Home Fiction Adult Fiction Art Mail List Staff Links

Title: To Weave the Tapestry: Part 1
Auhor: Alena (alena.of.riol@gmail.com )
Rating: NC-17
Characters: OFC, Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader
Category: AU, Romance

Warnings: Contains major spoilers to RotS, WIP

Disclaimer: Lucas is my Master; I shall not want money. He maketh me buy endless items of Vader on ebay, and lusteth after men in black. The Force compells me to create this AU and thus I will obey. ^_^

Summary: A young girl on a planet in the Outer Rim has her coming of age occur in a rather unprecedented manner.

This story takes place at the end of RotS.

Chapter 1

"I can heal your body, but I cannot heal your soul."

Alena remembered that it was a sunny day. Both suns were bright and visible, the air was fresh, and it was a nice, calm spring day. Her mother was in the kitchen, cleaning. She was trying to help but she really wanted to be outside, playing. Perhaps in the garden where the flowers were everywhere in splashes of beautiful color. And the roses, she loved the roses. When they were in bloom she would go up to them and smell them, smell every single rose, for every one of them smelled wonderful and they were velvety soft and pretty to look at.

She loved the roses.

"Mama, I'm coming," she had answered when her mother had called her indoors to help clean the kitchen.

She remembered this, remembered running inside, albeit reluctantly. She remembered drying dishes while her mom washed them. Answering questions about school. Yes, classes were fine. She excelled in her courses. The teachers always called on her, and she always had the answers. She did well and she liked what she was learning. History bored her while science moved her. They were covering astronomy. She loved astronomy.

She remembered standing at the window, looking out longingly at the flowers. She wanted to be outside. She turned back to her mother, who continued to hand her dishes to dry. Alena looked at the plate. It was a beautiful ceramic plate, reddish-brown with a dark, burgundy striping along the rim. The heat from the suns streaming in from the window felt warm on her face.

Mama was talking, and Alena was half listening. Study your history, Mama was saying. History is important. It may be boring, but it is important. Yes, Mama, of course. History is important. I'll be good, Mama, I'll do well in history. Someday I may even be a professor like Papa.

Her face was warm from the suns, and her hands dried the plate carefully.

And her mind wandered, and she began to daydream. She thought it was daydreams, at first, but it seemed as if it took a strangely different turn from her usual daydreams of space exploration and spaceships and stars and suns. Alena saw fire, and sand. She heard a strange humming sound. She saw blazing lights. They were blue. Hot blue, blazing sticks that clashed together, and two men that bore them.

Alena blinked. Her face felt warmer. She shook her head, trying to clear it, and willed herself to listen to her mother. Her mother was talking to her about how important it was to study. She was a bright girl, Alena. She was doing well in school. This would prepare her for her future. Think of your future, Alena.

The future. The room went black, and she stood in what was no longer her kitchen but saw before her blazing fire and two men with swords clashing. At first she didn't recognize them, but soon realized that she had seen of their faces on the HoloNet.

'They can't be fighting, they wouldn't fight.' Everything felt hot. She felt hot, and the place they were at felt hot. She could almost feel the sweat on their faces as their sabers clashed. Fires spew everywhere. What was going on? Where were they?

"Alena, have you been listening to me?"

The two men didn't say this, but someone had said this. Her mother. Her mother, whom she could no longer see, was still speaking to her.

"Mama," she heard herself say, "I don't feel so good."

Her hands reached out for the counter. She had to put down the dish, somewhere, but she couldn't see. She could hear the two men yelling at each other. You underestimate my power.

A cool hand pressed itself to her forehead. She could feel the gentle, worrying touch of her mother.

"Alena, you're burning up. I'll handle the rest of the dishes. Go to your room and go lie down." Her mother grabbed the plate out of her hand and gently pushed her to the stairs. "Go, go now. I'll call you when dinner is ready."

She remembers saying something she can't entirely remember, something such as, "Mama, I cannot see, I just see fire."

Liquid fire everywhere, two pairs of blue eyes blazing as two bright blue sabers clashed.

Somehow, she has assistance. She can feel herself taking each step up the stairs, her body knowing what to do, having run up and down a million times up those stairs since she was little. Her room is at the top. She cannot see, she does not remember being there. Her last image at this point is of her, lying in bed, the suns blazing through the windows. They are open, and the winds blow in.

"Mama, two Jedi are fighting each other. Why would Jedi fight, Mama?"

"Alena, be quiet. You've got a fever. Jedi would never fight each other. The Jedi are good people. Now, go to sleep. I'll get you some medicine."

"Mama-"

She cannot speak anymore; she is too hot. She loses her physical vision again, and this time, she can almost feel herself standing on hot rocks and sand. The man in front of her looks wild, angry, like an animal unleashed. She knows whom it is that she sees, but her eyes scarcely believe it. His exploits are famous. The girls in her class giggle over him and his partner, another Jedi like himself. They are famous, and everyone loves them. They are heroes. They argue over whom it is that they will marry someday, and everyone says that their chosen Jedi is best.

Anakin Skywalker. She no longer knows if she is speaking aloud, or in her head. She just knows that the man in front of her is not the man from her HoloNet; his eyes are hotter than the fire that she stands on. And her face burns, Alena is burning. She feels as if she can feel her world spinning, and it is going terribly fast in the sky. Her stomach is beginning to spin with the world. There is another name in her head, Vader. She doesn't recognize it, but when she hears it, she can feel darkness and black metal.

Her next memory is of her mother sitting by her bed, holding onto her hand. She looks horribly worried, tired, and her eyes convey something that Alena can't describe let alone understand. There is another man by her bed, the family physician. He is shaking her head at her, as if in grim disapproval. Alena has the horrible sense that she has done something wrong, someone disapproves of her. They disapprove of her. She is burning up, and it is all her fault.

The room goes black again, and she sees the wild-eyed man. He is face down, crawling with one arm on black sand. She looks on in horror. His legs are gone, and he has but the one arm, the one mechanical arm that had replaced his other, lost to him in some other battle. She vaguely remembers hearing about it, but is awe-struck. His skin is burning, his clothes are burning. She is burning.

Suddenly his body goes up in flames, and her world is ablaze.

Mama, I'm sorry, and she doesn't remember if she said this aloud or in her head as her world goes to black.

Her next memory is no less strange than the last. She is in a room, a darkened room. There is a bright artificial light overhead. The man is there, and he is badly burned. She can feel the burns, she is burning, and he is screaming. There are droids there, and they are moving about the room but she does not see what they are doing. She does not know what they are doing. She only knows that she is in this room. She does not know how she got here, only that she is no longer seeing things in her head.

Alena is there, in that room. Years later, she could still hear the screaming.

She touches him, and sees many disturbing, horrible scenes. People dead. Jedi, slaughtered on the ground, robes and bodies everywhere, men, women, and children. The man that he had fought, cutting his legs and arm off with his glowing blue saber. A beautiful woman, a Senator she has seen many times on the HoloNet, holds her throat. She is choking. Alena sees all of this, and knows that he is responsible, responsible for all of it.

A man lies on the table, scarred horribly and burned, and she knows that he is responsible for all of this.

She feels his pain, his torment, the skin cracking and burning all around him. She feels his agony at the burns, his desire for the woman whom he choked, the bitter regret at having what he felt to be the duty to remove the Jedi, remove them all. She knows that he thought of the children, and tears came down his cheek. He thinks that he did this for love. He thinks that he deserved better than he got. He feels anger, hatred, frustration. He also feels sorrow and pain. He hates himself, what he has done. She sees a group of people in a room, cut down by his saber, and feels also that he relished in the killing, in the power to take a life, and in the power he got from its taking. He hates this as much as he loves it, loves the power, loves what he is capable of. The conflict within him, the two separate people continuing the saber duel among fire and lava in his mind, Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. Vader did this, Anakin did that. Anakin kissed the pretty woman while Vader choked her.

The fires rage on inside his mind, and he feels trapped inside of them. He will never be free. He is caged now, trapped in the fires of his mind, his flesh, and he is still burning.

Something inside of him touches something inside of her, and she cannot stand it anymore.

'Gods forgive me, Mama forgive me.' Alena feels for him. She hates what she sees, but she cannot help herself. She feels something, a warmth. This warmth is strangely cooling, and comforting. It flows through her, through him, the room, the droids, and she can touch it and touch it all. She feels this strange gift bestowed upon her by some sympathic god, and the light above her feels brighter and more intense, and sounds become loud colors in her head.

'What sweet cacao have I to give you, come the next harvest?' She feels dizzy, and hot. She wants to stop the burning, can't some god help to stop the burning? 'What god are you? Who does this to me?'

Alena glows. It is a quiet glow, not blazing like the blue sabers the two men fought with, not hot like the suns or the lava that surrounded the two fighting Jedi. Anakin and Obi-Wan. She knows their names, knows their faces, of course she knows them. She is a good girl who does well in her history class in spite of her disliking history--hating it even. It is a boring subject. She excels in history because she is a good girl. She makes her Mama proud. She knows that she needs to grow up someday, be a good woman, and excel in her studies that she may find herself a good profession, be strong and smart like her Papa.

The glow flows through her, the man on the table, the table itself, and the droids. Something else flows through her, too. Hatred. She hates what this man has done. To the beautiful woman he loves. To the people whom he killed. The children! He killed children. Children her age, and younger than her. She sees it all in all of its starkness, its cold and violent reality, and she hates it.

But she hates his suffering more, and the glow pours out of her hands into his body. The hatred in her turns into sorrow, then compassion. Alena feels an instinct that she does not understand, but knows it for what it is. She knows that instinct, has felt it before. She has touched her bruises and cuts, and knew how to make them go away. Make the pain go away. Kids during playtime break get hurt, and she makes their pain go away. She is a good girl, a smart girl, who wants to do well in school, who makes regular offerings at the shrines and during the festivals to the gods, and wants to please her Mama and Papa.

Alena yearns to help the man on the table, to understand why he did what he did, and what he went through. For Anakin, who calls himself Vader, a strange name that she hears in his head as his name. It is a name she does not like, but understands on some emotional level with which she cannot yet identify. She understands that this man will be Vader and that Anakin is but a past life memory, like one of her own memories of her lives, the ones which her mother denies are real and only half listens to when she speaks of them. She knows that this name means some sort of destiny that she doesn't understand, can't comprehend, and doesn't want to know about, and does not understand why she is here. A moment of lucidity reaches her, and in that moment, she asks herself why it is that she is here. Why is she not helping her Mama do dishes? Why can she not be outside on this wonderful day? Why does she see these things?

His skin is growing cooler to the touch, and it is glowing. She can see the skin forming and reforming itself. She can almost see through him and see his internal organs forming and reforming themselves. She can see all of this; the excitement and fear almost overpowers her in her realization that he is healing, healing because of her. Healing because of her, and that glow which surrounds her, him, the table, the droids, and the room itself. His skin is cool, but hers burns. It burns hotter than the suns streaming through the window in her kitchen, the lava and black sand which burned this man's body and continues to burn at his mind, she is burning. Hands are shaking, body is shaking, she is shaking. A force stronger than her is holding her up, holding her at this table, filling her with an intense, blazing energy that she can barely keep from exploding out of her and around the room. Instinct, calm instinct, an unnatural calmness in the center of her belly is all that she has to hang onto.

Everything is glowing, everything is blazing.

'Gods, please help me.'

And then, there is calm. There is peace. There is serenity, and it takes the form of glowing light swirling inside of her, and out of her fingertips. Strength flows within her, the strength to move one of her hands. Her head turns with it to look at the man on the table. His face is almost healed. One scar, now old, goes through his right eyebrow and eye, another on his chin. There is skin forming now around a new scar just below his left cheekbone.

He is still screaming.

Alena touches him, tries to will all of that light, that glowing light, around him. 'Please don't hurt anymore. Please.' Her outstretched hand is now on his face. She has seen all that he has done, but this light has her now, has the both of them glued to this table. But she wants his pain to go away.

I am sorry, I am so sorry. She doesn't know if she says this aloud, or in her head. She doesn't even know if he can hear her. I am sorry that this happened to you. I am sorry that I cannot do more.

Her thoughts break off as she feels him wincing beneath her palm. Her hand is on his forehead. She knows what he is thinking. Hate, so much hate, directed at the man who nearly killed him and left him for dead, burning alive on black sand. If he could make this hate a fire, it would destroy this man too—destroy him as surely as this man was now being destroyed. Alena watched, almost numb, as the droids attached mechanical legs to him. His body spasmed, and all she could feel from him was hate.

I am sorry for what he did to you. You did not deserve it, no matter what you did. I wish I could help you more. I can heal your body, but I cannot heal your soul.

His eyes look right into hers. They are wide and blue, and they are terrified. They are also filled with a terrible beauty, a frightening wonder that reminds her of clouds, lightning, and storms. Another mechanical arm has been attached to his shoulder. Two mechanical arms, two mechanical legs. Alena knows now that he can see her. She doesn't know how he can see her. Some strange moment of lucidity. Perhaps he heard her thoughts as she heard his, she does not know.

His mouth opens, and a word forms, a single prayer from his lips as he gazes blindly into her eyes. "Padme?"

Alena tries to respond, but suddenly her hand feels ice cold. She feels cold. She is shaking.

Ice. Ice water. She cries out, and suddenly can see. She is in her bathtub, immersed in ice water, ice cubes floating everywhere. Her mother continues to hold onto her. "My baby, my baby, Alena," is all she can hear.

"Mama, I'm here," she manages to say before her mother hugs her. Alena feels her mom's arms around her as her vision suddenly goes black again. Black like the armor she sees before her, a mask slowly lowering onto Anakin--Vader's--face, as he gazes above in sheer terror. The burns are very nearly gone from him, but she can see a mark still slowly healing on his face, the wound that would not heal.

The mask lowers, and she hears a slow, but very audible breath, as if a heavy and dark wind came down a long tunnel. It reaches her and something inside of her feels colder than the ice in the tub, and she begins to pass out. Before she loses consciousness, she sees the room that he is in, that Vader is in, being torn and ripped apart by the very glow she used to heal him. That healing glow is now thunder which rips through the droids and shatters the place as if shaken by an earthquake. She watches as part of the ceiling falls onto a man she only knows as Palpatine, and his horrible, distorted face and his disturbing, wide grin in the face of the destruction and chaos is her last vision before all of her vision leaves her. And in that moment, she is both thankful and afraid. Thankful she can no longer see, but afraid of that awful face that laughed as the ceiling and sky came down, and the dreams in which it will haunt her.

***

When Alena awoke, she knew that it was late in the day, but she didn't know which day, or how much time had passed. She remembered most if not all of the images that went through her mind and events that occurred when she had a fever. She knew that she was wearing her nightgown and that her mother must've dressed her after dunking her in ice water to bring down her temperature.

She tried to sit up, but noticed at once that she was still weak, although she did feel much better. Her mouth tasted funny, and she wondered if her mother had been pouring medicine down her throat while she was ill.

Remembering some of the things she had said, aloud or in her head, made her feel anxious. She had no idea if her mother or the doctor whom she had seen heard any of them, nor what their reactions would be. Fear struck her. She kept seeing the doctor shake his head. What if she had said or done something wrong?

Her mother walked into the room, and upon seeing her sitting up, gave a loud cry of delight, "Alena, oh, Alena, how are you feeling? Are you all right?"

Alena's response of "Yes, Mama," was drowned out by her mother's strong hug. "I feel much better."

"Good. You had that fever for so long, and it was so high. We were worried about you. Your father is downstairs. Would you like to eat anything? I could bring you water, soup, just name it." Her mother took her hand in hers, and squeezed it with a smile. At once Alena could feel the worry emanating from her, and something else behind it.

"What is it, Mama?"

Her mother sighed, worry lines creasing her forehead. "Don't you worry. We will talk about it when you're a little bit better. Right now, I'm just glad that you are all right."

Alena nodded. "Okay."

"That's a good girl. I'll bring you some broth and water. Or would you prefer tea? I could make you tea from the herbs in the garden." She nodded happily in response, and her mother dashed out of the room to get her daughter something to eat and drink. After she left her room, Alena sank back into her pillows and wondered what she was going to do. She knew that what she had seen transformed itself from vision into waking reality, but she didn't know how or why, nor did she understand what really had happened to her. She wasn't even completely convinced that it wasn't just the fever producing odd dreams from fears that transpired from watching too much of the news on the HoloNet. Everything seemed normal, but it was a strange sort of normal that filled her room. A new normal. She didn't like this normal. She wished that things were as they had been so she could go outside and play.

And she still didn't know how long she had been unconscious.

Her mother emerged later with a bowl of broth in one hand and some herbal tea in the other. Alena took and ingested both gratefully. Her mother watched her eat in silence, not bothering to interrupt her eating with the usual questions, "Do you like it? Is it good? Do you want to some more later?"

After she finished her last spoonful of broth and last swallow of the tea, she thanked her mother. It was good, but she was horribly thirsty still.

Her mother smiled, and fidgeted with her hands in her lap. She still looked worried.

