AHSOKA TANO

Lux. Kissing. Chenai. Lux was kissing Chenai.

Ahsoka’s brain wouldn’t compute. Her Lux, kissing another? No way. It couldn’t be! It just couldn’t!

She heard herself gasp, but it was muted. She heard Lux say, “Ahsoka, Let me explain!” She heard fresh tears hitting the earthen floor. They were hers.

“Lux…” she whispered. Then she turned and ran from the room.

Ahsoka didn’t care how far or where she ran, she just ran. The twigs on branches left little stinging cuts on her face and body as she ran past, but she didn’t care. She had to get away.

She couldn’t stop, or she would think about it. And if she thought about it, then she was going to hurt inside. She was going to hurt more than she could ever imagine. So she had to concentrate on running and not banging into anything.

She jumped over a dead log, but her foot hooked on a branch on it that she hadn’t seen, and she went flying into a leafy hollow.

“Ahh! Ah– ouch!” She landed flat on her stomach, and got the wind knocked out of her.

Everything hurt.

Ahsoka lay still for a long time, her sobs echoing across the hollow and her tears soaking the ground beneath her. Eventually, she sat up and looked around her.

The smell of dead and living plants, wet from the last rain, was thick in the air. The gentle sighing of the leaves in the wind was the only sound that she heard, and her own quickened breathing. And it was cold out. She hadn’t noticed it up until now, or that a drizzling rain had begun to fall.

There was a small, perfectly round pool with carvings around it cut in the rock. She crawled over to it and looked in. It was like a mirror, absolutely still, and the breeze didn’t stir it, nor did the drizzle, for it was sheltered by an overhanging rock. She saw her dirt- and tear-streaked face reflected in the water, and sighed.

But as her gaze was drawn away from the ugly reflection and towards something at the bottom of the pool. The water was very deep, like a well. She stared harder at it, and gradually she figured out what it was. It was a small metal box.

Ahsoka focused the Force towards it, and lifted it, dripping, out of the water. Then she made it land gently on the leafy soil, and opened it.

Inside, nestled in cloth, was a red stone amulet. It was a strange thing, for even in the moonlight, it burned from within like fire. It had a round hole for a chain, threaded by a simple woolen string. Its shape was triangular, with rounded edges, and had small points in deep blue, golden yellow and dazzling green extending like a star’s on the bottom half of it. She picked it up and held it, entranced by its beauty.

But there was something other than this near-hypnotic treasure in the little metal box. A piece of yellowed paper was also inside. She uncurled it, and read what was inscribed on it.

And so our people die. An epidemic is killing us off with deadly speed. Our people were strong with the Light Side of the Force, and we used that virtue to pursue a life of peace and prosperity. But not now. Will the Jedi come? We so desperately need them to save us from this horror.

This stone is Herr-chuna’a, the Light Within Us. The followers of the Fire Goddess; her cohort, the Water God; their daughter, the Wind Goddess; and their son, the Earth God, have blessed this carving. It is made from the sacred stones of the four gods, so that we would always remember to honor the four principles of the Light.

I only hope that whoever finds this stone will use it to call upon the power of the Bright One, the Fire Goddess. Lightening has forged the destiny of she who wears the Light Within Us, and will keep life within her even if she has been killed. Use this gift wisely, for those of us now dead have cast powerful enchantments upon it.

And now I will cast it into the Sacred Pool for the One Forged of Fire and Light to find, to fulfill the prophecy of the

The scrawl trailed off, and there were spots of golden blood on the page. The paper was dated two hundred yours ago. Ahsoka felt a stab of pity for the strange people who had lived here long ago and died so suddenly and so horrifically. But them she remembered that her own people were in danger.

History has a funny way of repeating itself, she thought darkly, tying the stone around her neck and tucking it into her shirt. Then she set off on the return journey to the camp, promising to return here to find out more. If she survived, that is…