A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold: Discoveries [complete]

[Nya Thyan]

"Nya! We're going over to the station for the meeting. Will you be allright?"

Her mother's voice sounded distant, hollow; she didn't bother replying. Again she looked at herself in the mirror, critically re-arranging a lock that had strayed from the elaborate hairstyle she had so painstakingly labored over for the past hour.

'If only I had dark hair,' she thought, and sighed. 'Light hair just doesn't look serious enough.' Dark brown or black - that had a certain dramatic flair, but light, nearly mousy brown? It just looked ridiculous.

For Nya Thyan, having a dramatic flair was very important. Her biggest ambition was to become an actress - not one of those silly holodrama stars, but a real actress, on a real stage. Of course, none of the grown-ups wanted to take her, at 12, seriously - they all just patted her on the shoulder, and looked at her with a look she interpreted correctly as "Sure, sure, young Nya - a gift for acting will come handy in the trading business one day; don't we all have it? You'll be a fine help to your parents one day."

Ach! How she hated them - all those fools squandering their time and money day in and day out on things they thought someone would be eager to buy up from them some day. No, she had no intention of ever becoming like them.

A more important question for her right now was how to procure the costume she would need for tonight's rehearsal. Sure, her parents had never made a big deal out of her using whatever she could come across on the ship, but they shrugged any of her demands for new costume material off, not taking her 'little infatuation' with the theatre serious at all.

"Nya! Did you hear me calling you?"

Her mother stood at the door to her quarters, with a saddened look that did not hide her annoyance of being so completely ignored.

Nya monotonously replied, "Yes, mom. I'll be fine, don't you worry."

Her mother stepped up behind her and put her arms around her. Nya looked at her own and her mother's reflection in the mirror before her. Thin lines furrowed her mother's forehead, small wrinkles surrounding her mouth and eyes. Her mother's face looked old, prematurely aged far beyond her real age. She had not been young when Nya had been born, but it was as if every sorrow, every pain she had ever had to suffer was etched onto her face.

'Her eyes look dead,' Nya thought, and touched her mother's arms.

A rare smile touched her mother's frail face, as she began to brush over Nya's hair softly with one hand.

"Don't wear that awful cream on your face, my darling - you are far too young to need it. I doubt you ever will…" her mother's voice trailed off, as her eyes lost focus in the mirror.

Times like this made Nya wonder what had happened to her parents in the past to have caused so much pain and sorrow. For both of them wore that same look, the same grieved expression on their faces whenever they were alone or something reminded them of past times. They hid it well in company, they laughed and joked along with everyone else, shared stories and the latest gossip from Imperial Center, but afterwards, in the private sanctum of the family's starship, the mask would fall, to reveal faces where every trace of grief, of guilt, of remorse and pain was written clearly. It was a sadness that Nya could not understand, a sadness the reason for which she had never been told.

Her mother's hand brushed once more over Nya's hair, trembling slightly. "Please don't make a mess again like the last time, Nya - promise me? You know how upset your father gets if you do."

Nya nodded at her mother's face in the mirror, and squeezed the hand she was still holding. "I promise," she said, softly.

Her mother kissed her on the top of her head then, and with a last quick embrace, said goodbye. As she walked toward the door, Nya could hear her long dress trailing on the carpeted floor.

"Mom?" she called out, as her mother reached the door.

With a weary sigh that betrayed her thoughts, her mother turned around. "Yes?"

The expression on her face showed so much weariness, so much gentle forbearance that Nya for once decided to leave any more requests for a new cloak to another time. She did not want to add to her mother's pain by asking for something she knew her mother would have to deny her again.

"Take good care of yourself and dad over there." She finally said, smiling gravely.

Her mother returned her smile, a look of grateful surprise on her face. Then she turned round and left.

[Nya Thyan]

Nya had no intention to go against her own promise. There would be no mess when they returned. That did not mean that she could not have some fun - she would just have to take care to tidy up after her. But if what she had planned for this day would work, then the need to take care not to leave a trace of anything being disturbed was essential anyway.

With mounting excitement, she monitored her parents’ exit from the ship's cockpit. It would not do if they suddenly came running back, having forgotten something important, just as she was about to set her plan into action. No, they had to be well out of the way and on transit to the station, before she would attempt anything. So she waited until she saw the shuttle for the station depart.

If there was one place on the ship that was off-limits during her previous hunts for good stage-props, it was her parents' quarters in the aft section. It had always been a kind of unspoken rule that she would not venture into them, and never before had she tried to break it.

Until today. She knew her mother kept all the better trade-goods in her own quarters, to keep them out of Nya's reach. She also knew that the last shipment they had carried had included several crates of ottegan silk, one of which she'd seen moved into her parents' cabin. And if the holos she had seen of Emperor Palpatine were anything to go by, then a cloak made of ottegan silk such as the one he wore, would be perfect.

