The Legion Renewed

Chapter Twenty

They sat in Yoda's hut in front of the fireplace. Briande absently poked a stick into the flames as Luke talked.

"We're going to play a game," he said. "Yoda had me do it once or twice, although I'm not really sure why. I figure there's got to be a point to it, or he wouldn't have done it."

"What sort of game?" Briande wanted to know.

Luke grinned. "Hide and seek. Basically the same rules that everyone knows. You hide, and I'll seek. I'll give you a three minute head-start before I start looking for you. When I do, you're 'it.'"

Briande looked at him for a second, then tossed her stick into the fire. "What happens if you don't find me?"

"I don't know. Yoda always found me. I'll yell 'Olly olly oxen free,' or something."

Briande brushed the dirt from the stick off her hands. "How would you like to make it a little more interesting?"

"Interesting, how?"

"Oh, just a little side-wager. If you find me, I'll cook dinner tonight. If you don't find me, you cook."

"Sure," Luke replied. "I'll have norlin roots and sallop greens."

"You're awfully cocky."

"And you're wasting time. Your three minutes starts now."

Briande smiled at him. "I'll only need one. But just so we have the rules straight, 'Olly olly oxen free' means you give up, and I win, and you cook dinner."

"Right," Luke agreed. "Two minutes and forty-five seconds."

Briande stood up and gave him a cheery wave. "Ta." She left through the front door and went around to the side of the house where there were no windows. There she paused for a moment to consider the terrain, and walked towards the marsh where the ground was softer. She crossed it, then retraced her footsteps, and returned to the hut. It was an old trick, childish, really, but this was a child's game, after all. After doing all that, she climbed the old gnarled tree next to the hut and settled herself into its comfortable leafy branches. She still had a minute and a half left before Luke followed her out the front door.

A slight smile crossed her features as she saw his puzzled expression. She knew he would never find her through the Force. And that, she figured, was the purpose of this exercise. It was one thing she could do well. She couldn't move stones around the way Luke could, but this was something her father had taught her to do even as a little girl.

Luke stood in one place and made a circle, looking in all directions. Then he made a second circle, slower this time. The crease above his brows deepened, but since he had seen her turn to the left as she went out the door, that was the direction he finally chose. For a moment, he stood right under her tree, but he never looked up. He saw the footprints in the marsh and went over for a closer look. He gave his head a slight shake as if unable to believe that he was relying on physical evidence, and crossed the bog to go into the woods. Briande waited until he disappeared before allowing herself a slight chuckle. He'd never find her.

Not unless she helped him.

She jumped down from the tree and ran across the marsh, obliterating her previous footprints and some of Luke's as she followed him into the woods.

.

.

.

Luke knew Briande was somewhere nearby, but that was only because he kept finding footprints. Sometimes he'd find footprints going in opposite directions, or up to a tree and then around it on either side side as if the one who had left the footprints had split into two parts and rejoined on the other side of the tree. Once they went straight up a rock face as if the owner had simply walked up it sideways. It took him a few minutes to figure out how she had done that one. She had tied her shoes to a long forked stick to make the prints when she couldn't reach with her hands any higher, then had simply climbed to the top where the slope was less steep and reached over the edge to make the prints at the top. Another time he found footprints made by a left shoe only, but in pairs, as if the owner had two left feet. He kept hearing the cry of a strange animal, too, and he thought he knew all the animal sounds on Dagobah.

He suspected, but he wasn't sure, that Briande was making the noises. Whenever he investigated, however, he found nothing.

He'd also been hit a few times, with acorns, but when he looked up, he couldn't see a thing.

The whole thing was funny, actually, but frustrating, too. Finally he found Briande's shoes sitting on a rock. In front of the rock, in the dirt, the words "Give up yet?" had been scribbled with a stick.

Luke laughed, then agreed in a loud voice, "Olly olly oxen free!"

