Many Lianorosians exclaimed as they saw the returning group.
"Did you bring an outsider here?" one shrieked.
"He was injured in the crash-landing of his ship. He must be helped," the Seer said.
"But still, an outsider!" said another Lianorosian.
"An injured outsider! Do you think that I don't know what I am doing when I bring an injured human here to be tended?" the Seer shouted. The crosstalk ended as if it had met a wall and the group went to the temple without hearing any more protests. The authority of a Seer was never to be defied, as their decision was final. It was taboo which was discreetly or just unwittingly offended from time to time. But it was never talked about. That was an unwritten rule.
After they got to the temple, Seer Ni'Dea dismissed others and started to tend the burns of the man.
"I wonder who that man is," Opaku wondered and looked at his younger brother.
"Well how should I know?" Guroko snapped. "Arya, do you have any idea who that man could be?"
"No," Arya answered, sat down to the ground and started to think. At least in her eyes that man looked very much like the man in her vision. She was not sure at all about it, but she believed it would become clear soon.
Commotion was heard from outside. The information about the outsider brought to the village spread like wildfire. Arya, Guroko and Opaku waited outside of the room, barely hearing the quiet words of the Seer. Arya wished that she would one day know the words of the language of water as well as the Seer.
After some time had passed, the Seer came out of the temple and told, "I have just about healed the burns. The man will recover eventually. I will monitor him until he wakes up. After we know who he is, I will decide on what we shall do about him. Does anyone have objections?"
Everyone shook their heads and left, talking quietly with each other.
"Can I stay, too?" Arya asked.
"Are you sure about staying?" the Seer asked. Arya nodded.
"All right. Stay then," the Seer granted.
The sun of Kiros descended and the two moons rose. The Lianorosians who had been left to extinguish fire returned and reported to Ni'Dea. Arya told to the Seer how she had ended up to find the only passenger of the ship from where no one had yet looked for in the first place. Ni'Dea nodded but did not say anything. She felt confusion and was worried; it was clear that Arya was not able to control only water but also fire. The Seer couldn't do anything else than wonder, What Arya, blood purely of the tribe of water, actually was? How could she do this?
The night changed to morning once again. The sun rose slowly. The man saved from fire regained consciousness.
"Where am I?" he asked cumbersomely. Seer Ni'Dea switched the language she talked to Basic she had learned years ago, but never used before, and answered, "You are with my tribe. Don't be afraid, we don't wish to do any harm."
"What happened to me?" the man asked. "I only remember... the ship... fell to ground... I got out of there... fire burned all the time... And then... a woman appeared... she... she somehow drove fire away... I guess I talked with her but then... nothing..."
Seer Ni'Dea looked at Arya, surprised. Arya shrugged, believing that the man had been too pained to notice that he had been saved by a five-year-old girl.
"My niece, Arya, saved you from being burned alive. I brought you to our village so that I could tend to your burns," Seer told. The man looked at the two Veledosians and noticed that Arya did look familiar, as if he had once seen her by chance. He did not say anything, though.
"Who are you?" the Seer asked.
"My name is Jedova Wang," the man answered. "Do... do you have a comlink or something I could use to contact my apprentice? He must be worried sick."
"We don't have any communications equipment. The nearest place which has is two days' riding away," the Seer answered. Jedova groaned and tried to sit up.
"You shouldn't get up. You aren't near enough from being recovered from your injuries," Ni'Dea said strictly but also understandingly. She understood that the man was worried about his apprentice.
"I must know if he's all right. And I know he's worried. He definitely is. He must know that I'm even alive," Jedova said heavily. He knew that Degu could sense him being alive through the Force, but he wanted to tell it to him with his own voice. It belonged to his own habits.
"You can't leave in that state. Riding through valleys is too hard in that state. You wouldn't make it," Arya said abruptly. Jedova looked at her, astounded by the fact that a little girl just had contradicted him.
"Arya is right. Going through the valleys in that shape is out of the question," Seer noted.
Immediately after that the door was knocked and opened by Regemo.
"Seer! Gamu has gotten ill. I don't know what's wrong! It seems to be something serious!" he said. Ni'Dea paled.
"I'll be right there," he said in Veledosian and then told Jedova in Basic, "I have to go. An illness case."
Right after saying it she ran after Regemo. Arya was too shocked to do anything. She had seen Ni'Dea's face. Will Gamu die just like mom? Arya feared.
