=== Nira ===
The echo of training noises rang out across the polished interior of the cruiser's sparring deck. The hum of the ship's engines beneath Nira's feet was steady, almost meditative, blending with the rhythmic sounds of movement and breath. Nira's form blurred in swift, fluid strikes, her saber slashing through the air toward her opponent with relentless purpose.
Sanguinius moved like flowing light, his wings folded behind him, never needing to fully extend to avoid her strikes. His feet barely touched the ground as he glided more than walked. Though he hadn't drawn a blade himself, he deflected her blows with open palms, gentle redirects and subtle nudges of the Force and Warp. He never struck back, only guided her attacks into the void.
But then, mid-motion, something changed.
Sanguinius froze. Niral lunged again, aiming for his exposed side, but stopped herself at the last second, startled by the expression spreading across his face.
His perfect features were taut, his eyes unfocused, staring past the walls of the ship into something far beyond. His head tilted upward, as if hearing a sound no one else could, and his lips drew a thin line.
"Sanguinius?" Nira lowered her saber, frowning. "What's wrong?"
He didn't answer immediately. For a moment, it was like he wasn't even in the room. Then his gaze slowly turned toward her, but it was distant, as though he were seeing through her, past her.
"What system are we in?" he asked, his voice low and strained. "What planet is closest?"
Nira blinked. "Uh… one second." She reached for the nearby console embedded in the wall, quickly tapping in their coordinates. "We're near Dathomir. Outer Rim. Wild space sector. Why?"
Sanguinius stepped away, turning his back on her. His breath quickened, chest rising and falling beneath his golden breastplate. His wings flared slightly, feathers rustling with restless energy. For a heartbeat, Nira thought she saw anger cross his perfect face.
"You need to go there." He said quietly.
Nira's brow furrowed. "To Dathomir?"
"Yes. Immediately."
She hesitated, stepping toward him. "Why? What's there?"
Sanguinius turned back to her, and this time his eyes met hers with burning clarity. "Someone you must meet. A presence in the Warp unlike anything I've felt in this galaxy. Familiar, but… wrong. Painful. Old."
Nira swallowed hard as a chill ran down her spine, despite the heat of her training. "What will I find?"
Sanguinius looked away. "I do not know. Perhaps a mentor. Perhaps a threat. But she is eager to meet you."
He placed a hand on her shoulder. "I will be with you every step. I will let no harm come to you."
===
The echo of her boots rang through the hangar bay as she strode purposefully toward her personal Interceptor. The ship's sleek angular frame gleamed under the deck lights, cockpit open and ready. Sanguinius had said no more, dematerializing to go back into her soul.
At the bottom of the ramp, Captain Ox was already waiting for her, his helmet tucked under his arm.
"General Nira," he said, stepping into her path. "Orders, ma'am?"
"I'm going down to Dathomir," she said, barely slowing. "Alone."
His expression darkened. "Ma'am, respectfully… that planet's not on our mission charter."
"I'm aware," she replied, brushing past him and climbing the ramp to the interceptor's cockpit. "But there's something I have to investigate. I'll report back as soon as I've made contact with the surface."
"Then take at least a detachment," Ox insisted, stepping up after her. "A recon team, hell, even a wingman. That place gives off nothing but bad feelings."
Nira paused at the cockpit and turned to face him. "Whatever's down there… we need to find it. I'll be fine."
She softened, stepping back down to place a hand on the clone's shoulder. "You've served with me for four campaigns, Captain. I need you to trust me this once. Just hold orbit. If I'm not back or in contact within twenty-four hours… then you come for me. Bombard the whole plant if you have to."
He looked like he wanted to argue again, but then he sighed, nodding reluctantly. "Very well. But I swear, General, if you're not back, I'm dragging a whole battalion down there to get you out."
She offered him a rare smile. "Understood."
With that, she turned, climbed into the interceptor, and began the startup sequence. The cockpit canopy lowered, sealing her inside. The familiar hum of power thrummed around her, and within moments, the ship lifted smoothly off the hangar floor and angled toward the bay doors. The stars parted before her as she accelerated out of the cruiser and angled the sleek fighter toward the swirling red-and-black surface of Dathomir.
