Hello all,
A step at a time, I will be finishing this story. Life has taken a hard left, but I am working to find a hopeful light soon. We are very near the end, but there are some pieces I have to add in before this story's end.
Please enjoy the chapter and the mysteries within. Many will be answered soon enough.
Happy Writing,
Eliana
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Ahsoka had been here before. She couldn't remember when or how, but this reverse-light place she found herself in was hauntingly familiar. Not a minute ago she and her master had stood on the other side of the forcefield wall, desperately attempting to utilize the Force to reach her friend who stood a short distance away, back to them, when he seemed... gone.
It had taken her a moment to remember what Djibourdi had said to her, that thing about everything being connected. When it clicked, she lowered herself to the ground, sank her hand into the vibrating plant roots beneath her, focused in -
And now she was here.
In this haunting void. With...them. And it.
It, you see, was a glowing white and green bird that roosted atop a jutting stone an arm's reach away. It greeted her with a happy 'hoo' before turning to observe the figures standing in front of them. Ahsoka, before acknowledging them, took in the form of her master who seemed to be frozen in dark carbonite. However she had gotten here, somehow he hadn't been able to follow... the door had been closed as he approached.
He was the Chosen One. How was that possible? How was she here and he wasn't? Where was here? Where was -
Djibourdi, her mind demanded and she rose to her feet, sprinting as close to the forcefield wall that she could. Before she reached it she hit something that commanded her body to freeze against her will, planting her firmly about fifty feet away from him and an arm's length from the wall.
In this void, her body was grey. So was her master, the Togruta that stood behind her friend, and -
"Master Tom?" she heard her own voice. The shining porcelain skin of the handsome remained neutral as his eyes focused on her friend. The man next to him, undoubtedly human and a bit older, did the same. That had to be Warren, Djibourdi's grandmaster she told herself.
They were one with the Force. She shouldn't be able to see them if they were the Force, but she could. So was this place... that?
Cerulean eyes darted to the figure shrouded in pulsing light that had yet to acknowledge her, the ground beneath him thrumming white through the plant roots. He stood in color among the sea of moot. There was so much more light around him that bathed this darkness than she saw before she crossed to this side, evidence of whatever it was that he was doing. The shadows of the Togruta near him painted the energy flowing to and from his form.
"Dji!"
At her shout, he didn't answer. He didn't twitch. He didn't so much as change his breathing where he stood gazing over the valley. Below, the glow of life swirled with the black of death. The pulsing below their feet highlighted the world around them before the view melted to the void. Then again. And again. Each ripple, like the wake in a pond, reached further.
This had to be some kind of limbo. A place between, Ahsoka pushed to herself. She could spy the exact place she had stood above their friends, their bodies glowing a flaming white in response to the energy her friend rippled out.
She went to call again, when another voice spoke. The entirety of the conversation was muffled, like she was trying to listen through three or four comforters that had been wrapped around her head. A flutter to her right caught her attention as the bird glided down to land lightly on her shoulder. A soft coo from it warmed her body, and with the color that painted her skin came the wash of the conversation that finally reached her.
"I cannot control their fear. Only my own."
Djibourdi's voice was determined, sure, clear. If she could hear him she could reach him! Ahsoka concentrated with every ounce of energy that she had, finally grasping a hold of the whispy Force signature of her friend. That grip caused a change, and ever so faintly did Djibourdi's head turn to glance -
"What are you doing?" Anari's voice sounded in a tone of correction. Almost without control Ahsoka jumped, even if the spirit wasn't addressing her, "Why do you wait?"
The void echoed the rumblings of explosions and hollering of voices muffled in the limbo from below. The waves of energy rippled further.
"Have you forgotten how they have slaughtered? What they have done?"
The screams of the wounded and cries of wounded animals rushed Ahsoka's consciousness, her body falling numb as her mouth opened in reaction.
"What of the one who brought them here?"
The growl from before rumbled through the void, the weapons clinking on her friend's arms humming in light. Ahsoka's grip on him was fading. She desperately tugged at him, her attempt stopping cold when a single point illuminated the distance like a star. The growls grew louder.
"Our people believe you to be my Harbinger."
Anari's hands found Djibourdi's shoulders and she leaned across so that her face was next to his, both staring into the distance at the star. The dust-like energy floating around them froze.
"Prove them right."
At her words the void exploded into searing light, catapulting Ahsoka back into reality just after she watched two of the Togruta figures on the other side of the wall vanish. She came to with a violent mouthful of air, her hands catching her as she fell to a knee.
"Ahsoka!" her master's presence was next to her quickly, his hands steadying her.
Whatever questions he was asking she blocked out. She only had the mind for one thing... the figure that still stood stoic nearby.
"He knew this was coming," she spat out numbly, her master's grip tightening carefully.
"What are you talking about?"
