Retreat, Retreat! Dear Goddess Have Thy Child Retreat!

[Yasha Cadera]

Starfire burst from my nose. Or at least the pain felt like starfire from my vantage point splayed out in the blackness of the Perenn Nebula. My eyebrows quiver, I wince and hiss as I move one finger at a time until I'm sure none of them are broken.

Can't say the same for my shoulder.

Can't say the same for my nose. That deep breath I sucked in my lungs in hopes of it being a good idea siphons through my respiratory system with the vehemence of an acid bath. I hack and cough, rolling over onto my less damaged shoulder to get the distinct sensation of falling. My scream is wiped out of my mouth with the painful burst of frigid air. I rocket backward, thrown up and to the side with a crumple of limbs and cracked ribs.

The wail bursting through my larynx gurgles as I roll off my broken shoulder and feel the pop, pop, pop of my ribs shunting back in place. Sucking in a quick succession of breaths, I push my fingers to my face and jerk them away just as fast.

Something did hit my face. I felt the texture of a deep and inglorious burn, as my shoulder shivers. "Nngh. . No. . not y-eeaaauuggh!" With a shudder, the bone snapped back in place. I curl my knees into my chest and sob.

Where's Bucket? Where are MASH and Stabs? Where did the droids go, where did I go?

 

[Yasha Cadera]

The Nihil Retreat seemed like a decent idea at the time. Go in, find more smokestone, grab enough to craft a gift for my lover [member="Mikhail Shorn"] and maybe while I'm there peek around for the answers to why I get the feeling my long gone father is there. The Sumatiyara touched down then took off for Orbit at my behest, this planet in the Reach has wind caustic enough to rend flesh from bone and what it could do to the Suma is enough to make me shudder. Explosive decompression isn't the way I want to go out.

Curled in a ball at the edge of a cliff wasn't the way I pictured it either. Hyperventilating as my shoulder reknits itself, I add my screams to the noise of the wind. That ungodly wind, that horrible, cutting wind is beckoning, calling, there are voices inside it: The same voices I heard the first time I came out this far. "Hhng. Nnaah. . . " I throw my head back and wail as the fingers of my left arm clench and unclench and the burning heat of my Curato Salva seeps upward to the bastion of my charred, swollen eyes. I grip the ground, dig my fingernails in for some rude hold on the earth beneath me, my knees pressing against the rocky plateau as the bursting pain of my nose reconstructs itself.

My eyes water, washing away the ephemera which had covered my eyelids and glued them shut.

I wish they hadn't opened at all.

Through the blearing tears I see a vast and cacophonous temple. Locked in a state of deconstruction and melding together, it appears the temple itself is a call to the destruction of The Dark, that blasphemous paranormal primordial power the Rhandites are ever fond of and constantly plying to. Far above I see the place where I had been: broken and clattered down. It had been a flimsy land bridge, yet all around me in this vast and vaulted cathedral of broken, spinning stones I feel the tethers of a familiar presence.

Did I come alone?

My voice is a collection of whimpers as I push up to my hands and knees. "H-hhello? I can't see you. I can hear you but. . . Mikha? Bucket?"

 

[Yasha Cadera]

"Only The Dark hears you, child. Only by destruction will your seeking eyes be fruitful." The disembodied voice hits my side like a speeder-truck and I tank over, sliding forcefully into the nearest wall with a sick thud. A crack steals my right side. My eyes pop open and I scream. "I came alone, didn't I? I know I came alone!"

"You, my glorious little empty vessel are never alone." The voice once again shudders across me with a near telekinetic grasp. I'm flung across the cathedral's vault and into another wall, yet this one is unstable as my emotional texture and as it crumbles down toward my body I fling up my left hand. "Stop it!"

A wave of my own telekinesis pushes the debris away and it veers into another of the whipping circles of wind to become part of it, satellites orbiting the central cavern of this unholy place. The wind laughs. I struggle to my feet, using the remaining bits of wall as ballast to push against. I choke and gag on the pain seeping into my side, my right arm glued against it.

"I came for Smokestone, tell me where to find it and I'll go."

"Plying your control on another, are we?"

"Something like that."

"Do tell, child."

"Stop calling me that!" I yell, staggering away as the wall I leaned against breaks apart and reconstructs upside-down elsewhere. The laughter rockets through the space, peppering me from multiple directions and my feet slip, slide, I stagger but stay standing. "Why are you doing this?"

"You're the one that came to my temple, little one. Did you expect us to easily donate the most potent stone we have? Tell me. Why do you want the Smokestone?"

I rub the back of my hand over my burst lip and search in the whipping darkness for the origin of the voice, I am alone.

Aren't I?

 

[Yasha Cadera]

Standing in the middle of the temple, I watch the wind curl and whorl with colours and textures until images appear. They are my own images, my own memories and my own visions of the future. "Open thyself, my little empty child. Show me what you saw that brought you to my bower. The future is a danger-seeker's pursuit."

The wind picks up around me. I push against it, pouring my growing panic into the air as it charges across the tapestry with bursts of cacophonous red bursts of light. The lights combine in strips and sliding images, slowly they begin to comfort me. I stumble to my knees, hands splayed with palms facing up as the oppressive nature of the place bears down. I see a man in black armour, a helmet of black and gold scales on his head. He steps forth, curls his hand upward and mountains move at his will, in his name.