"Alena, while you were sick, you said some interesting things that I at first took for fever, but spoke to someone in Central. I think that you need to know that you will have to take a visit to the Oracles. I've already arranged for an appointment."

Calm settled after this extraordinary announcement, then a sudden sense of panic. "What did I say, Mama?"

She shook her head at her. "No, Alena, I don't want to trouble you with it. If you don't remember any of it, it's just as well. But you need to talk to the Oracles. They want to hear about whatever you happen to remember. They think it's significant. They…." Her voice trailed off.

"Yes, Mama?"

"They feel that you were touched by the gods, and they think it means something. It, it could mean nothing at all," she added quickly. "But they want to make sure, and I figured that it couldn't hurt." She smiled brightly. "Just go to them and talk. They're wonderful women, Alena, and they wouldn't do or say anything to make you feel bad."

Alena nodded. "Okay, Mama. If you feel that I should, I will."

There was a long period of silence between the two.

"Here, let me take that for you," Alena's mother took the mug and bowl from her and began to walk out of the room.

"Mama," she called out suddenly, feeling that fear inside of her again. "Did I say anything wrong? Anything weird?"

Her mother stopped in the doorway, but didn't turn around. "You were feverish, Alena, and I don't know if what you said meant anything, but if it did, the Oracles will take care of it."

"Okay, Mama."

Chapter 2

"Then I will become an Oracle."

Alena walked down the central streets to the city's center, where stood the temple of the Oracles of Riol.

She walked alone.

She was still weak from her illness. Her mother had forced some broth down her throat and sent her on her way. "I can't come with you," she said calmly, but there was a sadness in her voice. "They have requested you to go, but go alone. I will be here when you get back, and you can tell me all about it." Her daughter was all of twelve years old. This came all too soon. The illness, the visions…but she knew that she had to go.

The gods wanted her to, therefore she had to.

The streets were paved with stones of almost equal size, weather and foot worn, though well kept. Ivy and flowers decorated the buildings she walked past. The sun was bright and gave a glow to the streets, the buildings, and got in her eyes as she kept walking. One foot she laid in front of her, and the next one followed. Her footing was strangely stable, she thought, given how long she had been ill and recovering. She felt, however, that this road led to her destiny. Lightheaded, yet certain that what laid before her would change her for the better, she kept walking on.

Those who asked her later would say after hearing of her speak of this day, "She saw it coming, and the will of the gods was with her."

Once she was at the temple, she stopped and stared, almost uncertain that she was genuinely there. She had visited it but rarely--a school trip, perhaps an early memory as a child. There was an archway, and she could barely make out the words chiseled on it in the ancient language of Riol: "Know thyself, and the truth shall set ye free." She could read it, but its meaning was lost on her. Alena was nervous. She knew that she belonged here, but she could feel her future looming ahead of her, and bits of what she remembered envisioning during her fever kept flickering in her memory.

Alena took a deep breath, and walked through.

She was greeted by a guard, who smiled upon her, all but patted her on the head, and assured her that the Oracles inside were waiting for her. She nodded, smiled in return, and entered the main entrance to the temple. Up the stairs she went, into the main hall. Everything was awash in gold, flowers, and burgundy drapery. At the end were three odd looking seats which resembled halves of large eggshells that were hollowed out and made into stone fabric-covered seats. Seated in each of the chairs were two women. The center chair was occupied by an older woman in her forties, a brunette with a smiling, motherly face. There were streaks of grey in her face, which was full, and her eyes were calm. Alena liked her immediately. To her left was a strawberry blond woman in her late teens, perhaps early twenties, with brilliant blue eyes. This younger woman was thinner, more angular, and seemed to have an edge to her that the other one lacked. She smiled. From where she stood, Alena could see the flames flickering behind her eyes, and at once she understood the young woman.

The third chair, seated to the right of the older woman, was empty.

"Hello, Alena," the elder woman called out. She had a gentle, but strong voice. It carried images of warm winds, vast fields, and childhood memories. "Welcome. I am Erna."

The young woman on her left inclined her head. "And I am Nyara." Her voice was also strong, and surprisingly warm.

Alena glanced at Nyara, then back at Erna. "I was told by my mother that you requested that I come here. And, um, I'm here." She wrung her hands in front of her, suddenly feeling awkward, and then composed herself. "I suppose I'm here because of what happened to me last week. I don't know how much you both know. Maybe you have answers. I don't know."

"Come here," Erna commanded, but her tone and voice were still gentle. "It's okay. You have nothing to fear here. We want to help you."

The young girl looked upon the woman's face and saw many things. Compassion. A genuine sense of caring. A strong desire to help.

Moving forward, closer to the two Oracles, she also saw a veil of concern. It was just behind their eyes, and it hovered in the air. She couldn't help but notice it.

"Am I really okay?" she asked timidly. "Or am I in some sort of trouble for what I saw? I barely even remember it, but what I remember…." She paused to think. What did she remember? Lava, fighting, skin burning, clashing, blazing blue swords, and black metal.

I can heal your body, but I cannot heal your soul.

She shivered, and hugged her arms to her body. She didn't want to remember any more.

Erna laughed, and smiled at her. "No, child, it's okay. You're okay. Why you're here has less to do with what you saw, and more to do with the fact that you saw."

Blink, blink. Alena looked at her, confused. "Um, I-"

"We want to know more when you can tell us more," Nyara said. "But we won't force it out of you. We know that you've been through a lot. It's understandable if you don't want to discuss it. I know how gruesome it was."

"The details, we heard from your mother," added Erna, who glanced casually at Nyara, then back in Alena's direction. The expression was clear, and Alena could almost hear her thoughts: Nyara, please watch your speech.

Alena found herself thinking, 'I like Nyara; she's blunt and to the point.' "I see," she replied aloud. She noticed that she still felt lightheaded, and her head spun. Her hands gripped one another for support. The floor and its burgundy carpet became very interesting.

"If you don't want to know, we can't help you." Alena looked at Erna and realized for the first time that she spoke as an Oracle, not just as herself, "But if you want to know, and want to help others to know, we can help you."

The young girl shrugged her shoulders helplessly. "Know what, exactly? What can I possibly do?"

Erna smiled, and Alena thought of how much she reminded her of a younger version of her grandmother. "Be yourself. But beyond that, be an Oracle for the people."

Now the room was definitely spinning. "Oracle, what? What do you mean?" She felt her legs give way, and she sat down very suddenly on the floor.

Nyara muttered many words that sounded vaguely like a cross between prayers and expletives to Alena's ears. The other Oracle sprang with a surprising amount of speed from her chair. "Oh no! Dear, please don't be alarmed. We just want to help you." Alena found her hands in Erna's gentle, but firm grip. She looked up to see the woman looking back at her, and found that she could feel the waves of concern, compassion, and genuine affection radiating from her. The room stopped spinning for a bit, but she felt queasy.

"I thought that I was here for an oracle, but I am here to…become an Oracle?" She laughed, and it sounded strange to her ears.

"Yes, and I would've thought that your mother would've explained to you why you were coming. Poor thing…Nyara, could you fetch a glass of water for her?" Nyara nodded, and ran at once behind the curtain that hung just past the strange, egg-like seats. "Alena, we want you to feel comfortable with what we are proposing, and if you say no, that is completely fine with us. You are free to change your mind later, or not!" She laughed. "We do not mind. But," she continued, still holding Alena's hands in hers, "we do feel that your gifts could help others, and that they come from none other than the gods. These gifts are special. We know that you are afraid of them, always have been.

"But, dear," she took Alena's hands closer to her, and looked her in the eyes, "these gifts, if they came from the gods, they cannot hurt you. They are good, and you can use them for good. And we believe that you can help yourself and help others with them."

"But…what I saw-"

"What you saw was tragic," interrupted Erna, "and could not have been prevented. We agree, also, that your abilities as a Healer are remarkable, and will do you good as well, and would serve the gods. But you must understand one thing."

Alena paused. "What?"

"What you saw was not your fault." Erna spoke these last words with slow, deliberate enunciation. Her hands shook Alena's with each syllable. "Do not blame yourself. And what you did and what will come of it, do not blame yourself either. We're here to help. Anytime. Because we want to help.

"But," she said quietly, "we cannot help if you do not want us to. And we would not force you to accept our help for all of the world."

"But I WANT to help," Alena blurted out, "that's why I did what I did. I couldn't stand what I saw, and felt. And the burns, you have no idea, Erna, I don't care what he did and I know people will hate me for it, but I don't care...."

Erna's eyes widened. "Alena-"

"I really don't care. My mother thinks I'm crazy, and I can feel it when I talk to her. She's constantly worried about me, about what I say, about what I see, and I can't help what I see and I feel uncomfortable telling her. She worries about me, constantly."

"She's your mother, that's what mothers do," Erna gently stated, and with a laugh, pushed back a strand of hair behind her ear. "And your mother sent you here so that you could learn."

"Learn what?"

"Learn how to use your visions for good, but better yet, to accept them. Accept them as what they are, and who you are. And you cannot change that, for all the world." She shook her head sadly.

Alena shook her own head, trying to will the images that still burned in her mind to disappear. "But if I want to, couldn't I--couldn't I just ignore them?"

"You could, and ignore much of yourself, for that matter. Imagine going through your life blind, deaf, unable to hear music that was either bad or good, unable to see the beauty as well as the ugliness. You cannot close your eyes nor shut your ears because of the bad that that you see. You can hear the beauty, and see the wonderful world in front of you.

"But," she quickly added, "these are your choices to make. We are offering you a wonderful chance. You would be this world's youngest Oracle. I cannot guarantee that you will not run into hardship, or failure. What would happen after you were trained and became the Third Oracle would be up to you. But we would love for you to join us, and help us - help others - help yourself - to do something wondrous for the gods."

Alena stared down at her hands. The pit of her stomach felt vast, and empty. But she could also hear behind the noise, a spark of something, something calm, strong, at peace. She reached for it, and thought to herself of who and what she had been before her illness, and what she was now.

The First Oracle smiled at her. "None of this is an accident, you know. Your being here was not only preordained by the gods, but also determined by you before you were even born. You are here because you chose to be. Never forget that."

She was a bright girl, who excelled at school, did what her parents expected of her, and achieved her dreams. And she dreamed, vivid dreams at night of castles in the sky, horses that spoke to her in dreams, and images of skies that hung above her in brilliant blue with two blazing suns and three glowing moons. In others, she would see fast paced moving images of metal on wheels, metal machines that flew in the sky, and a single sun with a single moon that paced across the sky daily as fast as the machines flew.

She had a gift for speaking to others about their problems, and having a sense of what they wanted to hear--and what they didn't want to hear. She knew, sometimes, what would happen before it occurred, and rarely were events a shock to her. She knew, before her illness, that a huge change was coming ahead, but couldn't see the details, but could only perceive the huge mountain of monstrous duty, shadows, and mystery that would cloud her future from here on end.

And all in all, she knew that her devotion to her gods was special. She could feel them holding her as she slept, and dream of them talking to her and telling her things, little things, about what she should do, advice on her daily life, and calming her fears as she voiced them in her head, aloud. And in those dreams, she tasted a peace that she barely felt in her waking life.

Her temples burned as if the fever were upon her again, and she spoke with a voice that she scarcely recognized.

"Then I will become an Oracle. If the gods will it, then I will. Just…tell me what to do, because I don't know…where to begin."

Warm arms collapsed around her in a hug. Alena was startled, but quickly hugged Erna back in return. As her arms enveloped the First Oracle, she felt dazed, and confused. Her future looked so uncertain and the ground felt very unstable. She had no idea, suddenly, where she was nor where she was, exactly. She barely remembered her vivid, reflective journey to this temple where she currently was, sitting on the floor with Erna holding her, and saying things to her that she could barely hear. Words of comfort that scarcely registered in her brain as anything beyond gentle sounds. Was she the same person, who a few weeks ago, excelled in her tests at school, helped her mother plant flowers in the garden, read books in her father's study? What was she doing here?

Everything came crashing to a halt around her, and felt at once to be unreal. The floor beneath her was unreal. The arms that held her were not real, either. In that space of unreality, she could feel the vastness of space closing around her, and its brightness enveloping her. At that moment, she could taste the living web that connected her to Erna, Nyara, the floor, the temple, the buildings around the temple, and to Riol itself.

It was too much; her head was still too light and her body too weak, and she passed out.

Chapter 3

"I know you're out there."

When Alena awoke, she found herself lying on a small, ornate couch. Nyara sat beside her, holding a glass of water. She also heard voices coming from the other room. One sounded like Erna's, and there was another voice which sounded distinctly like her mother's. She couldn't make out all of the words, but it sounded like whatever they were discussing was intense, and a little heated.

Alena tried to sit up, but Nyara gently put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't push yourself," she warned. "Here, have some water. Are you feeling better?" She nodded slowly in response, and gratefully accepted the glass of water.

Erna emerged from other room, looking calm but Alena felt waves of frustration coming from her. She gulped down the water and spoke quickly.

"Erna, what did my mother say?" she gasped out.

The First Oracle sighed. "Your mother has accepted your placement here as our Third Oracle, and you can begin training. However, she wishes you to complete your schooling. We are going to work out a schedule that will suit both you and your teachers."

This sounded good to Alena, but didn't sound like the complete story. "I don't mind doing both, and I am glad—but what of my mother? What did she say?"

"Mothers worry, and naturally she worries about you." Erna smiled. "She believes that you are too young to be an Oracle, and I think that she would rather a different life for you." Alena could feel her holding back words, could hear it in her voice. She knew that there was something that her mother was displeased with, and that Erna didn't want to express it.

"I want to become an Oracle," Alena said suddenly. "I don't care what Mama wants. I want to do this."

Erna smiled again, and nodded at her. "Your mother still is in charge of you, as you are her daughter and not yet of age, but I think that I have convinced her that this will be healthier for you in the long run. I don't think that she will try to make you stop coming here." She paused, and smoothed her skirt. "Do you think that you can be here tomorrow in the morning? We can begin then."

"Yes. I'll be here first thing."

***

 That night, Alena had difficulty sleeping. She left her room to go downstairs to get a cup of water, but stopped suddenly when she heard her parents talking in the kitchen.

"I'm not saying that it's a bad idea for her to go, but-"

"Alena's smart. She can handle this."

She caught phrases and snatches of speech, and stayed where she was on the staircase, afraid to breathe in fear that they might hear her.

"Isabel," she heard her father's voice say, "I have faith in those women. She's in good hands. Don't worry."

"It's not them that I'm worried about," her mother interrupted, "it's her. Don't you see it? Haven't you seen how she looks lately?"

"What do you mean?"

"Her eyes, Torin. Her eyes." Alena clutched at her nightgown. Her mother's voice sounded choked, and strange. "I feel like someone's taken away our little girl. I don't like it."

"Alena will grow up when it's her time," Torin's voice was calm and reassuring. "We can only do so much from her. We can't shelter from the world, and we can't keep her from being herself."

"She's only twelve!"

"Yes, my dear, but only in body. Someday she will be a grown woman, and she can't stop herself from growing up. And neither can we."

"But it's more than that-"

Alena couldn't bear to hear any more, and went back up the stairs to her room. It bothered her to hear them talking about her like that. And what had Mama seen in her eyes that worried her so much? She was still the same Alena. Nothing had changed. Or had it?

She collapsed into bed, and after some more tossing and turning, finally fell asleep.

Dreams that night were very brief, vivid, and strange. That awful man was in her dreams, the one with the black cloak and wrinkled white face.

"Go now, my apprentice…my iron fist!" His voice was terrible, and echoed in her mind.

Cut to a HoloNet news reel. "Millions across the galaxy mourn for the passing of Anakin Skywalker, who served the Republic. There are some who are calling for his immediate removal from the records, as he was a member of the Jedi Council, who recently were found to be plotting a takeover-"

In another blink of an eye, she saw him. Vader. This time, like before, she felt like she was there. He was walking down a long, white hallway past numerous people dressed in uniform. His speed was remarkable, although she could tell that he was still getting used to his new legs. His black cloak billowed out from behind him as he walked; waves of determination, frustration, and pride were cascading from him. Frustration at what, she didn't know. But he was clearly walking to his destination at a very great pace.

He finally stopped when he reached a short, but stern looking man, who also wore a uniform. Alena didn't recognize him. There was a conversation between the two, but Alena could barely hear it. It didn't register in her mind as anything that she could possibly hear. She caught snatches of words: "outpost," "traitors," "Empire".

Suddenly, she realized that Vader had stopped in the middle of his speech. Then she felt his mind reaching out into the web of space. She could feel his presence very strongly, and knew that he had somehow felt her.

I know you're out there. The voice was strong, and deeper than it had been when she heard him in the operating room. It came close to vibrating in her head.

***

She gasped aloud, and bolted upright in bed, both panicked and very awake. Her face fell into her hands.

'Breathe, Alena, breathe,' she thought.

