Chapter 21

Fallen

Dantooine's grass made a soft noise beneath my feet as I walked. It was not the dry brittle crunch of the half-dead grass of Taris' Undercity and rose to chest height in some places. It waved and rustled in the wind.

Danika walked by my side while Bastila walked ahead of us. Danika and I were carrying our blaster rifles across our chests, safeties off. We ran just as heavily armed now as we had back on Taris, with the exception that we were only carrying one rifle each with modified straps. They would secure the weapons solidly to our backs so that they would not restrict our movements if we had to draw our lightsabers. Said Jedi weapons hung from our belts just as Bastila's double blade did. I still had my hip holster and my knives as well.

We were just past the hills surrounding the Enclave and obviously not close to the grove yet. I knew this because there was a small herd of thune grazing nearby. One massive, large eared head came up as we passed, its long trunk lifting to pick our scent out of the wind. Its eyes were small and dark, lost in the folds of dark blue-gray skin. As its trunk lifted I could see the white gleam of tusks and tried to radiate calm feelings at the beast through the Force. I did not want it or its herd mates to charge us.

Bastila turned her head slightly as I did my thing but I did not let her distract me. I wasn't sure whether it worked or not, but the thune lumbered to a slightly different grazing spot and lowered its head once again so it was not an issue any longer anyway. "Well done," Bastila said softly.

I blinked at the back of her head. "It worked?" I asked, keeping my own voice soft so as not to disturb the nearby herd of large herbivores.

"Yes," the brunette answered. She said nothing more as we forded into a patch of taller grass. I opened my senses wide, alert for the extra vicious kath hounds that Bastila had mentioned. Even so I was not overly worried. The thune herd had enough younglings with them that they would not be so relaxed if predators were nearby.

"Gah!" Danika exclaimed quietly. "This is ridiculous! I don't understand why we had to walk instead of taking a swoop bike."

I chuckled in low tones. "Not our fault you're short, Smartass," I told her. She snarled back in a wordless response.

Bastila sighed ahead of us but said nothing. She was keeping her end of the bond closed again so I could not accurately gauge her feelings behind the sigh. It sounded suffering but the line of her shoulders was held strangely loose, as if she were comfortable with the situation. I couldn't fathom why, and Danika's low grumbles as she whacked at the long grass kept me occupied enough that I did not knaw on the issue overmuch.

It took some time to get to the grove but once we began to draw close it became obvious. The grass changed to a shorter variety that only came up to the knees and was of a much darker green hue. Heaps of stone rose from the earth occasionally and could have been anything from natural formations to degraded pillars. They were simply too worn to tell.

Normally Dantooine was thick with wildlife. From the larger herbivores like the thune and the pikets to their predators to smaller ground-dwelling birds and mammals, even a few species of tiny lizards that liked to scale the tall grasses to sun themselves. All of these myriad creatures should have been making noise but as we closed in towards the grove silence fell like a veil over the area. There was a strange weight to the air, a heaviness that pressed in on the heart and mind. I took an immediate dislike to it, but at the same time it had a sickly sweet quality to it and caused thoughts to stray. Perhaps just a little taste, it whispered. Just one won't hurt.

My whole body gave a violent shudder followed by smaller ones at regular intervals. "I don't like it," I said out loud. The words came out of me involuntarily and sounded disgustingly close to a whine.

Danika had gone utterly still by me, both in her body and internally as well from what I could feel through our bond. Her hands were clutching her rifle so tight that the knuckles had turned white. "I know," she gritted out through clenched teeth.

Bastila threw a worried glance over her shoulder. "We'll be there soon," she said. "Be alert for kath hounds."

I snorted softly at the Padawan and Danika snarled. We continued forward until the piles of standing stones became more frequent and then Bastila suddenly stopped. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "But from here, you must continue alone."

"What? Why?" Danika demanded, the whole of her tiny body bristled with indignation.

Bastila looked down, a smart move considering how intense Danika was right now. "I'm truly sorry but I have explicit orders from the Council." She hesitated then and looked away from us. When she looked back and spoke again she did so without meeting our eyes directly. "Remember; a Jedi acts with patience and care and those lost on the dark path are not always lost forever."

