"Help is not always for those who cannot see,
but for those who have seen too much."
Ekul Selah found the marble floors smooth under his feet, but cold and forgiving. The sound of cloudcutters and starscrapers crumbling away and ploughing into the planet was enough to jar his teeth. The Jedi Temple on Coruscant was a place of solitude, peace and prosperity, but such days had finally dawned. The python of fear constricted itself around his heart as his stomach churned. He brushed past the maimed, mutilated and wounded Jedi that fled to safety - and their ultimate demise. An immense diversification of species that interlaced themselves into the stretching crowd that scarpered away from the ensuing fight at the temple steps.
Entering into the vestibule he was greeted with a most diabolic sight. The fallen who could not be carried away remained. Their robes cast asunder, deep wounds festered where the molten streak of a plasma blade had extinguished their life. The One Sith were ruthless, and horribly efficient. Ekul, now nearing his late sixties, had to reconcile himself from these atrocities. He repeated to himself, quietly, as to not stir the dragon that sought out the Jedi, weeding them out from whatever hole they could find themselves hiding in. "
There is no death, only the Force." It was the final mantra of the Jedi Code. He couldn't think of anything else to say. Nay, it was not time to think.
A slimed skinned nautolan hurtled past him, one of the few Jedi remaining on their feet unaided. In his hands was a large metallic pole, Ekul did not need to pry with the Force to feel the connection this creature had with the weapon. It was purposefully symbolic, a ying and yang. Jedi; protectors of peace. Lightsaber; taker of lives. For all their training, there was instances as these the taking of lives could not be avoided. He willed himself not to mutter that the Sith deserved it, even in the sight of the younglings that lay frozen in time, never again and forever unmoving. He was still a Jedi, and he owed the galaxy a duty. If that mean't his life, such was his
destiny.
He followed the Jedi, now far ahead, out of the mouth of the Jedi Temple and onto the steps where a fierce battle flowed. He watched as the nautolan burst into the fray, wielding a cerulean lightsaber pike with the deftness, flair and ingenuity unlike he had ever seen before. An expert of his craft. He moved without second thought for his own life and personal regard, upholding the deepest tenants of the Jedi philosophy. Duty before anything else. And their duty today was to spare others of the slaughter they would lay witness too.
An unnoticed trooper fired upon him. If not for the Force, Ekul would have been blasted there and then. His instincts kicked into gear. He found himself leaping aside as he relinquished himself to the cosmic energies. Allowing it to guide him. The marble steps beside his feet were reduced to a molten slag. He reached towards his belt and seized his lightsaber. Before the trooper, who was carefully lining up his shot, could fire again, Ekul activated the blade. With a fierce electronic growl, the energy shaft surged forth, as if eager to be free after all this time.
He let the Force wash him towards the trooper, an invisible cascade that carried him down the steps and in a long arc toward the floor. Ekul swung the blade once, then reversed the stroke, slashing and melting through the troopers armour. The soldiers body slumped to the ground in a meaty thud. Ekul rose his chin from the gnarled corpse, looking vacantly at the army that marched onto the temple. There was no hope. They were helpless. A flurry of attacks caught his eye as another Jedi went down in a howl of pain. Ekul quickly battered away a handful of blaster bolts that moved his way, but someone was pulling their attention.
Ekul observed in open awe as the nautolan moved through the horde, his body moving in two and three directions at once, joints flexing, unlimited by human vertebral restraints. Who he touched went down. And those who went down, stayed down. Ekul realised it was true for what they said about the double-bladed lightsabers, '
they can make enemies stampede over each other running for cover.' Each attack following into the next was as fluid and effortless as his own blinking. He cleaved a path through the Sith troops, he was making himself a target. Distracting the enemy from the Jedi that needed to retreat - lest they die.
The lightsaber pike twirled between the creatures aquatic fingers, slamming a disruptor bolt as though he were a baseball player. His pike short-circuited. The plasma vanished before the Jedi could even react. Ekul rushed to his defence, but it was too late. Three slugs slammed into the nautolan. One through his hip, another through his mid-section and a third grazed his shoulder. Fire burst to life, he ignited. And he shrieked. He let out an involuntary Force Bellow in pure agony. A deafening roar that washed out the noise of battle as the nautolan burned alive. Ekul couldn't help but sink to his knees and clasp his ears, pain erupted as his eardrum burst.
Through blurred vision he watched the nautolan. He had dropped his Lightsaber Pike, fleeing, flailing, towards the Temple in retreat. His running became sluggish footsteps, the fire was tearing through his flesh. It was taking a toll on him. It was killing him, slowly, ever so slowly and painfully. In a show of considerable skill, the Jedi utilised the Force to expel the flames. He staggered forward. Slugs tore through his chest once more, a single solitary quiet gasp for air could be heard. Then he fell. He slammed against the steps like a carcass slapping on the floor of a slaughter house. Three holes in his chest. He remained unmoving.
Awk!
Ekul Selah gasped aloud, then subsequently choked on thin air, producing a racking cough. He shot up from the uneven permacrete floor and out of his nightmare, drawing his robes near to him for warmth. The slums of Coruscant were as equally unforgiving and cold as the marble steps that day. "
It was just a dream," he murmured quietly to himself under a dimmed streetlamp. He tried to calm his racing heart, practicing the breathing techniques he had learnt at the Temple. The place he had called home since he was twelve, and at sixty, that reduced pile of rubble was still his home, but for now, these streets would be his home away from home.
He couldn't count the months he had been on the run, but it certainly had not been any longer than a year. He was grimy and unclean, finding himself incapable of accessing any form of washing, wether it would be his body or clothes. He did not mind this life on the streets, albeit a lonely one, he could always rely on the Force as his deepest ally - and friend. He rolled himself over, curling his knuckles on the thick, woollen fabric, resting his head gently back down on cardboard. He drifted off to sleep, reciting wisdom to himself as a lullaby;
"I wear my robe so that I am warm;
I carry my lightsaber that I am safe;
and I keep enough credits for my next meal,
so that I am not hungry.
If the Force wants me to have more,
it finds a way of letting me know."
