Private When the Light Was Kinder

[Corazona von Ascania]

The Jedi temple on Naboo reminded her of Coruscant's own – and that stirred mixed feelings in Cora. Coruscant's temple once had an impenetrable quality to it, as if it could rise above the dark clouds of the galaxy. In the end, it hadn't been the Sith, but the Imperials who'd claimed it's hallowed halls for kindling.

After that, she'd become a healer not out of interest, but out of necessity. Her basic education in the medical arts had been put to the test when the Order fell and the bodies piled up. There were days where she washed her hands three, four times, as if she could scrub away the invisible blood caked beneath her fingernails.

Twice a month she left Ukatis to teach at Naboo's temple, occasionally bringing novices from her homeworld to learn from their more dedicated instructors.

Fenn would find her in an almost empty classroom. Three Padawans, who'd acted out during the lesson, lingered behind to clean training dummies and pack medkits.

Sibylla Abrantes had paved the way for this meeting. An affliction of the mind. But of what nature?

As the students worked, Cora remained behind the desk, glued to a stack of tomes.

Fenn Stag

 

[Fenn Stag]

HE WALKED WITH DAMNATION

Corazona von Ascania

​

Fenn had an almost supernatural way of walking. Much like his father- and many Mandalorian Super Commandos, he was trained to walk silently. Even in all their armor, in all their weight and mass, the man moved quietly- near silently. So without his armor, without anything on- he moved, despite his size, like a ghost almost.

But, the guards with him did not move quietly. He had been removed of his weapons, and his cybernetic arm as well. Cared for, delicately- it was beskar, after all.

They permitted him into the temple, to be seen by the healer at Sibylla Abrantes suggestion. He blinked hard, and turned his head to the guard as he was led into the healer's area. A classroom, like most. But she could feel him before he even was close.

Whispers in the force, voices, curses. Evil older than the ancient words of the Jedi. Poison. Sith poisons that cursed the blood, damned the mind, ruined the soul. Evil passed down from generation to generation. Being an Epicanthix- his mind was nigh impenetrable to be read by the force. So the Jedi, the Sith, they could only feel him.

And he felt wrong.

His presence in the force was not unlike his father, Preliat Mantis - or at least, the template of which he was born. But not even Preliat had this foulness to him, the oily shadows moving around him. There wasn't just darkness around him, it was an entity. It wanted to be released. It wanted control. It was obvious Fenn was fighting it. Every moment, a chess match, a wrestling bout, a fight. But even the greatest of warriors-

And Fenn, was a great warrior. An impeccable soldier. Ori'ramikad. Super Commando. Without equal.

Even they wore down. And he was at his wit's end. And losing the fight. The shadows were beginning to win. He knew what they wanted. They wanted control. To win.

He breathed deeply as he was let into the classroom. The guards with him were apprehensive about him standing, let alone being anywhere close to one of the Order's greater Jedi. Not that Cora was unable to handle herself, but she was not like him. Built for killing. He was built, trained, born to kill and be as violent as possible, as quick as possible, and as efficiently as possible. And he had fulfilled his purpose and then some. It took the combined efforts of Valery Noble and two of her students to even subdue him. That fact was known to many Jedi here in the temple.

"Lady Corazona von Ascania." He spoke in a quiet voice, hushed, not quite a whisper. But lower in tone. It almost betrayed his physique and reputation.

"I was sent to you, for your help."

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

The Force shifted long before Fenn appeared in the doorway. It contracted sharply, curling in on itself in wavering, shivering lines like a hand that had burned itself on a hot stove.

It called out to Cora in a desperate, warbling echo of a wail.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

The students felt it, too. Unnerved, they peeked up from their work, exchanging glances before looking to their mentor for silent guidance.

Fenn and his guard appeared, and the Force howled in warning.

Cora leaned back, the legs of her chair scraping against tile. The security detail was expected, but no matter how many wretched entities touched by the dark she'd come across, she still wasn't quite prepared for Fenn.

He was quiet. Polite, even. It clashed with his macabre presence.

Instinct begged her not to take her eyes from Fenn, so she spoke to the students without looking: "That will be all for today, thank you."

