Tatooine 968ARR:5:07:19:00/3GrS:8:07:19:00

Anakin stood on the balcony of an ancient farm hold. He was several dozen meters above the desert below and he watched as Aliora cleared out another of the buildings that had been buried by the sand. She had taught him nothing about the Force, but one thing and even now he played with it as the small amount of sand flew from one hand to the other absently. Something she was doing on grand scale as she pushed several millennial's worth of sand out away from the stronghold as she called it.

The Landing bay had been first and that lead to the area directly under the balcony. The next a larger living area was freed from the sand and one room was filled with water. Other that Naboo he had never seen so much water. He watched his master as she pushed a wall of sand away from the stronghold. Anakin could tell she was nearly finished as she had told him there was not much past the flat landing pad. The larger of the twin suns was soon to be setting.

"Annie dinner." He heard his mother's voice crackle over the old intercom system. He let the sand drop as he changed his focus and ran to the stairs. The power had been restored, but the old lift being exposed century after century was now just an empty shaft. He made it into the cool air of the dining area and washed his hands with water. It felt like such a waste of water, but the underground cistern was huge.

"Are you nearly done with all that sand, Aliora?"

"Oh nearly so. There was an automated turret system a bit farther out. I am sure the turrets are long gone like most of the exposed equipment. Though there might be enough parts to get one or two up and running."

"I see, I am not so sure it is a good thing to stay here?"

"Why?" Anakin has no one his own age. Nothing to tinker with like he did at the yard."

"We are wanted right now by the Jedi. I think we will remain here for some time. After that we have and entire galaxy to explore."

Galaxy to explore. Ya right. We spent two years in that one spot only going into Anchorhead or Tosche Station. My mom met Owen Lars and I finally saw her happy. We stayed with the Lars on and off as we traveled around the desert helping this farmstead or another. Never once did my master pull out a lightsaber. She did teach me how to use a sword, staff, and blaster. How to infuse the Force into the object to make it stronger. Or release more powerful blaster shots. That always made me feel wrong using a blaster that way. Though it did not bother me to guide the bolt so it hit its target.

Then the worlds we visited. Rodia, Geonosis, Christopsis, Ryloth, Socorro, Bothawui, Rishi, Gamorr, Ruusan, Kashyyyk, Onderon, Manaan, Taris, Mandalore, Dathomir, Yavin, Dantooine and a dozens of systems in between. I gained knowledge of their history and what had happened on those planets. Several were like Tatooine desert worlds others filled with plants and trees as far as the eye can see. Manaan filled with nothing but water no islands anywhere just one large city that jutted above the water. Taris a never ending city no matter where you were on the planet.

Then there were the dark planets. Dathomir with its strange and twisted landscape. The powerful Nightsister strong in the Force. Twisted most of them to the darkside, but a few knew to resist to survive. The wasted planets of Korriban, Ziost, and Dromond Kaas. One a grave, one void of the Force and the last covered in a Force Storm that shows no end. Ossus another dead world, but one that was covered in the light. Dantooine had both the light and the dark. Ruusan was the hardest to visit. Light side and Dark side ghosts trapped forever, but as much as we could feel it we could not find the source. Mon Cala was another water world that was near another light side source in the Lothal system.

What I didn't understand was why we were on Dantooine. A planet with a small agricultural base, only one large city with any industry or link with the rest of the galaxy, and that we were on the opposite side of the planet. Grass, plants and Kath hounds were the only thing to see. Though I did make several Kath hound friends. Iraiz were easy to approach using the Force but better to be taken for their meat than befriended. Kinrath attacked nearly anything on sight. I missed the friends I had gained on Onderon or the Mandalorian planet Ordo. Several months back I befriended a Graul after I was able to calm it and free it from a trap. Master Aliora had me lead it nearly a hundred kilometers to establish a new territory. Letting that one go was the hardest. Almost as hard as letting go of my Clan Ordo friends.

We did have several encounters with the Dantari people. The males value strength and after sparring no fighting with several my master could not stop laughing as I then had to fight off several of the females. They did not look attractive to me, but they did have a beauty that could be seen in their simplicity, rugged features, and grace. To be honest only my clothing seemed to have saved me from several of their advances. We did not stay long in such company as they moved on a daily basis. That and I think Aliora was a magnet for all the males of the tribes we encountered. Not that she didn't defeat them all, but the constant challenges made us avoid many of the tribes we encountered. Only the Force presented situations that it could not be avoided.

