024. HELL OR HIGH WATER

( —Any means necessary, regardless of any difficulty, problem, or obstacle. )

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As the lifeless, cerulean sky started to set on Nevarro, so did the grief. 

Not for Din. A full two hours of her passing, and the shock for her mourning had not subsided. It was as if there was no beauty left in the world to appreciate, the pain hitting out of nowhere when even the littlest of thoughts doubled him over.

It only worsened when another ship entered the sullen atmosphere of the hunting lands, resting its whirring engines alongside the Razor Crest. The ship was a T-65 X-wing, the one that had vanished ages ago when the Rebel Alliance had dissolved into ashes with the Empire.

The Mandalorian held the child tighter to his chest as the entrance hatch dropped to the basalt and two, dark-clothed figures sauntering out. A woman, bound in a stygian uniform that was tighter than knots, and a man, in brigandine attire, as if going to war and cloak matted with fur draping his shoulders. 

King Hyllus was a force to be reckoned with, paramountly sovereign. Honing his obsidian sabre in one hand and sufficiently recuperated, he stopped in front of the Mandalorian with a frown that was set in stone.

All he said was, "I apologize for the way I behaved the last time, Mandalorian."

His mind couldn't work fast enough to provide an answer, allowing silence to take the field. 

"I know you only had my daughter's well-being in mind."

Every memory of her played like a melody in his head, repeating until it felt like forever. It was as if he had lost the biggest part of himself, everything had tied into one tight ribbon and it had been her. But, she was gone—vanished into the smouldering abyss and left with only the grief. He thought it was the single worst thing to feel but it took a while for him to realize that in reality, it was just a painful price to pay for loving someone. For loving a witch. 

Behind the king, a sepia skinned woman flanked his side gradually. With a line of tattoos similar to Myra's that played peekaboo from the sleeves of her buckled suit and the copper bound necklace that clung to her throat, he could tell that she was a witch, too. Had been a witch. This was Circe Vanis.

"Mando," Circe tipped her chin with a peculiar nod. "Seen Goldie around?"

And, the pain retreated back into him once more.

∞

"So, she's gone."

Din looked to the king who watched the fire crackle alive on the wood over the basaltic grounds. It was the tiny sun for their evening, casting long shadows over the trio who sat around, too drained to talk.

"Just like her mother," he grunted, taking a long swig from the flask of wine provided by Circe. Who, speaking off had left them to saunter into the empty grounds to take a while for herself. 

The news had come for them like a storm—a storm that had been foretold but they had never been ready for. King Hyllus shrouded his devastation under the web of scorn and alcohol, his silence speaking his mournings. 

The pain surged with Din's every expelled breath, reaching higher and higher peaks but never-ending. Every pretence of his momentous coping fell when he felt something wet slid from his eye and soaking into the clothing that lined the interior of his helmet.  

"She left to find the waters," King Hyllus said quietly, glaring into the embers that seemed to tell his story. "But she knew what was out there. That's why that stupid witch left Myra to me."

"The waters," Din managed to finally whisper out, the static of the helmet masking the crack in his voice. He looked to the illusion of a deity seated next to him. "The waters are real?"

"Of course, it is," he scoffed. "All those fucking spirits ever brought me was misery. Now, they took away—took away my—"

"Hyllus," he said, trying to bring him to peace.

"I'm sorry," the king mumbled and took a longer gulp from the flask until the wine dribbled down the sides of his trembling lips. "I know she thought I was never there but, I was. I was always there."

Din didn't respond.

"While the others mocked her for her ways," he mused to the dark sky to no one or Din, he really did not seem to care. "I saw my little girl. My stardust, too bright for the dark planet."

Quiet. Still, unwanted quiet.

"Fuck the Ichor," he spat, livid yet soft. "Fuck everything she learnt. All they did to that girl was to take away the one thing she prized—her sense of humanity."

The child beside him was quiet, watching the king with peculiar and beady eyes. His mouth opened to let loose small babbles, teething on the ore, Mandalore-symbol lavalière that had belonged to him. 

"Myra," Din still, still an emptiness in his heart and numbness in his voice. The grief came in waves, sinking him but so did the appraisal. "Do you think Myra went in search of the waters?"

The king snapped his head to the Mandalorian. "What?"

"Well," he sighed. "You said witches seek the Ichor. What if she—"

Something flashed across his mind, a few words that Myra had said before her clasp on his had loosened. He found himself staring at his hands where Myra had once been, trying to remember what she ha said. It wants this, she had whispered. I want this.

"She said it wanted this," he muttered, puzzled and confident. "She wanted this."

A spark of hope; a ray of sunshine that was yet to be born; the king and Din felt it. Perhaps that was optimism, the apprehension of good things to come. So this was what Myra felt when she used the Sight; or when only it had good things in the periphery. It was a feeling he had not had in so long that it felt as extraneous as it was esteemed.

The woman gilded in gold wasn't lost, after all. He tried to convince himself with the fantasy—through hell and high water, he was going to use this rare opportunity. Steel his resolve and see the night with hope; not as a cerement of dusk or perhaps, a soft, velvet camouflage.

