LordDarthYoda- You got swerved! (And so did Pravin. Poor, poor Pravin). I think that chapter was written a bit confusingly, there wasn't a lot of set up for something as dramatic as Aurine surrendering the entire war. But hopefully putting in Pravin's perspective made it seem that it wasn't so abrupt. But I'm glad Aurine even fooled you :p. If you describe a character as a tactical genius...you should probably make her outwit people! (I enjoyed the 'live commentary' comment for sure :))

Mr. Insane- I planned it to be one of those things when you read it the first time, it didn't really make sense, but when you get to the end of chapter it all made sense. And you are right to say it fits in Aurine's character - she's a bit fond of pulling these sort of surprises. And General Ecalt found out about that the hard way.

A/N - We are going to check in with our intrepid Padawans and see how they are recovering (spoiler alert, they're still hurt).

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

Chapter 35: New Realities

"The bad news is that I've had to report my failure to Vash Varless. Reporting that I've been outsmarted by my opposition was hardly what I wanted to do. Yet Vash cannot harm me, because I am the only capable commander in his employ. The good news is that finally he is sending me some flesh-and-blood troops to help me subdue Ubrora. They will be mercenaries and thus the scum of the galaxy, but I will have to make do with them."

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, sixteen days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

When Sascha Whitestar woke up, he had no idea where he was or what he was doing there. All he knew was that he was in pain. It honestly felt as if a Rancor had fallen on him…repeatedly. Everything hurt. Everything he wanted to do took incalculable effort, including simple things like opening his eyes. He had been hurt plenty of times in his young career already, but this might have been the worst he'd been hurt. He'd try to think about it when he didn't have a headache.

When he finally realized that he had apparently survived the explosion at the communications tower, he was more than a little surprised. He was sure that he he owed Nara his life for the impromptu Force barrier that they had erected just a second before they felt incoming danger. In the split second before the explosion, he had leant himself entirely to Nara, and they had used one of the slightly esoteric Force skills that Nara had mastered to protect themselves from the blast. Yet, while it had been enough to keep him alive, it certainly hadn't kept him from harm.

Sascha heard footsteps nearby, "Padawans are you awake?"

He felt himself frowning; the voice that he was hearing was not one that he recognized. Had they been captured? That would be…unfortunate. Whatever had happened, there was no point in denying the obvious, "Yes, I'm awake" he croaked, his throat dry and parched.

"Me too," said Nara's voice from somewhere near him.

Though he was disconcerted to hear how weakly she said the simple phrase, he was relieved to know that Nara was with him. More importantly, he was relieved to know that she was still alive.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"My name is Harstem Embac, and I am a doctor here on Ubrora. You are safe in my house. You were rescued from your attempt to raid the communications tower, which was destroyed. Both of you were severely hurt as I'm sure you can tell. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that both of you are alive and speaking to me right now."

Sascha blinked and tried to get his eyes to focus on Harstem. When he eventually did, he could see that the third person in the room was an older Ubroran, his dress casual, colourful, but understated. The doctor fiddled with a datapad as he continued to converse with the Padawans.

"I'm relieved that I got the sedative dosed correctly so that both of you woke up at the same time, it's been quite a chore determining how our drugs react to your alien physiology. "

"Don't you have bacta?" asked Nara, her voice still feeble.

"We have heard of bacta, alas we have never imported it to our world."

From his bed, he heard Nara moan and he was inclined to do so as well. Bacta was, quite frankly, a miracle fluid that promoted healing in a huge variety of species across the galaxy, and Sascha was pretty sure that he and Nara could use a dunk in a bacta tank for at least a couple of hours. Without it, they'd have to recover the old-fashioned way, and it would take a great deal longer.

"How long were we unconscious?" he asked.

"It's been about two days."

"Two days!" he exclaimed. He immediately regretted his exclamation as his body protested his mild exertion. Sascha focused on talking deep, relaxing breaths, but even that was difficult.

