Chapter 3 - Healing
"Take my hand let me sleep"
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"What exactly did you do back there?" Obi-Wan Kenobi asked Anakin as they rested in hyperspace.
"Oh, you know, just tinkered a bit with their hyperspace controls and defense mechanisms, and perhaps a little with their guns," Anakin answered casually as he leaned back in his seat.
Obi-Wan chuckled as he placed his fingers on the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "Of course."
"See? A little bit of mischief can be good." Anakin exclaimed.
"Yes, when the time is right. When it is not, that is when I scold you." Obi-Wan told him.
With a defiant huff, Anakin crossed his arms over his chest and slumped in his chair. Soon they reached the Coruscant system and came out of hyperspace before flying into the atmosphere of the city-planet. The entire trip, the Princess was asleep but stable, her head resting on the glass of the canopy. Obi-Wan had checked her every now and then to make sure she was alright. He cleaned up a few of her wounds on her face, washing off the blood from her head and her lips. She groaned here and there but remained in a dreamless sleep.
Air patrol glided beside them, guiding their craft to a landing platform connected to the city's center. As requested, medical droids came to their assistance as the Jedi climbed out of their starfighter, turning their attention to the Princess, just waking from her deprived slumber. Obi-Wan leaned over the side and grabbed her, pulling her up and into the care of the medical droids. Although he wanted to follow them to the room she would be treated in, the Chancellor approached him with a pleased smile.
"You performed dutifully, Master Kenobi." He congratulated. "I'm glad we have her back with us. However, I am a bit concerned as to her current condition."
Obi-Wan gave the pain-ridden Princess one last glacé before walking away with Chancellor Palpatine. "I wanted to talk to you about that, sir. It seems that our old ally, Count Dooku, has turned to the Dark Side and now leads a fleet of Separatist ships. With him in control and strong within the Dark Side of the Force, it's going to become a problem. I only wish we knew where Darth Sidious was hiding. Then we could end this charade." He grumbled.
Palpatine hummed in response. "Yes. That would end things for sure."
"And another thing, sir." He spun to face the Chancellor. "Something about this girl, this Princess, seems a bit foreign to me. Like it's a completely separate side of the Force. Neither Dark nor Light. Just different and on its own. I don't know what to make of it."
"A good thought, Master Kenobi. Maybe searching it up within the archives might shine some light on the matter." Palpatine suggested to the young Jedi Knight.
Obi-Wan nodded. "Yes, I will do that."
They smiled and nodded to each other before retreating down their separate paths.
~
"How is she doing?" Obi-Wan asked Master Yoda as they observed the girl behind a glass window.
"Stable, but showing spikes in the Force here and there, she is. She's dreaming." Yoda reminisced as his eyes remained closed, fixed on his concentration within the Force.
"Can you tell about what?" Obi-Wan asked, raising his hand to his lips to softly brush his finger through his mustache, concerned for her.
"Painful, it is. Her mind is scared and lonely. I cannot picture what she is dreaming about, but her emotions are getting the best of her. Her power seems to tremble at my presence. It's frightened. Perhaps of this strange place, or from the trauma, she's endured." Yoda reported, opening his eyes to look toward the Jedi Knight beside him. "Did you feel her presence on the starship?"
Obi-Wan glanced down at him, slowly nodding. "Yes. I just told Chancellor Palpatine about it. Her power with the Force is something I've never experienced before or ever heard of. It feels like she's completely separate from what we know of the Force. Both Light and Dark at the same time or perhaps neither of them. I don't understand what this means or what to make of it." He paused, collecting his thoughts. Then he turned to the elder Jedi Master. "Do you know of this power, Master Yoda?"
Yoda sighed and nodded slightly. "Yes, but only vaguely. It's a legend from eons ago, dating back to the first Jedi." Obi-Wan's eyes widened. A legend as old as the Jedi? Why hadn't he heard of such a tale? "A young girl had washed up on the shore of an island used to house the first Jedi temple. She was a native of the planet but was the only survivor of a terrible storm that sunk her ship and her crew. A young Jedi Knight, not much younger than yourself, discovered the weak girl and brought her back to his home where he nursed her back to health. While she remained on the island, she learned the techniques of the Jedi, becoming an experienced Jedi and an exciting character around them. Soon, she and the Jedi who had saved her fell in love, going against the Code that was protected even more back then than it is now. They secretly got married and kept their relationship a secret until she got pregnant. They were no longer able to maintain their secret. When they appeared before the early Jedi Council, they ruled for her to get rid of the baby and that they would never be able to see each other again.
