Note: I agreed with MistiWhitesun...the last chapter was pretty rushed. It's been edited a little. :)

A Long Time Ago
10. Changes

Almost a week after her visit to the Temple, Tass was sitting in Art class. Her teacher...the blue Twi'lek who'd she nearly run over once...had told them he was sick of telling them what to do, and just this once they could draw whatever the hell they wanted. His own words.

Tass wasn't having a good day. Language Studies had been horrible, as she was completely useless at it. She'd lost the datapad she used for recording homework, and gotten into trouble for it. Also, she had a stomach ache. Probably the fault of the awful food they served the students around here. Poison.

She stared absently out of the window. It was a foggy day, and a rather cold one too. She could make out the construction workers, with their huge towering demolish-droids, over in the distance if she looked hard. They weren't doing much.

Dekabyn didn't do Art. She was all alone in this class. The girl who sat next to her, a Noorian called Maritia, poked her in the back with a sharp fingernail.

"Tass! You'd better do something. You've just got a blank piece of film."

"Really? I wasn't aware," Tass said with a sigh. She picked up the nearby box of colourfilm, and began doodling. It was better than doing nothing. But when she actually looked at the paper properly, all she saw was a few mishapen blobs. She sighed, and picked up the eraser liquid. She squirted a little too much on.

"Watch it!" Maritia hissed. "That nearly went all over mine."

"Sorry," Tass murmered.

Right, she thought. Do it right, this time. You're meant to be good at Art.

She started drawing. Start with something simple, she thought...

Aritime, the Art Master, came to take a look a few minutes later. Tass hadn't finished yet...in fact, she'd barely even started, although at least she actually had an idea now.

"Looks good," Aritime said to her, looking over her shoulder. "What's it supposed to be?"

"I don't know yet, sir." Tass answered.

"Good...he mumbled vaguely, and moved on to another student.

So far on the film she had very little. There was a planet, two suns in the top left-hand corner, sort of vague lines and circles all over the place...and that was it. She ought to put something in it.

Well, she knew what Darth Vader looked like. She began drawing him in, then colouring it. Then the Queen. Then images from those pictures...the Jedi, the Masters, the Apprentices, the Sith, the Temple...

Luke, as well. She let the dusty picture and the statue merge in her mind, and drew it slowly. He stared out at her from the very centre of the picture. He seemed to be smiling.

It looked pretty good.

So that was how things had been. What were they now?

What were they now?

She drew the view from the Art Room. She drew the Merlin. Then she drew the flower that had been on the tomb. That took the longest...she kept accidently drawing bits wrong, but kept going anyway. Colouring it in with the colourfilm took even longer, but when she stopped and took a look at it, it looked perfect. It looked almost exactly like it had looked on the silver of the tomb, but different, decorated with mistakes.

She felt the sun on her back...she was standing next to a window, after all. The air was covered in dust. Other people were starting to leave, packing their bags and talking to each other. The buzzer must have gone without her noticing.

She signed her painting simply with a question mark, then changed her mind and wrote her name. She propped it up against the wall, and walked through the dust to the door. She couldn't help turning around before she reached it, to admire the painting once more.

It looked perfect.

She left.

When she got home, she felt better than she had all day. Her stomach ache had gone, and she was sure the homework datapad would turn up. No-one else was around, they'd probably all gone out, She collapsed on a chair, and turned the holovision on.

She wasn't planning to watch it for long, since the painting in Art class had reminded her of the project that remained unfinished. She'd written up the notes on the Jedi Temple, and she was very proud of it, but she needed a bit more stuff. As it turned out, she was in luck...on channel 35, there was a programme on about the old Jedi themselves. It had nearly finished, but it looked interesting.

She reached for her datapad. She probably wouldn't take many notes...she wasn't fast enough, by the time one interesting thing had been written down there'd be another one...but she might be able to write a few things.

"In conclusion," the presenter was saying, "it was surely their own arrogance that led to their downfall. It was one of their own who participated in the greatest act of destruction our world has ever known. He might have seen the light and put an end to it, but how many deaths could have been prevented had Anakin Skywalker not become a Jedi?"

Hang on, Tass thought. That doesn't really... But the thought ended there. Maybe the guy was right. Maybe everyone was a little bit right, when it came to History. After all...they hadn't been there. They hadn't been the people who'd done such things. All they really had was lots of guesswork.

A female presenter...a slightly overweight but smiling red Twi'lek...was on the screen now. An image of the old Jedi Temple, the one that was up in the sky, was behind her.

"They say that a single person - unless he or she is in a position of power - does not usually make history," she said. "Yet, in this particular slice of history, we have many heroes, most of whom would have been forgotten by the world by now if not for the parts that Destiny gave them to play. True, we have princesses and queens and 'the chosen one', but we also have one or two ordinary Jedi Knights not on the Council, we have a space pirate and an unimportant Wookie, we have a hopeless and mostly useless Gungan, and perhaps most important, we have an ordinary farmboy, unaware of his destiny, who caused the greatest victory of our age. Maybe Theyare wrong, and a single person can indeed change the course of history-"

BANG.

