Jedi Rising... (ATTN: Ava, but AW)

For a time, silence as thick as a starless night passed between the Cathar jedi and his Padawan. He knelt down beside her, his great hand upon her shoulder. What words could he offer to soothe her? Meric remembered how he felt when his master had been killed, and it had seemed then as if the words and philosophies he had learned in the Jedi Temple as a youngling weren't enough. He couldn't spout off such philosophies to someone as broken as he saw Ava to be.

"Then that is why we are going to Hoth then," he said softly, "When I was meditating this morning, I had a vision of that place, and now I see why... I see how connected to your destiny it is."

He slowly stood and turned away, intending to return to the cockpit. "I'll be here... if you need me."

As he left, Katarn slowly reached out. Her consciousness wrapped around Ava's mind, sending calming waves that one could only call compassion through her, much as Meric had shown his own by phyiscal gestures. Like Ava, Katarn understood pain. She knew what it was like to lose her family so suddenly. It was a wound that could take a long time to heal, but she wanted to help.

Avadedra silently thanked Katarn and laid back on her bunk. Pillowing her head on her hands, she closed her eyes. Memories leapt unbidden to the forefront of her mind. Finally talking about her mother had stirred up all of the thoughts and feelings she'd buried over the months.

"Ava? Avadedra? Have you fallen asleep at your studies again?"

Avadedra lifted her head from the table, rubbing her eyes. Her hair, not quite as long at seven as it will be at sixteen, bobbed at her shoulders and shone like polished copper. She yawned.

"No," she answered. "I was just resting my eyes."

Atdana smiled at her daughter, reaching out and brushing her bangs from her eyes. Three years of trying to raise a daughter (especially one who might be Force-sensitive) alone had started to show in her face. Lines etched her young face at her eyes and mouth, but she still smiled and laughed as she always had. Avadedra laid her head back down and smiled sleepily at her mother.

"Why do I have to learn this stuff?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. "It's all been done."

"That's why the call it 'history' my dear." Atdana smiled again. "Here, let me show you." She tugged the datapad from beneath Ava's hand. Her daughter crawled into her lap, nestling her head beneath her mother's chin. "These are the great Jedi Knights of the last council before the Clone Wars. Master Yoda, Master Mace Windu..."

Ava blinked her eyes open. She'd fallen asleep apparently, because she was curled on her side with her head pillowed on her arm. Stretching, she sat up. Her right hand fingers were asleep. Wiggling them to restore circulation, she left her quarters and headed back to the cockpit. Stepping in, she hesitated a moment before wrapping her arms around as much of her teacher as she could.

"Thank you, Master," she whispered. "For helping me remember her."

Meric wrapped his arms around Ava, returning her warm embrace. He had honestly not enjoyed such closeness since he had left his homeworld of Kashyyyk so long before. "It was nothing of my doing," he told her, "You hold her memories deep in your heart... it is from them that I have seen you draw strength time and again... If only for your mother's sake, Avadedra, I believe you will become a great Jedi, like those who came before."

He turned back and punched a few instructions into the computer console. A subtle shift in the artificial gravity indicated Katarn had slowed. Since there was an asteroid field surrounding the Hoth system, Meric wanted to come in more slowly, just in case.

Indeed, it was not long before the ship dropped from lightspeed, smoothly and gracefully. There, looming before the travellers, standing out like a blue-white pearl against the blackness of space was the planet Hoth, a world which could only be called inhospitable, covered by rock and ice, with very little plant life to be found exept in the warmer caverns below. Meric knew of few native creatures to that world, except the two-legged, reptilian Tauntauns, and the fierce primates: Wampas... Meric hoped desperately they would not encounter such a beast.

"You had best get your warmest clothing on, Ava," Meric warned.

Ava had retreated to the co-pilot's seat. She watched with a lump in her throat as Hoth came into view. Her nerve endings tingled to life and she fought the urge to fidget uncontrollably. Her fingers twisted together involuntarily as she watched the planet grow.

