Semele closed the eye on the ship and focused all her power of Knowing on the figure behind her. "His name is Darth Maul. He works for-" Her words were cut off as she tried to delve deeper into the knowledge filling her of this new subject. She was choking, cut off by the feeling of the Force closing her airway. It beat against her furiously and she scrabbled madly, peeling at nothing as her mind whirled and her head started to get light. What she Knew fell away.
She was suffocating, but she still vaguely heard Darth Maul making a demand for the queen in exchange for her safe return to the Jedi. Qui-Gon simmered with a quiet emotion that was almost anger. This surprised Semele. Was she corrupting his values? She bit her lip, thinking. She couldn't have this. She put one of her hands down into her dimensional pocket and withdrew her giant sewing scissors. Holding them blade first, she drove the handles hard between Darth Maul's legs. The lightsaber disappeared and she was dropped to the ground in front of him. Before she could get up, a foot was placed on her and she felt a hand on the blindfold.
Semele stiffened. Even if she shut her eyes as hard as she could, the Tatooine sun beating down on her skin would probably blind her in seconds, Alternian healing factors be damned. "Jedi." Darth Maul mocked Qui-Gon, his voice just a little strained from the blow to the balls he had taken. "Alternians don't like sunlight much, do they? This one especially not."
Mind beginning to clear, Semele was startled. "How would you know? Only the temple and the highest sena-Gaaaah!" She was cut off by the booted foot digging into the back of her ribs. Already choked half to death, this drove what air she had left from her lungs. She could almost hear Qui-Gon trying to think.
Surprisingly, it was Obi-Wan who spoke. "You don't know who you're holding hostage, Sith. Her morail has killed more than you have. If you don't know, harming a troll's morail is a good way to regret ever being born."
The Sith standing on her ribs chuckled low in his throat. "Oh I know. What a useful aspect, Rage."
Semele's blood ran cold and she reached out across the stars, Knowing of Gamzee. Her eyes filled with tears. "Where...where is he? I can't...I can't see him. It's just dark. It's just dark and angry. What did you do?!" She was growing hysterical. She began to struggle in earnest causing Maul's grip on her blindfold to tighten.
Then just as suddenly the weight lifted from her back and she rolled to see Qui-Gon fighting him with a newly opened eye, having leapt right at Darth Maul. He swung faster than she had ever witnessed him do so before. Obi-Wan was pulling her to her feet and dragging her onto the ship. It began to take off without Qui-Gon, but she was far too busy massaging a sore throat to notice.
X
Semele stared at a blank wall with an eye positioned just to her left. They had all managed to flee and Qui-Gon wanted to make it back to Coruscant immediately to inform the council of the suspected Sith attack. She had already tried to see who he was working with, but to no avail. Every time she tried to Know of Maul agaim, her brain instead filled with fear and dread over the Unknowable fate that had befallen her morail. She swallowed thickly. Where was he? Was he taking his slime pies? If something had happened to him in this time period where she was away, she'd never forgive herself.
She shuddered again. What kind of troll went off with unfairly hot Jedi while her unstable morail stayed behind? Where is he? Her mind went around and around on this, struggling to find peace with any of it. She could not and instead sank to her bed uneasily, closing the eye on the wall. The door slid open and then there was a quiet knock. Semele didn't need to open the eye back up to see who. "Master." She greeted him. Sensing his mild surprise, she spoke again. "If you're going to call me padawan, it's only appropriate, right?"
He was quiet a long moment. "I guess there's nothing appropriate about how I feel. Come to finally nip it in the bud now that we approach Coruscant and it is time for us to part ways?"
He was quiet even longer. She spoke again. "Come to tell me I shouldn't be angry with myself about the fact I failed at my first, most basic job?" Tears slipped past the blindfold, staining it some more. It was already streaked with jade as she had been crying since the confrontation on Tatooine.
"Actually, I came to tell you that I'm going to recommend Obi-Wan be given his trials and for him to take Anakin as his own padawan. That I want to officially have you as my new padawan. You have potential for the Force, even if you don't see it. I know you do." He was quiet a moment before folding his arms around her in a hug. "And for the record, I'd never tell you not to feel what you're feeling. There are some things the Code definitely gets wrong."
He left her with that and she found that suddenly all she could focus on was the scent of Qui-Gon sticking to her black, velveteen dress. She lifted the fabric where his chest had been flush to hers and brought it to her nose, taking a quiet sniff. Dry gin and cypress mixing with her own very soft floral lavender smell. She decided it was even more enrapturing than just dry gin and cypress. She smiled suddenly. He had done this on purpose. He had to have known what she was struggling with. Felt it. So he came and did something nice for her, something to distract her until there was a better time to be processing what these feelings of fear really meant.
Semele laid back down and closed her eyes, grateful for this. Hopefully Tavros had already made it to Coruscant safely. Semele had worried enough for her race for one day.
X
Qui-Gon wasn't sure what was going on his head. He had felt anger watching Darth Maul grind Semele into the ground. He had felt stirrings of a need to make Maul pay when he saw the streaks the sandy dirt was leaving on her finely crafted clothes. While he had always questioned the Code the Council put forth as its operating standards, he had never doubted it so much before now.
The words Semele spoke that night, filled with a gray light outside Shmi Skywalker's home...Well they had resonated with him. They were full of truth. He saw the wisdom, which meant somewhere in that snarl of traumas, Semele did to. It was like something was blocking the Force from flowing through her the way it wanted to, and he was starting to realize more and more for himself that it had to be the godtier she wielded. How could the Force worshipped as a god, affect another god? It made sense, to him at least.
The fact remained that Semele had the power within to use the Force. It was just locked behind the god tier which had come first and gotten in the way. He was going to fix that, with the council's agreement. He cast his gaze to where Obi-Wan was telling an excited Anakin all about the start of a padawan's training. Qui-Gon gave a soft smile. He was at peace. And hopefully that wasn't about to be shattered with what he had to tell the Council upon arrival.
