Litii stared out into the desert. There were distant sandstorms on the horizon, but they loomed no closer than they had in previous days. Most of the time they were simply reminders of the work left to do in settling her spirit. Not that she really could forget. Everything from the war was always there and waiting like a kath hound preparing to leap at its prey.
No, no. Don’t think like that. What was is part of me. If I think of it as an enemy, I make an enemy of myself. If I make an enemy of myself, I make an enemy of Fate. If I make an enemy of Fate, I forget how all is connected.
The Mirialan breathed in slowly and focused on relaxing. It only took a moment for Litii to hear the soft sounds of Teh’Beli breathing nearby outside of the mindscape. Somehow the Twilek was still there despite the injuries she’d taken at the hand of the Vellen leader. Each day was renewing her vitality too as Litii watched over her and did the best to help.
It was something simple. Something indescribably Basic…and yet changing bandages, helping the Twilek dress, and just lounging around what was quickly becoming their shared apartment felt more meaningful than anything Litii had done in years. A blaster rifle shot could change the course of a battle or situation when properly applied, of course. It was part of what Litii had come to pride herself on.
What was it really though? An end. A closing of fates. A waste of effort. Hollow. Litii had never felt like she was really building anything then. Sure, the challenge of lining up a perfect shot was thrilling. Each mission in Recon was exhilarating in the moments when they weren’t just waiting too. All of that faded after the moment passed though. The burgeoning relationship was building something though.
Moving forward is how we find space to build. How we make new connections. The movement is life and Fate.
A tired chuckle escaped Litii’s lips as she let go of the mindscape for a moment to open her actual eyes. She shifted a little in the dim light of the bedroom and did her best not to disturb the sleeping Teh’Beli. Staying curled up beside or with the Twilek did have tremendous benefits when it came to feeling able to rest, but it did limit Litii’s ability to move. Not that she minded.
The vision from before hadn’t been wrong. Litii’s fate had become increasingly tied up with each of her friends and now what had been a tentative friendship had burst into something new. It was a wondrous sort of strange. Litii carefully moved her head and kissed Teh’Beli’s cheek before resting her head back on her own pillow and closing her eyes to slip within again.
Everything was happening at once. The Vellen had charged the groups as they’d entered the facility and done their best to break the group that had responded to the distress call. It had been all Litii could do at times to avoid some of the blows. The fact that the Vellen would creep up behind the back line at time only added to the chaos.
When the leader had come screaming madly from the depths of the facility, she’d been something out of a nightmare with the severed head of a miner in one hand and a tremendous blade in the other. The only thing Litii had ever seen fight with that sort of animalistic frenzy before had been a cornered Basilisk war droid and it had done a comparative amount of damage to the squad Litii had been with at the time.
Litii remembered feeling blows rain down on her and staggering back as other interrupted the assault, including Teh’Beli, and bought the Mirialan some time to recover. It had taken to long though. A vicious cry echoed through the air alongside the sound of armor ripping. Litii barely had time to register that Teh’Beli had fallen before the melee had closed in upon the Vellen leader again.
In that moment, Litii had run over to check on her fallen lover and could practically feel the life running out of the Twilek. So many things had been running through her head in that moment. The unfairness of such a loss. Memories of fallen friends. Rage. Frustration with herself. Litii would have given over to a rage a few months before and fallen on the Vellen leader. Would have.
Focus! Seela showed you how to do this. Fate can give someone a second wind. She just needs the energy to survive until a medic gets here. FOCUS, LITII! Each grain touches all the other grains of the desert. Stay with me, Teh’Beli…stay with me…
Litii had taken a deep breath and focused almost everything she had on the sense of her breathing and the feeling of her own pulse. She’d gathered it, held it tightly, and followed the sense of Teh’Beli back to the Twilek and given what was Litii’s alone to give in the moment. A sense of the body being whole. Calm rather than panic. Steady breathing. The steady beating of a heart. Somehow it had been enough and the bleeding had slowed some.
It was an answer and a beginning.
What of though?
The thought twisted about Litii in her mind. She hadn’t noticed it that day exactly, but in the followings days it had started to feel like Teh’Beli was always there. Not physically there, but at the same time still in reach. Sometimes it felt like there was a new sense within her. Other times she wasn’t so sure. It wasn’t just something Litii felt though.
“You were there when I thought I was dying. It felt like you were holding me back somehow. Not roughly just holding me close.”
Teh’Beli had told her that when they were resting on Althea’s ship. It had been there first sign of anything having actually happened and begun to grow from there to that quiet sense of presence. Both of them seemed to feel it, but what did it mean? Sure, the relationship meant they were on one another’s mind a lot…this was different though.
