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Chapter Text

I shall tell you of them.   

Of the Conqueror.  

And of the Wanderer.  

They are a classic tale after all. There have been many versions. And all are true in their own way.  

And now I gift you another version.  

To enjoy? Or to ponder?  

I leave that to you.  

Now then-  

------  

Both SkekGra and UrGoh lived up to their names. Their titles.   

The Wanderer explored every corner of Thra. Learning stories and songs, finding paints and canvases. The other Mystics, the other Urru, were content within their hidden valley. But UrGoh, the slowest of them, always managed to find himself somewhere other than where he was supposed to be. So many times he had been caught wandering farther and farther from the valley. And it was always UrVa the Archer that had to bring him back.  

And on the day UrGoh saw smoke in the distance and smelled burning meat in the air, he realized he might have wandered too far this time...   

The Conqueror brought low the mightiest cities in the name of the Skesis’ Empire. Enslaved entire races and eradicated those that would not bend the knee. The stories he brought back to his fellow Skeksis were countless. The piles of bodies he’s set ablaze even more so. But unlike the other Skeksis, SkekGra never stayed for long. A trait he shared with the Hunter. There was always more to see in Thra. So much more to do. More stories to tell. More songs to sing....More bodies of traitors to burn.  

It would be at one such pyre that the skesis would lay eyes upon his other half.  

When the two who were once one shared gazes for the first time in hundreds of trine, it was with shock. The last either saw the other, the crystal cracked. They had been newly a sundered, naked, confused, fearful of each other. Broken.  

SkekGra spoke first. His smaller arms raised to make himself taller. Taunting.  

“Well, well, well!” SkekGra cackled. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!”  

“A sight...for...old eyes.” UrGoh hummed, his gaze slowly moving from the skeksis to the pyre. SkekGra watched the urru as he hummed again. His eyes saddened by the sight.    

“Ah, you’ve come to gaze upon the wonder I’ve created, yes?” SkekGra moved, trotting away from the mystic and around the pyre. “Look! Gaze upon those that would try to rise against Skeksis authority! Admit you are shaking in fear and awe!”  

“Or...” UrGoh was still standing there when SkekGra came full circle around the pyre. “Is it...you...”  

“Don’t.” SkekGra warned.  

“...who are...”  

“Don’t say it!” The Skeksis took a step closer to his other half.  

“Shake-...”  

“Don’t finish that sentence!”  

“...-ing.” UrGoh had the gall to calmly stare back.   

SkekGra had to fight every urge to close the distance between them and kick the mystic to the ground. But even he wasn’t dumb enough to cause harm to himself.  

“Bah!” The Conqueror only flapped a hand at the dumb creature before turning and heading off to look for whatever remained of this pathetic village of gruenaks. UrGoh stayed at the pyre and watched it until it burned to nothing but ashes.      

Chapter Text

Fate would not let this be the last time the Skeksis and Urru would cross paths. In fact, it would barely be half a trine.  

When the Wanderer managed to wander into the Conqueror’s camp.   

Fate was annoying like that.  

“Halt!” A Gelfling guard of two blocked UrGoh’s path by crossing their spears in front of him. He looked at the spears before looking at the guards. “You approach the camp of a Lord of the Crystal! State you name and why you approach!”   

“I...am...” UrGoh took a breath, trying to ignore the ache in his body. The Gelfling exchanged confused looks with each other. “Ur..Goh...the...”  

“ Wanderer!  Gods just get it out already!” The guards jumped at the sound of SkekGra’s screech. It could be heard from across the camp inside the large, red tent.   

Both the guards and the Urru looked at the tent, waiting for the Skeksis to come out. UrGoh knew he wouldn’t. And when he didn’t the guards exchanged glances.  

“My Lord Conqueror.” One of the guards called toward the tent. “Do you wish to permit thi-”  

“NO!!” SkekGra’s voice screeched again. “Do not let him and his stupid slow feet into my camp!”  

“As you wish my lord.” The guards turned back to UrGoh and kept their spears crossed. “You heard our lord’s wishes, stranger. Now be gone with you.”  

UrGoh sighed. He stared at the gelfling, thinking.  

