A/N: Originally intended as a prologue for a multi-chap. But then it turned into twenty-six pages and I thought it deserved its own story. Enjoy! :)

Updated A/N: Based on a tremendously helpful review from years ago, I'm finally cutting this twenty-six page monstrosity into several, more manageable chapters. Seriously, twenty-six? Ay me, the mistakes of youth. Going to do my best not to mess with original content (no matter how cringe-worthy) but grammar is fair game.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing! Except the idea. Dang. X(

I want to live where soul meets body
And let the Sun wrap its arms around me
And bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing
And feel, feel what it's like to be new

- Death Cab for Cutie


I

Someday, in perhaps a billion years, there was a chance she might lose her training.

Someday, she might forget the ancient rules and regulations governing the archaic Jedi way of living.

Someday, she might forget everything her master had taught her, the art of a lightsaber, the skill of the Force.

Someday, she might even cease to remember how it felt to be a Jedi altogether.

But one thing she was very sure of—she would never forget the very first rule she had ever been taught.

Fear nothing. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. Never be afraid.

And she tried. She tried everything her sixteen-year-old mind could think of to keep the fear from rising in her throat, to chain the anxiety she could feel below the surface taking liquid form in the cold sweat coating her red skin.

But when one finds themselves running lost and lone through an alien jungle, fighting fear is a very difficult task.

The young Togruta had been running through the dense vegetation for what felt like miles, attempting to find a flat area or a plain where she could sufficiently gather her bearings and perhaps her scattered thoughts. She had been sure she wasn't straying far from her master's campsite. She had only gone a few meters into the forest, just to investigate the trees, the plants, the strange insects fluttering around like gems in the wind. She hadn't meant to go quite so far. But a vibrant flower had caught her attention, and when it had moved… She simply had to follow it!

And now she was definitely paying the price for her curiosity. Dusk was coming on swiftly, and the girl had a very sure feeling that the jungle would prove treacherous at night.

Lungs screaming for air and heart pounding, she could run no longer. She fell against the nearest mossy tree, gasping for breath and clutching her chest.

"Oh, why didn't I listen to Master Pru Jinn when I had the chance?" she groaned, putting a hand to the throbbing stich in her side as she fumbled in her pocket for her communicator. She hadn't been able to get a signal in the forest, but in this small clearing, there might be a chance…

She opened the link. "Master Jinn? Master, this is Padawan Shaak Ti. Repeat, this is Shaak Ti, do you copy? Master, please respond!"

Nothing but static.

With a frustrated snarl, she stuffed the communicator back into the tattered remnants of her skirt. Thorns had made quick work of the brown fabric. "Of course. For all I know, I could be running around in circles. This is a fine mess. A fine mess indeed. Now I'm out here, alone, with nobody around for miles."

Ribbitt.

She jumped, whirled towards the sound, and found herself face to face with a small pair of mottled orange eyes sitting on the large tree root next to her.

She snorted. "Very well, I stand corrected. Nobody around but a frog."

Ribbitt. Her companion chirped and sprang lightly from the root to a large heart-shaped leaf closer to her leg in order to better access the gnats buzzing around her face.

"So glad I could provide your dinner," she smirked as the creature snapped its long slimy tongue at the insects. "Don't suppose you know a way out of here, do you?"

The frog paused, looked at her, licked its eye, and then returned to its evening meal.

"I didn't suppose so." She sighed and folded her arms into her torn robes. Despite the steaming jungle air, she was suddenly freezing. She fingered the long Padawan chain dangling from her akul tooth headdress. "Master Jinn is going to kill me. If he finds me. I hope he finds me. I've been gone for a couple of hours, he should have organized a search party, shouldn't he?"

She turned toward the frog, who gave no answer. Having finished off the gnats, it was apparently busying itself with cleaning its toes. She shook her head and gazed back into the dense forest. "It was stupid of me to go chasing after that flower like some silly youngling. But it's amazing! Have you ever heard of a flower that moved? Incredible! I guess it moves to chase after sunlight at the bottom of the jungle. The other trees are too tall for it to stay in one place, so it moves! Isn't it amazing?"

If the frog thought so, it didn't say anything. It croaked with satisfaction upon completing its cleaning and hopped up onto one of her short striped montrals to better access the moss lice on the tree.

Shaak Ti looked around her at the jungle, gilded with the late afternoon sunlight. The air smelled like humid life, everything moist and living and growing. The treetops above whispered gently with the wind. "What's this planet called? Kalee, I think. You know, this place would be beautiful if I wasn't lost. And cold. And hungry." She glanced at the little green frog with a wide grin. "You're not edible, are you? Maybe with a little salt? Some pepper?"

Suddenly, the frog froze. It stared for a moment at the vegetation to her left, before it suddenly leapt from her montrals, pounced into the bushes, and began hopping away as though its life depended on it.

"Hey, wait! Don't go!" The frog hadn't made a very talkative companion, but it had been better than nothing. Dismayed, Shaak Ti jumped up to give chase. "I was only kidding."

That's when she realized. Something was dreadfully wrong.

All around her, the birds, the insects, and the tiny chirps of various animals had vanished. The forest was still and silent. Nothing moved, and nothing breathed.

Shaak Ti stood stone still, violet eyes wide open, lips parted as she drew in a silent gasp. She grew as still as she possibly could, stretching out with the Force and her pressure-sensitive montrals, listening, feeling for anything that might be out there. In a flash, the jungle that had seemed so awe-inspiring, so beautiful, so magnificent was a gladiator ring of danger.

There was no sound for a moment. She wished she could quiet her pounding heart. It sounded like it was echoing for miles in the silent jungle.

The bushes to her left shifted.

She slowly turned her head. And what she saw made all traces of the no fear rule fly right out into the wind.

An enormous four-legged beast stood before her, half-camouflaged in the shadows. Its mottled brown hide was thick and wrinkly like leather, and its huge paws had claws the size of daggers. Long strings of drool dripped from glistening fangs, and a pair of pupil-less orange eyes blazed out at her from deep, sunken sockets in its long, narrow skull.

It was a frightening sight to behold.

But what was even more frightening was that the eyes were fixated on her, and the jaws the beast licked with a lazy red tongue appeared to have her name written all over them.

As the creature lowered itself to the ground, shifting its shoulders in preparation for a final pounce, Shaak Ti only had one thing to say.

"Oh, Force…"


Updated A/N: I remember my beta telling me to cut the frog scene, but I was too attached to the little guy to let him go. Now, it reminds me of the Worm from Labyrinth. "You don't happen to know the way through this labyrinth, do you?" "Who, me? Nah, I'm just a worm."