King of Korriban
902 ABY
Tags |
Darth Carnifex
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Elmindra Xitaar
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Madrona A’Mia
Of Korriban’s seven great moons, the edges of three pushed together and began to merge. The eclipse had begun.
Floating deep within the Esstran sector and framed by Horuset (its red supergiant star), Korriban and the world’s three cardinal moons reached perfect alignment, each celestial body clicking into place in order to form a single line spanning light years.
On Korriban, below, a dull red glow crept like ice across the land, splitting shadows into kaleidoscope pieces and halting conversations midway; snuffing out fire. Candles asphyxiated, their trails of smoke stretching to resemble specters. At the behest of governmental leadership, city blocks flickered into darkness one by one, as if by blackout, gradually cloaking the world in the still blackness of this most auspicious night. Torches snuffed out as if deprived of oxygen, filtering through shades of sickly green and then dying. Bonfires, around which celebrants danced, grew tired and cold, and then even their embers smoked out until there was naught but chilly soot and powdered ash. Only the floating lanterns remained lit, so many light-motes hanging like stars against the backdrop of eclipse.
Korribani myth spoke to this arcane phenomenon: the proud persistence of the lantern’s flame, even when all other fire cowered beneath the gaze of the ecliptic Chwûqmidwanottoi (the seventh and most venerated of Korriban’s moons). Endowed as they were with the benedictions of the living, it was said that these lanterns became valued messengers for a time, carrying the prayers of the living across the boundaries and into the Netherworld of the Force, and were thus protected by the spirits in their journey.
Floating deep within the Esstran sector and framed by Horuset (its red supergiant star), Korriban and the world’s three cardinal moons reached perfect alignment, each celestial body clicking into place in order to form a single line spanning light years.
On Korriban, below, a dull red glow crept like ice across the land, splitting shadows into kaleidoscope pieces and halting conversations midway; snuffing out fire. Candles asphyxiated, their trails of smoke stretching to resemble specters. At the behest of governmental leadership, city blocks flickered into darkness one by one, as if by blackout, gradually cloaking the world in the still blackness of this most auspicious night. Torches snuffed out as if deprived of oxygen, filtering through shades of sickly green and then dying. Bonfires, around which celebrants danced, grew tired and cold, and then even their embers smoked out until there was naught but chilly soot and powdered ash. Only the floating lanterns remained lit, so many light-motes hanging like stars against the backdrop of eclipse.
Korribani myth spoke to this arcane phenomenon: the proud persistence of the lantern’s flame, even when all other fire cowered beneath the gaze of the ecliptic Chwûqmidwanottoi (the seventh and most venerated of Korriban’s moons). Endowed as they were with the benedictions of the living, it was said that these lanterns became valued messengers for a time, carrying the prayers of the living across the boundaries and into the Netherworld of the Force, and were thus protected by the spirits in their journey.
Looming massive in the sky above Caedes now, Chwûqmidwanottoi became gradually obscured by its sibling moons, each sliding into place across its bloody surface at flanking angles. And as this silent battle ensued, the dune seas and lacerated valleys along Korriban’s war-torn basin swam amidst strangled shadows and stretched, spectral visions. The dead walked the world, and for a time they could remember their old lives. Dreams were visited, old vengeances reignited. Whilst those in the cities danced through the streets, others in the outskirts locked their doors and barred their windows shut, huddling in the protection of their families ‘round dark shrines smelling of candle smoke.
Caedes let his singing quiet when he ran out of words, his last purring notes causing strings of prophecy to ricochet in bouncing baritones throughout the yawning canyons. As the sounds faded, they were echoed by the many thick bodied and venomous, articulate song serpents who peered out from sandstone burrows along the valley’s walls, or who lay in thick-scaled coils around their King.
A chill passed over his skin, smelling of dusty stones and snake poison. Shadows began to pull strangely across his face, creating angles which didn’t exist, revealing lifetimes which Caedes had long denied to himself. In one moment he looked impossibly young, his round eyes full of hope, a warm smile wanting to be loved. In the next he looked tired and old; old as if he had been born old and then lived lifetimes thereafter.
One by one, the serpents ended their singing and drew into silence. Korriban’s nocturnal birds became scarce, abandoning flight as if the skies were untrustworthy. Even the wind seemed to make less noise as it waded through the desert’s dry grass.
Suddenly, the lanterns above looked doomed up there all alone. As the world became still and silent around him, they seemed to Caedes more like sacrifices than prayers; like livestock chained at the desert’s edge to satisfy the cravings of a monster, or like lonely ships at sea, listless atop dark waters.
The moons pressed themselves together now, and Caedes could feel the leylines of Korriban flourish. He felt it in his stomach like nerves or excitement, felt as the power of the dark side exalted. As oceans on other worlds rose and fell to the edict of their own moon’s gravity, so too did the leylines within Korriban swell beneath the gaze of Chwûqmidwanottoi— swell to the point of near bursting— flooding out around him and through him, connecting the many sprawling Nexuses across the world. With his eyes closed, it was as if he could hear the heartbeat of Korriban.
For many decades now, Darth Caedes had sought not only for power over others, but more truly for mastery over himself. He had fallen upon the Sith creed, embodying it with a zealotry he had once reserved only for the Jedi. Fear had once been his chains but he’d broken those. Now, only the shackles of mortality and of flesh yet bound Caedes, and he longed to be rid of them. Through countless victories across countless battlefronts, he had proven his dominance over the physical world. In the silences after slaughter, he had proven to himself a cruel dominance over the mind, keeping himself from collapse. Now, there was but one final step to take.
He inhaled. Every instinct in his body roiled and twisted against the notion of what came next. Every instinct, every wide eyed childhood memory he had begged at his feet and clung to his ankles, desperate that he not proceed.
He exhaled. And why not? For new growth cannot exist without first the destruction of the old.
For the first time in his eighty long years, Darth Caedes, Nejaa Niynx in another life, felt ready. Opening his lungs and falling back into the rhythm of breathing, Caedes dropped fingers into the soil of his throne and at last let the Force claim him. He breathed it in and it shook him like a storm in a paper bag.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall set me free.
