First Reply The Things We Leave in Ash

[Daxen Vane]

THE CROWN OF ASH

DAXEN VANE

Nagi had a way of making the years feel inconsequential. The mountains remained unchanged, their jagged peaks cutting into the sky, and the dry wind still carried dust through the narrow valleys. From the viewport of his transport, Daxen watched the abandoned village come into view, its familiar structures reduced to broken silhouettes against the stone.

He had not been back since his parents died. There had been little reason to return. The village had emptied in the months following their deaths, its remaining inhabitants scattering elsewhere until there was no one left to maintain it. Daxen had been taken away to begin his training, and whatever memories he carried of the place had gradually become tangled with the circumstances that forced him to leave.

Still, he had come.

His transport settled beyond the village, stirring dust around its landing struts. Daxen stepped onto the ground and made his way through the deserted settlement, passing cracked frameworks and partially collapsed dwellings. He recognized more than he expected to, though the familiarity offered little comfort. Here, he remembered a neighbor who had complained about the noise. There, a narrow path where he had once raced ahead of his parents. The memories came uninvited, and he kept walking.

He found his childhood home near the far end of the settlement. The entrance hung crookedly, and broken stone littered the threshold. Inside, dust coated what remained of the furnishings, most of which had long since succumbed to the elements. Daxen moved through the ruined room until his attention caught on several blackened gouges across the far wall.

Lightsaber strikes.

He approached them, studying the scorched stone. The marks were weathered, but their edges remained unmistakable. He had seen enough lightsaber damage during his training to recognize it immediately. For a moment, he tried to imagine the room as it had been that night. Where had the Sith Lord stood? Had his parents been together? Had either of them attempted to fight back?

His jaw tightened. He had spent years wondering about the details, filling the gaps in his memory with possibilities that offered no answers. Now he stood where it had happened, with the evidence in front of him, and still knew almost nothing.

The man responsible had walked away. Perhaps he had barely given the encounter another thought. Daxen's parents might have been nothing more than two insignificant obstacles in the course of an otherwise unremarkable evening. The possibility angered him more than he cared to admit.

He had devoted himself to becoming stronger, endured his training, and learned to turn humiliation into determination. Yet the Sith Lord who had killed his parents remained somewhere beyond his reach, alive and untroubled, while Daxen had been left to make something of the life that remained.

His fingers curled into a fist.

The Force stirred around him. Dust lifted from the floor, and loose fragments of stone shivered against the walls. Daxen's gaze remained fixed on the scorch marks, the years of anger and loss pressing against the discipline he had worked so hard to cultivate. He could not undo what had happened or bring his parents back. Nor could he make their killer understand what he had taken.

But he could destroy what remained.

Daxen thrust out his arm. The Force struck a damaged support with a sharp crack, splitting the stone and sending the weakened framework lurching inward. He struck again, tearing through the brittle supports as anger surged through him. The roof groaned overhead before collapsing into the room, sending debris crashing across the floor.

He did not stop. With another sweep of his hand, he ripped apart the remaining section of the wall. The column bearing the lightsaber scars broke beneath the impact, its blackened surface disappearing beneath a cascade of stone. Dust billowed through the ruins, swallowing the room until little remained standing.

At last, Daxen lowered his arm. Pebbles rattled down the rubble, and the wind carried dust through the broken entrance. He stood amid the wreckage, breathing harder than he would have liked. The house was gone, along with the marks that had drawn him inside, but the anger remained.

He had imagined many things over the years, most of them involving the Sith Lord himself. This was no substitute for revenge, and Daxen knew it. The man who had killed his parents would never know what had happened here, much less care. Still, Daxen did not regret it. There had been nothing left to preserve, and destroying the house had been preferable to standing helplessly before the evidence of his own powerlessness.

He brushed the dust from his sleeve and turned away. His transport had departed some time ago, but that presented little difficulty. He had become someone whose summons would be answered, and the pilot would return when called. Before reaching for his communicator, Daxen glanced back at the remains of the settlement, taking in the broken structures and the home he had reduced to rubble.

