Private Lifestyles of the Rich and Alchemical

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

She relived the how in dreams later - the shaky-legged, furtive, graceless sneak without dignity, the theft without exhilaration, the push past her worn-out body to seize some clarity of thought, the weeping existential self-reflection where honesty led to a new peace between enemies: herself and her self-destructive impulses. Dreams unlocked guards and inhibitions, let her steep herself in the rawness of it all. She'd mated with the Stone with that kind of honesty, that active lack of justification or pretense, and she'd feared losing the connection once her habits reasserted themselves. So insofar as the dreams were lucid, she chose to cling to all of the above until it wore its own natural channel in her mind. It felt like peace.

Later, once she woke up, she rejoined the land of the living through physical engagement - taking the pills, changing the bacta patches, examining the clean-sheared stump. And after reality felt clear and wakeful again, so far as the painkillers allowed, she held up the Life Stone and probed the things about herself that had always made her want to shy away or justify. This time she felt only comfort.

At long last, she was who she chose to be.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

After a long rest, time enough to find clear dreams and wake naturally, Ashin brought Sith magic to bear. It was the same spell she'd used on Dissero back on Naboo - Naga Sadow's healing incantation. Not pleasant by any means, so she set pride aside, loaded up on painkillers, and got it done.

The spell left her left wrist a smooth-skinned stump, painless except when she bumped it against something. She shrugged into a robe clumsily and made her way back to the Stone.

Mind (chipped) and Spirit - the last two taunted her. Both had eluded her, largely because she'd taken down more interesting or challenging candidates first. What felt more interesting or challenging at the time, anyway. In short order, she found herself quietly engrossed in Mind and Spirit, in combination.

As before she engaged with it through lived experience. In her youth she'd developed a fondness for short-term memory enhancement, much like her longstanding talents for protection and detoxification. These days, memory enhancement had less to do with stunts - memorizing a rival's books while flipping through quickly - and more to do with retaining who she'd been. Multiple deaths had taken their toll on the neurochemical encoding called memory. Her spirit had kept a portion safe - Transfer Essence could do that - but unreliably. Now age was setting into her clone body, accelerated by disproportionate use of the dark side. Retaining memory became an existential challenge.

And as she lost memories and made new ones, she changed. Like the ship of Theseus, she was a very different person now than she'd been in youth - more so than most elders could claim. That trend inspired unpleasantly craven questions about accountability.

 

[Dissero]

"The strongest stars have hearts of Kyber." ​

A well-known quote from a blind man made centuries ago. It gave credence to the rise of the Kyber's popularity in use for very specific things. A Kyber at the heart of a Force User's greatest weapon, or the machines that destroyed entire planets ... entire peoples. The potential for great carnage was enough to persuade anyone of intimate familiarity with them to proceed with caution.

Dissero withdrew the chosen Kyber crystal from its velvet-lined box and gently held it up to the light between thumb and fore. It was such a simple little thing, raw and unrefined, but to his naked eye it contained all the ability to turn this needle into the tool that would drive Ashin forward through whatever the Netherworld had to offer. Faenrovon had often held these rare crystals high on his list of curiosities. For a dragon they had perhaps less use than simply objects within a hoard. For Faen? Perhaps greater use. But not this one.

This one, he explained, would carry the weight of her bond with Spencer in all its many facets. It would provide the engine behind the blade's purpose, siphoning those specific wavelengths from the unseen and intangible to find the path that would bring two opposing forces back together. To Oneness.

"We have a Force Bond, you know," the alchemist offered lightly with the faintest of smiles to his scaly associate, "maybe not so strong as it once was. But our familiarity was strong before, as many years as we worked closely together. Alchemy is a naked skill that displays all manner of strengths and weaknesses in a man. You have been witness to more than most."

Did it offend such a resplendent creature to think he'd a bond with one so lowly as Dissero?

"I find myself deeply honored by it," the man continued as he set down at a workbench and began to polish the crystal, "who else alive could claim such a thing I wonder..."

