In this Moment (Apillis, Neology)

[Dire Wolf]

The Korribani sun had just begun to set behind the mighty Sith Temple; which cast a long shadow across the valley that it lorded over. Most would consider this harsh sight to contain a severe type of beauty, but the only one present to view it had her mind on other matters. A lone figure moved in and out of the shadows cast by the setting sun with the metallic haft of her lightsaber staff little more than a blur. Her mind was oblivious to the world as the body went through the ingrained movements as Vesperia's own form of meditation. A blade of crimson made the weapon easy to track from a distance as the woman practiced her forms on phantom enemies.

Rivulets of sweat beaded across her brow after the long hours of moving about the "battlefield" with the speed and grace of a bha'lir. One final movement brought the heel of crashing to the earth with all of the woman's augmented power. An ethereal force slammed against the ground along with the woman's staff. A ten meter wide sphere of sand and dust flew up with her final movement, and a quick wave of her hand whisked it all away.

Under normal circumstances Lady Vesperia loathed the presence of grime, and was careful to keep an extremely clean and neat presence. Training was another matter. If she ever returned from a long winded training session anything but dirty she considered the day wasted. Thought Vesperia loved cheating others, she hated cheating herself. These training sessions had become more frequent since her triumphant return from Makem Te.

As time went on she found that silence and stoicism was hastily becoming a burden rather than a boon. Vesperia was far from ever becoming an evil doer that punished subservients for the heinous transgression of merely walking by, but her cold heart had become more passionate. Emotion had become to flow more freely through her, and with it the power within her only grew.

Lady Vesperia wiped her brow after her breathing normalized and her reverie drew to a close. Shattered stone shards from the final movement of her kata seemed to crawl out of her path as if driven by a magnetic force. Her lightsaber pike had taken its unassuming place as a walking stick as she found her thoughts drawn to Hervor. The sight of her paramour, dare Vesperia use that term even in her thoughts, ever since the Sith Lady returned to the world some weeks before.

Where in the devil was that woman?

[Apillis]

The dust blowing through the barren lands under the hot sun of Korriban, there was a certain nonchalance to Hervor's steps since coming back from Thila. Since her return she has felt as though something had altered--or more accurately something that had been rediscovered that had once felt was perhaps lost. A drive--a motivation that over time in her isolation before joining the Sith she felt she may lost and was unaware of it til recently. Something that long slipped through her finers, but now has retained a firm grasp upon it.

It is a hard thing to put into words, but in a way it has made her feel more awoken. There was not much for her with Ordo, what with it merely annihilating a small base at the planet's equator. But Thila--so much death on either side--but the following Republic massacre, and her having reach deep far into the darkness to summon a power to not only save her own life but utterly extinguish that of a Jedi master's. That stirred something within her that she had not felt in a long, long time. Then again, for Hervor it felt akin to a few years would a human, though it was at least thirty years ago.

But it was a thought that she ruminated on as she walked down the great steps of the temple, small wisps of dust kicked up by the weak sporadic breeze. Why Hervor dwelled on such thoughts, she was not entirely why, more so as she went to meet with another of her calibre whom she has begun to entangle herself with. Interestingly that certain something she seemed to have lost, its slipping going back thirty years--that was about the time she had killed a lover of whom she bounded with. And yet, now as she finds herself being drawn to another--she feels that once lost inspiration reigniting.

As she walked, she passed by a few other Sith, it always amused her to see them. What with their dark robes or posh styles or some sort of unique outfit in an attempt to make themselves standout beyond the rest. Whereas Hervor herself, her clothes are all ragged, disheveled, and in tatters from years upon years of training and battle. Fashion and dress code meant little to her. Hers was a look of warrior--a veteran of many battles that saw to the end of many foes with her arising the victor of each.

Once she found whom she sought, she merely stood there watching her in what was clearly a training session. Studying both the woman's technique and form, there only seemed to be only four lightsaber duelists worthy of note within the temple, and Hervor and Vesperia were two of them. So, naturally, when she saw her lover train--it was something Hervor elicited to merely watch and observe with a certain admiration. Though she was not hiding in the shadows or some silly nonsense like a child, Hervor was one to always be out in the open, indulging direct action or at the very least merely having a dismissive attitude toward needless subtlety.

With a faint smirk as she crossed her arms under her cheast, Hervor teased, "I think I prefer you this way... It's refreshing... Glistening with sweat accented by bits of grime as you breathe heavily under physical tension and strain... To prim and proper and clean most other times. It's nice seeing you get dirty."

[Neology]

It was late in the day and all the Dark Lady's duties had long been seen to. Boredom set in, vicious as ever; a sure sign that it was time to leave Korriban yet again. Alas, requisitioning a ship took time, even for her – at least as long as she wished to stay on the good side of their shuttleport staff. Perhaps by this time tomorrow … But where would she go this time, and for what reason? Something to think on, this evening.

'Anywhere but here.'

Novus lingered outside the temple, pacing slowly back and forth as she inspected her 'troops.' Her fingers idly spun the handle of her parasol, casting strange shadows even as it shaded her fair skin from the setting sun. The rest of her clothes were standard temple wear – black tunic and britches, sturdy boots. Her long white hair was pulled back in a braid that went half way down her back, at severe contrast with her dark clothes.

Several dozen small lizards stood in a tight block formation, held in place by the Sith's will. She continued along the edge of the temple grounds and bid the creatures follow. Novus snapped up more of the lizards as they came into range, adding to her aimless troop. It was practice of a sort, extending her control to many small creatures instead of a single powerful one. These desert dwelling reptiles were in ample supply. The buzz of their small minds was easy to pick up against Korriban's desolate hum, though soon enough her perceptions came up against something else.

Two Sith, one familiar and one not, directly in her path. Recalling the encounter with Angelous just a few days before, Novus took care to slow her steps and let go of her mental compulsion over the lizards. They scattered immediately, disappearing into cracks in the temple wall or back out into the desert. The Arkanian rounded the corner at last, catching a few of the words that passed between the two. She blinked rapidly, gathering that they were not intended for an audience. Well, short of turning back in the other direction, there was really no pretending she hadn't interrupted them. That she would not do. Instead, Novus approached, smile on her lips.

“Ah, Lady Hervor speaks. I had begun the wonder if such was possible. Consider me pleasantly corrected.”

[Dire Wolf]

Speak of the Devil. Vesperia would have smiled if her heart allowed emotion to be quantified through expression. Had the Sith Lady been a weaker soul she would have hurried towards the warrior she had taken into her heart; instead she merely continued towards her lover as if she were simply another peer. Allvitende was different since she’d last seen her last in those tender moments before their paths temporarily split some time before. Though the change was positive it was the only subject that Vesperia’s mind could visit even as her lover crossed her arms and spoke.

“Perhaps,” she paused with barely a whisper of a smirk on her face, “though I suspect that ‘tis what comes after that you truly find refreshing.” Despite the fact that an expressionless look had fallen about her face her eyes spoke volumes to the contrary. Weeks prior the possibility of never seeing Hervor again lurked beneath what resembled bliss in Vesperia’s mind. Each of the Sith had waged a victorious battle against the Republic; Vesperia herself clashed blades with the famed Master Took to find their skills near evenly matched.

Yet here they were.

Lady Vesperia glanced down at the woman’s lips shortly before she began to close the distance between them only to hear the voice of a third woman. Irritation flared up in her chest at the voice, and she quickly retreated back to a more natural position. By that point Ladies Vesperia and Allvitende were familiar faces, and the plebeian Sith around them knew better than to speak in their presence. Generally, anyways. There was always the occasional whelp that believed themselves to be the largest fish in the pond, but they didn’t tend to stay in that mind set very long.

Icy blues eyes shifted to regard the white woman that had been clad in the standard issue attire of the Sith order. Apparently this new comer had previously met Hervor and still chose to speak, which meant that the Arkanian was either incredibly unintelligent or her youth betrayed the power she held. Fear had never driven the woman to do anything, but there was just something about the Arkanian woman that rose her above the rank and file.

“Oft’ times staying silent is the trick, with Allvitende,” Vesperia snarked with a glance towards her lover. “Lady Vesperia. Who might you be?”

[Apillis]

((So with Hervor muse coming back, figured may as well necro' this thread if you guys are still up for it. >.>))

"Lord.", Hervor corrected, not caring even if it were a Darth to whom she was correcting. She was fairly stubborn about her distaste for the gender-politics and/or politically correct nature of the 'modern' Sith with the whole Lords and Ladies titles. With ascension of the first Sith men and women both went by 'Lord' for it is a unisex title, and it was meant as something more transcendent than gender politics or utilized in the same manner in which the nobility would define such monikers.

She even let out a bit of an amused scoff when Vesperia called her Allvitende, for even the Sith names Hervor possessed a low opinion of, once again looking back to the Sith of yore. While for Sith the changing of one's name was essentially symbolic to being reborn as something greater. But there were those Sith in the past who did no such thing, for they--like Hervor herself--realized they were always Sith, they merely needed to discover that within themselves, and thus the changing of their name would be like changing the identity away from the reality within themselves that found to be truly Sith.

The dark side and the coming to know and understand oneself as Sith was different to each individual, it was what she believed made the Sith stronger and why with each rise the Sith came back stronger than their last incarnations in her view, while the Jedi remained linear. The path of the Jedi is linear one that has remained the same for millennia, whereas for the Sith--it was ever evolving with new methods and new views of its Code, and whichever proved the stronger set the course and trajectory for the ascension of the next Sith over and over again. It was ever an evolutionary process.

It was this that she felt the boy Overlord was too short-sighted to understand in Hervor's mind as he lacked the longer view of time and history that came so naturally to her kind. Leading to the disrespecting what made the Sith truly powerful, not adhering to a single doctrine, but the clashing of several with the strongest remaining standing from the conflict. The boy Overlord's methods here have not be tested yet against other Sith doctrine, and there in lies severe weakness as Hervor sees it. And perhaps a time will come when Hervor will put it all to the test, but for now she is merely biding her time, there is still things of Korriban she wishes to observe, while she works on restoring the temple's archives.

"Hmph.", she grunted before continuing, "Hervor is fine. Fancy-filled names are lovely and all, but otherwise redundant.", she smirked a little as she remarked teasingly while crossing her arms under her chest, "But we cross paths again, Darth Novus. I can't help but wonder if you're following me. Or were you hoping to see what Vesperia and I get up to?"