The Moment
- Part 1 - - - by ardavenport
WHACK!
Qui-Gon Jinn went down on the hard-packed dirt, his nose flattened by the impact.
The first thing he felt was complete surprise. He had been running with the others; he had felt the Force guiding them in the dark. Then a flash of lightning had illuminated the flat, gray shape coming right at his face with just a fraction of a second for him to realize that it was going to hit him and he couldn't stop it. Thunder rumbled over the growing windstorm.
"Qui-Gon!"
He could just barely hear the voice in the howling wind. The wind was getting larger, which made no sense to him, but it was. He saw Master Dooku, frozen in another flash of lightning, reaching down to him. In the darkness of storm and wind, his Master's hands grabbed him, lifted him up over his shoulders. He felt motion, his Master turning and running over the uneven ground. The wind kept getting larger.
Then he felt the pain.
Blood pounded into his nose, throbbed in his whole head with every bouncing stride. It filled his nasal passages and he gagged, choking on it.
Seconds later he flew through the air, landing on a moss covered bank and sliding down to a shallow bottom. Dooku's weight landed on top of him, his Master's robe covering his head.
The wind had grown into a thing. It had become a huge mass of deadly size; loud, thundering and rushing at them. Qui-Gon closed his eyes tightly and turned his head, trying to clear his nose of the fluid drowning him. Sound itself had become solid.
It receded.
Qui-Gon knew they were safe. It would not come back for them. He sensed the others, Master Yewmakkor and her Padawan, Eenid, through the Force. Then he felt Eenid's weight on his legs, covering him as well as Dooku.
A light flashed in his eyes and he winced away from its harsh, steady glare.
"Qui-Gon." Dooku squeezed his shoulder, hard. His head cleared, strength from his Master filling him through the Force. He saw his Master's head looming over him only as an outline of dark hair; he couldn't see his eyes.
Yewmakkor told him to lie still. Her long hair tickling his skin; her paws touched his forehead, his cheek. His nose was hot with pain, but he didn't flinch when her fingers brushed the swelling injury. Lightning flashed behind her enormous head. She told Dooku that he was bruised, his body shocked and his nose was broken, but nothing worse. The wind had diminished to a normal storm that competed with the Wookiee's howling speech, but no longer drowned it out. Thunder rumbled.
A bacta-treated patch covered his face under his eyes. Its cool, medicated lining offered some relief. Breathing deeply through his mouth, Qui-Gon tried to focus on slowing the blood flow, but the swelling was already well along. Yewmakkor tried to be gentle, but even the most fractional motion moved broken edges of bone and cartilage together. Qui-Gon tried to breathe the agony in and let it pass, but it kept wanting to stay. Dooku's hand on his forehead pressed strength down on him, but it conflicted with the healing he felt through Yewmakkor's touch. The Force felt stormy, like the weather around him, inside him. Qui-Gon tensed; he felt as if he was drowning in it.
"The boy doesn't need to be coddled," Dooku said. The Wookiee Master answered with a sharp snarl that Dooku was only making things worse. Dooku's hand left him, obeying the Wookiee's command and implied threat. Qui-Gon couldn't imagine that she would harm Dooku, but the strength and power of Wookiee speech always implied an untamed threat when roused, and his Master retreated from it.
Qui-Gon only saw outlines in the glare of his Master's hand-held light and the occasional sheets of lightning from the low clouds above them. In one flash he saw Eenid's large flat head, her huge tusks jutting upward from her wide mouth and her small eyes, looking down at him with concern. Qui-Gon felt his Master's presence nearby; the familiar strength and confidence hovered nearby, gentle this time, no longer clashing with Yewmakkor's formidable presence. It was so unusual for Dooku to ever back down from anything. But of course, Qui-Gon mentally sighed, his Master did it very well.
The pain lessened into an intense throbbing. Qui-Gon's vision blurred, but other than Dooku's light and the lightning, he saw mostly darkness anyway.
He was lifted to a sitting position. His head rested next to the coarse folds of Yewmakkor's robe, the woven and tooled belt that she wore over one shoulder, and her furry chest. He felt lightheaded, but the bleeding had slowed and it was easier to breathe sitting up, though he could only breathe through his mouth. He inhaled, concentrating again on stopping the bleeding. He felt the Force again, through Yewmakkor's enormous paw, covering his head with its healing warmth replacing the heated pain. She gently adjusted the medical patch that she held to his face. A sharp pain seemed to go straight through his head from his injury, but it did not seem to matter. Yewmakkor told him to rest, her voice a purr that he heard inside his head, over the wind of the storm. The Force surrounded him, his mind interpreting it as a hazy light in the darkness around him, a tingling numbness over his nose and on his skin.
Yewmakkor's long hair brushed his face, his chin, the back of his neck. The smell of Wookiee hair mixed with the metallic taste of blood, which surprised him, that he could smell anything at all. Qui-Gon supposed that he was injured, but he did not feel injured. Aside from his face, his arms and legs still worked; he had no other broken bones, no punctures, no internal injuries. He swallowed blood; his mouth was thick with it, but he did not feel injured.
Another flash of lightning surprised him with sudden blue-white shapes. He shut his eyes. A moment later the delayed thunder rolled over them, not quite as loud as the rumbling he felt next to him in Yewmakkor's chest. Qui-Gon was sure he wasn't injured...
Qui-Gon heard a new sound, unformed and random like the wind, but punctuated with small sharp impacts. It got louder, more insistent. His nose throbbing, Qui-Gon kept his head still. The sound pounded harder and he heard thunder. He opened his eyes and saw nothing, total darkness. The air was humid and wet.
