VII. Perseverance
Namenlos gasped a breath as he opened his eyes, throwing his arms out in front of his face to block a blow he haltingly realized wasn't coming. He felt a soft mattress beneath him, he was on Mission's bed for some reason. Wrinkling his nose, he tried to remember just what had happened. His mind was clearer than it had been in days, he realized, the headache only a distant memory.
Then he remembered. She'd found him.
Namenlos erupted from off the bed and reached for the knife he kept on a holster inside his sleeve, but it wasn't there. He scanned the room, trying to identity the source of the threat he could feel drawn over him like a gossamer blanket he couldn't shake, a spider's web that clung to everything it touched, percolating icy dread through his bones.
He heard a distinctly familiar sound and turned to face a man in an orange jacket holding him at blaster point.
"Don't come any closer," the man growled.
Absent a weapon of his own, Namenlos knew he had little chance of getting by without being shot at least twice by the man, so he backed off a little bit as he studied his adversary. The man seemed to whisper into a hand device he quickly retrieved from his belt; Namenlos couldn't make out the words above a pounding in his skull.
It was the blood rushing to his head, he'd gotten to his feet too fast. Yellow and purple spots swam in his vision and Namenlos fought to keep from collapsing back to the floor. As he staggered, he put his hands to the sides of his head as if it would help steady his dizziness. Brushing through his tangled hair down past his neck, he felt something.
Tentatively, he put fingers to the thing he could feel hanging around his neck. It felt like the smooth leather surface of a collar. Running his hands around the circumference of his neck confirmed it.
Sensations filled his head, thoughts of enslavement, indoctrination, and torture at the hands of implacable captors inundated his waking mind. Collars meant oppression. You collared a captive, a slave; an animal.
He was not an animal.
Locking his fingers around the obscene object, he pulled as hard as he could to rip it from his neck.
The shock of the pain that raced through his fingers, up his arm, and into his head, made him instantly let go and dropped him to the floor with a scream of agony. For an instant after letting go all he could feel was the tingling after-effects of the pain ripping through him, the blood pounding in his head shut off all sounds from his hearing. He panted to regain the breath that had been torn from his lungs.
When finally the feeling passed, he looked back up and saw her. He didn't know from where he could remember her, but it was her. She was going to kill him.
Namenlos tried to get to his feet and run, tried to crawl on his hands and knees, tried to scoot away on his belly, but found to his horror that his limbs were paralyzed and he could not move so much as one finger as she came ever closer to him.
"You!" he hissed hatefully at the woman who would end his precious life, the life he wanted back.
As if in reaction to his words, she paused in mid-stride. He could feel the aura of threat seething about her like a storm. She regarded him with cold gray eyes. "You needn't fear me," she said.
"What did you do to me!" Namenlos gasped, still trying in vain to move his body, if only so he wouldn't have to look up from the floor at his executioner. He wasn't interested in her lies. "What did you do with Mission?" he asked, hoping to stall the inevitable.
The woman frowned, pursing her lips. "Why, nothing. She led me here so that I could help you." As she was speaking, she bent down and lightly passed a hand out over him, and Namenlos felt control return to his paralyzed limbs. He quickly shuffled into the corner, as far from her as he could manage while he tried to think of what to do. The orange-jacketed man was still blocking the only exit, keeping him trapped with his executioner.
Namenlos chuckled a bitter laugh. "Why didn't you kill me, if that's so obviously what you want? Just kill me and get it over with." He turned away. "I hate you."
"You were dying," he heard her say. He tried to ignore her. "If not for me, yes you might have lived for a short time, but you would have eventually died in more pain than you can even begin to imagine. I know about your headaches; you might have endured them for a time, but they are lethal. I gave to you the only means of keeping them from killing you before you can be sufficiently trained."
"Trained!" Namenlos erupted in livid fury. "Trained!" He snagged the leather collar with a finger and pulled it into view, dimly noting the buzz of the warning pain in his hand. "Is that what this is for? So you can 'train' me? I will not be trained, not by you or anyone else. I am not a beast for you to tame, I am a thinking person who wants to be free of you."
She shook her head emphatically. "No, I assure you, that is not what this is about. You are Force-sensitive, and that gift must be brought to task before it kills you."
