Morality as Timidity

[Lief]

So much had happened in such a short space of time; two absent members of Kobe Seren's family had arrived in the wake of his Mother's murder, and while any child should have felt relief at the sight of their Father Kobe had instead felt disgust. The man had promised his life to Asha, even with his Jedi upbringing Kobe knew of the sanctity of marriage, he knew that part of the vows were to protect one another... But Tracyn had failed. What's more, he was a Mandalorian, and he still was not strong enough to keep his family safe.

Of course, Kobe did not fully comprehend the cacophony of emotions he was feeling towards his Father, he was much too young to understand the subtle differences between sorrow and anguish, disappointment and abhorring. He did, however, know enough to feel rejected and abandoned; neither Asha or Tracyn had been there to raise him, he had not seen them in over a year before Asha met her demise. He loved them, and they had left him alone in the Galaxy, with nothing save the Force for company.

And through it he had felt the slaughter of Cassus, his twin, with whom he had shared a deep seated connection with, and he had experienced his Mother's passing as if it had been his own. The torment was unbearable, meditation did little to elevate the sensations and each dream had become twisted into sickening nightmares that left him writhing in his bed at night. So it was that Kobe had retreated inwards, became a shadowy husk of his former self, his voice muted to the world.

Gareth and Tracyn had proven to be the final straw, and through their untimely arrivals he found a moment of clarity: he could not remain there, living in the shadow of his parents and all that they had done, all that had been done to them, he would not live for pity or mercy. The Galaxy would not be met with peace, of this he was certain; one might question how a child could even comprehend such ideas, much less begin to dispute them of their own accord, but these were concepts Kobe had been raised around, he knew no other life. He was born into the Jedi.

But he knew now that their path was faulty. Death would come to those undeserving, whether in times of strife or apparent tranquility, for peace was a fickle thing, it was temporary; death however was permanent. It was the only thing that anyone could be certain of, an end to the cycle, to the torment. It reminded everyone it touched of their humanity, of their finite and fickle existence.

So it was that Kobe decided he would not play the pawn, he would not be used as canon fodder for the Republic's unjust causes, he would not seek to shape their civilizations or fight for pseudo-peace. He would not play the role of appeasing coward. He would instead seek his own philosophy from the Galaxy, glean it from experience as opposed to text books, and he would stand before it and fight for its very core; after all, strife causes advancement while timidity leads to the suppression of flourishment.

Casting aside his position as Jedi Learner, placing down his training blade and changing out of his robes into something more neutral, Kobe had slipped from the Ossus Academy without word and faded into the crowds at Knossa Spaceport. Being small and nimble as he was, the young boy had no issues avoiding detection as he boarded a transport vessel which was full to the brim with travellers and merchants.

In his possession he held very little; some credits he had managed to acquire, staples for when he became hungry, a small bone-blade of Mando'a heritage and one solitary holocron which mentally sang and reached out for him. It had been his Mothers, once, and with it he would find where she had gone, why she had been so absent, and just who had slain her in cold blood.

Being outside of the Academy proved to be cathartic for the boy, and he managed to get some rest during the first few hours of the journey. When his dream was inevitably invaded, as it always was, by faceless demons the boy awoke and found himself still hunched in the corner of the hull. One individual was staring at him queerly, and Kobe felt colour rising in his cheeks at the embarrassment at his fearful sleep being noted.

He did not sleep again.

When they reached Dressel a few days after first leaving Ossus, the journey faster than anticipated due to the use of the Mara Corridor's hyperspace lane, Kobe came to find that this was as far as he was going to get with this specific transport vessel. Stranded in such a strange corner of the Galaxy, Kobe lingered around the Spaceport while the other passengers went about their business.

Too tired to try and board a second ship, the boy instead huddled down against a corner wall and clutched at the holocron, finding that it gave him a boon to his strength - at least, enough to stop him from instantly falling asleep. He didn't yet have the Force capabilities to activate it, nor the knowledge of how to, but that didn't stop Kobe from trying. And in his ignorance, the boy was unable to hide his subtle usage of the Force -- Luckily for him, Dressel wasn't known for its Force User presence.

