Dark Crystal: VotSatE: End

Dark Crystal: Visions of the Start and the End

End

One thousand trine had passed since the Great Conjunction had brought their band of urSkek to Thra. Now, the Great Conjunction had returned for the second time, according to Aughra.

TahTao took the star staff in his hands. TekTih and Aughra had crafted these to help focus the pure energy of the Great Crystal into themselves. This would, hopefully, erase their impurities. Then they would enter the crystal and return home.

That was the plan, as outlined by SoSu almost three hundred trine ago when it was devised.
Now the time had come. The nineteen urSkek drifted in a circle around the Great Crystal. Aughra and her son watched from the sidelines. The three brother suns were almost lined up. Once they were, the plan would fall into place at last.

TahTao could barely contain his excitement. Home, they were going home. All this anger and destruction and violence would finally come to an end. They would be pure and peaceful and return home to their quiet, monotonous lives of study. He would never again complain about his routine or life.

ZokZah called out a count. The suns were almost in position. Star staffs were lifted, held into position.

With a burst of light, the Great Conjunction began.

The Great Crystal became a brilliantly glowing beacon, hot white. The staffs, each studded with a large crystal at the end, took on this same brilliance. TahTao shuddered, feeling heat inside of him. The impurities were being eaten away, erased. He smiled, body being pulled toward the crystal by its own gravity.

He was going to go home.

Someone close by was talking. TahTao pushed away his joy and cracked open his eyes, head tilted from the light. SilSol was a few spots down from him, hunched over and clutching his head. He was talking, hissing, yet TahTao could hear him as if the other was right next to him. Up above, near the open shaft that the sunlight poured in from, Raunip too spoke.

Raunip had had it out for them early on. TahTao did not know why. The misshapen child had set the Gelfling against them at one time and seemed to persist in harassing SilSol, who he had dubbed Dark Heart. Aughra tried again and again to drive her son away, to make him see the cruelty in his actions toward them.

If Raunip recognized what his actions did, he certainly did not care to correct himself.
SilSol spoke louder now, angrier now. Others turned to watch him, distracted from the purifying light that was drawing them in. SilSol had dropped his staff, too engulfed in yelling. It scared TahTao. SilSol needed that staff to get home, to be pure.

“SilSol,” he tried to say, to warn him. “The staff!”

“Is there no place in all of the realms of the crystal where a single being will show me compassion?!” SilSol howled.

Something was arching up from SilSol’s bent back, a writhing white form. Beak and claws. It screamed of danger in TahTao’s mind. It scared him.

“SilSol, stop! Forget Raunip! We’re almost done and then we will be home!” TahTao cried, begged.

“Is there truly no love for me in all of creation?!” SilSol raged, the form spilling from his back thrashing wildly like a living thing.

TahTao made to speak, to beg more, only to cry out. The light from the crystal, gentle and warm, suddenly became hot and agonizing. Cries of confusion and pain erupted from the rest. TahTao wanted to pull away but the crystal’s tug was too powerful. He could not escape.

Something thrashed from his back. He felt like he was burning up, melting. Being torn apart. It was horrible.

TahTao screamed as the light became too blinding. Then he knew no more.

The next time he opened his eyes, he was not one.

He was two.