A/N: The latter part of this chapter is dedicated to Molly, my old beta reader. I am now being betaed by Amidala Skywalker of THANK YOU, AMI! (grins) My updates are more likely to come more frequently on there, to be certain, but I'll try to remember to update on here, even without readers...
-Chapter Nine-
In the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, a female Padawan sat with crossed legs in the middle of a garden. Even without the Force to truly sense anything, she still felt relatively at peace sitting there with eyes half closed and the sun burning down on the back of her head and arms. She had a feeling that the next day, she was going to end up rather burnt. At least, if there was a next day.
Wow, I'm such a pessimist, she thought without any humor.
She opened her eyes. Around her green foliage grew up to mask the technology of Coruscant, though the skyline still showed from where she sat on the ground, if you could call it that. After all, it was only retransplanted soil over miles and miles of metal, transparisteel, and ferrocrete, and perhaps even some wooden buildings. After all, no one knew what lay in the depths of the thousands of layers within Coruscant's onion ring of cores. Whether there were buildings inlayed with silver qareth metal and built from the hard wood of Onorian's red Yleeth trees, or a building completely built of transparisteel, or perhaps...
Always perhaps.
A hint of a smile touched her face. Everything was built on possibilities; the Padawan had learned this fast. Everything could billow into a cloud of chaos if one thing went wrong, and sometimes one thing that went wrong could be the beginning of so many right things, though no one realized it at the moment. One action could change the course of the everything.
One death could save a million others.
That caused her expression to grow grimmer. Death... she could feel it too clearly, even outside of the Force. Yet not death. Not yet.
"I'm being unreasonably melodramatic!" she expressed suddenly aloud, standing up and rubbing black hair out of her face. Her hair was almost straight, yet almost wavy in spots. It was as if it had been attacked by a rogue straightening iron and a curler at the same time, both skipping a few spots, and battling over a couple of others. Her face had that same appearance, a few spots being attacked by rogue acne and about seven freckles in various places. Bar that, however, she was relatively pale with amber eyes, a long braid trailing over her right shoulder and across her gray and navy garb.
To examine her face, she looked to be perhaps seventeen, and certainly no older. There was a childlike innocence to her features, though her eyes differed, showing a maturity brought about by being raised in the Order. It was the hard eyes that changed her so much; while her face was friendly and her body carefully curved into a petite though slightly chunky form, she still appeared Dark. She still had the ability to be taken seriously.
"And I'm talking to myself. What is this world coming to!" She threw up her hands, grasping at the air for a moment, then let them drop with a frustration. Without the Force, the Jedi were nothing. She was a Jedi.
Then I am nothing.
Why am I being melodramatic again?
She sighed. It snapped through the nearly silent air, and sent a small flock of birds scattering into the sky, one of whom hit a speeder and went tumbling to its demise in the depths of Coruscant. Hitting a young Bothan on the head, he went running off shrieking about the bird being a sign from God, and started a minor religious trend in the underlevels until it was realized that it was all a falsery started by the not so well timed death of a bird. Of course, none of this had any specific effects on the Jedi Padawan in question. However, it did have an effect on a suicidal Hutt, who was astounded by the sincerity of the young Bothan who had thought the bird was a sign from above, even when threatened by death by an older and far smarter Wookiee with a Dug right behind him. Though the Bothan became... er... toast, the Hutt rethought his life of crime and turned to a life of music and art instead, writing a series of best selling albums that made the top charts on Brolieas for about two weeks.
This did effect the girl, as she was forced to listen to the album for about five hours straight in approximately three months. However, she was completely unaware at that time that her sighing and startling a flock of birds was the cause of her later torment.
"I thought I'd find you here."
The girl turned around to find herself face-to-face with her rather green-tinted Master. Of course, as Master J'thwa Kyrae was a Twi'lek, and green from birth, there was absolutely nothing wrong with this. He was around six feet five inches tall, and easily looked down on the five-foot-six human girl.
"Well, obviously I was here," she said dryly.
"Obviously," J'thwa noted. "And had you not been, Chade, I could have assumed you would have been in the cafeteria."
She shrugged. The girl now revealed as Chade- short for Cy'ladeialan, as had been earlier noted- glanced up at her tired eyed Master for a moment. "Probably. You know, you look tired, Master."
