Karen Kenobi
Back to Basics
With a breath to clear her head, Karen stepped into a gigantic cavern. Beyond it lay a ruin which was only myth according to the ancient texts that she'd been deciphering for the last two years.
The Force was tremendous in this place. But so too was the great beauty, and the danger. More than once a week she had to try hunting for her food - a task which the cultured girl inside her almost shrank from. She had always been used to having her food prepared for her, Karen honestly barely even knew how to cook.
But she learned. She discovered that by using her Force manipulation she could heat an object to burning temperatures, or chill it down so much that it would not rot in the warm sticky climate. She could also seem to understand things that no living person had read in thousands of years.
That might have been the spirits of the Sith dead helping her. It was almost as if the words meanings were whispered to her in a stilted accent, a tongue learned haltingly from those who had not spoken in centuries.
It might have been that Karen was a brilliant linguist, too, but she would never know. The small metal and crystal pieces of antiquity she found in almost every building each gave her another goal. Putting them all together would surely help her understand.
But to do that meant that she had to cross this dark, strange smelling cavern. It had been filled at one point with swiftly moving water. The walls told her that.
She dug out a small piece of stone which she'd put on a chain, and held it up before her. Concentrating a little, it lit up with an energy that had been stored through it hundreds of times - a thousand years before. A tiny lantern, a Force user's toy.
Karen could fly herself over the bigger pits, if she needed to. But she felt it necessary that she continue her physical training more than her Force use. Karen worked easily at both - this place probably gave her the energy she needed.
From one narrow stone to another, balancing on her toes one moment and gripping with her fingertips bloodied by sharp rock the next, Karen crossed the entrance to the cavern.
The stone dangling from her neck threatened to fall into her face, so she levitated it away for a moment, looking around. Upside down, hanging on over a watery sludge, Karen saw that the next locale she could possibly reach would get her very wet or very dead if she missed.
Gritting her teeth, Karen released the stone with her hands, but clung on with her knees. Balancing on her fingertips on the small outcropping below her, she then launched into the air and flipped hopefully with enough momentum to land on the -
splash - Stone. Didn't happen. She slipped down into the muck, raising steamy tendrils of what looked to be reactive smoke off the water. She hoped it was water.
There were things darting in it, looked like fish. She'd never been big on fish... slimy little things. Toothy too.
One of them began to nibble at her foot, and she'd had just about enough of this mess. Putting an end to this, at least for the time being, she rose from the water unaided by physical means. Karen shook her hair dry - it had gotten rather long and she'd been meaning to cut it. Now would be a good time for that, since it was getting in her way dangling upside down in here.
"That is not pleasant," she muttered, speaking of the smell that her burnt hair made as she cut through it with the light sabre on its most minimal narrow aperture setting. It was still wet, and the ends smouldered a bit.
She kicked the mess of curly brown ick-covered hair into the water, and watched as the small fish wrapped themselves up in it. Maybe they'd get caught in it and die. She didn't much like fish. Really.
The next portion of the cavern looked abyssimal. Simply huge, dark... Even with the little lantern powered strongly by her concentrating Force, she couldn't hope to see the far side. She did see long glimmering tendrils of matter coming down from the ceiling: stalactites that had formed long before the Sith had even been here. On the lower side, she saw roiling white shapes, mist.
Hopefully, there was a floor in there somewhere too. Perhaps doused in water, maybe filled with fish. Either way, she wasn't much looking forward to this. But it was long past time to turn back.
Karen flung herself into the air, casting the lantern ahead of her by a few feet at most. It almost choked her, she let it lead her about. The air was cold in here, but there was a warmth coming from a particular direction, so she headed toward that.
The stalactites almost seemed to propel themselves from the ceiling at her. She was flying, but without much control. What she lacked in talent for this effort would hopefully be made up for later - if she survived the wild ride she just embarked upon!
Left, left, around to the right, down! Karen threw her weight into dodging the big ancient formations, almost wrapping herself around one, then bouncing off the next with a thud.
She hoped that the whole cavern didn't collapse from her shout, and she further hoped that the floor was softer than it looked.
***
An hour or more later, perhaps a day, Karen awoke. Her back was in firey pain, but at least that meant she was alive and could feel. Right?
This survival trip wasn't making her happy. She became more determined than ever that she'd find this ancient building she'd been looking for. If it was in fact, the last thing she'd do.
When she looked up, back and nech aching, the little lantern had continued to burn even while she was exhausted and unconscious. It floated, too. Tugging at her neck a bit.
It was enough for her to realize that she was on solid ground, not broken and watery cavern floor. She tried glancing back, but her neck hurt too much, and she had to force her whole body around to look. Behind her, the cavern was dark and still.
Before her, lay a huge pair of doors. They looked similar to but so much older than the other buildings she'd found on this world. This pair were decorated with long stilted lettering or glyphs - older by far than the Sith writing she'd learned to read.
This was a temple. It was a source of pure power. A place that perhaps could help her heal her broken ribs and arm, a place where Karen was sure she'd be able to relax and learn just why she'd really been wandering all this time.