“Oh...” UrGoh slowly raised two hands in surprise, his other two were holding his staff and a sack. “What...is...” He began pointing, the guards looked even more confused as they had to wait to see where he was pointing to even look. “...that...”  

“Wh...I don’t see anything.” One guard said.  

“Enough games old-hey!” When the second guard looked back, he and his fellow guard would find the Urru gone. “Wh-where did he go?”  

As the two began to search the surrounding camp, they failed to notice the tip of a tail disappearing into their lord’s tent.  

“Stupid needle...” UrGoh was greeted with the sight of his other half sitting with his back to the Mystic on a nest of pillows and blankets. His robes pulled down to his hips while he had almost all for arms working to sew up multiple slash wounds. UrGoh looked sadly at the already numerous scars covering his other half’s body. The same scars that covered his own. “Stupid thread!”     

The Urru only had to hum for the Skeksis to go stiff. His shaking hands gone still.  

“Get out.” SkekGra growled, not turning his head to look at UrGoh.  

“You...are...” Urgoh ignored the growl and began to reach for his other half. “...hurt.”  

“I said  GET OUT!!”  The skeksis turned and flared his wings. Tried to anyways. They’d long since withered down to the bone.   

UrGoh remained silent, staring patiently at SkekGra’s threatening display. SkekGra continued said display, for a good while, the last bit of his growl lamely dying in his throat. And once it was gone there was only an awkward silence between the two halves.   

The first to move after this odd stalemate was UrGoh. The mystic brought forward the sack which he had been carrying. He ignored how his other half stiffened when he began to pull at the string that kept it closed.  

“What is that? Poison?” The flesh of SkekGra’s beak curled back in disgust from the pungent smell that was now filling the tent.  

“...Mmmed..icine...” UrGoh answered as he put a hand into the sack and brought out a twisted looking sea shell with an odd blue gel inside. The source of the horrid stench. SkekGra could only take another sniff before turning away.  

“I don’t want it.” SkekGra huffed. “Especially from the likes of you.”  

“Please...” UrGoh took a slow step forward. “I can...feel...your pain...”  

“My pain makes me stronger!” SkekGra snapped. UrGoh took another step but the skeksis would not show fear and move away. “I told you I do not need, nor want, your help!”  

“Then...allow me...to help....yourself.”  

“Wh-?!”  What? What?!  “What does that even mean-?!?!”  

As SkekGra raised his voice again, so too did he raised one of his injured arms. The thread still embedded in his skin caught on one of his hands and SkekGra felt the sharp pain go up his arm. Against his will, the Conqueror drew his arms into himself and growled as his body protested the movement. He screwed his eyes shut and willed for it to cease so he may continue telling this mystic to-  

Warmth.  

Warmth suddenly cut through the pain. He didn’t know how until he opened his eyes and saw one of UrGoh’s hands, fingers covered in the blue slime, gently touch the open wound.  

“Please...” The mystic repeated softly, warmly. It dumbfounded the skeksis. So much so that SkekGra could only watched as the blue slime was further applied over more of the wound. He expected the touch to hurt. But it did the exact opposite. It was actually quite numbing. Relieving.  

He watched with no lack of intrigue as Urgoh’s other hands came in and took the needle from his own claws. The urge to yank his arm away rose though as that needle was brought back to the torn edges of his skin. But as it pierced, SkekGra felt no pain. Maybe a pinch, but it too was numbed by whatever the blue sludge was.  

A low hum came from the mystic, deep and rhythmic. It wasn’t a specific tune that SkekGra would know, yet he felt he’d heard it before. Long ago. Perhaps in a dream once.  

Either way. Like the slime had numbed his skin, the humming brought a calm to his mind. One of which SkekGra was willing to indulge. At least until UrGoh was done.  

But, despite being the slowest mystic, UrGoh was deft with his hands. Soon enough SkekGra found himself cleaned and bandaged. The humming ceased, which displeased the skeksis(for reasons he could no fathom). And with that Urgoh replaced the shell into his bag, retrieved his staff from the ground, and quietly turned to leave.    

SkekGra did not stop him.  

And, for reasons he could not fathom, an ache settled in his chest.  

------  

An ache that did not go away.  

