I wake up early the next morning, anticipation instantly filling me. I hop out of bed and pull on my clothes, noting with slight disappointment that they are not the standard tunic worn by other apprentices. I tie my hair back into its ponytail, and bound out of my room, nearly forgetting to close the door behind me.
I head for the main courtyard, and find it just barely tinged by dawn. I settle onto a bench and look around, marvelling at the beauty surrounding me. When I blink, my eyes feel strange. I blink again. What is that? Then I realize I'm not wearing my contacts. But I can see… I rub my eyes, just to be sure. Am I awake? I bite my tongue. Ouch. Well, I guess I'm awake. So why can I see?
When Nemo comes into the courtyard, sometime later, I mention it.
"I don't know," he says, looking mystified. "It could be that the midichlorians are repairing any problems within your body."
I nod. That answer is good enough. The fact that I don't need contacts anymore does not bother me in the least. I revel in my perfect vision.
"Perhaps you should get the Healer to have a look at it," he continues thoughtfully.
"No, it's okay," I say, "I don't mind it. After all," I add, a sinking feeling tightening my stomach, "it'll probably be back to normal by the end of the week, right?"
He nods, then seems to remember something. He takes it out of his pocket and hands it to me—it is a datapad. I touch the screen and it turns on, blue writing appearing across its surface. "I thought you might like to read it," he tells me, "It's something that all our apprentices read, when they first join the Order."
I stared at the small, precise lettering, biting my lip and wondering what to do. I'd never been to school, spending my childhood helping on the farm, ergo I had never learned to read. My face begins to flush in shame, but I pretend I know what is written. Of course, Nemo picks up on my distress immediately.
"What's wrong?" he asks kindly.
"I…" I mutter, "I can't read." He is silent for a moment, probably berating himself, and I begin to regret saying that and making him feel bad. "It's okay," I lie, "I don't really care."
"Never lie," he tells me quietly, "even about small things. If you start, it is far too easy to continue."
I am taken aback by the short lesson. "Oh. Um, yes Master."
There is silence for a moment. Nemo is about to speak, to tell me that he will teach me to read, but never gets the chance, for someone else speaks first.
"Good morning, Nemo," the person says. I look up. It is a young man, tall, with brown hair and deep set eyes. He is very handsome, and when he turns his gaze to me, I flush and look away. "Who is this?" he asks.
"This is Hara," Nemo says, standing. I follow suit. "Hara, this is Master Kavar."
"Nice to meet you," I say, staring at my feet. Kavar laughs good-naturedly at my shyness.
"Do you live around here?" he inquires of me. I nod, and Nemo nudges me. say, 'Yes, Master', he instructs me in my mind. I am slightly startled, but he continues, He is your senior.
"Yes, Master," I say, chancing a glance up. Kavar is looking at Nemo quizzically.
"She is a Jedi?" he asks.
"She received a blood transfusion from Padawan Fam," Nemo explains, "and is temporarily Force-Sensitive. I offered to give her some basic training during her stay here."
Kavar seems to ponder this. A few seconds later, he addresses me, bending down a little to look me in the eye, "Would you like to learn to fight?"
I am not expecting this, and it takes me longer than usual to respond. When I do, I am enthusiastic. "Yes!" I smile, "Please." I remember myself and try to clear the expression off my face. "Please, Master," I add, and Kavar chuckles again, straightening.
"Have you two eaten?" he asks us both. We tell him we haven't, and all three of us proceed to the dining hall.
I finish eating first, eager to be taught to fight. Will I get to use a lightsaber? I am almost bouncing in my seat as I wait for the two Jedi Masters to finish their breakfast. I notice Kavar watching me with amusement, and I quickly restrain myself, embarrassed.
He strikes me as being a kind man, and definitely young for a Master. I estimate him to be only somewhere between twenty and twenty five.
