Who You Are in the Dark/Part 3

Narasi blinked her way back to consciousness, and immediately became aware of a sharp pain behind her eyes. Groaning, she sat up in time for the wind to catch her hair, blowing it around her ears and slapping her neck with her Padawan braid. Squinting against the harsh sunlight, she found the forest whipping by. A brief examination revealed she was in a speeder.

"Feeling better?" Tirien asked dryly. Narasi saw him glance at her from the speeder's controls.

"Ow," she said.

"Yes, that's what happens when a fourteen-year-old drinks a Flameout in less than a minute. Drink this." He handed her a canteen and sighed. "Narasi, what were you thinking?"

"I…thought I should order a drink?" As she drank some of the water, she tried to refresh her memory with the Force. Tirien had taught her about it, but it was like watching a holovid cross-eyed; her memory could make the shapes and noises appear, but they weren't coming together the right way. "You know, a bar?"

"Fine, but a Flameout?"

"I remembered them from—" She cut off abruptly, and suddenly found it much easier to focus. "From hearing about them."

Tirien said nothing, and Narasi felt a sliver of fear and a rush of déjà vu. What had slipped past her lips? "I…what did I say about it?"

Tirien hesitated for a moment, and Narasi's unease amplified. But finally the Pantoran said in his usual dry tone, "You said it was hot. Apparently you had never stopped to wonder how it got its name."

"I…yeah." The rush of wind covered Narasi's relieved exhalation. There were times when she was tempted to just tell Tirien everything, and other times when she thought it best to leave the past buried. But either way, now was not the time to get into it. She settled back, sipping her water and trying to ease her headache with the Force.

"No more drinking on missions, I think," Tirien advised.

"Yes Master," she answered, chastened. "Are you okay to drive?"

Tirien rolled his eyes. "I purged the alcohol effects out of my system, Narasi. It's an advanced curato salva technique.  I didn't think I'd have to get into that with you at fourteen…"

"Sorry," she muttered. She hadn't used the discipline for much more than aches and pains, but she opted to give it a try. After a few minutes, she thought the headache had deadened a bit.

"Where are we going, Master?"

"The Sith are excavating ruins," Tirien replied. "Do you remember getting that out of the bartender?"

Narasi frowned, trying another memory-refreshing exercise. Some of it came back together, but as the images and sounds coalesced, Narasi felt her stomach turn in a way that had nothing to do with alcohol. "Master…I didn't hurt anybody, did I?"

"No," Tirien said. "Although you might have opened that drunken thug's stomach with your knife if I hadn't stopped you."

Narasi swallowed. "And…and in the bar…"

"They're all fine. Frightened, perhaps, but unharmed."

"Frightened?"

"You were very much the Zygerrian stereotype," Tirien said. "Fortunately they were more afraid than offended. I don't usually like to interrogate through intimidation, but under the—"

"That's not who I am!" Narasi snapped. The buzz-crack of a shock whip echoed down through the years of memory and added fire to her tone.

Tirien frowned, looking over at her. "I didn't say it was."

"You said to play the part, so I did!" Narasi insisted. "That's all it was. That is not me.  I am not one of those people!"

Tirien pulled back the throttle until the speeder drifted to a halt. Turning in his seat, he studied her with concern. "Narasi, what's wrong?"

"I…" She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. That look of mingled concern and disapproval was humiliating; it was like being back on Taanab all over again. "I'm sorry, Master. I didn't mean to snap."

She felt him squeeze one of her hands and opened her eyes. "You're a Zygerrian and you always will be, Narasi. But that only means as much as you want it to."

She cobbled together a smile. "Yes Master."

He turned back to the controls and opened them up again, and the trees began to fly by. Narasi wrapped her arms around her stomach, trying to meditate and melt the cold hand clenched around her heart. She remembered the exchange now. She remembered her subtle feigned threat, and the fear on the bartender's face.

And she remembered how, just for a moment, she had liked it.