Praxis Mar did not settle down. Nor did it became a beacon of peace and light. The planet had been a Dark Side Nexus for centuries and billions of souls had been trapped in torment within it. No single act was going to make it ‘nice’ place, no grand deed would restore balance or erase the pain the souls there had suffered.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t becoming better than it had been. 

In small pockets, bit by tiny bit, the lost souls of Praxis Mar began to find their way.

Nix and Ayli were a part of that, if only one small one. It wasn’t with Force powers or mighty battles that they worked to restore Praxis Mar’s balance though.

In a small clearing of long petrified trees, they sat and shared stories with the Hendel and other shades who were searching for a path towards a new tomorrow.

“I thought things would be easier after we won,” Hendel said, still a skeleton, but looking somehow more lively than he had before.

“There’s still a lot of spirits who are clinging to the Dark Side are there?” Nix asked.

“There are,” a spirit so faded that they’d lost all semblance of what their original being looked like.

“And they’re gaining ground in some places too,” a spirit who had to have been a child when they perished said.

“That’s a good sign, believe it or not,” Ayli said. She was leaning with her back against a short stump which Nix was sitting on.

“How could that be good?” the faded spirit asked, too weary for there to be any pain in its voice.

“Healing isn’t a linear process. You go back and forth, and a lot of people will resist and cling to what they’ve known even if its only brought them misery,” Ayli said, her voice taking on a quality not unlike Kelda’s had held when Ayli first heard those words.

“I don’t know that I have the strength to fight against that though,” the faded spirit said.

“You don’t need to fight,” Nix said. “At this point, finding what peace and balance within yourself is more than enough.”

“I thought we were all in this together? Isn’t that one of the things the Jedi say?” the child spirit asked, the centuries of their existence lending them a decidedly non-childlike air.

“I haven’t heard a Jedi specifically say that,” Nix said. “I sort of suspect they missed that point in their later teaching too since it seems like they tended to get sent out as solo or duo troubleshooters.”

“But you’re a Jedi?” the child said.

“I’ve studied some of the Jedi arts,” Nix said. “And I’ve trained with a Jedi, of sorts, but that doesn’t make a Jedi anymore than learning to speak Rhodian makes me one of them.”

“What we’re telling you comes from our own experiences,” Ayli said. “It’s not a holy writ. The answers you find to the problems here will definitely be different than ours and that’s fine. You have a whole different set of needs and priorities than we do.”

“And you’ve been through experiences we can only imagine,” Nix said. “What you can do? What’s going to resonate with you and give you the motivation to keep going? That’s going to be unique to who you are.”

“Our stories are just meant to give you ideas for things that might work for you,” Ayli said.

“And at least a few examples of what is possible,” Nix said. “Maybe that’ll help?”

“I think it has been,” Hendel said. “Some of our other listeners have wandered away and at least a few of them have been talking with other people.”

“He’s right,” the faded spirit said, sounding at least slightly more substantial. “The first promise you made, the dream of people coming here and bringing our stories to light? That spread all on its own. It was sort of whispered from one of us to the next. This feels much more substantial though. Before it was a beautiful dream in a sea of endless nightmare. Now though, you’re here, and you’re real, and you’re can’t be wished away like a dream.”

“What I don’t understand is why we’re not all simply fading away?” the child spirit said. “I mean, we’ve been dead for an aeon. Our time is passed. Shouldn’t we be moving on? Isn’t there some afterlife we’re supposed to be in?”

“I don’t know,” Nix said. “I’ve never been dead.”

“There are as many beliefs about the afterlife as their are stars in the galaxy,” Ayli said. “It’s a pretty fascination area of study – I had an elective in it during my second year – in your case though I’m wondering if its because you’re simply not ready.”

“After all this time, we’re not ready?” Hendel asked.

“Some of you probably are,” Nix said. “I suspect if you could do a census, you’d find that a lot of people have passed into the Force already. For a lot of you though? Well, tell me if this sounds right – you weren’t ready to die when you did? And the years spent trapped her didn’t exactly leave you feeling fulfilled? After so long, I think it would be pretty natural to hang on to this existence both because you still want more out of this world and because you were held here so long that its become a somewhat natural state for you.”

“Is that what we should be trying to fix?” the faded spirit asked.

“That’s your decision,” Nix said. “Though I don’t think it’s a case of ‘fixing’ anything. You’re here now because it’s what’s working for you. You’re not broken for being here. Going on to what comes next is something  that will happen when you’re ready.”

“Do you think we can be hurt like this?” the child spirit asked.

“Oh, definitely,” Ayli said. “You can think and reason, there’s plenty of disappointments and heartbreak that leaves you open to.”

“If you mean via Force powers, that’s probably possible too,” Nix said. “You were right to be careful about confronting Paralus – who knows what kind of nonsense techniques he’d worked out.”

“That makes it seem like going into the Force, or whatever happens next, is the only thing that would keep us safe?” the child spirit said.

“Well, there is at least one other thing that’ll keep you safe,” Nix said.

“You?” the faded spirit asked.

“I was thinking of something that could make a slightly bigger impact on anyone who tried to mess with the people here,” Nix said and nodded upwards at the Beast which towered over them like a mobile mountain range.

“Oh,” the child spirit said. “You think it would protect us?”

