Torin stared at the Jedi across from him. So many questions went through his mind. How had he gotten here? What had ultimately become of Lord Andar's ship? Had she found his friends, too? Were they alive? Were any of them alive?

The woman made no more attempts to move closer to him, even as he backed away. Nor did she make any hostile movements. He couldn't see if she wore a lightsaber under the brown tunic that hung just past her waist, but he knew that if she were anything like her Sith counterparts, her weapon never left her side.

He opened his mouth to speak but found it dry, and had to swallow to allow himself to talk. "Who are you?" he said in a raspy voice.

She smiled and beckoned him forward with a finger. "I'll show you." Her voice was matronly and rustic, her accent betraying her as someone who had grown up on the edge of the core worlds. With that short declaration she exited the door she had entered through and walked out into the light of day. Torin reflexively moved to chase her before stopping himself and looking around the hallway. No, there was nothing to do but follow. Whatever game this woman was playing at, he'd have to go along with if he wanted answers.

He followed her out the door and stopped, shielding his eyes against the blinding rays of sun as he scanned his surroundings. A sparse evergreen forest surrounded him, ancient pines towering far above while others grew hardly any taller than himself. The air was crisp and clear, carrying the scent of fresh pine needles and fertile soil on a stiff breeze that had him wishing he'd pillaged the bedroom for a shirt before leaving.

The woman was nowhere to be seen, and he turned around to look back at the building he had left. It certainly wasn't a hospital. It consisted of two white domes, the sort of reliable homestead one would expect to find on border worlds the galaxy over. He stepped back on the concrete porch, then stopped when the his heel collided with something. A set of wool-lined boots sat on the ground. Taking another look around, he slipped them on, then bent down to tuck his pants into them.

"Don't take too long!"

He looked up to see the woman standing beside the thick trunk of a tall pine.

"Hey!" he shouted back, then stood up and ran towards her. She walked behind the tree, disappearing from view. He reached the pine and slid to a stop beside it, only to find empty air.

"What the hell..." he muttered under his breath as he wheeled around on his feet. Without the house he had left still standing a hundred feet away, he would've already gotten lost in the forest. There was nothing to guide him, just endless trees and flat scrub.

The crack of a twig had him turning around, looking for the source of the noise that bounced off of tree trunk after tree trunk. Off in the distance stood the woman, leaning on a tree with one hand. Without saying a word Torin bolted at her, determined to reach the Jedi before she was able to pull her disappearing act again. She calmly strolled behind the trunk of the pine, and Torin picked up speed until he nearly sprinted past it. As he came to an abrupt halt he whirled his head about and ran around the trunk, looking in vain for a woman who seemed more magician than knight.

"Almost there!"

His head whipped to the left, where the Jedi had assumed a new spot some fifty feet away. His foot lifted up from the ground but he pulled it back and waited, glaring silently at the woman. The wind rustled the branches above him and the pair stared at each other in silence until the woman shifted her weight onto one foot and grasped her wrist in front of her. Torin relented and trod slowly over, crunching dead pine needles underfoot as he fully expected the woman to slip behind the tree again.

She did not, and he came within arm's reach of her before stopping. They had reached the edge of a forest, and stood beneath a stone incline that jutted up from the forest floor in both directions.

"Who are you?" he said, repeating his earlier question.

With a broad smile she leaned towards him slightly and pressed a hand to her chest. "I am Master Ziare, of the Jedi Order."

Despite the bizarre introduction, he didn't feel that she meant him any harm. Not immediately, at least-and if this were an interrogation, it was unlike any he'd imagined.

"Where am I?" He looked around the featureless forest.

She turned away and motioned for him to follow as she walked. Ziare trod up the steep incline behind her, then gestured out into the distance. Torin crept up along inside her, keeping an anxious eye on the woman before looking to where she was pointing.

"You are on Tython," she said. Nestled in a valley far ahead of them was a huge structure of three cylinders topped with flattened domes. People milled about the plazas and courtyards in front of the building in a flurry of activity. "That is the Jedi Temple."

Torin pushed away from the edge and stumbled back down the ridge, nearly falling over as he fled.

"The Jedi Temple?" he said, breathing hard. "Why? What am I doing here?" His back struck a tree and he stopped.

Ziare followed him down from the ridge with her fingertips pressed together in front of her waist.

"Maybe we should talk inside," she said. His eyes flickered in the direction of the temple and his face tensed in fear. "In my home." Ziare motioned in the direction they had come from and began the short walk back, with Torin following at a healthy distance.

