Private Seek thine enemy

[Isobel Serraris]

SEEK THINE ENEMY​

LOCATION — Ilum, Unknown Regions
TAGS — Lysander von Ascania
PARAPHERNALIA — Armour of the Lost, an old blaster pistol and Vesper et Aurora.

​

Can flowers blossom on blighted soil? Upon miles and miles of ice and snow--where it was not the sun that merely blinded you, but the endless seas of powdery snow. Where the only company one can have is their own perilous thoughts?

In these desolate moments, Isobel longed for the luscious gardens of the Nabooan estate. . . The colourful bushes of Queen's Heart that brought the gardenkeepers a constant headache, and the millaflowers that made the estate's pets act funnily. To hear the reprimanding words of her father for forgetting one of the countless values of her blood. And yet, she felt as lost as in Naboo, when she was among friends and kin.

A soft grunt left her chattering lips as she made another effort to endure the terrain of Ilum. Why had it driven her here? The Force was strong, its calling undeniable, and yet its message was... indecipherable? A cacophony of various words in tunes that she had no knowledge of. Though the [self-imposed] exile must be playing its tunes upon her mind, making her disillusioned to the truth--to the present. Which was precisely why Isobel sought to find the histories of Ancient Jedi, of other presences belonging to Ashla. For their spirit and essence to guide her on this path forward, toward. . . civilisation. In the future. . . possibly?

The previous efforts had reached the same level of success as this attempt; her lightsabers' components were barely remaining in the hilt, and her once 'indestructible' battle armour was but a pile of scraps weaved together by cloth and furs. All had to be exchanged for new wares, which had certainly come at a cost. Whilst that was a slight misfortune--one after the other--she could still count all of her scars on one hand. As well as feel the deathly cold seep through her bones, so life was not yet done with her.

Her steps continued until she found a crevice in the tall wall of ice. One that--upon closer inspection--appeared to be a lot less difficult to traverse than the paths outside of the temple.

Her clawed gloves moved inside the crevices, taking hold of one of the ledges on each side. Seeking to escape the blankets of snow, the Nabooan repeatedly sought to pull herself out of it using the stone. Soft curses escaped her lips as her boot remained stuck in a piece of this godforsaken ground.

Once more. . .

Again?

Then another, and she managed to slip free from the ice, and took a tumble forward into the temple. Landing face-first onto the mosaic floor of the temple, beside a fallen down pillar. "Smooth. . . As always ," left her lips softly.

A quiet moment passed, with only the soft drip of water landing on stone to fill the large ruin. Until the distorted melody begun anew--chattering, chanting or whispering... The Force was a mess here, and though she had had some training, this echo was akin to pure gibberish? A grumble left her once more, as she pushed herself up to her feet again. The sound originated somewhere eastbound, if her senses could be believed after all these tumbles. So, after all this time, Iso continued her search--walking one of the dark hallways, praying it would deliver an answer as to why she was called here. . .

​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Isobel Serraris​

For multiple days he chased that unending hum that dared to thread through every meditation he attempted; a dissonant chord that would not yield.. even when Lysander sank deeper into the Dark’s currents in search of silence. Perhaps others may have dismissed this as status, he felt its shape as surely as anything else; for him, this disturbance was but a cipher awaiting revelation. The most he listened, the more it unfurled into something almost conscious.. As though the Force itself cracked wide where far to the north.. and bled its song into the void.

The young Sith followed because that was all he had become. An emissary, an instrument of the Covenant, its silent dagger; and because the deeper he penetrated the Dark, the clearer he saw that wounds revealed truths. Those the unbroken surface would forever conceal.

The call was not a voice; no, but a resonance pressing against the inside of his skull like three choirs singing different hymns; each hymn vibrated along his bones. Ancient, intimate, unforgiving. When he closed his eyes, he saw flashes of blue white corridors carved from ice. The floors were like fractured mirrors. This was the vision of a temple with doors that dared to breath, waiting for a pilgrim yet to arrive. Strangely, he remembered a craving much like this once, years ago.. when he was young and ignorant enough to believe the Force spoke only in binaries; before he’d learned that its truest language was contradiction. The harshest truths? Those had always arrived wrapped in discomfort.

Or was the Force mocking him, weaving memory and prophecy into one?

His freighter descended through Ilum’s atmosphere, another wound piercing through something almost tangible; the melody cleaved in two.. one Thread was cold, the other warm. It was one he recognized in the pregnant stillness between breaks, conjuring memories from the Mid Rim. Somewhere in that, was a stubborn warmth that once might’ve irritated him with its earnest glow.

Lysander told him he pursued this wound because the Covenant demanded understanding; because such a disturbance could not fester; because a lone Jedi wandering here was a variable that needed to be contained. But beneath that armor of both duty and doctrine lay another.. a truth, mayhaps, cradled in the space between memory and instinct. The melody entwined around her once registered as a summon.. and now? A snare.

So he descended into the storm; let the icy wind bite through layers of robe and test mental fortitude alike; let the wound guide him across the glittering expanse; let the Dark enfold him like a slave as he approached that breathing temple he had seen in fevered visions. There were two signatures drawn along the same line, and he didn’t believe it was by chance. How could he?

At long last.. he paused before the massive, yawning entrance, and asked himself: What awaits within? Salvation or doom? Even with all the questions echoing in his blood, he finally stepped inside.

 

[Isobel Serraris]

SEEK THINE ENEMY​

LOCATION — Ilum, Unknown Regions
TAGS — Lysander von Ascania
PARAPHERNALIA — Armour of the Lost, an old blaster pistol and Vesper et Aurora.

The repetitive crunch of snow persisted even within the confines of the Ilum temple, as her ronto-hide boots pursued the draining traversal deeper into its heart. If not for the eternal frost, the sweat would have stained her brow and the few curls dangling from her braid--though quite contrary, she did not feel an embrace of warmth neither.

Whereas the Force was fated to permit its wielder a sense of clarity, it was hereby accursed to sparse glimpses with a strenuous noise between its intervals. It clouded the mind and made it arduous to act, whether it was seeking to warn or to lead one to the core disturbance remained but an undefined mystery. A sharpened blade that could slay foes, or be doomed to end its bearer.

When the fractures in the domed ceiling--bridged by thick layers of ice--failed to allow light to pass, the force-user drew upon the red light of Vesper to guide her on this uncertain path. She unlatched the dark-marbled hilt from its place on her belt and activated it through the stud. A bright crackling red left the marble, and lit up the interior of the hilt too, casting a vivid crimson upon the mosaic walls of the forgotten relic.

The tall faded walls depicted scenes of younglings, of all shapes and sizes, obtaining their first kyber crystal, as well as the ancient temple guards warding off against acts of the Sith Empire. It was an echo of day's past, of the acts that shaped Jedi--old and new, for they were still battling the servants of the Dark Side to this day. . . It was a ceaseless cycle--each fall gave rise to another, and so it went, unbroken and unending. Though as sorrowful as it may be, it did bring forth some form of hope to those in need of it.

Vesper's blade spluttered and died as she continued her exploration, earning an irritated grumble from the Jedi. Before the blade appeared once more, its light left more sparks than before, landing in the thin layers of snow, and was noisier than before. Though such was the nature of synthetic crystals. . .

The saber's hum flooded the halls, yet beneath it she heard the deep creak of a massive gate yawning wide open.

Her head perked up toward the noise--it could be the wind, or it could be the very presence in the Force that drew her toward the faded ruins. Isobel contemplated whether it was wise to pursue the clamour--but it was too sudden, too loud, for it to be a mere coincidence. With the shoto-lightsaber in hand, she stalked toward the open gateway, the ever-growing draft slipping between the seams of her chainmail, though before she could fully reach it... she... froze and stared wide-eyed at the figure near the gateway.

Blonde hair and those black robes. . .

"You," was all that slipped from her lips, a condemnation. . . or an acknowledgment?

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Isobel Serraris​

The moment he breached the threshold, the temple inhaled deeply. Unwelcomely. A wound in reality yawned, colder than any starless void pressing into his teeth.. and Lysander tasted ancient frost on his tongue long before sight or thought further awakened. Something older than light recognized him.. before he dared to acknowledge it, unsure whether to return such courtesy.

Ice groaned overhead, a brittle lament indeed. The curved hilt pressed against his hip, a weaker pulse against that lingering hum he thought was finally left behind. Corridors ripped at the edge of the Sith's vison, walls breathing in shadows. There were mosaics flickering with the apricot youth. Some depicted sentinels repelling what he presumed to be Sith invaders.. cycles, inevitability, the same story painted over and over. Each stroke from blind hands just appeared as another false promise. Hope was the lie Jedi art told best, and they'd been telling for thousands of years..

Air pressed in as if the future were congealing around one's lungs. Bones rang with prophecy Lysander never consented to. If he inhaled too quickly, he believed the very moment might fracture, and leave him exposed as the very pilgrim he refused to be.

Could the Force choose its vessel? A bitter question that uncoiled in the recesses of his mind. Too late to refuse.. already Lysander feels that wound, cinching tighter along his spine. Two signatures, two threads preparing to converge. Just as foretold.

A grand gate creaked once more; arches groaned like dying wings. In that lone arc of sound, there was recognition before reason could ever possibly catch up. Her silhouette stands framed by some widening maw.. braids, and backlit by a red glow from deeper halls. His breath caught, disbelief clawed at his calm. Irritation follows, sharp and unwelcome. How dare he be surprised? And then, something warmer, feral, dangerous. A thread believed to be severed unspools in the blonde's chest. Of course.. it's her. Another thought without permission. Who else could the Force have dragged him across this frozen graveyard for? Here, of all the places in this dying galaxy, here.

