Private A Faceless Chord

[Darth Avida]

Brave New World​

V R A N T - T A R N U M

c. 902 ABY​

KHARVASHARK RUINS​

DUSK​

Her chest expanded as she inhaled the cold air through her lungs, her golden eyes surveying the ruins that stretched out before her. Vrant Tarnum had never been a planet of note, at least not according to any surviving crumbs that remained in the bits and pieces of galactic memory from the time before the four hundred years of darkness, and yet here there were remnants of a time and people that indicated anything it should've been anything but. Crumbling buildings, none of them tall but all of them resembling the other, dotted the horizon line at the edge of her vision while a larger, central, structure loomed over her like the hollowed-out skull of some dead behemoth from an era that she couldn't quite place. What she was looking for, however, wasn't the details of the dilapidated architecture but, rather, any signs that someone or something might be living here. Where her Anzati eyes couldn't physically see she felt out with the force, her own presences washing over the rocky outcropping and through much of the ruins like a black tide, but there was nothing that she could find - insects and smaller creatures, certainly, but none of the more dangerous creatures that typically stalked ruins such as these in the dark corners of the galaxy.

"Nobody has been here in a long time." She observed, her words coming from hardly opened lips as a hushed whisper given she didn't have anyone else she'd been speaking to aside from herself. Darth Avida - Amara - had came to the planet alone, and not just alone but unprompted. It'd been more than a couple of days since she'd clawed her way back from the pits of Chaos, and several months more since she'd last spoken to her cousin, Carnifex, on Dromund Kaas, but she hadn't forgotten her months-long experience with the former or the long talk she'd had with the latter, either. Venturing out here, to such a remote world that'd gone unnoticed for centuries by the galaxy at large, was the first step among many in finding herself rather than chasing the ghost of a legacy her dead sister had left behind for her. Searching through these ruins wasn't necessarily to take what she found, but to learn instead; to grow.

The ground, choked of moisture, cracked and shifted under her feet with each footfall as she headed into the mouth of the the Kharvashark ruins. Unbeknownst to her this complex had once been used by the Path of the Open Hand, a people who were only vaguely remembered in the fringes of history as a name and little more. There was little that tied anything directly to the force here, indicative that there had not been a large Jedi or Sith presence on the planet, but she could still feel something deep inside in much the same way one might hear the final murmurs of an echo at the edge of a canyon. "What a morbid look." Avida said quietly as she passed into the building, her head raised for a moment to look over the faded carvings and ornaments that'd lined the walls so many years ago, with as much distaste as could be conveyed by what had been little more than a whisper. It wasn't just her own opinion, she felt, as the crystal embedded behind her breast, the dark object that'd replaced her heart, drew the warmth from her chest and set in an icy chill that her black robes did little to comfort.

Little did she know, however, that she was far from alone.

Everest Vale

 

[Everest Vale]

Outfit: Personal Armour
Equipment: Lightsaber, Bracelet, Earrings, Seer Stone, Wayfinder's Flare, Atrisian Dancer, Engagement Ring
Companion: Isari
Tag: Darth Avida

Between overseeing Snowpeak Sanctuary, running missions for the Hidden Path, and holding together the threads of a hard-won life beside her fiancé, time had become a rare luxury. So when whispers of ancient relics surfaced — buried somewhere on Vrant Tarnum, tangled in the broken remnants of a people long forgotten — Eve didn't hesitate for long. The moon was remote, barely footnoted in the what remnants of the Jedi archives the Path had managed to salvage after the fall of Coruscant, but there had been just enough in the report to catch her attention. Something about a resonance, a faint but measurable pull in the Force, and most of all, the suggestion that whatever lay beneath the surface hadn't quite finished speaking.

If it was dangerous — volatile, corrupted, or worse — it needed to be contained. There was no one available she trusted more than herself. So she came herself. Alone, except for Isari.

They moved in silence, the only sound the soft press of her boots against bone-dry stone and the occasional rustle of Isari's paws through brittle dust. The silver-furred fox trotted close to her heel, ears twitching, tail low. She hadn't made a sound in some time, not even her usual curious huffing. Eve could feel the unease in their bond like static, alert but unsettled. It made her hesitate. She hadn't wanted to bring her, but the fox seldom stayed behind when Eve left. Still… she whispered a quiet apology in her mind.

