A Whisper of Power (OPEN)

[Gallifreyman]

The burning heat of Korriban hung in the air, pervading all things. It seemed to stretch everywhere, forcing itself into every crack and crevice of the world. Naarsion could sense the power, power realized, power fulfilled, that filled the world in much the same way. The Jedi would have looked down upon such power, for that was their way, he mused.

His boots thudded on the dry ground outside the Sith Temple. His cloak hung behind him like a wall of darkness, barely shifting unless he moved, for Korriban had no wind, no breezes. Naarsion's ominous red mask was attached to his face, and his hood was thrust up over it, in an effort to ward off the blazing heat. In the distance, he could faintly hear the mad cawing of the shyracks, and behind him, the faint, yet unmistakable hum and crackle of clashing lightsabers, the sound of practicing acolytes.

The Sith Lord paced slightly before the doors to the great Temple. Before him lay the winding path to the tombs of the Sith Lords of ages past. He gazed up, looking at the bloodred sky of Korriban. He had come our here to meditate, but he could not seem to focus his mind. In a slight gesture of boredom, he blasted a single, brilliant blue, bolt of lightning at a nearby rock. The smell of smoke wafted into his nose as the small puff of smoke wafted away, leaving a charred black smudge on the reddish orange ground.

Naarsion calmed his agitated nerves. He shifted his cape slightly and stood stoutly, gazing off into the worn, muddy orange distance of Korriban.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

In this particular area of Korriban, there was dust. Or to be more accurate, a dusty dirt. And in the dusty dirt was a dusty rock, followed by its extended family. Mister Rock was joined by Mrs. Rock, and Grandpa rock was an especially large boulder that looked as if a few more centuries of erosion might cause it to fall. That would probably be the most interesting thing to happen in the ecosystem of Korriban.

It was no surprise that Naraka found it abysmally boring.

For a Sith Master, the amount of care she gave to Sith history, dark side artifacts, and ideology was shockingly and surprisingly low. As far as she was concerned, Korriban could have been any other boring planet without any substantial change. The only thing missing from, say, Molovar or Tatooine, was a large number of stone ruins made by long-dead people who didn't have some magical foresight to prevent them from dying.

Needless to say, the red-skinned Togruta woman was not the quintessential Sith, and it was very likely she would never move beyond Master. They saw her as a tool no doubt, useful, but only in the area of their physical machinations, and in instructing students in the more mechanical aspects of the force.

Doubtless they found her a tad bit too unstable to pass on doctrinal teachings.

Now she was walking through the dust. Or dusty soil. Or soily dust. Her bare red feet sank into it before kicking up the tiniest clouds with each step. On she trudged away from the sounds of the Temple and its many initiates, and towards the quiet, where she could sense just one other being.

And then came the sound of lightning, which was accompanied by a blue flash as he fried a dusty rock into a small blackened mass. As it happened, she came into speaking range just a second or two later.

"Tsk tsk, what did the poor rock do to you?" Naraka said with a toothy smile that revealed her elongated fangs.

She could already see this was another one of those Sith who hid behind armor and masks. It seemed a disproportionate number of those were exactly what she wasn't: dark side idealists more interested in their codes and their temples than in practicality or sensible self-advancement. Of course if he wanted to ruin her peripheral vision by wearing a mask, he was welcome to. Given how little noise she'd made walking and that mask, he probably hadn't even seen her coming.

Naraka's twin sabers bumped up against the black leather swaddled around her mid-section as she came to a stop and coyly ran one hand down her right headtail.

"How very, very cruel. You must be a downright wicked person."

[Gallifreyman]

"Tsk tsk, what did the poor rock do to you?"


Naarsion twitched slightly as a voice emanated from behind him, along with the realization that one adequately strong in the Force stood behind him.


"How very, very cruel. You must be a downright wicked person."

The voice, a female one, he could tell that now, had sarcasm dripping from every syllable. He turned, coming face to face with a shapely, red-skinned Togruta. She seemed familiar to him, though he could not recall her identity. He smiled slightly underneath his mask. She seemed to be a deviation from the raw, idiotic, and arrogant brutes that compromised many of the Sith-indeed, the brutes he himself had adopted the persona of.

With a wave of his hand, he levitated the broken, blackened shards that were all that remained of the rock, using the Force to will them into his open palm. He squeezed his hand into a fist, at the same time squeezing with the force, until the shards were reduced to a fine, orange dust. He hurled the dust into the air with a flick of his wrist, then spoke.

