The Rise of Darth Kaa'li

[Kayura]

This was not the sort of homecomming she wanted. Likely, the reports of her blunder would have echoed through the Force. That last battle went to Sidro. Now she was left with the lingering aftermath...so many emotions coursing through her at once.

Before they had left her a screaming wreck, now they were hidden behind a wooden expression like a mask. It was a thin veil for the turmoil beneath as she fought to regain control. All this time, those emotions had only been tools. Now they were driving her and reaching a point where she feared that she wouldn't be able to keep them in check.

There was the bitter crush of defeat. This was a further blot on her honor, one that only death would fix. Her mind flickered through the options. She could commit al-darj kitab for the apparent disgrace and join the ranks of the dead a failure. Shaking her head as she landed, she growled "Unacceptible!" She made the landing just as she jammed her eyes shut and fought to find a different way.

It didn't take long before another presence invaded her tumultuous mind. Apprentice, we must speak: at once. She was feeling a new emotion: dread. There was only one way this would go and she already knew how it would unfold.

She drifted through the ever-darkened halls of the temple a dead woman. Her eyes saw and yet they didn't as she entered her master's chamber all too familiar with what would greet her once those doors yawned open.

She didn't have long to wait as they were thrown open instead and she was pulled in with a brutal Force Pull. She was thrown to the floor on her face and winded for the impact. She didn't have to look up to know he had risen from his seat. A cold voice growled, "You of all people know the price of failure. I suppose this should come as no surprise as you fight without emotion...like Jedi filth! It has cost us the head of a traitor, and now you will bear that dishonor for your failure."

There were blue-white flashes, and a harpy scream of agony. Now her heat was thundering in her ears. The war comuter had rebooted, but not fast enough. She managed to put up a Force Wall, sturdy enough to stop a second wave. His voice spat, "Why bother traitor, you're only delaying the inevitable."

Every heartbeat was a single eternity. Every breath was an epoch. Only now with so much adrenaline in her veins did she have the cpapacity to strike...yes, without thoght and without calculation. Eyes widened, her posture straightened as a scimitar was drawn. The ringing of the metal was drowned out as a harpy shriek shook the floors. Her face twisted into a look of sheer hate and rage as she was seized by something he had never seen in her before. There was a demonic quality to the way she screamed with her tongue jutting out, as if thirsting for his blood. Her long black hair flew about her as she looked lees like a traitor and more like some death goddess...just before she charged.

Her form was a red and black blur. The scream persisted as did those widened black eyes and that jutting, thirsty tongue. Her current master didn't have time to react as that blade with those runes flashed his dark, metalic inevitability. There was a ringing sound as that unnaturally sharp blade struck home. The head didn't fall to the ground.

Fingers grasped at locks of hair and held fast. The decapitated corpse hit the stone floor with an echoing thud. She took a deep breath as she stared into the dead eyes of her now-late master. An acidic voice came from her parted lips as cold as Hoth itself, "A traitor am I? Jedi filth am I...?" Her eyes narrowed, the voice became as powerful as that of a death goddess as she screamed, "THEN WHY AM I STILL STANDING?!" Fury yet sated, a booted foot was firmly planted on the chest of her master's fresh-made corpse.

She sensed others coming to see what the commotion was about and decided to reward thier curiosity with a warning. Her face twisted into that thirsty, demonic expression. Eyes wide, tongue jutting, now it seemed that perhaps she had grown fangs for the terrible extression. She had her foot on the decapitated body still and held up the killing instument and the head. In exaulted pride, she threw her head back, casting those jet locks assunder again as she loosed a final, terrfying harpy scream that seemed to reach from the very bowels of hell itself.

This was an emotion alright, this was primal killing fury. The scream trailed off after echoing neatly through the halls of the temple. Her voice now was a velvet whisper as her eyes looked down on the corpse at her foot. "Master, you made one critical mistake: never assume hidden emotions to be the absence of them."

"W-what a-are you?" asked a timid voice, obviously that of an apprentice belonging to someone else. Her cold stare locked onto his. Her voice, though at a whisper, echoed with unnatural ease. "I...am Darth Kaa'li, Dark Lady of the Dead."