As the void of space gave way to the thick atmosphere, clouds churned like ink in water. Flashes of red lightning cracked in the distance, illuminating spires of twisted rock and gnarled, blackened forests.
"Sanguinius. What can I expect down there?"
No answer.
She waited a beat. "Sanguinius?"
Silence.
"Talk to me Sangee?" She said once more, using her nickname for him.
Still nothing. Her cockpit was dead quiet save for the faint hissing of atmospheric entry and the periodic crackle of red lightning outside. She adjusted her trajectory toward a flatter region of the landscape, where thermal scans indicated structures, likely old or primitive settlements.
The atmosphere screamed around her as the ship pierced the storm clouds, and for a moment, all she could see was blood-red mist. Then, like a veil being pulled aside, the land came into view.
It was dark and twisted, trees like skeletal claws, stone monoliths jutting from the earth in impossible angles, and beyond it all, nestled between cracked ridgelines, was a village. Round, domed structures built of bone and mud, reinforced with carvings and red-painted symbols.
The Eta-2 touched down at the edge of a blackened clearing. Her engines whined down to silence, and she sat still in the cockpit for a moment, watching the trees sway in wind that made no sound.
"Sanguinius?" she tried again. "What am I supposed to find?"
Still no answer.
Swallowing her anxiety, Nira unbuckled herself and opened the cockpit. The hiss of warm, dry air swept in, carrying the scent of dust, rot, and something old. Very old.
She stepped down onto Dathomir's soil, one hand on her saber hilt. Her boots crunched over dark red sand as she moved cautiously toward the village, her senses flickering at the edges like candlelight in the wind. The Force felt… stretched here. Twisted. It pulled at her in strange directions.
And though she didn't see them yet, she could feel the eyes watching her from the shadows.
A woman then walked from the village, draped in layered red and black robes that moved like flowing ink against the crimson-tinged air. Her skin was ashen pale, her hair thick and braided with bones and strips of cloth. Her eyes glowed faintly green, though not with the power of the Force, this was something… else.
The stranger did not speak at first. She merely stood in the center of the dirt path, waiting, hands folded in front of her. The longer Nira looked at her, the more she felt a presence curling around the edges of her mind, like smoke creeping beneath a doorframe.
The Nightsister bowed, just slightly, a gesture of acknowledgment. Her voice was rich and strangely melodic. "Welcome, outsider. The Great Mother told us you would come."
The Nightsister began to walk into the village without waiting for a response, her voice floating behind her like trailing incense. "Come. You are expected."
That set every alarm in Nira's mind blaring. She reached for her lightsaber, thumb igniting the crackling green blade with a snap hiss.
"Nightsisters?" she warned, blade raised.
The Nightsister stopped.
She didn't flinch.
She didn't even turn around.
She merely lifted one hand behind her, fingers spreading delicately, and made a simple gesture in the air.
To Nira's shock, the energy of the blade wavered, then collapsed inward, folding back into the hilt as if it had never been. Her hand twitched as she tried to re-ignite it, but nothing responded.
The woman hadn't used the Force… But the Warp.
Nira stared at the deactivated hilt, lips parting in stunned silence. No Jedi technique, no Sith trick, had ever dismissed her blade. She looked up as the Nightsister slowly turned to face her, a sly smile touching her lips.
"You will not be harmed," the woman said, serene and unbothered.
Nira hesitated, heart pounding. She'd been trained to distrust deception, to guard herself against dark illusions and corrupted power.
"Sanguinius, I could really use your help right about now!?"
Nothing.
She gritted her teeth. "Sanguinius!" she called aloud, frustration rising.
Then finally, his voice answered.
"I am still with you, Nira. Go."
His tone was distant, as though he too was trying to navigate the storm around them. But his presence brushed her mind gently, a feather-light reassurance.
With a final breath, Nira clipped her lightsaber back to her belt and followed the Nightsister into the village.
"You've got to be kidding me."
