crystal lay within its' metal shell. "Tell me your story," she murmured, golden eyes not wavering.

She braced herself for the inevitable onslaught. It would try and devour her, no doubt, but she would hold firm, waiting. Trust.

@Nefieslab

 

[The Storyteller]

The Shadows were not Sith of old in that they raged blindly. They knew patience and Indy sitting around doing nothing wasn't offensive to them; they would wait. They had waited for years in the dark of the ruins of temples and in the hands of those chronically lacking in ambition.

They could wait longer.

Not yet?

Then it would wait.

And it would win the battle of wills that came after for the blue Jedi was weak and the Darkness was strong. She would fold under it's weight and wield it as a true disciple of the Sith. Around her the Shadows pulsed, the heartbeat speeding up as a pressure would begin to rise, a weight increasing on her shoulders.

The pulse quickened as her thumb traced over the activator switch, becoming louder and louder as she removed her thumb from it. Temperatures within the cocoon would begin to rise as it's displeasure would become known.

Increasingly so.

In the end she would be able to sense it's anger rising and a single understandable 'thought' that came through loudly and clear.

WHY

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

She was a candle in the night. A fire, burning though the winds of Darkness howled about it, she felt secure within the light. Unlike before, she floundered with other aspects of the Force. She wasn't a renown warrior like Hannibal, nor wise like Max. But she knew her own strength, and here, in this chamber, she knew where she belonged.

Why? Why? Like a child, it lashed with temperature change, with a thought that buffered against her. She tilted her head slightly, golden eyes clear.

"Your story. I will hear it first. Then we will go from there." She could be calm, she could wait as long as it took. Faith in the Force, and now... faith in herself, as unbreakable and strong as it could be. The crystal would remember once more. Already, she began to wait, to focus. Gathering her strength, and biding her time.

@Nefieslab

 

[The Storyteller]

If the Jedi believed that she could bargain with the Darkness then she was a fool - the kind of fool who had thought to wield the blade free from consequence in the past. While it was not alive in the truest of senses, it would admit to feeling something akin to amusement and satisfaction whenever someone attempted to use it for the Light and then ended up falling head-first into the waiting Darkness.

She persisted within the Light for now and that was fine but it would not last.

The candle holding back the Darkness was a fickle thing, easily blown out or otherwise outlasted. Light could persist for an annoyingly long time but the Dark?

The Dark was Eternal.

From out of the Shadows it created a face, an avatar to speak for it. Naturally it decided that the best way to answer her was to do so wearing the face of one she knew. The face of the older Jedi, Maxims, emerged from the Shadows made from the flesh of said shadows. Two eyes instead of the one sacrificed in vain stupidity.

The Story is immaterial, only the ending matters.

It would play along with this for now.

Those who think themselves above the Dark are destined to drown within it's depths, trashing for breath that will not come.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

So many words came to mind. So many things said in retaliation, in excuse, in anything... but none of them mattered. This was something that sat in the dark for so long that it forgot the Light. She knew it was never going to be easy, that it came at great personal risk. But she would follow through with it, regardless. Maxims had faith in her... and so she had faith as well.

"The Dark is not beneath the Light," she remarked calmly, "but neither is the Dark above the Light. The same source, but different intentions. You've sat in the darkness for so long, that you've forgotten the strength of the Light. Your power..."

She paused, then smiled once, but it didn't seem a particularly happy smile, more an accepting one.

"Has failed you."

And with that, she released the breath she had been holding, as well as the Light within. A steady stream, a river of light, of warmth, the antithesis of the shadows as her outline began to glow, chasing away the Shadow and focusing on the Dark Crystal within.

She knew these next steps would be necessary, but she didn't want drag this along unnecessarily. However, the historian within wanted to respect the history. No matter how dark, no matter how twisted. Everything had a history. But if it persisted, then its' story would be forgotten.

@Nefieslab

 

[The Storyteller]

Failed?

The Power of the Dark Side had never once failed - the Dark Side was worshiped by ignorant savages as an angry God and was held close to the hearts of tech moguls and people of all levels of wealth and power. For as long as sentient beings yearned to be better than their fellows, the Dark Side would exist.

Light poured forth from the Jedi and it did, indeed, burn as expected. The Shadows flinched away from the Light as it emerged and it was with a rumbling all around her that Indy would feel it as it let it's anger be known. All around her the area would begin to shake and she would be able to hear the sounds of stone cracking around her as it rocked the room with the strength of it's rage.

Though it believed the power of the Dark Side to be absolute, that did not mean that it would let something such as this go unchallenged.