Anger flared from memory of familiar recklessness. Fascination pulsed beneath. Had it been buried, or simply relocated? Perhaps only misplaced; relief was so raw he could not name it twists through every line of the body. Then there another taste of; that of unfinished words and undone destinies. Or was it a darker page written in blood? He couldn't have said which was which. When she exhaled, some dark harmonic presence bended itself around aura. A hallucination, then. He'd entertained the idea before. Was this treachery of the mind? Or was it revelation?

Rooted where he stood, it was as though boots sealed to frost. Only lips parted, slow as a wound opening. "The melody changes the moment you breathe."

 

[Isobel Serraris]

SEEK THINE ENEMY​

LOCATION — Ilum, Unknown Regions
TAGS — Lysander von Ascania
PARAPHERNALIA — Armour of the Lost, an old blaster pistol and Vesper et Aurora.

Purity and bliss had once cradled her with the gentlest of hands--sworn to shield her from the cruelty and terror of reality. Yet purity would gradually make way for corruption. For life, and its many vessels, were destined to deceive one another; they were destined to harm one another. It was not righteous, no. It did not belong, and yet here it was: the trial of existence. When the light was blinding, a figure would always be summoned to strike it down, for such was the cycle, one rises and the other falls. They could never be aligned.

The softness in her doe-eyes had vanished, cast down by the icy and nigh on feral set of pupils that stared him down. Her heart quickened frantically, a forlorn echo of feelings once felt, now buried in the farthest corners of her soul--of her heart. A weakness that could no longer be exploited, not by this foe.

Her frost-stricken chains snapped as she advanced, her fingers tightening imperceptibly around the hilt of her ignited sabre. The muscles of her jaw twitched, as if seeking to bite down against the spur of feelings this encounter inspired. Isobel sought not to draw closer, and maintained an impersonal distance--yet paced left and right throughout the domed entrance.

Lysander's words tasted of the same venom she had once swallowed on Naboo, once so innocent, once so sweet. . . With a sharp shake of the head--loosening further strands of her braid--she dismissed whatever falsehood he had declared. He was the disruption, it was not she that wielded this burden. She vehemently told herself, and continued to assess this 'surprise of a threat'.

"Lysander," a statement to follow her last, it was soft, dragged-out and nevertheless as hostile as the environment of Ilum. "Come to spill your venom upon my heart once more?" Her head tilted and her brow furrowed as their gazes bridged the abyss between their figures. In a sudden move, the melody flourished around her as the tip of her blade pointed at the familiar man. "You know what you have enacted. . . You are not witless, you never were . You claimed to be pure, whilst veiling that corrupted face behind a mask-- I knew. Ashla spoke the truth, but I refused to believe you were another one of Bogan's vessels. . ." The exiled Jedi spat.

Isobel persisted in her ceaseless patrol, marching the same oval-shaped path over and over again. Her body inclined toward Lysander, and her eyes never departing his darkly-robed figure. The Force withered and blossomed around them, maintaining its fluctuating cacophony for all present to witness.

A breath, too heavy to be called mere air, slipped from her lungs, landing like steel between her ribs. High upon her side the ache lingered, not only its flesh, but the essence of its... origin. Voss. The beginning of this accursed wound, not its end. How blind had she been to the omen threaded through that moment. . . how deaf to the whisper of his presence. He had been there. He had watched. And still--Lys had left her to die.

Where was the justice in that?

The memory sparked an inferno within her volatile soul, and the previous sorrow--regret--evaporated in seconds. "I yearn to drive my blade into your heart, to make you suffer the same aches that I have had to suffer at the hands of you... Sith." Her voice was firm, no longer a coaxing tease, but a blazing judgment etched upon skin. And yet... it was her skin that was being marked by this sin, this verdict, for it was not the Jedi way to seek revenge in such a cruel manner--or at all.

Whether her will aligned with it or not, the Force enforced--no, overruled--her spoken verdict. A violent rattling and groaning tore through the icy ceiling, the friction occurring between the stone and frost above their heads as her free hand lifted, outstretched beyond command.

Then it ensued.

Debris rained down upon them in a merciless cascade, and yet its ferocity dimmed. The fall slipped course, ever-so-slightly, to betray a glimpse of reluctance, or was it hesitation?--Nevertheless, it was a fracture within her control, a weakness she dared not give a voice to.

Instead of enduring the torrent of fragments, Bel turned on her heel and paced down one of the paths leading away from the entrance--unable to entertain what had been unleashed. . .

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Isobel Serraris​

The vaulted crown of Ilum sighed around them. Dragons of regret uncoiled in the hollow of his skull, stung with the remembrance of innocence. A more honest ancestor.. or a boy king crowded by his own ambitions, with too grand a heart that still brought ruin upon all who trusted his star. Was that not the primal sin? His cheekbones tightened; for a moment, he might have been carved from the frost. Before him, each breath she exhaled blazed like embers from a funeral pyre.. every word a burning coal pressed into flesh. And so he stood fast. Why flee? Destiny chooses its sacrificial Shaak.. yet still her echoes struck at his spine, and he wondered: why must she bleed for the wounds he never meant to inflict? If her wrath were physical fire, then he would gladly stride forth into this inferno in penance.

Silence enfolded him until he shook off its thrall with a shudder. “I never professed innocence,” a warning delivered like a prayer as he was haunted by her smile beneath Naboo’s three moons. That lay extinguished now, replaced by a cold light in her eyes. But the darkblood in his veins hungered for truth.

“I found myself drawn to your Light once,” the confession unspooled, and a cold scythe swung in the deep pit of his stomach. “Your warmth drove back the winter in my soul. In your presence I tasted both hope and fear, as if I might break or be reborn.” Tightness climbed his throat. “Yes.. I believed your Light could scour the darkness from me.”

The caverns thundered in reply. Ice and stone tumbled in a cascade of violence. Lysander’s head whipped up, emerald contracting to slits of onyx. For a heartbeat he hesitated.. feeling the Force itself plead.. then extended a hand, fingers unfurling like wings, and the airborne shards stalled mid air, suspended by his will alone. But.. the moment shattered: Isobel’s retreat.. the debris tinkling harmlessly to the ground. That hesitation was but a whisper against his cheek, the first warmth since landing on this frozen rock. And the space went silent.. save for the drum of his blackened heart.

Dust drifts down like gray snowfall. Unmoved, he tipped forward, chest rising beneath starless heights, and let the Force pour through him as a river of lamentation. Lysander saw the tremor in her side, the old wound still singing its ache from Voss. He saw the scar tissue beneath her flesh because his own hands carved it. “I should have been there,” came scarcely more than a breath. “I should have shielded you, but I was blinded by the promise of destiny of my own making.”

Though she faded into the corridor, her presence clung about him.. a glowing ember beneath the frost of her anger. He heard her breath caught in the echoing vault, a tremor of regret she could not quell. Even the dreams.. this cruel inheritance.. quivered at the edge of his consciousness, as though fate itself hesitated, appalled by what he became. Nay, not Fate alone.. but the ghosts of his line. And more.. a litany of broken oaths so deep Lysander should have drowned in their flood.

His cloak swirled around him, sable as unatoned guilt. He stepped forward, though he would not pursue her; that was not his way, nor would he raise his voice. Yet now he must. “Bel,” whispered the single syllable, and he waited for that loud echo to die before continuing. “If you would drive your blade into my heart, grant me that blessing. I would see mercy only in your eyes.. and nothing more.”

 

[Isobel Serraris]

SEEK THINE ENEMY​

LOCATION — Ilum, Unknown Regions
TAGS — Lysander von Ascania
PARAPHERNALIA — Armour of the Lost, an old blaster pistol and Vesper et Aurora.

Surrender, a plague sworn onto the souls unable to worship what mattered--the code that forged their lives, and the presences who maintained it. Denial remained an act of frailty; to be fearful of the Light and to wade in the shadows eternal. Another flower to trail the rot of its sort, not persisting, not being worth of note. Frailty was the consequence of this pitiful belief--A vessel unworthy of the attention of a higher being, a mere number to be tallied at the end of war.

Another of its tormented begged for his judgment at the hands of the Code.

The repetitive sounds of snow yielding to the firm leather of one's boot remained the only constant within the shattered chambers. Its echo harmonised ceaselessly with the rumble of the unstable dome of the gateway. However, one sound pierced through the cacophony, a background murmur seeking to swarm its victim. "Was your heart ever cold if it could be dissuaded by a mere girl. . ?" The Nabooan voice spoke of mutual defeat as it brushed against his ear in gentle caress--a warmth so bittersweet, it tasted of a familiar bliss once felt in her aura. "I trusted you," shadowed the message in a slowness one might maintain amid a waltz. Yet its softness was a whisper to be lost in the drafts of Ilum.

Once more she hummed beside his ear. . . dragged-out and soft as the summer's breeze. . . its venom trickled into his being, threading through veins until they darkened, drop by drop, with every word she spoke. "You beg for my mercy," she murmured. "For an executioner's hand to unburden you of sin. . . Dear Lysander, how often must you challenge my innocence, prod this naivety? I know the Sith nature," The voice swirled around him, akin to a predator circling its prey before a lash.

