AKA, the Force-Sensitive-teenager-that-didn't-go-to-the-Jedi-I wrote-flash-fic-of-on-someone-else's-post-and-kept-going-Whoops-AU
Part 1
Part 2
---
The galaxy has had many brilliant philosophers, among them is Platocca, the Wookiee scholar wrote an allegory of prisoners trapped in a cave, shown shadows of objects, people and animals are projected onto the wall by their captors, as a metaphor for the limits of the senses, and how the shadow of a Rancor is not the same thing as a Rancor itself.
-
Her disappearance does not go unnoticed- it’s hard to miss when the chateau of a locally prominent political family explodes hard enough to cause a major power outage and the body of their ‘reclusive’ daughter is nowhere to be found. A search is organized, and the scent-akks trace her footsteps out of the house and into the desert but lose the trail at the river, like how a vulpire evades the hunt.
The search expands- her holo is circulated on the local planetary networks, The family is interviewed and they, tearful, plead for her safe return. Her little sister’s tears and begging that it won’t Lifeday without her play particularly well. It gets picked up by the regional channels and soon there is a galaxy wide search for the Missing Girl.
Everyone loves to be a Hero.
The desert is searched by police flyover and volunteer foot teams. Hundreds scour the bare rocks for clues. Someone treks a full hundred miles into the labyrinthine canyons in search of her.
Everyone loves a Mystery.
Interviews are conducted with the family, with her mentors, with her caretakers and doctors. People try to reconstruct the final day before she vanished, someone publishes her school essays and more photos are found- of a shy child, cringing in the back of the Science Bowl team, or trying to hide behind a tree in a family reunion photo.
Everyone loves a scandal.
Ten is not that young an age to enter politics in the Galaxy far, far away, especially not for the now-heir to a prominent local political family and the little sister’s announcement that she’s running for the local civic council wouldn’t be terribly noteworthy, save that it’s done at a rally to raise funds for missing children all over the planet in her missing sister’s memory. By that afternoon, medical records are leaked- seven major psychiatric institutions in under five years, involuntary commitments, ‘experimental’ treatments for an ‘undiagnosed’ disorder- she hurt her siblings, it’s said, she was mentally deficient and home alone- abandoned, when the home “mysteriously” exploded and she vanished without a trace.
Tongues wag, and eventually agree that, best case scenario, it’s a family capitalizing on the tragedy to further their political ambitions
But best case scenarios are rare in the Galaxy Far, Far away, and the idea that a family might try to get rid of a troublesome daughter before launching the career of another isn’t even a terribly implausible scenario.
Regardless of the situation, the Sister continues to poll well.
Or, perhaps, because of it.
Everyone loves to think they’re in on a conspiracy, and if this family is ruthless enough to kill a daughter, well, imagine what they’ll do to the opposition?
-
She first becomes aware of all this at a funeral.
She had gone back to the oxbow to bathe- having worked out podes that are durable enough for the desert and dexterous enough for her needs, and a steady, efficient gait to traverse the vastness of her new home, she was now experimenting with skin, and while the latest thick midnight-violet mammalian hide performed admirably in terms of thermal regulation and protection against the spines every plant and half the animals here had, it had a tendency to get oily and she thought a nice roll in the sand and soak might be in order.
Instead, the far side of the oxbow was crowded with people, all dressed in mourning white and carrying candles. A pyre was set up on the far bank, and a small, closed coffin sat atop it.
Oh hell. A child’s funeral. Who died? Not one of my classmates? or- no, no there are Sis and The Baby, thank fuck. Mom and Dad too. Front row. Hell of a crowd too. And reporters? Yeah, those are definitely holocorders, for the news. She squinted at the logos on the vans parked just up from the riverbank, having to switch spectra and focal distance a few times before the characters became clear. Big networks! We don’t have anyone that famous, do we? Which unfortunate bastard are you all the way out here for?
She stalked closer, using the harsh angle of the setting sun as cover, long ears cocked to listen. Voices sang monotonously through the traditional funeral dirge, her mother blotting at her cheek with a handkerchief. As the assembled tried and largely failed to reach the final note, The local temple priest lowered the funeral torch, lit the pyre, arthritically climbed both stairs to the podium, and tapped the mic.
“Blessings upon us all, on this sad occasion.” He bowed his head. “We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of one who was taken from us too soon.” he gestured to the holo broadcast in front of the pyre. She had to shuffle through the underbrush, until she could make out the flickering image against the flame. A girl, about her age, in fancy dress, grimacing as politely as she could.
Poor thing. Looks wretched even in the best holo her family could find. Would we have been friends, this girl and I? Maybe I knew her-
She squinted at the holo, something about it familiar- Gods, they’d even had the same awful bob haircut and itchy, itchy tule dress she’d been subjected to-
Wait.Is. Is that ME?
“She struggled in life, but was beloved by all who knew her-”
What.
“-She was a champion member of the Science Bowl Team-”
They kicked me off the team for ‘cheating’! It wasn’t my fault I knew the questions before they were asked!
“-and her artworks still adorn the walls of our school.”
WHERE? I got told that they were ‘Too Scary’ and ‘Not School Appropriate’!