Dantooine 977ARR:10:01:07:00/13GrS:01:01:07:00

Two years ago we landed on Dantooine. The Kath hound I found as a puppy is larger than most of his kind. Though Coko is a big baby unless there is something dangerous nearby. He is almost as fast as the Force is warning us of danger. I have been having dreams that it is time to go and dreams about my mother. Something that is bothering me though the last uplink we had she has told us of nothing bad happening. However, that was six months ago and on Tatooine that might as well of been forever. The sun is about to rise and Master Aliora has been a bit secretive lately. Though if I am not mistaken it is getting close to a day she said she married her husband. Hard to believe she is from 3600 hundred years ago. She has not aged a day since she took me from the Jedi Order. I feel her coming.

"Annie are you up?"

"Yes Aliora I am."

"Still can't get you to call me Allie. Though it did take five years for you to stop calling me master."

"Than I am ready, Master Kimble." They both laugh as they glance to the rising sun. Minutes go by before either move a muscle.

"Are you going to call me master again?"

"Maybe I am maybe I am not?"

"Come time for you to become closer to the Force."

"Where are we going?"

"A place. One that a Kath hound has no place being. Time to say goodbye to Coko."

"We are leaving? The ship is so far away?"

"The ship is at the ruins of the Jedi Enclave. We will get there tomorrow or the next. No where we go Coko will not want to be. A pack is near go let him join it."

"Yes master." Aliora took in a deep breath and let it out as she leaned over to scratch Coko one more time.

"Come Coko." The Kath hound bolted after the young man. Anakin seethed with anger at having to leave yet another friend behind. Then the sadness came as he pointed out the pack. Coko rushed to the pack and watched as the alphas inspected the intruder and then the challenging roar. As much as Anakin wanted to help he just watched as Coko battled with not one but two Kath hounds. The battle did not take long before Coko had beaten them both to let out a roar that felt louder than the others.

The last time he had to let Coko go the hound had been gone for a month before suddenly being one morning. Though this time it felt harder to let him go. Sad yet proud that his friend was victorious with his new pack. It did not get rid of the anger at how unfair it felt as well. He took his time returning to the camp to see no sign left accept the two large packs.

"Is it done?"

"Yes master."

"Angry are we?"

"Yes master."

"Good let the feeling go through. Experience it. Examine it. Find out the true reason you are angry. Then let it go."

"I know why I am angry. Every time we leave a planet I have to leave friends behind. Abandoning them or just leaving without a word. I am sick of it."

"You have that right, but everything we do leaves a mark and a trail of bread crumbs that the Jedi Order has been following."

"I don't care if they find me. You have taught me the Force. I don't need to learn from them."

"You don't? True, but the knowledge they keep hidden. I know much but they hold more. Do you not want to learn?"

"Knowledge; yet ignorance. Always strive to learn. There in lies the power to be wise. Not knowing leads to being a fool."

"That is true. As with emotions giving you more power so does knowledge give you power. Uncontrollable power leads to chaos."

"If you can see the harmony in the chaos it will not overwhelm you."

Your passion can overwhelm you and allow the dark side to influence you."

"Than you much regain your serenity to push back the dark side."

"With serenity you gain peace over your emotions."

"Thank you Aliora I needed that, so why did I have to let Coko go?"

"Do you feel it? Here now in this grove?"

"Grove this is a natural forest. I see little organization to call this a grove."

"But do you feel it?" Anakin closes his eyes and reaches out. The area did feel a bit different. There was no leaning towards the dark side as if the area was in a state of dying nor was the area experiencing a burst of growth that the light side would cause. It was not until they moved further in that he felt it swirling around.

"I feel drawn."

"Where?" He drew in the Force and stepped to the side and found a small mound before stopping.

"Here is the center. Long ago I feel death, yet rebirth. What is this place?"

"I want to say I do not know, but one of my teachers took me here. He explained that in his time he found a Cathar Jedi who had attacked her master and allowed her emotions to channel the dark side. They found her in this ancient grove bringing her back to the light with her defeat."

"Who was that?"

"Just one of my teachers. Come there is another place I must show you." Anakin followed her and had to draw heavily on the Force to keep up with her. Several times he yearned to drop his pack to catch up to her. After an hour or two she stopped and as he panted to regain his breath he felt he was starving for air. The very feel of the area was pulling on him. Cloying, wet, suffocating the strength the area had in the dark side.

"So strong."

"Yes it is stronger than it has ever been. Old this place is older than the Republic. Older than the Jedi even. This place was made by the Rakata."

"They ruled the universe didn't they. With dark side technology."

