Morning came slowly for us, mostly because of the dense jungle. It was not precisely a sunrise but more like the receding of darkness, which became lighter, letting some color return to the world. Around us, dew was sticking to everything, covering them, including the branches, stones, and even our skin. The fire had gone out sometime in the night, and the air around us was thick, humid, and damp... The worst… And it didn't help that what sleep we had was done while sitting still. It hurt to start moving.
Not that I really started, as Vila was still leaning against me.
My first thought was that I should really move. That it would be inappropriate to stay like this any longer, our limbs still entangled, her lekku gently rising and falling against my shoulder as she breathed. But my body wasn't in a rush to act on that thought, and neither was hers. But… In the end, I managed to flex my arms and legs, spurring the blood to start circling as I was way too numb. Sensing it, she stirred slightly, stretching a little before letting out a quiet hum and opening one eye.
"Morning…" she murmured, her voice raspy, smacking her lips before she closed her eyes again.
I swallowed audibly, trying to keep my gaze somewhere around the trees instead of at the way her body kept snuggling up against me, unbothered, moving around as she continued mumbling and moaning quietly. Looking up, my robes, like hers, were drying from where we hung them near the fire, but looking at them… Ah, it wasn't worth much; this jungle was way too humid to actually dry them out.
"Morning," I replied in the end, my voice pitching higher than usual, making me scratch my throat and feel awkward.
Not in a bad way, just... more aware of how close we had become. It still made my heart beat faster when I remembered it, but I didn't want to make it weird. I didn't want to ruin whatever was forming between us because I liked it… A lot. As I was thinking that, she finally sat up with a stretch and a grin.
"You're thinking too loud again."
"Sorry," I mumbled, tearing my gaze away, but she held my chin, turning it back towards her.
"Don't be. I don't mind it." Then she leaned over, but there was no kiss this time. She simply nudged my shoulder with hers and then stood up, not bothering to cover herself while stretching. "You're cute when you're flustered."
"Bully…" I tried to protest, but it came out as a half-grunt as I, too, stood to grab my somewhat drier tunic and began to dress up.
Once we were clothed again, I moved to the edge of the creek, kneeling on a smooth stone and trying to center myself, trying to reach out to the Force once again. Vila, no longer in a teasing mood, came up next to me and crouched down, too, glancing around with narrowed eyes.
"Still feels weird, huh?" She muttered as if tasting the air.
"Yeah," I agreed, letting my hand hover over the water, my eyes closed. "It's like the Force is here, but not in the way it should be. It still penetrates everything, but… It moves... wrong."
"It doesn't want to be touched," she murmured, reaching out with her own senses. "That is how it feels for me. Like it's… Already under control of..."
I nodded, trying to steady my breathing. She was right. The Force here did feel like it was under control… But not ours. The last time I tried forcing it, it felt like sinking into mud, but I had to try again. This accursed planet was dangerous; that much was obvious. To fight back against it, we needed to understand what we were dealing with first and foremost.
"Let me try and help," she said suddenly, her hand finding mine and her fingers wrapped around my wrist, making me blink my eyes open, startled.
"Vila, what are you—"
"Shh. Trust me. Continue on, just let me in!"
So I did.
The moment our minds touched, something shifted. It was not a sharply made change but more like the feeling when two pieces connected, sliding into place. I reached out to the Force again, and this time, Vila did it through and with me, too. Our intentions weren't perfectly identical yet, and I could tell we would need to practice a bit more, but it was close enough. Close enough that our powers brushed together and overlapped each other.
And then, something clicked. Yes… There was a pulse. But… Following it, it was not in the Force but instead between us.
It was like a slowly forming tether. Something was forming in the space where our minds were touching. I read about something similar, but I could tell that it was not a complete meld and was not anything invasive. It was just a shared awareness, having access to a flicker of emotion, not entirely mine. While I was focusing on the feeling, Vila gasped beside me. I felt it through our hands before I even heard it. Luckily, none of us pulled away from each other.
"Kael," she whispered. "What is this?"
"I... I don't know," I answered honestly, eyes still closed. "But I can feel you. Not just... your hand. I mean... you."
"I know," Her breath caught again. "But I was asking about… that. Focus!"
Blushing, I reoriented my mind, and… she was right.
For the briefest moment, our combined presence in the Force burned through the murk that I felt when I tried it alone. It was clear to me immediately that it was not possible, not with our current mastery over it. But it did pay off as it was strong enough to illuminate the Force from within, to see the edges of what surrounded us for a brief moment.
Yes… The Force here wasn't just strange; it was already pre-shaped, taken form, molded, and changed… It was controlled... by something. Or someone. No wonder we couldn't access it like before; it was listening to someone else's command!
I gasped, suddenly pulling away, the link snapping, but... The link between us was still there; it didn't vanish. I could still feel her, just the sense of her nearby. But the more important part was that whatever was controlling the Force had to be immensely powerful to do so without us recognizing it.
"Kael?" she asked again, touching my shoulders while I was gasping for air.
"I saw it," I breathed, "Not clearly… But I saw something. Someone."
She waited patiently while I recovered my mind, replaying my feelings and turning them into a complete picture.
"The Force here... it doesn't flow like it should, and the reason is straightforward: it isn't free. The whole planet... It's like... it has a will."
"Like the living planets, the Vong had?" She asked, her eyes widening, but I shook my head.
