Private A Broken Mirror [Gunnr]

[Darth Carnifex]

He had come back from Thule, his mind weary with thoughts. Meeting with the wayward cousin Mori had been enlightening, although he was burdened with the premonitions of doom that surrounded Mori like a funeral shroud. Neither he nor his other had been skilled in divination, they had leveraged the skills of others to peer through the undulating tapestry of the future to discern what course of action they would take. Yet, even then, he could not shake the feeling that whatever awaited Mori in the Deep Core of the Galaxy would bring about her end.

A shame and a pity, for one so talented among their number to rush to their destruction. Had circumstances been different, he might have tried to make her see a different path. But she was steadfast in her convictions, she would not be led astray from the path that she had paved for herself. Though it may destroy her, it would be her end to face; no one else had set her down that road. Few in the galaxy could count themselves among Mori, for the destinies of uncounted trillions were dictated by another. Even if it all ended in ruin, she could confidently proclaim that she was truly free.

Demiurge pinched the bridge of his nose, settling down into the exquisitely carved wroshyr chair before shuffling through several flimsiplast documents spread out over his desk. Flimsiplast was an archaic method of transcription in the modern era, it had even been considered archaic during the reign of Palpatine the Great, but Demiurge held a certain fondness for the rustic nature of physical transcription. There was also the security element, sensitive documents could be easily stored, safeguarded, and even destroyed if necessary without the complications and vulnerability of purely digital databanks. Not all of Malsheem used stylus and flimsiplast, however, but the Dark Lords maintained a tradition of keeping highly sensitive information close to their chest.

He was through reviewing numerous documents when the door leading to his office chimed, an indication that his servant outside wished to speak. "Enter," came his rumbling voice, and the door opened with the hiss of automated servos. The being who stepped through the threshold was peculiar even for Malsheem standards, their entire body concealed behind a flowing featureless gown of purple fabric, their face consisting of a metal breathing apparatus with two wide bug-like goggles protecting their sensitive eyes from the office's mundane lighting. When the creature spoke, it was a whirl of clicks, clacks, and unintelligible sputtering. Fortunately, those noises were translated into Galactic Basic through an auditory device grafted into the creature's neck.

"The Madame Seneschal wishes to speak with you, Lord of Lords."

Well, now that was interesting.

Demiurge and Gunnr hadn't yet benefited from a prolonged interaction. He had always kept to himself, even when returning to the fold of his other's grand domain. Even so, he had quickly noticed that the Seneschal had always looked at him differently, sometimes in a misgiving manner. Demiurge had not endeavored to enamor himself with any of his other's wives or concubines, he did not experience the same lascivious drive that Carnifex did. It had been quickly surmised that when they divided into two separate entities, Carnifex inherited their original self's sexuality and Demiurge had been left with a benign asexual disposition.

Still, she had come to him for a reason, and he would not turn her away.

"Bid her enter, I will speak to her."

He then quickly tidied up his desk and moved to stand next to it, awaiting the Seneschal's arrival.

Gunnr Zambrano ​

 

[Gunnr Zambrano]

No force but desperation removed Gunnr from her beloved's side. Resting in the ministrations of his three singularly gifted children, Kaine Zambrano remained in the silent and mystic care of Adara Raxis , Gunnr feeling only Adara's will to do no harm to him, and desire to be useful. Braxus' unfortunate daughter became a solid companion as any to the Seneschal during these harrowed times. Yes, with one who carried the powers of death between her fingers, Koe was momentarily safe.

"Hello Kaine." Dressed in a conservative robe of golden silks and burgundy underlay, Gunnr swept in with a shoulder-cloak of deep burgundy armourweave emblazoned with the emblem of her marriage. Zambrano and Fitz-Kierke, two noble Houses from the Old Ways of Panatha. Carefully chosen, a dictation to Demiurge of where she stood. In their brief communications, the man seemed to believe his asexuality an impediment to Gunnr's affections.

"You returned, quite right of you, too. We have need of your unique…" Somehow in his mind, removing the sensuality of the man she married would remove her dotage. While prior to Koemi's illness, Gunnr was content to give the man space, she could no longer rely on patience for this Demiurge to understand the truth outside his preconceptions.

How fickle the mind of one who would think she chose her soulmate for his body alone. Gunnr refused to separate the two in her mind, while giving space to Demiurge to discover his own way. Did her Koe not do the same to her, once? Waiting until she returned to him in their tempest? The Seneschal, however grandly dressed, carried an unwanted fatigue in the corners of her eyes, the tug of lips staying prim out of practice to hide the yawn.

Gunnr growled, pretty but neutral features contorting in a scowl. "Rgh! One look at you, and all pretence falls into its' own garrotte. I know you would not acknowledge I am part of your collective life, but you are half of my life-mate. I cannot speak but in honesty with you. Kaine, I willingly gave you distance, not wanting to disgust you, but now?"

Shaking her head, hair piled into a hasty bun atop the crown of her skull, Gunnr stepped further into Demiurge's study and hugged her cloak around her. Fatigue poured off the woman in cold rags, until in the temperature controlled realm of Malsheem she needed the warmth of the cloak. Its' familiarity too, another of the items of clothing Koe doted upon her, having prepared it prior to her resurrection so she might not have to worry of such pedantic things.

"When any issue or problem or wandering of my mind is too unfathomable, I talk it through with Koe, as he does the same with me. It might seem anathema to you, but we married for much more than the obvious. I am his chief advisor, my years are not as many as yours, but the events within them compensate. And… I find myself stationed perpetually at his bedside, gladly so, but… I keep thinking there must be a solution I can't see. Braxus rouses Malsheem to the soggy edge of our cloning resources, Pom and her Nightsisters prepare a ritual to expunge nigh ten thousand souls, and still I sit beside the man, I hold him, and watch the softness form on his face. Trusting me, to… trusting us to save him. You are the closest I can get to speaking with my soulmate… and I need you.

