Private Border

[Uriel Rykard]

Najarka was a strange world, most of it was ice, but a band around the middle was jungle, and he stood on the border between them. It was jarring, almost unsettling to watch as the vegetation withered away with every step. Every tree was shorter than the last, every vine thinner, closer to black than green, one could watch the life freeze out from the world the closer the ice came.

Uriel didn't know why he'd come here, outside the Empire's borders. Something had called, a silent tug leading him hefe, but there was no reason to answer. Whatever lay at the end of the string was of no importance, no matter how powerful it might've been. It's darkness would be erased by light, then swallowed again in shadow, only for the light to take it again. That was the way of things, chaos reigned in the galaxy now, no longer bound to prolonged periods of stability. People were born under one flag, lived under, and died under another still.

The Sith Empire would crumble in a decade at best, yet he stood with them for reasons beyond his own understanding. Perhaps they offered something he hadn't yet considered, or perhaps he just didn't belong anywhere else. He stared out at the approaching wasteland, and felt its chill on the wind and in his bones.

When he came upon the last wilting tree, its leaves gone, its trunk rotting, he stopped, and stared out onto the ice, watching as a gale of wind carried across the white abyss with impassive eyes. Uriel sat, and he waited, but for what he could not say.

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Fog blanketed the icescape as Uriel lowered himself to sit at the precipice of it. Swirling, harsh artic winds blew through the canopy of tropical trees that stood on the edge of the frozen, bleak tundra that was on it's other side. In the fog and swirling maelstrom of pestering ice, and falling snow came quick, sudden glimpses into the void where a hooded, dark figure stood in the centre of it. As quick it came the glimpses to this person soon disappeared, obscured by the snowstorm that was raging above both Sith as it assaulted the ground in a furious barrage of ice, snow and fog.

Darth Ayra, Dark Lord of the Sith, follower of Darth Bane, veteran of the One Sith Purge, progenitor to a new lineage of Sith Lords who would follow in the ways of the Rule of Two: the maxim in which only two Sith can traverse this Galaxy at one time, and make it their own. A Master and Apprentice: the former, to embody power, and perfection in the Dark side of the Force; and the latter, a slave, who would crave it. In the convoluted, murky logic of the dark side- so often besmirched, and betrayed by it's most ardent, vocal supporters- Ayra had traversed the Galaxy to arrive on Najarka in order to recruit.

The paradigms of the Grand Scheme: the reiteration of a scheme that had once destroyed the Sith, and decimated their most strident of nemesis in the Jedi was set to take a brand new shape nine-hundred years after the rise of the First Galactic Empire. In order to create one would be forced to destroy. On this fateful encounter, in the tundra of Najarka's wasteland, Darth Ayra was set to destroy the shackles of an individual who had come to her interest, and subsequently make them her own.

Again, as the maelstrom continued around them, a glimpse in the swirling ice and snow revealed a black figure. Clad in the ceremonial, dark robes of a tradition that refused to die and be resigned to the annuals of history, this hooded figure lifted her hands from her sides to her coif and lowered the hood down to reveal her unconventional gaze to the Sith Acolyte that sat before her.

SNAP-HISS!

In her left hand Darth Ayra held a curved Lightsaber blade in activation, and with it's ignition did the Dark Lord initiate her challenge against the Acolyte that she had lured here with her powers in the dark side.

 

[Uriel Rykard]

Uriel felt cold, not from the frigid winds rolling in from the wastes, but from the darkness that emerged from the shadow behind him. The chill of death, the strength of sorrow, the night of murder - the Dark Side. He rose to his feet, eyes dim, but brimming with malice beneath his helm and mask, and turned to face the presence.

Beneath the metal he was young, but if one counted the years he should have lived, Uriel was quite old. Time spent sealed away from the waking world had been a cruel lesson, when he had gone under there had been hope, a few decades later when he awoke, he saw that there was none. Yet he went on, he persevered, he survived if only to spit defiance in the face on an indifferent universe.

It didn’t matter, not him, not the stranger, none of it. The outcome of this encounter would mean nothing, it would all be erased before both of them were gone. Yet his hand still fell to his side, and still wrapped around the simple, flairless saber hilt on his hip. Uriel pulled the hilt from its place on his side with one hand, the other calling on the force to draw out a pair of blades from the bandolier of small knives across his chest.

