Love Heals

Serenity took her Master's lessons to heart.  Smiling happily at her family, she left Ceres in the Academy and went to her meditation chamber to consider things at length.  Her main question since passing the trials was still her main focus in her training, discovering her way into the future.  She pondered the different ways of the force she had known in her life.


From her father, a Jedi, she had learned the Jedi ways as best she could as a young child.  Her mother had taught her the ways of the Clan witches, and Serenity enjoyed honoring them through little songs when she used the force.  Even though it wasn't needed it made her feel like she was being true to herself.  From her bond with Ceres she had learned that it was possible to balance his passion with her serene control.  This was the example her parents had made and taught her.  From Lexiy she had learned the ways of the Jedi, eventually passing the Master trials and satisfying the Academy that she understood and lived the principles of the Jedi order.


It was this love for Ceres that made her restless though, that drove her on in training even after her trials.  Somehow she sensed there was something more she had to learn of the ways of the force.  The fire-haired Jedi meditated long, finally slipping into farseeing.  If she could see down her path into the future, perhaps she could see the first steps today that led to there in a far tomorrow...


Hard to see the future is.  Always moving,  As unwritten as the songs still stored within the writer's pen.  One never gets a clear answer when farseeing.  Many times, what you see is far from what you expect...






Serenity led, well ahead of Lexiy on her giant lumbering pet Rancor named Zenah.  Using the force she watched back protectively over the black and purple figure of Lexiy behind her, riding her green feathered Varactyl mount silently through the trees of Dathomir.  They were hunting down a Nightsister war party which had raided against Singing Mountain Clan.    The Clansisters appealed to their Sister Serenity to come to their aid.  "The timing of your visit is no accident", Mother Augwynne cryptically informed them.


In the devastation of the first attack, her clan did not have the resources to strike back.  They needed to hit hard to prevent another attack during their vulnerable time of weakness.  Now a close friend of Serenity and Ceres, a member of the family even, Lexiy followed her former Padawan, and they both took up the Clan's flag of war.


The raiders were returning to their stronghold.  There wasn't much time.  The two beautiful Jedi stretched out their feelings, searching ahead and around them for the black voids of despair and loathing they knew would reveal the positions of the Nightsisters.  Serenity's white cloak spilled around her and across the bony headplates of Zenah, like a small snowfield on a rocky mountain ridge.  Her brilliant red hair turned side to side as she used her force-enhanced sight to scan through the trees and side ridges for any sign of the Nightsisters they hunted.


The pair of Jedi Masters carefully picked their way along a wooded ridge toward the home base of the Nightsisters.  Serenity was far enough ahead, they hoped, that the dark-haired Lexiy would be undetected for some time after the redhead.  Her training and skills focused on defending herself against even extremely powerful attacks, Serenity felt confident she could hang on long enough for Lexiy to catch up when needed.


Her throat suddenly constricted and tight, Serenity leaped off Zenah in an acrobatic flip.  She used the force to will her airway open against what she knew to be the Nightsister's opening attack.  Clansisters were taught since the days of Mother Allya to sing and gesture, activating the force through their spells.  Serenity' was no ordinary Sister of Singing Mountain however, and she smiled as she began her favorite song of war.


The loathsome presence of the ambushers crashed around her like nightfall on an airless moon, swift and total without warning.  The black palpable evil aura brought Serenity's stomach tight.  Wind began whipping through the trees, swirling, stripping leaves and branches, digging up rocks, darkening the sky.  The force storm roared and began thrashing Serenity' with rocks and sticks in the maelstrom.  Her crimson skirt and long red hair flowed and waved in the breezes, looking like a halo of fire.


Serenity's song turned up an octave, and the air near around her cleared, a bubble of protection pushing aside the attacking debris like a boulder in rapids.  Lightning struck out from the wall of storm, reaching out with multiple wicked lances of blue-white.  Her specialty being sensing the force around her, Serenity's own purple-white blade of energy erupted from her hand, the lightsaber appearing so fast its movement was unseen.  A second beam of purple emerged from the other end of the long silver saber hilt.  The two powers wrestled and battled for dominance one over the other, crackling and spitting lethality.