The full import of her words took a moment to sink in. The Force. It was something he only had a vague knowledge of, mostly from Mission's stories, but he could easily grasp its importance and dead seriousness. It this were true, that he was sensitive to and able to call on the Force... he couldn't even begin to comprehend the magnitude of what it meant for him. But he was sure it could mean nothing good.
"The Force?" he asked tentatively, reluctant to trust the word of the one who wished his murder, but fearing the consequences of ignoring something of such weight. If it were true, it would certainly explain a number of things.
Letting out a sigh, she clasped her hands together at her waist. "My name is Bastila. I have been searching the galaxy for you for almost a year."
"If not to kill me, then why?"
"Because I know that you need my help," Bastila responded. "You need help because the Force inside you has driven you mad and you do not even know it. Before I found you, it was devouring your mind, piece by piece, every day."
Namenlos fell silent, absorbing her words. He didn't know if he should trust anything she said, but her words seemed to ring true. Although he resented being told he was a madman, that he had no control of his own intellect, he certainly knew that it had felt to him like he was slipping away with each passing day, but that was no longer the case. Indeed, he felt fuller, more alive than he could ever remember feeling. Even so, he detested the collar she'd put around his neck. It reminded him of seeing Natacha beaten and raped when no one would help her but him.
He smiled a bit at that memory of being a help to her, it was a shining triumph in his dark life. He'd never seen her again, but he was glad to have delivered her from that fate. That was also the day he'd met Mission and started to learn about companionship.
But, if not for Mission, this Bastila would never have found him, and never have collared him. His smile withered.
"Why do you care?" he asked.
Namenlos saw Bastila hesitate before answering. "It is my duty."
"I see," he muttered darkly. "So what does my captivity gain you?"
She frowned. "It is not captivity."
"Will you take this collar off me?"
"The collar must remain to help keep your gift from killing you, and so I can be sure you won't try to leave without my permission."
"That's what captivity is. I'm your prisoner."
She sighed again. "This must be done if I am to help you."
"I don't want your help."
"I am sorry, but you have no choice. If you make me, I will be forced to use the collar to control you, if I have the need. I will not enjoy doing it, but I will if you make it necessary."
Namenlos pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face in his crossed arms. He was starting to wonder if he wouldn't have preferred she just kill him. She would rather enslave him; either way, she was taking his life away.
"Why can't you just leave me alone?"
"Because we all must look beyond our selfish desires if we are to carry out our duty of sacrificing for the greater good," she answered.
In that instant, Namenlos made a decision. He could be her prisoner, let her have what she wanted, and lose everything--his freedom, his will, his very life. Or he could fight to take his life back. He knew that wanting to have a life of his own was not selfish, as she said, but an inalienable right. No one had the right to dictate to him how his life would be, so he would fight to have it back.
"If I complete my training, will you let me go?" he asked, looking back up at her.
Bastila averted her eyes. "I--yes. When the Council is satisfied, I am certain you will be set free."
He didn't really think she was telling him the truth, since she'd not been completely honest with him the entire time. But then again, it was possible she was telling him the truth, or at least the truth as she knew it. That thought buoyed his hopes, which before had been in ashes. One word raised the hairs on his neck, though.
"Council?" he asked suspiciously.
Bastila nodded. "I must take you to the Jedi Council on Dantooine. There we can begin your training."
Dantooine. He felt crushed beneath an avalanche of gloom at the thought of again being ripped from everything he'd once known. Lower City Taris, with all its gangs, bigots, and general lawlessness, was a terrible place to live, but it was the only home he had. There were people he'd come to know, befriend even. Mission especially; after all, she couldn't have known that this was the worst person to ask to help him, and she had only been concerned for him. Despair sank its claws into him. He'd likely never see her again.
Namenlos angrily reminded himself being miserable wouldn't solve his problem. He was finished letting the universe play him for its whipping boy. He wouldn't be a pawn anymore.
"So you're abducting me as well as enslaving me?"
"As I said, this is not captivity," she explained in a maddeningly patient tone.
