Part III: A Day in the Life
"Barriss, Is that true?"
Barriss Offee awoke at sunrise after one of her nightmares. They were almost always different, but similarly themed. She looked around her cell, and confirmed her nightmare had not compromised her senses like last time…it had not. She was fine. She rose and started pacing as her thoughts began to move at a normal speed.
It wasn't exactly a small cell, since she confessed, and offered no resistance from that point forward, at the six month mark, she was upgraded to a humane cell which provided her with enough room so that when she paced, she didn't have to practically walk in circles. Taking seven steps before turning around each pass was quite the luxury compared to her earlier accommodations. Rogue Division's confines was certainly an upgrade.
At least I'm not hallucinating Ahsoka again, I'm just hearing her in my dreams. Master Luminara too. I wonder if they've knighted her yet, she certainly deserves it by now. There's no way the Jedi weren't begging for her back after excommunicating her. She's the best padawan in the whole order, anything less than a knighthood, after a year since her trial would be an insult. Despite the war, they're not that out of touch. Well, maybe Mace Windu, but Masters Obi-Wan and Plo Koon are not. And she's not dead…I'd know, I'd feel it. And even if I didn't, Fox would rub it in my face. I wonder why he was assigned here, I wished he wasn't, at least Commander Castor wasn't unkind to me.
After a few hours of simply pacing in her cell, the Miralian prisoner sat down in the geometric centre of the cell. After a while, her silky, jet-black hair began to move. It wasn't in any kind of directed fashion, but her raven locks floated around her head, the Force having cut them free from the shackles of gravity. All the while, and to from her first meditation session in prison, the movement of her hair during the deeper stages of her meditation was unknown to her.
She remained there for the remainder of the daylight hours, not moving an inch, meditating; delving deep within her own imagination, and reaching out for…anyone. And so began her usual parade of tears down her intricately tattooed cheek.
The day turned to night, and the daily meal was brought, slid under her door by a clone trooper. Barriss was still in meditation, though the clanking of the food-door had dispelled her mood, and Force-user she may be, but even Barriss gets hungry at least once a day. After all, Master Luminara always said, 'Serving as a Jedi, you'll quickly stop taking the Temple's scheduled meals for granted, don't make that face, you do take it for granted, and you will until you have been without food for a week and are drawing on your last vestiges of strength to survive. So, When food comes, we eat. Even if we think we know when the next meal will be served, there is never a guarantee.' And so Barriss opened the steaming container and helped herself to some soup and noodles. Keeping the small sticks she ate them with would earn a blast from the guard's stun gun. Barriss almost cringed from the memory…I just wanted something to hold up my hair.
For as rich as Coruscant was, the prisoners still ate food made at the cheapest cost, and this soup with noodles was an accommodation only afforded her at her former master's urging. Barriss oddly enjoyed the monotony of her food, it didn't taste horrid, and it was sustaining if nothing else. It was food, complaining about it would be poor form.
Once she had finished, she laid the empty container on the tray it had entered her cell from the food door. She then went to sit against the wall that was furthest from the door. With a slight hiss, the food door opened and the food disappeared down a chute that was built into the floor of the cell. Barriss almost grinned at the ritual, it was the closest thing she ever got to entertainment unless she chose to provoke the guards when the monotony of it all got too bad for even her. That hasn't happened since Fox took over, I don't think he'd spare my life if I misbehaved. I killed his men, and he was ruthless in his pursuit of Ahsoka. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that he would probably end me if I gave him the slightest excuse.
Barriss went back to the centre of the room once the food was gone. But when she resumed her meditation, something didn't feel right.
The Force was, churning, for lack of a better word. Barriss' eyes scrunched up as she recoiled from a presence too slow, as it had already surrounded her.
It's all your fault Barriss. Barriss saw flashes of blue surrounding vertical shafts of light, like lightning in the dark. She felt, more than heard the screams of her former compatriots in the Jedi Order. She briefly saw the turquoise eyes of a young brown-haired padawan as he fled the oncoming cloud of death. A young Twi'lek with green skin look with sadness into the sky as republic ships devoid of the usual red paint descended from the skies. What am I seeing? But her question wasn't answered as she then saw a young brown-haired girl looking a Mandalorian helmet in the face in determination as she reached for a paint canister marked pink. Her vision concluded with a far less ambiguous message, How could you? I cared for you, was ready to die with you, twice! Traitor!
Barriss's eyes snapped open as she rejected that all too familiar feeling. The same feeling she had when she struck down those clones, and silenced the backstabbing Letta Turmond. She knew a little better now. That feeling was to be tamed, not utterly quelled, but kept in check lest it ruin her again. It had escaped her notice that her breathing had abandoned its serene composure; she recognized that voice, as well as the hollow, cold feeling that just passed over her. She took a shaky breath before going over to her bed, perhaps the promise of sleep could keep her conscience at bay, if only for a little while.
