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Chapter Text

Padawan Shaak Ti rubbed her eyes and focused once more on the dull text in front of her, willing herself to focus harder, to absorb the wisdom held within the tiny script - if, indeed, there was any to be found. Her Master was insistent that Master D’xculsi was the wisest of their Order, never mind that they were six thousand years dead in their tomb. Shaak was looking through a facsimile of a facsimile of a facsimile, handwritten hundreds of times onto delicate flimsi. Laced into the words were whispers of the writers, their patience and fortitude tucked neatly into the fibers and ink. Ghosts had written this text, ghosts of ghosts, and their whispers had followed their words. She shivered, and for a moment the quiet noise of the Library faded into the deep silence of the Force, the true Force, the same deep, melancholic black silence of deep space. Sensing how far back this text went, the history of the Order, her heart swelled with pride and a sort of distant, fearful awe. The Jedi Order had always been a part of the galaxy. Their traditions stretched back thousands of years, across the distant places of the galaxy - it rose gooseflesh on her arms just thinking about it. Maybe one day, she herself would ascend to the role of Master. Perhaps she would sit on the High Council in the tallest spire.

At the moment, she very much doubted it.

The Library was quiet, but she could feel the presence of a dozen or more Jedi all around her, calmly shifting through the texts, peering over the data consoles, speaking in low tones with each other or the Librarians. Her montrals caught every breath, every quiet exclaiment of wonder or surprise. The Library radiated peace, light, and warmth. It could very well put her to sleep, never mind that she had an assignment due the very next day.

With a groan, she realized she had, once again, not taken in a single word of Master D’xculsi’s ancient meditations on the balance of dark and light. So she started again.

“Shaak! ” A modulated voice whispered across the Hall, and when she glanced over her shoulder she saw a Kel Dor Padawan scurrying as quickly as he could towards her workstation.

She spun in her seat at the all-too familiar voice, grinning as Plo Koon nonchalantly sped towards her, narrowly avoiding the ire of an ancient Twi’lek Librarian. With a quiet apology to Master D’xculsi, she shut the text and pushed it away. If Plo was risking the anger of a Librarian, he must have found something good. He was practically vibrating with excitement in the Force, his leather Padawan braid swinging wildly behind him as he slid onto the chair next to hers, his mask twitching in a way that Shaak knew meant he was grinning like mad.

She hardly had time to open her mouth before he leaned close and whispered, “I found it.”

Without another word, Shaak stood, grabbed his arm, and pulled him to the towering stacks.

Not fast enough, though: “Keeping this text on hold, Padawan Ti?”

Shaak winced and turned, giving him her best winning smile, trying not to look or feel suspicious. “Yes, Master. Please, if you don’t mind.”

The Twi’lek grunted as if he very much minded, but before he could air his grievances the Padawans had disappeared. He scooped up Master D’xculsi’s tome and waddled away, mumbling under his breath about mischievous Padawans not appreciating the history of their elders and getting up to no good.

Shaak and Plo hurried through the stacks, neither one speaking as they took random twists and turns, following the line of shelves and turning away from other presences in the Force. The dust on the texts grew thicker, the air colder, as they raced towards the forgotten corners of the Library. At a table covered in gray dust so thick that the design of table was lost, with a stack of texts next to an empty chair - the misplaced research of a forgotten Jedi who thought doing research this deep in the Library was a good or even safe idea - Plo stopped, turned to grin through his mask at her, and laughed as he said again, “Shaak! I found it!”

“Let me see!”

Plo huffed in indignation. “You don’t believe me?”

“I’ll believe it when I see it - now show me!”

Plo was still holding his hand over his hearts in dismay, so Shaak lunged for the worn drive in his other hand. She was fast, but he was ready for her and leapt gracefully back, just out of her reach. He laughed as she scowled at him and then activated the drive.

Their secret project sprang to life among the dustmotes and threw everything into a icy light blue, and Shaak squinted, Plo eagerly waiting for her to follow, to find it, to realize what he had realized.

At first, she noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Their map - all three hundred and seven levels of it, from the top of the Council’s Spire to the depths of the meditation chambers - hung in the air before her eyes. The slowly spinning holo of the Temple was patchmarked and stitched together. Dead-ends were scrawled out, notes scribbled down hallways, circling inconspicuous doorways and chambers. The center of Temple was clear and crisp as day, but as the map stretched beyond the towers, stretched down beneath the ziggurat, the lines started to blur and weave together. Forgotten chambers, strange passageways and stairs that went nowhere were drawn in either her or Plo’s hand; her lines were neater but Plo’s memory was sharper. The Temple was tens of thousands of years old, built upon temple upon mausoleum upon altar upon ruin upon temple, hundreds of thousands of builders and hands and no discernable plan, adding on as they needed, closing off unused or decaying parts and forgetting about them, and no one - not even the Grand Master or the oldest Librarian - knew of every single passageway. Many places had been simply lost to memory - until Shaak and Plo had made it their mission, three years ago, to map it out in its entirety.

They’d pored hours, days, weeks, months into this task, hiking vast caverns lined with faceless guardian statues, had even discovered a dense forest in the deepest levels where an unknown Master was entombed in thick black marble under blankets of moss - and still, the vast majority of the Temple’s boundaries were shrouded in mystery.

Plo shifted in slight agitation, but Shaak’s eyes were sharp and suddenly a new level, a new line drawn faintly onto the map grabbed her attention. A passageway leading down into the depths of the Temple, a route she did not recognize - though that was hardly uncommon - tucked far enough away from the small cluster of levels that the Order actively used for their home that one would simply think it a closet.

Shaak sucked in a delighted breath and stared at Plo in growing excitment. “Are you sure?”

He nodded, practically dancing in place, “It’s a room only accessible by this route. One way in, one way out. About as big as our rooms. Checked it out this morning after my meditation with Master Tyvokka. Actually-” and here he truly began to dance, leaping up in excitement, “I tried to investigate this little corridor. But I was turned away by no less than four Temple Guards, and I was turned away at this junction.” He pointed to a crossroads about one and a half miles below their current spot. “There’s nothing except this room - the rest of those corridors are ruins, remember - but still. Four Guards spotted me and sent me away.”

