XXI: Squalls
She'd sensed them before the door opened, could picture it even before her eyes saw it and confirmed the picture she had in her head. Ayguin, standing just off of a couch, one of the older ones, hand almost stretched out in the desire not quite fulfilled to put her hand on Bariss' shoulder. Bariss, her emotions deep and dark, a vortex that seemed to threaten to pull everyone under, hunched on the couch, eyes wet with unshed tears, her hands trembling as if she were unraveling before their eyes.
So when she opened the door and saw just that, she strode forward, trying to calm her own whirling emotions. It had been two weeks, and yet all she could think about was that people should be kinder, that people should try to understand each other. And she was naive, she knew that she saw little of the war, really, just heard about it. But she wasn't so naive, and probably never had been, to think that "Wouldn't it be better if people were nice" was a plan of action. It wasn't even the start of a plan of action.
The more she thought, the more she believed that maybe it could be divided up, or… sectioned off? The largest problem was understanding, and the Senate clearly wasn't helping with that. The galaxy was so big that people didn't know and understand other people, had no chance and no desire. And she didn't know how to solve that. Representatives could represent, and they could even talk to other representatives, but how do you teach people about other cultures?
About differences of opinion? Make it some sort of class…
That's where her thoughts had stopped, trailed off, circled around the first idea, and if they were some housepet, they would have curled around at her feet inconveniently, and gone to sleep, leaving her nothing to do but wait until they woke up.
It was like hitting a wall.
Bariss looked like she could hit one right now, looking up at Nima with those odd, broken eyes. They were haunted, but Nima didn't know enough to know by which ghosts, to know if she could ever find a way to exorcise them.
"Bariss," Nima said.
"Nima," Ayguin said, as if they were reduced to repeating names.
Nima tried to break the silence, "You're back."
"From Geonosis," Bariss said, her voice a hoarse whisper. "I was there to… help out. Heal people. Do my job." She said the last word as if it were freighted with so much that it'd collapse. "I was in such a good mood last time. This time I killed Geonosians. Three or four. They were hostile. And a lot of droids. I somehow wound up with Ahsoka, trying to deal with this droid factory. We nearly died. And she was exhausted, but she…"
"She's said this before," Ayguin said quietly.
"Yes. I've been… practicing how to tell people. I need to practice, I'm no good at it," Bariss said, as if she were giving orders to everyone there, to lay off on her. "She treated it as if it were some Saturday morning holovid, some fun game where everyone just laughs it off in the end, no matter how scared they were, and we all just hug and do it again next week, and next week, and next week. And maybe it is--"
"Ahsoka's stories are often very… like that." Nima didn't know how much to believe them, the way she made almost dying a half-dozen times sound like a picnic, made it all into a joke. She wondered if perhaps Bariss was missing something, if there was more to it than that, because Nima had felt it sometimes.
'And then Skyguy sliced up the droid that was about to barbecue me, and we had to run away…'
Ahsoka was a sentient, sentients experienced fear, had stress reactions that could be very carefully monitored, could be useful in their mental states. To be technical.
But Bariss seemed sure, looking at her, sure that Ahsoka thought it was all some grand joke, an adventure that would inevitably end in peace and order in the galaxy.
"Nima, please, talk her out of it," Ayguin said.
"I never said I'd… I'm not done," Bariss said. "There were other things, but the thing I remember feeling was when I was on my way back, when word came of what had happened. I remember thinking, just for a moment, that I was a monster, and the the Jedi Order trained monsters. That we shouldn't have gotten involved in this war, that we should have known what it'd cost and how the darkness had creeped up. I wanted to… I. I almost want to quit."
Nima's eyes widened. A Padawan could quit at any time. Initiates had to go through a little more, but that was just because they were usually so young. The Jedi Order certainly didn't encourage people to leave, didn't hand everyone forms just to fill out if they wanted to, but if a person asked and kept on asking, they could leave. How much asking they had to do changed: Masters would get plenty of people trying to dissuade them, but if one of them chose to leave, there had to be a great reason, and so few people questioned them. A philosophical disagreement, a vow to keep, an intuition in the Force.
At least, it'd been that way until Dooku. She knew a few of the earlier ones had turned to the Dark Side, but… that's not how they were viewed.
The Order gave people credits, and references and help if need be, when they left. A Padawan skilled in piloting was nudged towards a learning position in space freighter hauling, or even into the Judicials. Another who loved working with their hands, but didn't want to join one of the Corps, might be connected to any number of people that the Order knew. The Order helped a lot of people, and occasionally asking those people for help in placing a former member was not that big of a deal, relatively speaking.
"I could have, they could have placed me with one of those groups that treat the poor on various planets," Bariss said. "I could leave all this. I could pack away… I. I love being a Jedi. I think." Bariss paused, letting out a long, slow breath. "I could just help people, they'd be happy for someone with my skills, and I know I could pick up the knowledge, get an actual degree. I already am good enough for it."
