Kellaro’s words took Brant out to the planet of Serenno. As he stepped from the spaceport, the faint jingling of street music filled the air, and a golden afternoon light bathed the curving walls of the tall buildings all around. It seemed a peaceful place, warm, not at all like the bitter cold of his dreams, nor a place a Sith should be remotely interested in, unless it was to conquer and subjugate it. And perhaps that was the purpose of the Force guiding him here, Brant thought, striding to an overlook and looking out, though it would take more power than he could muster by himself.
He tossed back his hood to feel the sun on his face, drawing his robes around him so he could keep one hand on his lightsaber without anyone knowing that’s where his hands were. He wandered the streets, not meeting anyone’s eyes but not going out of his way to be a bother, either. He simply let his feelings guide him — his feelings, and that faint tug he felt from the Other, haunting his steps.
Eventually, his meanderings took him to a small archives building on the east part of the town. It was old-fashioned, with only one wall taken up by a databank, and the other three were conventional shelves full of old datapads and even some books.
Out of curiosity, Brant passed into the history section. Most of these were datapads, but on the end was a thick, heavy tome. It looked out of place, like it had been miscategorized, but for this reason Brant took it down and brought it to a nearby lectern to read.
The pages smelled of dust and an archaic blend of ink when he opened it. There were more illustrations than writing in the book, but the writing was a language he didn’t recognize, though he considered if it was an old form of High Sith.
The illustrations captivated him however. His hand traced the figures in the book, their lines twisting and writhing as if the anguish of the people they depicted was real. Here, a mouth opened in a scream, there, a old warrior’s eyes popped in madness as he leapt into a conflict; draconic masks stood in all the corners, watching the painted battles like empty skulls. In the centerpiece of the page, the flowing cloaks of robed figures swirled outward in fanciful spirals, their jagged edges flapping in an unheard wind, and Brant could feel the Dark Side gathering in his gut as he looked at it. The Other was here, laced through these pages.
He turned the page, and then his hand brushed over a mouth of the dragon. In the shaded light of the archives, it almost seemed to be real, its mouth stretched wide as if to scream or perhaps to swallow a city whole with one big gulp.
“Sun Eater?” Brant murmured and pressed his hand flat against it. The screaming suddenly became real, filling his head, and the Dark Side shifted all around him, clawing in his gut. Images poured out at him, flashes of marching long lines of dark figures, pouring over every pass in the mountains like black ants converging into a swarm. They were all marching towards something: a provincial place that still had sod for roofs… A woman screamed out in the agony of grief; it sounded like his mother, but he was quite certain it was not her, too… The long lines entered the village, large ion-like bursts filled the air, and fire, and smoke, and disease, and death…
“I see you have an interest in our history?” said the librarian, interrupting the vision.
Brant shook his head, taking a big gulp of air as if emerging from underwater. The images faded from his eyes. “Mmh. Yes. I’m seeking the legend of the Sun Eater.”
The librarian looked at him quizzically. “Sun… Eater? Have you tried in the children’s section?”
“No,” said Brant coldly. “It is history.”
“Not a history I have heard of…”
“Then an old legend, perhaps. One that involves–” He glanced down at the page. The toothy maw was still fearsome, but so much smaller and less threatening than in his vision. “–dragons.”
“That’s the legend of the Tirra’Takka,” the librarian said, gesturing to the book in front of him. As he continued to look doubtful, she reached down and turned the page, covering the twisting drawings from view. “It is like a religious story,” she explained, gesturing to a temple-like scene, with robed figures gathering for some kind of worship. “The people delved too deep and an evil — the Tirra’Takka dragon — was awakened. The evil could not stand forever, of course, and it was driven underground by great heroes. However…” She turned the page again, and this illustration was of a door buried in the side of a mountain. “…evil is never destroyed. Superstition has it the dragon still exists, waiting for someone to stumble across it again.”
“You say this is superstition,” said Brant slowly. “The Tirra’Takka is not real?”
“Oh, there’s recordings in old texts of a large reptile who lived on this planet in ancient times, but no bones have ever been found. Scholars believe the people back then were just seeing dewbacks, brought from foreign travelers–”
“Are there any other records of such beasts?” Brant asked quickly before she could go off into wild theorizing. “Or the peoples who believed in them?”
She shrugged. “Just mentions here and there. Though there are also some old tombs in the hills–”
Brant glanced at the page. The Dark Side still lurked in the book, and he felt the Other tug at him through the Force. Kellaro, too, had mentioned graves of their forefathers. The old tombs, he reasoned, had to be the answer.
“If you don’t mind me asking, why do you want to know?” asked the librarian politely. “With more context to your questions, I might be able to help you more.”
“I’m just a traveler interested in local history,” said Brant, and he abruptly shut the book and passed it back her way. “Thank you,” he said to her surprised expression, and then he saw himself out.