One second, there were three of them - Hush, Meatpie, and Lifesaver, in their little station near the battlefront, chatting around the fire.
The next…
Hush was the only one to make it through.
Notes:
For Day One of the Haunted Clone week
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
written for the haunted clone week day 7 prompt: force sensitivity as horror (for their free day).
warnings: mind manipulation, force bonds, force sensitive fox, angst, major character death (sid), ghosts (sid), themes of healing and recovery, intrusive throughts/mental health issues, happy ending.
word count: 5050
i forgot to upload this one to tumblr , oops! you can read it on ao3 here.
---------------------
The bond is forced on Fox as soon as Sidious learns (or is certain) of his force-sensitivity. This is a day of many revelations, the least of which being that his boss of a year now has been a Sith Lord the whole time.
The most shocking thing Fox learns is that his keen instincts, the instincts that have saved him so many times before, are not actually just down to his unusually good intuition.
They are down to his unnaturally good intuition.
The Force has been with him all along, apparently, and now it will be turned to the devices of the Sith. Fox is told that this should be seen as a gift. He should be honoured by the connection that the Sith forged between them with lightning and agony.
All Fox feels is exhaustion, bone-deep, and a sick sense of satisfaction that isn’t his own.
—
The intrusiveness isn’t the worst part of it. Fox had never had a private moment on Kamino, and had only had the barest of tastes of it on Coruscant. He could have dealt with something that was only intrusive; something that monitored him but did little else.
No, it’s the encroaching nature of the connection that he hates the most. It doesn’t just take, it gives something back in return, and what it gives is never welcome.
Sometimes the chancellor’s mannerisms bleed into his own. Fox will be writing something down and find that his lettering has changed since the start of the paragraph. He’ll notice that, on instinct, he has made his caff differently, or has picked out a natborn disguise with red accents that he’d usually avoid, or a dozen other little instances that he looks back on and cannot see his own logic behind them.
Not only that, but Sidious is ever-amused by his suffering, and Fox can feel that amusement echoing back at him, surrounding him whenever he is punished.
Once, when a trooper is struck down by one of the Chancellor’s favourite senators, Fox chuckles. The sound escapes his throat before he can register the driving force behind the reaction, and he hates himself for it regardless.
It’s a twisted thing. For Fox, pain brings him joy and hatred brings him strength.
There was a time where he had drawn his strength from his brothers. Now, that time feels lost to him forever, a distant and imagined dream.
—
The years drag on. Fox feels as if he’s losing more of himself with each passing day.
It would be better, he thinks, if the Sith was even putting effort into doing so. Instead it just seems to happen, as inevitable a thing as Fox’s pain is.
—
The Sith’s downfall comes on a day like any other, a surprise to both himself and Fox.
It’s a bit of a mess, to start with. The Jedi that arrive to arrest him don’t come prepared. Or, not prepared enough.
Fox has never been taught anything outright by Sidious, but he has picked things up, either through the bond or from the Sith’s delight in monologuing around people he deemed to be inconsequential.
Fox is going to bring consequences upon him.
He waits for an appropriate moment, and then does, so he has been led to believe, what Sith do best – he tries to murder Sidious.
Except, he wouldn’t stand a chance if he confronted the man directly, so instead he falls back on another classic technique: sabotage. If Sidious hadn’t wanted Fox to pick up his habits, then he shouldn’t have forced the bond on him.
It’s that bond that Fox utilises now. It’s only fair that Fox gives as good as he gets.
When the Jedi rally, Fox stops feigning shots at them, and instead focuses inwards. The bond is easy to tap into. Distracting Sidious through it is easier still.
The difficult part comes when one of the Jedi strikes Sidious down, landing a killing blow, and Fox has to untangle himself before the inevitable backlash–
He can’t do it.
When you turn to the dark side of the Force, you are taught to cling to the things that make you powerful, and never let them go. When Sidious falls, Fox isn’t sure who is clinging onto the bond harder, and they both go falling down to the floor together, even with only one of them bleeding out.
Caught up in his own head (and the dying thoughts of another) that he is, Fox isn’t even aware of the moment he falls unconscious.
