Tatooine, 37 BBY
My regenerative abilities turned out to be really powerful. After a few minutes of walking, the wound had already scabbed over and most of the pain was gone.
While paying attention in case of another ambush, I kept engaging Anakin in small talk to distract him from what had just happened. He still seemed a little shaken but seemed to be over the worst of it.
After another half an hour of walking carefully through the cave system, we saw light ahead and the corridor seemed to widen.
Rounding one final corner, we both gasped as we stared into a large, dimly lit chamber. It must have been almost fifty meters across and fifteen high, with walls gently sloping into a domed ceiling. At the apex of the dome was a hole acting like a skylight. We couldn’t see the sky because of the sandstorm still raging overhead, but that seemed to be the source of the dim lighting. While the chamber itself was quite impressive, that wasn’t what grabbed our attention.
In the middle of the chamber, right underneath the skylight, was a massive skeleton. It was curled up now, but when stretched out head to tail it must have been over forty meters long. With the size and shape of the skull, this could only be one creature: a Greater Krayt Dragon.
Even in death, the creature was imposing - even if, from what I knew, this seemed to be a juvenile one - and we were both awestruck as we walked wordlessly toward where the Force was guiding us.
It seemed we weren’t led to the skeleton itself but rather, to something inside its massive ribcage. What we were looking for was buried under a pile of sand that had accumulated over many years, but with a push of the Force, I uncovered our quarry. Lying there in the sand were five Krayt Dragon Pearls.
My eyes went wide as I saw them. Of course, considering our surroundings I should have expected them, but finding five of the most valuable gemstones in the galaxy just lying on the ground, free for the taking, left me speechless. There were three smaller ones, one blue and two yellow, as well as two larger black ones.
Anakin was the first to move. He reached wordlessly towards the smaller blue pearl, grabbed it, and pulled it close to his chest. He closed his eyes and just stood there for a few moments before speaking.
“This is it,” He said. “This is what was calling out to me. It’s like… the Force wants me to have this?”
His words shook me out of my reverie and I noticed the pull of the Force was leading me to the two yellow pearls.
It took me a few moments to realize why the Force had led us here - I couldn’t imagine the Force caring about material wealth after all - before my eyes were pulled to the training saber in my hand.
Training sabers are actually just lightsabers with limiters placed on them. The kyber crystal is smaller and the power cell is limited so that it isn’t powerful enough to sustain a proper lightsaber blade. However, if you replace the kyber and remove the limiter you have a fully functional lightsaber. And it just so happened that Krayt Dragon pearls were among the limited category of gemstones that were classified as kyber crystals.
The Force didn’t seem to care that we weren’t on Ilum, it wanted us to have our lightsabers!
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I had already learned how to construct my lightsaber even if I hadn’t taken the trip to Ilum yet. Komari was already considering taking me there when we were sent to Tatooine and had taught me everything I needed to know. Besides, the Force usually guided Jedi in constructing their first lightsaber anyway.
I sat down and placed my training sabers in front of me before reaching out with the Force to deconstruct them into their component parts.
“Anakin,” I called out. He had been eyeing me curiously as I worked but hadn’t said anything. “Can you take a look at these power cells?” I handed them to him before continuing. “They have some kind of limiter on them but I’m not sure how to remove it.”
He grabbed them and studied them for a few moments before answering. “Yeah. There’s something added here… it seems to be a tiny electromagnetic containment field. The power cells are sending most of their power to sustain that. If I just remove this- There! They should be working properly now.”
He handed them back to me before asking: “What are you doing?”
“I’m making my lightsabers!” I grinned back at him before picking two fangs from the massive skull. They were the perfect size and shape for a pair of lightsaber handles for a Jedi specializing in Makashi. I didn’t specialize in Makashi yet, but considering my Master and my Master’s Master were the two greatest practitioners of Makashi in the Order, it was definitely in the cards for me. Dooku would probably tear me a new one for combining it with Ataru and Jar’kai, but he would learn to deal with it.
“Real ones?” Anakin asked. “The ones that can cut through stone? How?”
“Krayt Dragon pearls can be used as lightsaber crystals,” I explained as I sat down again and levitated all my improvised parts. “The crystal in a Jedi’s lightsaber is special. Usually, we would be taken to a planet called Ilum to gather them, but the Force seems to have guided us to these pearls instead.”
The Force guided my actions as I started tearing the scales off the skin on my severed arm and melded them to the fangs.
“Sometimes,” I continued. “The Force takes an active role in a Padawan’s training”
The fangs were hollowed out and refilled with the power cell, pearl, and other components before the emitter was finally placed on top.
“I’ve heard that the Council doesn’t really like when it happens, but when the will of the Force is this obvious I doubt they will have any complaints.”
I only had one hand at the moment, but I used it to grab one of my finished lightsabers and used telekinesis to ignite it. The power controls had been placed inside the hilt so that non-sensitives wouldn’t be able to use it
“Roar!”
A distinctive feature of Krayt Dragon pearls was that when they were used in lightsabers, instead of the ordinary ‘snap-tss’, the lightsaber would growl like a Krayt Dragon.
Anakin and I both admired the blade that emerged from my Krayt Fang lightsaber. He wasn’t as experienced as me, but even he could feel the power coming from it.
The core of the blade was darker than most lightsabers. Not quite black, like the Darksaber, but closer to dark bronze, several hues darker than my scales. The corona around the core was somewhere between orange and yellow.
“It looks like the sunset,” Anakin finally commented and I had to agree.
“Jedi don’t usually name their lightsabers,” I said with a mischievous smile. “It goes against the idea of no attachments, but I never agreed with that rule to begin with.” I sheathed the first blade and clipped it to my belt before taking hold of and igniting the other one to see that it was identical to the first. “These are the Twilight Fangs!” I finally exclaimed, dramatically.
“Wizard!” Anakin was grinning like a madman as he was clutching his own pearl.
“You take that pearl with you,” I said, not wanting to burst his bubble, but tempering his expectations. “You don’t even have any training yet so I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to make your own lightsaber just yet.”
He didn’t seem too disappointed, clearly seeming content with the prospect of making one in the future. Holding the pearl in his hand was proof that he would make one eventually, after all.