"In defiance, the girl rebelled in power, displaying a great amount of energy; a force that not one of them had ever seen. It was raw power, the raw source of the Force. It had not been melded into the Light or the Dark. It was only the Force, that had been dormant in her for so long until that moment when her life was being torn apart. She did not kill a soul, but she had disappeared in the blink of an eye, never to be seen again. Not even her beloved husband saw her again. His heartbreak was what forced him into the Dark Side of the Force, becoming the first Sith Lord..."
"Ajunta Pall, the first Dark Lord. The first Sith." Obi-Wan finished, continuously brushing his finger against his mustache. "Are you saying that Princess Aurelia is the potential offspring of the girl in the legend? That she has the raw power of the Force dwelling within her?"
Yoda hummed. "That is what I speculate. This girl may come from Earth, but her ancestry is what interested Count Dooku and the Separatists. They wanted her for her power as well as to sway her towards the Dark Side."
Rapid beeping shattered the calm atmosphere, grabbing the attention of both Jedi. Medical droids scurried here and there within the room, frantically grabbing tools to stop the convulsing girl on the hospital bed. Doctors ran in, a few nurses grabbing the shaking shoulders of the girl as her body shook viciously. Obi-Wan and Yoda watched in utter concern behind the observing glass. Yoda remained calm and collected as usual, but Obi-Wan on the other hand was internally panicking. What was going on? She was stable a moment ago? Is she going to die?
"Obi-Wan!" Yoda yelled to his dazed companion. He unlocked himself from frozen panic and turned his focus to the small Jedi Master. "She's going into a Force shock. It seems as though the trauma she experienced with Count Dooku and the Separatists unleashed her untethered power. A ticking time bomb, she is."
Obi-Wan shot glances back and forth between the Jedi Master and the girl. Her body was generating a blue flame all over her skin and her veins appeared to be glowing with that same sapphire pigment. However, her body never burned. Only the doctors and nurses that tried to help her were singed by their powerful flame. Her body never stopped shaking; all her muscles tensed. It was a seizure of overwhelming power.
"Master! What can we do? There must be a way to contain the power before it explodes." Obi-Wan pleaded with the green Jedi beside him. Yoda shut his eyes carefully in thought, the distant sound of detrimental beeping and knocks from the hospital room becoming ever prominent in the wary silence.
"To control the power serge, I can try. But I need your assistance." He told him, opening his eyes with a fire of determination beneath his worn face. Obi-Wan nodded once, before following the slow and careful hand motions Yoda performed. Together they outstretched their hands toward the girl, and closed their eyes, focusing their power and strength to conceal the thrashing power. Lightning bolts began to shoot out from the girl, hitting a few doctors and nurses. Tears gripped at her eyes that were jarred shut from the pain that tore through her body violently. She gasped and screamed, letting out the pain in sounds of agony. Her painful screeches were almost too much for Obi-Wan to bear, but he stayed where he stood and focused every bit of his power on the girl.
Slowly, but surely, the screaming leveled down to a small whimper and the beeping monitors slowed to a steady rhythm. The blue flame was extinguished and her muscles relaxed to lay limply off the side of the bed. Obi-Wan opened his eyes and released his hold of the Force with Master Yoda, immediately feeling the toll of energy it had taken to control the power. Now it was safely sealed within her body again but her consciousness slipped away once more.
Breathing heavily, he turned to Yoda who was also exhausted, sitting on the floor lightly with his wooden cane at his side. "I'm going in there to see if she's all right." He told him. Yoda nodded, permitting him to step away.