He gave her a blank look. "You aren't wearing the collar; I am." Disgusted, Namenlos started collecting his few things. "So, mistress," he said as he folded up the white sheet with overlapping rows of symbols he didn't understand that hung in his corner, enunciating the appellation like a curse, glaring, "when are we leaving? How soon do we get to where we're going so I can start learning to get this collar off?"
Bastila folded her arms and furrowed her brow in thought as she watched him. "Soon," she answered idly, shifting on her feet as if in impatience. "I need to work some things out, and I have a feeling I am going to need to take you with me." She turned to the man in the orange jacket, spoke to him in a low voice. "Unless you think you can manage without me."
Namenlos watched intently as the man shook his head. "You got here just in time. You were right; he's unpredictable."
They thought he couldn't hear them, speaking in their whispers, but his sensitive ears caught every word.
"Alright, Carth, we will just have to take him along."
"Take me where?" Namenlos asked as he pulled a filthy jacket over his shoulders.
Bastila turned back to look at him. "There are Sith on this planet, and if you believe one thing I've said to you, believe this; if they discover you, they will kill you. They perceive you as a threat, and will not stand your existence. Even now, they are hunting you, and me as well. It is imperative that we stay out of their notice and escape this planet before they find either of us."
Namenlos wanted to say he'd take his chances, that he didn't think the Sith would think much of a stinking transient who half the time couldn't even defend himself, let alone cause harm to others, but he knew she didn't really care what he thought. She'd already made that abundantly clear.
"Anyway," she went on, "there is a man I must meet with who may be able to help me find a way to get us off this planet before the Sith realize either of us are here. And you are coming with me."
"Do I have a choice?" he asked sarcastically.
"You know I would rather not do this. It is for your own good. Don't make this more than it is."
"Fine, whatever," he mumbled, not really caring about her excuses. "Can I have my knife back?"
Her brow twitched. "No."
"What? Are you afraid I'm going to attack you?" He pulled at the collar, wincing at the pain that shot into his fingertips at the light contact. "With this around my neck? I need my knife for protection."
Bastila huffed. "You will leave that to me."
He glared back. "No. Until you start teaching me how to control these headaches so I can get this collar off, I'm not trusting my life to you." He held out his hand. "Now, unless you aren't confident in your ability to put me down with crippling pain, my knife, please."
Bastila chose to indulge Revan's request for his knife back; after all, he made a valid point that he was really no longer a threat to her, and with Carth's watchfulness, it was unlikely they would be unable to stop him were he to do something unexpected. Mostly, Revan - or Namenlos, as she was beginning to think of him - had fallen silent and moody, like a cauldron slowly seething on the flame. She was still aware of just how dangerous a man she had now under her control, and would take no chances.
Carth, at least, seemed distracted enough by watching their prisoner, and was no longer pelting her with questions she had no intention of answering. He, too, seemed to sense the threat held under the surface of the man by only the thinnest of curtains, as well as the importance of her mission. This was one instance where she was thankful for his distrustfulness; it meant he, too, would take no chances with her prisoner.
She twitched at the word prisoner in her mind. Namenlos wasn't a prisoner, not really, he only thought he was. It was for his own good that she was taking him away, as had been the case all along. After all, the ones who suffered the most under the influence of the Dark Side were those in its grip. They were victims as much as anyone else, and deserved compassion and understanding, and above all, help in finding the Light again.
Namenlos was wrong, she didn't want to kill him, and never had. She was only concerned with setting straight one of the Force's errant children onto the path of righteousness.
But before any of that could begin, Bastila needed to escape Taris. She'd been running the Mandalorian's words over in her mind, considering everything he'd said to her, searching for some way to avoid this avenue, to avoid placing her trust in the word of a murderer. But she found herself empty of alternatives. She would have to see what he had to say, whether he truly was interested in getting off the planet, or only in collecting her for the Sith.
With a start, she realized she was going to have trouble finding the place the Mandalorian had said to meet. She'd only been to Taris once before, years ago when she was little more than a child, accompanying her master on a task for the Order to the Hidden Beks. They'd not wandered around the surrounding area much, so while Bastila knew vaguely where she was, finding something specific was likely going to be beyond her knowledge.
"Hey! Where are you going!"
