"A Rose With Many Thorns" - EU/Dark Woman early life, apprenticeship. 200 yrs. before ANH

Hello, readers! This is my second fic in progress, about the Dark Woman's early life and her training/apprenticeships. I owe a big "shout out" to Cyn over at the FREEZE FRAMES thread (go read it!!) because she's inspired me very much. Thank you so much Cyn, I owe you so many "Get out of Writer's Block Free" cards!

Also, because Uncle George doesn't give the Dark Woman a name, and "she" gets pretty boring in stories when overused, I gave her a name - Morgaine Ancasta. :rostrates before Uncle George::

Anywho- ENJOY!

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"Hearts call, Hearts fall
Swallowed in the rain
Who knows, Life grows
Hollow and so vain
Wandering in the winter light
The wicked and the sane
Bear witness to salvation
And life starts over again."
-Winter Light by Linda Ronstadt

~

The tiny toddler stared at Master Yoda through amethyst eyes, widened in awe at the creature before her. His wisened eyes gazed back calmly and analytically, harrumphing comically ever so often when the petite girl reached to touch his unusual green skin, and then touch her own alabaster skin.

The centuries old Master had come to test the girl whom he had heard ran her village ragged with trickery and deceit, but found no such darkness. The child simply sat, a glimmer of playfulness in her wide set eyes, showing Yoda that there was more to this meeting than was completely innocent.

She didn't speak much, but the young Morgaine smiled and giggled whenever Yoda reached for his tumbler filled with laranto tea, which made him rethink his actions and examine her motives. Soon enough, he became fed up with this, and took a small swig of it. Morgaine's eyes lit up like beacons, and she could barely contain her excitement. It blared through the Force like a siren of an emergency speeder.

Yoda couldn't decide which to cringe at first - the annoying audio signature of the child, or the bitter sodium he knew she had slipped in his tea.
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"Will you take her then?" Seqii Ancasta prodded more than inquired, his imposingly tall figure crouched to respect Yoda's stature in more than one way.

"Only if your bondmate understands that once the child resides on Coruscant, no more contact shall there be." Yoda pressed his lips tightly in a firm gesture to the grieving female Cophrigi in a chair slightly to his left.

Yoda had been through this spiel countless times, but this woman tried his very nerve. Fimane Ancasta barely budged in her seat, her silvery hair cascading over half her face, hiding tears she knew couldn't be shed in front of the child in order to make a smooth transition. Her eyes were the same color as the child's, and had turned into a shadowy storm of purples from realization that she would never see her Morgaine again.

*Her* Morgaine...She felt her heart stress as she looked upon the diminuitive Jedi Master before her.

"I give her up." With tones as cold as ice, Fimane rose and walked painfully to her room. She would refuse to kiss the child goodbye. She surmised that it was best to give Morgaine as little memory as possible.

"Settled then, it is." Yoda bowed his head to Seqii. They shook hands, and Seqii transferred a small bag of Morgaine's belongings into Yoda's claws. Nodding as he went outside to fetch the girl, Yoda advised that Seqii close the shades and remain calm. This wasn't going to be easy.

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The small Jedi transport assigned to this mission only made the small girl's discomfort more evident. Since liftoff, she had plastered herself to the docking viewports and wailed when Yoda had attempted to entice her away. Cophrigim 5 loomed in the distance as they made the jump to hyperspace.

"Easier, this will be, if calm you are." Yoda shook a small claw benevolently towards the platinum haired bundle of melancholy. "Talk you must, if I am to find your wants. Read minds, I do not."

A pout crossed Morgaine's pale mouth and resided into it's already furrowed creases. She fidgeted with her booties for

 

This looks really cool!!!!
I like the little girl!!!

 

Thank you! You can get more of her on my other fic, but she's a lot older! ::

Hope you enjoy the rest of the story.

-Courtenay

 

FEED THE AUTHOR, pleaaaaase? Even if you hate my story after you read it, tell me! ::begs:: Thanks!
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"For people to reach the sea's horizon,
They must have the courage to lose sight of the coast." - Unknown

~

Morgaine had been sequestered into the green being's quarters for the odd end of a day. She stared wide eyed at what it contained - miniature versions of nearly everything imaginable that had good uses. She'd explored the place sufficiently while the being had left for a half hour, but he was perfectly comfortable - and rather intent on staring at her while she sat on a small settee. She was also beginning to imagine all the stories of mind gnomes her mother had told her were true - for not one minute in this strange new place was quiet. Whispers abounded, with no source of audio: no mouths moving, no breathing holes flapping, no gills flexing. It was utterly confusing and made her want to begin crying, but the little green thing had made her promise to stop that.

Morgaine heard a chuckle eminate from the small odd male as he slipped off his own settee and began hobbling towards her.
"Think you hear voices, you do? Indeed, initiate, you are." Yoda chuckled once more, and reached for her hands. The stubborn girl withdrew her palms which had been resting face up on her knees. Yoda had wondered about this peculiar positioning of the child, and presumed it was why she was detecting so many unguarded and unshielded thoughts and conversations outside his door.

"Be not afraid!" Yoda's tone was exasperated. With a sigh, he calmed himself and slowly reached for Morgaine's hands again. "Keep them down, you must. Stop, the voices will." He looked satisfied when she kept her palms on her knees, and the gnomes' whispering did go away. Morgaine breathed a sigh of innocent relief.

"While here we are, call me Master Yoda you will." Yoda then hobbled towards the door to the Temple. "Take a stroll, we shall." He then hopped on his hoverchair, and waved for the 3 year old initiate to follow. If he was to curb any more of her stubborness, her initation as a crecheling would have to begin very soon. Suspicions rooted themselves deeply in human children at such an age.

