FicWad

She is curled tightly on the bed weeping, body a fierce knot of misery, when the question comes – warm, soft, all but tangibly kind, the cultured voice so familiar and so missed that her heart nearly seizes within her chest, in shocked relief.

“Why are you crying, child?”

“Obi-Wan!” She flings herself at him, Jedi decorum for once completely forgotten, not even bothering to look first, simply trusting him to catch her. His arms are wide and comforting and she buries herself within, fingers clutching desperately at his clothes.

“What’s wrong, Lorana? Tell me, and I’ll help you, if I can.”

His voice is so concerned that she cannot help but cry a little harder, so much that she has difficulty replying and is forced to try twice before she finally gets the words out. “Master, it’s all gone wrong!”

“How have things gone wrong, young one? Share with me. Let me help you.”

A hand strokes reassuringly, soothingly, through her hair, clearly meant to help calm her, but the kindness only makes her shake, face heating with shame where she’s burrowed against his shoulder. She didn’t listen to his counsel when she should have, didn’t heed her own instincts when they were screaming at her, and, worse yet, she discounted the warnings of the Force and failed to convince the other Jedi to act when there still would have been time to do something, to keep things from blowing up in their faces. Why is he being so kind to her? He must know that she doesn’t deserve such gentle consideration! “I – I don’t – I’m not – ”

“Lorana. You’re projecting, child, and you can stop thinking what you are right now. I would not be here if I did not wish to help you, nor would I wish to help you if I did not consider you deserving. Don’t be so foolish as to refuse aid that is honestly given, youngling.”

“Can you – is it alright to – ?”

“I have strong shields, youngling. You needn’t worry, on that regard. And you know I will go no further than invited.”

“I know, Master. I just – my thoughts – it’s very hard to center.”

The arms around her tighten a fraction, and she can feel the smile in his voice when he tells her, “You will not know chaotic until you seek to guide Anakin Skywalker into a deep meditative trance, youngling. Here. Relax. Breathe with me awhile. Time your exhalations to mine. Let your heart beat in synch with mine. Calm yourself. Drift with me. I have you. This is a safe place, and I will not let you fall. I only want to help you. Open your mind to me, young one. Let me see what is causing you so much pain. Center yourself. Let what is paining you rise to the forefront of your mind. I will not seek to look any deeper than the surface. It’s alright. It will be alright. Let me see, young one. I can help you, if you’ll let me . . . ” The words are so calming, his voice so soothing, that she cannot help but obey, her body relaxing into his, the tears trickling to a stop, her thoughts automatically calming, ordering themselves to the cadence of his words, her mind quieting, seeking after the familiar state of centered balance that Jedi are taught to seek after and embrace until it is not just second nature but automatic – a state in which one exists, in constant tranquility and serene openness to the Force – but which seems, to her, to generally be ignored by most Jedi, except for during certain meditative exercises. Her Master certainly had not lived in calmness or in balance with the Force, and there have been times when she’s seriously wondered if perhaps the Jedi haven’t become too judgmental, too haughty, too concerned with petty rules and the tallying of each other’s faults, for such serenity. Not Obi-Wan, though. Obi-Wan exudes serenity. He is so centered and in tune with the Force that, even when practicing with his lightsaber, even when moving so swiftly that it is difficult to follow his motions, even with the Force to aid one’s concentration, he still seems calm. It is easy to let his serenity wash over her and calm her, easy relax into breathing in time with him, biorhythms sliding into an easy synchronicity, mind calming and opening, thoughts rising to the surface, inviting attention.

A few moments or a lifetime later, the strong arms around her shift slightly, just enough to allow them to lift her comfortably, carrying her back across the room to the bed, letting her settle down against him, leaning companionably against his right shoulder. The question probably isn’t necessary, but she asks it anyway. “You see?”

“I see, youngling. I see that you blame yourself for your former Master’s fall. I see that the Jedi tendency for self-martyrdom is nearly as alive and well in you as it has been in me. I see that you are at a crossroads, one that might very well affect the fate of us all.”

