Eternal Father
The fires that had raged for a fortnight had, at last, quieted to a dull crackle. Violence still reigned over parts of the world, embodied in brief but brutal struggles that appeared as distant pinpricks of light in the fading twilight. The land was scarred, rent asunder by shells that dotted the barren waste with the echoes of furious anger. Burnt out husks and the corpses of the fallen still littered the land, broken where they had fallen. The efforts to retrieve all of them would be a great undertaking, and it was not assured that all would be recovered.
Above the carnage waved the banner of the Sith Empire, black imperial crest resting upon a field of blood intersected by black geometric lines. Whatever ruins remained standing were swaddled in such iconography, the victorious army plastering its dark pride across every conceivable surface it could find. Prisoners had been assembled and paraded before these shrines, their armor stripped from their bodies as a final insult to their identity as Mandalorians.
Amidst it all was a pavillion chiseled out of dark porphyry, the four large statues that held its wide angular roof were modeled after bound slaves, kneeling in submission as they bore their burden dutifully. At the center of this pavillion was an elevated dais upon which sat the Sith Emperor, the throne momentarily eschewed in exchange for cushions that encompassed the Emperor’s frame in comfort as his lower half, now thoroughly bandaged, was kept in comfort.
Surrounding the throne were seven Crownguard, one for each stanza in the Qotsisajak, scrolls of litanies upon which was written ancient Sith scripture was stamped onto their scarlet armor. The weapons they bore stood erect and inactive, silently humming with latent energy that was a hair’s breadth away from being unleashed. Further out were an assemblage of Sith Lords and Imperial magistrates hailing from every branch of the Sith Empire, their retainers mingling between them, speaking with hushed whispers before the Emperor raised a single hand to silence them.
His baleful gaze washed over the assembly, cutting through each and everyone one in attendance. “Mandalore,” he began, voice like the cracking of stone, “Has fallen. It’s fall heralds a new age, one where we, the Lords of the Sith, take what is ours without games or pretense. No longer will we demean ourselves by perpetuating the fallacy that the other governments of the galaxy are our equals. Moving forward we will offer those who stand in our way one choice, bend the knee or be destroyed. No more half-measures, no more compromises. We Sith will rule forever, and those who defy us will know only death.”
