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Patchouli :
A bushy herb bearing small pale pink-white flowers. Their heavy scent is slightly sweet and intoxicating. It has been described as dark and musky, reminiscent of wet soil.
Patchouli is used in perfume, incense and alternative medicines.
Its meaning in the flower language is that of ‘passion’, the message it conveys ‘I am at your mercy.’
< > < > The crate is heavy but not incredibly so. Surely, it isn’t unwieldy enough that it should slip off the hover-sled and fall.
But it does.
Maybe it wasn’t properly secured. Maybe the hatch wasn’t fitted as tightly as it should have been.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
It falls and it breaks open and the contents spill all over the floor.In the controlled chaos of containing the items, so dangerous or valuable or both, it is a small thing to overlook.
Or is it?
It’s dark. Not even a Jedi is all-seeing. One of the Shadows studies the corridor uncertainly.“Something the matter?”“I thought- Forget it. Let’s get this secured, this shipment is giving me the creeps.” < > < > Master Ketan doesn’t see it until he almost steps on it. Strange, really. One would think it would have stood out more on the beige flooring. But then, it is an ungodly hour. His eyes aren’t what they once were.
He could have sworn nothing was there.
“Oh my, what are you doing here little one?” He bends his aging back and picks it up. A sting goes through his fingers, there and gone. The Jedi Master winces. “Did the younglings rub you against a rug? Poor thing.”It’s a little ugly. Nothing he can pinpoint straight away but it feels… wonky. The seams are straight enough, carefully done by hand in neat stitches. Shaped vaguely like a humanoid, its ruby red button eyes twinkle at him in the dim light. Cut from semi-precious stones, it looks like.They are the only features that truly stand out against the black cloth of the soft doll. It doesn’t even have legs, its torso ends in a bell-like stump, probably meant to be an imitation of a dress. It smells faintly of herbs and incense.The contrast between the effort put into it and the simplistic design points toward it being a present from a loving parent. “Hmmm, someone is missing you dearly, aren’t they? Let’s get you back where you belong.” < > < > The morning hours are unusually hectic, today. Crèche Master Norry-La barely has time to thank the Master coming by to drop off whatever her charges lost this time, much less inquire where he found it. By lunch she has all but forgotten.It goes into the communal box, as all toys do. If it indeed belongs to someone they will know to find it there.The doll stands out a bit against the mess of playthings. A dark spot on all the brighter, if muted, colors. Ever so often her attention will stray to it when she cleans up, a frown finding its way onto her face.
She is half sure she has never seen it before. Sometimes it almost feels as if it… shouldn’t be here.
But it’s silly to be so worked up over something that is just a thing in the end. Just a toy. Most younglings don’t even look at it, much less play with it.
And then there is Phanius.
She worries about him. The little Umbaran is a withdrawn child, shy. It doesn’t help that the bright halls of the crèche make him shy away and seek more shadowed corners, his eyes not yet used to so much light. Often, that sees him playing on his own.
Lately, he has taken a liking to the doll.
He’s not even truly playing with the thing, for all she can tell. Just propping it up next to whatever he is doing, talking to it. Showing it things as if it were… a friend. It makes Norry-La’s heart ache.But he’s young yet. He will find his place. If the toy can help him in the interim, who is she to interfere? < > < > The small, pale youngling curls up on his bed, hugging the black doll close. The rest of his crèche group is outside, playing in the gardens under the artificial sun. He doesn’t want to go. Sure, he’d like to go outside and have fun but- but- everything gets so blurry and his eyes hurt. Sometimes, when he looks at the lamps wrong he can’t see for a short while.The healers said it would get better. He just has to get used to it.Phanius isn’t sure he ever will. Nothing seems… solid, sometimes.He sniffles at the thought. ‘What if nothing is real?’ What if coming to the Jedi has all been a dream and he wakes up, any moment now? Where would he even be? What is real?
There is a soft tug somewhere on (in) his chest.
I aM. YOu aRe. wE Are.
Slowly, Phanius heart calms, his fears growing nebulous and hazy.