"As I said, you both almost died. To be honest, I'm surprised by how rapid your recovery has been, but your Master advised me that Jedi heal at an increased rate."

"We're tough to kill," agreed Nara frailly.

"You talked to our Masters?" Sascha asked.

"I did indeed. They advised me of how to treat you best. She has placed me personally in charge of your recovery. I believe her words were, "Your house, your rules."

"As long as we are in your house, we will heed your instructions, Harstem," he said.

"Every doctor does so love a compliant patient."

"Is there anything else Harstem? We have some things we'd like to discuss in private."

The doctor nodded, "I'll give you two some privacy then, but I ask that you keep your physical exertions to a minimum, both of you are still bandaged quite heavily, and I do so hate reapplying what had been perfectly good bandages. Have your conversation, and then get some rest. I'll be checking in on you every hour or so."

After the doctor withdrew, Nara quickly started unwrapped the bandages around her montrals. As she unwrapped them, he could see that there was a deep cut near the top of her left montral, but more than that, something seemed off about them, but he couldn't tell what, if anything, it was. He was still feeling pretty out of it and he wasn't sure if his senses were playing tricks on him. It might have been that the drugs that he had been given hadn't been calibrated quite so correctly. "Nara," he hissed, "What are you doing?"

Nara turned to him, her blue eyes almost fully glazed over with pain, "Sascha, I need you to do something for me."

He tried to sit up quickly, an action that he immediately regretted, as a bout of dizziness almost overwhelmed him, "Nara, what's wrong?"

"Sascha, my montrals are out of alignment, and it hurts, it hurts so much. I can't fix them myself. Please, don't make me bring that doctor back, he's probably never even seen a Togruta before. I only trust you to fix them for me."

"Nara, I'm like barely holding on to consciousness here, I don't want to hurt you worse. Just get Harstem to do it, he seems trustworthy enough."

Tears of pain emerged from Nara's bright blue eyes, "Sascha, please…"

He'd never seen Nara beg like this, let alone cry, it was so totally unlike her that he figured that she absolutely needed his help. "Okay, okay, I'll do it."

"Thank you," she whispered as she finished undoing the bandage on her montral and settled back into her makeshift bed.

He made his way over to her side, trying to shrug off how unsteady he was on his feet and how his numerous cuts, bruises and welts impaired his movement. Harstem certainly hadn't been kidding when he had said that he had been close to death. Fortunately, he didn't have to walk far. He reached Nara's bedside. Nara lay flat on her back, wearing what appeared to be an Ubroran tailor's version of Jedi robes. Naturally, they were far more colourful than Nara's old gray robe, this one was a nice navy blue with beige highlights, which actually looked pretty good on her. He briefly tried to get a read in the Force on how badly she had been hurt, but his ability to touch the Force was spotty right now, yet even a brief glimpse into the Force told him that she was still not in very good shape. Then again, neither was he.

Nara placed a hand lightly on his arm as he examined her, "Can I hold your hand while you do it? I need something to squeeze, something to take my mind off of what you are doing."

"Uh, sure, just try not to squeeze my hand too hard, I'm fragile."

The Togruta smiled weakly, and took a hold of his left hand, "Just do it quickly, Sascha."

Sascha took a second to picture Nara as she had been back at the beginning of the mission, the strong, lighthearted, girl that had become a close friend to him. Sure enough, when he compared the mental picture of Nara at the beginning of the mission and the Nara lying beside him right now, Nara's right montral was currently bent at a different angle, about fifteen degrees to the left.

"How…do I…uh…do this?" he asked Nara's prostrate body.

"Montrals harden in whatever position they are left in, so you'll have to move it from the position it set in, to the correct one. You have to use force. It will hurt me a bit, but it will be better in the long-run."

"You sure you want me to do this?"

"I trust you, Sascha."

