The Way of the Mystics
by Tilt
Title: The Way of the Mystics
Author: Tilt
Category: Q/O, Q/other, O/other, angst, adventure, het, slash
Warning: This story contains violence, mature situations, graphic descriptions of violence, and sexual situations. If you are under 18 years of age, please do NOT read this story. If you are offended by such things, do NOT read this story. Please take responsibility for your own mental health and well-being and that of your children. If you are not over 18, please do NOT read this story. There. I've said it twice. You have been warned.
The world was a whirling wall of honey-colored sand, the howling of the storm ripping thoughts away in an overwhelming wash of white noise. The only constant was gravity, the steady knowledge that where your feet touched the shifting dust of Tatooine was the planet and everything else around you was the sandstorm.
Obi-Wan Kenobi struggled to keep his Jedi cloak wrapped tight around himself to keep the winds of the storm from blowing him off his feet. The jala scarf tied tightly about his nose and mouth kept him from breathing sand, the fringed ends of the scarf tossing about his head with every capricous gust of the storm. Every few moments he had to scrub a handful of his cloak over his eyes to clear the sand away. He could barely see in any case. The tall dark form ahead of him echoed his movements every few moments. They'd left their 'speeder in a sheltered place in the rocks some three hundred yards behind them when the intakes had become too clogged and the engine had died. Ben shivered despite the ever-present desert heat. All they had to go on now was his master's telepathic sense of the call. And here they were, following some elusive Mindcall in the middle of a sandstorm.
The tall form ahead of him stopped abruptly and Ben bumped into him inadvertantly. Qui-Gon Jinn reached back a hand and pulled his apprentice around beside him, bending to yell close to his head so he could be heard in the storm. "It's ahead there, in those rocks! Can you hear it now?"
Ben concentrated for a moment, trying to scan telepathically as his master had been trying to teach him for several years now. But he felt nothing, no glimmer, heard no whispered mindvoice. He looked up at his master and shook his head emphatically. "No, I don't hear anything."
Jinn nodded, then freed one hand from his own cloak edges to reach for his lightsaber. Ben saw his movement and reached for his own weapon.
"You go to the right, I'll go left," Jinn yelled. "Remember to check your target before you go rushing in. What I hear in there isn't Sith!"
Ben nodded and looked up at the walls of weathered sandstone ahead of them and began moving around to the right hand side. Jinn moved quickly off to the left of the island of stone, seemingly unhampered by the raging storm. Ben watched his master go then resolutely turned his attention to the rocks in front of him.
A few yards further on he came to a break in the rocks, almost a diagonal slit in the rock wall. It was a natural break in the stone that had been weathered away by the endless sandstorms, perhaps a meter wide. The almost-tunnel went about two meters into the rock before curving around into darkness. Ben stopped for a moment, peering into the tunnel worriedly. Trying to still himself as best he could in the howling storm, he reached out his soul to the Force and felt it respond to his touch, reaching out to him and engulfing him in the familiar, welcome mental silence. Steadied and strengthened, he reached with his senses and feelings into the tunnel. He felt no pulse of living minds within the tunnelway. He walked forward into the darkness of the tunnel.
Three meters into the tunnel, he came to a small alcove. A tiny hoverlight floated in the air above his head, illuminating a metal well-cover in a recess in the wall. A metal bucket with a much-knotted rope tied to the handle sat on the floor. A water well. Made sense, they weren't far from the mountains, a shallow well might work here, enough water to keep at least one person alive. He turned again to go further down the tunnel--
Something screamed like a cavecat to his left and he was hit by a body hurtling down off a ledge high up in the tunnel wall. The weight smashed him against the opposite tunnel wall and he yelped in pain as his head connected first. His right hand was knocked against the wall hard and went numb, and his lightsaber fell from his suddenly nerveless fingers. The squirming body leapt off of him, rolled to its feet, skittered sideways picking something small up off the floor, and disappeared into the deeper darkness of the cave.
Ben cursed fluently in Tusken and swept both hands across the floor of the tunnel frantically, looking for his lightsaber. He couldn't Lift it unless he could see it and it was too blasted dark in here. Where was it? Had that thing taken it?
[Ben? What happened?]
Ben tried to still his mind. His Master was picking up his anger and distress. His own telepathic talent was extremely limited, but Jinn's was extensive, and trying to hide something after all these years together was a laughable prospect. [Something tackled me and stole my lightsaber,] Ben sent finally, reluctantly.
Jinn's answer was a meditative telepathic grunt.
So, Ben thought, do I go on or get out? He asked the question of himself, knowing since his Master hadn't given him any orders it was up to him to decide. Another test. Everything was a test. And with Ben Kenobi, newly confirmed Jedi Knight, the question always came down to Brains versus Pride. No. Not this time. This time he was going on, lightsaber or no. He stepped forward again into the darkness.
The tunnel widened into a large cave that had no roof, a circle of solid stone hollowed into ledges and smaller niches. The dim light from above did more to blind than to illuminate, making the shadows darker by comparison. Ben moved forward slowly, trying hard to be ready for anything, trying to extend his senses out to feel whatever could be felt here, hoping for some sort of warning of danger.
The cavecat scream again, barely recognizable as a human voice, and he was tackled again from behind and above. This time he rolled with it into the middle of the cave floor, grateful for the thick sand that cushioned his fall as he tumbled and finally caught the thing that had jumped him. A mass of tangled black hair whipped his face as the small body writhed in his hands, wriggled free, rolled off him swiftly, and jumped to its feet again, disappearing into the darkness. Ben rolled to his feet as well and fell into the first guard position of Soritsu-ji, and the thing hurtled out of the dark again straight at him, dodged to the side at the last moment and aimed a kick at his head. He blocked it with one arm and reached out for the other's arm with the other hand, whirled with the momentum and pulled downward, jerking the thing to the floor and falling upon it. He finally got a good hold and simply held on while the thing struggled to bash his teeth in with the free hand, wriggling like a sand snake beneath him.
A green light erupted at the edge of the circle of light from above and a droning hum joined the howl of the sandstorm. Ben saw the peripheral glow of his Master's lightsaber and breathed a mental sigh of relief. The thing in his hands abruptly stopped struggling and lay panting, staring up at the tall man in the black Jedi cloak, the neon green fire of the lightsaber dispelling the darkness.
Ben couldn't see anything as his face was buried in a mass of long black hair as he tried to hold onto the struggling form, but the thing in his hands stiffened.
[We mean you no harm. We heard your mindcall. We've come to help.]
Ben heard the mindvoice as clearly as if his Master had spoken aloud, knew he'd broadcast the call throughout the cave, not just to the thing in his hands. He felt a Sending pass by him to his Master, but couldn't make out the sense of it.
[Let her go, Ben, she won't hurt us now, she was protecting her master,] his Master ordered, lowering the point of his raised lightsaber and gesturing with it to the girl for her to move away.
[It's a girl?] he asked, stunned. He let her go and the warm weight left him immediately, bouncing to her feet and skittering to the wall of the cave, climbing up it with practiced ease and a quickness that left Ben trying to track tanned legs as they disappeared up the wall. The girl reached a ledge some three meters off the floor and flattened herself on the ledge, peering down at them with wide frightened eyes. The cloud of black hair framed an almost elfin face, sunburned and streaked with dust. The hands that gripped the edge of her perch were long-fingered. She looked to be wearing some sort of short dress or long tunic that fell to her knees with a belt made of some sort of braided yarn. Bare toes gripped the sandstone wall behind her as she lay there nervously, peering from one to the other of them silently.
A nearby cave wall shimmered and shifted, and suddenly an old man was standing there where there had been no one a moment before. Ben shook his head, sitting up slowly and carefully, checking for damage.
[You are Jedi? Good. Better the Corrupted than the Demons.]
Ben gasped. The mindvoice was not his Master but the old man, projected so strongly it made Ben's head ring. The sense of controlled power in the Sending amazed him. Whoever this old man was, he was the strongest telepath Ben had ever heard. Even his Master looked impressed as he stood his ground impassively, green glowing lightsaber humming in his hand. Ben got to his feet and shook the sand out of his cloak, scooped his jala scarf from the floor and threaded it through his belt for safe keeping.
"Demons?" Jinn said, raising one eyebrow quizically at the old man who now stepped forward slowly toward them, holding up empty hands.
"Demons. What you Corrupted call the Dark. There was one here yesterday."
"When I first heard your call?" Jinn asked. It came out more of a statement than a question.
The old man nodded. He was perhaps sixty or seventy years old, dressed in a threadbare simple robe of some amber colored stuff, a fall of straight ivory-white hair falling down his back, a very thin saturnine face both stern and kindly. Direct ice-blue eyes met Ben's for a moment, and he was staggered by the sheer force of the intelligence behind those eyes. "You come in good time. I fear the Demon will be back, and this time I should be hard-pressed to hold him off."
Jinn lowered his lightsaber point to the floor and the green blade disappeared as he switched it off. "Your apprentice took my apprentice's lightsaber."
The old man chuckled and looked up at the ledge. [Theriyah? The boy's weapon, if you would.]
The girl looked at her Master, tilted her head consideringly for a moment, then reached behind her to get something. She slid down the wall with a scrape of skin on stone. Coming forward, she silently extended her hand to Ben, holding out his lightsaber. He took it carefully and slid it onto it's ring on his belt, giving a purely mental sigh of relief as the familiar, cherished weight of it once more hung at his side. He peered at the girl as covertly as he could, measuring her up now he could see her clearly. She was a head shorter than he was, slightly built, but wiry muscle overlaid the small bones. Dust in her unbound, tangled ebony hair that fell a handspan past her waist. Wide emerald eyes, slanted upwards slightly. A guarded expression on the sunburned face, suspicion in every line. Gracefulness of movement. Ben found himself liking her instantly despite the suspicion in her eyes.
"She is somewhat protective of me, now that she thinks I am getting old," the old man said with a further chuckle. The girl moved to stand beside her Master, taking his hand and looking at the two Jedi warily. [Theriyah, go with the boy up to the lookout place. Keep watch. I must speak to Master Jinn for a while.]
[Go with her, Ben. She won't bite now,] Jinn sent with a wave of amusement in his mindvoice, his eyes following the girl with some interest. [Her name is Theriyah, obviously.]
Ben shrugged and gestured to the girl to lead the way. She hesitated, looked up at her Master for a long moment. Ben could sense they were Sending, but he couldn't hear it. Then she too shrugged and moved to lead Ben down another tunnelway and up a brief scramble to the top of the rocks where they could look out over the desert in all directions.
"Why do you call the Sith demons?" Qui-Gon Jinn asked as the old man Therasslen refilled their mugs with icy cold water from the well. The Jedi Master sat comfortably enough on the thick padding of a meditation bench in another chamber of the caves Therasslen had taken for his own. Phosphorescent lichens on the walls gave out a gentle blue-white glow into this enclosed chamber, quite bright enough for most daily living. Sand candles sat on small ledges about the walls as well, giving out a gentle orange glow. Aside from the meditation benches there were a few rickety shelves holding stacks of what looked to be old textreader cards and a low table made of siliplastic. On one wall above a candle was a silvery metal disk deeply etched with a three-armed spiral.
Therasslen sank down onto a bench and absently folded his legs up over his knees in the lotus position. Jinn winced inwardly. He himself had never been able to do that particular move, even when he'd been as young as Ben.
"That is a very long story, Jedi. Tell me, do they still tell you in your training of the Mystics?"
"I've heard the name a couple times, but I know nothing of them truly," Jinn admitted.
Therasslen grunted. "I am not surprised. Five hundred years ago we were exiled. We were Jedi too, you see, once. But because our people refused to acknowledge either side in the conflict, we were called heretics and blasphemers. We refuse to fight for either side. In our view, both sides are wrong. The true Force is undifferentiated, pure, indivisible, and unknowable by us truly while we are in these bodies. Our way gives us great ability to use the Force, strengthens our mindvoices and the other powers, lets us be invisible and silent even to you Corrupted and the Demons. Neither side can see or hear us if we do not wish to be found, even with the powers of the mind. We wish only to dissolve ourselves into the Force, ultimately. Yet the Demons want to control us for our abilities, and the Corrupted have sought us for teaching only to persecute us when our teachings proved too much for them to bear. We wish to remain alone to practice our way in peace. Yet still the Demons would have us fight their wars for them."
Jinn shook his head and took another swallow of water. "You don't acknowledge the Light and the Dark?"
Therasslen shook his head. "No. We don't. We see both sides of the argument as corruptions of the Force. All things created are corruptions of the true Force. When the true Force broke into time, it was refracted into manifestation, and thus the created universe."