Bastila sighed. It was Mission Vao. She and the Wookiee, Zaalbar, were approaching her and Carth on the sidewalk, undoubtedly returning from some errand for the Hidden Beks. The girl just couldn't understand.
She started to open her mouth and explain to the girl, but no words came out. She wondered if any explanation would be enough.
Mission, just a few feet away, cast a suspicious glare at Bastila. "I said, where are you going? Where are you taking him?"
Bastila could feel the weight of Carth's silent expectation for her to do the explaining. She forced down a flash of irritation. "I must leave, and take Namenlos to a place where he can be helped to regain control of his abilities." The feeling of the unchecked power roiling around the man collared at her side was awe-inspiring even as it was disturbing. Infinitely more so were the whirling eddies of discarded cognition ricocheting from his damaged mind and worming their way into hers. Only with the greatest of effort could she block out the sensations and half-completed perceptions that were not her own.
Mission did not look satisfied. Crossly, she folded her arms and scowled with such a fantastic glower as only adolescents could conjure, sticking her chin forward impudently. "Na-ah! You're not taking him anywhere."
The longer she stayed still, the more Bastila became aware of the exposedness of her surroundings. The pervasive smell of rubber smoke and backed-up sewers was making her eyes water, the particle-filled air made breathing unpleasant, and it seemed around every corner she could hear the faint sounds of approaching pedestrians, of unknown dispositions and questionable character. Every individual they came across had to be treated as potentially an enemy; she was, after all, in enemy territory. The Tarisian government had made their own peace with the Sith, and peace with the Sith meant only one thing: occupation. Taris was a minefield where she didn't even know where the boundaries were, a thousand innocuous-seeming dangers just waiting for her to make the tiniest of mistakes.
Bastila decided, for peace of mind's sake, to keep on moving. For the time being, Mission and her Wookiee friend Zaalbar posed no threat to her, so she would consent to their presence; but if she could dislodge the persistent Twi'lek girl, all the better.
Like a wary hound, Mission kept pace with Bastila, still scowling as she gave Namenlos' arm a reassuring squeeze. "He saved Big Z and me, you know," she said to Bastila.
"Is that so?"
She nodded proudly. "We were exploring down in the Maze. A gang of Gamorreans surprised us, took me and Big Z hostage. They were probably gonna sell us to slavers or something. 'Los could have left us down there - no one comes into the Maze looking for people gone missing - but he came after us!" Mission wrung her hands, seemingly in frustration that she couldn't express exactly what she was trying to say. Bastila knew the feeling, but said nothing, choosing to let the girl talk herself out.
"He's a hero," Mission said pointedly. "Why are you treating him like an animal?"
"I'm not!" Bastila snapped, momentarily losing control of her voice, allowing irritation to slip into her words. Breathing deeply, she lowered her voice and continued. "I am helping him the only way he can be helped. If I do not bring him to where I must, then even this will not be enough--he will die from his headaches, it is only a matter of time. Unless I am allowed to do what must be done. You and he may not like it, but you do not fully understand the necessity of this."
"And you don't know the first thing about him!" Mission practically shrieked. "He's not some crazy who can't control himself or what he does--like you seem to think. How dare you be so unfair to him?"
"I know it may seem unfair to you--"
"I'm coming too."
Bastila gaped at the girl. "What?"
"I'm coming too," Mission repeated, huffing.
"You can't just--"
"I will accompany him as well," said the towering Wookiee Zaalbar. "I have sworn a lifedebt to this one Namenlos. Where he goes, so too will I go."
"Great, a walking carpet to deal with," Bastila heard Carth grumble in a barely-audible voice. As crude as it was, it showcased nearly the same frustration as her own. Keeping track of others would complicate her mission. Unless...
Bastila suddenly realized this could prove a boon after all. Certainly the girl could at least help her find the accursed cantina where the Mandalorian had demanded his meeting. Perhaps she could yet be of some use.
"Very well, then," she acquiesced. "We both have Namenlos' best interests at heart, it seems."
"Maybe," Mission muttered. "Where are we going?"
