Location: Dathomir - Weavewood
His left sleeve hung empty. That was taking some getting used to. Medics warned him against replacing the prosthetic anytime soon. Tearing the old one free had damaged more than the interface, and attaching another machine directly to already traumatized nerves risked complications Ace hadn't particularly cared to hear explained.
He'd had enough of machines attached to him for a while anyway. His remaining hand drifted toward his belt instead, where the familiar shape of his shoto rested against his hip. The other lightsaber was gone. Ace remembered the blue blade cutting into Arris Windrun 's head. For one fleeting second, he'd thought he'd done it. Then the Force had closed around the blade with enough violence to collapse its containment field, extinguishing the weapon as something ruptured inside the hilt.
Even then, Ace had found one last use for it. He remembered crushing the ruined weapon in his prosthetic hand until the kyber crystal erupted between them, releasing everything it had left centimeters from Arris's face.
It still wasn't enough.
Ace exhaled quietly and kept walking, Tic beside him. Ace knew where he was going, which was probably the worst part. Every few minutes brought something familiar into view: a crooked tree, an exposed stretch of stone, the distant silhouette of mountains he remembered from another life.
Dathomir remembered him, but Ace remembered it too. His mother dying. Screaming. His lightsaber moving again and again until there hadn't been anyone left to swing it at. Then, the Mother of Teeth.
Final Weave.
Ace stopped. He'd spent most of his life wishing people would stop telling him what he was supposed to be. Vethrisa had decided before he was old enough to speak. The Mother had looked at him and seen the fulfillment of some ancient design. Others had seen a weapon, a Sith, a Jedi, a Verd. Ace had gotten pretty good at telling all of them to fuck off.
Arris had exposed something harder to dismiss, however. He wasn't weak, he knew that now. He'd fought people who would've torn his younger self apart and survived things he probably shouldn't have. Strength wasn't the problem. The problem was that he had no idea what he was actually capable of.
Ace looked down at his remaining hand and remembered the last time he'd stood on Dathomir. He'd reached into the Force without understanding what he was searching for, and suddenly the entire world had changed.
Threads had appeared everywhere. Thousands of molten lines had stretched through the soil, trees and air itself, revealing something vast beneath the world he understood. Ancient currents had twisted together until Ace couldn't tell where one ended and another began. Somehow, they'd answered him, and he reached into that web and commanded enough of it to hold the Mother of Teeth in place. He still didn't know how.
Until now, he'd never really tried to find out. Ace slowly raised his gaze toward the forest ahead.
"I want to see them again."
Tic looked up at him.
"The Threads."
The words sounded strange spoken aloud. Ace shook his head and started walking again.
"Come on."
They continued until the daylight began bleeding from the sky. Eventually, the trees thinned around a small clearing and Ace stopped. Someone had been here recently. Small bones hung from branches overhead, bound together with dark cord. Symbols had been carved into the surrounding trunks, while beneath one of them rested a shallow bowl containing the blackened remains of something burned.
Ace crouched beside it and Tic gave a nervous whistle.
"Yeah. I know."
He could feel it now. Not Vethrisa, but... something else. His hand moved toward the shoto as a voice drifted through the trees behind him.
"You came back."
Ace straightened slowly and turned. A woman stood between the trees, watching him. Her eyes briefly settled upon the empty sleeve hanging at his side before returning to his face. Then she smiled.
"Final Weave."
Ace stared at her. And sighed.
