Story #8: Sorrowful Stars on a Moonless Night

Ninjago/Star Wars/ (slight) Paw Patrol crossover

writing prompt: curses; empty titles; "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"

Summary: Morro wakes up to find himself in an unknown dimension—the World Between Worlds—where he meets a ghostly Anakin Skywalker. When Morro is caught in a bizarre trance stemming from his deepest, darkest fears, Anakin doesn't know why—until he sees the scar that once bound Morro to the Cursed Realm. And as Anakin tries to comfort Morro and protect him, he can't help but think of his own past and weep.

TW: PTSD-like symptoms (flashback/hallucination)

When Morro woke, all he saw was black. It was as if he had never woken at all. He closed his eyes tight—then reopened them. Still pitch-black. What was happening? Had he gone blind?!

But as he sat up and gazed around at his surroundings, his eyes slowly began to adjust to the dark, and he saw that it was not all dark. Not entirely. There seemed to be a bluish-white light pulsing all around him, glowing with the light of a thousand frigid stars on a moonless night. And yet it still felt like the darkness was surrounding him, pressing down on him, cloaking him in loneliness and misty forgetfulness and forlorn fatigue. Time and space seemed to have faded away into utter nonexistence, and the sheer solitude and silence made hot, stinging tears spring to his eyes.

"Where am I?" he wondered softly. Then his voice morphed into a shrill shriek of, "How did I get here?! This isn't the Land of Lost Things! What's going on here?!"

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up. His haunches raised. His ears perked up. His muscles stiffened, bunching and bulging within him, readying him to fight—or to flee. The air around him seemed to hum with energy, to thrum and pulse and throb with chords of awareness and a clarion cadence of vigilance, as if he were sensing a sea full of golden life-strings, and when he reached out with his mind, he could brush them, stroke them, cause them to vibrate, to buzz, to ring out with an airy, ethereal timbre heard only in the mind.

And when he did, he realized with a start that he was not alone.

Could Skye have been trapped here too?

Or was what he was sensing…something else?

"I've got a bad feeling about this." he murmured nervously under his breath as he sucked in a sharp breath and slowly, very slowly, turned around. The moment he saw what—or rather, who—was behind him, he couldn't help but let out a screeching, mysteriously echoey scream of panic. A ripple of mental anguish and fear suddenly ebbed through the air, sending chilling waves of frigid cold radiating through Morro's veins as he crumpled to his knees and fell forward, having fainted dead away from sheer shock and petrifying fright.

The curly-brown-haired, blue-auraed, ghostly figure who had found him blinked in shock himself, before his face fell in recognition and great regret. Without a moment to lose, he knelt down, turned the unconscious, green-auraed, raven-haired wind-child over, and touched first Morro's forehead and then his chest, searching for his heartbeat. Calling on the Force, he reached out and clothed the ghostly wind-wielder in warmth and tenderness and calm serenity and peace, sensing his heartbeat begin to grow strong and his sleepy, sluggish pulse reawaken, thrumming gently and rhythmically under the figure's fingers. Dry specter-tears streamed down the figure's cheeks unnoticed as he did so, as he ruefully recalled the days before he had rejected the light and embraced darkness—when he was simply a teenager Padawan trying desperately to prove his worth and growth in his powers to his Jedi master, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Reaching out even farther into the Force's wispy, swirling folds of power originally meant for knowledge and defense, not attack, he felt a strange fog of melancholy woe and grieving guilt, so eerily like his own, deep within the wind-child's spirit. Threads of memory and breaths of sorrow coursed, thick and fast, through Anakin's mind as he felt faint echoes and lingering scars of anger, hatred, bitter aggression and sorrow and fear, still present, locked deep in the wind-child's psyche—yet no longer active, no longer controlling him or driving him to darkness. Just mere glimpses of a war-torn, evil past—a past which this wind-child most likely was not proud of.

Morro suddenly stirred, moaning in bewilderment as he exhaustedly pried open his stubborn, Deepstone-heavy eyelids and gazed up sleepily at Anakin's lightly scarred face and glassy, amber-flecked blue-grey eyes. His previous fear abated, he sucked in a small, shy breath and whispered wheezily, "Who are you?"

