It was dark. That was what he knew. And he dreamed over and over.
The fields of wheat outside the capital where they dreamed and played.
The swamps where he and his siblings fled and experienced true freedom for a time.
The arena where they trained under the watch of his father's eyes, never recieving a word of praise.
Counseling their little sister, being the light in her life along with their mother.
Shunning his mother away.
Becoming strong. Powerful. Felling both light and dark.
Visiting her on Nathema as he saw her wither day by day, becoming something more twisted and yet still open to him
Realizing how far his brother has come.
Seeing his brother's rage and trying to stop it.
And pain.
And then the regret he saw in his eye, and holding onto his arm before the dark returned.
And he felt... a presence, sink into him. Like fog washing over him. He couldn't discern but it felt...familiar. It gave him power. Life...but he was weak.
And he remained in the dark.
Thexan gasped, shuddering for air as he gazed up at the stairs. He stood up, panting and staggering to his feet. He looked around and... this was the fields...
"Where..." He looked around, witnessing that the fields of wheat dropped off into an abyss of the cosmos, and it lead to the training ground. Thexan walked, a hand over his stomach as he felt the sting. The wound.
Arcann...
The bald man walked through the fields and into the arena, hearing the sounds and grunts of their training. Memories. He looked around, seeing the wisps of dust being kicked up but with no one present. Like a ghost was fighting other spirits.
"Is this... the afterlife?" He said aloud, walking again as he noticed a crack in the wall. Following it and wlaking through the fissure, he came upon two rooms on varying sides. One was a darkened workshop, and the two faint glows of golden Adegan Crystals shimmering on the bench. On the other, a child's room and he could hear the faint sound of playful laughter. It made Thexan smile in nostalgia.
These were his memories. Of that time with Arcann where they built their first Lightsabers together. Of the many times they helped calm and soothe their younger sister. To be fair, Arcann didn't do the best of jobs counseling Vaylin. She always seemed to be relaxed and happy in Thexan's arms.
He heard footsteps and perked up, hand going to his belt in reflex to pull out his own lightsaber, but he grasped at nothing. Breathing, Thexan progressed further into this new dream, alert and cautious. And soon he stepped onto a quagmire.
A quagmire of battlefields on many worlds. Downed bulbous Republic Cruisers and arrowhead Imperial Dreadnaughts smoking in the cosmos as still fighters on both sides hung in the abyss. Corpses of Troopers and Jedi Knights on one side, and numerous Sith on the other in their black robes and armor. This field seemed to span forever. He can hear the wind carry the sounds of battle. Blaster fire. Turbolasers. Screams and yells.
And an open clearing on Korriban, their last battle before returning to Zakuul. He can recognize it. He will never forget the day his brother was maimed by the Sith.
If only those Sith Lords of the Dark Council didn't distract him... He could have protected him. Arcann should never broke away from the battalion and-
Footsteps again. Thexan whipped around, glaring but finding nothing.
Only he could hear the faint sounds of battle, and his own breathing.
He pressed on, walking forward through the battlefield passing the ruined statues and moments of Sith Lords past and towards the pyramid, where the Zakuulian shuttle laid.
(X)
The light dimmed, and Han was able to see some sort of bright blue chamber with golden storange containers inside, brimming with power and energy. The old smuggler had his hand on his blaster ready to blast any other droid that came barging in with a Vibroblade or rifle. Chewie walked in behind him, giving off a growl as Han saw what was in the center of a room, and rising from the smoke. The layout of this room was far brighter and colorful than that room... But there was no mistaking it, confirming what the droid said earlier.
"This is Carbonization chamber..." He muttered as the slab rose and there, within the hunk of carbonite was a frozen man in a gown, bald and sleeping what with his eyes closed. Han felt a chill in his gut as he felt a cold nostalgic feeling wash over him.
Then the slab began to turn red, and Han remembered the droid saying something but thawing. So the droids were protecting whoever was sleeping here...
He raised his blaster, steadying his breathing as the slab heated up more and more. Chewie was beside him, but he lowered his bowcaster to hip level.
(X)
Thexan walked through the shuttle, and found himself in the Eternal Throne Room. Overlooking the majesty of his home Zakuul. He looked to the sides, seeing how time remained frozen as he walked towards the throne, noticing his father was standing there, facing away and out into the cosmos.
"Father?" He called out, hoping something can respond to him.
Then the throne room began to fade like sand before a gale, disappearing as Thexan noticed the dream collapsing. He ran forward, hand reaching out to get to his father, and as Valkorian turned, his face was already disappeared into ash. And he heard the sound of a lightsaber activating.
From the sandstorm of the fallen throne room, Arcann roared, swinging his saber as Thexan rose his arms to defend himself.
And he felt pain as he fell forward, face hitting metal as he opened his eyes, gasping for air like a Nabooin Trout on land. He felt weaker, something light on his skin and not the custom royal tunic of his status as Prince. Thexan couldn't see anything. He was blind, in the darkness, fumbling around.
"Father... Brother... Where are-" Thexan coughed, weak as he was on the floor. He felt footsteps and perked up, eyes unsure of what he was seeing.
"Chewie wait!" Called out a voice and Thexan felt something large kneel down beside him and cradle him up against something shaggy, moist, and furry. Thexan panicked, looking up.
And heard the telltale growl of a wookie. Thexan breathed hard, chest heaving and rising with each breath. He tried to reach out to the Force, but found his connection weak.
He heard soft barks, looking in the direction of the wookie. From what he can tell from his lessons in Shyriiwook, the wookie was telling him to calm down.
"W-Who are you..." Thexan stammered, feeling cold and exhasuted. He heard another pair of footsteps, his head holting in the direction of the other voice, one clearly in Basic.
"Okay, easy, easy!" ordered Han. "Just relax. You're okay."
