Disclaimer: Lucasfilm and Disney own SW, and Lego owns Bionicle (save for maybe an OC, but you'll see that here).
"In all my years, I have never heard of someone possessing a simple sound for a name. 'Eff.' Hmm, very strange."
The young woman simply named "F" turned away from the giant who addressed her. She hoped the hood of her dark cloak would hide the tinge of annoyance in her eyes. She directed it at the jumbled mess of vines trapping her starfighter, hoping this stranger would believe it. Her dark metal mask would have hidden her tiny frown, if she still had it.
The giant's deep baritone entered her ears. "I meant no offense. Apologies, young one," he said, having noticed her look.
"No, it is alright," F said at last in her soft voice. She only ever used it once before to give her name.
Her false name.
F's eye twitched at the fact and everything else. It had been mere hours since she left one world and found herself on this one. Then again, she was not sure if she could think of this place as any planet she had seen in real life or on a datapad. Above the great jungle she crashed into, the night sky was similar to her cloak; half a starless black and the other half an underlying red. Her metal high-heels dug into soft ground, the lights inside their plating whirling in tandem with the strange energy beneath the dirt.
Twice F's size, the only other person she encountered so far towered over her. A pair of orange eyes glowed under the hood of his tattered and equally massive cloak. "It may take some time to free your craft. Not just from the vines, but to simply move it."
"Maybe," F said, "but someone once told me 'size matters not.'"
The old saying proved true when she stretched out her human hand. Doing so, she channeled the mysterious power inside of her and extended her senses to her red and white starfighter. Within her telekinetic grasp, the sleek vessel and its thin wings rose from unraveling vines, ready to be free once more.
Sadly, some of those vines remained tied, trapping her means of escape in huge knots.
"Please, allow me," the giant said, and his golden metallic hand reached for the dark hilt poking out of his back.
Stepping backwards, F watched in amazement at the massive and pale metal blade cutting through dark vines. The breeze from one swing alone blew aside her hood, and the billowing strands of her asymmetrical haircut almost obscured the giant from her sight. "Better?" he had asked.
"Yes. Thank you," F said after regaining her senses.
With those same senses, she carefully carried her freed starfighter in between the trees. The fact it rested on somewhat flat ground was worth the slow pace. It certainly caught the curious, if not amazed, look from F's hooded companion.
F felt his other golden hand on her entire forearm, steadying her after she exerted herself. "Come, you must rest," the giant told F, who looked back at him. "Please, I insist. It may not be safe in this area. You may take to your craft while I watch."
Fatigue lurked in F's body and mind, despite how much she wanted to say otherwise. This stranger had already rescued her from her starfighter while she was unconscious. Surely, he could be trusted to stand guard and watch. His sword gave that much assurance, even if F's hand drifted to the hilt she kept on her belt.
Try as she might, F could not sleep. She twisted and turned for what must have been two or three hours. It was hard to do so inside the cramped cockpit, and even opening the canopy could only do so much. Everything radiated with a strange power, from the trees to the ground to the air, ringing like an unending klaxon.
Her giant 'protector' was a beacon through it all, figuratively and literally. The golden glow from his sword caught F's attention as she peeked over the nose of her fighter. The same glow revealed the giant's arms and even legs to be just as metallic as the blade. If not for his strange aura and demeanor, she would have thought him to be a simple droid.
The glow retreated from the sword into the not-droid's free hand. "I mean not to keep you up, young one," he said, his orange eyes shining with concern.
F shook her head to assure her kind host. "There is no need," she said, then looked at the tiny nick in the sword's edge. "If anything, I should apologize. I did damage your blade."
"Accidents happen, young one. You need not worry."
F still mentally winced at the memory. Arriving on the world in a daze, she first awoke to find him looming over her. Had she immediately realized he was her savior, not her kidnapper, she would not have accidentally cut his blade. "Do you mind if I watch?" she asked.
A nod of permission let F sit by the giant. The giant resumed, channeling a power she knew nothing of. Was it a result of this strange place? Or was it something more, like her own power, the energy she knew as the Force?
The giant's voice replaced the fading light in his hand. "How strange life can be. I believe neither of our kind has ever met each other in the past. Certainly, someone with such soft exteriors would be more noticeable. No offense." F took in only the giant's curious stare. The look in his glowing eyes spoke a… need for conversation. "You have not asked any questions. Perhaps, you have wondered who I am or why I even helped you?"
