Private Glaciarch Protocol: The Frostbound Echo.

[Eydis Voska]

Glaciarch Protocol

AUTOMATED BROADCAST:	SOURCE: UNKNOWN. LOCATION: Maldo Kreis - R-16-AA2
SIGNAL STATUS:	STABLE — PARTIAL CORRUPTION DETECTED.
ALERT PACKET: STASIS POD: OCCUPANT: STATUS: CONDITION: SUPPORT PERSONNEL:	1137-A VOSKA-PRIME Data Corrupted AWAKENED (FORCED EXIT FROM STASIS) VITAL / WEAKENED NOT PRESENT
ADDITIONAL PACKET:	CLAN VOSKA POPULATION INDEX: ∼0.06% REMAINS FORGE HAND NETWORK: OFFLINE BLOODLINE CONTINUITY: RITICAL FAILURE VOSKA ENCLAVE: NON-FUNCTIONAL (92% STRUCTURAL LOSS)
GALACTIC ALERT DISPATCH:	TO: ANY MANDALORIAN FREQUENCY TO: OLD REPUBLIC LISTENING POSTS TO: UNKNOWN PARTY — "ARCHIVE NODE 17"
MESSAGE CONTENT:	"FORGE HAS AWAKENED. CLAN LINEAGE NEAR EXTINCTION." REQUESTING: CONTACT. REQUESTING: PURPOSE. REQUESTING: FIRE.

The world was white.
Not the gentle white of snowfall, but the endless, crushing kind — a world carved from ice and winter, where the sun hovered low behind clouds thick as stone. Wind howled across the frozen plains in long, mournful currents, carrying shards of ice that stung like needles against metal.

For as long as history remembered, the planet had known only winter.
Glaciers taller than fortresses split the land into jagged valleys. Frozen seas lay still beneath layers of ancient frost. The air held the bite of iron and the bitter scent of snowstorms that never quite ended.

Yet in the midst of all this cold, a shattered structure clung to the land like the bones of a long-dead beast — the ruined enclave of Clan Voska.

Black stone half-buried in drifts.
Collapsed towers.
Gates broken and warped by centuries of freeze.
Once a proud Mandalorian stronghold, now reduced to a silent relic beneath the weight of time.
Within its ruined heart, something glowed faintly.
A forge — or what remained of one.

The forge should have glowed with orange heat.
The air should have been alive with hammer strikes and metal song.

Instead:
Only a dying blue spark flickered inside the broken furnace.
It sputtered.
Dimmed.
Faded.

Eydis growled under her breath and adjusted the power relays again, frost forming instantly on her gauntlets.
She tried the ignition rune.
Nothing.

She tried again.
And again — the hard, stubborn insistence of a woman who had spent a lifetime shaping metal and flame.
The forge remained cold.
At last she stepped back, her breath fogging in the air, and looked over the ruined chamber. She did not speak, but her stance carried the weight of a clan's extinction and the ache of a forge that refused to wake.
The wind outside moaned through the broken ceiling. Snow drifted in, settling on the cracked anvil beside her.
Still, Eydis knelt again.
She scraped frost from an old heating coil, examined a fractured conduit, then tried rerouting the power flow. Her movements were precise, deliberate — the motions of someone who refuses to surrender, even to time itself.
The forge flickered weakly in response… Remaining weak but active.

She begins her work anew, once more tempted to shape the metals of her craft, thinking of ways to get her clan going once more. Unwilling and unable to give up, she works the night away, only stopping to return to the vault from which she awoke to collect the last vestiges of her clan's sigal and any rations that had been frozen within it.
Nights fall.
Days rise.
Hope freezes and dies.

Beginning to lose herself in her work, even though she knows no one will come for her, as she is forgotten.

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Maldo Kreis, Outer Rim

Scything through the air in a cloud of dissipating mist, the sleek form of an IR-3F-Class Light Frigate descended upon the frozen world in a blaze of light and heat. A new sun dawned, the reflection of fire framed in silver plates that glowed with the shimmer of a luminous halo. Mournful winds, once plentiful, shifted with the comet's arrival, a chorus of scorched ozone, purifying the stagnant wastes with the promise of a new day, whether that led to weal or woe.

Minutes later, the ship landed with a soft hiss of the landing gear, its spindly legs stretched out towards the glittering passage of crystalised snow. Faint embers danced across the vessel's nosecone, the last remnants of the fading halo, blanketed with the gentle caress of falling flakes that evaporated in the remaining shroud of heat. Cloaked in a mirage of defiance, the IR-3F nestled into place. The transparisteel viewport glared out towards the remains of Clan Voska's ruined enclave.

Protected from the harsh wind and frozen tears descending upon the surface, a landing ramp peeled away from the rest of the vessel, a doorway sculpted into the bared belly of the frigate. Concealed by the release of gases, a figure stepped through, out into the open, as icy fingers reached towards their armoured frame; plates of beskar, dusted with specks of frost, moved unhindered, warmed by the bodysuit beneath and the hum of survival gear embedded within.

Slowly, he approached the enclave with the crunch of snow beneath his feet. His steps, unhurried, cautious in the unknown. The spectre of his people loomed, their presence carved into the hollow facade of a barren hillside, a veil of white that stretched across the horizon, speckled with the ruined remnants of those who lay forgotten. Snow clung to the grooves of his boots, layers of history packed in with the land, untouched for centuries, disturbed once more.

The metal gate, once a proud figure that watched over its inhabitants, was cracked in places, fissures that screeched with the wail of wind tearing through its frame. Itzhal stepped through, his stride slowed as he pressed against the metal, guiding his steps over chipped metal and debris from the years of abandonment.

