Distractions

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Jacen stared up at the ceiling and considered his own existence. After giving it some thought he was certain that he wasn't at immediate risk of expiring. It wasn't as comforting a thought as it could have been. If there was nothing to use to patch him up then all that fact did was prolong his final moments on this plane of existence.

It some ways it did bring comfort. He wasn't likely to die alone. If she came back empty handed he resolved not to let her try and make her way to the port alone.

He heard a distant snap-hiss and felt betrayed by his own body when he couldn't call out.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

The door burst apart into a thousand pieces, the forces shattering it in an instant. The loud boom of the power rang out within the Temple, and it's sound was met with...startled screams. Aela leaped back and away from the doorway as soon as she heard the noise, her face changing to confusion, and then sudden surprise. A range of emotion floated through her, chief of which was guilt.

Beyond the doorway, in a small chamber half the size of where she and Jacen had fought, was arrayed a group of small children.

The youngest of them was by Aela's guess about seven or eight, the oldest not breaching the age of fifteen. All of them stared at her with wide eyes, some of them screamed or clutched at their elders, and the lot of them were just as confused as she was. The green lightsaber in her hand still burned bright, and she saw that more than half of them were looking at the weapon specifically. A sudden rush of panic hit her, and then a reminder of Jacen's condition. "My friend is hurt."

What else was she going to do?

"I need help." They stared at her. "Medical supplies, bacta...anything!"

The inflections of her tone seemed to make them all jump, though one of the older girls slowly stepped up to her. The young woman was still more than a little weary, but between the exploding door and the lightsaber in Aela's hand she knew she had to do something.

"T-there's a medical b-b-bay"​

The girl stuttered, but Aela didn't have time. "Where is it? Can you show me? Please."

For a moment silenced reigned, and then the girl nodded. Not another word passed between the two of them as the two women rushed off down another hallway, Aela practically pushing the girl. A moment later they reached an even smaller room, and within just a few moments the blonde Jedi Master had gathered up an armful of medical supplies, ushering the girl to do the same.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Aela seemed to have lost height. He caught sight of her silhouette out of the corner of his eyes. As he turned he realised there was more than one person. There was a meager flutter in the Force as he stretched out and confirmed what his tired eyes could see.

"Who?” he tried to say as they approached, but it actually came it as nothing more than a grunt. Not just Luke caught up in all this. She had dragged younglings down with her failing mind. What would have happened if they had not arrived?

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

Aela was moving in a quick rushed step, the youngling trailing behind her by only a few feet. Confusion reigned across the young ladies face, quickly twisted into abject horror as she saw the two corpses that lay within the rubble near Jacen.

The young Jedi Master whipped around, looking at the girl as she covered her face in an attempt to not look at the two bodies. It took Aela only a few seconds to realize what it might have looked like. Jacen and She were strangers, Luke and the other Master? They had been someone to this girl, maybe friends, maybe a master, it didn't really matter. She and Jacen looked like the bad guys here, and while she couldn't exactly explain that..."My friend needs help. I can explain what happened here I just..."

She looked at Jacen.

"I just need your help, okay?" The girl looked at Aela, a mixture of fear, horror, and even anger mixing on her face. "Help me, and I'll explain."

For a moment more the girl lingered, and then she slowly nodded.

Scooping up the medical supplies that she had dropped the young girl wandered over to Jacen, following Aela's lead as she began to apply salves of bacta and small patches to Jacen's wounds.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Aela Talith"]

After this time he hadn't been able to truly disassociate himself from his pain. But with it washing over him it had started to fade into the background. Having them poked and prodded made it fresh once more.

Who was the other girl who had gone quite so pale. Even against Aela's complexion and his own blood stained skin she looked palid. Perhaps she hadn't seen someone wounded before. Jacen's own thoughts were sluggish and he didn't see the wider context.

He grimaced and hissed through clenched teeth as he had to unfurl himself. At some point he had curled around the bloody flank like a wounded animal.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

"Just one second." Aela trailed off as she began to dig through one of the bags that she had brought with her.

The young woman that had come along with her was diligently applying the bandages to Jacen's wounds, her fingers deft and rather careful. The motions were practiced, though oddly clumsy. Aela guessed that she likely had some medical training, but this was the first time she'd actually had cause to use it.

