| Author |
Topic:
The Phoenix Narration (post-Legacy: Ben/Jysella, saga of original characters) Prologue: Part I
|
Briee-Targaryen
Registered:
Jul '06
|
Date Posted:
12/27/07 12:00am
Subject:
The Phoenix Narration (post-Legacy: Ben/Jysella, saga of original characters) Prologue: Part I
- Date Edited:
12/27/07 5:00am (4 edits total)
Edited By:
Briee-Targaryen
|
S T A R W A R S
_____________________________________________________________________________________
'There will be many narrations concerning the man...to be sure, there will be
whole libraries dedicated to the psychological interpretations of the choices
and deeds of 'thee' Ben Skywalker, such as he was. And I, by way and through
this fickle authorship, shall offer you no more than just another.'
— Jysella Horn, Y.R. II, After the 'Fall'
______________________________________________________________________________________
PROLOGUE: PART ONE
The God Who Dwelled In The Star
Sometimes he wore a mask when she attended the 'Keeper': a true leviathan of a space-station, which orbiting alongside the gaseous belt clasped around the the atmosphere of the nearby world below had earned the name the 'tomorrow star' by the planetary natives. A superstitious species, to be sure, some eons shy of their own exploration of the galaxy. The 'Keeper' had since its maiden-orbit found its way into the ever expanding lore of the peoples inhabiting the planet. In the hereafter, the people would say of the 'Keeper', their mythic star, thatit was home to both hero and villain.
They would say of the 'Keeper', their tomorrow star, that when the nearby sun caught glimpse the star itself would shine ever brighter, while in the shadow its twinkle foretold doom. The 'Keeper' meant many a great things in their lore, plagued of both hope and superstition. But all would agree in the end, for the truth in lore always lasted longer than the whimsical. By these people it would be said that a God dwelled in that star.
Jysella Horn had heard her share of the native's capricious reasoning for the existence of the 'Keeper', but she'd formed her decision concerning the God of the Star many years prior. He was a God of Masks rather; and sometimes he wore one when she came to visit him aboard the 'Keeper', which made it so that she'd begun to see the man she loved less and less over these past few months. Since after the 'Fall'.
Her shuttle had departed New Coruscant earlier in the week, and it had taken two-jumps to even reach this sector of the galaxy, even with her security-clearance. The 'Keeper' itself was off-limits to outside personnel. It had taken Jysella weeks to convince the GFFA, or rather what remained of its toppling governance, to permit her the clearance necessitated by these monthly visits of hers, and longer still to persuade the actual regulators of the station itself, who guarded their God with envious and self-damning deeds. They had yielded only after her agreement to expend her personal relationship with him in hopes that their recorded conversations returned pertinence.
She'd docked with the 'Keeper' some hours ago, and was patiently waiting for her clearance's reevaluation by the facilities' controllers. Until such a time as they deemed her no threat she was expected to remain a passenger in her own ship, still in the docking-area well outside the main complex where their God dwelled. The 'Keeper' was many things...but in truth it was a prison conceived and built to incarcerate, and keep incarcerated, the most dangerous man in all the galaxy. This divine prison orbited a planet in an unknown sector somewhere in the part of the galaxy which no bothered to investigate.
Where better to keep their God in chains...
Jysella, in wait, roamed her cramped cockpit and more often times than not let her thoughts wander further than her proposed restrictions. There were events in recent past that all the galaxy hoped to forget. The 'Fall'... Jysella pulled her thoughts away then, lest such memories cut her, deceive her, remind her. The absence in her heart of hearts was reminder enough. When she sought the Force, the heartbeat of all creation in the galaxy, a chasm of wordless denial revealed itself and reminded her that it has never really gone.
Since the 'Fall' there had come a great and bottomless nothing where once the Force persisted, where it once had reigned. Absentmindedly, Jysella reached out with those mental fingers she'd honed through years of training. She stroked the darkness, her heart fooling her that the Force would await her there this time. The silence within could not be measured, just as the absolute darkness could not be measured. It was as though the Force had never been.
In that darkness a familiar voice spoke.
'Why do you do this to yourself?'
Jysella had posed that question to herself so many times in the past few years that her once rattled reply now crept from her parting lips as a mantra, a prayer of sorts. But there was not so much certainty anymore. "Because love won't let me forget. You...won't let me forget."
'I dare not remind you...'
"I need no reminding," she said, speaking to no one in the cockpit, but seemingly herself. Jysella tried to smile. It was a vain attempt.
'I don't want to see you...'
"Why," asked Jysella. "Afraid it'll remind of who you are?"
'Who I am? ...or, the God they say I've become..."
"No. Who you really are," Jysella continued.
'Who am I...really...'
"You're Ben Skywalker."
'I was...'
This was the God of Masks speaking to her now, Jysella knew. She could hear it in his voice:
that subtle hint of regret, the way the syllables ran off the tongue in such a way to belie
the New Coruscant accent. The God of Masks dealt in half-truths, she'd come to realize. He wore
this mask to negate the man named Ben Skywalker.
