=== Nira ===
The cavern was a living heartbeat. Each thrum of the drums echoed off the ancient stone walls, low and rhythmic, like the pulse of some slumbering beast deep beneath the earth. Flickering braziers burned with strange, green-tinged flames, casting long, dancing shadows that seemed to crawl along the rough cavern ceiling like restless spirits.
Nira knelt at the center of it all, the cold stone floor biting into her knees through the thin, sweat-soaked cloth of her tunic. She barely felt it. Her eyes were half-lidded, her breath ragged but steady, drawn deep into her lungs and exhaled as she swayed forward, then back, then forward again, her mind drifting deeper into the ritual's strange, narcotic embrace.
The air was thick with incense, bitter herbs and strange powders, the smoke coiling in hypnotic spirals. A strange glowing liquid marked the cavern floor, weaving ancient sigils of protection and binding. Each mark seemed to shimmer at the edge of Nira's vision, tugging her mind deeper into the trance.
Beyond the circle's border, Erda, or Mother Talzin, moved with the slow, sinuous grace of a serpent. Her dark robes dragged over the floor, whispering secrets to the stone as she traced the circle's edge with a staff crowned by a gnarled crystal. Her voice was an echo of something older than words, half chant, half song, weaving through the drums with a rhythm of its own.
She paused to dip her fingers into a bowl of pulsing green ichor, the lifeblood of Dathomir. With each step, she traced new runes in the air. Nira could feel each one settle on her skin like a ghost's touch, searing and cold at once. Her breath caught in her throat as the trance deepened, her limbs heavy but alive with strange energy.
Sanguinius watched from the edge of the circle, golden wings half-folded behind him. His armor, always so bright and resplendent, seemed muted in this cavern's eerie glow. The Angel of the Ninth Legion stood like a statue chiseled from living marble, beautiful, terrible, and utterly still. But behind those piercing eyes, doubt smoldered. He shifted his weight once, wings flexing, as if he might step forward, to pull Nira from the circle, to break this spell of smoke and blood.
But he did not move. The Primarch of the Blood Angels had faced daemons and nightmares in the Immaterium, and he knew well that even the strongest warriors were not immune to its whispers. If this ritual offered a shield, could he truly deny her that?
Nira's head lolled back. The cavern lights swam above her, a halo of emerald and shadow. She could feel it now, something beneath her skin, a prickling fire spreading from her heart to her fingertips, to the soles of her feet. A tremor of pain flickered through her, a thousand needles beneath her flesh, and her lips parted in a soundless gasp.
Erda's voice wrapped around her, as cold and commanding as iron. "Feel it, child. Let its mark find you. Let it crawl beneath your skin and bind you in chains the Warp cannot break."
Nira tried to speak, but the words turned to mist on her tongue. Her breath came in ragged gulps, eyes wide, pupils dilated until her irises were little more than thin rings of jade. The drums quickened, boom-boom, boom-boom, matching her heartbeat as something inside her broke open like an egg cracking on stone.
Her skin, already pale from sleepless nights and the harsh world beyond these caves, grew whiter still, a deathly pallor that made her veins stand out like threads of ink beneath fragile parchment. And then the markings came, blooming across her face, her throat, her collarbones, her arms, as if invisible claws were scratching ancient runes into her flesh from the inside out.
They were not merely painted symbols. They seared themselves into her dermis, black lines coiling like serpents, spirals merging with jagged sigils older than the Jedi Order, older than the Imperium, older than the Sith. The pain was sharp and alive, but it came with a strange clarity, a sense of weight lifting from her shoulders even as the ritual's burden pressed down like iron chains.
Somewhere beyond the haze, she felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes, not from pain, but from a sense of relief she did not yet understand. She swayed again, the world spinning around her as the cavern seemed to pulse with every beat of her heart.
Erda's fingers, sharp and bony, touched her chin, tilting her face up. The ancient witch's eyes glowed green, pupils burning like tiny embers.
"Do you feel it, child?" she hissed, voice both kind and terrible. "The marks are not merely symbols, they are power, bindings older than any Warp-spawned horror. So long as your heart beats, so too shall these wards guard you."
Nira's throat worked. Her voice came out cracked, raw, the echo of a girl caught between worlds. "I… I feel it."
Erda's cracked lips split in a smile, equal parts motherly and predatory. "Good. Then let it be done."
She dipped her thumb into the bowl one final time and pressed it to Nira's forehead, leaving a sigil that shimmered before sinking into her flesh. The final rune. The circle pulsed, the drums reaching a fever pitch before cutting off all at once, silence crashing over the cavern like an ocean wave.
