Chapter Text
Lyza hiked the bag up further onto her shoulder and brushed through the crowd into the waiting transport, offering her fake ID and a small handful of credits to the pilot droid before sitting in the back at a window seat. She pulled up her poncho hood and sat with her knees to her chest, leaned against the chilly window of the transport, vaguely sensing the various people filing in.
Lyza pulled her mental shields up to block out the people around her and to make her presence smaller. Just another half hour and she'd be well on her way to Felucia, another new start at life, just like this planet had been once upon a time.
A rhodian man and his wife sat next to her, and she allowed their chattering in their native language to numb her mind a little before she drifted into a sort-of sleep her clone captain had taught her for how to get rest anywhere, and still be able to get up at a moments notice.
She was vaguely aware that she should be examining every new person coming in and out, but she found herself tired, drained, and uncaring. At this point she really didn't care if someone found and killed her for the lightsaber strapped inside the poncho. Everything within her just wanted to give up. Every time she found herself wishing it could all just be done and over, she found herself remembering her master who laid down his life for hers.
So she marched on.
The rhodian couple next to her moved at the request of someone she didn't turn to see. As they took off from the ground Lyza set her bag down in the space between herself and the newcomer once it became clear everyone was settled.
Then Lyza forced herself back into the battlefield mindset to examine them. A mandalorian woman she realized with a start, with dark blue and teal and grey armor, the grey carving away at the blue. She was staring forward, seemingly paying Lyza zero mind.
It is hard to tell with the helmets though. Lyza had had very little contact with Mandalorians before and during the war, she knew they were great warriors once and had been trying their hand at peace. She knew that Darth Maul had turned up there for a time, and had actually become their leader. Actually- they had been pacifists recently, right? So this one had to be -oh, what was that group called… Death Watch? Lyza made note of it and wondered if it was too late to switch seats.
The Mandalorian had asked to sit next to her, had even moved the rhodian couple in order to get there.. Lyza lowered her shields slightly and reached out to feel her presence in the force. Nothing really stood out; resignation, boredom and exhaustion that came from the monotony of doing the same thing for an extended amount of time.
Lyza had felt it in office workers approaching retirement plenty. When she was younger she feared the possibility of ending up in an office and the monotony that came with it, grateful to be a Jedi and grateful for the promise of adventure. In all honesty, an office job sounded great now. Oh, how much she's changed. Sure, her life now was plenty monotonous, but that was a different kind, a fear induced schedule that kept her moving to new planets every few months and hardly leaving the towns she chose. A quiet, silent life, fearing to make too much noise at risk of alerting whatever the empire had been using to take out the remaining Jedi.
Lyza decided that the Mandalorian wasn't too much of a threat, but she also decided not to fall asleep on the trip like she'd originally planned. Best to stay awake and aware if possible.
The trip to Felucia was quiet, and Lyza couldn't say with complete certainty whether or not she did doze off, but when they arrived, nothing had happened to her, so she counted that as a win and slung her bag over her shoulder and stepped out into the colorful, glowing planet of Felucia.
She stood and breathed in the air, a sweet smelling nectar that made her nauseous and when she tentatively reached out into the force to scan the surface, something itched at her consciousness in the distance, a small disturbance in the force, something or someone calling out.
Lyza trudged forward on concrete feet, looking passively for some sort of hotel or communal living that she could stay at until she found work. She adjusted her hold on her bag and found an inn on the outskirts of the capitol city. The boards creaked as she stepped into the threshold and tightened her arms around her waist.
She opened her mouth to talk to the man behind a desk who was peering over his glasses at a datapad but before she could, she was cut off by a, "No vacancy."
"Really? Are you- Are you sure?"
The man glared at her over his round spectacles with a raised eyebrow, "We're having refugees from all over flooding in. We're overpopulated as is, even without you outworlders taking over. You'll be lucky if you can find somewhere before night."
He returned to the datapad, his whole body shifting to look at it. Lyza opened her mouth to argue, suddenly very peeved, but he held up his hand and silenced her. She stamped her foot indignantly, "You could have said it nicely!" She stuttered to find an insult before she spat out, "Laserbrain!"
