Faction Sundering Heart - Under the Leaves of a Selab Tree (Selab Order)

[Brooke Waters]

Everything was off. The Force, hyperspace, she wasn’t sure what was real. And the problem of it? She needed to get out there, she needed to do work. The blonde was pacing aboard her ship, the Nautilos as it was searching its database. She dismissed her crew recently. More for their protection than hers. Brooke Waters, the Witch known as Token, was anxious. She was the type to do spellwork, but at times? She connected with the greater Unifying Force. And it was… ghostly.

It was the depths, the cuttlefish, the jellies. She could see them floating there, bouncing around. It was not right, the Force didn’t feel like that, it was currents, paths, routes between beings. Places to go. But she was getting the sense of a destination, it was old, and as it kept coming into each meditation, she adjusted the crystals in the mesh that was The roots are callingher ship’s navigation system.

Closer… Closer…

The red crystals each became blue as the course got laid in. She was hopeful.

“COURSE ACCEPTED, FARSEEKER.” Nautilos spoke to her as the last crystal was moved into the right location. Much more of a manual hyperspace course, and destination. Not as much a quick jump. Brooke nodded and bit her lip.

She knew others would find where she would be, but the ones she wanted? That was the Selab. She ran her hand over the necklace she wore, the aurodium necklace of a Selab tree, before grabbing the comlink she had stored. It’d connect to several members.

“The leaves are swirling on the moons of Kyrikal.” The message was sent, at least to Jend-Ro Quill but hopefully to others of the Order of the Selab as her ship leapt into hyperspace.

Jannik Morlandt Chloe Blake @Other Orders members

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

There was a school of thought that the Levantine Spur, destabilized like all other hyperroutes, should be left that way. The former worlds of the Levantine Sanctum had always prized privacy. But the needs that had driven that route's creation remained implacable, and so as Quill slogged his way up he passed mappers rejigging nav beacons and charting new side lanes. They were uniformly small ships, and they flew old Levantine colors or Baobab Astrography or no flag at all. He recognized one as belonging to a Warden of the Sky of his acquaintance. He said his hellos and shared his few post-Planeshift nav logs for whatever benefit they'd be, and kept on his errand.

Decades back, the Order of the Selab had helped the Fallanassi evacuate to Kyrikal V. Ithorian Priests of the Mother Jungle were common in the Kyrikal system. En route to Kyrikal - a slog up the destabilized Spur - Quill touched base with Selabite Keepers he knew among the Fallanassi and the Ithorians alike.

A very private gathering space had been arranged for the arch-witch Brooke Waters at a Selab seed bank hidden in the woods of Kyrikal V. A few Ithorians and Fallanassi tended and concealed it. Between the tree cover and the White Current, you could have flown ten feet overhead and never known it.

As Quill's small old ship drew near the appointed place, a stretch of forest turned out to always have been a landing field. He set down, made his greetings, and went inside. Like everyone he'd met for days, he was ill at ease and sick at heart.

The seed bank was modeled on the sturdy, practical construction of the ancient Dantooine Jedi Enclave, at least to Quill's eye. The why of that made no sense until he remembered how long the Selab's previous Grandmaster had spent as Watchman of Dantooine in the rebuilt enclave - and until Quill walked into the gathering chamber.

It was a riot of plants, rare and precious species from across the universe, all stored up. A sign of hope that the galaxy could regrow. In the future, and maybe the present too. Quill smelled some flowers.

 

[Brooke Waters]

She wasn’t sure that she’d have made it here if the Nautilos wasn’t half sentient. Not like it was an enslaved purrgil or anything… At least she hoped it wasn’t an enslaved purrgil brain. That thought gave her a shiver. Again, it was doubtful,l but anything could happen with the ancient Ardans. She knew that the old galaxy was a wild place. And the one during the Gulag? Even worse.

But that was why she was hopeful that her people, the ones she really worked with, the Order of the Selab, were still kicking around the area. And that some would be able to find her here. There was hope, as the Spur was one of the places where everyone seemed intent on helping each other get to where they needed to be. People tending to the nav beacons, and a big bit of hiring was done by Starchasers and Baobab.

But here on Kyiral? She had Ithorians and Fallanassi. An actually pretty peaceful landing spot. It took her a moment to realize just where she was, but her ship and the Force told her what she needed to know. A witch of some renown, Brooke Waters was more than capable of telling who she was up against. As her ship, semi-living as it was, continued to fly, she instructed it to listen to the way the Force. It found the kink in the White Current and set itself down.

