The dream was formless. It transcended words, images, even time and space.
The talon and the demon. Two images out of prophecy, foretold thousands of years before by Dark Prophets who had senses their immense power even rippling across the endless ripples of time.
They danced before one another, the demon spawning from the talon... the talon turned away from the demon, yet the demon spiraled downwards and somehow forever upwards...
The talon found wholeness, while the demon sought it forevermore.
Ambition.
That was the demon's identity, its one defining factor...
Nothing but ambition.
It fell from the plane of reality, bloodied and bruised. This always happened in the dream; it floated away, listless... but this time, was different. It changed... it sunk deeper and flew higher than should have been possible...
It gained the world, and lost itself.
* * * * *
Gash Jiren awoke with a start in the middle of the night, a cold sweat covering him. And through the darkness of an Ossus midnight, he whispered, "My son lives again."
And yet at the same time, he'd died a long, long time ago. IT was a contradiction in terms, a paradox. But as the dream faded and reality drew the Jedi Master once more into its clutches, one thing became clear in the crisp cold of night; Xireon had returned to his former strength.