Populate The Legend of Set and Veré: Palinode [THR Populate of Cyrillia]

[Aiden Porte]

Within the Worlds of Worlds
Inside the Portal due to events in: The Legend of Set and Veré: Epistrophe

Sibylla Abrantes Ala Quin
​

The last remnants of the vision peeled away like mist at sunrise. The temple's golden light dimmed, dissolving into strands of memory that drifted upward and vanished. Aiden stood motionless, the echo of what he saw in Vizion Trozky and Runa Trozky sight began to fade in his mind as the weight of the Embrace released him.

For a moment, there was silence then a flicker, a shimmer of movement at the edge of his awareness. He turned just in time to see Sibylla, her form ghostly and blurred, standing beside Set. The two of them were locked in conversation. Relief coursed through him at the sight of her upright, breathing, alive. But before he could reach for her again, the world shifted once more. Then they were gone swept away like the last echo of a dream.

Aiden blinked once. And when he opened his eyes again, the world had changed.

Light, real, soft, and alive had filtered through a canopy of trees. The air was bright with laughter, the kind that comes only from peace honestly earned. He knew this place, though perhaps not yet the time: a meadow on Naboo, where wildflowers rolled down toward the lake. The wars had stopped for a time. The galaxy was breathing again.

Roman was the first he saw leaning against a low stone wall, sleeves rolled up, sun catching in his hair as he argued good-naturedly with a vendor over the price of something trivial. His grin was easy, unburdened, the kind Aiden hadn't seen on him in years.

Further down the path, Lorn and Ala sat beneath a tree, Ala's head resting on Lorn's shoulder as they shared a datapad and soft laughter. Their fingers were intertwined, their peace unspoken but complete.

Beyond them, Isla and Philip walked together along the water's edge. She said something, animated, gesturing toward the horizon. Philip's hand brushed hers, steadying her mid-gesture, his eyes warm. They looked utterly content two souls who had found the quiet at the end of chaos.

Aiden stood apart from them, watching. There was no ache this time, no sense of distance. Only warmth. The Force rippled gently through the moment, not as a warning or a call to arms, but as a song of balance. Every thread he had fought to protect every fragile life, was still shining.

He exhaled, a slow, grateful breath. The scent of grass and river wind filled his lungs. For once, he let himself smile—small, tired, but real.

"Maybe this is what it was all for." he murmured.

Hope endures. But what about you.....?

I fight for them, and I always will. Just like you did.....

The meadow shimmered again, light bending and folding, not to pull him away but to seal the memory in his heart. And before the vision faded completely, he heard laughter Roman's, bright and unrestrained and it stayed with him as the world dissolved into dawn.

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

​

Within the Worlds of Worlds
Inside the Portal due to events in: The Legend of Set and Veré: Epistrophe
Aiden Porte Ala Quin

The world snapped.

The thread between her and Set dissolved in a burst of golden light that tore through her like a wave. One moment Set's shadowed form stood before her with that unbearable sorrow clawing through the air, and then the next he was gone. The darkness ripped backward as if swallowed by the void that had birthed it.

Sibylla gasped as her knees hit stone, and she felt the taste of metallic copper coating her tongue, her heart hammering as the emptiness left in his wake, hands and fingers clawing forward on the ground as she shuddered. She tried to speak but couldn't breathe.

Then the world shifted again.

The cold was replaced by warmth, a summer breeze, and the scent of grass.

Sibylla lifted her head slowly, her dazed eyes blinking against the sudden brightness. She wasn't in the stone cabin anymore. Or Katabasis. Or even the shadow of Set's grief.

She was in a meadow.

The light here was soft, alive, with the sound of leaves stirring gently overhead and the sound of laughter being carried on the wind.

And that's when Sibyla saw him.

Aiden.

He stood across the clearing, sunlight painting his hair in soft golden light, his expression calm in a way she hadn't seen on the Jedi Knight since they started this expedition.

"Aiden," she whispered, but it seemed as if the name didn't reach him. Or maybe he couldn't hear her.