A sharp breath left her cold lungs, the sound akin to a pained grunt, yet frailty would not chain her as it did him. "I see you. I know what you are. The Sith. . . Their pain, their suffering, is their wellspring. . . They cradle it close and let it fester in the hollow beneath their silent heart. And from that gaping wound, ever-weeping, ever. . . lonely," Another stifled cry tore at whatever whispered in his ear. "You draw your strength. It floods your veins, and you gorge on it, like a beast ravished--while it carves you open from within, until you are nothing more, but the husk of what you once were." It nigh on pained her to bring a voice to the terror.

She sought not to comfort him, she sought not to frighten him. . . There was no point in either.

Her figure emerged once more as she bridged the impossible void between them, her weapon no longer drawn. Its silent hilt loosely nestled in the palm of her hand, its emitter aimed toward herself. Then, instead of igniting it, the tensed hand sought to cross the bridge whilst her absent eyes met his--they screamed malice and destruction upon him, but there was none else to be scouted on her narrower face. The shield was raised so high that not even a glimpse of recognition or ulterior motive trickled from her deed.

"My hand shall not command you, let it be Bogan's or Ashla's. . . Or this divine cold you claim to be." Her fingers uncurled around the marble of the hilt, presenting a merciless dilemma . . to prove whether he was a Sith, or whether even a hint of Lys persisted in that heartless husk.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Isobel Serraris​

Frost draped those hideous ancient mosaics in brittle webs, and Lysander's breath emerged in shards, each and every exhalation a prayer lost to winter's remit. Wounded, the Force here; bleeding, as doth an iron judge whose gavel found echoing in frozen halls. How couldst something so still carry the weight of a Krayt dragon's roar, the loudest condemnation the void ever swallowed whole.. and wherefore, of all the places traversed, did this one feel like a verdict?

Entire architectures of belief had been raised around the coldness, had pointed to it the way one point to a stone wall to say: there, that is what keeps the cruel winds out. But a wall that falls to a girl could never a wall. That would be theater and naught else. Breath caught, cracking under pressure, and what a wretched thing that was to notice: even now, even here, the mind reached for softness the way a dying man reaches for heat. Was that weakness.. or simply the oldest lie the body tells? Killing never required hesitation. Weeping had never come without cause. So what was this.. this thing ascending like a tide with no moon to blame?

A ghostly caress should have thawed him but instead only freezes him.. two pressure points converging.. and yet natural in feeling, intimate as the first light of a dying star, alien as the countless constellations crossed to arrive at this ruin. What kind of man is undone by a touch that never truly lands? Outward yawned the corridors as he turned to face them, expanding the way a future expands when one has already decided to be its worst consequence. Yonder they did, into tomorrow's horrors.. begging to collapse with yesterday's regrets. Her voice was like a phantom limb.. severed.. aching with memory.

Destiny, then.. and yet how scarcely it warranted trust. Strangest of all, within this glacial heart where both stood severed by the dark.. some wretched comfort yet persisted, that one soul existed who knew him. A rare and ruinous thing, to be seen. And if not comfort, something fouler.

And so she appeared at last with hollowed caverns of malice and grief made flesh. The marble of the hilt appeared like a deathless promise.. whereon no recognition touched her face, only the challenge of one testing another. Such was forever the way of Sith. One gloved hand reached out, fingertips brushing hers... intentionally so, even if it wasn't flesh upon flesh. He lied to himself about so many other things, but this he could at least admit.. he wanted to feel the tremor in her grip, should there be one.. and there wasn't.

But in that touch lie all of the blonde's selfish longing; and so he hoped she remembered them too, a stolen day at the Ascania manor, the stables where there was the scent of hay and hopeful dawns; the simple life once believed choosable. Would she feel those thoughts too, the ache of fate refused, the cruelty of everything embraced since? Mayhaps she would see the collection of thoughts hoarded like fractured gems.. or was this yet more cruelty, to want her to know what claws at the vessel lodged beneath his chest, the one that accepted its place among the Sith as home.

Slowly, the hilt was accepted; nay, not accepted.. inherited. Upon the spine pressed a winter gale, with weight of hundreds of thousands slain. Isobel ought to know what manner of instrument she dared to point at herself, that entire bloodlines had been purged in the Tapani sector, that worlds had been flooded with wrath by this same hand now so damnably careful. Even so, why must the fiercest battle of them be fought in stillness here, against nothing, against her?

Behind bright embers of green the yellow bleeds furthermore, the colors of rage and regret entwined. Whereupon the blade ignites, a red sun blooms in this endless winter, its crimson light carving a wound in the dark. He felt a thread in the prophecy draw another breath, hungry for what must come. In that scarlet glow, Lysander stood poised between mercy and oblivion.. heart a frozen prize riven by the her blade's desire.

In the cathedral of his own silence, he studied her. Lips parted, not to speak, but to shape the syllables of her name the way a tongue shapes one final confession.. mouthed, muffled, swallowed back into the dark before sound could make such a thing real. There did the harshest ones live.. not in speech, but in the muscles of the jaw.

A thousand seasons walked, from the Order's first embrace to Naboo, back through the Core's endless sprawl.. and wherefore, of all the griefs accumulated, but only this one refused burial. The young woman in Theed. Flowers clutched in both hands, rain caught in lashes. So small a moment, so wretched a thing to carry. Yet there.. it burned.. a lantern that would not flicker out no matter how many dead bodies the Sith stacked against its light. Didst she remember it too.. or was even that something he had fashioned?

Not with voice did it come, but beneath it.. a current daring to press against the inside of her mind, akin to fingers threading through hair. <Do with me what you will.. judge me, condemn me.. but know this.. in your presence here I have found both my doom and my salvation.> The way she brushed against him earlier made corporeal now in return, a psyche reaching for hers with gentleness that should've been terrible.

<I only crave only the truth of your face. Though my soul cannot be unveiled by your lips alone.> The tendrils did not retract between words, nor did Lysander's gaze.

<And yet I do not ask your forgiveness. I ask only that you understand what it costs me, that you look at me.. and that whatever you see.. you do not look away from it.> The memories were there, arrayed like obsidian candles, but the door would not be forced.. just left unlatched.

 

[Isobel Serraris]

SEEK THINE ENEMY​

LOCATION — Ilum, Unknown Regions
TAGS — Lysander von Ascania
PARAPHERNALIA — Armour of the Lost, an old blaster pistol and Vesper et Aurora.

Blight, the hand of death leeching the colours of life itself, until there was nought more than depressing shades of ash. Until the garden could only survive on the faint glimmers of sun that slipped through the unyielding cumulus clouds. Until the flowers themselves were forced to adapt, pressured to evolve into tall, desaturated plants that climbed and climbed, until they were at last blessed with a faint ray of sunshine upon a rare moon. And yet the rot persists, affecting each little part of the flora--of the fauna--until the only thing that remained was the plague itself, devouring all until it was too consumed by its gluttony.

Her heart had scarcely yielded to her own wills in the moons she had spent in seclusion, it could only ever petition its liege--for her nature was the one that answered. And her nature was a vile, heartless, entity--a predator who had marked her body as its sworn prey. Though not always could it strike, oftentimes it lay dormant; prowling and stalking for weakpoints within the elaborate forest that was her soul. Until it was blinded once more by the light of Ashla. Day and night this cycle went on and on and she found no end to it, no remedy to hush this pestilence.

When the Sith's glove briefly grazed hers, her brown eyes instinctively darted toward the touch--akin to a deer caught in a holospeeder's headlights. Though it severed a chain within her, a quieted snap as. . . the clouds dissipated at last. The touch was faint, but lit a flame where there had only been dark; it sung so purely of the forgotten memories on Naboo, of memories locked away so they may harm no longer. And yet, , , it ached presently, a stinging stimulus upon her eyes as they battled foolish tears themselves. Her throat ached with words unspoken, with curses to draw him into a battlefield of manipulation, but they were not hers--not so pure, not with the same sweetness that had ensnared her in the past.

"Lys," departed her soft lips, as gentle as a prayer in the light of an impossible battle. 'Twas not a caress onto the mind's inner workings, it merely existed as a lonesome word sung in the air.

None followed thereafter as her gaze was drawn to her weapon seated in the palm of his hand, ignited with light as vivid as the blooming roses in the late tides of spring. Its cause eluded her, yet her psyche would not surrender to fear--he had deceived her, yes, but Isobel would not give into the lie that he might dare slay her. Or at least, that hope burned vividly in her chest. . .

The Force thundered around the conduit of light and dark. The cacophonous rampage which had trailed her like a shadow had been scorned by Ashla's light, but his. . . persisted. Conflict tore at his core, though what instilled it remained cast in oblivion--was it a desire to go against her beliefs, or a desire that combatted his. . ? Or another matter entirely ? Truth lay shadowed by fate itself, and the Force dared not cast a light upon its scripture.

An unfamiliar touch caressed the back of her mind as the words penetrated her thoughtscape, declaring his will for her to decide his destiny--as if it did not lay in the hands of Ashla or Bogan itself. The terms 'doom' and 'salvation' found its way to her unguarded heart; how could it. . ? Isobel was without thought on how to react to the intense statement, it beckoned a thousand questions and more on why it must be her, and why he would 'confess' that now? Furthermore, why did he plead her to deliver justice upon his lost soul?