Uriel’s head tilted curiously as he tried to discern Ayra’s nature, her intentions, but the darkness obscured his true sight. The pair of daggers floated in the air, turned towards Ayra, and with a flick of his fingers both shot forward in a blur. He thumbed the ignition, his own saber coming to life in a flash of hissing crimson.

The Acolyte surged forward, leaping into the air and striking downward at the Sith with a Barry contained fury.

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The Force flowed through Darth Ayra at the prospect of a duel she had initiated with her target. It granted her precognitive abilities: the ability to see mere seconds into the future at incoming danger brought on by her attuned Force Senses. When Uriel attacked with the daggers his opponent increased her speed to dodge the incoming projectiles, and raised the tip of her curved Lightsaber to divert or deflect the incoming barrage of strikes that she was being assaulted by her new opponent.

A small woman of petite build and size Ayra was not a strong Lightsaber duellist in the traditional sense. To compete with others who practiced the art of Lightsaber combat she had been trained and disciplined to never outright parry or block incoming blows with a Lightsaber, or other hand-held weapons, such as a sword or Beskad wielded by Mandalorians. Not if she could help it, at least. As a consequence of this style of Lightsaber combat Ayra was never going to be the type who could overpower an opponent with a barrage of strikes like Uriel was trying to use on her, but her strengths laid in her defence, and ability to outlast her opponent through conditioned stamina and Force training to reduce the effects of her own fatigue.

With the tip of her Lightsaber, in conjunction with her potent Force abilities, Ayra predicted the incoming strikes that Uriel was assaulting her with: using it to divert the blow away from her while she would maneuverer her body away to avoid the incoming strikes. Soresu was the Sith Master's chosen form and it was designed for two things: to provide an indomitable, almost impregnable defence that would leave her unharmed, and to tire out her opponent so as to invite them to make mistakes as fatigue begun to settle in which give way to opportunities to counter-attack.

As both Sith danced in the melee their crimson blades appeared like lightning strikes in the middle of the white tundra that served as their battlefield. The Dark side of the Force surrounded the pair, inviting both of them to catastrophe and destruction, causing the falling snow and ice to disperse and settle in their immediate area, such was the white hot fury that both combatants brought to their fight. The consequence of this was that, whereas before it was difficult for both of them to see in the freezing winds now there was visible distinction as their immediate area became clearer in spite of the fact that the snowstorm above continued to rag.

Such was the unnatural powers of the dark side.

 

[Uriel Rykard]

Uriel was turned back once, then again, and third time after that. He leapt through the fog, both hands bringing down the saber like a club with furious strength and when that was parried, he came back around with a barrage of swipes and jabs. She weathered them all, and not even the slightest crack appeared in the foundation of her defense. It didn't matter, none of it mattered. Uriel leapt back, slinging another dagger by hand, then propelling two more with the force in rapid succession.

Darkness fed on his frustrations and gave him strength from his pain. When his body began to tire, he would find new resolve from the stewing miasma inside him. He didn't have a reason to hate her, only her challenge, was that really all it took? Was that really all he was? When Uriel surged in once more, an angry storm against an iron wall.

He struck from the side, then above, then below, each blow falling in rapid succession after the last. Uriel overwhelmed, he crushed, he consumed, and he was playing right into her hand with each successive strike leaving a slightly larger opening for her.

By the time he realized his error, it was already too late to avoid retaliation.

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With each clubbing blow Darth Ayra skirted the line between catastrophe and safety. In the heat of the duel, as the dark side flowed through both combatants, driving them to unleash all their white hot hate and fury on one another, the imperceptible nature of Lightsaber combat to the naked eye appeared as nothing more than strobing, clashing red lights on the canvas of hard ice and snow. Yet, as the Force flowed through both of them, it was through the Force that Ayra was able to predict, counter and evade Uriel's strikes- each with their own strength that, had they landed, would have finished her then and there.

It hadn't take long for Ayra to learn Uriel's style and method of attack. He would unleash a barrage of strikes in an attempt to overwhelm her, and if that did not work, he would take to a surprise attack through the use of flying daggers. The Lightsaber that Ayra wielded had a curved hilt that was designed to allow the user to attack at unconventional angles of attacks. When she used the tip of the weapon to divert Uriel's strikes- in an attempt to drag his Lightsaber to impale the frozen ground beneath them- Ayra danced out of the way of the daggers towards the opening that she had made with her defence.