Jinn felt like a student again now, trying to remember teachings he'd learned more than thirty years ago from Master Yoda. "That is not what we are taught. We were taught there are two sides of the Force, the Light and the Dark, and that we can choose to be of either one, that both sides are in perpetual conflict. "
Therasslen shook his head again. "No. Duality. Light and Dark create the conflict, it is not inherent in the true Force because there is no duality in the true Force. One must fight against something else, yes? But if there is no 'something else' then there is nothing to fight against. In the true Force, all things are good and right and just. Not just those things you see as growing and increasing in the Light. All things, Jedi. With duality, ethics and morality arise. Without duality, all things must be accepted no matter how evil we may perceive them. Even those horrors we build in our own minds, yes?"
Jinn grinned slightly. "I am no great philosopher, Master Therasslen. Just another Jedi, like all my people. I'll leave that to my old Master Yoda."
Therasslen straightened up and looked up startled. "The teachings of our people speak of one called Yoda. This one yet lives?"
"Yes, as of three months ago when I was last at the Great Temple. He is over eight hundred years old."
Therasslen's face showed astonishment. "He would know of our people, then. In our teachings it says our founder, Sowelu Inda, knew Yoda well. This is good. And now I may get to my true point. I wish you to take my apprentice Theriyah with you when you leave here."
Jinn nearly choked as he heard this and swallowed the mouthful of water quickly. "Take the girl? Why?"
"The Demon Maul will return, and he might try to take her. I want her out of here and somewhere safe, even if it is not with me. She is not fully trained. She is still young enough by her homeworld's standards that she could learn to fight. She is very quick to learn and extremely intelligent. I ask you, take her to the Great Temple if you cannot train her yourself. Give her to Yoda if is possible. The teachings all said we could trust Master Yoda. He was not of our way, but he would not call us heretics."
Jinn was still a couple sentences back. "Maul was here? Darth Maul?" He cursed in Tusken. [Ben!] he Sent, [It's Maul who's been after Therasslen!]
[Maul?! You're joking!] Ben's mindvoice came faint but clear.
[Has the storm let up yet?]
[It's starting to. What are we going to do? What does Maul want with an old man?]
[Tell you later,] Jinn sent, then turned back to Therasslen. He had not tried to shield his mindcall to Ben, so he expected the old Mystic had heard every word. "We'll take the girl with us. How far along is she in her training?"
Therasslen sighed. "In the Way of our people, she is nearly ready to go on her questing. For you, this would be comparable to the confirmation. She is a very strong telepath. A great deal of our way is involved in asceticism and meditation, the inward path, the deep knowledge. The energies you Corrupted turn outward to fight with, we turn inward to conquer ourselves. As I say, she could still be taught to fight."
"How old is she?"
"Twenty-six," Therasslen said with a long-suffering sigh. "But she is from Thretketh and so is still a child. Their lifespans are about twice the standard human lifespan."
Jinn groaned inwardly. The girl was Thretkethan! "And if she's Thretketh, how long has she been alone out here with you?" he said with an edge to his voice.
"She has been with me six years." Therasslen said with a frown. "I was beginning to consider taking her into the world again. Thretketh cannot remain alone for so long and remain sane, the ingrained imperatives are too strong, but our way of physiological controls has allowed her to suppress it."
"But not release it?" Jinn said, the edge still in his voice. Just what he needed! Ben was already too much distracted by anything female and Jedi, and here this girl would be living in the same house! Maybe if he was quick he could get her to the Great Temple before her subconscious realized she was with two adult males. Then again, with a Thretkethan female who'd been alone for six years, he wasn't so sure. She was probably already starting to fixate on Ben since they'd fought in the cave.
"I see I do not have to warn you about the ways of the Thretkethans," Therasslen said with a quirk of one eyebrow.
"I was assigned there for three months when I was first confirmed," Jinn said grimly. "I'm well aware of their ways. How long could she keep herself under control once she's with us?"
"I do not know. If you do not touch her physically, I would guess at least a week."
Jinn put down his mug and got to his feet. "Then we've no time to waste."
Ben sat wrapped in his cloak, his hood pulled over his head, looking out over the desert. Tatooine was his homeworld and even with all the places he'd been with Master Kee he still loved the old dust ball. Loved the smells of the desert, the colors, the double suns, the thin air, the glaring unshielded sunlight. Except for the Temple, Coruscant was just too full of people and things for his liking. He'd been to Naboo with Master Kee when he went as the Jedi Council's liaison to Queen Amidala's court. He kind of liked Naboo, at least the forests he'd been in there, but he'd gotten sick there and had stayed sick as long as he'd been there. Master had said that often happened to people born and bred to extreme environments like Tatooine's desert conditions. He'd felt like he'd had water in his lungs all the time and had coughed his head off the whole time he'd been there. He pulled his long tailbraid out of his hood and looked at it critically. He'd singed it in saber practice the day before when he'd lunged a bit too hard and the end of his braid had hit his lightsaber blade. The gold--blond lock of hair neatly braided fell down to his waist now, and he was secretly (or maybe not so secretly, with Master Kee's mindpowers one could never tell) very vainly proud of it.
Obi-Wan Kenobi was twenty-eight years old and had been confirmed as a Jedi Knight for almost three months. He'd been with his Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, for twelve years. He was one of the fastest swordsmen of the Jedi Knights, on a par with several of the Masters he'd defeated in mock-combat and duels. But while he'd been confirmed already, he knew he would never stop learning the lightsaber's ways. It was his chosen way in the vast storehouse of Jedi abilities, he felt the Force most keenly when he let go of his ego and let the Force move his body. He was almost six feet tall, slim, well-muscled from the arduous training regimen he mandated for himself, with the fluid grace of youth. He had golden blond hair cut very short, with only his long tailbraid behind his right ear falling to his waist. Direct, devastatingly honest sky-blue eyes that charmed almost every woman in mere moments. He was one of the most popular of the younger generations of Jedi at the Great Temple and often took advantage of this, though never in such a way as would hurt his companions. Emotional commitment for him was easy so long as he was committed to several and not just to one.
He wriggled a little to resettle himself, looked over at the girl sitting with her legs wrapped up in one of those loopy meditation positions he'd seen people do at home at the Great Temple. It looked to him like it must hurt, but she looked as if she sat that way all the time. They were sitting on top of a rock ledge, sheltered from the slackening sandstorm by the bulk of the rocks. He slipped his hand inside his cloak to touch his lightsaber, reassuring himself it was all right. That Theriyah had managed to steal it from him so easily shook him to the core. His whole life was his lightsaber. Without it, he felt powerless and incomplete.
He sighed and did one of Master Kee's breathing exercises to calm himself down. Patience had never come easily to him and at times his very impatience prevented him from touching the Force. He reached for the familiar comforting silence and it reached out to touch him, and he relaxed. Somehow, when he touched the Force and it touched him back, it was always almost like a mindvoice saying, "Everything's all right, you're fine, no need to get all flustered." It always calmed him down, absorbed the nervous energy into itself, washing over him with blessed silence to quieten the clamor in his mind.
[Thanks. You were starting to make me tense up, and I was starting to get a headache from it.]
Ben whipped around to stare at the girl. She looked up at him calmly and grinned slightly.
[Sorry, did I startle you?]
Ben shrugged. Her mindvoice also had the feel of carefully controlled power, like lightning held in firmly behind the thoughts she projected. "I'm not a very strong mindspeaker. I can usually only mindspeak at any distance with my Master. Other people, I have to be actually touching them or at least in the same room."
Theriyah nodded. "I'll talk then. Unless you'd rather I Sent?"
"Whatever you'd like," he said graciously, one corner of his mouth quirking upwards. Her speaking voice was husky with a curious accent he didn't know. "Master Kee didn't know there were any other Jedi south of Mos Idris. We never felt you out here."
Theriyah shrugged one shoulder. "We're not Jedi. We're Mystics. My master says we can't be heard or seen by either you Corrupted or the Demons. But obviously that's been shot all to the Core and back, since the Demon Maul found us."
"It probably wasn't Maul. Probably his master, Darth Sidious. Maul is only a fighter, but he's the best fighter the Sith have. Sidious probably felt your master from half a parsec away." Ben looked around at the swirling wind around them. The storm was nearly died away now. He tugged his hood off and flipped his braid to his back. "What do they want with your Master, anyhow?"
Theriyah's face fell, her eyes going distant for a moment. Then she looked up at him. "The Demons always want us to fight for them. Since we're so good at the mindpowers and all our other tricks, the Demons want us so they can make us go after you Corrupted. That's what they've always wanted. When they see talent, all they see is the chance to use it as a weapon. But that's the Demons for you, that's what they do, destroying. You Corrupted are better, but you still can't get past the Light. But the Demon Maul has been after my Master since before I became his student. They've always chased us, the Demons." She unfolded her legs and got to her feet and climbed another side of the rocks to peer out to the north. "We heard him coming though. We can always hear the Demons and you Corrupted coming, even if you shield. It's because we use the Force differently than you do."
"Why do you call us Corrupted?" Ben asked as he boosted himself up beside her on the rock.
"Because you believe in the Light and the Dark. But to us, the Force has no Light and Dark. Light and Dark are concepts created by people, concepts are created things, created things are what happened when the Force squished through time and turned into things. It's not the real Force. Everything in the universe is sort of like a solid hologram of what the Force really is. To us Mystics, you're all missing the point."
Ben shook his head. "How can you not believe in the Light?"
Theriyah gave him a very hard look. "How can you not see that the Force is beyond Light and Dark?"
Ben didn't know how to answer that, but was saved from embarrasment by his Master's mindcall.
[Ben! Come on back down.]
Theriyah had obviously gotten a similar message from her Master, because she was scrambling down the rocks even before Ben did.
He met his Master in the central cave where Theriyah had tackled him before, nodded to Jinn as he approached. The girl disappeared into the tunnel leading to the living chamber Jinn had just left.
Jinn looked after her a moment, then turned and gestured to Ben to follow him outside.
"So what's going on here, Master?" Ben asked quietly as they walked from the cave entrance.
Jinn led him along the rock wall to a wind-formed hollow close by and sat down on a low boulder. Ben sat down beside him.
"First, we're taking Theriyah back with us. Maul will more than likely be back, and Therasslen wants the girl out of danger. Understandable. Therasslen is older than he looks and his health is starting to go. And the Mystics don't fight, usually don't even defend themselves. They usually try to avoid fighting. But they're the galaxy's best at sneaking around. That invisibility trick of theirs could be a useful trick to learn, and they have a lot of tricks like that." Jinn looked at him significantly, measuringly.
"You want me to learn that trick from her, then?" Ben asked. "Why?" Then he stopped himself and realized -- "Oh. So I don't have to fight."
Jinn nodded, his long graying brown hair blowing in the tattered breeze that was all that remained of the sandstorm, his handsome bearded face solemn. "Exactly. Avoiding combat is not running away from a fight, no matter what you may think. Sometimes avoiding a fight is neccessary. Sometimes you might have to go about things quietly and don't want to draw attention to yourself. Yes, sometimes you may have to sneak around."
Ben nodded his understanding but scuffled one foot in the fine sand beneath their feet, looking down at the patterns he was making and not meeting his Master's eyes. "I was thinking that maybe we'd get to fight Maul," he said in a low tentative voice.
Jinn laughed softly. "You were only just confirmed three months ago, Ben. He'd take you apart piece by piece."
Ben scowled. "I beat Master Windu in my last fight. And I know he's fought Maul lots of times. Why can't I fight Maul now?"
Jinn's arm went around his apprentice's shoulders in a gentle hug. Ben looked up to see his Master's sapphire blue eyes dancing with mischief, the smile widening into a grin. "Because I've spent too much time trying to get it through that thick skull of yours that he's far and away out of your league yet. Get Windu to tell you those stories of his when he's stone-cold sober and you'll hear a different tune. You're fast, you're better with your saber than I was at your age, but you're just not ready for Maul yet."
Ben refused to be mollified. "When will I be, then?" he said crossly.
Jinn quirked one eyebrow upwards briefly, still grinning. [Hmph. Bloodthirsty, aren't you? Maybe it's a good thing the girl's coming home with us. Give you something else to think on besides getting yourself killed on Maul's double lightsaber.]
[Why's that?] Ben asked, unable to keep the petulant snap out of his mindvoice.
Jinn's smile faded and he got to his feet to pace. Ben watched him, fiddling absently with the clutch-bead on the end of his tailbraid.
"The girl is from Thretketh, Ben. You remember what Windu and I told you about Thretketh?"
