Chapter Text
Cantinas as a general rule are not particularly sanitary, quiet, or conducive to maintaining good nutrition. In fact, in Techno’s experience, they tended to be the polar opposite of those attributes. Especially here, deep in the lower levels of Coruscant in a district aptly named the Dealers’ Den, there was hardly a building that wasn’t some level of seedy. The average cantina served alcohol over the counter and a laundry list of illegal substances under it.
Sanitary or not, however, it made a good place to lie down for a couple of recognizable figures wanted by the Republic and liable to be called in by any citizen with half a moral in their heart.
Thankfully, no such morals exist in this part of the planet.
Phil sighs across from him, running a limp fry through his ketchup with a downward twist to his lips, feathers fluttering behind him. His wings are the most recognizable feature Phil has. Otherwise, the sandy, shoulder-length hair, grey-blue eyes, and pale, fleshy skin wouldn’t be anything but average on any planet with a sizable human population. The wings, however, near-black with large, shining feathers that shift around him as if a strange, sentient cape, are not so easily blended in with a general human population. Even with the heaviest of cloaks, if Phil ever deigned to wear them, he would always appear not quite fully human.
The less said about Techno himself the better. There’s hardly enough piglins running around anymore to even begin to disappear into any crowds.
Techno raises an eyebrow at the avian. It's not unlike Phil to get melancholy with enough time spent on Coruscant. Techno knows little of the man’s past beyond their first meeting. He knows Phil is a talented Force user, that he wields the Dark as easy as breathing despite harboring one of the kindest personalities Techno has stumbled across, and that he, once, had a Master. Techno has always assumed that Phil’s Master was Sith, his predilection for the Dark more than telling, though perhaps he, much like Techno, began with the Order. He can only guess. Phil is pointedly tight-lipped about his past.
“Nothing much,” Phil says, popping the fry in his mouth. After a pause, he says, “I hate the air here.”
The air of Coruscant was both putrid and highly filtered. It seemed that no matter how hard the atmospheric filters ran, especially in the lower levels, the miasma of the city still lingered. Phil preferred open skies and the natural filter of plant-life, noticeably absent on the city-planet. Techno can’t say he appreciates Coruscant’s appeal either, whatever that may be, despite having spent the largest portion of his childhood on the planet. The Temple was vastly different from any other part of Coruscant. It was built to soothe and breathe with life, in direct contrast to the industrialized, capitalist mess that spilled out everywhere but the richest districts.
“We’ll head off planet soon.” Techno shrugs, scratching at an itch on his snout. “BG’s ready to head out anyway.”
Phil snorts, as he always does when Techno refers to their ship by its name. The Blood God was the name he gave his YT-2400 light freighter when he was nineteen, freshly deserted from the Order, and high off his sudden and inexplicable freedom. Phil’s never let him live it down since the first time he told the man what the ship’s name was.
“Whatever, old man.” Techno shrugs. “You can poke fun when you have your own ‘craft.”
“-civil war.”
Phil pauses in whatever he was going to say, tilting his head to the booth behind him. Techno turns his attention to the conversation occurring in the booth across from him.
“Yeah, in the Cadavine sector. Got two of ‘em groups who can’t decide who owns what,” the neimoidian says, back facing him and Phil but speaking adamantly enough with their hands that Techno can see them move about from his vantage point.
“That’s the way it always is.” The human shrugs, eyes rolling. “Some upstart here, some dead kid there, and wouldn’t you know it, civil war. One of ‘em will kill the other out eventually.”
Phil tilts his head at Techno, a twist to expression that screams a special brand of trouble. Techno sighs, scrubs his eyes for a moment of respite, and then rolls his shoulders back, his spine cracking pleasantly. “Alright, then. New destination.”
Phil stands, throwing some credits on the table with a slightly unhinged smile. “Don’t worry, mate, I’m sure this will be lots of fun.”
“That’s what you always say,” Techno replies and follows Phil out of the cantina and into the filtered air of Coruscant.