"Ah." Her voice sounded more relaxed now, mostly due to the fact that she knew Jacen would now live. "This will wake you up a bit."

Something that would be necessary if they were going to make it out of here.

From the bag Aela pulled a small needle, a vial of an oddish green liquid swishing around inside of it. She gently slid it into Jacen's arm and depressed the plunger, hoping that the stim wouldn't be too much of a shock to his system. She needed him awake, not instantly jumping to his feet.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Aela Talith"]

"Not sure..."

Too late. It was like ice rushing through his veins. He could even feel the moment when it struck his heart.

"...I want to be more awake." Never mind. He manages a very forced chuckle and then instantly regretted it. He looked up at Aela. Her amber gaze was so focussed. Gossamer strands fell free or were plastered to sweat and grime.

"I'm okay," he lied. He placed a hand over hers very briefly. "You're okay. You were always going to do the right thing."

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

Aela stared at Jacen for a moment, not responding and instead simply shaking her head.

Her adrenaline was still spiked, her heart pounded inside of her chest, but...it was over. At least she thought it was. Jacen would live, the Miraluka was gone, and she suspected...or at least hoped that the climax of their little adventure had already been reached. Her lips thinned for a moment and then she glanced at the youngling whom had accompanied her. The girl was staring at the both of them with a mixture of confusion and anger, two emotions Aela understood well.

"I think we have a lot of explaining to do." She told Jacen quietly, looking back at him for a moment before giving a pointed glance at the young woman.

The girl took a step back from both of them, clearly still more than a little apprehensive.

Aela had promised an explanation as soon as Jacen was alright, and he had been stabilized but...she just wasn't sure where she was supposed to start with all of this. Their journey had begun because of her, their path had taken them here but why or how she could not really have said.

She looked at Jacen, seeking some sort of guidance from a man that could barely talk at this point.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Aela Talith"]

He turned towards the girl as if noticing her for the first time. That wasn't true, but it was the first time his gaze truly settled and focussed upon her. Jacen gave a slow nod. There were always others. A Galaxy teeming full of life and a Jedi's life was to put that first.

After a moment of silence he realised they were both looking at him. Was this why she had given him the shot? To deal with the young people who shebhad apparently found deeper in the catacombs.

Through haze, pain and drugs he tried to work through what was even going on. If Luke had been here then perhaps there were more.

"It's alright," he said. His chest rose and fell slowly. Finally the pain was starting to abate. "You're safe."

He sighed. "Aela, did she have many students here?" He wished Luke was here right now. If they were from some small order of Jedi they would see an attempt to convince them that their master had killed Luke as an obvious lie.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

"A dozen or so." She said quietly.

The weight of just what they had to do sank into her then.

She remembered the faces of those younglings, how they had stared at her, the looks in their eye. She had been the enemy, the thing to fear. Now they would have to convince not just this girl, but all of them that they were the good guys. It seemed like an impossible task.

They were outsiders, strangers, nothing else.

"We're Jedi." Aela said quietly, frowning for a moment before she continued on. "From another world..another Order."

How the hell was she supposed to do this. "We came here trying to find..."

What had they been trying to find? A 'cure' for her she supposed, but how was she supposed to put that to this youngling. The girl already looked more than a little dubious, and Aela couldn't exactly blame her for that. The Jedi Master frowned again, and then took a deep breath. There was one way to do this, and...well it was pretty much the only shot that she figured they actually had.

"Okay. You're in training right? To become a Jedi?" The girl frowned, looking from Jacen to Aela and then slowly nodded. "Alright. Close your eyes. Reach out in the force, reach out to us."

It seemed a good solution. "Search your feelings, you'll know we're telling the truth."

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Aela Talith"]

"Why are you trying to convince her on her own?"

Jacen cranes his neck to see three more figures stepping out into the open space. It was often hard to tell around that age but they looked around fifteen to him. The oldest boy in the trio had clearly puffed out his chest whilst the other two looked around the devastation in shock.

Jacen was instantly reminded of the way Trextan had confronted him below the Sith temples on Coruscant. In the end the boy has charged and Jacen had been forced to put him on his back with a stun round. Hopefully this could be dealt with in a less aggressive manner. There was no chance he was getting back on his feet. If they were well trained and galvanised their resolve he couldn't be certain Aela could stop them all without someone being injured.

