Private To Hell And Back

[Arcturus Dinn]

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Devaron, Colonies // Wanderer's Path
Stowing Away
♫ // Yeah, I know that you're gonna scratch me, maim me and maul
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He pushed through the bracken and twisted vines which hung from towering treetops with all the might he could muster, kicking aside branches and pushing aside curtains of leaves with a wave of his hand. Though he had long since lost visuals he could still hear the whirring of a ship up ahead; it had darted across the skyline some ten minutes prior, landing somewhere in the nearby vicinity. Of course the dense jungles of Devaron made it nigh on impossible to deduce precisely where. All he could do was listen... Listen and try to hunt it down.​

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One of the branches he'd pushed aside swung back and whacked him in the face, momentarily making him prone. He sat stunned on the mushy ground which consisted of rotting leaves and tried to shake away the shock, knowing that every precious second wasted was another chance that he'd miss his opportunity. Then he rose, not even bothering to take the time to dust himself off, and continued on at his previously brisk pace. He could feel a light trickle of blood down his cheek, just another in a vast myriad of cuts and bruises his body held these days, and lifted one hand to wipe it away. The last thing he needed was to attract the quarra, after all.​

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The thrumming of a starship engine reminded him of his path, and the amplified volume proved encouraging. He could practically taste carbon in the air, smell freedom on the swampy breeze...​

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And then he broke through from the trees, out into a large clearing. Behind him he could hear the low guttural growls of the planets native predators as they stalked forward, and ahead he watched as the ship prepped for take off. It hadn't been here long, nobody was ever really here for long... So he pushed forward, propelled by the Force it felt as though he was gliding in thin air. The quarra jumped as he did, reaching for his leg even as the boy pulled himself up on the swiftly disappearing boarding ramp. A second later and he'd have been food for the beasts, instead he pulled himself into the cargo bay with a bloody thigh and burning lungs.​

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While the door closed he watched as the hellish homeworld of the devilish Devaronians slipped away. He lay back, panting as he fought to regulate his breathing, and could not help but guffaw at the ludicrousy of it all; how long he'd been stuck down there he did not know, though it had proved the perfect location to hone his previously lacking martial skills. A world writhe with danger, the possibility of death around every corner... Somehow he'd made it out the other side. Somehow he had survived.​

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The sound of boots nearing the cargo bay brought him right back down to reality. In his elation he'd quite forgotten that this ship was not his own, and so he slunk behind one of the supply crates and held his breath as one of the crew members stepped inside and scanned the space for signs of... well, anything. Him, he supposed. The Bothan spacer sniffed and turned around, heading back through what looked to be the mechanical bay into the rest of the ship, and only once his footsteps had retreated fully did the boy let out the breath he had been holding. He hunkered down and prayed that it wouldn't be too long before they reached some civilized world...​

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Bastion, Outer Rim Territories, Harper's Retreat
Homecoming
♫ // Time, it creeps and crawls and reels me in
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Air hissed as the landing gears released and the ramp extended.​

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It had been three weeks since Arcturus was discovered by the Bothan and unceremoniously deposited on Anaxes. Three weeks of hitchhiking along hyperspace lanes, back and forth from one random world to another until he happened upon a pilot who could take him where he was headed. The boy felt certain that he had seen more of the Galaxy in those three weeks than he had in the countless years prior, and the thought of it was almost dizzying.​

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Now it didn't matter, though. Bastion lay ahead of him; after so many years he was finally home, yet he was not all that certain what would be waiting for him here. If anything.​

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He had not, of course, led the pilot to Harper's Retreat itself, instead he found himself at the nearest settlement which was still a fair ways off. Without any money or possessions remaining to purchase a speeder he was left with just one option: he had to walk the rest of the way. All of the venturing he'd done across Devaron had done a decent job preparing him for such, but even so it was a tiring expedition which sapped him of his already waning strength. Arc was tired, he was ready to be home. Ready to rest without the constant threat of quarra looming over him, or worse the devils themselves.​

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It was motivation enough to keep him going, and eventually in the distance he saw it; the ridge, within which the pristine white building lay. The boy was euphoric, and though the many miles he'd walked had left him exhausted he managed to run the last leg of the journey all the same. ​

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What he found when he reached home, however, was a whole lot of nothing. At least, nothing he'd been hoping to find. There were the usual staff, of course, milling about, tending to maintenance and cleaning, but Maliphant? And Nilia? Heck, even Odana was absent. After realizing who he was the staff seemed happy to see him, expressing the concern they'd had for his disappearance and fussing over him. It had been so long since he'd been back in Harper's Retreat that he'd quite forgotten how life there could be. After taking a shower, and finding something to eat, he made his way back to his old quarters - which were remarkably untouched - and sat in the center of the room.​

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He'd heard from the staff that Maliphant was missing... Well, that simply wouldn't do. After so long of fighting to return, he refused to fail at the final hurdle. He closed his eyes, breathed in one slow breath, and then began to draw upon every well of emotion contained within his body. He seethed, pulling from his mind the painful memories he'd amassed throughout his lifetime, the frustrations of his current predicament... and then he delved into the Force, calling upon the dim connection which had been formed those years prior during his training. It was small, faint, but still it resonated... All he had to do now was focus, reach for it and hope that wherever he was his Master could feel it too.​

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Darth Empyrean ​

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Unfortunately for Thesh, his master could not - would not hear it. Instead, The Force would draw him to Harper’s Retreat - deep into the tunnels his master had once lived. There was a certain darkness within that echo’ed his darkness, repeated the darkness that Maliphant had carried.​

