Tender is the Night
Hedia felt Qui-Gon's death the instant he fell, heard his apprentice's anguish echo in her old master's ears. Half a galaxy away she could sense his desperation as if it were her own.
The plate she has been holding crashed to the ground, shattering. She clung to the kitchen counter, where she had been preparing breakfast.
Seventeen years and what seemed like a billion missions had not lessened the bond between Hedia and her former Master, and she concentrated on his being, kneeling, praying. She felt his essence flare for one final moment, and then flicker out. A whimper tore out of her throat, and she felt the arms of her own apprentice, Olin, around her.
"What Master?" He begged her, his soft voice pleading.
She stood slowly, and walked stiffly to her quarters where she collapsed in her bed.
"Do you want me to call a healer? Are you ill?" Olin asked anxiously, crouching by her head.
"No, Olin," She whispered, "Just wake me when the message arrives."
"I didn't know we were expecting a message."
Hedia sighed, pulling the blankets up to her chin. "They're going to tell me he died."
Olin blinked his confusion, but agreed with a quiet: "Yes, Master."
Hedia fell into a restless sleep, haunted by disturbing, foggy dreams.
Three hours later Olin woke her.
"Master Windu is asking for you in the gardens," he explained apologetically.
She rose from the bed and pulled on her dark robe, leaving her worried apprentice in their dorm, walking ghostlike towards the gardens, so Mace Windu could tell her something she already knew.
-
Hedia left Olin at the temple and went to Naboo on her own, staring at the stars and trying to ignore the gaping hole in her core. Space's silence allowed her to envelop herself in emotionless-ness, dissolve her essence into the vastness of the force and stretch out her senses to all corners of the universe: an endless number of lives ending, beginning, progressing, the constant flow of life and death. Here she could feel the insignificance of her grief, and in this state she could see that it would not last forever.
Obi-Wan met her at the landing pad in Theed. His walk was tired, and she could see from the dark circles under his eyes that he had not been sleeping.
"Obi-Wan," she whispered, extending her arms to him as he leaned into her.
"Thank you," he murmured, "for coming."
She stepped out of his embrace and took his hands firmly, "I loved him too. You need not thank me."
He took a deep breath and steadied himself. "Of course, Hedia." Obi-Wan turned, and called, "Anakin!"
Hedia frowned as a young boy ran towards them from the palace doors. She stared hard at him as he bounded down the steps towards the landing pad – he blossomed with potential, the force rose and converged about him like an eddy in a deep river.
"This," Obi-Wan explained to her as the boy jogged to a stop, "is Anakin Skywalker."
"Hi!" the boy smiled, uncertain of what to do.
Hedia crouched down to his eye-level, "I'm Hedia."
"You're a Jedi?"
"Yes. I was Qui-Gon's first apprentice."
Anakin extended a hand, "Are you much older than Obi-Wan?"
Hedia smiled. "Old enough. Where are you from?"
"Tatooine. My mother still lives there. Qui-Gon said I could become a Jedi someday too."
Hedia glanced up at Obi-Wan, whose face had clouded over, "Did he?"
-
Hedia's chambers in the palace were cool and graceful, as if purposely created to be soothing, they would have accomplished their purpose had Obi-Wan not been sitting miserably upon the couch.
"I promised Qui-Gon I'd train him," he said mournfully.
Hedia's eyes widened, "Obi-Wan, you're barley a knight!"
"I know."
"Even the most advanced masters are hardly ever expected to train students as old as Anakin, and even then it's a risky apprenticeship!"
"I know. But I promised him."
She sat down beside him. "Have you spoken with Yoda?"
Obi-Wan's blue eyes were sad and dutiful above the dark half-circles, "I plan to the moment he arrives."
Hedia took a deep breath, "How long since you've slept?"
"I have tried."
She patted his shoulder gently, "Meditate, and then go take a nap. I'll keep an eye on Anakin."
-
The night was heavy and warm, resting like a soft curtain on the palace. The stars were scattered across the deep blue sky like a frozen firework. Despite the dramatic mural overhead, Hedia had eyes only for the funeral pyre, every bit of her seemed to ache as the flames consumed Qui-Gon's body. She tried to remind herself that that was all it was – a body, an empty shell – and that his soul was one with the force. But those clear eyes that had emitted such radiance, such power, would never open again. She reached out with all her soul to the people around her, mingling her strength with theirs, her grief and determination with that of Obi-Wan, of Yoda, of the entire Jedi council, then to her surprise, a new energy combined with theirs. Raw and brave, Anakin had just been told he was to become a Jedi.
Hedia closed her eyes, and searched the stars again for the deep peace Jedi retreated to in meditation, here where souls became one, here they would all meet again.