Finally, they finish eating, and Nemo bids us goodbye. He is no fighter, and will meet me in an hour or two in the central courtyard. After he has left, Kavar leads me to one of the training rooms. He sheds his cloak and picks up two training swords, one of which he hands to me. It is heavy, but lighter than I expected. Experimentally, I raise it and slice the air, and almost drop it.
"Hold it like this," he says, demonstrating. I regard his fingers on the hilt and try to imitate it. "And swing—" he leisurely moves the blade up and to the right, "—like this." I do the same, finding it remarkably easy.
He shows me two other basic swings—which I also quickly accomplish. It is comparable to swinging a laserscythe to take off the tops of our crops in the fall.
"You're good," he comments. I blush shyly, not used to compliments, and especially not from gorgeous Jedi Masters. We spend another twenty minutes or so—I lose track of time—going over basic attacks, blocks and stances, then pause for a breather. I am not truly that tired, just lifting and swinging a stick around isn't that hard, but I don't mind the break.
"Want to try sparring?" he asks. I was not expecting that, but I am interested. Somehow, I've gotten it into my head that I'm such a natural at this that he won't beat me, and I accept. I pick my sword up and hold it the way he taught me, and as he moves to stand opposite me on the training mat, I shift my body into a defensive stance. "We'll go light and slow, alright?" I agree. "First touch wins, and no head-hits."
I make the first attack, launching forward with the most complicated strike he's taught me. He blocks it easily and sidesteps, and waits for me to move again. I try again, to the same result. Irritated, I lash out with a simple back-handed swing, not pulling the strength behind it—he'll block it anyway, why should I bother to hold back?
He does block it, but the force of the two blades colliding knocks my sword from my hand. In one swift movement, Kavar steps in close and sets the cool metal of his weapon against my neck.
"Control yourself," he tells me, calmly, taking the sword off my shoulder and freeing me from my terrorized trance. He could have killed me! Shaking it off with effort, I tell myself, 'Not everyday that you have a Jedi with his sword at your neck, right? It's okay to be a little scared, but don't worry, it's not likely to happen again.' It doesn't really help, and my hands are still shaking when I pick up my sabre from where it lies on the floor. "Try again?" Kavar asks.
"Sure," I say, with more confidence than I feel.
I let him make the first move this time. He moves in, fast, but not so much so that I have no time to react. I block him, and make a counterattack, which he dodges easily. He returns, and I block, stepping back a little instinctively. I expect him to follow through with another attack, but he lowers his weapon.
"You're reacting," he says, shaking his head. "I want to you feel, use the Force, sense what I'm going to do, and move to prevent that before it happens. I tell him I can't, that I can hardly pick up people's thoughts when they practically hand them at me, how can I sense his attacks? "It's easier than reading minds," he tells me, "all you have to do is relax, and let your body move for you." He pauses, thinking, then says, "Wait a moment."
He goes to a small footlocker and takes out a blindfold. "Put this on," he instructs me, and I do, acutely conscious of the dark sweat spots that are visible under my arms as I reach up to tie the cloth. He either doesn't notice them, or he doesn't care, and I am somewhat consoled.
I expect him to hand me my sword, but nothing comes, just more words. "I'm going to swing at you, and I want you to move out of the way. I'm not going to use a weapon, and neither are you. Just avoid my hand." I nod, and wait for him to attack.
His fist contacts my shoulder, startling me. A moment later, he hits my other shoulder. I stand in dread of his next attack, feeling like prey in the night, with my predator hidden just beyond the wall of darkness, about to pounce. I am trembling, terrified.
"Calm down," he says, "I'm not going to hurt you. Don't be afraid—relax."
When he hits my back and I still stay rooted to the spot, he begins to speak quietly. "There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity." I can track him from his voice, and I use it to follow his movements as he circles me slowly. "There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death—" a light tap on the side of my head, I flinch— "there is the Force."
There is silence for a long moment, and I am still trembling, waiting for his next strike. Then, suddenly, "Catch."
