Master Shya'Pwa walked slowly at the girl's side, watching her carefully and keeping a constant eye on her emotions through the Force. For the moment, she appeared calm, though Myerra knew that it was a complete front.

The girl had tight shields in place so that any casual passerby would not pick up on the turmoil she was feeling inside. But Myerra had been given the ability to see through that facade of calm, to see that the girl was being positively torn apart by the anguish she felt ripping at her very core. It was clear that she had barely even begun to grieve, and was still hardly out of denial.

Myerra sighed. It was not as if she didn't feel the loss of Ni'Karyem deeply as well... She had not at all lied to the girl when she said that they had been very close; there had been a time when they spoke of a life together. That dream had failed to come true, however, when Ni'Karyem decided it was time for him to train the girl. Oh, how he had loved that little girl...

Myerra watched her slightly from the corner of her eye, and smiled as suddenly a memory came back to her.



** eleven years before **



Ni'Karyem gazed over the table at the woman sitting across from him and smiled. His eyes absorbed how hers were diligently locked to the datapad she was studying, and how her right forefinger tapped the table lightly with her concentration. He laughed outright at this, catching her attention.

"What are you laughing at?" she asked lightly, allowing only a slight bit of mockery in her tone.

"You," he replied, grinning. "You're fidgeting again. You always fidget when you're thinking about something. It's cute."

She simply raised her eyebrows in response and gave him a wry smile. "If you say so."

"And I do," he replied, grinning at her

She grinned back, but returned to her work. A few moments passed in complete silence from the man, so Myerra looked up again. She noticed Ni'Karyem was staring to one side, completely consumed by whatever he had discovered. "What is it, Ni'K?" she asked. "What do you see?"

Suddenly, the man's face broke out into a profound smile. "D'you see those young Initiates getting their meals over there?" He pointed but did not take his eyes off them, apparently transfixed. Myerra nodded. "See the little girl, the third one in the line?" He paused as Myerra nodded again, sensing something strange about the girl but unable to determine exactly what. "The brown-haired one with the bright green eyes... That's my daughter." His expression was overtaken by a father's proud grin. "Isn't she the most beautiful little girl you've ever seen?"

Myerra smiled back, her eyes sparkling as she observed the love with which he watched the little one. "That's Renala?" she asked softly, and he nodded. "She's breathtaking, Ni'K. Even from here, I can see you in her. She's beautiful."



**

Myerra blinked, instantly coming back from the memory. That young, ingenuous little girl was before her now, her mind entirely different, and clouded with anger. The Master would not have even believed it was the same girl, if not for the identical Force signature. That, and the trace of Ni'Karyem permanently embedded in the signature as well.

Myerra watched the girl carefully, and smiled as she saw bits of her lost love in his daughter. She looked so much like him, though he had always claimed otherwise. Myerra remembered him and knew that the girl had also inherited his bright-eyed grin, and silently wished she could prove it by making the girl smile, if only for a moment.

She knew that the girl had also inherited Ni'Karyem's heart; she had seen that through the years they had both spent with her father. But the same debris that had crushed and killed Ni'Karyem on that terrible mission had fallen over the girl's heart as well, leaving her cold and angry.

Now it was time for that to change. The Force had called for Myerra to carry the girl through her trial, and then train her. The Master knew that by true nature, the girl was honest, passionate, and a hard worker. But because of what happened, she had become violent, vile, and even dangerous. She had already seriously wounded, in one way or another, almost a dozen masters. Who knew what else she was capable of?

Myerra had been the first one to ever get this far with her. She had sliced through the tirade, somehow coming out still unharmed in the process. For she bore something that the others had not- the bidding of the Force. It gave her some amount of control over the girl's mind, even without her permission, allowing Myerra to survive her first encounter with the girl unscathed.

Then, unlike many others, she had the sense to talk to the girl about Ni'Karyem. Myerra had told Renala that she and Ni'K had been close, knowing that it would get her attention, and promised to talk about him over dinner. Much to the surprise of most Jedi they had passed in the halls, the girl had agreed.



