Private Ashes of the Damned, Blood of the Wolf

[Darth Prazutis]

The air over Jutrand hung thick with the weight of its own ambition. From the upper causeways of the Eternalist dominant Sith capital-world, endless spires pierced the sky like the spears of some titanic army raised in eternal defiance. The arcology stacked skyline shimmered beneath dark clouds, a polluted dusk locked in perpetual twilight. Hover traffic screamed through the distance, muffled by the atmospheric interference of a dozen military fields. Here, where stone, steel, and circuitry formed a horizon that had long since devoured any trace of the natural world, the Sith Academy stood like a blackened shrine. Not the oldest of the temples, but one of the most unrelenting. It was here that the summons would come.

No warning preceded his arrival. No announcement over comms, no honor guard deployed from the Academy's fortress walls. The structure itself seemed to feel him first. Lights dimmed, weakest among them shriveling in the wake of shadow. Statues cracked. The hum of hidden repulsorlifts shuddered in their very coils. In a place where darkness ruled its grip tightened with crushing resolve. When the Shadow Hand approached, even silence dared not remain ordinary, it warped into a pressure, a tremor, a vast suffocation of presence. The gateway arch to the central atrium peeled open without a signal, scorched by proximity alone. The scent of cold ash and scorched metal lingered in the air, as if the Dark Lord of the Sith dragged war behind him with every step. He entered alone.

Tall as a monster from a warlord's nightmare, clad in cloth of obsidian etched with slivers of runic crimson, Darth Prazutis cut the visage of a dark king, a supreme monarch as he passed beneath the archways like some risen revenant of an age that never died. The giants boots rang like funeral bells on the stone floor. Those molten orbs of blazing fury stared forward his face clad in a stoic, unreadable expression of absolute certainty. Runes gleamed across the folds like the pulse of something buried far too deep. An amulet of blackened chain and deep red crystal gleamed around his neck, its power remaining dormant yet it pulsed like the beat of a heart. All that remained at the Dark Lord's side was a single large hilted lightsaber radiating fell power like the blaze of the sun yet ever present. No guards moved to intercept him. No instructors dared protest his passage. The threshold had been crossed, and now the Academy was drowned beneath his might.

The Mortarch had come for something. Past rows of frozen statues, halls echoing with the fading clash of training sabers, and walls steeped in the smell of cold blood and scorched ozone, the Dark Lord of the Sith moved with unhurried finality. Every Sith acolyte who passed him turned aside without a word, some falling to their knees in reflexive terror, respect and fealty, others simply freezing in place as though their bodies refused to continue. His presence did not merely oppress, it consumed. A young instructor rushed to intercept him just beyond the eastern hall. He tried to speak. He failed. The Dark Lord didn't even stop walking. Then the central chamber doors parted. Beyond stood the Headmaster of the Sith Academy, a bald-headed man in voluminous robes he had come to see, the one who would get the Dark Lord what he came for. Aerik Lechner. The son of Gerwald. The last ember born of Naedira Darcrath, kindled in blood, fire, and the hunger of things not meant to walk free. There was irony in the air, irony and something else. Memory twisted with destiny. The wolf's pup now stood at the threshold of a far more terrible inheritance.

Darth Prazutis came to a halt. The air grew still. A dark pulse radiated outward from the titan's frame, unspoken yet undeniable, like a command issued from the marrow of reality itself. For a moment, nothing moved. Only the low thrum of power, like a war drum beneath the skin of the world, echoed through the floor. The Headmaster was forced to his knees, shaking in his presence. He did not need to speak to be understood. But when he did? The words were knives. They fell with ironclad certainty that there was no alternative, the finality they carried enforced the only acceptable response was obedience.

"Bring me the wolf." The titan rumbled, voice like stone dragged across a grave. "Bring me Aerik Lechner."

Aerik Lechner ​

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Darth Prazutis

The sky had been dark the night before, more than what was considered normal for Jutrand. From the garden maze where Aerik would often sneak to for some semblance of nature he was used to seeing the stars. They had not been present. Something had blocked their view, or it was a bad omen, not that the pup believed in such things. His father ensured he stayed away from the more religious aspects of using the force. Though the witch he had encountered had opened his mind to the idea that there was something at play, a will beyond his own, and deep magicks he could not possibly hope to understand.

His sleep was restless. Aerik had been haunted by what it could possibly mean. It was another thing to bottle up. When he killed the Jedi he had been awarded by being separated from his siblings. Aerik had learned to be independent of them, though he craved the camaraderie they had shared. They were his pack. Lone wolves went insane. Aerik could not allow himself to become one. His friendships with other students seemed to grow cold as well. They saw the monster when they looked at him, the one that tore two Jedi to shreds.

The rumors still said their blood was still on his chin when he shifted to a human once more. It was likely. Those kills had not been any different than any of the hunts which preceded those. He was still adjusting to what… who… he was now. His siblings were as well.

