In times of great upheaval, Lirka Ka always found herself festering within the cold metal chambers of the void - careening through the depths of space, on hushed paths lost within the bustling chaos of the endless slew of information that came with traffic within the confines of the Blackwall.
Apotheosis beckoned, on the horizon the rumblings of ancient war renewed. She could feel the rattle in her bones. Change was coming. And in moments of great change, Lirka needed a suffocating silence to think. Her mind was always a whirr with her calculus, plotting, scheming, running the numbers of success and failure. In these barren chambers, she would be alone, a snap of her metal claws and she poofed out of Sith existence for a moment. A good hunter knew how to hide their tracks after all.
Alas, Lirka Ka was never alone. Such a prospect was a fantasy. For her demons would always follow every step, and hateful specters loomed at the back of her mind. Waiting for that moment she’d finally slip and tumble back into nothingness.
For now, that day was yet to come. She would scrap and scrape her way higher and higher, clawing to whatever monstrous heights the path to power demanded. And the Path had presented her with more bloodshed: the plunging bout into the Jungles of New Cov. The Jedi’s temple a place to satiate the growing gluttony for power that which had been denied to her.
A failure, by most metrics. The knowledge she had attempted to procure was just soot within her armor joints now, the Jedi had denied her the opportunity. With the bitter bile of failure in the back of her throat - all she had to show for it was the metallic cylinder clutched before her in clawed hand.
Snap-hiss the saber flared to life, Lirka’s armored form illuminated by the a golden glow born of Kyber.
It was odd, feeling the thing in her hand now. The humble Lightsaber. A weapon that shaped the fate of the Galaxy time and time again. There were easily thousands of them within the Galaxy - yet still Lirka could not help but feel a compulsion towards the thing. Manic pride had left her avoiding the things for decades, even as she walked the hallowed halls of the Sith. Pride had turned to hunger, hunger born from the shriveled hearts of a pitiful thing wreathed in dark iron.
The blade of gleaming energy felt heavy in her hands. It was a cosmic weight, writhing into her being. Scratching. Gnashing. Clawing. She could feel her eyes locked upon the golden blade unblinking - to most such a weapon mean nothing. But to Lirka, it was the simplest things that sent ripples so deep. She could feel the humanity she had fought so hard to scorch away ebbing back up like the same horrid bile of failure. In the gold she saw the eyes of a disappointed Sephi woman glaring back at her, a face hazy from a life she had subsumed.
Would the woman-that-was-Lirka have wielded such a weapon had darkness not sunk its fangs into her? The misguided honor of a dead woman walking the Jedi’s path rather than the ravenous hunger for power that now threatened to overflow from the Monster who had stolen her name. And for a moment ever-so-brief, a glimmer of regret born of the disappointment from motherly eyes. But it was only a moment. A flash. A reminder. And that regret turned to wrath, anger, a bubbling hatred that could only be responded to with a roar of savage intent as she broke her unblinking lock upon the saber’s blade and swung the thing through the air with the whistling of energy as she slashed into a nearby console. Let the weight of the thing be damned. It could fight her all it wanted. She would overcome. She would always overcome. She was monster that had consumed Lirka Ka. The blade swung again, and again, and again, as the pure loathing that Lirka felt for the shimmers of humanity within her horrid form manifested in the only way it could: violence.
The Dark Path was a winding thing. Its obstacles were many, the Primordial Darkness sung a siren song trying to lead the worthy away from the Path and into the depths of oblivion to join the suffocated masses of the weak that would not survive its clarion call. For a moment she had stumbled. Never again.
Those who could become Strong would need a luminary, always. One willing to sacrifice everything on the path to power, who would venerate the chaos that weeded the worthy from the weak. If they were ever to respect the Path, she would need to make them accept her as Sith. She would declare her name loud to the Galaxy, the most wretched of the Councillors that would be christened as the next of the Dark Lords no matter how many throats she needed to slit to get there. Let this gold bleed red, let the Dark Side surge through this monstrous form once more. And the Sith would see the luminary they had never known they needed.
Slashing. Hacking. She could feel the weapon’s weight soften with each blow, as the hate within her black hearts pulsated through every twisted muscle. Soon, with a squall of technological gore before her as burning gashes had been torn through just about every surface she could reach, Lirka thumbed the saber’s activator and let the golden hue disappear. Leaving her only the dimness of her surroundings.
Turning on her heel, with the thunder of metal boots stomping on the floor Lirka stormed from her chamber. Another sliver of humanity crushed in her claw, another weakness purged in the fires of rage - war was coming, and there could be no room for weakness in the days to come. The Sith would see their bloodshed, and Lirka would see it amplified a hundred fold till the mania of conflict consumed the minds of those unworthy to walk her path.
So did Darkness decree. Peace was a lie, there is only chaos.
