#when you find the meteorite site in the forest he writes that it “came from the heavens” | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

queenofcarrots · 6 years ago

Photo

Under the Orange Moon

A werewolf AU for Reylo Monster Week, Day Two. Based on H. P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space (also, maybe, a tiny bit, on Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation).

Thanks to @lovethemfiercely, who is my beta for all my Reylo Monster Week stories, and without whom I could not have finished this story! For @jesssssah, who loves Kashyyyk.

Also on AO3

Kashyyyk was not always a dead planet. When I lived there it had beautiful oceans, impressive mountain ranges, and of course the forests. Miles of them, green and vibrant, home to countless flora and fauna that depended on each other for survival. Those things are still there, although it is incorrect to say they survive. Nothing on that planet survived the corruption. So long ago, and I am one of the last ones living who saw all of it, remembers all of it; I am the only one who dares speak of it. I come back to Kashyyyk for every moonrise celebration but this year will be my last. I am old, so old; I will not live eight more cycles. So now is the time to write my memories, so they will not be forgotten, and everyone will know the true story of the fall of the Jedi, and the corruption of Kashyyyk.

After the fall of the First Order I went back home to live with my own kin. I had grandchildren, and all my cousins and their grandchildren, the whole clan living in our village nestled in the canopies of the wroshyr trees on the edge of the Black Forest. There was major deforestation during the Imperial occupation but it had been growing back, young trees but strong. My grandfathers would have been pleased to see it.

They came to Kashyyyk for the moonrise celebration, Ben and Rey, my best friend’s son and his mate: the last Jedi. Young people I considered my own family. The wookiees used to celebrate the two weeks of the year when the orange moon is closest, when it shines brightest in the night sky; every eighth cycle. We believed that this is the time when the power of the moon is the strongest, and it allows for communion between the energy on the planet and the energy in the sky. We had no idea how right we were.

On the third night of their visit we were awakened by a streak of fire in the sky and an explosion several miles into the forest. At daybreak Rey insisted on leading a group in, just to check it out, she’d said. Our Rey, no time to relax, always throwing herself into uncertain situations. I’d seen her do this before; this approach had worked out well for her in the past. She thought it might be a ship; someone needing saving, or perhaps something to scavenge. Old habits die hard.

Our clan’s wise women threw bones and saw nothing good. The elders forbade the pups from going, but when have children ever listened to adults? Ben certainly never listened to me. Or to his own parents, for that matter. Anyway, when you have the opportunity for an adventure into the Black Forest with the Jedi Queen and The One Brought Back From The Dark, the two most famous Force-users in the galaxy, nobody wants to hear a “no”. Who could blame them their hero worship? Had I been younger I would have gone along myself.

They left early, a small group including the two humans and three of ours: Grachiir and Wrrladdik, twin male pups from my cousin Chalmapia, and my own granddaughter Lofkabukk. They took food and water and the wookiees carried bowcasters, while Ben and Rey had their sabers. They planned to be back by early in the evening, assuming it only took some hours to get to the crash site.

They returned with news.

They had found the object that had fallen from the sky. It was a meteorite, not a ship, and they brought a sample of it with them. It was soft, and hot to the touch, the material unfamiliar to any of us, and it dissolved overnight leaving only a burn mark on the shelf on which it had been stored.

The meteorite had split on impact, and appeared to be hollow in the center although there was a sort of liquid which oozed out onto the ground from it, which they found difficult to describe. When asked to clarify the color of the liquid, Rey said it was unlike the color in any rainbow I have seen, and that it made her ill to perceive, although she found it difficult to look away. None of them dared to touch it. When we returned to the crash site with another group a few days later, the liquid had all escaped and presumably been drawn into the ground, so I never got a chance to see it myself. The meteorite itself grew smaller over time, and it was destroyed during a particularly violent lightning storm on the last night of the moonrise celebration, leaving only a charred hole in the ground to show it ever existed at all.

After the excitement with the meteorite things went back to normal, more or less. There was one immediate piece of excitement: Ben and Rey decided to stay on Kashyyyk. They said they loved the orange moon. It made no sense to me, but then humans rarely have. I was, however, proud that they chose our planet for their home. We helped them build a new house, like ours up in the tree canopy.

It was the start of the first orange moon cycle after the moonrise celebration when the beast attacked. Rey, Ben, and Lofka - who had firmly attached herself to them once they decided to stay - were hunting in the edge of the Black Forest when it happened. It came just as the sun was setting and the orange moon was rising, as they were packing up their kill.