He is surrounded. I scream at the images, watching as Mikhail puts up the fight of a lifetime to no avail. There were too many and he was too specialized. I cry out as the crimson burst of a lightsaber slices off his left arm and with the strength of three men his helmet is pulled from his head.

There another dark warrior appears, cloaked in familiar colours he puts his hands on either side of my lover's face. Mikhail dies screaming, the images of our lives ripped from his brain. I shudder and gasp as the wind returns to its whirling pursuit across the temple's outskirts. An image in the wind, a man dressed in burgundies and blacks.

"Would you change this outcome? Would you save the Thronebreaker's life? Would you preserve him after all of this?" The image of the man grows in shadow and might, my water-bleeding eyes lock with his form. "Yes."

The wind falls. Rock and debris fall around, flung by gravity and force.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

In the silence, a sigh. I move to pull myself to my feet, but my hand slips and I feel the stone beneath me. It is then that I take the necessary glance around to realize where I am. I'm in a temple surrounded by links and ingots of Nihil Smokestone. The wind brought me exactly where I ought to have been to grab the valuable and dauntless stone of my desires. "You, a being of peace would save the Throne Breaker?"

The voice sounds far less distant now, it cooes in my ear with a twinge of fears and regrets. I feel my head swim as I catch my equilibrium, I push at my eyes with the back of a hand and lick my dry lips with my tongue. "Yes. Give me the stone. I can save him and I will save him. I will always save him. Mikhail's a powerhouse and he's done wrong but he's salvageable. He's worth saving."

"Such a destructive man to hear a Jedi's Student call salvation in his respect. What will you do for it? Hmm? We do not give our prizes freely."

"Do you have sick? Wounded? I can heal them, I can bring them to full health."

He laughs and steps forward. "The sick repair themselves or die. The wounded fight for their life or it is forfeit. Give me something else."

"I have some money, I've got droids I co--"

"No, your money is no use here. I require a dearer cost. There is an acetic in the lower crypt. He has kept to the Darksight for decades and his vision is failing."

"I can give his eyes a l-"

"No." The man steps forth draped in robes I don't recognize, a tricorn crown of black and grey on his brow. I scramble to stand up and stare at the sway of his shoulders as he walks. Still cradling my right arm to my side, I sip at the air lest the pain make me stumble. "His vision is failing. His visions are no longer required. Kill him and you shall have your stone."

"I can't. . now wait just a minute! I'm not a killer, I can't kill some elderly man with cataracts!"

The man appears at my right side, his hand digs into my shoulder and I cry out. "We are not on Naboo, empty girl. We are not kind and we are not allowing of fools or weak wills. You shall have your stone if you pay the penalty for Shorn's future folly. Kill the seer in the lower crypt. You have blood on your hands already." He tosses me to the side and I stumble into a low wall.

"The future you saw we have also seen. Your only option is to use the Stone. Your only supply is what I provide. Kill the seer, you strain my patience. Kill him or get out."

 

[Yasha Cadera]

There are other ways of building a magic ring. As much as I tell myself the Suma and my rescue cannot be that far, I feel the intrinsic danger of this place as a spilling unsettled push in my gut. The farther down I walk into the pitch black crypt the more I hear nothing but myself, feel nothing but the rock beneath my feet and my fingertips. My journey down to the crypt has no seeming end. Will I forever be in a downward spiral, coasting toward this disaster? Will my hands come out clean? Why would I go to these lengths for a man anyway? Why would I knowingly preserve the man who has in his time killed many and bedded many more?

Does Mikhail love me? He cares. That might be the farthest his heart can go. A brush of ivy drapes across my face and I yell in surprise. A weak and aged cackle breaks the echo of my voice. "Have my ears heard my replacement?"

"Ah no. I'm Not here to replace you. Where are you?"

"Can you not see in the Dark? Open your inner eye, child. Brush the hair from your forehead and look upon a dying old man."

"Dying? You're dying? I can help you! I can heal you..."

"Age is not an illness little chirping skylark. Age is the completion of one's desires. The knotting of the cords of ecstasy and the finish of a life's worthy end. I've lived my decades in the crypt. Why should I fear the herald of its end? Is your eye opener, little lark? Come. For I have seen you in my visions and would much desire to see them fulfilled."

I step into a plane of moss, walking forward in the pitch black until the sensation of the man's empathic presence outlines him leaning against a rock. "I'm Andra. I came to get Nihil Smokestone but the man upstairs, he... He won't give it to me."

"Unless? There is a cost to peace Andra there is a cost to all images we see. Yet it is to us to choose the outcome most pleasant to us. Which outcome would you see?" He reaches a gnarled and arthritic hand out to me, I kneel gingerly beside him and give it. His grasp is clasping around my wrist like a steel trap forged by Rave Merrill. I gasp and feel the first cord of sweat to soak down my face in the muggy heat of the crypt.

"I don't want Mikhail to die."

"And the others who will die?"

"I don't. . ."

"You healers hide behind the Rose of docility, your agency causes ripples. All agency causes ripples in the Dark. Stand for your choice! What do you want?!" He coughed and hacked, his bony arm coiled into my stomach. I wrap my arm around his shoulders and hold him.

"I want Mikhail alive. I want the Smokestone."

"The Lord Sorcerer gave you the price of the stone?"

"Yes."

"Take it, or your lover will surely die."

Tears pour down my face. "I can't. I can't do it."

"Look into the Darkness and tell me what you see."

