A/N: Home is both exactly and nothing like what Huei Tori imagined.
Music for this chapter: At Anchor - Port Blue
Home is the Sailor (Part 2)
"I'll ask again: where are we going, Master?"
Huei is less than impressed when Feemor shushes him and continues to make a horrific racket doing something – probably stuffing their belongings in the miniscule storage space of their tiny room aboard this inter-system transport, if the echoes are anything to judge by.
Actually, Huei had already been unimpressed when his master had promptly pounced upon him after their weekly sign-language lesson with Ben-Avi; the feeling had only degenerated further when it became apparent that Feemor was leading him towards the scent of tibanna exhaust and engine grease – an inter-system dockyard.
Now, the at-dock hum of the ship hyperdrive rises in pitch as a shudder runs though the durasteel and up Huei's ankles. The scent of fresh tibanna flares anew and tickles the chemoreceptors in his headtresses.
As if on cue, Feemor mutters in satisfaction and slams the locker door shut with a bone-rattling clang.
Huei flinches as the sound snaps over him.
"Sorry," Feemor says immediately.
Huei feels his stomach drop as the transport pulls away from the dock – the split second between the unlocking of hyperdrive dampeners and the activation of shipwide gravity. It takes away the last reference point he has left – leaves him nothing but the floor under his feet, and the echoing sound of snapping durasteel.
Did Obi-Wan feel the same, on that slave-ship to an unknown system?
A hand finds Huei's shoulder, guides him to sit on a questionably-soft surface. He runs webbed fingers over it and identifies it as lumpy bunk.
Feemor's other hand brushes Huei's cheek, warm. "I'm sorry, young one," he murmurs. "I was so excited about this trip I forgot to cater to your – very sensible, might I add – anxieties."
Huei takes a breath. Pretends that it did not shudder. "Where are we going, Master?" he repeats, with devastating calm.
A pause. The Force gathers, like a questing wave.
"Glee Anselm."
The name does not register immediately; for Huei's entire existence in the Order, Glee Anselm has been a Mid Rim planet and nothing more. Over ninety percent water, homeworld of Anselmi and Nautolans–
Oh.
In shock, the wildest things seem possible. A hundred scenarios rise in Huei's logical mind before he has taken a single breath. A trial? A mission? A test? Or – his heart seized in his chest – he has failed his apprenticeship, and so is being taken back to be left there? The home he no longer remembers?
"Huei! Breathe!" Feemor's voice is as sharp as the fingers digging into Huei's shoulders.
Huei's lungs expand at the command. Gulps in a painful breath he did not know had stopped at his throat.
His master's voice is very close to him now, and a hand slips off his shoulder to grasp his. Huei latches on to the 'saber-calloused fingers like a lifeline.
"Remember what we talked about?" Feemor says, quietly. Slowly. "What you shouldn't do anymore?"
"Not- not to extrapolate," Huei manages.
Feemor makes a noise of confirmation, but does not speak again. The silence allows Huei to think, to take the time he needs to reorganize his thoughts.
"Not to extrapolate from information I don't have," Huei says, voice growing more sure as his breathing evens out. "And not to assume that I am at fault."
"Yes, that exactly," Feemor replies, easily. "Good job, my young padawan."
"I'm…not at fault, am I?"
"Not in the slightest."
"You'll tell me when you're disappointed," Huei murmurs, reciting the words in a soft exhale.
"Yes, which I'm not at all right now."
"Okay."
"Okay." Feemor smiles, though he knows Huei cannot see it. And, although his padawan may be perhaps growing a little too old for it, Feemor sits down beside him and pulls him into an embrace. It is a testament to Huei's state of mind that he returns it without a single complaint.
Huei says something, muffled in the folds of Feemor's cloak.
"Hmm?"
Huei shifts, and repeats himself. "Is this a trial?"
