Agricola est in Silva

[Anbira Hicchoru]

Solid ground. Open sky. The smell of rain on the air, the smell of richness in the earth, and of the plants in search of both.

The moment the Jedi had settled on terra firma, they immediately set to task of establishing a settlement. Modular buildings and tents were the norm until the Alliance engineering corps could provide something more permanent. It brought a joyful yet expectant mood to the Order. And while Anbira was pleased that his brothers and sisters now had a proper home, he felt a calling on Ossus that he hadn't felt since the old days on Felucia. So he walked past the buildings, past the tents, and indeed past the fringes of the camp itself. Over the ridge and across the stream he continued walking, until at last he found it. Brushing his shoulder-length hair back, the bearded Jedi smiled at the sight.

"Home."

It was a tree. One of many, but this one set apart from the stand that bordered the bottom lands of the valley. This tree was old. It's trunk was thick, and its branches were broad. One branch in particular had a curve just-so to it. Walking up to the tree, Anbira felt the trunk, then reached up to the branch, wrapping both hands around its terminus as he let his feet clear the ground. It was sturdy. With finesse, the Jedi hefted himself up, and straddled it. He tested the branch's balance and curvature, letting his back fall against the trunk as his legs found purchase where another branch forked. Here, the Jedi slept.



The weeks passed.



Anbira procured a used cargo container from a passing ship. He drug it to the base of his tree. In it, he placed his only possessions: his armor and his lightsaber. When time permitted, he maintained them lovingly, but placed them away from the elements when they were not needed. In place of armor he now wore drab hand-me-downs that had appeared in one of the collective clothing bins in the commissary. For a credit, he bought clothes that had seen better days and that needed needle and thread. This too was tended to.

In place of his lightsaber, Anbira found tools. Rakes and spades. Instruments of the field. These were purchased with ten credits. Another ten procured him seeds.



More weeks passed.



Wild earth was made pliable by labor. Anbira tore at the ground for hours in a day, at first laboring incessantly to remove root and stone alike. When at last he could walk barefoot in the pillowy loam, he planted his seeds and the rains came. He sat in his tree and laughed, the water cascading through his hair and beard as the soil turned from ruddy to black. The rich smell of water and earth perfumed his every taken breath as he waited for the rain to subside. Anbira thought of Tionne, and those heady days years ago when they both felt so alive. Coming here made that part of him born again.


Yet more weeks passed.


Gone now was Anbira's shirt. Threadbare, it had been used to patch his trousers whenever a rip or snare made them require tending. The sun had done its work, and Anbira had grown swarthy under it. His hair and beard too were affected, the occasional streak flaring red or blonde in the light. His seeds turned to seedlings, then into true fruits of his labor. The plot he tended by his tree was verdant with dozens of assorted fruits and vegetables. None right for picking just yet, but he'd tended to them well. Anbira could feel the swell of yearning life coming from the rows of green before him. It was a simple and overlooked thing. Jedi often spoke of the Living Force like a clinical thing - keeping it at arm's reach. The small act of tending a garden - of raising something from nothing - this point of genesis was where you could feel that wonderful power take hold.

On his knees amidst the rows, Anbira paused to scoop a handful of loam between the plantings. He carefully pinched away the beginnings of a weed, and held the dirt close to his nose, breathing it in as he crumbled it in his fingers. It had been days since the last rain, but he could still smell the last downpour sealed within, and he closed his eyes as he drew in its bouquet.

When he opened his eyes, he spotted a figure on the ridge leading to the camp. Unaccustomed to visitors, he let loose a shout.

"Hello!"

[Bryna Belargic]

“Frak!” Bryna swore under her breath.

She'd been staring. There was no denying it. What else was she supposed to do? Girl climbs hill, girl reaches top of hill, girl sees shirtless wild man crawling around in the dirt. It would have been enough to stop anyone in their tracks. The Force had given her some inkling that her afternoon hike wasn't going to be a solitary one for much longer, but she hadn't expected to cross paths with what might well be a half-human half-Wookiee hybrid.

Well, you're here now. Might as well say hello.

It would have been easier to just jump the whole way down the hill, letting the Force do the work for her, but the notion had barely entered her head before she imagined the disapproving look Master Tarkin would've given her. Instead, she picked her way down the incline, grateful – not for the first time – for the sturdy boots that she'd acquired from the Alliance. Along with the drab t-shirt and trousers, they'd become her standard uniform since setting down on Ossus. Not that she minded. If she missed her robes, it was only because they reminded her of the past.

