Character
| Location | Mandalore, Outer Rim Territories
Itzhal may not have been a Mandalorian from birth, but throughout his later life, he had always held the city of Sundari close to his heart. In his memories, it was a vibrant and bustling place, filled with life, colour and the warmth of community. Tall spires of intricate architecture reached towards the sky, stained glass glittering in the sunlight as it told a thousand tales of glory and valour, surrounded by lush parks and even more vibrant markets where the air was perfumed with the scent of spices and flowers from across Mandalore, while people heckled and cheered in equal measure over the most ridiculous of sources. Oh, it was not perfect—no place ever was—but it had flourished, a shining beacon of their people's progress after the New Sith Wars and the conquests that had come before it.
But that Sundari was a city of memories.
The Dral'Han had made sure of that.
In its wake, the once vast and open skies had been smothered by an oppressive dome of cold, lifeless metal; the sheer enormity of the structure was staggering, demanding more raw materials than Itzhal could even comprehend. In his distraction, he gazed beyond the glimmering skyscrapers—distracting structures intentionally crafted to draw attention away from the desolation that lay beyond—he couldn't shake the chilling memories of Coruscant, where nature had been mercilessly eradicated beneath the relentless march of urbanisation, leaving a stark, sterile wasteland of alloys rather than allies.
As he stood before the dome, his head tilted towards the sky that did not grace him with its presence, the memories of the first Sundari flickered like ghosts in his mind—leaf-laden trees, gently swinging in the breeze, while closer to the cobblestone pathway, luminous flowers bloomed in an array of colours that had more in common with a glittering rainbow than the dome that loomed above in silent judgement. Or perhaps that was cruel; perhaps, instead, it was kinder to imagine the dome bowed over in protection of those it held dearly, a spark of the Mandalorian endurance that had carried it and their people through countless tragedies.
He was not sure if he had it in himself to be kind.
Not today, at least.
So, in turn, he had wandered through the streets where people still heckled and cheered in equal measure—their lives, in truth, not much different from what he remembered, for all that they lived beneath a false sun. Spectres of old, both imagined and not, guided his steps through a city that he did not recognise, for all that he had first stepped foot upon it over two years ago. It was those same ghosts, not people, not memories, but also not quite nothing, that ultimately led him to the gardens of Teupt. There, leaf-laden trees swayed gently in the breeze, and stone paths were lined with the soft glow of reaching plants.
Tags:
Seris Mataan
Seris Mataan