Chewbacca whined and growled at him.
"Yeah, I know what hibernation sickness looks like, fuzzball!" Han snapped back, the tension getting the better of him. "I was there, or did you forget?"
He would not soon forget his own carbon-freezing, back on Bespin at the hands of no less a personage than Darth Vader. That brief, terrible agony, then an instant later lying slumped on the floor of Jabba's palace, blind and shivering, that croaking Ubese voice leading him gently to consciousness.
That croaking Ubese, who turned out to be Leia Organa.
Leia...
Han shook the memories away. Now wasn't the time. Instead he looked down, fixing his attention on the now-defrosted man.
A young man, quite tall, with a fighter's well-developed muscles and lean frame, his hair shaven down to a thick brown fuzz. Han would have been wary of him, had he not been lying shivering in Chewbacca's arms, helpless as a child.
As he had been.
"Just relax, take it easy," Han said, in what he hoped was a suitably calming tone. "Hibernation sickness. It'll wear off in a day or so."
"Who...are...you?"
The young man spoke in Basic, but Han found he couldn't place the accent.
"Uh, okay..." he paused, wondering how much he dared reveal. He had too many enemies already without accidentally making another one. Caution was probably justified.
"I'm...Han, and this is Chewie." Chewbacca gave him a friendly grunt, and patted his shaven head with a furry hand.
"Where...is...this?"
"This?" Han glanced around, looking for something to identify that strange, dark place. "Uh, you're on some place in the jungle, on Zakuul."
The man paused, seeming to master himself for a moment. He evidently recognized the name, which was something at least.
"How...long?"
"How long? Oh boy."
Han didn't have a clue. He was no archaeologist, no linguist. He couldn't make sense of the chamber around him, of the strange machinery that filled it. The last time he'd done anything like that was on Dellalt, and that had led to him being chased by a bunch of twenty-five-thousand-year-old war droids, and finding a treasure chamber full of worthless junk.
Some things never changed.
"Listen...I don't know how long you've been here," he said. Honesty was probably for the best. "We just found you in carbon freeze, and you defrosted."
"Where is...the Emperor? Where is…Vaylin? Arcann?"
Chewbacca gave him a warning look. Han sighed. This was getting worse and worse.
"The Emperor is dead," he said, hoping to any deity in a generous mood that he wasn't making a big mistake. "I don't know about those other guys."
"Dead?" The youth blinked unseeing eyes at him.
"Yes, dead. Blown to kingdom come over the moon of Endor, and the Empire went down with him, or pretty much. He's been gone...thirty years now."
"Dead? No...impossible..."
"I saw it happen. I was on Endor when it happened. The Death Star went up like a new-born sun."
He didn't mind remembering that sight at least. Standing on the soil of the Endor moon, the brilliant flash in the daylight sky, the hovering cloud of super-hot gas and vapourising debris, the sound of the Ewoks cheering, the Rebel Alliance commandos staring up at it, some of them weeping with joy and relief.
"Death Star?" The man sounded confused. "What is that?"
"You don't...?" Han was almost lost for words. "Boy, you've been out a while kid." He thought for a moment. "So, what's the last thing you remember?"
The youth did not reply. Han got the strange feeling that he had brought up something unpleasant.
"My brother...killed me," he whispered, a terrible pain in his voice as he raised an arm, almost instinctively to his stomach. It reminded Han of Luke during one of his darker moments...
Or Ben.
"We won," he went on. "The galaxy was ours...the galaxy bowed to Zakuul. But...he attacked me... After he tried to…"
"Wait, wait just a minute..." Han was confused. "Zakuul? The Eternal Empire of Zakuul Zakuul?"
Then it hit him. It fell into place, slowly, like a building about to collapse on top of him. Zakuul, a forgotten backwater covered in ancient ruins, like the cities on Dellalt praising the glory of Xim the Despot, dead for twenty-five millennia. Zakuul, who some said had once ruled the galaxy.
"Who...are you?" Han stared down at the young man, at the living fossil come to life in front of him. Could it really be possible? Was he talking to a millenia-old man?
"I am...Thexan..." whispered the youth.
"Okay, Thexan..." Han forced his mind to clear. He couldn't afford to linger, not if any more of those droids were around. "Listen, we've got to get out of here. There's some droids guarding this place, and they're not exactly friendly. Chewie, can you carry him?"
Chewbacca grunted an affirmative and stood up, carrying Thexan in his arms. Han straightened up, checked his blaster, then led the way out of the chamber.
He hurried his jog when he heard the sound of clanking droid footsteps.
(X)
In the furthest corner of the stars, he sat on his throne.
In his silence, he could feel every ebb and flow that resided within the great ocean of the force. Despite its size, it's majesty, mystery and power, it still allowed even the smallest of sparks to move it. For every action sends a ripple no matter how small. For some, feeling such a reaction was next to impossible.
But for him, it was entirely possible.
So in his meditation, he felt it.
A call, a plea for answers that it could never have. It was there, only for an instant. Just a hair, a fleeting thing but despite all odds, he felt it.
Years of meditation, practice and mastery would never allow for such a dishonor in the face of such potential. After all, not since the great Emperor Sidious graced the universe has such power been seen, power that only he possessed. And with that power, he grasped hold of that fleeting thing.
Even this far from its owner, he could give it life, let it show him everything.
And it was marvelous.
A presence that held the passion found only in the dark, holding the order found only by those who have stood within the light for however brief a time.
Slowly, he felt the emotions well within him. Curiosity, suspicion, and most pleasing of all, anticipation.
This strange feeling, this, awakening, would not be ignored.
He would not let it be so.
(X)
Big thanks to both Juubi-k and IKnowNothing of Sufficient Velocity in helping me collab on this. Couldn't have done it with them!