It was a bad dream.
And a serious bad dream at that, which made the deal even less desirable. She definitely preferred the sort of cracked-out imagery that frightened you in the heavy stupor of sleep, but was so trippy as to allow room for a hearty chuckle during the course of the waking day to follow; assuming you recalled the content beyond a dreary premonition by that time.
She was alone, engulfed in darkness.
She heard her voice feebly form several words – names – some which meant something to her, others that did not, but all of them bore some measure of haunting familiarity. She stumbled through the ebony plane, spikes and jolts of pain shooting up through her leg with each additional step. She wondered vaguely what was causing this; she couldn't see the afflicted limb, or any other portion of herself. Nothing but endless black, pressing down upon her as she wore on to an unknown destination, her breathing shallow – she felt as though the black was trying to choke her; felt it at her throat, felt her lungs compress...
The darkness was rudely interrupted by a long, thin shaft of blazing cobalt light, humming in the distance. Lightsabre, she thought dimly. She trusted something about it, as though it were wielded by someone she could count on to rescue her from her misery. She edged toward it jerkily.
Come fly to my flame, little moth.
She obeyed, but when she felt another pang from her leg, she glanced down. Now, in the aura of faint light emitted by the brilliant blue 'sabre, she saw that it was gushing something – blood, she supposed, and was messily snapped, nearly half-through at the joint.Figures..
She contemplated ripping free a portion of her cloak to use as a pressure bandage, when she found the tip of the sapphire ray buzzing softly underneathe her nose. She blinked – something wasn't right here. Not the wound, not the darkness.. the blade felt all wrong, different than her initial perception of it. Twisted. It soared back, and made for her throat. With energy she didn't realize she had, she drew something cylindrical from within her cloak – he own 'sabre, apparently – and the violet shaft hissed to life in her hands; she moved to block..
The two cool colours sizzled and sparked, holding each other at bay. She felt her resolve weakening again, and the blue blade lifted away, swung around...
Sliced neatly through her chest.
Tumbling to the ground; the blue blade was extinguished from sight. She heard a muffled cry in the distance, echoing footsteps – suddenly, she was warm, not from her own blood, certainly.. the lightsabre blow would've cauterized the wound immediately.
Ah, someone was holding her. Sobbing. But their presence was soothing, and she felt at peace. She wanted to comfort them, tell them it was alright, that they needn't shed tears for her; but her eyes felt heavy – not that the ability to see made any difference, in the realm of the black – with the loss of their control, a chain reaction seemed to writhe through her tendons, and she could no longer move any of the other muscles necessary to speak, either. Wishing to say something, she felt her mind comply and latch on to the other's with surprising ease – she sent a request, she forgot what, but she felt it fit.
Something warm and scratchy pressed against her face; it tickled. She smiled into it almost cheerfully, and faded into oblivion.
-----------------------------------------------
Siri washed into consciousness, feeling as though she'd just died, been chopped to bits, then stitched back together and resurrected by a particularly unskilled necromancer. She felt entirely nauseous, and she wagered it didn't have a lick to do with her stupid dream, which was rapidly brushing from her consciousness with the ebb of sleep's grasp anyway, considering she'd been feeling this way on and off as a unpleasant new regularity for the past few weeks. Cracking an eye open, an unfriendly assault of light charged her eye, and she quickly snapped it shut and rolled over, groaning.
She was warm. There was something altogether too de ja vous-esque about it, too.
Suddenly, a portion of her nightly escapade hit her, and surprisingly enough this caused her to emit a drowsy chuckle; she opened her eyes again, this time to the sight of the lightly snoring man who had his arm draped over the bare curve of her side.
"Apparently, I die in your embrace. Don't you feel special?" she queried, idly reaching forward and running her fingers through the thick dark locks of curly chest hair which were entirely to tempting not to toy with whenever they remained casually exposed, like at present.
"Mmmphf," was the only reply.
"Sounds about right," she agreed, and fully awake now, carefully extracted her slender form from his grasp, slipping to the floor. Pausing a moment to admire her own nude form, she idly mused out loud, "Y'know, I should've been an underground model, not a Jedi. Much more potential there, don't you think?"
No response.
"What, the concept of other males having the opportunity to admire my body isn't enough to get you out of bed in the morning?"
A pause, and then groggily, the words, Sleep is good, drifted through her mind across their bond.
She scoffed at him, acting playfully offended by his lack of real reaction. Siri had, opposed to what one might hazard a guess at, always been somewhat of a morning person, very much unlike her companion. She knew her dawn wit was completely wasted on Obi-Wan, but she bombarded him with it regardless.
