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

The Missing Piece

It had been hundreds, if not thousands of trines since he had last set foot in this castle. What was once a bright, shining, sparkling palace of crystal housing the Crystal of Truth was now a dark, dismal, enshadowed fortress which acted as a prison for the only enslaved that mattered. The almost divine, alien smell had rotted away to a putrid degrading rot that festered whenever it entered his nose. The cold stone sent a chill up his spine just from looking at it. The only sound in the entire palace he heard was the sound of his feet on the stone as it reverberated around the hallway. The rattling sound of a cart started to echo towards him and he jumped behind a jagged pillar in the hall, cloaking himself with his magic. The bag on his hip vibrating from the crystal shard heightening his power.

A pair of podlings pushed a cart filled up with food for one of the skekSis lords. He watched the two servants push the food without uttering a word or syllable. They made no noise whatsoever. He watched as they turned the corner down the hall and he uncloaked himself. He was close. Very close. He could feel it through the cloth of his bag as it radiated up his leg into the rest of his body. It was electrifying, and warm. It felt like a warm embrace from home. A home that wasn't his, but one that embraced him all the same. He rounded a corner and beheld the chamber.

He remembered the chamber had been bright with a crystalline white glow. The light refracted through the crystal structures in the walls and foundations, creating a visage of perpetually endless rainbows. The walls sparkled and glinted in the light with the tiniest of imperfections, which made the entire castle look even more beautiful. As much as he despised the urskeks, their architecture was true art. It heightened the beauty and gave the Crystal of Truth a deistic presence.

No he just looked in on a dark, dreary room. Dirt had accumulated on the floor, sweeping around his feet with every step he took. The tiny imperfections had caught all the dust from the air. The rainbows and light were gone, replaced with nothing but shadows. He walked forward and ran a finger over the wall. Though seemingly flat, there were many small imperfections he felt. One caught his finger and cut open a small cut. He pulled away and looked at the wound. A small droplet of his blood formed and he wiped it off on his pant leg. Under the dirt and the dust he saw the rainbow now muted to dark swirls, which told him that there was more to the darkness than just the grime. He got lost in the mandelbrot swirls as they pulsed and shifted with life.

There was a sudden jolt on his psyche that he felt through his feet. It shuddered the air as the entire castle seemed to pulse. He felt the vibrations in his bag as the shard began to violently writhe. And soon Raunip saw why. Mechanical groans, and vibrations shook the floor and echoed in the stone room. Metal clicks of gears turning got closer and closer and he turned to the sounds, which came closer and closer from the pit in the center of the room. The Dark Crystal rumbled up from the pit, grasped in two metal claws underlit from the burning magma that boiled from deep under the castle. Smoke flowed up from under the desecrated deity stone and pooled on the floor around it. A purple glow faded in from deep within the crystal as a hum filled the now occupied space.

"Lets put an end to this," Raunip said.

He reached into his bag and pulled out the shard. The warmth became a demanding burn. It wanted to be rejoined. So, so badly. The push became a pull, and the pull became another push. The pleading became a begging demand. The Dark Crystal hovered over the pit, glowing and humming its own melodious tunes and rhythms. It slowly spun along its vertical axis, rotating until a glint caught Raunips eye. A small, jagged divot where the shard had fallen out from when the urskeks cracked it many trines ago. An event he had warned Aughra about, and one he would now rectify for her.

He approached the crystal with reverence. Clutching the shard to his chest, the being carefully, and respectfully climbed up the crystal, wrapping his arms and legs around the stone as he shimmied his way precariously upwards, holding on for dear life and hoping his grip would last. He didnt want to make the long fall into the fiery pit of lava beneath him. Everytime the shard in his hand made contact it buzzed a jolt of energy into his body, like a small shock of electricity. He made it to the top, sitting on the crystal as carefully as he could. He took the shard in his hand, and like a key into a keyhole, the shard fit perfectly back in place.