Private Ash Between the Peaks

[Vahlika Velhaari]

Tag: Sanguina Krev

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There were places even Mandalorians spoke of in hushed tones. Beyond the capital, beyond the trade routes and torch-lit cities, beyond even the far-flung outposts of the outer steppes, rose a spined range of mountains so jagged and old they had no name in Mando’a — only rumours. Wind howled between their teeth. Storms built themselves in silence there.

To reach their heights was no small feat. The journey demanded sacrifice. Travellers rode days through dense, chittering forests, then across pale grass plains that rippled like oceans, then up into the high country — narrow stone paths winding through sheer cliffs and frostbitten peaks. There were no guides. No maps. Only instinct. Only the Echo. And those who followed it found themselves here.

Carved within the side of one of the oldest mountains, the hold of Clan Velhaari was a sanctum of smoke and memory. Its entrances were narrow and jagged, easily missed among the stone. Inside, it expanded into a winding network of natural caverns and hewn tunnels lit by flickering firebowls and the faint bioluminescence of moss-fed water veins.

The air always smelled of ash and incense. Some claimed the mountain breathed. Others said it was always listening.

And in its deepest chamber — the stillpoint of the entire hold — sat the one they called Ashmother.

She sat cross-legged atop a stone dais worn smooth by centuries, her beskar set aside, her silhouette cloaked in shadow and ritual cloth. Smoke curled around her like a living thing, dancing in the firelight from the low-burning braziers.

Vahlika Velhaari was striking, not in the beauty of youth, but in terrible grace. Her silver-blue hair was braided and looped in ceremonial strands, heavy with beads and fetishes of bone and blackened metal. Her skin was pale beneath the shifting light, but marked intricately with dark tattoos: sigils and blade-fine calligraphy across her forehead and down across her eyes — symbols inherited from lost Nightsisters and redrawn through her own rites.

Her eyes were the colour of old violets pressed in bone-white pages. They were closed. Before her, a tapestry of bones was laid across the floor — skulls of warriors and strangers alike, bleached and blackened, each one placed with reverent care. Her fingers moved among them, touching, tilting, humming low notes that resonated in the smoke. It was not song. Rather, it was invocation.

The Echo surged in response.

A whisper beneath her ribs. A pressure behind her eyes. Time slipped loose. Images poured through her. A child's laughter smothered in blood. A burning sun over a shattered dome. A helmet sinking into deep black water. A name screamed in silence. A face she had never seen and yet had always known.

The Echo took what it wanted. Gave what it chose. And Vahlika listened.

Her breathing stilled. Then came a tremor. A ripple through the smoke. Something brushing the edges of the cavern's silence.

Her head lifted. One braid slid from her shoulder. Eyes opened, deep, bottomless like dusk. She did not look at the bones. She looked at nothing, and through it.

Her voice emerged like breath on embers.

"...Someone comes."

 

[Sanguina Krev]

Vahlika Velhaari

The way was difficult, hidden among dense forest and endless plains, rugged hills and cragged naked peaks. Heat, cold, rain, sun, they plagued any who sought the way. That was the intent. No transport could traverse the land, none could find it from the sky.

But to the elder shaman, the way was made plain. The ancestors showed her, in the spatter of blood on stone, in crimson droplets scattered in the wind. The shaman's journey was as spiritual as it was geographical through the rugged terrain of Mandalore's wilderness. It was not a hardship to the rugged woman. Rock and tree, creature and water and sky, they were her bed, her roof, her home.

But this journey was not without unease. It was a path of necessity.

The whispers continued, persistent, incoherent. No amount of blood spilled, imbued and chanted over, no concoction of herb and vitae imbibed deciphered their meaning or message. The Manda, the ancestors, the Echo, gave nothing regarding the murmurs. Sanguina knew there was a reason for their silence, but its nature eluded her. She knew it had something to do with the skull.

Black Summer had taken her to Onderon, where the Mand'alor lead forces to destroy those who had desecrated Mandalorian gravesites. There, among the defiled graves, she found one most curious. Unlike the others, it did not appear Mandalorian, but among the scattered bones and burial articles were indications that it was the grave of a blood mage. It was then the whispers began. Though the words were unknown, a strong energy drew her to the skull. It's hollow eyes glared at her as if begging to have it's mysteries uncovered.

Take it...

It was all the ancestors said, before falling silent on the matter.

When her own efforts to uncover the cryptic haunting failed, Sanguina resorted to seeking other means. There was one she beleived could help, one who dwelt in the remote hold of Clan Velhaari.

The Ashmother.

Sanguina appeared before the gates of the hold. The Bloodmother arrived without armor, for she had nothing to fear in the wilds of Mandalore. Threadbare robes, knife, staff and a leather satchel were all she needed. She smelled of earth and herbs and blood. The mystic was given entrance to the hold without questions.

Sanguina was greeted warmly by an elder, and she was offered a strong drink by the hearth. But her purpose would not allow her such a luxury, not yet The mention of the one she sought caused all to take a step back, not wishing to hinder the visiting Spiritspeaker's purposes.

The shaman elder had no need to be directed, she could feel the wtich elder deep in the rock. After her travel through the hewn hallway that penetrated the mountain, the entrance to the chamber loomed before her. On quiet feet shod in soft leather Sanguina entered. The Bloodpainter knew her presence would be seen long before she approached. Nearing the stone dais, the flickering orange light danced across bloodstained skin, wisps of smoke swirled around Sanguina as if tasting her.

Vahlika was beautiful in a way other women were not. The Witch of Beskar was draped in a cryptic elegance, the depth of her mystical roots unfathomable, the very air reverenced her, the firelight danced for her, the smoke clothed her with worhsipful caresses. Her presence licked at the Bloodmother like the waves of a black sea, their depths unknowable, dangerous, yet drawing one closer, step by step into the deep, with the a craving for the knowledge hidden beneath the waves.

"Ashmother." Sanguina spoke, quiet, with a tone both reverent and familiar.