“Four? ”

“Four.”

Shaak chewed her lip, resisting the urge to join him in dancing around the small dusty chamber in excitement. In all their explorations of the depths of the Temple, they’d never come across Temple Guards - they’d surprised at least two Initiate Guards in the midst of their lonely trials in the forgotten corridors and chambers - but four Temple Guards surrounding a tiny chamber...

It could only mean one thing.

If the Jedi Temple was unexplored, the ancient Sith Temple it was built upon was like the Unknown Regions, deep space, a mystery cloaked in generations of rumors. If it really existed, only a few Masters knew of its exact location; only a few Masters were allowed to know and even fewer were allowed to descend to that ancient dark ruin. But this was promising, incredibly and temptingly promising, and Shaak felt the adrenaline light in her blood like a spark ready to catch. The texts around her seemed to vibrate in the Force, the air sparking as she and Plo’s determination grew.

The Sith Temple.

The very air around her seemed to ripple, the topmost layer of dust shifted with her eager burst of energy as the words sunk into her mind and lodged there like a great, tantalizing treasure.

The Sith Temple!

“I assume we’re going to explore it in greater detail?”

Plo put his hands on his hips. “Of course! We set out to make a map of the Temple, after all! It’s our duty. ”

Shaak beamed, a savage smile on her lips at the thought. “What sort of Jedi would we be if we went back on our word?”

“Not very good ones, I think.”

“Tonight, then?”

“Tonight.”

 Shaak slipped through the hallways and corridors, trying to look more confident than she felt. It was late, very late. Only a few Masters wandered the halls at this hour; most members of the Order were asleep. Though the halls and corridors of the Temple were dark, they still had that familiar warmth and comfort of home. She knew from experience that the farther they went from the center, the colder and stranger the halls would become. The Temple had once housed over fifty thousands Jedi; their numbers had shrunk and now all ten thousand-some could easily fit in the main ziggurat. Most would never feel the need to go beyond that bubble of warmth, but ever since she could remember, Shaak had felt a pull towards the edge of their known and used Temple; the call of what lay beyond.

It was no use trying to sneak her way down to meet Plo near the junction. She could cloak her presence to non-Force sensitive beings, but here in the heart of the Temple, where it was amplified through ten thousand conduits, she stood no chance of hiding from any except perhaps the youngest initiates.

She still averted her eyes when she passed two Guards, a chill dancing along her montrals and lekku when one’s head inclined towards her, ever so slightly, and she felt the quiet inquiry push against her mind - and then they passed on without a word.

It took her nearly forty-five minutes to make her way down to the junction. As she descended, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling of a chill along her skin - she was, as a Togruta, sensitive to temperature fluctuations, so she thought nothing of it - but it was the pressure of the cold that almost made her hackles raise. Still, she pressed on, the halls and corridors slowly gathering layers and layers of dust, the

Plo was waiting for her, sitting on top of a collapsed column, idly floating pebbles through a tangle of vines as he studied their annotated map, illuminated by the neon blue of the projection. At the sound of her steps, he sat up and slid easily down the stone. She shivered in anticipation and grinned. “Ready?”

“Thought you’d chickened out, Ti.”

“Me? Never.” She pulled her cloak tighter about her shoulders and glanced down the darkened hallway that would led to the crack in the wall, towards four Temple Guards standing sentinel. “How are we going to distract the guards? You said they turned you away as soon as they saw you coming, right?”

His left eye-plate quirked up in amusement. “Yup. But that’s where you come in, my friend.”

Shaak stared at him, lips pursed in mock frustration. So he continued, the modulator on his mask somehow emphasizing his growing excitement: “Togruta are prowlers. You can move more quietly than anyone I’ve ever met - and that’s when you’re not even trying to be quiet.”

She put her hands on her hips. “I don’t like where this is going, Plo.”

He held up his hands, and for the first time she noticed he was wearing his old clawplates, ones without his ornamental designs that he’d labored over for days. “Hear me out.”

“Don’t think I need to; you want me to sneak around four Guards? What about the fact the minor issue of their Force sensitivity and extreme years of training to protect against any and all manipulations? Or the fact that we’re both Padawans and we’re nowhere near skilled enough to attempt buried presence, unless you’ve been holding out on me-”

“Shaak Ti of Shili, are you nervous?”

“Do you have a plan?” As much as she wanted to be annoyed, she couldn’t deny the twist of excitement that had been growing during her long trek down, or the fact that Plo was very clearly hiding something from her just to be dramatic. “Spill it, Koon.”

“This is the second time today you’ve doubted my abilities, Shaak. I’m hurt.”

“Just… stop being so dramatic and get to the point already.”

Plo laughed and then, from within his dark robes, he pulled out four slim durasteel bracelets, and Shaak’s mind balked in confusion as he pressed two of them into her palm. She could see them, she could see the things in her hand but she felt no pressure, no chilled metal on her skin - just the light, familiar presence from Plo as he passed his hand over hers. The bracelets were utterly unremarkable, smooth except for three tiny runes etched onto the underside with incredible precision. But it had no weight, no presence in her hand or in her mind - and when Plo grinned at her and slipped one onto each of his wrists, she nearly cried out in shock as his signature vanished from her mind.

He might have been a ghost in the wind - she actually reached out and touched the rough fabric of his robe to make sure it was not an elaborate prank. It was as if the Force had swallowed him whole.

She shivered, and for the first time, a faint dread crept along her spine. “Plo ,” she whispered, clutching the seemingly-innocent bracelets in one hand and tightening her grip on his robe with the other, “what the hell are these things?”

“Relax. Gods, you’re on edge tonight. They’re part of my current assignment - Force stealth without using the Force. The metal inside the durasteel dampens your presence; the runes-” and here he picked up one of the bracelets that Shaak was still clutching, prying her hands open with gentle movements, “cut deep into the core of that metal and the durasteel transmits the properties to the person wearing them. It’s only found on Ilum.”

She stared at him, and he angled his head and said, gently, “Shaak, don’t worry; I’m serious about these. I’ve tested them out a dozen times. I’m studying with an Artisan for a couple of hours every day and they showed me these. Relax. I’ve got you; we’re here together. What’s the worst that could happen?”

