Private To Know Better

[Efret Farr]

Coruscant no longer burned.

Not physically, anyway.

The minds of the Coruscanti were another matter, one Efret couldn't help with if she tried. Those flames had gotten to her too, the moment she had landed. From the same moment, the Sith Temple had drawn her to it like a moth. Now, the pad of her index finger passed over a minute disturbance in the smooth surface. Its jagged halo barely raised into the ridges of her fingerprint. Psychometry climbed invisibly up her arm like an infection. She braced for it, her eyelids scrunching slightly closed.

One hand held a nail, the other a hammer. The latter drew back and returned forward, driving the bit of metal into the ancient stone and pinning Bernard of Arca's edict in place.​

​

Two other sets of hands flashed to mind, one her own.​

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<Door-#frame not bulletin-board. He fix that, future?>​

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<You miss purpose, Master-Farr.>​

Ah yes, the Lightsworn's purpose. It had seemed so malicious then, back before the Dark Empire hid struck at Coruscant, before the Galactic Alliance had begun to unravel. Her mind's eye ran down the document that had coiled down and across the floor. The names and crimes that it listed were malformed and partially illegible, stretched by ever-expanding space-time. It had been years since she had stood before the scroll. If another such document was posted at the Shirayans' threshold in time, her name might just appear on it.

Efret opened her eyes and looked at her hand, mottled in tan monochrome of Force Sight and the real color of her splotchy natural field of vision. Neither gave her much detail, but she tried to somehow look past it. Though lines testifying how much she had aged were written over her skin too, they were much more subtle than the red-brown electro-tattoos overlaying them. She had had them done sometime after that invasion in the style of her people—not the Jedi but the Lorrdians from the Province Bepru. It was an update to the system that allowed her to communicate with non-Signers, which happened to be most of the galactic population, an update she felt necessitated by war.

She had physical scars too, of course, from the battles but this design was uniquely visible to her. Every day. All day. She used her hands for everything that a Hearing person did, plus more. This reminder; which traced each tendon through her fingers, across her hand, and up her wrist; would never let her forget that the war had changed her.

That, with age, wisdom had gone, not come.

Her fingers withdrew on her next inhale.

On her exhale, she turned to venture into the Grand Temple that was Jedi no more.

She traced her way through the familiar hallways of the ground floor. Among the hireath, an emotional thread, small and thin as it was, claimed topographic relief and the notice that came with it. It led into the Archive. She just knew, then she remembered that she'd have to pass by her museum to get there.

Fingers tugged her hood down further over her head as she trudged onward despite mounting distress. Into the Archives she went, thinking only briefly of Ran Serys . The thought tumbled from her mind when she followed the sense that had brough her here into a nearby study room, and to a bookshelf opposite the door.

There, her sigh rearranged the air silently. Scent of dust and musky leather burrowed deeper into her lungs. She passed a hand over the aligned tomes' spines. The truth she sought, but also dreaded finding, stirred under her Force touch and radiated heat back with flickering candle flames.

What history was written here? What words could be so volatile?

Anet Raine​

 

[Anet Raine]

Efret Farr
​

Obsession was a grand motivator; it allowed Anet Raine to devote reckless hours, sacrificing meals and rest in search of anything that might help her learn more of Tira. Of course, a lost jewel was not her only fixation of late...

A quivering smirk resided at the corner of her mouth.

"Don't think I haven't noticed yours," she made eye contact. There was a pause. "You inspired me, Kirie."​

Icy-pale eyes hung over dark circles, glancing down at the aggregate of old records crawling across her viewscreen in a quiet corner of the archives... everything she had compiled on the lost, legendary world. But for once, in a rare appeal of her own spirit, she welcomed the distraction of happy thoughts.

She opened her eyes, shining with gold, and looked up at Anet.​

Gentle fingertips traced the outline of her cheekbone, reanimating the ghost of Kirie's touch.

More breath than whisper, "I am your weapon..."

"...and you are my savior..."​

Her hand fell over her chest, pressing against the darkness that shielded her heart. Without it attired to her face, she was without power and appeared ordinary in the Force. A droplet, a grain; a betrayal of her own presentation, drabbed in acolyte's robes and a bled blade unignited at her hip, but no presence save for the corruption emanating from the mask buried within folds of expensive fabric.

