Weeping Wrath

by CardiacLiberty

Zaraak Reth, a Zabrak acolyte on Korriban, rises through the Sith Empire under the ruthless guidance of Darth Baras. Facing brutal trials and deadly rivals, she navigates the Empire's treacherous politics, confronts her traumatic past, and seizes power. As her ambition grows, she must balance the cost of the dark side, shaping her fate in a galaxy on the brink of chaos.

9. Chapter 8: Becoming (Part 2)

Silence.

A void stretched forth unto eternity.

Comfort, like a mother's embrace, a hearth welcoming her return.

Her eyes fluttered open. The darkness here was different—not the tomb's cold obsidian, but alive, charged with an energy both foreign and intimate.

Blinking, her gaze gradually adapting to the new world's vast, ethereal tapestry, its threads of light stretching like rivers of stardust paving the void, forming pathways of translucent energy that webbed outward, interwoven and sprawling through an endless sea of stars. At the junctions of these celestial trails, circular glyphs shimmered faintly, their empty outlines embedded atop these suspended pathways.

A step forward—or the illusion of one. Movement felt weightless, like drifting through a dream. Each phantom stride she took sent a shudder through the crystalline path beneath her, as though her very presence was a pebble tossed into the tranquil pool of the universe. The sound of her footsteps—soft but resonant—echoed outward, growing louder, amplifying into the vast space before her where an indistinct susurration floated through this stellar ocean.

She halted, attuning her senses to the ghostly white noise - they were whispers, spectral murmurs that seeped through the silence like tenuous thoughts. They came from everywhere and nowhere, evanescent shards vanishing into the depthless abyss before they could be fully formed.

"Fear… leads to anger… hate… and suffering…"

"Everything that is not of the dark side will be purged—or it will be tainted."

The ramblings wove through the nebulous void like a dark symphony carrying the voices of a thousand lives. Zaraak had no recognition of these voices, but the truth of their meaning settled in her bones like a faraway resonance she had always known but never understood.

On her journey through the maze of walkways, her chest tightened as a sense of disorientation crept in. These glass-like overpasses had encompassed every inch of her periphery: multiplying in the boundless skylines, shifting underfoot beneath, and dissipating beyond the infinite cosmos. Accompanied by the cacophony of the obscure whispers, each step through this labyrinthine network had disrupted her bearings. The dizzying expanse of roads seemed tethered to nothing—defying any physical constraints.

Adjacent to her, one of the circular glyphs she had noticed lining the various paths grew more prominent. At first glance, it appeared to be a delicate window, but as she approached, its intricate designs became unmistakable. These were not simple glyphs—they were etched with arcane symbols that weaved around the edges. The markings pulsed with a dim, blue luminescence, outlining the gateway and casting mystical halos of light into the void.

She scrutinized its surface closely. It rippled like water when disturbed, the luminous face warping as if shifting between the present and some distant memory. Waves of energy bent through the portal, revealing blurred images beneath the undulating surface. Silver wrinkles diffused through the distortion, shimmering reflections of moments she couldn't fully grasp.

"I know you."

Suddenly, the voice slithered into her thoughts, soft as poison, though the air remained still. The portal shifted before her as a figure began to emerge—pallid, corpse-like—flickering in the shifting currents of time. His sunken eyes gleamed with cruel intelligence, their weight pressing on her like an invisible hand at her throat. His face was a map of malice, etched deep with age and darkness, lips curling into a twisted mockery of a smile.

"I can feel your anger."

A shiver scraped down her spine, slow and deliberate. It wasn't just that this stranger saw her—he penetrated her, delving into the depths of her soul with an ease that felt like an assault. He reached into the rawest parts of her being: her fears, her doubts, her hatred—everything she had buried and suppressed was laid bare in an instant.

"It gives you focus… makes you stronger."

The words ensnarled her mind, tightening their hold with every syllable. His voice, a creeping whisper, brushed against her vulnerability. It wasn't just a revelation—it was a violation, twisting the truths she had never dared confront so directly. The darkness within her, the anger she had always channeled, was not hers alone to wield. He saw it. He fed on it.

Her chest tightened, her breath shallow. Though the figure in the glyph wavered, flickering like a flame on the edge of extinction, his presence was overwhelming. Each moment stretched into eternity under the weight of his scrutiny, leaving her exposed, raw, and vulnerable in a way she had never allowed anyone to make her feel.

Revulsion flooded her veins, the force of it almost physical. She staggered back, a guttural snarl twisting her lips as if to spit the venom of his presence from her mind. The glyph was barren now, its glass panel reflecting a starless sky, but the echo of his voice lingered, clinging to her thoughts like an inkblot she could not wash away.

She turned from the portal, the hollow resonance of his words still gnawing at the edges of her sanity. Questions swirled in her mind—about the visions, about his identity—but she clenched her fists, refusing to let the uncertainty shape her. Her heart pounded in defiance, her jaw tightening with a silent vow: he would never see her fear. She moved deeper into the intertwining paths, the air growing cooler and denser, leaving behind the gaze that had constringed her soul like a vice.

Pressing onward, Zaraak noticed another portal shimmered into focus. Within, a young, bald girl stood, soaked in a tempest of eternal night. Even in the gloom, the pain in her eyes was unmistakable—an abyss, haunted by a cruel fate.

Unyielding. Vengeful.

Rage.

An endless malice for all life.

"Vaylin, come on…"

Zaraak's breath caught. The faint murmur of a name drifted through the vacuum, but it was lost to her—unimportant. All she could see was the reflection of her own torment—a seething animosity.

She knew that rage. She had lived through it.

Down the endless path of eternity, where reality fractured into shimmering portals of half-seen truths, yet another figure emerged—a Zabrak, much like herself. On normal occasions, she would rarely give the time of day to her own kind. Aside from her striking appearance that set her apart, her distaste for her people ran deep, a bitter contempt ingrained in her bones.

Except this one was different.

His skin was crimson as a bleeding sun, his outline skulked within the pitch-black void, cloaked by the omnipresent gloom of a primordial night. His face, a canvas of rage and torment, bore the unmistakable markings of jet-black tattoos, sharp lines cutting through his flesh as if the dark side itself had inked his suffering. Horns, twisted and jagged, crowned his skull—a macabre halo befitting his torment. His presence radiated a furious energy, a storm barely contained, as though his very existence was woven from the threads of pain and defiance.

He knelt, not in submission, but in agony—his body a spiral of muscle and fury, broken but refusing to yield. Yellow eyes, burning with the molten fire of hatred, stared through the ephemeral plane, as though the force of his will alone could tear apart the fabric of reality. The gaze was both a challenge and a curse, blazing with a venomous thirst for revenge that transcended the limits of the living and the dead.

"The Sith took everything from me," he snarled, the words tearing through his throat like shards of glass. His voice was a fractured thing, feral and hoarse, echoing across the spectral landscape like a howl lost in the void. "Ripped me from my mother's arms, murdered my brother, used me as their weapon, and when I was no longer of use—cast me aside." The bitterness in his voice was a blade, each word sharp enough to bleed, carving wounds deep into the air itself.

Zaraak's breath stilled in her chest, her pulse a staccato beat in her ears. The words sank into her, deeper than they should have. His suffering rang with a truth she couldn't name, a resonance that churned her insides. She was no stranger to being shaped by hands other than her own—to being molded by forces she never asked for. But the pain in his words summoned more than just shared sentiments of torment. His anguish was a mirror, one that reflected more than just the surface, but dredging up recollections of a forgotten dream, a memory buried so deep that it barely grazed the surface of her consciousness.

For a brief, bitter moment, she saw herself in him.

But the fleeting sympathy dissipated, dissolving before it could take root. A glacial clarity sharpened beneath her eyes, her tightened muscles mocking the softness that had almost surfaced. What was she doing? How could she allow herself to feel for this… slime sap?

She remembered the torment that had once carved into her soul, but she refused to be defined by it—unlike this sniveling cur. Unshackled by the scars of her past, every wound had become her weapon, every moment of agony a sharpened instinct she wielded with precision. She was not like him—a mewling husk crumpled beneath his suffering. She shall be a master of her trauma, not a mere instrument molded by it.

"Pathetic," she spat, an enunciation steeped in scorn.

The Zabrak didn't respond. He remained kneeling, his voice withering into a broken whisper, his body trembling beneath the anchor of his past sins. Zaraak's sneer deepened watching his subservience to the very forces she had subjugated. She had no pity left for weakness—least of all her own.

With a final glance, she turned her back on the craven, her steps smiting his wails into the boundless domain, her mind severing ties with the wretched desolation. A final murmur trailed the imprints of her gait—a name.

"Formerly Darth… now just Maul."

She halted, a jolt of contemplation. But she promptly resumed her steps, the declaration slipped away from her memory, obsolete and irrelevant.

"Impossible!"

Her shriek erupted through the formless realm, its echoes shattered in the hollow expanse. The sound rippled, distorting as it collided with the opaque pathways, bleeding into the endless unknown.

Yet the image lingered in her mind, an invasive leech sinking its unwelcome touch.

It couldn't be. She was certain there were none like her, a scarlet oddity in a galaxy of beige. For years, her own reflection cursed her existence, her abnormal skin a taint that left her ostracized by the village. And now, after all that time spent in bitter isolation, she found one—only it's a bitching Kath pup.

Her fury smoldered, an inferno simmering beneath. "Miserable wretch! A mirror of my kind, and he's whining about the privilege he was given."

The endless pathways spiraling before her merely amplified her irritation. This whole realm was a labyrinth of confusion—visions, voices, strangers. Each booming step she took felt like treading through a tangled web of fates that were not her own, faces bereft of familiarity, and phantoms whispering from unreachable worlds. It grated against her spirit, fraying what little patience remained.

"How did I get here?" she yelled to no one. "And what are all these kriffing whispers?!"