Perhaps that would mean he was safe, for now at least.

[member='Tirdarius']

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

Starports were known both for their wretchedness as well as their beauty, carrying that exotic appeal present in any place where the bounties of the off-world gathered in quantity, but also that unsavoury feel of the unwashed, the unrefined, those lacking in any true sense of civility. It wasn't hard to sense: a menacing undertone attached to even the calmest of conversations, the fear present in those quiet negotiations between those arriving and the landing port security forces, the silent paranoia that underscored every unloading of ships working hard to stay under the radar.

Droid lifters were everywhere, empty or travelling across the broad spaces of the port with heavy containers carried as though they were light and filled with little but off-world air. So, too, were the ever-pervasive sentients who made this place what they were: men and women dressed in nondescript, functional clothing, some with the punch-drunk expressions of those who had been too long aboard a ship finally breathing fresh air again, others with the shiftier expressions of those looking for trouble in an effort to cause it or perhaps merely to evade it. This isn't a place where innocence treads.

This place was pervasive of the rot that underscored civilisation as a whole. Underneath our clean, grandiose buildings, the polite manners of people in expensive clothing and with their refined morals, we have this corruption that drives it all. The upper classes had always enjoyed that wonderful irony of being able to look down on their lessers while nonetheless profitting from it, and nowhere was that clearer than here: where those transactions took shape and form in the unloading of cargo, some legal and much not. An expensive shipment of Vine-Silk concealed in containers that were marked as holding perishable Jumbolives, perhaps, or a few cases of black-market weapons stored in compartments that customs inspectors had no reason to know existed. All happening unknown to the general people who use this place merely as a means to survive.

Dressel's spaceport had a flourishing market parked right next to it - a move both of sense and providence by the capital city's governor, designed to ensure that the freshest of goods could be unloaded and made available for sale within a mere matter of hours, provided one was willing to negotiate the docking fees demanded of arriving ships. And no doubt ensuring that he can skim nicely off the top, to fund his own lavish lifestyle. After all, the merchant class had their taxes to contend to afterwards, too. The credits all go somewhere.

The rumours of Sith artifacts being smuggled away from the now-uninhabited dominant Sith worlds of Korriban and Ziost had all spoken of Dressel being a common factor: they passed here on their way to more exotic worlds, destined to end life in the collections of the rich, powerful and foolish, rather than to return to their owners. Since the Sith had made their play for Coruscant and the Core, those outer planets had been abandoned with all but a token force, in an effort to throw all they had at dominating the Galaxy from it's centre. But to do so left those ancient fortresses available for the carrion to feed upon. That was something that needed to be stopped.

Korriban, Thule, Ziost, Dromund Kaas, Rhen Var...all these planetary strongholds lay open now to scavengers, their ruins and former dominant cities left dormant, ready to be picked clean. Such sacrilege will warrant a bloody reckoning, the Sith Lord observed quietly to himself, not for the first time. Few Sith had cared much about what they had abandoned, so focused were they upon their real prize. That recklessness would pay us back in full, if we did not act now. And so Tirdarius had come, fully prepared to mete out the punishment that the Sith offered to those who dared step over the line. And they have done that, to step onto our homeworlds and take that which they have no right to.

He had not come adorned in the usual attire of Sith: the time would come for that, but for now, subtlety was required more than the fear or trepidation that the presence of a known Sith Lord might cause. Rats always run away from fire, knowing that it will burn them. And so I shall, once I find their nest, he reflected calmly, deep grey eyes surveying the monstrosity of the spaceport from a somewhat-removed distance. He had adopted simple spacer's garments, even going so far as to carry a worn blaster pistol at his side, though it was entirely for show. Who needs such a clumsy weapon when they have the Force, after all? For the moment, it was better to fit in.

But when I know what I need to...then we'll see some sparks, he thought darkly. The biggest question was of where to start. There was much ground to cover, and little time. Always the way, of course, he noted. That would be factored into the level of retribution offered later, naturally.

