Private When The Hammer Falls

[Arcturus Dinn]

The pounding of metal rang throughout the workshop, sending occasional bright sparks into the dimly lit air around its hollow conductor. An oppressive heat hung heavy within, as small living clay constructs kept the bellows pumping to fan the flames of the blacksmiths forge. Every now and then a sizzle resounded when a bead of sweat saw fit to dash itself against the unnaturally scalding surface of the anvil.​

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All around the one named Sandman lay a mess of projects. finished, partially complete, or outright abandoned. Each frantically cast aside for the next in an effort to keep ever in motion. The room was rank as he toiled, days worth of sweat and humidity building up until it became almost unbearable; if the man noticed, however, he didn't seem to show it. Instead he continued to bring the hammer down on the makings of a longsword.​

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His lips moved soundlessly, and the Force flowed through the space between them. Eyes were rather misty, unfocused, and a steady trickle of blood slithered from his palm down the length of the blade, to become imbued within the countless folds of metal therein.​

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It was a pretty dingy workshop in truth, the structure largely made of wood, with stone reinforcements around the forge itself. Beams were sagging under the aged weight of it all, cobwebs hung lazily in the rafters, and more than one of the windows whistled as the wind pushed through busted panes. A simple bedroll was crammed into one corner, and much of the floorspace was taken up by countless shelves and armoires filled to the brim with books and vials, jars of strange specimens, and other such curios.​

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Impossible to find what was of worth, in truth, though the one who tended to the forge would have no trouble distinguishing between his horde.​

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Who knew how long Arcturus Dinn had been away from the light of realspace. Who knew how long he'd toiled within the depths of the Nether, project after project keeping his troubled thoughts at bay. Where once he'd been little more than skin and bones, a boy on the brink of death, now stood a man whose muscles were toned into an almost unrecognizable strength. Though the Force flowed through him and into his projects, each blow he dealt was of his own arm - there had been no yielding to the metaphysical aide available to him.​

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Just a constant rising and falling of the hammer.​

 

[Darth Empyrean]

The heat of the forge and expended effort of Arcturus created a tumultuous environment- amplified by the rampant force energies of the Nether it was as though the entire workshop had become the forge. The air was hazy and dry, littered with the metal shavings of weapons and the dust known well within the Nether.​

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All that was pulled tight as a foreign entity began to encroach. It carried with a debilitating cold - and anything near the workshop retreated from its disgusting sensation. A creeping dread announced the presence of a god, but when the door opened a middle aged smuggler entered.​

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He seemed normal, despite the sensation of oil on one's skin in his presence. He had soft brown curls, stood a meager 5'6", with a coat two sizes too large for him. For a moment, there was nothing odd about him - let alone why he would be within the Nether, until he looked upon Arcturus with black eyes, flooded with dark energies.​

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A foreign voice, barely recognizable came from his mouth - overlapping with a dozen others.​

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"So you're the Sandman?', he said with a slight curiosity, finger dragging across a dust covered sword without a hilt.​

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Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

He sensed the chilling presence first in the way in which his formerly glowing project became practically unmalleable. It lay across the anvil in an unyielding form, though thankfully he noticed the shift before the hammer pounded against it. The last thing he needed was to shatter the untempered blade... Days worth of work gone in an instance should such folly be taken.​

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The sweat which coated him felt like a winters breeze, forming icicles over his flesh; as though he had taken a dive into some hole in the ice on Hoth, plummeting into waters so far in the negative that his heart might well stop all at once.​

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Of course the icicles were not real, nor the plunge, but that did not stop his mind from suddenly racing with thoughts of it and more.​

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The boy looked up from his project, hair matted to his slick brow, and observed as the stranger crossed the threshold into his workshop. It was not often that he was bothered here, by familiar or strange individuals. Most sought him out at his shopfront. He tilted his head softly to one side, one brow raising in peaked curiosity, then one by one he set things aside. Tongs used to hold the tang of his worked blade, hammer, and then his heat-wicking gloves.​

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He stepped around the anvil, wiping his brow with the back of his hand and streaking soot in a darkened line in his wake, while his icy gaze fell upon the stranger. A smuggler seeming out of place, one might argue out of time entirely. Arcturus might have mistaken him for a lost soul who had unknowingly wandered into the shelter of the Shadows if not for the words which left his mouth.​

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Or the blackened eyes which fixed his.​

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"That is what they've taken to calling me" he confirmed, with a rather languid nod of his head. "And you? By what moniker are you known?" Those eyes, vacuous pits of nebulous void, told a strange story of their own, but in that moment Arcturus could not quite pin it. Something was most definitely amiss, however.​