Fate things. They always seemed to know how to twist to move beyond Litii’s understanding. Everything took time though. She kept reminding herself of that. Her first tattoo when accepting that Fate guided her had been easy, but it had take years before she had become fit to wear the sign of a Teacher. Perhaps talking to Nulaa would provide some further guidance.
Fate knows I need all the help I can right now.
A zephyr gently played with Litii’s hair and brought a surge in the sense of Teh’Beli. Litii didn’t even bother trying not to smile. Whatever it was it was a reassuring sense of not being alone. Not really. And the link was letting at least Litii step through Fate into Teh’Beli’s sanctum within. It let them work together to confront darkness in the past. Did Litii really need to understand it any more clearly than that?
“Understanding the Force…Fate…whatever you wish to call it. True understanding of it in all its facets is a burden. You, like all the others, will choose a side in the end. He did."
Litii let out an irritated huff as Jhoren’s words came to her mind. There was a mystery she was no closer to solving. That damned, irritating whatever he was had gotten into Litii’s head twice now. Admittedly, he’d at least asked the second time. Sometimes the man made sense, but a lot of the time he seemed caught up in something that had happened or would happen. It was unclear which.
There was no shaking the unease of that meeting. It was clear that Jhoren had been a companion of Fate for a long, long time. The sense of it around him was heavy and slow. None of it had stopped him from simply touching Litii and showing her visions. First of a blasted planet with acid rain and then of a desert world. Each time Jhoren had told her they were following ‘his’ footsteps and whatever ‘he’ chose would affect many.
“You, like all the others, will choose a side in the end.”
What did the old man mean? Litii had thought he meant the Jedi or the Sith, but Jhoren had questioned such a simple answer. Perhaps he referred instead to the faces that Fate wore among those it walked with. Jedi. Sith. Light. Dark. All of it was part of a whole, but they were each viewing part of it rather than the whole. What did that mean though?
Thinking about it too much inevitably gave Litii a headache. Everything on Viscara was about sides right now. The Republic. Duskhaven. The Jedi. The Cartel. Figuring out where everyone was trying to go with their schemes was the difficult part. Trying to stay out of it mostly hadn’t worked. Now she was doing legwork for the Republic outside of a uniform with Teh’Beli at her side. There was no telling if this counted without asking Jhoren himself.
Still…Nulaa was doing what she could to provide a bit of guidance without shoving anything into Litii’s head. Their time together had been comparatively good at providing clarity in the chaos of the Mirialan’s life instead. Litii actually looked forward to intermittent talks with the Jedi Knight. It felt like a meeting between peers in a way. Nulaa knew vastly more than Litii did about Fate, but didn’t look down on the Mirialan or attempt to force her own views of it onto her either.
A few words here and there were used to make Litii think instead. It was like the exercises that her grandparents had put her through back on Mirial. Each thought built a new link in Litii’s mind giving her more things to consider and expanding her view of things rather than narrowing it. Such was how one was supposed to come to know Fate. Bit by bit. Grain by grain.
“Keep your zephyr close. Those feelings. That lightness? Let yourself feel those in the moment rather than remembering what was and being trapped there. In that, you can see something new. Accept it.”
The advice hadn’t been exactly what Litii had expected to hear from a Jedi. Most of them seemed interested in trying to snap up anyone who walked with Fate to ensure their foes didn’t do the same. They were the ones that had told Seela she couldn’t be in a relationship and a Jedi at the same time. Nulaa wasn’t like that though. It was something Litii was grateful for immensely.
Hohenfel had been understanding too, if not as much. Admittedly, the Jedi Master acknowledged similarities between Mirialan and Jedi faith, but the two hadn’t had a chance to talk as much at length about it as Litii and Nulaa. The latter seemed to have spent some time on Mirial and come away actually understanding to some degree. Being able to speak in her native tongue was a comfort to Litii as well. It felt more like talking to another Mirialan again instead of a Jedi.
Such was Fate though. While Litii’s soul cried out for the sands of her homeworld, Fate had seen fit to bring some small portion of them to her. It was in the small things. A decision here. Hesitation there. All of it had built towards those moments and the moments after. There was no way to tell if Fate had some grand plan, but it did seem to notice the people who could walk with it on some level.
Teh’Beli moving some in her sleep drew Litii’s thoughts away from Fate as she again opened her actual eyes to look at the sleeping Twilek. No, no…that was enough practice. Litii chuckled and closed her eyes again as she snuggled a bit closer to her sleeping lover. It didn’t take long for Litii to be lulled to sleep by the gentle rhythm of Teh’beli’s sleeping breaths.