“She was always unparalleled in character- you could not find a more, sometimes brutally, honest person, and she clung unfailingly to her personal ethics.”
Oh? Oh, that’s what we’re calling it? Because last month in front of the shrinks you called me ‘tactless and prone to blurting things out’ and said I ‘rigidly conformed to arbitrary standards to the point of insanity’! She seethed, a low rumble of disgust.
“We are all aware of her unfortunate medical history-”
Oh. Oh no.
“-but we can take some solace in the fact that she does not suffer anymore.”
Her mother took this chance to bawl theatrically.
There are no words in all the tongues of the galaxy-
“While ultimately unsuccessful, the efforts to find her- hundreds, if not thousands of volunteer search parties, all across the galaxy as this tragedy has brought us all together in ways I no longer thought possible. She is now one with the Nature she loved so much, and at peace. May this pyre symbolize the light she briefly brought into our lives, and let us reflect on our memories of her.”
The Priest stepped back and the line of mourners stepped forward- classmates, muttering about brief conversations in the hall, except a Longtime Bully, who gushed enthusiastically about how funny she was, with her weird turns of phrase and the way she-
She almost retched at the way her Bully imitated the way her hands would twitch when she was frightened, giggling.
Then her mother stepped up.
“We. We knew She was special, from the very day she was born-”
YEAH YOU SURE FUCKIN’ DID, DIDN’T YOU? She seethed, claws digging into the sand and tail thrashing. WAITING AT THE DOOR FOR ME, YOU SAID. BUT NO- NOT, YOU KNEW HOW TO RAISE ME BEST, YOU LOVED ME TOO MUCH TO GIVE ME AWAY, YOU SAID-
She crumpled, flattening against the ground and sobbing, strained hisses as her mother carried on, trying to hold back the tide of emotion before the Pyre exploded or something. She stared at the hologram instead. The girl depicted is a stranger- no really when the hell did Mom even TAKE that?? Fucking. Dress. When was the last time I even wore that thing? Gods, last Lifeday? No, I was back inside for that. It was… Really? Really? You chose a picture two years out of date?
She remembered the dress well. An awful thing made of tulle that didn’t itch so much as actually shred her skin where it wasn’t dangerously compressing her lungs and intestines. She’d been ‘allowed’ home for the holiday, a probation for Good Behavior and the muscles around her mouths ached at the memory of the practiced smile she held for weeks, lest her Mother change her mind about letting her attend the party. She’d made it a full three months before her hand slipped doing the dishes and even though the cut on her hand was small it was just one thing too many and the smile cracked and she ended up throwing the offending knife across the kitchen in a panic.
She looked down at her ‘hand’ now, the scar still there despite the changes. Some landmarks were stubborn like that- she still had the freckles and that one mole, and the scar from attempting to ride a swoop and crashing into the shrubbery instead. Others vanished from her body and her memory without a trace with the shape-change.
…Not that a more current image would really be more accurate but fucking really? That’s the one you picked? I guess I should be glad you miss me at all, but-
Her tail thrashes, chewing on this emotion and the air around her. Her mother is bent over the podium, sobbing. Her grief seems genuine, really. These are ugly, snotty sobs and the air around her cracks and splinters like bone in the Force.
And yet.
…DID she have more current holos of me? I was usually the one holding the camera, but. No, not from last Lifeday, I was inside. Not from Sis’ birthday, I was in the kitchen all day. Not on the Baby’s nameday either, all the holos are from inside that packed fire hazard of a temple and i refused to go in. Unless she took something between when my last camp ended and before they left for the mountains on the ‘normal vacation, for once’...
That really is the last Holo you have of me isn’t it?
And it’s not even me, just your favorite role I played.
Her father pulls her mother away from the podium, and she latches onto The Baby, cradling him close. The Priest shambles up to the podium again, and starts the final prayers. For peace, for a happy afterlife. The mourners got up and filed by the pyre, setting their candles around it before shuffling past the family, offering their condolences.
They lay hands upon her parents, and shake the hand of her sister, wishing her luck with her campaign.
She watched them file by, shrinking and retreating back, cowering in- in what? Fear? Anger? Grief? Disgust? She clawed at her face, unable to run, unable to stay.
Eventually, the neighbors collect Sis and The Baby, and her parents stay, waiting with the priest for the pyre to blow out, as per tradition. Her father stares off into the distance, mother clutched to his side.
“You. You’ve done this before, right?” he eventually stammers, turning to the priest.
“Fifty years of funerals.” the priest nods.
“And. And children?” He asks.
“Some of them, yes.” the priest sighed. “Children are always the hardest.”
Her father stared into the flames.
“Is. Is it wrong to feel… Relieved?”
Her mother wails again.
“I, I just… I keep thinking I hear her, around the house or out in the yard and I keep thinking she’s not really dead but- but it’s dread. I dread having to be on guard all the time or take her to another doctor or suffer another tantrum. I- I loved her, like any parent would but- but-”
“- We couldn’t live with her.” Her mother sighed. “Not really.“
The priest nodded slowly. “It’s not uncommon to feel relieved that our loved ones are no longer suffering. Or to feel some relief from being free of burden of care, even as we mourn.” he tried, over-optimistically.