Back on the streets she crossed her arms and frowned at the ground, walking forward with hurried steps, and walked right past the same Mandalorian, who was talking to someone at a stall, passing some credits over the counter, she was briefly brought out of her sulking at the realization that she was carrying some sort of dog treat. That was then that Lyza noticed a sort of dog etched onto her pauldron. The silhouette of a sharp snouted canine with tall, pointy ears.
Lyza shook herself and kept walking, kept walking until she was out of town. Kept walking as she passed strange glowing plants, and kept walking until she finally collapsed against a mushroom of sorts with a fit of emotion. She curled her knees up to her chest and stared forward bitterly.
But she didn't scream and cry or do anything, the pent up anger dissipated almost as fast as it had come. Her insides scraped clean. Her gaze softened to defeat. She had been defeated, and all she was was numb.
Lyza didn't know how long she sat there, staring, but by the time she'd fully calmed down, she was able to feel a painful presence call out to her in the force. Something sad, mourning, betrayed. She pulled herself back up with much effort, because that's what she always did, and she took a step forward.
Someone was in danger. Someone was in pain, and maybe. Maybe this once, Lyza could help. She could do something. Her master's words played in her head, blazing brightly through the haze.
"Listen well, Lyzzy. You must understand that we as Jedi hold great power and influence. With that great power comes a significant cost. A significant duty and responsibility to the people around us. Do you understand?"
Younger Lyza nodded sullenly. She'd gotten in a verbal fight with a kid on the streets in Coruscant. He'd said something scathing about the Jedi, and being young and impulsive, Lyza had lashed out. She'd nearly hurt him. Badly. In the end he got away with just a scratch, but she'd lost control.
And it had been captured on camera.
It was viral, and she was given kitchen and archive duty, as well as extra meditation. That was where she was now.
"I wish we didn't." She muttered into her master's robes.
He smiled, then. A soft, familiar thing. "Well, you want to know what else we get to do?"
"Hm?"
"We get to fight with laser swords, and protect those who need us, Lyzzy. Remember that young woman you helped? Her purse was stolen in front of you and you stopped him easily. You remember what she said to you?"
Lyza nodded, "Yes, I do."
The memory came easily, she had sputtered for several seconds, in a panicked frenzy. The only thing legible was that the last picture of her child who had passed was in the bag. Then she'd given Lyza a sudden, sincere hug and said, 'Thank you, thank you."
"How did that make you feel, Lyzzy?"
She remembered the glowing warmth that had radiated off of herself as she'd excitedly recounted the tale to her master. And the other padawans. And the younglings. And master Jocasta. "It felt good."
"Better than fighting people in the street?"
She giggled and slyly added, "Almost."
He turned and tickled her, and her giggling intensified as her face flushed and she struggled for breath over her panting gasps. "FINE FINE!"
He stopped, now on top of her where she'd collapsed back, and she grinned before amending, "It was better than beating up hecklers."
Then she wrapped herself around him and using her full bodyweight flipped them over so then they were having an impromptu sparring match on the floor. The memory ended with Master Yoda walking in when she had him in a headlock, muttering something about how, "A young padawan is beating you, hm? Perhaps more time training, you should spend, Knight Salis." And he hit his little cane on the ground before turning and leaving.
It was a grave.
She stared down at the dirt. So innocent, and yet so malicious. Someone had died here. Someone had been murdered here. Alone, mourning, and betrayed. A once bright, friendly, bold, reckless, and.. A familiar someone had died here. A Jedi. And not just that, a Jedi that Lyza had known. Personally.
Lyza's hands twitched and tears welled in her eyes. Her chest heaved slowly, the speed of her breaths slowly gaining and some of the pent up emotion escaped through her mouth in a pathetic whimper.
Jedi Knight Aayla Secura.
Her master and her had been friends and she'd spent quite a bit of time with her. Well, second hand time, as she was her master's friend, not her own, but that didn't matter to Lyza when she was younger. She'd always thought Aayla, with her smart remarks and witty banter with her own master, was the coolest person in the galaxy, that no one could ever take her down. Force, when she was younger she'd thought she was invincible because she could take down Master Salis in a sparring match, and no one could beat her master.
She collapsed to her knees in the ashes and hoped it had been quick. She was strong, noble, and deserved that much, and her thoughts turned sharply on whichever clone had dealt the final blow.
Lyza was vaguely aware of footsteps behind her before she was stunned into blackness.