After a few moments, she realized that what she had felt from Vader in the dream, she still could feel. There was something there, some sort of subtle energy that lingered in her mind. Alena wondered how long it had been there, and if she were simply imagining it due to the vividness of the dream.

She leaped out of bed, and got dressed quickly. Her weird dreams would have to be on hold, as she was due for her first day being trained as an Oracle. None of this could possibly occupy her time now, and would have to wait.

The gates were open when Alena arrived, and she found herself once again smiled at by the guard, who let her in without hesitation. She was still thinking about the dream she had last night. It made her uncomfortable, and a little afraid. On top of which, she kept feeling strange sensations tugging away at her chest and stomach. She forced herself to breathe in, breathe out in the way that her father had long taught her in times of stress or discomfort. Breathe in, breathe out. It wasn't working, but it was slowing her heart rate a little.

Alena found herself once again in the room in which she had initially met the two Oracles. This time she saw only Nyara, who seemed to be in the middle of straightening the cushions on the seats. She was greeted very hurriedly and told to take a seat in the other room, which she then did.

Moments, then minutes, then perhaps an hour passed before Nyara entered the room again, carrying what appeared to be a bundle of white cloth in her hand.

"Please put this on—I hope that it fits you. You will wear it while you are training and on duty as an Oracle here."

After Nyara left the room, Alena examined the clothing. It was a long, white dress with purple and gold trim around the sleeves and hem. Layers of cloth crossed the front of the gown, which fell over the rest of the cloth in folds. 'So beautiful,' she thought, and hoped that she could get it on without ruining it or making a fool out of herself. She had rarely dressed up, save for special school or family occasions—and nothing like this!

After turning it over, she decided to just put the dress on over her head and hope for the best. It turned out to be easier to put on than she had suspected, and once she had adjusted the dress, she ran to look in the mirror at herself.

She saw a short, thin young girl who looked a little older than her years with long, dark red hair and brown eyes. The dress made the hair and eyes stand out more, and nearly disappeared into her fair skin. Every freckle she could see on her shoulders and arms seemed to stand out a little more, and she was especially thankful that she had long already begun to grow into a woman, as she was able to fill out the top of the dress to some extent. Her waist was also smaller than her hips, which helped the fabric to drape a little better than it should have on a twelve year old girl. Alena stared at her reflection for a while, and remembered her mother's remark about her eyes. They looked no different to her, and she briefly wondered what her mother was talking about.

"Alena, are you ready yet?" It was Erna. "We are waiting for you. When you have finished changing, please come out into the main room."

"I'm all ready!" Alena quickly abandoned her reflection in the mirror to join Erna and Nyara. They were also in their ritual gowns, which were identical to Alena's. The two Oracles stood side by side, both solemn but with smiles on their faces.

It was Erna who spoke first. "Alena, before we begin training you, there is a brief ceremony that you will undergo. It is traditional to do this, and marks your beginning as an apprentice here. There will be nothing that will be asked of you that will make you feel uncomfortable or afraid.

"Are you ready to begin?"

Alena nodded. "Good." Nyara went over to a nearby table where there was a plate of sweet cacao, a censor, and a glass of what appeared to be wine. She lit the censor and added a few granules of resin and herbs while Alena watched, fascinated. After this exercise, she handed Alena the plate of sweet cacao.

"Alena, we will offer this to the gods of nature and of spirit together."

The plate was ceremonially offered, and Erna stepped beside the two women with a lit taper candle in her hand.

"Many, many years ago, before time itself, the gods created for us a woven cloth, a beautiful Tapestry, and to it were connected the heavens and everything that lived and dwelled in it. This cloth was the gods' way of being able to both communicate with us and allow us to communicate with them. It was their gift to us, a gift of love.

"We use this Tapestry and learn within it all matters of time and space. It gives us the ability to see, to predetermine the future for us and others. It also provides us with the capacity to give back to the gods what they have given us.

"In being an Oracle, you access this Tapestry in order to help others. It is a great gift, one that can be abused if one is not careful. At no time do we ever provide information which may cause another's undoing if it is unwarranted. We also strive to give people spiritual advice, and to bring people good and a sense of control over their future. For the Tapestry is always being woven and rewoven again by the gods.

"Alena, as one with the gift of sight, you have the ability to help others. You can also at the same time bring them harm. Do you accept this responsibility?"

The young girl swallowed, and replied. "I do."

"Very well then. Do you therefore accept the duties of an apprentice Oracle, in the hopes of one day being able to be an Oracle of Riol, and therefore fulfill this responsibility?"

"Yes, yes I do."

"Then it is done. May the gods bless you and bless your journey here with us. Alena, you are now an apprentice Oracle from here forward. Drink with us from this cup of berry wine, the berries from which are grown on the temple grounds and blessed by the nature gods."

They each drank quietly from the cup. When it came to Alena, she hesitated a brief second, then slowly drank her portion. It was sweet, and made her stomach warm.

Erna's face burst into a radiant grin. "Congratulations." Nyara took Alena's hands into hers and kissed them. Erna put her hands together in a loud clap and laughed happily. And the young girl smiled back.

***

The apprenticeship lasted for many months before Alena felt that she really knew the two women very well, or felt comfortable around them. It was an awkward time, for as it became obvious to the students in her classes that Alena was apprenticing as an Oracle, they began treating her differently. Some looked at her in an almost fearful awe, avoiding her when they could while other kids began to tease or harass her.

It took a long while for Alena to tell Nyara or Erna of the one incident in her swordsparring class. Alena had taken up swordsparring years ago, back when it became fashionable due to the popularity of the Jedi in the Outer Rim—particularly Anakin Skywalker, who had became many a boy's hero and a girl's young crush. There was a young boy in the class, a few years older than her, who seemed to watch her too often, make fun of her too often, and made a nuisance out of himself in general. He made her skin itch, and sometimes angry enough to see red shapes dancing in front of her eyes.

Unfortunately he was paired up for her during one class, and decided that during the match would be a good time to bother Alena. She had been winning the match against him up until the point the teacher had his back turned, and he managed to catch her foot and knock it out from under her. She fell sharply onto her ass as the world adjusted itself around her without warning. It was an illegal move, but it went unnoticed by the teacher, who had been judging the match.

"How can you be an Oracle if you didn't see that coming?" he jeered at her, and laughed. "I don't even know why the Oracles picked you."

"Jeret, stop it," one of his friends yelled. "It's none of your business."

He just snorted. "She can't swordspar for the life of her, and probably only did it to be a Jedi. Nay, probably thinks like all of the other girls that she's going to marry Anakin."

She bristled at the mention of his name, and could see the flames again. The smoke. The clash of lighted sabers. The black mask lowering onto his face. His blue eyes looking into her own so intensely.

Jeret pointed at her, and seeing the angry expression on her face he laughed. "So much for that, given that he's dead now. Guess he wasn't that much of a Jedi after all. Probably got chopped into pieces, and maybe thrown into a pit."

With a sudden, furious movement, Alena swiped at his feet with the blade. They didn't come in contact with his feet—not even close—but it was as if the blade had somehow lengthened invisibly and knocked his feet out from under him.

The students were suddenly hushed, and Alena was escorted out by the teacher. 'He's not dead,' she fumed to herself. But she knew that she couldn't say it out loud. She knew that she wouldn't be believed, and she knew somehow, deep inside of her, that what she knew right now was dangerous. Whispers and HoloNet news reports had long circulated about the Emperor's reign, and the increasing stronghold of the new Empire and its efforts to crush any Jedi or Jedi-like talents were quite public. There were some whispers, far quieter, than some of the Jedi-like people were being recruited for the Empire, and some never heard from again.

Which was why the teacher didn't punish her, nor keep her after class, but told her quite adamantly, "Alena, please do not do that again. I don't know what you did or how you did it, but you are already known as an apprentice Oracle. Prophecy isn't being called for yet as a 'Jedi' trait, but in time it might be.

"I saw what you did with that sword-" Alena tried to interrupt him, but he silenced her with a look, "and I know that it didn't come near him, nor did he trip over his own two feet. Be careful, Alena. Please. You're one of my best students. I don't want anything to happen to you. Also, I must say, while Jeret will be punished, I can't think of what will happen to you if you ever do what you did out of anger ever again."

She put her head into her hands and began to shake, and the teacher sighed. "Now, go. And be careful. Gods go with you."

***

A trembling Alena told the story later to Erna, who sighed quietly and said nothing for a full minute. Alena was certain that she would be perhaps thrown out of the apprenticeship, or punished. She didn't know what would happen. She only knew that she did not mean to make him fall over. How it even happened, she didn't know. Perhaps the teacher was only accusing her of doing so because she already displayed weird oracular talents, and thus was capable of doing other things.

After what seemed like forever, Erna spoke and said, "Young one, I'm glad that you told me this. I wish you to start working with Nyara. Nyara has some talents which may provide some explanation for what happened to you, and perhaps can even assist you to make sure that this incident does not repeat itself again."

Her brown eyes got wide. She wasn't being punished? Sent away?

Erna just chuckled. "Alena, you can't be thrown out for a thing like this. You need to learn to control that temper of yours, that's all. Now, I will go fetch Nyara and explain what happened, and have her help you out."

The story, after Nyara was brought into the room, was retold to her--with much hand-wringing from Alena, who still was uncertain as to what was happening. She felt horribly embarrassed, and she could picture her mother's face vividly in her mind, her mother's face which kept giving her worried, frightened glances when she thought that Alena didn't notice.

"Alena, please fetch me that candle over there." Alena stood up and did so, thinking that this was an odd request. She handed it to Nyara, who took it in one hand, and held up her other hand in front of it.

Flames from her palm hit the candle's wick and set it ablaze.

There was a sudden sensation in Alena's stomach as if a huge boulder were suddenly dropped into it. She simply stared agape at the candle, afraid to breathe or speak.

Nyara noted her reaction with mild amusement. "When I first came here to be an Oracle, I had a bad temper which I couldn't control."

"Still can't," Erna chimed in. "But you've gotten better at managing the aftermath."

Nyara glared at her. "I've gotten better. In any case, this little talent has cost us more than a few draperies. Erna forced me to practice doing what I did and meditating in order to calm me down and control it.

"Now, this was before the Emperor took over and announced that Jedi were being hunted down for their abilities. We are lucky to be in the Outer Rim, but someday that luck will not hold out. I've already had a few visions which I will not discuss in full at the moment, but suffice to say that Riol will not go untouched from the new galactic policies and laws."

She looked directly into Alena's eyes. "Alena, that was just for show. There's nothing that you and I are that is to be ashamed of. We told you that much when you first arrived here. But you do need to be discrete, and knocking down boys by touching the Tapestry with your mind is not discrete. You're going to learn how to control this ability or you're going to get killed or worse."

"Worse?"

Nyara ignored her. "Alena, we're going to add a few new lessons today. Some of them you weren't going to receive until your second year here, so be prepared that they won't be easy. But," she added with a smile, "I think that you can handle them."

***

The Emperor gazed out of the window of the ship. The stars were remote lights off into the distance, somewhere in the dark of space.

"This is a most interesting development, Lord Vader," he stated slowly. His hands were behind his back and although he did not face him directly, he knew that his apprentice was still kneeling on the floor behind him. He could not see his face, which was hidden behind his mask, but he could feel him cringing slightly as he brought him this information.

"Yes, my Master."

"It seems that she has come a long way since her Force healing attempt on you—which, I must say that I am most grateful for," he stated with a glee which was not lost on Vader's ears, "If you can feel her in the Force now, then perhaps she may be of use to us later. But we have much work to do." He paused, feeling the currents around him and the whispers in the Dark Side of the Force, then began to speak again.

"I will send out some of my men onto that planet, and see if they can keep an eye on her." He grinned. "We will see what she is capable of before we act. I waited for you for many years, my young apprentice. Surely we can wait for this one to unfold as well."

"Yes, my Master."

Chapter 4

"There is a war, but it is not your war."

It was when Alena reached her thirteen year that she finally asked the two Oracles what she had wanted to ask them many times before, but had been hesitant to do so.

"What would you like from us in honor of your thirteenth year, Alena?" Erna had asked.

Alena had bitten her lip, and had in her right hand a strand of red hair that she was twirling with her fingers. She knew what she wanted, and the answer spilled forth from her mouth before she could change her mind.

"I would like an oracle from you both," she blurted out. "I would be most grateful. Please."

Erna's eyebrows rose slightly, but she nodded and smiled. "Certainly, my dear one, an oracle from us you shall have. Perhaps it will help you in your training to be on the receiving end of one for once! Nyara, what do you think?"

Nyara simply shrugged her shoulders. "It couldn't hurt, and I think that Alena could use some wisdom for her thirteenth year. Just one thing, Alena-"

"Yes?"

"Just be aware that you will have to use some of the lessons that we've been giving you in receiving an oracle. Remember that you may not like what you hear, but you always have it within yourself to change the outcome."

The young girl smiled and nodded. "I just want to know some things—that's all. I'll be fine with whatever the gods see fit to tell me."

It was this conversation that resulted in Alena's kneeling before an altar with granules of incense in one hand and an offering of sweet cacao in the other. She prayed to whoever would listen, 'Please, about my dreams, about my abilities, I need to know what is in store for me. I need to know what to do with myself. Please, a hint, a direction, something.'

She stood after giving the offerings, and thought about her dreams as of late. They were intense, but brief, and allowed her to occasionally glimpse into what may very well be images of Vader and his life. She kept seeing violence, people dying, and overhearing conversations between him and others. She had not seen the Emperor in any of them recently, and was quite thankful. Palpatine disturbed her, and she didn't want to see him in any of her visions any time soon. There was something incomprehensibly frightening about him. Maybe it was the feeling of coldness on her skin when she awoke from the last one, or perhaps it was the memory of his face when the ceiling fell down on him after Vader tore apart the room with the Force.

The Force. She had heard Vader talking about the Force with the Emperor in one dream, and she had figured out that it was their term for what the Oracles referred to as the Tapestry. She liked 'the Tapestry' better, as she felt it to be more accurate, but could see why the Force was called 'the Force.' The Tapestry certainly forced her into many situations and actions that altered her life forever, for the better and for the worse.

Her thoughts on the Tapestry were interrupted by the sound of a bell, or what she thought was a bell. It gave off a hollow, flute-like sound that resonated through the hall into a crescendo.

'That's my signal,' she thought, and went into the main hall where the two Oracles sat.

They were seated in their usual chairs, and dressed in the white ritual gowns that she had grown so used to seeing. Instead of sitting with them, she now sat in front of them, waiting for them to speak. Nyara as the Second Oracle spoke first.

"Alena, step forward and give me your right hand." She did so, and in that moment she had a brief but vivid flash of fire, and men in white armor. She shook it away and willed her mind to focus on the moment.

"I am going to focus on a moment in your past, as past events are my specialty, and help you to understand the present day and current situation. Erna will focus on your future."

The Second Oracle became silent, and stared at Alena's hand. After a time it seemed as if she were looking through her hand, but Alena knew that it was the physical contact that Nyara needed in order to bring her visions into focus. She patiently waited for her to speak.

"This is…interesting." Nyara's voice sounded strange and distant, and her eyes were wide. Alena could feel a pit of nervousness in her stomach. "Your past is your future, and you weren't always here. Not on this planet, or anywhere in this galaxy." She frowned. "I see many strange things, but I can tell you only a few things for certain: your memories of your past lives are important, regardless of how real they seem to be or not. Pay attention to them. They will lead you to great things and hidden insights.

"As for this current life," her frown deepened, "you need to be careful. Something happened in your recent past to bring you into close contact with the shadow. The shadow obscures much of the Tapestry and we are lucky to still be able to use it. You have a very strong, powerful connection with that man. The one who used to be known as Anakin Skywalker. I'm sorry, Alena, I can't tell you much more than that. The rest is hidden from my sight, and the rest is hidden from yours.

"Erna is the one whom you really need to speak to next."

Erna reached over and gently removed Alena's hand from Nyara's. As she did so, the Second Oracle slowly slumped back into her chair, looking surprisingly drained. Alena noted that her eyes seemed to be both pensive and…something else that she couldn't identify. The moment was gone, and Erna's hand now held Alena's. The Third Oracle didn't usually require touch in order to receive her visions, but it was clear to the young girl that Erna did so in order to provide a calming, soothing influence. It was then that she realized that her hand was shaking.

"Cheer up, dear one, the past is past. I will now tell you of your future." Erna closed her eyes. It seemed to Alena that many minutes had passed, and when suddenly the Third Oracle's eyes popped wide open, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"There is a war, but it is not your war. Stay out of that war, Alena. It will do you harm and will give you nothing good in return. Let others fight that war and let the outcome rest in the hands of the gods. There is nothing more to say on that matter.

"There is, however, another matter." Her brow furrowed. Then she grew silent, and quite still.

"Alena, I'm going to ask you something, but you can't answer it right now. I don't expect you to. Please remember this question in your future years, and the answer will tell you everything that you need to know.

"The question is this: 'How do you know how you feel, and what should you do about that feeling?' I can't answer that question for you, but the answer you will give will require a huge leap of faith." She paused, and gasped, as if remembering something. "Oh! And one more thing-"

"Yes?" cautiously asked Alena.

