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Topic:
Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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Persephone_Kore
Registered:
Jan '06
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Date Posted:
12/1/06 9:57am
Subject:
Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
- Date Edited:
9/28/07 11:50am (5 edits total)
Edited By:
Persephone_Kore
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Title: Gnarltree
Author: Persephone_Kore
Rating: PG
Genre: Horror
Summary: How the tree-cave Luke enters in The Empire Strikes Back came to be.
Author's note: This is what happens when I spend too much time thinking about the Star Wars Databank entry on Dagobah. Relevant quote: Years ago, a group of Jedi in the neighboring Bpfasshi star system went rogue and succumbed to the dark side. Jedi Masters were sent to stop this dark Jedi insurrection, and one of the fallen Jedi escaped to Dagobah. Though circumstances are unclear on what transpired, it is believed a dark Jedi died on Dagobah, and the local flora absorbed his twisted energies.
The creatures mentioned are also described in the entry.
Gnarltree
The Jedi took half a step back. Wobbled. Collapsed to her knees. The mud beneath them squelched and began seeping into the fabric along her shins.
Her shoulders and back ached; her chest heaved, drawing in steamy air that seemed unduly short on oxygen given the amount of plant life surrounding her. Dagobah's humid air bathed her face, and the sweat ran down into her eyes and mouth. She gagged on the taste of salt, raised a hand toward her mouth, saw the blood on her fingers, and spat instead.
There were tears running down her cheeks, too. She was not sure whether they were from the sting of sweat or if she wept for her enemy.
Dark Jedi.
He had been her brother, in the Force, though they were different species. He had trained beside her. He had been good at lightsaber work, and at persuasion.
He had been persuaded, and he had fallen, lost.
Lost years ago.
He had been expert at lightsaber work. Her blade had never touched him. There were no burns on his corpse. There was only the line across his throat, spilling red, where the razorbug's web had caught him.
The razorbug had retreated to a corner of its web and was regarding them balefully. The Jedi wasn't sure how long she had sat here, drained of herself but sustained by the Force, but the razorbug had not moved either. She thought the sun had changed. It might have been night once.
Her panting breaths hitched; something caught in her chest and throat, and after she had choked on it she found it was a sob.
She wept for him.
In the tears she poured out the anger and frustration and railing at him and at what he had done, letting go the storm to keep from following him in his fall; she poured out his anger and frustration and railing too, and the pride and the fear and despair that billowed out like a poison cloud from his departing spirit.
She had wanted to bring him home.
Pain stabbed at her heart and lungs, under her ribs.
A crunch-squelch off to her left brought her head up and around, and she forced herself to her feet. The Force flowed through her easily here; Dagobah was rich in life, and when she opened herself to it, even exhausted muscles seemed to float in the heavy air.
An enormous white stalk-like leg stabbed out from the foliage screen that hung between two trees, piercing a foot into the ground where it landed. She wasn't sure whether the leaves belonged to the trees or were part of some parasite or symbiote attached to them; she didn't particularly care.
Her lightsaber hissed to life again, but another leg appeared, then another, another, and yet another, and the Jedi backed away as she saw the full form of the creature approaching her.
It was certainly alive, but did not seem to have much mind, or at least not the type she could sense or touch readily. It felt more like a plant than an animal. She counted at least two dozen legs before she lost track of them, and they all moved without apparent organization, some digging into the ground, some merely tapping at it and bearing little or no weight. Some were spiked on the ends, others almost feathered. She wasn't sure if it had a head or body, but the center of it where all the legs sprouted did have a sort of green tuft at the top.
Gnarltree, her mind supplied suddenly. There was a type of tree on Dagobah that had a mobile phase in its youth. It would roam until it found a place to plant itself, where there was rich soil and access to sunlight, where it could grow unhindered.
Those were roots then, not legs, that it was walking on. They grew from the trunk, and at the top rose the start of branches and leaves. A questing white root touched the corpse.
The Jedi looked around herself in awakening horror. The ground here was moist, but firm. Their battle had created a clearing, open to the sky, and much of the debris around them was half char and half ash. The Dark Jedi's corpse was beginning to decay in the wet, bacteria-laden swamp. (How long had she been mourning?) It would look like rich food to the tree. But it would be poison. Not to the body of the tree, but to its spirit, to the powerful presence in the Force it would one day be.
She thought of this, and dread fell on her.
She leaped forward, waving her saber and shouting, trying to scare it away. It kept coming, its movements ponderous and unhurried, but unhesitating too.
Unwilling to strike out at it, only a young thing seeking sustenance, she fell back (not toward the razorbug's web) and dropped to one knee, stilling and centering herself, reaching out into the Force.
"This is not good food for you," she whispered into the moist air. "This is not a good place for you. It is... the sunlight is darkened." Those were the only words she could find for the Dark Side, here and now, with her mind stretched and strung on the branches.
The white roots hesitated.
She bent her will on them, leaning.
Not good, not good. Darkened sun. Illness, disease. Go, go.
