After hours of walking through the forest, having escaped multiple beasts and almost having her hair torn off again, Faree gave up and decided to use her recorder to call the Tie fighter.
"Dad, hey! Guess what? I ended up in the middle of a forest on Batuu! That's… weird, I know! I still don't know how, exactly. I know you are angry with me, as I am angry with you. It's just… I'm slightly afraid of starving to death over here. All these plants look really poisonous. Also, it's going to be dark soon, and I fear of getting devoured by these scary beasts. So please, would you send in a fighter to pick me up? Thank you. "
Faree switched the device off and sighed.
She decided to hide in a dead tree trunk on the ground. There was a sort of slime patch at the other end, near her feet: a bunch of unsettling insects was marching on it. Cramped and lonely, she lulled herself by listening to the howls of the Flintwings.
Soon enough, the familiar noise: the Tie fighter landed nearby.
She got out, careful not to scrape her legs, and approached it calmly. Peering through the glass from afar, she saw him. With no mask on.
He saw her too and got out hurriedly.
Alarmed but determined, Faree balled her fists.
His run was cut short, as she walked fast. Ren took her hand between his with vacant eyes. Immediately after, he gently touched her hurt scalp.
"Tell me what happened" he commanded, as if he was talking to his troopers.
"They chased me, but I outran them. I was hiding in a tree trunk now. Besides that, yes, I think the danger's passed. I played it up a little so that you came faster."
Faree smiled, but he stayed grim.
"Get inside the fighter."
They climbed in.
He then put a hand on her shoulder and the other over her head, closing his eyes: Faree felt the pain lessen and lessen, until it disappeared completely.
She sighed in relief, as he started looking at her very sternly, standing up.
"So, this is what happens when you leave for two weeks? You call me, desperate, with hair torn away from your head, in the middle of a jungle on a remote planet?!"
"...I'm sorry."
He glared at her, clearly furious.
Faree, however, stood her ground.
"Anyway, don't take this as me coming back. I just needed to get out of here."
"Of course. After all this, you're leaving again."
"I just asked for help. You can send the spies after me and tell them to do a better job, so that maybe I don't risk my life this often."
He didn't answer: he paced around, struggling to calm himself down: but Faree had just begun.
"I won't stay on your damned base more than I need to. And you know why? Because now you can't wait to rant to all your officers about how dumb I am! And then, when they laugh in my face as they insult me, you'll stand there and praise them! Yeah, right: because I am a disgrace, a waste of space, I should have never been born!"
"That is not-"
"And what's best about me is that I've never even been strong with the Force and have always been too STUPID to realize it!"
Ren stopped in his tracks. He was staggered
"Yes! Why wouldn't I receive any training, then?! Wasn't it clear from the beginning? Why in the world did I not catch on, even though you shamelessly lied about it for years? Why would my adoptive parents dangle all these things from the roof to pretend I'm moving them! It was my lifetime dream and it was all a lie!"
Still, he did not speak.
Faree stood, smugly staring him down, shimmering with determination.
"I touched a nerve, didn't I? But please, do bring me back to your base, Father. There you can treat me like crap, without having to show remorse or being accountable for anything that you do. And I have to bow down to you as a plus!"
Ren leaned down on the command panel, putting his head between his hands.
Faree continued to stand there; although taken aback by that gesture, her resolution was unwavering.
"Why did you lie to me?".
It was like he didn't hear her.
"Why?"
He raised his head and stared her back.
Faree did not know a lot about her father, as he was very secretive, but one thing was certain: he was afraid of nothing.
For the second time in her life, she sensed fear in him.
"I wish your mother were here."
Faree gasped.
All the conflicts, the forest, everything… strong, robust passions, and now her ultimate denial.
As she was trying to avert the thought, a strange image formed in her mind: not of the Jedi striking her mother, but of her lifeless body.