Bringing her Lightsaber blade up as she dodged the daggers Ayra brought it down towards Uriel's exposed calf on the back of his left leg, and after attacking at the calf did Ayra propel herself with a summersault away from Uriel to create distance between the pair of them.

 

[Uriel Rykard]

It was not the first wound he’d been dealt by a lightsaber, but it had been long enough that time had dulled the memory of its sting, thus the pain was nearly brand new. Uriel let out a grunt and rolled forward, using his hand and his good leg to shoot back up, though clearly keeping his weight on his right. Pain sparked fear, which became anger, which in turn became fuel. He snarled beneath his helm glaring at Ayra across the snow-surrounded arena.

The pain was unique, the sensation of burning juxtaposed with the bite of the cold winds. The snarl in his throat turned to a roar as one hand fell away from his saber, and instead drew a wickedly curved dagger from his side. Rather than moving in spite of his wounds, he shot forward with renewed strength because of them, feeding the Dark Side with his suffering as he rushed forward again.

Uriel went past her this time, dropping into a low slide and burying the dagger in the soil, using the forward momentum and the force to pivot on the blade, swinging at Ayra’s own legs with a near-feral ferocity. She could outlast him, he knew that now, all he could do was try to overwhelm her.

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Not enough time to move.

In his desperation Ayra had forced Uriel into an attack that would crush her defences. The way he threw himself at her with such momentum and speed was a credit to his strength. Upon the realisation that Ayra bested him in Lightsaber combat Uriel had switched tactics and was now fighting dirty. Technique had gone out of the window in favour of a cunning attack designed to trick the Dark Lord into thinking that her opponent had lunged himself forward only to use the weapon he had drawn to pivot and attack unexpectedly at the legs.

The Force still flowed through her, granting her the precognitive abilities to see that Uriel was about to propel himself at her with great speed. But in his cunning the real attack- designed to attack at her legs instead of another full, frontal assault- had been designed well. A multitude of things happened in the space of a couple of seconds. Uriel flung himself at his opponent, only to stab his dagger into the ground and use it to pivot his legs to attack her own. Meanwhile, Ayra raised her hand to conjure the Force around her in a shield, having expected a tackle, or giant swing of her opponents Lightsaber.

The result of this melee was that, when Uriel's legs made contact with Ayra, the Force Shield she had conjured around herself was just enough to stop the overwhelming force put into the strike from snapping her legs into two, and drove Ayra down into the tundra with a giant SMACK! which took all the air out of her lungs.

Gasping for air and eyes watering from the pain Ayra snarled furiously as she reached out towards Uriel. The Force flowed through her outstretched palm and enveloped Uriel in a Force Push to send him hurtling backwards away from her.

 

[Uriel Rykard]

For a moment, a rare flash of pride welled up inside Uriel, the sort he reserved only for moments like this, for battles hard fought and won. History would forget why most battles were fought, but some struggles were immortalized, motives would be lost to time, but not the tale of the prowess of the combatants. As the other Sith hit the snow, he shot up, racing to pounce down upon her.

By the time he saw her palm he was already too late,

Uriel was rather proficient with telekinesis, his display with the daggers proof of such an affinity, but skill meant little in the face of such overwhelming power. As he was now, he could never have mustered the immense wave of energy that hurtled him through the air, out of their foggy arena and into the now raging snowfall.

He hit the ground hard, tumbling end over end as snow and dirt sprayed into the air. Inside him, something cracked, multiple somethings, and pain raced across his body. The dagger had tumbled from his grasp, and fell somewhere amidst the snow, as had his saber. He called the latter back to his right hand, while his left strained to lift him up.

Bones moved slightly within his leg, something was cracked in his upper arm, and his face was…exposed. His helm and mask had tumbled away, leaving his pale blonde hair and paper unveiled. Uriel did not hide out of necessity, there was nothing wrong with his visage, though its youth was somewhat misguiding. He himself didn’t know why he truly hid behind the helm and mask of a band of heroes long dead, but he knew he was angry that it had been removed.

Somehow, he found his way to his feet. His right leg had suffered the break somewhere low, perhaps a hairline fracture rather than a full one, but close enough that that putting much weight on it was unwise. That left his left, which was already marred by Ayra’s blade. By all rights Uriel should’ve fallen over in utter agony, but instead he began forward once again.

The saber again snapped to life in his hand as he staggered forward, an angry crimson scar amidst the swirling white of the storm.

