The Gift Come Midnight

The gift Ondur had always wanted more of was knowledge, wisdom, secrets, and forbidden artifacts older than living memory could recall. He wanted what only dead memory or nearly dead things could recall. His studies span so much time and mastered with such intensity it's almost as if he was there in the flesh. Ondur has become a scholar of sorts in his time at the Brotherhood. A killer scholar fairly literally. But a calling he never thought would call so powerfully in his heart if at all. The lust for the forbidden intangible secret which could do things even the Force might call impossible.

Maybe that's a start, the Force somehow speaking. At least as with a voice and clarity both of it's own. He heard it grants visions and sensory insight to those who have a certain strength in some power. Yet they always sound useless. What sort of gift is that? One could write four sentences nearly at random and become an instant Prophet. Though perhaps not as good as his Master and Teacher. Apparantly the very same whom had been known under the callsign 'Prophet', especially at piloting in the worst conditions, with the best results. So Ondur always put little care in any such ramblings, Force or not.

At first dark Ondur had warmed into his meditating routine. Alternation between feverish recollections of blood and gore. Sights into abysses so dark even he needed to be outside for the ultraviolet light to make due for his eyes. Then he'd take reins and see by choice. Umbara in total shrouded glory, triumphant darkness which turned the most homesick of his kind to sick delight. The very same that made humans paranoid, so horribly and instinctively terrified, for those of intelligence at the least, and every race but his own and few others blinded by shrouds.

What a gift that would be, a shroud-robe made in some way by the very darkness covering his homeworld. Perhaps there was a way with dark alchemy, or knowledge lost even if ever known. Irrelevant, the meditation had been stopped. The thought so tangible but impossible. He'd have to return to it later. Perhaps in the morning deeper in an isolation chamber unless that will make the dark seem comparable to the splendor of the true darkness he grew up in.

"I'll be damned to stare down the brightest star at my face.. if I forget Home and it's darkest places. Even the brightest there is nigh blindness to most.", he thought. He relished memories of ambushing foreigners and thrillseekers. He couldn't so much as poke them though. Unless they were targets. He forgot what blood looks like on Umbara. But the Brotherhood is his family, and this is is home now. And he has gained so much knowledge in his time here. Academia has been kind to him, and feeds his passions just as blood did and always will.

It was the darkest hour, "mid-night" some called it. Then the entrance door slid into the ground, opening, for an uninvited guest.

Ondur was ready to break this man. There was no sense of even a trace of untrained Force potential in him.

"Who are you?!" The Umbaran saw that the man was a Twi'lek loyalist. Bearing the sign of the couriers trusted with important deliveries. Very important ones.

The red 'man' responded in Ryl, the first pleasant surprise, though alarming somewhat.

"This package is a gift for the Knight Ondur Lkaetur. Along with a holovid.", it was set to play from the Twi'lek's palm.

It was his Master. "Hey. It's good your're back from studying. I got you a gift to commemorate it. It'll be good to see you, Lkaetur. I told the courier you could understand him and that you go out at about this hour. I hope you didn't make a mess of the good man. Obviously one of those two things I told him was a lie. Well, see you soon Lkaetur."

Ondur mumbled in Ryl for the courier to get out. The man ran out before told fully. As he finished mumbling he opened the package and inside were regal Scholar's robes. Things of beauty and marked plenty with the Shadow Academy Mark. Learning never looked so good.

Ondur was truly glad to be home again.