They passed under bone-carved arches and through homes woven from hide, sinew, and stone. Every surface bore red sigils and symbols, many that matched nothing she had ever seen in Jedi archives. Still, the atmosphere was not overtly hostile… only watchful.
Dozens of eyes peered from the huts and shadows. Women garbed similarly to her guide, young and old, some with painted faces, others with hollow stares. A few whispered in languages lost to the stars. And all around them, green mist crept low across the ground like a living thing, curling around boots, pooling in cracks, breathing with its own rhythm.
The Nightsister led her past the edge of the village and into a narrow path between rocky cliffs. The further they went, the darker the sky became until it was as if even the light of the stars refused to follow.
At the base of the cliffs yawned a cavern, its entrance flanked by two monoliths carved with swirling, asymmetrical symbols that shifted when looked at too long. The green mist flowed freely here, thicker and more alive. Nira's senses stretched instinctively outward, but instead of clarity, she felt only deep, churning emotion. Grief. Wrath. Hunger. Memory.
"This is the Threshold," the Nightsister said as they entered. "Only those chosen may walk its path and return unchanged."
"I'm not here to change," Nira muttered.
The Nightsister gave her a knowing look. "All change begins with denial."
They descended deeper into the cave system. The walls pulsed faintly with veins of bioluminescent red and green, as though the rock itself was alive. Strange shapes moved in the shadows. The air grew heavier, thicker, rich with the scent of incense.
Finally, they reached it.
The sanctum.
It opened into a massive subterranean cavern, its ceiling lost in darkness. At the center stood a temple of obsidian stone, twisted and organic in design. Atop its steps burned braziers of green flame, and beyond its altar, suspended in the air, hung a sphere of green mist and crackling energy, held in place by unseen forces.
Figures stood in a circle around it. Priestesses dressed in more elaborate garb, their eyes closed in trance. Chanting rose from them, low and rhythmic, resonating through the bones in the cavern.
The air within the cavern grew thicker as Nira followed the Nightsister deeper into the sanctum. Each step seemed to echo more loudly than the last, reverberating off the walls like the heartbeat of the Warp itself. The green mist no longer simply drifted across the floor, it now hung in the air, pulsing gently like a living membrane. Time seemed to stretch unnaturally; every breath Nira took felt like it might last an eternity.
They passed through winding passages. It felt less like a place and more like a memory etched into the bones of the planet. And at its heart, beyond heavy stone doors that opened without a sound, was a courtyard.
It was impossibly large, open to the sky above by a jagged crack in the rock, but Nira couldn't see the stars anymore. A roiling, dark aurora shimmered overhead, swirling with the green and purple colors of the Warp. Obsidian pillars lined the courtyard, each carved with scenes of birth, war, and sacrifice. In the very center was a stone dais overgrown with red roots, cracked by the passage of ages.
A single figure stood at the heart of it.
She was tall, regal, and cloaked in robes that seemed to shimmer with both cloth and shadow. Her hair was woven with beads and bone, her skin a pale, otherworldly hue. There was a weight to her presence, not one of malice, but of sorrow… and vast, incomprehensible age. She radiated power that didn't surge or flare, but pulsed like the core of a star. Controlled. Eternal. Watching.
"Mother Talzin."
The Nightsister who had led Nira bowed deeply, then turned and departed, leaving Nira standing alone in the courtyard with the stranger.
Nira barely had time to open her mouth before a sound like a bell chime distorted through glass rippled through the air. The Warp bent.
Colors inverted.
The mist coiled upward.
And then, with the whispering beat of wings, Sanguinius appeared.
The Primarch stood beside Nira, golden armor catching the light of the Warp like a blazing sun. His wings were furled but trembled slightly, as though on edge. His expression was calm, but only on the surface. Nira felt his tension, like taut iron wire beneath the velvet of his voice.
His eyes locked onto the woman in front of them.
"…Erda?"
The woman didn't flinch. Slowly, she turned to face him fully. Eyes deeper, greener, and older than any of the Nightsisters met him.
"Sanguinius," she said softly, her voice old with age.
"My son."
===
If you enjoyed this chapter, maybe consider leaving me with a couple of your power stones? I promise I'll take good care of them:)