She waited another 10 minutes after her parents had left the hangar bay, to make sure they would be well on their way. Finally, she saw the shuttle that regularly serviced the space-station lift off in the distance, and make its slow way towards the spinning contraption in space that held the Bazarre Market Station.

Nya’s heart skipped a beat, in excitement, and she finally rushed out of the cockpit and down the ship’s corridor, towards her parents’ quarter. The voice-activated lock on the door couldn’t keep her out – she had long kept a short recording of her mother’s voice in a well-hidden folder on her datapad. It was easy enough to replay it now, and break through the minimalist security her parents had installed around their inner sanctum.

The durasteel double-doors opened with barely a noise in front of her; and with that, opening the doors to an entirely different world for Nya.

Almost reverently, she stepped inside. This was not the first time she had been in here – but the first time on her own; it was enough to make her afraid to touch things she would normally not have hesitated to pick up and look at. Tip-toeing further into the room, despite her growing fear of the forbidden, she located the large wooden trunk at the head-end of her parents’ bed. That was her target.

Many times she had seen the most fascinating objects, and clothes, vanish into that trunk as her mother put them aside in there for special occasions. It was something Nya had always coveted, to take a look into that trunk, and find the treasures her mother had kept safe in it. And now she was just seconds from getting her wish.

The trunk’s lid opened easily – the woodwork on the trunk made it as much an object of admiration as the things hidden inside it, with its dark-brown lacquered surface and delicate drawings; and the large golden lock and its elaborate key were a part of that artwork, that to separate them was simply unimaginable. It served Nya very well now.

Oscillating rays of light swept across her face as the shine of the lamps in the room reflected on a fabric with multi-coloured beads and gems, which was lying on top inside the trunk. She couldn’t take her eyes off it, even when the brightness almost blinded her. With her large dark eyes wide open, she stared at it for a long while, in her mind already imaging herself dancing and performing in the most elegant of dresses made of this fabric in front of an admiring audience…

Somewhere on the ship, metal clattered. It was a small sound, but it brought her out of her day-dream with a start. Hastily, she closed the trunk again, and hid behind the bed curtains, listening for more noises.

Nothing. There was no other sound. No sound of footsteps, or voices, approaching. Just something, somewhere, falling down, or slamming open. Nothing to worry about, surely.

Her heart racing with the imagined danger of this situation, Nya kneeled over the trunk again, and opened it – but this time, she did not spend minutes staring at just one thing. There was no time for it. Instead, her nimble fingers burrowed through the fabrics, further and further down, still on the search for that expensive piece of silk that she was certain her mother had put into the trunk. But where was it?

She was in a rush now, to find what she had come for, and get out of the room before being found out. Hastily, she looked deeper down, anxious not to disturb too much and give herself away through it. Increasingly nervous, she leaned over the top of the trunk, to get a better look at what her fingers were holding each time they came in contact with something new.

Suddenly, her fingers encountered resistance. Nya frowned – it couldn’t be the bottom of the trunk already, could it? Fingertips tracing along the area, she found that it wasn’t the bottom anyway – it wasn’t wood, but something cool and even. Some kind of metal. A box of some sort; she could definitely feel the edges of it. What was in it?

Her comlink beeped.

[Nya Thyan]

Nya’s head came up; the motion was abrupt enough to destroy the balance the trunk’s heavy lid had kept, and it fell forward, towards her head. Her hands came up, in a late attempt to shield herself – miraculously, they stopped the lid’s descent a mere two inches above her head.

She exhaled sharply, and shakily pushed the lid back again. Blinking slowly, trying to slow the beating of her heart and the rushing noise in her ears, she finally remembered what had set this off at all. The beeping of the comlink came into focus again. The fright she felt seemed to constrict her throat as she tried to respond to the beeping. At last, with a suddenly hoarse croak, she found her voice again.

“Y-yes?”

“Nya, it’s mom. I just wanted to see if everything is okay.”

Nya sank back against the side of the bed, almost paralyzed with fear. In the background, through the comlink, she could hear the dull droning noise that the shuttle would make. They had to be on their way back.

“Y-yah, mom… errr… everything’s fine.”

She tried to think of something she could tell her mother, something she could be doing now instead of sitting in her parents room going through their things; but in her anxiety, her mind seemed to be completely blank. What time was it? She looked at the chronometer on the wall – early afternoon.

“Ahh… I’m just making myself something to eat, mom.”