Will you speak with me, not as a meaningless lover, but as a friend, or shall I discuss all this with the wall?" Gunnr pushed her fingers up the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. "Apologies. Koe and I, we're used to hiding so little it makes me abrasive, another reason I've given you such distance, not to scare you off. It's… indecently aggravating to see half of my beloved stare at me like I'm nothing."

Darth Carnifex

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Demiurge's expression softened as Gunnr flew into her tirade, himself not raising any objection and allowing her to fully give voice to everything that had burdened her heart and mind. Though he experienced nothing when he looked into Gunnr's eyes, he could understand what his other half saw. She was perfect in every conceivable way, a true creation of love that neither half truly realized was even possible. For a long, long time, their marriages to others were merely an extension of power, something to amplify their own and to create progeny that will succeed them into the coming eons. Anything that bordered on affection was merely a shroud for possessiveness and stark lust.

But not Gunnr. She was special, more than special. Though Demiurge had not been the one to experience those memories with her, Carnifex had gone at length to explain everything in meticulous detail. He had seen the finished product, the culmination of years of tireless work, but he had not been the one to do it. To admire the painting but not the one to paint it, to experience the symphony but not to compose it. He would never truly understand as Carnifex understood, that was something that he would always remain at arm's length from.

Still, Demiurge approached and placed an appreciative hand on Gunnr's shoulder. "Though I am not Him, we are nonetheless tied. My life force is bound to Him, His peril is mine as well. He has told me much about you, Gunnr, He would do little else when we communed in private after I had returned. There is nothing that He cherished more than thee. As long as that unshakable trust endures, then I am at your disposal. Not only as a steadfast ally, but as a dear friend." His hand slipped down to cup Gunnr's own, not as a lover but as a friend, placing the other overtop her hands as he held them tightly.

"Only through our combined efforts can we save Him from this wretched fate. He has entrusted you, your children, and Ahani's children to watch over Him as he recovers. He has entrusted Braxus and Pom to steady His life force. And He has entrusted me to seek out the only solution that can save us both from oblivion." He pulled Gunnr close and gently kissed her forehead, his voice dropping to a whisper as he revealed what he has found. "And I have discovered a chance, a fragment of hope, that will see us through this strife. Long have He and I suspected that the solution to His condition was the recombination of ourselves into one single being, undivided and pure. How to achieve this has been lost to us, but I have studied the ancient writings of Mortis and held aloft the Mortis Dagger."

A brief smile touched Demiurge's lips, "There must be a sacrifice, like none that have come before it. Our vessel is being groomed as we speak, and the time draws close to when we will bring about the Conjunction."

Gunnr Zambrano ​

 

[Gunnr Zambrano]

"He spoke of me? Told you so much, did he? My love. I am all astonishment, and here I've been staying as far off as I could. What a fool I am." The emotion built from a vulnerability she refused in front of all others, emitted not as the weeping of a delicate flower, but the spine and thorn of the vine. A rich and well groomed possessive anger. Arm muscles clenched, fingers tight. Demiurge's hand rested on her shoulder, and Gunnr stared at it, lips drifting open. This was her Koe, the man she imagined in his younger days, before the illness stole his sensation, his ability to swim within deep emotional rivers. "How could he have thought I wanted less of his burden?"

While she was manicured, her tenacity shrouded the gardener's hand. While she became the perfect spouse, her Koemi was shifted and bound into the mutuality of their connection, softening certain edges in their privacy, shifting others to adamantine strength. When he took her hands, her fingers unclenched and sought his, holding tight enough to crush lesser beings.

"I refuse to lose him. The Force can bow before our collective determination, I will not lose my lifemate, I will not lose the sensations I've seen flitter away. This… curse cannot have him. I forbid it." Her lip wobbled, fierce emerald eyes as caustic as acid upon anything in the room other than the form of her beloved. The adamant will of a proud individual soaked through, a warrior's shield-beaten challenge to the entirety of the universe which would be fought if it had to be done. "Neither can this oblivion have you. You are him. Not a twin like Girak-Kaine and Magnus, but the same man, who grew as a boy with the most frightful parents I was all too happy to know died twice for their crimes."

Little did Gunnr know the images in her mind of the infant she was witnessing Darth Carnifex's final cessation of Ashriel & Hazael's souls in the Netherworld were the truth of her, an uncorrupted image from her infancy trapped in Hell, clutching to her mother's terrified breast.

"Watch over him we do, Raya stabilizes, but without the filter of my sons, her Light I fear would be too much. I know most Sith would condemn me for allowing the girl to ply her trade at all, but she is a potent and near-infinite energy for his sustenance. I… I haven't slept in weeks. I don't know how you do it, meditating sleep away then continuing on… but he needs me and I give all I have." She sunk into him gladly, the restraint of her perceived disgust vanishing for the comfort of her life's bond. Exhaustion shivered unbidden her muscles, Gunnr's lips gaped, face propelled into his shoulder as naturally as her lungs required breath. Demiurge was the truth of him, and in her way Gunnr feared that truth was as others saw the Dark Lord, empty or incapable of the affections she knew she possessed on his behalf. Hands drifting across his back, Gunnr rocked lightly in his arms, taking a moment to do nothing but commune and breathe within the trust she knew she could rely on eternally.

"There's a chance. By Nussyn and Nereus there's a chance." Mortis… while not seeing the place for herself, she heard the stories from Koe and Ahani. A troubling and chaotic place, but one she hoped to see with her own eyes. To feel the florae and the power of its' passionate life. Her face drifted from his shoulder, seeking the lines on his face in their subtle difference from her Koe's, the crinkle of a few more laugh lines and smile lines, where Koe lacked such expressiveness. "What is this sacrifice? Does it have to do with Pom's nine thousand souls? Kaine, what is it? Tell me, no more of this… holding back."

