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For Unity by @jaywings and me

Rating: T Genre: Friendship, Angst Characters: urGoh, skekGra, skekSil, skekSo, skekTek, skekVar, urVa, urSu, urSol, urZah, possibly others… Warnings: A LOT OF VIOLENCE. Description: One was as vile and repulsive as his brethren. He murdered, and maimed, and reveled in it. The other was as slow and indirect as the rest of his brethren. He hated his dark half as much as the others did theirs. But who they were did not matter, for Thra saw its moment, and seized its opportunity.

—~~~—

Chapter 7: The Shard Calls to You Summary: In which the Wanderer must tell a story, and the Conqueror must heed a calling.

---~~~---

UrGoh had grown unused to traversing caverns.

He'd done it a few days ago, but he hadn't gone far inside, and only stayed long enough to give the Gruenaks directions. (He tried not to think about what could have happened if he'd stayed longer, if he'd bothered to make sure they would be safe.) Ages ago, he had once explored the vast caves of Thra, back when he could travel more easily.

No longer was he young and swift as he once was. His body had worn down with age, his bones growing heavy and his legs tired. This did not prevent him from wandering, of course, but it was harder now to move in cramped tunnels, so these days he rarely bothered. Besides, he had never felt that the surface of Thra would run out of incredible sights to show him anytime soon.

Now, however, he found himself stooping low as he squeezed through another narrow tunnel, clutching his satchel close to prevent it from scraping the walls. These places were not meant for Mystics, that was for sure.

But then, Mystics weren't meant for Thra.

Once again, urGoh looked down at the false crystal shard, holding it flat in his palm. It still urged him onward, deeper into the caverns. Luckily it had led him around the sole Gelfling settlement down here—not that Domrak was particularly hard to avoid—so he needn't worry about being found... not by Grottan Gelfling, anyway. A deep sigh escaped him; he missed the days when Gelflings were unafraid of the Mystics. Perhaps those days would return with time. For now, he had to resume his quest.

His impossible-sounding quest to heal the Crystal. However that was to be done. He hoped this little shard knew, or would at least lead him somewhere helpful.

Finally the cave widened again, and urGoh was able to stand up straighter and stretch his legs, only to pause as something caught his eye. The air here was damp, as were the cave walls and floor, the entire cave dotted with glowing moss. Illuminated in the dim light was the silver gleam of still water, stretched out before him as far as he could see—a giant underground lake.

The shard continued to point forward.

UrGoh approached the water hesitantly. It was too vast, and too dim within the cavern, to see the opposite shore—if there was one. This was... not something he'd anticipated. He was aware that there were many underground waterways in the Caves of Grot, but he hadn't thought his path would cross any of them. He was the Wanderer, not the Swimmer. And while he had run into urSan on a few occasions, none of them had involved swimming lessons.

Slowly he lowered his head and dipped his muzzle into the water, lapping up a few mouthfuls to ease his dry throat as he considered the problem. The water was cold and sweet, but the chill of it made him even less inclined to attempt a swim. How was he to cross?

UrGoh squinted at the water’s edge, trying to follow it with his gaze until it faded off into darkness—the glowing moss seemed to trail to an end at some point. Would it be possible to simply… walk around the lake? Surely it couldn’t be that far to the other shore, and it would be much better than swimming.

Steeling himself, urGoh set off, the echo of his footsteps the only sound besides distant drips of water. The lake was unnervingly still. And cold—he winced when he unintentionally swished his tail into the water. As he roamed farther, the path of dry land he followed narrowed, and the world around him gradually faded off into blackness until he was left utterly blind. His heart thrummed with fear.

“This… cannot be the way,” he muttered to himself. He clutched the crystal shard tightly—much as he would like to check its direction again, he could not risk losing it in the black lake… and besides, he would not be able to see which direction it pointed anyway.

Chewing at his lower lip, he swiveled his head around to see the faint green glow behind him. This could not be the way the shard was leading him. It was too dark to make out anything, let alone whatever the shard wanted him to find, and the path was now so narrow that he had both right arms braced against the rough cave wall and had to edge his way forward, his tail now dragging heavily in the water. He let out a breath through his nostrils. Perhaps a few feet further, and if he could still see nothing on the far side of the lake, he would turn arou—

Without warning, the ground beneath his feet disappeared entirely, and with a gasp he plunged into deep, icy lake water, and into muffled silence.

The shock of the cold drove the air from his lungs and seemed to momentarily paralyze his body.

How deep was it?! He couldn’t tell—his head was far underwater, and neither his feet nor his tail brushed the ground. The cave wall was gone as well; he struck out to his right, where he thought he’d fallen, but his hands scrabbled at nothing. Panic flared in him for an instant, and he accidentally swallowed a mouthful of water. Which way was up? He had to get to the surface!

With three arms he struggled in the direction he hoped was upward, the fourth hand still gripping the crystal close to his chest. But he jolted to a stop, blinking.

He wasn’t underwater anymore. He was sitting in a dimly-lit room, long, bandaged talons clutching tightly at bedsheets; his eyes were wide and stared fixedly at the opposite wall, decorated with paintings and what might have been dolls.

Instinctively, urGoh tried to take a breath. Cold water rushed into his lungs.

In the room, the creature whose mind he was inhabiting let out a gurgling gasp and flopped over in his bed, rolling onto the floor with a thump.

“Stop—” he croaked, clambering unsteadily to his feet and lurching toward a wardrobe, against which a sword was propped. He grasped the sword handle and attempted to lift it, but collapsed. “Stop—now—”

With force, urGoh ripped himself away from that room and back to his own senses, struggling toward the surface with all his might. For an instant the world around him went dark once more and he could feel the water, before he again found himself in the bedroom, staggering toward the other side of the room with a sword in his claws, swinging it randomly.