"What in a Corellian Hell is that supposed to mean?" Danika asked, throwing one arm wide.

But it was clear that Bastila wasn't going to budge, her bond had opened up enough to allow that much through at least. Danika snarled angrily and stormed past the brunette. I followed at a more sedate pace and glanced over at Bastila as I passed her. Her eyes were downcast and her brow furrowed. The lines of the muscles in her face indicated that she was in great pain, but where that feeling came from or why I did not know and there was no way to find out, not since she had closed down her side of the bond again as soon as Danika had moved beyond her.

"Good luck, Princess," I said quietly as I passed. "See you later." She said nothing to me in reply but as I approached a large standing stone and had passed from what Bastila might consider my hearing range I could have sworn I heard a small sob.

I ignored the sound and kept walking, shifting my grip on my slughthrower. I wanted to help Bastila but there was nothing I could feasibly do. She would not tell me what I wanted to know, even if I asked her point blank. And there was always the fact that every time I thought of asking her directly I got a bone-deep sense of foreboding.

So I kept walking and kept one eye on Danika and one eye on the terrain around me, alert for anything that might come.

Gradually the standing stones gave way to what might have been a building once. Support columns were clearly visible, as were massive stone slabs that must have been the floor. In the center of the ancient overgrown complex was a heap of huge stones and I presumed this object to be the cairn that Bastila had mentioned. What she had not mentioned was that there would be a woman there.

She was Cathar, tall and dangerously elegant. She had much shorter fur than I had ever seen on a Cathar before and it was of a hue that I was unfamiliar with; a soft gold with dark orange stripes. The only fur on her that grew longer than an inch or so was her orange mane. The sleek length of it was bundled up in a tail at the back of her head, clearly revealing long pointed ears.

The most prominent thing about the Cathar woman was not her looks but the darkness that radiated from her in sickening waves. I braced against it mentally as I would physically against a strong wind and in order to focus I concentrated on studying what the woman was wearing. She was dressed in Jedi armor very similar to what Bastila wore, the main exception being that this armor looked like it was actually meant to do something. It was a bit worn but well cared for and showed none of the sings of having been in real combat. And it was orange, I noted, though thankfully a much deeper and richer shade than Carth's jacket. With the armor the Cathar woman wore pale pants and an under-tunic with leather boots that reached up to her knees. Her belt looked fairly standard for a Jedi, as did the single-bladed lightsaber hanging from it.

Having taken notice of the lightsaber both Danika and I put away our rifles and fastened the straps that would hold them snugly to our bodies. I reached for my left lightsaber, pulling it free from the small clasp that held it to my belt. The tiniest 'snick' sound accompanied the move.

But it was apparently all the Cathar woman needed. Her long ears twitched and her eyes snapped open, revealing brilliant golden orbs bearing slit pupils. No white showed.

In an instant the woman was on her feet and hissing at us. Danika responded instinctively, taking out her lightsaber and igniting it. The silver hue lit up the grove and gave her skin and hair an eerie cast. I followed her example and lit my own blade, angling it before me in a defensive-ready position. Just as Zhar had predicted I fell instinctively into one of the blade-forms I was already familiar with.

Moving so fast my eyes could not track her the Cathar charged, bringing her own lightsaber to bear as she did. A jolt went through me at the sight of the blood red blade and my stomach did an upsetting flip in my middle. It was gone in a moment as Danika stepped forward and raised her blade to meet our opponent's and I ran to help her. I was not that far away, not relatively speaking, but it was too far when reduced to the faster-than-real time of combat situations.

Danika and the Cathar woman exchanged lighting quick moves. And despite the fact that she was doing fairly well I could tell the Cathar was the inferior fighter. I wondered why Danika was not winning by now.

As I closed in and began to engage the Cathar in tandem with Danika I realized why. This close to its source the darkness was like fighting through thick oil. It made my skin crawl and my nose and mouth wrinkle in disgust. Even so at the same time it made me hunger for something I couldn't name, something I could only get if I killed the golden-eyed woman before me.

"Remember; a Jedi acts with patience and care and those lost on the dark path are not always lost forever."