—
Waking up isn’t an easy thing, either. Fox blinks, even his eyelids feeling heavier than they should be, and startles slightly at the unfamiliar surroundings until his memories come back to him in a rush.
A part of him is surprised that he woke up at all.
Then his brothers come rushing to his side, and he’s too distracted by their antics – and the news they share – to focus on that line of thinking anymore.
Apparently, killing Sidious had left the clones in a better spot than Fox could have ever imagined. Not only had they uncovered his corruption of the Republic, but they’d discovered a plot that would have taken away what little free will they had left. Fox, for once, gets to be the one who sits back and lets his siblings take care of everything, and simply basks in the aftermath instead.
Then, the conversation gets a little awkward.
“Hey, Fox,” Thire says, “I know you need rest, but there’s one last thing you need to know.”
Fox can’t help but feel a little apprehensive. Throughout this entire conversation he has been waiting for the other shoe to drop – waiting for someone to ask him just exactly how involved he had been with Sidious and his various plans.
“While you were unconscious,” Thire continues quickly, “the Jedi looked into why you passed out at the end there, as you did, and, well, we have some shocking news.”
Fox braces himself for the worst.
They must have sensed his rotten nature. There’s no hiding from a force-sensitive, he knows. His grip on his sheets tightens.
“Fox, apparently you’re force-sensitive. And not even slightly force-sensitive. The Jedi want to see if they could help you with it, in fact. They’re concerned it might have been bothering you, given how close you were to that old bastard.”
Wait. That was it?
Fox laughs so hard in response that he almost passes out again.
When his brothers ask for an explanation, he doesn’t give it to them, for once extremely glad of his reputation for unnecessary (always necessary, in his opinion) stubbornness. Perhaps the Sith wouldn't drag Fox down with him after all.
—
It takes a little while for Fox to recover, even after that. His long nights had caught up to him, apparently, and when they’d first found out the healers hadn’t been too happy with his ‘foolish use of the force to push himself beyond his limits’, in their words. In response he had earned some sympathy points through shamelessly lying, claiming that he hadn’t realised what he had been doing. He’d been left with no choice if he’d wanted to keep up and survive.
They double down on their offer of assistance. Fox doubles down on his insistence that he needs to think about it.
That last bit is true, actually. He does have a lot to think about… so much so that it definitely takes him longer than it would usually to notice the presence of something darker lingering nearby.
It’s not something that immediately concerns him. He has dealt with plenty of shades and remnants over these past few years, and doesn’t doubt that he’ll end up having to deal with more of them at some point. It’s the nature of Coruscant, for someone like him, who has dealt with and dealt out death since his arrival to the planet.
This one shade in particular is persistent, however, and refuses to be dispelled. It remains a second shadow dogging his footsteps, and seems to know exactly when it needs to disappear from sight to avoid any watching Jedi.
It isn’t until Fox leaves the temple that it reveals itself to him in its true – and horribly familiar – form.
—
Fox is given enough time for him to settle into his new quarters and for his siblings to all leave, before the shade pulls itself into the form of Sidious, grey and feeble. Fox should be surprised, he realises dully, but the shock never comes. A part of him must have known that he was not yet truly free. The part of him that had struggled to shed the bond, in the end.
“Finally…” Sidious hisses.
The sound is grating, but Fox isn’t sure if that’s because of his current state of undeath. He’s pretty certain that it has always been like that. He clamps down on the part of him that wants to wince.
“Did you really think that I would be–”
“No.” Fox cuts the phantom off immediately. “Absolutely not. This is not happening.”
Fox walks back out of the room. Predictably this has no effect, because the shade has bound itself to him and simply follows, but it feels good to be able to turn his back on his mas– his former master without having to face the consequences.
Does doing so also give him a minor heart attack? Perhaps. Does he give any indication of this? Not at all. Over Fox’s dead body, in fact.
Fox had lived. Sidious had not. Fox makes the rules now. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
The shade follows him into the living room. He’s talking at Fox again, and seems to be working his way up to a proper monologue, so Fox finds the sound system his brothers had left him with, turns it to a local radio channel, and cranks the volume up as much as he reasonably can without giving anyone else cause for concern.