In spite of the humming sabre, the Jedi inched half a step nearer; her mind drawing back to the close distance they had kept during the Serraris Masquerade, amid the rather. . . torturous waltz. Though her hand sought not to drag him into another farcical dance (as endearing as it had once been), it instead rose hesitantly. Her fingers twitched arrythmically before they grazed the tops grazed the side of his face--part of her longed to know whether it was truly he that stood before her, whether it was not another illusion drawn out by a planet's nature.

The cold of his skin slipped through the small gaps of her gloves, but it was a solid thing--realer than most she had encountered in the past few moons. "What gives me the jurisdiction to condemn you for what you have or have not done, Lys? Me? Who wanders the Outer Rim alone seeking ruins," An almost endearing huff of laughter left her, whilst also rather depressing. "It- It ached what you. . . failed to tell me, um... But I know what I saw the day we met in Theed. Nay, who I see standing before me now. You are not different from when we met, and you may tell yourself you are, but I am blind to this. . ." Isobel claimed vehemently, her thumb nigh on brushing his cheek before it stilled after a moment, now an awkward weight that awaited being shunned.

There was no pursuit of prodding the prison of memories, of uncovering what he may or may not tell her. . . That was his task to do if he wanted and if he so chooses.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Isobel Serraris​

Stone should not mourn what it hath crushed, a lesson slow to take root, and later still to name the first fracture in the chest of foundation. Walls that caved were called design, and had the body been a cathedral, then indeed it was easier to worship the cold, for cold did not ask you to feel the weight of what was buried beneath the nave. A future king must not bleed. A king must not want.

Such was the covenant Lysander made with himself in some anteroom of boyhood, and he kept it the way men keep oaths they no longer remember swearing.

And then there was she..

Isobel..

Fragile? Nay, he would not dishonor her with so small a word. A flower rare should not apologize for surviving a dying galaxy. If ruin had become his throne, then perhaps her soil was made of the same black earth. Was it so grave a heresy, to suspect they were of the same dark root? But if her Light had waned, ‘twas diminished naught.. for even blighted blooms carry within them some world greener than this one, more than any known to the one standing before her. Mayhaps, in this dreadful mercy, she’d been elevated instead, upward.. the way some are carried to the surface by the very shadows that sought to swallow her.

This was not the first time for the Sith beheld an angel’s face. They’d been carved in the temples his brethren razed.. though they looked not back. But she did, with eyes that sang elegies; such beauty should make the kyber weep, should it not?

The saber hummed in his hand, those ceaseless malevolent vespers, held aside like a torch that’d forgotten the dark. Crimson pooled upon the floor in useless benediction.

Ever he had sought that deeper logic, the why beneath the why. Theorem that justified death always delivered by his hand with a pack of marauders who had come to be called the Covenant. Such a thing was trusted as a a blind man trusts a wall; not with tenderness, but with this certainty that it must hold. The king who must not crave, and the boy who never stopped.

How selfish, these Dark psychic tendrils, to hunger for that graze, even when turned away from probing; he only opened himself, laid before her like a city already sacked. Naught left to hide behind.

See me, he thought. And so hope was cast into the darkness.. a prayer without altar.

Silence fell, her fingers finding his countenance, that face hewn from the void between stars. A sword was forged to cleave, not to be received so tenderly. His eyes fell shut. One heartbeat. Only one.. and when they opened anew, a free hand ascended in necessity, fingers seeking her wrist.. that pulse.. a small fire.. only to know it burned.

“My Lady of faded Light,” the words fell like petals in a storm. Soft, yet terrible. If the galaxy must demand indifference, then it was only necessary that he become a disobedient participant. For in her flinch.. was the very scripture of salvation.

“Nothing and everything,” the phrase slipped free. “You beheld what I once wished to be. What might have been wrought of me.. had I not mistaken prophecy for something far more.. sovereign. You saw me before I ever admitted that version existed.” Quietude followed, confession without veil. “I am no longer the man you encountered in Theed. But if you are blind to the difference even now..” his touch discovered her face, a thumb brushing the edge of her jaw, an arc upon ivory, “.. then let me borrow your sight.”

A single step of his own was taken. “And here you are, reaching for me when all I have ever offered to you is danger.”

But he had been reborn unto a throne of star iron and expectation; he had never been meant to bow. Yet before this woman.. he would kneel all the same. Not in the self degrading way that many men fell prey to want.. but the descent of one who has never once been brought low, and lowers himself still, so that she might know what she is worth to the only person who has never knelt for anything.

“Bel,” her name left him like another vow. “That man was heir to something far darker than prophecy. One that was chosen.. and chosen again, until choosing was all that remained of him. And should you condemn him for it, then.. only do so knowing the whole truth. ”

Lysander’s touch soon recognized the line where her ear began. He feared no other Sith, nor any mortal foe.. his scar along the cheek a testament and more. And here lay another singular fear the tongue could not name, born by the possibility of her turning away, though his features confessed nothing.

“You stand before the Prince of the Core.”

The wheels of fate did not hurry. Every encounter was a nudge toward the shape of which he now inhabited. Jutrand’s spirit rose within him, where he stood before the Silver Dragon, another elder sister in the lineage of fire. Not only to scorch flesh, but to also burn away all illusions. Then the visions: himself among the Triumvirate, one of the three. Never did he prostrate himself before unworthiness.

His gaze lowered, not in contrition, and then rose to meet her once more. In that short brief pilgrimage, his breath brushed the narrow space.. that she might receive the words before ever spoken.

“Let me be known to you again. If you’re going to look upon me thus… at least let it be at the right man.”

With the telepathic link, was a subconscious admission in plain sight, if only she would look there too.

And allow me to give chase to what remains of your heart.

 

[Isobel Serraris]

SEEK THINE ENEMY​

LOCATION — Ilum, Unknown Regions
TAGS — Lysander von Ascania
PARAPHERNALIA — Armour of the Lost, an old blaster pistol and Vesper et Aurora.

Destiny was woven from many a thread, most indistinguishable from the masses, though one a bright red, crimson like freshly-shed blood. . . In glimpses one might predict how the pattern unfolds, should they be granted that blessing, though certainty lay not in the arts. In a solemn youth, the Nabooan had envisioned herself a lady of House Serraris--aiding her brother in his rule or merely to aid the gardenkeepers in the labour. When life wove the sigil of the Jedi, she dreamed herself becoming a great Knight, aiding students in their pursuit toward excellency. . . another dream shattered as the crimson strand severed the star amidst the crest.

The fates had provided a solitary path in the recent moons; away from the galaxy's politics, away from the squabbles about who held the reins of power and who were leashed by them. One might presume to be delighted by the absence of Chaos, and for a time that warmth had blossomed in her heart. To scour above and beyond to ancient ruins in the farthest reaches of the Galaxy, of furthering her proficiency in techniques, of learning slivers of the Ancient Tongue and Huttese. Until the void ensnared her once more with its vines, making her remember the aches she sought to suppress. . .

The press of his thumb upon her wrist brought forth a light tremor, a sensation of being caged once more. . . until the feel of him tugged her back into reality--this was nought akin to that dreaded day, nought akin to the words thundering in thin air. My Lady of faded Light, , , a title bestowed upon her without cause, but it raged within her mind. Was her light so dim it must be viewed fading? Had she lost her grasp on Ashla's blessing in exile? Was the garden so tainted by rot to be viewed as lost? Though one could not deny that it oftentimes felt that way, there was a void within her--within mind and soul--a battle of the wills one might proclaim it to be. . . and its defeat was ever-approaching.

Lysander's hand caressed the side of her face with that timid gentleness engraved so deeply within her memory, and yet her body still longed to recoil, to treat him as one might a trespasser. Tenderness had persisted in scarcity in her present life, at least not in this manner. . . another intrusion lingered still within her mind: the iron grasp of familial hands restraining her upon her ill-fated return to the Serraris estate. It was not a melodic title that was placed on her soul, instead vile words proclaimed her an outsider--a Jedi. A daughter who no longer belonged within their lineage. But how could such bitterness justify the scars left in its wake? The mark seared upon her arm for a fate she had never chosen for herself--what choice lay in her hands? It had never been her destiny.

His words lulled her into compliance, as her eyes hesitantly closed--yearning to feel only the gentleness of his caress. His words were soft and firm in their claim that he had changed, that he was but a shadow of his former self; Impossible. She thought, yes fate had been crueler than most to them, a constant. . . but he did not show it to her, he only preached it with no deed to affirm what he proclaimed. "May I not reach for whatever foolish sense of safety you bring me? Our paths diverged, the seasons have changed and different flowers have blossomed in our wake. But if you had truly changed, you would have shunned me the moment I sought to close the gap."

Though she did not want to, not yet, her eyes opened to gaze upon him once more. Prophecies. . . The Galaxy had had plenty of those, many resulted in the doom of the prophesised--as their tomb echoed with the scriptures of their fall. The whispers had not eluded her, the Core had fallen, the leadership shifting from the Empire to the Covenant. . . And she had quite a run in with two of its members. If Lysander viewed himself as the Prince of the Core. . . Isobel slowly tried to draw back, much against her heart's desire. The Tapani massacre, the fall of Coruscant, they were but a background murmur in the outskirts of the Galaxy, but they existed.