*****​

“You cannot simply walk in here and demand a student, no matter who you are,” the headmaster protested. "That is not protocol. You are not his sponsor, not even a silent one as far as I have been made aware. The Lechner pup, his brother and sister, are here because Carnifex wishes for it.”

The Kainites seemed all too eager to have a hand in what took place in an Academy which should have been beyond their influence. Yet, here Prazutis stood, a towering mountain that broadcasted one obvious truth to any who would listen to it.

He would not be denied.

A long sigh escaped from the headmaster as he walked toward the same door which the Shadow Hand had just barged into moments before.

“He should be fighting today. Someone within the second cohort thinks he needs to be taught a lesson.”

He stopped, looking over his shoulder.

“Follow me, but as rules are rules, we will let the contest play out to whatever conclusion comes about.”

*****​

A small crowd of students had gathered around the contest. By all rights, it should have been over by now. It was rare that someone in the fourth cohort lasted as long against someone in the second. Aerik had stopped caring to hide the combat training he had received prior to entering the Academy. Gerwald had insisted his children would know how to fight. They were not as disciplined or rigorous lessons as what the Echani were known for. Gerwald was Lupo, a warrior, not an Echani. He simply fathered his children the same way he had been in this regard. On Stewjon they would be seen as warriors, not farmers.

“Did you expect this to be easy… you’re fighting a Jedi-killer,” a voice rang out, making the second angry.

He lunged at Aerik, a weapon in hand, but the wolf pup was too quick for him. The natural agility which the younger Lechner possessed was a benefit of his race. It was quite unnatural to everyone else. Those who had seen his father fight knew of course. Aerik caught the wrist of the student. He had finally made a mistake. That mistake had given him enough of an opening.

A loud crack was heard followed by a loud scream. It was the sound of pain, pure and direct. Aerik had broken the student’s wrist, and with it the fight was over.

“Lechner,” the headmaster called out.

His eyes shifted, but they did not settle on the headmaster. Instead they rested on the behemoth of a man next to him. He was unmistakably a Zambrano, but which one. Aerik knew he had not met all of them during the few months he had spent with Carnifex prior to his enrollment into the academy. There was something about him, something which a part of him recognized as familiar.

It was odd.

Where had he seen this man before? Why did that even matter?

He moved, quickly, before the headmaster saw the need to call out again.

“This is Darth Prazutis. For some reason, he wanted to meet you.”

 

[Darth Prazutis]

The Headmasters words barely settled on the air before they were swallowed entirely. The Dark Lord stood in stillness, though there was nothing calm about it. His gigantic frame loomed beside the Headmaster like a monument to some slain god of war, carved from grief and violence. Even here, where so many aspired to greatness, he eclipsed the moment with a presence that dragged silence down like a corpse into black water. In every measure imaginable he made even the strongest instructors, even the headmaster himself look small. Prazutis's gaze locked upon Aerik not as a man sees another, but as a force of gravity recognizes orbit. The moment he saw him, something changed.

The eyes didn't lie. In them Prazutis saw the echoes of Naedira Darcrath, those fire-ringed irises that danced with a soul once sacrificed, once consumed by the Nocna Mora. Not even death had truly buried her thanks to the untimely intervention of others, and Gerwald…Gerwald still howled in the boy's shape, still lingered in the cut of his jaw, the predator tension in his posture. It was as if the sins of two broken legacies had stitched themselves into this lone survivor, this shard of fate shaped like a youth and forged in blood. The giant didn't speak immediately. The chamber seemed to bend to the pause, to the measured silence that followed Aerik's acknowledgment. A tension coiled in the air as the Headmaster stepped back, reluctant to linger in the path of what came next. Then the titan moved.

One step. Another. Each falling with a slow and deliberate precision. Each one a denial of any illusion that Aerik still held control of the moment. The black cloth of the giant stirred like banners in a wind that didn't exist. He came to a halt only a meter from the wolf pup, his gaze drilling into him, the amulet at his chest smoldering with dormant fire. "You fight with hunger." The Dark Lord said at last, voice deep as the grave. "But your fury is undirected. It snaps in all directions, like a beast wounded in a snare." Prazutis's eyes narrowed slightly, not with disappointment, but scrutiny. "The question is not whether you can kill. That is easy. You already know what it is to make something die. But have you learned to command?"

He didn't wait for an answer. A hand extended, not with menace, but invocation. An offer, terrible in its implication. "There is power in your blood, Aerik Lechner. A line sired in ruin, tempered in fire. The galaxy will come to know your name…if you survive what I will make of you. You've learned all you can from this place, it will carry you no further." The moment hung like a blade.