Shaking her head, she stooped to seize her habitual clothing when another wave of nausea hit her, and she was consequently suddenly overtaken by an inescapable hunger, her stomach growling in complaint. That was another thing that'd been off lately – as a physically active woman, what with all the personal duel training she underwent with Adi, physical trials, time spent in the practice room, the gym, et cetera – Siri had always harboured quite the appetite, but this was ridiculous. She'd become a bottomless pit, and it perturbed her to no end.
"My systems are going absolutely batty," she muttered, occupying herself with digging through the mess of junk spread out over the floor of her quarters for something edible; the new priority to actually getting dressed.
Finding Obi-Wan's utility belt, she dug through one of the side pockets to discover a package of standard Temple travel rations tucked away, and dragged it out, raising an eyebrow at the dull, wheat-coloured sticks within.
"There's no conceivable lingering question that these are yours, as they look absolutely tasteless."
Again he failed to respond, but then again Siri didn't expect differently, and simply let him rest. She tore open the packaging and munched her way through the contents before at last setting about the business of throwing on some means of physical covering; a simple tan tunic and cloak. After much additional floundering around, trying to beat her living space into some semblance of order, it wasn't until she sat on the edge of the bed idly brushing through her shoulder-length hair an odd hour later that her company from the night before stirred.
Two solid hands, well-worn beyond their only double-decade sum of years, gingerly slipped over her shoulders and she felt the comfortable weight of his chin come to rest upon one as a perch.
He nuzzled the side of her neck by way of greeting, placing a tender kiss against the skin there.
"Hi."
She smiled, "Eloquent to the last. Hi to you too."
He ignored her quip for the moment, too accustomed to her playful commentary to pay it any particular heed until it suited him, "Even you aren't usually ready this early. Where are you headed?"
"Wasn't that a long sentence for this time of day?"
"That was two sentences, actually. And at least I do not badger my exhausted comrades at 5 in the morning CST."
She twisted around in his embrace to look him bemusedly in the face, the tips of their noses barely brushing, "It was your choice to spent the night with me for what... the twelfth time this month? You knew what you were in for."
"Perhaps. Where are you going?" he repeated. Persistence always worked best with Siri when she elected to play coy.
"To the medical wing. I've been feeling a bit under the weather recently.. must've snagged some silly off world virus again. I wonder if it's contagious - want to experiment with that theory? Then we could be miserably ill together."
She leaned forward, obviously buying for a good snog. A grin spreading across his features, Obi-Wan tilted his head back in the same direction, away from her, and swatted her off.
"I'd rather not, " he chuckled.
"Oh come on," she made a face, "Where's you sense of adventure?"
"I must've left it in my own chambers?"
"If it was contagious, you'd gotten it many times over by now."
"I'm still not going to give you the satisfaction," he said, leaning further back into the nest of tangled blankets beneathe them.
She stuck her tongue out at him in response.
Taking the opportunity after but a split jiffy of consideration, Obi-Wan shot his head forward and took the tongue hostage in his own mouth, grasping it gently between his teeth and caressing the length of it with his own. Siri melted into his sudden change of tactics readily, letting her weight hang forward limply until the both of them were lying compressed down once more, the young woman horizontally splayed out on top of Obi-Wan. She slowly dragged her captured tongue across the top of his palate; their mouths intertwined with growing intensity, performing an intricate series of affectionate bys on each other within, lips parting and rejoining rapidly to keep up with the resulting motions. Their chests rising and falling in tandem, Siri ran a hand down the length of his side unconsciously, and felt her desire to go anywhere dissolving rapidly by the second… but unfortunately, rationality managed to worm its way to light, as she realized where they were headed yet again. She figured getting it on again before leaving for the infirmary wasn't the brightest of ideas, it was hard to discern the extent of what those blasted medical droids could pick up on. She pulled back to break off the kiss and rested her head next to his instead, breathing heavily.
"I think you just get a kick out of trying in vain to prove that you're the dominant one," she whispered into his ear.
"I am not?"
"Only in your dreams, my lovely man-bitch."
"You know," he said quite placidly, running a hand along her shoulder blades in slow, sensual circles, massaging the tensions from them, "I think I may resent being assigned that title."
She closed her eyes, and laughed softly.
"Oh, no, you like it, you're just afraid to admit it.." she yawned, finding that his ministrations were provoking the onslaught of premature drowsiness.
"I think that I ought to go now, however reluctantly, or else I'll just squander my day entirely with you. Well, that is, not that you are a waste of any time..." she grinned and placed a kiss on the side of his temple, "Far from, but you know what I mean."