 

[Yasha Cadera]

"Perhaps you are too weak willed to save your lover." The ancient Seer rasped between coughs, his shoulders shaking into my chest. My lip wobbles, I cry unapologetically as I cast my gaze outward into the black. My life has been a series of choices made by others on my account. Now, in the Nihil Retreat I have found a certain modicum of agency. I came of my own accord and on the merits of my own idea. That's got to count for something.

But how far should I go? As I hold this archaic Seer, I feel the crackle of his joints as he moves. "You terrible lover. You beast. Weak kneed woman. You want what you can forsee requires a penalty of change, but do not wish to pay for it? I call thee Traitor to your love."

As I weep I feel outward in the Force. Images flicker on the wall, images of my grief at the loss of him, I see myself wither and fade. I see Kitt trying to console me, I see a rash woman bathed in the draping black cloth of mourning as I bury his body in a field lined with willow and baobab trees. The red in my eyes astounds and shocks me. My grieving form is one of blatant taint and vicious emotional fragility. The death of Mikhail would cause the death of my last strain of innocence. I feel inward for the seer's heart, checking upon his physical state.

It wouldn't take much. A swift disconnection of his spinal column would make the death painless. "Ah, you see it now. Yes, your face has changed, Andra. I name you Traitor no longer. You shall be Adrasteia, for none shall run from the fates with which you ply your far seeing gaze. Take your prize, Adrast--"

Snap.

I lay his body down, and sob fitfully in the black.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

In the Darkness, a glimmer appears. Soft and contrite, the glimmering red light beckons from my pocket and plunks down in the sod. One of Mikhail's Corusca gems flits its crimson and golden light across the span of moss in this artificial glade underneath the Temple proper. I sniffle and rub at my eyes with the back of my hand, laying the old seer's body down. I pull his cloak across his thin shoulders and tug the hood over his drained, ashen face.

He is decrepit and ugly. His body is a testament to the taint of evil men and decades of watching to ensure that destructive histories come to pass. I hate that face. That dumb face covered in thin cloth is seared into the back of my eyes as a vicious tattoo. The old man's words were easier to swallow when my mind made him a paragon of elderly elegance. Now that the truth is upon me, I shiver and will not touch him. He was more stone than man. Standing to my feet, I reach down to pull the Corusca gem between my fingers. It's warm and comforting in my grasp, a reminder of the soft touch of [member="Mikhail Shorn"] 's lips when he brought it to me with its fellow twins wrapped in the gauze of a birthday present after many weeks of solitude. "Looks like you're my lonely witness, gemstone. You and these walls."

All around us, the walls were inscribed with the ramblings of generations of seers. Mythological symbols and phrases that make no sense to a woman who just came upon it centuries after they were transcribed. The age of the place billows around me, I back away and flee upward to the main temple's upper vault, the gemstone's radiant red light the only illumination of my steps. Two minions race behind me and down the stair, I stand in the middle of the circle, feeling the muggy warmth of the lower crypt vapourize away from my skin with the upswing of the vicious, destructive wind.

The minions' footfalls slowed to a crawl and I stood facing the Sorcerer draped in burgundy and black robes. "Where's my stone?" I did what you want, let it go.

"His affection must be worth the cost."

"If it isn't you'll be hearing from my solicitor for a refund."

"What do you plan to do with the stone?"

"I'm going to forge it into a ring and set a jewel imbued with my healing powers into the middle."

"Tie it in a bow, wrap it in coloured paper and make him close his eyes when you put the package in his hands?"

"I might."

"Where's your humour, High Councillor."

My eyes pick up. I glare at the man's face, naught but shadow I see within it. Shadow and the blank ink of the tricorn hat. The body of the old seer is being carried up between the two Rhandites, folded in the cloak like a burial shroud. My chin falls. "Ah! Ah, ah, ah. Raise your head high. You won my game."

"A man is dead."

"He would have been dead in days anyway."

"So why not let him live it out?"

The Sorcerer laughs, I'm reminded of a summer's night on Naboo. Feels wrong in this place. "Why not let a weak-willed slip of a woman into the bastions of Rhand to plunder our valuables? Are you a common thief or are you a galactic player?"

"I'm a lover with visions of a future I despised."

"Good! Good. Keep that. Keep the visions close at hand as you work with the stone. I have one final task for you."

"I've done enough for you."

"Bring Shorn here after you give him the ring."

"Why?"

"You who so profess a love of the Light did take a destroyer into your bower and you ask me why? You are one of us, High Councillor Sivas. You may not act upon the destructive natures of your own accord, but acceptance of a known belligerent is acceptance of his ways. Keeping him in your bed, keeping the Throne Breaker safe? You are either an active agent or a patsy and I do not see such foolishness upon you. Bring him to me."

"Why?"

"I wish to look upon the face of the man who made a healer kill in his name." A bundle was thrown at my feet, cascaded unceremoniously and wrapped in cloth of purple and burgundy lined with what looked the colour of gold. I bend down and pick it up, cradling the heavy stones to my young and nubile chest.

"He'll be disappointed."

 

[Yasha Cadera]

The Sorcerer's cackling laughter hit me with the same wafting effort of the wind. The plains around the temple have stilled, I see Bucket racing toward me with the Sumatiyara nearby. Had they always been nearby? The radiological interference of the Temple must have boggled Bucket's sensors. As I stand cradling my prize against my chest, I stare hatefully at the man before me. "Disappointed? In you or us?"

