Private Free Falling

[Jem Fossk]

It was like the ground had been yanked out from under her-- each floorboard purposefully dismantled until everything she knew and everything she had was taken away.

And she free falling.​

Jem needed air. She needed ground-- she needed-- something-- something more than the ruins of her home and the vacant bodies of her peers. And his name-- his name being uttered by lips of those she passed. The Contingency ...is Darth Solipsis .


So she left. Took the first unmanned fighter she could find and set autopilot to only other place she had. Epoch. She had no memories of the planet but that was good, there was nothing there to remind her... nothing there but open air and ground for her to stand on.

She couldn't even see the soil under her feet. She didn't know the land she walked but she pressed forward regardless... through fields or streets it didn't make a difference. Jem just needed to move. She didn't see the irony to where she picked. She only found comfort as she submersed herself with her home planet. It was one facet of her that remained unchanged.

One facet of her that she still liked.

Darth Solipsis is our father. ​

She closed her eyes and stopped, the war-marred padawan wavering on her feet. She only had one shoe.

 

[Darth Solipsis]

DARK LORD OF THE SITH | VOICE OF THE MAW
EPOCH


​

Outside the ever expansive cityscape of Odessa, beyond the tropical coastlines, and into the lush fields of gold. The paradise world of Epoch glistened with a warmth unmatched by most worlds across the galaxy proper. This place, this picturesque planet, it was home.

Lost, submerged in the wandering call of this evasive concept, this longing that could not be found or quelled. The empyrean would guide her, the streaming current of the Force, even unawares it worked through each and everyone of them the same. With one shoe, she came before the collapsed framework of a once proud lakeside manor. A place long since abandoned to the elements and left in the ruin of what terrible event had claimed it’s body.

As she stood, wavering in the lush grass with the wind at her back, an echo approached. A suppressed signature holding back the taint of it’s existence, a man often alluded to be more a monster. His white hair and stately beard defied that notion, his robes matching that of an elder statesman, a wizened male carrying a warm smile.

He approached the Jedi and stopped meters away from her back.

“It’s true.”



Jem Fossk

​

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem's eyes snapped open, blood shot and tortured by the voice she knew from the holos back home. How-

She whipped around to face the figure that was reported to be her father. Reported, but not confirmed. She scanned his features. She didn't know what she expected to find. The same nose? A stamp across his forehead saying 'I am your dad'?

It was impossible not to reelevate him with that knowledge. They had same eye color, but if it was all true... then even that was a lie. Her heart skipped erratically before kicking into overdrive.

"Why?" She demanded, whipping the saber protectively in front of her. The blood of its owner had dried on its hilt and her hands. For the first time since she was a child, the tip of the blade quivered.

"Why here? Why now? Why would you do that? That was our home!" She punctuated her words with a slash at the air, her grief still masked by anger. It was the only thing she could process inside of this all. It was the only thing that made sense.

 

[Darth Solipsis]

DARK LORD OF THE SITH | VOICE OF THE MAW
EPOCH


​

His familiar eyes glistened in the light of the sun Erebus, their blue color, a match of her own. Like father, like daughter. She had inherited the eyes of the Epochian Jedi Knight turned Dark Lord of the Sith, a single step, a simple shift of his face away from the shining light and this all would shift away. The sulfuric stain of the Dark Side glowed with a yellow taint in his eyes, the cool drops of ocean water that held resembled any semblance of humanity long gone and in their place the eyes of a dark predator.

“Why?”

She brandished her lightsaber protectively, his terrible glare fell to the hilt instinctually as he began to examine it’s nature. A frown naturally emerged over his normally sinister demeanor, his eyes rising to meet hers but his lips struggling to make words.

"Why here? Why now? Why would you do that? That was our home!"

He scoffed openly as she swiped at the air with her weapon at the ready. She was full of anger and hatred, an emotion he knew too well. It was all he was now, all that he could be. To abandon that which makes you weak is to attain metamorphosis and one must always evolve or be destroyed. Such was the Way of the Sith.

Such was his way now.

He approached unafraid, his eyes bearing down on his daughter with dark resolve. “I didn’t.”

The wind carried his cloak as in fluttered in his wake, “This is where I lost everything for the last time. This is where Solipsis was born and Kaigann died.”



Jem Fossk

​

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem's head whipped about, fluttering to face the manor that-... that had been her home? She had been too young to remember-- too traumatized and hungry on Coruscant to care.

With one question answered, ten more were found. She had time for none of them. Her chest heaved as he stepped closer, his eyes reflecting the glow of the sunset.

Or was that--

She raised the blade back between them.

"You're not just a sith. You're The Sith. You control it all. How could you? You were one of us. You-" A realization struck a painful cord. Painting a human side to the monster before her. Fantasy or not, the naive girl uttered with betrayal that stung.

"You had a family."

Because why would she have been conceived by anything less?

 

[Darth Solipsis]

DARK LORD OF THE SITH | VOICE OF THE MAW
EPOCH

​

“I did.”