Bastila hated cantinas. Every single one of the horrid establishments she'd had the misfortune of having to enter had been the same; dark, oppressive, smelling of dozens of unwashed bodies and strong liquor, full of acrid smoke, and blasted by deafening peals and groans of popular music, which to her sounded like the screams of a tortured war machine. This one was no different. Still were the lines of pazaak tables where the foolish squandered what they had in a mindless quest for what they hadn't earned, the bar crowded by hordes eager to drown their responsibilities in the oblivion of alcohol, the stages for third-rate street bands to indulge in their sonic assaults and other paraphernalia for the establishment's dancers to ply their wares for the amusement of its degenerate patrons.
The squalor of the place made her sick. She wondered why the Jedi had never made any efforts to eradicate such places from the Republic worlds. Such obvious dens of hate for any civilized value were breeding grounds for monsters and criminals of every sort. But places like this, even on Coruscant, were quietly accepted by the Jedi. Bastila had sworn that if she were ever to achieve the status of Master, she would make a strong push to have cantinas like this banned or even eliminated.
She wished she could make good on that oath now, but she had business to conduct at the moment and no wherewithal to attempt the dismantling of the establishment. She gritted her teeth at the necessity of the horrible place.
Staying together as best they could in the crowded building, she, Carth, Namenlos, Mission, and Zaalbar weeded their way through the first room, which was filled by holo-screens and tables to either side and a large gambling table in the center. Beyond was the circular bar room, ringed at the perimeter by more tables, and dominated at the center by the bar itself and the stage, where an acid group was either murdering their instruments or simply performing more wretched music. From the room, she could see into other attached parts of the cantina, into the weed rooms, the lounges, and to the doors of the rear chambers where customers were undoubtedly getting private sessions.
Bastila could sense Carth's tension, could practically feel his hand gripping the handle of his blaster in sweaty fingers. She wasn't much better herself in these places. The others, for their part, seemed much more at ease in the horrid establishment. Comfort through familiarity, she supposed.
She easily spotted the man she'd come to meet. He sat at a table near one of the entrances to a side-room, away from most of the crowd in a somewhat quieter section where few people were interested in being. The shadows were deep and nearly swallowed the Mandalorian's hulking figure, but still, his bared shoulders and mountainous biceps were unmistakable even in the low light. Bastila strode purposefully toward him, the others trailing behind her in a loose line.
Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder, tugging her back. It was Mission.
"That's Canderous Ordo!" she whispered urgently in Bastila's ear.
"I know."
"He's Davik's favorite enforcer, Mandalorian, and ruthless."
"I know, Mission, that's partly why I must meet with him." Bastila didn't particularly feel like explaining that it was because he'd found her misplaced lightsabre that she was in this mess, especially not to a girl who would never understand the pressures she was under.
"Mandalorian?" Namenlos growled behind her. Something in his voice sent chills down Bastila's spine; a quiet, almost silent anger interwoven into the query. She suddenly feared to answer.
"Mandalorian?" he repeated, more forcefully. Bastila groped for her connection to Revan's collar for an instant, just to reassure herself she had him under her control. The seething texture of his voice was terrifying.
She looked back and saw he had no intention of letting the matter drop until he had an answer, so she gave in. "Yes, he's a Mandalorian mercenary." There was a brief, violent spasm in the miasma of torn cognizance around Namenlos, his eyes gleamed like crimson droplets of blood, but he said nothing, returning to stoic silence. Bastila breathed in relief.
Caderous looked up from a brown glass bottle when he saw her approach his table. He crooked an eyebrow and invited her to sit. She shook her head, preferring to stand. She didn't want there to be any obstructions should she have to suddenly defend herself. He shrugged and took a gulp.
"I figured I'd be seeing you again." He sniffed, taking a drag from what Bastila saw was a long cigar that gave off a pungent smoke. She almost gagged at the odor. He twirled it in his fingers. "Neither of us are getting off this planet without each other's help, that much is for sure." Suddenly, he frowned. "Especially now."
"What do you mean?"
Canderous leaned back and crossed his huge arms, talking past the cigar in his impossibly white teeth. "Turns out there're some... complications."
"What kind of problems? Is your plan still feasible or not?"
"I didn't say it wasn't gonna work, darlin', but it is going to be a bit harder. On you, anyway." Leaning forward again, he snuffed the cigar on the bare table, fixing Bastila with a steady stare. "The Sith always complicate things, as I'm sure you've had ample opportunity to discover. Seems they've caught wind of you and your pals, and Malak really, really wants to get his hands on you."
