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“It's always good to see you, Cere,” Hilgya said, picking up the teapot. She poured them each a cup, the fragrant liquid scenting the air with citrus and cloves.
“How are Kel and Zek settling in?” Cere asked. She'd dropped the pair of siblings off just three weeks prior, before an urgent call about a Force sensitive toddler on Ryloth had her rocketing towards the outer rim. The youngling, a twi'lek named Mirta, had managed to summon multiple heated objects in her parents’ restaurant before she'd gotten there, and her mildly burned parents had gratefully turned the child over to the order after given the reassurance they'd be able to keep the two-year-old safe. The girl was now napping peacefully amidst her peers in the room of cots for the youngest children, and Cere was able to indulge a bit by catching up with one of her closest friends.
“Happy as Mon Calamaris in a bath as long as we let them sleep together,” Hilgya said ruefully, and passed Cere the sugar pot. Cere took it with a murmur of thanks, and added a spoonful to her tea. “Force sensitive twins always come with extra challenges, you know.”
Cere laughed. “I think that can be said for all Jedi children, but I get your point.” The pair had been notably calm the entirety of the time she'd transported them to the temple, but it had to be said that she had only the one crib on her ship. Keeping them together had been a matter of necessity.
Cere had just picked up her cup when there was a child's furious scream of “No!” And a wave of Force energy rocked the creche.
Cere and Hilgya swapped startled looks and as one bolted to the door, Cere following her friend down the twisting hallway to where the older toddlers and younger children were kept. The sight in the room was one of chaos: the pillows and blankets used for the children's naptime had been scattered across the room, disoriented children of all species staring in confusion. At the center of the destruction, a senior Padawan tried desperately to comfort a bawling little girl, a cut on his forehead bleeding sluggishly.
“A'sil!” Hilgya shouted as she sprinted in. “What happened?”
The twi’lek looked up at them with frantic eyes. “I'm not entirely sure. The children were napping. Lux and a few of the others had woken up and started to play quietly on their mats. Next thing I know, she and the little boy next to her were fighting over the stuffed toy he was holding. I told them that if they couldn't share, I'd take it away from them. The other kid—” The Padawan broke off and frowned. “Sal? Hal? I don't know, the little red haired one.”
“Cal,” Hilgya said, and pressed her fingers to her temples.
A'sil nodded. “That's him. He got really upset at the idea and freaked out. Had some kind of Force event, pushed everything in the room away from him and ran off.”
“And you didn't go after him?” Hilgya demanded. “Cal uses that toy as some kind of grounding item in the Force, I told you this. Why would you try to—” She broke off, waving her hands. “Get that cut treated, we can talk later.”
“Yes, Master,” A'sil said, shamefaced. Cere sympathized, but also had worked with Force sensitive children long enough to know that you did not attempt to take whatever touchstones they found for themselves away from them.
The twi’lek left, and Hilgya turned to Cere wearily. “Cere, I hate to impose on your break—”
“I can go after him,” Cere volunteered immediately. She was far more comfortable managing one upset child than a room of disturbed children, and her seeker skills would probably be useful for tracking the child down. “What can tell me?”
“Male, human, and he's almost four,” Hilgya reported at once. “Pale-skinned and the brightest red hair you've ever seen.”
“Cal's good at climbing,” one of the older children in the room piped up. “When he hides, he usually hides up.”
Hilgya smiled, and nodded at the little boy. “Thank you, Caleb.” The child beamed at her, revealing a missing tooth. She turned back to Cere. “He's right. My guess is you'll find him in a rafter or tree somewhere.”
Cere nodded and started for the door.
Hilgya knelt beside the crying child as Cere left. “Lux, did you try to take Cal's loth-cat?” she asked gently.
The little girl nodded, still sobbing. “I just wanted to see it master Hilgya!”
Hilgya sighed. “Lux, we can't just take people's thi...”
The conversation faded behind her as Cere reached out in the Force, searching for the distressed Force presence that came hand and hand with an upset child. She shifted through the numerous blinding lights within the temple, setting aside the Force signatures one by one. It was what made her such a good seeker, the ability to sort through the array of signatures in the galaxy and narrow in on the ones that felt just a little bit different, just a little bit brighter in the Force.
There!
The light of the little boy's signature was wobbly, the child still notably unhappy. She followed it with her mind, trying to pinpoint his location. It was further than she'd expected, several levels up...
The Room of a Thousand Fountains? Really?
Mildly surprised that the child had managed to get so far, Cere set after him, keeping his wobbling bright light centered in her mind. The room was mostly empty at this hour, the majority of Jedi in the temple either engrossed in duties or napping like the younglings. She passed one large group of initiates meditating by one of the larger falls, but she just scooted around them, passing with a wave for the instructor. Though she was a little impressed the fugitive youngling had managed to skirt around them unseen as well.
