I woke in the middle of the night, shaking, grasping for blankets. I was cold, but it was as if the chill had originated inside of me, snaking its way outward, through my blood. There were voices outside, and I crept from my palate, pulling on my tunic as I crawled to the edge of my loft bedroom, peering into the open courtyard below. I saw Jal right away, staring into the darkness. At first, I felt better, knowing that my big brother was there, that he would take care of it. Until I saw his hands. They were trembling. Tears streaked his sun-darkened skin as his lips sought to form words. I followed his eyes to the edge of the clearing. In the starlight, there was a figure clad in dark robes. I heard the faint humming again, what I could only believe was a strange language I had never heard nor encountered in any of my books. I was surprised, as my ears and senses strained to catch all the whispered nuances of this tongue, even as my fear kept me from running to my brother. It was Basic. Only...not.
I had been so entranced by the language that it took me a while to realize the figure had moved from the cover of the forest boundary. I crawled to a better position, my body so frozen with fear I was amazed that my limbs obeyed my command.
The whole of the meadow was framed in my view. Jal and the figure silently faced one another, half the small grassland between them. The figure was tall and slender, wrapped in a heavy black cloak that fell from its shoulders at sharp angles. The shadow of the hood covered all but a narrow white sliver of the neck, which seemed all the more severe against the extreme backdrop. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, if it was either. Our two small, crescent moons lit the clearing with stereo effect as the clouds cleared, casting dual shadows upon the ground.
I was too far away to hear them clearly. Jal spoke haltingly, the words seeming to spill from his mouth without thought, tumbling over one another. The figure motioned back with merely a nod. For a moment, my brother was still. Suddenly, he shook his head with a violent snap, taking a step backwards as he cried out. From the corner of my eye, I could see Father and Mother below me, just inside the door. There were tears in my mother's eyes, but they were as motionless as I was, as if they were afraid to move. Perhaps the same unnamable force that kept me from running to my brother was holding them, too.
My brother continued to back away, stumbling on roots as he tried vainly to escape. His eyes were wild. The figure matched his steps, keeping the distance between them constant. A gloved hand emerged from within the folds of the cloak, brushing the hood back. I gasped, throwing my hand over my mouth, not daring to make an audible sound. The moonlight reflected pale blue from stark white hair pulled back in a high knot, making the finely honed lines of her face seem almost masculine. I couldn't see details, but it was a woman, unlike any I had seen in the small towns surrounding our farm. A shudder passed through my frame as I realized the chill I had felt earlier emanated from her. It practically surrounded her being, muting the glow from her white skin. "It can't be." Below me, my father whispered with hesitancy as if his words would break the spell holding us all, "A dark sider."
I had always thought the Jedi killed all of the dark siders long ago. It said so in every book on the subject in the library, that the light had vanquished the evil that had taken control of the galaxy. In my dreams, I imagined fighting these creatures of the dark, the notion I conceived as goodness overwhelming the enemy. In all my dreams, I had never believed they were real.
The orange flash of Jal's lightsaber brought me out of my reverie. The woman followed suit, the violet beam bathing her face in a ghostly light. My heart caught in my throat.
"It is no use to resist, Apprentice Na'al," I addressed him from the shadows of the forest covering, approaching his position near the center of the clearing.
"N-no!" he stammered.
I stopped, a few hundred steps between us. "Do not make us use your family as leverage. Your brother, perhaps...He is Force sensitive..."
"You..." his breaths quickened, his hands clutching the air at his sides."You can't...you-I would rather die than let you hurt Ashton!"
I felt a smile touch my lips as I nodded, accepting his offer. It took the Apprentice a heartbeat to realize the implications of his words.
He began to back away, his eyes glazed with his impending fate.
When I was still a young girl, I found myself in the dredges of
Coruscant, without food, without shelter. I could feel the pulsing hum of the
city above me, the people of that never-quiet metropolis continuing with their
lives at a dizzying pace. Never once did I feel a thought for those of us living
from their refuse, choking on the dirt from their existence.
I stayed with my father for as long as I could before the vermin of the streets tore me away from his body, eating his flesh as I wailed. I managed to fight them all back, lashing out at the attackers with feral ferocity, tearing out an alien's throat with my own, tiny hands, gouging out another's eyes, snapping a thick, scaled neck. The ones that could got away.
