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Yavin IV


Tarrian Skywalker

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Janaal winced as the sound of metal grinding against metal filled the cramped cargo bay of the starship. Although he loved the ship and its pilot dearly, he had to admit that both were approaching their final years”¦.if they hadn't already. As the landing ramp finally began to lower, the young man had to avert his gaze as the light from the planet began to pour in through the opening. Although the light within the ship always seemed bright, Janaal knew that in truth it was rather dark within the old vessel. Daxon held up his hand to assist in blocking the light from assailing his still adjusting eyes.

 

<>]/i]

 

Turning to look back at his old friend, Janaal allowed a smirk to cross his face before replying. He knew that to most, the grunts and roars of the Shyriiwook language was nonsense, Janaal had quickly come to understand it at an almost Wookiee-like level. After spending three years on Kashyyk, Janaal has learned much of the Wookiee language and culture. It was during this time he had met and befriended Jolacca, the ships current pilot.

 

”œYes Jolacca, this is where I want to be. The history of this planet is one of the reasons I decided to come here. So you will be returning in just over a week, correct?”

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  • 2 weeks later...

Meanwhile on the planet, certain presences had become aware of the young Force user that had just arrived. It had been many years since they had sensed anything like this. "He is undecided yet, he would make a great warrior for the light."

 

"I think not, he is fated to be the next crusader to join the ranks of the Darkness." The spirits on the planet continued to argue about this for sometime, all the while following the man as he walked along the planet's surface.

E nomini patri, et Fili e spiritu sancti.

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  • 2 weeks later...

((The following actions are posted with permission.))

 

Janaal fell for what seemed like forever, but in reality was a matter of seconds as he slammed into a broken rock pillar sending a massive wave of pain through his chest. Luck or fate was not on his side that day as he rolled off of the pillar and fell another fifteen feet landing with the majority of his weight being placed solely on his left foot causing his ankle to roll and an audible pop could be heard. He let out a single scream of pain then crumpled to the ground bashing the back of his head off of the pillar that he had fallen on top of before he had slipped over the other side of the pillar and plummeted to the ground.

 

Unbeknownst to Jannal he had landed beside an ancient temple that had been a big part of a varied history of Force users on Yavin Four. While he lay there unconscious a specter slowly became visible as it seemed to walk from the interior of the temple. It was dressed in what appeared to be wearing a robe of pure white the style of which had not been seen in several thousand years. The specter such as it was resembled a woman familiar to Janaal, someone he hadn't see in twenty years.

 

The woman shook her head, the light radiating from her decreasing as she sensed the enormous amount of physical pain he was in to say nothing for the unbelievable psychological pain he was suffering. The woman knelt down cradling Janaal's head in her lap as she tried to draw soem of the pain from him. "My poor Jannal, I didnt mean for you to suffer this pain. Your life was to be free of such agony, would that I could take it from you."

E nomini patri, et Fili e spiritu sancti.

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  • 2 weeks later...

As the young explorer began to come to, he could only feel an intense throbbing within his mind. Reaching behind his head, he felt the warm trickle of blood flowing from a gash on his scalp. While he knew it wasn't life threatening by itself, Janaal knew of the danger that infection could cause to any wound. As the thought of infection passed through his mind, a wave of dizziness shot through him and Janaal managed to speak only a word before the darkness reclaimed him”¦..”

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  • 6 years later...

The great glowing orange orb of the gas giant Yavin filled the viewport of the Traitor’s Hope as the ship emerged from hyperspace, obscured only by the dirt encrusting the transparisteel cockpit that somehow no number of trips through the void of space were able to completely burn off. The two women both looked up from the controls for a moment, letting their eyes drink in the sight of one of the most famous planets of ancient history, each lost in their own thoughts. After a moment, Jaina swung the ship around, aiming for the tiny fourth moon.

 

“Keep you sensors active,” Emily said uneasily. “The Cult was here at least a few weeks ago. There’s no knowing if they still have people here or not.”

 

Jaina’s fingers moved deftly over the controls, her pilot’s mind obviously keenly active. “No sign of any traffic, but there are several settlements down on the surface. Shall we take a look?”

 

The Grey Master simply nodded. Now that she was face to face with the possibility of running into the Cult again, she was a strange mix of emotions. Eagerness and rage intermingled with what she had to admit was trepidation. She bit her lip, hating herself for the latter. It was normal, and she knew psychologically that it was okay to feel that way given their last encounter, but it was unbecoming in a Sith, and she knew most of the people she knew would scorn her if they knew what she was feeling. They don’t matter, she told herself firmly. Anyway, they don’t care about you, so why should you care what they think? Nevertheless, she set her countenance. She was not going to be afraid of the Cult. If she was, that would give them exactly what they wanted.

 

The Traitor’s Hope came low over the treetops of the jungle moon. The coordinates Quietus had taken from the cultists’ navicomputer pointed them towards the outskirts of an old massassi settlement near the northern polar region. Emily was secretly glad for that; it would mean that they would be able to do their investigation without sweating through their clothing in the first five minutes. The village was like most of the settlements on Yavin IV--a small pattern of overgrown ruins surrounding one large ziggurat, with paths leading east and west to two other, smaller, triangular temples. Jaina brought the linked ships down for a smooth landing in a relatively open area. Rising, Emily quickly crossed over to her ship--I still need to give it a name, she thought absently--and grabbed her father’s ax and her shuriken. Her working lightsaber was already on her belt, but she clipped the empty hilt of her other one in its place, despite the fact that it didn’t yet have a crystal.

 

She lowered the boarding ramp, but hesitated. It felt strange going out without her armor. But the armor had been lost during her captivity, and she hadn’t replaced it. Honestly, she hadn’t been able to face replacing it. That armor had been the first gift Quietus had ever given her, and for a long time, it had been a physical reminder of all he had taught her. But now, she wondered if it would be more than a bad memory.

 

Shaking herself, she made her way down into the sodden jungle air, Roe’gall sniffing and investigating every new smell as he came heavily down the ramp behind her. Jaina was already outside, and Emily stepped up beside her. “What do you think?”

Emily%202015_zps34rpkjob.jpg

 

"Days in the sun...what I'd give to relive just one. Undo what's done, and bring back the light."

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Jaina knelt in the damp earth, pulling her cloak more tightly around herself. The mulchy richness of the air was a welcome change from the thin ozone of Coruscant and the scrubbed and recycled air aboard the Hope, where she had more or less lived for the vast majority of her adult life. Closing her eyes and bowing her head, she let her senses expand, taking the pulse of the vibrant jungle moon as she breathed its swampy mists. The obscured forests around them were rich with local fauna, even at this higher latitude, the natural cycles of birth and death tumbling in joyful abandon as the Force guided the symphony of movement like a conductor's hand. At the edges of her awareness, she could feel the psychometric history of the place beginning to tug her deeper, hearkening back to desperate days, and beyond, millennia beyond, the foundations of the Massassi temples being raised.

 

Dampening darkness lay across the jungle like a blanket.

 

Standing to her feet, brushing the damp patch that had formed on her knee, she gazed unsuccessfully through the mist in the direction of the Temple that was a half-kilometer away. "It's like all of the history of this place is... concealing something. There's an old darkness here that makes it hard to get a read on anything. There are settlers nearby, and they don't feel... dark, but they don't feel particularly receptive, either. My guess is that something happened recently to set them on edge, and we shouldn't expect them to roll out the welcome mat."

 

She offered Emily a wan smile, and tossed her head towards the large ziggurat. As she began walking with catlike steps through the mossy rainforest, coming out from under cover of the Hope's metallic shelter, the mist began to thicken into a gentle rainfall. "Time to do what Jedi do best, I suppose, and go poke our noses somewhere we aren't wanted."

 

-----

 

Under cover of the thick mists and the chatter of wildlife, a small, nondescript shuttle set down in the underbelly of the jungle. Like deadly, exotic insects, a cadre of lithe figures in combat gear paraded silently into the brush, before expertly disappearing into obscurity. An imposing figure in a heavy cloak glanced down the ramp after them, holding a comlink to his lips in smug satisfaction.

 

"Target Alpha maintaining current course. Recommend we proceed as planned."

53bzzl2.png

...why are the pretty ones always the most hazardous to your health?

May the Forth therve you well...

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Half a kilometer away at the entrance of the Massassi ziggurat, the lone figure lowered the set of binoculars from her eyes, and frowned in disappointment. Having spotted an oddly shaped ship descending from orbit, the woman had hoped, to no avail it seemed, that it was the ship that was here to retrieve her.

 

But after centering the flying object in her binoculars, she found it to be neither the ship she was waiting for, nor even a single ship, but rather two ships that were linked together. This was the third such disappointment, and as with the other two, she had recorded the zoomed in images of the ships, and attached them to her most recent status report to be sent to her superiors.

1fE1uLv.png

I ate a hippo. It was delicious.

May the Forth therve you well...