“It’s not something you say to a child but. Oh gods. Oh gods what a nightmare.” Her mother sobbed.
“Her spirit may yet be with us!” the Priest pleaded.
“Body and Spirit, Holy Father.”
They all looked up.
She stood on the sandy bank of the river, the thin nervous girl from earlier this summer. She held her arms out, silently asking for a hug.
Her father shrieked, and stepped back, her mother cowering behind him. The priest held his own arms up defensively.
Ah. So that’s how it is.
“Relieved? That’s how you feel? The nightmare is over?” Voice high and tight as she grimaced at them, smiling like a primate baring its teeth before an eye-gouging, face-eating assault. “You know what? I can’t blame you. I have to say, this last month? I’ve been pretty relieved too. No white-knucke social events. No more being abandoned so Sis and The Baby can grow up ‘normal’. No more ‘treatments’- you know the last one involved electrodes, right? Of course you did. You signed the wavier!”
Her mother opened her mouth, but choked on whatever it was she was going to say.
“But the biggest thing? No more pretending. No more playing the sweet, stupid girl for you to pity and be pitied for. No more pretending I’m the crazy one here. No more being something I’m not.” She grinned, and began to change again, skin darkening to midnight again, stretching her spine out until she tipped forward, forelegs splashing in the water and making them jump. She stretched to the height and shape that felt comfortable, A deeper shadow of limbs and muscle and teeth and too many eyes, tapetum lucidum glittering above them in the last of the Pyre-light.
Her mother gagged, her father stared, frozen except for the tears, and the priest crumpled back in revulsion.
“I really can’t blame you.” She rumbled, stereophonic now. “-But I won’t let you delude yourselves. I might be free of you, but you’ll never be free of what you did to me.” She grinned mouths full of teeth at them, before turning and walking into he river, vanishing below the surface with a flick of her tail.
Her mother’s screams echoed in faintly through the water as she made her way downriver. There was a spaceport there, and nothing for her here.
---
Now, Platocca rather famously got in a brawl with another Philosopher named Ogg who posited that while the shadow of the thing is not the thing itself, if there's a moving shadow shaped like a Rancor, it's being cast by SOMETHING, and there are better things to do than standing around philosophizing about it. Like finding out what's casting the shadow from a safe distance, on account of the downright-likely chance that the thing casting the Rancor-shaped shadow is, in fact, a Rancor. You Pedantic Twit.
-
It doesn’t take long for the carrion beasts to come around.
The scandal embroils the galaxy, and the gruesome details of the child’s history are the gossip of the day.
Some can sniff between the lines, and take notice- if it was any of the more common ailments, something would have worked by now. The details of the ‘explosion’ hit the insurance market- no point of ignition- indeed, no fire at all, like someone had swung a wrecking ball out from inside the home in all directions at once. And they dig a little bit and compare her birth date to the public logs of Jedi deployments and make an educated guess or five.
The only vehicle available for rent was an ugly yellow cargo vehicle, but a make and model with an extremely reliable engine and good mileage, which he decided was a decent tradeoff for its abhorrent color. Alas, to rent! He's already in hot water with the Bounty Hunter’s Guild for ‘retroactively purchasing’ a vehicle the last time he was chasing a mark and while the work was undignified, being a Sith didn’t pay like it used to.
He can hear her miles before he sees her. A low, rumbling thrum in the force, sort of crunchy and guttural, but not unpleasant. He stops the speeder in the blazing white light of late afternoon and cocks his montrals, the physical sensation helping him mentally triangulate the noise. It’s constant, steady drone, like she’s meditating. Or asleep. Either way, a sensible thing to be doing in this disgusting heat. Maybe she does have promise.
The bounty hunter’s guild membership is a convenient source of income, but more than that, it’s an excuse to stick his nose into whatever business the Force demands. Need to get into a secure building? It’s fine to put his boot through a window, he’s after a mark! Need to make some dubious contacts to keep himself appraised of the movements of his fellow force-users? People are much more willing to wag tongues about criminal gossip for some coin than snoop on the Sith, but the relevant details are the same.
And now, when he was trekking into the desert after a teenager- he’s just doing some public service, and certainly not looking for an enraged force-user to take as an apprentice! Besides, if she wasn’t up to snuff, he could always turn her in for the money.
He drives on deeper into the thrum, and eventually spots her location- a grove of massive cacti in a small, depressed ditch. If there is water anywhere out here, its in there. Honestly, did nobody know how to conduct a search these days?
About 100 feet front he grove, he stops, and listens. The thrum is much louder now, but he can’t pick out a specific point of origin inside the grove, which is… peculiar. He hopped down and instantly, the thrum ceased.
“Oh, so you do have some wits about you!” he laughed, strolling closer, hands up and saber tucked behind him, hidden by his coat. “Hey, hey- no reason to panic, I’m just a… well, you and I- we’d be kin, after a fashion.”
No response. No scuttling through the underbrush, no tension from nerves. Cool as a cumcuber fruit, watching him.
“Well, maybe not Kin. I’ve heard all about the bastards that you got stuck with for a family. Most of the galaxy has now!” He shrugged, stepping into the shade of the outermost cacti and squinting into the grove. “They didn’t understand, did they? The connection, the POWER that flows through you- it scared them! And honestly, I can’t blame them, if half of what I’ve read about how you blew up a house is true, why, you’d give some of the elders of my sect a run for their money.”
