The putrid, scalding air of Hutta clawed at Jasea's senses, a miasma of decay that seeped into her nostrils and scorched the back of her throat with every laboured breath. The swamp's greasy embrace clung to her knees, its viscous mire soaking through the coarse weave of her Jedi robes, as though the planet itself sought to claim her bones. The humidity pressed against her like a living thing, its acidic tang a constant reminder of Hutta's unrelenting hostility—a world that thrived on rot and betrayal, where even the Force seemed to hum with a discordant edge.
She knelt in the muck, her body taut with the weight of her choices, and dared to open her eyes. Across from her, mirroring her posture with an eerie precision, knelt the figure. His gaze locked onto hers, unyielding, a predator's stare that pierced the haze of Hutta's twilight. He was a Sith, his red skin blazing like the heart of a furnace, accentuated by the flowing black and deep purple robes that draped his lithe but powerful form. The fabric seemed to drink in the faint light, making his crimson flesh glow with an almost unnatural intensity. But it was his eyes that seized her soul—volcanic yellow, molten and fierce, like twin suns born from the dark side's crucible. They burned with a primal energy, untamed, unapologetic, and utterly free.
When Jasea had first donned the austere robes of a Jedi on Alderaan, leaving behind the gilded cages of its noble courts, she had imagined eyes like those as the epitome of terror—an embodiment of the dark side's menace, a threat to be vanquished. The Jedi Masters on Tython had warned her of such beings, their teachings steeped in caution and control, urging her to suppress the fire within her own heart. Yet now, kneeling in the filth of Hutta's swamps, her perspective had shifted like the tides of the Force itself. Those eyes were no longer a nightmare but a revelation. They spoke of power unshackled, of a soul that refused to bend beneath the weight of tradition or servitude. They were the eyes of one who had cast off the chains of expectation, who walked a path carved by will alone.
Jasea's life had been a litany of submission—from the suffocating etiquette of Alderaan's aristocracy, where every word and gesture was a performance, to the hallowed halls of the Jedi Academy on Tython, where her spirit was molded to fit the rigid dogma of the Order. She had bowed, she had scraped, she had silenced the whispers of her own desires to conform. But here, in the rancid heart of Hutta, confronted by this Sith's unyielding gaze, she felt something stir within her—a spark of defiance, a hunger for the freedom those eyes promised.
The swamp gurgled, its noxious bubbles bursting with a sickly pop, as if the homeworld of the Huts itself mocked her indecision. The Sith's lips curled into the faintest of smirks, a silent challenge that reverberated through the Force.
The Sith's voice sliced through the heavy air, smooth and sharp as a vibroblade, his smirk a taunting curve that carried both mockery and invitation. "You wonder why we sit in this wretched muck as if we are Jedi trying to find our peace, do you not?" His volcanic yellow eyes gleamed with a knowing intensity, pinning Jasea where she knelt, their molten glow a silent challenge that stirred the Force around her like a gathering storm.
Jasea's breath caught, her mind a whirl of uncertainty. How should she answer? The ingrained reflex of subservience, drilled into her through years of bowing to Jedi Masters, tugged at her, urging a deferential tone, a lowered gaze. Yet the Sith before her radiated a power that belied the title of mere apprentice her old master, Noman Karr, had ascribed to him. She was almost certain he was a Sith Lord, his presence a dark current that crackled with authority. Today's trials had shattered the illusion of Karr's infallibility, each lesson a chisel against the certainties she'd once held sacred. To respond as a Jedi would be to cling to a fading doctrine, but to meet his words with boldness risked stepping into an abyss she could scarcely comprehend.
Her heart pounded, the Force pulsing in her veins, alive with the weight of this moment. His smirk widened, as if he sensed her indecision, his eyes daring her to shed the chains of her past. "I…" she began, her voice wavering before steadying, a spark of defiance kindling within. "I wonder why a Sith would kneel at all. And why your words feel like a test I was never taught to face." The words hung in the air, sharp with newfound courage, yet after a fleeting pause, she added, "My lord." The deferential title slipped out, a reflex born of years bending to Jedi Masters and Alderaan's rigid courtesies. Old habits clung like damp rot, stubborn and unyielding.
The Sith's low chuckle rumbled through the charged air, a sound both velvet and venom, as if the dark side itself found amusement in Jasea's defiance. His eyes like embers gleamed sharper, their molten fire seeming to drink in her wavering resolve. "A test. Yes, I suppose it is," he said, his voice a silken blade, each word honed to cut through her doubts. "There will be many tests. It is the nature of the dark side to test those who wield it." He paused, his gaze unwavering, the Force coiling around him like a serpent poised to strike, its dark currents tugging at the edges of Jasea's awareness.
When he spoke again, his tone deepened, heavy with purpose. "Throughout my hunt for you across the galaxy, I have torn pieces away from you. Yonlach. Gesselle. Your parents." Each name fell like a hammer, striking at the raw wounds of her past, stirring memories of loss that burned anew. "You may have seen these as trials. But, in truth, they were merely instruments of the preparations for your potential to come into fruition." His words carried a chilling certainty, as if he saw her destiny etched in the stars.
The Sith's amused gaze sparked a knot of anger in Jasea's chest, tight and searing, as if the dark side itself stoked her defiance. Jasea's voice erupted in a hiss, sharp and raw, her words slicing through the charged air as her teeth clenched in barely restrained indignation.