Inside, the corridors stretched off into the distance, a maze of passages filled with twists and turns that were as much a defensive feature as an attempt to connect every piece of the puzzle, away from the cold chill of outside. With each step he took, a layer of dust twirled through the air, deeper patches worn into the stonework, captured through the flicker of his low-vision sensors. Faded murals followed his passage, the life of a clan displayed in the cracks where disrepair had failed to root itself. A poor replacement for the children who should have run through these corridors, the tales of the elders interwoven with their cheerful voices, and the sound of merriment from clan members settled around a roaring fire.

Instead, there was only the harsh sound of his own breathing and the steps that echoed off into the distance. Silent.

His stride faltered, the last step delivered with a faded crack against the laminate flooring of an abandoned dining hall, lines of tables arrayed around the room. Slowly, Itzhal reached up towards the side of his Buy'ce, where the sensor rig of his rangefinder jutted out from the rest of the frame, his thumb stretched across the back, running over a creaking dial. Seconds later, the wind outside grew louder, a hiss that warped into a howl, but it was not the only sound that gathered his attention.

Old heating coils, the metal worn and, in certain places, fractured, screeched a desperate call to be noticed.

With another adjustment of the sensor rig, Itzhal strode towards the call, and the terribly lonesome sound of exertion from a single living being in this lifeless tomb. It did not take long for his steps, confident and assured, to reach the final corridor and the entrance-way to the forge.

Tags: Eydis Voska​

 

[Eydis Voska]

The enclave seems to have been large at one point meany halls spend the length of the main entry way, deep grooves mark the path way a last show of the life that ones walked these halls before him, now its only but the ghosts of those that have left or died here. The murals faded still mark the passage of time though from wich time its hard to say. To those that are still depictable this clan ones held proud traditions and each figure head bore the same markings and the same helmet. A deep long face plated showed prominantly on both sides hornes reaching from the ears down to the jaw and jabbing outwards one over time seems to have broken the one of the horns as Itzhal continues to move.

His sensors move over listening to the sounds he would almost be able to imagine what ones might have been, the laughing, talking, chanting and chearing of a ones proud people. Gone never to be heard again. The only sounds still alive those deeper within and down into the lower sections of the enclaves halls.

If he where to continue his way there would are only but a few things remaining, banners and decorations which look like they might turn to dust if he where to blow air on it. viewing pannels long since stripped or broken. however one further down still shows life a single lose wire sparking faintly its last death sputters. Even in this state with a long dead clan its echo's seemingly refuse to fade. Nearing such pannel it either try's to show its last remaining message, to who ever might find it.

ENCLAVE STATUS — CLAN VOSKA

ACCESS LEVEL:	ERROR (1132-A: "BREACHED")
ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL: FORGE SYSTEMS: STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY:	"CRITICAL FAILURE" "NON-OPERATIONAL" 19 %
POPULATION SCAN:	CONFIRMED
CONFIRMED LIVING: CONFIRMED DECEASED: UNACCOUNTED:	1 CORRUPTED "MAJORITY"
FORGE LINEAGE:	"BROKEN"
APPRENTICES: FORGE HANDS: FORGE MASTER:	0 0 1
VITAL SIGNS — SUBJECT DESIGNATION: NAME:	CORRUPTED CORRUPTED
HEART RATE: BODY TEMPERATURE: NEURAL ACTIVITY: STATUS:	"LOW" "BELOW SAFE THRESHOLD" "PRESENT — UNSTABLE" "CRITICAL"

NOTE:
"AUTOMATED AWAKENING PROTOCOL EXECUTED NO SUCCESSOR PRESENT - Require: CONTACT. Require: PURPOSE, Require: FIRE"

With its last sputters the device shuts down its screen growing dark and the sparking and sputtering cable falls silent and the room darkens, not because its single light it self went out but because an other part of this places died showing its last message.

His sensors ones more pick up an other sound the sound of metal striking metal someone willing its shape onto what ever its holding. Dronning on and on one flow below where he stands in the deeper darker halls of the enclave which had layed abandoned for century's.

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Eydis would be below hammering a armour plate which she had lift so long ago which had been forgotten, trying to will it into its intended shape but not able to do anything. Century's within the vault had left her weaker then ever, she was never meant to stay in there for this long, in truth she doesn't know how long she has been in there. The cronos had died long ago. Just as her forge had, she willed that to life but it only sputters and produces licking flames of heat on the metal.

The grand open chamber carved from the worlds stone would be vast echoing her last attempts at leaving something of worth behind, the sparks of her hammers blows would shoot out lighting a streek like miniature blaster bolts their heat temporary and dying quickly. She has been working for what felt like hours. Her mind and body slowly giving out, as her fingers grow numb her hammer falls to the ground shattering stone tiles ones layed by the early members of the clan.

Unable to continue in the moment she resides to rest, finding her old seat carved into the stone wall she falls back onto it kicking up dust and snow as she rests hours would pass the only sounds left are the brutal winds outside blowing faint gusts of snow true the air ways landing around her and ontop of her covering her figure not bothering to dust her self off.

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Maldo Kreis, Outer Rim

Time had forgotten the enclave of Clan Voska, a veil of dust shrouded the once glorious murials, scattered with tales that had stretched from end to end, an ancient history now faded with the distressed pigments that clung to crevices, eroded with age. Faceless figures, sealed in an endless vigil, stared down from their place of distinction, their expressions concealed behind the artist's depiction of familiar helmets, framed by the famous T-Visor renowned across the Galaxy, not unlike that worn by the sole living wanderer who waded his way through the maze of passages.

Ahead of him, a spark ignited, the final embers of a tool determined to finish its final task. The screen was cracked along the edges; a distortion of the light rippled inward, traces of moisture, and crumbling circuits that, against all odds, somehow produced something understandable. A final gasp from the guardian of a dying clan, its final exhale, spluttering with a burst of acrid smoke and charred connections, that descended into darkness once again.

