Through the Ice Darkly

[Dash Pavan]

ITHOR CAVERNS
4.00pm local time​

Dash Pavan pressed himself against the hard rock, shimmying along the ledge beneath the waterfall and into the hidden cavern.

The hollow space behind the falls was a little secret of his, a place he had found weeks ago and one that would be perfect for what he intended. He was hidden and alone, far from the temple in a place no one would find.

He pulled the Winter Casket from his bag, setting the ancient holocron down on the rocky floor. He and Ezra (@Sreeya ) had explored it together last time, but his boyfriend was offworld right now and Dash wanted to try this alone anyway. The last time had shown the Casket could be dangerous and he did not want to put Ezra at risk again. He cared about him too much.

He took a few steps back, opening the Sayormi witch's book at the page he had been re-reading for weeks. Glancing down at the pulsing blue chest and back again, he began to read the passage aloud:

Across the years to times of old
to awake a power long since cold
Adam's flesh and Adam's bone
call to Winter's queen in throne
​

The Casket began to glow and hum, the power inside swirling excitedly

With creeping frost and icy splendour
invoke cold fire to make and mend her
hear the song and feel the breath
of Winter's queen who did cheat death
​

He gritted his teeth on the final word, scrunching his face against what might happen. For a few seconds the Casket just flared brightly, then a lattice of ice began to radiate it from it, spreading like wildfire up and out. It rose high, connecting with the ceiling of the cavern, a thick glowing wall of ice stretching up in front of him.

The Rhinnalian gazed at it in awe and expectation, wondering if he had perhaps misunderstood what would happen when the incantation was read out. But then he saw movement in depths of the wall, as if beneath the surface. A shape, no a figure. A figure with a face, eyes and bright white hair. A woman was gazing back at him, a woman no one had seen for three hundred years.

Jadis Charn.

 

[Dash Pavan]

Dash just knew it was her immediately, though he couldn't fathom if it was just some sort of memory or imprint. She was, after all, dead.

"Jadis?" he asked, keen for confirmation.

"My dear boy, I think you know who I am by now". He voice was soft and ethereal, with an otherworldly edge.

"But how?" Dash replied, eyes scanning the extent of the ice wall "you died a long time ago they say".

"Do they say three hundred years?" she asked, though her eyes flashed as if she knew the answer. "Well yes, something like that. But death need not be the end Dash, in so many ways. I left plenty behind - the book and Casket among them - you found them both. Well done".

Dash didn't quite know what to say. Jadis spoke to him with a familiarity, as if they had known each other for years. But he all too easily remembered what she had done to Ezra.

"You're not talking in rhymes" he said, jutting his chin at the woman in the ice "thought that was all you could do?".

"Dash..." she said, almost a hint of disappointment in her tone. "The wards I left on the Casket were just that, simple things with a simple purpose. I have not spoken properly with anyone since I left. But you have said the words now, and here we are..."

"So what's the point of it?" Dash asked, minding his words "bringing you back like this?"

She looked at him as if she could read his very soul. "So I can guide you, my boy. I made so many mistakes in my time; trusting people, trusting the Jedi, trusting love. You are making the same, but I can save you".

 

[Dash Pavan]

Dash did not think he had made mistakes, certainly not of the kind Jadis was talking about. Training as a Jedi had been hard, but brought him so much that he cared about now. No one he had trusted had let him down, far from it. As for love, how could she even know about that. It made him very wary of her.

"I'm not making mistakes" Dash said defensively "and even if I am they're my business. What do you know about my life!?". She was literally dead after all, wasn't she?

Jadis seemed amused. "You and I have a connection, Dash. Not just anyone could have understood the book, or found and opened the Casket. We share a past you do not yet know, and a future I am excited to see". Her eyes flashed with a dangerous look.

"A future?" Dash scoffed "no one can see the future". He knew it was not strictly true, he had read about the way some Jedi could see visions or portents, but he was not sure that amounted to much. Anyway, he did not like the way Jadis made all these pronouncements. She knew frack all.

"But I see yours" she replied, shaking her head. "You still have much to learn about the power we share. The knowledge you have gleaned from the Casket is just the beginning. There is more I must teach you, places we must unearth and awake". She seemed to grow larger in the ice, threatening to tower above him. "Give me your trust, Dash Pavan, and I can show you everything!"

Dash kicked out on instinct, his heel connecting with the thin ice wall and shattering it from the base. The image of Jadis vanished as the shards of ice tumbled violently to the floor, skittering across the rock.

The Rhinnalian stood there for a long time, not realising until now that his heart was racing. Jadis was a shadow and yet more intense than a real person. She might have answers he had wanted his whole life, but he worried what they might mean.

He packed up the Casket and headed out of the cavern back to the temple, quite unsure if he would ever try this again.