Private Unraveling Threads

[Corazona von Ascania]

A long story, he said. Cora nodded along with a faint tilt of her head. Soul-searching seemed to be a common thread among younger Jedi, especially after experiencing war. Comparatively, many of them had been raised in rather peaceful environments.

Cora would never forget the first time she'd smelled blood and smoke and rotting flesh; she doubted that Bernard would forget it, either.

He'd condensed his past few decades down to a few sentences, and she couldn't help but wonder about the specifics. What had he seen, what had he lost? Her eyes flicked to the synthflesh lines that peeked out from behind his collar for a few moments, and she averted her gaze before it could linger. They were a little hard to discern in the dim lighting, after all.

"The Light is gracious," Cora murmured in agreement.

But not always straightforward.

She chose not to voice that thought, but something stilled the air around them before Bernard could continue. Pleasant conversation evaporated into a tense silence, their collective attention now drawn to the malevolent presence that enveloped the chamber.

The low hum of Bernard's blade was the only noise among the eerily quiet shadows. Cora retrieved her saber too, but did not yet ignite it. She extended her senses outward, attempting to get a more thorough read on the plumes of smoke as they converged onto each other, yet still somehow seemed to linger in each corner of the room.

From the central mass, a tendril of vapor reached for Bernard, seemingly forming along as it extended closer to the Arkanian Jedi. If he moved, the wisp would redirect its path, seeking to make contact against his skin.

Bernard

 

[Bernard]

The enemy remained nebulous and undefined. The mass of shadow and smoke continued to coil and twist, reaching outward with probing tendrils where the mass had already taken on a more solid shape. Within the darkness, something humanoid emerged. A distinct head formed, broken apart and reshaped by the many distortions that broke its form, each one caused by distinct flows of smoke and shadow that danced in chaotic flux. Bernard could see the shape forming. Through shadow and darkness, he sensed the silhouette of a being buried beneath the shadows.

He tipped his saber forward, pointing it toward the swirling mass, and placed his other arm behind his back. Presenting his side to the shadows, he aligned his front foot with his blade's direction and placed his back foot perpendicular to it.

The silhouette looked more and more human the longer he looked at it. And while its features remained indistinct, the presence of a person inside that mass of chaos became unmistakable.

Bernard aimed his saber, painting a mental target on the presence's heart.

The chaos of shadows seemed to respond to the shift in his focus, breaking its flow to strengthen the barrier of smoke between the cyan blade and the heart of darkness.

It didn't matter. In one explosive burst of motion, Bernard surged forward several steps and thrust his blade directly toward the silhouette's chest. The lightsaber sank through the shadows, burning away the darkness with blinding light, and found its mark.

Only for the solid form to burst into a hundred different tendrils that broke away and scattered. Their paths curved to strike at Bernard from different directions. Some came from above, some from the sides, and others ran along the ground to strike from below.

The Jedi leapt backward, twirling his blade left and right to cut through tendrils as they surged toward him. Two, five, eight, thirteen tendrils were cut down, disappearing in puffs of smoke where they were cut down. He cut down several more, but they came too fast to properly count, and soon Bernard gave up with his attempt to keep track.

While most were cut down, one made it through his defense. The tendrils grazed his fingertip and immediately curled tight around each digit. It spread quickly, creating a glove of shadows around his hand. Bernard tried to shake the shadows, violently swinging his hand from side to side, but the shadows didn't relent. They clung to him, even beginning to climb along his arm. In one leap, they spread past his elbow and half-way up to his shoulder.

Bernard's eyes widened. He cut through the air with his lightsaber, aiming to sever the tendril's connection to the mass of shadows. The tendril curved, and his blade did little more than burn ozone into the air.

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Bernard stood between Cora and the writhing mass of shadows, blade at the ready. Eager as she was to witness the saberplay of a seasoned Jedi, the ambiguous nature of their enemy took her attention. Whatever it was, it oozed the Dark like a thick, inky miasma.

Out of reflex, she attempted to draw on the Light. It was difficult in a place like this, in a temple seeped in ancient sacrifice and murky corruption. She and Bernard were the only sources that opposed this, and the structure around them seemed to bare down upon them, intent on snuffing out the luminous presence of the Jedi.

Bernard surged forward, dealing a blow that would've killed any corporeal being that was hiding among the clouds of smoke. Blue plasma sizzled and hissed as it burned through the Dark, but the shadows were now on the offensive. Innumerable tendrils burst from the haze and converged upon him from all angles, forcing Cora back further.

Bernard's movements were quick and clean, the type that were calculated in milliseconds and employed with the ease of muscle memory – it was intuition forged from decades and training and war.

The blonde bit into her cheek out of reflex as her posture tensed and her saber flared to life. A second blue blade hummed low before seeking to slice at the shadowy appendages, but they were moving too quickly, and Bernard was still within their center – she didn't want to accidentally land a strike on him. Only two of the tendrils were dispersed by her blade, but that wasn't enough.

No, it wasn't nearly enough, especially as one of the tendrils curled around his fingers and enveloped his hand, then his arm, and further still. With Bernard at the core of the shadows, Cora couldn't reliably see what was happening to him, but gaps in the haze gave her glimpses of his hand as he shook it aggressively in an attempt to rid himself of the dark vapor.

Instinct had Cora's hand surging outward with her palm flung forward. The Dark here was idly oppressive, but right now it's focus was on Bernard. Light flared from her open palm, not a brilliant sun but not a candle's dying flicker, and attempted to burn away what she could of the shadows that ensnared him.

Bernard