"It's okay Willen!" The girl called out.

"They killed Luke!"

Jacen sighed. "We didn't. His voice was strained but his voice managed to reach them. But we did kill her. She wouldn't stop. Even Luke saw the danger in the end."

He avoided trying to explain that the miraluka had snapped his neck directly. He turned weary eyes towards Aela and lifted a hand a few inches from the ground, trying to signal for calm. His awareness wasn't that clear. He didn't know how highly strung she was right now.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

Aela wasn't about to go yell at a bunch of small children.

At one point in her life she might have been at a loss in a situation like this, completely unable to actually even understand the motivations of the tiny people in front of her. It was, however, rather important to remember what Aela had been doing for the last few months.

She had been spending almost every waking day training younglings,

They had been the same age group as this lot, ranging from the years of eight to fifteen. All of them had been difficult in their own way, some more than others, and Aela had become quite used to all of them. She knew that Children weren't stupid, in fact they were smarter and more intuitive than most adults. Treating them like adults, talking to them with respect would do a long way to actually working this situation through without anymore violence.

The young woman looked from Aela to Jacen, and then to her friends. "Luke brought us here."

The simple truth.

"He knew that something wasn't right, so he brought us here." She frowned for a moment, glancing at the weapon she was still holding in her hand. "There was a fight, that's why my friend was injured."

It was all true, even if it left out some of the details. "We're not here to hurt you. Any of you."

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Aela Talith"]

This time his sigh was internal. It wasn't that he didn't trust Aela. He had been fairly certain that her concerns were more inside her own mind than real. But he had never meant to throw her back into the fight like this. Even if it had galvanised her resolve, putting her here when she had been emotionally vulnerable had been a risk. Sometimes a risk had to be taken for the greater good.

"She said she was going to make everything right," called one of the children. Jacen realised they were talking amongst themselves as much as to Aela.

"But you saw how she talked to Luke."

"You said you thought she was losing it!"

Jacen managed to raise his voice just enough to call out: "Luke was worried about her too. We could not save her."

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

Aela stayed quiet for a moment, motioning for Jacen to do the same. Slowly the young Jedi Master leaned in closer towards her friends, her words barely echoing above a whisper so that the kids didn't hear her speaking to him. "Let them discuss it."

She said quietly.

Running in and trying to take charge, excusing themselves and their behaviour...it wouldn't help them here. The children needed to reach their own conclusion, and she was fairly sure that the young woman whom had helped save Jacen was already on their side. After Jacen spoke up, the four children looked at the two Jedi Masters, then hunched closer towards one another so that they were not overhead. They spoke quickly, quietly, though some of their control broke.

​

"We don't know them!"​

One of the elder boys said, immediately being shushed.

"I felt it...truth..."​

Aela couldn't understand everything the girl said, but it was clear she was advocating for them. That brought a small smile to her face, though she couldn't help but clutch Luke's lightsaber a little tighter than before. After a minute or two more of discussion the children turned towards them, the young girl whom Aela had first brought standing at the forefront.

​

"We...we don't think you're here to hurt us."​

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Aela Talith"]

It was perhaps the most diplomatic exchange he'd seen from a group of teens in a crisis. Clearly well disciplined despite the state they had found their master in. He wondered if perhaps she had been a good instructor before she had opened her mind up to the possibilities of time and been torn.

"Aela," he whispered. "Go make sure they're all safe. I'll be fine."

He made the statement with absolutely no proof to back it up. If he hadn't been exhausted and full of drugs he probably would have realised how thin the cover was.

When the dust has settled he needed a serious talk with Aela. It wasn't right that she should have been forced to find her resolve because people were in peril again. That wasn't a healthy way to live and he knew that well enough from personal experience.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

Aela smiled slightly, then gently patted Jacen on the cheek.

"Please shuttup now." The words weren't as kind as they should have been, but Jacen didn't seem to be getting it. There wasn't much else that they could do right now. He needed to heal up and these children...well these children represented the best chance they had of actually getting anywhere. Neither she nor he actually knew where this Temple was, what had happened before her arrival, or anything else at all.

They were kids, yes, but at least they had some information.

