Tahiri looked up at Jysella the tears still flowing freely, and asked, "You believe me don't you?" The hurt, fear and desperate need for someone, anyone, to have faith in her, was evident in her eyes.
Jysella smiled at her. "Of course I do."
I sent Jysella reassurance in the Force and went to my class, still disturbed by what Tahiri said, and how my dad was acting. I was still disturbed because I did not know how to fix it.
That night, I sat in my room, watching the stars. I noticed a ship launch, and fly off, which caught my attention because there were not supposed to be any launches that night.
I sent my mind out searching for Jysella and felt her presence at the med center asleep.
Fear and worry blossomed within me as it was not in Jysella's habits to sleep at the med center. I made a quick decision and snuck out of the house and ran over to the med center.
I went to Tahiri's room, and noticed that the lights were out, and she was asleep on the bed.
Walking into the room, looking for Jysella in a chair, I finally noticed that the girl asleep on the bed had black hair. I rushed to her side, and woke her. I could feel her confusion through our bond, as she looked at me and asked where Tahiri was.
The next morning, we told my dad what happened the night before. I made it plain to my dad that I was worried about her. Yet for some reason, when it came to Tahiri, there was just no emotion there. No concern, no compassion, no anger, nothing.
Any attempts to talk to my mom were met with the same results.
To say I was frustrated would have been an understatement.
During lunch, Jysella and I were talking about it, when she reminded me of a simple fact. She owned a star ship. She said we could just sneak off and go find her, if we only knew where she had went.
This is when I told her about the vision I had after Zekk was killed.
So we went to the landing field and got aboard the Skate. As we lifted off, we received a couple of distressed calls from flight control, which we promptly ignored.
And then, we were off.
We had taken off without the blessing of the Jedi Council. It was only as we pulled the levers to enter hyperspace exactly what that meant hit me.
I looked at Jysella and said "You know we will probably be expelled from the Order for this."
Her eyes opened slightly wider, and she bit at her bottom lip as she considered the ramifications of what we had just done. "Do you think your Dad would really expel us?"
I looked at her, thinking, considering, "I'm not entirely sure. We have really gone against protocol doing this, and he may see it as putting our concerns for Tahiri over our duty to the Jedi. And you've seen him where Tahiri is concerned."
She was still biting her lower lip. "I don't know what I would do."
I looked at her, the tumultuous colors of hyperspace reflected off her face and eyes and replied "Well, you've spent your entire life being a Horn; you could always try your hand at being a Terrik."
She laughed at that, a lovely, clear, musical sound.
I got up and walked back to the common area, and saw something I thought I would never see. It was an astromech droid setting a table. I had seen Whistler numerous times, and even played him a few times at Dejarik, but I never thought that he would be able to set a table.
A day later we set down in Mos Eisely. As Jysella went about getting the ship provisioned and cared for, I went and got us a landspeeder, paying special attention to find one with colorings that krayt dragons did not find edible.
Then we were off, the Needles just a blurry haze in the distance. We were off, in a foolish attempt to finish our self-imposed hunt for a single Tusken Raider tribe in the wastes.
The Force was with us, sort of. It was the second day of travel; we were quickly passing through the Juudland Wastes, nearing the Needles, when we were set upon by a Raider band. A slug thrower took out the repulser on our speeder, and we crashed to the ground. The speeder dug a trench for a half a klick and I hit my head on the steering column.
While the blow to the head was not enough to knock me unconscious, it was enough to make me really woozy. A Tusken came over and picked me up out of the speeder and tossed me onto the ground, he then repeated the process with Jysella, throwing her on top of me.
I heard the honks and growls of their language, and all the warriors around me backed off and away.
I looked up and she walked up from the desert.
She was dressed in the sand color strips of cloth as all the rest of the Tuskens were, with a few exceptions. She had a blue belt, the color of the Tatooine sky, wrapped around her waist, and her golden hair was tied up with a ribbon of the same color. The other difference is that she left her face and head uncovered.
She sat down in the sand beside us and asked, "Why did you follow me?"
"You're a Jedi, we were worried about you."
The bitterness turned her voice hard as she replied, "Like that really makes a difference anymore. If you're not a Solo or Skywalker, or one of their pets, then the Grand Master has no concern for you."
She stood up and gave a loud whistle, and out from the shimmering heat haze came a bantha. When it got close to her, Tahiri patted its side and climb up upon it. She looked at us sadly. "I cannot return with you. I, I am…content here; my people will protect me from him now."
"We could protect you."
Tahiri looked at us both sadly, and shook her head. "No, I do not want to risk that. Truthfully, I even fear that he could destroy my people. Our stories tell of a dark avenging demon with a fire blade that destroys whole tribes. Sounds like a Jedi to me."
I stepped closer to her. "But Tahiri."
With an angry slash of her hand, she cut me off and I saw her eyes harden with anger. She opened her mouth and spoke in a loud voice. "You should not have come here. We will be lenient this once. Leave Tatooine and do not return."
I could see the pain and unshed tears in her eyes. "Tell your Master I will never come to him again. I will never be his again. I will seek death before I become his slave again. The Jedi have no place for me. The Yuuzhan Vong have no place for me. I am Ghorfa. And Ghorfa will I be until it is my time to become one with the Force, until I can see my Anakin again."
As she said this last, the tribe of sand people came up behind her, all on their banthas. They lined themselves up behind Tahiri in single file, and as one they turned from us, and began their journey deeper into the Wastes.
Suddenly, Tahiri stopped and slid off her bantha. She ran back to Jysella, placed something in her hands, whispered something into her ear, and gave her a quick hug. With that done, she ran back to her bantha, climbed up and the tribe walked off.
I took Jysella's hand and watched them as they disappeared into the heat haze.
I looked towards Jysella and saw that she was staring at the hand I was not holding, looking at what Tahiri had given her. It was the Japor icon. Without looking up, she started speaking. "Tahiri said that this belonged to me now. She said that the one who gave it to her thought it a symbol of love. And now that love, and this symbol were mine."
I silently wondered if Tahiri was right.