The Way of a Siluan

by heatherxenia

Three AgriCorps Jedi survive Order 66. One is shipwrecked in a remote forest and begins to learn the ways of a quiet sect of Lightsiders known as the Siluans. Another tries to run a farm but is nearly thwarted by the Imperial Agriculture Program. A third takes the path of a Dark Jedi, masterminds Imperial agriculture policy...and sets out to destroy the Siluans. Part I complete.

24. The Choices of Ava Kirrin

Welcome to chapter 24!

This is the final chapter in Part I. I'll include some notes about Part II at the end.

A reader asked about the word "Ava." This is a title given to Siluan Elders.

The Way of a Siluan, chapter 24: The Choices of Ava Kirrin

BBY 14, year five of Imperial rule, following immediately after chapter 23

Thwack! Ava Kirrin's axe fell again and the block of wood split in two. Outside his little stone house, it was just getting light. He was up before dawn, as usual, and chopping wood for the fire to cook their meal. Of his two guests, Devin was already up but Eo hadn't appeared yet. Ava Kirrin was a bit surprised at that. He had knocked on the wall beside the curtain over the place where she slept to see whether she could come for morning meditation, but there was no response. She must be tired, it was a long flight yesterday, he thought, but resolved to be strict with his new apprentice starting tomorrow.

Ava Kirrin bent down to set the next piece of wood in place, and behind him, he heard a swoosh of wings. He turned to see the owl land on the ground beside him. She folded her dark wings and blinked at him with those big yellow eyes in her round white face.

"Thadra, it's strange for you to be out at this hour," Ava Kirrin said to her. "Do you have news for me?" He felt uneasy. The owls never came to him in daylight unless they had news, and news was usually bad.

But the owl tensed, then gathered herself and flew off again. Behind him, Ava Kirrin heard the pounding of small feet, and his twelve-year-old son Yan went tearing past him.

"Yan!" Ava Kirrin barked. "Where are you going? I want you back in time for breakfast!"

"Yes, Dad!" Yan's voice trailed off as he ran down the hill toward the forest.

Ava Kirrin sighed. Yan might or might not be back in time for breakfast. Ava Kirrin hoped that Eo would be a good influence on these unruly children of his.

Ava Kirrin let his mind melt back into the rhythmic thud of the axe against a new block of wood, but Yan came running back not long after.

"Dad," he said, panting, "there's a weird lady down there by the creek. Can you come and see?"

Ava Kirrin scowled, not at Yan, but wondering. He didn't have to wonder long. Yan led him down the hill and into the forest, but turned off the main path going east to the open field and went instead south toward the creek.

There near the stream-bank sat a woman, her back to the water and her hands over her ears. She had dark hair and wore a black denim jacket. She was pale and sickly looking, staring blankly ahead and blinking like some night-creature suddenly exposed to the day. As soon as she saw Ava Kirrin, she screamed and looked as if she was about to jump up and run.

"Please, don't run!" Ava Kirrin said quickly. "We can help you."

The woman, whose breath was still quick and shallow, sat down again at the sound of Ava Kirrin's voice, but she hugged her knees to herself and watched him suspiciously.

Ava Kirrin made a point to relax his posture and silently reached out to her through the Force. He watched as she gradually relaxed, but not completely. It didn't take a Force-user to tell that she was in shock, and more or less out of her mind.

Ava Kirrin crouched down in front of her. "Are you hurt?" he asked gently. "What happened to you?"

The woman swallowed. "That One, she broke me," she said quietly.

"Which one? What happened?"

"I killed her," the woman said flatly, as if this was a normal thing to do. Then she moaned at her own pain and buried her head in her knees.

Ava Kirrin drew in a sharp breath and stood up. "Yan, go and check on your sister."

"She's with mom. They went over the creek to pick berries."

"I said GO and CHECK."