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Darth Empyrean​

 

[Darth Empyrean]

"Now? Darth Empyrean."​

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The man let his gaze shift from the incomplete swords back to Arcturus. His hands rested behind his back - another familiar gesture. His gate was calculated and slow - as thought he danced around invisible obstacles on the ground.​

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"I'm surprised you haven't recognized me already, Arcturus. How has your journey of self discovery been?"​

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Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

It took just a minute longer for the pins to finally fall, and when they did the frosty glare began to soften.​

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"Father..?"​

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The form was not one he'd seen before, but the peculiarities? The all too familiar look in his eyes, and the way he held himself and moved, it was impossible to miss now. Confusion was wrought across his expression, taking him back from man to boy in the process despite Arcturus' best efforts to avoid such. He rolled back his shoulders to regain some composure, and then took a slight step forward. It might have been mistaken for timidity, but the boy was merely... hesitant.​

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He'd been duped before, after all.​

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"New form, new name, it seems my discoveries have been naught in comparison to your own. The winds of the Nether have been quiet where news is concerned; are you well?" Stranger and stranger, the puzzle pieces did not seem to slot quite so well as they perhaps ought to have.​

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It took him a moment more to realize he'd never actually responded to the man.​

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"Tumultuous," the boy confessed, "But lately far more fruitful." Curses, students, children, death... It was no wonder he'd returned to his seat in the Nether, that which had been forged by Kal so many moons ago now. He'd certainly secured a name for himself here, where the crazed state of the Galaxy could not wash against him.​

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Static. Stoic. It was as though nary a day had passed, and yet eons all the same.​

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Darth Empyrean​

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Empyrean frowned, instead turning back to one of the various creations on the wall. He studied them in silence for a moment before he replied;​

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"I knew you were here because the craftsmanship. I see bits of what I taught you in these creations - but more than that, I see you in them. Recognized you in them."​

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"It's how a found you."​

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He moved to find a seat, crossing his legs - with the slight avoidance of Theshs gaze. It took him another moment to find the words;​

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"Arcturus, my form, my nature..."​

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"I'm dead."​

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Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

It was an axe which had claimed the attention of his father, mounted to the wall. One of the few finished creations in truth, it hummed within the Force. A perfectly sharpened edge, and an insatiable thirst. Arcturus found himself following his Master's gaze there, spying the etched runes through the relative darkness it hung within.

"Svolten" he offered with a very loose shrug of his shoulders, believing it might aid in that recognition. "Seems foolish to forge a blade's edge without it..." Maliphant could recognize his work beyond that though, saw Arcturus himself within it. A brief blip of surprise washed over his face, before he schooled it and took a small step forward. His hand reached into one of the drawstring bags attached to his belt, and from inside he pulled a crystalline pebble. All at once his sweat soaked clothes were gone, replaced by a more presentable button down shirt and trousers.

Work thoroughly cast aside, he returned his attention to his father as he sat and waited with baited breath. Even before Maliphant spoke he could tell that there was something potentially dire on his tongue. The hesitation... It was most unlike him.

"Dead?" he whispered, trying to keep his voice from cracking, "What do you mean dead?" A slow blink, then he furrowed his brows. "No, you can't be dead though... You never even met the kids..."

Darth Empyrean

 

[Darth Empyrean]

"Oh, my sweet summer child.", the disphoric puppet of the Dark Lord offered him.​

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The short stature of the man was at odds with what Arcuturus knew of his Father - tall and lean, white hair trailing in complex braids down his back. This figure he had taken was short and poor, carried none of the complexity he was known for. To hear his words from such a foreign being was disorientating, but it was him - he could feel it deeply in the air around them, that familiar strength and assurance.​

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He moved towards Arc and rested a hand on his shoulder, moved it to hold his face with a gentle reassurance.​

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"I hope to meet them, but I...", he said, slowly drawing back and turning away from him.​

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"I am dangerous to you and others. It is... complicated, but I have consumed the Worm Emperor. He fights for control of my body and mind, and I exist fighting both the encroachment of Death and his eternal will. I fear what he will do to those I love."​

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He wandered away to look at the workshop, studying the runes and symbols he had passed onto his student and child.​

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"Did you know I got married? Small ceremony, had more flair dealing with echani politics than anything resembling such. I think I may soon have more uh...", he paused, hesitating before passing over something unsaid.​

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"You should come home. I will need your support, for what I have planned. I will leave you and Srina Talon with great things before I depart from this world. You should speak to her, I would have you be close."​

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Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

