A Flow'r, Once Fallen/Part 6

The rain storm had blown past Aldera, but the damp grass still made Narasi's boots slide as she followed Tirien up into the mountains. The clouds lingered, but a brighter patch of gray told her the moon was close to zenith, and her eyes had adjusted enough to the night to make out most of the terrain. The island's mountain peaks towered above them, but the Jedi followed a winding track well below the snow line, and Narasi occasionally saw herbivores glancing at them and the shadows of thrantas against the lighter clouds.

The crunch of gravel beneath her boots gave her better purchase, but it last only as long as it took Tirien to lead her into a ravine. High walls of mossy stone hemmed them in and she splashed the water of a shallow creek with each step. Stifling a yawn, she said, "Good field trip, Master."

"Chief Marsh assured me this is a fine spot, and Senator Antilles agreed."

"I still don't see why we can't meditate in the palace. The gardens are pretty peaceful."

"Yes, they are," Tirien admitted. "But they're not right for what I have in mind."

Narasi gathered that they were going to try to get a sense of where the Force wanted them to go, and since King Rosulus's support had accelerated their departure to 'tomorrow', she could understand that Tirien was willing to do their joint meditation earlier than he had planned; they could hardly return to the Jedi Council after more than two weeks and ask for even more time to mull it over. What all that had to do with secluded mountain spots, however, was beyond her. She was just glad Tirien had rejected Chief Marsh's first suggestion of a spot some fifty kilometers away in the heights of the Triplehorn Mountains; it was just her luck that both Marsh and Antilles were accomplished mountaineers.

For a while she and Tirien had to walk single file, the ravine's walls so snug Tirien almost had to scoot sideways at points. Then, just as Narasi dodged a jutting cliff rock for the fifth time, the entire ravine opened onto a glen, dimly lit by the veiled moonlight and the few stars that shone through wispier clouds. The trickle of water broadened into a creek that flowed into a pool, and hills rolled the length and breadth of the glen. The mountains hemmed the secluded spot in on all sides, but their slopes were gentle enough that Narasi knew the place would be bathed in moonlight on a clear night; even under clouds it took her breath away. The rain had driven insects into their nests and hives, and the night was still and quiet.

Tirien led her toward a grassy butte taller than any hill; in the darkness it looked like a watchtower from times beyond reckoning, overlooking this sheltered, untouched kingdom. It took Force-powered jumps to carry them the whole way, but Narasi hauled herself up with a push off an obliging tree branch and overlooked the glen. A faint wind tickled her neck with her Padawan braid and billowed her robe around her, and the creek babbled below, and she heard nothing else.

"Sit," said Tirien, and in the quiet of pure nature even his whisper commanded her attention. She sat cross-legged and Tirien mirrored her, but this time their knees touched. He laid his left hand on his knee, palm up, and Narasi copied him; he set the fingers of his right hand in her palm, and she did likewise.

"This may or may not help in the way we want it to," he said. "Perceiving the future is difficult and complicated; there's a reason Jedi Seers are specialists. But our destinies are intertwined, and proximity may help us reach the same meditative destination."

"Yes Master," Narasi said, keeping her doubts to herself. Meditating for focus or soothing away aches and pains was one thing; seeing the future was something else entirely.

Tirien closed his eyes and smiled. "Be mindful of your thoughts, Padawan. If you concede defeat before raising your blade, there's no point in fighting at all."

"Yes Master. Empty Meditation?"

"For a moment. Just to prepare."

They sat in silence, eyes closed, touching hands, and Narasi tried to detach herself from her concerns. Elyria had been grumpy at her impending departure and had flounced off without saying good night until her mother had commanded her to come back and act like a princess. Her few exchanges with Aldayr had been weighing on her too, though she tried desperately not to let Tirien sense that; she gathered that Aldayr and Mali were in battle so often it was becoming routine, but that was no excuse for ambiguity in the messages he did send.

She imagined her…friendship? Relationship?...she imagined whatever was going on with Aldayr as a sort of breath, and puffed it out from her mouth so forcefully she felt Tirien's fingers twitch on her palms.

