Homecoming

[Varik Ice]

Varik Ice​

Equipment: Lightsaber - Armour​

Location: Barab II​

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Varik sat on his knees in the shuttle, his mind clear as he focused on what was to come. He had been somewhat surprised that he was permitted to pull Imperial Assets for a more...personal task. Perhaps it was because of his previous service of the Empire, that someone in the higher echelons thought he was deserving. He supposed that it wasn't important in this moment, however. He knew where he had to go. Someone, or something, had been calling through the force for him to come home.

As he felt the shuttle touch down, he stood and walked his way to the cockpit, grabbing the helmet that he had left in the back of the room. As he looked to the pilot, he spoke curtly. "Be back here in four days." He could tell there was a confused expression on her face, even behind the helmet. "My lord, are-" Varik interrupted her, a firm tone in his voice. "I'll be fine, Lieutenant. Four days." He turned, walking out of the room and slipping the helmet over his face.

When the ramp lowered to allow him down, he didn't feel anything. There was no biting cold, any cool winds that hit him. He often wondered how that felt. Was he strange for being this way? Perhaps he was just the only normal one. As his boots hit the ice, he turned to watch the ramp slowly lift and the engines of the shuttle start. He watched it until it became a small dot in the sky, disappearing from view and from Barab II entirely.

He slowly turned, staring at the sights around him. Though his home was a death trap to most normal people, in ways, it had its beauty. For him though, all it held was guilt, and pain. He considered whether it was that which had called him all the way here, from Imperial space. Varik shook off the thoughts as he began to walk, treading across the ice and snow. He headed in the direction of where his village had once stood. Even though he couldn't be hurt by the cold, he knew whatever he found there could. But as much as he didn't want to, he had to go. He didn't know why, but he had to.

 

[Varik Ice]

Varik Ice​

Equipment: Lightsaber - Armour​

Location: Barab II​

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Day 1

Varik's eyes never looked away. He sat on a slope of ice, the bitter cold utterly unfelt and unaffecting his body as he couldn't rip his gaze away from the village in the distance. Or what was left of it. It was a pile of stone and wood now, and he could see skeletons. What made it worse, was that some weren't there when he left. There had been more here. More of his people. They were here, and he left them. Where could they have been? He wasn't sure. He was deliberating over something in his mind as he stared there. Should he go over? Should he stay away? He didn't know what was the way to show respect, if he even had any. He couldn't tell anymore.

Varik stood up, and his body carried him towards the carcass of what he used to call home. He couldn't actively think about what he was doing; he was just doing it, and he didn't know why. He stopped as he finally stood in the middle of the ruined village, some homes simply having broke down over time, with many being burned. He saw the skeletons near his feet, and could easily tell how charred they were. These people came later. And they'd decided that they would rather die warm, he supposed. He couldn't blame them.

Ice spent the rest of the night trying to meditate in that place. He felt himself being pulled in two directions; towards the calm, towards the idea that perhaps his mother, his people, may have forgiven him in death. The other told him that he was a monster. Still a stupid, petulant boy with delusions of godhood and power who was no good to this galaxy or any other. He had eventually decided to sit on the fence, when it came to that.

The man spent a while putting up a small pre-fab shelter, the materials having been dropped off for him earlier. Putting it up, the place was comfortable, but most importantly it was functional, with equipment to examine whatever he found and spartan-like accommodations. Varik enjoyed this environment. He sat down on his bed, the helmet on the desk staring back at him as though the mocking face of the deity, the saviour he was supposed to have been. He wasn't the saviour of his people. He'd been a blight on them, a coming doom. Only time on this planet would tell what that meant for his future.

 

[Varik Ice]

Varik Ice​

Equipment: Lightsaber - Armour​

Location: Barab II​

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Day 2

Varik had continued to follow the call; and whatever it was, it knew him better than he suspected. As he moved on from where his village had been, it was drawing him across a very familiar path. As he travelled, he recognized every village the furter he went. He'd went this path before, blinded by rage and a hatred for those that had wronged him. This was where he'd made the journey that had destroyed his whole people, ended lives that didn't need to end. It didn't even feel that long ago; though, it wasn't really.

Ice travelled along the pathways, and as he reached the last village, he glanced up. The wind seemed to carry a voice, a soothing one that he recognized. It was his mother, calling to him from the distance, across the wastes of home. He didn't understand what was happening. Was he losing his mind? He felt himself getting nervous, his composure breaking; what was wrong with him? He almost felt a shiver, but not from the cold.

Thoughts crossed his mind, ones that actually disturbed him. Perhaps he was simply back here to die, as he should have. Or, even worse...perhaps he had never left. Maybe he had just died in the wastes like the rest, from a lack of food or water, his fantasies of a galactic stage and an Empire that seemed to value him simply the fever dreams of a dying man. Even as he considered all this, he continued to follow the voice. Whatever it was, he would confront it.

He had never been this far out; he had no reason to be. There were no animals here, nothing to hunt or grow. Just flat ice, not a single chance of vegetation in sight. Finally, he reached a point where he could see nothing, just the endless ice around him. Varik closed his eyes, moving down onto his knees. Something gave him the instinct, though he didn't know what. He remained still, ignoring the biting wind and chill as he began to meditate and focus on the presence that was seeking him out.