Another ripple of distorted faces blinked into view along the horizon, shimmering against the nebulous void. She scowled. There was no time for these incessant illusions, but the place gnawed at the seams of her sanity. Everything about it was wrong—its boundaries twisted, the rules unmade with every step she took.

A realm of windows—gateways to… what? Worlds? No. Time. The idea elicited a surge of exasperation through her. These porous portals scattered along the vitreous planes like fractures in reality itself, each one pulsing with strange energy. She had seen much in her life, but this place defied reason, bending reality in ways that left even her Sith instincts unnerved.

What was this place? What purpose did it serve? And why was she trapped here, watching the lives of others unfold like forgotten dreams?

"I have to get out of here." The words came through clenched teeth as

determination fueled her advance through the enigmatic landscape.

Yet amid this chasmal cosmos, one immutable truth became clear: there was no way out.

"Kriffing kark," she muttered, the cold realization settling in. "Where am I?"

As though the cosmos itself had conspired to deride her, another interdimensional gateway shimmered into existence before her— another damned portal. She rolled her eyes, an exasperated groan escaping her lips. 'What specter awaits me now?' she pondered sardonically. 'Darth Revan, perhaps? Some other dead relic from a bygone era?'

Her boots met the crystalline path with a muted, leaden echo as she advanced, her forbearance threadbare. Suddenly, she stopped. Her breath hitched, an unexpected jolt sparking through her form akin to a lightning bolt.

It was a red-skinned Zabrak again.

Her mind tumbled through shattered thoughts, anger flashing to the surface. It can't be.

But this time, it was no simple Zabrak mirror of herself. It was her.

Zaraak Reth.

She stared, eyes narrowing, her focus locking onto the reflection standing tall before her—a woman encased in gleaming white armor, exuding an aura of unshaken composure. Each polished plate fitted immaculately, its seraphic curves gleaming with an unnatural luminance, as though paying reverence to its sanctification by some monastic order. Soft golden accents woven along the edges framed the stark white in delicate arcs, lending the armor a quiet, almost celestial grace. Broad shoulder plates cradled her shoulders, the bodice-like breastplate more protective than menacing, with a muted grey underlayer softening its severity. A long, flowing cape draped behind her—not the imposing garb of a Sith, but a ceremonial knight's mantle, projecting something wholly alien to her: regality, serenity—an image more Jedi than Sith.

But it was her face that drew her ire. The once fierce tattoos had softened—no longer feral streaks but a river of tranquility, a quiet embrace that soothed her sharp visage. They caressed the contours of her face with a subtle symmetry, as though etched by the careful hand of a poet rather than ritualistic brands designed to ignite a primal fury. There was no rage in those markings—only a disgusting sense of peace that reeked of weakness.

This version of her was a grotesque distortion. White armor, glaring and sterile, stood in stark contrast to her fiery red skin, like deformed dermatitis masking the power that once roared beneath. It was an insult—an abomination. Fury should have surged through her veins, but there was nothing. No flame, no heat. Just a dead, cold stillness wrapped in falsehood, mocking everything she was.

Something worse than rage burned in its place.

Purity.

The thought clawed at her insides, as though the very idea of that word in relation to herself was an affront. Her lip curled into a sneer, distaste rising like bile in her throat, threatening to spill. White armor. Really? She hissed under her breath, the sound low and venomous. That can't be me.

She wanted to tear it apart. To destroy it. To—

But her hand grasped nothing.

The warblade was gone.

For a heartbeat, she froze. Her fingers curled instinctively around the air behind her back where the familiar hilt should have been, clenching and unclenching in the space where her weapon had rested since she first took it up in the tombs. It had became a part of her, as natural as breath itself.

Gone.

Her eyes widened, a flicker of disbelief sparking behind the fiery veneer of anger. She reached for her back again, an automatic reflex, her hand moving with the certainty that this time it would be there.

But there was nothing.

A hollow space where her power should be.

Of course it's gone. Typical.

The realization hit like a cold gust, sharp and irritating. Without the warblade, the absence left her feeling exposed—stripping her of the one tool that had given her control. No blade. No weapon. No way to shatter the grotesque mockery of herself standing before her—draped in pristine armor of ivory sheen.

She could almost hear it— him —that insufferable voice worming back into the recesses of her thoughts. "White's really not your color, Zar," he'd have quipped, with that irritating smirk etched plastered across his face.

Her fists tightened at her sides, nails digging crescents into her palms. Varik's dead. I killed him. The reminder echoed, but it didn't stop the ghost of his voice from lingering, like a distant whisper in the wind.

"Bold choice of Jedi-wear, Zar."

She stiffened.

That voice.

The words slithered through the air, soft and familiar, like the whisper of an old wound reopening. Her heart skipped a beat, her breath catching in her throat. The tone—flippant, irritatingly smug—cut through the silence like a blade through silk. She felt his presence—too close, too real to be a mere memory.

She turned, slowly, as though the very act was weighted by uncertainty. For a moment, there was nothing—only the vast, empty expanse, the echo of her own racing pulse filling her ears. The world seemed to blur for a moment, the edges of reality distorting in her vision. Then an outline gradually materialized, a hazy outline against the dark, unfocused, as though her mind couldn't quite accept he was standing there.

But as she stared, the edges of the figure grew sharper, more defined. A face. His face.

"Varik."

The name slipped from her lips before she could stop it, a quiet exhalation that carried with it a tender, subdued smile mixed with relief and dread.

He was standing there, just a few paces away, his form still blurring at the edges like a mirage that might disappear if she blinked. But it was him—dark tousled hair catching the faint light, that infuriatingly casual half-smile tugging at the corner of his lips, a glint of mischief in his eyes that made her stomach twist, and an unguarded stance that pretended they had never parted ways in violence.

"Did you lose a bet with a Jedi?" He glanced behind her, giving her doppelganger a once-over, eyebrow cocked. "Really brings out the menace."

For a moment, Zaraak felt her body relax, a cocktail of emotions she hadn't wanted to feel flooding her senses—comfort, bitterness, regret. The pressure of being trapped in this world, its labyrinthine paths and disorienting whispers, all seemed to fade into the background. A flicker of warmth spread through her chest, uninvited. Affection. The smallest, most fragile tendril curling through her, quiet and soft. In this vast and confusing realm, he was an anchor to something she understood—a sign that she wasn't alone.

But as quickly as that warmth bloomed, it curdled into something cold, sharp as the memory that now gripped her with violent clarity.

He's dead.

I killed him.

It was him, alright. But it couldn't be. She'd made damn sure of that.

"No… You're not real," she spat, almost as though she could erase that fragile, unbidden comfort by sheer force of will. "I murdered you."

Varik's smirk faltered, just for a second. His gaze lowered, almost sheepish, as though the weight of the truth had snagged him in its grasp. He let out a quiet, half-hearted chuckle, his voice softer now, laced with something unspoken. "Yeah… I guess you did."

His smile returned, but it was quieter, tinged with a knowing sadness, as if the words had settled between them, undeniable yet left to hang. With a tilt of his head and a flicker of mischief returning to his eyes, he looked her over. "Doesn't mean I can't critique your wardrobe choices."

They stood in silence for a beat too long, memories threatening to drown her in their shared history. He was the first and only boy that made her feel normal, a person worth holding on to. But Zaraak wasn't here for nostalgia.

"You betrayed me, Varik," The words were bitter on her tongue, the bitterness rising with the intensity of her anger. "You're a traitor to the Empire. Don't act like this is normal."

His smirk faded. His gaze met hers, unwavering, and he held it—steady, unflinching, no hint of flippancy visible, no casual deflection in his eyes. His shoulders sagged slightly, the facade of ease cracking as he exhaled.

"I know."

There was no denial in his tone—in the end, she had been right. He had lied to her about his loyalty to the Sith. But it was never that simple, and they both knew it.

"I did what had to be done. You gave me no choice."

Varik sighed, patience fraying. "And yet you are stuck here… with little ol' me."

Zaraak's eyes swept across this black canvas of glittering stars and the infinite pathways stretching into the expanse that felt simultaneously claustrophobic and endless. "What is this place? Where the hell am I?"

He smiled again, but there was no warmth in it this time, only resignation. "You let your guard down and let that overgrown warthog strike you down."

Zaraak's heart stumbled, her mind racing to catch up with his words. The Tuk'ata. The beast… She had been fighting, focused, determined. And then… the voice. That damned voice. The chill of its words had crawled into her bones, made her hesitate. She'd turned—and then—

Realization hit her like a blow. "I'm dead."

Varik's silence was answer enough.

Her knees buckled, the weight of it all crashing down at once. She had failed. She, Zaraak Reth, had let her guard down - again - too consumed by the phantom of her past to see the real danger right in front of her. And now…

Now she was here. With Varik.

"I guess that makes us even," he said with a small, rueful smile, breaking the silence. But Zaraak wasn't in the mood for jokes. She glared at him, her mind churning, trying to process everything.

"Renning…"

The name surfaced with a bitterness that scraped against her mind, a reminder of her mockery of a mission—retrieving the brain of some failed monstrosity for that deranged Sith Lord with delusions of grandeur.

Varik raised an eyebrow, leaning slightly, his voice dripping with bemused disdain. "Lord Renning. The galaxy's greatest collector of severed brains and oversized egos."

Her lips curled into a snarl, more at herself than at the mention of that pompous maniac. How had she stooped to such menial tasks? Playing fetch for a fool.

But more pressing— what had that voice been? The one that sealed her fate?

The answer crept up from the dark recesses of her mind, and with it, came a cold, undeniable clarity.

"My mother."

The words slipped out before she could bite them back, their weight hanging in the air like an accusation.

Varik's brow arched, the smirk slipping from his face as intrigue replaced his casual facade.