Immediately he heard the animal cry again from overhead, and was rewarded by a shower of green tree nuts when he looked up. This time, though, Briande smiled at him from one of the higher branches of the tree and curled her fingers in a small wave.

"How did you do that?" Luke wanted to know.

"The footprints?" she asked, moving to a lower branch.

"The Force. I couldn't feel you at all." He felt her presence now, though. As soon as he had called out the magic game-ending words, he'd felt it again.

"I don't know, really." She swung to a lower branch like a gymnast and asked, "How do you lift those heavy rocks?"

"Touché," Luke replied. He couldn't explain how he did it; he just did.

"Help me down?" Briande asked when she was sitting on the bottom-most branch, still a good eight feet above the ground.

"Why?" he asked. "You seem to be doing all right on your own."

"Because you're a gentleman," she reminded him, "and because I don't want to get my feet dirty if I don't have to."

"Who said I was a gentleman?" Luke wanted to know.

"And because I might take it easy on you with the dinner menu if you help me down."

"Ah. Well, in that case..." Luke stretched out both his hands and his senses, and picked her up from the branch. Living things were difficult for him to move, since they generated their own Force-currents, but Briande was different. He had already found that he could pick her up for brief periods, if she let him. He didn't know what it was, but she had the ability to still the currents around herself so that they didn't interfere. If she wasn't ready, however, or if she willed him not to be able to do it, he couldn't. Briande herself had described it as "being still."

He released his Force-hold on her when she was in his arms and let himself enjoy the comfortable weight of her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her cheek against his shoulder for a second before pulling away. "Well, that was fun. Haven't done it in a while."

"Something you did regularly?" Luke wanted to know.

"Oh, yeah. When we were kids, Brenna and I used to play it all the time. Then, after she crossed over, my father turned it from a game into an exercise."

"An 'exercise'? Did your father ever give a name to this ability?"

Briande shrugged. "He called it 'shielding.' Said it was what saved him from Darth Vader. Said it saved Brenna and me from Vader, too." Then she gave Luke an apologetic shrug. "Sorry."

Luke shook his head. "No, don't be sorry. But…shielding…Shield…" He thought back to the couple of times when Yoda had had him play the game, and he had failed miserably. There hadn't been any rebuke, any admonishment for his failure. Yoda had simply Hrrmmppphed and moved on to other things. Suddenly Luke realized something. "Yoda wasn't training me with that exercise-he was gauging me! Trying to find out where my abilities were. I was never much good at hide-and-seek, but you-" He smiled. "You are a master at it! Let's see what else you can do, shall we?"

"Sorry?" Briande asked.

"Sorry, nothing!" Luke told her, his smile stretching to a grin. "Come on!" He grabbed her hand and pulled her back the way he had come originally.

"Where are we going?"

"Back to the hut, of course!" He half-pulled her back through the swamp, into the hut, and into Yoda's library before releasing her hand. He started searching through the collection of books. "I can't believe I was such an idiot! The first time I saw it, I thought it was, like, a receipt log, or something. An acknowledgement of tokens or somesuch-a notion that was not helped by Yoda when I started looking through it. Ah! There it is! He told me that reading this would just be a waste of time. At the time, it was. Everything was so rushed, everything so dependent on my being trained as quickly as possible! But I remember seeing the word 'Shield' before Yoda took it away from me. Deities! I should have known!" He opened the book and started leafing through it, his grin growing wider with each turn of the page. "This 'Book of Gifts' isn't a receipt book! This is a book about different Force-Talents!"

From Yoda's handwritten book, Luke learned that there were about a dozen or so different Force gifts that a sensitive might possess, in varying combinations and degrees. Those combinations were what made each Jedi unique, and training was a matter of developing each talent to its fullest extent.

Most sensitives were "Intuits" – individuals who just had a vague sense of when to do one thing or another, when to fire a weapon, for example. Luke and Briande both possessed that intuition. Luke's had manifested itself in numerous ways, the most important of which was when he had destroyed the first Death Star. Briande-he could tell by the way she had been defeating the seekers lately, that she also was an Intuit.