Her mother’s voice sounded relieved, as she replied, “That’s my girl. I’m also calling to tell you that we won’t be back for a few hours yet – an old friend of your father’s is here, and has invited us to join him for dinner tonight. Your dad and he are elbow-deep in samples right now, so I doubt we’ll even get a chance to go over and change before dinner. Are you sure you’ll be allright on your own?”

Nya’s grin returned to her face. It seemed she was in luck today. What more could she want, than to remain for a few hours unsupervised, with the contents of this trunk? No, it was perfect.

“I’ll be fine, mom!” she growled, then added, as an afterthought, “now you and dad have a good time, okay? Bye mom.”

She flicked the comlink off before her mom could find anything else to ask. And then turned her attention back to the trunk and its contents. And the box at the bottom.

[Nya Thyan]

Taking care to memorize the right order of the fabrics, Nya spent the next half hour carefully lifting out one after the other. The fabrics itself held no longer any fascination for her; there was something about that box that seemed to call out to her, that diverted her entire attention towards itself. She couldn’t have explained it herself, whether it was simply her own burning curiosity to look at this object that she had never seen nor heard of before, or if there was more to it than that curiosity.

Finally lifting it out, she found it was almost weightless, lithe like paper. But how could that be? It was clearly metal, and could surely not be empty… and where was the lock? The smooth surface did not show any partitions or seams – it was as if she held no more but a weightless bit of metal. It was a paradox.

But Nya had never been one to give up easily. There had to be more to this, and there was still enough time left to find out. Brushing her fingers along its smooth top, she let her hands rest against the cool metal, trying to think what to do. Her determination to open it was growing.

You will open for me, I swear!

She had barely finished the thought when the metal beneath her fingers seemed to move – shift, somehow. She snatched her hands back, afraid – staring at the box, she saw it develop seams, develop clearer outlines, a break between the top and the bottom… and finally, a simple button appeared.

Kneeling in front of it, her face betraying her mixed emotions of fear and fascination with this wondrous object, she slowly reached out with one hand again, and tentatively touched her finger to that button.

Nothing happened. She pushed against it, harder.

The low clicking noise still seemed the loudest sound she had heard, as loud as thunder in her ears, as the top of the box flipped open. To the sound of her own heart beating loudly against her ribs, she leaned forward to look inside.

Two long, silver cylinders with strange etchings and a black button on each were lying on top of a linen sack. In a small shelf let into the side, a stack of datacards and holo-frames were neatly stored away. And on the inside of the box’ cover, a small placard read: “To Fionn and Berit Halcyon – your beloved brother, Neeja. Even if this box should be all that is left of the Jedi heritage we share, you will always carry the spirit of what you are inside your heart. Let it speak for you, and guide you to your destiny. Wherever the path may lead you, the Force shall be with you - for all eternity.”

Nya stared at it in shock, blindly reading over the words again and again, as they spun inside her head. How could it make sense?

Fionn and Berit… Who were Fionn and Berit Halcyon? Her parents’ name – the name she also had – was Thyan, not Halcyon… but why did the other names match? Was it all untrue? Could her parents hide this from her? Could they?

And Jedi! Surely it could not be… but the inscription… that was what it implied, was it not?

The cylinders. Lightsabers. They had to be lightsabers.

With trembling hands, she slowly picked up one of the datacards from the little shelf. There was no datapad provided – she would have to find one elsewhere, she thought to herself; it seemed almost comical that she could still think so clearly of some things even if her thoughts were plunged into chaos and confusion.

The label on the card read Fionn Halcyon: Master Trials and Awards Ceremony. And underneath, in smaller script, Berit Laren: Knighthood Awards Ceremony.

Her mother’s maiden name. Berit Laren.

It must be true, then. Not Thyan, but Halcyon. Not Nya Thyan, but Nya Halcyon. And Jedi… was she a Jedi, too, then?

[Nya Thyan]

Minutes passed by, and not a sound could be heard on the ship. All lay in peaceful quiet, yet for the one person on board, nothing was peaceful, nothing was quiet. Inside her mind, the questions and doubts raced; how could everything she had thought she was, suddenly be wrong? But yet it was.

Numb fingers touched forward, to find the spare datapad her mother usually stored beside her bed in a small drawer. Her hand trembling so violently that she could not insert the datacard she held without almost dropping it again, it took her precious moments before she could see what it stored. And then a different reality opened before her – a different reality, and the truth. The true history of her own family, withheld from her by her parents for so long.

Would they have told her, some day? Would they have told her what they were, what she was? Or was this a secret not to be shared?

