Vol had seen much violence, deceit, ugliness, and brutality in his day. He had seen, and sometimes committed, deeds such as evisceration of the body and torture of the mind through the power of the dark side. He had seen bodies explode into tiny fragments, watched powerfully intelligent people reduced to gibbering idiots when their minds were destroyed thought by thought.
And he shrank back in horror now at the monstrosity revealed to him.
Before him was a nightmare. Her hair was long, twining tendrils of hideousness, her eyes sunken and yet bright as tiny stars, her mouth widening, widening, until it split her face. She laughed, the tendrils reaching out both physically and in the Force.
“Silly Vol,” she said. “To imagine, even for a moment, that anything human could even conceive of the vastness that is Abeloth, let alone trap me for your own tiny-minded purposes. Now you shall die, and your world shall become mine. I shall be unto them Protector and Destructor both, and there is nothing that you or any of your little friends can do to stop me.”
The tendrils were on him now, slithering into his mouth, his ears, his nose, caressing in a strangely appealing manner even as he cringed back in loathing.
It was a dream, he knew, but it was more than a dream as well. And even in such an in-between place, Vol knew what he had to do. It terrified him, but the thought of being destroyed without a fight by this vile thing terrified him even worse.
He had to dive inside that mind.
He took a precious second to wrap the Force around him like a blanket, then unshielded his mind and opened it to Abeloth.
In her arrogant glee at the ambush she had performed, she was reckless. She surged forward, violating his mind, unaware that this was precisely what Vol wanted. She had given him entrance, and he wasted not a heartbeat in opening up to the ugliness that was within. Like a thief with the law on his heels, Vol plundered swiftly, with no care for delicacy or of discovery. And he found unexpected riches.
Anguish. Loss that ripped and tore at the heart of all that was Abeloth. Betrayal. Need—need!—for companionship, for love, for someone, anyone, anything, to adore her and to never, ever leave. To stay with her forever …
—Don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave me—
Something that was part of her, that she had loved with all that was in her, was gone, gone beyond finding again, and someone would pay, and she would be loved and idolized and worshipped, it was right, it was what should be, what would be—
He felt her astonishment, and then fury, and knew he was discovered. The tendrils were no longer coyly teasing and caressing. They were violent and brutal now, wrapping about his throat, invading his body. He resisted and went on the attack. There was a wound, visible as something black and bloody and infected, in what passed for a soul or a heart of this monster. And he went right for it.
No one loves you. You are ugly, and disgusting, and if you ever thought anyone did care for you, you were tricked and lied to, and they laughed at your gullibility.
A blast of Force anger buffeted him, but he rooted himself against it and continued.
You will never be loved. You will never be adored or cherished. Only feared and hated. And there is nothing you can do, no words you can speak, no one you can become to change that. Luke Skywalker was appalled at what you were, when he truly saw you. He follows you, not as a young gallant, oh no, but to kill you and put the universe out of its misery.
She convulsed, writhing in pain in the heart of the Force, reacting to his relentless attack on her wounded area as if he were ripping at an infected cut in the physical world. Her attack on him changed from a desire to harm to a desire to escape. Elation filled Vol. He only hoped he could survive long enough to deal the killing blow.
You live causing revulsion, you will die that way. You will die now—
He threw everything he had into the attack, slamming his Force self into the psychic, oozing wound as if he were punching a lacerated torso.
NO!
Her pain exploded and hurled him back, releasing him, but causing the most exquisite agony Vol had ever experienced to race through every part of his being.
Vol surged forward out of the dream so quickly that he hurled himself from his bed and landed hard on the floor, where he lay gasping, weak, so weak, sweat-soaked and terrified. He—used to manipulating objects in the Force, leaping great distances, crushing things with a thought—had not the strength of a new-hatched uvak. It was an effort to lift his head, to push himself up off the floor, and the muscles quivered from that simple strain. - Fate of the Jedi: Ascension