…vigorous pre-emptive attack was launched by the Grand Army of the Republic…
…success in rescuing Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padawan Skywalker and Senator Amidala of Naboo, a valiant effort made by the Geonosis Strike Team. A group of two hundred and twelve Jedi arrived at Petranaki arena, under the command of General Windu…
…losses were serious, first reporters were yet unable to obtain a list of casualties…
…through the Geonosian sand and dust, the Clone Troopers marched on to secure the glorious victory of the Republic, marking the end of the Separatist Crisis…
…source of pride… …intense bravery…
"…those round, flat little thingies, remember?"
Ashkhen, glued to the holodisplay above the counter, barely registered Tilla's voice over the broadcast. The video montage occupied all her processing capacity.
Dooku had chosen a sandy desert world, of all the places in the Galaxy, to manufacture his droids? Since when did the Republic have a standing army? Who funded this? What was bloody Sleepwalker doing on Geonosis? General Windu? …GENERAL!?
Tilla rapped her fingers on the counter. "This is Front-of-House Control, do you copy?"
"Sorry… what?"
"Pancakes, Ashkhen!" Urgency and annoyance tinged Tilla's voice. "I'm going to shut that thing off if you can't keep up, mid-day service rush is far from over!"
"Right, I'm on it!"
The big bucket of pancake mix thunked on the counter. Ashkhen frowned at her inset display—two bagels, a crispy nuna salad and one Soup of the Day order popped up in addition since the outbreak of the Clone Wars had grabbed her attention. She scrolled to the bottom of the discouragingly long list, then set herself to work her way up.
Time to up the parallel project management game.
"Archie, start the timer," she called over her shoulder. Thick, light blue batter filled up the holes in the pancake pan. A series of indignant beeps came from behind her back, ending in a low whistle.
"No, I don't need my memory wiped, I'm performing just fine, thank you very much!"
The program obtruded its opinion upon Ashkhen in a six-note chirp of mockery and a one-second rising note.
"Shove it, RC-H3," she said. "You know, I don't think I need such an ornery kitchen software at all. Maybe I'll have Drosili uninstall you."
Blue digits appeared at the top right corner of the display, counting down from three minutes, accompanied by four short, petulant beeps.
"That was harsh, I'm sorry." Ashkhen sliced the second bagel in half, lost in thought. The HoloNews report soon pushed Archie's binary bickering from her mind. "But this… can you imagine? A Jedi strike force? Can't wrap my head around how the Council could have sanctioned something like that. You can't strike peace into someone with a closed fist."
The philosophy of war fell way beyond the bounds of Archie's programme. He stayed on stand by for the next command.
"You know what happens when Jedi go to war?" she asked, then disappeared in the walk-in cooler. She hurried out with a giant plastoid box in her hands. "The Galaxy falls apart.
"Off the top of my head, four great schisms happened so far, several Sith Wars, a whole bunch of various Great Wars, a Mandalorian War, a Jedi Civil War not long after… need I go on?"
She fished out two pieces of nuna breast dripping with buttermilk from the prep container and made a face. The nuna strips plopped onto a tray of breadcrumbs.
Clog our toilets before you clog your arteries.
She turned back to finish the bagels.
"Okay, Mandalorian Wars, for example. I'm not saying that Master Kenobi and Skybaulker are walking the same path as the charismatic duo of Revan and Malak had, but you can't not see the similarities."
The holodisplay gave three beeps.
"Anyways, all I'm saying is that when Jedi march off and become one side of the conflict, things rarely end well. Hold on, we're still missing a side of fries."
She scrolled down the display with one hand, squirted sauce onto the bagels with the other. She glanced over her shoulder—the baskets were stacked on the rack above the deep fryer. On the far side of the kitchen.
I'm terribly sorry, Master, but we kind of have a situation here.
Ashkhen lifted a hand and closed her eyes in concentration. Half a bag of frozen produce flew out from the freezer, and landed in the metal basket. The basket unhooked itself from the rack and sank slowly into the oil. Ashkhen rushed back into the walk-in fridge to retrieve two portions of pre-packaged soup and the cake tray. Two blocks of frozen soup fell into an empty pot with a clang.