"You had best get your warmest clothing on, Ava."

She nodded and rose, leaving the cockpit. She stopped for a moment outside her quarters and smiled. Meric hadn't called her by her full name this time. Warmth spread inside her as she ducked in and began pulling out the items her Master had advised she purchase. At the time she hadn't understood why she might need them when it seemed that they were only visiting warm planets. Now, she saw the error in her thinking for doubting him. She had much to learn.

As quickly as she could, she dressed, moving back toward the cockpit as she braided her hair. Casting a smile at Meric, she dropped back into the co-pilot's seat.

"How much longer?" she asked, more for something to do than for curiosity.

By this time, Meric was concentrating on his piloting duties, so he didn't notice Ava consciously until she asked her question. "Just a few minutes more," he said, "I have the coordinates punched in so we should be able to land just a short distance outside the old Echo Base hangar. From there, we'll need to use our lasers to burn through whatever snow and ice have accumulated over the hangar doors."

"With the lasers set on their lowest power setting, we should be able to punch through several layers without damaging the base structure itself," Katarn pointed out, "Any snows inside the base, you should be able to take care of with your lightsaber."

Meric nodded in agreement. "Alright then," he said, "We're coming in for a landing." Taking hold of the piloting controls, he angled the ship toward the planet, keeping a firm grip as the wind of Hoth's upper atmosphere began to buffet, rocking her back and forth. "Shields up!" Meric ordered.

Immediately a hum indicated Katarn had obeyed his command. The rocking calmed as the descent stabilized.

Avadedra held on, alternately watching Meric's movements and Hoth as they moved closer to it. She let go the breath she didn't know she'd been holding as soon as the shields raised.

"Whee," she said, grinning at Meric, teasing. "Let's do that again!"

Meric laughed and Ava turned back to the viewport, her smile slowly fading. Her mind drifted back to the last time she'd seen this planet from a ship.

Her mother had been off on some errand for some officer, leaving her alone in their tiny, cramped living quarters. Feeling closed in, she'd left the room and moved to the forward part of the ship and found an empty port. From there, she had watched as Hoth had burst into view. Cold, an icy marble trapped in space, Ava had felt the first stirrings of anger that her mother had dragged her out to this forsaken place. Her fists clenched at her sides, she'd been caught unaware when the ship was rocked by the early signs of gravitional pull. She tumbled to the deck and slid a few feet before the shaking stopped. Opening her eyes, she saw her mother looking down at her and had begun to laugh.

Ava sighed, drawing her mind back to the present. Once again, she was watching Hoth rise before her, its presence large and cold and real. But this time, there was no laughter upon landing. There was cold, hard silence.

As the Katarn reached the lower reaches of Hoth's atmosphere, Meric lowered the landing gear. The ship settled gently, causing a flurry of snow to whirl up around it. As the flakes settled, Meric spotted what he was looking for just outside the Katarn's viewport.

It appeared to be little more than a large mound of snow, its surface shifting as the winds blew over it, forming ledge-like waves. Meric took a moment to examine his scanners. "Looks like what we're looking for," he said, "Laser Cannons on lowest setting..."

He placed his fingers on the trigger and closed his eyes, calling on a Jedi technique to relax himself. Stretching out through the Force, he looked for a weak point to target that wouldn't cause the mound to crumble. Finding the right point, he gently squeezed the trigger. Crimson blasts stretched from the four canons held on the ends of the ship's wings, blasting the snow and icy layers to rubble...

When the dust settled, there before them sat a gaping cavern. Meric could still make out a few dim, still-functioning glow panels. It was rather surprising, given that he'd thought Echo Base had lost power when the Empire invaded. Scraps of droids and the preserved plascreet shells of a few storm trooper armors littered the floor, along with other debris from the ruined base. "Well, here we are," Meric said, standing, "Do you have the list of parts I gave you?"