Aerik Lechner ​

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Darth Prazutis

A bold claim followed by one after the other landed on the ears of the pup. His eyes finally diverted to the headmaster. Certainly not even one who had the status and notoriety of the Shadow Hand could simply remove a student at will from the academy. Aerik questioned without asking, and the silent answer confirmed what the young Lechner suspected.

Leaving the academy would forfeit all the benefits which came to those who completed it.

There was something boisterous about the mountain of a Sith which stood close to him now. His power radiated off of him like a tremor which shook the ground with every step. Aerik could feel the ripple it left in its wake between them. He could become intoxicated on it if he wanted to. Yet, there was a part him, long buried, but always present, which suddenly threw up a wall to the temptation the Dark Lord offered.

He was already bound to someone.

It had not been something he asked for, and yet he had welcomed it all the same. Palm-Imer had been a part of his father’s past, and in some version of reality she was part of his future. Aerik could not discern how. He knew it was not as a mentor or teacher, yet he could not escape the inevitability that they would meet again. It was as he told the woman then, it was not fair. She had left because she had to. Aerik had come to the Academy because he had to. Would he leave with Prazutis now because he had to?

His mind searched for an answer. Any one of the other students would have likely given him an answer already. They would all think him a fool for not accepting right away. The pup could hear the muttered whispers under their breath now. Did he really think he was too good for the Dark Lord, unworthy, or was he so blatant with his disrespect. They whispered of what the man had done to his mother, his father, and anger flashed across his eyes.

Aerik turned to one of the students.

“I know what he did,” he growled as his gaze turned to the mountain, “and I know what my father promised.”

He let it hang between them. What would Prazutis say? How could he blindly accept the invitation which was given to him knowing the truth and the history between this man and his family? It would be a betrayal of sorts.

“I am not supposed to leave until I graduate. There is more to this academy than curriculum and exercise. It is a way to prove that I am more than my last name.”

It would be a fair rebuttal, and Aerik did not think Prazutis would deny it was. While he should have been afraid of the Sith, he was not. He could see what the Epicanthix wanted in his eyes. The aroma of his desire wafted off of him like something pungent and strong. It was almost so sweet that it tasted bitter in his mouth. Aerik shook his head.

“Make me a better offer. One that gives me both.”

 

[Darth Prazutis]

For a long moment, the Shadow Hand didn't speak. The murmurs of the crowd dissolved into nothingness, devoured by the silence that followed Aerik's words. That silence wasn't a passive thing, it was palpable, it lingered as if the very air dared not to move until its true master commanded it. Even the light within the chamber grew dimmer, edges of vision curling into shadow, as though reality itself recoiled to give the Dark Lord space to respond. Then his head turned. Not sharply. Slowly. Just like the pivot of a colossal war machine, or a mountain shifting after centuries of stillness. The twin furnaces of his eyes found the young wolf, burning with a light that was not merely bright but consuming. Their glow sank through the skin and into the soul, a fire that searched, judged, measured.

"You speak of the academy." Prazutis began at last, voice low and measured. It was not the voice of a mere man; it was the very toll of doom carved into syllables. A voice that didn't simply enter the ear, but wrapped itself around the spine, coiling into the marrow like a serpent of command. "You speak of rules. Of protocol. Of reputation. All fine things…for those who seek to be remembered. But I have not come for the remembered." The air thickened again, once more as if the very molecules strained under a growing weight. Each word he spoke didn't simply pass, it landed, with the finality of blackstone on a funerary altar. And yet despite its gravity, that voice held a dangerous beauty, a cadence that could enchant even as it shattered.

"I have come for the unforgettable." He stepped forward once, and the floor cracked beneath the force of his tread. Not from strength alone, but from the gravity of his presence, as though the world itself had miscalculated the burden of his being. He didn'trush. He did not posture. Neither were necessary with one who held such command over fate. But with each step, the space between them collapsed into inevitability. "Do you know what they whispered about me, when I was born of shadow and blood?" the Dark Lord continued, his voice like velvet over razors. "They said I was a curse. That I could not be mastered. That the power I bore would burn the hands of any who tried to wield it." He came to a halt before Aerik, towering above him like an eclipse with a heartbeat. "They were right."

The crowd dared not speak. Some averted their eyes. Others stared, transfixed, not out of reverence, but because they couldn't look away. The charisma of the Dark Titan wasn't simply magnetic, it was annihilative. A singularity of willpower. He spoke not to the mind, but to the storm inside the soul, that part of every being which hungered for more and feared the cost of achieving it. "You stand before me burdened by your father's sins. By your mother's blood. You wear their legacy like a weight, and still you ask for more. You want power. You want freedom. You want to prove yourself. So I ask you, Aerik Lechner…" Prazutis's hand rose, not in threat, but in presentation. Like a judge unveiling a verdict. Just like a god unveiling a crown. "…What is the price of becoming?" He stepped closer still, until the air between them trembled like a stretched drumskin, ready to rupture. Those eyes of molten gold saw through the wolf, saw the creature curled beneath the skin, the beast that clawed to be free, the prince raised in war, the monster raised in whispers.