"I heard her voice," Zaraak continued, her tone sharpened by the bitter truth. "She condemned my birth. It… it distracted me, just for a second."

"Your human mother…?" Varik asked softly, the words hanging in the air with unspoken weight.

Zaraak nodded, her jaw tightening. "She carried me hating every moment of my conception… She could barely look at me without remembering my father… how he forced himself on her…" Her voice wavered, each word laden with a bitterness she hadn't voiced in years. "The same way…"

She faltered, the sentence splintering in her throat. The past clawed its way out of the dark recesses she had kept buried, ragged and relentless.

"The same way they…"

Varik's voice softened, his presence a calm anchor. "I remember. You told me. Your tribe. What they did to you."

His presence was steady, grounding her, as if coaxing her to face the skeletons she had buried for so long. Her fists clenched tighter, knuckles paling beneath her red skin.

"I never told anyone else. Not Tremel. No one. But you knew… you always knew."

Varik's gaze never wavered. He stepped closer, his words a tether pulling her back to the moment. "You told me everything that night. You never deserved any of it, Zar. What they did to you… it wasn't your fault."

A bitter, hollow laugh escaped her lips, the sound grating against the quiet. "Tell that to a village of superstitious fools." Her voice sharpened, each word a barbed edge. The old fury reignited in her chest, burning through the cold veneer she wore like armor. "I was born a stain. A red-skinned demon. A half-breed. To them, I was nothing but a curse, a blight on their precious 'purity.' They made sure I knew it. Every damn day."

Her chest tightened, each word stoking the flames of the anger she had buried so deep. The memories swarmed her—like an invasive swarm, weaving into her thoughts. The whispers, the disgusted glares, the distance they kept as though her existence was a plague.

And then… there was that night.

A shudder rippled through her, her heart pounding erratically against her ribs. She forced down the rising bile against the gnashing revulsion in her gut.

"They claimed they were purging the 'human taint' from my Zabrak blood." Her voice frayed into a whisper, smothered by the weight of her memories, the words barely escaping her lips. "But all they did was defile me. Over and over again." Her nails bit into her palms, drawing blood. "Their filthy touch… reveling in my agony."

She hesitated for a moment, her body trembling with the rawness of the admission. "My throat… was raw from all the screaming, but they didn't kriffing care."

A silence, thick and suffocating, settled between them. Varik's hand twitched at his side, fingers flexing aching to reach out. But he held back, allowing her the space to untangle the thorns of her past.

Then the world around her rippled, like a stone cast into a still pond. The dim stars of this realm blurred, bleeding into sweltering heat. The air thickened, laden with the stench of dust and decaying foliage. Zaraak could feel it, taste it— Dathomir .

She was there again.

The air scraped against her skin like a thousand tiny claws as the world of her youth materialized before her. Gnarled trees twisted up from the earth, their skeletal branches stretching skyward, draped in sickly, dried moss. The village stood on uneven terrain, huddled together like a collection of forsaken souls. Rough-hewn huts made of sun-bleached stone and dried clay ringed a central clearing, their sharp angles casting jagged shadows under the unforgiving red sun. Pikes jutted from the ground, some adorned with the bleached bones from a juvenile rancor, a macabre reminder of what lay beyond the village walls: the wilds of Dathomir, where survival was a cruel master.

The Zabraks loomed in the clearing, their pale skin almost translucent under the sickly daylight. They were tall, gaunt figures, their bodies etched with ritualistic tattoos that crisscrossed their chests, shoulders, and faces in harsh, geometric patterns, their neck strung with the sharp claws of Nydaks, each bone etched with ancient Zabrak runes. Their horns were blunt and uneven, curving back slightly, as if even their natural defenses had withered beneath the cruelty of this forsaken world. Eyes, narrow and gleaming with cold detachment, watched her every move, filled with disdain and the deep-rooted contempt that had been her constant companion for years.

Words rose from the cracked earth beneath their feet—spiteful curses chanted in an antiquated Zabrak tongue, etched deep into the bones of the land, as though called forth by an unholy rite:

"Red-skinned freak."

"Cursed."

"Not one of us."

The tattoos that marked their faces—once symbols of honor and kinship—now seemed to Zaraak like nothing more than brands of hate, as though every line they wore on their skin was a reminder of her rejection. Their eyes, sharp and accusing, shrank from her as if her very presence was an abomination. The whispers of the past crept back into her mind, swirling around her like a tempest, dredging up memories of the way they had recoiled at the sight of her.

These once-proud warriors of Iridonia now huddled in tattered huts, their sallow faces marked by years of deprivation. The scars of battle that once might have been badges of honor now seemed mere afterthoughts, hidden beneath layers of grime and defeat. They rarely spoke to one another, and when they did, the words were edged with bitterness, their eyes glinting with malice, resentment festering in the silence between them.

One of them, his bony fingers trembling from starvation, snatched a piece of bread from a child's hands without a second thought. The child didn't dare to protest; the man's gaunt face twisted into a sneer, not with guilt, but with the hollow satisfaction of power reclaimed in the most pitiful of ways.

Zaraak's stomach turned. There had been a time, long before her birth, when these men might have been warriors—fighters who spoke with action rather than malice. Now, any mention of Iridonia brought only seething anger directed at those who dared to speak of glory days. Their pride, their memories of valorous battles, had maturated into resentment that roiled in the pit of this forsaken village.

Yet, despite the festering bitterness that consumed her tribe, Zaraak had been an outlier—more than just at the surface level of her demonic crimson hue or the sharp, angular crown of thorns, but in the way she carried herself, as though the world had not infected her with the same rancor that defined their existence. While her kin saw only the stark cruelty of Dathomir—the mephitic sprawl of spiked flora, the blood-colored skies teeming with winged predators, the hunt for scraps of food amidst lurking Nydaks—Zaraak had looked upon the same unforgiving world with wide, inquisitive eyes. She had watched the wildlife with fascination, not fear, her small hands outstretched to the crawling things her tribe would crush underfoot without a second thought. Where they saw dangers lurking in the gnarled branches and rancor-filled wilds, she had seen life—wild, untamed, but deserving of understanding. Where they nurtured resentment, she had sought meaning.

But her naïveté had left her exposed.

To her tribe, all that curiosity, all that compassion, laid a weakness. In a clan where strength was survival, such traits had no place. They couldn't see the innocent child striving to make sense of a chaotic world; they saw only a taint, a red-skinned anomaly, her sharper horns a mark of some unholy curse. To them, she was not just different—she was soft, fragile, everything they despised. In their eyes, she was not a child filled with wonder—she was a fiend, a stain upon their warrior legacy, something to be feared, and ultimately exorcised from their community.

Now, standing beneath Dathomir's blistering sky, Zaraak felt the chains of those memories binding her to the searing ground. Each breath came shallow, ragged, as the vaporous steam clung to her skin. She could almost feel the past creeping up through her veins—the familiar bite of the sun, the roughness of the earth beneath her feet. Everything around her felt too real, too familiar—until the horrifying realization settled in.

She looked down and froze, her eyes widening with horror.

Her hands—smaller, fragile.

The familiar gauntlets that had once been an extension of her authority, like the warblade still absent like a phantom limb… they were gone. She stretched her fingers, half-expecting the callouses of battle, but they were soft, unmarked.

Her entire body trembled as the realization clawed its way into her consciousness: she was young again, ensnared in the frail form she had once loathed. The sheen of her battle armor had been replaced with the tattered robes from her past hanging loosely on her petite frame, a mockery of the hardened warrior she had fought tooth and nail to become. She was no longer Zaraak the Vicious, the scourge of the galaxy.

No, she was just Zaraak the frightened girl, trapped once more in this forsaken place.

Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, each beat growing louder, erratic—like the frantic drums of a hunt. Panic constricted her throat, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She had been here before—in this body, in this state of helplessness. It felt too real. The raw terror, the disorientation, and the vulnerability she had buried beneath layers of fury and strength surged back with a vengeance, crashing over her like a suffocating wave.

The dry ground beneath her bare feet cracked with each trembling step, sending small, brittle echoes through the silence.

And then, through her distorted haze of memories, she saw them.

The boys.

Their shadows stretched across the cracked earth before their faces came into focus—the faces that had haunted her nightmares, twisted with cruel intent. The ones who had ripped her innocence apart, piece by piece.

But once, it hadn't been like this. Once, they had been nothing more than children—curious, wide-eyed, and naïve. They had played together in the dusty fields beyond the village, chasing each other through the twisted roots of Dathomir's unforgiving landscape. Their laughter had been innocent then, their hands free of malice. They had been boys. She had been one of them.

Back then, the stirrings of the Force had been a faint whisper in her bones, something she had felt but never truly grasped. Her days had been spent exploring the wilderness, fascinated by the wildlife, content to wander where the others wouldn't. Why bother testing the strange power inside her when she had no cause to wield it?

But as they grew older, that innocence had withered, rotting into something darker. Their stares had hardened—no longer the eyes of playmates, but something crueler. Something disgusted. The whispers began first, soft at the edges, like the murmur of wind through the branches. Then the sneers followed.

Freak.

They kept their distance at first, glances filled with repulsion, always just out of reach—until one day, they didn't. They cornered her, like wolves circling prey, and that was the day the sneers turned into something worse. Something she had never spoken about.

Her skin crawled with the memory of their touch—violent, disgusting. They had torn her apart in ways words could never capture, violating her body and spirit with the sick pleasure that only cruelty could breed. She had screamed— gods, she had screamed—but the Force remained silent. She hadn't known how to call upon it, hadn't understood the depths of the power that lived inside her. And so they had stripped her bare - body, mind, and soul - and she could do nothing.

And now here they were again, their lascivious faces leering at her just as they had before.

They sneered, the same cruel words dripping from their lips. "Filthy half-breed trollop," one of them taunted, his eyes raking over her body with a mixture of lust and revulsion. "You're nothin but a red-skinned vermin, good for only one thing. I remember how you screamed in pleasure… how you enjoyed it."

