Vytal Noctura
N I G H T M O T H E R
MALACHOR V
Light. Dark. Good. Evil. Living. Dead. They were all constructs. Devices formed by sheer necessity to make sense of an irrational world. To keep track of where you stood in relation to everything around you as it changed every second of every day so long as your essence remained. They were a framework not so easily put aside even by those that sought to do so -- how do you reform the world that you saw before you into another shape when all your senses and thoughts said it was lunacy to even try.
It helped when you were introduced to the irrational at an early age. Before a young soul became too comfortable or familiar with their surroundings. When change was desired at any cost -- no, when costs were hardly factored into the equation. It helped when you were surrounded and brought up by a people that didn't abide the same understanding as the rest of the galaxy; one that embraced the Beyond as being as commonplace as a tree or stream of fish. On a world full of monsters and the monstrous: Dathomir. That had only been the beginning, of course. Yes, even a young would-be Nightsister could find herself in the jaws of death. Not, as most might assume, in her trials, but in a foolish pursuit for something more.
It wasn't until later in life when that experience came to matter. Such encounters left their mark, but didn't instill a destiny made manifest in a day. Vytal Noctura ventured into the stars and there she found the Confederacy of Independent Systems on Ryloth. A world with a mystic community of their own, in fact. Evidently there were clans of Nightsisters among the stars driven then centuries ago. Quite the shock to a woman of Dathomir, but hardly unpleasant given her circumstances. A world where victory and death would help her grow more than sheer desperation to survive among space-faring races. One that would lead to her one day becoming Nightmother to witches of Ryloth, the Mandragora, or the Solanaceae.
Later still, Nightmother Noctura would then set out on travels that took her deep into the Netherworld. She only briefly returned when the threat to those known to her was so great; a catastrophe on Naboo involving a mystical artifact run amok. Things had not been settled well, but they had been settled. Enough for people to pick up the pieces; and so the Nightmother vanished once more to complete her task elsewhere. There were greater threats that lurked in the deep, dark places of the Nether. Threats such as the one that threatened to tear the galaxy asunder on Naboo, and caused the internal collapse of the Confederacy.
Perhaps Vytal could not destroy every such threat, but she could buy the galaxy a good, long while before the first might surface; and hopefully only one calamity at a time at that.
It was one such a dark and dreary day amidst the mists of the Nether that Vytal felt the tremors from above. Something had gone horribly, inexplicably wrong. It didn't feel like a denizen of the Nether had torn free, but the threat was no less severe. The spirits said as much as they too churn under the rippling effects from the living world.
Black lips pressed together, the tattooed, pale Witch rose to her feet. How much time had passed, she wondered, since she'd last been among the living? There had been times she'd checked in on the Castle and its occupants, but only from afar. It would be too much for her to simply show up now and again disturbing the flow of their lives only to vanish once more. That's what she told herself, anyway. That made her travels no less lonely. Nor did it make her victories feel any more substantial. The spirits kept her company, but they were what they were. They did not think or feel or understanding in the way mortals did.
With a wave of her hand, a wreath of green flame formed a portal back to the material realm. Her emerald eyes narrowed at the broken scene beyond, curious where it would lead -- not quite to where she'd expected by far, but something must have drawn it there. Dressed in crimson, the pale woman of Dathomir stepped through and onto Malachor V. Lightning cracked above and she could feel just how thin the veil between worlds was where she stood.
Traveling by magic would not be difficult, but Vytal felt something had brought her here. Before she sought to step to another world, she set off in the direction of life or a base on the world so near regions held by the Sith Order. First she would understand where she was and then... then she would decide what followed.
