Bitter Sweet Captivity.

[WolfMortum]

Ruins of Svivren.​

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This had once been called home.

The ruins of the forgotten age, a Jedi Enclave long since passed it's prime; devastated in the early teenage years of Brennan's life and seemingly left alone to rot as all good things did when left unprotected. He had been a student of the Jedi back then, blinded by these walls and given false hope believing that they were protected and to well hidden from the Core Worlds to warrant such an ambush that had been dealt. He had a Mentor once, a tutor and a friend who could have been called family. He had others who had become his companions, brothers and sisters of the sword and the Jedi Path, educated in the way of the light side of the Force, taught to preserve peace and respect the balance of the Force. He had had all of these things, and watched them all be struck down, killed as those that were supposed to be guardians of the peace, failed to uphold it, failed to save the lives of so many children and resulted in the mass slaughter of their people. Only somehow, for reasons outside of his control, he had been taken by the invading forces, not to be held as a political prisoner or to be brainwashed into their rhetoric, but to be held a slave, treated like an animal for their amusement, beaten and ridiculed day in and day out until his will was broken and he no longer felt the strength of the Force nor held hope any longer that he might be found and somehow rescued by others of the Jedi Order...

The years had been nothing kind. chained by the neck, he had been dragged around the Sith world of whose name Brennan had not been given the permission of knowing, used as an experiment for those hoping to ascend the ranks. He had sparred other apprentices and regardless of outcome had received nothing but degradation; the Dark Side only coupled with the malicious nature of the Sith themselves managed to steal every good faith within the boy, hardening the mind where as the Jedi had encouraged the pacifist in him. He had not been prepared for the torturous years and yet had somehow managed to survive; they had broken his will yet inadvertently strengthened his body with every beating, his refusal to quit with every outburst of insults and commands to be obeyed...

...And when their descent from power within the Core Sector of the Galaxy finally caved before all their arrogance and blinding fury, Brennan's freedom had been restored only to leave him without direction. In the silence of his new found isolation, there were no more commands, no more orders to follow and no one to serve.

Those that had dealt the final blow to the holding facility had taken him in a short time yet found him to broken to mend the mind and sent him to the one place that he knew.

Standing before the collapsed Enclave, years of overgrowth and the void of any sign of life, nothing had prepared him for this menacing silence that traveled with the wind, nothing but nature blissfully unaware of the true blights of the galaxy. Nothing but a broken building that held memories of a different life, a happier life hiding behind the delusions of a fallen Order, brokered by the notion of peace through passive meditations.

He had not come because he still believed in the Jedi Order, he had sought familiarity and found none.

 

[WolfMortum]

Ascending the stairs leading up to the ruin of the Jedi Enclave, he moved with a careless disregard for all things around him, his pace slow and his eyes taking in nothing in any particular focus, his mind a blur of memories he would have preferred to deny. Every step caved in the already broken or battered stone plates that made up the path climbing the shallow hill, the decaying and splintered little rocks resembling much that was his life now, in pieces scattered and disorderly.

The Enclave itself had once been called beautiful, the structure was of a traditional design that had been carved into the side of an overbearing mountain, it had served to keep much of the location discrete and difficult to identify from the air while too bringing a warmth and interior comfort to the sect of the Order knowing that they had been so well secured. In the end, it had been their undoing as well. Higher up, he could see the hanger doors closer to the peak, they were still so far off and you could still make out the damage dealt to them, the color of rust growing upon the outside and likely rendered inoperable since the attack.

The two large doors that made up the entrance, an archway and once two statues of stone Jedi, now decrepit and nothing of their former selves, stood silent and foreboding as the lone figure passed through. What had once been warm and lively now cast shadows down around the vacant lobby, marble floors coated in dust and all things valuable that once stood there, seemingly removed. Whether by historians or scavengers, he know not and didn't overly care. By this time, after so many years, so much of the things that once belonged to the Enclave would have been taken; the bodies of the fallen removed though the smell of death still lingered as if the inside of the enclave had been robbed of its life and left to deteriorate over time, isolated and alone.