Yan spread his arms out to balance on the bigger rocks to cross the creek, then ran off into the bush on the other side. Ava Kirrin sat on the ground not far from his unexpected guest. The rising sun caught the feathery branches of the trees high above them, but down there on the damp ground they were still in shadow.

"Who was the girl?" Ava Kirrin asked, trying to keep the aggression out of his voice.

No response.

"Who are you?"

No answer.

"She's here!" Yan called out from the other side of the creek.

"Is your mom there too?"

"Yes!" his wife called back and appeared on the other side of the creek with a basket full of berries in her arms and their daughter beside her.

Ava Kirrin's heart leapt and Ava Kirrin's heart sank. "Have you seen Eo this morning?"

His wife shook her head. "She wasn't in her bed, so I thought she was with you."

"Can you go find her? She might be hurt." Ava Kirrin's heart started pounding as he asked. He watched his wife and kids cross the creek, casting worried glances at the woman sitting on the ground with her face hidden against her bent knees. As soon as his family had gone, he crouched down on the ground in front of her again.

"Who are you?" he asked again.

At last, she looked up. "Ry Kyver," she said and shuddered, then hid her face again.

At that name, every hair on the back of Ava Kirrin's neck stood on end. This was not a person who deserved to live.

As a Siluan, Ava Kirrin carried no weapon, but that didn't stop him from seeing the jagged rocks along the stream. It would be easy. With her sitting there bent over in that munted state of mind, she wouldn't even see it coming. As he stood up and reached for the nearest rock, in his mind he could already feel the weight of it in his hand, feel its sharp edges under his fingers. He could already hear her skull crack and feel bone give way to rock.

But even as he touched the cold stone, another thought stopped him: this was not the vow he had taken. It was obvious that she was in shock. Something had broken her. To bash in someone who was sitting there vulnerable was no way to acquire Light within him.

Ava Kirrin sighed and shook his head. He slumped back down on the ground and pinched the space between his eyes between thumb and forefinger. He'd known when he took his vows that the way of a Siluan wasn't easy, but why did it have to be so damned hard?

Another thought gnawed its way back into his consciousness: Eo. The nearest settlement was thirty kilometres away. In her current state of mind, Ry Kyver could not possibly have flown a starship or driven a speeder to get to where she was now. Whatever she had done and whatever had happened to her had happened nearby. Ava Kirrin tried to calm his thoughts so that he could hear what the trees had to say, or feel some echo in the Force of what had been, but his mind was in disarray.

Beside him, Ry Kyver coughed, then hacked up some kind of phlegm and spat it on the ground. Ava Kirrin's stomach lurched. He made a face and turned his head away in disgust. But whatever he felt towards this person, whatever she had done, he knew what he had to do.

Just then he heard footsteps come along the path through the forest. It was Yan, with Devin behind him. Yan looked scared and Devin's face was drawn.

"Ava Kirrin, we found Eo," Devin began, but his voice broke. The words, spoken and unspoken, struck Ava Kirrin like a blow to the head.

At the mention of Eo's name, Ry looked up and caught Devin's eye. Both faces showed a flash of recognition. In an instant, Devin had his blaster pointed at Ry Kyver's head.

"Devin, no!" Ava Kirrin shouted.

Devin was a good shot, and it was close range, but Ava Kirrin was a Jedi once himself. The moment Devin pulled the trigger, Ava Kirrin reached out his hand, and the shot went wide.

Devin's face twisted with shame and anger, and he turned his back to Ava Kirrin.

Next down the path came Ava Kirrin's wife, Ava Wyth, and their daughter Sophie. With teary eyes, Ava Wyth looked around at the group. Her voice was hoarse. "I've marked out the place for the grave," she said, "but perhaps someone else could dig while I gather the herbs."

"I'll go," Devin said quickly, and walked away.

"Yan, Sophie, please go help him," Ava Kirrin said. With a worried glance back at the stranger sitting on the ground, the two kids ran after Devin, who didn't look back or acknowledge their father in any way.