He didn't turn. He couldn't hear her.

The laughter of friends, the whisper of wind, the rustle of leaves, all of it sang with a quiet truth. This was peace. This was what they had fought for.

It was beautiful. Too beautiful.

And yet, it was not hers to touch.

"Maybe this is what it was all for," she heard him murmur, his soft words carrying faintly on the wind as the air shimmered around him, the golden light folding in on itself. The scene began to dissolve, the laughter fading, the edges of the meadow curling like paper touched by flame.

"I fight for them," Sibylla heard Aiden whisper, "And I always will. Just like you did."

The last thing Sibylla heard was laughter. When the light vanished and the silence returned, she realized her cheeks were wet. She wiped them absently, not sure if the tears were hers or remnants of the vision's peace.

But the feeling that lingered was unmistakable.

Hope.

 

[Lorn Reingard]

Tags: Cali Ziiva | Ala Quin

Vision 4​

Lorn stood still, shoulders tight as Cali spoke. Much of what she said washed over him. Words like "machine" and "time" felt thin, distant, trying to force logic into a place where none existed. His brow furrowed. Confusion flickered in his amber eyes. He wanted to understand, but his thoughts kept swirling around the hollow ache in his chest.

"I'm okay," he said quietly, his voice rough. "Just trying to make sense of it all." His gaze dropped to the floor for a moment before lifting to meet hers. "But I'm glad you're here, Cali. Whatever this is, we'll get through it. Thank you for staying with us."

The words were sincere, stripped of the usual armor he wore. He wasn't sure if this was the surreal calm before the next wave, or if he simply lacked the strength to hide anymore.

Then the temperature shifted. The light dimmed. That low hum started again, a vibration he felt more than heard, deep in the floor, in his bones. Lorn's jaw tightened as color began to drain from the room. The cloud was returning. He gave Cali a sidelong look, his lips curving into a grim smirk. "Guess this isn't over. I'll see you soon."

The world dissolved.

When it rebuilt itself, it was with the soft rush of wind and the smell of wildgrass. Sunlight spilled gold across an open field, rolling green hills leading up to the snow-capped Hollund Mountains. The air was crisp, familiar. It filled his lungs like the first breath after drowning.

Home.

A faint smile ghosted across his face. For a moment, the ache in his chest eased. He turned slowly, taking it all in: the distant peaks, the rippling fields, the way light caught the river below. It was exactly as he remembered. That familiarity frightened him more than comforted him.

Then he saw the headstone. Lorn's breath caught. He hadn't placed it here yet, but he knew it was his hand that would. The engraving was blurred, unreadable, yet he recognized the sorrow etched into the ground. He sank to one knee, fingers brushing the cool surface.

"I miss you," he whispered. "Master, I wish I had your guidance."

Silence stretched, heavy but not empty. Then, pressure. A presence behind him, like a shift in the wind that didn't belong. He rose slowly, turning. Set stood a few paces away, his eyes dark and unreadable. A faint red shimmer of power coiled around him. The two men regarded each other in stillness, the grass swaying between them.

Finally, Set's voice cut the quiet, smooth and sharp as glass. "Everyone seems to die around you, Jedi." Lorn's jaw flexed, but he said nothing. Set's gaze sharpened. "Nothing will stop me from finding Veré."

The answer came low and steady, a steel edge behind the grief. "And nothing will stop me from finding Ala."

They stood locked in that moment, two unyielding wills meeting in silence. The mist began to gather again. The wind stilled. The field faded. As the smoke rolled in, the last thing visible were their eyes: unmoving, unbroken, staring each other down through the dark.

 

[Ala Quin]

Ala spun about, the shimmering portal to the World Between Worlds faded, as did the image of the beleaguered goddess. The small Jedi's heart sunk. She did not know what Veré was going to do exactly. But it felt like a moment of great sacrifice was upon them all.

"Lorn?"

She looked about the dark chamber, and found no one present with her. "LORN!?" Nothing.