He pivoted away from the screen, draped in the lonesome darkness that enveloped the corridor, finally given company after so many years alone. The tread of his boots hammered into the ground, guided by a clattering in the distance, a sign of life where there was otherwise only the absence. Filled with purpose, Itzhal moved forward, urgent now that his expedition had turned from an investigation to a rescue mission.

"R-12, inform the others that we seem to have a survivor," He said, a hand pressed against the side of his buy'ce. Afterwards, a sequence of trills and beeps responded, short and snappy. "I'm not sure, I haven't reached them yet, just prep the medical berth, and find us the nearest medical station."

Another click ended the conversation, shortly before he stepped through the stone doorway and into the forge.

Built around the aforenamed feature, the chamber that housed the enclave's forge was enormous, grander even than the great hall that had welcomed him inwards. Numerous pipes of all shapes and sizes stretched across the room, piercing through miles of rock and looming overhead with a hiss of pressurised air, each as varied as the last and a startling array that made little rhyme or reason, apart from the destination of the cylindrical furnace that housed the inner workings of the forge.

Itzhal stepped into the room with a purposeful stride, his gaze wandering over the intricate machinery of the forge that lay exposed to him, both intentionally and not, with entire sheets of metal having bent inwards, crumpled with years of untreated decay. Heat billowed outwards, leaked from the gaps between plates, where the air boiled and shimmered, a mirage stretched across the chamber. Warily, he noted the towering support columns that stood like silent sentinels throughout the space, their upper halves bowed with the weight of duty, their surfaces marred by a thick layer of dust and grime that only partially masked the creeping rust beneath.

The armour that covered Eydis Voska was faintly dusted by the time Itzhal arrived, a harsh wind sweeping through the chamber from a crack in the wall, where a horrid screech tore its way out. Her breath, constrained beneath the cover of her helmet, was barely audible, amplified by the sensors in his buy'ce. He stepped closer, cautious of getting too close, though he knew it was necessary. A few steps away, his eyes lingered upon the subtle shift of her chest-plate and the life readings of his sensor rig.

"Ni cuy Itzhal be allit Volkihar, tion'gar hoyir?"

Tags: Eydis Voska​

 

[Eydis Voska]

The forge did not answer her. That, more than the cold, was what hurt. Seated within the stone throne carved directly into the wall—an old Forge Master's seat, worn smooth by generations Eydis Voska was little more than a silhouette against the broken furnace light. Snow clung to the fur at her shoulders. Dust layered her armor in soft grey, settling into the grooves of beskar and the cracked lines of age-old gold trim. The firefly crest upon her chest was dulled, but not erased.

Her helmet tilted faintly, as if listening. The wind howled through the fractured wall again, dragging its nails across exposed stone and metal. Pipes groaned overhead. Somewhere deep within the forge, a pressure seal failed with a tired hiss. Eydis drew a breath. It rattled.

"…nayc," she murmured, the word slipping from her unbidden, distorted faintly by her helmet's ancient modulator. "Va su." Her gauntleted hand tightened around the haft of a long-dead forging tool resting beside the throne. She pushed herself upright. Her body did not agree. Muscles screamed as if awakening from death itself. Her legs trembled, knees buckling before she caught herself against the stone. Frost cracked loose from her armor and fell in brittle flakes to the floor.

She did not look toward the forge entrance. Did not acknowledge the echo of another presence. Instead, she stared at the furnace. Dark. Cold. Silent.
"ogir hwa cuyir tracyn" she said, more firmly now, as if correcting the world. "Ogir enteyor cuyir." She took a step forward. Then another. Each one slower than the last.

Her breath grew heavier, sharper, and for a moment she swayed—her free hand pressing against a pillar, leaving a smear through centuries of dust. The tremor in her fingers worsened, creeping up her arm, settling behind her eyes like a blade slowly being driven inward. A migraine bloomed—deep, white-hot, disorienting. Her head bowed.

"... jorad tug'yc," she whispered, as if to herself. "nau'ur kad jorhaa'ir... ra Ni vercopa."

She straightened suddenly, helm turning just slightly—not toward Itzhal, but past him, eyes unfocused, as though she were addressing a memory instead of a living being.

"Dinuir ni narser," Eydis said, her voice low, raw. "Dinuir ni malhr."

She staggered forward, dragging the tool behind her until its metal tip scraped across the stone with a shrill protest. The sound echoed through the chamber like a wounded cry.

"Ni cuyir va tid'ica at jaha at uur," she continued, words fracturing between breaths. "Ni cuyir va tid'ica at jaha solus." She reached the forge controls—dead panels, frozen levers—and struck one with the flat of her gauntlet. Nothing answered. Again. Harder. Still nothing. Her shoulders sagged.

"Ni ne'waadas tracyn," she said, quieter now. Almost pleading. "Ni ne'waadas jarsagr. Ni ne'waadas borarir." Another step—and her legs finally gave.

Eydis caught herself on the edge of the anvil, breath hitching sharply as pain lanced through her spine. Frost steamed faintly where her armor touched warmer stone, a weak imitation of the forge that once roared here. She remained standing—but barely.

"Meh gar cuyir veman," she added, voice drifting, uncertain, "miak jorhaa'ir." Her helm lifted just enough now, finally, that it might align with another presence… or might simply be searching for something long gone. "Rejorhaa'ir ni meg su ne'waadas at cuyir gotal'ur." She asked not aware or seeing things Itzhal would see, her mind stuck with the ghosts of the past, her tone one asking a child what need to be repaired. The forge answered only with wind. And Eydis Voska stood trembling at the heart of a dead flame, caught between centuries of duty and a body that had not yet forgiven her for surviving them.

