Zartilda's Journal (And Assorted Tales)

[Theprettiestorc]

[Forging A Legacy]

(Feat. Zartilda Varrixon)

Staring up at the statue in her training room, Zartilda once again contemplates it. Emperor, Empress, it could be either. The watchful gaze looking down over the altar, and the training floor, in her home. All battles fought in the eyes of the Emperor, all worship done... and yet that's changed, hasn't it? At least, the watcher. It's a symbol that even if you get that far, that high, you're not safe. A legacy of solitude ends with one alone.

Looping her rosary around her wrist, now, she slices open the old scar on her left palm, making her offering to the Gods. Blood running over skulls of the defeated, some now her own additions. There's always more skulls. Clenching her hand, she finishes her prayer, across the pantheon for what she is yet to do. Taking up the plate, letting more of her blood drip onto the wax, she begins to walk, now, down the hall, to her forge. And she begins, with painting.

Painting Runes of Power across the more important structures, her forge, her anvil, her quenching vat. The wick set alight on the plate, as the fat in the wax begins to burn, filling the room with a cloying scent. Careful preparations, her own ritual of sorts, donning her coat to work with the flames, arms left mostly exposed. There had been tales, in her family, of an old smith with a silvered arm, who had crafted tools of war that their clan of old had used to fell many.

That she should follow in such footsteps, that she should begin her descent to madness with slicing apart a Tyrian and come full circle to the blood of her kill for another... perhaps mere coincidence, but Zartilda doesn't believe in coincidences. She believes in the Force, and that the signs are right. She wonders, not for the first time, if this is what happened to Vi'Kas, that there were too many portents he could see that allowed him to predict what would happen. Being savvy to human behaviors probably didn't hurt either, but she feels she might understand him now, as the heat rises in her forge to oppressive levels.

One ingot, and two. Precious little hexagonal things, that made her hands so scarred. The first, a proof, and the second, striking while the blood was fresh. Jedi Alisa Dane... that such a kill, and sacrifice, would go into this craft. The fires burn brighter, and the metal gets softer, as Zartilda's experience with Phrik comes into play, working with such extreme metals. And speaking of Phrik, she already has something in mind for some of the precious bits she has left.

The hammer pounds, the metal folds, flattens. Wide top of the blade, a channel through the center to save on metal. A light tang - a lot of surface area, relatively, for carving enchantments. But right now, what she has is a trio of pieces, shaping. Reheating the metal, she's pouring the heated Phrik Alloy into its moulds, quenching them in blood. One part her own, one part of the hated enemy, the rest stock from a slave. Just as taught to her. The blades are next, the precious Sith Steel sinking into the blood, with a slight note of apprehension from her. But the Dark Side is not judging her now, as it does when she created it. Yet does she feel watched.

The hilt takes both longer and not quite so long as one might expect, even with durasteel - this, too, one more cast, dipped into the blood. It's pulled back out shortly, though, given its finish, its coating of Cortosis Weave, as she begins bringing the elements together. Polishing, snapping off little pieces of metal from the casts, saving every precious bit. Making the mechanism, fitting it to the blade - capping the bottom with the pommel taken from the same saber casing that the rest of the material for this came from. The whole hilt assembly thinner, no proper crossguard, to take off some of the weight as well - and the irony doesn't escape her that the design is called a Zabrak Hilt, with the one who taught her. But there's one final piece.

Carving lightly, with tools and with Telekinesis, she shaves off pieces of green gem from the edges. Somewhere between a trilliant and a pear cut, enough so that she can etch her sigil into the surface: the shield, and the winged fist inside. The first Sith Steel blade forged under the Varrixon name in four millenia - and this gem is fitted into the top of the hilt, over the careful mechanism, sealed around the edges.

Everything cleaned, and polished, once more.

Holding aloft her craft, she gives it a good look. She spins the knife in her hand, stabbing the air experimentally - and then pushes on the gem, the two side-blades flush against the main now snapping out to the sides. Bladed at the top. With this assembly, there was truly no need to have a crossbar for parrying, when she had her mechanism in mind, the pieces of it assuredly not to snap or crack under any pressure save for that which might break the knife itself. It's a relic of war, created anew in the modern era.

The last thing to do is to create the scabbard, a simple affair of leather. She goes with an old choice, some of the precious remaining Zakkeg hide she has. And she burns script into it, deciding on her name after all. "Sas Ri Tniya", reads the script, "By The Sword". As one lives, and dies.