And the voices of those who stand looking

[Brooke Waters]

Seasons don’t fear the Reaper​

Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain​

(we can be like they are)​

Token Waters was not sleeping well as of late. The urbanized witch wasn’t sure what it was. Something was off… Her dreams, they were taking her far and away. It didn’t matter who she had in her bed, or what she had to drink the night before, but the blonde was waking up, troubled. Troubled, and feeling heat.

Dry heat.

Desert heat.

It was dry, but it was alive. She had no idea what that meant. Some nights she was out, at the club, praying to the light machines, and drinking, finding someone fun for an evening. But other nights? She lie awake, her tablet hooked into the HoloNet, searching. Dry, desert, living. Worlds that had that.

She was looking for symbols, searching what the feelings were in her dreams. She had no idea what they all meant, but it was something that was clearly important, some itch her mind needed to scratch. The girl was living in two of the best places for this, she was a member of the Techno Union’s Executive Council, and working to find her place in the Primeval, that muck of dark side energy that came from beyond the void.

So much information, from the scientific to the mystical, and she was still not able to place her dreams. She had no idea. What she did have was her ship, her contacts, her drive to figure these answers out, and a lot of books.

Maybe it was from a story she read? No, it felt to… real? Too alive?

But it felt familiar as well.

What was she feeling? What was she experiencing? Could it be changed?

That was why the blonde was up in the middle of the night, why she was having her ship prepared. She was in the executive hangar of Roon, at the location Bright Star controlled here. She could live on Lianna, or any of a dozen worlds, but she chose the Union capital. She was dressed but she wasn’t sure for what. Making her way down to her ship, she started up and smiled at her astromech. Unlike her cousins, the Starchaser, she wasn’t so attached to the droid that it needed to come around with her. It lived on her ship, and it liked it.

“I really don’t know where we’re going, but maybe once I start going?”

She really wasn’t the type to be able to instinctively astrogate, but maybe she could at least figure out what all the symbols meant. She didn’t think it was the Unknown Regions. She did have a name in her mind.

Tash-Taral.

 

[Brooke Waters]

Sleep didn’t come easy. But it was a little more restful. Token wasn’t sure what it was. There were dreams, her parents, the past, a large corporation, a rose. She wasn’t sure what it all meant. A building, it going high into sky, black as night. That was in the desert? No, she wasn’t sure. It was jumbled. But she knew there was something that needed to be found. There was something in this galaxy that related. A key, a… she didn’t know. Fount of Power? Did that make sense?

Her dreams came in waves, they came in pictures.

Imagines and feelings.

Heat, dry winds, sand.

Blood, gunfire, smoke.

Death.

The dead.

Her parents, crying out. Feeling the need to visit her again. A need to blame her. All she could do was toss in her sleep, in her dream she was shouting, it wasn’t her fault, it really wasn’t.

The pirates, and the gifts she had. The Force, it reached out, she was trying to protect herself. She was trying to stop the pirates. She didn’t realize it would stop everyone. And now she had to live with that, the weight of her parents’ death on her hands, by her hands. Fitful sleep.

 

[Brooke Waters]

It didn’t take long to land the ship. There were cans of an energy drink, something from Morpho, in her ships conservator, and that was good enough for her. Help chase the demons of her sleep away. It wasn’t hard to find a landing zone, but still, the blonde was a bit unsure of where to go. She was hoping the Force would tell her where to go. But there was something so… fething familiar about this world. She eased her ship into a landing location. The ship soon touched down and she went to gather her gear.

It was used, it was old, it was weaponry of recycled parts. On her hip would dangle the scuffed silver of her lightsaber’s hilt. She barely used the weapon, constructing it from a bit of education among the Sith and the Obsidian Order, its purple blade something she understood to be her own, something that identified the weapon to be hers. Her favorite color and all. Next was her jacket, and under that, her… she was coming up with the phrase ‘docker’s clutch’ for a holster that would hide under her jacket. Her pistol there.

Well, a pistol she stole from her cousin on one of work trips. He must’ve known, the weapon had weight, weight in the Force. And it was… she didn’t know, calling to her? So she took it. There was dark side weight to it, alchemized metal, alchemized grips. They were no sandalwood grips and heavy irons, but it would work. The sound and the work of a slugthrower just felt more… she didn’t know if right was the word, but it felt better than the alternatives. Than blasters.