She said it with confidence, but it was probably true. Even a failed Jedi had to show tons of dedication, focus, and intelligence to get as far as a Padawan. Nima never wanted to leave the Order, but if she did she could probably become a therapist some day, as much as she was learning already.
"You could. But you don't want to, right?" Ayguin asked. She was biting her lip, and she couldn't resist it anymore, her hands. She touched Bariss on the shoulder with almost painful, pained tenderness, her eyes soft and almost flowing, as if she were trying to transport something valuable. "Back me up, Nima."
Nima took a breath, and realized that she could possibly lose a friend right now. If Bariss left, they might never meet again. Maybe she'd be able to send a message, or two, now and again. But things would change, and Ayguin would be hurt, and when she thought like that she should definitely stop this.
It was her duty as a friend.
But she was a Jedi. Hurting the galaxy in revenge for the pains of friends had gotten Bariss here. Thinking about what it meant to be a Jedi. No Jedi could live on obligation alone. Not without believing in it.
"If she believes that it'd be best for her, or the galaxy, to leave the Order, then she should do so. We can keep in contact if that's what she wishes," Nima said, her voice cool, carefully controlled, as she felt the turmoil of feelings that those words brought Bariss. She believed that Nima meant it, which was good because she did. She'd say goodbye and even accept never seeing her again. A Jedi shouldn't allow attachments to hurt other people.
Bariss had her hood up, she was shrouded in shadows, but she was still the woman who wanted to do nothing more than heal and help other people. She was still someone that Nima liked. She was still a friend, and a less unexpected, bizarre one than Anakin.
"You want her to leave?" Ayguin asked, scandalized and furious.
"I want her to make her choice without feeling required to stay, I don't… I want her to do what's best for her," Nima said, knowing it sounded a little weak. She didn't know how to argue in a way that wouldn't put some moral or emotional obligation on her. She could talk about feelings until she was--
The human idiom blue in the face was rather inapt. But for a long time.
She could do that, but it wouldn't just easily solve things. She knew that right now only one set of feelings mattered. "I want her to think about what she feels and what she wants, and then come to her solution." Nima said, quietly. "Not ours."
"You can't leave," Ayguin said, the pleading evident in her voice. "You've done so much good, and what happens if all the kind people leave the Order? If all the people like you?" She was crying, and she'd all but buried herself in Bariss, and Nima knew right then that she'd 'lost' if there was such a thing as losing.
She'd been trying to force them all back, but. She still tried. "This isn't about you, Ayguin," Nima said quietly. "It's not about me. It's not even about the Order, unless she wants it to be, it's--"
"Just think about it," Ayguin pleaded. "Think about the good you're doing out there, and Ahsoka, wouldn't she be dead if you weren't there? There's people who care for you." Ayguin's eyes glanced once at Nima, and Nima almost trembled at the animosity in them. "Just… give it a month. Two. Think about what you're doing, and then… and then."
"I will," Bariss said, her thoughts dark but turned away from where they'd been going. Nima leaned in, despite Ayguin's glare, and patted Bariss' shoulder, trying to draw the hurt from her as if she were pumping water from a well. It… almost worked, but didn't quite. It hurt, was different than it should be. She wasn't a Zeltron, but even as Bariss' dark mood eased just a little, just a few shades, her own mood worsened, as if she were simply redistributing the emotions. Which wasn't the right thing at all, and was highly inefficient.
"I should go," Nima said, trying not to look as if she too were near crying. She could feel it, the wall that Ayguin was building up around her and Bariss. Jayne and Wessen were best friends, but there was room there for another person, at least in some way. But the way it felt with Ayguin and Bariss was as if there was to be no distance, to be so attached that they can't come apart.
Nima couldn't… couldn't.
"Let me walk you to the door," Ayguin said, quietly. Biting her lip. But with that look in her eyes.
At the door, she leaned over and said, "Please. Don't ever try to destroy Bariss' life ever again, or… or. I can't lose her, I can't lose my friend like that. If you'd actually…"
"Actually?" Nima asked, quietly, her lekku as still as death.
"If you actually succeeded--"
"I was giving her the option."
"I'd never be your friend again."
There was something a little like yielding, and a little like pleading in that expression. Ayguin, who cared so deeply, who sacrificed so much of her time and focus healing others, didn't want to have to sacrifice this either. But she would. She'd regret it, and in fact her whole body was trembling with some pre-emptive agony over what she could do. Who she could be.
"I… know."
She knew, and yet she'd do it. She'd have let Bariss have the space and if she'd decided to leave she'd tolerate losing a friend, if it was for the best. After all, wasn't that a weakness, caring only about friends over everyone else? Prizing one's Master's death over the lives of dozens of sentients…
For the first time in a long while, Nima didn't feel selfish at all, not even a little: of course it hurt.
