An early chapter because I need something to cheer up my working weekend.

17: you are so, so right about our boy needing some weighted blankets and love.

He'll get a little bit of that in this chapter. Sort of.

Chapter 24: The Test

Mace appraised Korkie's packing efforts with the sort of frown that suggested the former Jedi had hoped he was joking when he had volunteered to start preparations for their scouting mission.

"Are you wanting to come?"

"To a magical hidden planet? In a voyage not made for millennia? Obviously."

Korkie looked up from the ration kits and appealed to his still-sober bunkmate.

"I was good on Nar Shaddaa, wasn't I? I'm learning. I'm not going to a liability. I'll be really helpful."

Mace conceded with point with a smile.

"You were very good. But that's not my concern."

"No?"

"No. My concern is that the Force is very strong on Tanalorr."

Korkie frowned.

"So?"

"So," Mace reasoned, "you might wish you'd been a little more disciplined with your meditation since you left home."

"Why? Because I won't be able to connect?"

"Because you won't be able to control the connection," Mace corrected him. "I don't think it would be very pleasant for you. You'd be overwhelmed."

Korkie gave an easy shrug.

"I'm always overwhelmed, Mace. It's fine."

Mace raised a brow.

"That doesn't inspire confidence."

"Plus, I've been practising meditation with you recently. And we can practice more along the way."

Mace looked at him the with sort of disappointment that his mathematics and economics tutors had when he'd insisted to them that yes, he had studied – on the night before the examination, at least.

"In addition," Mace warned, "the flight will be rough."

Korkie laughed.

"I'm not my father, Mace. I can handle a little turbulence."

The former Jedi shook his head in resignation.

"Fine. Cere will be glad for your company. But I'd best not hear you complaining."

The holocron recording of ancient Jedi Knight Santari Khri sent them on a sprawling journey through the Koboh System, between observatories and laboratories in which the gifted Knight had so long ago learned the nature of the Koboh matter and navigated the pathway through the Abyss.

Korkie Kryze, Cere noted, was quiet and introspective throughout. He followed instructions and was a capable co-pilot to Greez Dritus, her long-time travel companion, but did not demonstrate any of the exuberance Mace had alluded to in his tales of the teenager.

If I had any hair left, Cere, he'd have turned me grey.

She'd heard of the battle against Grievous and of the suicide mission on Ryloth, of underage drinking and unrequited love at The Yagai Hive, and his willingness to assume the role of slaver-bait on Nar Shaddaa. Korkie was, in fact, the subject matter of which Mace spoke most readily – in part, Cere knew, because he was fond of him, and perhaps also in part because speaking of the boy was safer than speaking about any of his and Cere's shared past. There was a great deal, certainly, that Cere could not speak of. Not now. Not yet. And Mace was unwilling – fearful, perhaps – to prod.

"Greez says we're approaching the Abyss soon. You'd best strap in."

Korkie looked up from where he had been sitting at the porthole, watching the sprawl of stars.

"Thank you, Master Junda."

"You really should call me Cere. I'm no Master of anything anymore."

Korkie gave a faint smile, unfolding his long legs to stand.

"My dad said that no one was. That it was a stupid title."

Cere chuckled.

"I think Qui Gon Jinn came up with that theory first. It was a long time until your father believed it."

Korkie snickered.

"That sounds like him."

They plodded towards the cockpit, where Mace and Greez would already be strapped in. Cere could not read the young man in the way that she could have, once upon a time. She could not feel him. But she could see his sunken eyes and the strain behind him smile.

"Mace didn't drag you into this trip, did he?"

Korkie looked faintly surprised.

"Oh. No. Not at all," he assured her. "The other way around, really."

"You wanted to see Tanalorr?"

"Of course. Wild journey to a secret planet…"

His voice trailed off. Cere did not have the Force to guide her. But she knew there was something more to it.

Korkie knew that he should have listened to Mace. That if Mace said he wasn't controlled enough in his meditations to visit Tanalorr without some sort of Force-sensitivity crisis, he was probably right. Mace had trained a lot of younglings in his life. He knew what he was talking about. Korkie would have no chance.