With a quick nod, Avadedra got to her feet. The scene before her was slightly disturbing, but she set her resolve and left Katarn. She felt more than saw or heard Meric following her, and she was grateful, but she also understood that this was her path and she must follow it on her own.

The distance between Katarn and the opening in Echo Base wasn't long, but moving through and across the snow made it seem like an epic trek. Even with her layers of clothing, she was shivering by the time she dropped down into the base. Pulling her face mask down, she looked around. It was all so much different from when she'd last been here, but the echoes and stirrings of memories still lingered. Even in the horribly empty silence, she could still remember the voices of the people who'd lived, worked, and died here. Hearing Meric step in behind her, she moved further into the base.

Storm trooper armor littered the large open room, their occupants still and silent for eternity. The wall at the northern end had partially collapsed, but with a little climbing and squeezing, she was able to slip past it into the corridor. It was dark here, colder. She pulled a small hand-held light source from her belt and activated it. Attaching it to her belt, she moved on, carefully picking her way around mounds of ice and collapsed wall, not to mention more storm trooper armor. At a junction, she automatically turned left and kept moving. She came to another blockage, this one unscalable. With an overwhelming sense of calm, she placed her hand against it and waited for Meric to catch up.

"Master," she said softly, unwilling to break the spell of silence cast over Echo Base. "I need to get past this. Can you help me?"

Meric understandably found centering himself difficult as he moved through the dilapidated corridors that had once been the nervous system of the entity known as Echo Base. As he was stronger in the Force than Ava, he could feel the lingering fear and anger brought on by the final battle. He worked hard to shut out the voices that cried out in anguish as they and their fellows were cut down: imperials and rebels alike. The heartless fingers of death clutched at his soul, making the already inhospitable planet seem all the colder.

Meric kept his eyes on Ava as she moved, but he hung back. This was her journey... her test. If his padawan was ever to become a Jedi in full, the things that lingered here, she would need to face and overcome on her own. He held one lightsaber in his hand at all times, ready in case some Wampa or even a newly-feral Tauntaun moved to attack. He had confidence in Ava's ability to handle these things, but he was prepared nevertheless.

Soon, the two came to the rock wall. At Ava's request for help the Jedi closed his eyes. "This is your obstacle," he told her, "Use the Force to help you overcome it... Reach out... You can still feel the faint traces of energy beyond this barrier... The snow isn't thick... and all is held in place by a single piece of rubble... If you extract that, your way will open."

She stepped back from the blockage, chewing her lower lip. Her disappointments at this particular task rose in her mind, but she forced them aside. She'd succeed this time, she just had to.

She closed her eyes and reached out, doing everything Meric had been teaching her. She silenced the voices, she shut out the thoughts. There was nothing but the Force and her own heartbeat. Focusing herself, she followed the path of energy through the snow and ice until she found the steel plating of the wall. Picturing it in her mind, she willed it to move, to back back and away from its final resting place. She attuned herself wholly to the Force, let it roll around and through her as she pushed the twisted metal from her path.

The snow and ice shifted as the rubble beneath it began to move. There was a low grinding-growling sound as it turned aside, forcing its way from beneath the cold, wet blanket that covered it. With a loud CRACK, the wall of ice behind the plating gave way, allowing the path to clear. Ava's eyes snapped open just as the mound of snow shifted in her direction. With a yelp, she scrambled backward, barely keeping herself from being buried in the process. She tripped over her own feet and landed next to Meric.

"Wow," she gasped, looking up at him, bracing herself on her arms. "Did I do that?"

Meric stepped back to give his apprentice the room she would need to concentrate fully. The process was slow, but patience was one of a Jedi's greatest strengths. Bit by bit, he took note as first one, then two flakes shifted out of the way. He listened to the subtle creaking sound as the plate on the other side of the wall began to move aside.