"Remain here, and they will give you praise. Trophies. Medals. A robe when you graduate. But that robe will not change what they truly see: a bloodline. A curiosity. A pup in a man's body." A pause. "But come with me…and I will forge from your flesh a name that will drown empires. I will teach you to make kings kneel not because of your name, but because their instincts tell them they will not survive another heartbeat if they remain standing." He didn't reach for Aerik. He didn't have to. The offer was already inside his head, wrapping itself around old doubts and deep hunger. It was temptation refined into art. Seduction without softness. A crucible offered not as mercy, but as truth. "I don't promise safety." The Shadow Hand said at last, voice soft now, intimate. "I do not promise peace. But I offer you something your siblings will never have. Something this academy can never give."

Another pause. Final.

"I offer you destiny."

Aerik Lechner​

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Darth Prazutis

If the Mountain thought he would entice the young pup by insulting his family or making them seem less than, he was either a fool or was confident that Aerik would be a fool to pass up the offer. Had he not learned the lesson of his hubris before? Prazutis was the example of what the Kainites believed. They did because they could. They took what they wanted because there was no one to stop them.

Until there was.

That was always the trap of the way of thinking which many of the Sith around him seemed bound by.

It was a chain which needed to be broken.

Aerik found the words which were coming from the Dark Lord more ironic than helpful. He was tempted by the offer certainly, but why settle for one option or the other when Aerik could have both. There were other students which were not only sponsored by other Sith, but their apprentices as well. It seemed so anyway. What did the Mountain have against the academy that the pup could not finish, especially when he was close?

His lips turned downward when Prazutis suggested he would gain something his siblings never would. While the oldest of the three always knew the day would come where one would be greater than the other two, it was not something any aspired to. Well, Colin did. Cole was the aggressive of the three. Prazutis’ speech would have landed on his ears better.

It would have been successful.

Instead, Aerik would debate the issue, negotiate it until he got what he wanted. He was stoic, save the moments he could not control the wolf. Gerwald had always told them, they were the wolf. They were human. They were not separate. They were something else too, and it was that part of him which hung onto something Prazutis had said.

His mother’s blood.

Aerik wondered if he meant what they had all inherited from her. It was darker than the wolf, and yet the pup found it hard to reconcile it with the woman he knew his mother to be. The Mountain was right about one thing. The Academy would not help him learn about who he was, but it would not do that for his siblings either. That was not something he was willing to rob them of. They were his pack.

His eyes met the burning embers that belonged to the Shadow Hand.

“I want both. I want it all. Disparage the Academy all you want, but it gives me something you have yet to offer. Proximity to my siblings.”

He let the demand hang in the air between them for a moment before continuing.

“Regardless of what you offer there will always be those who only see my bloodline. The same is true for you, is it not? You are not only feared for who you are, but you carry a name that gives weight to it more than others. If you were not a Zambrano you would be respected less, I have no doubt.”

It was a foolish course of action, but Prazutis was the one who sought him out. Had it been the other way around perhaps Aerik’s attitude would have had less of a bite to it.

“Simply put, I am a pack animal. Your offer seeks to separate me from them. If you want me to leave with you, you will arrange it so I may still graduate and have access to my siblings.”

Aerik grinned.

“That is the price of my loyalty.”

 

[Darth Prazutis]

For a moment, the titan said nothing. No fury unleashed. No force came. The giant didn't give the pup a scathing rebuke. All he was met with was just silence. But that silence came alive. It was a dense and slow thing, just like the stillness before a black hole consumed a star. The Dark Lord stood unmoving, cloaked in His storm, watching the pups words linger in the space between them like they had real weight. But that was the thing, they did have weight. A demand. A price. A leash, dressed as a term of loyalty. Ever so slowly the Dark Lord's head tilted, not in any form of mockery, instead He studied the youth, His gaze narrowing as if what He saw before Him had grown in interest, deepening and breaking through expectations previously set.

"Good." The first words spoken in response didn't herald any explosion, they simply landed. A great earth rumbling shift of approval, unexpected but entirely undeniable. "You would name the cost of your loyalty." Prazutis said, his voice rang low and vast, a hypnotic lull trailing off every word that drew the focus of every ear in the vicinity. "Not beg for mine. Not simper for favor like so many glass chinned acolytes who parade as Sith." There wasn't any scorn in his tone, only a razor edge of approval that could flay the unworthy. The giant stepped closer again, not to threaten the boy but to claim the space. It was a reminder that even now, he hadn't stepped back. The breath between them remained a heavy thing, like thunder yet to split the sky open with its crack. "Your father would've done the same. In his own way and your mother? She always could stand her ground well." The Dark Lord let that linger intentionally between them.