******
"Hm. You know, not bad," Lexia said, with a playful smile. "I didn't expect you to last this long without trying to sort out your friends with Mind Healing. Everyone does it, you know." She shrugged, sitting back a little as she looked at Nima. "It's harder with friends, because what's right and what you want to do are so often completely different. But… everyone does it, there's no way a person resists all the time."
"I'm sorry," Nima said.
"Everyone does it, but don't think it's a fix for all your problems. Or even half of them. And if you start psychoanalyzing your friends, they might not react so well."
"I… understand that," Nima said with a flush. Her crush was still there, but Lexia had been very professional, ignoring it and being as polite as she ever was. The woman still moved and acted and experimented with psychological studies in a way that she couldn't help but be drawn towards. But she was glad that there hadn't been a talk the week after, about what she'd done. Now, though, she was a little ready. "I'm… I'd like to talk to you about my feelings. I promise I can be… can do the work. I won't let my crush get in the way."
"Of course you can," Lexia said, firmly. "I always knew that and nothing has changed, in that regards. I'm sorry if I reacted too strongly, I was a little surprised, and hadn't really seen it coming. But I know you can be professional, and I know that at your age, these things do… pop up makes them sound like mushrooms, doesn't it?"
"A little, yes," Nima admitted.
"Well, I wasn't that sort, growing up. But I saw enough. I bet there's all sorts of people with crushes that you'll have to find a way to keep track of now."
"Yes. It's… distressing." That was an understatment, Nima knew. But terrifying felt too dramatic.
"You can say that again. Always baffles me quite a bit. Certainly, as a Jedi I can't exactly tell you how to let people down easy or… any of that. I have a lot of theoretical knowledge from studies, but in actuality… not so much."
Lexia sounded, not mournful, but thoughtful at that. As if she had some kind of idea for an experiment. She usually had one. "So, I might be flying blind in trying to work things out, but I think that you're one of the more promising Mind-Healers I've seen in a while."
Nima blinked, a little stunned. "Promising?"
"You have the basics down already, and you're picking up the medical terminology quite fast."
She'd been studying it with… oh.
Ayguin. "Yes," Nima said, covering up her momentary spike of regret as best she could. "But I did feel something strange, when I was trying the Mind-Healing, as if our emotions were simply trading places."
"Ah, then you're halfway there. Halfway to the usable product, as someone once called it, the kind of thing that if you showed off to the right person, would easily land you as a Padawan under a Mind-Healer. They've been known to take people who aren't even a third of the way to it, because it's not a common skill."
Nima glowed. "Halfway?"
"Are you still jealous of Marruc?"
"Not as much. We worked together fine last week," Nima admitted. They'd worked their way through some more case studies, and this time she was able to help him, just as he was able to give her a heads' up on the emotional aspect. Oddly, bizarrely, once she knew what the jealousy was about, it was easier to get over it. It was a silly thing to get jealous over, sillier at least than a problem about being a favorite student.
"Well, he got to the halfway stage faster than you did. But he took far too long to get the second half. Just like I did."
"Oh?"
"That exchange, well. Mind-Healing isn't about swapping wounds around, even temporary ones. It's about healing them. But for a Zeltron, it can be hard to realize just how flawed that is. You keep on doing it that way and think that's just the price to pay, and it's like a technique you've learned wrong years ago. It's dreadful to unlearn and figure out how to go forward the right way from there. But you can't go straight to it, because being able to do something is how it starts." Lexia nodded, stretching a little. "So I think you have real potential to be very excellent at what you do. And you can work out the rest of it. It'll go faster than you expect, and make no mistake. The year's almost over, and I think within… oh. Two months? Three?"
Nima's eyes widened. "That's not a lot of time," she said. "I'll make sure to work as hard as I can."
"There's a program starting, not that long from now. Sociological more than psychological, but they've asked if there are any Jedi free to help. It's just a courtesy, the University--Coruscant Republican University--knows we're rather… busy. But if you were trained up, I could accept, show you around. We'd be giving interviews and looking at the mental health of some of the Republican refugees from Confederate-held planets. How they've held up, what they think, culture shock… I was going to invite Marruc as well, but it's really something that needs at least two assistants." Lexia frowned. "Now, there will be setting up holocams and running to get food for the guests and… everything else. But there'd be plenty of time to see how to talk to people you don't know, and learn a little." Lexia sighed. "I can feel your excitement."
Nima was grinning, and soon enough so was Lexia. She'd do it, no matter how much work it took.
******
It was almost a week before Ahsoka came back, and when she did it was a surprise. Nima was in her room, frowning over yet more letters, not sure if she'd send them. Ahsoka, Anakin, a brief one to Obi-Wan, and then one to Master Bell, about the first brief ideas she'd managed to pull together. It was late in the afternoon, and she felt a little tired. Lexia had been called away, and Nima had been okay with it.
Okay with it because she'd been thinking, she'd been allowing her brain to whirr, her lekku twitching as she thought, as if they were trying to form words.