None of this was news to Bastila. She'd been wanted by Revan and then by Malak since the beginning of the whole nightmare. Since before it, actually, if one counted Revan's unending overtures to her to join his crusade against the invading Mandalorians. She'd been barely more than a child then, but he wanted her anyway, promising to teach her to become a proper warrior. She'd always been a target, and always would be until the Sith were defeated.
"I know this already," Bastila dismissed irritably.
Canderous raised one bushy eyebrow shot through with sparse gray hairs. "Then here's something you probably don't know. Davik only knows because he has to know everything, although I'm sure every business on the planet is going to find out real soon. The Sith just imposed a blockade on the planet, meaning, princess, that nobody's going anywhere."
Suddenly, before Bastila could stop him, Namenlos shot forward, across the table, and got his hands around the Mandalorian's throat. "Liar!" he hissed in Canderous' face, baring his teeth in a savage glare.
Bastila hesitated for an instant, spellbound by the sight of Revan's rage in Namenlos' eyes, the infamous fury that reduced cities to ash, annihilated opposing armies on the field of battle, and gripped the hearts and minds of enemies yet to be fought with paralyzing fear. It was now all directed at the Mandalorian inches away from him. She knew she had to get him back under control quickly, before he instigated disaster.
Feeling for the connection to his collar, she instantly let loose a shallow stream of power, just enough, by her estimation, to get him to withdraw. To her shock, however, he shook from the pain induced by the collar, but did not back off. His eyes glaring with hate, he shoved Canderous back against the wall even as Bastila funneled more power into the collar to bring him to heel.
A rumbling growl escaped his throat, but he showed no signs of cracking. Namenlos shoved his face right up against the Mandalorian's. "Why should we trust you, you murderer!" He was forcing the words out past the mounting pain, but they were still charged with his hot fury. "Mandalorian filth!"
With a final outpouring of hatred, he relinquished his grip on Canderous and fell to the tabletop, panting in pain. Carth grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him back, holding him awkwardly upright while Namenlos sucked in mouthfuls of air.
"Please forgive him. He can be rather impulsive at times," Bastila said quickly, hoping to repair the damage she knew had already been done. She feared the man would feel betrayed and no longer in a mood to help her.
To her surprise, Canderous casually dismissed it all with a flick of his meaty hand. "Cathar get like that sometimes. It's not the first time something like that's happened. Just keep him on your leash and we won't have any problems."
"Of course." Bastila resented his insinuation, but didn't feel like arguing the point at the moment. She could sense the storm of Namenlos' emotions raging unchecked at the Mandalorian's statement, and sent a bolt of power to the collar to keep him from speaking and further increasing the chance he would anger Canderous into backing out of his deal.
"So what does the blockade mean for your plan?" she asked in earnest. News of a naval blockade was not encouraging. She had expected it, but hoped she might be able to slip away before it came into full effect. From Canderous' remarks, it seemed to be firmly in place already, crushing that hope.
Canderous shrugged again. "Just means a little extra work for you and your buddies. I'm still gonna do my part, but you're gonna have to do something first, before we can get to the business I suggested earlier."
"And what would that be?" she asked cordially.
"You're going to need to kill the Sith governor to get the list of approved transponder codes for ships they allow through the lockdown. Without those codes, it doesn't matter how fast we are, we're space dust."
Bastila blinked. It was as if he'd just told her all she needed to do was prevent the sun from rising in the east.
"Well," Carth pronounced in a sarcastic drawl, "doesn't that sound easy?"
The mournful distant cawing of a crow reminded Juhani of how lonely she was. Kneeling next to a stream, her arm submerged in the cold water attempting to coax a small trout into her reach so she could satisfy the growling of her stomach, for the thousandth time, she doubted herself. Thinking back on her actions toward her master at the Jedi Academy, she was overcome with guilt. It rushed through her in paralyzing waves as she felt the terrible responsibility of having ended a life.
That knowledge was the most horrible revulsion she could imagine.
