-- Chapter 2: Seeking answers, for questions unasked --

Revan spat blood out of her mouth and closed her eyes for a moment to stare up at the sky as she thought about the visit. He had lived after all... Revan expected that he'd have died for what he did, then. But he hadn't… which spoke something of his past and future. And as they were kids, well she sighed, that was a different story altogether.

"Milady!" Two large eyes stared into the face of several rakatans, "are you injured?"

The first one sighed and started to berate the younger one who had spoken: "of course she is, you fool! Otherwise, Dahius, why would the Lady Revan be lying on the ground in this condition?"

Revan was suddenly grasped under the arms and lifted upwards into the arms of another ratakan. Her stomach nearly rebelled at the action and she pushed Luo away from her as she was held from behind, vomiting her meagre meal from when she had left her friends and Carth had abandoned her.

"Ooh!" Revan collapsed onto her side before any of the ratakans could catch her. Her teeth were chattering and her vision was dimming, even though it was only mid-day.

"We must bring her to the Elders. They will be able to heal her…"

Revan barely heard Luo as he picked her up gently into his arms once again and started down the path to the Elders' village.

"No," she protested, "I've got to get away from everyone…"

"Perhaps, Dahius spoke up, in his deep voice, "but first, we must take care of the Lady Revan as we promised too before you left for the Star Forge.

"I… wait, what are you talking about?" At least that's what Revan had tried to say, though barely a mutter was all she could force through her mouth as the darkness closed around her.

"Hey, Revi, wait for me!"

The small boy raced after the laughing girl, his face set in a determined frown as he ran after the six year old girl.

"Make me!" Revan turned and stuck her tongue out at the boy, giggling as she ran backwards down a hill. She kept running further, unaware that the seemingly safe field was a deathtrap waiting to be discovered.

"Sir! There's a young girl and boy playing on the mine field!"

The report caused Mandalore enough interest to turn around to regard the Mandalorian scout. "Is that so, Canderous?"

The younger Mandalorian nodded, "yes, Sir… What would you have us do with them?"

"Leave them. If we go out there and stop them from playing, then we'll end up playing consequences that we cannot pay right now."

Canderous looked around him before he grabbed his uncle's arm, "but they're children! They'll die is they stay in that mine field!"

Mandalore regarded his nephew coldly, "and tonight, when we attack? What would happen if they die?" "This is a war, Canderous, people die no matter how old or young they are."

Canderous growled deep in his chest and tried once more to save the little children, "they haven't done anything to us yet, Sir… they're innocent as of now. And if we captured them, we could train them. That young boy's a mandalorian, you can tell by the look of his features."

"Really…?" Mandalore turned to look at the earnest young man before him, and decked him easily winding his nephew.

"Take a squad out and retrieve the children, but I shall be lenient with you no more!" Mandalore hissed in Canderous' ear and dropped his nephew on the ground, booting him in the ribs before he left.

"I shall obey, Mandalore…"

Canderous winced and jabbed a medpac into his leg as he glared at his uncle's departing back and spat blood from his mouth. "But one day, your title will be mine."

Revan had not even paused at the odd lump in the field, but he had. He looked at it curiously and started to dig around it carefully. What he found was no treasure to behold.

It was a mine and not only a mine but a highly explosive devastating mine that would create a mini crater enough to hide a small shuttle craft in right where he stood should it be set off.

"Hey, Revan, wait up! It's not safe!" He started to gingerly pick his way to her side as she reached the cliff and teetered on the edge of another oddly misshapen lump buried in the ground.

"Why?" She turned a curious glance at him as she stopped and looked at him, confusion spread across her face. "It's perfectly fine out here, there aren't any animals around right now and sides' we're armed anyways."

She patted the blaster rifle that was slung in a sling on her back, and the small vibro-dagger tied around her leg. True that no six year old should carry these weapons, but Revan was no particular six year old and when one lived on Deralia, you always armed yourself no matter where you were going.

She took a step to the right and her foot crunched squarely done on the mine even as he shouted in denial.

"No! Revan!" Time seemed to pause for an eternity and then the mine blew. He made a grab for her sleeve as the fire raged across the open field. He had just gotten a grip on her sleeve, when a stronger, presence from behind him pulled him away, ripping what little part of Revan's sleeve he had managed to grasp.

"Hey, kid, you're going to be okay now." A rough voice spoke to him as he squirmed in the stranger's arms.

"No, Revan needs me!" He shouted and bit the stranger's bare hand causing him to be dropped to the ground, with a startled oath and curse. He ran as fast as he could, but not before he went flying. Dimly he wondered if he had set a mind off like Revan had when a voice interrupted his thoughts.

"You're right, he is a mandalorian…"

There was a snort of disgust, "obviously, and look at him closely, he's not just any Mandalorian either."

There was a startled oath as he was picked up.

"Damn, you're right! What do we do?"

There was a short laugh, and the sound of a pair of knuckles cracking, "what we were told to do. We take him to Mandalore and then, we train him."

"Ohh..."

Revan moaned, trying to move, but she couldn't. She lay there on the narrow bed for a minute, listening to her panicked heartbeat before she realized she was in a dark room.

"Where am I?" Revan's voice was barely hear-able, much less understandable. She heard a hiss and whispers of whoever else was in the room with her.