Reflexively, my hands snap up and a small ball lands neatly in them. It takes me a moment to realize what's happened, but when I do, I grin proudly. The ball picks itself up and floats away from me.
"If you can catch a ball," Kavar's voice says, "you can dodge my hand, can't you?"
I take this to heart, and I push all thoughts of what is to happen from my mind as it seemed to work well when I had no idea what was going on. To my wonder, I find myself sidestepping and I feel the slight brush of air that his hand makes as it misses me. A second later, I move again, and then again, and again, as his attacks come faster.
After perhaps a minute—time disappears when blindfolded—he hands me my sword. "I will go slowly," he says. "Remember that this is the same thing as what we were just doing. Do not think."
I hold my sword up, ready. His first strike hits my arm, not hard, but it makes me jump. The second one, I sense, and I manage to do a sort of half-block, moving my blade but contacting his with my hand. The third, I block. The next one comes directly after, and I am able to sense and prevent that one too.
Shortly later, I am permitted to remove my blindfold. We spar for a few matches—with him beating me sorely, of course—but I am getting tired, and he can see that. Ten minutes after the first point is scored, we put our swords away and Kavar grabs his cloak, and we head out to meet Nemo. My MasterNemo, I think to myself, smiling a little.
Kavar departs once I am reunited with Nemo, who has a small stack of items beside him on a bench. He hands me the top one, a datapad with writing on it.
"That is the alphabet," he tells me. "If you would like, I will give you a couple lessons on reading and writing." I am infinitely pleased by this: it will be another thing that I can hold over Emelle and the other kids in the district. I bite my lip to stop my smile from spreading over my mouth.
"Thank you," I say, seating myself beside him and looking at the characters on the screen. The next things he hands me are two folded pieces of brown cloth. Curious, I lift them to have a better look, and a padawan tunic and pants fall open before me. I cannot hide my smile this time, and I thank Nemo heartily.
"There is an extra clothing storage closet in the sublevel," he says, "so if they do not fit, we can find you some that do."
He is so kind, I reflect, like granddad, when he was still alive.
Next, I am given a pair of standard leather boots, a belt for my new tunic, and finally, a long brown robe.
"You are too kind, Master," I whisper, running my hands over my cloak.
"I want you to enjoy this week," he tells me, 'smiling', "to make your 'Jedi Experience' as realistic as possible."
"Thank you," I say.
"Now, go try those on," he instructs, and I am happy to obey.
"Yes, Master," I say, still relishing the feel of those words on my tongue. Master. I rush to my room, which is nearby, and quickly get out of my everyday wear, kicking my battered shoes off into a corner. To my delight, the tunic, though it is slightly scratchy, fits well. The pants do not reach to my ankles, but when I picture other Jedi in my mind, their pants are tucked inside the boots, so length is not an issue. I have some difficultly with the clasp on the belt, but I manage. The boots are too small for my feet, so, with disappointment, I put my old shoes back on, and slip on my robe. I look around the room for a mirror, but there is none. I sigh softly, but I suppose Jedi are trained not to have vanity.
Carrying my boots, I leave my temporary quarters and go back to Nemo.
"The boots don't fit," I tell him, and he shows me to that storage closet he'd spoken of earlier. We quickly find another pair of boots that fit me well, and I pull them on. They have an interesting feel, I notice as I tuck my pants into them, snugger than my rubber boots at home, but not too tight to hinder movement, and they are soft against my skin.
I leave my shoes there, per Nemo's request, so that I do not have to go upstairs and back down again to put them away. We retrace our steps to the garden near the exterior entrance, where we sit on a bench, tucked away among the huge planters. I can't help but look around at the flora that surrounds us. Tiny white flowers hang down on almost invisible stems, swaying in the slight breeze made by the falling streams of water. Sunlight filters through the stained glass ceiling above us, casting pastel shadows onto leaves and making water glitter. I would stay here forever, I believe, if I could, but Nemo's quiet voice calls me back into the present.