She'd not meant to kill Quatra, but the vision Quatra had given her was too intense, too vivid for her to dismiss. Seeing again what those brutes had been doing to her mother, and having finally the power to stop it, there was no way Quatra could have expected her not to act. And yet she had deliberately put herself there, put Juhani in that horrible position of having to act, knowing what it would mean for Quatra.
Why would she do such a thing? The question gnawed at Juhani's insides, devoured even her anger at facing the terrible past again. She hated that Quatra would do something so unfathomable to her. Surely as a Jedi, Quatra would not have wanted her to let such monsters have their way with an innocent like her mother. Then why did she make so terrible the consequences of preventing it?
Juhani let slip one bitter tear from her eye, watched it disappear into the softly flowing waters of the stream. She missed her mother terribly, and she realized that now she missed even the Jedi as family, but she couldn't go back. This was the Dark Side, or so she'd been told. She gave in to her inner passions and committed the unthinkable; she'd killed someone. And not just someone, but her very master.
She plucked her hand from the frigid water, no longer caring about getting a meal.
There was a small grove nearby, just over a series of hills to her north. Juhani was tired of wandering, of constantly moving about the wilderness in fear of being found by Jedi search teams, which were undoubtedly scouring the hills and the plains looking for her. She realized she wanted them to find her, she wanted them to try to take her, because then she would have something to strike out against. She could resist them. There didn't seem to be anything else for her, not since she'd fallen to the Dark Side.
Shaking her arm to help dry off the cold water, Juhani started through the tall grass, full of the brilliant fireblossoms and lovely tiger lilies, on her way to the grove. There was nothing but her and the wilderness. She felt crushed by despair.
As she walked, she tried to focus on other things to take her mind off the horrible things that just wouldn't go away. She tried to drink in the beauty of the landscape in which she found herself, to admire the soft green of the rolling hills and the lush plains dotted with clusters of wildflowers, to appreciate the warm rays of sun from the sapphire sky. A light breeze played across her face, lifting the long stalks of the grass all around her in undulating waves.
Juhani realized there was something in the grass near her.
She could hear the faint rustling nearby, smell traces of the other presence when the air carried to put her downwind of whatever it was. It stayed below the level of the grasses, out of sight, and made so little noise for the amount of movement she could detect she assumed it couldn't be a person stalking her; it had to be wildlife, a Kath hound perhaps.
Though her heart pounded at the possibility of being so near to one of the predators, she realized she wasn't afraid. It felt more like breathless exhilaration.
Juhani slowed her walk, moving cautiously through the intertwined stalks which obscured everything below her knees so she couldn't even see her feet. She wanted this, whatever this was. She wouldn't run.
As she inched forward, at the same time as the wind shifted and brought a full draft of confirming redolence to her nose, the grasses parted before her to reveal what she had suspected; a fully mature Kath hound, razor teeth bared in a low growl of threat.
Juhani was ever conscious of the lightsabre dangling at her belt, but hesitated to draw it. She didn't want to kill this creature. After all, she was the intruder, forcing herself upon it, and it was responding in the only way it knew how; aggression. She didn't want to punish the creature for behaving in its nature out of fear of her.
The Kath hound growled more loudly when she tried to come closer, prompting her to clutch for her lightsabre out of instinct before making her hands go elsewhere. She consciously tried to withdraw her own aggression from the confrontation, while not appearing like she would make a good meal, and in the process, found herself calling on the Force. She didn't want to use the Force, either, since she had fallen to the Dark Side and the power would only consume her.
But once she'd started, it was like putting a foot into a river only to find the current much stronger than appearances would indicate. She was swept away by the indescribable feeling of touching her birthright again, like the light of a thousand candles that warms but does not blind, it filled her with the closest thing to peace she'd felt since fleeing the Academy.
Basking a moment in the pool of her power, she cast it forward at the Kath hound, filling into the void between them her feelings of despair and longing for simple companionship, beckoning the creature's simple mind to answer her call. She could feel it take effect, feel her power shaping the mind of the Kath hound, and slowly its growling quieted into a satisfied purr.
It nudged its head welcomely against her knees. There was something undeniably comforting about that contact.
Her loneliness sated just the smallest bit, Juhani continued on her way to the grove.