3951 BBY, Tatooine
Darth Erebus

There was something about the silent, seething desert that felt familiar to Darth Erebus, but the Force provided no insight in regards its origin. The whole of Tatooine swallowed the hum of Anchorhead the moment he stepped foot outside of the city gates, it's thrum instantly silenced by the sands. The wind on the dunes was ominous, yet soothing somehow, and Erebus took a moment to soak in the heat of this place, to feel its energies flow through his every pore.

So much of this world was uncertain, full to the brim with uncovered truths long forgotten. The only ones who knew of this world's true histories did not heed them nor see them as important. They did not find value in the past. The only thing of much value here was moisture and money. Jawas only cared for their caravans, the junk droids and trinkets they salvaged from the Dune Sea, and what they might fetch for parts. The Tusken Raiders only cared for water and where it might be harvested, as any living creature seeking to survive might. They had no need for the knowledge that lay beneath their sands, gathering their weight in gold, which happened to account for quite a lot of credits if inflation was considered.

Erebus had an extensive collection of ancient coins, among other artifacts, composed of gold and other antiquated materials of worth, now collecting nothing but dust and the admiration of his acolytes back on Malachor. Ancient civilizations had cultivated and coveted gold before they knew of much else; some still did, but Darth Erebus had no use for it, unless such peoples had artifacts to trade for rudimentary resources or supplies. Satiating such peoples was almost too easy, and almost an insult to the power of Revan's Sith Empire, or Malak's depending on who you talked to... well, whatever was left of it anyway. Despite all their power and gathering strength, a tribe in possession of an ancient holocron would gladly hand it over when offered fresh water or an idol clad in gold leaf, given they did not regard the holocrons as gods themselves - which was known to happen. Such a scenario left Erebus to his own devices, but it was easy to convince such folk that he was himself a god, and that the items he sought were his to reclaim.

His Master would have laughed - that hollow, inhuman laugh. Not like there was anything human left of him.

Unlike Darth Nihilus, Darth Erebus was still very much human and his body was not accustomed to the intense heat of Tatooine's twin suns. His hands spread at his sides, gathering energy to cool himself down. A flurry of ice spread and settled over his body like a blanket of cool dew, and he sighed before taking one last look at Anchorhead.

Given the sheer magnitude of his life's work, it was more than probable that it would outlive him. It was unlikely he would ever, truly, be finished with his research, so surely death would come for him first. The galaxy was rich with secrets the universe over, and he did not have the years needed to find it all, lest he ask Sion what his secret was...

Much like his old post at the Jedi Archives in a life long left behind, Erebus curated the Sith artifacts now housed at the Trayus Academy on the dead moon of Malachor V. The place still echoed, as it did for many others who had been there when the planet died and those who roamed there now, like Nihilus. But it echoed with a different energy for Erebus. He had not been present when the Mass Shadow Generator consumed the surface and the life force upon it, but part of him had been there… and in the moments that followed the moon's destruction, he felt a swell of energy gather within his bones just as every other Jedi felt the Force go hollow.

The desert before him was silent. A spattering of other brave souls peppered the dunes, but they were too far away to make noise that would reach his ears unless Erebus reached out with the Force first. Instead, something stilled him. Something kept him from moving forward and going on with his never-ending quest.

He could not take his eyes off of Anchorhead. He had felt uncertain upon docking here, uncertain meandering the streets, uncertain asking the locals for any pertinent information, uncertain about every crevice and corner of the place… and Erebus rarely felt uncertain anymore. The Force often answered to his whims, revealing ancient secrets and histories of yore, but something more recent resided in Anchorhead that he could not place. Whatever it was, it was somehow outside of the Force. Upon landing, he assumed this void was the doing of the artifact he sought. After checking his records, he affirmed that it was still secure just outside of Anchorhead, not within it. The desert stood open before him, inviting, tempting him with fathoms of undisturbed sand guarding a millennium of lost artifacts, forgotten power, knowledge now made legend or myth, and still he found himself drawn to the city behind him.