"I'm Anakin Skywalker," the former Jedi spoke, his own natural voice ringing out, no longer subjected to a breath synthesizer. "Morro." the wind-child answered in like fashion, his eyes darting around all but aimlessly, taking in everything around him. Anakin couldn't help but feel a sense of familiarity rising up in him as he recalled days gone by, when his Jedi master had instructed him how to take in everything he could about his surroundings at all times.

"A Jedi is always aware of everything around him." he'd say. "He takes in information, knowing that at any given time, he might have to defend himself or others, or to put together the pieces of an unsolvable puzzle or mystery. Trust in your intuition, and in the Force. It could very well save your life."

Suddenly, Morro gave a sharp flinch. He sat up so abruptly that Anakin also flinched, though not as sharply as Morro had. Then Morro drew his legs up to his chest, laid his head on his knees, and began to rock back and forth incessantly on his heels, moaning and sobbing dryly in fear, shaking his head in confusion and dismay and utter bewilderment and fright. Waves of emotion were rippling violently from his innermost self—his core—as he just sniffled and sobbed and cried. This one is strong in the Force…Anakin realized. He senses what I've done—the guilt I carry. He's afraid. Afraid of…me.

He then placed a gentle hand on Morro's shoulder, calling on the Force again to soothe away his fears and comfort his shattered, wounded heart. Slowly, as Anakin continued to reach out, to find the scars, both seen and unseen, and mend them as best he could, Morro's sobs gradually began to dissolve into soft, hiccupping coughs as he lifted his head, gazed at Anakin with blue, puffy eyes, and let his weary body sink headlong into Anakin's chest, basking blissfully in the sensation, or at the very least, the similitude of human warmth. Anakin kindly rubbed Morro's back in tender circular motions and called on the Force to help him sleep. It was clear he needed a spell of slumber, and a time of deep, healing rest—and sure enough, within moments, Morro's chest was slowly rising and falling, and his breaths were growing deep and even and soft and drowsy as he willingly took rest and comfort in sleep.

It was then that Anakin remembered his son, Luke. If he had not turned to the dark side—if he had not feared that Padme would die—would he have felt the love for his son, the purest, gentlest love only a father could have, that he now felt for this secretly Force-sensitive child?

Attachment is forbidden, he could recall himself saying. Possession is forbidden. Compassion, which I would call love, is encouraged.

Had the Jedi way ever condemned familial love—forbidden it—discouraged it? He wasn't sure. He wished he had been able to find out. But he did know that he had been allowed to remember his mother—that he'd been allowed to remember his friends from Tatooine—that he'd been told time and time again to always seek to protect others above himself. Was that what compassion—what familial love—was? Putting another's needs above his own?

Yes, he decided. It is.

And he knew what he had to do now.

He had to protect Morro, until he figured out how the wind-child had come here—and how he was going to get back out.

As the silky threads of Morro's cozy, fuzzy, Force-induced cocoon of slumber began to dissolve, to unwind from around him and disappear into the endless night he lay trapped in, he slowly cracked open his eyes to find that he was still not alone. Anakin was still there, standing erect with his face turned towards a large, blue-misted pyramid, seemingly lost in his own private musings and secret thoughts. And yet, it was clear that Anakin was still vigilant and alert to Morro's movement, for it was then that he spoke softly and contemplatively, "You've met a terrible fate, haven't you, to be trapped here in the World Between Worlds?"

World Between Worlds? What is he talking about?! Morro wondered to himself as he slowly sat up—and was amazed when Anakin turned around all the way and, staring straight into Morro's emerald-green irises with their sage-green undertones, exclaimed, "A place where time and space are insignificant—a bridge between the past, present, and future. This world is caught in a perpetual stillness and silence, impervious to all save the Force."

Morro couldn't help but blink in astonishment and wonder and a slight twinge of fear. It was as if Anakin had just read his mind!

Had he?

Did he really have that kind of power?

Suddenly, Morro was feeling extremely mortified, shy, and sheepish all at once. If Anakin could see into his heart, his mind, nay, his very core, then he might know everything there was to know about Morro's bittersweet past and his prior failures and evil schemes rooted in the selfish ambition that would have driven him straight to his doom had it not been for Skye's sacrifice! However, to his great surprise—and shaky relief—Anakin made no indication to confirm or deny Morro's fears.