And he'd known that from the very beginning. Stars, that was why he'd wanted to come. Because he'd known that Mace was right and that the Force on Tanalorr would floor him and he'd got the stupidest idea in his head that it might give him what he needed.

Korkie had never really been one to have Force visions. Brief flashes on occasion, sure. The tearing pain of Maul's resurrection. The glimpse of lightsaber and Darksaber in his hands. The visions had been so brief that they'd been more feelings than images. He'd never had visions like Anakin – detailed, proper visions – which had once saved the life of Shmi Skywalker and which had also, if Korkie guessed correctly, had something to do with his brother going a little off the rails towards the end of the Clone Wars and getting everyone into such kriffing trouble.

Which Korkie wasn't asking for, obviously. All he wanted was to see his parents. His Ba'vodu. He wanted to see the people that the galaxy had taken from him and he wanted to see them properly, in real colour, in clear definition. He wanted to hear their voices. His memories and endless imitations were not enough.

He'd escaped a Temple upbringing but he'd heard the old adage a hundred times. The Force is not a nursemaid. The Force would not give him what he asked for.

Which begged the question as to exactly what, on this fool's errand, the Force would give him instead.

The teenager heaved the last of his dinner into a plastic bag. Mace wrinkled his nose against the smell.

"So you do take after your father, after all."

Korkie looked at his companion with mutinous gaze.

"I have no problem with flying," he muttered. "I like flying, as a matter of fact. But this, Mace-"

He vomited again.

"Sorry Greez," he managed, "but this is not flying."

It was probably a fair point. The pressure exerted by the Koboh matter as they hurtled, in some mathematically optimised chaos, through the Abyss was comparable in intensity to leaping to hyperspace in a different direction every few seconds, despite the capable handling of their pilot.

"I did say that it would be rough," Mace reminded him.

"And I said that I wouldn't complain," Korkie agreed. "Which I haven't."

He took a swig of water, grimacing at the acid in his throat.

"Haven't you?" Mace asked.

"Be nice, Mace," Cere warned. "We've all got to look after each other on Tanalorr, remember?"

Mace conceded the point with a sigh.

"We can only hope, Cere, that we all make it to Tanalorr in one piece."

Korkie retched again.

"My stomach's empty now," he mumbled. "So you needn't worry. I've got no more pieces left to lose."

Disconnecting oneself from the Force was no simple feat. The heart-bursting, gut-wrenching severance on the escape flight from Nur had been only the beginning; to remain distanced from the Force that had surrounded and nurtured Cere from birth required constant effort which had waned but not dissipated in the two standard years that she and the Force had lived apart. And Cere knew, as their quaking journey along Santari Khri's treacherous pathway through the Abyss came to an end, that it was about to become a great deal more difficult.

Tanalorr loomed before them, a verdant gem against the many-layered darkness of the surrounding space. She saw in the expressions of her companions that already they sensed it; Mace looked as content as she had ever seen him, Korkie faintly apprehensive still. She had never been a mother, could never be a mother, but something about the sunken shadows beneath the young man's eyes made her want to lay a hand on his shoulder. To reassure him, to guide him.

A lurch of pain. The familiar pain that struck her with every memory of how deeply she had failed the last young person entrusted into her care. Obi Wan's son and Trilla would be of similar age.

But the pain, Cere reminded herself, had dulled somewhat. There had been long days and weeks when she thought the grief of it would kill her. When separating herself from the Force had perhaps been the first of many steps she intended to take against herself, to hurt herself. But she had not followed through any of the dark thoughts that had come to her during that time.

You will always struggle, but that is the test. It's the choice to keep fighting that makes you who you are.

Her own Master's voice, the distant memory of it, had given Cere the mantra that she needed to survive. She had been tested. And she would not fail twice.

The S-161 Stinger touched down on Tanalorr and the doors released with a hiss. Cere took her time unbuckling her harness as Mace and Korkie hurried to disembark. She could not feel the Force, exactly. But for the first time in two years she was aware of it, like a faint vibration beneath her feet. A presence that would not let her know stillness nor silence until she had acknowledged it.