He would carry the anger with him. The loss, too. Neither had diminished with time, and he had no intention of allowing either to fade into something manageable. The Sith Lord had known exactly what became of the child he'd taken from Nagi. He had brought Daxen to the Academy himself, setting him on the path that had made him an acolyte of the very order he now served. Whatever his reasons had been, Daxen had never mistaken that act for kindness.

When they met again, the Sith Lord would face the consequences of what he had done. Daxen owed him no gratitude for the training, no loyalty for the years that followed, and certainly no forgiveness for the deaths of his parents. He intended to repay that debt in blood and death.

Tag: Open to First Reply

 

[Maestus]

Nagi was one planet on a list that the Directorate of Advanced Technological Industries had deemed worth exploring for expansion sites, with one recent purchase in the finalization stages. The company has sat patient for decades, while Maestus, the publicly silent majority owner, has diverted more of the general focus towards R&D while minimizing their ship building. Over the years, her travels have taken her across the galaxy, and she's had the good fortune to become aware of animal and plant species that would have remained otherwise unknown to her. Nagi is a planet she's only recently begun to become aware of, hell, that entire area of the galaxy is one of the few she's not personally explored. A grievous error she's currently rectifying.

Few would expect to find her alone, traipsing away from a small cropping of fallen rocks near the edge of the mountain's foothills. Plainly dressed in a sleeveless, grey undershirt with a sleeveless, black tunic with silver stitching belted over top. Just a Lethan Twi'Lek with a lot of black, runic tattoos wandering around with a datapad. The only thing hanging off her belt are a couple pouches and electrobinocs. Maestus is moving slowly, head tilted down studying the pad as she walks. Her presence in the Force had been tucked away deep before she'd landed. Science happened better when there were no pesky questions to be bothered by.

The same could not be said of the Force presence that had been just a whisper moments ago. The galaxy had known violence and bloodshed forever, there was someone in grief everywhere, all the time. Someone on the same planet as Maestus feeling loss wasn't worth her attention. But then the grief was marinated in a vicious marriage of reality, of location. The nightmarish melody mingled, the unique flavors of longing, uncertainty and hatred taking their time to meld with the young Acolyte, until Daxen Vane brought down the whole damn pot.

It was that eruption of pure rage and pain that elevated the whisper to a crack of lightning in the sky. Her eyes shifted their trajectory and her boots kicked up loose gravel as she changed direction.

As she finds herself taking a similar path Daxen had through his former village, Maestus was beset by none of the same emotional pulls. Truthfully, she knew nothing of this village. Yet. She'd spotted the dust cloud in the sky at the edge of the village, and as she neared, she took the time to study the young Nagai whose pain had lit the sky. She'd never encountered his species before, and the opportunity to learn increased her interest exponentially.

She stopped at the property edge, datapad held loosely, forgotten, in one hand. Her eyes swept the scene. Beams that once held the roof and walls as the family lived and loved, safe within, now chunks of meaningless rubble. All reduced to ash and standing in the midst, Daxen Vane breathing hard. As she was not fond of being deceptive simply for the sake of it, and on the hope she'd been gone long enough to be forgotten, not recognized on site, Maestus stopped stifling her Force presence, and the unmistakable emanations of the dark side manifested as the air around them increased in temperature. A few degrees, clearly noticeable but not dangerous or drastic. She was born into the Dark Side on Mustafar, and it touched her deeply.

Let me know if this helps the nightmares stop. She waves the datapad holding hand around to encompass his childhood home. She holds his gaze a moment before half shrugging. It didn't for me but, who knows, maybe you'll be lucky. Her voice is conversational and curious and perhaps most surprising, genuine.

 

[Daxen Vane]

THE CROWN OF ASH

DAXEN VANE

The sound of approaching footsteps drew Daxen's attention from the ruins, though it was the change in the air that made him turn fully toward the newcomer. The warmth was subtle, but the presence accompanying it was not. The Dark Side clung to the Lethan Twi'lek with a familiarity that made him wary, even as his gaze settled on the datapad in her hand and the collection of equipment at her belt. She looked less like someone who had stumbled upon a tragedy and more like someone whose curiosity had led her somewhere unexpected.

Her words earned a brief, humorless smile.