"You will be given a choice between two alternatives. Choose the third option. That alone will lead you to safety and victory."

After Alena had left the room, the two Oracles waited until she was out of earshot, and turned to one another. Nyara threw her hands up in the air, but Erna just shook her head and smiled.

"She needs to be here, but she won't be here for as long as we'd like. I only hope that wherever she winds up…." Her voice trailed off.

"She'll be in the hands of the gods, Erna. That's all either of us can guarantee her. I just…" Nyara sighed, and leaned her head against her hand. "Erna, I'm afraid for her. Isabel didn't even come close to describing what that girl saw and went through. I had to sit there and bite my tongue for much of it."

"And it's only the beginning." Erna sadly replied. "I can't tell that poor girl what's to come. I couldn't even bring myself to see it, but I had to."

"Will she be all right?" the Second Oracle blurted out. "Just please tell me she'll be all right."

Erna chuckled. "Oh, she'll be fine, all right. We'll just need to make her some new clothing some years from now. And I don't think that white is her color. All that gorgeous red hair, but her complexion—way too fair." She made a few sounds that sounded like disapproval, then leaned over and patted Nyara's hand. "Come now, let us get something to drink. After that session, I'm thinking we need something a little strong, and I know just the thing." The Third Oracle leapt out of her chair, and towards the back room.

With a huge sigh that sounded more like an explosion of air, Nyara followed, yelling at her back as Erna went. "White not her color? New clothing? Erna, have you lost your wits? What did you see?" Her tone was wrathful, but the Third Oracle could hear the underlying concern in her voice.

"Please calm down, and don't set anything on fire on your way in," Erna mildly replied from inside. "I'm not replacing these doorway curtains again."

***

When Alena got home, she wrote down everything that she had been told by the two Oracles, as much as she could remember, into her journal for safekeeping. She knew entirely too well of the value of what had been said to her, and how easy it would be to forget in the future—until it was perhaps too late.

After writing them down, she stared at her journal. She had hardly touched it since the day—that day—when her entire life was turned upside down. As much as she tried not to think about it, Alena knew in her heart that something happened when she had healed Anakin—'Vader ', she corrected herself. His name was Vader now. And that something that happened perhaps never should have happened. All that she knew was that her heart felt funny and odd every time she thought of those blue eyes that she had gazed into on the operating table.

Alena avoided thinking about it because of the girls in her school. They were giggly and annoying whenever they had spoken of Anakin Skywalker, and she felt embarrassed just to be around them. She had long vowed that she was never going to act that stupidly over a man. The thought of how they had behaved made her cringe.

'I will never be that dumb, ever,' she swore to herself.

Even so, the memory of those eyes continued to haunt her and dance in her vision as she fell asleep.

***

Alena stood on a balcony, gazing out into an endless sea of what seemed like impossibly tall buildings, lights and flying cars everywhere. It was an ocean of metal, colors, and structures. It was night and all she could see were blue, many shades of deep, dark blue and lights that reflected off of buildings, from windows—everything was blue.

As the wind swept through her long, dark red hair, she knew that she was sleeping and that this was yet another terribly vivid dream.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" She heard a somewhat familiar male voice say. Alena turned to her left to see Anakin—Vader—as she had remembered him from the HoloNet, sitting on the ledge of the balcony as he looked at the buildings. His arms were folded over his chest, and she could see the black glove that had covered his mechanical arms, and the black Jedi robes that he wore.

"It's Coruscant," he stated. Receiving no reply from her as she simply stared at him, he went on, "I bet you've never visited here, have you?"

Alena shook her head. She wanted to speak, but something in her kept her silent. Instead she turned towards the spectacular, urban beauty that lay before her.

A few moments went by before she felt something around her. An arm. She gazed down to see Anakin's arm—his real arm—holding her around her waist. At once she went still. 'Anakin,' she thought to herself. But he had another name now. Didn't he? For a breath or two, she could not remember it. Her head spun, and her cheeks felt warm. She considered stepping away, getting her thoughts and head back together, as she felt them now slipping away from her.

But his arm felt good around her waist, and she leaned her head back into his chest, and gazed at the night over Coruscant. Everything she was, everything she felt, and all that she saw felt good at that moment, wonderfully and delightfully good. Alena felt as if she were floating on a warm cloud.

His other arm came around her, and he placed his black gloved hand on her chest. She gazed down at it and could almost see the mechanical hand underneath. Thoughts swam in her head, memories of what some of the girls had giggled over came rushing back to her. Things that they imagined him doing to them with his hands.

Alena tried to banish the thoughts from her mind. She knew that she was too young to be having such ideas in her head, and too old to be giggling over him the way that her schoolmates did. But it was very difficult not to imagine his hand at that moment, slipping further down from the front of her chest onto her-

No. She would not think of it.

As she continued to struggle, she felt his head lean towards hers, and his lips brush the back of her now suddenly exposed neck.

I know everything, she heard him say, but it was in that deeper, more resonant voice—not that of Anakin's, but of-

Vader's.

***

Alena awoke with a start. Her sheets were soaked, and she found herself sprawled out on her bed as if she had been climbing all over it and had fallen into a heap. Blankets were everywhere, and her nightgown had been pushed up to her waist.

'What am I doing?' she agonized, feeling at once both distressed over the dream and yet still feeling the warm, radiant bliss that she had felt while in his arms. 'What is happening to me?'

She put her head into her hands and took a few deep breaths, lettting each one out slowly. Shame and confusion overwhelmed her.

'I can't allow myself to feel this way,' thought Alena to herself insistently. 'I can't. I just can't. It's wrong, terribly wrong, I just can't.'

And yet, the memory of his arm around hers, her head leaning back against his chest, came rippling back to her. She had enjoyed it far too much, and she knew that. And she had enjoyed Anakin's company as well.

"It's Vader," she spoke aloud, in a hiss. "Vader. Not Anakin."

With an exasperated sigh, she fell back into her bed and gazed up at the ceiling. It would be a long time before she managed to be asleep again. This time, however, she did not dream at all.

Chapter 5

"I will not fail."

It was one morning during breakfast that Alena's mother brought up the topic.

"I spoke to one of your teachers the other day, and he believes that you could take more classes this summer and the next—perhaps even move onto next year's classes half a year sooner."

Isabel paused and looked at her daughter, who was busy eating her bowl of fruit and nuts.

Alena brushed her hair out of her eyes and looked up at her mother expectantly. She was greeted with motherly eyes, and as she could so often these days, hear her think to herself, 'My beautiful daughter is growing up, and someday I will have to let her go. But not today.'

"Alena, this would mean that you could graduate from school at fifteen. It would allow you to become a full time Oracle sooner, perhaps join the Academy someday—whatever you decided to do." She gestured with her hands to the bowl Alena was eating. "I know that you're busy eating, but I wanted to ask you how you felt about that. It would take you away from your friends sooner, but it would allow you to get out into the real world sooner also. It may also mean that you would be put into more advanced classes and perhaps skip a few."

Alena smiled at her. "I wouldn't mind leaving school early, but I like the idea of harder classes." She clarified with a roll of her eyes and a downcast look, "They…they rather bore me. It's not that I don't like the material," she added quickly, rushing to correct her mother, who looked as if she were about to scold her, "it's just that the pace is too slow, and I find myself drifting in the middle of class. A few teachers have been giving me future assignments and additional work to make up for it, but I frankly am just bored."

She put down her spoon and sighed. "If graduating early would make sure that I'm no longer bored and made to feel…I don't know…like I have to make the teachers struggle with me, or something, then I'm all for it."

Isabel gave her a long, thoughtful look as she continued.

"Really, Mama, I want to excel. I want to do well. And my friends…well, they'd understand. I know they will."

"I spoke with your father, and he also is in favor of it, and thinks that it should've been done years ago."

Alena brightened at this, but her mother shook her head with a small half smile. That wasn't all that Torin had said; he also ranted about the teachers not catching Alena's high intelligence sooner--not to mention her boredom--and furthering her desire to learn.

But Torin was Alena's father, and would always be her father. Torin was the same man who let Alena roam through his study and read all of his books. He took an especial delight every time she grabbed a book that contained a subject of interest to him, and watched her pour through them as if she were a young child grabbing at candy. It was not without a measure of pride that he watched her do this, as he knew that her eagerness and ability to learn new things was in part due to his raising her. He would be pleased to know that the teachers, at least some of them, were giving Alena lessons outside of class so that she wouldn't give up entirely.

"So, Mama, can I then? I'll work harder, and I'm sure that Erna and Nyara wouldn't mind if I had to reschedule some of my training. They would be completely in favor of my graduating a year early."

She knew that the description of their reaction, namely them being "completely in favor" would be an understatement. The two women made no secret about their opinions regarding Alena's schooling, and what an advantage it would be once she were out and able to train full time. They had also listened to many of her rants about how the classes, while interesting, were not at the pace that they could be at, and how often she found herself drifting away during class and daydreaming. She did not say what she daydreamed about, but these days her thoughts were filled by an intense pair of sky-blue eyes and some of the dreams that she had about them.

Isabel nodded.

"It's settled then. I will talk to the headmaster of the school and arrange for you to take higher level courses. You may also have to take additional classes—we will see. I'm warning you however, Alena," her mother's tone became stern, "if it becomes too much for you, you will have to graduate along with the rest of the kids your age, when you're sixteen. No buts, ifs, or please Mamas."

There was a flurry of red hair as Alena sprang out of her chair to hug her mother.

"Oh Mama, thank you! Thank you! I'll study, I'll work hard, I promise!"

Isabel hugged her back, smiling softly. "I know that you will, my dear. I know that you will."

She pulled back slightly to look her daughter in the eyes. Alena had her father's dark brown eyes, her mother's auburn hair, and more than once, she had noticed that she had her father's talent for overwhelming herself with many projects and responsibilities. Alena looked back at her curiously, noting her critical gaze upon her. Her mother looked very serious as well as concerned.

"I just don't want you to place too high of a burden on yourself. You have a lot on your plate already. I don't know if you've thought about it much, and I know that you don't like to talk about it with your father and I. But I know," she sighed, and continued, "I know that you have a lot of pressure hanging on you, with the Oracle training and what the Oracles have been giving you to study and learn. Not to mention schoolwork.

"Just promise me, Alena, promise me that if it becomes too much you will say something. Please."

Alena nodded eagerly. Of course she would. "Yes Mama, of course I will. I promise."

"Good. Now, finish your breakfast. I'll come with you to school to talk with your teachers and we'll get this straightened out right away."

The breakfast was eaten so fast that Alena's stomach began to complain viciously, but she didn't care. Never before had the thought occurred to her that she could advance sooner in her classes. She suspected that more than just her intelligence was playing into this; much of the Oracles' work with her had focused on helping her to develop her intuitive skills, not to mention teaching her how to calm her mind and meditate. It gave her a focus which she had been noticing increasingly, and a greater feeling of control over herself and her day to day life.

She found that she didn't get upset, angry or overly excited as much as she used to. She also found that she noticed the smaller details that before had gone overlooked. How people acted around her when they spoke, the movements of their hands, the looks in their eyes and the expressions on their faces. And sometimes, she could swear that she could hear them thinking. She brushed that off to her vivid imagination and ability to read body language. The Oracles had taught her much of interacting with the people around her, as she would need that in giving people advice as well as prophecy.

Alena had gone onto her classes that day as usual, but with a feeling of anticipation and excitement. She didn't know how the talks were going or went between her mother and the headmaster of the school, but figured that all went and would go well. Eagerness and high energy filled her. She would take higher courses, graduate early—be an Oracle sooner. She could picture herself sitting in one of those egg-shaped seats the Oracles sat in, white gown and all. The thought gave her a thrill. She wanted to do well, wanted to excel. And as far as she was concerned, she would.

Sure enough, during one of her classes she was pulled out to speak with the headmaster, who scheduled for her to take a comprehensive exam after school.

"If you score an 85% or higher on this exam, we will move you forward. Otherwise, you can take more classes but we will not place you in advanced classes," the headmaster told her. "We will see how well you do."

She knew the exam would place her an hour late to her training, but she nodded. Her mother could inform the Oracles and they would undoubtedly have little difficulty adjusting. She was never late, nor did she skip a lesson. She knew that she had to be there no matter what if she was going to become an Oracle—and she wanted to very badly.

The exam time arrived, and upon finishing, she felt a strange sense of release when she handed the paper to the teacher who had been there to administer the test for her. It was as if she had handed in an application to be sent away to some uncharted, but exciting world.

"You will know the results of the test tomorrow morning," the teacher informed her, and sent her on her way.

But Alena knew the result of that exam, knew it before it could even be graded. And she was elated. Alena fairly skipped out of the building on her way to the temple for her training. She looked up at the two suns, one distant and small and the other close and as big as a moon, and grinned. The light shone over her and around her. It was a good day indeed.

As she had anticipated, the two women were thrilled. Nyara's face had burst into an ear splitting grin, and in an uncharacteristic display of affection, had leapt over to hug Alena.

"Alena, this is wonderful news," she exclaimed. "Now you can train with us full time sooner, and you'll be able to go with your lessons much faster."

She turned to Erna, who smiled gently in response to Alena's good news.

"Just make sure that you can balance your school time with your studies as an apprentice Oracle," she cautioned. "You need to do both in order to excel."

"Mama will pull me out of advanced classes if I can't do it," Alena replied happily. "But she won't pull me out of training here. She knows how I feel about it."

Erna laughed. "Your mother will do whatever it takes to make sure that you aren't under too much stress, and hopefully it'll never come down to her removing you from here. Now, let's get to work. We have some new lessons for you today." With a grin on her face that almost looked mischievous, she added, "We think that you might like these."

The young girl followed the two Oracles to the back room, where they had her stand in one part of the room, opposite Nyara.

"Now, I'm going to start small. I do not want you to feel overwhelmed on your first try."

She produced a wisp of fire that hovered in front of her palm.

"I want you, Alena, to move this flame."

Staring at the flame incredulously, her only half-spoken, half-whispered response was, "How?"

"It's subtle. Moving objects is harder, but this requires a stronger degree of control. If you can do this, you can do other things as well, and gain more ability over your abilities."

Alena looked at her, confused. "I still don't understand how learning to move that will help me as an Oracle."

She could hear Erna chuckling in the corner of the room where she sat, observing. Nyara just grinned back at her.

"Alena, control over one ability means control over yourself, all of you. Not just your ability to see, but yourself as a person. And we can't let you have an ability like this and not be able to control it." Her face suddenly grew dark, and quite serious. "Alena, have you been paying attention to the HoloNet lately?"

She gulped and nodded in response. There were numerous reports of Jedi, or people suspected of being a Jedi, and how they were being hunted down. There were no specific details as to what was happening to them, but many rumors were floating around of a dark knight, a "scourge of the Jedi," and his attempts to wipe them out—and he was doing it single-handedly.

She had especially paid attention to this news because the man who had been performing these tasks was none other than Darth Vader.

"We're in the Outer Rim, and most likely won't have to worry, at least for a while. But you need to be able to control these abilities, or someone will find out about them. The wrong sort of someone. And Alena, we don't want you to get hurt. We don't want any of us to get hurt. But we have to prepare ourselves for the eventuality that the Emperor's decrees on Jedi and Jedi-like talents may make its way out here."

"I also heard," spoke up Erna quietly, "that people who were suspected of having such talents are being recruited for the Empire."

The Third Oracle looked at Alena significantly, then at Nyara. The three women looked at each other with the same, serious look. None of them spoke about it, but not a single one of them approved of the new Empire, or of the Emperor.

Nyara smiled, but it came out more of a smirk.

"I am glad that we maintain a neutral stance on all issues political," she stated with a wry tone.

"We have to," insisted Erna. "The work we do here could be manipulated by others if we do not. We serve the gods, not men, and we do what the Tapestry weaves us to do."

What the Tapestry weaves us to do. Alena thought about this phrase, and what it meant.

Then she spoke, albeit slowly, "Does that mean that we are Tapestry as well to be weaved? If we can be weaved by the Tapestry, that makes us a part of it too, right?"

Erna nodded eagerly. "Yes, yes, Alena, all that was woven by the gods is us, the people, all living things, the planets, the land, everything. Everything you see is the Tapestry, and is a part of the Tapestry. And it weaves as it will."

"So it functions independently from the gods?" Alena was confused at this thought, but began thinking of people, human nature, and life itself.

"It does, and it doesn't. Nothing truly operates independently of the gods." Erna stood up, and began to slowly pace around the room. "The gods give us form and function, and we choose what we do with it. We have been given a great gift, that of choice. Hence why everything is in motion, always remains in motion, and the gods can intervene as they so desire."

Alena turned to Nyara, who had long extinguished the flame that had hovered near her hand. Then she nodded. "All right, then. Nyara, please…do the flame again. I'll learn how to do this."