The city-planet is always loud, even in the artificial dark of a fading day. The planet is so heavy with smog and light pollution that for as long as Techno’s remembered there has always been a mechanical day-night cycle. In the Temple, he remembers they had the clearest view of the natural sun, miles above the thick of the true city of Coruscant. Now, as he travels often, the natural sun is not so much of a commodity but another sign of the abhorrent state of the planet.
Even with the artificial day cycle, the city is alive at all times. Nocturnal races aside, the populace of the lower levels of Coruscant tended to favor the darkness. Crime could and would be committed at all times of day. Techno had found that the worst of them were often committed in broad metaphorical daylight, but petty criminals tended to prefer the weak protection of shadows. In a place such as Dealers’ Den, where you will not find the headquarters of any operation worth its credits and rather is home to an eclectic collection of low-level thieves and smugglers, the nightlife was active and vibrant.
Techno and Phil, wings on full display, were no petty thieves and recognizable figures on top of that. They would face no real threat here in the Dealers’ Den but the thing about criminals such as the ones that populate the district is that they tend to be more stupid than not. Stupidity can masquerade as confidence so Techno and Phil stick close to the shadows themselves, keep a small profile, or as small as they can with Techno’s large stature, as they meander their ways through the rickety plastisteel walkways that connected just about every building.
The starcraft dock that the BG is at is a shady little thing connected to the owner’s Alderaanian cuisine restaurant. It’s good food, authentic, hot, and not poisoned, so Techno enjoys using the dock when they stop in Coruscant. No one’s ever tried to break into the ship either while it sits there, either, which is an upside Techno appreciates immensely. Sometimes, it's hard to explain why the BG vaporizes intruders instantaneously, which really isn’t as much of an issue as some people want to make it out to be, except sometimes the intruders are the dock owners/employees, which can make the whole experience kind of sticky.
The dock owner waves a greeting from behind the bar of their little restaurant when Techno and Phil amble through. The owner is a sweet, middle-aged human named Rith who doesn’t speak a lick of Basic and doesn’t want to either, despite living on the only planet without a secondary language that isn’t Basic. Phil, fluent in Alderaanian, exchanges a couple of words with them before Techno and Phil are ushered through the back and to the dock, where the Blood God sits as neat and polished as it did when they left it.
Rith bids farewell and goes back to manning their restaurant. Techno disables the security on the ship and lowers the ramp, allowing him and Phil to enter the hull. Techno sets to re-engaging security while Phil makes his way to the cockpit to set a course.
“Cadavine sector, right?”
“That’s what they said,” Techno responds, making sure the ramp seals tight. When the seal hisses, he moves to join Phil in the cockpit. The avian is standing at the control panel, punching in the coordinates listed on the star map holo. “What’s even over there?”
“Nothing, basically.” Phil shrugs, rolling with the motion of the ship as the engines purr to life and the landing gear retracts back into the ship. “The only planet of note is Melida/Daan. Melida-slash-Daan, because there’s a civil war and the two factions can’t decide who owns the entire planet.”
“How long has that been going on?” Techno leans forward, examining the star map.
“A long time now.” Phil’s eyebrows furrow, reading through whatever he’s pulled up on his datapad.
“No Republic intervention.”
“It looks like the Order did once recently. But it looks like it failed. There’s not really any coverage about it after the Jedi is dispatched.”
“Sounds about right.” Techno rolls his eyes, gently pushing Phil aside to kick the BG into hyperspace. “We’re about three cycles out. I’m going to sleep.”
“Sure, mate,” Phil says distractedly, still scrolling through something on his ‘pad, his feathers shifting and flaring rhythmically in the way they do when the avian’s deep in thought.
Techno waves a hand in the man’s direction and goes to get some shut-eye.
The planet of Melida/Daan would be pretty in an alternate timeline where the land isn’t scorched with fire and explosives. As it is, the foliage that pushes through the ground is scraggly and hardly. It’s a land defiled by war, and it shows.
They land the BG in the most deserted stretch of field they can find. It’s scalped bare, just packed dirt and stone. When Techno descends the ramp and makes his way planetside, he thinks he can see crystals of salt peppering the dirt.
