Around a year after she left the Path of the Open Hand cult in the wake of its fall in 382 BBY, the Evereni Marda Ro began a hunt for other members of her species. She began the search in a settlement on the planet Dantooine, where she interrogated a human about Evereni that he had seen, discovering that he saw two of them on a space station near the moon Pantora roughly a year earlier. Ro then left the public house where she questioned him, planning to investigate the lead.
Around 379 BBY, Ro was at a marketplace on an astronomical object when her hunt was interrupted by her noticing a Jedi at the marketplace, she assaulted him and dragged his body to her starship, the Gaze Electric, where she fed him to the Force-consuming creature called the Great Leveler.
Later, Ro visited the planet Ryloth after hearing twice in a single month about an Evereni hunting lylek creatures there. She visited a hub for game hunters, where she met the Evereni at a bar. He introduced himself to her with the alias "Isren" and—at Ro's request—taught her about the the Evereni homeworld, their language, and their culture. Ro asked Isren to come with her and join her group of raiders, but Isren refused.
Ro continued to seek out Evereni and eventually managed to catch up to the Evereni twins Vika and Velya Faer at a space dock orbiting the gas giant Siquay. She invited the Faers aboard the Gaze and the siblings taught her about Evereni, their customs, and more of the language. Vika and Velya went out on a raid with her pirates and a feast was thrown after they had returned. At the feast, Alirya attempted to kill Vika Faer, as the felt that the Evereni woman was threatening her position as Ro's right hand. Faer managed to survive the attach and killed Alirya in retaliation, but was herself shot by Ro for killing the human. Faer's brother was angered by her death, but Ro managed to calm him down and convince him to join her and replace Alirya.
The events of her quest were later chronicled by Ro in recordings she made for her descendants. By 252 BBY, Ro's great-great-grandson Marchion Ro had listened to her journal, including the entries pertaining to her search. In 228 BBY Ro remembered that the journal recounted his great-great-grandmother's hunt for Evereni while listening to the messages again.
Evereni lived through centuries of war.
The Evereni species lived in harmony with their homeworld Everon until a natural disaster devastated their civilization, leading to centuries of conflict. In 500 BBY, the few survivors of the conflicts left Everon behind in order to escape death. The survivors then came across other sentient species and despite initial fighting integrated into the galactic society to survive.
Over a century later, by 382 BBY, the Evereni cousins Marda and Yana Ro were members of the Path of the Open Hand cult based on the planet Dalna. That year, the Path took part in a battle that resulted in the cult's end. During that battle, Marda had an altercation with Yana during which she cut off Yana's hand. In the aftermath of the conflict, Marda took the Gaze Electric, a starship belonging to the Path, and left She spent the next year using the Gazes records to track down members of the Path who were not present on Dalna during the cult's end. Ro deceived several of them—including her human assistant Alirya—into joining her and made them the foundation for a marauder group that would eventually become the Nihil.
Marda Ro began her hunt on Dantooine. (pictured)
Around 381 BBY, Ro began the hunt by visiting the oldest settlement on the Outer Rim Territories planet Dantooine. There, she purchased a nail file made from the bone of the irisophant creature and visited a public house located within the settlement. Inside, Ro ordered a cup of tea and a mug of local beer, which she left at the table as an invitation for others. The Evereni received stares from others and a Devaronian confronted her, so she retaliated by tossing the beer into his face. The Twi'lek Fori Nagor passed by Ro and stopped for a moment when she noticed the girl is an Evereni before quickly moving on.
Eventually, Ro noticed a human on the other side of the room, who kept glancing at her during his conversation with a Rodian companion. Ro walked up to him and questioned him about where he'd look for Evereni, as she recognized that he was someone familiar with her people. The human and Rodian agreed that they would not look for Evereni, but the human reluctantly added that he was two on a space station near the moon Pantora. Ro left the public house and started planning how she could use the lead to track the Evereni mentioned by the human. She was followed by Nagor, who she confronted elsewhere in the settlement and recruited into her group of pirates in exchange for a kiss.