"Good, good girl," Erna replied, and took up her seat in the corner of the room again, watching with a small, silent smile as Nyara once again created the small flame, and Alena worked at making it move by focusing on the Tapestry around her and inside of her.

***

The next day the exam results were official: Alena had gotten a near perfect score in every subject that the test had covered, which was an overview of all of her classes and the subjects that were being taught in her year. She would be moved out of her schoolyear and into the next at the beginning of next week. It was already the second to final day of the school week, so she had only a day or two of her usual classes before starting her new ones.

"You will have to play catch up," the headmaster had warned her, "I will be collecting various things from the teachers that you will need to learn in order to take the classes as they are now. You need to learn this as soon as possible—in fact if you could cover these basics in a week, that would be preferred. It will not be a lot of work—mostly memorization—but you will need to learn it."

Alena nodded back, her jaw set in determination. She was going to learn it, even if it meant foregoing her usual reading with her father's books and outdoor games with her friends. Perhaps her swordsparring classes would have to be skipped until then. But she would learn it.

That night, Alena dreamed, but it wasn't her usual beautiful, and sometimes passionate dreams about blue eyes.

She was in a room, a tall room made of metal and filled with shadows everywhere, on the walls, the ceiling—everywhere. In front of her was a cloaked figure seated in a type of chair that she didn't recognize—high backed, strange looking armrests, and had a tall, curved back. She thought of the egg-shaped seats that she was so familiar with, white with soft cushions, not too big and not too small, and comforting.

The cloaked figure moved out of the shadow so she could see his face. He was badly wrinkled, and yellow-orange eyes stood out in sharp contrast to his pallid skin. She knew him to be the Emperor, and knew that this was the man whom she kept seeing together with Vader in her dreams.

At the thought of Vader, she gazed behind the Emperor's chair and stood agape at the many-paned circular window that put the entire sky in a frame. There were many, many stars. Many. Beyond which she would've seen via her telescope, let alone with her eyes at her favorite night sky-gazing spots.

Alena knew at once at she was in space aboard a star vessel.

She looked around the room quickly. It was just her and the Emperor.

It seemed as if the Tapestry itself had held her captive as she watched in horror as the Emperor lifted up his hands, and bright white lightning shot out from his fingertips. She tried to remember the lessons that she had been given by Nyara, tried to redirect the lightning like she had moved the little flame in her hand, to shield herself from the blows somehow, but she failed. The bolts attacked her and filled her body with more pain than she could possibly remember ever receiving in her lifetime, and the shock of it woke her up.

Her immediate, desperate thought upon awakening, was that she had failed. She couldn't do it. She couldn't have blocked those lightning bolts. Alena knew with a certainty that had she had been there, the Emperor would've struck her until she had died. And it wouldn't have taken much.

Body shaking, she slowly sat up in bed, and looked down at her hands. She would've failed. She who could take advanced classes, be an apprentice Oracle, excel at everything she touched—fail. Fail miserably, and to the point of losing her life.

It touched her to the core.

'I need to work with Nyara more,' she thought to herself. 'I need to learn how to work these abilities.'

And she resolved on that day forward that she needed to work harder, study more—and learn how to protect herself.

She would not fail. She could not fail.

But inside of her, fear crept into her, knotting her stomach, turning her guts inside out.

'But what if you do?' whispered the little voice in her head. 'Do you think that you are immortal? Do you think that you will succeed at everything you do?' It told her that she could fail. Fail horribly, and in ways that she could not repair or recover from.

'No,' she thought. Alena felt her jaw growing tighter, and her back straighter. 'I will not. I will not fail.'

Something at the core of her flashed and flooded her entire being, and at once she felt a strange, eerie calm. It gave her comfort.

She would not fail.

Chapter 6

"I know that you are here."

As it turned out, Alena took well to the higher academic schoolwork, and thrived on the additional responsibilities and knowledge. To her parents' surprise, she was still able to maintain much of her activities outside of school, especially her training as an apprentice Oracle. Swordsparring was cut down to once a week and she had very little social activities outside of school.

She kept it a secret from her parents, but in reality Alena was glad to not socialize as much with her friends. They had begun acting strange around her since she took up her training, and as time went on they hung out with her less and less. Moving up into the next year of schooling forced her to see them less and hang out with those older than herself more. Alena tried her best to keep in touch with them, but found that her efforts were not returned. It saddened her, but she knew somehow deep down that none of the friendships she had at present, save with perhaps her relationship with the two Oracles, were in any way permanent. She had to move on.

But oh, how painful it was. And it did indeed hurt.

Nonetheless, Alena was happy. She had wonderful dreams as of late, and in them she was in Coruscant on that balcony, talking with Anakin—Vader, she reminded herself. There wasn't much conversation, though he sometimes asked her details about her life and she would talk about them with him. It occurred to her more than once that this was strange and perhaps too vivid to be a dream, but dismissed both it and her feelings as childish fantasies.

She was infatuated, and very attracted to him. She recognized that now—or rather, she acknowledged it. Alena was rapidly becoming a young woman, fourteen going on fifteen, and knew that her dreams represented a part of her that deeply wanted to talk to him. Maybe even have a romantic idea or two about him, especially after the dream she had when he held her in his arms.

'But,' Alena reasoned with herself, 'of course I want to talk to him. I want to know what happened to him after I healed him. How much did I manage to heal him? How is he doing? What does he think about what had happened?'

However, she wasn't stupid. She knew that she had ample access via the HoloNet as to how he was doing, and had seen him a number of times, and sometimes even seemed to feel him.

What she really wanted was to be with him, to interact with him on some level that mattered.

She didn't let herself think about such things. She didn't even want to think about such things. She was on her second to last year of schooling, and rapidly finishing up her classes. It was with great pleasure that she was given recognition for her high scores and made the top students' list. The list was posted on the electronic boards at school. Her emotions turned into glee, remembering. "Alena Doron, 94%". She was number four on the list, and twenty students were on it.

And her oracular training was coming along nicely. Nyara was teaching her how to shield against flame directed at her, flame caused by the Second Oracle's mysterious ability to generate fire from her hands. Her ability to meditate was helping her to see into the present and future so much more clearly than before, and she was able to predict particular events with great accuracy. Of course, this would disturb her mother on various occasions, but at least her training was going well for her.

Alena had no time nor ability to dwell too much on a certain pair of intense, beautiful blue eyes, nor to act on her desire to stare into them for a while, see what he was thinking and feeling.

As Erna often said, one of the things that she had to face in the world was to focus on the present, what she had, and to make the most of it. And there was no room for things—and people—who were not in her life. Not for friends who cast her out of their lives when she became too different for them, not for social activities which she didn't have the time for, and certainly not for blue eyed handsome men whom she saw only in dreams and visions.

***

Nyara was quite the taskmaster that evening. She had Alena not just blocking flames, but rotating them, moving them around by communing with the Tapestry around them and herself and the room. Shaping the flames was hard. Alena would poke at it with her mind, and it would lose cohesion. In time she gained a certain degree of control over the flame to the Second Oracle's satisfaction, and she was allowed to take a rest before moving on to the next assignment.

The next assignment was taught by Erna. The Third Oracle wanted Alena to do some meditation and learn how to see things regarding her own life as well for other people.

"Giving other people advice and reading their futures and hearts is so much easier than our own," she had explained. "I want you to be able to apply the same reasoning on yourself that you would for anyone else. However, it requires a certain degree of detachment. I don't expect you to master that detachment right away, but it would be good to practice."

Alena had nodded her consent for the training, and thus it began. She was seated in one of the egg-shaped seats she loved so much, and told that she would work from there. The seats were beginning to take on a feeling of security and even comfort to sit in one of them. Perhaps the design was to mimic the feeling of being in the womb, surrounded by nurturing influences. Who knows? She had thought to ask about their significance on many an occasion, but always forgot when the opportunity arose.

After being seated, she closed her eyes and went into the meditative trance that she had long learned to be in, and focused on the images that Erna presented to her.

"Imagine yourself walking down a road, and that road is your life. Ahead of you is your future. You can stop and look around you, and see what is going on in your present life."

A flash of something appeared in Alena's mind, but it came and went too quickly for her to see.

"Things may come to you symbolically, or you might see literal events."

A room with an odd, black sphere. There was a man inside.

'No, no,' Alena scolded herself. 'Not now. Please not now.'

Erna continued the narration of the meditation. "Sometimes things can come symbolically and yet contain literal messages or events in them. Everyone is different and will see different things. Sometimes we will see things which we may not like but we will need to see them."

The black sphere came into view, and she could see inside, as if the walls were merely curtains in her mind that she could push through. And there he was in its center. Vader. Sitting in a black chair with his eyes closed, and meditating as she was also attempting to do. She could barely see him, but recognized his features immediately from the dreams, and noted that while he had no hair—'Did he shave it?' she wondered—he looked more or less the same way he had been prior to the accident, but with additional scars on top of his head and on the left cheekbone of his face. Somehow they seemed to add character and intrigue to his face, which she found handsome. She had always found him handsome. But she had always wanted to not be like the other silly girls in her school, fawning over him and making crude, sexual comments about his robotic hand and arm.

Suddenly, in her mind, she saw his eyes open, albeit very slowly as if he were wary of something. Alena couldn't help but continue to stare. His eyes were blue, so blue. Such a deep blue.

Alena?

His voice was as it had been in the dream, rich and resonating in her skull, with the impression something both warm and metallic behind it. Flesh and black metal. A presence as hot as the metal was cold.

Screwing her eyes shut and trying to get her mind back to the road, that road that Erna had been describing in earnest, Alena tried her best to ignore him. Maybe it was just in her head. Maybe the whole thing was an illusion. She could not have so easily embarrassed herself. There was no way that she could have really seen him and that he could have really felt her presence.

It will do you no good to ignore me. I know that you are here.

This was insane. This could not be happening. Darth Vader, formerly known as Anakin Skywalker, could not be talking to her inside her mind. There was no way that he could be sensing her, feeling her in the Tapestry somehow, and bothering to speak to her. Not only that, but seeing something in his sky-blue eyes that surprised her. Not hostility, not annoyance, but…curiosity? Interest?

Alena took a deep breath. Maybe, just maybe, she should say something to him. Maybe she should speak to him now while she had the chance. And maybe if she didn't, she would be kicking herself in her waking hours and dreams to come.

I, she began, and hesitated before figuring out what to say next. She settled for saying, I really shouldn't be talking to you right now.

She cringed. How terribly lame sounding, as if she were a little girl being caught with her hand in a candy dish.

Why not?

In her mind, Alena blinked—or had a reaction similar to blinking. Was that amusement she actually heard in his voice?

Before she could respond to him, she was jolted out of her meditation by a patient but concerned looking Erna.

"Alena? Alena, you have been seated here for an hour. Did you manage to learn anything? Anything that you may wish to share? You don't have to let me know what you saw if you do not want to. But you were gone for quite a while." The Third Oracle chuckled and smiled at her gently.

A vivid image of intense, dark azure eyes flooded Alena's vision, almost negating her physical sight entirely.

"I saw…I saw many things, Erna, but nothing important or of interest to you. Just things that I need to meditate on further."

Erna nodded at her. "Good, good. Meditate. And always remember, if you saw future events, that the future is always in motion. Things can always change and you have it within yourself the power to change it."

"Just present day things. That's all I saw." Alena glanced at a nearby clock. It was nearly time for her to head home.

As if reading her thoughts, the Third Oracle gestured with her hand and replied, "Then meditate on the present. Focusing on the present is very beneficial. You should go home now and get some rest. We will see you tomorrow."

***

Alena had awoken the next morning feeling confused and surprised. She hadn't had any dreams as she was expecting to that evening, and she hadn't received any further contact from Vader—real or imagined—either. More disappointed than she cared to admit to herself, she resolved to focus on her work that day and spend less time daydreaming about him in class. She had to maintain her good grades and graduate early—she would be an Oracle that much sooner. Much was riding on her ability to perform well in school and in her lessons as an apprentice Oracle.

The swordsparring class that she was taking once a week had gone well, and the teacher talked to her after class about her technique, giving her advice and pointers. It was a new teacher that taught the class from the previous year, and his name was Karak. She was improving in spite of the less frequent classes, and he was pleased that she had decided to continue taking them in spite of her busy schedule.

"I like to keep physically active," she explained. "Nyara and Erna—the two Oracles, I mean—they told me to make sure that I get exercise as well as my studies."

He grinned at her.

"Wise women!" he exclaimed. "And wise decision. You're coming along nicely."

"Thank you, Teacher Karak."

"How are your lessons with the Oracles? If you don't mind my asking?"

She considered her words before responding. "They are going well. I enjoy them and I feel that I am learning a lot."

"Good, good."

He leaned against the nearby wall. Alena noted that while his features were nondescript, he had an accent that she couldn't quite place when he spoke to her, and she often wondered if he was born on Riol or had come here from a neighboring planet. Riol didn't have many outsiders that stayed for more than a visit, but it had its fair share of tourists during the summer season.

"I've always wondered how people learn that stuff—seeing the future, I mean. Do you use it often, like outside of your lessons?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "It comes and goes. I learn how to be more receptive to it, but it's not something that I can always control. I either see or I don't."

Karak nodded thoughtfully. "Interesting, interesting." He smiled down at her. "I hope that you're not using it to cheat on your tests."

He made a funny face and wagged his finger at her, clearly speaking in jest.

Alena made a face in return. The kids in school often accused her of such—which angered her to no end--but the teacher had a knack of joking about it in a way that didn't make her feel offended. "Like seeing the future will help me in History class, right? Because history's…history. Unlike the future, which isn't history."

"But it will be! That's the beauty of it."

She laughed at him.

Strange, but funny man. She made some noncommittal remark about needing to get to her next meeting with the Oracles, and he waved her along. Alena smiled as she left. At least the teachers were nice to her, and didn't treat her as if she were some bizarre creature on display.

***

"Greetings, Lord Sidious. I bring you some news."

The hologram in front of him shimmered a bit. It was badly in need of repair and he had been lucky to get a hold of it, let alone smuggle it into his apartment. If it had been discovered, he would've had much explaining to do, as it was clearly outsider technology.

"Yes, what is it?"

"The young girl you sent me to observe is still training, and she is definitely strong in the Force. She uses it when she practices with a sword, and I suspect uses it in her classes as well."

"Fascinating." He noted that Lord Sidious' tone was slightly sarcastic, and he winced, wishing fervently that he had more information with which to bring him. "Is there any other indication of her abilities, or that she is training them in any other way besides seeing the future?"

"None so far, but her skill in the swordsparring class is almost Jedi-like. I wonder why the teachers haven't picked up on it."

"Good, good. Thank you, Sinistrous." Karak smiled at being addressed by his Sith name. "That will be all. Please send me more as soon as possible. I want to know what specifically those women are instructing her in, and if any of it could be used to our benefit."

"Yes, Lord Sidious. I will keep you informed."

The hologram flicked out, and he sat for a while in thought. He had no idea why the Sith was so interested in this young girl, nor why they didn't just kill her outright, or attempt to seduce her to the Dark Side. But he also knew of Lord Sidious' cunning, and how long he had waited to bring the Jedi Knight Skywalker over to the Dark Side. It had apparently been well worth the wait, as Lord Vader was rapidly becoming the Emperor's right hand—his "iron fist", he sometimes referred to him as. Perhaps this girl was somehow like him, and he was also waiting for the right opportunity as he had for Vader.

Of course, he wondered how he could turn this situation to his advantage. Darth Sidious was promising him much in return for his services, but maybe he should bargain with him a bit more to sweeten the deal.

He smiled to himself, and began work practicing his saber forms.

Chapter 7

"You're growing up too fast."

Summer came before Alena could grasp the idea of spring, and with it came more time for Oracle training as well as the opportunity to take additional courses and catch up on her swordsparring lessons. Her final year was approaching. The last year before she would graduate, and enter her apprenticeship with the two Oracles full time.

She could hardly wait.

Excitement and potential filled the air that summer. The roses in her mother's garden were in bloom. Light pink, red, and yellow. They were everywhere. Alena would walk past them and smile. She had always loved roses, loved them ever since she was a child.

Her fifteen year was also approaching, and she reflected on that too. How much longer would it be before she was an adult? The idea both thrilled and frightened her. As much as she trained with the two Oracles, a sense of the future filled her, and past a certain time things got shadowy and scary. And yet, a thrill filled her as if something lay just past the void that would find her in a wonderful place in spite of it all. The calm in the center of the storm.

Alena didn't want to touch the storm or think about it, not just yet. She knew that it was there, and all that she could do in the meantime was enjoy herself, study, and prepare as much as she could.

These were the days that she would remember for a long time.

She had gotten to become almost friends with Teacher Karak, never exceeding the teacher-student boundary, but was a more informal relationship than with her other teachers. She appreciated his odd humor, and he seemed to enjoy listening to her ideas on how meditating affected her swordsparring. The only other one whom she really liked was her astronomy and physics teacher, Teacher Moreska, who loved her enthusiasm for his classes and chatted with her often on the constellations that were in the sky at that period, and any astronomical events that were occurring. Alena was thrilled to find out that there would be a meteor storm occurring sometime near the mark of her fifteenth year, and Moreska was amused and delighted with her reaction to the news.