The Padawans filed silently out from the room, hugging the doorframe.

"Fenn Stag," she greeted, firm but not unkind once the children had left. "Of course. Lady Abrantes has told me a little about you. Please," she motioned to the chair across from her. The desk would separate them by a brief span of hardwood.

"Sit."

Fenn Stag

 

[Fenn Stag]

—Fenn—
don't! don't look—​

hands!
hands everywhere— bloody hands—
clamp— CLAMP!!!! around your wrists, your throat, your eyes, your name— OUR NAME!

​

​

The black, macabre shadows stood still around him when he sat. For just that moment. His head was down for a moment, breathing deeply.

Fenn— they're stacking themselves on you!
layer of hands—layer of hunger!
prying your mouth open with thumbs!
woe, son of Mandalore! Speak no more, suffer not to live!

He seemed to collect himself after a moment, the fight ending for now. Pushing back such thoughts, he turned his head to the guards. Even with one arm and unarmed, they were rightly wary of him.

"You know my name." He sounded surprised, genuinely. Like no one had ever taken the time to learn his name. Perhaps what he knew of the Jedi, and what he experienced, was wrong. And they were not the villains or uncaring demigods they made them out to be. Or, perhaps, self-serving still. He was cautiously trusting for the time being. To a point. But she was supposed to help him, and he did not wish to suffer his affliction anymore.

Whatever it really was.

"How much has she told you?"

There was another presence in the room around him. Lingering at the edges of the room, encircling them. Seemingly just watching. When it appeared, Fenn clenched his eyes, gritting his teeth. His body convulsed at the neck, and he almost managed to speak something, but fought it.

"What has she told you?"

His voice was not one at the last statement- but of a few, as if two, three, four people were speaking in him at once. It resonated through the force, through the air, around her. Like he, or something, was trying to reach out to her from him. Infecting. Wanting to control. His fists clenched against his legs. He was fighting it again, actively. He breathed a shaky breath, then a steadier one, then, the shadows retreated. For now.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"I do," she said, this time more gently. Her next breath caught at the shadows lingering in the edge of her vision. They pressed in from all sides, hungry and observant. Like a predator watching prey.

The pressure felt against Cora's mind was likely an echo of what Fenn felt. It was deeply unsettling; familiar in that she'd encountered the Dark before, yet unfamiliar in the setting. This was not some ancient tomb or ravaged temple where malicious spirits remained bound to the rubble – this was a classroom on Naboo. In a Jedi temple.

Fenn was a walking curse.

When he spoke next, voice rippling in an eerie, multi-toned demand, Cora's chair scraped harshly against the floorboards. She stood sharply, one hand partially extended towards the tortured soldier as he fought for control, though it was unclear whether or not she was on the verge of helping, or attempting to incapacitate him.

In the end, nothing happened. Cora sat back down. A brusque breath passed her lips, and she took a moment to collect herself.

"Lady Abrantes told me that you are a soldier." Fingers clasped together, then unclasped. Right, she might need those if this went poorly. Knight von Ascania might've been experienced when it came to untangling the metaphysical aspects of the Force, but she was far from mastery. "She told me that you may be suffering from an affliction of a...Force based nature."

When her focus next trained itself on Fenn, she quietly noticed the tension in his shoulders, the whitening of his knuckles, the unsteady cadence of his breathing. Her own visage softened. Now matter how often it occurred, suffering stirred something in her.

"What happened to you just now?"

Fenn Stag

 

[Fenn Stag]

​

He turned his head to the ceiling, snapping. His body contorted and convulsed, his mouth held open in a silent scream. In the force, it was a torrent of evil, darkness. Ancient and unending, a faucet of hate and malice. His mind raced, thoughts unable to be comprehended outside of images and sounds. No words formed in his mind. His mind was unable to be touched with the force thanks to his bloodline, but she could feel it. Rapid firing images played in his mind, betraying each other. Pain, suffering, hate. Lots of pain. Playing off of his.

Loss, grief, sadness, all emotions that darkened the force around a person. And the amount of them made Fenn into a shadow, a hulking black mass that soiled the ground that he walked on. His hand gripped the chair he was on, and raw strength, a body built for war and for killing, crushed wood with just fingers alone.