Was it mortality that was fickle or perhaps, it was death?

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🇹​🇭​🇪​
🇵​🇴​🇪​🇹​  🇫​🇦​🇩​🇪​🇸.
🇹​🇭​🇪​
🇮​🇳​🇰​  🇸​🇹​🇦​🇾​🇸​.

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»»————-————-««

Enveloped in a body of the most polished teal water she had seen, Myra sat up straight with the longest gasp of air she had ever tried to inhale. The water glistened like a liquefied speculum. It had wasted its turquoise to the twilight but in the effulgence, the ripples distorted; as if the lakes below them was quivering to expend the seasonal sparkles.

There were no winds, only the turbidity and the wetness that clung to her stark-naked skin. There was the light that emanated from under, as stars had embedded under the seabed, making her coffee-coloured skin seem like burnt sienna. 

Welcome, child. 

The golden witch thoughts were distorted to the point of illegibility as she caught the sight of more light. From above. Light reached neither wall nor ceiling, confining perception to the meagre ring of the flickering ocher cast by the brilliant moon above; beryl water sloshed against a linear layer of a lakeside that disappeared into obscurity before she or the notched snags of grain could trip from the obscurations above.

Her brunette, soggy hair clung to her neck and face like seaweed, tasting nothing but the clean water as she wiped a hand over her face and tried to discern the warm energy that warped her.

"Myra the Golden," a voice called out. "From the Cathedral on the planet of thousand moons."

Instinctively, her arms went to cover her naked front in a cross and tucking her neck. Lifting her eyes with a small glimpse, she caught the ivory skin and sanguine warp dress the woman wore.

"Luna," she whispered, her voice hoarse from swallowing murky water. 

"I knew you'd come," she smiled, stretching a hand behind her back. When Myra expected a blanket or a coat for her naked body, she had produced a silver, tubular metal hilt. An ingeniously crafted hilt of a weapon.

"The time is here, Myra," Luna voiced out taking a step closer as Myra struggled to climb out, fisting a hand over a tree branch to balance herself. The cave was quiet once more.

"Your final training."

"My Transference is over," Myra muttered in a breathless whisper.

"Transference was the beginning of the end, child," Luna smiled from between the moonlit, alabaster skin and a thick frame of mahogany hair. "It time to raise the Force."

"But the Ichor," she mumbled out, almost sounding like a helpless undertone. 

"The first in a generation, Myra," Luna said, a laugh lacing her voice. "The first witch to call upon the Force. The Ichor is proud."

She shook her head in refusal, overwhelmed. A frisson of terror wracked her spine, the chilliness of the spirits swathing her. Seeing this, the elder witch outstretched a hand for Myra to take. Myra clambered from the waist-high water and lugged herself out without shame of her nakedness. 

"There need not be any fear," she comforted her. "You will."

"I can't," she regretted. 

"You can," Luna held her hand tighter, in assurance and then let it traverse to her cheek to grapple it lightly. 

The frail hands of her mentor furled out to showcase the hilt. She nodded at her to take it but Myra, hesitantly, deliberately, unwantedly, placed a hand over the smoothness of the metal. Myra's slender finger, on instinct, slid around it and feeling the silk-over-glass feeling of the wondrous ingot. As if awakened with her touch, the hilt was stirred alive.

A golden stream of solidified plasma seemed to consolidate over the hilt, forming a glowing umber of powerful energy that emitted off a brilliant radiance. The light that was a shade named for her. A lightsaber crafted just for her.

"The Ichor chose you," a whisper lingered around the atmosphere. 

Weighing the melee weapon, she slashed it through the air and it sang a hymn of amateur apprehension before she allowed a few more elegant swerves of the weapon before aligning it. She held the gold-streaked lightsaber balanced, a flawless, resolute horizon; straightened perpendicular to her nose.

A strong grin split on her face as she felt the lightsaber gleam brighter upon her touch, it's light dancing off her dusky face. 

"The Destined One."

⫷⫷⫷

{ HOLY. SITH. Oh, wait, no, no one's bad here. HOLY. ICHOR. HOLY JEDI. HOLY FORCE.

but seriously, this has been spectacular to write about—the magic, the power, the light, the LOVE. these two have so much chemistry and Myra's power is just unchecked. it was different to bring these two contrasting yet so lively characters and I really hope this sets the tone for SEASON 2! 

anyhoo, thank you for the support, the tears, the laughs and the feels and I really hope that Myra and Din have caught a place in your large hearts. i love you 3000 and the Sight, Fate, Ichor and the Ways love you 3000.

I understand there have been speculations around the Ichor being "evil" but trust me, it's a sister force. A branch from the Force and as there might be a dark side *Wink wink* there COULD be a dark Ichor? I can't tell, really depends on the flow of season 2 :)

QUESTION: should I make a new book for Season 2 or continue over here? leave your thoughts in this in-line comment, thank you! 

OH, almost forgot *hehehe* ...... }

𝐌𝐘𝐑𝐀 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍.