III. Familiar Strangers
She woke screaming.
When the Jedi Master flew into her room, Cathleen barely even noticed. All she could see was the hideously scarred being who had been trailing her through the mists of her nightmare. It wasn't until she felt Qui-Gon's large hands shaking her that she came to her senses.
*He's yelling my name,* she realized dimly. "I'm okay, I'm okay," she gasped.
"Your nightmare woke me." His gust of a sigh drew Cathleen's attention to the fact that he had sat down next to her on the bed, with one arm warm about her shoulders.
"All the way from your own quarters?" she asked, pulling away nervously.
His chuckle was more of a hum. "It would seem I am becoming better attuned to you than other Jedi who've encountered you. Perhaps it has something to do with the nature of my connection to the Living Force." Even in the dim light, she could see how the lines of age and strain around his eyes softened as he smiled at her. "Or it may simply be that my dreams took the same path as yours tonight."
She clutched the blankets in her lap as tightly as she did her guilt. The reason her Force signature was so dim, she knew, was because, like the Yuuzhan Vong of the most recent novels, she wasn't of this galaxy. But if she admitted that, it would be back to the Council for her, to field another few hundred questions. Mustering up the most innocent smile she knew how to give, Cathleen quietly thanked Qui-Gon. "I hope I didn't wake up Obi-Wan, too."
"It would take a stampede of banthas to wake that one," he laughed. Then he rose, and gave her a short bow. "Cathleen, I must apologize for the Council's treatment of you since you arrived. And for mine, in particular. You were entirely correct, we should have asked you what you wanted before making assumptions about you."
And just like that, he was gone.
Belatedly, it dawned on her that he'd been clad only in loose drawstring trousers. Too bad her nerves had prevented her from properly admiring him. Then she giggled like a teenager when she looked down at her own thin brown top, something like a cross between a sports bra and a camisole. It was a little cool in here, and she'd been scared. No wonder Qui-Gon had left so suddenly.
The remainder of her dreams left her still blushing in the morning, despite the lingering chill from her nightmare.
* * *
She sat as still as she could manage in the front room of Master Yaddle's quarters. That the tiny alien was over four hundred years old, but could still sit cross-legged without her knees crackling, irritated Cathleen to no end. The room was as Spartan as she'd once imagined it might be, with low, gray cushions taking the place of couch and chairs, and a single, small table less than a foot high. There were no decorations on the walls. The Master's only concession to beauty seemed to be an intricately carved bookcase in one corner, built from some sort of golden brown wood.
Cathleen wisely refrained from asking how on earth the diminutive Master reached the books on the top shelves.
There was a long silence after they were both seated. Finally, Master Yaddle began. "Spoken with me, Master Jinn has." Her voice was as rough as Yoda's, but much softer, almost a whisper. "A scholar of tongues, you are."
It took her a moment to realize that Yaddle's comment was actually a question. "Yes, Master Yaddle. I've studied many of the languages of my homeworld."
Yaddle harrumphed and fell silent again. Cathleen waited, not wanting to try such long-lived patience. After several endless minutes of nothing, though, she had to shift to keep her legs from falling asleep.
"Thinking you learn quickly, yes?"
The confusing question caught her off guard. "I do pick up other languages pretty easily...."
"Read." The book Yaddle pushed to her across the table had come out of nowhere. Cathleen suspected that there was now a space on one of the shelves in the corner bookcase, but she didn't dare take a peek.
She looked at the title on the cover. It was written in what seemed to be a calligraphic form of Aurabesh, but she muddled it out. "Uh..._The Broken Philosophers_, by Jedi Master Mon-Torun Mahel." When Yaddle didn't ask her to stop, she went on to the first page. It seemed to be an eyewitness account of the very beginning of the Sith order! By the time Cathleen was halfway down the second page, she had all but forgotten she was reading aloud to a Jedi Master she'd once seen concept sketches for.
"Enough." Yaddle's voice, soft though it was, immediately broke Cathleen's rapture. "A new lettering system, you have learned, in four days."
She smiled at the praise.
"Satisfactory, it is," Yaddle grunted.
Cathleen's smirk melted. Apparently, four days was anything but satisfactory.
"It is to Jedi, I am accustomed. But you will do." Master Yaddle was four hundred years old--and then some--but she rose quicker, Cathleen thought resentfully, than she should have been able to. "Assigned to the Library, you will be. These languages, you will learn." Yaddle handed her a sheet of flimsiplast, on which was a listing of seven different languages. "In need of adequate translators, the Temple is."
As she stood up, Cathleen's own knees gave out a sound not unlike applause. A cheering section, she supposed, to get her through the mountain of work she'd just been given. *When four hundred seventy-seven years I reach...*, she said to herself, but refused to finish the thought.