Her lips parted, seeking the proper shape to bring a voice to the turmoil stirring within her psyche. "You. . . declare yourself Prince of a ruined Core? She could not possibly fathom why one would willingly claim such a title, let alone partake in the atrocities required to fulfil its promise. The cruelty that now haunted countless sectors across the galaxy. Was he truly devoid of a heart? The very monster the shadows of her mind so desperately sought to paint him as? No. . . Isobel refused to surrender herself to this façade, to believe that all lingering traces of the man she once knew had been consumed by deceit and bloodshed alike.

"A prophecy? So you are lost to a prediction of what may happen in the future. . ?" Her brown eyes probed the green of his, yearning to find an answer, rather than another lure toward the enclosed refuge of archives he sought to drive her toward. She wished to know him once more, aye, to uncover the man buried beneath the veil of the Sith, yet how could she willingly blind herself to the blood staining his hands? The very same crimson he was smearing so gently across her cheek--a condemnation or truly the tenderness it posed to be?

Her eyes strayed from his, for the answers she yearned for did not find root in his words alone. "How do I know the truth shall not force our paths apart once more. . ? What if my heart cannot handle the horrors you wish for me to witness?"

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Isobel Serraris
​

Never once did the Sith prince look away, absorbing only what she chose to offer him. A sky before a storm.. searching not for what is there, but for what is being kept secret. To witness her private struggle from the outside, with no passage in, was painful.. like tasting salt on cracked lips.

Lysander knew nothing beyond her gaze.. and the fear that she might discover something she'd rather keep hidden. And so silence took him, the reply already perched upon one's lips; the only question was whether to let it fly. "If safety is folly," arrived at last, "then you're not the only fool here. Our paths did part, yes.. but I won't abandon you now."

Doubt, he admitted to himself, was probably the only real thing left between them.. and of course she had every right to it. Over time, oracles had spoken his name like a curse. Weak rulers had tested him the way a blacksmith tests iron.. not to honor the metal, but to find where it would break. Skepticism was nothing new. It followed him out of the Mid Rim as ivy on stone, patient as prophecy.. old as the first world he had ever called his own.

All of them had been proven wrong.

Ashes ask nothing of the man who rises from them.. this he recited until the words lost their mercy and became instead a kind of covenant. So why did her witness matter, when so little else had? Countless rooms had bent to his silence. Thousands had stood in it without ever making him feel so exposed. His jaw tightened, a leaf twisting, claimed by winter's winds.

Warmth lingered through the glove long after her hand had slipped away.. longer than she had stayed near enough for another touch. The stars, he had been told, do not mourn the light they can no longer reach. Standing now in the dark of that, he found it was the truest thing he had ever been given, for that sudden absence settled around him like frost. "The Core is not ruined. It was.. yes. There are no softer words for it. Aye, it burned and bled as any other world when it is made to, and I watched every single moment. But ruin.. that is also a tomb, and I did not come to grieve. I have rebuilt it. Every system now is in place.. I laid the foundation with my own hands and accepted every cost of doing so."

Another question settled before he dared to disturb it. Prophecy was no fog that swallowed it's chosen whole, and not himself, who'd held up a mirror to what he was always chosen to be. Not a future event; no. The harper's hands, the dragon's marrow of the Sith Empress; these were not contradictions.

"Prophecy is not a cage waiting to lock us in. It is not some distant storm only fools chase. I have lived inside it, breathed it, felt it rush through me like a river that owes the mountain no permission. I do not ask you to blind yourself to what I am."

Searching their depths, those brown eyes.. once warm and unguarded as earth after rain, the kind that remembers what is buried within. Was it so terrible to turn them over like soil.. seeking something sown long ago and never retrieved? That wanting, still alive, or so he hoped, made her doubt far harder to bear than hatred ever could be.

"Reconciliation is not what I ask of you. Years have passed in the learning of this.. that some things do not require it. Only honesty. And what I offer you now is perhaps the most unguarded I have ever been with someone who had no reason yet to fear me.. and every reason to to desire distance."

The saber's final hiss died through the half lit chamber like a death rattle as he thumbed the emitter. Crimson light retracted inward, collapsing upon itself. Darkness reclaimed more of its domain. What remained of the natural light.. endured.

Their first meeting had come in the wake of the Galactic Kaggath.. that season of culling, when the galaxy carved something quieter out of him, and something sharper. Stripped to the bone.. walking through the wreckage of his own making. That version of himself was no forgotten.. the way silence clung to him back them. A half ghost in those times.. still half weapon. A chapter which nearly consumed him.. swallowed by violence. The Covenant had been the first place where he'd found footing again, where he'd rebuilt himself with the discipline of someone who refused to die twice.


"Bel.." One syllable, exhaled like the last breath. "What you cannot bear.. that is mine to carry."

The cruelty of prophecy, he thought, was that it offers a path, not a promise.

"Give me time to soften what I once hardened. Give yourself time to learn what I have become. Because the truth, I would still walk through the next ruin and find you." Stated as a fact, the way one states the position of a star.

"If truth is a storm.. stand with me in it. Let it break over both of us. Take the time you need to learn me anew, so that I might win you in all ways that are fair." A Sith had no use for the word fair. And yet..

A return, rather.. one moment at a time.

 

[Isobel Serraris]

SEEK THINE ENEMY​

LOCATION — Ilum, Unknown Regions
TAGS — Lysander von Ascania
PARAPHERNALIA — Armour of the Lost, an old blaster pistol and Vesper et Aurora.

Uncertainty was oft the gravest wound one may harbour, the sting of not knowing the fates of one matter or the result of another--the dread of unknowing, of maintaining in agonising oblivion. Some would dare name it to be bliss, to be ignorant of the truths that lay beyond the edge of being, to be challenged by the surprise and delight when the threads unravelled. Though others, such as she, had grown evermore vexed by ambiguity, for she alone could no longer dictate her own deed, her own thought. She had been caught unaware by the forces presently, and in the past. By lies cast by the histories and by lies cast by the man before her, and yet. . . his word mended the wound in an instant, a word so gentle, so. . . true.

If he swore himself to never stray from her path, to not permit the abyss from consuming the space between them--then she would be delighted. Even in light of the recent realisation regarding his alignment, a smile found her rosy lips, innocent and shy as if Isobel attempted to stifle it to not appear foolish before him. Though what purpose lay there in veiling the truth now, when none may see except for the eyes of the cracked stone tapestries. Where none but he could see the frailty within the Jedi's composure, the weakpoint that may yet shatter upon being provoked further.

"I pray you will not. . ." Her words left her more akin to a breath, as the faint plumes of the warm air departed her lips in its aftermath. The temple was cold and frozen in time, the pillars, the walls a mere relic of the past, and yet in their midst a gentle sanctuary formed--a warm cradle that felt light and comfortable even amidst the frosty air. Whether it was truly Ashla or Bogan's hand at play here, lay in between them like a forgotten tale.

His words regarding the true horrors, the present, cracked the shields of the refuge imperceptibly. She had seen Coruscant with her own eyes, experienced the cruel plague that still haunted its levels--crime, brutality and corruption, none would be remedied in the hands of the very force driving it as such. Her smile faltered gradually as her gaze sought his once more to read whether he truly thought the curse to be expelled from the city-planet.

"I was on Coruscant," She began, pouting her lips almost in a mocking manner. "Still riddled by the masses of criminals, rogues and the corrupted alike, do you deem that rebuilt?" A sigh left her. "Though I do not claim it was much better under the Galactic Empire or the Alliance's rule, 'twas always a desolate place. . ." The memory of sabotaging the cyborg woman's Arris Windrun arm still echoed sweetly in her mind. . .

The hands of that rule it would always rain some form of unfair judgment upon its people, be it through rules, or through acts of terror--there was nothing that would appease all upon a planet. Or in any circumstance at that. The voices of the loud would seek to forge the weak into what they envision, be it kin, be it the Jedi Order or be it the Sith themselves--oppression coloured every lens through one might witness the vast variety within the galaxy. Though it should not blind one to their misdeeds, punishment may come for all who sate in their vices. Now or eventually.

The plea to look upon Lysander and see him for what he was now danced once more through the frigid air~ brushing once more against the reddened tips of her ears. Did he long to see her from her eyes? Or long to bear witness to an affirmation to his own beliefs? And what defined the difference between the two elements? This prophecy lay drowned in madness--a delusion that may yet drown the one prophesised. . . Yet her voice was not loud enough to draw his eyes away from the scripture, to make him listen to his own thoughts rather than the hymn of augury.

The ache to lose him once more placed a heavy burden upon her heart as she processed his words, there was a desire to battle it once more--to scream and shout that he was lost at the hands of a foolish omen, though its strikes were countered by the emotion in her soul. "There is not a single petal in my body that shall ever endorse your pursuit of prophecy. . . yet, if following you means I need not stand helpless as you fade from my life once more, then I must-- nay, I will lay my grievances upon the altar and let them wither in your stead." She voiced with a heavy heart, feeling a light sting press against her brow.

The words that followed hers brought a foolish crimson to the frost-bitten cheeks, one that would not yield to a veil of 'embarrassment'. 'Twas pathetic, in truth, for a flower to root in the same plot it had rotten before. And yet. . . Nature moved in peculiar ways, often predictable, yet also often evolving. There was naught within her that could resist its call now, nor did her soul yearn to.

A soft giggle slipped past her lips: "How would you, a Sith, ever dream to win me over, Lys?"

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Isobel Serraris​

Lysander, despite all the whispers swirling around them, dared not to reach for the Force. Since the Kaggath, where certainty had once been mistaken for wisdom, he learned that judging someone by power was another form of blindness. How ignorant to mistake bleeding for revelation. Was it possible one could be so certain of what they saw coming, that they might fail entirely to see what was already there? To her..