"You are still the man I knew," Jysella promised him.
'And much, much more...'
"To whom?"
'To the future, Jysella Horn...'
"The future," she echoed, despondent. "Whose future?"
'I can't tell you that...'
"Because..."
'Because it would ruin it before it even started...'
Jysella had heard enough of this pointless dribble to entertain a life-time, and so she said
to him, "I'm coming to see you, Ben. Soon."
'Why do you do this to yourself...'
Jysella managed a smile this time around. "Because love won't let me forget. You won't let me
forget. You can forget Ben Skywalker all you like. You can lose track of him in this thing you've done, or this man you claim you're becoming. But I won't. And I can't. You're more to me than you are to any other."
She expected that voice again, but it never returned. It was another two hours before she was
permitted to leave her ship behind and venture into the complex of the inner space-station. The
'Keeper', from an outward vantage, was a rounded edifice with a rotating lower-half. It was built so that from bottom-to-top it gradually adopted an angular design, until the apex, this 'place where the God dwelled in chains', expanded and took on the final shape of the colossal holding-cell and its reflective crown.
The 'Keeper' itself did not have personnel as one would tend to consider the term. There was no grand control-room whereby the station's systems were regulated or pored over by carefully selected and trained technicians. Few in the galaxy even knew about the 'Keeper', let alone itsactual location, and those who perchance had overheard whispers of the final resting place of Ben Skywalker balked at such a notion. Or considered such talk as rumor. Or worse... But indeed the 'Keeper' did exist. Its controller was a cybernetic program specifically designed for the imprisonment of its sole captive, a being too minacious to be given freedom and a being far too significant to be destroyed.
For two years it had been the final resting place of Ben Skywalker.
Jysella strode the halls and corridors, re-acclimating herself to the sights and sounds of this
truly desolate place: the pearly white hallways, the occasional buzz of some mechanical goings-on somewhere off in the far reaches of the complex. The 'Keeper' was ever-changing. It developed, slowly but surely, mostly per the recorded date strung together based off of its prisoner. But even so, Jysella knew that if Ben ever decided to relieve himself of the 'Keeper' then it would resort to its programmed end-game.
If Ben so much as tempted the system's sensory with escape, the entire space-station would no doubtdetonate itself in self-sacrifice. The moment he thought of himself as a prisoner he probably would chance such a thing. It was in his blood, after all.
At length, Jysella came to a turbo-lift at the tail-end of a corridor. It opened for her. She stepped inside and the doors closed. It surged upward, toward the higher levels of the complex where the holding-cell was built and maintained. Her heart beat faster the nearer the holding-cell came. She armored her heart at this point, as she always did. The man she hoped to see was not the man who would be waiting for her above.
She armored herself. Experience had taught her to do so, for when her hopes shattered themselves so violently against the God of Masks it was well that she was prepared. The first time she'd come to the 'Keeper' in search of Ben Skywalker had nearly torn her apart. The second time had come closer to destroying her than before. He'd nearly killed her when upon seeing him for the first times he'd looked upon her face as though he'd never seen her before, when not so long ago the both of them had stood so very close.
The turbo-lift reached its destination. The doors parted and Jysella took a tentative first couple of strides right through them, and onto the uncovered bridge which led to the holding-cell: a spherical structure that could serve as a whole prison rather than merely a cell. It was suspended over a great drop. Jysella approached the outer-entrance. Once there, a door granted her passage and locked behind her. Now, she stood just outside the holding-arena.
Jysella Horn stepped through and into the place where the God dwelled in the Star, to face the God of Masks and the man who lived in both of them...Ben Skywalker.
____________________
Part Two coming soon...
____________________
-----signature-----
And so the ROSE begins...
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
Flowerlady
Registered:
Dec '05
|
Date Posted:
12/27/07 5:25am
Subject:
RE: The Phoenix Narration (post-Legacy: Ben/Jysella, saga of original characters) Prologue: Part I
|
It's nice to see you back...
I'm intrigued.
Nice beginning. I suppose you will explain just how Ben became a condemned god?
If this is a Ben/Jys story PM me the story info and I'll index it in the Benella Index on the Resource board.
FL 
-----signature-----
I used to dream of Kyp or Jag, now it's Edward Cullen...I blame Cyn and Saber..  Master to DanaeMariSkywalker, JediMasterArmada and PHGS_Weyr
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
Briee-Targaryen
Registered:
Jul '06
|
Date Posted:
12/27/07 5:04pm
Subject:
RE: The Phoenix Narration (post-Legacy: Ben/Jysella, saga of original characters) Prologue: Part I
|
Flowerlady posted:
It's nice to see you back...
I'm intrigued.
Nice beginning. I suppose you will explain just how Ben became a condemned god?
