Private A Disquiet follows my Soul

[Kyrel Ren]

Kyrel's return to Dathomir had been quick, the Master of the Knights of Ren wasted no time in landing his TIE Silencer within the thick jungles of the world. Kyrel immediately departing from the craft, with a sudden stride heading towards the enclave. There he was met by a servant of which had helped his escape during the Battle of Mustafar. Now the servant had been tasked with keeping watch over his young son and his consort. Already he could feel the Force blazing within the young one. It had made him question how long that had passed since his departure off to the frontlines of the War.

"My lord, wait before you enter inside there is something you should know." Kyrel stopped the stride as he turned to look at the young servant. A scowl adorned across his features. Looking at the servant that all but trembled before him. As if frightened of what the Ren would do to him. Kyrel waiting for an answer before the being began to speak. "Mistress Pom... She... She." He said as he was almost afraid to get the words out. "Out with it you fool!" Kyrel shouted his patience slowly thinning. "Mistress Pom... She met with the Sith Emperor himself... She had taken an offer that in exchange for no rebellion against the Sith Empire, and a further increased garrison on the world. That she would be placed in control of the world!" He managed to get out quickly. Kyrel didn't say anything. He was seething in a quiet rage with an urge to take out his frustrations upon the servant himself.

Instead his rage increased and he didn't say anything. Only wandering inside the enclave. A weight that had increased with every stamp of his boot on the ground. Each heavy step carried a quiet rage that followed him. Fighting for months to secure her future and that of his Son. For what, for Carnifex to make a mockery out of it. She was lucky he shouldn't end her right here and now for collaborating with the Sith. Much less accepting whatever deal they had to offer. Carnifex must have been desperate his time slowly drawing to a close his Empire will soon be at an end. He kept moving a bit of a brisk pace this time. Reaching out with the Force summoning Pom to him immediately. It was time for the two of them to have a very important discussion. Especially since he had seen things in his absence that had shaken him since his return.

Pom Stych Tivé

 

[Pom Stych Tivé]

So long left trapped in silence. No number of demons who whispered could suffice for his having cut off his thoughts from her. She took to meditating and became lowly in that she should wait for her spiritual servants to return to her with news on what befell her lover. No sorceress should be made so lowly that her own servants wield their ability to garner insight over their Mistress! All in all she convinced herself to understand Kyrel Ren 's judgement. Perhaps, she labored to decide, should she share in his thoughts at the wrong moment, she would endanger his life, for when she reached out to him there was nothing. She was met with the stillness of arctic air, loneliness, weariness, desolation. Never words, never any update or hope of his return. What emotion should she feed off regarding his treatment? She had another to consider, entrusted to her to nurture. Should he see her rage with each passing day?

She did not rage by day, but did so in the nights which fell while her babe slept, each upon each, relentlessly passing. The witching hour she stayed vigilant for word of Kyrel, but never received much. There was melancholy of her spirit left in the nights' wake. There was one time however, he poured his heart out and then cut off himself again. What should she have thought but that he died out there…wherever the hell there actually was, for she was never informed.

The flesh around her eyes had blackened due to her lack of sleep. There had been nothing that would satiate her longing. She held a few private lessons for the youth, but all she could do is wait. She felt by some unexplainable circumstance that he had not perished. His spirit never stood by her and spoke. Of all people, had he perished, above all this should be one thing they share by their connection. Would he abandon her in the hereafter to engage in more curious things? Any touch from his presence felt like nothing more than a daydream of her's. Had she grown mad? How her thoughts taunted her very soul to her silent destruction. Who did she have to thank for this inherent compassion? This is not how she was raised to be. How much power had she dared grant him that he should toy with her very existence to this extent?

Pom sat rocking her son in her arms when she felt a presence all too familiar burst forth from behind her, and she knew it to be Kyrel's. She knew the good, the bad, secrets hidden behind numbing silence. Excitedly Pom rose and she turned with her newborn in her arms, a smile lit her face for the first time in months. It suddenly fell away, for she found herself to be only staring at the wall. Which of her demons should she destroy for their games? Kyrel isn't here. Like a heart squeezed once more beyond its death, she gasped in anguish. She lulled in her steps through her domicile. She lived as if half asleep without him.

"Bastard," is all she said aloud.

