Private Scattered Bones

[Vaelith Rhaen]

The invitation had reached Dathomir through channels few outsiders would have recognized. It was little more than a whisper passed between travelers, merchants, and those who understood that certain relics were never advertised openly. Most would have dismissed it as another private auction catering to collectors of exotic antiquities. Vaelith had not. The description of the offerings had been vague by necessity, yet several details refused to leave her thoughts. Ritual blades of Nightsister origin. Bone talismans bearing unfamiliar clan markings. A vessel said to have been recovered from an abandoned shrine. None of the items were legendary, but each belonged to a history that should never be scattered across the galaxy.

She had not traveled here to make accusations or demand restitution. Whether the relics had been stolen, purchased, inherited, or unearthed mattered far less than understanding how they had found one another so far from Dathomir. Ritual objects were never simply possessions. They carried memory, intention, and echoes of those who had wielded them. Even dormant, they remained quiet participants in traditions stretching back centuries. To see them reduced to curiosities for wealthy collectors unsettled her more deeply than she cared to admit.

The auction occupied the upper levels of an old merchant estate that had been quietly repurposed for clientele who preferred discretion over legality. Soft music drifted through polished halls illuminated by warm chandeliers, while attendants moved silently between guests carrying crystal glasses and carefully rehearsed smiles. Nobles, scholars, collectors, and private patrons mingled beneath vaulted ceilings, each studying the displayed artifacts with varying degrees of greed and fascination. Few noticed the woman who entered without ceremony, dressed not in ceremonial Nightsister robes but in attire chosen for travel beyond Dathomir. A tailored charcoal coat fell to her knees over fitted ash-gray garments, its clean lines practical without sacrificing quiet elegance. Dark leather boots disappeared beneath the hem, while understated bone and brushed metal ornaments rested discreetly at her belt, recognizable only to those familiar with their significance. Her silver-white hair had been gathered neatly behind her shoulders, allowing little to distract from the pale, observant eyes that calmly surveyed the room.

Vaelith moved without haste, neither attempting to hide nor inviting attention. She paused before each display long enough to study it in silence, allowing her gaze to linger on carvings worn almost smooth by time, subtle traces of ritual use, and the unmistakable craftsmanship of hands long returned to the Force. Some pieces were authentic. Others were clever imitations fashioned by artisans who understood appearance but not purpose. One ichor vessel had been polished until its original inscriptions were nearly erased, a well-intentioned act that had quietly destroyed part of its history. She felt a small pang of disappointment at the sight before letting it pass. The damage had already been done.

Only after she had completed a slow circuit of the room did Vaelith begin to appreciate the collection as a whole. Individually, the relics shared little beyond their origin, yet seeing them gathered beneath one roof produced an unmistakable sense of unease. They had come from different clans, different eras, and different corners of Dathomir. No Nightsister would ever have assembled them this way. Someone else had, and that realization lingered quietly at the edge of her thoughts as she turned toward the remaining displays. Whatever story these relics carried, it had not begun at this auction, and she suspected it would not end here either.

Malachi Blackwood

 

[Malachi Blackwood]

Scattered Bones

[]

A Procissão dos Que Não Foram Chorados

Attire --> Suit
Tags --> Vaelith Rhaen​

The auction hall received me beneath chandeliers whose light seemed less like illumination and more like captive souls suspended in crystal prisons. Every step across the polished stone echoed with the vanity of empires that believed wealth could purchase permanence.

Before me rested relics gathered from civilizations both thriving and long surrendered to oblivion; jeweled heirlooms whose bloodlines had withered into dust, paintings that had watched dynasties collapse, ceremonial blades, forgotten idols, and objects fashioned to satisfy the endless hunger of mortal eyes and hearts.

Yet none of them beckoned to me as loudly as the whispers concealed behind velvet curtains and locked display vaults. It was said that among tonight's extravagant offerings rested artifacts steeped within the eldritch ichor of Dathomir, relics once touched by the uncanny rites of the Nightsisters.

Such rumors stirred the occult scholar dwelling within my immortal soul far more than any jewel or crown ever could, for the greatest treasures are not forged from precious metals, they are born from mysteries that refuse to die.

Yet as my calculating gaze wandered across the eager collectors and predatory aristocrats surrounding me, an unpleasant intuition coiled around my thoughts like a starving beast. These artifacts carried the scent of theft rather than inheritance.

I could almost feel unseen spirits recoiling from the hands that sought to reduce sacred instruments into fashionable conversation pieces. If these relics had indeed been stolen from one of the Nightsisters' clans, then they belonged neither upon this auction stage nor within the grasp of those whose greed eclipsed reverence.

