Disclaimer: LucasArts wouldn't give me KotOR for my birthday, so still a no go.

A/N: And here we are again with volume 3. I've got a psycho crazy schedule right now and I'm still writing so updates will probably be sporadic. Hopefully nothing like what happened last year. Anyway, continue.

Prologue: Athena

The only thing I could remember, really the only thing that mattered in the midst of the crushing blackness, was fear, pain, and orange. Orange? Yeah, orange. It didn't make any sense, but there it was. And the blackness… it felt like it had been consuming me since the end of time. No… shouldn't that be the beginning of time? Whatever. Was I dead? Maybe. Did I care? Not really. The blackness was smothering. Crushing. Claustrophobic. I remembered pain. But I also remembered, as the darkness started to take me, that orange. The orange light. It had to mean something… right?
Wait… if I was dead, how was I still thinking? I wasn't sure if I could feel, but… did dead people think? There was no way of knowing. If this was all death was… this crushing blackness… then I didn't think much of it. I liked being alive better. I mean, it had its ups and downs, sure. But it was… alive.

Athena. Was the voice in my head, or out of it? Could I be alive? Was I hovering dangerously between life and death? That sounded dramatically appealing, somehow.

Athena. The voice was louder. Two of them, I now realized. One was in my head; the other… it sounded familiar, somehow… why couldn't I remember?

"Athena!" A name… Cali? Carli? Caeli. Wait, Caeli? Wasn't she dead? I thought she was dead. She left. I was alone, I was going to be alone for the rest of forever.

A voice, singing softly. "Carry on my wayward son…."

Yeah, that was definitely Caeli. She was the only person I'd actually introduced to that song. And she meant well. The song was recognizable. But Caeli had always been slightly tone-deaf. My near-perfect pitch cringed at the sound.

And suddenly, strength surged through me, tearing the blackness asunder. I sat up with a gasp.

"Athena?"

Breathing heavily, I turned my head. It was Caeli. But she looked… different, somehow. Older. More tired. More scars.

Nice to see you too. The other voice, the voice in my head, echoed there again. My head whipped around as I felt a gentle squeeze on my leg. Valkyrie was perched there, tipping her head to the side, looking at me curiously.

"Val…" I breathed. "I thought you were-"

She snorted in my head. I was on the ship when your friend decided to run off. She should be more grateful. I saved her life.

"You- what?" Val. The factor that had been different, the thing that enabled Caeli to return… and it was a complete accident.

I'll let her tell you, Val responded cryptically, turning my attention back to Caeli.

"What do you remember?" the Jedi asked gently.

The memories hit me in a flood of horror, pain, fear… despair. Images flashed across my mind's eye- the box, the riddles, the Dark Jedi advancing… my sword.

"Rakata box…" I managed to gasp out. "Has to be destroyed… still a threat."

Caeli shook her head. "I destroyed it. When I returned… I sensed the conflict at the summit. I guessed it had something to do with you, so…" with a quirk of a smile, she tilted her head to one side. "I investigated. I found you impaled on your own sword, besieged by reanimated Dark Jedi, and that Rakata box shooting light beams everywhere." Any amusement was gone from her face, and her eyes darkened. "I thought you were dead, Athena. I… sort of went insane. I destroyed the box… and all the Dark Jedi fell in the process. Without the mind controlling them, they were nothing. And the sword… I felt the taint within it. It has been dealt with."

"I… thought you had to go defeat the Sith."

"They'll be kept at bay, for a time. I've dealt them a serious blow."

"But… how long have you been gone?"

"Haven't you been keeping track?"

I shook my head. "I stopped… after a couple months. I meditated, investigated the planet, tried to figure out how your technology works. You know, to… to help scientific advancement or whatever, for when I get home. I… wasn't expecting you to come back. You… you didn't, according to game canon."

"I've been gone for months, Athena. Almost two years."

"Years? No wonder I was going psycho…" I shook my head, immediately regretting the decision as it throbbed painfully.

"Anyway, that's over now. You're safe. You're alive. But you need to recover, and I…" she smiled. "I believe I owe you a ticket to a parallel universe."

"You're… you're going to send me home?"

She nodded. "As soon as humanly- or Jedi-ly, I suppose-possible."

I grinned at her. "Thanks Cael. But… first, I want to ask you something."

"Yes?"

"Did Val really save your life?"

She looked at the floor, her eyes overcome with a pain I had rarely seen in her. "She did, yes. I'd rather not go into details, if you don't mind. She… reminded me what was real."

"I'm… sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."

"Hey, it's okay. You didn't know. Let's… get working on getting you home, shall we?"

I genuinely smiled for the first time in weeks. "Thanks again, Caeli. This means the world to me."

She nodded seriously. "I'll do whatever it takes. I swear it."

A/N: Glory, Hallelujah, Athena's alive. Like I said, I might not be able to update on a consistent schedule, especially right now, because I've got about six assignments due at some point within the next two weeks. I maintain that it's still better than writing twenty million papers in a semester. Physics!

Leave a review if you've got a minute, it would make me happy. Have a nice day, all of you! (and based on current stats, there are about three of you, and I will continue believing this unless proved otherwise).

Hugs!

-Athena