Private Fragments of Her

[Ala Quin]

​

The corridors of Shiraya’s Sanctuary always smelled faintly of rain-soaked stone and sun-warmed wood — a harmony of nature and purpose. Ala Quin padded softly through them, her light frame making barely a sound, her eyes crinkling at the corners with amusement as she passed by a cluster of younglings gathered near the meditation alcoves.

One of them stood on a stone bench, arms extended, eyes scrunched shut in dramatic focus. A small stone spun above his palm with unsteady, heroic effort. Another youngling clapped. Then two more raised their hands to join in. The rock wobbled, then spiraled in slow, lazy circles. Ala grinned, hands on her hips.

“You lot are going to put me out of a job,” she teased.

They beamed at her — one little Twi’lek girl even gasped when she realized who she was talking to. Ala knelt beside them, not above sitting cross-legged in the grass-dappled hall floor. She listened, encouraged, and watched with quiet awe as each child demonstrated something: a flower blooming too quickly, a ripple in a puddle that shouldn’t have moved, the sense of another’s presence just before they spoke.

Life, she thought. Unfolding in every tiny moment.

After bidding them farewell, she continued on until she reached the low garden wall that edged the Sanctuary's eastern court. With practiced ease, she hoisted herself up, settling into a meditative position atop it. Her mind slowed. The Force breathed in her chest.

But it wasn’t long before her senses were pulled gently aside — not by danger, but by curiosity.

A tree stood nearby, half-clinging to the temple wall, branches curling like fingers. In its trunk, a burrow of small, squirrel-like creatures fluffed their tails and chattered busily. Ala watched them as if watching a ballet. One scampered down the bark, carrying a bit of fabric. Another guarded a nest of fluff like a proud sentinel.

Without meaning to, Ala shifted, clambering quietly up the tree herself. She lay down along one of the thick, lower branches, her head propped up on one hand, gaze dreamy.

“Must be nice,” she murmured. “To know your place so certainly. To belong by birthright.”

She exhaled, not sadly, but softly.

“I’ve got my family. Maybe I wasn’t born to them. But Caltin, Connell...and the Order of Shiraya...they're mine. And that’s enough.”

Her eyes followed a tiny tail disappearing into the foliage.

“Most days."

Phylis Alince | fyi, Caltin Vanagor ​

 

[Phylis Alince]

Ala Quin

"Excuse me, Master Jedi, are you lost?" a polite, mechanical voice sounded.

Jedi Master Phylis Alince jolted out of her inspection of a pillar, looked around at the protocol droid.

"Ah, hmm, yes. I'm looking for a Master Ala Quin. I was, hmm, told she was in residence today?"

"Right this way, she was seen heading to the meditation summit."

Phylis followed the droid through the halls. It was certainly a nice place, and its location in the Gallo Mountains gave it a spectacular view. As she had landed, she had seen in the far distance a familiar blob…the ruins of the Emperor's Retreat she had just recently visited, with all its attending adventures.



As they passed on, Phylis saw a gaggle of younglings pass her by on the way through. Unlike other Jedi, Phylis was not really much of a teacher, and had trained only one Padawan in all her years as a Master. She found them too…excitable. She was much more likely to help teach or train more experienced Force users in her rather esoteric arts.

As they reached the meditation summit, Phylis dismissed the droid and walked through. She could sense Ala was nearby, but could not see her. That is, until she saw a rustle of movement up a tree. It was just a squirrel-like creature, but she did see the Jedi Master lying atop the branch of the great tree.

"Ah, Master Quin. Hmm, good to see you again. You sent me a message asking I come…and now I have."

 

[Ala Quin]

​

Ala blinked slowly as a fuzzy tail disappeared beneath a leafy burrow. She gave a dreamy little sigh and swung one leg lazily from the tree branch, chin resting in her hand. The sun danced across the canopy, shadows flickering like thoughts too fast to follow. For a long moment, she simply listened to the wind and the gentle chittering of the small rodent family in the tree beside her.

Then—

"Ah, Master Quin."

Her eyes widened slightly, then lit up with a warm and unmistakable sparkle.

“Phylis!” she exclaimed with a grin, twisting on the branch and nearly overbalancing before catching herself. “Hi-hi! You found me!”

Ala dropped down to the grass with a soft landing and brushed leaves from her shoulder. She stepped closer, clearly delighted — and then stopped, her brow scrunching faintly. Her gaze flicked off to the side as if chasing something far away.

“Wait. I… I did call you, didn’t I?” she murmured. “I did. Yes. There was a thing. A very important, possibly life-shaking, elf-eared sort of thing…”

She tapped her chin. Her smile faded just a touch, replaced by a distant look. Then her eyes refocused, more serious now.

