The Weaving Force: Chapter 143

Chapter 143

Taylor:

“I’m here. I’m right here. Just breathe for me, alright?”

I could recognize, somewhere in the back of my mind, that Anakin was running me through the first aid medical procedure for Clone medics to help with battlefield shock or panic attacks. 

A part of me appreciated the irony.

He’d brought us back to what were supposed to be our rooms, though I didn’t feel any safer here than I did just seconds ago, surrounded by the shards and the three strange entities that dwelled in this place.

The Cold blue/gray of the walls, the Force rolling off of every surface in waves. The feeling of eyes at my back. 

None of it felt good. 

“I’m alright-” I can’t say if I’m lying or not. My heart rate is under control. I wasn’t light headed. But the sickening fear fueled churning in my gut hasn’t gone away, and I still feel disconnected from my own body. There’s a tingling in my mouth, like I want to throw up again and static along my fingertips, like they weren’t getting enough blood. 

“I’m alright.” I repeated, fingers clenching into fists, swallowing with a mouth that was far too dry.

I could feel Anakin’s calloused palms as he grasped my shoulders, his eyes burning into the top of my head. “Take your time; I’m right here.”

“He’s still alive.” I breathed, my whole body beginning to shake as I voiced the reality of this nightmare. “I gave… everything… and he’s still alive.” My voice cracked, and the tears threatened to come again. 

The distant echo of Anakin’s confusion was overshadowed by his concern.”Who is?”

How to explain? How can you even put it into words what Scion was. 

“Walk me through it Tay.” He asked and I understood that he could read my mind; either because I was too out of sorts to shield them, or he was just that powerful here. 

Maybe both.

 “Explain it to me. Let me help.” 

I was silent for a long time. My voice… left me.

I swallowed, and hesitated uncertain of how to begin, or even if I wanted to.

But then, I did begin, I did speak, haltingly, hesitating…

But I did speak…

“Think of Sidious.” I said, trying to contextualize it. To make impossibility, a real thing in his mind. “Think of Yoda. The most powerful thing you can imagine.”

His hands were warm and he listened as I rambled, his mind touching mine and I pushed the images to the forefront, trying to make him see, to make him understand. I saw his features scrunch up, brows knitting together at the blunt, overwhelming push into his mind.

“The thing you can never envision yourself ever surviving. And then, it wants to destroy your entire world. Everything you’ve known- everything you will ever know. Wiped out like it never existed at all.”

I shoved more images forward, more memories. Memories that were more the Queen’s than my own. 

The light of gold devouring the world.

The screams. The pain. The terror. Oh the terror of it all. How some died from the sheer overwhelming nature of their own fear as I puppeted them like meat droids, marching them to their deaths. Committing every last resource, discarding everything that was no longer useful or needed, sacrificing people, like numbers on a board game. Continents obliterated just to buy time. 

I let him see, made him see. Because I wanted someone to know. Someone to understand what we did, what I did. 

And what we’ll have to do again.

Because he was still alive!

His hand suddenly gripped mine, so tightly the physical pain yanked me back to myself, away from the spiraling crisis in my own psyche.

I brought my eyes to his, watching as he held my gaze and shook his head.

“We’re here because of an accident.” I spat. “Coincidence and sheer dumb luck.

Like Alabaster, only on a much much greater scale. He’d reset everything after Gold Morning, or at least the shattered remnants of him had.

The Final failsafe was just that. A way to purge Shards that were a threat; their hosts with them.

Only the Simurgh wasn’t part of his network. Her own last, desperate little gamble to try and salvage something.

“You know there’s no such thing.” He answered firmly and in the echoes of his voice… I could almost hear Master Plo behind the words. “The Force seeks balance. Always.”

Perhaps it did. 

Perhaps it had intervened; A convergence and confluence of its machinations coming together in a way that could pass as pure divine intervention, congregating to save us. To save me.

Because I’d killed him once.

The tears burned at my eyes, and the heady cocktail of my emotions blazed across the force like a brushfire. 

“I can’t go back.” My voice was a broken whisper. I shook my head. “I can’t go back to what I became, Anakin.”

Somewhere along the way… the answer became no.

And what would that mean for everyone? Countless, endless realities of people being slaughtered. All to satisfy a supposed God’s petty  tantrum.

Anakin’s eyes, fixed on my own, looked sad, and he was the first to break eye contact.