Bastila's words came to me from what felt like deep in my soul and was likely the source of our bond. I realized why she had spoken those words to me and felt a faint pang of confirmation through the bond. I met Danika's eyes as briefly as we fought the angry feline between us and felt a flurry of information and feelings exchanged wordlessly through our bond. It was like we had held an entire conversation without speaking a word. We came to the decision to capture the Cathar woman alive and do exactly as the Council had bade us to do through Bastila; investigate.

It was like someone had suddenly destroyed a dam, the power that flowed in from the Force then. The darkness no longer hindered Danika and me and we gained back the edge that we had lost. Soon the Cathar woman was sporting numerous burn wounds and she began to fight more defensively than aggressively. Together Danika and I herded her back until she was pinned against the dark round bulk of the cairn. We did not advance then but held our ground, lightsabers held at the ready but not in an aggressive stance.

Breathing hard, the Cathar woman looked back and forth between Danika and me. She sighed and deactivated her lightsaber, letting it fall to the ground next to her. "You are strong. Stronger than me in my darkness," she said, her accent thick and foreign but elegant as well. It was not Outer, Mid, or Inner Rim as far as I could tell. I wondered if that was the native Cathar accent.

"Who are you?" Danika asked, her voice much steadier than I thought it should have been considering all the very recent physical exertion. "Why are you here?"

"I am Juhani," the Cathar woman answered. "And this is my grove. This is my place and you have no right to be here!" Her fur bristled as she spoke and her pupils narrowed with her irritation.

Danika snorted derisively at Juhani's words. "I don't see your name on it," she quipped.

"She's right," I pitched in. "From what we heard this place belongs to no one."

"This is the place I chose as the seat of my dark power," Juhani hissed. "It is mine!"

"Dark power? Are you talking about the dark side?" Danika asked. The tone of her voice was odd, as was the stillness I felt through our bond. My head jerked away from Juhani to look at my friend's face. She looked about the same that I had felt all those times I had experienced Déjà vu and for some reason seeing it on her face made me shudder involuntarily.

"I fell when I slew my master, Quatra," Juhani said. "I cannot return now."

I blinked at the woman's words for I had heard nothing of a death among the Jedi recently. Such a thing was rare, even more so the killing of a Knight by her Padawan. I thought back over what Bastila had said and how long ago this might have happened. Not very long, I thought. Certainly not before Danika and I had arrived on Dantooine. "Are you sure she's dead?" I asked Juhani.

The woman's pupils widened with distress and she gestured wildly as she talked. "I struck her down with my lightsaber! How can she not be dead?"

"Sabine's right," Danika said. "Did you feel her die in the Force? We haven't heard about a death among the Jedi here and have felt no disturbances in the Force."

Juhani fell silent and studied us both carefully, her body utterly still in the same way that I had seen large predatory cats do it. Her pupils narrowed and then widened again as she thought. "I… I did not stay, this is true," she said finally.

"Then come back with us," I replied. Danika responded by deactivating her lightsaber and returning it to her belt. I felt a twinge of uncertainty but did not hesitate as I followed my friend's example. Juhani was faster than us physically. She was still close enough to be able to do some serious damage to us before we could draw a weapon. I forced myself not to stare at the long, elegant claws that adorned each of the Cathar's fingers.

The being attached to those claws hesitated, but I could feel the darkness in the Force receding somewhat. "I fell," she said. "They will not take me back."

"How do you know?" Danika asked. "Can you see the future?"

"No," Juhani said reluctantly.

"So what will it hurt to go and see them?" I asked. The darkness continued to recede as Juhani studied Danika and I again. Her eyes settled on me for a little longer than I felt comfortable, her pupils widening slowly. When she finally looked away I realized why she had been staring. I had been holding just as still as she was, that inhuman stillness that was a predator carefully weighing out its situation.

Danika had not noticed; I saw that in a quick glance out of the corner of my vision. Her attention was fully on Juhani. When I looked back at her as well she nodded briefly at us. "I will go with you," she said quietly.

"Uh, what about the grove?" I asked, indicating the ruins that held the cairn.

Juhani glanced back at the place with an uneasy tilt of her shoulders, which were also strangely relaxed. "It will return to itself once I have gone. I did not spend enough time here to taint it permanently."

