Lightning Strikes Twice – Chapter 9

Kronus, Toa of Gravity and the leader of the Toa Rohaya, walked along the parapet of the fortress his team lived in, knowing he'd find the person he wanted to find up here. Sure enough, Stara was staring out at the island before her, like she was looking for something out there that she couldn't see. She had recovered from the scars that her life as a lone wanderer had left, but something always lingered in her that made him think that she hadn't recovered from some scar that she hadn't told him or the two Toa of Healing on the team about.

"Stara?"

She looked up, and met his gaze. That confirmed his suspicions more than it already had; they looked hurt, pained, like she was silently suffering.

"Stara? Are you alright?" he asked again, coming to stand beside her.

"As alright as I ever was," she replied, averting his gaze.

"'As alright as you ever were?' Stara, what's troubling you? Tell me," he ordered, taking her chin between his fingers and making her look at him, even as he cringed mentally at the thought of Eos finding out about this, "so we can find a way to fix it."

"Kronus, it's not something you can fix," she said, but her voice was that of a being who was barely holding back sadness.

"I'll be the judge of that. What's wrong? What did Althea and Catriona miss?"

"Kronus –" She finally broke, turning away. "I'm sorry, but I've been lying to you. I wasn't wandering because my people were killed, but because they exiled me!"

She took the silence that followed to be one of disgust towards her, and said quietly, "I should leave now."

"No."

The firm negative cut her to the quick. "Pardon?" she asked, still not looking back.

"I'm not going to let something that made you come to us make you leave. You saved my life, and I won't see the one I owe my life to be driven away."

A fierce rainstorm crashed above the chain of islands that Stara and her Matoran populated, though without thunder and lightning to make it all the harder. The village still stood, but the overall mood of it was a feeling of fear and grim determination. Stara was not one to keep the truth from her people, and now they all were on alert for possible threats from their new – and unwelcome – halfling neighbor. Charybdis was stationed almost permanently on the lookout post that overlooked the chain, keeping her vigil for danger.

Stara herself was, at the moment, hovering above the rack that held her love prisoner in her spirit form. She was trying to figure out the connection the spirit that had possessed her weeks before had hinted between "Deimos" and the island Notus – and what the halfling was here for.

What draws you here? she thought about the halfling. What could possibly want you to come here?

She remembered Kiria, one of the Makuta-turned-halflings she had fought on Rohaya. According to Stiaye, she had come here as well for some reason, though why had been beyond them all. There had to be a connection between these two occurrences of Makuta/halflings coming to her home. But what was it?

XxX

Ariadne was on guard duty again, this time over the spiritless body of the Turaga. She had been doing this every day, since Stara had been going out to spy on their new neighbor each day, to try and figure out why he was here. So far, the spirit that had invaded Stara's body had not made another appearance, and the Xi-Matoran wasn't sure if she ought to be pleased about it or not – they may be able to gain more info from it if it returned.

As the thought crossed her mind, the body before her sat up in the chair Stara had left herself in. The Matoran began to speak the question that she had chosen to ask this time, but the words of the spirit that had taken up residence in the body made it unnecessary.

"Ajax . . . Spear . . . Notus . . . Deimos . . . connection . . ." gasped the spirit in its echoing voice.

Ariadne, who realized quickly that it was the same spirit that had possessed Stara before, kicked the staff away from the chair, unsheathed her knife, and laid its blade by the "Turaga's" throat. She was about to press down lightly and convince the spirit to leave, when the thought she had earlier returned to her. What if she could get something more from this person?

"Tell me more," she ordered, turning so her knife and her mask came into view of the spirit. "How can we find the connection?"

"Records . . . legends . . . past will tell . . ." But before Ariadne could ask any more, Stara's body slumped backwards as the unknown spirit vacated it.

The Matoran of Lightning sheathed her knife again, puzzled. She ought to tell Stara about this when she came back; she might know what this meant.

The thought had barely reached the top of her mind when the Turaga sat up again. Reacting instantly, the Matoran grabbed Stara's staff and held it in a ready position, even as she said, "What was the last thing Kronus said to you before he died?" Stara flinched slightly at Ariadne's loud tone, but answered with, "'Farewell, Stara, my sister. May fate be kinder to you in the coming days.'" Ariadne nodded and handed her the staff again, marveling inwardly how comfortably it had rested in her hands.