A console mounted beside the furnace coughed violently, its screen flaring to life in a broken cascade of light. Static tore through the image, lines warping and snapping as ancient systems clawed their way back into function. Cracking, popping and hissing, like the last embers that lay within a fire trying to cling to life and warmth.

FORGE CORE INTERFACE — DEGRADED
THERMAL INTEGRITY: 12%
FURNACE TEMPERATURE: SUB-CRITICAL
PRIMARY ANVIL: FRACTURED
FUEL FLOW: INSUFFICIENT​

The sound draws the lumbering woman forwards ones more, her thoughts ones more drawn away from the voices either real or in her own thoughts, the forge, it needs power, it needs heat, it needs fire. She must work the forge, she needs purpose, she needs to work. her will pushing her forwards to stand and continue. All whiles the systems continue to coke and putter.

—ALERT—ALERT—
FORGE UNABLE TO ACHIEVE WORKING TEMPERATURE
CLAN STATUS: EXTINCT / UNCONFIRMED
LINEAGE: UNRESOLVED
DIRECTIVE: FORGE MASTER — ADAPT OR TERMINATE CYCLE​

Its last will, its last act. A spoken command. Adapt or terminate. To live or to die. Ones more she would look to Itzhal either acknowledging him or the ghost of the past. "Meh gar cuyir veman," she says looking now dirrectly to him "miak jorhaa'ir." repeating her last words befor being interupted by her forge, her dying forge.

Tag: Itzhal Volkihar​

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Maldo Kreis, Outer Rim

Carved into the walls, with elegant tools and bloodied hands covered in grime, lives a story, an essence of the people that had once lingered in this grand chamber, sealed within the remnants of their grandest work. Here is all that remains of their triumphs, feats of glory beyond living memory, reduced to this. The heartstone of the enclave, a flickering light without the fuel to gasp on a final breath, a slab of steel cracked, its purpose beyond reach, the final hammer in a row of nails.

It was not the first time that Itzhal had stood within a tomb, the last embers of life sealed away, only inches from his fingertips. His steps trailed off into thoughtful silence, a moment of contemplation caught between the screech of the wind, ice-tipped talons scratching across his bodysuit, and the darkened shades of his beskar plates, their ancient structure trimmed in a deep crimson. Undaunted by the weight upon his shoulders, he stood, back straight and with his head raised high. A stark contrast to the woman who sat, her body bowed in failure, lost to her own thoughts.

There was no joy in watching her stumbling steps, only a grim sadness, concealed beneath the reflective gleam of his buy'ce.

"Nayc, ibic cuyi'nayc ca'chaaba," Itzhal answered, his voice hushed, the words cradled with care for a woman that was deaf to the world.

He imagined then a firm hand wrapped around each of her shoulders, the gritted texture of the dust-stained fur, its once-lustrous mane tarnished by a harsh warmth that clung to his fingers. The strength of her muscles, weakened by malnutrition and the cruelties of cryostasis, unable to resist as he guided her to the harsh ground, shattered chips digging into the frayed skin of her bodysuit, ignorant of the incoming aid and the support that he promised. In a moment, the thought faded like mist, lost to the fickle nature of reality and the reactions he could not control. It was simply too dangerous to consider further.

Instead, he observed, a silent spectre torn between the desire to help and the knowledge that his timing was critical. Every swaying step felt like another slash to his heart, buried beneath a barrier of compassion and the bitter memories of his own awakening. In those crucial moments, where he had stumbled forward, he had been just as lost as the woman before him, pitiful in their weakness and haunted by the shape of loss that consumed their every thought, desperate for purpose, even when their stride carried them over the same worn steps.

Her tools cried, scraped across the surface with unconscious neglect. It was the words, however, that tore the stride from Itzhal's steps, an echo of his past stolen.
Ni cuyir va tid'ica at jaha at uur. I was not meant to wake to silence.

He'd thought the same, so long ago. His only answer had been the cruelty of silence.

"Gar jor'nayci solus," He said, his voice steady and filled with a certainty that welled deep within his chest. The warmth of his words, fueled by a fire that burned within his soul, an unknown desire suddenly awoken, he craved to tell her of the words he'd desperately needed, a beacon in the darkness, when the light of his memories was so distant.

With tremendous care, the Morellian neared Eydis; the heat of the dying furnace pressed into the treads of his boots with each step, the soft clack against the stonework, watched beneath the visage of hissing pipes. Itzhal strode forward, a figure that should never have ventured so deep into the heart of a clan not his own, the weight of another desecration pressing down on his shoulders. Yet, still, he stood, the weighted stare of his visor never shifting from the horned reflection of his target.

"Ni su'cuyi, ni su'partayli. Bid enteyo gar."

Slowly, his hands reached out towards her buy'ce, each movement telegraphed with painstaking precision.

"Gar shuk meh kyrayc."

Tags: Eydis Voska​

 

[Eydis Voska]

Snow slid from her pauldron as she shifted, a soft cascade of white against stone. Eydis Voska did not know when she had begun to lean forward, only that the world had tilted again—another slow betrayal of flesh that had once obeyed without question. Her fingers tightened around the haft of a tool she no longer remembered picking up. The forge loomed before her in fractured silhouettes, heat bleeding through cracks that shimmered like ghosts of flame. The wind screamed through the broken wall. Or perhaps that was her breath. Her visor turned, slow and heavy, the cracked horn cutting a jagged shadow across the floor as her gaze found him again. The Mandalorian shape stood closer now. Too close. Solid. Warm. Real. Or not. Hallucinations had weight, she decided distantly. They always did, in the end. The forge console sputtered behind her. A screen long dead flickered into a sickly light ones more, its glow uneven, lines of distortion crawling across it as if the machine itself were shivering.

