DOOM!

Synje. <3 More Synje next chapter.



part VII: THE AWAKENING

Jacen Solo awoke to a small patch of tan skin and it only took him seconds to realize, by the touch and scent, that he had his face nuzzled in the crook of Tenel Ka's neck. Gently pulling his head back, he could feel loose strands of copper hair brushing against his cheek and her slow breath against his jawline. A glance up past the bed, over to the closest window, Jacen could tell it was morning by the way the weak rays of sunlight tried to break through the caked glass. Dust and grime had built up in them over the years and only bits and pieces of the daybreak could stream through, much like the moonlight had appeared the night before.

He dropped his head onto the pillows beside her, leaving his arm draped over her stomach, where it had been when he woke up. Jacen reveled in how peaceful she looked, how soft her features were while she slept. He was used to seeing her hard-faced, scowling at some useless political bout, stressed over some empty threat -- this was a welcome alternate.

Tucking his left hand under one of the pillows, he stretched out, letting his joints pop and settled in beside her once more, intently letting his eyes drift over her visage.

Tenel Ka stirred once Jacen's fingertips found their way under her shirt to her side, where they slowly danced back and forth across her skin.

"Your hands are cold," she mumbled through a veil of sleep.

A slight chuckle sounded as Jacen reached down with that hand and pulled the blankets up to their shoulders, placing his fingers right back where they were moments later. "Sorry." He watched as her eyes lazily opened, the gray still as sharp as ever. "Morning sunshine."

With a tired sigh and the hint of a grin on her face, Tenel Ka turned on her side to face him, blinking the the slumber from her eyes. As she sat there and peered at him, her mind went racing back to the events of the night before. The way he came and crawled in bed with her, the way they instantly fell asleep in each other's arms like they'd been together their whole life, the way she woke up and saw...

That tiny smile that had been spreading across her lips vanished suddenly. And Jacen had noticed.

"What's wrong?"

"Last night." She paused, furrowing her brow as if trying to recollect all the events and happenings that occured. "You were asleep and I saw a woman... she was like... like a ghost. I could see through her." Her voice was becoming rushed. It was as if she felt that if she didn't get everything out in time, all the thoughts would just be forgotten. "She had her hand on you... and her back. It was practically one big wound. She led me to a room..." Tenel Ka purposely left the part off about how the spectre's hand seemed to attempt to choke Jacen for a moment -- she realized she probably already sounded crazy enough.

"Wait, this really happened?" He blinked. "This wasn't a dream?"

"No, no. It happened. I remember it too well for it to be a dream." It was true. Tenel Ka had never in her life had dreams and visions that real and vivid. "There was a man in the room. He was painting. He... he..." She shook her head, trying to recall their exact conversation. "We have to find him. We have to talk to him. He knows something about this place."

She was suddenly awake and alert, trying to disengage herself from the tangled sheets. Grabbing the jacket of her jumpsuit off of the back of the chair beside the bed that she had tossed it over the night before, Tenel Ka threw it over her shoulders and began snapping the bottom line of closures at the waist. Jacen was still seated, slack-jawed under the sheets, his head propped up against the headboard of the bed. In the back of his mind he wondered why she hadn't woken him up when whatever she was babbling about had happened, but he didn't let it bother him. He knew she could handle a lot and if she really had needed his help, she would've smacked him awake till sleep was the farthest thing from his mind. And she didn't seem like she was harmed in any way... just a bit shaken up.

"This man," Jacen started. "What was he like?"

"He looked young. He had to be younger than us, by at least a few years. He wore a cloth over his eyes, but he sat and painted. And the paintings I saw around the room were... they were incredible." Tenel Ka lazily let her fingers slide up the front of her jumpsuit where she clasped it shut. "I feel like I did not ask him enough or pay enough attention, he talked and I just sat and stared. There was something about him..."

"Could you feel anything through the Force?"

"I did not really attempt to..." Her eyes locked on the floor and she stared intently, as if something was there. "I just remember there being something about him. Something innocent. He seemed content with just sitting there, painting."

Jacen shifted in the bed, swinging his legs out over the side. He planted his hands on either side of him and watched Tenel Ka, who was still staring absently at the floor.

"Did he tell you his name?"

Suddenly, as if snapped out of a trance, Tenel Ka's attention turned fully to him, her eyes blinking a couple times. "Synje."

Reaching over, Jacen grabbed the jacket to his jumpsuit and flung it around his bare shoulders, letting his hands work over the closures. "Well, then let's go find this Synje and see what's up. Hm?"

