Days Gone By

[Kamon Vondiranach]

In the aftermath of Thyferra, Kamon returned to the Order's enclave. He spent a quick bit of time getting cleaned up, washing the smoke and the rest out of his hair and off of his skin. He hated it. Yes, hate. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he was a living being and he hated the way the galaxy was always the same. For years he'd been fighting against the darkness. For years he'd seen nothing change. Now? Now he knew that neither side could exist without the other, but at the same time it defeated his entire purpose for being alive.

When he finished drying off, he dressed in a traditional Corellian jacket and slacks, sabers clipped inside his sleeves. From there he went to look for [member="Romi Jade"]. Why? Because he had a feeling that if anyone in the Order would understand, it would be the former Grandmaster. He tried her quarters, but found them empty. Not just empty of her, but actually empty. Frowning, he went to the hangar and checked the departure logs. He found nothing.

"Gone, but not through here? He frowned and took a breath. "Probably public transport. Or she scrubbed the logs. Either way, if she's running with no trail it isn't good."

He turned to head for his fighter.

"She understands better than I thought."

 

[Romi Jade]

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B H E R I Z S E C T O R​

E A D U S Y S T E M​

E A D U​

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Spoiler

[youtube]https://youtu.be/VbGqVU7Fkwk[youtube]

The humid air hit her; an adjustment as she'd been sitting in the cold during her trip here.

Soon the crackling light of the sun in the distance breached her guard; her eyes reacted accordingly, though not negatively. She peered down into the jagged valleys below. A brief moment of nostalgia overcame her and she wondered...

Her last visit revealed just how scared she truly was of herself...

Blink.

Her body beckoned back, parallel to the breeze that would pass through.

Something had been pulling her...and she didn't even know where to begin to find it.

[member="Kamon Vondiranach"]

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

As he jetted out of the hangar and made his way into space, he had to wonder where it was that he was going. The planet had shown no leads for him. Either she'd scrubbed the records, which he'd need a slicer to repair, or shed taken public transport. He doubted it was the latter. It was risky, at best, and she wouldn't want to leave any eyes to find her if she was on the run from her past. Even recent past.

As the ship headed for deep space, he allowed his eyes to close and his mind to drift off into the Force. A singular focus directed his mind through the Force, searching for the direction that he needed. All he was gifted with were visions of craggy rock and what appeared to be a monsoon. And, in the distance, a nearly destroyed old imperial facility. He opened his eyes and frowned.

"What are you doing there, Romi?" he asked before punching in the coordinates for Eadu.

He recognized the location as it had been discussed as a potential home for the Order. He'd done his research so he could make an informed decision. Though he'd never been there before, he had a feeling he was about to discover some form of peril. With the coordinates input, he threw the ship into hyperspace and settled back to meditate while he traversed the galaxy in search of [member="Romi Jade"].

 

[Romi Jade]

Her pace slowed, just as her feet would come to a halt after a few steps.

Fog...

She allowed a subtle breath to squeeze between her lips. It was as if words were about to bellow out next but... she was lost for them. However, she could feel the resonance in the area; it made her fill whole.

"I am..." A beat.

A loud quake but soft even so. She inhaled just as she'd look up and see the piercing white eyes cut through the fog...

"Romi Jade. Jedi Knight!" A low growl echoed throughout the area as the eyes got close, but remained shrouded. "You've returned...and full of curiosity."

She released the air she'd been cradling, and shook it off as she lowered her head. "I am...when I was here last, I discovered that I was more afraid of myself than anything. You helped me acknowledge my self-doubt..."

A beat.

"However, I find myself lost...still." She motioned with her hands, "It's like I don't even know myself..." her voice was but a faint whisper.

The giant rocky monolith descended and closed in on the Jedi.

"Just, who are you Romi Jade?"

"I am a Jedi." She said without a doubt, having been one thing she's known her entire life being brought up under [member="Veiere Arenais"]

"Oh, what does that mean?"

"A selfless student of the Force. A servant of the light, sworn to be a guardian of civilization and justice in the Galaxy." She said with assurance, "I stand vigilant of the undercurrents of the darkside...and seek to suppress it-" she was cut off from the laughter that filled the canyon; his laughter

"It's true! I'm needed more than ever. The darkside is consuming...everything... I have to do something..."

"And what will you do after you've stopped it?"

Her lips parted for words; a twitch of her eyes followed.

[member="Kamon Vondiranach"]

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

With sudden swiftness the fighter exited hyperspace. Most of the Order now frowned upon ships with any sort of killing potential, but he still flew his Eshan Industrial made interceptor, painted matte black, with all the bells and whistles. Heavy laser cannons and advanced shielding. It lacked communications equipment, but he had other ways to communicate, fortunately. Eadu, however, presented no need for such.

As he reached out with the Force he felt his target, already on the ground. She wasn't alone, though. Someone else was near her. Someone powerful in the ways of the Force. He sensed no dark, but he also sensed no light. This caused him to narrow his brows and draw his mouth tighter as he deftly piloted the ship down through one of the planet's heavy storms, before clearing it and darting between rock formations.