He worked in silence for a time, taking care with the attention given to this very special stone. When the dragon inquired as to the pitiful stone in his hand for such a monumental task, the alchemist smiled. A Kyber's quality is not defined by its size nor its shape. Neither its color or its faces. The quality was defined by its willingness to attune with the Force. Kybers are conscious in a way we can't quite explain. In great number they resonate together, like Baffoor trees who grow ever more self-aware and sentient with growth of more individuals. When the Jedi send their Padawan learners into the crystal caves of Illum, the pupil is tasked with seeking out a crystal for themselves.

What many pupils do not realize is that they are not choosing the crystal, but the crystal is choosing them.

It was why only Ashin could select an appropriate crystal from his collection. Only time would tell if the crystal truly resonated with her. For now it would be shaped to fit its intended home and made ready for her attunement once all the stones had been clarified.

 

[Dissero]

He could have worked the crystal longer in the same way a painter could agonize over the smallest details of his painting. The truth of the matter was that the needle would not be, could not be a thing of beauty. They hadn't the time. He couldn't labor over exactness or minor imperfections of the polished finished. The crystal would be a perfectly imperfect host for the perfectly imperfect bond, and that had to be enough.

Dissero left the Kyber on Ashin's nightstand with a small, handwritten note.

For when you are ready.

~ Di


- - -

He'd crafted a mold out of phrikite and it hadn't been easy. In every way it would be easier than his next task, and he used that as his mantra to push him forward through the project slog. It was late at night when he roused Faenrovon from a light slumber and explained the process by which the dragon's flames would create the blade.

The heat he needed to bring crystal and stone to fluidity was far more substantial than any normal forge could create or even withstand. This was not an ordinary forge. These parts he'd taken years ago from a copy of the Darkforge owned by the infamous Darth Metus and cannibalized to create the Dragonforge before him. All heat-inducting parts lined with phrikite specifically to withstand Faen's heathenous fire, all tools treated in the same vein. The process would be lengthy and labor intensive; both Faen and Dissero would have to be exact in their work or everything would suffer for it.

They began with the stoking of the fire, bringing the forge to bear the highest degree of heat it could hold on its own before slowly adding in that of Faenrovon's flame. Too hot, too fast could bring even this forge to burst at its seams. Dissero donned a set of alchemized vornskr hide gloves, smock, and mask. Theoretically they would protect him from normal forge heat, but he'd never taken into account Arkanian dragon fire when he made them. Time to test that theory and employ a field of Force Protection around him for good measure.

The very nature of the differing ingredients meant that each had their own unique melting point, as well their own unique scorching point. The limits were very close and left very little room for error; a few degrees too high could scorch the Kasha, a few degrees too low would leave the Qixoni in its solid state. Ground Kasha stones were added into the mold and introduced first. He closed the forge door, gave word to Faerovon to light up, and reached for the lever that would slowly permit the fresh fire in through the flue.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

In hindsight, it wasn't hard to see her long focus on physicality as an excuse for avoiding a closer examination of the spiritual side of the Force. Not just that, but a deeper examination of identity. She'd largely gone through life limiting her exploration of self to guilt, duty, personal allegiances, and combat preferences. An unexamined life, immature in its way, was a common side effect of too much focus on power. She'd fallen prey to that in contemptible ways.

And then told herself, at some level, that power couldn't be contemptible. Another excuse. Any cost, she'd said, and she'd meant it. At the time she hadn't understood that her pride, her self-image, would be necessary sacrifices. It hurt worse than losing the hand. She'd been cradling the Mind and Spirit stones. Slowly, achily, she got up and put them back in their places to complete the circle.

She found Dissero working with Faenrovon, and exchanged a nod with the Arkanian dragon. Their accounts were settled, at long last.

"It's done."