"You okay, Cere?"

"Yes, Greez. Thank you."

The Latero looked at her with knowing gaze.

"You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Yeah, well," Cere conceded. "In a manner of speaking."

Greez gave the sort of harrumph he reserved for talk of the Force.

"I just hope it was worth the flight," he told her. "That's the worst route I've flown in all my years."

"We didn't die, Greez," Cere pointed out. "Which makes it a good route, actually, terrain considered."

Greez rolled his eyes but could not repress a smile. Cere knew that he was arguing with her just to distract her from her unease. It was the knowledge of that friendship, perhaps, that finally gave her the strength she needed to rise to her feet.

"You should have a well-earned rest, Greez," she advised him. "Look after the ship for us. I have to go deal with the ghosts."

Mace had known that the planet was special but he had not been prepared for Tanalorr to feel like home. The Force was stronger here than perhaps it even was on Dagobah. He felt it all around him, warm against his skin, radiant within his lungs. The green fields stretched before him, humming with life. And no other sentients on the whole planet to perpetuate greed or hatred or fear. Here on Tanalorr there was perfect balance.

"This is crazy," Korkie muttered, a few steps ahead of him, perhaps speaking to himself.

For the relatively untrained teenager, it would be crazy indeed. As though he had spent all his life half-deaf and half-blind, with everything restored now to its fullest sound and most resplendent colour.

"As I warned you," Mace advised. "We will have to be disciplined in your meditation."

Korkie seemed to be only half-listening.

"I feel like I could move that mountain, Mace."

"Please don't try."

Without turning, Mace felt Cere's presence, taking cautious steps down the landing ramp behind them. He felt her awe. He felt that she was beginning, just faintly, to perceive the Force again. They stood together for a great many minutes in silence.

"I want to climb the mountain," Korkie announced.

"There may be some naturally-occurring shelters around its base," Cere pointed out.

"Wherever we are going, we will go together and we will be careful," Mace warned. "The Force is strong on Tanalorr. And in its balance there is both Light and Darkness."

They walked a great distance across the sun-soaked fields and into the shade of the mountains. The intensity of the Force that Mace had warned him about was not so bad, Korkie thought. He occupied his mind as they trekked by focusing his attention on the Force presence of each new sight: onto a bird stalking on long legs through the tall grass and then upon the insects for which it hunted before finally turning to the grass itself as it reached to the sun. He had been taught for as long as he could remember that the Force flowed through and connected every living being but he had perhaps not truly appreciated it until now. Here, he was able to feel and connect with plants and animals as easily as he connected with a sentient creature anywhere else in the galaxy.

Cere had been right; in places, the mountain rose so steeply from the earth that sheer cliff-faces were exposed. Where water had run down from the mountain peak there were deep channels carved into the rock, some of which were large enough to make a ready shelter. This could be the start of their settlement. This could be where they brought the Force-sensitives. Out of the looming clouds of Imperial pursuit and into the quiet belly of the mountain.

Dusk fell fast – not so fast as on Mandalore, Korkie thought, where the sun flared and collapsed upon the horizon like it had been shot from the sky – and put an end to the day's explorations. They shared dinner but few words, each so absorbed in this strange new world around them that there was little to say. Korkie unlaced his boots and stretched out his legs, laying his head upon his backpack. He would not be woken by stormtroopers tonight. He would not have to run. He watched the movements of his companions – Cere stoking the fire, Mace gathering his cloak and embarking on some nocturnal walk – with slowly blinking eyelids until he fell into an easy sleep.

Cere had almost fallen asleep herself when she noticed it. Something dimly but unsettlingly not right. Her first thought was of Mace, outside by himself. He'd said he wouldn't go far, that he'd just wanted to walk and meditate. They had assumed that nothing could go awry on this paradisical planet. Could they have been mistaken?

But there were no sounds of a struggle from outside the cave. Instead, Cere's ears picked up on a quickening in the breaths of her sleeping companion. She turned to see Korkie's hands balled into tight fists, gripping the coat around him. His brow was furrowed as though in pain. And although Cere had pushed the Force well away from her, had held it still at arm's length even on this humming planet, she knew that something was very wrong.