He felt it constantly. Like someone had taken a chisel and hammer and carved a piece of his chest out of him. It made him feel hollow, as though he were going to cave in on himself at any moments.  

The rush and noise of battle seemed to drown it out for a time. But if it went long enough, if he let his mind wander the feeling was there. That cursed ache.  

Not even the victory feasts afterward did anything for it. He’d drown himself in drink and good food, surrounded by his fellow skeksis and gelfling.  

And yet even with the people that surrounded him, SkekGra the Conqueror never had felt more alone.  

Never had ached for something so dearly....but ache for what?  

Chapter Text

 If there was one thing UrGoh could hold above his fellow mystics, it would be that he has seen more of skeksis than any of his brothers. Each had a connection to their darker halves of course. Each seeing glimpses of the other’s lives.   

But UrGoh saw them in the flesh on more than one occasion. UrVa, the Archer, did as well. Although UrVa made it a point to avoid his other half. UrGoh did not.  

The Wanderer did not think he could avoid the Conqueror even if he tried. There was a feeling that led the mystic to the skeksis.  

A pull.  

No.  

An ache.  

“Do you...feel it?” He’d asked the Conqueror the third time they managed to cross paths. Curious, that they would so often within a single trine.  

“All I feel is annoyance toward you!” SkekGra growled. He had taken a step away from his caravan to take a piss. A piss! Could he not even do  tha t in peace?!   

“But...also...” UrGoh talked as he did, not bothered that he had walked in on the other skeksis with his pants down. Literally. “..you feel...the ache?”  

The Conqueror stiffened, his eyes bore holes into the mystic and it was all the proof UrGoh needed. But even with that almost-death glare, the mystic could only smile a little at the sight of the skeksis trying to look intimidating as he pulled his pants back up and stalked towards his other half.  

“I do not like what you are implying.” The Conqueror stopped right in front of the mystic and glared down at him.    

“And what...” UrGoh had to crane his neck back a bit to look up. “...am I...imply-”  

“If you thinking I am, in any way,  weak- ” SkekGra’s voice became a low growl now. “-then you forget who I am.”  

“No...” UrGoh calmly shook his head before reaching forward. SkekGra watched, confused, until he saw what the mystic was reaching for....  

----  

Now I could tell you of what happened next.  

Of how the Skeksis- who’s memories of gentle touches and pleasant voices, the feeling of two arms instead of four were now merely dreams- shunned the advances of the Urru. The unspoken idea that had blossomed from that one moment of contact.  

How Two truly remembered being One. For the first time in centuries.   

I could tell you how this would not be the first or last times the two would meet. Again and again, remember the same things, feel the same aches, argue over the impossible.   

After all broken things often stayed broken....  

But what if they could be fixed?  

I could tell you the story of when UrGoh showed SkekGra the broken pottery put back together with precious metals. The damage may never be truly undone but the pot was whole all the same.   

I could indeed tell you how the Skeksis, possibly the first of his kind to do so, dared to hope.   

And hope, like it’s counterpart despair, has a tendency to bury itself in one’s heart and become rather difficult to weed out.   

But hope would not be enough.  

After all, for all their greater knowledge SkekGra was still just The Conqueror. And UrGoh, the Wanderer.   

They knew not any precious metal that could make them whole.  

Save for one.   

But that is getting ahead of this story.   

When SkekGra and UrGoh decide to remain together, to no longer part ways, such a decision...does not go unnoticed.   

We all know this part in their story....  

Chapter Text

I will tell you of how the Conqueror and the Wanderer came before the Lords of the Crystal.   

How SkekGra would have to do most of the talking as UrGoh’s speech was too slow for the other Skeksis’ patience.   

How they dared to speak of a time the Lords were frightened to even dream about anymore.  

To speak of when Two were One.  

And perhaps, together, Two could be One once again.   

I do not need to say the reaction they received.   

It might have been laughter. It might have been screaming. Could very easily have been both.  

It all ends the same with both being held down as the Emperor takes the hammer and nail in his wrinkled hands.  

“For once you were Conqueror, I now brand thee...” The Emperor raised the hammer high above his head. “ HERETIC!!”  

Then the hammer came down.  

