Calling All Witches

[Bee]

It was midnight on Dagobah, peaceful, with nothing but the very sound of life itself to disturb the silence. The entire swamp was alive tonight. Croaks, snarls, howls, and the gentle breeze to rustle the branches overhead. A thick fog obscured the forest, broken only by the persistence of the moon and a golden glow emanating from the mouth of a massive cave.

Inside, Mother Hecate, once a powerful and respected shaman among the witches of Dathomir, meditated and communed with the living force. Around here were several bowls of liquid that gave a off a radiant golden glow. She hummed softly as she meditated. She was focusing intently on something, so intently that the air around her seemed to vibrate with the Force.

"artibus me sorores te voco exaudi call apparet hic et nunc"

The All-Mother opened her eyes and they shined like the sun, speaking with many voices all at once she recited her incantation and like a shock wave her summons was sent rippling throughout the galaxy summoning her sister witches to her. This was the beginning of something significant. None would be deaf to her call.

[member="Cassia Edric"] [member="Daughter Andromeda"] [member="Lily Kirsche Kuhn"] [member="Perla Pirjo"] [member="Esme Pallas"] [member="Sitara Qin"] [member="Zaku Gardner"] [member="Token Waters"] [member="Lavania"] [member="Tabok Kahlu"] [member="Salaza"] [member="Minna"] [member="Kytarra Hawk"] [member="Têhra"]

 

[Ellie Mors]

Lily's mother, Silara, had a complicated history, one that she did not share with her daughters before she left them. She'd heard, from her father, that her mother had been raised in Mandalorian space but hadn't liked to talk about it - perhaps a cultural thing - but the gist of what she'd been told was that her mother, a Sith Lord, had never quite known where she came from, only that she was raised by adoptive parents. One can only imagine the strange shock that the teenager felt when she heard the whispering of some strange voice in her ears as she slept, waking her in the middle of the night. Unlike Rose, Lily had never saw any real reason to pursue the training of the Sith, at least not beyond studying the intricacies of Sith alchemy. Perhaps it was her disconnection with her mother, perhaps it was something else. But when she heard that voice, almost like a foreign call, she knew it was not simply something else, it was something more.

She woke, startled and confused, with the words still lingering in her ears. Lily was not fluent in many languages - the only one she was familiar with that wasn't spoken on Empress Teta was that of "high" Sith, and that only in order to study the finer details of alchemy. The first thing that came to mind was to write down the words as she heard them, though she was certain that she'd misspell them in some fashion. Throwing on her "casual wear", which was really just as pricey as her more dressy clothing, she slipped out of the house, leaving her twin behind. She'd find out what was going on, and then she'd get to the bottom of it.

 

[Salaza]

The call was sent. It was like a ghostly voice from the past as Salaza hard it. Even from the reaches of the Primeval spaces she heard it, knowing only one call that could make such resounding signal. The witches of Dathomir were back. She lifted her head out of her current meditative state and looked towards the sky. She had to go, and she would not let anyone stop her. By that point she was already dressed and ordering one of the men to give her a fast ship. A small fighter with hyperdrive capabilites was all she needed. She took off with all haste for her old hoe planet. The idea of the Witches returning to power had sparked a greater flame inside Salaza. She hoped that this was the start of their return to power as they were back in her time, during the Old Republic. The idea of the clan Mother and the Nightsisters being resurrected had been like a dream come true to her. She may have been jumping to any assumptions but she had her faith. This was the happiest she'd been in the longest time. As she continued foward and onward to Dathomir she was curious to see who had sent the signal, and how far she would go to be a second-in-command for her if need be. ​

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[member="All-Mother"]​

 

[Cassia Edric]

Cassia was alone in the wilderness, having left home several days before to satisfy a very strange and sudden wanderlust. Her only belongings were the clothes on her back and the few items that she could fit into her rucksack. She ate of the meager rations she’d brought along, and from what she could find out in the bounty of nature. Though, hunger was very far from her thoughts. A time-worn letter grasped in her hands held the key to her roots, and contained a wish from a mother that she had never known. Cassia’s blue eyes had scanned the handwritten words so many times, but they had yet to sink in. It had been her mother’s hope that she would join the Daughters of Allya, though the teen had little idea what this meant. However, she felt a strange pull inside her to keep searching, the answer would become clear.