"Thank you for stating the obvious."
"You're quite welcome." She was a cynic at heart, but he had grown long used to her cuttingly sarcastic remarks. They didn't always hurt, though he had explained there was a time to be sarcastic and a time to be polite to her.
He sat down on a nearby bench, his long fingernails drumming across its pseudo-wood surface. They teased the other drumrolls present, interwound with the hum of speeders and the rush of water from a nearby fountain. All the Temple's gardens had some form of fountain or pond- it seemed nearly all the Jedi Masters could agree that the water was a soothing environment to be in. It seemed welcoming, at least, if nothing else. And yet, Chade had once commented that the rustle of water seemed to whisper of death, to beckon to an icy chill that could break a person's heart and soul and physical form.
But then, she was just like that. Both salient and the cynical, a silent pessimist, possibly one of the galaxy's worst combinations. Even worse, J'thwa reflected, than one Jedi Knight he had met a few years ago. A bit impetuous, that human woman had been, and as melodramatically drawing as any being could have been. And so confusing... how someone that shifty from the Jedi's typical morals could have been Knighted was far beyond him.
Who was she? Aurek something... Esk, I think her surname was. Elass. Calthye-Elass...
"You've been out here a lot." He dropped his thoughts from the Jedi Knight his thought had turned to. She didn't matter in the entire scheme of things, even if a rival to his Padawan's seeming skill at being a paradox.
"If you're trying to get an answer, you could just ask a question."
He glanced at her. "Not everyone believes in being as abrupt as you, my dear Padawan."
Chade only shrugged, and picked up a small broken twig to scratch at a patch of earth that wasn't covered by grassy landscape. Sketching out her initials, she dug them out into a deep trench, and poked a small beetle into it. An oddly amused grin crossed her face as she watched the insect struggle to get out of the deep C shaped gorge. Someday, this would all be gone, she thought.
For a long while, there was silence between the two. That was what formed their deep bond; that they could be quiet around each other without uncomfortable feelings growing. He would not have hesitated to say he loved the girl, though perhaps not in the same way as anyone could have loved a girlfriend. No, she was a daughter to him; a daughter and a very close friend.
"I presume you were implying something by making that statement," she finally said once the shimmery sable-colored beetle had escaped her little trap by taking flight. Her eyes trailed after the little beacon into the air, watching the flicker of wings, then turned her eyes back over to her alien Master.
He shrugged slightly. "You tell me."
"You know, you're every bit as irritating as I am."
"Possibly."
She snorted slightly. "You told me that I've been out here a lot. You wouldn't've stated that had there been no purpose. So you're implying something."
He examined her face with a completely unrevealing expression. "And what are you implying that I'm implying?"
He noticed her draw in a deep breath, hold it for a three count and exhale slowly to regain any possibly loss of composure. "I'm implying that you're implying something about the possible implications of my being out here."
"PMS?" J'thwa inquired with a grin.
She glared at him. He didn't drop the grin though, but he did carry on. "But seriously. Something's bothering you, isn't it?"
"I'm fine."
"Padawan."
"Don't talk to me like that!"
He gave her a slightly odd expression. "I have to rank you to get anything out of you, then you protest when I do."
She shrugged, back partly turned away from him as she stared at the nearest tree. The bark on it remarkably amused her, as it was nearly a purple tone once she got past the ivory leaves. But she knew her momentary interest in the caraganna tree was only to avoid answering her Master's questions, to avoid facing up to everything that was bothering her.
And somehow in her process of staring at the tree, he managed to move silently, and come up behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder. "And it's not just because you're discovering what it's like to be a female human teenager around male human teenagers anymore, is it?"
"They were hitting on me!" she protested.
He smiled doubtfully. "And you weren't?"
"Well..."
He cut her off, though gently. "What's bothering you? Beyond hormones and the Force vanishing."
She turned her head to glance at him, amber eyes meeting dark blue. It only took a couple moments to observe concern in his expression, a parental desire to make sure that she stayed all right, stayed out of harm's way, out of the million different troubles that seemed to chase so many Jedi pairs around the galaxy.
"I can't get away with telling you that it was because I ate an expired juba jam sandwich, can I?" she asked lightly.