"I'm never telling Mikhail what I've done."

"Lies upon lies to cover the truth of devotion's song. Pity I don't think he'd like the tune."

"Who was he? The old seer, who was he?"

"Nabu'enki Hadad, fourteenth to bear the Darksight so proficiently. He had long escaped death, I should know. He was my father."

I feel a waft of pain leach into my chest, pulling at my damaged and desperate heart. "You made me kill your father? You son of a --"

"BOSS! Get down!" Bucket veers in between us and levels its Viscera scattergun. Before I can stop the droid, it's blasting the temple with a cascade of scatter fire. "Bucket!! We've got to get out of here!"

"On it, Boss!" Bucket's mechanical arm winds around my waist and we billow off as the wind picks up and I see the frothing illusion of the Sorcerer flicker away. "He wasn't real. . . it wasn't real!"

"What wasn't real, Boss?"

"I got the stone, Bucket! I g-holy feth the wind's picking up! What took you so long!?"

"We lost your signal. You disappeared, Boss! Plain old disappeared!"

"I was there the whole time!"

"Not according to science you weren't! Duck!"

I follow Bucket's instructions as he tosses me into the Sumatiyara and the anti-grav boosters power up. As the hangar bay doors slice shut, I cling to the bundle in my arms. "Get us out of the Nebula! Bring us within orbital distance of Sabarene."

"Yeah, yea we will, but hey stop moving!"

"What!? I'm fine Bucket, I'm . . . I'm shaken up but why is Scabs coming?"

"You look like death warmed over." Bucket picks me up and carries me into the med bay, Mulligan swerved by to grab the bundle from the Temple. He sets me on a biobed and I move to put my hands down on the mattress, when a searing pain engulfs my right shoulder. My wrist is askew, I feel the drip of blood down my face. . .

"N-no. No I didn't get h--uurrk. . Bucket don't you da-" my words cut out as the pain of my injuries returns to me, and I fall unconscious screaming.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

On the Surface

"My Lord, why would you give her the stone?"

The Sorcerer sat on a throne of debris and rock within sight of the Temple vault. He swirled a black liquid in his glass and tossed it down his throat. "The old man is dead."

"Yes, Lord Baalam."

He laughed and stroked his fingers across his black-clad knee. "What was his last prediction? That he would see the radiance of his homeland before his end in the Seer's crypt?"

"Yes. But it didn't come true, My Lord how does this effect our plans?"

"It did come true. Her Radiance Abhayaradha, Fifteenth Vision of the Goddess of Compassion, High Councillor of the Fringe. I didn't tell you where my father was born did I? Our whole family was born on Naboo. My wife planted the seed for that ascetic's ascension to a monastic life years before I cast her out. Let the girl have her smokestone. It changes nothing. Mikhail Shorn will fall as all true pretenders do. There is only destruction and that destruction shall reign down mighty upon all who play act at its' sins. Toss the Seer's body into the wind plain. Let his atoms be reclaimed by the nebula he spent my entire lifetime staring at through the blatant pitch black. Have that ship followed. I want to know every movement and muscle twitch that girl makes from here on out.

I have plans for my daughter."

"Yes, Lord Baalam."

Once the Rhandite had finished his mission and the pieces were set, Lord Baalam Sivas snapped their necks and fed their bodies to the distant stars. Hubris did him far greater than empathy ever could.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

On The Sumatiyara
En Route to Sabarene

I wake up groggy and sedated on a biobed in my small Medical Bay. I glance down at the white linen trousers and wrappings modestly covering my right shoulder, chest and upper ribcage. My left arm is bare, as is my midriff. Pushing off the biobed, my left side is caught up by Stabs, one of the two Medical Droids that inhabit the Sumatiyara.
"Ooobaaa. Oobaa." The droid's vocal oscillations soothe the air around me, I lean into Stabs' mechanical body as the room spins its way right round. "What happened?" I groan, laying back as my head swims again. "Ooobaaa."

"There was an earthquake at the clifftop. You fell. You came outta that temple cut up like cheese crumbs in a frying pan. Before that you stopped showing up on our scanners. I couldn't find you. None of us could find you. You fell down that cliff and all sign of you stopped. We waited out the worst of the radiation spill and found you banged up, bleeding and holding the bundle of rocks." Bucket says, walking up to Stabs and pulling me into its arms. Bucket lifts me off the biobed, I lay my head on its' shoulder and shut my eyes.

"We have them, right? The smokestone?"

"Yeah, Gilbert's got them in your workshop, why? What's special about them?" Bucket asks, I keep quiet as the droid carries me to the familiar smell of my Chapel. "Have Gilbert and Stabs investigate the material the Smokestone was wrapped in. Prep the stone for my worktable and set out my sculpting tools. Where's the corusca gem?"

"It's in the Chapel. I put it in that bowl. We're going there now, hold on. Bucket's got you."

Somewhere between the Medical Bay and the Chapel, I pass out. When I drifted those months in space, I slept in the Chapel. I meditated in the Chapel. I existed in the gaze of my beloved Goddesses. I drift back into consciousness with my head on a pillow and a blanket pulled up to my waist, one of the Corusca gems shimmering in my hand. Someone lit incense, the nearby candle's heat flickers with a burning sensation across my cheeks. In the distance, Bucket is talking to a holocomm. I crane my neck to try and see it to no avail.