Ava Kirrin and his wife exchanged looks. "I'll bring the stones," he said.

His wife saw the look on his face and went and put her arms around him. She knew the hopes he'd had for Eo.

With his wife living and breathing against him, Ava Kirrin could feel himself start shaking at the release of his tension. When he'd calmed down and they'd let each other go, his wife studied him again.

"Devin was angry because you wouldn't let him..." she let her voice trail off and motioned with her head to Ry, who had her face down against her knees again and was wrapping her arms around herself as if to shut them all out. Ava Wyth hadn't seen her husband deflect the blaster shot, but she'd heard the gun go off and seen the blaster in Devin's hand. Body language told her the rest.

Ava Kirrin bit his lip and nodded.

"Shikatta ga nai," his wife said in the language of their home planet. There's nothing else you could have done.

Ava Kirrin's face twisted. It hardly seemed right, it hardly seemed fair to just let someone like Ry Kyver go. But they couldn't kill her, they had no way to contain her, and he knew the local authorities well enough that if he were to hand her over to them, he might as well kill her himself.

"Shikatta ga nai," his wife said again, guessing his thoughts. "We can check on her again after the funeral."

Ava Kirrin closed his eyes and nodded. His wife kissed him. "I marked out the grave in the field near the edge of the forest. I'll meet you there with the herbs," she said, and then squeezed his hand before she went off back up the path through the forest.

Ava Kirrin was left alone with his thoughts, and with Ry Kyver. It was too much. He turned his back to her and buried his face in his hands.

No! he thought. No! No! Eo was young, she was focused and disciplined and dedicated. The Siluans were going to need her and hundreds more like her if they were ever to recover from what Ry Kyver had done to them. And she had a great future. He'd seen it, hadn't he?

Ava Kirrin paced up and down beside the creek. The future is always changing. As cruelly stoic as the words sounded now, so the Jedi taught. And Force-visions were notoriously difficult to interpret wisely. Whatever he had seen in his vision, whatever the future had been, it wasn't true now. What was unchanging and impossible to misinterpret was the fact that he needed to gather those stones to cover the grave and go serve a funeral for the young woman who should have been his new apprentice.

It was all surreal in a sick sort of way that sat in his gut. It should be that he was still back at the house. It should be that he'd finish chopping firewood, and they would have breakfast. It should be that Eo would wake up and come to join them, apologizing for being up late. No, no, he would say, you must be tired, you had a long flight yesterday. It should be that after eating they would go out and harvest the next row of potatoes, and then when the sun reached its zenith he would teach her the words for the noonday chant.

When Ava Kirrin blinked he felt tears trickle down his face.

The feathery branches of the blue-green trees above him stirred and tossed in the wind. The creek clattered over the rocks, the same as always. Ava Kirrin looked over at Ry, who was still sitting there with her face buried against her bent knees, still hugging her legs to herself. He stood and studied her.

With the busyness of family life, it always took Ava Kirrin a little time to tune in fully to anyone's Force-signature. He could tell now that the Dark in Ry was unmistakable. But that energy was like the sound of a gong that had been struck but was being struck no more. Was that what her being broken meant?

Why Eo's death would have that effect on Ry when thousands of other good people made no such impression on her he could not begin to understand. But whatever danger Ry was or wasn't at this point, he couldn't kill her, and he had no way to contain her. He would have to just let her go.

Ava Kirrin shook his head and walked a few steps over to the creek. He bent down and with a grunt, he hoisted up a huge stone, wet and dripping, from the streambed. At that moment, Ry happened to look up at him with distant dis-focus in her eyes.

She had no remorse. That much was clear.

Ava Kirrin adjusted his grip on the rock. It was going to take multiple trips to get enough to cover the grave, even if he only took the biggest stones. She should be made he help, he thought. She should feel the weight of what she's done.

As if she sensed his thoughts, Ry glared at him. "Go away and don't look at me," she said, then hugged her legs to herself all the more tightly and buried her face in her knees again.