The collapse of the wall was sudden and total. Its cacophonous crack echoed though the base, deafening Meric for a moment. Now, he glanced down as Ava tripped over his feet, and the Corellian girl would note amusement in his eyes, aside an obvious pride in her for the feat she had just performed. "You did," he confirmed, "Now our path should be open. Remember, through the Force, anything is possible... Only our perceptions cast barriers before us."

Climbing to her feet, Ava brushed the snow and ice from her clothing, batting at the flakes that had settled on her cheeks and nose. Pushing aside her pride at what she'd done, she continued on, picking her way through the mess she'd made.

As she passed the piece of wall, she stopped momentarily and placed a hand against it. With a short nod, she moved away. Another junction and she took a right, suddenly realizing where she was going. Minutes later she stood before the quarters she'd shard with her mother. The door was slightly ajar, just large enough for her to squeeze through, she could tell, but she hesitated. Meric came within a few feet of her and stopped. She looked at him and saw the encouragement and silent understanding. Steeling her resolve, she moved through the opening.

Immediately, she was thrust back in time again. Nothing was disturbed here, save for the layer of snow on everything. It was almost as if the items were waiting patiently for their owners to return and claim them. Her bed was in the far northern corner of the main room, and through the open door of the connecting eastern room, she could see her mother's bed against the wall. Ava moved slowly, touching the small things her mother had cherished so much. The only bits of their lives that had survived moving from planet to planet. At the foot of her bed, she found a discarded shirt and a pair of worn gloves. They were both stiff from the cold. Leaving them she moved on, reaching to the very back of the shelf over her bed and pulling a small wooden box from the corner. Not bothering to open it, she shrugged out of the pack she wore on her back and tucked it inside.

The pack dangling from one hand, she moved into her mother's room. There was slight damage to one of the walls and items had been cast onto the floor, but the room was still mostly undisturbed. She glanced down at the floor and saw a holo-projector near the door. Her brow furrowed; she never remembered her mother having one of these. She activated it, but it remained dark. The power cell was dead. Slipping that into her bag, she moved on. A niche in the wall near the bed supplied Ava with the belt bag her mother clung to when other things were cast aside. Holding the bag in her left hand, she used her teeth to pull the glove from her right. Tucking the glove away, she pried open the bag and looked inside. If she remembered correctly, these were light saber components. Reaching inside, she pulled out a lense. Smiling, she held it to the light, ensuring that there were no cracks in the surface. The bag contained metal pieces and other mechanics for the inside and hilt. Closing the bag, she attached it to her belt and pulled her glove back over her numb right hand.

As an afterthought, she pulled another wooden box, almost identical to her own, from another shelf and put it into her bag. Sliding the pack back over her shoulders, she left the room and joined Meric in the corridor. She showed him the pouch.

"It seems my mother is still looking out for me."

Meric watched as Ava moved through the room that she had shared with her mother. Amid the chaos of the Battle of Hoth, some of the snow had evidently been knocked loose, dusting everything like powdered sugar.

This room was... an anomaly as far as Meric could tell. For all the feelings wrought by warfare, and all the pained echos of troops long dead he heard throughout the base, there was something different here. As cold as this planet was, he detected warmth, and as chaotic as the rest of the base felt to him, he felt calm...

When Ava brought out her pouch and showed it to him, he reached down, his fingers lightly tracing across its surface. "Indeed she is," he answered, "Your mother is one with the Force, as should be but... I feel her... here.. I feel the echos of her love, and her caring. I feel the warmth of months' worth of bedtime stories and goodnight kisses. And I feel desire... a desire to see her daughter achieve greatness... and she has taken every step she could to guarantee your success."

He smiled gently. "I wish I could have known her," he said, "I fear, however, that I never interacted with her during our training under Master Yoda."

The girl smiled. "She was a pretty top notch person," she said. "She did her best, even if I was a pretty rotten kid at times."