 

[Lief]

Sinking deeper into the Force, and in turn the meditative state of his mind, Kobe finally allowed himself to give in to the fatigue. He had learned quickly that the Force would keep an individual energized and well-tended to during long bouts of meditation, allowing him to rest without letting down his guard; the child wanted to pour over his thoughts, to organize everything as the Jedi had raised him to do.

Only this time, something felt different. Kobe did not have the urge to channel everything from his being, he did not want to simply 'deal with it' by suppressing his emotions and experiences as though they meant nothing. And oddly enough, even as the Force flowed throughout his body and mind he sensed that it too had no intentions of forcing everything from him.

You were not strong if you ran from things, it was a cowards way out.

Did that make Kobe a coward? Was he fleeing in the same sense as the Jedi were from getting in touch with themselves? He didn't think so, but then again he was but a child - what did he know? This was a journey he was making, a conscious decision to leave the oppressive Jedi and retrace the steps of his Mother. Perhaps he could come to understand her decisions, her absence. Perhaps he could find the one who had ended her. Kobe knew no certainties, he would not permit himself to get his hopes up after being let down so frequently. Drawing on the presence of the holocron clutched within his grasp, Kobe began to sink deeper as the Force engulfed him entirely.

In his mind, Kobe had been wandering down corridors; along each wall to his left and right were various sensory doors, yet none of them opened as he passed them by. He made no conscious attempt to open any of them, and instead seemed content to proceed onward. The room was moderately dark, with a pinprick of light in the distance providing the only source of the doors' visibility. As he wandered it seemed as though little or no time had passed, yet all the same when one of the doors to his left opened Kobe suddenly felt exhausted - like he had walked for years without respite.

He hadn't intended to enter the room, despite the fact it was the first turn he had been met with. Yet just merely thinking of it brought his body sliding into place. Standing there, in the doorway, Kobe looked into the room only to find that the building around him had melted away. Instead of the hallway behind him he was met with the tender flow of air against the back of his head. But the peace was broken by the shrill sound of agonizing screams. "STOP HIM!" someone yelled, and moments later a woman manifested ahead of him and began to run towards where he was stood. The boy flinched, yet the woman passed through him without so much as an inclining of his presence.

Turning in a half circle, Kobe watched as the woman neared a lab coat wearing man with an odd looking device in his hand. Their mouths moved, faces wrought with frustration and anger, yet their heated words were muted to his hearing. Without warning the device began to disintegrate and the ground beneath them began to tremble. The air felt hot and stuffy, and even Kobe felt as though he could not breathe as a shockwave emitted around them, flinging the man and woman to the ground. White noise rang through the air, before screams began to sound.

Kobe blinked, and suddenly the man and woman were gone; instead he was stood staring at a swiftly sinking landmass, everything had fallen silent save for the almost peaceful crashing of waves against rock. That was when he felt it: the grief, the devastation, the loss of a billion lives snuffed in an instance...

The crisp breath of air that Kobe drew was akin to a gasp, causing his eyes to water and his cheeks to redden as he readjusted to the fluorescent lights of the spaceport. Asha's holocron had been dropped into his lap at some point, and when he went to pick it back up he felt his fingers burn under its touch. Confused, he simply stared at it for a moment while his body shook - mind reeling from what he had seen. Kobe had never experienced anything even remotely akin to that, so why had it flooded his meditations in the way an unresolved memory of his day might?

Feeling more exhausted than he had been prior to his meditation, Kobe realised that it would probably prove dangerous to try and make sense of it now. Instead he bundled up the dimly glowing holocron within the loose end of his shirt so that no one in the spaceport could physically see it and closed his eyes. Tomorrow he would find a way off this rock...

As the boy allowed himself to rest naturally, the Force remained around him and the Holocron, softly emitting like the residue that settles upon a building site once all the workmen had left.