Phil whistles, glancing around the environment, wings stretched wide and flaring around him. “They did a number on this one.”
Techno bends down to swipe a finger across the ground. When he rubs his finger, he definitely feels grains of salt between his finger pads. “Understatement.”
“Star map data seems outdated. When I checked this should have been a full agricultural field.”
“This wasn’t done recently,” Techno says, glancing around at the wind-eroded soil.
“Sure wasn’t.” Something in the distance explodes, sending faint tremors through the ground.
“For the record, this was your idea.” Techno narrows his eyes at the billowing smoke that emerges, followed by another explosion. “If any of that hits the ship we’re gonna have problems.”
“Hm,” Phil hums. He shrugs. “Well, let’s see what’s that all about then.”
The trek towards the fighting is relatively short, in the grand schemes of things. The ground is mostly flat and bare, as scorched and salted as where they landed the ship. The explosions draw closer as they walk, powerful but not as shaking as Techno has seen on some of the more developed planets use. It doesn’t seem blaster based, either, probably something made of more natural materials. He would be surprised if supplies were in low demand here. Signs of societal development had been there but were surely destroyed from years of war.
The problem with planets like Melida/Daan is that there is no third party to turn the tides of war in either faction's favor. More developed planets would have several societies of people to choose to engage in the civil war or not. While Techno is certain that there are groups within each faction that wish for peace, these people have been fighting with each other and only each other for their entire lives. Children have been born, raised, and killed in this civil war. It’s all they know at this point, and with the land as decimated as it is, one faction probably doesn’t have a significant advantage over the other, or it would have ended long ago.
The scene of the battle emerges quickly. Techno will give these people the credit in that they seem cautious about how callously they throw away their safety. It’s not a complete bloodbath, a couple bodies here and there but that’s to be expected. An explosion crashes into the ground a few dozen feet from where Techno and Phil are standing, and yeah, it’s definitely more crude explosives than plasma powered shots. Dirt sprays into the air, little chunks of rock along with it, though the worst of it bends around the two of them as Phil sends a suggestion into the Force.
He can hear shouting, in Basic thankfully. If there is a native tongue of the planet, or perhaps two that are split between the Melida and the Daan, then Techno doesn’t know it, and would rather not play that guessing game but with deadly weapons thrown in the mix.
“Hey, mates!” Phil waves in the general direction of the voices, pitching his voice out. “We come in peace!”
The shouting stops abruptly, the atmosphere hushing. Techno rolls his eyes as he sees a couple of heads poke out from around various rocks and half-destroyed homes that linger in this area of the planet. The heads shoot right back down when Techno makes eye contact.
“That has always worked,” Techno mumbles, nudging Phil with his elbow. “Nobody has ever doubted that sentence.”
“Shush.”
The sound of a single bolt of blaster fire rips through the air and Techno has his lightsaber out and ignited to deflect the beam. His lightsaber hums to life under his palm, a burning red, a deep, vicious color that swirls and burns the air around it.
The blaster ricochets off his blade and straight back to where it came. There’s a strangled gurgling that rises from behind a half-scorched wall then dies out just as quickly.
There’s half a heart beat of silence before chaos erupts.
Blaster fire rings out from every corner. Physical blades are flung, rocks that seem to be slingshotted towards them, and someone sets off another explosion that hisses as it's lit and the fuse runs quick. Phil’s lightsaber joins the fray just as quickly, his lighter red flashing in controlled circles and waves as he deflects and cuts down attacks thrown their way.
Techno shifts until he presses back to back with Phil, blade swinging in mostly instinctive moves just as fast. The bomb is smothered and buried into the ground with a quick suggestion to the Force, the blaster fire redirected and sent hurtling back towards the locals, and all physical objects cut in two or handily dodged.
“Alright, Tech,” Phil says after a moment, blade swinging, singing with the movement. “I’m good here, go have fun, yeah?”