Soon she found herself towards the back of the room, where smaller falls tumbled in trickles between the winding paths. It was serene, peaceful, and if she hadn't had a child to locate, Cere would have been tempted to find a tucked away corner and meditate herself. It had been a long time since she'd indulged in more than a few days at the temple.
The child's presence led her to a stop at one particular waterfall, the crashing waters spilling into a tranquil pool. Cere looked around, frowning. Her senses said she should be right on top of him, but there was no one to be seen, children or otherwise.
Clearly, further guidance was required. Cere was just about to sink into her trance when she heard a tiny sniffle, just audible above the crashing water.
Cere looked up. The child had secreted himself into the curve of the tree overlooking the waterfall, tiny robes just barely visible amid the flourishing leaves.
Cal hides up, she reflected wryly. Aloud she called, “Cal?”
The child’s head jerked up. A tiny, freckled face stared down at her through the screen of leaves, tear-stained and miserable.
Cere smiled at him. “It is Cal, right? My name is Cere. Master Hilgya sent me to find you.”
“...Hi,” he said quietly.
She tilted her head, trying to work out how to get to him. The tree's branches were sturdy enough to hold his slight weight, but she wasn't sure that they'd support her own. “Can you come down?”
The boy shook his head violently, leaves tangling in his hair. “You'll touch Luna,” he said.
Luna, she presumed, was the aforementioned stuffed toy.
“Not unless you want me to,” she promised, but the child's green eyes just looked at her skeptically. “You can stay up there if you want to though. Was that why you ran off? Because someone was going to touch Luna?”
The little boy held the toy tightly, almost burying his face in its synthetic fur. “Luna's safe,” he mumbled. “If they touched her, she wouldn't be safe anymore.”
“I don't think they were going to hurt your toy,” Cere reassured him, though she suspected that wasn't the actual problem.
She was proven right when Cal shook his head again, face screwed up in distress. “She's safe,” he insisted, voice just on the edge of a wail. “She’s warm and happy and sleepy and nice! I don't want the bad echoes on Luna.”
Cere frowned, confused. “Bad echoes?” she repeated.
“Bad,” the little boy insisted. “Screaming and fire and bad! Lux leaves them everywhere! I don't like them!”
An inkling of the problem occurred to her then, and she tucked the thought aside for later.
“Master Hilgya was worried about you,” Cere said instead. “Is it alright if I stay with you? Just until you’re ready to go back to the creche. That way, if she asks, I can tell her that I was looking after you.”
Cal looked down, fingers still clenched on his stuffed toy. He nodded once.
“Thank you.” Cere lowered herself to the ground, folding her legs smoothly in an approximation of a meditative pose. The child watched her, clearly relaxing slightly as she made it clear that she’d make no movements to force him from the tree, and she cast around for a topic that would settle him further.
“Can you tell me about Luna?” Cere asked. His Force presence vibrated a little, scared, and she made sure to project calm alongside her smile. “She must be very special, if you worry about her so much.”
“She’s safe,” the little boy said again, hugging the toy to his chest. He rocked a little in the tree, and Cere gathered the Force close, if necessary to catch him if he fell. “Sher’vah gave her to me. I’ve liked her forever and ever though.”
Sher’vah, she vaguely recollected, was the name of one of the more recently selected padawans. Cere only remembered because Hilgya had included it with the latest temple gossip amid some truly hilarious rumors about Master Koon. Apparently, she had handed down the toy.
“Because she has nice echoes?” Cere clarified.
The boy nodded eagerly. “Really nice ones! She makes everything else better.”
Cere paused. “Are the echoes not usually nice?” She didn’t want to work him up again, but if her susception was correct…that poor child.
The toddler just shook his head, arms tight around his toy.
“Do you know anything about Ryloth?” Cere said, instead of inquiring further. “It’s a planet in the outer rim. I just came from there.”
He shook his head.
“It’s the twi’lek homeworld,” Cere told him. “It just had a festival, celebrating the start of the harvest for their farmers. I could hardly walk more than a foot at a time without bumping into someone celebrating.”
It was hard to tell through the leaves, but Cere thought Cal’s shoulders had untensed slightly.
“Was it nice?”
“I think so. The restaurant I went to was certainly very nice. I had a lovely meiloorun pudding before I left.”
His frame shrank down, stuffed toy still clenched tightly in his arms. In a whisper, he asked, “Was there fighting?”