“It didn’t swat Paralus because it’s uninterested in what’s happening here,” Ayli said. “I get the sense that it hasn’t been happy with what happened to its world for a long time now.”

“Why didn’t it do something earlier then?” Hendel asked. “When all the other terrible people came here?”

“Why didn’t you?” Nix asked.

“Because there wasn’t any point,” Hendel said. “Or it didn’t feel like there was.”

“I know its a lot bigger than any of us, but to the Force, size doesn’t really matter,” Nix said. “It’s mind boggling huge and powerful but it has a heart the same as we do.”

“Point of clarification; I do not in fact have a heart, or any other vital organs,” Hendel said, gesturing to his skeletal form.

“Come on, you were trained in Force stuff,” Nix said with an encouraging smile, “you know we’re more than this crude matter.” She tapped Hendel’s surprisingly solid bones. “I hang out with ghosts regularly who are deeply in love with each other. Let me assure you, your heart remains long after all the solid bits of you are back to being stardust.”

“So you think we’ll be safe for now then?” the child spirit asked.

“I think so,” Nix said. “There’s going to be turmoil on Praxis Mar for a while, but I don’t think any of this would be happening if the planet, and the Force in general, wasn’t ready to start healing from what had happened.”

“Took it long enough!” the faded spirit said. “Look at me, there’s almost nothing left!”

“Yeah, it sucks it took that long,” Ayli said. “And it sucks that the apocalypse here happened in the first place. Life’s like that.”

“If it all sucks, why bother with it?” the child spirit asked.

“It sucking is why we bother,”  Ayli said. “If the world was perfect, we wouldn’t need to do anything. The parts that suck are the parts where we can make a difference.”

“That doesn’t always work out all that well,” Hendel said. “I say that from direct personal experience.”

“Oh, trust me, I’ve been there too,” Ayli said. “Sometimes we try and fail and we pay a horrible price. And sometimes its someone else who pays.”

“Which brings us back to the question of why bother?” Hendel asked.

“Because sometimes, a lot of times really, if we don’t try, things will be even worse. Sometimes, even if we fail, paying the price ourselves ensures that someone else doesn’t have to.”

“And failure isn’t always the end,” Nix said. “Just because things don’t work out when we try to make the world a better place doesn’t mean it never can be. Or that we can’t learn and try again, smarter and stronger the next time.”

“Is there anything we can really do though?” the faded spirit asked. “We can’t touch the world like you can, so changing it seems like a bit of a stretch.”

“Ideas can’t speak for themselves and they change the world all the time,” Ayli said. “So I’d say there there’s still quite a lot you can do. For example, give me a month or so to setup the grants and there’ll be a whole squad of archeologists out here who will be desperate to interview you for the next several decades.”

“Why would they want to talk to us?” the child spirit asked.

“There have been genocides throughout history and even world’s swept clean of life,” Ayli said. “So much have been lost as whole societies fell. You, all of you, represent a chance to not only reclaim a world of lost history but also understand how a planetary apocalypse can happen and, maybe, just maybe, how to avoid ones in the future.”

“There are going to be people here who don’t want their stories to come out,” Hendel said.

“Helping them move past their guilt and shame will take time,” Nix said. “And there’ll be some that we’ll probably never convince. Someone who will move on before sharing their stories.”

“And that’s fine!” Ayli said. “We can never have a complete view of history. To get even one of your stories though? From you? That’s priceless in my field.”

“Will you be here with us?” the child spirit asked.

“Eventually,” Nix said. “We’ll be back.”

“Where will you go?” Hendel asked.

“We don’t know,” Ayli said.

“It’s going to depend on where they take us,” Nix said.

“They who?” Hendel asked.

“Our friends from the Silent Enclave,” Ayli said. “The ones who’ve been here for about an hour now.”

“But we’re alone?” the faded spirit said.

“No, we’re not,” the child spirit said, freezing into stillness.

From the shadows around them an armed group of a warriors from the Silent Enclave stepped forward.

“You sensed us?” Tovos, the first Silent Enclave member Nix had met, asked.

“You’re very good,” Nix said. “But your emotions are conflicted.”

“We are here to bring you back to face justice,” Tovos said.

“I know,” Nix said. “I thought at first that we would be done with you. It didn’t seem like you valued Rassi very much and pursuing us couldn’t have been easy. But this is about more than Rassi isn’t it. Your Elders want to have a word with me, don’t they?”

“A trial,” Tovos said.

======

When Rassi and Solna landed on Praxis Mar it was somehow both more horrifying and more comforting than they’d expecting.

“It’s changing,” Ravas said, a note of awe in her voice.

“So are you,” Kelda said.

“What? How?” Ravas asked.

“Your eyes,” Kelda said, a quiet joy in her voice. “They’re the ones I fell in love with.”

“This place is a maelstrom,” Monfi said.

“Yes,” Lasha said. “A good one. The turmoil, it’s been too long delayed. The Dark Side’s hold is unraveling after, ugh, far too long for me to see.”

“I think we have your friends to thank for that,” Hendel said, hesitantly coming around a corner. “That is if you know Ayli and Nix.”

“We do,” Rassi said. “Where are they?”

“We don’t know,” the faded spirit said.

“They were taken away by shadows with guns,” the child spirit said. “They’re going to be put on trial and Expunged?”

