It is not the sound that alerts her first - blaster bolts finding masonry and flesh, the trembling hiss of burning files - but a presence. His presence.
She hurries through the stacks in a panic as screams issue from hidden corners and the thrumming of many blades drawn in defense - a war in her library, of all places - fills the air. She can smell smoke, both the char of metal and of corpses, see the soot and blood scattered over the floor. There are so many others falling around her that even she, her connection to the Force as modest as it is, cannot ignore it. To see the library sullied so is anathema.
As she steps into the corridor, she sees him and feels him at his full breadth, his darkness dimming the steady blue glow of the shelves. Bodies - those of her fellow librarians who failed to stop the breach - shift to the sides with an idle wave of his fingers as he moves toward her, saber grasped in his other hand. Jocasta steels herself.
"The knowledge in these archives will not be taken by you or your men today," she says, summoning her saber and igniting it. "Leave now, or you will be removed. This is my final warning."
His eyes gleam yellow. "You were always so cold to me, Madam Librarian. So assured of your authority. Well now," he gestures at the wreckage, "your authority is gone. You'll burn with the rest of the archives."
She purses her lips and, methodically, adopts the stance of Soresu. It has been too long since she last fought openly; years of careful stewardship in the archives have no doubt atrophied her skill. It does not take a decade of study to realize that this conflict will not end favorably for her, and yet -
A lifetime ago, she stands there with Madam Quist. Her mentor smiles as she guides her through to the deepest levels of the archives, between monolithic stacks of records that would take lifetimes still for her to read and absorb in their entirety. Madam Quist is telling her that all of this will be her responsibility someday, that to be Caretaker of First Knowledge is a duty that should not be spoken of lightly.
"Knowledge is more than a book or a holocron, Jocasta," her mentor says. "All things, eventually, return to dust, but nothing truly dies if even a fragment remains. Do not cling to the material, but let it go, if you must. A single healthy seed plucked from a dying tree could yield a forest, with the proper care. This, I expect you will learn -"
But Jocasta, distracted, envisions herself suspended in the halls of the archives, weightless, every tome and holocron spread before her, infinite and unending. There is awe to be gleaned from the magnitude of the library, and here, Jocasta realizes that this is where she was meant to be from the very start. Here -
- she closes her eyes and is reminded of her duty to preserve the seed that will sprout into the forest. How many pathways hidden within the temple, unknown to the Sith? How many secret repositories spread across the galaxy? How many of her assistants, downloading as much as they can and wiping the rest, will leave and survive to grow the seed of the Jedi for years to come?
Madam Quist would have grinned, in her mysterious way, and replied that it would be enough.
Jocasta's eyes flutter open and she expels the smoke from her airways, readying her mind and body. "You were always so shortsighted," she murmurs, choosing her words carefully. "Even then, I saw the stirrings of pride in you. Of petty anger." Pressure builds in her chest, coiled and awaiting. "You have never been welcome in this library."
Her opponent snarls, taking the bait, and lunges forth in a rush of dark robes and cobalt light. Her feet, level and sure, recall the old movements drilled into her from her youth. Her arms, tired and unused to such exertion, still move upward to deflect the coming blow. Her back, which always stood proudly as she showed visitors through the stacks, curves to oppose the momentum of her attacker. All these things, which she had almost forgotten, come flooding back for one brief, glimmering moment.
As she feels the light burn through her chest, Jocasta silences all thought, denies the pain, and knows, as she has known her library, that this will not be an end.
.
.
.
.
.
.
They dragged the bodies out to burn in the early hours of morning, when the last ones to evade initial capture were rounded up and shot down. A great pyre raged on the temple steps, thick plumes of smoke curling up into the predawn Coruscant sky. It wasn't just Jedi, but their books too, tossed carelessly and sometimes angrily into the blaze. Many brothers had died. He couldn't see their faces through the helmets, but he didn't need to. There was exhaustion to be read in all their shoulders, the constant clank and clatter of armor against concrete.
A group of them had made their way into the archives, looking for any remaining stragglers to add to the fire. He had split off on his own and rounded a corner, seeing toppled rows of records when he chanced upon her.
She was old, first. Most of the ones that had been taken out had been their young. Plenty of guards, though they were masked and he'd not had the interest in taking off their masks just to see their faces - all fodder, after all. Her weapon was still smoking in her hand. There was a great hole through her heart, and not the kind from blaster fire, but from another Jedi. His commander's doing.
She looked strangely peaceful, for someone who must've died in such a painful way. Some memory of having encountered her before struck him; yes, he'd heard of her once, from some Jedi - the Chief Librarian. Said she was famously meticulous about her work, arrogant, fierce if provoked. To her very last breath, she'd stayed to defend the library.
All that in an old woman.
His com buzzed, reminding him to get to clearing out the rest of the building, and, taking one last look, he moved on.
a/n: reuploaded from my main account.