Ask Jakku Smoke and Mirrors...(Flashback)

[Nyx Otsana]

Spoiler

In The Outer Lands of Jakku ​

They were praying again. Praying in that awful, utterly butchered language. It started as it always did, with vicious whispers and hushed hymns. As time grew, so did the frenzy; a few voices became many, growing into a cacophony of sound, a perverted harmony of foul chanting. The cave walls surrounding the site did little but amplify the sound; the guttural tones bouncing between each crack and crevice.

As much as Nyx tried to drown it out, there was no hope. She was, after all, trapped. A captive of lunatics. How long had it been? Weeks now, if not months. Keeping track of time was becoming difficult. The days seeped into nights as quickly as her wounds could bleed.

From her hovel of a prison, Nyx could only watch on and listen. The cultists had gathered in numbers, amassing at the mouth of their altar. Littered sporadically about the place were crystals of sorts, hued with colour. The ones painted red seemed particularly venerated. Nyx shuddered at the mere sight of them, all too familiar with their evil. Their taintedness.

Feeble as she felt, the young Kiffar scurried as far back as her chains would allow. Out of sight, out of mind. Or so she hoped…

The others, those imprisoned with her, still whimpered and wept. Like her, they were unwilling acolytes. Slaves, and victims to this cult of madness. No amount of pleading could sway their demented captors, and any attempts to do so were met with harsh brutality. There used to be more of them, stuffed tight in the cell. Now...now there were only three left, with Nyx being the eldest.

Not that it mattered. Nothing at all mattered, so long as she was left alone, left alive. Already weak, Nyx began to drift in and out of consciousness. Ancestors willing, she could find a short moment of peace in the abyss of oblivion.

@Fine Dining Set

 

[Cairo Kisufi]

It was one year, almost to the day, since Cairo had been ripped from the arms of his mother. Well, proverbially ripped; she didn't seem to sour when they parted ways. Ever since, he had trained with the other Sith acolytes on their many worlds; Korriban, Moraband, Dromuund Kaas, had become as familiar to them as any other place in the galaxy.

All thanks to his enigmatic Master, the woman who claimed him from his mother: Amirah. He still knew nothing of her - she was completely absent from his training, outside of rendezvous like these. He had learned that she was what the Sith called a 'pureblood,' her red skin and floating tendrils were a sign of ancient, alien aristocracy on the Sith homeworlds. But there was nothing else, just that she seemed to enjoy investigating rumors of Dark Side cults and unaffiliated Sith, perhaps for vocation, perhaps for kicks. It was how she had found Cairo - his mother had tried her typical "Prophetess" routine on the true Sith Amirah, and she had snatched him in return. At first, Cairo had thought it random chance; a string of bad luck. But, since that day, Amirah had called him along to one or two more of these phony cult investigations; one had ended in servitude to the Sith, a secretive alliance within the core of the Galaxy. The other, in death and despair; the small band killed, burned, and left as a warning to their ilk. He did not know the truth

Their trip was silent, despite Cairo's best efforts to annoy or otherwise engage her. When conversation failed, he stayed in the cargo hold of her personal ship to meditate on the trip. He felt building rage towards his master, the woman who had abducted him and sentenced him to the torture of Sith servitude. He felt passionate hate to his mother, who had given him up with nary a second thought. And, most of all, he felt burning shame for his role in it; or, his lack of one. He was too weak to free himself - it was only through power that he could escape the confines of these wretched, wicked demons.

His shame spiral was interrupted by their landing. She did little more than penetrate his mind with the cruelty of her own, the darkness of her thoughts seeping into his, to spur him back to consciousness. "Get up." She pulled a black balaclava over her face. "We're moving."

Cairo appraised his surroundings. It was a desert, scorching hot and desperately dry. But, it was like the desert had died; instead of bleached, yellow sand, the ground was gray, ashy, desecrated. It choked him when he breathed too deeply - he was forced to take short, shallow breaths. He felt his rage building as he followed his would-be master aimlessly through the desert.

Hours later, the sun was still high, and little of the landscape had changed. Except, there was a cave; it slowly came into site, a gray maw of stone gobbling up the empty desert. "Is that where we're going?" He heard no response. Typical. His rage built further, nearly clouding his vision, but he took a deep breath. All he could do is assume he was on the right path. The Morellian patted the training saber on his hip for comfort; little more than a toy compared to the bloody blade of Amirah, but the tool brought him some comfort.

The pair continued their march through the desert, ever closer to the cave. The sound of the wind whipping through the dunes was joined by the pathetic moans of the cave's captives, sounds that terrified Cairo. What dark, terrible hovel were they walking to now?

@Pam0wl

 

[Nyx Otsana]

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. Nyx could feel it, sense it, just like prey could sense the hungry maw of a nearby predator. What started as a scratch, grew into something more dangerous. Vicious claw-like thoughts lashed out at her, seemingly from nowhere. She’d never felt something so awful before. The only close were those dreadful red crystals...

