The new Clone Wars anthology book called Clone Wars : Stories of light and dark has just
released, and in it is a tragic tale written by Dave Filloni's wife which follows the story
of a Dathomirian witch who believed her daughter was slaughtered by general grievous in the
famous separatist invasion of the planet.
I'm going to break down exactly what happened in this incredibly dark and heartbreaking
story, and why it is so important to the future of Dathomir.
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The story begins on the misty, grey outer rim world of Sidi, where a young girl without
a name is working at her family’s local hotel.
The old and badly damaged family hotel didn’t get many visitors because of its location
in the outer rim, but it did receive the occasional crash landing survivor or people choosing
to flee from the dreadful war currently going on.
The young girl was often forced by her parents to sweep the ruggard floors of the old hotel,
ensuring that not a single particle of dust was visible should a guest arrive on the remote
planet.
On one cold, dark day, the young girl was sweeping the floors and noticed the nearly-silent
buzz of a large ash-beetle with it’s many wriggling legs, alongside the bottom of the
broom.
Her parents viewed the ash-beetles in the same way that they viewed the young girl,
just plain annoyance.
The young girl didn’t mind the beetles however, choosing to take one as a personal pet to
give her something, or someone to bounce her thoughts off.
The girl knew that the beetle didn’t understand her thoughts or her emotions, but it was better
than nothing.
It was better than the process of talking to a brick wall, that she experienced while
trying to talk to her parents.
Eventually, she made a tiny, nearly invisible leash for the bug, taking it for walks around
the fenced off courtyard of the hotel.
She really had a deep connection to this thoughtless creature caring very deeply for it.
This was unfortunately shattered to pieces by her dismissive mother, Leera, who caught
the girl walking the creature, and crushed it under her heel.
The girl fell to her knees in tears, but her mother did not give a single care in the world
to it and demanded that she get back to work, sweeping the floors of the hotel, calling
her a “bug” as she left the area.
From here on out, the young girl went simply by the name Bug, since that’s how her mother
made her feel about herself and she couldn’t remember her real name.
Wow, this mother is seriously cold…
The family hotel had one major attraction that pulled in almost every refugee and crash
landing survivor on the planet.
On the uppermost floor of the three story building, there was an abandoned military
communications tower, stored away inside, a damp, dark room in the attic.
The large metal comms device was placed there by the Separatists only shortly after the
first battle of geonosis, but the device and the planet as a whole was quickly abandoned
after they realized it was a backwater location with no strategic value.
The young, nameless girl loved to sneak up into the damp room while her parents slept,
with her back up against the wall, knees under her chin, listening to incoming transmissions
from help escape pods, crashing clone transports and other distress calls.
She didn't know it, but she was hearing the final moments of many Clone Troopers as their
ships sent out a final call for help that would never be answered.
One night, she entered a dream-like state while listening to the incoming transmissions,
but was abruptly snapped out of it when a distress call from the planet Dathomir rang
out through the speakers of comms devices.
The transmission was actually an older one stored in the memory of the comms device from
General Grievous' invasion of Dathomir.
Make sure you remember that, as it will be very important later in the story.
She didn’t have time to process the mysterious message, before a group of travellers arrived
in the common area of the hotel.
The travellers were mostly a normal looking assortment of humans aliens from around the
galaxy, except for one.
There was one woman who was ominously dressed in a black robe, with mysterious red markings
on her temples and cheeks.
As you can probably guess, this woman was a Dathomirian Witch from the Red planet.
After sitting down at a table in the common room, eating her freshly prepared warm meal,
the witch demanded access to the comms device on the top floor to listen to transmissions
from her home planet of Dathomir.
Leera, the mother, didn’t allow her to do this, because she and Bug’s father, Rank,
liked to scam all visitors into paying ridiculous amounts to access the device.
This is where a large amount of their income came from.
The witch eventually stormed out of the hotel to cool off and go for a long walk on the
practically empty planet.
During this time, Bug decided to sneak into the Witch’s cramped apartment, hoping to
find… something.
She didn’t really know what she was looking for, but she’d never seen someone so mysterious
land on her distant world.
Inside, she quietly crept around the room, where she found an upside down bowl.
Inside the bowl, was a clay model of a monnok.
The monnok is A piece from the very popular game Dejarik.
This piece just happened to be the one, single piece that Bug was missing from her Dejarik
set in the hotel’s common room.
Bug should have known something was wrong after witnessing a coincidence as big as that,
but she brushed it off and let it go.
Bug quickly rushed down to the hotel common room, and added the stolen monnock piece to
her collection, and began to play a game of Dejarik.