"Please, uhh..." She frowned. "What is your name?"

"Allara."​

The girl said quickly, almost as though she had been waiting to introduce herself for some time. Aela smiled slightly, glancing at Jacen and then continuing on. "Go on Allara."

"We don't think you're here to hurt us, but..." She glanced at Luke's body, and then at the Miraluka's. "We don't..."​

The little girl glanced at the others, who were clearly at a loss for words as well. It was obvious that their little discussion hadn't really been about what to do with them so much as...well what not to do. It seemed that the kids had at least decided to trust her and Jacen, or give them a chance anyway. Aela frowned for a moment, and then took a step towards Allara. She smiled and then glanced back at Jacen before she began to speak. "Alright. We're going to get out of here? Okay?"

She looked at the others.

"All of us." This wasn't a place for any of them anymore.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Aela Talith"]

"You shush," he muttered back in a mildly grumpy tone. Despite the drugs he was still in pain. He hadn't really lost a great deal of blood but along with the cocktail of medicines coursing through his veins he wasn't entirely focussed. "Would have stayed quiet if someone hadn't given me stims," he said quietly enough that only Aela would hear his petuoance.

It felt as if he was listening to their conversation through someone else's ears. As if he was slightly removed from the exchange. Still, he could tell that she had grown when it came to dealing with the padawans. He felt a pang of guilt that she had been kept from her own students.

Then he realised her plan was coalescing towards a group march back out across the desert. Unless she was planning on bringing the ship here. That would have been nice.

There was no medevac team here with a medical LAAT. He was going to have to get back up on his feet and walk again. At least that was what his slowly turning mind decided. The thought did at least give him purpose. Taking advantage of the stims he tried to push aside everything that was external, try and draw the Force to himself and speed up his own recovery.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

"How did you guys get here?" Aela asked, her tone of voice soft, questioning, but light as could be. "That portal? A ship?"

The latter was what they needed, mostly because she thought that whatever that portal had been was most likely either dead or...well connected to the Miraluka in some capacity. Aela had no real idea what it had even been in the first place, and her knowledge when it came to that sort of thing was limited. Briefly she wished that her father had been there, he would have been able to explain what the damned thing actually was without even opening a book.

She frowned, then looked at Allara.

"Some of us came by ship, others used the portal. Maser Si-she...it was different for everyone."​

So there was a ship, that was something at least. Aela frowned for a moment and placed a hand on her chin in thought. She wouldn't be able to fly them out of here, and it was unlikely that any of the children could pilot either. Her eyes wandered back to Jacen for a moment, and then she glanced at the boys that lingered behind Allara. "Do you know where the ship is?"

Allara shook her head slowly, the boys behind her remained quiet.

"Alright." It had to be here somewhere, they would just have to find it. "Why don't you guys go get the others, then we'll find that ship together."

Splitting them up would be good for no one.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Aela Talith"]

It looked and felt worse than it was. At least as far as Jacen could tell. It would take a Jedi who specialises in healing or a medical team with a scanner to know for sure. There were still several shards of rock embedded between muscle layers down one side but nothing too jagged or stuck into bone. It might not have been a well informed decision but he decided to let them stay there for now.

As he shifted he felt one tearing at flesh. His initial appraisal had been wrong. Jacen let out a low growl between clenched teeth as he expelled that one back through the wound. A small fingernail sized shard of rock emerged from the bandage Aela had applied.

"Someone said ship?" He asked, ignoring Aela's previous request for silence.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

She glanced down at Jacen, her lips thin. "Yes, ship."

Jacen would have to be the one to fly them out, there was no real question about that. She couldn't do it and neither could the kids, but that meant he had to be well enough to fly. Her eyes drilled holes in his heads as she stared at him, clearly annoyed that he was speaking again and not resting.

"Go get the others, Allara." Aela told the children as she stepped over to Jacen. "We'll wait here."

Trust.

That was what she was trying to build. She wasn't ordering them around for no reason, she wasn't just taking contorl for the sake of it, she wanted the children to trust her. This was the beginning stage of that. Right now they could run if they wanted, they could break free from Jacen and Aela and just rush out into the desert, but she knew they wouldn't do that. These kids were smart, smart enough to respond reasonably and understand that they all needed to work together.

At least Aela hoped so.