Demons in Xireon's heart battled with the ferocity their name suggested, generals leading the forces of his soul against one another. Within the din of that fray, a single voice spoke to him, quiet as a whisper and loud enough to overcome the sound of a thousand battle cries.
Do you remember what came before?
Before what?
Before you.
It asked that question so frequently it had lost all meaning. The Blade of Klain had dissolved its material self, melding into the shapeless form of energy which had forever embodied its true, dark consciousness. Born of the death and rebirth of Recon Klain; born of an act which defied life and death itself, which set a man apart from mortality.
Why do you not answer? You know the answer. I know the answer. Why not let it be known?
There is no answer. The question is ridiculous. There is science, and then there is myth, and I am a child of science. There is no heaven or hell that spawned me.
Am I not a child of myth?
...
A blade with a brain, a sword with a soul and sentience. Am I not a thing of myth, of legends and things long thought nothing but a flight of fancy?
What you are is nothing to me. You serve me, nothing more.
Who serves who? The master serves the slave, but in death, what becomes of that? What of them beyond the veil, beyond what is known? Who then becomes master and slave? Perhaps there is no master and slave, only the momentary perception thereof which evaporates like the dream of morality upon the kiss of death?
You speak nonsense.
Xireon pulled his cloak more tightly about him, stepping more quickly through the icy wind. He could handle the Blade; he knew he had the power, the cunning. He had been born with it, born
for it. Science triumphed over myth.
Do I speak nonsense? Who is it that defines nonsense?
...
What then of you? Of a man who stumbles through the cold of an eon-dead world speaking in riddles to himself, to the essence of a sword trapped within his soul? You are a creature of darkness, Xireon, a creature of myth yourself now.
You have done this to me. Why do you persist if you made me what I am? You must know the answers to whatever question you could ask.
You have made yourself what you are, Xireon. Who asked for this second chance at life but you? Your power as a Sith Warrior has always sprung from the flesh, from the blood which flows in your veins, from the science which mothered you. But it failed you, Xireon. Science has failed you, left you bereft of your power, dead or dying on the inside, a crippled shell living a half-life of your former existence.
Xireon stared down through the bitter snow at himself, at his thick blue skin, at the claws his hands had become.
I asked, but not for this. This is what the Force granted me, what you granted me.
The Force is of myth.
The Force is of science. It can be --
The Force is of myth, and if you do not know this to be true you are more the fool than your father. You can trace it to science, attempt to explain it by science, but never define it by science. It is not of flesh, but of the divine.
...
You know what I say is true! And now that I, the living embodiment of that divine soul of darkness, flow through you, you must embrace what has given you this new life, this new strength. It is not the flesh, but the Dark Side, the Sith, the eternal darkness which flows through everything and everyone bearing the essence of hate and rage, the consciousness of dead Sith gone before you. The world of flesh must be beneath you.
Xireon was silent for a moment, not echoing thoughts within his head. He'd learn to control his thought processes, not revealing too much to the open eye of his mind. He smiled, clenching one of his clawed fists.
What you say is true, sword. But you -- *you* -- are not divine. You are of this world, this flesh, this existence. You were created here, you will be destroyed here. And so, by your own words, you are my servant, for I transcend this world while you do not. You are my slave.
...
The son of Jiren smiled, and felt the Force flow through him uninterupted by the mutterings of the Blade of Klain. And once again, his thoughts regressed to the man whose presence had caused the discussion -- whose very existence, in fact, had created the Blade.
Recon Klain.