Settling the pouch at her side again, she moved on. At some points she was forced to backtrack around a corridor blocked too well to be cleared. Three times she entered a junction and became increasingly disoriented and confused. She had to stop and force herself to focus. There was too much chaos in the air the further into the base they travelled. Too many voices clinging to the walls. She shivered heavily in the cold, but she kept going.

Rounding a corner, she stopped abruptly. Memories surged.

A fourteen year old girl running in terror, swept into a crowd of men and women. Her mother fell behind slightly in the rush. The girl looked back just as the wall on her mother's left exploded inward, dropping sheets of steel and ice onto her. The girl screamed and tried to turn back, but a man bearing a sergeant's rank grabbed her around the waist and literally picked her up as they kept running. She could see her mother struggling to rise, but her body was pinned in the rubble. Laser blasts burst over head as the Storm Troopers flooded the corridor. The charged forward, determined to let no one escape. One of them paused over her mother...

Avadedra let out a sharp cry and fell to her knees in the snow. Anguish bubbled up in her chest and her breath came out in sobs. A few feet away from where she knelt, her mother had met her end. Thinking about it now, she knew that it had been quick. Execution wasn't always painful. The Imperials were brutes, but not all of them were savages. Still, she wept into her hands, finally letting her grief go. In the end, where she thought she'd feel empty and lost, she only felt relief.

"Oh, Mom," she whispered, wiping the trails of ice from her cheeks where her tears had frozen. "I miss you so much. You gave up everything for me, everything, and I'm so sorry. But... I'll do my best, Mom. I'll become a Jedi and I'll be strong. I'll learn everything that Master Meric teaches me, and I promise that I won't let you down. Please Mom, be at peace now."

From the corner of her eye, Ava spotted something glittering beneath the ice that wasn't ice. Crawling to her right, she swept back the few layers of snow until she picked up the pendant her mother always wore. It lay in the palm of her hand, glittering in the light. The chain was missing, but the stone was intact. She remembered staring at it as a child, and playing with it when she curled up in her mother's lap. She felt a tingling in her mind and gripped the stone to her chest.

"Thank you, Mom," she whispered. "Thank you."

Meric didn't know the thoughts that rushed through Ava's head at that moment, but he could feel her pain. It emanated from her like a fire from a blast furnace. He forced himself to look away for a moment, attempting to center himself once more. When he returned his gaze to her, he found her kneeling on the ground, clutching the small pendant to her chest.

The Togorian Jedi knelt beside her, placing a hand upon her shoulder. He said nothing... Much as he wanted to think he had answers for every question... words for every situation, he found himself struck silent... perhaps mystified. The Jedi teachings had always cautioned him against love... against attachment of any kind, save for his attachment to the Force, and to his master. Love was especially cautioned against, for it was among the strongest of attachments, and could lead to the darkest depths of one's soul if broken... And yet here, he saw the opposite. Ava's mother, trained to be a Jedi, had given up everything for her Daughter... in the end... even her life, and yet where he thought he should have found the greatest of angiush... there was only peace.



"There is no death," he finally said, reciting the final line of the Jedi Code he'd been taught as a youngling, "There is only the Force." A smile lit his features. "Your mother intended this for you, Ava," he said softly, "This stone... she always meant to give it to you... and I believe that... a part of her spirit still remains with it... I sense its strong ties with you... and with the Force."

"My father gave this to her the night I was born," Ava said, holding the pendant in one hand and tracing a finger across its surface with the other. "I was so stubborn, even then. I didn't want to be rushed and I didn't seem to be in any hurry. For two days my mom labored with me, but she always denied the medics to hurry the delivery. She always knew I'd do things in my own time." Ava smiled, turning to face Meric. "When I was finally born, my mother was half dead, but she laughed. I lay in her arms screaming, and she laughed. She told me later that she named me Avadedra because it meant 'timeless one.' She meant it as a joke, I think."

Ava climbed to her feet and looked around. She took one last long look at the place her mother had died and turned away.

"I think I'm done here," she said softly. "I feel that I have everything I need now."