If this is a Ben/Jys story PM me the story info and I'll index it in the Benella Index on the Resource board.
FL
Thanks, it's good to be back.
An explanation is coming in the second part of the Prologue. Ben is condemned, surely, but I'd hardly call him a God. Once I get into what he actually 'did' then things will clear up and you'll see the reason for the 'Keeper'.
This is not really a Benella story, so I don't think it belongs in the index. This prologue features Jysella, and the annotations which open the forthcoming chapters are quotes of hers. The prologue and special interludes between chapters in the story deal with Ben and sometimes Jysella, but not enough so to call this a Benella.
-----signature-----
And so the ROSE begins...
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
G__Anakin
Registered:
Apr '06
|
Date Posted:
12/28/07 6:28pm
Subject:
RE: The Phoenix Narration (post-Legacy: Ben/Jysella, saga of original characters) Prologue: Part I
|
I read this yesterday and was unsure about it. Please add me to the PM list so I can see how it goes! 
-----signature-----
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
G__Anakin
Registered:
Apr '06
|
Date Posted:
12/28/07 7:44pm
Subject:
RE: The Phoenix Narration (post-Legacy: Ben/Jysella, saga of original characters) Prologue: Part I
|
I knew I recognized your name from somewhere! The Rose I (Part One: Concerning the Self Exile of Ben Skywalker) Update!7/31
Nice to see you again
-----signature-----
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
ZaraValinor
Registered:
May '02
|
Date Posted:
12/30/07 3:10pm
Subject:
RE: The Phoenix Narration (post-Legacy: Ben/Jysella, saga of original characters) Prologue: Part I
|
|
Oh, my gosh I can't believe I haven't seen this before. As always your narrative is so lyrical and beautiful. I got all a flutter when I started reading it. Bri, I bow beforeyour greatness.
-----signature-----
Proud Master to Meredith_Kenobi & Lolly_Tolly
"He full-on Obi-Wan'd me!"
Dean Winchester - Supernatural
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
divapilot
Registered:
Nov '05
|
Date Posted:
12/30/07 4:26pm
Subject:
RE: The Phoenix Narration (post-Legacy: Ben/Jysella, saga of original characters) Prologue: Part I
|
Beautifully written and ominous. I am so curious as to how Ben became the "God in chains" and why he permits it. Jysella must either have tremendous faith or love, or she is following another agenda.
Either way, I'll be curious to see how this turns out! 
-----signature-----
Never tell me the odds. AKL "Beyond the Wall" http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/28964433/p1/?6 The Society for Girls Who Like Things that Go Boom. (M. Corde, Pres.) "This is your badness level." ~ Lilo!
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
Briee-Targaryen
Registered:
Jul '06
|
Date Posted:
12/30/07 10:30pm
Subject:
RE: The Phoenix Narration (post-Legacy: Ben/Jysella, saga of original characters) Prologue: Part I
|
G__Anakin posted:
I read this yesterday and was unsure about it. Please add me to the PM list so I can see how it goes!
Thanks for taking interest. I hope in part two I can kinda get you 'sure' about it. PM list it is. Sure thing.
G__Anakin posted:
I knew I recognized your name from somewhere! The Rose I (Part One: Concerning the Self Exile of Ben Skywalker) Update!7/31
Nice to see you again
Yep, you caught me 
Thanks again.
ZaraValinor posted:
Oh, my gosh I can't believe I haven't seen this before. As always your narrative is so lyrical and beautiful. I got all a flutter when I started reading it. Bri, I bow beforeyour greatness.
You know just how to push my right buttons. The word 'lyrical' in your review is like scratching a dog in the right spot when it comes to me 
Thanks so much.
divapilot posted:
Beautifully written and ominous. I am so curious as to how Ben became the "God in chains" and why he permits it. Jysella must either have tremendous faith or love, or she is following another agenda.
Either way, I'll be curious to see how this turns out!
Wow, thanks a lot, I appreciate that.
Ben is certainly a very complicated person when it comes to this time and place in the story. He is condemned and people call him a God. I'll explain why during the second part of the prologue, so you'll learn about it pretty soon.
Jysella has more love than faith, I think, but we'll see.
Thanks for taking an interest.
_____________________________________
Part two is coming pretty soon...
-----signature-----
And so the ROSE begins...
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
G__Anakin
Registered:
Apr '06
|
Date Posted:
2/4 5:46pm
Subject:
RE: The Phoenix Narration (post-Legacy: Ben/Jysella, saga of original characters) Prologue: Part I
|
|
Hey! Thought I would up this with encouragement!
-----signature-----
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
JadedSkycrawler
Registered:
Jul '02
|
Date Posted:
2/4 6:23pm
Subject:
RE: The Phoenix Narration (post-Legacy: Ben/Jysella, saga of original characters) Prologue: Part I
|
Same here!
This is really very interesting so far- hope you continue! 
-----signature-----
"All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle." -Francis of Assisi
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