Nira fell forward, bracing herself on her hands, chest heaving. The markings on her arms seemed to crawl still, settling into her skin like living tattoos. She could feel it now, the touch of the Warp's whispers, once so unfamiliar, like an oil slick on her mind. But now they slid away, repelled by the fresh wounds and the wards pulsing in her blood.
Sanguinius finally stepped forward, his boots scuffing the sigils on the stone. He crouched beside her, one great wing sweeping low to shield her from the flickering green fire. His eyes, so impossibly kind for one who bore so much, searched her face.
"Nira," he said softly. "How do you feel?"
She swallowed, her voice a rasp. "Cold. But… clean."
Erda stood before them, staff tapping the stone once, twice, three times. "And so she is bound, as we all are. The marks will hold the Warp at bay, so long as she lives."
Nira forced herself to sit up, wiping the sweat from her brow. The markings on her fingers shimmering faintly. She felt heavy, but for the first time in months, her thoughts were her own. No scratching whispers, no oily caress just beyond the veil.
She drew in a shuddering breath, meeting Sanguinius' gaze. "It's so quiet." She said, smiling up at him.
The Angel placed a hand on her shoulder, his touch impossibly gentle for one who could crush tanks with a flick of his wrist. "Im so happy for you."
As the Angel helped her to her feet, Nira could not help but smile.
Mother Talzin watched with a strange fond smile before opening her arms.
"I welcome the newest Nightsister!"
(Image here)
=== Dooku ===
Jedi Master Dooku stood alone in one of the Temple's highest corridors. It was a gallery open to the sky on one side, a long stretch of pale stone arches that framed the vast ocean of lights that was Coruscant at dusk.
Beyond the balustrade, speeders crawled along their traffic lanes like fireflies caught in amber, and the skyscrapers rose in impossible clusters, each one crowned in neon or gilded with the glow of transparisteel windows. From here, the durasteel heart of the Republic looked eternal, untouchable. And yet… to Dooku's eyes, the brilliance was beginning to crack. He could feel it in his bones.
His hands, clasped behind his back, twitched with restless energy. He could almost feel Mace Windu's last breath echoing through the Force.
And yet what had the Council done? Debated. Argued. Postponed. They had sat in their high seats, clad in fake wisdom like armor made of parchment, while the galaxy's foundations quivered beneath them, and now, they whispered among themselves like fearful old fools instead of guardians of the peace.
Dooku's jaw tightened. He clenched his hands, his nails biting into his palms. Once, he had believed the Order could steer the Republic back from the brink. Now… the visions had only grown darker. He saw flames, a Senate Chamber drowned in fire, the screams of billions carried on the solar winds. He felt the cold hand of something vast, moving just beyond the edge of knowing.
He was still staring out into that endless sprawl when a familiar voice cut through the silence behind him.
"Master," Qui-Gon Jinn said softly. "I wondered if I'd find you here."
Dooku's eyes flickered in the reflection of the glass, the long silhouette of a man who was no longer a boy, no longer the reckless Padawan who had once defied him at every turn. A tired smile ghosted across Dooku's lips. The frustration in his chest loosened just a fraction, replaced by a warmth he did not often allow himself to feel anymore.
"Qui-Gon," he said, turning at last. "My ever wayward Padawan. Or… I suppose I should say 'Master Qui-Gon?"
Qui-Gon laughed, a quiet thing that echoed off the columns. He stepped forward, hands tucked into his robe sleeves, his beard and hair touched with the first hints of gray that made him look all the more like a knight from some half-forgotten myth.
"I'll always be your student in some ways," Qui-Gon said, his voice low and calm. "No matter what the Council's archives say."
They clasped forearms, a warrior's greeting, and for a heartbeat, Dooku let his shoulders drop, feeling a flicker of the pride he had always held for this man. The boy he had once called reckless, stubborn, blind, and yet so deeply rooted in the Living Force that even Yoda had marveled.
They stood side by side for a time, looking out at the endless cityscape, the sky bleeding from purple into black as a thousand stars blinked alive overhead.
"It is beautiful," Qui-Gon murmured. "But sometimes I wonder… if all this light blinds us to what we need to see."
Dooku barked a short laugh. "Your old Master agrees with you on that. Though I'm not certain the Council ever will."
Qui-Gon's eyes flicked to him, warm but probing. "You're troubled. I can feel it radiating off you. You've been pacing these halls more than usual since… the duel."