Obi-Wan cautiously approached the room door that had been blasted open from a lightning bolt, lying off to the side with a char mark prominent on one face. He checked the doctors and nurses that were strewn around the floor if they were all alive, and he was relieved to find everyone with a pulse, only knocked unconscious. He came to the girl resting on the bed, her chest rising and falling softly as her body eased off of its tense reaction from before. Her cheeks were tear-stained, and her face was painted painfully from all the aching bones that were broken and damaged internally. He leaned over her small but strong figure, putting most of his weakened body weight in his arms that placed themselves by her head and torso.
An unexpected emotion came over him as he looked upon her pained face that still withheld its beauty despite having gone through the terrors of beatings and a potential power explosion. He was moved by her. Although he still hadn't talked a full conversation with her yet, he still felt drawn to her. Not just by her beauty, but her strength and will to fight off the dark. This strange feeling brought his hand up to her face subconsciously and tenderly brushed away her ginger hair from her face. Her eyes fluttered at the warm hand, opening slowly to gaze upon the man that stood beside her.
"W-who are you?" She asked in a raspy voice, in need of water to wet her throat.
Out of some strange discernment he gained at the sight of her dazzling emerald eyes, he smiled. "I'm Obi-Wan Kenobi."
She squinted at him, almost trying to figure out where she had seen him before. "Have we met before?"
"Yes. Well, sort of. I rescued you with my padawan from a Separatist starship." He explained with a small chuckle.
"Padawan? Separatist? Starship? What does that mean?" She asked, calculations of knowledge, or lack thereof, ticking away in her mind until a piercing headache struck her. She groaned, tossing her head from side to side. "What happened?"
Obi-Wan gently took her head between his hands to level out the pain. "Your power went into overdrive. It's under control now. You'll be okay." He smiled kindly at her. She eased at his warm face, only keeping her eyes on him.
"Why does everyone say that I have a power? I don't understand. I've only ever been a normal human being. Nothing more, nothing less." She told him, pushing herself up. He aided her, placing a hand on her back to steady her wobbly weight.
"It's been dormant for a very long time, but now it has awakened." Aurelia looked over his shoulder and caught sight of the destruction of the room and the wounded men and women scattered on the floor.
She gasped. "What happened to them?" She pointed around her, fear filling her eyes. "Did I do that?"
"Yes, but they are okay." Said Master Yoda as he slowly walked into the room. The moment Aurelia caught sight of the small green Jedi she screamed out of fear and cowered behind Obi-Wan, hugging his arm as tightly as she caught. Although, he didn't seem to do a thing. He didn't jump in to protect her as any good gentleman would do for a lady, but he instead stood idly by, his eyes fixated on the Jedi Master. "Princess Aurelia, Yoda, I am. They are only sleeping but will be helped soon enough. Get you to a new room, we should."
Obi-Wan nodded and turned to Aurelia, who was frightened still by the presence of such a strange creature. He stifled a laugh and began a short explanation. "Master Yoda is a Jedi Master. He is highly respected around these parts." Aurelia looked up toward him with innocent eyes, slowly connecting the dots. She turned back to the creature and smiled only slightly by the corner of her lips. She nodded once in understanding, still not sure if she should trust him. "But he is right. We should get you to a new room so that you can rest comfortably. What do you say?"
Aurelia nodded and let Obi-Wan pick her up to walk out of the room. The entire walk to the new room was filled with questions and simple answers. What are Jedi? How many planets are in the galaxy? What is the Galactic Republic? Who are the Separatists? And so on, and so on. Yoda and Obi-Wan split the answers between the two of them, informing her of the wonders she held within her mind.
The more she asked, the brighter she became. Her smile grew wider and her eyes sparkled more. Her curiosity brought her insight, but her mind gave her understanding. But underneath all of the dazzling wonder that came upon her face, she was burdened by the memory of the destruction she had caused. She hadn't even been conscious at the time and she caused harm to the doctors and nurses who were just trying to help her. Yes, they had been checked up on and walked away without a problem, but Aurelia was still bothered by the fact that it could've gone even worse if the two Jedi hadn't been there to stop her outburst. It weighed down on her conscience, even as the days went on.
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A/N : Chapter 3 is done! Yay! I love the way it's going so far. Let me know what you guys think.
Love you all! ❤️
~6/1/22
~2627 Words