G L E I P N I R

i will protect you

❗️ tw: mental health themes 

"The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain."

24 ABY, Ashas Ree

Temple of the Force

Third Person POV

When Luke looked down at Sigyn's slumbering form, he was overcome with great remorse. He shouldn't have brought her so close to the dark, but he had a purpose-- a theory that involved both she and Ben. In the end, it was a failure. He didn't know where it went wrong.

The four of them were narrowing down to the bowels of the Temple, the imminent lean to the Darkness pulled at their chest as they navigated the shadowed corridors. Luke was aware that the Jedi of the Temple had laid down traps to stop people from reaching the secrets beneath, but the Resistance couldn't afford to leave the Sith artifact alone. It was only a matter of time that the First Order would come to acquire it themselves.

Then, as if he had been struck in the chest by a blaster, Luke felt a great disturbance in the Force. A spike of fear, of Darkness so potent, it was almost feral in its nature. Luke halted the squad, his hand dug into the fabric of his tunic where his heart was. He could feel Sigyn; her anxiety, her fear. He had never felt such raw emotion from that girl in the five years she had been under his wing. It had always been incredibly hard to read her thoughts and emotions; he would find fragments of her anxiety and frustrations, but they were like soft meows from a distressed Loth-kitten. Now it was like a fog horn so loud that it was impossible to ignore or overlook.

Luke turned around to his nephew who, in turn, looked at him with the same alertness. He could sense Ben's confusion. The boy didn't know where this was originating from. Ben had never been close to Sigyn, never tried to familiarize himself with her Force signature. Of course he had no idea that this was coming from her.

"We need to go back," Luke spoke firmly, pushing through the group to retrace his steps out of the corridors. He heard Kag call for him, and Jil asking what he was doing, but he couldn't indulge in explanation. Sigyn needed him.

When he found her, she was in a hidden office in what used to be the Jedi Master's bedroom. There were old parchments strewn across the room, furniture splintered and made into scattered debris. He carefully walked into the fragile room, careful to move around the water that gathered in the center of it. He could see a lone parchment floating in the center of it. The image that used to be there was now blurry from the water damage, but he had a moment of deja vu when he saw it floating there. He didn't linger on it for long, his attention alerted to the sound of muttering coming from underneath the desk.

Sigyn was completely catatonic. Her eyes seemed neutral, but unblinking. Her body folded into herself, arms firmly circled around her legs with her bag pulled to her chest as if she were hugging a precious toy to give her comfort.

Luke picked her up and carried her back to the campsite. Eventually, whatever trance she was in dissipated and she fell asleep from the loss of adrenaline. He sat next to her in the tent until he heard the approaching footsteps of the others. Finally, the Jedi Master collected himself and exited the canvas enclosure to see the three standing there, staring at him, waiting for an explanation.

Ben knew it had something to do with her. Luke deduced that when he felt a prod in the back of his mind, indicating that his nephew allowed that thought to reach him. Then he heard the boy's voice in his mind like a whisper.