Chronology: during TPM
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: every place, character, situation that exhibits the unmistakable SW trademark belongs to the 'venerable Flanelled One'. No rights infringment is intended. The story's main character belongs to itself instead, and to the… desert.
Note: That Qui-Gon had already been on Tatooine is mentioned by Terry Brooks in the TPM novelization (pag. 108, hardcover edition). As for the Tusken ambush against Darth Maul, well, he himself gives us an account of it in his Episode1 Journal (pag. 60-62).
A special thanks goes to my beta readers Eleia and Lys73 (wow, I've doubled my audience!).
I dedicate this story to the Sinai 'Sandpeople'. In a magic February night, beneath that starry roof that only the desert can show off, they made me understand the real meaning of the word: 'freedom'.
I dedicate it as well to Iain McCaig who contributed with his fantastic concepts to shape my dreams.
"Amira!"
The Tusken's heads slightly bends, nodding assent.
"I'm surprised it's taken you so long to recognize me, Master of the Living Force"
The breather mask muddies the long lost memory of a clear, fascinating voice. For a moment the Jedi blade seems to flicker. Then darkness swallows it up with a low hiss.
"A… a long time has passed…"
He draws a hesitant sigh.
"I wouldn't even know whether you were still…"
He shuts his eyes closed, raises his chin, as enraptured by the mild night breeze. Wind is talking. Now he can hear it. A light whispering. The distant echo of a bond lost in the time labyrinth.
Her presence in the Force resounds like her voice through the breather mask. Filtered, muffled, distorted. That's why I couldn't recognize her sooner…
"If my memory serves me well they were blue… a transparent blue"
Her words break into his thoughts. He looks at her with a questioning glance.
"I don't understand"
"Your eyes. Now they look… gray"
"Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. It's possible that your present point of view has got something to do with the darkness of the night and the light of my saber…"
An amused expression spreads for a while over his face.
"Once Master, always Master. I see you still manage to draw a lesson of Jedi wisdom from any trivial circumstance"
The sarcastic note does not escape Qui-Gon's notice.
"I wish that were so… You, for your part, haven't fallen out of your habit of wrongfooting people"
They face each other for long, endless seconds, both unable to carry on such a surreal conversation. The Jedi tries to guess which of the expressions that toss in his memories'top hat, hides out under that mask…
"How did you come to know that I was on Tatooine… How did you find me?"
"Your Force signatures glitter like the North Star in a moonless night"
"Signatures?"
"Yours and… the child's"
"Do you know Anakin?"
Amira's silence is packed with answers. Qui-Gon studies her attentively. An impenetrable shield shrouds her mind. Exactly as the gauzes conceal her face.
"You explained how you got to me but you haven't told me WHY…"
"You're being in jeopardy. You, your people, the child. A… an agent of evil wanders through the desert. Last night I ran into him. The Dark Side is strong with him. It blazes like a black fire, I clearly sensed it. He sent out three probe droids. He's hunting something… Someone"
"Us"
"Whom else, Qui-Gon?"
He starts on hearing her uttering his name.
Yes, she's always had a special talent for surprising the others…
"Why do you think Anakin is in danger?"
"Is it possible to ignore his presence? If the Dark Lord gets to you, he'll get to him and… to his powers. Don't underestimate my feelings"
Qui-Gon reflects. A detached glance in his eyes.
"I won't do that. I've never done it. Thanks for warning me"
"I don't do it for your sake…"
Her words plunge into old scars like a poisoned blade.
"Amira, I…"
"No, I must leave. I must return to MY people"
"Wait!"
So many unsaid words, interrupted talks, pending explanations.
"Let me look in your face. One last time… Please"
A wave of astonishment escapes the woman's strict mental control. It strikes Qui-Gon with fierce intensity. Overwhelms his own surprise at the request only just made.
He cautiously makes his way towards her. Feels her tearing hesitation. He is encouraged by that. Within breathing distance he stops. He keeps still, his eyes inflamed by the starlight.
"Amira…"
He brushes his fingertips against the rough surface of the bandages.
No!
