Chapter Text
The idea came to Serra on Orto Plutonia, because of course it did.
She was huddled in the command tent, wrapped in two thermal layers and one of Cody's spare blankets that had mysteriously appeared on her chair, and she was still cold. Her fingers ached. Her nose had gone numb approximately two hours ago. Somewhere outside, clone troopers in identical armor were trudging through knee-deep snow like it was a minor inconvenience.
"You could return to the Negotiator," Obi-Wan offered, not looking up from his tactical display. He was wearing a single cloak. He looked comfortable. Serra wanted to hate him a little bit.
"I'm fine."
"You're turning blue."
"It's a nice color on me."
Obi-Wan's mouth twitched. "Far be it from me to interfere with your aesthetic choices."
Serra pulled the blanket tighter and glared at the tent wall, as if the cold itself might be intimidated into backing off. It wasn't. The cold had no respect for Jedi.
That night, back on the Negotiator with feeling finally restored to most of her extremities, she couldn't sleep. She kept thinking about warmth. About how she never seemed to have enough of it. About the troopers who adjusted thermostats for her, who saved her seats by heating vents, who handed her cups of tea without being asked.
She'd been on the receiving end of so much quiet care. It would be nice, she thought, to give some of it back.
The Jedi Archives had a remote access terminal in the ship's small meditation chamber. Serra found herself there at 0300, scrolling through categories she'd never had reason to explore before.
Force-Imbued Objects: Theory and Practice.
Holocron Construction: A Master's Guide.
The Living Force and Material Resonance.
Sacred Artifacts of the Jedi Order: Preservation and Creation.
Most of it was either too advanced or too specific — she wasn't trying to build a holocron or create a temple guardian or store ancient wisdom for future generations. She just wanted to make something warm.
Finally, buried in a subsection of a subsection titled "Minor Enchantments and Practical Applications," she found a passage that made her sit up straighter.
"The simplest form of Force imbuing involves the transfer of intention into a physical vessel. Unlike complex artifacts, which require years of study and precise construction, basic imbued objects can be created by any practitioner with sufficient focus and a clear purpose. Common historical examples include warming stones for temple initiates, glow-pebbles for navigation in dark spaces, and calming tokens for nervous padawans."
Warming stones.
Warming stones.
Serra read the passage three more times, then pulled up the associated technical documentation.
It was... not exactly a recipe. More like a series of suggestions wrapped in mystical language and vague references to "opening oneself to the Living Force" and "allowing intention to flow through the material substrate." There were warnings about overloading the vessel, destabilizing the resonance pattern, and something ominous about "catastrophic thermal release."
"Catastrophic thermal release," Serra muttered to herself. "That sounds fine. That sounds completely fine."
She kept reading.
The first rock exploded.
To be fair, "exploded" was perhaps too strong a word. It popped. Loudly. And then it was in several pieces instead of one piece, and Serra was picking gravel out of her hair.
"Okay," she said to the empty storage closet she'd commandeered for this purpose. "Less... that."
The second rock got very hot very fast, then cracked down the middle with a sound like a blaster shot.
The third rock seemed to work for about ten seconds before going ice cold and staying that way.
The fourth rock exploded. Properly, this time. Serra spent fifteen minutes cleaning shrapnel off the walls.
"You're doing something strange," the Force seemed to suggest, in the way the Force sometimes did — less words than impressions, a gentle nudge toward reconsideration.
"I'm trying," Serra told it.
The fifth rock melted.
She hadn't known rocks could melt like that. Apparently, with enough poorly channeled Force energy, anything was possible.
The sixth rock was perfect for exactly thirty seconds, warm and steady in her palm, and then it started vibrating and she had to throw it into a supply crate before it shook itself apart.
Serra sat on the floor of the storage closet, surrounded by rock fragments, and considered her life choices.
She was sweeping up debris from attempt number nine when the door opened.
Obi-Wan stood in the doorway, one eyebrow raised to a height that suggested he was going to be insufferable about whatever he was witnessing.
"Do I want to know?"
"Probably not."
He surveyed the damage. The scorch marks on the wall. The pile of rock fragments. The slightly singed hem of her tunic.
"Are you... mining?"
"No."
"Building something?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"Something that requires..." He picked up a piece of shrapnel, examined it, and set it down again. "Aggressive rock destruction?"
"The rock destruction is incidental."
"Ah." He nodded slowly, as if this made perfect sense. "Carry on, then."
He left. Serra wasn't sure if that was better or worse than him asking more questions.
Attempt number fourteen was the breakthrough.
She'd gone back to the Archives, reread everything twice, and finally noticed a line she'd skimmed over before: "The vessel must be suited to the intention. A stone that has known warmth will hold warmth more readily."
A stone that had known warmth.
Serra thought about that for a long time. Then she went down to the engine room and asked Chief Engineer Vonn if she could borrow a few rocks from the heat shielding disposal bin.
"Rocks, sir?"
"Small ones. Smooth if possible."
Vonn gave her a look that suggested she was adding this to her mental file of "things Jedi do that don't make sense," but she found her a handful of heat-worn stones without further comment.
Back in her closet — her workshop, she'd started calling it, in her head — Serra held one of the stones and tried again.
This time, instead of pushing warmth into the stone, she thought about warmth moving through it. The stone had spent months absorbing heat from the engines. It knew what warmth felt like. She was just... reminding it. Asking it to hold onto that memory.
The stone grew warm in her palm.
She waited for it to crack. To explode. To melt or vibrate or do something catastrophic.
It didn't.
It just sat there, warm and steady, like a small sun cupped in her hands.
"Oh," Serra breathed.
She held it for five minutes. Ten. The warmth didn't fade.
She put it down on the floor and stepped back. It stayed warm.
She picked it up again and tucked it into her glove, against her palm.
Warmth spread through her fingers, gentle and constant, without pulling heat from her own body.
"Oh."