The blonde disembarked and made her way inside. Several Fallanassi greeted her and she greeted them in kind. Sisters in the Force, albeit with different, sometimes vastly different approaches. The blonde was in not-robes, but still gauzy and flowing dress, blue and white in color. Looking up, she saw Jend-Ro. He was one who brought her into the fold of Selab.

While it took her eyes a moment to focus, and her head an even longer time to not feel like it was swimming in a deep sea, Brooke managed a smile. “Its good to see you. All considered, how are you faring?”

Jend-Ro Quill Chloe Blake Jannik Morlandt Jared Ovmar The King in Red

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

It felt incongruous to think of Brooke Waters as the next generation of Selabites. He was starting to suspect she might be the older of them, and she didn't seem to have aged significantly since he'd known her, but then again neither had he. Quill avoided those topics.

"Very good, thank you, ma'am. Better than some I could name."

He knew seasoned prophets who'd fallen sick or died trying to pry into the current phenomena. He imagined most experienced and well-connected Force-users had lost acquaintances at minimum. In fact, the reason the local hosts likely wouldn't join in for this meeting came down to recent harm, mourning, and caretaking. He suspected Brooke knew all this.

"It may be just us," he said. "I have prophecy notes from Keepers who couldn't make it — or who didn't make it. Fragments, really."

 

[Brooke Waters]

Brooke had her goals, and part of them was keeping herself off of the radar. However, joining a group like the Selab? That was fairly counter-productive to that end. She was a Witch, and a damned good one. One who had been touched by the depths and found herself doing all that she could to spread a particular message for the galaxy. One of connectedness. Was it evil? No.

She wasn’t a damned Holocron Eater, even if she did destroy one during her Sunshard ritual, the one that turned her blade indigo and pulled her away from the Jedi arts.She was a Witch and a Selabite through and through.

What she knew was that Jend-Ro was similar, maybe not a Witch, but not a Jedi, and one of the leaders in the Selab, as far as she knew. Very few contacts within the Order came about any longer.

“I hear you on that, my Clan Mother… she fell into the abyss…” Almost quite literally, but definitely the abyss within her own mind, with her peering into the Force for a solution to the others in the Clan being lost to the visions. Brooke took a moment to remember her Clan Mother, knowing that even as the Farseeker, she was the one who would be taking over.

Just from afar.

“Fragments, you say? I was hearing some tale from one of the other Clans of this … situation. I have tried to remain… away from the prophecy seekers.” Never a skill she had, and with her own tact for connectedness, she was concerned for her own self.

"Do you have any answers? Or partial answers?"

Jend-Ro Quill

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

"A black spire in the snow, a drifting fleet lost in time, a tower with three doors, images like that."

One of the great chamber's stone tables had been cleared. Quill laid out note pages and handmade drawings and sorted like to like where possible.

"The name Calladene, too. At least it's thought to be a name. It has no translation that makes sense in any language."

Quill paused with flimsiplast sheets fluttering in hand.

"I'm sorry about your clan mother."

Brooke Waters

 

[Brooke Waters]

“Fleets lost. That sounds like something we’d need Jorus or a Starchaser for…” she mused. Her and Quill were both travelers, but she doubted to the level the other families were.

“A dark tower…” she whispered. Her father had mentioned something of that many a year ago. Before he was pulled from this world. “And you were hearing 3? I hadn’t. But Calladene, that one struck a cord with one of my… contacts. It kept repeating.”

She still hadn’t located it on a star map.

“I appreciate the sympathy. Though she was not the only one lost. And I doubt she’s going to be the last.”

Looking around she could feel the Fallanassi. Reaching into her satchel she pulled a polished white stone. And began rubbing the center of worn by type and friction.

A worry stone. An amulet to protect this area from outside interference. “I do have a confession…”

Jend-Ro Quill

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

"Three main images in the visions, yes. Maybe more if the glimpses of colours around the tower with three doors were multiple spaces, not just one complex building."

Quill squinted at the worry stone. He'd done enough Force crafting with small rocks to recognize similar things, but what its function could be, he couldn't say.

""What's the confession?" he asked eventually.

Brooke Waters

 

[Brooke Waters]

The Order of Selab gave her a bit of focus. Brooke was a strong woman, and she was strong with the Force itself. Part of her was taking extra power from that space on Dathomir. But she didn’t think it was strictly the world. It was something beyond.

