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[pollywritesstuff]

Chapter 1: Into Ilum

No Warnings for this one!

Hi there, as some of you may know, I am a musician and music is a huge part of my life! I really draw a ton of inspiration of it for anything I create, with that in mind I am going to insert a good song/piece that fits with the chapter - Polly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlJGI_xkraY

'Rivers of Light' by Eriks Esenvalds, it's choral, but I definitely kept it in mind for writing this first chapter

Enjoy!!

Today was the day, and Maveera couldn’t remember the last time she rolled out of bed that fast. She peered into the mirror and scowled. She looked a mess: unruly hair and too big ears and a tangled, matted braid stuck to the side of her neck with sweat. Maveera shoved her fingers into the braid, peeled it from her neck, and attempted to detangle it.

She swiftly walked to the showers, fingers still worrying the knots. She stripped her sleeping attire off and quickly began scrubbing the sweat off of her skin. Now came the ordeal of her hair. Maveera ran her hands through the wavy strands before working the braid out of its gnarled knots. For a split second she stood under the water, letting it run down her back in cool rivets. The importance of the day ahead came to the forefront of her mind, she turned off the water, and began to towel off.

She gathered her hair into a neat bun at the nape of her neck, save for the short auburn braid sticking out from below her ear. Though short, Maveera was proud of her braid.

This was one of the first trips that she took off planet in recent memory. There was a nervous energy in the air, but Maveera tried to turn that energy into something determined and brave.

Some of her crèchemates and others she didn’t recognize had begun to gather at the predetermined meeting place in the Temple Gardens. She sought out a Mirialan girl she met when the group was selected for this particular trial.

“Luminara!” Maveera shouted, jogging up to the girl.

The Mirialan said nothing but gave Maveera a small wave and her characteristic polite smile . Maveera decided to stick with her as they loaded onto the starship.The two girls sat next to each other, preparing for liftoff. Once they had left the atmosphere, a teenage Twi’lek stood up, taking command of the room of 6 children.

“Hello everybody, my name is Jarai, the Padawan of Master Windu, and as you know, we are headed to Ilum,”she spoke with a posh accent, one that you could often hear in the upper levels of Coruscant. Maveera’s mind began to wander, curious about where Jarai was born -- maybe she was the child of a wealthy, upper level family? But she was raised amongst Jedi -- could she just naturally sound like that? Are accents genetic?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a tap on the back of her hand.“Come on, let’s go meet the person who’s going to help us build our sabers,” Luminara said with a hushed voice, full of excitement.

Maveera trailed at the back of the group, her heart was racing -- who was this Jedi Master that would help build her saber?

A tinny, accented voice rang out, “Welcome, welcome, young Jedi!”

The voice belonged to… a droid? The group fanned out so that every being in attendance could see and hear the speaker, a droid, not the sage old master that Maveera expected.

To her surprise, this droid had a wealth of knowledge and so much more character than she had thought -- he shared the basic composition of a lightsaber with the group and how hilts came in all different shapes and sizes.

The group began to disperse, separating into groups of friends, but several younglings remained, wanting to know more about the lightsaber building process. “Does my saber have to be silver?” Maveera blurted without much thought. A human boy a couple paces to her left snorted in laughter and she shot him a glare.

“Of course not, the hilt of your saber is completely up to your choosing. However,I should warn you against anything that is too complex, as this is your first time building a saber,” the droid responded, seemingly confused by her question, could a droid be confused?

“Oh, um, thanks...” Maveera trailed off, she hadn’t caught the droid’s name, her face flushed with embarrassment.

“Professor Huyang,” the human boy to her left whispered, just loud enough for Maveera to hear.

“Uh, Professor Huyang,” Maveera finished her sentence, much less confident than she was at the start of it. The droid looked at her with a tilted head, but then continued on answering the questions of the curious younglings.

Feeling embarrassed from the slight outburst, Maveera slunk away from the group, head low, trying to dissolve into the steely gray background. Her attempts were shattered by none other than the human boy who had kindly reminded her of the Professor’s name.

“Hello, my name is Obi-Wan, you’re Maveera?” The boy held out his hand, and Maveera shook it. How did he know her name? She had no memory of meeting this Obi-Wan before.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember meeting you before, did we have a meditation class together at some point?” Maveera inquired, unintentionally tilting her head to the side. Again anxiety began to fill her chest, what if she had met him before, and she just didn’t remember?

“No, I’d just heard it in passing the other day,” he said with a smile, sliding down the wall to sit against it, “You’re friends with Luminara, right?”

“I guess. I’ve only interacted with her a couple of times, since we aren’t in the same crèche,” Mav said, joining Obi-Wan on the ground.