"I... am.... Ori'Ramikad.... My name is Fenn. I am in control." He said, out of breath, collapsing into his chair after his convulsion.

"Dark... Harvest." He said after a long moment of breathing, trying to collect himself. "Some Sith poison, some Sith disease- foul and brutal, a curse placed on me." He convulsed again, fighting himself. It was getting harder and harder to. Every day, he fought, but he was starting to lose. He'd been fighting it for so long.

YOU CANNOT IGNORE US
BITE
BITE
BITE

KILL​

KILL


KILL

"I am a Mandalorian Super Commando. I am trained by Munin, Fett, Kryze and Ordo. I will not yield to this."

​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora remained still, rigidly so. Glimpses of another life flickered past, washed in sepia and soaked in blood. Unrelenting in their violence, exceptional in their pain.

The Force warbled, contracting and recoiling in unsettling shapes. Pain. It was in pain. He was in pain.

Even the air in her lungs seemed to twist and shudder. Drawing breath felt wrong. A low, heavy feeling settled in her stomach like a stone sinking into a pond. Something a little deeper, and a whole lot darker than nausea.

When she peered into the Force, Fenn was less of a man and more of a wretch. Bloodied hands tore from the ether and grasped at an equally bloodied face.

Whose blood? Whose hands?

There were indentations along pale skin, dips from where those fingers tried to pull soul from flesh, to drag it into the depths of animalistic despair.

When Fenn's hand closed around the armrest, Cora didn't hear the wood splinter and crack. She felt it, though. More viscerally than she should have. Shadow. He was shadow, a roiling mass of macabre darkness that fought to absorb him.

Then, a reprieve.

Cora exhaled sharply through her nose. A bead of sweat trailed over the ridge of her brow, and she swallowed thickly. Swallowed down the vertigo.

She might've been fighting above her weight class, here.

For a few long moments, her gaze fixed itself on Fenn. Still fighting, but he hadn't yielded. Cora extended a hand, and leaned over the desk. She moved slow and deliberate.

Her fingertips skimmed his forehead, brushing back a sweat-slicked lock, half expecting it to come away with blood. Even touching him was not easy, the Dark trying to consume its way toward her.

"You've fought this for longer than most," she murmured gently. "The poison is more brutal than most men. You are not alone, Fenn Stag."

Cora's touch was gentle, but adamant as she pushed back; probing the Darkness, the curse, the Sith magic, trying to rein it in, to put a shape to this wild, formless suffering.

If only to afford Fenn a moment of relief.

"Who is in there with you?" she whispered.

Fenn Stag

 

[Fenn Stag]

INTO THE DARK

​

....You are not alone, Fenn Stag."

He was.
​

That was the unfortunate reality of the man before her- he had no family, no tribe left, his people scattered. He had turned coat on the Black Sun, the only ones that wrought him shelter in the cold unceasing darkness of the galaxy.

But his mind, was occupied.

Her fingertips elicited another silent scream from him, though he grit his teeth and held his ground. He gripped the chair again, harder, more splinters. Invisible hands wrapped around his head, pulling skin. He couldn't see them, but he could feel them. Pulling him down, holding him down. Was it her? Or whatever it was.

She wanted to give shape to the form. She wanted to give form to it. It came in the form of a blood-soaked memory. Then, a picture formed. Words, formed into shadow. Shadow formed into darkness. Darkness gave itself shape. Bipedal. Oily shadows, and bright white eyes, piercing through the darkness. His mind was a battlefield- or perhaps, showing her a battlefield.

A jungle. Woods. Mandalorians and Jedi. Working together.

The moment the Dark Harvest came into contact with Fenn. When he was infected, when his mind was starting to be torn asunder. He turned his head, as if it hurt him physically to remember. The shadow at the edge of the memory, a hazily lit recollection of the area. Fenn was there, but Cora could see it too. As if she was standing over him. Nothing was corporeal, nothing was real. Fenn was on his knees, his arm sliced off by Jedi. Broken Jedi lay at his feet, a strike team of Jedi Masters and Knights requiring to even make him submit.

