"Alright, here are some towels and a couple of snacks seeing you two didn't get supper," Hera said.
The two teens had stars in their eyes as Hera descended the ladder into the cargo bay, holding a bundle of towels. On her back was Athena's bag.
"You do love us!" Ezra cheered.
Hera rolled her eyes as she smiled, taking her last step off the ladder. She walked over to the two teens who still sat in the middle of the cargo bay and handed them the contents she held.
"You heard our message?" Athena questioned. "You're a Jedi too?"
"What? What message?"
"We were calling out into the Force for someone to bring us food," Athena said.
Hera bursted out laughing, "That's what you two were doing?"
"Yes, did it work on you?" Ezra questioned.
"No," the captain shook her head. "I just saw you two on the security camera looking silly."
"We were using the Force, Hera!" Athena threw her arms up. "We are learning!"
Hera sighed, still smiling at the ridiculousness of the two. "Alright. Just no more fire in the ship when the dock is closed, okay? The oxygen filters can only handle so much smoke."
"Alright," Athena grumbled, looking at the food her captain had brought to them.
"Don't do anything while you two are down here. I got cameras in this cargo bay recording you two," Hera warned. "And don't freeze anything or set anything on fire, please."
"I'll do my best, captain," Athena joked. "No promises."
Hera looked to Ezra, "Ezra, I would recommend sleeping as far away as you can from her. She froze over the closet last night and I don't want to have to thaw you out."
"Can I opt to sleep outside?" Ezra suggested.
"I am not opening that gate again," Hera stated. "I gave you a choice before you got on this ship. Live with the consequences." the captain turned back to the ladder and made her way back up into her ship.
Athena looked to Ezra, holding her bookbag in her lap. "Well, now I have my lighter." she displayed the little plastic and metal rectangle.
Ezra glared at her. "Thanks, Athena. Just what we needed."
"You're rude," Athena huffed, putting the lighter back in her bag.
"Says the one who thanked the person who saved her life by splashing him with water," Ezra remarked.
"Oh, you had it coming. Why did you even think it was a good idea to jump on the bubble with me?"
He shrugged. "It looked fun."
"You're insane."
"So are you."
"I guess we would make great friends, then."
"Yeah, I guess so."
Athena gestured to the other side of the cargo bay, "I'll sleep over there. I guess you can sleep over here to avoid any of my frost."
"Wait, I got an idea," Ezra stood. He walked over to the empty crates in the corner of the cargo bay.
Athena followed and watched with a curious eye as the boy placed his hands on an orange crate. She froze when she saw it begin to levitate just above the ground.
Ezra casually floated the crate over to the other side of the bay, guiding it with his hands holding onto the sides of it.
"Woah, you can use the Force that easily on those crates?" Athena questioned, cocking her head to the side as Ezra sat the crate down.
"What? I'm not using the Force," Ezra chuckled.
"Why was that thing floating, then?"
"It's just hover technology," Ezra said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I guess you probably don't have that on Earth."
"Wait, you just got hovering tech on random objects?" she questioned. Her eyes went wide as she seemed to realize something. "Does that mean you guys have flying cars?!"
Ezra couldn't help but laugh, "Yeah. We have like vehicles and cargo crates usually have hover technology to make them easy to move."
"Oh, that is so cool," Athena's eyes were still wide with wonder.
Ezra chuckled, soon walking back over to the crates and taking another one over to the area where he was to sleep. He sat the crate right next to the other - making a long rectangular surface between the two tops of them.
"A bed," Ezra gestured at the two crate-bed in pride. "Now if you make frost, it would have to climb up these crates to reach me."
"Not a bad idea, blueberry head." Athena scoffed.
"What's a blueberry?"
"Oh, it's an Earth thing," she sighed.
"Yeah, but I wanna know. You keep saying that it's just 'an Earth thing' but I wanna know," Ezra looked at her as he sat on the two crates. "You never talk about your planet. It's all you ever knew - so I wanna know about it too."
