To charm school drop-out: I made it younglings, because I bought a Star Wars Attack of the Clones book, and it said in there that young Jedi candidates who have a lot to go through before being chosen as an apprentice or anything are called Jedi younglings. They even have clans. In Attack of the Clones, when Obi-Wan was looking for a planet, and Yoda was teaching a class? That class is called the Bear Clan, and they're called Jedi younglings. I really research on them, yah know. ^_^
Anakin stood by the glass window, staring at the elevated structures and vehicles rush by outside the praxeum. He was quite shaken up after Lunaris' father had come for her, and after she told him everything that happened when she had impermanently left the Order, he vowed to keep a closer watch on her after that.
"He has been sent back to the Peace Brigade. They know what to do with him," Tahiri had told him when he asked her about it.
Still, he couldn't stand to see her so affected by her father's return for her. His mind flashed back to a recent episode, a few weeks ago.
Anakin woke up to the sound of his apprentice's voice from her room. He thought she might've been talking in her sleep.
But the Force told him otherwise. He sensed that she was more than just sleep talking.
He quickly put on his robes and ran up the stairs to her room. As he burst through the door, he saw his apprentice on the balcony ledge just outside her room, her eyes shut, waving a non-existent lightsaber. The wind was blowing violently that night, and Lunaris was small and light. The wind could easily toss her over the edge.
She seemed to be dueling with someone in her dreams; he could see her duck an imaginary blow, and make a smooth comeback that made her opponent fall on his back, with the tip of her lightsaber barely centimeters away from his neck. Even in her sleep could he see his training on her had been well learned.
Anakin didn't know why he didn't go after her, or woken her up from her trance. Instead he just watched his Padawan from the doorway.
But then, after a split second, he couldn't see her on the ledge anymore. It took him a precious few moments to figure out that she had jumped from the balcony. He slammed open the glass doors that separated her room from the balcony and without thinking, jumped down after her.
He used the Force to increase the speed of his fall without hurting any of his bones and landed on the ground below just in time to catch Lunaris in his arms. His knees buckled under the sudden weight, and slumped to the ground, breathing a sigh of relief.
Anakin was so lost in thought that he jumped when a hand touched him on the shoulder. Vaping moffs! He turned around to find himself looking up into his Uncle Luke's familiar age- and scar-roughened face. "Did I disturb you?"
"Not really. I was just thinking about Lunaris." Something in his voice echoed the concern and worry he had been feeling for his young Padawan lately.
"Because of her father's sudden...invasion here?"
"It's more than that. It's about her father, but not just that." He turned to look back outside the window.
"What do you mean?"
"I went to her after her father came here. She told me about what her father did to her when she went to see him, when she promised me she'd come back. She told me that she had been physically abused, and that he'd threatened to find her and literally lock her up if she attempted escape." Luke remained silent, so he let on. "The thing is, I don't even know if I should be feeling concern or anything for her. I shouldn't let my emotions get in the way of being a Jedi or using the Force, should I?"
"Anakin," Luke began. "If this concern of yours for your Padawan affects the way you move or the way you continue your duties as a Jedi, then you should use the Force to help you ease it away. Also, this is a matter that involves both you and Lunaris, and one way to help her get over it is if you help her, you being her Master. I don't see anything wrong with having any concern for her."
Anakin pondered on this for a moment. "It's been haunting her in her dreams, too."
"How do you know?"
"Remember when I caught her just in time, as she was falling from her balcony? She told me afterwards that the person she was fighting in her dreams was a tall man in a black cloak, with a hood over his head. He was a Jedi, she said, because he had a lightsaber, and he knew how to use it well. She succeeded in defeating him, because she had made him fall on his back on the ledge. But when he did, the hood fell off his head, and the man underneath it was her father."
Luke's brow was furrowed. "And?"
"She was stunned, she said. And before she had time to react, her father swung his leg around, making her lose her balance and fall as it hit her leg. I noticed that her robes were singed at the edges, so I asked her if her father had swung his lightsaber below her. She said that he had, but it didn't hurt her because she jumped up just as he was about to hit her feet, but he burned the edges of her robes as she did. It's kind of puzzling, but I know it was traumatic for her, though she hides it pretty well."
Luke thought for a moment. "She really needs your help now, Anakin. Don't think twice about your concern for her being wrong. Use the Force to help her heal those memories."
Anakin mulled over this. "Thanks, Uncle Luke," he finally said.
Luke just smiled again. "I'm not quite done yet, Anakin.
Anakin grinned sheepishly. "Sorry."
"I was hoping on sending both you and Lunaris on a mission, but since you're uneasy about her, I thought I ought to give it to someone--"
"No, Uncle, let me have it. If Lunaris doesn't want to, I can ask Tahiri to come with me." A small blush spread across his cheeks as he mentioned her name.
"Alright. This could also be one way to help Lunaris forget about her father for the moment, if she is willing to go."
"I thought so, too. What is this mission about?"
Luke pulled out a small gadget. It was round in shape and had curved lines fused on three places on the outside. Luke pressed a button, and a hologram of a young man with a peculiar scar on his forehead. "Over four millennia ago, a Jedi named Exar Kun turned over to the Dark Side. He was foreseen to be a great Jedi Master, but impatience and an extreme curiosity for the Dark Side drove him to explore Onderan, where he freed the spirit of Freedon Nadd, an ancient Sith who then told him through disembodied commands to go to Korriban, the Sith mausoleum back then. There, the Sith spirits tried his resolve and crushed his body underneath a pile of heavy rock. They gave him a choice: to die a Jedi or to live a Sith. Finally, he chose to live a Sith, and garnered a lot of Dark Side power he would never be able to have as a Jedi. He then apprenticed Ulic Qel-Droma, a former Jedi turned Sith lord, and together they recruited unleashed a plague that the galaxy would never forget.
"Finally, a joint Republic and Jedi taskforce came to Yavin 4 to capture Exar Kun. He knew he could not survive the attack, so he summoned his dark side energies and trapped his consciousness into the temples his Massassi warriors had built for him." (A/N: These lines have been taken from the starwars.com databank. They belong there, not to me.)
"Exar Kun…" Anakin tried to recall the familiar name. "Wasn't he the spirit who took over Kyp Durron when he used to be trained at the Jedi temple on Yavin 4?"
"Yes, that's him."
"What does our mission have anything to do with him?"
"When Exar Kun went to Onderan, there were two scrolls he found that guided him inside the burial grounds of Freedon Nadd. Freedon Nadd has not been destroyed or banished yet, so he returned to his burial grounds and there he waits now while guarding the scrolls that will lead to his freedom. If anyone finds the scrolls, another Sith reign may start anew."
"So you want us to destroy the scrolls and the spirit of Freedon Nadd on Onderan?"
"You learn fast, Anakin. Soon, you may have to take my place as Jedi Master." Luke looked appraisingly at his young nephew. "Unfortunately, it's not that easy. There is already a Yuuzhan Vong base near the location of the burial grounds, where the crypt and the scrolls are located, and there are quite a number of beasts and Dark Side creatures you have to destroy before you get to the burial grounds itself. There are a whole lot of other obstacles you have to overcome before you are able to destroy the scrolls."
"How do we destroy Freedon Nadd himself?"
"His life is written on the scrolls. Once you destroy them, so will you his spirit."
"I don't recall an Onderan somewhere in our galaxy."
"I'm going to have to research on this, but I'll tell you as soon as I've located it."
Anakin gazed thoughtfully at the holographic figure of the man before him. "I'll take it."