She bit her lip, and then, following the surge of bravery, slipped the rings onto her own wrists. Immediately, the world around her grew sharper. Her montrals started to vibrate with sounds and echoes of sounds she could not even place; it was as if the bracelets were conduits to the direct, living Force.

Plo nodded. “It takes a little bit to get used to. But - my plan is for you to distract the Guards. Make some noise over here -” and he jabbed a section of the map about twenty yards from their current location, “make a lot of noise and draw them this way. I’m not as quiet as you, so I’ll get as close as I can to the little chamber before you distract them. And then - when they’re scratching their heads - then you sneak back with your Togruta-certified stealth, and we’re in.”

“Plo.”

“I know, it’s risky - but it’s all we’ve got - and at this point-”

“We’re too close to not try,” and Shaak grinned sharply. “OK. This is a stupid plan, but I want to see what they’re guarding. What’s my signal? It’s going to have to be visual - unless you want to float a rock, risk using the Force or something…”

“I’ll sneak while you’re making noise, and then when it your turn, I’ll draw them off in a different direction.”

Shaak couldn’t resist shaking her head and muttering, “We are definitely going to get caught.”

“It’ll be fine!”

“It won’t.”

“But we have to try! Come on, Ti, don’t you want to be able to say you took the plunge?”

She stared at him, realized he’d won her over, and then he deactivated the map and plunged them into utter darkness. They stalked the last twisting tunnel in utter silence, in utter darkness - until a faint yellow glow from the light that kept the Guards company appeared like a pinprick in the black.

Damn Plo and his pretty words, Shaak thought as she watched Plo pick his careful way towards the small, otherwise unremarkable chamber. Within, just as he’d said, four Temple Guards stood silent and as still as stone. In his cloak, in the dark shadows, with his bracelets, Plo was a ghost. It was utterly surreal to see him but not to be able to sense him, and Shaak wondered if this is what non-Force sensitive beings felt like all the time. It was claustrophobic and utterly, entirely limiting.

He turned and - thanks to her natural abilities to see in near-darkness - nodded once.

Shaak picked up a heavy rock and hurled it with all of her might against the opposite wall .

It shattered into pieces with an explosive bang, and she took no small pleasure in watching Plo jump out of his skin from the corner of her eye. She stifled her laughter and picked up another piece, creeping along in the shadows, and threw that near the first - and then the Temple Guards came to investigate.

Two appeared in the darkness of the hallway and a small candeldroid followed, bathing the ruined corridor in strange, surreal shadows. Shaak pressed herself into a tiny crevice and watched, holding her breath, as they passed by so closely that she could have reached out and touched the hem of their long white robes. As soon as their backs were turned, she slipped out of her spot with ease and hugged the wall, wreathed in the comfort of the shadows.

She could see Plo straining to see her - even with the light, his eyesight wasn’t near as powerful as hers - and so once more, she picked up a rock, turned, and hurled it into the black - careful to avoid the signatures of the guards - so hard that her elbow gave a slight twinge of pain. Plo was now inside the chamber.

One of the Guards actually gave a cry of shock - and it surprised Shaak more, to hear a Guard cry out - and then the two others appeared in the hallway to investigate, hurrying towards their partners, and before she could think, before her nerves gave out, Shaak crept along into the chamber. Plo appeared as soon as he saw her, and without stopping, they ran towards the entrance.

It was not a door - it was an entrance carved from the stone, dark as the space between the stars, ice-cold air rising from the void like creeping tendrils. The chamber was dark, but this was as if the shadows had woven themselves into a tapestry.

Not even her sharp eyes could see anything past the innocuous threshold. She could hear the muffled steps of the Guards are they started back towards the chamber, time is running out .

Her feet almost faltered - but then a glimmer of… something. Something shifted, welcomed them, cut through the thick black and let them fall through.

Without thinking, Shaak reached for Plo’s hand, and together they fell forward.

Something shifted behind them, a delicate needle and thread stitching the shadows back together. The sounds of the guards disappeared, like they’d been snuffed out.

Startling bright white light pierced her eyes so suddenly she had to shut them. Plo’s hand shook in hers, and when she peeked out from underneath her lids, breath coming hard and fast and teeth clenched tight together - like they’d just plunged off a cliff into the biting cold water of a dark gray ocean many yards below - she felt her heart stutter in a strange mixture of shock, disbelief, and a tiny grain of growing fear.

The vast hallway, covered in moth-eaten, worn rugs, stretched as far as she could see, disappearing and continuing into the far distance. Gigantic columns of solid dark stone paced the length of the hallway, holding up cavernous ceilings covered in faint, peeling frescos. In between the columns, massive, ornate windows bathed the hall in the bright light of three midday suns. Piercing, welcoming yet strangely foreboding light.

And it was utterly, entirely still.

Shaak shivered again, more violently this time. The tunnel ahead stretched into absolute silence, absolute, absolute stillness; it was as if her montrals had been numbed. But something called her, compelled her. She could feel the Temple, their Temple, calling them, begging them to come back, like hesitant but desperate fingers brushing against the fabric of her robe - but something ahead …

Not even dust moved through the light from the broken windows. Slowly, like sludge, her head tried to rationalize, tried to process the light. Underground - aren’t we underground?

Isn’t it night?

Someone whispered, “It’s only a corridor.” It took her a moment to recognize her own voice. Muddled. Entranced. Something pulled in her blood, took root in her mind. “It’s just a corridor,” she said again, the words plucked from her tongue.

“We can always turn back,” Plo murmured.

The Temple behind them pulled one last desperate time on their minds, the Force crawled up her lekku, almost heard the words of an ancient, long-dead tongue in her montrals, could taste a strange acid burning on her tongue like a warning - and then they stepped over the threshold.

The Force behind them dimmed, and the Temple ahead of them rejoiced.

Chapter Text

Light.

It did not feel like a Sith Temple.

It should have felt like their Masters warned them. Like what the texts cautioned against, cautioned their young ones to look out for, to protect against.

