Chapter 4: Memories (29 BBY).

Since they met all those years ago Cindo, Ahsoka and Raz'yel had become a tight knit group of friends. The inseparable trio did pretty much almost everything together except for a few certain things like reading which Ahsoka wasn't a big fan of. Cindo entrusted them with everything and told them everything about him except one thing – the locket. Even though the two of them were the people he trusted the most in the galaxy he wanted to remain safe so he kept it a secret.

Cindo still found himself on the roof of the Jedi Temple with the locket in hand almost every day, wondering if it was finally the time to let go of the past. He was certain that the time he would be forced to throw it away was coming soon. He had been experiencing dreams for the past few months now with each dream being nearly identical – he was in his room back on Dantooine, every part of the room just like he had left it. The outsides of the windows were just a wall of darkness he could not see through and the door was always locked. From outside the room he could hear his parents going about their daily lives. Sometimes Cindo could smell his mother's cooking, sometimes he could hear the song his father loved but he dreaded, sometimes they would argue.

Every time Cindo would start knocking on the door and making as much noise as possible. The same thing would happen as a result of that – all the sounds just stopped. Instead the night before, the seemingly harmless dream turned into a nightmare. Instead of the sounds immediately stopping, he could hear steps coming closer and closer. He had moved away from the door and to his shock his mother entered the room, but she wasn't the same as he remembered. Multiple blaster marks were dotted around her body and her eyes were pure white. She had stood there for a couple of seconds looking around the room as if nobody was there before leaving.

The experience left Cindo confused and scared. He was doing his best to hide it but he knew Ahsoka and Raz'yel would spot that something was off soon enough.

"I can't wait to kick your butts!" Ahsoka exclaimed excitedly in her usual confident self.

"If you get far enough," Raz'yel challenged.

"That applies more to you than me."

"It does not."

"Yes, it does!"

They continued to bicker about who was better all the way to the actual Jedi training area. Usually Cindo would join, especially against Ahsoka as her being annoyed always made him laugh, but today was a different day and to his disdain his two friends caught on to him.

"Is something wrong?" The question was sudden and unexpected, cutting off their arguing in an instant and turning the spotlight on him.

"No," Cindo answered dismissively. "I'm fine."

Ahsoka then got in front of him and stopped him. "Then why are your hands shaking?" she said with crossed arms and a raised brow.

"I just had a nightmare. It's nothing big," he responded with a fake smile.

"What was it about?" Ahsoka inquired further.

Cindo gulped. He had hoped his answer would've been sufficient. He wasn't prepared to for that question. "I can't remember. You know just the usual scary stuff."

"Uh-huh," Raz'yel responded.

"Really. I can't remember. Let's just leave it at that."

"Sure." Raz'yel and Ahsoka looked at each other and shrugged.

"Where are we going again?" Cindo asked. Ahsoka and Raz'yel probably told him what it was but he couldn't remember at all.

"We're signing up for the apprentice tournament," Raz'yel answered.

"Which I'm going to win of course," Ahsoka just had to add, sending the two of them into another argument. Seeing it as a way to escape his thoughts Cindo joined in on the bickering.

"A tournament you say? Who knew Jedi could actually have fun."

"It's an ancient dueling tournament. Never took part in one myself but they were fun to watch."

The Jedi Temple Apprentice Tournament was a sacred tradition to the Jedi. It was held once a year during times of peace. It was an event where younglings could show off their skills, unwind and have fun. But it held more importance to the higher-ranking members of the order as they could from the tournament see which of the younglings could make for good apprentices.

The three friends entered the sparring area lobby. On the wall next to the door to one of the ten sparring rooms was a board. The three entered their names and the clans they belonged to and that was their sign up completed. Now all they had to do was wait and train for three days before the tournament began.

After they had completed their signup Ahsoka and Raz'yel immediately headed for the youngling sparring area to practice. They invited Cindo along, but he politely declined, using his bad mood as an excuse. Luckily for him the two let him go without trying to convince him. He returned to the empty youngling quarters and immediately started towards the cabinet where his drawer was. He pulled it open and took out the two extra sets of clothing he had been given by the caretakers, putting them on the floor next to him. The bottom of his wooden drawer was made out of two layers of wood, a bottom one which was thick and the one that was on top of it which was very thin. The two layers were supposed to be glued together but the glue holding the two parts together failed and so the top layer could be removed. He did just that, squeezing his fingers into the tiny gaps and removing the wooden plank. Beneath it was the necklace with the locket.

