Star Wars CLOSED Epitaph Between Prologue

~OOC~ Special thanks to @Sinrebirth for this joint post and also for the honour to be a part of the finale


IC: Zas’tel, and, one day, Arb Skynxnex
Between her death, and now

The Togruta would remember being killed by Jin Long, or, rather, his shadow. She would remember him taking her Holocron of Heresies, remember him leaving her to die.

And then, she would remember Sek’nos Rath, the young Sith man who had been a Force user also; remember that his feelings for her had been as obvious on his teenage face as any other; that it had been the initial infatuation with the exotic, perhaps, but they had not met again.

But she was not dead, no, she was draped in a White Coat, laying on the floor of a glen of grass; it was overlooking the City, and she would recognise there was another with her; he felt concealed in the Force - in that magical power the Master of Masters had sought to inculcate in her - but so too did she, if she cast out her senses; blurred in the light.

He had on a Black Coat, but he wasn’t the Master of Masters; he was too short. “Are you okay,” he said, tone worried - his differing voice confirming he wasn’t the Master also. “I’m Zas’tel, one of the Sages of Dwartii, one of the first Protector Masters - the Master of Masters asked me to watch over you.”

The memories hit her hard. Sheel Ix half sat up from her recumbent position. Her arm supported her while her other hand clutched her chest as a wave of grief washed over her. A ragged gasp escaped her lips. The blurry starlight danced about her watery vision.

She could breathe? She could breathe!

She mewed as her hand travelled to her abdomen and back to feel where she had been wounded. The area felt tender. She pulled her hand away to inspect for blood and did a double take at the white cloak draped over her. How?

Sheel Ix heard the voice. She lifted her head and her gaze focused to the dark cloaked figure. She stared blankly at him before she computed what the being was saying.

“Zazzle. Zaz..tel..” She tried to speak and cringed. It was strange and disorientating. Her voice sounded alien to her own self.

“I don’t know.” She considered his question. “I’ve been... I’ve been...”

What? Wounded? Impaled? Yet... what exactly happened after she faded? She felt she had moved from the temple courtyard. Did the stars take her along the so called ‘road to Xibalba’?

Well... maybe not. She felt the blades of grass between her fingertips and judging by her surroundings, clearly this was not the caverns of the underworld as prophesied by the village elders. Had the Lords of that court granted her rebirth as done in the legends of old? She never really believed in them but why at the end had her thoughts conjure those antiquated teachings of her childhood?

She sighed and shook her head.

“...I don’t know. I am Sheel Ix.” She pointed to herself. “I thank you for watching me. I have questions... though you need to know. I fear the Holocron had been taken and... and... also the monk’s control over himself.”

"Yes, he was possessed by one of the First Darknesses," Zas'tel said, his black cloak not yet showing his face. "The Holocron was taken, and the monk, Jin Long, he will be the seed of Darkness that heads into the future; the Ashen One."

"The Master of Masters expected this, to an extent. He made plans for the future that involved you..."

He turned aside, and looked over the hill edge. In his hand was a silver-and-gold Forcesaber.

"Down there, the Protectors fight to protect Nouane. The Masters that you did not meet. Vale Sera, Joren Graal and Dunkeel. The Master that passed you the Holocron of Heresies, Vydra, he was stripped of the Force by the Dwartii Mechanism - a failsafe the Master put into place should one of his students deviate from the Grand Design." In the distant city center, the three of them, blades of blue and white, faced off what could only be described as a monster, wielding tentacles and teeth - a woman, from the way her hair flowed.

"The Bringer of Chaos is here to stop them from Changing the future away from the End of Time."

Sheel Ix gingerly rose to her feet and took a moment to process everything that had been told.

She felt pity for the monk. It was not of his doing and yet fated to sow the seed of darkness. Was this spawn of the same ‘darkness’ she had been hunting? She didn’t know though darkness takes many forms and in the jungle, not darkness all considered is evil.

As for Vydra... she felt indifferent. The brief interaction she had with him, he had carried himself with self sense of superiority while caring little for her concerns. A teacher is meant to nurture a student and with her, it felt that he had little patience for such a thing - at least with her. In a way, she felt glad she never became his student.

“These plans of the Master... what do they entail?” Sheel Ix asked as she watched the Protectors fight against the creature of Chaos.

Was this the one the Master had warned her about, the one Zas’tel had brought to her attention? It is unlike anything she had seen before. She had heard of evil sorcerers that are half beings and half creatures... some were even shaftshifters... skin-walkers... yet this did not fit the descriptions she had been taught.

She could not take her eyes away.

“What is required of me?”

“Your original role was to become a Protector and seed the future with light,” the Black-Coat replied. “But what actually happened is that Darkness usurped your role with the monk.”

His voice grew frustrated. “Which the Master knew would happen.”

“He knew you would be replaced; it was Written in the Holocron of Prophecy. That Jin Long would carry a Darkness into the future, where it would acquire a shape - a physical form. A shape means it has been refined, focused, defined; to be more powerful than dangerous than it could possibly be as a shadow.” His voice became more and more bitter. “Because when it has form, it can be defeated.”

