67. First Of The Fireworks
20th day, 4th month, standard year 24941
So, Alex saved my life.
As soon as I reached the Temple - dirty and wounded and in need of a shower- I told them what Alex had done. They nodded, were very polite and oncerned about the whole thing, and sent me off to get cleaned up.
I asked them to make sure Alex got something, in return for the risks he took. At the time, they just nodded and said they'd see to it- and today they have apparently changed their minds.
They told me. They said that it would do nothing for the greater good, giving money and help to people, criminals like Alex. I explained the whole thing. I said I might be dead by now. They just didn't care.
I threw an extremely childish temper tatrum, fortunately not in front of them, and Master praised me wholeheartedly for doing so.
"They have it coming," he said.
"Have what coming?" I asked, feeling ashamed of myself by then despite his approval.
"It." he said darkly. "There's always an It."
An It with a capitial I. Oh, I don't know, diary. They're not right, the people-maybe-Jedi sitting up there in that tower, while the Force flows in the ground that's so far below, and covered in metal. I just don't know. If I had money, I'd give it to Alex. I broke a promise to him. He'll never forgive me. Or them.
My leg hurts a bit.
The Council, Them-with-a-capital-T, are giving me a few days of rest. I'm free to do what I want. Within limits.
11th day, 5th month, standard year 24941
Today was Tahl's birthday.
When I think about it, I'm amazed we still celebrate birthdays. The Jedi, I mean. Some of them-us-don't even know who we were born to, so why should it matter when we were born?
Jedi aren't really born, anyway. It's force-sensitives that are born. Jedi themselves...come from somewhere else.
I bet I sound like Them. I bet they talk about these things, when they've nothing else to talk about.
Isn't it just childish, calling the Council Them? Yoda heads it, for pity's sake. One of my teachers. My Master's master. He deserves more respect than this.
Maybe just not from me.
Vulna came round sometime this morning. Didn't have very much to say.
Me and Tahl- we went to a fairground. Just because we could. Coruscant's fairgrounds...
They're packed full of people, bickering parents and screaming kids, people trying to take in everything at once and people just standing there looking at the lights, shrieking people on the rides...there's one which plummets right down a couple of miles into Coruscant's dark side, snaking around the skyscrapers- there's junk everywhere, loud music, dark corners- and I honestly can't think, or couldn't think, of anywhere I would rather be.
Metal and people. The silent and the screaming. There's Coruscant for you.
Me and Tahl sat on a bench. They were letting fireworks off somewhere in the distane.
"You ever get the feeling..." Tahl said thoughtfully.
"What?"
"That this isn't going to be here forever? All this...stuff?"
There is a lot of Stuff in the world. A lot of it goes unnoticed.
"What do you mean?"
She shrugged.
"I dunno. Honestly, I don't. I just get feelings sometimes, about...people. About whether one day I'll wake up and realise everyone in the world has a thoroughly evil side, and the first thing they'll do is rip this place down."
"Oh."
"Sorry, not being very eloquent here, I know."
We changed the subject. That was only a tiny piece of the conversation that night.
Productivity Day, standard year 24941
Went to Didi's cafe, and didn't do very much while there. I can't even remember why I was there. Wait, of course I can- we were investigating drug dealers on Coruscant. And Didi always has something to say about...everything. Good source of information. And a decent person. Just not a very good cook.
In between bites of pie-of-some-kind, he filled me in on everything that had happened recently.
"The jewelery shop across the road," he informed me solemnly, "had a dead body fall through the ceiling last night."
"Really?"
"Oh, yes. They said he'd been strangled. Or looked like it. Horrible things...always deaths in this city, always will be."
And he's right, of course, the murder rate seems higher than it ever was before.
5th day, 6th month, standard year 24941
My birthday.
No cake.
I think that was somewhat selfish.
30th day, 6th month, standard year 24941
Today I (and Tahl, and Vulna, without our masters) leave to go somewhere far, far away, to a planet no-one pays a lot of attention to. It should be interesting. There hasn't been a mission for me in a while.
In other news: went back to the fairground. With Tahl, again. We went during the day and not at night this time. It seemed different, and not just because of that. It was bleaker. And there were fewer people there, because there weren't any fireworks being let off this time.
It's time I left. I'm taking this journal with me, just in case.