“NO!” Rassi said. “No they won’t. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“Not if we have anything to say about it,” Ravas said, glowing with a new found light.

Behind them a disturbingly large host of Force users and spirits looking to vent centuries of rage began to assemble. 

End of Book 2

Our Story Will Continue in Book 3 – Star Wars: Legacy of the Force

Rassi stood in the wreckage of a tomb, breath spent, limbs shaking from exertion and for a moment all she could do was look for more things to break.

“I think we did it,” Solna said, sounding just as tired as Rassi felt. Around them the broken detritus of a hundred random bits of tech lay strewn across a floor covered in darkened dust.

“Why do I still feel like we should set a proton torpedo to go off in here then?” Rassi asked.

They’d found the Lich’s Phylactery. Ravas was still trapped in the spirit sealing crystal, the adults were also trapped behind a series of Explosive Shield Walls, but those were problems with easy solutions given that they no longer had to worry about an all-powerful Force Aberration showing up to telekinetically rip them limb from limb. 

Rassi shook again at the notion.

They had been so, so very lucky. She’d sensed the Force traps in place in the room where the phylactery lay. She and Solna had snuck around so many of them but when it came time to destroy the Lich’s most precious possession there hadn’t been any choice but to trigger so many of the alarms on it. 

The Force had been with them though and, Rassi suspected, someone else had worked very hard to hold Paralus’ attention so that their work could be completed.

Someone Rassi owed an unimaginable about of gratitude too.

Someone she was determined should never have to see the room where the phylactery lay.

“Because even without the phylactery intact this place is still just wrong,” Solna said, scowling at the resounding screams which continued to ring out around them.

“How do we fix it?” Rassi asked.

Stomping the phrik-encased phylactery to dust had been challenging, and had involved listening for quite a while until they found the proper frequency to “corrupt the Xah” on in order to begin shattering the pulsing red crystal that was the Lich’s true heart.

Rassi smiled at the thought that even Solna wasn’t considering what they had done to be a “corruption” of the Xah. The misery and despair around them served as too clear of an example of what a corruption of the Xah actually looked like.

What they had done – destructive though it had been – was as “corrupt” as house cleaning. You didn’t want to get the chemicals on your hands while you were sanitizing a rest room and you didn’t want to use the Force as they’d done for normal purposes, but in both cases the tool fit the job and did what was needed.

“The rest isn’t for you to fix,” Kelda said, apparating beside them. “This place is a wound, and wounds take time to heal.”

“Will we need to stay here to keep it clean?” Rassi asked.

“I don’t think Nix or Ayli will be inclined to let you linger here a moment longer than necessary,” Kelda said. She flickered away for a long moment and then returned. “Oh and they both want me to tell you that they’re incredibly proud of you.”

“They’re okay?” Solna asked.

“They’re speaking with a continent at the moment, so, tentatively we’ll go with ‘yes’ I think,” Kelda said.

“This is unusual for you, isn’t it?” Solna asked, finding a spot on the floor to flump down onto

“Singularly so,” Kelda said, examining the remains of the phylactery and noting the intricate design work which had been etched into the phrik.

“And you’ve been around for a thousand years?” Solna caught Rassi’s eye and patted the ground as an invitation to sit beside her, which Rassi gratefully accepted.

“In one sense, yes, in other I’m not much older than I appear.” Kelda picked up a handful of dust which had once been a crystal filled with living power.

“And this all is still weird though, right?” Solna asked before dropping her head onto Rassi’s shoulder.

“In my experience? In my research and reading? In my general understanding? Yes to all of those,” Kelda said. She continued to study the dust but Rassi knew she wasn’t going to find any trace of Paralus there. 

The Lich’s departure from the living world had been all too easy to sense as the storm within each the grains of dust had settled into stillness.

In breaking the phylactery, they hadn’t slain the Lich. Paralus was still embodied in the construct he’d created on Praxis Mar. Right up until he wasn’t. 

Rassi didn’t know the specifics of what had happened, but she knew it had to have involved a massive amount of damage inflicted all at once from the shockwave that had passed through the shattered phylactery.

She’d sensed the moment when the Lich’s spirit had tried to jump back to the artificial anchor which held it within the living world only to find that anchor lost. 

There’d been a moment of transcendent beauty, the briefest of flashes of something far greater and grander than anything Rassi should ever have been able to perceive, and then the Lich was gone, and the remnants of its phylactery nothing more than very old refuse.

Rassi had kept on breaking things for a while after that, determined to be sure that there should be no secret bolt holes and refuges left open for the Lich to flee back to from the afterlife.

But there hadn’t been. Rassi was still nervous and shaking about the Lich returning, but there hadn’t been any fallback options that they’d missed. 

They’d done it. As the first thing in their new lives, she and Solna had helped end one of the greatest “corruptions of the Xah” and one of the greatest evils she could imagine.

“That’s a relief then. I was afraid this was going to be an everyday sort of thing,” Solna said.

“I believe you’ll find life to be noticeably quieter than this,” Kelda said, settling down to sit against the wall opposite the one Rassi and Solna were on.

That sounded comforting and very peaceful.

But Rassi surprised herself.

“We’ve had silence for a long time,” she said. “What if we wanted to be loud for a change?”

