Jedi Temple, Coruscant, 39 BBY
Five days later Komari came to see me.
I knew she was coming thanks to our bond and once I saw her, I flew into her arms.
“Congratulations! I knew you could do it!”
She laughed and spun me around to bleed off the speed of my charge.
I could sense joy and quite a bit of relief coming from her. She had been far from certain about her success, which was understandable considering what I knew about her fate in an alternate timeline.
“Thank you, Anika.” She said with a warm smile on her face. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“That’s nerfshit and you know it!”
“Language!” She exclaimed, slightly shocked. She was used to me always using perfectly polite language, so the crude words I had started using after getting enough control to not have the polite minds of the entire Temple in my head still surprised her.
I realized my mind had become somewhat more childish too, but I didn’t mind. I was still far more mature than my peers because of my reincarnator knowledge but ever since my mind became more my own, I started getting far more child-like impulses.
I grinned playfully as she carried me down the hall, aiming for our usual meditation room.
“What? Have you become all prim and proper now that you’re a Knight? Too good to slum it with your lessers?”
“Where did you even learn those expressions?” She asked. “I refuse to believe you got that from anyone in the Temple.”
“The Temple gets visitors sometimes,” I replied with a shrug. “Some of them have less than pleasant opinions of us.”
She sighed. “Yeah, I can imagine.”
When we reached our usual room, she sat me down on one of the meditation seats and planted herself on the other before looking me straight in the eyes. I could sense she had something serious to talk about so I met her gaze and listened as she spoke. “I have two things for you, a gift, and an offer.
“First. I don’t think I would have ever become a Knight if it wasn’t for you. No, hear me out,” She forestalled my interruption with a raised hand. “Maybe I would have, maybe I wouldn’t, but it doesn’t matter now. I have made it, and you helped me get here. I was so stuck on following a path that had no future and you made me abandon that path, whether through your words or simply being someone for me to care about other than Master Dooku. You opened my eyes.”
She reached into her robes and pulled out her old Padawan braid, one end singed from her Knighting ceremony.
“A Padawan’s braid represents everything they have learned from the moment they take a Master until their Knighting.” She reached out, handing me almost ten years of her memories. “I want you to have mine.”
I grabbed it with reverence, stupefied.
For a Jedi to give someone else their Padawan braid was a sign of deep trust and friendship. It was something akin to passing the torch. In times when Jedi were allowed to have families it was common to give them to their firstborn child. These days, most Jedi kept their Padawan braids as one of their few possessions and were often buried with them.
I felt moisture gathering in the corners of my eyes as I stared at the deceptively ordinary-looking lock of hair lying in my hands.
“Are you sure?” I asked, dumbstruck. “This is important.”
She seemed amused at my reverent reaction as she answered. “No more important than you. I trust you to keep it for me.”
Finally, the waterworks hit their limit and tears silently started to flow down my cheeks.
As if in a trance, I shuffled off my meditation seat and moved soundlessly over to hug her.
Like a mirror to the scene a week earlier, we simply sat there embracing each other for an indeterminate amount of time, indistinct warm feelings bouncing back and forth across our bond.
Finally, she pulled us apart and cleared her throat.
“There was another matter I wanted to discuss.” She sounded a little choked up, and I’m sure I wouldn’t have sounded any better if I tried to speak.
“I am still a fresh, inexperienced Knight, and you are still very young, but with the help of Master Dooku, I managed to get permission from the Council. I don’t know if this is the best for you or if I’m good enough to guide you, but…” She hesitated a little before asking the question. “Would you like to be my Padawan?”
I stared into her eyes, once again dumbstruck, before calmly burrowing my head in her shoulder.
“There’s only one possible answer to that question, you drydak.”
Yet again, we lost track of time.
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Being a Padawan wasn’t all that different from being an Initiate.
I got to share Komari’s room and get a kick out of her reaction whenever I called her ‘Master’, but otherwise we just spent our time meditating together like we used to.
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We still spent some time each day practicing our emotional control, but since we had both reached our desired breakthroughs, we focused on other matters.
I had spent most of my first four years of this life practicing control, so even though I knew about many Force abilities, I hadn’t practiced how to use them. The shallow understanding from my previous life in combination with my natural ability made me learn at hyperspeed though.
Komari was speechless when I managed to use telekinesis to levitate all her furniture around the room after only an hour of practice. Yoda’s instructions to Luke were solid. Once I managed to convince myself that size truly didn’t matter, it was smooth sailing from there.
Force push and pull were just a different application of telekinesis so I had no problems learning them, and it turned out my instinctive ability to channel the Force through my wings was similar enough to Force speed and strengthening that I got the hang of it quickly. My body wasn’t developed enough that Komari was willing to let me practice enhancing it with the Force often though.
Although I made a point of walking around often, my physical ability was still my greatest weakness.
Komari agreed and a month after I became a Padawan she took me to the training rooms to get me familiarized with a lightsaber.
