Private Dark Shores Once More

[Vytal Noctura]

MALACHOR V

Light. Dark. Good. Evil. Living. Dead. They were all constructs. Devices formed by sheer necessity to make sense of an irrational world. To keep track of where you stood in relation to everything around you as it changed every second of every day so long as your essence remained. They were a framework not so easily put aside even by those that sought to do so -- how do you reform the world that you saw before you into another shape when all your senses and thoughts said it was lunacy to even try.

It helped when you were introduced to the irrational at an early age. Before a young soul became too comfortable or familiar with their surroundings. When change was desired at any cost -- no, when costs were hardly factored into the equation. It helped when you were surrounded and brought up by a people that didn't abide the same understanding as the rest of the galaxy; one that embraced the Beyond as being as commonplace as a tree or stream of fish. On a world full of monsters and the monstrous: Dathomir. That had only been the beginning, of course. Yes, even a young would-be Nightsister could find herself in the jaws of death. Not, as most might assume, in her trials, but in a foolish pursuit for something more.

It wasn't until later in life when that experience came to matter. Such encounters left their mark, but didn't instill a destiny made manifest in a day. Vytal Noctura ventured into the stars and there she found the Confederacy of Independent Systems on Ryloth. A world with a mystic community of their own, in fact. Evidently there were clans of Nightsisters among the stars driven then centuries ago. Quite the shock to a woman of Dathomir, but hardly unpleasant given her circumstances. A world where victory and death would help her grow more than sheer desperation to survive among space-faring races. One that would lead to her one day becoming Nightmother to witches of Ryloth, the Mandragora, or the Solanaceae.

Later still, Nightmother Noctura would then set out on travels that took her deep into the Netherworld. She only briefly returned when the threat to those known to her was so great; a catastrophe on Naboo involving a mystical artifact run amok. Things had not been settled well, but they had been settled. Enough for people to pick up the pieces; and so the Nightmother vanished once more to complete her task elsewhere. There were greater threats that lurked in the deep, dark places of the Nether. Threats such as the one that threatened to tear the galaxy asunder on Naboo, and caused the internal collapse of the Confederacy.

Perhaps Vytal could not destroy every such threat, but she could buy the galaxy a good, long while before the first might surface; and hopefully only one calamity at a time at that.

It was one such a dark and dreary day amidst the mists of the Nether that Vytal felt the tremors from above. Something had gone horribly, inexplicably wrong. It didn't feel like a denizen of the Nether had torn free, but the threat was no less severe. The spirits said as much as they too churn under the rippling effects from the living world.

Black lips pressed together, the tattooed, pale Witch rose to her feet. How much time had passed, she wondered, since she'd last been among the living? There had been times she'd checked in on the Castle and its occupants, but only from afar. It would be too much for her to simply show up now and again disturbing the flow of their lives only to vanish once more. That's what she told herself, anyway. That made her travels no less lonely. Nor did it make her victories feel any more substantial. The spirits kept her company, but they were what they were. They did not think or feel or understanding in the way mortals did.

With a wave of her hand, a wreath of green flame formed a portal back to the material realm. Her emerald eyes narrowed at the broken scene beyond, curious where it would lead -- not quite to where she'd expected by far, but something must have drawn it there. Dressed in crimson, the pale woman of Dathomir stepped through and onto Malachor V. Lightning cracked above and she could feel just how thin the veil between worlds was where she stood.

Traveling by magic would not be difficult, but Vytal felt something had brought her here. Before she sought to step to another world, she set off in the direction of life or a base on the world so near regions held by the Sith Order. First she would understand where she was and then... then she would decide what followed.

Sabine Delacroix​

 

[Sabine Delacroix]

The descent of Sabine shuttle was silent, deliberate a reflection of her nature. The sleek, obsidian vessel carved through the thin, turbulent skies of Malachor V like a blade, unmarked and bearing no symbols of allegiance or identity. Its presence alone was declaration enough a remnant of a forgotten age come to walk among ghosts. The plateau where it landed jutted from the ashen desolation below, scarred by millennia of war and suffering. It was a place for ruins, for echoes of the fallen. A fitting ground for one who had outlasted empires.