He shook his head, though he couldn't help the slight smile that toyed at the edge of his expression, threatening to send him into laughter and complete off-topic discussion. J'thwa knew that was exactly what his Padawan was aiming for anyway.
She sighed. "Well, it was worth a shot."
He allowed a piece of a smile to touch his green face, crow's feet crinkling around his blue eyes. "I'm sure."
"Master..." Chade hesitated. "Are there powers outside of the Force?"
And he recoiled almost as if struck. "I... have no idea," J'thwa finally managed. "Where did that come from?"
She sighed slightly. "Absolutely nowhere, of course. Now, if you'll excuse me, Master, I have to go and sharpen several pencils." The girl stood up in one quick motion and whirled to leave the garden.
"Chade..." He sighed, cut off. For a moment his hands lingered in the air in an attempt to hold her back, but it failed, and they dropped to his side helplessly. He stared blankly at the air for a long moment, debating whether to go after her and pursue the subject question and motive, decided against it after a few moments of thought. He'd talk to her later. Girls!
More particularly, Padawans.
It never comfortably comes together. Puzzle pieces, broken chains, shattered windows and a falling star…
You try as you might, but still you struggle to focus and interlace each piece. Still you war with your mind as you debate just how the prisoner cut his chains. You stare in horror at the shattered glass trailing over the floor…
And you close your eyes and make a wish.
There is a sound that summarizes all the emotions, agony, and entire lifespan of a galaxy in two syllables. It's simply snap-hiss. It's the sound that cuts through hearts; it freezes blood, hikes pulses, and destroys. The sound that makes you turn around in trepidation, fearing to see what stands behind you, a gleaming blade in hand.
A sound that makes some praise, and thank the heavens for sending their salvation.
A lightsaber is the universal symbol for the Jedi Knights. Some would say that it is constant with all times, something that never could be changed. A set truth, they would say. Something as unchangeable as gravity's pull.
But who are they to speak?
There was a time when lightsabers were unheard of, merely an inkling in the eyes of a Jedi Knight. And there will be a time when there are no more, their crystals shattered, the hilts only distant memories. And there will be a time when gravity hardly matters in the entire scheme of things, perhaps even to the entirety of no longer existing.
With anti-gravity technology, could it simply become a thing of the past for things to stay put when they could float?
This contemplation was beyond the mind of Obi-Wan Kenobi, standing at ease in the center of a room, his lightsaber held unconscientiously in his right hand. Yet perhaps this was an illusion; the years-later great Jedi Master would never have been so careless about his actions—yet focused. He wasn't that great Jedi Master now, however. He was merely Padawan Kenobi, a braid gracing the right side of his head, curled behind his ear, a small ponytail in behind, and no great rank to call his own.
In this now, it didn't matter. The term Padawan had fallen to nonexistence, the name Ben Kenobi the name of a legend, and the young human forced to walk in a saga's shadow.
He swung.
His lightsaber hissed through the air, fighting that shadow. A slash, a smack, a brief trail of smoke as his blade accidentally skimmed the floor—
Obi-Wan knew he never would have done that had he been at home. But this wasn't home, now was it? This was a place so far away that even Time was different…
He parried. Blocking invisible attacks that only his mind could see, his blue blade became a whirling force overhead, a strike to be reckoned with.
Falling away from the basic lightsaber kata moves now, he drew further and further into what he only knew as the Force. The energy field binding the galaxy together… would there come a time when it too was vanquished?
Allowing his feet to leave the floor, he twisted in midair, whirled a crystalline attack at the shadow haunting his existence in this now, and wanted so badly to fall. Qui-Gon would've insisted he carry on blindfolded after such foolishness. He was being a showoff, too much bravado intertwined with every action.
But Qui-Gon wasn't here, now, was he?
He fell into the shadow within, the piece of his mind that said he could never live up to the legend surrounding Obi-Wan Kenobi of this time, and attacked it too. Now there were two shadows to duel, the one of Old Ben Kenobi, a wizened old Jedi Master who looked to have undergone everything from betrayal, love, death, and heartbreak in the matter of seconds. And then the other one, the shadow of himself, a darkened cowl hiding the expression but not masking the taunting words.
