There's No Going Home

[Bethany Kismet]

N A B O O

Slowly, ever so carefully, the waters were taking back the temple.

The air was heavy with the damp, living scent of moss. Mists rose from between the columns, filling the empty rafters with ghosts of the arches that once reeled over head. The sound of water, bubbling and laughing, played with the senses, offering more than simple sound- it offered presence, the haunting voice in cheerful counterpoint to the emptiness of the ruins. Plants grew riotously and lush in the broken shadows, sunlight and streams alternating their movement and patterns from one breach in the ceiling to the next. Snaking up the inner wall, the trunk of a tree held the roof in place against the onslaught of weather and time. The inner most branches buttressed the arcing planchement, hands of foliage spreading out as though to support the sky itself, before the canopy burst through the largest hole to embrace the outside of the temple's dome.

It had been over 500 years since Bethany Kismet, Jedi Master, had walked these halls. Stepping lightly over a stream that now ran through the entry way, she paused to kneel on the other side. Small hands brushed away half a millennia of detritus, working slowly and without concern. Very slowly, her thumb rubbed across the smooth tile that ran beneath this portion of the temple.

Once, the blazing white columns of the temple's vestibule had arched high and pure overhead. The cobalt ceiling had gleamed, reflecting a cool, peaceful light back down on those entering- whether it was the first time or the hundredth- that light offered rest. And here, beneath their feet, had been a complicated mosaic of natural life on Naboo. The sea and the land, entwined in a thousand shades of green and blue, highlights of yellow, red and violet all set against the pearl white that joined each tiny piece of porcelain in gleaming threads.

Reaching out, she scooped up a handful of the water whispering nearby and poured it over the place she had cleared.

Dark, rich mud ran. Another scoop. And a third.

Tilting her head, the diminutive Jedi smiled, soft and wistful. The curling of one of Naboo's native vines, captured forever in olive and forest ceramic, peaked out at her. Given enough time, she could, from this single point only a few centimeters across, trace the entire floor from memory.

For now, however, she stood, brushing her hands off gently on the moss growing on a jutting stone that, she suspected, had once been part of the ceiling.

Especially here, the sheer smallness of the woman was magnified. She seemed completely insignificant, when taken solely in body. Long black hair flowed straight down her back. Pale skin shone in the shadows. Though her clothes were simple, dove grey tunic, brown leggings and soft boots, she moved with the assurance of someone who belonged. Brilliant emerald eyes cast around as she walked, pausing here and there, as if rebuilding what had been lost.

Slowly, Bethany let out a long sigh.

She was home. And it was empty.

 

[Kana Truden]

[member="Bethany Kismet"]

Naboo was one of the planets that Kana had always wished to see more of in her time with the Healer’s Circle but never seen any reason to actually visit. Under most circumstances she would have held off any and all thoughts to quench said desires, but with a recent change of heart she felt that the time had finally come to actually do something with her life after forty-two years of life and twenty-three years of servitude with the Jedi. She had seen the fall of a republic, the destruction of her home and the rebuilding of a new one. She had seen battle against overwhelming odds and made it out alive to tell the story. She had fallen from grace and been brought back by people she had thought to be dead and made new friends in the progress.

It was as if her entire life had been spent focusing on the negatives and not once on the positives. Not once had she considered Avalore and the joy that she had brought back into Kana’s life, or the children that she had envied at first but slowly gotten accustomed to. All around her there were people trying to make the most of life and spread the joy that they knew to those around them and she had been so busy with the past, so self-obsessed and self-centered that she couldn’t see past her own troubles and witness the beauty of life itself. It was as if the stones on her back were lifted the second she had dropped that one aspect of her life and laid her past to rest. She was free to breathe for the first time in her life and she was already making the most of it. Her hair had long since been undone in a somewhat disheveled mess as she let the sun soak into her paled skin. The sleeveless tunic that adorned her chest offered the comfort and mobility that she needed while it at the same time also let her feel the sensation of the breezes roll against her skin with new vigor.

She was a new woman. She was the person she had always strived to be and it had only taken her so long to realize what she had to do to get there and even longer to realize that had always been right in front of her this whole time. And so now with her own dream in the middle of being seized she had decided to pursue others, live out the teenage fantasy of a girl who had always dreamed of truly getting out there to see what it was all about in a galaxy that used to make her feel so small and insignificant. In this case Naboo was the first stop. Not because she had anything to do there but because she wanted to witness its beauty one more time, she wanted to revel in its treasures and the experiences that they offered at least once more before the big sleep.

Living her days as if it was her last. It was as good of a way to describe it as she could manage. Of course, there was care involved, and there were still regular meetings with the Healer Circle and other such businesses, but that did not mean Kana couldn’t take some well-deserved time for herself every now and then, and right now that seemed to be to let the flow of the force guide her in whatever direction it wanted her to go. Her boots would eventually touch against the grand staircase of what she could only imagine was the remains of what used to be a Jedi temple. Under other circumstances she would have stayed away, but not this time.