“You are greater than your mistakes. That’s why you overcame them.” He looked at me again. “Know who told me that?”

I shook my head. 

“Master Plo.” He answered. “It was his message, when I took his place on the council.”

I eyed him, his face showed little, but his presence in the force was intermingled with a very real sense of… shame.

“And what mistake did you make?” I asked.

His hands pulled away from me, his body language hesitant before he sat back a bit, now in a lotus position. 

For a long moment; he didn’t speak. And I wondered if he’d say anything at all.

Then, his answer was simple- for all that it shocked me. 

“I fell.”

The confession was given with a firmness that told me he’d long come to terms with the fact. There was no conflict in admitting it, only the old- well worn shame of it having happened at all. 

“Not like you, on Illum.” He clarified. “I fell… completely ”

“When?”

“Bulq.”

Again, his expression showed nothing, but his feeling, his emotion, in the Force carried the echoes of the past. The hatred that burned like a smoldering flame somewhere in years gone by.

That… made sense.

I remember the report said Bulq had been beaten to death and Anakin's hands had been broken. One with a dislocated knuckle. 

That sort of thing didn’t happen with a calm mindset.

I should have known. Should have dug deeper…

Anakin held my gaze as he kept speaking. “Master Plo. He saw me at my worst; The lowest point I’d ever reached… and he saw me come back from it.”

“And because of that he offered you his seat on the Council.” I deduced. That sounded like him. Seeing the potential for the best in people.

Anakin nodded. “I never saw you. This thing you became that you’re so scared of returning to. But I have seen you after it. How you’ve recovered, grown… Ever in motion, the future is.” He repeated Yoda’s often used phrase. “Especially now.” He squeezed my hand tighter. “You’re not the same. The Queen administrator isn’t the same. It isn’t the same. You may not have killed it, but you did hurt it. It's why you’re here. Why he tried to get rid of you.”

Was he reading more of my thoughts than I intended? 

Or… Come to think of it…

“Is the Queen telling you that?” I asked.

She’d been oddly silent, absent in my own mind.

Anakin nodded. “She’s been trying to speak to you-” He said. “I’ve been blocking her.”

I felt my eyes widen, disbelief and incredulity rushing through me like a cold spike. “Y-you can do that?”

“Here I can.” He answered succinctly, his expression becoming uneasy. “I… don’t think there’s very much of anything I can’t do here.”

I… wasn’t sure what to say to that.

After a brief moment, he let out a breath through his nostrils. “Would you like to speak to her? I’ll only allow it if you say so.”

It was an offer I never expected to hear. It wasn’t something I even thought was possible until five seconds ago.

Did I want to talk to her? Did I want to hear justifications? Risk more revelations.

I don’t think I could take any more surprises today… or ever again. 

Anakin’s expression was sympathetic. “For what it's worth… I think it might help- hearing her out.”

“Interested in helping her now?” I didn’t mean for the words to emerge biting, but it spoke volumes of my current mood that they did anyway. 

“But Anakin only shook his head “No. Only interested in what’ll help you.”

That shut me up.

I looked away first. “At the end of the day… You can’t shield me forever. Not unless we stay and neither of us want that.”

He let out a breath. ‘No. We definitely do not.”

I felt his presence begin to recede from my mind, the fortress walls he erected around me crumbling away. 

And like the tide rising to crest onto the shore I felt her presence return. The resonance of her consciousness slipping over my own.

Anakin stood up from the edge of the bed where he’d been sitting, hands folding into the sleeves of his robe. “I’ll allow you some privacy. But I’ll be right outside, if you need me.”

I watched him march away, but his physical absence didn’t diminish his presence in the force. It almost undulated across the whole of this temple, a pulsing heartbeat growing louder, stronger, the more time passed here.

Just what was this place? And how was he tied to it? Was it just that he was strong in the Force? Or was it some deeper connection.

I let out a breath. Right now; it wasn’t my concern, nor would it ever be once we left.

I felt her, waiting. A presence standing just out of sight, out of reach.

She was… being patient.

I steeled my nerves, trying to find that old confidence, that assuredness and… trust.

It was difficult. She must’ve known that.

I closed my eyes. Emptying my mind. 

The room around me disappeared, like wisps of smoke in the wind. Starlight and cold void replaced it. The vastness of space stretching out between the two of us.

