Private I, Icarus

[Arcturus Dinn]

Now His Wings Turn To Ashes. To Ashes His Grave​

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It had been some time since the cool sands of Korriban had kicked up at his very step, and the rocky horizon called his name. How long, exactly, the boy could not say for sure. He'd hardly kept track of such as he ventured through the stars and saw sights he'd never seen before. His days had been spent in exploration, his evenings in study or practice, countless projects had been started, several had been finished, and with each passing day the home he had come to know felt further and further away. Like a distant memory, it only loomed in those darker hours where all was quiet and the mind ran amuck.​

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The spherical craft he'd been piloting landed softly within the sands, a Force-propelled stone's throw from the Academy which lay within its depths. He could see it when the curved ramp lowered, though it would be some time before he reached it, and each step he took from there seemed to set some determination within him. To steel his nerves. This was not a traditional homecoming, it was nothing like the last time he'd returned after time away. Then he'd been filled with fury that masked his fear, uncertainty but determination.​

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Now... Well, who knew. Certainly not he. His emotions were a strange mix, a mess to comprehend, but it was not emotions which led him on, not this time. Nor was it a sense of purpose.​

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He didn't rightly know why he was doing this. There were pockets within the Galaxy wherein he could have lived out his days, practicing his craft to perfection and forgetting all about the life he'd once lived. He could have returned to Ession, if he'd wanted, found out more about the boy he had once been, the family he had known. Heck, he could have hid out on Coruscant, and visited Jen every now and then. Pitched in where he could, gained that small slice of family life.​

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But he hadn't.​

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The distance closed far swifter than he had expected. It was late when he arrived, but not so late that all was dead inside. He could feel the small machinations of life held within. Once upon a time he'd been part of that well oiled machine which lingered well into the night, incapable of sleep and grasping at straws. He slept a little better these days, but still little.​

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He slipped inside relatively unnoticed, or at least he thought he did. Whether he was successful he wouldn't know, not until he was caught. But he regarded it as some small victory in the moment all the same. Through the halls he ventured, not quite on the path to his true destination but on a path all the same. He stopped outside of Ishani Dinn 's door, and gently knocked. There was no movement inside, no sign of life. She wasn't inside, but that didn't mean she wasn't on Korriban right? It didn't matter. He deftly had the door open as quickly as he could muster, and once inside he did little more than place Nwit upon her desk. Should something happen to him, at least he'd be safe. At least she'd know he was here, right?​

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Back out into the hall he took a new path, and ventured back toward the office he had first come to when initially coming to Korriban many moons prior. Anxiety clutched at his chest but he forced himself on all the same.​

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No more hiding. No more running. He had to face up to the decisions he had made on the battlefield. He raised a hand, intent on knocking on the door to the office. His hand lingered in place though. Then he reached for the handle, and provided it was unlocked walked inside without prior warning.​

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Darth Empyrean ​

 

[Darth Empyrean]

As Thesh walked through the academy, he would feel shadows follow him. He would meet no one in the halls, but he could feel them follow; only because the shadows decreed that he knew. A lamb in the lion's den, he was being hunted - but the beings stayed just out of sight, just out of touch and sense; but the reasons were unknown.

There would be nothing stopping him from entering the office of Maliphant, but the room would be basked in the soft glow of the fireplace contrasting darkness everywhere else. Two seats were sat in front of it, and in one the ruby pupils awash in darkness watched the flames - and Maliphant's voice would reach out to Thesh without any other ounce of his attention.

"Sit.", he said flatly. In his hand was the thin shape of a kyber shard wine glass, worth its weight many times over in electrum.

When Thesh found his place, Maliphant would watch the fire in silence for a few moments more - popping and crackling as it slowly burned itself into extinction. It would be many hours before it was gone, but for the moment it was bright - the only light source in the entire room. Maliphant set his glass aside on the table, crossed his legs, and glanced over to his apprentice.

"Explain yourself, Thesh. Do so promptly, our time may be short."

Arcturus Dinn

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

The shadows which lingered on the edge of his travels seemed to light a fire under him, and as he reached the final corridor his pace was relatively faster than it had been initially. It was important, he had decided, that he come to his Master of his own volition. He had been dodging the Frumentarii for some time now, out there in the wild Galaxy, he'd be damned if they caught him now. If they were seemingly the only reason he was back in the Academy.​

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Thesh would not return to this place kicking and screaming.​

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Thankfully the door was open, and when he stepped inside the light of the fireplace seemed to banish the vacuous visitors who had trailed behind him. His heart beat rapidly, though it slowly began to settle in the silence which lay between them. Silence which was squandered with the command that was issued.​

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At first he didn't move. He stared at the back of the man's head and felt as though vines had come from the ground to root him in place. For all the certainty he'd felt when walking the halls, even with the shade's at his back, being back in a room with Maliphant had found him sapped of much of it.​

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Not enough to test the man further though.​