A gloved hand grips his and blocks it. A durasteel grasp. For a few seconds only the broken sound of their sighs violates the sacredness of the silence. Then, overcome by a desperate need, Amira's aura overflows its banks. Her presence in the Force starts crackling again like a flame that has long smouldered under the time ashes.
A click marks the opening of the lock that restrains the heavy dressing on the nape. With ritual-like slowness the Jedi's hands reveal the secret of that masked face to the spectral night light. The finely designed lips. The strong cheekbones. The amber-shaded eyes. And that chestnut hair, always at odds with paler strands of sand-blond…
Qui-Gon lightly touches her face with the back of his trembling fingers. Traces them back down along her contour.
The woman shuts her eyes. With ferocious persistency she ignores the plea of the tears.
What on earth got into me? Why am I infringing my people's laws? Why am I showing him my countenance? He's NOT my life mate. Force, he's doing that again… He's trying to take away from me the very little I have left: my identity…
She pushes him back with all her strenght.
"Don't touch me. Never again. You're aware of our laws. You know it's forbidden"
"Forgive me. I didn't mean to humiliate you. I just had the impression you…"
"Shut up! It's all in vain. Can't you see it? Nothing has changed…"
The mental shield is up again. Again it divides off.
"I… I hate you"
The young Tusken's words cast a thick shadow on Qui-Gon's face. They shake the foundations of his proverbial impassiveness.
"Amira, don't. Don't do that to yourself. Hate leads to suffering"
"You are wrong, Master. Suffering leads to hate"
Suddenly she lifts up her gaderffii. Points it at the Jedi. Her hold is shaky though. Unsteady. A defensive position, devoid of any threatening intention. A mere cover for her slow, agonizing retreat.
She draws away from him, step by step, without ever turning her back. Struggling hard against the iron will of every single cell of her body. Against the piercing cry of her skin and memories.
Darkness gradually adsorbs her, blends her shape with the elusive shades of the wastelands. Until nothing is left over but sand, rocks, silence.
A man remains alone on the edge of the desert. Motionless like the stones scattered around. With a deep sigh he tries to loosen the grief's grasp. Then lets himself go on his knees and shutting his eyes he welcomes the soothing embrace of meditation.
§
A silent dialogue goes on the night breeze's wings. Questions, answers. Questions again. Two souls try to communicate without ever listening to each other. So many unsaid words, interrupted talks, pending explanations…
What a mistake, Amira, tearing you from your people, from the broad physical and mental expanse of the desert, from the fierce freedom coded in your genes… But it was impossible to ignore your presence. It called us with the yearning intensity of the Force pursuing the Force.
What a mistake, Qui-Gon, trying to tame what's untamable, restraining my spirit, bending it to the rules. And to the discipline. What a mistake tearing me from the reassuring arms of the desert…
Yet you were the brightest Initiate of the Temple. Determined. Brave. Insightful. A powerful mix of istinct and control. I'd have chosen you. I'd have picked you out as my Padawan if my failure with Xanatos hadn't undermined my reserve of trust and… hope. Everything would have been different… maybe.
If you only had picked me out as your Padawan… who knows? Things would have come to a different end. Perhaps. Or perhaps not.
I admired you. You knew it. I admired your stubborn indipendence. Your proud defiance to the dictates of the Code and of the Council.
Your rejection splitted open the first crack in that wall of control that I had built up to protect myself from the storms raging inside.
Master Ashur turned out less irresolute than me and chose you without reserve. His inclination towards the contemplative sides of the Jedi life seemed to counterbalance your intemperances, to smooth your sharpness. I still wonder why everything ended this way… Where's the Force led us? What's it brought to us?
…Eventually the Force restored the natural order of things. It returned me to my people.
You were twenty. A brilliant curriculum. The Trials just round the corner. Sending you on mission to Tatooine was a blunder.
Tatooine, the last, fatal mission. The Council had staked on my istinct and my Tusken blood… Mastering dissimulation techniques was a basic requirement for an intelligence task in such extreme conditions.