Bits and pieces of the rant still filter through, complaints about his gratitude and his betrayal, but Fox refuses to acknowledge any of it. He should be free now. He has earned it a dozen times over. He refuses to let the Sith ruin his first day away from the temple, dead or not.
—
Days pass. Sidious doesn’t go away, despite Fox’s best attempts to shift him.
Fox is suddenly very grateful for the hours of meetings, and the invasive thoughts, and the endless lectures that he had endured over the past few years. It means that he is very, very practised at subtly zoning out and ignoring the man.
Eventually, Sidious gives up on ranting at him, apparently deciding to bide his time and deliver scathing remarks at more devastating opportunities. Fox might have been intimidated if the concession hadn’t been so pathetic in comparison to what he had been dealing with for years before this point. A ghost’s critique pales in the face of literal torture, Fox tells himself, attempting to push past any lingering doubts that the words churned up.
The phantom’s presence means that he finds it difficult to move on from anything. He struggles not to pick at his wounds, and now has a very good reason to distance himself from the siblings that he’d sworn to reconnect with.
The only mercy in the situation is that, while the bond is probably the thing responsible for Sidious’ continued presence in Fox’s life, it is now a broken, decaying thing. Although Fox cannot seem to be able to shrug it off entirely, the shards having embedded themselves in his consciousness at the time of shattering, it isn’t something that Sidious can freely manipulate anymore.
For the first time in a long time, Fox’s thoughts are completely and entirely his own.
(It makes the darker thoughts that much more terrifying, because there’s no one to blame for them but himself.
He could snap Cody’s neck from a distance with a thought.
Poisoning their weekly communal dinner would be easier still.
If he tripped Gree at the wrong moment, then their spar could easily turn bloody.
The possibilities are, apparently, endless. He just doesn’t know why they’d ever cross his mind.
Well. Fox supposes that he had known that there was something rotten in him. He just wishes that it was something that he could blame on the Sith.)
—
Despite not having a direct window into his brain, Sidious still seems to know when something is bothering Fox. It’s an irritating skill for him to have, and one day Fox snaps.
“You know what?” he calls out across the room, “The Jedi told me they could help with any ‘force problems’ I had. You’re a force problem.”
It’s petty, but not as petty as the current tactic Sidious has adopted of waking him as soon as he manages to sleep. The work around – forcing sleep upon himself via pharmaceuticals – isn’t worth the threat of turning them both over to the Jedi. It’s hardly the worst thing that Fox has had to resort to doing when dealing with the Sith.
The both of them know it’s a bluff. It doesn’t stop Sidious from insulting Fox ten different ways before he reaches the temple, regardless.
—
“I think their main values are loving everything and living in peace, right? That sounds real fun, doesn’t it?”
“It will be fun when they discover that you are the antithesis of their ideals. Going to them in any capacity is a mistake that I’m going to enjoy watching you suffer for.”
Fox rolls his eyes. His grip on the speeder’s controls tightens.
—
They don’t end up discovering anything at all. In the end, Fox is yet again the one who brings misery on himself.
Being in the temple is uncomfortable, with so many people around him trying to connect with him in some way. They never attempt to do so by force, and Fox knows that it’s most likely a subconscious thing, but the sensation is still too familiar for Fox to bear; a constant presence at the periphery of his unnatural awareness, the gentle pressure exerted by another mind like his that could just as easily turn harsh.
He wishes he could stomach it for longer, if only because it keeps the phantom of Sidious at bay, but he can’t. For too long, being in the presence of another force-sensitive has only ever meant danger.
Still, even if the temple as a whole isn’t Fox’s favourite place to be, he can admit that there is something relaxing about the meditation techniques that he learns there. Perhaps it’s the fact that they’re actively encouraging him to sit down and take a moment for himself – something that is still a novelty, something that still feels wrong, despite his siblings ganging up on him to enforce his extended period of leave after the end of the war.