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The same hand that had propelled Uriel some distance away from her found itself clenched into a fist that dug itself into the freezing ground using it to rise to her feet. Darth Ayra would rise like a spectre in the freezing, gushing winds of hailing ice and snow as the snowstorm reached a horrifying sycophancy above both of them as this Duel on Najarka was coming to a head. The dark side of the Force had eroded Ayra's eyes replacing them with a bloodshot glare and in the centre of them, where the iris should be, was a colour far more sulphuric in a colouration than the long, blonde hair that was rising and falling in the wind around the Sith Lord.

When they found Uriel Ayra felt a mixture of emotions. Inside her was the beast that wanted her to yield too it's savagery and apply the finishing blow. There was the flashing hot white fury that was lighting up all the synapses in her mind angered by the fact that her opponent had almost killed her in the ensuing frenzy of the duel. But above it all, at the surface, was the stoicism and rationale that had brought her to Najarka in the first place.

Darth Ayra had not tracked down this man to murder him but to recruit him into the paradigm that was set to shift the balance of power in the Galaxy. The beast within lowered it's snout when the prospect of death was not going to come, and the fury that Ayra had felt in the duel was eroded by a calmness colder than that of the tundra that both combatants had fought on. Instead of applying a finishing blow to kill Uriel, Ayra reached out her palm and the Force flowed through it towards him.

An invisible like vice-grip took Uriel at his hips and like an invisible hand that had just grabbed him Uriel found himself flung head first into the dirt with the aim to knock him unconscious.

 

[Uriel Rykard]

His eyes found her in the distance, with every step closer his pain intensified, coalesced into anger, which in turn was transmuted into a furious resolve. Uriel snarled, like some rabid dog as he drew in, the Dark Side moving around him like a miasma of malevolent intent.

He had to kill her, had to snuff her out. Inside his mind slowly began to panic, upon the realization that he had all but lost this fight, and that death was close at hand. He had known the end would come much as it seemed to be now, but some part of him wanted more, expected it even. It would be a pathetic end to a pointless life if he could not so much as leave the stranger with a scar to remember him by. Uriel had to leave a mark, any mark.

Desperation joined the other accelerants of darkness, and power pulsed through Uriel’s breaking body as he lunged forward once again. Then, as quickly as it had came, it vanished as the same power that had tossed him like a child’s toy seized him like her was nothing at all. Uriel let out a furious cry of rage before being slammed back into the ground and going silent. He did not expect he would ever wake again.

Until he did.

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The cackling of a fire coalesced into the other amalgamation of noises which played in the background of the scene of a camp. Away from the glaciers and frozen plains of Najarka Ayra had taken Uriel to it's subtropical rainforests located near the planets equator just a few miles south from where they had duelled three days previously. In the days and nights between Uriel's defeat at her hand, Ayra had tended to the various injuries that she could with the limited supplies that she had brought with her from the Empire of the Lost.

A standard field unit given to every NISB operative on assignment stood open near the base of Uriel's body and inside had been an assortment of medical supplies Ayra had used to clean Uriel's wounds. As for the broken bones Ayra had no remedy for them beyond the use of a splint on the mans leg which had been fractured in the melee. If Uriel had internal injuries those were also beyond her means of repair. As a follower of the dark side Darth Ayra possessed no healing capabilities in the Force, and only a rudimentary knowledge of self-care from her own previous injuries had served as a basis for treating Uriel after she had taken him south into the forest to recover.

Naturally, Ayra had taken the time to peel away the mans layer of armour away from him to tend to his wounds. What she found was man who had clearly been battle hardened in the formative years before their union on Najarka. Over the course of three days, in which Ayra had first tended to his immediate injuries, and then served to monitor him, Uriel had passed in and out of consciousness. She had felt no need to bound him to the cot she had erected in the campsite, where Uriel was laying. The man was clearly too weak, injured and delirious to do anything to save himself.

Everything was at her mercy. Only the strong could prevail.

In the days since their fateful encounter in the tundra Ayra had meditated, trained and studied. Standing tall over the campsite, in a still meditation, Darth Ayra had immersed herself in her powers in the dark side, meditating on her schemes and fuelling her burning desires. It was only when she sensed Uriel wake up that she opened her eyes, and lifted her gaze up from the sub-tropical dirt to look back at him.

"I've seen horrors. Horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right... to do that." Ayra approached slowly, carefully, deliberately closer to where Uriel was laying as she spoke. "But you have no right to judge me."