Like darkness, like dark water lapping at your ankles, like the root of evil sprouting in your head, like weights or hands clasping your heart and lungs and dragging you down to depths of terror unknown - but it didn’t feel like that at all.

It was light - illuminated. It was quiet - muffled. The hallway disappeared into a faint white mist, but the pattern of column-window-column continued like the lockstep of soldiers.

That was what struck Shaak Ti the most as they stared down the strangely-lit hall. She’d expected darkness, crushing darkness, but this…

The light from the windows cast long patterns onto the ancient stones covered in threadbare carpets. It was simple, almost rustic. But the still, white light of the long corridor could not touch the bone-deep chill that rose from the stones.

Stay out of the light.

She half-turned to look behind her, towards the exit - or was it the entrance - of the Temple; the overlapping threshold from one to the other, when Plo shivered and released her hand. When he spoke, his words seemed to rip through the utter stillness and Shaak couldn’t tell if she was relieved that her hearing still worked, or worried that someone, or something, was going to hear them. What sort of things slept below Galactic City, in the depths below their Temple?

“Right. Right…” Plo’s voice was quiet, the cockiness gone. The light frightened him, too; it was wrong. There was nowhere to hide - and again, Shaak caught herself half-turning towards the darkness of their threshold - should something come looking for them. They were utterly and entirely exposed to whatever was lurking in these halls. Her hackles rose and she automatically quieted her breathing, smoothed it out, breathed through her mouth, long and slow and steady, peering into the hazy light that drowned the vast distances of the corridor. Plo shifted, and tried again. Shaak ignored the tremor of his hand as he once more pulled the map free from his robe.

As he did, she felt the tug of the Temple, their Temple, the one that had been bathed in warm comfortable shadows, in her blood. Like it was begging them to turn around - and then her mind started to drift to the tantalizing secrets that lay so close ahead of them.

Stay… out of… the light…!

But here it was all light.

Bad light; sick light.

The map sprang to life with a chime too lively for the mausoleum-like stillness of this place. Her heart thrummed with fear one moment, excitement the next. Plo activated the special node that would trace their movements onto the map, drawing it so they could focus on the task at hand. He glanced at her and said, softly, because it felt wrong to speak too loudly here, “I say we look around for… for half an hour?”

Normally, that would have felt too short. Given the effort they’d put in to make it this far, thirty minutes should have seemed like a laughably short time - especially because Shaak did not think they could make it even halfway across the hall in thirty minutes - but like the cold that crept along her spine, there was a quiet malevolent force seeping from the stones here. Something told her that this place had a threshold, a limit, and that they should not stay past their welcome.

The first window, unbroken and covered in thick frost, cast a tall pillar of brilliant white sunlight onto the floor. Still holding Plo’s hand, she tugged it and took a half-step towards the left, avoiding the direct beam entirely. “Stay out of the light,” she murmured, her voice strange and thick to her montrals.

Plo nodded, and they began. Their steps rippled through the absolute stillness of the air, and Shaak suddenly felt very, very small. Like an Initiate who’d taken a detour, who thought they could find their way without their map of the Jedi Temple.

As they stepped around the slanting light from the windows, weaving a tense patterns across the long hall, Shaak felt a ripple of annoyance flash up in her mind and then vanish, just as quickly. Her feet began to point towards the light, her body started to lean. Every step was a fight between her body and her mind, and the virulent, ironclad will that seemed to seep from the very air.

The part of her mind that screamed they’d made a mistake grew smaller with every forceful step, with every deep, quiet inhale and exhale of the stale air. Shaak knew they were in danger but there was something at the end of the tunnel; something strong and powerful and lucrative and tempting.

Slowly, dimly, Shaak realized Plo had been talking to her for the past few minutes. She shook her head and murmured, “Sorry - what?”

“What?”

“What were you saying?”

Plo stared at her, his shoulders starting to bunch up as he cleared his throat, “I… I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes, you did; I heard you, you were whispering…” Her voice trailed off as she stared at him and realized he was telling the truth, but the whispers were still floating to her montrals like fine gossamer webs.

Plo stared at her and even though she still couldn’t sense him in the Force, she knew her oldest friend. She knew that particular twitch of his mask meant he was concerned, but at the moment she was far more concerned with the fact that he couldn’t hear the whispering all around them now.

Was it getting closer?

She couldn’t tell. But she didn’t mention them again, worried that if she did, somehow… that would give them power. Best to ignore it.

A weak plan; but then again, it had been an evening for weak plans.

She swallowed, shook her head slightly, and muttered, “Come on. We’ve at least got to try and get to the end of the hall, right…?”

Plo nodded, his eye-plates still knitted together in concern. “Maybe there’s a staircase or something. I don’t know, I always thought Sith temples were supposed to be-” His words drifted into silence as they walked on, avoiding the strong beams of light from the strange windows, and then he gave a short laugh. “I almost don’t want to say… I feel like this place is…”

“-is listening to us,” Shaak finished, her words barely louder than the whispers pooling around them, and he could only shudder for an answer.

The hall was straight, Shaak was certain of that, but as they walked on she got the distinct feeling that it was curving. Ever so slightly. They wound around the patterns of light from the wide windows – though now she could not remember why, exactly, they needed to stay out of the white light – and never turned, never even saw a branching corridor or passageway or door. Only the endless, mist-shrouded hall.

But still, she swore that the walls were changing, angling ever-so-slightly behind the wide columns, the stone molding to their discombobulated steps, to the numb fear shrouding their minds.

And with every step, the whispers grew louder. Louder, but never clearer. Harsh whispers that she knew were warnings but had no hope of understanding. The whispers increased until Shaak thought she might truly lose her mind underneath their relentless barrage. Droplets of water, incessant upon her mind; enough to make a being go mad.

She knew Kel Dors didn’t have as sensitive hearing as Togrutas but she could not understand how Plo could continue on, like they weren’t closing in on them, she didn’t understand how he couldn’t hear and her montrals begged for silence and as they stepped around what seemed to be the thousandth pillar, she couldn’t take it anymore.

