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1
Padawan Luminara Unduli sits alone in the meditation room.
Her lip trembles and her body shivers as she desperately tries to sense for someone, anyone, who might be approaching her—but she senses nothing.
Finally, after what feels like hours of waiting, she feels Master Yoda coming up the corridor towards the room she’s sat in. Rather than comfort her, as his presence has done so many times in the past, Luminara fights to choke back the sob in the back of her throat. How harshly will I be punished? Is the ominous thought that she can’t get out of her head. How badly have I fallen?
Her actions had felt perfectly justified at the time, and a small rebellious part of her still cries out her innocence, but she is too smart to delude herself completely. She’s done wrong, gone against the Jedi way, and who knows what’ll be done to her now?
“Padawan Unduli.” Yoda’s grim toned voice breaks the silence, and Luminara shudders.
“Master Yoda.” Her voice is smooth, which shocks her, though that is what comes with years of emotional suppression—though at fourteen years old, Luminara has not yet gained enough courage to look the elderly Jedi in the eyes while keeping an unbroken voice.
He coughs—thrice—and them places a hand on her shoulder. “Explain the incident, in your own words, you shall.”
There is a moment of silence where Luminara takes a few deep breaths and blinks back tears that were threatening to fall. “I...I was speaking with Padawan Kenobi in my room, because he has been my friend for a long time...” Her voice breaks at points, but she only gets comforting waves from the Master through the force too continue. “As he departed, since we are friends, I hugged him...but, I swear, I meant it only as an innocent gesture Master!” Her eyes look up now, frantically trying to read Yoda’s thoughts.
“Continue, child.”
Luminara gulps. “My Master...he, he scolded me afterwards—as is his right, I am only a student—and told me that my attachment was out of hand...I can’t see Obi—I mean Padawan Kenobi again—I behaved recklessly in my response...” She is unable to stop herself wincing. “I...threw my Master against the wall with the force.”
Her tears run down her cheeks freely now, and she sobs into her hands in a feeble attempt to shield her emotions from Master Yoda. “It all happened s-so fast but I…I have no excuse. I’m...I’m so, so sorry...please forgive me...” She squeaks through shallow breaths.
Yoda gently pulls her hands away from her face, exposing her blood-shot eyes and tear-stained cheeks that were only dampening further. “Hush now, child.” He says. “Reckless, this act was. Suppress these emotions, you shall learn to do in time. For now, you shall receive no punishment, ask only that you reflect, I do.”
She sniffs and wipes her eyes. “You must punish me Master...” Her eyes search his mercilessly. “Please...I must repent, I must learn from my mistakes...”
If anything, Yoda is more worried about the young girl’s reaction than her actions themselves. Where is the happy youngling I taught not so long ago? He thinks sadly. What has caused this?
“A serious incident, I do not believe this to be.” He consoles her. “Your outlook, however, is troubling.”
He can see her shoulders tensing even though she tries to hide it and place a comforting back hand on her shoulder. “My...my outlook? I—I don’t understand...” She wipes under her eyes again, the tears starting to cease. It is saddening to feel that her force presence, something that was once light, bubbly and uplifting, is now deeply strained and shielded. The Mirialan tradition of taking a student of their own species, as often as it had worked, had seemingly been counterproductive in this particular instance.
“Punishment is not reflection.” Yoda tells her. “More important, reflection is. More fitting for a Jedi who makes a mistake. Agree, do you not, Padawan?”
There is a pause while the Padawan thinks about it. “My Master...has different views.”
“Your Master, you are not.” Yoda smiles. “Each Jedi is their own; you, your Master, myself, Padawan Kenobi. Become your Master, do not, channel yourself.” Her force presence was significantly calmer now. “Respond well to punishment, it seems, you do not.”
Her sobbing starts to cease. “Then...what should I do?”
“Mediatate.” The wizened Grandmaster smiles. “And stop these tears—aid you, they do not.”
“Yes, Master.”
He is right—crying does nothing to help her. Repression could—will—help her, so that is what Luminara must do.