"Savants" were the next most common, individuals who were geniuses in specific areas-music, art, or mathematics, for example-and perfectly normal, or even deficient, in every other way. Neither Luke nor Briande were savants, and once Luke figured that out, he skipped the rest of the information on that gift and went on to read the next section.

"Memorists" could remember minute details of something they'd seen or heard. Mosts were either visual memorists or auditory memorists. A very few could do both. In the population-at-large, memorists were often described as "prodigies."

"Channels" were those sensitives who could communicate with the energies of certain spirits of once-living beings. Although Luke had been able to do that briefly with the spirits of Ben Kenobi, Yoda, and even his father, Luke was certain that it had had something to do with their abilities rather than his, and Briande hadn't been able to communicate with her dead father at all.

Luke read on.

"Viewers" could see things out of their physical sight. Luke wasn't a Viewer. Neither was Briande. But Luke was certain that both Yoda and Ben had had remote viewing capabilities. Ben had seen the destruction of Alderaan, and Yoda had been able to see Leia and Han, when they were on Bespin, something Luke had gotten telepathically rather than through remote viewing.

"Travelers" were similar to "Viewers," but instead of just glimpsing what was going on elsewhere, a "Traveler" would simply leave his body and go there in spirit. That was something interesting, at least in terms of past events. Ben's ability to just disappear at the moment when Vader would have killed him, and Yoda's ability to do the same at the moment when he would have died was related to their ability to travel. But pulling every drop of energy from one's own body for a last voyage was something a traveler would only be able to do once. At least, in theory.

"Readers" could touch an object imbued with the energies of its owner and divine information about that owner. Luke remembered Yoda giving him a few various things and asking him to tell everything he could about them, which was nothing. Luke would have to search for those objects and see if Briande could pick up anything from them.

"Telepaths" could communicate without spoken words. Luke himself had some telepathic ability, but he wasn't a dominant Telepath. He could communicate with those he was close to, with great effort, and even use the Force to plant a suggestion in some individuals. Ben had been a telepath, too, to a certain extent. And Vader, as well, although Luke's experiences with that had been less "communication" than forceful "pulling." And Briande's stories about communicating with her sister telepathically showed that she also had some ability in that regard. Luke would have to explore that further with her, see how far it went.

"Healers" used the Force to mend wounds and physically repair damage to the body. Luke might himself have some ability in that regard, but it was still latent, not fully developed. He could heal himself, to a certain degree, but he hadn't yet tried on others. It was something worth exploring, for both himself and Briande, but it wasn't a dominant trait for either of them.

"Seers" could glimpse the future, which was not always immutable, as the Emperor had learned at the end. Luke's only glimpses came in dreams, as Briande did. And although many sensitives could catch glimpses now and then, dominant Seers were pretty rare.

"Creature Empaths" could communicate with lower life forms, not by talking with them, exactly, but by interpreting and projecting feelings. They were unusual in that untrained Creature Empaths never actually blended with the general populace. Eventually all untrained CE's apparently went insane. Well, at least that didn't apply to Briande or himself.

"Telekins" or "Movers" were a class that Luke counted himself a member of. A Telekin could use the Force to move or manipulate non-living objects. Dominant telekins were extremely rare, and the fact that Yoda had also been one had been an extremely fortunate piece of luck. The fact that Anakin/Vader had been a telekin explained where Luke had gotten his powers from. On the other hand, Leia had never shown any signs of being a "Mover," so the gift wasn't necessarily always passed on from parent to child.

