CHAPTER SIX:
The One Stuck In His Way And The One Who Lost His
Obi-Wan Kenobi's P.O.V
Leilani was standing on the piloting console. Not beside it, not in front of it, not to the left or the right or underneath. On. Nose pressed up against the viewport, she appeared, from Obi-Wan's position near the door, riveted to the space laid bare and black before her as they drifted out of Coruscant's orbit, a few clicks out still from activating the hyperdrive.
"What by the Stars are you doing, Leilani?"
As with the balcony, Leilani didn't turn to face him, didn't so much as startle at his voice at her back as he strode closer to the Progenitor balancing precariously on the navigation panel, but, as he came to a halt at her side, Obi-Wan could see the misty shape of her face in the reflection constrained against the viewport.
Her large eyes were larger yet, bright in the eternal night outside, glimmering green, and her mouth was parted somewhat, white teeth peeking out between the pink lips.
Whatever she noticed had grasped her fascination utterly.
"Blue, green, pink, red, orange, lilac… Told space black… Empty. Look… Not so. Light everywhere, far eye will see."
Leilani did turn to him then, her smile almost blinding.
"Beautiful."
White light.
White light, Obi-Wan thought, was made up of all colours, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, each with their own wavelength, their own part in the bigger illumination.
Leilani was the same.
It struck him suddenly, sharply, and terribly, this irrevocable notion that Leilani was something, someone, not truly made from flesh and bone and blood, but scorching white-light.
The red-gold tones of her hair bounced off the pink-yellow hues of her skin, as the green of her eye sparked off the indigo-brown of her freckles, and the violet taste to her blush. Like white-light, like the stars out in space before them shining in the dark, Leilani was stitched together with things that shouldn't go at once but did, and as one they made something bright and brilliant.
White light.
Obi-Wan smiled at her.
"It is, isn't it?"
Leilani's hands fell from the viewport, body twisting as she clambered down, thankfully, from the console without kicking or yanking on the driver switches, coming to a bounding spring before Obi-Wan.
"Me first out… Here. Never before my kind fly… Out? Out so far. Only to moon. Never dream I… See stars close."
She was the first of her kind out here. Of course she would be. From what Obi-Wan knew of his history, extrapolated from what very, very, little records and evidence survived of the Progenitors, true space travel had only begun once they were already in deep decline, leading them to pass on what they knew of the Force, Magic to them, to the races they stumbled across.
Obi-Wan's own ancestors.
Now here they were, she and him, Progenitor and Jedi, and the roles were reversed were they not? There was so much still for Leilani to understand, to learn, to adapt to. So much for Obi-Wan to teach.
So little time to do so.
It was moments like these that made Obi-Wan realize just how far from… Everything Leilani was. How distant her home must seem to her, hurtling in this cockpit of a ship drifting in not-so empty space. How far away familiarity was outside her reach.
How shiny and new everything must appear.
Leilani and her people had never space travelled, and so erected great Shrouds across the galaxy, between dimension and space and time and even death itself to explore and discover and investigate. Obi-Wan and his people took space travel for granted, and now, perhaps, forgot, every once in a while, to look out the viewport and remember how beautiful it all truly was.
Perhaps the roles were not reversed at all. Possibly this Progenitor, anew, was passing on their exceptional stance and command of the Force to a stranger they had stumbled across quite by accident.
Maybe, just maybe, there was a lot for Obi-Wan to learn, to understand, to adapt to, to-
To feel.
"There is plenty more to see, I assure you."
Obi-Wan smiled.
"But, perhaps, try not to stand on the piloting console? They are rather sensitive to boot prints."
Their ship was only an old light freighter, a sparse and small craft, two sleeping chambers barely bigger than a closet at the rear, a mapping and meeting station located at the heart, and a cockpit up front. If they were going to make it to any of the remaining Shrouds they couldn't afford a breakage. Not if they didn't want to spend months in transit, hauling a fractured vessel to the nearest docking station.
"Console?"
Leilani, evidently, hadn't picked up on that word yet, and so Obi-Wan gestured to their flank.
"Big button place."
She glanced sideways, followed his finger, and recognition pressed the dimples in her cheeks deeper.
"Leilani press button? Okay!"