Meric listened intently to Ava's story. Having no such memories of his own parents, to hear her talk so fondly of her lineage greatly intrigued him, especially given the surface-level disdain she showed her father. The more time he spent with Avadedra Hetarra, the more enigmatic his apprentice became to him.

He turned and began to move toward the hangar again, keeping Ava close by his side. On the way he gave her instructions about how her lightsaber components should be assembled. He wished that he had the time to give her detailed instruction, but such would have required weeks... months even... time he did not have. "The most important lesson is this," he told her, "that the lightsaber is a symbol... It is us, and as the crystal is the heart of the saber, so too the Force is the heart of the Jedi... The strength of the saber flows from the Crystal, but flaws in the crystal... cracks... or other impurities, can cause the strength of the weapon to fail completely... Likewise, we draw upon the Force for our strengths, but beware the flaws... the Dark Side... anger... fear... agression... hatred... That path... that path will end only in death... and darknes..... and believe me when I tell you that I have seen no good ever come from it."

Nodding, Avadedra minded her feet as they made their way back to the ship. Her teeth chattered together so hard she bit her tongue a few times. Still, she paid extreme care to her Master's instructions.

As soon as they cleared the atmosphere of Hoth and were soaring through clear space, the young woman excused herself politely from the cockpit. Minutes later, she sat on her bed, legs tucked beneath her as she lay the different items from her pack on the blanket before her. The two boxes lay side-by-side to her left, waiting. The bag of parts and components lay in front of her, gleaming in the low light as she used a soft cloth to polish the lense. Laying it aside, she worked on the other pieces, making sure that they were clear of debris and unbroken before replacing them inside the bag.

All the while, her eye was drawn to the dead holo-projector sitting by her knee. Something about it struck her as odd. It made her realize that there was so much about her mother that she'd never know. She took up the bag of components, and leaving the holo-projector on her bed, she went back to the cargo bay. She thought that, perhaps with more room, and less things to possibly burn, she'd be able to get some bit of a start on her saber.

Settling into a corner, she took a tool kit from a nearby storage container and studied the components in her hand. It didn't LOOK complicated, but she wasn't fooled. She was quite familiar with how fickle and touchy circuitry could be when it chose. As if to prove her point, a few minutes after she'd begun, one of the circuits that she'd been attempting to graft to another (in hopes of completing the power cycle) sparked in her palm. With a cry, she dropped the circuit and the tool to the floor.

"Ouch," she groaned, studying the burn. "Great. Just great."

She left the cargo bay in search of a first aide kit.

All the way back to the ship, Meric never stopped instructing Avadedra. Making a lightsaber, he explained, was more than simple understanding of circuitry and components. Construction of a lightsaber was both a test of her abilities, and a lesson to her. "The Crystal," he had explained, "is the heart of the saber, just as the Force is the heart of the Jedi. Just as the saber's power must come from the crystal, so too must our strength flow from the Force. The blade is an extension of the saber, and so too are we extensions of the Force." And so on his lessons went. Only when the two had nearly reached the ship did he explain to her the intricacies of creating the weapon, not only using tools, but her budding power to fuse the weapon into a complete whole, an extension of her own being.

Now though, he watched as she rushed down the corridor to the med-bay. He didn't fault her for wanting to get a medical kit, but he could tell she was frustrated by her own inabilities.

He followed after, leaning against the entry as Ava treated her wounds. "Don't feel discouraged," he counseled, "Many new Jedi take months to fully complete their weapon, and even I singed off my fur several times while I worked on mine, and I had Mace Windu to train me." He sighed wistfully, remembering his lost master, but he let it go... Now was not the time for mourning. Mace Windu was one with the Force, and he was to be celebrated for it. Meric would unite with him again, one day, as a son returning home to his father.

She glanced at Meric briefly as she worked on her palm. It was difficult one-handed, but she was certainly glad that there was no med-droid hovering about.

