Mission One Post Ritual - A Witch's Summons

[Brooke Waters]

Taking guidance from Ashin Cardé Varanin and this thread, its time for another bit of the Force to be brought forward.

This one from Witches of Dathomir. Some may have found this ritual in stolen books of knowledge from the Witches, or holocrons of those who have stolen the knowledge, or been given it. Not all Witches are Nightsisters, there are others who will use their skills to help people, and perhaps even share this knowledge.

What is the Summoning Spell?
The Summoning Spell is a witch spell performed on the dying or recently deceased creature. The more it is connected to the Force, the stronger the future summon. Calling on the spirit of the creature, the Witch connects to it, and links it to a totem, to be able to summon its spirit in the future. Some creatures have a lean towards combat and others towards a different existence, and this should be taken into consideration. The crux of the spell is a ‘Song of Promise’ giving the spirit what it needs to allow it to return from the nether plane to the Summoner.

---

894 ABY
Kattada

The hunt had gone well. Brooke and the Clan were out harvesting the Blue Corals on the western flat, farther from shore than the rest of the corals, the water there a bit deeper, the corals a lighter blue. Perfect for healing potions. The clan was thanking the sea as they loaded the polyps of the coral, but not the full base-coral, into their woven baskets. Brooke, as one of the more advanced Diver, was surfacing and checking for ships. But also coming around and checking for predators.

She had seen Hardbacks, and had already performed the very specific ritual to create a Summons out of one of them, but today, she didn’t have that particular totem with her, assuming the trip here to be a Daiquiri Run. She was wrong.

A school of Serpents had arrived and were starting to circle the witches. Before Brooke could even call out under the water, the smaller ones struck out. Her clan had lost two sisters in an instant, before blast of blue lightning were sent around from others. Instinct caused her to reach for her Hardback totem.

It was missing.

She swam forward, her pike at the ready. She was an aquatic species and had the advantage to some of the Dathomiri, and human members of the clan. Diving fast, she struck hard and true. The large Alpha falling with her efforts.

“Get the clan back home. I’ll follow…”

Swimming up to the body of the Serpent, Brooke reached out to the ichor flowing through the Blue Corals. She could feel the connection to the Dathomir Magick, even this far off the world, thanks to the Corals and their blending to the Sedri corals, the Golden Sun. Reaching, she could feel the life as it was draining from the Serpent.

Pulling on it, she was singing a song of healing, a song of connection. A song of promise for prey on many a different worlds.

A small hunk of coral in her hands, she pulled the spirit towards it. The pressure of resistance encouraged her song of promise to be sung louder, stronger prey, delicious prey. Challenges and the ability to be feared.

Brooke withheld the protective nature of how she would use this predator. It would learn.

The sun was high in the sky when she began, and was low on the horizon now. Her hand now held a small shaped totem, the coral blending and melding into the shape of her Serpent.

A smile on her face as she nodded. It was time to go.

 

[Tilon Quill]

INTERGALACTIC VOID
LONGJUMPER'S MARK EXPEDITION
CIRCA 902 ABY

The vast ship caught its bearings once in a while, recalculated its next few jumps, took samples of interstellar gas, checked engine stress. In such interludes, with the Prime Galaxy small enough to cover with his thumb, Tilon spent his time on the viewing decks. Many people did: there were curios even out this far, Purrgils for example, and today a dead one. He was by no means alone up here when he started singing a certain Dathomiri song.

He sang to the desiccated Purrgil. It wasn't a binding - he'd been careful of that - just an invitation. Song of promise, was the translation. And it did seem lonely out here.

The song, so far as he understood it in the source he'd consulted, required a totem of sorts. As it happened he'd visited another dead Purrgil recently, when the Longjumper's Mark responded to a deep-space distress call. He still had a piece of Purrgil bone; he'd felt it was important. Now as the song echoed through the viewing gallery, he held up a talisman he'd carved from that bone. Kinship was the promise, and that told him more than he'd expected about himself. The purrgil's spirit, vast and alien and at least partially unknowable, responded to that promise and came along for the ride.