“The Chiss – ”

“ – are obviously much stronger in the Force than any other race of sentient beings we know. The talent is consistent in almost all the offshoots of humanity, but this . . . this is quite extraordinary. I’m nearly tempted to wonder if some ancient scientist managed to find a way to breed for increased Force-sensitivity without risking the threat of insanity that has doomed all other known attempts.”

“Mitth’ras’safis and Mitth’raw’nuruodo – ”

“I know, youngling. They could have been well on their way to permanent seats upon the High Council, if they had been raised within the Temple. Thrass especially. Thrawn is stronger, but Thrass has a calmer, more well-ordered mind. His disposition is more suited for a position of authority, rather than a life filled with missions.”

“What should I do? The moment I touched his mind, Thrawn began drinking in memories of the Republic and our role in the Republic that I wasn’t even aware I possessed. The lightsaber is a natural extension of his arm. And Thrass is already composing arguments that explode most of our rules, either exposing them as acts of convenience or fear or else simply finding ways to unravel them, until they no longer make any logical sense.”

“Teach them. And let them teach you. They understand control and they embrace duty to their own and responsibility to themselves both. They would embody partnership with the Force and with one another in a way that hasn’t been seen in the galaxy since before the formation of the Order. Help them. Give them a new challenge to rise to and a goal to seek after. Unite those who live beyond the bounds of their state and ours. Fashion an irrefutable example of a strong and fully functional government that combines aspects of both their society and governing body and ours. And start with an academy for the teaching of Force-sensitives. You need not limit yourself to the training of full Jedi, Lorana. Consider them an adaptation of the Service Corps, if it will quiet your concerns. In recent years, such Force-sensitives have been at least as vital to the survival of the Republic as fully trained Jedi.”

“With only seventeen Jedi? Master – ”

“It has been centuries since there have been Jedi enough to train all those who are worthy of such training, given the constraints and rules the Order now functions under. Consider this, Lorana. Consider it carefully. And then consider, too, how successful the Jedi Oder once was, for so long a time, with praxeum-style teaching.”

“I hear you, Master Kenobi. But Bendu, are you sure? Master Simikarty’s writings – ”

“Master Simikarty was not an avatar of the Force, youngling. I quoted him before Jorus C’baoth in an effort to curtail the man’s ambitions and his passion. The truth of my belief is in my teaching, Lorana. Look at who I took for my apprentice. Anakin Skywalker outstrips most of us, in terms of sheer strength and talent, and yet he would not have been trained, if the new rules were upheld without question or exception. Most of the rules limiting training within the Order came about in reaction to devastating wars, Lorana. Who is to say that some of them are not more a product of reaction to that devastation than a result of the Force’s will? And who are we to say that the current way of doing things within the Order is the only way to go, when other ways of teaching and training worked so very well, once, and gave the galaxy so many more Jedi than the current mode of teaching? Who is to say that the old ways of doing things cannot work again? Just because there are newer ways of doing things, that does not mean that they are necessarily better ways.”

“I understand, Master. I hear you, and I take your meaning. Thank you. I’ve been in desperate need of counsel.”

“The answers were all within you, youngling. You simply needed some help putting what you already knew into a more easily understandable order.”

“I wish you could be here for this, Bendu. You and Anakin both. Things would be so much easier, if you were both truly here with me.”

A note of firmness enters his voice, then, as he calmly points out, “Our lives are not made for ease, young one. And there’s need of us, back home. Besides, you’ve done very well, here, and I have faith you will continue to do so, without us here.”

She has to duck her head down, then, both because what he’s said is true and because she is not yet certain that she’s earned such praise. “You honor me, Bendu Kenobi.”

He corrects her gently, his arm tightening around her to counter the sting. “I speak truth, Lorana Jinzler. There is a difference.”

She isn’t entirely sure of that, either, she nevertheless solemnly promises, “I will seek to be worthy of such a gift, nonetheless. I swear it.”

“Tomorrow will be soon enough, child. Sleep, now, while you can,” he tells her, gently guiding her until she is laying back down on the bed, in an aspect of rest.

“Master. I’m dreaming this, aren’t I?”