Then came the great shift. The iron weight in that charismatic voice dominating the room turned colder, slower and more deliberate. "You believe this place proves your worth. That staying close makes you stronger and for now? You may even be right." The Shadow Hand's gaze flickered for just a mere heartbeat, the space between breaths towards those watching on the outskirts. "But make no mistake, pup. You don't belong in a kennel." The giant turned, not dismissively of the youth, but like a sovereign preparing the commands that made empires kneel. The folds of His cloak rippled behind Him like the oncoming front of a turbulent storm. He didn't need to loom. He simply was.

"You will stay here, for now. You will graduate and remain close to those you desire to. These...conditions of yours?" Prazutis said, looking over His shoulder. Those eyes blazed like suns behind a veil of smoke. "Granted." All around the murmurs in the crowd rose, as if broken from the spell that enraptured them to every word and action He took, floored that the legendary Shadow Hand, the Elysian Grandeval Mortarch would agree to the terms of a student. But their confusion only fed the shrouded amusement of the Dark Lord. The giant turned back fully, walking toward Aerik one final time. "But understand this." He said, and now there was fire behind the words. Not rage but promise. "You gave me your price and I've paid it. So when I return for you, and I will, you come as mine." The Dark Lord leaned in slightly, just enough so that His shadow fully engulfed the form of the pup. "No more conditions. No more debates. Nothing. You made your choice." Prazutis straightend.

"I will forge you into the predator you were always meant to be." Then, just like the eye of the storm pulling back into the hurricane, the Dark Lord of the Sith turned and strode from the chamber. The crowd parted in silence, as if even they knew this moment would be carved into the very bones of the academy, into history itself. The Mortarch hadn't simply come to take, but to bind. Now? Now the wolf chose his master.

Aerik Lechner​

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Darth Prazutis

Mine.

Aerik let the word settle in his head. There was no galaxy in which a Lechner would ever truly belong to the Mountain. The pup had been around the Sith long enough to know that he could use the man as a means to an end if he desired. The challenge would be ensuring that was never truly discovered. He would have to play a roll.

How long had he been doing that already?

Of all the students in the academy, Aerik had not seemed to form significant friendships among the students aside from one or two. It seemed they all closed themselves off to a degree, or Aerik had to come to terms that his last name kept others away. His mind had played over the night he changed while they were supposed to be at a party.

Aerik could not help but wonder if the other students were afraid of what he was more than wanted to know who he was. If that were the case, he could just become the monster they all reckoned him to be. Yet, Cole had done that already. Colin seemed to embrace the idea they were something more for a reason, and to make them all fear what they were.

Prazutis would ensure Aerik embraced it, yet he was not willing to give himself over to the monster completely. Vyra and Naedira often reminded him that he was as much human as he was a wolf or a demon. All of those things existed in him as one, and he had a choice of who he would become. The Sith Code taught the force would allow them to break their chains. That meant freedom.

Aerik would decide who he was and what he wanted to be.

It was the primary thought he had as he meditated in the garden labyrinth. The hedges remained high, and if the overseers knew Aerik had been sneaking out to the center of it almost every night for the last five years, they did not let on. Prazutis would find him taking in the green space. The grass was natural and it fed the part of him that craved nature. Like Gerwald, the pup hated the urban setting, and he was afraid it would be a long time before he felt grass again.

He breathed in the air. It was a small sanctuary. Aerik wondered if the Dark Lord would account for his nature. The Nox Lupo would have to change on occasion, and how would the crews of the ships they traveled on deal with it? There was a lot which was unknown. He supposed he was about to find out.

Darth Prazutis was coming. His ship could be seen from where Aerik was sitting.

 

[Darth Prazutis]

The garden was silent.

Not the peaceful quiet of reflection, but a silence that pressed in on the world like a breath held before the plunge. The wind ceased its whisper, the leaves stood motionless, as if caught in fearful anticipation of what was to come. Even the filtered sunlight above dimmed, as though the very sky recoiled from what approached, darkness drowning the space. The air once fresh and tinged with life, now seemed to hang heacvy with unseen gravity. Something ancient, something vast and consuming, had stepped into this sanctuary. The Shadow Hand of the Kainate had arrived. There was no no word in advance of His arrival, only inevitability made manifest. The giants towering form swept through the gardens hedge walls like a walking cataclysm, every step fell silent yet boomed like shockwaves through the soil. The Dark Lord wore no mere armor, but Qâzjiin'vraal, the Shadow Hungering Abyss, a warplate forged in agony and alchemical darkness. It pulsed with life beneath the plating, sinew and shadow entwined, runes burning with ancient Sith power. The black metal plates seemed to breathe as He walked, flexing and shifting with a life of their own, the surface carved with crimson symbols that bled malevolence into the open air. Where He passed, the garden wilted, not from touch, but from the sheer presence of what He was.

