Sera woke up abruptly and remained breathing heavily while sitting upright on her bed.
She rubbed her face and eyes with the palms, the tiredness was still too great and paralyzed her like poison if she did not try to keep herself awake.
She have had a nightmare. Had died. Definitely 5 times in a row.
Everywhere have been only chaos and death. First she saw the children how they ran laughing before her and not a second later they lied lifeless at her feet.
Then Ka'Len who looked at her with a disappointed expression, standing in front of his own dead body and said she could have saved him.
And then ... Sera's own death what was different each time. But she never saw her murderer. The young Jedi tried dazed not to tip over again.
Why felt her body as something would pull her down.
Her limbs felt heavy as lead and she couldn't concentrate yet.
'Don't go back to sleep, don't sleep again ... please ... I don't want dream all of that again...' she thought, forcing herself among the highest effort to move the fingers, something to stimulate her bloodstream. Damn.
Ka'Len was dead. He was dead.
Sera had let him die. She had left him.
She would have protected him when he was unconscious. Now he was dead because she failed.
A voice in her head quietly crept into her mind.
'But what if you had tried to save him and both of you'd be killed? Do you really think you had a chance against these two ... Sith?'
Sera groaned exhausted. She felt so weak. And still so incredibly hard. Briefly wavered. In her mind's eye the golden yellow, vicious and frightening eyes of Maul reappeared.
And then she tipped back and lost control of her weakened spirit. She fell asleep again immediately.

Sera woke up a second time and groaned as she opened her eyes. They felt thick and swollen and the young Jedi rubbed them like a little child. She sighed, wondering if she should get up at all.
She was totally messed up and it seemed to rob all of her power.
Another minute she layed before she forced herself with great protest to get up and get dressed. After she applied her clothes, she grabbed her boots and sat on the bed to get them on easier. She looked at the morning sky and the below sea of buildings.
Everything looked so peaceful. And in a strange way, it hurt to see that peace.
Sera stood up and stood in front of the glass, looked out and wished once more to be far away.
She knew that a Jedi should let go, but she still was plagued by terrible remorse. Last night was just too cruel, she would have rather stayed awake even if her body wouldn't have made it easy for her.
Ka'Lens death had not been inevitable. No death was inevitable.
Anyone would ever be able to do something about it. And Sera felt deeply guilty for the death of the Jedi. After her return she has contacted the council and told them about the yellow-skinned Zabrak Savage Opress and Ka'Lens death.
Certainly nothing of the red-skinned Sith named Darth Maul. Strangely, she didn't know why by herself.
In her report, they had, as it really has been, fought Opress and Ka'Len would have been killed in this battle. And Sera was forced to flee.
Why did she lie to the Council? Why she was silent about this important detail, the return of a seemingly risen from the dead Sith Lord? Was she even aware of how many lifes she brought in danger? What was that for a betrayal?
But Sera just did it.
The voice in her head excused it by the fact that the two Zabraks would quickly draw some attention and were not long unrecognized.
The Council deplored the death of Ka'Len and the many other victims deeply but they were glad that at least Sera had survived. This reinforced the nagging feeling of her bad conscience even more and she was glad when she could finally leave the council meeting.
She liked to delete this one day from her memory, the guilt she felt was almost unbearable.
She kept smiling and carried it off well, but she was glad when she could sat in the library and started trying to distract herself.
What was she doing here? Basically, she had no right to sit here anymore.
She betrayed the Jedi with the embezzlement of important information.
Sighing, she held her head in her hands, her elbows resting on the table.
She couldn't organize her thoughts and feelings, everything seemed to be plunged into total chaos, and gave her no chance to sort it rudimentarily.
As soon as she had a thought in her hand came the next and the troublesome order was destroyed again.
"Sorry. Can I help you?"
Sera startled and looked into the friendly smiling face of the librarian Yokasta Nu.
"Um ... no ... sorry ... but I'm probably just a little tired."
The face of the librarian with the gray hair took on a slightly disapproving expression.
"Well ... then maybe you should take a look for a better place to relax."
Sera nodded, and pushed her chair back to stand up. She realized she wouldn't be allowed to sit here inactive.
