Despair and Deceit

[Eccles]

A violent shiver went through the Temple on Ziost as no one knew if they’d become a target or where the civil war would strike next. Some acolytes overheard coterie sympathies among their fellows and outright slew them for speaking ill of the empress, while others were busy dismembering other acolytes and warriors for mentioning the name of that particular or any Skywalker in their presence. Among those murderers one played both sides in order to kill those acolytes that were before him on the list of promotions, and that was Valdir. When the news had reached them about the attack on Korriban and the coterie rising, he had remained largely indifferent and saw a golden opportunity once temperatures started rising on the freezing planet. Despite being an acolyte, he was more than often a couple of years the senior of others of his rank and had seen and had participated in more campaigns giving him an advantage in close combat.


“Did you hear about Jos Rana?” a male acolyte asked his female counterpart as they crossed paths in one of the deep tunnel complexes leading to the training facilities. “Did he get promoted already? I knew he was shortlisted but-“ the female Zabrak replied in a mixture of surprise and jealousy. “No,” the male Kel Dorian shook his head “they found him frozen to death outside on the tundra.”


The sudden sound of footsteps coming towards them stopped them dead in their tracks. Jos Rana might have been a member of a weaker species, human, but him just freezing to death reeked of foul play and a sudden fear made itself master over the two acolytes as the footsteps became louder and louder. Finally a dark figure appeared towering over them. “Have you two proclaimed your loyalties yet?” it asked with a deep voice filled with a sinister joy.


The two young acolytes looked at each other in an attempt to guess each other’s loyalties, but they didn’t yet dare to actually speak up and this seemed to anger the figure. “Weaklings. What are you doing here if you’re too afraid to fight?” he hissed and in a sudden movement grabbed the Kel Dorian’s mask and used the Force to push the female acolyte against the wall and knocking her unconscious. “Sana!” the Kel Dorian gasped and realizing his own situation was quite dire he attempted to Force push his assailant away, but despite his species’ enhanced reflexes the dark figure had foreseen it and threw him over its shoulder and further down the corridor. “I will kill you, prepare.” it said and drew his hood back revealing his tribal tattoos and horns and allowing the acolyte to recognize his assailant. “Valdir” the Kel Dorian suddenly beamed and a buzzing revealed a red lightsaber springing to life “learned to use a lightsaber yet?”


Valdir’s facial features flickered at the young acolytes taunt and with a sudden rage that was triggered by his own confirmed insecurities with the saber he charged his fellow acolyte with enhanced speed. Surprised by this sudden attack but confident in his own skill with the lightsaber the Kel Dorian utilizied Ataru and set in motion a downcutting swing that, much to his surprise, was halted when Valdir grabbed his hand midswing and grinned as he once again got hold of the Kel Dorian’s mask. “They would’ve killed you on Naboo anyway.” he nodded towards lightsaber above their heads and then with a terrific motion tore the mask from the Kel Dorian’s face. Immediately the young acolytes desperately grasped for air and was unable to recover before the Zabrak aggressor yanked the lightsaber out of his hand and pummeled him with the hilt several times until the young acolyte collapsed and died an agonizing death due to the oxygen rich air within the temple complex.


Now Valdir turned around, looked at the girl, a twelve-year-old Iridonian Zabrak from one of the tribes his own had warred with in the last decade, and as he approached her he knew that he would not regret her death. The lightsaber was still glowing as he grabbed her by the neck and raised her unconscious body from the ground before plunging the Kel Dorian’s saber into her chest sideways as to utterly destroy both her hearts. It happened too fast for the pain of it to wake her from her unconscious state and she fell lifelessly to the ground as Valdir dropped both her and the saber. Lastly, he put the Kel Dorian’s mask in her hand and then disappeared from the scene after confirming with a satisfied look that he had made it look like the two of them killed each other.

The news about the death of the two young acolytes barely received any attention, the masters and students alike figuring it probably had something to do with the civil war and if it wasn’t the conclusion most accepted eagerly was that it was the tragic ending of a lover’s quarrel. No one seemed very willing to investigate and risk their own sympathies to be revealed to everyone, because however much the Sith warriors on Ziost craved combat, they valued their own skin much more.


Valdir, whose freedom in coming and going hadn’t changed since arriving on Ziost after the failed attack on Naboo, spend most of his time locked up in his private quarters and listening to the holocron of Darth Zanna explaining how one can conceal his presence in the Force. Ever since his adventure on Hoth he had been dying to learn how to conceal his presence like the Kushari beast had done and not fall victim to an ambush by a better-attuned Jedi or Sith. Ambushing, after all, was his preferred way of doing things and being unable to mask his Force alignment or presence altogether made this virtually impossible.

”The trick is to become so comfortable with it that you can slip into this state of being…dissolved, yet carry on functioning, fully aware.”

“Argh this makes no sense!” Valdir growled and rose angrily to his feet. “Words, words, always only words! Just teach me already!” he yelled at the image of Darth Zanna, but after a short pause she calmly continued.

”Novices to the Force should start with the Quey’tek meditation until they are more attuned to the Force waves.”

Still breathing heavily trying to control his angry outburst, Valdir took a few deep breaths and sat down on the floor to meditate. This was something he had done before with moderate success when he was abandoned on the planet of Baralou and where he then had his hatred as focus point into the Force in an attempt to survive the poison, now there was an equally strong emotion that burned to his very essence: failure. He had become obsessed with his inability to play a more important part in the battle for Naboo and had even given in to fear when sensing how strong the Jedi had been. His desire to learn Force stealth was thus not only a vain desire to keep his preferred fighting method, but largely due to his desire to live and the fear of failure. His tribe did not allow failure for their Force-sensitive members and if he was unable to become a proper Sith than he was not worth his facial tattoos.