Approaching the stranger, the Padawan pushed her senses outward into the Force, feeling for... anything. Again, she was staring, trying to place his face, trying to figure out whether he was someone that she would one day know...

He was looking right back at her. Bryna blinked. “Hi.”

She shifted the straps of the pack on her shoulders and forced herself to look around.

“Nice... tree fort.”

[Anbira Hicchoru]

Anbira rose from his knees, letting what little earth remained in his hands fall where it may. Rather than wipe the remainder on his pants, he went to work wringing his hands, drawing out what scant portions of the soil that he could as he parsed her observation.

He suddenly looked back at his tree, as if only now coming to share its appraisal with another person, and smiled broadly.

"Yes it is!"

He climbed up its branches, his bare, soil-blackened feet as sure of themselves as anywhere as he went a few levels beyond his sleeping branch. Disappearing momentarily beneath the foliage, all that could be seen of the Jedi for a few seconds was rustling of leaves in the area he'd last been seen. Suddenly, two round objects came flying from the tree, on a course directly for Bryna.

"Catch!" He cried out, maybe half a measure after letting the fruit fly.

[Bryna Belargic]

Many Jedi were blessed with the ability to sense the future. When danger approached, the Force rang in their head like an alarm bell and they sprung into action. They were clairvoyants, capable of perceiving the future before it came to pass.

Bryna Belargic was not one of those Jedi.

Even with all her literal first-hand experience of the future, she didn't anticipate the flying fruit that came sailing out of the tree at her. Fortunately for Bryna, however, she had reflexes enough to make up for her lack of precognition. Think fast! the Force flashed into her mind, and she snatched the fruit out of the air not a moment too soon.

She peered up at the canopy of leaves that Anbira had vanished into.

“What're you doing up there?” she called out, before adding at normal volume: “Besides throwing fruit at strangers.”

[Anbira Hicchoru]

More rusting in the tree, and Anbira dropped from the branches, landing on his feet below like a cat. He held a fruit of his own as he walked towards his unannounced guest, biting into the spherical green food item.

"Well that's about the long and short of it."

He could see her reluctance at both him and the offered fruit.

"Don't know what it's called, but it's safe to eat. Good, even."

Still, that look on her face. Oh, introductions!

"Anbira..."

He reached a hand out to shake hers, realizing at that moment that his hand was dark with caked soil. Okay, maybe not handshakes, and he paused just shy.

"...Hicchoru."

[Bryna Belargic]

Both hands full of mystery fruit, Bryna just smiled at the outstretched hand.

Anbira's introduction confirmed her suspicions: not only didn't she recognise his face, his name was a mystery too. In situations like this, she didn't know whether to be relieved or anxious on behalf of the person who was a stranger to her. Either this Anbira was already dead where she'd come from, or – if Master Navaria's suggestions were accurate – he might never have existed in the first place.

She blinked. Cross that bridge when you come to it, kid.

“Bryna Belargic.”

She stashed away one fruit in her backpack and took a tentative bite out of the other. It tasted sweet, sweeter than anything that the AgriCorps had been able to grow (http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?23303-Growing-Pains-9-367).

“No one told me we had set up camp in the forest. How long have you been living out here?”

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"Here? Well, since Whaladon touched down."

The Jedi hermit brushed a strand of hair back from his face.

"Don't suppose this would be a part of the camp. I don't know. We all landed, everyone went to find a place to rest their heads. I found this place."

Seemed she hadn't expected to find him out here.

"Decided to do a little exploring, then?"

[Bryna Belargic]

“My master,” she paused, swallowing a mouthful of fruit before going on.

“Said I should spend some time relaxing, out in nature, getting back in touch with the Force.”

Bryna shrugged one shoulder. “So here I am. Relaxing,” she added, with a big smile.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"You're Master Tarkin's student, aren't you?"

He seemed to remember her face now, seeing the pair of them speaking at great length about some subject in the camp center when he had returned to consult with Abarai Loki.

"I can promise you a means of getting in touch with the Force in this place, but relaxation is in the eye of the beholder."

With a child's enthusiasm, Anbira turned back the way he came and jogged across the open terrain.

"Come! I'll show you something!"

[Bryna Belargic]

“I'm-” she started, but before she could speak, Anbira was off running through the forest. Her mouth hung open for a moment before she realised that he'd called back to her.

A brief burst of speed later and she was jogging alongside him at a comfortable pace, in spite of the pack on her shoulders.

“Where are we going?”

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"Over here!"

