Author's Note: Major inspiration kudos go to 3 Doors Down for their song "If I Could Be Like That". This is another of those not-quite-a-songfic stories…I'm really quite fond of it, and I think the character may return quite a bit older in later stories. The name is actually the name of one of the freshmen girls in my section in band; I hope she doesn't mind.
He spent his whole life being too young
To live the life that's in his dreams
At night he lies awake and he wonders
Why can't that be me…
Takara peered cautiously around the corner, hoping desperately that there was no one there. There rarely was, at this time of day, but she had to be careful. The Jedi were not tolerant of trespassers in their temple, even of almost-teenage girls who could obviously do no harm.
The Meditation Gardens seemed empty, though, so she carefully crept in under the gate and slid through the foliage so that no casual observer from the hallway could see her. This was the easy part; the gardens were kept as open as possible within the temple, so there were literally hundreds of ways in. It was getting into the temple in the first place that was so complicated, Takara reflected as she wandered through the greenery that was so sparse on Coruscant. She'd been doing it sine she was six, though, and had gotten quite good at it. The trick was to slip in the main gates behind one of the Jedi, far enough behind that they couldn't sense you, but not so far that the doors slid shut before you could squeeze through them.
As long as she could remember, Takara had been fascinated by the Jedi. Like many children, as soon as she was old enough to understand what they were, she began to wonder how likely it was that shee had been overlooked as an infant and that they would still take her to be trained. Unlike many, she had never fully outgrown her fantasy. Oh, she supposed she had a perfectly good life ahead of her; as the daughter of an ambassador, admittedly from a minor planet, she had plenty of opportunities in politics. Politics had never interested her, though. The Force had. Although she knew now that she could never become a Jedi, she still dreamed, and exercised her imagination by sneaking into and around the Jedi Temple on occasion. She was careful not to do it often - it was getting harder as she grew older, and she did not want to get caught.
"Again, Padawan." The rich, accented voice echoed through the gardens. Takara froze. Wrapped up in her own thoughts, she had failed to notice the Master and Padawan in the garden, going through Force exercises…surely one of them, at least, had noticed her by now? Glancing around frantically, she found that they were probably seated in the small clearing directly in front of her and around a bush, and she was probably still hidden from them. The fact that neither of them had come after her implied that they hadn't, in fact, noticed her yet.
Common sense told her to hurry, before she could be caught. She'd been caught once before, but that had been when she was seven, and she had the impression that she'd be in a lot more trouble this time. Something deeper, though, held her in the garden, and she crept forward to peer into the clearing.
Despite her fear of discovery, Takara was mesmerized. She had been creeping around the Temple for the better part of six years, and had lived on Coruscant for all of her short life, but never before had she seen the Force at work. In the clearing, a boy perhaps a little younger than herself was concentrating fiercely on a pile of four round stones sitting one atop the other, balanced precariously in the air. A fifth stone was slowly making its way to the top of the pile. When it had nearly reached the top, a sudden burst of speed made it overshoot its target by nearly a foot. The boy frowned, and brought it cautiously back down to rest on the top of the pile. The whole thing wobbled dangerously for a moment, then stopped.
"Another," said the Master patiently. A tall man with graying hair, he was sitting on the bench at the edge of the clearing, watching his student impassively.
The boy, however, appeared to be fed up. "Master, I've been lifting things with the Force since I was two years old - why do we have to spend my free afternoon practicing it?" He sounded thoroughly exasperated, but the strain in his voice suggested that holding up that tower was more difficult than he was letting on.
Why's he complaining? Takara wondered silently. Does he even realize what he's got? I'd give anything to spend a free afternoon lifting things with the Force.
"I realize that, Obi-Wan," said the Master patiently, with a faint tinge of humor in his voice, "but it is your control that needs the work." His tone seemed to imply that Obi-Wan had, after all, just proved this point for him.
As Obi-Wan turned back to his tower with a sigh of frustration, his master glanced almost casually into the bushes and caught Takara's eye. Frozen in panic, she hardly knew what to think when he gave her a warm smile and a bit of a shrug, as if to say, "What can you do?" and smiled at her.
Too shocked even to smile back, Takara sat, frozen, not even seeing the fascinating scene before her until she heard the Master's voice again. "Very good, Obi-Wan. One more and then I'll let you go."
Realizing that if either of the Jedi saw her as they were leaving the gardens they would have to take official notice of her, and then she would be in trouble, Takara crept backwards out of her hiding place and bolted for the gates, to unbalanced to be concerned about being seen.
Only when she had sneaked back into her house and assured herself that her inept babysitter hadn't realized she'd been gone did she let herself wonder what exactly had happened. Of all the things she'd expected of a Jedi master when she'd be caught, amused tolerance was hardly one of them. Perhaps he had mistaken her for a student. Still, it would probably not be a good idea to go back to the Temple any time soon, she thought wistfully.
When her parents came home that night and asked her what she'd done all day, she shrugged and said, "Nothing," as usual. Takara never told anyone about her experiences in the Temple Gardens. But when she went to sleep that night, and for many nights thereafter, she dreamed wistfully of Jedi and the Force.
If I could be like that
I would give anything
Just to live one day
In those shoes
If I could be like that
What would I do,
What would I do…