Ava Kirrin felt the heavy rock strain against his arms and shoulders. I saved you, and that's all you can say? he wanted to yell at her. It occurred to him again that there were other uses for that rock beside making a grave-stone of it, but he shook his head. He didn't want to live with a broken vow weighing on his shoulders either.

With that thought, Ava Kirrin adjusted his grip on the rock and went off into the forest to find the others.

# # #

North of Ava Kirrin's house, the rocky hillside was bathed in the last red-gold light of day. As Ava Kirrin pushed his way up the narrow switch-back trail to the peak, he relished the burn in his lungs and the strain in his legs. The exertion made him feel strong, it made him feel alive. He needed that after serving a funeral for someone so young.

But he climbed the hill not for solace, but for ceremony. He wanted to chant the final prayers of the death-day from the summit under the light of the first stars.

That morning Ava Kirrin and his family and Devin buried Eo. She had not yet taken her vows, and so the funeral was the same as the simple burial service Ava Kirrin did for Devin's mom five years earlier. Devin went home soon after, but Ava Kirrin and his family kept vigil the way Siluans did in their monasteries. While they sat by the grave, even Ava Kirrin's unruly children were solemn. "I never felt such peace by a graveside," his wife said as they walked back to the house together for a meal afterwards.

On the hillside above him, the gold glow faded to grey, but with each step, Ava Kirrin carried that peace within him. It made him feel connected to everything: to the moss and the lichens and straggly bushes that clung to the rock face above him, to the forest and the field beyond it, and to his family back in the house and even to the ground he walked.

With that thought, Ava Kirrin came huffing and puffing to a level part of the path that went across the top of a buttress just below the summit. When he looked up, he froze in his tracks. The rocky outcrop had been hiding from view a lone figure standing at the peak: Ry Kyver.

She was not, as he had come to do, looking out to the far mountains where the sun had set. She had her back to him, and her gaze was pointed downwards to the sheer thirty-metre drop that ended in jagged rocks that jutted out all down the far side of the hill.

I hope she really does jump, a thought said in his mind. But Ava Kirrin shook his head. That thought might speak, but he wasn't going to listen. He stood quietly and studied Ry.

Earlier that day when Ava Kirrin encountered Ry Kyver by the creek, he couldn't fathom why Eo's death would have such an effect on her when so many other good people didn't. But as he kept vigil, he felt that he could begin to understand.

For each one person is three, and the three are one person: the body and the essence and the energies.

Death is the great divider: the body returns to the ground that bore it, the essence returns to the Force that enlivened it, and for good or for ill, the energies go on in the galaxy.

In life, therefore, acquire Light within you, that in death your energies may enliven those who remain.

These words, from The Sayings of Ava Mannath, haunted Ava Kirrin's thoughts that day. For a Siluan, two things were all-important: to acquire Light within, and to be prepared to share that Light in one's death.

Ava Kirrin couldn't be sure, but he could guess that when Ry Kyver came for the other Siluans, they did what he would have done: they focused their intentions so that their final energies would strengthen the survivors, or would heal the planet from the destruction that their persecutor would leave in her wake. But Eo had no such attachments to a place or to a community. Everything he could sense as he sat by her grave told Ava Kirrin that Eo's intention was simply to share her Light with Ry Kyver.

For Ava Kirrin, even the afterglow of Eo's last energies was life and peace. But no one could fully control the effect of their energies after their death. For someone who had so steeped herself in Darkness, Light meant only bitter pain and sheer terror. No wonder, Ava Kirrin thought, Ry Kyver would say, She broke me.

She deserves it, his thought said, but he shook his head and touched the stone that hung at his neck. No, Eo had found her victory, now he needed to find his. He faked a cough, and Ry turned and saw him.

"Oh, it's you," she said flatly.

At least, Ava Kirrin thought, she sounds more coherent now.