 

[Uriel Rykard]

The dreams had been dark and terrible, but between them and the slips between consciousness, there was solace. Quiet, dreamless, almost peaceful. When he woke, the world was pain, and Uriel found himself wishing that he had stayed under the veil forever.

He was unprotected, stripped of his armor and left with only that which he’d worn beneath. The worst of his wounds were treated, splinted by a capable hand, though they still ached. He’d need to see them properly healed on his own, with the aid of a professional healer. That was, if the stranger did not cut him to pieces before then.

“Judge you?” Uriel asked, voice hoarse in his throat. “Judgement is for those deluded enough to believe their petty values have any true and lasting value.”

It would all fade, eventually.

“You have not killed me, why?” It was the only question that mattered, the only one whose answer would have any real impact. She spoke of horrors, and usually such words brought indignation and anger to his lips. So many presumed to have seen true horror, and yet so few truly had. He believed her though.

Uriel thought that strange, he’d never believed anyone before.

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Ayra lowered herself down beside Uriel's head and sat on the back of her legs as she stared intently into his eyes. They were no longer bloodshot nor yellow as the corruption of the dark side had receded away in the days since their duel. But, despite this, it was as if Ayra were looking past him, through Uriel and into the place where his soul would be. Cupping her hands together as she crouched beside him, Ayra said: "I have spared your life because I need you."

Allowing pause, so that those words would set in, Ayra continued to speak with a subtle, soft spoken voice. "Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror, and morale terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared." Raising a finger to Uriel, Ayra peered in closer to that she was almost whispering into his ear. "You fought well. But you have lost. The strong take what they want, and the weak suffer at their hands. I am Darth Ayra, and I have taken you, Uriel Rykard. This is your fate, now. Axiomatic."

Taking her head back away from him Darth Ayra stood back up and walk around the fire in the centre of the camp to where she had been standing before. With her back turned to him Ayra re-assumed the standing meditation, but this time she did not slip into a still meditation. No, for the eyes of the Dark Lord were set on the forest around her. By turning her back on Uriel Ayra was showing her dominance to him because, in spite of the fact that he had been close to murdering her during their duel, she had emerged as the victor and now, as he laid there at her mercy, Darth Ayra felt no fear for the dark side flowed through her and with that weapon on her side she was invincible.

 

[Uriel Rykard]

Darth Ayra. A Sith Lady then. No rogue Knight, no entity-possessed acolyte, the power the wielded was power she had earned, cultivated through years of study and bloodshed. Uriel supposed he felt a degree of respect for that. She spoke in riddles, in a whisper that set his hairs on end and with an absolute certainty that gave him pause. She claimed that he was now hers, as though he could not reach up and try to strangle her where she knelt.

Yet he didn’t. Uriel’s hands stayed where they lay, and he watched as she rose and turned away. It was a statement, one he had no issue deciphering the meaning behind. He could try it, but there would be no point, and more than that, there would be nothing to gain.

Even he were to somehow best her, drive a blade between her ribs and take her corpse back to the Dark Council, naught would change. Another corpse on the pile of Sith casualties from infighting, though the likelier outcome was that it would be his corpse. The alternative was to comply.

She had, after all, already achieved something that few had in the past years - she had made him curious. He wanted to know what her plan was, what his role in it might be. But he knew that came with a price, the same one charged by all Sith: submission.

Uriel forced himself up on his good arm, and pulled his unsplinted leg up beneath him in the best attempt at a kneel he could muster.

“Yes, master.” The words came quietly but without reservation. She had spoken truly, strength was the one thing that could momentarily defy the ceaseless tides of fate. She had defied his, so that she might make for him a new one in her design, and for now, he lacked the strength to refuse.

And so he was hers.

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Darth Ayra turned to creek her neck and looked past her shoulder to settle her eyes back on Uriel. He had found the strength to rise, and take the custom kneel in reverence to his new Master. Ayra walked around until she was stood back above him, and with a gesture of her hand, she said to him: "Rise."

As Uriel begun to stand Ayra continued to speak to him. "The way of the dark side is betrayal. I have almost killed you, hurt you, and now I am forcing you into serving me. It is inevitable that the day will come where you will make the choice between continuing your service to me, or you will pick yourself. This is only natural. For now it is in your best interests to agree to serve me because the consequences of refusing my advances would be death. Your life is always going to be the most important, and this is as it should be. You have coveted your life and this is natural. It is precisely what I would expect you to do."

