The Last Defender
By Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Huff
Chapter Twelve:What Must Be Done
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Luke and Kyp had waited patiently in the first chamber for some time when the force-field disappeared. Shortly there after Fenice returned with the finale scroll tucked under her arm.
She went straight to her pack pulled out the data scanner and entered it in. When that was done, she put the last piece of the puzzle together. "One Who is Two, of Two Worlds, And Not. The Last, of her Kind, Who Would, Be the First. She is the Key." Fenice looked up at Luke and Kyp.
Silence filled the chamber more thickly than it had in the four millennia since it was built. After only, a moment Fenice thrust the silence away. Gathering her stuff and heading for the stairway she called back, "We need to get back to the homestead before dark."
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They had arrived back at the homestead just before sunset. Fenice had gone straight to work on the scrolls with a renewed resolve. It hadn't been much more than an hour when she cried out "I've found it."
Luke and Kyp were trying to help Terick with the evening meal. Gen was down taking his turn watching the Healers. Fenice had been hard at work in the common room with Threepio, and Artoo who was trying his best to be helpful in breaking the code.
When the cry was heard in the kitchen it was mild pandemonium as everyone rushed for the door at once. They came into the common room to find Fenice standing up from her chair a data pad in one hand Kayan's medallion still around her neck clasped in the other.
She held the pad out to Luke as he approached, "You'll never believe it."
Luke took the pad and gazed at it to find something mildly surprising to say the least. "It's in standard?" he questioned.
"Not exactly Master Luke." Threepio chimed in. "It's in code."
"He knows it's in code Threepio." Kyp chided the droid.
"At any rate the scroll from Hapha and the scroll from The Tomb of The Memory when put together tell the same story in Aras-dien and in standard, but only by jumbling the two languages together." Fenice continued excitedly. "And now I know the answer." Fenice turned heading straight for the entrance to the caverns.
"What answer do you know Fenice?" Terick asked with concern.
"What needs to be done." Fenice shot back.
Artoo and Threepio were forced to wait at the trapdoor that led to the caverns. The entrance had not been build with droids in mind.
They entered the chamber where Gen sat watch. Fenice headed for the niche where she had stowed Kayan's lightsaber. Without a word she took the medallion from around her neck and laid it on the dais at the center of the room. Everyone stood back wondering what she was going to do.
Fenice slowly unwrapped the lightsaber. Then poising it above her head she ignited one blade. The green-white light filled the room as she brought it down across the dias destroying the medallion. A glow of pure white light filled the room from that spot blocking out any other image. Fenice pulled back from the dias igniting the second blade of the lightsaber and separating it into two. She crossed them over the dias channeling the energy to repair what had been done so long ago. She could not be sure but in that moment she thought she heard Gam'nead scream. She heard and saw more things than she would ever be able to tell.
The light dimmed and the three Healers rose up off the benches and floated up above the dias coalescing into one. "What was done is now unso." They spoke in there eerie triple voice. "The Reckoning is over the Tein'kal are reborn. The Aran souls for so long trapped move on to Kal."
Fenice brought the lightsaber back to it's bow-staff like form and extinguished the blades. Her sisters became three forms again and stood one by each tier. In the room the apparitions she had met in the Tomb could be seen fading one by one for good this time.
The light was nearly gone and only one specter remained; the one with chartreuse hair. "You were the key Fenice. Only you could be what you are."
"Kayan?" she asked softly.
"Yes." he nodded. "You should meet one other." He reached into the dying light and a woman with red hair and green eyes like Markiea's stepped out.
"I am Phu'naea." the woman said softly.
"The murdered sister?" Fenice asked.
"Gam'nead's twin," Phu'naea nodded, "and your many times great-grandmother."
"She gave birth to a set of triplets two girls and a boy." Kayan continued. "When I felt Gam'nead's return to Ansath all those centuries ago, I spirited my sister's infants to Santik'sa where they would be safe."
"You are descended of my oldest child Narmaea." Phu'naea smiled.
"Then you are Gam'nead's brother?" Fenice asked.
"Only by our father Tandar, she would not claim me." Kayan admitted.
"She always felt slighted that our father married his mother." Phu'naea said sadly.
Martina spoke "It would seem only family may end a family feud."
Kayan smiled "It would seem." Then the last two apparitions faded with the end of the pure light.
Fenice sat on one of the now empty tiers exhausted. "Now all the pieces to the puzzle fit."
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Shortly after dawn the binkoni forest was awash with wave after wave of curious souls. They sensed the life around them. Something that many had thought impossible and called a myth had happened. Now every Aran in Santik'sa and the neighboring towns, (or at least most of them) were converging on the Tein'kal homestead.
Kyp was outside in anticipation of what would come. The air seemed to grow heavy as the crowd came slowly into view.
At a moment when it seemed the crowd could not grow any tenser the Healers emerged from there sanctuary with Gen and Master Skywalker in tow. The crowd grew louder at the sight of these women who had only the day before lain in a death-sleep.
Martina came forward and silenced the crowd by raising her arms in a gesture to speak. "I know why you have come." she spoke with a soft voice that could carry all the way through the forest if it had to. "The Reckoning has come and gone, and things are set right after four-thousand years."
Magistrate Alhead came forward from the crowd. "Where is the last Defender?" he asked. "Where is Fenice Eamar Dayknight? Only she could end the old evil."
Enora spoke with more candor than her triplet. "It is still early this day. Our younger sister lies in bed."
"No doubt she has much to dream on." Onaia finish with a smile and wry look at Kyp.
Alhead took a look in the direction of the young Jedi. "Then by all means let her dream."
The mood of the crowd grew lighter by the second. A man with bright yellow hair far back in the crowd climbed on top of a huge bolder and cried out. "By all means let her dream awhile, but wake her when we celebrate."
Martina looked to the Magistrate, "Three days from now at sunset in the octagon..."
"And there to last for eight." Alhead finished. "The celebration to begin with a declaration ten years overdue." At this he looked Luke for confirmation.
Luke nodded remembering his promise to Fenice.
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