Why, why, why was this always what they wanted? Wasn't there some other way to judge her? To know how closely the Force held her? She was vaguely aware that Luel had probably intended this to be private, but enforcing privacy in a gaggle of force adepts was a challenge. Or maybe he hadn't even tried, maybe it was as simple as weighing her health and her tie to the Force in the quickest, simplest manner possible and that he didn't care if the entirety of the Temple saw. Maybe...just maybe...he wanted to remind those who needed to be reminded that she was a...
Gift. A jewel beyond measure. Their salvation.
What? The very idea stunned her, and she tried to trace the thread. That had to be external. It had to be planted... but as quickly as she plumbed it, as deeply as she followed it, it seemed to be valid. The Force was an odd, odd thing indeed and it had always treasured her. Light, dark, painted in shadow, it loved her with the same width and breadth as Carth did. Maybe even more, because she understood that his love had limits. He thought it didn't, but she had more faith in him than that.
"I don't understand." She probably did, but she was in the mood to be difficult. The more people knew she was here, the less chance she could just be made to vanish. If she left a mark, an impression...something that her dueling skills were bound to do, especially armed as she was...the more people would remember her. And notice her sudden absence.
Luel did not dignify her petulance with a response, merely igniting his lightsaber, holding it in guard and watching her through its blue glow. She sighed, measuring his stance. He knew who he faced, even if he didn't know entirely what he faced, and it showed in the way he carried himself. She gave a quick flick of her hand, palming and igniting her main lightsaber, following a moment later with her off hand, held behind her back. And, as always, in that moment...everything clicked into place. No doubts, no handicaps, no pain...just herself, held in the Force. And she knew that was what he wanted to see, and that was what he hoped would be there. So that others would see it as well. Only the Force could judge her, and it loved her.
She engaged in an exuberant, bold flip, crossing her sabers in front of her to mitigate the push back when she hit him. He wasn't a warrior, he wasn't a duelist, he was a consular and he was doing this to give her a chance...and she'd do her best to avoid hurting him in the process. Letting go and treating him like a true threat would destroy everything, she had to show her brightest aspect, lit by the clear brilliance of the lightsabers crafted from the last remnants of the Star Forge itself...the main handed one which shone the same golden amber hue of Lehon's sun Abo, and the offhand was the pale silver of its largest moon. They had been forged for her...by her, in the Star Forge's crucible.
I am worthy.
He rocked back, using his greater weight and strength to push her away, and responded with a crisp flurry of strikes. He was better than competent, good enough to let her fall into a dance with him. She was sharper than she'd been in awhile, she'd given herself the luxury to recover and calm down, combined with her continued work with Dustil had done wonders. Luel was a trained Jedi. His style was completely unfamiliar. She wasn't focused on him to pick out every little flaw so that she could smooth them away, as she was with Dustil. He was more than enough to bring her out of her surly, resentful, frightened shell in the best way possible. It didn't matter that there were dozens of people watching, actually that wasn't so, it did matter. It made it all the better, she'd always been a bit flamboyant. And she could feel Vandar in the growing crowd, feel the weight of his gaze as he watched her with the same intensity that she had once watched Bastila and now watched Dustil's progress. No matter what she had become, he would always be one of her masters. He remembered her from when they had been the same height, and suddenly, she remembered...that he remembered that. He had held her hands the first night she'd arrived on Dantooine, just a child...a toddler, really. He'd soothed her tears away and had tucked her into her bed to sleep it off. It was just a glimpse, a flash, a sudden bright beam but it was a memory. A real, whole and true memory that she had not had just moments earlier. It was hers, not manufactured. She would have gone through all of this just to come away with that single moment of recall...
He'd doubled back, coming at her from her off side, testing her defenses. She typically held her offhand behind her, choosing to front most attacks with her main, but she was equally adept with the shoto as a defense until she could pivot to bring the main back around. It had been a long, long time since this had been completely right... when she'd fought the way she was most comfortable with.
You haven't fought this way since the War.
No, as Darth, she'd always... it was easier to push the rushing blur into clarity when she had someone holding her in place by swatting a lightsaber at her. She'd lost, or given up, her first two...sometime after Malachor. Sometime during that time when everything had fallen apart. Amasri had been armed much as she was now, but Darth Revan had used a single crimson saber...she remembered that through Bastila's recall of when she'd been part of the boarding party to come get Sarah off of Revan's flagship.
I wasn't at my best. I was holding back.
She'd been controlled, under a compulsion that she didn't understand or remember, but she'd still been fighting against it. She'd never stopped trying to work around it, to circumvent it, to give as little of herself as possible... She'd never given in, never given up...
And the person who'd been swatting at her with a lightsaber had stopped several heartbeats ago, leaving her standing alone in the chamber, unmolested while the information flowed. Vandar stood in front of her, gazing intently up at her...she'd been like this long enough for him to have crossed the floor to her. Luel stood off to the side, silent, his lightsaber extinguished and his expression inscrutable. She sighed, the better she looked, the more he wanted to keep her. But the better she looked, the more obvious it was that the Force worked within her, on her. And without that understanding, none of this made sense. Not that it made much sense, anyway. All she was certain of was that she'd been maneuvered, used, played into a situation that...
Only you could survive and come out the other side.
Well, good to know, she guessed. She wasn't quite sure this was 'surviving and coming out the other side' but she was still alive. And she was, technically, on the other side of it. She'd survived the War. She'd survived whatever it was that she'd gotten into after it. She'd survived the Enclave's attentions. She'd survived the Endar Spire's crash, Taris, and everything that came after that.
And you'll survive this.
(AN...yes, I'm behind...on both this one and Jellybeans...especially Jellybeans but I made a promise to myself that I would get at least one original novel completed this year, and I've been spending the past few weeks wrapping it up, editing it, formatting and then doing basic marketing. None of which I'm incredibly good at. But, it's mostly done.
HA)