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

Mother and Son

Mother Augra huffed her way up the hill. She had spent the past day and a half in a continuous walk through the forest. She was now coming up on the spot Thra was telling her to go. She came across a stretch of barren wasteland. A single strip of torn up dirt and stone. Augra took another huff of air and stepped onto the strip of waste. That had still not healed; a scar in Thra's mantle. She walked and walked and walked, the three suns burning down on her. She heaved her way along until she made it to the last challenge. She heaved her way up the embankment until she reached the top of the crater. A single tree with black, feathery leaves and orange polyhedral fruits stood in the center where the meteor had ground to a halt, and where she had found it. Before she formed it into him. She slid down the crater's side before standing on her two feet again. She huffed and puffed her way to the tree, landing her hand upon its bark before finally stopping to take a few heaving breaths. She spun to put her back on the black wood.

"So much walking," she heaved.

"Walking?" the voice asked from the tree. She didn't need to look to know who it was. He was perched in the top branches, back to her as he looked out over the crater to the west.

"You are Mother Augra," he sneered, picking a fruit from the tree. "And you can't handle a little walking?"

He hopped down and stepped around the tree to face her.

"Raunip," she said. "My son. It's been so long."

She made a motion to stand and move towards him. An embrace was in her intentions but the creature raised his longest finger, holding her at bay as he bit into the fruit. The purple juices oozed out and dripped down his chin.

"Save your breath, witch," he spat. "You are no more my mother than a toy maker is a parent to their creations."

Augra raised a hand to her chest.

"You know?"

"I've known my whole life," he said.

"Then you also know-"

"I'm technically eating myself?" he asked, taking another bite of the fruit. "Yes."

He walked around the tree as the suns slowly set.

"What was it I said?" he asked, watching the three brothers disappear one by one over the horizon. "Oh, yes. I remember. Don't trust them. They are not who they seem. Their intentions are ill willed. Meddlers and usurpers! Cast out by their own kind, exiled from their own world. And they would claim Thra as their own."

Augra closed her eyes.

"And what was it you said?" he asked.

She remained silent.

"What did you say!?" he shouted, suddenly in her ear, causing her to stumble and fall. He stood over her, his shadow cast over her as she lay before him. There was now a dark aura around him that she hadn't seen last time. The air around him was heavier than the stones beneath his feet.

"You...you know what I said," she stammered.

"But I want to hear you say it," he repeated.

"The uRSkeks are not of this planet," she answered. "Yes, they interested me. I wanted to get to know them. Learned what they knew of the cosmos."

He looked down on her as he took the third and final bite of the fruit, casting the stem aside.

"But it was your creation that warranted that curiosity," she said.

"Do not blame this on me!" he yelled, getting so close to her face that she could smell the otherworldly scent of the fruit on his breath. His voice seemed to echo through the sky as the last sun set and the darkness seemed to set in with a rumble. He backed off and walked around the tree again, placing a hand on the bark as he leaned against it to steady himself as he began to hack and cough uncontrollably. He couldn't stand to look at her mostly out of disgust, but also, Augra could feel, to keep himself from breaking. He was angry, and he had every right to be angry at her. But he was still a son to her, and they both felt that bond.

"Tell me," she ventured, standing back to her feet. "What has become of the Makraks?"

Raunip watched a great thunderstorm start to form over the mountain range to the east as it made its way towards the grasslands beyond Skarith's explored borders. He switched out his hand to lean on his elbow as he rubbed his head.

"Dead," he said plainly, rage suppressed to controllable levels that it was for the moment subsided. "Try as I could to help them set up a new life in the Field of Fire, the landscape was too harsh. Barely making it out alive, it had left me scarred and with burnt lungs."

Augra picked herself up and walked around to her son so they were face to face. He looked away, still frustrated, but she reached an old hand up to his face and turned it towards her. His eyes turned to look away, but he didn't move his face. The half of his face with the smaller eye looked melted. Twisted with healed and scarred over skin cracks. The normal curvature in his face had been twisted cruelly out of place. Their eyes met and he looked away immediately, another coughing fit pushing its way out of his lungs. She just watched sadly as her son doubled over, sounding like he was hacking up a lung. Raunip wiped his mouth before standing up to his full height again. He looked over his shoulder to his mother.

"How many more must die?" he asked. "How many more races must be wiped in the skekSis' campaign and genocide against Thra?"

"None!" Augra shouted. "No more must die. I won't let it happen."

Raunip turned his full body towards her and they stood face to face.

"None?" her son asked, raising his eyebrow. "What of the skeksis? How do you plan to stop them? If you don't kill them, their mere presence still poses a threat to Thra. Upsetting the balance. And how will the urRu respond to their other halves being imprisoned for the rest of their lives?"

"The urRu want peace," Augra said. "They want to rejoin with the skekSis and will see reason. Holding them will ensure they remain imprisoned until we can join them together again. I'll make sure of that."

"What about when they do join together?"

"The uRskekS were peaceful before the Great Division. They will be again."

"And how do you plan to join the dark half and light half together again?"

"The gelfling have the shard of the Crystal of Truth," Augra said.

Raunip's eyes immediately began calculating.

"Leave it to them!" Augra warned, taking a step forward and raising a cautious hand. "They have help from the Arathim Ascendency and the skekSis are locked in their castle for fear of their lives. They have killed two of the most deadly already."

Raunip stopped his calculations, eyes snapping to his mother.

"A small band of gelfling killed two skekSis?" he asked.

"The General was slain by Rian with the Dual-Glaive," she explained. "And Deet redirected the Darkening at The Collector."

"A gelfling that can control the Darkening?" Raunip asked. "She'll die."

Augra's eyes visibly saddened.

"Yes," she said. "Unfortunately unavoidable. An unkind fate. But a valuable asset for the gelfling."

"Who is the one with the shard?"

"Brea. She has been training hard for the moment that comes when the shard is to be reunited with the Crystal of Truth."

"Where are they located?"

"Stone-In-Wood-"

Raunip jumped into the tree and leapt high out of the crater without so much of a look back at his mother.

"Raunip!" she yelled after him. "Stop!"

She did her best to follow after him, but he was so spry. He landed on the rock and scrambled up and out before she reached the bottom of the upward climb.

"Don't behave too rash!" she continued yelling, gasping for breath as she clawed her way up. "The Song of Thra......is very...specific!"

He was lost over the edge.

"You aren't as attuned to hearing its music!" she yelled as she reached the top.

She pulled herself up and steadied on her walking stick, hunched over to catch her breath. When she straightened up to look for him, he was gone. She was left looking out over the landscape.

"Raunip please," she begged. But the feeble attempt was futile. She felt the song change once again.