Private Tabula Rasa

[Damsy Callat]

Jedi Temple > Archives,
Coruscant
Veino Garn
​

Not many people really knew Damsy.

Still, she had become rather recognizable around the Temple since being allowed to wander it; there was only one Black 'padawan' toting a long face and a water dragon. Many knew the aforementioned face, though not always her name, but of that she wasn't disappointed. She reveled in the fact, actually. She could count on one hand how many times she had been approached by a stranger for anything, even just an introduction, and she had been moved in a few weeks. It was a drastic improvement from how high her notoriety had climbed quickly in Camp Phoenix, the Obsidian Temple, and Castle Black - a shining pro of when one's reputation didn't precede them.

It was mind boggling how wearing one amulet wiped the slate clean of everything she despised, masked everything Dark. The solution seemed too good, too easy, to be true, but Orsk was the expert on the matter - literally the master, as it were. So, she tried hard not to presume she knew a milligram better than him on the subject. She was listed officially somewhere as a padawan, but in her heart of hearts she was a disciple of the Force rather than the Jedi, caught in a tug of war between flipsides of a coin.

The exceedingly few that did know her would not at all be surprised to round a bookshelf in the library and find her halfway down the row, reading about some random Sith, though it might have risen the question why? To more easily walk their paths or avoid them? To feed the spawn or starve her?

To every other passerby, Damsy's practice would seem like a perfectly innocuous one. In fact, they might not even catch the title of the tome she was reading. She was so often left alone to do her thing, whatever that thing was, because everybody else was so busy running around doing theirs. Therein lay another benefit of living at the Coruscanti Temple: the crowds were almost non-existent. Half of that reality was sad - Damsy knew that the New Jedi Order was hankering for masters and greater numbers to boot - but part of her was content with it. A greater population would come in time, so she'd have to enjoy the quiet while she could, use the time to acclimate as best as she could before she wouldn't be able to as easily.

Kezi brayed from where she had curled up in the bookshelf, the void left from the tome Damsy had selected on Darth Vectivus.

Bored.

"You can go on home," the undercover sithspawn muttered as she scanned a page with gaze just above a fingertip. She knew where their shared quarters were. Damsy hadn't made her come out either; Kezi had followed her.

 

[Veino Garn]

Damsy Callat

"Vectivus," Veino said, catching a glimpse of the tome as he traced through the archives on Coruscant. He wasn't thrilled to be back in the area, especially with these new New Jedi order types. He had been an early, almost founding member of the previous iteration, without ever joining them officially. But these new ones seemed to be religious fanatics, only one step below Cedric's group. His NJO had a discrete, specific goal: free the galaxy from the One Sith who had broken and conquered everyone in their way.

He wasn't sure about the new ones. But he was still gathering intelligence and information on how Carnifex had come from the dead and whoever these various new emperors may have been. The Worm Emperor had to come from somewhere, been someone beforehand.

"He was an interesting one, certainly. I'm almost surprised this NJo lets people read books like those." Veino paused to think. "It does undermine their narrative. You aren't studying to go into business or finance, are you? I have known a few Jedi who were forensic accountants."

He was not dressed as a Jedi, to be certain, but the more proasic, and emblematic Outer Rim spacer's gear. Heavy boots, thick greatcoat, rough and worn pants and shirt. Even by the more relaxed NJO dress-code, he was looking shabby. But the pale scars on face still gleamed faintly along his cheekbones, along with the other numerous smaller ones. Something about the younger one felt different, but he couldn't place a finger on it. It was intriguing and certainly not something he expected from here.

 

[Damsy Callat]

Damsy almost, almost, lost grip on the tomb, but recovered her grasp at the last moment by doing a heinous crime to her fingernail. She had heard the master approach, to be sure, but had made the unfortunate assumption he would simply browse beside her a few minutes and then move on.

The lesson of her day was evidently not to make any like assumptions.

She looked up and over to the Master. Recognition was lost to her, and for good reason, but she was embarrassed nonetheless. Twofold, even - to not know either the Jedi nor how to answer his question without illuminating that bit that was off about her.