Ry walked carefully down from the rocky peak and chose a narrow flat spot where she could stand near Ava Kirrin but still look down on him. "So I guess you think I'm the bad one here," she said.

Ava Kirrin's jaw hung open for a moment while he grasped for some reply to this. "Your words, not mine," he said at last.

"She broke me. Do you think that's fair?" Ry held her hand out over a loose rock on the ground. It wobbled but didn't move. She screamed with frustration and booted the rock down the hill.

Ava Kirrin watched it crash through the bushes below them. 'Broken,' he realized, meant far more than he'd thought.

When he turned back to her, Ry was standing there with her arms folded across her chest, waiting for him to give some answer.

"Sometimes it's good to be broken," he said.

"What?" she spat.

Ava Kirrin didn't flinch, and continued calmly, "If you're broken, you can be re-made. And if you are going to be re-made, you can choose: do you want to be re-made in the Dark, or in the Light?" He held her gaze; he wasn't about to let her stare him down.

Ry looked away angrily. "And what good is that supposed to do me? I can't go back to Lord Vader like this, but if I don't report to him I'm as good as dead."

"Are you looking for sympathy, or for advice?" Ava Kirrin asked archly.

"You seem to think you know what's good for people, so you tell me," Ry shot back and glared at him.

Ava Kirrin laughed. "Good one," he said. "What I'll offer you is neither, just this: I can't have you stay here, but if you go to the old cantina on Takodana and ask the proprietor for the Gunma family, one of them can take you to my friend, Ava Gerges. He'll know how to help you - if you want that."

"Where is he? I'm enough of a pilot to fly there myself."

"If you aren't going to report back this Lord Vader of yours, I think you'll find that getting through Imperial checkpoints is a little more difficult from now on. And I don't want Imperial authorities to have a record of your going there. If you go to Takodana first, there's at least a chance that they'll lose your trail."

Ry narrowed her eyes at him. "You Siluans!" she said. "You talk about Light, but you don't even know justice."

Ava Kirrin folded his arms across his chest to match her stance. "If I sought what people call justice, what would we gain by it?"

"So you're just going to let me go." Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

Ava Kirrin studied Ry in the fading light. She had no remorse. Such sorrow as she felt was regret at her loss of power and self-pity over having been broken.

But what gave him hope was that alongside her darkened Force-signature, another energy went with her now. It draped over her like a veil, it wrapped around her like a blanket to ward off the cold. It was the same energy he had sensed in Eo when she spoke with him almost one rotation earlier, when she let go of her fear and said I want to try.

He couldn't be sure that Ry would ever understand what a gift she had received, or whether she would ever feel the effects he felt from the energy that Eo had left with her, but Ava Kirrin found it hard to doubt that there was at least some hope for Ry Kyver in it.

"Yes," Ava Kirrin said. "I think you'll find your way."

Ry glared at him. "Idiot!" she hissed, and then stormed past him.

Ava Kirrin turned and watched her disappear down the hill into the dusk. He wondered what would come of this choice of his, for good or for ill. Not that he was worried about Ava Gerges; the Gunma clan would see to that.

By the time he'd finished chanting the prayers he'd come to say, Ava Kirrin saw a little starship lift off above the trees. He couldn't help but think that no matter what path Ry Kyver chose now, she still left a wake of destruction behind her. Without their monasteries, the Siluans were decimated, scattered and isolated. Except for Ava Gerges, Ava Kirrin didn't even know of any other Siluans who were left. And by Devin's account, Ry Kyver's agricultural policy meant that the planets most relied on to feed the galaxy were being slowly poisoned. The Imperial machine would grind on with or without her, and what hope was there against that?

The starship sped off south toward the mountains. Ava Kirrin shook his head. Thoughts, he knew, reverberated through the Force, and if there was to be any hope for her, the last thing Ry Kyver needed now was his pessimism. He gathered himself to focus, and then sent a pulse of better energy to help her on her way.

