SUNRISE
by ardavenport
- Part 3 -
Unfortunately, Qui-Gon's estimation of his improvised shoes had been correct and he had to kick them off on the stairs, slowing him down. The Executioner had already knelt and stood up again. Even with her hands and arms bound behind her, she could still pick up one of the shards of the blade of the axe that had been broken on the stones of the stocks at sunrise.
She stood, facing him when he reached the top of the stairs. The stone platform was hot on his bare feet and scattered with metal pieces, glinting golden in the sun. He had to shift from one foot to the other, as well as skip around the hot, sharp metal shards. They would burn even the Executioner's tough skin, but Qui-Gon knew this would not stop her from using one.
He saw the rhythmic motion of her shoulders as she sawed through her bonds with the sharp metal. She backed up to the edge of the platform; he couldn't tackle her without both of them going over the side. Qui-Gon breathed in, the Force flowing into him, from the hot stone under his feet, from the sunlight above. He extended his hands and pulled the Executioner toward him.
She followed his pull and ran right into him, knocking him down. He heard the clink of the metal shard as she dropped it. Her arms were still bound, but she rolled on top of him, trying to pin him to the hot stone. He felt it through the shroud fabric and his sleeveless tunic; it burned his bare legs and arms wherever they touched it. She anchored herself with her legs on either side of his body. Pushing forward, she tried to head butt him, but his forearms blocked her.
He pushed her off, rolled away and back up onto his feet. He heard the fabric of her bonds tearing. Diving forward, he seized her collar and belt, and heaved her up onto his back. He leaped off the platform; the Force flowed through him, absorbing the impact as his knees bent when he landed. The Executioner rolled forward off his shoulder and Qui-Gon immediately dove on top of her, planting himself on her broad back over her arms and facing toward her legs. He muscular body bucked under him, but he held her down. Her wrists were nearly free, the fabric cut and stretched, but her arms were still pinned by the cloth holding them behind her.
Qui-Gon took a new strip of fabric from the extra cloth hanging from his waist and re-tied her wrists. She shrieked her outrage.
"Coward! Coward! You will die alone in darkness! You will die in space!!!" She cursed him in the worst way she knew. Qui-Gon saw the palm of one of her hands was brown and burned with a smear of blood on it from holding the hot, metal shard. The bleeding wasn't bad and would stop on its own, but he wrapped extra cloth around it to cover up the wound.
Breathing hard, Qui-Gon finished tying the new knots. He had thoroughly lost his concentration to keep his body temperature low. Even Jedi Masters could focus on a few things at a time. His lips and mouth had gone dry. The scarf had been pushed back from his head and long, lengths of hair hung around his face, clinging to his skin, the back of his neck. The Executioner twisted under him, testing his hold on her.
"The sun gives me strength, Jedi," she hissed, her voice coming from the ground behind him. "It takes yours."
He could not disagree with her. There was no shade left in the arena. The scarce, morning clouds had vanished, leaving only pitiless blue sky above, and the merciless, white sun itself. He breathed deeply, suppressing the beginnings of a headache. His feet and the skin on his calves felt hot and burned in places, along with the parts of his hands and forearms that the Executioner had forced down onto the platform. There would be blisters later, but for now he shunted the pain aside. He still had half the day to survive. He pulled the scarf back over his head and straightened his improvised poncho to cover his arms again before standing and then pulling up the Executioner.
She tried to kick him. One of her boots grazed his shin but did no damage. Then she lowered her head and tried to ram him. He stepped aside and grabbed her by the back of her collar as she went by. She dropped, trying to use her weight to pull him down. He released her collar, letting her fall.
The Executioner struggled to her feet again. Then she whirled and ran away from him, going around the platform.
Shocked, Qui-Gon ran after her. He gathered the Force to him and leapt nearly halfway across the arena after her. His outstretched hand caught her belt and brought her down before she could reach the open doorway. She kicked again and this time a heavy boot connected to his shoulder. He absorbed the pain and impact. He pulled back, getting his feet under him on the hot ground, and simultaneously hurling the Executioner back, away from her escape, and her supposedly honorable death.