Go.
Go....
The gnarltree stretched forward again. She could feel it tasting the air, and the ground, and the light, and the rotting organic matter that would become soil.
These things all seemed very good to the tree, and it pressed onward against the mysterious suggestions and feelings otherwise, and her will broke like the flimsy webs of arachnids on other planets, whose silk couldn't slit your throat.
She wobbled, even though she was down on one knee, and fell backward, barely catching herself on her hands. The Force coursed through her, but she barely recognized it. Malice she had understood, had felt and fought. The strength ascendant here was dangerous in another way, healthy and mindless and brutal. She had thought of the Force as nourishing. It had not occurred to her that it must also be hungry.
The gnarltree moved its long gangly roots in a leisurely way, ambling angularly to center itself in the clearing.
To center itself over the corpse.
It stood for a moment, gathering itself, the weight-bearing roots sinking gradually into the ground.
Then it rose up, straightening its joints, and drove down again. Its taproot stabbed downward and pierced through the Dark Jedi's abdomen, driving the remaining air out with a groan, matter spilling out to mingle with the mud.
The living Jedi leaped to her feet with a shout, then sagged forward again and fell to hands and knees, weeping.
The tree sank comfortably further, deepening its root system. The tops of the joints angled up out of the soft earth like knobbly white knees.
After a time the Jedi lay full length on the ground.
When she had lain still for some days, a white root that had been growing dragged itself free of the mud next to her side. It fumbled over her, patting her gently across the back, the head, and the legs. Hairlike tendrils quested wherever they found openings through cloth and skin.
Satisfied with what it had found, it hooked itself over her and dragged her closer through the mud. She kept sinking deeper, digging a small shallow trench.
The root gathered her underneath the tree, next to her friend and enemy.
Leaves spread to the sky.
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mari4212
Registered:
Mar '06
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Date Posted:
12/1/06 9:35pm
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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Oh wow. This was just brilliant imagery, and such a perfect scene.
I think the line that struck me most was this:
He had been her brother, in the Force, though they were different species. He had trained beside her. He had been good at lightsaber work, and at persuasion.
He had been persuaded, and he had fallen, lost.
It's just coupled the ideas so well, and the reversal really packs a punch.
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“The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.”~Asimov
"Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness."~ C.S. Lewis
Proud Padawan of Layren!
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Healer_Leona
Registered:
Jul '00
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Date Posted:
12/2/06 4:37am
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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I have to second the Oh wow!.
That was a stunning explanation of the tree-cave. Definitely well done and creepy!! Bravo! 
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So to my friends that even call but I don't call back
I want you deep inside my heart upon a hill
It seems to hide sometimes and run away and wonder
I'm really sick of saying sorry but I will
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amidalachick
Title: 2008 Fan Fic Awards Overseer
Registered:
Aug '03
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Date Posted:
12/2/06 5:36pm
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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The root gathered her underneath the tree, next to her friend and enemy.
*shivers*
Wow! This was incredible. Eerie, a little sad...and such vivid descriptions. Excellent work!
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"I thought of letting go
But my mind won't let me
My heart will never know what's true
I just never thought I'd find a reason
Keep me coming back until I stay..."
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Persephone_Kore
Registered:
Jan '06
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Date Posted:
12/4/06 10:01pm
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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mari4212: Thank you so much. I started with the image, after reading about the local flora absorbing a Dark Jedi and then about some of the local flora(!), and sketched in the characters from there. Falling to something that had been a strength seemed to suit the way the Dark Side worked. I'm glad you liked it.
Healer_Leona: Many thanks! I was very struck by the description of the gnarltree in the databank. It seemed to have a lot of potential for creepiness. I don't usually write anything approaching horror, and it's good to hear that it worked.
amidalachick: Thank you.  Somehow that seemed an appropriate resting place. I really wanted to do the descriptions justice; the images I got from the SW Databank were very compelling!
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BrentusofGath
Registered:
Aug '05
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Date Posted:
12/5/06 12:58am
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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I like eerie stories. Yours qualifies. 
I liked the ending especially. Human relationships are such fragile things, but the tree grows regardless of whether its meal is Light or Dark.
Good story!
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Unleashed! http://boards.theforce.net/the_saga/b10476/27946871/p1/?0 One more day that I've survived, another night alone Pay no mind I'm doing fine, I'm breathing on my own - Foo Fighters Forceforever =
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Elana
Registered:
Jun '05
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Date Posted:
12/7/06 10:03am
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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I just saw this one, Padawan.
Wonderful work! Such a spooky, creepy atmosphere.
I like that the tree grows from the bodies of two Jedi, one light and one dark. It goes with the duel message Luke learns from his vision, that there is a part of Vader in Luke, but also that there is a part of Luke in Vader...
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"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within." - James Baldwin The Slumbering Princess http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=23230496&brd=10475 My original fiction http://groups.yahoo.com/group/elanafic/
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Zonoma
Registered:
Jun '05
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Date Posted:
12/8/06 2:26pm
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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Stunning imagery and an incredibly compelling story. I loved the sense of time in this piece - both finite and infinite.