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It held a memory, an inclination of where he was - and as the darkness spread to Thresh’s metaphysical vision he would see momentary glimpses into the darkness. Of Barbatos deep beneath the mountain, to Maliphant struggling to retain his control over the Darkstaff, to his retreat to Hoth to ensure the destruction of the artifact for a final time.​

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It was… Intense. The energies were beyond his understanding, and spoke of battles Thesh would never have to face - for the sake of them both. At the end of the images, he would see a battle between Maliphant and P Placeholder 0128 that ended win a force storm consuming a portion of Hoth, and sending the two reeling; but Maliphant was sent to the Nether.​

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It was here that the memories seemed to end - but there was an urge with it, a strong sensation that after months of removal from the known galaxy, Maliphant ended up somewhere in the Core Worlds.​

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And with that, the connection broke - what remained of the darkness that was left for Thesh disappeared. It was a spell that Maliphant had cast before his departure, it seemed, and Thesh’s identity was the trigger for it - a reason the Sith Inquisitors didn’t manage to find him, it seemed.​

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Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

A deep, dark void was all that stared back at the boy through the Force; an empty pit of despair, a vacuum writhe with endless nothingness, it dragged on and on into the infinite expanses of time and space and pulled him by tantalizing hook into the abyss itself. So certain that he would follow, though there was naught to reach for, naught to sense. Hours seemed to pass in the blink of an eye as he waded through that darkness with nary a single pinprick of light to guide the way. No voice echoed back through the void, no whispered words from his Master's lips. To say that he swam among silence would have done it a disservice, for the muted vacuity felt deafening. On and on he tumbled, until the black was blacker than the universe had ever witnessed, and the silence more desolate.

And then it came to him, slowly at first like a solitary singer in some far off room. A crescendo which rippled through that emptiness and ignited the void into existence, each decibel painting a new portrait before him; Harper's Retreat sprawled before him now, though not from any vantage he had witnessed it before. Like a phantom he manifested his way through walls and floors, frantically following a path preconceived by another as his consciousness was drawn, shot like an arrow toward its target; deep into the catacombesque tunnels housed within its bowels. Thesh did not know these tunnels for he had never walked them, and yet he moved with a sense of purpose and understanding all the same. A marionette under the maniacal whims of the puppet master.

From there the fragile world which had been conjured up crumbled away into chaos. Snippets of another's lives were played out before him, and through them he witnessed the fall of his Master; the unruliness of the infamous Darkstaff, its destruction on a world shrouded in ice and snow, and soon thereafter the storm which ripped that barren landscape apart, the broiling planes of the Nether... and then nothing.

The boy could hardly breathe as the void once more enveloped him in its inky embrace. His lungs seemed aflame, his heart crushed under some unseen hand, while his mind reeled from cinematic feature he'd been presented with. Had it all been for naught? Had he returned to a home that was as hollow as the abyss, to a Master that had been consumed by the Nothing? The fury which had bubbled forth and permitted him to see such visions returned with a vengeance at the helplessness of it all, and without much thought for easing from his ruminations he began to pull back from the mental fortress.

And yet it seemed that the Force was not yet done with him. As the boy roused himself once more he was overcome by a sudden nagging sensation, an urge which drew his consciousness far from the Outer Rim and toward the Core Worlds... and that impression was run through with the presence of his Master.

Maliphant was somewhere in the Core, and Arcturus had every intention of finding out where...

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The Core Worlds was an area of the Known Galaxy which was teeming with life, and which housed many habitable planets. The space lanes were filled with traffic, though the wonders of hyperspace travel kept him from running into other vessels, and star systems flew by the viewing port of his starship quick as lightning. There were of course the obvious worlds to visit. Corellia, Alderaan, and Balmorra were among those he had initially considered searching, but their proximity in or near Republic Space left him wary. As much as he wanted to avoid it, Arcturus was slowly beginning to realize that the most fruitful place to begin his search was likely to be Coruscant, what many considered to be - or have been - the heart of the Galaxy. It wasn't somewhere he was particularly thrilled about visiting, though. Its long and arduous history left it an unpredictable melting pot, filled with rebellious sectors, volatile gangs, and both patrols and hastily strewn together militia which left the undercity feeling choked and oppressive.

Given the various aspects of the visions he'd received back on Bastion, the boy highly doubted he'd find any information on the planet's surface. In fact, he was certain it would be his undoing. So the undercity would have to do.

For all he knew though nobody would know anything.

For all he knew Maliphant truly was in the Nether.

And that worried him more than any standing militia or tumultuous ganglands.

Darth Empyrean

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Thesh’s question had led him to the Underworld of Coruscant - dank and seedy as it was. THe crowds were thick with stink as he danced between them, and his questions were met with questionable stares and more aggressive shoves at times - nobody was interested in interacting with the young man; nor tell him where a man that looked anything like his ‘Master’ existed.​

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Eventually, he was pressed into a nearby Cantina - smoke filling the air, visible from the harsh blue light that bathed everything in that flickering warmth. A fan spun slow above a few drunk patrons, and a distant music box that offered half the quality of music that was needed - scratching and contorted as it sang hits from the Outer Rim.​

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A few eyes moved to meet Thesh’s, but they only moved to look away again. A shove came from behind as a larger alien entered, and forced Thesh into a man sitting at the bar - young as he was, long as Maliphant’s own, but his face was far less terrifying. Looking up, the man cocked a brow and offered a wild, drunken smile -​

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“How can I help ya, kid?”, he said beaming.​

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Arcturus Dinn​