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“These are not toys.” She said somberly as she ignited a training saber. It was about as big as a shoto lightsaber, but with my short stature, it would suit me perfectly.
“Training sabers aren’t nearly as dangerous as real lightsabers, but if you hit yourself it will hurt and it can easily take out an eye.” I didn’t think I needed the safety lesson, but since my mind had become far more childish lately I decided to play it safe and listened intently.
She went through a list of dos and don’ts such as ‘point the emitter away from you before turning it on’, and ‘don’t check for sharpness’ before asking if I had any questions.
“Yes,” I said. “Has anyone actually tried to check one for sharpness? I mean, I realize this is probably just a list to cover all the bases, but that sounds like something put on it as a consequence rather than a precaution.”
Her face actually turned red at that and I could sense the embarrassment through our bond.
“No…” I stared at her. “You didn’t…”
“I was young once too, you know, and significantly more stupid than you are. Here,” She handed me the training saber. “It’s a Padawan’s job to listen to their Master, not make fun of her.”
I giggled as I grabbed it.
“This is the pointy end, right?” I said and pointed at the emitter.
She huffed and ruffled my hair before responding. “Yes, that is the ‘pointy end’. You realize I’ll get you back for this at some point, right? Now turn it on and try to get a feel for it.”
I ignored all the snarky remarks that popped into my head and complied with her order.
“Snap-tss!”
The feeling of the training saber in my hands turned strange once the blue blade emerged from the emitter. Logically, the blade of plasma shouldn’t alter the weight of the training saber, and it didn’t, but it felt heavier. The added weight wasn’t so much in my hands, as it was in my mind. Like my senses knew what this blade represented and what it could achieve. Which was strange since it was just a training saber and could at most kill a bug.
“Strange, isn’t it?” I could feel a sense of nostalgia from Komari as she spoke. “Perhaps now you understand why I tried to touch it?”
I nodded as I moved the blade carefully in front of me.
“Training sabers are made with the same Kyber crystals real lightsabers are made from, just smaller and tuned down.” She explained. “Kyber crystals are physical manifestations of the Force. They aren’t alive per se, but when wielded by a Jedi, we form a sort of symbiosis. The crystal gives the Jedi power, while the Jedi gives the crystal purpose.”
Swinging the blade carefully, I could see what she meant. When just moving it around aimlessly it felt almost floaty, like there was a tiny gyroscope at the tip. But when I made intentional movements and swings, when I moved with purpose, it felt like an extension of my mind.
“You got a hang of that quickly.” I felt a short pang of jealousy that it was so much easier for me to learn than it had been for her, but it was quickly overwhelmed by a swell of pride. “It seems we can move on quickly. Here.”
I turned off the training saber and accepted the blindfold she handed me.
“Because of your horns, the blast-shielded helmets won't fit, so we’ll have to improvise.”
She lazily raised her hand toward the edge of the room and a training remote drifted towards us.
“You will use the Force to sense where the shots will hit and use the training saber to block them.” She explained. “Usually, Initiates use this exercise to practice both Force sense and lightsaber skills, but your ability with Force sense is already far beyond where you would gain anything from this. We can still use it to familiarize you with a lightsaber though.”
I put on the blindfold, took a stance, and ignited the training saber before I heard the remote come to life.
Despite my Master’s compliments on my Force sense, I hadn’t done any practice with precognition or danger sense. I spent some time twitching at the sounds coming from the remote before I was finally able to sink into the Force and let it guide my movements.
I didn’t know how long I spent practicing, I just enjoyed feeling the Force flow through me. While my movements were a little jerky in the beginning - even after I managed to slip into the Force - it didn’t take long for them to smooth out as the training saber moved according to my will, guided by the Force.
I had expected to be hit at least a few times, but to my surprise, I didn’t feel a single sting.
“Okay, that’s enough!” Komari finally called out. “Those shots aren’t dangerous, but we should still get you checked out in the Halls of Healing.”
That made me skip a beat.
“What?” I said as I turned off the training saber and pulled off my blindfold. “But I didn’t get hit.”
I tilted my head as I looked at her in confusion. She returned the look, equally confused as she pointed down at my body.
“As usual you got really good really fast, but you were hit a few times in the beginning. Don’t tell me you didn’t even feel it?”
Sure enough, as I looked down I could see a few scorch marks on my arms and legs.
Intrigued, I checked the skin beneath but there was nothing: no blisters, welts, or any indication that a series of low-powered energy blasts had hit me.
As I moved my fingers over my skin, feeling the light texture of my scales, a thought hit me.
“It can’t be…” I mumbled before I re-ignited the training saber and did exactly what my Master had warned me not to do: I checked the sharpness.
“Anika!” She moved to stop me but halted in her tracks when the blade failed to do any damage.
I could feel the plasma flowing through my hand - and it wasn’t pleasant - but it didn’t hurt.
“So…” I said, looking up at her. “My scales seem to be resistant to lightsabers.”