Ben thought for a moment, sifting back through years of stories he'd heard from his teacher's yearmate and former partner. Then the association came and Ben nearly fell off the boulder in astonishment. "They're all --" he started, then stopped before the words burst out.
Jinn nodded solemnly and sadly. "Sex addicts, we would call them. That's the kind way to put it, anyway. But the whole planet didn't just wake up one morning and collectively decide to be that way. There are some very very good reasons why they're like that, Ben." Jinn sat down again next to his apprentice and wrapped his cloak around him. Best to just tell it straight. "Up until about two generations ago, most of the people of Thretketh were slaves. There were about a dozen Master clans who controlled all the wealth of the planet and owned the rest of the population as slaves. Each Master clan would own several Slave clans. The Slave clans would work at whatever they did, mining, fishing, manufacturing, whatever. The Master clans would take all the goods and money for themselves. Well, the Master clans were also all a bunch of heartless, soulless bastards. They'd go through the Slave clans killing the children for fun, torturing people on a whim, trading the able-bodieds between clans, breaking up families just to watch the suffering. They'd poison wells and water supplies, then double production quotas, and when everyone got sick and couldn't meet the quotas they'd start killing ten people an hour until the quotas were met. They'd taint the food with viruses that caused birth defects. They'd rape the women, get them pregnant, let the woman carry the child almost full term, then gut her in front of her clan and laugh while she and the child died." Jinn shook his head and scrubbed one hand over his face, trying to banish the memories his own words were evoking. He turned away, paced a moment so Ben couldn't see the anger in his face. Twenty-five years and he still saw those scenes in his nightmares. "Anyway," he said, turning back after a moment. Ben looked stunned, and Jinn mentally kicked himself for telling the boy all this. But it had to be done. "After a few generations of this, the Slave clans learned that all they really had was each other, person to person, moment to moment. They didn't think of the future anymore, because the future had always been worse. They stopped getting attached to each other in any long-term way. They don't get married, Ben. They have no concept of permanent emotional attachment to each other, they have no concept of monogamy. They have no taboos against incest or pedophilia. More than likely, Theriyah's first tumble was with one of her brothers. "
Ben winced and looked down at the sand.
Jinn sighed and walked over to stand in front of him, put his hands on Ben's shoulders. "I'm not telling you all this to tell you not to go to bed with her, Ben. I don't think you'll have much choice in the matter, if it happens. But I do want to warn you. She's been alone out here with Therasslen for six years. She's probably going to have one or both of us, and with her mindpowers I wouldn't be surprised if I woke up one morning in bed with both of you. Therasslen says she's good enough to plant subliminal suggestions in your head right through your shields. And once she realizes she's got two captive adult males around her, she's going to go wild. Thretketh are known to be insatiable at the best of times. She could quite easily kill us both through sexual exhaustion. And while I understand this might be an intriguing idea for you, that's not the way I want to die." Jinn answered Ben's sudden grin with one of his own. "If I can manage it, I'm going to teach her to channel all that energy and hunger into more constructive pathways. "
Ben shrugged a little. "I know of no other teacher who could do so better than you, Master," he said loyally.
Jinn laughed and squeezed the thin shoulders under his hands gratefully. "If I can get you to think about something other than your lightsaber for more than five minutes, I'll consider myself a true master." He sat down again next to Ben and continued in a lower voice. "What would you think if I let her jump me first?"
That stopped Ben cold. He turned to give his Master a very startled look.
"Think about it for a little, now, don't answer straight off the top of your head," Jinn advised.
Ben looked off out into the desert, the sand blowing in the gusty breeze. He considered the question. How would he feel? Well, what if it was some girl he already knew and liked, Khali or Serala back at the Temple, someone he liked a lot and she fell for his Master instead. (Nevermind that his Master hadn't had a lady friend for almost twelve years, this was in theory, he told himself.) He thought of Serala with his Master, pictured it in his mind. As the thought and image sank in, he felt himself getting angry and jealous, and the longer he thought on it the worse he felt. Guilty. Angry. Jealous. Frustrated.
[Well. I think that answers the question of what you'd feel if it was little Serala, but what about if it was Theri?]
The bright amusement in Jinn's mindvoice was like a bucket of cold water thrown over Ben's head. "I don't know. I don't know her yet, or know if I like her yet," Ben answered automatically.
Jinn nodded, wrapping his cloak around him as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Fair enough. What if you were sleeping with her already, and one night you wake up in the middle of the night and she's gone, but you hear us going at it in my room? This isn't theoretical, this could very well happen. With her mindpowers and the Mystic tricks Therasslen told me of, she could make you and I both think we'd been madly in love with her from the moment we met."
Ben squirmed. "I don't know," he nearly whispered. "The situation's not come up yet. So is there any point in speculating about it?"
Jinn put an arm around his shoulders and hugged him again reassuringly, wordlessly.
[You're my son in every way but blood, Ben. You're a good fighter, one day you'll be one of the greatest fighters we've ever had. One day you'll get your shot at Maul, and I think you'll be his match. I hope the next time Theri tackles you and steals your lightsaber, it's in the process of ripping off your clothes. And I hope you do the same to her. Wouldn't do for us to be these hotshot great swordswingers if we can't tumble a woman and keep her occupied all night, now would it? Tarnish our great reputation? I think not!]
Ben burst out laughing hysterically. His Master laughed with him, tugging Ben's cloak hood over his head playfully. Ben reached over and did the same to his Master, laughing. "Maybe--" he gasped, trying to breathe, "-- we should flip a coin for her--"
That really set his Master off, both of them leaning against each other helplessly as they laughed. When they started to calm down a little, Ben straightened up and looked up at him with a grin.
[If I can remember to think and remember what you've been to me these last twelve years, Master, I wouldn't care if she did throw me over for you. I've got Khali and Serala at the Temple. But you've been alone almost as long as I've been with you. I--] Ben looked down and continued after a moment. [I want you to be happy. And I know you're not. Not really.]
Jinn looked at him steadily for a long moment. Ben saw him swallow convulsively and look down. Ben guessed what was probably going through his Master's mind. He couldn't stand it. He reached out and simply hugged his Master wordlessly, wondering if he'd Sent the wrong thing. Jinn's answering hug was fierce. "Who was it said wisdom comes from children?" Jinn said, his voice rough as he let Ben go.
Ben grinned mischievously. "Probably Master Yoda. He probably planted it in the teachings when he was a kid so he could make himself look good when he got old and could quote it verbatim."
"Impudent wretch!" Jinn growled at him in mock-anger. "Go, run and see if you can get the speeder started." Ben danced out of range laughing as Jinn tried to kick him playfully as he got to his feet. "When we get back to the Temple I'm going straight to Yoda with that little remark!"
Master Kee watched his apprentice go with a smile. That boy was a godsend, truly his own son in every way that counted. Many times it had been said in the teachings that the bonds between apprentice and master were stronger than that between parent and child. Jinn believed every word of this when he thought of Ben Kenobi.
Ben pulled the beat-up little landspeeder up in front of the cave entrance, grimacing at the new rattle he heard in the overworked engine. It needed a complete overhaul and had needed such for over a month now. Well, it would have to wait until the next time they went to Mos Idris when he could get the parts he needed. He climbed out of the speeder, shrugged out of his cloak and threw it in the back seat. Now that the sandstorm had blown out, the glaring double suns made it too hot to wear his cloak. He flipped his tailbraid to his back and touched his lightsaber where it bounced against his leg as he ducked inside the cave entrance.
His Master stood in the ring of bright sunlight, looking toward the tunnel leading to the inner living chamber. They could both hear distorted mindvoice echoes of an argument going on in the inner chamber, Theri's mindvoice strident and Therasslen's calm.
[Damn it, old man, I'm not leaving you! Never times never! I can take care of the Demon Maul myself, without any help from these Corrupted!]
Ben rolled his eyes. One corner of Master Kee's mouth quirked upwards briefly. "And you were saying I couldn't handle him? She thinks she can and she doesn't even have a lightsaber."
Master Kee punched his arm playfully. "You'll get your chance one day. Mind what I told you."
Theri came storming out of the living cavern entrance, much changed in the few brief minutes since they'd seen her last. She'd bathed and washed her hair and braided it, the braid reaching down to her waist. She was dressed in black spacer's uniform pants, black jump boots, and a black tank top. She looked civilized now, and Ben tried his best not to stare at her. Or at least, not at certain parts of her now very well defined by the thin cotton of her tank top. She walked right up to Master Kee and looked him right in the eyes. "Did you put this mad idea into his head, Jedi?"
"No. He asked me to take over your training, or to find you someone who would train you at our Temple," Jinn said calmly, peering down into flashing angry green eyes.
"I'm not leaving. I will never leave my Master. So you and your apprentice can forget about that. You've made this trip for nothing."
Master Kee merely raised an eyebrow at her quizically. Ben could tell his Master was having a very hard time trying not to laugh. As the girl turned away toward her own Master, Jinn did grin faintly at her. The grin turned rueful as the girl's form wavered and vanished before their very eyes.
Therasslen, coming slowly out into the main cavern, shook his head disapprovingly. "Theriyah. You must go. It is the only way. I will not have you hunted by the Demon Maul as I have been. You are the last of our people. You must survive so that the teachings survive."
[What teachings? I have not taken my questing. I couldn't teach a bantha to walk in a straight line if I dangled a carrot in front of its nose. What good will I be if I don't finish my training?] came the Sending out of nowhere, the sizzle of anger threading through the powerful mindvoice.
"Master Yoda will help you. There may still be Mystic teachings in the archives of the Great Temple. You must go there to find them," Therasslen said reasonably. "I am too old to do so myself now."
[Hmph. 'Great Temple'. How great could it be if they exiled us from it? Great lot of hypocritical bastards, if you ask me. We don't need them. We can take care of ourselves.]
Therasslen looked up at the ledge where Theri had sat earlier that day. "Theriyah. We have taken care of ourselves to such great success that you and I are the only two left of our kind. We have been wrong. Our isolation must end. You must take the teachings back to the Jedi."
[I said I'm not leaving you! If we're the only two left, then we have to stick together!]
Therasslen straightened up to his full height and his face lost all expression. [Theriyah bel Kaitryn, come here.]
A long tense moment passed before Ben heard the scrape of fabric on stone. Theri jumped down from her ledge and walked silently to stand before her Master.
The old man's mindvoice crackled through the air so strongly Ben expected to see lightning strike. [You will go with these Jedi. If they allow it, you will learn to fight. You will take our teachings back to the Jedi. You will go so that the teachings may live. You will not remain here in danger, defending an old man who's best days are long past. I have taught you all you know. But I have not taught you everything I know.]
Theri dropped bonelessly to the floor, suddenly and completely unconscious.
Master Kee grunted appreciatively. "I couldn't get you to teach me that particular trick before we leave, could I?" he asked in a comical undertone. Therasslen chuckled.
"She will remain so for several hours, certainly long enough so that you may get far enough away so that she cannot find her way back," the old man said as Jinn knelt to scoop the girl up from the floor. "If you would, youngster, her bag is on the meditation bench in the cavern."
Ben nodded and ducked within the cavern, returning a moment later with the backpack.
Therasslen put a hand on Theri's cheek for a long moment as Jinn held her, silently saying his goodbyes. Jinn felt the old man Sending. "I had to use the same trick on her when I chose her as my apprentice," the old Mystic said ruefully. "I had to kidnap her. Strangely enough, I found her as a result of the Demon Maul chasing me to her homeworld. She comes from Pthora, the northern coast just to the east of the Bay of Selanis. Clan Kaitryn has their clanhold there." Therasslen moved away stiffly. "Best to go now. And thank you, Jedi. With your help, perhaps the way of the Mystics will not die with me after all."
Jinn nodded silently and turned to go. The last time they saw the old man, he was perched atop the rocks outside his cave, sitting in the lotus position, looking out over the desert toward the darkening western horizon and the stars just becoming visible as the terminator rushed eastwards.
The distant shifting drone of clashing lightsabers woke Theri the following morning. She jerked awake and sat bolt upright, nearly falling off the meditation bench where she lay. Something black covered her against the dawn's chill as all the doors and windows of the small house were open to the morning air. She realized it was the Jedi Master's cloak.
The sound of lightsabers made her heart race, brought back searing memories. The Demon Maul, lunging out of the rocks directly at her, reaching out with the Force, feeling the Demon's shields deflecting part of her strike, unable to get a good hold on his spine with her powers. The trick had not worked. She hadn't been able to get a good enough hold to rip his spine out. What was she going to do? It was her best weapon!
Then the memories fled before present reality. She wasn't in her master's cave. She didn't recognize this place.
