"Today we will begin the construction of your lightsabers," Master Windu began explaining in a dry, unamusing Tone. Obi-Wan, Rose, and Bant were all sitting on the floor listening to the lecture of the Master Jedi. Obi-Wan, leaning on his hand, began to doze off. Rose quickly swatted his arm out from under him, jutting him awake, just as Master Windu turned to face them.
"You must have the utmost concentration in your meditation. It will take as long as it needs to. When you have your crystals ready, the parts to build your lightsaber will be at the worktable. You can choose to create whatever design you like, but if you mess up, you have to start the construction from the beginning. Any questions?" The younglings shook their heads quickly before setting out to their worktables, pulling out their crystals in the process. Before the lesson, Master Windu had discussed with Rose how to tune her pearls, should she ever decide she wanted to - a task she wasn't looking forward to. He also told her how much longer she would be sitting at the construction table, as constructing one saber could take hours – even days – and now Rose had the task before her of constructing two, one for each of the crystals she had found on Ilum. As she began her meditation, she felt her friends' frustration through the Force, slightly off balancing her concentration.
"I don't even know how to read this thing," Obi-Wan commented, holding up the plans for his lightsaber. "Hey, Rose, how are you doing over there?" He laughed at her feeble attempt to throw a screw in his direction in annoyance. He caught it easily in the air, but Rose pushed his stool over with the Force, causing him to topple over onto the floor. She laughed as he huffed and returned to his station, grateful for the peace and quiet so she could concentrate. For the next several hours, the three younglings worked relentlessly trying to fit the pieces of their sabers together. After a few hours, Rose glanced behind her at Obi-Wan.
There were strips of metal scattered all around his work place, and Rose was unsure how he knew which pieces he was going to need next. Despite his cluttered station, he had a cleared area where he was doing the actual construction, and Rose could see he was about halfway done. He had pieces of metal suspended in the air above him, a strip also in his mouth. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he snapped the crystal into its new home, a grin breaching his own face.
"Rose. Bant. Check this out," he boasted, holding up his half-completed saber. It was the mere skeleton of what would be his Jedi weapon, but its elegance was already apparent. The hilt was thick, but it pinched at the top to a bell-like shape, where Rose assumed the blade would come out of. Him and Bant began a long discussion of the styles of their sabers while Rose glanced over at Bant's table. On it, there was a sort of organized madness, as all of the parts were separated by types. Screws were with screws and panels were with panels. She saw Bant was far behind Obi-Wan, but she was still ahead of Rose in the completion of her sabers. Rose sighed and turned back to her space.
Rose wasn't sure exactly when, but she did manage to fall asleep during her intense working session. She opened her eyes to the peering morning light of a new day. Looking at her workplace, she saw someone had left a plate of food for her, its contents still warm. She hungrily devoured it, wanting the energy to resume her work. She looked back at her friends' stations. Obi-Wan's station was empty, the mess that once cluttered it now cleared and gone. Bant was still at her's, muttering frustrated curses under her breath in a language Rose couldn't understand.
"Having troubles?" Rose piqued from behind, causing Bant to jump in her seat.
"Rose! You're awake!" Bant exclaimed, still tinkering away with her saber. Rose could see it was near completion, but Bant was having troubles connecting all of the necessary parts together.
"Yeah, I guess I dozed off. Who left the grub?" she asked, motioning to her empty plate. Bant shook her head.
"Obi-Wan came in and left it about a half hour ago, I think. He brought me some, too. Oh, I don't know, time has just seemed to all merge together. He finished… oh… maybe six hours ago or something like that?" Bant said, slight annoyance in her voice. "I'm so tired, Rose. I just want to get this done."
"Does wonders for the mind," Rose mimicked Master Windu's voice in a teasing manner, sticking her nose in the air. "You want to do it right, if the thing is going to be your trusted weapon." Bant laughed at her impression, turning back to her work and muttering something about energy modulation circuits. Rose went back to the construction of her own sabers, wanting to make them uniquely hers. Basing her design off of one the pre made models, Rose altered the coloring slightly from one of silver to a copper hue using unfinished strips of metal as her body pieces. She used the same method Obi-Wan did, suspending the necessary parts in the air as she moved the components together. She decided to do both sabers at the same time, not only to save time, but to also ensure they were identical to each other. They would differ only in the final touches stage.