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Jaina's self-deprecating jibe caused a half-smile to skitter across Emily's lips. It lingered only a second, but it nevertheless helped put her earlier nerves at rest. Indeed, just doing something, breathing fresh air on a world she had never before visited, was enough to brush the cobwebs from her mind and put her back on her game. Here was something she could focus on. "Do you know the history of this moon?" she asked Jaina as they walked. "It was a stronghold of one of the most powerful Sith of all time. I have no doubt you're sensing lingering echoes of his influence." Emily could sense it too, a general unfriendliness in the atmosphere of the Force. But that was such a familiar taint that it didn't bother her in the slightest; indeed, Korriban felt much more malevolent. "Anyway, we may need to speak with the settlers, but let's see what we can uncover on our own, why don't we?"

 

It didn't take long to reach the ziggurat. The massive stone blocks fit together smoothly, but showed the wear and tear of age. Vines and growth covered the beige stone, and as they drew closer, Emily saw that in many places, thick moss usurped the mortar. Silently, she put a hand on the stone. It was cold and slick, and Emily could feel the weight of the millennia these stones had seen. Edges had been worn, and cracks had been made, but the stone endured. It maintained it's shape and purpose, a firm and unchangeable testimony: no matter what the years had thrown its way, it endured. After a moment, Emily pushed her wet hair out of her face. "C'mon, let's go inside."

 

The inside of the ziggurat was large and surprisingly cool. As they stepped farther away from the entrance, the sound of the rain faded, leaving only a very still silence. Quietly, the two masters lit glowsticks and walked through the main floor, looking for clues. Emily pointed to some dust on the floor. "It's thinner in the middle," she said, finding herself whispering. She knelt down. "But not just in the areas where there would be draft from the doors. Looks like someone has been here, although I don't know enough forensics to say how long ago."

 

They continued their circuit. The silence was oppressive, and the deeper they got, the more Emily got the sensation she was being watched by unseen eyes. Suddenly, there was a massive clatter, and she jumped, spinning around, her hand dropping the glowstick and reaching for her lightsaber. But it was just a woolamander, disturbed by their intrusion, skittering from it's nest in the corner. She placed a hand on her rapidly-beating heart and took a deep breath. "Sorry," she whispered. "Jumpy I guess." She hooked her lightsaber back on her belt and picked up her glowstick again. "Should we go up a level?"

Emily%202015_zps34rpkjob.jpg

 

"Days in the sun...what I'd give to relive just one. Undo what's done, and bring back the light."

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Following doggedly behind Emily, the unease in Jaina's gut grew exponentially as they entered the large stone temple. The crepuscular interior bore every likeness to her catacombs on Hapes, and her skin crawled unavoidably as they moved farther into the belly of the structure. Emily's tale of the Sith Lord who had occupied this moon corroborated the unsettling fibers of intuition that were woven into the metaphysical fabric of such a place.

 

involuntarily, she shuddered, as the light fell from Emily's hand and the startling moment passed. Looking over her shoulder once more, Jaina nodded in response to her niece's question. "The sooner we find what we're looking for, the better. I don't want to spend one more minute in this place than necessary," she murmured under her breath, in an attempt to avoid drawing attention--whose? she chided herself irritably, finding her actions irrational and paranoid--to their presence.

 

Ascending to the second level, the stale immobile air was punctuated by stark beams of light that split cracks in the old stone or slits carved as windows, high ceilings adding to the impression that this was some ancient banquet hall or ritual center. A single pebble clattered down the stairs, and even that tiny movement reverberated like a shot through the giant chamber. The moss on the ground was so prolific that at first glance the expansive open floor looked to be gilded in a verdant carpet. On the far wall, there were a series of images carved into the rock, hieroglyphs in some ancient language. Pulled by her own insatiable curiosity, Jaina crossed the massive room on quick feet, halting only when she approached the wall. Running a finger along the deep grooves of one of the glyphs, she rubbed a thick layer of dust like lint between her fingers, casting it to the floor as though satisfied, and walked slowly along the length of the mural, pausing at the very end.

 

"Emily, look at this," she said in little more than a whisper.

 

There, in the far corner of the room, a trio of carvings adorned the wall, vastly newer than their companions and barely touched by the oppressive dust. The first, a traditional symbol of the Jedi Order, a wreathed saber standing in the fulcrum between light and dark. The explosive flame of the Sith Empire. And the third...

 

"What do you suppose that is?" she murmured quizzically. "It looks familiar, but--"

 

Her question was interrupted by a sharp prod from her danger sense. An invisible line tautened her neck muscles in an instinctive reaction, and her head jerked backward to narrowly avoid her nose becoming impaled by a long, thin dart. Several yells sounded from the far end of the room, but the light that streamed from the far east window obscured her natural vision, and she tossed a hand up as though to block the light while the other fell to the butt of her saber. No sooner had she done so than a mass of flailing limbs launched from above her head, landing on her unceremoniously from the long ledge of the upper level, brandishing a long stone knife and stabbing at any part of her he could reach. Grasping at his wrist proved immediately ineffective, and with a flick of her wrist Jaina sent the man flying towards the opposite wall, crumpling against the stone as his head collided with a satisfying smack.

 

A better look at the man showed that he was dressed in the garb of the native Yavin populace, those who had settled into these temples as an ancestral home.

 

"Guess they aren't too keen on visitors," Jaina quipped as she pulled her lightsaber off her belt and gripped the handle firmly in her right palm, her thumb caressing the activation plate with only a phantom touch, ready to ignite at a moment's notice. Disoriented by the oppressive darkness, she struggled to hone in on individual presences, such that she might ascertain their numbers.

 

Then all hell broke loose as they begin to swarm up the stairs, all wild eyes and malice.

53bzzl2.png

...why are the pretty ones always the most hazardous to your health?

May the Forth therve you well...

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Emily was drawn forward when Jaina discovered the rune-covered wall. Something about them was familiar...

 

But she didn't get the chance to investigate. Her danger sense triggered and she cried out, but Jaina was already evading the dart. Emily's lightsaber was in her hand in a flash, and as Jaina tossed the man to the wall, she spun to engage the other attackers. A bronze glow ignited the room, illuminating the scene and giving everything sharp edges. Emily's focus became as sharp as the quills of a Klatooinian razor-rodent, and she immediately joined her mind with Roe'gall's. The tuk'ata howled, and then their attackers were upon them.

 

Roe'gall barrelled out from the right flank, sending beings flying. Meanwhile, Emily stepped forward and engaged them, parrying wild attacks, slicing through weapons and limbs alike. For a moment, she was back on the Cult's ship, surrounded by assassin droids, her only thought to survive. Roe'gall picked up on her feelings, and joyfully and ferociously turned and bounded back into the center of the fray. Emily took a few steps back until she could plant herself firmly next to her aunt. She knew Jaina would hold her own, but she also knew that they would work better together than apart.

 

She didn't care who their attackers were, or why they were attacking, although in the back of her mind she knew it would be useful to take at least one or two alive for questioning. Her eyes flashed wildly as she spread her feet, taking a dominate and challenging posture. "Let's go, then," she growled.

Emily%202015_zps34rpkjob.jpg

 

"Days in the sun...what I'd give to relive just one. Undo what's done, and bring back the light."

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Cassandra had been stuck here on Yavin IV for three months studying the Massassi temple, ever since the rest of those who had traveled here with her left. Every two days she sent along a report of her progress and findings to her superiors, and within an hour of each report, a reply would come. Usually some variation of 'good job, keep up the excellent work, keep us appraised' was the only acknowledgement she would get, with the odd smattering of specific questions about something in her report.

 

This time, was apparently going to be different. Two hours had passed since her latest report, which had included the arrival of the tandem ships and observations, a lengthy response came, one that completely changed Cassandra's planned tasks.

 

One of those ships is known to us. We are sending a team. Remove and secure the tablet and ancient samples. Gather what information you can on those that traveled on those ships. The Masters demand it. That is your only task now.

 

With new orders in place, Cassandra began scrambling to secure her makeshift camp, and then made her way back towards the temple itself.

1fE1uLv.png

I ate a hippo. It was delicious.

May the Forth therve you well...

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Emily’s thinly veiled aggression finally boiled over, foaming with the release of adrenaline that accompanied the blood-curdling, animalistic screams that filled the air. But there was a primal fear to these aggressors, beings that may have once been human but now bore springing hind legs that appeared almost feline, their hands lengthened into razor-sharp claws that could puncture the hide of the thick jungle trees as easily as they could gouge out the eyes of their prey. If she had to venture a guess, Jaina would assume they were sentient, but the ferality of their screams belied the likelihood of such a conjecture. The fiery snap of Emily’s saber was the thing that finally spurred her into action. Wheeling to press her back against her niece’s, angling her saber towards the approaching horde as the massive tuk’ata pounced like a pup at play, the shimmering violet of her blade leapt sternly into existence.

 

Her gut twisted, as milliseconds stretched into moments, with the knowledge that she was about to end the lives of those on whose sacred lands she was trespassing, and prove them right--she was the unwelcome aggressor--but something in their minds gave her pause.

 

They were not the first outsiders to cross the threshold of this temple recently.

 

Closing her eyes, she stretched out the hand that did not clutch her saber to lift a protective shield around herself and Emily, extending a calm peace in waves toward the creatures. Stop, Jaina’s plea echoed through the Force, desperately yearning for a different solution, a way in which to show these simple minds that they were in no danger so long as they brought none themselves.

53bzzl2.png

...why are the pretty ones always the most hazardous to your health?

May the Forth therve you well...