 

[Varik Ice]

Varik Ice​

Equipment: Lightsaber - Armour​

Location: Barab II​

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Day 3

Varik stayed on his knees, the whole night having passed already and being now long gone. He finally found what he was looking for, his mind having searched for what felt like an eternity by now. He opened his eyes and stared downwards, towards the shatterpoint he could perceive in the ice now. He pulled up so he was on one knee, one of his arms draped over the leg that remained up. He reached down, and gently pressed his palm against the ice. He focused as much as he could, for the most force he'd ever pushed out of himself.

He felt the force travel out through his hand, and saw the ice in front of him shatter a good distance, opening up a cavern heading downward. He could immediately see the stairs heading downwards into darkness; he couldn't even see the bottom. But did that matter? Varik began walking down the staircase in front of him, trying to step carefully. As he continued down the slippery steps, he did eventually reach the bottom, a floor of carved stone, a near-obsidian black colour. In front of him were two large doors.

Ice found a large chamber, filled with doors on each side. He already knew what this was going to be, what this place was. He'd felt the force radiating through it, somewhere that clearly used to be signficant. He just wondered how he hadn't sensed this place before. Was it intentionally hidden away from him? Why did it begin to call to him, then? There were so many questions, and he wouldn't leave until all of them were answered.

 

[Varik Ice]

Varik Ice​

Equipment: Lightsaber - Armour​

Location: Barab II​

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Day 4

For the first time in a long time, Varik felt exhausted. There had been what felt like dozens of trials. Puzzles and conundrums he had to use the force to solve. Rooms filled with what looked like Sith attacking him, but it was just his imagination. Even one filled with droids that told a different story, each representing something. He was tired of it all. When he finally stepped through what seemed like the last door, he wouldn't lie if he said he was disappointed. At the end of the room, on a small platform, was a holocron. Just one little holocron. Varik slowly moved forward, taking the device in his hands. He curiously examined it, and was suddenly overwhelmed. His body tilted backwards and convulsed as a blue light shone from the holocron along with his mouth, eyes and nose.

Varik saw himself in a purely white space, nothing around him at all. As he looked ahead, he saw a figure walking towards him from the distance. As he squinted, their form began to take shape. A Kel Dor, in some brown robes. He seemed old, but Ice was no Xenologist. He maintained his flat expression, realizing his lightsaber was not with him. "Where am I?"

"You are asleep." Varik was unsure about that answer. "So this is a dream, then?" His tone was inquisitive, and his face twitched at the figure's response. "No." He glanced aside, looking around the clear white expanse before him before he finally rested his gaze on the Kel Dor. "Explain yourself."

The Kel Dor, a Jedi - something Varik found he somehow knew, almost looked solemn. "You came home. Like we knew you would. Three hundred years ago, we knew you would be born. Here, on this little planet. We didn't interfere, but we prepared. We built that temple for you, but...I knew it would be insignificant." Varik seemed confused, a puzzled expression on his face as he tried to process what was happening. "I said, explain yourself. Tell me what's going on. What is this place? Who are you?"

The Jedi now finally straightened up, and Varik got a look into what he must've been like in his younger years. "I am Ka Shoon. I, and other Seers saw your birth three hundred years ago. With it, we saw the rise of a power...and the rise of a Sith. One who would seek to manipulate those as he saw fit, bend them to his will, bend the very laws of the galaxy if he must, to achieve his ends. Many of our order thought that would be you. But I saw otherwise. The prophecies are seperate. The lines are-"

Varik began to feel impatience, almost anger. All of it, all he had gone through; even if they knew, they could have stopped it, they could have done something. They knew his people were here on this planet, trapped and did nothing. He began to take deeper breaths, speaking firmly. "Listen to me, Jedi-" He was cut off. "I am no Jedi." Ice stopped for a moment, confused. Who was this alien, then? He shook it off, continuing. "If they believed me a threat...why did they build this? Why make a holocron that simply tells me so?"

The Kel Dor sighed. "This is a trap. This place you are in now....your body is not yours. I have it, though I am not meant to. The intent was that your consciousness would be with mine, in this box. Your body would lay and wither on the temple floor." Varik paused, trying to consider his next move. He had been outplayed; all the tests, they were to fool him, wear him out. Make sure he had no power or cause to think when he took the holocron. Should he try and kill him? Meditate? He was cut off by the voice again.

"I will not allow it. You will have your body back. There is a...complication, though." Ice took in another deep breath, considering what it could be. "That is?" The Kel Dor was unmoving, his hands clasped over each other. "You must take me with you. My being will be absorbed by yours, so you alone may keep your body. I believe you have the potential to do great things for the people of this galaxy. Even if you are the monster they thought you were...I will not condemn you before you become it." Varik didn't speak, only letting out a few simple nods before he suddenly blacked out once again.

He heard the winds. He felt the slick ice underneath him, and the hilt of his lightsaber jabbing into his side. As his eyes shot open, he was outside, exactly where he had been when he destroyed the ice and entered the temple. Suddenly sitting up, the cavern downwards, the stairs; they were gone. Was it not real? A dream, when he had passed out attempting to meditate? Varik stood, turning and looking around the wastes. No. Something was...different. He felt different. He felt...calm. Real calm, not the bitterness and jaded feeling he forced upon himself. He looked down at his hand, flexing it a bit as he heard the noise of his shuttle arriving.

"I think I'm beginning to understand."