----------------------------
Finally, grudgingly, Siri managed to extort herself from her lover's company and was padding down one of the Temple's lengthy corridors barefoot in the general direction of the medical wing. Ever so slightly distracted by Obi-Wan on her way out the door, the young Jedi had completely neglected to equip herself with any manner of footwear, and only realized such several minutes later and two floors away. Partially out of stubborn pride, realizing Kenobi would have one up on her if she returned to fetch them, and mostly out of sheer laziness, she continued on regardless without rectifying this situation.
Nearly to the infirmary entrance, a compact device tucked away within the depths of her cloak began to chime persistently, indicating that she had received a transmitted message from elsewhere in the vicinity. Removing the item and bringing it into plain view, she glanced at the small screen affixed upon its semi-circular face and sighed in exasperation – she recognized the coding present in the transmission immediately.
Adi.
Under normal circumstances, Siri had always jived remarkably well with her Master, the venerable Adi Gallia. The two shared remarkably similar perceptions on a great variety of matters; Siri felt as though Adi was the closest thing she had to both a mother and a best friend, and in turn, Adi made no secret of her pride in Siri's accomplishments and abilities. Lately, however, matters had been deteriorating.
It all began with the events of their last mission. In hot pursuit of smugglers on the Kessel Run, a slight difference in opinion was fanned into a flame of outright, powerful disagreement when Siri neglected to heed Adi's orders and took the initiative on how she thought they ought to proceed.. it seemed the only reasonable thing to do, at the time, because a moment's hesitation would've resulted in the matter becoming moot anyway.. but things had not gone as Siri intended. She was still dealing with the consequences of her actions, the biggest one being the ongoing arguments with Adi on what ought to be done now to compensate for the aftermath.
Siri really didn't feel like dealing with it right now. In fact, she didn't particularly feel like dealing with it ever, and avoided the subject of the bungled mission whenever possible. Just the day before, Obi-Wan had attempted to bring it up in conversation, but Siri had not taken to the subject even with him, and he knew her well enough to realize that if she was not prepared to discuss something, it was best left be until she felt otherwise. An angered Siri Tachi was a rarity, and one entirely unpleasant to contend with at that.
Stuffing the communicator back into the pocket from which it came, Siri simply opted to ignore it, letting it continue to beep in complaint until at last it decided to surrender and simply record the fact that she missed a message. Siri planned to play innocent, should Adi decide to contact her again later on; claiming that she left the device back in her quarters, and thus could not have known that the Jedi Master was attempting to get in contact with her.
She approached the medical wing's doors, which quickly slid open, allowing her to pass into the ward beyond. A lanky medical droid mounted on a triple-set of wheels scooted over to greet her without hesitation; she was the only Jedi occupying the wide room of cots and equipment, and it must've been exceedingly bored, waiting for Force knows how long for a patient to occupy its time.
"I am M5-F67, medical specialist. How may I be of service?"
She smiled at the droid; she liked droids and how simple they were to deal with, almost as much as she liked exotic alien creatures and enjoyed their company.
"I've been feeling a bit off, so I just thought I'd come in for a routine checkup, to make sure I'm not carrying any nasty bugs."
"Bugs?" with a slight whirr of gears, the droid cocked it's head inquiringly.
She laughed, "Any viral contractions."
"Ah, right this way," Emfive responded, turning 180 degrees and moving smoothly towards a station on the far side of the room.
Siri followed in its wake, and perched herself comfortably on the edge of the sturdy examination table adjacent to the databank console. Emfive produced a number of instruments from a drawer nearby, as well as from compartments within its own internal structure, and began to scrutinize her from head to toe, shining little lights in her eyes and measuring the degree to which her pupils dilated; examining her ear canals, her throat, her blood pressure, reflexes, and so forth. Siri sat through this patiently; as a little girl, she'd even enjoyed the process, finding the rigorous analysis to be an affair of intrigue.
At last, M5-F67 straightened up with a faint hiss of hydraulics and produced a verdict, "Generally, you appear to be very healthy. However, there is something I would like to investigate further. What symptoms did you experience that led you to believe you were ill?"
Siri shrugged, thinking the matter over, "Well, let's see.. mostly, a maddening nausea which seems to come and go at random. Otherwise, I've been of unusual appetite and," she grinned sheepishly, "have had to visit the 'fresher more frequently than seems natural, if you catch my drift."
Seeming to find the answer to be one of some indication, Emfive responded, "Yes, we should test you then. Wait here a moment," and whirred off to a different shelving cabinet, presumably to retrieve the means to test for whatever ailment it thought she possessed.
Returning a moment later, Emfive carried a few diminutive pieces of equipment that did not look often-used, if the fact that most of them were still in factory wrapping was any indication. He approached Siri's arm with a hypodermic needle.
"I will require a blood sample. This should not hurt beyond a momentary sting."