—FORGE CORE STATUS—
THERMAL INTEGRITY: FAILURE
FUEL FLOW: INSUFFICIENT
ANVIL SYSTEMS: OFFLINE
PRIMARY OPERATOR: ALIVE
VITALS: CRITICAL
RECOMMENDATION: CEASE ACTIVITY​

The console cracked loudly, a pop of failing circuitry, then dimmed it went dark one last time all thats left is fleeding essense of life in its dying sparks and pops. She laughed. It was a raw sound, scraped from her throat like metal dragged across stone the aincent speakers grinding and straining to make it audible. " O' jii," she murmured, voice distorted and thin through her helmet's failing modulator, " nau'ur kad rejorhaa'ir ni at gev." Her knees locked. She tried to straighten, tried to rise, to stand tall and proud, she could not betraye her own image, the image of her house, of her lineage.

She should not still be standing. She was not meant to wake to this. Her head tilted slightly as his words reached her again, filtered through the fog of centuries and pain. Mandalorian. Familiar. Too familiar. " jorhaa'ir emuurir tracyn," she said softly, uncertain. " Tracyn Ni partaylir." Her gauntlet slipped from the tool. It clattered uselessly to the floor. Only then did she feel his hands careful, deliberate reaching for her buy'ce. Her body reacted before her mind could. Her hand came up weakly, fingers brushing his wrist, not gripping, not stopping—only touching, as if to confirm he existed. A sound slipped however she was to quite unable to speak the words in the sudden strain she forced her self act. The strength left her arm almost immediately. It fell back to her side, useless, fingers curling faintly as if grasping at familiar tools that was no longer there. The helmet lifted. Cold air kissed her skin for the first time in centuries.

Her hair spilled free—long, thick, the pale ash-blonde of frost-bitten iron, threaded with silver and white, bound in rough braids that had loosened with time and neglect. Strands clung damply to her temples and cheeks, darkened by melted frost. Her face was sharp-boned, weathered not by age so much as by endurance—scarred in places, hollowed beneath the eyes. And her eyes, Ice-blue. Not bright. Not fierce. But burning. Burning with the need to be, to continue beeing.

They fixed on him with a focus that cut through the haze, through the pain, through the weakness of flesh. In them lived the weight of centuries, of forges lit and extinguished, of apprentices who never came, of a clan reduced to echoes. They did not accuse. They did not beg. As they wandered over her ruined home, her forge. Yet they endured.


" Meh gar cuyir veman," Eydis Voska said quietly, her voice bare now without the helmet's filter, roughened by cold and disuse, " miak gar motir a'yaou kyr'yc tracyn be Voska." Her breath hitched. She swayed again, barely upright. " Meh gar ru uhyih..." her lips curved faintly, a ghost of a smile, " miak gar cuyir a cu'e haa'it ui stas. Ner kurya'yr haa'it."


Her gaze dropped, not to him, but to the helmet in his hands. "Narir va rala bic trattok'or," she said, urgency flaring weakly at last. "Bic partaylir ori'shya Ni narir. Bic partaylir an.... meg haa'taylir gatle bic." All whiles her legs finally failed her. Not dramatically, no collapse, no sudden crash. Just a slow, inevitable surrender as her weight leaned forward, seeing the ground ones more, the ice and stone, the soft looking film of snow dragged in by wind.


And behind them both, the forge console gave one last strained sound.
a crackle, a pop.

and held.

Waiting.

Tag: Itzhal Volkihar​

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Maldo Kreis, Outer Rim

The once-vibrant warmth of the forge, which had valiantly shielded the chamber from the cold, flickered weakly, struggling against the encroaching chill that seeped through the many cracks in the walls and ceiling above. Whistling wind dragged clumps of snow through burrowed shafts to the stone floor below, illuminated by the final embers of the last forge and the terminal that controlled it, before even that faltered, a sequence of crackles and pops, the last guttering declaration of a machine finally brought to rest.

Silence did not follow, no matter how much it should have in the solemn moment; the howling wind carved through the cracks above, and the icy grip of winter reached outwards to all that it coveted, undaunted by the last flares of life from the bastion of heat, now rendered cold in the absence of that which made it whole. Rime-covered speakers crackled in the trailing storm, producing a haunting sound that scraped against the air with metallic claws, sparking and popping with the faint shuddering of the forgemaster's chest.

Haltingly, Itzhal reached out, his hands moving slowly closer to her buy'ce. His gloved fingers trailed inches above the intricate horns, a faint barrier of air between his touch and the ornamental designs that sprouted from the sides of their helmet, layered in a sheen of gold that glittered wherever the dust and snow failed to settle. At the base of the horns, an assortment of dials and switches was interlayed into the frame of the buy'ce, almost invisible if not for how close he stood to her. Carefully concealed, where a hand on either side could reach towards the base of the horns, a set of release catches moulded against Itzhal's thumbs, ready to remove with only a brush of pressure on the right spots.

His gaze flickered away from her buy'ce, towards the hands that reached for his wrists, carefully observing the faint quiver of her exhausted limbs, his fingers stalled, mere millimetres from their target. He waited then, as the stained fingers brushed against his gauntlets, their wary touch almost gentle like caressing smoke. Solid beskar greeted her, and a warm pulse contained beneath the vacuum-packed layers of his bodysuit.

Ice-cold metal nipped at his fingers as he pushed down on the switches, a soft and sharp hiss of seals, and a final click, released the forgemaster's buy'ce as Itzhal lifted the solid weight, revealing the woman underneath. Eyes burning with defiance, even as her body faltered and neglect carved deep hollows into the furnace of her soul.

"Ni cuyir veman," he declared, a beacon of hope in the dying of the light.

He had come.

And not a moment too late, with a faintness to her frame, Eydis tilted forward, her eyes passing over the buy'ce that Itzhal grasped in his hands and towards the frosted stonework below. Quick as a viper, the morellian's arm shot outwards, coiling around the forgemaster's waist as he slipped into place beside her, his shoulder braced against the curve of her armpit.

