The Jedi And The Warrior

Time And Memory

"Take away your heart?" Flyra asked, picking her way through the long fronds of yellow grasses, lavender swaying gently in the dry breeze. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know," Obi-Wan replied, wandering alongside her under the late afternoon sun. "Not even Qui-Gon knows. A part of me thinks it best it remains lost."

She nodded, her mind whirling with all he'd told her. He'd visited the villagers that had reported sightings of the attackers in the morning, and had asked if she would join him scouting the area around the village. As they walked, he told her of the Crystal of Amarth, and Qui-Gon's theory that Kai had once been a Jedi.

"I wonder if it means your feelings — emotions," she mused, skimming her hand over a clump of grass. "Things like that rarely ever indicate their literal meaning."

She glanced at him to see the cleft deepen in his brow. "So it would steal your deepest feelings and desires, your very reason for living," he said slowly. "Sounds fun."

She laughed, and so did he, the sound of it like a rich peal of music.

He looked strangely beautiful in the lilac and the gold of the field, the blue of his eyes piercing and glittering in the sunlight. He was smiling faintly as he gazed at the distant, shimmering shapes of trees, at the swaying grasses and the silent world.

He had told her also of the creatures that roamed this planet — the docile iriaz, herd animals and grazers and the preferred meat of the locals, the indigenous kath hounds, large predatory dogs, and the hive-living kinraths, huge, poisonous spider-like creatures which were blind, and navigated the world by scent.

She prayed they did not run into those, but such trivialities were driven from her mind, dwarfed by the magnitude of the other matters he'd spoken of. She glanced at him.

"So you're supposed to find this stone?"

"Yes," he said, his smile fading. "All of this is... far more challenging than I expected." He sighed, dragging his hand over his jaw. "Master Qui-Gon says this may go far beyond Dantooine."

His blue eyes were troubled, tangled with doubt. She stopped where the grasses and flowers reached almost to her waist, placing a hand on his arm. The rough fabric of his white tunic felt alien beneath her palm, but she forced herself not to glance down.

"Obi," she began, and met his gaze for the first time in what felt like years. "You're strong enough for this. I know it because I've seen it." Her mouth tightened. "And I promise... I promise I will rejoice in your every success, and not worship what cannot be."

His brow drew together. "Flyra..."

"You were right," was all she said. "I do resent it — the laws, the Code, the Order." She sensed she was very close to admitting something she didn't even know she could admit, but he had to know the truth. "And you were right," she went on, "I am being selfish. You..." Her throat tightened. "You will be a great Jedi, Obi-Wan."

He let out a soft breath, clenching his jaw. "You know I never wanted this to come between us, Flyra," he said softly. "I want you to — you deserve to be happy. But..." He drew a deep breath. "I don't want to lose you either."

She felt a sob rise in her throat, but she swallowed it down, clenching her fists so that her nails dug into her palms.

"I wish I could tell you that you won't," she whispered, and the words ached as they left her throat. "But sometimes I think — I wish — I could live someone else's life. Away from war, and squalor, and politics. A life that is... mine."

Shame and sorrow flickered in his depthless eyes. "I knew that," he breathed, and his voice shook. "I've known it for... a while." He lifted a hand, and his fingers brushed so close to her cheek that she almost shivered. "Flyra, I..."

But his words were cut off. A shrill, awful shriek pierced the lazy air, slicing the summer silence, and they whirled towards it. It was no human sound, but guttural and wild and... angry.

"What is that?" she whispered tightly, sliding her hand against the sword-hilt tucked beneath her tunic.

But Obi-Wan pushed her behind him. "Kinrath," he breathed, reaching for the lightsaber in his belt. "A nest of them, I think."

She swallowed hard. "Can they hear as well as smell?"

"Yes," he breathed back, shifting into an attack stance.

But she gripped his arm. "Then move silently," she said, "and for god's sake don't draw your lightsaber."

He glanced at her, looking as though he were about to argue — but saw something on her face. He removed his hand from the saber.

That was when the animal rose from the grasses. It was huge, far bigger than she'd anticipated, as big as a horse, and was a horrid, sickly yellow all over its crusty limbs. A bulbous green appendage grew from its face, one she knew held deadly poison.

Fear leaped into her throat, but she welcomed it, fiercely delighted in it, in the opportunity to do something at last. She glanced once at Obi-Wan, and he read her plan in her face. His eyes widened.

"No," he hissed. "We are not doing that!"

She smiled, recklessly, keeping one eye upon the creature that cast about with confused intensity.

"Have you a better plan?" she breathed back.

He stared at her. "Run?" he suggested wildly.

The kinrath froze, honing in upon where they stood — and shrieked again.

"I've evaluated the success of that plan and the calculations don't look good," she replied, just as the creature leaped for them.

He let out a huff of frustration, and dived sideways, darting silently between the long grasses with that familiar hunter's tread until he disappeared from view. Flyra faced the creature, looking right into it's milky white eyes, her heart thumping painfully.

"Come on, then!" she challenged fiercely. "I dare you!"

It screeched again, drawing closer with great bounding leaps, almost upon her with its venomous spire. She did not move. She trusted him.

And it was at the moment of distraction, when the kinrath concentrated on its prey and nothing else in the whole expanse of the world, that Obi-Wan leapt out of nowhere and plunged his lightsaber through its shell-like hide.

Its shriek was different now, full of pain and terror. Obi-Wan sliced the saber through its heart with a rending screech of metal against bone. It slumped to the ground, the life gone from it.

She smiled in the sunlight as he leaped with inhuman grace from the creature's corpse, flying far too high, staying up far too long, landing far too lightly. But she laughed, for once revelling in that power that was and had always been a part of him.

She had seen it since she was five years old, hunting in the snow-bound woods behind their village. And for a moment, staring into his bright eyes, his flushed cheeks, his smile that revealed flashing teeth, she remembered.

Remembered those moments hunting in the woods, the two of them alone in the world, when she had been his, and he hers. Except now, he was all she had, and he did not need her anymore.