Last of the Handmaidens. Last of the Handmaidens. That one word, last, like a vile thing, a blister that refused to heal. She snarled as she reset herself, refusing to pause or look up the next move. She had been dancing the Acklay for years. She would remember it. She would prove that she was worthy of her title, that she was not the Last, that she was not some shame to be left behind. She would prove it to them all.
There was silence in Mical digested Visas' flat statement. "But how is that possible?" he asked. "The Handmaidens took an oath never to be trained as Jedi. They have deadened themselves to the Force."
"Then we must reawaken it," said Visas. And saying those words brought home the enormity of it. We must reawaken it. They would have to train her. Guide her. Keep her towards the Light, and Visas could already hear the discord of bitterness within her. The Exile, Visas was sure, would know exactly what to do, to know just how to approach the situation and set the Handmaiden on the right path. But the Exile was gone. It was up to them, entirely.
Visas knew nothing of teaching. She tried to envision how to approach the Handmaiden. She could not.
"This is exactly what the Exile intended us to do," said Mical.
Bao-Dur looked up. "What do you mean?"
Visas could not see that Mical's eyes had lit up, but she could hear his voice brighten. "She trained us--the Lost Jedi--to rebuild the Order. That is why we are here now. She taught us. Now we must teach others, so that the Jedi do not simply become another page in history."
"We came here to get holocrons," said Bao-Dur. "Besides, aren't Atton and Mira looking for the other Jedi?"
"They are looking for the old Jedi, the Jedi from Revan's journey and the survivors of the Purge. But this--this is a chance to rebuild the Order. The Republic needs the Jedi," he said, earnestly. "We must train her."
"If we do not train her as a Jedi, she will fall to the Dark Side," said Visas. She felt sure of that. "The seed is in her. She is angry. Resentful. We must cleanse that from her."
"But what could be the cause of it?" And Mical was once again groping in the dark. Visas opened her mouth to answer... but she did not have one. She did not know anything of the Handmaiden, her life or her self--she shook her head, wordless.
"I'll go talk to her," said Bao-Dur.
"Why you?" asked Visas--despite her enormous relief that the burden of revealing this news had been taken off her shoulders.
Bao-Dur shrugged. "I've been here before," he said. "I know a little bit about them, at least."
"That's probably a good idea," said Mical. "I do not think I would be very good at breaking the news to her." Visas felt the same about herself, but she did not say it.
Bao-Dur nodded and left the room.
"Well," said Mical, "now what?"
"Why are you asking me?" said Visas. Mical shrugged. There was a long silence. Visas thought of Malachor V, of Malara calmly rising on the lift to find Darth Traya. She thought of the Ravager, when Malara had broken the last link of the chain that bout Visas to her lord, so that he was no longer her lord... just a man. And she remembered waiting at the Hawk, trying to meditate while Malara met with the Council... of the broken, haunted way Malara had moved when she'd returned, the pain and the death running fresh through the scars on her spirit. Visas remembered that moment, the moment when Malara had splintered, had come close to breaking once more--how she'd refused to speak or even eat, just meditating for a night, and a day, while the rest of the crew hovered in anxiety. Visas had heard her soul crack. She had heard it.
"I wish she was here now," said Mical, quietly. "She would know what to do." There was no need to say who 'she' was.
"What did you say to her?" asked Visas. Mical looked up questioningly. "When she returned from the Council. What was it you said that kept her from breaking?"
"I--why do you wish to know?"
"Because you helped her," said Visas. "How?"
"I had never thought of it as helping her," said Mical. He stirred, uncomfortably. "I told her the Council was wrong."
"They tried to break her," she said--more to herself than to Mical. "Again." She looked up at him. "If she had not been a Jedi herself, I would not continue with this 'restoration.'"