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Finally he uprooted his feet and crossed the room without a word. When he sat within the armchair he found himself bolt upright, posture perfect, uncomfortable and literally on the edge of his seat. He did not look at the man any further, his eyes were attracted to the fire. Deep within his mind thrummed a melody he rarely heard these days, save for when deep in his work, lost within the Force. He drew upon it now, feeling some strength returning to him. However minute he seemed to relax in response to it.​

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Then Maliphant spoke once more.​

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Explain himself...​

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His chest rose and fell, though the heavy sigh he'd built up didn't seem to make itself known at all. Muted with the severity of the situation. A hundred thousand different explanations rose within his mind. He uttered none of them. His gaze turned pointed, though remained upon the flames.​

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"They were just children," he finally said; for him it felt like an eternity had passed since Maliphant had issues the command, but in truth it was mere seconds. "I didn't think there'd be children..." Not an explanation, really, was it? His fists balled up in his lap as he fought to keep himself under control. Snapping now wouldn't do him any good.​

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"I don't regret what I did," he added, rather bluntly, more bluntly than he had intended, "But I do regret any trouble it might have brought you. I wasn't thinking about all of that at the time. They were just children..."​

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Darth Empyrean ​

 

[Darth Empyrean]

"Just children.", he repeated. His nostrils flared almost unnoticably.

"Just children."

For a moment, he didn't speak - a look of disgust on his face before it settled back into placid apathy. He readjusted in his seat, and glared at Thesh - his ruby pupils boring into him like a deep well drill bit searching for tibanna gas. The daggers they sent were nigh physical, prickling painfully on the skin just so dangerously close that Thesh couldn't be sure if Maliphant was using the Force to enhance it somehow.

"You live yet because I decreed it, Thesh. Every breath you take, from the moment of Ession was mine to give you - and you've used every single one to embarrass me. Yet even still, when they demand your execution and I must use my weight to stop them, the most you could explain yourself with is 'they were children', you 'didn't know they would be' at a Jedi Temple, and that you weren't thinking of me - the thing that keeps you alive?"

Maliphant's voice had risen in tempo, crescendoing in volume as each word crashed upon the Apprentice. By the time he was done, his fist had unwitting clenched itself tight - white knuckled and nearly causing small fractures in the wood of his own chair. Maliphant had a moment to glance to it, then carefully unwind the strength in his fist before he relaxed once more - or the greatest he could in the moment.

For a moment, Maliphant let his words hang in the air, hanging heavy on the popping of the wood in the fireplace.

"Just children.", he repeated a third time.

"As a Sith, you have individuality - the will to do as you please. Be it leave the battlefield, save children, or to kill someone you meet. For none of these things I can accost you - but it is your short sightedness that behooves me, child.", a term he hadn't called Thesh in years.

"You truly believe that handing them over to the Jedi, you gave them something more? Do you believe that a better fate then where you have ended up, Thesh?", he said with a furrowed brow.

"The world laid out before you, potential your vessel to traverse it - and you couldn't acknowledge your own privilege and freedom, so you denied them what you have."

Arcturus Dinn

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

And just like that, Thesh the almost-man became Thesh the child in one fell swoop.​

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He sank into the chair as though he could become one with the upholstery, as the years he'd aged through were wiped from the surface and the curly haired boy remained in his place. His eyes fell away from the flames held within the fireplace, and dropped to his lap as he found himself well and truly admonished by the one person in the Galaxy whose opinion really mattered.​

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Tongue was bitten as he refrained from speaking up and interrupting the man, a small measure of respect no doubt presented far too late to be of any real worth. His skin prickled and burned under the jarring gaze of his Master, and for a time it felt as though all the air in the universe had been sucked from existence, leaving only a breathless void in its wake.​

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Deep down he wished that void would suck him up too, poof him out of existence.​

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But it didn't.​

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Instead it left him to stew in a bubbling pot of his own creation.​

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"I don't know what I thought would happen," he finally said, though the bite had left his tone; as in his initial years with Maliphant his words were barely audible, as though propelled by little more than the flapping of a butterfly's wings. "I guess I thought they'd get a choice; I never got a choice." If it was possible, he seemed to sink deeper into himself, into the chair, with that statement. There was a longing to let that hang in the air, to sit with it in silence for a moment, but he knew that if he did that he'd likely lose his ability to speak any further. So he didn't.​

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"I like my life," he quickly asserted, and where uncertainty had reigned previously now it was nowhere to be seen. Even with the meek tone it was uttered with. "I enjoy my studies, and my experimentations, and if I had the choice I'd choose it over again. But I didn't know all of that back then..." A defeated sigh broke through his lips then, and he hung his head further.​

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"They weren't just children, were they?" he finally confessed, his tone suggesting it was a revelation he'd only just come to in that very moment, "The Jedi didn't see them as just children. They were younglings. Their future was set for them, they didn't decide that either did they?" One hand lifted from where it had been balled up in his lap, and he clutched at some of the hair which hung down over his face.​

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Darth Empyrean​

 

[Darth Empyrean]

"No, they didn't, Thesh.", he said contemptuously.