* * *
**Week 2, day 5: And just like that, the spell is broken. Reality rears its ugly head.
As a high school teacher, I'm certainly no stranger to shouldering responsibility; but here, I thought I had the chance to really start over--to start living for myself for a change, rather than being beholden to someone else's needs. Now I find myself hard at work for the Jedi Temple.
I suppose the rub is that they expect me to be a Jedi, too. Or, at least, to live by their standards.
No, what it really boils down to is that I'm still furious at them for what they pulled a few days ago. I just can't believe that Qui-Gon Jinn, Master of the Living Force and lover of lost causes, set me up with that little "I'm getting you out of here" routine. A sign of trust, my ass.
Am I going to live the rest of my life here looking over my shoulder?**
* * *
The two Corellian dialects were close cousins to Basic; their syntax was a breeze compared to Togorian. Having no articles like 'the,' or 'a' wasn't new to her, but why the total lack of personal pronouns? The Gand language Cathleen decided to leave till she'd developed at least a basic understanding of all the others. She wasn't even sure how to pronounce half the words in the insectoid speech.
The speed-learning headset that stuffy Ithorian librarian had recommended was on the verge of putting Cathleen to sleep when something caught her eye. So far, the only Zabrak she'd seen among the vast array of species represented in the Temple had been Master Eeth Koth. The horned man that had just crossed her field of vision was nothing special, but his appearance set off alarm bells in her mind. Not bothering to turn off the droning autoteacher, she pulled off her headset, ignoring the glares of the beings in the adjacent booths. Silently asking herself what she thought she was doing, Cathleen dove into the aisle next to the one the Zabrak had disappeared into.
The shelves were lined with both hardcopy books and downloading ports. She shoved her portable reader into her tunic and hoped. Pulling a book off the shelf, she tried to peer through the space that was left. He was still there, all right, fiddling with what looked like a smaller version of Cathleen's reader. She took another book randomly, prayed to whichever god looked out for James Bond, and rounded the end of the aisle.
If she had stumbled across Ray Park in the middle of an Episode I makeup session, he might have looked like this. Except here, it was the horns that looked real, and the unmarked, bare skin that looked rubbery. He was clad in a simple worker's coverall of the same neutral gray as an initiate's tunic. Her eyes went to his hands; the gloves he wore would, at a glance, pass for pale skin.
He looked up at her from his reader, and her stomach plunged. His eyes, a familiar fire, threatened to mesmerize her. She suddenly remembered herself, and blindly grabbed for another book. But as she edged past him, muttering a hasty apology, she thought she saw--
No. Skin wasn't supposed to ripple like that.
She woke screaming.
When the Jedi Master flew into her room, Cathleen barely even noticed. All she could see was the hideously scarred being who had been trailing her through the mists of her nightmare. It wasn't until she felt Qui-Gon's large hands shaking her that she came to her senses.
*He's yelling my name,* she realized dimly. "I'm okay, I'm okay," she gasped.
"Your nightmare woke me." His gust of a sigh drew Cathleen's attention to the fact that he had sat down next to her on the bed, with one arm warm about her shoulders.
"All the way from your own quarters?" she asked, pulling away nervously.
His chuckle was more of a hum. "It would seem I am becoming better attuned to you than other Jedi who've encountered you. Perhaps it has something to do with the nature of my connection to the Living Force." Even in the dim light, she could see how the lines of age and strain around his eyes softened as he smiled at her. "Or it may simply be that my dreams took the same path as yours tonight."
She clutched the blankets in her lap as tightly as she did her guilt. The reason her Force signature was so dim, she knew, was because, like the Yuuzhan Vong of the most recent novels, she wasn't of this galaxy. But if she admitted that, it would be back to the Council for her, to field another few hundred questions. Mustering up the most innocent smile she knew how to give, Cathleen quietly thanked Qui-Gon. "I hope I didn't wake up Obi-Wan, too."
"It would take a stampede of banthas to wake that one," he laughed. Then he rose, and gave her a short bow. "Cathleen, I must apologize for the Council's treatment of you since you arrived. And for mine, in particular. You were entirely correct, we should have asked you what you wanted before making assumptions about you."
And just like that, he was gone.
Belatedly, it dawned on her that he'd been clad only in loose drawstring trousers. Too bad her nerves had prevented her from properly admiring him. Then she giggled like a teenager when she looked down at her own thin brown top, something like a cross between a sports bra and a camisole. It was a little cool in here, and she'd been scared. No wonder Qui-Gon had left so suddenly.
The remainder of her dreams left her still blushing in the morning, despite the lingering chill from her nightmare.
* * *
She sat as still as she could manage in the front room of Master Yaddle's quarters. That the tiny alien was over four hundred years old, but could still sit cross-legged without her knees crackling, irritated Cathleen to no end. The room was as Spartan as she'd once imagined it might be, with low, gray cushions taking the place of couch and chairs, and a single, small table less than a foot high. There were no decorations on the walls. The Master's only concession to beauty seemed to be an intricately carved bookcase in one corner, built from some sort of golden brown wood.