 

[Kloe Weo]

A Pine Barren,
Rising Sun

Not all lives were taken with a purpose. The grand misconception of the Force, Kloe thought, was that there was a plan, an agenda, or even a morality to it. Much like gravity or velocity, it simply WAS. Much like a hammer, it was up to the individual to use that power, harness or resist it, as they saw fit.

Not all lives were lost in battle. And one did not have to die in battle to die with honor, not that honor had much weight in Kloe's mind.

Of her many beasts, the Loth-Wolf was closest to Kloe's heart. The first animals she'd tamed, the first she'd trusted to battle by her side, the first she'd been able to cultivate successfully. They were the example she upheld, her thesis on the symbiotic relationship between man and nature. Perhaps more accurately, that these two things were one in the same. Woman and wolf, Man and Beast, Nature and Force - nodes on the same web.

---

Through a crowded pine barren, Kloe joined two dozen or so loth-wolves on a hunt as she had many times before. The beasts bayed and ran for the joy of it, brushing off needles and branches with thick pelts bred for beauty and durability. Paws thundered heavily against a bed of dry pine needles, scaring up birds and rodents. A few broke off from the back to play with the small game. Kloe, near the head, did not.

At her back, an aged wolf - her lustrous black pelt reddened with age, her muzzle marked with strips of grey and silver. Though the pack had not been running long, this matriarch of the line showed signs of exertion. Exhaustion, even. She didn't have long to run, and she didn't want to waste a step. Didn't want to waste a single drop of the energy that a lovingly prepared steak breakfast had given her, or that a night of rest at the foot of a Sith's bed had bestowed upon her. For this final run, Kloe had ensured the old wolf's fur was lovingly groomed by the only hand skilled enough to see to such a vital task - her own.

The Umbaran woman did not have to turn to hear the slowing of steps behind her. The wolves at her flank slowed to match the pace of the oldest among them, and so to did Kloe.

A jog became a walk. A walk became a stroll.

A life lived in too-short years spooled down to hours, minutes, to precious remaining moments. The pack came to a stop. The Force was as universal a constant as gravity and time, but the last two weighed heaviest on the Loth-wolf. The old wolf took a couple more steps forward, then stood in place.

Standing became sitting. Sitting became laying.

Kloe sat down with the old wolf and ran her fingers through sun-warmed fur, making note of the little details of the flesh. The patch of white on her chest, the tuck in one ear from a long-gone littermate who'd been a bit too bitey during play. A tail that had ever been defiant to the brush, raggedy now as the old wolf used the last of her strength to express her exhausted joy.

Because they thought, felt, loved and hated but could not speak - Kloe had not presumed to name any of her wolves. It was only when she laid them to rest that she had was given cause to regret this - expressing her gratitude rang slightly less true without a name to address it to. But wolves could not speak Basic, and Kloe only had a loose understanding of Wolven. A hug would have to do. The Sith hummed a quiet, ancient song of gratitude - for years of commendable service granted in exchange for the low price of love, meat, and things to do. An apology, perhaps, for in her quest to create the perfect beast Kloe had yet to free her wolves from the vagaries of time.

It was on the list.

Still humming, the Umbaran woman freed her wolf from the suffering of her failing flesh. Quickly, painlessly, using a tool she'd brought for this sole purpose.

The pack raised their voices in a long, mournful howl as Kloe embraced the wolf - holding a salted muzzle close to her heart as the ritual neared completion. The flesh was spent, but the spirit knew only loyalty, only love, only hunger - and a Sith would not forsake such a useful beast simply because time and flesh demanded it.

The Force was her tool. The Loth-Wolf was her ally. She would not be parted from that which belonged to her.

Kloe slid her hand through lifetimes, parting the veil between the Real and the Nether - and there waited lustrous black fur, teeth undulled by age, and the pounding of paws that never grew tired. All loved, all eternal, all waiting for the call of their mistress should the hunt be joined.

Kloe sank back into her flesh as the song died on her lips. Laying in the pine needles, laying across a cooling body without the spirit of the animal that had once animated it with life, made it magical. Alone, for the old wolf's siblings and friends had come to take her home.

She took a moment to run her fingers through the old girl's fur once more. Then she stood and walked home.