Soon they found themselves at the entrance of the Master's Dining Hall. Renala looked into it, watching the older initiates bustling around, serving one last group of diplomats that were visiting the Temple. Her eyebrows furrowed, and she turned to Myerra.

"You can't take me in there, the Council would have your head. There are ambassadors in there."

Myerra smiled at her slightly and said, "No, it's alright, so long as you're here with me. Just don't cause any trouble, and there won't be any trouble." The Master reached up and put a hand on the girl's back, gently pushing her in.

Renala jumped immediately at the contact, her eyes narrowing as her jaw set firmly in place. "If you like your arm attached to your body, lady," she said, "you'd better not touch me." Myerra replied with nothing, simply nodding her head toward the door and stepping inside. The girl sighed imperceptibly and followed.

It had been years since she had been inside. Looking around, she noticed it was still very much like a restaurant, where ambassadors or older Jedi went when they were seeking a quiet meal. Patrons were waited on by initiates, working there for a lesson in humble servitude. This was something that all initiates had to do, and worked under adults that had grown up in the Temple but had not been chosen as apprentices. Renala remembered her own days there and her adult mentor fondly as she looked around, and she almost smiled. It was certainly much more peaceful and welcoming than the main dining hall...

The girl followed Myerra to a lone table in a quiet part of the room, where the conversation of the foreigners was but a distant and almost ambient noise. They both sat down, and before long, a serious-looking young boy of perhaps 10 years was standing before them. "What can I get for you this evening?" he asked smoothly.

Myerra glanced across the table at Renala, who didn't appear to be listening and was instead transfixed by the sharp knife near her plate. Picking it up, she turned it over and over in her hands, completely oblivious to the look she was receiving from Myerra as she ignored the two.

Giving up momentarily, Myerra looked back to the older Initiate and smiled politely. "I'd like a plate of k'tar, and a cup of coffee, please," she said.

The Initiate nodded. "And your Padawan?"

They both looked toward Renala, who continued to ignore them both in favor of the knife. After a moment, Myerra spoke for her. "Chicken broth, and..." she searched her mind, trying to remember what would tempt her to coat her empty stomach yet would also remain in it. With a start, she remembered Ni'Karyem recounting how when they were on Earth he had given her chocolate chip pancakes, something her teenage Corellian stomach could always easily manage, when she was either sick or upset. Deciding this would be her best shot, she turned her eyes back up to the Initiate. "And chocolate chip pancakes, please," she said, but didn't notice as the Initiate nodded his head and turned to leave.

For as the words had rolled off the Master's tongue, the Padawan had flinched at them and the memories they held, jerking so suddenly that the knife in her hands had come down on her fingers, nearly slicing them open. Fortunately, the Master had sensed it before it happened, and the blade now levitated in the air about a foot away from the girl. Myerra glanced back for a moment, seeing the boy had already left, then looked back to the girl, frowning. "Be careful, Renala," she said.

"No, you be careful!!" the girl responded, her eyes made of ice. "I didn't come here to play your games. You said you were going to tell me about my Master."

"And I will do so," Myerra replied. "But first you will eat something."

The girl scowled. "Alright, fine, forget this," she said, standing up. "If you're not going to, then I'm outta here." She turned immediately and started to leave, walking angrily away.

Myerra frowned, recognizing the stubbornness, and knew it was time to get the girl's attention again. "Your Master," she called out. "He loved you very much."

Hearing this, the girl spun around, the anger gone and replaced with an indignant gaze. "Who are you to say that?" she demanded. "You never knew him."

"That's not true," Myerra disagreed. "I met him just after facing my trials, and we became close. You were still just a little girl. Both of us would go and watch you spar everyday, don't you remember, Renala?"

The girl frowned, honestly trying and almost recalling those days, and in almost succeeding, walked back to the table. Not yet ready to believe, she stood before the woman, frowning and resisting the urge to put her hands on her hips. "How old are you?" she asked, her voice filled with doubt.