Anbira had come to a stop not far from their place of meeting, now within rows of tended plants in the garden proper.

"These are B'omarr cucumbers. They're yet a bit young, but it won't be long before we'll have a bounty. They're prodigious. If you like pickles, that'll do. Over here are Antarian peas aligned on a trestle so they'll support. They're climbers, you see. Look here, you can see the fresh green tendrils catch the support. Very important, these. They'd grow sure enough as a mass in the furrow, but the yield would be less."

He reached a careful hand to the supporting trestle to ease a bright green pod up from where it hid behind a viney stem.

"Maybe about a week away from ready, these. And when picked, best to use before the sun sets on you, or freeze 'em if you can't. There's a sweetness that you'll have for a day, but if you wait it's gone."

[Bryna Belargic]

Back on Vortex, there had been Ithorian gardens bigger than the entire Jedi settlement on Ossus. The nature priests, as they called themselves, would spend all day and night ambling along seemingly endless rows of flora, benevolent and tireless guardians. Yet, somehow, this tiny garden was just as impressive. Perhaps it was the fact that she'd been confined to starships since her arrival in this time – and even before then, her last planet-side visits had been to Dac and a handful of urbanised worlds. How long had it been since she'd seen a stars honest plot of vegetables? She frowned at herself, knowing that she'd spent barely any time in the gardens on Vortex and hadn't really cared about how or when the food was grown, and yet she missing them all the same.

It was weird, how things that had once been so insignificant became so important when you were separated from them.

Following Anbira's lead, she gave a pea pod a tentative and entirely uneducated squeeze and wiggle.

“It's.. great. What you've done. It must've taken a lot of work. I mean, you must be out here full time.”

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"Time enough." Anbira replied, somewhat sheepishly.

"My duties are meager. I have no students to train, and this place is peaceable enough. A saber arm keeps well strong enough with a hoe or a spade in its grasp."

He saw how Bryna inspected the pea, and as she retreated her hand from it he reached over.

"No, your instincts are exact. Go on then."

Anbira carefully returned Bryna's hand to the pea pod, allowing her to once again take hold.

"But not with a squeeze. Not anything to suss from, with it so young."

With a smile he placed his own dirt-caked hand over her own and closed his eyes.

"Feel. It's more than touch. It will tell you more than that."

[Bryna Belargic]

“Oh.”

She looked back and forth between Anbira and his hand closing over hers. It wouldn't take a Jedi to sense that she wasn't used to being around plants. That was why Master Tarkin had nudged her towards the AgriCorps in the first place.

She drew in a shallow breath as looked at the pea pod. Not just saw it, but really looked at it. The way that Master Nytherciria had told her. “There's more to this world than the eye can see,” the blind Jedi Master had once told her. “More than even the most sophisticated sciences can teach us. You will learn more about the world around you by opening yourself up to it, than you will by burying yourself in studies of it.”

She was right. Anbira was right. When she stretched her senses into the Force and over the pea pod, her instincts told her soon, but not yet.

She looked up at him, his eyes closed. He looked so calm and happy.

“I don't know if it's... okay to ask this but – don't you want an apprentice?”

[Anbira Hicchoru]

Anbira's eyes opened slowly, and he looked at Bryna with a face that almost seemed sad, or at least far in thought.

"I do."

Slowly, his hand drew back from hers.

"But I feel that perhaps I don't have the time to dedicate to their teaching that they deserve."

The hermit seemed to be weighing something in his thoughts as he sat by Bryna, and in introspection, he turned over a handful of earth in his hand.

"How extensive has your training been, Bryna? Do you understand destiny?"

[Bryna Belargic]

Had she touched a nerve? He pulled back and sank to the ground, the look of serenity slipping away from his expression as easily as it had come. Bryna stood beside him, unsure whether she should sit or not.

“I've... trained,” she said, not really knowing how to explain what she had gone through. Everything that she had lived, everything that from Anbira's perspective hadn't even happened yet. One hand went to the back of her neck, absently rubbing between her shoulders.

“I know what destiny is.”

Frak, do I know. If anyone knew, it was Bryna. The girl from the future who'd tripped back in time. Some Jedi had the power to peer into the future; Bryna had lived it. If destiny was real – if everyone in the Galaxy had predetermined path – she'd seen where hers lead. Not just her own, in fact, but the paths of millions of others. Believing in destiny meant that the Galaxy would end in fire, but not believing meant that – the life she'd once lived would never happen, had never happened.

A sigh escaped Bryna's lips. Just thinking about it all was giving her a headache.

