The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Season 2+)

Omen

"You want to be one of the soldiers?" he asked, and not waiting for a response; "Then learn to follow orders. There are people at the fortress that need protecting."

She made to protest.

"Go," he said sternly. "Now."

Brea scoffed, turning away and continuing to follow the soldiers. Rian rolled his eyes at the continued princess-like behavior. Despite all the rigorous training she was demanding she undergo, she still had that arrogant heir about her where she thought she could do anything she wanted. It really bugged him. He met back with Maudra Argot, who was continuing to stir the darkening.

"Could the others be dying?" he asked.

"Everything's dying, Rian," Argot said. "I'm dying. You're dying. Thra too is dying. Slowly but surely."

She looked up to meet Rian's quizzical eye. Her large eyes reminded him of Deet's.

"But what happens when any being dies?" she asked. "The flesh, bone, and organs rot to sustain whatever new life is to come along. Thra will survive to sustain the next 'Thra'...whatever that may be."

The darkening was winding its way up the stick. Slowly but surely it would reach Maudra Argot's hands. Those soldiers better hurry with whatever they could find. The Maudra looked around, never ceasing in the stirring but she was clearly distracted by something. There was a slight breeze that passed through them before snapping in the exact opposite direction. Rian felt as if his soul were to be ripped from him. Like a massive hook had pierced into his chest, anchoring him to something unforeseen.

"The song changes," Maudra Argot muttered.

"What?" Rian asked.

"Nothing," she said, dismissing the thought that crossed her mind as she felt the same thing as Rian did.

The gelfling soldiers returned rolling a large boulder. It took them great effort to roll the stone up the hill, but in the end they were able to seal the hole in the ground. The darkening didn't seem able to eat its way through the unliving material, meaning it had been contained. For now.

The Maudra Argot cast her walking stick into the pit of broiling darkening before the stone was put in its permanent place. She settled back against a tree to steady herself, placing a hand on her heart and catching her breath.

"What is it Maudra Argot?" one of the soldiers asked.

The old gelfling looked to all of the soldiers before her. Such a mixed bag of all gelfling clans.

"I need to see something before I leave," she said, spinning around the tree and returning to the encampment.

~~~

"No," Argot muttered. "No, no, no, no, no. It...it can't be...not like this."

She swept aside everything on a patch of ground in her quarters in the Stonewood Palace. She swept the dirt to level it. She paid no attention to the aching bones that had come with her old age. She hastened in rummaging through her belongings, rustling through her bag and casting things from shelves. She gathered all she needed and began to draw in the dirt. In the trenches of the main spiraling web and the symbols she had drawn, she poured white sand from the Sifa beaches. She then proceeded to outline the entire space with seed pods from deep sea kelp, also a Sifa product.

"Maudra?" asked a concerned Groton gelfling stepping into the doorway.

"Don't break the circle!" she shouted as the floor erupted in a brilliant display of light. The gelfling took a half step back as the Maudra continued to conduct the ritual she had learned from Sifa traders when she was a child. She cast salt dust into the swirling spectacle of light. In ancient Sifa she shouted, "speak truth Thra". The lights gathered into a single drop of dew that fell on the spiral and changed the dirt's shape. Maudra Argot watched the dirt swirl with the liquid as it oozed and spread, absorbed into the dirt.

"Maudra Argot?" the gelfling asked again.

"Shhh," she hushed, waving a hand, eyes locked on the floor. The last of the water was absorbed by the dirt and the dew stopped moving. Argot laid a hand to her chest again and collapsed to her knees on the dirt.

"No," she gasped. "Not like this. Not like this."

"Maudra Argot," the gelfling said, throwing away all hesitation and rushing to her side. "Are you all right?"

"No," she gasped. "No I am not. Because there is nothing you or I can do. Nothing but to watch."

He held her up, keeping her from collapsing in her grief. Argot couldn't help but stare in absolute horror and disbelief. The symbol drawn for her by the Sifa ritual was one of the ancient Sifa symbols for death. More specifically, the kind of death associated with all gelfling. It was a symbol that only meant one thing: Armageddon.