Beautiful
They were beautiful.
Up close they were even more beautiful. From far, far away, down there on the distant floor, they had looked like stars- little dancing stars caught beneath the broad dome of the ceiling. But up here, high up next to the roof, they were better than stars. They had wings – four apiece, and the wings were traced with delicate lines, each fragile membrane divided into pieces like a puzzle, fretted with lovely silver tracery . It looked like writing. He didn't know enough letters to be able to read it, but he wondered if maybe their wings were inscribed with some wonderful secret, some message intended only for the lucky few who climbed close enough to see.
And they glowed! All by themselves, with a gentle silver-white light that seemed to leak out of their bodies, their wonderful soft bodies all segmented and wriggling, dark against their shining wings, fringed with waving legs and little hairs that stuck up of their head like the fronds of a plant in the garden. He could not remember the name of that plant, but he loved it, how it looked like a green fountain.
He watched them flutter and dance and felt that he could stay here forever, just watching them. They were better than dust motes in a sunbeam, although he loved those too. He snugged his body down flat against the roof support beam, gripping his thighs around the cool metal, pressing his belly and ribs to the curving upper surface. Falling would be bad – his stomach was trying to complain about it, flipping round and round in an annoying manner. But his high perch here was strong, and he was strong, and the Force was his ally. That is what all the masters said. So it must be true, and he should not listen to his belly's nervous flutterings.
Now one of the beautiful creatures was floating right before his eyes – so slowly, so softly, softer than the adoring breath he released carefully into the warm darkness under the dome. Gorgeous, luminous, like the Light, it approached him. A thrill passed down his spine. Extending one hand, keeping his other gripped hard around the support so that his stomach would not flip too much, he uncurled his fingers and waited. Shivering with joy, he watched the winged star descend, hesitate, twirl in midair, and then settle upon his open palm with an ephemeral kiss. Its tiny legs tickled horribly. The wings splayed out, so he could admire the puzzle and the tracery in all their silver-white glory. It trembled then, as though it might fly away. But he wasn't done looking yet. Carefully, very carefully so as not to hurt it, he closed his fingers around the sparkling treasure –
-and screamed in hot pain.
Vokara Che was a woman not to be trifled with. The revered TwiLek healer was a power unto herself, a prodigy in the healing arts and a fierce authority well up to the task of handling the order's most obstreperous personalities.. And as such, among her other manifold duites, she had been placed in charge of overseeing the health of the Jedi Temple's younglings. Not a demanding assignment on the face of it: children born strong in the Force tended also to be marvelously strong in constitution. They rarely fell seriously ill, and their injuries tended to be those springing from an excess of high spirits combined with newly discovered powers not yet under their control. When one of the little ones was sent to her with a malady, it was generally more of a distraction than a genuine crisis.
That did not mean – she was quickly coming to realize – that the task would always be straightforward, or easy.
That morning she was interrupted at her other work by the sudden and unannounced arrival of Ky Shinshee, one of the older initiates. She remembered him from previous, unremarkable encounters. He stormed through the main entrance to the Halls of Healing, briskly marching a much younger human boy across the polished floor- half-dragging the poor creature by one hand, in point of fact. The younger child was quite a baby still - less than six years old, she guessed, and on the small, wiry side even for his age. He was forced to take a hurried two steps to Ky's every purposeful one. The older boy held his companion's left hand in a firm vise, an authoritative grip more appropriate to a prisoner than a victim. The young boy held his free right arm tight against his heaving chest, mouth pressed shut, blue eyes shining with pain, and pale skin flushed with fever.
Ky Shinshee was displaying unseemly impatience, she thought.
"I will see to him," she said firmly, by way of dismissal. Ky relinquished the prisoner – or victim – from his grasp and bowed.
"Yes, Master Che." And then, turning to the little one again, "Now you are going to miss lessons with Master Yoda. And if he asks where you are, I will be obliged to tell him." All he received from the younger boy was a defiant tilt of the chin.
"You may go, Ky," Vokara Che said, even more firmly. Enough was enough.
She stood, hands on hips, watching the older boy wilt beneath her stern regard and make a hurried retreat, no doubt secretly glad to be relieved of his young charge and eager to return to whatever lesson or activity he was missing.
The healer squatted down until she was nearly on eye level with the youngling, lekku just brushing the smooth floor behind her. Tear streaks and fresh tears trailed down the boy's face, but he was not crying aloud or screaming. Reaching through the Force, she felt his stoic determination. He did, however, take a cautious step backward.
"I don't need a healer," he announced holding her gaze and taking another experimental step backwards, as though plotting escape. The tall Twi'Lek frowned, in consternation, reaching for him with one blue hand. He skidded backward, just out of reach.
"Come here," she commanded, softly.
