The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Season 2+)

A New Song is Woven

Lore stood looking over the podling as he slept. They had been traveling for a long while and after a full day's worth of running through the desert, and climbing sheer rock faces, they had finally broken out of the sand and rock. They rested now, a bit into the Endless Forest, on the edge of it really. They still had a long, long way to travel before arriving at their destination of Stone-in-the-Wood. The stone golem wanted to keep going, but Hup had shown a lot of discomfort to being carried while trying to sleep and the idea was quickly scrapped. As of now, dawn was ready to break and the larger of the pair, who didn't need sleep, was waiting impatiently for his smaller companion to stir.

At that moment there was a creaking in the forest. The foundations shook in the earth and the trees groaned in a collective moan of agony. The sound and vibrations slowly stirred Hup from his sleep and he woke as the vibrations slowed. Lore looked around, focusing his gaze deeper into the forest. Something was happening. Something dark. And it was unsettling.

"Time?" Hup asked.

Lore used one of his arms to draw a rising sun in the dirt and Hup got the message. The podling's stomach growled as he sat up, prompting him to start a fire. He pulled out a pot from his pack and handed it to Lore.

"Water?" he asked.

The golem held the pan in his 'mouth' and made out for the nearest water source, which was a small river they needed to cross and then follow for a few miles. The animated statue dunked his head in the running flow of water and pulled it out. He carefully made his way back to Hup, who was busy trying to start a fire with some sticks he had found.

Hup took the pot and carefully placed the water next to him as he continued to fiddle with the sticks. Lore just watched on curiously as Hup twisted a smaller stick into a larger branch in a screwing motion until they started to smoke. The podling continued in his motions until there was a spark and a small fire started to burn in the divet he had created. He carefully laid small sticks and leaves on the small flame, careful not to extinguish it. The flames grew and soon enough the podling had a fire going and a stone was laid near the fire. He placed the pan on the rock and waited for the water to boil. Lore continued watching as the little creature made himself a morning stew.

Lore continued quizzically at the fact Hup hadn't entirely felt the shaking. And if he had, chalked it up to nothing but a dream. The podling finished his soup as the sun started to rise over the forest. He didn't seem in that much of a rush to get going as he sat back against a tree and pulled out a small journal and began writing. The paladin was...keeping a journal? That's what it looked like anyway. He continued writing and Lore just continued watching, waiting for his comrade to pack up his things and get moving again.

~~~

Hup closed his journal and slid it back in his pack. He reached for the pot, but found it was missing. Along with his spoon. He looked to Lore, who just stared blankly back at him, expressionless as, well, as a stone. Hup stood and snuffed out the fire with his boot, looking to see if the pot could have rolled away anywhere. Nothing. But he felt something. Like a tugging on his boot where he had snuffed out the fire. He looked down and saw a tendril of dark purple, like a crack in the earth, reaching up over his boot. Hup jumped away, kicking away his shoe as the darkening took hold of the sole engulfing it and turning it to dust. The tendril pulled away, back into the underbrush. Hup pulled his sword.

"Not sure what good that will do," came a voice in perfect podling language. "It's not exactly a physical enemy."

Hup looked up to see a creature perched in a crouching position on a branch over his head. They resembled a pluff'm, though their mouth was wider and they had two different sized eyes. One was considerably larger than the other and they were seemingly missing any ears. He had two horns however. One sprouting out over his brow and another sprouting from somewhere in his mane of dark brown fur. That was another thing; his wasn't green like a pluff'm. In fact, aside from the mane, he looked devoid of fur or feathers. And while a pluff'm would come to Hup's knee, this one was taller than he. And it was Hup who felt like a pluff'm with the creature's size. His legs and arms looked insectile. The knees and elbows looked like separate joints all on their own. The three toed feet were like a bird's, with two in the front and one behind, gripping the branch as a tail swayed behind him. Each hand had four digits including a thumb. The middle finger of his right hand looked double, if not triple the size of the one on his left. This elongated finger wrapped itself around the pot the Hup was missing, and the smaller, more evenly ratioed hand was holding Hup's spoon, and feeding the wide mouth.

"What are you doing?" Hup asked. "Who are you? And give me back my pot."

The creature looked at him and Hup looked back, forgetting his hand was still on the hilt of the sword skekGra had forged for him. The creature wrapped its tail around the branch it was perched on and lowered itself with its feet and free hand while it held Hup's spoon in its mouth and held the pot in his other hand.

"I am helping myself to the last bit of soup you were letting overcook and were about to throw away," the creature said. "If that is a problem-"

The creature handed the pot and spoon back to Hup, soup completely gone. Hup took them and made about packing, not turning his back to the creature, and Lore also watched. The creature walked up to Lore and ran his elongated finger through the engravings in the stone golem.

"skekSis," he said with a slight tone of disgust. "I recognize their work anywhere."

He turned to Hup, gesturing to his sword.

"And that I recognize anywhere as the handy work of skekGra," the creature continued. "With this evidence I am to believe that you are a skekSis soldier."

"I am no such thing!" Hup spat in response. "I fight the skekSis."

"Then why are you carrying a skekSis made sword, galavanting around on a skekSis made war machine?" the intruder asked.

"Gifts from skekSis friends," Hup answered.

"Aha!"

"But good skekSis," he clarified. "Not bad. Not like the Keepers of Crystal who want to drain Thra of its essence."

"So there are good skekSis and bad skekSis?" he asked. "Well that's new. And what do you know mother, I was right."

Hup just watched as the creature snapped its attention back to him after yelling to the forest briefly.

"I've been away too long," the creature said, a glint of anger in his two mis-sized eyes. "And there is much my mother and I need to discuss."

The creature looked at Lore, then to Hup before crouching down to the podlings level.

"I speak through you know to the Song of Thra," he continued. "Tell Mother Augra her son would like a word. If she asks where, tell her my cradle."

And with that, the creature jumped completely vertically into the canopy, lost to Hup's sight.

~~~

Mother Augra trodded her way through the underbrush. As she walked a sudden dizziness came before her. The world spun and shook her to her core. She inhaled deeply through her nose as she tried to steady herself. The eye in her forehead became shaky and she lost sight of where she was supposed to be going. The song of Thra had changed. Drastically, suddenly, and violently. She gazed back the way she came, placing a hand upon her chest to steady her heart. There was only one individual that could upend the song like that and make it change its tune. One with power and skill equal and matched to her own.

"Raunip," she gasped.

She hastily made her way back the direction she came from. Thra was leading her somewhere new in the opposite direction. Normally, this would be an inconvenience to her. But this time, she pushed on, unheeded by all the walking.