She leaped up, throwing aside the black Jedi cloak, scooped her boots off the floor and jammed them on in two fluid moves, tugging the fastenings closed much too hard, and was up and moving toward the front door in a flash. She didn't bother to shield, just ran out, not caring if the damned Corrupted saw her or not.
Unfamiliar rocks surrounded the house, rising up around her, keeping the little adobe brick house in cool shadow well into the afternoon. A hundred feet away atop a huge flat boulder, Ben and Master Kee were practicing with their lightsabers, bright blue and green blades spinning and flashing in deadly arcs. A small blue and white astromech droid sat silently to one side of the door of the little house. Theri didn't even notice it as she raced outside and stopped at the sight of the unfamiliar landscape, but the little droid began whistling and beeping loudly as she came through the doorway. She whirled, reaching automatically for the Force, centering herself almost without thought, reaching out with the claws of her power--
"Hold, Kaitryn! He's my droid! He won't hurt you!"
She whirled again, and her reflexes got the better of her this time. With one lifted hand she knocked Master Kee several yards away as he came running toward her to protect the little droid. Theri turned again, bringing up her own shields and vanishing as Ben came leaping down off the rocks straight at her with his lightsaber. She panicked and began running toward the sunlit break in the rocks to her left, scrambling up the wall as fast as she could, trying to find places for her hands and feet in these unfamiliar rocks. Unheeded in her panicked scramble, small pebbles and sand fell from underneath her hands, giving away her position. She didn't care, it didn't matter, she had to get away! She had to get back to her Master!
"She'll hurt herself, Ben, she might fall!" Master Kee said breathlessly as Ben helped him to his feet. He'd had the wind knocked out of him but nothing worse. "Quick, Lift her down! Can you see her now?"
Ben looked up at the rock wall, seeing the pebbles and falling sand, following it up...and the strange transparent shimmer halfway up. He reached for the Force and it came at his call, like hands taking his and guiding him...he felt the solidness of the body within the shimmer, and Lifted it easily, grunting at the weight. He lowered her as gently as he could to the floor of the little valley and held her there as he helped his Master over toward her.
Kee felt the Force give a convulsive shudder as they approached her, like the valley floor had suddenly shifted in an earthquake. Both he and Ben lurched and nearly fell at the strength of the shift, stumbling against nearby rocks and each other.
"Damnit, girl, we're not going to hurt you!" Kee roared angrily.
The Force immediately calmed, but both Jedi felt the roiling disturbance just beneath the surface of the power, like something beneath the surface of a pond thrashing. If this kept up much longer they'd both start getting sick from the disturbance. As if to underscore the point, one of the nearby boulders suddenly shifted and a large chunk of it broke off and fell to the sand. A small rock whizzed past Ben's head, curved in mid-air and headed straight for Kee's head. Ben yelped and shifted his own Lifting power to deflect the little missile, but the moment he shifted attention the Force vanished in his mind. Fortunately, Kee had also seen the rock coming and ducked out of the way. Ben reached for the Force again, but it didn't respond, didn't reach back to him as it always had. Something cold and steely began closing around his mind, sinking like icy water into his soul. The Force. He'd lost touch with it, he couldn't feel it!
Kee threw himself down beside the girl, took hold of her and shook her hard. "Let him go! Now!"
[You take me back to my Master!]
Ben stumbled and fell to his knees, his mind reeling, groping in the darkness for the calmness that had always been there for him, feeling like he was falling forever with nothing to catch hold of.
[He gave you to us! You're mine now!] Kee sent on a wave of anger straight into her mind.
That did it. Instinct took over. Ben reeled away as the Force came roaring back into his mind. And Theri reacted in typical Thretkethan fashion. She threw herself onto Master Kee in uncontrollable rage, fighting for all she was worth but far too enraged to focus enough to use her mindpowers. Kee merely caught her hands and pinned her against him while she struggled and screamed at him.
[I think that was the wrong choice of words,] Kee sent meekly to his apprentice.
Ben snorted a laugh and Sent agreement. [At least now you know how to stop her. Just say you own her.]
Over Theri's head, Kee gave him an exasperated look. [You go on back to the house. I'd better get her calmed down.]
Ben nodded and started back to the little house he shared with his Master.
Theri was still struggling in his arms even though he held her wrists. He sighed and just held on. Flesh had it's limits, even if her anger didn't. Best to let her burn it all out now. Inwardly he was surprised at the sheer physical strength of her. She'd have no problems keeping up with Ben after a few weeks of training. Assuming he got permission from the Council to train her. They'd have to go to the Temple first for that.
Finally she couldn't struggle against him any more and slumped in his hands. He shifted a little and she didn't react, so he pulled her into his arms and held her. She did try to struggle a little for a moment, then simply dropped exhausted against him. He let out a long sigh and just held her. It was like trying to tame a wild animal, but she was no animal.
[Don't belong to you. Thretketh don't belong to anyone,] came her mindvoice into his mind, stubborn but exhausted. She could barely Send.
[I know that, silly. I didn't mean it that way.] Kee grinned lopsidedly and pulled away for a moment to look down into her eyes. She was scowling at him, tendrils of her hair springing around her face where her struggles had loosened it from her braid. He smoothed the hair back from her face with one hand, the other still holding her firmly against him. [I've been to your homeworld. Believe me, I know your folk belong to no one and nothing, except maybe each other, and even that not for long.]
Her eyes went distant for a moment and he had the impression she was thinking of home. She shrugged meditatively. [Maybe we do and maybe we don't. Belong to each other, that is. I've not been home for six years. And I wasn't really a part of my clan anyway. Too weird. Spent too much time sitting up on the cliffs over the ocean staring at the water.]
Kee laughed softly and pulled her back into his arms, tucking her head under his cheek and rocking her a little for comfort. [Can you believe now we won't hurt you? You really do need to stay here with us. Maul won't give up. He'll be after you until he either has you under his control or dead. ]
She stiffened in his arms at that. [That's why you have to take me back to my Master! The Demon will kill him! We have to go back!]
[No! We're not going back! Your Master gave you direct orders on that, or have you forgotten?] Kee tightened his arms around her. He could feel her fear of what could be happening to her Master at that very moment. [I told you, Maul doesn't give up. We know him all too well. If anything, he's probably after you far more than he is your Master. You're still young enough he could take your mind over, turn you to the Dark side. And your Master is old enough that he'd have only a few years of useful life left to Maul and Sidious and probably couldn't be turned to the Dark. ] He felt her trying to protest. [I know, I know, you Mystics aren't part of the Light or the Dark. But the two of you could be used as hostages against each other's good behavior. If Maul and Sidious had you and your Master, they could make your Master do whatever they wanted by threatening to kill or hurt you. And vice versa. They don't really care if you believe in the Dark, only in getting you to do what they want.]
[And how are you any better?] she snapped.
Kee chuckled. [We ask first and if you say no, it means no. And besides, Ben and I have lightsabers, we're trained fighters, we have an entire Temple filled with fully trained fighters and Jedi Masters at our call, and all the resources of the Jedi to protect you. Maul and Sidious wouldn't even try it. And Theri--] he stopped, looked down at the girl for a long moment...and opened his mind to her.
He felt her hesitating, afraid. One of the first rules any telepath learned was to shield their innermost minds away from other telepaths. The intentional opening of those innermost shields was by far the most intimate sharing possible between two sentient beings. Yet he did so now, without hesitation. He'd done so with Ben just three months ago, right after Ben's confirmation as a Jedi. He didn't know why he was doing this now with this child. Yet he opened his mind to her and reached out to touch the Force. The moment he touched the Force, he knew why he was doing it, the tide of the Force that had brought the two of them to this little valley of stone and sand at this very moment. Despite the terrible fear that ripped through him, he kept his mind open to her.
Still she held back fearfully, nervously. Then he felt her steel herself mentally. [Trust asks for trust,] she Sent worriedly. [But if you are going to trust me enough to do this, then how can I say no?] And he felt her inner shields start to dissolve. [I hope you know what you're doing, Jedi.]
Their minds truly touched now, not just the sharing of words. Time stopped.
He felt the swing of the tide in her mind, the scents of the ocean, waves crashing on sand in white starlight, the steady wind. The iron certainty that she was different, the unhappiness, the sense of wrongness and discontentment. The joy of finding one other person in the universe who seemed to understand what was wrong with her. "The only answer is to look within yourself. Where else can true answers be found?" A long timeless time of running from planet to planet, never feeling safe, always a step ahead of the Demons. A time of terror and learning both, of learning to live with terror and terrified to learn as well. Then Tatooine and the desert. Sanctuary and peace. And the true training, the deep knowledge, that required every ounce of the steel she had so far managed to acquire in her soul. More fear, this time inescapable, because it came from her own mind. Learning to let go into the Force, not just to touch it and direct it in the tricks that had kept her and her Master alive. Learning that what was needed to truly be at one with the Force was to give up her ego, herself. That she would have to lose her mind. Something that scared her far more deeply and lastingly than the prospect of dying at Maul's hands. The very thought of it now made her shudder in his arms. How could she ever do that? Willingly give up her mind, her soul?
Kee held her tight, feeling her fear and angered at the way she followed, the teachings she now must take back to the Jedi. The old man asked too much of her! He felt her touch on his soul and welcomed her in. She touched the years of training, his friendship with Windu. They'd been yearmates and had been confirmed together on the same day. The time on Thretketh. He felt her yearning toward the images, sifting through his memories. But no, he'd been in Delia, the main continent of Thretketh, not in Pthora where her family lived. The high mountains far in the north where one of the last Master clans had fled when their Slave clans revolted against them with the help of the Jedi. Kee and Windu had been part of the Jedi team that had pursued the fleeing Master clan into the mountains, following a trail of bodies and torture far into the rugged wastes. The young, driven Qui-Gon Jinn who joked and drank and chased girls went into those mountains. A much older Qui-Gon Jinn limped out three months later with the heads of the five Master clan leaders in a bag on his back, his partner and friend Windu beside him with a bag full of the heads of the Master clan's children. The Dark had ridden beside him from the first mutilated bodies he'd found in the village at the edge of the mountains. He'd felt it in every sword cut he made, every head that fell to his howling green blade, every bolt of blaster fire he deflected from flash-frying his chest. Master Yoda had seen it when he'd returned to the Temple. The only solace he'd found had been Yoda's understanding silent presence.
But life had gone on, the memories had faded if not the dread of what he could so easily become. The years of fighting alongside his friends, the good times together, the times he'd lost some of those friends to the Sith and bad luck. Rigalu had fallen in a fight with Darth Ylaren. Mundi had had an arm cut off in a brawl with a troop of Trade Federation guards in a bar on Coruscant and had worn a mechanical arm ever since. A brief time of love and companionship with Sachella, the hope that one day they could marry and start a family together...before she had died while rescuing a group of children from a slavers' breeding colony. He'd lost touch with his purpose then, come home to Tatooine, hid out in the desert for several years dealing with his losses. Then going home to Coruscant, older, wiser, his hair going gray...The news that another friend, Doran, Prince of Naboo, had unexpectedly found himself Prince Regent of his planet when his brother Nealan had died in an assassination attempt, leaving his twelve year old daughter Amidala as Queen and his Jedi Knight brother as reluctant Regent. Doran had insisted on Kee Jinn as his liaison to the Jedi Council, and the Council had reluctantly agreed. Doran also would have no one else to safeguard his niece's safety during those times she travelled to Coruscant to speak to the Senate.
His first sight of Obi-Wan Kenobi as a nine year old boy, trailing behind Master Yoda chattering away in excitement, not allowing the old one to get a word in edgewise. Watching the boy grow up from child to teenager in flying visits to Master Yoda. "Take him now, so he may learn. I cannot teach him patience. I cannot teach him control. I cannot teach him compassion." Hearing the defeat in his old master's voice had stunned Kee. He'd taken the sixteen year old Ben Kenobi as his apprentice, determined to make the boy bow underneath the necessities of insight and forethought. And unexpectedly finding the center he'd been looking for so many years. He had never even considered being a teacher before then. Ben had calmed down in the active life Kee set for him, had absorbed his new master's instruction like a dry sponge in water. The triumph of three months ago when Ben had breezed through his three confirmation fights with flawless victories, his last over Kee's old partner Windu, who had laughingly conceded his defeat when Ben had neatly disarmed him and stood with one foot on his chest as the boy had threatened to do for the last year of his training. The love he felt for Ben, the pride, the joy, the understanding.
It was almost enough. It had been enough that he'd been able to forget how alone he truly was. When every moment was taken up in teaching he could forget about himself. Even when Ben first started sneaking out of their rooms at the Temple to spend nights with his girlfriends, Kee hadn't felt alone, only an amused annoyance at Ben when he showed up for saber practice out on his feet from a night obviously not spent in sleeping. But now, with Ben almost ready to go out on his own, he'd started thinking about it. And noticing how empty his own life had been outside of teaching.
