UHHHHHH
heyyyyyy. yeah, so I'm deeply sorry that I just completely forgot that I was updating this story on FFN. To be fair though, I just started writing this story again so you guys aren't too far behind. I'll upload the next chapter in a few days, or a week, just to let this one breathe. It's a doozy, lol.
It seemed to Cora that maybe she'd made a mistake.
There the two of them were, crawling along on their hands and knees in relative darkness feeling around for some sort of hole. An indication that Ozcar hadn't been hallucinating. Ozcar had initially led her to an abandoned habitation unit in the Shallows. The lowest level of Nagato's towering skyscrapers.
And that was the problem with the Shallows. Similar to Coruscant's underground, hardly any light reached them down here. It was late afternoon by all accounts, but it might as well have been the middle of the night on any other planet.
Cora sighed, "If you were drunk how do you even remember this place?"
He looked back at her, "Something like that would be kinda hard to forget, don't you think?"
The apartment's worn steel door had already been slightly ajar and hanging lazily from its hinges. Someone had been in there recently. It gave Cora hope that Ozcar was right.
Cora heard something scrape against the floor, and Ozcar grunted, "Found it." Cora peered over to where Petre had his hand placed on top of a wooden board. She heard him swing it up by it's hinges and stared into the pitch black abyss that lay below it. Cora felt a shiver run down her spine at the emptiness of it. Ozcar dropped himself in and out of the black, his voice emerged.
"Well? What're you waiting for?"
His voice echoed up out of down into the pit. Cora's eyes fell on Ozcar's in the darkness and instinctively, her back straightened. She was NV-153. Fear wasn't supposed to exist in her vocabulary. The muscles in her jaw worked as Cora gathered her courage. She peered over the edge once more before the trooper swung her legs over the opening, took a long sustained breath in.
And threw herself down into the void.
In retrospect, the fall wasn't that bad. She managed to land on her feet, dust clouding around her from maybe centuries past. Cora looked back up through the hole she'd fallen through. The hole was maybe 2-3 feet above her now. High enough that she was glad they'd brought Petre along just in case anything went wrong—because he was now going to help pull them back over the edge to the open air.
Then, her head fell to survey her surroundings. They weren't wearing their helmets. Once the both of them had known they were well and truly alone, the troopers had taken them off, leaving them on the floor above.
Not really their best idea considering how dark it was.
Both troopers pressed a button on their wrist remotes and small flashlights on the top of their wrists flickered to life. The walls were grimy, but bare. The tunnel ran both ways, and both tapered off into cloudy darkness. But there was thankfully no danger. Ozcar's took one step forward, Cora could practically see the adventurous smile curve onto Ozcar's face as he said, "Come on."
Where the dark was too overpowering for their small wrist lights, the troopers felt along the walls to lead their way. But Ozcar seemed to know where he was going, apparently so enraptured by the place that he'd even remembered the route.
Cora knew this because when stairs had begun to replace flat ground, Ozcar said, "Watch your step. When I came down here the first time, I was so drunk that I tripped."
This definitely wasn't the time for bantering, but Cora couldn't help herself. A small chuckle found its way out, "Oh, is that where you got those bruises on your neck? We'd all thought…"
Ozcar interrupted her to clarify, albeit sheepishly, "Well, they're everywhere, not just on my neck, but yeah that's…"
Cora heard Ozcar's boots scrape the floor as he turned around sharply, "…Wait, you all thought what?"
Cora was at a loss for words, she'd thought she'd laid it out rather clearly and honestly, she didn't want to try and explain it again.
"Ah…I-"
"…You guys thought those were hickies?"
The silence hung in the air around them. Ozcar turned forwards again, thought for a moment, and then immediately cut Cora next words off, "Actually, I'm taking that as a compliment. I didn't realize people thought I was such a ladies man."
Cora groaned, pushing past him down the stairs, "I shouldn't have said anything. I only made your already insanely huge ego even worse."
Ozcar ran to catch up, "Hey!"
"I should just cut my losses and ask for a transfer now."
Cora's boots hit flat ground.