"Pakod jii, ibic cuyir va naritir at trattok'or," he said, his voice filled with calm and a solid confidence as firm as the grip that guided her down the steps, his other hand offering the buy'ce that he'd taken only moments ago. "gar malyasa'yr ne'waadas ibic par eso oi. Sar kak, Sitilhaa ganar am, a Ni ganar a aalar gar malyasa'yr cuyanir bic."

Tags: Eydis Voska​

 

[Eydis Voska]

The forge died with a sound like a held breath finally released. Eydis felt it before she heard it, the subtle collapse of warmth against her skin, the familiar pressure of heat that had been her companion for longer than memory loosening its grip. The air grew sharper, crueler, biting through the seams of her armor and into the bones beneath. The stone beneath her boots felt colder now, less like an anvil and more like a grave marker.

She did not look back at Itzhal immediately. Her gaze lingered on the forge. On the collapsed furnace. The split anvil. The pipes choked with ice and silence. This was where her people had spoken without words. Where armor had been born. Where purpose had been given weight and shape. Where she had been something more than a survivor.


A sound escaped her then not quite a breath, not quite a word. voice raw, stripped of its modulation. Human. Tired. "Bid ibic cuyir biai bic kyr, Va ti tracyn... a ti ga'suhiryu."


Her knees buckled again, her body finally conceding what her will refused. She leaned into him without meaning to, the weight of her frame heavy and unresisting, as though the forge itself had finally let go of her claim. Her eyes lifted at last, not to him, but past him, to the tunnel mouth where snow and darkness waited. she said quietly. "Ni temya'r, Jorcu eo ganar at. Jorcu tracyn va subay ba'slanar ast." A pause. "Ni mirdir meh Ni nalya... ha'yr kapr partaylir biai at olaror yaim."


Her fingers twitched, curling weakly as if searching for tools no longer there. "A cad olyay nayc tracyn ba'slanar at yurkurbih." At that, her eyes finally found Itzhal, unfocused at first, then sharpening with effort. They were pale, rimmed red from cold and exhaustion, but still burning with something stubborn and dangerous. Not rage. Not grief. Resolve.


"Meh gar cuyir veman," she said, uncertain even now, "miak gar cuyir kyr'yc kaab ibic naritir malyasa'yr vurel susulur bal meh gar ru uhyih... miak ibic cuyir a breate buskayu'agr." She drew in a shallow breath. Her gaze dropped to the helmet in his hands, her helm, the weight of centuries now borne by someone else's grip. For a heartbeat, something like pain crossed her face. Not anger. Not accusation. Loss.


"Narir va rala bic htagioa olar," she whispered. "Srusala ni ibac. Bic taylir an ibac cuyir ba'slanar be ni. Be yaim..... Be ner ha'yr." Her head bowed then, forehead nearly touching his shoulder as the last of her strength bled away. She would speak up finding some strength, as if anchoring herself to the name might keep her from unraveling. "Ni cuyir Eydis Voska, Nau'ur kad Kalyr be a kyrayc ha'yr. Bal Ni cuyir... tsikador at ba'slanar."

The wind screamed through the broken forge as if in protest.

Eydis did not look back again.

The fire had gone out.

But the ember still lived carried not in stone and steel, but in the quiet, unbearable weight of survival. Her thoughts fall to silence as do her words.
They left the forge behind.

The threshold passed without ceremony, no final flare, no reluctant spark of life from ancient machinery. The heat that had once defined the heart of Clan Voska bled away into nothing, swallowed by the cold stone and the ever-hungry wind. The forge did not protest their departure. It simply… ended.

Beyond the chamber, the halls stretched long and hollow, just as Itzhal had found them. But where once faint lights had sputtered in defiance, there was now only darkness.

No consoles stirred at her passing.
No screens flickered to acknowledge her return.

The enclave no longer knew its Forge Master.

Soft bands of pale light slipped through fractures in the ceiling and walls thin, ghostly shafts of white that cut through the drifting dust and snow. They illuminated fragments of the past in still frames: a broken mural here, a half-buried sigil there. The firefly crest appeared once more, carved into stone above an archway, its wings eroded to little more than suggestion.


Eydis slowed. Not because she wished to stop but because her body no longer obeyed her will as it once had. Each step was deliberate, measured, a negotiation between iron resolve and failing strength. Frost clung to the hem of her armor, collecting in the seams where warmth had once lived.

Her uncovered breath fogged faintly in the air. She did not speak. There were no words left for this place. Just the quite shuffle of steps and the churning of snow and dust. Slowly she slides her buy'ce back on letting it seal with a hiss its long neglected seals crying sharply.

As they moved through the halls, the wind followed, threading through the corridors with a low, mournful voice. It tugged at loose fabric, whispered through cracks in stone, and carried with it fine snow that drifted across the floor like ash after a long-dead fire. The sound filled the silence—not alive, not sentient, but persistent, as if determined to erase what little remained.

She passed the dining hall without turning her head. Passed the armory, its racks empty and rusted. Passed the corridor where forge hands had once slept between shifts, their laughter now only a memory worn smooth by time. Each place was intact enough to be recognized… and empty enough to wound. Her fingers brushed briefly against the wall as she walked, leaving behind a faint smear in the dust a single, unconscious mark of proof.


I was here.


Her eyes lifted once, catching a shaft of light that cut down from a split in the ceiling. Snow fell through it in slow, spiraling patterns, illuminated like stars trapped in descent. For a heartbeat, it almost looked beautiful. Then the wind scattered it. Eydis did not look back toward the forge.