She had never seen it: he had carefully and obsessively hidden it from her all those years. As somewhat of a consequence, she had never allowed that tragedy to truly hit her. All she had felt was the anger towards that… person: once the crime was avenged, everything fell back into place. So she thought. Sometimes, she felt as if her mother's death never happened. It seemed like it had happened to someone else, someone unimportant, and that life had casually become worse, for no reason at all.
It was all changing at that very moment. He was behaving differently and she was lost.
"Can you tell me the reason you never told me?" she stammered, her voice cracking. She didn't even know what she was talking about anymore.
"Because I didn't want… to disappoint you" he finally answered. "To make you unhappy. That's why I went to these lengths to hide it."
Faree didn't even listen to the answer. She just caved into herself, lost in non-nexistant memory.
"And, your brother… he would have been strong with the Force, so I felt the guilt…"
"What guilt?"
"… the guilt of him not being here with us. Despite the fact that he would have disgraced the Galaxy more than we have. He was going to be worse than me. You would have been in further danger than you are now."
Faree really did not understand what he said, and somehow decided she wouldn't. Having a brother was something that never happened and never would happen.
"There is another reason I did not tell you" he then added "By these new powers I have acquired, I've been meaning for you to become Force sensitive."
What was this change?
Faree felt the numbness dissolve.
The Force? Her?
"… what?"
"I've been trying for fourteen years. There seems to be no way to incite in you Force sensitivity as you are; however, there is an extremely complicated ancient Sith technique which has failed numerous times and even resulted in the death of those who practised it. It is a highly powerful form of inverted possession, which allows the possessed to tap into the Force through the possessor. I would be able to grant you, potentially, as much of my p
ower as you want."
Nothing felt real anymore.
Faree looked at him less quizzically than vacantly.
"I don't know if I would like that. I don't even understand what that means."
"You don't have to like it. I won't try it until I'm sure there would be no risks or consequences, and if you don't want me to."
"Yes. I don't. For now, I think."
The conversation had derailed. Faree was lost in her own world, looking far into the forest. Suddenly, she saw herself jump high, highest than anyone had ever had, with her own lightsaber.
"I think we need to go back to the base for now."
Ren nodded.
He just asked:
"Will you come back after that?"
Faree looked at the naked face of her father once more. That steely determination made him look less condescending.
"I will."
-
"You let her leave and go back to Ren?!"
"I don't know what came over me."
Hansa kept her head down, mortified.
"Why…?"
Sasele Xor was blown away.
"Wait! She's gone?"
Vorah's voice was heard, but the Jedi ignored it.
"You didn't even try following her?"
"What I think is… if she wanted to go, I think it's right to let her do that."
"Correct! I agree!" Vorah echoed her words from behind "I can't believe I got rid of her… I won't have to hide on a shithole planet… I'll live… I won't hear her voice anymore… "
"But nothing of what you've done makes sense if now she's back with him again…" Sasele was still confused.
"And it's a bad thing?" Vorah was puzzled "Wait. You're not thinking of bringing the bitch back, are you?"
"Maybe she will come back on her own." Zax said.
"As if he would let her, after everything that happened? He knows through the spies, doesn't he?"
"I think he could, based on what we know from the Nunami" Zax continued to help her, talking to Temiri, who was silently listening. She glanced at him with gratitude.
"Wait" Vorah interrupted again "If she switched sides, she's going to tell him about me… oh."
"DID she switch sides?"
"I… I don't know" Hansa admitted.
"I am hopeful too" Temiri said "Although she does resent you too the same way for lying about her capabilities. Everything depends on how he decides to handle this. If he is as strict to her publicly as he is indulgent privately like the Nunami said, he may try to please her in order to regain her trust."
"He's going to give her that job" Hansa said, in a resigned tone "She told me she values it as much as she values the Galaxy."
"Or it may run deeper than that" Zax attempted "I do not think her resentment relates to just that, Hansa."
"It's a definite possibility. For the time being, we will resume our missions." Temiri declared; he did look a bit irritated, and looked at Hansa as he went.