[member="Tirdarius"]

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Kobe Seren"]

Seeking out his targets was always going to be a difficult game to play: such things required a certain level of subtlety that tended to be both risky and time-consuming. A single misstep and my whole plan blows wide open, and any who might fear the wrath of the Sith will move quickly to conceal themselves further from my sight. Tirdarius had little inclination to allow that, of course: his sole purpose here was to track down those responsible for the thefts he had heard reported, then eliminate them with extreme prejudice. We can hardly allow mercy in this case: the things they play with are hardly toys, the Sith Lord reflected silently. Sith Artifacts often held the keys to elevation and growth among their own numbers - in the hands of one unaffiliated with them but wielding their powers, such artifacts could cause untold damage.

The Force around him rippled as it always did on such a populated worlds: little fluctuations here and there that suggested birth and death in equal measure, lesser subtleties that even those trained to detect them rarely bothered to give thought to. But in seeking out the types of things he had come to find, and those foolish enough to cross the Sith in dealing with them, he knew he had to be alert to each little change that he might sense within the flow of that energy. The slightest pulse might be a lead that I might lack otherwise.

For the moment, though, his focus was less upon those little changes, sparks of energy that were imperceptible to the average being, instead placing his thoughts upon something more concrete. He had already cloaked himself in a complex Force Illusion in order to allow him to break into the Starport Registry: such had revealed plenty of ships landing and departing, but he had not noticed any irregularities in those he had been able to access via their records, leaving him with little to go on in that regard. Invariably, such people must take care to cover their tracks, and keep their cargoes out of our sight. Nobody who dared to steal onto Sith worlds and remove their treasures would be stupid enough to imagine that they would evade detection in any simple fashion. Which means there will be a credit trail, as they pay others to keep their presence quiet. He had to find the first link in that chain.

Not all records are kept officially on the books, though, he knew that much. Illicit dealings often required certain under-the-table activity, and having any records of it would be dangerous to all involved, so chances were that such was conducted by word of mouth: schedules, landing authorisations, cargo checks and security sweeps all dealt with directly. That sort of work would require someone with a little pull - no mere guard or customs officer could attend to that. Such notions narrowed the list considerably.

Fortunate for him, then, that it was not such a difficult thing to slip into the Port Master's office, the door opening and closing without any apparent contact with a sentient being, causing the men within a moment of consternation. But since nobody had stepped through the entrance, what had they to worry about? Just a stray breeze, a sudden confluence creating a strong wind tunnel that had not been anticipated. Nothing to concern yourselves with just yet, gentlemen. Tirdarius slipped into the office smoothly, practiced in the art of concealing himself with simple ease, the way he might change his clothes, or step outside his quarters. The trick is to remember that there is nothing there. It was a simple matter to convince people that they saw only what they expected to see. They expected nobody to enter, so they had not seen one do so. Simplicity itself, with the right touch of the Force.

The Sith Lord sized up those within quickly enough: two guards on the door dressed in the functional uniforms of Port Security, flanking so that anyone entering the office would immediately be surrounded on two sides. The third sat further into the room, esconsed by a metallic desk practically overflowing with datapads and, more surprisingly, sheets of flimsiplast that were covered in neat, printed Aurabesh script. Manifests, departure lists, accounting records, if he were any judge, but he didn't bother to peruse them too closely. The focus of his particular observation here was the Port Master himself: a somewhat-portly Dressellian, hairless, with the broad, open gaze common to his people, forehead ridges furrowed as though the being were in thought as it read a document on the pad in front of him. Perfect. A distracted mind is so much easier to manipulate.

A brief relaxation of his own control and his illusion shimmered away as if he had been concealed by a mirage. The shimmering of the air consolidated into his slender form: not the dark-clothed, intimidating visage of a Sith Lord, but there appeared a tall, calm being with the attire of a simple port worker, a grey jumpsuit unremarkable aside from the black belt draped around his waist, the shape of a blaster clearly outlined. As if I need such toys. The two guards woke suddenly as if from a daydream, startled into motion, both drawing weapons from holsters on their own belts and moving to train them on him, but not nearly quickly enough to be a threat.

