Passages

Barriss moved through the hallways as quickly as she could, arms laden heavily, dark skirts swirling around her.

She wished Master Unduli was there to help, but several Masters had been summoned to an emergency meeting, Luminara among them, and so it fell to Barriss to get the girl to the minders. The child in her arms continued to wail, a thin, reedy sound now like a distant siren, worn out from earlier screaming. The child had allowed few to come near her during the trip back to the Temple, and even then usually only to feed her. She was miserable, and was letting everyone know it.

She had little experience with young children, particularly ones whisked away from battered planets. The girl was Force-sensitive, her colony shattered, and she needed care. Barriss wanted to provide, but she also liked to hear, and the girl had an amazing set of vocal chords and lungs.

And so she moved as quickly as she could from the landing platform to the academy area, hoping one of the youngling minders would have better luck at calming the child.

Then, from across the wide space of the hallway, came the surprised, but low-pitched call of, "Barriss?"

Ahsoka had stopped mid-step, blue eyes wide, and then quickly veered off of whatever path she was taking to jog up next to her friend. "Hello, Ahsoka," Barriss greeted, trying to shift the girl so that her open, sound-emitting mouth would not be directly next to her ear, as well as tilt the girl so that Ahsoka could get a better look at the situation.

The screaming stopped for a moment as the girl drew breath, and she turned enough to look at the newcomer. The child examined Ahsoka, eyes travelling up her montrals, then down her lekku, then back to the white markings on her face. Apparently not pleased with what she saw, the girl's mouth puckered, her eyes scrunched back shut, and a fresh - albeit somewhat hoarse- scream started.

Ahsoka nearly leapt backward at the force of it, and she looked at Barriss in dismay. They shared a moment of pity for the child, and Ahsoka passed on a fleeting feeling of sympathy for Barriss's plight. She looked around quickly, biting her lip. Sound carried easily in the marble walkways, and the meditative atmosphere that usually filled the place was broken. Several others, a mixture of Knights and Padawans, walked in different directions, up and down the walkway, back and forth to different rooms. Some were trying valiantly not to stare. Others were casting disapproving looks their way.

"She's making a scene," Ahsoka hissed under her breath.

"She's been crying the entire way," Barriss returned, looking around and trying to feel invisible. "No one could get her quiet, not even Master Unduli."

Ahsoka held her arms out, hands up, in a gesture of passing. Barriss could have hugged her friend for the help, and within a moment, the wailing in Barriss's ear dulled to a dull, distant ringing. She held a hand over it, willing it to clear, while Ahsoka wrestled with the girl in her arms and tried to hurry them along. Barriss followed quickly, and they reached the somewhat more out of the way end of the walkway, a corner between the stone wall and the first of the arcade of many-colored windows.

Ahsoka was taking small, mincing steps and rocking the girl, whose screams had temporarily subsided into sobs. She would occasionally look up, look at Ahsoka, and break into fresher tears. Ahsoka gave Barriss a stricken look, which was promptly returned.

For a moment, Ahsoka looked frantic as she thought, then started a new round of walking and rocking, singing something softly as Barriss hovered, trying to be sure no one was staring too much.

"…Once upon a time, and long ago…I heard someone singing, soft and low…."

When Ahsoka paused, a little uncertain, Barriss asked, "What is that?"

Ahsoka looked a little embarrassed. "Something I can't remember any more words to?" She started humming the tune.

Barriss said, softly, "Something that's working. Look."

The two girls stared at the toddler, who had pulled back a bit to regard Ahsoka again, skeptically. Barriss and Ahsoka exchanged a look, and Ahsoka said, carefully, "Hello there, little one. What's your name?"

The child wrinkled her nose, then rubbed her eyes with her fists, mouth puckering as she ducked her head between her shoulders. She mumbled something, incoherently, half baby-babble, half words.

"What?" Ahsoka prodded gently, shifting the girl as Barriss stepped forward, coming closer to their circle. "What is your name?"

She wriggled a little, looked skeptically at Barriss, and then said, in a small voice, "Koreh." Then she flopped backward and tried to curl up, which wasn't entirely successful since Ahsoka was still holding her. The Togruta tried not to drop her.

"Should we take her to the minders now?" Ahsoka asked in a fast, quiet whisper as she wrestled the girl back onto her hip.