The beast had attacked and Ben and Rey fought it with the Force but it was, apparently, impervious to their power. They had both been carrying their sabers out of old habit, but it also seemed to be immune to the weapons. (We just couldn’t hit it. Lofka tried to shoot it, Ben and I sliced at it, but it just moved around us.) Needless to say whatever this beast was, it had never been seen on Kashyyyk before. The beast itself was something of a mystery; they hadn’t got a good look at it, whether it was because of the darkness of the forest or something else. Rey could only say that it was hard to see, as though she was unable to view it straight-on, instead could only glimpse it out of the corner of her eye.

Rey was injured. She had a wound on her neck, like nothing I’d seen before: a row of round, red welts, like something that might be made by the suckered tentacles of a juvenile dianoga, but with tiny punctures in the center. She claimed it did not hurt, covered it with a bandage, and did not mention it again.

I suspected then that the beast was related to the meteorite, and it had not escaped my attention that the attack came at the start of the new cycle of the orange moon. But Ben, surprisingly, dismissed my concerns, saying it was probably some strange animal from deep in the forest, and the association with the moon was simply a coincidence. I allowed him to convince me, because he had the power of the Force behind him, and because I trusted him, and it was better to believe that it was nothing truly out of the ordinary.

Life continued much as it had, at first. We hunted in the forest (though perhaps not venturing as deeply as we might once have), visited the city, welcomed the occasional guest to our little village. Ben and Rey seemed to fall into a comfortable existence with us, spending long evenings in my home reminiscing about the past and planning for the future.

Since the attack we had all been very wary of the Black Forest, preferring to stick to the more friendly farms and fields that ran from the edge of this forest to the next. The Jedi, however, did not seem afraid. I would see them slipping in and out of the forest at odd times of the day, and sometimes they would go in the evening, after leaving my home. But the beast seemed to have disappeared, and since the humans were not afraid, this made my kin more confident as well.

The beast attacked again at the start of the second moon cycle. There was a family that lived on the very edge of the village, closest to the forest. The beast had, apparently, come into their home. They spoke of it as Rey had spoken of it; difficult to see, only glimpses out of the corner of the eye. It did not kill them, or even injure them, beyond the strange sucker-like wounds that they swore did not cause them pain. Indeed, their youngest pup claimed that the wounds felt good, but at the time we attributed that as a reaction to trauma.

The mother of the family insisted that there was more than one beast; she thought they were, perhaps, a mother and its children. She could not explain why she thought this, but she was emphatic.

Once we determined they were generally unhurt we took a village roll call and realized that several were missing. You will be shocked to hear that those missing were Rey and Ben, Grachiir and Wrrladdik, and my own granddaughter. They had shared an evening meal in my home, and then as far as I knew they had gone back to their own homes. Lofka’s mother was beside herself until they appeared, stepping out of the forest early in the morning. They knew nothing of the beast; they had, apparently, gone into the forest after they left us, and had spent a quiet night under the stars.

They were commanded by the elders in no uncertain terms that they were not to camp overnight in the forest again, until the beast was brought to bear. They promised, but there was something about all of them at that moment that unnerved me. Rey in particular was agitated; she was angry. Angry about the attacks on the village, she claimed, which she had come to consider her adopted family. She would not camp overnight, she said, but she would still go into the forest to try to track the beast, to find it before there was another attack. And Ben was very supportive of her; he grew even more quiet than usual, and did as she told. As a result of this, Ben and Rey began to become somewhat distant. They no longer spent so many long evenings with me in my home, and when they did they were silent more often than not; they preferred to be by themselves. Well. I may have been hurt but I couldn’t worry too much, because they did have friends. Lofka, Grachiir, and Wrrladdik, of course, but they were quickly joined by other wookiee pups; the young ones tend to gravitate towards each other, after all, and even by then I was considered an elder.

The first night of the third moon cycle, Rey and Ben took a small troop of wookiees into the forest in an attempt to head off the beast. This was done against the express order of the village elders; they simply disobeyed. The first time but not, unfortunately, the last.

The beast - beasts, by now it was clear there were at least a few of them - got through their barrier in any case. There were more injuries, amongst the group in the forest, and amongst the villagers. Ben received the signature wound, as did several pups who were with them, and two families who had been attacked in their homes. There were now a total of thirteen injuries from the beast, that we knew of, in the village.

It was only much later that I realized there were many more, even so early on.

