THE SCHYTHE OF THE CHYÈLÌR
avatar to the god of death ühaw, nakriss is both protector and claimer of life. unlike padmé, he was not raised amongst mortals, and appeared fully grown on the day of her supposed ‘birth’, from the depth of mount echéki, near dragon’s peak. the volcano, while inactive for thousands of years, let out one last choked out plume of spoke before growing dormant once more, and from the rain of ash, the soul-harvester rose. in naboo custom, ühaw was depicted as a tall figure holding the leash of a chimeric being named mbendu, a beast with two cat heads joined at the neck, the body of a dragon and the legs of a gazelle. in one hand he held shiraya’s crown of stars, and in the other the scale of neké, the celestial judge. as it is, a high number of cats or other felines in a specific area usually heralds the arrival of nakriss, who travels in order to cut the final thread holding a mortal soul to its host-body.
padmé and nakriss are two sides of a coin, their very beings interconnected. one cannot exist without the other, and so they are perpetually locked in a dance of life and death, a perpetual give and take. nakriss will allow her to strengthen one’s soul and keep it from returning among the stars, and in turn, padmé will bestow the mark of death upon those undeserving of life.
it is said that when someone commits a crime of the highest order, such as infanticide, or telling a lie in order to frame someone else which results in the death of an innocent, they will wake with scratch marks upon their arms and legs, the number of wounds correlated to the numbers of days they have left to set their affairs in order. there is no known method of repelling nakriss, and no sword nor any other weapon can touch him, for he presides above all that is death. it is only the lady of the stars that can stay his hand, and the instances in which she has done so are rare.