Then there was the tree itself - The gnarltree was so very natural and very alien at the same time. I loved it.
Z
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ardavenport
Registered:
Dec '04
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Date Posted:
12/10/06 8:54am
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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Oh, well described and very tragic. She tried so hard to warn the tree off and it came on anyway and pulled her under, too, like the only one left who had something to live for anymore was tree.
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Links to all fics -- http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=25405090&brd=10304&start=26223917 The Heart of the Jedi -- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26013327 ---- Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, JA and everything you wanted to know about lightsabers
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leia_naberrie
Registered:
Sep '02
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Date Posted:
12/10/06 10:02pm
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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Oh gross! Lovely!  I don't know what I liked best - the mythic nature of the story, or the carnivorous plant.
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rocketscientist
Registered:
Nov '05
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Date Posted:
12/11/06 6:12am
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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OOHH! What a cool fic! Reminds me of Edgar Allen Poe - GFFA style. 
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Charmisjess
Registered:
Jul '03
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Date Posted:
12/13/06 4:27pm
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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No Dooku, no Scoutling, no Qui-Gon, and yet I absolutely adore this fic as much as any of your others. You really are a fabulous writer, with familiar characters or nonfamiliar--and you have a particularly distinctive way of hooking in a reader and making one truly care, achingly, about whatever it is you chose. This was so well crafted; the setting, the alienness of Dagobah, the character force of the tree...all very specific. It gives such a vivid image, such a real feeling.
I love your protagonist--doesn't even have a name, yet she's such a bright little color, and you create such empathy for her by the time you're done. I feel quite fond of her, and as much as I know you couldn't really give her a backstory, I find myself wanting one quite a bit.
Brilliant, woeful, perfect little fic. Goodness, Peeks, you really got it on this one.
She had wanted to bring him home.
This was absolutely cutting.
I love how you ended it. It really isn't a sad ending, in a way, and yet it is. You've captured the paradox exquisitely.
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I <3 Starrie.  Strange Little Girls-> http://boards.theforce.net/the_saga/b10476/24496675/p1/?0 Where are you going?
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Persephone_Kore
Registered:
Jan '06
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Date Posted:
12/14/06 5:07pm
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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BrentusofGath: Thanks! It's outside my usual style in a lot of ways, but I'm glad it succeeded.
Elana: Thank you! The tree, when I thought about it, struck me as... maybe not having had an unadulterated evil influence. And not being one, for that matter.
Zonoma: Many thanks. Credit for the gnarltree goes to whoever stuck it in the Star Wars Databank -- the idea of a tree with a mobile spidery phase seemed very appropriate to Dagobah, and really grabbed my imagination.
Ardavenport: Thanks. The Jedi survived the battle, but not in very good condition, especially mentally. Warning the gnarltree is the only time she does remember that she might still have things to do, and I think she spent the last of her resources there.
And the tree, of course, doesn't see what her problem is. But perhaps she did it some good after all.
leia_naberrie: I want you to know, the start of your response cracked me up. Thanks.
rocketscientist: Now there's a flattering comparison... if perhaps slightly unsettling. Thank you!
charmisjess: *hugs* Thank you so much. The story showed up first as an image, or part of one, and writing it out brought in the other details. It was the Databank entry, you see; it mentioned the story about a Dark Jedi being killed there, and the local flora absorbing his dark energies, and then the description of the gnarltrees and their mobile juvenile stage like scuttling spiders, and... well. Yes.
Which all means that the protagonist took form out of the story; actually for all you can tell in the Databank, the Dark Jedi who escaped to Dagobah just drowned in a mudhole or something. But I figured on having somebody go after him. This all makes it all the nicer to hear that she felt vivid and real and drew sympathy from the reader.
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sonnymyson
Registered:
Dec '04
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Date Posted:
12/15/06 7:35am
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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Kecen pointed me here.
This has got to be the best of all your stories I have so far had the pleasure to read. But then, I have a thing for Neti, especially T'ra Saa.
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Persephone_Kore
Registered:
Jan '06
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Date Posted:
2/3/07 8:32pm
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
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sonnymyson: Thank you very much; I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm afraid I wasn't really thinking of either Jedi as a Neti, and a gnarltree seems to be something else, but from what I've read they sound like a really cool species. I can imagine the tree-cave as a Neti instead, though....
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Darth Muis
Registered:
Mar '00
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Date Posted:
2/8/07 10:00am
Subject:
RE: Gnarltree (horror; genesis of tree-cave on Dagobah)
- Date Edited:
2/8/07 10:02am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Darth Muis
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I was just browsing around the boards and stumbled upon this. Nice story! Very creepy, very original. It really captures the feel of Dagobah to me. Also, I like that main protagonist doesn't have a name. It doesn't really matter what her name is; it wouldn't add anything to the story. It's somehow much stronger this way. Good writing as well, nice imagery.
Good stuff, good stuff.
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