ladystormchaser

A nice dream.  The stern talks from Windu and Yoda for the trio’s tendency for mischief felt even farther away, and she smiled to herself remembering. Then there was Anakin. A shiver ran up her spine with just the mere thought of him, something she was getting used to faster than she cared for. Truly, this entire planet evoked thoughts of her old friend, ever overshadowed with the knowledge of what he had become, and they remembered him, the little human slave boy who won the pod race on Boonta Eve and grew up to be a Jedi. They still talked about it. If only they knew. 

Ri followed her ears through the sandy marketplace, abandoned in the chill of the desert night, and at last found what she sought, music. Following the melodies through the streets, she found her feet taking her into yet another Cantina. Anchorhead seemed full of them. No one looked up when she entered, thankfully, and the young human smiled again as the band picked up another tune, this one warm and sultry. The people danced, and drank and gambled, all as it should be. She wove through the crowd, wincing softly as a passerby jostled her, unknowingly jabbing an elbow into one of her many bruises, gifts from the latest person to attempt the lives of her and her companions. Thankfully, like anyone else who had tried, he failed.

Finding an open space at the bar, Keela-Ri raised a hand to order a drink as to not look out of place, and before she could even speak, the bartender grinned at her appreciatively and slid a glass of blue liquid across the surface. His voice almost hissed at her while his eyes followed the curves of her body, “On the house, Racer. I’m sure you’ll pay me back with the money I’ll put on you for the next race.” His eyes came up again, though they didn’t quite make her face when he smiled. What is he staring at?! Ri chuckled softly, inwardly pondering how she’d never once paid for a drink since she got here, even before the race, and thanked the man, turning to find a lonely table where she could listen and fall into her own thoughts. 

Let the other Jedi have their gardens and their thousand fountains…

She closed her eyes and stretched her feelings out into the Force, taking small sips of the potent Corellian ale for the sake of appearance. The music drifted by her, almost tangible in this state of mind, curling around her consciousness like a warm blanket, and she took comfort in its presence, allowing it to soothe her nerves from the night’s previous excitement. The Dark Side had spoken to her tonight. She had felt its presence before, none more strongly than feeling Vader halfway across Corellia, but the temptation watching the Imperial officer from her hiding spot in Blaze’s tower, and again in the fight against the bounty hunter had been stronger than she’d ever felt before. The Force swirled about them as it does for all living things, and for the first time, she saw how easy it would be to just reach out and crush them with it. One clenching of her fist, and she could choke the life out of those who would do exactly that to her if they were given the chance. She took a longer drink and wondered exactly what point she had found herself with that kind of power. 

But it isn’t the power that matters; it is how you use that determines the state of your own soul. I resisted the call tonight, but for how long? Without the Order is my fall inevitable? No, that’s stupid. Nothing is inevitable, but still if I am to accomplish what I am set to, there will be many more things that will push me towards that path, and I do not know that I will be able to choose to keep my soul clean and survive. Not that sending a Jedi to infiltrate a crime syndicate is the wisest decision Organa has ever made… Perhaps he’s still surprised to find one of us willing to get involved and actually help, but if I’m going to do this well, I’m not sure I’ll be much of a Jedi when I come out the other side.

I’ve been knighted, sure, but the more I think about it, I am still naïve in many ways, clinging to an ideal and philosophy that in my current line of work, is going to get me killed, and everyone I know along with me. This… Alliance to Restore the Republic has asked for my help, and this is what they need. To do what is needed for the Republic, no matter what form it might be in at the time, is part of what has been so far ingrained in me that I cannot shake it loose. And yet, to do so successfully, I must discard many tenets of the same Code which dictates I help them in the first place.  

I may not fall, but I am sure going to have to slip a few pegs in my own personal enlightenment. Perhaps a balance can be reached? A place in between where I’m not a danger to everyone associated with me either way?  Isn’t that a heresy? Does heresy matter if the institution that declared it no longer stands? I am still young, and it is not too late to learn to be something other than a Jedi. I could still have a very long and productive life ahead of me, and still see the fall of the fledgling Empire. Is that why the Masters are hiding? Have they been Jedi so long that they simply do not have the capacity to become anything else? Is there no life at all for them after the fall of the Order?

One thing is for certain, at this time, I am rather lousy at not being a Jedi. I have been… socially stunted from day one on Coruscant. The Jedi have been taught to be above baser impulses, existing in a carefully controlled structure until very little can slip through the cracks of that control when out and about, always returning to the safety and serenity of the Temple. It set them apart by sheer mannerisms.  A travelled person can tell a Jedi by the way they walk, the way they speak, they way they react to things, or don’t react as the case may be. It was known and accepted. Now it is hunted.  

Sometimes I can’t be in a place twenty minutes before something I do singles me out as odd. Sacrifices from my old life will have to be made, and perhaps even a resurrection of the chaotic mischief I knew a few years ago.  If I am to make even effective pretenses as this kind of life, I am going to have to get in and be able to understand it. To understand it, I have to live it, and I need to start now. If I am fortunate, there will be plenty of time afterwards to atone for the things I must do. I can only hope that Master Hido will forgive me.

“So, he break your heart I take it?” 

Keela-Ri’s eyes snapped open to look at the man who’s stopped in front of her with a drink in each hand, one of them blue to match the one she’d been nursing. A quick glance told her that hers was now empty, and she wondered briefly when that had happened. A confused silence passed between them. “I’m… sorry?”

He flashed a bright and winning smile, sitting down without invitation and sliding the blue drink across the table. “Here, yours was out. You know, the only time I see a woman sitting off by herself drinking, is when some piece of bantha poodoo has just done a little dance all over their heart. So, figured you could use a little kindness.” 

“So you stalk the cantinas waiting to buy drinks for women sitting by themselves?”

Whatever reaction he’d expected, that wasn’t it. “Would you believe me if I said no?” 

“No,” Ri laughed genuinely for the first time in… it felt like an old friend that had come to visit. The man shifted slightly in his chair, looking around him as if for an escape, when Keela-Ri set her hand on the glass he’d brought her. “But thank you for the thought. I’m Ki-li, you?”

He grinned like she’d just given him a treat, showing the first set of white teeth she’d seen on Tatooine, set in a face bronzed by time in the desert sun. His tawny hair hung in his face just a bit, giving him a kind of rogueish look that Ri found to be kind of charming. The pair began a light conversation over their drinks, laughing quietly in the darkened corner of the cantina…