PHOENIX ━ dameron

069 | between worlds

"Spacious, isn't it?" Wynn remarked lightly, catching Lyra's curiosity.

"That's a word," Lyra told her. She was having a difficult time coming up with anything to say in the face of something so strange.

"Well, I've certainly had time to explore it. It doesn't end, in case you were wondering. Infinite fractals of space time."

It gave her vertigo to think of the endless eternity. On and on, and when you thought it reached an end, that line jumped further ahead than you ever imagined was possible. Endless. Ceaseless. Space and time, present, past, and the infinite future.

"I've been trying to reach you for a long time now," Lyra told her, finally finding her words. "I've been having dreams about this place for almost a year."

"I too have tried to reach you at several different points in your life, mostly miniscule ways that you might not have even noticed. Sometimes in dreams that you no doubt forgot by morning. I had to trust that my subtle influence would be enough to bring us together one day, and here you are," Wynn smiled, only a hint of relief in her voice.

"I don't understand how I was able to get to this place," Lyra admitted. Even after Obi-Wan and Phoebe, none of the explanations lined up. "The old temple on Lothal is in ruins, its connection to the Vergence Scatter was severed years ago."

Wynn inclined her head, standing and moving towards Lyra. "The Loth wolves, I would assume, served as a catalyst for what you already knew how to do. Mischievous little bastards, they're certainly helpful. And you've been here before. Not to this exact manifestation, but I believe the first time, it was just a blank landscape of white." She raised a pale eyebrow, waiting for Lyra to fill in the gaps.

Lyra nearly choked. How had she not realized it sooner? "When I died after the electroshock, Obi-Wan was there, he said that I had a choice and that I was in a world between worlds." She looked up to clock Wynn's reaction.

The great Jedi still looked so young for someone who had seen so much. It was as if her appearance was also stuck between timelines, and an ageless face glowed silver like it had been drenched in starlight. Still, the expression she wore was one known to any age.

The regret of loss.

"Since my time ended in the galaxy, I haven't been able to extend my reach to any Jedi except for you. But I know the way of things. That is as far as Obi-Wan could come to the World Between Worlds. A threshold of life and death," she held up a hand, summoning a ball of shimmering light from the edge of one of the portals. It flickered with its silver glow, obeying Wynn's command with ease.

Lyra's brow furrowed. Curiosity got the better of her. "How are you not contained by one of the portals? Aren't you messing up a timeline but walking around like this?"

Wynn sighed and shook her head. There was a certain kind of longing in her sharp eyes that made Lyra's own heart ache. "No. I was given a curse far worse than death. I do not exist in relation to any string of reality anymore. I am the mediator of timelines, a penance for the gifts I was given during my lifetime. I cannot die and pass on into the living force, I'm stuck in between as a gloriously bored guardian."

Lyra stayed silent, but only for a half second. "So you were killed in my reality, and now you're forced to wait here? Why won't the Force let you pass on?"

"Because of you." Wynn gave a soft smile. "We interact in a plane beyond mortal time, but our lives did not ever intersect. We existed in complete parallel, and yet, they are connected. A perfect balance struck within the Force, we are connected in life and in death. Half and half."

One half dead, the other half alive.

Lyra set her jaw. In the back of her mind and the bottom of her heart, she had known this. Somehow, she had known for years that this was the way of things. "So until I die, you're stuck here."