Fixing her jacket, and checking her look in the mirror she nodded. Good. Time to get out and figure out what this world was all about.

 

[Brooke Waters]

The air was warm, it was dry, it was almost oppressive in the heat. The leather jacket was probably a bad idea, but Token didn’t have anything else. The tanktop would only get her so far, before she burned, before she felt dried up, this was not the type of world she felt safe at. This was the world that was the antithesis of what she preferred. No one in sight, the small way station here, she could tell it was for something, but didn’t know what it was. Still, it didn’t matter.

What mattered was the heat, the struggle for each breath. What kind of world was this?

Come to us, child.

The blonde heard that, was it on the wind? Was it in her head? Her hand shot down to the lightsaber. Token knew the Force, she knew it well enough. But little did the blonde know that this world was built on a different level of the Force than she was accustomed to. The Corellian had run ins with the Sith, she was a Witch of Dathomir, but she was in no way a Nightsister, the spells she’d learned were traditionally light, ways to injure others were beyond her grasp, but to stun? And to affect the world around her? That could be done.

The way this world was, it was destructive, it was dark, it was evil.

Those were the feelings she had in her dreams, was she to follow?

The wind was pulling her, practically shoving her in the direction, there were caves. There was darkness, but she couldn’t help but feel there was something lurking.

To us.

That was a voice, a clear voice, an ancient voice. What was this place? What was here? Who?

 

[Brooke Waters]

Token shook her head. She knew that following voices she couldn’t identify was a bad thing. As much as Token had a very amicable and cheery look at the world around her, she knew there was darkness. There was a lot of darkness in her own fething life. She was still being drawn to where she could hear the voices. Those were dark caves. What was in them? Did she want to know?

The blonde reached for her lightsaber as she was going towards the cave. What was she supposed to find? Was she finding answers here? Was she finding a door? Was she finding herself? So many questions, so little answers. This world, though, it was rich… Rich in something.

The Dark Side.

She looked around, brown eyes tracing the shadows as she pulled the hilt that housed her purple blade ahead of her.

How years ago in days of old, when magic filled the air.

Where was that song coming from? She knew she must’ve heard it somewhere. What was it? The connection to the Force? A novel she read once and put away? Either way, it was a nice little tune. She liked the guitar lines. She loved music, so that wasn’t a big surprise.

“Who… are you?”

The girl stepped into the shadows.

 

[Brooke Waters]

The desert was hot, oppressively so. The shade? It was cooler, a refreshing change. Almost chilly. When you stepped out of the sun and sand on worlds like Maramere and into the shops, where the air conditioning units were tuned to something nearly ten degrees less than the outside temperature, sometimes even more, slick with sweat, your body used to the heat, that when its pulled, its almost frightening, and it hurt. That feeling one gets on a fall day when it drops to a chilly temperature, that same range of temperature that coming up in the spring, and out of winter feels warm.

That was the feeling she had when she stepped into the cave. That initial moment. But then, a second later? When she took the second to take a deep breath of the cooler air? That was when it hit her, the pungent, bittersweet smell of rot. There was something not right here, she didn’t know what it was, but the Witch was going to try to find out. She was being called in this direction for a reason.

Deeper.

That… the blonde had a sense of adventure, she had a sense of courage, she wasn’t fearful, she wasn’t angry, these were why she didn’t sit with the Sith, but she wasn’t selfless, and that prevented her from the Jedi. She was a Witch, she just enjoyed that. It wasn’t that she was good or evil, she just was. She was Token Waters. She was a cousin to the Starchasers and she was on this desert world… what, chasing dreams?

Yes.

Dreams that kept her awake. This cave, was it really here? Yes. She knew that she didn’t need to doubt that. She had checked her look in a mirror… but to be safe, it was a centering exercise. She reached into her hip holster bag, feeling the soft leather, and reached for her compact. She wasn’t applying makeup, but a mirror, that was centering tool. The light was fading, but it was enough for her to see herself as she was, not as some dream-Token. That was good.

And bad.

Meant she had to keep going forward, didn’t it?