"If destroying a house were enough to silence the past, I imagine there would be considerably fewer haunted places in the galaxy."

Daxen glanced over his shoulder at the collapsed remains of his childhood home. Dust still drifted from the broken stone, settling over the fragments of a life that had ended long before he had returned to see what remained of it. He had expected the destruction to offer some measure of satisfaction. It had, briefly. That it had done nothing to diminish his anger was hardly surprising, though he had no intention of sharing the details with a stranger.

His attention returned to her, studying the tattoos that marked her skin before settling on her face. There was little about her appearance that suggested she had come to offer condolences, and the absence of such an expectation suited him just fine.

"You speak from experience, then?" he asked, his tone carrying a hint of skepticism. "Or is this simply what you tell people when you find them standing in the wreckage of their own lives?"

He brushed a trace of dust from his sleeve, straightening the fabric with deliberate care. The gesture did little to restore his composure, but it gave him something to do with his hands while he considered the woman before him. She had approached alone, made no attempt to conceal her presence in the Force, and seemed entirely comfortable standing within reach of a stranger who had just brought a building down around himself. Either she possessed a considerable amount of confidence or she had little concern for her own safety.

Perhaps both.

"You were drawn here by the disturbance," Daxen continued, less a question than an observation. "I assume you felt it before you saw the dust."

There was no point pretending otherwise. He had allowed his anger to spill into the Force, and anyone sensitive enough to notice would have found little difficulty following its source. Whether that made her perceptive or merely opportunistic remained to be seen.

His gaze flicked briefly toward the datapad she had nearly forgotten in her hand. "So, what exactly are you looking for on Nagi? Ruins? Rare specimens? Or do you make a habit of investigating whatever happens to catch your attention?"

The last question carried a sharper edge than the others. Daxen had little patience for being treated as an exhibit, particularly by someone who had arrived just in time to witness a moment he would have preferred to keep to himself. Still, she had offered something more interesting than pity, and he was curious enough to hear her answer.

He remained beside the rubble, making no move to leave. Whatever she wanted, she had his attention for the moment. That was all she had earned.

Tag: Maestus

 

[Maestus]

There'd be no galaxy left if destroying brick and stone were the answer. Her voice is heavy with years, and a small smirk hints at one corner of her mouth that goes no further. This galaxy was christened in blood, and there's been no shortage in the eons and millenia since keeping the Blood Gods fat and happy. There's always some angry soul that manages to come back to Ground Zero Another wave with the forgotten datapad. Bring whatever manner of devastation they can in the hopes of finally getting a good night sleep. Angry souls like you, and yes, me.

She steps within the ruin grounds proper now, eyes looking for a suitable hunk of wall support or maybe a decent size of the roof she can sit down and rest on. As the distance between them shrunk, Daxen could see her face more clearly. What the black tattoos didn't completely obscure were the lines of age that had set in and looked more like mutant webs sprung forth from the hairline fissures in flesh around her eyes. The Dark Side was a harsh and cruel master and demanded its due, and the price on Maestus very soul was heavy. It is a price she had been questioning on many angles in the recent decades, creating conflicting viewpoints within that very driving her to her wits end.

Nearing a suitable hunk, she turns to regard Daxen, and gestures to said hunk with the datapad. Not asking permission, but recognizing the tension hanging in the air, like you're giving Jabba a piggy back ride, and the signs of stress and unease in the young Acolyte, she felt no sudden moves best for the moment. Sitting down she finally sets the datapad aside, then cocks a brow and honest smirk at Daxen.

Disturbance is one word for it. Yes, I felt you and your grief, but it was a whisper in the current. It was an eruption of pain, anger and uncertainty that lit bright in the currents, separated itself from the ebb and flow. Her Lekku had been relatively at ease thus far. One curled in front of her neck, the other hanging lazily down her back. They brushed top of her thighs when fully extended, seemingly content to absorb the surroundings. When he inquired as to why she on Nagi, she reached a hand into one of the belt pouches. She withdrawn a small plastic card and extended it to him.

