Mood Music: Jedi Meditation
Detached.
Floating free.
A small speck in a vast nebula.
A single stitch in a sprawling, galactic tapestry.
Free of thought.
Unbound by sensation.
No consciousness.
Only… the Force.
Drifting in the empty fullness of everything, the planet Viscara seemed so small. Like a damp, dreary marble speckled with stains under the surface, ancient blemishes that that only time and care could remove. Clouds hung over it, obscuring truth, just as they did over the forest world of Kashyyyk and her sister planet Trandosha just a short galactic distance away.
Yshren had sat in meditation for many hours across many days in the hopes of finding some clarity among the fog and mud, but the visions were always similar. Encroaching darkness, only delayed by the efforts of the light. Impending tragedy and suffering. Turmoil and troubles surrounding some of the Order’s own members… and an all-too-familiar miasma of sickening-sweet rot, tempting with its poisonous succor.
This time, amid that vileness… a memory.
Three years ago.
Standing on a hillside. The grass between his toes as he looked out over a camp of Republic soldiers. The battle against the Mandalorians would be soon, and he was to try and stop it. Speaking with a fellow Knight - a Duros woman, reserved and quiet but defiant to the Council. A heated debate, nearly turning violent. A Republic officer’s hand on her shoulder, calming her down.
Days later. The camp destroyed, the soldiers butchered. She was wailing in despair over the body of that same officer. Grief. Fury. He tried to console her - she drew plasma.
The duel was a blur. He pushed her back, up that hillside. She lashed out, he leapt up to cross over above – pain. Falling. Tumbling down the hill.
Blacking out.
The sound of the water lapping the cliffs below. Wind in his hair. Yshren’s eyes opened again to look over the waves beyond the Viscaran Temple.
“Gravius…” He gave a low sigh and pushed himself across the ground. A hand reached out and took hold of the metallic contraptions resting against the tree beside him. Peeling back the legs of his robes, he looked down at the metal sockets at the end of the stumps where his knees once would have been.
Sometimes he could still feel the grass between his toes.