Bits and pieces of conversation floated to Kiki. Her mind was heavy, thick with a strange dull pain and whatever drugs they'd given her to put her to sleep.
A deep voice—a man's—murmured something outside of her hearing. It was warbled as if he were speaking through something.
Kiki tried to swallow and found her throat dryer and rougher than rock. Her muscles were nearly numb and heavy and when she tried to move she found it only made her drowsier.
There were more voices now, maybe two or three. Two of them spoke at once before the third, the man's, cut them both off. "She's waking up," he said.
She was. Her vision cleared at an agonizingly slow pace, and the first thing she noticed was that she was on a cot and not in the medbay anymore. There was a strange orange glow on everything and, as her eyes cleared, Kiki realized there was a toilet right across from her.
The floors were duracrete and the walls metal. She was in a cell.
A cell? The words felt thick even though she was thinking them. Kiki sat up, feeling the tightness of bandages all over her body. The room tilted and she braced herself on the cot's edge. She didn't have the energy to swing her legs over the side of the bed, not yet.
The orange glow flickered away, leaving her surroundings in morose greys and blacks. One of the people outside her cell walked in—a human male, she realized—and Kiki felt like she got a face full of cold water. Something about him was…unnaturally calm. She sensed more than saw a slowly spinning orb, thin wisps of white and blue swirling around it. Despite everything around it, the glowing yet fiery orange emanating off of one of the people outside the cell and the hectic purple of the other, the man was motionless. How did he not react to all of the colors and textures? Did he not see them the way she did? Was he able to just ignore them?
Something poked her. With a flopping hand, she swiped at her head, but the poking feeling insisted. She rubbed her head again and realized it wasn't anything physical.
"Stop that," she demanded, opening her eyes and glaring at the man. The poking turned into digging. "Stop it!"
"Stop what?" he asked, but she knew he knew. There was an aggravating smugness in his muddy green eyes that only made Kiki angrier.
"That thing you're doing! Stop poking inside my head!" She fully sat up and braces her feet on the ground, her drowsiness evaporated. "You're not going to get anything." The violent digging softened back to poking, but it was not gentle.
"So you can feel what I'm doing?" the man asked. His hands were behind his back, hanging sleeves making his arms look wider than they actually were.
"Stop it," she growled. The poking sensation all over her head was prompting her headache to return with a vengeance.
"Uh, Master Jedi, sir…" someone by the door stammered, "You gotta remember she's Cursed—"
"I know what I'm doing." The Jedi didn't snap, but anyone could hear the command in his voice. He looked at Kiki. "You caused quite a commotion two days ago—running through alleys and streets and bringing hundreds of people down on your back."
Two days ago? Kiki's mind drew a momentary blank before everything—the emotions, the pain, the fear—crashed down on her again and she had to force herself not to double over when her stomach twisted. "I saved a woman and her child."
"Do you think they care?" The Jedi tipped his head and the poking lessened, just a bit. "Everyone is more worried about the Force-sensitive Cursed woman they think the Jedi had abandoned—"
"I saved their lives," she said to herself, her eyes falling down to his plain brown boots. "I saved them…"
The Jedi rambled on about something, problems and bad publicity and training opportunities, but Kiki could only feel, only hear, that incessant poking that ran in circles in her mind. She knew asking him wouldn't make him stop, just make him study her more and poke more. The pain and terror she felt that night was building up inside her, bulging and billowing like wind under a sheet. It mixed with the burning rain of fury that heated her blood and made her want to break the walls that kept her in. She couldn't contain it.
So Kiki let go.
The Jedi stumbled back as if physically wounded, one hand clutching his head as he stared at Kiki in open shock. "How did you—" He couldn't quickly regain his composure because he was feeling everything Kiki was, all of the negativity that had been building up for her twenty or so years of life. However, he shook his head and tucked a few black-and-silver strands of hair away from his face. "You are stronger than I thought."
Kiki's face remained unchanged, unamused. Her stomach growled. When was the last time she'd eaten, or had water? The dryness of her throat and the rough pain it brought when she tried to clear it brought tears to her eyes.
"There is food at the Jedi Temple, as long as you come with me," he said, his muddy green eyes studying her. "They will accept you, despite your…" He paused. "Condition. We are not above training Cursed men and women."
Kiki's hear stopped, her fingers turning to ice. Was he lying? Was this an actual offer to train with the Jedi? Although she wasn't the best at it, she searched him in the Force and found nothing. He gave no tells as far as she could see. She was going to say yes when she remembered. "I'm too old," she said, hiding her disappointment. "You would have had to take me when I was a baby."
"We will make an exception in your case," he said. "You are not the first unique case to the Jedi."
Kiki could have food every day. She'd have water and shelter and meet other people like her who weren't broken, bitter, or already dead. She could learn to use the Force in ways that weren't purely defensive and the result of outbursts. She wouldn't be alone. Kiki looked from the Jedi to the doorway where the other two people were standing, but from her angle she couldn't see them.
"There is the option of living in your cave in the forest or coming to a place where you will be accepted for what you are and trained to be a better person. Do you want to train to be a Jedi?" he asked, one dark eyebrow raised.
The cot was suddenly very hard under her. Her fingers, dirty and scarred from years of living in dirt, gripped the stark grey sheets.
Kiki nodded. "Yes."
Short chapter, but this is the main turning point of the story.
~AAx