Raising the cowl of her robe above her head and lowering it down, Ayra concealed her facial features beneath the hood. Only the silhouette of her mouth, nose and the strands of long, hair that were more sulphuric in colour than blonde could all be seen beneath the hem of her robes. She begun to encircle Uriel, and with every next syllable Darth Ayra laced the power of the dark side itself into every word, to ensnare Uriel's mind and bring him further into her paradigm.

"Only through me will you be elevated out of a life of mediocrity and into a life that is far more fulfilling. You have served in the military as a foot soldier. You took up the sword for the Empire, and found yourself in the maelstrom of war. Through passion you have gained strength, but only through power will you gain victory. Only through victory can your chains be broken, and the force shall set you free. In your seminal life you found yourself used but through me I will bring you into a new life where you will find what it means to truly be Sith."

As Darth Ayra spoke she considered the man before her. He had potential as a skilled warrior, but did he have skills that laid in nuance, cunning and subtly? Was Uriel Rykard the man that she would take as her Sith Apprentice and constitute the next line in the Rule of Two? Was he really the individual that she would train in the ways of the dark side and become her true partner as she built the Grand Scheme? As she continued to encircle him Ayra deduced that this man was nothing more than a candidate. Someone that she would use and test as they both pursued the Work.

If Uriel survived then apprenticeship was his, and if not, then he was nothing more than a pawn that would shift the balance of power into a new paradigm that would see the dark side of the Force coveted only by two, ending the dilution of it's power and bringing about a dyad that would see the Sith achieve their revenge.

 

[Uriel Rykard]

It was difficult to fulfill her first command, his leg was still broken, but Uriel found the strength to fulfill it in spite of the injury, leaning heavily on the leg free of any damage beyond the gouge to his calf. It was unpleasant, but most things were. She knew things about him, things he hadn’t shared, things she shouldn’t have been able to find out. Pieces were missing, details were off, but she had enough of the picture to know what he was.

“Will this life you offer accomplish anything that lasts? Or will the galaxy remain as unchanged as if you’d killed me rather than mended me? Men are born under one flag, live under another, and die under a third in this age. So-called Empires last less than a generation, light and dark clash ferociously and intensely more than all of recorded history. All that is done is undone,” Uriel’s features were blank, dead of any true emotion, having long since raged all he could against the relentless universe. “Will your goals, should they be achieved, be any different?”

It was not the place of the apprentice to question the master, as Sith she might well decided to strike him down if the question displeased her. If that was her choice, then he supposed he’d die, but he had to know that there was more in store than the typical personal schemes of the Sith.

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"What you say is true, and only the weak ignore the bitterness that comes with the truth. For almost a millennia the power of the dark side has become diluted among the many in place of the few Force-strong who are best in position to bring the promise of the Sith to it's fruition."

Ayra became silent for two reasons. The first was to allow this truth to ring true to her candidate, and secondly so that she could choose her next words carefully. After all, the ideology and tenants of the Rule of Two were clear, and were well known to many Sith in the almost two-thousand years since the rise of Darth Bane. There could only be two, no more, and no less. If Ayra were to expose herself to the many Sith who traversed the Galaxy as followers of the dark side then it was akin to that of announcing a challenge to all of them, and that was an invitation to self-destruction.

Was Uriel someone who would see the truth of the rule, and follow it's ways, like her? Or would he find himself in opposition to it's ideology, joining the side of the same false-prophets that he had just criticised? It was one thing to speak out against the falsehoods of the Sith but it was another thing to act against them. Only when Uriel begun to take the latter path would Ayra gain a glimpse into his psyche and bring about the revolution that she herself had gone under during her apprenticeship to Darth Pandeima.

"Those of who us practice and follow the ways of the dark-side often skirt the line of catastrophe. Malice comes easy to us. War is only the prelude to great victories. Destruction comes in numerous, abhorrent forms- both self-made in body, mind and spirit- and, of course, on the galactic scale. The formation of Empire, to bring about great change in the galaxy, is an amalgamation of these things and as you say they have failed in their attempts to achieve our revenge against the Jedi."

