Felucia Wilds
Ravine Camp

Hermione appeared with a crack just outside the entrance to their little cave hideaway, just a few short steps behind Harry.

To say she was feeling ill would be something of an understatement. Despite the recently added distance between themselves and the battlefield behind them, she could still sense a barrage of emotions and sights which were obviously not of her own mind.

The barest flashes of images…visions, feelings of shock, betrayal, pain…and fear choked the air around her. That would be bad enough as it was, were they not accompanied by the sights and sounds which accompanied them.

Flickers of light, blue and green predominant, but some of other colours, all swirling, clashing. She pinched her eyes closed hoping to blot out the images, to little effect as she felt another surge of emotions. These were powerful and thick, a tar-like miasma which threatened to choke her mind with their vitriol.

When she opened her eyes to look up at Harry where he was waiting for her, she could tell just by seeing his expression that he too was seeing what she was. Though it had to be said he seemed to be bearing up under it better than she, but considering the hash that had been made of his early life Hermione really wasn't that surprised.

Hermione remembered with a start that Harry had, in fact some experience in dealing with feelings and thoughts not his own swarming in his head. She had been sympathetic on an intellectual level back then of course, but she could never truly have understood what that was really like until now. It was very unnerving to say the least.

So it was unsurprising then that Harry managed to collect himself before she did, straightening and meeting her eyes more surely, the alien woman still in his arms. "Hermione, I need you to do something." She was already nodding even before he finished speaking, "I need you to reinforce the wards, I don't think those…people, back there can follow us, but I'd really rather be certain that they can't find us if they do."

She bobbed her head once again, not inclined to argue. She'd long ago found that her friend had good instincts when it came to times of crisis, and they had seldom truly led them astray.

On some level she understood just what he was doing, whether or not it was conscious on his part. Harry was indeed ensuring their safety yes, but he was also giving her something else to focus on. Something to take her mind off what was happening to them, which was a welcome reprieve from the circles her mind seemed to like to run in while in a panic.

Her friend then shifted the woman's weight in his arms, and despite the stasis charm upon her some of her disturbingly human looking blood stained his shirt and jacket. He grimaced before turning and heading for the tent at a jog, both of them understood well just how short the woman's time likely was.

Hermione watched them go until the tent flap fell back into place behind them, then shifted her focus to the task at hand. She was lucky she had supplies for this sort of thing on her person. Not a lot exactly, but more than enough for the task at hand. At least she wouldn't have to go digging in the tent for what she needed potentially distracting Harry while he was busy trying to save their patient.

She looked down, pulling a leather pouch off her waist band and opened it. This pouch was one of her own creations, similar in function to her old beaded purse in that it was larger on the inside than on the outside, but not nearly as expansive inside, the consequence of having to work with a more robust material.
Inside its depths it carried her emergency stash. Mostly basic healing potions and the like, but in this case a few rune stone tablets and some magnetic chalk as well.

The young witch set out her tools and supplies on the ground and got to work, pulling out her wand and beginning to carve the runic arrays onto the tablets according to function.

The first stone was the easiest, one she'd constructed many a time before. The first rune, large and in the centre, Thurisaz as it was known in Elder Futhark, a rune embodying the concepts of reactive force, for defence in conflict, as well as the concept of regeneration following struggle. A line with an arrow pointing right off it's side, you could easily see why it was sometimes referred to as "The Thorn".

She pulled out her magnetic chalk as she finished carving that, and enchanted the small stick of minerals to begin inscribing her formulas as small as possible around the rune. The formulas she inscribed were the arithmantic personifications of every variant of the Protego charm, including Horribilis. She followed it up with Fianto Duri, every alarm and security formula, Salvio Hexia (a hex repelling spell) as well as Cave and Repello Inimicum and Muggletum. Spells to both alert them to the presence of enemies or muggles, as well as drive them away. She found a little space left on the front surface to inscribe some animal repelling wards as well.

All of those inscriptions would add context to the intent she layered into the enchantments, anchoring them to reality with runes to form the wards.
She then flipped the tablet and inscribed the secondary runes, Algiz, another rune of protection, though this one was more suited to protecting of others dear to oneself, as well as to ward off evil. The symbol of a guardian. This would particularly aid the repelling wards and shields, while enhancing and fortifying the defensive intent of the wards.

Uruz, meaning strength, energy and tenacity, linked here with Eihwaz, which also embodied strength, but also endurance or fortification, particularly in the area of defence. These two would work well together under her intent to fortify and intensify the strength of the wards once raised.

Ending with Kenaz, meaning it was open to new strength, energy and power. This linked to Eihwaz, and then the others was to act as the power source and distribution system for the entire array.

The second Rune stone was both more simple and harder at the same time. The magics she would need to inscribe were more complex but the rune work was easier.

First and foremost was Perthro, which literally meant magic, but also embodying the attributes of hidden things, mysteries, secrets and occult ability. With the formulas of every concealment spell she could think of, including some for smell of all things as well as unplotability , inscribed around it this would anchor the wards which would make them all but invisible.

The next rune Isa, would be reversed to counter it's normal intent. In its new configuration it meant Illusion and deceit, but also stealth. In particular it would enhance the disillusionment ward.

This stone was finished out with Eihwaz, Uruz, and Kenaz again to anchor the strength of the wards in self-defence but also to power it and give it durability.
Nearly done now. She made a small incision in her hand with her wand allowing blood to well out, so it could be used to seal the enchantments on the stones.
She directed the blood out of the cut in thin rivulets with her wand, and ran them into the carved runes before sealing them in place and then closing the wound. Then she incanted the charm used to begin powering an enchantment and ran as much power as she felt safe into jump starting the wards. Once running they would draw on the magic in the world around them, as that had been her intent when creating them. But for now, her expended strength would get them running immediately and add a bit of durability should someone attack them in the near future.

Unlikely, but she felt the need to be cautious. She sagged a bit as the last of the magic she was channeling entered the tablets and the wards were finally made ready. All that was left was to place the stones and activate them.

She used her wand to flatten the usually porous stone at two points on either side of the cave entrance, then used a spell to fuse the tablets in place. She then activated them and they disappeared from sight as the concealing magics took effect. She checked her work and deemed it good.