Start a class? And why shouldn't they? And if anyone can help teach others, well. The Order has an EduCorps, does it not? Surely that could be changed. But then come the politics, and for that matter then comes the Senate. It wasn't about that, not really, but the Senate wasn't very good at making people understand each other, instead of representing the most powerful people on any given planet scheming against each other and filing tidy reports back home. She couldn't think about how to fix that, maybe Hannah knew more… maybe she should talk to Hannah, in fact.
Through the grapevine, she heard that Hannah was downright pleasant to Cho, nowadays. They'd made up after the fight, albeit quite awkwardly. And Hannah had shown something like respect for Cho, wary and weary as it was.
Hannah was… well. Maybe it was harder to remember the things about her that Nima disliked when she was being nicer to people Nima liked, and maybe she'd remember them all again the moment they got back into contact, but she did think about it. She thought about a lot of things.
Thinking like a Mind-Healer, Lexia had said, once, and it wasn't always a compliment. But it was something she could use, no doubt about that.
Then came the knock. Nima stood up, rubbing her eyes. When she opened the door, there was Ahsoka, grinning at her, in a somewhat more modest outfit--Nima hoped that she never got a crush on Ahsoka, that she wouldn't get a crush on every female friend she liked, and thus far her hopes had been fulfilled: just Katarina and Lexia--and two pairs of faces behind her. And an astromech droid.
Obi-Wan looked long-suffering, and Anakin looked as if he was pondering his escape. The astromech rolled forward and chirped.
Nima knew quite a very languages. Droid was actually one of them, though not all that well.
'She's shorter than I expected.'
Nima tried not to smile too wide, wondering if she could perhaps pretend not to understand the astromech until some convenient time. From the look on Ahsoka's face, she was going to be doing something very soon.
"Heya! We're back. We got sidetracked, but here we are. And I wanted to see if you wanted to hang out. Watch a movie, eat some snacks. I managed to convince Skyguy to tag along."
"I happened to cross your path," Obi-Wan said. "I do have a report to make."
Ahsoka rolled her eyes, and Nima again hid a smile. It was obvious that the long-suffering tone in his voice came standard, no matter what. One didn't just happen to get swept up in things when you were a Master Jedi.
Suddenly she wanted to impress them, wanted to come off in some way as charming. She knew it was a silly thought, but there was something about their camaraderie that felt like it was open at least for hanger-ons. "Well, I'm happy to see you again, Master Kenobi." His emotions felt more sorted now than they had a few weeks ago. Of course they did. He'd worked on them no doubt, and now, well.
He was better, mostly. It'd scarred over. Of course it wasn't that easy, or it shouldn't be, but in the moment their every emotion felt open to Nima, as if they were just shouting their secrets. Anakin was nervous, stressed, but there was an undercurrent of confidence, even arrogance, that couldn't be dented. And he'd proven himself, but of course it was a treadmill, or so some said. He proved himself again and again and that didn't stop him from throwing himself into near-certain death the next time.
She hoped he never died, and not just because he was a darling of the media, a hero to a public that surely was hurting from war.
Ahsoka was a little trickier, her emotions double-sided. There was relief along with triumph, there was doubt, but not about her capacity but… what? The doubt felt outwardly directed. Anakin feared he wouldn't live up; Ahsoka worried just a little about what the world would do next. Not a lot, since both of them plunged themselves heedlessly into danger so much that it stunned Bariss.
"I'd be happy to. You can tell me about your adventures, and I'll tell you about mine, though they're perhaps less impactful."
"I hope we did not disturb you," Obi-Wan said.
"Oh no, I was just looking over some letters." Nima gave her best smile, and slid out of the room. "I'm really glad to see all of you. And who is this?"
"This is R2-D2, my astromech," Anakin said. Though there was a fondness there that meant that it was more than that. Some odd sort of friend, worth a little bit more than one expected. Or a lot more.
"Nice to meet you," Nima said.
R2-D2 let out a few more beeps, a comment about... hrm. She wasn't quite sure of some of the meanings, and gave it up, though she did catch 'she is' in there.
"Well, let's get going!" Ahsoka said, grabbing Nima's hand as she pulled her along.
"Alright, alright. So, what have you been doing?"
"Well, so Skyguy ran across Ventress again. Doing… what was she actually planning?"
"I'm not sure, actually," Anakin admitted, with a look of amusing bafflement on his face. They began to walk. "She just… has it out for me. But after I fought her off, I had to chase her, and Snips followed me and Obi-Wan, and the next thing we know we're--"
"Crash landing on a planet. Anakin. In the middle of a forest." Obi-Wan said, drily amused.
"It was that or the Sea of Nightmares," Anakin pointed out, and Nima blinked.
"Why?" she asked, eyes widening.
"Because Anakin has a thing for happy landings," Ahsoka said, with a snigger. " Geonosis too."
"That was all of us. And I wasn't piloting the gunship that time," Anakin said, with fierce playfulness.