With painstaking patience, Rose eased the pieces together, trying her best to follow the base model of the diagram. Rose didn't notice when Bant left the room, as she was too invested in her own work. For what seemed like hours, Rose used every ounce of focus she had to figure out what a "diatium power cell" was and where it was supposed to go in the blade, and what the difference between the "energy modulation circuits" and the "cycling field energizers" was. Rose had zapped her fingers a few times while she was connecting the wires that ran up the weapon. She heard the door as it slid open behind her, assuming it was Master Windu coming to check on her progress.
"If you're coming here to check on me, I'm fine," she muttered out. She was surprised to see that it was Obi-Wan, who was carrying a glass with him, his own new lightsaber dangling from his hip.
"You need to drink something, Rose," he said, setting it down at her station while looking at her progress. "Nice job. I like what you've done with the colors."
"Thanks. I always liked the color red," Rose said, screwing in one of the multiple screws that were holding the bare bones of her sabers together. She placed the crystals into the crystal holders, praying they wouldn't fall out. When they didn't, she breathed a sigh of relief and dropped everything onto the table, grabbing the glass that Obi-Wan had brought for her.
"How was your nap?" he smirked, playing with a screw on the workbench. "Every time I see you, you're sleeping. What a lazy bum."
"Don't make me throw this at you again," Rose threatened him with her screwdriver. He held up his arms in defense, not wanting to give her reason to pull through on her threat. "I don't think I'm even close to being done. I don't even know what the heck this thing is," Rose said, picking up a circular piece of metal.
"Power adjuster," Obi-Wan said, pulling up a stool next to her. He leaned his arm on the table, propping himself up so he was facing Rose. "Need some help?"
"I like to call it direction," Roes corrected, secretly glad for the company. The two conversed as Rose continued to construct her sabers, Obi-Wan occasionally pointing out which parts she needed to assemble next. Obi-Wan asked her questions about her past, and Rose answered them to the best of her abilities. She explained how the beads in Ty's hair were a symbol on her planet of special occasions. Each bead, string, or bone fragment in his hair was reminiscent of a battle he had fought in, a life he had saved, or perhaps even a place he had traveled to.
"It's kind of like a story," Rose tried to simplify the objects' meanings. "If you were to crack open a grave of any Varian and look at the stuff around their head, you could tell what their story was and what they did in life. You don't start wearing them until you've reached 'adulthood.'"
"'Adulthood?'" Obi-Wan mirrored.
"Boys from my planet become men at the age of eighteen, while girls are considered women at sixteen. In the past, it was considered the ideal age to do the, uh, dirty stuff. It's no longer like that, but they kept the idea of reaching adulthood from it. There's this big ceremony and whatnot," Rose explained.
"Why don't your people travel into the universe? They obviously value knowledge and culture over everything else, so why don't they explore more?" Obi-Wan questioned as he looked at the nearly-completed sabers suspended in the air.
"I don't know," Rose admitted as she welded two parts together. "We used to, but something changed all of that. I don't really know much more about my planet, if I'm being honest. I was taken two years ago – before I could learn very much. I just remember asking someone about the things in the hair. Here, I almost think I'm done. I just need to fit all of these pieces together." Rose suspended the sections of her sabers into the air, five main sections for each one. She moved the pieces slowly together with the utmost precision, not wanting to mess up at the very end. Everything slid together with a nice click. Her lightsabers were finished, but they were not complete.
"What are you doing?" Obi-Wan asked as Rose brought out a small tool. The tip was red hot, ready to be used.
"Baking a pie," Rose threw at him sarcastically as she began drawing on each of her sabers. On one, she drew her family's crest, using her arm as a guide. All around it, she swirled patterns full of flowers – including a lotus flower – and other various forms plant life from different worlds, covering the entire metal section. On the other, she etched the symbol of the Jedi Temple with a small inscription in a language Obi-Wan could not read.
"What does it say?" He asked, picking up the newly decorated saber. Rose only laughed at him, confusion evident on his face.
"I'll tell ya one day, Kenobi. Maybe," she said with a smile down at the saber, the secret of what it said locked away in her mind. "What color do you think it will be?"
"I don't know. Blue?" Obi-Wan suggested. Rose took her sabers and hopped off of the workbench, standing in the middle of the room.
"I think so, too," Rose said. "Moment of truth. Let's see if I put these suckers together correctly." Rose pressed the buttons on her sabers, and they responded immediately. Two glowing, white sabers popped out of the hilts, their light enough to brighten the room blindingly.
"I've never seen white sabers before," Obi-Wan said in amazement, inspecting the sabers closer. "They're beautiful."
"I didn't know they could come in white," Rose said with as much disbelief in her voice. The quiet vrrmm of the lightsabers – her lightsabers – was enough to mesmerize the younglings. Master Windu walked in, a light smile dancing across his face.
