Beneath the Dark Crystal

Chapter 27

The World of Thra shakes above as the suns draw closer and closer together.

Aughra watches with a fearful eye, pointing up towards the suns. "The Great Conjunction! Mrrrh! Too soon! Conjunction comes too soon! If Crystal and shard are not rejoined before the Conjunction ends--huh!--Crystal stays dark--"

skekZok cheers from above the floating, broken piece of the castle, "--And skeksis rule forever!"

Jen frowns and rushes over to Aughra with Kira by his side. "The Shard's half a world away, Aughra. The ... The Crystal cannot be made whole!"

Kira frowns sadly and nods in defeat. "But--If Thurma was able to save her home, it won't have been for nothing."

One of the mystics looks over at them, calmly saying, "Have faith, Children of the Light. This is the will of the Crystal."

Jen's eyes widen from his remark, recalling back to what Mavra had told him. "Kira, Mavra had told me something like that. She said she dreamfasted with the Crystal! What if ... What if this really is the way of the Crystal--"

The two gasp and step back when skekUng jumps down from his place on the rumble, laughing wickedly.

"Yes! Will of the Crystal that the next Age of Thra is Age of Skeksis!"

Kira and Jen both glare at skekUng while holding each other tightly, preparing for the worse.

~

The two girls groan while standing up together, hands still held tightly together and the light growing between their fingers. They look down at their hands and hesitantly pull away from each other, glancing up at one another in astonishment.

"Whoa ..." They both breathed out.

Thurma giggles a little when she sees tentacles wrapped around Mavra's waist. Mavra arches one of her brows before looking behind her back and gleaming happily to see their tumbeloth friend.

"Tumby! You're alive!" She cheers, picking up Tumby and hugging him.

She laughs a little when he licks her cheek and she lets him jump over to Thurma and rest on her shoulders.

The girls look at each other, both asking at the same time, "Where's the shard?"

Their eyes widen and they quickly search around in the piles of offerings before finally seeing it tucked in between a pile of junk. The girls cringe and bend down to it. Thurma tries pulling it out first and grunts when she can't seem to get it out.

"What the heck--mmp!--even is this junk ...?!" She asks in annoyance.

Mavra wraps her hands around the shard, saying, "Here let me help."

The two girls then start to tug and pull at the shard, but their efforts seemed pointless. "It's stuck in there pretty tight ...!" Mavra states.

The two girls take in a sharp inhale when the shard starts to hiss and shake fast. "It's stuck and ... vibrating?" Thurma asks, tilting her head in confusion.

The shard starts to light up and vibrate even more, making the ground beneath the two girls rumble and shake. They stare at each other and gulp nervously while looking back up.

Mavra spreads her wings just in case, saying, "Everybody, prepare yourselves!"

The junk and ground beneath them shoots up into the air, causing the two girls to scream. The pilgrims surrounding the Crystal back up when a bunch of the offerings and bits of the ground shoot out from underneath the Dark Crystal and rain from the sky.

"W-What's that down there?" An acolyte asks, peering over into the dusty hole beneath the Crystal with everyone else.

"All the offerings are gone from the shrine! Th-The Crystal will be angry!" A podling states fretfully.

Mavra looks down below her, holding Thurma underneath her arms and having Tumby on her shoulder as she flew around in the sky happily. Thurma glares at the skeksis, holding the shard up high to grab everyone's attention.

"Greed!" She shouts, letting Mavra land them both down on a separate piece of castle close to the Crystal.

The skeksis eye the two down, their beady eyes immediately landing on the shard.

"The shard!" They all shout, making their way over to them.

Thurma huffs, burning one skeksis that jumped over to her and Mavra before continuing her speech. "Greed caused this! The shaft that linked our worlds! Blocked by your meaningless treasures! 'Only a sliver of the Great Light--The Great Power of the Outer Sphere--can reignite the inner fire.' We never needed the shard at all! It was the light of the Crystal itself we lost! Just a tiny beam, all of our own--and your greed denied us even that!"

skekUng grabs a hold of the back of Thurma's collar, lifting her up. "Stop! Give me the shard!"

Thurma spits in his face and passes the shard to Mavra.

"Mavra!" She exclaims.

She quickly flies up and catches the shard, grinning happily.

"No!" skekUng sneers, throwing Thurma to the ground and running towards Mavra. "Get back here!"

Mavra narrows her eyes and gracefully flies over and under the other skeksis trying to stop her. Her eyes train on the Crystal and she lifts the white shard up high. She stares at it in surprise for a second until she realizes the light from her hand--the last shred of light the Crystal had given her before it cracked--had made it pure. She smiles in determination and trains her sight onto the Dark Crystal. "For my people ... for my parents .. and for Kensho most of all ... Let it be done!" She proclaims, putting the shard back in its place within the Crystal right as the brother suns crossed over one another.

The Crystal starts to slowly crack and break. Its outer shell finally splitting to pieces and letting its true light shine within. It's light was so powerful that it pushed Mavra back and onto the ground below her. The skeksis all stare in complete and utter fear while the mystics smile in peace.

The Crystal's light was now whole again.