Feemor opens his mouth to reply in the negative, but the Force halts him mid-syllable. "The Force shall answer that," he says instead, resting his chin on top of Huei's head. "But I hope you shall find comfort through it, nonetheless."
Huei hugs him tighter, and Feemor lets him.
Feemor would never admit it, but upon the opening of the transport ramp into the salt-sweet air of Glee Anselm, he is quite sure he is twice as nervous than his padawan.
He had commed ahead, of course. Qui-Gon hadn't been completely remiss in teaching him courtesy. But how does one speak to the parent of one's padawan – who has been out of contact with said padawan for fifteen years and counting, and now has to hear the news that the Order that she entrusted him to sent him on a mission that took his sight from him?
"You'll be fine, Huei," Feemor says, bracingly. "Just fine. Be yourself, act natural–"
If he were anything other than completely focused on sensing the world ahead, Huei might have taken this prime opportunity to snark at his master a little; but he stands ramrod-straight as the warmth of Glee Anselm's primary sun washes over him.
"I smell something."
"Padawan?"
Huei has stiffened. His headtails are flickering haphazardly in the wind, catching the faintest scents where Feemor's human nose cannot. He stands rooted to the spot, shivering as he stares unseeingly down the ramp. The expression on Huei's face is so unnerving that Feemor almost takes a step back; a prickle runs down his arms.
Beyond the lengthening gap of sunlight, the sea-birds are singing.
The ramp makes an odd noise as it hits the ground. Master and Padawan emerge into the afternoon sunlight, and the ground trembles under their feet as their boots leave durasteel.
Rosy-white low buildings fan out around the transport dock in layers of variegated pinks and chalk, dotted with small holes around windows and doors; Feemor stares at them for a long moment before realising that every house, hall, and gurgling fountain has been shaped out of coral – not hewn, nor carved, but encouraged to grow in such a way as to curve and soar in graceful, seamless heights, as far into the distance as the eye can see. The ground itself is a burgundy-brown surface that glistens like polished garnet even when wholly dry; solid and semi-transparent, and ever-so-slightly curved.
Feemor knows, of course, what this is. The shell of the great Gampassa, upon the backs of which the Nautolan people built their first cities, diving to the deep and rising to starlit skies in cycles half-millennia in length.
But he can see it.
His Padawan cannot.
Huei is standing quite still, both hands grasping his small bag of belongings. His face flickers rapidly between expressions; wonder, curiosity, loss. The sea wind catches his padawan braid, flings it out behind him like a string of stray pearls tossing on tumultuous waves.
Feemor takes a step closer. "Huei?"
Huei swallows. "Master."
An image flashes over the bond between them, fleeting and fuzzy, like a childhood drawing done in chubby, uncoordinated hands.
Sand-smoothed walls in the sea breeze, sunlit water and sea-birds. A green-webbed hand grasping his.
Home.
As if in answer, a rumble sounds below their feet, dances up the white-pink coral of the low buildings around them. Sea birds flock to the air in a cacophony of annoyed agitation.
Something brushes past Feemor's consciousness in the Force; something so ancient and inscrutable that he almost forgets to breathe.
"Oh," Huei murmurs, faintly. His eyes are lined with an edge of moisture now, limning his silver-scarred sclera.
Clearing his throat, Feemor pulls out a scrap of flimsy. "Right. We'll have to walk a little way towards– padawan?"
Huei is already a dozen paces away and counting. One webbed hand runs lightly over the rough coral of the friezes and edifices he passes by. His fingers skip and tumble over the railings and shopfronts, but none of the passing Nautolans seem to mind; they favour Huei with smiles and verbal greetings, to the latter of which Huei replies in kind, all while keeping a steady and never-ceasing pace up the street.
Feemor finds himself quite left in the dust.
When he catches up, he opens his mouth to gently chide his apprentice (and more so, to politely ask what in the stars he is doing) but then Huei's lips move, and Feemor's jaw clicks shut.