"Here. Sit down, Uriel." Ayra raised her hands to the larger mans shoulder and hip, helping him down back to the cot so that he could rest. As he laid down Ayra turned to the fire where stew was bubbling on top of it. Using a utensil to stir the contents of the pot, Ayra continued to speak: "The ideology behind Empire is beset by various forms of imperialism- each nuanced, complicated and multi-layered- but all ring true to an act of revolution against the established order backed by the Jedi, who have acted as peacekeepers in times of peace, and warriors when that order is challenged."

"What you are suggesting is a new form of revolution. A new way that will change the balance of power and move us away from the fail ideologies, philosophies and maxims that have failed to yield our greatest result: the destruction of the Jedi Order. My work lays in bringing about this great, and necessary change."

 

[Uriel Rykard]

Uriel supposed he hadn’t considered that, and perhaps he was a fool for not seeing it before. There were more force sensitives across the galaxy now than any time in history, tens of thousands, if not hundreds, called on the force every day. They plunged into ancient temples and harnessed powers that had slumbered for millennia all at once. Perhaps that was the reason.

So Ayra had found what she believed to be the heart of the problem, and of course, thought she held the solution. He should’ve been skeptical, but she was the first who had even understood, especially of those sworn to the Sith. It was their nature, the pursuit of power was natural, but Uriel wanted more than that, he wanted his choices impossible to erased, or at least close to it.

Uriel allowed himself to be returned to the ground, his face twisting as his leg retuned to the position of rest, though no noise escaped him. Pain was part of his being, this was only a little more.

Others might have had more questions, they might’ve wondered about the logistics, the groundwork laid, and of course, about what sort of personal gain they could expect. Not Uriel, he only had one question.

“When do we begin?”

Alicia Drey

 

[Alicia Drey]

Tags: Uriel Rykard

Darth Ayra served the stew from out of the pot and into a bowl. Walking back to Uriel's side Ayra passed him his supper, and then lowered herself to sit on the ledge of the cot. "Our work will be fraught with danger and risk. It will require us to be liars. We must obfuscate our goals for our work will draw the type of scrutiny and ire that will lead us to catastrophe if we are discovered. We will hide in plain sight: it is a superior disguise. On the surface, in the company of our enemies, we will present ourselves in a multitude of ways. Never revealing our hand until it is time to make our move."

"For this undertaking we will require a vast network made up of informants, spies and enforcers. Brokers, entrepreneurs and the wealthy. Politicians, heads of state and people of influence. Some will have insight into our machinations, while others will be unaware of their part in the play. Our work is clandestine, and covert. So too will this organisation that we build together. Compartmentalization is key. Most will be unaware of the other as they all work together towards a common cause. There will be time for us to be bloodthirsty, violent, ruthless but instead of traversing the galaxy in armour, we will don cloaks. We will appear in a multitude of ways obfuscated by our power in the dark side. Nobody will know who we really are as we bring about the demise of civilizations and societies. From the inside we will corrupt organisations, governments and cultures to turn on each other to eat themselves."

"Our work begins on Lianna. A confederation of Imperial Remnants left over from the demise of the Sith Empire some twenty years ago formed together to create the Empire of the Lost. We will infiltrate and supplant their positions of power to replace them with our own. Your seminal life as an Imperial will become your alias. The New Imperial Security Bureau will bring you in as a patriot seeking to rejoin the Empire. Papers, and your assignment will be pre-arranged. As we seek to bring about a new paradigm we must work at the foundation and spread. It will be slow, tedious, and at times you will question why. But patience is our strength."

Rising up from the cot Ayra collected her belongings. The only things she left behind were some rations, supplies and the items that Uriel had had on his person prior to their duel. A duffel bag, containing the Imperial uniform of a NISB operative, her identification and papers, as well as supplies for a long journey hung from her shoulder. Lowering her gaze down to Uriel, the hooded Sith said: "The dark side will devour those who lack the power to control it. It's a fierce storm of emotion that annihilates anything in its path. It lays waste to the weak and unworthy. But those who are strong can ride the storm winds to unfathomable heights. They can unlock their true potential; they can sever the chains that bind them; they can dominate the world around them. Only those with the power to control the dark side can ever truly be free."

"What will be key to our victory is our ability to survive. A presence that will always be there in the places that our rivals do not look, or cannot see. In ten days a ship here on Najarka will arrive delivering a cache of weapons. After it leaves you will be stranded here."

With those last few words Ayra turned and exited the campsite. The faint sounds of tropical bush being stepped over soon disappeared leaving Uriel alone in the jungle all hurt and by himself.