His smile playful, he raises an eyebrow and answers by noting, “Distance may separate us, physically, but the Force embraces and permeates us both, Lorana. Who is to say that it cannot bring us together by moving our minds and spirits to meet when our bodies are at rest, as they are now?”

“Will I – will I see you, again?”

“The future is not set in stone, youngling. You know that,” he replies, gently chiding.

“Yes, but I – I just – I wondered if you – ”

“You are never truly alone, Lorana. Trust in that. Have faith in the Force and in yourself.”

Wistfully, she admits, “It would still be good to see you again.”

Reaching up to rest his right hand gently on her brow, he admits, “I would like that very much, youngling. Anakin misses you, you know. He grumbles and frets over the great adventure his honorary older sister has gone off to have, without him there to help guard her back. He’ll be glad to know that you’ve gained such strong allies.”

“They worry me a little, Master. They seem to feel everything so intensely . . . ”

“It isn’t truly emotion or passion that we need to guard ourselves against, youngling. The irrationality that can stem from obsession and selfishness are.”

“If you say so, Master Kenobi.”

“I do. Now sleep, Lorana. Your life is going to be very busy, from now on.”

“Yes, Bendu Master Kenobi.”

***

The first thing he notices is that his brother is barefoot. In truth, Mitth’ras’safis appears to be clad only in a pair of soft looking, loose black sleep pants, and his hair (which he notices is somewhat longer than usual) is easily tousled enough to suggest that he has at least been in bed recently, if not that he has been sleeping. He somehow looks healthier, fitter, more comfortable in his own skin, than Mitth’raw’nuruodo remember him being. He is also curled with shocking casualness on an oversized chair that rather resembles a small, plush sofa, his powerful frame lounging in a way that is reminiscent, somehow, of a large and potentially extremely dangerous feline. Mitth’raw’nuruodo tries to speak, to let his brother know that there is someone else in the room who can see him, and finds that he is unable to. It is then that he realizes that he’s most likely dreaming – a thought that is confirmed only a few moments later, when his body (quite independently of his conscious thoughts) stretches languorously. In the process of moving, his body rolls slightly to the side, presenting him with a view of the rumpled foot of an unmade bed – a bed on which he is apparently lying, with his body pointing down the bed. His thoughts are still scrambling madly from that realization when Mitth’ras’safis abruptly begins to speak.

“I don’t know why you’re so surprised by this. You had to know that the suggestion of such a thing would cause fear among the more conservative and traditional-minded citizenry of the Chiss Ascendancy.”

Mitth’raw’nuruodo is wondering if his body will reply as independently as it had just moved when a voice – startlingly, achingly familiar – answers from behind him, close enough that the speaker has to actually be on the bed with him. “We’ve been prepping them for this, though. And it’s not like there’s not precedent for such an arrangement. The New Alliance of the Republic is essentially proposing to the Chiss Ascendancy. Is this not how every sentient race within the Chiss Ascendancy proper – with the exception of the Geroons, of course – first entered into the Ascendancy, by aligning as allies who were also true equals?”

“Yes, well, but they weren’t actually true equals, now where they? Before contact with this Republic of yours, we Chiss had always greatly outnumbered every other sentient race we’d come into contact with. Your people outnumber us. By a considerable margin. Is it any wonder some of our good citizens are panicking over the notion of how many of you there are out there?”

“Blast it, Thrass! You’ve heard and seen the same reports that I have, and you know that the NAR isn’t a conquering nation Why do you keep insisting on referring to it as if it were?”

He wants desperately to turn around, to look at her, but instead his body stretches again, lazily, trading conspiratorial glances with his brother, before replying, “He does it for the same reason you are so very careful to refer to this body as the New Alliance of the Republic rather than as the Republic that you came from: to remind himself and others of that which we do not know and which could, conceivably, be of danger to us.”