Eventually she was calm, and Tirien said, "Now, take deep breaths. Breeeeeathe."

She did, focusing on the process of breathing and nothing else. The air was damp from the rain but cool from the mountains, and when she focused she could feel its gentle chill on her lungs.

"Reach down. Feel the grass.  Feel that life beneath us, living for a season and dying only to be reborn."

Tirien's voice had grown softer, more distant, and Narasi felt his mind sinking into the Force. She latched onto that sensation, hoping it would drag her along.

"Don't force it," he said in that same ethereal tone. "Feel the grass."

And after a moment, following his mind down to the damp grass beneath them, it did become easier. She could feel the blades of grass, swollen with rainwater and nutrients, waiting for the sunlight of the next day. Was this how AgriCorps Jedi felt all the time, this immersion in the natural world and its flow in the Force?

"Now reach deeper," Tirien breathed. "Reach into the soil that feeds the grass, that soil that stays for season after season until storm or flood or avalanche tear it away, the soil, and clay, and sand below…"

Narasi followed the lives of the grass down into the dirt, and she felt there the support without which the grass could not be. Each particle of dirt was singular, but they combined to create a greater effect, an environment for the grass to grow. Tirien's mind was sinking deeper, and Narasi's followed it down.

"Now deeper still." Narasi's ears heard Tirien's words, but she felt meaning flow from his mind, down his arms, through their touch, and into her. "To the roots of the mountains. Ancient, millions of years old.  Mountains that have seen Alderaan since the first creatures crawled on land, mountains that have known lives beyond count."

Even with her eyes closed, Narasi felt the mountains towering over her, soaring toward the sky, infinite in their height, dwarfing her impossibly with their age. She gasped but did not open her eyes. The roots of the mountains stretched down below the island, anchoring it to the earth below the caldera lake, traveling down to the fiery core at the planet's heart.

And Alderaan is one world in the system, Tirien's mind told hers. One planet around a single star, one star among billions in a single galaxy, one galaxy in an infinite universe, and uniting them all, binding them all together…

The Force.

Narasi could feel it, feel it as she had never felt it before. The mountains were now, but they were also then, and they were to be too. Aldera the city was a web of Human activity so complex no being could ever know its history with a lifetime to learn, but that city was barely the blink of an eye in the galaxy. Alderaan the planet was immeasurably ancient, but young to Alderaan the star; they had been and were and would be for eons to come, and the had been and to be were as real as the now, for the Force bound them all together…

And Narasi saw.

Aldayr piloted a Jedi starfighter through a lattice of laserfire, yelling words Narasi couldn't hear to his astromech droid. Dodging a missile with a corkscrew that would've impressed Yan Razam, he caught an enemy fighter completely by surprise and shredded it with his own cannons. Mali stood on the bridge of the Coronet's Jewel, monitoring a holographic tacmap and giving orders but occasionally glancing out the destroyer's main viewport, his eyes unerringly finding the pinprick gleam that was his Padawan's ship…

A two-handed blow buckled Kenza's arms, and as she shuddered under the force of the strike, Eviar Seldec kicked her in the chest. She hit the ground and rolled to her feet, then backflipped over a slash that would have cut off her legs at the thighs. She had discarded her Jedi robe, and her wavy blonde hair flew all around her as she turned her eyeless face on her enemy…

Tirien and Mali dueled, their blades flashing at lightning speed with all their deadly skill but their faces both torn by regret and unhappiness. Their weapons were their own, but Mali's blade was emerald green, and Tirien's was regal red even though he still wore his Jedi attire…

Caught in a desert, sand swirling around him, Aldayr dodged a skeleton wearing a golden crown, robed in black but shining white save for its blackened, bony, clawed left hand. The skeleton danced about with a silver crown in its bony hands, trying to place the crown on Aldayr's head as he fended it off with his lightsaber; droplets of liquid fell from the crown and sizzled where they splattered on the sand. Aldayr's blue blade sang, but the skeleton came close again and again, abetted by a venomous serpent with white eyes that snapped at his heels, trying to find purchase in his flesh…