She was still struggling to rise again when he grabbed her by the collar and hauled her away. She went limp again, becoming a dead weight, but Qui-Gon kept going, dragging her across the hardened dirt, back around the platform. The hot ground burned into his bare feet and he was forced to weave around the scattered flat stones, flush on the ground.
He dumped the Executioner under the main gallery. Then he went to the base of the platform stairs and collected his improvised foot pads. The Executioner was trying to rise when he returned to her.
Qui-Gon planted a foot on her buttocks and forced he back down again. Then he sat on her. She 'umphed' as he settled his weight on her broad upper back. He first examined one foot and then the other. The callouses on his feet were dusty and dry, but the sensation of heat had left them. Other places on his feet, where the skin was thinner and on his legs were burned bright pink. The pain from them only increased, as if they were still pressed to hot stone. Places on his arms and hands were the same. Qui-Gon closed his eyes; he noted the pain dispassionately for what it was. It didn't recede, but it became less important to him for the time being. It was certainly less important than the angry woman under him.
He untied the strips of fabric still uselessly tied to his ankles and feet, refolded his foot pads and retied them to the bottoms of his feet again. The Executioner silently strained at her bonds while he worked. He turned his head to his left when he heard her boots scrabbling on the dirt, trying to get a foothold so she could push him off. He pressed his hands down to either side, one on her shoulder blade, the other on her lower back, by her bound hands. Eventually she stopped, lying still and panting from the effort, but Qui-Gon continued to stare at something else on either side of him.
The shadow under the main gallery had almost reached the bottom of the wall behind him. The sun had passed it's zenith.
The Executioner continued trying to wriggle out from under him several times as the shade descended over them, but Qui-Gon always anticipated her, always shifting his weight to keep her down. She said something about her dignity, but he ignored it other than squeezing her shoulder with his hand.
Qui-Gon felt the Force in himself, in his captive under him, in the arena, in the walls, and even in the heated, humid air around him. He felt the strength of it, but even the Force could not replace food and especially water. His sense of the Force also told him how badly depleted he was, though he still had the afternoon to endure.
Qui-Gon breathed in deeply, the air and the Force going into his body. Then he exhaled, expelling them outward. He breathed in again. The air tickled his skin, the breath of a breeze from above. He exhaled. Air brushed past his arms, disturbing the white fabric covering them.
Inhale. Now he felt the movement of air on his head and shoulders, on his legs and arms.
Exhale. The edges of the white poncho fluttered again, the air gently blowing up his sides and back, tickling his neck, under his long hair.
With each breath, the air around him breathed as well, the movement of it drying old sweat, cooling his skin.
Qui-Gon sensed the Executioner's surprise. She felt the movement of the air as well. He pressed down on her next attempt to struggle free of him without missing a breath. Inhale. Exhale. The air had become a part of him, connected through the Force, like the arena, the ground, the wall behind him and the Executioner. Qui-Gon did note that the Executioner emphatically did not feel the same connection. She was as insensitive to the Force as the stone platform before them, but she was no less connected to the Jedi.
The area of shadow increased, creeping across the ground, up the side of the platform, covering it. The Executioner spoke several times, but he only answered with a squeeze of her shoulder. Her anger had died down and now he sensed increasing worry. He ignored it as unimportant; he'd said all he needed to say her already. His goal was to endure the afternoon and he stayed singled-mindedly fixated on it.
The shadow climbed the far wall of the arena. Qui-Gon finally sensed the humid air cooling on its own and not just from the tiny, Force generated breeze from him.
He tilted his head to one side as the last line of sunlit wall dimmed and faded away with the approaching evening. The arena now lay in shadow again, as it had in the morning, but the light was different, the sky brighter on the wrong side.
A deep reverberating gong sounded from the tower above.