He didn't speak there, but a voice came. It was Fenn's calmer. His own.

"I lost my arm here." He said so quietly, so softly. The shadow turned- or perhaps phased at the edge of his memory. Another formed. Long ago. Enclave. Mandalorians gathered, to discuss.

Fenn gave himself- or perhaps the shadow gave Fenn shape in this landscape it created. But there was something off about the memories- fragmented, like bad recordings on a holotape. Sounds and words that were indecipherable, but he appeared like how he was.

"The Enclave. This is where we met. This is where they started to train me." Fenn looked at his hands- in his mind, his memories, he was still whole. He seemed incredulous, looking not at Cora- but rather where he felt her presence. His mind was projecting images, a path set forth for him to walk through. Then, a terrible noise- as if ten thousand screeching hawks at once severed any peace or joy he might've found in the memory. The shadow was there again, wordless and ethereal. Fighting Fenn's retention of his memories. But the light- the very presence of Cora within Fenn's mind, probing and pushing, seemed to hurt it. Seemingly it sought to remove both Fenn and her from probing further. From remembering.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora's eyes fell closed. The space behind her eyelids wasn't dark.

The jungle was wreathed in shadow, and through the lens of Fenn's memory, she glimpsed familiarity.

Valery. Iris.

Cora was standing above Fenn. Violently disheveled, veins straining against his skin, the face of a man oscillating between madness and restraint. His arm lay severed, a charred line searing his shoulder shut. The scent of metal and burnt flesh filled her, made her nauseous.

A heartbeat later, and her eyes were drawn down to her own side, to the soft pulse of blue light. Why was she holding a lightsaber…? She shook her hand, and the apparition had already vanished.

"The woman who took your arm," she murmured, quiet with disbelief, "was my Master."

Would that change things, she wondered? Would Fenn walk away, or would it matter little when he was already fighting against so much?

The memory carried on in grainy clips. The Enclave, he'd said, and she sucked in a sharp breath. The Enclave that had laid siege to Ukatis. But they weren't monsters here, not through the eyes of a man who'd found a home in these people.

The memory ended too soon, filling every sound, every shape and color with harshness. It gave way to shadow. Silent, unblinking shadow that had an eerie sentience to it. A familiar one, if distantly. Cora couldn't help but grimace at how intrinsically haunting it felt.

"This is what I meant," she spoke quietly, "when I said that you were not alone."

Fenn would feel the warmth of her hand resting against his shoulder. It wasn't there, not in the corporeal sense – but it was a sensation that radiated a steady light. Quiet, but unyielding. "Look," she urged. "Look to what's been hurting you. Is this someone you know? Something you've seen?"

With the extension of her other hand came soft tendrils of light, creeping forward to try and cast themselves closer to the shadowy form. To unmask it, to give shape to its true features – if it had any at all.

Fenn Stag

 

[Fenn Stag]

INTO THE DARK

​

"The woman who took your arm," she murmured, quiet with disbelief, "was my Master."

"Sorry." He said, recalling the effort the Jedi went to not hurt him. And how he almost got the upper hand on the Jedi. Even unarmed. Fenn didn't fight them to a standstill quite, but he was still a threat to the Grandmaster of the Jedi and all the Jedi around him. Cora could touch at that in his mind-

His training, his experience, his tenacity. His violence. Even without the Dark Harvest.

Her intrusion was marked by a high-pitch scream. Each intrusion into the light was something like burning. Fenn wrestled in his seated position, clenching his eyes. He squirmed and fought, his mouth forming into another scream. It hurt, and the demons inside of him wanted it to. He thrashed around for a moment, causing the guards in the room to stir to action, but settled back, convulsing with each passing moment of Cora's aid.

The world bent, melting away. It was just the figure, lurking at the edge of his mind. And then those pale eyes, bright white, blinked. It was watching. It wasn't really an it at all. Something had taken hold into Fenn's mind. Old, ancient, cruel.

Sith.

Sith.

The word haunted Fenn's mind. It was louder each second passing.

Fenn was not infected.

Fenn was possessed.