But then Morro did a double take. Anakin had mentioned something called the Force, and though the wind-child had not the slightest inkling what the older man had been talking about, Anakin had said the word—name?—with such great reverence and high respect that Morro could tell it was very much significant to this world and perhaps the world beyond it—the world Anakin had come from. Knowing he had to find out what his new companion was speaking of, Morro scrabbled to his feet, brushed himself off out of habit, and trotted bashfully over to Anakin, coming to a stop right in front of the older man and whispering breathily, "What's the Force?"

Anakin's blue-grey eyes flickered with recognition, almost as if he'd been anticipating this question. He got down on the ground, crossed his legs in what Morro would have labeled the lotus position, and beckoned the wind-child to sit beside him. When Morro complied, also crossing his legs criss-cross-applesauce, Anakin quietly turned towards him, once again staring deeply into the wind-wielder's eyes, and spoke softly, "It's…a great force field, one that flows through all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together."

Morro looked mystified at that, but he managed to choke out a small, "Oh," before furrowing his brow in confusion and asking curiously, "But what does it do?"

Anakin sucked in a long breath, thinking to himself how this could very well be a rather long conversation. Normally, he'd observed, those who were trained in the ways of the Force were so in tune with it already that the essence of what it was didn't present a surprise to them. But Morro, even in his ghostly, green-auraed form, appeared to not even know of his own Force-sensitivity, let alone what the Force was and what it was capable of. It was going to be highly difficult to answer the child's questions in a way that made sense, he mused. But he decided to go for it anyway and try his best to answer effectively.

"I might as well tell you that…I'm what's called a Jedi." he ventured nervously. "Jedi have the power to reach out through the Force and manipulate its threads, its currents, its pathways. In turn, drawing on the Force gives us abilities beyond normal human limits, allowing us to do things such as communicate through thought, control objects with only our minds, and directly influence others' actions and emotions."

"So it controls your actions?" Morro mused, blinking in lingering bewilderment.

"Yes," Anakin replied, "but it also obeys your commands."

Morro's head cocked to one side incredulously as his eyebrows shot straight up and he exclaimed, "But that doesn't make any sense! And I know things that don't make any sense!"

The ghost-Jedi couldn't help but give a small smirk. He could definitely see bits of himself mirrored in Morro's personality and mannerisms.

"And another thing—" Morro continued to babble, "when you say you can 'influence others' actions and emotions,' do you mean mind-control?!" The look on his face was positively chilling in how much fear and trauma was being reflected in his soulful, somberly dim eyes and the dullness of that intriguing emerald-green streak that shot through his raven-black hair like the stroke of a paintbrush or the cutting edge of a lightsaber. Anakin could sense ripples of fear cascading from the boy's heart again, and he had to fish for a few seconds to find the right words to say without causing Morro to spiral into an emotional breakdown.

"The Force…" he finally explained, "can have a strong effect on the weak-minded—gullible, naïve individuals who don't think for themselves—but the Jedi mind trick is only a last resort, not a standard."

Hearing that, Morro breathed an audible sigh of relief, the waves of emotion beginning to fade away into tranquil chords of calmness and serene peace as he muttered half to himself, "Thank goodness! After what happened with Lloyd…oh, I don't even want to go that far!" he finished, burying his face in his hands and shaking his head, as if trying to rid unwanted, unbidden nightmares from his mind. Anakin opened his mouth to inquire about this revelation, but before he could do so, the wind-child drew his knees up to his chest again and slowly turned away from him, like a little melancholy flower refusing the sun's life-giving rays.

Anakin was rightly disturbed by this reaction. Not everyone loved the Jedi, but he had never expected Morro to be so frightened by a Jedi's powers that he would try to shut Anakin out. Then again, Anakin knew he very much deserved to be rejected by men. He'd done many things in his past, things he was not proud of in the slightest, and he knew he hadn't truly deserved forgiveness. What he had done was unforgiveable—he knew that. And though he had saved his son's life, he knew it could never make up for the myriad millions of lives that he had taken, the blood of thousands of innocent souls that he had shed.

Suddenly, his Force senses perked up. He felt a wave of torment falling over Morro as the ghostly figure began to sob dryly once again, and there was a sharp chill in the air, almost as if something was terribly wrong. At first, he couldn't pinpoint what it was…

But then it happened. Morro's body stiffened and then began to twitch, twinging and convulsing violently as his head came up so suddenly his neck cricked. His whole frame was quaking, shivering, shuddering as he wrapped his arms tightly around himself and shook his head vigorously, murmuring to himself, "No, no, no, no, no—I won't go back! I won't! I won't!"