"Oh, it's just a little berry that is the same color as your hair," she shrugged it off.
"And what's a pinata? You mentioned it earlier," Ezra asked.
"Oh, it's this thing…" Athena contemplated how to describe it. "It's a little paper-mache thing filled with candy that we would hang up and take turns hitting until it broke and candy fell out. Usually us Earthlings just had them at parties for fun."
"That sounds cool, actually," Ezra said. "Are they just like boxes that you hit?"
"They can be any shape you want them to be," Athena explained. "Just about every kid's birthday party had one."
"Sounds fun," Ezra chuckled. "See? Now I know about the Earth thing."
Athena rolled her eyes, "Ok, blueberry. Whatever floats your boat."
"So, how many of the towels do you want to use?" Ezra picked up the brown towels Hera had brought them. "We have five. I can just take two and you can have the other three."
"Nah, I'll just take two, you take three," she took two of the towels from his hands. "It's my fault we couldn't dry off quicker out there."
"No, that was Zeb, Rae, and Sabine's fault," Ezra pointed out.
"Okay, true," Athena nodded. "We're gonna need to get them back."
Ezra nodded with her, "Definitely."
Athena turned her back to him and walked over to the other side of the cargo bay, "Alright, g'night."
"Night," Ezra called over.
Athena soon set up camp at the other end of the cargo bay. Her bookbag as her pillow, her hair wrapped up in one towel, and the other towel used as a blanket. Her back faced the direction of Ezra as she tightly held onto the towel covering her body.
The lights soon shut off and Ezra and Athena glanced at each other from across the room.
"Did she seriously turn off the lights?" Athena groaned.
"Yep," Ezra confirmed with a sarcastic smile. "Isn't this great?"
"Next time you save me from my fall of death, please don't jump with me just because it looks fun," Athena joked. "Maybe then we won't have to sleep in the cargo bay with soaking clothes."
"Ah, but it'll be a great story to tell one day," Ezra pointed out.
Athena turned back around and paused a moment before she spoke again. "Hey, Ezra? Thanks for saving me back there."
"Your welcome."
"Don't expect anything more from me, though," Athena grumbled.
"I won't. You being alive and able to tell me thanks is good enough for me."
"Thanks."
The girl held her blankets and shut her eyes tight. She knew she was about to face another God. But, how exactly can one properly prepare themselves to face such a powerful being?
The answer, plainly, is never.
All you can do is simply close your eyes and hope whatever god you face will be merciful.
That didn't help her heart stop racing, no matter. Her palms sweated and her stomach tied itself in knots.
She just wanted to rest. It had already been such an exhausting day and all she wanted was to rest.
"You learned a lot today on your own."
"I want to sleep."
"You should rise now, child," the booming voice of the Father spoke. "We have only so long."
Athena could tell her body wasn't really there anymore. She couldn't feel the soppiness of her damp clothes nor the fibers of the towel she once clenched. She couldn't feel the air in her lungs nor the solid ground beneath her anymore.
Father did somewhat mimic a human body for the girl - giving her at least the option to open and close her eyes when she pleased.
She opened them and saw everything and nothing at the same time.
Millions upon millions of white stars surrounded her in the dark abyss. No top. No bottom. No sides or walls. Just endless stars and darkness.
She couldn't see Father, but she could still sense his presence and hear his voice echo through the cosmos she stood amongst.
"You seem nervous, child."
"What is this for?" she looked around, more saddened and scared than Father had expected.
"You have great power inside of you. Power that can rip the cosmos apart if you ever wished to do so. If you ever wished to unleash your potential."
"What if I don't want to rip apart the stars?"
"Then you need to learn what the power inside of you can do. You must learn both the darkness and the light you possess."
"I- I possess both the light and the dark?" Athena asked. "What do you mean?"
