Private Gethsemane [Morta]

[Darth Carnifex]

The Black Pyramid of Jutrand loomed high above the sprawling cityscape, a terrible edifice to the majesty and horror of the Sith regime that held Jutrand so tightly in it's grip. Lightning danced across it's glossy black surface, the rupture of charged particulates in the air rending the sky with a terrible shriek. No light could breach the cover of clouds that hung over the world like a tightened noose. Pollutants from the industrial zones continued to be pumped into the sky, but the darkness that encapsulated the Empire's throneworld was not the result of mere pollution, it was perpetuated by something darker, more ancient.

A primordial miasma of shadow, alive in it's own right; coiling endlessly around a world erected to sustain it. Those who drew power from the darkness found invigoration in the shadowy pall, but those who toiled endlessly for the glory of the Sith could find only anxious dread. They dared not look up, for to be confronted with the sheer horror of their prison was too great. Most stared blankly forward as they shuffled about their duties, but many others kept their gaze to the ground, stricken by an intense fear that gnawed at their hearts.

It was this darkness that invited Darth Morta, beckoning from within the titanic pyramid looming before her. She might not have known it, but the eyes of the Dark Side's Voice had been set upon her for some time. Now had come the time for her to be called forth, summoned, to the Sith throneworld. A pair of Praetorian guards in their half-cloaks maintained a silent vigil over the bridge separating the pyramid from the rest of the city, their masked faces watching her implacably as she passed through the gateway.

Black basalt walls and glossy marbled floors marked her path through the interior of the pyramid, each stricken with seams of glimmering gold that split and rejoined in odd patterns. Nameless guards monitored her journey, while decraniated servants effortlessly pirouetted out of her way as they moved about the halls performing their innumerable duties. It wasn't until she came to a new gateway, one etched with reliefs of ancient Sith history, did she find someone who's face was not missing nor obscured, though by the vicious gleam in their eye she could tell they were more grotesque than all that she had seen.

"His Supremacy shall attend to you shortly, my Lady." The Alcedian woman smiled, painted red lips parting to reveal sharpened black teeth; not organic, but augmented. Her crimson uniform held no insignia nor identification, not even a rank plaque, but it was clear that she served at the direct pleasure of the Dark Lord of the Sith. She placed one hand over her heart and angled forward slightly, just enough to be considered respectful. "He has commanded me to inform you that I am to serve at your leisure for the duration of your stay. His Supremacy had relieved me of my inferior name a long time ago, and has given me one of superior meaning. I am Kavess."

The door opened, and Morta was bid to enter. Inside was an empty expanse terminating in a massive window, one that looked over the cityscape of Jutrand. Kavess followed in after Morta, moving silently but always within the periphery of her vision. A table had been set at the center of the room, with a tray of refreshments put aside for Morta's pleasure. Her wait would stretch on for some time, but not excessively so.

She could sense Him coming long before He passed through the doors.

A looming sense of danger, of utter darkness.

It would not be long now.

Darth Morta ​

 

[Darth Morta]

Darth Morta had landed on Jutrand hours ago; she'd only been on the capital once before, and only for a few hours to argue her planet of Krayiss II as a viable location for one of the order's freeports, but that failed, and she left without ceremony. Now she was back and was taking the time to get a feel for the world, let her boots meet the permacrete.

So she approached the Jutrand's Black Pyramid on foot, Morta letting every sence suck down all the information that came to them, the far off thumping bass of a club in an enterainment district, airspeeders zipping by, a ship from the nearest spaceport rocketing for orbit. Feeling the living world around her was good, and she hoped that the summons this time would be far more pleasant as she approached the bridge that would bring her into the massive Pyramid.

Darth Morta could feel the eyes of the Praetorians drilling into her, as if they were trying to look directly into her soul, but she was a Sith Lord, her mind and soul were a fortress closed and barred to all but the most powerful of wills. Continuing deeper, Morta ignored all the nameless and faceless guards, not particularly a fan of the decainated. To her, what was the point of ruling over people who you removed everything that made them people? At that point, she felt it was better to get droids. Although Morta supposed that was the difference between ruling over a single planet with limited manpower and even just a city-planet like Jutrand, where its only significant resource was people.

Calmly listening to the servant, Morta committed the name to memory, Kavess, though she doubted that she'd need to use it, suspecting that the servant would be trained to anticipate any whim Morta might have and be ready to act before her name was ever called.

"I need nothing you can give me at this time."

That was all Morta said before dismissing the servant from her mind, whether they were there to do more than just answer to her needs, Morta didn't care; there were a hundred more subtle ways that she could be spied on that she knew of, and probably just as many she couldn't concive of.