2
She knows that, really, she should be telling her Master about what just transpired—it was the right thing to do, she is a Jedi, and a Jedi must do her duty.
She’d almost got up to go and tell him six times now, with conviction and confidence, only to slump back down on her temporary bed and cry into the sheets. It just...it isn’t fair, how she has to lie here all alone while he can be off, with her...
Luminara Unduli is not a jealous person.
That’s what she tells herself, though her reaction at seeing Obi-Wan with that duchess makes her doubt its truth. Sure, she’s pretty, Luminara allows. With her blonde curls and extravagant clothes, big mouth and wanton attitude...
Luminara stands, going through her ‘fresher’s sliding door, and standing directly in front of the mirror.
Am not as pretty as her? She can’t stop herself thinking. Is it my headdress? My tattoos, my face, my body?
Vanity isn’t important to the Jedi, it’s frowned upon—she doesn’t need to be beautiful to help the universe. But she is sixteen years old, and despite being raised in the rigorous Jedi lifestyle, some of her is still just another sixteen year old girl who has fallen inexplicably and deeply for another Padawan who is seemingly completely oblivious to her disposition. And it doesn’t seem fair that Obi-Wan is so much more captivated by her than Luminara, Luminara who’s known him for as long as she can remember, who would literally die to keep him safe, who knows him better than he knows himself.
There is a knock on her door. “Who is it?” She manages to keep any indication of tears out of her voice.
“Quin.” A voice replies from outside. “Open up, Lumi.”
“Just...” She swallows. “Why are you here?”
“You know why I’m here.” He says. “Now open up.”
She doesn’t open the door so he uses the force to push it open himself, looking at her with an unreadable expression because he knows but can’t really understand—can’t really comprehend the internal conflict and pain that runs through her veins from her heart to every inch of her body. She is a lonely creature really—and it isn’t fair that she has to be this way, but it’s just how it is.
Quinlan takes her hand and squeezes it gently—she knows that it’s meant to be comforting but all Luminara feels is constricted and uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry.” He says to her and tries to catch her eye. “But you know he doesn’t mean anything by it. He loves you, Lumi.”
Oh, how she could choke him for that comment.
“Besides,” He continues. “You’ve always got me, huh? You’re my best friend so you’ll take my love whether you want it or not, I’ll smother you with it until you no longer have any choice but to accept it and enjoy it.” He wipes a small tear away from her cheek with the pad of his thumb and Luminara finds herself laughing just a little.
It isn’t often that she indulges in physical contact to comfort herself—she’s 16, really she should be old and mature enough at this point to pull herself together by herself and without any trouble—but just this once she lets Quinlan wrap his strong arms around her and hold her close.
He speaks of platonic love between them—and she supposes she agrees, to an extent, because she doesn’t emotionally connect with anyone more than she does with Quinlan (except Obi-Wan, of course, but she isn’t going to think about that right now) but her duty is always far higher up on her list of priorities that her friendships which is why it’s so painful for her leading poor Quinlan on, a boy who has always but his heart first. Making him think that perhaps she could ever care, or love, him as much as he does her.
After about a minute she pulls away and bites her lip, wiping all her tears. She must look such a wreck—red eyes, watery nose, lip bleeding from where her teeth have pierced the skin. But from Quinlan’s expression she never would have known.
“You know I’m always here, don’t you?” He says, and she knows that it’s a lie. He isn’t ‘always here’, and neither is she—at least a third of their time is spent off-world on some sort of mission with their master’s; these are times in which they are quite literally not there for each other. But she does appreciate the sentiment, so doesn’t say any of that.
“Th-thanks.” She says instead, mustering a tiny smile.
“You don’t need to be so scared of crying and getting upset, you know.” Quin says. “It happens to everyone. You should have seen me last month when I broke my toe on Kashyyyk. I was balling like a baby, Master Tholme looked like he was gonna either burst out laughing or beat me with his bag.”
The image isn’t too hard to picture, and Luminara’s smile widens ever so slightly. “I think I might take a nap. I’m tired.”