You can't do it.
"Yes… I… can!" Teeth gritted, a drop of sweat traced a path down his forehead.
And so, in this moment, he fought. He fought the shadows, he fought the voices, and he fought the mystery and the absences and the bloody impossibility of it all. He simply fought, and let it vanish into the adrenaline rush that covered him in sweat, and washed the tears and fears away. It made them as distant as the mocking shadows and the voices that teased him and screamed that he could never be the silhouette of himself.
It was black. He could neither see himself nor understand himself. He could neither live nor breathe, die or waste away. Nothing.
He was a stream in amidst so many obstacles. He was liquid, crystal-clear, something that could only be seen through rather than wielded as a weapon. He was… was…
A shadow.
I am a shadow of my past.
By this point his deep blue eyes were closed tightly; sweat tracing its way in rivets down his forehead to soak into his well-worn tunic. His entire body felt bathed in salty liquid, exhaustion beginning to assault him from all turns and corners. And yet, as distant as he threw himself, there was the voice that whispered at him from the ever-drawing darkness.
You died.
You died at the hand of your own pupil. Even as Qui-Gon had trained you up to be a Jedi Knight, you trained up another, and you failed. He turned against you…
Crimson.
Obi-Wan remembered, still carrying on with the kata so memorized that he could do it unconsciously. He had been ordered to learn it until he could follow the patterns in his sleep. Now, he was almost following them that sleepily. He remembered…
The pain was far more intensive than anything you had ever undergone before. In training sessions, of course, you had been skimmed by the energy of a lightsaber blade, the heat scorching through your tunic and leaving, in one occasion, your sleeve to fall to the floor. But this was more deadly, more agonizing. Behind the black mask, you could see the face of Anakin Skywalker staring at you, those blue eyes slicing through to your core.
Even still, you were peaceful as his weapon sliced through your heart and mind. You were peaceful in the few seconds where blood still circulated through your being, and then…
Vanished.
Obi-Wan drew in a sharp breath as he lost his step, lightsaber switching to low-power, and then to off as it rolled from his hands. A moment later, his face smashed into the hardwood floor of the Jedi Temple, and he found himself coughing to regain his breath.
There were footsteps.
They're coming for you!
Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself upwards in time to observe a tall figure bend and pick his lightsaber up. Holding the chrome-tinted weapon lightly in his hands, Obi-Wan was left to watch as the stranger examined the weapon loosely. One of the Masters here? he wondered, and felt some slight relief at his thoughts being his own once more. Even with that in mind, Obi-Wan couldn't shake the thought that there was a azure ghost hovering behind him, a shadow of a long-deceased Jedi Master (or perhaps simply a demon, as the strange tattooed being had seemed to be) whispering words in his ear.
"A well crafted weapon," the man remarked, tossing it back to its owner. "They don't make lightsabers like these any longer, you know."
Not another one… Obi-Wan just barely caught his lightsaber in one hand without losing his balance. The memory of the kata still fresh in mind, sweat gleamed on his face and arms, soaking his tunic straight through to the skin in places. "Who…?"
Waving his hand, the newcomer shrugged. "I'm not here to distract you, young Padawan. Feel free to carry on with your practice. I merely felt the need to remark on your quite nicely done lightsaber. As I said: you won't see very many like this left in the galaxy. Not anymore."
Obi-Wan remembered his manners, dropped a hasty Jedi bow. "Thank you, Master…?"
"Vilanar."
"Master Vilanar." Obi-Wan nodded, and fell back into a sparring stance, letting an offensive expression cross his face for a moment. "Had you wanted… Wait…!" He suddenly swirled back in the direction of the strange man—
The strange man who had vanished without so much as a puff of smoke left to indicate the use of black magic. His mouth almost remained agape for a second or two, but, pulling himself together, Obi-Wan fell back into the unrestrained kata sequence. It was safer than attempting to fathom what went on in a continual incomprehensible existence of both paradox and princible.
And yet, he felt inebriated with the confusion. Shattered mirrors twisted around him, leaving pieces of reflections of various times. Maybe, he thought, he would wake up and escape the rabbit hole before he discovered a monster within its earth-filled maw.
Catch the falling star before it falls out of reach.