"You see, when Jedi lose their focus, they usually go crazy, turn to the Dark Side, start a cult, start killing each other, or any combination of the above."
Another beep.
"I'm sorry, is the tempestuous history of my people boring you?" Ashkhen turned back towards the display with one hand on her hip. "Oh, shit!"
The timer went off a while ago. RC-H3 made a cautionary beep every thirty seconds to remind its operator. Ashkhen flipped the pancakes with a flick of her fingers, murmuring another apology to Master Balian for such a frivolous use of the Force.
"Anyways, you get the idea. All I'm saying is that Jedi joining the war effort is a calamity in the making."
The display let out a series of three short, noncommittal chirps. Ashkhen slowly shook her head.
"You don't really care much about galactic politics so long as you're plugged in, don't you?"
The timer for the fries went off, the soup started bubbling, the pancakes were ready for garnishing, and yet another order popped up at the top of the list. Ashkhen's focus shifted yet again, this time from the war that was ravaging the Outer and Mid Rim worlds to the one in her own backyard.
Argh, this really is getting out of hand!
Ashkhen ran both hands through her headtails, eyes sweeping around the kitchen. The challenge of finishing the remaining tasks in a timely manner seemed formidable, but not impossible. She toed off her shoes, vaulted on top of the kitchen island and lowered herself into a half-crouch. One feet in front of the other, planted wide apart, arms extended—Form Three, Soresu.
Marginally less effective against a wave of opponents than Shii-Cho, in close quarters, Soresu surpassed the First Form in its sharp and tight movements. Less is more, Soresu practitioners believed, forgoing the elegant, dance-like execution of Makashi, the flashy acrobatics of Ataru, and the unstable explosiveness of Juyo.
The Force breathed life into the room, a subtle tremble ran along the walls. Ingredients, utensils and plates rose from the counters, detached themselves from wall mounts and spilled forward from drawers. A tightly controlled orbit formed around Ashkhen. Picturing the whirlwind of kitchen paraphernalia as a swarm of combat remotes, she clustered them with streamlined motions, never stepping out of the imaginary circle on the countertop.
As she slowly shifted her weight to her back leg, Ashkhen made a turn, sinking deeper and deeper into meditation. Her consciousness drifted back in time, present merged with past—she all but felt the light weight of her woollen tunic on her back, the warmth of the sun shining through the windows on her face, and the streaks on the hardwood floor of the dojo under her bare feet. She drifted along the current of the Force, making her way through each motion of the regimen, assembling the salad, arranging the sandwiches on the plates and pouring sauce on the pancakes. As the exercise drew near to its end, a tiny smile played around the corner of her mouth.
Master Balian would be one part impressed, three parts galled.
With everything finished, she fell into the opening stance once more.
Tilla's ear-piercing shriek was quickly drowned out by an even louder crashing of plates. Ashkhen nearly dropped her orrery of dishes on the floor too. The Twi'lek waitress stood in the kitchen door, covering her mouth with both hands. She seemed one part aghast and three parts horrified.
"I can explain!" Ashkhen said, lowering the empty containers into the sink with one hand and setting down the dishes with the other. She leapt from the counter and landed in a crouch in front of Tilla, making the Twi'lek take an involuntary step back. "I know this looks pretty far out, but it's harmless, I swear!"
Tilla stood frozen in silence, struggling to process the scene. Ashkhen could almost sense her lekkus gradually overheating.
"Please blink so I know you're still with me," she pleaded.
"What was…" Tilla gestured towards the ceiling, then at the plates on the counter. "How did you…?"
Ashkhen rubbed her feet against the back of her calf. "That was… very inappropriate. If my Master knew, he'd…" She dropped that train of thought. "You wouldn't have me kicked out over something like this, would you?"
Tilla exuded such a heavy blend of confusion and suspicion, that it struck a new fear into Ashkhen. Were there any chances of the police getting involved? Would a drop-out Jedi pretending to be a short-order cook face false impersonation or fraud charges?