Hermione had done her best for now, and needed to check on Harry and see how he was managing with their new guest. Thinking thus, she turned and started back to the tent, entering only to momentarily stop in surprise, taken aback by what Harry had managed while she was away.

Harry had, in her absence basically converted the centre of the main living room of the tent into an operating theatre, complete with hovering lights, stainless steel operating table, alcohol wipes, swabs, and little metal carts covered in potion bottles.

On the operating table, the woman…if such was actually the correct term for an alien female, was face down upon it, head propped up on a special pillow which kept her face clear but didn't risk injuring her neck like turning it would.

She was also naked, except for some sheets he had conjured and placed over her in abundance to preserve as much of her modesty as he safely could. Hermione noted that the clothes, ruined and bloody as they were had been cut away and placed aside on a cart.

Since she couldn't see Juno or Crookshanks she assumed they had retreated to allow Harry to work.

He looked up quickly as she entered, stripping off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves as he prepared to work. He nodded shortly to her before looking back down at his patient, seeming to work on getting into the right frame of mind for what lay ahead of him. He began erecting monitor charms and scanning spells around the woman, little illusionary readouts projecting themselves in the air around her similar to the hard light or holographic displays in science fiction shows that Hermione had shown him when he'd come to visit.

"Ideally speaking, I wouldn't be trying to do this myself. In a perfect world we'd have her to the dedicated healers to work on her instead. But seeing as we can't do that…and we're running out of time—" He grumbled trailing off. "And I wouldn't be hitting her with potions meant for us, if trying to go without them wouldn't guarantee her dying on us…"

"Why are we running out of time?" She asked drawing nearer, feeling a sterilization ward flow over her as she got within a few meters of the table.
He cast a few more diagnostic spells, before speaking. "Two reasons, though they're connected. First of all the stasis spell is failing, which is needless to say bad, because second of all, without the stasis spell, as it stands now she'll be dead in under a minute. We have until her magical reserves are depleted, then the stasis spell will collapse. I could cast a new one, but without her core powering it the spell would fail almost immediately."

It was not a common occurrence that Hermione found something that Harry knew that she did not. And, as was her nature, she started asking questions. "Can't you er—just add more power to the spell yourself? Or…well what if we put her in a stasis chest?" She said thinking of the food preservation units in the storage room.

She'd seen depictions in muggle stories of critically injured people staving off death by just about freezing themselves, maybe the stasis chests could do similar?
Harry was shaking his head however, and barked a short bitter laugh. She knew better to be offended though, Harry was in a rough situation right then. Maybe it'd be better to shut up and let him work now that she thought about it.

He apparently didn't think that was necessary however as he spoke to her regardless, "The spell isn't designed for that. It's a fire and forget type of thing, and the strength I put into it is used up quickly regardless. It only lasts at all because it relies on the magic of the one it's used on to maintain it then breaking when they can't provide the energy to sustain the spell any longer without risking their health."

He continued reading over the diagnostics, humming to himself a moment before nodding and continuing. "As for the stasis chest idea…I get where you are coming from. But let me put it like this, there is a lot more to sustaining life than simply keeping rot at bay."

He started cleaning the wounds with his wand, blood siphoning away to the tip before vanishing. "The stasis chest are designed to do that part just fine…but to keep someone truly alive you need to keep cells functioning and fulfilling their purposes. You also need to maintain their brain activity and life force."

He shook his head sadly. "Were you to try and preserve someone in a stasis chest it might work at keeping them together until you had healed the damage, but they'd come out of it a husk. Effectively brain dead at the very least. It's why those chests don't put you in stasis when you reach inside to grab something."
Harry thought for a moment before continuing, "They might be similar spells but they have very different functions with highly different methods of executing them. To sum it up, they are not interchangeable."

She winced a bit, feeling ill again at the thought that her solution could have killed someone, Merlin she knew the spell theory Harry was talking about. She took this as more evidence that Harry handled crisis better and looked back to him for guidance once more. He nodded sympathetically at her understanding and considered one last readout. "Hermione can you grab some additional potions from the emergency supplies?"

Hermione nodded easily, she could play nurse to his doctor…she hoped. Though it was rather sad that they were barely a few hours into their expedition and already they were needing to dip into their emergency supplies, evidently the 'Potter Luck' had no trouble following them through the Veil she thought ruefully to herself.

"I'll need more blood replenishing potions, some Skelegrow and a keying kit so we can set the potions so they work better on her, anything that can be used to treat and reduce burns…and a general toxin cleanser and muscle knitter."

The impromptu nurse bobbed her head decisively , and turned to go when she was forced to stop as a vision hit, causing her to gasp. There, on the ground beneath a cavernous archway, a figure knelt, not in supplication, but in meditation. The evening moon light casting bizarre shadows all around as a dark, hooded and cloaked figure drew near. The figure stopped and the kneeling man looks up, a look of sorrow and disappointment on his face. He speaks though she cannot hear what is said. And suddenly the dark figure is roiling with emotion, rage…hate, and pain. But most of all, fear.

He surged forward, an azure blade descended towards the kneeling figure, then a blur and the blue blade clashed against green.

She staggered and the vision intensified. More whirling motion, yellow blades crashing amongst white armoured bodies which crumpled. Flashes of blue and…a titanic shadow. Red light drowned the world.

Hermione shook that off, her vision clearing, looking up to see Harry, skin pale and clammy. "I'll go get the potions," She croaked then hurried towards the storage room.

It took only a minute to gather what she needed, though she'd been briefly amused to note Harry had gone overboard in the supply purchases. She wondered if Saint Mungo's had a stash of potions this large and then recalled why she was getting the potions in the first place and promptly thanked Merlin for Harry's foresight.

She was back in the surgery within a couple minutes and handed Harry the first potion he asked for, a burn reducing potion. He poured the potion into the reservoir for a conjured needle and injected it into her side. It wasn't possible to safely force the wounded woman to drink it in this condition.

Were this some mundane concoction of the ingredients within the potion, main lining such a mixture would have killed the woman. But potions were more than the sum of their parts, the magic within them allowing them to function in a way they would not normally.