With a smile in her song, she let the lightning push her back a step, and turned with it slightly.  At her side a sneaking Nightsister was caught in the grip of the lightning and pierced through by one of the purple energy blades.  Her hideous body writhed and spasmed as she screamed out and released her evil spirit to wash away into the storm.


Flashing with a pulse of anger, the lightning strengthened, but again Serenity redirected it, this time over and behind her into a tree.  She rolled forward and up to her knees, tossing her blade through the storm.  It was nearly caught, she felt, but with a thought she whirled it away and off towards another target nearby.  Again a shriek cried out and the blade snapped off, hilt spinning back into the young Jedi's hand.  Serenity' feinted another throw, but stopped, smiling differently yet again.


A dark purple shaft snapped on in a downward pass, barely visible through the swirling debris.  The huge boom of thunder rocked the ground and the storm dissipated.  Rocks and branches rained down everywhere within sight as Lexiy walked smugly out from the little grove, where she had cut the lead  Nightsister in half.  To the silent fall of ten thousand leaves, the pair of women shared a knowing smile.


"Next time I'm the bait." Lexiy offered.


"Nah, they like my local perfume here." retorted Serenity.  "You smell too much like vanilla, not much like bait anyway" Serenity winked at her.  The big rock hit her square in the back and knocked her end over end, skittering across the ground in a loose twist of limbs, breathless and stunned and still.


Lexiy's blade erupted and burst another boulder into shrapnel which rained across her face.  She tasted blood as she flipped head over heels again and again, dancing acrobatically away through the trees.  The second assault had been so well hidden from them in the force that the Jedi women had thought they were done.


Now another Nightsister marched up to Serenity with a wicked wavy black blade in her fist, raised and ready to plunge into the prone form of Serenity.  At once, her heel caught the Nightsisters kneecap in a swinging kick just as a blasterbolt tore through the shredded glade and the bruised face of the evil forcecaster.  A moaning chant was heard, wafting as if from everywhere through the trees though the chanters seemed hidden from view.


Serenity rolled and was to her knees when the rain of stones resumed, pelting her with little stings which she ignored.  She drew up strength from the ground and hardened her skin against it, reaching out with the force to find their attackers and her partner.


Lexiy turned out to be embroiled in a battle of wills with a pair of hags.  They were trying hard to trip the dark beauty up with vines that seemed alive like snakes, and their swinging, stabbing lances in a full melee battle.  Lexiy countered with her saber, but somehow the Nightsisters lances seemed hardened against being cut by the Jedi's forcefield blade.


A vine wrapped around Lexiy's lower leg which she cut off from the ground.  It still writhed across her naked skin, scraping and reaching out for the other ankle.


Serenity closed in, and shouted a warning too late.  A huge log knocked Lexiy down followed up by the Nightsisters both pummeling her with their lances.  As one swung back to beat Lexiy's unconscious body again, Serenity flashed off her head with a swift cut of purple death.  The other turned her swing to the redhead jedi but was stopped cold by the powerful grip of her forcechoke.


Serenity' battled her emotions for control... not anger, let it go, she may live... not anger.  She bit her lip.  She never saw what hit her from behind but the awesome weight of it felt like the log she had tried to warn Lexiy of. There must be another... she thought as she fell hard to the ground again.


To the sound of wicked chuckling from all sides of the canopy, vines wrapped around the two jedi womens bodies and she felt them pull her upright.  Her back was on fire where the huge log smashed her muscles and threw it out of place.  The oppressive weight of night fell again in her senses... the presence of the evil Nightsister hung in the air like lead.  A vine forced its way into her mouth and actually held her tongue.


"Sisters from afar... you two fight well.  I will let you live if you will kill her, or I'll offer the same to her.  Choose." the woman's voice sounded as from a grave.


Serenity knew that the Nightsister leader was able to hear her thoughts, so she directed them towards the mind she sensed.  The two engaged in a battle of minds, each trying to poke the other physically in the brain using the force to wound, to burst blood vessels or to stir the brain.  The duel raged on, wrestling against each other, mental strikes, counters, parries...


