Character
The wind had shifted. Again.
Taiia stood atop the terrace of the academy, her gaze turned upward, watching the stars flicker in patterns that hadn’t belonged there the night before. The changes weren’t violent but they were unnatural. Systems hadn’t disappeared. They’d simply moved, like pieces on a board rearranged by a hand too large and too far away to name.
The galaxy was reshaping itself. Not through war or invasion, but by something deeper older than the Sith, older than the Jedi. A shift in the foundation of things.
And now the cracks were spreading.
It wasn’t the Cult. Of that, she was certain. But they would move in its wake. And somewhere, behind their hushed rituals and scavenged relics, the Unmaker still stirred, not dead, merely delayed.
Taiia reached into the Force, not as a whisper, but a call. One forged in clarity. Come to me.
They answered.
Caelen arrived first, moving without sound, a stillness in him that mirrored her own. He wore his father’s vambraces and his mother’s restraint, eyes always watching the fault lines no one else could see.
Seris followed not long after. Wind at her back, curiosity burning behind her gaze. She didn’t speak but her presence said enough. She knew this wasn’t another lesson.
Taiia waited a moment longer, letting the silence hold them together. Then she turned to face them.
“I’m sending you both away.”
Neither child flinched. But neither spoke.
“The galaxy is shifting again. rearranging. And while this isn't the Cult’s doing, they will move through the confusion like smoke through broken walls. The Unmaker still watches from the void.”
She looked to Caelen. “You’ll go to the High Republic. They’ll need someone who sees the pattern beneath the stars.”
Then she turned to Seris “You’ll go to the Mandalorian Empire. Not to follow your father's blood, but to carry it forward. They understand what the rest of the galaxy never questions. You won’t need to explain yourself there. Just act.”
Then she paused. Her voice, when it came again, softened.
“I’m leaving too.”
Caelen's brow lifted. “Where?”
“To The Sith.”
Seris stepped closer, frowning. “Mother..”
Taiia held up a hand. “Because I can. Because no one else will. And because… I felt something. Allyson. She's changed. I don't know how or why. But the bond stirred again, and it didn’t feel like her anymore. If she’s still the woman I once knew, then I’ll find her. And if she’s not then I’ll face what remains.”
The words sat heavy between them. She didn’t fill the silence. Let them absorb it like stone absorbs stormwater.
“Darth Metus is gone,” she said finally, quieter. “Long departed from this plane. Kyyrk his fate is unknown, even to me. And Vytal… who knows what star she walks beneath now? The ones I trusted to stand at my side are lost to time, to fate, to whatever this galaxy has become.”
She looked between her children. “That leaves us. And I will not watch this place fall without standing once more.”
Caelen stepped forward and embraced her. Quiet. Steady.
Seris followed, her hold tighter, unwilling to let go before she had to.
When they parted, Taiia touched their faces in turn twin mirrors of her legacy, shaped by fire and silence.
“Wherever you go,” she said softly, “remember: we are not relics. We are reminders. Of what stood. Of what still can.”
She looked to Caelen first. “You’ll need to carry something of me. Not just the blood, or the name. But this.”
She placed the first saber in his hand. Its casing was matte silver, understated, the emitters tight and precise built for control, for restraint. He turned it once in his palm, silent, understanding its weight without needing to ignite it.
Then she turned to Seris.
“This one has always burned hotter,” Taiia said with a faint smile, offering the twin. “Like you.”
The saber she gave Seris bore faint scoring along the grip marks of use, not damage. Its lines were slightly more curved, the power core more volatile. When Seris took it, the crystal inside thrummed faintly in recognition, as if it remembered its second breath.
Taiia stepped back, folding her hands.
“I carried these through storms you’ve only heard whispered. Now it’s your turn. Let them protect you but don’t let them define you.”
Caelen nodded. Seris nodded slowly, holding her saber close before clipping it to her belt.
The silence that followed was enough.
And when the sun rose, each of them walked into the galaxy carrying not just her teachings, but the blades she once used to carve her place within it.
Later.. After the children departed
The chamber had no name, no charted access, and no written record. Even her own students didn’t know it existed.
Taiia stood within the circle alone, the chalk-and-ash sigils already drawn—fresh lines overlaying those older than the academy itself. The air pulsed faintly with power: not light, not dark, but between. A steady hum beneath the breath of the Force.
The ritual did not require incantation, only intention.
She knelt, pressed her palm to the central sigil, and opened the veil.
For most, the black wall would be impossible. Given time perhaps it could be broken or at least a path through it yet she had neither the time or patience. Why go through when you can go around.
The World Between Worlds unfolded like a bloom of starlight: doors arching into nothing, each pulsing with resonance. Taiia stepped through the threshold without hesitation. The void folded around her.
She did not seek a path. She made one.
This was not cautious probing. Not the desperate reach of someone attempting to undo events. This was a witch’s will, sharpened by lifetimes of silence and one divine spark that never truly left her. Medjai’s flame still whispered in her blood.
She wove her steps around memory and myth, bypassing time, slipping past places sealed to fleets and navicomputers. She reached for a point in the Force where the shadows curled more tightly than the rest of the galaxy Jutrand.
And the path opened.
No resistance. No alarms. Only a strange, quiet recognition as if the world itself had been waiting. She glanced up at the sky, foreign and dark and absent the balance she had grown accustomed to on Odessen. She wore a dark cloak pulled over her silver robes, her hair drawn back and she erased her presence in the force, to all but the most powerful of Sith she would be a ghost, unseen and unknown.
Was her course of action foolish? Perhaps it was but she needed answers particularly about Allyson and who better to seek out than her nemesis.
