The same disclaimers apply. Please give feedback. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Impossible Bargains

"… were phased out of the regular training due to the fact they can't deflect more modern weapons such as blaster bolts. However, they can be useful in situations that are close combat, where blasters can only be used at point blank range. I've asked Knight Suul to assist me with this demonstration. Knight Suul?"

Raven stepped forward, her quarterstaff held loosely in her hands. "This is a typical quarterstaff, roughly a palm's width taller than the height of the wielder. As you can see, it has been smoothed and covered with a sealant to keep it from warping in damp climates as well as making it more capable of absorbing bolts. The ends are slightly larger than the rest of the staff, making it easier to maneuver and giving it more weight. As Knight Ackro said, it was phased out of regular training due to its failings, and it is becoming more uncommon in the secondary weapons training."

The initiates sat on the floor of the arena, most looking incredibly bored. All Jedi were required to have a proficiency in lightsaber and another weapon. It was the demonstration day of sorts, where the various weapons were presented for initiates to try out, eventually to make a decision on the subject. Raven glanced at Eavan who merely raised one eyebrow eloquently. Raven fingered the staff in her hand and made a small gesture with the other, indicating to him that she would strike. Perhaps a little shock would draw the initiates out of their reverie.

She snapped the end of the staff from the floor to the heel of her hand, using that point to lever it towards Eavan. A thrust of her arm shot the other heavy end towards his stomach. The red-haired Jedi deflected it away with a deft sweep, attempting to make a thrust of his own. Raven side-stepped, twirling her staff between her hands. She could sense the unwavering attention of the initiates and gave Eavan a small smile, her eyes glinting impishly.

They fell into an easy rhythm of parries and dodges, spins and thrusts, a dance to show the advantages and disadvantages to the weapon. After what Raven judged to be about fifteen minutes, neither Knight gaining purchase on the other purposefully, she signaled him again, indicating that she meant to make one last major sweep on him, to end the round. Eavan nodded minutely. Raven made a final thrust, similar to the one she started the match with, but instead of merely propelling the staff with her palm, she grasped it, pulling the quarterstaff into a swing with the full force of her arm muscles behind it. Eavan dropped at the last moment, saving his skull from the impact, to the collective gasps of the initiates.

"That would have been kill point," Raven said redundantly, since the expressions on the initiates faces made it obviously that they were aware of what just occurred. Dropping her staff, Raven helped Eavan back to his feet as he rubbed one of his ears ruefully.

"I can still hear the whistle," he commented. "Thanks, Raven. Now, we have another example of weaponry, the glaive…"

Raven picked up her quarterstaff, her part done, and began to collect her tabard and outer tunic, shed in anticipation of the exertion. When she stood from collecting her things from the floor, utterly forgotten by the initiates behind her in hopes of another demonstration, Raven became aware of the man standing in the doorway. As she approached him, he said, "You haven't been up to see me, Knight Suul."

The dark-haired Jedi shrugged. "I still have a week's leave, sir," she replied deferentially. His face was noncommittal, but his temper, for a Jedi, was legendary. Raven was not sure what game he was playing, because she couldn't come up with a reason that he would approach her before her leave was over. Raven doubted that Forre would bring up Nat; that was Council's territory, a political minefield, as deplorable a job they were doing to take care of it. IntCorps didn't involve itself in such things. Its members merely collected data and ran missions requested of it. Politics weren't important enough to ask whys when risking Jedi lives, as Ruso saw it.

"I know, Suul," he replied, his raptor face going blank. He indicated that she should follow him as he left the arena.

***

They walked together a few meters from the arena in silence as Raven pulled her tabard and tunic over her head. She adjusted her utility belt to rest over the beige garments. The Jedi Knight could sense her superior's attention, even though he wasn't directly watching her. She rubbed one of her fingers against the smooth surface.

"What happened, Raven?" Ruso finally said, turning to look at his subordinate.

She stopped walking as he did, looking down at the floor. "What's there to say, sir?" she replied, glancing at him. "I've already explained the situation to Master Windu. The Council wants nothing to do with the situation. It might as well not have occurred." Raven was startled by the use of her first name. The IntCorps was a structured group, of rules and protocol. Rules were followed, titles were used. That's just the way things work.

"Damn the Council!" Ruso spat back. "I asked you what happened, not those Hutts upstairs."

Raven's calm broke for a moment, her face flashing through pain and betrayal before becoming emotionless again. "What do you want me to tell you?" she returned, her voice breaking once. "What do you want me to say? You already know the story. The entire Temple knows the story. You've known me since I was apprenticed to my master. You handpicked me to serve on your IntCorps. You can read me better than anyone in the Temple save two," she stopped, shook her head, and gripped her quarterstaff until her knuckles turned white, "one. Save one."