"Uh," she finally started, almost jarred from her stupor when Kezi pounced onto her owner's shoulder and wrapped around her nape to hide. "Hi...there." She reached upward and slid the tome back into place. She had gotten a majority of the story already. "N-nothing of the sort." She supposed a Jedi Order needed accountants as much as the non-Force-using military branch of any other faction, but the career wasn't up her street even a little bit.

"Tryin' a' know one's enemy an' all, sir." The honorific slipped out. Old veteran habits died hard, so hard in fact that they'd all probably die precisely when and where she did.

Veino Garn

 

[Veino Garn]

Damsy Callat

Veino just shrugged at the answer, but then an odd expression etched itself across his face at the 'sir'. He pursed his lips slightly and furrowed his eyebrows before giving his head a short shake. "Been a long time since I held anything like a military rank that entitled me to being called sir."

He ran a hand through his hair and rolled his neck for a moment, before continuing. "It is an interesting way of learning to know your enemy, when Vectivus has been dead for centuries. However, there is a lesson to be learned from Jacen Solo, a champion of the New Jedi Order of their time who turned to the Dark Side and became a Sith for the betterment of the galaxy, and caused great suffering as a result."

Veino just shrugged. "I fear we are long past the days of such Sith, ones who could be reasoned with and committed no crimes. Instead, the galaxy is being taken over by religious fanatics of both the Light and the Dark."

"But tell me, what have you learned of the enemy from studying old Vecti?"

 

[Damsy Callat]

Damsy took a moment to answer. What had she learned? What moral had she picked from the pages? She answered both Veino Garn and herself in the same statement - "That the Jedi paint Sith in broad strokes." - and almost cringed once she had. She was sounding like a proper Jedi with every passing day, if not by virtue of budding philosophy then only vocabulary. "As what you said, fanatics."

Damsy shifted her weight from one foot to the other, visibly nervous to ask the question that begged bubbling up in her throat. She didn't want to give herself away to anyone here, least of all a stranger. Still, something about this one exuded a measure of safety, but she couldn't shake the voice in her head telling her caution was best. Her sympathy to Darksiders like her was very nuanced - beyond easy to be misinterpreted and misunderstood by the New Jedi. She wasn't even sure Dagon really understood what little he did know of it, so she didn't discuss it in depth with him. And she played it close to her chest around everyone else too.

Actually, she didn't even play it unless she needed to.

But, with a surge of courage, she showed her first card.

"I do wonder though, Master," she assumed that title, "how many Sith today are real zealots an' how many ar' made out that way by our Archivists. Y'know, history written by the victors an' all that."

 

[Veino Garn]

Damsy Callat

Veino shrugged with half of a bitter smile, "I was half thinking of the Jedi, personally, rather than just the Sith, but you are correct in how the Jedi paint the Sith." He waited as he watched her shuffle and move to assess what she wanted to do. He didn't try to sense whatever it was, or why she might be so nervous. He just sat back and waited until she finally spoke.

When she did, Veino raised an eyebrow before nodding slowly. "That is the question, isn't it? Were the villains of the past truly so terrible as they are made to be? The extension of this question, I would guess, is if those painted as villains today are as bad as they're painted."

He paused to consider and then shrugged. "The answer to your question is one I don't know. I try to judge others solely by their actions and not by what others say of them. Is Kaine Zambrano truly evil? Well, look at his actions that have been seen and confirmed. Make your judgment from that."

Veino held up a finger though. "However, for less famous ones, the only way to learn is to meet them, speak with them, see their actions, and judge them according to that and that alone. Many Sith of today are callous and brutal killers who will do anything to achieve their goals. But then again, the New Jedi Order and Cedric Grayson may end up earning as well. But then, many Sith are not like that, and I've even met a Light-aligned Sith, just as there are many in the Jedi and Ashlans who are not that way. Actions, not words, not affiliations, and certainly not the historian's gossips, are the true measure of such things. Philosophies in and of themselves cannot be good or evil any more than ideas can be good or evil. To think otherwise leads us into mental traps where we can justify any of our actions because we are good, and therefore what we do must also be good. So the question is not if the Sith are evil, but if an individual's actions have been for good or evil. But perhaps that did not answer your question, in which case, I apologize."