He nods. “Okay. Don’t hesitate to give me a bell if you want to talk, or just don’t want to be alone.”
“Sure.” She says, though she won’t.
3
Luminara doesn’t know what’s going on when she lands on Coruscant, except that everyone and everything senses overwhelmingly wrong.
In the corridors, people give her looks—shy away from her whispering like she’s some sort of pariah. Her mission to secure Rodia was successful so she can’t imagine what it’s all about, but she’s a Jedi Master so she brushes it off and focusses on her war reports, goes back to her quarters and doesn’t think about it.
Part of her misses having Barriss in her little home with her but is still proud that she’s successfully raised her to the status of knight so doesn’t allow herself to time to be too reminiscent about it. Give it a few years and Barriss will have risen to one of the best healers in the order and she’ll be able to take a student of her own—Luminara’s apprentice always loved to spend time with the children—and everything will have worked out for the best. With that thought, Luminara makes a mental note to visit her newly knighted student when she gets the opportunity since it undoubtedly won’t be long before she’s sent out again, and last she heard Barriss is also on Coruscant.
Her reading is interrupted by some shouting outside her door, which in itself is bizarre in a Jedi temple, so she moves to go outside and help resolve it but stops once she hears who it is.
“Anakin, stop. This isn’t her fault, contain your anger!” Luminara hears Obi-Wan shout which causes her to frown.
“Let me through!” She hears Skywalker shout back, with such anger and pain that she steps back for a second. She can’t begin to imagine what’s caused these dangerous emotions in him, and who he might be looking for. “And it is her fault—let me through!”
It’s only when she hears the sound of a punch being thrown that Luminara opens the door to her quarters and looks out at the pair of them—Anakin struggling against his old Master who’s holding his hands so they can’t be used to hurt anyone. “Is something wrong, gentlemen?” She asks in a no-nonsense tone and has to stop herself wincing at the growl Skywalker gives her in reply.
“This is all your fault, yours!” Skywalker shouts and she can’t quite hide her expression at that. She’s been off world for the past few months and can’t begin to fathom what on earth she’s done to offend him quite so badly.
“What is my fault?” She asks, calmly, hands threaded together.
“Luminara…” Obi-Wan turns to look at her with somewhat of a surprised expression, a bead of sweat forming on his forehead from the force of holding Skywalker back. “Go back inside. Me and Anakin will handle this out here.”
“It’s important that he be able to express his turmoil so he can overcome it, Master Kenobi.” She replies.
“Ahsoka’s gone!” The anger is gone in his voice, swiftly replaced with a heart wrenching turmoil that makes Luminara twitch. “And it’s your fault—what did you teach your padawan? Ahsoka was good, she didn’t deserve any of this shit and it’s all because of your padawan!”
“My padawan?” Luminara frowns, eyes furrowed together. “Has Barriss done something wrong?”
Anakin freezes and Obi-Wan turns to her with a shocked look. “What?” The younger Jedi exclaims.
“She doesn’t know, Anakin.” Obi-Wan looks at his old student. “Go away from the temple to cool off and we’ll talk about this later. You’ll get nothing from this, she doesn’t even know what happened.” When Anakin shows hesitance Obi-Wan repeats this sentiment and after a long moment Skywalker stalks off the other way, footsteps heavy and loud.
When he turns back to Luminara, can’t help but look at her old friend with deep confusion. “I’ve only just got back from Rodia. What’s happened—is Padawan Tano alright?”
Her old friend sighs and runs a shaky hand through his hair, eyes struggling to meet hers. “I…I don’t know how to say this. Do you mind if I come in, you should probably sit down before I tell you any of it.”
A feeling of dread starts to build itself at the bottom of Luminara’s stomach as she leads him inside to her apartment and sits down at the table by him—sparse as all the other minimal furniture she has in there. “You—no one’s told you anything?”
She shakes her head. “No. And your starting to concern me, Obi-Wan.”
“Nothing at all?”
“No.” She repeats, with a sigh. “I suppose that people have been a little…peculiar since I returned to the temple, but I haven’t paid overmuch attention to it. Now, please just tell me what’s going on?”
