Dyad - A Star Wars Story

Prologue - The Gathering

     "Younglings! Younglings!" called the newly knighted Depa Billapa. Cora rushed to her place in line. Aayla nudged her shoulder.
  "That way" she whispered. Cora took a step to the left.
   "Silence please!" Depa called. "Younglings. You have patiently waited for years for the day that you would obtain your very own..." she removed her lightsaber from her belt. "Lightsaber. Each of you have passed the required tests; and I am delighted to tell you that today," she paused, "Is that day."
   The younglings erupted with joy. Cora jumped with excitement, but quickly stopped when she saw Master Billapa's face. She nudged Aayla, who looked in the same direction, and each of the younglings quickly stood at attention; their eyes sparkling with joy and admiration.
    "Come along, get in the ship," Depa sighed. The younglings raced up the ramp, and each sat down. Cora sat next to Aayla, as always.
     "Cora!" Aayla whispered, as Master Billapa checked the ship. "What color do you think you'll get?"
    "I think purple is super pretty," Cora replied.
    "Come on Cora, do you really think you'll get purple? Only Master Windu has a purple lightsaber!" Aayla laughed.
     "Well.... I guess not. What about you, what do you want?" Cora asked.
    "I know I'll get blue," she said proudly.
    "I bet you'll get red," sneered a Rodian youngling from the opposite side of the ship. Cora didn't know his name, he wasn't usually with their group.
     "Alright younglings, be nice!" Depa called, walking into the room. "All of you, buckle up!"