She trusted the force, trusted that it was leading her somewhere she would have wanted to see or explore for herself. Taking a deep breath she entered the building only to find it overgrown and in a state of disrepair. With a few carefully calculated footsteps she tried to make her way down the staircase descending into the rest of the temple without falling over. It echoed, spread her presence around the great hall for anyone to hear.

And yet the smile on her lips didn’t seem to go away. It amused her how alien this feeling of joy would seem.

 

[Bethany Kismet]

Slowly, carefully, Bethany mounted a series of stairs. Once, the white marble companionway had led up to a circling balcony beneath the main dome. But between the temple sinking slowly over half a millenia and the slow, sneaking damage done by clinging vines, it ended halfway up. Backtracking slightly, the petite Jedi Master ducked out of a second story window- now even with the ground outside.

She blinked, slightly bleary eyed and sheltering her face for a moment from the bright sunlight streaming down. Just midmorning, the glare cast from the shallow sea was too strongly to look at directly. As her eyes adjusted to the change, the view she saw brought a small smile to her lips.

Here were the gardens. At one time, she had been the curator and keeper of the winding paths and carefully tended beds here. Time had done their job, obliterating the walkways and spreading seed and flower in a vast array of natural entropy. While it was not the careful order and cacophony of diligently tended flowers she had once known, it was a blending of the efforts of Naboo herself and the long ago touch of the Jedi. Bethany couldn't have found disappointment here even if she had tried.

She paused, kneeling for a moment in the grass. Small purple flowers dotted long swathes of the view.

"Bethany, those will never grow here."

Barely fifteen, the dark haired girl looked up at Dar and frowned.

"They grow on Dantooine- on the prairies there. I thought they were pretty."

Dar scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. A year older, and freshly minted a Jedi Knight, he'd become positively insufferable in the last month.

"The climate of Naboo is very different from Dantooine," he said dismissively. "You're wasting you're time."

She turned back to the small plot she'd been allowed to tend- the first space that was hers in her entire life- and secretly made a face when Dar couldn't see.

"You'll like it here," she whispered, pushing her face to mere centimeters away from the cheerful purple blossoms. "I promise."

And they had spread, slowly, by mere centimeters each year. Eventually, Bethany had been knighted- in time, Mastered (though too young, she understood now, far too young). The garden had been turned over to her care, not simply that tiny corner, but every tree and shrub. These purple flowers had been the smallest speck there.

Emerald eyes swept up, following the arches and bridges that spread like a purple river through the ruins of the gardens. Her gardens.

And she smiled.

*****

She didn't pay attention to how long she sat there, leaning back against the wall beside the archway that led back down into the now sunken temple.

But she was aware of someone. Someone approaching. Long before those footsteps echoed in the hall below, she had felt them, a sensation of hesitant and unaccustomed joy. Hesitant only because it was new and untried ground still. It would grow, Bethany hoped, spreading like the purple flowers planted an age ago. But only if it had been planted in fertile soil, cared for and loved.

Bethany chuckled, mostly at herself.

She didn't know who it was, coming up to the temple. But she stood, heading back down the stairs. Once, an age past, she had been one of the first to greet newcomers to this place. She had made it one of her responsibilities, one she took ever so seriously. Until the Order had changed. And even then, she'd still tried.

So it was with a certain lilt of amusement and nostalgia that she stood, halfway down that broken flight of stairs, that she called out.

"Good morning. Careful, the floor is uneven."

[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

[member="Bethany Kismet"]

Despite the overgrowth there was a sense of peace here that Kana hadn’t really pondered since her time on Ossus. The day she had set her foot in the academy was the same day that she had realized that her life would change forever, for better or worse but considering the place she had come from she knew —- now — that her life could only have changed for the better. It was still the idea that it took her forty years to realize this that amused her the most, and it was the fact that it took forty years that made the whole ordeal seem so… Petty. She had spent her life in self-pity and doubt when in reality all she had to do was open her eyes to see all the good she had done. It was this feeling that was alien to her and so was the energy it brought her. This was what she had wanted all these years.

It had been here all along.

Her steps continued to carry her down the stairs and towards its end. She threw a glance over the floors and the roots that cracked through the floor every here and there. The flowers and the vines. The water and the streams that carried it. Kana could only imagine the grandeur of this place when it was still intact.

A voice called out in greeting the second she took her first step into the puddles at the end of the staircase and Kana couldn’t help but let out a small yet audible gasp in surprise. There was nothing that indicated danger. Kana calmed herself and nodded her head at the short, black-haired woman before she looked up at the woman standing in a staircase opposite her.

She seemed like a decent sort. Call it instinct.

… Or the force. Eitheror.

“Hello,” Kana smiled back with a wave of her hand. “I was just out and about, I hope I wasn’t intruding on anything.” The healer said and took another step through the abandoned temple. “I’m…” Her eyes set on the ground trying to debate whether or not she was supposed to be honest. “Kana Truden.” She said as her eyes reset themselves on the stranger before her. There was no point in lying. “Who are you?”