Perhaps I would acquire them, not to imprison them within the halls of House Blackwood, tempting though that prospect remained; but to return them as an offering of respect to their rightful keepers.

My fascination with the Nightsisters had never been born from conquest, but from scholarship. They stood as custodians of a tradition where the occult, the Force, and ancestral memory intertwined into something older than reason itself, and I would sooner preserve such living mysteries than allow them to become trophies decorating the hollow pride of lesser souls.​

 

[Vaelith Rhaen]

Vaelith moved slowly between the displays, her attention lingering upon each relic long enough to appreciate the hands that had shaped it rather than the price attached to it. To most gathered within the auction hall, they were rare curiosities whose value would be measured in credits before the evening ended. To her, they were fragments of lives, each carrying the quiet weight of traditions that had survived generations before eventually finding themselves beneath polished glass and careful lighting.

The atmosphere around the room carried a familiar texture within the Force. Desire. Ambition. Possession. Collectors admired craftsmanship while nobles imagined prestige, and merchants silently calculated what each successful bid might mean for the next acquisition. None of it surprised her. Such things had always followed objects people believed to be valuable.

Then something different brushed against her awareness.

It was subtle enough that she nearly dismissed it.

Her gaze drifted across the room until it settled, only briefly, upon a solitary figure studying the collection with a stillness that felt oddly out of place among the eager patrons. She did not know his name, nor did she linger long enough to become discourteous by staring, yet the impression he left within the Force differed from the others surrounding him.

There was curiosity.

Not the restless curiosity of a collector seeking the next prize, nor the hungry fascination of one chasing forbidden power. It possessed a quieter quality, measured and deliberate, as though the relics themselves interested him more than the thought of owning them.

That alone was unusual.

Vaelith let her attention pass without interrupting him. Whatever motives guided the stranger belonged to him alone, and she had neither the desire nor the right to presume them. Still, she found herself quietly hoping that if the relics did leave this hall tonight, they would find their way into hands that understood the difference between possession and stewardship.

Turning back toward the nearest display, she rested her gaze upon an ancient bone talisman, the corners of her expression softening almost imperceptibly.

Perhaps, she thought, she was not the only person in the room who understood that some things were too old, too sacred, to ever truly belong to anyone.

Malachi Blackwood

 

[Malachi Blackwood]

Scattered Bones

[]

A Procissão dos Que Não Foram Chorados

Attire --> Suit
Tags --> Vaelith Rhaen
​

I stood before a relic that enthralled me with the quiet arrogance of something that had no need to prove its authenticity.

Fashioned from what appeared to be the fossilized remains of some colossal beast long surrendered to oblivion, its pale surface bore labyrinthine carvings that defied both language and geometry, each groove twisting into another until the eye could scarcely distinguish where the artisan's intent ended and madness began.

It seemed almost too ancient to exist, so impossibly weathered that I was tempted to dismiss it as an elaborate fabrication conceived by an imaginative charlatan.

Yet the whispers surrounding its display betrayed another truth. Veteran collectors and auctioneers alike exchanged uneasy glances, speaking in hushed voices usually reserved for relics whose provenance inspired equal measures of greed and dread.

They questioned its origin, never its legitimacy.

Such skepticism from minds devoted to exposing deception only deepened my fascination. If those who profited from lies believed this impossible artifact to be genuine, then perhaps it had survived an age so distant that even memory itself had abandoned it.

Without a small introduction, a faint tremor rippled through the Force, brushing against my thoughts like unseen fingers tracing the spine of an ancient grimoire, inviting me to surrender to whatever revelation lingered beyond mortal perception.

I refused it with effortless discipline.

The Force could whisper until the stars themselves withered into silence; tonight, my curiosity belonged elsewhere. My attention drifted instead toward the woman who so carefully feigned disinterest, pretending her wandering eyes merely happened to find me whenever I turned.

I found the performance delightfully human.

Mortals had always fascinated me; not for their fragility, but for the marvelous contradictions concealed beneath their carefully crafted masks. The evening was still young, and I possessed every confidence that fate, or whatever darker providence governed nights such as these, already arranged our rendezvous; sooner than later.

With measured steps I wandered from exhibit to exhibit, allowing forgotten idols, shattered holocrons, more ceremonial blades, and relics of extinct civilizations to command my passing admiration until I came to rest beside her.

My gaze settled upon the relic of bone she seemed to be studying before I spoke, my voice calm enough to mingle with the hushed tones of the gallery.