"Milady, you must drink this." A hand slipped under her shoulders and raised her up gently, titling a smooth clay cup to her lips.

"What is it?" Revan asked faintly, she may have been half conscious and barely alive, but she wasn't going to trust this potion that smelled of rotten eggs, and especially from a person she couldn't even see.

"Your only way to live and you must drink it now." Luo firmly pressed the cup to Revan's lips again and this time the woman drank the healing potion without hesitation or protest.

"Sleep, Milady, you must rest..." She heard the voice again and frowned as the potion kicked in, she knew that voice!

"Luo... is that you?"

She managed to ask before she fainted again.

…Seven days later

Back under a pile of rubble and other things best let unidentified, the little girl stirred. She groaned as the memory came back to her.

"Over here!"

A shout followed her groan, "there's one here alive here." Revan felt the rocks lifted off her broken and bruised body. "Master Jonas, Master Kae, you must come quickly – it's a ghost of one of the murdered children!"

This was Revan's answer to her question as the man glared at her and pulled out his blaster rifle, not bothering to aim as he fired it.

"No!"

Revan closed her eyes as she flung out her hand to stop the blaster bolt flying towards her. A tiny spark of light flared from her hand and shoot towards the leader, jerking the blaster away from his hand.

"Stop this foolishness!"

A tall attractive woman jumped down in front of the five men, her lightsaber activated and blazing, its silver blade casting a silvery shine on her white hair and storm grey eyes.

"Master Kae!" The men gasped and the leader coughed before he gestured to the man who had fainted. "She attacked us… caused Yunic to go into a comma and tried to kill me as well," He held up his burnt hand, the fingers twitching still.

"A little ghost child did this?" Kae's voice was incredulous as she stared at the five men, lowering her lightsaber, but she did not deactivate it.

Kae turned and saw the ghost child more clearly than before and she smiled softly. The scavengers had used the term almost correctly. The child was not in a substantial form, but…

Kae frowned and walked to the crying girl's side. "Who are you?" She asked softly, as though she were speaking to her own child, one that she did not have yet.

She frowned as she realized that she could sense the child through the force and reached her hand out to touch the girl's tear and dirt streaked face, blood caked on the right side of her head.

"Revan Coven…I'm called Revan…" The little girl sniffed as Kae touched her face and trembled, her little body shaking.

Arren Kae had seen a lot of amazing things in her life. She had experienced things, and gone through pains that no one should have to. But this was more than she could have ever thought to go through.

Her hand did not go through the child's seemingly insubstantial face; it was solid to her touch. The girl… Revan seemed to realize this as well, for the little girl hurled herself with such force at Arren that it knocked her backwards, landing on her butt holding the crying child.

"Shhh… It'll be okay," Arren reassured the girl as she climbed to her feet and hugged the little girl. "Where is your body, Revan?"

"My body…?" The little girl seemed confused for a moment and then she smiled and squirmed out of Arren's arms. "…This way!" And she scampered off among the rocks as Kae followed. There she found the body of the little girl, a perfect mirror of her though her skin was pale… terribly pale and cold to the touch.

Kae turned to Revan with an incredulous look on her face. "Who taught you this power?"

Revan smiled brightly, "my mother taught me..."

Before Kae could ponder this, Revan frowned, "do I have to go back now?"

"Back…?" Kae echoed as Revan gestured to her body, "yeah, back to my body?"

"Yes," Kae nodded, "and when you return, I will be here, all right?"

Revan closed her eyes for a moment and then she opened them and regarded Kae with a solemn look, "your friend... Jonas... he will try to kill me and you."

Kae was shaken by the statement, "Jonas would not do that to me, to a little child... Revan, he is my friend."

Revan shook her head," he hates me and he will hate you." The little girl disappeared as Kae sat there shocked beyond thought.

"No, I must attend to the matters at hand," Kae shook her head to clear it and took a deep breath as she opened herself to the Force. "I will learn more about this news regarding Jonas later..."

Carth had finally reached the Elders' village, but he was not in a good position. He could not talk to the Elders and although they could understand him, that was as far as communication went.

Apparently they did not know where Revan was, or they would not take him to her. Carth grounded his teeth in anger as he paced the little cell where he was forced to stay except for meals and walks around the complex under his two guard's baleful eyes.

"Where is she?" He snarled, jamming his fist into the wall, earning a glare from the guards outside of his cell. He lied down on his cot and tried to sleep though sleep was a long time in coming,

Carth bolted upright, gasping for breath. He rolled off the cot and reached for the skin of water resting on the table besides him. His heartbeat was racing and he was shaking as though he'd gone through some imaginable horror.

Carth slowed his thoughts as he clamed down, "Revan…" He whispered, "I saw you… where are you?"

His voice was a painful question, the anguish evident in his face as he stared out at the stars, seeing only the woman he loved in his mind. "Where are you?"

In the great temple of the ancients, Revan twisted in her sleep and thrashed briefly. "Carth… wait for me… Don't leave me," The woman thrashed some more before her healers gave her a sedative and looked at each other with worried looks on their faces. They would have to release her soon, the question as to where she would go was haunting them.

Carth had made up his mind, he was going to find her, and he could hear her in his mind ever since she had opened him up to the Force. He wasn't going to wait any longer. "I'm coming, Revan," he muttered, "you just live first, then we'll get out of here…"

More chapters coming soon! R&R please!