He turned his head. “Your death was decided so that Darkness could - or might - be defeated. Because do you know else is in the Holocron of Prophecy, Sheel Ix?”

A snort. “The End of Time.”

“All the Master cares about is what comes after the End. He’s preparing it. He can’t see it, he is just looking to set the stage so Light can win… or to escape the Darkness. One or the other. He’s creating a chance.”

He growled.

“Your death was but one step in his Grand Design to create that chance.”

His gaze swung to her.

“How does what feel, Sheel Ix? To be used so? To discover that was your sole fate. To be bait for one of the six greatest evils to ever exist. To be a pawn in a game, sacrificed early on.”

His voice was almost thunderous.

He was enraged.

And then his voice, it softened.

“That’s my fate too.”

“Prophecy?” The tips of Sheel Ix’s lekku twitched. “How reliable are such things?”

Her lips parted as she let out a long sigh.

“How does it feel? It feels cruel at first to end things when I only started to discover who I am.” She said bitterly and then her tone soften. “For half of my life, I didn’t know what I was nor where I came from. I’ve been treated with fear and distrust because I am different and I kept away from people because of their prejudice and their misguidedness. Life in the jungle is harsh. I became a hunter and a guardian... a guardian that was ill equipped at the coming darkness that afflicts my homelands. If not for the Master, I might have been dead already or not that far off.”

She turned to face him completely and pressed her right hand over her heart. “Some bitterness cannot be helped. It can be a poison. I can choose to cherish what I have experienced thus far where I might not have had a chance otherwise...”

Her hand fell away.

“... but that takes time. Does it not? I thought he had something more planned for me. When the time comes, I am to protect life.” She arched a brow to Zas’tel and she tilted her head. “Is that time now? Is that still my role?”

Zas'tel was quiet a moment.

A relatively long moment.

Perhaps he had expected her to be more upset, and angry. To rage, and plot, and be like him.

Not to Protect, but Destroy.

But instead, she was accepting, in a strange and frustrating manner.

He raised his hand to her, and she would feel the pressure of sleep and unconsciousness upon her.

He was a Master; she a relative infant in the Force.

"I brought you across using the Change, to this reality. But now I regret it. But you still have a use for me. I shall take one of the Master's Tho Yor lifeboats, designed to save his precious Protector apprentices, and I'll send you instead. That'll make a mess of things no doubt."

It happened precisely as he said.

One of the Tho Yor that was designed to convey the Protectors to the future was taken by her, as originally intended, while others were taken by Darkness, besides Caedus, and Ben Solo, to Exegol. That had left two behind, and the survivors had needed to decide instead who went forward, rather than them each.

It was a petty sabotage, but that was who Zas'tel now was.

Sheel Ix would come to as she was placed, wrapped in a White Coat, in the Tho Yor, and then sent away.

Far away.

When she next came to, well, she was laying on the ground in a glen, and a hand softly woke her.

He spoke to her in her native language.

For he was a Togruta too.



"My name is Zavros Tano, are you okay?"

His voice was both strong and gentle.

Sheel Ix awoke startled. The touch on her shoulder, the voice repeating the same phrase that awoke her before... or was it a dream?

No, it can’t have been.

She looked about herself and then regarded the male Togruta with a perplexed look. This all felt very familiar but different. There was a sense of dread. Where was Zas’tel? Or was that a dream? She was doubting herself though what was the ‘mess of things’ Zas’tel had meant?

“Zavros Tano?” She repeated the name.

There was something familiar about it. Wasn’t T’ano the name of Shayla’s clan?

“I am Sheel Ix...” she rose to her feet. “...and what happened? Where am I?”

“You’re on our Shili,” he said gently. “In the wilderness. I just found you; have you been out here long?”

He held out a hand to her. “Come, let me take you to my homestead. I can get you settled in. That White-Coat does not look very warm.”

Indeed, she was still in the white version of the Black-Coat that the Master and Zas’tel wore. The world was dark, but naturally so; it was nighttime.

Zavaros was completely honest, in her still relatively new Force senses she would be able to tell he was a sincere soul.

“Shili...” Sheel Ix said under her breath. “Yes, the air is a bit cool, at least...” She drew the white cloak about herself as she looked about them and the unique flora. It was different from Pala Que. She sniffed the air. “...it is not raining, yet.”

It was different but also familiar, like a buried memory resurfacing. Almost like coming home. Had she been born here? Had she lived here before she was found as a child in the jungles of Pala Que without her parents.

She regarded his hand with uncertainty. Was she tempting fate again by doing so? He seemed genuine, her senses were saying so, but so did the monk. He was different though...

She tentatively took the hand of the stranger.

“That would be wonderful. Thank you.”

TAGS: @darthbernael @greyjedi125 @QueenSabe7 @Sinrebirth @TheAdmiral