The blinds on the transparisteel windows closed with no announcement, a slight rattle of motion that dimmed the room suddenly, the bright sunlight filtered and diminished now, sufficient to see by but not to wholly illuminate the room. Another heartbeat and a blaster fired, the fiery red bolt making contact with the palm of the stranger, wholly expected to burn through him and leave a bloody mess on the office floor, but found itself vanishing in a flare of blue light as it made contact, a strange shimmering of light that sucked the energy bolt in as quickly as it had been fired. A flicked wrist projected a further motion outwards, a wave of force slamming into both of the guards, smacking them backwards against the doorframe behind them, their weapons dropping from their startled grasps.

The Sith Lord advanced on them both briefly, moving with the forceful gait of a predator in motion, his steps appearing heavy even though they made little sound against the floor. Both hands waved, revealing pale, slender fingers pressed together, as though cupping something. The two guards, reeling from their sudden reversal of fortunes, found themselves lifted in the air, neither able to make more than a gasp of desperation, unable to control their own motion as they hovered, held by an invisible force. Tirdarius gave them both significant glances, then pressed the strength of his own thoughts against theirs, tendrils of invisible energy reaching out to bind their thoughts together.

The next was a simple deep impression: Sleep, and remember nothing. He watched as both became slack, no longer struggling in their confinement as his mental command took effect. It was no small thing to dominate a mind, but he had not sought total control: merely activating an impulse that was present in all sentient beings anyway. You're tired: rest now. The absence of memory was simpler still: nothing more than a Memory Rub, a feat any Sith of competence might perform. That done, he dropped their boneless bodies back down to the floor, barring the door by resting conveniently against it, giving him a modicum of privacy.

The Port Master had watched all this in amazement, shock and a ripening sense of fear, something that was simple enough to detect, as close as the Sith Lord was to this victim. The man had his own weapon, but on seeing his colleagues so easily disarmed, it was clear that he was hesitant to present it as provocation. That's right, Tirdarius thought, turning to approach him. Best to co-operate. An offended Sith does not forgive easily. One attacked, even in defense, will not respond with mercy.

"I believe you and I have some small matters to discuss," the Sith Lord announced in a calm, matter-of-fact fashion. Not that he intended on letting the Dressellian bother him with simple speech: this interrogation would tell him what he wanted to know, or he would extract it through more complex methods. Not that you want this, he silently told the man before him. You would not enjoy yourself. "Let us talk," Tirdarius remarked, blithely taking the seat opposite the being. Might as well make myself comfortable while I'm making him uncomfortable. This could take a little time.

 

[Lief]

Darkness stretched all around, blanketing his vision like a veil of mist over water. All was still, and not even the steady respiratory breaths could pierce the silence. Calm, tranquil, oppressive... Every step felt as though it was taken through thick mud that threatened to pull him down into the earth, rooting him as apart of the landscape. Thick bristles of dried grass rubbed at his ankles, and when he looked down it seemed as though they were the bodies of snakes wrapping themselves around his lower limbs.

Through the mist an eerie glow began to emit, forcing itself upon his vision and rendering him momentarily blind. Before his eyes could adjust, a cacophony of noises entered the fray, overloading his auditory senses. "Hiiiiiiff!" they cried, droning voices dragging out the strange word. "Hiiiiiiff zeeey... Hiiiiiff miii!" Distress filled him, for he was unable to understand a word of it. "I don't understand..." he murmured, but the voices continued on with their lamentation. Without warning a hand reached through the golden glow and seized him by the neck.

Kobe awoke suddenly, pain working its way up along his side. "What are you, deaf or somethin'?" a raspy voice finally queried, "I said, wake up!" Blinking out the sleep from his eyes, the young boy peered upwards and found one of the spaceport officers standing over him. "This ain't no place for sleeping, be gone with you, y'runt!" The man landed another sharp jab into Kobe's side with the toe of his boot before grunting and walking off, shaking his head. "Next time I'll set the hounds on you!"