"Alright, let's see," Harry muttered as he let the burn reduction potion to work it's magic, literally in fact. "We need something to re-key the Skelegrow, but I'm reluctant to risk turning her over right now to look. It was bad enough moving her as it is…and it's not like she has hair after all…"

She had to ask, considering they were discussing Skelegrow. "Did she break something when she fell?"

He shook his head, vanishing a circle of steel on the underside of the table so he could see the woman's face. "Spit will do nicely I think. Even better than her eyelashes…No, those...whatever they were that they shot her with, broke a couple ribs, and fractured her hip, one also came dangerously close to her spine…" Harry answered eventually, straightening before depositing the spit sample into the waiting potion vial with the keying solution and the Skelegrow. The mixture started to bubble.

"Her ribs are smashed beyond all hope, we'll have to vanish those ones. Thankfully her hip isn't, we'll leave it in place." He decided, and took the no longer bubbling mix and poured it into a new reservoir. Mixing potions prior to imbibing them was a bad idea after all.

It was likely a mercy he was injecting it. Skelegrow was notorious for tasting foul.

Over the next few minutes they applied a couple more burn reduction potions as Harry got to work trying to heal the horrible wounds to the woman's back, hip and leg.

He was right, one of the wounds was disturbingly close to the spine, though it was thankfully undamaged. Even with magic, neurological damage at that scale was hard to heal. Not nigh impossible like it was for mundane medicine, but still, very hard.

While Harry worked he spoke a bit about what he had learned about the woman's physiology. Hermione was mildly interested to hear that the woman's brain matter was distributed into the strange tentacles on her head as well as within her skull, and that she had a second stomach.

She'd likely have been more interested, had she been more aware. Then again if she had indeed been more aware, she likely would have realized she was getting a bit shocky as the last hour or so's events began to take their toll.

Her mind started to wander after Harry finished speaking about little medical points of interest and she started thinking about things she would usually put off till later.

Firstly and most irrelevantly, she noted that aside from the horrific burn wounds all over her body, the woman really was quite attractive…Actually she was a touch jealous. This woman, whomever she was had a near perfect figure, hourglass-like in fact. Whilst clearly being very athletic as well. She also had a wonderful bum and apparently a pair of breasts that would have left Lavender green with envy…

Hermione finally caught herself and blushed shaking her head, grumbling about stupid things to think about whilst massaging her temples in an attempt to drown out a sporadic flash or two before they faded away once more.

She didn't know how to feel about everything right then. Things had gone wrong so very quickly…One minute they were happily exploring a strange new world, wrapped up in the wonder of it all. The next…

They were charging into the middle of a war zone. Which in turn led her to her first conundrum. The woman on the table.

She'd clearly been betrayed by the soldiers following her. But why? They had seemed perfectly content to follow her lead up until then…Had it in some way been justified? She had a hard time believing that, generally even if soldiers found out their superior was a traitor the thing to do was arrest them right? Then again she didn't know how things were handled around here, maybe that was the normal process of justice? She hoped not.

Regardless, this woman could be anyone really, could have done anything…she shouldn't trust her in any way, and yet her instincts screamed at her to not think of the figure on the table in such a way.

She flinched as another brief vision flared. Swarming white armoured bodies, more pain, more betrayal, more fear…More clashing blades, more death.
Which brought her to her next problem, these visions, judging by what she was catching of them, people like this woman, people who wielded strange blades as she did, were under attack. The soldiers figured prominently, but so did a dark anger filled sword wielder as well…

The brunette was stirred from this rumination as Harry spoke up, a spell working in conjunction with a potion to knit the muscle back together under the burns. "It's pretty bad isn't it?" He noted, then continued at her quizzical look. "The visions I mean…I felt that last one and saw your face, you must have seen it too."

She nodded her agreement, then asked a question. "Yes, was it like this when…well, when Voldemort was in your mind?"

"Worse," was the short one word reply. She nodded understanding at least a little. Eventually he continued. "I got flashes, visions yes, but they were more clear and coherent than these. And I could feel exactly what he felt…" He continued to labour over the woman, injecting another small burn potion. "This figure that keeps showing up in these visions…" He began, drawing her attention again.

"The angry one, leading the soldiers and attacking the others…" He shook his head ruefully, an ironic but contemptuous smirk quirking his lips. "He thinks he knows what hate is, he thinks he understands pain, fear, malice…he's using them to fuel himself, to drive him forward. But he has no concept. He is nothing next to Voldemort…"

She winced at that, the figure in the visions disgusted and disturbed her, if he was a pale shadow next to Voldemort…"They felt similar then?"

He nodded sharply, moving about from wound to wound. "Yes, though Voldemort was much more intense and focused…he made wielding those emotions like some sort of sick art form." Harry noted acerbically, before straightening and checking his watch.

"Damn, she's about to come out of stasis, Hermione I need you to inject the blood replenishers when I say so…" He instructed urgently and she hurried to prepare. "I've got to close these wounds before the stasis ends or we risk her bleeding out."

Hermione bobbed her head a touch numbly as she worked. Harry laboured hard for a good ten minutes longer, all the wounds were on their way back towards being closed, but the stasis finally gave out and blood started to pool rapidly in the wounds before spilling over.

"Okay, first blood replenisher—" Harry instructed and she complied whilst he siphoned off the blood in the wound tracts and continued to work at closing them.
It took twenty more minutes and two more injections, one of blood replenishing potions, and another of the muscle knitting draught, before the flesh finally closed.

They left puckered scars, and Harry did his best to reduce them before they truly settled. Where before there had been a softball sized circle of puckered flesh, now as he finished they were closer to baseball or even golf ball in size.

As the last spell released he sighed and settled back on his heels. "Okay, good. That's the worst of it I think." He murmured, and Hermione sagged somewhat in relief. "Could you do me a favour? Grab some bruise reduction potion and inject it and the toxin purging mixture. I'm going to go get a pepper-up for myself…"

She worked on that while he left the room, and managed to complete both tasks before he returned to set down in a summoned chair, clearly tired. It wasn't so much the magical expenditure, which must have been considerable after that much work. It was the level of focus he'd levelled at the task. That would have been exhausting all on it's own.