“Not true, Thrawn! I call it the New Alliance of the Republic because that is what it is: it is not the Galactic Republic that I grew up in and it never will be. It is a completely new government with a very new body constituency and guardians the likes of which this galaxy has never known. To name it other than what it truly is would be to invalidate the suffering and the struggle that has gone into the making of it, and that I will not do. The NAR has more than earned the right to its own recognition, separate from that of the institutions that preceded it. Our informants within the territories formerly held by those organizations – including that of the Galactic Republic – have more than confirmed this, with sources reporting independently of each other all across the space now held by the NAR. You both know that as well as I do.”

His head tilts slightly, but instead of turning to look back at her, his body simply redirects his gaze, slightly, so that he is looking off into space (fixed on a tall wardrobe against the wall off to his brother’s left) instead of at anyone directly. “I also know that, before the first reports came regarding the discovery and death of Darth Sidious, you were certain that your former homeland would be either a liability or an actual threat if the Far Outsiders were to seek to invade our galaxy on the heels of their civil war.”

“That’s not fair, Thrawn. The Sith orchestrated the war. You know that.”

“I know it, Lorana. I also know that your Jedi fought on both sides of the conflict.”

“The New Jedi Bendu Order is nothing like the old Jedi Order, Thrawn. If anything, they are like us, only better. Our Academy could learn a lot from them!”

“Or their New Order could swell its ranks immensely with both our Academy and our citizenry. They’ve recruited entire planets and species wholesale into their ranks, Lorana.”

“They are family-based and meant to be on hand to the everyday citizenry of the NAR, Thrass. Of course they’ve recruited essentially all of the Korunnai and the Kiffar! They are all Force-sensitive, to one degree or another, and can be trained to link with others, if necessary.”

His body turns back in Thrass’ direction in time to see his brother raise his eyebrows in a not quite mocking manner. “And we Chiss are even stronger in the Force, love, remember?”

“And you mean to tell me, Mitth’ras’safis, that you are afraid that the NAR and the New Jedi Bendu Order will – what, exactly? Somehow strip the Chiss Ascendancy of essentially its entire citizenry, forcibly relocate them to NAR proper worlds, and brainwash them all into becoming watchdogs for the NAR and the NAR alone? Please! Don’t make me laugh!”

His body shifts on the bed again, but it’s not enough to let him see her. “You should not dismiss such theories, beloved. Traditionalists are prone to seeing conspiracies and dangers where there are none. It’s how they keep their power – by frightening others away from change.”

“I’m aware of that, Thrawn. Believe me. After nearly a decade of working with your Defense Hierarchy to fashion a shadow empire for both the Chiss Ascendancy and the nearest sector of the Outer Rim Territories, I’m quite familiar with the concept.”

The look on Mitth’ras’safis’ face is unabashedly amused at the caustic tone, his expression sliding towards a smirk as his brother replies (in a faux-innocent tone implying wide eyes) by asking, “Then why are we arguing?”

“Because the both of you enjoy playing Sith’s advocate far too much?”

With a deep and utterly unrestrained laugh, Mitth’ras’safis twists around in the chair and slides to his feet. Grinning, he runs a hand through his hair and then strides across the room to the bed, approaching at a slant so that Mitth’raw’nuruodo can watch him the entire way without having to rise or even move overly much, aside from rolling backwards, slightly, off his elbow, so that he can look up without straining his neck. “She has us there, little brother. We do so love to embrace challenges.”

Lorana laughs as Mitth’ras’safis settles on the (left, for one facing the foot) corner of the bed, a unabashedly joyous sound that curls Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s body around towards her and the head of the bed. She is a vision of carelessly mussed and utterly genuine beauty in a fragile white gown, her dark hair a riot of waves and half curls upon the pillows, face flushed and gray eyes bright with amusement as she leans forward, her left arm loosely curled around her bent knees and her right hand gesturing at them, broadly, in a way that should have seemed dismissive but doesn’t. “Unrepentant wretches! If you wish a challenge to rise to, my loves, then you should put those brilliantly strategic political and miliary minds to work on finding us a solution to this problem, rather than chasing after reasons to explain why it is a valid response! We have been proposed much more than a mere alliance. The NAR desires to wed the Chiss Ascendancy, shadow empire and all. We would be rude indeed, to answer such an important question with naught but silence!”