They are infinitely patient with him, even in the face of his twitchiness. Patience, Fox has found, will never not come as a surprise to him, not when it is directed at himself.
—
The sessions at the Jedi temple proceed without incident, but they still seem to realise that he’s uncomfortable there, somehow. Fox would like to believe that he’s a fairly good liar, but apparently he’s not good enough.
They start to make excuses on his behalf to get him out of the temple. The healer says that it’s important to find somewhere that works for him, when it comes to his training.
Perhaps it’s because they’ve realised that there’s something wrong with him, he wonders, and want him away from the more vulnerable of their order. Then, he realises that he’s just echoing something that Sidious had whispered to him earlier, and grits his teeth. Fox isn’t going along with any of the old man’s ideas ever again, and if that means embracing hope and peace, so be it.
—
Fox ends up continuing his meditation sessions in one of the communal gardens the Jedi have set up on the level nearer to him. It’s still a very peaceful place, but there are far less force-sensitive presences nearby, and therefore far less pressure put upon him to keep up his mask of normalcy.
There are other natborns that visit and work in the space, but none of them ever intrude on him without warning, even when the Jedi aren’t there. It’s the most consideration that has ever been spared for Fox by anyone outside of his fellow clones.
—
Fox grows used to the peace of the gardens. Sidious calls him weak for caving to pacifist ideals when Fox knows the bloody truth of the galaxy.
Fox starts going to the gardens twice as often, even when he isn’t feeling up to facing a bunch of strangers. Kark whatever the old sith said. Fox isn’t weak. He’s the one in control now, and proving that fact is more important than being comfortable about something.
—
Fox grows closer to the other people that he shares the garden with, slowly but surely. Sidious calls him soft for accepting their gifts and allowing such a thing to even happen in the first place. Fox should know by now that letting people close to him only invites weakness.
Fox pushes down the panic, and embraces the presence of strangers in his life with open arms. He ignores every part of him that says they’ll be back soon demanding something in return. Something he might not want to give. He doesn’t know them, and wants to fear them, but he hates Sidious worse.
Besides, he had spent years of his life hiding his fear of the people that he had worked alongside. What are a few more years on top of that, now?
—
Fox goes to order himself a drink one day, familiarity drawing him to it, then realises that it’s familiar because it had been favoured by the Chancellor. He does not realise this, however, until he has lifted the drink to his lips and tasted the sweetness of it – it’s a taste that he has begun to enjoy, lately. He thinks he would probably also like this, if he gave it a chance.
He doesn’t. He pours the drink out onto the pavement and crushes the cup in his hand.
—
Sometimes it feels like Fox is just stagnating, when the meditation fails to calm his thoughts, and he cannot block out the words of his ghost. On those days, it doesn’t matter what Fox does to spite Sidious, whether he spends time with his siblings, treats himself to some new natborn cuisine, or any number of creature comforts that he never would have been allowed before – nothing ever feels good, even when he is sure that it should do.
The smugness of the phantom is palpable. Palpable and familiar. Sidious acts like it’s his fault that Fox is like this, as if he’s the reason behind fox’s misery, which is ridiculous, because he can’t touch Fox anymore–
This is what Fox tells himself, at least. He does his best to ignore the fact that Sidious’ confidence has rarely ever been misplaced, and that he is very confident that Fox is destined to suffer indefinitely for his betrayal.
—
Fox’s siblings never notice Sidious.
Fox isn’t surprised by this fact. None of his siblings know that they should be looking for anything, and the Sith are very good at hiding.
It had been a necessary skill for them to hone for centuries, and Fox had been no exception to that rule. He hides massive parts of his life, even now, in this time of freedom for him – even when it comes to the things that wouldn’t land him in hot water with the Jedi. It goes beyond masking Sidious’ presence in his life; beyond making sure his gaze never lingers on where the phantom stands, or that he never flinches at any of his remarks in the presence of his siblings. Fox finds himself hesitating before sharing the little things, too.
They talk about their own lives with an ease that always leaves him feeling wistful. One day, between movies, Thire quietly tells them about an incident that had occurred long ago in the senate building. Something that had haunted him, and had eaten at him, but he hadn’t wanted to share before now.