Tilla's eyes, if possible, grew even wider in disbelief, and she shuffled back until her back bumped against the wall.
"It all makes sense!" she said. "I checked it on the HoloNet, you know, and there are no white Nautolans! And now this"—the sweep of her arm encompassed the dishes atop the counter—"th-this… I've heard the stories. You're one of them!"
Ashkhen's knees assumed the textural integrity of crème pâtissière. "One of… whom?"
"The Witches of Dathomir!"
"The Wi—oh, Force." She rubbed her face. "Okay, listen. First of all, they don't do space, you won't run into them off-planet. Secondly, the Witches are of the Dathomiri species, which I'm most obviously not. Thirdly, this"—she pointed to her own face—"is not a congenital malformation, it happened the same time when I lost my arm. On a side note, Manaan isn't nearly as magical as the tourism industry makes it out to be."
Tilla looked neither convinced nor reassured. "You're not a Witch? Then…"
"No, I'm a—"
Five faces flashed before her eyes, each more austere than the next. The memory of standing before the Council of Reassignment intruded from time to time, leaving a cringey aftertaste every occasion.
"I mean, I used to be a—"
She scratched her chin. Hard to gauge whether 'I'm not one of the good guys anymore' would make Tilla feel more or actually less at ease. Also, in the eye of the general population, it wasn't always that well defined what the Jedi really stood for.
"Let's back up a little bit," she said after a short while. "There is a limitless field of energy that surrounds us, that keeps the galaxy bound together—it resonates within every living thing, it is the Light that guides and protects us. The Jedi call it the Force."
Ashkhen paused for a moment—Tilla's expression transformed into that of someone watching Paaerduag arthouse cinema with the wrong audio settings. Ashkhen, confidence sapped, took a breath before continuing.
"Now, people with a little more affinity to this energy are able to tap into it when they need additional insight or strength. I'm one of those people, I'm a Force-user. That's what you saw back there.
"I took an oath to only use my powers to serve people, but in a whole different meaning of the word. This"—she indicated the counter with a backwards nod—"was for personal gain, and that is greatly frowned upon from where I come from. You see, I used to be… a Jedi."
Ashkhen finished her monologue in the remorseful head-to-the-side pose so she wouldn't have to look Tilla in the eyes. Silence grew heavy between them.
"So, the Witches are… like, real?"
Ashkhen's jaw dropped. "Seriously!? That's your takeaway from all this?"
Graciousness and consideration shone through Tilla's lopsided smile. "You told me you'd left your past behind. But if you ever feel like talking it out, I'm happy to listen."
Her tact, poise and genuine friendliness warmed Ashkhen's hearts. How imprudent of her to think that the Jedi monopolized compassion!
"It's… not a particularly delightful story," she said after a long pause.
Tilla leaned closer with a wink. "In that case, we'll pop a bottle of wine then talk."
••• ••• •••
Ashkhen politely looked away while Tilla typed in the access code. The entrance door slid into its socket, revealing a narrow entryway. Judging by the number of shoes lining up in two rows on either side, Ashkhen estimated that there were at least six people living on premise. Curiously enough, all residents shared the same shoe size.
"You sure your roommates won't mind me barging in?"
"Only one roomie, Yanni, and she's working. Won't be home until morning."
"Night shift?" Ashkhen took off her own weathered nerf-hide boots and admired the stark contrast they brought forth as she placed them next to the iridescent stiletto pumps belonging to either Tilla or the roommate.
"More like, lady-of-the-night-shift," Tilla said, wiggling an eyebrow. Ashkhen froze up for a second. "Don't worry, we have a rule, she's not allowed to bring work home."
Ashkhen had no frame of reference for placing Tilla's comment on the joke scale—since there was no safe reaction to that, she refrained from projecting any.
"Whatever it is you're thinking, stop thinking it," Tilla said, raising a warning finger. "Yanni is not a poor, exploited prole. If you ask me, the amount she charges for three and a half minutes of work is a scam. You should see the presents she sends her mom," she continued, turning left to head for the kitchen. "Make yourself at home!"
