Darth Acrimonus
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Star Wars: SpotlightSpotlight: Rheya Asmodeus
Timeframe: 113 ABY
Continuity: tDSL
Sacrifice, one of the key principals upon which the whole Sith ideology was based. The Dark Side would grant its wielder power beyond the scope of their imagination, but power always came at a cost. So many failed to recognize this. Without willing sacrifice, without giving something in return for the power one was destined to wield, the Force would settle the debt itself. It would corrupt the mind, the soul, take a beings very essence and turn them into little more than a grim reminder that ultimately it was more powerful than any single individual.
With sacrifice a Sith could ground themselves. Their loss forged them, made them capable of using the Dark Sides power to fulfil their ends. The Force would serve those who recognized that they too must give to the Force.
What one chose to sacrifice could not be taken lightly. So many pupils had been driven to insanity, reduced to violent, chaotic madmen because they made light of their sacrifice. These weak willed individuals had their place in the grand scheme of things, but it was an unbelievably undignified way to spend the remainder of ones life.
Rheya fell back onto the cot in her room in the Sith Temple on Kuat and let out a tired sigh. She needed to show her devotion to the Eternal Empire, needed to make her sacrifice to show that she was as capable and worthy of wielding the dark energies as the great Sith who had come before her. As worthy to wield that power as her parents were.
Her parents. The thought of Celisia and J’yph Asmodeus – Darths Equivicus and Acrimonus respectively – filled Rheya with the deepest of sorrow. Her mother had been killed almost a decade ago during an operation to weed out a minor Rebellion within the ranks, the cowards setting off the core of a proton torpedo within the temple on Kroprulu. Her skill with the Force had kept her alive long enough to say her goodbyes to family and friends, but even the greatest masters of the Dark Side would have had difficult remaining on the mortal plane after such devastation.
Equivicus had died in service of the Empire, with honour, and had been given a heroes burial. Rheya could not be more proud of her mother. But her loss had been hard on Acrimonus, and after Equivicus had been buried he simply vanished from the Empire for a few years.
Rheya eventually tracked him down on the forest moon of Endor, living in an ancient survey post that had abandoned centuries before. He’d seemed comfortable, later telling her that he’d made a deal with the indigenous lifeforms on the moon. For a small portion of their collected food he protected the local tree villages from predators. Soon enough the creatures had learned to stay away from the area, but the indigenous creatures had insisted he continue to offer them protection.
Rheya had returned to the Empire and told them of her fathers location, and he’d seemed happy enough to accept young Sith seeking his counsel from time to time, but ultimately he had not been the same man she remember from her youth.
Ultimately, this worried Rheya more than anything else. A Sith must be willing to make sacrifices, but was there a point where you had given up too much? While Acrimonus was far from becoming an animalistic, Force-wielding lunatic, his power had undoubtedly diminished by the loss of his wife.
Rheya hated the uncertainty she felt. She was strong. She’d made her place in the Empire on her own merit, not simply because of who her parents were. Yet the question of sacrifice left her as confused as any new Dark Side Adept, taunted with contradictory instructions to judge whether they were worthy as an individual before affinity with the Force was even considered.
Restless nights continued, the problem nagging away at her whenever it could. To ascend any further in the ranks of the Empire, she must make her sacrifice. But what form would it take? What would give her the grounding to fully command the ultimate source of power in the galaxy?
Rheya wrestled with the problem for weeks, until finally admitting she needed to seek counsel. Using one of the Temples shuttles she made her way to the forest moon, feeling foolish that she still sought her parents advice this far into her life. Did that in itself not suggest she wasn’t ready?
The survey post looked as dilapidated as the first time she saw it. Rheya knew it would’ve been condemned if it had been on any civilized planet. But the cracks in the ferrocrete and small mammals nesting in nearly every room seemed to go unnoticed by her father.
She made her way through the outpost by memory, checking first Acrimonus’ sleeping quarters, then his makeshift kitchen, before coming to his office. It was in the office she found her father, asleep in an old chair behind a desk made from a small piece of starship debris.
“Father,” she said loudly.
One eye slowly flickered open, then an aged hand pushed a lock of grey-white hair from his forehead. The other sat gently upon the hilt of his lightsaber. “Hello, Rheya.”
Acrimonus’ voice sounded impersonal, as did his body language. Even his presence in the Force felt controlled. But nothing could hide the delight in his eyes, especially not from Rheya.
“You’re not happy to see me?” Rheya asked, challenging her father to say otherwise.
“Of course I am.” Acrimonus smiled as he rose, stepping around the table to hug his daughter. “I am always, always happy to see you. But it has been quite some time, and I’m such a cynical old fool, I delude myself into believing everyone only comes because there is something else they want.”
Rheya couldn’t help but smile in that embrace, her heart filled with warmth and her mind soothed simply by his presence. He may’ve become a hermit, but he was still her father, and she loved him.
And the warmth in her heart turned suddenly to ice.
“N-no!”
She pushed her father away, staggered back, feeling angry and desperate and ill. She knew her sacrifice, so clearly, and it dismayed her. How could she kill her own father, how could she live with herself if she did? Why did it have to be him?
As the first hot tear left a stinging wet trail down her cheek she looked at her father. He’d seen everything, but simply sat upon the desk. Calmly, patiently, waiting.
He knew!
Rheya drew her lightsaber. “I’m sorry –”
“No, don’t be.” Acrimonus took his lightsaber off his belt, and tossed it to her.
Rheya caught it by reflex and stared at it in shock. “You can’t just let me do this. Fight me, resist me, don’t make me kill you in cold blood. Please…”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s not in cold blood. I’ve had a good life; I’ve done many important things.”
“Don’t talk like that. You’re still healthy, many great Sith Lords live more than one-hundred and fifty years.”
“Why do I need so long?”
Acrimonus sighed, and looked Rheya over. She felt his eyes sweep over her, and in the Force felt his admiration at the woman she’d become. Admiration, pride, love. He was happy she was here.
“How can you just sit there?”
“You have to make a sacrifice. I love you, I’m proud of you. Both your mother and myself were always proud of you. I give my life to you now so that you can achieve your full potential. I know this will hurt you, but that pain shall give you the strength to accomplish anything. Even being here makes you a far greater Sith than I ever was.”
Rheya lifted her blade, and swung, but could not bring herself to make contact. “I can’t…”
“You can,” Acrimonus said calmly, “You will.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“That is why you must.”
Again, Rheya raised her blade. She watched, as if someone else had control of her arm, as the blade seemed to drift slowly towards her father. She knew she was doing it, yet with her perceptions so acute, and time seemingly crawling, it was as if she was simply a witness.
In an instant that felt like a lifetime her blade completed its cut. Her father’s body fell limply to the floor, and Rheya screamed and wailed in a manner she’d not done since she was a toddler.
She was still crying when she collected her father’s body, and his few possessions, and laid them upon the pyre she’d made. Rheya stood and watched as the body Darth Acrimonus was reduced to ash with nothing but guilt as her companion.
It wasn’t until she returned to the Empire that Rheya noticed the change in herself. The world around her seemed simpler in some ways, clearer, as if she simply understood more of what was going on. It took less effort for her to summon the Dark Side, and use it as she saw fit. Her sacrifice had made her stronger, but she could not help but ask herself if the price had been too great. Was it all really worth it?
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