"It is a hard universe. No lesson is truly learned until it has been purchased with pain."

"Maybe you're right. But there has to be an easier way."

-{}-

The more he stared, the more he saw. His head was arched back to watch the night sky, and as he watched more and more stars seemed to resolve out of the blackness. Even as the stars shone brighter, the darkness itself seemed deeper, like an all-consuming abyss. Maybe it was the darkness of the sky that made the stars seem brighter, or maybe it was the other way around. He felt like he should know, and maybe had once, but couldn't remember any more.

"What are you looking at?" asked a soft female voice behind him.

Jacen Solo turned around. Though it was night, and he had wandered alone into the forests of the Middle Distance, he had no problem seeing the squat, birdlike figure watching him from a few meters away with black, curious eyes. The figure rested on reverse-articulated legs. Its head was cocked to one side in curiosity and a crest of red feathers flared atop its head. It seemed like the perfect image of his teacher, the late Vergere, but he knew it was not her. He'd feel Vergere's presence in the Force, for one. Even more obviously, she did not breathe out puffs of vapor from her nostrils, and she trailed no three-toed footprints behind her. The surface temperature on Zonama Sekot had dropped precipitously since the end of the Battle for Yuuzhan'tar, and now a thin layer of white snow formed a crinkly carpet over the forest floor, interrupted only by the solitary trail of Jacen's boots.

He regarded the face of a world for a long moment before he said, "Everything. I'm looking at everything."

The feathers on Vergere's neck ruffled in frustration. Sekot was so good at mimicry it was almost frightening.

The living planet said through Vergere's mouth, "That's not very helpful."

Jacen looked back up at the stars. "It feels like forever since I just… stopped and watched the sky."

The moment he said it, he recalled another time, maybe the last time. He had been with Vergere then, the real Vergere, on Coruscant, recently remade in the image of Yuuzhan'tar, the lost Yuuzhan Vong homeworld which they attempted to remake at the center of the dead New Republic, unaware that the true heir to Yuuzhan'tar was, in fact, Zonama Sekot itself. They had sat on the edge of a vine-laden cliff that had once been a building-side and watched the twinkling rainbow lights of the Bridge. It was there that Jacen had finally realized, once and for all, that the Yuuzhan Vong had changed the galaxy forever, and that he would have to change as well.

He was still changing, even now. It had been barely a week since his fight with Onimi, the true Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong. With the help of his twin sister Jaina, he had stood firm and turned Onimi's poisonous attacks on himself. He had not fought with physical violence, but by allowing himself to become a true conduit for the Force, passing beyond all definitions of light and dark, good and evil, life and death. For that brief, astonishing moment, he had felt at one with the whole of the cosmos, forever beyond the plane of normal existence which he had striven his whole life to reach past.

Now he a normal man again, and he did not know what to do with himself.

He'd talked to Jaina already and told her his desire, however vague and ill-defined, to go out and explore the galaxy. He wanted to uncover the secrets of all the Force-using sects that had taken different paths than the Jedi or the Sith. He wanted to reach beyond the overly simplistic dichotomy and find a way to commune with the entire, Unifying Force once more. He knew the Aing-Tii, Theran Listeners, Baran Do Sages, and the rest would never individually help him reach the exalted state he had felt during his fight with Onimi, but he felt he had to try.

There was nothing he wanted more.

"You are restless, Jacen," Sekot observed.

"I've always been restless." Breath puffed in front of his face and was gone. "It's just been a long time since I didn't have anything to do with that restlessness."

"But you have decided to explore the galaxy, yes? You wish to find even more ways to experience the Force?"

Sometimes he forgot that he stood on the surface of a living being, one that could observe his actions and sense him in the Force even when he was not aware.

"Yes," he said, "I think I'd like to keep exploring."

"You wish to find out more about the Force, and in doing so learn more about yourself," Sekot observed. "In that, we are very much alike."

"You're hardly a typical being, Sekot."

"Neither are you, Jacen Solo."

Jacen blew out a long breath. "I guess you've got me there. How do you plan to learn more going forward?"

"I think you know. The Yuuzhan Vong are now arriving on this world. It is already proving to be an interesting family reunion."

"I can imagine."

"As I learn more about them, I learn about myself. It is a truly symbiotic relationship, the kind Yuuzhan'tar once had with the Yuuzhan Vong, before they became so warlike that Yuuzhan'tar pushed them onto a plane of the Force separate from those all other beings experience."

"Symbiosis," Jacen echoed. "Sounds nice, but I think I'm going to be doing this journey alone."

Vergere's mouth drooped in a slight frown. "It is not good to be alone, Jacen. Your family and friends depend on you, Your sister, especially, needs you, though I sense she is too proud to admit it."

"I know," he allowed. A part of him hated the idea of leaving Jaina and the rest of his family behind while he went off on some quest of self-discovery. "There are some things I can only do alone."

He truly believed that. All his life he'd sought a personal, individual relationship with the Force, which was why he'd opposed Luke's creation of the Jedi Council for so long. The idea of the Jedi acting as nothing more than glorified political arbiters was still repulsive to him. The Force was so much more than that.