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Morgaine toddled along as fast as her little legs would carry her, and Yoda was surprised and glad at her investigative nature. He could see her registering and recording places and names into her consious as she asked him questions and recieved quick answers.

An elder Jedi Master, Fabian Launshak, stopped to welcome Master Yoda back to the Temple. The pair was nearing the med-wing, and Morgaine stepped on her scuffed shaak leather booties in slight impatience at having stopped. This place was cavernous, she thought, and willed herself not to run off and go exploring herself.

"And whom is the youngling?" The human female leaned down towards Morgaine with a slightly condacending, however genuine smile. She was studying her, Morgaine knew.

Yoda turned his gaze down to Morgaine. "Answer of your own free will you must, prod further I will not. Show respect to Masters, you must." Yoda nodded with satisfaction at the simple lesson.

In a smooth action the girl turned her amethyst eyes up to face the woman. Shyly, she smiled. "My name is Morgaine. Morgaine An..ca..sta." The toddler struggled with her syllables, and looked down at her booties again. Her shyness was creeping inside her, and it felt like she was burning up from her core.

"What is your species, Morgaine Ancasta?" Fabian Launshak smiled inwardly. The girl glowed in the Force as her discomfort grew. Shyness had to be weeded out early, and only through courage in response could it be done.

"Uhm..spee-shies?" Morgaine struggled once more. "I dunno."
"Where are you from?" Master Launshak inquired.
"Erm..Coph..rigim." she delayed. "Five."
"Then your species is Cophrigi?" Fabian prodded.
Morgaine shrugged, and Yoda nodded slowly towards Master Launshak.
"Splendid. I ha

 

By the Force, it's a tomb in here!

UP?

 

::hears cricket sounds and peers through a swamp like fog:: Anybody home?? Well, anyways. Here's the next update!

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Though two years had passed for Morgaine in the Temple on Coruscant, she'd hardly changed much. After an incident with her 5-Standards grouping that resulted in the young girl's nose being broken, it had been decided by Healer Proam and Fabian Launshak that she might stay with Master Launshak. Master Yoda objected highly to this decision - feeling that taking the child away from other children for a large amount of her day would alienate them further, and cause unsolidarity and disloyalty between the initiate and the other crechelings.

What Master Yoda didn't know, however, was that it was probably the hallmark of miracles that Morgaine Ancasta was not with the other initiates daily. Master Launshak tried furtively each day to contain the child's reckless and nearly retributive tendencies, and she grew in the Council's eyes to be a possible padawan of good stature.

Little did they know...
~

It was a time of recess in the initiates' day of study. Between beginner's lightsaber training with Master Yoda, Meditation with Pyana Sara, and Basic Studies with Lange Pratin, the gardens of the Temple filled to their brim with children of all ages and species, to converse, socialize, and settle scores. One of the latter was in progress at the Garden of Tranquility, a stark essence of irony to the situation it beheld in it's ivy and rose cradle.

A group of younglings had circled near the lily pond and were speaking in harsh tones. Unfortunately, the watchers of the children had busied themselves conversing in low tones near the entrance back into the Temple proper.

"You're nothing but a weirdo!" taunted Cibeline Tanna, a six year old human girl with fiery red hair and an even more fiery temper. Backed by her classmates and a couple of Morgaine's, she walked with a cold calmness towards the platinum haired girl with her back on a Tempir tree.

"I am not a weirdo!" Morgaine sputtered. "I'm just like you guys, why don't you just leave me alone..." She tried to sneak slightly to the side, to escape behind the Tempir tree, whose symbiotic tendrils had encircled the group in a sort of watchful glare.

As unwilling of confrontation that Morgaine was however, Cibeline was bent on it. She had something to prove to the little twit the Masters had chosen to promote to some of their classes, and not allow her to live in the creche with them. She was an outcast, and Cybeline was sure to make Morgaine's place known.

"Why don't you live with us, you little beetle? I think it's because the Masters fancy you either special...or dangerous. Yeah, you must be some sort of orphaned piece of work." Cibeline began to push at Morgaine's shoulder with her index finger, gently at first, but with more intensity as Morgaine refused to respond and only ducked her head.

"I'm not an orphan.." she mumbled, nearly silent, as she withdrew into herself against the Tempir tree.
"Oh yeah, beetle? Is that why you can't tell us their names or what they look like?" Cibeline prodded Morgaine even further. She was waiting for the bug to explode into a fury, and go after someone like she had once done nearly a standard year ago. The Masters wouldn't think she was special at all if they knew she was a repetitive powderkeg.
"I...I don't know..." A tear rolled down Morgaine's cheek. She had always bemoaned the fact that she couldn't remember her family, like the other children could. The Masters had told her it was a virtue, that her focus would always remain on the Order, rather than attatchments which no longer mattered to a Jedi Initiate. Then why were her supposed friends so mean to her? What had she ever done?
"Beetle's an orphan!" Cibeline whooped with dark joy. The other children all began repeating the chant in their native tongues and Basic. Morgaine's eyes began to darken, as her fists balled and she took a tentative step towards Cibeline. The o

 

:okes self:: Wow, it isn't a dream.

Up!

 

This is a very interesting story! My knowledge of the Dark Woman is sketchy at best (more like practically nonexistant ), but I'm enjoying this.

*Jadis*

 

Up! I hope you haven't abandoned this.

*Jadis*

 

I haven't abandoned it, no. I'm in the process of moving, so I'm using school computers at the moment. Argh!

 

Glad to hear it! (That you haven't abandoned it, that is.) I hope your move goes well.

*Jadis*