"It is ironic," said Mical, soberly, "that the only Jedi Knight worthy of the title was the one they exiled"
Bao-Dur had spent his life around droids, and the truth in that statement was demonstrated again by his near-perfect memory of the Academy, despite the fact that it had been nearly a year since he had last "visited." The computer rooms were unoccupied (and a quick systems diagnostic had shown everything to be functioning within normal parameters), the storage rooms were empty, and so was the prison. With his good hand in his pocket, he walked around the central chamber. Anyone watching would think he was simply taking a casual stroll, but his eyes flicked this way and that, searching. He reached out through the Force--not through the currents of life, few enough that there were here--but through the hum of the computers, the steady, silvery glow of the lights, the rhythmic thrumming of the air systems. He saw through those, or he tried to. And then he gave up on that when it didn't work and opened the next door.
A long ramp reached up to a circular chamber of mostly transparisteel. Bao-Dur raised his eyebrows. He hadn't remembered seeing that on his last visit. The General had been rather eager to leave the Academy and Atris behind. A pity really; he would have liked to see more of it. It looked like he could, now.
The ramp was fairly long and, unsurprisingly, there were no railings to guard against a misstep. Bao-Dur glanced over the side. It looked like a long way down. He reached the door to the chamber quickly. There were chairs around the windows, and more importantly, glimpses of white movement. That would be the Handmaiden. He touched the doorpanel; locked. A quick manual over-ride and it hissed open.
The Handmaiden whirled on one foot and landed heavily on the other, hands up and held wide apart in the basic Echani stance. She stood there on the balls of her feet, hood down, glaring at the Iridorian with fierce blue eyes for a split second before she relaxed and pulled herself up straight. "Master Jedi," she said respectfully. "What do you require?"
"Just call me Bao-Dur. I'm not a master," he said. "I just wanted to talk to you."
"Why? What is the matter?"
Bao-Dur thought about this. He thought about building up to it, breaking the news gradually and carefully. He thought of hinting at it and watching her reaction. He thought of starting a normal conversation and slipping it in, but in the end he decided that the best thing to do would just be to say it, plainly and quickly. "You probably don't realize it yet," he said mildly, "but you're Force Sensitive."
The Handmaiden said nothing, as Bao-Dur had expected. She stared, icy blue eyes utterly bewildered. "I know you've blocked yourself out from the Force," he went on. "Try to look past that. Look inside yourself. It is there."
"I--" She shook her head violently. "No. What you say is impossible. There is nothing of the Force in me."
"The Force is everywhere. It's in me, and it's in you. Trust me, I found it a little hard to believe when the Exile told me I could feel it," said Bao-Dur--a minor lie. It had been surprising, but not difficult. He had trusted the Exile implicitly; he had known the moment he heard them how true her words were, thirty-two-year-old mechanic though he was. "It's not hard."
The Handmaiden looked down. "I asked the Exile what the Force felt like, once. She said it was like a river, carrying you everywhere it touched. I have never felt like that."
"That's because you turned away from it," said Bao-Dur. "Turn around." She did--"No, not literally. I mean turn back to the river." She looked confused, worried--even hurt.
"I don't understand what you mean."
"All right," said Bao-Dur, wracking his mind to find a way to describe it. Flowing like a river... he'd never seen it like that. The Force was a thousand lights, the humming of life like an engine beneath his hands. To touch it was to open the engine and step inside, hearing the hum all around him and--but she would not understand that. She was not a mechanic born, she was a warrior. And she was alone, abandoned. "You see this place around us?" he said. "It used to be an irrigation system. This place used to provide water for hundreds of farms in the polar region. It sustained life. Can you imagine how it must have sounded?" he said, and he himself became caught up in the image. "Thousands and thousands of litres flowing through here, going to a hundred different places. But it was all the same water, the same source. It was connected. That's what the Force is. It connects us to other life. Do you get it?"
"I... don't know," said the Handmaiden, hesitant and unsure. She shook her head. "I still don't know how to believe what you're saying. And even if it's true, it means nothing." Her eyes cleared--they met Bao-Dur's, ice-cold and ice-set. "I swore an oath never to walk the path of the Jedi. I am a Handmaiden of Atris. I guard the Jedi against themselves. Please... leave me to my training."
Bao-Dur nodded. He tried to push away the dejection. Obviously it would take more than one conversation to be able to train her, he told himself realistically. You couldn't rush a big repair job, or you would ruin it. And this was more, much more than a matter of motivators and circuits. "All right, but think about what I've said." He nodded to her and left.