Leilani's hand shot out, quick and swift and-
And stretching for the emergency purge button, a fat little thing that was a startling red amongst the silver, meant only to be pressed in the case of a damaged hyperdrive moments from bursting.
Obi-Wan's own hand snapped out too, grasping Leilani's wrist before the extended finger could make contact with the button.
"Not that! Never that! If you press that we'll be stranded without a hyperdrive waiting for the Council to figure out-"
Contact.
He feels her through the skin-
Buzzing.
Humming.
A joyful little bubbling that-
Snort.
Obi-Wan squinted up, only to find Leilani trying desperately to stifle the smile on her face and snuff the laughter threatening to break free.
"You're playing with me, aren't you?"
Imaginably it was his deadpanned delivery, or the scowl marring his brows down over his eyes, or the partly helpless tinge to his tone, but something in Obi-Wan's retort made Leilani laugh. Loudly.
"Silly Obi. You know no fun. I teach you."
I'll teach you.
Yes, Obi-Wan thought, who truly was the Master and the pupil here? And, more importantly-
How soon was he going to get grey hair from all this?
"Master?"
It came in quick succession, the realizations.
It was Anakin's voice by the door that made him jolt. He realized just how close he and Leilani had come to be standing hip to hip. Finally, worse, he still had the bird-boned-Beskar wrist within his grip.
The thoughts that came with the realisations were more… Muddled. A muted oh, step back, let go, a no, step closer, don't let go, a yes, bring him over, never let go. They war for a moment, these strange and confusing thoughts, thoughts with sharp things, things that shouldn't be thought, least of all by a Jedi Master, pinheads readying to… Pop.
In the end, Obi-Wan did let go, step back, quickly, perhaps too quickly, as if the hand he had been holding had burned him as the thoughts had puzzled. In a way, it does burn him, that flash of skin-to-skin.
Brands.
Woefully, Obi-Wan thought, it would never not.
"Yes?"
Obi-Wan responded with a cough, a gathering of threads still hanging loose in his mind.
Meditation will help.
That was all. He just needed to meditate for a while.
Soon.
Anakin, frowning, gestured behind him to the chamber beyond.
"I pulled up the galactic charts, and marked out the planets that have a Shroud recorded at their locations. I thought you might want to come and see before we decide which one to investigate first."
Leilani, naturally, took what she understood of that as a go, go, go, and she went, went, went careening over the cockpit, passed Anakin, and through the door.
"Shroud? Sirius! Go now, yes? Yes!"
And… Gone.
In a streak of red and gold and hot white-light, she was gone. Obi-Wan had the dizzying notion that that was how it was always going to be, as the skin would always brand him, and she would always burn in white-light, and he would always be helplessly chasing after what felt like a comet shooting across the universe.
Obi-Wan went to follow, hoping to catch up… Preferably before the Progenitor found herself on top of the Hyperdrive next. Nevertheless, before he could quite pass his Padawan Obi-Wan found Anakin slinking before him.
"Are you alright, Master?"
Now it was Obi-Wan's turn to frown.
"Yes, quite. Why wouldn't I be?"
Anakin nodded to his face.
"You're looking a little flushed."
Obi-Wan spluttered, shaking his head violently, voice coming forth perhaps an octave too high to be decent.
"Flushed? Anakin, don't be ridiculous… It's the lighting in this wretched cockpit. Someone really should invest more in the crafts available to the Council."
Possibly, since that fateful day on top of the roof of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, Obi-Wan moved as swiftly as Leilani, marching from the room in confident, sure strides.
Everything his thoughts were not.
Anakin, lingering for only a breath, followed not so long after.
Anakin Skywalker's P.O.V
Anakin Skywalker stood before the holographic map, constellations glistening in blue and white and static energies, and pointed to the systems containing flecks of red, six in total, dispersed out as far as possible across the ever expanding galaxy.
"We can safely say that the Jedi Temple on Coruscant has been put out of the running. If this Sirius had appeared there we would have known. That leaves six other Jedi Temples in our galaxy that have Shrouds or part of Shrouds within their compounds, meaning we have six other possibilities to go and investigate. First is the temple on Ilum, then the one of Vrogas Vas, another on Ossas, one on Lathal, one more on Dantooine, and finally, Ashas Ree. I say we make a circuit of it, starting with the furthest one by the outer rim and working our way closer to Coruscant once more. That means we should plot a route for V-"
Leilani, who had been, what could only be called prowling, around the table in her own orbit of the chart, stopped abruptly, and pointing determinedly at the holomap.
