Private Bodyrock

[Colette]

Valery Noble

Time was a funny thing. It was the one thing you never had enough of while also being the one resource you spent the most of. Time, the very moment where Colette and Valery were now, was a pencil dragging itself across a blank piece of paper, each fragment of a fragment of a moment acting as the charcoal that etched the story across the smooth surface of the paper.

Yes, Valery had currently hidden this thing, but Colette didn't trust that there wouldn't be a people that would come here later once neither she nor Valery would still be alive to stop them from finding or repairing it.

"So, it can't be destroyed?" Colette asked and turned to look at Valery. "If this thing is dangerous it should be destroyed, not hidden."

The ever so short-sighted mindset of a Shadow in the making, perhaps, but Colette wasn't all too aware of that at this moment in time. At this current place on the charcoaled timeline on the paper she could never see, all that Colette saw was a danger and a need to get rid of it.

"Or maybe it could be moved?" She squinted as she looked at the thing. "I don't trust it from what you have told me so far."

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Valery watched Colette closely as the younger Jedi studied the mechanism. She smiled, "If it were as simple as smashing it," Valery said softly, "I'd have done it the first day we found it." She stepped a little closer to the gate, her gloved hand brushing the stone near its base. Faint lines of ancient circuitry pulsed beneath the surface, dull and half-alive.

"It's built into the foundation of the ruin. Cutting it out could cause the whole structure to collapse. Maybe worse — we don't fully understand what kind of energy it's drawing from. Destroying it outright might trigger a reaction we can't control."

Her gaze drifted back to Colette, her expression calm but serious.

"And moving it isn't an option. This isn't just a machine someone dropped here. It was constructed into the environment. Every piece, every inch of stone around it was shaped with purpose."

Valery folded her arms.

"I don't trust it either. But the best protection we can offer right now is making sure no one ever finds it again. At least, not without going through us first."

A beat passed.

"Sealing it off more permanently is something I've been thinking about for a while. Maybe it's time we made that a priority."

Colette ​