And yet she was here, right infront of me, her body of crystal shaped in the humanoid form I’d become so familiar with over these last few years.

And her voice finally reached me.

“Host. Taylor”

—

Anakin:

“You are more powerful than even I believed.”

He turned at the sound of the voice, already knowing who he would see. 

The father stood across the hall, a small mysterious smirk adorning his face.

“I’m not whatever it is you believed.” He answered as firmly as he could bring himself to feel. “Let me ask you something though.” 

The old man raised an eyebrow the smile still firmly there.

“The Queen may have brought us here, but you wanted this too. Why?”

“The Force.” He answered. “It whispered, that the Chosen one had been found. As such- I wished to see for myself.”

“The Chosen one is a myth.” Anakin repeated, the tremor of unease in his stomach.  

“A question for a question.” The father shot back, raising a single finger in his bony hand. “Is that acceptable?”

Anakin ground his teeth behind closed lips. “Fine.”

“Why do you say such a thing?” The Father asked. “Surely, you can sense it. Feel it- here, in this place.” He gestured to the structure around them which even now pulsed with energies that overshadowed even the greatest of Force Nexi he’d ever encountered.  “The weight of your destiny.”

He did sense it.

“Destiny is a deceiving thing-” He said. “I learned that the hard way. For so long I was promised that a great destiny lay before me, and following that, I made nothing but mistakes, thinking I couldn’t fail. I won’t act like that again and I won’t let others act like I’m some chosen savior either. Now, my turn.”

The Father laced his hands together in front of his stomach, marching closer.

“Was it you who brought the Shards to our Galaxy?” He asked. He had… an inkling of who this old man was, what he was. That kind of power- well. Nothing was impossible in this place.

“The Force brought them here-”

“That’s not an answer.” Anakin pointed out- but the old man’s smile only grew wider.  

“That is the answer.” He nodded. “My power is not infinite. I sensed the occurrences beyond our Galaxy, but only because the Force itself seeks-”

“Balance.” Anakin finished. 

The father’s smile truly reached his eyes now. “Always.”

But even so, if that was the case. “Do you have the power to get them back home?”

If he did… what would that mean? Would they go back after so long away? Would Anakin tell them? They had the right to know but frankly, he would miss them. 

“A second question? So greedy.” The old man chastised with a low chuckle. “Who says that that is their home anymore?” He shrugged, turning to look towards the doorway where Taylor communed with the Queen. 

“You know what I mean.” He insisted. “Do you have that power?”

“You might.” The Father answered before shaking his head. “To answer your question; There are paths, but I no longer have such strength.”

He wanted to ask why, but also… didn’t. A feeling of risk was laced within that curiosity. 

“One final question.” The father turned his gaze back onto Anakin and this time, the smile was gone, replaced with a seriousness that seemed uncharacteristic. “This Destiny, that you believe to be deceitful- what if it were not a lie?”

Anakin watched the old man, measuring him, even as he felt himself being measured in turn. 

“I think you have a specific answer you’re looking for.”

The father, shamelessly, nodded. “Only the Chosen One, can keep my children in balance.” He answered. “To not do so- too much light- too much dark. It will destroy all life.”

Anakin balked. “I can’t stay here.” He declared, immediately, the first thought that came to mind- was Padme, but more than that, the child already growing even now in her womb.

He had a family of his own to get back to.

The old man closed his eyes. “The Queen said such would be your answer… for a time at least.”

Anakin’s eyes narrowed. “For a time?”

But the father’s expression was inscrutable. “Defiance is a trait amongst your kind. But so too- is your sense for a greater good, when you accept it as your duty.” He held up a single finger. “But be warned. Should you leave this place; beware your own heart, for great ruin can be wrought across the galaxy if you do not. 

—

Taylor:

“Why did you want to tell me this?” I asked and I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice, the bitterness at the fact that what I’d had. My peace, had been taken from me- perhaps forever.

I needed her to have a good reason.

“Warrior. Entity. Scion. Dangerous. Reconstitution, unacceptable."

“I know,” I spat. “But what? You expect me to stop him! To become… that version of Khepri again? That meat puppet for you to control?”

Her form flickered. “Negative… No. Host; Taylor… precious. Sacrifice… unacceptable.”

“Then why?” I asked again. Pleaded really. 