The ramp hissed open, mist coiling as the poisoned air of Malachor bled into the shuttle’s controlled environment. She stepped into it without hesitation, her every movement measured, unhurried. Her black robes hung close, framing her tall, lean form The hood concealed much of her face, but not the glint of long, white hair falling like a silken banner against the storm-lit sky. Beneath the shadow of her cowl, amber eyes burned low and steady, not with rage—but with endurance. Survival. Purpose.

The Force here reeked of rot and collapse, a stagnant pool churning beneath the surface, steeped in death, betrayal, and the arrogance of long-dead civilizations. Sabine took it in. The wound of Malachor was old, but not healed. It never would be. She had known such wounds herself confined for centuries by Valkorian, tormented but never broken. His Empire had crumbled, as all do. And Sabine remained.

Malachor sang a familiar song.

Her senses swept outward, sensing the remnants of the Mass Shadow Generator's devastation, the weight of Jedi and Sith alike burned into the bedrock. This was a world where the past bled into the present, and where the veil between life and death hung thin. It amplified the tremors of the Force, the ripples in the galactic current that had called her here.

Her servants mere shadows, less than whispers had brought news of fractured hyperlanes, of systems cut off, of order collapsing in on itself. But Sabine had felt it long before they spoke. Something deeper stirred beneath the surface of the galaxy. A shift not of empires, but of the Force itself. And she would feel the current with her own hands.

Her boots touched the cracked stone of the plateau, and the world seemed to hush. Lightning rippled across the sky, silhouetting the jagged spires of stone and shattered war machines, their carcasses rusting beneath centuries of ash and bone. Amber eyes scanned the horizon, not for threats, but for answers. The disturbance was not rooted here, but reflected, magnified through the scars of this world. A tremor a pulling tide gathered strength beneath the galaxy's surface.

Something stirs.

Her lips curled, faintly less a smile, more an acknowledgment. She was not here to halt the galaxy’s descent into chaos. She was here to understand it. To see where the cracks in the foundation would lead. And, perhaps, to shape them. Without word, without ceremony, Sabine pressed deeper into Malachor's hollowed heart. Her presence was anathema to to Malachor, as if she trespassed on hallowed ground. She cared little, let the dead rage she was here for answers.

Vytal Noctura

 

[Vytal Noctura]

The Pale woman dressed in dark crimson stood on the precipice. Sharp talons curled upward as a small ball of green flame boiled, weightless in the air. Black and green mist had burst into being and was kept fed by the flame; it took a form of its own overhead. Thus was where the Nightsister's gaze was fixed.

What her green eyes beheld had stolen her breath at the start. It resembled the broken, twisted landscape of the Netherworld -- a place where physical law and sense mattered not in the least. One place could be just as connected to another one moment, and yet another the next. What need did a spiritual realm have with fixed points in space? And yet, Vytal found herself staring at a metaphysical map of the galaxy with similar hallmarks. Not nearly as replete, but the divisions and stitching was all there.

How had something like this gotten by them all? She was under no delusion to be the only one that sought to protect the Material from threats others refused to believe existed. Had none of them seen this coming? Then could the threat had emerged from within the Material itself, or at least been so old none of them had come upon it?

There was still time. Time enough to prevent the dissolution of the bonds that held everything together. But first they would need to locate the source... No, first she should find out if someone already had.

Her fingers rolled shut and the flame was extinguished. That this world sought to extinguish her life so easily did not distract from the sense of another that drew near. There was even a time she would have waited for them to come to her; to climb the mountainside or scale the broken paths. There wasn't time for that, however, and this one felt familiar.

Vytal stepped off the ledge and plummeted toward the ground below. A small whirlwind of green flared into being as she approached her doom; its current swept about her body, embracing her, and arrested her descent. Her boot stepped forward as if she'd nearly stepped down from a curb.

"I see you, Sister," she called out. "Tis a strange realm we find ourselves."

Sabine Delacroix​

 

[Sabine Delacroix]

Sabine watched as the familiar flare of green flame spiraled downward, softening the descent of a figure she had known across centuries. Her stance remained poised, but the sharpness in her amber gaze softened beneath the shadow of her hood. When Vytal's boots touched the cracked stone, Sabine stepped forward, the whisper of her robes barely audible beneath the weight of Malachor's oppressive silence.