“There was a bombing at the temple while you were gone, in the hangar. People were killed and the council thought Ahsoka had done it. She was put on trial and would have likely been executed except…Anakin did some more digging to try and get her out of it and it turns out she was framed by…” Luminara feels her heart stop as she knows the answer, logically, before he says it but can’t quite bring herself to believe it. “Barriss.”
She opens her mouth to reply but no sound comes out, she just shakes her head. “No…” She eventually says, head still shaking. “She would never do that, hurt anyone…Obi-Wan, she’s a healer! She believes in peace!”
“I know.” Obi-Wan sighs. “I think that’s part of what drove her, but she just…handled her emotions very badly. I’m sorry, Luminara.”
The mirialan Jedi looks up at her old friend, eyes shining over for the first time since she was teenager, in a desperate plea. “Tell me you’re lying. Please.”
Obi-Wan reaches out for her hand. At the contact, and his silence, a tear spills down her cheek because Anakin is right—if her padawan has fallen so far so soon after knighthood then she is entirely responsible. She desperately tries to scramble through her memories for a sign she missed, for something, anything that might offer explanation to this that doesn’t fall solely back to herself and she can’t find one. This feeling of utter failure isn’t new but never ceases to sting—even more so, it seems, when regarding the girl she’s practically raised.
A choked sob escapes her and she holds onto Obi-Wan’s hand tightly, her other hand going to cover her face. To her surprise he shuffles closer to her and pulls her into a side-hug.
Luminara lets herself lean on him and stays in silence, though her mind keeps screaming:
FAILURE! Failure! Jedi don’t cry—but you hardly deserve that title anymore, having failed the order as you have.
+1
It seems like some sort of tugging at first, spiritually—and it takes a while before Luminara realises that, for a long time, she’s been dead.
His voice comes to her second. She can’t make out what he’s saying but it’s so nice, so calming to have it near her—it’s something she can remember sadly realising she’d never hear again in that cell where she’d been terminated by the empire—after the genocide of the Jedi. His voice symbolises innocence to her, even if neither of them are close to it—she’d met him at a point of innocence, loved him with a naïve hope that was never, and will never be affirmed and died thinking back to those times they had together as children, and then as adults—how he’d been able to make her laugh and smile like no one else.
Movement surprises her. Form also surprises her, but as her body starts to rematerialize in a ghostly form, she cannot quite fathom what’s happened but is not against it.
Later, Obi-Wan explains to her that Master Jinn taught him how to rematerialize as a sort of force ghost—how Anakin had killed him in his new form as Darth Vader but now, dead, they are immortal and are able to offer guidance to all the Jedi of the future which starts with the lone Luke Skywalker.
Luminara finds she quite enjoys this new existence as she learns to fully materialize, meets Skywalker’s children and is reunited with Master Yoda and the redeemed Anakin too.
When the war is won, Luminara sits watching the living celebrate with Obi-Wan next to her, smile on his face. He’s been fighting this battle far longer than she has and victory over the emperor is everything he’s ever worked for. She is happy for him, proud of him. But there is one question that remains.
She takes his hand and looks into his eyes.
“Why me, Obi-Wan?”
He frowns—his face lined and wizened in a way she’s still not quite used to but doesn’t mind. She’ll always be young which is, in comparison, far sadder. “What do you mean?”
“Hundreds and hundreds of good Jedi died, and many more equipped to help Luke and Leia than I.” Luminara says. “So why choose me to gain this power over them? Me, who’s student fell, who failed our Order?”
He smiles and shakes his head, hand reaching up to her cheek and holding her there gently. “It’s always been you.”
Her throat thickens and she feels the urge to cry—not something she’d even thought she could experience beyond death but it seems the afterlife is full of surprises—but swallows it. She now has an eternity to be with him and an eternity she shall take, greedily, and there’s no more room for tears.
“And if we’re talking about fallen padawans…” He smiles at her, and she laughs, pulling him into an embrace.
Finally, as she leans into his touch, Luminara Unduli feels at peace.