 

[Brooke Waters]

It wasn’t the darkness that scared her. It wasn’t the caves. It wasn’t the voices. It was what she was going to find. What she may find. What she was expecting to find. She was expecting a crypt, dead bodies, some animated still, the way the Force worked, who knew? But animated, runny corpses, that would be what she was expecting. Token had read one too many horror fiction novels. For her, the worlds in those pages, they existed. In some plane of existence, everything existed.

To break is divine.

Everyone, every scenario existed. But there were certain ways to access those places, those times, those people. Maybe a novel wasn’t the best way, but it was one way. She wasn’t sure what she was hoping for, but one step, then another. Sneakers on her feet, not boots. Stepping in, she could feel the call. It was a low hum, a rhythm she could’ve sworn she’d heard before.

Her lightsaber ignited, held low in her left hand, as she pulled her slugthrower, the one stolen from her cousin, the one known as Kala, out with her right hand, one foot over the other. The chilling sound.

What was that sound?

Sounds tropical, doesn’t it, puppet?

She wasn’t sure what it was. But she continued on into the cave, all the same.

That sound, it was changing, less of that tropical, island-inspired sound, and more… what? She knew the word of it in another tongue, in another galaxy, Appalachian, Bayou, a sound of fiddle and accordion.

And that song…

Another step, and the cave was starting to disappear. A man was seated at a bar, another on a piano. Turning around, to the exit of the …saloon?

“What’s going on?” She spoke, looking at the dusty street beyond the bar.

“Why don’t you have a seat, Brooke. We’ll talk about it.” Said the man in black, and a seat next to him kicked out.

 

[Brooke Waters]

What was going on?

The witch was reaching out to the Force, she was reaching for that part of the Force that came to her, the part that allowed her to vibrate matter, the part that allowed her control over heat and cold, in the same regards. It was physics, but without that learning, the blonde may not have had a grasp on the why the Force allowed her to do things. Sure, she understood from her clan mother that she couldn’t always apply reason to the Force, but this was Token.

She was educated.

She knew what was real, what wasn’t.

…Most of the time.

The Halloween Jack is a real cool cat,
And he lives on top of Manhatten Chase.

Okay, that bit she understood. She sort of understood what Manhatten was, she had read it somewhere. But this place she was now? The place where everyone seemed to know her name?

Where everyone knows your name…

Why did this place of all places, on this world, feel familiar? She shrugged outwardly and took the seat, placing her slugthrower on the counter, followed by her lightsaber.

“We have much to discuss.”

 

[Brooke Waters]

Much to discuss? That was a bit of a loaded statement. She had questions to ask. She had things she needed to learn, what was this place, was someone influencing her? Was it the Force? She wanted to know, part of her needed to. It was like the blonde had seen this place in a dream. It wasn’t that she was on Dagobah, no, it’d be much too foolhardy of her to assume she could even find that cave that some mythic man had been to in order to face down his demons. No, the Waters girl was here on her own, on some other world, looking for her answers in the sand.

In some cave that was a cave and a saloon. What was this? She’d read enough novels that it made some bit of sense. There was the old time keyed instrument playing a song that was vaguely familiar, it had changed since she walked in and took her seat. The man… at least she thought it was a man, sitting at the instrument was singing

And she was drifting in the backyard
And she was lifting off her dress

She couldn’t place the song, but she still turned to the man in black, the hooded figure, the one that was just teeming in the Force, and … she thought it was the dark side, but there was something about all of this, the place, the damned world, that made her feel that the man sitting besides her was not interested in something so simple as a light versus dark.

No, he couldn’t be. He signaled for a drink to be poured for her as he looked over her weaponry. “Live by the sword and the gun. Very interesting.” He sipped his drink.

“So, Miss Brooke, I and those I work for have been watching you very closely. You’ve not been sleeping, you’ve been avoiding the escape of the lights and sounds for the solitude of the books. We know you’re looking for your answers. But they’re not there.” He shook his head as the blonde took a sip from her drink. The cool liquid crossing her lips was refreshing given the environment she was in here.

“I can’t point you exactly where the answers you seek are, but they’re out in the galaxy, in the void. Your family may find them, but it needs to be you that finds them.” They sat there for a moment, he was waiting for her to ask questions.

Moving into the Universe
Drifting this way and that

“What am I looking for?” She queried, hoping for any direction.

“The answers. To life, to the galaxy, the Force. To yourself.”