< > < > “These, my students,” Crèche Master Ondorra intones, his voice carrying to the stragglers of his group easily, as he gestures at the busts they are learning about today, “are the Lost Ten. Ten Jedi Masters, who left the Order voluntarily and sought their path elsewhere.”He pauses and not only for dramatic effect. This is one of the grimmest lessons his initiates will have to learn so young. “The most terrible of all their fates was without a doubt Master Phanius’. Blinded by the belief he was the only truly extant thing in the Galaxy he fell to the Dark Side and took up the name of Darth Ruin.”His solemn eyes wander over the small group of initiates close to their Padawan-hood. “Through his selfish actions the Sith rose once more and brought great destruction upon the people he once swore to protect. So to this day his bust reminds us…”In the second row, toward the back, a Togrutan youngling is listening with wide eyes, holding her favorite doll against her front so it can see too. Its eyes twinkle ruby-red. < > < > The first time Komari sees it it’s in the box. It always has been. The doll is one of those things about the crèche that is just there. The walls are beige and yellow, the windows are tall, Jenko is a bastard and the doll is in the box.But not always.She never sees anyone take it out but sometimes it is… elsewhere. On the windowsill, overlooking the garden. Sitting against the wall of the playroom, staring vacantly at nothing.Komari doesn’t know why she likes it so much. She tries not to show it, the other kids are teasing her enough as it is, for how attached she is to so many things but… It’s not that ugly, or that boring.It’s kind of neat, really. Most of their toys are mass produced. This one, it isn’t. Someone made it. Someone put their time and effort into a thing made with care and a part of her loves that.She can’t help but pick it up, trace the stitching and poke the red buttons that are made of real stone, not synthetic. It always smells of herbs and incense, no matter how often it goes to the washing room.She wishes someone had loved her enough to make something like this for her.
Would anyone, ever?
What a stupid thing to think. Love is attachment and attachment is dangerous. She should- she should let it go. This desire.Komari doesn’t really want to though. It’s not a very Jedi-like thing to think but she thinks she would fight for it. If she had to.
She’s pretty sure the doll agrees with her, though. She can almost hear it, whispering soothing encouragement to her.
< > < >
He makes her leave it behind.
It almost kills Komari, to put it back. She’s had it so long, sneaked it out when no one was looking until it was with her always, until she had dared take it with her, even, when she was picked by Master Dooku to become his padawan.He finds it when he inspects her room and gives her such a look of cool disappointment she wilts inside.There is a lecture that follows, one about attachment and outgrowing childish impulses. Komari doesn’t remember much of it, later.
She remembers putting the doll back into the box, crying like she is a youngling again. Its stone eyes glitter as if it is crying too.
But Yan is her Master now. She has to do as he says. He picked her and she loves him, loves him, loves him.
She’d do anything to make him proud.
< > < >
“How did I not see?”In all the time he had known his student Yoda hadn’t ever heard him sound so choked. Here, in the privacy of his old Master’s quarters, Yan Dooku is a man broken all but beyond repair.There is little comfort Yoda can give him, in the face of such loss. No Master should outlive their student and there is not even a body for Yan to put upon a pyre.He couldn’t have known how deep his padawan’s obsession ran. That Komari would throw herself at the Bando Gora, an action beyond rhyme or reason, just to prove herself worthy.No one had seen it but that wouldn’t lighten the burden of the one who had known her better than anyone else.The old Grandmaster bows his head and busies himself with the tea tray, giving his proud student the chance to grieve in peace. < > < > It’s nothing special, at first glance.Xanatos feels a kinship with the toy that is a little strange but not bad. As if it understands him.He has a hard time fitting into the crèche. He always feels like he is a bit out of place, that he isn’t doing everything quite right.People don’t really notice. They like him. He thinks they like him, at least.
In the back of his mind, doubt gnaws at him.
He tries hard. To be good, to be better at everything. To be perfect. He… he wants a place to belong to and he doesn’t feel it’s his yet, that he can stay and not- not-
He barely remembers his family but he knows they gave him away.
Sometimes he worries he will never feel like he belongs anywhere.
The doll understands. It keeps him company when he can’t stand to be around other people because it’s so much effort.
It sits with him, quiet and content to be there, no matter who he is or what he does.
It tells him, yOU aRe pERfecT.
Whenever Xanatos is around it, the knots in his stomach loosen a little. It doesn’t matter if Qui-Gon really does take him as a padawan or not, not here, when there is someone who will be his friend no matter what.
Forever.
< > < > He almost puts it in his pack when he prepares for his mission on Telos. Almost.
Xanatos stole it out of the crèche ages ago. It’s the only thing he has ever truly hidden from his Master.
It’s his. His friend. He wants to share it with no one at all.
It doesn’t mind. It doesn’t want anything or anyone as long as it has him.