"That."
Anakin's gaze trailed across the path of her finger.
"Ilum? Why Ilum?"
Obi-Wan too turned to face the shortest of the trio.
"Do you sense something in the Force?"
Leilani blinked, and shook her head, red curls bouncing blue in the light of the hologram.
"No Force. Peverell luck. That one!"
Anakin frowned.
"Peverell luck? What-"
Obi-Wan, however, had come to the startling finish before him, adding two and two and seeing the unmistakable four currently jabbing her finger at the constellation halfway across the galaxy.
"You're a Peverell? The Shroud builders? The ones who resurrected the dead and bent time and space and Force to their will? Those Peverells? I thought you said your name was Potter?"
Leilani's answering smile was nothing short of bashful.
"Immediate household recorded Potter. Old House Peverell. Name change generations back. Split… Peverells… Disagree. Brothers disagree. Uh… Sort of… Civil war? Big fight, brothers divided up. Went different ways. Direct descendant. Me Ignotus blood… Line? Bloodline. You know Peverell? Then know no stronger power in galaxy than Peverell luck! Save me plenty."
Ostensibly, Leilani considered her own words before she shrugged, evidently finding them flawed.
"Nearly kill me plenty too… But that one!"
Anakin glanced to Obi-Wan earnestly.
"Are we really going to be basing our search across an entire galaxy on Leilani's rather… Indiscriminate selecting?"
To his surprise, and feasibly Leilani's as well, Obi-Wan appeared to consider the option, ending his mental debate with a half-hearted grin.
"I don't see why we can't start on Ilum. Either Sirius is there, and Leilani's luck proves useful, or he is not, and we will carry out our search as we were planning on doing anyway. Alright. I'll go and plot our course for Ilum."
No more was said, not as Obi-Wan made quick for the piloting console, leaving only enough time for Anakin's noticeably subdued but Master-, before the older man was gone from the cramped quarters. With no one else to argue with, to listen, Anakin huffed and hit the switch for the holomap, room blinking back to darkness before he to went to leave, the opposite way, towards the bed chambers.
A flash of colour shifting, pushing.
Leilani stood before him, head cocked, blocking his path.
"Anakin upset."
It wasn't a question, neither was it critical of his reaction as it would have been if anyone else was standing before him, Master Yoda or Master Windu, who would, no doubt, finish on a lecture on how emotions led to the Dark Side.
There is no emotion, there is peace.
The first, and hardest, Jedi Code principle Anakin perpetually found himself failing in.
Leilani's reply, however, was simply… There. A statement.
Anakin upset. Why? Why so I can help fix it?
Anakin sighed, some of the irritation he felt simmering in his gut waning.
"Not upset… Cautious. It is dangerous out here. There's slavers and pirates and smugglers around every turn, and we could be an easy target if we take a too slow route. Leaving that to chance, or luck, seems unwise to me."
Leilani nodded.
She didn't argue.
She didn't lecture.
She didn't disparage him for his caution, or his irritation, or his short, sour tone.
She nodded.
It was… Pleasant. Pleasant to not be condemned for feeling anything more or less then total tranquillity. Pleasant to have someone there who merely recognized how and why one felt something, and did not try to refute them for it. Pleasant to be-
Accepted; Emotions and all.
Leilani reached into the folds of her clothes, borrowed robes from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, and pulled free a little-
Chip.
A round little metal disk. Her thumb brushed over the bare face of it, a crackle in the Force, and-
It turned black.
She held the chip up between them, perched between her gentle fingers, switched it this way and that, showing him the two faces, grey and black, black and grey.
And she beamed.
"Use eye to see."
She balanced the chip on her thumb above a curled fist.
"Black."
She flicked her thumb, the chip went spiralling up, flipping through the air, from where Leilani's free hand clipped up and stole it, slapping it down on the back of her now unfurled fist. She removed her hand.
Black greeted the pair.
Leilani's smile grew wild and bright, and she balanced the chip on her thumb once more.
"Grey. Grey. Black. Grey. Black. Black. Grey. Grey. Grey. Grey. Black. Grey. Black. Black. Black. Grey. Grey, Black. Black. Black. Grey."