"Filthy half-breed trollop," one of them spat, his eyes raking over her body with a mixture of lust and revulsion. "Nothing but a red-skinned vermin. I remember how you begged for it… how you screamed." His sneer widened, cruel and mocking. "You enjoyed it. Don't pretend you didn't."

Zaraak's heart raced, her blood roaring in her ears. But this time was different.

Because now, she wasn't that frightened little girl anymore.

She lifted her arm slowly, her fingers splayed as though testing the weight of the air. Her fingers were small, delicate—those of an adolescent—but they carried the weight of a power that belied their appearance. The boy's sneer faltered as he felt something tightening around his throat. His hands flew to his neck, grasping at invisible fingers that squeezed tighter, cutting off his breath.

"What's that?" Zaraak's voice was steady, almost bored, yet each word sliced through the suffocating air like a scalpel against a vein, bleeding the tension dry. "I didn't quite catch that last part. Something about… me enjoying myself…?"

Her fingers curled leisurely—small, delicate, yet impossibly strong—an invisible noose tightening around his neck. It was as if her hand was dancing in tandem with her words, each curl drawing out his agony and embedding it deeper into the chilling silence. His suffering was mirrored in his bulging eyes—a sight she savored with dark delight. Prolonging his torment was an intimate indulgence for her, a lover's caress against the blistering aura of his pain. The other boys stood frozen, their bravado wilting under the heavy shadow of her arousal, as if trapped in a nightmare where innocence had become the predator.

One of them turned to run, but Zaraak's other hand shot out, lifting them all into the air with a mere flick of her wrist. The remaining boys dangled helplessly in the air, suspended by her will, their terror palpable.

But she wasn't done with the one struggling in her grip. She smiled, a cold, dark amusement flickering in her eyes as she twisted her wrist slightly, and the boy's neck snapped with a sickening crack.

She tilted her head, watching his body go limp. Almost amused.

"Running won't help you," she whispered, her gaze shifting to the others. "Not anymore."

Her arm swept with a slow, deliberate grace, fingers curling as if pulling invisible strings. Even in her small frame, her movements carried a deadly elegance, a predator cloaked in the guise of a prey. One by one, their bodies jerked towards her like ragdolls, choking now, their hands clawing desperately at their throats. A surreal spectacle unfolded on this stage—a slight figure forcing lady death under her dominion with a mere gesture. Zaraak's vengeance moved in like a storm—relentless and unyielding—fueled by years of seething anger.

She reveled in their agony, their muffled screams composing a macabre symphony that harmonized with the dark side's seductive whispers. A cruel smile danced on her lips, a perverse mirror to the terror etched across their faces. Their helplessness was intoxicating, feeding her power, her control. Each strained gasp was a testament to her dominion, every convulsion an echo of the torment they had once made her endure.

Her fingers coiled tighter, amplifying the Force's vice around their throats, each subtle twitch echoing her hungered ache, an eager percussion that danced in harmony with her escalating heartbeat. Their eyes bulged, pupils bursting from their sockets as their terror and desperation painted a wretched tableau before her, tantalizing in its rawness. She could feel their pulses weaken beneath her invisible grasp, each faltering beat an intoxicating pleasure as she snuffed out the sparks of existence from those who once believed they held sway over her. The intense ecstasy flooded her senses, a rapturous indulgence only the Sith could comprehend—the ultimate proclamation of her dominance and autonomy.

But it wasn't enough.

With a single, deliberate motion, her hand twisted.

A sickening series of cracks echoed in the air, a brutal crescendo, as their necks snapped in perfect unison—a dark symphony of finality. She held them there for a moment longer, savoring the instant between life and death, before releasing her hold.

Their bodies dropped to the ground in a dull, lifeless thud. The silence that followed was deafening, hollow, and satisfying all at once—the final coda in her orchestra of retribution.

When the last echoes of their suffering faded, Zaraak stood still, listening. Quiet, a perfect stillness blanketing her in assurance. She exhaled slowly, her breath coming to a crawl as the dwindling climax ebbed away. Peace, at last. Her revenge was complete, satisfaction settling over her like a shroud—profound and final.

And in that silence, she began to change.

It started with the faintest shiver of air around her, a soft ripple across the fabric of the world. Her delicate frame, fragile yet formidable, began to swell. Limbs stretched, muscles lengthened, her very bones awakening from slumber. Her skin tightened with a silent force, and the weight of her metamorphosis resonated in a low, steady hum, vibrating in tune with the dark side coursing through her veins.

In the dim light, shadows masking the shift in her form, she straightened, the smallness of her slender body receding, replaced by the towering presence she had always embodied in her mind. No longer a girl, but a woman fully realized.

Her breath came deeper now, steady, in control, as her shoulders broadened, her gauntlet-clad hands now filled with the strength of a warrior reborn. Her stance widened, claiming more space, commanding the air around her, bending it to her will. Her eyes—sharper, a darker saffron hue—glinted with the weight of her full-grown power.

The air itself condensed around her, acknowledging the final, inevitable return to who she was always meant to be. The girl was gone, left in the ashes of her reprisal. In her place stood a Sith, cloaked in the raw, unrelenting force of her agency.

The silence in the aftermath was no longer hollow but brimming with the authority she now wielded. The final transformation was complete.

Zaraak was whole.

"Satisfied?"

A voice chimed in amidst her meditative transcendence, a dissonant note breaking the stillness of her perfect symphony. She pivoted around.

Varik.

The girl—no, the woman—squinted, turning to face him fully, her lips curling into a sneer as the echo of his voice shattered the delicate calm she had so meticulously woven in the wake of her righteous fury. The satisfaction born from her spiritual reclamation, draped over her like an emperor's robe, was stripped away by his unwelcome intrusion, replaced by a simmering vexation that prickled beneath her skin. Her fingers twitched, the phantom sensation of crushed windpipes still tingling against her skin.

The boy stood before her, an apparition amidst the carnage, his figure shimmering like a mirage against the harsh Dathomirian landscape. His eyes, once filled with mischief, now held a solemn weight as they surveyed the gruesome scene. The twisted bodies of her tormentors lay strewn across the cracked earth, their lifeless forms a grim testament to her wrath unleashed.

He stepped forward, his boots crunching against the brittle ground. The sound echoed through the eerie stillness, a jarring contrast to the tranquility that had settled in the wake of her wrath. His gaze met hers, unflinching, a quiet intensity burning behind his eyes.

"Is this what you imagined it would be?" His voice was soft, measured, but there was an undercurrent of concern—of empathy—that grated against her nerves.

"Do you mind?" Her words were clipped, edged with irritation. "I was savoring a moment of peace."

Varik met her gaze steadily, unfazed by her sharp tone. He stepped forward, the ethereal light of this strange realm casting his features in an almost spectral glow. "Peace?" He raised an eyebrow, his tone biting but not unkind. "Is that what you call this? Slaughtering a bunch of kids?"

She bristled, her fingers curling into fists at her sides, the tension in her body betraying the calm she had fought so hard to claim. "They weren't kids. They were monsters. I trusted them, grew up with them… yet they pinned me down… their dirty words…" Her voice wavered, cracking on the last syllable—a hairline fracture in her armor of fury. The pain, buried beneath her triumphant conquest, sunk its claws deep from the womb of her memory, ripping the old wound asunder. "They deserved far worse than what I gave them."

A sigh escaped his lips, a heavy sound that seemed to carry the weight of unspoken truths. He took another step, his movements measured and cautious, as though approaching a wounded animal. "It never goes away… does it, Zar?" His hand twitched at his side, as if aching to reach out and touch her. But he held back, respecting the space between them. "The anger, the rage—it gives you power, Zar. I know that. But it's not enough. It never is. I don't doubt these bastards got what was coming to them. But this…" He gestured to the broken bodies littering the ground, the air still thick with the coppery tang of death. "This isn't you seizing control. Is this what you really want? To let these scugholes dictate your entire life, while you drown in your pain and anger over and over-"

"ENOUGH!" A scream tore from Zaraak's throat, the pent-up ire of two decades unleashed. She bent over, hands gripping her knees, her breath ragged and shallow, as if each word clawed its way up from the pit of her soul. "Spare me the lecture, Varik." Her voice wavered, but the fury in it hadn't dimmed. "You… have no idea what it's like… to have your very essence ri—" She paused, gasping, her chest heaving as if the act of speaking was choking her. "—ripped apart… by the faces you grew up with…."

Her whole body trembled, her lungs fighting for air between the words. She could barely hold herself upright, as though the weight of her trauma threatened to pull her to the ground. "They kriffin' deserved it," she forced out, her voice breaking as she straightened, eyes blazing with a raw, unrelenting fury. "To feel even a fraction… of the agony they inflicted on me."

Varik's expression softened, a flicker of understanding passing across his features. "I'm not denying your pain, Zar… or your right to anger. But look at how it has consumed you." Yet another step closer, his voice gentle but insistent. "You're letting their sins control you. Your rage… that bloodlust… it makes you impulsive. Reckless. Twice."

Zaraak's breath hitched at the mention of that last word, her eyes snapping to meet his, narrowing with a silent threat. She stood tall and regal, a dignified presence even as she tried to regain her composure. "I had it under control," she replied, her tone firmer but no less defensive. "I would've dealt with it—if it weren't for…"

Her words faltered as the memory of her final moments came rushing back with painful clarity. The voice—her mother's voice—resonating in her mind, claiming she was a mistake wrought into this plane of existence.

And then, it returned—an echo swirling around them, faint but unmistakable.

"A curse. A blight on my soul. You were never meant to exist. Every time I look at you, I see him. That monster… his taint… all reflected in your very being."