Once they reached her doorstep, Torin removed his dirtied boots and rubbed his arms as the mild chill he'd incurred finally set in.

"You can find a shirt in the wall closet." Ziare pointed to the bedroom as she passed it, then continued through another door that slid open with her approach. Torin re-entered the bedroom, and as he looked over the walls he noticed a minimalistic set of doors built into the wall, with an indented button next to them. He pressed it and the closet opened to reveal a rack of identical shirts, all off-white and long-sleeved. He pulled one of the form-fitting garments over his head and smoothed it out as he entered the hallway, then continued into the next room.

Bookcases filled the walls of the right side of the room, surrounding a seating area with a couch and a few chairs. Not a single speck of dust could be seen on any of the imposing tomes filling the shelves. On the left stood Ziare, her back turned to Torin as she did something at the kitchen counter lining the left side of the room. A window half his height spanned the wall opposite him, giving a view of the forest outside.

Ziare turned towards him to reveal a mug of hot tea in each hand, then walked to a square metal table on which she set down the two steaming cups.

Torin approached and took a seat across from Ziare. She twisted around in her chair and reached for a datapad on the counter behind her. While her back was turned, Torin reached out with his hands and lifted both mugs a fraction of an inch off of the table. With a twist of his fingers he rotated them swiftly around, seeking to swap their drinks.

"Ah!" he cried out. Both mugs fell to the table, spilling tea onto the tiled floor below as Torin doubled-over in pain and clutched at his aching right hand. His scar burned in agony, as if the wound were being inflicted all over again.

Ziare whirled about in surprise.

"What happened?" she said. Torin sucked in air through his teeth and sat up straight, still putting pressure on the hand to numb the pain lancing through it. "Were you trying to switch our drinks?" Her tone was more curious than accusatory.

"Force of habit," he replied between pained breaths.

She frowned. "A habit learned in the Sith Empire?"

He didn't answer. If she wanted to probe him for information, she'd have to do better than that.

"I know what happened to you, Torin." She turned the datapad towards him, showing an old ID picture of and a short listing of the information acquired by Republic military when he had been drafted into war. "That is your name, right? Torin Val?"

The drip-drip of hot tea from the table continued, and the Jedi set down the tablet. "I'm not your enemy, Torin."

"How did you know my name?" he snapped at her.

She sat up straight in her chair, looking quite taken aback. "After we met on Darth Dominus' ship, I knew that there was something-"

"No, I mean on Dominus' ship. You said my name."

Her eyes remained on his, but he could tell that she wanted nothing more than to look away.

"A fellow Jedi on Uracco noticed your possible Force sensitivity, but you were captured before contact could be made." She leaned towards him and pressed her forearms to the table. "Part of my duties involve recovering high-value targets, so i'd been made aware of you. That is why I was there to rescue you all those weeks ago."

"Weeks?" His jaw dropped and his chair scraped against the floor as he scooted back and looked around in a daze. "I've been asleep for weeks?"

She nodded.

"Well-what happened? The battle, and Andar's ship-"

Ziare held up a calming hand, stopping him short. "Do not worry. The Republic lost no small amount of men and ships, but thanks to you—"

He shot out of his chair. "The ship! What happened to Andar's ship?"

The Jedi rose to her feet and looked at him in concern. "Lord Andar's ship was totally destroyed. The only reason you survived is that you were so far from the collision."

His blood ran cold and he felt sick—very sick.

"Oh," he said in a monotone voice, turning away from her with a glassy-eyed stare. He felt as if his soul might leave his body.

"Are you alright?" she said.

"I'm just... tired." He took a step forward, but his legs wobbled and his knees struck the floor. Ziare knelt in front of him, waving a hand in front of his face that his eyes did not follow. Her mouth moved, but all he could hear was the ringing in his ears. She gently pulled him to his feet, and he managed to summon some strength to follow her guiding hands as she lead him to a couch.

She set him down, then sat down in a chair diagonal to him. He leaned his arms on his knees and stared at the ground, vaguely aware of the Jedi's presence but unable to process anything through the shock that had overtaken his mind. Gradually the ringing in his ears died down, and awareness returned to him.

"They're all dead." His statement was as much a question for her as it was a way for him to say aloud what he had been thinking. The words sounded absurd, like this couldn't possibly be the reality he had awoken to. "I killed them."

Ziare furrowed her brow in concern.

"Why don't you tell me what happened?"

He sat up from his hunched position and stared vacantly across the room. "We stopped Andar, but she wanted to use the fleet against the Republic." In the corner of his vision he could see Ziare nodding as he gestured with his speech. His arms felt weightless and disconnected from his body.