“Oh, that can most certainly be arranged,” Ravas said, looking somewhat worse for the wear but free from her crystal confinement at last.

===

Goldie wasn’t supposed to worry. She’d had herself outfitted with more munitions than even her mother’s knew about in an effort to feel like she could contribute when they inevitably got in trouble. Somehow that had only made things worse though since it introduced another set of actions she knew could only be exercised at the proper moment and determining when that moment was stood as another cause for concern.

She chased her thoughts around in maddening little logic circles like that until she finally had everyone she’d been entrusted with back on board.

Then she’d asked then one or two questions.

“It’s been four hours, believe me, there are no more details any of us can recall,” Solna said.

“You have drones, don’t you?” Rassi asked. “Maybe next time we can bring one with us?”

“Oh, that could have been handy,” Solna said. “You could have blasted right through the stone gate that separated us for a few minutes there.”

“My drones are unarmed,” Goldie admitted with regret.

“They’re unarmed for now,” Ravas said, clearly having no interest in playing the ‘good influence’ in this instance.

“Mom says arming the drones will lead me into more situations where I need to fix things by shooting them,” Goldie said, knowing Nix would not be thrilled with adding even stunners to the drones, much less the sort of ordinance needed to blast through stone walls.

“Nix is right about that,” Kelda said. “Yet, she also does carry a lightsaber. Usually anyways.”

“I could mount cutting torches with a lot more power than a lightsaber,” Goldie said.

“It’s not the power that gets you into trouble or out of it,” Ravas said. “Having options can make all the difference sometimes though. At least up to a point.”

“She’s not wrong about that,” Monfi said. “I’m thinking our next stop, once we get our ship back, is going to be a shopping trip. I need a lot more tools if we’re going to go poking around in places like that again.”

“Umm, about that,” Kelda said.

“Oh, I know, there’s always a practical limit to the tools you can bring with you,” Monfi said. “There’s a lot of miniaturized tech out there though that is very portable.”

“That’s not what she’s referring to,” Lasha said, narrowing her gaze in what Goldie knew to be justified suspicion.

“Nix wanted to tell you herself, but asked that I pass along her assurances that she’ll repair or replace what’s left of your ship once she’s able to find it.”

“Find it? What happened to our ship?” Monfi asked.

“It seemed to have been swallowed by the planet,” Kelda said.

“We’re going to a planet that swallows ships?” Solna asked, sitting up straighter at the idea.

“Wouldn’t be the first one,” Nulo said, to which Moffvok huffed in agreement.

“Maybe we should keep traveling with them?” Rassi said, glancing over to Solna who’d been in rather surprising agreement in Goldie’s estimation with the idea that they wanted something other than a ‘quiet life’.

After a year spent with few responsibilities and only infrequent and mostly planetary trips, Goldie felt like something of a traitor for agreeing with them. 

She could understand the principals of peace and calm which Kelda and Ravas taught, and while Goldie wasn’t exactly ‘Force capable’, she was able to appreciate how it had helped both Nix and Ayli with their training.

But it was boring.

And she didn’t want to go back to boring.

“From the repairs Nix described needing to do, I suspect we’ll all be traveling together for a while longer,” Kelda said. “Unless Masters Lasha and Monfi wish to continue their work separately.”

“Rule number Two of being a Horizon Knight,” Monfi said. “Don’t turn away those who can help.”

“What’s rule number One?” Rassi asked.

“Don’t turn away from those who need help,” Nulo said.

“I think we could get behind that,” Solna said.

“I don’t know if we want to be Horizon Knights though,” Rassi said. “No offense meant there though!”

Moffvok chuffed again, a laugh this time according to Goldie’s translation database and said, “Don’t worry, you’re too old,” which Nulo then translated.

“Too old?” Solna asked, looking back and forth between Rassi and herself.

“The Jedi would have said the same thing,” Kelda said.

“The idea is to start laying in the principals the tradition is founded on so that they’re part of the Jedi’s, or Horizon Knight’s it seems, core identity,” Ravas said. “There were still Jedi who fell to the Dark Side, but that was often the result of extraordinary circumstances or specifically targeted campaigns of manipulation.” She reflected a moment before adding, “Or the fallen was simply really really stupid.”

“I think it’s rather the reverse,” Kelda said. “The only Jedi I know who fell did so because she was too much smarter than the ones who were trying to train her. She could see all the problems in the Order at the time and none of the masters who were supposed to be able to answer her questions were able to communicate the love that was meant to underpin the strictures of the code we were supposed to follow.”

“I thought Jedi weren’t allowed to love?” Nulo asked.

“So did I,” Ravas said.

“So did a lot of people,” Kelda said. “I think it’s more accurate to say that to be a Jedi requires that you be able to love fully. That means not letting fear wear a mask of love and control you, or anger, or despair.”

“And it means being able to love yourself even in the face of your worst mistakes. The moment you give up on that, that’s when you truly fall to the Dark Side.” Ravas threaded her fingers throw Kelda’s, who nodded in agreement.

“Then maybe we should be Jedi,” Solna said and took Rassi’s hand in hers too.

Goldie noticed the spike in Solna’s heart rate and the calm, warm smile that spread across Rassi’s face, which even as a machine intelligence, was not hard to interpret.

It was neither the time nor the place for a cheesy pickup line.