He downed the pepper-up, ignoring the steam from his ears as he perked up somewhat, and she sat down across from him, wringing her hands a bit nervously before settling down a bit herself.

"So what do we do now?" She asked eventually.

He chuckled, rubbing at his eyes. "First we get her cleaned off and settle her in a bed somewhere. I'll place some monitoring charms on her while we're at it…" he explained, then shrugged listlessly.

"She should come around in about seven hours or so…that's about eight and a half hours after she was shot…not bad. She should be out of the woods now. It's a waiting game from here on in…"


Almost exactly seven hours later…
Felucia Wilds
Ravine Camp

Aayla Secura, it had to be said, felt like Bantha poodoo. Which didn't actually mean what it sounded like. She in fact did feel like the fodder that would no doubt be fed to the angry herd of Tatooine Banthas that had run her over, leaving her battered self behind to get chewed up by an enterprising Nexu.

This was all to say, roughly speaking, that she was in pain. A great deal of it in point of fact.

She tried to figure out just why she was in so much pain, but her thoughts were jumbled, her mind slow and sluggish. She of course tried to figure out why that might be, it was not like she'd imbibed a lot of alcohol or been drugged…again.

Had she been?

It took a moment for that thought, that notion, to coalesce in her brain, but when it did it was like nothing else for changing the sad state of affairs up there in her skull. If there was one thing which truly terrified Aayla, it was being drugged.

She'd been the victim of such chemical manipulations once before in her life, in fact she'd been pumped so full of glitterstim and other "spice", in addition to more normal drugs, that she'd basically had her brain pouring out her nose whilst she cackled merrily like a Kowakian Monkey Lizard at everything that happened in the world around her.

What had happened to her while she was in that thoroughly addled state was not something she liked thinking about and would prefer to avoid happening again at all costs. The thought alone of having that happen to her crystallized her mind with sheer unadulterated terror.

Now, were Aayla anyone else she would have likely succumbed to the instinct to writhe and batter her mind against the fogging influence in an effort to escape. But Aayla was not someone else, she was different.

She'd always known that there was a possibility, however remote, that she'd once again face her worst fear. And so she had planned, so that in this moment as that fear became realized, she could put a plan into action instead of struggling in vain.

Aayla began to use, slowly at first then more quickly, a Jedi healing technique used to purge foreign substances from the blood. Of which there were apparently quite a lot judging by the effort she had to put into it. Her efforts were worth it though as she'd be coming around far sooner than any captor would expect given how much they'd pumped into her.

She could feel the negative effects bleeding away, and was then thoroughly surprised when she suddenly felt something snuffling her face.

Now being drugged and then having what was likely an animal of some kind sniffing your face was not a good situation to find yourself in, and Aayla's mind was soon convinced that someone had dosed her then thought to throw her in with some wild beasts to be devoured.

This prompted her eyes to fly wide and her to flail somewhat to get away from whatever it was. She was again surprised when she saw that the animal she had batted at feebly wasn't actually some huge, sentient devouring monstrosity. Instead being some relatively small furry quadruped, with black and white fur, mismatched eyes, and an elongated snout which peered at her with two pink nostrils. It was needless to say highly disconcerting to feel like an animal was actually looking at you with it's nose rather than it's eyes, but this one seemed to manage it just fine.

After a moment it settled back on it's haunches and peered at her with eyes which were blue and brown by turns. She blinked at it, it blinked at her. Then it licked her face with a long wet slimy tongue.

Aayla shrieked in a most undignified fashion as she writhed trying to get away from the slobber monster. It then peered at her in apparent amusement while she struggled to de-slime herself and made a small chuffing sound before trotting off.

As she finally got the spittle off her face she shook her head chastising herself for panicking, particularly so noisily, and at last got around to taking in her surroundings.

First of all, as she took in her situation she noted she was not in any way shackled or bound, which was a promising start, and she was apparently being kept in a tent. Which could hardly be considered a secure prison…laying back in what appeared to be a very comfortable bed.

She then noted as the drugs' effects continued to fade, that it was not in fact only those with ill intents who administered chemical compounds which would make her feel sluggish. A healer or doctor would as well.

Which begged the question, why did she need a healer?

She honestly tried, she really did, but still struggled, and as she sat up she looked down at herself in confusion, only to come up short.

Whatever she had expected to find herself to be wearing upon waking up in a healers care, or even in a sadistic tormentors clutches, it was not this…
It wasn't her normal gear, though that wasn't so surprising, but it wasn't a hospital gown, a slave outfit, nude or even her usual nightwear…It was a clearly male shirt and pair of somewhat baggy underpants…

Before she could reflect on that the tent flap opened and she tensed looking around hurriedly for her lightsabers just in case, finding the space around her sadly lacking in that regard as a person pushed into the room. That was less promising all told. Never part a Jedi from their weapons.

The female human who had just entered the room was perhaps a touch shorter than her, with somewhat curly brown hair tied back in a rough ponytail at the back of her head. She was pretty enough she supposed, though that was of little concern at the moment as those brown eyes considered her.

The woman was oddly dressed, wearing a shirt of a cut she was unused to and pants of an unfamiliar material with many pockets on it.

As she'd been trained when finding herself in the company of an unknown and possibly hostile individual, she reached out with her empathic abilities to try and gauge the woman's intent. But instead she felt nothing which was…odd.

"Hɛˈləʊ, ɪts gʊd tuː siː juː ɑːr əˈweɪk...stɪl bluː aɪ si!"* The woman chattered cheerfully, though Aayla couldn't understand a word of the woman's strange language. It was by turns hard and rough, or smooth and flowing, with a strange collection of consonant sounds mixed with sharper vowel sounds. Which picked up and slowed down at unexpected points.

She reached out to gauge the woman in the Force, her second line of defence in cases like these and blinked in surprise. This woman, whoever she was, was like a bright star in the Force, easily her equal, and she had to admit it wasn't bad for one who was apparently a few years her junior.

