My sister, RED, her husband and their son have come to visit us for a couple of weeks before they go and visit his parents for a bit. They arrived VERY early on Tuesday. I love having my baby nephew around. :)
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Jagged Fel didn't like this Ghost Planet but he did have to agree that it was a good place to hide the younger Jedi. For the past month or so he'd been stuck on the ship in orbit with several of the Guardians and a few other pilots but today he had been given permission to go to the surface and meet his friend Jaina Solo.
He did admit that they weren't really friends but they had talked on several occasions and she had told him that she was happy that he would be placed with a squadron but that was before the Invasion had been announced and he hadn't seen her since he had told her about joining a squadron.
Carefully he landed the fighter he was flying in a hangar where several towering figures were. For a moment he just stared at them before raising the canopy of his fighter. "Hey Fury," he called to the astromech tasked with helping him with the fighter whether it be a course plot, minor repairs or even getting a little extra power during battle. "Take her back up to the Shield so no one can get any i-"
Jagged jumped in surprise when two figures wearing odd white and black robes landed on the nose of his fighter. "I've always wanted to see one of these up close." One of them, a female, said with excitement buoyant enough to float an ancient vessel that sailed on water.
Jagged felt slight tugs on his flight suit that he guessed were from a Force User.
"Are you two supposed to be here?" he asked guessing that these two were Force Sensitive.
The girl laughed. "We can be wherever we want to be as long as we don't leave the system."
Before he knew it Jagged was being set on the deck of the hangar and his two 'guests' were vying for the pilot's seat.
"You can find Jaina Solo at the Temple." An adult voice called out from somewhere above him.
"Thank you sir," Jagged called up as he headed for the entrance/exit for organic beings.
Xxxxxx
Jaina watched in detached curiosity as Aditi Grunewald wove the stems of countless of flowers into cables, bracelets, necklaces and other things she couldn't identify. She had spent more years of her life on Coruscant than Naboo so she had never learned or knew of anyone that knew how to make what Aditi was making. Part of her wished she did but it was a useless skill as far as she could tell; only useful to either pass the time or a way to create some cheap decorations.
After a few minutes she decided to leave the adolescent Caféaulait to her creations and the flowers and return to someplace in the Temple of Ashla/Bogden.
She wasn't sure where she was going but it felt good for just a few hours to just walk around with no fears or worries.
"Jaina! Jaina!" two children's' voices cried out shattering the peace in the corridor. Slowly Jaina turned and smiled at the sight of her younger sister Shmi and younger cousin Luka. She still considered her younger family members as pests but the thought of them dying just because some race wanted them dead upset her.
"Do you two have news?" she asked them. A day or two ago they received news that Aunt Mara had been doing much better and her mother was due to give birth soon. The two small girls came to a halt and nodded with bright smiles. "Well?" Jaina asked, curious.
"Jag Fel is here!" Shmi announced.
Jaina blinked. She thought that there wouldn't be any visitors from outside of the galaxy except for either Jedi or trustworthy non Jedi that would be staying on Eras.
"He's with the ship in orbit." Luka chimed in.
With that the two little girls each snatched one of Jaina's hands and tried to pull her down the corridor. "We'll all now go exploring!"
Xxxxxx
Coruscant . . .
Mara Skywalker walked around the room with care and smiled at the strength she had regained in a short amount of time. Hours before the blood cleansing attempt she had been unable to stand longer than a few minutes before her legs would give away and she could barely take two steps before falling. She was still a little unsteady at times but that was changing quickly.
It really was amazing she thought. The Healers had been able to put her in a Healing Trance to repair the damage that had accumulated since she had been infected. She was already feeling parsecs better, she was almost tempted to go down to a training room and start her old routine but doubted that Cilghal, Luke and several Masters would be comfortable with that.
At least now she could do things for herself and no longer needed around-the-clock supervision.
A smile tugged at her lips as she hear little Ilona slowly read a beloved Youngling story about trying new things. Mara had loved that book as a child; laughing at Zam's futile attempts to get the unnamed creature to try Zam's favorite dish blue eggs and blue barve ham. She had enjoyed reading it to each of her daughters; laughing with them at the silliness of the whole thing and forming bright memories.
Lowering herself in a chair in the living area she allowed herself to dwell on the memory of the boy she had seen in a vision when she and Luke and gotten married. She had known that he was her and Luke's son but they had only daughters and maybe never have another.