"Shields" were the mystery group. Luke read that section carefully, several times, trying to learn everything he could about Briande and her dominant gift. Paradoxically, Shields were simultaneously the most enigmatic and the most transparent group of Force-sensitives. Also, paradoxically, training a Shield was as much about teaching him or her to lower the shield rather than teaching the sensitive to raise it. Maintaining a shield was draining, just as levitating an object was, and the sensitive could only re-charge, so to speak, by lowering the shield. A Shield's general "openness" gave him or her the ability and power to block a Force-generated attack when it counted.

Luke sat back thoughtfully. Leia, untrained as she was, had managed to block a Force-attack from Vader, who had tried to telepathically glean the location of the Yavin base from her. Leia was one of the most open people Luke knew. It was easy to tell when she was annoyed, when she was happy, when she was-whatever she was at any given moment. Leia, Briande, Briande's sister Brenna, their father-all of them had been right under Vader's nose and had escaped his notice. Interesting.

And if those four had done it, Deities knew how many other Force-sensitives there might be out there who had also done it.

There might be a whole cadre of potential Jedi Knights out there, just waiting for someone to train them.

Again, interesting.

Luke, and now Briande, too, might not be the last of that tradition, after all.

Very interesting.

Luke smiled. It was a pleasant daydream. And then he remembered words from so long-ago now, it seemed, talking about his tendency to daydream. All his life has he looked to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was, on what he was doing!

He returned his thoughts to the present. Well, what he was doing was training Briande. And thinking about what he had done so far, he realized he hadn't been doing so badly with her, after all. He'd been teaching her to be honest-with herself, and with him-and it turned out that that was exactly what she needed.

And as for the rest, it was fortunate that Yoda's book not only described the various talents, it also discussed how to train them. And there was a bit more in the book to read.

"Pyrokins" were among the most rare Force-talents, those who could start fires by exciting Force-energy until their object of focus ignited. And they could not only excite Force-energy, they could also slow it, and put out fires. Luke smiled at Yoda's wry note that when training a pyrokin, it was a good idea to keep fire suppressants handy.

"Conduits" were the last group of sensitives to be mentioned, and the most rare. A Conduit could transform one form of Force-energy into another, and utilize that power at will. Palpatine had been a Conduit. That agonizing blue lightning Palpatine had used against Luke was a manifestation of that power. A Shield would have been able to withstand that attack, but not someone like Luke. In fact, it was likely that Palpatine had been drawing on Luke's own energies to create that attack.

Again, interesting, but it didn't really have any bearing on the present.

There was one more section in Yoda's Book of Gifts, included not because it was a talent, but because it was a "gift" in the truest sense of the word. Unattainable by a single Je-he-di, yet attainable by every Je-he-di. Sought by many, achieved by only a few. It was of no use in any practical sense, except when corrupted by the Dark Side in an attempt to seduce a Jedi. And as Luke read on, he realized it was what he himself had been craving all his life. And as he read on, he also realized that it was Something Briande had already found, with her sister. She had told him as much, that night when it had rained, when he had first touched her.

Yoda called it "sacred love."

Brenna had called it "compassiatos."

It had nothing to do with physical intimacy, although that was one possible route to achieving it. It had more to do with intimacy of the soul, of finding one's soul-mate. It was a kind of love that could occur between friends, or lovers, or parent and child, or teacher and student, or any two je-he-di, really. It was connectedness. It was perfect trust. It was openness. It was belonging. It was acceptance of one another's shortcomings. It was vulnerability. It was safety. It was mutual nurturing and caring on a level above what was ordinary. It was not something that could be described, exactly, but if you had it, you knew it.

That section in the book was short. There was no formula for achieving sacred love. The journey was the most important part, but there was no route map, no training guide. The two intimates had to find their way for themselves. And, in fact, it was the making of the path that brought the most joy. There was no destination beyond the here-and-now of the path. But if undertaken correctly, the journey created the destination, and they were one and the same.

Luke closed the book and sat back for a minute. Then he looked at Briande, noting again how beautiful she was, both physically and in what he felt through the Force.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked him.

"I'm thinking…that I owe you a dinner," he said, and smiled.