By now this would have reported through the full range of the Force like a balster bolt over a silent plain. She knew from that moment on, that the Jedi and the Gray Jedi both would know there was a new Sith Master as her presence in the Force was like an eclipse.

[Kayura]

Minutes later, she sat in his place, the corpse now but a footrest. She sat with her abyssal eyes closed. Indeed, that had been a transgression that only death could fix.

She sat with the grace of an empress and wore a serene expression of some idol. That killing fury and the bloodlust had been sated for now. The scimitar now leaned against the left side of the throne. Her eyes, the very portals to the other side of the Veil, were closed in deep meditation. She reflected on the battle and came upon an epiphany.

The last few minutes replayed like a holofile in her mind and set to autoloop. She had been effective for reacting out of sheer animal reflex, not out of calculated strategy.

Her eyes opened to see a figure standing stunned over the corpse. The figure was unmistakeable as she watched the ghost of her late master loom over his own body in shock, shaking his head muttering, "No, this can't be. Not like this...but how?" The figure turned and locked onto those twin portals to the other side. There was a pitiless gleam to them as she stared back watching more out of dark curiosity than concern or remorse. "How did you do it? How is it you did this to me?"
Her breath plumed in icy reply, "So this is death for the normal Darth, fascinating. You had no idea you were mortal?" She watched as the face twisted to anger, "Of course I knew I was mortal! But how? Where did such a fury come from? That man who trained you before polluted you, nearly had you as emotionless as Jedi filth. You even had to train yourself to compensate for his...lack of vision."
"Be that as it may, you failed to see yourself. For all your abilities, you also had a lack of vision. If you had only seen what lay beneath, you could have perhaps arrayed yourself against me and prevented this. Your mistake is now my fortune and you carry the blot of that dishonor as yours is the blood spilled for failure: you failed to kill me."
"I'm well aware of that. How dare you chide me!"

A dark smile played on her face as a second realization set in: what was his was now hers. She rose from her seat. It was time to make the case before the council and the Dark Lord... of the Living.

[Kayura]

((OOC: Posting in the absence of a current Dark Lord. ))

She was somewhat surprised to see the Council was already in session. Still, just outside the inner sanctum where they met, she was still feeling the myriad emotions that had been ripped to the forefront of her mind. Some, she had controlled, others simply had to be swallowed down for the time being. All of them were potential links that would have allowed for her to work her craft.

In a way, she had to thank the man that had been her first master. In his attempt to beat her, he had inadvertently made her a greater presence in the Force, far more than her late master was able to anticipate. Her shoulders worked in silent, pluming laughter. Just then, a pair of heavy, ancient stone doors too heavy for mortal hands and muscle to manipulate, yawned open.

A powerful voice boomed, "Enter Warrior."

She stepped in bowing low as she crossed into the boom. Years of observation and common knowledge kicked in at this point, the politics and thier workings among the Sith coming to her swiftly now.

Once she had entered, she sank to a knee knowing, sensing the Dark Lord was there as the Chaiman of the Council. At a time like this, the dead and many whispers reminded her, it was best to speak only when spoken to. It wasn't a long wait. That thundering voice spoke again, "We were just about to summon Lord Bashkir, strange he should send his apprentice instead. Has he fallen ill?"

Still on one knee, she answered, "Lords of the Council, he will not be comming as he is no longer among the living."

There was a stunned silence broken only by a couple of snorts. She was prepared for this as she had kept her proof in a sack slung over her shoulder. Another voice called to her, "Prove it."

Her eyes as black as the intergalactic void swept the rows of cloaked faces shrowded in shadows. "I figured you wouldn't believe me." With that, she pulled the sack in front of her and opened it. Her fingers found the grip on the same locks as before, the blades of her gauntlet extending abruptly and piercing the side of the bag. It slipped away as the blood-soaked bag yielded a head with the look of surprise permanently etched on the face.

There was another silence. She gave it a bit of time before speaking again, it was a way of looking respectful at a time like this. In a voice that had all the polish of a master orator, she spoke with that velvet whisper that carred with unnatural ease. Her voice echoed, "Lords of the Council, I submit my former master's severed head as proof that I, Darth Kaa'li, have surpassed him and taken his place. To that end, I put forth the claim that his property in total escheads to me as is in the Articles of Law. With the Council's acceptance of this, a funeral must also be arranged to care for his other bodily remains."

