Chapter Twenty-Five

The trip to Dathomir was a physically easier one since the planet was less than a single parsec away from Bandomeer. But for Menelaus, it had been a generally emotionally unsettling one and with good reason. On one hand, he was completing the objective that had originally brought him and his foster father out of Ando Prime. But on the other, Hyperion wasn't here to witness the fulfillment of his mother's wish that her ashes be disbursed on the highest peak in Dathomir.

He saw that Hyperion had left a recording behind and the boy had finally decided to play it before entering Dathomir's surface. It hadn't taken Inoy long to find the highest peak in the planet nor that much longer to settle down near a flat enough point for there still to be a journey. He had also observed several unnatural structures that led him to believe that they would be seeing a site of some historical significance where they landed. But as Menelaus played the recording, he found himself even more sullen than he was before.

"Menelaus, if you're playing this, it means I have returned to the Sith warrior I once was before. I knew you were aware this form existed within me from the first time you caught me practicing my kata technique exercises when you were four years old but that isn't why I've done as I have. See, in saving and protecting you, I realized that it wasn't the fact I held a lightsaber that made me inhuman but how I used it that made me a monster. Admittedly, when I met you, I very nearly left you to the elements with your mother but not because I didn't care. Rather I was so blinded by the idea of vengeance at any cost that I didn't want to let such emotions show even to a dying woman begging me to raise her son.

"You're probably wondering why I ever did take you in, I bet. You wonder why I even bothered to raise you when it would've been all too easy to leave you to die with your mother. Well, that's precisely it, kid: it would've been to damned easy to leave you there to freeze and die. All I had to do was keep trudging on even as you cried louder and louder for food and warmth from anyone at all. But in taking you in, for selfish reasons or so I once believed, I knew I had a better chance of gaining the one thing I lost when I was four years younger than you are now... in saving you I hoped I regain my soul," Hyperion began.

Inoy had opened the hatch to Menelaus' room, having hope to tell him that they had arrived. But when he saw the hologram of Hyperion, he stayed silent and listened to what his former ally had to say. "I made a deal of servitude to my grandfather that cost me my soul, my humanity when I was seven years old. Many who were deserving died at my blade and many who were not perished under my heel but... But I'd like to believe I faced my sins, saving the lives of the two people who have ever mattered to me more than my own worthless existence.

"You, of course, and then the Jedi Inoy under whose company you should be under if all has gone to plan. I know that you can be the good man that I never was if you go with him, listen to his instructions, and pay your respect to the family who adopts you. Treasure them as I have treasured you for eleven years as through that respect, they will give you everything that I never could with even all my power. Warmth, safety, and the guarantee you would want for nothing for all the days of your life. Until you are fully grown, capable of independent space travel, and have the credits, please do not pursue me for both our sakes. Please do not look for me while you have a childhood to live out in case I should be killed by the blade of a Jedi and carry your mother's ashes to that mountain peak on Dathomir when you arrive.

"Your destiny is to fulfill her wish and then live a meaningful life with people who will know to love you as I did. As I... as I still do. I love you as the son I never had and the child I never knew, may the Force bless your life where it has only saw fit to curse mine," Hyperion's hologram said. Then it faded out of existence, Inoy as moved as Menelaus though his emotions were less obvious for reasons of his Jedi training. All he did was instead, place a comforting hand on the young Zabrak's shoulders when he threw the recording hard enough to smash it into several pieces across the wall in his room.

"That may be the hardest decision I've ever seen Hyperion make. If you think you are fuming, know it probably killed him inside to know he couldn't protect you the way you needed to be," Inoy told him.

"Why is he afraid he can't protect me? He's a fully trained Sith, he's slain Jedi Knights more powerful than even you before!" Menelaus snapped, giving in and letting the tears flow.

