(Moenia, Naboo)
"My name's Crissayel, but that isn't important. What is important, is that my sister Callista will die if you don't help her, Master Jedi." The tall, deceptively thin young man answered in a voice tight with worry.
He was, despite his overt composure, obviously quite frustrated and upset by the need to involve outsiders in what was to him a family affair, but I wouldn't have gleaned more than the tiniest hint of that without my gift for empathy.
It was an impressive display of self-control that others might have esteemed too lightly because of the faint signs of deeper emotion to have noticeably emerged.
Remembering he was almost certainly younger than Ahsoka, and that he believed the life of what was likely his only sibling to be in danger, I didn't make that mistake. For whatever reason, Crissayel seemed to be someone who prized his emotional equilibrium more than some Jedi I had met.
Sensing a dissonant pulse of irritated impatience from the young man I couldn't otherwise detect, I noted the slight narrowing of his ember colored eyes as he continued to watch me expectantly.
Hearing my Master's chiding voice in my mind as I did so. Reminding me not to get so lost amid the hints and clues the Force could supply, that my focus on the present moment suffered.
"You still haven't told me what happened to convince you your sister's life is in danger, or why you're so sure only a Jedi can help her. I want to help, Crissayel, but I can't do anything unless I have an understanding of the situation."
Keeping my tone sympathetic, I repeated my previous question as a simple statement of fact. It wouldn't be long until we were expected at the repulsor-boat landing by the guide who'd take us across the Lianorm Swamp to Lake Paonga, but I was understandably reluctant to leave when doing so might mean the death of an innocent young woman.
The uneasiness I'd experienced earlier began to intensify, as I watched the young Terellian work to order his thoughts. It was something of a relief when he started talking again in a straightforward manner, but as I listened, it was hard to ignore that uneasiness to focus only on the teen and his words.
"Callista, she stopped accepting commissions. Our parents wrote that off as her just needing a break, at least at first. It had only been a couple of months since she'd finished the Star Dragon sculpture for the park, they said.
It took her nearly a year to finish the project, and she was working against the park's scheduled opening as a deadline, so no one else thought twice about the idea that she might need a rest." The slim, long-limbed alien began in the too calm manner of someone conveying information about a subject they found difficult to speak about.
I had the sense Crissayel was one of those people who usually talked with their hands, but right now those extremely long-fingered extremities were plucking at the large, elaborate, silver eight-sided polyhedral clasp to the thin black belt that was otherwise nearly invisible against his form-fitting black slacks.
When he stopped playing with the odd belt-clasp, it was because of a sharp tic in the muscles of his long neck that caused his chin to repeatedly jerk left-to-right. These movements, and the short sharp coughs that followed made the thrown back hood of a jacket the color of wet ash bob up and down at the nape of his neck.
Eyeing the unmarked dark gray shirt partly visible beneath his jacket as the teen's narrow torso jumped a little with each cough, I suddenly found myself wondering about his choice in clothing.
Why, surrounded by the riot of color that was so much a part of this city, did the Jango Jumper choose to dress as if he meant to disappear into the omnipresent mist? Shaking the thought away as entirely extraneous, I gave him a verbal nudge once he waved off the concern I expressed about his coughing.
"You said no one else, including your parents, thought there was anything unusual about your sister not accepting any new commissions. Does that mean you noticed something strange, immediately, I mean?"
I made sure to maintain eye contact, lean forward ever so slightly, and make it obvious I was waiting intently for his reply. Diplomacy was easily my weakest area, but my Master had drummed into me the basic communication skills necessary to function as a Jedi.
These included a capacity for gauging and projecting intent that I was using to non-verbally convey the fact I was focused and fully engaged with the conversation at hand.
It must have worked, because the Jango Jumper stopped worrying at his belt clasp to nod decisively. "Ever since I can remember, if Callista wasn't making a new entry in her data-pad's drafting program, she was working on a project, or preparing to start a new one.