A long trail of blood was staining the galaxy. A ferocious feud amongst Hutts for the control of the slaves trading. Some reports pointed to this forgotten planet in the Outer Rim as the stronghold of one of the involved clans. The Supreme Chancellor had finally made up his mind to turn to the Jedi Council for help in a covert intelligence operation.
Everything had seemed to go off smoothly till that Tusken group attacked us… Humming of sabres. Sand. Dazzling light. I can stil see the scene: a green blade… Mine. It sears through the chest of a Raider… I can still feel the tearing sense of something breaking inside. Irreparably.
Master Ashur and I were assigned the task. The Council deemed it necessary to send our Padawans along. Hardly an understandable decision...
It had been a perfect team work. A fully successful mission. Till the clash with the Sandpeople… Amira, why couldn't you forgive yourself? You killed, right. You killed in defence of your Master's life. Why couldn't you grant your conscience an appeal? I can still see your eyes freezing: a hard stone look taking over. I can still see them loosing their warm sweetness. Once and for all. I can still see your shake, your stare at the fratricidal hand. And your flight…
The second crack in my wall of control…
I ordered Obi-Wan to take Master Ashur, badly hurt, back to the ship. And started looking for you. I hated myself for not being able to foresee the attack, to protect you, to spare you the lacerating choice between two contrasting loyalties.
I was no longer anything. Pulverized like sand. Like sand I got lost in the desert. But you managed to find me. Your notorious compassion. Your sense of honour…
I tried to make up excuses, to justify my frantic search advancing noble pretextes…
Your compassion tracked me down. That very compassion turned a pitiful hug into a desperate embrace…
The Living Force led me to you. And… love. How dear it has costed to admit that… Love drove me over the limits fixed by the Code. And forced me to reveal myself. I pressed my body to yours and silenced that foreboding of loss that besieged my mind.
Can you still see it, Amira? Can you still feel it? The fire. The stars. The cool breath of the desert. My robe wrapping our bodies…
…Till down broke in with its burden of innocent blood…
We saw the twin suns rise. Their beams casting the thick shadow of a new group of Sandpeople. I feared a new attack. I had to defend you. I had to protect you…
A handful of Tuskens was watching us from a rise over our camp. Still. Impenetrable. With the suns lazy rise they moved towards us. But they weren't bloodhunting. They were looking for me… They wanted ME. Only me...
I just wanted to defend you… I just wanted to protect you…
You killed my mother. Before my very eyes. A mother bent by twenty years of loneliness. By a loss that no Force in the Universe could have soothed. She was just trying to get back what had been taken away from her…
They had sorrounded me, cutting me off from you. I didn't think rationally. I used my istincts. And tragically blundered. Only that silent farewell, projected through the Force by a dying mother, made me understand what I had done… What I'd done to you.
And together with her, you took away from me the very little I had left: my identity…
I didn't know. I couldn't know.
That memory has haunted my conscience for years. Your glassy stare: hateless, sorrowless, compassionless. The damned slow movement of your hand while releasing the sabre's hold to deliver it to the oblivion of the sand…
The sentence had already passed, Amira, hadn't it? No debate. No defense. Not even a trial. You condemned me. And more than me you condemned yourself.
But I was reborn. Reborn among the sweet smells of the hubba gourds ripening in the oases. The windy symphonies of the canyons. The fickle play of light caused by the endless chase of the twin suns…
When a Tusken looses his faithful Bantha he goes into exile in the desert, until the spirits of the dunes direct him to a honourable death or to a new wild mate. A mate to get back to his own clan with...
I lost what was dearest to me too. I also suffered exile and faced death. I finally returned. And found a new dignity in my people's embrace. Then, suddenly, you have reappeared. With your wizard-like whispers. With your power of evoking angels and ghosts. Nightmares and dreams…
A part of me died. Died in the very moment the desert claimed you and tore you from your life, from my life. And now, after so many years, you come back to me with your dark warnings and everlasting pain. To run away again, unpredictable like the way the wind is blowing in these thirsty wastelands. Without even asking my reason for coming back to Tatooine… Why?
I know what has driven you here. Perhaps more than you do…
To be continued
Feedback is welcome, but again, not too "wude", please: I'm from the outer rim and don't fully master basic ;)
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