This is somehow going to turn out to be a Jedi Apprentice story. It's been awhile since I've read them, so be gentle. Any characters that I use from George Lucas belong to him, including the Jedi Apprentice stuff. Anything else is my own. This just kind of flew from my fingers, so any ideas or whatever that you could throw to me would be appreciated. I don't plan on having any romances, unless you include those adolescent infatuations...but otherwise, I hope that you enjoy!
In the beginning...there was silence. The first interruption of that endless, seeming flow of nothingness was a steady beating, like a drum. A strong pulse...then a softer one. The rupture intrigued me. If there was this beating inside me...might there not be beating elsewhere? After all, the darkness had once filled and surrounded me as well. I opened myself and searched...and was flooded...the silence would never come again, perhaps not even when the relentless beating stopped.
The cold struck and tiny sacks near the beating filled, then emptied in a squall that startled even myself. I tried to stop, tried to embrace the silence that had once been so soothing, but had been destroyed with that first beat. Only I could not find it. Other sounds intruded on me, relentlessly filling me. Then the sound was accompanied by something else, something I had never even imagined before, as I had never imagined the beating. Light broke in upon my complete darkness, and I was blind. The tiny sacks--lungs--filled again and again I broke the silence. Then relief upon my battered senses. Forms, outlines, appeared in front of the blinding light, and I focused on them, desiring the blessed darkness that had once graced me.
Meaningless sounds struck me. In time, I would learn what it all meant, how it entered my consciousness, how I entered their's...but for now, I was merely a receptacle for the many catalysts that were slowly forming meaning of my environment. I would forever be affected by this moment. There would be no escaping it. Forever affected by this thing I learned to call Entrance.
In the old days, it was a painful process. Women would scream in agony as their life bled away, only to live and nourish the parasite that took so much from her. That was how I saw it, though they tried to teach me otherwise. They called it Birth, and said that it was a glorious process in which a great bond of love was formed. I wondered how they knew. None of them had ever birthed, as I hadn't. Tubes, chemicals, and incubators had long since taken the place of the messy procedure. Only the few, unlucky women who were far from technology, suffered anymore. Suffered and died.
My ears twitched, listening not only to the words, but also to the calm, patient beating. It was like a clock, measuring out the distance our lives would go, before stopping, declaring in finality the end of our existence in our present form. I had no doubt there would be more, when the beating stopped, for I had been before it began. Again, they tried to teach me otherwise. As Entrance or Birth welcomed us, so Death would usher us out. But perhaps they did not understand, as I did, that each existence has meaning, and each one is Progress.
"Faline, what chemical changes take place when mixing air and hydrogen?"
My ears twitched again, irritably. Must we go over this again? "An explosion." They--I suppose that I should call them teachers, I know that now--kept returning to these basic principles. Addition, subtraction, nouns, verbs, beats, rhythms, periodic table of elements, plotting, rock formation...Quite frankly, I was sick of it. What I really wanted to know was why we all looked different. Why we acted different. Take me and my Guardian, for example.
I am a Kline, at least, that's what they told me. Humanoid and bipedal. I have a tail and ears that stuck out at the top of my head, pointed. My eyes are almond shaped and slanty, blue with slitted pupils. I am slender and covered in short, tabby striped fur. Gray, black, and white. I have retractable claws in both my hands and feet. Which is part of the reason why I don't have footwear. Besides, the thick pads on my feet provide all the protection I need. I even have whiskers. My name was unfortunate for the resemblence to the human animals that wandered their planets. Felines, I think they're called.
My Guardian is a Glog. He walks on all fours, though he has an erect torso with arms projected from about where a human's shoulders would be. Except he doesn't have shoulders. He has seven fingers and is blind. He doesn't need eyes, I suppose. Giant ears pick up the high pitched sounds he emits from his fanged mouth, giving him an idea of the layout. Some might think him hooved...a lot of humans forget that Glogs are carniverous, their feet taloned and also catlike. My Guardian has golden fur, although the colors vary.
"Good. Now, who can tell me all the stable elements that have been found?"