"Ah, I see," Nima said. "Well, I'd crash myself, I'm not very good as a pilot--"
Anakin's outrage blossomed suddenly, and Nima realized all at once why Obi-Wan did it, even though she'd done it on accident. "I'm a great pilot."
"Yes, Anakin," Obi-Wan said, sounding almost long-suffering.
She hadn't meant to say it like that, hadn't meant that, but the others seemed to further relax as they walked.
"And what about you?" Ahsoka asked.
"Lexia--"
Anakin perked up, and she wondered if he remembered her crush.
"Lexia says that I'm doing very well, and that next year I might be able to help her out in Coruscant. With a study," Nima said, firmly. "About refugees. I know that Jayne would be jealous, he's always wanted to see the sights. But I think he'll find a way."
"I could--" Anakin began.
"Anakin, no," Obi-Wan said.
Ahsoka sniggered and moved a little ahead of the group, burning off nervous energy as Nima found herself somehow slipping into a strange fifth wheel position that should have been awkward, but wasn't.
"So I'm really looking forward to that."
"Have you gotten offers from Masters yet?" Anakin asked. "Cause if what everyone says is right, you should definitely find someone."
"Well, you know with the war, there's a lot of Masters that don't want to take an apprentice. But I do have a Vah'kagrei from Master Bell." Nima tried not to beam with pride at the fact, because humility was important.
"Ah," Obi-Wan said.
"What?" Anakin asked.
She'd told Ahsoka this, actually, already. So Ahsoka was just looking at her Master, waiting to see him be educated.
"A Vah'kagrei is this." She touched the purple ribbons on both of her lekku. "You give it to a child going off to college, or entering into an apprenticeship with a skilled worker. And among Jedi--"
"It's a promise," Ahsoka said, grinning like a loon.
"Oh, huh," Anakin said, a little surprised.
"But it's more than that. He said that it was a promise that he'd win the war before I needed to either become a Padawan or join the Service Corps. I remember, he said he'd do it even if he had to wring Dooku's neck himself. He doesn't want me to fight in the war, if he can't help it."
"A wise decision," Obi-Wan said. "I fought with him, a month ago, against Separatist forces."
"Where?" Nima asked. He hadn't mentioned that, specifically. Another one of those details that didn't get brought up.
"Oh, the Syndacali asteroids," Anakin said. "Very obscure, but they had this factory with yet another new kind of battle droid, so we struck it with some of Master Bell's forces."
"Anakin and I were outside," Ahsoka complained. "While Obi-Wan and Master Bell got to go inside and fight General Grievous."
"And he… escaped," Nima said.
"Yes. But we shut down the factory," Anakin argued.
"Yes, you did. I'm just glad you're all intact. I worry a lot about people out in the war," Nima said. "Not that there aren't dangers. The other day, a Padawan at the Temple broke his leg in some sort of stunt in training, actually. I wasn't there, but Ayguin told me about it." In a hurry, still a little awkward after what had happened with Bariss.
"Ha," Anakin said. "How'd he manage that?"
"Oh, it was pretty hard, but I heard he…"
Somehow, it works. Somehow, Nima is part of the group, even before the food gets there and they dig in. She threw as many stories at them as she could, gossip, rumors, and then just things she'd done during her day. Nima traded them cheap, truly, since she got stories of their adventures and struggles in exchange. Well, it seemed as if they were meant to be seen as adventures, but Nima admitted that many of them made her worried, dangers stretched tight and tanned with patterns to make them seem glamorous
But there were a few moments, and there was always this catharsis, that the fight ended and they won, or they lost but got away, and it all began again. To Anakin she was someone who, somehow, he liked. To Ahsoka she was a friend who was about her age. To R2, apparently the fact that she could occasionally understand it was at least enough to keep it from being… persnickety.
And Obi-Wan, well. He seemed to view her as more mature than she probably was, and so when Ahsoka got involved in some absurd argument, she could stand back with Obi-Wan and sort of referee.
It wasn't something she'd want to do all the time, and she'd failed in so many other respects. Attempts to talk about Geonosis, about Bariss, about any of it were all shut down. They liked her, but talking about serious topics, let alone debating them, would ruin the movie night. So it stretched on, and she let herself sink into it, and then before she knew it it was done.
"I think we have a hunch on where the Seps are going to strike next," Ahsoka said, as they cleaned up the plates from the snacks. "That's where we're going next. We'll be gone a few weeks, at least. But we'll be back, I promise."
"Okay," Nima said, with a smile. "I'll hold you all to that."
Obi-Wan nodded. "We shall take care."
"As much as we can help it, Obi-Wan," Anakin said, with a flippant wave. "Out there, you do what you have to do."
To survive.
She could understand that.
She could even understand why they don't want to talk about politics, or about changes to the Jedi Order. They were in the storm, and this was their shelter as the rain beat down and they sang songs about how glorious it was. Or at least, as they coped far better than she thought she ever would.