Theri squirmed gently in his arms, not fighting now but settling more comfortably against him. He smiled against her hair. With their souls touching as they were, he felt the first stirrings of sexual hunger just as she did. But he didn't pull away nor close his mind to her.
He felt her confusion too and chuckled softly in her hair. [Don't tell me you've forgotten how,] he joked, grinning.
Her sudden flash of amusement was genuine. He sensed she would not fight him now, would not try to run away to find her Master, though she still wanted to.
[Stay with us here. Let that time go now. You're safe here with us,] he Sent pleadingly. [Maul can't get you here, nor any other Sith. We'll go home to the Temple and you can look for those teachings Therasslen wanted you to find. You can talk to Yoda. Stay here with me, because I need you.]
At that he felt her fear returning, the old near-instinctual Thretkethan fear. [I--I don't know how to do what you want of me,] she Sent in a timid voice. [I can't --I can't trust that you'll always be there.] He felt thoughts behind her words but couldn't make them out, just a terrible hunger for what he offered but she couldn't trust fate to accept.
[Then I'll prove it to you,] he sent. [Go to Ben first. When you can trust me, I'll be here waiting for you.]
After a moment this sank in and she struggled to get away. [No. I don't want this. I don't want to be caught or held by anyone. I can't! Not ever!]
He held her again and cursed as he felt her close her mind to him, shutting him out again from all but the surface thoughts of her mind.
"You're not my slave!" she said against his chest, her voice rising to near-panic. "I don't want you to be, I don't need you to be. I'm not yours either!"
Kee sighed. "Of course not. But one day you'll realize it isn't slavery to love someone." He cuddled her for one last long moment, then let her go.
She sat stunned in his arms for one moment more, then slowly got to her feet and turned to go, vanishing from sight as she did so, so tightly shielded he could hear nothing even of her footsteps in the sand.
It was a much subdued Theri bel Kaitryn who returned to the the house a few hours later, calmed and centered and seamlessly shielded. She'd climbed up into the rocks and found a place to meditate where she could finally truly relax and concentrate. Once she was certain Kee wasn't following her, she'd settled down and dropped immediately into the silence of the Force. She'd come to several conclusions and decisions in those hours of silence.
First, she was here to stay. She didn't know how to get back to her Master's cave from here, she didn't even know which direction to go. So she was stuck here.
Second, if she was stuck here, she may as well learn to get along here. She would stop the anger and fighting. There was no point in it and it only made things worse. As her Master had said innumerable times to her, violence solved nothing and created nothing. Use the energy constructively to find solutions, not make more problems. So she would. She would learn whatever was here to be learned. One of the things that had always impressed her old Master was her willingness and eagerness to learn new things. So she would. She herself had never seen why the Mystics should not learn to fight to defend themselves, at least. Just because you knew how to fight didn't mean you had to.
Third, she would study her own Way on her own. Despite her differences of opinion with her Master on several points, she was devoted beyond question to her Way. It scared her sometimes, it infuriated her sometimes, but she knew with a conviction beyond her years that it was right. She was too honest within herself to allow anything to be hidden, and the Way she followed allowed no self-deceptions.
Fourth, that she wanted Qui-Gon Jinn, but she couldn't trust him any further than she could throw him in that area of things. But this was something she was going to work on. She was certain a lot of that attitude was due to what was called the 'clan-memory', a sort of genetically coded racial memory handed down through the generations of her people. Generally normal Thretkethans could only truly remember about two generations back. Those who were lucky (or cursed, depending on the point of view) could remember things from further back than that. Most of Thretketh's former Slave clans could still remember the days before the revolts. It would take another couple of generations before the memories had faded enough to allow such things as promising their souls to another person. Yet she could not deny that the soul she'd touched was part of her now.
Fifth....she couldn't get the sense-memory of the feel of his body against hers out of her head. She recognized the symptoms all too well, though she'd not felt them for six years. The famous Thretkethan lust. And the only other man around was Ben. So Ben it would be.
She unshielded as she came down from the rocks and approached the house. The little astromech droid R2-D2 whistled at her as she came to the white plascrete of the porch, turned to follow her inside. She peered at it warily. Thretketh had few droids and the few she'd encountered in her flight with her Master had been assassin droids. She wasn't used to machines that could follow her around.
The food smells drifting on the late-afternoon breeze reminded her she hadn't eaten for almost two days. She was constantly forgetting to eat. The further she went into her Way, the more often she forgot. But now her stomach was declaring war on her spine, and she turned to see Kee in the kitchen stirring some sort of stew. He turned at the sound of her boots in the main room, smiled quickly at her with shining eyes.
"Do you mind vegetarian stuff?" he asked as he reached up into a cupboard for bowls.
"No. I went vegetarian completely when I was little. Drove my Ama and Apa crazy. My Apa is a fisherman, my Ama runs the family alga farm. So they thought I was just being difficult when I stopped eating meat of any kind, including fish." She hiked herself up onto one of the chairs at the island separating the kitchen area from the main room.
"Ben! Dinner!" he called toward one of the rooms opening onto the main room. A muffled assent came from the closed door and a moment later Ben came out and slid onto the chair next to Theri, grinning at her in greeting. "Now that you're here with us, we need to be more civilized. Can't just eat whenever we feel like it now, we have a lady to impress, right Ben?"
Ben rolled his eyes and reached for the bread as Kee gave him a bowl of the vegetable stew. "Are ladies impressed by that kind of thing?"
"I don't think Theri will be, but you never know." Kee handed Theri her bowl of stew and winked at her.
"Nope. Not a chance." Theri grinned. "Can you wrap your ankles behind your head? Now I am impressed by men who can do that. And men who don't fall asleep after I've had my evil ways with them."
Kee laughed outright and Ben grinned mischievously.
"We need to go to Mos Idris," Kee said, looking out the nearby open doorway as they ate. "Have you figured out what parts we need for the speeder, Ben?"
Ben nodded, mouth full of stew. [Yeah. Made a list. It'll take me a couple days to get everything done on it once we're home, but nothing all that difficult.]
Kee nodded and gave Theri a slight smile. "And Theri needs some clothes. I looked. You can't really expect to go running about Tatooine in black all the time, can you? You'll get sunstroke all the time." Theri looked as if she wanted to protest but he waved that away. "You might be able to wear some of Ben's old outgrown stuff, but most of that stuff is already worn full of holes. And a lot of it is still going to be too big for you. So we go into Mos Idris tomorrow and get you some clothes. No, I won't make you wear dresses. You can wear whatever you want, just make it light-colored so the suns won't kill you."
Theri looked down at her food and kept eating mechanically. Kee must have gone through her backpack. Well, it was true she had only two complete changes of clothes, both identical, both all black. And her old dress from home. But she was in the civilized world again, she couldn't go traipsing about in rags and bare feet. But her old black stuff had saved her skin more than once on the run from Maul and Sidious, when she'd had to hide in shadowy places.
[How long has it been since you had anything new and nice to wear?] Kee's mindvoice said softly in her mind.
She thought for a moment. [Ten years, maybe. Well, new stuff, five years, nice stuff, ten. I got my black outfits on Korolis when Master and I were there. Had to steal them, but they were new then.]
Kee Sent forgiveness and understanding and a mental caress that unknotted something inside her when she'd mentioned stealing. It had rankled that she'd had to use her mindpowers to steal those clothes, to deceive the shopkeeper that she'd given him the money when she hadn't.
[You should have had them charge it to Darth Maul's account,] Kee Sent mischievously. She looked up from her food to see his eyes dancing at her in amusement.
"So, since you looked, what else is in my bag? I ran out this morning half-asleep," Theri said as she got up to get herself another bowlful of stew.
"A textreader and about two hundred cards for it. And that metal disk with the spiral carved on it."
Theri sat down again and nodded. "That's our symbol. The Mystics, I mean. The spiral. I'm surprised Master put it in there. It came from the place where my Master trained. We had our own Temple once on Cae-Tauvon, but it was destroyed a long time ago. Mystics usually don't build permanent Temples, since we're not really attached to places all that much." She sighed and started eating again.
"What are the textreader cards, then?" Ben asked.
"Teachings. Most of them in languages I don't know." She frowned. "There's one I can read because it's in Standard, but I don't need to anymore. I've had it memorized since the first year I was with my master. So most of that in my bag is dead weight that'll have to be translated. If any of it is still readable by the textreaders."
"We have techs at the Temple who can restore those," Kee said as he sat back in his chair and curled one knee against the table edge, nibbling on a piece of bread.
[Hey! All this 'impressing the ladies' stuff applies to you too!] Ben Sent with a grin. [Don't sit like that!]
Kee laughed and put both feet on the floor again. "I need to be more flexible if I'm going to wrap my ankles around my neck, don't I?"
Theri snorted a laugh. "Yeah. And I haven't had a man yet who didn't fall asleep after I got through with him."
Kee quirked one eyebrow up at her. "We'll see about that one day, young lady. Like I keep telling Ben, age and experience can outperform youth and speed any day."
"Very funny! You weren't saying that when I beat you in my first confirmation fight," Ben challenged.
Kee's grin turned rueful. "That's very true. You took me down so fast my head spun."
"How does all that work? My master never told me," Theri said, getting another piece of bread and sitting back in her chair.
"When you go to be confirmed, you have to fight three fights," Ben explained. "The first is with your master, the second with another master your master picks to fight you, and the third with a master chosen by the Council. You have to be the winner in all three fights. And there's judges who watch all three fights, and usually all your friends come to watch your last fight. If you win all three, you go to the Council right after your third fight and they ask you a bunch of questions and make sure you've built your lightsaber right and make sure you didn't cheat. Then they confirm you."
Kee snorted a laugh. "And then you have a big party that night and get roaring drunk and don't come home til noon the next day looking like death warmed over."
Ben nodded with a sheepish grin.
"When do you know when it's time to do all this?" Theri asked.
Kee shrugged. "Generally it's by consensus of several masters who know the trainee well and have helped in his training. We let the trainees practice with each other and with other masters, so the masters share the work and we all agree when a trainee is ready to be confirmed. Some trainees are naturally better at fighting than others. Some are ready in three years, most take longer. There's no set time limit for it, we look for the level of skill with the saber and ability to use the Force."
Theri's eyes went distant and her thoughts far away for a long moment. "My Master said that our questing was equivalent to your confirmations."
"What do you do on this questing?" Ben asked. He looked over at the counters in the kitchen, focussed on a pitcher of ice water and Lifted it to the table. Kee scowled at him.
Theri shrugged. "I don't know everything about it. But basically you go out alone somewhere, go into trance, and try to lose your mind enough to disappear into the Force. You're not supposed to eat for a week beforehand. Master said they used to have a mountain full of caves they used for questings when they had the Temple. "
Another mental caress from Kee that touched the uneasy knot of fear, wordlessly offering comfort. She looked up into his eyes and then away again uneasily.
"Anyway, I don't know now how I'm ever going to do my questing if I'm not with my Master. How am I supposed to know when it's time?" She shrugged and drained her glass of water, and got up to go put her dishes in the sink.
"What did you mean, lose your mind?" Ben asked, wolfing down the last of his stew.
Theri came back and sat down again beside him. How to explain it? "Well, the whole thing with being a Mystic is that we're trying to get as close as we can to the Force. Beyond all the opposites we have in this world, beyond your Light and Dark. We're trying to get to the Force and sort of lose ourselves in it. Some of the great masters disappeared completely, their bodies just vanished into the Force when they finally made it. The problem is that we're created beings and we have all these instincts that are meant to keep us as separate beings, meant to keep us alive. Survival instincts. But you have to learn to get past all that to get to the Force. And learn to get past time, because when the Force came into time it broke apart into everything in the universe. But we're trying to get to the original Force, the true Force. So we have to get past ourselves and all the instincts that go with having a body."
She got to her feet and went over to her backpack, dug out the textreader and searched through the cards, found the one she wanted and jammed it into the reader. She came back and handed the reader to Ben. "There. That teaching I talked about. The Book of the Force. Not really a book, but Master told me once this is only a part of the whole thing. But unless I find the whole thing in your Temple's archives, that's all there will ever be of it. I warn you, it's the kind of thing that will either confuse the hell out of you or make you have a religious experience."
"Or both?" Kee asked, watching.
Theri nodded. "Yeah. That too. It did for me, anyway. The first time I read through it I couldn't sleep for two nights running." She sat back down and propped her head on her hands and gave the silent droid in the corner a long wary look. "Well, what now?"