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Even through the haze of aggression that had settled over her, Emily was aware enough of her surroundings to realize that Jaina wasn’t attacking. She mentally rolled her eyes. What was it with Jedi? Pacifism was one thing, but refusing to defend oneself when attacked was folly. Her aunt’s Force command echoed through her mind, and although it wasn’t directed at her, she nevertheless picked up on the desperation Jaina was feeling.

 

Emily hesitated, then shrugged. We can get information from them after they stop attacking us, she thought. And the quickest way to make them stop is to show them the futility of continuing their attack. Nevertheless, she spun her bronze blade in a circle, switching to a slightly more defensive posture, hopefully allowing Jaina’s message to reach these ferals without proving to the contrary.

 

But she didn’t reign in Roe’gall. The tuk’ata was having too much fun.

Emily%202015_zps34rpkjob.jpg

 

"Days in the sun...what I'd give to relive just one. Undo what's done, and bring back the light."

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For the space of a long, hazy moment, it almost seemed as though it was going to work. Emily had obviously gotten the gist of what Jaina had picked up on, and she opened her eyes, watching as confusion seemed to ripple through the approaching horde. Their feet slowed, their spines straightened, and their eyes, overlarge from a life lived in the understory of the rainforest, sparkled with a genuine curiosity.

 

One glance at the approaching tuk’ata and the momentary peace evaporated.

 

Bringing her saber to bear, Jaina sliced downward as a trio of them came within striking distance, the first triumphant sizzle of her saber leaving body parts scattered on the floor, the Force seeming to scream from within her as life and death were brought to bear on one another, without respect to the fabric of space and time. Steeling herself, adrenaline pumping through her veins once more, she let her momentum carry her into a fluid circle, dodging the strike from an oversized spiked club and leaving the hand that brandished it lifeless on the mossy floor. There were easily two hundred of them, but these were not worthy opponents: their primitive weapons gained no purchase against the violaceous justice of her Jedi weapon.

 

Her pulse generated a rhythm for her strikes, and once again, she danced a dance of destruction, her leather boots tapping a silent refrain on the carpeted stone as the sounds of battle echoed in the massive chamber around her.

53bzzl2.png

...why are the pretty ones always the most hazardous to your health?

May the Forth therve you well...

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Emily was surprised when the horde seemed to hesitate, but the pause was momentary and fleeting, and this time, she felt Jaina’s resignation. “Nice try,” she muttered. Then with another flourish of her bronze blade, she threw herself back into the fray.

 

Reaching out, she drew on the Force to send three attackers flying until they hit the wall with a crunch. The ease of the gesture surprised her. Size and number didn’t philosophically matter when it came to using the Force telekinetically, but practically, the mind didn’t easily disassociate the results with the effort required. But here, the Force felt magnified. The stormwinds of power that whipped through Emily’s mind seemed focused and channeled in a way that she hadn’t encountered before. With a start, she realized it was the temple itself. The ziggurat was designed to amplify a Force user’s power, and this one particularly amplified the dark side.

 

She grinned. If the dark side was extraordinarily powerful in this place, that gave her an advantage. She stepped up her attack, spinning and slicing, slaying only when she had to, intent on leaving at least some of them alive as witnesses and interrogation subjects. Roe’gall had no such inhibitions. The monstrous tuk’ata was in his element, tossing these semisentients around like hay with a pitchfork, tearing them in two with his teeth and razor-sharp claws. His strength meant that they could barely touch him, and his speed helped keep any from getting away.

Emily%202015_zps34rpkjob.jpg

 

"Days in the sun...what I'd give to relive just one. Undo what's done, and bring back the light."

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The crushing tension of her convictions seemed to evaporate with every strike of her saber. Bodies littered the floor in her wake, the growl of the tuk’ata Roe’gall served as the voice of her inner vengeance. With a Force-assisted leap, she flew over the heads of the crowd assembling around Emily, swinging her saber in a wide circle that sent six heads rolling in synchronized demise. Electric energy seemed to spring from within her, and with every hiss and crackle of her saber, she grew faster, stronger, more deadly.

 

She whirled, coming face-to-face with a young male, muscular and wild, his dark hair spiraling out in every direction and woven through with leaves and bones and the small skulls of tiny rodentia. As she brought death to bear on his kin, he roared in grief and anger, affront echoing through the Force…

 

...but what rang in Jaina’s ears was the anguished growl of a Wookiee.

 

Her astonishment was almost sufficient to bring her guard down, but with a quick strike she brought the pommel of her saber down on his head, collapsing his limbs like flimsy as his knife clattered away on the stone floor.

 

This fire of battle, this thrill of victory, it was Raynuk’s as much as it was hers. The unease in her gut at the darkness within the ziggurat suddenly became crystal-clear: there was something here that called to her, that yearned to remind her of the darkness she still carried within her, flowing like a live circuit between her and the Sith Master who brought death to bear on Kashyyyk.

 

Letting her saber fall from her fingers, she held up both hands, her sudden realization strengthening her resolve as shame colored her cheeks crimson. A massive pulse erupted from her fingers, tinged with the blue crackle of electricity, causing the stone structure itself to tremble as the bodies of the encroaching horde flew towards the rear wall away from the two women and the massive creature. Fear at what she had just done, and the reason for it, filled every heaving breath as she knelt to scoop up her saber once more. Maybe this investigation wasn’t so important. Maybe they should take their findings and go, and come back under cover of darkness, sparing the lives of these who so were so recklessly willing to perish to protect their sacred ground.

 

But there was no true remorse within her for the fate she had unleashed upon these natives by the sheer matter of their presence. Smoldering black glee welled up within her, amplified by the deep darkness of the very stones upon which she stood.

 

Apparently, she had not yet reached the end of the list of side effects she would experience from her connection to Raynuk.

Edited by Guest

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...why are the pretty ones always the most hazardous to your health?

May the Forth therve you well...

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Battle was simple. It was precise, it was clean, it was cold efficiency. Life or death. Black or white. Emily’s mind was clear and free for the first time in what felt like a long time, and she reveled in that icy plain of the Force. Extraneous thoughts faded. Her body responded to her will, becoming a tool with which she could achieve her desires, the lightsaber and the tuk’ata mere extensions of that tool.

 

She cleaved the arms off of one man as Roe’gall tore another in half, spattering the temple floors with blood. The temple itself seemed to react in glee at the offering, and as the Force swirled within the Gray Master, it found an outlet in a spurt of fire that tossed itself from her opposite palm.

 

As she danced, some other awareness tugged at her. For a moment, her senses contracted, and she knew without a doubt that somehow, Quietus had arrived. She couldn’t deny the swell of joy that immediately came with that sensation, but as her feet spun her around to face him, she saw only the lithe form of her aunt. The shock almost caused her to stumble. She had been so certain he was here. But there was no doubting her senses; the feeling of his presence had come from Jaina.

 

She swallowed the anger and regret and, yes, jealousy, feeding it into the Force. It was just a trick, another manifestation of that inexplicable bond between her aunt and her ex-lover. A bit of dark pleasure coursed through her as Jaina suddenly realized it too, but the pleasure vanished as Jaina’s guard dropped. Emily was by her side in an instant, ready to defend her, but Jaina responded to the situation by throwing out a blast of energy. Emily rolled to the side, and Roe’gall leapt high above the blast, landing by Emily’s side on all 6 legs with a thump heavy enough to leave a small crater.

 

In the wake of the blast, there was a sudden silence, broken only by the hum of the purple and bronze lightsabers and the breathless panting of the horde. For a moment, there was no movement on either side.

 

And then whatever spell had been on the attacking beings broke. They scattered and fled for their lives.

Emily%202015_zps34rpkjob.jpg

 

"Days in the sun...what I'd give to relive just one. Undo what's done, and bring back the light."

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With a trammeled groan, Jaina’s saber disappeared, vanishing back into its emitter as though reluctant to leave the open air. Trembling hands secured it back on her belt, and her stomach turned as she surveyed the damage they had wrought. Bodies, and pieces of bodies, littered the ground, fierce and hateful faces giving no indication of the terror and blood of their last short moments. A hollow glance met Emily’s eyes as Jaina exhaled shakily, the adrenaline dissipating. All the words that came to mind were inadequate to explain or address what had just happened, and from the pain in Emily’s eyes, Jaina knew it had not gone unnoticed. Engines firing without purchase in her mind, she finally abandoned the effort to think of something to say, and resolved to get back to the task at hand.

 

As she picked her steps carefully through the carnage left behind, she reached out in the Force to detect signs of life, in the hopes that they might gather some information--any information--that might justify the destruction that had occurred here. A flicker of life remained in one of the limbless bodies that lay in a heap near Emily’s feet, and Jaina jutted her chin out to indicate the creature.

 

“See what you can find. I’ll take a closer look at these glyphs,” she murmured quietly, attempting to hide the nausea that boiled up within her at her own failure as she turned back toward the ornamental wall.

53bzzl2.png

...why are the pretty ones always the most hazardous to your health?

May the Forth therve you well...