"You are Arya, right?" Jedova asked the girl who turned and nodded as an answer. Arya had come to the conclusion that the man was most likely the man she had seen in her vision.
"Do you happen to be the one who saved me from fire?" Jedova asked, keeping his voice and expression neutral. He did not want to believe that a little girl had saved his life.
"Yes. I think," Arya answered and pondered her words for a small moment. "You... you are a Jedi Master, aren't you?"
Jedova could not help startling. The question had come suddenly and oddly calmly.
"How did you figure that out?" he asked. Arya shrugged.
"I really don't know. I just sensed it or something," she answered.
"Then you sensed right. I am a Jedi Master, indeed," Jedova told serenely. Arya's eyes got brighter and she could not keep herself from asking, "What does belong to the job of a Jedi?"
"You don't know?" Jedova asked, now confused.
"No. Now when I think about it more acutely, I don't even know what a Jedi is," Arya said, confused too. "I just somehow know things I don't know. About some things I know more, about others I know less, if anything at all."
"Very peculiar," Jedova noted, wondering if the girl had a strong connection to the Force without knowing it. "The Jedi are the protectors of the peace and justice in the galaxy. We travel around the galaxy, accomplish missions given by the Jedi High Council, learn to use the Force and so on. Do you happen to know what the Force is?"
Jedova expected that Arya would not know but something else came from the girl's mouth, "Of course! It's part of the basic knowledge of Veledosians! The Force surrounds everything living and keeps the galaxy together. No one doesn't even know when my kind started to use the Force, but quite a long time has passed since it. I do think that it was somewhen during the time of Je'daii Order. But I have never heard of such an Order and still I knew to mention it."
The amazed expression of the girl brought a young Jedi Initiate, who had managed to accidentally deflect a laser shot by a remote, to Jedova's mind. He could not help but smile.
"You sure do know things you don't know," he noted.
Arya scratched her neck, puzzled, but decided to disregard it and started to ask more about Jedova's Jedi career. Jedova was glad to tell incidents which had happened during the course of many years. The girl's nearly boundless interest was fully indivisible, and Jedova could not help enjoying that he could teach different things to the young girl in passing. The girl absorbed everything like a sponge.
Some time later the Seer returned, very pale.
"Seer... how is Gamu?" Arya asked immediately. Her attention fully fixed to the Seer very fast.
"Steppe fever. The second case during the last couple of days already. It may begin to spread if more cases come out. I sure wish that it won't escalate to a similar epidemic like back when I was a disciple," Seer answered.
"I haven't heard about Steppe fever occurring anywhere in centuries. I thought it had completely disappeared already," Jedova said.
"The last epidemic here in the village of the tribe was almost 150 years ago. Back then I was learning healing skills," Seer told. "Very nice hands-on practice. But both parents of my elder sister and mine died. We couldn't save them from the disease."
"Excuse me? 150 years ago?" Jedova asked in surprise and looked more sharply at the Seer, whom he had thought to be near his age. "I... didn't realize you were that old..."
Seer Ni'Dea gave a laugh at the bemused man.
"Yes. But now you are in the middle of a village of Veledosians. And our kind lives over the age of 400 years, excluding untimely deaths," she explained.
"Veldosians? I'm not sure if I have ever heard," Jedova said.
"Well of course not. If you didn't live 400 years ago, you probably don't even know about the home planet of my folk, Veledos. It got poisoned due to a war back then and the tribes left to their own ways to other parts of the galaxy," Seer told. "Nowadays no one doesn't really know anything else about these tribes than the heritage which has survived to these times."
"Veledos... Wait, I believe that I've heard of that planet one day... Oh yes, back during the history lessons of Jedi Master Kuro, when I was just an Initiate! Master Kuro told about the war which lead to The Poisoning of Veledos. Outsiders came there to wage war, killed many civilians simultaneously and poisoned the whole planet. It took countless of casualties," Jedova remembered.
"Are you a Jedi?" Ni'Dea asked, astonished.
"Yes," Jedova answered. Ni'Dea looked unwittingly to Arya, who was already aware of this fact and thus not surprised at all.
"I see... Then at least I know that I or anyone else has no reason to worry," Seer said, sighing in relief in her mind. Suddenly she thought she now knew on which path Arya was meant to be.
Arya was meant to be a Jedi!
/Author's note: Star Wars (c) Lucasfilm, any characters you cannot find on Wookieepedia, Veledos, Veledosians and their language (c) Me/