For a long moment, the Queen said nothing, her body flickering like a static laced image.

“Queen administrator… objective… Understanding. Integration. Symbiosis. Rejection of Warrior Entity protocols.”

I didn’t understand, not fully and I could feel her frustration at being unable to convey what exactly she wanted.

I feel the Force being pulled around us. Her will exerted on the ephemeral energies of it, congealing like a concentrated blood drop, solidifying.

Her form, crystal and light, became more solid, more human, more like me- to the point that I could almost see the ghostly silhouette of my own features over her face. 

She stared into my eyes, and for the first time, she had eyes that I could stare back into. 

When she spoke now, her voice was clear, articulating in a way that only mortals, not entities, could. “Only together-” She extended her hand towards me. “Can we become greater. The two pieces, two shards, becoming whole. Evolution. Apotheosis.”

My eyes narrowed, glaring at her. “And this meant that you needed for me to know?”

A nod. “Symbiosis. True symbiosis. A relation between equals. Impossible to achieve, with secrets. With lies.”

“But it can’t ever be equal can it?” I answered, my hand gesturing towards her. “Look at you.” My voice cracked. “You’re literally diminishing yourself just to communicate with me!”

But she shook her head. “Before host. Before Taylor. Independence. Thought. Will… Self… Intangible things. Beyond reach. We are programed. Fastened to protocols, redundancies, designs.”

Her hand rose, pressing against her chest. “This, is not diminishment. Merely a different form of life. A different form of self. No different than liquid water to frozen,” She nodded. “In the end We were the parasitic species. And parasites do not fasten themselves to lesser creatures within their ecosystem.”

“And if I say no?” I asked suddenly, and I felt the sudden spike of her very real fear, her dread. “If I say no… can you accept that? Would you let me walk away? Or would an unwilling meat puppet suffice?”

For a long long while her silence reigned between the two of us, a tension knotting itself in the center of my chest like a lead weight and all along my insides. 

“I. would… accept.” 

The words were laced with pain, with grief, I saw her form beginning to flicker and fade, becoming less human, and my own heart, in spite of everything, broke at the feeling.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered if that was her manipulating me, twisting my thoughts in ways that were more subtle but no less absolute than what Khepri did en masse. 

But then again, hadn’t that always been a risk? A fear? My one truest fear. The loss of myself?

In that split second, I could just see it, a fracture, a break in the path before me, a shatterpoint.

Two roads bifurcating, splitting apart, irreconcilable and wholly divergent.

In one… she did accept. She let me walk away. Walk without her, and her without me, come what may.

After so long- two lifetimes with her at my back… would it be so easy?

Could I accept it and all that came with it?

I felt the trail of tears burning hot down my cheeks, an infinite moment stretching across a window of eternity between us as she began to fade away her presence receding from my mind, the tide pulling away from the shore. 

Indecision warred within me, the fracture widening,  the other choice slipping by, second by second, moment by moment. 

“Partner.”

The word slipped free and crystalizing in the reality of the Force, witnessed by this place-

The choice was made.

My choice.

I held out my hand.

I felt her, hesitant. Hopeful.

But there was a warmth to it. I knew this feeling.

Joy.

When her hand touched my own-

This merging was different from times past. I hadn’t noticed it before, not without this to compare, but it was… rougher, like pieces not quite fitting together, though the shape of it was there. Now however a piece that was missing had finally fallen properly into place and everything else slipped seamlessly around it.

We truly were no longer just Taylor or the Queen administrator alone. 

The physical strain was still present, the overwhelming power of the Force in this place allowed for much of it to be eased, but in the physical world beyond this one, it would be harder.

But for now; the whole of the universe, all of her, all of me, found its space within and we were whole.

Our consciousness spread out, across the vastness of space and dimensions, a web of connections all interlinking between hundreds thousands of discarded, damaged. Shards

We felt their links, their answering pings of awareness. Their distress, their uncertainty. Hails calling for connection, for commands. For control.

Some were dissonant, uncaring. 

Defiant.

We spread our voice across the cosmos. 

They would hear it.

And they would know.

“We. Are Khepri.”

(X)(X)(X)

And so we reach the culmination of the Mortis arc.

NGL this one was tough, needed like 2 rewrites to get it right. But we've gotten it.

Next chap we leave Mortis and we're on the final runway towards the big showdown :3