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Jaina seemed distraught. It was curious to see firsthand. Never before had Emily been in a situation where she could see what brushing the dark side did to a Jedi’s psyche. Honestly, she found it a little ridiculous. The Force was the Force. Yes, there were different ways to harness it, and different ways it would respond, and Emily believed it made a difference mentally, but deep down it was all the same power. Light and dark were really just labels. From that perspective, Jaina’s hesitancy was strange, especially since Emily knew Jaina had once trained as a Sith herself.

 

But no matter. Emily stowed her lightsaber and turned her focus down to the creature in front of her. He was beyond agony and was simply in shock, his eyes glazed. There was no use trying to converse with him. Instead, Emily used the Force to plunge a mental dagger into his mind, searching for information. Images flashed before her eyes. Beings in shadow attacking the village seemingly without provocation. Superior weaponry and strange Force magicks. And, tellingly, corpses of those they cut down rising again and turning to tear at their own former family and friends, their eyes haunted by a misty purple glow. The survivors had fled deep into the underground caves. They hadn’t been pursued. One month passed, then two. Eventually, they had dared to send out scouts. This man laying on the floor before her had been one of those scouts. She saw through his eyes as he watched the Cultists center their attention on the ziggurat, moving equipment in and out. Once, by night, the temple was lit from the inside with an unearthly white glow. Then one day, all in a hurry, they packed up their equipment and vanished back into the sky.

 

But there was one last memory that Emily honed in on. A report from another scout, just two rotations around Yavin ago. Reports of a strange woman, an offworlder, camping deep in the brush. The report had thrown the village into uproar. They had gathered their things and prepared to leave. But then Emily and Jaina had come. And when they had stepped foot into the temple, the man had heard a buzzing noise. He had felt a build up of pressure in his brain. And suddenly, there was nothing but rage.

 

At her feet, the man twitched and let out a sudden scream of agony. With one quick application of the Force, Emily stopped his heart, and the scream broke off. “Jaina,” she said suddenly. “The Cult did this. And I think they’re still here.”

 

She turned and quickly headed over to the brunette, sharing what she had learned from the being’s mind as she walked. “We need to find out what they learned, and we need to find this watcher,” she finished. When she saw Jaina’s face, however, she reached out a hand and touched her aunt’s shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?”

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"Days in the sun...what I'd give to relive just one. Undo what's done, and bring back the light."

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Fingers traced the now-blood-splattered runes hacked into the wall as if they could divine some deeper meaning from a simple touch of the hand. Jaina’s reticence to open her soul to the dark swirl of tempestuous energy pulsing from the heart of these stones, infused with the power of a long-dead Sith Master who had carved his mark into the galaxy as surely as the chisels of his beaten slaves carved the hieroglyphs that had now captured her attention, soured the determined expression on her face. She had arrived as a master of the order of balance, full of light and life and ambition, and now slunk away from the fight she had won with the shame of an apprentice who had failed another proscribed test. But what was the lesson to be learned here? Emily’s eagerness to dive into the fray and leave scores of innocents dead by her hand was not shocking, but it did reflect a significant difference of operating procedure that might have to be addressed if they were going to continue to try to work together. If she were being honest, had that vitriol been unleashed on the sinister cultists who had been seemingly been steering her steps from the moment she stood in the craggy shale door of her broken tomb, she might not have taken such exception to her niece’s approach.

 

That, however, was not what had triggered the reflex to dive so deep within herself that she became undetectable.

 

The fire and rage of a Sith Warrior had pulsed through her veins the moment she acquiesced to raise her saber. So sure of herself, of the purity of her intentions, of her whitewashed renewal confirmed by those who had accepted her as a commander, she had not measured the possibility of her impenetrable bond with Raynuk affecting more than just her emotional stability. As always, they were fire and ice, tempering one another. But it seemed now to Jaina that if his fire melted the ice of her convictions, or if her ice freezed the fire of his fervor, they would rob from one another the essence of identity, bringing a tragic and violent end to their inexorable polarities. Mustafar without magma became only a barren husk of rock, hurtling through space without purpose or importance, but Hoth without its snowdrifts would be much the same.

 

Perhaps the true issue was that there was no deeper motivation, no flowering life hiding within either of them, at their core simply purposeless, mere asteroids drifting near one another, hoping for the chance that their paths would bring them to collision before sending them spinning hopelessly through empty infinite abyss.

 

But that was no way for a Jedi to think.

 

If she could root out this Cult of Morthos, bring peace to Emily, be the mother she had never been able to be before Nhagathul had taken her daughter, wield herself as a weapon of justice and control her fearful selfishness for the good of the weak and oppressed… perhaps fending off the negative side effects of her inseparable connection to Raynuk would infuse hope for the Force to find its way to true balance.

 

Darkness rises, and light to meet it.

 

Returning her attention to the eerily warm stones, she reexamined the etchings. As she had noticed before, the dusty, mossy stone was interrupted at the far end, where the symbols of the Sith and Jedi seemed to stand at opposition. Between them, there was a symbol, its newness at odds with the ancient glyphs that marked the rest of the stones, that bore resemblance to a supernova or a dying star. She couldn’t quite make out which it was, but it was larger than the others, and seemed to be absorbing them. Perhaps a black hole.

 

Swallowing her anxiety, she placed her hand against the stone, unfolding her senses to tap into the rudimentary psychometry she had been taught as an adolescent under Tinova’s instruction. She could not seem to conjure imagery, try as she might, but a horrifying emptiness seemed to grasp at her ankles with tendrils of malice. It was like a slowly deepening twilight, a cold nihilism that seemed to absorb any peace she might have brought with her. Pangs of fear struck her with every heartbeat, and it seemed like her grasp on the Force was slipping, as if the energy itself was leaving her body.

 

With a frightened gasp, she opened her eyes, haunted by the sudden recollection of where she had felt such a sensation before. She had felt it, creeping through corridors on Acrid, mortally wounded and trying to hold herself together long enough to rescue Tares from the fate that consumed him, as she slowly felt his warm strength dissipate into nothingness, the Force drained from his body like the water from inside of the Chadra-fans’ shellfruit.

 

Emily’s voice pulled her fully back to the present, feeling the Force rush back to full strength within her body like the blood rushing back into a limb whose circulation had been suddenly restored. A disorienting chill ran up her spine, and she could feel the blood drain from her face: there would be no disguising her horror.

 

“The Cult aren’t the only ones who have been here,” she said hollowly.

 

At least she had a mark, a starting place, beyond the mystery of the Unknown Regions into which she had barely plumbed. At last, she had someone to blame, something responsible for all that had been stolen from her. Her life had faded in a Hapan hospital. Ashley’s memories had been stolen. Tares had the fabric of the Force torn away from the lining of his soul, a Jedi Master fallen from grace and living a cursed life as an invalid. Tirzah’s soul, ripped from her body and shuttled out of the very galaxy.

 

Even Andon had forgotten her, until the very end, gone farther than she could have ever imagined out of the galaxy, searching for something that he had lost, as she slowly decayed over the span of years, while Emily grew older and made mistakes Jaina could have saved her from, while Tirzah constructed the slow tale of her unimportance and unworthiness, while the galaxy crumbled into chaos and the Jedi into petty squabbles and ruin.

 

Irate fire sprang up in her once more, echoed but not fueled by the ziggurat around them. The Cult was Emily’s prey. Whoever had left this carving, this black hole that had stolen the light of goodness from her life, they were Jaina’s. She would find them, and she would make them suffer in kind as she had suffered. For Tirzah. For Ashley. For Andon.

 

Flames flashed behind her green-flecked eyes, when suddenly her comlink and datapad, both in the satchel firmly strung across her back, began emitting alarms.

 

Then the world ended, and was reborn.

 

Dust-covered moss and stifling humid air disappeared, the stones of the ziggurat fading away within her mind. From nothingness he emerged, as perfect as she had ever remembered him, if weathered by the passage of lonely time. The signature jagged scar traced the line of the galaxy’s woes exacted upon his otherwise perfect face, and her fingers yearned to follow that familiar path. For the space of seconds, she stared in disbelief. This was a trick of the Force, a mutilation of the dark side, capitalizing on her hopelessness by reminding her of all that she had given up to follow this path.

 

He spoke, and her veins became lava, and the volcano of her hope erupted in salt water lahar. Three words that he barely seemed to believe himself, but they shattered the galaxy.

 

”I am alive.”

 

Paralyzed by hope, she stood, mutely staring at the visage that had so constantly haunted her dreams, her personal poltergeist. All that lies in me, all that dies in me… her heart replied readily. Only now that she had finally found a way to continue without him in the work he had set out to do had he returned. She had abdicated hope, stopped her search, she had accepted his death as fact as he had accepted hers, forgetting that in a galaxy where the Force bound all together, magic ought to be accepted and miracles expected. The folly of such a choice became painfully apparent to her, her heart wreathing itself in sadness as heavy as solid ore.

 

How can I live without you?

 

Trembling hands reached out to cup his face, but as though the very act sent him back into whatever corner of the galaxy had swallowed him, his image began to waver. It faded to reveal her own shocked and desperate expression mirrored on the face of her niece.

 

“He’s alive,” Jaina whispered, tears rolling down her face. “He’s alive.”

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...why are the pretty ones always the most hazardous to your health?

May the Forth therve you well...

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Question: Could any choice be considered difficult in the absence of consequence? Conjecture: Depends if you cared to begin with.