“You’re—going to kill yourself to get to me?” he hissed, and dropped to his knees. “But there’s a vision—you- you idiot—I did what you wanted—”

At last, urGoh’s head broke free of the water into clear air. He immediately hacked up the water he’d swallowed and drew in a long, deep breath, the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted, his ears ringing with a shredding sound like a sword cleaved through canvas, and a last shriek in that harsh, grating voice:

“They still live!”

“Hey!” someone said sharply.

UrGoh, caught completely off-guard, nearly submerged himself again. As it was, he strove to keep his muzzle above the surface, but he was quickly coming to realize that keeping himself afloat was not one of his best abilities.

“You! What are you doing?” the same voice said. There was a whirring noise, and a soft blue glow seemed to appear suddenly in front of his face: a young, green-skinned Gelfling girl, cupping a hunk of glowing moss in her hands. She wrinkled her nose at him, hovering easily just above the lake water. “Are you tryin’ to drown yourself, or what?”

“Um… well… no,” urGoh said. He hoped his body and lower arms were well-hidden underwater. From the faint light he was finally able to make out the cave wall, which he clumsily paddled over to and clutched at gratefully. “What… made you think… that?”

The girl rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. “Because you were just drowning a second ago, weren’t you? What’d you do, try to swim across the tarfing lake? What do they teach you Mystics? You’d have to have gills to make it across this thing, you four-armed scald-skin!”

UrGoh, somewhat stunned at being recognized but evidently not feared, was left with absolutely nothing whatsoever to say to that, except a simple, “...Language.”

The childling set her face in a pouty scowl, which was probably meant to look intimidating. “I’ll talk how I like to brainless nurloc pups who think they can breathe underwater. Why in Thra didn’t you wait for urLii?”

UrGoh stared at the girl, shocked once again. “The Storyteller... is here?”

No other Mystic had seen urLii the Storyteller for many trine. They all knew he lived… somewhere out of the Valley, but he was even more of a loner by nature than urGoh himself was, and it was easy to almost forget he even existed.

The girl gave him an odd expression. “If that’s urLii, yeah, he’s caretaker of the Tomb of Relics, across the lake. Aren’t you here to see him? Why else would a day-walking Mystic come all the way down here? I’m betting you weren’t sight-seeing, and there are plenty of rivers to go drown in on the surface.”

“I… do desire to see urLii,” urGoh said. This must be what the crystal wanted him to do!

The Gelfling nodded. “Right. I was just with him to talk about how the battle went, and for healing advice. One of the lords was badly injured earlier, you know. I’ll let him know you’re here and he can paddle out to get you. Don’t go anywhere!”

With that, she left him in the dark once more, flying off with a speed and agility that urGoh hadn’t known the Gelfling were capable of. He stared after her mournfully.

Where did she think he was going to go?

Briefly his muzzle dipped beneath the water again, and he strained to keep his nose pointed toward the cave ceiling. Well, he could certainly go down, he supposed. He would try to avoid that. Unsuited for swimming as he was, he had little choice in the matter.

In the cold darkness of the lake he waited, not knowing how much time was passing, before he heard the gentle splashing of water. In the distance he could see some faint glowing—the Gelfling again, he thought, but if it was her, she was surely caring a great deal more moss. Closer and closer the glow came, until urGoh was able to make out a boat heading toward him... and aboard it, not a Gelfling, but another Mystic, dressed in a ragged cloak covered in glowing moss. In two of his arms he gripped a pole he used for steering his boat, while the other two gripped the edges of it for balance. When the boat grew closer, the Mystic stopped rowing and let the boat drift, peering over the edge to regard urGoh.

"What does this Mystic do here?" he asked, tilting his head. "You do not look like urSan."

"No, urLii... I am urGoh." It was getting harder to keep himself above water; his legs and arms and tail all ached, and felt like they had grown heavier beneath the icy water. "Please... help..."

"The Wanderer has wandered into a pool," urLii remarked, and drew the boat closer. When urGoh frantically reached toward it, however, urLii held up a couple hands, imploring him to wait, and maneuvered the boat until it was nearly past urGoh. "UrGoh should not want to upset the boat."

"The boat... may upset me..." urGoh grunted, grabbing onto the side of it and clinging there, "...if I cannot get on...!" He began to haul himself up, grateful when urLii reached out to help pull him up, the other Mystic skillfully managing to keep the vessel balanced. Finally he toppled aboard, where he sat at the back end of the boat, panting and shivering. "Thank you, Storyteller."

A flutter of wings caught his ear, and, teeth chattering, he turned to see the Gelfling from before flying after the boat. "What a mess you are!" she cried, alighting between the two Mystics. "Who taught you how to swim?"

"N-no... one?"

"That explains a lot."

“Young Gelfling has done well,” urLii said, taking up his place at the front of the boat and starting to row again. He let out a chuckle as though something had just occurred to him. “Oh, what a funny coincidence. UrGoh, this is Argoh."

The Gelfling growled, turning to kick at the Storyteller’s back with a tiny foot. "Argot!" she said. "Princess Argot, if you must know."

"Oh... i-it is... good to meet you," urGoh said, dipping his head in a nod. He wrapped his tail around his body in hopes of warming himself. It did little to help.

"Given how clumsily you fell in, I don't doubt you probably hurt yourself," Argot remarked, holding out the mound of moss she carried as she stooped closer. "I have some supplies with me. Was gonna take 'em back to Domrak but I could spare a few to help a blundering Mystic. Looks like you hit your shoulder good, and..." She trailed off, brow furrowing as she held the moss closer. Slowly her gaze drifted from his neck, to his bandaged hands, and back to his shoulder, and urGoh felt strange. He hoped she didn't assume he’d gotten all these wounds from falling in the lake.

"Argot has no need for that," urLii said without turning. "UrLii has what is needed just ahead."

Shaking herself, Argot stepped back. "Right. Well, I'll leave you both to it, then." In a second her wings were back out, and she zipped away, calling over her shoulder, "Try coming back for a dip in the lake in summertime, urGoh!"

UrGoh watched the light she carried until it faded off, then turned back to urLii, still shivering.

"Where… are we g-going?”