 

[WolfMortum]

As the dead left memories for those they loved and left behind, so did the Force leave such a signature where a location was once vibrant in both life and the strength of the force, gathered by those dedicated and united by their goals in hope of understanding it. The Enclave Ruin of Svivren was one such place now, a place that held a powerful echo of what once was and never would be the same again, hidden just beyond the veil of sentient touch, unseen yet not unfelt as Brennan moved throughout the open courtyard buried within the mountain side. The four walls that surrounded all rooms were naturally sentient made by design and yet carved into the mass of rock as the enclave was, it seemed almost miraculous in how they had brought about the design of such a place; the courtyard simulating the outdoors in almost every aspect save for the roof that hung over as black as night where light could not reach such a height, the rock sheltering the open clearing from any weather that the real thing might yield to. On the plus side, the weather did nothing to encourage the decay of the old place and yet the lack of breeze so too did absolutely nothing for the damp and musty smell that lingered within each cobwebbed hall of dust and disgraced ashes.

"Run! Go now Brennan, get the young ones to the hangar. Do not look back!".

The words of a dead man long since passed. The young mans mind played upon such former memories and like a moth to a flame, the Force seemed to almost audibly echo the trauma of the first attack. He had been trying to argue his worth to one of the Jedi Knights moving to meet with the invading force and instead been shown the other direction and told to protect the younglings, to help in their evacuation. He hadn't listened and instead of following orders, his pride had found him beaten and immobilized; to become like every other slave to the Sith Empire, a fool for their amusement. Every day, through every week, every year right up until their collapse and his eventual release into freedom. The Galactic Alliance had unknowingly killed his captors and for that, he might have thanked them had he not lost the faith in the majority of peoples of the galaxy. Diplomacy had failed the Order that he had grown up in, their notions of peace through deterrence had proven a lie and their eventual collapse, even through most other temples and enclaves spotted around the galactic map, he had heard more than enough to know of their failure. It was his own failure, a boys failure. The mistakes of a past life.

 

[WolfMortum]

Across the decades of the Jedi Order's standing within the Galaxy, one thing was always spoken of in admiration; the depth and mass of information and artifacts commonly stored within their Archives. The Archive was what was known as the library to Jedi, housing shelves upon shelves of data-cards (discs containing content for the use of Data-pads), Holo-Video's (3D images and videos played through a holo-communicator) and yes, even readable scripts and texts of which most took with a far less importance than the rest of technologies convenience. It was in this room, that he first received his introduction to the Jedi Code, taught to him by [member="Veiere Arenais"] who later would grow to become his Jedi Mentor; Brennan, his apprentice and Padawan Learner.

In fact, over the years, Brennan had spent a great deal of time growing up within the confines of these four walls. The Archives had been massive compared to the boy a small age of five in his first year with the Jedi; as they passed, he grew to become fond of reading, especially with regards to the former Battle Masters of the Order, those who were well skilled in most if not all seven of the lightsaber forms known to the Jedi. Shii-Cho, Makashi, Soresu, Ataru, Djem So, Niman and Juyo. Brennan had read about them all and though he had not been taught all of them, the lightsaber arts had been his most pursued of educations within the Svivren Temple. So much so that Veiere had forced him to take a step back and encouraged his time here in such a place. The very deathly silent Archives standing before him, shelves lining the floor as far as he could see into darkness faded out the opposing side, the lighting of Svivren's enclave barely clinging on after so long.

There was however a reason for this trip down memory-lane. As earlier mentioned, the Archives held a great number of artifacts. Many of them had been lost but the numbers in which the Enclave had stored said artifacts was quite overwhelming in his younger days and here moving between the shelves, his steps light so not to disturb the decrepit ruin and encourage his own loss of life, Brennan some how knew that he would find something of importance. Perhaps it was the Force or perhaps he was merely being hopeful and that the mysticism of the Force really was only blown up be aged Jedi who could no longer perform the feats of their younger peers, yet Brennan was adamant. If for only this one thing that he would stomach the life taken from him, he moved to approach the vault entrance and found it's massive doors broken in, rock and collapsed stone from the wall that once surrounded these massive steel gates told of some kind of explosive used, surely to be able to devastate such a sealed and once, restricted area.