To this day SkekGra wishes there had been no pain. That he blacked out the moment the nail pierced his skin and dug into his skull. Never for his own sake. But so UrGoh would not have felt the same pain he did.  

The moment the nail struck it was like the world just dropped from under them. No one bothered to hold them up as both their bodies went limp and both Mystic and Skeksis collapsed. The other Skeksis laughed and mocked the two but neither could hear any taunt or jape as they curled up in pain, clutching their bleeding heads.  

“Now, leave them!” The Emperor boomed, raising his arms to quiet the other Skeksis. “From this moment forth the Heretic is banished. Him and his weaker half are never to set foot in this castle again!”  

One by one the Skeksis returned to their feast. Their appetite hardly waned by the blood on the floor. They didn’t even take notice as UrGoh began crawling his way to SkekGra.  

“Stay...awake...” UrGoh used three hands to gently lift SkekGra’s head; the fourth hand rested above his own bleeding wound. The Heretic couldn’t respond, his eyes barely able to stay open. Barely able to focus on the Wanderer. “You don’t...have to  move ...But you must...stay awake...so I can.”  

SkekGra could only let out a groggy sob. But that seemed all UrGoh needed. The Urru wiped blood and tears away from the Skeksis eyes before pulling his dark half over his back.

Chapter Text

The world still spun around the Heretic. His brain refused to acknowledge anything around him save for a few things. 1: It was getting darker. 2: It was getting quieter. 3: UrGoh was walking.  

“...UrGoh...” SkekGra managed to speak after what felt like a million trine. His voice coming out a confused mumble. “How...are you walking...?”  

“It is not safe.” Was UrGoh’s answer.   

It-  

Wait.  

Was UrGoh talking at a normal speed or was SkekGra’s noodled brain just too out of it to notice the Urru’s usual pauses? Probably the latter. SkekGra’s nose was filled with the scent of...  

“Blood.” Was the smartest thing the Skeksis could say in that moment. It felt like his brain was a weight rolling in his skull as his head hung over UrGoh’s shoulder. Lulling back and forth with the heavy sway of the mystic’s steps.   

He could not. For the life of him. Lift his head. Could move his neck though.  

“Yes.” UrGoh hummed. “There is blood. But we are not bled out yet.”   

Not dead yet. That’s good. But how long was that going to last?  

SkekGra saved what would have been a brilliant plan to use his neck to move his head and just. Tried to focus his eyes on something. Anything.  

That anything was going to have to be UrGoh. Because the world just refused to make sense right now. Just a big fat blur. A really terrible oil painting it was. Why Thra. Why can’t you make sense?  

“UrGoh...” SkekGra managed to see the Urru’s feet moving. “How long...have you been walking...”  

“Our minds are too muddled for me to tell how much time has passed.”  

“So...if I look behind us...” UrGoh’s feet were really funny to watch for some reason. “Will...will I still...see the castle?”    

“Possibly.” UrGoh chuckled. SkekGra groaned. It started low and then grew louder until it became a full on yell of frustration.   

Gods his skull was splitting.   

Literally.  

“OHh wWHAt’s thE PoINt oF wALkIng If yUr ToO SLOW!!!” SkekGra didn’t even realize he was shifting his weight until both he and UrGoh went toppling to the side. Everything spun again for what felt like  at least  300 trine before SkekGra had the sense to know he was lying on grass now. And UrGoh was either on top of him OR the Skeksis still had absolutely no motor control.   

Ugh. Exile sure was a kick in the beak so far.  

Somehow SkekGra knew UrGoh wasn’t doing any better. The Urru groaned as he tried rolling back onto his feet. But was soon realizing he was at his limit when he could no longer tell if he still had feet. So instead, UrGoh rolled the other way, right back on top of SkekGra, who didn’t seem to mind.   

Or didn’t have the mind anymore  to mind.  

Who knew at this point.  

But the weight on top of him wasn’t unwelcome. It was grounding in a way. And SkekGra managed to get his arms to flop over the other’s back. So that was an improvement. Gods his head was finally starting to numb.  

“Sleep.” UrGoh mumbled, laying his head next to SkekGra’s. The Skeksis only grunted before letting his eyes shut. As sleep took him, the world in his dreams still spun with images and feelings he didn’t know how to describe.  