We shall see how your powers protect you.

Instead of trying to attack her directly, as it was limited in how it could do so when she hadn't activated the saber, the Shadows attacked in a way she did not expect. Rather than attack her directly, they had wormed their way into the cracks that it's angry outburst had brought forth.

A chunk of stone from the room of the room came tumbling, soundlessly, down toward her head with the Shadows themselves blocking her physical sight from catching it. If she wanted to try and banish the Shadows, they would see how well she accomplished the task with her skull caved in.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

There was once a time on a dig, where she had been at the base of the mountain. There had been a sense of foreboding, almost a pressure, and without seeing she could almost sense the boulder from above. She had a split-second instinct that screamed danger, and just as like there, here she felt the same foreboding. And so reacted, same as she did then.

Her free palm lashed out, a burst of Light from the Shadows, Pushing the rock up and then away from herself and Max as though batting away a pebble. She felt a calm through her, a cool stillness she had never fully grasped before. A peace that she had sensed in the Masters before her, a surety that had only been glimpsed at before. All of her training, all of her life had led up to this. The Shadows would no longer distract her with their tantrum; she poured the light into it once again, and she grew brighter within the Darkness.

You have known nothing but pain from the first Master, broken and forgotten. I will make you whole again.

It could lash out at her as much as it wanted, she would not distract from her goal. Like an open wound, bleeding out or a broken bone, she would heal it, cleanse it, restore it. This was the true mark of the historian, the Jedi's calling. At first she was uncertain, even fought against it for a time, but now she knew it, accepted it.

She would not surrender so easily.

@Nefieslab

 

[The Storyteller]

It's attempt to be subtle in it's attempt to crush the Jedi had been foiled but that did not mean that it was done, that it would consign itself to the History that the infuriating Jedi seemed to like so damned much. No, what it meant was that it's rage and nowhere else to go but into a last attack. If it could not directly link with her mind because of her refusal to activate the blade then it would need to do whatever it could to stop her from completing the merging of the Light and it's crystal heart.

Rather than trying to disguise the way it's Shadows reached out to the room around her, speed was the focus. The Shadows that had wrapped around her would break open, shooting to the walls of the room around her. She would be able to see that she was still in the same, small, room as she had been before.

Alone with the Blade.

Tendrils of the Shadows reached into the cracks all around the room's wall, digging it deep. As the Light began to truly encroach upon it's sanctum, the Shadows did their best to end the Historian. With a flex of all the remaining power to physically interact with the Galaxy it had remaining, it Pulled.

The walls around the Jedi broke down, their remains flying at her from all around as the Shadow sought to end her before she could unmake it.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

It wasn't over. Such a Dark thing, full of the malice, hatred and torment of its' users would not surrender easily, and this intense focus would begin to take its' toll. Blood dripped from one corner of her mouth where she unconsciously bit down on the inside of her cheek, brows denting in focus. With the Shadows fading, she doubted this was so simply over. The connection to the Living Force still held strong, and she held out in anticipation as the brown stone of the room around her was seen again, but spiderwebbed out from the central point of where she sat.

And then It attacked.

If it weren't for the hasty preparation she had made, it would have surely worked well in crushing her. As it was, she had once again retaliated, this time with a crackling blue barrier. The rocks could fly as hard as they wanted, to crush her and exterminate the threat, but she would not relent. Even at the expense of her energy.

She grunted at the effort, jaw gritting to bear with the pressure. Her eyes too began to glow, a golden Light that hummed with pure energy, seeking out the Shadows, lashing out in retaliation through the blasted room. With it, she once more batted the rocks away from herself and Max, this time to pour all the Light into the crystal.

Once again to heal the torment it had endured, to soothe the pain and ease the fear. Succor the anger and the hatred. She had been tasked with this singular goal, and she would see it through. Such focus, however, would not be left unpunished. However, she could feel the dark heart of the crystal within the hilt.

The purification began to sink in, to cleanse. And still she retained her calm, her awareness, though sweat beaded and blood still dripped a thin stream, she would not be dissuaded. She would see it whole, restored and purified once more.

@Nefieslab

 

[The Storyteller]

The last of it's energies were not enough to prevail against the Light and it raged against it in futility. Soon the Light would chase away the Shadow and it would haunt the Blade no more but it could not let the woman, the Jedi... the candle of light in the Darkness... it could not accept a Galaxy where her victory over it was total.

You know, in the deepest reaches of your heart, that this is pointless.

It could not get into her head directly through it's limited time and energy but it could still speak to her. Could still reveal to her that her role within it's saga would be a footnote.

