Private The Shadow That Consumes the Past

[Darth Prazutis]

Darkness descended upon the Sith Holy World of Ziost, but it wasn't the slow creeping of dusk, nor the lifeless stillness that long since claimed this graveyard of the past, of Sith ambition, but something far worse. It came as a great shadow that swallowed all before it, a black tide of unrelenting dominion. It didn't slither or creep, it marched, inexorable, absolute, and the world itself recoiled before it. Storms howled across the ruins of ancient empires; their icy claws raked the stone remnants of a world abandoned by the living. All across the landscape were twisted, skeletal husks of shattered temples that jutted from the frozen wastes like broken fangs. The once mighty forms they possessed now stood as hollow testaments to power lost. Statues of the ancient Lords of the Sith were everywhere, they were weathered and half buried in ice, standing as nameless sentinels to an empire that crumbled beneath the weight of its own ambition. Above the sky churned in violent defiance, a writhing maelstrom of blackened clouds took shape, it burned bright with the wrath of the dark side. Forks of crimson lightning shot through the heavens, their illumination revealed ruined monoliths of the past, and the giant that now approached them.

A titan of shadow emerged from within, his very presence suffocated the air itself. Darth Prazutis, Dark Lord of the Sith, Shadow Hand of the Kainate, and Sovereign of Dromund Kaas. He didn't walk, he strode, a force of nature given form, the very ground trembled beneath his heel. A suit of massive, obsidian war plate reflected the storm's light in jagged streams, his long black cloak trailed behind him like the shadowy visage of a world killer. The air around him was simply wrong, heavy, crushing, thick with the scent of death and the weight of inevitability. The fury of the storm bent to him, yet it wouldn't dare to touch him. The cold had no dominion over him. When he moved the ice cracked beneath his boot, the ground itself yielded before the inexorable will of the Dark Lord. It was through the ruins of a forgotten empire he strode, wasting away in the throes of times crushing grip, and at their center was the throne of Naga Sadow. A huge, jagged seat of obsidian blackness, worn by the toil of millenia, the ancient seat of a dead emperor had loomed like an unspoken challenge. It tasted the fresh spilt blood, witnessed Sith Lords rise and fall, it felt both the weight of dominion and the disgrace of failure. Over time the ice had claimed it, wrapping its arms around the throne like a corpse unwilling to be exhumed.

Darth Prazutis did not bow before the past. He consumed it. He raised a gauntleted hand. A terrible crack split the air that rang deeper than thunder, more final than even the storm above. The ice shattered into an exlosion of black shards, fragments of frost and ancient stone cascaded across the floor like a thousand glass knives launched towards its prey. The throne was freed. But the Dark Lord did not sit. He didn't need to. His burning, sulfuric gaze swept across the ruins, and the Force itself whispered recognition to him. The echoes of long dead Sith stirred from within the cracked stone, their voices carried on the wind mocking, wary, afraid even. They better be. A silence overtook everything then, heavier than the collapse of dynasties, heavier than the weight of history itself. The storm aroun them raged, the ruins groaning beneath the pounding winds. But within the temple, there wasn't an army of attendants, guards following his every step. And he wated. The Tsis'Kaar would soon come. Darth Malum would arrive in due time, and the détente would begin. But here, beneath the blood-black sky of Ziost, among the corpses of the long dead, only one thing mattered.

The Sith do not meet as equals.

Darth Malum of House Marr ​

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

The power of the Force to wound Fate and Destiny around its spinning wheel, like some yarn crafted towards the majesty of absolute creation and will, was most often a subtle expression. Yet, two meetings, with perhaps two of the greatest Sith of the century, on Ziost of all places, within such a short time between each other.

To call that subtle would have been... generous.

Black boots stepped across the blackstone, as a masked face considered all that was present. Thunderous roars heralding the cracking of crimson lightning bolts shattered across the sky, as the dark clouds circled, the first rains beginning to fall, as Malum trudged through one of the many ruins that littered Ziost.

It was a sobering thought that some of their greatest accomplishments had been centuries ago, millennia ago, and all that remained of such greatness had been ground down into dust and ash. But, it was perhaps an intoxicating thought, that centuries hence, millennia since, that such evidence of their presence, that proof of their glories, in ruins, yes... but still here.

Even defeat, utter defeat, brought to the very brink of annihilation, centuries of humiliation, and millennia of being forgotten, their existence wiped away from the memory of the living.

Here it all stood.

Here they all stood.

Together. For all that the Sith were almost.... designed for infighting, their natures twisting around to strike about them, whether they were friend or foe, and altogether disbelieving of the concept of friend. Each and every time, rallying about their Emperor, their Dark Lord, they always pulled themselves from the dirt.

Stood defiant, against a galaxy that would bid them ill.

It was in the spirit of such things that he had come here, the first meeting on Ziost had been of apology, of learning, of consideration. This meeting... it was of detente.

The armour rankled, dark plate and metal hugging his form, as ever he stood tall, as ever every step felt the epicentre of quakes, titanic in nature, and expression. Red eyes masked behind the replica face of his most arch ancestor adjusted to the darkness of the foreboding fortress, the spectre of the one within, not even attempting to hide himself.

It suited Malum well.

The Prince of Darkness, for once, was not hidden amongst the shadows. He was a beacon that shone against the light.

"...Darth Prazutis, it has been too long since we last spoke." The serpentine drawl of Tsis'Kaar noble echoed along hallway, lightning thundering against the rooftop, as the Dark Councillor emerged into the throneroom.