Immediately a light came on in the open door on the far wall beyond the stone platform. People spilled out of it, running toward them. Leading the crowd was Obi-Wan. The Executioner was speaking again, loudly. He ignored her words, but she struggled under him again and he automatically kept her down.
"Master." Obi-Wan had reached him and now knelt by his side. Another person, Molty Kohm of all people, knelt on his other side.
"Uhh," Kohm flicked at the film of dust layering the white fabric on Qui-Gon's shoulder, apparently unwilling to risk any of it getting on his pale blue and white suit. "You're a mess, Jinn."
"I have done my duty." a woman's voice declared, clipped with outrage. It came from the ground, from his right. Qui-Gon blinked, his brow tightened with concern. The Executioner felt distant to him, like the arena and the air that now had gone thick and steamy. Qui-Gon breathed in, but his connection to the air slipped away.
"Master." Obi-Wan lifted Qui-Gon's arm and put his shoulder under it. Kohm did the same. They lifted him together. Qui-Gon moved his legs, but his feet never quite got a hold on the hard ground. Then he was being set down again. Kohm stood up immediately, frowning down at him. Obi-Wan's arm supported his back. Lightheaded from the exertion of being lifted, Qui-Gon leaned to the side so his head rested on Obi-Wan's shoulder. He smelled the faint, familiar scent of the coarse fabric of a Jedi robe.
Before them, by the wall, the Executioner stood, her wrinkled and dusty, white and yellow dress looked bright in the gloom. She stood apart from two similarly dressed companions, disdaining their aid as she glared down at him. She felt far away from him, but her expression was easy enough to read; she had been denied his death. She wanted to kill him for that.
Kohm yelled something and other voices replied, but Qui-Gon's understanding of what was said left him, just as his connection to his surroundings had. Obi-Wan spoke, his voice close. His connection to the Force renewed and he grasped for it. He hooked his fingers on the front edge of Obi-Wan's tunic. The strength in his apprentice filled him through their bond, reminding him of what it was like to breath and move normally, but he felt like a shadow, only an outline of the memory of strength.
Something touched his lips and liquid trickled into his mouth.
Water.
He felt as if he were falling; the air thickened with the Force, catching him and smothering him. His vision faded to black and Qui-Gon wondered about how quickly night came to...
[][][][][][][]
...tiles.
They were an unattractive, sickly shade of green, at least to Qui-Gon. He knew that other species would react quite differently to that color, but it reminded him of food gone bad.
The tiles were a pattern of octagons, squares and triangles. He had stared up at those tiles before, at night, when they were illuminated only by the sun-lamps in the bare room that he and Obi-Wan had been assigned in one of the Noi'i government buildings.
Qui-Gon moved his head. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply to clear the dizziness. He sighed with relief as it quickly receded. He still felt sluggish, but somewhat rested. He sensed the Force, a gentle flow through his body from his...
...feet?
He saw a Noi'i woman's face above him; her head was veiled in pale yellow, a wide band of glittering sun-symbols over her brow. Her eyes were bleached white, the pupils the only dark spot in them; her face was blotchy, gray and lined with age. Her features puckered in what might have been disapproval.
Qui-Gon opened his mouth to ask who she was; she looked very familiar.
His throat, dry and sore, protested and only a single, painful, 'Aaaggahhh,' came out.
"Ooh-oi." The woman put a hand over his mouth and adjust the sleep couch he lay on so he was partially sitting up. She reached past him and then jammed a wet sponge in his mouth, a long orange tab stuck out before him. Excess liquid trickled down his chin into his beard. "Suck on that first." Qui-Gon reflexively swallowed. The sensation of the cool, flavored water down his throat ignited a terrible thirst in him and he drained the sponge almost immediately. The woman peered closely at him, the ends of her veil falling on his bare shoulder.
