Journal: Object Permanence

[Leyrah]

This is a private journal belonging to Lord Leyrah Sendahl, and knowledge within should remain unknown and unavailable unless otherwise specified.​

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The Force Resides in All Things

Just because you cannot see it, does not mean it is not still there.

A long time has passed since last I put my thoughts down on paper. Back when, as a littler Sith, I had to organise my thoughts throughout and around the matter of sorcery as it did not come as easily to me as it did the rest.

So it is with this new hunt, a chase I have always wanted to pursue but found myself with my hands tied behind my back: sworn to secrecy by a Lord who will not teach. So, as I did with sorcery, I will teach myself. I will forge my own way and carve the secrets out of flesh and bone if I so have to.

Which is what I will do, as I drag a newlyfound creature into my grasp, and to understand the path of this skill from its very flowering foundations. Like watching a plant grow, to understand how it functions - or knowing the stone before you drive a chisel into it for sculpting. Where you stand and begin matters as much, if not more, than how it was molded later.

Before even writing this, I reached for the first time in a long time, as far back as I could - until the feeling of memory and the thread of the Force was so thin I could no longer grasp at it. Such a little piece of armour, yet it holds suffering and malice, thrill and joy. All from a thimble's worth of metal.

It feels like an appetizer. A tease. I know there is more beyond, but the more I reach, the thinner it becomes.

 

[Leyrah]

The Future of the Past

While I have not yet gathered the subject of my desired study, conversations as of late have brought some curiosity and interest to what has been, what is, and what may yet be.

I am no student of precognition beyond what is necessary, like that of my Master - but will his skill with seeing the future plague his children as it does him? What mark will they bear of what their family line holds, what blessings and what curses are carried by blood?

Were I to carry on my legacy, would my child see what I see when they touch what has been touched by those strong of emotion - would they need to carry gloves as I do with littler hands, not knowing the power and danger they uncontrollably wield?

Dartovi m'tye ziur kam Nu ziur, dar dabar?

 

[Leyrah]

The Uninitiated

The subject of study has been collected but time has sped along with other matters, so I have yet to truly sit down and collect what they know of their skill. Perhaps for the better, so that they can settle in and answer without horror and fear through their bones - after all, it seems they believe they are here for another purpose altogether.

Still, in learning other skills such as probing the mind of others, I have found that there is a small degree of overlap in seeing the past and another's mind. It is easy to get lost in experiences, difficult to find your way around, and pulling strings is as difficult for both.

One has to have a clear purpose in mind in what you are after, or the river will take you where-ever it may want to lead, and most of these corners are unpleasant if not outright dangerous. The further back, the more secrets you hunt, the more resistance you face.

Just like water, if you move upriver, the stronger the current that will push you back. The path is to find a way onto the bank, or underneath the water entirely? It remains to be found out.

 

[Leyrah]

Back to Basic...

Long have I sat watching this new research subject try to use the power we both have in common. He is young and confused, and does not seem to know what I want. Which is, in a way, sort of the point.

I have not tested him with any particularly strong items, but still he has gotten glimpses. I did not realize how much he struggled with the Basic language when he tries to elaborate on what he saw, how it felt, and how he thinks it is used. What did I expect from an older teenager, but "I just sort of do it," and "it just sort of happens"?

Still, when I draw my senses towards him when he focuses on what he touches and what he experiences, the connection between him and the object is intrinsic. It is as if he holds a cup of tea and thinks nothing of the material of the mug itself, or the intricate details sculpted unto the clay. To him, it is simply a cup that happens to be warm.

It is deeply infuriating to watch; I have half a mind to grasp his hands and claw his fingers into the items I hand him, so that he understands the relevance of this gift! But it would defeat the purpose. His ignorance makes me need to hold back my violent and wrathful wants, to hold back the desire to simply dig into his mind with my own and take the understanding for what it is...

But that will tell me nothing, I must remind myself every time. I cannot take what he does not have: understanding. Despite much wanting it for myself.

So I observe, wringing my hands with impatience. I see the thin threads of the Force be pulled towards him without him even knowing how. I try to imagine the imprints of the objects he holds, to try to truly see how it touches the world around it.

Yet it is if I am a young, blind Sith all over again, incapable of making out details of the world so obvious to others. It is as if something is in the way.

The veil that hides the details bring fire to my chest... and some terror. What lies beyond?

 

[Leyrah]

Surprising Sources

I find often that those that I speak to, regarding matters of psychometry and sorcery and the mix thereof, do not have the footwork and ground I stand on when it comes to getting a better understanding. While this is no surprise, it is a frustrating moment every time I speak aloud or try to share ideas, or find passion in another.

A peer in these matters would be as helpful as it would be irksome, as much an assistance as they would be a competitor. Still, sometimes one wished they had a sounding board of some kind.

So instead it is that I pick up on smaller words, sentences Lords, Sith, and even occasionally jidai offer and twist them to my own machinations. Did they misspeak, or was it meant to be yet another seed planted to sprout an idea?

Often us Sith collect lightsabers as trophies from our enemies, particularly those of Ashla. But they are far more than that, which often my martial counterparts forget - they are raw power, honed with emotion or the lack thereof for many years in the hand of their Sensitive owners. Even the crystals of a jidai possess some sort of feeling when we are in contact, though they tend to be more righteous in nature: protectiveness, hope, some of their irreproachable idea of duty.