The spectral melody of Zaraak's mother reverberated through the ether, each syllable a a fine silk unraveling the seams of existence, a hushed murmur laden with malice. It drifted through the otherworldly expanse as fine ash, settling into the crevices within her mind, burrowing deep into her festering fears.

She stood petrified, an alabaster statue of dread, her body stiffening as each serrated word lacerated her barricaded heart. Her skin recoiled from the haunted past the voice invoked, and the strength she had claimed began to slip through her grasp in the face of this unseen assault.

"No… not now… not again," she rasped, her voice a broken fracture, the feral snarl that had once defined her now diminished to a trembling whimper.

Her hands flew to her head, fingers clutching at her crown of horns as if she could physically tear the words away, erase the incubus that had anchored itself deep within her mind. Her body trembled, knees buckling as she collapsed into a crouch, her breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps.

Tears welled in her eyes, hot and stinging, blurring the harsh lines of the world around her. She blinked furiously, a futile attempt to subdue the wellspring of emotion, yet they spilled over, carving glistening trails down her flushed sanguine cheeks.

In that moment, she was no longer the woman who restored her honor—no longer the avatar of savage brutality—but reverted to the quivering girl submerged in the looming specter of her mother's scorn, drowning in the inexorable undertow of disgrace from which she could never surface.

Varik stood rooted in place, a silent witness to her anguish, his body paralyzed by the quiet storm unfolding before him. He had seen Zaraak Reth in many states—spiteful, volatile, even affectionate in their rare moments of privacy—but never like this. Never so utterly broken, splintering under the crushing gravity of her agony. He longed to bridge the chasm between them, to drag her back from the precipice of her torment, yet his hands, twitching with impotent yearning, fell by his side. No gesture, no platitude could mend the gaping wound that was beyond his remedy.

The voice slunk back into the silence, a predator savoring the scent of fear, its malice no longer masked by silk but now thick, pulsing with rancor and contempt.

"Pathetic. Always crying, always running to your mother's tit. You're weak—you'll always be weak." The merciless words gouged into her, rending the fragile remnants of her innocence until naught but the exposed nerves of anguish remained. "No matter how much blood you spill, it will never wash the stench of disgrace smeared on our flesh—his red skin branding my shame onto you, a demonic spawn, destined to be used, shattered, and discarded in the rotting filth of our birthright."

Zaraak trembled beneath the trampling weight of her mother's words, her world splintering with an indifferent finality. She huddled into herself, curling her knees tight to her chest, pressing her hands against her ears as though that would shield her from the unbearable voice. But the words slipped through, carving deeper into her soul, feeding on her exposed fears. She could feel herself sinking further into her own weakness, suffocating beneath the accusations that smothered her attempts to fight back.

But as the voice continued its cruel assault, the paralysis that had gripped Varik melted away, giving rise to something more urgent—frustration. His gaze flicked from Zaraak's trembling form to the swirling void around them, the endless, tenebrous expanse amplifying the scurrilous echo. She was crumbling before him, the woman he'd grown to love, retreating into the place the voice wanted her: small, broken.

"Bitch," he muttered, voice low but seething, his eyes narrowing on the spectral void. It was unbearable watching her fold into herself, retreating further into the torment the voice had shackled her with. His hands twitched, and before he could think, he knelt beside her. His hand hovered, trembling for a moment, before resting on her shoulder—gentle but firm, as if to steady her against the storm. "Don't listen to her, Zar."

But the voice responded, dripping with a dark amusement. "Don't listen to me? Her own mother?" It slithered through the air, thick with condescension. "Who's she going to listen to— you ? A spineless little rat from the Republic? My daughter might be a disgrace, but she doesn't need rescuing from the likes of you."

The voice oozed malice, a creeping malevolence soaked into the very marrow of the moment, binding the forsaken heir in iron chains that rattled with dark, inevitable promises. "You're the living relic of my profane desecration. Embrace your crown of thorns… or be consumed by your sacrilegious genesis."

Zaraak's fetus posture locked, phantom chains binding her still. Her breath ebbed, each exhale swallowed by silence. The shivering tension dissolved, leaving behind a stillness so absolute it felt unnatural. Her lidded face sank deeper between her knees, her entire existence folding inward, retreating into a cocoon of pain.

Varik's hand tightened gently on her shoulder as he leaned closer, his voice low, urgent. "Zar… she's feeding you lies. You're not a curse. She did this to you."

But she displayed no response to his plea. She did not speak. She did not move. Her body was here, but her mind had drifted elsewhere—deeper, darker, sifting through the ashes of her birthright.

---

Stillness.

An effigy, sculpted in flesh.

A meditative state, blocking out all sound, a silence deeper than the void, drowning out all voice surrounding her.

She was at peace here, the same kind of tranquility that had settled over her after she had bled those boys dry, reclaiming her autonomy in their demise, her sovereignty remade from their slaughter.

And yet, her mother was correct - the stench remained. Sour, a gangrenous mark eternally stained on her flesh, a gradual decay no amount of bloodshed could baptize.

"Nwûl tash.

It is a lie."

Words bled into her consciousness, a hushed invocation no louder than a sigh brushing over fog, delicate, yet irrefutable in its truth. Her mother's voice, once a barbed lash, now cradled her disgraced daughter's strained heart, a spectral tether spun from the viscera of shared bloodline. It caressed her soul, a hallowed incantation insidious as nightfall burrowing into the quiet dominion Zaraak had conjured—curling, a serpent through the fragile lull she clung to, unraveling her calm, strand by strand.

"This peace…" her mother's voice dripped with honey laced with poison, "it will not last, my precious child. You cannot escape the past. It will hunt you—always gnawing at the edges of your mind, rotting your core until you are nothing but a husk of shame, a shell cracked by what you truly are."

"Stop!" The plea ruptured from Zaraak's lips, a serrated shard snagged in her throat. Those degrading words, crystalline and incisive, cleaved through the diaphanous tranquility that had once embraced her. She shook her head in denial, coiling tighter into her fetal posture, her knees forming a bastion against the encroaching tirade. Her fingers burrowed into the haven of her temples, a futile attempt in damming the deluge of her mother's incessant echo. Even here—deep within her psyche—her unshakeable phantom pursued her, a relentless banshee intent on breaking her will. A chill rippled through her form, a solitary thought racing through the confines of her mind: What does she want from me? What will make her stop? Her efforts to shut out the voice felt feckless, her cognition a weary soldier powerless to stave 0ff the inevitable siege.

"Those boys really hurt you, didn't they?"

The query insinuated itself, a poisoned thorn perforating her mental fog. She flinched instinctively, her pulse reeling in tempo with a memory that sought to persist despite her attempts to quell it. The faces—those boys—the mire on their hands, their jeers etched in sadistic mirth, they surged forth from the recesses of her mind, unbidden. The echo of their existence sunk its talons into her soul, a gnarled claw of remembrance that ensnarled her, seeking to ensorcell her back into the abyss she had barely begun to elude.

"That's because you let them…"

Her breath snagged as the booming voice collapsed into an incisive whisper—shrill, piercing, an abrupt intake of air slicing through the silence. Because I let them? Her fingers twitched against her thighs, digging into her flesh as if to anchor herself amidst the surging seas of ignominy. The indictment entwined itself around her, its rationale perverse but persuasive, a spectral smoke curling in her lungs.

"No… that's not true," she murmured, her voice splintering, barely more than a ghost of sound in the damning silence. "I didn't… I never wanted…" But even as the words spun from her lips, they felt hollow, a feeble protest beneath the crushing weight of her mother's insinuation.

A cruel chuckle cascaded through the silence, the sound shattering through the void like splintered glass. "Oh, my sweet summer child," her mother crooned, her tone draped in a veil of sympathy too thin to masquerade the malice beneath. "Still grasping at that brittle illusion of innocence, are you? You didn't just allow it to happen—you beckoned it, you invited the ruin. Your weakness was intoxicating, an aphrodisiac tempting them to feast upon your fragility with their hungry hands. And when they stripped bare your last shred of dignity, violating you in the most intimate way, you just laid there and took it as they devoured every last piece of you, like the helpless little girl you still are."

"I was just a kid!" Zaraak's voice wavered, the words tumbling out in a desperate rush. She jerked upright, her head unfurled from its huddled posture, her eyes blazing with a defiant fire. "I screamed until my throat cracked open! I tried to push them off, but there were so many—too many—pinning me down!"

"EXCUSES!" The word cracked like a lash, splitting the air through Zaraak's plea. "A kid? Is that the fable you tell yourself at night? You were old enough to know better. Old enough to fight. But you didn't, did you? No - in the end, you simply… let it happen."

The voice slithered lower, dropping to a sickly sweet rasp, the scorn no less present. "It's because deep down, you desired it. Like a spice-head begging for one last hit, you craved the barest breath of attention, hungry for the smallest touch—even if it was steeped in violence. You were so desperate for validation, so starved for any semblance of affection that you would have worshipped their phallus just to feel a scrap of self-worth for a moment longer."

The invective struck Zaraak and hollowed her out, her insides convulsed with repulsion as nausea clawed up her throat. The idea, the very suggestion that she had wanted it—that she had invited their defilement with pleasure—sent a rot blooming through her, liquefying her organs into a rancid decay. For a moment, the stench of it all filled her lungs, choking her breath, suppressing any coherent thought, as if the weight of that repugnant lie had stolen the air itself. Her body became a fragile cage for the sickness swirling within, her mind drowning in the rancor of her mother's calumniations.

"You're wrong…" The words finally scraped out from her lips, fragile, quivering, betraying the tempest barely contained beneath her skin. "I never wanted it—any of it. They forced themselves on me! They raped me!"