As odd as it was to hear the disjointed voice coming from a vessel that most definitely was not his father, the offered words brought with them a very strange sense of comfort. That he stepped closer and touched shoulder then cheek only further cemented it for him, and he found himself looking past the mismatched visage entirely. This was his father... His Master... and he was in some respect dead. It didn't sit comfortably within the lad.​

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A pang of hope swiftly shattered as hands retracted and the vessel turned away from him. An explanation was given, and Arcturus didn't interrupt - he barely even breathed - as his father spoke. He wanted to argue against the assumption that he'd be dangerous to be around, wanted to deny it, but he knew well that feeling. When the curse had first sank its teeth into him he'd felt the same way, and it was only through an excess of work and willpower that he could remain in control of the little beast in his gut.​

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He couldn't imagine what it was like to have a literal entity within you, mixing with your consciousness. "I... I understand" he said with great reluctance. "Your hold of reality, of this vessel, is it... stable?" Arcturus watched as his work was once again cast under the critical eye of his Master. "Is there anything I can do to... to help?"​

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The revelation that he'd been married came as a surprise, though where some might have been offended to be finding out after the fact Arcturus took the news within his stride. Theirs was a big, wide Galaxy, and for the most part Arcturus didn't even really exist within the reality of true space. He wasn't the easiest to get ahold of, nor was his presence necessary. "I'm happy for you, Father," he said instead, and when Maliphant's words slipped into silence, left unsaid, he was smart enough to fill in the blanks. ​

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"A true child..?" Arcturus took another step closer, he could feel his heart thudding some. Were he an ambitious man he'd have felt threatened by such news. He wasn't ambitious, nor was he threatened by it, all he'd wanted from Maliphant was a place to belong. His Master, His Father, His Home. Everything else was inconsequential. If Maliphant had an heir borne of his blood? Well that was likely for the best. "I hope you are blessed."​

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Home... Maliphant wanted him home. That he was still referring to it as such was a good sign in truth, and what small niggling doubts and fears which may naturally have arisen with the news of weddings and potential children dispersed.​

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"And where is home these days, Father?" One hand reached out, and gently settled upon the shoulder of the vessel. "I will come, I will meet your wife if she'll have me. I have been astray too long, I realize that now. Tell me where, and I will come."​

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Darth Empyrean ​

 

[Darth Empyrean]

"No, there is nothing to be done. You will understand more when you see me, but it is as stable as I can sustain it.", he said with a frown.​

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He looked back at him with that same frown as he corrected Arcturus;​

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"There is no need to define another as 'true'. You are as much my child as they will be. Remember that."​

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"Come to Jutrand, Arcturus. I sit in the ivory tower there, forging a new Empire."​

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Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Nothing to be done.​

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There was a niggling frustration which arose within him when those words were uttered. Not directed at his father, of course, but more at the circumstances which kept him in such a cruelly suspended state of contention. "Then I shall trust in that" he said when told that he'd understand better once they were together in person. As stable as he could make it... Despite his best efforts, Arcturus still couldn't help but run through a thousand options in his mind for how he might be able to help with that part at the very least.​

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It didn't matter right now though, did it? Besides, whatever he might think to fashion was not going to be something Maliphant hadn't already considered. Arcturus was the student, after all, and what was the student in comparison to their teacher?​

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When he regained his father's gaze there was a frown to be found, though any concerns he might have had at the sight of it were swiftly diminished by the words that accompanied it. "I am?" he asked, feeling as though all the air had been sucked from the room. Breathless... He felt breathless. Breathless and quite frankly unworthy. He didn't voice that though, instead he took a slow breath and nodded his head.​

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"Jutrand..." That was a world away from their typical haunts, but maybe that was for the best. The Kathol Outback was just as bizarre as the Nether, he'd visited briefly following Ishani's run in with the Pirates. Where else would have been safer to bring his tumultuous lover and their children than a station hidden within the very Rift itself? "Yes, Master. I will seek you there..."​

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He glanced around the workshop floor, across the various shelves of half finished projects, and tried to decide which among them ought to be completed before he pull himself back into Realspace. It was a fruitless endeavor in that moment though, requiring far more focus than he was capable of in the wake of so much news.​

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"I'm glad to hear from you, Father," he said, understanding that he was likely going to have to leave soon. It couldn't be easy to puppeteer a vessel deep within the grips of the Netherworld.​

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Darth Empyrean ​

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Maliphant, Empyrean - Arcturus's father gave him a gentle smile unlike any the Galaxy had seen from him. It expressed itself deeply in the lines of his eyes, the slight twist of his mouth, and lift of his cheeks. He spoke softly -​

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"It's good to speak with you, Arc."​

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And then his form fell to black sand, only to scatter to the wind.​

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Arcturus Dinn​