She had no idea how they did it, not really.
She wasn't sure if them being able to was a good thing or a bad thing.
******
When she felt Katarina coming out of classroom, she could feel the bad mood. It radiated outwards, rippling through the halls, and Nima knew what Katarina felt well enough that even though she was at the other end of the hallway, she had little trouble following Katarina as she made her way down towards the Room of a Thousand fountains.
Her crush on Katarina was cooling slightly, and she hoped if she did it right a warm friendship would be left behind, after that strange, blazing collection of feelings. She was hopeful, at least. Katarina noticed that she was following her before she was even halfway there, and yet she turned and smiled at Nima. It was barely a smile, but Nima could feel the tremulous intent behind it, enough to make her understand that if it was the average initiate, they'd be climbing up the walls. Instead, the smile disappears, and she follows.
Follows and tries to think about what to do, what to say.
She caught up when Katarina was climbing up one trail, which went right over a big pool of water. "Hey, Katarina."
Elize had recently tried to call her Kat, and Nima had wanted to take the girl aside and tell her never to do that again. Katarina was a perfectly lovely name, which flowed like the purest waters from everyone's lips and--
Okay, getting rid of the crush was a work in progress, but it
was progressing, Nima knew. Just not always as fast as it could. Or perhaps should.
"Hello, Nima," Katarina said.
"What happened?" Nima asked.
"I am sorry to concern you," Katarina said.
Nima glanced down at the pool of water and said. "Maybe I am concerned, but that's because we're friends." The water was calming, and she hoped that it helped Katarina too. Surely that's why she was here.
"Just… worries. I've had thoughts, but I can't."
Katarina didn't finish the sentence, and Nima waited a full minute for her to do so, as the other girl stared into the water with an equal intensity, as if she couldn't quite meet Nima's eyes.
"Can't say it? Having trouble arguing for it?"
"It's… somewhat untraditional," Katarina said. "There are precedents, but not many."
"Ah. Can you tell me about it? What's it an idea about?"
"The war," Katarina said.
Nima blinked, frowning a little. "And you can't just say it?"
"I feel as if I'm too wound up. I don't know if I can." Katarina said it crisply, cooly, but Nima could hear the hurt in that voice, the way she hated that now her emotions and thoughts were swirling too much to be controlled.
When she fought she was a pebble in the clear blue water, she was at the eye of everything, peaceful and yet startlingly powerful. Now, now it seemed to almost turn itself inside out.
Her face was blanker than it'd been years and years ago, when Nima hadn't seen the kindness, and had only seen the asperity, the judgement.
"Then let's fight," Nima said, startled at her own idea, but warming to it as she added. "You can relax, focus on the conflict, allow your thoughts to… gather."
Katarina blinked. "I… yes." She seemed shocked at the idea that that's what would help, but that itself was unreasonable, considering all of the Jedi philosophies that talked about how dueling could be used as a focus. She wasn't… thinking, that's it. Nima could help that. She could do something for Katarina.
It was something that Elize couldn't do, that Aydan couldn't do, that she wouldn't ask a Knight or Master to do. But that Nima could do, for her.
Nima tried not to shake as she drew her lightsabers. "Talk to me. Open yourself up to me, and I will do so to you." It was an offer, a promise, and it was no doubt one that she could regret, but that she never would. Not for a moment.
"Okay," Katarina said.
Okay, almost too reluctantly, and Nima pushed that all aside.
Their lightsabers lit, and they moved. Nima felt faster, Nima felt stronger, Nima felt as if opening herself up was an opportunity, because Katarina's emotions became open to her too, and Nima drew at them as she slashed forward, both sabers going straight down as Katarina retreated up the path. The flashes of light stood out against the green, the grey, the natural if bright colors of the Room. Each flash could be seen from some way away, and yet nobody interrupted. Nobody was watching, even, as far as she could tell.
They were alone, but not, the air thick with water. No doubt they'd both be sweating before the end of this.
Something had changed, this past week. Suddenly she could see that Katarina's whirl right there was preparation for a backhanded strike, that she was going to push forward then, that after that she would--
It all seemed to flow, and for the first time in a while, she didn't think about one saber and the other saber. Not in that way. She thought of herself-with-two-sabers. It was an entity that couldn't be separated out into three clumsy parts. She slashed and moved and felt more than ever as if she were a furious torrent of water, her own emotions so simple and clear, and yet washing into Katarina's.
She accepted that she was doing this wrong, that she was taking some of the dark, brackish thoughts of Katarina's into herself. That she was being the worst kind of martyr, but it didn't change things. It didn't make her regret it as she drew it out, drew Katarina out. Drew Katarina out, even as she did so in the fight, pushing her back towards an edge. Trying to make her make a choice, knowing that she could help it along. Up ahead was a shaky step, and if she did it right, Katarina would slip a little, be easier to shove back if need be. Not fall, there was a railing at that area, but get closer to a potential fall.
