Epilogue

"This is the spot where your father saved my hide." Qui-Gon looked around the field with the dirt path winding through it. He looked back at Ashanti's saddened face. He had come to see Ashanti as a carefree spirit. Such depression upon her made him nervous.

"He seemed like a good man," Qui-Gon said in an offering of comfort.

"So is his son." Qui-Gon looked at Ashanti. "Go walking, padawan. I want to check on the house and see what shape it's in." Qui-Gon nodded and walked away across the field. Ashanti turned heavy feet and tail to the house she had left almost thirteen years ago.

The house, though a little dilapidated, still looked the same. The windows were boarded up to indicate it's emptiness and the paint peeled from it's once shimmering brightness, yet to Ashanti's eye, it looked unchanged for the most part.

The door opened and she saw the rooms were empty of furniture, wall hangings and other things that had made this building a welcoming restbit from the chaos of the galaxy for her. Room after room, Ashanti entered and wandered around, remembering where furniture sat, jokes and stories told by herself, Ron-Seng and Ravia. Memories hidden away flooded into her mind and she found herself chuckling at something or another as she wandered.

Her smile faded when she entered the room that had been Qui-Gon's nursery. The room was bare, like the others, but she still saw the bassinet, the cheery curtains hanging by the window and the smell of a clean human baby in the air. Soft murmurings of baby language flooded her ears from her memories and her eyes grew moist.

She turned away and faced down the hall to Ron-Seng and Ravia's bedroom, the last place they drew breath.

She pushed open the door, expecting the feeling of death, hopelessness and pain. She only felt happiness and love there. Her two friends may have suffered in this room, but their love and zest for life was what still resided here.

Ashanti smiled again.

It was fitting, she supposed, that even in death the Jinns brought her peace, comfort, joy and relief from the strains of the worlds beyond. They were at peace.

So she would be with their memory.

Ashanti shut the door to the bedroom, turned down the hall and left the house, carefully shutting the front door behind her. Her eyes scanned the horizon for the only Jinn left alive in her life. The Force sent her to the east and that was where she walked.

She found him by a stream, looking pensive yet at peace with himself. "What do you think?" she asked him.

"I think it's time we went on another mission," Qui-Gon answered quietly. "I understand a few things now and think I can live without the rest for the time being."

Ashanti nodded, noticing he clutched something in his hand. "What's that?"

Qui-Gon opened his fist to reveal a shiny, smooth rock. "A rock that seemed to call to me. I found in it the stream. A piece of the home to carry with me on my journeys."

Ashanti smiled. "Come on, padawan, let's see what kind of trouble we can get into."

He smiled, so much like his father, his blue eyes glinting mischief similar to the glint in her own eyes. Her tail wrapped around his wrist and tugged. He tugged back and they walked away from the stream heading back to the road.

Ashanti found she was no longer angry at the loss of her friends. She had Qui-Gon and she would train him as promised and to his fullest potential.

Qui-Gon found he was not angry for the family lost to him, or angry at Ashanti for her withdrawal of information during the mission. She had done it to protect him, and she had been right. He hadn't dealt with much of it for this mission. She had the battle with Marteene and his maddened vengeance against the two of them. His soul felt calm as the blue-green sky above them. Ashanti would train him as promised and help him to become the best Jedi he could be.

PEACE OVER ANGER