Not being one to overdo his stay, Kobe hastily rose to his feet and stretched the aches from his muscles. Aside from the officer, the spaceport itself was mostly empty. While he hadn't missed his chance to get offworld, quite clearly the next departure would not be for several hours yet. While he had no doubts that he could worm his way back into the spaceport later, the thought of wandering the streets of an unfamiliar planet during nightfall was by no means a fond one.

With a soft grumble, Kobe pocketed the holocron and hastily made his way out of the spaceport, in the opposite direction to the officer. Rubbing at his eyes, and then his temples, the child tried to recall what he had been dreaming about. Yet his memory was all fuzzy from being so swiftly awoken, so the fragmented pieces made little sense.

No longer tired, he resigned himself to wandering around; it would be safer that way, less chance of anyone predicting his destination, not that there seemed to be anyone else outside: the planet seemed dead. To make matters worse, Kobe's stomach had begun to rumble. Try as he might, he could not remember where he had put his rations, and so his only clear option was to find some sort of cantina or all night diner that would permit the entrance of a lone child.

Putting his head down so as to keep his face shadowed, Kobe set off in search of somewhere safe to wait out the night - preferably somewhere that would be accepting of Republic Credits in exchange for something filling to eat.

[member="Tirdarius"]

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Jyn Sol"]

The Dressellian was stubborn, inclined to resist, bending his mind in attempt to push back the invader, the way one might use a wall to hold back a flood. You may hold out for a time, but you cannot avoid the force of the torrent forever. Eventually your defenses will be brushed aside, and the water shall flow where it wishes, unimpeded. The alien creature sat back in it's chair, pressed sharply backwards as though in the throes of a seizure, though held there steady by some unseen force. Standing in front of him, a Sith Lord looking for all the world as though he were just an ordinary dock worker, though his posture and the intensity of his expression might perhaps have made any casual observer think twice.

The two spoke no words, for they did not have to: their minds were dancing together, one trying desperately to avoid that psychic intrusion that sought a way in, the other pushing and probing lightly at those psychological barriers, trying to find the weakspot. Under normal circumstances, it was possible for two minds to mesh provided that both participants were amiable about it, or when it was unknown to one of the two parties: then, all one needed to do was attune their mind to that of the other, and slip in through that gap before they knew you were there. This situation, however, was very different indeed: it required a battle of wills, almost in a very literal sense, one seeking to dominate the other's mind entirely, which would require the battering aside of a being's natural defenses. Thus, the floodgates open.

Tirdarius could see many images within his own mind, thoughts observed that he had not summoned, those things that were now flashing through the Dressellian's conscious mind. Pictures of others of his kind, perhaps family, accompanied by positive feelings; images of books and datapads flowing with numbers and information pertinent to work; a potent sense of fear that was understandable in the present circumstances. You know how quickly I dealt with your colleagues, he informed the being silently, his thoughts touching upon the other sentient's mind calmly. You worry that your fate will perhaps be similar? Tirdarius could have well understood if the Dressellian felt that to be the case and, in truth, he could not quite guarantee otherwise. After all, you have opposed us, and that is never wise.

This wasn't a game, of course, so the usual mechanisms that existed with mind-to-mind communication were gone. There were several mechanisms for achieving his aim here: the Sith could simply flood the other being with a high level of emotional energy, building upon fear and hesitation, perhaps compound it with sorrow and anxiety, essentially destroying the person's psychological defenses by leaving them a nervous wreck. An exquisite way if you seek only to break someone, but inefficient as a means of gathering information. Some such were driven entirely insane, unable to cope with what they were subjected to. Others still just retreated inside themselves, for all intents and purposes, comatose. That would be useless here.

Alas, the other method was more time-consuming, naturally, and took more of a strain on the user, though Tirdarius was well-enough practiced. To some it was torture, to others sport, but to him, merely a tool. Let's take a walk inside your mind. Slowly feeding someone anxiety, rather than overloading them, this was simply designed to provoke memories, something that both would share and experience, but that only one would suffer by. And as they do, their grasp over their own mind will slip, and I will have what I came for.

It was only a matter of time. People always succumbed, eventually.