“I can understand people having a crush on you, but this is where I draw the line,” Ayli said, going with one anyways.

Above her and Nix, a literal mountain of stone had been dropped on the temple they were in.

“Your timing is impeccable,” Nix said, gazing up from where she’d fallen at Ayli who picked up a slight case of ‘glowing with unrestrained light’. The light was gentle and warm and shone from every part of her being, except her eyes. Her beautiful silver eyes. 

The was no darkness in Ayli’s eyes anymore. No sign of the red and gold scars on her soul that her descent in darkness madness had inflicted. 

She wasn’t whole, or redeemed though. 

She was healing. 

In time, Ayli knew her natural blues would return but while she was in her current state of grace, her eyes took on a hue to give back to others the light within her.

“I was kind of hoping to join you a bit sooner than this,” Ayli said, holding both arms aloft as the mountain continue to bear slowly down on them. “I had to recruit a few new friends first though.”

“I can see that,” Nix said. Tearing her eyes off Ayli wasn’t easy – they hadn’t been apart terribly long, but being apart at all had filled Nix with a hunger which had grown steadily without her noticing it. As Ayli had said though, they were far from alone.

Which was good.

Size didn’t matter to the Force, but levitating a mountain was just a tiny little bit beyond either of their skill at communing with the Force.

The thousand risen souls who had torn free from the Maw with Ayli though? That was a very different story.

“NO! There will be no rebellion! There will be no lie of hope, no disorder. All with return to the darkness!” Paralus was afraid. 

And he was right to be.

Which meant he was finally done with hiding his power, or allowing the Dark Side to bring him victory at no personal cost to himself.

Ayli felt another mountain’s worth of weight bear down on them and the air grew sharp with the tang of ozone as a bolt of Force Lighting strong enough to split the mountain began to gather.

“Paralus, it’s time for you to run away,” Nix said, lending her aid to Ayli and the risen soul’s endeavor.

“Flee? From YOU? Never!” Paralus’ voice seemed to come from all around them, as though he was the mountain that was crushing down on them.

“I said I before I got here part of me didn’t want there to be any hope left for you,” Nix said. “Do you know why?”

“Because the truth beckons you on despite you being too weak to follow it,” Paralus said as the energy for his final strike continued to build.

“It was because I wanted to destroy you. Honestly, I still do. You messed with my wife. I could rend your soul apart for that. Literally.”

Ayli wondered at that claim, but from what she could sense in Nix’s words, Nix’s claim was a simple fact.

Apparently researching other Force Traditions unearthed some unexpected and fairly terrifying things.

“If you possessed that power, you would have done so already. And if you haven’t it shows that you are too weak and stupid to ever match my power.”

“Or, and I know this is hard for you to understand at your level of emotional development, it’s just possible that giving in to a mindless need for immediate gratification isn’t what a real grown up should do.”

The blast came early.

It didn’t manage to split the mountain, in part because it hadn’t gathered enough power but also because even more of the spirits of Praxis Mar rose to defend them

Ayli had shown them how they were connected in the Force and that being engulfed in darkness didn’t mean there were no paths to a better future. They’d called to her from the Maw, and she’d ventured into it to show them what she’d experienced, to let her experience stand as proof of her words and the foundation of her conviction.

Nix was the one who gave them something to fight for though.

Not the destruction of Paralus the Lich. That wouldn’t have accomplished anything aside from a brief respite until his return or the return of some other Dark Side Force user intent on channeling their fear and rage towards even worse ends. 

Following in Nix’s example, the risen souls weren’t fighting to destroy anything, they were fighting to find themselves, and if that meant using what strength they had to protect the one who’d first promised them there could be a brighter tomorrow? Well that wasn’t a bad place to start in Ayli’s view.

“You cannot hold me off forever and I have eternity to grind you down to nothing,” Paralus’ voice boomed but the thunder and roar of the storms outside the temple all but drowned it out.

“I know this tantrum means a lot to you but you’re going to give in before we do,” Nix said, clearly not deescalating the encounter which Ayli found a trifle odd – until that is she remembered what Solna had told her that their new friends were doing.

“I’m not sure he’s smart enough to give in,” Ayli said, adding some fuel to the fire. “He can feel the change that’s happening and he still doesn’t understand that he’s already beaten.”

“The tiny spark you’ve lit is meaningless in the face of this world’s purity,” Paralus said. “Everything here remembers its history. The soil, the water, the air itself hold the screams of the truth.”

“And what truth would that be?” Nix asked.

“That there is no escape. There is one end and all must succumb to it. Nothing can last and no hope or dream can bear the suffering of your wretched existences.”

“That’s…wow, do you have it backwards,” Nix said. “Our hopes and dreams don’t bear our suffering for us. We keep moving forward for them. It’s in striving towards what we believe can be that we create the meaning of our lives. Suffering exists as a beacon for the things we need to fix or seek help with so that we can reach our hopes and dreams. Inflicting misery on other people? Or worse, turning ourselves into a petty little thing that thinks lifting big rocks is the height of power? That’s nothing but sad really.”

“Hiding behind words will not save you,” Paralus said. “Your words, like your bodies, will be crushed and forgotten and as you die, slowly I assure you.”

The mountain which was still bearing down on them grew impossibly heavier.