"More?" she asked. Qui-Gon nodded. She grabbed the tab, ripped out the sponge and then stuffed in another. She used the edge of the pale blue sheet covering Qui-Gon to dab at the fluid dripping off the end of his chin and beard. At the end of the couch, Obi-Wan sat next to his uncovered feet. He was not wearing his robe and the large sleeves of his off-white tunic were tied back; long, bright yellow gloves covered his hands and forearms. One of Qui-Gon's feet rested on a yellow cloth by Obi-Wan's knee and his Padawan gently rubbed a clear gel into the arch of his foot. Qui-Gon smelled the sweetly antiseptic scent of bacta. His other foot and lower leg were already wrapped in yellow gauze.
Qui-Gon finished the sponge and nodded for another. He tried to take it out himself this time, but his right arm was pinned.
"Please, Master Jinn," implored a gleaming white medical droid in a low, faintly masculine machine voice. "You must keep still. I have not finished replenishing your fluids." A band of soft white plasti-foam encased his forearm and thin tubes of clear fluid flowed from the droid to it. One of the droid's appendages encircled his wrist.
The woman swatted his left hand down.
"Don't use that. He hasn't done that one yet," She ripped out the last sponge and stuffed in another. If Obi-Wan weren't already busy with his feet, Qui-Gon would have requested that he give him the next one. His Padawan's blue-gray eyes went from the droid to the woman and then found Qui-Gon's. He didn't speak but Qui-Gon's foot tingled with the Force under his touch and the soothing relief of the bacta gel. Qui-Gon was quite grateful that Obi-Wan was caring for his injuries instead of this abrupt woman.
"He should be properly treated at a med-center," the droid calmly stated.
"I can see that," the woman snapped, waving one bare and wrinkled gray forearm at the droid. She wore a short-sleeved, white tunic, cinched with a glittering belt of sun symbols that matched the band on her forehead. "But it's better not to be too visible to all the people he stirred up right now."
She poked at the large, purple and black bruise on Qui-Gon's left shoulder, where the Executioner had kicked him. Qui-Gon winced. "Good thing there wasn't anything broken there, since you only came equipped to treat surface damage," she told the droid sarcastically.
Qui-Gon lay back on the soft head-pillows of the sleep couch. He accepted one more sponge before declining another. His hands still felt prickly and burned and the skin on his face hurt with a faint burn as well. He closed his eyes, waiting for Obi-Wan to finish massaging his foot and treat his other injuries as well.
"Ooh-oi." A hand tugged on her beard. Qui-Gon opened his eyes and glared at the woman; she ignored the nasty look he gave her. "Don't fade out again. You're the first one I've ever had to declare living."
That statement clicked in his memory. He remembered where he'd met her before.
She was the coroner.
Her name was also Kohm though he didn't know how she was related to the former senator. She, Molty Kohm, Obi-Wan and a clutch of Kohm's hangers-on had visited him in his cell before sunrise that morning. While she was clearly an ally of Molty Kohm, she treated the leader with disdain and a near disrespect that he had surprisingly accepted. The fact that she normally dealt with dead bodies certainly explained her brusque bedside manner.
He swallowed. "What has happened?" he asked her, his voice low and rough.
Coroner Kohm sat back. "Molty's trying to get the best deal he can out of the Traditions Committee, of course. He complained about what you took from him, but he'll get everything he was aiming for. Just without the drama he likes."
"You don't approve of his methods," Qui-Gon commented up to the woman, his voice a little stronger.
Her nose wrinkled with distaste. "No matter how much he's done for us Nightborn, he was a snotty little kid when he was growing up, and he still hasn't grown out of it." She got up off the edge of Qui-Gon's sleep couch.
"And anyone dumb enough to think that there's a noble death waiting out there for them, hasn't spent enough time around the real thing," she declared, her eyes challenging either Jedi to contradict her. Obi-Wan lowered his eyes, his whole attention on Qui-Gon's ankle.
Qui-Gon smiled. "I believe he could benefit from your wisdom."
She scowled back, as if she would have preferred an argument from him. Then she scanned the room. "It looks like I can officially declare you alive. Molty will just have to learn live with that." Her tone sounded pleased with the expected inconvenience for Molty. She curtly wished them well and left.
- - end Part 3 - -