"You may be right." Vergere seemed distracted. She tilted her head back and looked at the stars for a moment, then back at Jacen. Sekot asked, "When I was born as a conscious entity, I was alone. I was afraid. I was confused. I had just been attacked for the first time by the beings I now know as the Yuuzhan Vong. My children had bombed me and destroyed the home of the Magister, Leor Hal. It was the pain and trauma of his death that... woke me from a very long slumber."

"No lesson is truly learned until it has been purchased with pain," Jacen muttered.

It was something the real Vergere had told him, and he'd told her that he hoped to find another way. Even after his fight with Onimi, he wasn't sure if he had, but he was determined to keep trying.

"To this day that event keeps a lasting power over me," Sekot admitted. "I've come to view the place where Leor Hal died as a birthing chamber, and I feel... stronger there than any anywhere else."

"You're a living world. Doesn't your presence extend to everything on the planet?"

"It does," Sekot admitted. "But even so, I've found that my powers and sense of self are stronger in some places than others, and strongest of all in that place of pain, that place where I was, after a fashion, born."

Jacen thought, and said nothing.

Sekot laughed softly. "As I told you, I remain a mystery, even to myself."

"May I see this place?" Jacen asked.

He'd been so intent on searching for mysteries throughout the galaxy that he'd almost forgotten the great mystery beneath his feet.

"Of course," Sekot smiled with Vergere's face. "I was only waiting for you to ask. I would give you a little advice though, Jacen Solo. Dress warm. It's going to be very cold."

-{}-

Jacen stood in a fantasy of white. The morning light shone through a filter of pale clouds, and the mountain slope on which he stood was coated with thick snow. Even now, flakes lazily drifted through the air. The atmosphere on the mountaintop was thin and cold, and Jacen was dressed in a double-layer insulated suit with a fur-lined hood and a breathing mask attached to his mouth and nose. Even with nearly all his body covered, the icy wind still stung his eyes and the bridge of his nose.

Yet Sekot had told him to come here, so he had no choice.

He left behind the small organic Sekotan flier he had taken to the mountain and began walking up the slope, as the living world had instructed. He kept his head down against the wind and looked before taking every step forward. It took so much effort to keep his footing on the snowy, rocky slope that he entirely failed to look at what was further ahead of him.

Still, he felt it when he reached his destination. He picked his head up and saw something rising up out of the snow-laden mountainside. He saw what looked like pillars, and perhaps the remnants of a wall. He climbed further up the slope to examine the ruins more thoroughly.

They remained draped in snow, but he could tell when his feet moved off the rough scree of the mountain and onto the flat surface of what had once been the floor of a house. As he examined the ruins more he spotted a cave burrowing into the mountainside. Eager to get out of the biting wind, he stepped into the cave and turned on the glowrod he had brought with him.

The interior walls of the cave were smooth and angular. Surely, someone had carved this room into the mountain-side, probably as part of the building whose ruins lay strewn in the snow outside.

He felt a presence. His body stiffened.

It didn't have to speak. Jacen knew when it was there. He turned to see Vergere's form crouched in the mouth of the cave.

"You're not cold?" Jacen asked.

"All of me is cold," the living world said. "I am too far from Coruscant's primary. However, it does not hinder me the same way it does for you humans."

"Us humans," Jacen shook his head. "So weak, huh?"

"No. Some of you are quite resilient."

"Enough with the flattery, Sekot." Jacen hugged his arms around himself. "Can you tell me what I'm supposed to do here before I freeze to death?"

"You are the one who asked to come here, are you not?"

"Yeah, but you wanted me to come here. So what's the deal?"

Vergere's nostrils snorted breathlessly. "You humans, so impatient..."

"Well, some of us are freezing to death. Can you at least give me a hint as to why I dragged myself up here? Not even the real Vergere was this obtuse."

"Obtuse?" Vergere's head shook. "No matter. You are here, Jacen Solo, because I want you to try something for me."

"Such as?"

Vergere extended one feathery arm as if to shake. "Take my hand. Please."

Jacen stared at the four-fingered hand. He stared at her face. Her body moved in imitation of breath but no vapor came from her nostrils. He'd even been touched by Sekot in Vergere's form before; it had felt like nothing more than the faintest pressure. He knew he could walk straight through the Vergere-simalcrum if he wished. The living world could manifest images in the minds of its people, but could still not take physical form.

"Please," Sekot said.

Jacen shrugged, reached out. His fingers wrapped around Vergere's hand... and held on tight.

He stared in shock. A slight, ambiguous smile appeared, so like the ones Vergere used to sport.

He gave the hand a slight pull and tugged Vergere's body forward half a step.

"I don't... I don't understand," Jacen muttered, afraid to release his grip on the arm of Vergere, or Sekot, or whatever was in the cave with him.

"It is all right, Jacen." The smile remained on Vergere's face. "I have found that in this place, this cave where my existence was purchased with the pain of Leor Hal's death, I can come closer to touching the Unifying Force... and perhaps discovering the secret that lies in the darkness before my awakening."

