With a silent bow of the head, Kyros left the company of his master and departed the citadel for the wilds beyond.
* * *
The early evening breeze of the unnamed planet's outer landscapes was calming amidst the industrialisation of a Sith empire that threatened to trample and consume its rural entirety. It was a strange sense of juxtaposed peace instilled in the air, despite the looming and obvious presence of the Dark Side that seeped from its very roots. In a solemn silence, Kyros contemplated his path, with both literality and metaphor, as he hauled himself across the bold land that extended out around him in all directions. He had pulled himself from off the filth he came, wrestling demons and defeating his weakness, and now he stood a proud apprentice of two Sith orders, with his own personal ambitions personifying organically into tangible motivations. How far one can come, he contemplated.
He slept a few hours during the night within a small cave that nestled itself in a low hill of rock to the west. It housed voritor lizards, mother and children, or a variant of such species, more threatened than threatening as Kyros demonstrated after a short scrap between the beasts and the sharpness of his knife and sheer will combined. The Dark Side fuelled him, and the Dark Side would empower him. He spent much of the night meditating, allowing the Force to fill him as wine does a cup. In those moments, Kyros began to feel a true connection to the roots of this place, this curious, alien planet that pulsated with the dark, seeming to personify Darth Vyrassu himself. Hours of darkness passed, of both chronological and mystic varieties, and the pureblood rose from his dirt-stone seat the moment dusk's enemy began to arise and the birth of the early morn made itself known, bringing with it a grey warmth and half-light to combat the vestiges of the night.
It was high noon by the time the apprentice reached the cave of his master's description. Its external appearance, while seemingly normal to the bare eye, to the Force adept was clearly nothing but, for it emanated with a power most unusual and overwhelming. There was much to be found within this place, he surmised prematurely as he cautiously entered the cavern. The air was damp and cool, a contrast to the drier, exhausted climate of outside. Silently, Kyros crept lower into the darkness, accepting the impossibility of physical sight and instead relying on his connection to the Force, as unrefined as it may be, to guide him on, using the near-light blue-green reflections of occasional fungi and insect glow along the damp stone to assist as cues. Save for the occasional oversized beetle, the apprentice was met with little resistance, and those who could have offered an iota of threat to him had all but shied away upon his appearance. Clearly, the imprint of the Dark Side was upon him strong enough to ward of those creatures who would be foolish enough to interfere with his own business.
The dull darkness was suddenly shattered as Kyros came to an opening that shone with a tremendous, incomprehensible brightness, displaying a full array of the spectrum of colours; so much so that it had become a blur of warm, white light. Not only did it shine with a physical light, but with an unseen one, one of an ineffable power, a resonance beyond words; that of the Force. It was truly beautiful, inspiring, Kyros thought in awe as he treaded gently along the chamber of light. There were crystals to be seen at every angle, all with their own unique resonance. The experience was an overwhelming one to one aware of the Force. For hours, Kyros meditated amidst them, striding slow and pensively, running his long, crimson fingers along those which appealed most to him, enjoying the warmth they each emanated, and then he felt it; a shimmer, an echo of sudden knowing. A solitary formation of two shards, glowing in thick, crystalline beds of warm silver, with an appearance unlike any of its neighbours. They were small, elegant and alike as if they were twins. Together, they resonated with a sense of calm and focus, and when he placed his hands on them he immediately felt an underlying sensation of awareness and attunement with the Force, a feeling he truly could not put into words even if he tried.
He knew what had to be done, and using his knife he chiseled away at the crystals' bed until they both came loose. As he removed them from their home, the unusual silver glowing from their centres did not leave; if anything, it increased, as if their hearts beat faster with some form of anticipation. He spent a few moments to look at them both as they both rested snugly in the palm of his red hand. Raw, yet beautiful, intricate and curious, these siblings emanated an unusual power together, and the apprentice wondered how this would reflect their practicality within a lightsaber. Reaching for a small pouch inside his bag, Kyros placed them both carefully within, tying it tight and venturing back through whence he came.
Evening was almost upon him now and, instead of leaving for the citadel at that moment, the apprentice decided instead to indulge in the ineffable energies of the mysterious cave a night longer. He meditated, feasted on a jerbwat he had hunted, and slept for several hours until the grey dawn returned. He walked most of the day, and the land was fair to him, and somehow less troubling as it may have been before. He felt a general a general sense of ease, of calm, of focus, a feeling he could not quite place but one he was grateful for. In his bag, the crystals were warm on his back, it felt, but perhaps it was only in his mind. As late evening came, the lights of citadel could be seen from afar, and within the hour they were all around him as he marched himself onwards. The soldiers, recognising him by sight, allowed him to pass into the innermost sections of the fortress where he was met by his master once more. Silently, yet calmly, he bowed his head.
"I return with crystals, master. Two of them. Curious they are, indeed, silver in colour and warm to the touch. I sense they will serve me well."