She was in a place very unfamiliar to her, Dagobah, her journey so far was but a blur. Cassia had set up a small camp in the woods, surrounded only by the trees and wildlife. The stars had been the last thing she saw before closing her eyes and sinking into sleep that night, a view most relaxing and soothing. She stirred in the darkness, an echo of a voice entered her mind. Cassia’s eyes shot open and she sat up, but still the voice remained, almost lingering in the air around her. Breaths began to come and go quickly, it was time to leave this place, time to move on again. Without another thought she gathered up her belongings and walked further into the woods, almost as though she were in a trance. Bare feet were gently snapping twigs beneath them as she went into the darkness.

[member="All-Mother"]

 

[Shachath]

Andromeda was sitting near to the All-Mother, meditating with her on the location of every single witch in the galaxy, lending every ounce of her own magic to the All-Mother in the hopes to greatly amplify the message being relayed. She had been with the All-Mother since she was seven years old, had been raised by her into the young... yet powerful witch she was today. In truth, Mother Hecate WAS her true mother.

"Will they come mother?" the one trait she had not learned from the All-Mother was the enduring patience that the old witch displayed in the face of anguish. As old as she was, this was necessary.

 

[Bee]

"They comin' child," the All-Mother's concentration did not falter as she held her position. At this very moment, Mother Hecate was carefully guiding each summons to every single witch in the galaxy with such great precision. She felt each soul, she could count with accuracy the number of witches who had heard her and who were en route. She knew their hearts, but she did not know their faces.

"Many sisters, many brothers, the Light of Allya burns brightly," she turned her head, her entire sagging face shifting as she did and smiled, "come children, come into the light, Mother Hecate calls to you!" She said with surprising force and her call echoed to be heard by any near enough now to see the light of the ceremony.

 

[Ellie Mors]

Several hours of fruitless search had led the teen to one last vestige of knowledge that would prove to be the only answer to her uncertainty - Silara Kuhn's datacron. She'd inherited from her mother after her supposed death, along with some other things, but other than listening to the final recording left for her - a goodbye - Lily never looked at it again, let alone used it. But now it appeared that it was time to peer into her mother's audio diary and learn what it was that was calling for her - or at least determine if her mother had any knowledge of what was happening at all. Did she hear these voices once? There was really only one way to find out.

"This is Silara, again, for the - well I can't even remember how many times I've logged an entry now, so let's just call this the first entry since I've became a Sith Lord." Came her mother's raspy voice, unnerving her just as it had when she had used the strange device the first time. "Today I've ventured back to Mandalore, to my 'home'. I answered the call, and I've redeemed myself as one of the warrior people, but I fear they will still reject me once they discover that I am His voice. Persecution wherever I go simply because I spread His word. The Dark Lord's. It's a pity, really; this galaxy would be so much better if the One Sith had just been in control of it all. Perhaps Junra would not have tried what she had. But this isn't about that, about them, tonight this is about me - about my heritage." The Sith Lord's voice continued, one which always seemed to go on tangents at the worst of times. "I finally learned my birth parents were born on Dathomir, and perhaps I was too."

Lily froze, recalling her conversation several weeks ago with a certain Mandalorian, Yarva, with no understanding of his culture. And now she was discovering she was, by technicality, in some way related to their people - or at least the people of Dathomir, the only people of Mandalorian culture she knew of. Witches.

 

[Cassia Edric]

Her quest was still quite a mystery to her, but with each step Cassia felt that she was getting closer to an answer. Her blue eyes peered blankly into the darkness, she couldn’t see well, but somehow her feet carried her with steps that were swift and sure. The air in this place felt different, as if it had been charged with static and it folded in around her like a blanket. The teen came to a halt near a large tree, taking a moment to rest and feel the earth beneath her feet. She leaned up against the weathered trunk and looked up towards the sky. Cassia had traveled a great distance, she didn’t have time to ponder the many sights she’d seen, and she couldn’t even give in to fatigue. In one fluid movement she pushed off the tree and propelled herself forward once more.