But only for a moment.

Something shifted in the planet.

Something continental in scale.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to work for you,” Ayli said.

“What have you done!” Paralus wasn’t able to hide the shock or fear in his voice.

“Something none of the other people who came here ever thought to if I know my wife,” Nix said.

“I mean, it was pretty obvious,” Ayli said, feeling justifiably proud of herself nonetheless.

“What. Have. You. Done.” And there was the rage. Paralus had only a few tools to work with, and like the marionette to his insecurities that he was, he pulled them out one after the other.

Below them things began to move and shift, but no earthquake accompanied the titanic motion this time.

“You had me walk into the Maw,” Ayli said. “You knew that it was called ‘the Maw’, right?”

“I bet he had a fancier name for it,” Nix said. “He seems like the kind of guy who invents all kinds of over dramatic nonsense for the things he finds.”

“So like ‘The Vortex of All Souls’ or something like that?” Ayli asked, intentionally ignoring Paralus as though he couldn’t hear them and didn’t matter.

“Oh that’s a good one. I was thinking ‘The All Consuming Desparion Pit’ but yours is good, very classy.”

“I think that makes yours better. ‘Desparion Pit’ definitely sounds like someone whose trying too hard, and we knew he’s kinda lacking in the classy department.”

“Nothing can escape the Pit,” Paralus said.

“He really did name it the something Pit! I’m dying here!” Nix said, in no sense approaching her actual mortality.

“Wait, no, it could be the Pit ‘Something’, that’s even edgier isn’t it?”

“No. Nooo! Oh, I bet you’re right. That is so embarrassing.”

Paralus finally appeared before them, two red lightsaber blades in hand.

“I am going to kill you personally,” he said. “And none of these weak and feeble shades can stop me.”

“Probably not,” Nix said with a nod.

“I bet he can though,” Ayli said glancing up as the mountain above the temple and all but the bottom floor of the building were hurled away.

Above them, blotting out the sky and swallowing the storms which raged, the Beast of Praxis Mar towered.

“It has awoken! At last! It has awoken and judgement on the galaxy has come! Victory! Victory absolute!” Paralus cheered with wild abandon.

“You sure about that?” Nix asked.

Ayli reached out for Nix’s hand and together they rose into the air. Their ascension was gentle and effortless as the tens of thousands and growing risen souls below them lifted them until they floated together in the Beast’s line of sight.

“Yes! Be devoured! End in gnashing agony,” Paralus said, rising beside them with his own power.

“Open your eyes,” Nix said. “See who we are. See who you are. And most of all, see what you’ve done and what’s is happening now.”

The Beast turned to face them, its countenance calm and it’s eyes shining silver.

Just like Ayli’s.

“No! NO! That’s impossible. You cannot have undone the darkness of the planet’s soul!” Paralus was close to weeping, which felt cruelly fine.

Why shouldn’t he suffer for what he did?

“Look closer,” Nix said gently, her earlier taunting no longer needed from what Ayli could sense was happening light years away. “Ayli didn’t do this.”

“She’s right,” Ayli said. “I can’t change a planet. I’m just one person. You know what can change a planet though? A planet full of people, and, in this case, the planet itself.”

“Pure despair had sunk to the magma. There was nothing left to redeem here,” Paralus said, lost and perplexed.

“This isn’t redemption,” Ayli said. “This a choice. You had me walk into the Beast’s Maw, did you really think I wasn’t going to talk to it? I’m an archeologist, do you have ANY idea how much we want to understand the places and peoples we study?”

“The darkness should have consumed you utterly,” Paralus said.

“It did. I mean you don’t walk into a maw and not expect to get chewed up,” Ayli said. “Let me fill you in on a little secret though; understanding goes a lot farther than fighting does, and Nix is right, I don’t think anyone has ever tried just listening to the Beast.”

“I will still destroy you!” Paralus said. “When you fall, everything here will see the follow of your words. Everything will see the truth!”

“Paralus,” Nix said, her voice tinged with regret. “Everything here is seeing the truth. That’s why the Dark Side nexus is unraveling. The Dark Side lies, and for far too long the souls trapped her have believed those lies, have made the lies the entirety of their existence.”

“But they’re tired,” Ayli said. “The torment souls, the land and sea and sky, and even the Beast. They’ve been at this for so long and focusing on being miserable hasn’t fixed anything.”

“So they’re going to try a new path forward,” Nix said.

“Not all of them of course,” Ayli said. “There’s ambivalence about this, just like with everything else. There are souls out there who are taking a wait-and-see approach, and souls who believe other routes will lead to happiness.”

“There are even ones who cling to the Dark Side still,” Nix said. “Quite a lot from what I can tell.”

“Because that’s what they’ve know,” Ayli sad.

“In time though, they’ll see. Or they’ll allow themselves to rest at last and pass beyond to the true rest that has been denied them. Just like you will.”

“I shall never bend to you or your pathetic ideals! I am eternal!” Paralus boasted in full belief of his statements.

“Not anymore,” Nix said with a sad shake of her head. “You’ve denied yourself peace for so long now. Rest. There is more than this world and more lives you have yet to live.”

“Fool. I am eternal. My phylactery holds my soul beyond your reach. Where yours is right here, ready to be harvested!” In a thunderclap, Paralus shot forward, each lightsaber slashing downwards to cleave Ayli and Nix in twain.