Mitth’raw’nuruodo finds himself chuckling back, low in his throat, and replying, slyly, “If the question is as momentous as all that, then perhaps we should sleep on it before we attempt to frame our answer. Don’t you agree?”

“Oh, quite. Lorana?”

The shape of a mysterious little half smile is the only answer they are given. That smile is branded across his vision when he wakes, confused beyond words and seriously starting to worry about the state of his sanity, the following morning, just over a day away from the star cluster of the proposed redoubt and the refuge of /Outbound Flight/.

***

As they are returning to Outbound Flight from Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s command ship, Qui-Gon gives a sudden violent lurch that nearly makes Revan lose his hold on the wavering form of the Force ghost, making him spit out a surprised curse in a language so old that not even the Jedi Order’s current Grand Master would have ever heard of it. They come as close to staggering drunkenly as it is possible for entities of patterned energy and thought as their journey comes to an abrupt and somewhat precarious end, just within the confines of D-4. Revan is about to demand to know just what in the name of the Force his erstwhile apprentice blasted well thinks he was trying to do when Qui-Gon abruptly whirls on him, eyes wide and wild, and demands,/ Did you feel that?/

Taken aback by the rolling wildness of Qui-Gon’s eyes but thoroughly unamused by the near-disaster that his jerking about so nearly caused, Revan rather caustically replies, It would have been hard not to notice, with you flailing like a fish trying to resist being landed!

No, no, not me! That – presence/. Coming from the direction of Knight Jinzler’s quarters. Did you feel it?/ Qui-Gon only demands, going so far as to step closer to him, as though to reach out and grab him by the shoulders and shake him.

Narrowing his eyes warily, Revan gives his apprentice a quick once-over, trying to check and see if the thing he has feared has finally begun to happen and Qui-Gon has started to lose his coherence. Unable to find any such signs of damage, though, he is eventually forced into giving a reply, acerbically noting, You’ll need to be a bit more specific, young one.

There was a presence in Lorana’s quarters! It felt – it felt . . . like Obi-Wan.

Qui-Gon’s mental voice has grown so reverentially hushed by the time he finally manages to get to the end of his explanation that it takes Revan several long moments to process what he’s just been told. And as soon as he understands, he takes a second much closer look at Qui-Gon, just to make sure he hasn’t somehow missed something. But Qui-Gon is essentially as he has always been, as a Force ghost – weak, wavering, precariously preserved, but nonetheless still a coherent, complete entity – and so, at something of a loss, Revan finds himself awkwardly replying, /Qui-Gon, my friend, your former apprentice is several dozen star systems away from here. He is strong in the Force, yes, but he allows that strength free reign only in moments of great need, and generally only when those he cares for are at risk. Had you allowed him to try, he very well might have saved your body from dying, on Naboo. He certainly could have ripped that Sith to pieces with nothing more than the Force and his anger, if his control had been any less than what it is and if you had ever gotten around to teaching him any of the finer points of physically manipulating other objects – including other beings – with the Force. But he seems to have to know that lives are at stake to be able to unleash his true power, and he has no reason to fear for Lorana now. As far as he knows, /Outbound Flight is still on the way to the next galaxy. If he’d been going to feel enough fear for her to make him try to reach her through the Force, even over such a great distance, it either would have been when C’baoth was still alive or else when she nearly lost her way back to herself, after being caught out of body in Battle Meditation when the backwash of the deaths among the Vagaari hit the Force. She was in immediate danger both times – something that she patently is not, now – and if he was going to sense her danger and try to act on it, it would have been one of those times. Whatever it was that you think you felt, just now, I doubt very much it could have been your former Padawan. You must be imagining things.

I don’t think I was, Master Revan.

Qui-Gon –

With typical stubbornness, though, Qui-Gon cuts him off, insisting, No. I know what I felt. If it wasn’t Obi-Wan, then someone exists somewhere with the exact same Force-signature as Obi-Wan and enough interest in Lorana Jinzler, specifically, to stretch out to her, here.