 

[Damsy Callat]

"Nono, you answered it jus' fine." Damsy gave a small bow of her head, and a smile to match after. "Thank you, Mas'."

Kez made herself known, which was just as well because Damsy had nearly forgotten she was there by getting used to her weight, when she jumped into her owner's folded arms. The little dragon looked at Veino Garn and cooed curiously. Damsy took to petting her head back forward to calm her down. "But, Kaine whatdasay--Zambrano?--an' the rest?" She felt herself blush, but it would have been hard to see. "Guess I don't know much about the un-dead Sith, er, as in the ones not dead. But I do want to. And to get to judge them through my own lens.

"'Cuz I ain't really about the NJO's prefabricated one."

Such a subtle slip-up, such a small tell, that she didn't notice it hang in the air.

 

[Veino Garn]

Damsy Callat

Veino nodded with a shrug at the first response and then tilted his head as she spoke, considering. "That would be difficult, I think. Some Sith are more open to negotiations or discussion than others. But having had the misfortune of meeting Kaine, he is not one of them." Another pause as he reflected on something, "But referring to him as un-dead is an apt descriptor. He has died at least once in the past. We have records of him being killed in a duel several decades ago and a Jedi mission attempting to prevent his resurrection."

He considered for a moment and then shrugged, "Not about the NJO's policy? I can't really blame you. They do trace their heritage to Cedric Grayson and the Grayson Imperium until their merge with the Jedi of the Republic. Ryv was one of Cedric's apprentices, if my information is accurate. They have unfortunately inherited some of their predecessor's obsessive extremism." He slowed for a moment. "But I suspect that's not what you were quite referring to."

 

[Damsy Callat]

Damsy gave a shy smile, not unlike a small child whose guardian had just caught her up on the kitchen counter with her hand in the cookie jar just before dinner.

"Not specifically," she replied, confirming his suspicions that that was not exactly what she had meant. "All I've learned from class is that the Sith are evil. Their Spawn are evil." A bit of a bigger slip-up.

As if it were some sort of cue, her dark side persona thrashed out against the protective aura confining her inside Damsy's soul and masking her presence. She--Syreni--didn't manage to get free (she never did), but her effort did bleed more red tones into the cream-colored pendant.

Damsy, noticing, reached down to grab the necklace and shoved it underneath her scarf. "Y-you're right, I shouldn't be reading these tomes. I'm-I'm sorry. Excuse me..." She tried to shimmy past the Master.



**
Veino Garn
(sorry for the massive delay!)

 

[Veino Garn]

Damsy Callat

Veino shrugged and raised an eyebrow, "It's an unfortunate reality of the Jedi perspective. To them, the Light is the Force. It's the very nature of life itself- a natural form of harmony. But they forget their roots in the Je'daii who balanced both Ashla and Bogan."

Something had changed, shifted. A flicker of dark and a change of color in a pendant that was quickly tucked away and hidden. He kept his face neutral again and made no show that he indicated it.

Another shrug. "More importantly, they fail to understand the nature of life as a sentient. Light, Dark, there is no real distinction within an individual. Death is every bit as natural as life, and just as essential to the cycle of life. So are the passions that the Jedi eschew."

He considered his next words carefully. "As for all Sith being evil, or their creations, that lacks a sense of nuance again of individuals. It was Sith who drove much of the advancements in Force-based technology, as well as Force advancements. Passions are... evolution. They are growth and change. They prompt action."

Veino raised a hand to stop her. "Truth is what matters and the truth is far more complicated than many Jedi would prefer to admit. It shatters their self-concept of being inherently right or righteous, and that Sith and their constructs are fundamentally evil and permissible to be destroyed because of what they are, rather than what they choose."

He let the emphasis be on the end of that statement as he stepped back and away, to leave the option open. "It's easier to justify things you would otherwise think is wrong when you convince yourself there's something fundamentally and inherently evil about a creature. Negotiating ambiguity and accepting our own failures and weaknesses is significantly more difficult than committing one's self to the destruction of an enemy. It's one of the reason's older Jedi are much less in a hurry to take violent action. They recognize that more than younger Jedi tend to."