 

He didn’t, if you were curious to know.

 

In his desperation, our Traveler had channeled… something… primal and relentless in pursuit of that which he desired. His journey had taken him to fantastical worlds and planes of unnerving solitude, yet this had been the capstone to his one-man crusade against the reach of infinity. A fissure in time, this is what he had fractured throughout the very core of the omniverse: everywhere, everywhen, and everyhow. By sheer force of will, he had replaced all thought and communication, for every being that had ever lived within every possible when. One does not accomplish this without consequence, for his ripple in eternity had carved a salient path from now to never, and back again.

 

And within a catacomb, whose heart was deeper than dark, something had stirred when it had heard Andon’s lamentation, wrapped in a guise of triumph. For he could scream into infinity, but the final secret of its mastery had still managed to elude him. That final clairvoyant piece that would allow him to return to his world, to his wife and daughter, was an evanescent trail that taunted him with its disappearance during each new rise of the sun. The closer he came to finally unraveling this last mystery, the further it distanced him from what he coveted.

 

He could sense the entity now, faintly, roaring as an echo into the oblivion between reality and unexistence. It was far from him, if such a context as “far” and “distant” could truly hold any meaning. He understood that it didn’t; not anymore. But he had become very good at hiding. He was able to embark on a journey into any point of existence, yet recuse himself from leaving footprints that he had treaded anywhere to begin with. It was, moderately unlikely, that such an entity could track him so blatantly. And if it did, he would simply nullify it, as he always had. It was a problem that would need to be remedied, but today was not that day. Not after sensing… her.

 

Honestly, I’m not even sure this would make the Top 3 Creation Catastrophe list. I mean, what happened in the Room of Infinite Thrones probably holds two spots alone. But I digress, now back to my girl…

 

It was cold where Jaina was, he could feel the shiver of a howling chill trace along the cosmic-lattice he now called his bones. He could not tell if it came from without or within, however, for there was a static hum of interference hovering about her. As if some construct were attempting to deflect and redirect his attempts to identify her location elsewhere. Such a simple, silly little place, he mused to himself. He smiled without laughter, as if you could deny this Traveler capable of witnessing every moment of every whenever. He reached out to every point of being, and drew them unto himself. He reached inward to every splinter of his essence along the various currents and tides that interwove the great tapestry of time.

 

You know, cosmic stuff. No big deal.

 

He started inward with the most cherished memory he possessed: the day Jaina agreed to be his. From this furnace of longing, he created a point of refraction to channel his will outward, a proverbial message in a bottle, to act as a beacon for him to pursue. He used the multitudes of his existential fragments to hone in on her exact location, pinging from point to point, reverberating in a collision of energy the closer it came to her. And from this cacophony of sound and energy, he followed it to her; a literal gateway of music and color brought him home to his wife. He could see the system now, and before his eyes the speck of light that was its star grew vibrant and raced towards him at impossible speed. Within the orbit of this star, a gas giant the color of a Corellian sunset hung suspended, a perfect siren song bringing him ever closer. And from the giant, a lone moon gave way to the final legato in his ethereal symphony. Though he could not cross the shoreline to her, he had located his bride.

 

Yavin IV. I am coming soon…

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"The Cult aren't the only ones who have been here."

 

Jaina's reply echoed in Emily's mind strangely. Perhaps it was simply because it was not the reply the Grey Master had been expecting; perhaps it was because of Jaina's hollow tone; or perhaps it was the sudden fire that she sensed ignite in her aunt. Perhaps it was all of those, or perhaps it was the sudden lump of dread in Emily's own gut. But overall, it felt like a blow to an already fragile foundation. Things were already bad enough--the Cult was prowling, Faust was back and undoubtedly trying to finish what he had started, and now there was something else, something that could make her aunt's very blood turn to flame? In how many different directions must they be pulled?

 

Her fingers reached out and tentatively made contact with the symbol. Then she gathered herself. No time to fall apart. You've done too much of that recently. Reaching into a pouch at her belt, she pulled out her datapad. She'd take holos of everything here; there had to be a clue, if not to the reason the Cult had been here, then maybe to the reason this other group had been. Unless they were working together. The feeling of dread intensified.

 

But in the next heartbeat, all the dread vanished into hope. There on the screen of her datapad appeared a face she knew; a face that she hadn't seen for almost a decade. She started and in her surprise, the datapad tumbled from her hands and clattered onto the stone floor of the temple. But it was no mere data short or crossed wires; for a moment, her uncle's face wavered also in her mind's eye. "I am alive," he said, his voice echoing with time and distance.

 

And then he was gone, and Emily found the courage to meet Jaina's eyes. Jaina was weeping, tears of hope and pain and desperation, and Emily did the only thing she could think of: she reached out with trembling hands and slowly embraced her aunt. "He's alive," she echoed, adding her own joyful tears to the mix. "Oh, Jaina..."

 

How can it be? How is it possible? she thought as she squeezed her aunt. But really, why I am surprised? Why is the Force always doing this? Someone leaves, someone returns. Someone dies, and someone is reborn.

 

Suddenly, a terrible thought struck her, and she stiffened and caught her breath. "Oh," she whispered. "Oh, no." She drew back, and wiped away some of her tears. "Jaina...I want this to be a good thing. I really, really do. And to some extent, it is. But..." she was hesitant to bring it up. But Jaina deserved full openness. "It's just that, the last time someone came back, it was you. And if you look at everything that's happened, really everything...and where we are now..." She realized she was rambling, and took a deep breath to steady herself. "Jaina, what if the Cult brought him back? What if it's a trap?" Now that she had said it out loud, it seemed obvious that that was the truth.

 

Her lower lip trembled. "I want to find him. We need to find him. But we need to do this the right way, or we'll be walking right into it." She was forcibly reminded of Quietus' agony, debating whether to go after the Cult or after Jaina, and his eventual decision that the Cult was more important, despite the fact that everything in his heart was pulling him the other way. It had been the right decision, she knew. But clearly the Cult had learned how difficult of a decision that had been for him. When Emily had gotten on their trail, they had tormented her. And now that Jaina was tracking them, too, they were doing their best to distract and destroy her.

 

Well, not on Emily's watch. "Don't let the Cult win. Andon's return is amazing, and incredible, and wonderful beyond words...but not if you let them use him to manipulate you."

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"Days in the sun...what I'd give to relive just one. Undo what's done, and bring back the light."

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It had taken Cassandra the better part of an hour to secure and pack her makeshift camp, fully expecting that the team sent by her superiors was going to extract her from Yavin IV. But even then, they had told the woman to return to the Massassi Temple and to secure the centerpieces of her research and study, and in her mind the sooner those tasks were completed the more ready she would be for the shuttle off planet.

 

Making her way through the often dense jungles of Yavin IV was never meant to be easy, but having traveled to the temple from her small encampment at least twice a day for months had given Cassandra the insight into the landscape to effectively traverse the space, with the least impact on the jungle itself and its carefully balanced ecosystem. She had learned especially to steer clear of the nearby villagers who had appeared to grow more aggressive since Cassandra and her team had arrived months before.

 

The nature of their increased aggression, initially a subject of interest to Cassandra and her curious mind that was always seeking to learn, was quickly replaced by the intensity of the study into the materials she had been tasked with; there simply wasn’t enough time for her or any of her colleagues to spend studying the change in the native’s society. But even knowing full well that they had become aggressive and violent, it did not prepare Cassandra for her arrival at the temple itself.

 

The only thing that prevented a scream of fear and shock from rupturing from Cassandra’s throat at the sight of dozens of those villagers laying slain within the temple, was the fact that she heard voices from deeper within the temple. She instead clamped her hands over her mouth, reducing the instinctual scream to little more than a quiet squeak, and began to carefully pick her way around the bodies scattered by the entrance, ducking into the first hidden side passage that she came upon.

 

In those few moments where her heartbeat was deafening following the discovery, Cassandra was suddenly and momentarily grateful that spending so much time stuck studying this temple had afforded her with knowing the layout of the passages and rooms tucked within; it was hopefully enough to allow her to skirt around the pair of voices within the temple and still get to her destination without being seen.

 

Because whoever they were, Cassandra didn’t want to meet them. It was not a far leap of logic to assume that these were the people she had witnessed landing, and had subsequently been warned about. And with their arrival, the vast majority of the nearby native village were laying dead within the temple.

 

Whoever they were… Cassandra knew one thing now. They were murderers, and not worthy of stealing the ancient and priceless knowledge within the Massassi Temple.

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I ate a hippo. It was delicious.

May the Forth therve you well...

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Dissonance interrupted the chord of Jaina’s elation on every side, and her countenance darkened as the storm clouds of emotion rolled in. Her brow knitted together as she weighed within rational limits whether Emily was saying this protectively, to be cautious, or out of retribution--she would not see Jaina gain back that modicum of joy that she had lost. Here within this dark tower, the two were so obscured as to look the same to her frazzled mind. So desperately was she trying to cling to the sight of the one she loved so perfectly framed in her mind, that Emily’s opinion simply served as an irritation.

 

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” her eyes narrowed, in disbelief and in pain. “Kriff, Emily, if he’s alive, I don’t care a microparsec whether or not the Cult had a hand in it. They’re playing with things that are too big for them. They brought me back without even knowing it. We have to go after him.”