"Bastila'll be happy to hear that," Danika said. She turned on her heel then and walked briskly off in the direction we had entered the grove; her gait showing no indication that she had just fought a fallen Jedi. "Come on! Let's go before the kid twists that ridiculous armor into oblivion."

Juhani looked at me, her whole face expressing her surprise. For the first time since meeting her I realized just how young she was, barely older than Bastila. It made me feel old. "Bastila? She is here?" Juhani asked.

"Yeah, didn't you hear?" I replied. Bastila was well known about the Enclave. I'd have thought all the Jedi knew she was on Dantooine.

Apparently Juhani had not. She shook her head to indicate this and before she could add any words to it Danika shouted back at us. "Get a move on, you guys!"

I made a face at Juhani. "I guess we ought to go before she comes back for us," I said. Juhani blinked at me uncertainly so I shrugged and turned to walk after Danika. I heard her follow behind me and resisted the urge to look back at her.

We caught up with Danika quickly; the dark haired smuggler had waited for us. She started walking along with us without a word and for a while we were surrounded in silence and the lingering darkness from the grove. Somewhere in the distance a bird began a call hesitantly, gaining strength as nothing struck it down. Danika's mouth quirked into a smile at the sound and she let loose with the first few lines of the same old spacer song that I had sung on Taris.

"Ohhhh, the stars will never fade; though they may dim with age," I sang. Danika and I matched the pitch and tone of each other's voices with little fuss and after we had gotten nearly halfway through Juhani joined in, hesitating at first, her voice a surprisingly sweet alto. Soon she was singing along in time with us and when the spacer song was done we launched into a hearty drinking song. Juhani proved herself to be able to pick up on the words easily even though I was positive she'd never heard them before.

As if our voices were some sort of signal the wildlife about us came back to itself. I didn't realize it until after the fact, but so did Juhani. Danika was like that though, almost as if she were an anchor and not a living breathing being.

I'll never forget Bastila's face as we came through a gap between two standing stones singing as if we had not a care in the galaxy. It was just so perfectly shocked.

As soon as she caught sight of the brunette Padawan Juhani fell silent, her mouth closing with an audible snap. She changed the way she carried herself as well so that she seemed shorter and less intimidating. Truth was she was only a few inches taller than me although her body had a look about it that made it appear longer.

Danika and I let the verse of our song trail off into silence shortly after Juhani stopped singing. We stopped a few feet from Bastila, Juhani standing just behind us and staying very quiet. "We're back," I said.

One of Bastila's eyebrows quirked up and her face twisted out of shock and into a pleading kind of horror. "Dancing rancors?" she asked.

Danika shrugged beside me. "It's a drinking song. They're not supposed to make sense. Haven't you ever had a drink before?"

"No!" Bastila said sharply, her body going so straight with indignation I was tempted to see if someone had inserted a pole into her spine.

I chuckled with amusement. "You ought to try it sometime, Princess! Might lighten you up."

"I'll have you know Jedi do not drink!" Bastila declared. "And another thing, where have you been disappearing to at night? No one will tell me! What if I need to find you?"

I snorted and fixed Bastila with my fiercest stare. "In the middle of the night, out here? Nothing happens. Besides, you ever wake me up in the middle of the night and no one's bleeding and/or dying I will flay the pride right out of that perky little attitude of yours; is that clear?"

Bastila blanched and rocked back from me a bit. "Yes, ma'am," she squeaked.

"Quit torturing the poor girl," Danika told me with a light smack at the back of my head as she walked past me. She had do a little hop to reach up that high.

I sighed sarcastically as I followed behind my friend. "But it's so much fun! Hey, are you guys coming or what? Isn't the Council going to want to talk to everybody?" I called over my shoulder. Juhani was looking back and forth from myself and Bastila with wide eyes.

Said Jedi Princess sputtered as she followed me, not wanting to provoke me into another verbal flaying but unable to stay silent never-the-less. Juhani began to walk forward as I turned my head forward again.

Danika whistled to herself softly as we began the long-ish walk back to the Enclave, her feet so light on the ground she was nigh on skipping. I smiled at her back and tried not to laugh.

To Be Continued…