Siri nodded, and the droid calculated the location of an easy-to-access vein, plunging the silver spine of the tool into her flesh with precision and removing it just as quickly, depositing the sample into the indicator it had unwrapped in the mean time with its free hand. After a moment, once Emfive seemed to reach a conclusion, it fixed her with the gaze of its yellow photoreceptors, in what Siri could've sworn was an almost sympathetic way.
"You are pregnant," it informed her simply.
She blinked, uncertain she'd heard it correctly.
"I'm... ..what?"
"Pregnant. Whether you are carrying a male or female is impossible to tell at this stage."
She disregarded the last part entirely, she didn't care whether the child was a boy or a girl, she was still having trouble discerning whether or not she was still asleep, and if this was her subconscious' pathetic attempt at another nightmare.
"I'm..." she laughed hollowly, how irresponsible she'd been rushing to her mind all at once; the ramifications of which settling on her like a ton of bricks, "Oh, shit."
Siri Tachi's world fell apart.
She wasn't ignorant of the subject, but sexual education was simply among those things not taught within the confines of the Jedi Temple. She had never, not even for a second, stopped to consider what might befall Obi-Wan and herself if they continued the.. the habit they'd developed in recent months past. And now, all of a sudden, it struck her how incredibly foolish they'd been. She'd been.
They'd be expelled from the Order for sure.. the only family they'd ever known. She felt horrible – she had just ruined Obi-Wan's prospects on ever becoming what he aspired to be, she knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt; of someday becoming a Master, sitting on the Council.. And what of the child? The responsibility of having created new life frightened Siri, especially with the future of that life as in question as it would be. Would the baby be taken into custody of the Order and raised in the Temple, and they could only watch from the outside, never to be part of its life? Or would they get to raise it themselves, but it would never have the opportunity to train as its Force potential gave it right to?
She realized a moment later that she must have been staring aimlessly into space in utter shock, because she had lost Emfive's attention, and it had moved to the databank. A small connection port extended from it's side to connect with the interface of the terminal.
Fear gripped Siri. Reacting almost instinctively, she whipped her arm out straight in front of herself, hand splayed out as she manipulated the Force around M5-F67, holding it immobile, router only millimetres from its intended port. Whether the medical droid had intended to access further information to be able to provide Siri with advice on her pregnancy, or if it was recording its findings, or doing something entirely unrelated to the proceedings, she could not be certain. But she knew which of those possibilities she could not risk at any cost.
"I seem to be malfunctioning," Emfive said, a slight edge of panic tinting its vocordors.
Siri stood, covering the distance to the motionless droid in a few short strides.
"I'm sorry," she said, and grasping a small scalpel lying on a tray nearby, reached behind its cerebral centre and cut a choice few wires. Emfive slumped in her arms, the lighting behind its plexiglass eyes abruptly winking off. Lifting the lifeless droid to the top of the examination table, she hurriedly set to work erasing it's memory.
----------------------------------------------------
Siri felt insanely guilty about practically lynching M5-F67. It didn't do anything incorrectly to deserve what it got.. she was selfishly protecting herself – well, mostly Obi-Wan and the child, but even so – at the expense of harming another. She'd aimed to disable it in such a fashion that it was repairable, but so that its memory was irrevocably spent. She didn't know for certain if she'd succeeded, she was able when it came to dealing with technology, but had no particular excess of skill in mechanics.. but was fairly confident that she had. And it wasn't right, denying Emfive of it's recollections, it'sconsciousness - if droids really had such a thing – she wished she would've known some method of selectively wiping its memory of the information crucial to her cause, not the whole kit and caboodle.. but again, she had no particular expertise in that area, and so she'd done the only thing she could.
Arriving outside of the entrance to her quarters, she wiped the oil from her hands and extended her perceptions to beyond the door to determine if Obi-Wan was still there.
He was.
Cursing silently, she quickly erected a number of mental barriers, but without much preparation, could only hope against hope that they would withstand for as long as necessary. She keyed the door and stepped into the room.
Obi-Wan Kenobi was seated at her computer terminal, idly reading the information displayed on the screen until a moment after she'd entered, turning his attention to her instead.
"Adi stopped by about fifteen minutes ago, she wanted to speak with you," he stated, offering her a small smile, "She said she'll try back shortly."
Siri grimaced, but otherwise shrugged off the news, responding only with, "Oh.. great."
He considered her with raised eyebrows, "You sound enthusiastic about that prospect."
"I sense sarcasm," she said, dully, flopping down to sit on the end of her mattress.
Obi-Wan was no fool when it came to Siri's moods, and immediately suspected there was more to her irritable air than simply the news that Master Gallia had come around for another hair-pulling episode of Smuggler Wars.
"What's wrong?"