"To urLii’s home."

The cavern was growing lighter now, and up ahead, urGoh could barely make out a landmass in the distance. Were they reaching the end of the lake?

"But..." urLii went on, and urGoh turned toward the glowing moss that coated the Storyteller's back. "UrLii wonders what urGoh is doing here, so far from the Brothers' light."

"UrGoh is—" He cleared his throat and drew out his little shard once more. Even now, it still pointed straight ahead. It seemed he was going the right way after all.

UrGoh glanced down at the cold lake beneath him, and frowned. He decided that he very much did not like following directions.

"I... am not certain yet... myself," he said, finally.

"Then we Mystics must make certain together."

UrGoh nodded, though urLii could not see it, and both Mystics fell silent throughout the remainder of their journey. It likely wasn't much longer, but urGoh was absolutely certain he had experienced an entire trine go faster than that stretch before they reached the other side of the lake. Part of him worried he would become ill if he did not warm up, though he hoped not. He could not, when he had such an important quest to complete.

The land where they docked was covered in mounds of glowing moss, as well as teetering piles of other things urGoh could not immediately discern. On closer inspection, urGoh could make out boxes, swords, masks, armor, and mountains of other objects, all piled onto shelves so densely it was a wonder they hadn't broken. Or well, that they hadn't all broken—some had clearly crumbled away many trine ago.

"UrLii welcomes urGoh to the Tomb of Relics," the Storyteller said, gazing about the place with a faint smile on his lips. "Here are many items of Thra's history... kept safe by urLii, who remembers all of their stories."

UrGoh drew in a shuddering breath, gazing around him. "Truly wonderful... but... how do you keep track... of everything?"

There was a pause before urLii spoke. "UrLii is the Storyteller, not the Organizer." With an irritated swish of his tail, he busied himself with digging through a moss-covered chest that sat against a large stalagmite, away from the rest of the relics. He tossed a couple of rocks toward urGoh without turning. "UrGoh will start a fire," he said, and resumed his search.

Well, the other Mystic didn't have to tell him that twice. With a hum of acknowledgement, urGoh stooped to pick up the stones with numb hands and began to gather a pile of dry moss and lichen. At least this was something he knew how to do.

It wasn’t long before he got a small fire started on the shore. He carefully encircled the flames with his tail, relishing the warmth that soaked into his clammy skin. Behind him, urLii was doing something that involved clinking and grinding and a lot of chanting.

A healer's chant, urGoh realized. Being a lone traveler, he was well-versed in healing herbs and remedies, but chants had never been his forte.

"You could... teach me how... to do that," he said.

The chanting stopped. "Healing needs only the right herbs... and the right song,” the Storyteller said. “UrGoh may sing with urLii." He resumed chanting where he'd left off, and urGoh tentatively hummed along from where he lay by the fire, self-correcting his notes and pitch as he listened. The pattern was more complex than he was used to, but he strove to commit it to memory nonetheless. The two continued chanting, even as urLii shuffled closer to pour the medicine over urGoh's wounds.

UrGoh’s singing faltered and he let out a long breath, stretching out in the warmth from the fire. It soothed his aching, frozen limbs, and the healing potion was cool on his wounded shoulder. Though, as those hurts faded, a new numbness seemed to grow to overtake him, an icy shell forming over his heart that would not be banished by a tiny campfire. It took him a moment to realize that urLii had stopped his chanting.

“Hm… thank… you,” urGoh muttered. Vaguely he thumbed the crystal shard he still held clutched in one hand, miraculously not lost in the water. It had been leading him here, but why? A heavy weariness had settled over his bones, making it difficult to think.

The other Mystic shuffled back into urGoh’s view and regarded him. “It seems to urLii that the Wanderer has more on his mind than hurting wounds,” he said, and paused. “You do not care that your satchel is soaked through?”

UrGoh gave a start and shifted his shoulder, sliding his forgotten satchel out from under him. “Oh…”

The material had been waterproofed for rain, not for an underwater plunge. He reached in and scooped out a sodden wad of pulp that had a few short hours ago been carefully-crafted bark paper, dropping it by the fire with a grunt.

UrLii prodded it with one finger. “This not what troubles urGoh, is it?”

“No.” UrGoh sighed, forcing himself to sit up slightly with a wince. “I have little room… in my heart… for poetry… now.”

“A sentiment shared by Grottans, urLii has heard,” the Storyteller said solemnly, reaching out to wrap urGoh’s shoulder in a clean binding. “And by those not Grottan.”

The healing chant had worked fast—there was almost no pain in his shoulder now. UrLii examined the old bandages on urGoh’s hands.

“Hands need new dressings,” he said, and a slight smile crossed his muzzle. “Many wounds. I did not know urGoh was so clumsy.”

“These are not… my doing,” urGoh replied, feeling slightly cross. He set to unwinding the stiff bandages from his hands.

"UrLii sees," the other Mystic said, drawing urGoh's hands closer. "UrGoh's shadow has been causing him trouble?"

Shadow. There was that word again. The wrinkles in urGoh's brow deepened as he let out a deep breath through his nostrils, looking away as the Storyteller worked at re-dressing his burnt hands. He found himself staring at his own shadow, his real one cast by the fire, glaring down at it accusingly. And then he blinked.

Hesitantly he reached up to his face with an uninjured lower hand, feeling around the end of his muzzle. It was still round, and yet... why did the muzzle on his shadow look... pointy? Triangular? And his mane, disheveled as it may be, surely did not have spikes—

With a sharp gasp, urGoh jumped, lashing his tail and staring wide-eyed at the shadow. But it was merely his own shape, now—it did not bear the features of... someone else. It had only been a trick of the light.

He would absolutely need to sleep soon—now he was seeing things! But to sleep in a cold, damp cave like this, rather than under the wide sky and stars... well, maybe it wasn’t so cold now. The fire was doing its work, and he was feeling less chilled, especially his tail. Or... actually, his tail was a bit hot. He turned his head to regard it—he should probably move it away from the—

"FIRE!" he yelled suddenly, pulling his hands away from urLii and stomping on his smoking tail tuft, sending a few shocks of pain up his own spine in the process. As soon as it was out he roughly dropped back down to the cave floor, breathing heavily. To his utter annoyance, urLii was watching him with a smirk.