Malsheem canted from the off-kilter toward a degree of greater normalcy for the warrior-bride, enough knowledge from her searches to allow a sense of foreboding to consume her potential joy. "Let me help you."
Darth Carnifex

 

[Darth Carnifex]

What Demiurge was about to tell Gunnr was known only a select few, an even tighter circle of conspirators than the Seneschal of Malsheem was accustomed to. But the time for obfuscation and omission had passed between them, there was no reason to keep her in the dark any longer. Carnifex once told Demiurge that this moment would come, but neither expected it to be this soon. Extraneous stress on the body had accelerated the deterioration, and the timetable had been accelerated. Demiurge only hoped that their vessel would be ready in time.

He gathered himself to speak, for he was not accustomed to speaking at length about secrets. "For a long time, our collective will had been bent on creating a vessel strong enough to permanently hold our fractured spirit. Our first attempts failed, the vessels were not strong enough. But we learned, we always learn. The heretic Kahlil Noble was to be our next prospect, but we evaluated him to be less than substantial for our purposes." The boy Kahlil had been a colossal failure, the ritual inscriptions carved into his body having gone to waste after they had been cleansed by the Jedi Master Valery Noble . Fortunately, they had been able to use a blank template of Kahlil to continue their experiments, creating the Dark Mirror Kaahlil to serve as their replacement vessel.

"But not all was lost, we have made great strides in the creation of a new vessel. We have tested him extensively. He remains wholly bound to our will, he cannot act independently of our directives. He is the one we sent to Korriban to face Kahlil in the ruins of our old laboratory, to see how our wayward son stacked up against the mirror. Not only that, but he is also the one we sent to Ossus with a thermonuclear bomb, destroying Knossa City; a settlement the Jedi had spent dearly on its reconstruction."

Such operations would have been known to Gunnr, for she would have been privy to the operational details before and after they had been concluded. The Dark Mirror was currently on Nar Shaddaa, tracking down another of the Dark Lord's errant children.

"In order to fulfil its purpose, the vessel must be taken to a font of great power; a nexus of the Cosmic Force. He must take in his hands the Mortis Dagger and plunge it into his heart, only then can the moment of transference begin. We will be made whole once more, and the identity of the vessel will be obliterated. The two will again be one."

Gunnr Zambrano ​

 

[Gunnr Zambrano]

"One of the children… the sacrifice is..." Gunnr stepped backward, the shiver to her shoulders accented by the flitter of her cape. "… one of the children?"

Eyes opened to the quiet dignity of his villainy, Gunnr inhaled and pulled the armourweave cloak around herself. The years of swollen bellies, seeing her sister-wives bear and bear. Traitors and disappointments swathed in dozens, with the few worthy loyal offspring. Joyce at the lead, the Heir of the Lords.

"He's been searching for the right vessel. All this time, my sisters, their endless pregnancies, the frequent jaunts, you were seeking the right vessel for the fractures of your soul? Were you and he so desperate you…" The cost to his wives' bodies, to the concubines or few slim nights' pleasures which echoed with the same screams, the same swollen bellies was as staggering a thought as the plunging of Mortis' blade into another's heart. "But I've always known, haven't I? His children are nothing but an extension of himself, and thus of you. Nothing but genetic material, which usually fails. I never batted an eye, when Braxus purged half of them those years ago, I stayed with Ahani and our children, waited out the screams and sounds of battle which died away so quickly. I knew across the Galaxy, whatever unfortunate progeny displeased or untrustworthy, were being snuffed out.

The communique from Koemi firm in my mind, the children in my rooms. I knew the wails of the other mothers, but… he would never do that to me, not me. Not my children. Not mine. My children he knew not only by their names but their laughter. By the way they worked so stringently to please him, for a glimpse of a smile. Did you know that's Raya's reason for living?"

The beloved of the butcher looked down at her hands, which peeked from the burgundy fabric as the fingers intertwined.

"To make her father belly laugh and smile. It's what keeps Raya… well, Raya. It's what keeps her fragile Light-aligned mind from shredding under the weight of the Dark in this place. Although, Ahani enlightened me as to Raya's true function, and it does make my soul grieve a little to know what the child is for."

Blanks filled like water in a fired clay pot, operations and undergoings she knew but lacked context for in the deeper web of their meanings. "I knew the tenuousness of being his. But I never doubted him, since I was a girl looking at his face in Qocia, holding my grandfather's spear. Many told me of the dangers being near a Zambrano. Feth them, I looked into his eyes and knew if there was such a thing as safety in this universe, it resided with you. Loving you, it's not… I learned to be mightier than doubts and fears a long time ago. A rare sensation in this Court, but one I hold to as protons hold to neutrons.

When Girak-Kaine was the height of our knees, and whimpered about an event yet to happen, when he gained his foresight with nightmares, his twin so protective over him they were one entity, Koe folded his arms around him. There was no shame for a son, whose powers made an idiot of his tongue. When Viggo was small, then Taiya… they knew their father in a way few Zambrano babes ever dared… So. More proof, another helping of proof in the thousands of moments that my husband loves me, not as an incubator but… Kahlil, he had Raya for a while, tried to get her to stay with him. All this time…"

The Seneschal stood in the shock of her settled state, truth splayed in a way the Demiurge likely would not know to intend. A woman told her husband's proclivities combined to create life for his own ends, but in the whispered finale, was that not what all men did? Was that not why men desired sons, to live a little longer in their image? Gunnr let her eyes drift shut and nearly dozed standing, the images of Kahlil in her mind faded, as the images of the other failed offspring faded with time.

What was a vessel to a bride?