He can talk to no one else about his fears, about how much he wants for Qui-Gon to be proud of him. A Jedi doesn’t fear. He doesn’t want.And Xanatos wants so much. He wants so deeply it burns him sometimes.
When that happens, when he doesn’t know what to do with himself, feels like he will fly apart at the seams, there is a tug. Just a small pull and everything gets… better.
He feels weak, after, and sleepy but that’s fine.
Everything’s FInE.
In the end, however, he doesn’t take it to his homeworld. It’s a mission and it is a bit childish to drag your toys everywhere when you are already sixteen.
When he doesn’t come back Qui-Gon gives it away, with all the other things he can no longer stand to look at.
It’s almost as if he doesn’t notice it’s there at all.
< > < > Anakin hates the crèche. It’s full of children that look at him funny, it’s cold and it’s so boring. He’s not a little kid anymore.Only he is. Kind of. Some of the babies are better at the Jedi stuff he’s supposed to learn. It’s frustrating, especially because no one will let him do stuff he is good at. He’s supposed to ‘reach an even keel’ or something. Balance. Jedi bantha poodoo.
Ugh.
He misses his mother. He misses her so much. She’s still on Tatooine, still a slave, and it’s all he can do to push that away and keep moving because if he stops he’ll… he doesn’t know what he’ll do.Cry, probably.There’s so much water here but he still can’t bring himself to waste it like that. Don’t cry. Don’t cry, don’t, don’t, don’t.
It was one of the first things he ever learned.
His mother, shushing him desperately, begging without begging for him to stop crying because she can’t afford to give him more than his usual water ration. There’s nothing left, there won’t be anything at all until the day after tomorrow.
Wasting water gets you dead.So Anakin does the next best thing. When they push he pushes back, as hard and as much as he can, as long as he can and he doesn’t stop until he can’t anymore.Then he finds the corners where no one else goes. There’s always some. No one will find him, if he doesn’t want to. That’s… nice. It’s nice.One of those corners is a really old playroom. Or maybe it’s storage now. There’s all sorts of junk packed away, threadbare clothes, old furniture, toys. Everything’s so dusty he keeps sneezing but no one’s caught him yet.Anakin hasn’t given up hope that there are some mechanical toys in there, or maybe a broken droid, when he finds the doll.He doesn’t mean to pick it up. He just… does. After a little while he sets it to the side carefully and digs around a bit more.
It feels like someone is watching him. Like he isn’t alone anymore.
But there’s no one here. Not really. He glances at the doll out of the corner of his eye. It’s just a thing. Things can’t watch-
The shadows are alive. No- They’re not, it’s so big it looks that way, hulking and pitch-black. A solid, waver-y mass, bubbling over the carpeting and leaving steaming smears behind.
Anakin whirls around, heart thundering in his chest. The storage room is dimly lit, dust motes floating lazily through the air. Behind him sits the doll, worn black cloth and dull red button-eyes. It’s a doll. It’s just a doll.He goes back to his treasure hunt, with slow deliberate movements. Picks up a ball made up of colourful squares you can spin around and pokes it a bit.Carefully, he glances at the-
monster. It’s massive. It towers over him and fills the whole room.
It hurts his head to look at it.
‘Askance’ his mother had always called it. Sometimes staring something in the face didn’t show you the truth. ‘You need to find the in-between.’ Anakin is pretty sure she hadn’t meant meant it, those had been stories and such but… If Mom could see this- He really, really doesn’t want her to, though.
There are spindly hand-things sticking out of it, stick-thin arms that end in impossibly large claws. He can’t tell how it holds them up, the arms don’t look strong enough.
Then again it doesn’t seem to have muscles. Most of it is… ooze.
Anakin swallows, hard. Maybe it doesn’t know he can see it. Maybe- maybe-The neck is thin too, so very thin he’s half sure it will snap any second under the weight of the head. It reminds him of a speeder helmet. The back of it is pointy, the chin too and… there's nothing in between. No face, just smooth blackness. He thinks there might be a mouth hidden in the chin part. It's... dripping.The creature is the most terrifying thing he’s ever seen, or felt. Now that he’s paying attention to it, it’s right there, hanging in the Force like a Sarlacc. Huge and ancient. Hungry.
And it sees him looking back.
