Location: The Flickerfox
The lightsaber rested in his hands. It looked smaller in the low light. Just durasteel and circuitry, worn smooth from years of handling. But Ace had always known there was more to it. It wasn't always his, it had a story of its own long before he was born. Even though it was left with him, gifted or abandoned maybe, it never felt like it completely belonged to him.
Acier sat in the Flickerfox's lounge, shoulders tight with tension. What he was about to do, wasn't his first attempt. Months ago, before he really began training, he'd gripped the hilt and reached with the Force. At the time he wasn't experienced enough in psychometry but desperate for answers. The vision that answered had nearly broken him. Flashes of color, voices without mouths, pain that wasn't his, too much, too fast, too loud.
It gave him a headache for three days. Three days of restless sleep and hazy thoughts. Traumatized, he didn't try again. But now he was steadier. Trained. Or at least more trained than he was. The Force didn't thrash in him the way it used to. It moved with him. Maybe if he tries again things will be different.
Exhaling, he gently pressed his fingers on the metal of the hilt. It didn't take long, the world around him collapsed into white, but then... something faded into view.
He was standing. Somewhere. Older, taller, limbs heavier but not weaker. Strong, but not as fast as he used to be. The air was thick with fog coiling low along the roots of knotted trees. The sky was muted gray. No sun, only clouds. And silence. A lightsaber... Ace's lightsaber... hung at his belt.
He knelt in the clearing, surrounded by candles, flickering flames swirling in the mist.
"I take the Barash Vow." His voice wasn't Ace's, it was deeper, calmer, wiser. "I renounce involvement. I renounce the Order. I renounce judgment. Until I find clarity…."
Time moved forward. Not many, but some years. The trees were taller now, grown around a simple stone hut. This man, the Jedi, sat in quiet meditation and then... a presence. A child stood at the treeline. Crimson cloak. Pale skin. Freckles. White hair. Watching... no, studying. She didn't speak, not at first, but she returned the next day. And the next. Eventually, she came close enough to sit beside him but still without words. The Jedi let her stay.
Time moved again, The girl, she was older now... seventeen? Maybe eighteen. They stood beneath the moonlight beside a lake whose surface didn't ripple.
"Why do you still carry that lightsaber?" she asked "If you've given up fighting?"
The Jedi smiled faintly. His beard now greyed and eyes more worn.
"Because it still remembers who I was."
A silence stretched between them. The girl lowered her gaze, her expression was contemplative. She finally spoke, eyes unmoving.
"I think I've done something terrible." she whispered.
Time moved a final time. Mist curled like smoke, the girl was now a woman. Cloaked, hooded. The way she carried herself now was different, stiff, guarded. She carried something close to her chest. A baby, small and wrapped in black fabric. Sleeping soundly in his mother's arms. The woman stepped into the clearing for the last time.
"I wouldn't have come if there was any other way." she said.
"Then I'm glad you did." the Jedi answered.
The Jedi studied the child. Freckles and white hair, like his mother, but his skin was unlike hers. The fear in the woman's voice was different now. Not fear of pain, but fear of what would happen to her child.
"He'll be hunted, Vinorl. By my people, and... by his father's legacy."
"Then let him be free of both." The Jedi removed his lightsaber from his belt "When he's old enough. May this help him choose."
He held the lightsaber out for her. The woman didn't take it, not yet. She stepped forward and reached out, not for the weapon, but for the Jedi's hand. Their fingers brushed. She looked at him, her face was stoic but her eyes said it all - gratitude and trust.
And the name that had been haunting Ace for months, echoed in his ears once more - Vayun.
In a flash, he was back in the Flickerfox's lounge once more. Ace stumbled back into his body like he had just fallen from orbit. The lightsaber was still there in his hand, cold and unmoved. That woman in the echo, she was his mother. And the lightsaber's owner? A Jedi. If he was still alive, he would know what happened and where his mother was.
"Vinorl." he said to himself quietly.
It wasn't much to go on, but it was something. Ace thought to himself for a moment before it clicked. He knew just the person to ask -
Valery Noble
.
Valery Noble
.
