“It's so peaceful here… the Force permeates everything.”
―Nomi Sunrider
The planet Ossus hung limned in fire, a giant grey pearl floating between the orange globes of two suns. It was grey because the entire world was covered in clouds. It was covered in clouds because, twice each year, Ossus passed directly between its two stars. Blasted by radiant energy from opposite sides, it went several weeks without night. Planetary temperatures skyrocketed, changing most of the surface water into atmospheric vapor.
Ossus was located in the Auril sector of the Outer Rim Territories. Some records surmised it was the location of the first Jedi Temple ever built, although Ahch-To, Coruscant, Jedha, and Tython were also candidates - and the truth was hotly debated by academics. At the very least, records showed that Ossus once housed the Great Jedi Library and a temple at some point.
In addition, if the records were to be believed, it was also the original location of the Force-sensitive Great Tree.
Which, in the round, was the reason Fiach was here. Given the growing Sith threat, sites for new Jedi Temples were being sought and she had been dispatched here, to see what remained and was salvageable.
As she landed, she wondered how this site might have looked back then. The opportunity to vist the magnificent library that contained knowledge of the Force and the history of a thousand generations of defenders of the Old Republic. Scrolls and dataplaques containing legends and songs, triumphs and tragedies. Ossus had, apparently, once been filled with fountains and statues, beautiful pavilions of embroidered fabric, fluted columns of milk-stone, courtyards with mosaics of flag-stones and tile, wind chimes of crystal and gold.
Now, though, it was merely a tomb, a blasted dark scar, its glory obliterated by fiery violence.
The Jedi Knight climbed down the ramp of her ship. It looked what it was – an obsolete, quirky craft almost as old as the ruins themselves – and just stood still as she absorbed all the echoing memories around her. Her lilac eyes widened, and her mousey-blonde hair blew about in the dead wind. She let her imagination swirl with stories that might have been told by ghosts, epic ballads the Jedi would have sung—if Ossus had not been incinerated when ten stars exploded in the Cron Drift four thousand years before, during the height of the Sith War.
Overhead, filling the sky like a brilliant stain, was the incandescent gas of the Cron Drift, now a funeral pyre for this once-magnificent structure.
Venturing away from her vessel, Fiach saw glassy, hardened puddles around the remains of cyclopean statues and pillars slumped from the raging shockwave that had struck this world. Strands blew about her face and she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small band and tied her hair into a pony-tail. She was sure she could smell the burnt aftereffects that still clung to the breeze like shadows.
As she walked, the broken stones and rubble crunched under her feet.
A few fast-moving, lizard-like creatures skittered to shelter. So, Ossus wasn't entirely dead. Small lifeforms often managed to survive, no matter how great the devastation. Four millennia had passed, and the radiation levels had dropped to below lethal amounts.
The Empire had frowned on remembering Jedi legends, on idolising the great defenders of the Old Republic…on keeping the flame alive. Before she was born, the Jedi had been slaughtered, all but wiped out.
As she stood and absorbed the history of this place, she turned her head skyward, wondering when her companion for this mission would arrive.
@Mattric
―Nomi Sunrider
The planet Ossus hung limned in fire, a giant grey pearl floating between the orange globes of two suns. It was grey because the entire world was covered in clouds. It was covered in clouds because, twice each year, Ossus passed directly between its two stars. Blasted by radiant energy from opposite sides, it went several weeks without night. Planetary temperatures skyrocketed, changing most of the surface water into atmospheric vapor.
Ossus was located in the Auril sector of the Outer Rim Territories. Some records surmised it was the location of the first Jedi Temple ever built, although Ahch-To, Coruscant, Jedha, and Tython were also candidates - and the truth was hotly debated by academics. At the very least, records showed that Ossus once housed the Great Jedi Library and a temple at some point.
In addition, if the records were to be believed, it was also the original location of the Force-sensitive Great Tree.
Which, in the round, was the reason Fiach was here. Given the growing Sith threat, sites for new Jedi Temples were being sought and she had been dispatched here, to see what remained and was salvageable.
As she landed, she wondered how this site might have looked back then. The opportunity to vist the magnificent library that contained knowledge of the Force and the history of a thousand generations of defenders of the Old Republic. Scrolls and dataplaques containing legends and songs, triumphs and tragedies. Ossus had, apparently, once been filled with fountains and statues, beautiful pavilions of embroidered fabric, fluted columns of milk-stone, courtyards with mosaics of flag-stones and tile, wind chimes of crystal and gold.
Now, though, it was merely a tomb, a blasted dark scar, its glory obliterated by fiery violence.
The Jedi Knight climbed down the ramp of her ship. It looked what it was – an obsolete, quirky craft almost as old as the ruins themselves – and just stood still as she absorbed all the echoing memories around her. Her lilac eyes widened, and her mousey-blonde hair blew about in the dead wind. She let her imagination swirl with stories that might have been told by ghosts, epic ballads the Jedi would have sung—if Ossus had not been incinerated when ten stars exploded in the Cron Drift four thousand years before, during the height of the Sith War.
Overhead, filling the sky like a brilliant stain, was the incandescent gas of the Cron Drift, now a funeral pyre for this once-magnificent structure.
Venturing away from her vessel, Fiach saw glassy, hardened puddles around the remains of cyclopean statues and pillars slumped from the raging shockwave that had struck this world. Strands blew about her face and she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small band and tied her hair into a pony-tail. She was sure she could smell the burnt aftereffects that still clung to the breeze like shadows.
As she walked, the broken stones and rubble crunched under her feet.
A few fast-moving, lizard-like creatures skittered to shelter. So, Ossus wasn't entirely dead. Small lifeforms often managed to survive, no matter how great the devastation. Four millennia had passed, and the radiation levels had dropped to below lethal amounts.
The Empire had frowned on remembering Jedi legends, on idolising the great defenders of the Old Republic…on keeping the flame alive. Before she was born, the Jedi had been slaughtered, all but wiped out.
As she stood and absorbed the history of this place, she turned her head skyward, wondering when her companion for this mission would arrive.
@Mattric