Officially? Scout and recon as to the suitability of Nagi as a possible location for expansion for the company I represent. Plastic card in hand gets waggled. Unofficially? Ruins, yes. Rare specimens, check. And probably my favorite hobby, investigating whatever happens to catch my attention. I've seen much if not most of the galaxy, but not all. This system is one I'm not familiar with. I could go to the holonet, an archive here and there and read what others have learned. Nothing replaces your own eyes seeing, ears hearing. So, here I am and here you are, full of pain, hate and questions.

She turned her gaze to the biggest hunk of rubble. The support beams, walls and roof that had sheltered young Daxen and his family a lifetime ago. She wondered what his childhood had been like, and swept her eyes around them. She saw little to no similarities to her own childhood home on Ryloth, even as she sat in the fresh ruins. Her family lived underground in slave housing, her birth parents had long been in bondage. No she didn't think the material trappings of their childhoods had been similar at all.

Something in the ruins caught her attention, and she rose up and took a step in one fluid motion. The distance had been too great, Maestus too far before he had brought the house down. With the initial settling she could see a marking on a support beam, though exactly what she couldn't be sure hence he sudden rising and walking. The dust settling, she squats and observes the small mark that had caught her attention. The scorching was unmistakable to her, a lightsaber made these marks.

With a faint nod, she looks back to Daxen. Explains a lot. She rose then and stepped off the rubble and ruins. She had no intention of disrespecting any dead or their memories, not today at least. I am Maestus. The company I represent is Advanced Technological Industries. No, you haven't heard of it, by design. My turn, why are you here?

On the card is the name of the company ATI, coordinates to their public HQ address on Epoch and a set of encrypted com protocols that eventually are routed directly to Maestus. As she lets her question hang in the air her Lekku start become active. No, not breakdancing or thrashing, but gentle movements. Now, one curls around her neck and drapes over the left shoulder. Her left Lekku sways at the tip in front of her stomach area, sensing and absorbing information. Her eyes hold his, she would weigh his words when he speaks. It wasn't only new animals, flowers or planets she preferred to see for herself. It was the weight of the soul, and that could only be judged in the first person.

 

[Daxen Vane]

THE CROWN OF ASH

DAXEN VANE

Daxen listened without interrupting, his expression settling into something unreadable as Maestus spoke. There was a peculiar bluntness to her words, an absence of the usual discomfort people displayed around grief. She neither offered condolences nor pretended to understand his circumstances beyond what the Force had revealed. Her admission that she, too, was an angry soul earned a closer look, though he remained unconvinced that shared misery necessarily meant shared understanding.

"An interesting way to introduce yourself to someone you've just watched tear apart his childhood home."

There was no real amusement in his voice, but neither was there the hostility that might have greeted a more conventional attempt at sympathy. Daxen watched her settle onto a piece of rubble, taking note of the ease with which she made herself comfortable amid the wreckage. She carried herself like someone accustomed to dangerous company, and the age etched into her features suggested experiences that went well beyond the appearance she might otherwise have possessed. Whatever the Dark Side had taken from her, it had evidently left plenty behind.

He accepted the card when she offered it, turning it between his fingers as he examined the information displayed upon it. Advanced Technological Industries meant little to him, though he was familiar enough with the workings of the galaxy to recognize the value of keeping a company's name obscure. He committed the details to memory before returning his attention to Maestus.

"Daxen Vane." He offered his name without ceremony, slipping the card into an inner pocket of his robes. "And I doubt your company would find much to expand into here without considerable effort. Unless ATI has developed a particular interest in abandoned villages and unstable architecture."

His gaze drifted toward the collapsed house. The attempt at humor was dry, and it did little to conceal the tension that remained in his shoulders. Maestus had noticed the lightsaber damage, and he suspected she had already pieced together enough to understand that his visit had not been motivated by nostalgia. He could have offered some convenient explanation, but he saw little reason to lie about something she had already sensed.

"My parents lived here. They were killed by a Sith Lord when I was young."

The words came more easily than he expected, stripped of the hesitation that might have accompanied them years ago. He had spoken of their deaths before, though rarely to anyone who had not already known the circumstances. His gaze settled briefly on the ruined support where the scorch marks had once been visible before the collapse buried them beneath stone.