“Sure thing, old man.” Techno nods, and then he’s leaping into the air, wind dragging through his short fur. He descends upon one of the factions, all humans though of varying colors. Necks and torsos split and fall away from each other with easy, precise strikes of his ‘saber. The only disappointing thing about using a ‘saber, Techno thinks as he makes quick work of the humans, is that the plasma cauterizes wounds. There’s no spray of blood to follow what would’ve been a quite messy procedure otherwise. Techno doesn’t necessarily like the blood he has to scrub out of his clothes afterwards but there is something satisfying about the warm spray of crimson that sinks into his fur and warms his skin. It makes a great accompaniment to the high of a sated battle-lust that always thrums in his veins.
The struggle ends quickly. Not that Techno expected much resistance from what was clearly a less developed planet despite the clear structures for a society that had once existed. Techno sighs as he shakes out the heady rush of battle-high from his limbs and turns to check on Phil.
Phil is similarly and unsurprisingly unharmed. His wings are stretched out, shining a spectacular deep, near-black green in the sun. There’s a smile twisting his lips that speaks of his own battle-high, an unhinged cant to the corners that are more than simple amusement.
“Alright, then,” Techno says, looking around the battlegrounds and rubbing the back of his hand over his snout. “Gotta find their boss, next.”
Phil doesn’t respond for a moment, staring intently somewhere in the middle distance. He shakes his head a moment later. “Yes, as long as they weren’t among this group.”
Techno squints at the bodies around him. “That would be disappointing.”
“I don’t know what you expected, mate.” Phil shrugs, his shoulders rolling back, his wings shifting with the movement.
“Well-”
There’s the sound of something scuffing the ground, an object colliding with the packed dirt, and a bitten off sound.
Techno looks at Phil, who tilts his head in response. Techno sighs and in a few long strides he’s marching toward the sound, hidden behind a miraculously unscathed boulder. His lightsaber is bright and humming with a flick of his wrist and he rounds the corner, ‘saber held out in threat at-
“Shit-!”
“Techno?”
Techno hastily clicks his lightsaber off, pocketing the hilt, backing up a couple steps from the wide, watery eyes in front of him. “Uh, so, it’s a child.”
“What-?” Phil rounds the corner, taking in the sight before him. There’s a kid curled up around the curve of the boulder, legs tucked up under him. The kid’s dressed in what could nicely be considered rags, the fabric thin, stained, and falling around the kid’s figure like a sheet. “Oh, mate. We won’t hurt you.”
Phil crouches, keeping a careful distance. Techno retreats a few more steps. Phil coos, a light bird sound meant to put the little ones at ease. “It’s okay, mate. We don’t hurt little ones, Techno didn’t know it was you over here. He can be a bit silly.”
“Hey,” he grumbles half-heartedly, most of his attention focused on the kid who does not relax as the joke had been intended to make him.
Then the kid pulls out a blaster and aims it point blank at Phil’s face.
“Um,” Techno says.
Phil smiles, hands loose at his sides. “That’s alright, mate. We won’t hurt you.”
“What do you want?” the child asks, large brown eyes half-hidden between greasy brown hair. “We don’t have anything for you.”
“We don’t want anything, promise.” Phil shrugs, wings folded still behind him. “We just wanted to stop the fighting, that’s all, mate.”
The child’s eyes dart around them. “You killed all the adults.”
“Well, they did start shooting first,” Techno says. Phil shoots him a look but it wasn’t even a lie.
“What’re you doing out here, mate? Seems kind of dangerous, even with a blaster.”
The child hesitates, swallowing hard enough to be visible. “...was supposed to collect the leftover supplies. When they were done fighting.”
“What kind of supplies?”
“The medicine ‘n stuff, weapons, ammo, you know.” The kid shrugs. “Mostly the medicine. It’s sick season and Ben’s been trying but-”
The kid looks up at them with wide, wide brown eyes and slaps a hand over his mouth. “You didn’t hear that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Phil smiles, a bemused twist to his lips and the dip of his eyebrows. “Do you need any help? Tech’s real good at carrying things even if he’s not good at much else.”