Ozcar let out a laugh and he said something, but Cora couldn't make it out. His voice echoing and looping over so much that by the time it reached her ears, the sound was phonetic mush. She shined her light up towards the ceiling. Sure enough, it was high and vaulted, ending in a flat ceiling was bordered by intricate stone carvings and bold black lines against tan.
The stone border melted down into thick columns that fell down around them on all sides. On the floor was a large cylindrical platform. On the ground in the center of the platform is another circle carving identical to the one above them.
Cora steps on the platform and inside the circle. Staring up at the ceiling as Ozcar comes to join her.
"Well?"
It takes Cora a minute to think up anup with an appropriate response, "You'd think a Jedi Temple would be more…temple-y." Of course, Cora had never seen one before, only heard of them. Of the supposed knowledge and beauty that lay within their gilded doors. All in service to their all-mighty Force. But this seemed to pale in comparison to whatever she'd imagined when Ozcar had first mentioned this place.
Ozcar, his mind always on the move, has already started to walk into the other tunnel opposite the one they'd just come from. He blabbers on about how he thinks there's a supposed library down the hallway. It will take him several minutes to realize that Cora is no longer with him.
The trooper in question remains rooted to the spot. Staring up at the circle in the ceiling. Something's telling her not to move, telling her to stay. But Cora can't imagine why. Maybe this is just another example of Cora's apparent Force abilities acting up again, just as they had when she'd shattered the light above Tovo's head in a fit of rage.
But somehow.
Cora glances down to the circle in the floor.
She doesn't think so.
The Force is speaking to her and it pulls her down to her knees. Tells her to lay her hands on the floor in the middle of the circle. Dead center in the middle of a carving of foxes encircling the border. When her hands touch the cold ancient stone, Cora almost recoils away. But she stays the course, a little more curious then scared at this point.
And as always, desperate.
The Force is what rises up within her when she closes her eyes. Intense and almost nauseating in its strength. And yet, Cora is serene, calmer than ever because this feels right in some odd traitorous way. Like some great prophecy is finally being satisfied. Or some grand error in the cosmos is at last being corrected.
It's all happening so fast that she can barely process when her mouth speaks of its own accord and the Force within her calls out to some unknown entity in unison, the whisper like rocks skipping across a lake.
"Open."
Cora feels something stir inside her and then she hears a whoosh. A sound all together otherworldly reverberates through her and she feels light from above fall across her cheek.
A scream tears it's way through the silence then, getting closer and closer until Cora finally pulls herself away from the floor and scrambles backwards. Her eyes open just in time to see a man in robes fall from the heavens and land with a thud 3 feet in front of her.
Cora's eyes widen, her heart pounds in her chest. She lets out a sharp breath, barely even able to process what she'd done. And yet as the man stirs, she can't help but feel the echoes in the force. Radiating from the man himself. A…light, brighter than the sun.
The man slowly lifts up his head to examine his surrounding, coughing a little as the dust swirls around him. He beats one fisted hand against his chest for a few moments before his wise brown eyes fall on Cora. The man tilts his head and there's a certain sparkle in his eyes that Cora shies away from. Frozen in place as she is.
He stands up, brushing grime and dirt from his tan robes. The man smiles softly at her, albeit his brow arches a little in amusement when his eyes fall on her uniform.
"Who are you?" He asks, his voice deep and firm.
The trooper's eyebrows furrow, Cora doesn't answer him. Reluctant to give even her designation number to this stranger who fell from the sky. Her eyes shift around the room then back up to the man.
The man doesn't seem too off put by this, he only reaches a hand out towards Cora. Which she hesitantly takes. He helps her up to her feet. And Cora then takes a couple steps back, hands splayed in front of her, ready to form them into fists if need be. Even in calm situations like this, instinct overpowers everything else.
The man's eyes snap down to Cora's tense hands, and he smiles again, raising his hands in a sign of peace.
"You have no cause for fear, soldier."
Cora flinches at the name, and all too quickly she barks back, "Who are you?" The silence fills the seemingly endless space between them, and the man raises his chin proudly. He fixes his posture, growing in stature. The Force falls off him in waves, and yet, Cora can't help but notice the penetrating sadness in his eyes. The wisdom beyond his years.
He speaks, "I am Jor Daki, Jedi Master of the High Republic."