 

[Damsy Callat]

What they choose.

Damsy canted her head at the stranger's words. Forget reading these kinds of tomes, the NJO wouldn't have liked her having this kind of discussion with anyone, Master or not. Well, actually, if they knew what she was, they wouldn't like her anyway.

At her side, Damsy fisted a hand so tight her nails dug hard into her palm—an equivalent to pinching herself. Not once in her life had she dreamt, considering her strange but natural squaloid circadian rhythm, but she was familiar with the concept. She was told that sometimes they seemed too real, too good for their own, tending to reflect what weighed heaviest on the consciousness. Ashla knew that Damsy was spending nearly all 24 of her waking or sub-waking hours thinking over her place as a Sithspawn among Jedi. Her continuous wish to cast off her amulet, bare herself as she was, and be readily accepted for it would never come to be.

Yeah, this all had to be some intricate trick, playing into her Achilles' heel.

If not a dream, then a setup; still to good to be true. Expecting Jedi hiding behind the rows of archives should have convinced her to to stop talking, stop listening, to preserve probability of innocence, but she shrugged of either care. Conversing with this man was like drinking from an oasis spring after wandering lost in the desert; though he was not really addressing her directly, his general defense of the moral quality of the Sith and their Spawn was better than caffeine. A sip or two to keep the faith that she had been that close to letting go.

Pinpricks danced over the Shifter's waterlines.

A sound halfway between a growl and a purr reverberated from underneath Damsy's braids before Keziah scurried out across the humanoid's shoulder, then up and over. The miniature dragon puffed her cheeks and—

Damsy covered her snout with her hand, shuffling around her fingers to uncover the two little, flaring nostrils. She then swallowed thickly, having found a great deal of anxiety congealed like room-temperature oil in her throat.

"Who...who are you?"



**
Veino Garn

 

[Veino Garn]

Damsy Callat

"Who am I?" Veino clarified as he turned back to the shelves and traced a finger along the titles. It was always a delicate question. How much could he reveal? What would the risk be to his people if this NJO knew of their existence, despite the many who haddied on behalf of the previous NJO and the war against the One Sith.

But the Force suggested no warning, nor any danger, at least from this member of the order. Nor had he gleaned any large potential of a threat from Nimdok or Auteme, except as much as the Senate posed a threat to the rest of the galaxy as a whole. In his mind, such a threat was not minimal given the extent of corporate and radical influence present within the Senate.

At last, he shrugged and turned back. "Veino Garn. Saarai-Kaar of the Jensaarai. In the ancient Sith language, my title translates to Keeper of Truth, and our name translates to the Hidden Keepers of Truth. "I was one of the early supporters of the previous New Jedi Order, so you'll probably find my death record in here somewhere."

 

[Damsy Callat]

Damsy took her time processing the answer she got:

Why the hesitation? Did Jedi not typically introduce themselves to one another? Weird group, but okay.

What were those strange terms? Somehow she had not stumbled upon much Ur-Kittât for all the Sith biographies she had been reading in lonely corners of the Archives. Much more than that Vectivus one had caught her eye, though none had quite satisfied her curiosity.

Wait.

The hell...?

"...Death?" she finally asked, canting her head just so.

Hindsight engaged 20/20, Damsy was realizing what are you? would have been a much better question in multiple regards.



**
Veino Garn

 

[Veino Garn]

Damsy Callat

Veino steepled his fingers and leaned back in the chair with a nod, “It was a necessary decision after the previous Galactic Alliance shattered, when the galactic purges began and Jedi were hunted across the galaxy. I took a drug to fake death, had it recorded and legitimized, and then Underground operatives smuggled me back to the Outer Rim.”

He leaned forward and rested his hands on the table. “We broke away from the Jedi during the ancient Clone Wars because of the corruption and blindness led to dissatisfaction, and our founders used ancient Sith records to create something new. They became the Jensaarai, using both Jedi and Sith abilities and teachings to protect our little moon and hide from both Palpatine’s Empire and the Republic Jedi before they were killed. Later, we joined Skywalker’s New Jedi Order, but maintained our own identity.”