Chapter Text

Whether it was morning or not didn’t matter. What mattered was the splitting headache he woke up with. Though it was hardly surprising since he got a nail driven into his head yesterday.   

Or was it still tomorrow? How long had he been out?  

The world was still spinning, there was light but, with his mind flipping between being horribly numb and weighted to feeling as though it were about to split open like an egg, SkekGra couldn’t make out what was what.   

The rumbling groan on top of him reminded SkekGra that he wasn’t alone. UrGoh hadn’t, and wasn’t, moving. But he was awake and as dizzy and confused as his dark half. Both could only attempt a mock-fashion of hearing the voices around them.  

Voices?  

Were there voices?  

Or was it just noise?  

The light was getting bright-or closer?- too bright. Neither of them could keep their eyes open at the sting the light brought.   

Before darkness took them again both Skeksis and Urru tightened their hold on one another.   

In this darkness they could still feel their hold on one another. Their arms around the other growing tighter and tighter until four arms became two. Dark became light. Two minds, two hearts, two broken halves made whole.  

They were one.  

When they opened their eyes again, the dream ended. The wonderful, horrible dream.   

UrGoh found he could lift his head and when he did he found the sight of SkekGra looking back at him with tears in his eyes.   

“Only a dream.” The skeksis croaked in pain, but it was not pain from the nail that hurt now. UrGoh felt it. The deep familiar ache in both their hearts only made worse by their shared dream. The mystic’s own eyes blurred with tears before he reached a hand up to gently wipe his dark half’s tears away, being extra careful not to touch the nail. It was then the Urru noticed the blood cleaned from SkekGra’s face and the bandages carefully wrapped around his head. SkekGra noticed the same on UrGoh.  

“Where are we?” Skekgra turned his gaze to the world around them to see it no longer spinning. UrGoh did the same and found they were no longer outside.  

“A...tree...?” UrGoh guessed. It looked like a tree. The inside of one at least. Someone had hollowed it out and made quite a dainty little home inside. Though, by the size of the door and windows it brought a question to the Urru and Skeksis minds:  How in Thra did they get in here?  

“Ah!” Both turned their still aching heads to a small set of stairs that spiraled up the curved wall into the room above. There a podling stood. Young, wide-eyed, and barely dressed for the morning. “Giants awake! Bom!”  

The next few minutes were a daze really as the young Podling began quickly explaining. She spoke little of the common language but that wasn’t a bother to UrGoh and Skeksis. The Wanderer and the newly branded Heretic knew plenty of languages.  

Apparently UrGoh had only gotten them as far a nearby Podling village. The Podlings had found them and it had taken almost the entire village to move the slumbering beasts. It had been quite the effort considering the Podlings couldn’t do anything to pry the Urru and Skeksis apart.  

“Both heads bleeding.” She said as she handed them each a small bowl of soup. They were sitting now on the pile of blankets and pillows that were also too small. “Feel better now, ya?”  

“Much...better.” UrGoh answered for the both of them with a friendly smile. SkekGra was busy staring down at the tiny spoon in his hand. “Thank...you...”  

The Podling gave a bright smile before going outside without so much an explanation. Though SkekGra could hear her raise her voice. Huh.  

“We need to keep moving.” SkekGra said, putting his still full bowl down by his feet. To which UrGoh reached down and picked it back up.  

“Food...first.” The Mystic said as his other hands held his own bowl to eat out of. SkekGra huffed before taking his bowl back.  

“If you call this food.” The Skeksis grunted before carefully raising the tiny spoon to his beak. His hands were still a bit shaky. And while his head still ached the pain had numbed greatly...most of the pain anyway.  

“It...felt...real.” UrGoh suddenly said.   

“Too real.” SkekGra replied, quietly. He took a sip of the soup straight from the bowl. That spoon was just too tiny. “...How will we bear to wake from something like that again?”  

UrGoh didn’t answer, instead he looked at his dark half and reached for his hand. SkekGra accepted it without thinking, squeezing the mystic’s hand.  

“Together, then?” The skeksis asked.  

“To...gether.” The mystic answered.