Katarina would know to surrender before then. So even as she soothed with her mind, her hands pushed and pushed, towards the rail. Towards control.
Nima imagined leaping onto the railing, running on it, doing her Clan proud and using the high ground, but she wasn't confident enough, not when she pulled more and more of that dark doubt into her.
But she kept on putting out more happiness, her mind hardened against the blows, against the winds. She was getting somewhere, and she knew when Katarina first spoke that she'd won in the only way she cared about right now. "I was thinking of Geonosis. We need to do something different. We're dying, and the wound can't be seen."
"I'm a Mind-Healer," Nima pointed out, allowing her emotions to make Katarina think she was going to pretend to feint, and then feinting anyways, almost catching Katarina. "I understand what you mean. I understand a lot more than people think."
"I know. You are a very insightful and intelligent initiate," Katarina complimented. "Your friendship is valuable, and you are kind. If all Jedi had your kindness, this would not have happened."
"I can be selfish, I can get angry and do things I shouldn't. I want to think I'd never, ever do that," Nima said, allowing herself to retreat a little as Katarina redoubled her efforts. "I really do."
"Oh," Katarina said, and now Nima was in full retreat, Katarina's emotions uncoiling and unloosing. "I think we need a solution."
"I think we do," Nima said. "I think most of all, we need to start understanding each other. I think that hate is contagious, that it builds."
Now Katarina was slipping around Nima, showing up at angles, her saber flashing, her feet stomping on the ground as she shifted. There was little delicate about the move, but Nima had to half-stumble backwards, waiting for Katarina's reply in both meanings of the word.
"It does," Katarina said. "But the Jedi are needed for that. We cannot lose ourselves. I have the start of an idea. But there's no…"
"What is the idea?" Nima asked. She felt warmed up, and now she leapt, right over Katarina, her words carrying as she did, her heart racing with the joy of the duel, with the way that Katarina was becoming herself again. Focusing, concentrating. Being. Being in the moment so fully that Nima wanted to sing. Wanted to do something to indicate how she felt.
Except Katarina knew that too. Perhaps she'd even see that Nima had a crush on her, but if so in that moment Nima felt like she was invincible.
"The Jedi need a code. Rules of war. Specific, exact. Ethical rules. But how would one do that? How would they learn to listen? How would…"
Nima felt as if she were getting better and better moment by moment. But Katarina's emotions shot out, a dark streak suddenly appearing from nowhere, and she had no idea what Katarina was going to say next.
Later, she'd think about how each word felt as if it were written in some dark tome, indelibly and terribly. In deep, bleeding red ink. Something final and yet horrifying.
"I shouldn't write it," Katarina said.
Nima should have spoken, but if she didn't say something, maybe Katarina would focus on the fight, and wouldn't tear herself apart, as the Force told her she was about to--
"I'm formal. Opinionated. Unthinkingly orthodox. Cruel. Cold. Simple, simple minded. Rigid. Heartless and unfeeling. No., I couldn't design a good Code," Katarina said.
Each word was a dagger plunged into her own heart, and Nima almost felt sorry when her shorter saber caught Katarina's, and her longer one slammed into her hands, hard enough to knock the lightsaber out of her hands.
Katarina sunk to her knees, and Nima stared. Four years ago, one of the boys--Franky --had joked that Katarina probably wasn't able to cry, was from some sentient species that didn't. She'd broken her hand, and not a sniffle in sight. And then he'd continued, just a few impersonations of a stoic warrior. In theory they were funny, but even though Nima hadn't liked Katarina that much back then, she'd put her foot down. They'd been almost-friends before then, Franky this slightly cool older boy, two years--which made his mockery worse--more experienced and always able to joke. She'd told him off, right in front of him and dozens of other people, had made him back down.
He was out in the war right now, he'd been taken as a Padawan just before the Clone Wars began, perilously young.
Now there were tears in Katarina's eyes, and a tremulous frown on her face as she said. "That's what everyone says. I… would be bad at it."
There were a lot of people who admired Katarina, as there should be, but Nima knew that the number of people who liked her as a person was… rather less, and that there were plenty that said all of those things. She hadn't started a verbal argument every time someone said something like that, but she had when they'd been too cruel. Or she'd asked them to stop, just as she would with anyone.
She stepped forward. Being a Jedi was about being mindful of the moment, and she let herself be lost in this as she knelt down. The war was gone, the rest of the Temple was gone, she was fully in this moment. And what she wanted more than anything, anything at all, was not to see Katarina cry, not to have her suffer.
Some of the words weren't meant to be more than the slightest rebuke, had no doubt been 'She's great with a lightsaber, but I tried to talk to her and she wouldn't, she's a little cold.' Psychologically, it was remarkable how human memory worked: when one was sad, one accessed sad memories easier. This was true of Twi'leks as well, though perhaps slightly less.