She stopped in her tracks and barely resisted the urge to cover her montrals - and the strange mist had somehow enshrouded them without her noticing - because she couldn’t sense anyone, not a soul, not even Plo but the whispers were persistent and soft like a distant waterfall, like dozens of beings were standing just outside of her line of vision in the thick fog, the strange words tumbling from unseen lips.

As soon as she stopped, so did the whispering.

Her hackles rose.

Plo started to say something but Shaak made a quick quieting gesture, her eyes darting around the room, body tensed like she was about to hunt.

Silence reigned but Shaak did not relax. She pivoted slowly on the spot, trying to pierce the thick white fog, and when she turned to look behind them, to see where they had come from, her heart dropped.

There was no longer a strange, lofty, still hall behind them.

Somehow, above them, a gleaming window, streaming brilliant white light that smelled like acid, like smoke, drowning them in pale light. And underneath the window, shrouded in inky black shadows, was something that made her growl in terrible anger.

A wide stone staircase, its steps smooth and dipped from centuries, millennia of passing feet.

It almost seemed to growl back.

When she glanced over at Plo, he looked washed out, pale; not his normal healthy dark brown. And his body language told her she must look the same to him.

And now, now she could feel the cold dark waters rising in her mind.

“We have to get out of here,” she said in a strangled whisper, and Plo’s grip on her hand told her he very much agreed. “We have to go - now.”

But when she pushed against the wall, the icy stones bit at her palm and refused to give way. Her mind balked at the rough stone, and the force-numbing bracelet slipped about her wrist as she tried in vain, again and again until Plo pulled her back with a snapped, “There’s someone there.”

She spun around, stepping closer to him, as they both became absolutely stock still. She wanted him to be wrong, wanted the wall behind her to be wrong, wanted this to be a nightmare so that she might wake up; hells, she even wanted to see a Temple Guard, she might weep for relief if one stepped out-

And then one did.

It was a shadow of a person outlined in the distance, but there was no mistaking that light gray mask, the full sweeping robes edged in dark yellow.

The sense of relief that washed through Shaak’s blood nearly buckled her knees. Like a relieved youngling, she almost reached forward as the Guard raised their hand, palm up. A greeting. Sanctuary. Relief; an end to the strange distorted air and the phantom waves now rising towards her knees. They were safe. They Guard would take them home.

Plo let out a sort of exhausted, short laugh of relief, and she did not need to see his eyes to know he was just as wearily thrilled to see the Guard as she. They’d have coursework and chores piled past their heads, who knows how many reprimands and lectures from their Masters and maybe even a visit to the High Council - but they were going back. They were safe.

The Guard nodded as they approached, but the silence that greeted them was good; it was familiar. They’d been sent down to find the reckless Padawans; someone had noticed they were gone and they’d sent a guardian to escort the young ones out. She’d never felt such relief upon seeing that gray mask before; usually, an appearance of a Guard meant she and Plo had already been caught in whatever prank they’d been planning. Usually, the Guards creeped her out.

Now, however, she was so happy to see them she almost wept, and the little shudder than ran through Plo’s body told her he felt much them same. She almost ran to the Guard as they stood in the shadow of a column, avoiding the bright slanting light.

They moved slowly but with graceful ease as they reached up to tap their wrist and gesturing down at Shaak and Plo as they came to a stop in front of them. She frowned a little in confusion, anxious to move and leave this haunted place as soon as they could, but the Guard did the motion again: tapped both of their wrists, and then gestured to Shaak and Plo’s.

“Oh – oh. Shaak, they want us to take off the bracelets,” Plo murmured.

The Guard nodded, and waited.

As much as she despised the things, some faint voice in the back of her mind whispered don’t.

Don’t let them see.

Plo started to unclip it from his wrists but Shaak caught his hand and said, as confidently as she could, “I’d rather keep them on until we’re out of the Temple. It doesn’t seem safe, for us to wander around without protection.”

The Guard’s mask twitched to stare at her, but she did not move. Instead, she said again, her voice slightly wavering but still strong, “We made a mistake, I know that – but we’re not strong enough to ward off the dark side. These things are the only thing keeping us safe…”

She could feel Plo’s gaze flick nervously between her and the Guard – and all the while, that little voice in the back of her head kept counting down – until finally, slowly, the Guard acquiesced with a slow, solemn nod.

They turned and started to walk back down the hall, long robes whipping ancient dust into a frenzy as they passed by with confidence, Shaak and Plo keeping pace close behind.

We’re leaving, we’re okay, we’re safe, we’re okay…

It was only by chance that she looked up, and noticed the frescoes on the high ceilings were starting to repeat themselves.

“Where are we going?”

The Guard did not answer, and Shaak’s montrals started to ring with a hollow, distant worry. So she tried again: “This isn’t the way we came; are we taking a different route back to the Temple?”

The Guard stopped. Turned, and said in a waxy modulated voice, “We are going home.” They could not see the eyes of the Guard, could not tell their species, their gender; but all the same Shaak felt the heavy dead weight of their eyes and the dread returned in full, terrifying force as she stared back at the mask, horror pitting her stomach as she tried to wrap her mind around what they should have noticed long ago.

The armor was too old. Now she could see the cracks, the layers of dust that coated robes that should have rotted to nothingness long ago.

Her lekku curled and twisted in numb fear as the Guard took a step towards her, and she hardly dared break eye contact with them - with the thing wearing the Guard’s mask, the honored symbol of their Order - to warn Plo, to turn to him and run - but then his clawplates were slicing her hand and he was dragging her, turning and sprinting away and Shaak felt the Guard’s cold hands claw through the air, missing her lek by a breath, so close that the ice cold air sliced those sensitive organs and she let out an involuntary cry - and they ran for their lives.

The false Guard howled in pure, visceral anger behind them, the carnal sound ripping through the false solitude of the Sith temple, and suddenly Shaak understood why only the Masters were allowed to come here, why the unassuming entrance had four Guards, why they should have listened, should have heeded the call of their Temple-

Like the Temple had been waiting to swallow them whole, they were in front of the dark stairs again and now they had no other choice, now there was no other way out and the false Guard was quick, too quick, her adrenaline spiked into high gear and Shaak flew down the steps into the cold. They steps went on for far longer than she expected – her legs and lungs pumping, pure adrenaline through her blood, Plo right next to her – but eventually they flattened out and the ceilings closed in on them, the smooth clean hallways became dank, musty, grimy tunnels carved into what had to be the very core of the planet, lit by ancient lanterns but shrouded in shadows; a warren opened up in front of them and the furious shrieks of the false Guard echoed off of every surface. They ran.