"She-you mean Lady Vathamma?"

"We fought, and I crashed the ship into the station. We were thrown from the ship, and I pushed her back in." A minute ago he'd been determined to keep his mouth shut until he had a better idea on what the Jedi had planned for him. Now, he wasn't even thinking about that.

The Jedi raised an eyebrow. "You tried to save her?"

The back of his head hit the cushioned couch and he looked up at the ceiling.

"Do whatever you want with me."

"You're not in any trouble!" She stood up and sat next to him on the couch. "You're a hero, Torin!"

He'd killed the only two women he loved, and she called him a hero. The only reason he didn't lash out at her was that his self-hatred overshadowed anything he could muster towards her. He closed his eyes and felt the flare of anger in his chest, a merciful-if brief-respite from the gnawing emptiness consuming him.

He rolled his head to the side just enough to look at her. "I don't know what you want from me."

"I don't want anything from you." She placed her palms on his left hand atop his knee. "You've been through so much, but that's over now. You're here, you're safe."

He looked at her with tired eyes. "I lost everything." His head swung away from her towards the window, outside which the forest sat deathly still. "I should've died on that ship."

After a moment she stood up from the couch, and he heard a door open as she left the room. For hours his eyes didn't leave the forest, though he wasn't really looking at it. The light outside took on pastel hues, then dimmed into near darkness before the cold rays of Tython's moon pierced the woods. He considered what he'd had, what he'd lost, and what he would do now.

The answers to the first two questions were painfully clear, but the third was unanswerable. With nothing and no one to support him he was totally and utterly alone, marooned on the shore of a barren island from which he saw no escape. Without moving a muscle he drifted off into sleep.

Torin's tortured thoughts were swept away and replaced by a misty dreamscape that coalesced into a vision of a sun-speckled courtyard. Sidewalks ran along shallow pools of water and through lush gardens. He walked along one such path, passing under the shadow of a massive tree that seemed to shade the entire courtyard with its foliage. Ships and cruisers passed overhead, as if the garden were the lone area of solitude in a sea of activity outside it. He called out in between the drone of passing ships, though he couldn't tell what he was yelling.

His feet left the path and his hands parted a flowering bush as he neared the edge of the garden. Seated against a beige wall was a young girl in a brown robe, no older than ten. Her bare green head was cradled in between her knees, and a single long braid of black hair hung from the back of her skull. He reached a hand out and walked towards her, and her gaze snapped up to meet his.. She was covered in dirt and scratches, and her brilliant green eyes were narrowed in anger.

Then, she spoke.

In the dream he tried to reply, but couldn't form words. The girl's angular features faded away into mist, and the mist in turn swirled until it became a liquid that bubbled in his ears and covered his skin. He tried to take a breath, but found that he couldn't do that either. His eyes opened and he realized that this was no dream-he was drowning.

He flailed around but found his movements constricted, like he was wrapped in something. A panicked scream escaped his throat, but the water flooding into his mouth quickly put a stop to that. He kicked his hands and feet against wet fabric, his movements slowed by the water. Something hard pressed against his feet, and the water stopped moving past him-he had touched bottom.

In confusion, fear, and no small amount of anger he lashed out, creating an explosion of Force around him that shredded the bag to pieces. It sounded as if a bomb had gone off underwater, and the murky depths continued to thump with the aftershock as he turned his head upwards and pushed up from the ground. A silvery disc hung above the surface, its ghostly light piercing the depths and giving him a goal to swim towards. He swam upwards, propelling himself with his hands and feet against the water weighing on him and the wet clothes billowing around him.

As soon as his face breached the surface he took a massive breath in, tasting sweet air. Insects chirped all around him, filling the night air with a chorus of clicking and humming. Turning away from the moon above him he looked around, spinning in the water until he saw Ziare standing on the shore of the small lake.

"What the hell?" he shouted, then began swimming towards her. If she wanted to see his use of the Force, he would be happy to give her a hands-on lesson once he reached her. That was his intent, but as he swam he realized just how tired he had become from his escape. For a brief, terrifying moment, he thought he would slip underneath the waterline, but his feet touched ground and he staggered onto the shore before collapsing onto his chest. Grass tickled the side of his face and the waves lapped at his bare toes.

"So you don't want to die, after all." She sat down on a rock next to him.

Too exhausted to indulge his anger, he waited for the lake's icy grip to leave him while his heaving chest pushed against the ground with each labored breath.

"I miss them," he panted.

She patted him gently on his back. "I know."