She wasn't-
She was.
Twenty-two times Leilani flipped and caught and showed the face of the chip upon her hand, and twenty-two times her prediction came out right.
Anakin gawked down at the chip of half-charred metal; grey face sharp in the dark.
That should have been impossible.
It should have been statistically unachievable.
It should have been unattainable to-
It was Leilani Potter. That, Anakin thought, was becoming answer enough lately.
"Told you Leilani lucky. Peverell Luck bring Anakin to Leilani, didn't it? Not be too bad if so."
And luck, or chance, or Force or Magic or some nameless, faceless Deity, or anything one wished to call it, had brought Leilani to Anakin, and that had not gone so terrible, had it?
No.
No it hadn't.
Not at all.
"No, perhaps it's not bad. Dangerous, I suspect, but not bad."
Dangerous like anything and everything else that had some form of connection to the Progenitor.
"Like danger! Make boring not boring. Make spicy!"
Anakin chuckled; weight lifted from his shoulders.
Leilani was lucky. Leilani was impossible.
And Leilani was here.
There was something important in that, Anakin thought. Something important that he could not quite name yet. A sense, a feeling, a… Heaviness that, ridiculously, did not feel as heavy as it should.
"Interesting. The word you meant to use is interesting. Spicy is for food."
Leilani livened up.
"Food! Yes, we eat now. Food. Good. Big food. Very empty."
"Hungry. You're hungry."
"Hungry? Yes. Eat much. Eat so much that can eat Anakin's head."
The two coasted for the door, and Anakin's steps had never felt so light before.
"What-… Are you saying my head is big?"
Their laughter drifted along with them.
"Me no say. You say it. Skydancer big head. Me no make rules."
A hearty scoff pressing around the corner.
"I highly doubt, Leilani, even if you did make the rules that you would have any inclination to follow any of them anyway."
"Rules boring. Leilani spicy."
Spicy indeed.
Trouble, Anakin would call it. Pure, unfiltered trouble.
Outrageous, Obi-Wan would perhaps use.
Maybe, in the end, just Leilani was sufficient enough.
Leilani Potter's P.O.V
In the dream Leilani was standing in an ocean that scarcely breached her ankle. Perhaps not an ocean then but a pond. A pond stretching as far as the eye could see, from horizon to possibility, below a dead and dark sky.
She appeared normal, dressed in her old quidditch robes as she was, the shell of her hopes conceivably, that one day she might return to a place and time where her biggest worry was catching a flying golden ball, and she was staring down at the still waters at her feet.
Staring back was something that wasn't her reflection.
He was tall, this man of black-dusk, menacing as he was towering, head and body covered in some sort of robotic helmet and suit, the sound of his breathing an eerie mechanical hiss that dreadfully lingered, kissing goosebumps up and down her spine.
By his side was a drawn Light-sword the same shade as blood, and in her ear Tom Riddle whispered.
"You can't save him, Leilani. As you couldn't save that poor Diggory boy."
She does not want to save this dark-being, does not even know his name, can't seem to think much more beyond see, doesn't know where she is or why she's there or-
Never listen to Tom Riddle.
Leilani knew that by now.
"He's going to kill you. He's going to kill so many. He'll kill them all. Not just the men, but the women and the children too. So many youngling's dead at the temple, their blood on his hands. On your hands because you did not stop him when you had the chance. Can you live with that? You'll drown in it. Their screams. This is how your precious Order of the Phoenix ends. At this man's blade. He'll slaughter them like animals, and he'll make you watch."
Leilani's eyes clamped shut, but in her dream she saw that motorized man as perfectly as she did with her eyes wide open.
He was there, and he wasn't going away.
He needed to go away.
"Shut up Tom. Shut up."
A laugh, a hiss, and Leilani wasn't sure whether Tom was chuckling, or the man in the reflection was.
"Little Leilani, always running and never stopping. Aren't you tired yet? Your hope is too heavy to carry for very long… And that's all you have left. Blind, useless hope. You can't run from this girl… But you can stop it. Strike him down. Strike him down now. Smother him in his slumber. Put poison in his flask. Care not how but do it now… Before he falls and he drags you with him. If you think he's a monster wait till you see what you become."