"What I felt was not just some instrument! Some game!" The knot of anger in her chest blazed hotter, a molten surge that roared against the Sith's calculated words, her defiance crackling in the Force like a live wire sparking in a storm. His amber-like eyes, once glinting with cruel amusement, shifted into a cold, piercing glare, its weight a palpable force that pressed against her through the dark currents of the Force. In that instant, Jasea felt diminished, as if she had shrunk to a mere speck or he had swelled into a towering colossus, his presence filling the space between them with an oppressive might.
"Enough." The single word fell from his lips like a hammer striking durasteel, heavy with the unyielding authority of a world's gravity. It reverberated through the Force, a command that smothered the blaze of anger in her chest in an instant, dousing it as swiftly as a flame snuffed out by a Korriban wind. Her defiance faltered, the spark of her rebellion flickering under the crushing weight of his will, leaving only the echo of her own heartbeat and the Sith's unrelenting stare.
The red-skinned Sith let the silence stretch, a heavy void that swallowed all but the distant, guttural hum of Hutta's swamps—its bubbling mire and faint, eerie calls weaving a tapestry of unease. His volcanic yellow eyes held Jasea captive, unyielding, as the moments dragged on, each second amplifying the weight of her stifled defiance. Then, his gaze softened, a glint of approval flickering within their molten depths, his voice shifting to a low, resonant timbre that carried the warmth of a mentor's pride.
"Good," he said, the word laced with a measured satisfaction that seemed to ripple through the Force. "If I am to be your guide into the depths of the dark side, I will not allow your vehicle of choice to be that of anger or rage. These are paths of weaker Sith. You will not be a weaker Sith." His tone was firm.
Jasea's head dipped in a nod, an instinctive gesture rooted in years of conditioned deference, her body acting before her mind could parse the Sith's commanding words. The motion was subtle, almost involuntary, yet it carried the weight of a lifetime spent bowing to others. "I…I am sorry, my lord," she stammered, her voice a fragile thread, laced with the reflex of apology.
The Sith Lord inclined his head, a slow nod of satisfaction that carried the weight of a master acknowledging a pupil's first step.
His burning eyes gleamed briefly, but a shadow of contemplation crept across his red-skinned features, furrowing his brow as if weighing the gravity of his next words.
"Those who thrive in the dark side, truly thrive, are those who have been unmade," he said, his voice a low, deliberate cadence, each syllable resonating with the authority of one who had walked that path.
"Most fallen Jedi fail at becoming Sith because of this fact. They believe that simply calling on their base emotions—the emotions the Jedi have spent their entire lives teaching them to suppress—will elevate them to the halls of true power. They find themselves deathly mistaken." His words hung heavy, a warning and a promise, the Force stirring around him like a dark tide, as if underscoring the truth of his pronouncement.
Jasea's mind snapped back to her former Jedi Master, the memory surging unbidden—a fleeting echo of Noman Karr's presence in the moment she had turned her Force-gifted sight upon him. The blanket of rage and pride that had emanated from him then felt hollow, a shallow veneer compared to the searing depth of the Sith Lord's presence.
He pressed on before Jasea could voice the question burning in her mind, his voice a relentless tide, each word sending a pulse through the Force. "You have been unmade. Broken into a thousand shards of glass, lost and scattered to the winds of time. Now, you can be reforged into something beyond the Jedi. Beyond their fallen ilk." With each syllable, the Force swelled around them, a crescendo of raw, untamed power that pulsed in rhythm with his declaration, its dark currents wrapping Jasea in a storm. His eyes bore into her, unyielding, their molten glow reflecting a vision of her potential—a form reshaped in the crucible of the dark side. "You will be Sith," he proclaimed, the final words a thunderclap, a vow sealed in the Force's unyielding embrace, resonating with certainty.
For Jasea, time seemed to halt, the air around her thickening as if the galaxy itself held its breath. The Force surged, parting like a veil to reveal a fleeting glimpse of a future yet unwritten. In that vision, a woman with Jasea's face stood tall, radiating unyielding confidence, her presence a torrent of raw power that rippled through the ether. A sharp, predatory smirk curled her lips, a mirror to the Sith Lord's own, but honed with a fierce certainty. Her eyes burned with the same molten yellow as the man kneeling across her, twin embers of the dark side's fire, and the power—oh, the power! It rolled off her in waves so potent Jasea could almost taste its electric tang, a heady blend of dominance and freedom. This was no trembling Jedi who bowed on reflex or stumbled over apologetic words. This was a woman who commanded respect, her very existence a challenge to the universe, unbowed and unbroken.
Before Jasea could soak in more, the vision vanished as swiftly as it had flared, a fleeting glimpse swallowed by the Force's dark currents, but its imprint seared into Jasea's soul. The image of that woman—her face, her molten yellow eyes, her commanding power—burned within her, as if the potential of who she could become had been etched into her very flesh, a brand of destiny that pulsed with unyielding clarity.
Jasea's voice broke free, unbridled and fierce, a raw declaration that sliced through the charged air.
"Teach me, Master. Teach me to become Sith."
The words spilled from her lips with a fervor that burned away the last vestiges of her Jedi restraint, each syllable a vow etched with the vision still searing her soul. The Force flared around her, a wild pulse echoing her resolve, as if the dark side itself stirred in answer to her plea. The Sith Lord's eyes gleamed with a spark of triumph, his gaze locking onto hers, acknowledging the weight of her choice—a spark of potential now ignited, ready to be forged in the crucible of his teachings.
"With pleasure, My Apprentice."