"They did and if it was not for a viral genetic disease striping them of the ability to use the Force they would still rule today."

"What was here? I feel it. That you know."

"The Jedi Revan and his friend Alek found the first of many markers that lead them to the planet Lehon and to the Star Forge."

"So he was the one who told you about this place and the grove?"

"A man that lived 300 years before I was born?"

"You are 3600 out of your time?" She smiled at Anakin, but looked sad before she move to a large depression.

"Long ago Master Evan came here before he took up his mask and became Revan. It was at the start of the Mandalorian Wars. Here was the relic that started him on his path. One that took him to face the very dark side incarnate. He failed and was turned to the dark side and came back with a Sith Armada."

"I remember the story. You have been telling me every time we find a site like this."

"Anakin it is not a story. It is history. It is the life of one of my masters. The one that allowed me to defeat the entity known as Vitiate and later Valkorion and then the Force aberration that was Tenebrae. He was part of my life. Not just a symbol of history."

"Are we going to purge the dark side from this spot?"

"We could, but I have been feeling ready to leave for weeks. Something is going to happen soon. Or has already started. Come I have one more place to show you." They ran again faster than any humanoid could move. At one point Aliora abandons her pack and Anakin follows suit only to struggle to keep up with her. Then they stop in front of a vee formed from two cliffs meeting together.

"Where are we?"

"Dantooine." She grins as he groans at her answer.

"Seriously?"

"Can you not see that we are at the mouth of a cave?"

"Sure but this is no ordinary cave."

"True come and we will discover this together."

"You already know?"

"Do I? Perhaps, perhaps not." Anakin rolls his eyes following her into the cave. The light from the mouth of the cave guides them for more than a hundred meters and then the light shift as they turn around a bend. The walls begin to glow and get brighter the farther they move into the cave. Tiny shelled creatures skitter about the floor and wall of the cave tunnel. It is not too long before Anakin notices that the glow is from crystals as they become large enough to see. Green, blue, yellow colors dominate every part of the cave except the path leading further into the cave system. The Force is nearly a storm of different patterns and aspects.

The particular tunnel they are in spreads out into a chamber that seems to go on forever as even the light emitted from the crystals cannot banish the darkness. The chamber is not quite as the skittering of the shelled creatures is louder almost as if they were bigger. Here there were other colors mixed in with the Green Blue and yellow crystals. Reds, blues, and yellows of every tone and color making purple, orange, green, and browns. Then there was pinks, tans, and blues or reds so dark as to be nearly black. Still, there was more as some looked metallic golds, bronze, silver, copper, tungsten and the kaleidoscope of colors that is found with bismuth.

"Master this is amazing the Force is so chaotic, yet a feel there is some strange balance to it all."

"I feel it to. We should have come here much sooner than we did."

"Why are we here?"

"In the past I would say this is where you will find you lightsaber crystal. Now I say it is where you will find you focus." Aliora pulled out a silver azure stone from under the layers of her clothing. Its light pulsing brighter than the the surrounding stone.

"You kept you lightsaber crystal? I thought it was lost on Naboo?"

"No that was only one of the lightsabers I have made over the years. The hilt and the pieces within are nothing without the crystal. I have a half dozen on the ship in my quarters."

"I never seen any of them and you never restricted me from being curious."

"You would have found them had you known what to look for. Now, here, you will learn how they feel in the Force. How a crystal feels is how your Force aura reacts with each other. If you find a crystal that has never been touch then these are what you will find. If you found my crystal then you would feel me as it reflects who I am in the Force."

"I understand."

"Now you have to find your crystal. It should feel just like you."

"Anything else I should know?"

"It will glow brighter the closer you get to it. Be mindful of the Living Force. It can and will test you. Your emotions will call to you crystals that may seem like the one for you. Some will be wrong for you others only a part of you. Just one will reflect you perfectly."

"I sense danger. Raw uncontrolled fear and anger."

"What else?"

"Revulsion, pride, determination, a sense of territory violation, as if we are the disturbance."

"Very good. Up ahead is the center of a hive of Kinrath. They will attack if you show any aggression, but in the middle of their hive will you find what you seek."

"I am ready, but why must it be surrounded by violence and death?"

"Is that what you feel from the chaos of this place? Is that who you are?"

"No."

"Than you will not gain their attention."

"And if I do?"

"Convince them to leave you alone."

"But there are so many of them?"

"Are there?" Anakin is focused on the center of the chamber that is far out of their sight. He does not respond as he moves further into the chamber and to the incessant clatter of their chitinous claws on the stone.