"He took me with him afterward. Brought me to the Academy and made certain I received the training necessary to become what I am now." His mouth tightened faintly. "I've spent years deciding what I intend to do with that opportunity."

He looked back at her, meeting her gaze without offering further explanation. There was no gratitude in his voice, nor any suggestion that he regarded the Sith Lord's actions as anything other than the beginning of an unfinished grievance. The man had given him a path forward, but that did not absolve him of what he had done to get Daxen there.

"I wanted to see what remained." His eyes moved once more across the settlement. "Now I know."

It was an incomplete answer, but not a dishonest one. He had come to confront the place where his life had fractured, and the destruction of the house had done little to settle anything. Still, he felt no need to explain the difference between wanting closure and wanting revenge to someone who had already admitted to carrying both.

Daxen studied Maestus for another moment, considering the strange coincidence of their meeting. She had come searching for new territory and unfamiliar life, only to find an acolyte tearing apart the remnants of his past. Her interest might have been genuine, but he had lived long enough among the Sith to know that curiosity and ulterior motives were not mutually exclusive.

"You said you've spent a good deal of time exploring the galaxy." His gaze flicked briefly toward the datapad in her hand. "I imagine you've seen your share of things most people would rather leave undiscovered."

His expression remained guarded, though a trace of curiosity had begun to edge out his earlier irritation. Maestus had spoken openly about her travels and her interest in seeing things for herself, and Daxen found himself wondering what kind of person chose to spend their life wandering the galaxy rather than settling somewhere. He had little interest in making assumptions about her history, but he was willing to hear what she chose to share.

"So tell me, Maestus. What has kept you moving all these years? The company, the discoveries, or simply the need to see what's beyond the next horizon?"

Tag: Maestus

 

[Maestus]

Interesting, huh? She mused to herself, and glanced to him curiously. I can try my hand at patronizing and condescending if that's more your preference? I had endeavored to be genuine and honest, but hey, I'm nothing if not adaptable. She laughed softly, dryly, shaking her head. Well met, Daxen. From what I've seen so far, Nagi has assets that my company values. Privacy, stability and potential resource abundance. I've identified several peaks I'd like to investigate further. It's the remoteness and seclusion that are most appealing. The abandoned villages and unstable architecture are nice little perks.

Maestus fully appreciated the precarious position she had placed Daxen in by investigating his Force explosion. It had been a particularly potent emotional bomb, one weighted with thoughts and emotions she recognized intimately. Though it had been around 4 decades prior, the memory of her own "Return to Ground Zero' so to speak was one she could recall with ease. She could close her eyes and still smell the electrically charged air from that night, and the profound change it had wrought in her since. Had a complete stranger happened upon her in her moment, there was no doubt she would not have had the restraint Daxen has shown thus far.

As he shared his past, she was grateful that he was also choosing the route of plain truth. Posturing had its time and place, however this was not it. First impressions lingered, and not every errant word can be erased, forgiven or forgotten. Given the stressful position she had placed him in, she was pleased with his composure. Though, his mention of the Academy elicited a frown.

I've heard about the Academy. Send your hateful, angry and generally deliquent souls and at the other end of the production line pops out a brand new Sith. Her voice tightens as she speaks of the Academy, laced with fire and venom. She had long pulled back from the center stage in the galactic goings on, having found herself disillusioned with much and more in regards to the Force and the various philosophies that abound. Only this, not that. Light good, dark bad. The Sith have long been accused of living and dealing in absolutes, a fair assessment. But one the hypocritical Jedi share equal claim to as well. Now, she had come to believe there was great value in the entire spectrum, but still, she held some beliefs in regards to the Sith. Such as mass indoctrination institutions are wonderful for matters such as Imperial propoganda and reeducation for the masses. To treat the sacred mantle of Sith with the same lacksadaisacal attitude of quantity over quality was unacceptable.

What has kept her going? Almost as if Daxen had seen into her soul somehow or read the stars to find one of her greatest questions. And the honest truth was, she still did not know. She shifted her gaze off to the peaks that towered on the horizon. Cliffs and edges have held a dear spot to her for some time, they're very liminal spaces. Perhaps she is so drawn to such places, these crossroads or inbetweens, hoping to find the answer to what it is that does keep her going.