The Dark Lord continued his advance without so much as a flinch, undeterred and unafraid he closed the gap. The flickering blade divided the two as he now stood face to face before her, her weapon illuminating his features which matched many of Saan'an Gaelor ‘s and her own. Twin orbs of sulfuric color, glowed warmly against the opposing color of the light arrayed against him. He continued to lock eyes with her, calmly looking upon her with an inquisitive glare.

“I was once a Jedi yes. That time has long since passed.”

The Elder looked away and stepped off towards the manor, his cloak fluttering in the wind with each step he took.

“I was once a hero. A Jedi of the Republic, a Jedi of the Ession Reformation. We fought the One Sith and the Primeval, fought injustice on dozens of worlds and sought to change the galaxy.. to end the destructive cycle that plagued it.”

His gaze fell back towards her own, “I failed.”

He could almost shrug, deep down that part of him was weak, something he had to kill to become who he was now.

“I was captured. Taken by the One Sith and broken by the will of the Dark Lord. Forced to fight my friends in the streets of Coruscant I did things that haunted me.. until I found redemption. Until my mind returned to me from that dark place.”

His foot kicked against the rock and rubble of their former home, “I took the Barash Vow and sought redemption. I wandered the galaxy, returning only in times of need to aid my former master, the man who was closer to a brother than anything I ever had.”

He smirked and chuckled under his breath, “I watched the birth of my god-son Cedric Grayson . Then during my travels I met the most important thing that saved me from the bottomless pit of self loathing. Your mother.”

He inhaled deeply and stretched out with his hands, “Close your eyes, breathe.”

“Just breathe and remember.. you were too young but it is there.. buried deep.. the face of your mother.”






Jem Fossk

​

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem closed her eyes, every muscle tense and ready to flutter out of her skin at a moment's notice. She knew with painstaking clarity who she stood before. She knew what he had done-- the threat he posed. The fact that his very existence was one she was trained to eliminate.

She knew it all and more, and still... the child let the parent in, his hand allowed to extend pass her guard without injury. An oval face appeared inside her minds eye, a thing of beauty. No statue could match the exquisite lines that made up her mother's golden skin, with lashes that framed a set of green eyes.

And lips with a patience smile.

And a touch the soothed ones darkest fe--

Jem's eyes snapped upon, a gasp pulling from her throat as she stepped back.

"You have no right," she rasped, the saber raised back up, i's lethal heat a barrier. "No right to act like you care-- You're a monster. My home is burning because of you. WHY DID YOU DO THAT?"

She bellowed.

 

[Darth Solipsis]

DARK LORD OF THE SITH | VOICE OF THE MAW
EPOCH

​

Her eyes snapped open, that saber still lit sprung to life cutting a swath through the air to reaffirm the divide between them.

The Epochian opened his own eyes as sweat beads rolled down his face, an intensive look of relief as if he had a great pressure lifted from him. The Dark Lord looked upon his daughter with a look of momentary sadness before his eyes deepened with dark resolve and a stoic passing glance.

“Our home is gone. The life we could have had as a family.. taken from us. I failed you, I failed the galaxy for the last time. I couldn’t protect you children or your mother, I thought you had perished with her…”

His eyes glowed deeply as his terrible glare intensified with dark grimace. The Dark Lord tightened his grip, gloves squeezing tightly as he remembered the weakness.

“.. I can’t be that father you deserve. I am not the man I once was, I am without limit now. I’m going to bring an end to this cycle and bring about a new dawn.”

He rose his hand and let it guide their sight together toward the source of his mental strain and the now glistening pulse spread through the empyrean. The Force called to them, something to catch their sight.

“.. I can’t give you back what you lost. I can only replace it. This is my gift to you, my attempt to save you from what is to come.”

Before them, the manor was nearly restored. Unnatural swirls of energy whisked around them and in it’s midst stood a man, a younger man full of vigor and hope. A younger The Contingency , a new father.

A single tear fell from his cheek as he stood near emotionless in posture and demeanor, only the sign of sorrow showing any true emotion from the Dark Lord as the door opened to the manor and outstepped a woman..

..a mother.

Reality altered to his whim..

“Reality is often disappointing..” His words echoed from the day of the attempted Annihilation of Korriban.

“..now it can be whatever I want.”




Jem Fossk

​

 

[Jem Fossk]

It had been Saan'an that had taken care of her in those streets, and while there should have been memory of a time before, there wasn't anymore. Years of stubborn denial altered her memory to be fuzzy and dark. She was a jedi. It was the only life she knew.

But that wasn't always her fate.


Her chest grew tight as she watched the two figures emerged side by side. It was hard to mourn something you never had, but seeing it in front of her for the first time made it almost tangible. She could have had parents. She could have been enough-- she could have had love. The sense of loss clipped her and stole her breath away.


She felt so small as she turned to see her grief mirrored on his aged face. He was a shadow of the figure constructed for her, but he was here. He was real. Jem was stubborn.

The saber hissed closed.

"It doesn't have to be this way," she reasoned, like a child plying for just one more story before the day ends. "We're still here. You don't have to do anything. You can stop. I can talk to him, we can help you-- it doesn't-- We can still have this."