Hazarding a glance at the Dune Sea, he swiveled and changed course, returning to the gates crowded with Jawa, mercenaries about to embark on questionable expeditions boasting high pay of the too-good-to-be-true variety, travelers conversing in mistranslated gibberish, and impatient Dewbacks kicking the dirt. Standing at the mouth of the city, he laid out its energies before him like a map full of pinpoints, only instead of identifying locations each marker was a living something that harbored the Force, whether active or inactive, a local going about their shopping or even a blaster that had seen to its fair share of death.

Darth Erebus studied the clusters of energy in his mind's eye, watching a woman walk while seeing her dark energy overlayed like an aura, a group of slavers posing as traders muddled by darkness for the Force always weighs heavy around those poised to kill. Scanning the ramshackle city, he sensed it again - the void. Squinting as he focused on the absence of energy, he spotted a small hut within a cluster of shops. The storefronts bore samples of what they offered within, stalls swathed in cloth or festooned in salvaged armor, still fresh with sand, their finish made lackluster from the twin suns. But the shop in question stood bare. It was ensconced by a plain doorway, shaded from the heat, offering only a shadowed glimpse of what was inside.

Erebus approached as if entranced. The energies of the city and the images of the world around him fell away. There was only the door and the promise of the mystery, the question of what lay beyond. His skin prickled with anticipation despite the heat of the early morning. It was as if he were approaching an ancient shrine as he often did, as he came here to do, bewitched with curiosity and wonder. Erebus felt as if he were on the brink of discovery, approaching the threshold of a new world worth exploring.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust as he entered the dimly lit stall. Blinking, his green eyes registered several low-lit fluorescent lights along the floor, illuminating rows upon rows of refurbished but inactive droids, standing sentinel in the empty store. Their eyes were vacant, void of light or life. But of course they would be, their power sources were switched off. This wasn't the absence of energy he was looking for - but he was close. Erebus stood in the doorway, a silhouette against the sun beating down on his cloaked back, as he scanned the area in search of any signs of organic life.

Through the Force he felt nothing, but his eyes saw it nevertheless.

There was a rustling behind the main counter. Peering around an older model HK at the doorway, he saw that there was a small workshop haphazardly barricaded by a greasy cloth hanging from its frame.

Instinctively, his mind reached out, sending tendrils of the Force outward to see what it was that rustled, but he sensed nothing.

Radio silence.

He tried again. Nothing but static, stagnant energy.

There was no life in the workshop and yet he spied busy hands working at the wires of a protocol droid. He stood frozen, bewildered and yet somehow soothed. He watched the hands, a woman's, weave through the wires at the droid's open neck with utter precision, as if she had done this more times than she could count, that it was almost like breathing. Erebus knew those hands, and he knew exactly why their owner was dead to the Force.

For a moment, he was no longer Darth Erebus. He was younger, arrogant, and eager. He was a young Jedi Master Aiden, spying the not-yet-exiled Jedi Knight Eden - Eden Valen his mind echoed in remembering - assembling her lightsaber with the deftest of hands. In the present, the figure stood veiled by a sheet of black hair dyed yellow-blonde, the roots already growing in dark. She tucked a loose strand behind her ear, marking her face, her painfully familiar face, with grease. She continued working silently, unaware that someone who once betrayed her stood at her doorstep, in awe that she was even alive.

Despite the lack of the Force in the woman before him - a woman grown and no longer a sister of just seventeen, and oh how much she looks like our mother - Erebus could feel the Force welling beneath his skin, his fingertips bristling with electricity. He looked down at his hands, counting measured breaths as he calmed the tendrils of Force lightning escaping his control. The HK droid beside him stirred, affected momentarily by his power, and suddenly a soft chiming rang throughout the shop.

The hands stopped.

"Be there in a sec," the woman called, her voice just as Erebus remembered it sounding, imbued with the slight cadence of perpetual annoyance.

He must have triggered the device that welcomed customers, but Darth Erebus was no customer. He was not quite sure what he was.

