It was getting dark when Karaa really awoke. Her sleep in the slow gloom had been rough and filled by nightmares of red light and glowing eyes, often leaving her writhing in imagined pain. Eventually she found herself returning to the world of the living, mind blurred by her nap as a sorrowful groan escaped her lips at the futility of the situation. Everything was gone, life was pointless and there could be no hope left in the galaxy. Then, all of a sudden, all her senses became alert. Her eyes snapped open, nostrils flared, mind stretched for the tell-tale mental stench of the Dark Side as she bolted upright – to find herself face-to-face with a powerfully built twi'lek with a golden brown skin and a long scar above one eye.
"Wakey wakey." He sounded amused at something even as he stood up from his cross legged position opposite her, with the gnarled tree between them. Karaa reached reflexively for her lightsaber, mind immediately clear as a bell and eyes locked on the stranger. Nobody could trust another in these days of the cruel and dangerous Empire, and this figure was a stranger who had appeared from nowhere. She was angry with herself for letting herself fall asleep like that – she could have been killed before she woke. "Easy." He held up a hand in the traditional gesture for peace but for too long had she been unable to trust people's attempts at such friendliness. For too many times had she been attacked by people who had first pretended peace.
"Who are you?" Her voice was little more than a croak, hoarse and emotionless. Her grief was suddenly forgotten in her wariness at her own situation.
"Name's Rik." He watched her, an unnervingly calm expression on his face as he surveyed the thin, scarred young Jedi in front of him. "Boss says you're on our side, wants to meet you."
"Who's this 'Boss'? And what side?"
"Boss's Katja, she's in charge. An' our side's the one against the Empire – but with the people most important to us and not getting money out of it."
"How can I believe that?" Her face broke into a feral snarl, expecting an attack from him at any moment. He just watched her with that same meditative expression, as though he was seeing straight through her.
"You're a Jedi, so Boss says. Why not reach out just over there – you'll find her, or she'll find you." He waved a big hand over further into the dismal mire through a patch of muddy ground that seemed firmer than more. Karaa closed her eyes, fearful at shutting out the no-doubt dangerous stranger but unable to think of any other answer to her situation. She drew on the Force as it lay smouldering inside her and threw it out like a net – and found something. Another consciousness, full of the Force but without the stench of decay and pain that the Dark Side bore. Indeed this consciousness seemed closer to that of a Jedi: although it didn't have the overpowering and burning light of goodness it seemed to radiate loyalty, strength, control – tempered with loss and wariness.
/Greetings, Karaa of the Jedi/ It was a soft voice travelling through the Force, calm and silky but with a cold, cautious edge as it crossed the gap between them. Karaa didn't know what to do or say: she was muddled, confused, seemingly paralysed by the fear of the unknown that coursed through her. /Trust Rik, my friend, because we need your help./ With that the other consciousness withdrew and left Karaa to decide what to do. She instinctively found herself trusting this other being but she didn't know why – could she truly believe her own instincts after everything that had happened?
"I guess I must…" She realised that she was back to herself and had spoken out loud. Glancing across at the twi'lek she was not surprised to see that he still had that calm meditative expression on his features. "I will go with you."
He said nothing, just nodded and stretch easily, showing a level of muscle that showed a life of hard labour and the scars around his wrist that indicated that he had been a slave. At the same time he seemed to have been eating well – an unusual state of affairs for a slave or indeed anyone other than the heights of society. Karaa knew that she was thin, too thin, but in the state of poverty to which the Empire had driven the whole galaxy she had never expected more. It was in silence that she followed Rik, the mysterious golden skinned stranger, through the dull murk of the swamp. Before her was darkness laden with whispers, behind her the fallen academy was swallowed up by the poisonous teeth of the swamp. Figures moved in the Force, out of physical sight but inside mental reach, and Karaa was heading for them.