There were hooded nods as she continued to hold up the severed head, the eyes of which were still staring out in that look of shock.

"Rise and stand before the Council."

She did so with spectral silence and grace. Now was the deciding moment whether she would be granted that power or disgraced.

"We accept your evidence as irrefutable, and we accept your claim as Darth, Kaa'li. By law, what was his, is now yours. So say the whole Council?"

There was a chorus of "Aye."

"Very well, the matter is settled. Darth Kaa'li, you now have a pyre to build."

She bowed low again, "Yes, indeed I do. Lords of the Council, I thank you."

Knowing her late master was a prospect for the Council, she knew they would come during the cerimony. It also meant that for her past disgrace of failing to kill her first master, she would be under harsher scrutiny. However, thier hands were tied: she had met nearly every qualification, save having an apprentice. She also knew that would come in its own good time.

As further proof to the rest of the Sith who passed her by in the halls, she held the head out as if to silently announce her victory.

Upon returning to the chamber, she had a funeral to arrange and a pyre to build outside in the open desert. She placed the head down and knew she'd need some guidance at a time like this. It looked as if she were lost in deep meditation until she came out of it with her head nodding.

Wood on Korriban was a precious resource. Now it was needed as she had set about doing the funeral in the oldest remembered style. She looked at a smaller figure that stood over the body, the red face staring back at her. She bowed her head at the ghost of the true Sith, one of the long-dead race. "Shakdun, ahl-al-Sith."

There was a ghastly smile of mild and pleasant surprise, as the voice answered back. "Saa-la, Shah'ra Kaa'li." The figure bowed before disappearing to the other side of the Veil.

[Kayura]

In the hours that followed, there were many items gathered and many incantations that flowed in the growing darkness on Korriban like poetic verse.

The pyre was modest, fitting with the traditions. Her master wasn't the Dark Lord, and even then, the funeral would have been different...Her eyes darted to a valley some miles off and she thought This would have been very different indeed. Adding the finishing touches such as the torches that would light the ceremony until the very end, her voice called out over the dunes like a call to prayer again.

Powerful and graceful, her voice carried the call in the archaic language with the flow of a song. This was one of the older, nearly-forgotten rites that was sure to catch the Council's attention. From the drowing darkness, figures of the living gathered. She eneded the call and began as she realized she had indeed caught the attention of a few of them.

There was a moment of awkward silence. Her eyes lowered to the sand at her feet as she held a torch. A breath passed before she spoke again. "We have gathered to see one of our own off. Some say that when we die, we are gone forever. However, this is not the case. Our very creed tells us that the Force sets us free. Death is never a the end; it is a release and in that, there is freedom."

The sun finally sank below the horizon. The growing darkness and the torchlight catching thier eyes gave the appearance of several glowing amber eyes in the darkness. A light breeze swept over the desert, but nothing that would have caused the funeral to stop. She continued, "Darth Bashkir was a powerful man with many friends and foes among our ilk as surely as he had enemies among the Jedi. He was surpassed in the traditional way, now it is fitting that he be sent to the hereafter in the same fashion. Are there any who wish to speak of him now?"

One look at the arrangement said volumes of her planning. The man's corpse had been laid out along the length of the pyre. Something in the smell of the wood said it had been treated to burn hotter than it normally would have, making the most of the limited fuel. The corpse itself was laid on the back with fingers laced at the chest with the head now placed where it should have been. Under the hands was the hilt of the sword given to him when he had become a warrior. The blade was a long, heavy and straight blade with only those runes on them that were needed for the alchemy. The blade seemed to reach from the chest to his feet. His corpse had been arranged as if he had simply passed in his sleep. Instead of shock, now the mouth was closed and the eyes shut forever.

[Kayura]

((OOC: A thousand apologies for this being so long! I figure I'd better get this over with soon.))

Her black eyes swept the row of them. She did sense a massive presence arriving fashionably late. Her Force-given senses spoke of them all still too numb to speak. Many still seemed stunned that she had managed to kill him.