 

[WolfMortum]

"Forgive me, Brennan, but you must stay here. It's for your own safety that you do not accompany me..."​

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Before him stood his Master, robed and with several of the other Jedi Knights behind him; a memory of a day long since passed. Why must he have to relive it all over again...

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"But I can help you! You've taught me how to fight, you can't leave me here; I'm supposed to be your apprentice!"​

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Rejection and fear of loss; Veiere had been quite possibly the only person to reach Brennan in the sense of something more than just a tutor but a fatherly figure, his elder of whom despite his denial of most others, he had come to trust completely. And then, though his reasons were moral; Brennan was left on his own and Veiere had turned his back to pursue the fight against the Sith, against the orders of the Jedi Council watching over Svivren. And then just as suddenly as his mentor had turned away from his life, so did the scene around him change.

"You do not speak, you do not dare utter a word that I do not consent! You belong to me now, my rancid little Jedi; You helpless little fool..."​

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These were words spoken afoul, words that would be repeated to him to remind him of his place within the Sith Lord's residence...-Or fortress, whatever it had been. He had never seen outside of his cell until the world was engulfed in the flames of war and the very Sith that had spoken those words had been caught up amidst the tongues of hell alike all his kin.

"Svivren...-Take me to Svivren..."​

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They were his last words before he had collapsed during the assault on the Sith by the Galactic Alliance. He had spent days in their medical ward aboard one of their capital class frigates and after he was stable enough to walk, refusing to co-operate, they had finally had enough and did as he had asked. He'd been shipped out upon a merchants vessel during it's stop to resupply the mobile fleet.

He had found the Jedi Enclave destroyed, by the looks of it all it had been years. He now saw himself in the third person, looking at his back with the enclave ahead of him in flames. Resembling much of his mind, once whole in the past and now broken and decayed, the heat of his anger rising in response to the cards that he'd been dealt. None of which seemed fair, none of which he had had a choice in outside of the indoctrination of the Jedi Order. He had lost his way, the rest had been taken from him and what was left was the need to feel as though he belonged, as though he had a reason to be, to stand for something that would matter; not fall victim to another people alike the Jedi who had failed him.

And then he awoke...​

 

[WolfMortum]

The Archive Vault was dark and silent, eerily silent as his eyes opened to have to adjust to the lack of light. At his back, the uneven and most uncomfortable surface of the broken marble floor, various pedestals and shelves, cabinets and other miscellaneous furniture lined the walls from corner to corner, all mostly broken in themselves from what he could make out in all the darkness.

He knew not how he had managed to lose consciousness yet as he turned onto his side and began to pick himself up, his left hand reached out and instead of finding the ground, his fingers laced around a cylinder object...-A very familiar shape of an object, rough with indentations and protruding toggles all of which seemed to force a brief rise to the corner of his mouth. His hand took the object and lifted it away from the floor, his fingers tightening around the grip to get a proper hold before his thumb felt the activation toggle and wasting no time in his confusion and disbelief, he pressed down on the button.

It was as if the room had never been illuminated before, the snap-hiss of the amber blade lit up the room in such intensity that his eyes swiftly closed and he grimaced against the blinding flash. The hilt vibrated within his grip, the hum of every simple sway of the blade he found both exhilarating and completely mysterious. How had he fallen and what were the chances that he would awake only to find a lightsaber of a former Jedi Knight at his feet. It was as if the enclave itself had offered up a compromise for what his future might have been. He had never been allowed access to the vault before and yet here in the very same room, he felt as if it were always meant for him. In the darkness, he had found a feeling of belonging. In the bitter memories of his past, he had been reminded of his failures and in the present, the Force had welcomed his ascension with a blade as heated as the fires that had originally burned it all down.