It was ancient, it was older- like looking at an artifact from a museum. Thoughts and words, deeds so long ago that it must have been eons. The word lurked at her, swatting away her light, attempting to. It held its arms out, clenching it's fist as it was violently pulled away. Then, the world was given shape again. Not shadows, but warmth. Light from a fire. Warm colors, pictures on a wall. Hearth, reds and soft colors. In another room of their space, the cooing of a child. Carpets and tapestries hung on the walls, and golden fields of wheat lay outside a nearby window. Fenn looked down at his hands, turning them over.

"This isn't my memory."

He said, turning his head. It wasn't his home, his adopted father's. It wasn't an Enclave space.

"It's mine."​

 

[Preliat Mantis]

​

Footsteps, heavy and without attempt to hide them, strode between Cora and Fenn. Preliat stood facing the doorway, where a baby was cooing. He phased in and out, the details of the room shifting, changing. Perhaps it was being misremembered, or struggling to even project itself.

"My memory." He folded his hands behind his back. He was death itself, Cuir Rekr. He was the incarnate of violence, a maelstrom of war and hate. He was old, much older than Fenn. He was like him- but less sickly looking. Cora could note that his skin was more olive-toned than Fenn's. Fenn was clearly unwell if this was the man he was supposed to look like.

Preliat, or the memory, or the ghost- looked at Fenn for a long while.

"My son. My wayward son."

Preliat turned to the Jedi.

"Jetii."

His accent was that of a Concordian. Concord Dawn was Preliat's home, after all. Fenn did not share it, not correctly and not entirely. Preliat walked to the other side of the room, taking a seat in the lounging chair. He rested his hand on his chin, taking a deep breath. Fenn looked incredulous, suspicious. There was no deceit in the force, there wasn't anything but Fenn's presence truly there. So was this an illusion? A ghost? A byproduct of the cloning process- memories that were not his? Or was this really the Wolf of Mandalore, come back to save his son? Details in the room that Fenn could not know- the layout of Preliat's home, Aditya's cooking, Yasha's cooing in the other room. Preliat crossed his leg over the other, leaning his head back.

"Why help him, Cora?" His voice sounded ethereal for a moment- as if far away, near. Whispers repeated what he said, at the edges of Fenn's mind. But no lies, no deceit. He looked out the window, as if also, savoring the memory. Or perhaps, basking in the lie.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

As she delved further into Fenn's psyche, Cora became keenly aware that he could throttle the life from if his control slipped. It frightened her. It should frighten her. Self preservation was a healthy, human instinct.

She let that fear be present, but not in control.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I know this hurts." It wasn't a pleasant thing, to have your mind invaded. It was agony, to have your body react in the way it would to a virus. "You're doing well. So well, Fenn."

The Dark always roared the loudest when challenged. Cora let her Light be swatted back, but she did not let it dim. Steady and unyielding, finding cracks in the shadow.

And when those shadows took form, it was not in the shape she had expected. She'd been ready for blood and fire, not this….domesticity.

Not this warm lighting. Not this cozy decor. Not this home.

It all culminated unto the wavering memory of Fenn's father. The apparition acknowledged his son, and then - her?

In the physical realm, Cora swallowed. Even in this liminal space, Preliat had a gravity to his presence. His was the sort of gaze that made you too scared to squirm if you found yourself pinned beneath it.

Why help him?

Cora looked away. Her eyes found some dusty corner to occupy, but even that began to shift and slip from her line of sight.

He had a point. Some men were beyond saving. She'd buried them in temples and refugee camps alike - those who couldn't come back no matter what was done. She'd lost more than she'd saved. Her last attempt at freeing someone from the chains of Darkness had left her near-dead and buried in the frigid snows of the Arkanian mountainside. Bound to a hoverchair for months.

And Fenn, she didn't know Fenn. What little she did know, she approached with caution. Mandalorians were a tricky people, allying with Sith and Jedi alike. The particular faction Fenn had been raised in had laid siege to her home. That wasn’t a small thing.

Would it be better for the galaxy if she pressed further, further than she should go, and coax his heart into an eternal slumber?

Then, she heard the baby's gurgling coos. They struck at something primal in her. Something soft, yet still so strong. An ironclad instinct truer than phrik.

