Sci was exactly where he had said he would be at 1430: In the rooms. He seemed perfectly normal, and absolutely refused to say anything about where he had been or what he had been doing.
"Shall we go?" He asked the siblings. They nodded.
It was five minutes that they were in the local vehicles lot. Fifteen minutes after that they were at the relevant apartment complex; maybe ten more to reach the apartment. And for all of those thirty minutes, Sci said not a word. Something was obviously on his mind.
As they reached the door, however, it was just as obvious someone was saying their goodbyes. The shape resolved into a male human, dark-skinned, with a mustache and cape. Sylvana smiled, and Arrek began chuckling. Sci's expression didn't change.
Lando Calrissian had dropped by Luke's apartment today, as well.
Lando turned to leave, and caught sight of Sci and the Lorrdains. He walked over to say a simple hello, but when he spotted Sylvana, Lando's natural instincts took over.
"Well hello there, dear lady," he smiled and took her hand to kiss it, his lips gently carressing her newest scars. "It would be a great pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Shock rode Sylvana's features for all of a second before her own flirtatious instinct took over, "Likewise, Mr. Calrissian," she smiled brightly. You know, he's quite better looking than that Williams fellow....
"Ah, I see my reputation preceeds me," his teeth flashed white as he smiled dashingly.
"More than you know, I am sure," she replied with a quirked smile and a brief wink.
He raised his eyebrows, "And yet, I know nothing of the beautiful flower standing before me."
"My name is Sylvana, Sylvana Lorrdain," she replied with a smile.
"Ah!" he nodded. "So you're the reason the Skywalkers have expelled me from their company. Quite a lovely reason at that, I don't blame them." He raised a hand to trail down the scar on her right cheek. "You have a unique, mysterious beauty, milady."
"Speaking of the Skywalkers," Sci stepped in before Sylvana could respond, "We really should be going."
Arrek took her arm and smirked, "Besides, I'd hate to see Hobbie's face if he saw you flirting with Fancy Pants here."
"But...."
Luke watched in amusement as Sci pried Sylvana and Lando apart, and finally Lando sauntered down the hall. Quickly, Luke managed to wipe the smile off of his face--it wouldn't do to have a Jedi Master grinning like some farm boy, would it? As was customary for him, of course, he let his awareness spread--there were the Lorrdains, their presence a confusing jumble of--
--something, whatever it was. There wasn't Sci, as he always wasn't. And what was this? Someone else, someone familiar--
Suddenly the other presence was aware of his prodding and backed out of Luke's range. At it again, eh? Probably nothing I need to worry about, Luke thought to himself.
"Come in, come in," he said. "Welcome to the Skywalker home."
Sci entered first, shaking hands with Luke, then walked to the couch, where he greeted Mara with a kiss on the hand.
Sylvana and Arrek felt nervous; unsure if they should shake the Jedi's hand, the two bowed simultaneously. Luke smiled and inclined his head in return. "According to Sci, you don't have a lot of time, so I'll skip the preamble. Please, sit down. In the short form, you are unique and not entirely understood; I'm going to be probing in your head to see exactly what's in there."
Arrek managed to say it first: "Not much."
Luke chuckled politely as the two took their seats on the sofa. "I need to know one thing before I start, though. Is there anything you want me to not tell Sci, or anyone else, about what I find?"
Sylvana shrugged. "I have no secrets."
Luke nodded and gently placed his fingers against Sylvana's temples as he began concentrating.
He looked up a moment later, "It seems your childhood memories have been locked away, using a Jedi technique. They aren't erased and I can feasably unlock them, but only if you want me to. No one is pressuring you, Sylvana." Luke's voice was warm, soft and gentle as he spoke to her.
She took a deep breath, then nodded. "I would like to remember," she replied in a slightly nervous tone. She then looked up, her grey eyes meeting his clear blue ones, "I trust you and your discretion, Master Skywalker."
He nodded then, "Close your eyes," he said softly. When she did so, he closed his own and began concentrating once again.
Images from the last twenty years swirled around his mind as he made his way to the place where the previous thirteen were locked away. Gently he prodded the lock. As though it sensed the Light Side Force, it opened easily, the contents spilling out in the order they'd been locked in. They arranged themselves easily, as though a command had been left behind, and he looked to the earliest to carefully wend his way along the quickly succeeding images.
It looked as though a birthday party were in progress, with a human family. There was a young man, looking to be in his late teen years, with a hateful scar across his face, and another the same age as she. Seeing through a young Sylvana's eyes, he counted nine sparkers on a cake placed before her; and as they were blown out, one of the boys blew as well. The eyes caught an image in a mirror across from them... Twins!
He travelled along the memories, and winced as he witnessed a terrible explosion, there were people screaming.... The ship crash landing at the edge of an island....