She came to a standstill, gazing across the room in her state of delirium. Her head cocked to the side as her mind struggled to decipher the information she perceived. 'This is no apparition.' Pom slowly walked towards her beloved and she gazed deeply into his eyes. Gently she reached out and laid his son into his arms for the first time. She would have smiled, but instead tears of relief gripped her.

 

[Kyrel Ren]

Kyrel was in a state of smoldering rage, the news that he had heard from his servant was a blow to his very core. A state of disbelief as he had fought months on the frozen hell of Mygeeto. All for what what was it that he went there for? To see the end of the Sith. Forsake his own loyalties to the Sith in hopes that his child would grow up without suffering the wrath of the Emperor. Now was it all for nought. Had the witch betrayed his intentions and had what acted on the Emperor's mere whim. It was only until recently that he had heard the siege into the outer territories had been successful. The Civil War was in full swing.

When he saw the woman of what felt like he hadn't seen in years. He couldn't enjoy seeing his son. Not at the moment not when he was not only saw the deaths of so many. And all the same was robbed of an honorable death himself. Now he had heard the witch had the gall to collaborate with the enemy. He hid his rage crom his son passing him along to his servant. Who nervously handled him all the while Kyrel's unnerving gaze came back to the witch before him.

His eyes were a furious yellow. Like that of the Sith he was fighting against. The dark side wanting to be unleashed in this very moment. His blade Vader's Bane ignited with a hiss as he raised the blade to point at her throat in an all too familiar way of when the two had first met. Now in more dire and frustrating circumstances. It took all of his will to hold back the anger that threatened to consume him. Such was the way of the Master of the Knights of Ren.

He quietly began the sheer venom evident in his tone. "Choose your words carefully... You made a pact with the enemy... You collaborated with the enemy... For what? Months I stood in a frozen hell hole. Sieging the outer world's of Carnifex's Empire. Only for you to jeaprodize the work we have strived for. For our offspring. I saw men starve and freeze to death good Imperials that deserved a better death. And now upon returning with the enemy lines broken and Carnifex's days are numbered. I find this out. Speak very carefully you better have a good reason why you shouldn't die here and now for this supposed betrayal of yours."

Pom Stych Tivé

 

[Pom Stych Tivé]

When the anger boiled within Kyrel and she saw that he didn't even find a connection to their child, the servant stole away to the other room to set the baby down. As Kyrel's blade ignited, her demons burst to the forefront, and out of the gaze of the servant they snatched the child from his cradle and away from this physical world to safeguard him.

Pom doesn't play the same games as the men. She stood unscathed by his display, although her attachment to him dwindled excessively with each passing second. He grew cold in mere seconds, yet she hadn't seen him in months? She learned where she stands.

“Don’t accuse that this was all for me. I did not ask you for blood sacrifice in this manner. The war is as much the choice of your people, as it is for your people in the NIO…and also about your pride. You grew a conscience as much as I had this past year. Neither one of us are prepared for the consequence of how deeply it extends into our psyche.” There was a time she wished she could return to where certain things she does on a daily basis were just actions without conscious consideration or awareness. Today, she feels compelled to analyze everything and acknowledge that sometimes things effect her emotionally. It feels like some overreaching by some superior power, power beyond what she is capable to control. “You wanted peace for our son. Enough to lay down your life and those of men. I have bought him peace by no blood.” True, she knew not if the Emperor’s price would be lesser, for she doesn’t yet know the cost. But it bought her Time.

Pom spoke firmly with the one she admitted to love. “How could my denying the Emperor's contract for peace when he is already at war have granted the end result you lust for? The end terms remained the same as before you left me to accomplish them, only the method of obtaining the result had changed. Did you want peace or eradication of all Sith? All across the board cannot be guilty; or we should all stand with them to have our fate handed to us by the self-righteous judgment laid down across the galaxy." Surely Kyrel and the Nightsisters have sinned against a moral code instilled upon them by the rest of the galaxy.

"Would you prefer to have returned to a gorge blasted into the ground? To find us in the grave for declining the offer for peace that the Emperor himself proposed to us here, while you were away and cut yourself off from my mind? That I and your son along with the eleven who are known to join me should be hunted down? Their families also murdered because I refused the unforeseen invitation to his meeting? My sisters are from factions all across the galaxy. The whole galaxy could fall into war in retaliation for losing one of their own. Should I have decided to sacrifice them without first granting them the awareness to make the decision themselves?" If she had she would be no better than those he fights against.