"Thirty-three," Myerra replied, meeting the girl's eyes evenly to reinforce that she wasn't lying.

Still, the girl's eyes narrowed with definite doubt. "Master Ni'Karyem was thirty-seven when he left me." She blinked for a moment, and Myerra braced herself, almost expecting the girl to begin crying. The moment passed, however, and the girl's steely gaze returned. "You couldn't have been in any of his classes," she accused.

"I wasn't," Myerra agreed.

"Then how did you know him?"

Myerra sighed. The girl was so desperate to challenge her; why couldn't she just accept that she was not the only one that had ever meant anything to her Master? No, Myerra understood the pain she was feeling. She knew what the impact of losing Ni'Karyem had been, and she knew that right now, all she had to do was get the girl to trust her. Easier said than done...

"Sit down and let me tell you," Myerra said, and was rewarded with an angry look. However, the girl did sit down, fold her hands, and wait for the Master to begin.

"A long time ago..."



*

"Instruments say a snowstorm's coming," Zirs said, glancing at Myerra.

She nodded silently, looking around the building at all of the Jedi historians located inside. One of the two assigned to protect them, she sighed. In this already dangerous environment of Hoth, fabled to be home of much ancient history of the Sith, a storm could be very threatening to their mission of research. Myerra looked back to her companion, Zirs, and met his eyes with a look of worry.

"The Force does not give me a good feeling about this storm," she said. Zirs nodded.



"Generator's blown! Power's gone out, along with our defenses! Someone has to go out and fix it!" Zirs looked to Myerra. She was the younger of the field Jedi, the least experienced. If there was a problem inside while the other was gone, it would be best for Zirs to be the one to handle it.

Knowing this, Myerra nodded. "I'll take care of it." Grabbing her lightsaber, she headed out.



The air was well below freezing, the wind whipping all around, hurling ice and snow in every direction. The young Knight wrapped her cloak even tighter around herself, desperate to maintain any warmth she still had coursing through her veins. When the power had been cut and they were left defenseless, the possibility that it was an attack was too great for her to spare the time to retrieve any snow gear, and though her Jedi robe blocked the wind from her body, it blew her hood straight away from her face, leaving her only to work with her Force senses.

She reached the generator with only minimal trouble, and knelt down to work on it. She sensed someone behind her and figured it was a stray historian, someone doing field work who was caught in the storm. She turned around, saying, "It's dangerous out here, hurry inside!"

But before the words could even fully roll off her tongue, she realized it was no Jedi. As she reached for her lightsaber, the intruder struck her sharply across the face with something, knocking her to the ground in shock.

She blinked, wiping the blood on her face quickly away from her eyes, and trying to steady herself with the Force. She reached for her lightsaber lying in the snow not far away, as the unknown warrior swung a huge weapon in the air, and prepared to strike.

But he never did. Before he had a chance to complete the swing, there was suddenly a lightsaber through his middle. He went limp immediately, his weapon falling to the ground, useless.

Myerra looked past him to the one holding the lightsaber, a tall man who promptly switched it off. As she watched, he pushed open the heavy Jedi sub-zero cloak he was wearing, attaching his lightsaber to his utility belt, and looked over to her. He strode the few steps forward, bending down and offering a hand.

"You must be Myerra Shya'Pwa," he said, grasping her hand and helping her to her feet. "I'm Ni'Karyem."

She simply blinked at him for a moment, trying to take in this unbearably handsome stranger, as well as fighting off the terrible chill that had come over her from landing in the ice and having her hands exposed to it for so long. But then she nodded, and asked quietly, "What just happened?"

"Oh, him, you mean?" Ni'Karyem asked casually, glancing back to the body in the snow as he placed a hand on her back, leading her back to the shelter. "That was a Jedi Hunter. I watched him cut your power and wait for you to come out, and then waited for him to attack. Once he did that, he was too distracted... Nice, easy target."