"Well done, young one," he complimented, admiring the beauty of Rose's sabers. "You'll have to learn how to fight duel-wielding. I have a feeling you'll catch on quite quickly, though. Now, Master Yoda requests both of your presence in the Council Chambers." With that, Master Windu left the two younglings to find their way to the Council Chambers, neither one of them sure what for.
"Quick, what are all of the bad things we've both done since I've gotten to the Temple?" Rose whispered to Obi-Wan, who only shrugged.
"I don't know. Oh, do you think they'll be angry about the –"
"No, there's no way they found out about that. It only happened the fourth day I was here. They wouldn't suspect us," Rose tried to calm her own conscience with logic.
"I hope you're right. I don't think they'd be too happy about it." The two younglings walked into the nearly empty Council Chambers – empty except for Master Yoda in his round cushioned seat and Master Qui-Gon standing behind him.
"Hello, younglings," he greeted warmly, motioning for them to stand in front of him. "Watch you these past couple of days, the Council has. An experiment, we have for the two of you." The two children watched as Qui-Gon moved to hand each of them a small, black stone.
"There was a prophecy a few hundred years ago of two kindred spirits," Qui-Gon began to explain. "Ever since Rose has come to the Temple, there has been a strong movement in the Force, and we believe you two are the two souls the prophecy was referring to."
"Okay, great? What does that mean, exactly?" Rose asked, eyeing her stone. She could see that it was a piece of a bigger part, and after looking at Obi-Wan's, she could tell that they had once been connected.
"Train together, you two will. Grow together with time and fulfill the prophecy, you shall," Yoda explained, leaving more questions than answers in Rose's mind.
"Great, so I have to be stuck with this dork for the rest of my life," Rose teased, nudging Obi-Wan with her arm jokingly.
"Um, I don't mean to be the voice of doubt in this," Obi-Wan started. "But which prophecy is this? What is this supposed 'destiny' we will be fulfilling?"
"Dark times ahead of us, there are. Dangerous times for us all. Speak of a light that will restore balance in the end, the prophecy does. Believed to be the kindred spirits, the two of you are."
"Er, okay. Let's say I believe you - what about the rocks?" Rose asked, holding up her half of the stone.
"That is where the experiment comes in, young ones. Should you both have masters and continue on the path to Jedi Knighthood, the Council will ask you to enter a soul pact. It is an inseparable bond between two people that link their fates together permanently, and you should know that it does come with some benefits. We will discuss said benefits should the two of you accept. Likewise, it is my belief that the two of you should be aware of the risks that come with such an attempt at binding souls. It is quite possible the two of you wouldn't survive such a procedure, should your two souls not actually be compatible. Additionally, by binding your souls together, it binds the fate of one to the other. Should one of you fall in combat, the other will suffer a similar fate almost simultaneously. It's a risk – one that has never been successfully attempted. But, for fear of the future, the Council believes it will be to the benefit of you two to try, but that all depends on you two," Qui-Gon explained.
"Yeah, I've only known Obi-Wan for a week. There's no way in all of Alderaan that I'm going to -," Rose began, but she was silenced by Qui-Gon's raised hand.
"Rest assured, child. We have no intentions of sending a bunch of children through such a procedure. If you ever should attempt this, you both will be well into your Padawan years at the earliest – perhaps even when you both are Jedi Knights. Now, this is all assuming you both make it to Jedi Knighthood. It is still possible neither of you will have a master before you turn thirteen, in which this conversation would be pointless. The Council felt it was necessary to inform you of said prophecy in advance so the two of you would have time to reflect on it in the coming years. Now, these rocks represent something. When the time is right – if the time is ever right – the two rocks will join together, and that is when we will know a bond can be attempted. Through them, you two will always be able to communicate with each other."
"Seems like a lot of what-if's at this point," Rose mumbled. "Awful lot of uncertainty."
"Yes, well, there is no perfect prediction," Qui-Gon said. "If you two don't have any more questions, then you are dismissed." The two younglings respectfully bowed to the masters before leaving the chambers.
"Can you believe it?" Rose muttered to Obi-Wan as they left the chambers. "You and I in a soul bond? Sounds like something a Varian would make up! Doesn't that sound a little sketchy to you?"
"Would it really be so bad?" Obi-Wan asked, looking down at his boots. "Either way, we still have years to think about it."
"Yeah, I suppose," agreed Rose.
"Hey, I want to show you something," Obi-Wan said, taking a hard right down a hall Rose had never been down.
"Show me what?"
"You'll see. Just think of it like an adventure," with a wink, Obi-Wan led Rose farther into the Temple.