"When that time comes, I will not see the vessel fail. Neither will I mourn his passing. So few achieve the zenith of their purpose, it is a glorious thing to meet such end. Where, then? A Nexus of the Cosmic Force? I assume you have one in mind, or are we encroaching on my brother's? Perhaps one of Ahani's beloved stars? I spent too long with my soul in tatters, although Koe probably told you that part, too. What he didn't tell you was how it felt to be without a piece of one's soul. If anything it makes me gracious to your and Koe's condition."

Darth Carnifex

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Your children were always destined for greatness, we would never imperil them." Those born to the six wives of the Dark Lord were considered far greater than those born to the lesser concubines, who were often separated from their mothers shortly after birth and trained to be killers. Few were rarely reunited with those that gave birth to them, the majority taught loyalty to their father and drive all thoughts of mothers from their mind. And when they no longer fulfilled their purpose, they were cast aside.

But not the favored progeny, never them.

When the Dark Lord had thinned His descendants through a vicious purge, it had been explained as a grim necessity. To excise the weak so that the strong had room to grow was, in the Dark Lord's mind, had been an absolute requirement. He did not mourn those that were culled, He gave them no second thought. What was done was done, it could not be undone, and nothing could be gained from dwelling on such thoughts.

"We are still searching for the place of conjunction, it has yet to reveal itself. When it does, we will make to secure it with all means possible. We will no doubt require your aid and that of Ahani's, such strength will be indispensable." Carnifex had conveyed to Demiurge just how much trust the Dark Lord placed in these two wives of His, it was greater than that given to the other wives combined. Ahani had opened His eyes to the greater mysteries of the universe, her unique way of interpreting the Cosmic Force changing much of how He thought of the galaxy. Gunnr had renewed that kindling of true love that they had both believed long extinguished, for there was truly no better companion to be a constant at the Dark Lord's side.

"He entrusts you with the greatest responsibility, Gunnr. He would choose no other."

Gunnr Zambrano ​

 

[Gunnr Zambrano]

"No, we most certainly will not. But, children need playmates and half-siblings do make consistently good bodyguards. It does not go remiss to have genetically similar companions around in case of emergencies." She sighed and stared at the ceiling. How to explain it to the side of the man, who held no desire to enter such spheres? "Having a woman bear your child for any reason other than love? Is cruelty. We do not ruin our bodies for nothing, nor do we take our ruin lightly for little more than a shadow. Those concubines, every one, they will know precisely their due before they become part of our lives. Their bodies will be vehicles of devotion and worship, and treated with regard. Once their task is done, they will again leave with honour in their hearts. I know intimately well how a mother's repressed anger can emanate in their offspring, regardless of whether they're seen. Pain survives distance, and those children will learn to idolize a mother while they deify their father. Perhaps a Nussyn-like figure can be assigned to the concubines' children. We have seen too often how many fail."

Gunnr's lips quirked up, eyelids weary and facing down to their feet not in fear or submission, but in tired thought.

"Yes, to me in trust is the man. His vulnerabilities and his prides, the warmth of his bed and the cool demeanour of advice and decisions. I hold his and Braxus' wills in my hands, to accomplish their designs upon our worldcraft. Neither would I choose another to bond as much as he. He earned my trust and my love, kept all his promises and in turn I learned how to see beyond his cold rage. I laid my potential for immortality at his feet, a gift of the ultimate trust." A shiver washed over her, raised her shoulders as she rubbed her arms under the cloak.

"I can assure you there is nothing you can do to will Ahani anywhere. I love our wife, but…" Gunnr shook her head, stepped away and slid her hand on the desk. "She disappears and shows up exactly where the Force abides, not where we think she's needed. The Cosmic Force is a capricious and complicated Master, and she is its' most… efficacious student."

"Why thanks, love you too." Through what seemed a portion of wall, Ahani materialized. The fabric of the metal fluctuated and wobbled, sounds of strain and clicks from the surrounding area until Ahani leaned against it, hands still in her pockets (as they often were), and it was again as solid as Gunnr's faith. "S'not the time yet to find the Cosmic Nexus, nor is it time for you to end up Him."

The Echani matron stared at Demiurge, sized the man's presence as she kicked her foot off the wall and moseyed through his space. Shorter by a sizeable distance, Ahani took up no lesser amount of space with the wafts of confident power that permeated around her.

"When it is the time, will you tell us? Or, bless me, walk away with a jaunty angle to your cap?" Gunnr stifled a yawn.

"Hah! Me, in a jaunty cap? Perish the thought… although you, Demiurge… you I might be able to teach. Aw baby, you're going to fall asleep standing up. C'mon now, time for bed." Silver hair tossed up in a loose ponytail behind her, Ahani nudged Gunnr's hip with her shoulder. "No use healing Him if you end up on a slab beside him."

"There's more to accomplish, must be something more we can do… I am finally learning..."

"Mmhmm?" Ahani nodded at Demiurge, then at Gunnr, nodded twice more, rolled her shoulder and half-pantomimed for the man in the Echani way. Well, if he didn't get it by the time her Morichro hit, Gunnr would sprawl on the floor. The woman survived worse. Far be it for Ahani to catch the woman nearly 3 feet taller than she was.
Darth Carnifex

 

[Darth Carnifex]

It was true that the children of concubines possessed a predisposition for rebellion against their Father. Jealousy, resentment, it mattered not why they allowed such weakness to corrupt them. Those that strayed from the path were given a single opportunity to atone for their faithlessness, to return to the fold without suffering the pain of penance. The Father's patience went only so far before more Draconian methods were employed, with death serving as the ultimate fate for those who still renounced their Father.

Gunnr's words gave Demiurge pause, the wheels in his mind began to turn. Perhaps the time had come for the Matron to take shape alongside the Father, another guiding pillar to keep the children steady and on the path. The idea of the Matron was already materializing in Demiurge's mind, his eyes looking over Gunnr as he envisioned her taking up the mantle of this new role. But before he could give voice to these thoughts that had formed in his mind, the mischievous Ahani materialized from a portion of the office wall.

