Private As Above, So Below ll TSE & Zoryu

[Master Zoryu]

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On the precipice, Zoryu clawed his way back to the edge of the deep fissure that he had opened up beneath the feet of himself and Cara Dorniarn as the other Jedi made their escape from the surface of Korriban. He watched helplessly as the body of Asmundr Varobalder was dragged back to the dropship, unable to maintain enough of a grip to heave himself over the edge. When they were all finally on the ship, he forced all of his breath out through gritted teeth, nails breaking as they clasped desperately at the dirt and rock. And then - he let go. The wizened old man had all but accepted his fate as his frail body spun in free-fall. His bright blue eyes closed, welcoming the embrace of the Force at last.​

But it was not to be...​

As he tumbled, Jedi Master Zoryu felt a growing warmth in his chest and in his skull that radiated outward to the tips of his extremities. The tingling sensation made his eyes snap open and they glowed with the light of prophecy. He was no longer falling, but standing before the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. The New Jedi Order stood among Knights clad in Silver, united as one body within the unity of the Force. At the crest of the steps, the Sword stood arm in arm with the Shield. A young woman - a young Jedi - who shined with the Light of Ashla, driving away the darkness. It was Auteme on those steps and with Ryv they led the Order and the Alliance into a new Golden Age.​

The old Master was falling again, but no longer did he accept his fate. There was a sense of urgency, now. He had to survive. To his right, far below him, something glowed distantly and he trained his gaze on its light. It was his lighstaff, falling like a comet to their destination. Zoryu steadied his descent before he clasped his arms at his side and shot off like a bullet in his weapon's direction. Carefully, he reached out and grasped the force-embued wood, feeling its familiar heft in his hand before pulling it into him. He could see the bottom of the pit now, glowing red in the heat near the core. With all of his might, the elder Jedi gathered the Force to him and pushed out against the impending impact, causing the ground below to shift and quake against his power. It was an exhaustive effort, but several feet from the ground he managed to slow his fall enough to cause only minor damage when he slammed into the ancient stone. Even so, it forced all of the air from his lungs and he was certain he heard a rib crack.​

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Despite the warm glow of the magma that seemed to be flowing far below him, the air around Zoryu was ice-cold as he dragged his tired frame against one of the nearby walls. He held tight to his staff, igniting its crest with the Force to get a look at his surroundings. To his surprise, Zoryu could see the faint images of ancient Sith carved into the cavernous stone walls, their terrifying visages staring down at him with menacing intent. Somehow, he had fallen into the depths of a long-forgotten tomb... a tomb of the Sith. "This...is not good" he heard his own voice echo, magnitudes louder, off the stone walls and decided against uttering more.​

The silence around him seeped so deeply into his senses that he swore he heard something whisper back. He took a moment, not willing to alert the darkness to his presence just yet, and gathered his thoughts. He had to find a way out of these tombs and off Korriban, but somewhere deep in his gut, he knew the Sith and their long-dead ancestors would not make this escape an easy one.​

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[Ǧ̶͈͈l̵̻̇͗i̶̼͆͋t̸̗͓͂c̴̤͇̓h̴̫̿]

In a place of sand and heat, it was no surprise that the desert was present. Drifting among their lifeless brethren, the being of shifting sand had not expected change. Deserts always changes, the dunes ever shifting and the temperature ever dropping and rising with the fall and rise of the sun. Deserts never changed. Always they were dry and harsh and vast in their size. This change was not the shifting of dunes or the rising of temperature. It was life. Sudden and bright, a miniature star that marked itself as a force sensitive.

Down, down, down, it plunged. Into the gaping maw of the cracked and broken earth. Past the ever growing shadows of the deepening crevasse and through the swarm of insects that basked freely in the coolness of the shade. Down it plunged, into the gaping wound of the old tomb and the cruel shadows that inhabited it. Every moment he fell, the air began to cool, shifting from an oppressive heat to an uncomfortable warmth to a bone chilling cold. Whether it was caused by the depth of the tomb and stone that made it was a truth that could never be fully revealed.