"My children were each given the gift of light and dark. They were polar opposites. Pushing and pulling for control," Father said. "Your power is similar to both of theirs. The darkness and the light both reside within you."
"How - how did I receive this power?" Athena questioned. "Why do I have this much power? Why am I not like the other Jedi?"
"You were destined to defeat Abeloth since your birth on Earth. Many things led to you acquiring such powers to match hers, but what matters is not how you received them, but how you will use them."
Athena paused, taking a look around herself. The countless stars filling the void further than she could even comprehend. The void stretching all around them. All around her was everything and nothing. There were as infinitely many stars as there was infinitely much darkness.
There was as much life as there was death. There was as much darkness as there was light.
The darkness was deathly cold. The light was scorching hot.
Together they combine to create nothing and everything.
A perfect balance.
Alone, each element was deadly and wild - nothing to stop it. Only together were they able to be tamed.
The fiery flames of heat that swirled in a helix pushed and pulled violently with the frigid water which paralleled it in another stream of energy around her phantom of a body.
The stable rock and dirt was matched with the free and never ending wind in a ring around her.
The darkness that consumed her left arm valiantly fought with the bright light on her right.
The cosmos finally saw some color now - the girl in the middle surrounded by it all.
The clash of elements. The clash of energy.
It was so much.
It hurt to even look at.
She screamed as the forces began to rip her apart. The girl trying to curl up in a ball of fear as the conflicting energies around her fought for dominance.
Never had she felt her soul be ripped apart like this. This was something you simply could not explain without going mad. It was as if every fiber of herself was being violently torn apart. She felt no physical pain. No. This was far deeper.
"What will you let prevail? Light or dark? Cold or heat? Stability or freedom?" Father's voice echoed. "You must choose, Syla Dume. The powers inside you will tear you apart if you cannot hold them together as one."
She screamed. Never had she felt such power around her all at once. Every vibration, every movement, every bit of energy was there to rip her apart.
Even the stars and void around her began to rip and tear the energy around her was so strong.
And all of it was her own.
"Together as one...together as One…" Athena muttered, tightly closing her eyes, shutting out the violent clashes around her.
What would light be without dark? What would heat be without cold? What would freedom be without stability?
They needed to come together.
As one force.
The Force.
Gold swirled around her now. She knew the color not from opening her eyes, but from the feeling in her soul. The same golden dots that floated through that injured tree in Daughter's realm now flowed in massive streams around the girl. The energys began to merge into one.
One energy. One girl. One Force.
For once, she felt peace.
No longer did the energy try to rip her apart. Rather now, it came to hold her and the cosmos together.
The energy's balance was no longer that of a scale violently whipping up and down, back and forth. It was stable and still. Nothing could shake its balance now.
It was neither light nor dark, neither hot nor cold, neither free nor sturdy.
It just was.
"This balance will bring you serenity," Father's voice boomed. "Your power can throw the universe into disarray if you do not find balance. Your powers can create, or destroy. But in the end, all must be balanced in order for anything in the universe to exist."
The girl was now in the fetal position as she floated in the middle of the weightless ball of energy - but she was not held in that position by fear.
"You have much work to do before you can hold your own against Abeloth, but I have high hopes for you," Father said. "Do not fail us."
"I won't. Thank you."
Her skin slowly began to become physical again, air filled her lungs and escaped when needed, and the fibers of the cloth around her finally gained some touch.
She was back.
"Athena, you up?"
She turned and looked over her shoulder to see Ezra lying on his crates. His tired eyes lazily looked at her.
She spoke softly."…yeah. What's up?"
"It - I just sense something really weird. I thought you were hurt and I woke up," Ezra murmured.
"No, I'm fine. Go back to sleep," Athena assured.
Ezra froze there for a moment as he squinted at the girl - trying to decipher why her teal eyes were brighter than usual. And why did the white in her eyes seem to have been replaced with black?
"Are you sure?"
She nodded. "I'm fine."