Barriss nodded, and they swiftly turned to leave.

This promptly set off a deep breath and a new howl of "No!" from Koreh.

"Or not," Ahsoka sighed, wincing and struggling with the girl, who was starting to not only squirm, but kick and flail, pounding a small fist onto one of Ahsoka's lekku. "Ow! Stop that!"

Being scolded only raised the volume as Koreh took a fresh breath into her red face, and unleashed another wail, tears starting up in her eyes.

Barriss had her hands up, palms out, making soothing motions that didn't seem to do any good. Ahsoka's attempt at singing had been the first thing other than food that had quieted the tantrum, for however short a length of time. Barriss took the idea of it, and quickly rushed out with the words:

"Long long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a girl."

The screaming did not stop, but she had been loud enough to catch Koreh's attention. Her breath wheezed inward, a moment between one screech and the next, and it gave Barriss a moment to push ahead.

"The girl was a Force-sensitive, and she had been brought to the Temple to train."

The breath came out of Koreh's mouth, slowly, catching, and she looked at Barriss warily, almost as though expecting some trick. But she listened.

Barriss continued, carefully, hands up in a non-threatening manner. "The girl worked very hard, every day. She had many dreams, and learned many things every day."

Ahsoka tried to move forward, eyes set on the end of the hallway that led towards the academy. As she made her first step, Koreh stiffened, and scrunched up her face. Ahsoka froze, and Barriss kept talking, steadily, gently, easing herself to her knees. Ahsoka frowned, but imitated her, the two girls kneeling in the corner across from each other, with the little one planted firmly on Ahsoka's lap.

"Of all the things that she saw and learned, the girl wanted most to be a healer, for there were always those in the galaxy who were hurt, and suffering pained her greatly."

Ahsoka's head lifted from its attentive bend towards the child, to give her a better angle to look at Barriss. The Mirialan girl was sitting calmly, hands sitting lightly in her lap, intent on Koreh, who was in turn intent on her.

Something flickered in the Force. It was faint and soft, coming from no particular direction, a stirring of contemplative calm that began to pool around them as Barriss spoke, the words drawing it closer.

"The girl grew older, and she trained and studied. She wandered the Halls of Healing, went to hospitals and medicenters, and watched and learned. One day, the girl found a boy her age in one of the hospitals. He was not there by injury, but because of a ruthless and difficult ailment that could not be cured."

A note of sadness crept into the swirl of feelings whirling now around them, knitting themselves closer. Ahsoka let her eyes close halfway as she concentrated, puzzling out what her friend was trying to do. Emotions manifested around them, adding a level of dimensionality to the story through the Force. The sadness became mingled with hope and determination but also loneliness, feelings potent enough that an untrained youngling could have little trouble understanding them.

"The boy had no family, and could not leave his room. The girl became his friend, and he spoke to her as much as he could."

Ahsoka resisted a wince as the loneliness grew sharp enough to be painful. It cut, raw, into the Force. Koreh felt it, trembled, but was immediately caught up in another, softer wave that was friendship.

"The boy did not feel alone, and the girl visited when she could. But she was not powerful enough to save him, nor were any of the healers who tried to help him."

The feeling became tremulous, fragile, sad.

"The girl stood by his beside one day, as he began to fall asleep. When she stood over him, he breathed one last time, and she felt his breath against her face."

Koreh squirmed once, then stilled. Barriss continued.

"When she returned to the Temple, her Master told her, 'You have carried the burden of the boy's loneliness. He knew he was not alone, and because of it, his pain was eased.' The Master took the girl to the artists, and the girl sat and had her face painted, for it had felt the last breath of one who was gone."

Barriss moved her hand, a slow, deliberate motion across her face, gesturing at the pattern of diamonds that spangled her nose and cheeks.

The Force cloaked them in the feeling of a burden shared, of understanding, sympathy, support. It bolstered the little girl, and she sat up straighter in Ahsoka's arms, the red mottling of hours of crying and screaming having faded into a paler brown, her eyes cooling from tear-filled glass-green to a richer, calmer hazel. She rubbed them a little, and then, slowly, she reached out with one hand.