Darth Prazutis
Mentioned: Taeli Raaf

 

[Darth Prazutis]

The storm raged as if in answer to the Dark Councilor's words. Black clouds devoured the vaulted sky in ever-tightening gyres, and for a heartbeat, the broken world seemed poised to split under the tension. Then, as Darth Malum's final step carried him into the throne hall, something shifted. The air didn't settle. It yielded. It was not peace. It was an accommodation, one presence so vast, so inexorable, that the storm itself deferred to it. The shattered columns groaned. Ancient obsidian slabs seemed to sink under the gathering gravity. The dark side pooled here, it was thick and ponderous, as if reality itself strained to contain the will of the being at its heart. The Shadow Hand didn't immediately respond. He didn't need to.

For a prolonged period of time, the giant merely observed. The cracked dais beneath his boots bore the old sigils of Naga Sadow's rule, they were both half-erased, and half-defiant. It was in the glare of each crimson lightning fork, that it became clear which mark had replaced them: the emblem of the Kainate, burned into the stone like the aftermath of a great branding. When he finally spoke, the sound didn't echo. Echoes implied that the words could dissipate. These could not. "Too long." The Dark Lord of the Sith agreed, his voice a slow continental shift, black iron drawn across glass. "But inevitability is patient." The Shadow Hand's gaze, molten, depthless, took in the armored figure before him. No curiosity. No scrutiny. It was only the measured confirmation of a Sovereign considering a petitioner who had finally stepped fully into the open.


"You stand where empires fell." Prazutis continued, his tone stripped of all pretenses. "You call it detente. An end to intrigues. A foundation of mutual interest." Lightning detonated across the vaulted remains overhead, throwing both their shadows into monstrous scale across the frost limned walls. "But you and I both know this truth." The giant's gauntleted hand lifted, gesturing to the desolate ruins around them. "Peace is not our inheritance. Only the management of conflict. That is what the galaxy has never understood. It believes the Sith break because we are divided. But division is our crucible."

The giants hand fell back to his side with the sound of an executioner's blade seating into the block. "You propose an end to these indulgences." A pause. The darkness seemed to breathe with him. "You will have no quarrel from me on that ambition." He inclined his head a fraction, massive silhouette framed by the blighted throne as if the ruin itself acknowledged him. "I will hear your terms." Then, just the faintest narrowing of his gaze, and the temperature in the hall seemed to drop another degree. "But understand this, Malum." Each syllable struck the air like the tolling of a funeral bell: "The Kainate does not forget. The last empire that presumed to bend its hand to hidden strings lies entombed beneath our feet. You ask for an end to intrigue, good. I expect your word to match your reach." A final moment of absolute stillness passed, just the two of them, the throne, the bones of millennia. "Speak." the Dark Lord commanded, quiet and final. "Let this accord be more than another edifice of ambition left to decay."

Darth Malum of House Marr ​

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

He could appreciate that the Once-Emperor held his tongue, that otherwise might have so desperately wished to whip out in painful fury. It was change that he had begun to enjoy most of all from the cadre of great Sith that existed of this age... though some of them were old enough to be of the previous. There was no mockery in the thought, no sense of superiority, simply a marked pleasure. It was not as if he had grown to a power that overshadowed them.

But it seemed that a certain progress had been made, that the new shadow had been noticed by older eyes.

That the new shadow could not be ignored any longer.

The weight of the environs was felt in every breath that passed through his masked lips, an idle wonderment if it was simply this giant Darth's presence that seemed to have the environment wish so desperately to be anywhere than around him, or if it was his own will that commanded the environment in such a manner. Both would be impressive outcomes.

Both entirely performative.

Surrounded by giants as he was, standing atop their shoulders as it were, it had been intriguing to bare witness in all the manners in which they displayed their strengths. T- Darth Arcanix provided nothing, indeed, in a strange enough manner it was as if her wish was to not even be counted amongst the greats of their age, simply existing, out of the limelight as much as she could, to conduct her experiments. K- Darth Carnifex was different, but not entirely so, there was little performance in his acts, simply a knowledge, an unsaid certainty, that any who crossed across his path knew exactly who he was, knew to fear, acting in such a manner beyond which was even laughably the norm - for one whom had bore the Imperial crown twice? What was norm? Virtue? Morality? Principle? Ethic?

B- Darth Prazutis was different again, there was no hiding him, either by his existence or his will, he would let any who approached him know his prodigal strength.

He flicked a masked gaze upon the old symbols of Naga Sadow's rule, wiped away and covered by a banner those across the galaxy knew. A wave of displeasure glancing across his features, as the manufactured silence bore on, as the thunder broke across the air, and the lightning made art of their forms across the wall.

Did he expect the one who butchered Mo- Mandalore with one hand, and rebuilt Dromund Kaas with the other, to have a care for history?

His masked red gaze looked to the titanic being as the first words left him, "A crucible has much possibility to break us, as it does achieve our strength. I do not disagree with your words, peace is after all a lie, but our wars should be taking place outside of our borders, not within them, lest again our subjects rise against us." It had been at Bastion that it had occured the last time, he wondered how long those crushed underfoot by the weight of implaccable giants could wait before they could take no more.

Perhaps Alvaria would be where the revolution would burn hottest.

He raised an eyebrow at the offer to put his terms forth first, Malum had learned from Darth Carnifex to take the boon when it was offered, "I require the support of the Kainite in matters political, economic, and military. I seek to build an armada capable of fighting our true enemy deep within their Core, I would rather focus my attention upon this true war, rather than what accountings, insults, and skirmishes are taking place back in the homeland. Furthermore, I have reforms I would wish to see passed through the Sith-Imperial Assembly, I admit that it shall take both our factions working together to see any progress come of it."

He tilted his head, "In return, I offer what was offered to Darth Carnifex, bread and salt, the end of the war in the shadows, and that the Tsis'Kaar will share our intelligence and information with the Saaraishash, as long as such agreement is reciprocally made."

Darth Prazutis
Mentioned: Darth Carnifex Taeli Raaf