Tenel Ka could only nod.

It took them a few minutes -- and run-ins with a few dead-ends -- but Tenel Ka retraced the path the woman had led her the night before... this time with Jacen on her heels. He followed her, his mind spinning around all the things Tenel Ka had told him mere minutes before, while he was comfortably spread out under the covers, his eyes staring the Queen Mother down as she paced. At first he had figured she was just dreaming, but she was so adamant about it all now that he was second guessing the situation.

Ghosts. When they were little, older trainees at the Academy would tell them all creepy stories about ghosts. Souls that were trapped between the plane of the dead and the plane of the living. They were also technically taught by the Masters that certain types of ghosts did exist. Beings strong in the Force could project themselves from one plane to the other, to speak or intervene. Uncle Luke had told them about his visits from Obi-Wan Kenobi after he had been struck down by Darth Vader and such. They believed the Masters, but when all the older kids rambled on about spooky ghosts that didn't pass over completely and stuff... he remembered Tenel Ka smirking behind her hand and he remembered the way he sat there and listened, but didn't really believe.

Jacen also remembered how the Masters had never dispelled any of the stories and such that the older trainees had told them.

"This one."

He was suddenly torn from his reverie by Tenel Ka's voice. They had stopped in front of a door at the end of a narrow corridor. She was pointing to it, her hand hanging out in front of her as her body was backed into the corner beside it, the dim lighting in the windowless hall catching the calm stare she had plastered on her visage. She looked pale, even a bit... nervous?

Before reaching for the door, Jacen reached out to Tenel Ka, quickly snapping his fingers around her shoulders. He pulled her towards him and wrapped her up in his arms. "Are you okay?" Whispering, Jacen could hear it gently echoing into the corridor behind them.

He could feel her nod against his chest. She pulled back and he could see the flash of white between her lips, where she was gnawing on them. "What?" He inquired.

"It is just..." She inhaled, sighing it out instantly. "I feel something here. Something familiar. But I cannnot place my finger on what it is."

Jacen let his eyes lock with hers. So that's what it was -- there was something here getting to her, but she didn't know exactly what. "Well..." He trailed off. He didn't know what he could say to ease any negative feeling she had about this place. Except the offering of his protection, which he would've given her no matter what. "I'm here, right? Nothing can go too wrong. Nothing'll happen." A nervous chuckle escaped his lips.

To his relief, a smile toyed with Tenel Ka's lips. Jacen felt a underlying sense of something odd here. Tenel Ka said that the man she had met though was very cordial, very nice. She said he seemed innocent. He knew they had to find him and ask him about this place.

Part of Jacen was still claiming that Tenel Ka was just tired, worried about being away from her people and all that. But the other part of him screamed out warnings -- something was wrong here.

"Come on." He plaited the fingers of his left hand with the fingers of her right and grabbed the handle to the old wooden door with his other hand, easily pushing it open with a slight shove.

The room looked different in the morning light and Tenel Ka mused over this as her eyes scanned the surroundings. Her gaze swept over the now cool fire pit, the circle of chairs. Jacen was busy meandering around the perimeter of the room, staring at the paintings, his fingers tracing lines across brushstrokes of the ones closest to him.

Tenel Ka turned to watch him, the soft click of his boot heels echoing within the chamber as he wandered to and from colorful yet abstract images. "This is where you met him?" He turned his head to look at her, the ever-present twinkle in his brandy-brown eyes making her heart threaten to skip a beat, like it always had --- even in the worst of times.

"Yes." She motioned to a chair around the fire pit that was turned at an awkward angle. "He was sitting right there, painting."

Jacen began to traipse across the tile, his mind asking where the man had gone, where he slept, where he -- something caught his eye out the window he passed. Squinting against the early afternoon light, he found himself peering down into a courtyard, surrounded on all four sides by the Manor's walls. Ivy grew up the walls, creeping across windows and over the dry fountains in the center of the courtyard and on the ledge of one sat a man with a cloth over his eyes. He seemed to be deep in thought, hands running over a painted canvas in front of him.

As if the man could hear his voice, Jacen lowered it. "Is that him?"

Jogging to the window, Tenel Ka nodded quickly, instantly recognizing the look of him, the feel of him, the mere presence of him.

"Then let's go down and say hello."


YAY. More soon, I really didn't want them to have to go down and meet Synje then cut the chapter in the middle of the discussion. HEEEEEEhehehe... but yeah.

Expect a soundtrack for this story very soon too. ;D