As she walked, her mind drifted back to her mother’s note. Cassia had many questions about her mother, but there was one fact that found her and lingered in her thoughts. She was certain that her mother had been a witch, a follower of Allya’s teachings. While Cassia had little knowledge of the witches, she had heard tales of the clans of Dathomir before. She felt eager to learn all she could, especially as she had only recently discovered her connection with the force. The teen could feel the power inside her, but it was wild and untamed. A shiver ran through her and she heard a voice calling out into the night, it shook Cassia to her core. It was the same voice that had touched her thoughts before, but this time it was all around her.

Her steps grew faster, traveling with speed through the dark, and she felt branches reaching out as she went past. A small gasp escaped her lips and she slowed her pace, for there was a light up ahead. As she moved even closer she could see a cave and two figures silhouetted. Silently Cassia pushed her way through the brush and emerged before the two women, looking to both of them in awe.

[member="All-Mother"], [member="Daughter Andromeda"]

 

[H3xle]

Present Location: Géor Da, Crystalsong, Outer Rim
Objective: Heal and learn
Destination: Dagobah

Theme​

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17svtURunUk​

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Baba yetu, yetu uliye
Mbinguni yetu, yetu, amina
Baba yetu, yetu, uliye
Jina lako litukuzwe

The song of life thrilled through Zaku's body as he focused on the crystal floating in front of him. It was a normal crystal, roughly a foot long and half that wide at it's widest point. It came to two wickedly sharp points that were on opposite sides of the crystal, oriented perpendicular to the ground. From the points towards the center, the vibrant green crystal had whorls that seemed to channel the ambient light around them, forming a ridge of nubs along the central, widest circle of the crystal.

Zaku sat in the midst of three Mankarii matriarchs, each centuries older than the witch before them, all focused on observing the ritual that Zaku was showing them. The light in emitting from the crystal were residual effects of the web of life, what some called the Force, as he channeled his energies through it and into the young boy before him. The boy had been found in the forests around the Mankarii city, he had several contusions all along his body, several broken bones and was not responding to them. The Mankarii healing rituals had proved unable to fully restore the boy to wakefulness, so Zaku was brought in. He had been visiting the planet to learn more of their way of the force, having left Dathomir to expand his knowledge.


Baba yetu, yetu uliye
Mbinguni yetu, yetu, amina
Baba yetu, yetu, uliye
Jina lako litukuzwe


Zaku let the song flow from within him, up through his lips and out into the crystal, his voice began to resonate with the crystal as he levitated it forward and over the body of the boy. Light spilled from the infused crystal, pouring out over the boys body at the mental command of Zaku. He continued to sing, his eyes half lidded and his hands outstretched towards the boy. The matriarchs around him were still and silent, some of their stems intermingling as they held silent conversations.

Utupe leo chakula chetu
Tunachohitaji utusamehe
Makosa yetu, hey
Kama nasi tunavyowasamehe
Waliotukosea, usitutie
Katika majaribu, lakini
Utuokoe, na yule, milele na milele

Zaku's voice deepened, though he continued to sing at the same rhythm. The light flowing through the crystal and onto the boy brightened to nearly painful levels. The remaining cuts and scrapes on the boy fused and vanished in the swell of the light and the first deep breath the boy had taken in days erupted into the silence following the last line. The light spilled forth for a few more moments, then petered out, revealing the eyes of the boy open, looking around almost fearfully at the Matriarchs and Zaku.

Despite the draining effort of healing the boy, Zaku smiled at him, raising a now limp arm towards the boy in welcome.

"Welcome to the world of the living, young one." He spoke in a strange accent (Kwami from Captain Planet), and had a smile on his face. The boys eyes snapped to him and to his hand. The boy sat up slowly.

"Where am I?" The boy asked in a timid voice.