He can feel her gaze on him, taking in every minute movement. No particular direction, almost as though she were circling him. Good, good! She wouldn’t have lasted long if she was completely without talent, of course. Still, let her circle. Let her come to me.
“My parents never understood either.” He sighed, strolling deeper into the grove. “Always insisting that I was breaking things on purpose, that I was being cruel by telling the truth- but why shouldn’t I? They always said ‘Honesty Is The Best Policy’!” He laughed.
“But my Master? He understood. He understood how big and cruel the galaxy can be, especially for people like us. And it’s not wrong for us to defend ourselves! I’ve got just as much right to exist as a vrelt or a tooka! They can’t make people understand growling, so it’s not wrong for them to bite! So what if I had to resort to force when they couldn’t be made to understand?” He laughed, stopping near the center of the grove. It wasn’t that easy to hide in- the cacti didn’t branch much, and the scub wasn’t that dense. She has to be using the shadows, or keeping her nerve to stay perfectly still and pass herself off as a rock.
“..I suppose it’s fair for you to be cautious.” he nodded, reaching into the pockets of his coat. “I mean, the galaxy is full of hucksters and con-artists that think they know what’s best. I won’t pretend that I do, but I know what it’s like to suffer for having a connection like we do. And well, like how I was taken in, I should return the favor to those in need.” He pulled out a bottle of clean water- still cold even!- and a protein bar.
“Here, a token of my goodwill!” he said, tossing them into the scrub. “I’ll be in the speeder when you’re ready to talk.” he waved, strolling back towards the rental.
“...You have The Force too?” She asked.
He stopped, and couldn’t help grinning a bit. He squinted at where he thought the sound had come from, but only found a plain cactus, and no sign of the frail little girl from the posters.
“That’s right!” He nodded. “That’s how I knew where to find you- belongs like us, we’re all connected.” He explained, tapping his forehead and sitting down on the ground, lekku dragging a bit on the dirt. The circling sensation was back, but he definitely had her interest now. He expanded his perceptions- ah, there it was- she wouldn’t know how to shield yet, of course and he could feel the head-tilting sensation of confusion.
“...Do some people have more Force than others?” she asked, on his other side now.
“Yep!” He laughed. “Good trick, throwing your voice like that! But yes, there’s a huge variation in the capacity people like us have in the force. Don’t worry- it took me years of training to get like this, but with practice-”
A sharp chortle of amusement rang through the grove.
“...What’s so funny?” He asked.
“Years Of Training, you say?” She snickered, and he felt the scales on the back of his neck prickle. He could feel her, close, and moving now, stalking and coiling like a carnivore, but he still didn’t know WHERE-
He was suddenly struck with a vision of himself- sitting, lanky and small, laughably small from her perspective. All the weapons on his person were highlighted, including a dark red throb of the Kyber Crystal in his saber, along with the ache in his back and knees, and the tinnitus in his left montral and his name and his master’s name and- and-
“SHIT!” he snarled, instantly on his feet and glaring up at the tops of the Cacti, lightsaber thrumming in his hand. “Rude little bitch, aren’t you? Sneaking into people’s heads without their permission!” he scolded.
Another amused chuckle. “Better a bitch than a braggart.” she gave the impression of a shrug. “Because I know exactly where and what you are, but you-”
He felt something around his ankles. Midnight violet tendrils, like stalks of mycelium sprouted from the ground and wrapped around his legs. He flipped the saber around in his hand, plunging it into the ground-
“-Don’t even know where to look.” She finished and suddenly the cacti all fell inwards on top of him, as the tendrils yanked down, and he was pulled under the sand, choking and flailing.
He could see her now and-
Oh.
Oh FORCE.
She felt like she’d been all around him because she HAD. She was the cacti and the root system that spanned the grove and dug deep into the underground river system, and hell, even the river itself. Any resemblance to a humanoid form was gone, she was now a companion shadow to the environment around her, a branching form more like a plant or subterranean fungus than anything else.
You were right of course, to head to the only source of water. She conceded, and he felt his skull figuratively pop open like a pocket filing wallet, and the midnight tendrils rifle through his memories with a vague disinterest. But you didn’t know that most of a river is underground, did you? I don’t think any rational search party would have guessed how I’ve been traveling, really-
So, a Sith with a day job? That’s… He felt the mycelium of her body wince in the soil around him as he began to choke on the sand. Pretty embarrassing, actually. But, you’re right, money makes the galaxy go ‘round… memories of The Guild application process, how he’d modified his ID card, His Master back on Korriban, the disciplines of the order, assembling his lightsaber-
His lightsaber!
He swung through the dirt and she flinched away from the blade.
“Well, if you’re going to be like that, I’m going to leave.” she laughed, a mouth forming and unforming from the mycelium ad hoc, and she withdrew from around him. He clawed furiously, reaching up with the force, pulling himself awkwardly up out of the soil, spitting and howling curses as he tried to untangle himself from the roots and the pile of toppled cacti over him-
“So long, and thanks for all the snacks!” She called and he turned-
…to see the yellow rental speeder flooring it into the distance.