The machine before her was lifeless. She examined it, hunting for a clue on how to make it work. Veré needed something of it, or her. Perhaps it was also a way to rescue Lorn.

◯ ◎ ⊚ THE WORLD BETWEEN WORLDS ⊚ ◎ ◯
VISION FIVE​

The goddess stood beside a different two-dimensional portal in the plain between realities. It's image shifted to an ancient groto. Just before she stepped through, she turned to look upon the Jedi that had manifested at her side. "Young one. What I do...I do for all of you, my children."

She moved through the rippling face of the portal and stepped into the scene. The goddess looked upon a moment she had replayed for millennia. Her last moment with her beloved Set.

A dark shadow loomed over her left shoulder. It was him. Or...what he had become.

"Beloved," said the gravelly voice of the ancient Force deity known as Set, but resembling him no longer.

"You have found me."

"So many hours. So many days...let me..."

Veré withdrew from his approaching touch.

"Why do you flee, Veré? My love?" He hissed, shadow looming larger as his oily mass grew in its malevolent visage.

"I do not recognise you," she said, voice shaken of its moorings and adrift in her grief.

"It is I! Can you not see? I have come for you...we can be together again," he said, whilst his very presence brought an unnatural storm upon the memory of this ancient parting. Veré's hair blew uncontrollably, shrouding her face from his view, hiding her tears.

"It is your soul...I no longer recognise," she said, amidst his raging torrent of wind. The two ancient versions of themselves turned, and looked at the storm that brewed, they clung to one another in fear. The memory crystallised in the mind of today's goddess even as she looked upon her ancient self. "What is you purpose?"

"My purpose! My purpose is as it always has been! You! You are my purpose! And the destruction of those that would see you taken from me," roared an unworldly voice, echoing in the very bones of all who could hear. In the distance, a small band of ancient Nabooian's gathered, and pushed towards the two ancient forms of Set and Veré. This was the moment that would part them forever. This...was Katabasis.

Rocks pulled up from the ground, mountains, spires, shards of rock forming tunnels and crypts. A sink hole formed between two large outcroppings, the one on which they now stood and a dark spiral of rock at the far end of the valley. The green, lush world was corrupted, torn apart as the soul of the wounded Set transformed the world about them.

"The planet always showed your heart...my love...look...at what it has become," Veré whispered, but the storm washed away her words.

She walked towards her ancient self, embraced by her dearest Set. Their eyes looked at the present day goddess in horror, understanding what this moment was. What this moment had always been. The goddesses dimmed their light, fragmented, and became dust...and slowly reformed again...the Veré of past and present in one. Her eyes looked upon her Set, full of longing, full of dreams unfulfilled.

"I tried to change it. My love. But no matter how many times I do this...no matter how many times I replay this story...you always fall to shadow," she said, tone resigned to the reality of their plight.

Set understood. He held her. "How many times have you been back to this moment?"

"Untold thousands."

He held her tighter. "Your love is fulfilled, Veré...no more...it is time." He had made that same plea after the first time through the loop. He had loved her so much that he did not want her to do this more than once. If only he knew...if only he understood...that thousands...was too small a word.

The crowd approached. The mob that would activate the device, rip her from him, and imprison them in their moments of love and grief. "It cannot be changed," she said, finally...truly crying.

The mob yelled into the wind as the demon that was the Set of now ripped apart the once lush world of Katabasis, all present were near unto their demise. They activated the device.

Set handed her a small dagger. And she pressed it into his side. He faded, the poison acting quickly. She dropped to her knees. The device whirred. Set died. A goddess wept.

Ala had lifted the orb back onto the pedestal. As she did, she felt a grief so overwhelming, that she collapsed against the stone structure of the Heart of Descent. She couldn't do it...it was wrong...but...

Trust your heart. Your mind will call it madness.

"She set him free..."

The runes around the device glowed, illuminating Ala's face as her eyes grew wide. Her palm slammed down on a thrumming rune, and it depressed into the device. The orb pulsed, energy pushed out, throwing Ala back and off her feet.