"Yes. UrLii was correct. UrGoh is clumsy."

"Why didn't... you warn... me?!" urGoh growled, flat teeth grit against each other.

Now urLii looked somewhat taken aback, but replied simply, "UrLii was not finished binding urGoh's hands."

UrGoh was starting to get a sense for why urLii did not stay in the valley.

The other Mystic tilted his head, a slightly hurt look in his eyes. "...UrLii does not recall urGoh being angry."

Ah. That. UrGoh looked away, suddenly ashamed. "I... apologize. It is... new to me... too."

"Then, this is what troubles urGoh?"

"I...Yes. No," urGoh began, before slowly shaking his head. No, no more of this for now. "It is… complicated. I would like... to sleep."

The other Mystic regarded him for a moment before nodding. "Very well. UrGoh will sleep... and then give urLii a new story upon waking."

That sounded reasonable enough. Breathing out a sigh, urGoh faced the fire once more, keeping as close to it as he dared. He watched as urLii stoked the flames, keeping them warm, and stared at the shadows they cast on the nearby stalagmite and the distant walls.

UrLii's shadow was thrown wide and indistinct against the sides of the cave, ever moving with the flickering flame. And yet... as urGoh drifted off, he could have sworn it took a more distinct shape—one sharper and more dangerous-looking than any Mystic.

---~~~---

Darkness… a feeling like ice seeping through his robes, through his skin, settling deep in his bones... black water, surrounding him… drowning...

A tiny light glowing from the darkness, glowing moss… a glowing tree, a vine threaded around his neck, squeezing the life out of him…

A hunchbacked creature brandishing a tiny knife at him, its voice cracking as it cried, desperately, “Back! Back!”

A low, droning song—distantly, it soothed the pain in his shoulder, his bruised ribs and neck, his hands… but the noise burned, it seared his ears like fire—where was it coming from—?!

THUMP.

SkekGra jolted awake again, weak light from the first sun filtering through his window, and found himself sprawled on his own carpet with his sword clasped in his talons. He scrambled up clumsily, noting with a flutter of confusion that he was nowhere near his bed—it was across the room, and in a state of complete disarray. His bed covers were a tangled mess, draped off the side as though some incompetent servant had partially dragged them off and then gotten distracted. One of his pillows was shredded through, spilling downy feathers over the mattress. It almost looked like the scene of an attack, though there was no blood.

His grip on his sword hilt tightened and he cast his gaze around quickly, searching for a trace of any creature that might have made an attempt on his life as he slept—a Spitter loose in the castle, a traitorous Gelfling, or… or…

...or him…

SkekGra slumped against the wall, letting his grip on the sword slacken. His enemy had not been within the walls of the castle. And there were visions inside his head, again… Another dream. He closed his eyes against the images, massaging them with his knuckles, but it did nothing to dispel them.

“Curse Thra,” he hissed, opening his eyes again and scraping his talons along the rough stone of the wall. “For cursing me.”

Something caught his eye and he let out a sound of disbelief. Near him, his newest and greatest painting—his conquest over the Gruenaks—lay in tatters, savaged with a sword. His sword. He remembered now, lashing about in panic as water impossibly filled his lungs on dry land, and as a last resort he had cleaved his sword through the bloodstained painting. It was this that seemed to end the attack.

He had not returned to bed last night—he had slept against the wall instead, his sword resting on his lap, for all the protection it could give against an attacker likely thousands of miles away. He supposed he was lucky he hadn’t fallen on it when he’d awoken.

SkekGra stared at the destroyed painting for a long moment, his upper lip curling. What a waste of art. This all revolved around those accursed Gruenaks. What was so special about them?

How many of them had died for this painting?

With the now-familiar feeling of bile rising in his throat, he abruptly turned his back on the canvas and focused his attention on dressing himself haphazardly. His favored red robes were tattered but wearable (though they definitely needed mending soon). His armor, however, was dented in places and his helmet was missing, so in an uncharacteristic decision he went without. It was more comfortable anyway.

He did not look back as he swept from the room and into the corridor, heading for the banquet hall. Breakfast. Food and drink, to clear his head. And then the Ceremony of the Sun to restore his spirits.

He noticed immediately that he was up late—the hall was deserted, save for a few scruffy Podling-slaves cleaning up scraps from the table. SkekGra snatched up a few pastries dripping with glaze before the platter could be whisked away, scarfing them down. Their usual sweet taste seemed sour on his tongue.

“Lord Skeksis!” a Podling called from across the room, pronouncing the word with an “-ah” sound at the end in that irritating way they did. SkekGra swallowed hard, resisting the urge to spit the pastry back out, and turned to glare at the Podling.

“What?” he said sharply. The Podling-slave hopped across the room and came to a halt in front of him, looking like it was struggling to find the words.

“Gelflings!” it finally said. “Gelflings want see Lord Skeksis!”

SkekGra let out an impatient sigh. “Do you mean me specifically, or any Skeksis?”

In answer, the Podling confidently jabbed a nubby finger at him. “You Skeksis!”

Wonderful. “Agh, fine,” he said, and shuffled back toward the entrance to the banquet hall. Sure enough, he found three Gelfling guards—two Spriton and one Sifa—gathered in a corridor outside, the nearest permissible spot for Gelfling these days. They stood with bulky objects wrapped in clean cloths; seeing him, they bowed low, taking care not to drop their load.

“Lord Conqueror!” the Sifa said breathlessly. Her voice carried an odd accent that somehow made him think of crashing waves and salt crystals. “We hoped to catch you before your meal!”

“We have something for you!” one of the Spriton guards said. He was young, looking as though he could barely contain his excitement. Together the three guards pulled back one of the cloths, revealing skekGra’s helmet.

