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The caves were freezing. Vestara knew they would be, had prepared as well as she possibly could, but despite the heavy clothing she could still feel the icy bite of subzero temperatures. She was supposed to feel something by now, right? She had been walking alone for nearly an hour and a half after she separated herself from the other jedi hopefuls.
A whisper caught her attention as she stepped into a large, round room; the floor was covered with about 24 centimeters of still, frigid water. She stopped in her tracks feeling a deep seated unease. Boots or no boots she did not want to walk out into that water.
Vestara took a deep breath and stepped into the calf-deep pool, before immediately diving into a roll to avoid the blade that would have taken her head off had she been two seconds slower. She came back to her feet soaked and glaring…at herself.
It was like angling two mirrors to face each other and standing between them, she could see herself reflected infinitely but the largest two were the ones directing in front. Except…Except they didn’t look like her, didn't share her cold weather garb. None of them did. The two directly in front of her wore typical robes, one sith and one jedi and both held lightsabers ready to challenge her.
She fought both of them. The darkest and the most pure. She stabbed the yellow eyed woman through the heart and she strangled the one in pale robes with her bare hands. (The Jedi wouldn't let her go further into the caves. She wouldn't draw her weapon on Vestara. But She needs to go into the caves. The answer is there.) Other versions hiss at her. A woman in armor says she's abandoned family, another in military cut calls her a traitor. She trudges on, knees deep in icy water. There's a song here, she's sure she can hear a song
Her foot slips on the underwater ice as it gives out beneath her and suddenly her jedi guards are not beside her anymore and she can hear it more clearly. The lack of air and the freezing water mean nothing for the moment as she finally understands why the others can't feel the gaping wound
She gasps, then chokes then claws at ice that only gives way after her nails have broken and her knuckles have bloodied under force enhanced punches. She hacks water up onto dark stone. She gasps and sputters. Her lungs sting with every breath but she can breathe again. She's alone in a cave that never had anything for her. All she has is what she came with. The discordant melody, with its missing notes and too-shrill pitch is clear now. Her crystal was always in her hands. The broken fractured thing she could barely stand to use, was hers. Gasps became sobs as reality hit her.
She curled in on herself, shivering and miserable as she stared at her saber. What did it mean? Was this it? the end of the road? That she could never be more than what she was? No. That couldn't be it The visions... With ice-numbed fingers she fumbled the saber open, The design wasn't intuitive and she nearly dropped it back into the water, but finally pulled the bloody, broken crystal from the hilt. She held it, shaking from more than the cold. She did not want to attune it.
But she could hear its song, something so close to beautiful. She wanted that. She wanted what it could be. What it could've been, if some stranger a thousand some years ago hadn't forced it to fit the shape they needed. Who would she have been, if she hadn't had a role to play? She doesn't have an answer. She has even less of an answer than when she started into this place. She knows a dozen versions of herself she hates. She's seen a dozen more that she pities and a handful that seem impossible. What does that leave? Who is she when the masks are scraped away? She shivers for what could be hours , waiting for the epiphany that's supposed to come. Isn't that what these caves are supposed to show her? She shivers until she doesn't feel cold anymore. Until all that can consume her mind is a rhythm that's so close to something. She hums with it, or tries too. Her voice sounds so broken next to it's. She can't match it. She doesn't try. Its melody is wrong in the same way she used to be. She finds a rhythm, hums something that isn't the thing she wants the crystal to sound like, but isn't it’s shrieking either. By the time she remembers that the cold feelings leaving is dangerous and that she needs to go back, the song the crystal sings has changed.
She feels warm. Too warm, and her mind, fuzzy from both hypothermia and the impromptu meditation, takes a moment to catch up with what she's looking at. The crystal is...it isn't fixed. There is no fixing what was done to it, but it's changed. It no longer leaks angry red light and pain. Vestara has no idea what it means but it feels...right. She fumbles with her pockets and slides the stranger's saber in one and the reforged crystal in the other. Now all she has to do is find her way back out. She pulls at the zipper of her coat. She is fairly certain that too hot feeling is bad and she leans on the wall and she starts back in the direction she thinks is the right way
No one mocks her, no one challenges her to a duel to prove her worth or simply declares she's too sullied to pass. It's almost easier to leave than it was to get here. She laughs, then wonders if that's why Luke was hesitant. Do people lose their minds in here? The entrance is easy to find, too easy to find, so she almost turns back before reaching for the sunset tinged air. "Ves?!" Ben shouts.
Vestara jerked her gaze from the path before her to meet her eyes. She had been so focused on not falling again she hadn't sensed him. "Ben..." her voice slurred and she fumbled with her pocket to show him but her knees gave out before she could get it open. Distantly she noticed her hair had frozen into matted locks. Somehow that seemed more important to her muted brain than Ben rushing forward to catch her. The texture was bad. crunchy under his hands. He was saying something but his words didn't make sense. Was he speaking basic? She should tell him...something. There's something she needs to tell him. She can feel herself being moved, distantly. Like watching a holodrama with half her mind.