"Do you have that datapad I gave you?" he asks. I freeze: do I? Quickly, I check my pockets. It isn't there; I must have left it in my room. I can picture it lying on my bed, under my old shirt, forgotten.
"I left it in my room," I say guiltily, feeling careless and ungrateful. "Sorry."
"It's alright," he consoles me. What he says next thrills me beyond belief. "We can start that later. For now… what would you say to learning how to control the Force to move physical objects?"
"Yes!" I say, probably a little too loudly for the location.
"I realize it is complicated," he continues, holding up a hand to my outburst, "but as your midichlorians will begin to die soon, now is the only time that this has any chance of working."
I am silenced by that, the reminder that this—all of this—is only for a few more days, and then I will be back to boring, normal Hara. It puts a heavy damper on my excitement, but I try to focus myself on what's happening now. So, when Nemo leans over and picks up a fallen flower from the ground and gives it to me, I shove away all those feelings of overhanging dread and I can't stop myself from grinning. I am going to make these hover!
He instructs me to close my eyes, and feel the flower in my hand. I do, concentrating on the subtle mass of the dying foliage lying on my palm.
"Reach down with your mind," he says, "as you would with your hand, and lift it."
This is a little harder than his last instruction. I stretch my consciousness out, as I did yesterday when I was practicing mind reading, but to find something dead is harder than to find something living, I discover. I use my sense of touch to find the flower, and once I have it in my 'grasp', I lift. To my disappointment, my imaginary hand rises without the flower, and I try again. This time, I picture myself holding onto one of the slippery petals, pinching it, and then I lift. It comes with me, but only briefly. I quickly lose my grip and it falls gently back down, in the end doing little more than wobbling. Still, I am overjoyed. This is something that I have pictured myself doing, as I lay awake in bed at night, alone with a sleeping Emelle and my thoughts. I had held a marble in my hand and stared at it, willing it to move, just a tiny bit. I always ended up exhaling harder than usual and trying to convince myself that it was my mind that had moved it, not my breath. Now, no convincing was required. It had actually happened!
I make another attempt and have less success than I had previously. This annoys me a little, and I carelessly grab at it. My 'hand' goes straight through it, into my real, solid hand, and there it seems to tweak a tendon, or something, because I feel something shift and it hurts.
My eyes snap open with a gasp and I double over, clutching my throbbing appendage. Nemo pulls me back up and pries it out from my protective embrace, slipping his fingers among mine. There is a slight tweak as something moves, and the pain stops. I take a deep, calming breath and look up cautiously to see his reaction.
"Thanks," I say. He is frowning.
"You lost your focus," he reprimands me sternly, "You got angry, and you hurt yourself. Anger is something you must always avoid. Is that clear?"
"I—I'm sorry," I mumble. I'm not sorry, not really. I wasn't angry, just annoyed. Besides, as he said, I hurt myself. That should be enough incentive not to get annoyed again, right? I stare down at the poor dead petals in my palm that I had crushed into pale pink dust.
-
That night, after meditating with Nemo, I lie on my back on my hard bed, watching the ceiling. I mull over the day's events, then begin reciting the alphabet in my head and trying to string them together according to their sounds to spell my name. When I feel confident that I've gotten it right (I think it should go Hara, but I'm not sure about the first a. It doesn't sound like it should) I flop my head to the side, and find myself looking at my contacts which I'd left, forgotten and abandoned, in their case.
I focus on them, reaching with my mind for them, but I can't get a grip. Sighing, I stretch out an arm and pluck one from the clear solution they rest in, holding it between my index finger and thumb in front of my face. Through it, the world is distorted, blurred. My arm that holds it falls back to my side, while the other moves to brush the tender skin below my eyes. How strange was it that I did not need those lenses anymore? And so suddenly? Things just didn't happen like that, especially not to me.
I sigh again and gently place the tiny piece of silaglass with its twin, then I close my eyes and wait for sleep.