The fumes that wafted from the pyre spoke of a rare and nearly-forgotten skill. the presentation of the corpse was as traditional as it came, right down to the weapon that gave her master his Darth name. She knew he was a stickler for the older arts. Her eyes swept again, and there his ghost was, standing there watching in surprise of his own. The Dark Lord walked through him, nearly oblivious of the fact.

She nodded, "If no one has anything to say, then we shall commence with the funeral rite." She lifted a torch and carried it over to the pyre, now saying an ancient prayer for the dead. Her voice flowed like a river in the ancient and almost-forgotten verses. She could hear the voice of her dead master whisper along as if he had once read it. Some among the council recognized it, but had long forgotten the words. As she set the torch to the treated wood, it instantly enveloped in a blue-white flame that spoke of intense heat.

Her voice, still lilting out the poetry of the Sith language ended with something they all recognized immediately. "There is no peace, only passion...through passion I gain strength, and through strength I gain power....through power I gain victory....through victory my chains are broken...and the Force shall set me free." She shifted to Basic, but now the lilt persisted in her voice as she bowed low. "Lords of the Council, Darth Bashkir has been set free."

The rite was over: the flames were begining to die once they had done thier work. On the dune where the pyre had been built, all that remained was a pile of ashes and a sword.

It didn't take much longer than the time needed to gather the ashes into a ceremonial urn before the infighting began. Where there had been respectful, solemn silence, there was now the sneers and hisses launched at her. She tilted her head in mild surprise, yet had expected it just the same.

The Dark Lord hissed, "There's only one reason why we recognize you as a Darth, Foundling: it is because that severed head was no illusion. Aside from that, you should never have returned. How you actually killed him is a mystery to us."

She could feel it again...she could feel them again...all of them...emotions were begining to well up again. Anger flashed in her eyes as intensely as the fire had flashed in the dark of the night. However, in spite of the emotions that raced through her, something else was begining to surface.

Before she knew it, a feral look came over her face. She could hear her master's voice scream in futile effort. My Lord, look out! She's a killer!She fights DIRTY! Her voice was a seductive velvet whisper as she grinned, "My Lord, if you feel my skills are inadequate, a suitable demonstration can be arranged."

Amber eyes in several pairs widened at once. The Dark Lord narrowed his and hissed biterly, "Darth Kaa'li, if that is a challenge, then you'll go down in the order's history for having the shortest career as a Master. Tread carefully."

The feral look lingered in her abyssal eyes and a smile remained on her face. The expression on her face and the velvet whisper were as insidious as a syren's song. She almost purred as she whispered, "My Lord, his sword lies within your reach and you are certainly welcome to avenge his death with it." She exuded a certain dark chivalric certainty as she stood tall and ready.

His eyes widened at the remark and the sword flew into his hands. "For the obvious repsect you've given your late master with such a funeral, it is far better than the one we'll give you! When I kill you, I'll see to it you get the traitor's funeral, you brigand!"

She drew her weapon in kind. The scimitar rang as it cleared the sheath. Her weapon was now reading out those runes as a warning. For a split second, the thought of summoning a past Dark Lord crossed her mind. Instead, her mind was filled with a bloodlust like none other. The blade itself had a life of its own and there was a faint whisper in her mind commanding without words for her to strike. The steel wanted blood and would get it.

A wind seemed to whip up in the desert with all the spirits that were roused by the flux in the Force. A massive conflict was comming and they all knew it: the living and the dead stood watching and waiting as a loud ring echoed in the desert. Two blades crossed and locked in combat.

Where the old Kayura would have gone in with a plan, the scimitar was now merely the extension of her left arm, and the Dark Lord wasn't used to fighting the left-handed. He struck, she danced around it with stunning grace. She was a whirling dervish in black as she blocked, slashed, blocked and kicked. In the night, arcs of Force lightning issued from the Dark Lord's hands as she made every effort to deflect them with a Force wall.

Again, breaths were epochs and heartbeats had become thier own separate eternities. Each strike came in a separate age and it was time for her mind to simply react without any conscious thought. That bloodlust was still there and then with all the power of a yell in her ear, something commanded her to strike. With a harpy shriek she swung the blade and struck flesh. She twirled again, her robes and cloak twirling about her. She was a typhoon in the way blow after blow struck as fast as lightning and with all the foce of a tidal wave.