They didn’t raise a hand to stop him. They didn’t need to.

Despite its size, the Beast swatted Paralus from the sky like a bug, obliterating the projection with a paw the size of an entire country.

“This matters not,” Paralus’ disembodied voice said. “I will stalk you across the stars. I will kill you and torture all of those dear to you. I will leave your life a ruin to serve as an example for all who might follow your foolish footsteps.”

“Sorry Paralus, but your time is done,” Nix said. “You can feel it, can’t you? The pull of the Force. Go with it this time. It’s guiding you to a better home than you’ve ever known before.”

“No! Wait…no, what is this?” Paralus voice grew fainter with each word.

“Your phylactery is gone. It’s why we kept your attention focused here, on us,” Ayli said.

“It’s gone and so are you,” Nix said, speaking to almost empty air. “You are one with the Force at last.”

It was too late by the time Nix strolled into the temple and she was alone.

Or at least that’s what it looked like.

“And the last pawn takes its final place,” Paralus said at Nix’s appearance. 

That she was backlit by a tremendous crash of lighting from the storms outside was an unnecessary bit of dramatics, but Nix wasn’t going to deny her new friends their little flourishes.

“Hey,” she said instead, gazing around at the horrific ornamentation of the temple where Praxis Mar’s troubles had started.

Every memory and sensation she read from the ancient stone and the calcified bodies of sacrifices around her screamed of agony and misery, but after the centuries their voices were hoarse and tired. Time had diminished them enough for the other, even older whispers of the past to be audible.

The Temple was where Praxis Mar’s doom was centered, with the Maw at the high altar the violation which had brought the house of cards that was the planet’s society crashing down.

And it had been a house of cards.

No one person’s work had been the sole cause of the apocalypse which had twisted the world into a planetary nexus of the Dark Side. The atrocity in the temple had been no more than the tipping point at the end of a history where people had chosen time and again to pursue domination and power built on the oppression and suffering of those who could be cast as ‘the other’. 

The Dark Side had been well seeded into the bodies and souls of Praxis Mar long before its downfall, but in listening to and accepting the Darkness which pervaded everything in the planet, Nix heard the voices of her new friends too. Voices which had been forgotten, or which had never believed they mattered, or which had never believed that could exist alongside the blood and sins they were carrying.

“This is the end of your journey,” Paralus said with a faintly gleeful air.

Nix quirked up her eyebrows as though that was a singularly stupid statement.

“Well, yeah, that’s how journey’s work,” she said. “So, where’s my wife at?”

“She has passed beyond your reach. She is lost to you,” Paralus said. “There are none who stand with you and none who will aid you.”

Nix could feel Ayli’s presence, almost maddeningly near and yet still veiled from her.

The Maw.

It was the worst possible place Ayli could have gone, so, of course that had to be where so was.

Also there weren’t many hiding spots in the temple given it’s relatively open floor plan.

“Yes. She will be destroyed or she will become one such as I,” Paralus said. “And either end will be your undoing.”

“Think so do you?” Nix asked. Ayli was entirely too calm for someone who was being destroyed or turning into a Force Lich, but Nix was certain Paralus couldn’t sense that. 

Which was understandable. The Maw was singularly painful to even glimpse much less turn any deeper senses towards. For all his power, Nix suspected Paralus wasn’t immune to the distortion the Maw inflicted on any who tried to perceive it. Nix wasn’t quite so limited though since she had another place to search for Aylil; inside her own heart.

“No rage? No concern? How intriguing,” Paralus said. “You never truly did leave your flirtations with the Dark Side behind did you? Have you been this cold all along? No, I don’t think so. The infection you planted into the soil here wouldn’t have taken root if it was not sincere. Could it be that you broke already? That is truly disappointing if so.”

“You know my whole job is fixing broken things, right?” Nix said. “You seem thrilled with this place, but I’ve got to tell you, it’s just a mess.”

“It is perfection,” Paralus’ didn’t give voice to anger but it was there hiding behind his words, just like it always was. “Or it was until you arrived.”

Nix let an honest chuckle escape her lips.

“You think I did this?” she said. “One person. Me? You think I’m the one responsible for all this?” As if she’d queued it (which she essentially had) three bolts of lighting struck the temple and an earthquake shook the building had enough for bits of plaster to fall from the ceiling.

“Yours was the first sin, the first viral cell of undoing to disturbing the perfected order which existed here for time beyond reason,” Paralus said. “That is why I have drawn you back. That is why I have destroyed the one you hold most dear and why I will expunge the rest of your life’s work from the galaxy once you prove the folly of opposing the truth of the galaxy.”

“That’s impressive,” Nix said, walking towards Paralus’ shade and the Maw beyond it. “You got literally everything wrong there. There should be some kind of prize for that.”

“Ah, it is delusions that you cling to then is it?” Paralus said. “Could you still believe that there is hope left for you?”

“You know before coming here, I was wondering if there was hope left for both of us,” Nix said. “I kind of didn’t want there to be. It felt so hard to accept that someone who’d done what you did could be redeemable. That there should be any hope for someone who embraced what this place had become. You’re a monster, we both know that, but part of me knows that even monsters deserve hope and to be able to become something better.”