“We found it on the ground in the Caves of Grot, my lord,” the last Gelfling said. He seemed more refined than the other two, but no less eager. “We’ve cleaned and polished it for you.”

SkekGra took it in his hands and looked it over, surprise lighting his eyes. It was pristine.

“And your sword!” the Sifa Gelfling said. They unwrapped the other, much larger object and displayed another of skekGra’s swords—the one he had lost along with his helmet in the cavern with the Great Tree. The blade, like the helmet, had been wiped clean and polished to a shine. He placed the helmet on his head and gingerly took the sword handle, lifting it up. It felt… heavy. Much heavier than it had ever felt before.

“But you didn’t finish it,” he said blankly. His tongue seemed to stick to his beak.

The three guards glanced at each other. “Is- is there still a problem with it, my lord?” The Sifan asked uncertainly.

SkekGra couldn’t take his eyes off the blade. “This was drenched in blood. I can still smell it! Didn’t you clean this at all?”

He tore his gaze away from the sword to glare back at the Gelfling, and balked. As excited as they had been mere moments ago, they now looked terrified, as though frightened he would swing this sword in an arc and cut through their necks like—

A shiver of revulsion swept through him and he swayed slightly.

“O-of course, my lord!” the Sifa said, eyes wide, throwing herself into a bow. “We must have missed something—I’m so sorry—We’ll take care of it immediately—”

SkekGra shook himself, taking a step back. “No—no, I will take care of this myself. Thank you, Gelfling. You have done… adequately.”

The three guards, looking rattled, bowed again.

“Thank you, my lord,” the Sifa said, and the three hurried away to, skekGra assumed, their posts.

He shifted the sword hilt in his talons, staring at the blade as sick feelings stirred in his gut. “Some might say I own too many swords,” he mused. As he tilted the sword, the blade caught sunlight through the window and seemed to glint red.

Suddenly he didn’t feel like attending the ceremony this morning. In fact, he felt a strong urge to return quickly to his room, and stash this sword far out of sight until this was all forgotten.

---~~~---

Time was a strange thing to process, so deep beneath Thra's surface. Without the light of the Brothers or the movement of the Sisters as a guide, one unfamiliar with the caves of Grot could not determine what time of day it was, if it was day at all.

Such was how urGoh felt when he woke up, the cave around him as dim as it had been when he'd slept. Well... mostly, aside from the pile of ash that sat next to him—the remains of his campfire. So he must have gotten some hours of sleep. But whether it was enough to keep him going would remain to be seen.

As urGoh sat up and stretched, a musty, warm smell met his nostrils. Turning his head toward the scent, he spotted urLii heading toward him, carrying bowls in two of his hands. It was a different scent from the bitter herbal broth that urAmaj created in the Valley, but it was food nonetheless.

"UrGoh is awake," urLii said as he drew closer. "The Wanderer has slept right through the day. Perhaps he can now give the Storyteller a new story?"

Before answering, urGoh took one of the bowls, finding it to be filled with a dimly-glowing soup, and drained it. It had clearly been made at least partly from the glowing moss, and was sweeter than he had expected.

"Yes," he said finally, setting the bowl aside. "You... wish to know what upsets me." He shook his mane, afraid to look down at his shadow again. "It is half my shadow... and half this." Drawing out one of his hands, he held out the shard he'd been holding onto the entire time he'd slept.

UrLii plucked it out of his hand, turning it this way and that. "Hmmm. The Storyteller... may know a story about this. But first urLii must know the author."

"The shard comes... from the home of Aughra,” urGoh said. “I... sang to it... and it answered."

"Ah!" UrLii smiled, his gaze still upon the little crystal. "Mystics are not a part of Thra... and yet Thra acknowledges Mystics."

"It did." UrGoh hesitated, not certain how much he should tell urLii. No one would take kindly to the news he had to share. But then, urLii rarely spoke to any other Mystics, so at the moment he should only have to deal with one sour opinion. "It... gave me a vision."

UrLii said nothing, so urGoh went on: "Thra gave me... a vision... of a map. And the Crystal of Truth." Slowly he closed his eyes, remembering. "The Crystal... is cracked."

"UrLii knows this. Where does the map lead?" UrLii slurped noisily at his soup.

"Oh... it did not lead. It merely showed..." urGoh frowned. "It showed... the Gelfling tribes. And where they lived... and the map tore itself to pieces... and rearranged itself..."

"Interesting. Does urGoh think the Gelfling tribes plan to move at some point? Because urLii does not think the Grottan plan to leave the caves anytime soon."

"I... am not sure... what it means yet," he admitted. "I... think it may have something to do... with the Gelfling tribes... working together? Perhaps to heal the Crystal..."

"Hmmm." UrLii sat back on his haunches, setting his own bowl aside. "Healing the Crystal and helping the Gelflings... urGoh is surely not bothered by such a happy story. Perhaps urGoh is not telling urLii the whole story."

Well... maybe urLii was more perceptive than urGoh had given him credit for. "...Yes,” he said. “There is... another thing..." Hesitating, he looked down at his own shadow again, barely visible without the campfire, and found that while couldn't make out the distinct shapes... it still held itself differently from himself. He shivered. "Thra chose to show me something... strange."

"Strange?"

"Thra... seems to want..." A terrible burning welled up within his heart, even as he reflected on it. "Thra, who separated us to begin with... seems to want... the Skeksis... and Mystics... to unite."

"Oh."

UrGoh snapped his head up to look upon urLii again, but the other Mystic seemed neither surprised, nor horrified, nor angered. "...That... is all... you have to say?"

Lifting all four arms in a wide shrug, urLii cast his eyes upon the heaps of items scattered around the Tomb of Relics. "UrLii has studied many of Thra's stories, and come to learn them himself. They are all very strange in their own way—the tales of Gyr the songteller and his firca, the deadly islands bearing delicious fruit to lure in unsuspecting sailors… Thra's stories are always unusual... and at this point, nothing would surprise urLii."