"She's not healing. Not like we're used to seeing. Found her in an old crumbling crypt, the energy signatures were going nuts, dude. She kept talking about people there but there wasn't. Not a signature. Not one. The Boss wanted our course set to Sabarene, but it don't feel right. Thought you should know. I'm programmed to keep Andra safe. Normally that means booking it to Annaj and plunking her shoulder-first into Jared Ovmar's penthouse surrounded by his personal militia of guards. I'm changing course to the Military Outpost on Zaadja, unless you have a better idea of what course to set. I'm giving you one chance to get me to trust you, [member="Mikhail Shorn"]."

I cling to the Corusca gem and begin pouring what little force I do have into the stone, learning of its resonance, as Bucket's voice keeps droning on. "She won't tell me what happened. We never should have gone to the Reach without backup."

 

[Yasha Cadera]

The thrum of the Sumatiyara's engines vibrate through the Pathfinder-Class ship and into the bronze bowl brimming with water from a glacial pool on Skye. Floating in the rippling bowl are peach and petal pink flowers dancing together in the same pattern they always do when the ship is in motion.

It's been thirteen hours since I fell asleep clinging to the Corusca Gem on the floor of my comfortably created chapel. Sitting up in the middle of the quiet room, I ease to sit cross-legged and fill my lungs with as much air as I can manage before the pain siphoning into my right shoulder bites back at the shifting ribcage. The shock has long since worn down, grating away at the body's natural healing response until I slept off the worst of the pain. Curato Salva has been my Mastercraft since my first day of realizing the Force was with me, presenting as a natural immuno-heightened response and accelerated self-repair. The shoulder was ruined. Even I don't heal in the blink of an eye. I feel bone shards working their way back in place and I bite the bottom of my lips.

Halfway through hearing the conversation Bucket was having with Mikhail's holographic image, I passed clean out. While I slept, the thrumming coo of the Suma's engines lulled me into a dream of basking beauty and effortless bliss. I was sitting by the lakeside on Naboo within sight of the Monastery of Cognizance where I was to eventually spend the rest of my days in the pursuit of truth and kindness. The Goddess of Compassion stands on the water, her arms outstretched and she reached for me calling my name.

I kept reaching for her with my left arm, but the more I reached the more she seemed to slip from the grasp of my fingers. It is then that I realized what the Sorcerer in the Nihil Retreat alluded to, what that ancient old seer had found: One must constantly vie for grace. Grace is not a state of stillness or a passive pursuit. One must stumble for it, rise above and claim it. Sitting on the self-same shore, I would never reach the Goddess my life had been dedicated to pursue.

I splashed into the cool water, felt the sunshine slink along my spine and I watched her hover over the seemingly unending deep. "Bring him to me." I hear her voice as I hear the rain splash against a thin roof, a cascading and pleasant sound as I have ever heard. I turn back to the shoreline and there wrapped in the odourous, dismal shroud is the ancient seer I killed for Mikhail's future ring. My nose curls upward, I turn away and see the Goddess fade from the water's edge. "Must grace be only for the easy, Abhayaradha? Surely you have grown more then that."

"I can't carry anyone, I'm not strong enough to pick someone up."

"You are sufficient. Bring him to me."

I tug at the cloth, pulling the sack of bones and slivers of muscular tissue into my arms. His weight sinks me knee-deep in the mire, I splash and balk until the waters are up to my chin and still we sink into the clay bottomed lake. Yet, as I pull the ragged body across the surface of the water a curious strength fills my mind. He is lifted up and with him am I, lifted beyond the pit of black rambling seers preaching the futures of a power I hesitate to understand. Carried by the current, I swim and push his body until the water beneath my feet bears me aloft and the shroud falls from his anemic, emaciated form. The man was little more than rags on a skeleton by the time I spoke into his crypt. The Goddess shines beneath her veil, her kindly face ever present and ever sad with the burden of compassion's splendour and devotion. "Carried on the conscience of our daughter, you may sink to the depths of my perfect calm."

The Seer's body is wrapped in fresh gossamer, I watch him fall into the water and drift down into the dark channels of sub-terran oceans which make up my home planet until his image is lost. "Daughter. Rise. Sin no more." The voice is stern, I pull my gaze up and feel the fingers of the Goddess stroke across my chin.

"The salt of your tears is a fitting sacrifice to begin your atonement for your crime. Do nothing to cause further harm. Look upon all with compassion. You of the healing heart, do not give way to the wicked play of others. It is not your place to murder and destroy. Hold fast. Hold strong. Pour yourself into the stone. Be not afraid, for fear is the path to lonely alleys and false times. Awake. Work. Be ready."

 

[Yasha Cadera]

I woke with the Corusca gem glimmering and shimmering in my hand. What have I done to deserve the forgiveness of a Goddess radiant with compassion and light? Whatever it was, I'm glad of it. I sit in meditation with the gemstone and several small pieces of a pale peach coloured quartz I picked up for a few credits at a market. My eyes closed, I sense into the stones and feel the warmth of captured light locked in the crystalline matrix of the stones. Resonating with the crystal is my next task at hand. Corusca gems are stiff, rare, unique and expensive, they could cut through metal and are some of the most beautiful things I've ever held in my hand. I start with learning the stone, reaching inward to sense the way it buzzes, the beauty with which light is captured within it.