"That... that... that was a Jedi Hunter?!" Myerra asked, fighting very hard against the chill and her own disbelief at how she, barely a Knight, could have survived such an encounter.

"Myerra, you're freezing," Ni'Karyem said, frowning and ignoring her question. "Here, put this on." He made a move to take off the heavy cloak, but Myerra spoke.

"No, no, it's dangerous out here and you've been out here longer than I. You need it," she protested. "But you saved my life, thank you..."

"Not if I let you die, freeze to death, I didn't!" he countered. "Put this on," he said again, though this time a bit more insistent, and took the cloak off his shoulders, carefully draping it around the woman's. He kept his hands there for another moment, holding her still while he inspected the mark from where she had been struck. "You'll be alright..." he said. "But let's get you back to the headquarters."

She nodded, looking down at the ground, and made a move to start walking forward. He did not, however, and she turned to see why. He only grinned at her in response, his good looks striking her as sharply as the Hunter had once again. She smiled back, and they both resumed walking to the building the Jedi occupied.

Once they were there and settled, it seemed like every 20 minutes Ni'Karyem came back to see how she was healing, offer any assistance, nod and return to his work.

Myerra just grinned.



*

Myerra noticed that as she told her story, the anger and hurt disappeared from the girl's eyes, leaving them so clear that the Master felt as though she could stare right into her young soul. When Myerra spoke of Ni'Karyem's chivalrous rescue, she could have sworn she saw those eyes sparkle, if only for the briefest of moments.

"So you became friends... because he saved your life?" Renala asked. Myerra nodded.

"And not for the last time."

Renala weighed this story in her mind, trying to judge its probable validity. It certainly sounded like something her Master would have been doing, and the woman seemed almost captured by the memory, not at all as if she had made it up. Besides, who would make up such a story merely to get her to trust them, anyway? Certainly no Jedi that knew her would.

Deciding the tale was probably true, Renala carefully nodded and spoke. "Sounds like... an interesting way to meet someone. Master Ni'K usually did have interesting ways of taking care of things. ...I'm... glad you were friends."

Myerra smiled warmly at the girl, extremely happy with how things were going. The girl looked for a moment as if she was going to smile back, but quickly changed her mind and looked down at her hands.

"Are you going to eat?" Myerra asked softly, though one eyebrow rose as she glanced at the food that Renala had yet to touch.

"I'm not hungry."

"I see..." the Master replied, but decided it was neither the time nor place to push the issue... yet. "You must be tired... perhaps you'd like to go home."

"Yes, I would actually," Renala replied instantly, reaching for her robe.

"We can leave in just a minute," the Master added and the girl nodded. "They should have your room just about set."

This caused Renala to stop. "Excuse me?" she asked.

"Your room," Myerra explained. "In my quarters."

The girl laughed, a cold and unhappy sound. "I'm sorry, you're mistaken. I live in Master Ni'Karyem's quarters."

"Not anymore. All of your belongings were moved to mine, and you're to stay with me now."

Any kindness that had set into Renala's features was gone now, quickly replaced by defensive denial. "That's not true."

"Yes, it is," Myerra countered. "The Council has decided it."

The Padawan met her look with something of a blank stare and said quietly, but forcefully, "I'm not going to stay with you."

Myerra sighed inwardly. It was not as if she had expected taking the girl on was going to be easy, quite the opposite, but she wished even just one thing could be accomplished without having to twist the girl's heart around. Still, the ends were more important than the means and any pain Myerra caused now or later was necessary to get the girl to work through the pain she carried with her already.

Of course, none of that would be accomplished in this dinner hour alone. Myerra needed to get the girl to come home. She sighed audibly, deciding it was time to play her final trump card, something she had carried with her for many years.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with me," she said, "under any circumstances?"

"I would never," Renala swore.