"Did they?" her mother retorted, her voice now hollowed of even the thinnest veneer of compassion. "Or did you let them sully you because you were too pathetic to stop them? Face it, Zaraak—you cling to your victimhood like a shield, hiding behind it to justify your own failings. But in truth? You chose to be a victim. You're still playing that part now. You could have fought—harder, fiercer, let the anger scorch through you, channel that pain into unbridled power. But no—you ran. You just scurried off sobbing in the woods, licking your wounds like a worthless little babe."

Rage scorched through Zaraak like molten glass, sharp and liquid, uncontainable. Her fists clenched by her side, nails biting deep—blood mingling with fire. She barely felt the sting. Only the heat. Only the fury. The heat in her chest built with each of her mother's words, smoldering like molten rock bursting through her veins.

And then it snapped—feral, unrestrained.

"I KILLED THEM!" The scream ripped from her throat, a guttural roar carrying the ferocity of a wild beast unshackled. "I've made them pay for what they did!" Her voice swelled, desperation threading through the crescendo, as though the sheer volume could carve the truth into the universe, make it irrefutable, unassailable.

Her form unwound from its cocooned husk, each measured motion a defiance against the chains her mother's words had fastened around her soul. She stood tall, her shoulders squared, her chin lifted—a smoldering fortitude boiling beneath her skin, her mother's scorn sloughed off like dead flesh.

"I made them choke on their fear. One by one, I crushed their throats with my bare hands until the life bled from their eyes." The memory surged through her mind, vivid and violent—the way their bodies had convulsed beneath her grip, the way their desperate, gasping breaths had turned to silence. Her silence. It was not weakness—it had been control. Her control.

"They thought they could break me!" Her voice wavered, trembling with the weight of it—the helplessness, the rage, the seething satisfaction of seeing their faces contorted in terror, their eye sockets rupturing, bloodied and hollowed. "But I broke them. " Each word fell like a hammer, smashing through her mother's taunt, a brutal rhythm of defiance daring her to deny the power she had reclaimed, the strength she had forged from the massacre.

But her mother merely chuckled, a low mocking sound that sent chills slithering down Zaraak's spine. "And yet, here you are, cowering like a frightened child at the mere mention of your trauma. Look at you — trembling, weeping, lost in the throes of your own pathetic self-loathing. Is this the mighty Sith you claim to be? No. This is the same dainty girl who let those boys profane her sanctity and desecrate her flesh."

"Kriff off, mother." The words spilled from her lips even as her voice hollowed beneath the bravado. "I'm not some unfeeling machine. Of course I'm affected by my trauma—I'm a person."

"YOU ARE A SITH, Zaraak Reth!" Her mother's voice fractured the air, a sudden and violent thunderclap shattering her daughter's words. "Start acting like one. You cling to your trauma like an infant's blanket—seeking comfort, seeking approval. Always whining about your dark tormented past, always looking for a shoulder to cry on. Instead of making it a weapon, you let your pain enervate you. Makes you distracted. It's what got you killed by the Tuk'ata."

Zaraak felt the weight of those words press down on her, but before she could protest, her mother continued, relentless. "And killing those boys? It proved NOTHING. It wasn't a display of strength or sovereignty—it was a sniveling toddler throwing a tantrum, a childish attempt to prove to the world that you're powerful, all the while seeking to mend your shattered pride. You boasted about your kills, but I could feel the self-pity coursing through your bravado when that yellow-bellied traitor dissuaded you from a life of bloodshed. You were not a warrior reveling in your victory over the dead then; you were a coward still haunted by them… Pathetic."

Her defiance faltered. Zaraak had reveled in their suffering—had found satisfaction in watching them die, but that sense of control, that triumph, now felt hollow in the face of her mother's words.

"You slaughtered those boys because you wanted to erase what they did to you. That's not power—that's desperation. You're still chasing the lie that if you destroy what hurt you, you'll be whole again. But the truth? The truth is that your trauma isn't a malaise to be relieved or rejected—it's a tool. A gift. Harness it. Welcome it. Or you shall remain prey, doomed to fail, until you learn to embrace your pain and dominate it. Only when you've stopped running shall you be set free."

Any protest Zaraak had sought to hurl against the accusations were withdrawn, her throat choking on the sobs that threatened to spill forth. She wanted to scream, to rebel against the injustice of it all, but the sound died in her throat, choked by the bitter truth of her mother's words. There was a seductive logic in her mother's words, and she could feel herself slipping into it.

Had she been merely throwing tantrums all this time? Was every act of vengeance been no more than the ill-disciplined attempt of a petulant child, grasping for control—proving something to her fragile ego, to the galaxy, to her past? She had believed herself to be a starbird, rising resplendent from the charred remains of her past—yet could it be, that all she had done was to dance in the ashes of her own ruin? Had all the lives she snuffed out been nothing more than frail lighthouses in her turbulent sea of desperation, their extinguishment a vain attempt to stave off her own internal tempest?

Her fists clutched at her side, her breaths scythed from her chest in ragged staccato. Varik's earlier words, now refracted through the prism of her mother's certainty, found their mark. He had warned her, cautioned her about the insatiable maw of her own rage, threatening to consume her. That her rage had become her master, and her a puppet tugged by the strings of her unchecked wrath. And now… now she could see it, too. The veil had been lifted, and she was left staring at the grotesque reflection of her own failures. She had failed over and over—failing to overcome the Tuk'ata, falling ambush to lowly scavengers, losing herself in bouts of unbridled violence. All along, the very weakness she thought she had tamed had merely lain dormant, a parasite gnawing at the roots of her every choice, her every action, her very essence.

The realization gnawed at her. The darkness inside her, the anger, the pain—they weren't hers to wield. They were wielding her.

Her mother was right. She had failed. Failed as a Sith. Failed as a warrior. Failed as herself. What a fool she had been.

"My sweet, darling daughter, I know it's hard to hear," the voice purred, now sickeningly tender, "but it doesn't have to be this way. Your pain is your crown of thorns, your iron mantle, barbed and beautiful, forged in the fire of your suffering. Stop fighting it—stop fighting yourself. It's the struggle to bury your pain that weakens you, but that's why it's holding you back. The suffering was always your destiny. You needed to break, so you could rebuild yourself stronger. Greater. A weapon. My weapon."

The words coated her aching heart, a soothing salve upon her shredded soul. Despite herself, she found herself leaning into them, the desire for reprieve overwhelming the last remnants of her resistance.

"But, how…?" she mumbled, her voice barely a vague whimper.

"Shâsotjontû châtsatul nu tyûk. Through passion, I gain strength. You know it to be true," her mother urged, the Sith mantra a pernicious lullaby curling round her heart. "This is your truth, my precious Zaraak. It is the key to your victory. Ashajontû kotswinot itsu nuyak. Your suffering shall set you free."

Zaraak's eyes fluttered closed, allowing the chthonic depths of her memories to engulf her—the searing tribulations of her trauma, the white-hot rage born of her impotence, and the cloying rue that clung to her like a second skin. Each recollection surged forth unchecked as her mother's voice wound through the liminal space between consciousness and despair.

"Yes… feel it, every wicked touch, every crass whisper of sweet nothings they've spat on your face. Let it all churn within you, burning away what remains of your weakness. Let the pain reshape you in its sacrilegious image."

But the torment was unbearable. Zaraak's body convulsed, fragile as a callow leaf caught in the vortex of her emotional maelstrom. The agony was excruciating, a thousand invisible blades flaying her open, exposing every nerve. It wasn't just suffering—it was unrelenting, pitiless.

"I… I can't," she whimpered, her voice splintering beneath the weight. "It hurts too much!"

"Of course it does," her mother's voice replied, barren of succor. "Did you imagine your father's assault was anything less than savagery? Believed his ruthless hands were somehow softened by sentiment? No. He ripped me to shreds, left me in pieces, just as you are now. But this pain is the anvil upon which a true Sith is forged. It scorches away the callow remnants of your former self, yielding only the resilient steel of survival. It was the furnace that redefined me, and now, my daughter, it must serve the same purpose for you. Submit to its molding."

Her mother's words plummeted like turbulent waters, permeating every corner of her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut once more, her respiration meager, as she submerged herself beneath the deluge of memories. The violent tremors wracked her from head to toe, her form writhing amidst the unbearable weight of her history. Each indignity she bore throughout her life flooded her senses, crashing over her like a tsunami of loathing and dread. The shame and desecration grafted on her harrowing past now tainted her bloodstream—a virulent ailment suffusing through her veins, dissolving the fragile remnants of her innocence and purging it from her being.

Every humiliation she had endured began to burgeon within her, coalescing into a solitary, horrid revelation: her suffering was the crucible from which she must emerge anew. Her mother's voice, a bittersweet dulcet melody, slithered through the sinews of her consciousness, encouraging the submission, coaxing her towards absolute capitulation.

"Feel it, Zaraak…" her mother whispered, the words a breathless hymn to her ordeal. "Feel it burning you from the inside, washing you clean. Let it eviscerate the chrysalis of your erstwhile fragility. Let it baptize you anew, my daughter…"

She could recall it all, the memory alive and vivid as the day it was forged. Their cruel hands, claw-like in their hunger, had tore at her clothes and shredded her modesty, the biting grip of their fingers bruising her flesh as they groped and fondled her bosom in a mad frenzy of lust. Their lecherous faces swam before her mind's eye, lips curled in sadistic sneers as they pulverized her beneath their perspiring bodies, reveling in her cries of distress that echoed unanswered among her tribe. The searing pain, as they trespassed into her sacred chastity, tore her asunder from within, her shrieks ringing in her own ears until her throat was blistered and bloody. Their mortifying seed within her, their claim of victory manifest, twisted her into a plaything, a conquered trophy for their amusement. Every scar, every welt, every bruise they had inflicted throbbed anew, a lattice of shame scrawled upon her skin. The rancid aroma of their breath, the nauseating symphony of flesh against resisting flesh, the overwhelming impotence - it all came rushing back in a torrent of torment, engulfing her in the visceral horror of her past.