The next morning the elders held a meeting to discuss what could be done about the situation. It was noticed that the beasts only left injury and never seemed to set out to kill. It was noticed that the beasts had only ever attacked on the first night of the orange moon cycles. It was noticed that, while there was at first a single beast, there were now certainly several, and perhaps more with each attack, although that was very difficult to tell. And it was noticed that still, after three attacks, no one was able to sufficiently describe how the beasts appeared, because it seemed impossible to actually see them.

We knew these things, but still had no idea what to do about them. There were more beasts but we didn’t know how many or how they multiplied. We didn’t know where the beasts went during the moon cycle. We didn’t understand anything about them at all; so all we could do is try to keep the village safe the best we could, and hope that some answers would come quickly.

Answers did not come quickly. They came slowly, but they hardly came at all. The next three moon cycles passed much as water passes, circling very slowly towards a drain. We were being pulled steadily downward, but the pace was slow enough that it seemed normal until you looked back to how things were before and realized just how very abnormal life had become. It was just slow enough to seem usual, like the way that children grow; you see them every day and they appear unchanged, until one day your son is taller than you and it’s a shock to realize how much has changed without seeming to. Every few days there was a new something, but they were small things, insignificant on their own. If there had been a single dramatic event, perhaps things could have turned out differently. Unfortunately that’s not how it happened.

Here are the facts:

There came to be something unusual about the vegetation in the forest. It was my cousin Kerriaddik who first noticed it, hunting a few miles into the forest with her grown cubs just at the start of the growing season. Some of the vegetation was growing wrong, she said. It was vibrant, almost too vibrant, but stank when cut. The small muja fruits that grow wild were vibrant but rank. She brought one to me; it was beautiful, but bitter and pungent to the taste, with a slimy texture, as though it was rotting from the inside. We also noticed, over time, that there were fewer animals in the center of the forest, and more along the edge. This was good for hunting, but it indicated a breakdown of the system of the forest, which was worrying. We posited that the strange vegetation was inedible to the smaller animals, and the larger animals followed them as they went in search of greener pastures.

We discovered that the trouble with the vegetation appeared to be centered at the meteorite’s crash site, and radiated out from there. I wish I could say we were surprised, but none of us were. We figured the liquid had somehow made it into the soil, poisoning the water that feeds the plants, and making its way into the plants themselves.

The animals, too, caused us concern. The usual birthing season for the arrawtha-dyr was during the the fifth and sixth moon cycles, and it was obvious to all of us that this birthing season was unusual. First, there were far fewer fawns than usual. Second, those we did see seemed… off, somehow. A bit like the plants, perhaps. They were especially beautiful, attractive, even, but uncanny in their attractiveness. You wanted to look at them, but you also wanted to look away and found that you could not.

They were also, we discovered to our horror, completely inedible.

Some in the village were unbothered. The Jedi, and several of the pups who had become their disciples, saw the concerns about the vegetation and the animals as a distraction from their focus on the beasts. Their focus which had become, over the cycles, somewhat single-minded.

This also happened slowly. They became more distant from me, over time, and gathered more wookiee disciples with them, over time. I do not use the term disciples lightly; at the end it did feel very much like a religion, or a cult. I thought this, but I dared not say it out loud. At first it was just the pups, but as time passed some of the older wookiees also joined them in their quest.

There continued to be attacks on the village at the start of each cycle of the orange moon. The beasts were able to get past the village’s defenders no matter what we did: setting up a defense line, heading into the forest as a defensive move, it didn’t matter. The beasts made it through, and every cycle there were more of them. Just so, every cycle there were also more defenders. Those who were attacked in particular became set on tracking down and defeating the beasts - understandably so, it seemed at the time. When I look back on it now it seems obvious: a large and growing group of individuals, single-mindedly devoted to this beast. They were seeking it, seeking it - all their thoughts were bent on it. They claimed they sought it to destroy it, but is there not such a fine line between loathing and adoration?

At the same time, there were other families who decided to leave. Most of them moved to other villages on Kashyyyk, but some of them - those who had not been physically touched by the attacks, only spooked by them - left the planet entirely. As more villagers relocated to other settlements around Kashyyk the corruption spread, a process that finally took years; more beasts, more families fleeing the planet. Eventually there came to be a sizable emigrant population of wookiees on Yavin 4, which is where I live now. Yavin 4 is a moon and has no moon of its own; it has proven itself to be a safe space for the former denizens of Kashyyyk.