My mind bursts with joy, with the happiness of reunited lovers, the glee of the coursing light springing from lattice to lattice in the gemstone. As I learn the stone, I pour myself into it. The bliss of being wanted, the grace of feeling safe and surrounded, the beauty of a perfectly healed body. It is the healing power of my gift in the Force that I concentrate onto the gem. The light trapped within the gemstone begins to shift and bend, pouring in with the texture of my analgesic and reparative gift. Mikhail will never be able to heal himself. His powers are far too specialized and he is far too Dark an applicant. Yet, should he be severely damaged without my abilities nearby, I don't want to lose his life on virtue of distance. By pouring in my feelings on the matter and the abilities I have to heal I empower the gems.

It should be enough to give him a burst when he needs it the most.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

What is healing?

When I teach my students I explain it as the desire to bring a body back to the purity of wholeness, an instinctual returning of the body and mind to the place it was before the damage started, before the poison slunk in. In that vein is it not a transport through time? A moment of grace and purity dressed in the garment of Light's merciful compassion? We all must be given the chance to go backward in body or mind and return to a place from which we can bolster our stand and fix our mistakes. Whether that mistake was one of choice, circumstance or bad judgement, it can cost limbs, lives and lost souls their passages home. Death waits in the pause, a Krayt Dragon with little regard to riches, suffering or a lover's locked arms.

As I meditate on the nature of the healing arts, my fingers locked around the gemstones I ponder these mysteries in my heart and come to the conclusion that if one can see veins of visions from the past, present and future in the Force one can reach out to a future point and give to that point a crystalline prayer. It is my prayer that the healing aura I lock into the crystal shall burst forth at the time of greatest need. When all else has lost its' magic and the art of telekinesis my lover plies has grown tired and shallow-suited for the task of survival, this ring will hold him fast and steady. It will bring his body back to the time it is now in full health and blissful presence.

These stones will save Mikhail Shorn's life. What thanks I can give to the Force is brushing past my pale lips and out into the open air of the Sumatiyara's Chapel and swells around the passageways of the ship bought for me by another masculine hand. There is beauty in the cries. There is a presence most holy in the suffering of pain on behalf of another. The Corusca gem was won by the shattering of my lover Jared Ovmar's legs, I remember still the day Jared died for that pain reverberates through my desires to become the better woman, the better healer, the better of my gentle sins. The method may have been wrought in infamy but the application of this dear and precious prize will become the bridge which extends a true and hearty grace to the Throne Breaker when his heart is heaviest weighed with panic, sorrow and grief.

In the Darkness came a flicker and that flicker ministered to me as the body of the old seer gurgled its last and pressed into my chest with the weight of a dead and passed life. He'd been a relatively small weight for a man, but the spiritual mass of his passing was a firm and present press into my conscience. Beyond the conscience, inside the vision of the Goddess of Compassion was the simple order from the divine.

"Go and sin no more."

Perhaps that is the pinnacle of the Healer's prayer, that the wounds gathered by the healed party be never recommitted. That their placement upon the body, mind and spirit be pulled out and erased as stains are erased from a laundered garment. Blessed Goddess of Compassion, imbue my painted light inside these stones, that their promise of recuperation be not stunted or belayed. May it act as a tether to the mind of my lover regardless of the future events which lead us to the eventual use of this band of rock and gemstone.

May I have the courage to present it with dignity and grace to he of whom it is met.

I kneel beside the statue of the Goddess of Compassion that I carved out of stone with my own two hands and press my forehead to the ground. I know to many my reliance on the old goddesses of Naboo is a reliance on disproven meta-science, but I deign to think in my youth that the Light of the Force flows through aspects in which a person could come to understand. Are we not all stories and songs yet to be bellowed to a whispering crowd?

 

[Yasha Cadera]

I rose as the fifth stick of incense puffed out of existence. The cloying fragrance of the hand-rolled incense blend lingers in the air as it always lingers in the Chapel, yet today I can feel it coating my clothing and skin. I am still wrapped in the bandeau of white linen my droid medics tied around my nubile chest and right shoulder, the white linen trousers are still hugging my hips and spilling in wide leg array from hip to ankle. My right shoulder feels far less stiff and the pinging ache of my head has faded to yesterday's parlour. I hold the gemstones in my hand and as I touch them I feel their radiation bright and chipper upon my naked hand. The healing properties pushed within them are staying firm enough for my liking.

I rise and head to my artist's workshop and droid repair suite. Nestled between the hangar bay and the living quarters, the repair suite was another of those must haves I insisted upon when Jared delivered my bountiful gift. As a sculptor and painter, it was also a place where I could work on my inspirations.

Mulligan and Sparkles have already laid out the tools necessary for the sculpting of Mikhail's ring. Beside the tools on a slip of grey cloth lies the few fist-sized pieces of Nihil Smokestone the Sorcerer of Rhand gave me on my quest. I lay the Corusca gem and the peach-white quartz beside the Nihil Smokestone and take a seat on my craftsman stool. "Which piece is gonna be the one, hmm? I need you to have the least interior cracks."

I pick up and tap at the pieces of smokestone, denying one then another until I hold an adequate piece of rock in my hand. Taking my scanner, I take a glance into the interior of the piece to ensure no structural points will crack the stone into pieces as I form it, and convinced enough of this one's weight and build I bring out my chisel and hammer.

