Sannah can feel the fire as it rages through her body. A tightening of the chest, her legs as they start to fuse together, the webbing which slowly sprouts from between her fingers.
She collapses back to the cool stone marble, letting the tears of grief rip through her body.
Glancing up towards the Council room, she sees Valin batting Ben's blade away, driving him backwards out the giant hole which the turbolaser blast ripped into the building.
She calls out for him. "Valin!"
But her voice is weak. Its strength lost to the energy her body is consuming to fuel the changing.
And she begins to despair.
An emotion which increases her body's change.
Which causes her despair to deepen.
It is a cycle which she cannot seem to escape. Too far from any of the specialized pools made for this eventuality, too far from Valin. She hooks her hands into claws, and tries to drag herself forward, tries to drag herself to Valin.
Then fire rips through her again, her lungs struggling to breath, she can feel as the skin around her neck, beneath her jaw starts to pulse, her gills attempting to break through the skin and take over their duties of processing oxygen from the water for her.
She knows that when that finally happens, she will be dead.
She lays her forehead on the cool marble, and can feel the tears as they well up, her shoulders hitches as she gives into the despair and grief.
As she breaks down and cries.
Then her tears end. Her tear ducts, sinking away, being replaced by a nictating membrane for her eyes.
With her forehead pressed tight against the floor, she wonders what she can do. How she can help her friends before she dies. She wonders if this will really be her end.
Then she remembers Anakin.
His words to her. What he taught her.
A flicker of a grin crosses her lips as she repeats the words he told her just a few nights ago. "You have done well, but I want you to continue practicing, trying to make yourself smaller. When you get small enough, you'll be able to control things on a molecular level."
She hadn't understood why he was teaching her this skill. Why he responded with a quote about the Dark Side when she had asked. But as she focuses on her feelings she realizes just how close she was to giving into despair and hopelessness.
How close she was to giving up.
She reaches into herself, making herself smaller and smaller. Shrinking her inner being to microscopic levels.
Pain flares in her throat, and she is suddenly unable to draw a breath. With an effort, she pushes the growing discomfort, the growing need for air away, focusing on her inner self.
And then she makes herself even smaller.
She can sense how her body is put together, the nucleotides, the proteins, even the cellular mechanisms which Jacen activated in her to cause the Changing. And she reaches for them and starts turning them off.
Then she makes herself smaller, and realizes that she can reprogram them. To make them return her to her original state.
As she works, she realizes that Jacen was right. The Melody were manufactured from humans, created things, their environment causing the Changing to occur.
As she releases the first of the antibodies to her Changing she grins, finding it ironic that the salvation to her Changing would be found in the very mechanisms which caused the Changing in the first place.
She gasps, oxygen flooding her lungs as she draws a breath.
And then another.
She struggles into a sitting position, and looks around. Scowling, she tries to remember where the others went. Then she remembers Valin and Ben fighting.
Muttering a curse, she struggles to stand, the pain in her legs flash for a second and then subsides. Grimacing, she gets up, and begins the slow walk to the large hole in the side of the building.
She comes around the corner, and finds them, Valin sitting in front of Ben, his saber pressed tight against Ben's head.
She almost can't believe the words he's saying.
"And now I get to avenge Jysella's death."
She darts forward, her hand grabbing Valin's, and pulling his saber away from Ben's head just as it ignites with a snap-hiss.
He turns on her, anger and hate flashing in his eyes. With a wordless growl, he pulls his arm away, lifting his saber to strike at her.
She stands her ground, staring up at him. Her heart breaking at his stance, his aggressiveness. She feels a tear slide down her face.
He hesitates.
"If you're going to kill me, can you at least kiss me one last time?"