The ruined streets of the settlement pressed in around them now. Low crumbling walls, weather-bitten signs and structures too eroded to name. All of them the same lifeless colour. All of them silent. Dust clung to everything. The light had faded to rust, a sky washed in an amber haze. But the cold had begun to settle.

She extended her senses again, this time more carefully, reaching with quiet focus through the dead air, the ancient stone, the cracked surface of the moon itself.

Something brushed back.

It wasn't a voice, nor a vision, but a... pressure, a weight behind the silence, like an eye turning somewhere deep within the ruins. Watching her. No — watching something else. Her breath caught, just slightly.

Ahead, just past a rise, she could make out the upper shape of a collapsed structure; the Kharvashark ruins, pale stone against the darkening sky, jagged and split like a broken tooth, and behind it all... something. She couldn't quite place what it was, but it wasn't Jedi. The feeling unsettled her. Her heartbeat pulsed in her fingertips as she placed one hand lightly over the hilt of her lightsaber for grounding.

Isari shifted closer. Eve slowed her pace, and the ruins ahead began to loom larger with every step. The pull in the Force felt stronger now, like a strange gravity, and the silence that stretched over the moon no longer felt passive.

It felt like a held breath.

 

[Darth Avida]

It wasn't the winding halls or the various sections of ceiling that had fallen to the floor, strewn about as haphazardly as sand carried out of grass by rain, or even the quiet hum of the world outside and all of its various smaller critters that put her on edge. No, her thoughts and focus were as split as they'd ever been and while her eyes kept a look out for anything that might trip her up, her pace a subdued stride down the center of the ruined compound with each foot taking longer or shorter steps to avoid stepping on or tripping over anything loose and small on the ground, her mind was still processing much of the last few days as well as the feelings she had about being here in the first place.

"Maybe I should've let one of them know I'd be out for the week.." She said to herself, breaking the monotony with the murmur of her voice echoing faintly in every direction around her. It wasn't a thought lifted from some sense of responsibility, though, ever since she'd put her sister to rest the part of her that had fed the constant urge to retrace Vesta's steps had been absent. This was one step in that direction, to do something Darth Mori would never have entertained for as long as she'd lived and learn from the past so she could better shape the future. Her father, Prazutis, and her cousin, Carnifex, had made it clear to her that Vesta had lived a life purposefully independent of others and chose to look down on relics of the past with such a disdain that she'd rejected them outright as a sign of weakness instead.

'Small-minded.' Avida thought. Whatever it was she might find her, she'd decided, wasn't quite something she intended to use in the same manner one might if they picked up a weapon without an understanding or capability to procure their own.

Pausing as she arrived in the center of what appeared to be a large room, maybe a central chamber of sorts, Avida let her hands rest on her hips as she took a few moments to decide which direction made the most to continue in. There was the obvious path ahead as well as two halls on either side of her, ignoring the one she'd came in from. There was a sharp intake of breath again, air pulled in through her nostrils as she shut her eyes to focus, and forcibly pushed outwards from herself with the force again to feel for what had drawn her here to begin with. There wasn't an immediate answer to the branching pathways, however, and it was immediately obvious she'd need to spend a bit more time and try a bit harder if she wanted results. If the Sith's presence on the planet, or at least at the ruins, hadn't been clear enough before then there was no mistaking that Darth Avida was here now - and her probing would do more than just shroud whatever it was they were looking for until she pulled back.

It would guide Everest Vale right to her.

 

[Everest Vale]

Outfit: Personal Armour
Equipment: Lightsaber, Bracelet, Earrings, Seer Stone, Wayfinder's Flare, Atrisian Dancer, Engagement Ring
Companion: Isari
Tag: Darth Avida

She felt it before she saw it. A ripple through the Force. It wasn't loud, but it was sharp, like an uncomfortable pressure against the side of her skull. It wasn't neutral, nor merely residual. It was present. Active. Cold. The moment it brushed across her senses, Eve stopped walking.