Leilani bared her teeth in a snarl.
"Go away, Tom."
A breath, a flutter of her hair, the hissing of a shrivelled lung.
"Strike him down and join me. Side by side we can stop this before it begins. Sith, Jedi… Pointless names for parodies. They mock us, mock all we are, by their mere pathetic existence. Does the boot weep for the ant? I think not. They've lost their way. We can show them the true path. The one path. The real path. Together. Join me and save the galaxy."
Leilani's hands jumped up to her ears, clamping, scrabbling to block out the hissing and the voices and the endless hum of something dark.
"I don't know who he is! I don't know-… But even if I did, I would never join you."
A hoarse chuckle, like bits of bone clinking in a pocket.
"He's closer than you think, silly girl."
Tsheeeww.
Leilani's eyes shot open, the man in the reflection gone, the hissing now at her back, fluttering across her neck and-
She ducked just in time to miss the red Light-sword swinging for her head. Fell right into the pond, freezing, dark waters swallowing her whole in their cool embrace as she fell.
And fell.
And fell.
And fell.
Endless falling.
Endless cold.
Endless dark.
"Breathe, Leilani."
A voice in the black.
Lily.
Her mother.
"Breathe, kiddo."
James too.
Her parents were there, in the dark, shrouded, lost, but there.
Speaking as one.
Leilani tried to breathe, tried to swim, but the water suffocated, smothered, coldly burned her from the inside out, whipping at her limbs until she could only fall and fall, and fall and fall and-
She couldn't-
"You can. You have to believe. Believe you can breathe. Believe you can live. Believe you can win this. Believing is half the battle. Hope, and you win, Lela. That's what Tom doesn't understand. That's what the Sith fail to see. Life can die. Stars die. Civilisations die… But hope survives. Hope, and you win."
Hope-
Yes. Hope.
Believe-
Leilani's head broke the surface, impossibly shallow now, gasping for air and breath and life.
The Mechanical Man, a black-bruise in the Force, stood before her again, tall against the dark horizon, Light-sword lit, raising.
Hope.
Leilani stood, staggering, breathless from drowning, but she stood.
She stood and offered out her hand.
That was hope.
Hope wasn't just insular, about oneself, about circumstance or things one wished were different.
It was about hoping for others too. Hoping there was a better way. A softer way.
A kinder way.
No matter how hard it was, how difficult the path up the mountain may seem, if one had a hand to hold it wasn't so steep, and it wasn't so dark, and it was never lonely.
If given the chance, Leilani would always over her hand over a blade.
"There's still hope for you. Take my hand."
The Mechanical Man roared and-
The earth trembled, the water raised and-
Leilani went flying, through the sky, through the dark, through time and space and-
She landed in dirt. Hot dirt. Burning dirt.
She wasn't alone.
Obi-Wan was there. Anakin too-
Standing on a cracked hillside splattered with boiling lava.
"It's over Anakin. I have the high ground."
There was something wrong here. Something terribly wrong. Leilani could feel it in the air. A heaviness. A darkness-
A darkness swelling in Anakin's yellow-red gaze.
"You underestimate my power."
The voices come then, just three, but so much, so many words, so much anger and loss and grief and hatred, frightening smouldering hate-
Don't try it. I have failed you. I have brought peace to the Republic. My new empire. Our new empire. I am more powerful than the chancellor. I can overthrow him. Together, we can rule the galaxy. Make things the way we want them to be. The way the Progenitor's meant for it to be. Doesn't that sound good, Leilani? The Jedi turned against me. Don't you turn against me. I should have known you'd side with the Jedi, with him, with Obi-Wan. From my point of view the Jedi are evil! Then you are lost! I loved you! You were my brother, Anakin! I hate you! Please, Anakin, just take my hand!
It's too much. It's all too confusing. There was too many things happening at once and-
Tom peered down at her from the side, as he had been in the Chamber of Secrets, young and blithe and malicious, and held out a hand for her to take.
"See? Your hope may keep you ticking, but it won't protect them. This is how it ends, by tearing each other's hearts out. They'll use your hope, eat it up, and leave you nothing but a husk. That's what these so-called Jedi will do to us. Use us as batteries. Of course you can stop it. You could end this before it ever reaches these dreadful steppes. Take my hand, join me, and live."