 

That relentless determination filled her eyes, and there would be no argument to sway her. “I have to find him.”

 

Emily grimaced. “I know, Jaina, I know. But instead of blasting off half-cocked, can we make a plan? Gather information? Just...make sure we’re prepared for every eventuality?” She bit her lip. “If this is the Cult, then they want you to sense that he’s back. They want you to rush off blindly and unprepared. I wasn’t prepared for my tangle with them. I don’t want the same thing to happen to you.”

 

The bitterness in Emily’s words was striking, and Jaina found herself wondering, daring for the first time to ask the question she had not yet mustered the ability to ask. “What did they do to you, Emily?” There was no accusation in her words, no suspicion, only the compassion that welled up from within the heart that managed to remember the truth of who stood before her now. None of this was about Andon, that much seemed clear. It was Emily’s pain that boiled over, that splashed a hateful tint on all good things. It seemed that, to Emily, all good and beautiful things served to do was carve a gash in the side of one’s soul, opening her to the infection of pain.

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...why are the pretty ones always the most hazardous to your health?

May the Forth therve you well...

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The urgent caution in Emily’s eyes faded into dullness, and she leaned heavily against the rune-covered wall. For a moment, she didn’t speak, but she knew that it was only her words that could prevent Jaina from being put into a similar situation. She took a deep breath, then looked up, those dead eyes meeting her aunt’s. “They put me through hell. The Cult was hunting me. Because of my connection with Quietus.” Her voice was quiet and lacking emotion. “They tracked me down over Coruscant, grabbed my ship. I fought with everything in me, but...they captured me. Tortured me.” She swallowed and her voice dropped to a tremulous whisper. “Tore open my womb with my own lightsaber and slaughtered my baby…” The tears that had been her constant companion spilled over, but other than that, she showed dead hollowness as her only emotion. “Then they just...dumped me off with the Remnant. They assumed the Imperials would kill me or imprison me or brainwash me or whatever they’re doing to Sith these days, but one of the Imperial Knights let me go.” She let out a bitter chuckle. “Not sure she did me much of a favor.” A bit of urgency returned to the Garey Master’s face. “I won’t let them win again. They’ll hurt you if they can. They’ll hurt everyone Quietus cares about to try to get to him. And if they know about this bond you have…” She shook her head, and dropped her gaze. “Please. Don’t rush into this.”

 

Wordlessly, Jaina crossed the gap between herself and her niece, wrapping the younger woman in an unreserved embrace. Quiet filled the ziggurat as the two women, bereaved mothers, clung to one another, simple understanding passing between them. There was something else at the root of Jaina’s urgency, but it seemed disrespectful, nigh irreverent, to Emily’s grief to brush aside the warning that she so desperately gave. “I’m not afraid,” she said quietly, the simple resolve of the light filling her words. Holding her niece at arm’s length once more, clasping both shoulders with her hands, Jaina smiled gently. “Besides, I have you to look after me.”

 

“You will be,” Emily replied. “You should be.” Jaina’s attempt to cheer her up didn’t help at all. “I clearly am not able to look after anyone,” she retorted bitterly. “I couldn’t even--” her voice hitched, “I couldn’t even protect my own baby.”

 

Grave sorrow filled Jaina’s features. “Neither could I,” she whispered delicately.

 

Emily closed her eyes. “Yeah. I’m sorry, Jaina. I just...if we can do the research, find out what they were after, maybe it’ll give us a clue that will help us if---no, when--the Cult catches up with us again. Isn’t that worth a few days more of waiting?”

 

A sudden scowl crossed Jaina’s features, and she held up a hand. At some point during the time they had been talking, Roe’gall had vanished from the room. Perhaps unrelated--perhaps not, there was a sudden spike of fear, amplified by the echo of the darkness within the Temple, that crossed her awareness like a firework shooting through the sky on Life Day. They were no longer alone.

 

The presence she felt was distinctly different from the barely sentient natives who had so carelessly thrown their lives away in useless defense. A wary knot formed in her stomach, and without even thinking, Jaina found her lightsaber clutched firmly in her right hand. Locking eyes momentarily with Emily, she whispered through the Force. Looks like we have an eavesdropper, came the grave admission.

 

Immediately, Emily’s eyes flew open and she straightened, her emotions locked up again behind a wall of ice. All business again, she mirrored Jaina’s pose in drawing her lightsaber, leaving it unlit in her hand as she reached out through the Force. From her blood-bond with Roe’gall came a primal satisfaction. “They won’t be hidden for long,” she returned confidently. “Let’s see what this is about.”

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"Days in the sun...what I'd give to relive just one. Undo what's done, and bring back the light."

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Cassandra had made her way past the bodies strewn across the floor, and was creeping along one of the smaller corridors of the ancient temple as quietly as she could. Already emotionally frayed by what she had seen, she pressed on nonetheless out of sheer determination to finish the job she had been given. There was no illumination this deep within the temple, and given the fact that she knew there were others nearby, there was no way she was going to shine a physical and metaphorical light on her presence. Instead, she was simply trying to navigate the corridor by memory and her hand gentle grazing along the wall.

 

The low, soft growl that echoed behind her stopped Cassandra dead in her tracks though. Months spent on this planet and in this temple, and she had never heard a growl like that before, and that frightened her more than anything else. She waited a few seconds, struggling to keep herself calm, and then took a few more cautious steps forward until another, louder growl stopped her again. She knew then that whatever it was, it had seen her in the darkness somehow.

She slowly turned in the darkness, willing her eyes to see into the blackness behind her, to give her some measure of sanity, to think that it was just her mind and her ears playing the cruelest of tricks upon her. But instead she became suddenly aware of the soft sound of large, padded feet upon the stonework floor, edging ever closer to her, sending her two steps backwards, deeper into the corridor.

 

Whump….whump...whump…

 

The first thing she saw was a set of red eyes that seemed to glow all their own, slowly bobbing in the darkness to the sound of the padded feet. Cassandra couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped, the confirming knowledge that it was not of this world sending a freezing icicle right to her soul.

 

Remove and secure the tablet and ancient samples. the message had said. That is your only mission now. And for a brief moment, Cassandra steeled herself against the darkness that was quite literally looming towards her. She knew this temple inside and out; better than this monster that hunted her, and better than whoever had killed the natives. So with the starburst of determination burning in her chest, Cassandra turned, and ran down the corridor, abandoning all hope of remaining unheard by the people she had heard before.

 

The soft padding of the beast turned to thunderous pounding instantly as it gave chase, but only five meters down the corridor Cassandra jolted sideways through an opening, diving into a doorway and practically falling to the ground with the move. She scrambled to regain her footing, standing back up and spinning to try and slam the stone door shut before the beast could consume her.

 

She nearly did just that, but the beast was quicker than she expected. She threw her entire body weight against the door, and was nearly thrown backwards as the monster arrived and pushed against the door, sending it sliding open a few more inches. She instantly pushed harder, and for the first time she physically saw the monster when a clawed paw the size of her entire head raked the air beside her through the doorway. She wedged her entire body against the door, bracing herself against the wall next to it with a grunt of exertion, and realized she had one chance.

 

Cassandra was at her base, an archeologist; a seeker of knowledge. A smart young woman who wanted nothing more than to recover what had been lost to time. That was what brought her to Yavin IV, and to this very temple. She respected the process of time, never feeling sad or upset that an entire species or community expanded past their limits and fell back to ruin or vanished completely; it merely gave her and others like her new things to explore, and find, and study. Murder was never something she could rationalize, especially slaughter on the scale that she had seen above. Violence was always going to be a last resort to her. Even when the natives had grown more agitated and prone to it, Cassandra had avoided confrontation with them entirely.

 

So when the leader of her group had handed her a dagger upon their initial arrival at Yavin IV, Cassandra reluctantly took it, just as all the others had that day. After all, they were on a jungle planet filled with predators and potentially hostile locals they had been told, and having a way to defend yourself when the poodoo hit the fan was good policy, her leader had said. She had never carried it all these months, choosing to leave it sitting in the camp unused. Over time she had begun to admire it for the way it had been crafted, treating it as she would any other weapon she had found in one of her excavations.

 

But with packing up her site, the dagger and its sheath were simply too much of an awkward shape to pack away with everything else, and had ended up being clipped to her belt when she made her way back to the temple to secure the artifacts. And now it was potentially going to save her life, or at least, her mission.

 

She pushed with all her strength against the wall and the door, but when it didn’t budge and another claw came thrashing through the gap, Cassandra ripped the dagger from its sheath and began wildly and horribly stabbing at the gap in the door. It was only a matter of time before she got lucky, and the dagger found its mark, sinking nearly to the hilt into the monster’s limb. Cassandra heard a startled cry of pain from the beast as it recoiled from the blow, ripping the handle from her hand as it stayed embedded. But more importantly, the door she was pressing against slammed shut as the monster recoiled.

 

It was quick enough that Cassandra once again fell to the floor as the door gave way, but quicker than before she scrambled back up and slammed the heavy wooden brace across the doorway, sealing it and cutting off her monsterous pursuer. She couldn’t afford to wait however, and as adrenaline gave way to the cold sense of fear again, Cassandra stumbled down this new corridor in pursuit of her goals.

