~…And the Heart that Wields It~
Mood Music:
Crystal Caverns, Viscaran Wildlands
During Malak’s Assault
War raged in the skies and on the surface of Viscara. Cries of battle, heated bursts of plasma, flashing explosions bringing pain, fright, rage – death. Blasting turbolaser fire from orbit hammered into the ground, flinging dirt and bodies.
Dust and droplets of water shook free from the stalactites with the rumbling from above, disturbing the eerie silence that otherwise hung over the cavern chambers. The pools rippled, illuminated by the glowing crystals and casting shimmering reflections all across the moistly shining stone.
For all the blood being spilled and the terrors overhead, the caverns may as well have been unbothered. So, too, was Lhevra. She sat amongst the crystals and stalagmites on her knees, hands closed and folded, on an island of stone in the underground streams. This war was not her fight – but the faint echoes, the fear and hate rippling through the Force, were an odd, cold comfort. She wasn’t entirely sure why; she did not revel in death and agony, and yet…
…It would serve her purposes here.
Another dull thrum through the stone, shaking the caves faintly as a troop carrier crashed and detonated above. Lhevra inhaled deeply, drinking in the contrast of the horrors of war and the tranquility of the Force in these tunnels. Like sitting at the edge of a raging storm from a sheltered vantage, watching the lightning, listening to the thunder, feeling the blowing wind, but remaining untouched. How much longer could she remain an observer, she wondered? When would her shelter crumble?
Not long enough, she thought to herself, piercing topaz eyes opening and reflecting the light of her candle, a flickering flame in the dim glow of the crystals. She peered downwards at the arrayed pieces before her on a sheet of cloth. It was an assembly of parts, carefully chosen and sought over months and years. Many of them were taken from the would-be assassin that had come for her on Tatooine. And there, in the center of all of them, burning and pulsing with an inner light and heat like a beating heart of flame, was the crystal. Virulently vermilion, hot orange-red, like blood and magma.
She puffed a small breath through her nostrils and her eyes drifted shut again, the myriad pieces beginning to float into the air in front of her. In her state of focus, everything else began to melt away until only she and the parts remained, adrift in the Force.
“The crystal is the heart of the blade.”
Lhevra didn’t know why she was reciting this old code. Perhaps some sense of nostalgia that she couldn’t help, recalling Master Nul’Phon guiding her through this ritual as a mere youngling. In the days of the Katarn clan.
“The heart is the crystal of the Jedi.”
“Jedi.” That wasn’t a title she held anymore, or that she could even claim if she wanted to. Aroth had taken that from her, so long ago now. She wondered if she was even still in the Order’s records – if they even knew what had happened.
“The Jedi is the crystal of the Force.”
“The Force is the blade of the heart.”
The pieces spun and glided through the air with practiced grace, slipping together and sliding into place as if guided by invisible gossamer strings. Every switch and regulator and energy gate and insulator, every magnetic and gyroscopic array.
“All are intertwined.”
“The crystal, the blade, the Jedi.”
Her left fist tightened faintly. The inviting heartbeat of the crystal seemed to resonate with her as it tenderly fit into the mounting chamber at the heart of the forming hilt, and the encasing panels closed overtop it.
“We are one…”
Her free hand extended forward, taking the double-ended hilt in her palm as it settled there. The other, still in her lap, turned up and opened, holding the shattered fragments of a now-lightless crystal of lime green. The remnants of the second life she had been forced to abandon. The candle flame snuffed out as the cave rumbled once more from overhead artillery fire.
Ahead of her, as her eyes opened, the twin blades of the newly formed lightsaber ignited with a sizzling, serpentine hiss. The low rumbling hum and the red-orange glow bathed her in a warmthless light, the blade shining with a vicious yellow core sheathed in deep cinnabar.
"We are Abhaya."