He patted his coat and realized that the speeder keys, his wallet, and lightsaber were all missing.
Oh.
Oh fuck.
She was too far to reach now, but he could still feel the crystal in his lightsaber, calling out to them. It’s fine, all I have to do was trust in the force and follow the crystal- She doesn’t know what its capable of-
-
She set cruise control at just under the speed that made the cheap speeder shudder like it was about to fall apart, and leaned back in the driver’s seat, taking a swig from the water bottle and unscrewed the bottom of the lightsaber.
It was a simple enough device really- a small rechargeable battery that fed energy into the crystal, which was focused through a series of lenses and a magnetic field to create a looping blade of plasma. Basically a more refined version of a Plasma Chainsaw, with a magic rock for a laser.
The magic rock pulsed.
She blinked at it.
It was a pretty thing, the color of really expensive rubies or fresh blood, and sparkled more than either. Not with sunlight. With… Potential.
There was a lot of power in her, and this would let her focus it, to carve the world around her as she saw fit, to conquer all that tormented her- Visions danced, of her on a throne, the dismembered bodies of the doctors and orderlies and her mother at her feet-
“Nah.” She laughed, tossing it over her shoulder and out of the speeder. “I don’t want conquest or to cut throats or whatever.”
“I mean, I do.” She admitted. “I absolutely did fantasize about killing her, more than a few times, just to shut her up. But that’d just leave Sis and The Baby without a parent that genuinely cares for them, and they never did a thing to me.” She shrugged. “It’s a nice fantasy, but it’s not what I want.”
Then what? The natural question followed. I really do have unlimited potential. What Do I Want?
She stared at the shimmering horizon in silence for a while, not so much thinking as listening.
“I want.” She started and paused. “I want to be happy.”
“It’s been a relief, to be away from all the doctors and eggshells, and to be the shapes I want.” She nodded. “But that’s not quite the same as happy.”
“It’s boring too.” She added. “Cacti are all fine and good, but hardly good conversationalists. I want-”
“I’m lonely. And sad, and scared about a lot of stuff.” She admitted, and the truth sat uncomfortably on her breast, but it was better than where it had been sitting inside her, aching, before.
“I want a friend.”
She paused, having picked up a thread in the force. A thin one, feeling like only the finest spun fiber, barely tying her to-
She saw the Apprentice from the documentary again, babbling excitedly about learning about how to conduct diplomacy and the the ins and outs of negotiation, and all the people she was going to meet, and the places she’d see and-
“She looks like she’d be fun to talk with.” She mused.
----
Philosopher Ogg got thrown through a window for arguing with Platocca, but was really the ultimate winner because centuries later, when an excitable and somewhat high-strung Jedi Apprentice got up from her afternoon meditations and saw her shadow finish stretching a full two seconds after she did, she did not write it off as a trick of the light or still being groggy from a meditation session that had accidentally turned into an unplanned nap.
She also, in a demonstration of what an early start learning self-control in an emotionally supportive environment could do for someone, did not immediately panic.
“Alright.” She said, watching her shadow where it stood obediently against the wall in the reflection of the window. “Next we have Saber Practice, and then Rhetoric and then it’s dinner,” She listed off to nobody in particular. The ‘Royal’ We’ they used to call it. Very handy when you couldn’t specify exactly who or what you were talking to.
She walked down the hall, watching her shadow in reflections and when it skipped ahead of her as she turned down the halls, keeping a close eye on when it actually met up with her feet as she walked. It was close, within the margin of error between the complex shadows cast by the architecture of the temple and the shadows of other Jedi but…
When she finally stopped at her place in the lineup to do katas, she could swear she heard herself take another step.
“You seem distracted today, young one.” The saber master frowned as she missed her thrust for the third time that day.
“I- yes, sorry master.” she bowed her head. “It’s going to sound bizarre, but- I don’t know. Does my shadow look weird?”
The master stared at her blankly for a second, then turned his attention to her shadow, which lay on the floor beside her in the expected fashion.
“...No.” He spoke slowly, running his chin with concern. “But that’s my perspective. How does it look to you?”
“Like it’s- lagging? Not quite doing what I am- I stretch, but it stretches for longer. I walk, and it does too, but with a different gait. It’s not much but- I suppose it could be a problem with my peripheral vision? I have been having a lot of migraines lately.”
“Hm.” He nodded. “Well. I do not see any evidence of your shadow behaving in any abnormal way, but you should tell your master and perhaps make an appointment with the ophthalmologist. I promise to tell you if I do see anything out of the ordinary, though.” He smiled gently.
“Thank you master.” She nodded, shoulders drooping a bit. It was, most likely, a trick of the light or her eyes, but it was nice to have an additional perspective.
Her next thrust landed perfectly.
-
Her shadow was largely out of her line of sight during rhetoric, mostly cast under the desk behind her, and it was easier to focus, but there was the nagging sensation that the usually-empty seat beside her was occupied with someone who kept fidgeting and straining to hear the lecture.
“You okay?” her friend asked, taking her hand as they left class together. “You seem really tense.”
“I don’t know.” the apprentice sighed. “I think I might have a problem with my peripheral vision. I keep seeing my shadow flicker or think there’s someone standing-” She stuck out her free arm and waved it in the air beside her.