 

[Dissero]

He was sweating and the workshop chamber was hot to the point of being unbearable, so long as you were anything but a dragon. There came a point in present work that nothing was to be done until something could be done. Dissero stood before the forge, eyes squinting through the tinted layers of his alchemized visor into the belly of the metal beast, sweat dripping through his beard and hissing as it sizzled on the floor. He barely heard Ashin's voice over the roar of the forge but he'd be hard pressed to overlook her presence.

There were a few minutes he could split his attention, drawing away from the violent mass of flames currently smelting materials inside the forge to face the woman. He flipped his visor up, wiping away the sweat and the soot. Already winded from the effort, Dissero took a moment to catch his breath and let the field of Force Protection down to rest.

"The kyber is on your nightstand," his voice was loud to compensate for the din of the forge, "take it back to the stones and attune it within the circle. Use each stone facet as a means to translate your bond with Spencer into the crystal. Now you know what each stone means to you, tell the crystal what it means to your bond. Try to make it as complete as you can, be honest, don't leave anything out. The good has to be balanced against the bad and everything in between."

A deep breath filled his lungs and he let it out at length, "Once you leave this room don't come back in. I have my own meditations to take care of and I can't risk any distractions." Couldn't risk breaking a blade he only had one shot at crafting.

"I'll meet you in the common room when I'm finished."

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Unwilling to interrupt beyond what she'd already done, Ashin murmured a goodbye. It wasn't like she was overly interested in conversation just now anyway. Completing the Shamalain Stones was, by design, a draining experience.

But as soon as she found the kyber crystal in her guest room, energy filled her - a gift from the Force, perhaps, or more likely just neurotransmitters saying you're so close, don't stop now.

​

The triangular prism stones: the four elements. Falling down the Spires of Hell, walking through volcanoes, attuning to new worlds, the detonation of a forge.

The cylinders: Mind, Body, Self, Spirit. The sacrifices and transformations of body-trading; the loss of self with each transition; the ritual that Dissero had shared with her; the muscle-memory of learning a new sword.

The rectangular prisms: Life, Death, Time, Energy. Murder. Neglect of her children, in one way or another. Lost time. Power beyond reckoning, dialed down into a precise blade that could solve every problem but her own tendency to abandon.

Most of it came down to who she'd made of herself, the lies she'd told herself, the good things she'd sacrificed for what she wanted. This whole affair, days and days of it, this investment of all her attention and strength - just another sacrifice for just another desire.

When she finished the meditation some hours later, she delivered the fully-attuned crystal to Dissero wordlessly, along with the case that held the twelve completed Shamalain Stones.

 

[Dissero]

Faenrovon's fire burned within the belly of the forge all through the eerie hours of the night. The workshop, normally alive with the sound of metal assailing metal, was a quiet one save the roar of the flames. Dissero stood before the forge deep within meditation. It was not the hammer that molded the blade but the power of his mind - every thought driven to create molecule by molecule - proving that imagination was the key to creation in a whole new light.

The subconscious had a seamless way of doing just that. In a state caught between not-quite-wakefulness and not-quite-dreaming was where the mind projected ideas and the Force filled it in. There he could envision the blade before him while intangible influences pushed the molten crystals into place, harmoniously creating the idea as it was imagined. He was far from the perfection of nature or technology, but instinct was ever a strong and knowing guide.

~~~

He was exhausted when he met Ashin in the common room and had nothing in his hands to show her for his efforts. Not because he'd failed, but because it wasn't yet complete. Her crystal couldn't simply be set into place, it had to be married to the spine of the blade. Dissero looked to the gemstone she dropped into his hand and turned it over in his palm, wordlessly inspecting it. The sensation was close to holding the hand of either woman - it felt like a part of them. Perfect.

Dissero couldn't be sure what it needed to be to do its job, but it at least felt right.

The man gave a sober nod, "Your part is done now, the rest is up to me. It will take more time." Time to finalize and test it. He had no intentions of handing her something that would do her or Spencer harm. "You're welcome to stay here, but I won't be offended if you don't. I'm sure you've much more to do. When it's ready I will be in touch."