Sascha really didn't want to do this as he was not a doctor and he certainly did not want to hurt his friend, but he took a deep breath and did it anyway. Putting his right hand firmly onto her right montral, he took a second to get a sense of just how much force he'd have to use to move the montral. Textually it reminded him of cartilage, it was soft, and supple, but also firm.

"Hey, I told you to fix me, not cop a feel," Nara joked lamely. She squeezed his left hand lightly to let him know that she was kidding and that she was ready for him to start the 'operation.'

Taking a deep breath he quickly grabbed the pointed montral and twisted it back to what he thought was the correct alignment. Nara grimaced, yowling in pain through her teeth as she squeezed his hand. Nara squeezed his left hand so hard that he thought that it might break. Kriff, had he done something wrong? After a second, Nara exhaled a deep breath and the pressure on his hand eased. Sascha let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Thank you, Sascha, that's so much better…I could kiss you right now," Nara said dreamily as her body seemed to ease peacefully into her bed, "but I think that might involve sitting up, and I'm not sure I can manage that anymore," she laughed softly.

"Well, good, because I wouldn't let you kiss me anyway," he teased.

"I know. You are still holding on to my hand, though." Strangely, he didn't really feel like letting go of Nara's hand. It was reassuring to touch her hand, it affirmed that they were, in fact, not dead and that his good friend was still here with him. Deciding that he didn't want to let go, he pulled his bed over towards Nara's so that when he climbed back in his bed, he could keep a light hold of her hand.

"What was it like, having your montral out of alignment?" he asked his friend. He knew that the montrals of a Togruta provided them with a sort of passive echolocation, but admittedly, he knew little of how it actually worked.

"Well, for one it was extremely painful, which you might have noticed. It's painful because our montrals let us…sense things that are happening around us, it's similar to the way you can sense things with the Force. But when a montral is forced out of alignment, that sense gets out of whack too, so instead of 'seeing' like normal, everything is just slightly off. It's like watching a holovid where the sound isn't quite synced up, and the picture is fuzzy. Except you aren't watching a holovid, its how you are actually perceiving your reality."

"That sounds… pretty awful."

Nara nodded glumly, "It's the price we Togruta pay for having such strong senses. Most of the time it's worth it, but it isn't without weaknesses. At least, as you saw, it's a pretty easy problem to fix. It only really happens to younger Togruta like me, by the time I'm fully grown, it's almost impossible to dislocate a montral, but because mine are still growing they are more susceptible to dislocations and the like. I must have really have hit my head hard though," she said, rubbing her head lightly.

"I'm glad you are back to normal, my Togruta friend."

Nara let go of his hand to pull up the sleeves on her robe, which showed very little of her purple skin, instead it was covered in off-white bandages, "I'm very normal at the moment," she said dryly.

"You know what I meant, Nara."

The Togruta shook her head, "I don't think it will ever be normal again, Sascha. I don't think we are going to make it off this planet. I don't think we'll ever get to see the Jedi Temple again. I didn't know I could miss anything so much."

He looked over at his friend to his surprise, Nara seemed to be on the verge of tears again. He knew what the words he was supposed to her say were, he was supposed to say something like, 'of course we will see the Temple again.' But deep down he was having trouble in believing that he would see Coruscant or even his Master again. The reality was that they were fighting a losing war. And they had almost already died once, taking on a mission that they knew was a trap, that was how desperate things had gotten.

"I think," he said slowly as he formulated the thought, "that we have to take this one day at a time. We are Jedi, we must embrace our challenge." It wasn't exactly stirring stuff, but it seemed to get through to Nara.

"As long as we still breathe, there is hope," she said as if she was quoting something she had read a long time ago.

"And we are still breathing," he pointed out.

"Let's keep doing that, then."

A long silence stretched as the Padawans dropped deep into thought. "Do you think we can win?"

"Win what, Nara?"

"The war, obviously."

"Oh, that. I….don't know to be honest, but I'm not sure it matters. All we can do is control what we do. If our story ends here, I want to make sure that I did everything I could. We only get to write our own stories, we don't get to worry about the ones that other people write."