“Ick.” Nodded her friend. “Yeah, that’d drive me right up the wall. Hopefully you only need glasses or something?”
“Ugh, glasses.” the Apprentice rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure which would drive me crazier- having to clean the lenses constantly just to be able to see or actually being haunted!”
They laughed, and walked together toward the cafeteria.
“So your master’s away?” her friend asked grabbing trays for both of them.
“Yeah, Mirial, so you understand why the council sent an all-male contingent to the negotiations there.” She nodded, grabbing a pair of allpes fruits. “He’s actually probably back by now but messaged me earlier that he’d been up for three days straight so to finish classes as normal and go see friends if I wanted because he’s going to have the mental faculties of a sofa for a few hours once he lands.”
“Oh nooooo-” her friend giggled. “You don’t worry about him?”
The Apprentice shrugged. “I mean, a bit? But this is pretty normal for him- he’s like a loth-cat, slinks away and hides when he’s not well, but he’ll call if he’s in real trouble. Still, I think I’ll finish dinner here and go back to our rooms, I’ve got so much reading to catch up on-”
It was good to talk and catch up on all the gossip for an hour- She’d been one of the first of her class to be picked for an apprenticeship and as much fun as her new freedoms and responsibilities really were, she sometimes missed the camaraderie of the creche. There were the expected interrogations about off-planet missions and OH FORCE THE PADDWORK and learning one-on-one and the splitting of responsibilities between master and apprentice.
“It’s pretty normal that you don’t go on all the missions early on, I know.” She sighed. “But I did miss him this week. The rooms are too quiet without him taking random calls or doing the dishes at weird hours, you know?”
“Yeah, it’s weird not having you snoring at night.” her crechmate nodded, grinning.
“I DO NOT SNORE”!” she yelped, mock-threatening to throw the spare piece of fruit at him.
“We’re kidding! You whistle a bit, at most.” he friend patted her shoulder affectionately. “Besides, if you get really lonely, you’ve got your little peripheral vision fairy for company!”
The Apprentice rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help a surreptitious glance at her shadow.
“Your WHAT?” her crechemate asked.
“I think I’ve got something wrong with my peripheral vision, and it’s faking me out into thinking my shadow is misbehaving or I’m being followed by some sort of sprite that hates rhetoric class.” She shrugged, waving at her shadow, and it waved along with her. “It only gets more boring- tomorrow is Economics, so you should go haunt someone more exciting.” She told it.
“UUUUGH that sounds so annoying!” her crechmate groaned.
“I don’t know- I suppose it’s not so annoying if I think of it as an invisible friend or something.” The apprentice laughed, and her comm beeped.
>I have returned safely to the bosom of the temple once more. Wretched migraine, grab me a snack? XD
She snorted and showed her friends the message.
“He texts like such an old fart!” her friend giggled. “I thought he was like, really young?”
“He’s only a decade older than me, so practically a kid for a Knight, but damn good at it.” She nodded. “He’s Accumulated Great Wisdom For His Years!” she said in her best esoteric philosopher voice. “So he’s the galaxy’s youngest old fart.”
Her friends cackled as she got up, pocketing the fruit and a few snack bars for him, before waving her goodbyes.
He was curled in bed with a pillow over his head to block the light and noise when she came in, but rolled over and reached out towards her anyway. Her shadow stretched all the way across the room and onto the wall his bed was pushed against in the slice of yellow-orange light cast through the doorway, like the spectre had already joined her master.
“Hello Master.” She smiled, sitting on the bed beside him and pressing a juice pouch into his hand. “I missed you.”
“-and I you.” he replied, slowly sitting up and squinting at the pouch an inch from his face. “Melloon! You remembered my favorite flavor!” he beamed.
“You’ll read with less headache with your glasses.” She sighed, handing the small device to him and watching as he unfolded them and blinked, large dark eyes now appearing twice as large through the prescription lenses. “...How did you know you needed glasses?” She asked as he fiddled with the straw, trying to puncture the pouch.
“Couldn’t see shit.” He grunted. “Well, actually, it was when I couldn’t distinguish the letters on the board back in my very first formal classes. I’ve had them longer than I’ve been able to read.” he said, taking a long sip. “...Why?”
“I’ve- all day my shadow’s looked weird.”
He paused, face still scrunched in discomfort. “...shadows in general, or your shadow specifically?”
“-” She opened her mouth to reply, but stopped. “-just mine, actually. And I thought I could hear someone walking behind me, and all rhetoric class I had the impression someone was sitting next to me-”
Her master was suddenly sitting all the way upright, staring at her with rapt attention. She winced.
“It’s alright.” he soothed, hand on her shoulder. “But please, tell me everything.”
She sighed, slowly recounting- the way her shadow seemed to lag or not quite match her, the ongoing headaches, the sensation that “-I don’t know, like someone’s standing beside me? I mean, I absolutely could be working myself up over nothing-”
“If it’s bothering you this much, it’s not nothing.” her master nodded, still watching her face. “Even if it’s just a flicker brought on by growing pains, it’s not nothing. What was the first lesson you were ever taught?”
