Manaan's Open Ocean

Miniscule grains of ochre sand ran through his gauntleted hand as the Dark Lord of the Sith roused himself from the powdered earth below. It was coarse and flecked with almost invisible stains of long forgotten blood. However, he could see what they could not. Before his very eyes, the strands of history unraveled and played their merry tune. Men and women, clad in the woad paint commonly worn by the soldiers of the foul Iron Fists, staked the remains of their fallen foes atop a myriad of pikes and spears. The remnants of their lives, however fleeting they were, trickled down into the sand to create a grisly scene. He smiled then, as the past began to fade, giving way to the present. There was something here that he desired, and as in all things - he would not be denied.

Minutes before he had dropped to one knee and clawed at the surface of the beach, the dark obsidian shuttle had swooped down from the cloud-choked sky and was immediately beset by resistance on the ground. It was pitiful, and all they had to show for all their vaunted efforts, were several carbon scores across the blunted prow of his ship. Those men that had sought to deny the Dark Lord were systematically gunned down by the forward mounted blaster cannons blackening their corpses long after the initial volley had slain the land around their supposedly secreted positions. With their deaths now despoiling the resonating aura of the aether, causing the Sith Lord to smile, Belial moved along the beach with a purposeful stride. His plated leather boots kicked up sand as he walked along the artificial coastline, disturbing the final resting places of those long thought lost. Their spirits had clawed at the veil between reality and the Force, eagerly seeking to take their revenge on both the men that had slain them and the man that now disturbed their eternal rest.

The Dark Lord paid no heed to their whispered pleas, as he had finally come to stand before a withered, flesh-spare skull with a pike speared through the base of its hardened enamel. These remains were what had called to him, and the smile that had creased his lips mere moments before had faded into distant memory. He lay the remains of Kiana Agar, the wife of Arcanus Sunstrider, and the greatest foe that Belial had ever encountered. Even as they both lay dead, one a dismal pile of ash scattered across a ruined temple, and the other; staring at him with her dead eyes, the Dark Lord felt like they were taunting him. How could such a sensation slip through his defenses and resound within his mind? He had beaten them both, and yet here they were, mocking his ascension with their silence.

As he stared back into the dead sockets of the impaled skull, Belial felt his blood begin to boil. Anger, red and hot, began to bubble through his body - lashing at the self-imposed chains of Will erected with reckless abandon. No, it was not yet time for that. Clenching his teeth, causing the rising tides of rage to seethe within the back of his mind, the Sith lifted the skull from it's resting place and brought it close to his own.

"For so long," Belial began, his rough-spun voice echoing in the still air, "You have been the Epicenter, the very pillars of Arcanus' strength. You taught him how to live again after he had laid the foundations for his demise, and my inevitable ascension. You reforged what had been broken, making it stronger, making it..." He paused to find the right word. "Difficult, for my rise to come to pass."

Twisting his wrist and swinging the emaciated skull from left to right, panning its lifeless vision across the gore-strewn landscape, Belial had nearly broken out into a fit of laughter.

"And yet, here you are. Dead and forgotten. Just like the man you loved." Now, the chorus of merriment had erupted forth from his smoothed lips. "You think your silence wounds me? You think that even in death, your suffering ends? No, no, no. My dear Kiana. For what you have done, your torment shall be eternal. I will scour the Sea of Souls and drag your pitiful spirit back into the mortal realm. From there," The laughter that despoiled the graveyard silence emanating across the beach was shattered by a bark of hoarse guffaws. "I shall reforge your essence anew, and make you mine."

With time having no meaning here, Belial had felt like he had been boisterous for eons, so much so that his mortal frame was beginning to ache. Petering off with a slow trickle down the octaves the Dark Lord's laughter soured into an amused chuckle, leaving an opening for the stillness to resume its mastery over this bloody beach.

Affixing Kiana's remains to his belt; the Sith looks towards the pathetic ring wall and the curtain of stone that lays beyond. Within that palatial fortress, was what remained of the insidious family that had long laid claim to this world, and instilled a marginal legacy of fear within various sects of the Galaxy.

Now, it was time to show them the error of their ways.