“I need to look into my past. I think it’s finally time. I’ve been… dancing around it for years. But after everything that’s happened, I need to know where I came from. Not the adopted parts. The roots I didn’t choose. Just, it has been so many years...”

A breath. Her hand unconsciously brushed one of her pointy ears.

“You’ve studied so many things. History. Biology. Probably… pointy-eared species, right?” Her nose crinkled sheepishly. “I was hoping you might help me figure out what sort of... person I actually am. What my clone body was made from.”

She tilted her head, more softly now. “You seem like someone who could trace a puzzle through a hurricane.”

Then, with a small smile, "And someone who knows that sometimes answers come from the strangest little corners of the galaxy."

Phylis Alince ​

 

[Phylis Alince]

Ala Quin

Phylis peered at the other woman quizzically. She seemed a bit absent minded…which for Phylis was a perfect match. The human sometimes got distracted for hours…even days…and came back to find she'd let a half-finished item she had to then almost completely redo.



"Hmm, yes, please continue," she said encouragingly. When the story was laid out she frowned, scratched her chin.

"Ah, hmm, wanting to know your origins is important. I have been blessed with knowing my family, but I know that others are, hmm, not as fortunate."



"I have an interest in almost everything academic, yes," Phylis said with a nod. Almost to a fault, really. Interest of course did not mean expertise, but she dabbled in a lot of fields, and more importantly she was always willing to learn.

"If…once…I focus on a mystery, I can track it over a great times and places." She thought back over some of the mysteries she'd uncovered over the decades. Had they ended up helping people? Ultimately, that wasn't the point. Phylis was an inveterate solver of mysteries, knowledge for its own sake was worth more than gold or any other rewards.

"And you are a clone…that makes sense. I have had a good deal of contact with clones of many different traditions." She thought back to her interviews with the Unchained who were escaped clones from the war-torn world of Tephrike.

"I am happy to help you in any way I can," Phylis resolved.



"Hmmph, I say this with I believe authority, that I am the most knowledgeable 'galaxy person' on the beings formerly of Kaeshana and Tygara. There are others, of course, like the Sephi, but to my eye even though that is the most common galactic option, I am not sure that's what you are. Hmmph, people long assumed that all such beings with pointed ears had to be variants of Sephi. That is certainly untrue."

She led Ala to one of the benches nearby. "Please, tell me all you know…your first memories any clues you might have. And might I collect a DNA sample? My copy of the Jedi Archives, plus my own collection, would be able to pick out any strands from known species."

 

[Ala Quin]

​

Ala sat down beside Phylis, her fingers brushing against the cool stone of the bench. Her expression turned distant as she let out a soft sigh, trying to find the right words. It wasn’t easy — talking about herself, the things she couldn’t remember, and the pieces of her life that felt… manufactured. Still, she knew this was necessary. She wanted answers.

“Well, the thing is…” she began, her voice hesitant but steady. “I don’t really remember much of my childhood. Most of it was... well, I guess I was more of a test subject than anything else. They took me in when I was too young to understand, implanted within me some personality… and that’s the one everyone knows as ‘Ala’ — the one who sits in front of you now. I encountered the other me...the feral...unpleasant me...some time ago…” She paused, looking down at her hands. “She doesn't exist anymore.”

She blinked and exhaled softly, her voice wavering just slightly as if she were testing the words for the first time.

“The body I’m in now… it was created in a lab. A clone body. Force-sensitive, of course. They didn’t tell me much, but I was reunited with it on a floating lab, right before it exploded. The whole thing sank beneath the water, and that was 800 years ago...I took a long nap in a cryopod...I am not really 800 years old...”

Her gaze seemed to flicker with a mixture of sorrow and resolve. “So, I guess I’ve known all along that both my body and my personality were built in a lab. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to come to terms with, but... it’s the truth. And I need to know where it all started.”

Ala shifted on the bench, looking Phylis in the eye. She gave a little half-smile, trying to shake off the weight of the memory.

“I’m fine with the genetic test, but... will it hurt?” She tilted her head slightly, her voice lighter now but still carrying the weight of her deeper thoughts. “I just want to know. Anything, really. Who I was meant to be. And if there’s something more to me than this body...”

She glanced down again, focusing on the small stones beneath her feet. "The idea that I'm someone else's experiment... it's hard to hold onto. But I don't have much choice, do I?'

Phylis Alince ​

 

[Phylis Alince]

Ala Quin

Phylis nodded along as Ala spoke, then her eyebrows rose. "Ah, 800 years, hmm," she mused. "A lot of people from that era, cryopods, carbonite, hmmph," she said with a frown. She was getting off topic.

"Hmm, my condolences, Ala. Being a test subject, being raised just to be experimented on, all of it, terrible. It is perhaps a mercy on one hand that those people are still not alive - presumably - but it does make tracking down the source harder. Was the...other you...another clone? Kept in stasis too?"