She wondered why the Force had shown her such a thing if it wasn't to be. Did the Force or a part of it enjoy torturing the mortals? She had asked her father and Anakin Skywalker about it but they just gave her vague answers where the Force was concerned and told her that the Future wasn't set in stone. But why show her a child that would never exist?
She might never know.
xxxxxx
Eras . . .
Jagged was willing to admit that it was fun to be dragged everywhere by several young children it had been too long since he had a younger sibling to go exploring with. Granted at times the ghosts of those that called the planet home would tell them to leave but at least he had gotten to see the gardens and a lot of different rooms.
At the moment they were wandering a hallway that was on the third level of the Temple but in an odd placement. Jaina had told him that the Ashlans had built the Temple on or around a large rock that they had tunneled into for the purpose of creating mostly impetrative rooms.
"Lu says that his sister was helping defend this corridor when the Sith attacked." Luka told them. "He says that she killed a few of them before she was thrown out of a window."
"Did she survive the fall?" Jagged asked, he had heard that the Ashlans were a sturdy group; able to survive things that would kill normal beings.
"No one knows because her body wasn't among the shards of transparisteel." Shmi answered. "She might have survived only for the Sith to haul her away for torture or maybe she died from her injuries and a Tot or another predator took her body back to it's lair. They don't know."
After a moment they came to the end of the corridor which was a large door with an odd keypad next to it. For a few minutes Jagged looked at the foreign symbols and tried to compare them with ones that he was familiar with.
"Jaina the symbols look like the story that Ani tells. The one where Sakina the Wanderer had to break a seal protecting a wealth of knowledge, she had to connect some stars, the skies, the living and the dead together with a beam of light before using the light to connect them all to the mountain where the chamber was hidden." Shmi excitedly cried.
Jagged looked at Jaina and watched as she nodded slowly. "The symbols do look like those described in the story."
"Push them and let's see if the door opens." Luka begged.
"What if the Ashlans don't want the door opened?" Jagged asked, being a voice of reason. "I mean it looks as if this door hasn't been opened in years."
"If they don't want it opened someone will come and tell us." Shmi told them.
"Wouldn't hurt to try I guess." Jaina relented.
Jagged glanced behind him and sighed when he saw part of the corridor wall. He had forgotten for a few seconds that the corridor wasn't straight but full of twists and turns; one such turn blocked the door from the view of anyone three or so meters away and vice versa.
When he looked back to Jaina, Shmi and Luka they were discussing the symbols and which ones that the story was referring to. He could hear them talking about different possibilities before Jaina nodded and stood in front of the keypad.
"Okay, first we need something to connect them with." Jaina muttered as she pressed a symbol that looked like a beams. "Now we start with the stars, then the skies." Jaina muttered as she pressed two buttons with symbols that looked like stars and clouds. "Then the living and the dead," she said as she pushed symbols that could be plant life and something horrible. "Now we connect them to the mountain." She said as she pressed a symbol that looked like a mountain. "And break the seal protecting a wealth of knowledge."
Nothing happened and Jagged almost voiced it when a sound vibrated through the rock and the door slowly slid open.
"Oh H-" Jagged began only to be cut off when a heel of a boot slammed down on the toes of his right boot.
The door finished opening revealing a chamber with huge shelves full of data containers and objects that he wasn't familiar with and larger objects dotting the floor in areas but one thing that caught his attention was a large alter like object that appeared to be in the center of the chamber made from what he guessed was clear crystal with odd reddish streaks marring its surface.
"It looks as if no one has been here in years;" Jagged breathed in awe.
"Maybe not since the Sith attack over a thousand years ago." Jaina agreed.
Slowly the four explorers stepped further into the chamber and slowly spread out. Jagged was just blown away at the scale of things that were in the chamber. It reminded him of the ancient burial tombs shown on history holo documentaries from countless of different races. He stopped abruptly at the thought that this chamber was a burial chamber for some priest or priest that died thousands of years ago. All those documentaries spoke of curses that had been placed on the tombs by shamans or priests that would be unleashed on those that disturbed the tomb. He sincerely and fervently hoped that this was just some sort of storage room that had been forgotten.
"Fear is good emotion to feel." A strange female voice spoke somewhere close. "Fear inspires caution and caution inspires better perception. I have seen beings forget the purpose of fear too many times to count. The sad thing is that too many beings either enjoy spreading fear or say that fear is bad."
Jagged looked around in almost panicked confusion. "Hello?" he called out and winced at how soft and weak his voice sounded.
"On the other hand fear can lead down a slippery slope." A bone chilling male's voice commented.