Kee smiled slowly and got up to take his bowl to the sink. "I cooked, so you two do the dishes. Then you'll go take care of the hydroponics garden and turn on the well pump to fill up the water tanks. After the tanks are full, we switch the power over to the batteries for the night. Then we all meditate for an hour, plug R2 in for the night, and then you're free to do whatever you like until you decide to go to bed." He didn't turn toward her where he stood looking out the kitchen window at the deepening shadows of twilight, but she felt him Send on a very tight line, [Where would you like to sleep tonight? With Ben or me? We only have two bedrooms.]
She answered the same way, shielding her Sending from Ben, [I thought I'd sleep in here again. On the meditation bench. Got an extra pillow and blanket?]
[Those meditation bench cushions aren't very comfortable for sleeping on.] She felt the faint dismay in his thoughts.
[I slept on the same sort of mats in my master's cave. I've slept in alleys and on top of ductwork in the basements of metroplexes and arcologies. I've slept out in the sand. I can sleep anywhere,] she answered. [It's not that I don't want to sleep with either of you, but I..I'd really just like to be alone until I can't be anymore, you know? I'll be sleeping with one or both of you soon enough. So I'd like to be able to just get a good night's sleep while I can. I won't have any choice in the matter soon.] She couldn't hide the undertones in her mindvoice, not from him. She could feel the need starting already. Sex had always been the great comfort to her people, the one thing they could indulge in to excess when all else was taken away from them. But after six years of living mostly in the dry, controlled world of the Mystics she was not looking forward to the return of the madness of lust.
Theri sat sideways in the back seat of the little speeder the next morning, watching the rock-strewn landscape blur by around her. Kee was driving, Ben beside him in the front seat. The top pane of the canopy was open to let in the wind, the remaining panes of dark polarized vitriglass keeping out the majority of the light of the double suns.
She'd woken up itchy that morning. A bad sign. She crossed her arms over her chest and deliberately made herself look away from Kee's hair and tried to make herself stop thinking of how much she wanted to be nibbling on his neck. She was having similar problems with Ben now too. She was having a very hard time trying not to stare at his backside at every opportunity and thinking intriguing thoughts. She felt like slapping herself each time she caught herself doing it. It was so silly that despite all her training in self-control and all the insight into her own nature she'd gained that she was still subject to the damned lust. No matter how many times she told herself it was culturally ingrained and thus not truly biological, she still couldn't make her body believe it. And there was the added strain of keeping away from Kee anyway, keeping away from the love she had felt so deeply in his mind. It was getting very hard to keep herself from flinging herself into his arms, when she knew that's all they both wanted. What was she going to do? How was she going to get any work done on herself if she was raping one or both of them constantly? Not that that wouldn't be loads of fun for all of them, but damned inconvenient...and she was quite well aware they were not Thretkethan and could not keep up with her in that arena. She could kill them both and still be looking for more...
[I'm glad you realize that,] Kee said softly in her mind.
[Can't I think anything to myself anymore?] she said with an impatient snap in her mindvoice.
[You weren't shielding. And that lovely bright mindvoice of yours is the most beautiful music I've ever heard. Any wonder I was listening?]
The compliment was heartfelt. She nearly burst out crying. She looked out at the desert again, swallowing against the sudden lump in her throat, trying to control herself. It didn't work. She turned and reached up to put a hand on his shoulder, just to be touching him. He ducked his head briefly to brush her hand with his cheek, and she felt him kiss her fingers. [You'll be able to study, don't worry. Your people get a lot done, don't they? Think back. How does your family manage to do everything with your Apa's fishing and your Ama's alga farm? You all didn't spend every waking moment tumbling each other, did you?]
[No. Apa has four boats and he and my brothers and cousins stay out two days at a time. Apa rotates which boats go out, so there's only two boats out every day. In case they need to do repairs or something. Ama and my sisters work the farm in the mornings so they can do the housework. We only play at night.] She considered for a long moment. [So I should do the same?]
She felt his agreement. [You'll be able to control it soon, dearheart. You've just been alone for six years so your body is going crazy now that you're not. Once you calm down from the first frenzy, you'll be fine. ]
[But I could kill you both before I get that far!] she Sent fearfully. [And what if I can't hold my shields? I could fry your brains too!]
[I'll help you. I'll be listening. If it gets too much for you, you Send to me and I'll keep you from hurting him.]
She sighed gustily and played with his hair for a moment, twining the long strands between her fingers. He kissed her fingers again.
[Hey you two, not in the 'speeder! And not while you're driving!] Ben Sent with laughter bubbling in his mindvoice.
Kee laughed and Theri scooted over to put an arm around Ben's neck and bite him on the back of the neck playfully. He yelped and captured her hand and bit her wrist.
[What was that you said about not in the 'speeder?] Kee asked. [And if you're going to have seconds on breakfast, leave some for me.]
Theri laughed and put her free hand over Kee's shoulder, which he promptly kissed then nibbled.
They split up once they got to Mos Idris, Ben going to get the parts for the speeder while Kee and Theri started off toward the market section of the little desert town. Mos Idris was on the western edge of the Jundland Wastes on the dividing line between the rocky lands of the Wastes and the continent-wide expanse of the Dune Sea. Like any frontier town it was dingy and ramshackle for the most part, but it had space port facilities and was the population center for the region. There was a siliplastics factory and a commercial hydroponics garden and a droidtech company. And of course the jumble of small traders selling all kinds of things.
Theri kept hold of Kee's hand as they walked through the narrow streets, feeling the reassuring bump of his lightsaber against her hand where it hung at his belt. Too many times in the last few years city streets were dangerous for her when her face and voice could be recorded by assassin droids or police. Many times Maul had had the local police in his pocket and she'd had to learn to project illusory images to hide her face and voice. But it didn't work against droids. She'd had to constantly be on the alert for droids. She had taught herself to implode powercels with the Force to stop droids. Unfortunately, that trick required undivided attention, and if she shifted attention for even a microsecond to geek a droid her illusion-disguise would shatter. So she had sometimes relied on changing her hair color or wild make-up to hide herself. She still wistfully wished her hair still had that wide chromalusion green streak in it.
[You had green hair? When was that?] Kee asked with some amusement.
[It wasn't all green. Just one stripe three inches wide. Back on Korolis. Went great with the black outfits and the wild make-up job I had then. I used to hide as a Dreamweaver dealer when we were on Korolis. I planted a story that I had a Dreamweaver bio-synthesizer and skin-contact patches in my hands for delivery. I'd plant subliminals and impulsion-loops in their heads when people wanted to buy the drugs from me. Safer than Dreamweaver would have been at any rate. And I got the money.]
Kee looked down at her with a smile. That was the first time she realized how much taller he was. Her head didn't even reach his shoulder. And the gray in the long straight brown hair pulled back into the clutch-beads and in the beard that lined his jaw. But his sapphire eyes were anything but old and neither was the powerful body.
[Uhm, I may be sticking my foot in it here, but how old are you?] she asked timidly.
His grin turned rueful. [By normal human standards, old enough to be your father. By Thretkethan standards, just right for you. I'm forty-six.]
She clutched his hand and leaned into his side in apology, slipping her arm around his waist under his cloak. He put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her back. She could feel his ambivalence about the difference in their ages. [It doesn't matter to me!] she Sent. [Not one bit!]
[I know, dearheart.]
They'd come to the bazaar now and she stopped at the sight of the jumble of tents in the streets and the open doorways of permanent shops, all the people and aliens and ....
Kee's hands on her shoulders steadied her as she stood staring. She hadn't seen this many people for a long time. She resolutely told her guts to stop telling her it was a trap. She was safe now. Kee would sooner walk through plasma fire than allow anyone to hurt her. She was safe. She looked up into Kee's eyes and he nodded.
[Second street on the left,] he Sent. [Hold on, now. Don't want you to get lost.]
She took his hand again and he led her through the press of people milling about the tents in the street. She noticed that people cleared away from him once they got a good look at him. But she didn't feel him using the Force. But a path opened for them like magic.
[What are you doing? You're not using the Force or I'd feel it. So why are people moving away?]
Kee's fleeting amusement was all Sent. The calmness of his face didn't change. [The reputation of the Jedi. Why do you think I wore this stinking hot cloak out here today? No one will bother us.]
They ducked into the alleyway he had indicated and Theri saw it was an enclosed courtyard with a half-dozen shops and a small wind-chime sculpture against one wall. It was much quieter here than in the main street, and the three story high buildings cast long shadows over the majority of the courtyard, making it relatively cool here. He led her to a doorway in a sheltered nook of the courtyard.
The room within was larger than she had expected. Bolts of cloth were arranged in neat rows on shelves from floor to ceiling along every wall. A long countertop ran along the wall to her left and through a doorway in that wall she could see some sort of droid with lots of arms sewing some rich orange fabric. A quiet chime sounded from the door as she and Kee came in.
A young man with long hair and a thick beard came through the door where the droid was working with a quick smile. "Master Jinn! Don't tell me Ben's already worn out that new cloak!"
Kee chuckled. "No, Kham, not yet. But he's working on it! But I have a new apprentice now and she needs some new clothes." He pulled Theri forward to stand in front of him and put his hands on her shoulders. [He's safe, dearheart. His parents used to run this shop back before I started my training. He's known me all his life.]
Kham looked at her with merry brown eyes and she could sense a calmness about him that came from a person living their life exactly as they wanted to be living it. "Well, this will be different. I've never made Jedi outfits for a lady before, Master Jinn, but I'm sure I can modify the patterns. She's smaller than Ben. And certainly she can't be wearing black all the time, not under these suns of ours."
"I was thinking the same myself. But these are all she has to wear at the moment," Kee said, his hands rubbing her shoulders gently.
Kham indicated the room with the droid in it with one hand. "If you would, milady. Must get the droid to measure you."
Theri felt Kee's reassurance through his hands and went into the little room. There was a second droid inside that was not sewing. Kham indicated a spot marked on the floor to stand and she did so while he went over to the droid and tapped out a series of commands on the droid's controller. Two bright lasers arrowed out toward her and she had to suppress her reflexes that told her to geek the droid. After a moment Kham told her to turn around and she did so, her skin crawling with the urge to rip out the droid's powercel. But she held onto her instincts and reflexes through the measuring. A moment later Kham let her go back out.
Kee was wandering about the little shop, looking at fabric, as she came up and clutched at his hand, her heart still thumping a little. He squeezed her hand, [Droids scare you, don't they?]
[Only the ones that shoot things at me,] she Sent. She felt his agreement. [I'll get over it. I just had a hard time not bursting that one's powercel. Old habits die hard.]
Kee smiled and held up a swath of amber silk to her face, looking at the color. [No, not amber. Too dark.]
[We're 'pathing too much, we'd better talk,] she Sent and continued aloud. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking you need something nice to wear when we go in front of the Council," he said serenely. "Not just the everyday stuff."
She peered up at him warily, sensing something behind what he said. His eyes danced with mischief as he took down a bolt of dusky rose shimmersilk. "No, too flashy. I'd like it, but no. Need to be a little more conservative than that." He looked around and pulled her down to another section of the shelves where he held up a swath of emerald green patterned with traceries of silver. "There! Yes! That's perfect! Matches your eyes!" He held up a handful of it to her face and she leaned into his hand for a moment looking up into his eyes. He smiled and caressed her cheek, then shook himself. [Enchantress! I can't think at all when you do that!]
She grinned as he turned away with the bolt of cloth to take it to Kham, asking for one of the shirts to be made with the emerald and silver cloth and another to be made in cloud-white silk. The tailor gave her a very knowing glance as he took the cloth back to the droid to be made. She blushed and hid it against the darkness of Kee's cloak as the tailor came back into the room.
She wandered about for a few minutes while Kee and the tailor talked, looking at fabric and leathers and letting her mind wander pleasantly on which colors would look best on Kee. The amber silk would have looked wonderful on Ben with his golden hair and tanned skin. There was a dark sapphire blue silk with a pattern of faint wavy lines in silver and gold that she thought would look good on Kee with his brown hair and fairer skin. Maybe with silver silk edgings around the hems. Her heart gave a startling thump as she pictured it, holding a corner of the fabric in her hand. The sudden rush of pure animalistic need startled her.
[Wow! I felt that!] Kee Sent in astonishment. [Having problems, dearheart?]
She swallowed and turned back toward him. [No. Don't think so.] She concentrated on her breathing and felt for the Force, letting the familiar calm wash over her, helping her battle the need back down. Later, she told her rebellious body. Not now. Not in public. Later. Kee's hand squeezed hers in the concealment of his cloak.
