An: So there's a time jump after the "x", and it's for a couple reasons. I can't rewatch the end of Phantom Menace currently and I'm very impatient to write the ten year skip between it and Clone Wars.
Semele went home to bathe and decompress while Qui-Gon presented his findings of Sith activity and proposed that Obi-Wan be given his trials. She had to force herself to clean off, mind whirling with the fear of Gamzee's shadowed fate. Obi-Wan's words hadn't helped. Yes, Gamzee was a killer. A bad one at that, but she had done her best to atone for him as he was no longer able. She got out of the bath, fresh and clean.
Was Qui-Gon really going to teach her now? How did he expect her to learn anything without a Force connection? She got dressed in a jade set of robes she had based off what the Jedi wore and waited to be sent for, trying not to focus on Gamzee anymore. Soon enough, there was a knock. She opened it to Qui-Gon. "Well? Are they going to allow you to train me?"
Qui-Gon had the barest hint of a smile. "Of course not. You are far too aware of yourself to be made to follow their Code exactly as it is. But I told them I didn't intend on teaching you here. We're going to start a temple of our own."
There was a sound behind him and Obi-Wan appeared. "The queen has returned to Naboo to help her people. Master Yoda not so subtlety suggested I let this slip to you and that we go, the three of us to finish it."
Semele pursed her lips. "Did they believe you about the Sith?"
"Largely not." Qui-Gon sighed.
Semele swallowed thickly. "Let's go. Maul better pray our paths don't intersect again."
X
Semele's head pounded in time with the sound of war going above the palace. She was struggling. She had been wounded a couple times as they pursued Maul, the three of them chasing him through the palace. She wasn't dying, but the blood loss was definitely making her closer to something else. As she was thinking this, she stumbled and fell into Qui-Gon's back. He caught her. She took her hands and placed them on his cheeks, feeling oh so woozy.
In an instant she was filled with the horrible knowledge of his coming fate. She tried to say something to him, but he was leaning her against a wall. "Stay here. You'll be safe enough." She finally found the strength with her teeth grit and gripped the front of his robes. "NO." She winced at the volume of her own voice. "I will be fine. The pain will carry me. Pain can be good." She jammed a couple fingers in one of the blaster wounds and winced, whole body jolting. She stood, slowly and stiffly, pushing past Obi-Wan and using the sewing scissors and the wall to keep getting down the corridor.
She had to get there first, before Qui-Gon. She couldn't...couldn't live with what she Knew waited for him in the core. She was attached, and maybe she couldn't explain it but there was no way she was going to accept his death as an absolute. Maul was waiting around the corner. He cocked his head and grinned at her. Something sparked inside and she let out a war cry, lunging at him despite Qui-Gon's insistence she wait. A barrier descended and cut her off from her two companions. She raised her scissors and began to clash with him. She was slower, weakened by blood loss. But she had her motivations and they were just as strong a factor as the blood leaving her body.
So she fought, her passion fueling her. Qui-Gon would live if she had to die to assure it. It allowed her to move just a little faster, dodge just a little sooner. But she was still bleeding out. She locked eyes with Maul, who was laughing as he leaned with both hands, pushing with all his weight against her open scissors. "What's so funny, you piss-eyed murderer?"
"You're more like me than you are them." He pushed harder and her grip on the scissors shook. In this guarding stance, there wasn't much she could do but try to keep him in a lock.
"I disagree. I'm not like either of you. Sith or Jedi. I don't kill needlessly. I never seek power for just myself, but also to protect others. And I'm not afraid to say I love and I love hard!" She shoved him back with a cry, screaming the last word. Maul stumbled and by the time he had recovered, she had buried her scissors in his gut. He reacted almost as quickly, reigniting his saber in her chest. She gasped, the burning plasma searing arteries and burning flesh before it could ever begin bleeding. "I guess we die today. Together." He shoved her off, dripping blood as he stood over her, fury dancing in his eyes. "But thats ok. I...can die now. I protected the ones I love."
Semele closed the eyes in the room all around her. She was ready to die in Qui-Gon's place. She had made her mark on the world. Now she would discover what afterlife awaited her kind in this world. The blade came down again, stabbing her once more in the heart. She felt every muscle in her body go limp. Obi-Wan was battling him, she knew. She could feel-
X
Qui-Gon sat over her, watching. Waiting. "Master you aren't going to try healing he?"
"It's too late." He said, holding one pale gray hand in his and exuding the calm energy she claimed she loved. Even if he felt anything but calm on the inside, even if Qui-Gon wanted to shake her and ask what the hell she thought she was doing, throwing her life away like that for an old man like him. "She...said death wasn't the same for them. I guess we're about to find out what Ms. Maryam meant, Obi-Wan." So they waited, feeling the battle tip and fall in favor of Naboo. Semele didn't move.
"Master..." Obi-Wan tried.
"A bit longer, Obi-Wan. Have patience." He squeezed her hand, willing her to come back in whatever form she had meant.
"Master it's been a while. I don't think-" Semele's skin began to bleed a soft, grayish white glow. They watched. She still wasn't breathing when her eyes shot open, two solid jade orbs of light in her radiant face. Then she sprang, knocking Qui-Gon to the ground and straddling him. She bit him on the shoulder and began to drink.
X
Semele was floating above a planet, adrift in space. It looked mostly green, with some blue waters and swirling white cloud covers. It called to her, pulled her to the surface. It whispered as she walked, confusion in her. Was she dead? Had the death blow over-ridden the amazing healing power of the rainbow drinker transformation? There was a temple as she stood before it, and she tried to focus to commit the details. She tried to Know. It didn't come to her. All she could do was look upon it with eyes bare for the first time in years.
She focused on the temple as it loomed over her, leaking dark energy. This was a place of the Jedi, but great evil had been done. But then...One could say that of most places, couldnt they? Semele wasn't afraid. She looked and became more and more certain. "I'll find you." She promised. "I'll find whatever it is you want me to witness here." Her stomach rumbled and she felt weakness filling her limbs. "But first I have to finish dying. And...get something to drink." Then she was rushing, being yanked back to her body. Something warm and sweet was filling her mouth. Then her eyes opened and for the first time she met Qui-Gon's eyes face to face, not through a magical glyph on the wall.
With his blood dripping from her mouth she realized...He was hugging her. She pulled away, shame filling her at her lack of control. She used to practice for this day but after the multiple wars she'd been in, it had seemed less important than just trying to live. She wiped her mouth on the inside of one jade sleeve and refusing to meet either Jedi's gaze spoke. "We should get to Queen Amidala. There will be ceremonies. I must..." She froze, voice trembling.
"It's so loud. So much...too much. What is that?" She gripped her head and tried to block it out with hands over her ears. "Too much. It's not mine. Who...how many? So many dead..."
Qui-Gon took her hands, peeling them off her ears. "Look at me. Block it out. I can feel that you're confused. Come on, eye contact padawan." She couldn't do it. She couldn't look at him and see the dripping wounds in his shoulder. "Padawan." He said one more time, with authority. She looked. "Your godtier, whatever the nature of it was...It's gone. The power flowing through you now is the living Force. You have it strong, especially strong considering you have zero training. Now, I want you to focus on me until you can't hear it anymore. That's it...let's count." Slowly they counted to ten and back to one, first in Galactic Common and surprisingly in Alternian. He knew spoken Alternian? Could he read it as well?
"Now. How do you feel?" Semele took a moment.
"Better. It's still there, but it's quiet now." He smiled and let go of her wrists.
"Come on, Semele. It's time. Let us face the galaxy together."