It was odd she still couldn't feel her intent…

The woman blinked a bit, then frowned slightly, apparently able to sense her touch in the Force. She spoke again, sounding concerned. "əˈgɛn wɪð ðə ˈsɛnsɪŋ spɛlz...ænd ˈwɒndləs. ˈkjʊərɪəs. juː ɑː ʤʌst fʊl ɒv səˈpraɪzɪz bluː ˈwʊmən"**

Aayla was conflicted, on the one hand this all had some of the earmarks of recorded Sith interrogation techniques. In such cases you were often held in an illusionary world and were unable to sense your interrogators intent…but then again you also couldn't sense their ability in the Force either. This woman seemed a contradiction.

She blinked uncomprehendingly before extending her reach in the Force to try and tear aside the Illusion only to find nothing which to grab hold of.

The woman sighed, rolling her eyes and muttering something she didn't catch, before pulling a straight stick from a strange leather bracer at her wrist. She gestured pointedly with it before directing it towards the tent's roof. She muttered something, and Aayla felt a small surge in the Force.

However it was accompanied by something far grander, the stick's tip burned with visible flaring Force energy and Aayla couldn't help but jerk back in surprise.
The woman lowered the stick then cocked her head at her. "There, that's better, can you understand me now Blue Woman?"

Aayla blinked dumbly at her, as much at the moniker as at the sudden ability to understand the woman despite her lips not matching her words. 'Is this woman using the Force to translate for her?' She wondered skeptically. She'd never heard of such a thing!

Finally the question got through to her and she nodded slowly. "Er—yes…yes I can." She agreed, her mind still wrapping itself around that same concept she had to admit.

The woman frowned again then muttered and the stick flared a second time. "Sorry I forgot that the first time, I didn't do the second half of the translation spell, silly really. Can you repeat yourself?" She asked in the same kindly voice.

Spell? She wondered, then turned her mind to the question and nodded more firmly this time. "Uh—I said yes, I can understand you."

The young woman brightened and smiled. "Excellent, sorry. I really should have thought of that right off. Would you like something to drink?"

Aayla almost said no, it was after all a bad idea to accept anything from a potential interrogator…But she took a bit too long getting to that point. The woman must have taken her silence as tacit acceptance.

She shifted that stick again twirling it in a motion above her other hand and something miraculous happened as the Force once again flared briefly. A glass, formed from the air itself and the woman grasped it firmly, she could even see the flesh of her hand move to accommodate the apparently physical object.

This was followed by a second gesture and the cup was filled with water which jetted from the stick's end.

The woman looked up at her missing the momentary widening of her eyes and made to hand the cup over to her.

Aayla reached out a bit numbly, her shock overtaking her caution in this regard, and was surprised to find it was really there…

Her fingers brushed the woman's hand as it withdrew and she briefly felt a rush of emotions. Confusion, vague suspicion and worry, concern for her well-being tempered by caution.

Now she was even more confused. Were this indeed an interrogation she would not have been able to sense those emotions, regardless of touch…After all in such cases touch was merely an illusion.

The woman settled back, still smiling, "Well, you can drink that when you feel up to it." She said tucking the strange stick back in the bracer and pacing to the door.

"I'll go get Harry, he'll want to check how you're doing. I'll be right back." She promised before walking out of the tent. No efforts to restrain her, or even to chastise her to remain in place.

The woman was barely out the door before Aalya had rolled off the bed and pushed herself to her feet. Aayla cast her senses further afield and…sighed as she became even more confused.

The first thing she noticed was an animal perched on the dresser nearby. It was not a pretty sight, it looked like a shaggy furred Lothal Cat, if said animal had short ears, had been hit in the face repeatedly with a frying pan and then shocked with Force lightning for a while.

And yet the ugly little creature had the audacity to glare at her as if her existence offended it, and she was the lower life-form, instead of it being the other way around.

The second thing she noted was just plain weird, she could sense little beyond the tent, which was apparently larger than she'd thought, a sort of strange dampening fog drifting about it gently hemming her senses in.

However, she could sense her lightsabers in the other room and…

The main tent flap opened and a being stepped in. She was shocked by what she sensed. Not by the apparent lack of emotions which he shared with the woman, but the raw power this being was giving off, a little further probing and she found that he was human, same as the woman.

However, he was the far more powerful of the two, like a sun's light drowning out that of a more distant star. It was like Skywalker had just walked into the room, and yet he was utterly foreign to her.

He wandered the room beyond a bit, and she could hear a low murmur of conversation she couldn't quite make out and a brief flare in the Force from the woman, before he wandered over to the place where her weapons lay and the lights of the crystalline cores within them were swallowed up by his own.

She cursed internally, he'd taken possession of them, that would likely make things trickier for her. His light which dimmed oddly as he approached and as she focused on it, before the tent flap opened allowing the two humans to enter.

This young man was about her height, pale skinned like the woman, but with short messy dark hair, and green eyes. He was dressed similarly to the woman, though that was not what stuck out to her. There on his forehead was a scar, stretching from just above the edge of his hairline down to about halfway down his forehead. A wide crackling tree branch pattern that reminded her of lightning. It had paled and faded somewhat with age but was still clearly discernible.

He approached her, his expression serious before he blinked somewhat in apparent surprise and turned to look skeptically at the woman next to him. "You dressed her in my underwear?"

The woman huffed, but smiled patiently. "She's taller and more athletic than me, my things would not fit her well…And besides you know what expanding my things would do to them!" She protested.

The male nodded, seeming to concede the point before turning his gaze back to the Rutian Twi'lek. He flicked a hand idly towards a chair which had been drawn up near the wall and it slid towards him gently across the floor.

He grasped it and shifted it behind himself before indicating the bed beside her. "Why don't you have a seat so we can talk?" He asked in a gentle baritone, "Clearly I didn't do too bad a job putting you back together if you're already on your feet." He noted sounding amused.

She wondered just how poorly off she'd been if he phrased it as putting her back together…

The woman snorted in dry amusement. "Unless of course she's like you, and just has a habit of trying to escape the infirmary the moment she wakes…."

The male chuckled, and Aayla was surprised at their ease. She wasn't sure she could trust them not to mean her ill just yet, but it was hard to feign such things believably to one who'd been trained in deception.

