Chapter 3: Recollection

Alden looked at Triss as she lay on the medical bed, all dressed in white, tubes stuck into her body. A respirator covered her mouth as air was passed into her lungs and out again.

"What did I do to deserve this?" Alden whispered as he watched Triss' limp unresponsive figure. "Triss, you have to wake up. You have to wake up for them."

Triss did not respond, she was in a comma, dreaming and learning at the same time. The Force had many plans for her, this was only the beginning.

Triss looked up as she heard a scream and looked down again, that wasn't the first scream she had heard so far, but it was the most recent.

"Triss…" Bastila's voice called out to her as her mother walked through the forest, looking for her wayward daughter. "Triss come out of your hiding right now, or else!"

"Or else what, Mother…?" Triss stood up from her hiding place, her arms hugging herself to keep warm.

Bastila closed in on her daughter and hugged her to her body, stroking her daughter's hair quietly. "I saw what you did to the assassin, Mommy."

Bastila didn't say a word, but her eyes stiffened as her grip tightened around Triss, "and what did you see, Triss?" Her mother leaned back at an arm's length and looked at her daughter with cold interest.

Triss bit her lower lip as she thought back to what her mother had done to the assassins. "It was wrong…" Triss raised her head proudly and stared back at Bastila with her intense stare. "You used the dark side of the Force. You tortured them beyond what was needed to disable them."

"What I do is my business and mine alone." Bastila hissed as she stood up and glared at her daughter, "you would do well to remember that, Triss."

"Why?" Triss stood up and challenged her mother, "you've only been like this since dad left us and headed into the Unknown Regions."

"Don't talk about your father!" Herm other shouted back, the rage livid in her face as it turned red and anger flashed in her eyes. "Revan will return on day, and then we will be together again."

"And until then…? What are you going to do, Mother?" Triss challenged once again, as she stood there, so like her father that tears welled up in Bastila's eyes.

"Come, Triss… You must learn how to use both sides of the Force." Bastila turned away and walked towards the clearing where Revan, Jolee, and Bastila had hunted and killed the Tarentatek, returning half-alive and victorious.

Triss remembered Juhani and Mission telling her that Revan had carried Bastila out of the clearing and all the way from the Ebon Hawk shrugging away any help offered, only collapsing after he had secured Bastila's life-signs with the Force and medical technology.

Triss hopped this was a sign that her Mother still came to this clearing often enough. Perhaps she felt something of Revan still and that would outshine the anger and hurt she was feeling within her heart.

Triss could only hope this as she raised her lightsaber in preparation to battle with her mother again.

"Triss?" Alden raised his head at the slight movement from her hand that he was holding and looked up at the medical instruments which showed no change at all.

He smoothed her hair back and sighed as he stared at the unmoving Jedi.

"Please, Child of Destiny… wake." He whispered brokenly as the ship soared to the Maw, "wake up Triss. You are needed."

Triss turned to run away from the monsters in the cell, but found she teetered on the edge of an Abyss. "No!" Triss managed to lean back far enough to avoid falling over the edge as an eerie laugh echoed around her.

"So you don't want to fall?"

Triss turned to face the owner of the voice, Malak Ferno no less. "You're dead, Malak. I do not fear you."

Malak laughed, "true, I did die. Your father killed me, little Triss… but am I really dead?" He smiled, "where do you think you are? How do you know that I," and he paused, raising an eyebrow, "can't hurt or kill you in here?"

"I won't fall, Malak." Triss replied defiantly, "My parents and their friends have told me stories about you. You went over to the light side when my Father defeated you; you're only an illusion."

"Then this shouldn't hurt, Child of Destiny." Malak raised a hand and lightening shot from it, striking Triss in the shoulder. She screamed as it burned into her skin and crackled around her, drilling into her arm as she twisted and cringed on the ground.

"No, I won't… bow or kneel to you… scum." Triss gasped as she glared at her mother's tormenter, her father's best friend who betrayed him, the Republic's destroyer after Revan was killed. A mass murder with no heart in his soul.

She closed her eyes and threw her lightsaber up to block the attack of lightening. A brilliant flash of light that seared across her eyelids and then Malak screamed in such a way, it wasn't human.

Triss stood up, clutching her left arm and reeling as she looked around the room in shock. It was sickening to look at, bloody pulps of skin rained from the ceiling, brain tissue dripped and slid off wall.

And in her right hand was a blazing lightsaber, its blade the color of blue and black flames licking the red pulse. Triss shut it off, shuddering.

Child of Destiny… She suddenly didn't want to become the Child of Destiny anymore. Triss looked at the Abyss and choked back a sob, she had to cross that Abyss. Every bloody, painful step of the way…

She hesitated and placed her foot on the Abyss and it was firm beneath her foot. A walkway, painted black to appear invisible stretched the length of however long it stretched.

"Triss!" A voice screamed her name across the distances as she was dragged away from the Abyss and into the living world.

She came too suddenly with tears on her face and the stench of burned skin and fabric.

"Triss, you're alive!"

"What… what happened?" She asked through a dry mouth and swollen tongue.

"We thought you were dead." Alden leaned in grasping her right hand. "I don't know what happened but you just screamed and when we came here, you were encased in these raging lightening flames and writhing in the bed."

Sal nodded, "you should be dead, Triss. The charts read you as dead for fourteen minutes. I was about to place you in a coffin."

Fourteen minutes… The statement rang through Triss' mind. Malak had tortured her for at least fourteen minutes and the moment she had stopped him and stepped onto the Abyss, she had woken up.

Alden was still talking to her as she switched her attention back to him.

"And you came out of it fine, except you've got a burn on your palm now, Triss, though Kasha can probably get rid of it for you."

"A burn…?" Triss lifted her hand in confusion and looked at the scar imprinted into her hand.

Three four point stars, skewered at a forty-five degree angle rested in the palm of her hand. Black lines outlined the scar, allowing for it to stand out more.

"I wonder how that happened." Kasha was confused, "I mean there is no way that could have appeared on your hand if someone hadn't deliberately branded you."

Triss shook her head, ignoring the looks from the people gathered from around her. "No, it happened for a reason and I know where I have to go now." She breathed deeply and looked Alden in the eyes.

"I need Mandalore. We have to talk. Now."

Please Read and Review! Revan Jerrod: Thanks for your encouragement and complements. Of course I will be continuing the story.

Greatstar: I'm guessing that you where curious as to what happened from the time Triss was a child to where the storyline is now, eleven years in the future. Hopefully this chapter explains it more.

Shadows Run: Yup, Triss has a destiny, a good one or maybe a bad evil dark destiny; we'll see.

too lazy to log in: Thanks for the review!