The closest she came to inactivity was going off to be totally silent, still, and receptive, when she was looking for a new idea. She just wouldn't have known what to do with time off. A couple of days to rest, after finishing a really strenuous project? Sure.
Doing nothing for two whole months, and looking a little worse each time I managed to get a look at her? I knew something had to be wrong."
"Silent. Still. Receptive" I silently repeated the words. Giving no outward sign I now had an inkling as to where this was going, I asked "At some point, your parents and the other people in your sister's life also realized something was wrong. What happened then, Crissayel?"
Looking down suddenly, he began to scuff the sole of his right shoe back and forth against the duracrete of the walkway. In a much more defensive tone, he eventually answered.
"I didn't have any choice, all right? She wasn't picking up her comm at all, anymore. Wouldn't open her door when anyone came by, either.
The only kriffing time she left her loft was to go straight to the store for sleep aids and premade meals. I got in the habit of shadowing her, because if I tried approaching her, she'd either ignore me completely, or plead me with me to 'Stay away, so she didn't drag me down with her.' Only to go right back to ignoring me, afterwards. I was the only one she'd say even that much to!"
I waited patiently, because pressing the now agitated adolescent would undoubtedly come off as accusatory. Finally, in a louder tone than I was sure he'd intended to use, he confessed "I spoofed her loft door's security scanner when she went out, all right?
My sister was fading away right in front of me, no one else seemed to realize how bad things had gotten. I had to find out what was wrong, and the only place I could think to look for some clue as to what was killing my sister was in her journals. She's kept one as long as I've been alive, at least.
She wrote in it every night, when she still lived at home. I know it wasn't right to go down to the edge of the swamp and buy a spike so I could break into my sister's files, but what else could I do?" The tic in his neck, and a second coughing fit starting as if in anxious emphasis to a question that sounded more like a justification.
Suddenly thankful my continual need for secrecy had forced me to hone the ability to keep my true thoughts and feelings to myself, I remarked with a genuine frown of concern only partly inspired by the teen's most recent admission.
"That was an extreme step to take. One which could have gotten you in a great deal of trouble with the constabulary." I'd said this in my best imitation of Ferus's grade-three tone of prim criticism. The one he used on older Initiates who'd willfully committed some minor infraction he was happy to provide correction for.
It was exactly what most people would have expected a Jedi to say under these circumstances, so that was the response I offered, rather than mention I was now almost certain he was for some reason leaving important details out of his account.
Crissayel's expression of sullen disbelief was a perfect match for the emotions I could sense from him. It was precisely the reaction I would have anticipated from an adolescent male desperate to help someone he loved, so why was I growing more certain by the heartbeat that he was trying to cover something up?
The tall, long-limbed teen's face a mask of cracking composure, he stiffly replied "I already admitted that what I did was wrong, Master Jedi, but we're talking about my sister's life here. I have to hope you care more about my having found good reason to be afraid for my sister, than you do about how I discovered that reason."
Despite my disquiet, I had to agree this was a perfectly reasonable position to take. The alarm klaxon continuing to sound in my head, but I couldn't (passively) sense a wisp of the Force anywhere about the youth.
I was as certain my mind and emotions were free of Force-based influences, but I knew my suspicions were valid, I farking knew they were, yet if they were leading me to any answers, it was a glacially slow process. There was simply nothing I could see about Crissayel in specific, or this situation in general, which seemed to suggest a solidly identifiable threat of any kind.
I could do more than passively examine him and our surroundings in search of some more definitive reason for my nebulous concern, of course, but I knew from my Master's careful observations that the natal form of Clear Mind the Force had blessed me with dissipated the instant I actively began to use it beyond the confines of my own mind.
The more deeply I called upon the Force, the longer it would take before the phenomena would recoalesce to conceal my otherwise noticeable Force-presence once more.
Perhaps as a form of balance, there was only one technique at all related to concealing oneself in the Force for which I possessed any aptitude. Meaning I'd come to rely on this native attribute quite a bit. Especially in situations where I needed to keep a low profile with respect to other Force-sensitives. Like now, with a Dark Sider assassin on Padme's trail.
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