They ran until their lungs were burning.

And as they ran, Shaak knew it was taking them deeper, ever deeper. The rough floor under their feet sloped downwards; no matter the passage they took, no matter the turn – it always led down.

But they were trapped. So they continued to run.

They ran, taking the twisting passageways at random until the sounds of the Guard’s pounding footsteps had been muffled by the solid rock, until the cries of rage had quieted in the distance.

Plo slid into a corner, Shaak barreling towards him, and they pressed themselves into the rock, hearts pounding and breaths coming fast, pressed themselves into each other in the sanctuary of darkness and prayed that the Guard wouldn’t find them.

They were lost; that much was clear. They weren’t safe. She hoped that the tunnels would swallow that false Guard, too.

Not lost; not entirely.

When she remembered, she wanted to sob with relief.

She tried to open her mouth, even though it felt as if her heart was in her throat, opened her mouth and gasped out, “Plo… the – the map…”

Plo – his breath strangled and wheezing through his mask – gave a quiet cry of happiness and huddled closer as his hand scrambled for the datachip in his robes. They’d activated the node that tracked their movements – it would take hours, hours and hours of the most awful brutal anxious kind, but they could retrace their steps. The light would show them the way.

Their old map appeared, massive and brilliant neon blue in the absolute darkness of the tunnel, so bright that Shaak hissed and turned, narrowing her eyes until it didn’t hurt to look. She could almost taste the wild knot that they’d made on the map, could already sense the headaches – but the answer was there, in the palm of her hands.

She opened her eyes.

Plo, though, was shaking.

His eyemask dimmed extremely bright lights automatically; he might not be able to see in the dark as well as she could but he didn’t experience that brief flash of pain.

He was shaking.

“…Plo-”

He pointed, wordlessly, to the map.

There was nothing to decipher.

Her heart twisted in nasty agony.

The two dots that represented them had not moved from the last place in the Jedi Temple; just outside of the small chamber. Nothing past it was marked.

There was nothing.

Shaak buried her head in her arms.

They were well and truly lost, hunted by a false Guard, deep within the belly of the beast; and the Temple, the very air around them, seemed to pulse with a sick sort of pleasure. Like a cat playing with a mouse.

Plo was saying something, nudging her arm.

“What?”

“We should take the bracelets off.”

She stared at him, and then swatted his shoulder in rising frustration. “Are you insane? I wasn’t talking out of my ass to that Guard, Plo!”

“If we take them off, our Temple might be able to find us and guide us back.”

“If we take them off, this Temple is going to eat us alive.”

“We have to trust the Force! What other option do we have? Don’t deny you felt the Temple try to call us back, before we came in. I felt it. It’s looking for us – no Jedi knows what’s happened to us yet – but the Temple does. It can’t find us if we’re wearing these bracelets!”

Shaak fought to keep her voice quiet, but the false Guard was now the very least of her worries. A current of fear was slowly rising under her anger, her voice trembling with desperation as she begged him, “Please, Plo! Don’t take them off!”

“Shaak-”

“I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of this place,” she said quietly, gripping his arm with all her might. “I don’t think we’ve seen how bad it can get.”

He was silent.

“Please-”

“Okay, okay. You’re right.” He let out a short, mournful breath and pulled his knees to his chest. “It’s my fault we’re even here in the first place,” he admitted, miserable. “This was a bad idea.”

“This was probably the worst fucking idea anyone has ever had in the history of the universe,” she answered truthfully, relieved. “We keep them on.”

“Yeah.”

The map slowly turned in place around them, illuminating the narrow tunnels with sharp electric blue light as they sat in silence, caught their breaths, and tried to keep their hopes up. Shaak wanted nothing more than to see her Master march down the tunnel, lightsaber and Force signature rippling against the dark side, even if she cuffed Shaak’s head and dragged her back to their Temple by her lekku.

But Plo was right: no one knew they were missing. No one was looking for them. They had to figure their way out of this mess by themselves.

She shook herself, pushed her exhaustion aside, and slowly rose – and only then did she realize where, exactly, they had taken refuge.

The map’s brilliant lights illuminated a chamber just beyond the corner where they’d tucked themselves into. It illuminated the lifelike statues lining the perimeter.

It illuminated a darkly glowing altar in the center of the chamber, pulsing red so dark, so thick, that Shaak wasn’t sure if she was seeing light at all.

And it illuminated the hundreds of bodies lying thick on the catacomb floor, remnants of a battle long forgotten – Sith and Jedi alike, scattered and dead and cold as ice around the chamber.

Her mind refused to react, refused to even acknowledge what she was seeing as Plo came to stand beside her; Shaak’s numb mind refused to process anything except for the words which she knew to be true:

The heart of the Temple.

The blood red light of the altar pulsed; a sleeping heartbeat.

Chapter Text

A beat.

Shaak forced her breath to slow, forced every instinct in her body – Jedi and Togrutan alike – to fire up in her mind and body. The heart of a Sith temple.

It felt as though they had been trapped there, mute and staring, for hours but Shaak knew it had only been a few seconds because she had not yet drawn another breath.

The darkness here was thick and muted; she could only hear Plo’s unnerved breathing if she listened hard. The dark stones and pillars and statues, the altar itself: it was as if it were a black hole sucking in all sounds and semblance of light. Their map, blinking uselessly in the air, cast barely enough light to pierce the darkness around them; she had no idea how large this chamber was, or how many bodies were strewn about.

Her hackles rose as she stared around the chamber. The statues lining the perimeter of the room went on into eternity, and she got the very distinct feeling that they were being watched.

Many eyes, many places.

She shivered. “Plo-”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think – I think we should shut off the light. The map. I don’t… we shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves,” she ended in a forcible whisper, but to her utter dismay Plo was much less concerned.