He flew not too close to where she was, and landed in a small, narrow valley. It was plenty big enough for his ship, and he went quickly through his power down sequence before climbing free of the craft.

"Probably shouldn't disturb her until I know what's going on," he said to himself.

That being the case, he wrapped himself in the Current and disappeared completely from all those who couldn't utilize the deep recesses of the Force. In this way, he picked his way through the spires and approached her and the other being that was hiding in the fog. He was mostly confident that Romi, at least wouldn't see him, but he decided to test the other. To do so, he walked right up beside Romi, and stood wrapped in the Current, disappeared from all senses. There he studied the other being and waited.

[member="Romi Jade"]

 

[Romi Jade]

Her head beckoned back.

Exclamation.

"I...I would help maintain the peace...that would come after the struggle."

"The dark and the light...." the fog would clear and give way to the jagged appearance of the Bendu, the gust of wind which whipped up would take her hair with it. "Two opposite ideas existing at the same time, two sides of the same coin..."

"One is good...and the other is evil. That's the contrast!"

"You know this, but don't know yourself or who you'll become after you've completed your mission?" He responded with slight humor in his voice, "There's much you still don't see...In the light, there is a darkness and in the darkness, a light. It is this way with us all. There's a path you've yet to walk Romi Jade...and perhaps you would find who you truly are in the center of it all."

She inhaled and released, her response fell through; She'd nothing to say.

"What is this unseen path, you speak of Bendu?"

"The middle. Find where Ashla and Bogan meet...seek the center." His attention was taken by something else...he laughed before the shadow of his hand wove itself over the area.

Soon [member="Kamon Vondiranach"] would be made visible to those present only before the Bendu would fade from view entirely. Soon the area felt void.

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

He was surprised when he felt the Bendu tug his grasp of the Current away. It was like having a blanket pulled off of him while he was standing in a pile of blankets. Rather suddenly he was visible to Romi, and the Bendu had disappeared completely. If he had to guess, he hadn't been there in the first place. Most likely he was using an astral projection to communicate. And his words, even though he was speaking directly to Romi, were also meant for him, of that he was certain.

"Well, that was impressive," he said, lifting a hand to brush at his chin.

No immediate acknowledgement of Romi was made as he pondered what the Bendu had said. Seek the center. To be honest, as time had gone on, he felt like he was wasting his time. No matter what the Jedi did, the Sith were always there, always crushing people under their thumb, and the Jedi were always there, throwing people under the bus in their race to oppose the Sith and prove themselves morally superior. No matter what, they ultimately all wasted their time. To be frank, he hated it. Jedi weren't supposed to hate, but after being alive as long as he had, he did hate it.

Puffing out a breath of air, he turned to look at Romi finally.

"I believe he's saying we should learn to balance the dark and light in ourselves, and give up the silly notion of being a Jedi."

He shrugged.

"Hi, by the way."

[member="Romi Jade"]

 

[Romi Jade]

She caught a figure from the corner of her eye; her natural reaction allowed her the confirmation.

Sigh

"We?" Taken back, she folded her arms across her chest.

"Kamon...what are you doing here?"

He was one of many to be appointed to the council in her absence and yet...he was far from the likes of Deneba. She took to walking in the opposite direction, digesting the instruction of the Bendu.

"Where Ashla and Bogan meet..." she whispered to herself...

[member="Kamon Vondiranach"]

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

"Yes, we. I'm fairly certain he knew I was there most of the time you two were talking."

He watched her start walking away with her focus being on the meeting of the two. To be frank, he wasn't entirely sure what the Bendu had meant by that. It could be to seek inward balance or it could be a literal place. It was, frankly, quite impossible to tell, but he figured that if Romi didn't know then between the two of them they could work out what it was that they were supposed to be doing with their lives.

Turning, he started walking after her, pondering how to answer her other question. What was he doing there? Following her was likely to get him a square kick in the place where it hurts the most so he figured bot to go with the joking response in this particular case.

"You left without any word. You even made it hard to follow you. I was concerned you might be falling towards a path that I myself fell into in the past."

While it had in part been his own doing, his fall to the dark side had largely been the result of being captured by a dark side cult that had decided it would be fun to experiment on him. Ultimately he'd had his apprentice kill him so that he could be reborn without the darkness inside of him. Mostly he'd just been put into a deep sleep which allowed him to rootputthe evil with his mind and cast it away from himself for good.

"That and I'm tired of this constant struggle that never changes. I've been alive since Palpatines Empire tried to take over the Galaxy. Granted I was frozen for a considerable amount of those years between then and now, but I've seen enough to know that nothing changes regardless of our actions, and that makes me tired of this life. I don't want to be evil, I just want to be away from these two ever watring sides that are both wrong in their own way."

[member="Romi Jade"]