“Bruh.” Techno sighs but the kid giggles. “You can’t even pick up more than five pounds ‘cause you’ll throw out your back.”
“He’s just salty I make him do all the work,” Phil faux-whispers. The kid giggles again, shaky and quiet but there all the same. Phil stands, wings still held tight at his back, and offers a hand to the kid, whose shaking aim with the blaster has fully dropped to rest loosely at his side. The kid bites his lip before putting the blaster away in a makeshift fabric sling that seems to serve as a holster and taking Phil’s hand. The avian levers the kid up. At full height, the kid barely reaches Phil’s hip, much less Techno’s.
“You’ll have to teach us how to do it,” Phil says.
“That’s okay,” the kid replies. He moves his way over to the corpse of an older man with a cauterized blaster hole through the middle of his forehead. The kid rummages around in the pockets, turning them inside out and patting down the length of the corpse. “You just kinda gotta look in all the pockets. Uh, in the clothes too.”
“Sounds good.” Phil splits off to another corpse not but a few feet away, head cleanly separated from its shoulder. “What's your name, kiddo?”
“Uh, I’m Adai.” The kid looks at Phil, then at Techno, who is decidedly not participating in this copse looting, because he, unlike Phil, has standards . “... What’s your name?”
“I’m Phil, nice to meet you Adai.” Phil waves and the kid waves back. Phil pilfers a roll of bandages three bodies in and tosses it to Techno. “This one’s Techno. He looks scary but he’s a real softie.”
“You’re killing my rep, Phil.” Techno rolls his eyes.
“You’d have to have a reputation for me to kill it.”
“Bruh.” Techno sends a pebble hurtling at the avian with a flick of his fingers. It unnaturally deaccelerates and falls to the ground just short of the man.
Adai giggles and Phil’s teasing smile softens and widens.
They, meaning Adai and Phil, make quick work of the rest. For all that Techno complains, they do make quite the haul. He can see why a group of most likely undersupplied fighters during the height of what must be flu season on the planet might want the handful of bandages, antiseptics, and clean supplies they find, looted off fallen enemies and allies notwithstanding.
Adai leads them back with some probing, walking through the ruins of what was probably a farmstead where the two factions were fighting, through a swath of more salted fields, and into a scarce forest, if it could even be called that. The trees are mostly bare, a scattering of thick, green-brown leaves on every other branch. The grass crunches under their feet, pale yellow, stiff and standing straight up. There is the faint chirp of birds and skitter of some creature against the ground, but the fauna is so sparse Techno is surprised there is anything at all. He wonders if there are some thriving, man-eating insects in the ground that the other animals are feeding on. Techno really wouldn’t be surprised if there was, there’s probably enough carrion regularly left around that there would be no lack of food.
Hm. Are these people eating each other? For survival?
Best to just avoid eating any meat that’s offered. While he may not be susceptible to human diseases, he’s not taking his chances.
Eventually, a camp emerges from a line of surprisingly full trees. And a camp is what it is, not a settlement by any means. Fabric and stick tents, areas of sleeping materials laid out but exposed to open air and not tucked away elsewhere, it all speaks to a temporary establishment for all that it looks well lived-in.
Also, a lot of children. Not just a lot of children, a lot of children. Almost exclusively children. The oldest he can see looks to maybe be in her late teens.
“Adai!” A boy looking to be in his early teens rushes up, pulling Adai behind him and leveling a blaster in Phil and his direction, though for a moment he seems unsure of who to aim at before settling on Techno. There’s a flurry of movement and sound as the children of the camp seem to herd certain, younger, children one way while others similarly draw weapons. When the teen boy speaks, his tone is angry, though tinged with fear. “You brought adults here!”
“They’re nice adults,” Adai says, reaching to tug on the older boy.
“That’s what all adults say. I told you they lie.” The boy turns to them, eyes a near-black brown but lit with a fire. The blaster trained on Techno stays still and steady. “Go, we don’t want you here.”
“We don’t mean any harm,” Phil says, hands held loose at his arms, wings pulled back tight. “We just came to help. That’s why we’re here.”