Around 379 BBY, Ro was looking for Evereni at a marketplace on an astronomical object. A Jedi was walking through the marketplace, and the Evereni approached him after she noticed him. Ro asked him whether he had a Padawan and assaulted him when he answered that he did not. She left the Jedi alive and took him to the Gaze in a shuttle. On the Gaze she was greeted by Alirya and two other subordinates—the Ozrelanso Rox and the human Milan Stor. While Alirya was concerned about Ro, who was covered in the Jedi's red blood, the Evereni ordered the trio to follow her. Ro led them to the ship's medical observation room, where the Force-consuming monster called the Great Leveler was kept. Rox dropped the Jedi and Ro turned off the containment shield keeping the Leveler in the room. The Jedi awoke and tried to escape, but slipped on his own blood and the Leveler turned him into a lifeless husk while Ro watched. Afterward, she went to the Gazes throne hall, where she stored the Jedi's lightsaber in a hidden compartment in her throne and had a conversation with Alirya.
Isren told Marda Ro of Everon. (pictured)
Later, Ro visited the Outer Rim Territories planet Ryloth after spending a year of chasing rumors and legends, because she heard of an Evereni hunting lylek creatures in that world's equatorial forests twice in one month. She picked one of the hubs near the forests on instinct and booked a tourist multiplex there. After having no luck asking expedition groups and safari guides, Ro visited a bar where she ordered fermented milk tea. Eventually she spotted an aged Evereni leaning against a wall and drinking hot liquor.
She approached him and he told the girl to sit and started speaking in the Evereni language, but had to switch to Galactic Basic Standard as Ro did not speak Evereni. The Evereni introduced himself under the alias "Isren" meaning "old uncle" in Evereni, refusing to tell her his name. Ro bought him meat and soup while he shared liquor with her and taught her about Evereni culture and where they come from. While Isren became convinced that Ro is a legacy of the Evereni people and told her that that is a thing that he trusts, despite being distrustful otherwise. However, he still ultimately did not join Ro when she asked him to come with her.
Following her encounter with Isren, Ro continued to seek other Evereni out of a desire to meet them and receive their approval. At some point she spent months chasing after rumors of an Evereni, until finding out that they have only one hand. Assuming them to be her cousin Yana, Ro then broke off the search. Some time later, Ro and Alirya had a conversation in the throne hall while her group was laying low following a disastrous fight between Nagor's team and a system security force. During the debate the human asked Ro about her goals and the Evereni reminded her that she is hunting for other members of her species.
Marda Ro met Vika and Velya Faer aboard the Gaze Electric. (pictured)
Eventually, Ro began tracking the Evereni twins Vika and Velya Faer. The Faers refueled at a space dock orbiting the gas giant Siquay and remained at the dock for some time, giving Ro opportunity to catch up to them. She sent three ships under her command to surround the ship belonging to the siblings and sent them an invitation. They did not answer for a while and Ro considered the possibility of them attempting to run away, thinking that she would have them killed if they did. Outgunned, the Faers ultimately gave in and accepted Ro's offer.
While Ro waited in the throne hall, Vika and Velya were escorted there by the Kessurian pirates Esstrop and Kortanio. Ro greeted them and introduced herself. During the subsequent conversation, Vika introduced herself and her brother and Ro invited them for food. They ate food prepared by Alirya according to Ro's taste and talked about Evereni, with the Faers telling Ro about their family and the meaning of Ro's family name. During the meal Alirya brought them liquor, but none of them drank it. After they finished eating, Ro challenged the siblings to spar. Vika wanted to fight against Ro first and Velya offered to mediate.
Vika drew a knife and questioned Ro's choice to use staves as her weapon. Ro began to reply and attacked Faer before finishing speaking, but Faer disarmed the younger woman of one of her staves and slasher her arm open. They coninued to fight and Ro tossed Faer onto the ground onto her shoulder, getting on top of her to choke her with a stave. Faer dislodged Ro and escape the lock, however her brother stepped in and stopped the friendly match. The two Evereni women exchanged smiles and Alirya rushed to Ro to attend to the wound on her arm, while Vika asked the human to bring her the liquor from earlier. Alirya ignored the Faers until Ro convinced her to leave the injury alone and went to bring the drinks. While she was getting them, Vika mentioned to Ro that Alirya was a sweet pet, but Ro retorted that Alirya is important and as valuable as she makes herself.
Marda Ro (pictured) shot Vika Faer for killing Alirya.
The siblings stayed with Ro aboard the Gaze for several days and while his sister explored the whole starship, Velya bounced back and forth between her and Ro. When Ro's pirates went out for a raid, they were accompanied by the two Evereni, who returned with plentiful bounty. They made offerings to Ro like her raiders did and teased both each other and the pirate leader about it, while she teased them back that it is the price for living on the Gaze. A feast was thrown in celebration of the fact that everyone returned from the raid safe and tables and benches were dragged into the throne hall for the occasion.