"I like that metaphor," said Nara as she rolled over on her side to look at him, wincing as she did it, "did you just think of that?"

He shook his head, "It was in some holobook I read once. I guess it's always stuck with me."

"Nerd," said Nara half-mockingly. He smiled at her and she smiled back. It was good to see Nara genuinely smiling, and it felt good to laugh and smile as well. It was one thing that Nara seemed to do more than any of his other friends, their banter always had a playful tone to it, and it was nice to know that they could still engage in some banter, even after their near death experience.

"I'm not sure I like my new wardrobe," she said, analyzing some of the stitching on the cuffs of her robe.

"I think it looks good on you."

"Considering your fashion taste, that isn't much of an endorsement." Nara shivered, "It gives me the creeps to think that someone changed my clothes when I was unconscious."

"They could hardly keep us in our blood soaked robes," he pointed out.

"Still creepy." She shivered again, reacting physically to the idea, and he had to admit he wasn't thrilled about that happening to him either.

He held out a hand towards Nara, and the Togruta reached out and grabbed it lightly. "Why does this feel so comforting?" Nara wondered aloud, "We're just holding hands…chastely holding hands, before you get any ideas Whitestar."

"It's probably just the drugs," he said jokingly.

"Sascha, I'm asking a serious question."

"It's hard to tell with you sometimes, Nara."

Nara growled, "Just answer the question."

He considered her question for a moment, "I don't really know Nara," he said honestly, "but isn't there something a little bit special about…you know…us?

She squinted, "That might be the worst pickup line I've ever heard."

"Now who isn't being serious?"

"Fine." Nara sighed, "You know that you are my closest friend right?" He nodded. "I always…kinda figured that I wasn't the type of person that made friends, that I got these Jedi powers but not the power to have friends. I kinda thought that was a fair trade. Then you came along, and from that first conversation we had…I just got the feeling that you understood me, that you saw right through the armor that I had carved for myself. You were the one person that saw the real me underneath. I guess that's always made you special to me."

"I'm always surprised by how strong our bond is," he admitted. "I have or maybe had a similar bond with Tyra, but that made sense as I was her best friend since I was really young. With you…it was almost immediate, from the day we met. I always wondered why that was, if maybe there was something special about us being together."

"Don't get attached now, little human," Nara said in her familiar, mocking tone.

He smiled easily, "It's not about attachment, or even attraction, Nara."

"I know, I just like teasing you about it."

"I've noticed," he said dryly.

Nara offered him a wan look of amusement, "Sometimes…I think the Force gives us what we need to survive our trials. And I think the person that I needed to survive this mission has been you, Sascha. I think if I was left on my own…I'd lose myself, I'd lose my way."

"We support each other," he said, "We are friends, it's a two-way street."

"It's nice, having a friend. I didn't know what I was missing out on."

"It's nice having you as a friend Nara."

A pulse of warmth seemed to flow between the two Jedi that briefly allowed them to forget how badly they were hurt. The two smiled at each other, it was a smile of affection, of friendship, it was a smile that promised that their friendship would survive anything that could be thrown at it.

Nara broke the gaze, "Anyway, I think it's time to sleep more, I'm still exhausted." As soon as Nara uttered those words, a wave of fatigue seemed to come over him. Sleep did seem like a very good idea.

"Goodnight Nara."

"Let go of my hand."

"You first," he said.

Nara growled, "When we get back to the Jedi Temple, I'm going to remember all of these smart aleck remarks, and I'm going to put you in a joint lock for each one you made."

"That's impossible."

"You don't think I can do it?"

"No, I don't think you can count high enough."

Nara snorted in amusement, removed her hand and rolled over so that she wasn't facing him any longer, "Goodnight Sascha."

"Goodnight, little Togruta."

"That's going on the list."

Sascha smiled and adjusted his pillow, quickly falling into a deep sleep.