“Don’t lie to me!” The boy pushes Adai back further. “We are fine here, the Young do not need the help of adults.”
Phil shoots him a glance, a furrow to his brows. His expression smooths out when he turns back to face the children. “We’re not from this planet. We just came to help.”
“Obviously.” The boy’s tone is sharp and sarcastic. Techno suspects he would’ve rolled his eyes if the atmosphere wasn’t so tense. “Even the Jedi said that, and they didn’t do anything for us, and you’re no Jedi.”
“Yes, we aren’t Jedi.” Phil gestures between himself and Techno. “I am Phil and this is Techno. We travel planets to help people such as yourselves. We always help.
“Adai said you killed the adults.”
“We did.”
“If you came here to help, why did you kill them?”
“We did help, didn’t we?” Phil tilts his head. “Techno here is carrying all the supplies we helped Adai gather. He’s very willing to hand them over.”
Techno nods when the boy glances at him. While the blaster is still trained on Techno, the boy’s focus returns to Phil. “Set them down.”
“We can help heal your sick,” Phil offers. “Techno is a gifted healer.”
The boy glances at Techno again. Then, ever so slowly, he lowers the blaster. “Fine, you’re on thin ice. One wrong move and you’ll have a blaster bolt through your heads.”
“That’s very reasonable.”
The boy turns to Adai. “Go get Ben.”
Adai hurries off, waving at the two of them as he goes. Phil waves back and Techno nods his head. The kid goes scampering off out of sight. The boy, running a hand over his short, coiled, dark hair, sighs. “Alright. My name’s Nield. Med-tent’s this way.”
Nield leads through the camp, blaster still in hand. It’s the running theme between all the children they pass. The vulnerable among them seem to have been herded and hidden elsewhere, and those still out and about keep a wary watch on Phil and Techno, weapons close at hand.
The med-tent is one of the nicest structures in the camp but that’s not saying much. It’s a large, patchwork cloth suspended by a series of several long wooden sticks and rope, staked into the ground at the end or tied off around a nearby tree. At least it provides shelter and shade for the ill inside, but it’s far from sanitary. When they step inside, the ground is uncovered dirt, hard packed but exposed. The warm air and stench of sickness is trapped in the enclosed space, and though there is ventilation at the bottom of the structure where the cloth tent doesn’t quite reach the ground, most of it is trapped. Children are laid out in various states of illness on piles of blankets and cloth, others running between each person with water or a bowl of food or some other supplies.
“Nield!” A young girl hurries over, sparing a wary glance at Phil and Techno. “Have you seen Ben?”
“Adai went to fetch him.” Nield looks back at the tent entrance warily. “They say the big one is a healer.”
Techno wrinkles his snout at the description and Phil nudges his side with a teasing lilt to his lips.
The girl looks up at him, dirty blonde hair and big green eyes. “Alright, then. C’mon.”
Phil stays back with Nield as the girl leads him towards the back of the tent. Another kid, rather young but with a steady confidence, takes the medical supplies from Techno to distribute elsewhere. There’s a certain ambient sound to the makeshift hospital. There’s several people with wheezing breath, a noise every so often of someone talking in low tones or shifting in their sleep. Techno has never particularly enjoyed the medical setting despite having a talent for the practice. It’s why he never went on and specialized in healing. It was a restrictive practice, fitting you into a box that stayed in the temple at all times and never saw a day of combat. It would’ve been a bad life for him, worse than life in the Order in general already was.
He’s glad he never went into the practice, is still glad even with further instruction and practice from years spent away from the Order. As he glances at the children lying around, some simply ill with a virus but others missing limbs, or eyes, or suffering from huge, bandaged injuries, he remembers why he kept up the art. There’s a pointed lack of supplies in less developed planets. Republic sponsored planets benefit from generous trade and interplanetary travel. On places like Melida/Daan, where their only interactions with atmospheres beyond their own come from Republic examiners, Jedi expeditions and the occasional smuggler, they don’t receive any supply chain near as expansive as even the most backwater Republic planet.