A map drawn in smoke was worse than none. Be still, he told himself.. to be only what she needed this room to contain. Nay, not another variable, nor another enigma to absorb, but to let her finish those fragile sentences she may be afraid to voice.. to let her find the edge without himself, a Sith, waiting there already. And so those vows began to form, only to become true.. real as a star that never chose to burn.

Over time, countless souls knelt before the blonde, pleading.. for power.. for allegiance, for the turning of Nightstar in one's back as a form of mercy. Every permutation of supplication that one's throat could form, and none ever truly reached him.. not beyond this cold shell he'd become. Pleas forever fell short of him; only the sound of her breath in this frozen palace struck deeper than any accusation or prophecy. Stranger still, that she asked for nothing he possessed, only for him to stay. He knew only how to be useful, dangerous, inevitable.. no, not wanted.

To be..

This chill should've felt familiar.. he'd stood in ruins before, in temples older than memory, in sanctuaries that forgot their old gods. Before her, he was no instrument of darkness' desire; he is but a man in a temple, undone by her presence alone. A power beyond what the Dark could teach.

"I have always been here. You need only keep speaking." The pillars held their silence. "I have only ever been leaving. That ends now."

Coruscant, a holy site, a sacred heart of the galaxy, where empires came to die. After the Covenan't siege, one may have no memory of sun, a fate worse than any problem of governance, legacy.. the rot that preceded Lysander. A prince who answers doubt with fire would only burn what he most wants to protect.

His father's voice, or perhaps his own.. sometimes, he could no longer tell where one ended and the other began. He felt the old heat rise in him anyway, the reflex of a man raised to mistake challenge for attack. He breathed deeply. Let it pass..

Words were laid down unarmored. "Coruscant has been a wound since before either of us drew breath. I will not insult you by pretending otherwise.. or by pretending that my intentions for it are the same as results." Oddly, there was relief in not having to defend the indefensible, when fire did not mean strength. "What I will tell you is that I have no interest in inheriting the same blindness. Every hand that reached for that place reached for the idea of it. The symbol. I am more interested in building something that will sustain long-term..so let me then say is it not truly rebuilt, but surviving.. and that is where the rebuilding must begin. If you'll tell me aloof what you saw there, I would rather hear it than not.." A fool, indeed, but he had to hear her voice.

Prophecy haunted a mind like a corridor with one door at the end of it, and he wandered it so long he'd forgotten the freedom of an open room. Yet now, caught in the brightness at the corner of her eye, those walls began to shift, widening.

The Sith reached for her hand before he had decided to, and when he found it was held the way you hold something you once lost.. carefully, and with no sense of entitlement. "Isobel." His voice softened around her name, unlike any other. "I won't ask you to believe what I cannot prove. With you.. I will not call it fate. I will call it a gift." Her hand was turned over, slowly, as though reading something written in the lines of one's palm. "If the stars are wrong, I would rather be wrong beside you than right and alone."

Familiar, that flush on her cheeks.. courage, a fragile bloom braver than many who studied the Dark arts. The first thaw of spring after a long winter.. a sign that life can grow where he thought nothing ever would. Between them hung no riddle or dare, just enough space for Light to slip through. Lysander thought of all the ways he might begin.. then surrendered.

"For as long and you'll allow. Not a grand campaign, not a conquest.. your time. A cup of tea, served with the stubbornness of a prince who has not forgotten a single thing about you. A waltz where no one is watching, where you need only be warm, held, and moving. Letters, if you wish.. that do not demand anything in return, that simply say: I thought of you when I saw this, and I wanted you to know."

Water could not beat stone by force.. just by return alone. Slow.. and faithful. Rather than claiming her hand further and demanding closeness, fingers curled under hers, lifting gently, offering support. Could this be a prophecy she believed in: two paths converging?

"And I'm not asking you to forget what's come before.. only to see what might grow now."

 

[Isobel Serraris]

SEEK THINE ENEMY​

LOCATION — Ilum, Unknown Regions
TAGS — Lysander von Ascania
PARAPHERNALIA — Armour of the Lost, an old blaster pistol and Vesper et Aurora.

Composition, the endless art in which one must decide what belongs and what does not. . . be it within a floral arrangement, or amidst the colours and shapes laid upon a empty canvas. Life itself was moulded by the ceaseless choices one must make, by decisions that at first glance appeared minuscule within the grander design. Yet with every crossroad passed, each decision shaped the final composition. Or so she claimed. . .

Such teachings had once been taught by a kinder heart--one who had longed to bloom amidst the gardens of Theed, yet had never discovered in which soil to root herself. A name that lingered evermore within Isobel's memories whenever the composition of her life was shaped once more within her psyche. 'Twas mother's. . . Mother, whose words had always resonated with the artistic values of House Panteer. And therefore, she had always spoken true; some flowers carried meanings improper for the bouquet they were considered for, just as certain vivid reds and blues often threatened to divert a painting's message.

But who is to judge that such sentiments did not reach to the art of people as well? To friend and foe one chose to keep near. To him, and to the offer he now voiced into the frigid air. So once more a certain query lingered in the space between the contrasting souls: Can flowers blossom on blighted soil?

Was she the flower, and he the blighted soil beneath its roots? Was the blossoming itself merely the salvaging of a bond shattered by the fates themselves? And what truly determined the role each fragment occupied within the greater canvas? Such queries lingered unanswered for now. . . yet another dilemma demanded a more immediate answer: would she willingly surrender herself once more to the exploration of their roles. Would she seek the truth buried within the fragments of her dream--or be it a monstrous nightmare--and seek to mend the gaping wounds within her thoughtscape? May the glimmers of her faith in him bring her the comfort that could not be achieved in the past?

A weighted sigh slipped past her smiling lips, lost in the fragile air of Ilum. She yearned for his closeness once more, and when he made the first advance, she would not withdraw. . . Her hand instinctively sought his own, settling gently atop his. Though it soon turned into pressure, as though seeking to bind him to the moment, to not merely be another dream. "Was there ever truly a part of you that believed I would walk away still?" The gentleness within her voice did not falter despite the weight upon her word. "The absence of you within the order of my life had been. . . a dance with Chaos itself. Loneliness does not remedy the aches, no matter how desperately one wills it to be a solution." Her voice softened thereafter, as though uncertain whether her confession would frighten him.

The lightest twitch of her thumb caused it to brush past his skin, unintentional, yet. . . undeniable. The tales on Alderaan and Naboo oft-spoke of courtship, of endeavours as innocent as a mere brush of the hand or a lingering glance--yet all components of a pivotal strategy to curry someone's favour, almost akin to a real game of Shah-tezh or Dejarik. And as realised in such games, the opening move was a defining factor for the outcome, for some matches were doomed from the start. . . Though in other eyes, courtship seldom mattered, as her kin had proven relentlessly--society often demanded what society demands and an alliance was far more pivotal to lord Serraris than the contentment of his lawful wife.

Though Lysander's words echoed the proposal of courtship, one could not deny the sincerity in the offers he mused--memories of their past deeds and rather fitting alternatives. Yet what truly separated this missive from another well crafted façade? They could be the rehearsed verses like the ones her brothers were fed during their tutelage; meant to charm a lady whilst deceiving her at the same time? "The last time we waltzed we wound up on the floor of my family's estate. . . And--" She sought ways to challenge him, to not surrender, not for some time anyway. Too much time had passed between them, and the echoes of prophecy and chants of the Sith were not so easily cast aside. "And what if you cannot make me my favourite tea? If you even recall what it was. . . And what of my time--our paths are not bound to cross while we live on different sides of the galaxy. . . I suppose, you will have to make your efforts rather memorable, Lys. . . After all, my friendship is a precious thing to earn."

The glimmer in her eye spoke the tease she could not veil proper behind any form of mask. "Though. . . I would not mind seeing my favourite flowers every now and then~ You do know what they are, do you not?"

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Isobel Serraris​

The lessons from his father rose like unburied relics. Soil was territory to be conquered, a kingdom to be seized; dominance became the only covenant worth keeping; passion was but a blade, closeness the throat it finds. Even now, one year beyond the Galactic Kaggath's ending, Lysander was still excavating that man from his marrow. Still finding him in the fist before the open hand.. could such inheritance be erased? Could the dragon learn to lie down in a garden without devouring it?

And truly, did it matter whether one called himself Sith or Jedi, those ancient rites of light and darkness, when Isobel looked at him so? Was passion itself sin, or only so when it forsook tenderness? Something in him ached to speak, to confess. Who counted himself if not one who followed his heart, that stubborn compass guiding through darkness and light alike? Better, he thought, to embrace the dark soil that fed his roots than cling to the frost that threatened to kill.

If fate's prophecy held no truth, then why did her palm settle against his as if it had always belonged.. a spark nestled against his flame, thawing Ilum's cold air into something precious. The pressure moved through him slowly, wrist to chest.

"I told myself.." Lysander stopped; he drew in deeper breath. Quieter, "I built theology around your absence, convinced it was mercy to spare you mine, since I trusted myself to offer little else at the time." Fingers curved around hers, enclosing those slender bones. "I was wrong. I know that now. I knew it then, too, if I'm being honest.. only I didn't dare admit it, except to you."