For several long moments, urGoh held himself very still, looking urLii in the eye. "And... urLii... would take no issue... in standing with... skekLi?"

This finally made the Storyteller flinch. "I did not say—"

"Then why should I stand... with the Conqueror?" urGoh growled. When urLii did not immediately reply, he took a step forward. "The Conqueror... who bathes himself in blood? The Conqueror... who only travels so that he may find more to destroy? The Conqueror... who mercilessly seeks to slaughter the innocent... even after I have saved them—"

"The Wanderer... a hero?" urLii interrupted. "This is a story... urLii has not heard."

It was merely a distraction from a more difficult topic, urGoh knew, but he sighed. "The Conqueror sought... to conquer the Gruenaks. I rescued... some... brought them here... and yet..."

"Gruenaks?" urLii repeated. "A very interesting story you tell me..."

Before urGoh could reply, urLii was already turning around, heading elsewhere in the Tomb. UrGoh felt irritation crackling over him as the Storyteller ignored the point once again, and he followed after his fellow Mystic through the piles of what frankly looked like junk. "Hold on... I haven't... told you..."

UrLii stopped abruptly, swinging his long neck down one aisle of shelves pointedly. Initially urGoh opened his mouth to try to explain, once again, the point his fellow Mystic seemed intent on missing, but he found himself briefly following urLii's gaze.

And he froze.

Two figures were huddled at the very end of the aisle, against a stalagmite and between two shelves of artifacts, two untouched bowls of broth sitting nearby. One figure was larger than the other, but both were hunchbacked.

Gruenaks.

Specifically, two of the three Gruenaks he'd led here in the first place.

Eventually urGoh realized he was gaping at them, and his muzzle snapped shut. "How...?" he murmured. "I thought... I had seen the Conqueror..."

...The Conqueror...

I did what you wanted! They still live!

The words came back to him like a splash of cold water on his face. He hadn't considered them until now—he'd been more concerned on not drowning at the time—but it suddenly began to make sense, everything the Conqueror had been screaming at him during the brief, dizzying vision. The Gruenaks did indeed still live. Or... two of them did, anyway. The third, however…

He remembered the blood puddled among the roots of the tree.

UrGoh bowed his head. "I am... sorry," he said, unable to look the poor creatures in the eye. "I had... wanted you to be... safe... here..."

The creatures said nothing, only huddling closer together, and urGoh knew that no words would mend the deep wounds they had suffered.

Even if they had been spared.

He swung his head away abruptly, frowning at a dented metal shield on the ground. So what if the Conqueror had spared two of them? Did that make up for the hundreds, thousands of other creatures he'd slaughtered? Had he merely spared two to ease his own guilt, to tell Thra that he was good now?

But what Skeksis feels guilt to begin with?

With a rough growl, urGoh stomped away, heading back toward the ashes of the campfire. No, the Conqueror would never be anything but a murderer, no matter how many he spared on a whim during his bloodbaths. UrGoh would have nothing to do with him, whatever Thra said on the matter. He needed to get out of here.

Scowling, he looked down at one of his hands, confused to find it empty. Slowly he brought all four hands before his face, and gave a start, looking around for the crystal shard. Where had it—

A low chanting reached his ears, and he turned to see urLii holding out the shard, humming strange words to it. Now what was the Storyteller doing? UrGoh hurried over to him, suddenly worried that the shard would break. What did he think he was doing to it, anyway?

But whatever it was, it seemed to work (or seemed to do... something, anyway), for now the shard was glowing, emitting a faint, pulsating ringing noise. UrLii, done chanting, eyed urGoh as he held the shard out to him. "The Crystal of Truth... is not the only crystal... through which Thra communicates."

"And what... has it told you?" urGoh asked, taking the shard back and studying it. It was strangely warm in his palm, and glowing. The feeling of it seemed to calm the strange, foreign anger roiling within him.

UrLii gave him a look that urGoh couldn’t read. "That there is someone... who should speak with the Wanderer."

---~~~---

Candle light flickered over skekGra’s face as he squinted at his work, actively forcing his trembling talons to still. The darkness of the dead of night enveloped the glow from the candles he had set up so that he felt as though he was the only thing that existed, him and his disturbing creation that he fought to save.

The glimmering paint that coated the end of his brush was just that: dye, nothing more, made by crushing the inedible berries that grew near the river. But it was oh, so red. His mind was even half-convinced that it carried the putrid stench of death. But even the blood that he had painted with mere days ago held no such scent.

He had stitched up the tear with his best needlework, and pasted strips of canvas to the back of the painting to better hold it together, but with so much damage the image itself needed mending.

Sleep for him that night had seemed as far distant as the Field of Fire. He had found himself sitting on the edge of his bed in the darkness, still dressed in his daytime robes, his tail curled around his feet and his helmet clutched on his lap with shaking hands. At last he had given up all pretense of trying to sleep and had taken out his painting again with the intent to finish fixing it. He had already spent all that day on it, unable to focus on much else.

What fresh horror could possibly be waiting to befall him this night?

As if in answer to his question, a pinprick of sound chimed on the edge of his hearing, and his head almost involuntarily snapped up. What was that? It was like tiny bells being rung some distance away.

“Can’t be,” he said, his mind utterly blank. How could this be happening now? Now, with everything else going on? He knew what the sound was—he’d heard it before, though rarely.

The Crystal was calling.

SkekGra stumbled to his feet, setting the painting to the side and staring at the doorway to his room. The Crystal only called to the Skeksis in times of great importance, and it had never done so this late at night. The others would not take well to being roused from sleep so rudely. What could possibly have happened?

What if it’s about me?

Cold horror closed over his heart, briefly, before he forcefully shoved the thought aside, took up a candle holder and his closest sword, and hurried from his room.