Force-signatures are never identical. Not even among identical twins. Not even among clones. They can’t be. That’s what drives genetically identical clones who are grown to maturity too quickly insane – their bodies and brains don’t have time to grow naturally into a pattern similar to but separate from that of their donor’s Force-signature, and so their signatures blur and fragment and their minds break under the strain. I’ve explained this to you before, Qui-Gon, Revan snaps, beginning to grow exasperated at Qui-Gon’s insane insistence.

With supremely self-confidence calm, Qui-Gon merely replies, And that is precisely why I know it was Obi-Wan. Don’t you see? It can’t have been anyone but him!

Qui-Gon –

Beginning to seem angry himself, now, Qui-Gon cuts him off yet again, snapping, Don’t try to tell me that it’s been a hectic month and that I’m just a Force ghost whose connection to the Force is uncertain and weak. I’m not imagining things, Master Revan. I’d know that boy’s Force-signature anywhere: I was his Master, for pity’s sake!

It’s the hands that Qui-Gon has so combatively planted on his hips that shreds the last of Revan’s fraying temper. With icy formality, he replies by stating, /And I am your Master /now. And I tell you that we do not have time for this kind of self-indulgent nonsense, Qui-Gon. We have far too much to do to waste any of our time chasing after impossibilities. You can believe whatever you’d like, if it will make you happy. But my patience is limited, and I swear to you, Qui-Gon Jinn, that the moment I find out you’ve neglected any of your duties here to go chasing after a nonexistent will-o’-the-wisp is the moment when I will cease to be your teacher and stop trying to help you. Do you understand me?

Startled into flinching back away from that cold fury, Qui-Gon’s starry eyes go wide with an entirely different kind of emotion, and, shocked, he tries to protest. Master –

Revan, though, mercilessly cuts him off, eyes narrowing warningly. /Don’t push me on this, Qui-Gon. I’m not in the mood. There’s too much potentially at stake here for me to keep indulging you and your whims as I’ve been. You are either here with me, helping, or you are on your own. That is final. I’ve been more than patient with you, thus far, and it’s done little aside from cause problems for us both. No more! Either let it go, or choose to go after it. /Alone.

Mouth hanging open in unabashed, unadulterated shock, Qui-Gon all but wails, /You know I can’t do that! I’ve taken on responsibility for the safety of /Outbound Flight and its inhabitants, just as you have!

Utterly unmoved, Revan merely replies, with crisp frigidity, Then I suggest you let this mad fancy of yours go and come with me now, so we can get started on helping to make sure that this ship and its people truly become safe. After all, the sooner we’ve managed to do that, the sooner you can justify it to yourself when you haring off after those two poor boys again. Or isn’t that what you’ve been telling yourself?

Qui-Gon actually does take a step back at that, his arms rising reflexively in a protective gesture across his torso, as though in preparation to ward off an actual physical blow. But the miserable darting of his eyes gives him away, and there is guilt in every syllable as he stammers, Master Revan, I’m not – I – I don’t –

Qui-Gon. Save it for someone who doesn’t know you well enough to know better. I know you too well to be able to believe you.

But – !

No./ Come,/ Revan demands implacably, turning in a rapid arc that makes his dark robe snap out in a dramatic arc around him, nearly slapping Qui-Gon in the face. Now, Qui-gon! Now.

Stunned into true meekness for one of the few rare times in his life, Qui-Gon ducks his head down and immediately falls into place to the left of and half a pace behind Revan, in the proper place for a dutiful Padawan. Yes, Master.