Narasi sat with Ayson Sokos and his fellow Initiates on the Crescentia, teaching them about the galaxy in a darkened room while a holomap of the stars hovered over them. Tirien leaned against the doorway with their Jedi instructor, a faint smile on his lips, Slejux standing over Tirien's shoulder…

Narasi and Aldayr fought back-to-back, slashing at shadows that morphed and changed to new threats with each blow. Death was on every side, and yet they were both relaxed; she ducked under his slash with a wink, and when a wide sweep of her blade drove the darkness back for an instant, Aldayr used it to steal a kiss…

Darth Alecto crept up behind Tirien, a lightsaber in her hand. Narasi wanted to cry out a warning, but she was not there. Alecto's face showed uncharacteristic ambivalence, and when she finally ignited the blade, the lightsaber became double-bladed; her weapon pierced Tirien from behind even as it ran her through too…

And as she dwelled on that vision, trying to hold tight to it and find out more, Narasi pulled its darkness toward herself. She felt cold that had nothing to do with the mountain air—a cold of the mind, sickening and frightening. I know what you are, a fell voice whispered, its breath frosting her and turning her flesh to ice. ''Hide in Jedi robes, I can wait. In the end you will be the same; in the end you will'' fall…

NO! Narasi wanted to scream, but her voice would not come. She heard that scream echo down across the years…was it the past, or the future…?

A golden, beaked creature faced her, bloodshine blade in hand. It wanted what she had, but Narasi would not surrender, though she had never been more afraid. She could sense the man's power, see the wanton cruelty in his eyes, but she would never give up, would never yield the most precious…

The darkness closed in…closed in…

It was here. Elyria Organa screamed, and King Rosulus cried out in pain, and Princess Vamiri shrieked as a bundle in her arms turned to smoke. The whips lashed, the hands jostled and bruised, and he came out of the darkness—hidden by it or born of it—tall, blond, Human, his handsome face marred by malevolence. He drew a lightsaber and smiled, and as he slashed the Organas were swept away like phantoms, dissipating into the wind…

"NO!"

Narasi opened her eyes, gasping, sweating hard in the cool night. She felt a ripple in the Force, a wave of power that made her shiver, and then Tirien's eyes opened too. He looked startled as well, and Narasi could feel his mind racing, processing what he had seen. She had rarely found him so easy to read, but she realized she was still touching him; she looked down and saw she had gripped him so hard that her claws had cut his hands.

"Master! Master, did you see that?!"

Tirien blinked and cleared the wildness from his eyes. "See what? What did you see?"

There had been so much; Narasi could see them all, but they overlapped in strange ways, like displaying holos over one another at different transparencies. But even as she sat and sweated and shook, she could feel the darkness had not yet receded, and she prioritized. "Elyria. The Organas.  Master, they're in danger."

Tirien narrowed his eyes. "What did you see exactly?"

"People grabbing them, hurting them…and a Sith Lord!"

"Who?"

"I don't know, I've never seen him." She struggled to commit it to memory. "Human. A blond Human."

Even with her hands drawn back, Narasi could sense Tirien thinking quickly. "Narasi, is the danger now, or in the future?"

"I think—"

"Don't panic, and don't guess," he commanded sharply. "Feel the Force. Know the answer."

Narasi took a deep breath and reached for the Force, but it was nothing like before; there was no sinking back into that eternal flow on command. She could snatch only the echoes of insight where infinite knowledge had been, but the darkness was there. The darkness was here. And it was now.

"Now," she panted. "They're in danger, right now."

Tirien measured her with narrow eyes, and she could feel his mind on hers as he searched her with the Force, but just as she opened her mouth to insist, he shot to his feet. "Do you have any comm frequencies from the palace?"

"No." Narasi's focus was returning to the task at hand, the threat descending on the Organas, and she clenched her jaw.

Tirien dug his comlink from his belt. "Chief Marsh is in my contact list…"

He depressed the transmit button, but only static and a strange warbling came back. Narasi ventured, "Maybe we can't get a signal in the mountains?"

"No, it's being jammed." Tirien grimaced. "They're already here. Let's go."