Ro ate on her throne at a distance from everyone, but during the feast Vika dragged a chear next to the throne and brought Ro a small plate of finger cakes that a member of Nagor team had baked. Faer told Ro that her brother thinks she is beautiful and Ro asked her if she does not. While the Evereni thought about her answer, Ro nibbled on one of the finger cakes. Unbeknownst to either of them, Alirya snuck up on Faer and stabbed her from the back with a dagger. The human backed up with the dagger covered in gray Evereni blood and Faer quickly grabbed her by her neck and wrist.
She lifted Alirya off the floor by rising to her full height, then broke her wrist while Alirya kocked at her. Digging her claws into the human's throat, the Evereni dropped Alirya's dead body back onto the floor. During the chaos triggered by the altercation, Velya rushed to Vika's side to inspect her wound and Ro shot Vika with a blaster she took out of the hidden compartment in her throne.
Velya immediately turned to Ro, who pointed the blaster at him in response, while remembering Isren's lesson and what she had said about Alirya to Vika. She explained to Velya that Alirya felt her position was threatened by his sister, which led her to the attack. Ro also offered Faer the position by her side that had become vacant with Alirya's death, which he reluctantly accepted after Ro convinced him. She offered Faer her hand and he took it, grasping her wrist. They dug their claws into each other's wrists, letting their blood slowly drip on the floor.
Later, the bodies were taken away and Ro was in the throne hall alone with Faer. Curious about how Evereni treat their dead, Ro asked Faer, who explained that the body has no value and they simply remember the name. The two drank tea and talked about Evereni they had met. Faer revealed that he had met six Evereni other than Ro and Ro mentioned that Isren refused to reveal his name to her. She remembered that he told her Evereni only meet in death and brought that fact up to Faer who informed her that they also meet in the Rystan system. Afterward, Ro finished her tea and shortly talked with Faer about how she surrounds herself by others, explaining that she is building a legacy.
The symbol of the Eye of the Nihil
Ro would go on to chronicle her hunt in a journal she recorded for her descendants. By 252 BBY, during his youth, Ro's great-great-grandson Marchion Ro had listened to her memoirs in their entirety. Ro's descendants turned the pirate band she established into the Nihil and served the group as the Eye of the Nihil.
Under Marchion's leadership, the Nihil engaged the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order in a conflict that dealt massive blows to the Republic and the Jedi, such as establishing an area of space known as the Occlusion Zone, which was isolated from the rest of the galaxy by a barrier that disabled hyperspace travel to and from the region. In 228 BBY, Ro listed to his great-great-grandmother's journal again while digging through his family's records stored in a storage room aboard the Gaze Electric. Listening to the chronicles, he remembered that the journal's contents chronicled his great-great-grandmother's hunt for Evereni.
Tessa Gratton, writer of "A Closed Fist Has No Claws"
Marda Ro's hunt first appeared in flashbacks in the short story "A Closed Fist Has No Claws," written by Tessa Gratton and published in the 2023 young-adult anthology The High Republic: Tales of Light and Life as a part of the Star Wars: The High Republic multimedia project. In an interview, Gratton mentioned that she wanted to use Evereni lore that Marda Ro was exposed to to let her shape herself in a "messed up, unhealthy way." He also thinks that due to her pain, Ro interprets her experiences with other Evereni painfully and takes the wrong lessons from them, rather than interpret them in a way that would be beautiful. They knew that she needed to have two Evereni for Ro to meet, one who rejects her and one who embraces her. Those ended up being Isren and Velya Faer respectively.
In addition to that, Faer's inclusion was also influenced by the fact that on a practical level Gratton realized that Ro needs to have children. Despite the initial plan being to use only the two Evereni, Gratton wanted to have Ro shoot somebody in the story. He also realized while working on the story that having a pair of Evereni with a dynamic similar to that of Ro and her cousin Yana Ro would be better. Both of these factors led to the addition of Vika Faer, which Gratton described as a complicated process, since it required figuring out how to move the pieces around so that her death felt like a climatic moment of the story. In another interview, Gratton revealed that Ro's story was intentionally written to be the opposite of Yana's, with Ro losing her path.