“...Trust your instincts?” She tried,
“Trust your instincts.” He nodded, smiling gently. “...Without looking at your shadow- do you have an impression of what this… companion looks like? Are they tall, short? A sapient being? Or maybe an animal?”
“They’re uh…” She unfocused her eyes, concentrating on the sensation of the person that had been beside her all day. “-They’re… A girl, like me, my age- not me though, she’s… thinner. A little frail maybe? Skittish- no, that’s not right. Like she’s hanging back. Not sure when to come into the conversation kind of awkwardness? And thirsty. Like, dehydrated.”
“Alright.” Her master nodded. His voice had shifted, like he’d sat up more and closer to her. “Anything else? Do you know what she looks like? Has she said anything?”
“No.” The Apprentice shook her head. “Quiet. Listening, but not having an easy time of it. Keeps fidgeting. She- she has a shape, but it keeps changing. Like- sometimes people don’t know who they are, like they have blurry edges around their sense of self? She’s got really sharp edges of what is and is not her, but those edges are always moving. The eyes are the same though. Intense focus, and an eyeshine, like an animal.” She started to tremble at the feeling of that terrible gaze fixed on her.
Her master shifted his weight, gently wrapping his arm around her and pulling her to lean into his shoulder.
“...I’ve seen her before.” the Apprentice realized. “I don’t know where but. I remember those eyes, staring right through me. Something- something terrible happened…”
“I’m sorry.” a voice whispered.
Her head snapped up, staring at the shadow on the wall on the other side of the bed- it had changed- still the same size as her, but they sure as hell weren’t the same species and a pair of holes in the shadow, in the shape and location of her eyes, still staring. The shadow flinched and the Apprentice’s heart race, but, gazes locked, neither could move.
Visions- the brilliant night sky of the desert, electrodes on her temples, a map tracing the route of a subterranean river, a wound (and the knowledge she’d caused it), the furious screaming of a bounty hunter who had meant her some malice- arced across their connection like lighting. And visions from her mind- The flowers carved and painted into the bunk bed posts at her creche, the buzz of a training saber, the warp of her Master’s prescription glasses, the weight of his arm across her back- arced back.
“You!” She gasped. “You’re the girl who- who-” She gasped, tears flowing but she refused to blink, if she blinked she’d be gone-
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!!!” She yelped and whimpered, unable to pull back from their connection, fear and despair and-
“It’s alright.” her Master’s voice settled over them like a thick blanket, and he reached out, touching the shadow’s shoulder, fingers curling around it as she seemed to peel off the wall, in three dimensions now, and became her own being, still a shadowy echo, but herself and not the Apprentice’s shadow. “It’s all alright.”
He pulled her closer, translucent form still trembling, until the Apprentice couldn’t hold it back and blinked, throwing herself at the other girl, wrapping her arms around her strange not-doppelganger, and sobbing- “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have- that wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair-”
The shadow screamed, hugging her back and clinging to both of them, smoke-like fingers digging into her robes and hair.
“By The Force.” her master whispered. “Oh no, oh dear-” He stroked their backs as the girls cried in his lap. The shadow girl began to flicker, and his apprentice grabbed at her, trying to keep her with them.
“I- I can’t stay- please- please!” She wailed.
“We will find you.” The Master promised, voice heavy with the seriousness of his pledge. “I don’t care how far we have to go or how long it takes, we will find you.” he promised, clutching the girls close in an embrace, the shadow-girl trying to cling to him hard enough that her fingers drew blood on the side of his face and across the back of his apprentice’s neck, before she succumbed to whatever was pulling her away from them.
The apprentice continued to sob as their connection faded, her Master still holding her.
“...I need to speak to the council about this, and fast.” he spoke, voice still grave. “That- If she was doing what I think she was, he is an immensely powerful force-user.” He swallowed hard, hands trembling. “-A very dangerous thing to be in this galaxy, especially alone. She could fall prey to all sorts with ill intentions…”
-
She woke up, screaming and clawing at the cheap third-class cabin mattress pad, sobbing, and could only lay there for a second, whimpering and pawing at the blanket that a moment ago had been a robe-
“So uh.” a voice spoke up from the other side of the cabin, pausing to clear his throat.
She looked up realizing she’d gone from a plausibly-normal-but-uncommon humanoid to something three times her regular size with horns, long thrashing tail and covered in spines in her sleep. Pressed firmly to the far wall was the tiny cabin’s other occupant, a man that was actually probably not that old, but looked like he had gone through the garburator of life without the sink running, judging by scars covering his torso and his cautious but strangely calm demeanor as he slowly stood up from where he’d been taking cover behind his mattress, which was now covered with spines.
“-Do you usually sleep-shapeshift?” he asked. “Because if that’s the case we’re gonna need to ask the steward for a lot more bedding.”
“...I was having a nightmare.” She croaked awkwardly, slowly collapsing back to her previous humanoid shape.
He nodded slowly, shaking the spines out of his mattress as they shrank along with her and setting it back on his bunk, opposite hers.
“Not to be entirely self-interested, but that’s an unusual talent you have there, and something I would find immensely helpful in my line of work.” he said, studying her with interest. “Ever considered getting into crime?”