And the goddess was imprisoned...in her moment of grief.

| Outfit: xxx | Tag: Lorn Reingard Bastila Sal-Soren Aiden Porte Sibylla Abrantes Cali Ziiva |

TIME TO MAKE YOUR ESCAPE FROM THE WORLD BETWEEN WORLDS​

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

​

Veruna Tower
Naboo


The air fractured as the rune's activation on the orb sent a domino effect outward, resulting in the echoing pulse of that heartbreaking selfless sacrifice.

A soundless cry tore through the void, a resonance that was neither heard nor seen but felt, rippling through every bone, thought, and piece of Sibylla that still remembered what it meant to love, grieve, and endure.

Sibylla staggered forward as the world began to unravel around her. It was as if light and time were twisting into ribbons of pure energy, each strand vibrating with the agony of the seal's collapse. The echoes of Vere's sacrifice lanced outward, wrapping the chamber in sound, sorrow, hope, and ruin alike.

Then came the falling.

Not through space, but through time. Through fragments of memory and half formed thought. She saw glimpses: Cassian's smile, Lysander's bruised hands, Aurelian's fiery eyes beneath the glow of Naboo's sun, all slipping away like reflections on water.

Grief and light blended until she could not tell which one she was.

Then she was home.

The impact drove a sharp hiss of pain and the breath from her lungs as Sibylla crashed onto the polished floor of the small library alcove. The air was still, the silence heavy, and all sense of reality and surreal blended into a confusing vertigo as the aftershock of the cries of heartbreak faded into a whisper.

Slowly, she lifted her head.

The sanctuary of Veruna Tower surrounded her, the scent of filmsi and polished wood barely overlapping the faint scent of wildflowers from the meadow she had been in. The statues of Vere and Set sat on the pedestal beside the piano, bathed in the last remnants of the divine resonance that had carried her here. Their carved visages glowed faintly, gold and blue light weaving between them like the heartbeat of a dying star.

Sibylla's vision blurred. The glow pulsed once, soft, sorrowful, and then dimmed, the light fading into stillness.

And then everything went dark.

~ exit post ~​

 

[Lorn Reingard]

Tags: Ala Quin

Vision 5​

The world bent around him again. When the blur cleared, he stood on Naboo. Birdsong drifted through the air, delicate and bright, mingling with the gentle murmur of a stream. The smell of wet stone and fresh-cut wood filled his lungs. His house, their house, stood complete now, sunlight spilling over pale stone. Green ivy climbed its walls. A breeze moved through the tall grass like fingertips brushing skin. For a moment, everything felt impossibly still.

Then he heard it. Laughter.

Across the field, Ala and Isla darted between the trees, their skirts brushing dew from the wildflowers. Isla's hair caught the light, a burnette streak in motion. Ala's laugh, rich and free, carried through the air. The sound hit him like sunlight after years of storm. Lorn's entire soul smiled. Every line of tension in his body melted away. He just stood there, drinking in the simple joy, the life that could have been, or perhaps would be. It didn't matter which. For a heartbeat, peace lived in him again.

Then the world trembled.

It started as a distant rumble. Then the air itself began to warp and twist. The sky fractured like glass. Lorn didn't even flinch. He just exhaled, a faint huff of weary amusement. "Here we go again…"

The world exploded inward.

He was thrown hard, the impact slamming him against cold stone. The warmth vanished, replaced by the biting chill of Katabasis. The smell of rot filled his lungs. Dust rained down. Lorn groaned, pushing himself upright, vision swimming. The chamber of the Heart loomed around him once more. And Ala was there. The air hummed with the aftershock of power. Grief hung heavy enough to choke on.

He didn't hesitate. Lorn moved to her, his boots scraping across the cracked floor. He dropped beside her, his hand finding her shoulder. "Ala…"

She looked at him, eyes wide, haunted by what she'd seen. He didn't ask. He didn't need to. What she'd witnessed and felt was tearing her apart. He slipped an arm around her, pulling her close, steadying her against his chest. His voice was quiet, rough with concern, but firm.

