The Last Edge: Prologue: The Warrior And The Witch

Pamarthe, Dath, circa. 35 BBY

(Around thirteen years before the outbreak of the Clone Wars.)

Seonac couldn't have told you when he first heard the story of The Warrior and The Witch. It was one of those tales that every child of The Crucible picked up somewhere between first steps and First Voyage. Though the unusual circumstances of Seonac's First Voyage probably meant that he didn't hear it until his return. And while his most vivid recollection of the tale was of it told by his Aunt Frey by the hearth one Hoglantine Eve, the hearing of it always brought him dreams of his mother, lost at sea.

This is how Frey told the tale that evening. Or rather, this is how Seonac remembered that Frey told it, and it is how Seonac would tell it to his own children in moments far away from this one. The smell of warm spiced food drifted from the kitchen with the sounds of his father and the other adults bantering and bickering about Senates and Councils. But here, in the hearthroom, Seonac and a gaggle of his cousins and children from more distant limbs of the family tree sleepily squirmed and settled around Frey on the sparskin rug. Seonac pushed his fingers deep into the fur as the peat crackled in the fireplace and the blue smoke stung his eyes.

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This was in the long ago. Before our first world froze and our people sailed among the stars and came to Pamarthe.

Pamarthe then was sky and sea. The world was protected by a warrior, the first Pamarthen – the Pamarthian. His bronze shield shone by day, and this was the sun. But the Pamarthian was not alone.

By night, the far lights of the stars were the dreams of other warriors in their slumber. Oftentimes, one would awake and challenge the Pamarthian to battle. The heavens would blaze  and the bodies of the challengers were cast into the seas below and they joined the bones of the land down in the deeps.

The Pamarthian's renown grew. He was chased across the night  and day by many suitors – other warriors and queens and kings and knaves and maids – all carrying betrothal lanterns, who wanted the warrior for a husband. And these were the many moons of Pamarthe in those days. But the warrior had no time for the softness of love and was cunning. If ever they drew too close, he would veil himself in darkness and so pass unseen. Maddened by their desire and heedless in their pursuit of him, the suitors clashed with one another in the skies above Pamarthe. One by one they fell into the seas below and they became the first islands. But they were barren, for they had been dead before they fell and there was yet no life in the seas.

One by one they fell, until one remained. A great lady of the sky who was a witch born of old magick. She knew how cunning and wily the Pamarthian could be and knew that she could chase him forever and never overcome him. Instead, she cast a band around the world, and she caught him in it, and he fell into a deep sleep. Quietly she approached his sleeping body and cast her own dark cloak over his shield and the land below slept for an age.

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The warrior awoke on the shore. He marvelled at the sound of the waves lapping at his feet and thought he had never heard any sound more beautiful. He was mesmerised by the movements of the sea and the wind on his skin and in the drifting fog he saw beauty. He would have stood there for another age of the world. 

But a great storm came then, and he recoiled in fear as the waves rose and the wind lashed and, in the storm clouds, he saw the witch and was afraid of her. He ran, but a great wave engulfed the land and swept him to the highest peak. As the waters washed back down the mountainside, he looked up and saw the witch standing close by, watching him. But she no longer desired him for she saw that he was fearful and wary, and seemed to only like her in her pretty moods. 

Disappointed, she turned her back on him. He made to chase her, but she was a raven and flew into the dark sky.

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For ages of the desolate and lifeless world the Pamarthian hunted for the witch. But she hid from him, for she had lost him his shield and because she resented that she was now trapped with him on this world.

Eventually, he saw her far off in a storm cloud above a mountain of fire. And when he caught up to her, he saw that she was in a deep trance. Her hands made strange movements in the air, her lips moved soundlessly, and she was encircled all around by bands of green mist. Believing that she was captive he rushed to free her, his blade drawn. The moment his hand touched the green mist the mountain shuddered, and his blade burst into green flame. The witch woke from her trance, enraged, thinking he had come to steal her power.

They fought then. And when the mountain fell into the sea beneath them, they fought in the storm clouds above. The skies roiled and flashed with their battle, he with his blade of green light, she with a whip of green fire in each hand. Where drops of his blood fell, new land sprang up from the seas. Where her blood fell, life blossomed, even as the storm raged on; the weeds of the sea, the fish and leviathan of the deep, the trees and the animals of the land, dull or quick, all came to be.

They fought for an age until, exhausted and bound together by the witch's green bands, they collapsed on a new shore.

When they awoke, they fell into each other's eyes and they each knew that they loved the other. They walked the new lands that they had created under darkness until at last they returned to the mountain of fire, shattered by their tumult. And they wondered that they had not met any people in all their wanderings; for all the life that they had brought forth, the world was yet cold and dark.

And the witch reached into the heart of the mountain and gave to the Pamarthian a shield, newly forged of their power, their regret, and their love. It was beautiful and engraved with their likenesses and the likenesses of the children they were yet to bear. And he cast it far into the sky and it shone as a betrothal lantern for them both and as a new sun to warm the peoples who would one day arrive and love the shores of Pamarthe as much as they.

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That night, young Seonac lay in the room that he and his father shared at Frey's homecroft during family gatherings. The smell of clovisroot still hung about his bed and the sounds of the adults talking and singing vespers drifted up from the lower rooms. As sleep took him, Seonac found himself on a small boat with a mast but no sails. He wasn't an infant, as he sometimes was in these dreams, but a young man. Something about his body felt strange, like the time he had a fever and felt that his limbs were too large, or not his own. On the prow of the boat perched a raven. Seonac peered over the side to see his reflection in the water, but the surface was not still, and the image changed with each ripple and bob. His mother was on the boat, and he looked up into her face. She was not afraid, but at peace, smiling. With a hidden blade in her right hand, she cut a swathe of green silk from the night sky. She wove a sail, and the winds took them where they needed to be.