***

Eighteen days after their unexpectedly precipitous departure from the battlefield where Mitth’raw’nuruodo and they had decimated the Vagaari nomadic pirate fleet, Outbound Flight is about to finish its seventh full uneventful day of orbit around the uninhabited but lush and easily habitable world designed only as P8X-873 in the Chiss records (but informally known, among the inhabitants of Outbound Flight/, as Obi-Wan’s Promise, a fact that makes Lorana grin like a loon every time she hears the name, she can so easily imagine the look of absolute horror and embarrassment that would reside on Bendu Kenobi’s face, were he to ever learn that the grateful crew and passengers of /Outbound Flight have named an entire planet after him). Jedi Knight Lorana Jinzler is about halfway through a combination language and culture lesson with Jorj Car’das and Syndic Thrass when her comlink chirps at her. Pushing away from the small table in the recently gloriously outrageously decorated mess hall (done over victoriously like one of the Coruscant underlevels, in a sleazy, over the-top sort of way, less than two days after Jorus C’baoth’s death) that she is sitting at with the two men so that she can answer the call without having to worry about potentially precipitating a panic if anything untoward has happened, Lorana instead soon finds herself exclaiming in shock (but smiling excitedly almost all the while), “Are you certain? Goodness, that was fast! Aristocra Chaf’orm’bintrano must have seen reason, after all! No, they’re both down here, with me. Lesson time. Of course, Master Ma’Ning! We’ll all be right up!” Then, turning back to her two companions, who are both looking at her expectantly, she explains, “Your brother and Admiral Ar’alani must have found a way to avoid an actual trial or the pressing of charges. Commander Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s Springhawk and several similar ships have just been sighted coming into the system. Master Ma’Ning would like us all to come up to the bridge, so we can welcome him properly and promptly this time when he hails us.”

With an equally wide and relieved grin, Car’das nods and says, “We should hurry, then. I know you’ve got good sensors on these babies, but /Outbound Flight/’s pretty hard to miss, even tucked away in orbit around a planet like this. It won’t be long before that hail comes over the comm.”

“Mitth’raw’nuruodo has never liked to waste time, that’s true enough. But he will be checking and double-checking the system to make sure that no one else and no unexpected surprises are waiting anywhere nearby. If we hurry, we can make it to the bridge before he reaches for his comm,” Thrass notes, his face relaxing into what looks almost like a soft smile as he rises from the table and sweeps the two of them up with him, walking with long, ground-covering, surprisingly swift without looking hurried strides across the room towards the corridor and the nearest turbolift.

Car’das, with a laugh, just shakes his head and throws decorum aside to trot along with the taller Syndic, keeps pace easily by moving at a slow jog Lorana, on the other hand, buoyed by a sudden feeling of excitement and eager anticipation of what she is sure will be the first proper meeting between the members of what will be an extremely strong and long-lasting alliance and warmed to the core by Mitth’ras’safis’ obvious relief over his younger brother’s swift and therefore presumably quite safe arrival, just stretches out her legs until she is taking the same kind of rapid, skimming, low to the ground, strides that she has always had to affect, in order to keep up with the vast majority of her mostly male and humanoid fellow-Jedi, rising to the challenge without a moment’s pause. And, with the bridge of D-1 and a proper greeting for Mitth’raw’nuruodo their goal, they make that tubolift together in record time.

Though the future that awaits them is uncertain and assuredly is not the one that any of them might have had in mind when they first embarked on the journeys that led to them being here, together, on /Outbound Flight/, they are all three of them ready and willing and eager to face that future squarely, together, their loyalty to each other and devotion to the protection of their people a massed shield of flame against the darkness of the night and the evils that shelter within that darkness. They have all been given another chance, a real chance at new and far more fulfilling (if potentially also far more dangerous) lives, and they all know it. And so they are all going to take that chance in both hands and run with it for all that they’re worth, pushing forward enthusiastically and determinedly into their new lives together.

As Lorana Jinzler steps out onto the bridge of D-1 with Syndic Thrass at her right hand and Jorj Car’das to her left and Mitth’raw’nuruodo only a comlink away, she is just as quietly happy and as unswervingly optimistic about her course as she has ever been before in her life. The Force tells her, with every breath that she takes, that she is where she is meant to be, amongst those she is meant to be with and doing what she is meant to be doing.

And if the Force is life and Light and love is light itself, then the light of their converging lives and their love will carry them and shield them and be a brilliant wash of Light within the Force, spreading in a line of fire among the stars and igniting in a protective blaze around the borders of the regions they call home and blazing in an unyielding barrier, allowing none with ill-will to pass.

Let it be so, she silently breathes before, with a wide and welcoming smile, she reaches out for the comm to welcome Mitth’raw’nuruodo home.

***