"You stole their one chance at freedom, for the short sighted gain of moral accomplishment. What you gave them in the moment - saved them from conflict - you stole a lifetime from them out of selfish indignance, of a lack of foresight.", he admonished.

He was quiet for a long moment as his gaze fell on the flames once more.

"Then it is upon me, for not teaching you the reality of the Sith's beliefs.", he said just above a whipser, the flames doing tricks in the ruby of his eyes.

"What is the Sith's code, Thesh? What is the Jedi's?"

Arcturus Dinn

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

There was much he wanted to say.​

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A pressing need to defend his actions rose within him, to fight back against the claims of selfishness and misplaced morality. They were harsh realities, that which he was faced with, there was no coating it, no filter placed. He felt every single syllable of Maliphant's words like personal blows against him.​

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"I know" he whispered, when the man turned his gaze away to look into the flames once more and silence fell between them. He hadn't known, but he did now. The realization was a sharper than even the admonishment itself, a prickly pit which wormed its way into his very core and sat uncomfortably within his solar plexus.​

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When he caught wind of the equally whispered words of his Master, barely audible but just caught enough to make sense of, he began to shake his head. His mouth dropped open, to speak against such a statement, but the words froze before they could exit. How much deeper was he going to dig his own grave? How much more damage was he going to do to their relationship? Maliphant was the paternal figure he couldn't ever recall having had before, and deep down he felt that wasn't even just due to the obscurity of his life before Bastion.​

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Yet here he was, smashing the whole thing to smithereens.​

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It wasn't right of him. It wasn't fair.​

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He kept silent until bade to speak once more. The codes came rather naturally to him these days, he didn't even have to think they came to mind as soon as the questions were posed. He'd never really delved too deeply into them in earnest though, especially in more recent years. There was so much out there to learn, so much to research, and such had fallen to the wayside.​

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Much had fallen to the wayside.​

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He recited both codes with just a small pause in between; the hand which was in his lap seemed to fidget and flex, the one in his hair held firm, keeping him from looking up even as the flames crackled and tempted him to do precisely that.​

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Darth Empyrean ​

 

[Darth Empyrean]

"Like many, you repeat the words but don't understand them.", he sighed.

"If a Sith chooses to enslave themselves to the Force, to another - then that is their choice, but only after they realize the weighted truth it carries. The Jedi, as righteous as they appear, are slaves to the Force; that which brings plague and ruination down upon whoever it sees fit, to fulfill a prophecy long set out by false gods."

He had made the speech a thousand times to a thousand younglings, but spoke it once more to his own apprentice.

"They do not command power, they plead for it. Surrendering their identity, their very nature in exchange for the Will of the Force - and by giving those children to the Jedi, you offered them nothing but lies to be learned, Thesh. Stole their potential...", he continued, his voice low, but no longer angry so much as disappointed.

"They are beyond our reach now. Unlikely to be given a chance at our knowledge - forever blinded by their teachers. Until the day comes where they grow to wield a blade in the name of 'The Light'; and you will be forced to cut them down. And you will; because that is your duty now, Thesh."

Maliphant's gaze moved back up to him.

"The only answer for them now is death, and your decision that led them to it. Your blade must free them where your choices could not. Do you understand?"

Arcturus Dinn

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

He had heard so many interpretations of the Code over the years. He and Quintus Varro had discussed it in more detail than he'd ever thought on it before when they ought to have been participating in the Trial of Sand. Some Sith were so adamant about breaking their chains that they ran themselves into the ground, destroyed anything that even remotely tied them down. Even if it was of their own creation. Even if it was something they dearly cherished.​

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Thesh had never agreed with that sentiment. Would never agree with it. But here Maliphant was, echoing the views he had settled upon that day in the sand. That a tie of one's own binding was not the same as an inherent, oppressive chain that had to be broken. He hadn't really heard anyone else say it before now, not in such a blunt manner. If Maliphant had said to him before then he mustn't have understood the sentiment at the time.​

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But he did now.​

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And he realized what he'd done in earnest.​

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As his new duty was set before him, Thesh felt a strange sensation wash over him. It was as though he was simultaneously being burdened, a weight pressing upon his shoulders, whilst also being unburdened. That weight lifted. It was hard to comprehend, hard to really wrap his head around as he felt it. It was a burden to be sure, there was no doubt about that, but it provided him with something he had been sorely lacking for some time now.​

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Purpose.​

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He'd been wandering aimlessly for as long as he could recall. He attended lessons, worked on his projects, but to what end? He didn't know. He hadn't seen any future, any path, just the next day, and the next. This was something. Even if that something was rather disheartening to hear.​

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"This is to be my responsibility?" he inquired, though he knew the answer already. The term punishment had almost beat responsibility to his lips, but he couldn't look at it that way. Wouldn't look at it that way. This was an opportunity; no doubt it was one of the few things ensuring he even had a future at all.​

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"I understand, Master..."​

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And deep down, he did.​

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Darth Empyrean ​