The company requires little day to day attention, and these days, going to and from Epoch isn't as convenient or calm as it used to be. Property values have tanked with the new neighbors. A really sad attempt at humor, and she releases a long slow breath, and when she resumes speaking her voice is quiet. When I was a young apprentice to my master, we created a group, very close knit group. Nearest I've known of a family, honestly. Time marches on, events happen and come to pass, and yes, I have not only seen but done many horrible things I give not one tinkers damn if anyone discovers because my deeds writ in history condemn me. Spoken without boast or pride, but as one recites established histories accepting both credit and blame in equal and appropriate measure. I'm hungry, Daxen, I just don't know for what. I have research in various stages in my primary laboratory on Crakull, I'm usually there, I can get rather involved in my work. Forget there's more to reality than my work.

She moved her line of sight from the mountain peaks back to Daxen. So, you've been training for years to be ready and strong to avenge the death of your parents, and the cruel joke that has become your life, played on you by a faceless Sith Lord. You've returned to the source to see what remins. What is it you intend to do now with this opportunity?

She stepped away from him, shuffling the dust as she walked over to her rubble seat and retrieved the forgotten datapad. As she does so, the circumstances of their meeting are not lost on her, nor are the similarities in their pasts. What Sith doesn't have a tragic or terrible story, if not the one that made them or the one they themselves make. Many succumb to the tragedy that made them, as Maestus had been in danger of herself. It wasn't until the very end of her parent's lives that she understood the depths of the impact being born to slaves had inflicted upon her, and had she not battled and earned a hard fought victory, her tragic history would have killed her.

 

[Daxen Vane]

THE CROWN OF ASH

DAXEN VANE

Daxen listened without interruption, his expression remaining largely unreadable as Maestus spoke. He had learned early that people often revealed more when they were allowed to speak without interruption, and the woman before him was no exception. There was something curious about the way she spoke of her past, of the choices she had made and the uncertainties that lingered despite whatever knowledge or power she had accumulated. He found himself wondering how much of her candor was genuine and how much was simply another means of measuring him.

He knew better than to mistake honesty for trust.

When she mentioned her company and offered him the card, Daxen accepted it between two fingers, allowing his gaze to linger on its details before slipping it away. He made no promises to contact her, nor did he dismiss the possibility. Information had its uses, and so did people. He had survived this long by understanding that the two were rarely mutually exclusive.

Still, his attention returned to the landscape around them. Nagi. The name alone stirred something old and unwelcome within him, a sensation he had spent years burying beneath discipline, anger, and the pursuit of power. The world had existed in his memories as little more than fragmented impressions: familiar shapes, distant voices, the warmth of a home he had been too young to understand he might one day lose. Time had worn those memories thin, and the years spent among the Sith had done little to preserve what remained.

He had come back expecting ruins. Perhaps a few answers, if he was fortunate. He certainly had not expected the past to greet him kindly.

"My intentions are simple enough. I wanted to see what remained."

The words came easily, though the truth behind them was considerably less straightforward. He turned his head, watching the wind move through the surrounding landscape. Somewhere beneath the anger that had sustained him for so long lay a question he had never quite managed to silence. What would he do if he found nothing? If the place where his life had begun offered no answers, no trace of those who had been taken from him, no evidence that any of it had mattered?

Revenge had been an easy thing to hold onto when it was all he had. It gave his suffering direction and his hatred purpose. But the years had taught him that even vengeance required something beyond the desire to see another person suffer. It required opportunity, preparation, and the strength to ensure that when the moment came, he would not be the one left dead upon the ground.

"A Sith Lord murdered my parents and took me from this world. Korriban became my home after that, if one could call it such a thing. I was given instruction, discipline, and a reason to become stronger. I learned what I needed to survive."

His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. There was little point in embellishing the truth, and even less in pretending that the experience had left him untouched. Yet he would not offer Maestus the satisfaction of believing his past had broken him. Whatever had been taken from him, he had made something of himself in the years that followed. He was not the frightened child who had been carried away from Nagi, and he had no intention of remaining the victim of another man's decisions.