So drunk on the memory was she that Anet scowled when a figure appeared in her periphery.

"What is it?!" She snapped quietly.

But when she scrutinized the woman further, she suspected this wasn't another initiate come to pester her for directions or advice. Her expression softened, if only a little, but judgmental eyes lingered.

"Oh..." Her hand fell from her chest to her side. "I haven't seen you before."

 

[Efret Farr]

The woman's gaze turned to the room's far wall, where a flicker of light had outlined Anet's silhouette over the stone. A moment later, she turned to the acolyte.

Her hands rose to speak. A monotonous and feminine voice like a protocol droid's, generated from a vocoder hidden in the choker's pendant at her neck, filtered into the air.

"I didn't hear you." She didn't say that she was Deaf, or Blind, trusting that her use of GBSL was evidence enough for the former.

Regardless, she didn't linger.

"I haven't been here in some time," she replied. In many ways, she didn't feel different than the Jedi she had been, not at her core. Honestly flowed naturally, not coaxed out of her by fear, though she was afraid. That feeling hadn't left her since coming to this Core with Mercy.

"I was drawn to these records." A small pause. "Would you like to be in here alone? I can leave."

Lysander had corrected much about Efret's supposed understanding of the Sith during their encounter of Fondor. For his guidance, she was eternally grateful, but she was under no illusion that she had no more to learn on the matter. In fact, she felt the remaining Sith stereotypes the Jedi had taught her still shambling after her like shadows. It would be a long and arduous journey to cast them off further, but she doubted that she would be able to sever them completely. Though she suspected that she'd carry a shard of the Jedi's most central prejudice forever, they, as were all shadows, were byproducts of the light.

They were sure to fade enough away as the Dark continued to take her over.

For now, though, they haunted her like ghosts she knew floated right behind her but tried to ignore.

She drew on her past ethnographic experiences. Of course, none fit this situation—interrupting a Sith's solitary study in their temple—but still she racked her memory, trying to generate an etiquette that seemed right.

The rank of this Sith eluded her; she wouldn't even dare to guess, so she instead resorted to subservience.

"May I borrow a volume or two?"

But she forgot that this place was hers too: Efret Farr was one of the Covenant now.

Anet Raine​

 

[Anet Raine]

Efret Farr
​

Anet's eyes fell immediately to her hands. A familiar habit reinforced by her time with Kirie.

Anet had experienced her fair share of kinetic languages - most often of the Lorrdian variety. Although the Outer Rim dialect was not her strongest, she at least managed to gather the gist of words and phrases signed her way.

Galactic Basic Sign Language, thankfully, was even more familiar to her.

Perhaps it was that familiarity, or a reminder of her devotions, that softened the half-pantoran's demeanor on the spot. When the woman asked whether Anet wanted her to leave, she signed as she spoke. "No. That is okay."

She wasn't sure if the stranger was merely mute, like Kirie, or possibly deaf. The fact that she may've been blind hadn't crossed her mind at all.

There was a pause when the woman asked if she could borrow the volumes. Anet smiled, stumped more than amused, and gestured at the shelves filled with digitized and physical records alike. "I am not the librarian..." She chuckled dryly, smile lingering. "Besides. I believe this information is ours."

She paused a moment. At first impression, the dark-haired woman didn't strike her as another acolyte. But she didn't carry herself as a Sith Lord, neither... then again, not all moved so openly. She, for one, hid her presence in the Force in the form of her mask. Was this a test, then? Anet wondered.

"You are new here," she stated. Her voice was flat, and her signing curt. "Have you a name?"

 

[Efret Farr]

The smile blooming across Efret's face was one of the kinds she had thought she had left behind like many other things on Naboo, in the Jedi phase of her life. She had been told by first her mother on Lorrd and then her masters on Coruscant that she had even more reason than most to resist the Dark side. That reason was her body: initially, her Deafness, then her Blindness too when she lost a majority of her sight during her training.

The message from her mother and masters had been that only the Light would accept and accommodate her while the Darkness would kill her not just for being a Jedi but also for being physically defective.

So she had not expected that any Sith she encountered would know Sign, or really any flavor of kinetic communication. Learning, especially to the level of fluency, suggested a certain open mindedness. As much seemed strange to find here, but it was very much a relief to as well.