"And you thought the worst was over," Ruso sighed in response. Raven glanced at the shorter Jedi, her expression indicating that she understood what he meant. Her throat constricted, and her breaths became laborious. Her captain put a hand on her arm, searching her half-turned away face. "Raven, find someone to talk to about this. I know you're in agony, I can see it in your face."

Raven shifted away from him, breaking the contact. "I will do my duty as a Jedi," she replied quietly. Then, she looked at him, her green eyes glinting as though burning from within. "But more than that, I will not allow another Jedi to die, if it is within my power to save him."

Ruso's mouth worked for a moment as he considered what she said, but he could come up with no suitable response. After a few heartbeats, he turned away instead and began moving down the hallway again. The Jedi Knight followed, her quarterstaff clicking quietly on the tile as she used it as a walking stick.

"I have four options that I can see," the IntCorps officer said after the silence had consumed a few minutes. "I can either reassign you to a new partner, move you to the Special Operations division where you can work solo, promote you to a supervising position, or dismiss you from the Intelligence Corps completely. As I see, the first and the last options are pretty much out of the question. What would you like me to do? I have to write the recommendation to be reviewed this afternoon."

The shrug he received in response was noncommittal. "I trust your judgment," was the only reply Ruso received, Raven's voice flat and unwavering.

"That, all things considered, is a miracle."

***

Once Raven had quit Ruso's presence, she went to her rooms. For the last few days, her mind had been filled with images and memories, thoughts that cascaded against each other without end. This morning, though, it had been as though all had been wiped away. Raven merely felt an emptiness, the acknowledgment that something that had existed within herself, perhaps trust, but more likely something larger than that, was gone.

The Jedi Knight removed the loop from her hair which had held it back from her face during her spar with Eavan. She found a brush and ran it through her tresses, loosening them from her scalp. Then, she went into her bedroom and changed out of her sweaty things, into a sleeveless, white unitard, a garment that hugged to her from her ankles to her neck, as an undergarment and then a sleeveless tunic of thick, soft green fabric that fell to her ankles, divided on the sides for easier movement.

She pulled her hair from the neck of her tunic, and it fell down her back, past her shoulder blades. Raven left her utility belt on her bed with her more traditional robes, taking with her only a candle.

Raven left her rooms again, making her way quietly and barefooted through the hallways of the Temple towards the Hall of Remembrance. The halls en route seemed unnaturally quiet to Raven's ears, although she wasn't paying much attention to the journey. Then she found herself before the large doors leading to the Hall.

The doors were large, towering over three meters from the floor. They were made of some kind of wood which had its origins on Coruscant before it had been completely covered. They had scrollwork around the inlayed panels which depicted Jedi lore; the funeral pyre, the scattering of ashes, the lighting of the eternal flame.

Feeling infinitesimal, the Jedi Knight took a deep breath, placing her hand against the smooth wood of the door. She closed her eyes, absorbing the feel of the wood, the silence of the area, the cold of the tile on her feet, and then exhaled as she pushed open the door.

The walls of the Hall were covered with squares of marble, each about fifty centimeters by fifty centimeters. Each was deftly hinged, impossible to see or open unless one knew the trick to it, and that concealed the Jedi's ashes with another compartment for mementos other Jedi wished to leave to one's memory. Attached to each of these marble squares was a small circular bracket, a holder for a spherical oil lamp. Part of the journey to becoming a Knight was maintaining a vigil here for five days, fasting and meditating and keeping the lamps filled with oil. There was a padawan here someone, keeping the same rites that she too had undergone, but that was not the point of her visitation here.

Raven moved through the hallway, feeling the Force guide her to her destination. She traversed a few of the circular stairways leading higher into the tiered hall, coming to a stop in front of a square not unlike all of the others.

Tears sprang to her eyes as she turned to face the square. She knew what it would say before she read it, but still the actual act comforted her. Raven took her slender, pointer finger and traced the words engraved on the marble:

Emrys Teve
Initiate to the Jedi Order.

On the next lines were the sacred words, the Jedi Code:

There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no death, there is the Force.

Her lips moved silently as she traced those letters, intoning what she had said and learned many times over. Once she finished, she carefully lit her candle from his eternal flame and knelt before it, cupping the flame in her hand.

The candle, inevitably, became to melt, and the wax trickled down the side, spreading onto her skin. Raven felt the prick of the heat, the flash of pain on her palm as she cupped the candle, but ignored it. It was a spiritual discipline, one of the highest honors a Jedi could give another, burning a candle down to a nub from the other's eternal flame. Time passed as Raven cradled the flame, focusing on its light, feeling the ache of her palms each time the wax spread beyond the solid puddle it made of herself. Soon, it was a white splotch covering the entirety of her palm, and the candle went out, the wick spent.