“It.. makes everything.. more complicated.”

[Anbira Hicchoru]

The Jedi hermit nodded.

"It does at that."

Anbira studied Bryna's own faraway look now, as it was apparent she had more in her heart on the subject than simple teachings.

"I trained, as it were, on a planet not far from this place. Do you know of Felucia?"

He broke a clod of soil between his fingers, letting the rich topsoil fall between them. Memories of a past life among a rich and verdant world came back to him.

[Bryna Belargic]

Something gave Bryna the impression that Anbira wasn't about to go running off any time soon, so she sat down opposite him, mindful not to sit on any part of his garden.

“I know of it, but I've never visited. It sounds like an.. amazing place.”

[Anbira Hicchoru]

Anbira nodded.

"Beautiful. And sad."

As he spoke, Anbira idly drew doodles in the soil with a tracing finger. A field of towering fungal canopies.

"In my life before the Jedi, I was a soldier of the Empire. I was tasked to do many things. I don't need to speak of what those were."

[Bryna Belargic]

“I'm... sorry.”

Bryna sank the fingertips of one hand into the soil, as if expecting to find something buried there that she could console Anbira with.

“But that's in the past. What's important is here and now... who you've become.”

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"Be mindful of the moment, yes..."

Anbira looked at Bryna and her earnest appraisal. She spoke as the fruit of Jedi teachings, and her words were true. He smiled in response to her consolation. Not out of obligation to offered pity, but because she was right.

The hermit watched a bright blue bug flit its wings and land on a broad leaf. He knew of it, and it's kind weren't pests. Extending a finger to the leaf, he created a bridge for the insect to crawl across.

"I only speak of the past because it has brought me to this moment, and set the stage for the future. You see, my speeder crashed on a mission and I was left for dead in the wilderness. That is where I discovered the force."

Still keeping the insect in thrall, Anbira carefully edged his hand out to Bryna.

[Bryna Belargic]

She watched his hand for a moment, uncertain. The bug appeared to be feeling the same. It reached the edge of Anbira's forefinger and paused. The insect crept forward a millimetre and Bryna held her fingertips to the back of Anbira's, providing the little creature with another path to take.

When the hermit spoke of a crash, Bryna's thoughts were pulled to the moment that she had crossed from her time into the present (http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?21664-Traitors-and-Transients&p=367667&viewfull=1#post367667). From one perspective, a crash had brought her to the Jedi.

“The Force saved you?” she ventured.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"In a way."

Eyes on the blue insect as it considered the way, Anbira briefly looked to the padawan before him. His expression was distant, as if looking for the words to say to her.

"The force surrounds us and all things, Bryna, but even that is not the extent of it. It is boundless in ways that even the universe itself is not. Not even death can defeat it."

[Bryna Belargic]

The little blue insect took its first tentative steps onto Bryna's fingertips.

She nodded at Anbira's words, reminded of how she'd heard similar words spoken by her own masters throughout her own training.

There was something about the hermit's words that she didn't understand, however.

“Why are you telling me this?”

[Anbira Hicchoru]

Indeed, why was he? Did he expect catharsis out of telling of his own impending death? Was it fair to place the understanding of that burden on the shoulder's of a padawan who had her own struggles with which to deal?

Anbira withdrew his finger as the insect held fast to Bryna's own. He smiled politely.

"Forgive me. I don't often have company, and spent so many years alone. I'm prone to rambling."

The blue insect fluttered its wings with a buzz, turning a circle as it walked over one of Bryna's knuckles.

"He's taken a liking to you, it seems. You have a good spirit."

[Bryna Belargic]

“I'm sorry. That came out wrong.”

Heat was rising into her cheeks. It wasn't the first time that Bryna had failed to grasp the subtleties of what a more senior Jedi was trying to tell her. It was a small wonder that as a youngling she hadn't driven Daria to distraction, trying to find rigid logic in whatever the sightless Jedi Master said.

She exhaled, turning her hand over as the bug crawled to peek over the side of her little finger.

“I just.. have a hard time understanding the whole transcending death part of the Force, you know.”

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"You mean about how it can even be done?"

A smile drew across his bearded face, as the sun-baked crows feet at his eyes creased slightly.

"I suppose there's no complete understanding of that. At least not until..."

For emphasis, Anbira plucked a stray dandelion that had dared encroach in the furrow, and blew the puff away.

"Still, I suppose the first step on that path is belief. A Jedi doesn't so much as lift a stone without that tenet."