The darkness grows more oppressive as it… crawls… closer. Anakin stands there, frozen. ‘Don’t make any sudden moves. Don’t. Things attack when you move fast.’He’s scared. He doesn’t think he has ever been so scared before. He is a child again, the baby he always says he isn’t and all he wants is his mother. Obi-Wan. Padme. Someone.It’s presence warbles at the edge of his, as if it’s reaching for him with his spindly-claw-hands. It’s-
cuRious.
It has been here… loNg. It’s… lONelY.
Anakin feels something inside of him cracking, a little, because he’s lonely too.
He can hear it now. It sounds nothing like a humanoid and like every child he has ever met at the same time.
WiLL You bE My FRieND?
< > < >
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Yon’Sar watches his newest apprentice with dark, thoughtful eyes. She’s so young. Fife is barely five. All his other apprentices had come to him as teenagers, at least. But there is no denying the pull.Even if she wasn’t so obviously meant for him, he wouldn't abandon her. Where would she go? The little lethan Twi’Lek girl has no one left but him. Which leads him back to the problem at hand.Her temper is growing increasingly unstable.The loss of her old life, of her parents, so much uncertainty in someone so young… her emotions whip into a frenzy at the slightest provocation.Her talent in the Dark Side is great. She will be a magnificent Sith.Unless she loses her mind to her own talent first.She’s sleeping now, curled into a ball. The only way she gets any rest is when he is there to watch over her. It’s running them both into the ground.‘I can’t keep going like this.’Yon knows what it is his student requires. There’s really nothing else, for someone of her strength and with her burdens, not unless he is ready to allow someone to meddle with her mind and he is not.Who would he even go to for that? Some Jedi mindhealer that would take one look at her feelings and lock it all away? No. To be whole she has to have them and to be Sith she has to face them, sooner or later.But, in the meantime, she can have allies. Friends. Someone who will help her, when he can’t. < > < > The box her Master hands Fife is black, carved over and over in pretty designs. It’s made of real wood. If she wasn’t so tired she’d be excited.Being happy is growing harder and harder. She’s so angry all the time and she feels so helpless, which only makes her more angry. So she screams and hits things until her knuckles bleed and it’s never enough until it runs out and then Fife just feels… hollow. And sorry. So sorry, for whatever she broke and she can’t fix any of it.Master Sar has been patient with her. He lets her reach for his presence in the Force and wraps it around her until nothing can touch her anymore but Fife can see how tired he is. There are dark shadows under his eyes. She’s not sure when he last slept.She needs him to watch her dreams and she needs him when she is awake. He's always there.But he said they were getting help, that the gift would make things better.He had warned her, too.
I need you to listen very closely now, Fife. Okay?
Whatever it looks like, a worry-doll is not a toy. It’s a companion. It is smart enough to help you and smart enough to get hurt if you’re cruel to it. If you are a good friend it will never leave you.
He looked very serious. Now that she is holding the box, feeling for it in the Force she can understand it better. It feels… big. Bigger on the inside.
It’s sleeping right now. Only you can decide if you want to wake it.
Fife isn’t sure. It’s a big responsibility, her mother once said, to take care of someone else, even a pet. This isn’t a pet.She swallows at the memory, at the pain it brings.
A worry-doll eats worries, little Fife. It will nibble at all the power your feelings generate that you can’t control yet and make it more bearable. You will see.
There had been more, complicated stuff about how the feelings she gave it to care for were a gift and she’d have to ask for them the right way, if she didn't want to share them anymore. How they’d have to put it back to sleep if she ever decided she wanted to stop being its friend. That saying goodbye was important.She can't remember all of it but that's alright. Master Sar will help her. She isn’t alone. She never has to be alone again, if she doesn’t want to.Carefully, Fife slides the box open. The smell of herbs and incense makes her wrinkle her nose. There, on a bed of carefully plaited strands of dark hair rests a black doll. It’s a simple thing, obviously old. An heirloom.Fife had known that. Still it makes tears well up in her eyes. Master Sar sometimes says his students are all the children he will ever have but this makes it more real. She still has someone to be her family. It hurts, it makes her miss her parents so much. It makes her feel guilty, that she wants it so badly.
The red stone eyes of the doll start to glow faintly, when she picks it up. Fife studies it, breathless and not-quite-scared.
It looks back.
“H-hello? I’m Fife.”For an endless moment nothing happens. What if nothing does? What if it doesn’t like her? What if-
It reaches for her, in the Force, its touch tickly and curious.
HeLLo FifE. I aM PaTChoULi.
WiLL You bE My FRieND?