Private Dark Shores Once More

[Vytal Noctura]

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Vytal paused and looked back at Sabine with a dark smile. The Nightsisters could be fickle, it was true. She doubted Sabine was afraid of them, however; more likely she didn't want to deal with the hassle of women that would send specters and haunts to plague you from afar. To avoid their gaze was easier than to call off their curse.

"Tis certain," the pale Witch acknowledged. Sabine was not the sort to be lethargic. Activity kept the mind sharp and passed the time.

It was important for her to walk on Dathomir once more. Whatever they might end up creating together, ensuring the safety of her Sisters had always been her goal. Every moment in the Confederacy had been intended to find technologies or knowledge to get back to Dathomir for its protection -- not that all of it was accepted. How quickly people forget what you tried to do for them. Times changed. People changed. Vytal just hoped they hadn't changed too much in her absence.

"Yes, let's. Before the galaxy falls apart without us." At the time during the Planeshift that sentiment was a bit more literal than usual.

Sabine Delacroix​

 

[Sabine Delacroix]

Sabine's eyes lingered on Vytal's dark smile, the corners of her own lips curving in a quiet echo of it. She understood the meaning behind it well enough not mockery, not threat, but the shared weariness of women long accustomed to the burdens of power, and the ungratefulness of those they bore it for.

"'Tis certain.'"

"A truth I've found few have the patience to appreciate," Sabine replied, her voice calm, nearly reflective. "To act is to risk being misunderstood. To not act is to be forgotten. Either way, the song they sing of you is rarely the one you intended."


She settled into the co-pilot's seat with unhurried ease, trusting her thralls to handle the vessel's course while allowing herself a rare indulgence: stillness.

"'Yes, let's. Before the galaxy falls apart without us.'"

Sabine chuckled once a soft, dry sound. "It does seem to have a habit of doing that when we turn our backs."


She leaned back as the ship lifted free from Malachor's broken surface, eyes closing for just a breath as the darkness of space enveloped them.

"To Dathomir, then. Let's see what still remembers us."

—

When the stars reappeared, Dathomir loomed before them like a specter in red. Its surface was wild, veined in tangled jungle, blackened stone, and mist-choked valleys. Cloudbanks churned slowly around the equator, as if the planet breathed with heavy lungs. The world had not changed. Or if it had, it had not softened.

Sabine stood from her seat as the ship began its descent, her stride measured, quiet. She said nothing at first, watching the blood-colored world grow larger in the viewport. The Force stirred faintly around her not welcoming, not hostile, simply aware.

The ship descended through heavy cloud, weaving between jagged ridgelines and craggy mountains worn down by time and war. But it did not seek out any settlement, nor temple, nor great altar of bone or stone. Sabine guided it toward a forgotten plateau nestled between two dark cliffs, where the earth still hummed with the pulse of ancient rites and buried voices.

The ship landed in silence.

Sabine moved first, the boarding ramp hissing open to reveal a sky the color of old blood and the thick, humid scent of untamed life.

She stepped into the open air, boots striking Dathomiri soil once more after so many years. Her cloak stirred in the wind, not as an announcement, but as acknowledgment.

Then she turned to Vytal, and with a faint smirk playing at her lips, said

"Shall we see what the sisters will say?"

She gestured toward the path ahead with one hand, the other resting lightly against her side.

"I'll let you go first. You were always more diplomatic with the dead."

TAG: Vytal Noctura