Warrior ◊ Star Wars

prologue

Mara was young when she asked someone about how the darkness first touched the stars.

The question had been posed hours after a golden sun had dipped low beyond their sightline. While nestled among her mother's cerise skirt, the girl had watched a valiant display of colors bleed out of the horizon and be swallowed by an inky black sky. She was awestruck as the same constellations she'd seen a cycle ago once again became visible, sometimes mistaking the gleaming thrusters of passing transports and starfighters to be far off planets. Her mother corrected her with a gentle nudge, pointing out their intentional movements. Ships arced through the open air, entirely unlike the fixed points that were thousands of lightyears away. The explanation instantly enamored Mara, but it didn't answer her inquiry.

Which had come first? Were the twinkling lights stitched into the fabric of a darkened cosmos or had a blackness enveloped a vast galaxy that had never known the night before it drowned whole star systems out?

(Obviously, a three-year-old hadn't said that word for word, but it was how the girl meant it.)

Her mother had been silent for a moment as an evening wind prompted her daughter to shiver and burrow closer into the thick red dress the elder woman wore. While the child kept her gaze on the heavens, her mother reached an arm around her to absentmindedly trace across the scar under Mara's left knee. It was a practiced habit that the two had come to know well.

So the woman told a story she'd heard so long ago on a different planet's surface from her own mother; Darkness was the natural state of the galaxy. It existed as long as the stars had and as long as light ever would.

It was everywhere, creating every shadow and leaching its way into even the brightest points of an endless universe. It waited in every corner, casting itself just for someone to stumble upon. There were many ways to find darkness, to wander into it, perhaps even to fall straight into the trap. None of them are pleasant and not one was a nicer fate than the others.

The first way was being born in darkness. To have known nothing else in your life but fear of evil because it is ever-present. The demons that made a home inside them are always there because the enemy always is. That fear festers into anger and the anger becomes a need for control. Once you realize there is no possible way for complete control, that is when you lust for power beyond your reach and want it no matter the cost.

Then there are those born to darkness. These people grow up in the dark, sleeping in shelters built by the evil deeds of their forefathers without understanding their intent. They don't know right from wrong until it's too late and they are forced to look in the mirror to see what they were meant to become. Then there is a choice; to embrace, to blame, or to run.

The most common one seems to be those who are pushed into darkness. Wandering souls that were merely isolated, normal, or blessed with knowing the nature of light their whole life. They are thrown headfirst into the wild just as twilight sets in and must figure out how to navigate such a trial so they do not lose their own soul.

Then, the last, fall into darkness suspecting it's the hope of far-off stars. They reach out for something they believe is a divine purpose or a pure love, but only give into an abyss. It's not until it's too late do they understand what happened and most choose to stay in the dark because it was what else is there

Whichever way it seems, the darkness is always there. It is the light's greatest enemy, because without, what would light be? What would joy be without pain? What would love be without hate? Day without night?

In the most horribly twisted way, the light must have the darkness, meaning everyone will face it, whichever way it'll be.