He picked up the necklace and gripped it tightly in his right hand. "Now I just need a place where I won't be interrupted."

The room of a thousand fountains was the oldest surviving room in the Jedi temple, having not been fully destroyed or even mostly destroyed for thousands of years. One of if not the only place where nature still thrived on Coruscant, the giant greenhouse played host to a whole ecosystem of plants and animals. Small streams ran of water ran through the room with stone walkways following them all the way. It was a place where the Jedi went when they sought peace and enlightenment. Cindo sought the former but he still felt bad about bringing something so dark to such a peaceful place. He strayed off the path, as far as he dared to go because the room was easy to get lost in, and prepared himself for meditation.

The longer Cindo stared at the locket on the ground in front of him the more uneasy he became. It should've been easy to throw it away and forget about it but something was pulling him towards it, something was preventing him from throwing it away.

He down on his knees and gripped the necklace tightly in his right hand. The calming sounds of flowing water and distant bird chirping eased his worry as he slipped into deep meditation, his focus centered at the necklace.

"Can you sense that?"

"I can."

"Then you know that our time to intervene will come soon."

"I'm afraid you're right."


Cindo felt the ground beneath him. Dirt just like the one in the room he was just in the only difference being it was pitch black and completely quiet. It was so dark that he couldn't even see his hands even when he brought them directly in front of his eyes. The eerily silent air was replaced with a loud scream shortly after, a scream that brought back memories Cindo desperately tried to push aside.

Suddenly a strong white light lit up his back, taking his attention. He turned on his heels only to see a half circle of just pure white light close by. The light lit up the area, revealing dead trees positioned identically to the ones in the room where he was meditating and a dry trench that ran exactly where the slow stream used to run. Seeing nothing of interest Cindo carefully approached the light. Before he could even react two dark tentacles shot out of the white light wrapping around his arms tightly. As they pulled him in he attempted to resist but to no avail. The intensity of the light only became stronger and stronger, forcing him to close his eyes.

And then all of the sudden the tentacles that had been wrapped around his arms so tightly that they went numb and the blinding white light disappeared and were instead replaced with the sound of the night wind gracefully brushing a large patch of tall grass – a sound he was all too familiar with but hadn't heard in a long time.

Cindo opened his eyes, his arms still stretched out in front of him. He subconsciously dropped them back into their resting positions while he began taking in the view. Not far away was a lonely nearly perfect Y-shaped tree. To his disdain Cindo knew exactly where he was. He ran to the tree and climbed on top of it as he did so many times before, but this time it was even easier with his added size and strength. As he got higher and higher the picture of his old village began taking shape. He immediately dropped down and sprinted towards it.

He ran straight through the village to his house when he froze. The speeder the bounty hunters who took him drove was there, parked in exactly the same place as the night when… Cindo stopped for a moment. He took a look around that area of his house since that was where the windows in his room were and noticed that the speeder wasn't the only thing in the same place, everything else was as well. He dashed for the corner of the house and when he peeked out his heart stopped. The same men dressed who took him stood there in front of the door.

It was at this point he had had enough, but he didn't know how to pull himself out of whatever he was in. He attempted to close his eyes, covering his ears, even hitting himself but nothing worked. It was when another strong white light, this time much smaller in size grabbed his attention. A very small particle, the size of a bread crumb, floated in the air at a nearby house. It had to be some sort of sign so Cindo decided to follow it in hopes of it maybe dragging him some place else. But what he discovered was far worse than anything he could've hoped for. As he turned around the corner he spotted a young Kenobi and a still alive Qui-Gon hiding behind the building, poking their heads out and observing the bounty hunters as they molested his parents.

Cindo couldn't believe his eyes. Where they there the whole time as his parents fought for him? Did they just let them die instead of doing something?

Impossible. He forced the thoughts out of his head. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan would've done something if they were there. The vision had to be fake it just had to. There would be no reason for a simple necklace to be able to show him this – it was all another nightmare.


A sudden flash of light brought him back to the place where he began his meditation. He started meditating just hoping that having the necklace close would show him something, but he never expected this. It all felt so real. In the end the experience left him with more questions than answers.

Now looking down at the necklace in his hand, he noticed that the pull he sensed emanating from it had disappeared. Cindo attempted to replicate the ritual in the next two days but he never again managed to get pulled into the same vision or any vision at all.