She could feel its absence now not as loss, but as certainty. The machines were dead. The heat gone. Whatever soul had lingered in circuits and stone had finally departed. The enclave had not merely fallen into ruin. It had finished dying.

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Maldo Kreis, Outer Rim

The weight of her loss bowed Eydis low, her knees weak in the absence of purpose. It was inevitable that her body, ravaged by time and neglect, finally collapsed. Her frame buckled underneath the burden of an entire clan, cruelty carved into the shape of a terrible and lonesome duty, an impossibility fueled by the false light of hope. Its existence was an abomination. Its absence was a horror, the calling of despair, and a cutting blade that tore apart the sweet lie.

Itzhal took no joy in knowing that he was the final piece, the swinging blade.

But hope, true hope—the kind that kept the spark alive and burned brightly within the heart of whoever possessed it—was not to be found here in this forgotten outpost, reduced to memories held in faded etchings and the ice-cold grasp that even now dragged its final inhabitant towards interment. It was out there. In the stars, where stories remained to be told, shared amongst those who would listen, and where fate was a thing to wrap your hands around in a greedy and desperate grip.

Pressed tightly against Itzhal's side, with his arm wrapped around her back, fingers curled into the clasps of her backplate for support, Eydis Voska felt almost weightless, a delicate bundle of flesh and bone, barely held within the bonds of her armour. His hands tightened around the metal, blessed plates of Mandalorian Iron crafted with a touch of eternity, their struggle, rime and dust nothing more than a surface wound. Beneath the visor, his eyes lingered on her thin wrists, the muscle stretched over bone, an echo of faded strength. She lingered against his frame, a wisp of ideals and purpose, ethereal in presence, and just as terrifying as the dream she feared he was, for all that he felt as if his grip would shatter her into whirling particles of ice and dust.

His helmet lifted, away from her wrists, their silhouette framed by a bodysuit that seemed unsure whether to cling to malnourished limbs or flap loose in search of something to fill the gaps. Eventually, they landed on her face, tracing past the hollow press of her cheeks, and the determined blaze that lingered in her eyes, a promise sealed within the gleam.

The flesh was weak, but the soul shone.

His gaze bore down like a heavy mantle, an unspoken intensity that did more than merely observe; it meticulously dissected, peeling away the layers of lingering strength that were pressed into the furrows of Eydis's skin, surgical precision carving away at the red rimmed eyes, and deeper into the woman who even after all this time had continued to hold a burden that could only ever crush her.

"Ni srusala. Gar ha'yr malyasa'yr cuyir morut'yc ti ni, asas hwa gar." he vowed, shoulders firmed with the new burden laid upon them, before, with a grunt of effort, he turned towards the exit.

Seconds passed, the only sound their shared steps as they started to move towards the exit, undaunted by the hiss of wind that followed them, and the buy'ce that he carried, illuminated by the soft glow of a headlight attached to his helmet, rime creeping across the edges of her buy'ce, their reflection visible in the distorted angle that showed fog seeping from Eydis's frozen lips. He slowed then, allowing their momentum to bleed to a soft stop before he turned back towards her. "A, gar cuyir buy'ce cuyir va gi'a aran gar. Va su."

With slow movements, he lowered the beskar frame, a forgemaster's crown, and placed it upon her head.

Then, without another word to share, he waved towards the corridors that remained, a journey that he could not make her walk, only guide as the weight settled against his shoulder again, and he stepped forward, one boot after another. Past memories that he could not witness, only the echoes that lingered, and the way his companion remembered, their eyes hidden beneath the shield that was as much for her privacy as the bitter cold that sharpened its nails against their armour.

"Olaror" He said, firm as the snow fell upon her markerstone and the wind continued its dire call from deep within, and the cracks above.

Another song twittered to life, swirling snow gathered under the guiding hand of a new breeze that slipped its way through the fractures of the metal entrance-way. Halo'd in the twinkling glow of Itzhal's flashlight and the gleam of stars above, the blanket of picturesque white twirlled and danced its way towards them, a gentle greeting that crunched beneath their steps, clinging within the grooves of their boots as they continued out into the world beyond and the sleek frame of Itzhal's starship, illuminated by a curtain of stars.

Tags: Eydis Voska​

 

[Eydis Voska]

The word " Olaror" settled into her like a nail driven clean through steel. Eydis did not answer at first. Her weight rested almost entirely against him now, not from surrender, but from simple truth. The body that had endured centuries of waiting had finally chosen honesty. Her steps dragged faintly across the stone, leaving shallow arcs in the dust as they passed beneath dead archways and hollow sconces. When he spoke his vow, something behind her visor shifted. As they continued on there wouldn't be any relief nor recognition.

" Gar jorir ori'shya gar kar'taylir, sto miak Ni kar'taylir" she murmured softly beneath the buy'ce as he placed it back upon her head. The seals hissed closed again, the world narrowing to filtered breath and dimmed sound. The familiar weight settled across her brow like a crown forged of memory and burden both. It did not restore her strength. But it steadied her.

The corridor widened ahead, opening toward the fractured entrance where the storm waited. Snow spiraled inward in delicate currents, catching in the beam of his light. The enclave's great doors stood ajar, warped by frost and time, their sigils split down the center.

She slowed again at the threshold. Not enough to halt them. Just enough to feel it.

The cold beyond was different from the cold within. The cold inside had been preservation a tomb's patience. This cold was movement. Endless. Indifferent. Her gaze lifted to the carved insignia above the door, half-erased by erosion. The firefly sigil of Clan Voska. " Ni cuyir tid'ica at ramaanar olar," she said quietly, almost to herself. " Choruk jaon lyatr. Tracyn lo rang." The wind howled through the breach, answering with a hollow tone that might once have echoed with voices. " A nau'ur kad gaanader atiu."