"You are in the Mankarii city of Géor Da. My colleagues here are three Mankarii matriarchs. You were found nearby, broken and bleeding, but with our powers combined, we managed to heal you." Zaku smiled and rose. He pulled the boy to his feet before turning to the matriarchs, each in turn, and bowed deeply to them. The boy followed suit, in a much more jerky manner. "Honored Matriarchs, I shall make sure that this boy returns to his family. Thank you for thinking of me when you needed help. I shall remember you all well."

"Must you leave, honored Zaku?" The matriarch he had worked with most over the past few months asked.

"I believe so...there is a song flowing through my veins that I have not heard before, but strikes me with a familiarity that is unusual. I must heed it's call." He replied. It was true, while he had been sitting there performing the healing ritual that his parents had taught him, he began to feel a pull, a song that drew him elsewhere.

"We shall be saddened by the loss of you. Return to us when you can, we still have things to learn from one another." She spoke again and nodded her head towards him.

Hours later, Zaku had dropped the boy off with his family, who had been camping near where he was found. They were out of their minds with wrry and joy at seeing him. They gave Zaku a ride to the Coruscanti colony, where Zaku's old tramp freighter was waiting for him. He had declined dinner and gifts and everything other than their simple thanks. Zaku had done what he had done because it was the right thing to do, in accordance with the web of life and the will of Allya.

He boarded his freighter and took off without a hitch. He made open space after a few minutes and was finally far enough away from the gravity well to jump to hyper. He leaned back in the cockpit and closed his eyes. He focused on the song trilling through his veins, letting it take his mind along the pathways of the web of life to show him where he needed to go. He saw a planet he had passed on his way to Crystalsong, the planet Dagobah.

Not needing more direction than that for the moment, Zaku primed the hyper computer, waited as it calculated his jump, them slid his freighter into hyperspace with only a little bit of turbulence.

Three days later, Zaku exited hyper near Dagobah. It was a more popular planet in the current age than it had been back when master Yoda had exiled himself there. It was by no means a populous planet, and only boasted a single space port. Zaku brought his ship down there, arranged for payment for the storage of his vehicle, then tracked out into the landscape to find the sender of this call.

Hours later, Zaku came upon light spilling through trees. He walked forward until he saw several other forms, obscured from his vision by the light.

"Greetings." He said as he walked into the clearing before the mouth of the cave.

[member="All-Mother"]

 

[Ellie Mors]

What she had thought was simply going to be a short bit of research into just the words themselves had now became a life-altering fork in the proverbial road for the teenager. She had two options here, both of which would impact her life greatly. The first was that she could simply forget the words, ignore the voices in her sleep, and go on with life as she had complacently done for years. The second, well, perhaps it was more than just one choice but she knew that if she inquired further into the meaning of the words that she would find herself far away from home and probably far from civilization as she knew it - though the latter guess was simply based on her brief meeting and awkward flirtations with [member="Yarva Adisu"]. If she was to look into the words and they brought her any closer to this newly revealed heritage then it would be the single most motivating reason for her to get off her behind and actually do something beyond crunch numbers and hit nightclubs all night. "Well they say home is where the heart is.." She muttered to herself, already finding herself in her mother's workplace.

The room had long been abandoned, probably back around the time that Lily and Rose had been born, and although so many years had gone by since the study had last seen use it was almost as though all those years had been a single day. When she opened the door and flicked on the lights the room was certainly in total disarray, but where the desk was, where all the notes were, there were signs that her mother had simply stopped walking in one day rather than tidied up and decided to not work any longer. Notes were half-finished, a pen resting on top of the paper as though Silara's train of thought had abruptly derailed, and there was even an empty mug that she'd seen a picture of her mother holding with her father sitting at the corner of the desk. Nostalgia of her earlier youth - if she was to consider the day her parents left to be the day that she and her sister grew up - came back like a flood, almost distracting her from what she had came here for in the first place.