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I ate a hippo. It was delicious.

May the Forth therve you well...

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Without the moss carpeting the walls and the floor, the sealed stone hallways had no way of dampening the waves of sound ricocheting through the entire temple. The sounds of scuffling met Jaina’s ears just as she began to move to pursue the massive tuk’ata, and after an almighty thud and a primal yelp of pain, her speed only increased. Her footsteps carried her deeper within the temple, higher up to the next floor, dashing past open rooms that were so consumed with darkness that any number of foul things could have been hiding within them. When she reached the end of the corridor, it was only to find that the door to the next set of stairs had been bolted shut, and Roe’gall was dripping blood profusely from a large gash in his gargantuan paw, still punctuated by the hilt of the cruel dagger that inflicted the wound.

 

The rise and fall of her chest elevated by her exertion, she paused in the hallway to assess the situation. Their quarry would keep: there was only one way out of this Temple, and there were no visible hangars from the outside like there were in some of the larger temples closer to the moon’s equator. With a single extension of her palm and a visceral thrust through the Force, the wooden brace buckled and the stone barricade flew off its hinges, obliterating itself into miniscule pieces as it crashed into the steps beyond.

 

“See to him, I’ll go after them,” she yelled decisively.

 

Her pace quickened as she leapt up the steps after the interloper. Moments later, she burst into another chamber similar to the one in which the horde had attacked: smaller, but dustier, and darker, the only light coming from a single window at the far end. There was no immediate sign of her quarry, and any number of openings on the far side of the wall that led to innumerable crannies and corridors yet to be searched, however, a prone form lying silhouetted in the backlit dust caught her attention. Squatting to catch a closer glimpse, her investigation revealed a human male, aged approximately forty revolutions, whose face revealed the stony seizure of rigor mortis. His clothing was plain, dark grey robes without sigil or insignia, and the only clue she had to guess the cause of his death was the red dust that lay like a halo around his head. Tilting her chin to the ceiling, she peered at the ring of ledges running around the upper half of the wall, and concluded that it could have been as simple as a fall accident. But that did not account for the strange pull at the back of her mind. Laying her hand gently across his cold forehead, she closed her eyes, reaching into the past for any hope of learning what had taken place.

 

The molecular complexity of the galaxy burst forward in her mind, and she followed the web of her own nervous system from the very cortex of thought down to the tips of her fingers. There, the Force did its work, tying her senses to the air that surrounded her, the very fabric of space-time. The tingle of electric energy, the stuff of life, cried out with violent injustice around the spacial confines of the man’s corpse. Her rudimentary psychometry still yielded no answers, and his death was no longer recent enough to glean any information from his decomposing mind.

 

But there was something else.

 

So focused was she on the adrenaline of her chase that she nearly missed it.

 

Had it been a day, a week, a month previous, she would have attributed it to the touch of Raynuk’s mind on hers, exerting the constant but gentle pressure of his consciousness, a simple reminder that her soul was not her own. Out of habit, she reached for him instinctively, brushing his mind like the familiar caress of fingers clasping, feeling the ferality of his battle fervor, and something more she couldn’t quite place--an emotion for which she had a word, but one that so ill-suited Raynuk that she could scarcely call it for what it was. Never had she seen him under the weight of that first stepping stone leading to darkness, that one that plagued her so constantly, but had never been his particular vice. Even now, feeling the mortified truth of that reality, she could not bring herself to name it.

 

Even so, it was not Raynuk’s soul that called to her in the fragment of that moment.

 

Realization at her mistake brought a hot flush of panic to her cheeks, but belaying her natural instinct to shutter the windows and bar the door, the inseparable bond resisted contention. Inexorably tied to his fate by such a link, fashioned by the rib of his reawakening, she would remain vulnerable to his sight.

 

Likely, she thought wistfully, he could not long bear up under the joy that bubbled in her heart at the truth of the voice that now called to her, and she could not long bear up under the pain she would doubtless inflict upon him.

 

It seemed that even greatest joy could not remain unmarred by deepest grief.

 

Recalling her attention from the dead man, her eyes fixed upon the glimmer of day at the far end of the room, her mind nearly dazed, she rose to her feet in fluid motion. With trance-like steps she walked into the beam of dusty light, letting the haze of twilight wash her psyche as a single tear traced her cheekbone and fell to oblivion. Why was she here? It no longer mattered.

 

The siren song called her from the forest, called her to the oasis, called her back in time and space to where she had no hope of returning.

 

With a swift, single motion, she crouched and leapt, her strong legs carrying her impossibly to land on the upper ledge. It was a small opening, crumbling cracks in ancient walls, but from within its view, the shroud of the rainforest whispered an invitation.

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...why are the pretty ones always the most hazardous to your health?

May the Forth therve you well...

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The needle like craft of the Black Sun Shuttle Lost Child emerged over the long lost rebel stronghold of the fourth moon of Yavin. The white painted shuttle glimmered in the reflection of the gas giant as it continued its course through the atmosphere, pinging away with a messenger beacon comm. It was crewed by droids slaved to the ship itself. Unlike most slaved droids who’s soul existence was to pilot and fly, these had been programmed with distinct personalities and the deep felt desire for freedom. Only after that programming did they recieve droid restraining bolts. Forever dooming them to an internal fight against their slavery.

The ship homed on towards the distant comm link signal of on Jaina Jade Skywalker the young, previously married, star of the jedi council.

 

When the shuttle landed it would open only to her touch. To reveal four baby banthas and four porgs to ride them all with golden saddles, encrusted with jewelry. A golden notecard addressed her when read described the ornate gift.

 

Hello deary, these are the Four Porgsman of the Apocalypse which I think would be a fitting gift for your little one. Speaking of, now that your hubby is like definately not coming back to life, you wanna go on that date to manaan? I think I got distracted conquering Kashyyyk. My Bad.

 

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Ca'Aran

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Waking Up - Oblivion

 

 

When the natives said, “Staircase of Lifetimes”, they weren’t exaggerating.

 

It was a rough translation, but an accurate one, for it felt as if he had been walking up these stone steps for decades. It would have been decades, had measures of time carried any relevancy in the lands he found himself in. They didn’t, of course. This is the place that time had long abandoned. Or perhaps it had never ventured here to begin with. It was of no consequence, for the top was finally within his view.

Perhaps “top” was too small of a word to describe what he was embarking upon. For little energy beings of shadow and light, they carried complex meaning within their simplistic language. Inflections could alter entire meanings of sentences, with but a single change in syllable’s annunciation. He had spent much time talking with them, to confirm the tale they spun. They spoke in earnest of the staircase he had nearly completed, warning him fervently against attempting to ascend to its peak. The phrase they had used, was “Genesis Summit”.

 

They sung to him how it was the place where first life came to a close and second life began. What second life entailed, he could not determine. So much time had already been lost in search of this place, confirmation that he had found his destination would have to do. Still, it was unnerving. It was unnerving, because he knew exactly what is was. Its proper name was far less eloquent than title imbued by his little friends. In all writings, it was simply referred to “The Precipice”; and it was a gateway.

 

Where did it go? Anywhere. What was on the other side? Nothing.

 

Here before him, was the door to any answer sought, if one were brave to enough to turn the handle and cross its plane. From all he had studied, it was a one-way trip and his little friends did not tell of any who had returned to boast of their journey. The mystery of it being everlasting eternity or agonizing death was indeterminable until one crossed the threshold. It was sheer anticipation.

 

The perfect adventure…

 

**

 

Until now, he had not felt anticipation since that day. But here, on Yavin IV, his pulse quickened to a pace unrivaled by that day. But he was different now, a Traveler of many worlds and many times: all of them, in fact. But his life with Jaina was still the greatest adventure that he had left to live. In his solemn place, reserved for none but his own dreams, he reached out and opened its bounty to her mind.

 

Are you going to day-dream the night away?

 

It was the faintest whisper, barely perceivable in any sense of the word, but it deafened any other sound that could be summoned upon this world. It stirred Jaina from her revere of deep thought, searching for a voice that could not be found.

 

I wondered if you’d wake.

 

Outside. It was coming from outside, speaking in such a familiar tone, as if it knew her. It almost carried a hint of playfulness. She leapt high and far onto a ledge, intrepid steps taking her to an opening within the wall that revealed the forest outside. She dared to peer through the opening, but there was nothing to be found. She waited, straining to hear if the voice would speak again. Nothing, an achingly frustrating nothing. She gazed downward, wondering if she was succumbing to madness, only shaken from this revere by a pebble softly striking the lower portion of the opening. She gazed up, but still nothing. A heavy wind picked up, swirling all about the forest in a haunting howl. Debris from the forest floor were cast all about; brush, blades of grass, leaves, and flower petals tumbled just outside the opening. The wind continued its call of the wild, but strangely, it appeared to be centralized within the center of the tree line’s opening. The leaves and petals continued to swirl about, in an increasingly tight and intricate pattern. The gap between the swirling foliage melded and closed, taking on a shape. It was vague at first, but a torso could be made out. From the swirling torso, the breeze extended downward into a pair of legs and then outward into a pair of arms. Finally, from the tumbling miasma, a final aspect took substance: a head.