"Do you know which planet this was on? That'll be a start, perhaps."

With a frown she considered. "The species which look similar to you I have had great experience with come from Kaeshana and Tygara. Now Kaeshana is a ruined and broken world where nothing normal lives, the Eldorai who once inhabited there fled to Tygara, seizing part of one of the continents for themselves. Eight hundred years ago or so...hmm...they did invite some offworlder mercenaries to give them blasters and other technology for their war against the other species from that world, the Kar'zun. It is possible one of the Eldorai went with them. Hmm, there was even a Jedi who died in the Clone Wars named Fay who was likely an Eldorai. So nothing is impossible."

"For Tygara it would have been, hmm, unlikely. See, the planet appears in no Old Republic charts I have ever seen, and if anyone did come to the planet they certainly did not bring others with them, as it remained undiscovered until just twenty-five years ago. Of the species there, the Qadiri, Vashyada and Xioquo are each subjects of great interest to me. Of all of them, you look like the Vashyada the most, but it depends on your heritage. And for that...we need a test.

Phylis rummaged in her satchel and produced from it a scanner. It would not be able to do the research itself, but it could beam to her ship which could. "Hmm, no, just as little prick on the finger." She extended the device towards Ala so she could get the little jab to her finger of choice.

"I have a fairly extensive genetic library of known species, so if you are one of those, you'll show up there."

 

[Ala Quin]

​

Ala sat quietly as Phylis spoke, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her brow furrowing in thought. She hadn’t really considered before that her original body might have been a clone too. It wouldn’t surprise her exactly — nothing about her life seemed normal — but Gaven, the man who had raised her in her early years, had never suggested it. He had always spoken of her as the daughter of the woman he loved, not some lab creation. Even so, the thought now gnawed at the edges of her mind.

“I… don’t know,” she admitted softly. “It’s possible. I guess anything’s possible.”

She tugged absentmindedly at a loose thread on her sleeve, thinking. After a moment she added, “My first body, though… it didn’t survive.” Her voice dipped lower, almost to a whisper. “A Sith Lord, Venetia, destroyed it. Delivered it back to my enclave… in boxes.” She shuddered and looked away, visibly shaken by the memory but unwilling to dwell on it.

Drawing in a breath, she steadied herself and continued, her voice regaining some focus. “I remember now — the planet was Rannon. One of the oceans there, deep enough that you could lose anything in it forever. I wonder if one of those Gungan submersibles could handle the pressure.” She offered a small, half-hearted chuckle at the thought, though her mind was clearly still half a galaxy away.

When Phylis produced the scanner, Ala glanced at it warily, but after a beat she smiled and extended her hand, ready for the little prick. “Alright,” she said, her tone light but a tiny bit nervous. “Just be gentle. I bruise like an overripe meiloorun.”

As she offered her finger, something awkwardly tumbled out of her mouth, as was often the case when she was feeling too much at once. “You, uh... you’ll need to check with your spouse before we run off chasing sunken labs, right?” She blinked, then flushed slightly. “I mean— I’m assuming you have a spouse. You seem...accomplished...and...you know...like you have life sorted out.”

She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and gave an awkward little laugh, half embarrassed, half earnest. “Sorry. Probably an assumption that could get me in trouble."

Phylis Alince ​

 

[Phylis Alince]

Ala Quin

Phylis pondered, thinking back. She liked to think she had a good memory for academic things. Names and people…not so much.

"Rannon…" she muttered. "Hmm, outer rim, Instrop Sector?" Forehead scrunched she reached for her databank. "Ah yes! Obscure planet…hmm, perfect for hiding nefarious operations," she added. "Yes, I might be able to get some sort of submersible to get down there…but the oceans are large, and if it was eight hundred years ago…."



"Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear that. Sith are…not nice." Understatement of the year. "You're here though, that's what's important."



A little swab of disinfectant and then a little jab to the finger. A clear reading. She sent it off to be analysed via her ship. In the meantime, she put some wound-gel on the little pinprick on the other woman's finger after cleaning the bead of blood off there.



Ala's question took her completely by surprise. She just sort of stared blankly at her for a few seconds.

"My…spouse?" she asked in bewilderment. "Hmmph, oh no, I'm a Jedi." She realised this was not a good explanation since…so was Ala…and there were a lot of married Jedi around these days. "I'm, hmm, not really one for relationships or any of that stuff. Never have been. I guess I follow the old Jedi Order ways from even before your time. I've had a lot of people over the years try to…hmm…proposition me, but that is not what I am interested in."



"No need to apologise. There's a lot of Jedi these days with marriages and such. Hmm. Not me though."



The sample was processing nicely, it would be done in a couple of minutes.