He did not remember lying down, or being moved. He didn't think that much time had passed, but he couldn't be sure. Stirring, Qui-Gon found himself lying on his side and covered with his own wet robe. He didn't remember his robe being taken off of him either. His head lay next to wet fabric, Dooku, he realized. Rain poured down on them from above in heavy waves of water.
Yewmakkor's mournful howl told him to lie still; her wet paw rubbed his shoulder. They all huddled together under their robes. The mossy ground was spongy and wet, but they were not lying in water. Even though it hurt, Qui-Gon forced air out of his nose, clearing it. It hurt terribly and clots of blood came out. Peeling away the used bacta patch, he ducked his head, trying to wipe the discharge away onto the ground and not onto his Master's tunic. He was not sure if he succeeded. Dooku's arm reached up, the hand stroking his head and brushing away the water that quickly dripped down again on him through the robe. Trickles ran down his face. The coolness actually felt good on his injured nose.
Qui-Gon sensed deep concern from his stern Master, and that alone confirmed to him that he really was injured. He relaxed, reassured by the Jedi Knight's presence. Qui-Gon was Dooku's first Padawan and emotion often seemed to flow through their bond more easily from student to teacher. Qui-Gon sometimes wondered how well his Master accepted this, but he never questioned him about it, words seemed so inadequate and possibly damaging. Whenever it reversed, as it was now, Qui-Gon intuitively accepted it. More thunder rolled overhead, but the rain came down with slightly less force.
He waited with the others, at first tense, when he realized that he was pressed between Dooku and Yewmakkor. The two Knights had not been getting along well on this mission; their personalities had clashed over petty things. They were both Jedi Knights, each with their own first Padawan and neither having any more seniority over the other. Qui-Gon and Eenid had stayed silent and mute whenever their elders started sniping at each other. Now, Qui-Gon sensed surprising harmony between them. He would have preferred something less severe than his broken nose to be the bridge that would get them to cooperate better.
Dooku and Yewmakkor had been using the Force to keep him warm, but now he drew it to himself. Warmth spread through his body. He was wet, but he did not have to be cold. The rain lessened to only a heavy downpour; the thunder sounded more distant. Qui-Gon breathed in through his mouth, accepting the pain. His whole face felt swollen and sore, anything that brushed his nose hurt. He had a slight headache, but nothing he couldn't ignore. He also needed to empty his bladder but he suppressed that urge along with the pain.
Yewmakkor moaned about the rain, not in complaint, just Wookiee sounds around Wookiee rain words. Occasionally she would utter Eenid's name, by way of encouragement to her Padawan who lay on the other side of Yewmakkor's huge bulk. Qui-Gon's Master remained silent, not complaining at all about the Wookiee's muttering which had so annoyed him on their way to this mission. Dooku's arm now rested over Qui-Gon's own arm and shoulders. Qui-Gon sensed peaceful acceptance of their situation, of the rain, of the other Jedi and of his own Padawan. Qui-Gon quieted his mind, seeking to emulate his Master's contentment.
Slowly, the rain decreased until it had become a light drizzle. They had not heard thunder in some time and Qui-Gon sensed no threat from it. They emerged, throwing the robes off. The sky was a very dark gray, the first light of dawn still too dim to even see shapes by. Yewmakkor howled loudly about rain and water in general as she wrung her robe out. They heard the water splash loudly on the ground near them.
"Don't even think about shaking all that water off onto us, you hairy beast. Step away from us if you must." Dooku warned. Qui-Gon sensed a lighter tone to Dooku's 'hairy beast' from all the other times he had addressed the Wookiee. She howled back at him about prickly hairless humans, but again Qui-Gon detected a change. The names the two Masters used for each other were hardly affectionate, but they were no longer disrespectful.
They heard Yewmakkor shaking herself out a short distance away. Eenid began wringing her robe out and Qui-Gon joined her. Dooku joined them. All the water splashing reminded Qui-Gon of his bladder. He put his damp robe on and took himself away from the group to take care of it. He used the Force to avoid any holes or ruts or standing water on the uneven ground. A moment later Dooku silently joined him for the same reason. They heard Eenid a short distance away doing whatever she needed to do.
Wiping his hands off on his drying robe, Qui-Gon went back with Dooku to regroup with the others; he thought he could just make out their silhouettes against the dark gray horizon.
The four of them crouched together in the same spot where they had sheltered themselves from the rain. Yewmakkor moaned as she activated the locator. Their ship was no longer where they had left it, and their objective, the entrance to the cyborg's buried outpost, was apparently no longer there at all. The Force would have to guide them to it. They began walking toward the ship, Yewmakkor leading. Qui-Gon followed her, Eenid behind him and Dooku came last. Their clothes dried as they walked and they each used the Force to keep off the chill. Good Jedi boots had kept Qui-Gon and Dookus' feet dry. Neither the Wookiee Jedi nor the Whiphid Padawan needed any boots at all on their tough feet.
Their footsteps squelched on the mossy ground and patches of bare dirt. After such a ferocious storm there was surprisingly little mud or standing water amidst the moss, fungus and flat plantlife that covered much of the plain they traversed. The flat ground seemed to have easily absorbed the deluge. The gray overcast sky slowly lightened.
Dooku turned first and then all four of them sensed the presence in the gloom to their left. They walked more cautiously as the unseen person approached, but no one drew their lightsaber until just before the blaster bolts struck the ground at their feet.
End - Part 1