The door had opened. Tass turned her attention away from the holo. Nerra, Jek and Lelleri had just come in. They didn't call for her, they were yelling at the tops of their voices.

"It's not just that you've let yourself down, it's everyone, what are they going to think of us-"

"They'll think we're terrible parents, to have you doing things like this."

"You? What about me? You're making it seem like I just went out there and...and...and beat somebody up just because I wanted to!"

"Well, didn't you?!"

Tass turned off the holo. "What's going on?"

"This is stupid. I'm going." Nerra said, ignoring her. He turned towards the front door, but Lelleri held him back.

"Tell your sister," she said firmly.

"No kriffing way." He wrenched out of Lelleri's grasp, and since Jek was blocking the doorway, stormed upstairs. Tass stared after him, then looked questioningly at her parents.

"Er..."

"Him and his friends," Lelleri muttered, sitting down on the sofa. "The security forces found them. Arrested them all, apart from the ones who got away. They were beating up a young man. Zarrielli Rinakel, to be exact."

"Stars. But why?"

"Who knows?" Jek said. "We can't get an explanation out of him, and trust me, we've tried."

Lelleri sighed. "Sorry, Tass. I hope none of this is affecting you."

"What do you mean?"

"It's awful to have a family member's reputation rub off on you. I should know. My older sisters...back when no-one here could go to school..." She shook her head. Tass was interested. She knew about her aunts...they lived on Aurea and she'd only seen them once or twice, but she didn't know about what sort of things must have been going on when her parents were younger.

"They didn't do that much," Lelleri said, looking at her. "Got arrested a few times...did stupid, stupid things like dropping glass from high-up places and air-taxi surfing and heaven knows what else."

"Whoa," Tass said. "Was anyone...hurt?"

Lelleri just shrugged at that, and then went to make dinner. When it was ready they ate it in front of the holo, without speaking much. Nerra was still upstairs.

After she'd finished, Tass went to find him. He was, as she'd predicted, in his room.

"Hello," she said, standing in the doorway.

"Go away," he muttered. Then he added, "Please. I really do just want to be alone."

"If you want," she said, and went into her own bedroom. She sat on the bed and reached for a holopad. But before long, she heard Nerra saying. "Oh, all right...I need to explain it to someone, no-one else will listen."

Tass left her room. She'd mostly expected him to do that. He told her almost everything, really. "Okay.."

"It was that...idiot, Rinakel," Nerra said. He glanced at her just for a second, and she nodded. Hard to disagree with that. "I wasn't doing anything. But one of my friends...Rissarae, she's Ket's girlfriend, she's on the twenty-first level...she was talking to him, because her brother knows him or something, and then Ket came along and told him to get away from her, and Rinakel said to Rissa that she could do a lot better than Ket, and...well, they started fighting, and Rissa tried to make them stop and then some of the others joined in and Rinakel hit one of the smaller boys, because he's a coward like that, and everyone just..." He trailed off.

"Just started all hitting him."

"Yeah," he muttered. "We didn't really hurt him. Not that much. Just...one of the others, not me...we sort of threatened to throw him over the edge..."

"Oh, you didn't!"

"No, I didn't. Ket sort of held him over the edge...and he was kicking and screaming but, well, he had to know we weren't really going to let him go."

"He must've been scared senseless," Tass could barely believe she was standing up for Zarrielli, but well...to be looking down, from so high up, knowing your fate rested in an enemy's hands...

"He knew we wouldn't really do it," Nerra said. "That Ket wouldn't really do it."

"What happened after that?" Tass asked.

"Well, the security forces turned up...I actually think Rissarae went and got them, because no-one's seen her since...and they saw, well, they saw Ket pull him back from over the edge and keep hitting him...I swear I wasn't doing anything, not at that point...but they arrested all of us. And Mum and Dad came and got me...and that's it really. Oh wait, no it isn't," he said bleakly. "If the school gets wind of this, which I expect they will, then I've had it. They'll expel me."

There was nothing she could say to that, because he was right. "Maybe they'll give you another chance," she said lamely.

"I keep having chances. I keep blowing them," Nerra said angrily. "I can't stand it here. Mayalri left me, and people treat me...and the rest of us...like dirt, and...it's..."

"Yeah. It's okay. I understand," Tass said, although she wasn't entirely sure she did.

"I shouldn't have beaten him up," Nerra said guiltily. "I should've told Ket to leave him alone-"

Tass agreed wholeheartedly with this, really, but she needed something to say. "I know. But you are only human...I bet lots of people would've beaten up Zarrielli Rinakel. I mean, he's..."

"He didn't deserve that, though."

"Well, no." Tass admitted. "But..."

"There isn't a but," Nerra said flatly. "You're just trying to make me feel better, aren't you?"

"Yes," Tass said. She thought he needed it...she'd never really seen him like this before...

"Thanks," he said.

Tass managed a smile.

"Maybe you'd better go now."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

Tass retreated to her bedroom. She didn't do her homework. She didn't turn on the holovision either. She just thought.