"Anything?" she asked, pushing her previous thoughts to the back of her mind.

Stara shook her head in frustration. "Nothing. I'm starting to wonder if I want that spirit in me again, so we can get some valid information from it."

"I think I can help with that," her right-hand Matoran said, repeating what had happened a few minutes earlier. "If we can read the histories, maybe we can find the key for this."

"It's worth a try," agreed the Turaga, getting to her feet as she spoke. "Let's find Steena; she could help us look."

The rain was still pelting down as hard as ever, but these two were used to it as they ran to Steena's hut, which was close to the walls that faced the mountains. Steena was the village's Chronicler, though a better name might be "History Keeper" instead of "Chronicler," since she recorded what happened in the universe as well as what happened in their area. At the moment, she was recording the threat of the halflings once again.

Ariadne rapped on the door quickly as they stood outside her home, rapidly getting soaked. Steena didn't take long to answer the door, and she quickly got them inside after she saw who was coming to call. She settled them into chairs and set to brewing hot tea for them. Behind her Zatth-style mask, her light green eyes glinted, though not nearly as brightly as Stara's.

After Ariadne told her what they knew, a frown furrowed her brow. "I can't imagine what legend could connect halflings to Notus, but I want that thing around here as much as you do. It's worth a shot."

Rising, she led them to the hut she kept her records, which was adjacent to her own. The walls had niches carved out of stone that held multiple dusty scrolls and tablets. All of them were neatly ordered by the number of years carved into the sides.

"Alright," Steena said, scanning the walls and groaning inwardly as she saw how much work they had to do. "I'm not sure what year the spirit was referring, but we ought to start from around the time of the Great Cataclysm."

All of them sat down after taking a box of records from around those years and began the process of reading the contents of the carved stone and flattened wood. For a while, the only sound was the crinkle of paper, the sound of one of them sipping their tea, or one of them shifting their weight. Occasionally, one of them would make a sound that hinted they might have found something useful, and they would all turn in that direction eagerly, only to be disappointed as she would then mutter, "False alarm. It's not going to help."

Scowling, Ariadne plopped the last tablet into her second box and went to put it back. "Why did that spirit have to give us such an obscure hint?" she muttered, not bothering to make her voice lower – she knew Stara and Steena were just as frustrated.

Just as she made to shove it back into the niche, she spotted something that looked like it had been shoved into the back of it, and frowned. "Steena, did you shove something behind this box?" she asked, even as she retrieved the large scroll from the cubby-hole. Despite the fact it was badly crumpled from being wedged between the two surfaces, it was still readable and in one piece.

"I don't think so," Steena replied, walking over to her and looking over Ariadne's shoulder as she carefully unrolled the paper. After a quick look at the date marked on the box, she added, "Now I know so. This was dated just after Turaga Taynai died and Stara replaced Reya as Toa. I wasn't Chronicler at the time."

"Who was?" Then the Turaga's right hand fell silent as they all remembered the name of Steena's predecessor.

"Luxa," breathed the group.

A moment of silence appeared again, but this time it was a silence of ones who were fitting the pieces of a complex puzzle together.

"Do you think –?" started Steena.

"Sekmet had access to the records, since she was Luxa's friend," answered Stara, beginning to pace rapidly, tapping her staff against the floor as she put her thoughts together. "If Kiria told her to, she might have been able to hide this behind the box, so we would never know what Kiria was after."

All the while, Ariadne had been reading the scroll, and now she spoke up. "Guys, I'm not sure how legitimate this is, but it fits in with what we know: two halflings coming here, Sekmet's treachery, all of it. Look at this!" she finished eagerly, passing it to Stara and Steena, who read it quickly, eyes widening as they processed the information they had before them.

"Do you think – After all, this is a legend," Steena said carefully.

"I used to think halflings were just legends, too," Stara said grimly, though her eyes sparkled at the thoughts that swirled in her mind. "I know better now. And while this might be a legend, it could explain everything." She looked out the window at the pouring rain. "And it's more important than ever now that Stiaye gets here soon."

XxX

This chapter majorly influenced by Cryoshell's "Closer to the Truth."