Draped over His immense shoulders flowed a cloak of shadow, Shikkari Shadow-Silk, a fabric woven from void and silence. It didn't sway aimlessly like cloth, but drifted with pure purpose, as if guided by His will alone. Light bent at the cloths edges and sound died before it, even the shadows themselves recoiled. Set atop His head loomed a crown of annihilation: Xûl-Karzaan, the Black Maw of Dominion. The helm was a mask of pure dread, wrought from Zîrkaris plate and embedded with jagged Voidshards that shimmered with impossible color. Sith runes crawled across its brow, pulsing with a hunger that had never known satisfaction. Its abyssal lenses stared without expression, yet all who met its gaze felt as though they were being watched by something that had lived in the dark far longer than the stars themselves. Where it looked, color seemed to bleed away and fade into obscurity, the veil of reality itself trembled, and hallucinations whispered just beyond conscious reach.

The Dark Lord stopped at the edge of the clearing, silent, unmoving. The helm fixed upon Aerik, and the world itself held its breath. Then the voice came. "You think I don't know?" It wasn't merely speech, it was declaration, carried on a tide of abyssal overtones and whispered echoes from every dark corner of the Force. The warplate amplified his voice until it scraped against the mind, layered in distortion, in the haunting voices of the slain, in something not meant for mortal ears. Words bent around the garden like a curse given form. "The act you wear like armor. The doubts you chew on like old bones. That name you bear like it might protect you. Lechner. As if it means anything now. As if it ever did." He took a single step forward. The earth didn't tremble before His might, but something far deeper did. The light dimmed even further. The shadows stretched and grew, and the very shape of the clearing seemed to warp as the armor exhaled faint plumes of imperceptible hunger, the runes on the helm blazing with baleful intensity.

"You tell yourself you can use me. That you'll play the role, hide your intentions, survive me long enough to twist this to your design." Prazutis's voice coiled lower, heavier. "But you've already begun to change. Not because I command it. Because the thing they whisper about, the shadow in the hall, the flicker in your eyes, it's already waking." He moved, not like a warrior, but like a force of nature circling something fragile. Qâzjiin'vraal shifted as He turned, plates flexing, voidshards humming faintly with residual energy. From beneath the armor's living sinews came a slow, wet pulse, like breath echoing through a predator's lungs below. "You hate this place. You crave the wild. The green. The moonlight. The blood. Yet here you sit…meditating. Clinging to the idea that fragments of your humanity will save you."He came to a stop before Aerik once more. A presence so fast it eclipsed the light by its very attendance. The warplate's runes glowed brighter now, feeding off the tension, the fear, and the rising doubt radiating in the air, and when he spoke again, it was quieter, but it sank deeper.

"Vyra. Naedira. I know the names. I know the ghosts you keep. You tell yourself they anchor you. But they are not chains. They are illusions. Your chains are deeper, blood. Legacy. Shadows you didn't choose. Your father. Your mother. Their weight binds you more than you know." A single gauntleted hand rose, plated in cursed metal and veined with Blood-Forged Aurodium that gleamed like molten despair. It was not a gesture of kindness. It was an edict.

"No more." The Dark Lords voice boomed through the helm. "You belong to me now." There was no room for debate. The void had spoken.

"You will come with me. You will be broken. You will be reforged. You will not become the monster they fear, you will become the thing they cannot name."

Just as the last syllable left him, Qâzjiin'vraal stirred. Its runes drank deep of the moment. The Shikkari cloak twisted in place, whispering against itself in soundless incantation. The helm's abyssal eyes burned. Shadows quivered along the garden walls. Illusions would dance at the edge of the wolf's vision, false movements, trick reflections, the yawning sense of something vast behind him, just out of sight.

"Once they speak of you in hushed voices, it will not be as Lechner. Not as Lupo. Not as beast or boy. It will be as heir. Heir of power beyond blood." He stood as still as stone, as vast as a storm held in place. The silence that followed was absolute. The garden was no longer a sanctuary. It was a tomb awaiting a name. The grass beneath Aerik's boots seemed colder. The air thinner. Even the sky overhead had dimmed.

There would be no escaping what stood before him.

Aerik Lechner​

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Darth Prazutis

Prazutis seemed to read every wayward thought which the young Sith had. He knew there were way to block his mind, but in the garden Aerik had never thought to employ them. It had been his one sanctuary, and even now that had been something which was defiled by the stench of the competitive nature of the Sith. Perhaps it was best the Dark Lord knew Aerik would use the man for what he could gain. In the end, Aerik was loyal to himself more than anyone. His attempts at forging bonds outside of his family had all come to naught.

He was tired of being ignored, overlooked, or an afterthought. Aerik would not be used as a stepping stone or a stand in when the preferred was not available. Not that he had been any of those things. It was simply how Sith seemed to be, and the way the world worked.