“I didn’t want to be another burden,” he tells them, then cries.
That’s another new thing, the crying. It isn’t that they had never done so before now, because they have always been people, after all, behind their helmets. The difference now is that they’re not rushing to wipe the tears away; they’re not helping their brother to stifle the sobbing, and quiet the clatter of his shaking armour, before someone outside of the Guard finds them and deems the obvious display of humanity to be an offence worth killing them for.
They don’t have to hide any longer. Thire cries, and his brothers can be there to comfort him, and to cry with him, openly and without fear.
This is the thought that lingers with Fox, as he sits alone with his phantom late into that following night.
—
The next day he calls a family meeting.
“There’s something I need to share with you all,” he says, and then he does.
He talks about his life under Sidious, without cutting out any of the shameful details. He talks about what he had done, everything that he had done, everything that he could remember – and some of what he suspected he might have done and had forgotten about. The memories of other crimes that could have been stolen from him along with his morals.
They listen. He hides nothing. The wave of panic that he had been expecting never comes, and he finds that he has braced himself for nothing.
—
He leaves their flat feeling lighter, a weight having lifted off of him.
“You shouldn’t be ashamed,” Thorn had told him, with the conviction that Fox had always admired in him. “You did the best you could with the awful hand that you were dealt, and you endured. There’s no shame in that.”
Fox has seen that conviction directed at innumerable worthy causes, all worthy of it, which makes it difficult for him to argue that Thorn is mistaken for directing it at him even as much as he might want to. So, he doesn’t. He lets himself cling to the words as he walks away, and smiles to himself as he goes.
—
“You did not mention me.”
Sidious had been silent for a long time after Fox had left the others. Fox had almost been starting to hope that he’d not have to deal with him that night. For some reason he isn’t as bothered by the phantom’s presence as he knows that he usually would be, however.
“I mentioned you plenty,” Fox bites back at him.
“You didn’t mention my presence now. You still know the truth of the matter.”
That Sidious still had some hold over him, the implication goes unspoken, and Fox scoffs at it before the usual instinctive spike of fear at such a thought even has the chance to hit him.
“I didn’t mention you now,” he says, “because you’re hardly relevant anymore.”
The words surprise the both of them, Fox suspects. Himself because he hadn’t realised that he’d thought as much until he’d said it aloud, and Sidious because he still seems disbelieving that Fox would ever show any sign of disobedience, even now, this long after his death.
“I can do with words what you couldn’t even–”
“If you could do anything more than insult me in one way or another,” Fox cuts him off, “you would have done so by now.”
This isn’t entirely true, Fox realises, thinking back on the months of pushing back against Sidious and his taunting, and the hours he has spent trying to ignore it all, but it’s worth saying for the hiss of anger it inspires.
—
Fox wakes up one morning, on a day that he would usually make his way to the gardens, and hesitates. There will be the usual crowd of people there, and he has a headache.
He should still go, a part of him says. He has pushed through worse before to spite his former master – but there it is again.
Spite.
Fox has spent most of his time as a free man, he now realises, doing things out of spite.
He doesn’t go to the gardens that day, or the next. Sidious mocks him, but Fox brushes him off. He isn’t relevant, he repeats to himself, and puts some effort into believing it.
When he does return to his usual haunt, it’s with a spring in his step. He had missed the place, he realises, even if keeping his distance had been the kinder option. Visiting the gardens when he’s in the mood for it leaves him feeling lighter than any of his previous attempts.
—
Once again, one of the other gardeners offers him something from their plot. Before, Fox would have taken it to prove he wasn’t afraid. Not of them, or of any consequences of favours they might have called on in return for the gift.
Now, he takes it because he has seen the time and effort that they put into growing their produce, and knows that they offer to share it because they take pride in their work, and that they value the opinion of the community that has grown alongside the garden itself. A community that they consider Fox a part of, for reasons that he accepts even if he doesn’t understand.
