Master Apprentice Archive The Burning Ground 1: A Beginning Quick search:

Series: The Burning Ground - Alt-JAOA (Dark)

Characters-Rating: Q/O - PG-13

Category: AU, Drama, Angst, H/C

Summary: Starting anew takes an act of will.

Archive: m_a, JAOA - anybody else just ask.

CD: Yes

Feedback: YES please! It keeps the plot bunnies fed and healthy.

WARNING: This bit is merely intense, not squicky, but the series as a whole will go to very dark, very angsty and very squicky places.

Spoilers: None in this bit. The series will contain spoilers for TPM and the Jedi Apprentice books.

Notes: Many thanks to Black Rose for creating JAOA & letting me play in her universe, and to both her and Divinia for comments, inspiration & help. This journey into darkness is the fault of neither of them.

[This is telepathy] and /these are thoughts/.

Challenge: this is in response to gothgrrl's challenge of 7 August 1999, to turn Qui-Gon to the Dark without Obi-Wan knowing, with Mac's addendum to not use Obi-Wan as the focus for the turning. The actual challenge elements will come clear as the story progresses.

Ambiance: Berlioz: Requiem

Disclaimer: George Lucas is god and owns everything... except this weird permutation which is just for fun and I doubt he'd want it. All JAOA-specific things belong to Black Rose. Healers Wanri Liag & Eren Daret are mine.

JAOA Page: http://digitalmidnight.net./garden/jaoa.html

Click here for WARNINGS, SPOILERS and CREDITS

Because thou lovest the Burning-ground
I have made a Burning-ground of my heart
That thou, Dark One, haunter of the Burning-ground
Mayest dance thy eternal dance.
Naught else is in my heart, O Mother:
Day and night blazes the funeral pyre:
The ashes of the dead all strewn about
I have preserved against thy coming
with death-conquering Mahakala 'neath thy feet.
Do thou enter in, dancing thy rhythmic dance
That I may behold thee with closed eyes.

(Bengali Hymn to Kali, unknown translator)

The Burning Ground 1: A Beginning
Year of the Republic 25,989
Gail Riordan, 2001
wander@dnai.com

"They hold hands. He lets him comb his hair. I think.... I think they sleep in the same bed - the same room, certainly. If you can call it sleep. And he was sitting there, letting me.... Held there only by force of will and love." She turned to Eren, tears streaming, disregarded, down her face. "Do you *know* what kind of *strength* that takes? Do you?" Abruptly she got up and began to pace the study. "He's pounds and pounds underweight, even given the damage. Of course *he's* not much better."

This time it was her other hand gesturing, and Eren, trying hard to keep up, interpreted this to mean the other of the two people Wanri was talking about. He felt very much like he had come in on the middle of a conversation that she was having with some intangible other than himself.

"He can't be eating or sleeping properly." She'd shifted subjects again, back to the main focus of her attention and distress. "The connection between them is palpable - *they* communicate, though he doesn't speak aloud at all, and his Force-signature is almost completely overwritten with pain. And why *remove* bio-mechanics? And what would keep a Knight from wearing his sabre?"

/Who is she talking about?/ Eren began to have the sinking sensation that he knew.

"They wear the robes of our Order, Eren. How did we fail them?" The master healer tried hard not to startle at being directly addressed, seemingly in answer to his thought. Wanri went on without noticing. "They hold hands because that's almost all that he can bear. I could feel him willing himself to endure my touch. *Nobody* should have to be in that much distress, Eren. Nobody. Not the High Lord of the Sith himself." She paused for a sobbing breath. "And what in *Darkness* is a Jedi Master doing as Archive Storage Librarian?! He's not *that* old or frail, and I'm sure the dust can't be good for him." She didn't appear to notice the inconsistency of the last comment.

So that was where the Council had hidden him. "How do you know he's a Master?" was what he found himself saying, amidst the jumble of his thoughts.