Silence settled before twin emeralds shifted, molten gold fading from their depths. "I know that dance. I choreographed every step to masquerade as discipline. But.. there is a more particular kind of darkness born when removing the only source of Light. I discovered you don't notice it immediately. At first you tell yourself your eyes are adjusting.. yet they never truly do."

And what did alignment matter if he could learn gentleness? He knew his faults; he'd faced them time, as one should with wounds. "There's cruelty in loneliness that no one names correctly. They call it emptiness, but I find that it is not empty. It is full.. of every version of a thing you cannot have. Full of the shape a person leaves behind them when they go. I was not empty without you, Bel. I was crowded. Every room I entered had already been occupied by the idea of you."

A rueful smile touched those lips. His thumb traced across her hand once, slowly. "I remember the floor of your estate more vividly than most battlefields." Something shifted, a knitting of the brows and a single step brought him back into her orbit.

"If I've forgotten your tea, then I deserve whatever judgment you deliver." The cafe on Theed came back to him.. the way she held her cup. "Rose tea." He glanced downward before finding the depths of her gaze once more. "As for your time.." the smile turned softer, "I would not presume to own a single hour of it. Only to be worthy of the ones you chose to lend. Let me treat your friendship as the rarest thing I have ever been offered."

The bloom itself alive in his mind's eye, unfolding petal by petal. "Roses," the word slid off his tongue in a soft murmur as though under fading sunlight, more invocation than name.

Of course, beyond simple naming, a fool's mind wandered. "They demand patience.. careful tending that mirrors how one should nurture what matters most." There he lingered, the sound twining thoughtfully. Surely there was no wrong in yearning for another glimpse of her Light he'd always been drawn to. "Their beauty lies not only in the blossom, but in the way they endure.. thorns and all."

In the frozen chamber, even the marble hilt sought to whisper tales of battles won and lost, before being tucked away into a pocket. Those same fingertips climbed back, finding familiar ground at her waist, rekindling an echo of their waltz on Naboo. This time, there was no audience, nor any occasion to justify it. A question formed between one breath and the next. "Do you want me to remember.. or relearn?"

 

[Isobel Serraris]

SEEK THINE ENEMY​

LOCATION — Ilum, Unknown Regions
TAGS — Lysander von Ascania
PARAPHERNALIA — Armour of the Lost, an old blaster pistol and Vesper et Aurora.

Whereas agony would once taint her upon the remembrance of certain memories, its recollection was now graced with a warmer light--a time of fondness, with not a regret in her mind. For that was the truth, the merriment she had experienced amid their rather ridiculous introduction, the clumsiness of their waltz and the blur that was Ukatis, there was naught akin to its bliss. His words reaffirmed her beliefs once more, that he too remembered that time fonder and that he too aspires to rebuild what was broken or to build something anew.

The flickering cradle of warmth surrounded her loyally, shielding her from the first assault of the cold, strengthened by the feel of his hand between her own. Though how long could it last when the frost of Ilum sought to tear it asunder? Raining down strike after strike through the metal ringlets of her armour akin to needles and sending a shiver throughout her entire body. Isobel longed for the bright sun in the Nabooan summer, to sense its rays upon her skin once more. Though it was a mere dream for now, shattered at the hands of their crushing reality--be it the fault of the hands of destinies or prophecies, or the truth that shunned her from the planet she once declared home. Too many chains tied her to seclusion, to the prison of exile imposed upon herself.

Yet the horror of exile waned when those gentle green eyes gazed back upon her, when his words called upon something within her heart she had long sought to suppress. Truth was an easy thing to proclaim, though remaining devoted to its execution was another matter entirely~ Even now, her own frights lay barely hidden beneath the surface, though far enough out of sight for her to leave it be--she could not yet bring herself to entrust him with it, if only to spare him from the burden. "Hush, we need not dwell on the past more than we already have." The Jedi reassured him 'calmly', to give him the comfort that whatever transgressions had stained their lives need not define the future still.

The notion that she occupied some part of his thoughtscape was endearing in its own peculiar way; to know she had continued to haunt him long after their paths had diverged. Though Bel could hardly evade that his truth did not taint her too, albeit in far less tender moments. . . more presently amidst the fury of a spar, when his name slipped like a curse from her lips, or during the quieter hours when her thoughts turned toward her failures and what she may or may not do upon facing him once more. With all the tens of thoughts, the fury she had pictured herself having had dissipated the moment they had rained down confessions. He had become something akin to a plague upon her psyche, and its remedy all at once. . .

"I cannot say I remember the dance floor more fondly than a battlefield, and that is. . . saying something," She bit the insides of her lip awkwardly, too many complications had bled from the masquerade--if her family's endless grievances held any merit. And yet in spite of all her stumblings, all the blackened bruises upon her body, she would certainly long to do it once again. . . if her dance partner was patient.

The recollection of her favourite tea hastily brought a halt to her biting, as a bright grin softened the lines of doubt on her face, beaming with glee. "You remembered?" Isobel said, excitement glittering akin to a cloudness night, as her memories recalled the events in the café in Theed; the sound of the rain outside and the rather serious conversation within. She did miss handing out flowers, putting together elaborate bouquets meant to bring a spark of joy to the gloomy days of Theed's citizens. . . "I believe I overheard someone mention they were sold on Coruscant as well. . . and in spite of the rot on the planet, they at least do not lack taste. Still, I doubt they will alow me onto its surface for quite some time."

The promise of ensuring their little time together would be made memorable brought a brighter crimson to her [already reddened] cheeks, akin to roses in late spring. "Mhm, my friendship is as precious as the petals of a yellow ro--" The words died upon her tongue as his own voice added what she had left unspoken. Roses. The flower that had always been hers; the bright colours, the thorns that could be removed or left to leech the blood from one's skin. The embodiment of love, of purity, of friendship, and of death itself. A language not spoken by words alone, by colours so vivid they may be mistaken for art itself.

A soft breath left her thereafter, as her body sought the release of tension she had not realised she was holding. "Yes-- they- they hold so much meaning. . . every colour sings its own song, whether as broad as love or as grave as sorrow." Her voice had softened to become a near whisper, warmth brushing the space between them as he drew closer. Then his hand found her waist. Surprise thundered in her previously gentle expression, and for a moment her mind stopped working, not a word remaining on her lips or a thought that made a bit of sense--leaving only a deadly silence that not even the Force could fill.

"What are you doing. . . ?" Isobel stammered, daring not to make it an accusation or a plea for him to move. She barely heard nor comprehended his question, standing there, with a reddened face, looking him in the eye still. Was he requesting a dance? Here? Amidst the snow--no! He was not that ridiculous. . . Then , what was he asking? His words were beyond her understanding, his lips moving without sound as though silenced by Ashla herself.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Isobel Serraris​

Fingers braided together like hidden vines bound as they shared that chamber's restless energy. Outside, Ilum's winter gusts scraped and whispered, lips pressed to the windowpanes, haunted too by memories of breath and bone. Ebony robes fluttered like shadows trying to slip away, the planet's chill forever eager to unravel every thread of warmth clinging so close. In that quiet moment, desire wove itself gently through the space they dared to share.. insistent as a sigh.

Then came the impulse to guard her, swift in ways he was known to liberate Nightstar from its scabbard. Though Darkness encircled him, he told himself this was more than craving, surely more than an animal needing to draw something close and call that closeness virtue.

Where she stood before him, the planet's needles blunted them against nothing Lysander could name. Every sharp breath seemed to snap like ice, though he barely noticed; his mind was fixed entirely on Isobel.

The Force moved around her in a way that unsettled him, not violently, but the way a familiar song unsettles when heard in a strange place. A shawl.. almost. A thing that gathered at her shoulders and stayed. He had felt the Force behave possessively before, and had felt it coil around objects of significance. And he was aware, with a clarity that shamed him slightly.. a splinter of resentment that something so boundless and indifferent could hold her more completely than he was permitted to.

Bel's plea therein was like twilight's hush descending upon his war scarred soul, whispered amid the tempest. Bowing his head low, reverence breathed through the curve of Lysander's neck; the weight cloaking all thoughts of exile, that suffocating, fell from his grasp, aside as dust from armor.

Emissary for Covenant and more, his psyche wandered around the calculus of survival first. And so surrender was now the wisest stratagem, was it not? Not capitulation to frailty, but to the singular bloom before him, in ways where he might've offered the moment's reigns.. something so seldom encountered even the most skilled tactician might loosen grip on the reins.

Upon the youthful planes of his face crept an expression unlike the usual repertoire. A shadowed curve, another cipher carved in midnight. These were the lines of his mouth that knew war and sanctuary. A ghost that could promise cruelty, and now softened by devotion's chisel, working silently..

Rebellion, at last.. surfacing only at the very end. Eyelids descended with the admission, drawing upon the Dark so that they were spoken honestly.. shut until the final syllable fully dissolved. "I missed you, Bel.."

What if the waltz had only migrated, he thought, only changed rooms? An artifice, certainly. But.. one worth the indulgence. In the vaulted corridors of the young Sith's mind.. that tempo was already written, across the stars and more. The Prince of the Core did not follow rhythms; no, he'd always known how author them.

"I haven't forgotten a single detail." Solemn pride weaved through his gaze. "The Core still boasts many wonders worth traveling for.. and no ruin shall lay its tongue upon any bouquet you've arranged. There are markets still which brim with fine silks and teas, proof of life that never stops reaching for elegance." From allies scattered amongst their ranks, to mining guilds, he knew every channel and right name to call upon. Words like forged ore formed behind his teeth. "I would reduce every threshold to gravel with a single command before it challenged your passage." A meridian drawn in the snow, perhaps..