Tom was learning, Leilani thought. Throwing her own tactics back in her face. It was hollow, though, Tom's hand, in more ways than one. A mimicry. A parody of humanity. He had long ago lost that.
Every Merlin damned shred of it.
"It's not real. It's not real. Stop it, Tom."
He smiled softly.
Deadly.
His offered hand curled into a fist
"Shame. You're going to have to choose one then. You can't save both. Tick, tock, Leilani. You're running out of time."
Leilani glanced up, watched Anakin's legs brace on his hovering plate of metal, watched Obi-Wan's Lightsaber sweep an inch to the side, readying to raise-
Anakin would jump.
Obi-Wan would swing.
One would fall down dead.
"So which will it be? Red or blue? The one stuck in his way, or the one who lost his? Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock. Which one, Leilani? WHICH ONE!?"
Neither.
Both.
Leilani jumped, soared, flew-
She got between the two, and-
She doesn't gasp as the Light-swords slip through her flesh. There was no yell or groan or dramatic whine. There was a hiss of breath, searing pain, Anakin's wide awful yellow eyes, and-
She falls.
And falls.
And falls.
And falls.
And lands on-
A blanket? Coarse and rough spun, but a blanket all the same. A blanket in her tiny room aboard the ship she had fallen asleep on hurtling through space to Ilum.
To Sirius.
Leilani bolted up, glistening in sweat, cheeks salty with tears, and lurched through the dark, out her door, into and down the narrow hallway where she slipped silently into the only other room on that level.
Anakin and Obi-Wan laid slumbering on their own cots, blankets rising and falling with each breath, and there was no black Mechanical Man lurking in the corner of the room, the one with the terrible red Light-sword, and there was no Tom Riddle cackling at the door, wand raised with a Crucio sparking crimson on the tip.
They were fine.
They were safe.
They were sleeping.
Leilani stumbled backward, striking the bolted wall where she crumpled, sliding to the floor, knees weak, folding beneath her like paper caught in a rainstorm.
It was just a dream she told herself.
But Leilani's dreams weren't always just dreams, were they? Sometimes they were something more. It had been a dream that had led her into this mess to begin with, a nightmare of watching Sirius die, running recklessly into the Ministry of Magic and-
Dreams weren't always just dreams, and Leilani, no matter how hard she tried, could not shake the scent of sulphur and magma from her nose.
She and Tom shared... Something.
A connection? A bond?
Something terrible, and if she were dreaming of him again-
Her hand rose, fingers flexing, pulling on the strings of Magic, Force, that weaved this universe together, and watched as Obi-Wan's Light-sword, which had been resting on a small nook beside his cot, silently flew towards her where she caught it from the air.
She kept it in her hand, clasped tight, in her lap, ready and waiting.
And she sat there, in the dark back to the wall, watching over the slumbering figures beneath rough spun blankets.
She wouldn't let Tom Riddle hurt anyone else.
There was only one thing for it.
Obi-Wan Kenobi's P.O.V
When Obi-Wan awoke early in the cycle, it was to the hazy sight of Leilani slouched against his bed chamber wall, his own Lightsaber clasped in a white-knuckled hand by her hip. He slung the blanket off, and gently awoke the girl with a soft shake to her shoulder.
She startled awake, wide-eyed, finger barely retreating from the ignition switch of his Lightsaber as she spied Obi-Wan instead of the threat she was clearly expecting to face.
"Leilani, what is wrong? Has something happened? Did-"
The Progenitor sighed and handed his Lightsaber back with a tired groan and a shuffle as she fought to a stand, wincing at the evident crick in her neck.
"No... No. Fine-... Teach me Force."
Obi-Wan blinked.
"You want to learn how to use the Force? I could begin lessons once we finish searching the Shrouds for-"
Leilani scowled fiercely.
"No. Teach now. Must now. Leilani only know... Pull or push things. Not good enough. More. Must more."
Trepidation fluttered in his gut.
"There is no rush-... Are you sure nothing happened while we were sleeping Leilani? Something that made you creep in here and take watch through the night?"
Leilani's mouth opened, and closed, and opened again. She ended up with a pained grimaced.
