(lol this sucks but i don’t care)
(i hate writing i hate writing i hate writing. how do you format on these forums aaa)
Unknown Space, 7G Sector, Illum System, Illum.
Vosca & Milo travel to Illum on behest of their Master, Jedi Knight Thelion Ryval, to acquire their Lightsaber Crystals for the construction of their Lightsabers. Arriving on the frozen Ice Planet, and venturing into the caves below, things don’t go quite as planned…
The Padawans, by poor circumstance or the will of the Force, are separated from one-another. With little other choice, both are forced to carry on devoid of their fellow learner, given the choice to die in the cold, or move on until they find a way to overcome the hardships before them.
With Milo haven’t of fled into the snow, with the weather too intense to pursue, Vosca is given a single choice; proceed down the cave, escape from the cold, and find what she seeks.
- - -
Deeper.
Wrapping in a cloak, following the tug of the Force, the Echani descended downwards. Through frigid caves illuminated by crystalline light, the lone Echani was left to walk on, teeth chattering as she moved down the steep descent. Step by step, through ice and smooth stone, challenged her. Each step is a hazard, each step a challenge. Careful footing, a slow descent, each moment a risk to slip and fall, to death or mere injury.
***ALONE // AGAIN.***
A voice. A presence. A pressure. Vosca winced, each step a slow descend downwards. The tugging grew stronger, the weight of a presence settled over her body. She took another step, ice cracking below her boot as she reached to the side, grasping a loose crystal formation to steady herself. The cave went deeper, much deeper, and she had much further to go yet… Towards that feeling. What was guiding her?
A deep breath. Carefully, she set her foot down against the ice-encrusted platform below. Than the other, the weight settling against it.
‘CRRKSSH-!’
Crash.
Falling.
The gradual, careful descent was reduced to a loose and chaotic tumble. She slid on rock, slipped on ice, crashed and rolled. Her eyes squeezed shut, her arms curled over her head, tumbling and falling, until-…
THUD.
Darkness.
WITH // YOUR // THOUGHTS
With the words, a bright green flooded the room, than faded away. Blinding, intense.
A voice pressed in at the edge of consciousness. Vosca blinked her eyes upon, swallowed in a vast and impermeable blackness. A soft sigh escaped her as she reached up to touch her head, then glanced around her. Rock and cold surrounded her, but the crystals had gone out. Lost their luster, only formations of jagged stone left.
She rolled over onto her back, and than sat up slowly, hands pressing to the stone as she stood up. She couldn’t see even herself, so much did this darkness swallow. But it was not the Darkness, she observed. Not evil. Not malevolent. Just dim. Nothing to fill it.
Nothing except a humming voice. It came in a voice that wasn’t a voice, a presence that wasn’t entirely there. Words washed over her in deep, booming waves, not heard but understood.
*YOU // SEEK // SOMETHING // TELL // US.*
The voices rang out, the horrendously bright glow returning again, until the room dimmed again. It had no visible source, seemingly carried on the sound. It bathed all things in the area, illuminating it so precise detail of the stone around her was indecipherable.
Vosca’s breath caught in her throat, and she squinted against the strain from tight. She stared forward for a moment. A shaky exhale, as she clasped her hands to her front, preserving her warmth as much as she could in this cold.
“I seek-- A method,” Vosca said into the nothingness. “Something to assist me in my duties. To protect. To preserve. To defend life, and all things in it.” She said, voice trailing off into quiet afterwards. Waiting for the response.
WHY?
The voices came again. There was less than before.
The Light, too, was dimmer. Only barely, one could hardly tell… And the same, darkness came with the silence.
“The galaxy hangs in the balance. There is much evil, much hatred, and so much injustice. Every day, countless suffer! I am loath to fight. I detest violence, but I must not shy from it, for if I do, others will surely suffer. What I come for is the core component – Of a symbol of hope! Of something to defend goodness.”
Silence hung over herself and the nothingness, then.
YOU // HAVE // LOST // ANOTHER.
Fewer again. It wasn’t a cacophony, now. A few voices in unity, loud, but not deafening.
By this point, the emerald light that followed the voices was almost manageable to look at. Like a spotlight, rather than a collection of floodlights. Intense, but it could be worse.
Her lips stiffened, and she took a breath in. She held it for a time, than exhaled, the fog it left in the air invisible in the darkness.
“I have not lost him yet. He needs my help-- I have to find him. Please, if you can-- Can you… Help me? Help me find him? Help me to get to him?”
More silence. She stared away, slowly glancing around – Faintly hopeful, waiting for something to happen, waiting for the light to return.
SEEK // HIM // OUT.
SAVE // HER // TOO.
Answered a single voice. A dull, green light just barely visible ahead of her.
Vosca’s eyes blinked open, buried face-first in the snow of the very depths of the Crystal Cave of Illum. Up to her shoulders, blood seeping from a faint knock in her forehead. She sighed a shaky sigh, a gloved hand setting against the newly-acquired head injury as she peered around slowly. At the bottom of this pit, it was dark, silent, almost entirely unilluminated…
Except a faint, green glow. A small crystal formation, a hairline fracture formed against the very top of it. The Echani was silent, contemplative, before… She reached out, and snapped it free with a faint ‘click’. She held it between her fingers, raising it up to her lips.
To the air, to the crystal, she whispered.
“I will.”
The return trip is, at least, less eventful. Re-united by some unknown providence, Vosca spends the first few hours on the vessel on the return trip fussing over Milo, before collapsing back into her studies inevitably. A ‘side quest’ given to them by Thelion, too, is fulfilled.
They got corndogs from the Temple on Coruscant. Why? It’s a mystery, but Thelion wanted them, so they were gotten and stuffed into a thermal container. The din of Coruscant was familiar, the Grand Temple a welcoming place for her, but her stay was brief. Only elongated by the fact they briefly forgot the corndogs, and had to turn back around to get them.
A sense of duty fulfilled, a Kyber now to wield alongside her own. Vosca, satisfied, was quick to begin her own trip back to Viscara.