"Five dozen steps from the ships to the sea," Huei murmurs.
Ahead, beyond the gentle curve of the Gampassa's shell, a line of shimmering blue is coming into view.
The Force thrums through the air, takes Feemor in a puppeteer's hold as he follows his padawan, each new step in the exact spot that Huei's foot was the moment before.
The crash of waves filters towards them, the inhale and exhale of moon and tide. The line of blue thickens into a blur, and then suddenly, the Jedi crest the curve of the street and the coral-sung buildings below them drop away to a vast, glittering ocean, waves of azure capped with white foam. This is a painting that morphs forever into every shade of blue in existence; cerulean and sapphire, cobalt and turquoise, out to a horizon where the unbroken shell of sky meets the brushstrokes of the sea.
Huei's pace slows. His head turns over his shoulder towards his master, beseechingly. "Is that sound I hear…?"
"Yes," Feemor says, trying in vain to hide the lump in his throat. "That's the sea."
"I wish I could see it." Huei sucks in a breath, and squares his shoulders. "Five dozen steps from the ships to the sea," he repeats, as he steps carefully down to the lapping of waves at the shore, head angled to listen. A pace from the hissing tide, he makes a sharp turn to his right.
"And a dozen more from the sea to the tree," Huei murmurs.
There, set a little ways back from the shoreline, is a single, solitary palm tree – a Sabiloni palm. Flowers cling to its leaves like starbursts of silver-white. Fragrant, clear sap drips from their satin edges.
Huei's fingers spread over the smooth surface of the trunk as he passses, a whisper of 'saber callouses against polished bark. "Two dozen steps from the tree, and see…" His voice catches on the last word, because he knows he cannot.
But Feemor can.
Beyond the palm, up a path studded with mother-of-pearl and framed by the arch of a peach-coral doorway, there is a green-skinned Nautolan woman waiting for the Jedi.
Huei stops.
"You've sung your journey back to me," he whispers, the childish rhyme slipping from his lips.
The Nautolan woman makes an aborted movement – her hand reaches out and falls back almost in the same instant, yearning in her slate-grey eyes. Her simple, homespun garments are embellished with hand-sewn shells, and the soft sea wind tumbles through her waist-long headtresses and back towards the Jedi.
Huei's headtresses flicker and scent the wind. "Master? Is…is there someone there?"
Feemor presses a hand to his heart, and bows low to her. "Yes," he says. "She's there."
Huei swallows. "She smells like something…before. As though she…" He lets his bag fall to the ground. Takes one halting step forward, and then another. And another.
He halts an arm's length away from her.
She looks across at him, and tears tumble down her cheeks.
For Huei, he only knows these: the warmth on his skin that tells of sunlight, the smell of salt on the wind, and the soft, almost-sobbing breaths of the one stood before him, barely discernable over the song of the waves.
For a moment, neither of them move.
And then trembling green hands reach up to rest on Huei's cheeks, lingering at the faint scars at the edges of his eyes where the acid that took his sight also seared his skin.
"My little grey sea-bird," a musical voice says. "My Huei Tori."
Feemor watches, hardly daring to breathe. He makes himself busy shooing away the sea-birds that peck curiously at his boots, instead.
"You're…" Huei murmurs, raising a hand to grasp her wrist where it meets his chin. She makes a little squeaking noise at the contact; perhaps she did not expect his 'saber callouses. Their head-tresses flicker around each other, not quite touching, dancing and communicating in unconscious memory.
Huei swallows audibly. "What do I…"
"You can call me Nila," she says, smiling radiantly through her crystalline waterfall. "I'm so glad to see you again, Huei."
Despite the opaque white lines that scar his eyes, Huei lowers his chin and seems to look right through her and into the Unifying Force.
"Mother," he says, decidedly.
Feemor gapes.
At the word, Nila looks as though she might collapse. Certainly, her tears start anew. "Thank you for this gift," she whispers. "I did not expect it."