Before Anakin could stop it, he sensed Morro's eyes rolling into the back of his head as the ghost-teen collapsed onto his back with a sickening thud, his arms flailing this way and that as he began to thrash, to writhe, to wiggle and squirm, to toss and turn incessantly, shrieking and howling and wailing at the top of his lungs, "Get away from me! Leave me alone! I'm not going back! I'm not going back!"

He was shaking like a leaf now, blubbering and whimpering and mewling like a lost kitten, as he continued to fight an enemy unseen and unfelt by any. His fiery, tumultuous emotions were an ocean now—a churning, rolling ocean that could not be harnessed or bridled. The very air was beginning to ripple viciously with fear and traumatic loss and bitter throes of agonizing anguish and regret. Strong, cataclysmic-force winds were gathering all around him, swirling, whirling, wolfishly howling, whipping Anakin's black cloak this way and that as Morro's shrieks and screeching, imploring, pleading sobs grew louder and louder. And it was in that moment that Anakin heard a voice in his mind crying out, Anakin! Anakin! NO!

It was Qui-Gon. But how? And then Anakin realized it. On the day that he had massacred the Tusken Raiders, Qui-Gon Jinn's ghost had cried out in panic through the Force for him to stop. But he'd paid the voice no mind, and so missed the message from his old friend—because he had let his grief over his mother control him.

Just as this mysterious monstrous nightmare was controlling Morro now.

In a flurry of action, Anakin scrambled over to the distraught, wailing wind-child and pulled him into his arms in one swift movement, crying out, "Morro! Morro, calm down! It's only a trance—an illusion! It's not real! Calm down, Morro…calm down…calm down…" His voice began to grow softer and gentler, his tone thrumming with stillness and kindness and tender care, as he just whispered comfortingly, "Calm down, Morro…calm down…" and reached out to the Force to steady his shaking nerves and soothe away the fears of his wounded heart and splintered core.

Slowly, Morro stopped thrashing—stopped writhing—stopped shaking. His breaths, once shallow and strangled and strained, were slowly deepening, growing gentle and soft and even as his heartbeat stopped pounding like a gong, his pulse quit throbbing like a stampede of skittish colts, and his chest stopped heaving arrhythmically from sheer panic and fright. But it was then that Anakin first noticed it.

A glowing, sickly-green jagged scar stretching down across Morro's chest, hidden just underneath his torn, tattered, bedraggled green-and-black gi.

When Anakin reached out a hand to stroke it, a frigid, unnatural chill surged through his veins, shooting into his skull so fast he audibly gasped. Faint, grotesque, disembodied whispers of death and destruction flooded into his ears, and a sickly-sweet smell of smoky ashes and syrupy incense and odorous charcoal and earthy wood smoke and spicy cloves-and-vanilla and chilling ice intertwining assaulted his nostrils, making him feel incredibly sleepy and numb. Frantic and on the verge of panic, he pulled his hand away—and immediately it all faded—the smell, the whispers, the core-piercing, heart-stilling chill—all gone, dissolving into bleak and utter nothingness, leaving no trace or mark.

It was as if he had never felt it at all.

And yet…

And that's when he realized the truth about Morro.

This precious, precious Youngling had a curse bound to his core.

How, Anakin didn't know why. All he sensed was that this scar, this frightfully sinister, menacing scar, was what was keeping Morro tethered to his ghostly state, anchored and chained to his splintered form, docile and submissive to the terrors of shadeling existence.

And it made Anakin want to cry—yet the tears wouldn't come. He then pondered to himself, Can a ghost actually cry? Are they capable of crying, or would it hurt them too much to cry—physically or emotionally?

Before he could answer his question, though, he heard a soft moan as Morro stirred awake out of his fearful trance. "What happened?" the wind-child slurred, struggling to pry his stubbornly shut eyelids open. "I…I feel so c-cold…" he then stammered, his whole body trembling and shuddering with frightful shivering chills, his teeth chattering involuntarily, his pupils dilated, his irises dull and glassy and shrouded with a faint milky mist as he stared up at Anakin's face, searching for answers, trying to recall what had happened to him—and failing.