Zaraak's body seized in violent spasms as though electrified, the torture flaying her open, each dissection a doorway through which a potent vitality could enter. A perverse benediction took hold—an anointment through torment, purging, transforming, exalting her as an avatar of hatred. The excruciation was beyond comprehension, as though every nerve had been exposed to the untempered fury of a raging inferno, yet from its caustic core, a peculiar clarity began to emerge—a crystalline prism of epiphany, refracting an intoxicating spectrum of purpose.

But it was within that lucidity that she felt the foundation of her sanity shifting, the boundary between pain and power blurring, as if her very soul were being scraped raw, molded into something new. Her agony transmogrified, no longer a curse but a crucible, refining her essence—incinerating the dross of frailty, leaving behind only the pristine, volatile gold of vigor.

Her limbs spasmed in a marionette's dance, her body suspended mid-air by an invisible puppeteer. The luminescence enveloping her was an eerie light, eldritch, bathing her in an ethereal glow that gave her figure the illusion of igniting from within. Her dermis, formerly a vibrant shade of crimson, deepened into the hue of coagulated blood, as though every drop of suffering she had weathered now blemished her skin. Her tattoos, formerly rivers of tranquil strength, roiled and contorted across her supple form, mutating into jagged, baleful scars that carved violent vows into her flesh. They wriggled their way up her arms, neck, and face until every inch of her was inscribed with the language of her torment, a testament to the exquisite agonies that had delivered her into this chilling rebirth.

The timbre of her mother's voice rose, a crescendo in the symphony of the sombre cosmos. "You have always been my greatest disappointment, Zaraak, an unsightly smudge upon our ancestral pedigree, a bitter fruit borne of your father's carnal desires. But now, my daughter, in this interstice of existence, you stand upon the precipice of your own exaltation. Now, a moment of atonement awaits, an aperture, wherein our retribution may be enforced across every world. Now, you shall metamorphose into the destiny awaiting you since the dawn of time: a warrior of reckoning unleashed upon this galaxy."

The decree reverberated, emanating through the ether with the authority of the ancient Sith Lords. "BECOME MY WRATH, MY GODDESS OF SUFFERING!"

And upon that enunciation, Zaraak submitted entirely to the rhythm of her metamorphosis. Her head lolled back, a primal, animalistic moan escaping her lips as the transformation reached its zenith. It was a rapturous orgasm of pain and power—an all-consuming monsoon that endowed upon her every cell with an omnipotence she had never before tasted. It was akin to a renaissance, an awakening of her essence that eclipsed the mere physical realm.

Her amber gaze rolled back into her head, the rush of her breath erratic, torn from her in heaving gasps as though wrestled from the abyss of a storm-tossed sea. The ecstasy of the transformation coursed through her veins, honeyed and potent as the aroma of narcotic spice, a siren's lullaby drawing her into the uncharted depths. It was an ensemble of bliss and agony—an intricate ballet of pleasure and pain waltzing within her. She was the maestro and the melody, the dancer in the dark and the dance in the eye of the tempest, her identity merging seamlessly into the boundless sea of pain that now lapped at her very soul.

In that singular, exalted moment, Zaraak was both the cosmos and the void—an entity of paradox, her existence dissolving into an infinite ocean of suffering that had become her song. She was the whisper of a dream, the echo of a scream—a paradox unraveling within the silent symphony of rebirth that painted her existence anew.

When her mortal form commenced its descent, it did so with the ethereal poise of a fallen star relinquished from its celestial tether. Alighting upon the spectral plane, she remained ensnarled in a chthonic luminescence that clung to her silhouette like phantoms to the netherworld. Within this sepulchral light, her eyes remained closed, and she existed as a tranquil, suspended tableau. Her breath ebbed to the rhythm of distant cosmic beats as the transformation settled over her like a cloak spun from the threads of oblivion.

Yet, amidst this quietude, a sovereign motion fractured the calm. Her eyes, once gateways to an uncontrolled tempest of unchecked emotions, now snapped open with a chilling alacrity. The unfocused embers of rage had been extinguished, supplanted by a glacial hatred that radiated an eerie serenity, a hatred meticulously crafted and honed into a weapon, lethal in its precision—each sharpened edge echoing with the dulcet whisper of an elegy yet to be sung.

She stood, no longer a captive of her mortal identity, her past rendered irrelevant in the face of her foreboding resurrection. She was no longer Zaraak Reth, the girl fettered by the shackles of her past. She had been lustrated amidst the baptismal rivers of despair, her ambition as unyielding as the stygian void that consumed her.

Emerging from the cocoon of suffering, she awakened as a harbinger of dark resolve, a Sith Warrior, her spirit molded by the abyss itself. A living embodiment of savagery, she had become the very instrument her lineage demanded—a symphony of power and control, her notes played by the long, cold fingers of hatred. An awakening, both ominous and profound had occurred—a haunting melody of transformation echoing in the quiet corners of the universe.

---

Outside her chrysalis of isolation, the astral world around her uncoiled with an echoing sigh, the pulsating remnants of her transmogrification woven into the spectral air. Beyond the horizon of her consciousness, shadows danced at the periphery - a whispered ballet of guilt and longing where Varik's phantom lingered like a half-remembered dream.

In the cavernous expanse of isolation, he lingered, shrouded in the spectral stillness of expectancy. The very air around him had thickened into a tangible tapestry of tension, threaded with the vibrato of impending peril, a symphony of silent foreboding resonating through the fabric of the Force. Zaraak, his horned specter, had sequestered herself behind the pallid curtain of her own mind, her lithe figure imbued with an alien tranquility that belied the churning tumult beneath.

His form, faded yet fervent, stretched forth a hand, fingers trembling on the precipice of the void between them. His voice echoed across the chasm, a spectral whisper borne on the winds of desperation.

"Zaraak?" The word, a plea and a prayer, spiraled out into the depths. "Zar, can you hear me?" Anxiety, a tremulous thread spun from the most delicate fiber of his heart, sought to snare her consciousness, to reel her back from the abyss into which she had plunged herself.

Her eyes fluttered wide, a cold unsettling calm settling over her features. The potent hatred that now permeated her entire being had crystallized into an unshakable resolve, each breath measured and precise, a metronome keeping time to the malevolent requiem now playing within her soul.

Around her, the phantom hinterland dissipated like a mirage, reality seeping back into focus. The ghostly whispers of her mother retreated into the recesses of her mind, usurped by an incessant rasp needling her thoughts. She blinked once, twice, the sphere of her perception honing with each motion, the cerebral haze receding as the dreamlike void within her consciousness gave way to the vast, star-strewn expanse of the enigmatic dominion she had previously found herself trapped in.

The panorama before her shimmered and rippled, the endless pathways sprawling out like gossamer threads woven into the fabric of the void. The spectral light that had once bathed her in its eldritch glow now seemed to bend and twist in deference to her arrival, as though the very quintessence of this place acknowledged the dark majesty now residing within her.

Beside her, Varik's apparition remained, its contours flickering with uncertainty. A skein of worry was woven into the creases that furrowed his brow as he scrutinized her, searching for any sign of recognition, any spark of the girl he once knew.

"Zar?" His voice was soft, hesitant as a zephyr rustling the surface of a tranquil pond. "You good…? You weren't moving for a while there."

But Zaraak barely registered his words. Her mind swirled in the afterimage of her transformation, lost in the heady echoes of newfound power that still crackled beneath her skin, distant and fierce as a thunderstorm on the verge of descent. The phantom sensations of her rebirth coursed through her veins, chilling and intoxicating, an unrelenting current of hatred and resolve. It was no transient emotion; it had become her state of being. The darkness had become as intrinsic to her now as the rhythm of her pulse, as ceaseless as the breath from her lips.

With the poise of a nocturnal huntress, she ascended from her position, each movement a deliberate ballet. Gone was the stutter of hesitation, the specter of doubt—only the lethal elegance of a metamorphosed predator prevailed. Her gaze, once vibrant amber, had deepened to a molten glare, simmering with the cold, steady burn of hatred. The flames of her animosity laid dormant yet ever boiling beneath the surface, poised to erupt at the slightest provocation.

Varik instinctively took a step back, the air between them thick with the hostile aura radiating from her. He had witnessed her transformation unfold, observed as she was consumed by the dark energies that now pulsed through her like a corrupted heartbeat. He had beheld the contorted agony that had besieged her body, listened to the primal screams ripped from her throat. And now, as she loomed before him, the change in her demeanor was undeniable. The girl he had once known was lost, effaced by the pain that had mutated her into something loathsome, something far more baneful.

The Zaraak who had confided in him, whispered her hopes and regrets in stolen moments of vulnerability—she had long since disappeared, devoured by whatever monstrous thing her mother had carved into her. In her stood an aberration malformed by the dark side, her fiery defiance cooled into a glacial calm. Her gaze no longer held the inner conflict he had once recognized; instead, it was replaced with a serene detachment, as though concerns of the mortal plane were now beneath her.

"Zar?" he implored a third time, his voice trembling on the precipice of despair. He made a tentative advance, as though the mere act might summon her from the depths of whatever hellscape she had plummeted into. "Talk to me. What happened to you in there?"

Their eyes met, twin orbs of obsidian and saffron colliding in a quiet cataclysm. Her voice, a specter's whisper against the ethereal void, traversed the expanse between them, carrying the inescapable gravity of a cosmic truth. "Zar…" she intoned, "…is dead."

Varik recoiled, confusion eclipsing his features. "What are you talking about?"

Rising from the crucible of her past, reborn in the embers of discarded identities, she declared, "My name is Zaraak Reth of Dathomir, progeny of Lilith Tesil, servant of the Empire. And you, Varik Thane, are a traitor to the Sith."