Raven swallowed, her legs protesting as she shifted from her kneeling position. Her eyes were dry, although they had not been consistently so during the process of burning her candle. She stood and then carefully peeled the dry wax from her palms. Once finished with that painful task, taking care to bring the remains of the candle away in one piece, she studied the imprinted of her hands left on the wax.

A part of me in exchange for the part of you that will be with me always, she thought solemnly as she found the catch to the hinged door. It swung open silently, and, with a sigh, a silent moan, that caught in her throat, she left the remains of her candle and part of herself with Emrys for always.

***

'"People fear death even more than pain. It's strange that they fear death; life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over."'

Raven glanced up from the kneeling position she had resumed to see her master standing to her side, cupping a mug of something in her hands. Daré looked back placidly at her padawan, unblinking. "Who said that?" the dark-haired Jedi finally asked.

"I don't know," Daré shrugged. She crouched down next to the younger woman and proffered the mug. "I coerced this tea from Master Dooku, so you had better appreciate it. I hope he teaches that padawan of his about the merits of good tea, if he accomplishes nothing else."

"I didn't know you were on such intimate terms with him," Raven replied, taking the mug and enjoying the subtle warmth that flowed from it.

"I didn't know him at all until he started corrupting your views of politics and the Jedi," the Jedi Master winked, "but he and I have joined forces to rally against our Council. Unfortunately, to date, we've been utterly unsuccessful." Daré sat down completely next to her former padawan.

"Cailín, I know you are in much pain."

Raven studied the mug in her hands for a long time, absorbing the abrupt change of subjects and the wash of emotions it brought with it. She watched the shadows dance across the floor from the countless flickering flames within the Hall. The pattern of light and dark was never the same on the floor, always changing, constant only in its inconsistency, the never-quite-balanced equilibrium between light and dark.

The Knight shuddered and stood, still gripping the mug in her hands. She moved to the edge of the walkway which overlooked the lower levels of eternal flames and ashes of Jedi dreams. Daré watched her shift but made no attempt to move after her. Instead, she just watched and observed, carefully assessing any one of thousands of pieces of information about her former padawan.

The dark-haired woman reached down in an instinctive move to where her light saber usually sat on her hip. However, it was still clipped to her utility belt in her room. She sighed, crossing her arms instead. "When I became a Knight," Raven said finally, her words soft and slow in coming as she gave each word great thought before giving it voice, "I gave an Oath, one that is sacred to what the Jedi Order is, for what each individual Jedi stands. I promised that my actions would contribute towards the goals of justice and peace, that I would only use my blade to defend, especially those who are weaker than I."

By this time, Daré had stood, moving to stand slightly behind Raven's left shoulder. She watched as her padawan reached for her lightsaber again, as though her hand had already forgotten the feel of it, its absence. "I pledged to show compassion and be fair, to do my duty as was dictated by the High Council of Twelve. I promised to form no attachments. I vowed to be a Jedi."

Silence fell again, and Daré's hand strayed to her own lightsaber. Memories came back of Raven's Knighting Ceremony and of the Jedi Master's own. The Oath to which Raven was referring was taken on one's own light saber, the idea that you were Oathing yourself to something you had built with your own hands. No Jedi is forced into his role; it is a life that he builds, alone, from infancy to Knighthood.

"Yet I failed in the most important, the most base ideal of the Jedi Order. I did not defend someone who could not defend himself. And because of that, he lost his life. I lost a friend, but what about him? He lost his innocence, his implicit trust, his life, because of me. Saying I'm in pain doesn't begin to describe it."

The Jedi Master placed a comforting hand on her padawan's shoulder, following her gaze out into the large room, lined with walkways and plaques and flames. Saying nothing, for sometimes there are no words, Daré merely existed with her padawan for a long time, feeling her emotions and sending soothing waves through the Force to quiet the turmoil within the younger woman.

Eventually, though, Raven pulled away, moving quickly down the walkway before Daré had a chance to react. She watched as the dark-haired Jedi went about halfway down the walkway, before the younger woman turned to face out into the Hall again. The Jedi Knight drew back for a moment, then Daré watched in shock as she leapt over the small marble railing down three stories to the main floor. Although she had to have used the Force to slow her, Raven still hit hard enough to land on all fours, her bare feet slapping against the marble. A wash of pain, physical pain, accompanied the landing, but then Raven was back on her feet. Daré watched her disappear, deeply concerned about what she just witnessed.