"May the Force be with you," he said to the speck that was the starship. There was a flash of light in the darkening sky, and he knew she'd made the leap to hyperspace.

# # #

In the Imperial Palace on Coruscant, the Emperor gripped the arms of his great throne and glared down at his apprentice with heavy-lidded yellow eyes. As Vader bowed before him, prostrating himself to the floor, the Emperor did not wait for Vader to rise before he spoke to him.

"Vader, what has become of Ms. Kyver?" the Emperor asked with a serrated edge to his voice.

In his mind, Vader reeled off a string of Huttese curses. How in this blasted galaxy should I know? And why should I care? he thought, but he could see that his master was in a dangerous mood, so he spoke calmly. "Less than thirty-six hours ago," he said through even breath, "I spoke with her on Ukio. At that time, she was well."

With his eyes, the Emperor sifted his apprentice. Liar! he had wanted to snarl at him, but he could see now that what Vader had said was true: he knew only what he had said and no more.

But the Emperor could not admit the truth to his apprentice. Just hours earlier, he had watched through the Force as Ry Kyver indeed found that One whom he had prophesied and extinguished her.

That should have been his moment of triumph. After all, it was he who chose her, he who found her when the Jedi left her to rot in the AgriCorps. It was he who had prophesied the rising of that One, and he who foretold the power that Ry Kyver would attain by destroying her. This should have been his moment to gloat in his underling's newfound power – and by extension, his own. But no. Even at the moment in which he sensed her power rise, she was hidden from him. A veil covered her and now, however much he searched for her through the Force, he could not find her.

"You will seek her, Vader, and bring her to me," he hissed.

Behind his mask, a muscle twitched in Vader's jaw. "Do you still want her alive?" His question came with a tinge of sarcasm.

The Emperor's only answer was a bolt of Force-lightning that struck the floor only ten centimetres from Vader's feet. Vader took one look at his master's wrathful face and fled.

With Vader gone, the Emperor glowered into the emptiness around him. It could not be. It should not be. He'd consulted his holocrons, but they gave him no answer. His mind had swept the galaxy through the Force, but found nothing.

It was no use. She was hidden from him, and he could not find her.

Exhausted, the Emperor sank back into his throne and his mind finally admitted the thought he'd held at bay: something has happened that I did not foresee.

Credits

"The future is always changing" quote is actually by Richelle Mead.

~ End of Part I ~

Thank you for reading Part I of The Way of a Siluan. I will be taking a break to finish a rough draft of Part II, which will hopefully be ready to share sooner rather than later in 2019. If you would like to know when Part II is released, please make sure to follow this story. You can also send me an email at heatherxenia over on gmail and I can let you know when the first chapter of Part II is ready. (Please include a relevant subject line – and no attachments - if you contact me by email.)

Many many thanks to those who offered reviews and other feedback or critique. It's most appreciated! I'd like to make special mention of Chocolate Teapot for more than once granting my request for critical feedback.

If you've read this far, please do send a message or leave a review with your thoughts! When I'm undecided between options for what to include in this story or not, sometimes it's knowing what readers enjoy that helps me decide what gets cut from a draft and what makes it onto this site.

Speaking of critique, please do share your critique or feedback on this chapter so that I can make an improved version for future readers.

In answer to a reader's question, Part II will continue to focus on the OCs presented in Part I, but there will be more interaction with canonical characters. In particular, I'm planning a subplot with Ahsoka Tano, along with appearances by other characters/references from Star Wars: Clone Wars, Star Wars: Rebels, The Force Awakens, and the Ahsoka novel. Not all readers are familiar with the books or animated series of the Star Wars canon, so I will be writing so as to make each character accessible and engaging regardless of whether you've met them in canon before.

Part II will be the story of how, out of the disparate characters who remain, an offshoot of the Jedi AgriCorps rises up to play its part in the struggle against the Empire. It will also be the story of how the Emperor's prophesy is and isn't fulfilled as Ry Kyver finds a way forward after her encounter with Eo.