Though shorter in stature than both of her Epicanthix companions, she was no less towering in the Force. She possessed a knowledge of the Force that was unrivaled by many among the Dark Lord's closest confidants, for her mind worked in ways that were incomprehensible to others. And while she had come to join the Dark Lord during Demiurge's sojourn away from the galaxy, he had quickly grown to seek out the Echani's company as one who is fascinated with the mysteries of the Force.

Demiurge reached out and caught Gunnr as she slipped into unconsciousness, carefully cradling her body before bringing her to rest on the leisure sofa that occupied a space adjacent to the desk. After making sure she was comfortably secure, Demiurge turned to face Ahani.

"She is to become the Matron, the Father's counterpart. Why we did not see it before I cannot say, but her words have struck a chord. When Carnifex has emerged from this brief hibernation, He will be the stronger for when He takes her hand in His."

Gunnr Zambrano | Ahani Najwa-Zambrano ​

 

[Ahani Najwa-Zambrano]

"Ahani, no… not…" The tower crumples into Demiurge, fight for once removed by her body's willingness to drop. I click my tongue in soothing noises, strains of soft lullabies from the time Manu was young. She can forgive me after she has a decent sleep. In his arms, the woman seems to rest well enough, one step away from proximity and Gunnr's knees curl into her chest, body slipped on its' side. Protective, yet another reason the dashed…

"No matter what I do, when Kaine's not beside her she curls right up like she did as a child at war. Back into that danged fetal position." I sniff inward and breathe out the desire to crush every one of them, each piece of their shiny metal buckets and smooth armoured plate. Truth is, the act of retribution is done. They paid in blood each one, heaped over and shaken down, but that blood won't heal the debt which lodges in our wife's mind. "Told you there was something to her. Also told you the Force's clarity comes when it comes, never too soon nor too late for those who shoot their pride in the gizzard and listen. You weren't ready yet, she wasn't either. For years Gunnr's been in hibernation, her mind in repair, actions stemmed from instinctual auto-pilot. Now her final buffers, distance from her family and Kaine's consistency, are gone. How would you make the connection, you never having spoken to her, and she in a beautiful dream? With Kaine down for the count, you're seeing the fighter in her, the leader. So why would you see it before?"

I tap at his boot twice with two feather-light kicks meant more to drag down his gaze than anything. He's a clever irli on the tree, Demiurge, the quieter and emotive pieces of a man who claimed me after I put a black hole in his hand. While I know why Kaine married me decades ago, talking for a while with this one, it's confirmation. Confirmation this lesson's going to hurt.

"The Matron, it works. She's both the nurturing and perilous type, a layer of chersilk over her beskar gauntlets… ugh. Beskar, such an unyielding metal. Hmh! If only he knew how much stronger it would make him, eh? You too, twinkle-toes." I stalk the room, making near enough to Gunnr's comatose body to keep her under with Morichro's power if I have to, the tilt to her face enough to see she desperately fought its' pull. Demiurge is still a strange one, receptive and blank where Carnifex isn't, the same man but vastly modified understandings of what that sameness means.

"Strong in a way even my husband as mighty as he is, I fear will never understand. You cannot command a star. That is not what I do, singularities and wormholes and stars warped out of nebulous collateral damage. It's the bi-product. You have only the emotion and passion to appeal to that star, so is it with children. The lesson I tried to teach him by birthing Raya, and that's one lesson he's still in medias res…" I chew on the inside of my mouth, will this spiritous man see what my spouse does not, is he the locked piece I've stuck around for? Probably, as the Force guides. Can't help but feel the mass of it caving my chest in, another singularity between us which won't burst from bone and marrow until the star blinks out. "I never explained how my immortality works, because I saw Kaine's dominating spirit was too overwhelming for him to recognize the truth, yet. There is no sacrifice which can be made on a perilous altar, no proxy or alternate who can take the pain. It's simple, in the Force's cruelty. The most simple, most intrinsic sensation in the Galaxy, one built so fundamentally into most things I sound like an idiot when I speak it."

I bend to shift the ginger hair away from Gunnr's face, the quake to her brow soothed when I cluck my tongue to let her know her loved ones are near. "Goddess, I remember the fear on her face twenty five years ago. Wide eyes consumed by a terror at her own will to survive and what it meant for her and Adara. Adara was four days old and already died. And when I saw it, I understood before Kaine did. What did they do to her? What did they do to you? Similar cruelty internalized differently, until Kaine woke her up and she saw him, saw you to the core."

"Course it's the one thing most Sith cannot fathom. Love always wins. Love is possessive and cruel, it eats us from the inner courses of our veins through the bleed of our skin. It consumes us with passions, heals us everlasting while shivving us in the spines and holds within itself the largest fuel source in the universe. One used for hate in its' twisting or absence, another frequency of healing when we stop twisting and surrender. If you want the fire which burns from the initial spark of the universe, it is the spark of love. I don't know if you ever knew it, before your separation, I don't know if he knew it before Gunnr swooped into his life, an angry Mandalorian who bellowed at every beast and spoke Epicant like a tiny noble. Even then, it's only since the Nexus, when the twins came it hit past his manipulations and crept inside I could see even a glimmer.

If there was ever a lesson fit to teach you both, it is this: We find our immortality within the love we have most fiercely, and through that union, whether it be lovers, uncle to their nephew or a parent to their child…" I smirk sullenly, feel to the edge of my consciousness to where Manu sits staring at the Sabarene ocean. The man unwitting in loss after loss after loss because his mother hated and loved him too much to let go. "… we find the truest berth of passion. One strong enough to compel a star to burn for us, to consume itself for the purity of, the undeniable vicious perfection of our fiercest love. You cannot command a star. It knows billions of you, over billions of years, it is unfathomable in its' ache. We can but adore it, and in the reciprocative sound of solar static, discover the heartbeat of our beloved, and surrender to its' majesty."