Prazutis would abandon him one day as well, or Aerik would take the revenge his father could not seem to. For now, there was one truth which seemed to be unavoidable.

The Mountain was not the obstacle, but he was Aerik’s way forward.

“You should leave this place as it is,” the pup said as the grass cooled unnaturally. “I am still a wolf, and these small places among the industrial and cold environments of the Sith keep my nature from tearing itself apart. You have an arboretum prepared on your ship, yes?”

The statement and question was a test of how much the Dark Lord understood of his nature. His insults about his family, once again, would be ignored for now. Though, if they continued the Mountain would find his antiquated methods insufficient in keeping the loyalty of a pack creature.

He stood and turned toward the Sith. They had made an agreement, and Aerik was not going to break it. One did not enter into a covenant with any Zambrano lightly, nor did they break it with ease. Aerik had already secured his place among those who would lead among the Sith one day, and it was not because of his name, but rather his actions and deeds at the Academy. He would only build on that reputation now. What would be constructed, and whether the sweet temptations the Mountain promised became reality remained to be seen.

“How they speak of me does not matter. Your words are just that for now. Make all the guarantees and promises you wish, but there are other forces which will shape reality. You are not the only one which makes a reputation. You are just the way.”

It was his stoicism which differed Aerik from his brother and father. He was pragmatic. While his mind raced with questions, doubts, and false confidence, Aerik never wore it on his face. The few times where his rage bled through came from the wolf or the demon. He knew the truth. Prazutis had made the demon. Perhaps he could teach Aerik to control it.

“Lead the way. I will follow.”

 

[Darth Prazutis]

A silence passed between them as Aerik stood sharp-eyed and composed, a storm bottled behind the eyes of a wolf that refused to kneel. It wasn't resistance he offered, but acceptance on his own terms, as if bartering with fate could dull its edge. Prazutis didn't say a word, He simply regarded the young wolf through the eternal stare of Xûl-Karzaan, the helm's abyssal lenses unblinking, unmoved, all-consuming that pierced through all. Then, a low sound emerged from within the iron, a dark chuckle, guttural and slow, it dragged like a blade across the very stone. It wasn't mocking but...acknowledgment. Not of rebellion but of predictability of a pattern He had seen in generations of Sith before. He stepped forward once more and with each step Qâzjiin'vraal flexed and pulsed, its runes aglow, the warplate seeming to exhale, feeding on the tension that still lingered in the air like blood in water. "You speak as though you are difficult to understand." The Shadow Hand said at last, His voice layered in void echoes that resonated through flesh and bone. "But your nature is clear."

The helm tilted ever so slightly, as if weighing Aerik's test like a relic before the flame. "There is an arboretum aboard the dreadnought. Wild-grown, hunted, and shaped. Your cycles will be accounted for, and you will be uninterrupted when they come." The words were spoken with absolute certainty behind them, simple fact. "You believe I will abandon you. That I am no different from the rest. That you will use me until I have no value left and cast me aside before I do the same." He paused then, the voice growing quieter, colder. "Perhaps that is true." A breath passed. The warplate stirred once more, as if something within was far from mechanical but it was alive. "But the difference is this. I know it already. I have seen your kind before. Not the wolf. Not the blood. The shape of what you are for I have forged it, and I won't shatter it. I won't chain it. I will do something far worse." The shadows around him coiled, and the air thinned.

"I will teach you to become it." He didn't look away from the boy, no, not a boy, not anymore. The decision had already been made. Aerik's words, for all their caution, had been a vow in truth. He would follow and now the wheels turned. "You speak of how they will remember you. You pretend it means nothing. But that, too, is a mask. Reputation is not currency for the Sith. It is law. Memory is what the weak fear. But legacy, legacy is what the strong command." The helm turned ever so slightly, as if gazing through the hedge walls toward the ship now waiting beyond the edge of the garden. "Follow me, then. Let the old names rot behind us." He turned. The cloak of void wrought silk swelled and twisted behind Him like smoke, devouring the light in His path. Every step away from the clearing was a step into shadow, the very path darkening around Him. Yet amid that closing dark, the warplate whispered with sorcery.

They walked in silence, their footsteps swallowed by the dying breath of the garden. What had once been a sanctuary was now a memory, a place where one name had ended and another had begun, though neither had yet been spoken aloud. Ahead, nestled within the shadowed perimeter of the academy's hangar ring, the shuttle waited. Its profile was dagger-sleek, angular, and predatory, a shadow given shape, forged for infiltration and silence. Its folded wingblades jutted like obsidian fangs, its fuselage forged from some midnight alloy that devoured the surrounding light. The vessel was unlike the mass-produced ships of the Sith Empire's war machine, it was unlike anything ever seen on the modern galactic stage, for it transcended all competition. This was something rarer, a Shikkari Infiltrator, born of the black foundries deep beneath Malsheem, intended only for the movement of ghosts and sovereigns.