He turned back to consider her, and sighed slightly at seeing her still standing. "I guess we'd better start with who you are then eh? Can I get your name?"
She nodded cautiously, it was a risk, but she felt it worth it to venture that much. "My name is Aayla Secura, I am a Jedi Knight of the Republic…"

He cocked his head at her curiously, and she was surprised when she saw no recognition for any of what she'd said. Not Republic, not even Jedi. He nodded slowly however, "It is nice to meet you Aayla Secura." He offered tentatively. "The Knight part was clear enough, after all you carry these things…" He pointed out patting his hip under the edge of his long coat. Apparently he was referring to her lightsabers.

"Jedi, though…" He said testing the unfamiliar word. "Does that refer to your species then?" He asked kindly.

Now it was her turn to cock her head at him. He didn't know what Jedi were, he didn't even know of the Republic. Not entirely unheard of in the Outer Rim or Wild Space though it was uncommon. But it was virtually unknown for someone not to know of Twi'leks, they were not an uncommon species after all. She ventured a little more. "No, I am a Twi'lek of Ryloth…you have never seen someone like me before?"

He shook his head apologetically. "Sorry, but no, we're not exactly from around here. Haven't gotten a chance to find out who we'll be seeing out here—" He paused then shrugged. "I suppose it's my turn to do the introductions. My name is Harry Potter, and I am what's known to my people as an Auror. An enforcer of laws if you will. This,—" He said gesturing to the woman. "Is my close friend Hermione Granger, who is a researcher."

The woman bobbed her head happily. "Hello Knight Aayla Secura."

Aayla had to fight the urge to frown at the title. It wasn't the fault of these two, those among the Order who referred to her that way meant it in only a handful of ways, most of them uncomplimentary. Some were being formal because they did not approve of her and her reputation, some Masters used the term with a sneering superiority that indicated they believed themselves better than a mere Knight. Others still, used it as an insult, indicating they were well aware of just why she'd been denied advancement to Master herself.

Instead of allowing her distaste for the term to show, she decided on a different tact, offering a small test instead, to see how they reacted to an act of goodwill. "Just Aayla will be fine…"

They nodded in understanding, and while she felt pleased they had not reacted poorly to the offer of a bit more familiarity, she was still uncertain of them, and it showed. Harry, if she recalled his name correctly, sighed. He considered her a moment before pulling aside the edge of his coat and pulling the lightsabers from where they were secured there.

Hermione frowned. "Harry, I'm not sure that's a good idea, we know next to nothing about her…" She protested, ironically mirroring her sentiments of them.
"Think about it Hermione, we'd be plenty nervous in her position. Strange place, strange clothing, strange people, one of which is holding our weapons?" Hermione considered him a time after than before sighing in aggravation and nodding her reluctant acceptance.

He held out the hilts to Aayla, notably holding them so the emitters were safely pointed towards the ceiling as he did so. She tentatively reached out to take them and again her hands touched one of these strangers, allowing in a flood of emotions before they drew away.

It was brief, but powerful, Harry was sad. But also tired and there was a worried tenderness, and a sense of curious intellect just as there had been with Hermione, but also a sense of waning hope and despair.

It was a strange combination. Not at all the roiling cauldron of rage and hate she'd expect if they were Sith. She took the lightsabers firmly in her hands and deciding to extend some more good will she nodded her thanks before sitting tentatively on the edge of the bed. The tension in the room notably lessened.
Harry looked to his friend and she nodded before leaving to return a few moments later with another chair. They both sat down opposite her.

The young man nodded at her smiling ruefully, "Thank you, it would have been awkward to continue this conversation with all of us standing like that. Can you tell me how you are feeling?"

She considered that, in circumstances like this with healers at the Temple she would normally have blown off her discomfort assuring them she was well and that she'd fully recover soon enough. But she decided nothing would be gained by being anything less than totally honest with these two in this case. "I am not feeling particularly well, I am very sore and have a severe headache and I am still feeling the effects of whatever you gave me…" She noted, probing a bit with that last one.

He nodded soberly, "Not surprising really, those shots you took nearly killed you, as for the potions, sorry…" He noted smiling wryly. "That's a general hazard with them, I don't like taking them either…but they should fade in a few hours…" He offered.

She was well and truly curious now, first spells, and now potions…"You refer to the Force in such strange ways, do you consider it magic?" She asked plainly.
This clearly piqued the interest of the two humans. "I take it then that you do not?" Harry asked, seeming to consider it for a moment then shrugging. "Yes, though perhaps we can discuss that more later?"

She nodded accepting that. She knew some Force users from primitive or undeveloped worlds referred to the Force as magic…but usually they were not so adept in it's use…

They had done things she'd never heard of before, translating using the Force as a medium, conjuring matter and water from nothing…

And potions…well, she'd heard of that after a fashion, the Witches of Dathomir were known to make strange Force imbued substances, usually for horrible purposes. And the Sith were known to have dabbled in Alchemy, usually to make some horrible monster or other that would then rampage across whatever planet they deposited it on eating everything in sight…

But again these two didn't feel like Sith to her, and she wondered how they'd react to her having trumped one of their advantages. "I purged the remainder of those…potions, I should be fine in a few minutes."

Their eyes certainly did widen, and Harry's eyebrow quirked while Hermione's mouth popped open in surprise, but they were not further alarmed by her revelation. That actually went a long way towards comforting her.

"Huh—not sure how you managed that, but it's a neat trick. Not sure it was wise though…" Harry muttered worriedly, "The potions were undoing the damage from when you were attacked…"

Which brought her back to the matter at hand. Which was what precisely she was doing here. She probed for information. "I do not remember what happened…I was leading my soldiers into battle against the Separatists…" Her brow furrowed as she tried to recall. "Then I went searching for something that was bothering me and—nothing, I woke up here. What happened, were we ambushed?"

Harry frowned deeply, as did Hermione, who muttered turning away. Harry nodded eventually. "Yes…after a fashion I suppose."

Aayla didn't like his reticence and frowned a bit at that. He saw her suspicion however and sighed before speaking. "Let me try to explain a bit," He offered,
"Me and my friend here were exploring nearby when we sensed your presence. That was an impressive sensory spell by the way, we felt it a good twenty five or so klicks away…" Harry said, looking impressed as he went off on his tangent.