The Master shook her head. "That's a pity. Your fa..." Myerra stopped the word in time and corrected herself. "Your Master was going to give you something after you passed your trials. I have it now, but I was going to give it to you when we got back to my quarters."

This angered the girl even more, that Myerra might have something of Ni'Karyem's. In that heat, she retorted, "Anything you would have, no! I don't want anything from you!"

"Not even this?"

As the Master reached into her pocket to retrieve it, and her hand wrapped around the smooth surface, her mind grasped a memory from long ago that quickly consumed her thoughts.



*

"I'm so sorry, Myerra, but it has to be."

The young woman just nodded, working too hard to hold back the sobs to say anything in response.

Ni'Karyem reached out and pulled her into his arms, knowing through their bond how hard she was trying to understand and not to cry. He held her there, stroking her hair and apologizing as her small form shook slightly, the tears threatening to come. After a moment, he pushed her gently back so that he could look into her eyes, brushing his fingers softly by them to wipe away the few teardrops that had escaped.

"Myerra, I love you. You know that. But things are too complicated right now, Renala and I are almost never here... there's talk of sending us to Earth... and I must concentrate on her training, she's my little girl..."

The young woman nodded, looking down to avoid his eyes. He sighed, suddenly reaching into his robe and pulling a small object out. He took one of the woman's hands in his own, placing the object in it. Myerra drew a breath in, the warmth and presence of it surprising her. Ni'Karyem spoke again.

"Yes, my Padawan stone. A Jedi's most prized possession, for it has become a part of himself. I want you to keep it." Myerra looked up and met his eyes now, as he continued speaking. "Keep it until her Knighting Day. Then we will give it to her, and be together again."

Myerra simply nodded, a fresh wave of tears coming at this promise. Ni'Karyem pulled her close again, allowing her to cry now freely into his tunic. He just held her there for a moment, treasuring the feel of her in his arms. Still, he knew it had to end. Gently, he kissed the top of her head and whispered, "Until that day... I am going to miss you."

He released her, turned, and left.

Myerra simply stared after him, turning the stone over and over in her hands, silently weeping.



*

The girl was staring at her, dumbfounded by what she saw in the woman's hand. She knew immediately what it was, instantly recognizing it from so long ago. She reached out carefully and ever so slightly was able to sense traces of Ni'Karyem's Force signature embedded into it.

"That's... that's..." she stumbled, in shock at the sudden feel of her Master's presence where she had not realized it was there to try and sense it before.

"Yes," Myerra said. "It's Ni'Karyem's training stone."

"Can I... can I..." the girl was still unable to articulate her thoughts.

"Can you see it? Yes. You can have it, along with many other things he left behind with me, if you come to stay with me."

The wheels turning in the Padawan's head were nearly visible as her thoughts churned. She certainly did not want to go with the woman, knowing she would try to train her. But the padawan rock... That would be the closest she would come to having him back with her...

Myerra watched the girl carefully, sensing she had almost won her over. "I also have his old Knight's robe... it might be a bit big for you, but not uncomfortably so..."

That was the last push the girl needed, and she nodded. "Alright... I'll leave with you. Just... don't try to replace him," the girl agreed but threatened.

Myerra simply nodded, promising nothing. "We can leave then. Here, take this," she said, handing her the stone. She missed its feel immediately but sensed the calming effect it had on the girl and knew it was now serving a greater purpose.

She stood, reaching for her robe and putting it on, watching as the girl did the same. She nodded toward the exit and Renala started walking subconsciously to it, preoccupied with studying the stone in her hand.

Myerra cast one last glance at the untouched food at the Padawan's plate. The girl was starving herself in her grief, barely consuming enough to keep herself alive. Myerra would have to change that.

But first, she needed to get the girl to her quarters and accustomed to her new home. That was the immediate task.

Myerra allowed herself a small smile, walking out of the Dining Hall. She sensed Ni'Karyem's spirit behind her, silently approving. His unseen presence assured her that she was doing the right thing, and she moved forward, determined to continue training the girl.