Bright Shadows

[Ourania]

“The darkest shadow within the brightest star...”

She breathed the words on waking, but in dreams Ourania had heard them spoken to her a hundred times of more. The celestial voices, hauntingly beautiful, like a siren's sigh on the wind. They whispered to her always but in meditation that whisper rose into a chorus – a choir – until she heard only one message, one guiding voice.

Wrapped in nothing more than her Shadowcloak, she crept to her mistresses side and murmured the words aloud once more. To the ordinary ear, they might have sound like nonsense, but Darth Saevitia understood her apprentice as only she could, teasing truth from within the Umbaran's riddled speech. Within an hour, she had set a course for the brightest stars in the galaxy: the Hapes Cluster.

[Kassandra Distorith]

Slender fingers shook slightly as she rose, reaching to touch Ourania's pale cheek. There were those who would have reacted violently to their rest being intruded upon, especially by one they called apprentice. But not Kassandra. She was, and proudly so, a very peculiar breed of Dark Master, she'd come to realize.

Being woken with words of import from an apprentice with such a valuable gift? That, she mused, was something to be both heeded and treasured. She pressed a kiss to the girl's forehead and accepted the robe from Reginald's hands.

Soon enough, the course had been set, with the starts melting past the viewport like so much molten silver. The ship itself, a sleek craft of Nubian design, seemed to purr as it hurtled itself and its occupants through space.

Thoughts flowed through her consciousness with the same fluidity as the stars. There was a new Queen within the Consortium, a tiny, cherubic child who's foreign-born mother held Regency.The petite Queen, however, was reported to be wise far beyond her few years, and it made Kassandra wonder briefly if either the child or even her mother were gifted in the ways of the Force.

The Mistress shook her head and gently began to brush out the profusion of her waist-length raven curls. She thought further upon Ourania's words, cerulean eyes falling half-lidded in an almost meditative state. The darkest shadow within the brightest star...well, certainly the brightest start amidst the cluster itself would be the capital. That much she had already deduced.

But the darkest shadow...that had her perplexed and plunging her mind into the darkness in an effort to divine an answer as their travel time ticked down in seemingly slow motion.

[Salem Ave]

The mid-day sun cast harsh light on the room that had once been Salem Ave's study. The floor was littered with papers, splintered wood and broken electronics. The broken remains of a couch were heaped against one wall and on another stood a bookcase whose shelves looked as if they'd been kicked in by a ronto.

Salem drew in a long slow breath. The conflict that had caused the destruction (http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?t=21815 ) played through his mind once again. Lilaena had broken his arm, but broken bones were the least of his worries. He had been careless that day. Too careless, too confident in his own abilities and the control he held over his students.

Turning away from the ruined study, Salem called his lightsaber to hand and drew up the hood on his robes, the mask of Darth Callidus shimmering across his features like pale mist. The years he had passed on Onderon had been spent well, but he had not pushed himself enough.

That was about to change.

[Kassandra Distorith]

The brush paused as her eyes flew open, cerulean swirling against crimson, as if they were opposites sides warring for control of her sight. Thin, delicate slivers of the Force pressed a control button here, pulled a lever there, and caressed their way across a touch-panel to bring up a holographic star chart. Softly spoken commands soon had her zooming across the stars even as she zoomed through them.

The Hapes Cluster was soon highlighted and coming into sharper focus, the Transitory Mists surrounding it fading away as the navicomputer focused closer. Her hands and the brushed folded in her lap as she crossed her slender legs, leaning forward with a faint moan. The bandages across her back pulled tight against wounds that refused to heal, remaining a constant source of visceral pleasure.

It fanned the flames of her desire ever hotter as her eyes were drawn time and again away from the capital and towards Terephon. A minor planet in the grand Hapan scheme, but one that her senses were quite inexplicably drawn to. "Hmmm..." The purr echoed in the space around her as she lifted a hand and traced its outline with a blood-red fingernail.

The navicomputer chimed softly throughout the ship, and precisely three minutes later, the sleek black craft emerged from hyperspace. The Hapes Cluster glittered like so many jewels cast across black velvet, with the finest silver netting cast across like a teasingly modest veil. It was beautiful, even from this distance, and made her sigh with appreciation as she took the ship off of auto-pilot and slid her hands loving across the controls.

"Adjust course for Terephon." she breathed softly, while the navicomputer complied with great alacrity. Soon, a new course was visible on the screen, and slender fingers shifted the ship's course to comply. Kassandra's gaze remained a molten crimson as she steered the ship with the delicacy needed to traverse the Transitory Mists. It took some time, and though there were other routes, this one whispered across her senses like a lover whispering in her ear. The darkness thrummed through her veins, bidding her ever closer to...something inexplicable. Something...as calculating and powerful, if not more so, than she was.

It was enough to send a sliver of rapturous pain down her spine as Terephon finally came into view, and the computer plotted an approach.