The tailor wouldn't have the outfits made up until later in the day, so they left to go wander about the bazaar together. They were to meet Ben later at one of the open-air cantinas, but they had at least an hour so they had the time alone together.
They wandered hand in hand through the mad jumble of tents, the cacophony of sound bouncing off the sandstone walls of the buildings, the smells of people and aliens all around them. Theri kept touch with the Force the whole time, letting the silent calm dull the fears that otherwise would have held her paralyzed or running to hide. Kee seemed to know where the best shops were and they spent a half hour in a strange little shop filled with all kinds of odd things, ancient weapons, books on many different subjects and recorded in every comm protocol, old coins, crystals and stones. Theri nearly choked when they came across a Thretkethan toloro knife with the symbol of the Master clan that had once owned her own clan. How many of her ancestors had it killed, she wondered?
[Aren't those ceremonial only, though?] Kee had asked when she had stared at the evil thing for five straight minutes.
Theri snorted. [No, that's the telekat knives. Toloros were sort of standard Master clan issue. All purpose, everyday knives. A Master clansman would be eating his lunch with it one hour, slitting the throat of a slave the next.] She shrugged and turned away from it resolutely. [Doesn't matter now. They're gone now. And the clans are free.]
Kee nodded and held her against him for a moment in comfort. She sighed and Sent weary acceptance. [I'm all right. I'm just a bundle of nerves, aren't I? Too raw and sensitive for my own damn good.]
[Maybe,] he agreed. [On the other hand, there are times when that's a good thing. You had to learn to be on your guard to save yourself and your Master. And I know Maul is not exactly easy on anyone's nerves.] The mental caress he Sent then made her heart race for a moment with what it promised. [Then again, one day you may bless those sensitive nerves of yours when I have my own evil way with you.]
Her whole body went numb with the thoughts this brought to mind. She felt his amusement. [I don't think this plan to go to Ben first is going to work,] she managed weakly. [At this rate I'm going to rape you before we even get back to the house!]
He laughed softly and grinned mischievously at her. [Maybe we should go find Ben and start back to the house now? Sooner we get home the sooner we can tear each other's clothes off?]
Her answer was a mental whimper so piteous that he laughed outright.
They were so wrapped up in each other they didn't sense or see the dark lithe shape following them down the crowded street, weaving through the crowd unerringly in the wake of the Jedi Master and the Mystic girl. The red and black tattooed face, the small horns sprouting from the head, the yellow cat-pupiled eyes locked on the small form of the Mystic girl.
Darth Maul followed the two through the crowd, watching with great interest. Jinn! And undoubtedly the whelp Kenobi close by. The old man Therasslen must have called the Jedi after the last attempt Maul had made to take the old man. He'd given the girl to the Jedi! This would complicate matters considerably. First priority was the girl. Master Sidious had said she was just as powerful as the old man and young enough to be turned. But now Jinn had her! Maul was not blind and the way they were acting toward each other was obvious. Jinn wanted the girl for his own, lover, wife, whore, any way he could get her! It was plain to anyone who could see the two together. An interesting development, and a complication.
The Jedi Master and the girl turned to go into another shop, and Maul continued down the street. He would go back to his ship and call his own Master to tell him of this development. The Sith lord vanished around a distant corner.
Theri came running out of the shop she and Kee had just entered, looking frantically up and down the street, her eyes filled with fear. Kee came rushing out beside her, swept her up against him in one arm, his hand reaching for his lightsaber.
But Maul had already turned the corner, and so they did not see him.
They met Ben at the cantina a few minutes later, both of them still frightened by what they'd felt in the crowd.
"What happened?" Ben asked as Theri threw her arms around him in a trembling hug and Master Kee scanned the crowds around them with every sense on the alert.
"Maul. He was nearby. We both felt him," Kee said shortly. "Did you have any trouble, Ben?"
"No. Got the parts for the speeder, stopped over at Klagu's for some parts for my remotes, came here. " Ben was hugging Theri back now. [I'm all right, don't worry! Did Master take you to see Kham?]
Theri nodded against his chest, nearly incoherent with fear. [You're sure you're all right?]
Ben grinned down at her and smoothed her hair back from her face. [I'm fine! Hungry! Come on, let's eat. Tell me what Master is having Kham make for you. Got you something pretty, didn't he?]
Theri nodded and latched onto one of his hand so he could "hear" her easier.
She felt him trying to narrow his thoughts to her alone and she helped him. [Master's really fallen for you, you know. A good thing too. He hasn't had a lady friend for almost twelve years.]
Theri sighed and agreed. [He says to go to you first, though. Because I can't trust him yet.]
She felt Ben's surprise and puzzlement. [I don't get it. Why don't you trust him?] Theri thought for a long moment as they sat down at a table. All three of them wanted to be sitting with their backs to the wall and facing the doorways. They ended up at a corner table where Ben and Kee could unobtrusively watch the entire room between them. Theri sat between them, holding their hands.
[Has Kee told you about my homeworld?] she asked tentatively.
Ben's face reddened a little. [Yes. Some.]
Theri sighed. [Well, aside from the sexual pervert part, we Thretketh have a very hard time trusting the future. We had many too many times when we would fall in love, pledge to each other, have a family...and then watch it all crumble around us. This happened constantly, Ben. The Master clans could come in and take whoever they wanted and sell them off across the planet. One of my grandmothers was taken and sent to Delia, and we never saw her again. She had three mates and five children and a half-dozen water beryl mines to run. But the damned Masters thought she'd make a pretty addition to their collection of bed-slaves.] The bitterness in her mindvoice was thick enough to cut. [I can remember her very vividly sometimes, in the clan-memory. Her third child was my Apa. So she's very strong in my clan-memory. But like I said, she had three mates. Either we don't get attached to each other or we have multiple mates so if one is taken or killed we have others to help us through it. We still do that, too, although my Apa only looks to my Ama. But my Ama has two children with another man, her cousin, my uncle Kathor.] She sighed and squeezed Ben's hand under the table. She could feel the dismay and uneasiness he was trying to suppress. [I think I do love Kee, Ben. I'm not entirely certain of it yet. But you're both Jedi. You could die at any moment, neither of you will live as long as I will, we could be separated and I'd never see either of you again. What good is it to promise your heart and soul to someone if they're not going to be there tomorrow? You only let yourself in to be soul-wounded when they're gone!]
She felt Ben thinking hard about that. [In that thing you gave me last night to read, that Mystic teaching,] he began slowly, [It says that the Force is beyond time. You've said this too. Right?]
She nodded.
[Well, if you can't trust the future, can you trust the Force?]
Theri looked up into his light blue eyes in puzzlement. She could feel Kee listening in too, suddenly interested. [What do you mean, Ben?]
Ben closed his eyes briefly, thinking. [If we're just the Force that's been made solid because of time, then we're all of us made of the same stuff? Right?]
Theri Sent her agreement.
[So, you and Master, and me for that matter, we're all one thing, right? One soul?] He opened his eyes to look at her hopefully.
Theri nodded again.
[So how can you ever be truly apart? Even if one of you dies, if you're one soul you're not apart. I mean, didn't you two, y'know...touch souls, yesterday? I thought I felt it.] Ben's face reddened for a moment. [I didn't mean to, but Master did that with me after my confirmation, and that's what it felt like.]
Theri nodded again. [Yes. We did.]
Ben took a deep breath and shrugged. [Then trust the Force to keep you together. Life isn't fair, life has no guarantees. If you want to have any kind of life at all that isn't all one big knot of fear you've got to just grit your teeth and have faith that there'll be more good times than bad. The Force brought you together. There must be a reason for it. Trust it.]
Theri and Kee both stared at him in amazement. Ben shrugged and grinned sheepishly.
[You're beginning to sound like Yoda,] Kee Sent with a twist of amusement in his mindvoice. Ben laughed.
Theri was still staring wide-eyed at Ben. Kee slipped an arm around her and hugged her gently. She turned to look up into his eyes for a moment, but directed her thoughts to Ben. [You mean, don't think about the future? Or the past? Just live here and now? But how, Ben? How can I just let go of it like that?]
Ben grinned and reached for the Force by way of reply. [Have you ever known the Force to be wrong about anything? Anything at all, no matter how small? When we get out of the way of it and stop fighting it, everything always happens just right. Doesn't it?]
Theri could feel the certainty in his mindvoice, the absolute faith in the Force, the calmness and solidness of what he Sent. Something was beginning to click here, she thought, pieces of things in her mind were beginning to connect. She reached for the Force and it enfolded her in strong shining silence, she could feel the rightness of what Ben said. She felt Kee's gentle kiss on her hair and leaned into him for a moment. She wanted so much to believe in what Ben said.
[Trust us. Trust me,] Kee Sent in a whisper. [Trust the Force.]
Theri almost broke at that. Almost.
Twilight was falling as the three of them climbed back into the 'speeder for the ride home.
Theri spent the whole ride staring out the back window at the stars, keeping her thoughts to herself inside her shields, silent. Kee and Ben chattered away together in the front seat about remotes and working on the 'speeder. Ben was driving. Kee glanced back at Theri occassionally in faint wonderment. She'd been sunk deeply in thought since they'd met Ben at the cantina. She'd barely spoken to either of them since then she was thinking so hard.
[I can hear the gears grinding in your head,] he Sent on a wave of gentle amusement.
Theri smiled and reached over one hand to caress his cheek, twining a lock of his hair around her fingers. He held her hand to his face, then turned to give her fingers a nibble and a kiss. He smiled mischievously in the dark when he felt the rush of lust that ripped through her mind at his touch.
[I think you had better sleep with Ben tonight,] Kee Sent in gentle warning. [Won't it get worse the longer you wait?]
She sighed and nodded, annoyed.
[Then why wait?]
[Because I'm something more than the damned lust!] she Sent angrily. [What am I, a thinking reasoning sentient being, or an animal?]
Kee thought for a moment. [You don't like being out of control of yourself.]
She snorted. [That's the understatement of the year. I hate being out of control of myself.]
She felt Kee thinking about this and left it at that.
Ben had barely stopped the 'speeder in the little cave they used as a garage when Theri squirmed out from behind him out into the darkness. She shielded herself the moment she left the overhang of the cave, vanishing from their sight. She fled into the darkness, away from both of them. She needed to think, she needed peace and quiet to pull herself together and most of all she needed solitude.
She felt Kee's puzzlement and Ben's worry, but ignored both. [I'll be back in a little, I need a run to calm me down.]
She was rounding the corner of the little rock-walled valley when she felt Ben beside her. She let out a growling hiss of a Thretkethan curse and unshielded. "Damn it, Ben, I can take care of myself!"
"Not with Maul still in the area you can't!"
Theri faced forward and sped up. [Fine then, but I doubt you can keep up with me!]
She headed out into the packed sand of the flats, letting the familiar pull and rhythm of running lull her mind into a meditative trance. She'd found long ago that physical movement was the best cure for nervous energy and jangled thoughts. Her Master had approved of her long night-time runs, asking that she only leave enough time in the night to get a sufficient amount of sleep. She was much more used to spending several hours a night running in the desert darkness than sleeping away the coolness of night.
Rocks loomed ahead, boulders the size of houses. She didn't break stride, just went right up the crumbling faces of the walls, feeling the Force carry her through the movements. Beside her, the young Jedi Knight scrambled up with equal grace and speed. She felt him using the Force too. Absently she probed him, as she had used to do back on Korolis to nearly everyone she encountered. Strong link with the Force, strong centering and focussing. She could have taken him down easily, as she had almost done the day before, by blocking him away from his Light by absorbing it into herself. She could have ripped out his spine. She could have overwhelmed his shields and fried his brain. She could have planted an impulsion-loop in his head that would have him suiciding within a week. She could have imploded his skull. The Jedi had no idea she could do these things. If they knew, would they think her Dark? Try to kill her? Would they be so quick to offer her their trust and love?
She sped up again and swung herself over another boulder. Ben simply leapt over it.
Theri opened herself more to the Force and felt the roiling in it that she was inadvertantly causing by her resistance. The Force was life. It was flowing. It sang of trust and love and faith and joy. It sang of unifying. And right now, Theri bel Kaitryn wanted none of those things. She wanted only peace from the demands of her body and the demands of her Way. She wanted free of the demands of the Force that urged her towards all those things....
A memory intruded. Her Master. "How can you say you want peace when you do not allow the change and flowing of all things to work through you? It is only in accepting the transience of all things that we find true peace. And therein lies our true Way." The words of the Book of the Force echoed through her head, her favorite passage, "It is love and love's murder. It is the saint and his betrayer. It is the brightest light of day and the darkest night of madness. To look upon it, is blindness. To know it, is sickness. To worship it, is death. To fear it, is wisdom. To resist it not, is redemption." That was what she felt like now. Like everything in the universe was telling her to give in.