Huei's expression is rapidly morphing into one of helpless bewilderment, now that his mother's tears have audibly swelled again; Feemor hastens forward and bows deeply.
"Ma'am," he says, "It is an honour to meet you."
"Master Ner'iah," Nila says, turning to him with an unreadable expression. She does not extend a hand in greeting; perhaps she cannot quite bring herself to let go of her son yet. "You are welcome. Come in."
She grasps Huei's hand with her own, and Huei follows her, as easily and naturally as breathing. He does not turn back, not once.
Feemor stands there in the bright afternoon sunlight, and squashes down the sudden, traitorous twinge in his heart with vehemence.
He stoops to snatch up Huei's pack, and follows.
Nila's cottage is filled with memories of two people who are no longer in her life.
Feemor excuses himself to pack away his and Huei's packs, and passes a long hunting spear carved from what appeared to be a shell as long as he is tall, beside a holo of a smiling young Nautolan man, with midnight blue skin and bright grey eyes. A little further on, a shelf with toys carved out of sea-hardened wood; a miniature spear the mirror of the one set on the wall, a sea sponge ball covered with small, webbed hand-prints in a dozen shades of paint. There are a child's scribbled drawings in kelp paint lovingly framed and hung on every wall; teething rings of hardened anemone arranged in a careful pile under the pooling light of a window.
None of these things have a speck of dust on them, but there is something in the way they sit of the shelves that speak of long stillness, and lack of use.
Nila's voice drifts back to Feemor from where she is sat at the sandstone kitchen table with Huei. "I am sorry your father is not here to see what a fine young man you've become. There was an Anselmi raid not too long after you left with the Jedi. I had my knife in my hand, but I could not reach him."
"Oh," Huei's voice says – and Feemor can hear the yearn to help in his voice, that quiet, searching heart that Dooku tried so hard to burn out of him – "I'm sorry."
Feemor pauses before rounding the corner, stands quiet and still. He would rather not ruin their privacy.
"It's been a long span of years, dear one. But I thank you nonetheless."
A tug of lost, embarrassed curiosity through the training bond; Feemor closes his eyes, and breathes a silent sigh. Huei does not remember his father, and is too afraid of causing pain to ask.
But that is a minor point in the larger problem brewing on the horizon. Nila's Force-signature is filled with an aching joy at her son's presence, but underneath, there simmers something else. Something directed not at Huei, but at Feemor.
Perhaps Huei is too unbalanced to sense it – but his master can.
Best to get it over with.
Feemor squares his shoulders, and steps into the kitchen, composed.
Nila glances up at him, and the smile drops off her face. "Huei," she says, quietly. "It's been so long since you were here. Perhaps you'd like to step outside and greet the sea?"
Huei may be overwhelmed, but he is far from stupid. His head swivels unerringly towards Feemor's Force-presence. "Master?" he enquires, a line appearing at his forehead.
"Go, Huei," Feemor says, and knows Huei can hear the smile in his voice. "We'll be just a moment."
"But–"
"Padawan."
Huei's palm-woven chair scrapes on the floor as he stands. He rises, tight-lipped, and slips outside.
In the stillness of the kitchen, Nila's hands have gone pale green on the table, clasped as they are around each other. "Sit, Master Jedi," she says, quietly.
Feemor does as he is told.
Nila stares down at her fingers. "You know what I am going to ask," she says.
"I am prepared for it."
"Are you?" Nila's gaze holds Feemor in place with an intensity that rivals the most venerated of Jedi. "You told me of his blindness in advance. I might have beeen grateful for it, were it not common courtesy. I have seen it now, for myself, and I do not love Huei any less for it. But it still remains that he has been blinded and I do not know why, or how."
Feemor bows his head. "I am-"
Her eyes flash. "Don't apologise. I assume it wasn't you." This last part is said with such devastating calm that Feemor knows that if he were to reply in the affirmative, he would find himself suddenly missing a head.