His eyes slid to Maveera’s braid, “You’re going to be a Padawan early?” he questioned,”If I’m going to be honest, I was worried that I was never going to be picked.”

“Woah! You can never be picked? That really happens?” Maveera’s eyes went wide, suddenly feeling lucky that she had been picked before the rest of her age group. Obi Wan nodded, lips pressed together in horror. “Wow! I thought that was impossible!”

The conversation between the two died, the air buzzing with excitement. Maveera closed her eyes and tried to tap into the Force Maybe the solution to her nerves was to give in and be excited.

The tension snapped when Jarai called the group to their feet, “Alright young Jedi, we are just about to Ilum.f you’re sensitive to extreme cold, please be bundled up by the time that we land!” Maveera jumped to her feet and ran to the cubby that she had stuffed her heavy coat in. She gripped the sleeves of her regular robes and slipped her arms into the insulated sleeves of her coat, and tugged the zipper closed on the garment.

The group of soon to be Padawans had gathered on the floor, various quantities of layers on each of the younglings in accordance with their species' respective cold sensitivity. Maveera spotted Luminara towards the front of the pack, flanked by Obi-Wan, and wormed through the group to join them. As soon as the door whoooshed open, a dry, freezing air filled the cabin. Slowly but surely, Jarai pushed out into the cold, followed by a much smaller group of pre-teens, their mood rapidly dropping.

“Alright guys, I need your help to open up the temple, so we can get safely inside,” Jarai explained in an almost too excited voice, considering she must be just as cold as everyone else, “Together we need to lift this ice wall. I need your help, or you will not be able to continue on to the Gathering.” The group rushed forward to open the door, putting their hands on it to see if they could physically push it away. However, the solution wouldn’t be a challenge of physical strength, but the strength of their connection to the Force. One by one, the group came to this realization and spread out in front of the shard, and hands raised and eyebrows furrowed.

Maveera reached out with her left hand, pushing lightly at the sky, sending her energy out and towards the cool ice. It flattened out joining the concentrated energy of her peers. The group pushed and pulled, side to side, until they discovered that they could lift it. They focused their energy to the bottom of the ice shard, and slowly, the obstacle groaned up the ice shelf.

Jarai clapped her hands together, “Alright! Good work, friends, let’s head inside!” With that, the group shuffled into a long corridor. On the other side of that corridor, Master Yoda sat before a sparkling, frozen waterfall that threw gorgeous, glimmers of light onto the icy walls. The group gathered around the Grand Master.

“Little ones, sit and listen,” Yoda’s voice filled the entire cavern, drawing the group further in and down to his level, “Facing the trial of the Gathering, you will soon be. Into the underground of Ilum you will go. True to the Light, you must stay, for ahead lies a test of your connection to the Force.”

As Master Yoda spoke, Maveera felt a tug in her chest. Something- or someone- was calling out to her from just behind the frozen curtain of the waterfall.

Maybe it’s a crystal? Not just a crystal, but my crystal?

The sound of ice scraping against ice somewhere above the group rang out into the cavern, and ended with a click. An impossibly bright stream of light shot into the frozen waterfall, melting away the ice to reveal the entrance of the caves.

”Just in time, we are Padawans.” Yoda chuckled and struck his stick against the ice, “May the Force be with you, young Jedi. Await you, your kyber crystals do.”

The group stumbled to their feet and cautiously began to enter the cave.

“Be aware that you must leave the caves by nightfall, or you will be trapped inside the caves till the next rotation,” Jarai yelled down the cave, towards the group. Maveera could feel a wave of concern coming from the older Padawan, but disregarded it -- it can’t be too terrible, right? This is a Jedi temple, not the underbelly of Coruscant, a place the younglings were banned from going. If even possible, a colder gust of air hit Maveera’s face, and if she weren’t so excited she would’ve complained about it.

“Have you felt anything yet?” Luminara asked as the groups split and went down different pathways. Maveera had felt a tug before entering the cave, but now that she was finally in it, she felt nothing at all.

She shook her head and sighed, “No, nothing.”

“I haven’t either,” Luminara worried the edges of her hood. .

“Maveera- wait! I think I might feel something, in... that direction! D’you mind  if we split up even more?” Obi-Wan asked, his eyes gleaming in the soft light. Maveera and Luminara looked at each other, and came to silent consensus.

“Yeah of course, good luck!” Maveera said with a smile. Maybe she was a bit jealous, but she resolved not to let it get to her. She reached out further this time, letting her energy spread and push against the walls and ceiling of the cave. Once again she started to feel a tugging in her chest, a low deep melody coming from a turn in the pathway ahead. Without a word to Luminara, she ran. She heard the other girl yelling after, but it was drowned out by the low thrum of energy tugging at the core of Maveera’s being. The path she followed twisted down, the light disappearing completely, throwing the youngling into complete darkness. Maveera thought she felt something brush the back of her leg, and she whipped around.