Then her grin morphed subtly into almost shyness rather than pleased surprise, conceding to Anet's point. Efret dipped her head slightly. "I suppose you're right."

Then she was asked for her name.

She thought only for a moment, deciding quickly against lying. It may or may not have been what Lysander had meant for her to take away from their encounter on Fondor, but Efret was determined to own her past rather than hide from it. And the first step towards that end was to give her true name, at least towards other Sith.

"Yes. I'm Efret. And who are you?"

Anet Raine​

 

[Anet Raine]

Efret Farr
​

She continued to sign as she spoke. "I am Anet," the acolyte elected to leave out her surname. It wasn't that she expected her identity to remain a secret, but a certain element of caution preluded most of her introductions.

"What brings you to the Academy, Efret?" She tilted her head. "Forgive me, but... given your age, you must have had training before, yes? I cannot imagine you've stumbled your way here after all these years, a fledgling acolyte."

Without her mask, Anet was unable to read the woman in the Force. And even if she could, it was always possible that Efret wouldn't have allowed it. Many were accustomed to minimizing their presence that way.

The scholar contemplated the records in the room. She just had to ask.

"What are you looking for?"

Being a Sith, Anet doubted anyone here studied for the sake of it. Everyone had a goal.

 

[Efret Farr]

Subtle self-deprecation found its way into her still-smiling lips. Through Force Sight, she could see that the nearest soul was well, well out of even the keenest humanoid's earshot. Thus, she felt as confident as she could to speak freely. "Yes, when I was here last, things were very different," she admitted. A short pause stretched, ideally allowing her true meaning to occur and settle. Even if it didn't, hopefully, it would catch up. "The Empress vouches for me. Don't worry."

A small laugh huffed out of Efret's nose, somewhat shy now. "As for rank, I don't know what I am, exactly. I am one of her apprentices, but... I was a master archeologist. Their Chief Curator, for a few years." She gestured to the tome's spines. "I was hoping for—" she sucked her teeth noisily, not aware it made a sound, "—forbidden knowledge."

For a reason why leaving the Jedi had been the right decision.

For a way she could manage to sleep through the night again.

"As cliché as that might be."

Anet Raine​

 

[Anet Raine]

Efret Farr
​

Anet was a shrewd woman. It didn't take her more than a second to pick up what Efret was putting down. The half-pantoran's jaw clenched, grinding slightly as she untied the knot that fought hard to scowl.

Instead, she smiled, unaware of how little the other woman might make out with her naked sight. That she invoked Mercy's own approval was both interesting and irritating. To her, it was unwise, if not missing the point, to hide behind a name. Even a very powerful name... if not especially.

Still, Anet managed to sound as polite as a receptionist - albeit dripping with just a touch of arrogance.

"Then you've unfortunately come to the wrong place," she said, eyes following the revealed tome.

It wasn't strictly true. The archives under Sith hands had an abundance of knowledge, much of which was advanced and esoteric alike.

"Nothing is forbidden to us, yes?" She clarified. "Although, for what I imagine you're seeking, you'd have a better chance scouring the Red Library on Desevro."

She thought fondly back to hers and Kirie's excursion of the underground repository, and all the dangers that followed. It was the day Anet truly became a Sith.

"May I ask what precisely you're looking for, Efret? Perhaps I can help you find what you're looking for."

Her last words were sweet as nectar... and... was there a bit of playfulness? Maybe.

 

[Efret Farr]

Force Sight passed over Anet, masked—or unmasked, as it were. That was what delayed the former Jedi master's notice of her. Anet was hidden from the Force, and thus from Efret's augmented view; the only way for her to see Anet was through her limited native sight.

She inclined her head. "Quite right. Not forbidden to you, and neither to me anymore," she agreed. "I only meant that it once was. I suspected that the Jedi hid knowledge from even their lorekeepers in my last years with them as my faith waned, but..."

Her fingers stilled. A deep sigh heaved her chest, forcing its way in silent determination out of her nose like a beast preparing a charge. The warm breath fanned over her own upper lip. Her hands began to move again, the voice of her vocoder projecting into the air a few moments later. "Now I simply must know. If and what."

