A/N:
I decided to use these stories to develop my abilities as a writer, so I chose to make this a horror story. Full disclosure: I DON'T EVEN READ HORROR! Nevertheless, this is my best attempt. I leaned into the gore and haunted house imagery.
It's what I hoped it would be, but I probably won't ever write horror again!
I trudged wearily out of the private holochamber, glad to be finished with my lesson. Lady Zash, the sith who had taken me as her apprentice, had arranged special classes for me. She wanted me to overcome my slave upbringing. I'd been practicing every day for almost one and a half standard months, trying to drop my lower-class accent and the way in which my Cathar fangs and mouth shape tended to slur certain sounds. Initially my instructor had spent the time merely practicing each phoneme in Basic, which had been tedious when I succeeded and maddening whenever I failed to produce the simplest sounds. Now, however, I had progressed to practicing saying entire sentences correctly. I spent hours each day rehearsing texts and repeating them, helping me sound more like a sith and less like the former slave that I wanted so desperately to leave behind.
Khem Val skulked along behind me. Lady Zash had ordered him an earpiece that translated Basic in real time after he flatly refused to try to learn the language, so now he could understand the conversations around him. I still spoke primarily to him in Catharese, because that was the only language we both had in common, but only when we were alone together or when I wanted to say something that observers wouldn't understand.
The dashade was becoming more and more restless and hostile each day that we spent in the Korriban Academy. He was a creature of battle, of war, and he bitterly resented being trapped by such an ignorant, weak child, as he told me frequently. He was only bound in my service by his loyalty to the customs of his people. I had learned a bit more about the oath he'd sworn to me; he was going to loyally fight for and defend me until a cycle passed on his ancestral homeworld...and then he fully intended to eat me. I knew that I had several months left, but the threat of his murderous rage turning on me gave me occasional nightmares. He knew it, and he reveled in it.
I, too, was getting tired of the monotonous grind of etiquette and elocution lessons, tired of studying politeness and deportment when I could be devoting myself more fully to swordsmanship or sith alchemy instead. Lady Zash had deemed them important for me, but it rankled that she seemed so concerned with how I behaved and spoke and ignored my swordsmanship or skill in sith alchemy. Each time we spoke, she practically fell over herself to compliment me-so was I truly that repulsive? I didn't think so, certainly not when compared to ALL of the sith acolytes and apprentices that I saw in the Academy each day, yet I was the only one who had such instruction. Nevertheless, I had defeated every challenge in my path to become Lady Zash's apprentice-I wasn't about to let some stupid manners lessons prevent me from becoming a full Sith.
Together Khem and I left the cool, dark corridors of the Sith Academy and stepped out into the sweltering heat of the midmorning, blinking as our eyes adjusted. I still wasn't sure how Lady Zash had managed to garner permission for the dashade to stay with me in the academy to begin with, but we were under strict orders to keep to ourselves and to leave the other apprentices and acolytes alone. Although there was some resentment among other acolytes, nobody dared confront us about it, not after Khem had given an aggressive human a particularly bad concussion.
I led the way to the speeder hub, where a small shuttle took us to the valley of Tulak Hord. Another cavern had been excavated recently, and I had taken it upon myself to study it in the hopes of proving to my sith master that I was ready to leave Korriban. I descended through the tunnels and into the wadi, ignoring the teams of slaves still working to dig away the sand and passing the soldiers and droids observing the work. We trekked for almost half an hour before reaching our destination, nestled on the side of a cliff. I made my way up sturdy scaffolding, Khem shouldering past the overseer who monitored the progress within when the man didn't get out of the way quickly enough.
Bright lights cast shadows into deep relief as we entered the side chamber. It had been entirely carved out of the stone, and every surface was sharply defined, polished, undamaged by the winds and sands of Korriban that had worn away and destroyed so much outside. The walls, floor, and ceiling were multi-faceted, each polished face meeting the others in crisp, smooth seams. It was clearly meticulously crafted, but for some unknown reason, every plane intersected at a different angle, resulting in myriad surfaces that played with the eyes and sense of balance. The effect was like stepping into the inside of an asymmetrically cut gemstone, and it never failed to make my fur stand on end.
In the center of the chamber, a single narrow stone obelisk stood, its perfect symmetry at odds with the chaos surrounding it. It bore no carvings, but the surface was made of a shiny brown stone that gave me headaches if I stared at it too long. Perhaps that was why this room had remained virtually untouched, while the others nearby had been used as dens by generations of beasts. The room had many inscriptions on the various surfaces, all running different directions, and while I had translated the individual pieces, I was trying to figure out the order that would bring meaning to the disarray. Khem wedged himself into one of the sharpest corners near the entrance, since he absolutely refused to sit whenever we were out of the academy, and I centered myself in the dark side to meditate.
Today, the Force jumped and twisted in my grasp, tugging my awareness towards the obelisk and away from the messages that I had hitherto been concentrating on. It pulled on my mind, trying to draw me deeper into the Force and deeper into the center of the obelisk. I stepped closer. There was something responding to me this time, something off about the brown stone that seemed to be concealing a deeper purpose.
"Hello, Alien Scum!" crowed a voice behind me. I turned to see three strange humans enter the chamber behind me. They were tall and broad, wearing body armor that looked like it had seen a decent amount of combat, judging by the scoring and claw marks in the paint. The insignia on their chest pieces and pauldrons was unfamiliar, not matching any of the Sith masters on Korriban. However, the border around the symbols gave me pause. These men were the apprentices of a Darth.
"What do you want?" I asked sourly. Now that I was no longer an acolyte, most Sith on Korriban didn't even bother to speak to me. After all, we weren't competing against each other anymore, and as long as I kept to myself, they ignored me.
"Darth Skotia has a message for you," said the one in the center. He was clearly the leader, even though one of his friends was larger. He carried himself proudly. "You will never go to Dromund Kaas. He knows what your master is up to, and he is displeased to say the least. Therefore, you have to die."