"Dream... Black Metal man with Red Light-sword and Tom-... Danger. My dreams danger. Sith. Feel... Sith. Dream Sith. I must learn Force. Must learn better. More. Must protect Obi-Wan and Anakin from Lava place."
Obi-Wan chuckled lightly.
"I can assure you me and Anakin do not need protection from Droids or lava-"
Leilani cut him off severely, coldly, face a slate of something glacial.
The coldest he had ever seen the Progenitor be, despite having seen her bleeding out.
"No joke."
She snatched at him then, wringing her hands into the sleeves by his shoulders, and Obi-Wan felt-
The frantic.
A burning drop and bubble in the Force that made Leilani, a whirling tornado beneath her skin, something that was spinning with no where to go.
Desperation. Complete and utter desperation.
"Must learn Force. Must find Sirius. Must Protect... Dream of Tom... Sith Voldemort. Dream of Sith Voldemort and..."
Obi-Wan, coupled with the sense of touch that allowed him to peak below Leilani's physical form, finally understood.
"You only dream of this Sith Lord when you sense him... And if you sense him after going through the Shroud-"
Leilani's hands fell from his shoulders, leaving a cold empty space behind.
"Tom close. Tom here."
Obi-Wan swallowed deeply.
"Oh dear."
But then his back straightened, tall, confident.
"Then we walk with caution, and I will teach you all I know as we go. However, we are due to dock at Ilum in less then two standard hours. And if this Sith Lord has followed you here he must have used a Shroud has you had. If so-"
Leilani nodded glumly.
"Could be Sirius at Ilum. Could be Tom. He somewhere. One Shroud has Tom. One Shroud has Sirius. Flip of coin. Black or Grey. Peverell Luck strikes again."
Obi-Wan did not understand the reference, but he understood, very well, the perilous path the three of them had found themselves balancing across.
Both ends seemed to have a Sith waiting in the shadows.
One shrouded in mystery, and the other lurking in dreams with the power of a Progenitor.
"I must inform the Council of this. We will continue our search, perhaps we must more now than before, but... Careful. We go carefully."
Leilani sighed, a little bit bashful and bit more regretful.
"Leilani no careful. Leilani more... Stumble headfirst spike-pit Progenitor."
Despite the circumstances, Obi-Wan found himself chuckling.
"Yes, I can picture that quite well. But you must try, and I will teach you what I know of the Force, and we will... We'll find a way. No one's going to get hurt Leilani."
What small promise it was seemed to settle Leilani.
At least a little.
Anakin groaned on his cot, haggled up to a sit, scrubbing at his sleep weary eyes. He spotted the pair across the room immediately.
"Did I miss something?"
Obi-Wan went to reply, but Leilani was faster, surging for the cot and the clearly confused Skywalker wrapped in blankets.
"Give Leilani Light-sword. Sith Voldemort here."
Obi-Wan shook his head.
"Don't give her your Lightsaber. She's liable to poke someone's eyes out with it at the moment."
"Yes! Sith eyes! Poke Sith Voldemort eyes out."
Obi-Wan cocked a brow high, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
"I thought you had only just agreed you would try to be careful and not stumble headfirst into danger?"
Leilani hesitated, back to grinning, back to burning in hot white-light of every colour and shade.
"Carefully poke Voldemort's eyes out?"
Obi-Wan chuckled and turned for the door, Anakin's voice piping up behind him, gruff from sleep and puzzlement and slight petulance.
"None of this has cleared anything up."
Obi-Wan opened the door.
"Come for some breakfast and I'll catch you up."
Leilani, obviously, understood the word breakfast perfectly well, and darted out the door, skirting passed Obi-Wan and down the hall.
"Food!"
The Progenitors, Obi-Wan theorized, needed more nutritional in-put than most, given there increased ability to wield the Force perpetually. To do so would cost great amounts of energy, energy gained by higher levels of consumption.
If the Sith didn't get them, Leilani eating all their rations just might.
Next Chapter: Our intrepid heroes take on Ilum in the search for Sirius, and Leilani finds and unexpected friend hiding in an ice cave...
Yay or Nay?
A.N: THANK YOU all for the followers, favourites and the lovely reviews! I can't say how many times I've read every single one, and I just wanted to thank you all for all your kind words. I hope you all liked this chapter, and if you have a spare moment or two, please drop a review, and I will hopefully see you all soon!