Cere smiled and shook her head. “I’m not that kind of Knight, darling. I got a call about a little girl who was using the Force rather dangerously, so I went to pick her up and bring her to the Order. She’s in the creche now, so she can be trained to use her abilities properly.”
There was a rustle above, and then little face popped fully from behind the branches so that Cal could peer down at her curiously unobstructed. His hair really was red, appearing almost like a fire against the verdant leaves. “You find the babies?” He asked.
Cere smiled at his clear interest. “I do.”
“Did you find me?”
“I don't think so,” she said. Cere was certain she would have remembered an infant with that flame red hair. “I've only been a knight for a few years though.” Longer than this child had been alive, probably, but still, not many.
“Oh.” A little brow worked thoughtfully. “...are there lots of sikers?”
“Seekers, and several,” Cere informed him, hiding her amusement. “One of my colleagues probably found you.”
“...okay.” The little boy had relaxed slightly during their talk, the stuffed loth-cat still held tight but no longer strangled by his grip. Cere judged his comfort, and decided to make another attempt to lure him down.
“Do you think you want to come down now?” The boy’s shoulders stiffened , so she added, “I promise not to touch Luna.”
Cal hesitated and then started to climb down the tree. Cere held tight to the Force, ready to catch the child if he slipped, but Cal scampered like a monkey-lizard, making it to the ground in a fraction of the time Cere expected. He stared up at her, clutching his stuffed loth-cat to his chin.
Cere knelt before him. “Let's get you back home, shall we?” The youngling was starting to sway, the excessive energy used during his Force event catching up to him. Cere was deeply relieved that she'd managed to coax the child down before exhaustion got the better of him. The last thing the youngling needed was to fall out of a tree.
“Can I pick you up?” It would be much faster after all.
Cal nodded, but still clutched his stuffed toy protectively. “Don't touch Luna,” he whispered.
“Never,” she promised him, and scooped the boy up. He was stiff in her arms for a moment before relaxing when her hands came nowhere near his cherished toy. By the time they made it back to the creche, the child was cuddled into her, half dozing against her neck.
“Thank Force, you found him,” Hilgya said gratefully. “I was starting to get worried.”
“Took a bit to coax him out of his hiding spot,” Cere admitted, and passed her the snoozing child. Cal mumbled a little, before dropping off into deeper sleep on Hilgya’s shoulder.
“You need to test him for psychometry,” Cere said quietly, so not to disturb the now slumbering child. “He insisted repeatedly that I wasn't to touch his toy, and that Lux was going to give it ‘bad echoes.’”
“Psy—” Hilgya cursed softly and rubbed at her temples. Cal twitched slightly, and she looked down at the exhausted child, smoothing an errant strand of hair away from his nose. “That would explain it, wouldn't it,” she murmured ruefully. “Dear Force, no wonder he was upset.” She glanced up at Cere. “Let me get him to bed, and we'll talk more.”
“I'll meet you back in your office,” Cere agreed.
The tea had long since gone cold, but Cere didn't care, sipping gladly at her cup. After her unexpected excursion, she needed the refreshment rather desperately.
“Any further issues?” She asked as Hilgya walked in.
The crechemaster shook her head, sitting down to grab her own cup. She made a face at the cooled beverage, but kept drinking anyway. “Stayed asleep the entire time. I've got my assistants watching the rest of the kids.” She set down her cup. “So, where was he?”
Cere quickly filled her in, making sure to fully expand on everything that made her suspect the youngling had such a rare ability. Hilgya leaned back in her chair with a sigh.
“Lux came to us last year after her entire family was killed in a hovercraft accident,” she reported succinctly, and Cere winced. “She was the only survivor. She's doing better now, but she had shrieking nightmares for months. If Cal is picking up past information from touched objects, he's probably been experiencing them with her.”
Cere shuddered.
Hilgya sighed again. “I'll reach out to the masters at the academy and get him properly assessed, but I suspect you're right Cere. I'll certainly work under that assumption while interacting with him until someone tells me otherwise.” She smiled ruefully. “And make sure all of the assistants and other children know not to take Luna from him.”
“Probably for the best,” Cere agreed. “If he's distressed enough to have a Force event over the threat of someone touching his toy, imagine what he'll do if someone actually does.”
“The creche may not survive,” Hilgya agreed. She reached out and took Cere's hand, her tawny fingers vibrant against Cere's darker skin. “Cere. Thank you.”
Cere curled her fingers around her friend's in response. “Any time.”
Years later, Cere rescued a young Padawan with a rare gift. As she watched Cal's flame red head bend over her hallikset, Cere closed her eyes briefly and gave thanks to the Force she no longer touched, grateful beyond words that at least this one child had survived.