"No," I answered, furrowing my brows, "Most Vong planets were cut off from the Force, and even when not, it was… different from what I read from the Grandmaster's writings. This felt nothing like what Grandmaster Luke Skywalker detailed in his books. This one was… An ancient one. And I got the feeling it transformed the Force, almost as if the two were one in here…"
Vila shivered beside me, looking around, gulping.
"Like… It is now the Force, too?"
"Maybe," I mumbled, not knowing if it was actually intelligent or not, whether it would understand us or not… "But what I felt when we got down to the planet makes sense now!" I snapped my finger. "I felt the Force being pulled out from under us, as it was no longer there for any of us to tap into!"
"No wonder we keep getting lost. It's not just the land confusing us... It's this... weird will."
"Yeah. And the amount of fear it was putting on us," I nodded, glancing down at our still-linked hands. "It is for sure not something that leans towards the light side of the Force."
"But that link we just formed... will it discover it? Maybe it already did…?"
"I don't know, and I can't tell… But if it wants to manipulate our senses, it can do so. That is for sure how it made us get lost here. We can not trust what we see or hear."
"Yeah, that was a given," she shrugged as we stood up, letting each other go, but it still felt like we were holding hands. Both of us reached out, rubbing our wrists, noticing the same thing.
"It is a bit weird. Did you do this?" She muttered, smiling.
"Maybe… I honestly can't tell. But at least I feel like we can't be fooled by the planet anymore this way."
"Let's hope so!" She shrugged, shaking her head, "Now what?"
"Good question." I looked around, fishing out flasks from my belt, "Let's fill it up with water first!"
"Then…?"
"Well, then, we should start walking and try to find the others. If we could figure this out, I bet you anything that our Masters did so, too. Let's try to stay focused while we walk, searching for them in this mess."
"That's up to you," she hummed, filling up her flasks, too. "I will keep scanning our surroundings instead, to be sure. If both of us are lost in the faraway noise, we could be jumped! If we are on a living planet, I will assume that the plants and animals are alive too."
"That is a scary proposition…" I agreed, looking around once again, suddenly seeing eyes and movements everywhere. "Damn it." I shook my head, "Now that I understand, I can also feel that this place constantly tries to instill fear into us. Don't give in, Vila. Most of our fears are the works of this damnable planet."
"Noted." She nodded while we began walking, following the creek. "You know… This time, a Death Star would come in handy."
"Huh?" I flinched, raising an eyebrow.
"When we get off this rock… I would gladly use it to blow it to pieces!"
…
….
...
The jungle grew denser again if that was even possible, the trees leaning in from either side while we followed the curve of the creek. Sometimes, thin rays of morning light broke through the canopy above in sporadic beams, catching on drifting motes of mist, but the silence was uneasy. Where are all the animals?
While thinking about it… We suddenly found it.
The creek widened into a shallow basin, and just beyond the natural curve of the terrain, there it was: A building. Or what remained of one, because it was more apt to call it a ruin.
"Whoa," Vila murmured, stopping beside me.
From beneath the moss and the creeping vines around its base, dark, light-swallowing stones rose in massive blocks that were shaped and aligned in a pyramid-like shape. Even half-buried, the ruins' surfaces were marked with deep, angular carvings that twisted in ways meant to draw the eye onto them… And if someone kept looking at the shapes more and more… they began to confuse the mind.
"Don't look at the carvings for long!" I warned Vila at once, also looking away. I felt my vision beginning to swim, clearing up the moment I began blinking my eyes. "That's some Dark Side witchcraft…" I muttered. "Or architecture… Ugh."
"It looks like it's been here forever," Vila whispered, also making sure not to look at them for long. "Do you feel that... Resonance?"
"Yeah." I stepped forward, crouching, searching for an entrance before finding it. It wasn't a doorway, not anymore, that is. The top of it had collapsed, but even between the fallen stone blocks, a narrow passage remained open, large enough for someone to crawl through. "See that?" I pointed towards it.
"Yep. Let's go!" She started, but I held her hand, pulling her back as I just noticed something else.
"Wait! Stop!" I raised a hand, then crouched again, my eyes narrowing as I moved the vines and leaves to the side. The dirt leading towards the entrance had been disturbed here. At first glance, it looked like part of natural erosion, but there was a pattern in it. Shallow depressions pressed into the softened moss and soil.
"Notice something?" I asked quietly,
"What is it? Footprints?" She furrowed her brows, "Oh… Are those…?"
"A droid came through here." I nodded as I brushed aside another layer of loose leaves. As we walked closer and closer, we found clearer, visible tracks of someone who didn't bother hiding it at all. Symmetrical impression, roughly humanoid in shape but too sharp and too exact, paced at the same distance. Only droids walk with this precision. Or cats.
"Yep!" Vila stared at it for a moment before chuckling, "It has to be HK."
"That's what I thought." I also nodded, glancing at the entrance.
"Hmmm…" Vila examined the depth of the last pair, squinting at it. "This is recent. Maybe a day. Two at most? Otherwise, the jungle should've reclaimed it faster."
"It went in… what do you say?"
"What else?" She giggled, hugging my arm, no longer fearing the place. "Let's go… find that idiot before something else happens to him."
"What if something happens to us?" I asked, but I was already about to crouch down and start crawling through the small opening.
"I am not worried about that." She followed me closely, "We can deal with it."