Affixing the rock in a clamp, I test the surface with the hammer before picking the spot that feels the best and placing my chisel to it. Bam! The echo of the hammer's kinetic transfer rings in my ears as the first strike always rings when I ply my creative trade. The second is easier, the third follows like a dream. As I work more with the Smokestone, I get to learn its' temperament and choose a narrower chisel and lighter knocks. One might think the stone of the Rhandites would answer well to force's blows, but for me it is shaving off like jade might shave. Hours pass and pieces of stone fall to the floor and work counter in scatters.

The ring begins to take shape, I have the two sides smooth and now am forming the bottom rung of the ring, which will rest on the opposite end from the jewels. There is a danger in crafting a ring of stone too shallow in the scoop, should I add less mass than is necessary for counterbalance of the stones, the ring itself will snap and shatter with the proper application of force. Far be it for me to go to all this trouble to build an inferior ring. I grab a sculptor's awl and begin to 'shave' the bottom round of stone, yet more will have to wait until I have set the gem on top. I crane my neck and stretch.

My right side is still a little sore.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

A mug of tea and a bowl of vegetables and rice did wonders for bringing me back to the sculpting of Mikhail's ring. Okay so it wasn't just a meal, but Bucket's been learning massage and those droid's mechanical fingers are amazing at finding the knots. Like. . . really amazing. I might rent Bucket out.

The setting for the ring is a series of concentric squares thick enough to hold the crown jewel of its' inspiration. The square facet pours downward in thick bands to the bottom of the ring, and I'm taking great care to chisel the inlay grooves in the side of the ring for the less dear chips of quartz to embolden the side. Should the inlay area be a fraction too big, the Corusca gem will pop out or fall off. Should the inlay area be too small, the corusca gem will probably sand and wear it down over a relatively short period of time. Mounting a stone which is known for its ability to scythe through substances like a hot chef's knife in cold butter is no simple task of wire and gilding.

As I prepare the ring for the gemstones, I smooth the rest of it down, polishing the Smokestone until it takes on a glossy black sheen all of its' own. Most jewellers do the fit and inlay of gemstones by hand and have for centuries, maybe longer then even that. It takes an artist's eye and a steady hand to inlay the jewels to a ring and it makes me glad I'm doing a man's ring.

Good gosh if I was doing something delicate I'd be burning up my forehead with nervous sweat. I start with the quartz. If I mess up with the quartz, it's not a huge loss but for the diamonds on either side of the thick sloping band. Another few hours worth of work has the quartz inlaid properly between spokes in the stone.

Next is the Corusca gem itself. "Hey, Bucks? Get me Sparkles."

"Work, work, work. HEY SPARKLES! GITOVERHERE!" I wince a Bucket 'yells'. It's not long before my admin droid Sparkles comes roaring in.

"Where is the fire, my Councillor!?"

"In Bucket's backplates. I need you. . . " I say in between taking a tiny jeweller's file to the interior inlay region of the large central gem. " . . to send a message to Mikha. Set up a meet point and have Bingo change course to meet him halfway. Kay? Thanks."

"Might I also advise Councillor to bathe?"

"In a minute. Or fifty. Once I get this stone in, have Mulligan get a bath ready and lay out an outfit for me. Something casual but flirty."

"Flirty. . . yes Councillor."

"Thanks, Sparkles. You may go."

"Travel the universe, Bucket said. It's alright Andra is a 'cool master' Bucket said. Oh I suppose we get enough down time... I am going for an oil bath after this. I'm positively wound tight." Sparkles mumbles off into the distance and I heft the Corusca gem in my hand.

Okay gem it's you, me and Mikhail's ring.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

The ruby red Corusca gem shines like a proud beacon on the black sea of the ring. I took my sweet and hearty time placing the gem into its' berth, and at the end while the epoxy resin dried and I polished the final touches of the ring, I sat back staring at my accomplishment. The fragments of Nihil Smokestone I chiselled away to make the ring itself are packaged up in a box and placed on a shelf with the other fist-sized ingots: safe for another project down the road. "What am I calling you, hm? Everything needs a name and 'that ring I gave you that does stuff' sounds like a larger cop-out than buying your girlfriend a toaster for your anniversary. But honey! We needed a new toaster! Biatch. . . wow, I swept into that mediocre fantasy toute-suite and full barrel."

I rub the back of my neck and take the chance to look in a mirror. "Hoh, I am filthy." Time for a bath. As I bathe I think of the ring. It needs a name that's worthy of it and eventually the name appears. After dressing and letting the droids do my hair (I don't know why they love braiding it so much), I pad over to the workshop and pick the ring up in my hands. It weighs more than one would expect, buzzes with a breath of the Light Side of the Force, from whence my healing abilities come.

"I dub thee Iasth-Abhai. You shall be the companion to my companion and do the task I would have done should I be missing from his side. You shall be the healing wave of a dry seabed, and you sh-oh no! He'll be here any minute! I've got to get you in a box!" I rush around the workshop until I find a small wood box and I press a piece of chersilk into the depression. Laying the Ring of Iasth-Abhai into the chersilk, I close the box and wrap it in bright paper and seal it with a ribbon and bow.

"There. Bingo, what's our ETA on reaching Mikhail's ship?" I ask, walking out to the Bridge.

"We're closing in now. He'll be within docking range in six minutes."

"Sweet. I'll . . . gee where should I be? Should I play it cool and be all chill in the living area or should I pretend it's been a big deal and be all pristine in the Meditation Sphere?"

"It has been a big deal." Bucket pipes up.