"An interesting object," I said, my amber eyes lingering upon its intriguing and unknown design. "Its craftsmanship is not of the far northern Unknown Regions, that much I can testify to. No, the hands, and I merely speculate, that shaped this belonged to a civilization that has long since slipped beneath the tide of history."

I gave a tiny shrug of my shoulders. "Whatever its birthplace may have been, one cannot deny its beauty, regardless of the cradle from which it was born."​

 

[Vaelith Rhaen]

Vaelith did not startle at the sound of his voice. She had been aware of his approach well before he chose to speak, though not because she had been watching him as closely as he perhaps imagined. In a hall filled with quiet ambition and carefully concealed greed, his presence had simply felt...different. Most of those gathered here viewed the relics through the lens of ownership, prestige, or profit. The stranger beside her carried curiosity instead, measured and restrained, as though the objects themselves interested him far more than the thought of possessing them. It was enough to earn her attention, though not yet her trust. She lifted her eyes from the display case to meet his gaze with the same patient composure she had shown every artifact in the gallery, studying him without judgment before allowing her attention to return to the ancient relic resting beneath the glass.

"Perhaps," she replied after a thoughtful pause. "Or perhaps it predates many of the civilizations we still remember." A faint smile touched the corners of her lips before fading just as quietly. "Age has a habit of making certainty seem arrogant." Her eyes followed the labyrinthine carvings winding across the fossilized surface, tracing patterns that seemed almost determined to evade understanding. "It is certainly a curious object," she admitted, her voice carrying genuine appreciation. "But it wasn't what drew me here."

Her gaze drifted beyond the display toward another section of the gallery where several ritual vessels and carved implements rested beneath carefully arranged lights. Unlike the relic before them, those objects stirred something quieter within her, less fascination and more like responsibility. "Several sacred vessels, ritual implements, and ceremonial objects from Dathomir have found their way into this auction," she explained, her tone remaining calm and free of accusation. "Some belonged to shrines. Others should never have left the hands entrusted to them. Whether they arrived here through theft, inheritance, or simple ignorance matters less to me than ensuring they do not vanish into private collections where their histories will be forgotten."

For a moment she remained silent, watching a nearby patron admire one of the displayed relics with the detached enthusiasm reserved for expensive curiosities. It saddened her, though not enough to invite anger. Too many people saw only rarity where others saw memory. "Ritual objects are more than tools," she continued softly. "They preserve traditions, intentions, and the echoes of those who carried them before us. Once those stories are severed from their origins, something irreplaceable is lost, even if the object itself survives."

Only then did she look back toward the man standing beside her, meeting his gaze once more with the same composed warmth that had slowly emerged throughout the evening. There was neither challenge nor suspicion in her expression, only quiet honesty. "Whatever history this relic carries deserves to be preserved," she said, letting her eyes briefly return to the display before settling once again upon the Nightsister artifacts farther down the hall. "So do the ones that brought me here."

Malachi Blackwood

 

[Malachi Blackwood]

Scattered Bones

[]

A Procissão dos Que Não Foram Chorados

Attire --> Suit
Tags --> Vaelith Rhaen
​

I inclined my head in quiet understanding as the woman spoke, her observations settling easily within my thoughts. She was not wrong.

Much of what surrounded us beneath the gilded chandeliers and the murmur of eager bidders were relics in the most mundane sense of the word; fragments of forgotten centuries burdened with extravagant stories and even more extravagant price tags.

The auction hall itself felt less like a sanctuary of preservation and more like a cathedral devoted to vanity, where credits flowed more freely than reverence. Yet when she uttered the words Dathomirian artifacts, I could not help but allow a faint smile to cross my features.

It was not a smile of amusement, but of recognition, as though some distant and half-forgotten bell had sounded from within the shadows of memory.

“Indeed,” I said softly, my gaze drifting toward the sealed display cases where ancient treasures awaited the judgment of wealthy hands. “I find it bordering upon heresy that such objects of the Nightsisters should be paraded before collectors and merchants alike. It is beyond comprehension, and certainly beyond taste, that relics born of a people’s faith, suffering, and legacy should be reduced to trophies for private shelves.”

My voice remained measured, though a trace of melancholy lingered beneath it. “Dathomir has endured more misfortunes than many worlds will know in ten lifetimes. To rob such a culture of what remains is a cruelty disguised as commerce.”

For a moment I watched the shifting crowd, feeling the distant pull of old magicks and older ghosts.

“Yet I confess, I share your wish. I would rather see these artifacts returned properly to the witches of Dathomir, where they belong among their descendants and their stories, instead of languishing as prizes won in a bidding war.”​