She wasn't entirely certain what a 'klick' was but assumed from the context it was a unit of measurement. She also surmised judging by what he was saying that he'd felt her extend her senses during meditation earlier that day. If what he said was true, her feeling hounded and followed all through that trip may have been her own fault.

Harry nodded, seeing she seemed to understand, "Anyways…we came to investigate and accidentally found ourselves in the middle of your battle with those robots. We hid ourselves so as to avoid getting caught in the crossfire, but if I were to guess I would say that you sensed us anyways and that's why you came looking for us…"

Which basically confirmed it. She'd been sensing these two when she'd decided to make her sojourn into the bush. She had to give them credit, they freely admitted to following her and accidentally causing her concern. It greatly improved her opinion of these two. That she believed them honest didn't hurt either.
"You led a band of those soldiers out towards us…and then something happened." Harry began, only to be interrupted by Hermione.

"We tried to intervene, really we did, but—"

Harry grimaced, nodding. "But your soldiers opened fire on you. We don't know why."

Aayla shook her head firmly in denial and confusion. "No, they would never do that!" She protested, certain they had misunderstood, as much as she wished they were lying in this case her experience was telling her they were not. "You must be mistaken…"

Harry raised a hand to stop her and she cut herself off. "Look, I understand, you don't trust us, and you sure seemed to trust the others. We don't know the context for what happened, but I swear to you, those men in the white armour…They pointed their weapons at you, definitely at YOU, and fired, you were hit multiple times before we got a shield up between you and they."

Hermione took over. "They then shot at the shield until we drove them back and got you out of there."

She shook her head, not so much disbelieving them, as disbelieving what they described. Bly, her clones, friends, would never do that to her…

She needed to know, needed to be sure. She extended her senses, Harry and Hermione shifted looking at each other significantly as she sunk into a meditation.
She met the strange fog around the tent and pushed harshly past it, finding a cave beyond, a strange barrier in the Force over its entrance and the…

Visions, suddenly she was drowning them, choking on them, she could sense it immediately, the pain, the fear, the sense of utter betrayal ringing through the Force. She could see Jedi fighting for their lives as swarms of clone troopers closed in. A ringing thought, not one voice but many, screaming 'It is not possible!'
Her mind instinctively retreated from the emotional tidal wave, and she fell back within the protective fog of the tent, though she could still feel the echoes now that she's been opened to them.

She was gasping and shivering as she returned to herself and she clutched her head, her lightsabers clattering onto the floor at her feet. "By the Force! The—they're killing them! They're murdering us!" She shook her head in denial as tears flowed from her eyes.

"No, what could—why! Why would they do this?" She demanded, as if expecting the Force itself to address this heinous treachery.

She sensed motion and saw that Harry had approached her in her distraction, he put a steadying hand on her shoulder which she did not resist. Feeling a surge of honest concern for her as she straightened, before the hand withdrew. "Hey, easy there Aayla, I assume from your reaction you just caught one of those visions that seem to be everywhere right now?"

He nodded sympathetically, looking weary, "Startled us too, just take it easy for a moment, maybe you can tell us why you think this would happen?"

She shook her head though, she just couldn't make sense of it. She tried to follow the calming instruction in his voice and she began to put the pieces into place. There was only one way the Clones would collectively turn on her and the Jedi she thought with growing horror. They would have needed to be ordered to do so by the highest level of government. And for them to actually have followed that order, for even Bly and the others to turn on her and obey...

More pieces began to fit together, rumours, hard truths and secrets that had worked their way to every ear in the Jedi Order. It began to come together in her head. She could feel it now, not just in her bones or in the instincts in her gut, but in the echoes of the Force which still reached her. The malevolence behind it, the premeditation and hungering anticipation. The dark joy of a plot long laid finally coming to fruition.

Only one being could have planned this, have arranged this and gone undetected under their very noses the whole time. Only one person could have benefited so. Slowly she began to speak. "We have been betrayed." She began in a low tight tone of voice before barking a bitter laugh that choked off almost as soon as it began to leave her lips. "Force, what fools we were…"

At their questioning looks, she elaborated, her ill controlled disgust for the one who had caused this seeping through… "It was the Chancellor, he must have planned this from the beginning."

She felt a swell of grief, sorrow and regret. The tears were dripping off her chin down onto her hands which lay clenched in her lap. How many times had she, or other Jedi been in his very presence, so close to stopping it all, and never sensed what he was? So close to bringing this war to an end? To saving themselves?
She cursed bitterly in Ryl, which raised curious looks from the humans, prompting Harry to look to Hermione. She just shrugged, looking a bit vague as she pondered something. "Must have been a different language, the spell only affects one at a time."

Aayla shook her head, as another wave of visions echoed into her mind and she sobbed. "They're killing us all…if only we'd known…if only we'd been smarter!" The two humans exchanged a significant look before sighing. She heard them move off to a corner and begin softly murmuring amongst themselves but didn't really register it.

Harry moved back a bit later, "Look I'm sorry, truly I am, I can't imagine what you are feeling right now…I didn't even entirely understand what you were saying. But I'm sorry that you and…well I assume these other Jedi have been betrayed by someone you trusted." He said gently.

Aayla sighed, doing her best to collect herself. It was hard though, in the face of it all washing over her again and again… She tried to explain. "We Jedi have been the protectors of the Republic for some twenty thousand years. We've stood as it's guardians, as well as its diplomats and arbitrators of justice… In recent years however our numbers have waned, as we died in this blasted war…" She cursed.

"We suspected from the beginning that this war was orchestrated by our enemy. But we could never pin them down." She admitted bitterly, the irony of why that was, almost physically choking her. "It would seem that was because they were hiding among our closest allies all along. The Supreme Chancellor…"
She bit out unhappily. "The leader of the Republic which we served, he's the only one who could have ordered this and have expected it to be followed."
She sighed in defeat. "And now here we are…being systematically hunted and exterminated by those who had once been our friends and allies. If only we had—if I had been…" She broke down again.

She was too absorbed in trying to drown out the pain, by trying to draw it in and release it into the Force, but it wasn't working, and so she missed when Hermione cleared her throat and pointedly jerked her head at the door while looking at Harry.

