***THIS VERSION IS OUTDATED. SEE THE ADAPTED AND IMPROVED VERSION ON MY PROFILE***
There are few stories that are told among the Jedi Order long enough to become myth. Legend. It takes importance to stand the test of time that way. A lesson has to b...
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The ringing takes them to the planet Kesis. It is unusually lush, despite how silent and empty it feels. Rising from between the trees are fragments of crumbling buildings, their stand-alone walls and sunken roofs overtaken by huge, ancient trees and ropes of thick ivy. Knotted roots tower above ground, thick as Temple pillars and weathered from sun and wind. It is an odd place for a Sith to take them, Anakin thinks as they sink below the first layer of thin canopy. It feels too bright. The sun is too high in the sky, the forest too flushed for anything bad to be lurking here.
Circe keeps her eyes trained ahead on a building that breaks through the layer of green, unblinking, unmoving. It rises in the distance like a red shell, its carved point aimed up at the sky. A set of aged stairs slope back down beneath the trees, each step glinting in the sun like an ember so that the whole thing begins to look like a huge, flat sword pulled fresh from the forge. What draws her there, Anakin does not know, but he trusts her instincts—though, they do not seem entirely her own.
He steps away from the front of the small ship to send a comm to Nej just as they enter the atmosphere, a short message with their coordinates and a set of instructions. If Circe is going to plunder into danger, then she'll have to do it with some sort of protection. He is not enough to keep her safe. He knows this. He feels the threat of something sinister rising in him all the time they fly through the brush, his stomach tightening into a firm knot as they drop down towards the ground.
They land the ship in a clearing bordered by sturdy tree roots that poke out of the dirt, some taller and broader than Anakin himself. Circe gets out wordlessly, landing in the thick grass and setting a swarm of strange bugs flittering up towards the sky. They track through the forest silently, most of their movement hidden by the various chirping and buzzing of life around them. Despite the Force energy that courses around them, is something dark in the fortress ahead. Anakin can feel it festering like a wound.
Circe is draw forward as though in a trance. He almost struggles to keep up with her, feeling as though every root, marsh, and plant they cross is trying to distance them. Her mind is somewhere else. Where she is, he doesn't know, but her eyes are distant and fixated on the path ahead. Everything in him tells him to take her and run, to leave as quickly as possible, but she dives head on into the thick of the woods, relentlessly pushing forward.
"Circe, slow down," He warns, but she doesn't hear him, or maybe she can't. He doesn't know.
A deep fear is beginning to settle in him, taking root in his stomach and spreading to every corner of his body. His dream hangs over his head like a gilded axe, ready to drop at any moment and take everything from him. They climb the stairs, crossing above the canopy and into the clear open sky. His footsteps echo on the red stone hallway, it's ceiling so high that Anakin feels dizzy when he looks up.
The two Jedi make their way through the building, pausing only so that Circe can get her bearings and lead them down the right hallway. Anakin follows on high alert, jumping at every sound, reaching for his lightsaber around every corner. The red halls eventually open into a vast chamber, lit through a hole in the ceiling where warm, white, unfiltered light pours in onto the stone, glowing like a flat circle of flame.
