D E A T H
"Thesh" was born on Ession to an industrial worker and his doting wife. The eldest of four boys, he secretly gained much of his mother's attention and affection and through his family knew true companionship from a young age. The absence of his father, who worked long hours and was often sent to the other side of their homeworld on business, left him shouldering a lot of the household responsibilities, keeping his brothers in check and providing them with a positive role model despite the fact that he was young enough to require one of his own.
He loved his brothers dearly, often leading them on adventure-filled forays throughout their sector while providing them with an opportunity to simply be children, unburdened from the responsibilities he himself had known. Back home the boys were expected to help out, cleaning and fixing up their home, working below-the-table jobs to keep their family afloat, and somehow mixing in a homeschooled education alongside it all. Though their parents meant well, unless Thesh specifically initiated play his younger brothers were not often subjected to it.
Around his ninth birthday his father descended into alcoholism. While it had always been a problem, lingering there in the background, and the phrase "addiction runs in our family" had been thrown around more times than he could count, the frequency and intensity of his father's rage-filled episodes seemed to increase. For his part, his father had always done a good job of keeping that side of his personality away from sons but as he slipped further into his addiction it became harder to control and to hide. When a much too young "Thesh" stepped in to defend his mother he found himself beaten back down and soon enough he was just as much a target for his father's rage than his mother was.
Much of the boys vigor and self-assurance deteriorated within those first few weeks. He kept his head down, working and cleaning and watching his brothers, yet that spark which had always urged him to run and play with them was gone. No longer did he step up to defend, or fight back, instead he shrunk further in on himself.
That was when the Sith came to Ession.
Fire rained from the skies and death lurked around every corner, at least that was how he would later recall these events. Whether or not the rest of his family survived these events he does not know, in truth much of his childhood has been lost to trauma. He was taken from his place of work, one of the many factories within his sector, and bundled up with many other youths into slave carriers. The last he saw of his home was a picture of chaos and destruction, yet where many of the other children fought he simply cowered and complied.
This was the Empire's first impression of him. A weak-willed child too scared to even fight for his own life, nevermind that of those he loved. Needless to say they were far from impressed. As was the case with all of the kids in the carrier he was shipped off to Imperial Space and placed into a slave compound. There they were forced into submission and taught to serve with a heavy hand. As various Sith came through the region each of the children were tested on their abilities, made to clean and fetch and follow commands on a whim. Expected to be neither seen nor heard.
The fifth of these Sith to pass through was more interested in experiments than slaves. Thesh was among the small group of children put through his tests, though after the first few milder ones he was set aside while some of the others suffered far worse fates. Though he did not know it at the time, he soon came to discover that this was because he had a high midi-chlorian count, and as a result he had to be shipped off to one of the many Sith Academies within Imperial Space lest the Sith risk the wrath of the Empire for wasting good inquisitor stock.
Though he had been given his way out of base servitude, his life in the Academy proved to be hardly any different. Still at the beck and call of many new masters, expected to listen and comply, he fell into a new routine - and one which proved much more difficult for him to keep up with. Cleaning and fetching and other such menial tasks came easily to him, but studying with his meager education, and duking it out against the other acolytes, proved to be something he was much less competent at carrying out.
It was there that his more craven tendencies began to rear their head.
Thesh would do anything he could to avoid the more physical aspects of his training, often hiding away within the vast archives or locking himself within his cramped dorm. Of course this was not something which was at all encouraged and the boy quickly found himself in genuine trouble with his masters. Beaten and coerced, pushed to breaking point, he eventually did as he was bid yet his lack of ability, added to his poor demeanor, finally landed him back on a shuttle headed for yet another slave compound.
There he was branded with an aurebesh mark and number - Thesh#028 - in order to keep track of him and note him as a slave to the Empire, and set right back to work. How long he was stuck there for he could not say. Time was not something which was measured around them, days bled into weeks, months into years, and soon the child unknowingly hit his teenaged years.