Ahsoka caught her breath, hoping this was the end. Barriss took the girl's hand, held it, and smiled a little, a bridge of mutual compassion being wrought.

Slowly, she shifted on her knees, began to bring a foot up for standing. As it slid into place under her, to give her a lift upright, Koreh tensed, dropped Barriss's hand, and whimpered, trying instead of flailing and fighting, to slide her way to the floor. She withdrew, leaving a murmur of fear rippling around her.

She started to sniffle, her breath began to catch. Barriss looked alarmed. So close!

Ahsoka spoke quickly, before more fear-fueled tears began. "Long long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a girl."

A pause. Hazel eyes turned upward, focusing now on the teller of the new story being told.

"The girl was a Force-sensitive, and she had been brought to the Temple to train."

Koreh tilted her head, listening, scrunching her eyes shut occasionally as though to prevent tears. Barriss sat, and watched, and felt Ahsoka add another layer to the weaving of words and feelings she had drawn around them.

"One of the Masters said, 'This girl must follow the ways of her people. Take her to her homeworld, and let her see the ways of her kind.' And so the girl was taken to her homeworld, and she was afraid, because she had been so long away, and did not remember them."

She looked out, past Barriss, past the walls, lost in a memory of another time. Nerves and fear and uncertainty plucked at them, prickling. Koreh set a hand on top of Ahsoka's and it drew her back to the present.

She continued, "The elders gathered, and welcomed her, and set before her a task. 'Hunt the great akul,' they said. 'If she is to be a warrior, she must hunt the akul, and remember who she is.' And so the girl was given an old blade to arm herself, and set out into the turu-grass."

The story now drew down threads of anticipation to weave themselves into the sensation of fear.

"On the first day, the girl walked and walked, and found nothing. She slept in the scrublands, in a turu-grass nest, and held her knife tightly. On the second day, she walked and found a place of torn grass and a trail of blood. On the third day, she followed the trail, and at the end of it she found a great cave on the edge of the grasslands, a den."

The anticipation rushed upward, punctured by fear and exhilaration, and a frantic attempt at control. Through the Force, it wrapped around them close, a blanket of nervous tension and desperation that registered faintly as a smell of metal and blood and grass.

"The akul had been wounded in its last hunt. Its side was torn and bleeding, and it was enraged when it emerged from the den. The girl struggled to remember what she had learned, and those skills kept her alive, but she could not strike. Then she looked into its eyes, and she saw what it was."

Fear, rage, pain, hunger, destruction, loneliness, death. The feelings now permeating the Force let them know what the akul was. Primordial terrors every sentient species had in common. Barriss stiffened, hands clutching her knees as the perception reached her in the Force. Koreh whimpered and she quickly grabbed the little girl's hand, lending her strength.

"The akul was the one great fear of her people, the death-bringer and destroyer. She still feared it, but knew she must move with courage to survive, and struck a death blow."

Ahsoka's voice softened then, and she raised a hand, moving it in an arch around her face. "And she took the teeth of the monster, and her people made it into a headdress, so that she would never forget who she was again."

And there, now, mingling with the tale of sympathy and understanding came the tale of courage and strength. It wrapped around them warmly, and the little girl in the middle slid off of Ahsoka's lap to sit between them. She let go of Barriss's hand, and looked at each of the older girls in turn. She said, then, in a small, rough voice, "I want mama."

Barriss hung her head and closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the battle, the running, the attempt to reach the home in time, before the sea of soldiers engulfed it. Of a little girl hiding in a corner screaming when blades of light cut through blaster wielding machines, and a little girl screaming as she was taken away somewhere safe. "We know," she said gently. "You'll have lots of sisters and brothers here, though."

She sat on the floor, fidgeted, then put her hands down flat and pushed herself up, toddling a little as she righted herself on short legs. She said, "Where?"

Barriss caught Ahsoka's attention, and they shared an exchange of relief. The older girls stood, the little one between them, and each offered a hand.

First one to Barriss, then one to Ahsoka, she reached up and accepted them.

Slowly, to match with the pace of the child, they walked together down the walkway.

Always wanted to do a Barriss and Ahsoka friendship fic. The song Ahsoka starts singing (and then forgets) is Distant Melody, from Peter Pan (the musical, not the Disney version).

Hope you all enjoyed.

~Queen