"What advanced defenses do I have at my disposal? The Emperor called me to him. I couldn't just pretend I wasn't available. You think it was my idea to seek him out and draw attention to the existence of our son? I am his Mother! Don't think I am blind to the fact that you look upon me as some troglodyte at times; give me some credit, even a dog makes choices for the welfare of her pups."

She admitted to herself of never knowing a deeper passion than her adoration for her son. “He is worth every sacrifice in store. He will live long enough to succeed us and make his own mark. The movement you seek will perhaps be stronger by then, more alliances formed, and his potential for victory magnified beyond what it could be today. From time to time, all I felt was your deepening despair.”

Pom knew that crossing the Sith Emperor today would expedite more murder. Had the Emperor any inkling of her involvement with Kyrel who recently betrayed the Empire, things would have resulted entirely differently. She had never imagined the Emperor would make the offer he had, without her pleading to him for it. But she would not allow today to be the day that Emperor Carnifex's generous pact be nullified. “I am charged to personally see that the peace offered Dathomir stand many seasons without interruption.” The responsibility is a weight, not a blessing.

The youth whom the last Knight of Ren left behind to care for Kyrel's family had kept persistent company during his off time, with others who turned his eyes away from rebellion and towards the Glory of the Empire. Pom had never confided in a servant about her contract with the Emperor of the Sith. Her suspicions became verified, as she sensed him eavesdropping on her private conversation with Kyrel. 'He is playing a game, to see what I will do,' she determined.

The weight of her sadness due to her shattered expectations of meeting him again poured from her eyes as she beheld Kyrel Ren . Would he follow through with his agenda? The Nightsister stood ready to react to any flinch of his muscles, likely first read in his eyes.

 

[Kyrel Ren]

Anger was great within the Knight of Ren. Something he had known for a long time in his decade's time. In such a time he had risen from a cyborg monstrosity to a weapon. A fist to be used by Supreme Leader Sieger Ren as he walked within the shadow of both Darth Vader and Kylo Ren. Now he was a man who thought for himself, he who ruled as a Warlord, and even served with the Sith Emperor himself. Now such a bond broken, the last of his kind he had seen horrors at the Siege of Mygeeto that was the likes the Witch did not see. Not to mention a duel that he was denied. The man was made to be a Dark Warrior like Vader or Kylo before him. He had conquered worlds, fought in countless battles but she did not see what he had seen for months on Mygeeto. While they were necessary for the path to victory that the new Empire would give.

Here he stood now, the blade of his saber pointed at the throat of his mate. A position of which he thought would never come to. Yet he reacted as he always has done. With anger, he resisted the urge from the dark aura of his saber to cut her down. Yet he couldn't like most of his life anger had often gotten the better of him. As she had said he had cut her off from the dyad in the force they shared. That was his doing for he himself thought the Force had shaped his destiny.

Even as a servant of the dark side even Kyrel could and must understand the increasing will of the Force. For all his life had been motivated and shaped by the waves of the Living Force. He was wrong, but the appearance of his mother had told him otherwise, when Pom explained her doing. He slowly breathed a sigh. Lowering his blade upon her continued points. What remained as anger had slowly dissipated. He stopped himself entirely from using his anger against her.

"I understand, you must have thought I was long since dead in my time away. I do understand all that you have done. It might have been for naught I have heard rumors the Emperor himself has gone into hiding. It seems the siege into his outer territories has instilled fear into him." He turned his gaze from her to the likes of the horizon watching for a fleeting moment through the red mist. As if pondering for a moment before speaking once more. "I feel my last days are upon me.... I feel something... Something strange through the Force, as if waves of destiny are guiding me... I will not live to see the fall of the Sith Empire or the great work that will come to pass."

He spoke in a solemn tone this time as if the man had experienced a sense of great clarity. His anger had been utterly gone this time when he spoke.