Community outside of his brothers is something new, and sometimes intimidating, but it’s not entirely unfamiliar. Fox makes plans for what he might be able to eventually grow and share in return, content that even if this ends up being nothing at all, there will be no lasting consequences from the people around him who are just doing this largely for the joy of it.
The phantom at his side remains silent throughout.
—
Fox and his siblings sometimes go out as a group and visit new places across Coruscant, when Fox is in the mood for it. On one such trip Fox tries something sweet, acknowledges that it’s something that the old phantom may have liked, and enjoys it anyway.
He faces his darker thoughts of violence directed at his siblings and pushes past them, reminding himself of the many opportunities he has had now to prove himself wrong.
—
When Fox isn’t in the mood for exploring anywhere, his siblings come to him. Where he had once pushed them out of his space, now he welcomes them, taunts about his lack of interior decorating skill and all.
The shade of Sidious still watches over them, lingering, but that’s all he is. A shade. He rarely steps out from beyond the safety of Fox’s own footsteps, regressing to the faltering presence that he had been in the early days of Fox’s freedom. The second shadow that follows Fox now is a sickly thing, and Fox finds it easier than ever to ignore.
—
When you turn to the dark side of the Force, you are taught to cling to the things that make you powerful, and never let them go.
Fox had once found power in solitude. He had held onto his anger at the natborns around him, turning a blind eye to those who were not rotten to their core even as they made attempts to reach out to him. He had kept his loved ones at arm’s length, fearing for their lives and putting that fear above their efforts to connect with him.
“Did you think about how your distance hurt us more than the danger ever did?” Thire had asked him, when Fox had caught himself starting to spiral and had decided to share his thoughts with his brother. “You faced down horrors for us that I still can’t imagine. Did you think we wouldn’t do the same for you, if we could? If you’d given us a chance?”
Fox had looked at him, and had gently bumped shoulders. “I’m giving you the chance now,” he had said, and meant it.
—
It has been almost two years since the end of the war. Fox sits in a space that he can call his own even as he shares it with other people, and feels content.
When he settles, he focuses first on his breathing, and then works on expanding his awareness of the world around him. It’s a different experience than the instinctive, threat-oriented thing that he had relied on to survive for most of his life. It isn’t a difficult experience, though. Not anymore.
Learning to reconnect with the world has grown to be a joy.
When Fox draws his awareness back to himself, taking as much time as he wants, he realises that the garden around him is silent – not completely, for there are still the usual distant sounds of speeders and people working on other plots, but there is no longer any background noise in the form of unwanted remarks or hissed insults.
Fox frowns. Then he turns his back to the sun, and counts his shadows.
There is only one: his own.
There is no phantom hiding in the shade of the building. There is no pair of yellow eyes watching him from a dark spot between the trees. There is only his own shadow, standing out against the morning sun that warms his face and body.
It should be more of a surprise, Fox thinks to himself, but it doesn’t feel like much of one at all.
Fox supposes that he had once acknowledged that the bond had been a decaying thing. And it was here, in this place, that he had learned how to help the more stubborn of composts break down with a little more ease - you introduce some variety, you put some effort into helping the process along. Nurture directed in the right places will get you to the end point of decay, and the results of this process can be used to grow something new.
Fox inhales deeply, and considers where he would like to direct his efforts next.
Here are the prompts for the Haunted Clone Week! There were so many good options and ideas, that we decided to give a total of nine prompts a day! As well as two Free Days, and a little surprise Bonus as well! Can't wait to see what they inspire!