"It is the only way." Gunnr's chest rises and falls, the armourweave around her like a blanket. Demiurge's trappings, his bits, bobs and flimsiplast documents frame a being whose referential mind is consumed with anything but, any and every other type of knowledge. Yet, he is quiet where my husband is not. Distant where Kaine can do nothing but prey upon the sensation. "The only way to immortality without degradation, eternal life without limit… you won't find that in your flimsi's. Nor will you find the Nexus in here."

Darth Carnifex

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"You are right, the Sith never understood love. Truthfully, I do not believe that either of us truly do." He did not refer to Ahani, but to himself and his comatose other. "When we had been one, we had learned that love was a tool like anything else. It could be used for many purposes, all of them to further our ambitions. To cement alliances, to accumulate wealth, to manipulate the feelings of others so that we could achieve a more advantageous position in society. Our time in the academy had not been the first time we had learned this, for it had been taught from father to son in our family. Our father learned it from his father, and his father from his. A lineage built upon Sith teachings."

The Sith had indirectly inspired Solomon the Black to achieve the power of the Dark Side, as had the inscriptions of the ancient Rakatans. But that had not been all, for racial purity had infested Solomon's mind as he struggled to rise above his own shattered physique into something resembling a god. To strengthen the purity of their blood, Solomon had wed his sister and sired a son born of their union. In time, that son had wed his own sister, and thus the line continued with unions between brother and sister up until the point of his birth. That practice had been abolished with his ascension as head of the family, and the bloodline had quickly diversified through Kaine's marriage to different women of different families and different races.

"But perhaps," continued Demiurge, as he stared wistfully beyond Ahani into an unseen distance. "It is time that we walk down a different path, wouldn't you say?" His eyes then met Ahani's at that moment, both staring directly into one another. "Not to abandon the Sith ways, no, but to appreciate a wider view of what it means to be immortal. To seek alternatives that were once hidden from us, our sight blinded by unbridled ambition and pride."

He then reached out and took Ahani's hands in his own, clasping them firmly but still affectionately. "For the first time in a long time, we truly understood what love was when we found Gunnr." The unspoken admission was that they had not truly felt love when they had found Ahani and made her their bride, but there was a glimmer in Demiurge's eye that told Ahani that she was not unappreciated by either of them. Their love just belonged to another.

"In His slumber, I do believe Carnifex understands this as well. Sometimes, I can feel His dreams through my own."

Ahani Najwa-Zambrano ​

 

[Ahani Najwa-Zambrano]

"Takes a Master nine hundred years of insanity to figure it out. Or maybe the knowledge came first and broke me, I don't remember." My voice recedes, aches in its echo. "Maybe I don't want to remember… pray you have much lighter a price. Your forefathers had their reasons, mine had enough of a reason serving Palpatine. Wasn't so bad, growing in old Sheev's shadow until Manu was born and I knew I had to run. My father taught me the greatest lesson in pain, when he turned against his Master to help me flee. Fathers and their children. Is this emptiness what you're teaching your children? Is that what you leave them? Nothing but their forefathers' hatred and disconnect?"

Strange and macabre, the sensation of watching my husband fall in love. I'm detached and wanton, a life filled with children and lovers, educating those who are crazy enough to hear the truths in my ephemera. As Demiurge holds my hands, I feel the echo of an emotion a wife should feel. Distant. Settled but partisan. It is the will of the Force, a beautiful tragedy for Sith absolutism to see him reach beyond the dogma of his youth to a life as a true immortal. My soul cannot belong to this man. Nor would it have, for I am a woman out of time, displaced and distended by centuries.

"I finished with romance centuries before you were born, Kaine. Blame Raien and Urdu if you must, but my life was never one for romantic truths. Motherhood was my centre, the loss of my mother when I was a child, the felt absences. Manu coming when I was a teenager. I hold no illusions over what this is. Any Master who holds illusions as to the nature of their apprentices is doomed to get shivved in the night." I hold the spirit and soul of the man in my hands, a student who needed my wisdom more than my sighs. A smarmy smirk, the right twist to the corners of my lips to approximate flippancy will do it. "I am the teacher, she is the lesson. Be kind to her, challenge and accuse her weaknesses until they either crumble off her, or she batters them into strengths. One in love is the impetus and the vector, an accelerator for all ambitions. Once found and synergy is achieved, such love multiplies the wavelengths of success. New heights, there are levels unheard of, but impossible alone."

I can't help the laugh, which burbles out as Demiurge admits the inevitable. A sacred admonition in the privacy of this sanctified artificial ground. "If he doesn't, I'll smack him upside the head whether in this plane or the others. What, you think I wouldn't hover up to smack you in the back of your thick skull? Demi. In a millisecond."

Darth Carnifex

 

[Darth Carnifex]

He laughed, deep and hearty. Such a rare thing to see from one who shares Carnifex's face, a man devoid of emotion and incapable of laughter. "I would expect nothing less, dearest Ahani."

Despite her shorter stature, the Echani matron possessed a fierce demeanor that constantly challenged and pushed against the Dark Lord's own. Any lesser being would have been destroyed for such brazen displays, but the Dark Lord appreciated and cherished Ahani far more than any might suspect. She may never rise to the same position that Gunnr occupied, but she was nonetheless greatly beloved by the Dark Lord.

When Carnifex first found Ahani, He brought her to the Empire and married her more out of a deep mystical curiosity than any true notions of love. In time, He did come to love Ahani as He loved His other wives, but none of them came close to the love He felt for Gunnr. Even now, comatose and inert, Carnifex's love for His true wife burned brighter than a brilliant star. Few would ever witness such affection and devotion from the Dark Lord, but those that did understand that it was genuine and true.

The Father and the Matron; the pillars that held the Kainate aloft.