The girl leads him down to a small human child, looking barely older than double digits, gasping smally on a pile of thin blankets. There’s a large swath of bandages wrapped tight around the kid’s right leg. The first thing that registers when Techno kneels and pulls back the bandaging is the smell. It’s a rotting, putrid scent, intensified in the already stale air of the tent. The girl standing by his shoulder neither flinches nor looks away. Much accustomed to this then, perhaps even the one currently treating the kid.
The wound isn’t really too large. It’s a deep cut on the side of the shin bone, but it didn’t hit any major muscles or arteries. The problem alone is the infection, already having taken deep root in the flesh and musculature. It bubbles with thick, dark blood and the yellow-green liquid of pus. It’s burning to the touch as well, when Techno lays a finger against the skin near the wound, red and inflamed.
Techno huffs a breath of air and rolls the half-cut pant leg as far up the kid’s thigh as he can get it. He sets both of his hands on either side of the wound, resting above the knee and on the ankle, palms nearly engulfing the entirety of the kid’s thin legs. There will be muscle atrophy, he’s sure. Lack of movement aside, the infection seems to have degraded much of the muscle in the area away.
Techno breathes out, a slow exhale, and closes his eyes.
The thing with the Force is that it’s in everything. Every plant, every animal, and every person. Even the salted fields run shallowly with the Force, the microscopic life that lives in everything carrying the Force with it. Even blood, freshly spilled, thrums with the life of the Force.
Sometimes, Techno thinks the Order never quite understood the Force despite centuries of study. There was a certain rigidity to the way they thought, a moral black and white, a dark and a light. They were unbalanced, all Light and no Dark. Some saw the Force more as an object to manipulate and others as a servant to command. The problem therein is that the Force is neither tool nor person. The Force is sentient for all that it is simply the way it is. It exists within its own rules, which are none at all, and allows acts or does not. There is no disobeying the Force because the Force has no tangible will to Obey. The Force simply is.
When Techno heals or fights or sticks all of Phil’s feather brushes to the ceiling when the avian is pissing him off, he does not manipulate the Force. He suggests to the Force, asks it to enact Techno’s own will into action, however it may see fit. Healing is a suggestion, a plea to restore what once was. Because infection and rot and death is as much the Force as is healing and growth and life. Techno does not correct or fix, he restores to a previous state, should the Force allow.
When he concentrates, feels the thrum of the Force in this small child’s leg, it is not with the thought that this is an unnatural act committed upon the child and the consequences therein are to be rejected. Moral, societal unfairness or justice is not a concept of the Force.. The Force has no morals, it simply is. It is Techno who decides he wishes the child to be healed. It would be Techno who decides if he wished the child to die, for all that in his own moral code this would be an abhorrent to be condemned. It is not the Force who decides it is reproachful, only Techno himself.
It is what makes Techno such a proficient healer. Often, in many of the Knights and Masters and Padawans he has worked alongside and fought against, they commanded their will over the Force. Techno asks and the Force gives or does not, according to the way it is.
When Techno asks for the infection to recede, the flesh to fuse and seal back into a smooth unbroken line, the Force responds to the plea with its answer. The pus and thick blood remain, but it stops emerging from the wound as flesh knits itself back together. The heat recedes, leaving only warm, naturally pale skin. The muscle builds itself back together, easing the worst of the degradation. It is restoration and an easement of pain and it is the will of the Force, because Techno asked and it responded in turn.
Techno lets go of the kid’s leg and rocks back so he’s sitting on his heels. The leg looks as perfectly unharmed as it was undoubtedly the moment before the injury. Techno reaches around to a pile of scrap cloths to wipe away the excess blood and puss. Then, the child looks only as if they are sleeping peacefully, breathing even and calm and not even a furrow in their brows.
When Techno glances at the girl, she’s looking at him with wide, wide eyes. Techno allows the barest of smiles to twist his lips before he stands. “They’ll be fine, now.”
“Can you do that again?” The girl asks and there burns a bright fire in her eyes that gives them a vicious look. “How many?”
“As many as you need.”
“Then follow me.”
Techno follows.