The world is suddenly too bright. The sun dances across glass sculptures sticking up from white sand. She didn't think it was a Sea Festival year... and she almost asks Ben but there's something wrong with that question... oh. "Where did the ocean go?
He leans over, glancing at something to the side of where she is laying. When did she lay down? "No ocean Ves, just relax. You'll be fine in a few hours. Why is it so dark? The sun was reflecting off...hmm...something. The sun was gone. That was probably not a good thing. Unless it was night. Were there enough moons to produce this much light? "There's only three moons on Kesh." It seemed important for Ben to know that.
It's too hot. She should take off her coat, only... no, it's already gone? There was something important in it, wasn't there? "Ilum only has two," Ben tells her. Two what? What does Ilum have two of... songs! That's what Ilum has, and there was one in her hand. That was what she needed to tell him!
"My pocket," her voice was urgent, "the song is in my pocket!" Ben cocked his head in confusion. This was important! But her mind kept drifting. Why was it so damn hot?! Ben answered her but the words were water on a water fowel's wings, slipping away before anything could sink in. She wanted to go to sleep but there was something important. It takes effort to push herself up, where was her coat? She'd taken it off, was that before or after the Sea Festival? Hands like fire wrap around bare arms. Too warm. She squirms, but can't really bring the energy to fight him. It's Ben. Why is he so warm? Is he sick? "Ves, hey, it's okay. Lay back down and try not to move while we get you warmed up again." He was like a furnace and she tried to squirm away from him but he was much too strong. Urgency fades as she struggles, what was it she needed? "Too warm," she complains.
She felt her body relax against her will as she fought to keep her eyes open, distantly aware of Ben shouting for help before darkness overtook her.
She was sticky. She was aware of that before she was fully conscious. Half aware dreams gave her several unlikely scenarios such as: failure to disarm a bomb in the fizzy machine and crystal caves actually made of sugar. By the time her mind surfaced enough to register the smell of bacta, she was mostly relieved that the fresher would be staying in its own singular location. But that was the smell of bacta and she was sticky. She sat bolt upright.
"Ben?" She lets him push, craning her neck for a better view of the room. They'd been on Kesh, how did they get there? Were they safe now?
"You're alright now. You had us pretty worried there for a while." He laces his fingers with hers and squeezed them gently.
She blinked, taking in the medbay of the mid-sized jedi transport. They'd gone to Ilum, not Kesh. "Ilum doesn't have oceans." Why did she think it was the sea festival?”
"Yeah, I know. Not that I was able to convince you of that." He smiled and tried to keep his fear to himself. She shivers again, pulling the blankets more securely around her. "We... didn't ever leave the planet, that makes more sense, I think...?"
"We left," Ben assured, "we're in hyperspace." Ben looked away, "Ves...this...Ilum isn't the only place to find a crystal. It's not a mark against you that yours wasn't here."
"I— what? I had a crystal?"
"You mean your old one?"
She hesitates, that had been after she'd fallen through the ice... could the memory be trusted? "Kinda?"
Ben reached over to the bedside table to press the call button. Josat would want to look her over. "What do you mean kinda?"
"It... changed? I'm not sure... it was after..."
Ben frowned, "where did you put it?"
"My coat."
He stood and walked to the other chair where he had draped her clothes and opened her pockets. Sure enough, there was a crystal in one pocket. Vestara relaxed. Had she been so tense this whole time? He looked at it in surprise before holding it out to her with a wide grin.
"Is it..."
"Is it what?"
She picks at a thread on the corner of the blanket. "Like it was?"
"You tell me. I can't tell how it was." He offered it again
She holds out her hand, suddenly reluctant. If he couldn't tell, what was to say she hadn't just hallucinated? She'd been doing a lot of hallucinating on Ilum. He gives her a reassuring smile and pressed the small, worn crystal into her hand. She closes her eyes, that same hesitant song trills back at her. It's definitely different... to her.
Ben waited on pins and needles trying not to distract her from her concentration
"How do I know?"
"If it's different?"
"It's different. How do I know if it's right?"
"Does it feel right?"
She frowned. "Korriban felt right."
"Did it? Or did it just feel comfortable and familiar? "
"I'm not sure I can tell."
Ben placed his hands on hers, "does it make you uncomfortable like it did before?"
"It's not screaming anymore."
"Does it make you uncomfortable?" He repeated
"No."
"Then it's right."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
She turns the crystal in her hand, finally looking at it, gorey red had faded to a sickly pink, the wound surrounded with milky fog. "It doesn't feel like a Jedi's crystal." She tests, the tan robed version of herself flashing in her mind.
"No one's crystal is ever the same. It's yours, the bond you have with it is personal." He gently closed her fingers around it.
"It's not healed."
"Maybe it doesn't need to be. Maybe being changed is enough for now." At that, staying composed is suddenly a tremendous effort. Ben met her eyes, his gaze earnest and full of love. Of trust.
She let a tear fall, folding in on herself. He pulled her against him, pressing his cheek to her hair. They could be broken together and maybe that would be enough.