She had no friends, nobody to play with, so she played both sides of the board, hoping
to visualize her own weaknesses and strengths in the game.
Bug was so absorbed in the game, that she didn’t realize the Witch from Dathomir had
returned and was standing across from her table.
The fireplace went dark and the stolen monnock piece had melted away in her hand.
This was no regular game piece.
This was a piece created with the Dark Magicks of Dathomir.
Bug was scared to absolute death, but the Witch sat down and asked her if she’d like
to hear a story.
Bug was too scared to respond, but the Witch began anyway.
She told Bug of a witch who lived in the swampy region of Dathomir, not a member of the Nightsisters
or any other.
Her name was Falta, and she was completely alone.
Falta had tamed a few small rancor beasts so that she could ride them and also had a
fuzzy, dark cat.
She was a simple Witch who only made contact with other clans when she needed food, or
to trade for other goods.
The witch sitting across from the terrified Bug told her of the Nightsister tradition
to bury the dead in pods, wrapped in dead rancor hide.
She explained that Falta found this process to be unnatural, and instead developed a dark
magic that produced the opposite effect.
She had the power to create life.
Falta collected vibrant blue coral from the Blue Coral Divers Clan, bright red berries
from Dathomir’s Red Hills and pale brown Clay from the singing mountain.
Now this simple explanation is so cool because it greatly expands the lore of Dathomir, including
bringing the Blue Coral Clan from Fate of the Jedi from legends, into Canon, as well
as the Dreaming river from the Book of Sith legends source book and Red hills from the
Courtship of Princess Leia.
Falta eventually bundled these items together into the leaves of the trees that surrounded
her home and sung songs of Dathomir Witch magic to the pile.
Eventually, the pod changed colours from green, to purple to red, finally opening up to produce
a young Dathomirian Witch, created solely from the magick of Falta.
Falta named the baby witch Yenna, and took care of her from her birth all the way up
until she was old enough to roam the planes of Dathomir.
At this point, the witch telling the story to Bug inside the hotel was becoming increasingly
tense, with a deep red glow emanating from the bowl that was sitting on the table.
The red glow illuminated the yellow eyes of the witch, further petrifying Bug, but she
could move.
Her legs felt too heavy with fear to run.
The witch continued the story, telling Bug that Mother Talzin of the Nightsisters clan
eventually contacted her and demanded that she bring Yenna to her to become a member
of the Nightsisters.
Falta did not allow her daughter to join the war-crazy clan of warriors, and instead chose
to bring her home.
On the way out of the nightsisters camp however, Talzin said something that brought a strong
rage to Falta.
She told Yenna that if she ever wanted more in her life than a quiet existence, living
along with your mother, you are welcome to join the nightsters clan.
Many months went by without Yenna taking this offer up, but eventually, the dark day came.
Yenna went missing but Falta knew exactly where her daughter had gone.
She had travelled across the swampy terrain to join the Nightsisters.
Falta accepted this fate for her daughter for many months, until she received the chilling
news that Grievous had massacred the entire Nightsisters clan.
Falta's heart sank, but she rushed across the almost impassable terrain to the nightsister
camp, to see whether her daughter was among the dead.
Upon arrival, Nobody was left, except a dying Old Daka.
Old Daka told Falta in her dying moments that her daughter Yenna was in fact safe and sent
off world before Grievous slaughtered the Nightsisters.
This brought incredible relief to Falta, but now the almost impossible task of locating
her daughter was upon her.
The witch telling the story then dropped a shocking revelation on Bug.
She was Falta.
She was the one looking for Yenna and this was her life story.
I’m sure some of you guys already guessed that, but let me know down below if you did.
After the bug realized this shocking truth, she went into a deep dream-like state, gazing
into the red glow of the Witches’ magic that was still coming out of the bowl.
When she was eventually knocked out of this state, she was furious to learn that Falta
had hypnotized her with Witch magic and gotten her to unlock the door to the comms device
room.
Bug was incredibly angry with the Witch, but after hearing the story, she didn’t really
have any choice but to play back the recordings on the Comms device from earlier.
So if you remember the archived transmission from the start of the story, this was actually
Mother Talzin and the Nightsisters sending Yenna away to safety when General Grievous
arrived on Dathomir.
After this, Falta could sense that Bug wanted to run away from the horrific life with her
parents at the hotel, and they escaped together, on the hunt for her missing witch daughter.
Let me know if you’re excited to see their journey together continue in future content.
Thanks for watching, Cheers guys, hope to see you in the next one!