Ever unsteady, Nyx rose to her feet, using the wall for purchase. She hadn’t eaten in days, and water was only given sparingly; apparently, in the eyes of her captors, suffering promoted power. More like misery. The chain on her ankle didn’t help either. Nevertheless, Nyx somehow found the strength needed to move. Hobbling to the mouth of the repurposed tomb, she strained and looked out. Not at the cultists and their ‘worship’, no, she’d seen that more than enough. Instead, her dark-eyed gaze fell on the entrance of the stronghold.

"Coming...something’s coming.”

The guard, stationed near them, must have heard her. He too turned his attention towards the outer lands. Of course, he would listen, she was the ‘seer’ after all, the dark oracle, never mind how many times she’d tried to tell them otherwise.

The guard must have seen something, for not a moment later, he scampered to the altar, trampling through the worshippers as if they were nothing. He came upon the ear of his leader and relaid the sighting.

The minister of the faith, as he liked to call himself, was a dramatic man. At the report, his eyes bulged just as much as his chest puffed out. “Strangers in our midsts?!” His loud, grating voice drummed itself across the open space. All fell silent as he continued to rant and rave, “Who dares approach our dark sanctum?”

A hollering began, the cultists all screeching like animals. It was a warning, a threat to whoever was approaching. Locals knew better than to trespass here, they knew better to interfere with their ‘dark arts’. Whoever this was, they were brazen, unbothered by the (self-proclaimed) cult of darkness.

Two figures became visible. Nyx knew this because all became silent once more. Even the minister seemed transfixed. Two living shadows had seemingly appeared from nowhere as if born from the void itself.

The minister, in a dramatic show, cast his hand forth, as if to gauge their measure.“Fellow followers of the faith, perhaps...acolytes to bolster our ranks, hmm? Let us see if they are worthy.”

Nyx, however, knew otherwise. Stupid, stupid man...

Tremors took hold of her, to the point where she couldn’t even speak. She collapsed, perhaps from fear or exhaustion, maybe even both. Instincts told her to make herself small, become less noticeable. Maybe, if she was lucky, she could survive the true darkness now arriving.

@Fine Dining Set

 

[Cairo Kisufi]

Cairo knew what came next - he could feel the emanating rage and malice from Amirah's masked form. She was an eclipse, able to darken the light of the sun itself with her fearsome power. And she was still a minor Sith within the Empire - Cairo had heard legends of the Empress, of Darth Raze, of Darth Stolas, of the Eternal, of so many others who held the power of living gods. The Sith were the fearsome commanders of the Force, adherents of the Dark Side. Amirah took this to mean they were divinely ordained justices, angels of reckoning who would swoop into cults and deliver judgement.

For that is what she did, now. Tall, masked, caped, her figure etched shadows through the caves dim light. Through the Force, she extended the power of her hearing, catching the brief words of the cult's minister. Cairo once more felt her rage bubble through the force, the rage practically oozing into a palpable whip to strike at her foes. He closed off his own mind to hers, a skill he had learned recently; her hatred became infectious, blinding, when she would strike. He needed to keep his focus.

"Worthy?" Her voice, deep and terrible, boomed through the halls of the cave as she approached. She amplified her speech, her voice itself nearly becoming a weapon as she answered. "It is I who judges worthiness." She closed in to the entrance, Cairo silently at her flank. "You have caught me in a generous mood." She wanted to play with her food. "Kneel, now, and be judged."

Her red eyes shot around the cave's interior, searching for the face to the voice she had heard. The minister. Good. Amirah raised a hand and she projected the latent shadow that burned within her, sending images of despair, pain, and ruin to the minister's mind. If he was of a weaker constitution, he would succumb to a gibbering madness, overcome by the horrific visions she projected. If he was stronger, it would still surely be an unsettling feeling.

Cairo stepped beside his master, his teal gaze peering along the sides of the walls. People, chained up, dirty, starving, suffering. What horrific games were these fools playing at? He silently surveyed; eyeing the numbers of people on the walls versus the actual cultists. It was clear what would happen next.

@Pam0wl

 

[Nyx Otsana]

The boy. He was staring at her. Well, with a closer look, one wouldn’t immediately call him a mere boy, given his height and age. If Nyx had to guess, he was probably no older than her. How pitiful she must have looked, half-starved and sickly, chained up as if she and others were nothing more than disobedient beasts. To add insult to injury, a portion of Nyx’s face was severely discolored, an unfortunate result of the cult’s ritualized scarification. Etched into her the planes of her cheeks were clusters of dark marks. To her, the tattoos meant nothing, the designs themselves being entirely inspired by whatever the cult saw fit. For all she knew, they were just random, utterly nonsensical, like the rest of the damned believers.

But one thing was for certain, the entire process was agony, and Nyx, being fully conscious, endured the experience time and time again. With each session, more and more marks were added. The minister said pain was good, that it would connect her to the darkness. To embrace the pain was to embrace power.

The irony. If only he in turn practiced what he preached.

There was no embracing whatever. Instead, the minister was cowering, his withering form folded on the ground in prostration. The rest of his congregation followed suit, with many of them falling to their knees in desperation. None had the ability to resist the strangers, nor did any seek to try. All they could do was grovel for mercy, like lowly worms in the dirt.