Forgive me; I am getting ahead of myself. As we approached the seventh cycle, we heard word of other attacks during the first night of the cycle, similar reports of indescribable beasts in other villages around the edges of the Black Forest. Every one of them occurred where some of our former villagers had relocated. Well. What were we to make of that?

It was the start of the seventh cycle that finally tore me from my inertia. Things were getting worse, and it did none of us any good to deny it.

We needed to set up the guard for the start of the cycle, but I no longer trusted Rey, or Ben. Their focus on the beast was just too much to bear. They had been my friends, and of course Ben’s father had been my best friend for many years. I owed him much. But they were no longer the people I had known. They no longer spoke to me unless absolutely necessary; they sneaked into the woods, even camping overnight, against the express orders of the elders, not worrying if they were seen; and they had developed such a strong following amongst the villagers it was not worth arguing against them. To deny them the watch would also be to admit that something was wrong, other than beasts loose in the forest. So we allowed it. We had no choice.

First watch began as the orange moon rose high in the sky. Everyone except the watch was locked tight in their homes, high in the trees. The watch was on the ground, aligned along the treeline. I could see them by their torches. Yes… I was watching, peering down from the balcony of my home, my wife locked in the house tight behind me, which is how I saw it.

I saw the beast.

I can see how, being close to it, it would be difficult to perceive. But from above, as it lumbered out of the forest, I could get a sense of it. It was large, I think, and bulbous, with long tentacle-like protrusions that extended and retreated to no sensible pattern. It glimmered, an uncanny, unnatural glow, and it was, as I’d heard, a color I had never seen. Even from a distance, it hurt my eyes to gaze upon it.

I saw the watch move towards the beast, surprisingly unhurried. Or perhaps not surprisingly. Indeed, they appeared to welcome it, and as they welcomed it they, themselves appeared to change, in form and in color.

They became beasts too.

What could I do? I went back into my house and locked the door. I lay awake until morning, waiting for a beast to come to me, but none did. Whether it was pity on their part or luck on mine, I will never know.

The next morning I left. To my shame, I left alone, without telling anyone, even my wife. I did not know who I could trust.

I fled to Nar Shaddaa. Han Solo had maintained an apartment there, and I found it unchanged, although dusty from lack of use. It still opened to the same old code. Some things were dependable, at least.

I was petrified with terror. Separated from the environment, from the immediacy of it all, I could see just how bad it was, and how I had done nothing, nothing at all, to help. I had allowed it to happen.

I could go to the galactic government, tell them my story. They would go to the planet, meet with Ben and Rey, and be assured that everything was fine, was under control. Who would they believe, some old wookiee or the last of the Jedi? Who would you believe?

I did nothing. It was almost time for the moonrise celebration, so I waited. I waited until after the celebration was over, kept myself entertained by wandering the dark streets of Nar Shaddaa, watching the Holonet for any news of what was happening on Kashyyyk (there was none), even attending some of the darker clubs on the lower levels of the moon.

There were reports of a meteor shower above Kashyyyk. I returned anyway, to find the village deserted. Several of the other small villages along the edge of the Black Forest had been deserted, too. From signs at the treeline, it appeared that at least some of the villagers had relocated inside the forest.

I left again, back to Nar Shaddaa. Eventually that’s where Lando Calrissian found me. He pulled me out, gave me a job. Coming out of retirement saved me; gave me something to do, a way to keep myself busy, keep myself sane.

Eventually the galaxy caught on to what was happening on Kashyyyk. There were concerns about the growing emigrant population on Yavin 4; concerns about the evident breakdown of society on Kashyyyk itself. Everyone was relocating into the forests. There were various rumors; it was dangerous to visit because of some mysterious pollution that had suddenly sprung up. There was poison in the water. There wasn’t enough food.

Many stayed, apparently, although I never saw anyone when I returned. Every moonrise celebration over 170 standard years I have returned, and I have never seen another wookiee, or another beast. I notice the vegetation, still vibrant and sick, and the animals; all the animals, not just the arrawtha-dyr, have been touched by the corruption brought by the meteorites, the corruption made possible by the power of the orange moon.

This will be my last visit. Tomorrow morning I will say goodbye to my beloved home, and make my way back to Yavin 4, where I will spend my last months mourning my planet, and the Jedi, and waiting for death.

#reylo #reylo au #reylo monster week #reylo monster week day two: werewolves #werewolf au #lovecraft #the colour out of space #cosmic horror #lovecraftian #lovecraft au

36 notes · View notes