Silence, for once, refused to be an ally. "You always find the pretty poetry in things, don't you? I think that's exactly why roses suit you.. full of beauty, and perhaps never without a little edge." The earlier moment at the palace threshold lingered at the periphery of his thoughts like a bruise.. still.. he would not excavate it..

An ache unfurled at the sight of cheeks deepening late spring crimson. "Just a dance that the galaxy would begrudge us elsewhere, slow enough that we might actually hear one another." Lysander drew her into the first motion, a sway that matched the falling snow. Movements were careful, attuned to hesitation.. though he hoped to encourage trust. "And what color," a dragon asked, "does your heart wear tonight?"

 

[Isobel Serraris]

SEEK THINE ENEMY​

LOCATION — Ilum, Unknown Regions
TAGS — Lysander von Ascania
PARAPHERNALIA — Armour of the Lost, an old blaster pistol and Vesper et Aurora.

Her dreams foresaw tragedy, scattering rare glimpses of an event unfolding in the future, thought oft they proved misleading or merely untrue. There had been faint elements which recalled her previous vexation with him long before their paths had crossed here and now. The echo of friendship, of gifts she had exchanged for another--yet whose foundation still shaped her present. Mayhap this was not a mere coincidence, and was a nexus of sorts, a place that lured them both in and forced their diverged paths to coalesce once more.

Destiny or no, the thought of some third-party puppeteering this event was too faint to lay a sense of dread or doom upon the comfort she felt close to him. His words were hypnotising, sweet and soft, akin to a poison whose nature only revealed itself upon its victim's demise. And yet. . . It worked on her, there was no mistaking the quickening beat of her heart or the persistent reddening upon her cheeks. Or simply the truth that she was near him, that her body nor mind had recoiled from his gentle touches. Lysander was here, after moons of being apart, and that was the only matter of worth to her. He was here with her.

The twinkle in her eye brightened when his kinds words graced her, he missed her and as much as bright as the flame of annoyance had been in her heart: "I... I did too, Lys. Your absence was an unforgiveable mistake I will not endeavour to make again." Her hand twitched upward once, before she resisted its calling. . . There was no need to overwhelm him, not when the moment had been without flaw--safe for the rubble upon the ice-ridden floor. . . "Did you hear me? I missed you." A tender whisper that could not be torn asunder by the cold around them.

The concept of fine--albeit vexingly itchy--silks, or a steaming cup of rose tea... Oh. . . How she longed for it so; The life she had once known to be real had been one of splendour and luxury, not of scarcity and quiet deprivation as the recent months had become. There was little comfort to be had when one slept in ancient ruins or in the pilot seat of their small freighter, nor in the knowledge that donning one's armour was a necessity day upon day. . . Ah part of her missed the easy life so, where the worst labour one had to do was trim the flowers for the bouquets and hand them to those in need. Still, there was a delightful thrill within the challenge of exploration itself. A thirst for knowledge and discovery that not been this thoroughly sated before.

"I shall not blame them for seeking out the luxury, it has its uses. . . Though a pretty dress would not help me now," A sardonic noise left her lips, existing for a second before it was gone again, as was the grin before it. Part of her questioned whether the dresses would find the path into her life again, when danger no longer lurked around every corner. His words did improve her chances, she doubted that after her little stunt in level 1313, she would even be allowed to set foot on the sith-held planet. "Well... Uhm, that decision must lie with your betters, no..?" She voiced softer, hesitantly, unable to wrap her mind around the hierarchy of the Sith.

Her thoughts were interrupted as he pulled her into a waltz, a startled giggle escaping her as she held onto him a little tighter. "Lys!" She exclaimed as she tried to find her footing in the snow, trying her hardest not to tackle him. "Did I ever tell you my dancing instructor resigned after I failed to memorise the steps of the Chandrilan waltz?" Her mind recalled how livid her lord father had been at the man's 'incompetence', and how it proved quite the scandal upon House Serraris' marriage prospects. For what lady could not remember a few 'easy' steps? The rather floral madame that was clinging onto her dance partner as if he was her lifeline.

Her boots awkwardly distanced herself from his as her body remained near him, counting the steps beneath her breath in continuous rhythm. Her breath faltered for an instant as their steps blurred with one another, stumbling briefly against his foot before hurriedly reclaiming her balance--thank Ashla. Isobel was never destined for these petty social acts, and they were quite the nightmare to her. Yet at least it was only his green eyes upon her now, rather than an entire room of gawking nobles waiting to witness every graceless misstep the young Lady Serraris made: "Must we do this. . .? I am rather dreadful at it and the thought of hurting you--. . . I wish not to have it on my conscience," She murmured anxiously, but followed his lead wherever it may go.

His query lingered breathlessly between them for a time, unheard, unanswered, before it finally acquired her attention. What colour of rose was suitable for the occasion? Not white, for purity lay not in doubt, it was not a bright red for it alluded to more passionate scenery, nor was it the shade of night to resemble death of one form or the other. . . It was none of what initially crossed her mind. "Blue," She stated firmly. "There are these Ithorian roses that bloom a beautiful blue. The gardenkeepers used to say they embodied mystery or an impossible search. Or a matter as silly as love at first sight," Though the soft snort that left her might make him believe the latter was not what she intended to tell.

More explanations rested upon the tip of her tongue, though they failed to find their voice as she stumbled over his feet once more, grasping onto his arms for dear life as she collided against him.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Isobel Serraris​

Strange 'tis how one person alone could bend the fates entire. Or perchance 'twas the foolish half of him glowing about her like starlight. The whisper of her name in his mind rang louder than the silent steps that drew him into this waltz. Was it destiny? He' d never such to grant second chances.. yet here he stood, unable flee. The dance itself grew to a sacred rite, warmth rebelling against Ilum's chill. How sweet to draw the air, when so much of him lay ever pledged to duty.

Her confession beckoned another bow of the head, as though she'd placed a hallowed relic in his hands. The music paused inside; their steps tightened, each utterance falling like a bell tolling in a frost cathedral. Did this devout follower of Ashla spy hopelessness in a Sith? His brows knit in confusion; his mouth parted, as if he'd forgotten what to do next. Even the crease at the corner of his eye too betrayed how deep Lysander was affected. Footwork never wavered; that would be impossible, when that was the foundation of every lightsaber form and hand-to-hand combat. But the hand at her waist cinched. Peace, was it not a lie? And here the fair blonde trod dangerously close to it. "Speak it once again, Bel," pleaded softly.

From his vantage, the Jedi's voice unfurled as some wilted petal, remembering sunlight. Fragile, honest.. just as he had known her on Naboo and on Ukatis. Forbidden, was it not? And yet memories of her were scented with teas and ballrooms, opulence as natural as air in some Mid-Rim courts. Must she therefore sacrifice that femininity, or cast off her grace? A tender smile flickered. "There are no betters to chart your passage," the murmur brushed the space between them. "I've long thought a dress would complement you far more than those.. monk-like garments." One corner of his mouth found higher perch, as he recalled teasing her about such before, likening their garb to stage curtains. Honest, at least..

"I know a place where you could wear one without fear of judgment.. somewhere we may both be fully ourselves." In his mind's eye he saw Zardossa Stix, its gentle sun and whitewashed balconies, warm with airs of sea salt. A world as beautiful as the woman in his arms. Why should they not taste simple pleasures.. morning gardens, eve with markets?

Laughter ascended bright, gentle as a breeze lifting a skiff. Their dance took on a playful air, and he suddenly remembered why he prized Bel's mirth above all else. No different than the masquerade ball. At the bringing forth of Chandrila's name, visions came, the battles fought before the siege of Coruscant. Fortunately, they passed like shadows at sunrise. "No, never," said as emerald shone with curiosity. "Tell me more."

Another turn ensued, unhurried; the waltz slackened down to something almost still, a modest attempt to soothe a guttering candle without extinguishing entirely The hand at her waist migrated to the small of her back, steady one's spine, offering ballast. Then, slowly, a forehead dipped until it grazed her temple; a helpless sound escaped, something embarrassingly close to amusement.

"Maybe you're the most graceful disaster known to me." Words arrived before wisdom could intercept. In certain company amongst the Covenant, that might've even earned the emissary a dagger's kiss. "I must confess, milady, I stand ambushed and utterly conquered." Somewhere between rhythm and nearness, he found himself lost in the sweetest haze. "Should you happen to step on my toes again, I'll shall find a way to blame myself. Your awkwardness is.." he exhaled softly, almost wondering, ".. rather endearing, actually."

A tilt of the head, and he began to study her face fondly. "If blue is the color of the impossible, then I'd like to believe we're exactly the kind of gardeners those roses need. I'll gather every star and every rose in the galaxy just to prove such a dream." Ukatis and its ancient tales were clearly imprinted on his soul. Not that he'd ever found cause to rue them.

Their warmth met; his fingertips traced the bloom of color at her cheek, as one might follow the last gleam of daylight. The forehead remained where it had come to rest. "So, explain then.. what does this blue rose look like to you beyond the myths? Is it just another riddle to be solved, or something you think could grow between us.. something.. bright against the Dark?"

Quiet laughter slipped free, almost abashed. "Not because I want to rush you.." came the addition, apologetic for the thought. "But because your choice is.. too honest to ignore. Too.. wondrous."