Dooku's eyes narrowed. The memory of the arena recording flashed behind his lids, the Black Templar, that towering figure of brutal nobility, standing over Windu's broken form. The raw finality of it, the absolute absence of compromise. He had hated it. And yet…
"They debate," Dooku said, the words bitter on his tongue. "They debate while the galaxy shifts beneath their feet, while monsters slip their chains. They treat it as if it were an academic exercise, some philosophical puzzle to be solved with tea and polite conversation."
He turned to face Qui-Gon fully now, his expression hardening, old lines deepening in the shadows. "Meanwhile, the visions come, stronger than ever. I see blood. I see our Temple in flames, the Republic devoured by corruption. I see us, all of us, powerless. Dead or worse if we sit here and do nothing."
Qui-Gon absorbed this in silence, his brow furrowed. He glanced down at his hands, then back to his old Master. "You've told the Council?"
Dooku laughed again, but there was no humor in it this time, only the iron edge of a man nearing the point of fracture. "Of course I have. I told them the first time I dreamt of the Chaos Sorcerer, the first time I saw the Ones dead. The first time I saw Coruscant covered in flames as Astartes torched the Temple. They called it nonsense, the dreams of an old man who clings too tightly to fear."
His hands clenched, knuckles pale. "They call me paranoid. They think I see ghosts in every shadow because I'm unwilling to trust in the Force's will. But I tell you this, my old apprentice, the Force does not wish this. Something festers at the core of the Republic, and the Order would rather shut their eyes than root it out."
Qui-Gon was silent for a long moment. He turned, bracing his shoulder against the stone balustrade, and looked at his former Master with a gravity that few others could hold. "Then what will you do? I see the storm inside you. You are close to something, but I fear it will consume you if you do not choose wisely."
Dooku's lips parted, but no words came immediately. The truth was, he didn't know. Not truly. A part of him wanted to burn it all down, to call out the Senate's rotted heart, to shatter the Council's illusions, to drag the corruption into the light at any cost. And another part still clung to the Temple, to the ghosts of his teachers, to the ideals that had once made the Jedi great.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low. "I don't know, Qui-Gon. But I am nearing the edge. Every vision, every nightmare… They push me closer. I can feel it. Something must be done. If the Jedi will not act, then perhaps I must go to those who will."
Qui-Gon did not flinch. He only nodded, the sorrow in his eyes sharp as a blade. "I know exactly what you will do," he said softly, almost to himself.
Dooku's eyebrows lifted slightly, a flicker of wry amusement slipping through the storm. "Oh? And what do you think that is, my wise old Padawan?"
Qui-Gon let out a breath, a half-laugh that was more sigh than anything. "You will do what you have always done, Master. You will seek the truth, no matter how dark it is. You will stand against corruption, even if it means standing alone. And… if that means breaking from the Council, then you will. And I know who will help you do it. The Astartes."
Dooku closed his eyes, feeling them settle into his bones, the inevitability of it, the finality. When he opened them again, the frustration was gone.
"You are right," he said at last, voice steady. "Perhaps it is the only choice left. The Order will not change from within, not while it sits like an old man on his throne, blind to the rot beneath him. But I will not watch this galaxy slide into ruin without raising my hands against it."
He reached out then, placing one hand on Qui-Gon's shoulder, the same shoulder he had clapped countless times when the boy had succeeded in a lesson, the same shoulder he had steadied when the young Knight had doubted himself for the first time.
"I am…" he paused.
"So proud of you. Not just as a Jedi. But as a man. A man who listens when others would turn deaf. Who acts when others would cower behind doctrine. I have taught you all I could, and still, you have grown beyond my shadow. In the end, I was never your teacher. You were mine."
Qui-Gon's eyes gleamed in the half-light. He did not look away. "And I am proud to have been your student, Master. I have never felt more blessed."
Dooku's grip tightened, his throat constricting just slightly. "Whatever comes… know this. I love you like a son. You, and Nira are my greatest legacy. Never doubt that."
In all the years, the arguments, the teachings, the hard lessons learned side by side. It had all been to strengthen them both, and it had succeeded.
At last, Dooku withdrew his hand. He squared his shoulders, drawing himself up. The edge in his eyes was sharper now, not the wild frustration of a man trapped in a deadlock, but the cold resolve of one who has chosen his path.
"Will you walk with me to my ship?," he asked.
"Of course Master. Of course." Qui-Gon said with a smile.
End of Arc 3
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