Pom Stych Tivé

 

[Pom Stych Tivé]

Her heart torn out and crushed by her mate, her mind reeled to gather a different perspective; he had never treated her with such disregard. She stood still, her senses studying his body for the most subtle of signs coming off him, which would telegraph his next movement. 'So this is how we end,' she thought, all the wile a traitor stood and watched. A fraction of a second is all she would have to escape his strike. He clung to his deadly lightsaber aimed straight at her neck as firmly as he clung to his dated ideals, both lusting after death with a direct approach. And yet how similar the two are. The galaxy has surpassed its need for either of them. The Witch stood unarmed before him with all his technological advances, but only seemingly, for her mind is all she has ever required to this day.

Her son screamed for his Mother in his place in limbo, where her demons listened intently fretting over what they would be commanded to do with the boy. In her thoughts Pom demanded he be taken to Spasa, her counterpart. She thought that maybe someday the boy will do what she could not accomplish, that is to kill her. Her every focus shifted to Kyrel Ren .

For a moment in time there was love, and now there isn't. It didn't matter how she felt yesterday, he chose to completely destroy her today in one swoop. It is a feeling far worse than death. She would have accepted death easier. He spoke finally, and she did not release her tension from the moment before. She couldn't, all trust was lost mere seconds before. She breathed like a woman in meditation, smoothly and timed, her mind and her flesh anticipating possibilities of what movements he would next make.

She did not for one second believe that the Emperor of the Sith was truly in hiding. "Don't be fooled. It's a tactic," she hissed. "You relax and everybody rejoices." She shook her head, disbelieving. "Maybe for a time, until everyone believe he is gone. It is just that way, and they always return with more forces!"

She identified with what he described he is feeling, because she too felt it; he created it. Only she determined in her evaluation of it, that he does not recognize that his sensation includes severance from her.

There never existed a moment in which Pom could have ever imagined what she would need to say next. If she could have turned back time, or never have been here this day… "The sacrifice I need from you is this," her tone mournful at the newly raised circumstance he presented through his waning violent intent. She did not wish for his death. "I do not think you should be seen here." Her sacrifice, for the continued safety of her people which fell upon her responsibility, her heart's suffering worth every ounce, for the sake of the many, especially their son.

The servant spied on. Pom wondered how many other eyes and ears watched her every move, public or private. The insolent man would find his ability to breathe suddenly impeded. The servant withdrew quickly from the archway, desperate to escape her reach. The Nightsister blamed this whole ordeal on him, as he had spoken to Kyrel of what he did not understand, forever altering the course of her future, destroying her family.

Nightsisters saw to it that their sons be raised as notable men. Every member of the Nightsisters Coven and allied Nightbrothers would be involved with teaching their boy the survival skills he needs to dwell in the land amidst the wildest beasts, and the natural remedies he will need to know for his protection, including how to avoid succumbing under to toxicities. She shall teach their son to hone his magick abilities. Then after he is well learned in her way of life, she will render him over to his father for further training, and to learn how to be a man amongst domestic animals.

She knew Kyrel as a man who often requires time to sift through a plethora of emotion. He had months ago been fine to shut down on her. She thought how without carrying the weight of responsibility for her, Kyrel shall regain his inner strength.

If only the confrontation could have held off for later tonight; she really missed the man who had been her mate. He had been gone for a long time, only he has not yet returned. She would give anything to be close to that man again, just short of starting a war which would involve the lives of everyone who dwells upon Dathomir, her responsibility to her sisters is far greater a burden. Kyrel is not meant to be a father or husband; he is a warrior.

"I am truly sorry, over your sacrifices, and those of your fallen men," she said, her honest anguish over the way this day turned out hung thickly in the air between them.

She felt the all too familiar comfort return. It was the memory of a strength she gave up not so long ago. Something of herself she cast to the wayside when she had met him. This Mistress Pom Stych Tivé is no man's possession; but she possesses. She has never before accepted that she should expected to answer the beckoning call of another being. This woman orders her very own gods to fulfill her bidding! Men expect subservience. "I'm certain our purpose for meeting one another has long since been fulfilled."

Still she could not anticipate how he would react. Where she felt remorse over the destruction of their bond, he might feel it a personal affront. She felt a great sense of loss at knowing how life could be, having watched it unfold for lovers across the galaxy. She would never live such a fantasy as they created for themselves. Things always evolved under much more volatile circumstances. In it all, she always had freedom, and she would not accept his ideal regarding who he expected her to be. Entities across the realms serve her as their headstrong Mistress.