Backpedaling quickly Jagged backed into the main area and was reunited with Jaina, Shmi and Luka; the three girls appeared to be as unnerved as he was. As a group they continued to walk deeper into the chamber.
"Is anyone else here?" Jaina called out; it sounded loud and seemed to bounce off the walls in a way that suggested that she had used the Force to project her voice.
"That depends on your point of view." The unknown male's voice said from somewhere in the chamber.
"So are you a ghost?" Jagged asked the unseen male.
Two peals of laughter echoed around the chamber; one was beautiful while the other was terrifying.
"I take that as a 'no'," Jagged muttered softly to no one in particular.
"Are like the Ashlans?" Jaina asked the voices.
The laughter echoed again and this time Jagged could tell more differences between the two laughs. One was gentle amusement while the other one seemed to be harsher; almost as if he was enjoying their fear and confusion.
"Are you something like few beings have seen?" Luka asked with some excitement. "Please come out!" Shmi blurted out.
The sound of footsteps sounded and Jagged reached for a dagger that his parents had given to him as a gift. Within seconds a humanoid couple stepped out from among the shelves. Jagged nearly dropped his now free dagger in surprise. They looked like a couple that you could meet in market; dressed like average citizens of the galaxy. The female had beautiful blue eyes and blond hair in a simple braid. Her male companion had darker hair but he was wearing something that completely covered his eyes so the group couldn't see his eyes.
"How did you get in here?" Jaina asked and Jagged tightened his grip on his dagger again. "We go wherever we want to." The male said flatly; his voice eerily reminding Jagged of old recordings of the few times Emperor Palpatine had given speeches to the galaxy.
The female gently touched her companion on a shoulder. "My Koibito speaks the truth, we can go wherever we desire. If we want to enter a sealed room we will. If we want to dance on the roof of World's View we will."
Jagged couldn't help himself as his mouth opened in shock at the last statement. The World's View was a very expensive restaurant on Coruscant with a view of part of the city that could only be rivaled by a ship. The roof it was said had a better view than the highest dining room. He had read headlines of gossip holo rags and other such articles talking about the fifthly rich spending more money than most beings would see in twenty-five plus lifetimes to have weddings or frivolous parties just to have access to the roof for an hour or two hours.
"They are coming." The male whispered softly.
Jagged turned with Jaina, Shmi and Luka towards the door, curious to know who was coming.
Out in the corridor Jagged could hear several beings hidden from view speaking in a language he had heard on a handful of occasions. He quickly turned to look at the couple to see how they felt only to discover that they were no longer there.
"Where did they go?" he asked just as the owners of the voices apparently turned the last turn and could see straight into the chamber.
"How did you open the door?" A male's voice asked. "This door has been shut since before the Sith attacked us." Jagged faced the tall, almost imposing figure of a human looking male with an odd scar on his neck; one man and two women soon joined him in the chamber.
"We just pressed some symbols on the keypad and the door opened after a few moments High Priest." Jaina answered calmly. "The symbols looked like ones described to us of a story that has been passed down in our family for generations. We're sorry if we're not supposed to be in here." She finished.
"There are no rules against you four being here, we are just surprised that you managed to open the door; we haven't been able to open it for a thousand years." The High Priest said as his companions spread out in the chamber.
Suddenly one of the women called out in distress and said something in what Jagged guessed was the native language of the beings here.
All of the adults gathered around the crystal alter and muttered to themselves for a few moments before turning to Jagged, Jaina, Shmi and Luka. "Did any of you move the dagger that was lying on the alter?" One of the women asked gently.
"We didn't go near it but there was a near human couple in here maybe one of them took it." Luka informed them.
The adults looked at each other and spoke softly in their language before turning back to them.
"The dagger must have been removed by someone around the time of the attack." The High Priest told them. "We know this because the door was opened two days before the attack to return a holocron and remove another one. We have no record of its removal but we rarely approach the alter unless we are performing a rite. The last rite was performed three years before the attack."
"So you managed to lose something that you use in some of your rituals?" Jagged winced the second the words left his mouth. It sounded rude; but he was relieved when they responded with good-natured laughter.
"You would be surprised Jag Fel by how many times important objects we have that been misplaced by someone over the years." One of the women in the group told him.
Jagged could feel a slight blush come to his face.
"In the meantime it's time for lunch." The High Priest said.
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I kept hoping to have this done earlier this week but different things happened.
If you want to see something really cute from one of my favorite children's films, The Land Before Time, than go to YouTube and search for Flyers and Cherries. It should be the first one by MovieClips. You can stop after fifty-three seconds in.