Lightquest: Volume 1: Ailsa's Story

There is a little moon past the outer rim named Skye. It is rocky, wild, filled with windswept cliff faces and chilled dark lakes. It is a world of untamed beauty, and a place where The Pull is worshiped as light in the winter sky. Legends say it is a spirit trapped between worlds, never touching the heavens or land. It rings out in purples, blues, and greens, colors complimented by the red of the sun setting and the hazy yellow of its rising.

Occasionally The Pull touched members of this world, reaching down from its trapped point to breathe a different life into those on the surface; humans were granted its gift and brought up in a way the Light Ones might call grey. They were not taught of the light and dark side; such distinctions were thought to encourage confusion and division. Instead individuals were practiced in the way of balance – walking a tightrope and appreciating the diversity of what was light and what was not. Half their year was spent in the night, the other half under a midnight sun; learning to live and find beauty between both and in the blur between was talent possessed by those of Skye.

Now the folk there were a kind bunch, their eyes always bright and their cheeks always a little red thanks to years in the wind. They possessed a pale flesh where the veins of their wrists could be seen beneath their skin and they burned easily on planets with a harsher sun. Yet despite a soft tone to their bodies they were hard; a land of survivors with eyes the color of a stormy sea day and appreciation for the beauty of their crisp and often cold life.

They were a people of music and stories. A people of laughter, of good food, old traditions, and aged alcohol. They were cautious of strangers but welcoming to all new friends, and they had a tale for every star in their sky and every cove of their seas.

Amongst them was a young girl with The Pull. She joined a handful of peers, many older than she, and trained with an old man and his wife. Her days were filled with fishing, hiking, hunting, of fighting with modern weapons whilst learning to master traditional duel blades. They started with wood, then metal, and then with lazer blades that were not her own. She would make hers during The Gathering, a tradition held to by Light Ones and believed in by those of Skye. Their rituals differed, but the results were often the same. She and her peers would have to find their own crystals and craft their own blades.

Such a thing was many years off. There was much to learn, and far too much to meditate upon. The students would sit in a line upon a cliff face, their eyes out to sea as the wind lashed long grass upon their backs as salt spray stuck to their front. There they had to find The Pull. There they had their first anchor to it. They would meditate together – the old man and his wife between them, the children on either side.

The girl had the eyes of her people, and hair that sat like a dark forest upon her back. She was easily distracted, prone to taking a path of adventure that was not well thought out. Still so young. So, so young.

She had skill with The Pull, as many of her people touched by it did. They were fierce and their ancestors had been fighting in their mountains long before they knew of The Pull. They had the blood of their people, and the gaze of the stars.

And all of them lived in a world of peace, far from the wars that had torn the universe open; until the universe came to them.