"It will be good to see my other half restored, if even by a fraction. The moment He slipped into hibernation, a sense of deep anxiety has existed within me. I had felt such sensations during my long sojourn beyond the boundaries of the galaxy, learning with the Sepulchral. But they came and went, ebbing with time as we neared and then grew distant. When I returned to the galaxy to stand at my other's side, all those feeling dissipated, and we felt stronger than we had in a long time. But now I can feel it again, that gnawing doom." Demiurge sighed and allowed his hand to slip from Ahani's. "I fear that if we cannot succeed in becoming one person again, we will never recover."

Ahani Najwa-Zambrano ​

 

[Ahani Najwa-Zambrano]

Few moments remain in the universe to faze me, let alone surprise. Demiurge's laughter shocks the pleasant semi-smirk I carry ever-present, a layer of armour against the wilds of the universe. Eyes widen, I swerve away and catch sight of Gunnr's sleeping body… Force how she'd love to have heard that sound.

"Sorry, I'm sorry." A heart I'd forgotten still struck its rhythm in my chest twists and flutters. "Raya, her entire reason for surviving in this place is the opportunity to see her father smile. To watch him laugh her singular hope, which prevents her mind from shattering. I've never heard your laughter. None of us have, maybe Braxus?"

A deep breath, and I let it settle, before hissing it out and setting the self-satisfied smirk back upon my face. Hands back in my pockets. "Wow. You have a magical laugh, Kaine Zambrano."

"You won't. Recover, I mean. You broke a piece of the universe when you separated. It was as unnatural as a lengthy life or a planet destroyed with a world-ender. Anathema to the flow." This man I chose to remain beside is as confoundingly dissident to the half-soul we've known these decades past. All at once I feel both cheated and succoured. The convergence, the idea this side of the man will combine once more with the perilous and hungry Dark Lord I care for must come. I offer a pale hand, skin silvered by infinite time in space. The offer is loaded. Discorporation while half of him is so weak… yes. My gut tells me. Prior to this, our dalliances into the Cosmic Force have been grand gestures and flight. This Kaine, he is ready.

Now.

"Trust me." If he takes my hand, the entirety of Malsheem discintegrates around us, or so it feels. The mortal coil, crude matter, shatters into particulate rain falling inward to the most massive point of gravity. Depending on the mass of the particles is the speed of the rain. Gunnr's cloud is scooped up, delivered to her 'Koe's' side, both beings in slumber as the trio of children continued in their sustaining ministrations. From this perspective, Raya is neither confused girl, nor shattered echo, but roiling plasma. The Light which could never touch Kaine lest it burn found a way to reach him. An ease came to the system of twins, and Raya, the moment Gunnr's body slid into place.

"You are unnatural. Accept this as truth. The universe will forever continue to equalize, until the grit in its mouth becomes a pearl, or is atomized for recreation. See into your weakness. What does it tell you? Once you see it, we can confront it. We will find the method of your convergence."
Darth Carnifex

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"In our life before the split, we were quite boisterous. Arrogantly so. Loud and roaring, an exemplar of the Jedi perception of a maniacal Dark Lord. We were also young, headstrong, and quite full of ourselves." Demiurge smiled warmly, the look of wistful nostalgia crossing his face before fading away as he focused on the here and now. That time had long passed, when they were both a vastly different person. Vornskr was similar to Carnifex, but not the same. They could never return to that state of existence, even when they inevitably merged back together, but they would nonetheless be more than the sum of their disparate existences. They would be a greater being.

She offered her hand to him, a far greater connotation than what one might assume from such an innocuous gesture. Demiurge understood what taking her hand in his meant, and he briefly wondered if he was ready for the plunge. That thought was quickly banished. He was a Dark Lord of the Sith, a master of the Dark Side, and heir to a lineage stretching back to those weary exiles who found themselves on the tomb-world Korriban over seven-thousand years ago.

He slipped his hand into hers.

The world around him disappeared, the walls of his office melting away just as the sensation of his flesh faded from perception. Demiurge watched as the vision of Carnifex and His children came into view, the Father asleep in His hibernation and the children radiating with concentration as they focused all of their efforts on their meditation. The girl, Raya, glowed bright like a young star, almost causing Demiurge to raise his hand to shield his eyes before he realized that he had no hand. Their exhaustion slackened when the astral presence of Gunnr drew near, calming all of them and even causing the faintest strain on Carnifex's face to loosen into tranquil rest.

"Unnatural," Demiurge rolled the word in his mind for a brief moment, "The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural." These words had been spoken before, and they would be spoken again by those yet to be born. It was an eternal truth that passed through the Sith lineages, that the Dark Side was unnatural, and it could grant those that placed their faith in it unnatural powers. "We are unnatural, a product of our own ambition. We will always remain such, even when we become one. We leave our mark upon the galaxy wherever we go, an energy that acts against the flow of the Cosmic Force. This will always be."

He looked to Ahani, "Our narrow vision brought us to this division." He thought again for a moment, centering his mind and reaching into himself for the answer. "We may not yet know where the Convergence must take place, but the means to know lie within our grasp. After Carnifex awakes, He must go to Tython."

Ahani Najwa-Zambrano ​

 

[Ahani Najwa-Zambrano]

"How that would be epic to see. The boisterousness, not the arrogance, although you are still a Dark Lord. That's a feat of itself." Oh but how insufferably loud they'd be if he returned that level of boisterousness to the nightly pursuits in the Harem. I don't say it, Demiurge doesn't need to hear a woman thinking about what sort of man her lover would be once he rediscovered his emotional fortitude. What the man will be like once reconvened into a single entity is a nebulous cloud, I can only hope for Gunnr's sake it includes his laughter.