Her breath hitched.

The world around her stilled in response — the broken stone, the pale dust, even the drifting light of the hour. Somewhere within the ruins ahead, she was certain whoever it was had felt her too. The Force could carry things beyond words, and the thought unsettled her immensely. Her hand dropped instinctively to her lightsaber.

The intricate wooden grip met her palm with its usual worn familiarity, grounding her even as her eye darted downward to the side. Isari was stiff beside her, hackles raised, ears flat. The fox gave a low, uncertain whine. Eve dropped to one knee and pressed a hand gently to the fox's fur, fingers brushing the top of her narrow head in slow, steady strokes.

"Shh," she whispered. Her voice didn't carry far. "I know."

She lingered for only a moment longer, feeling the beat of her own pulse, the sharp edge of her senses still caught against that unfamiliar presence in the distance. Then she rose. There was no more room for indecision. Whatever was waiting inside the ruins — whoever — she couldn't walk away now.

Her boots shifted across the broken ground as she approached the structure's entrance. The wind had quieted, or perhaps the silence was thicker here — as though the stone itself was holding its breath. Cracks webbed across the surface beneath her feet. The air carried a different chill now, not just cold but dry. Old. Still.

She paused at the mouth of the ruins, looking up at the carved stone that hung overhead. Time had stripped most of its meaning. Whatever the structure had once been, whatever rites it had housed, had long since faded to dust and echo. But the weight of it remained.

Eve inhaled sharply...

Then stepped down into the dark.

 

[Darth Avida]

In the distance, behind several walls and under a collapsed ceiling, there it was; the artifact she'd came all this way for was so close she could nearly feel it in her hands, and she'd very nearly gone for it right then and there if the search hadn't yielded something else that she hadn't noticed before. Someone else. Were she either of her parents then she supposed she would have probably either sought out a fight right then and there, been the aggressor, or perhaps figured out a way to both grab the object of her desires and faced the interloper at the same time. The sum of their parts, however, Avida wasn't quite capable of doing the latter nor had the confidence, perhaps arrogance, to try the former. She knew, or at least had an inkling of a notion, however, that if she could have felt out their presence in the force than there was a decently high likelihood that she had given herself away at the same time.

She reached down towards her thigh with her right hand, a plain metallic cylinder that formed the base of her lightsaber's hilt there to meet it, and felt her fingers curl around the cold exterior of her lightsaber as she slipped off towards a section of rubble that seemed tall enough to keep her concealed. In a galaxy where someone unexpected could range from a regular archeologist to someone as dangerous as her father Avida knew better than to wait out in the open where it'd be so much easier to catch her unawares - that isn't to say that she had the repertoire to deal with whoever was coming from the shadows, she was hardly the sort who could accomplish something as chance or complicated as assassination, but it'd give her the extra breathing room to gauge the situation before deciding on anything. It didn't seem like she needed to wait very long, however, as the soft, padded, footsteps of something small followed by the slightly more harsh, if muted, footsteps of someone on two legs. Where her heart would have been racing the crystal that had replaced it radiated with an icy chill that traveled through her chest and down her spine.

Another moment, perhaps two or three seconds more, and then she revealed herself, hand still clutching at the base of her lightsaber's hilt as it rest against her thigh. "Fancy meeting someone here, thought I'd have the place to myself." She said, her orange eyes casting a questioning glare at Everest Vale that contrasted sharply with the tone of her voice and the smile that accompanied it. It was difficult to put aside the past, however hard the present might will it to remain as such, and her persona still retained a great deal of the socialite she'd always been. This was her first serious outing since she'd clawed her way out of hell, and while she was more than certain she was able to defend herself when push came to shove she wasn't quite so certain how well things would go if she rushed things without thinking clearly - and figuring out what to do first wasn't coming to her quite as naturally as she'd hoped. "Maybe we should make this easy on both of us - I come and get what I came for, you walk right back out the way you came."

"Nobody gets hurt."