The particles of sand that made up the being that was them watched, as the man plummeted past them and disappeared into the tombs. The golden beam of plasma and heat that was his lightsaber marked him as a Jedi, an impossibility on a place such as Korriban. They watched, and they listened, and when they did not hear the visceral snap of bones and dull thumb of cooling flesh on stone they knew that the Jedi must have survived.

It wasn't hard to stretch out their being, to reshape their form into something resembling the shyracks that inhabited the planet. They took off with too wide wings, descending into the darkness after the near human. The thing pulsating muscle before them was old, disappointingly so. It's flesh was folded and sagging, and the once brown eyes were dulled with age. Still, they wouldn't underestimate the male. They could see the bright star in the force and they knew that the man was more than he seemed.

The desert watched as the man pulled himself to his feet. When they recognized the blade's handle as wood, they couldn't help but tilt their head to the side. The neck was broken, the angle too steep for a natural shyrack to maintain. But they were not a shyrack, and their form was so much more malleable than a prison of flesh and bone.

"Can I have you over for dinner, says the mythosaur to the man." Some of their voices laugh, though the mouth of their form does not move. They settle themselves on a ledge, focusing the bright red orbs that were the visible eyes on the razor claws of their arms. All the while their voices echo and bounce around the tomb, some laughing, others taunting or reprimanding. Each one folded back onto the other and fighting for dominance.

There is a sandstorm in the force. It twists and and whirls around the little human, cutting against flesh with the ghost of sharpened sand and battering against shields that guard the jedi's fragile mind. "Yes." they hiss, each voice speaking in time, with no overlap or fighting. "Says the man." The echo is back, and the storm in the force builds and build and builds, scraping at his mind and sending phantom pains arching across his skin.

It stops. Still as a corpse, the storm disappears from his mind and his body as quickly as it began. "I wonder, little jedi- how will you taste?" It is a whisper, cruel in its echoes and excited in the predatory synchronicity of the voices. The force screams once more. This time it is not a storm, not the painful lick of ghostly sand crashing into flesh and mind, but the flicker quick words of a desperate soul. Run rabbit run. It whispers, full of sparking adrenaline and the tense excitement of a predator reveling in the hunt. Run rabbit run, run rabbit run, run rabbit run, and pray to your gods that you are fast enough to escape it's jaws.

Something stalks through the force, a shadowed shape of sharpened fangs and a thousand watching eyes. A form that disappears the moment one directs their attention to it. It watches, and on the ledge the physical form of the Storm screeches and darts past the jedi's whitened head. They stop around the next turn, and slip once more into the shape of sand dusting the floor.

Master Zoryu

 

[Alina Tremiru]

Last Time

"Run! And don't stop!" The heavy footfalls of the dead were all around. Closing in. A surge of power kept them at bay, but it wasn't going to last. Not forever. This was the end. Alina would die here. At least Iasha Rha would survive. And what they unleashed on Korriban, that Sith Lord spirit, it would turn the tide of the war. The young Acolyte collapsed to her knees and lowered her hands. She couldn't hold on any longer. She gave a sad smile as she stared down one of these undead monsters as the horde closed in on her.

She closed her eyes, accepting her fate.

Then the world cracked. The ground below Alina fell away, leaving her to gasp in surprise before she fell through. Her eyes opened again, wide with a renewed fear. The face she had accepted was her fate no longer. She hit the ground, hard, and everything went black.

Alina woke coughing her lungs out, pushing up from the ground. Everything was dusty. Her body hurt all over. How far had she fallen? At least there was no sign of the undead that had been chasing her. The acolyte pushed herself to her feet, or at least tried to. The room spun immediately as she did, causing her to stumble and nearly fall back to the ground. But she kept enough of her footing to stay up. How long had it been? The young woman winced as she tried to lift her arm to rub her face.

Dislocated.

With a groan she reached up with her other arm and snapped it back into place. She cried out in pain, her vision swimming once again before it returned. She needed to find her way back out. It was a short walk to get into some kind of hallway. Was that.. It was. Ancient Sith was scrawled on the walls. Another tomb? Wait. A voice? Alina squinted as she looked towards where she'd heard the voice. Then saw him. Master Zoryu . There was a Jedi here? She cursed under her breath as she ducked back around the corner to stay out of sight.

The war was still ongoing.