Soul Fire Travels Faster Than News (Metus)

[Ahani Najwa-Zambrano]

The desert tundra was black with the filmy band of night. Sparks of starfire and ship-light brushed against the blackened canvas of Sabarene as a personal show for the lone viewer of this area's blessed nocturne. Ahani Najwa sat in lotus position on the sand, as with the application of her powers the Master of the Force moved through the environment and set a mandala into the sand. The Mandala built from Ahani's recent experiences, they formed through the horrors of her madness and the restraint of outside forces until the curling lines and shunting burls of a lunatic's bastion shifted into a glorious, righted state. Eyes pouring into the starry night, Ahani let the shackles of her past define the spacious surround. She tugged on a line. This one line was more than a stab into the madness. It was presence and beauty, it filtered through coiling mistakes and missed cues to a central bead on her heart. Darker than many of the influences in her life, this thread was not the unconscionable black of Ket Van-Derveld, nor of the incidious greys of Raien Keth. It was Metus. It was Isley Verd.

Isley Verd had gone missing and without knowledge of his whispers (as Ahani had a lack of substantial informants in the Mandalorian Cloud), with him had gone Metus. Darth Metus was a wicked marauder, the broken vestige of Dark in another man's mind but to Ahani's experience Darth Metus threw that cloak of hideous Dark around her shoulders against the cold of her ravaged, ragged mind. He'd saved her more times than she knew numbers for, at that time.

After receiving the Holocron from Warok the Defiler, Ahani had steeped in the final message Darth Metus had for Darth Gyaumchem. 'I love you, Ahani. I have loved you in ages past and I shall love you still. My time is fading. Soon I will be nothing but the foam on a beach's tide line. Be well, my Echani. It is my eternal wish you find your mind whole and become mighty within it. Keep safe and know beyond any shadows, you are loved.'

She'd burst into the quietest of tears, chasms of the things spilling down her face as she huddled with her arms over her knees and replayed the message from his blue coated beam of light. The only light the man ever had, if she was honest. So it was days later that Ahani's mind went searching the black.

In the quiet of Sabarene's night, in the undisturbed quality of time the astral projectionist threw her consciousness outward to tap and knock at the door of the universe to spread itself wide and give her cause and ability to find the last traces of Metus in the stars.

[member="Darth Metus"]

 

[Darth Metus]

A glance seldom told the full story of one's struggle within.

Veiled behind confidence. Hidden behind smiles. Internal turmoil was the sort of thing that all men kept buried deep. One could be suffering the greatest anguish they had ever known...yet the masses would remain ignorant. Such was the daily existence of Isley Verd: perpetually plagued by a battle within. Ever since diving head first into the Dark Side, the Mandalorian had found himself cursed. A blight had formed within the far recesses of his mind and grew into something monstrous. It was vile...it was powerful...it was the entity known as Darth Metus.

For a brief span of time, Isley succumbed. The Darkness of this demon seized control of his body and mind; forcing the Mandalorian to act as a glorified spectator. Powerless, he watched as the Demon ravaged his life and brought utter chaos to the Southern Systems. It was almost ironic that this had transpired as it had...for Isley had opened himself to the Darkness in hopes of growing strong. He hoped that the Dark Side would afford him the power to protect all that he loved...but in doing so, he practically eradicated it all. Now, Isley managed to see the reigns of his body back to his hands...and never again would he ever allow the Demon freedom.

And so, Darth Metus lived a sordid existence; imprisoned within the very mind he once controlled.

Prostrated, the Sith Lord knelt upon what could only be described as water. Yet, despite its boundless depths, his form did not sink. Such was the nature of one's mind: the laws of reality were often suspended. In Isley's case, this portion of his mind was an enormous body of water. Murky ocean stretched forth as far as the eye could see, only to be obscured by a dense fog in the distance. The Sith Lord could not possibly begin to traverse the expanse of his prison, for his form was restrained in place. Like an animal, glittering chains wound their way about his body and held fast.

No sum of struggle would see him free...and for every chain that broke, three more would take its place.

Typically speaking, the Sith Lord was left alone; for Isley was too occupied with survival to confront the monster of his mind. Yet, this evening...change reared its head. Ripples formed on the water's surface as armor-clad feet strode calmly forth. From the depths of the fog came the Mandalorian, intent upon facing his Demon. "Come to gloat? inquired the Sith, his voice a deep hiss. "I've come to see you destroyed, once and for all." came Isley's response.

Boom.

Like thunder, laughter tore from the lips of the Sith Lord; his power evident with each peal of mirth. Waves formed and crashed down all about the pair, born from the sheer force of his amusement. "You would see yourself reduced to nothing? You would see the Power you sought so desperately extinguished?" began Darth Metus. "I see your bluff Mandalorian. Even if you had the power...You would never dare to strike me down. You saw the might which reduced the Confederacy to rubble. You crave my Power. You need my power. Alone, you are but a whelp, flailing about the Galaxy without a fething clue!"

"Release me. RELEASE ME!!!

And thus, the struggle began anew. Chains surged forth to restrain the Sith Lord, who struggled blindly against his bonds. Waves grew monstrous. Tempests manifested out of nothing. The storm of Isley's mind raged...ignorant of the impending presence of another. For she who reached out across the stars, the traces of Darth Metus' presence would lead to this place. Emergence from the depths of the fog would then reveal the battle to her silver eyes...and the power to intervene rested within her hands.

[member="Ahani Najwa"]

 

[Ahani Najwa-Zambrano]

"Struggle, struggle, struggle. You men and your endless need to validate your existences through struggle." The voice came. The voice drifted on the waters as a boundless and succouring wind brushing against Isley and his doppelgänger Darth Metus. To the mind of Isley Verd came the presence of a whispered matron, the one woman who had not only turned Metus' head but given the Sith Lord a modicum of desire and bliss.

"Self-flagellation does not become you, Isley Verd." The voice conjured the image of silken ivory skin and nights where the marauding Metus had plied his trade in other ways: holding the insanity in his lover back against the impending tide. Those nights had been a worthy few, but their legacy had lasted in the Echani Master's mind. She felt outward toward the visage of Metus, chained as he was in gossamer strands of Isley's creation. The voice wandered with the wind, as of yet incorporeal it lilted across the faces of Metus and Isley with the tender stroke of the Mother Incarnate. Gyaumchem had come to Isley Verd.

"Neither does a tantrum befit your station, my Metus. Settle." The wafting strains of the wind's invisible current burst across them. All that was not bolted down was blowing in the stiff gale. "Why do you war with yourself? Isley, Metus. You are one and the same man. Does it take the gaze of the once-insane to reveal the truths of your inner leanings?"

As the woman's voice took texture, a form could be seen pouring forth from the roiling fog the wind brought in. Darth Gyaumchem draped in stardust and strands of nebulous array walked upon the waters. Where her feet touched, the waters stilled. Where she spread her skirts the water cleared. "What am I to do with you, hmm? You've grown unsettled without a woman's touch." Her fingers draped across Metus' cheeks, and as they drifted across the face of Darth Metus, so the sensation of her kind and firm touch stroked upon Isley Verd. "I got your Holocron. I came to give you my thanks."