Ashkhen moseyed into the living area, weaving her way between the miscellaneous articles strewn about the floor. The amount of clothes she saw piled up on various seating furniture, stuffed up against the wall and thrown into a basket next to one of the bedroom doors had her reason that the truth most likely lay somewhere between her original impression and Tilla's account, and Yanni was a codename for a set of quintuplets.
"Sorry about the mess!" Tilla called from the kitchen.
Ashkhen didn't mind. Tilla's place had a groove entirely different from the minimalist elegance of the Jedi Temple; if she were to sum up its style, distraction would have been the word. She circled around the couch in the middle of the room to examine the wild assortment of house plants under the window.
Shouldn't you be in full bloom at this time of the year?
She gently lifted the dark blue leaves of a tired-looking Rominaria plant that sat in the middle of the makeshift garden. She placed one hand on the side of the pot, fingers splayed, welcoming the opportunity to dust off her rudimentary healing skills. With a little Force-nudge, its droopy leaves perked up a bit.
Half obscured by the plant and shoved behind a kalikori, a moving picture caught her attention—Ashkhen leaned down to get a closer look at the holo-frame. A few seconds long video kept playing on loop, showing Tilla and another Twi'lek girl laughing and waving at the recorder. They looked stunning wearing matching summer dresses that glimmered and changed colour in the dazzling lights of the fireworks going off in the background. Cursive lettering appeared in the lower right corner, as if written by hand: Chandrila, Festival of Lights then, in a second row, Buyan~TillaXOXO
"She's truly beautiful, isn't she?" Tilla asked, looking at the holo. She held a glass in each hand and the bottle in the crook of one arm.
Ashkhen raised an eyebrow. She took one of the glasses with a little snort. "That's like, the chalice calling the crystal mirror gold."
The envious pout on Tilla's face disappeared, giving way to a look of pure joy over the implied compliment.
"Oh, come on, water is wet." Ashkhen clinked her glass against Tilla's, and took a sip. "Well, having only two headtails is a little sad, but hey, we can't all be perfect."
Tilla walked back towards the middle of the room and managed to squeeze out just enough space on the low table to set the bottle down.
"Have you ever been to Chandrila?" she asked over her shoulder.
Ashkhen shook her head. "Way too peaceful and stable to warrant a visit."
"You're into disaster tourism?"
"No, we only ever went where we were sent." She sat cross-legged on the couch, leaning back into the crook of the cushioned armrest. "If there was a sudden shift in power, an uprising, or extreme cases of social injustice happening somewhere, the Council would dispatch my Master to act as a mediator. You see, my Master was a very accomplished diplomat. Well, he still is, he's just not my Master anymore."
Tilla shuffled uncomfortably. "I'm not sure in what sense you use the word 'master'."
"Ah, okay. Master is both a rank and a title of respect. He wasn't my owner, he was my mentor."
"So it's true? You used to be a real Jedi?"
Ashkhen's brows pinched into slight frown. "Real Jedi? As opposed to…?"
"Don't take this the wrong way, but I thought all Jedi were these bearded forty-somethings, you know, muscly arms, barrel chests…" Tilla trailed off, eyes turning dreamy and a little unfocused.
"That's just the current trend in Jedi PR." Ashkhen tsked. Apparently, the pervasive portraits of Master Kenobi and Slytalker had successfully planted the image of a blond-haired, blue-eyed human Jedi master race in people's heads. "A war has just started and the Republic needs its posterboys. But Jedi are peacekeepers first and foremost, not warriors."
"Uh-huh," Tilla said, suppressing a smile. "I see what you mean."
"You realize I can outlift every 'roided out boyfriend you've ever had, right? Without breaking a sweat."
"You're amphibian. You literally can't sweat."
"Hah, the waitress with a doctorate in marine biology!"
"No, I'm just practical." Tilla's drink disappeared in one big gulp. "Unfortunately, I only realized the difference after I kicked the messy Nautolan boyfriend's ass out and started picking up the human boyfriend's socks."
"Okay, Tills, I really don't need to know all the details."