Meanwhile, another part of Serenity's mind considered the overall battle here.  The Nightsister wasn't truly trying to destroy them, but to tempt them into using the force in anger, using the darkside and becoming Nightsisters themselves.  When she realized it wouldn't work, they would both be killed.


Aaarrrrriiiii Serenity' screamed in her mind.  She has been my teacher, but I see now that I am more powerful than she!  She is helpless before you while I still battle on.  I will learn this power you have over the stones and vines.  Let me kill her now, if you will teach me this immediately.


"Agreed!" rang out a voice through the trees.  The vines slacked and the redhead shrugged them off quickly.  She reached her hand towards the long inscrolled silver hilt between the trees nearby, and it flew into her hand.  She ignited the purple beam, raised it above her friend of these many years, and swung downward toward the curve of Lexiy's neck


Suddenly another purple blade flashed into existence, erupting out of the chest of a tall Nightsister in dark robes.  The stick in Serenity's hand was quickly tossed aside as her saber pushed through the dead body of the Nightsister and flew to her hand.  Two hags rushed forward with their black lances to stab the helpless body of Lexiy before them, electric flares of power rolling across her defenseless form.


Suddenly a giant hand, each knobby finger the size of her body, backhanded the shorter Acolyte with a pasting sound, spatters of blood shooting out to stain nearby trees.  The body twisted off through the air and over the side of the mountain.  The taller acolyte looked up at the huge creature, started a song, failed in her great fear, eyes widening in horror.  The huge Rancor's arm swung up in follow through, fingers squeezing into a massive fist, which swung back down and smashed the other Nightsister flat.  The gruesome crunching of bones and pulpy squishing of messy fluids which oozed out from under the fist sent Serenity' back to her knees in nausea.  Zenah, raising her head back, roared mightily in victory and the horrible sound echoed through the trees and hills, silencing the forest in its trembling wake.


Serenity knelt protectively over Lexiy's prone form, head falling forward then smothered in a blaze of scarlet hair, and shuddered at the hard won battle.


The Red Sister from the Clans dug through her sachel and pulled out a medkit full of stims. The little computer box sat atop Lexiy's body and went through its diagnostic sequences.  Meanwhile Serenity dumped out the sachel of all her healing herbs, potions and devices.  The dab of woundwort paste she slipped under the tongue of her master.  A plastic baggie of aliantic powder was quickly moistened and kneeded into a salve.  The medikit computer chirped out the saddest of its tones, the ongoing siren of no life sensed.  "NO!" Shouted Serenity.


She rolled Lexiy toward her, up onto her knees and ripped off the back of her cloak and top.  Rapidly she smeared the aliantic salve across the smooth skin of the beautiful woman she had shared so much of life with the last few years.  Using the power of healing that was her second gift of the force, she flowed the force into the wounds within, erasing a bruise here, placing a rib in socket there, mending vessels, calming frazzled nerves.  She healed her best friend from within, massaging gently but firmly, as if rubbing the force into her body.


Serenity rolled the purple-clad body back onto her back and hit the surge button on the medkit.  Lex twitched as the thing jolted her with power, trying to re-stimulate the heart to throb on its own.  Serenity breathed deeply into Lexiy's mouth and began pressing on her chest, waiting for the tiny medikit to chirp its readiness for another attempt.  Again a surge wracked Lexiy into a contorted arching of the back.  Again the mournful ongoing tone....


The varactyl whelped plaintivly, sadly to which Zenah moaned horsely and shook her ponderous head slowly back and forth.


"No, she'll be alright!  Don't give up on her.  Lexiy?  Come on hon.  Stay with me..." Serenity commanded as she carried on with the lifesaving measures once taught everywhere in the old Republic.  On and on the little cycle repeated, Serenity's muscles ached only less than her heart.  Eventually the medkit itself chirped a ragged tone and promptly switched off.


"An hour?  No way she's been down for an hour!  NnooOOOO!" the Jedi moaned through the still woods, throwing herself over the cooling body of her most beloved friend.  She beat the ground and knelt back up, eyes wild and wet with pools of tears.  "There must be something I've forgotten.  All my life as a clan healer, plus all this damned Jedi training and I can't save her.  Useless!  AArrrrrrhHHhhhh!!"