"It did cross my mind," F said with a small smile. "However, I realize the answer is obvious. You are a gentle soul."
After a long moment, the giant at last said in a sad tone, "How I wish it were also true for… those I knew. We cannot ignore those in need, nor should we. It is in our nature, our creed. At least, it had been."
F's eyes softened as did her voice. "What happened?"
The giant shuffled on the ground. His deep voice kept F from completely spotting an emblem on his chest. A shining star, maybe, poking out from beneath the folds of his cloak.
"Those I called my brothers and sisters-in-arms were many," he began. "Yet, they eventually fought over the very thing we claimed to protect. Either to keep it safe or to use its power, they fought. At first, I too joined in to stop the conflict. In time, those who followed me strayed from the path as well. They became… obsessed and ultimately wished to destroy what the others fought over, bringing more harm upon the world we called home. So, I left them."
"You stopped fighting?"
"Yes and no. I fought not for my brethren, but to protect the people of that world, for what is a world without those who live in it? At least, I had thought so… It has been so long since we all were banished, only to return to help whoever summoned us. I thought it would have been a blessing in disguise, but I believe why many would see it as a punishment for our warmongering. Aside from the strange creatures in my prison, you are the first visitor in who knows how long."
The giant ended his story with a heavy sigh. He might as well have had the weight of a planet atop his shoulders, given how low they sank. To F, it was an all-too-familiar feeling that had consumed every part of her life in recent years. The feeling bubbled in her throat, forcing F to at last begin her own tale.
"My… kind were protectors. For over a thousand generations, we traveled across the stars to help those in need. Our powers were meant for knowledge and defense, never to attack. That is, until the war came. We were never prepared for it. We fought as long as we could, believing we were right, but then…"
Her voice cracking, F paused to close her eyes. She could still see it. By the stars and everything in between, she saw it all.
Blaster fire ringing in the air…
Voices, once so sure, filled with terror…
Her hand reaching for a man's corpse before her…
A red blade slicing the air before darkness claimed everything…
F lowered her head. For all the strength she regained from the last planet she visited, from helping the people there, she could not hide the memory nor the scar it left on her face and on her heart. It took everything for her to speak again.
"... But then we were betrayed, by those we fought alongside and those we were meant to protect. Even now, we are being hunted. I-I don't know if anyone else is still out there. I was but a child when my mast… my mentor was cut down before my eyes."
Having finished her story, F realized she had been crying. She only knew it when a metal finger brushed by her right cheek and trailed up the hideous scar to her eyes. Opening them, F found the giant kneeling before her. Her tears couldn't hide the slight surprise when the giant wiped them away.
Underneath the hood, his orange eyes covered a pale mask in understanding and regret. "I am sorry, young one. I did not mean to–"
"No…" F said. Wiping the remainder of her tears away, she spoke with her newfound resolve. "I have held this in for some time. It… it feels good to finally tell someone. For years, I tried to hide who I was just to stay alive. Now, I know I can't do that. Not when I can help wherever I can."
"Even if it means you will be hunted and killed?"
"I am a Jedi. It is what I must do."
I am a Jedi. It hadn't been long since F last said those words. Then and now, she said them out of conviction, out of a purpose to live again. There was no other way she could explain it, as strange as it may have seemed.
Also strange was how F's years of training did not prepare her to be hugged by the giant. The same hand that wiped her tears gently pressed her head onto his chest plate. She felt like a child in the warmth of his embrace and of the sunburst emblem which she stared into. A part of her didn't care.
"For one so young to endure, yet to hold on," the giant had said. His voice tried not to crack, and his tug tightened around F. "You hold such great strength, young one. Never forget that."
The kind words warmed F's heart, more than any dream could.
No matter how much time had passed, the sky remained the same. F could not tell how long it had been, even when she turned on the display screen in her starfighter. The tiny annoyance faded when the giant's head popped beside her opened cockpit.
"Is everything ready?" the giant asked, and F nodded. "Then, you should leave as soon as possible. I know not what will happen if you remain here any longer… nor am I certain if we will ever meet again."
"Is it because of…?" F trailed off, not needing to finish her question.
