The sand swirled high, pushed here and there by the strong arid breeze. High above a predator soared in lazy circles, two suns casting double shadows on the sere plains below.
Breaking the plains were a series of stone bluffs, and sitting just outside a small cave high up the side of one, sat a young woman.
Wrapped tightly against the sand and heat, she looked out at the shimmering mirages through sturdy goggles, protected against the moisture stealing heat.
Hearing a noise behind her, she turned slightly to regard the pitiful creature curled up inside….her Master, reduced to nothing more than a gibbering idiot.
But, her Master he was ….until his death released her.
Returning to her vigil of the barrens below, she thought back on the events that had brought her here
….
After many years of training and intense study, Arana Vix had been finally chosen to apprentice to one of the Masters of the Janisaarai, one Cassen Voh.
Surly and uncompromising, Cassen Voh was nonetheless regarded as one of the Janisaarai’s most potent users of the Force, Arana Vix felt fortunate to become his apprentice.
Many trials ensued, Arana Vix handling most with aplomb, Cassen Voh seeming bent on breaking her spirit, but Arana Vix was unbowed, utilizing her connection to the Force as a true Janissarai. An embodiment of Light and Dark….the unspoken truth.
Finally satisfied with her abilities, Cassen Voh deigned to take her off-world with him. Seeking new avenues for the procurement of Cortosis, Cassen Voh and Arana Vix travelled the width and breadth of the Outer Rim.
Always though, their efforts were stymied by the ever expanding reach of the Empire, squeezing the supply of many materiel, especially rare ores such as Cortosis.
Growing more irritated by the day, Arana Vix grew alarmed at the change in her Master. Always irascible, he nonetheless held a tight control on his dark tendencies, exorcising them through ritual and meditation.
Lately however, he’d been neglecting his necessary spiritual ablutions, and when Arana Vix pressed him on it one day, found herself suspended above the ground by Cassen Voh’s power, his face a mask of fury. Though choked for air, Arana Vix merely gazed calmly doAwn at her Master. Should he choose to kill her this day…so be it. Her live was his to use.
Slowly, he release his grip on her throat and lowered her to the floor. Without a word, he motioned her to follow and she did…on to the next world.
Many more violent incidents occurred, Cassen Voh somehow always managing to restrain himself from killing Arana Vix outright.. But she did not complain, her life was her Master’s. Even when he demanded that she become his lover, satisfying his baser urges, she complied.
And so it was that as Master Cassen Voh lost himself more and more in the Darkness, he became sloppy, coming close to capture by the Empire a number of times.
Growing paranoid, he refused Arana Vix’s suggestion of returning to the Janissaarai home world, imagining plots to destroy him among his former friends there.
No, they would hide, from the Empire and Janisaarai both. And so, they found a desolate plain on a desolate planet and built a home in the bluff.
Training continued, brutal, painful, in the desert, honing Arana Vix’s skills. She especially appreciated the cleansing rituals that her Master no longer practiced; his example was a study in the dangers of the Dark side. Arana Vix learned this lesson well.
Slowly, slowly the Master’s hateful energy ate away at him, shriveling his body and mind. Soon, Arana Vix had to care for her Master as if he were a babe, a terrible hate-filled babe, but a babe nonetheless.
…
Arana Vix cocked her head to one side. All she could hear was the wind and the scrape of sand. Turning, she extended the Force to the supine body of her Master.
All she could detect was the stillness of death.
Rising smoothly, she entered the cave and knelt by her Master’s body. Slowly, a solemn chant low on her breath, she removed the soiled and tattered clothes, until Cassen Voh wasted frame was revealed.
Looking hard at the ruin of her Master, searing its image into her memory, Arana Vix vowed the same would never happen to her.
Gathering up the body, she carried it to the edge and unceremoniously dumped it.
She watched as it tumbled, limp and lifeless down the scree and boulder strewn slope, finally disappearing in the shimmering haze and dust.
Her gaze lingered for a moment before she turned back to the cave, gathering was useful equipment they still had.
It was then she saw her Master’s lightsaber, disassembled into a thousand tiny pieces, the beautiful yellow crystal shining amidst the chaos.
With a sigh, she recognized, that at the end her Master had thought up one last test for her, a glimmer of the man he had been had shone through.
Sitting before the light sabre pieces, she closed her eyes, cleared her mind and reached out to the Force, allowing it to flow through her, expanding her senses, her mind…
Oblivious, she did not see some of the pieces of hardware twitch and move, some floating up into the air to circle the young woman. Slowly, slowly they coalesced into a cloud, the crystal floating in the center.
Without direction, without thought, the pieces began to fit together, with agonizing slowness, to form a lightsaber , whose form was reminiscent of Cassen Voh’s, but wholly Arana Vix’s.
A flicker of the eyes, and Arana Vix rose out of her trance, and upon opening her eyes , saw a fully formed lightsaber hanging in the air, turning slowly.
At her side , her hand opened and the weapon flew into her palm, it’s flickering yellow blade appearing immediately.
Satisfied with her handiwork Arana Vix gathered up her supplies and walked to the cave opening, where dusk was falling. Looking out at the shimmering horizon, at the lights of the settlement there, it’s name forgotten, tracking the occasional starship rising up, up …..
Arana followed one ship’s trajectory up into the sky, towards a small mote of light slowly tracking across the pale green sky.
Sel Zonn Station.