“The lies of the Jedi? How sadly uninspiring. Those have led fools to their doom since the founding of their sad religion,” Paralus said. “I had hoped for so much more from one who managed to do what you did.”

“Yeah, it’s difficult to accept that idea, isn’t it?” Nix said. “Forgiveness feels so vulnerable. It’s like inviting the pain to happen all over again.”

“It is weakness. There is never true forgiveness, only submission or revenge. But you don’t believe that do you? You are close to the precipice of true understanding than I’d imagined and yet you stubbornly cling to the lies the Jedi have taught you.”

“Wow. You really weren’t paying attention while you were spying on me were you?” Nix said. “Like, seriously, you had a year, right? How do you not know me better than that? Were you just peeping on me and Ayli having sexy fun times or something?”

“Jests will not save you,” Paralus said, his shade gaining substance and stature as Nix reach a dozen or so paces from it.

“Who’s jesting?” Nix said, her hands empty of weapons as the Lich’s demeanor changed to an image of death itself. “You seem to have no real idea what’s going on here, or who you’re dealing with.”

“Don’t I?” Paralus’ laugh was an ugly and supremely confident thing. “Nix Lamplighter. Orphan. Murderer. The Force spoke to you and you embraced its darkness once until your weakness felled you and you ran from the truth. Ran into a life servitude as mundane and menial as you could find. Ran and hid from the truth of what you are until a lesser apparition of the Force, herself a refuge from the truth, found you and let you believe the lie that you could use the Force and cling to your soft delusions, just like you clung to your soft wife, all while the truth of the Dark Side was growing inside her.”

Beyond a chuckle, Nix let a full throated laugh burst from her.

“You saw all that? You looked that far back and yet still, STILL, you didn’t understand what you were seeing? How? I mean, seriously, that took skill to mistake literally everything you saw about me like that.”

Nix paused to consider Paralus, who was looming above her at twice her height and growing.

“Or maybe it wasn’t skill,” she said growing contemplative rather than concerned. By all appearances she should have been terrified, but Paralus displaying his power as though he could overwhelm her meant he really was blinded to what was coming and Nix had every intention of keeping him focused on her even though it was already far too late for him on Praxis Mar. “Everything you see, all of your sense, you can only perceive things through the Dark Side can’t you? All you see is the worst possibly view of everything, and since that’s what you were afraid of all along, that’s all that you can believe is true. I’m…wow, that is actually really sad.”

“You will understand all too soon which of us sees the truth and which is wrapped in her own delusions,” Paralus said, raising his hands as Force Lightning began to crackle between his fingers.

“Oh, I already know you’re delusional,” Nix said. “I can see the darkness you do. It’s kind of hard to miss it and it’s really easy to focus on it out of fear and anger. Stars but it is easy. I did that for so long, but, in my defense, I was a child at the time. It took time, but I did eventually grow up, and looking at you I have to wonder, was that ever something you managed?”

Force Lightning was her answer.

Force Lightning which she was able to hold off. For about two seconds. Then it coursed through her and slammed her into a pillar twenty feet away.

Rising to her feet, steam wafting from the fresh burn marks she’d acquired.

“Hit a nerve there did I?” Nix asked, wiping a bit of blood from her mouth. “Guess I’m not the first one to call you a petulant child.”

More Force Lightning answered her again and once again she resisted it for only a few seconds before being cast back.

What Paralus didn’t seem to notice was that she had resisted it for longer and that her fall had seemingly been cushioned.

“Let me fill you in on what you missed,” Nix said, striding forward again.

She was distant enough this time to sidestep the first burst of Force Lighting Paralus threw at her. 

“My life? It was one I chose. I like fixing things. Mundane servitude? People paid me to do what I wanted to. I’m sorry you never got to experience that. Maybe a few weeks with a hydrospanner and a flux analyzer would have been enough to pull your head out of your own butt.”

The Force Lighting blast that hit her was the biggest Paralus had thrown so far, but this time Nix wasn’t alone in resisting it.

“Is this really a good idea?” Hendel the Skeleton asked, lending his mastery of the Force to Nix’s effort to hold back the Force Lightning blast.

It wasn’t enough but it did soften the blow tremendously.

“Foolish soul,” Paralus thundered, the rage he’d been suppressing clearly visible at last.

“Wow, I haven’t been hearing that for the last thousand years or anything,” Hendel shot back, a few centuries of annoyance backing up his words.

“See that’s the thing Lich-boy,” Nix said. “You’re so stuck gazing up your own dark sphincter that you missed the whole point of life. Did I do some really poodoo things as a kid? Hell yes. Am I along in that? Hell no. Do people keep on doing stupid, awful things despite how old they are? Unquestionably. But is that all we are? Is that our limit? Can we not grow beyond the mistakes we made? Learn from them? Become more than we were?”

The next lightning blast was stronger than all of the ones before, but Nix and Hendel held out against it, though not alone.

“You think giving in and embracing your worst qualities is the path to true power because it was easy and quick. You were afraid of compassion, and kindness, and everything that connects us to one another and the Force because  they require openness and vulnerable and you were too weak to risk those.”

The temple exploded, it’s roof crashing down as raw power, not even shaped into lightning, smashed down like a mountain on top of Nix, seeking to cover the words which were being heard by far more than one little Force Lich.