[SpringsSong]

Xyshari. Lana.

It had been entirely too long since either of them had been able to go anywhere else besides where they were immediately needed, and both Xyshari and Lana agreed: they needed some time away from everything, even if it wasn't that much time. Senya had been more than willing to watch the children, and Arcann had mentioned wanting to teach them saber techniques that he and his brother had learned. Xyshari had been reluctant to agree at first; there were techniques that she never would have been allowed to learn as a Padawan that both the Zakuulans and the Sith were as accustomed to as breathing.

[SpringsSong]

Lana had assured her that everything would be fine - their children were no more in danger of falling to the dark side just by studying techniques with Arcann as they would be learning them from her. In addition to that, they were both coming to terms with the fact that their view of the Force had been too narrow when they were a part of the Empire and Republic - Xyshari had always kept her guard up when it came to Sith, while Lana was mostly occupied ensuring that other Sith were not angling to eliminate her.

[SpringsSong]

And so, they had arrived at this place - a temple in the rainforest that was tended by monks. Lana had offered a raised eyebrow to her wife when she also pulled out a bag of crystals and the strange machine that the stranger in the saloon had given to any adventurer that would take them. She fitted a crystal into the slot and set the device off to the side before looking over at Lana.

"What?" Xyshari asked.

"Are you sure this is a wise idea?" Lana asked. "That man said that doing this had a habit of drawing creatures out."

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"Am I sure it's wise? No," Xyshari said, looking over at the device with a measure of trepidation. "But it's been so long since I have had the chance to examine some of the more unique wildlife of this world. There were those Akail, and the creatures that the Akail drew out, but... there's so much more we haven't seen," she said, offering a smile. "And I can't think of anyone else I'd rather be with to do this experiment."

Even as she said that, however, she knew that she wasn't being completely truthful. There were two other people she would have picked in a heartbeat if she could have, neither of them were possibilities anymore now that she had left the Order.

[SpringsSong]

"Except for Ti and Loq, right?" Lana asked. Xyshari looked over at her wife, her expression falling slightly as she realized what she had been thinking. Lana's face, however, was soft and understanding as she placed a hand on her wife's shoulder before bringing that hand up to her jaw, tilting her wife's face upwards to look at her.

"You know I'm not jealous of the fact that there were others before me, right?" Lana asked. "Without their influence in your life, you wouldn't be who you are now."

"Doesn't stop me from feeling guilty about missing them, though," Xyshari said with a sigh.

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"Don't feel guilty!" Lana reprimanded sharply, and when she realized her tone, she shook her head and kissed her wife's forehead tenderly. "I'm sorry. That was a little harsh," she said. "I am not jealous of the relationships you had with them. They shaped you into the person you are now - you would not have been the same without those relationships."

"I know," Xyshari said with a weary sigh. "I'm just... it's coming up on the anniversary of when I found Loq's remains, so it's... weighing on me heavily."

[SpringsSong]

Lana couldn't help but feel a wave of sorrow wash over her as Xyshari said this. She could almost hear Xyshari's screams of despair when she found the one piece of Loq that she had been able to find: his lightsaber, and his lightsaber crystal. The scream that had torn from her throat had been about on the same level as the scream she had wanted to give when Arcann had skewered her with his lightsaber.

"Did you... ever find out what happened?" Lana asked.

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"No," Xyshari said plainly. "I may have been taught to peer into the Force to see the echoes around me, but the person who taught me that was very clear - I was never to do it to relive someone's last moments, because witnessing such an event through the echoes of the Force might just be enough to drive me to darkness," she said, staring blankly ahead of her. "I don't know why I still care about it now. I've left the Order, and you..."

"...would stop you from falling into madness, regardless of the cost to either of us," Lana said plainly. "Even if it meant our lives."

[SpringsSong]

"You are the second person to make such a vow to me," Xyshari said quietly. "Ti was the first. When we began our exploration of Juyo-Kos in isolation on Ilum, we both made a pact with each other: if we saw the other starting to fall to darkness, we would do everything in our power to stop that fall. If we could not stop that fall, we were to do what was necessary... fully accepting that it meant the other would also die unless they could sever the bonds in the Force that we had formed."

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"I remember you telling me about that," Lana said. "You also said that you chose Ilum for a specific reason - it had some sort of significance to you both?"

"It is where I trained as a Council Guard when I was just a Padawan... and where I later trained him as a Council Guard, and then passed my mantle of Gatekeeper to him when I was made the First Warden of the Order," Xyshari said. "It was home to a site that was a wellspring of light... so strong that it had a physical manifestation," she said, offering a faint smile. "She was always glad to see us."

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"You figured that you would be less prone to falling if you were in a place that was that strong in the light," Lana said, and Xyshari nodded.

"Exactly. We figured it was the safest place for us to study, and we had the perfect place to practice the techniques," she said. "There was something of an arena there where the Council Guards would practice their techniques with either the saberstaff or the saberpike. With the blessing of the order's battlemaster, I was allowed to train guard initiates in the basics of saberpike, but not with saberstaff," she said. "But, more importantly... it was quiet there."

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"So it was easy to meditate," Lana ventured.

"Not only that, it was a place where one could directly commune with Ashla," Xyshari said with a reverence that Lana had come to admire. It had been a long time since she had heard someone address the Light and Dark sides of the Force as Ashla and Bogan, but it hearkened back to a time where the belief in the Force was more mystical than it was now. Looking around the temple, Lana had to wonder if, maybe in the distant past, there had been such structures on planets where people were aware of the Force.

[SpringsSong]

"That was how the temple on Tython started out, only they didn't refer to it as the light and the dark side of the Force back then," Xyshari said, and Lana tilted her head in confusion for a moment, but then, she nodded.

"Ashla and Bogan," Lana said, and Xyshari nodded.

"Tython's twin moons," she said. "One light, one dark. That is where the concept of the duality of the Force first came from, with the ancient Je'daii."

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"One of the first known orders of Force users... from which eventually came both the Sith and the Jedi," Lana said, nodding after a moment. "While this is absolutely riveting, and I would love to continue the discussion... I think it would suit us better if we moved onto the next area I wanted to go to," she said. Xyshari furrowed her brow as she looked at Lana.

"You had... more planned?" she asked, and Lana laughed.

"We haven't had a real vacation... ever, since we've known each other. I don't consider Manaan or Rakata Prime or Rishi or Yavin 4 vacation spots - not with what we were doing," Lana said.

[SpringsSong]

"And any vacations we've taken here have been with the pretext of some sort of exploration or task," Xyshari said, nodding. "Even our wedding was at that Festival of the Golden Thread... and this year, the festivities were thankfully not as lively as last year - so far as we know," she said.

"Yes, so far as we know," Xyshari said, laughing. "Who knows what was going on in different worlds from the one we operate in here," she said. "Now... where were we going next?" she asked.