"My binding to this place is a strange thing. When you leave, you may not even remember, if what you said of your arrival is true. Nonetheless, take heart, young F."
A sad twinge tugged at F's lips, as she recalled the sudden flash which brought her to this place. After a moment of silence, she breathed in and revealed another bit of truth: "Fumie. It's… it's my name."
The giant's orange eyes smiled. "A kind name–"
The two whirled to a distant and interrupting crash. It had been the first real sound F–or rather, Fumie–had heard since her arrival. A bellow followed, its echo approaching like the long, dark, root-like vines slowly slithering from the jungle's depths. "Are these the creatures you mentioned?" Fumie said after sensing the new lifeforms inching towards her starfighter.
"Some of them. They must have been drawn here by your arrival. Go! I shall distract them!" the giant said and threw off his cloak before Fumie could object.
He marched on his golden legs while his arms swung his sword from his back. From his chest plate to his pauldrons, his pale armor beamed with pride. Fumie caught the same pride in his eyes, which shone from the flat and equally white mask covering his head. "I see you are not satisfied with our occasional bouts, are you?" the giant told the intruders.
Three of the seemingly slow vines responded by zipping towards the giant.
His pale blade cut them away in two swings. "Perhaps not," he said and raised his sword. "However, you shall not take this one. So swears Maram of the Light! Now come and face the might of a Toa!"
Toa. To Fumie, the title carried the same gravitas as her own. It had been another reason, one of many on her growing list, why she hastily tried to activate her starfighter's firing system. "Come on, come on," she said after a few failed attempts, each one ending with a pathetic whirl from the turrets.
A bright flash caught Fumie's eyes. Its source, the now-glowing blade, hacked away in wide yet precise swings. The one called Maram similarly stepped his wide grey feet left, right, or backward in between each attack. The vines themselves lost their patience and struck with wild abandon at an impenetrable shield of shining slashes.
Fumie saw it at that moment. Another vine, as dark and large as the others, slipped towards Maram's side. The minute Fumie shot up from her cockpit, it already launched towards its target.
The machinations in Fumie's boots propelled her off her fighter's nose. Her cape flapped away to unveil the hilt on her belt. In a split second, she grabbed it. In another–
Snap-hiss.
–her humming lightsaber cut the vine ensnaring Maram's arm.
Fumie slid up to Maram's side and sliced more of the vine with her flat curved blade. The same yellow plasma glowed around the rim of her hilt's rectangular guard, warming her hand. The similarly colored light from Maram's metal blade tore at the rest of the vines before it stood alongside hers. "You needed help," Fumie told Maram quickly while their foes retreated.
Strange roars, so distant yet powerful, put aside any arguments. "It would seem so," Maram agreed. "Together?"
Fumie nodded, and Maram's eyes shone as if they were grinning. A familiar grin of her own touched her old scar. She may forget the encounter after leaving this place, but she focused on the here and now
And now, Jedi and Toa charged together, their respective blades shining against the menace deep within the jungle.
AN: You know, I'm surprised, and not so surprised, that I wrote this in a week or so. I'm surprised by how I found myself not only enjoying the episode "The Village Bride" from among the other hit-or-miss episodes of Star Wars: Visions, but I found myself wishing to write about the Jedi character (simply named F, according to Wookieepedia). Her story and rising to the occasion gave my feelings for Star Wars I thought I would never have again after the botched sequel trilogy, let alone write anything so quickly with a similar passion.
Regarding the Bionicle aspect, Maram is one of many OCs from my fanfic, New Legends, New Heroes: A Sequel to Bionicle G2 (or Bionicle G2: New Legends, New Heroes on Wattpad). Given his attitude and how I found parallels to the Jedi F, I thought it would be nice to write a little character piece. It might be very spoiler-y for future chapters of my Bionicle fanfic, though (TBH, I'm still working a bit on that, so we'll have to wait and see). I just wanted to write this for fun, so it doesn't have to be connected to any continuity if you don't want it to be.
Well, I think that's it for now. I probably will still dunk on Star Wars for its past and current mistakes (which you may see in any more previews I put up or at least in the author's notes for them), but I am glad I managed to put this out there. It certainly was fun writing this bit. Until next time, take care.
Raika out.