With that news followed other news. Her father had received a promotion and would be a master professor at the University of Riol. This meant longer hours away from home, but he would be working down in central near the temple where Alena would be training. He assured her many times that he would stop by and visit her, and perhaps they could walk home together. The thought thrilled her. She was very happy for her father, and liked the idea of walking home with him after her training was through.

She hardly saw her parents these days, so it seemed, and her mother took great pains to arrange for family gatherings on weekends, and make mealtimes together more of a priority.

"You're growing up too fast," Isabel often said to her, worriedly, "and I don't want your youth to slide by without us spending more time together as a family. You'll have plenty of time to be an adult before you know it."

Isabel was especially worried because she saw much of her husband in Alena. Torin was a brilliant man, but also a perfectionist and frequently overextended himself in his work and various projects. She knew that one day her daughter would be very successful, no matter what she did, and she found herself looking forward to Alena graduating from school, if nothing else to be able to see her daughter more often. She was growing up fast, way too fast, and she felt like if she didn't put on the brakes soon, her daughter would slip away from her.

But Alena, as always, had many ideas about what she wanted to do with herself, and it was obvious to Isabel more than once that she was a dreamer. As long as she stuck to practical goals, she could perhaps do something good with herself, and have a wonderful career. 'Perhaps with her interest in astronomy, Alena'll become an astrophysicist,' mused Isabel. She pictured her daughter working in the university along side her father, and smiled. Like father, like daughter. However, there was the apprenticeship to consider. Alena's mother didn't exactly disapprove of her daughter being an Oracle, and figured that whatever she decided to do with her life, as long as she was both happy and successful, would be fine. But she also knew somehow that her daughter would not be an Oracle for long, and hoped that it would be in order to pursue a professional career.

Careers for now, however, would have to wait, as Alena needed to focus on the here and now, and get through her schoolwork.

Alena's fifteen year came and passed, as did the start of her final year of school. As Isabel waved goodbye to her on her way out the door on that first day of the schoolyear, she felt a sudden sense of longing for this year to stretch out as long as it possibly could. She shook her head, smiled, and disappeared back into the house. The roses needed to be tended to, but she could do that later.

On many days during the schoolyear, Alena worked long hours with the two Oracles. During one such occasion, it was well past midnight when Alena finally retired to bed. She had an exceedingly long day training as an apprentice Oracle, and even after the three extensive years that she had been studying with the two elder Oracles, it was still grueling work—in fact, far more so than when she first began. Erna had her engaged in intense, lengthy meditations, teaching her how to calm her mind and center it from distractions while Nyara continued to help her to focus on how to control her skills. Some of the meditations went on for an hour a piece, and left her feeling drained, frustrated, and incapable of seeing an end to the nonstop sessions of mental discipline and emotional control.

Alena did not think it the least bit likely, as a result, that she would be frowned upon for spending the night in the temple.

She particularly liked the sunroom. It had a very soft, comfortable sofa that served well as a bed to sleep on, and the two moons that shone above streamed light through the window in the roof. When the two suns came in, they would rise above and bathe her in golden light, and she felt refreshed, ready to spend another day in training. It was the weekend, so she had no school, and thus could devote her time to her oracular studies versus the last year she had in schooling.

As she drifted to sleep, she thought drowsily to herself that this was the best room in which to have clear, vivid dreams.

***

Indeed, during that night, she dreamt that she stood in the temple's gardens, wearing a light blue, almost sheer nightgown that seemed to have been woven by the sky itself. Everything was covered in moonlight and surrounded by the ivy-covered stone labyrinthine walls that fenced in the area. She stared ahead, gazing into a pool of water that shimmered in front of her.

And suddenly, she felt that tug at the center of her chest that she felt so often as of late, and in that moment, she was lucid. Alena knew that she was dreaming, could feel the sofa beneath her, but was fully immersed in the dream. In front of her stood a tall man dressed in black. He looked just as he had during Alena's meditation when she had spoken to him, except she could see him far more clearly than she had been then. His head was shaven, and he looked young—not much more than mid to upper twenties—and in spite of the scars beneath his cheek and on top of his head, was handsome. His blue eyes stared right into hers, and it was as if lightning struck her and went right through the center of her body. Alena was held there, in that moment, and at once she knew who he was, but she was confused. Holovid images danced in front of her eyes. It was not him, but it was-

Anakin?

He seemed not to hear her, or perhaps he did. She felt an intense rush of energy, a furious storm that focused and pounded its way towards her from all four directions. The tugging at her chest was suddenly more intense. His eyes became like stormy skies, and one moment he was in front of her, some distance ahead, and in another, his leather glove clad hand held the back of her head in its grip. She looked once more into his eyes, and then remembered.

Hot sand, lava. Blue blazing sabers clashing. Black metal. Burning.

Her eyes widened. She remembered, remembered everything. This was Darth Vader, once known as Anakin Skywalker. He was no longer the man she saw in the Holovids, but he was the man that she had seen in her vision, and had partially healed during her fever. Vader, a newly turned Sith, and energy of the Tapestry that she was still learning to interact, but filled with a sharp and brilliant darkness that was coursing through him and around him and resonating like thunder in her head. Before she could react, Alena found herself up against one of the stone walls, with Vader's hand still holding the back of her head.

What are you-

The words were cut off by the sensation of one of his fingers lightly brushing the back of her neck. She had no idea that her neck was so sensitive; she could feel every tiny movement that his finger slowly made across her skin, and every millimeter that his finger moved sent electricity running down her spine. It ran down her back and deep into parts of herself that stirred with every small touch, and awakened with sensations that threatened to pull her down into their dark waters and drown her. All with the tracing of one finger across the back of her neck. Alena opened her mouth to speak, but the words stopped themselves in her throat as if drained of their power, and her of the ability to speak.

Then she felt his lips on hers, and everything else, both sight and sound, were drowned out the feeling. Lightning had struck her before when she had gazed into his eyes, but that was only the initial warning shot before the storm. She had felt ecstasy before on many occasions: winning swordsparring competitions, the glow she got from experiencing the gods during meditation and select moments of her life, and the feeling of being immersed in the Tapestry and experiencing all of creation, but this was something else. This was something both physical and mental, and yet something which transcended each experience of both being in the body and being in the mind. Alena stood in the ocean as the waves kept pounding forth, each one bigger and stronger than the last. She felt herself wrapping her arms around him, a hand behind his head, one around his waist. There was no control, no thought, just feeling. None of the discipline that had been pounded into her being, day in and day out in her training as an apprentice Oracle, was here. It was gone, washed away by deep, dark waters.

Alena never felt so alive.

The hand that held her neck tightened, and the fingers stopped lightly tracing their way across her neck. Another sensation made its way towards the center of her being, a tightening in her stomach as she felt another hand thrust itself between her legs. A finger made its way inside of her, then another.

Alena's world exploded into an array of colors, lights, and sensations, the last remaining thoughts evaporated into a blinding abyss of feeling. Her body was still shaking from the impact when she awoke into dazzling sunlight, sprawled out on the sofa of the room.

***

When she finally got up that morning, she felt different somehow, changed. She shrank from looking Erna directly in the eye as she greeted her good morning, feeling as if she could see the changes in her. Alena wanted to hide away somewhere. All that she could think about as she ate her breakfast with Erna and Nyara was the intense, pleasurable dream that she had and how it had made her feel.

'This is wrong, all of this is so wrong,' she thought to herself.

Alena couldn't help but kick herself every time she thought about the dream. Over and over again she did the math in her head, remembering details such as Anakin's—Vader's—age as told from the HoloNet and her own.

'He's…eleven years my senior, and I'm fifteen, and….’

She leaned her head against her hand, and considered the logistics. In Riol, to be sixteen meant that a person was legally an adult. At eighteen, one could hold land and run for public offices. Typically one was not legally an adult until after one graduated from school, and from there careers and life planning could be decided upon.

However, in all of her time spent studying at school and with the Two Oracles, she had no time for romance. Many of her peers were experienced at love, and had "become couples" with others—and even coupled. She would hear of things offhand about what happened with couples, and how their relationships fared. Alena was woefully inexperienced in comparison, and to add to her situation, she wasn't interested in any of the boys her own age or even a little older than her. They seemed like kids to her, and she had been attracted solely to older men for some time.

Well, not to older men, exactly, but a man. One man.

She sighed when the realization hit her. The only man that she had ever really dreamed of or had been attracted to for much of her life was Anakin Skywalker, now Darth Vader. And now, thanks to her feverish visions, he was in her life somehow, complicating it and her dreams.

'I have no time for this, nor can I possibly be so stupid as to think that this could go anywhere,' she thought to herself. Alena was annoyed with herself. As pleasurable as the dream was for her, as much as the memory of it made something low in her belly tighten with longing, it was a distraction, and a childish one at that. Even if the dream had been real—even if any of her contact with him was real—nothing could ever come of it. He was a Sith, the scourge of the Jedi, and she was an apprentice Oracle of Riol out in the Outer Rim. The thought was ridiculous, entirely too ridiculous. And it made her almost angry to think that she could ever entertain it, or want to entertain it.

Her anger turned into depression when she realized that not only could she not prevent herself from wanting to entertain such thoughts, but of the thought itself that it—her and Vader--could never be.

Alena shoved her thoughts and feelings down into herself and resolved to spend more time in meditation, figuring out a way to channel her passions into something else. Perhaps swordsparring would help her to focus her mind and take her emotions away. Maybe she should take up other physical activities as well. It was entirely possible that she was spending way too much time in her head, and was now suffering the consequences of it. Swordsparring and meditation would cure her of her incessant passions towards a man who not only could spell a good deal of trouble for her, but would never as much as give her a passing glance.

If only. She could hope. And perhaps dream.

Just as long, she figured, as she stopped dreaming about vivid sky-blue eyes.

***

When she went back to school at the beginning of the week, Alena was filled with hope. She had her swordsparring class that day and was looking forward to talking with her teacher.

The class went well, but she was struggling with some new forms. Teacher Karak was trying to teach her a few new ones which she hadn't seen before, nor read about. He had told the class that it was from another tradition and may serve as a basis for comparison for what they had already been learning. It was fascinating, but very different from what she was used to.

At the end of the class, Alena was drenched with sweat and desperate for a drink of water. She grabbed her water jug and a towel in the same grip and headed over to a bench to cool down.

Teacher Karak sat down next to her and began his usual survey of questions. What did she think of the forms, the class, how are things coming along? Did she find this class harder than the others, and if so, did it at least feel like it was helping her? She answered them all breathlessly, still recovering from the arduous lessons.

"You know, you're the only one in this class who managed to even grasp those forms," he suddenly told her, looking at her intently for her reaction. "I know that you've been studying for quite a while, but you're a natural. Honest. I wouldn't hold the fact that you got out of breath against yourself. Just keep practicing and you'll do fine."

She smiled at him.

"Thanks," she replied. "But I didn't feel like I got it at all. I'll keep working on it, though."

He frowned at her.

"You're further along than you think, really. Don't knock yourself." Then he brightened. "I know, I have an idea."

Alena looked at him curiously.

"What?"

"Why don't you tell me what sorts of meditations that you've been doing with the Oracles? I may be able to give you some pointers that would help you master these forms. I know that you've told me in the past that your lessons have really helped you here. And they have," he added with a grin, "you're doing quite well."

With a shrug, she responded, "Honestly, most of the meditations I do are all on the Tapestry and being receptive to the future. I'm not sure how that would possibly help with swordsparring."

"Ah, but it would."

Alena blinked and leaned forward, intrigued.

"How so?" she asked.

"Simple. Think of it…being able to be so in tune with the, how do you call it? Tapestry, that you can see the opponent's moves before they move."

Her eyes widened.

"Think of it, Alena. You do it already—you're just not conscious of it. I bet if you master it even further, you could become a better swordsparrer."

The thought had never occurred to her before, but it sounded brilliant to her ears. She had no idea such things were even possible, and it put so much of her life and what she could do in complete perspective.

He continued, noting her speechlessness with an odd laugh.

"With that kind of training you could be…I dunno, almost like a Jedi."

He gave her a pointed look.

Something flickered in her brown eyes. Karak took note.

"Anyhow…think on it. I'll let you get on your way. Good class today, Alena."

Alena finally found her voice. "Thank you, Teacher Karak."

"You're welcome." She didn't see the terrible grin that he had on his face after she left, or the glint of yellow in his eyes that followed.

Chapter 8

"Trust no one."

When Alena related the conversation she had with Teacher Karak to Nyara later, she didn't think that she would react negatively. After all, this teacher was practically a friend to her, and she figured that the Jedi comment was said out of praise for her abilities, not a backhanded comment about what her real intentions may or may not be.

Unfortunately for Alena, Nyara was already in a fairly foul mood that day.

"Alena, he accused you of being a Jedi, or someone who wants to be one. Do you know how much trouble that can get you into this day and age?"

Her tone was more stern than anything Alena had heard before previously in any of the lectures she had previously given.

"But Nyara," she protested, "it's Teacher Karak. He always jests with me. He's not like that."

The Second Oracle just gave her a look.

"First lesson of the day: trust no one. What did you say in response to him?"

Alena thought about it, trying to remember.

"Nothing, nothing in particular. Just thanked him for his advice."

Nyara sighed.

"Good. Good that you didn't stick your foot into your mouth any further. Alena, know this: I love you greatly. You're like the younger sister I never had. You're older than your years and have a great deal on your shoulders. But you are already knee-deep into your studies and too deep to be this naïve. Just be careful. I don't want to tell you to avoid him or not to be his friend, but just be careful what you say to him, or say to anyone. Teacher Karak may be very responsible and capable of looking out for your well-being, but you never know what he may say, accidently or not, to others.

Staring at her incredulously, Alena could only think to respond, "But…Nyara…who can I talk to? Does this mean that I shouldn't trust anyone but you and Erna?"

Nyara's blue eyes flared at her in response.

"Are you trying to suggest that I am telling you that Erna and I are the only trustworthy people on Riol? Gods and Tapestry forefend, no. I am most certainly not. You have your parents and they love you dearly. You can and should tell them whatever you want and wish."

"But how about other people? What if I want friends?"

After this came spurting out of Alena's mouth, she realized suddenly that she had no peers. Her only peers were her teachers, parents, and the Oracles—and they were not so much her peers are much as her educators. She was horribly alone, and made even more so by this conversation. The desire to curl up into a little ball inside of herself overwhelmed her, and she folded her arms over her chest.

The Second Oracle's eyes went from sparkling anger to sympathy.

"Alena…I know that this is hard for you. But the alternatives…they are far, far worse."

"And what are those alternatives?"

Nyara's eyes grew distant, and there was something dark in them.

"To be a slave to the Empire, or death."

Before Alena could react, she took her hand into hers and added, "Please, let's continue with your lessons. I don't want to fight with you, Alena. I just don't want to see you getting hurt. If I am paranoid or act like your mother it's because I care."

Alena nodded in response, deciding that and silence was her best reply.

"And you are naïve. That is not your fault. You are young. But I am afraid that I am going to have to beat it out of you, unless the world take it from you by force."

Nyara smiled, and in that smile Alena saw many things. Sincerity, caring, and a sense of purpose. She may bristle at being referred to as naïve, but for the honor of the gods, she was fifteen. Already she felt as if she were expected to have so many responsibilities.

But deep down, Alena knew that Nyara was right. She just didn't want to see it. Not right now. She wanted to be left with the tattered remains of her normal, albeit shattered world, her dreams—blue eyes in them or not—and the things in her day to day life which she loved so much.

Must she have them taken away so soon, or have them thrust into a box? For the first time in her young life, she felt caged and restricted—almost unfairly so.

After that conversation, she was even more careful around Teacher Karak, and the rest of her teachers. Alena barely spoke to her parents about her training to begin with, as her mother asked her very few questions.

Her father, on the other hand, talked to her on occasion about his own experiences with various things, including one which he liked to refer to as his "inner voice." His inner voice would tell him things—not audibly, he insisted—but it was this small, quiet voice that directed him to so many things. These things came to him in the form of discoveries, knowledge, items which were lost, and had even helped him to keep his life in the event of danger. Alena felt comfortable enough to share a little bit with her father about what the Oracles referred to as the Tapestry, and she remembered that Papa had gotten excited and passionate about the idea. He nodded his head fervently, saying, "Yes, that's it, yes," and went on to describe his ideas on the interconnecting source of life, a "life-web", that bound all things together.

Those conversations thrilled her to no hand, and she hoped that they would have them more often. They made her feel better about not being able to trust very many people in these days of the new Empire, and gave her a greater sense of being able to express herself.

Alena hated dishonesty, and she felt that not being honest about herself was being dishonest. She was not so stubborn, nor so stupid, however, to not realize that these were indeed dangerous times.

But how much was going too far? This was a struggle that continued through her final year of school, and throughout exams as she sought to balance her new life with that of the life of the world around her.