She didn't respond. The air was filled with static as her eyes caught the powdery flakes of light all move to gather behind a ridge near them.
"Tocarra said the Harbinger walks the line between life and death."
Her master huffed in confusion.
"There is no death, Ahsoka, only the Force."
A reality slammed into place. The snowy bits of energy began to drift together to something in the distance behind them.
"The Harbinger is the embodiment of the balance. It can open the door both ways in the Living Force as it's guardian. Djibourdi is the Harbinger," she felt like she was talking through water, her own voice sounding foreign to her. She wasn't saying that to her master, herself, or anyone in particular...she had to test the words for their validity.
Another reality came falling in. The snowy whisps of energy shot far faster to their new gathering spot.
"Ahsoka," Anakin was beginning to get frazzled, lowering himself fully next to her, "What are you talking about?"
The flood of energy ebbed.
"The Force chose a messenger for Shili... it chose to call on the Harbingder. The Harbinger is the judge of the balance...Djibourdi is the Harbinger. It made him the judge of it, the ruler of it," she numbly mumbled. Her eyes slowly turned to the face of her concerned master. Her last statement raised goosebumps on his skin.
In all the time he had known her, he could hardly remember he being afraid.
The bits of snowy energy were nothing but flurries.
"His reign has begun."
Behind them both, a haunting call rumbled softly. It was short, a sound of a shriek mixed with a snarl that had no owner. Anakin's eyes followed the where the snowy energy had behind the high ridge – with a final glance down to his padawan he found his feet and slowly began to walk over.
The rumbling of explosions below him thrummed the air. He wouldn't know that the blind eyes behind him just blinked.
The roaring call of the giant mesanon that manifested in blinding light stole the breath from Anakin's lungs as it flew directly over his head, knocking him to his rump in shock. From where he landed he watched it materialize with one sweeping beat of its wings.
That flap shed the crystal energy and allowed the emerald of its feathers to gleam as it banked the high ridge above them. Distantly the Togruta were hysterical among each other at the sight of the giant bird, many calling her name in reverence.
In the arms of Eddy who remained frozen in shock, Kachina giggled and waved to the ancestor.
"Ma'dra!" she squeaked.
Nuet landed with a slashing tail and snarling squawk, a soft growl rumbling from her throat while her eyes searched for the one who called her. They found him with ease, along with the two Vong who were crawling up the rockface toward him. She gave a roar of anger to the intruders and poised herself, one agile leap sending her over the forcefield wall to the Togruta's side.
With the grace of a small cat she landed with a thunderous sound next to Djibourdi, her snarling head the size of his body. He didn't move at her landing or the sand and gravel that kicked up, focused still into the distance where Ahsoka remembered seeing the star in the void. Nuet halted her growling long enough to turn her head to him and offer a welcoming squeak-call, her body lowering to the ground in invitation.
He accepted her offer, and as he turned on his heel to walk down her body to climb to her back Nuet turned her focus to the Vong that still approached. They cleared the ridge as she rose with another squeak – a sound that was clearly only meant for her charge. To the Vong that stood in her way she offered a snarling roar.
They had their chance to move as she charged to the edge of the ridge but they decided to raise their weapons instead, their ends coming at the mercilessness of the giant talons that speared them as the ancestor took flight. Eddy had no emotion left in him as he watched her drop the bodies of the Vong without a care, marking her victory with a roar. The Togruta around him were all quiet, eyes on the Harbinger and the one he brought to the other side of the veil.
The clouds above the two parted, the diamond of the sun and moons breaking through to bathe Djibourdi and Nuet in light. They refracted that light in a glistening silver show that left Eddy's body numb, and just as his kin (and his queen, he realized) did he lowered himself to his knees as the two flew over. Kachina, now standing next to him, did not, and instead excitedly pointed behind them.
"Ka'ci!"
The white-hot explosion of light and a call from ancient montrals made the doctor numbly turn, spying the pristine blue skin of the Togruta who manifested from the ball of energy. Karaci shook his head to gain clarity in a world he had long ago left behind, the attentive call of Nuet above him drawing his attention. She flew right over his head in the direction they were heading to beckon him on. The energy from the Togruta around him flocked to his skin, drawing a soft growl from Karaci before he took off.
Right in front of Eddy's eyes the Togruta became the giant blue heron-hawk, his own giant wings carrying him to his kin that flew above them all. Nuet greeted him with a soft call, and they both set off together to their destination.
Turon-Veer was the next to emerge from the tunnel, his kin's war calls ringing over the wails and screams of the Togruta they slaughtered. It had taken them a couple standard hours to dig under the forcefield successfully, and more than a couple of times their tunnel had collapsed and allowed the energy wall to eliminate his comrades. Now burrowed under a boulder and well away from the rest of the fray, the detachment of three hundred had made quick work of learning and were now streaming under the wall and right to the feet of their prey.