As she read and viewed these old recordings, bitter tears blinded her eyes and stung her. Yes, there they were: her mother and father, once so young, so serene, so at peace with themselves, with what they had been then. Standing in a circle high up in the skies of a planet so brilliant and grand – it could only be Imperial Center. Clad in simple Jedi robes – the soft material of which now she touched herself, as she had opened the linen sack beneath the lightsabers – her parents, one after the other, stood before a council of twelve; amongst it, creatures she had never seen, never thought could exist in this galaxy. So noble, they had looked then, as they received their new titles, their elevation to a new rank: Master, for her father, and Knight, for her mother.

So long ago now.

No wonder they often seemed so sad now, so … without joy or life. All that they had once been, had gone away. But for all that, there was still no explanation why – what had caused this change of life?

Nya’s trembling fingers brushed over the soft velvet cloak that must have once belonged to her mother, tears rolling down her cheeks. If only she could understand why… but the clothes could not tell tales either. She sat back, stared into nothing; trying to understand, trying to imagine what might have happened.

More time passed.

But Nya was not a very somber child at that age, and not given to long pondering on subjects she had little knowledge of. At the most, to her, the Jedi and their traditions were something she had heard a little about; local tales, superstitions that varied from heroic to evil from one place to the next. In her mind, they had been a thing of the past – something to write tales about, to use in a play for the stage. They had never seemed real before.

So she little understood the implications of this knowledge – she did not know of the grave consequences it could have if her parents’ secret ever passed beyond herself. She knew enough about the present times to know that the Galaxy was a dangerous place for anyone – that much was clear to her - but she did not perceive the Jedi to be any more at danger than everyone else. True, they were extinct now – so people said – but so were many other races in the Galaxy. It was nothing unusual to her.

But what she did understand quite clearly, was that what she had discovered here could change her future – if she so chose. If her parents had been Jedi, then who was to say that she could not be? If her knowledge of the Jedi was almost non-existent, who was to say that she could not learn? For surely there had to be information about them, and what they were.

Somewhere at the back of her young mind, a glorious idea began to form itself, matched together from the pieces of the puzzle before her. If it would come true, then the future would indeed shine brightly for her, star-actress of galaxy-wide fame that she would be then. It would pave her way to fame, for one such as herself there surely could not be another:

For if the Jedi were a race that was said to be extinct, with noble knights and masters of magic and all kinds of wondrous powers (so she understood it to be), then maybe her parents’ exile could be easily explained: maybe they were the last living descendants of the Royal House of the Jedi, and she was a princess.

[Nya Thyan]

When her parents returned late that night, they found their daughter sleeping fitfully in her small bed, her bed cover halfway thrown to the ground; a light smile was playing on her face, as if she was having a beautiful dream.

Berit felt weary and tired, but she could not resist sitting down by her daughter’s bed and watching her for a while – watching, and marveling once more in her life that something so precious like her daughter could exist in a time so terrible.

Nya was mumbling something into her pillow, but Berit could not make out the words. She smiled, and pulled the bed quilt up, tucked her daughter in.

Brushing softly over her daughter’s dark hair, she felt blessed to have been rewarded for all her sacrifices with such a great gift, at a time when she had almost given up hope that they would ever have a child – Nya had joined them late, when the couple had passed middle age already for some years. To them, as well as the medics who had doubted and predicted otherwise, it had been a little miracle – but such a welcome one.

As she sat there by her daughter’s side, she was also filled with worry – as she always was when looking at her daughter’s innocence.

They had both been worried about her; worried about their own history. To save her from their own fate, to save her from the terror and madness that they had witnessed themselves during the years when the Jedi had become the galaxy’s most hated enemies in many peoples’ eyes, they had decided to keep their own past hidden from her.

But how long could it last? The Galaxy was never safe – never safe for them. The same people who had wanted their death then, were still alive, still seeking for them. Even if the Jedi might once again return, their enemies would surely return, too – in greater force. It did not seem as if Evil was something that could ever be completely eradicated, as long as the Darkness remained in people’s hearts.

Her thoughts returned to the afternoon… something had not felt right. Something had made her feel frightened, but she had not known what, or why… She did not open herself to the Force these days, afraid to give away her presence to someone who might mean them harm; and her husband would frown upon her, if she did. But the strangeness had been there – she had felt it clearly. Something had happened… something had made her feel that way. It had made her fear for Nya, but her daughter had seemed fine when she called her.

No, whatever it had been, she did not know now – probably would never know. But it made her fear greatly, especially for her daughter.

Looking down once again at Nya, she leaned forward and kissed her lightly on her forehead. Whatever happened, they would keep her from harm – no matter what.

Berit got up, slowly, and with one last look, left her daughter’s quarter.

Then Nya turned in her sleep, as if she had felt her mother’s benevolent presence leaving, and something sinister crept upon her face as she dreamed. And quite clearly, she spoke out aloud in her sleep,

“… oh mother, what have I done?”


<center>THE END</center>