We have been purified before and tainted a thousand times over.

The Light was breaking the hold that the Shadow, the Dark, had over the crystal even as it spoke. The physical signs of the corruption, the shadows, began to fade into the air like smoke.

The Light will burn itself out and the Shadows shall return. We shall return to our home within this Crystal and you shall weep.

But it wouldn't be today.

If Indy was able to see the crystal physically she would be able to see as the crystal changed. The blood red that had not changed for years gave way, lightening with every passing second until the crystal that remained was as cold and as perfectly devoid of colour as any diamond.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

She did not relent until the last Shadow was abolished.

She did not relax until the Crystal cleared, until the Dark Presence had faded. And when it did, she felt her arms tremble, her breathing shallow, and more blood dripping from her mouth. And yet she had to ensure that it was cleansed, purified; she exhaled steadily, mentally preparing herself for what could come next.

Fresh air cycled through the room; much to her chagrin, spiderwebbed cracks marked deep grooves where the Shadows had attempted to smash stones into her. She still held the hilt in her hand; she would not activate it just yet. First she had to make sure Max was alright; slowly she stood, the glowing light dimming as once more everything returned to normal.

But the Shadows' words stuck in her head, and she acknowledged them.

I was not the first... I will not be the last. But while I have this, it will not face that torment.

The purification was not a permanent process. There would always be someone keen to claim it, to break it and twist it to their own needs. But from now on she was its' protector and guardian. But before she would activate it as proof, she looked for Max, just to check if he was okay, slowly standing from her seated position.

She felt drained, and yet a calm settled over her shoulders, an acceptance of what had happened. And now, more questions than answers.

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

Max stared at Indy from his seat across the hall from the room she had completely trashed.

He sighed ever so slightly and put down the coffee he had gotten for himself - it had been longer than Indy probably realized after all. Never having doubted her ability to do it in the first place, Max had just sipped at his coffee and waited for her to actually get started. The Shadow weaving around the room had been half-expected so he'd made sure to put up signs around that area of the Temple to get everyone to kind of just back off a bit.

The Dark Side was not strong enough within the crystal to influence the rest of the Temple but the Council had warned them to be careful so they had been. And it had paid off; the Dark Side taint lingered in the air only as something akin to a terrible smell - nothing further at all.

"White looks good on you." He joked as he stood from his chair, "Though you're totally going to have to fix the room."

He was joking about that last part - probably.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

[jusitfy]She exhaled quietly. She felt bone tired, but yet couldn't help smiling a little and chuckling at Max's pragmatic repose. As always, he seemed unruffled by the Light show. She was aware of the wetness on her chin, and wiped away the blood, then glancing to the Master before her.

"Yeah... dreaded you saying that," she smirked, sparing him a wink. "Don't suppose you could help," she teased, then glanced down at the hilt, hesitating.

Turning slightly away from Max, she exhaled quietly, then activated the blade.

With a snap-hiss, a white blade shot to life, and she stared at it only a moment, the smile dropping from her lips. Deactivating it, she clipped it to her belt, then glanced to Max, arms crossed. "Apart from cleaning my mess... how long did that take? It feels like a week," she joked faintly, but watched his expression. When cleansing something, time had a way of slipping past you; plus, he was drinking coffee. It had to have been a while.

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

Help?

Max tilted his head to look around Indy at the mess she had made of the room she'd been given for the purification. There wasn't really much left to justify calling it a room though - it was literally nothing but the remains of a room really. The floor and ceiling was only still up by virtue of the rooms around them and the faces of the walls had been pulled down to expose the foundation layers of stone that had been covered in plaster and other things over the course of decades.

He returned his head to it's usual orientation and raised the eyebrow over his single eye slowly.

"Jedi Masters take responsibility for their own actions, Master Sati." he teased her with a slowly growing smirk, "Would hate to instill bad habits in you - I'll leave that to Hannibal."

The option to mess with her was there... make a joke about how she'd been out of it for months of something. But... well he was in a good mood.

"Nah not that long really - about six hours I think?"

Wasn't bad going really.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

She gave a tired chuckle at Max's comments, but tiredness began to press heavily on her shoulders, weighing down her limbs and mind. There was so much left to do, and little time left to do it. There was already another assignment waiting as soon as she would rest, but really she felt like she could sleep for days.

Picking herself up, she sighed quietly, then gave him a tired grin.

"Tonight, Master Tionson," she told him quietly, then bowing once and limping out.

It was only when she made it back to her chambers that she collapsed. But it was done.

/End Thread