Her hand twitched faintly against his armor not clutching, not stopping simply grounding herself in something warm, something alive. Snow met her boots as they stepped fully beyond the enclave. The sound changed immediately. Stone no longer echoed their steps. The snow absorbed them. The world outside swallowed noise, swallowed memory, swallowed the outline of the mountain that had guarded her people for generations.

" urltima cuyir kyrayc," she said, calm now. Not fractured. Not distant. Certain. " Rala bic cuyir a hrabe. Va a mircin." Above them, the stars burned in indifferent brilliance. For the first time since waking, her breathing evened shallow, but measured. The rhythm of someone no longer fighting a battle already lost. " Gar sirbur Ni cuyir va solus," she added after a moment, voice quieter beneath the helm.
"Miak narir va ba'slanar ni at eoa a kasuridr."

The storm curled around them, soft and relentless, erasing the edges of the entrance behind their passing. Snow gathered along the ancient stone as if sealing it closed, layer by layer. The mountain did not mourn. It simply endured. Eydis Voska stepped into the dark beyond her home not as its ghost, not as its prisoner but as its last ember carried into the stars. Letting him lead her out of her past and into a unknown future.
The snow swallowed their steps almost as soon as they made them.


Wind tore sideways across the mountainside, dragging white curtains over stone and steel alike. It clung to the edges of Itzhal's armor, gathered in the grooves of his boots, and crusted along the rim of Eydis's buy'ce where breath met frost and froze again. She did not speak. Not when the enclave vanished behind the veil of snow. Not when the storm thickened. Not when the distant silhouette of his starship flickered faintly between gusts. Her steps grew uneven.

At first it was subtle a slight drag of her right foot, a delayed shift of weight before each stride. Her breathing inside the helmet changed rhythm, losing the controlled cadence she had found at the threshold. The filtered sound grew shallow. Slower. Her gloved hand, where it rested against his side for balance, loosened. The storm pressed harder.

She tried to straighten once an old instinct of discipline shoulders pulling back as if standing before the forge again. But the motion faltered halfway through. Her knees dipped, caught, and dipped again. There was no dramatic collapse. Only exhaustion, long denied, finally claiming its due. Her head lowered first, the horned silhouette of her helmet tilting forward. Her weight shifted fully into him without warning. One boot slipped in the snow, failing to find purchase.Then the rest of her followed.

Her body went slack in his hold not resisting, not bracing. The tension that had carried her from the forge simply… released. Inside the buy'ce, her breath fogged once more against the visor. Then thinned. Unconsciousness took her quietly though death does not claim her. The storm continued to howl around them, indifferent. Ahead, the starship's hull waited beneath the stars, its lights steady against the dark.

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Maldo Kreis, Outer Rim

There were no words that Itzhal could offer to lighten the burden; all that could be said, already had been said. Time had swallowed their history, darkness had fallen upon their home, yet the spark remained—one final ember. The last memory of Clan Voska still lingered; they were gone, but as long as the ember remained, they still existed. The Forge had understood, even when its master had forgotten. Tender the light, tender the future. Whether Eydis Voska would be able to keep that light alive, he could not say, only that for the moment, he felt that spark, determination burning in a body that should have long ago faltered.

Failure was inevitable; it always was—mortal bodies were bound to mortal limits.

In the end, it was little surprise when Eydis finally collapsed, so close to the waiting starship, a dark silhouette towering over the deadlands and the limping figures covered in beskar'gam, snow clumped in between the gaps and crevices of their armour, a faint coating of white that grew with every second outside.

He could not carry her burden, no matter what he said; the loss of clan and kin—a tale as old as time, repeated through history. Six Actions may have guided their hand as surely as they did his, but he could not claim to have known them, not in truth. It was a connection, a binding possibility for strangers, connected through a culture with more interpreations than stars in the sky above. Loose threads with the potential for something more, ultimately buried with the frostbound echoes of a people reduced to one. His own phantoms were not the type to share.

Snow clung to his greaves, his steps sinking beneath the surface, slowed by the deadweight pressed into his side, each breath louder with the exertion as he trudged through the storm. The wind howled around him, biting at his covered skin, synthetic layers preventing the terrible chill from slipping through his bodysuit.

Around him, the gale swirled, lifting clumps of the fine powder in a blinding dance of all-encompassing white, threatening to swallow him whole. Each lumbering stomp grew harder than the last, lifting his knees higher to rise above the veil of lightly packed ice crystals, the weight to his side constantly threatening to upturn the next forced movement.

With a sigh of effort, Itzhal slammed his treaded boot into the ground; snow crunched, then parted.

The wind screamed at him, furious in the face of his defiance; it promised to bury him—another memory consumed beneath the endless reach of a cruel winter. Itzhal stopped, one hand braced against the straps of Eydis' backplate, his other reached towards the side of his helmet, and the rangefinder that lowered with a soft whirl, concealed beneath the blizzard's rage.

In the distance, the looming presence of his IR-3F-Class Light Frigate offered shelter; if only he could reach it, with a tilt of his buy'ce, he looked towards the dead weight pressed against his side, their feet dragging against the snow, a trail of their legs ploughed by the strength of his muscles and determination alone.

This was his burden.

Crouching low to wrap an arm around the back of her legs, the line of snow crept further up his armour with the shift of his knees, while his other arm wrapped around the stretch of her back. Cradling her buy'ce against the press of his chestplate, Itzhal grunted, then with an exertion of straining muscles, he lifted her up and out of the snow, carrying on towards the promise of safety.

With a click of his tongue, his comm-link activated, "R-12, prep the engines, we're leaving. The medbay better be ready."

Hydraulics hissed, and pistons screeched with the opening of the landing ramp, clamping down upon the snow-laded land. Itzhal Volkihar strolled onwards, up into the light.

Towards the stars and the promises of the future.

Tags: Eydis Voska​