Serenity sank a bit into despairing the loss of her friend whom she loved as part of her family.  She opened her senses, trying to find a glimmer of life, a small spark of fire to nurture into a flame.


The tall redhead sensed the frog in the puddle nearby, which blinked and bobbed its head.  Serenity' felt like it was understanding her sorrow and concern for her Master.  Hello little green she thought to it, opening the force to flow between them.  Give her my little bit of love it seemed to say back in her mind.  Serenity' nodded to thank the creature, and willed its tiny portion of life offering to flow into Lexiy.  The grass beneath them seemed to rustle in the breeze, and ripple in its own pattern.  Life, love it said, flowing waves of care toward Lexiy's prone form.  Her Rancor Zenah moaned low in a mournful huff and nudged Serenity' with a giant claw, offering her support and force.  The varactyl yelped again and Seren knew its meaning Here, a gift.  My life for hers. 


Reflecting back through the years, Serenity' remembered the day she and Ceres were first bonded in the force through a force storm.  The planet was alive with the force, and the storm was a natural moving vergence. She remembered first showing Ceres her Jedi vision of the force, a second sight, second layer of seeing the life force as whiteness around her... white spots of energy against the blackness of space, even in the stone, the water was some small measure of energy, surrounding, permeating everything.


The flame-haired Jedi knelt upright in meditation, closed her eyes and felt the world around them, opening, sensing farther, reaching out with her powerful gift of sense...  Not so much sensing as Seeing the force flow as white energy, she saw the frogs tiny puff of love as a miniature cloud, the varactyl's breath flowing like morning fog and settling into Lexiy's body.  She felt all the life of Dathomir offering support, bits of their energy to save the Jedi.  A tear formed in her eye as she realized what a fool she had been to ignore the power of love.


The Jedi taught a careful control and avoidance of emotional attachments, discipline as a way to fight their temptations to the dark side.  But she was a unique jedi, more Singing Mountain Clan Sister even after satisfying the Jedi Master trials.  Maybe they missed another point, that love has a power of its own.  Is this what I have always felt, that life loves the Jedi because the Jedi respect and love life?  Instead of the Nightsister & Sith ways of unnaturally commanding power that is drained from the life around us, life willingly loans portions of its own force for the Jedi to wield, like a loving favor to a friend?


If this was possible, Serenity knew exactly where to find the most Love in the universe she had ever felt for herself.  Her mind reached out, expanding across the light-years.  Following through the immense distances the trail of the mental link she shared with Ceres, Serenity fully opened the force between them and it was as if he were there, holding her hand in his firm and gentle way.  He knew and she knew and they knew everything at once.  Ceres' love and concern flowed through her.  Like a supernova against the blackness of deep space, he poured out through Serenity his infinite love for her.


In that moment the red-haired beauty realized she was not destined to be a Jedi like her father and Master, nor a Singing Mountain Witch like her mother, but would now forge her own way in the force, a way of Love, passion tempered by serenity, with Ceres and Lexiy as her pupils.  Serenity opened her heart, gave her Love into Lexiy that she might live, channeled the Love and care of all the surrounding life into her former Master.  She poured Ceres' love down into her, willing her to live from it, for it.  With a deep breath Serenity's body raised up as she summoned all of this into her lungs, then leaned down and covered Lexiy's dark lips with her own, breathing all of this immense gathered volume and power of the force into her.


The white force energy, saturated with life and Love, flowed into Lexiy like a tide, filling her from the inside, flowing down into her extremities and overfilling her, seeping then beaming out of her pores.  Serenity even willed herself to give up her own life, her own force to restore that of her Master, envisioning it as her soul flowing out of her body and into the other.


Lexiy's former Padawan saw her chest rise with the warm forced breath of life.  Mind spinning with the terrible exertion and the strain of being a conduit for so much power, she sat up to see if all of this had worked, saw the beautiful Knight's chest fall with exhalation.... and then Serenity keeled over, despairing failure and loss of love, falling hopelessly into blackness.


As her consciousness pulled inside her mind's eye and winked out, Serenity missed seeing Lexiy's chest rise once again with breath...