The corridors leading down to the Crystal Chamber were dark and silent; he heard nothing but his own shuffling footsteps and the ringing in his ears. He paused, taking in the strangeness and straining his ears for any sign that the other Skeksis had woken. Surely skekSo and skekSil, at least, would heed the call, even if the others did not? Perhaps they were already down there, he convinced himself. Maybe the others were waiting for him. He quickened his step and soon found himself emerging into the dark chamber, illuminated only by faint moonlight and the pulsing purple glow of the darkened Crystal of Truth itself.

“Hello?” he couldn’t keep himself from calling out, uncertainly. There was no answer. There was no one else here.

The sound rang again, louder this time, and he focused his attention on the Crystal, moving closer to it. Once more the sound came, then it fell silent. SkekGra found himself standing directly in front of the Crystal.

“Hello?” he said again, this time with a touch of irritation. “What is this?”

When no immediate response came, he set the candle holder on the floor and paced around the wide opening to the shaft, glaring at the hovering Crystal. He stopped short, taking another look around the room to verify that no one else had come.

“You only called to me,” he said in a clipped tone, and his voice turned harsh. “You only called... to me.”

Again, there was no response. He hadn’t truly expected anything different.

“Why?” he hissed, baring his fangs at the silent Crystal. A flash of memory popped into his head, the sight of the great Crystal clasped tightly in metal claws operated by the Scientist. It didn’t look any worse for its ordeal, and at the moment he found he couldn’t care either way. He ventured as close as he could, his toes scarcely a hair’s breadth from the edge of the shaft, and spoke again. “Why call me? Hasn’t this world done enough to me recently?”

“Not… yet,” a low, familiar voice growled.

A cold spike of horror flared from skekGra’s heart and he stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over his own tail. He choked out a single word: “Wanderer?”

The surface of the Crystal swirled with light and color, and a Mystic’s face appeared, magnified tenfold and glaring down at skekGra with such intensity that he felt his breathing falter for a moment.

It’s a Mystic, he reminded himself harshly. It’s him, and this fool would never harm a crawlie. Moreover, this is a figment of your imagination.

He looked back up at the image of urGoh the Wanderer’s face. But he tried to kill me last night.

“...How are you doing this?” he asked lowly. He looked the Crystal up and down, gripping his sword tightly, but saw no ready answer. “And why.”

The Mystic was silent for a moment, his face rippling in the purpled Crystal. “This was not… my choosing,” he said at last. “After all you have done… The Conqueror is the last creature… on Thra… I would wish to talk to.”

“Then why are you?” skekGra demanded. He stood up straighter, wishing he had on his full robes and armor.

The other creature sighed heavily. “I have been… led here.”

“So have I,” skekGra muttered before he could stop himself. His legs cried with the urge to move, and so he did, pacing around the shaft opening again while keeping his gaze locked on the Crystal. The Wanderer’s face followed him from every angle, though the Mystic himself didn’t seem to be moving.

SkekGra found himself at a complete loss. He had never truly spoken to urGoh the Wanderer, never held a conversation with him, and in fact the only time in five hundred trine that they had encountered each other face-to-face had been the fateful Gruenak battle mere days ago.

His face hardened. “Do you even realize,” he said, his voice like brittle ice, “what you have caused with your stupid interference? What you have done to me?”

The Mystic’s dark, narrowed eyes seemed to reflect skekGra’s own anger right back at him... along with a similar feeling that he would never have expected to see in the eyes of an apathetic urRu. Hatred?

“Interference?” urGoh repeated, the word coming slowly. “What you would call interference… I call mercy… The very same that you… will never show…”

“Mercy is a weakness!” skekGra spat at once. His eyes involuntarily flicked down to his sword blade, which seemed to glow almost red in the light from the Crystal shaft. He swallowed; his hand shook. He hadn’t meant to grab this one. “...The Twice-Nine are not senseless killers,” he said, refusing to look back into those hateful eyes. “It is our destiny to rule across Thra. We would rather ally with its creatures than destroy them, but they sometimes have other ideas.”

He remembered the battlefield: sprays of blood, screams from Gruenaks cut down where they stood, even the little childlings and their caretakers, huddled in whatever shelter they could find…

“Murderer,” the Mystic growled from the Crystal. “I tried… to save them…”

“Those creatures were not yours to save!” skekGra snapped, though he felt a tremor of horror. He again saw a hunchbacked child crouching nearby, cradled by its sobbing mother and crying out for its father in a language he didn’t understand… “They deserved…”

The Wanderer’s eyes widened slightly, shining with a dangerous light. “They… deserved slaughter?”

“It’s not something that you would understand,” skekGra said, the corner of his beak lifting in a sneer. “But it hardly matters. They were spared. Two of them still live.” He paused thoughtfully, and looked up at the face of his loathed Mystic counterpart, his eyes narrowing. “But maybe I’m being too hasty, saying you wouldn’t understand. After all, you nearly drowned yourself last night, all to get to me.”

“That wasn’t… because of you,” urGoh said, then stopped and blinked as though he had surprised himself. It seemed too candid to be a lie.

SkekGra raised a brow. “Oh? What, then?”

“...I… fell in a lake.”

The two stared at each other for a moment. SkekGra fought to resist the bizarre urge to laugh.

So it hadn't been deliberate after all. The idea brought him a sense of relief, but it was strained by the fact that he was still in the presence of someone he would rather avoid. He could turn around and leave, but what if another Skeksis came in and saw his counterpart in the Crystal?

No, the Crystal brought him here for a reason. He would figure it out, and end this.

"Interference, mercy, whatever you want to call it..." he said, glancing aside, "it has done... something." Gazing down into the fiery shaft, he saw instead the dim glow of the Caves of Grot. "Something I doubt even you oh-so-wise Mystics would understand."

"Try... me," urGoh said, and skekGra looked upward, briefly alarmed to see urGoh's face grow larger in the crystal, as though he were leaning closer.

Shaking himself, skekGra straightened his stance, glaring at the dark face before him. "A tree spoke to me. And it... it gave me a vision."

UrGoh stared at him for a moment, then blinked, pulling back, as though surprised. "A... vision?"

