Lost In A Memory

Mar nodded. "Very well." He usually wasn't one for meditation, but this was about helping Serenity. So he took a seat next to her and crossed his legs. He also set his lightsaber on the floor in front of him. Then he looked to Serenity. "Have you ever focused on disassembling and reassembling your lightsaber while meditating? It is a favorite pastime of mine... focus on your breathing and the ebb and flow of The Force..."

As they got into the meditation session Mar's lightsaber levitated off the ground and began to slowly pull itself apart piece by piece until the crystal was revealed. It was a synthetic, semi-alive thing, yet it had the history of a long and bloody lifetime of death and darkness.

It was then that Mar found himself no longer on the floor of the Void Swift. He was now sitting next to a fire in the middle of a dense jungle.

"Felucia..." Mar said under his breath. It was a familiar place, all too familiar. "Where are you?" Mar looked and saw his younger self sitting on the other side of the campfire. His Inquisitor uniform was in tatters with his left pantleg cut up the length of it revealing his leg wrapped thoroughly in bandages.

"Jedi!" Young Mar shouted. "Have you finally left me to my fate???"

"I was getting more water from the stream." Tal said as she suddenly appeared through the dense jungle with two canteens hanging from her shoulder, full of water. "Relax."

Tal was a raven haired woman with olive skin and deep brown eyes. She wore a sweat stained undershirt and beige shorts with a utility belt carrying a number of things such as her lightsaber and survival gear. As well as knee high boots stained with mud.

Mar watched Tal hand his younger self one of the canteens. Begrudgingly, Young Mar snatched it from her and greedily drank from it. "I still don't understand why you insist on wasting your time and energy on preserving my life, Jedi... I will kill you..."

"No you're not." Tal said with a smirk. "First off..." She turned to show his lightsaber tucked into her waistband. "You're unarmed."

Mar reached out with The Force to try and snatch his weapon from her but the saber handle only rattled slightly from his feeble attempts.

"Second," Tal said with a wry grin. "You're still fighting that infection and too feverish to focus on anything but getting better. Now rest and focus on getting better before you go and make yourself worse."

Mar fell back onto his back and sighed as sweat continued to bead up on his forehead. She was right, he was too weak to do anything. He looked up at the jungle canopy, the bioluminescent foliage casting faint blue and purple hews onto the surrounding greenery and camp. Mar tried to focus, tapping into The Force to try and improve his healing. However, like his attempt before with his saber, he was struggling to find his connection to The Force.

He felt hands fall onto his temples, they felt cold in contrast to his feverish skin. He tried to recoil away but Tal held him still. Resting his head on her lap. "Oh stop it! Let me help you..." She closed her eyes and Mar could feel something flow through him, The Force and her mind guiding it to his ailments. He felt himself become more at ease. "Focus on your breath." She said. "Feel The Force. Let it fill you..."

"Why...?" Mar asked. "Why are you doing this, Jedi?"

"My name is Tal," she said. "I keep telling you, you seem to forget."

"I don't care what your name is, Jedi." Mar said. "You are my prey. Nothing more."

"You seemed to be the prey..." Tal said with a smirk.

"You could've left me for dead."

"I couldn't do that." Tal said with a small, warm smile.

"I tried to kill you. Why are you trying to help me?"

"Because it was the right thing to do."

"It was the Jedi thing to do." Mar said.

"No. The right thing." Tal said. "No doubt many of my fellow Jedi would've figured you were too dangerous to be left alive. You hunt jedi, you are irredeemable, a pawn of The Dark Side..." She shrugged. "However, when I sensed you were in danger, I saw the scared young man you were before you began this path..."

"You know nothing about me, Jedi..." Mar sneered.

"Then how about you tell me?" She massaged his temples and continued to manipulate The Force to ease his pain. "We have nothing but time on this planet. No ship to take us off world, no one knows we're even stranded here..."

"My ship has an emergency beacon, all I need do is trigger it and The Empire will be here in a few days..."

"For the time being," Tal said, "You know my name, what is yours?"

After a brief time, Mar relented. "My name is Mar Leto..."

"Pleasure to meet you, Mar Leto." Tal said.

Then she looked up at Present Day Mar. "Was my fate sealed in that moment, Mar? Was I wrong to spare you? Did you truly deserve to die?"

Mar snapped out of his trance, his lighsaber fell in pieces on the ground in front of him. He sighed and played it off with a fake sigh of exasperation. "I admit I haven't practiced meditation in a long time..." He hoped he didn't look as shaken as he was. The trance had been so real, the memory more real than any he'd ever felt, and he wasn't sure if it wasn't The Force working through him.

It was clear he was dealing with his own trauma. He looked to Serenity. "Let us continue. Focus on your breath, feel The Force. Let it fill you..."