The Gift That Binds

I run my gloved fingers over the armor’s surface, tracing the intricate veins of crimson filigree that pulse beneath the dark metal. The plating is unlike durasteel or beskar—something deeper, something… alive. It does not merely sit idle, awaiting a wearer. It broods. I feel its hunger, a whispered longing in the Force, subtle yet insistent, curling at the edges of my perception like a beast prowling in the shadows of my mind.
 
Isatri’s gift. But gifts from Sith are never without their price.
 
I set the armor upon the obsidian dais before me, narrowing my gaze. Subjugation Armor, she called it. An instrument of some form of alchemy… sorcery… both perhaps, imbued with purpose beyond mere defense. No Sith forges such a thing without intent. It is a means to an end, a tool—a chain.
 
I will not be bound.
 
The Force settles within me as I breathe, wrapping around my thoughts like a shroud of darkness. Study. Deconstruct. Understand. Knowledge is the path to mastery, and mastery is the path to dominion.
 
A whisper of motion in the dim chamber—not from the physical, but from the armor itself. A ripple in the Force. A subtle push back.
 
I extend my will, peeling back the layers of the metal’s resonance, seeking its design. It resists. Not as a solid thing resists force, but as a mind resists intrusion. It is aware.
 
Interesting.
 
Alchemy is not merely the shaping of metal, but the shaping of will. Sith Lords of old did not simply forge armor or weapons—they breathed life into them, binding flesh, spirit, and steel into singular purpose. True Sith alchemy is not passive craftsmanship. It is subjugation.
 
If this armor is truly subjugation given form, then somewhere within it, there must be a core—a fulcrum upon which its power hinges.
 
I turn toward the holocron.
 
The device sits upon its pedestal, its rhomboid frame blackened with age, etched with the sigils of the ancient Sith. Its power is unmistakable, thrumming in the air like the silent resonance of a storm before the first strike of lightning. The holocron of Karness Muur. One of the first Lords of the Sith. A master of alchemy. A forger of will. The architect of the Muur Talisman, a relic of unparalleled control—not merely of flesh, but of obedience.
 
I place my hand upon the surface, feeling the resonance within. A thread of power reaches back toward me, ancient and insidious, seeking not just to be opened, but understood.
 
I channel my will into the device.
 
The holocron awakens. The chamber darkens as the air thrums with the whisper of the Dark Side. The flickering glow of runes casts shifting shadows upon the walls, coalescing into a spectral figure wreathed in shifting darkness.
 
Karness Muur.
 
His ember-like eyes pierce through the veil of time, burning with something both knowing and expectant. His presence is not some passive imprint, bound to mere recitation of knowledge. He is aware.
 
"What would you take from me, Lord of the present?"
 
His voice is neither greeting nor challenge. It slides through the air like a scalpel’s edge—sharp, precise, weighted with intent.
 
I do not answer immediately. Instead, I observe him as he does me. We are both predators. He seeks to measure my worth before he chooses what to reveal.
 
But I am not here to seek. I am here to take.
 
"The Muur Talisman," I state, not as a request, but a demand. "A device of absolute control. You did not simply enslave the flesh—you bound the will."
 
Muur’s head tilts slightly. Amused. Intrigued.
 
"Most come to me in search of immortality. You, however… you would shape power into chains."
 
His form flickers as he steps forward, the ghost of movement more than movement itself.
 
"Tell me, Sith Lord—what do you believe control to be?"
 
I let silence stretch between us for a moment, then answer with certainty.
 
“Control is an illusion of the weak. Subjugation is its true form. A will crushed so completely that it ceases to resist—not by fear, nor force, but by design. A prison so absolute that the prisoner believes it to be his own mind.”
 
Muur watches me, his gaze narrowing slightly. A flicker of satisfaction. A recognition of kinship.
 
"Then you already grasp the nature of my work," he says. "But knowing the principle is not the same as wielding the mechanism."
 
His ember eyes shift toward the armor before me. The implication is clear.
 
I already know.
 
This armor is more than alchemized steel. It is subjugation given form. But what binds it? What makes it a vessel of will—not mine, but Isatri’s?
 
"She has bound the armor as I bound my talisman," Muur intones, reading my thoughts. "A tether of essence woven into the weave of the metal. It is not the steel that obeys, but the will within."
 
My gaze darkens as I turn back to the armor. Subjugation. Not of an object. Of a mind. A conduit for control, a vessel to ensnare the one who wears it. A chain, hidden beneath the guise of strength.
 
Clever.
 
I rest my hand upon the plating once more, fingers pressing into the filigree. The pulse of life—if it can be called that—quivers beneath my touch. If this armor is to be a chain, then the question is not whether I can wear it, but whether I will wear it on my terms.
 
Muur’s voice is a whisper of dark amusement.Muur’s voice is a whisper of dark amusement.
 
"You will either break it… or it will break you."
 
I smile coldly. "Then let us see who is the master… and who is the slave."