It didn't take long for Anakin to realize that Morro didn't remember a single thing about what had happened during his uncanny trance and unusual seizure. And the Jedi wasn't sure that describing what had happened would do Morro any good. It was clear that the wind-wielder had already suffered a great trauma in his life—and it had to have been horrendous if that scar had anything to do with it. He certainly didn't need more trauma on top of it.

But Anakin also knew that he needed answers. Something was tormenting Morro—and that something could only have come from whatever had engraved this scar so deeply into Morro's being that it was part of him, part of his heart, his mind, his core, his very soul. With a trembling, quivering breath, Anakin asked in a shy, breathy voice, "Morro, are you…are you…cursed?"

A heartbeat of silence, a spell of stillness, a shaky breath, and then—

"Yes."

Had Anakin's jaw not been attached, it would have fallen clean off his face and onto the ground. Morro was cursed. There was no other explanation. Morro had been cursed to become a wraith, a shadowy husk, a burned-out shell, a ghost of who he had once been.

But how? Why? Why would Morro be doomed in that way—to spend eternity lost in a world not his own, unseen, unable to reach out to anyone?!

It was just so mind-boggling. How could anyone have the gall to etch this scar into him and send him to who-knew-what-terrible-horrifying-place-he'd-come-from, all because of some ulterior motive or sinister scheme?

The Jedi's inner chords of woe and confusion were suddenly broken by the sound of profuse sobbing. And when Anakin looked down, he saw that his charge had his eyes screwed tightly shut as his chest heaved erratically with sheer sorrow and grief, tearless cries of anguish and despair pouring out of Morro's pale green lips like a waterfall. He shuddered and shook and shivered with immense cold and deep, dark sadness, and he let out a loud sniffle followed quickly by an ear-piercing sneeze.

Anakin quickly set Morro down on the ground and proceeded to unclasp his black cloak and wrap it tightly around Morro's trembling, restless body, still being ravaged by unfeeling, uncaring chills and incomprehensible sorrow and grief. The moment the folds of black satin cocooned the young ghost-child in warmth and softness and coziness, his shivers began to dissipate, and he croaked out an airy, breathless, "Thanks, Anakin."

"You're welcome." the Jedi answered, and Morro gave a faint smile before his eyes fell closed and he was once again embraced by a deep, healing slumber. As the wind-child was gently beckoned away from the waking world and into the sea of wondrous dreams, Anakin smiled, tenderly picked up the sleeping lad, and began carrying him over his shoulder towards the nearest shelter he could find—the Jedi temple he'd spotted off in the distance.

The night was so dark, the atmosphere so oppressively forlorn and melancholy, Morro's woe so hopelessly unspoken yet poignantly sharp, that Anakin felt as if daggers of corrupted ice were penetrating his own inner self and twisting taut. Waves of anguish and agony continued to ripple from Morro's spirit even as he slept firmly and fitfully in Anakin's arms, and every now and again, Morro would whimper and mewl frightfully in his drowsy unconsciousness, moaning, "No, please…leave me alone. I'm not going back. Leave me alone."

Anakin couldn't comprehend why Morro was so distraught, so heartsick, so shattered and broken and splintered and wounded within, but he knew that he had to find out. Somehow, someway, he had to find out.

As he walked, he thought back to the days when he was not Anakin Skywalker, but Darth Vader. Thinking back on those days made him shudder, but he knew that he deserved it. Ironic now, that he had once had a title of authority, of power, a title that would cause all who heard it to shudder in their very boots and scamper out of his warpath. But now, looking back, he felt that the title seemed strangely…empty. Hollow. Devoid of any purpose or meaning.

And he wondered to himself…had he really been the Chosen One? Had he really brought balance to the Force? Had he really destroyed the Sith?

Or had he just prolonged the inevitable by joining the very enemies he was supposed to bring down?

Could what he had done have been reversible? Perhaps, if he hadn't given into his fear, his anger, his aggressive hatred and bitter rage, could he have been a true Chosen One?

Would Padme have lived?

Would Obi-Wan have not died?

Would he have survived to be the father Luke and Leia desperately needed?

The thoughts of what might have been had he not started down the dark path, had he not let it forever dominate his destiny, were enough to make him cry—for the first time in his entire life, so it seemed. And as he carried his charge, Morro, up the temple steps to a place of refuge and safety, he couldn't help but feel his lonely, shattered, guilty heart splintering at the seams.