"It's over," he murmured. "You did what you had to. It's time to go."

For a moment she resisted, trembling, her hands still clutched tight around nothing. He pressed his forehead lightly to hers, grounding her. "Hey," he whispered. "You're not alone anymore. Come on."

Around them, the device still pulsed faintly, its runes glowing with the fading light of a god's sorrow. But Lorn's focus never left Ala.

-Exit-

 

[Aiden Porte]

​

The Force folded in on itself as Aiden watched the vision unfold before him not as a man, but as something caught between breath and eternity. The air was heavy with divine memory; he could feel it ripple through his bones, ancient and sorrowful. He stood at the edge of that collapsing world, where the goddess knelt, her tears burning trails of light into the dying soil.

Aiden took a breath, the air thick with dust and holiness. The world of Katabasis lay broken before him a planet sundered by devotion, its soil soaked in the remnants of gods who had loved too deeply. And yet… amid the ruin, the faintest stirrings of renewal began to shimmer. Tiny motes of green light rose where Veré's tears had fallen, fragile but unyielding.

He closed his eyes, letting the moment move through him.

Even divinity breaks beneath love's weight, he thought. But from that breaking, life begins again.

When he opened his eyes, the goddess was gone, her form dispersed into the ether. Only the whisper of her vow lingered a promise carried by the wind.

Aiden knelt, placing a hand over the scarred ground where she had wept. The Force thrummed faintly beneath his palm sorrow, yes, but also forgiveness.

The world between worlds shimmered around him a place without beginning or end, where time drifted like dust in a sunbeam. The last fragments of Katabasis faded into silence, and Aiden found himself standing in the calm that followed creation's grief. The light here was soft, alive, refracting in every direction as though the Force itself were breathing.

He felt her before he saw her.

A warmth he hadn't known in years. The air trembled, and then she was there.

Esme Volcaine.

Her outline formed like a memory reawakened: sunlight through autumn leaves, a face that time itself had failed to erase. Her eyes were the same deep, patient, and full of the quiet strength that had always steadied him.

Aiden didn't speak. He couldn't. His breath caught somewhere between disbelief and surrender.

She smiled that soft, knowing smile that had undone him once before and closed the distance between them. Her arms wrapped around him, and for an instant, every scar, every battle, every ache was gone. All that remained was the rhythm of her heartbeat against his chest.

"I've missed you." she whispered, her voice carrying like music through the endless expanse. "More than I ever let myself admit. You carried so much for everyone else… and I just wanted you to rest."

His hands trembled as he returned the embrace, fingers brushing the curve of her back, afraid she might dissolve if he held her too tightly. "Esme." he said, her name a prayer. "I...." His voice cracked. "Can you ever forgive me?"

She drew back just enough to look at him, her hand rising to his cheek. Her touch was warm impossibly real. "Oh, Aiden." she murmured, eyes glistening with light that wasn't quite tears. "There was never anything to forgive. You gave everything you had even the part of you that should have been yours to keep."

He closed his eyes, pressing his forehead to hers. The Force rippled between them, a tide of love and sorrow intertwined, infinite and merciful.

"I loved you." she said, voice barely above a whisper. "I still do. And wherever the Force carries you next… I'll be there, in the quiet places, in the light that waits after the storm."

Aiden drew in a shaky breath. The world around them began to shimmer, stars bending into the familiar pattern of the exit archway. He didn't want to let go but he understood, finally, that love wasn't meant to be clung to. It was meant to guide.

He opened his eyes, and she smiled again the same smile that once made the galaxy feel small enough to hold.

"Go." she said softly. "Live what remains. And believe Aiden, truly believe."

Light enveloped her, and when it receded, she was gone. But the warmth stayed not as memory, but as presence.

And when Aiden stepped through the final portal, leaving the world between worlds behind, he carried her forgiveness like a star burning quietly in his heart.

-thread exit-​