"Yes. A vision showing Thra's eventual future." He brought his arms tightly against his chest, bowing his head as he fought to banish the terrible memories. He didn't want to think of what he'd seen, he didn't want to see—

“I… received… the vision… as well.” The words sounded labored, as though the Wanderer was reluctant to share them.

Snapping his head up to look into the Crystal, skekGra made to glare into the Mystic's eyes again, about to demand why he hadn’t spoken of this immediately, but the words died on his tongue.

Dark blood ran down urGoh’s face, originating from a deep wound bored into the top of his head.

“Not again!” skekGra shrieked, gagging and stumbling backwards. He nearly dropped his sword, and pawed at his own head with his other three hands, as though to reassure himself that he had no such wound.

"The vision... distressed you?"

Hesitantly skekGra looked back up to see that urGoh had returned to normal, just like the others had. The wound had never existed. On top of that, the Mystic's head was tipped slightly, with what seemed to be an amused smile curling on his lips. Suddenly shaking with rage (and... shame?) skekGra stepped forward, brandishing his tarnished sword at the Crystal. "Of course it did! What lunatic wouldn't be upset by those... those—?!" And yet still the Mystic looked amused. SkekGra hissed, mouth agape. "What is wrong with you?!"

"Oh…” urGoh said. “I did not know... the Conqueror feared... maps."

SkekGra blinked. "Maps?"

"Or was it the Gelfling... that the mighty Conqueror... feared?"

"The mighty Conqueror fears nothing!" skekGra snarled. But this was strange—yes, the Gelfling had been in the vision—he saw their demise. But would that not have distressed the nature-loving Mystic? And when had maps been any part of the vision?

"And what of you, Wanderer?” he found it in him to taunt. “Aren't you disturbed, seeing your precious Thra torn to bits, all life sucked out of it?"

The Mystic's muzzle snapped shut, all traces of amusement gone from his face. "What? No. I didn't..."

"Did you have the vision or not?!" skekGra cried, lashing his tail. "I know you saw through my eyes. I heard your voice."

"I did... but I did not see..." The Wanderer trailed off, his mouth opening and closing for a few moments as he tried to figure out what to say. Suddenly his eyes widened, and at the same time, skekGra realized what must be happening.

"We were given..."

"...separate... visions..."

SkekGra took a deep breath, trying to sort it all out, and before he could stop himself the memories of the vision came pouring from his beak—slowly at first, as he felt as though someone else were speaking, rather than him.

"I saw the destruction of Thra. The defeat of the Gelflings, the Podling-slaves, of all life. We Skeksis feasted and gorged ourselves on endless feasts and a strange new substance... and we rotted where we stood. Even in these past waking hours I have seen the General and the Collector crumbling to pieces, the Scientist with his eye plucked out, bloodied swords and puppets and paintings, and just now, you—" He stopped abruptly.

A silence hung between them, heavier than the weight of the castle itself.

SkekGra forcibly dragged himself back to the current situation, and harshly reminded himself of whom he was speaking to. "What did you see, Wanderer?"

The Mystic drew back, glancing aside, as though looking at someone else. "I... do not wish to discuss this..." he began, and skekGra felt his hackles rise briefly before the Wanderer went on, "...here. I should like... to discuss this..." He swallowed once, and skekGra could nearly see it trail down his counterpart's lengthy neck. "In person."

"What," skekGra said flatly, his beak dropping open. "I-in person? Why?"

"This is greater... than the both of us," urGoh said, staring into his eyes. "Greater... than you... or I. If we... are to solve this... we must meet... together."

Meeting peacefully with a Mystic. The very idea of it sounded almost... heretical. But the vision would not leave him alone. It returned to him again and again. Was he to go through the rest of eternity like this, constantly afraid that he might look up and see some new horror?

No. He would not put up with this any longer.

"Fine. Fine," he snapped. "We will meet..." He fumbled, trying to think of a place where they weren’t likely to run into other Skeksis. "At... at the border of the Crystal Sea, north of the castle. We'll meet there tomorrow, and end this."

"Very... well." UrGoh straightened himself, his image within the Crystal appearing frighteningly tall. "So... we shall."

The two regarded each other for a moment, neither of them moving. Finally skekGra clicked his beak. "So um. Get out."

UrGoh raised a brow.

"You heard me!” skekGra said. “We have our meeting set. I'll be there. Now go!" He waved his free hands in a shooing motion. "You'd better, um, get a head start." He glanced over his shoulder, half-expecting the blasted Chamberlain to be standing behind him.

"The Conqueror... seems... worried."

"Do you want us to be seen?!" skekGra hissed. "The other Skeksis won't be happy to see you here!"

"Won’t... they?" urGoh asked, and before skekGra could answer, he opened his mouth wide, his throat droning what was quite possibly the worst sound skekGra had heard in his long, long life.

Covering his ears, skekGra hissed at him. "What are you doing?! Are you nuts?" Still the Mystic went on, and skekGra raised his voice as high as he dared. "If the other Skeksis see us, I'll face punishment—and so will you!"

Finally the Mystic shut up, glaring down at skekGra. "I am not afraid... of punishment. I have borne... the same pains... you have... and I am not afraid... of more."

"You would be," skekGra whispered, turning away, "if you knew..."

The Mystic let out a snort. "I hope... the Conqueror... is not afraid... of our meeting, the way he fears... punishment."

"I fear nothing!"

He rounded back on the Crystal, but it was just that—urGoh's face had vanished. Staring at it for a few moments, he sighed, finally turning away. "Stupid lunatic," he muttered.

A loud clack echoed throughout the chamber, like metal smacking against stone, and skekGra froze.

He knew that noise.

"And whom, exactly, are you talking to?"

He knew that voice.

Slowly, clutching his sword as though it were his lifeline, skekGra turned around to find the Emperor himself facing him from the entrance to the chamber, polishing stone dust from his scepter.

For the first time in his life, skekGra fervently wished the Chamberlain was by his side once more—if only to help him talk his way out of this one.

#for unity

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