The boy froze in place and studied the delicate pattern in the flooring, eyebrows drawn together in a thunderous scowl. His right arm curled further against his chest, and a tremor of pain shuddered in the Force. Vokara Che sighed in frustration, and the boy looked up at her, startled. He cast a longing look at the entryway just beyond. "Can I go now? Please?"
"What?" She fixed him with a very stern gaze indeed. "You are here because you need help. And you are not leaving until I am finished with you. Now come here."
Outright disobedience was unthinkable. Defeated, but not entirely deflated, the child tottered forward until they were a short arm's length apart. He looked up bravely into her face, although two more tears softly welled and dribbled down his flushed cheeks.
"Now," she queried gently. "What did you do to yourself?"
The beautiful creature fluttered away, even as his scream echoed off the dome's wide interior, magnified into a horrified shout that set the other stars into a frantic dance, a whirlwind of silver light. His hand throbbed again – sharp and shocking. He gritted his teeth against the pain. And then fire began to crawl up his arm, an acid burning that would not stop, and came in wave upon terrible wave, each hotter and worse than the last. He almost forgot to hold on, and only the sudden flipping of his stomach saved him. With a jolt he tightened his grip just as his body began to slide over the edge.
He squashed his face against the cool metal of the support, sucking in short breaths as the fire clawed its way toward his elbow and hammered relentlessly into his palm. Breathe, breathe, breathe, that's what he had to do…and hold on. Don't fall. He could hear himself whimpering with each breath. He shouldn't do that, that was stupid and pointless, and what if they heard him down below? His legs trembled and his stomach began to flip in a different way, not a dizzy way…more of a sick, queasy twisting…and the roof beam started to twist and spin beneath him too and he was maybe dancing and floating with the winged creatures, spinning, rolling…
There was shouting down below, far far below near the floor. His hand throbbed, his arm burned, the whole world rocked and swayed and spun. He couldn't see because stinging tears were smearing the colors and shapes into confused dripping smudges, all lit with silver white.
An adult voice called out something, far down below – and then he was falling. But not fast, not with a terrible rush of cold air. The Light had him safely in its grasp, and he was simply floating downward, gently, like the winged creatures. Softly, down, down, until finally a pair of large hands reached up and grabbed him and set him down on the floor again. Other voices, other children – older than him but not grown up yet. Whispering, muttering, making the Light muddy with all their noisy thoughts. The grown up said something sharply, and they stopped.
And then Ky Shinshee had his wrist locked in his hard, bony fingers, and was dragging him away, down the hallways and the stairs and corridors, too fast for him to tell where they were going.
"You're in trouble," Ky hissed at him. "That was very, very naughty. You deserved what you got."
He trotted along next to Ky because he didn't have a choice, and tried to hold back the tears that spattered down onto his grimy tunic. He hadn't meant to be naughty, and he wasn't sure even now what he had done wrong, but the condemnation made the throbbing in his arm worse, and made his heart ache along with it.
"Come on," Ky muttered, and walked even faster.
The boy mutely held out his right hand for her inspection. It was badly inflamed; a nasty sting-like wound punctured the tender flesh of the palm, and a line of visible red poison had already crawled its way up the veins of the wrist and lower arm. It could be the work of more than one deadly insectoid species –but the strength of the venom suggested something which was by no means native to Coruscant, much less the Temple precinct.
"What stung you?" she asked in genuine wonder.
The boy frowned again – despite his round face and softly dimpled chin, he was capable of a disconcertingly ferocious scowl – and tried to work his tongue around the unfamiliar syllables. "Phlo-phol-gis, pholsta- gis…"
"Phlogista moth?" Vokara Che exclaimed, horrified. "Here in the Temple?"
He nodded, enthusiasm relieving some of his pain. "That's what Master Pertha said. I listened to the whole lecture. I paid attention," he explained defensively, as though this might be an important argument in his favor.
"Master Pertha brought phlogista moths here, into the Temple?" she asked, incredulous. The moth was a rare and dangerous species found primarily in the outer Rim and on only a few systems occupied by non-spacefaring peoples. It was a zoological oddity, an academic showpiece – not something one expected a small child to stumble across during his innocent everyday pursuits.
"Yes, master, in the small arbor..arbretum. Ar-bor-etum. For a zoo lesson. The older students got to see them," he supplied, soberly. There was an undercurrent of resentment in his tone, a suggestion that this was an unfair privilege bestowed on unworthy recipients.
The healer raised an eyebrow, and the child's chin sunk back to his chest. But Agrion Pertha was the real culprit here. The older master's notorious passion for every glorious manifestation of the Living Force had been the source of more than one near disaster over the passing decades, especially when the avid biologist was given permission to import specimens into the secondary arboretum for a live demonstration.
