As they came upon that place, in the heart of the ice, Auraya felt all at once decidedly alone.
Darkness swarmed her senses, and even as her eyes adjusted there was little she could see there save the same glistening sheen of weeping ice. For a moment she paused, turning full circle as she realized that Zaavik was no longer present. Was this some sort of trick? Part of the Nexus her Master had spoken of? Had she somehow veered off course?
Her heart pounded noisily.
There was nothing particularly special about the place she had stopped, and after turning the way she had she realized that she did not know which way she had come from, and which direction she would have to head in to return to her Master. It was a wildly disorienting experience. Yes, alone... Auraya was truly alone.
Affording herself just a minute of fretting in place she inhaled a slow breath and clenched one hand into a determined fist. The other seemed to fidget at her side, a duality in her very being pooling out to the surface. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing would rise to the surface.
One foot in front of the other she forced herself to carry on. The deep thumping of her heart seemed to spread forth in that moment, she could feel it echoing through the ice as though the planet itself had developed a heartbeat of its own. Certainly it drew her on in one direction moreso than the other options afforded to her.
A steady drum to which she marched.
"It's okay..." she told herself, breath misting in the air with each word, even as the proverbial waters began to rise around her once more, threatening to pull her under. "It's okay..."
Those two words became somewhat of a mantra as she continued further into the depths of the earth. With no light to guide her she relied on what little her eyes could pierce through, and her connection to the Force. Even that felt strained in this place, though. As though a thin barrier lay between her and the rest of the universe. Thin enough to pierce, perhaps, had she the knowhow.
Thump-Thump. Thump-Thump. The heart of the cave beat on, and with each step it seemed to grow louder. The passage she had chosen grew narrower alongside it, until she felt pressed between the ice.
And then it opened up. The room she stepped into was circular, and not truly a room at all. It was glacial, made entirely of ice, walls, floor, ceiling, it was hard to get a solid grip yet somehow she kept from toppling over. Markings were etched into the walls, some of the script was familiar, aurebesh, and others belonging to tongues she did not know. They each held her attention for a short while though, her curiosity became rather insatiable.
She reached out to touch one of those foreign words, and in unison a voice echoed from the center of the chamber at her back. She turned at once, eyes wide with fright, though she could not immediately find anything or anyone which might have uttered it. Etchings now forgotten she strode to the center of the room, and crouched down to peer at an object which lay there that hadn't been there when she'd first arrived.
If the room itself had been dark, then the
flower which lay there was the sun eclipsing it all. It was blue, bright and luminescent, almost too bright to look upon directly given how long she'd traversed the darkness. Slowly but surely her fingertips grazed its delicate form; in response the light faded, and the petals began to curl up with decay.
Once again she was cast into a room devoid of light, only this time her eyes would not adjust.