Korkie saw the Second Sister as he had seen her on Dantooine with her helmet discarded: wide eyes and dark hair and a frightening pallor to her skin. But on Dantooine she had stood stony with silent anger. Tonight, she screamed. Screamed in the sort of way that ripped breath from your lungs. Her eyes bled tears that ran into her gaping mouth. She screamed with a pain that Korkie felt in his entire body, as though his body were her body. Pierced by a thousand needles. Fire beneath his skin. And the pain welling from him, lurching from him as vomit that ran down his chin and over his chest. He was strapped against an Imperial torture chair and he could not move. He would surely drown in this acid that spilled from his mouth. The pain exploded like fireworks in his brain and there was no room but for one, singular thought.

All her fault.

But he did not see the face; the vision fractured as quickly as it had begun. Korkie instead saw fragments: the Emperor in the darkness, the sound of his laughter. And two pale faces, almost glowing beside the hooded figure.

Luke and Leia.

Luke and Leia, grown to adulthood. Tall and sombre. Looking at Korkie without recognition. Armoured in black at Palpatine's side.

Korkie wanted to speak to them – to scream at them – but he could not. The visions were flashing again and instead he saw his mother, as towering as she had been when he had first learned to walk holding onto her long skirts. He heard her voice, her true voice, in the language she had taught him.

"Never forget your family or your home, no matter what happens."

Words he had heard before, with Padme at his side, as he had left Mandalore for the last time. Korkie wanted to hold onto that image of his mother but he could not. His head was filled again with the Second Sister's screaming, the pain radiating through his body once more. There were black corridors all around him but no way out.

"Korkie, wake up."

Cere's hand was on his sweat-drenched shoulder.

"Korkie, please."

But she knew that it was useless. The young man could only be immersed in a Force vision, the might of which would wound him badly on a forced awakening. Cere had seen this before. She knew how to manage this. She only hoped that she still could.

Before she could think the better of it, Cere shut her eyes and willed her spirit to be open once more. She reached for the Force that she knew was all around them and it struck the breath from her chest as it found her again. The renewed connection was deafening. The teenager's visions whirled in a maelstrom around them. Cere trembled with the effort but found steadiness to her breath. Reached out for him as he thrashed like a man drowning.

Let go, Korkie.

Her hand came now to cradle his face.

Reach for me, Korkie.

He gave a whimper. Tears were spilling from his eyes.

You are still here, Korkie. Only here.

Korkie was aware of a distant voice calling his name.

Let go, Korkie.

The voice was not of this place. The voice came from some other place. Which could only mean that some other place did truly exist beyond these sleek walls. That there was a way out.

Reach for me, Korkie.

Who was she? For Korkie did not know this voice. But he felt her. He felt her so close to him, closer somehow even than the Second Sister as her screams gave way to ragged breaths.

You are still here, Korkie.

And suddenly Korkie knew that this place was not real, that he was no prisoner in these walls. There was someplace else, somewhere he ought to have been…

Only here.

Tanalorr.

With a lurch and a sob, Korkie thudded back into consciousness. He saw the dark clay of the earth in the rosy glow of their fire and felt a fastening on his backpack pressed hard and cold against his cheek. He felt a hand on his face and turned to see the woman who had saved him.

She too, had tears on her face. But her breathing was slow and steady and the energy that flowed through her hand into Korkie's body was soothing like the cool of water on his skin in the palace gardens on Sundari.

"Cere," he croaked. "I…"

"You're alright, Korkie."

She ran a thumb over his forehead, stroked back the hair that his sweat had plastered to his brow.

"Breathe with me, young one."

"You're back," he managed. "In the Force, you're-"

"Yes," she interrupted. "But your focus, Korkie, must lie within yourself. On the here and now. Breathe with me."

She closed her eyes but Korkie could not yet join her; he was frightened he might lose himself in the Force again. He found her hand and clasped his fingers tightly against hers. He watched the warrior as he found rhythm to his breath and quietened the racing of his heart. Her arms were laced with fine scars.