A beautiful hidden city, peopled by a fair folk whose multicoloured hair was worn long, tucked behind pointed ears. She lived with her family in a lovely, natural-looking palace, after a sort, and was being taught by one of the fair folk who bore a crown. He was teaching her to create beautiful bows, and arrows to match them. She and her siblings would sit through lessons that were not very unlike some he'd taught at the Academy, but still.... Elenari? That would mean.... He pressed on.
They travelled in a cloaked atmospheric craft of sorts, something that looked like it had come from an ancient history. They flew through a mountain, landing in another hidden city, peopled by the sort of fair folk he had seen on the island....
He saw the demonic creatures that attacked Sylvana and her twin (for he knew this to be certain now), and felt her pain as she was beaten. Through her eyes, he saw the whips coming down on the twins' stripped bodies, their ears cut away.... Words screamed at them both as the demon creatures images rippled to reveal a sect of fair folk, faces twisted in hate as they denounced the two as abominations to the crown family, to their race, unclean creatures of mixed blood... telling them that they were the first and their family would not be far behind.
He saw her twin brother lying still on the ground, snow drifting down on his still and bloody body, broken... left for dead as she cried out for him not to give up....
Luke recognised the young man, the boy lying on the ground. He knew that he was alive, but should he say anything?
Sci, Arrek and Mara watched Luke as he delved in the Lorrdain woman's mind. They saw him blanch, his calm Jedi exterior cracking at the sight of the images he was apparently witnessing.
"Wow," said Luke as he opened his eyes and stepped back. Sylvana slumped against the back of the sofa, deeply asleep.
Sci looked up. "What is it?"
"I'm not sure," responded Luke. "I'm going to try to confirm some of it, you've told me about her nightmares." He moved over to Arrek and, when he nodded his consent, he began probing the young man's mind.
He noted that there was no box locked in Arrek's mind, only that the memories had been buried, pushed back. Luke carefully brought them to the light of memory. He could tell he was looking through a much younger set of eyes, perhaps only four years in age. He felt the child's fear and worry as an unconscious Sylvana, her ears suddenly jagged and small, was carried into the hall by a tall mixed blonde man, ears also slender and pointed.
He saw a sister, somewhere between Arrek and Sylvana's age, crying about how she didn't want to forget. He saw a man, their father, resting his hands on each of his children's temples in turn - just as Luke was now - concentrating.
He must be the Jedi who locked away their memories! Luke's eyebrow's raised as the implications flew over him.
When he broke away from Arrek, the young man, like his sister, lay back against the sofa, asleep.
"I want to confirm something," Luke moved to a corner of the room, and returned with a machine bearing two paddles. "I think you should see this, Sci." He handed the reader to the young man while he waved the paddles over first Arrek, then Sylvana's body.
The reader showed them as genetically half human, the other half undeterminable - but that wasn't what Luke wanted to confirm. Rather than a halo of light as an aura about the Lorrdains, it looked as though the pale blue of the Light Side was threaded through something unreadable. As though a web wrapped them, but did not fully penetrate their beings. He'd seen this sort of thing once before.
"What does that mean?" Sci asked.
Luke took the machine and put it away, then motioned Sci to another table. "I've got it all figured out now. They're sleeping; give them a few minutes and they'll wake up."
Sci leaned forward. "What?"
"They're half Elenari."
Sci frowned. "Elenari? Luke, I think you've been watching too many kids' holovids. The Elenari are a myth."
According to ancient stories, the Elenari were a fabled race that had disappeared thousands of years ago when their planet was dying. They, and all the life on their planet simply... vanished. They did not use the Force, but something they called the Flows; the Force barely acknowledged them. They were humanoids, striped of hair and pointed of ear, and were considered immortal--however, many scholars of ancient history (those who didn't say the whole thing was a children's tale) explained that they were simply an extremely long-lived species.
Luke shook his head. "I wish I could explain it better, Sci. I saw the Elenari. And I recognized Captain Loran's face, sort of, in their father." He didn't say anything about the presence he knew to be outside his door. He could feel the other's request to remain secret. This saddened Luke somewhat, but he would respect his former, unconventional, student.
Sci thought about this new tack. "Face had an uncle who vanished; he had the same name as Syl's father."
Luke nodded slowly. "So the logical conclusion...."
"We're WHAT?!" chorused Sylvana and Arrek. The young woman winced as she put a hand to her forehead in confusion.
Luke chuckled. "I know it's a little much to take in, but besides being Captain Loran's cousins, you are half-Human, half-Elenari--they're sort of analogous to your Elf legends, according to Sci."
Sci stood. "Thank you for your time, Luke. I'm going to leave, to prepare for our departure. We leave Coruscant at 1900 hours, sharp." He walked quickly out of the apartment, the Lorrdains on his heels.
Mara, who had been watching the entire scene from the couch, was the only one to notice that in the entire time he had been present, Sci had never smiled once.