And damn it, she didn't feel like giving in.
Ego, her Master would call it. Pride. The mistaken belief that she had a separate self apart from the Force. The mistaken belief that she had any sort of free will? She didn't know. She only knew that she'd been happy with her life a couple days ago, and now there was no peace in it at all.
But perhaps, the Force seemed to whisper, there can only be peace in change? Rocks in the water only disturb the flow....
She leapt a ravine with cat-like grace, Ben right beside her. She humphed to herself in annoyance. Maybe she wasn't such a fast runner as she had thought. She suppressed an angry impluse to implant a subliminal in his head that would make him think he was on the edge of a cliff about to fall. It wasn't Ben's fault she was in such a bad mood.
Damn it all, she just wanted to fight everything! Rage and scream and struggle and fight and ....
She launched herself to the side, tumbled in a roll that brought her to her feet in front of Ben and dropped again into a sweeping kick that should have swept his legs out from under him. But he jumped straight up just as her ankle would have connected with his. Theri spun away, vanishing as she shielded herself, lunged forward, caught Ben's hand, and moved with his momentum to jerk him to the ground with one hard yank. She kept moving with the flow of the movement and used her speed to tumble in a roll to the side, got to her feet and raced off in another direction.
Behind her, Ben Kenobi grinned. The starlight was bright enough to throw the line of footprints appearing in the sand into sharp contrast. He jumped to his feet and followed them, catching up to her in seconds.
[Where did you learn Soritsu-ji?] he asked the faint shimmer in the air. A growling hiss answered him.
They ran on in silence.
[They teach that at our Temple, y'know,] Ben offered tentatively.
Silence.
Ben grinned in the darkness.
Finally they turned for home. Ben breathed a mental sigh of relief. She was much too fast for him and he was getting tired. Nevermind she was two years younger and two-thirds his weight. She was apparently all muscle. It was going to be so much fun to teach her! Someone as fast as he was, who could fight all day!
The rocks that concealed the little adobe house came into view, and the two of them leapt the little ridge of stone that sloped up to the little valley side by side. Theri unshielded as they came up to the house and slowed, then stopped on the white plascrete of the porch. She was covered in sweat and sand and dust where she'd tumbled when she'd tried to hit Ben, and he was in no better state. Theri leaned against the wall of the house, breathing hard, her thick braid of black hair dangling over her breasts. Ben dropped onto the low stone wall at the edge of the porch, panting. [All right, give! Where did you learn Soritsu-ji?]
She closed her eyes, panting. [Zharvan,] she Sent shortly. [I'm fourth-level.]
"That will be a help when we go in front of the Council," Kee's voice said from the shadows at the edge of the porch. Neither had seen him sitting there silently, wrapped in his cloak. He was shielded from both of them, sitting very quiet on the low wall, leaning against the wall of the house. Ben gulped. There was something sad and small about his Master, something wrong. The deep voice was too quiet, too plaintive. But then Kee stood up, and the wrongness seemed to fall away. "Baths, both of you, before we meditate."
Ben grinned and waved Theri inside. "You first."
Theri gave Kee a very long, unreadable look before going inside. They waited until they heard the water turning on in the bathroom before they spoke.
"She attacked you, Ben?"
Ben shrugged. "She didn't connect. She's fast! It's going to be fun to practice with her!"
The lights on inside the house threw the Jedi Master's face into deep shadow as he turned away to look out at the rocks surrounding his little house. He walked over and sat on the wall beside Ben, raised one hand toward the house, and the lights in the kitchen abruptly went out as he used the Force to turn them off. Now they sat in complete darkness, the soft warm breezes of night sending veils of sand across the floor of the little valley. Ben waited silently. His Master was looking up at the stars.
"Is it wrong to love her, Ben?" Kee asked finally.
Ben looked up at the stars too. "I don't know, Master. Can love ever be wrong?" He caught the end of his tailbraid, took the clutch-bead off and began to unbraid it. "I think it isn't you that's the problem. It's her."
Kee sighed, put up one hand to rub his face wearily. "I can't stand to see her hurting so much, though."
Ben put a hand on his Master's shoulder. "You're not causing that hurt, Master." Kee peered over at him in silence for a moment. "If anything, Master, you're making her change. And all things change. Right?" Ben grinned lopsidedly.
Kee humphed softly. "I'm beginning to think you're the Master here, not me anymore." He looked back up at the stars, wrapped his cloak around himself for comfort. "Every moment I'm with her, every moment I'm touching her, every time I hear her mindvoice, I want her. I want her hands in mine, her thoughts in my head, her voice in my ears, her body wrapped around mine, her soul in my heart. Is that so wrong? Is it worth so much pain?"
The depth of the pain in his Master's voice stunned Ben. "You've more than deserved this!" he protested. "You deserve her! You deserve each other! You need each other. " Ben looked up at the stars again, the streak of a meteorite flashing briefly across the deep velvet blue of the sky. "She loves you. You love her. Live in the moment. Forget everything else!"
"But can I teach a Thretkethan to trust?" Kee said wistfully. "I don't think I can, Ben."
Ben punched him in the arm, not gently. His Master grunted. "You're having a good wallow in self-pity! She's only been here two days, y'know!"
Kee nodded. "Patience. I know. Time."
Ben pushed him playfully and his Master grinned, resisting the push with another grunt of effort. "It's not that! I should tie the two of you to your bed and lock the door! Let you both out in two days and you'll be happy!"
Kee laughed. "Or dead of a heart attack."
They sat together snickering like schoolboys for a moment before they heard the water switch off in the bathroom. "Go on, get your bath," Kee urged gently. Ben bounced off the wall and hauled his outer tunic off over his head, shaking out the sand in it before going into the house.
Kee continued to sit out on the wall, looking off into the darkness, the stars, trying to let his mind drift on the breezes of the desert. The voices inside his house behind him were quiet, muffled by the thick walls. This place he had built with his own two hands fifteen years ago, the private haven of solitude he had sought when he had come home before, after Sachella's death. He had come here for the silent life, where he had thought he could escape from pain and sadness into the Force. Small chance of that. He knew there was no way to run from that pain and sadness. He could take a ship and go out as far as he dared into the Rim, go past the Rim out into the rifts between the galaxies...and still not go far enough to escape that pain. The pain of uncertainty, of an unknown future. The pain of causing pain. The pain of love questioned.
He shook his head, banishing such negativity. This was silly. Ben was right. He was wallowing in self-pity. He stood up and went back into the house. His life was in these two children he loved, not in the future or the past. For their sakes and with their strength, he would endure.
Theri stood under the bright light of the bathroom, combing out her hair under the sonic dryer, trying not to think of anything. This was stupid. She was being silly. Just give in to it, Kaitryn, she told herself. What was the point of resisting anyway? The rock that resisted was worn away too, the same as every other rock.
Behind her, through the half-open door of the bathroom, she heard Ben come into his darkened room, tossing his overtunic into the pile of dirty uniforms on the floor beside the doorway, moving to turn on the light over his worktable. She heard him move to the closet to get a clean uniform...she didn't have to look to know what he was doing. Every other sense was screamingly alert, her whole body tingling, her heartbeat skipping and racing, like an electric charge running through her. She kept brushing her hair mechanically, but it was dry now. She looked up at herself in the mirror.
Well, this is it then, she said to herself. She opened the door the rest of the way and looked out into Ben's room.
He was standing at his worktable with his back to her, fiddling with some part of a remote he had been working on for the last several days. He had taken off his undertunic and stood only in his pants and boots. He'd unbraided his tailbraid and the lock of hair fell past his waist.
Theri took one look at that slim, muscled form and lost it completely.
Ben didn't even have a chance to yell as she grabbed him from behind, twisted, threw him onto his bed, and was on top of him instantly.
In his own room on the other side of the wall, Kee's heart stopped for several seconds and he fell bonelessly to his knees as the rush of lust hot as plasma fire ripped through his body and mind. Taken utterly by surprise, he dragged himself up onto his bed and curled up there, convulsing.
Theri had Ben's head in her hands now, kissing him urgently, feeling his confusion and fear for a moment before he realized what was going on and began to respond. She moved down to kiss and bite his neck and he did the same to her, his hands moving over her now, warm soft hands that caressed and pulled her closer.
"Are you sure about this?" he said raggedly in her ear, trying to pull away. The only answer he got was a kiss on the lips so deep and breathless he had no doubts at all this was exactly what she wanted right now. And then Ben stopped being able to think at all with that lithe warm body squirming on top of him, the hands tugging at his clothes, the soft black hair under his hands, the taste of her skin, the play of muscles moving under his hands.
Kee lay panting on his own bed in the other room, still curled up nearly in a ball, but beginning to be able to think again. Theri. Ben. He reached out to the Force for strength and then reached out to Theri. Touched the incoherence in her mind. Touched and held on, anchoring. Praying his heart wouldn't give out. Praying he could keep holding on to her mind....
Ben flipped them both over to get her underneath him and began giving back some of what she was doing to him, kissing, nibbling, caressing everwhere he could reach. He felt her touch his mind, and suddenly he could feel everything she felt and knew she felt everything he felt. The need and urgency and near-madness in her mind infected him and he was helping her get the rest of his clothes off and they were rolling over again, clutching each other, bodies and minds frenzied. He thrust into her so hard they both screamed. Their joined bodies moved together in perfect synchrony, their minds spiralling inwards on the waves of frantic pleasure and need, lust and fulfillment racing toward the center of the joined souls. And then a third soul, spiralling with them, the welcoming flash of recognition as the three moved together, one steadying, two whirling around it, reaching the center, and then...
Ben and Theri screamed as one as their mutual orgasm took them, frantic movements stilled in the white blazing exploding moment of pure ecstasy. Kee screamed with them, feeling everything both of them felt, the three souls becoming one for that one eternal moment. Then all three were silent as the moment passed and consciousness receded into darkness.
Theri came back to herself some timeless time later, tears running down her cheeks helplessly, heedlessly. Ben was still on top of her, sleeping or unconscious she couldn't tell. She clutched him, sobbing against his neck, feeling for a pulse, trying to feel if he was breathing.
Kee tottered into the room, fell down onto the bed beside them and tried to roll Ben off of her with shaking hands. Tears were pouring down his face too. Feeling the hands on his body, Ben finally took a deep breath and moaned softly. Kee and Theri managed to get him rolled over onto the bed beside her. Tears also began rolling out of Ben's closed eyes.
"Ben?" Kee said hoarsely in the silence. "You there?"
A weak groan answered him. But it was obviously intentional, so Kee took it as a yes.
"Good," Kee said unneccessarily. He rolled over onto his side beside Theri, took her hand in his, and fell asleep.
The glaring morning sunlight streaked into the room the next morning, falling on the man and woman still deeply asleep curled around each other under a thick blanket. Ben and Theri still slept even though it was well into the morning now. Kee stood at the doorway peering at the two motionless forms for a long moment. He had awakened at his usual time, dawn, with a splitting headache. A long bath and an hour's meditation had cured the headache. But then again, he hadn't been the one making love to Theri last night.
He smiled at the two asleep in the bed, sat down beside them, reached out to both minds sunk in the oblivion of sleep. [Theri, Ben? Time to wake up. Breakfast!]
Ben groaned and pulled his pillow over his head and tightened his arm around Theri. She rolled over and burrowed against his chest, trying to haul the blanket up over her head. Kee grinned. Well, would he be doing any different? Probably not.
[Come on, you two. It's time for saber practice, Ben.]
"Saber practice," Ben slurred from under the pillow. "Time for saber practice."
Kee waited for more, but all he got was silence. Ben had fallen back asleep.
Theri, however, had opened her eyes and was yawning hugely. "What time is it?" she asked dazedly, rubbing her eyes with one hand.
"Time you two woke up," Kee said mendaciously. "Breakfast is already made, so come on, get up."
"Wake up, Ben," Theri said, trying to shake him. He sighed hugely, pushed the pillow off his head and lay for a moment looking at her. Then he shifted his gaze to his Master, almost afraid of what he would see.
Acceptance. Love. Trust. Contentment. Peace.
Whatever guilt and uneasiness Ben felt about the previous night vanished like dew under the double suns. It had not been a betrayal by an stretch of the imagination. It had all been shared. All three souls had joined in that final moment of screaming ecstasy, and something of all three still shared that moment now.
But then they were past the moment, and Ben and Theri were diving for the shower and Kee was going to get one of the new Jedi outfits for Theri and breakfast was waiting.
Part 2
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