“It’s a tomb, Shaak,” he said gently, kneeling down about a yard away from the strewn bodies – no cobwebs, armor still intact, bodies still intact, something isn’t right here, when was this fight, how long ago did they battle, surely we would have heard something – and peering through the darkness at a prone Rodian Jedi. “And I can tell that your thoughts are swarming, even with the bracelets on.” He caught her eyes, his faceplates making his head look too much like a skull, and his chin twitched in a smile. “I know you too well, Ti.”

Shaak stared at the Rodian Jedi on the smooth stone next to him, only half-paying attention. Their robes were ancient, like the figures in their history texts, but clean and near perfect. She was glad their eyes were closed. The thought of the blue holo glinting off of the signature galaxy eyes in the dark, next to the heart of a Sith temple would have been too much for her to bear. “Plo, I’m serious,” she whispered again, taking a half-step towards him to shut the device off – though fear was prickling the smooth plates of her montrals, she took another breath of the stale, choking air and forced her thoughts to settle, to still like waves on water. He was right, of course; if she let her thoughts run rampant in this place, who knew what sort of malevolent beings would come crawling from the depths like hounds on the scent. “There. Better?

He shrugged, still facing the downed Jedi. “Bracelets, remember? I can’t sense you-” He stopped and turned to look at her, and when he spoke again there was the faintest undercurrent of anxiety underneath the warbled modulation. “Maybe – stand where we can see each other?”

She shot him a nervous smile and stepped forward.

And the Rodian Jedi’s hand shot out, grabbed Plo by the wrist, and snapped the bracelet clean in two.

Shaak’s mind was flooded with his terror, it made her stumble and for a moment she was blind, hands scrambling to find him as he panicked, the hand like iron around his wrist. His other hand clapped down on her arm and her vision cleared – the shards of the bracelet, artifacts from the Temple they had so callously disregarded – lay shattered on the clean shale floor.

A horrible sound, like nails on glass and stone, filled the chamber as Plo cried out – the Rodian’s eyes were no longer like looking into the stars, they were a horrible burnt orange, full of anger and hate – and tried to scramble away in shock, desperately trying to pry the grip loose but something was animating the once-Jedi. It screamed again, its movements sharp and unnatural – like its muscles had long atrophied and now, and now Shaak realized with a horrible twist of her gut as the rest of the bodies around them started to groan and shift, now she realized that it was the work of the altar. It was the work of the Dark side, a more terrible aspect of the Force that she had been blind to, that she could never have imagined existed. The pure power that radiated from the altar as it slowly beat faster and faster, brighter and brighter, made her very bones and blood ache.

Terror filled her throat like bile as Shaak felt the eyes of the statues – not statues, guardians – fall like a blade upon her back. Another beat of the light within the tomb and a new sound filled the space, in between the howls and cries of the undead scattered around them: the unmistakable sound of thick rock splintering apart and heavy, slow footfalls. Shaak bared her teeth and growled back at the Rodian, gripped their powdery bones in her hand and wrenched Plo free.

He scrambled backwards but the stone guardians had come alive, and Shaak felt the dark energy almost pulsate in glee. This is what it wanted, she realized, horrified, kicking the once-Jedi back and scooping up the remnants of the bracelet, their useless map in her hands. She hauled Plo to his feet and then turned so that they were back-to-back against the ever-increasing hoard of Sith monstrosities.

Her shaking hands found her saber. No choice, we have no choice.

When she ignited her saber, the light reflected in the eyes of hundreds of fallen warriors, shadows leapt and snarled and bit at their heels, and her other hand – shaking – found Plo’s behind her. The steady thrum of their sabers, ignited against the dark, his hand strong in hers. Darkness pressed in on all sides.

It was too late for regret; they’d come too far. They’d leapt over the edge hours – days? – ago. Without even knowing what had happened, they’d been sucked in, dragged to the belly of the beast. They’d willingly walked into the Temple and now it was going to make them fight for every step they took.

Like puppets on strings, the fallen advanced, hollow eyes reflecting the blades’ sharp blue light. The groaning, shifting guardians formed a perimeter, and just as Shaak was hoping that they might be able to cut through the not-decayed bodies, there was the unmistakable sound of another saber being activated.

And then another.

And another.

On and on and on.

Dark red drowned the two tiny pinpricks of blue light, surrounded them utterly and entirely.

The fear that she had so desperately pushed down rose up, full force. Plo couldn’t feel her, the bracelets around her wrists – heavy as manacles – were still masking her, but the Temple knew they were here. It wanted to eat them alive.

Plo squeezed her hand. “Ready, Ti?”

“Fight like hell, Koon.”

I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.

She could tell most of these lost and fallen Jedi – their spiritual ancestors – were at least Knights. Her Padawan braid swung heavily against her lekku. There were Masters, too; and though they were not in control of their body, though they were hollow shells controlled by a malevolent evil, their bodies still remembered the forms.

The altar glowed brilliant red, and with it, a hum that was so deep it was not heard but felt.

Outside of the sparring rooms, Shaak had never fought another being before. She’d never faced an agent of the dark side down in combat. The Sith had died out, eons ago. She’d been called to peacekeeping missions with her Master, been in scuffles with slavers and pirates and tyrants. But she’d never seen a red blade illuminated in the dark, a blade aimed towards her with the intent to kill – or worse.

And now there was no end to the blades calling for her blood.

She bared her teeth and growled back at the darkness. Fear had fled form her mind as she readied herself – her hands trembled still but in her mind she called up the stalwart calm, the compassion of her Jedi training and willed it meld with the hunter in her ancestry. Togruta were proud hunters. Jedi were keepers of the peace.

She would protect Plo until her last breath.

The fallen circled them like animals, and then-

On some unseen signal, the horde raised their blades.

One leapt forward with a scream and Shaak answered in turn as the red crashed against the blue with such force that Shaak nearly stumbled back, but she matched the blow.

The fight was on, and Shaak did not have time to think, only move, only hope that her training was enough.