The memory of walking through the Netherworld with Mercy still crawled across Efret's skin, but the unexpected comfort that Mercy had provided had been and still was an anchor.

"They do not think they are lying. But the core of Jedi philosophy is build around fear. They will never acknowledge it, but it is the truth. They reject parts of themselves, their emotions, their darkest desires, to purify their being."​

"I want to know the depths of their fear of the Sith," Efret answered. She had experienced many things while she was the New Jedi Order's Chief Curator that had shown her the surface of that great irony, and more yet now that she reflected on her career before, but she simply had to look more closely. She had to see how ugly this thing truly was.

"So that I might laugh."

Anet Raine​

 

[Anet Raine]

Efret Farr
​

Oh.

In those last few words, Anet's expression had shifted. She settled on the woman's intentions, whether they were truly known to her or not.

"Then you need to know what the Sith are." She said. "What we really are."

This was the scholar's wheelhouse. She had done nothing but dedicate her entire being to unraveling the histories of the Sith, from their earliest origins. It wasn't a clean line. There was no - 'Ah, here the Sith begin on their linear trajectory through time.' There were multiple paths. Forks and branches that intersected the tree of Sith history. Sects, cults, fallen Jedi... Korriban. Many origins, many points in time until they all converged into Sith identity.

Anet signed, then waved Efret along. "Come now."

She wandered through the archives, leading the woman on a journey to the dormitories. Like all acolytes, Anet had a space there, though she chose to live elsewhere. The door opened, revealing a cramped workstation. There were scuffed fragments of long-forgotten relics, and various pieces of equipment for cleaning, preserving, and studying.

She kept datapads and notes. Records of her findings. Whether it was connecting craftsmanship to specific cultures, or rooting the origins of stone by composition, to determine which world they might've come from, to better pinpoint the whereabouts of possible dig sites.

The half-pantoran approached her bed, activating a hidden compartment at the base. She pulled out a Sith Holocron and held it to Efret.

"A compendium on Sith history during the Post-Manderon period. My own creation." She was proud of it. "I'm afraid to tell you that the Jedi destroyed their archives when the Galactic Empire fell upon Coruscant. They imagined they would lose, and so they destroyed history with it, our history, too, if I had to guess. But... what the Jedi lost can always be regained. Unlike them, I am not afraid to scour the galaxy for lost knowledge - and I don't intend to hide it away from those who are curious."

 

[Efret Farr]

Efret stepped from Anet's shadow only once her quarters had sealed themselves off from the rest of the Temple. She wandered the room slowly with her hands clasped loosely behind her back, observing the Sith researcher's equipment. Most of it was familiar to her, more so by function and not by exact model.

She noticed the datapads but couldn't read the text projected on them through Force Sight; however, she did skim over any notes handwritten in ink of graphite that were also strewn about the workspaces. She paused her perusal and looked to Anet when her movement to the bed caught her attention. When she offered out whatever she had taken from the hidden compartment, Efret's hands reached forward instinctively just a centimeter. Her muscles pulled taut across her finger bones and stayed her movement.

The partial forms of Anet's hands and the geometric object she held were framed by part of Efret's remaining vison; most of the rest of the half-pantoran wasn't seen, even through the Force, but the holocron's unmistakable presence registered. Besides the part of it cradled by Anet's palms in her natural sight, it seemed to float in room, unhandled.

Efret pushed her hands forward and accepted the artifact.

The Darkness burned away her lingering Jedi's hesitation. It would almost certainly be back, but, for now, her breath came easier.

Turning over the holocron to inspect its external design before transferring it to one hand, she glanced back to at Anet. "Impressive," she commented, then motioned to the room. "All of it.

"I might know where to scour next," she offered after a short pause, thoughtful rather than unsure. "If you'll accept a suggestion. A digital nexus and a backup of the Jedi Order's archives were developed before the NJO's war with the Dark Empire. It was in use at least until my resignation, but I know of no reason that it would have been retired." She paused shortly to let that settle, but also to let her vocoder catch up with her hands. "Even though the Jedi might have destroyed their physical archives, I would be very surprised if they deleted their offsite data."

But maybe they would have.

More and more, she was suspecting that she didn't know them at all.

Anet Raine​