I was not wholly disappointed.
I heard the snap-hiss of an igniting saber.
The realization that Lowbacca already had his saber ignited came through my pain addled mind, so I opened my eyes to see Lowbacca standing in front of me, his eyes staring in amazement at the shaft of blue plasma that extended from the middle of his chest.
The scent of burned wookie fur hung on the air.
The saber switched off, and Lowbacca fell to the ground dead. Revealing Jysella standing there, a look of shock on her face over what she had just done.
Her chest was heaving, her eyes opened wide. "I. He, he was going to k-kill you. I c-couldn't let him do that. If I hadn't, you would've died. Ben, I..I k-k-killed h-him."
I held out my hand to her, and she rushed to me, collapsed against me and started to cry.
I could feel her confusion and anger through our bond. I just held her, my good arm hugging her tight against me. I whispered consoling words into her ear as she sobbed "I killed him," over and over again.
The dark part of my mind whispered "The first one is always hardest."
Finally my parents and some other Jedi arrived at the clearing.
That dark part of my mind once again whispered, "What have we here, the Masters find you and Jysella cuddling over a bunch of dead Jedi. This is starting to become commonplace."
I tried my best to ignore it.
We were taken back to the med center, where Tahiri and I were dunked into Bacta.
Did I mention I hate the taste of Bacta?
Tahiri was decanted first as her main physical problems were dehydration, exposure and malnutrition. Of course, she was still pretty catatonic when I was decanted. When spoken to or touched she would cringe. When the lights were turned out she would often start to whimper and would repeat the phrase "nojay" over and over again for hours.
Her fire had gone out, now all that remained were the embers of her pain and scars.
A few days after Tahiri, I was decanted. I still had a stiff shoulder and sore ribs. I looked at the tech and asked if Bacta lost its potency the more often you used it. The tech laughed, and said it's not supposed to, but then they did not usually have someone in it as often as I had been lately.
Tahiri had gained some weight, and her physical wounds were healed. Yet she was still hurting and in pain. Any sudden movements or noises could send her skittering into a corner like a frightened child.
And then there was the phrase "nojay" that she would sit and say.
I think of all the behaviors that Tahiri displayed during those weeks after we found her, it was her saying that phrase over and over again that disturbed me the most. I asked my dad if it was a Tusken word and he said no. Then I sent a message to Danni Quee and asked if it was a Vong word and she said that if it was, it was one she had not heard before.
What it meant to Tahiri none of us knew, nor could we have guessed.
Jysella and I often went to visit her, sometimes together, sometimes alone.
It was a few weeks after the fight against Lowbacca and Tesar, I searched for Jysella over our Force Bond and she gave me a mental image of Tahiri in the med center.
When I got there, I stood in the doorway and watched them for a moment. They were both sitting on the bed, Jysella behind Tahiri, brushing her hair. Tahiri looking down, but at least not cringing at every touch the way she had been doing for weeks.
I walked in, and kissed Jysella on the cheek and sat down in a chair beside the bed, and continued to watch as Jysella brushed Tahiri's blonde hair.
I still considered Tahiri beautiful and amazing, but when you put the two of them next to one another, there was just no comparison. Jys blew away the competition.
Tahiri's fiddling is what brought it to my attention. She still had on the Japor icon. I looked at Jysella and said "You know, we never did figure out what the meaning of the Japor icon on all the various crime scenes was."
Jysella made a non-committal noise, and I considered that since it adorned her forehead in the white of scar tissue, that maybe she was not the best person to talk about it with.
Truth be told, I often did not even see the scar, or maybe I was just attracted to girls with them. Maybe that is a part of growing up in a post Vong War galaxy.
I spent a while longer with the two of them, but then it was time for my next lesson. I stood up and once more kissed Jysella, and touched Tahiri on the shoulder. As I turned to leave, Tahiri grabbed my arm and twisted.
As I tried to slip out of her grip, she used to force to fling me against the wall. The rage sat there in her eyes as she spat out "Don't touch me."
Jysella put her hands on Tahiri's shoulders and I could feel the calm she sent to the older girl. "Its okay Tahiri, that's just Ben."
"He's HIS apprentice" was her hissed reply.
"Whose?"
"Jacen's." As she said this the vehemence and hate was thick in her voice.
I looked up and noticed my dad in the doorway watching, listening and judging.
Jysella either ignored my dad or did not see him as she continued talking to Tahiri, "Jacen is dead. He was cut down weeks ago, weeks before we found you. His body is still in the morgue. We're not having the memorial until Tenel Ka can get some time away from Hapes."
Tahiri looked at Jysella, and for the first time I saw tears in her eyes. "No, that can't be. He did this to me. He did it. I...I saw him."
My dad stepped fully into the room, and finally spoke "Tahiri, Jacen is dead and has been for awhile. It is time you stopped putting blame at his doorstep."
Tahiri's head shot around to look at my dad. "But Master, he betrayed us." And in a quieter voice she added "he betrayed me."
My dad opened his mouth to say something but she cut him off.
"He kept me in that cage, like, like I was some type of animal. He, he said I was his ss-sl-slave." I noticed that the tears that had been in her eyes had started flowing freely as she continued speaking. "He br-broke me, used me. Over and over again."
Her voice lowered, as the pain of what she was telling us increased, "All the while he was doing this, he was telling me I was worthless, that you didn't care about me or any of us. That the only thing I was good for was whatever degrading thing he dreamed up."
The hate and anger that was in her voice turned it cold and hard. "And he has a vivid imagination."
My dad's voice sounded like granite. "Jacen is dead."
I looked at him, and did not recognize him at all. Like one of those light puzzles, where it only makes sense if seen in a certain light or from a specific angle, the hard face, the cold eyes, he just did not look like my dad. He definitely did not act like it.
As my dad turned to leave, she said one last thing, her voice filled with pain. "He raped me you know. Mind and body, he raped me. And you protect him. Just as you always did."
My dad didn't even stop.
Tahiri cried.