***

When final exams came and went, she was nothing if not relieved. As much as she loved school and felt that she would miss some of her peers and her teachers, she wanted very much to enter into her oracular training full time. That was where she wanted to spend her days, she felt, and where she thought that she could be of the most good.

These gifts, she reasoned, the gifts that were her abilities, were sent to her by the gods. They therefore had to be good and come from a good source. But what made them really, truly good, was what she did with them.

And Alena wanted to do many good things with them. As many as she could possibly do and conceive of doing.

She just needed someplace to start. An outlet, a place where she could be herself and be useful.

The temple where the Oracles gave their prophecies was the best place for her, as far as she was concerned.

Alena graduated with high honors—tied in second place with another student. They both accepted their awards together, and shook hands. It was another girl in her class, someone who had transferred to the school from another planet. She was brilliant and Alena admired her, and felt no competition or hard feelings whatsoever. In her eyes, she was genuinely a good person and deserved the award.

More uncertain, however, she was of the person who graduated first—Jeret. He was the one who had bullied her in her swordsparring class, and although as time passed he eased off of her, he never seemed to stop bothering her in her classes or try to argue with her when she presented her ideas to the class. Alena had no idea what his problem was, nor why he had a small following of girls who would babble frequently about how wonderful he was, and how grand his swordsparring was.

Hence why she got the shock of her life when he came up to her after the announcements of the honors were made, and asked her if she wished to become a couple with him.

But no, it didn't go quite like that. First there was the congratulations, and the continued poking at her for coming into second place behind him. She endured this with a set jaw and a calm face, while internally she wanted to either leave, or deck him with her fist, or perhaps her bag of books.

She found it strange, however, how he suddenly became tongue-tied with her, and talked about how much he enjoyed fighting with her during class, and she "really didn't take it personally when he teased her, right?"

Alena had smiled sweetly and said, no, not at all. She barely remembered him even troubling her to begin with, and him knocking her off of her feet? When did that happen? It was ages ago, really. They were children then.

The next words out of his mouth, however, stunned her to the core.

"You know that I've always liked you, right? I'm sorry that I was so bad at showing that. I mean, I was a stupid kid and all, and I really liked you. Heck, admire you even. Anyhow, I, uh, wanted to know if you would want to go with me sometime to the dance hall or maybe catch a bite to eat together. I think that it would be great if we were to become a couple. You know? I mean, we have a lot in common and all…."

She barely caught the rest of his rambling. Suddenly the contrast between his perhaps honest, teenaged fumbling around for words as he attempted to win her over and the intense dreams she had about a pair of dark blue, stormy eyes and the bursts of ecstasy that they would give her, seemed to her to be absurd. This boy could hardly compare. And he had given her such a hard time that she never would've known that he had felt anything for her other than contempt and hatred.

At that moment onward, she decided that she did not comprehend the male sex in the least.

But at the same time, she felt a degree of pity. This boy was not Anakin—Vader, rather. Could never possibly be. He didn't have the age, the experience, the degree of sensual darkness, the intelligence—and lastly, and most importantly, she could never talk to him about who and what she was.

That hit her the hardest, that this boy, no matter how high he scored on the tests, would and could never possibly understand her. Why she wanted to become an Oracle, what happened to her when she had the fever and had the visions that had helped to heal Vader after his struggle with the other Jedi, and other things which were at this point essential to understanding her. Alena.

Many emotions came to her. Frustration, pity, anger, but also-

Sadness. Depression. Solitude.

Alena remembered mumbling something to the effect of, "Yes, sometime after my lessons with the Oracles, stop on by," et cetera, then she ran. It seemed like the insensible thing to do. The most bizarre thing to do, and the most cowardly.

But she didn't know what else to do, nor did she know how to handle this youth who so awkwardly was trying to court her affections.

When she got home, she recalled kicking at the wall, attempting a practice or two with her swordsparring forms with her practice sword-

Then breaking down into tears.

She didn't know how to tell him no and let him down easy, nor did she know how to handle him or boys in general. No one before this point had the courage to approach her on any level. He was the first.

'A shame,' she thought, 'that it had to happen after those dreams about Vader.'

A shame, because at that point no boy could compare—and how could they? Because at the very least, as bad as the things that Vader may or may not be accomplishing, he may perhaps understand her to some degree. Understand that their connection to the Tapestry prevents them from communicating with many people about it, or even be able to understand what it would be like to go without.

When the gods call, she remembered Erna telling her once, you follow. And Alena followed.

How could she possibly explain this to other people? People who were supposed to be the closest to in her life? How could she begin to describe the obligation she felt, the love that she felt for the guiding influences in her life, and the almost desperate need and desire to give them something back in return?

She couldn't. She barely had the words for it herself, especially given how seldom she tried to vocalize it. The young girl settled for ranting about it in her journal, about how bad she felt that she couldn't communicate to Jeret, and how even worse she felt about being so terribly, terribly isolated.

Alena cried some more on her bed before falling asleep. Later she would tell her parents that she had been so excited that she spent most of the day elsewhere. She didn't want to worry them. She didn't tell them of Jeret's interest in her, nor in her feelings about it. For how could she?

She was totally alone.

***

Eventually that night she dreamed. The dreams were odd, disjointed images of her being late for class, barely being able to accept the awards she had been given—and throughout them all was this sense of not being able to comprehend that school for her was over. Over, over, over—she was done, finished. From here on end, she could devote her time to her apprenticeship with the Oracles.

The idea had her dazed.

She woke up a few times, but fell back asleep each time. The final time was when the most vivid dreams came to her.

Alena found herself in a room, a small room, and inside a hollow, black sphere.

"Lie on my lap," she heard.

The voice went beyond mere recognition; it was Vader. She would know him anywhere at this point.

She found herself lying down on his lap, face up. She did not recall how she got there, only that she stared up at him and could barely see his face.

His hands, clad in black leather gloves, gently and slowly stroked her face. It was the most loving, sensual delight of anything that she had ever experienced. After minutes, perhaps hours, of this most exquisite torture, she threw her arms around him.

Lami tia a, she had declared, speaking to him in ancient Riolian: I desire you. It was a language she scarcely spoke in, save to the other Oracles and priest-regents. In the dream, she passionately held him in her arms and could feel him even upon awakening, warm and solid to the touch.

I desire you also, he had responded, and shortly after that, she woke up. The sunlight touched her face, and she felt warm. Warm all over.

Chapter 9

This was reality.

After a year of intensive training which began shortly after her graduation, Alena was instated as an Oracle, with the full duties, titles, and responsibilities thereof. The ceremony was beautiful, intense, and in Alena's mind, almost like a wedding. She was clothed in her white gown and wore an ivy wreath on her head. As required, she wore no jewelry, but later would wear a special necklace which would bear the insignia of her office, a special charm made of amber encased in silver and carved to resemble a star.

She wore it in a choker around her neck that stayed on, even in the shower, and she never took it off.

Her introduction to fulfilling her duties as an Oracle was gradual. At first she officiated over the Oracles for special holidays and weekends, but in time she was present along with the other two women, and would assist others who came for advice. Most of them were from Riol, but some came from neighboring planets. The reputation for the Oracles of Riol rather preceded themselves, and so they would receive an influx of tourists looking for advice on matters ranging from financial to personal.

Nyara was especially good, she noticed, at giving advice regarding people's pasts and how that led them to their present day. Erna was always very good at reading the future, and not as good at determining past trends' influences into current day as Nyara.

Alena, on the other hand, seemed to be very tied into the present, which meant that she not only had footing in the past, but in the future as well. She could tell people what they were thinking and how they felt on matters, and also help guide them in making decision based on what was best for them based on both what they desired and what they needed. Sometimes she would receive blinding flashes of their future, other times their past—and could connect it with their present in ways in which left people feeling as if she had been their next door neighbor.

Rapidly she grew a strong reputation for assisting people in great spiritual conflict, and in personal matters. She found herself giving council in the matters of love and family more than once, and did so in such a way that left people wondering if she really were sixteen years of age.

Her parents came once to see her giving oracles. They watched as she sat in the egg-shaped seat that she grew to love so much, and give people advice on many issues. Her mother was proud to witness her daughter be so compassionate towards others, and her father was thrilled to see his daughter have such a sensible head on her shoulders, with the ability to see into situations the little details that would ordinarily be overlooked.

They had hugged her afterwards, and told her as much. They were proud of her, and her mother kept repeating over and over again that no matter what Alena wanted to do with herself from here on end, she would support it. She had grown up into a fine woman.

A woman. Alena was sixteen then, which was the legal age in Riol for adulthood. She would not be able to own property until she was eighteen, and she had no desire to run for office. Besides, she had to be impartial as an Oracle and wouldn't be able to anyhow—and she had no love of the emerging Empire with its talk of "reforms" to the Galactic Senate. She was content with what she had, and figured that she didn't need the additional responsibility—or aggravation.

Her dreams grew more infrequent, but more intense. In her last one, she remembered approaching Darth Vader while he was in his suit and full dress, and he had told her more than once to not touch him. For some reason, something in the way she had held his arm apparently disturbed him. But after protesting once or twice, he didn't seem to mind, and almost seemed to be preening himself at the way she stayed by his side, arm in arm. She watched him in her dream as he visited a people somewhere, watching over them to see if there were any there that would turn. Turn into what, she wasn't certain. "Force-sensitive" was the phrase that came into her mind.

The oddest part about this dream was him turning to her, and tracing something over her forehead, some odd symbol or glyph that she didn't recognize. It felt to her like a triangle, but it seemed to her that it meant something more than that. She didn't get any explanations from him in the dream about it, nor did she know what it meant upon awakening.

She only knew that some days after that, she had passed by Teacher Karak in central, and he saw her, nodded hurriedly, and practically ran in the other direction. Alena didn't think to connect the two until hours later, when she pondered over the glyph and what it meant, and only got as far as the idea that Vader had marked her somehow, as some sort of warning to others. But why Teacher Karak would suddenly be afraid of her after that, she didn't know. She figured that perhaps he was sensitive to the weavings of the Tapestry.

'Or maybe, perhaps,' she thought, 'people are afraid of me now that I am an Oracle, and am afraid that I can see things in them that they don't want to see.'

The thought had occurred to her more than once, and it seemed like a simple, satisfactory conclusion to his reaction to her.

But something in her, for some reason incomprehensible, knew better. And she didn't want to know a thing more about it. The less she knew, she figured, the better. Alena had enough to worry about.

She was now the Third Oracle of Riol.

Hence why when she began approaching the age of seventeen and her dreams began to grow more intense and have lasting impressions that affected her waking day, she didn't think much of it. At this point in time, she had herself almost convinced that her dreams were just dreams. But she recognized her emotions, and knew that deep inside of her, she was beginning to feel stirrings of something very deep, dark, and incredibly intense.

Alena prayed that she was neither obsessed, nor falling in love. She could be able to handle neither.

Her seventeenth year came and went with a splash and a sparkle—she had much to be grateful for, more than any other year.

She was alive. Truly alive, doing what she felt that she needed to be doing. At the age of eighteen, she had accomplished so much—she had graduated from university with honors and was now the Third Oracle of Riol. What else could she possibly ask for?

The Third Oracle did not count on her future; she was too busy dealing with everyone else's.

***

It started one day with two people. Two people who were clearly outsiders, and from nowhere near Riol. But they spoke Basic, and demanded to see an Oracle immediately. It was relatively early in the morning, and they had just opened their gates to the public.

Nyara and Erna looked at each other, and figured that Alena could use the exercise. She needed at least one, perhaps two difficult petitioners. It would prepare her for the years ahead, and give her a chance to grow in her ability to give oracles as well as deal with the unexpected.

These two were unexpected, all right. They practically prostrated themselves before Alena's protesting feet.

"Please, no, do not do that," cried Alena, embarrassed. "I'm just an Oracle. I'm only here to advise others. If you want to worship, we have altars to the gods for that."

"Forgive us, but we have traveled a long way," spoke the man, almost stuttering. "My name is…do not worry about my name. You can call me Morn. This woman beside me is Lorna."

"We come from the Core Worlds," she explained.

Something inside Alena began to go off. Bells. She nodded slowly.

"Go on," she requested. "What is it that you wish to know of the gods?"

"We…." He brought his voice down to a low whisper after glancing quickly around. "We're here from…a group that is gathering. There is much going on that you probably do not know about, being from the Outer Rim."

"In fact, that's why we came here," Lorna spoke up eagerly. "We figured we'd have a greater chance of not being found here."

"Lorna, please," Morn admonished. "Let me finish."

He turned back to Alena and began to explain. They were from a group that had escaped imprisonment. Apparently they had protested some law that went into place, some law that the Empire was enforcing. They were punished, but they got out and joined a local group that was dedicated to preserving their freedoms. The group got attention—the wrong kind of attention—and they found that their leader had been captured.

"We want to know if he is all right," Morn explained, "and we want to know what the gods want us to do from here. We have heard all about your Oracles, and figured that this would be a safe space to regroup."

Lorna added apologetically, "We are the only ones that wanted to come. We are very spiritual people, but the others do not believe in religion. They believe in luck. We want to rely on more than luck."

"We believe in the Force," Morn stated, and quickly grinned at Alena, who thankfully at this point had enough experience to not appear as if she were staring at them agape, for she was on the inside.

Externally, in their presence, she nodded calmly that they may continue. On the inside, she was screaming. She didn't know what to do with these people. Oracles had to be neutral in all matters of politics and government. She could only tell them what the gods wished them to hear, and what the Tapestry would let her tell them.

"Is the Force with us?" Lorna fell on her knees, forgetting Alena's earlier request to not bow before her. "Please, I must know. For the sake of the Old Republic, the Rebellion, please!"

Her mind was reeling. Over and over again, she could hear Erna's voice saying to her on her thirteen birthday, There is a war, but it is not your war, Alena. Stay out of it.

Aloud she could hear herself answering the woman clearly and distinctly, "I will look into this matter and ask the gods what answer they have for your question."

And look into it she did. No sooner had she proclaimed this, she instantly fell into a trance. There was fighting, much fighting for many years. She could see the blur of chaos, the Tapestry being torn apart by the very people who fought to protect it, and above all else, she saw that these two people before her were indeed good people, and may be in great danger.

In fact, right now, they were in very real, clear danger. And they needed to leave Riol now.

***

Lord Vader was on his way to consult with the Emperor when one of the officers paged him with the news.

"We found where the rebels escaped to," he was informed, "they are on a planet in the Outer Rim."

"Which planet?" he demanded to know.

There was something about this that he could almost taste, some feeling of destiny-

"Riol, Lord Vader, sir. They are on the planet Riol."

At once he felt a sense of calm, the Force telling him that yes, this was destiny indeed. But at the same time there was the sense of a dazzling display of lights before him.

Riol. Alena was there.

"Set your coordinates for that planet. I want to find them, and I want them alive for interrogation."

"Yes, sir."

"I have a feeling that I know where they are…."

He trailed off, and cut off the communication link. The officer on the other end was used to this, and was only thrilled to have the chance to give Lord Vader good news. Good news was good. Bad news meant sudden death.

He wanted to live. He cherished his life.

He punched in the coordinates into the ship's computer, and set course for Riol.

***

On Riol, Alena was giving the oracle to the two members of the Rebellion. It felt surreal to her. She had no idea that out here, in the Outer Rim, that people from the emerging Rebellion against the Empire would even think to seek out a planet like Riol to come to and request oracular aid and advice.

Which of course, she had no choice but to give.

She told them the truth—this war would be long and hard. It would last ten, maybe twenty years. There was no clear end to it. And they were in decidedly great danger right now, and needed to leave Riol as soon as possible. That was their only way right now for success.

They thanked her profusely, and begged to know where else nearby they might go. She simply shrugged at them, stating honestly and as simply as possible that she had rarely been off of her home world. She had visited Coruscant as a young child once on a school trip and that was it. There was no knowledge in her mind of any neutral territory nearby where they might be safe. But if they wished, she could divine it for them.

Lorna had smiled and Morn refused the offer. He said that she had done enough for them, and he was just happy to receive her advice and have her listen to their side of the story, and hear their cause. Alena smiled in return, and bid them luck and good fortune from the gods. They would most certainly need it.

Above them, far off into the sky, Darth Vader's ship was rapidly approaching. Alena had no sense of this, only a deep sense of peace and excitement. She felt that something very grand, very big was about to happen. Life transforming. She didn't know what it was, only that it would change her life forever.

How very right she was.

***

The last of the petitioners had left for the day, and the three Oracles had settled back into their seats, discussing the events of the day and talking amongst themselves. Alena sat back with a contented sigh, but kept thinking of the two people she spoke to, Morn and Lorna. She hoped that they were all right. They seemed like genuinely nice, good people who had been through a lot—and seemed relatively unfazed to be talking to a seventeen year old young woman about life and death.

One of the guards from the outside entered the hall at that moment, and the three women looked up expectantly.

"Ah, do we have another petitioner today?" inquired Erna.