The Council watched in horror as her face took on that horrid expression. In the light of the stars they could see her face twist into a demonic and thirsting expression as she screamed with enough power to shake the desert. Eyes widened and tongue jutting from an open mouth, she slashed and twirled with neat and precisely-striking blows. The blades of her gauntlets served thier purpose as well.

For the Dark Lord, it was like facing a demon instead of a Darth. That look in her eyes, wild, furious and pitiless were fixed on him. Her blows were coming faster and faster as she quickened the pace of that deadly dance that the fight had become. He swung and was too slow, or at best managed to cut a few tufts of her long black hair. She may have been young, but the Force was stronger in her now than he'd ever rememebered it being. For a spit second, in one of those screams, it seemed that that jutting, thirsty tongue was framed by fangs that seemed to have grown from nowhere.

Just as he had figured out the pace, she seemed to be clever enough to change the rythmn. All it took was the change of a single step, or the timing of a single strike. She had even passed up a few chances to strike in an effort to confuse him. It seemed that for one who possessed so few emotions, she had come back from that fight with the traitor she had in a former master as someone else: someone more dangerous. The one constant was the feral look on her face as she now roared with power enough to make the Council jump back in fear.

The effect of it wasn't lost on him as it seemed she had grown stronger in that moment, as if she had fed off of thier fear and absorbed it. Eyes widened again and she continued that deadly dance. The fight wore on well through the night and into the early pre-dawn light.

Both of them were growing tired and it seemed to be a stalemate as the Dark Lord was a skilled fighter himself. He panted, "I'm not going to let a fool like you kill me. I've eaten your sort for breakfast, and from the looks of things, I'll likely do it again."
Her feral black eyes bore into his, and her voice now echoed coldly through the desert and the Force at once. "Shut up and fight." The insolence was stunning as he reeled, "You arrogant little snot! How DARE YOU!"
It was his turn to be the flashes of steel in the indigo that spoke of the coming dawn. A coldness unnatural even to the desert night was surrounding him and he sensed it in the pit of his stomach, trouble was coming. Those black eyes bore into him still as he slashed, parried, and rushed her. Each time, it was as futile as cutting water as she danced around him and delivered blow after blow.

What the Council saw next frightened them into utter submission:

The scimitar sang as it sailed through the air at speeds that none had ever seen her move in before. The Dark Lord had danced around the swing, but the efficiency of her attack was yet to be spent as she turned and the blade came in lower, catching him about the midriff. Her voice roared in the coming desert dawn "Al-Kham'shi akbar!"They knew it as meaning "I rely on the Force," and it was the first line in many a Sith spell. She swung again in brutal speed and efficiency to be met by his desparate attempt to stave off the inevitable. There was a sickening thwack as steel was cut by steel. The Dark Lord was now in a panic as it was all to clear the end was coming. He used Force Push, and Pull, he tried a Force choke only for it to be deflected with skill that seemed to have come from nowhere.

Eventually, the end came with a twist of the scimitar and the cut to the midriff growing larger. His guts spilled to the sand before he did, screaming in agony.

The blade was still in her hand as she walked up looking down at him with those pittiless, abyssal black eyes. Her face had twisted into every expression of hate possible and at once. Leaning over, she growled, "Say good-night." In short order, she planted a foot on his chest with enough force to send the breastbone deep into the chest, squeezing out the last breath.

Her fury wasn't spent fully. She lobbed off the head and gripped it by the hair again. That same harpy scream rattled the desert and could have been heard seemingly the planet over. It now echoed through the Force as she stood exaulted again like the death goddess she had seemed before. Her eyes were set in that widened expression, her mouth was agape with that horrid blood-thirsting tongue jutting out just as dawn had broken over the dunes at last.

The dawn was greeted by the same pose she had taken when she had defeated her master. The broken body lay on it's back, the dismembered head in her hands. The harpy scream echoing from the desert as that wild expression was set on her face. The sword was in one hand and the head in the other. The wind whipped up by the stirring spirits blew her hair in several directions at once. In that instant she earned the right to survive.

With the dawn the council had the realization of one thing: the Sith Order had its very first Dark Ladylord.