Rane glanced up and down the corridor before turning to the boy beside her. "Is that all you could find, Lith?" she asked him.
He nodded solemnly, biting his lip. "The rest-" He broke off, blinking quickly.
She placed a hand on his shoulder, letting all the comfort she could muster flow through the Force into him. "I know. You did what you could. Now, I want you to take all of them and go hide somewhere. I'll either find you when they're gone, or another Jedi will." He nodded again. "Got your lightsaber?" she asked. "Just in case."
"Yes," he answered, his voice trembling only slightly. She was secretly grateful that her own voice was as steady as it was, since she felt like shaking worse than a Perlimian flutterbush.
"Good boy. Now, go take care of the younglings." He darted off along the hall, and she turned in the opposite direction, igniting her green lightsaber and reaching out to see how many hostiles she could sense nearby. Hostiles. Her mouth twisted in a bitter smile. Their euphemisms had become part of her vocabulary now. She could feel the remaining younglings, confused and afraid, and Lith, scared but determined. They were… She closed her eyes, concentrating. They were headed up, toward the Council Room at the very top of the center spire. She broadened her search. She couldn't find any clones in the vicinity, but she could sense darkness and pain. She opened her eyes and frowned. Whatever that was, it couldn't be good.
The darkness was on the stairs now, so she decided to stay where she was. It would have to come this way if it was after the younglings. She nervously twitched the lightsaber tip back and forth, brushing wisps of hair out of her face. She was a little relieved that the Dark Jedi was coming, instead of the clones. If she'd had to kill one of them, a man she knew had his face under the helmet- She thought she knew now why Jedi weren't supposed to form attachments. But that was already decided, a long time ago… Or it seemed like a long time ago. This war had changed her in so many ways.
She wished, slightly wistful, that she could see him again. Maybe, if she survived this- but even while she hoped, a small voice told her that wasn't very likely. It wasn't the way she'd considered that she might die, but it wasn't a bad death, defending the little ones. One of his brothers liked kids… She blinked, snapping herself back into the present. She could sense the Dark Jedi right around the corner now, and if she was to have the chance of seeing him again, it wouldn't do to be lost in thought when the enemy showed up.
She positioned herself in the center of the corridor, lightsaber on guard. When the hooded figure rounded the bend in the hall, she was ready, flinging a challenge at it. "Who are you, and what's your business in the Temple?"
The figure paused, igniting an azure-bladed saber. Its light illuminated the shadows, allowing her to see the face under the dark hood. She almost dropped her own lightsaber.
"Skywalker-!" she gasped. "What the-" Words failed her in her shock.
"I have to," he said, voice raw with emotion and face wild with maddened desperation. "For Padme!"
Before she could work out what in the galaxy he was talking about, he attacked. He was stronger physically than she was, and the darkness coursing through him both added to his power and nearly smothered her. She barely managed to deflect the blow aimed at her head, and thankfully her muscles remembered the long hours of lessons better than her mind. She recovered quickly and riposted, catching the very hem of his robe. He retaliated, scoring a long burn down her left arm and side. She bit her lip at the searing pain, tears springing to her eyes. That was one thing they never mentioned in class, just how much a lightsaber wound really hurt. She blinked the obscuring tears away, noticing with a bizarre moment of clarity that his eyes were eerily yellow.
She never had been very good with a lightsaber, and fighting Skywalker, always top of the class in swordplay, it showed. She slightly regretted not spending more time practicing, but decided that if she was going to die now, she wouldn't change anything. If she had done as Master Iraenus told her and rehearsed her form instead of going to that cantina that day… But she wasn't sorry she had skipped that practice session.
She brought the lightsaber up to deflect a particularly vicious blow, and the hilt slipped from her fingers. Swearing, she dove for it, rolling to avoid his swings. The humming energy blade missed her head by a fraction as her fingers closed around the polished cylinder, and she ignited it, bringing it up just in time to knock his next strike aside as she leapt to her feet. She was breathing hard now, his aura of dark energy seeming to sap her strength faster than any ordinary fight should.
Her next parry was a fraction of a second too slow, and his blue blade scythed across her abdomen. She realized, with faint relief, that surprisingly enough, it hadn't hurt that much. The next thing she became conscious of was that her lightsaber had fallen from her hand, and she didn't seem to be able to feel her fingers. As she slowly crumpled to the polished stone floor, Skywalker stalked past her. She frowned. He wasn't supposed to get past her- the younglings- She reached out with the Force, trying to trip him up, but fell short. The attempt depleted her last reserve of strength, and darkness swallowed her. Her last conscious thought, as her mind drifted away, was that if she and Slicer had ever gotten married, their children would have been beautiful…