Could they? Could they really? Her desires moved faster than reason. Was he playing her or was she trying to play him? Did it matter? What if she could stop this all right now-- save the galaxy by ignoring a single line in the sand.

He was her blood.

She stepped forward, fingers outreached for the man that had been lost for far too long.

"You are my dad."

 

[Darth Solipsis]

DARK LORD OF THE SITH | VOICE OF THE MAW
EPOCH

​

The Epochian lifted his chin with a solemn gaze into the sky, his stance fortified and unmoving.

“We cannot.”

His sulfuric stained glare lowered, his eyes studying his daughter as they locked with her own once more.

“But you can.”

His hand rose towards the two strangers that resembled her parents, the utter defilement of the Force and all that they knew to be as reality had been twisted by the Dark Lord.

“I have the power to make sure this never happens again. To make right the galaxy and give it the rebirth it needs. A hard reset.”

He took a step forward cautiously, his eyes studying her intent.

“I am your father, and I always will be. We cannot pretend we can live in peace. Peace is a Lie.“




Jem Fossk

​

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem didn't even look at the fabrications in the distance. They weren't real. He was.

Her lips trembled with the weight of the last day. Every revelation, every death, sat on the shoulders of the man standing before her. She had the opportunity to resolve it all-- one stroke of an unsuspecting saber-- and no one would have to be hurt again. She had the chance, but all she could hear was her Master in her ear.

Killing should be your last resort.

Funny, how she was willing to listen to that now.

“I have the power to make sure this never happens again. To make right the galaxy and give it the rebirth it needs. A hard reset.”

She flinched, the insinuration driving spikes into her chest. Her words turned to flint.

"What are you going to do?"

 

[Darth Solipsis]

DARK LORD OF THE SITH | VOICE OF THE MAW
EPOCH

​

The Epochian tilted his neck, shifting the weight of his head as he looked upon his daughter. Yellow eyes studied the sorrowful expressions of his offspring, he did not want to see her suffer but knew this was the only way to bring an end to the cycle. To bring an end to the unending suffering.

“I will spread the ways of the Sith to the galaxy ENTIRE. I will see to the democratization of FEAR, world by world it will infect them body, mind, and soul.”

The Dark Lord looked up, glancing toward the jungle moon of Sanctum.

“We will facilitate the galaxy to tear itself apart, we will burn each planet in our wake until nothing remains. From that empty slate, I shall build a new galaxy. One where pain and suffering do not exist, I will construct a grateful galaxy that know only happiness. Where a son and daughter do not lose their mother, where a father does not bury his beloved and fall into darkness at the loss of his two children.”

His gaze fell back down to his daughter,

“Even if I don’t live to see it my WILL shall be made complete. A second genesis will be at hand one way or another.”



Jem Fossk

​

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem staggered a step back, her lungs constricting.

"T-this. All of this. Because--" she wrap her mind around it, something so large and unfathomable as the massacres that had occurred at her fathers hands, all because-

"Because you thought I was dead?" She felt her brain split into two, a side of logic taking over and putting distance between emotions and her. Jem was painfully aware of the reactions his words caused. Anger-- indignation-- disgust-- pain--

There was nothing like staring down the yellow eyes of your fallen father to keep you in check.


"How dare you," she uttered, words clenched through her teeth. "HOW DARE YOU PUT THAT ON ME." Her fist clenched, arms shaking. She didn't let herself strike, Saan'an would be so proud of the restraint she showed. All she had left was a choice- talk to him him further, or attack.

She didn't trust herself to do either.

She staggered another step back and ... ran. Her bare foot kicked back dirt, covered in the ash of her home.

 

[Darth Solipsis]

DARK LORD OF THE SITH | VOICE OF THE MAW
EPOCH

​

The house of cards collapsed, the shuffling of reality halting in it’s tracks as the Epochian stared off into the horizon. His stained eyes followed the increasingly distanced image of his daughter as she fled the sight of him and the ‘gift’ he attempted to bestow upon her.

There was no words, she was right. He had no right. He simply stood still and took everything that was given. A momentarily solemn glance faltered back into an emotionless glare, only the single tear that fell from his face gave away the remnants of humanity that still laid buried deep.

This had been for the best.

Nothing could stop what he was to do, it was for them after all. It was what the galaxy needed.

The Dark Lord simply walked away, he would not look upon the reconstruction of his dead wife vanish again. Nor could he look upon the man that he once was, the weakness he once was, as they along with their home crumbled into dust once more.

“All for the best.”



Jem Fossk

​

 

[The Contingency]

A lone hand outstretched from the grass, a man broken but surviving. An abomination that should not be, a figment of another’s reality.

Kaigann looked on as his original self stepped away back turned into the horizon. He could feel his tether remain bound to this world, even as his home and wife vanished. It was not by the Dark Lord, but by his daughter’s own longing to be a family and save her father that this man, this twisting of fate remained.

And so..

Rising from the tall grass, the Jedi Knight looked on into the world. Memories hazy, vision blurred, and knowledge unsure. All he knew was..

He had a daughter that needed him.


Jem Fossk