The sabers of the fallen were not as refined as the blades the Padawans carried, but what they lacked in elegance they made up for in brute, absolute strength. It was like the crystals that powered them were barely contained within their hilts, bursting and cracking with pure power. Though she blocked the hits, returned and parried, teeth bared, every blow shook her to her core. Whether it was the power of the crystals or the strength behind their blows, soon it felt as though her very muscles were being shaken apart. She whined under breath but the fallen never held back. She cut and tore and spun but for every one ancient being she cast to the ground, three more would spring up in its place.

Her blue light reflected in the sickly yellow of a Zabrak’s eyes. In a split second, they flashed red – a thin, almost transparent film under the unseeing eyes and with a horrible lurch of her stomach Shaak realizes that because the Temple couldn’t sense her, it was watching her through the eyes of its puppets.

They all aimed for the bracelets on her wrists, hands lunging forward like claws, heedless of the blade that sliced through with a terrible hum. She blocked out the sound of the limbs, the bodies, falling to the floor, only focused on the danger around her, Plo behind her.

Plo, who the Temple could sense.

Just as she snapped to look back at him, he screamed in fear as a well-timed cut knocked his blade from his hands.

The fallen swarmed in a frenzy around him, and without a second thought Shaak leapt over him and drove them back with a snarl. Plo scrambled at her feet and sprang up to parry an attack from something behind her – before she could draw enough breath to thank him with even a flash of her eyes another lucky bow – and this time, it was her saber that clattered to the stone floor.

She dodged and wove through the storm of blades – by now they had pushed back towards the entrance of the chamber, a veritable sea of fallen crawling towards them – but again, the Temple turned its focus onto Plo.

A relentless storm of red whipped into a frenzy around them, and something in Shaak shrieked for blood.

A primal hunting howl ripped its way out of her throat as Plo staggered back from the blows and without thinking, without a conscious thought in her head except to save her friend, Shaak stretched out her hand and pulled.

The hilt that snapped to her was not hers but she didn’t care, it was a blade, that was all that mattered.

If it meant saving Plo – for what end, we’re going to die down here – she could wield a red blade until her eyes were blinded from that searing, blistering color.

When she ignited the switch and leapt to Plo’s side, the chamber was lit with a brilliant, bright blue light and Shaak heard the Force sing, it coursed through her blood as she swung the blade – it was vibrating in her hands, drawing her movements – and though she was in the heart of a Sith temple, though Plo was prone and dazed at her feet, pure, radiant joy bubbled up through every nerve. The casings and wrapped leather were burning the skin of her hand but Shaak knew it was not a malevolent act.

The kyber of the fallen Jedi, the crystal at the heart of this lost lightsaber…

It knew it was in the hands of a Jedi once more.

It sang.

In the blistering light from the cleansed blade, as the fallen and lost ones cowered and yowled in pain, she saw her saber lying cracked on the floor, called it to her, hauled Plo to his feet and then they ran.

The walls, the very air of the Sith temple around them shrieked in fury but the light from the blade was too bright and in the corner of her mind Shaak felt another presence, another pull, getting stronger – their temple. Their home.

The saber was a beacon, and the temple was guiding them home with frantic pulses of light. It couldn’t sense her, but it could sense the saber in her hand and Plo by her side.

She swung the blade against the dark and it crackled with joy under her guide and soon, much faster than she had been expecting, they were back in the strangely lit hall once more – the dark side lapping at their heels, raging around them but the Jedi temple was stronger, more powerful than the dark.

One small candle is enough to keep the darkness at bay.

The end of the hall beckoned them and something yanked the front of her tunic like an angrily relieved parent. The saber deactivated in her hand as they tumbled through the entrance and landed on the ground, hard.

“Padawans!” Under the scolding tone, relief was palpable. Behind them, the door was slammed shut. Shaak cast a glance and was met with the cold, blank face of a Temple Guard. And though she could already feel their chorelist mounting, though she could feel the lectures coming, seeing that familiar gold and grey was enough to bring tears to her eyes.

“Finally; finally, in all my years I have never heard of such a thing! Two Padawans thinking they’re better than the rest of the Order, breaking into the forbidden levels, traipsing around a Sith Temple-”

Shaak groaned in answer, as did Plo next to her – and then an extremely large and incredibly hairy hand gripped the back of her robes and hauled them both to their feet. The Wookiee in front of them towered almost eight feet above them, and the anger coursing from them in waves only made them appear all the larger.

“Hullo, Master Tyvokka,” Plo mumbled sheepishly, to which Master Tyvokka growled in answer. And standing next to them was a sharply dressed Miraluka woman with long silver-gray hair bound in thick dreadlocks and a thinly set mouth. Her sightless eyes were boring into Shaak’s skull.

Shaak blanched and bowed, shaking a little from the exhaustion that now coursed through her, “Master Ramanda.”

Her Master stepped forward, shaking her head and reaching out towards Shaak, resting lightly on her shoulders. “What happened in there? Why in seven hells did you think that this was a good idea – how did you even find this place-”

Master Tyvokka, similarly checking Plo for injuries, found the bruises around his wrist and said in sharply accented Shyriiwook, “A foolish venture! That was a Sith Temple-”

“You were gone for three days, Padawans!”

“Three…” A chill swept over Shaak, and as one, she and Plo turned to stare at the sealed temple behind them, innocuous and unremarkable, with no hint of the dangers that lay over the threshold.

“Yes, you heard me correctly – three days and it is a wonder that you’re still alive at all. Unbelievable. Unbelievable!” Ramanda shook her head, her hands warm and wonderfully solid, wonderfully real. Shaak’s Master sighed sharply and said, “We have to get you both to the medical center, right away. I cannot believe you thought this was a good idea!”

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Master. We just wanted to see it.”

Tyvokka herded Plo and Shaak back through the small chamber, leaving behind the Temple Guards and a few extra lights. As they made their way back to the center of the Temple, the Wookiee chuckled to himself. “When you attain the rank of Master, then you might be able to investigate it properly.”

Plo laughed – a little shakily – but the quirk of his eyeplate towards Shaak told her that his sense of humor had returned. “No, thanks, Master.”

Shaak nodded. “I think that’s more than enough for me.”

Plus this won’t look good on our records.

Probably won’t ever get to the Grand Council now.