"I feel you," Nima said.
"I…"
"I feel you." She reached a hand out and touched Katarina's hand, the one without the small lightsaber burn. "I see you. I know you."
To see and be seen, Nima said, dredging up a quote from some philosophy work. It was important.
"And you see me," Nima said. "You are kind, polite, upright, unyielding, focused, dedicated, and strong. You are my friend, and I think if you did it all yourself, it would be an excellent code. But you should include others, if you're going to do this. A group, a team, to come to consensus. And… after-action reports!"
She was speaking almost faster than her thoughts, and it was good that Katarina asked, "After… action?"
"Ethical after-action reports. After a mission or situation, a Jedi already has to record or talk about what happened, but what if it was more… formal. More controlled? The clones know how to follow rules and when and how to break them. They're… there's many things about them that the Jedi can't be, but if we learn the right lessons."
Katarina nodded, and reached out a hand to wipe away the tears. "You're so kind, I worry about you."
"I…" Nima said. "You're a good person. I'm sorry that we were not friends earlier."
Her heart ached.
"I…" Katarina began, but didn't finish. She was remembering something, or thinking about something, or--
"Thank you," Katarina finally settled on.
"I'm sorry I hurt you," Nima said, glancing down at the burn.
"That's what you're supposed to do. It will heal. You're getting better," Katarina said. "I hope the war ends. I didn't choose to become a Jedi for… for what this is becoming."
"Choose?"
"If at any time I thought that the philosophical or moral right thing to do was to… leave. I would. I would meditate on it and then decide," Katarina said.
"Oh. Me too. I hope."
She hoped, because she knew nothing else in her life. The outside world, in all the holovids she saw, seemed so strange. People's cruelties sometimes seemed less accidental, their flaws more pronounced, but so too their… lack of poise? She didn't know how to describe it.
"Nima, you could be good at anything you do," Katarina said, slowly standing up.
"And I'm going to be your friend," Nima said. "Do you need to go to the Halls of Healing?"
"For this?" Katarina said. "No."
The stoic, controlled mask slipped on, and Nima wrapped a hand around Katarina's shoulder, attraction forgotten in favor of commiseration.
"Then how about a little something to eat?"
"We can talk more once we have some tea, and…" Katarina considered. "Whatever else." She was still a little distracted, she wasn't completely there, but she was getting towards it. The moment had came, the moment had passed, and now what was left was picking up the pieces and rebuilding.
Shoulder to shoulder, they departed.
*****
Jayne and Wessen were good friends, polite and always willing to talk about their days, but they weren't what drew Nima again and again to the same place, towards the same risks. It was the other two. She wasn't going to admit that, because she'd been so eager before to tell the authorities everything, to let the Order know. And now she was keeping secrets even from Jayne and Wessen.
The first one, the one that felt slightly dark--yet playful, and kind--and a little sad at moments, it teased her, in the Force. She'd feel it brush out against her, emotionally, and she'd unspool herself more, as if trying to chase it.
Then, it'd disappear, and reappear. And again and again. And then, one day, two weeks in, it let her touch it. She felt something ancient, and yet… very human. Its emotions wrapped around her, and in the Force she felt it, the strange warmth, the sly acceptance of the world as it was. It was charming, really. She'd send out an emotional feeler that seemed to indicate:
Who are you? Curiosity.
And in return, it'd send out emotions of confusion, of bafflement and mystery, as if it was saying:
Wouldn't you like to know?
So, they were talking… in a way. The second one felt less playful, more serious. Tinged with darkness, the darkness that was intensity, was someone doing what they felt was right even when it… might not completely be. There was asperity, but there was a hint of something else, a strong sense of something she couldn't quite make out.
Its touch felt like something hard, something sharp, and yet when she relaxed into it, reached out with the Force, he didn't flow away. No, not he. It. It didn't flow away, even though it felt so… something. She wasn't even sure, but she thought that if only she could actually talk to them, it'd be far easier.
Hopefully she'd work out how to do that soon.
Something was going on, something was down there, waiting and lurking. She didn't know what, that was all.
Time for follow-ups! (Choose 1)
[] See Hannah. She knows a lot about the politics side of things, which could help for Nima's burgeoning ideas about peace and understanding, and if she's really being something like polite with Cho, maybe she's turned over a new leaf.
[] Go with Jayne and Katarina, if she can, to the charity work in Coruscant, see what she can do and see, and whether she can keep Jayne out of trouble. Though it was probably a lost cause.
[] The Clones, perhaps they could help with… a number of problems, including Katarina's code idea. She'd just have to bring it up at one of the meetings. There were plenty of those.
[] Send messages and try to talk to Master Bell about her vague, but somewhat in formation ideas of what to do. Of what could be done to make a better galaxy. It was unlikely the Order was going to change so rapidly, and yet she could always ask.
******
A/N: Thanks to
@NemoMarx. I hope you all enjoyed this.