"They glow," the boy informed her, as though this explained everything, and justified every danger, both potential and real.
Yes, she was aware that the moths were famed for their bioluminescence. But as a healer she also knew they were famed for the deadly toxins which served as their first and often fatal means of defense against predation and other enemies. That was her only, and strident, concern at this moment.
"That must hurt very much," she said calmly, shielding her sudden flare of concern behind gentle words. She took him by his good hand and led him into a small room.
"Yes," he told her sadly. "It hurts. But I deserved it. That's what Ky said. Only I just wanted to see. It. I didn't mean to be naughty. It just happened."
She rose, shaking her head. "Come with me," she murmured, still puzzling over this declaration.
They had just been released into the outdoor gardens, for playtime. Bodies scampered here and there, swiftly disappearing behind shrubbery, under benches, between rows of miniature trees, into the shadows of walls. Hide and seek was one of his favorites- but he had other plans. On the way outside, walking in their two sedate lines, they had passed the huge domed arboretum. He had glimsped tall Master Perta, with his wonderful striped headtails, pointing out some marvel of nature to his huddled group of older students.
The Light whispered to him, told him that something wonderful was inside that vast room. Now it murmured gently to him again, showing him that now was the time, that now he would not be missed, because everyone was missing. He watched the crèche masters, saw them nod and wave him away, encouraging him to hide and disappear with his friends. So….really, he was obeying, wasn't he?
The doors to the arboretum were heavy, and came together in a crisp line. A lovely floral design was etched into the burnished panels. He studied it, head to one side. And he pushed on the release panel, without touching it. He had just learned how to do this; and he was very proud when the huge portals silently slid open at his touch. The older students were very busy looking at something in Master Perta's hands. The Light shimmered around him and he drew it close, a veil and a shield. He wasn't here. Don't look over here. There's nothing here, nothing at all.
Then he looked up.
The dome was high and full of soft shadow, rising tendrils of mist from the plants below. It might have been the dome of the skies outside, the nighttime canopy which he rarely got to see, but which he loved on the rare occasions when he was allowed out after dark. And high, high in its depths, there danced a troupe of glittering stars, little lanterns of delight, laughter given bodily form. He stared, entranced.
And then he had to be up there, to see them better. They called to him. He yearned for them. And he began to climb. First there was a tall tree. That was easy. At the top of the tree, where the branches grew thin and bent beneath his weight, the leaves brushed against the midlevel rafters. He clambered onto the nearest, and looked up. The support beams leaned and crossed and intersected like a web. He squinted, studying the puzzle. Yes. He could do it. He edged his way upward, sometimes crawling, sometimes shimmying up a vertical beam. It was the best gymnastics exercise he had ever completed. It was difficult; it absorbed his whole mind. There was a wheel of connected beams at the very top, just beneath the dome. There, he would be among the stars themselves.
But to get there he would have to jump. He looked down at the trees and the students and Master Pertha far, far below. His stomach flipped over inside of him, frightened at the drop. But he rubbed at it impatiently until it settled down, and gathered himself for the spring. It wasn't so very, very far. He had jumped further many times in exercises with his friends. He crouched, reached for the Light, and sailed through thin air, upwards into the heavens.
He almost missed his landing. The roof support beams were cool metal, and slippery with mist-laden dust. They made a dark smear all over his white tunics. Taking a heart-stopping moment to get a firm grip and to adjust his eyes to the near-darkness, he cautiously scooted forward, until he was there, among them, in their celestial dance. He sighed in bliss.
He was so delighted he forgot all about the game of hide and seek, about the other children, about Master Pertha and the others below. There was only the wheeling Force, and the beauty of it.
She settled him on the bed. He looked like a skinny and bedraggled pup, lying there on the crisp white coverlet. "So your moth stung you because you were naughty, is that it?" she teased.
He missed the humor of her remark. "No- he was afraid, I think. But I didn't mean to hurt him. I wasn't going to hurt him."
She pushed him back down as he rolled upright, looking nervously at the door. "Lie back," she soothed. "I need to see your hand again."
Two or three soft creases appeared in his forehead. He studied her very intently, Then he said, "I'm fine. I should go now." And she almost believed him – for a half-second.
The little scamp had attempted a mind trick on her! What impudence. She was not having any of that nonsense.
She held him down. Beneath her hands, and in the Force, she felt his pain, simple and uncomplicated, thrumming in his young body like a sharp beat on a new, taut drum. Heat rose within, too, and a worrisome metal fog, churning up infantile emotion, the seeds of a tantrum. He squirmed a little, feebly resisting, until her displeased frown melted his resistance into a disgruntled resignation.
Vokara Che sighed in exasperation. It could be very difficult to place such a small youngling in an effective healing trance, especially when the child did not wish to cooperate.