What are they, if not vessels for history so strongly connected to the Force?

Furthermore, I am sure most have noticed my Master often get lost in potential futures, forgetting which one he is in - and we all quietly nod, agree, and wait until he rights himself. Power does not come without a price, and I am sure that is only the visible part of his.

Yet when I proposed this to Lord Rhôzan, in a strangely insightful late-night conversation amidst alcohol and painkillers, he proposed in return that it is far more dangerous and far more likely to get stuck in a multitude of pasts. After all, no one situation is remembered the same by different people. I have even tested this theory by asking what occurred in the same room, from two different Sith - and the difference was indeed remarkable. It was through this conversation, a promise was made never to look into the past of a particular occurrence, for the sake of my sanity.

I have realized what I hunt is some sort of measure of control, so that I may be able to take my gloves off and feel the texture of the world beyond the silken cuffs I am born with. So that history is drawn to me, only when I so will it.

Can I make it so, or is this yet another curse granted to me?

 

[Leyrah]

The following entry was started with a long, inked black line at the very top. It was harshly drawn, askew, and bled into the page below.

Armour and Archives

I had intended to find history, and the past, with the skill of sorcery. I still do, to try to find some measure of a path forward... but people keep getting in my way. One command here, another need there, my own spitefulness over what I was told about other matters.

I find myself withdrawn more often, stuck in the archives of Korriban, surrounded by the uneducated and passionate Acolytes. Every bickering moment, every spat word, every Overseer trying to teach... it grates me into annoyance.

It grates me further still when I try to sit and focus, when I dig through every archive both with my words, and my hands. As my ears near bleed from listening to historical babbles, my fingers chafe from hunting through papers.

Just as my mind refuses to still, as I even try to use my ungloved grip of time to seek where they had been. Too many voices, too many people, too many emotions... a whirlwind that only gives me nausea.

The text was written with a sharpness that made it seem like the one writing was in fact crafting ritualistic runes, keeping wrath at bay to not tear the poor parchment.

Shut up! When will these loud memories get out of the way for what I am looking for?!

Every moment of emotional history screams and pulls at me like the clawed fingers of a thousand dead, while I am looking for a single gem in a single grave amidst a graveyard of a battlefield. I need to find a way to shut things out, to quiet what I do not care for...

A way to hunt for what I actually want, beneath the surface.

The entry was ended with a page covered in ink, as if someone had decided to simply throw their stylus or inkpot near their work after penning their conscious onto paper.

 

[Leyrah]

Chrysalis and Antiquities

Just as I hunt what I am looking for through the weaves of time and squalls of emotion, through every item and the impact on the Force that has been made upon it - it is equally as important to know what I am after.

I was provided a small seed of knowledge, of a Lord of the Sith long since deceased. A Lord Kraxor, who held a large family - yet the footnotes of history suggest something more. Beyond himself and his wife, his powerbase held alchemists, blademasters, even a sorcerer.

It was his pendant, taken from the casket in which he lay with his presumed lover, that I held in my bare hands now: not so much power drawn through it, as it was the natural ebb and flow of my gift. It came to me as easily as breathing, but control is what I struggled with. Always have.

Much of their time was spent in the battlefield. His voice came immediately, though it was difficult to tell precisely what he said. I was him; he was I, and in those moments I allowed the weave to simply take me to the strongest and most vivid moments at the time. His emotions melted into mine until I did not know where I started and the history ended.

War rooms, screaming, yelling, planning. Arguing was at the forefront of noise, the silence of my real self engulfed by the cacophony of what was said so long ago.

For a brief moment, I knew what it felt like to have eyes. It was disgusting; squishy in a way I cannot describe, and limiting in all the ways I can. Is this what all others suffer, every day, hearing their eyeballs move in their sockets?

I thought I had it. Warmth, joy, that feeling I know when I think of a certain somebody. Somebodies?

Only the world now had two moons and all the rage and ferocity belonging to a battlefield, the cold wrath that embodied a war. The only warmth there was the blood of my enemies, the dying breath of allies. I tried to tear myself away, but these images persisted, as war often is wont to do.

Metallic taste and the fog of war gave way to light. Light? A chandelier of some kind, though my mind burns even thinking about it. Incense, silk sheets.

Only when I turned, expecting to see someone I knew, I saw the face of a pureblood woman, and felt the ridges at the back of her hand touching mine.

It was that which shook me back to Ri Sirsia, the little ziggurat I have built to the idea of history. The ground beneath me felt electric, whether it be with my power of memories of my own twisting through the objects around me. The incense was real enough, only it was not mine that I had smelled in those visions.

Although I may be imagining it, it appears - feels - as if though it is easier in this place I have created, surrounded by objects I have once sought the history of, and those who are important to me.

The most important is beneath the very cobblestones I am sat on.

Spoiler: Pendant

 

[Leyrah]

Time Stands Still

Sometimes, you get nowhere. Sometimes, when you look at a page in a book, it all stops looking like words and just becomes an ink-filled mess of nonsense you were trying to read. That is what it felt like, last time I tried to look into the pendant.

The chain slipped through my fingers, as much physically as my strength from my fingers. People were shadows, and even keeping them remotely comprehensible was like trying to trap smoke. At least I heard names: Voelna, Getrori. Perhaps actual research will give them further form?

He asked me as if I were there though, last moment, last minute as it slipped away: "What do you take from this?"

To be honest, I do not yet know.