What if you’re not alone? A traitorous voice in her head whispered.

Fear began to bubble up in her stomach, what felt like a cold hand wrapped around her shoulder and suddenly tugged her to the ground. The air was knocked out of her chest with a painful force: she wasn’t alone. The tug in her chest was unbearable, and seemed to keep her magnetized to the ground. She felt her attacker above her, something about this being rankled against her nerves and tore at her self control. Instead of expelling energy like most Force-wielding beings, this one was a vacuum.

What had Master Yoda said?

Stay true to the Light.

Maveera reached within herself, and found a wellspring of strength, pulling herself off the ground, breaking free of the magnetism of the cave floor. For the second time, she picked up a ruthless sprint, finding her way back up the deep tunnel that she had just raced down.

Even though she was going through territory she had recently passed through, Maveera didn’t recognize anything about the stretch of cave that she was in. The next step forward was met with an ice-covered floor.Maveera slipped and began to slide uncontrollably down the tunnel. She tried reaching out to the walls to slow herself to a stop, but she was going too fast and scraped her hands on the walls. She recoiled with a stinging pain in her palms. Zooming down the icy tunnel, Maveera caught a glimpse of Obi-Wan, and she yelled out to him as she wizzed by. Just ahead there was an opening in the tunnel, but as Maveera reached it she realized that this opening was a drop off. She once again reached out to the walls around her and fought through the pain, trying to slow herself down. However, her attempts were in vain, and she tumbled over the drop off.

Digging her hands into the rock just under where she had fallen from, she tried to climb. The cuts and scrapes on her hands hurt, and the pain was almost overwhelming. Out of nowhere, a hand gripped onto her wrist, and Obi-Wan’s face peaked out from above her. He helped her climb the rest of the way up and into the tunnel. The two younglings collapsed against the cave walls, out of breath.

“Now, how did you get yourself into that predicament?” Obi-Wan said with slight amusement in his voice.

Maveera rolled her eyes, not wanting to admit that she was running away from something. “I thought I felt something and began running towards it, and I guess that I need to look where I’m going better now, especially with all this- ice?” Maveera said, looking down at the floor that they were sitting on, expecting ice but there was none to be seen,“This is a really weird place, I just can’t figure it out.”

“Have you not found your crystal yet? I found mine right before I saw you,” Obi-Wan stood up, “Are you okay?”

Maveera stood up and began to think: maybe she couldn’t force her crystal out of hiding, maybe she just had to wait for it to come for her.

“Yeah, I will be.. I’m glad you found yours though… Did you do anything specific to find it?” She asked, maybe Obi-Wan could help her figure it out.

“I don’t know how to explain it, but I just… felt it. I’m sure you’ll find yours, Maveera,” he responded, “I’m going to head to the entrance; may the Force be with you,” and with that he turned the corner and was gone.

Maveera exhaled, and returned to sit cross-legged on the floor. Maybe meditating would help calm her nerves and just maybe reveal the path she needed to follow.

Once she had settled, Maveera began to sense the distant calls of kyber crystals. It sounded like music. Some of the crystals held a high, repeating counter melody, fading and growing around the constant sound of the Force. The girl slowly rose to her feet, hearing the call of a beautiful, woeful tenor. Without opening her eyes, she followed the sound.

Again, she found herself traveling downward, into the depths of Ilum. The shadows consumed her small form, but this time she didn’t allow her fear of the dark to pin her to the cold ground. The tenor voice was joined by so many more, all woven together in perfect harmony. The sheer amount of sound, plus the constant thrum of the Force was too overwhelming, and Maveera opened her eyes.

The dazzling glow of the ice was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen and Maveera was mesmerized. She ran her hands along the translucent walls of ice and felt the smooth cold under her fingertips. Shaking out of her enchantment, Maveera once again started her search. Despite the frigid temperature in the cavern, she felt a warmth radiating from behind her. A small exposed gap of rock broke free of the ice, and embedded in it a gleaming crystal. Maveera reached out and reverently pulled the crystal from the rock, letting the heavy warmth of it rest in her palm. A faint echo of the tenor line rang through the icy cavern.

With her strength renewed Maveera began towards the entrance of the caves, the path suddenly much clearer than it had ever been before.

[pollywritesstuff]

I’m super proud of how this turned out, especially the hands!!! This is the “cover” for my fan fiction, I’ll be posting it soon on here just so it’s on multiple platforms :)

[pollywritesstuff]

Here’s the piece that I created for my Instagram hitting 100 followers, feel free to take a stab at it if you’d like!