"I suppose you believe me a fool for exercising my might against a simple rock." His voice slipped out of his mouth, the arrogant, yet amazingly self-assured tone of a Sith. "But I see myself as exercising my right to harness such power. In the span of mere seconds, I have done what it would have taken nature, and all the natural forces of this world, years, centuries, to do. It is, in a way, amazing. The power the Force grants us. I see it as a right given to all of us, the elite of the galaxy. Those who choose to spurn such might, well, they are fools. And If I have chosen to harness it...well, if that makes me what you would call wicked, then wicked I am." A tone of light amusement saturated his voice, knowing that his response had been overly lengthy and dramatic.

"But, may I ask, who are you? You are obviously one strong in the Force, and I would know your name."

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Naraka couldn't help but let a smirk spread across her exotic features. It was accompanied by the folding of her arms over her breast, and the bending of one knee.

She really couldn't help but smirk over the way he was talking.

Particularly when he seemed to imply he had a supremacy over nature.

These Sith, they were just so insufferably arrogant and full of themselves, heady with perceived power. Dark side this, dark side that, power, ambition, all of it flung at her until she felt the desire to gag over the sheer volume of ideology sent her way.

Naraka bent over and picked up a rock. It was jagged, and she ran it around in the palm of her hand, rubbing the sharp corners with her fingers.

"Nature is a very interesting thing. Airspeeders imitate birds, lights imitate the sun, the moons, and the stars. You like to imitate erosion with your little theatrics, but..."

The Togruta woman tossed the rock to him.

"Make it smooth. Go on. If a river can do it, why can't you? If the wind can do it? Why can't you?"

After letting that ultimatum sink in, the red-skinned woman chuckled softy before delivering one more trifling ultimatum.

"And when you're done with that, take a uniform surface of rock, and etch it into canyons and valleys. Put life on it. Make it green and growing. Create rivers, lakes, and streams. That is the power of nature. Crushing a rock and claiming you wield the power of nature is the act of an arrogant child. Now, are you an arrogant child, or is there a man behind that mask?"

[Gallifreyman]

Naarsion smiled underneath his mask, a small grin that did not truly reach his eyes. This togruta woman-she was not like the other Sith. Any other Sith on Korriban would have either agreed with him, groveled at his feet, mindlessly agreeing with every word he uttered, or scoffed at his notions of power and gone on to explain why they, in fact, were the greatest. But this...

"You wish to see if there is a man under this mask, and not simply a child, bloated on his own arrogance? Very well."

Naarsion flung the rock away, and, with his now-free hand, removed his crimson mask. He blinked once, his orange-red eyes startled, used to the tinted grey of his mask's eyeholes. His black hair remained matted to his head with sweat. A slight smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.

"I have shown you my face. I admit that there is a ring of truth to your words. We Sith believe that we control all things. But our power is finite, as are all things...maybe, someday, it will not be so. Now, If I could have the pleasure of knowing the name of the one who has..ah, reminded me of my mortality?"

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

He took off the mask, and revealed almost exactly the kind of face she'd expected to match with a Sith who wore a mask. A pale human, with corrupted eyes and a rather sickly look about him, nothing more.

Certainly he didn't arouse her amorous streak. That was saying something, as it usually didn't take much to make her crave intimacy. Physical contact was her addiction.

The fact he didn't know her name was a little surprising, considering she'd been with the Order from almost the beginning, and in all that time she hadn't seen so much as one other Togruta wandering the Temple. For that matter, she hadn't seen anyone else wearing revealing leather garments either.

However, his ignorance about her couldn't be prevented, only treated.

As delightful as toying with him by providing false information would be, he could easily find out all the correct information by himself.

"My name isn't a matter of public knowledge, but you can call me Naraka."

The Togruta woman sat on a large boulder and folded up her legs below her, looking as casual as could be. Her two sabers sat in her lap and she idly played with one of them as she talked.

"I don't know you either. I take it you're new? Or at least relatively."

[Gallifreyman]

Naarsion began to pace slightly. He thrust his hood down, deciding that the unbearable heat of the day had mostly faded to the cool, yet still hot, warmth of the evening. The rest of his black hair tumbled out of his hood, stopping at the base of his neck, untamed, with only a quick trim to stop it from interfering with his cape. Clearing his throat slightly, he began to speak.

"I am not surprised we have not met. I have been off-world for some months now, and I was never truly the most sociable of beings. I am the Lord Naarsion. Like you, I have been here since the foundation of this new Order. In fact, it was my..ah, significant donations that allowed the Sith to obtain the resources needed to rebuild our order."

He gazed at Naraka with his piercing stare. She was attractive, he would not deny that. He felt no real attraction for her, and Namia was there to satisfy his needs, if and when he had any. No, his interest in her was far more personal. She was mysterious, and she seemed different from the other sith. He felt intrigued. Yes...indeed. He wanted to learn more of this Sith Lord. An ally, a foe...or a wild card? Her very nature tempted him to pick the third option. Naarsion casually reached up and removed his shoulder pads, and his cape and hood with them, letting the interwoven materials fall to the earth with a dull thud. He stretched slightly, and fixed his eyes on Naraka once more.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

[Sorry for the delay, this ear infection has been killing my will to write. But I'll power through it.]

So he'd merely managed to stay out of her sight for a few years. That was possible for a few different reasons. The most likely was that his financial power had bumped him higher up in the social order she existed outside of, and while he was hobnobbing around with Darths she was busy with missions and training.

It was also possible she'd seen him and forgotten instantly because he was 'just another' Sith wearing a mask.

Without it, he was a little more unique, though he definitely needed to take some steps to correct those unsightly errors, assuming he wanted to catch flies, he needed honey. Not whatever this was.

Lord was funny though. Though she was technically 'Lady Naraka,' the Togruta woman had about as much interest in formalities as a wild rancor had in the collected works of the great Chandrilan impressionists.

So many Sith focused in on titles, in their amusing search for power that looked in all the wrong places first.

"I take it you're just Mister Popularity then, as wealth seems to attract a great many followers. I doubt I'm particularly popular here in the Order, but then again, I can be very persuasive. When I want to be."

A sly smile accompanied the statement as Naraka sat in complete stillness.

[Gallifreyman]

Naarsion smirked.

"Followers? Hardly. I have several devoted servants, acolytes or Knights that I have sworn to obey me. But the wealth I once held, as one of the most powerful crime lords on Nar Shadda-that is gone. It has left me, like the braid that I wore for so many years, back when the Jedi and their delusions of grandeur clouded my mind. But I digress. Wealth is not my goal, it is a stepping stone, nothing more, and eventually inconsequential in the ebb and flow of the universe."

Naarsion activated his lightsaber in a single, swift motion, holding it in front of his face, casually observing the deadly crimson blade.

"What do you believe this blade means, Togruta? If you are anything like the other beings of the galaxy, you see it as a symbol, of the Jedi, and, when equipped with a crystal of red, as a symbol of the Sith. I see it as much more. It symbolizes the Force. It is a weapon of rarity, held only by the special few who harness the abilities to wield it, such as you and I. It is so much more than a weapon. In a way, it is power."

Naarsion's voice had taken on a slightly speculative tone.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"Jedi with delusions of grandeur?" Naraka repeated dryly. "Maybe that's why they wear scratchy brown robes and refuse to own property."

The man would have had to be dead in order to not pick up on the sarcasm that dripped from the red-skinned woman's every word. Even if he'd been mentally retarded he would have picked up on the tone.

Coolly, Naraka watched as he waved around his lightsaber like it was some kind of trophy, or less kindly, like a child with a particularly dear toy. Then he spouted more trite philosophy.

Why it was that the Sith Order seemed to attract so many amateur philosophers, the leather-clad woman couldn't say. Apparently forming an evil empire seemed to attract more than just opportunistic wanderers like her. It attracted a core of people obsessed over long-dead ideologies, who seemed to relish it the way a pig enjoyed rolling around in mud. Or the way children grew so obsessed over the goodies in aisles of the store.

In that respect, Naraka was a complete outsider. She was here with the Sith because it was convenient, and for no other reason. The second it stopped being convenient, she would wander off on her own way, while these men would fight to their dying breaths for their beliefs. Silly as they were.

It was time to eloquently espouse her own ideology.

"I see a tool." Naraka said lazily, her accent rolling off of her tongue like water flowing in a stream. "Anyone can wield it with practice, and for multiple purposes. I can use it to build things or cut firewood with it, because I refuse to think of it as some kind of trophy, or some esteemed duelist's weapon. I do not worship at the altar of the lightsaber."