Assuming, as it turned out correctly, that there would be a wait before her audience, Morta turned to the refreshments awaiting her on the table. Finding an exquisite bottle of wine, she removed the cork and let it sit for a moment to breathe while grabbing a fine cut crystal wine glass. Once poured, Morta took the glass of wine over to the window to watch the city beneath her until the time came for her to face the one who summoned her.

Darth Carnifex

 

[Darth Carnifex]

She felt Him before she saw Him.

An event horizon in the Force, drawing in and devouring all light.

The doors scissored open with a hiss, a pair of red-robed guards passing through before splitting off to stand on either side of the entryway. Then He came, a towering monument of black and red, His very presence inviting the shadows around them to lengthen unnaturally. There were none like Him, only the Sith Emperor came closest. Wherever He went, reality threatened to buckle, and when He spoke it was not with sound; but pressure, crushing and glacial.

Each word weighed like a mountainous stone, pressing into every fiber of Morta's being. "You are the one they call Morta." It was not a question, it wasn't even a statement. It was a decree, it was scripture, passed down from God to worshiper. The servant Kavess fell to her knees at the utterance of His voice, lowering herself to the floor until her head was firmly pressed against it. She was not worthy to lay eyes upon Him, and would have gladly plucked them out if He demanded it. She would've even taken her own life had the word been given, a compulsion already arising in her muscles to reach for the dagger at her belt and plunge it up through her neck.

She resisted.

For now.

"Those who hearken to the whispers claim to hear your name, spoken with hunger and awe." His eyes never wavered, never blinded, staring unceasingly into Morta's, daring her to avert. "They say you are vicious, and they say that you delight in the suffering of others. But so too can a Nexu if properly motivated. What separates you from an animal, Darth Morta?" The emphasis of her formal title was unmistakable. "What sets you as one of our Order?"

Darth Morta ​

 

[Darth Morta]

Darth Morta could feel Darth Carnifex's power as he approached. The darkness that preceded him was a force of nature, like an eclipse and made her own power feel rather small and insignificant in comparison. It was enough to make her feel a kind of awe that she hadn't felt since the first time she managed to open that holocron over a decade ago, back on Ryloth.

When Carinfex finally entered the room, everything she knew about the man seemed to be magnified a hundred times over, even things as simple as his height, which she had always assumed the statements about were more metaphorical, was more than she expected. Something about his presence made her put the wineglass she had been drinking from aside, get down on one knee and kneel.

"My Lord Carnifex," She said, waiting for him to finish speaking before rising.

"What sets me apart from an animal?" She asked rhetorically, though she had no doubt Carnifex had an expectation of how she'd answer. "Animals live for the now; they can't plan, nor think beyond where their next meal comes from, if they'll keep the same mate or try to find a stronger one, their present determines their future."

After a moment to pause to collect her thoughts, Morta continued, "I, on the other hand, plan. I look to the future to determine my present, while I enjoy the luxuries of my position, they aren't the goal, just a pleasant side effect. The visousness, the delight in torment, the hunger for more power, those may give the flavour of who I am, but they do not control me in the same way an animal might be enslaved to its instincts to do the same.

Tag: Darth Carnifex

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The silence dragged on between them for far too long to be comfortable. Darth Carnifex's gaze continued to sear into Darth Morta's, as though by sight alone He could render down all that she was. Lesser creatures withered beneath such a powerful look, but Morta would hold firm. The silence was only broken when the Dark Lord spoke, the absence of silence more discomforting than it's presence.

"Spoken adequately, Darth Morta. Animals only plan for the now, their life and their death dictated by the present. We are the Sith, our plans are measured in centuries. We will survive this Empire, as we have survived all others. That is the foundation of Eternal Rule." Sith dominance was to be unending, reinforced through institutions, cultures, and traditions that would outstrip all others in endurance. An individual of the Order might die, but the Sith were eternal; Carnifex was eternal. With the Malsheem as His ark, His reign would be everlasting.

"I have watched you for a long time. Your destiny is yet to unfold, but I surmise it shall be lauded with great triumph. I would see such potential nurtured and allowed to excel." Another pause, this one far shorter than the previous. "What is your perspective of the Emperor and those who sit upon his Dark Council?" He spoke with a moderately conspiratorial tone, though whether it was genuine or artificial was impossible to discern. The Dark Lord guarded His feelings and reactions too well.

Darth Morta ​

 

[Darth Morta]

Darth Morta paused for a moment to collect her thoughts on the Emperor and Council, which she had spared very little for. They were there, keeping the order and its territories from falling apart. They got in the way of her and other Sith grabbing for more power, probably rightfully, to prevent the Order from falling into complete anarchy.

"Quite frankly, I never really give much thought to them, they don't meddle in my affairs, I pay them the appropriate tithes and taxes, and everyone gets on with their lives," Morta said with a lazy shrug.