"I intend to find the one responsible, eventually. But I would be a fool to mistake wanting revenge for being prepared to take it."

The admission sat between them for a moment. Daxen disliked acknowledging limitations, especially to someone whose intentions he had yet to determine, but pretending otherwise would have served no purpose. Power was not simply a matter of wanting something badly enough. It was the ability to make one's desires reality, and he had much left to learn before he could be certain of doing so.

As they moved farther through the remnants of the old settlement, something caught his attention among the fractured stone and scattered debris. It was only a small glimmer at first, a faint reflection of light beneath a layer of dust. Daxen slowed, his gaze narrowing before he crouched to examine it.

The shard was partially buried beneath a fragment of masonry. He brushed the grit away with his fingertips and carefully worked the crystal free. Its edges were irregular, one side fractured from whatever force had broken it, but its surface retained a muted translucence beneath the dirt. It looked like the sort of material that might once have formed part of a wall or window in one of the old Nagai dwellings.

His hand stilled around it.

He could not have explained why the sight unsettled him. Perhaps it was the familiarity of the material, or the simple realization that something from the place he had once called home had survived when so much else had not. The shard was hardly remarkable to the eye. It possessed no obvious ornamentation, no inscription, nothing that would distinguish it from countless other fragments scattered across the ruins.

And yet, as he held it, he felt something.

It was faint, almost imperceptible: an impression at the edge of his awareness, like the fading warmth left behind in a room long after its occupants had departed. Daxen drew a slow breath and reached through the Force, careful not to impose his expectations upon whatever he sensed. There were no clear voices, no coherent memories waiting to be uncovered. Only echoes. Fleeting impressions that slipped away whenever he tried to grasp them too firmly.

He could not know whether they belonged to the crystal itself, to the place where it had rested, or to the memories his own mind had attached to it. That uncertainty frustrated him, but it also stirred his curiosity.

For several moments, he simply studied the shard. He had spent years learning to direct the Force outward, to influence, to strike, to compel. The possibility that something might retain an impression of that energy, even after its source had vanished, was worth investigating. If the crystal possessed the right properties, perhaps it could be taught to hold a measure of his own power. Not indefinitely, he suspected, and certainly not without effort, but enough to make the experiment worthwhile.

His gaze drifted toward the place where his lightsaber rested at his belt.

Could the shard be used as a focusing component? He had no proof that it could. Ordinary building material did not become a lightsaber crystal simply because he wished it to, and he had no intention of risking a weapon's construction on an untested assumption. But the question had taken root, and Daxen had never been particularly good at leaving interesting questions unanswered.

He closed his fingers around the crystal and carefully began to channel a thread of his own Force energy into it. The sensation was subtle at first, a deliberate extension of his awareness rather than any dramatic surge of power. For an instant, he thought he felt the shard respond. Then the impression faded, leaving him uncertain whether it had retained anything at all.

A small, thoughtful frown crossed his face.

There would be time to investigate it properly. For now, he slipped the shard into a secure pocket rather than discard it among the ruins. Whatever its properties, it belonged to this place. Perhaps, in time, he would discover that it could serve a purpose beyond being a fragment of a life he barely remembered.

Or perhaps its only value would be that it had survived.

Either way, he would decide that for himself.

Daxen straightened and turned his attention back to Maestus. The exchange had given him more to consider than he had anticipated, and he found himself looking at her with a slightly renewed interest. She had spoken of her own uncertainties without offering him easy answers, and he could respect that much, even if he remained cautious about what she might ultimately want from him.

"I suppose we both have our reasons for returning to places that might be better left alone."

His expression settled into its familiar composure, though his hand lingered briefly near the pocket containing the shard. He had come to Nagi searching for the remnants of his past, convinced that whatever he found would serve the future he intended to build. Now, for the first time since arriving, he had something tangible to carry away with him. Whether it would prove useful remained to be seen.

"So tell me, Maestus. After all those years, have you found anything worth the cost? Or are you, like me, hoping the past has left something behind that might prove useful to the future?"

Tag: Maestus