When he finally closed his eyes she was even closer to him. An anchor in the Force. Holding him tight. Korkie knew he would not slip again.

"Thank you, Cere."

The young man found his voice, bruised and hoarse, after long minutes in meditation.

"I thought I was going to drown in all those horrible things I was seeing, but-"

"There is no need to thank me."

The words came out more bitter than Cere had intended. Her pain did not escape Korkie's notice.

"Did you…" he ventured cautiously. "Did you see what I saw? When you helped me out?"

Cere gave a tight nod but said nothing.

"The girl being tortured," he murmured. "I met her once. On Dantooine. She's the Second Sister of the Inquisitorius. She killed Kawlan's wife."

Another nod. Cere willed him to stop talking but knew that he would not.

"She told me she was a Jedi once."

And then, the inevitable question.

"Did you know her?"

Cere felt a trembling in her hands. She had never in her life known this sort of weakness in herself, not even as a child. Not until she had failed Trilla. And now she felt it every day.

"Yes. I knew her."

Her voice was barely a whisper. Korkie, realising the grief he had unlocked, hurried to apologise.

"Mace warned me about the strength of the Force on Tanalorr. That I might struggle with visions like that because I've not trained properly. I'm sorry that I brought those images to you."

Cere made some noise of disagreement in her tightening throat. He had not brought those images to her. She had brought them to him. She had been the one, imprisoned on Nur, to watch her Padawan become lost in those waves of pain.

"You needn't apologise," she managed.

Cere felt his lingering curiosity. But the boy was as empathetic as his father had been before him and did not ask.

"The Force-sensitives we bring to Tanalorr will be lucky to have your guidance," he suggested instead. "I felt so much fear with those visions, Cere. But you helped me to come back to myself. You're a good teacher."

Stars. He'd unwittingly delivered another punch deep in her gut. For how could she claim herself fit to be anyone's teacher?

"I just didn't like seeing you frightened," she muttered.

And that was the truth, certainly in part. But another part of her knew that she had pulled him from a vision that did not require her intervention, which would have passed of its own accord, because she had been scared of what else he might see. Of what he might have learned about her.

"Well, thanks," Korkie offered.

His smile was cautious and he seemed unsurprised that it was not returned.

"I'm going to meditate and go back to sleep," he told her. "We'll next talk in the morning, I hope."

Even more empathetic, perhaps, than his father had been. Gentle like his mother, perhaps. Because he surely could have benefitted from Cere's participation in the exercise and he had instead chosen to give her space. She had known this young man so briefly and yet felt her care for him as a tight knot in her chest. In the tears pressing at her eyes. And that was why she could not tell him. Because he would surely never trust her again if he knew what she had done.

Cere swallowed back her emotion and tried for a smile.

"Sleep well, Korkie. I'll be here if you need me."

Mace returned to the cave to find Cere awake, gazing into the fire, with Korkie asleep at her side. The change in the Force was instantly recognisable: Cere, returned to the Force, and connected already to her young companion. A smile formed upon his lips.

"Welcome home, Cere."

But as she turned to look at him Mace realised that he had spoken too soon. For there was something else in the Force around them, an undertow of grief. Cere rose to her feet and motioned outside.

In the cool night air, alive with the humming and chirping of thousands of insects, Cere spoke.

"I didn't plan on reconnecting so soon," she muttered. "But Korkie had these horrible visions and he needed someone."

Mace felt a lurch of guilt.

"I should have been there for him," he murmured. "I expected this would happen. I should not have become caught up in my own journey and left the task to you. I'm sorry, Cere."

Cere shrugged.

"It's alright."

It obviously was not. There was a sheen of tears, illuminated by the moonlight, in her dark eyes. When she next spoke, her voice was on the verge of breaking.

"He saw Trilla," she whispered. "He saw what happened to Trilla."

Mace waited, in silence, for her to find the words.

"It's all my fault."

Her body was quaking now with silent sobs.

"You don't have to speak, Cere," Mace murmured. "Not now."

Cere took a juddering breath.

"I do," she gritted out. "For if I don't speak now, I fear I may never…"

She pressed the heels of her palms against the flow of her tears.