Cathleen wisely refrained from asking how on earth the diminutive Master reached the books on the top shelves.
There was a long silence after they were both seated. Finally, Master Yaddle began. "Spoken with me, Master Jinn has." Her voice was as rough as Yoda's, but much softer, almost a whisper. "A scholar of tongues, you are."
It took her a moment to realize that Yaddle's comment was actually a question. "Yes, Master Yaddle. I've studied many of the languages of my homeworld."
Yaddle harrumphed and fell silent again. Cathleen waited, not wanting to try such long-lived patience. After several endless minutes of nothing, though, she had to shift to keep her legs from falling asleep.
"Thinking you learn quickly, yes?"
The confusing question caught her off guard. "I do pick up other languages pretty easily...."
"Read." The book Yaddle pushed to her across the table had come out of nowhere. Cathleen suspected that there was now a space on one of the shelves in the corner bookcase, but she didn't dare take a peek.
She looked at the title on the cover. It was written in what seemed to be a calligraphic form of Aurabesh, but she muddled it out. "Uh..._The Broken Philosophers_, by Jedi Master Mon-Torun Mahel." When Yaddle didn't ask her to stop, she went on to the first page. It seemed to be an eyewitness account of the very beginning of the Sith order! By the time Cathleen was halfway down the second page, she had all but forgotten she was reading aloud to a Jedi Master she'd once seen concept sketches for.
"Enough." Yaddle's voice, soft though it was, immediately broke Cathleen's rapture. "A new lettering system, you have learned, in four days."
She smiled at the praise.
"Satisfactory, it is," Yaddle grunted.
Cathleen's smirk melted. Apparently, four days was anything but satisfactory.
"It is to Jedi, I am accustomed. But you will do." Master Yaddle was four hundred years old--and then some--but she rose quicker, Cathleen thought resentfully, than she should have been able to. "Assigned to the Library, you will be. These languages, you will learn." Yaddle handed her a sheet of flimsiplast, on which was a listing of seven different languages. "In need of adequate translators, the Temple is."
As she stood up, Cathleen's own knees gave out a sound not unlike applause. A cheering section, she supposed, to get her through the mountain of work she'd just been given. *When four hundred seventy-seven years I reach...*, she said to herself, but refused to finish the thought.
* * *
**Week 2, day 5: And just like that, the spell is broken. Reality rears its ugly head.
As a high school teacher, I'm certainly no stranger to shouldering responsibility; but here, I thought I had the chance to really start over--to start living for myself for a change, rather than being beholden to someone else's needs. Now I find myself hard at work for the Jedi Temple.
I suppose the rub is that they expect me to be a Jedi, too. Or, at least, to live by their standards.
No, what it really boils down to is that I'm still furious at them for what they pulled a few days ago. I just can't believe that Qui-Gon Jinn, Master of the Living Force and lover of lost causes, set me up with that little "I'm getting you out of here" routine. A sign of trust, my ass.
Am I going to live the rest of my life here looking over my shoulder?**
* * *
The two Corellian dialects were close cousins to Basic; their syntax was a breeze compared to Togorian. Having no articles like 'the,' or 'a' wasn't new to her, but why the total lack of personal pronouns? The Gand language Cathleen decided to leave till she'd developed at least a basic understanding of all the others. She wasn't even sure how to pronounce half the words in the insectoid speech.
The speed-learning headset that stuffy Ithorian librarian had recommended was on the verge of putting Cathleen to sleep when something caught her eye. So far, the only Zabrak she'd seen among the vast array of species represented in the Temple had been Master Eeth Koth. The horned man that had just crossed her field of vision was nothing special, but his appearance set off alarm bells in her mind. Not bothering to turn off the droning autoteacher, she pulled off her headset, ignoring the glares of the beings in the adjacent booths. Silently asking herself what she thought she was doing, Cathleen dove into the aisle next to the one the Zabrak had disappeared into.
The shelves were lined with both hardcopy books and downloading ports. She shoved her portable reader into her tunic and hoped. Pulling a book off the shelf, she tried to peer through the space that was left. He was still there, all right, fiddling with what looked like a smaller version of Cathleen's reader. She took another book randomly, prayed to whichever god looked out for James Bond, and rounded the end of the aisle.
If she had stumbled across Ray Park in the middle of an Episode I makeup session, he might have looked like this. Except here, it was the horns that looked real, and the unmarked, bare skin that looked rubbery. He was clad in a simple worker's coverall of the same neutral gray as an initiate's tunic. Her eyes went to his hands; the gloves he wore would, at a glance, pass for pale skin.
He looked up at her from his reader, and her stomach plunged. His eyes, a familiar fire, threatened to mesmerize her. She suddenly remembered herself, and blindly grabbed for another book. But as she edged past him, muttering a hasty apology, she thought she saw--
No. Skin wasn't supposed to ripple like that.