Just as ‘Dodo’, Fred’s first novel, caused a sensation which many felt was undeserved, his second novel, ‘The Rubicon’ received a drubbing from the critics which seems totally out of proportion with the supposed awfulness of the book.
That’s what Fred thought. He was quite prepared to accept that he got lucky with his first novel and that his second novel was bad, but he was less impressed with the number of column inches occupied by gleeful reviewers taking it apart. Such a book by an unknown author, he suggested, would simply have been ignored, or dismissed in a couple of lines. It’s hard not to agree with that assessment.
So, not wishing to base my reading decisions on a few vindictive critics and a couple of luke-warm biographers, I decided to find out what all the fuss was about.
It’s a strange book, different from ‘Dodo’, much more sombre, and whilst there is plenty of social comedy, it takes a back seat to a romantic (melo)drama. It’s notable for a rather fun narrative voice that gives us an occasional insight into 26 year old Fred’s thoroughly modern theories on life. I quite like it, but it's probably for the best that he ditched it in later novels.
Though the characters are sketchily drawn, this book somehow works for me. A woman who marries for money and finds herself in a bizarre love quadrangle is hardly the most original story, but it is told in an interesting way. The relatively lean and immediate style that makes David Blaize such a pleasurable read is there in embryonic form. I can only describe it as deceptively simple.
Another thing that surprised me was his handling of the women (so to speak). It is not an easy job to portray the constraints of late Victorian society on the female sex in a fresh way, without being either unrealistic or fatalistic, so the biggest surprise to me of this novel was how many passages managed to do exactly this with quite a lot of skill and subtlety. His heroine is not a likeable character, but his writing of her grim fate was genuinely touching.
I don’t suppose it’s easy to develop as a novelist with a lot of vultures circling above your head, so I wonder if those criticisms which Fred claimed to happily ignore, had any affect. Did he decide that if he couldn’t produce quality he would go for quantity? Or had he by this time realised this was going to be his profession and popularity was going to be more important than literary recognition anyway.
Either way it’s given me a dilemma, because my planned Benson reading list has grown somewhat. I wasn’t going to bother too much with the novels, thinking I would focus on the biographies and non-fiction, but now I'm not so sure. I guess I’m going to be busier than I thought.
E.F. Benson: criticism is one thing - Edmund Gosse took it to another level...
Inspired by this post, I thought I would share this example from Fred - there are plenty of them. He famously was very open about the mauling he received from critics, devoting a good part of his first memoir to his bad reviews (with precise information about the number of column inches each devoted to ripping his books to shreds). He claims to have taken these 'contemporary revilings' in his stride. Edmund Gosse, however, managed to surpass himself:
But less humorous were certain private kicks which I got (and no doubt deserved) from less ludicrous antagonists. Of these the chief, and the most respected both then and now, must be nameless. He had been so hot in appreciation and so cordial over Dodo, politely observing in it a "high moral beauty" that I find him (in this same forgotten box) writing to me, before the appearance of The Rubicon, in these words a propos of the growing public taste for realism:
"The public in the next generation will be what you and one or two others like you choose to make it. Good work in any style gives that style vogue. . . . It's ever when you are most serious you are at your best. Work, work and live."
Fred has already identified Gosse as the author of the 'kind letter' elsewhere, so the fake anonymity he grants him here is all the more delicious. This is what Gosse wrote to him after the publication of 'The Rubicon':
"If anything could possibly give a more serious blow to your chances of future and legitimate success than the publication of The Rubicon, it would be to bring out within three or four years another novel. ... It does not seem to me that you have formed the slightest conception of the true situation. It is this. Your first book, from accidental and even parasitic causes — things that were not in the book at all — enjoyed an entirely abnormal and baseless success. You have now to begin again, and for several years the public will certainly not listen to you as a novelist."
Fred skewered him neatly thus:
For the life of me, I cannot now, reading these explosive records over again, determine whether I could have gained anything by paying the smallest attention to them. Logically, it was impossible to do so, for they clearly were directed, as I have said, not against this wretched old Rubicon, but against the person who had dared to capture success with Dodo.
Ouch!
Original source: Our Family Affairs, E.F. Benson, 1921
[EDIT] For balance, I thought I should post this, which I think must be the letter that Gosse was replying to, as quoted in the Brian Masters biography:
The Rubicon seems to be arousing a good deal of vehemence on the part of critics. Can you tell me exactly what it all means? When they say things so violent, it seems to me to discount all they say, unless it were better that I had never written a line, and that, to speak quite frankly, I consider absurd. I may say at once that I don’t care the slightest, personally. I am so happily constituted that I enjoy praise immensely and don’t the least mind abuse.
You could say Fred was asking for it (literally) in that last line.....and he was probably quite an annoying twenty-something to the middle-aged Gosse.
For The Rubicon: Are the Apprentice and the Changeling actually linked, or is it just. Parallels that drew them together?
Yes!
To elaborate: The Force operates in strange ways, and if people start having thematic parallels, they will start to operate in patterns of behavior that sure look an awful lot like archetypes and narrative foils and Hero cycles and the like...
It's almost like The Force is a metaphor for the power of narrative in the human mind and how the stories we tell ourselves shape our world, for better or for worse :)
So yes, it's Just The Parallels, but also they are very much linked by them.