"Have a nice day." She smiled at the old Jedi and tried so much kindness as possible to get into her voice even if it was just pretty annoying.
So she walked through the temple. The place where she had spent her life.
Younglings came towards her and she was surprised how short it seemed to her that she has been one of them. How strange it all felt today.
She felt like inside of a dream. Everything seemed unreal and as if she had never seen it all before.
How much she craved distraction. She remembered the new training program, but that wouldn't make sense now. Sera was just too unfocused and her thoughts blocked her completely.
And it did not matter what she did or where she went.
Her feet carried her along one of the long open corridors of the temple. To her left, she could look out at the endless city that now shone in the sunlight.
Sera based her arms on the railing, staring into empty space.
Did she really belong to here? Was this her home?
More than ever, she felt strange. Why this nagging feeling?
She knew it already. This feeling that this could not be her destiny.
But so far she always has been able to suppress it again and ignore.
What was different now?
Sera stared at her hands.
This Sith ... Darth Maul ...
Why didn't she betray him?
What stopped her not to appear before the Jedi Council and to tell it?
'And how do you want to pass it off to them? "Oh, there is something important I forgot to tell!"? Very believable! 'said a voice in her head and Sera had to admit that it seems very strange when she suddenly tell an important detail.
The Council would not believe her. They would guess it's a trauma Sera had perhaps sustained through the death of many people and her friend.
So it's got no sense anyway.
Her thoughts repeated the meeting with the two Sith in her head once again.
In a strange way she was fascinated and terrified at the same time.
Something had dig into her mind.
His appearance. The way he talked, the way he moved.
The black tattoos on this red skin. Yellow piercing eyes, whose gaze have Sera's legs turned to jelly. It had felt as if he would see through her immediately.
I can feel your fear. You fear me, you fear to die. You fear to remain a marionette of the Jedi. You fear yourself...and your feelings.
The words of the Sith still repeated in her head.
Fear ...
Fear was something that was forbidden.
Just as passion.
Love.
Emotional bonds.
Sera understood the intentions with her head.
But not with her heart.
Her heart asked herself so many times what was then still human about a Jedi if they must not feel. At least not intense.
She felt like it was dehumanization . As the Jedi would be half droid.
Does she really wants to be someone like this?
But what choice had she?
Did she ever have one?
She was patronized, this life was imposed to her. And no one asked if she wanted it at all.
Theoretically, she could chance it. To sin against the Code and get banished from the Order.
But what then?
This was her involuntary home. But the only one she had.
Where to go? Then she would still don't know more about herself and her origin.
Then she would be a lost child in a huge galaxy.
Sera sighed at her discouragement.
She felt it made her angry at the same time.
Moping annoyed her even more.
Stop it.
Sera straightened herself.
She would volunteer for combat missions.
If she had to put herself in danger to distract herself and to become aware of herself again, then it should be so.

Sera had fought hard.
Not in combat but to get a special mission.
She had to use all her powers of persuasion to sit now in a stealth glider with a few clones. She triumphed mentally and felt the excitement.
The Council didn't want to give her the mission a long time because of her inexperience but she was sick of simple peace keeping missions.
She needed something exciting. Something that would distract her. In which she could prove.
She leaned back in the chair and they entered hyperspace.
Sera would have to prove to everyone that she was brave and would find the missing Jedi.
The mission was in fact to rescue the captive Jedi Jenner Talpin from the fortress of a notorious crime lord in a cloak-and-dagger operation.
Not easy. But an even greater challenge.
The clone troopers disguised as personal bodyguards of an influential underground slaves and weapons dealer. Sera would have to prove diplomacy this time .
To get admittance her ship was charged with some small treasures. Some models of modern weapons that would hopefully convince.
She didn't thought much about how the mission would proceed.
It would only hinder and confuse, what she had learned in these many years.
Always maintain awareness at the present.
Sera looked at herself as the ship left the hyperspace and a planet appeared before them what looked even from so far away like the scum what hung around there.
She had never worn such strange clothes.
But the illusion had to be perfect.
If they screwed up, they were all either dead or prisoners, too.
There was a lot at stake. But there was also much to gain.
Recognition and perhaps a feeling of security to do her job well.
To be the Jedi she should be.