"Hyperion can do almost anything a Sith can possibly put their mind to. He can kill without a second thought to the consequences, torture without regret to who he was tormenting, but I don't think he performed any greater act of courage than raising and protecting you. Deciding that you would be better protected deep in Republic Space must have been like cutting out a chamber of his heart without anesthesia and handing it to you. Come, don't hate him for what he has done: take inspiration that your journey is almost complete and that Hyperion's managed to do the one thing most parents can only dream of," Inoy told him. Menelaus tried his best to put aside the tears and rise to the occasion, Inoy producing the sash with the ashes of the boy's mother.

"Carry her, Hyperion wouldn't have wanted anything else if he were here now. And wipe that frown off your face, something tells me we're about to do a lot more than simply disburse some ashes," Inoy assured him. When they disembarked, Inoy immediately began to regret the words he had said to Menelaus about doing more than simply disbursing some ashes. On the right side of them, there was a panel of stone with paintings that Inoy recognized as a primitive form of hieroglyphic writing.

Unfortunately, he also recognized the writing on the wall as Sith which meant that this related to the Empire. In the drawings was a purple-skinned Zabrak of Dathomiri origin, the only such person that Inoy had heard of being the one called Verrin. He watched the panel and recognized what it was all at once... it was the story of Menelaus, a child of Darth Verrin by an Iridonian concubine. "What is this?" Menelaus asked.

"Your story, Inoy. This is... this is the story of your birth and how you came to be with Hyperion," Inoy answered at once. Menelaus' skin paled in epiphany, the sudden knowledge that he was looking at the story of his birth at once galvanizing him and terrorizing him at the same time. He recognized the purple-skinned Dathomiri as his father in those moments and recognized what the panel came to mean.

"Your father was the Sith Lord Darth Verrin. One of the members of the Dark Council when the Empire was deposed from the galaxy. Your mother wanted you to come here because of this project, this story your father left behind for you if you ever came," Inoy told him. They scaled the mountain slowly while reading what the panel had to say. Inoy could tell that Verrin had grown to love Menelaus' mother and together, they'd conceived him in an act of passion. But when Menelaus was born, a void was cast around him according to the panel, making Verrin want to study him more for some reason.

That said, when Menelaus' mother realized what was going to happen to her son, it appeared she stole him while Verrin slept. The Sith Lord had been drugged or else his sleep would have been interrupted when she entered to steal their son away. Pursuing her across the stars, the panel ended when the ship that had brought Menelaus to Ando Prime had been shot down. "I don't understand, what was with that black fire around me? Was I some kind of abomination when I was born?" Menelaus asked.

"No, the Sith have accepted plenty of abominations into their ranks. I'll admit that my Sith alphabet is a tad poor, since Jedi are usually taught to stay away from anything related to them except times like when they unite against the Zakuul empire. The only thing that truly besets me is your name in these characters. For some reason, your father refers to you as Surik," Inoy said.

"Surik?" Menelaus inquired. Inoy then decided to ask him a question that seemed only fair, given the circumstances.

"How familiar are you with the legends of the Jedi Order? How much did Hyperion teach you about the people it calls its greatest heroes?" Inoy asked.

"I know about Revan and about Awdrysta Pina in the First Great Schism. I've also been made aware of the exploits of Satele Shan since the more recent war with the Sith started. Why do you ask?" Menelaus admitted. Then he doesn't know about Meetra Surik, the wound in the Force who could drain the life essence to sustain herself. Could I be looking at someone born with the same power and that's why he never manifested any sign of the Force? Inoy thought grimly.

"A question for another time. Come, your mother's ashes aren't going to disburse themselves you know," Inoy said. They climbed to the summit, where Menelaus came to the edge of the mountain so that his mother's ashes could fly upon the wind. While he did this, Inoy backed up to give him privacy for a family ceremony as well as to look over the hieroglyphs once more. By the time, Inoy believed he had reasonably figured out the story that this monument to Verrin's family told him with what limited ability to read the ancient Sith tongue that he possessed. He had to warn the Council, this much was certain, when they began their journey back to Dantooine and before Menelaus was given to the home Inoy had spoken of.