And so days of meditated despair forged Valdir’s strong link to the Force until he actually felt the truth behind Darth Zanna’s words and found a combination of being dissolved and fully aware.

The complete immersion into his meditative studies almost made him miss the familiar presence making its way through the acolyte apartments and he immediately snapped out of it and left his own rooms. "Gith!" he called out loudly and a moment later a female Zabrak in her thirties appeared. That was Gith Carran, another force-sensitive from the Carran tribe that joined the Sith and the one that had supported him during his first few years under their tribe's extra harsh preparation. She had been the one to comfort him when he was still too young to understand why he needed to break the bones of his opponents, she was the one that beat him the hardest whenever showed weakness and she was who taught him how to channel the Force and enchance his speed and focus.

"Still an acolyte, then?" Gith said as she came closer. Her facial tattoos were purple and just like Valdir's made it look like she was always angry and just like Valdir she was an outsider, driven to outperform and forced to always seek out excellence. Not much had changed since he last saw her, although she had dyed her hair the same shade of purple as her tattoos, and she was much much stronger. "I was only an acolyte for two years and you've been one for, what, eight?" she continued without waiting for a reply. She had hit him right where it hurts the most: his current obsession with failure. It took him all the contraint he could muster not to break the rule that forbade members of the Carran tribe to kill each other outside a formal duel. "You weren't on Naboo. Aren't warriors supposed to join the fighting?" he finally replied in somewhat of a bark. Unlike Valdir, Gith showed that she had no trouble controlling her emotions and shrugged "The Council wanted me on Coruscant. I'm only here because they want to burden me with an apprentice."

It stayed silent between the two of them and suddenly Gith turned around and continued her way. "Meet me in training room 45E at dawn tomorrow."

Training room 45E was a hundred square feet designed for duelling with a Sith warrior's favourite weapon: the lightsaber. Gith was preoccupied with what seemed to be a pre-battle routine of meditative stretching when Valdir entered the otherwise empty space and she ignored him for the time being. Valdir didn't have any pre-battle routines, he either charged blindly or chased wildly. You didn't really need to prepare for something that came natural, now did you? Slightly bothered at having to wait he sat down and toyed around with the hilt of his lightsaber until he was suddenly unable to draw a breath. He panicked, struggled by thumping his chest hoping that would somehow make it possible for him to breathe again and then he looked up as he felt himself being raised to his feet by a strong grip around his throat. When he looked up he saw that Gith had finished her routine and clearly wasn't one to wait for a lower Sith, seeing as she was using the Force to punish Valdir for not standing ready. "What good are those tattoos if you don't behave like an adult!" she told him and slammed him against the wall. "As my apprentice you're my servant, you stand ready to serve me and you only do something when I tell you to do it." she seemed to ignore the fact that Valdir was beginning to turn blue as the life was being choked out of him, but when she read the desperation in his eyes she let him fall to the ground and watched him inhale deeply. There was no sympathy for him now just like there was no sympathy for them growing up on Iridonia. Not for them, not for the special ones of the small Carran tribe. "You've grown soft and lazy" she scolded him "our elders would punish you severely if they knew you were sullying the name of our tribe by not even managing to become a Sith. You have waited too long to embrace the Dark Side, being content in our tribe's ways. Shame on you for not pursuing excellence."

"I-I'm sorry" Valdir said in a coarse voice and before he knew it Gith sucker punched him back against the wall. She landed several body shots and then threw him for hundred feet against the opposite wall of the room. He broke the impact with his arms and felt their bones break under the sheer force, but Gith wasn't done yet and broke his legs as well before she took his head in her hands and stared murderously into his eyes "Embrace the power or die." she began to put pressure on his temples and penetrated his mind to seek out and exploit his greatest fears and worst memories using the Force to make him so afraid that he would finally fully embrace the Dark Side.

He remembered himself as a young boy being forced to defeat his opponents by breaking one bone at a time and torturing them into submission, he remembered how he hated it, dreaded it, and the memory faded when he began to enjoy it. Then the loss of fellow warriors he held dear, tribe members he loved and how they had the same eyes as all the people he mercilessly slaughtered on Duro and Naboo. Suddenly all the pain that he had shielded himself from with an air of indifference or even enjoyment was trying to enter his being. His trouble with keeping up with the other acolytes when it came to using the Force, the shame he felt, the anger he used to get back at them. Finally all those he had loved, all those that had despised and punished him and all those he had slaughtered in return turned into Gith, who was applying so much force on his skull that he felt like it was about to explode. His despair worsened, he could not lift his arms or legs to defend himself and get Gith off of him. Then something cracked, it might have been his skull, and all the sudden Valdir opened the door and fully embraced all the different emotions, Hatred, Fear, Love they all morphed and he let out a horrific scream as he bellowed "STOP!"

Gith's eyes widened, her cheeks looked as if they were exposed to the wind going at a hundred miles an hour, and then suddenly Valdir felt empowered and energy surged through his body and into his arms that drowned out the pain of the broken bones as he placed his hands against Gith's body and watched how the energy, the electricity, blasted her several feet across the room. After that all went dark.

Valdir woke up in the hospital wing just after midnight with a sceptical looking healer shaking his head at him as he finished healing the fracture in his knee. "You warrior Sith never know when to hold back. Every day I'm in here mending bones or amputating limbs." Valdir ignored the healer's complaints and slowly worked up the courage to try and move his arms, they felt unbelievably soar, but otherwise seemed fully healed. "Githe?" he asked in a voice that much more resembled the croaking cough of a senile old man than a healthy young one. "Who, the Zabrak Crusader? She's fine. Few burnmarks on her chest but they'll heal completely. She left for Coruscant a few hours ago. Something about instructions awaiting in your quarters."