The fact that Quill was talking about a tower definitely got Brooke’s attention. “Does it seem like there is someone in the Tower? Or that its a well of energy itself?” She was idly speaking while her attention was on the stone in her hand.

“I’ve been told to stick away from the future, from diving into the seer’s path. There is something… connected to me? That seems to fear it. Fear the loss of its eyes?”

She knew for a long time that there was another power at play in her, a connection. Perhaps what was causing her youthfulness, allowing her more time, she assumed. But did it add to her power? Could she bend it to help the Selab here?

Jend-Ro Quill

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

"A touch enigmatic, eh?" he said with an encouraging grin, sorting out accounts. "From you and from it, whatever the it is. Have you found that's a warning off worth taking?"

Despite all the traditions he'd visited, he'd mostly kept his distance from Dathomir. Its mysteries and complications ran too deep.

"Here it is. I'd misremembered." He unshuffled a collection of visionary bits that seemed congruent, one of the visions. "Twenty-nine thirteen, yes...three doors, three figures, maybe people and maybe representative, a stalemate, a knot of rusted gears...and a few mentions of places that, come to think of it, sound like Tython's arctic pole. Have you been to Tython?"

Brooke Waters

 

[Brooke Waters]

For most beings, Dathomir was an untamed world, the type that caused many issues. It was why the Empire feared it, and why the Mandalorians did their best to respect it. Part of the Force, and a third avenue of the many colored tapestry and river that was the Force, Witches were… a different breed. While she was a witch now, she began as much more, rogue Dark Sider, Jedi, Selab.

“After what I saw with beings that have more skill than I do…” A soft lie, but she did respect some of the older Selab members, and her Clan Mother. “I believe it may be. Perhaps it will allow me to think, and act more clearly. To help read what these signs are.”

The Dweller was protecting an asset, even if Brooke didn’t fully grasp that. But once she did? She’d try to turn the tide.

Looking at the bits, the blonde nodded. “Different colors. Gold for the light? Teal… teal could be conflict?” She chewed on her lip for a moment, the stone in her hand rotating over and under in her fingers.

“Tython? No… But my father used to speak of a tower on another world, somewhere far off… Controlling the local systems?” She looked at the bits of knowledge and whispered a spell, one for clarity. Something she was doing more and more in the recent times.

“The Fallanassi… they’re not touching any of this, are they?” She looked to Quill for confirmation but already had her answer.

Jend-Ro Quill

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

"Not from what I've heard," he agreed. "There's those they've lost to this, and I don't know how heavily their non-intervention weighs on that decision. The same goes for the Ithorians."

Potential answers to the rest stayed murky.

"Three passages, light, dark, balance. Very Tythonian but it feels so simple, so incongruous with the moment. Unless...I wonder if it's some instance of past collaboration across alignments. As if Jedi, Sith, and Jensaarai made a stalemate covenant to keep something locked away, and then somehow kept that agreement."

Brooke Waters

 

[Brooke Waters]

“I didn’t think either of the groups would get involved. I mean, its probably fair. If they are going to keep to themselves… At least someone can be here to pick up the pieces.” Ithorians would be needed to recover so many planets. And if there were Wardens out there, they were probably sticking their noses in as well. Brooke knew too many of that ilk to think they’d stay too far outside.

But probably helping with the hyperspace situations. Probably out there protecting the lanes and resetting the nav beacons.

And then for Ashin, that other arcane student… What was she doing…

“I don’t like how easy it does seem. One for the three major views on the Force. Aang-Tii would be having a field day with this.” If only there was someone like Tiland still around… She didn’t even consider the Jensaarai. Didn’t Coren have a connection with one… “If the three of them, or even some larger middle group teamed up…” She shrugged. “I don’t think choosing a door is the answer though…”

Jend-Ro Quill

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

"No, not at all. Maybe it needs some kind of simultaneous key turned by one of each alignment. Maybe..." Quill left that hanging. What he was saying didn't sit right with him.

"I hate that this is all built like thought experiments. Like games, when friends are sick or dying from it. I hate that solving it might mean this kind of flippant..." He waved vaguely. "But yes. An Aing-Tii friend would be so useful. I heard the Sith Empire conquered them years ago. And now there's the Blackwall, so if any are left they're doubly isolated."

Brooke Waters