"You must know, Mace. You are what's left of the Jedi Council and you must decide what is to be done with me."

Mace was startled by the venomous self-loathing in her voice.

"Cere-"

"I left her, Mace," she interrupted. "I decided that we would split up. That Trilla would stay and protect the younglings we had rescued from the Temple and I would lead our Imperial pursuers away from them all. I planned to return to them when it was safe."

Although her tears flowed still, her voice had found a steely calm.

"I failed," she recounted. "I was captured. They took me to Nur and they tortured me."

She took a deep breath and found stillness in her body. But her hands trembled faintly still.

"I held out for days. I hadn't slept. The torture hadn't stopped. I should have been dead. I should have died. But instead-"

Her voice cracked and caught.

"Instead, I talked. And Trilla was captured because of me."

Mace's heart seemed to spasm in his chest.

"And what became of her?"

"She turned."

Cere looked at him with glistening eyes, her composure fracturing once more.

"I couldn't hold onto the Light through all that torture, Mace. What hope did Trilla have?"

"Cere…"

Mace reached out a hand and steadied her quaking shoulder.

"Whatever you are about to say to me, Mace," she whispered. "Whatever consolation you have for me… I don't deserve it. I did far worse than betray my Padawan."

Words had become impossible. She placed her hand atop his and closed her eyes. And Mace's vision flashed with a horrible scene: the torture chamber on Nur. Trilla, glassy-eyed, in Inquisitor's armour. And a shockwave in the Force, a tsunami of darkness. He saw Cere's bindings break apart and bodies crash to the floor.

"I killed everyone in that room, Mace," Cere breathed. "Everyone except for Trilla. I couldn't."

She shook her head in horrified wonderment.

"I don't know if I should have killed her," she murmured. "Whether that would have been kindest. But I couldn't."

She looked at Mace now, gaze sharpening.

"I disconnected myself from the Force because I was not worthy of it," she told him. "Nor was I safe, anymore, to wield it. But I don't know what to do now."

Mace sighed under the weight of her expectation.

"I don't know what to do either, Cere."

He could see that his words had surprised her; certainly, this was not something to which he would often admit in his life before the fall of the Order. He had been so caught up with all that he knew and he had never then realised the depth of his ignorance.

"But I know that you have returned to the Light, Cere."

Grimacing, Cere hurried to protest.

"Mace, I-"

"As you said: had you not given a location, had you not broken free, you would have been killed. And instead you have a life with which to do good in this galaxy."

He saw from her bitter gaze that she still did not believe him.

"You strayed, Cere. Yes. You strayed under the most trying of circumstances. But you have returned to us, despite the pain of doing so. And it is this that makes you a worthy Jedi."

"There is a weakness in me, Mace."

"And from your weakness stems your strength."

They looked at each other in a silent stand-off. The insects hummed and whined.

"It would be easier if you had told me to go pursue some Force-blind day-job," Cere muttered.

And in her voice, finally, was the trace of a smile.

"I know," Mace chuckled. "But you are ready for this path, Cere. To carry on the fight. If you weren't, you'd still be getting into fights in cantinas on Nar Shaddaa."

Cere gave a good-natured groan.

"I promise that wasn't a regular thing."

"I wouldn't have held it against you if it was."

In their fading smiles, Cere found sobriety.

"I've not told Korkie, Mace. What I've told you."

"I wouldn't expect you to."

"If you don't mind, I might not-"

"There is no need to tell him," Mace agreed. "He is young and righteous and there is a great deal he cannot yet understand."

Cere grimaced.

"It doesn't feel right to lie to him, but…"

"It is for the best," Mace agreed.

Cere gave a half-hearted nod and plodded back to the cave. Mace followed a half-step behind. Cere would crash into a much-needed sleep after the trials of the evening. But Mace still had much upon which to meditate.

Heavy. A lot for our new trio to unpack as they begin their healing together. But this is maybe a good start.

Next chapter, to balance out all this angst, it's Korkie's lifeday! I'm sure we can guess how he might choose to spend it?

xx - S.