Turon felt such satisfaction as he executed another bright-skinned devil, only part of him wondering what reward awaited him when Lord Hidorah heard of his brilliant move. Huzo, an old friend of his, drew his attention with an excited cry – a pregnant one!
A pregnant one, her skin an unholy orange tainted with sand and soil, was trying with all her might to claw up a ledge to the arms of her mate and kin. What glory to take two at once, what a reward it would be!
His thought was shared by his peers who all rushed forward with him, their calls to action to one another creating more rush among the Togruta.
All at once, they all fell silent and still.
The Vong stopped their run.
The Togruta froze on the ridge.
The pregnant woman, Tai-Ana stopped climbing.
For that moment they were all comrades in disbelief, eyes turned to the figures that flew closer to them, the new hunters drawn by the flurry of noise. Tai-Ana felt her breath slowly release when she felt herself float, and oddly she didn't feel the need to panic. The One riding the ancestor guided her path with a calm hand as he drew closer, and Karaci defended her with a shrieking swoop over the head of the outsiders below.
"Taia!" her husband cried to her when she found refuge in his arms again.
"I am alright," she told him when she pulled back, looking up to the Harbinger who now hovered above them on Nuet's back.
Softly, flurries of light lifted off all the Togruta around her, drifting up to the guardian. She watched his veins glow with white energy, and watched those blind, grey eyes swallow to black as the red lips snarled. Pitiless, Taia-Ana turned back down to the Vong.
"His judgment comes."
Her statement was only loud enough for her husband to hear, but it rang true. A low hum of energy lit the body of the Harbinger a flaming white before it erupted from his hands, his mouth releasing a feral hiss as it swallowed the hunters below. Their death was swift, but no such mercy was given to those still crawling through the tunnel. They felt hellfire and fury from the enraged judgment of the Harbinger who slaughtered them all, melting the stone above them and sealing their path before flying over the wall and slaughtering their kin.
The Togruta watched it all, watched them all meet their end to wrath and fury and fire before the great guardian flew on, leaving behind the starving fire that began to pick away at the grassy field inside the wall. Mercy was not nature's way.
Mercy wasn't given to countless more on the Harbinger's path, his journey marked by crackling fire and remnants of those judged. He tore all alive asunder, damning them to rock and fire. He claimed dominion of the line between life and death without mercy, marked as the one who would reign through it in perpetuity. It was a path that led him right where he had to be.
Well out of sight of all.
In the void, at the foot of the ridge far away from the slaughter, just above the sea of grass that shifted under his hand with the absence of wind blocked by the wall. A lone Togruta, blind-eyed and balanced, danced his palm over the seeded tops of the grasses, all of the Living Force it contained singing a happy welcoming to him. They spoke to him, sharing their stories of all who had played and galloped and frolicked among them.
Ahsoka, they whispered, had brought such joy with her when she had arrived – and they remembered how she had connected with her own presence in the absence of darkness. He walked her steps backward now, slowly ever closer to where she had started from...but stopped short well below the ledge on the other side of the rock wall.
This was his line. The promise he had made to the Living Force and to Shili, the creed he had sworn to his master and his master's master... was to face his own nightmare. Now.
He couldn't control the fear of anyone else. Only his own.
Under a sheltered hollow of trees the Harbinger came to a stop, blind eyes closing as his arms floated down to his sides in surrender.
His familiars asked if he was sure... if he was ready.
He was.
Or so he thought until they all let go, and all at once Djibourdi's body was alight with agony. His lungs seized and without control every muscle in his body clenched, his right hand clapping hard to the left arm that bled freely again. Numbly he fell straight to his knees with a yelp, not able to halt the pained shakes that quaked his body for a long moment.
His body let loose the couple of stray tears before he was finally able to suck in a breath, the now-bloody right hand trembling as it snatched the small container off his hip. Numbly, the four seeds of the death plant rolled onto his palm. Bloodshot golden eyes studied them before he clenched onto them with a determined breath, clambering to his feet before the nine spirits looking down to him.
A ragged cough brought copper to his mouth, and a trembling hand met his arm again. His eyes looked to his ancestors...
And then, rolling his shoulders back with the swords bouncing on his back, he bowed himself to them. They did the same, then all turned to look up to the ridge that held his destination. They would grant him this until the last possible second – if he wanted to do this his way, he had one chance to do it right.
He had one final trick to make it happen.
He was banking on outwitting them all.
For the honor of his master, he had to try... and his master was ready to guide him there, the rabbit sitting patiently a few feet away. Djibourdi drew a breath and then took a heavy step. And then another. And another. One weighted footfall after the other pulled him after the white rabbit.
Up the back of the rock face they went to their destination.
Step by step led Djibourdi from the valley of death to the uncertainty of the cliff – back to Ahsoka's ship that she had arrived in.
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A moment will soon come that will round things out...all in good time, my friends.
Happy Writing,
Eliana