To look at him, however, you would simply see a child. Small, underweight, and lacking any confidence or real presence, he did a very good job of blending into the background and seeming insignificant. No more mention was ever made of his sensitivity to the Force, and the lessons he was taught within the Academy were swiftly forgotten. Education was pushed aside as it had been in his youth, leaving him at a poor stage of comprehension and understanding, and physical activity was limited purely to cardio in order to keep their endurance high so they could work for longer hours.
This was the state he was in when he was finally shipped out to what would be his permanent master; scrawny, timid, yet hard working, he arrived at the home of Darth Maliphant with genuine fear in his stomach. The times he had been sent to work with random Sith in the past had always been very painful experiences, where he was pushed beyond his limits, and going into his new home he expected more of the same.
What he found instead was something all together different. Given time to settle into his new surroundings and duties, which were not too different from what he had already experienced - only enforced with tone not fist - he soon discovered the underlying reason he had been transferred to Maliphant. Not only to serve, but also to learn.
Thesh - the name initially given to him by Maliphant himself due to the slave markings on the boys wrist and shoulder - had been placed back on the path toward becoming a Sith. Now his failure would not only reflect upon himself, but on his Master too. And yet unlike at the academy, the change in environment, and the careful consideration shown to him by his Master, brought out a more eager side of the boy. This time he wanted to prove himself. This time he wanted to succeed.
He soon discovered that he was not the only student under Mal's guidance. Thesh shared time and lessons with a woman named Nilia, and though they faced healthy competition within their training they retained a fairly strong bond when out in the greater galaxy. Nilia was the sister he'd never had, the older sibling he'd never known, and for once he was on the receiving end of another's care. Their dynamic was somewhat strained however, as Thesh was regarded by their Master as the senior apprentice despite the fact that he was considerably younger than the other student.
The introduction of Odana early into his training helped with the split in Mal's time. The woman was his overseer, she guided him while his Master was preoccupied, and took over the more physical aspects of his training. It was she who handed him his first training saber, and taught him the basics of Shii-Cho, she who left him bruised each evening, and taught him to take a hit from a blaster. As much as she frustrated him, Thesh could not help but begin to look up to the woman, and he looked forward to her training sessions as much as he did Mal's. Between the two of them, and the large selection of books on hand, the boy slowly began to learn how to read, and soon his education was back on track.
He discovered during his literacy lessons that he was extremely fond of reading. Not just that, but of learning. His free time was filled with dusty tomes and datacrons, and the speed at which he caught up to others of his age was rather astounding. Where he lacked in brawn he certainly excelled in brains. Both aspects of his training seemed to coincide when he was sent to assist Tsisaar Taral with the retrieval of an ancient tome on Kruskan. His first real mission and opportunity to show all he had learned, he found himself put through his paces. Ultimately the journey was a success, though Thesh did not return to Bastion unscathed. His injuries healed swiftly, but the lessons he learned both through experience and Tsisaar's teachings would remain with him.
From there a multitude of other tasks were set before him. Large tomes were expected to be read, meetings were sat in on where he was expected to pay attention and learn from Mal's lead, he was sent out with other Sith Acolytes, and sometimes Knights who required an extra pair of hands, where he was made to assist in bringing down rancors, or unearth some other piece of misplaced knowledge from eons past. He even began to delve into the more mystical aspects of his Sithly studies. Alchemy and sorcery. It was here that his interest truly began to peak. If he had been eager to study before, now it was difficult to find him without a book in his hand, or pages filled with ancient sith script he was copying out and translating. Maliphant even helped him with the basics of metallurgy, overseeing the construction and imbuement of a small Sith blade.
Soon he was branching out, searching distant archives for further knowledge on the art, hunting down great Sith Alchemists to assist in hopes that he might learn something from them, all while carrying out his Master's whim. He had come so far from his days as a slave that he was provided with a new name, one which transcended the boy he had been. Thesh became Arcturus, yet whether due to sentiment or as a simple reminder of how far he had come he took on his previous moniker as his surname. Thus Arcturus Thesh was born.
And then, without warning, the boy disappeared...
Last edited:
