The Darkening: Chapter Eight

It lies to her. It tells her things only a child can understand. To her, it simply is another child. To us, it is The Beast.

Jysella is sitting on her bed, her tears flowing freely down her face, as she talks to the Custodian. "And then he hit me!"

"And it made you angry, correct?"

"Yes."

"Then use that anger, convert it into raw power. Reach for the Force with your anger and hate, and it will come to you readily."

Jysella looks away. "I don't know. That seems to fly in the face of what Master Skywalker teaches."

"Is it? Is it really? Consider what you told me of the fight between your father and this Ben. Was not your father using his anger?"

Jysella nods her head slightly, and focuses once more on the sigils that are on the box, their red glow pulsing slightly. "Yes, I could feel his anger as he struck me."

"Then does that not tell you that you can use your anger to fuel your power? That your teachers tell you otherwise just so you will not have access to your full range of abilities?"

Before she can answer her comm unit chirps. Pulling it out, she flicks it on. "Hello."

Jacen's voice comes from the small device, making her smile. "Hey Jysella, I was just wondering if I could take you to lunch."

"I'd love to."

"Great, meet me at the Temple entrance in about fifteen minutes, okay?"

"I'll be there."

She turns off the comm and looks at the Custodian. "I'll think about what you said." Then she walks from the room, not seeing the twisted smile that appears on the Custodian's face.

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Corran walks out of the medical center, the bacta patch on his leg an odd bulk. He glances towards the Jedi Temple remembering Luke's words to go there and have a talk. Frowning he takes a step in that direction, and then wonders why he needs to go listen to the farm boy as if he's still an untried, untested trainee.

"I'm a Jedi Master; I don't need to go have a talking to from Luke."

Glancing around, he sees a tapcaf and walks that way. Entering the dark room, it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they do, he heads towards a booth in the darkest corner, and slips within it, ordering a bottle of whiskey from the droid as it rolls past.

A few minutes later, the droid drops the bottle and a glass off, and takes the credit chit from Corran, rolling away, leaving him to his thoughts and whiskey. About an hour later, Corran has finished half of the bottle, and he hears a laugh that he recognizes.

Looking up and around, he sees her sitting there with Jacen Solo. As he watches her laugh, a red flame ignites in his thoughts.

She's yours. Take her away from him.

Startled he looks around for who had spoken. I'm part of you. Now, take her. If the boy complains, punish him.

Corran nods his head, and then stands shakily to his feet. He stumbles over to the table that Jysella and Jacen are sharing. The two look up at him, and he notices as Jysella shrinks back slightly. He stares at her hard. "First Skywalker this morning, and now him for lunch? Is it a different boy for every meal?"

Corran feels an intense glee as she starts to blush. As Jacen lays his hand on his arm, he turns towards the young Jedi Master. "And you! Have you no shame? You're old enough to be her father!"

He reaches out and grabs her arm, dragging her from the tapcaf. He growls in frustration as the sun pounds against his eyes, and ignores her pounding on him, trying to loosen his grasp.

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Jysella feels her tears of frustration and embarrassment as they flow down her face. She stumbles slightly as her father pulls on her arm once more dragging her towards their house. Finally, he stumbles and she is able to twist free from his grip. She turns to run, and Corran grabs her hair, pulling her to a stop with it. She can feel as he twists his hand into her hair, drawing her closer to him.

As she turns to look at him, she can feel her anger building at his treatment of her. She knows he is her father, but she doesn't understand why he has started acting this way. He pulls her close, and she winces at the smell of alcohol. "You need to stay away from them. Am I clear Jys?"

Jysella hears the words, but all meaning is lost in the red haze in which she finds herself as he slaps her again. The anger is a palatable thing, coiled within her, ready to strike, begging to be used. The Custodian's words about anger bounce around in her head.

Sniffing back her final tear, she looks up, and reaches out with her anger, with all those years of being left behind as her father went off to be a Jedi and her mother went out to run her business, her anger at all those years of being the outsider of the academy.

She smiles as the Force burns away her concerns about anger and hate, filling her with power. For a second, fear flashes in the drunken eyes of her father, as she reaches out with the Force, and smash into his pain centers, setting every nerve he has on fire.

He screams, releasing her hair and falling to his knees. She leans down close to him. "Never hit me again." Then she pulls back her booted foot and slams it as hard as she can into his stomach, enhancing her kick with the Force. She walks away to the sound of him retching, in the dust of the pathway.

She reaches her home, and rushes upstairs to her room, closing and locking the door behind her. She climbs into the bed, buries her head in her pillow and begins to cry.

"What is wrong child?"

Jysella looks up from her pillow, and tells of her father's actions this afternoon, and of Jacen's inaction. The Custodian nods his head. "And you felt the anger, it helped you."

"Yes. Yes it did."

"It made you powerful, it saved you from his grasp, gave you the power to overcome."

"But I worry about it, what if Master Skywalker is right, what if his anger is why my Dad is acting this way?"

"But why would your father be angry?"

Jysella looks out the window, and asks herself the same question. The Custodian is quiet for a few minutes and then attracts her attention with a soft noise. "Now, about Jacen, do you still wish to test him?"

Jysella hesitates a moment, and then nods her head. "Yes, I want to know."

"Then this is what you shall do. Go offer yourself to him; if he turns you down, he is honorable. If he does not, then he does not love you."

Jysella ponders the Custodian's words as she reaches out and once more traces one of the sigils on the side of the box, smiling as the icon glows slightly where her finger runs. After a few more minutes, she looks up from where she's tracing to stare at the red hologram. "What else do you know about?"

"I am a repository of arcane and forgotten Force lore."

Jysella sits up in her bed, suddenly very interested in the box. "So you really are a holocron."

"I never said I wasn't."

Jysella opens her mouth, and then quickly shuts it as she remembers that particular conversation. She thinks for another moment, before opening her mouth to speak once more. "Can you teach me what you know?"

The Custodian's smile is large and happy. "I thought you'd never ask."