 

[Everest Vale]

Outfit: Personal Armour
Equipment: Lightsaber, Bracelet, Earrings, Seer Stone, Wayfinder's Flare, Atrisian Dancer, Engagement Ring
Companion: Isari
Tag: Darth Avida

She heard the voice before she saw the face. A shape stepped forward from the shadows, slow and deliberate. The figure was slender, dark-cloaked, the movement too smooth to be anything accidental. Eve stopped.

Isari did too — posture low, ears back, a soft growl coiled in her throat. The fox didn't lunge, didn't bark, but narrowed her eyes the way she always did when something didn't sit right. Neither of them moved for a long breath.

Eve studied the woman across from her. Her hand stayed resting on her lightsaber hilt, still unlit, but not by much. She didn't need the Force to sense danger. It sat thick in the air between them. But the Force made it undeniable. Something was wrong with her. Something so cold.

She was dark, but in a way that deeply unsettled her — not the crashing storm of anger, not the rot of hatred. This was something else. It felt quiet, like ice pressing up beneath her ribs. It reminded her of another whose name felt like poison on the edge of her tongue. Whatever power was inside this woman, it was quietly, coldly hungry.

Eve didn't blink. She could feel the object deeper within the ruins — whatever it was they had both come for — but now it pulsed in the shadow of something else. It wasn't just an artefact anymore. It was bait. Or a fuse. She shifted her stance just slightly, planting her weight. Ready, if she had to be. But she didn't draw. The stranger offered her a smile, words that sounded easy — measured and civil — but the undertone was obvious.

Eve's jaw clenched. Her thumb brushed the edge of her saber hilt.

"Whoever you are," she said quietly. "You know I can't do that."

 

[Darth Avida]

Her eyes narrowed slightly, as if she took issue with the answer Everest Vale gave her, and was poised to argue but let the tension rising in her chest fall with a dejected sigh instead. It was nearly second nature for her to argue the semantics of their brief exchange - can't or won't? She supposed it didn't matter, though, just like anything else anyone had ever said when the result was the same and their perspective never changed. The little furry mutt that had glared at her earned itself a cursory glance in return, the sight of which prompted a momentary lapse in composure - she nearly laughed, a twitch at her lips and a shift in posture into a lean were made instead - but her attention was trained back on the stranger quite soon afterward.

"I had my suspicions, but you never know unless you ask."

She wasn't used to not getting her way, at least not more recently, but she took the refusal as less of an impassioned no and more of an obligated restraint which was quite a bit less bothersome to her ego than the alternative. Still, it complicated things to have to deal with someone else when the thing she'd came all this way for was nearly in arm's reach. "Darth Avida, or Amara, if it isn't too late for an introduction - I'd shake your hand, or something, but something tells me you probably would prefer that I'd die or something rather dramatic like that." She said, giving her another once-over with a hint of sarcastic concern etched into the corners of her eyes. "For the sake of your pet.. thing.. and the sake of my manicure, I'm going to make another request that'd at least benefit the both of us and still give you the win here." There was a questioning tone to her voice as her eyes traveled back down to the fox, clearly interpreting the creature as something of a fragile weakness for its owner, which she coupled with a throwaway line to her nails, of all things, in an attempt to frame the situation as more advantageous for her adversary to just take the offer for more reasons than coming away with whatever prize it was she had in mind.

"I just see whatever it is that's hiding here, just a casual look with my eyes and nothing else, and you take it home with you and get to tell everyone you managed to keep it out of a Zambrano's hands."

She seemed quite pleased with herself, only to realize how absolutely vague that sounded - there were so many cousins, after all, how was she going to know who she was dealing with unless she gave her a better name, and why would she care considering how well she'd kept herself separate from public eye? "Or maybe just a Sith's hands? I don't know how much it really matters to you, or your friends, who my parents are." She offered with a shrug. Her parents, and her cousin, were held in rather high esteem in her eyes but she had no illusions that nepotism could only get her so far - and a name even less so. "I mean I don't even know who you are, and I don't really think highly of you just yet, so the feeling is probably mutual.."

She stopped herself before she could start rambling, remembering the point of this wasn't to socialize - she was here to find something and this woman very clearly had a lightsaber which suggested she could quite literally cut this conversation short if she was any bit less restrained than herself.

"Of course we could always do this the hard way, I don't really mind taking what I came for either."