He jumped from the butte, slowing his fall to the hills below with the Force so he touched down nimbly. "Jump!"

It was a long way down, and Narasi hesitated. "I haven't learned—"

"I'll catch you!"

She jumped, and the fall was much slower than it should have been from butte to grass; she could feel the cushion of the Force that brought her down as gently as a leaf blown from a tree. "This isn't a training exercise," Tirien said. "Now is a time for speed. Now we need to run."

And he shot off, the Force turning his motion into a blur. Narasi catapulted after him, working to accelerate herself, thinking of Aldera and her need to be there, trying not to be afraid for the Organas. She ran in fits and starts, and the narrow ravine and the rocky hillsides beyond forced her to check her pace just as she was getting into a burst. Several times Tirien simply jumped a long height rather than picking his way down, and he used the Force to set her down when she followed. Her visions had drained and empowered her at once; sometimes she ran a kilometer at a time at a speed that made her all but invisible to the creatures she passed, and other times she lagged behind, panting and gasping for air, her legs trembling. Tirien, somehow, had enough energy to spare; he waited only for her to catch up.

The lights of Aldera steadily grew from a blur on the horizon to individual windows in cloudcutters, and as they made the city Narasi had a moment for wonder; their hike out had taken hours, but they were back in less than an hour. Her limbs trembled with exhaustion and she tried to suck down enough air for the last burst through the city, but Tirien stood still, breathing hard as he searched the street.

"What…are we…waiting for…?" Narasi wheezed.

"The right speeder." He looked at different parked vehicles. "Suwo could've gotten any of them working…I'm not familiar with…all of them…and the mechanisms aren't always…there!"

He led her to a family-sized speeder. Narasi was just feeling proud that she recognized it as a SoroSuub when Tirien drew his lightsaber and stabbed the door handle. Wrenching the door open with the Force, he stabbed the control console too.

"What are you doing?!"

"Stealing this. Get in."

Narasi limped to the passenger side, staring at him all the way. By the time she was in he had already taken the wheel and wrenched open a panel beneath. "Some of those Core World speeders have redundant deactivation systems, but SoroSuubs are…here we go."

He pressed on a circuit board, closed his eyes, and touched the Force, and after a few seconds the speeder hummed to life and shot forward; they nearly crashed into a streetlight before Tirien got his hands on the wheel.

"Smooth, Master."

"That's the downside to hotwiring it—it can do on and off just fine, but slow is beyond it."

"Suwo, right?" When Tirien nodded, Narasi shook her head; little flecks of sweat went flying. "You teach me meditation, speed, and seeing the future. Your master taught you burglary and grand theft repulsor."

"We all have our talents."

Tirien took a hairpin turn with no change of expression, but a sliver of fear pierced Narasi for altogether different reasons; she worked to calm herself, to focus on the here and now. "How long?"

"Thirty seconds." Tirien took the speeder over a curb, wrenched it over a hedge, barreled through a city park, and burst onto the cater-cornered intersection. "Twenty seconds."

Twenty seconds wasn't enough to recharge her exhausted body, but Narasi had snatched enough five-second recovery meditations after lightsaber training as an Initiate to curato salva her way back to functionality. The palace drawbridge was still down, and their speeder roared over it without stopping—and without being challenged, which Narasi found ominous. Tirien slapped the console with the palm of his hand and a twist of the Force, and the engine died; they coasted to a halt in the courtyard, but before the speeder had come to rest both Jedi were already out.

"They're here," Tirien said, eyes closed but moving under their lids. "There are multiple threats, I can't fix them all."

Narasi took the lightsaber hilt from her belt. "What do we do?"

"Go up to the Organas. Get them together and get them somewhere safe.  The king knows the palace better than you do, follow his lead.  I'll try to head the threats off."

"Got it."

"Narasi!" Tirien said. "Remember Taanab. I don't care what kind of danger you think I'm in, and I don't care who tells you otherwise, even if it's King Rosulus himself—you stay with the Organas until I personally tell you otherwise."

Narasi winced at the memory, but firmed her face and nodded; she would not make that mistake twice. "Yes Master."

"May the Force be with you. Go."