Day 1- October 23rd
-Folklore, Mysteries and Regional Gothic of South America; Haunted Kamino
-Ghost Ships
-Time Loops
-Space Bermuda Triangle
-Dark Between the Stars
NSFW Prompt- Battlefield Sex
-"You said I killed you- haunt me then!" from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Day 2-October 24th
-Folklore, Mysteries and Regional Gothic of Africa; Haunted Christophsis
-Force Ghosts
-Left Behind
-Not Quite Human
-Bloody Hands
-NSFW Prompt- Blood Kink
-"Ghosts are guilt, ghosts are secrets, ghosts are regrets and failings. But most times, most times a ghost is a wish." (The Haunting of Hill House)
Day 3- October 25th
-Folklore, Mysteries and Regional Gothic of Europe; Haunted Umbara
-They Don't Know They're Dead
-Marching Far Away (But Still Beside Me)
-Body Horror -Please Not Again
-NSFW Prompt-Ghost Sex
-“I’m scared to close my eyes, I’m scared to open them. We’re gonna die out here.” — Heather Donahue, “The Blair Witch Project”
Day 4- October 26th
-Folklore, Mysteries and Regional Gothic of Australia; Haunted Felucia
-Ghost Stories
-Trapped and Not Alone
-Eldritch Horror
-Moonlight
-NSFW Prompt-Knife Play
-"Dozens of eyes looked out from the trees"
Day 5- October 27th
-Folklore, Mysteries and Regional Gothic of North America; Haunted Dothomir
-Mistaking a Ghost for a Living Person
-Marching Back (Dead Clones Coming Back)
-The Witching Hour
-Accidentally Cursed
-NSFW Prompt-Ritual Sex
-"Soldier keep on marching on/Head down till the work is done" - "Soldier" by Fleurie
Day 6- October 28th
-Folklore, Mysteries and Regional Gothic of Asia; Haunted Coruscant
-Haunted Space Ships
-Their Armor Holds Thier Souls
-Glowing Eyes in the Dark
-Fog
-NSFW Prompt-Possession
-"It seems to me that the dead only return for love or for revenge. Who did you come back for?" from White is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
Days 7 &8- October 29th-30th
Free Days! Have a prompt you liked, but wasn't included? Have a spooky idea that doesn't quite fit one of the other days? These are the days designed specifically for you!
BONUS!- October 31st
So, I apparently am not good at counting. Which gave us an extra day to the week on accident! So, we decided to do something a little different for the accidental bonus day.
Twist An Episode Day!
-Basically, it's take any episode of Clone Wars, Bad Batch, anything the clones are in and twist it so the CLONES are the ones coming out on top. Do something to an episode so that it's the soldiers fighting, not the corrupt leadership, who benefit. Preferably something a little out there, a lil spooky, but it can be whatever you want. Use the extra day so that for once, it's the clones winning.
-Links to Photo Prompts origins below
AA72 is one of the paintings that comes to mind each time the name of Beksiński is mentioned. We show it today thanks to the Historical Muse
The sculptures are on display in Slimbridge churchyard
Untitled - Abyss Of The Dead Painting by Zdzislaw Beksinski
He never speaks. He doesn't scream, he doesn't get angry, he doesn't blame him. And he never leaves. A quiet shadow in the side vision. He's just here.
What's done is done, and all that remains for Fox is a quiet determination to bear his responsibility, which only he can see.
Written for the Day 1 prompt: Dark between the Stars
@clonefandomevents
AO3 version here
Ponds is left abandoned in space after he is shot but that doesn't mean he's dead.
Ponds wasn’t dead. He should have been seeing as he had been shot in his head and then spaced. But somehow he wasn’t dead. The pain had been intense but then the cold had numbed it until it faded away. The burning of lungs without oxygen had done the same. He knew, logically, that without a pressurized suit he should have imploded or something but instead he just… drifted. Between specs of light he knew were lightyears away. He only felt cold and numb and… empty.
He had so much he had wanted to do still. He had a letter in his bunk that was unaddressed that still needed to be left on a certain other Commander’s desk. He had a little blue and white stuffed tooka doll that had carefully sewn jaig eyes on its forehead he had wanted to give to Rex. He had a tin of specialty caff he had forgotten to tell his General about that was supposedly both tasty and good for helping headaches. So much was left behind and all he could do was think about how now he’ll never get the chance.
It could have been minutes or days or years as Ponds drifted through space with his path fueled only by the momentum caused by being forcefully ejected from the ship and the gravitational pull of the nearest stars. He wondered if this was what death was. Was it your consciousness existing in your body even when all life in it was gone? Would he be trapped like this for the millions of years it took for his body to eventually get dragged into a star until he burnt away? Would he keep existing even then? Were stars filled with the souls of all they had devoured all watching without any way to cry out or be seen?