It didn't take quite long to locate some things on Mandalorians, and even less time to skim through the notes to find something on Dathomir. There was a drawing, a sketch, of some artifact, perhaps a talisman or something of the sort, that had markings with the same sort of lettering that she imagined while she slept, which was an oddity in and of itself. From there it was clear she wasn't going to be able to decipher the words from her dream by herself, at least not in a reasonable frame of time, so she did the next best thing and sent a copy of what she'd heard and visualized to a well-known museum on Empress Teta that escapes her writer's memory, one of many, to have the text translated. Not even two hours had passed when she had her answer.

"It looks like I am going to.. Dagobah.."

[member="All-Mother"]

 

[Bee]

The All-Mother smiled her toothless grin at [member="Zaku Gardner"] and [member="Cassia Edric"] as they entered her domain and beckoned them forward. "A son and a daughter," she said and reached out her hands to them, "come come, let Mother Hecate see you."

 

[Cassia Edric]

Cassia took a step forward when Mother Hecate spoke, her eyes upon the small woman. For a moment she watched the man that had just appeared, perhaps he too had heard the mysterious call that went out into the night. Now it seemed likely that many more were to make an appearance before Mother Hecate before the dawn. With gentle steps upon the ground she approached the small woman; Cassia was reassured by her friendly yet toothless smile. It was strange, but she could almost feel a warmth wash over her as she grew closer. This was it; Cassia had arrived at her destination, but had little idea why she was there. But she couldn’t deny that it felt right.

She was close to the answers she had been seeking, Cassia could feel it. Still she clutched her mother’s letter in her hand; perhaps she would be able to learn more about her mother. Though, even if there was no information to be found, Cassia felt that she had a newfound tie to the maternal side of her family. The teen’s attention focused in on Mother Hecate once more, and she studied her for a moment.

“Hello,” Cassia started, feeling that she should provide a proper greeting. “my name is Cassia Edric.”

[member="All-Mother"], [member="Zaku Gardner"]

 

[Kiandra Kinases]

Kiandra was doing her usual business on Courascant. She was in the middle of serving drinks to a patron in one of the more upscale cantinas in the area. Suddenly, the voice rang out in her head and she dropped the tray of drinks and shouted out as if in pain. She sat on the floor a moment and grasped at her forehead. She was scared. She had never dropped a drink in her life let alone a whole tray of them, she had the grace of a[SIZE=14.666666666666666px] [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]ballerina[/SIZE] and the reflexes of a cat, she just didn't drop drinks...... Not to mention this eerie voice in her head.

She ran her fingers through her hair and squinted her eyes tightly, concentrating. Something deep down inside her was awakening. The Nautolan bartender came from around the bar to check on her. He asked her in basic if she was ok.

"Yeah, I'm good, Mac." Kiandra said with a smile. The Nautolan suggested she take the rest of the night off. She nodded. "Sure." Because she knew that she had to get to Dagobah.

After a brief conversation with Gor, the Yuzzem that helped watch out for Kiandra after her father died, they decided they would go together to Dagobah. Gor, was one being she could count on to agree to an adventure in the middle of the night, some of her father's other former associates would have had more to say on the matter, but not Gor. Gor didn't talk much, he basically just stood around looking imposing but deep down was a big teddy bear. Gor grabbed the reigns of the ship and Kiandra took a little nap. During the trip she had one of the most vivid dreams she ever had about a mother she never met.

 

[H3xle]

When beckoned forward by [member="All-Mother"], he stepped into the light and looked around. He had never been in a large group of other witches, he had only ever had his parents around, or random witches he met along the path of life that he walked. The forming group around him seemed to be enormous, and from what he could sense, they were all connected to the Force in the same way as him, though each was different. Each was raised in different traditions yet they all heard the call.

“Hello,” Cassia started, feeling that she should provide a proper greeting. “my name is Cassia Edric.”

He smiled and spoke after [member="Cassia Edric"]. "I am Zaku Gardner." His eyes moved, showing that his greeting was to everyone assembled. Then he focused on the All-Mother. "Were you the one who sang into our hearts?"

 

[Kiandra Kinases]

((So I take it this storyline is canned then))

 

[H3xle]

((It would appear so, sadly... I'll be trying to find something to do with Zaku. The galaxy needs a shamanic planeteer.))

[member="kiandra kinases"]