Jor Kvall
Ain't found a way to kill me yet
Inside Kalevala there ticks a clock
Or perhaps a heart.
The dead sand is time,
Stratified like waves on a shore.
-Clan Kvall folk song
After assuming leadership of his clan, Jor did not think he would return to Kalevala so soon. The planet he had spent his childhood on was dead to him from the moment he left; dead like the memories of Clan Kvall's woeful years spent here. And it was still just as dead when he returned now. The Clan had, quite literally, moved on to the greener pastures of Krownest, their ancestral homeland, leaving the exhausted, lifeless soil of Kalevala behind for good. But as men cannot be severed from their past, so Jor could not be severed from this planet.Kalevala was more than just a neighbor of his people's capital in the Mandalore system. This planet was a stark reminder of not only Jor's family journey, but also the brutality of Mandalorian history. If there was once a time where the sand under Jor's feet harbored life, neither he nor his furthest-known ancestors had ever seen it. Mandalore had not been the only casualty of warfare in those ancient times; Kalevala too suffered, and still sat decrepit, extinguished and neglected. The Mandalorian Resource Wars only further desiccated the already flayed husk of this planet, its light burned out by wars with the Jedi millenia prior. Kalevala was truly the grimmest stain in the Mandalore system, for it was a melancholy ode to not only his people's failure on the battlefield, but a failure to protect and maintain their way of life. It was a reminder that, ultimately, the current course of the galaxy was unsustainable.
As Jor watched the dropships of his people arrive, he leaned down to feel the white sand of his childhood memories between his fingers again. In his teenage years he had hated every moment spent on this dried-up rock, and yet now that he was Clan leader, he found himself right back where he'd started, voluntarily. Perhaps it was his intimate experience with this planet that had made him come back; his determination to clear the blemishes of his people's past, and not just his own Clan's. He hated every speck of toxic sand on this planet, yet he loved the ball of dust more than he could imagine. It was the only home he'd known for much of his life.
He was determined to bring life back to Kalevala, to wash away the polluted white sands and breathe mountains, forests and lakes onto its surface once again. To his surprise, [member="Yasha Mantis"] herself had heeded his call, and the resources of the Mandalorian Empire were directed towards Mandalore's forgotten sister planet. Jor looked behind and watched the dropships continue to land. In all his years here, he had never seen Kalevala's atmosphere bustling with quite so much activity as now. RID was already hard at work resuscitating the dead sands and lifeless winds.
Soon, Jor thought, funneling the sand from his gloved hand back to the ground again, Soon you will have a heartbeat again.
[member="Gray Raxis"] [member="Alkor Centaris"] [member="Kista Bralor"] [member="Zelen"]
~OOC Thread~