While it was a true answer, it was also the perfectly calculated non-answer that would let her someone project their own opinions on whether that was a good or a bad thing onto Morta's response. If she was speaking to someone, unlike Darth Carnifex, whom she felt she could or needed to hide her true feelings from.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Whether or not the Dark Lord was pleased with her answer, He never showed it. Nonetheless, He continued, "Quite a detached view, Lady Morta, and one that is your privilege to hold."

There was a warble of power, a fluctuation in the Force, and a decraniated servant who had almost been indistinguishable from the architecture of the wall revealed itself. They had once been a woman, but all of that had been seared away, sanded down, until vague androgyny remained. The top half of their head had been taken away, replaced by a flat cybernetic encephalic shell. Ritual tattoos had been etched into every visible portion of their skin, with only bare slivers of their original pigment inter-spaced between the black runic symbols.

Darth Carnifex rested one hand upon the cybernetic implant that served as the creature's upper skull, fingers gently drumming in measured sequence against the reinforced plating. "Not so possible for those we made subservient to our power. So very few realize that they are but a single moment away from this fate. In truth, even without these improvements they occupy the same role. Cogs in a perfect engine." His grip tightened, the metal visibly buckling as He gradually closed His fist entirely.

The body fell to the floor, little more than meat. "And so close are they to suffering the same fate, when they step beyond their means, their designated role." The irony was, that the Dark Lord had snuffed out the decraniated for no greater reason than to emphasize His point. But that was the power that came with control, He could decide the fate of trillions in a heartbeat. He'd done it before. Togoria, Mon Cala, Pantora, Mandalore, Tion. The list of atrocities ran deep.

"I summoned you here, Lady Morta, because I believe you are capable of understanding my meaning. It is in my estimation that there are too many Sith among the younger generations who have fallen prey to disabused notions of egalitarianism. That those beneath us are worthy of proper consideration. I assume you know what I speak of."

Darth Morta ​

 

[Darth Morta]

Darth Morta watched as Carnifex called over and destroyed a decrainiated as if it meant nothing more than a piece of furniture that no longer fit the current style. Though Morta wasn't as detached as she put herself forward, not out of some misplaced care for the person the decrainiated used to be, but because of the waste inherent to the act, her early childhood on the streets of Ryloth, where nothing could be thrown away or destroyed unless its full use and value had been extracted.

Though Morta could see the other side of that coin, like how she chose her armour, if it could even be called that given how much it left undefended, and her footwear, an impractical set of boots as they were, she had to lightly draw on the force to keep herself balanced during anything but a casual walk. It was a boast, her's was one of skill. That Morta could fight with gear so impractical that it hindered her. For Carnifex, it was that he had so many resources that he could so casually kill his servants without a second thought. Perhaps there was a warning in that, should she step out of line, he'd dispose of her in the same casual manner.

"I solidly agree, if we tried to uplift everyone we came across, we'd be in the same dysfunctional mess as the Jedi. Those who wish to advance their station need to prove they have the strength, skill, and willingness to step on the heads of others and push themselves up." Pausing for a moment to consider how she ran her own planet Morta, then continued, "The closest thing you'll catch to egalitarianism under me is that everyone gets a chance to prove themselves worth my attention, and those that fail to prove themselves are equally cast down to their level of mediocracy."

Perhaps Morta's way of running things gave more social mobility than the average Sith society, but that was by design. If everyone was busy chasing their own small-minded goals, usually the pursuit of comforts and pointless luxuries to feel better than their fellows, they were too busy to cause any sort of social disruption. Even her choice of words, "they needed to push themselves up", implied that she felt others needed to find their way to advancement, like how Morta had to make her own way to power.

Darth Carnifex

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"The strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must. Such words were enshrined as my bloodline's crowning philosophy for many centuries, and they are words that I have lived by for all of my existence." He cleaned His blood-soaked hand of what remained of the decraniated's cranial meat, letting the chunks fall to the floor with a wet plop. When He was done, there was little evidence remaining on His person that He'd even committed the act.

"Bring this one to the workshop, have it operational by this evening." At His words emerged bent and hunched creatures, their skin a deep azure blue, from the darkness to extract the body and carry it away out of sight. Another lingered for just a moment, gathering the pieces in it's hands before scampering off with the others. They would not be seen again for the duration of the meeting.

"There is another side to this maxim that I myself have formulated, Lady Morta. That any action is justified by it's sheer existence. Power and will are all that matters. If you were to kill me now, then you would be justified in doing so by the very nature of it's success. Just as if I were to kill you in this moment. If the Jedi were to topple our Empire, so too would they be justified. Every act is righteous if the will behind it is strong enough to see it through."

He regarded Morta curiously, hungrily even. "I would like to see what you are capable of, freed of limitations. Just what heights could you reach, and what depths could you plummet? Are you not as eager as I am to discover just how far you can be brought?"

Darth Morta ​