Harry nodded, and patted Aayla tentatively on the shoulder. "Look, we'll give you a few minutes alone. I'm inclined to believe you based on what we've seen. We'll come back in a few minutes and see what we can do to help you."

She nodded numbly, barely understanding him anymore. She heard them step away and soon she was alone in the room. Even that ugly little creature had followed them though she noted the slobber monster had apparently decided to remain, curling up near her feet.

As their murmuring voices faded into the background she couldn't help but wonder how many of her friends now lay dead...And how long until she joined them?


Felucia Wilds
Ravine Camp

Harry returned a few minutes later, looking worried. Not that Aayla was in any position to notice really. She was too full of self recrimination and grief. Some Jedi I am. She thought miserably. The Order is being destroyed as I sit here, and I can't get my own damned emotions under control so I can try and do something about it. She raged at herself.

Not that I'd know where to even begin…She pointed out morosely to herself. Definitely not cut out to be a Master then eh Aayla? She mocked, sinking further into her self-recriminations.

Can't control your emotions, can't plan your way out of a flimsy bag. What good are you?

Harry sat down in front of her and she looked up, her tear streaked face questioning at his presence. "So, I'd ask how you are doing, but I think I can guess…" He noted tiredly.

"But I still have to ask a couple questions." he offered tentatively

She nodded numbly, too tired to even beg off to be alone. He continued then, "What do you see yourself doing now…how could I go about helping you?" He asked gently.

Aayla shook her head, she'd already tried to figure that out, she couldn't see any way forward, "I need to go into hiding—" She began, "See if I can find other survivors..It won't be easy though. It's not like I can hide myself like the Sith, or—"

She cut herself off as a thought occurred to her. "Or like you do…"

She looked up at him sharply, hoping for even a small glimmer of a chance, something, anything she could use to improve their odds. "Can you teach me how to do that? If I know how, perhaps me and any Jedi I find might be able to survive!"

Harry looked pensive and nodded slowly. "Possibly, but let me ask you another question first." He raised a hand to stall her a moment. "It'll seem a silly one, maybe even cruel, but I need to ask it."

She couldn't begin to guess what he would ask, and decided not to try, simply nodding her consent. She could take it, whatever it was, even if it hurt. He spoke then, "What would you be willing to do, to risk, if you could make a difference in what has just happened?"

Aayla considered that, not sure where this question was coming from, or why it was being asked right at that time, but answered honestly. "I'd do almost anything. I'd risk everything, even my life."

He nodded soberly, as if he'd expected no different. "Okay, let me ask something a touch different. Please try not to chop me with your laser sword when I ask it?" He suggested, his tone light, an attempt to improve her mood.

It helped a bit, she couldn't help but be mildly amused at his term for lightsabers. He explained, "I have a method available to me, a very dangerous method, that could very well see you annihilated. But it would allow us—you. To make at least a small difference in what has happened."

She was curious now, a chance to make a difference is what a Jedi lived for after all. "What is this method, and why would I want to hit you with my lightsaber for suggesting it?" She asked uncertainly. She'd risked death before, so many times it wasn't worth fretting about anymore….

He pulled a small object from his pocket and held it up for her to see. A small golden device, one ring which could clearly spin within the other if the latch were released, and at it's centre? A tiny cracked hourglass set into a circular frame cut with stars…It positively glowed in the Force.

He smiled dryly at her expression of curious wonder, "I gather from your look you've never seen something like this before…" he guessed and she nodded agreement. The crystals of lightsabers and holocrons carried the Force within them, allowing them to glow like this. But no, she had never seen anything quite like it.

"This is what my people refer to as a time turner. A magical device with a great deal of power, and danger…" He admitted. "This one was brought along on our little mission by Hermione, just in case of emergencies. She believes this counts as one…and I tend to agree."

At her interested expression he elaborated. "Quite simply, it allows up to a pair of people to travel back through time. In the case of an undamaged one a maximum of twenty four hours…" He said, and her eyes widened. "Now, were things normal that'd probably be more than enough for our situation yes? But this one is damaged, and so there is an even greater risk in it's use…"

She could hardly breathe, what he suggested, claimed that little bauble could do. It was impossible, he had to be mocking her!
Unless he wasn't?

She tried to gauge his sincerity, and he certainly looked it to her eyes. "It's not something we suggest lightly." Harry warned. "There are rules with the use of time travel. If we see ourselves while back in time, and that other version of us sees us as well…we'd create a paradox. The universe would erase us from all time, forward and back…" He cautioned.

She gasped slightly at the thought of having never existed in the first place. He held up a finger, "The next rule is this. Though the consequences are somewhat less dire." he looked to her soberly. "You cannot change things you already know to have happened. So we cannot prevent your soldiers from turning on you." He explained. "It will happen one way or the other, no matter what you do."

Her mind protested at the thought of not being able to stop this betrayal entirely. But then, understanding came. She didn't know everything that had happened out there…She could save a few, maybe even all of those she hadn't seen!

Harry saw her understanding blossom. "This time turner, with the work Hermione's just done to reinforce it…is good for perhaps one last jump. However it won't take us back all that far, ten to eleven hours I'd say or thereabouts. If we leave soon, we might, MIGHT, manage to save a few of your friends." he admonished, a cautionary tone in his voice.

He looked at her seriously, his green eyes staring into her hazel ones, "So, I ask you again Aayla Secura…Jedi Knight of the Republic…What are you willing to risk?" He asked holding the device out towards her.

She gazed at him, seeing his sincerity and his utter belief in her and she reached out to grasp it and his hand. Even before she felt his emotions, her decision had been made. She had to try. To dismiss this out of hand, or to refuse the risk of annihilation or whatever else because of fear... It would be unconscionable.
She was a Jedi, a Guardian of the Republic…

She grinned hopefully at him. "I'm going to need a change of clothes if we're to do this."

He smirked, letting go of her hand before bending down to pick up her lightsabers pressing them back into her hands, "I think that can be arranged."


Translations:

* Hello, it's good to see you are awake! Still blue I see.
**Again with the sensing spells...and wandless. Curious. You are just full of surprises blue woman.