Cora could see herself looking down in that bassinet, the same as she did each night. At her child. According to old Ukatian custom, firstborn daughters were said to be a poor sign for an aristocratic family. Yet, when she looked at her own daughter, perfect in every way that a mother could conceive, she wondered how it was possible to look at Luciana as anything other than a blessing.

Fenn was someone's child, too.

"Because," she paused to take in a slow, grounding breath. Her gaze lifted from the corner, shaking off the cobwebs that had begun to creep over her resolve. It followed Preliat's own eyeline out the window.

"He’s suffering. If I - or my child - were suffering in this way, I would want help, too."

She thought of Lysander von Ascania . Of how divergent his path had become from her own, and how she could never come to love him any less if he were Sith.

"Even the wayward deserve a hand at their back. How else," she paused to inhale sharply, to feel that breath lift her chest as if it were real. "How else will they be able to find their way home?"

She couldn't guide his path. All she could do was hold out the lantern.

Fenn Stag

 

[Preliat Mantis]

​

Preliat turned his head, and his face shifted. Old, young, as if the memory was filling in gaps with what he looked like. He didn't look right, he didn't appear to be entirely there. He shifted between moments, as if existing in the spaces between seconds, outside of their realm. He looked up, taking a deep breath.

More cooing and words in the other room. Hollow shapes and sounds, unable to be deciphered. Maybe this was a memory. Or perhaps, Fenn's idea of a memory.

"The vat-born son. The weapon of war. The clone." He stood up, but didn't quite stand. More as if he was moving in-stop motion, lacking movement. Struggle and focus reverberated in the force. He was speaking to her, to Fenn, to everything and no one. Preliat stood, examining Fenn. Brown eyes flicked up and down the much younger version of himself. Then, he turned to the Jedi.

"You struggle against a darkness, an evil you have the inability to currently comprehend- Jetii.." And then, Preliat disappeared, for just a moment, flickering back into their view, her view. Suddenly, she was not in the room, she was back at the temple, and Preliat was looming over her. A skull over half of his face, as if etched over his skin.

Death.

He was Death. He stared at her, then the darkness pulled them back in.

"Spirits, memories, real or fake, Jedi. You seem a good woman. So I will do my best to help."

Oily shadows lingered at the edge of the room. Preliat turned his head, and smiled at the pair. Actually smiled. He rarely did. The room faded away, and Fenn turned to look at Cora.

 

[Fenn Stag]

INTO THE DARK

Fenn stared at Cora.

Cold, blackness stared at her.

It was the three of them, Preliat, Fenn, and Cora. Or at least, a memory, perhaps of Preliat.

Fenn took a step away, fading. Different times of Fenn's life flashed before Cora. He appeared in a jumpsuit of the Clone Army, a sigil of the Republic. A Mandalorian. A wayward drifter. A blood-covered invader. A wounded soldier.

"So, the light comes. All this struggle, all this fighting."

A chorus of voices. As if it struggled to contain itself, to form words as a single person. Fenn moved unnaturally, his body contorting in the chair outside of his mind. He moved his mouth to speak with the entity, but it made no sound. Only words formed on his lips, no sound produced.

It was all in his mind, and their collective sharing of it.

"It's been so long, tucked away in his mind. And before that- so cold. Waiting. Decades? Millenia?."

He looked over at Preliat.

"The Wolf."

He said it with disdain. He'd been familiar with him. Venom seeped out of his words. Fenn turned back to Cora.

"I grow so tired of struggling. I don't want to fight anymore. I just want what is mine to take."​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

The eyes of the skull, hollow and piercing, bore down upon her. Cora knew intrinsically what this was, not by her own skill, but by how encompassing it was-

Death.

And before death, she could only remain still. In the physical realm, she shivered.

The cleansing she'd often employed over Dark spirits was impersonal. This was something far more intimate. In entering Fenn's mind, she forfeited a layer of her own defenses. Her soul stripped bare.

The soldier, the Mandalorian, the drifter. They all folded into each other. Cora couldn't help but wonder about the trajectory of his life; had he found acceptance? Brotherhood? Love, among it all?