Her decree rang out, a death knell sung without hesitation, reverberating in the hollow of eternity. There was no fury, no cataclysmic wrath – only the gelid calm of inevitability. The schism separating them had now broadened into an impassable gulf, an ocean teeming with the specters of unrequited affections, unvoiced guilt, and untold treachery.

In that fleeting moment of eternity, Varik stood frozen, her words bearing down on him like a leaden sky. "Zar is dead." Her utterance carried the gravity of Malachor's fall, rupturing the fragile foundation of his reality. The girl who had fought beside him in the cut-throat trials of the Academy, whose lifeblood had mingled with his in countless duels, whose dreams had once mirrored his own audacious hope for an existence beyond the ceaseless violence—that girl was gone. Her voice, a mechanical statement, stripped of the warmth he remembered—only the sterile detachment of a woman hollowed out.

His lips parted, seeking solace in speech, yet found themselves in the throes of muteness, the words evading his shackled tongue. His throat was garroted by their unspoken affinity, his mind scrambling to fathom her withered ether. He searched the saffron flames of her eyes for a spark of recognition—one final plea. But naught avail. Null.

In an unspeaking ballet of death, Zaraak reached behind, fingers curling around a hilt, as though the tangible weight had always been a part of her. The instant they touched, a surge of energy cracked through her veins, a clandestine sacrament between warrior and weapon. The blade echoed its assent, the metallic refrain chanting of forthcoming carnage. In one fluid motion, she drew forth the instrument with a soft hiss, the rasp of steel sliding against worn leather a sibilant dirge in the eerie stillness.

Her warblade had returned, the sigil of her fate.

As it emerged, the blade caught the ethereal light, the ruby rivulets along its lethal trajectory flaring to life, pulsing with an inner luminescence that bathed her features in a sinister glow. The light traced the sharp angles of her cheekbones, the taut line of her lips, and the icy focus in her eyes. In that moment, she was an incarnate nightmare of exquisite terror—a Sith sovereign ascendant, her horned figure inked in shades of crimson and shadow, the warblade an extension of her deadly grace.

She poised the blade towards the firmament, a wordless salute to the malevolence that had reforged her. The hilt nestled against her palm, conforming flawlessly to her grasp as though it were wrought from the crucible of her unique touch—a perfect reunion of soul and steel. With an allure as deadly as a moonless night, she allowed the weapon to descend, the lethal edge tracing a path through the dreadful silence.

Varik stood transfixed as she leveled its point at his throat. The scarlet lines pulsed faster, brighter, as if eager for the kill. Her eidolon stalker remained still, his gaze never leaving hers.

"Forgive me, Kavah," she breathed, her voice an echo adrift in the cavernous expanse of her armor-clad ambition. For a fleeting moment, a tinge of remorse floated—then it vanished, lacquered over by a chilling sheen of apathy, a somber testament to the ineluctable conclusion she was ordained to execute. Her eyes, now vacant of any lingering hesitation, possessed the glassy certainty of a huntress on the cusp of the kill.

In contrast, Varik's eyes served as a mirrored pool, capturing the luminous echo of her remorse—a transient glow that had been snuffed out in the gaze of his unrequited affection. Despite his denial, it had been clear from the start that this inexorable moment had been fated the day she had executed him in flesh. "I do…" he responded, his voice a quiet valediction to the woman he had once dreamed of embracing in a more peaceful world—the woman he had failed.

In a single, fluid motion, Zaraak struck. Her blade cleaved through the apparition, severing the last fragile thread that tethered her to her past. For a moment, his image trembled, eyes locking with hers in one final, solemn plea. Yet the regret was insufficient to anchor him in this dimensional limbo. His form ebbed away, unraveled into waning wisps of starlight—unspoken promises swallowed by the sands of eternity.

As the last of his presence was exorcised, Zaraak found herself a solitary figure amidst an empty world, bereft of life and beyond death. The previously vibrant pathways lay dormant before her, no withholding the murmuring secrets from other realms that once intruded her psyche. She had crossed a threshold, transcended the fleeting echoes that had once held her in her thrall. In their stead, an all-encompassing serenity held sway, pervading the boundless expanse, as tranquil as the depths of her soul.

"It is done. Varik is dead. My friend… is dead," her voice resonated, a hollow declaration in the surrounding void bearing neither the ring of victory nor the sting of sorrow—a mere statement of fact.

---

Elsewhere, in the sacrosanct necropolis of Marka Ragnos, the threads of time were woven into silence. The air languished, reeking of ancient sandstone and the rancid odor of decayed flesh—the chunk of k'lor'slug brood mother Zaraak had carved out still draped over a rusted container, its stench saturating the air like a vile fog. Splintered boulders embedded in the walls cast long, scarlet shadows across the fissured stone floor, their sharp silhouettes clawing at the remnants of numinous oblations. The chamber hummed with a tension that was nearly palpable, a quietude poised on the precipice of carnage. All was still, but it was not a peaceful stillness—it was the lull before a storm.

Above Zaraak's lifeless body, the mutated Tuk'ata loomed, maw yawning wide, prepared to spill the final verse of her life saga. Strands of saliva hung from its fangs like lethal icicles poised to fall. Time had halted, yet the beast's rancid breath lingered, trapped in the eternity of a moment, its claws raised, ready to rend her apart.

And then, a spark ignited.

A surge of energy ripped through the silence, sending ripples through the very fabric of the tomb. Time, once a prisoner, began its crawl once more. The Tuk'ata's salivating maw descended, a slow-motion executioner, its deadly path aimed at Zaraak's exposed throat.

But her eyes sprang open.

Her hand shot to her warblade's hilt with the speed of a striking serpent, crashing steel against the descending jaws with a brutal symphony of resistance. The metallic impact shattered the silence, sending echoes skittering through the ancient burial ground. Her amber eyes, once dimmed by the ghosts of her past, now blazed with the icy certainty of resurrection. Her grip, steadfast as a mountain, halted the beast's deadly arc inches from her jugular.

In an instant, she called upon the Force. A shockwave of unseen power exploded from her hand, flinging the Tuk'ata across the crypt. The beast collided with the cavernous opening from whence it came, debris cascading down as it vanished into the void.

But the dance with death was far from over.

The Tuk'ata clawed free from the rubble, its red-tinged eyes aflame with primitive fury. Muscles rippled beneath its deformed flesh as it circled, a guttural growl carving chilling echoes through the tomb. Its serrated fangs were a grisly promise of revenge, gleaming in the crimson half-light, a spectacle of primal intent.

Zaraak's grip tightened on her weapon, her resolve a glacial fortress. Each strike landed with surgical precision, cleaving through the beast's hide as if shredding armor. When the Tuk'ata lunged, she danced with the grace of a winter wind, sidestepping and delivering a brutal retaliation that severed its hind leg. Dark, viscous blood splattered across the ancient runes, an offering to the stones.

The Tuk'ata reeled, its cry an eerie serenade echoing through the tomb, but Zaraak pressed forward. Drawing on the dark side, she unleashed a guttural roar that reverberated through the cavernous tomb, shaking the very air with its power. The beast faltered, its massive form quaking as the raw power of her scream paralyzed it, bones rattling under the onslaught.

Seizing the moment, Zaraak moved with predatory intent. Her warblade tore through the beast's forelimb, the sickening crunch of bone and sinew echoing through the tomb. The Tuk'ata crumpled, twitching in its death throes, its feral growls unraveling into pitiful whimpers.

Zaraak drove her warblade into the creature's chest with finality, straight into its dark heart. The Tuk'ata let out a shuddering growl before its massive form stilled, collapsing under its own weight.

As the Tuk'ata's form surrendered to oblivion, the tomb fell silent once more, the echoes of battle swallowed by the vast emptiness. But this silence held no peace—it was a hollow space, a brief lull between the storms that had shaped her and the tempest yet to come.

With steady composure, Zaraak wiped the blood from her blade, each movement deliberate, controlled. The cold steel felt like an extension of herself now, as much a part of her as the hatred that fueled her strength. No maelstrom of emotion stirred within her—only the undaunted conviction of a warrior who had faced death and emerged a victor. She was no longer the girl whose rage flared like wildfire. She had become something far more dangerous—calculated, unyielding, and inevitable.

Her gaze fell upon the fallen Tuk'ata. The twisted creature lay in a heap, its grotesque body a monument to dark alchemy, its feral power corrupted by Sith machinations. For a fleeting moment, she felt the faintest stir of kinship. Both of them had been shaped by forces far beyond their control, twisted by dark designs, but where the Tuk'ata had been a mindless beast, Zaraak had reclaimed her agency, reforged herself into a weapon with purpose.

With a solemn grace, Zaraak knelt beside the fallen beast, her eyes reflecting the glimmering torchlight with a sharp clarity. She traced a symbol of reverence across its brow, a silent tribute to the vanquished foe. But this was no time for sentiment.

Her hand moved to the beast's skull with methodical precision, fingers tightening around her blade once more. With swift, decisive strokes, she carved through its thick hide, the blade cutting deep to expose the organ that Lord Renning had demanded. The Tuk'ata's brain—deformed and swollen from the dark alchemical experiments that had corrupted it—gleamed in the dim light. Zaraak extracted it without hesitation, placing it into the specimen container she had brought for this very purpose.

Rising to her feet, she gave a single respectful nod to the fallen beast and turned towards the exit. Her footsteps echoed softly through the chamber, the crimson shadows retreating in her wake. She had conquered this trial, but the true test awaited her in the depths of the tomb—the Beast of Marka Ragnos. She could feel its presence pulling at her, a lingering darkness that beckoned her forward. She was ready now, not just for the Beast, but for everything that came after.

Zaraak Reth strode through the flickering shadows, a figure reborn in fire and fury, tempered by the crucible of her trials. She was no longer the prey of fate, no longer the victim of the past.

She had become the storm.