She looked at him as though he had sprouted feathers. "His robes are a Master's. They both wear Knight's stolas. And if that weren't enough, their Force-signatures are too shielded and powerful to be anything but. Not to mention the entry in the appointment log." The last statement was touched with sharp exasperation.

Jinn and Kenobi. It had to be. And he knew Wanri too well to think she would let go of this one, Healer's Council, High Council, Senate or no.

"I want to know how we failed him. Them."

Eren wanted to ask why she was so insistent on that idea, that the Order had failed these two, but he didn't, because her perception was true, however long it had taken him to recognize it. However little he liked it.

"I've seen people come here terribly injured, dying, but I don't think I've ever seen such *damage*." She rubbed her eyes impatiently, scrubbing away tears. "And he has such a nice voice."

"He *spoke* to you?!" Eren's own voice squeeked, the words out before he could stop them.

"Through the Force, yes." She had turned to look at him with those too-perceptive eyes, and her mouth was flattening into a hard line. He was for it now. Student or not, she had always been able to read him. "You *know* something about this." She had stopped her pacing and was pinning him with her gaze. He swallowed. "Did *you* have anything to do with it, *Healer* Eren?" Her voice was getting softer by the word, and he flushed a deep, betraying red.

"Wanri..." Her look did not soften. He swallowed again and went on, patting the air, a little desperate. "Please. Sit." She was too skilled an empath and healer not to perceive the very real fear that was making his throat clench, his heart hammer, but Eren also knew that she would not let that stop her. She *would* know, and he *would* tell her. That dedication and focus frightened him as well. He patted at the air again.

She looked narrowly at him for another moment before stalking over to the other chair and seating herself deliberately, folding her hands precisely in her lap. Her voice was now deadly quiet. "Suppose you tell me, Master Healer Eren Daret, how it comes that the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the heart and home of the best and most skilled of us, could so fail Master Qui-Gon Jinn, the greatest swordsman of the age, pre-eminent negotiator, Master with two Knights to his credit, Yoda's last Padawan and never ranked but with the best of the Order, that he can but hold the hand of his beloved, because an embrace is more than he can bear? Who so broke his body that he cannot let go of pain, his trust that he will not speak aloud?"

/The Sith, Xanatos, his so-called family, the Council, us./ Compelled, he forced the words out: low, reluctant, "He turned. We didn't listen, didn't see. He turned."

She was towering over him, even though she was still seated. "The Dark may have had him once, but it does not hold him now. Why. Is. He. Still. In. Hell? Love does not live in the Dark, Eren, and Kenobi loves him and is loved in return."

His mouth opened in weak protest "But..."

"Do *not* try to tell an empath she does not know love when she perceives it, Eren, or you deny everything that I am, that we are." She took a deep breath, trying to rein herself in. "We are *healers*, Eren, Jedi Healers, serving the Will of the Force, in the service of Life and Light."

He quailed before her ferocity and conviction, the force of her argument. His throat was tight and dry. "We didn't listen. We meant no harm."

Soft, inexorable, "Tell me, Eren. *I* am listening. Tell me so that I may know where to begin; that he, that they, might be able to start to heal. *Tell me*."

She was not willing him to compliance through the Force, but he felt its concurrence. She was right. She *was* right. He closed his eyes against her burning gaze and took a deep breath. "All right. I'll tell you. What I know." It was a relief, really, not to have to hold it all alone. "The decision of the Council was to keep it all quiet, but I'll tell you." She was watching him attentively, still tightly focused but no longer bending the air with her ferocity. "It's... a long story. And not... not at all... pleasant."

"Thank you, Eren." Only quiet now, without the edges, but not in the least apologetic. Then a wry smile touched the corner of her mouth. "I don't intend to pry it out of you all at once, or expect either of us to enjoy it."

Eren's answering smile was sad. "You're right, you know. We did fail." He levered himself up out of the chair and went over to make a pot of tea. She followed him with her eyes, turning as he moved slowly across the room. "We, the Jedi, the Healers, failed him almost from the outset."

[...to part 2: Earth and Salt]