It was so easy to forget that people were the sum of their experiences.

"You've certainly lived a life, Fenn Stag," she murmured. Cora was only privy to glimpses, like a slideshow that captured each phase of Fenn. Not the big picture, just little humanizing details. Blink and you'll miss it.

It struck her with a realization that she was witnessing something precious. Someone's life.

"Why haven't you taken it?" she asked.
"What kept you fighting all this time?"

Fenn Stag

 

[Fenn Stag]

BROKEN(?)

"He fights. He fights for him."

Fenn's physical body recoiled, contorting again. Skin pushed against muscle, bulging unnaturally. Like something was trying to get out of his skin. Something trying to rip itself inside out. Despite the many chorus of voices- there was a sign of exhaustion, annoyance.

"You poke and prod with light at me. So annoyingly."

And then it all went black.

Not dark- dark was where light once was.

This place, deep in Fenn's mind, was never touched by light.

Sounds of electric motors. Machines. Voices. Cold. It was cold. Moving water.

"He's had no father, you know."

Brief glimpses of light.

Fenn was standing there, one of many. But they were older. He was not.

"They made thousands of his brothers. Aged up to be their warriors. To be their soldiers. And him? He was supposed to be the next generation. One of the first without alterations. Not aged unnaturally. Just a perfect, unaltered clone. Can you imagine that cruelty, creating an army of men- no mothers, no fathers, no brothers. Just war."

Then, the shadow was close to Cora. So close that she could feel it's cold, incalculable cruelty close to her.

"I know you can."

Accusations. Slander. But not entirely without merit. The Republic now repeated the sin that created Fenn Stag.

"He wants what you have, Jedi. He wants love. Life. A family. But he wasn't made for it. So I offer him an out! And what does he do? He fights me, day in and day out."

The shadow drew closer.

"What am I to do, Jedi? He suffers so much. I can put an end to his suffering. Help me. You needn't wander the mind of a man so burdened with life. Life, the incurable disease of Fenn Stag."

And it was just Cora, Fenn, and the Shadow in that blackness.

But something lurked at the edge of Cora's mind. Something drew closer to the shadow. A predator. Something not evil, but a force of nature.​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

The darkness that swallowed her had a particular sound. It was a pitched, mechanical hum. Then it was the powerful churn of rushing water. Each noise moved onto the next before she could comprehend the first.

Suddenly, she was looking up. Staring at identical faces organized into neat, sharp rows. A sort of awe tightened her chest, foreign and confusing.

Clones. They were clones. Fenn was a clone, created without the burden of family or love so as to not get in the way of his grim purpose.

Her chest ached for a different reason when the shadow loomed closer. It was opaque, but somehow she still saw the wavering image of carbon-copied soldiers through its mass.

He wasn't made for it.

"And I wasn't made to wield a blade," she tsked back. "That doesn't mean that he cannot grow beyond the reason he was made. He has consciousness. Free will. Who are you to deny him choice?"

"Fenn," she turned to address him, hand on his shoulder even if it hurt. "What do…"

Her voice faded. Something fogged at the periphery of her mind. It watched, hungry, waiting to pounce. In the physical realm, her brow twitched. Cora gathered herself again.

"What do you want, Fenn? There's a reason that you came to me."

Fenn Stag

 

[Fenn Stag]

THIS IS MY MIND
​

Fenn recoiled in her chair, as if many hands were holding him down now. He turned his head, speaking out loud, and in the theater of his own mind. Visages of the past, Ukatis, the Enclave, a clone, the old Republic cloning facilities- Preliat's memories, came scorching, screaming, flooding. He thrashed again, fighting, fighting.

"I-"

"I am not in control."
​

Fenn! listen! just listen—
we're fine, he thinks, just breathe, count the rounds,
This is my mind. he's there
These thoughts are my own.—it's just the road, just the night—
wrongwrongWRONG—
Fenn you see it too don't you??
the Wolf the Wolf the Wolf is here
teeth in the dark—eyes—watching—
don't turn around don't
FENN HE KNOWS. HE SEES, HES HERE

FENN HE KNOWS​

That third presence made itself known. Whatever the shadow was, fear overtook it's callousness, its bravado, its cruelty.