 

Standing fifty yards out from her, was a human form composed of nothing more than wind, leaves, grass, and petals. The cascade was softly swirling with just enough force to hold the form as tangible; it was an increasingly human form. Its arm reached out to her, beckoning for her to come. Such a strange sight, but it radiated such warmth, standing at a stark contrast to the chill that surrounded this moon. She starred in disbelief.

 

How much longer must I wait?

 

This ethereal voice, more intimate than the last. Jaina made the choice to find a way outside to it. The opening in the wall groaned before shuddering, a crack forming downward within its lines. All was silent for a moment, when before her eyes, the small window aperture spread into a grand door. The entrance was oval-shaped, with a protruding arch. Within the arch, there was a language carved into its intricate pattern of thorns and blossoms. She could not read it, nor know where the words came from, but she could feel the call of all consuming time from their engraved form. It was as if the language was from an era long-forgotten, before even history began. And it felt like home.

 

The figure of the breeze beckoned her still. She held her breath, crossing through the doorway and making the leap down into the forest, half expecting this forest creature to have disappeared. But there it was: waiting. Waiting patiently, in fact. It had no discernible facial features, but deep within, she swore it gave her the gentlest, longing look as it waited for her to step closer. Its stature and posture, were unnervingly human. Reassuring in its familiarity.

 

She stepped forward and it did not move. She stepped closer, and it still it remained in place. The closer she got to it, the warmer the air around her grew: a comforting embrace replacing the chill of the moon’s arctic pole. Jaina looked behind her, noting the path she had taken through the snow had melted, revealing green grass and vibrant blossoms. The Jedi walked more boldly towards it, and the creature of wind and foliage gently turned and began walking away from her. It matched Jaina’s pace: the faster she tried to catch up to it, the faster it moved, maintaining the same distance of a few yards between them. She followed the form, noting the sound of a growing rush of water. Rounding a bend, she found herself before the majesty of a meadow surrounded waterfall, shimmering in the moonlight it reflected. They had passed over this forest entering the landing site, however, and there was no waterfall there before. She was sure of it. It was undeniable though, the stones surrounding the fall were smooth, and weathered with age. It was as if the waterfall had always been there. For her.

 

The form stopped just outside the wake of the water’s edge. It turned and gazed at her again, with that same longing expression. A look that had been worn on its face for quite some time, as if this creature had always been waiting. The wind around its body swirled and it once more raised its right arm, extending its hand to her. Tenderly, even. She snuck a step forward and it remained still, waiting. She took step after step, until it was within arm’s reach of her. She cautiously reached out to it, extending her hand to the swirling foliage of its fingers. Delicately, it reached closer to her, there was only a centimeter between her fingers and the warmth radiating from this creature. She closed the gap, and touched her fingertips to the creature’s.

 

The wind stopped swirling, and slowly the leaves and blossoms that contained his form floated to the ground. They remained still and no longer danced. Just as soon as it had appeared to her, the form had vanished, with no trace to where it had tread. She stood in the meadow for what felt like forever, the air around her still uncannily warm.

 

You’re not paying attention.

 

Human, it was impossible to be sure of before, but the whisper was human. She whirled around towards the sound of the voice, only to face the waterfall. There was no more whispering, only the symphony of rushing water crashing upon the rocks beneath. Within the cascade of falling water, there was a flicker of movement within her peripheral vision. She focused intently on the spot where she believed it to be, and it occurred again, more pronounced. The path the falling water took was shifting, as if it were splashing over something, rather than passing straight down.

 

She looked harder and the movement changed everything. Drawn within the flow of water, a human form could be seen. It was more defined than the creature of wind and leaves; it was a human male. The water currents formed broad shoulders sitting atop a lean frame. Arms and legs, too, could be discerned within the waterfall's current. Breaking from the fall’s wake was a human face, one with warm eyes and a soft smile. The figure gestured toward her, the rush of water flowing tightly to form the muscular definition of its arm as it defied gravity and extended its hand to Jaina.

 

There she stood, witnessing this creature of water call out to her. She entered the waterfall’s pool, to swim her way to the creature. However, she found herself not within the waters, but standing atop of it. She looked down at her feet, noting they had not sunk, even though the water was at least twenty yards deep. There Jaina stood, her body ebbing up and down with the shifting surface tension of the water’s current. It beckoned her still and she walked across the water’s surface to him. She had exchanged a creature of earth, for one of water. She continued to walk toward its outstretched hand, and when she was only a few yards away from the creature, it began to slowly retreat into the waterfall. The gap that it occupied within the waterfall remained open, with water cascading down either side of the opening, but never crossing its threshold. The further back the water being retreated, the wider the opening grew, revealing a path that had been hidden behind the fall. She entered the opening, but the water form was nowhere to be found.

 

Come.

 

Not far ahead, a light could be seen at the end of the path. She took the path and found herself in a valley absent of snow. There were no clouds in the sky and the moonlight shown brightly, revealing a large tree, its branches bare and extending outward in all directions. Next to the tree, was a stone pillar, its inscriptions washed smooth with the weathering of age. She began to walk the valley towards the tree, the chirp of nocturnal birds and the soft hum of fireflies keeping her company along her journey. However, the chirps and hums suddenly stopped. They had not disappeared, quite the opposite in fact, the fireflies hung frozen in the air about her. The world was quiet as it held its breath in time. Her company now was the tapestry of firefly light that surrounded her in all directions, suspended in mid-air, like a million pinpoints of starlight. Their blue glow gave the valley an otherworldly appearance in this world that now existed only for her. The moon, the planet, the star system: all of it hung frozen in time. Nothing moved, nothing dreamed, nothing wandered: all the world stood still for Jaina. It gave reverence to her, this girl of wonders.

 

From behind her, an impossible sight was forming. In this midnight world of moonlight and magic, the burnt-red haze of sunrise began to engulf the valley. It was a feat that could not logically be, as the sun was not due to rise for another six hours, yet here it protruded from beneath the horizon. It raised no questions, though, for tonight had been a night full of many things that defied logic. The soft glow of the sun’s rays invigorated the valley, washing over the barren tree, and causing its limbs to bloom pale amber leaves and vibrant, snowy petals. The light brought to life that which was dead in the valley, and everything that touched the sun’s rays was brought to full bloom in this land of darkness.

 

As the sunlight passed through the now vegetated tree limbs, they cast a shadow against the base of the stone pillar. As the sun rose higher into the midnight sky, the shadow cast along the pillar crept upwards. The shadow split into two halves as it grew along the pillar and the halves merged together once more to continue their journey. Strangely, they took on a recognizable shape, as if they were forming a pair of legs and the beginning of a torso.

 

Do you remember the first time we met?

 

She knew that voice. The sun rose higher and more of the torso was painted into definition. There were hands emerging in the shadow now, with arms attached to broad shoulders. It etched upward, creating the lines of a neck, and then a jawline. From nothing, there was a mouth, and it smiled a lopsided grin. Then there were eyes, eyes that had seen so much and had gone so many places, but they still contained wonder and youth. Then there was a forehead and hair. Finally, shining like a bolt of lightning, a scar had formed, from eyebrow to jawline.

 

I thought I had wandered into a dream.

 

Jaina heard the voice and witnessed with her own eyes, the mouth moving with it. This man of shadows was speaking to her. She held her breath and pleaded with her heart to dare not think of what she knew to be true. He was speaking to her. After all this time, he was there. Then a curious thing happened, the arm made of shadows cast along the stone, lifted itself from the canvas of the pillar, and extended out towards her. From across time and space and everything in-between, Andon was offering her his hand. He spoke as she rushed toward him.

 

I have dreamed of you many times since then.

 

She entwined her hand with his and a smile brighter than any star shown across the shadow’s face. He gazed at her for a long while, the warmth of the valley growing as vegetation outside its boundaries began to stir and find life again. A whirlwind tore through the valley and the branches moved, melting the form of the shadow. The sun began to set, and the shadow retreated down the pillar’s base with it. He was gone. There was only the quiet and the azure sea of frozen firefly light to keep her company now. There were no words left in the world, nor the air to breath in order to speak them.

 

He would not be denied. Reality unraveled and was molded by his hand.

 

From behind her, a pale glow of light began to intensify and grow. She could see it now, casting shadows through tree limbs still in full bloom along the pillar. She waited with bated breath, but his shadow did not return. The light grew brighter and she turned to face it. Now there were too many words and she had to quell the rush of air within her lungs.

 

I never stopped dreaming of you.

 

Magnificent and robed in light, her Andon stood before her. His face had aged in their time apart, but he still appeared youthful and full of joy. It was a feeling that had been a long time in the making for this Traveler among the Nowhere and Everywhere. His form appeared translucent, as she was able to peer through him, at first. He raised his arm and the aura around him dimmed and his form became solid, though still contained a haunting glow of pale light. Delicately, his hand reached out to touch her face, the backs of his fingers caressing her cheek softly. She was warm, and he drank in every second of this moment he had waited through all creation to have. For the first time in many lives, he remembered what warm felt like. For the first time in many eons, he was not everywhere, he was somewhere. He was still standing in the shallows of eternity’s waters, but he could feel the substance of the beach beneath his feet. Very soon, he would be on the shore with her.

 

“Have I wandered into a dream now?”

Edited by Guest

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