Feral

Knight Terr has been tasked to bring the famous Team back to Coruscant. What she finds is certainly not what she expected. (Clone Wars AU, Obi-Wan/Anakin)


The LAAT shook upon landing, both the damage sustained by breaking through the blockade and the uneven ground making the descent a proper challenge for the clone pilot. Aliisa grabbed the overhead support rail, her body swaying back and forth with the tottering gunship. Not for the first time, she wondered why she had been appointed the task of bringing the Republic's two most famous heroes back to Coruscant. She had never even met them.

But it was not for her to question; she was there to serve.

The outside world was bright compared to the dim interior of the ship; for a moment all her senses were under assault. The air reeked heavily of rot and explosives – of death – and a humid warmth enveloped her eagerly, dampening her robes. But the worst was the Force; it felt twisted and volatile, like a wild, wounded thing. It battered her shields, seeking a way in.

While she was momentarily stung, trying to find her equilibrium, the clones fanned out around her. Soldiers had already been sent to scout the surrounding area, when Aliisa managed to wrestle herself under tight control and turned to face the Captain. Face covered by the customary helmet, his expression was impossible to read and as usual, his flat voice revealed nothing.

"Knight Terr, the main camp is about twenty klicks from here, but there is a battle going on just south of that ridge." He hadn't called her general since the first time she had corrected him about her title.

Dismissing the unease pooling in her gut, Aliisa nodded. "Then let's go aid them in the fight. I'm sure we shall find the generals there."

The distance between their landing spot and the battlefield was quickly covered, not least because the terrain had obviously been molded by the continuous fighting. Were once had been a lush, almost impenetrable forest, there was now just a decimated ground filled with potholes, ripped trees and warped metal. Her wish for the clean, appropriate walls and halls of the Jedi Temple was fierce and sudden; she fought to release it into the Force, but oddly turbulent, the Force denied her and pushed back.

As the sounds of war grew louder and the ground started to shook, Aliisa's hand settled against her lightsaber. Always concentrating mastering other talents, she had done only the most necessary lightsaber training. She had never meant to be a warrior – no Jedi really had. And yet the Order had been mired in a brutal war for over half a decade.

The field of carnage that finally spread out under her eyes left her breathless; bodies and noise and war machines and the Force howling in ecstatic desperation. The pitch of it was deafening and terrible, awakening a nameless terror inside her. Unconsciously, she took a step back, almost colliding with a trooper standing right behind her.

The Captain's helmeted head swiveled to look at her. "It looks they have the situation well in hand. The enemy is retreating." Retreating was a generous assessment. Being slaughtered, seemed a more correct term. Clones were shooting the fleeing droids and the planet's native people, explosions ripping the few remaining Separatist positions apart. Among the chaos of death danced two blades of blue.

Aliisa found herself morbidly mesmerized by the graceful, brutal arch of the blades, slashing and parring and flying in perfect sync. Never before had she seen the famous Team fighting, and it was a wondrous thing indeed. Terrible, but marvelous. Admirable, but formidable.

"Mam," the Captain's voice drew her gaze away from the arresting scene the twin blades continued to make cleaving through the battlefield. She turned to face the direction he was pointing; a lone clone was half-jogging to meet their small group. It took a moment for her to recognize the faded markings on the armor beneath the grime: he too was a Captain.

"General," the newcomer said as he came to stand before her, head tilted almost curiously. Although the helmet covered his face, she had a sudden notion that she was being judged – and found wanting.

"Knight Terr," she corrected him, inwardly bristling. "I have a message for General Kenobi and General Skywalker. But first, do your troops need any assistance?" She asked, although all of them knew the answer.

"Not at this moment Knight Terr," he answered. "It would be better if you waited here. The Generals will come to you." The clone gave her a sharp salute and walked away.

Thus effectively dismissed, Aliisa stayed on the hill overlooking the fighting ground, observing the end of the battle. In her mind, she once again thought of how she was going to express her message to its recipients. The most direct way was always the best; she would simply say, the Council requests your presence on Coruscant. The order in it would be impossible to miss, unlike the dozens of holomessages that had went unanswered and unheeded.

To her immense relief, the fighting tapered off soon. She watched as the blue blades were switched off and the only two non-armored figures approached one another, their steps never faltering as they weaved their way through the dead and the wounded. They were close enough for Aliisa to make out the filthy state of their outer garments, the tangled hair, the unkempt beard. One of them had a face half covered in blood spatter, and there were numerous dark red stains on their clothes. They looked altogether like the Force felt in that cursed, damned place: feral.

Aliisa had thought that nothing could shock her anymore; that she had already seen everything there was of the decay and the ruin in the brief time she had been on the planet. She could not have been more wrong. As the two men, the two Jedi, finally came face to face in the middle of the bloody field, they grasped hands and then fell into each other like starving beasts. The ensuing kiss was hungry, indulgent and wholly unapologetic.

She trembled, mortified, while the clones went along their business like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Like their two generals weren't licking into each other's mouths with a passion that was unnatural, dangerous and most of all, forbidden.

And that was not even the worst of it. For she knew, without a doubt, that the two Jedi knew she – the herald of the High Jedi Council – was there, watching. And they did not care.