"Discouraged?" she asked, smirking playfully. "This isn't me 'discouraged', Master. This is me in pain because I should know better."

Ava finished up and cleaned up her mess, putting things in their proper place. Running the fingers of her uninjured hand through her hair, she turned to face him.

"I understand everything you've taught me, Master," she said softly. "It may be hard to believe, given my past behavior, but I do have an idea of what I'm going to face while I do this. I don't promise that I won't get discouraged from time to time, but I'm only human. Besides, what's a few bumps and scratches along the way? A little pain, and joy, to teach us to remember to feel sometimes? I don't know about you, Master, but I'd rather not become numb." She held up her hand. "Lesson one: make sure you're not cross wiring circuits before applying an arc."

The Cathar Jedi couldn't help but smile at hearing his apprentice's words. She was young, and he knew she was using them to cover up her disappointment in herself, but in those words, he saw the heart of a true Jedi forming.

He placed his hand upon Ava's good shoulder. "You'll do just fine," he smiled, "You may have a lot to learn, but your lessons come to you quickly... I forsee great things for you." He removed his hand from her shoulder and extended it once more. "Now, back to work," he said, "Persistence is... sometimes a painful lesson. Believe me... I still bear the scar on my paw from where I actually sliced through my flesh while trying to construct my saber."

Ava visibly winced.

"Master, really," she said, allowing a touch of playfulness into her voice. "Do you want me to do this or not? Because telling me stories like that aren't going to help at all."

Smiling, she moved past him into the corridor and made her way back to the cargo area. Crouching down, she picked up the tool and the parts she'd been working with. Studying them closely, she found what she'd done wrong and corrected it. Smiling to herself, she settled back against the wall and continued where she'd left off.

When her neck and shoulders began to ache from hunching over the circuits and parts, Ava decided it was time for a break. She gathered all of her materials together, carefully placing completed and semi-completed parts back into her bag. Standing, she shook her legs to try and restore blood flow. As they tingled and stung, she made her way back to her quarters and dropped onto her bed. Setting her bag aside, she rotated her shoulders.

Her eyes fell on the holo-projector. Snatching it up, she made her way to the cockpit, hoping to find Meric. Finding it empty, she decided a walk would help her legs a little more, so she started back down the corridor, keeping her eyes open in case she should stumble across her Master.

Meric grinned at hearing Ava's comment. "My point is," he chuckled, "That even the greatest of Jedi messes up from time to time. Don't expect perfection."

With those words he let her get back to work. He kept himself busy wandering through Katarn and performing various tasks. He spent some time tending to a tick in one of the hyperdrive couplings, checked on Ava occasionally as she worked, careful to never once disturb her, and finally ended up back in his quarters where he fell into peaceful meditation.

It was here Ava would find him. He opened his eyes and looked up, not saying a word as his apprentice approached. It appeared as if she in fact had something on her mind.

Meric was in the one place Avadedra had hoped not to bother him. She spotted him from just down the corridor, biting her lip as he looked deep in meditation. She was on the verge of leaving when his eyes opened and his gaze fell upon her. Spotted, she had no choice but to move forward.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," she said from the doorway, her face heating in embarassment. "But, I was wondering if you had the proper power cell for this." Ava held up the projector. "It was my mothers. And..." she hesitated. "If it works... would you watch it with me? Just... just in case?"

Meric stood and looked at the holoprojector. It wasn't all that different from the ones he'd used on missions for the Jedi Council. He placed his fingers on the underside of his muzzle. "I may have something for it," he said, "Such power cells last a long time, but on Hoth it may have drained more quickly."

He left for a moment and returned carrying a small power cell barely as big around as Ava's little finger. "Try slipping this in," he suggested. In truth, he was a bit nervous about what the projecter might contain. The Jedi discouraged such attachments, but if Ava's mother was the reason she was becoming a Jedi, it was only right Atdanna be allowed a last message to her daughter.