Fear.

It was afraid. Every step that Cora took, every question, every ounce of courage she gave Fenn, made it afraid. But also it was afraid.

Afraid of the Wolf. Afraid of Preliat.

 

[Preliat Mantis]

I AM YOUR DEATH

​

Soon, it was just Cora in an empty, black space.

The shadow, the space, the void and her. The creature, the possession given shape, was afraid. Perhaps it was a Sith ghost. Or an amalgamation of Fenn's mind. Fenn may have given his curse, the Sith poison, shape as a way to reason with it.

But it seemed less and less likely that was the case the more Cora stood in the construct of Fenn's mind. But soon, Fenn's mind gave way. A muddy battlefield. Asation.

Death walked the edges of the memory, and in came Preliat, given form. He was solid, tall, and without the whispering, oily shadows as before. Drums beat in the distance. Words, echoed off of stones. Ancient words of power, hate, anger. Drums beat heavy, hundreds, thousands of voices. Preliat walked forward, approaching the shadow. Screams of a God, a spirit, a plague, or Fenn's own mind, unable to comprehend its own feeling of fear. It had never known fear, never known anything but it's own malice. When Preliat spoke, it was like thunder in Cora's mind. He seized the shadowy figure, holding it tightly with two hands around its neck. The shadow took forms- familiar to Cora and to Preliat. Reaching, grasping, trying to maintain its form, to gain sympathy, or perhaps, just trying to hold its tenuous grasp on Fenn's mind.

"Ni cuy' kyr'am."

"Gar Kelir cuyir olar ti ni nayc or'atu."

"Ni Kelir Haili cetare kyr'amur gar."

"Plague ner ad nayc or'atu."

I am Preliat Mantis, Wolf of Mandalore. Cuir Rekr, death itself. You die here. I will take you to the next place- to hell!

Preliat's head slowly turned, breathing in deeply beneath his terrifying helmet. As if taking one more, final breath.

"Now, Corazona."

But he said Corazona- and her other names, names given to her by others, to herself. But nothing Fenn heard. He held the entity tightly, and fear- a great and mighty fear, of ruination, damnation, plagued this shadow held tightly in the Wolf's mighty hands.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

It was like traveling though quicksand. Inky, formless quicksand that sucked her in and gave her no direction, no depth. All she had was her trust in the Force, in a cosmic power that felt like warped rays of sun refracting though stained glass in her mind. In Fenn's mind.

The shadow recoiled before her, and fear seeped into the Force.

Another battlefield flare to life, this one soaked in a familiar ichor. Sith.

Preliat returned, first at the edges of her vision, then growing with the rumbling tenor of war-drums and heralding cries. And the shadow quivered.

Verses in Manod'a crashed like cymbals, reverberating within her skull and along her skin. They charged every nerve in her body to stand at attention. And the shadow – the poor, piteous, vile creature that had stolen a man's life in the most foul way, became desperate.

In the shadow, she saw Makko. Lysander. Then, her daughter.

She knew what this was, a trick of the Dark to endear her sympathy. It had worked on her before, and maybe the shadow knew that. Or maybe it was just lashing out, grasping for something, anything, to maintain its failing hold on Fenn's psyche.

Preliat's voice hit her like rolling thunder. Deep and tenebrous, loud and terrible. A thousand voices called for her in a thousand names:

Dowager Princess. Kinslayer. Jedi Knight. Whore. My love. My disgrace.

Servant of the Light.

Held fast by the Wolf, the shadow could only thrash so much. Cora's hands found what amounted to its face, cradling either cheek space in her palms. In contrast to Preliat, she was not harsh. Not violent, but not quite serene. Gentle. But when she called the Light, it flowed through her, sure in it's strength and unwavering. It seeped from her fingertips, spilling over the shadow like acid eating through paper.

The entity screamed, an earth-shattering, ear-splitting reminder of what it was – a poison, a virus, a being that knew only torture and insanity through invasion. One last dying attempt to brutalize Fenn beyond the point of return before the Light could consume it.

Through it all, Cora felt a profound sense of pity.

Fenn Stag Preliat Mantis