I saw the way they all looked at me. They were broken, slithering fools, content with their stations in this pit of decay. I was too proud for them, and they tried to kill that. Many times I could not fight them off; I was only a little girl.
I refused to be beaten down. I was not like them. I was not scum. I would never succumb to my death like a coward. They all lived their pathetic lives waiting to die, their gaze resigned, as if on the inside, they were dead already, and only their eyes told the truth.
I had seen it many times. It still made me sick.
Perhaps he grew a spine at the last minute. Perhaps he wanted to die with
some honor in front of his family. Whatever the reason that coagulated in his
disjointed mind, the Apprentice stopped retreating, drawing his saber.
The woman was fast. Before Jal could raise his saber in defense, she was upon him. My brother was barely able to bring the saber above his shoulder to block the attack. He shoved her blade away with a grunt, stumbling backwards. He paused, his saber hanging limply in his fist. From across the meadow, it seemed his eyes sought mine and then, he smiled.
His knees bent as he crouched into an attack stance, both hands gripping the saber. With a low cry, he lunged at her afresh, blow after blow meeting with a grating crash at her knees, at her shoulders, over her head. Jal was backing her further towards the forest, his shoulders heaving, every strike enunciated by a growling yell. I had never seen him so perfect, so...driven.
Yet the other blocked each of his attacks effortlessly. It was if she wanted him to attack. I saw an opening. My brother must have seen it too, swinging at her exposed right shoulder with the tip of his blade. I screamed out, "No, Jal! She's le-..."
He turned his ear towards me as he realized his mistake too late. There was a brilliant flash as the blades met, the clash echoing through the meadow. Suddenly, she forced his back with one hand. A boot snapped up, catching him in the chin. Jal staggered backwards, his stance wavering. The pale woman spun the violet-bladed hilt in her hand. There was something very wrong with her seemingly newfound power. Something with the way she lowered into a stance I had never seen before as the bruised light reflected softly from her dark forearm.
The woman slashed across his chest, the thin fabric giving way easily, leaving a smoldering gash on his upper torso and across the tops of both shoulders. Jal slumped over, his shoulders rounding under the pain. He ducked just under the next attempt to sever his head at the neck. Before he could stand again, she tried the same attack, this time meeting his saber halfway. I could see him struggle to hold her blade back from his injured shoulder. With her free hand, she punched him in the face. Again, he staggered back, blood flowing freely down his chin from the broken nose. Feebly lifting his saber again to a defense position, he waited for her fourth attack. It never came.
The Dark Sider had paused, whipping her blade to a guard at her side, the tip just above the ground, following along her straightened leg. Her other hand was still outstretched, as if something had interrupted her.
Jal's mouth worked silently, his arms trembling. He lowered his saber; one hand shot up to cover his nose, as if he had just realized that he had been hit. Coughing, more blood leaked between his fingers.
The other nodded slowly, a look of disgust spreading across her passive features. A moment passed. My chest was burning. I had forgotten to breathe. By the time she plunged her blade through my brother's chest, I was already running through the field, crying Jal's name, my arms outstretched. With a jerk, the dark blade slid from his breast, and he slumped to the ground. The woman peered down at his prone form, nudging it with her foot. She looked up in alarm at my approach. A small smile greeted me, then melted into the shadow of the forest, just like she appeared. I stared after her, tears streaming down my face as I stood at the foot of my brother's body.
Mother wept for days afterwards, refusing to leave the side of Jal's bed.
Her apron was still stained with his blood from holding his head in her lap as
my Father tried to tend my brother's wounds. I knew none of it would do any
good. The look in Jal's eyes told me the truth: his brilliant brown eyes wide,
mixed with a tinge of blood.
They insisted on leaving his room as it was, placing his saber on his pillow as if he would come back some day from a long trip. Mother even set his place at the table.
I promised to never play fight again. I promised my parents that I would forget all that Jedi nonsense. And I kept my promise. I never played again.
The years went by, and another promise haunted my thoughts: I still remember, Jal. I will protect Mother and Father.
When I trained, I trained to kill.