He could hear Eden stirring – Oh, how surprisingly soothing it was to think of her, here in the present, and present in a rather pleasant state of undead – from beyond her greased barricade, but Erebus froze. Despite his changed appearance - his sallow skin and his sunken but now violent green eyes that were no longer the soft moss his irises once were - he knew she would recognize him instantly. In another lifetime, years before either of them felt the true weight of death, they had been inseparable. From the womb to Dantooine, they were counterparts, not interchangeable but so inherently integral to the other that they very much embodied two halves clinging to a complete whole that they only had when together.

He suddenly felt wanting. Erebus yearned to once again assume a version of himself he had not been for years, a person void of jealousy, hate, and unwarranted unrest - a version of himself that was only ever truly at home when he was with his sister.

Erebus watched as Eden ducked beneath her makeshift curtain, emerging from the doorway, but before she could stand straight to meet his gaze, he backed away. He knew the sun would cloak him, cast his features in shadow as he became a mere silhouette on her threshold before he dissolved into the desert. The heat of the Tatooine suns felt unbearable against his back, and he felt drained of any power.

Before Eden could arrive at her own doorstep to inquire after him, he lifted his hood and turned on his heel.

With swift steps, he swept passed the Anchorhead gates and instead made for his ship at the dock, now suddenly unable to catch his breath. He felt like a child again, flustered and unsure of himself, floundering in the wake of his sister who was always so much more inherently talented than he ever was, who never had to try - and here he was, again, running away from her, even though she was powerless now. But was she? What power was there in being deaf to the Force? Dead to it? Was she exempt from the will of the Force, from existence? Did her choices garner no consequences? Did the fabric of the very universe bend to her presence? Or had she effected it so much that it chose to close her out, to forget her, like Erebus had when he was still called Aiden Valen, Master Historian after Atris left for the Council, harboring no refuge for the half-dead sister that no longer wanted anything to do with the galaxy but offered her one true companion, her brother, an apology he would never accept, at least not without retribution. Erebus had convinced himself that the Force had taken care of her for him, for all of the harm she had caused it, for its wounds that still festered at Malachor, the place he now called home.

Malachor echoed for Darth Erebus in a way so completely different than it did for the other Sith who dwelled there. He was once told that his other half had perished upon its surface, and he made it his life's work to uncover the fine details, to find what traces of her remained amidst the stars that were left dead in her wake. He wanted to own her in a way he was never able to as her shadow, as her lesser twin, in life. Erebus wanted to reclaim what was his and Malachor gave it to him, her head glistening on its silver platter. Yet here she was, alive and breathing, exempt from it all.

His breath quickened. Erebus' reflex sent out tendrils of the Force once more, but this time to test the waters, to see whether he was being followed by the very void that defined his existence. The hollow part of the Force remained, in the shop by the brink, unmoving. And still his limbs carried him to the solace of his ship, to its silent quarters where something familiar might calm him and quell him of worry.

The blast doors could not open fast enough. With a wave of an impatient hand, they bolted open, bypassing their programming and bending to his dark will. Passersby watched with wary eyes, but for the moment he cared not. The loading ramp of his vessel descended and the sinking feeling in his chest weighed heavy, equally laden and elated, worried but somehow relieved.

She's here, she's alive, she's here. Alive.

His mind raced faster than the Force could care to catch up, and lightning prickled at his fingertips again.

Inhale, exhale. Inhale...

Habit drew him to the cockpit, his mind already on autopilot. Nervous fingers smoothed back his hair as he sat at the controls, not prepared to do anything other than wait.

Wait… wait.

His ship was enclosed in the loading dock, but in his mind's eye the Force allowed him full view of the desert beyond. Somewhere out there lay his quandary, silent and waiting, just as he was. But perhaps this was it, perhaps this was fate. Maybe this is what the Force had intended all those years ago when his sister died and he was called to join another cause, a cause that wanted him, a cause that needed him, a cause that relied on his closeness to her, once, and used his knowledge as a crutch for the empire to come. She may not be as dead as rumor would have it, but in a way she was as dead as one could be, and perhaps that was the key. The key to everything. After all these years of ruing her existence, maybe her being alive was the final piece of a cosmic plan falling into place that The Powers That Be had yet to uncover and claim for themselves.

And he would be here to set it in stone. Darth Erebus could claim it all.