Shots Fired/Part 6

As a Knight, Tirien could sleep and wake when he felt like it, but he chose to rise with the sunstone's signal, putting himself through a morning workout and shower before breakfast. Then, when he could put it off no longer, he made his way to the Initiate dormitories, opting to leave his brown robe behind. In the central dormitory hub he found a female Near-Human he didn't know, young enough that she must still have been a Jedi Knight, one of the Initiates' minders and junior instructors.

"Hello, friend," she greeted him with a smile. "What may I do for you?"

"I'm here for Narasi Rican," he answered in a resigned way.

"Oh," the other Jedi answered, looking curious. "You're Tirien Kal-Di?"

He nodded.

"I think she was expecting you earlier…"

Tirien frowned, almost sure he hadn't specified a time. "Where is she?"

"She's still here," the Jedi said.

Following the woman's directions, Tirien ascended to the second level of dormitories. He had not been there since he was an Initiate himself more than a decade previously, and he had not been in the Bergruutfa Clan, but with the rest of the Initiates out for the day's training, Narasi was not hard to sense out. Tirien found her door open and saw the Zygerrian sitting on the edge of her bed, rocking back and forth as if with nervous energy. She looked up when she sensed his presence, smiled, and got to her feet.

"Good morning, Master! I'm ready to train!"

Tirien nodded neutrally. "Have you gotten in your morning workout?"

Narasi's smile faded. "I…you told me to wait here for you, Master. Aren't we going now?"

"I've already finished and had breakfast," Tirien answered, frowning as Narasi's face fell.

"Oh. I…I thought we'd be training together." There was a faint, hopeful twist on the last word as Narasi studied him uncertainly.

Tirien sighed, resolving to put some questions to some Jedi Masters he encountered. Was this normal now? Suwo Tolp had been very free with Tirien's time save when they had something in particular to work on, but then, Suwo Tolp had hardly been the typical Jedi.

"We'll work on lightsaber combat later today," Tirien decided, wondering whether he would ever have time to himself again.

Narasi brightened at that, and fell in step with Tirien as he led the way out into the Temple.

"What do you know of the Sith?" he asked as they walked.

"Um…" Narasi hedged. "They're a dark side sect. They started fighting the Jedi thirteen or fourteen centuries before the Treaty of Coruscant…"

Tirien waved off the rest of the background impatiently. "The modern Sith. What do you know of the galaxy's layout today?"

"Oh." The Zygerrian thought about it, then said, "There are a bunch of factions of Sith—"

"Name some."

"Uh…well, the Sith Empire. The New Sith Empire," she corrected quickly. "The Old one was…well, there were a bunch of old ones, too."

"The New Sith Empire," Tirien distilled as they passed under a marble archway. "What else?"

"There's a Sith Lord in the northern part of the galaxy…Lord Aresh?"

Tirien nodded. "Valin Aresh. What else?"

"I know there are a couple others…"

Assuming it was the best he would get, Tirien said, "Zirist Lakalt in the south, at Sullust. Tarni Hadan's still holding out on Ryloth.  You'll need to familiarize yourself with them all.  It's our duty as Jedi to destroy the Sith—every faction of them—and you can't fight an enemy you don't understand."

"Yes Master," Narasi said.

Tirien stopped on a long, carpeted mezzanine, overlooking a vast hall of columns below where a handful of Jedi went about their work. He leaned on the railing, and Narasi took a spot beside him, seeming happy just to be there.

"What do you know of the Council of Five?"

Narasi's smile faded, and she looked uncomfortable. "I…we weren't supposed to talk about that. The Masters said—"

"I'm your Master now," Tirien interrupted. "What have you learned?"

Shifting her weight from foot to foot, she said slowly, "They never told us about them deliberately, but…y'know…Initiates hear things."

"And what have you heard?"

"That they're the rulers of the New Sith Empire. There are…well, there are five of them—"

"Hence the name…"

"—and they're the most powerful Sith Lords in the galaxy. They have an army of other Sith, too."

"So they do," Tirien admitted with a sigh. He was silent for a moment, watching the sunlight stretch across the level below. "You've heard of the Battle of Mizra?"

Narasi's voice was quiet as she answered, "Yes, Master."

"The loss was bad enough, but the aftermath was worse. Hundreds of Jedi converted to the dark side.  Some of them were prisoners taken at Mizra, others…lost faith, after the battle.  And the Sith army expanded."

He spared her the worst of it. An influx of hundreds of new Dark Jedi and at least a hundred fit to be Sith Lords had been a catastrophe, but most of those who had fallen at or because of Mizra had died by now. To keep their numbers shored up, the Sith Lords had more often than not turned harems of slaves into breeding facilities, using their female slaves as little more than production lines to churn out new generations of Forceful disciples. Tirien had not heard of many female Sith contributing to the Empire's expansion that way—not for any greater reverence for their slaves or even life, Tirien suspected, but to avoid any potential vulnerabilities in the perennial power struggles that consumed dark siders.

Narasi was looking at him curiously. "Were…were you there, Master?"

"At Mizra?" He gave her a dry look. "It was almost eighty years ago, Narasi, I'm twenty-four!"

"Sorry," she said hastily. "I just…I don't know anything about your species, and you sounded so sad about it…"

Tirien imagined it was an inherited melancholy. Suwo Tolp had not been born until after Mizra, but he had always carried the weight of it in his voice as well. "I'm a Pantoran," he explained flatly. "We're Near-Humans."

"Right. So, what about the markings on your cheeks?  Were you born with them?"

Tirien checked an impulse to brush the clan tattoos. "Not important," he said instead. Pointing across the mezzanine, he said, "Go to the Archives and research the Sith factions. Tell the Chief Librarian you're a Padawan now and you can study whatever it is they're keeping from the Initiates.  I'm not taking you into the field until I'm convinced you know what you're facing."

"I'm on it, Master," Narasi promised.

Tirien nodded as she bowed. She jogged off in the direction of the First Knowledge quarter, then stopped, turning back. "We're still on to train tonight, right?"

"Yes," Tirien said testily. "Go."

She went, but Tirien tented his hands over his nose and mouth, inhaling deeply. He wandered back toward the Tranquility Spire, running through a mental catalogue of small meditation rooms and trying to decide on one he liked. He had the sneaking suspicion he would need it often in the coming weeks.