The cockpit glowed faintly with crimson light, its viewport like a slitted eye staring back into the soul of the world. Along its hull, lines of runes flickered in dull, ember-like pulses, not as ornamentation, but as warding sigils, etched into the hull to protect against hostile sorcery and psychic intrusion. This was no mere transport. It was a blade, a dark vessel meant to pierce through the galaxy's defenses, both seen and unseen. Only a pair of masked, shrouded figures loomed at the base of the ramp as the ship recognized its master. Prazutis moved up the ramp without a word. Each step of Qâzjiin'vraal upon the loading surface rang with solemn finality, absorbed not as sound but as presence. The very moment the wolf crossed the threshold he would feel it, the difference, the very air here was heavier. It was almost alive. Inside, the shuttle was cloaked in silence. No buzzing lights, no engine hum, only the soft thrum of living metal and dark magic at rest.

The walls were paneled in a dark alloy threaded with obsidian veins and crimson accents, faint Sith glyphs glowing in subtle rows across its curved interior. There was no separation between technology and sorcery here, the ship was both. Long had the Kainate shattered all limiters of technological restraint, that it left the galaxy forever behind it. Its advancements transcended technology and magic. Dee at the ships forefront wasn't a pilot's seat, but a command cradle, surrounded by sensory filaments and ritual foci manned by another shrouded and masked figure. Shadows shifted along the walls in reaction to their presence, bending slightly as if bowing.

Near the aft bulkhead, set behind a sealed threshold of dark metal and runic steel, was one of the secondary chambers in the infiltrator, each spread out around the central point of the spacious vessel, a meditation chamber. This infiltrator was a ritually crafted ship typically custom designed for those designated in its use. In many cases they served as sacred ships of the Shikkari Order, in other cases the greatest among the Kainate are recognized and receive their own. This one? This one belonged to the Shadow Hand alone. Each room within was designed specifically with his unique needs in mind. Prazutis turned only once, the abyssal stare of Xûl-Karzaan meeting the boy's eyes. He didn't need to say a word for what was to come. The ramp behind them closed. Light faded. The seals hissed shut with finality, and the infiltrator lifted soundlessly from the ground, ascending into the black skies of Jutrand like a whisper bound for war. The very moment it kissed the atmosphere of the city bound planet it vanished as if the ship had never existed, shrouded in the absolute silence of the void.

They were gone.

Aerik Lechner​

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Darth Prazutis

Aerik met the abyssal gaze without turning away. The weight of it pressed like stone, yet he stood without shift or tremor. If Prazutis believed his nature was clear, then Aerik saw no reason to hide it.

“Then you already know I will not be made into something I am not,” he said, each word steady. “If you have seen my kind before, then you know we do not bend to fit another’s mold. If you teach me, I will learn. What I become will be mine.”

The voice that left him did not rise in defiance, nor fall into submission. It carried the even force of something already decided.

The talk of legacy stirred something beneath his composure. It did not reach his expression, yet it settled deep within his thoughts.

“I know what they will remember. I know it is not nothing. The ones who fear memory are already buried in it. I will not be one of them. If reputation is law, then I will shape the law they speak. It will not be inherited from another’s hand. It will be cut into place by mine.”

His tone carried no boast, only the calm precision of conviction.

When Prazutis spoke of letting the old names rot, Aerik’s eyes narrowed.

“Then let them rot. They have no place where we are going.”

The words came without hesitation. He moved when Prazutis turned, not from command, but from the choice he had already made the moment he had decided to speak. The path before them was a thing he had stepped onto willingly, knowing there would be no turning aside.

The Shikkari Infiltrator waited ahead, drawn from shadow into the dim light. Its shape was a hunter’s silhouette, its wingblades raised like the poised limbs of a predator. The hull’s wards glimmered faintly, alive in their slow pulse, and Aerik took their measure in silence.

“This ship moves like the ones who fly it,” he remarked, his voice pitched low enough that the words almost folded into the air between them. It was not a question, nor an observation for approval, but a statement made as if speaking to the ship itself.

He stepped onto the ramp, feeling the change in the air as soon as his boots touched the metal. It was heavier here, a weight that was not only the presence of power but the breath of something that was aware. Inside, his eyes marked the curved panels of alloy veined with obsidian, the faint lines of glyphs along the walls, and the way the shadows seemed to shift and breathe. There was no separation between machine and magic here. This was a place built to keep its secrets, but also to forge them.

He stood still for a moment, letting the silence surround him.

“If this is where I begin,” he said at last, “then it will remember what I become.”

His gaze met the abyssal lenses again before he stepped further into the interior. The ramp sealed behind them with a hiss that cut away the last light of Jutrand. Aerik did not look back. Whatever name had belonged to the garden was gone now, buried with the earth and the memory it held. The path ahead was already in motion, and he walked into it without fear, without yielding, and without apology.