Tilla poured another glass for both of them. "What was it like? Being a Jedi?"
"Gruelling, most of the time." Ashkhen slowly swirled the wine in her glass, watching as the dark liquid trickled down the sides in thick rivulets. "But I was part of something."
"What happened?"
"I kriffed up." Ashkhen let her head drop back against the pillow. "I made a series of terrible decisions, and a fellow Jedi died because of me. I wasn't allowed to continue my training, and they wanted to assign me to the Service Corps."
"You sound like it's a bad thing."
"Ask anyone they'll tell you it's a lifetime of Service to the Light, but in essence, it's a system set up to get rid of washouts. Being exiled to some Outer Rim world and spending the rest of my life as a glorified peasant held no allure for me, so I left." Ashkhen said, and raised her glass to drink. "I'm not so sure about my decision anymore. I miss having a purpose."
"Would you go back if you could?"
"Thing is, I don't disagree with them. I never truly fitted the criteria." Ashkhen drew inwards. "I'm not good enough to be a real Jedi, and my Master's gotten a new apprentice since."
She hugged her knees tight up against her chest and furiously scrolled through a random holozine lying on the low table, half a second a page.
Tilla risked a tentative smile. "There's a lot to unpack right there."
Ashkhen sat upright with a huff. "Master Balian got saddled with this random Youngling because the Order's new big game plan is churning out fresh Jedi, never mind quality, to feed the war machine."
The anger caught her off-guard—she assumed that particular wound had already healed a long time ago. Ashkhen set the glass down on the table, eyeing it suspiciously.
"I'm being irrational. With me gone, there was really no sense in keeping Master Balian from teaching. He truly is a wonderful Master."
"Do you have a holo of him?"
"A what?"
Tilla let out a sigh. "A hologram! A picture, any kind of recording? Don't tell me you've spent the last ten years adventuring around the Galaxy with your step-dad and you've never taken a picture together! I have family pictures with all of my mom's ex-husbands, and I didn't even like them!"
"I… we… never took a picture together." Ashkhen blanched with the realization. The wine glass appeared in her hand again. "No, wait, I have a recording!"
She fished out the tiny holocron from her pocket, and offered it to Tilla on her outstretched palm.
"A chance cube with only one colour?" Tilla picked up the small device. "No wonder no one's willing to bet against the Jedi."
"It's not for gambling, it's for practice. Watch."
Ashkhen lifted a finger away from her glass, and the faint blue light of the holocron lit up Tilla's palm. A minuscule rendition of Master Balian demonstrated superior control and balance as he disabled remote after remote, all while pointing out the key strengths of form six, Niman. When the recording started playing again from the beginning, Ashkhen took the Holocron from Tilla and pocketed it.
"Can you do that too?"
"With a little less finesse and a little more flair, yes," Ashkhen said, throwing back the rest of her drink.
Tilla's face lit up with childlike amusement.
"Okay, what else can you do?" She reached for the bottle, but Ashkhen stopped her midway, waving a hand.
"I've got this."
The bottle rose in the air, tipped gently to the side. When the steady flow of wine filled the glasses halfway, the bottle tilted back upwards with a quick twist, finishing the perfect dripless pour.
"Hey, I can do the no hands, too!" Tilla said, curling the end of her left lekku around the stem. She raised her glass to her mouth and drank with both hands held up high, making Ashkhen laugh in turn.
"You're laughing at me now, but only because you lack the power of imagination. When I do this in front of guys, they immediately—"
"There is such a thing as oversharing," Ashkhen interrupted. "You're doing it right now, making me very uncomfortable."
Tilla regarded her with a hint of hesitation in her eyes. "Jedi are very religious and stuff, right?"
"You could say that. Why?"
"So… you were raised by very traditional and conservative people, weren't you?"
Ashkhen rubbed an eye with the heel of her hand. "Tills, what is your question?"
"So, you… were not allowed to… I mean, you never had, like, a boyfriend before?"
Ashkhen raised her glass just in time to hide an impish smile spreading across her face. "I'm not sure in what sense you use the word 'boyfriend'."