"Sure it has, but I don't want him to know that, do I? Do I?"

Bucket smacks its face plate and shakes its head. "You fell off a cliff, got lost in Rhandite space, passed out from injuries that contrary to popular abilities didn't heal themselves, and have had your head buried in a week's worth of crafting. Yeah. It's a big deal."

"Or I can play it cool."

"If you don't tell him what happened, I'll tell Kitt how old you are."

"And sharing the story with Mikhail!"

Bucket grumbles as the docking umbilical clangs into place. "Humans."

 

[Lord Ghoul]

"What do you mean 'not here'?"

"I mean, a ship with that transponder code hasn't touched down anywhere on Zaadja," replied an exasperated-looking Nikto. At least, as exasperated as reptilian humanoids with flaps for mouths could look. The uniformed garrison commander did look uncomfortable in the presence of a definitely non-military clothed, pacing, raven-haired human with a blue-eyed stare that could turn water into ice.

"You're absolutely sure?"

"This is a military installation, Lord Shorn-"

"Don't call me that!"

The Nikto forged ahead. "We would have picked up on any incoming ship save a stealth class. I presume that-"

"No," Mikhail Shorn growled frustratedly, "She's not flying a stealth ship."

The Sith stopped pacing and fixed the commander with a frosty glare, pointing a finger. "If I find out you screwed up, I'm coming back to this ice ball of a planet and I'm gonna rip your larynx out and stuff it somewhere real uncomfortable."

He stalked toward the exit.

"Where are you going?"

"To find her."

 

[Lord Ghoul]

A 'borrowed' star fighter cut through the inky blackness amid pinpricks of light, rushing toward a transponder signal that pinged with a heart-lurching familiarity to the pilot. The fighter slewed to a halt in the weightlessness of space, coming to rest beside the docking hatch.

The voice of a droid buzzed on the fighter's comm channel.

"Master Shorn, you're late."

"Shut up and get better deep space comms, Rhombus-Face."

Moments later, a very anxious Mikhail Shorn emerged onboard the Sumatiyara. He could feel her here. She didn't feel like she was dying, or in danger, but there was something about her.... a new fragility. Dark brows knit together in a sharp scowl. He sucked at interpreting emotions, but even he could tell something was up.

Eyes wide with concern and directionless, momentarily withheld anger, he strode down the hall.

"Andra!"

Bucket clanked down the hall behind Shorn.

"This way, she's-"

"I know," he breathed.

Time and space froze. The walls melted away. She stood in front of him, in the act of turning around. Hair the color of honey flowed from her head. Soft eyes that alternated between hues of forests and earth pierced his heart. The smooth, slightly tanned skin of her face crinkled as she smiled. The glow of her presence set him awash with calm and the knowledge... the knowledge that he was loved.

He swallowed hard and time snapped back into existence. He couldn't lose her.

Ever.

They would have to kill him first.

[member="Anders Sivas"]

 

[Yasha Cadera]

"Maybe I should go to the Chapel? Light a stick of incense for good luck? What do you think, Sparkles?" Sparkles merely nods, as the voice which caused a pacifist to commit murder shudders through the corridor of the Sumatiyara.

"Andra!"

I swerve around, my hair scattering across my shoulders and I see his wide eyed stricken face. Bucket's conversation barely registered those days before, it hadn't broken through the mental and physical fog of my broken, battered and soul-wounded body. Now I see the folly in that. [member="Mikhail Shorn"] looks to be worried sick. My smile is one of utmost relief, yet as I see him standing in state his emotional tempest smacks the smile off my face. As I turn he'd be able to see the scuff marks and bruises that for all rights should have healed themselves minutes after I'd gotten them. They didn't heal, there's a large scratch which starts at my eyebrow and sweeps up toward my temple: the place I must have smacked my head at the start of my bid for Nihil Smokestone. Killing the old seer had been worth it for the sheer volume of Mikhail's panicked, adoring emotions. Not that the panic is nice. It's not.

"Mikha." I run.

I run into his arms and bury my head into his chest and despite my best intentions and the searing pain still wracking my right shoulder, I start to cry, quiet tears breaking the seal on my eyelids as I bury my nose and lips into the crook of his neck. My mind plays back the struggles of the stone and I gasp in pain as I try and reach my right arm across his back. I jerk the arm away and let it rest on my stomach between us. "I'm alive, it's. . . it's . . ."

My breath breaks. I try and hide the weakness in my eyes but I should know better. I'm a horrible liar. "I had this vision where you got killed and I couldn't let it happen. So I panicked and made Bingo fly me to the Nihil Retreat and then there was this Sorcerer and he made me do something to get Smokestone and this Darksight Seer said he saw the same future vision of you dying and if I wanted to save you I had . . I . . . You're not allowed to die. So I made you something. . . but it's not done yet, I have to resonate it to you. . . It should work and I scared Bucket when I fell off this cliff and my shoulder didn't heal and then I passed out and had this dream vision of the Goddess of Compassion and this is for you. I made it for you."

I pull the wooden box out of my pocket and hand it to Mikhail, burying my head in his shoulder as I say, "You're not allowed to die." As if that made up for the worry on his face, or the line we just passed over. I feel open and loose, as if the atoms which make up my body were torn apart in the Nihil Retreat and I only came back with half of me. Had I left part of Andra Sivas in that muggy lower crypt? Would the dead seer lie mute in his grave? Would Mikhail accept what I've done?