Star Wars: Edge of Hope

Chapter Thirty Six: The Long Memory...

There are no clear pathways around what the stars set out as our token destiny. We can try to side step it, push ourselvees out farther than the invisible fingers of fate can reach us, but in the end...somehow we all end up right where we were meant to. Looking ahead towards some unknown ending, or beside us at the reflection of what life could have been in another time and place. Looking out at the empty throne room, the new Praetorian guards, the sounds of the pulsing ion discharges rocketing through the expansive kyber mountains...Armitage had never felt so completely alone in his entire life. He had never felt the quiet of a room close in around him, but as he walked the long stretches of the empty Sith temple he could sense something there in the silence. Something that had been with him all his life and had just recently made its presence known, the Force pulling him towards his destiny. The Darkside had given him more than the First Order ever had. Here he had complete control, complete power, and high above him as the strikes roared he could feel his own still blood begin to prickle with anticipation. Soon there would be nothing between him and the revenge he so aptly deserved, soon there would be no one to stand in his way, soon he would prove that while blood can carry power through the generations...It takes someone with the will to use it for that Power to have meaning....We are all united in some way...We are led to where we are meant to be...Our stories often intersect like the weaving of a tapestry or shroud....Pull on a thread and the entire picture becomes distorted and nonsensical...Follow the thread...Follow it as there's not one soul in the cosmos that...

Emperor Draugr: ...knows where it will lead you. Sometimes the thread can lead us towards the future, and other times...it's the past. A past that ensnares us holding us prisoner to all the truths we seek in a lifetimes span. But we can never know, until we tug on the thread...just how deep it'll cut us, or whose story is bound up with our own. Sometimes it's the one person you least suspected....

Rey and Ben, had no clue of how their story was intertwined with the fates of so many others. In so many ways, they had both felt their ways through life and through their respective worlds, but neither of them had ever truly felt home in their skin. Not at least, until they had found each other, and that's the most any of us can hope for, isn't it? To have someone to share our stories with...even the parts we wish we could erase from the page. Many times in life, we don't get to choose how our stories are told, or by whom. All we hope for, is to have is the choice on who we bring into them, and the courage to choose wisely on the moment for our part to end...Or continue. Well, at least, that's what most of us would like to believe. Right? That despite all the stumbles, all the wrong turns and bad choices, that we can still choose our own fate...because sometimes all we have left is the ending...sometimes our endings are the path to a new beginning.

Luke: There are no coincidences...Only the Will of the Force.

And as they fell asleep holding each other, Ben and Rey, finally slept soundly. No more nightmares. No more voices calling to them in the night. Only peace. But far across the galaxy the same stark white moon gleamed down into the throne room of the Emperor. Cold as the stone beneath him, Draugr sat there taking stock of the silent emptiness on his hollow throne, a crimson branded scar on his arm....a thread tied to a story that no one knew. No one but the two of them....no one but the dead man and the princess. There are many versions of a story...all correct...all true...the devil it seems is in the the details, even the unnatural ways of the Darkside choose carefully who they pull from the abyss. There was a void, a missing piece and a blank space on the board, but the time had come to fill it. The Darkside sees the moves from both sides...it could see the galaxy and the planets as they spun in the infinite black void, but the only thing it lacked still was the sharp tool needed to execute it's will.

"There are always two...never more, never less...You underestimate the Power of the Darkside at your own peril. It will mean the destruction of all you hold dear, all that you love, and everything that you thought you knew. Fear...Fear is my ally...so Fear it will be."

There had been many faces throughout the long tulmutous years, the Darkside shed one skin and cloaked itself in another, an heir and a spare for all tense and with great purpose. There could never be less than two, for if one face fell, the other would carry the load and secure the survival of the Darkside for another's turn at the helm of fate. There was a purpose for everything in the galaxy, the Will of the Force was nothing compared to the Ambition of the Darkside, all it needed was the vessel through which to funnel it's desire. There was one face, one name that had lasted longer and tore at the minds of systems for generations, a Sith Apprentice...Son to Mother Talzin of the NightSisters of Dathomir...and foe to Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. Darth Maul edged out of the shadow looking at the new pretender to the throne. He was a pale imitation of all the granduer and magnificence that Sidious had been known for in the days of the Old Republic and then the glorious RISE of the EMPIRE. Maul stood there silently quibbing over this pretender, and as he did so he could feel the black of the shadow growing thicker around him. The Voice spoke to him, the whispering, screaming, anguishing voices of his former comrades, even his family, boring deeper into the soft meat of his brain. The sound of it was painful, but it was a part of him, the Darkside would forever hold a corner of his mind to itself. The pain of it took him to his knees...then as if puffed out by the vaporous night around her, SHE emerged, the carbon copy of the other weaker sibling. It was a cruel thing to have them divided down the middle in that way. But as a creation in the Force and given life, from the two halves of the Force...Unity was never the goal, but balance. But the world had other plans for her...and her sister, the girl called Rey. Where one cast off the brightest white light, the other cultivated the darkness around her and lived true to her name, Umbra. As Rey was born to walk in the Light...Umbra had always accepted her place in the eclipse of her twin, and it had led her to temptation. Looking at her now, Maul could scarce imagine the villianous glory of a lady such as she in the place where her puppet then rested. But even then Maul was wise enough to know...the Darkside was as unpredicatable as the night...most things chose the shadows to hide, others knew that if you could master the darkness...You could rule the world. Her lips a cruel crooked twist of enjoyment as the pain in his mind took him lower until his face touched the ground.

Darth Maul: Why have you chosen this form? A mimic? You disgrace yourself pretending to be the mirror of that pathetic child...

Umbra: Don't speak...You're lucky I need that forked tongue of yours to deliever a message...otherwise I'd cut it out. But...as disappointing as you are...you'll serve your intended purpose. Nothing more. Do you not believe that I was Chosen...that I was created without a purpose? Women make men weak, especially those with hearts as tender as this ones...it barely took any effort to turn him towards my design. You assume too much, Maul. She serves her purpose, as do we all. Just as you will...I want you to go to Ahch-To. I need you to carry a message for me.

Darth Maul: What makes you think they will come? That they won't smell a trap...

Umbra: She'll come. And she'll bring him with her. And that's when we will test their resolve. But Maul...Don't harm them. They're no good to me dead...Do you understand?

Darth Maul: Yes, my Master.

Umbra: There ARE NO MASTERS HERE! Do you understand? There are no Masters here...nor will there ever be again. Everything is proceeding to my design. Soon we will be strong enough to shed these masks. Soon we will take out rightgul place...and at last the circle will be closed, once and for all. Soon...We will be ONE again...and then...the galaxy will bleed.