"Well, boyfriend boyfriend." Tilla's cheeks slowly turned a deeper shade of pink. "You know, someone you go out with."
"Attachment and possession are forbidden, they lead to jealousy. Everything that could eventually lead to attachment is strongly discouraged." She took a sip from the glass for real this time. "Hence the discretion," she added with a wink.
Tilla's face lit up with relief. "Oh, like, everything's okay as long as there are no strings attached?"
Imagining any of the Jedi Masters use that very expression in their lectures about placing duty first, ignoring distractions and denying the self had Ashkhen grinning ear to ear. "Your words, not mine."
Tilla grew bolder. "What's it like? You know, having a Jedi boyfriend?"
"Discretion, Tills." She made a casual wave with her hand. "There's really no need for all the details."
Tilla dropped the issue at once, instead, she snatched up a previously abandoned bag of fungus crackers from the table, offering it to Ashkhen first. She politely declined, finding the traditional Ryloth snack a little too pungent for the Nautolan palate.
"Okay, so, what's next?" Tilla asked her, munching on a brownish grey biscuit.
"Well, I was kind of hoping you'd pull out that bottle of Alderaanian syrah," she said, holding up her glass to eye level, gauging the amount of wine left in it.
"No, silly, I meant what's next for you?"
Ashkhen sighed. Resting her head in her hand felt more comfortable, it was getting a little too heavy to hold up. "I'm open to suggestions. As a Jedi, my life had a direction. Now that I'm free to not meet anyone's expectations, I guess I'm just adrift."
Tilla sat in thoughtful silence, looking into the distance. Her living room had a real window, displaying the magnificent city scape of coruscating lights through the plexiglass.
"The Jedi are all about helping people, right?" she asked after a while.
"Yeah, I wasn't in just for the party tricks."
"Well, maybe you don't have to find a new purpose, just figure out how to keep doing that, like, in your own way."
Ashkhen raised an eyebrow. "You mean setting up a shelter? A soup kitchen? Tills, I'm barely not homeless myself! I really don't have the means to offer charity to the destitute."
"I never said you had to build an orphanage from scratch," Tilla said. "But setting a goal and working towards it little by little every day would give you the sense of duty you miss."
"Huh." Ashkhen suddenly saw the waitress in a new light. "Three people walk together, one of them is bound to be my teacher."
"What was that?"
She shook her head. "Just a saying. So, do you have one? A goal you're working towards?"
"Starting my own business." Tilla sat up straight, eyes shining with two parts enthusiasm and two parts alcohol. "Been waitressing long enough to know the industry inside out, I want to be in management for a change."
"Sounds like a sound plan." Ashkhen nodded. "But it only proves my point. Everything boils down to capital. Which I don't have."
"Okay, so make that your first step." Tilla said, clapping her hands. She launched into an erratic brainstorming about her friend's future in altruism.
Absent-minded and eyelids heavy, Ashkhen smoothed over the silky dress that lay draped over the back of the couch. Her mind wandered, contemplating the physics behind how the garment stayed up while being both backless and strapless.
"…my idea how you can make a lot more money?"
Ashkhen's attention jerked back to the present conversation.
"Pimp ahoooy!" Ashkhen emptied her glass with a grin. "In this vision of yours, am I wearing shoes that mess with my center of gravity?" She nodded towards the entryway, where Buyan's impressive footwear collection stood at attention.
"Impractical." Tilla shook her head. "If everything goes according to plan, you could easily average twenty thousand steps a day."
Ashkhen's brows drew together. "A charity run?"
"No, something with a lot more cash changing hands."
"Yeah, that doesn't sound vague and shifty at all."
Tilla ignored her comment, fumbled with her comlink to turn it right side up, then started typing away.
"What are you doing next Pentaday night?" she asked, hitting send with a theatrical flourish of her fingers.
"Same as usual." Ashkhen shrugged. "Meditating on the fate of the Galaxy."
"How about taking yours into your own hands instead? Meet me here after your shift at Drosili's."
"I have a bad feeling about this," Ashkhen said. "But lead on, good nerfherder," the wine added in her voice.