The minister’s pleas were the loudest, his mind hinging on the sheer brink of madness. “Dark one, forgive m-me! I see it now. Your power! Your greatness! We serve the darkness!” He was now clawing at himself, unhinged by the mania that warped his very being.

And Nyx watched on. With guilty satisfaction, she watched on.

@Fine Dining Set

 

[Cairo Kisufi]

They had failed their test. How, they would likely never know; they had been attacked without provocation and immediately complied to the whims of their attacker. Perhaps a wise strategy, in some respects. Today, it would be their doom.

"Yes, you do. You serve me." She stepped slowly towards the groveling minister, eyes aglow with a burning rage. These worms? They would not make valuable servants. But perhaps there could be a lesson in their failure. "Acolyte, remember the Qotsiajak." Her voice boomed again as she spoke in the ancient Sith tongue; the foul worlds rolled heavily off her tongue, dropping to floor beneath. Down to her black boots, where the pathetic sight of the cult's leader pleaded for mercy. "Through Passion, I gain strength!" At the word 'strength,' she grabbed the minister by the throat, raising him easily off the ground with a single hand. She raised her opposite hand as it began to glow red, a dark cloud of crimson forming around the Sith and her quarry. The minister would feel his life force slowly sapped from him, his body and mind withering as she consumed the very essence of his life. When she had sated her taste for the man's energy, she withdrew her lightsaber. She ignited the blade, a short, red sword closer to a dagger in length, and plunged it into the man's heart. After which, he was easily cast aside.

Even Cairo lacked a deeper understanding of her motivations. She was little more than a loth-wolf, a predator who saw the world as prey. "Acolyte." She cocked a head towards Cairo's mask, her red eyes piercing Cairo's teal. "Get these things off the wall. They, too, shall be judged." Cairo grimaced at the thought. But he complied, nonetheless.

She continued to eye the cultists on the ground, regarding them with the same hungry gaze a butcher would have as he selected the next pig for slaughter. Cairo knew this would take longer than it had to. She relished these moments. As she began her grim work, Cairo sought a way to cut the chains off of the acolytes' captives. He reached for his training saber - altogether too weak to do the job on its own - as a first step.

He had noticed one who stuck out, before. One who seemed more present than her fellow miserable wretches. A young woman adorned in tattoos. Cairo's steely gaze continued in her direction as he raised his own saber to cut the chains. To his surprise, the blade caught the weakest link of a chain - slowly but surely melting through the iron bindings. It took all his strength to keep cutting against the resistance of a metal far stronger than his saber. Sweat began to trickle down his face, producing a disgusting, swampy feeling in mask around his mouth; he quickly pulled it up while Amirah was distracted.

The blade stopped short of making it the whole way through. "Shit." He kicked the wall beside Nyx as he thought of an option; wheels turning through his mind. He turned towards her, words forming in his mouth that sat somewhere between a plea and a command. "Help me out with this." He gestured with his training saber to the chains above her head, which fixed her to the wall. "Just, on my count, pull with everything you have." He had no idea that she was Force Sensitive, but such a quirk would no doubt come in handy now.

Cairo focused on the weakened chain. He focused his hatred of Amirah into it; his feelings of abandonment; his rage at having walked all day in the desert to disrupt some loony would-be Sith. He focused his hate at himself for being party to such carnage, though he was too young to fully grasp this feeling.

Through the Force, his loathing manifested into power. A spike of power, as he attempted to rip the chains of just one prisoner down. "Alright, on three. One...Two...Three!"

@Pam0wl

 

[Nyx Otsana]

The minister was dead. Just like that, his life was snuffed out as if it were nothing but a candle. A harsh bark of laughter escaped Nyx’s throat, though she quickly killed it for fear of being noticed.

Too late it seemed, as the dark one’s apprentice made his approach. The other slaves cowered immediately, retreating back as if he were one of their cultist tormentors. Nyx alone remained where she was, simplifying looking on as the acolyte came to a stop. Perhaps fatigue had finally got the best of her, or more likely, she simply didn’t care enough to immediately react. Her time here had been torture. What worse could befall her now?

In her current state, death might even be mercy. At least then she could join her ancestors and find peace.

But it seemed the apprentice had a set of different intentions. Weapon in hand, it was not the captives he struck - no, it was the chains that bound to the walls. Was he...helping them? Freeing them, perhaps? No. His dark master mentioned nothing of freeing slaves. If Nyx heard correctly, the menacing woman instead spoke of judgment.

What kind of judgment? What kind of new nightmare was this? Unwilling to find out, Nyx was almost tempted to refuse Cairo’s order. Almost. But the thought of breaking her chains was a tempting one.

Too parched to speak, she merely nodded and snaked her fingers around the metal that was her tether. How often had she dreamed of this moment? How many had she spent raging against these very bonds?

Too long…

A torrent of anger whirled within her. In a single moment, she poured everything out; her frustration, her despair, even her fury. It all poured forth and when Cairo gave the word, it erupted like a force of nature.

The chain broke.

@Fine Dining Set