Malsheem becomes a ghost for us to pass through, our auras and spiritual signatures uncanny energy crackling about to those few initiated in my ways, or with a wandering eye. Upon the bed, Gunnr quakes, rustles awake and rises with a predator's startle. She grumbles my name, checks the sheets around Carnifex's body and runs her fingers through a tangle in his hair. As Gunnr sits beside him in her bed, her arm hovers then falls back to her lap. "I've got you, my loves."

"I should know. My father was there, when Palpatine said it." My eyes grow cold as noble gasses compressed to ice, the essence of my father's call to serve shifted our lives to his horrible conclusion. Betrayal is, after all, part and parcel of being Sith. Far be it for Palpatine to have even noticed, once my father's body splayed on the landing pad while my stolen little vessel rushed away.

"While the Dark Side is indeed the path to many unnatural abilities, and you glutted yourself upon them freely, why do you expect to act only against the flow of the Cosmic Force, when it sees your necessity? Although you battle against it, not allowing yourself to become one with it upon death, you are still gifted this cosmos within which to linger. The Will of the Force, which you deny so fervently when it suits you, requires the challenge. Without check, no system can be perfected. You are, within your deviant rebellion, exactly what this cosmos requires. And that, your cosmic mission regardless of how you see it, is the most natural expression of death's embrace any could be called to achieve. As natural as a mother's love." The entirety of Malsheem rushes behind us, the galaxy spins, or so it seems, until I hover above a place I've been want to forget the rest of my days. But, it's time he saw it.

A mother's scream tore across the universe in its agony, exponentially multiplied in a sonic Mandelbrot until it radiated backward, as large as the Galaxy's spindles and webs. As significant as the flow of spheres and insignificant as the singular nature of one sapient bonded to another. Lightsabers halted, Raien and Manu simply ceased to move. The foundations of the planetoid tore and fractured, energy transmuted into pressure as the atmosphere, the carbon and silicone and crude particulates shunted into a smaller and smaller space. Tighter, atoms ordered tighter, until rock turned to crystal.

"And there I was, incapable of losing the one person I hated in all the cosmos. The one who ruined my body, killed my father, stole my chance to become an Inquisitor or some floudering use to the Emperor himself. Manu grew in my belly as an unwelcome house-guest, the whispers of jealousy and resentment tainted our link through the umbilical cord. When Urdu tossed Manu overboard above Theed, it was my turn to reclaim a sense of life. He even stole that, when he was found by the Jedi. Of course he was, my little Force-Blessed Child. That scream echoed back into my ears for decades, until mind shattered by the truth of hate, I became aware of the Galaxy around me. I hovered, scattered and unconvinced of my vector. Our little planetoid was not far from your Pacanth Reach. Of course, by the time I awoke, Solomon was not yet on the throne." The connection between Manu and myself lingers, a glimpse of a brighter star. Manu resides still on Sabarene, tending his hermitage as if it were the Jedi's auspicious Temple. "As I wandered the cosmos in a nebulous cloud, my spirit focused on Manu. Tended to Manu, he became my obsession, I hated how he should have been the greatest love a mother could feel. I tried to defeat his hold on me, the gentility with which he conducted his mercy even encased. I recognized my love for him, the hate I felt was in his penchant to surrender. All he ever did was surrender, that boy. Give himself in absolute faith to the Living Force. He could have been a marauder who emancipated our People into the sun after Palpatine's degradations. Within Manu resides a heart of pure insidious darkness… Kaine, do you think the Force would allow us to live beyond our time if there were no purpose in it? Perhaps the lesson for you is this: are your actions against the flow of the Cosmic Force an open rebellion, or is it the surrender of an individual to their monumental design? Are you to deceive the Cosmic Force into a life never ending, although at every bend and pivot you battle its' Will or are you deceiving yourself? Vessel of its' power?"

Darth Carnifex

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"There are plenty who would disagree with you. Myself included. What we inflict upon the galaxy in our eyes," Demiurge was referring to his other, Carnifex, "Is not because we believe we are performing some grand cosmic necessity, nor do we believe that we are doing anything because we believe it is for the greater good. Our justification is written in our blood, exemplified in the words of our house. The strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must. We have power, therefore it is our birthright to rule, to kill as we see fit, and to reshape the galaxy into a manner that is pleasing to us."

Other Sith might have cloaked themselves in deceptive self-righteousness, buoyed on the illusion that their cause had some greater prerogative. Carnifex and Demiurge only sought to rule because they could, they exercised their power as they saw fit; and acted with restraint or brash vulgarity whenever they wished it. No morale conscious stood between them and the depths of cruelty and depravity. They were the masters of their own actions, answerable only to themselves and solely responsible for their actions.

Their surroundings spun again, shifting like shifting grains of sand. Had Demiurge been of weaker constitution, the dizzying effect would have made him nauseous. Ahani spoke of her past, something that she had rarely shared with either himself or Carnifex. He listened raptly, hanging on her every word as she regaled him with tales of distant pasts and the trials and tribulations she had endured that led her to this moment in time. It was admirable, all that she had done and witnessed. Demiurge knew of Manu, Carnifex had told him about the boy several times. In those moments that their paths had crossed, Carnifex had bloodied Manu and driven him into retreat. That he lived as an anchorite on Sabaren was unsurprising.

"In my heart I must believe that the will of the Cosmic Force can be subverted, Ahani. Whether that is empirically true is another matter, admittedly something that Carnifex believes more confident than myself. We have come too far to doubt ourselves now, our wills must be united. If even one shred of doubt lingers, then all we have done will fall to ruin." Demiurge would often submit himself to self-chastisement to purge himself of lesser thoughts, primarily through ritual flagellation. His body bore the scars of many long hours of these rituals, the purity of bloodshed cleansing not only the body and mind, but the spirit. When this sojourn with Ahani comes to an end, he will withdraw to his sanctum to purify himself again.

"And with the power of the Mortis Gods so near at hand, we believe that we shall put the Cosmic Force to the test."

Ahani Najwa-Zambrano ​