Alis had walked many worlds.
Few welcomed her.
Even fewer understood her.
But this world… this place—it didn't just allow her presence.
It saw her.
From the moment she had stepped onto its soil, the land had spoken. Not in words, but in shivers of energy beneath her boots. The wind here didn't simply blow—it circled. The trees whispered not with leaves, but with breath.
The Force was different here.
Not separate from nature.
But woven into it.
And for someone born of Dathomir, whose very bones carried ritual and rhythm, that made Elysiar feel… familiar. Not in appearance, but in essence.
She had expected to be an outsider.
She hadn't expected to be understood.
The city pulsed like a living organism.
Vines threaded through towers like veins. Water glided sideways across glass. Crystal pylons hummed with unseen power. But it was ordered. Not wild, like Dathomir, but not sterile either. Magic here was invited, not forced.
She watched the people—humans, elves, strange armored beings from other realms—all moving with purpose, without fear. No one looked over their shoulder. No one expected betrayal around the corner.
It was madness.
It was also beautiful.
Alis found herself drawn to the greenwork first—the outer district gardens, where nature met design. She spent hours alone, listening. Testing the earth. Touching the air.
It responded to her. Not with obedience, but with curiosity.
And she responded in kind.
Mara had watched her the first few days—silent, cautious.
But not hostile.
Their conversation came on the third day, beneath a spiraling crystal tree, where light refracted through its limbs like a thousand layered spells.
"You're not here for power," Mara said.
Alis smiled. "I already have power."
Mara's eyes glinted. "And yet you stayed."
"I want to know why this place called to me," Alis replied. "It's not the kind of magic I was raised in. But it feels… older. And more honest."
"That's what the Vault teaches."
"Then take me there."
Mara considered her for a long moment before nodding.
The Vault of Balance was not a temple.
Temples sought worship.
This place demanded introspection.
Alis felt it the moment she stepped past the threshold. The Force did not gather here—it folded. It twisted around itself like a braid, threads of shadow and light, of knowledge and instinct, of duty and choice.
She placed her hand on a panel near the entrance. It shimmered.
The room responded not with lights—but with memories.
Not hers.
The planet's.
She staggered slightly.
Saw a robed figure fall and rise, fall and rise—again and again—in training. Not to defeat an enemy. But to master herself.
Another room showed two warriors circling one another, neither striking. A test not of strength, but restraint.
This wasn't Nightsister doctrine. This wasn't Sith. This wasn't Jedi.
This was… unbound.
And Alis, raised on rites and tradition, found herself both challenged and awakened.
The Vault did not care who she had been.
It only cared who she chose to become.
Then came the event.
She had been meditating by one of the moonpools when the world shook.
The Force snapped taut—like a drum stretched too tightly.
And then it sang.
A column of light erupted from the center of the city. The song wasn't music—it was presence. It poured through the Vault like a tide. For a moment, every rune glowed. Every whisper stilled. Even the earth held its breath.
The Force was not calling.
It was welcoming.
Alis didn't know what had arrived. But it was not a summon.
It was a reclaiming.
The next day, she saw him.
Knight Artorias.
The name came later—spoken in reverence by those who knew the stories of other worlds. But Alis needed no tale.
She felt him.
The way the Force wrapped around his armor. The way shadows didn't fall on him, but bowed. The way animals, plants, buildings seemed to lean toward his presence without thought.
He was not of this galaxy.
But he belonged.
And Adam—quiet, composed Adam—walked beside him without fear. Without demand.
Their bond was not forged in hierarchy.
It was shared purpose.
Alis watched them from a garden terrace, Mara beside her.
"He's not just a summon," Alis murmured.
"No," Mara agreed. "He's a symbol."
"For what?"
Mara smiled faintly. "That the galaxy's rules don't apply here anymore."
Later, Alis walked alone through the Vault.
She did not seek answers.
She listened.
The stone spoke of sacrifice. Of strength. Of balance found not in compromise, but in motion. Of power, not as dominance, but as stewardship.
She knelt before an ancient glyph—a swirling spiral cut into the floor.
And for the first time since Dathomir,
Alis offered a quiet chant.
Not to ask.
But to thank.