Survival: A Star Wars The Clone Wars Story

Chapter 20

Barriss couldn't sleep. She lay awake staring at the darkened room around her. It was her room in the Jedi temple, the closest she'd ever had to a home, but she'd never been able to truly ignore the emptiness of it. The room was bathed in the cool shadows of the Coruscant night that could only be enjoyed by those on the outermost surface of the planet, those who could actually see the sky and the galaxy beyond. Of course, she'd hardly spent any time here over the past three or so years. More often than she should, she had wondered what it would have been like to have grown up on Mirial, away from all the violence and terror and bloodshed, the true home she had never known.

Gradually her eyes came to rest on her lightsaber. It sat neatly on her chest of robes, the only other piece of furniture in the room aside from the bed and the statue of the Goddess that she knelt before to meditate. The Force was strongly linked to all aspects of Mirialan culture, and so the presence of the deity in her meditation improved her focus. Another reminder of all she had missed on her home world. Before the war, she doubted that she would have given it a second thought, but the endless days of fighting fuelled her yearning curiosity for an alternate life. One where she wasn't a soldier.

Barriss dragged her eyes back to the saber. The sleek weapon that had been her constant companion now felt heavier in her hand than ever, which was the reason it was placed on the chest and not hanging off her belt in the first place. Encased in the cylindrical hilt, the blue crystal sang out to her in ways it never had before. She felt the low, mournful hum, its wariness, straining in her own soul. A far cry from the sonorous melody that had drawn her to it in the Caves of Ilum.

~*~*~*~*~

The Gathering ritual was her earliest off-world memory, the first time she could remember leaving the security of the Temple. The supressed excitement of the other younglings abord the Crucible had filled the air with whispers and hushed squeals as the galaxy faded to star lines. The young Barriss had watched the transition in wonderment too, but it had accompanied an overwhelming sense of smallness crushed her as the younglings were ushered away from the viewport; the vastness of the universe, and how small she was in comparison. Millions, no, billions of stars passed them with each second they spent in hyperspace, and there she was, a mere speck in the little tin can of a ship passing through an immense ocean of black. She couldn't wait to get off the ship and find her crystal.

Barriss was glad of her eagerness when she learned of the set time-frame they had to retrieve their crystal within. She'd watched in frozen awe as Master Yoda – who had evidently been waiting for the Crucible to arrive – melted away the imposing ice wall that marked the entrance to the caves. A chill coursed through her as she saw the freshly melted wall begin to instantly reform itself, the sobering sense of pressure urging the younglings into the cave network.

As the younglings went their separate ways in the Caves, Barriss realised she had never truly seen colours before, or heard silence. The jet-black stone of the cave walls were soon speckled with crystals, glittering a thousand different shades of blue and green, most of which she couldn't even think of names for. As she travelled deeper, the smattering of gems turned into a smothering, the walls and floors were littered with crystals of all shapes and sizes. An ocean of the deepest greens and boldest blues, swirling together – not that she had ever even seen a real ocean at that time. The jagged shapes had a beautiful randomness to them, all clean lines and angles – and yet no crystal was the same as the last.

For hours it seemed, she wandered the caverns, the only sounds her own footfalls and the gentle drip of water down the walls, collecting in the miniature lakes and rivers that winded their way through the cave floor. All the while, the thought of the ice wall rebuilding itself weighed down on her mind.