KAILARIS: THE LOST JEDI

CYCLE 2934

Kailaris sat in the Padawan centre, examining the chairs seated around the edges of the room. Chairs her teachers and mentors once sat at. The people who guided her. She was experiencing the changing of Padawan to Jedi. Soon she would be faced with the test, and if succeeded will gain the title of master. But something stirred in her. This deep ache, that somehow, she was still blinded to parts of the force. This anxiety weakened her. She wanted to be a strong Jedi, yet knew something was still preventing the new version of herself from blooming. She missed home, her parents, whose fate she could not sense. The blindness hurt her once again. Many hours she had spent trying to reconnect with her mother and father, searching the force. Yet she had found nothing.

She sighed and stood from the her place of rest, in the centre of the room. The sun began to set, the monoliths of Coruscant casting scattered shadows into the centre. The light felt balanced between night and day. The change over of another planetary time sequence was beginning. She felt a heaviness draping over her body. Tiredness overcame her as she suddenly became aware of her own exhaustion. She needed sleep and her bed, yet felt a loyalty to trying to mend this weakness in her bond with the force. It was all consuming.

In that moment of distraction she suddenly felt a presence within the room. The hair stood on the back of her neck, her skin prickling with the forceful energy of another life; yet in her body she felt a warmth. The warmth of a familiar person.

"I knew you would be here" Anakins voice felt loud breaking through what felt like miles of silence. Kailaris stood still, the sound of his voice soothing her, as she felt the tensions leave her chest. But this soon took over with an aching. She felt so near yet so far from him at that moment. How long she had battled with her feelings for him against her Jedi training. It worsened by the fact she knew his gaze had been stolen in another direction. The past queen of Nebu had been so kind to Kailaris, yet all she could feel was contempt for her unknowing competition. Kailaris had always felt uncomfortably masculine, and dull in her features. Always too pale, too unnatural. Standing beside Padme she felt shamed to bore a face so dull next to one so beautiful. And she hated that this beautiful face stole away the attention of a man who she could never have. The only thing that soothed her was the fact that as a Jedi, he was forbidden to love the senator. Yet she could feel his yearning.

"You keep hiding yourself away from me, Kailaris". She felt unnerved by his use of her full name. Their days of easy training and amicability felt so far away now in the tension of this moment.

Kailaris pulled at her cloak from behind her shoulders, bringing it forward to cover most of her figure. She turned slowly, keeping her eyes to the floor, away from Anakin.

"We both know how it is between us now. Both of us have been hiding from one another." Kailaris spoke, watching the patterns on the floor cast by the changing light.

"Perhaps we have been afraid to pull back the curtains on ourselves, show our changes to one another. But it's you who forced us to change separately." Anakins gaze felt overwhelming. Her skin reddened under the force of his eyes.

Underneath her cloak Kailaris tucked her thumb beneath her other fingers, tightening the grip. She took in a breath and forced herself to speak as she moved her eyes up to him. She saw his black shoes and then the brown of his Jedi cloths. His right hand gloved, hiding his metal part. His shoulders were broader since the last time she had seen him. Her eyes finally met his face, meeting his gaze. The scar across his eye fuelled his features with a wildness she didn't recognise, paired with longer hair that waved untamed. He looked older. Standing across from her was a man she could only conceive was Anakin through the softness by which he spoke to her. She was moved by a sense of anger. A feeling of unfairness by which he placed his jurisdiction. He had changed, without her, yet he spoke to her as if he were without wrong.

"You changed first. I noticed and pulled away from you. It has taken you this long to notice now that I am different. But I have felt it all along with you." Kailaris spoke to him with confidence spurred by her anger. Anakins eyes pulled away, the corners of his mouth dropping with a youthful sadness; she now could only see Anakin as he were before. As her Anakin. She felt regret at her rash anger, recognising the selfishness of that feeling. She wanted to hold him, tell him how much she misses him. How much each part of her hurts and breaks every moment they are apart. How the seams of her soul rips whenever she feels him growing ever more distant.

Kailaris stood still. The silence between them felt heavy, like fog settling on a valley.

"I wish for us to be how we were" Anakins words felt small, like a child whispering through a gap in the door. They felt as if they only carried far enough to reach Kailaris' ear, and then diminished into nothing.

"Anakin-"

"Don't present me with rejection." Anakin took a step forward with haste but then immediately stopped. "It hurts me when I turn and you are no longer there. I wish for us to be together again as we were, and I don't want you to tell me it's not possible. We may have both changed but I'm here now. And I want you by my side." Anakins words felt blunt and harsh this time. Every word seeping with profound desperation. A desperation that felt endearing, and provoked a nurturing emotionality within Kailaris. Again she felt the need to be near him, yet maintained her distance. "Anakin... I need you to understand. I'm not fully connected to the force. This has troubled me for a while now. And the cracks feel only as if they are growing. You have more power than any Jedi I know. How can I stand by your side when I'm so profoundly inferior." Kailaris felt vulnerable in this admittance of her connection to the force.

"I have always felt this stirring in you Kai, this is not a deep wrong within you, but rather a small break in your growth. We are more alike than you think. I can help you. You let your weaknesses fault you. And that self doubt allows this disconnection with the force. Allow your weakness to become your strength. See troubles as part of the force, and guide through it. But I know that this isn't why you don't want to be friends again. You are not so imposed by vanity that you could let Jedi status get between us. I know you." Anakin spoke with a wisdom that felt beyond his years, and it shook Kailaris. His use of his old name for her made her feel like a child again, soft and vulnerable. she couldn't help but admit her emotions.

"Anakin. I can't stand by you because I feel for you in ways that I can't comprehend. It's not clear to me. But I feel you. And I know that you love another. And I understand this. But I cannot stand by you and watch you love another. Not when I have loved you all my years of knowing you". Kailaris felt hot in her face. A pulsing went through her head as she held back tears. Anakin stood still, looking at her in confusion. His features conveyed the inner decoding of her message that he was undoubtedly trying to understand. He suddenly pulled back. Shifting his own cloak around his shoulders. Kailaris felt a tear escape her eye, betraying her.