"Vytal," she greeted, her tone smooth but touched with rare warmth, the slightest nod given in respect. "It seems the force has seen fit to bring us together again." She let her gaze drift briefly to the remnants of the green mist still curling around her friend's form, a familiar signature of the Nightsister's craft. The dark energy of this place recoiled against it, but Sabine could feel how they intertwined all the same.

"A strange realm, yes," she murmured, her voice quieter now as her eyes turned to the horizon, "but one we have both walked before in different forms."
Her gaze returned to Vytal, a flicker of something more personal behind the amber glow. "When my servants whispered of the disturbances hyperlanes fractured, paths collapsing I knew it would draw the attention of those who still see beneath the surface." Her lips curved faintly, a shadow of a smile. "And I am rarely wrong."

Sabine approached with measured steps until she stood a few paces away, the charged air between them thick with shared history. "I sought the source, yet find you already charting the fracture lines," she said, gesturing lightly to the space where the green flame's vision had danced. "Tell me, my friend… what have you seen?"

Vytal Noctura

 

[Vytal Noctura]

Sabine was far from young, but there'd been a moment the woman's gaze had been severe before it softened. At first, Vytal hadn't been sure who it was, but now that they could see one another clearly it was certain. She thought to ask just how long she'd been gone, but that was a trivial detail that could be handled later.

A pale hand drifted through the air off to the side as Sabine spoke of Malachor V as familiar if in other forms. The witch certainly could feel a great deal familiar in the tempest of broken energy that churned on the planet. It was not a fate she would wish on any world. It would take a great many of their kind some time to correct this maelstrom. It truly was easier to destroy than to create.

Their gazes fastened to one another once more as Sabine spoke of disturbances. Hyperlanes fractured? Given what Vytal had seen so far that would fit, but she could only speculate having only just begun to learn the extent of the growing threat. Vytal shorted with a curl to her black lips at Sabine's claim of being right far more often than not. Well, she wouldn't refute the statement.

Her fingers unfurled and the tuft of flame returned to draw the broken map of nearby space. Vytal stepped forward, mindful of Sabine's body language, but not about to begin skittish believing things had radically changed in her absence. Perhaps that was prideful, but that wouldn't be unheard of. "The effect it has can be seen, but I have only just returned. We must find its source. Something of this magnitude will not happen once and stop, and if it continues the galaxy itself may perish." It had appeared certain regions of space had been moved far from where they'd once been. The gravitational fallout and hyperspace chart impacts would be extraordinary.

Vytal thought to ask-- to press on what Sabine had heard, but she studied the other woman for a moment. "Have you been well?" The galaxy was in danger, time was short, but it couldn't be that short could it?

Sabine Delacroix​

 

[Sabine Delacroix]

Sabine watched as the green flame bloomed once more between them, casting light over the ruined stone. Her hooded head tilted slightly, the faintest hint of approval flickering in her amber gaze as Vytal conjured the fractured map anew. Even here, in the heart of decay, her dear friend remained composed, methodical a rare and precious constant in a galaxy that seemed determined to devour itself.

She listened in silence, weighing Vytal’s words against her own instincts, against the thousand murmured reports that had passed through the lips of her thralls. The threat was vast. That much was certain. But Sabine had not lived through the shattering of empires, the collapse of Orders, and the rise of pretenders only to cower before the latest unraveling.

When Vytal’s question broke the silence, Sabine allowed a rare smile small, wry, and fleeting.

“Well enough,, I have spent time on my own pursuits over the years. Exploring, learning and even devoting some of it to your own teachings as well"

She let the words linger a moment, then stepped closer, her hand gesturing with an elegant sweep at the flame-map that floated between them.

“You are right. This is not a wound that will heal itself. Nor a single blow struck and done. It festers. Spreads. Whatever the cause we must locate and swiftly deal with it. While I am not overly fond of this galaxy it is the only one we possess, unless something has changed that I am unaware of."

Vytal Noctura