"But... What am I holding?"

"This world contains all the building-blocks of life, Jacen Solo. Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen... All I have to do is draw on them, arrange them in the patterns and bind them together with the Force. In this way I hope I can speak directly to my children instead of using Magister Jabitha as a vessel."

"You're building yourself... a body? But is it you? I mean, it's not Vergere herself... is it?"

Jacen stared at that face, that ambiguous smile. Suddenly something began to change. The feathers on Vergere's face seemed to wilt; her face grew visibly more worn. Something in the black well of her eyes seemed to change. Her fingers tightened their grip on Jacen's wrist and, suddenly, Jacen felt something through the Force like a punch. It was a familiar sensation, a familiar presence, one he hadn't though he'd ever see against after it faded away in front of him in a dark mining tunnel on the desolate world of Ebaq 9.

"Vergere!" he shouted. He jerked his hand back in shock, twisting his wrist free. Suddenly Vergere's presence was gone. Her image winked out too, right before his eyes, leaving Jacen to stare at snow drifting against filmy white clouds beyond the cave mouth.

He stayed there for what seemed like forever, holding one hand in the other, waiting for some explanation as to what had happened.

It finally came when he heard a long, drawn-out sigh behind him. He turned around and saw a short, blue-eyed, round-faced human boy, maybe twelve years old. He had dirty-blond hair chopped short except for a single braid that hung onto the shoulder of his thin white tunic.

It took Jacen a moment to realize he was looking at the image of his late grandfather. He still struggled to understand how such a small, innocent-looking boy could become the horror that was Darth Vader.

He hated when Sekot appeared in this form; his dead mentor's image was discomfiting, but it was still far better than this reminder that even the best of the Jedi could become a monster.

"What happened?" Jacen demanded. He was in no mood for games.

"It's a little hard for me to understand too." Anakin Skywalker crossed his arms over his chest. Sekot said, "I can give shape and form to myself, but I can also… call on those lost."

"That was Vergere! I felt her through the Force! How did you do it?"

"Vergere was very important to me," Sekot said. "She helped awaken me to my true self. It is possible that the link she forged with me in life... created a tether that ties me to her still, even in death." The sophisticated words sounded so strange from a child's mouth.

"Can you do that? Can you... reach beyond death?" Jacen stared into the eyes of Anakin Skywalker but all he could think about was the other Anakin, his younger brother who had died saving the Jedi from the voxyn at Myrkyr.

He was suddenly overcome by the desire to talk to Anakin again, even if just for one minute, just so he could let him know that his sacrifice was not in vain, that the Jedi were strong and united as never before, that they had brought peace to the Yuuzhan Vong and come to a new understanding of the Force itself.

But as he stared into Anakin Skywalker's eyes, he knew his wish would never be. The living world sensed that too. The boy shook his head and Sekot said, "I'm sorry, Jacen. I can't touch your brother. I never knew him. Even with Vergere I feel merely... shadows. Intimations. I am still learning these abilities myself."

"I understand," Jacen said, though in truth whatever self-discovery Sekot was going through had staggering implications. It could further alter the Jedi's already-changing understanding of the nature of the Force.

He wondered if, somehow, the living world was not also drawing on the same wellspring of cosmic power that he had used to defeat Onimi.

"It will take time for me to work this out," Sekot said. "As I said, I am barely beginning to understand my own mysteries."

"I know," Jacen nodded gravely. "And I'll keep this a secret, if you want."

"Please do," Anakin Skywalker nodded.

Jacen stared into the blue eyes of his grandfather and wondered, just for an instant, if Sekot could reach into the Force and touch the spirit of his dead grandfather. Jacen's Uncle Luke, as well as his mother Leia, had claimed to speak with the ghost of Anakin Skywalker shortly after Darth Vader's death.

It was through these visions that they knew that Anakin Skywalker, for all the horrible things he'd done in life, had been redeemed in the end, and merged peacefully with the Force to join his old masters, Obi-Wan and Yoda, in whatever lay beyond the end.

In this way, Anakin Skywalker's tale had not just been a cautionary one of how a Jedi could fall, but an uplifting one of how even the most evil could save themselves. Just as the greatest Jedi could fall, so could the worst Sith be redeemed if he truly sought redemption.

"Is there something you want to ask me, Jacen?" asked the young, innocent face of Darth Vader.

"No." Jacen shook his head. "I understand you'll need time to develop this skill. I'll give you that time. But I'd like to come back some day, and see what you've discovered."

"And I would like to see what you discover, Jacen."

"It's a deal then." Jacen did his best to smile, despite all the confusion and discomfort he felt.

"It is." Anakin Skywalker adopted a smile that was almost Vergere-like in its playful ambiguity. "Until then."

His grandfather's image faded away before Jacen's very eyes, leaving him alone in the dark cave. He hugged himself, gathering heat to his body and pondering the new mysteries Sekot had uncovered. The possibilities were tantalizing, frightening, and exciting, he but knew there was nothing he could do about them now.

Jacen gave the cave one last look around, saw nothing of interest, and went out into the snow.