The guard did not speak, but walked stiffly ahead. Behind him were five men in white armor and carrying blaster rifles.

Alena froze. She recognized them from her visions. They were most definitely soldiers of the Empire—stormtroopers. There were pictures of them on the HoloNet from time to time, and a famous legion known as the 501st. They called themselves "Vader's Fist", and acted on the Sith Lord's behalf.

Behind them was a sound that she only heard in her dreams, and occasionally while in a trance state when awake. It was the sound that she first heard right before passing out in her mother's arms so long ago, during her fever.

Deep, even, measured breathing. It echoed in the hallway, resonating in Alena's skull and forcing her to wonder why she hadn't sensed his presence sooner.

The answer would come to her later: because he did not wish it.

He emerged into the room as a burst of tall, dark radiant energy and black armor. His cape billowed out from behind him, and Alena almost had the sense that even his cape was his eyes and ears, reaching out to everything and everyone around him.

His presence was very prominent and pronounced in the Tapestry, and when it weaved, he weaved with it.

Lord Vader crossed the room in great, long strides, and stopped when he got to where Alena sat.

She at once, as if compelled by a greater force, stood up and faced him, her hands interlaced in front of her and still in her white gown.

"To what do I owe this pleasure, Lord Vader?"

The words tumbled out of her mouth and she scarcely remembered speaking them.

He looked down on her, and at once she could feel the cloud of great fury, and could almost feel the hair on her arms standing on end, as if lightning were about to strike.

"You are being charged with aiding the Rebellion, and acting as a traitor to the Empire," he declared, his deep voice shocking Alena with its clarity.

Amazingly, Alena once again found her voice.

"Lord Vader, that is not possible. We as Oracles are neutral. We do not aid in any rebellion or in any system of government—including our own. We-"

"I do not care. You were found consorting with two members of the Rebellion, and will be brought in for questioning." Alena opened her mouth to speak again, but he interrupted her furiously, gesturing to the troopers beside him. "Take her away!"

Alena's mouth remained open. In her mind she could see all of the dreams she had about him, in vivid detail, since childhood. She could not understand why Vader was bursting into here, acting as if he did not know her, and making wild accusations against her. Did he not know her? Did he not realize what she had done for him so long ago as a child? Did any of the dreams and communications she had with him really occur?

Or perhaps, was it all just in her head all long, as she had tried to tell herself time and time again.

Everything came crashing down on her at that moment, and reality hit her in the form of restraints placed securely around her wrists behind her back before she could even blink.

This was reality.

Before she could even process what was happening to her, she was being led out the door by the white-armored troopers, and by Vader, who walked—no, marched—behind her. As she turned to go out the door, she caught Nyara out of her eye, reaching for a large vase and hurling it in their direction.

Right at Vader.

Without a thought or a hesitation, all of the lessons which had been imposed and impressed upon Alena came into her being. She reached out to the Tapestry and redirected the vase away from Vader. It was done with a single, smooth motion.

Darth Vader turned around and stared down at her. She couldn't physically see his eyes through the mask, but could feel them boring their way into her. At once she realized the significance of what she had done, and what it could possibly mean for her—on top of the charges of supposedly consorting with rebels of the Empire.

To her surprise, he didn't say a word, but gestured to his guards once more, who shoved her further out of the hall.

***

After they left, Erna turned on Nyara. She was the most furious that the Second Oracle had ever seen her.

"What was that about, Nyara?! What were you thinking?"

Nyara allowed herself a small smile, and turning to Erna, simply answered, "She defended him…didn't she?"

Erna blinked, and the Second Oracle took that opportunity to continue.

"Let that action mess with his head for a while. He deserves at least that much."

The First Oracle continued to stare her down for a full minute. Neither of them moved. Then, she laughed.

"Thank the gods I saw their entrance long before they entered here, years ago. I never would've been able to be standing right now. I would've had a stroke. Nyara, fetch me some berry wine. I'm going to need it."

***

On the landing platform in central, Alena was being boarded onto Vader's shuttle. She allowed herself one last glance at the temple behind her before being pushed into the ship.

Chapter 10

"There is more than one way to be seduced by the Dark Side."

The stars went by her window for many hours. Perhaps days. She didn't know. She stared out of the window. Alena had gazed at these very stars through her telescope, through photos and visions, and loved the night sky.

How ironic that she was being taken through this very sky which she had loved and dreamed about for so long against her will.

Or was it truly against her will? She couldn't help but wonder if her own longings to meet Vader and to be with him got her into the mess that she was currently in. Somehow, perhaps, deep inside of her, she set the events into motion that led to her current imprisonment.

The restraints still bound her, but one of the guards was kind enough to undo the restraints and redo them with her hands in front of her, lest she lose her balance while walking.

Balance. Alena wondered if she had lost it a long time ago.

If she were killed, she figured ruefully, it would probably be her own damned fault.

***

Vader was in his meditation chamber on board his shuttle. He was more than aware of Alena's presence in the Force, and her continued internal dialogue in which she persisted in beating herself up, over and over again, for events which from day one were completely beyond his control. Perhaps a part of him related to that emotion, or maybe something in him recognized his source.

Either way, he figured that now was as good of a time as any to interrupt his meditation for a quiet talk with her. Perhaps at this point she would willingly relinquish any and all information she had regarding the rebels that had come to her for oracular advice.

***

Alena was remembering one of her past lifetimes. Sometimes dim, sometimes vivid memories would trickle its way into her conscious mind. Most of them escaped via her dreams.

She was remembering one of her lifetimes in which she had also loved the sky, and wished that the world she lived in had the technology to allow her to travel through the stars easily. Never a memory in space travel she had of that life—on water, through air, but mostly on many, many roads. These memories had given her something of a wanderlust that she never admitted to many people, or given into—mostly because she was so content and busy with the life she had on Riol.

So deep in her thoughts she was that she almost did not hear the calm, steady breathing as it grew louder and entered the room.

"Enjoying the view?" Alena nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of that voice which had haunted her dreams for so long.

"Just looking at the stars," she replied carelessly. If she could see behind his mask, she would've seen a critical gaze and a half-raised eyebrow. She did not know it, but she had lapsed into another accent she did not consciously remember, save from some vague dream or two from her childhood, and had dropped a consonant--namely an "r"--somewhere on the floor next to her. Or perhaps it floated out of the window into space.

"The stars, yes." Vader was almost hissing as he pronounced the words. She could swear that his tone contained a mixture of both impatience and amusement. "I had forgotten that you have most likely never been off of your home world."

Alena turned around to look at him, her response spurting out of her mouth before she even realized it. "I went to Coruscant once." By "once," she meant a trip that she had taken when she was fifteen with her fellow students at school as a final year celebration. But the moment the words left her lips, she remembered an entirely different trip to Coruscant, one that had left her breathless and in Anakin's—no, no, Vader's—arm's. Her head turned quickly back towards the window where she decided to focus her gaze on the stars, at her reflection in the window—anywhere but at his face or in his direction.

If he saw her reaction or recognized it for what it was, he didn't appear to notice. "The two rebels who came to Riol to seek your advice; they are currently in custody. They were not able to escape capture."

She winced, but not in shock. Their future had been terribly clear, and was one that she had hoped they would avoid.

"They will be executed. However, if you cooperate, your stay here will be pleasant."

There was only a brief pause, followed by the sound of his breath.

"And if you do not let us know what they revealed to you…I can assure you that it will not."

Alena let out the breath that she had been holding. She had not even realized that she had been holding it. In fact, she was not very aware of much at that moment, save something of a faint sense of shock that was beginning to sweep over her.

"They wanted to know the future of their rebellion, and if they would succeed."

Her voice was tight. She knew that no matter what she said, they would be killed anyway. Perhaps they were dead already. But she also knew that as an Oracle, she represented the Temple of the Oracles of Riol, and two women were on Riol right now whom she did not want to endanger. And she suspected that if it came to that, Darth Vader would make sure to use them as bargaining tools.

"And you told them?" he prompted.

Her jaw felt tight, and her eyes felt like they would burn out of her head.

"I told them that their war would be long and hard. Maybe last a decade or two." She took another slow, steady breath before continuing. "I couldn't see the outcome, as it has not yet been decided, as the tapestry hasn't been weaved that far yet."

"And what else did you tell them?"

His voice was almost hypnotic as he posed the question to her, each word carefully pronounced with an odd and curious rhythm. Her eyes closed, and she thought suddenly of a river. It made no sense, but she went with the imagery. She realized that she was on a river, and it was most likely going to dump out into a waterfall somewhere. Perhaps one with a very deep and steep slope, and the water below was a vast ocean.

"I told them that if they didn't leave Riol, they were going to be in great danger." She turned around and forced something of a smile on her face. It almost hurt. "I also knew that they wouldn't listen. They were too curious about my home world."

The sound she heard coming from him sounded like a cross between a chuckle and a snort.

"Apparently you were right." Amusement, clear amusement was in his voice, but it was of a decidedly dark sort of glee.

"Apparently I was," she replied evenly.

Alena was looking straight at him at this point, as directly at his face as she could, but all she could see with her physical eyes was his mask, and the shine from the overhead lights upon it.

There were a few moments of silence, save his slow, mechanical breathing. It was almost eerie for her to be listening to it now, with her own ears—and not just in a dream. But it was also terribly, terribly real, in a way that was almost too natural to her liking. Suddenly a strange sense of déjà vu crept up on her, and she willed it away with a shudder that she did her best to repress.

"Anything else?" Again with the slow, steady questions, with almost no change in tone or pitch.

"No, that was all I had said to them."

"How about what they had told you?"

'He doesn't miss any details,' she thought to herself ruefully.

"Only that they had been imprisoned and escaped, and had joined the Rebellion." She added, "They wanted to know if the Force was with them."

This time she heard a chuckle. A very definite chuckle, and she could almost see him smile. She experience a weird, double vision for a moment, both mask and face were present in her sight. It lasted for half of a moment then faded as quickly as it arrived.

"No, it isn't. They will be executed. The Force will be with them, only in that it will not be a lingering death."

She blinked. It was her sole outward reaction, and for that, she was thankful.

"But perhaps," he intoned, "you think that I am showing them too much mercy?"

"I would not think to question your judgment, Lord Vader." Her voice was even, but behind it was a cold, almost sarcastic edge.

"That would be most wise of you," he quietly responded. He turned towards the door suddenly, his cape turning a split second behind him as if it were a whip that he was cracking in her direction.

"I will return shortly," he declared, then exited the room, leaving her to stare after him in a mixture of shock, confusion, and perhaps…disappointment.

Disappointment at what, she didn't quite fathom. Disappointed at his cold behavior towards her? No. Disappointed in his implied threats? She mulled that over. No, it was not that.

If anything she was disappointed, much to her surprise and extreme displeasure, that he had not lingered to talk to her further. If anything, the experience of finally talking with him—alone, no less--after the dreams she had about him was nothing if not anti-climatic.

It made her wish for more, and if she possessed such an inclination, she almost hated herself for that.

***

Unbeknownst to her, Darth Vader was in conference in his quarters on board the ship with the Emperor, repeating to him what had happened.

"Tell me more of this girl," the Emperor demanded.

"There is not much to tell," responded Vader, his voice low but resonant, "except that there is a strength about her which eludes me. She has grown strong in the Force, and can clearly feel it. Whether or not she can control it is another question."

The Emperor made a cackling sound. "She certainly controlled that vase. Who was it that threw it at you again?"

"One of the other Oracles," he replied, "but it does not matter. What does matter is that she was able to control it through the Force."

"Yes, yes, but that was impressive for another reason. Tell me, Lord Vader," his voice grew soft, "did she do it for you? Did she think that she was protecting you, somehow?"

"Yes, I believe she did." His voice got strange, and it did not go unnoticed.

"I think, my young apprentice," he declared, his voice growing sibilant and almost ecstatic, "that you may have made a new friend."

"But still," Vader pressed, "can she be trusted?"

The Emperor snickered. "With you? Or in general?"

Vader bristled.

"That was not the question," he stated as calmly as he could.

He knew what Palpatine was implying, could hear it in his tone and feel it through the Force. Feeling it through the Force at this point, however, was redundant to the point of being insulting.

"Ah, but Vader, she feels for you. It's painfully obvious." He spoke each word as if he savored it. "Surely, surely…she can be turned. I suspect that the Oracles weren't as thorough in her training as they could have been. Perhaps, you can fill in the gaps they left."

"Most assuredly I could, my Master."

Palpatine grinned broadly. He could feel the confidence in his voice, and knew that he meant what he had said.

"Good, good. I sense that she will be quite useful to us. Bring her along and make sure that she does not leave your sight. I want you to give me a full report on every interaction you have with her. And I mean…every interaction."

"Yes, my Master."

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" The question fell from Palpatine's lips out of nowhere, so it seemed to Vader, that he hardly heard it.

"Your pardon, Master?"

"Since you have had any…companionship." There was a significant glint to his eyes which was unmistakable. "Surely you know of what I speak."

There was a brief silence filled only by the sound of Vader's breathing. "Yes, Master, I do."

"There is more than one way, my young apprentice, to be seduced by the Dark Side. I am certain that you can handle this."

More breathing, but Palpatine could swear that he heard its pace increase slightly.

"Yes, my Master, I can and I will."

"Good. I will leave you now."

"Farewell, my Master."

"Farewell, my apprentice. Until we meet again. In the meantime, enjoy the time you have with your new companion."

The hologram blinked out, leaving Vader alone with his thoughts.

It wasn't long after that when he received the incoming message.

"Lord Vader, we are about to dock on board the main shuttle." It was the same officer who had given him the news about Riol.

"Excellent."

"Yes, yes sir. Quite welcome, sir."

It was almost time. Soon the prisoners would be brought to justice. Only two of them, but Vader had a good feeling about it. He wondered if he should bring Alena along to witness their execution, but figured that it would be best to simply inform her of their deaths after the fact. Best to let her imagination fill in the details.

The rest, he decided, would be up to him.

He contemplated the situation. Alena was an infuriating young woman, and quite the puzzle. She had a confident and authoritative, but not an arrogant air about her, he decided. It was a calm air, self-assured, graceful. Almost annoyingly so. But still, she reminded him of a warm summer breeze—bold but welcoming. Perhaps like the wind that went between the buildings of Coruscant, or the across the lake at Naboo…. He suspected that she had relatively little difficulty in her life getting what she wanted, and was adored by many people. Perhaps she had her own admirers and suitors at some point. He backed off that thought quickly, not just due to a prickling of irritation at the thought. Her air of confidence didn't mask the decidedly innocent vibe she gave off in waves. He knew that save her imagination and dreams, she had not known the touch of a man, let alone the experience of suitors or lovers.

He thought of how he had met her. Thankfully, Vader barely remembered his experience on the operating table. It had been so excruciating that he willed himself to block it out of his memory. He only wished to remember her voice.

Her voice and her touch was the only thing, perhaps, that saved him from madness from the agonizing pain. Not just due to her skills as a healer, but something in her presence had calmed him, and had given him hope.

Hope of what, he wasn't certain. He only half-remembered her at first as Padme, coming to visit and take care of him. He was so elated to look into Alena's eyes and thought that he was looking at Padme.

His Master, Palpatine, had taken away that hope from him.

"I'm afraid that in your anger, you killed her."

Rage, unbridled rage, kindled at the memory of that moment threatened to overwhelm him. Her. Everything at that point he had done for her. For what? To be rejected, tossed aside. For her to be Obi-Wan's willing accomplice in finding him, and leaving him burning alive on Mustafar.

But her death he still couldn't handle. No matter how much she had hurt him, had burned him to the core—burned even more than the fires that had consumed him on that day—he still mourned her loss. It had been a long five years without her, and he wasn't sure that he would get over her, or ever find a replacement in any woman that he met.

Sometimes, however, when he looked into Alena's eyes, he could see Padme's spirit in her. And he would think that maybe, just maybe, there was something in her that could give him a reason to feel passion again.

'Not to replace Padme,' he reasoned. 'Never that. But to find someone who could support me. Support me no matter what.'

He had many fantasies and dreams of murdering his Master in cold blood, each time more brilliant and fantastic than the next. They were elaborate deaths, worthy of both an apprentice to Palpatine, and to the legacy of the Sith. With the satisfaction he could feel at his Master's death, he could also feel the elation of being able to rule the galaxy in his stead. Do better than he had ever done. End the corruption and bring a lasting, true peace to what should be his Empire.

Vader could picture it clearly. The throngs of people gathered at his coronation. The millions of people hovered around the HoloNet, hanging on each and every word he uttered. He could change the world, make it in his image, however which way he wanted. The way it should be, and should've been from the beginning.

One image that he kept seeing and couldn't banish, however, no matter how hard he tried, was Alena's face looking up at him as she stood insistently by his side, with her features screaming adoration and love blazing from her eyes.

'She has brown eyes like Padme,' he thought. It was all that he would let himself think. For now.

Part 2

Home Fiction Adult Fiction Art Mail List Staff Links