She pressed one hand against his forehead. "Listen to me. You have blood poisoning. I need you to listen to me and relax. If you do not, I shall have to give you strong medicine which you will not like. And this will hurt for a much longer time." She touched his injured hand and held his stubborn blue gaze for a long few seconds.
He shrank back into the mound of pillows, then, the corners of his mouth tweaking downward in displeasure. "I'll be good," he promised, with a hint of sullenness.
"You had better. Now hush." She nudged his mind toward a meditative state, and he relaxed a little.
"They …look like stars," he whispered.
"Mmmm hmmm." Deeper. He yawned, went limp.
"With wings." Deeper yet, quieter, more open.. She drew the Force around him, soothing and healing, a golden blanket.
"I…wanted to hold it," he mumbled, barely audible. "You can't hold a star either, can you?"
"No," she told him softly. "You must enjoy them without possessing them." Deeper. His mind uncoiled, drifted in the Light. Deeper.
He nodded once, eyes closed. The center.
Vokara Che smiled and set to work.
When he awoke, a great deal of time had passed. So much time that he could not at first remember where he was or what he was doing there. The room was white, and there were no dancing stars bear the ceiling. For some reason, he felt sure that there should be…but there weren't. And his hand was wrapped in a soft gauzy bandage, which was odd. And he felt sleepy, as though he were floating away in a radiant haze. That wasn't unpleasant, but it wasn't quite right, either.
After a while, the drifting was replaced by a steady tapping sound outside in the corridor. Clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk.
"Our young moth collector, I come seeking," a grating but familiar voice rasped.
"Yes, master," Vokara Che's slighty husky, accented voice replied. "I tended to him earlier. There will not be any lasting effects."
"Hhhhmmmph," Master Yoda snorted. "A pity that would be."
It occurred to him with a start that they were talking about him. He bolted upright, intrigued. "Why, master?" he called out.
At that, both speakers came bustling into the small room – Vokara Che in her neat, pale-colored healer's garb, crisp and freshly laundered, probably every day; and Master Yoda in his wonderful grotty old robes, fraying and stained and looking as though he changed them out every few years or so.
"Because a lesson this should be to you, youngling," the ancient white-haired Jedi snorted. "Possession and attachment lead to suffering. Admire the phlogista moth you may….seek to grasp it, you must not."
He listened with utmost seriousness. Was that why the moth had stung him? Because he had wished to keep it for himself, even a tiny bit?
Yoda leaned on his stick, fixing him with a burning gaze, which made his stomach flip all over again. "Very naughty that was, to run away from the others without permission, for such a foolish purpose."
But that wasn't right! He rose up on his knees, shoving the white blankets aside. From here he was very tall, taller than Master Yoda down below, which was strange. "I didn't mean to be naughty," he explained. "They said to hide, to disappear. And I did. And Master Pertha brought the moths for us to see. So I went to see them."
"Naughty," Yoda insisted. "Do that again you must never."
He cringed, melting at the thought that the ancient master was displeased with him. His voice trembled. "But they were beautiful, master."
"Judge by appearances you should not."
He bit his lip, then, and thought about it. There were no words to explain the splendor of the dancing stars there beneath the dome, the glory of the silver-lined wings and their mysterious inscriptions, the way the Light had whispered to him, cajoled and teased him all along. And yet, that same glory had lured him in, stung him and betrayed him when he closed his fingers around it. He suddenly felt very tired and confused. "Yes, master." He bowed his head, too weary to muddle it out.
"Return to your friends you may, when Vokara Che allows it," the tiny green master sighed at last, his eyes full of a gentler light, not the bright alluring silver of the moths, but a warm and living golden flame. "Until then, rest you should."
He wished to show that he was reformed, that he would not accidentally be naughty again, so he made his very best bow, with his hands folded properly in front of him, and obediently curled back into the bland white covers of the bed. Vokara Che brushed fingers over his face, and murmured some words to him, and all of a sudden he felt that strange floating sensation carry his mind away again,
As his eyes drooped shut, he saw Yoda wink at the healer. "He he he he," he chuckled. Vokara Che escorted him out the door, as was proper.
"I am surprised he was able to get so near a moth at all," the Twi'Lek remarked. "That was an impressive feat."
"A bold one, he is. Strong in the Force. Great things I expect from that one in the future….But for now," Master Yoda grunted, heaving a sigh of resignation, "A great deal of trouble is that boy."
Vokara Che murmured something in reply, too low for him to make out, and Master Yoda's wheezing chuckle retreated down the passageway. Yawning widely, still vaguely puzzling over whether he had truly been naughty or not, Obi Wan slipped into a lovely dream in which silver winged stars danced among the boundless heavens for his sole delight.