Another lifetime or just a few more minutes passed. The darkness around him seemed to cradle him like he was in some sort of dark water. It reminded him of being in a bacta tank and then it dug deeper and brought back memories he didn’t know he had of being in a tube floating in a warm thick fluid. It made him think of the first time he swam in one of the many irrigation channels on Kamino that caught rain water and funneled it into basins where the water could be purified into something drinkable for humanoid species. He had always loved the water. Cody had suggested they call him fish or frog but it had been Fox that came up with the name he kept. Ponds. It had been a joke. Something about how he was always calm when the rest of them weren’t and his love of water and something about mud had been brought up but he had liked it. He wanted to be a place his brothers felt at peace and safe. He liked the idea of being a little messy but full of life and surprises. Not as mucky as a swamp, not as grand as a lake. Just a little pond.
He missed his family. He missed Wolffe’s gruff love and Cody’s warm hugs and Fox’s sharp wit. He missed Bly running his fingers through his hair when he would rest his head on his brother’s thigh while Bly was working on a training module. How long has it been? Did they remember him? Did they cry over him dying? Bly definitely would have cried. Wolffe likely would have needed to punch something until all the feelings went away. Bly didn’t know how Cody would have reacted to the news. At this point so many of them had died, was Cody already numb to losing their brothers? Fox probably was. He had already told them how hard it was on triple zero and how fast they went through troops because the senators wanted them decommissioned any time they messed up. They all supported him the best they could but it was hard being so far away.
The darkness was growing. Ponds had been staring at the same little speck of light now for ages and it was getting dimmer. There was nothing else to do by this point. He had given up on trying to figure out why he was aware and he had gotten bored of hypotheticals on how his brothers were reacting to things. He had been trying to figure out where he was based on what he could see and what he had known about where they had been headed. He was pretty sure the light he was looking at was near Coruscant or in that same direction… maybe. It was hard to tell. He really was just in empty space. No planets close enough to make out. No stars close enough to be more than a distant dot. He started doing calculations on how long it would take for light from Coruscant to reach where he thought he might be on a galactic map and then subtracting that from the timeline he knew from galactic history to try to figure out when the light he was seeing might have been from.
Cody had always said he was a nerd. He liked math and equations and filling out data forms. He liked puzzles that could be solved and hard facts that added up nicely. He was proud of his scores in astrophysics. If his numbers were right then he was looking at Coruscant back before the cities were even first built. It would still have oceans at this point. If he could zoom in his eyes to see it in detail instead of just a white flickering dot, he might even be able to see land there. He remembered learning that the Taung had lived there first… those who would create the Mandalorians… would they still have been the primary species? It might have been from even before them.
A ship suddenly stopped near Ponds from hyperspace and he felt a tractor beam start tugging his body toward a cargo hatch. His mind had stopped processing things ages ago so he couldn’t remember if he knew this ship or not. It felt familiar.
“I have retrieved the body. The boy didn’t lie about the coordinates. It’s covered in… some sort of inky stuff but I’ll clean it before we arrive back at the temple so it can receive a proper funeral.” A familiar voice said as Ponds’ body was dumped on the floor of the hold. Ponds felt the pain returning and groaned, his body starting to spasm causing the being that dragged him from space to jump back in fear.
Ponds slowly came back to his mind. He was wrapped in cold but it was comfortable. He slowly moved his fingers and relaxed as they moved as he willed them despite now being the same empty black color as the space he had been left in.
“You’re supposed to be dead! How are you alive?!” A voice filled with terror said and he looked at them with eyes filled with starlight as their blaster shook from where it was pointed at him.
“I am dead.” He muttered and ignored it as the being shot him twice when he finally stepped forward. He took the blaster and snapped it in half with his hands like it was nothing but a twig.
He didn’t know what he was now but it wasn’t living and that meant he couldn’t die. Which was good because he had things to do.
“I already got shot, I’d like to not be shot anymore. Can you take me to my General Mace Windu?” He asked and grinned when the spacer nodded and ran for the cockpit.
