Character
| Location | Mandalore, Outer Rim Territories
Sundari sprawled beyond the balcony, draped in exquisite layers of quicksilver metal that shimmered under an impossible sun; a deep azure reminiscent of twilight skies glittered in the windows of towering structures, and boulevards stretched beneath in a haze of vivid greens and beautiful oranges, framed by the stark white of new beginnings. But what truly captivated the eye was the striking colour of unpainted Mandalorian Iron, a shade utterly unfathomable in the sheer expanse, spread across the city in a display that once upon a time would have been nothing more than sacrilege.
Then again, the time that Itzhal Volkihar had lived through was far from the excess of this new era—the time of Chaos, or in more recent years, the Age of Iron, if one was willing to listen to some of the more hopeful individuals on the street.
From this height, the streets were little more than faint lines, regularly interrupted by new structures and twisting lanes, while individuals shifted through strangely mesmerising crowds that had more in common with the tides splattering against a cliffside than genuine hoards of people. It had been years since he'd seen Mandalore so busy, even longer since he'd had the time to witness it all, and even now, he remained worried that if he blinked they would be gone, replaced by empty streets and bombed-out remnants of a culture purged centuries ago. As if the Mandalorian Empire was nothing more than a desolate dream, designed to torture him in those days when thoughts trickled in through the incessant hum of the stasis chamber.
Yet, he doubted he could have imagined the Sundari of this strange future.
Towers rose from depths lost beneath the morning haze, their angular faces crowded together until one structure seemed to grow from the next. Bridges and elevated causeways disappeared between them, visible only in the way people vanished and reappeared, recovered from the space in between. While enormous habitation blocks clung to the sides of larger structures, in an architectural feat that seemed determined to scream of Mandalorian resilience, suspended from supports so immense that their foundations vanished somewhere beyond sight.
It was difficult to tell where Sundari started.
One only had to stare up to see where it ended; the dome crawled across the horizon, a spectre of loss and suffering fortified into the greatest strength of their people. Still, he felt no joy in seeing it, knowing that its existence was formed out of necessity.
For all its enormity, Sundari possessed a severe beauty—the dome tainted it.
"You know," he began, his gaze fixed intently on the distant structure, "I don't think it matters how many times I stare upon it."
He leaned forward onto the balcony, with his arms stretched out across the metallic railing. One arm rested comfortably atop the other, the black of his bodysuit settling against the similar shade of the beskar plates that covered his forearm. "That dome always feels like a bad omen."