Ilum

   Each youngling lined up, bundled up in various furs. They chatted excitedly, until Depa loudly cleared her throat. "Younglings," she began. "You are about to begin your most important trial yet. It is called..." she paused for emphasis, "The Gathering." The younglings nodded, listening too intently to cheer or clap. "This planet is one of the most sacred places in the galaxy. It houses millions of Kyber Crystals, which you, if you have been doing your reading, would know powers our lightsabers." A youngling to Cora's left raised his hand.
"Uhm, Master?" He mumbled.
"Yes Vars?" Depa replied.
"I- uhm- I was just- I was wondering how we'll know which one is ours?" He stuttered.
Depa gave him a soft smile. "You'll know." She then turned back to all of them, and said "Welcome to Ilum!" She pressed the button to open the door, and the younglings were blasted with a gust of cold air. "Hurry out, before we get too much snow in the ship!" The younglings scurried out of the ship one by one, wincing from the biting cold. Cora pulled her scarf far up on her cheeks. The younglings scurried out of the hatch, following the confident Master Billapa as close as they could. Cora looked up from the biting cold to see a huge, glistening wall of ice.
"Come along younglings, it will take all of us to open the temple!" Depa encouraged. Cora moved to stand next to her, and the other younglings followed. She looked to the older Jedi as if she were a lothcat; head cocked and eyebrows raised. Depa had her eyes closed, focusing in on the Force. "Let the force guide you," she whispered. "Open the door."
Aayla took a step forward, eyes clenched shut, hand reaching out. Cora did the same. She could sense her peers reaching out in the force, she could- feel them, almost. It was the closest to the Force she had ever felt and it was so... soothing. She jolted back to the world around her when she heard a thud! She opened her eyes to see an opening in the ice: a big one. A door! Depa led the younglings inside the large room.
The temple was covered in ornate carvings, and giant statues of old Jedi Masters. In the center of the room there was some sort of stool. Upon it sat Grand Master Yoda, and, behind him, a more regal wall of ice that Cora could only assume was yet another door. The younglings pushed past Depa, rushed to the Master, and kneeled in front of him as they did in their meditation classes at the temple. The Rodian youngling sat front and center, with Aayla on his right. Cora sat next to Aayla, and Vars sat next to her. A Pantoran youngling, named Jal Makari, sat on the Rodian's left, and his twin brother, Hal, sat next to him. The last youngling to sit down was another humanoid youngling, named Gaela. The younglings stared at Yoda attentively, and Master Billapa sat down behind them. Cora looked around at her surroundings, taking the chance to see them before it was too late. Then, Master Yoda began to speak.
"The Force, made physical, a Jedi is. Comes great responsibility with that, yes?" He asked. The younglings nodded. He continued. "Protect others, how does a Jedi, hm?" He ignited his lightsaber, and waved it over the younglings heads. "Build your own lightsaber, you shall. But first, harvest your crystal, each one of you must." The younglings exploded with excitement, but stopped just as suddenly when the old master began to speak again. "The heart of a lightsaber, the crystal is. Focuses the Force from the Jedi, it does." He lifted his hands and the younglings eyes followed the noise. Cora was in awe. Yoda opened a window, letting in the most beautiful morning light, which then hit a shard of glass in the middle of a large golden chandelier, focusing the light, and melting the ice wall she had noticed earlier. She couldn't believe this whole planet was made of ice. She had never experienced the snow, living on Coruscant almost her whole life. It was so enticingly, wonderfully beautiful.
Master Yoda then instructed the younglings to enter the cave, and only come out once they had found their kyber crystal. He told them that if they did not make it in time, they would be frozen inside. Immediately, the younglings made a break for the door, everyone except for Cora and Vars. They walked toward the door slowly, Cora reaching out with the Force, while Vars was simply too afraid to enter, while even more scared to enter on his own. She put on a brave face, but inside she was terrified too. She entered at her own pace, all the other younglings had picked random tunnels and were loudly sprinting down them. Cora and her trembling companion soon reached a crossroads. Three different doors, leading to dark passageways they couldn't see down.
"Pick a door Vars," Cora instructed.
"What! No! I'm just going to follow you!" He exclaimed.
"I know you're scared Vars, but this isn't your path. You've got to listen to what the Force is telling you, or you'll never find your crystal and you'll never make it out of this cave," Cora said, both with comfort and just enough fear to scare him into going on his own. "Now, which door is yours?" She asked.
"The second one," he mumbled.
"Have fun! The third one's mine," she said, beginning to walk down it. "And don't follow me!" She called back. She heard Vars gulp, and then the sound of footsteps in the other direction. She continued down the dark hallway for a bit until she came to yet another crossroads. Only two passages this time, but one continued dark and the other was illuminated.
Cora's chosen hallway was covered in little glowing lights, imbedded into the wall. She took off her glove and dragged her hand across it, feeling its texture, and its cold. "So many Kyber Crystals, and none of them are mine" she mumbled to herself. Depa had said she would know when a crystal was hers, but she just hadn't had the right feeling yet. While adoring the intricacy of the walls, Cora forgot to look where she was going. She heard a big crack, she slipped, and slid, and then, all of a sudden, she was in a big, dark, hole.
Cora stood up as quickly as she could, at least, with the breath knocked out of her, shocked that she hadn't noticed the giant pit of death in her path. She stared up at the opening, panting for air, with an indignant look, as if it were the hole's fault she had fallen and not her own. She wiped off her hands, and newly scraped elbows, and looked around to inspect the room. It was indeed a strange room, being an unnatural black with a slight green hue, but what was even more unnatural about the room was that it was perfectly spherical. There weren't any corners, there wasn't a floor or ceiling, just... round.
After multiple attempts of desperately running up the wall only to slip back down again, Cora determined that the room was inescapable. She sat down at the lowest point in the room, curled up in a ball, and cried. She was never going to escape. She was going to die down here, all by herself. She regretted telling Vars not to follow her. How could this be what the Force wanted for her? It couldn't be right. She lifted her head, and looked up at the ceiling. She forced her eyes to dry themselves before she reached out to the Force, but wasn't met with the serenity it had given her before. Before it felt like she was looking at the stars, and now?
       She saw things. Inside her head. At first she only heard a strange breathing. It was about as natural as this damned cave, all mechanized. Then she saw an old man covered by a cloak, she saw a little boy laughing, a shadow of two figures caught in a warm embrace, and then she felt... death. Not her death, and not anyone specific. She just felt the pain of... mass death. Like a million voices, crying out, only to be swiftly silenced. A giant surge between the cosmic and living force. Cora wanted to stop it, she wanted to stop this pain, but it surrounded her, it enveloped her. She felt cold, so very cold, and it wasn't the exciting cold of the planet. She would do anything to make this stop, she would rather die than feel this pain again. It wasn't only mental pain, it was physical too. She could feel it throughout her entire body, it felt as if she were being ripped in two. But this was no normal feeling of dread. It was a Force vision. She would feel this pain, for eternity, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Unless, of course, she cut herself off from the Force. But she couldn't do that. The Force was a part of her. Besides, she didn't know how even if she wanted to. She longed for the indigent look she had given the entrance to her cursed pit, because at least then she could see the world. And then she gave up. Because at least if she was suffering from this pain, if it were only a vision, it meant it wasn't real. It wasn't happening. Nobody else would feel this hurt but her, and she accepted that, while it could be her prison, it would also be the prison of that... thing. She accepted that this was her fate, trapped inside her own mind, struggling, all alone, in this dark, damp, cave.
And then she woke up. The slight green hue of the cave was much brighter than before, and when she lifted her tearstained face she saw something that wasn't there before. A passageway, of sorts. It was long, but she could see light again. And she heard a strange whistling. It was... calling to her. Something inside her, something primal, needed to be closer to it. She stood up, legs still quaking with fear. She stumbled towards the light in desperation, longing for something- anything- to get her out of this cave. As she neared the still-glowing light, the whistling got louder. Then she realized it was some strange object laid on a pedestal. A kyber crystal! Just before she reached it, her knees gave out and she fell to the ground. She grabbed onto the pedestal to pull herself up, and the whistling crystal pricked her finger. She picked it up, turned it over a few times in her hand, and watched as it melted into a beautiful shade of green. She sighed with relief. When she looked up again, there was a stairway behind the pedestal. She set down it, hoping it would lead her out of the caves of Ilum.