"He was captured on an investigative mission to Ventrux. The scientist responsible for blinding him has been incarcerated for life," he says, instead.
"So she's still alive?"
"Yes," Feemor replies, and meets the challenge in her question with a cool stare.
Nila sits back. A glint of metal flickers at her sleeve as she unfolds her hands. "I see. This is better than nothing."
And then: "I have another question, Master Jedi."
"Of course."
"Were you there, when it happened?"
"I was not. I took over Huei's training after that particular mission. I was not acquainted with him prior."
She zeroes in on the gap in that statement with effortless precision, almost a Makashi strike to the heart. "And his previous teacher?"
Feemor opens his mouth. Closes it.
"Ah." Nila leans forward, and Feemor resists the sudden impulse to edge his chair backwards. "I see," she says. "I want you to understand something, Master Ner'iah. I gave Huei to the Jedi because I wished him the best life possible – to nurture his gift in a manner which I knew he would not be able to do so here." She stands, and the scrape of her deadwood chair screeches harshly against coral. "I need you to convince me that it was not a mistake."
And there it is.
What does Feemor Ner'iah have to say, who has lost a lineage-brother to the dark side of the Force, whose former master scours the galaxy in a likely futile search for Feemor's youngest lineage-brother, sold to slavery?
But it is not about him. He is the mentor. It is never about him.
It is about Huei.
"Huei is a gift," Feemor begins, and a smile spreads unbidden across his features, even though he knows it may be misunderstood. "He has a brave heart but he does not know it; compassion beyond his own understanding. At the time he lost his sight he had a master who did not care for these attributes above that of his skill in combat and hunting, but I have since observed him overcome those times with a fortitude that I can only watch in awe. Huei's actions on Ventrux saved hundreds more children from a similar fate, and he has not once thought that regrettable."
Nila blinks at him, a layer of moisture over her slate-grey eyes.
"So," Feemor sighs, "perhaps I cannot answer your question. Perhaps Huei could have flourished here, and I know he would have grown up well-loved in your care. But I do my best to teach, and pretend to be wise, while all along perhaps your son has taught me far more."
Nila's sits, slowly. She looks at him with new eyes; perhaps reading all the words that he dared not use. And then, unexpectedly, her lips curve into a smile. "I am glad to know you love him as much as I do."
Feemor chokes on his reply.
But their conversation warms considerably after that.
(:~:)
The waves are saying something.
Huei stands, one hand pressed to the smooth skin of the palm tree, and listens to their voices. He cannot see them, but the song of the waves rises in surging crescendos that taper into sighs. The inhale and exhale of each oncoming breaker rings in Huei's memories as forgotten words; a language he used to speak but has long forgotten. They seem to tremble like snatches of a song sung far-off at the edge of his hearing, broken phrases and half-formed chords. Try as he might, he cannot piece together lyrics or melody.
A rumble, far, far below his boots.
That too is a familiar dream; a thing so ingrained in his bones he knows he should understand it, but it slips through his webbed fingers like dust and ashes.
Why did his master bring him here?
Why is Obi-Wan gone?
Why is the Force so distant here, where it should be closest and brightest? He had thought, for a moment, when his childhood rhymes had surfaced in his memories like buried treasure, that he was a sailor returning home; but here, he is adrift without a port, and there is no star to steer by. He had felt much the same when Dooku set him adrift – without an anchor on an endless empty lake of ink-black water.
The wind rustles the palm fronds above his head, a scritch-scratch that sounds not unlike stylus on flimsy.
Huei knows exactly what Obi-Wan would do, if he were here.
A trail of moisture slips out of the corner of one eyelid, draws its excruciatingly slow journey down to his chin.
Blast it.
Huei shucks his boots and cloak, unclips his utility belt and lets it drop, and walks barefoot into the sighing sea.
Next: The third and final part to Home is the Sailor. Some old friends never change.
