The Windborn Chronicles

Chapter 1: Dance With the Wind

Written by Sailor Wroona

The little girl's laughter bubbled across the field of turquoise trifli flowers. Arms flung wide, indigo hair whipping around her slender body, ten-year old Rána Starwind danced in joyous freedom through the windswept blossoms while her parents put the finishing touches on her Name Day picnic lunch nearby. The busy schedule of Lord Councilor Gaerion and Guild Mistress Miriel Starwind didn't often allow for leisurely family outings in the country, but it wasn't every day their oldest daughter turned ten. Rána was determined to enjoy every minute of her special day to the fullest.

Lady Miriel's shimmering silver eyes flashed with concern as she called a warning to her wandering daughter, "Rána! Don't stray too far!" Rána just giggled and waved an impudent hand towards her mother. Though her mother was sometimes overprotective, Rána adored her. Despite two children and countless Guild intrigues, she was still a striking beauty, her sapphire hair not yet touched with silver. Tall and slender as were most of the blue-skinned native Wroonians, she moved with an easy grace. Rána thought she was the most beautiful woman in the galaxy. Miriel turned to her husband and grumbled, "I'm just not sure about the wisdom of coming out here without guards, Gaer! You know the Dis have been threatening retaliation for the Council freezing their credit assets. An action that you orchestrated!"

"Pish!" Lord Gaerion snorted, liberally slathering drackleberry jam over a fresh-baked scone. He was a big, gruff man, heavier than most Wroonians, but solid with muscle built fighting pirates and the storms of Wroona's endless oceans. Though his present battlefield was now the Council Chamber as a member of Wroona's Ruling Council, he still fought against any who would challenge Wroona's hard-won independence. But Rána knew how his bluster hid a heart as big as Wroona's oceans. "Those Dis idiots are all roar and no talons, Miri. There's nothing to worry about." He crammed the entire scone in his mouth with every indication of bliss then washed it down with a bottle of Wroonian Ale. "Besides, we have your mother here to protect us!" He grinned over at Rána's grandmother who was busy playing a 'fingers and toes' game with their youngest daughter.

"Just ignore the big loud man, Elena," Dame Kaltari crooned at the giggling baby. "Just because I tossed one little knife at him while he was courting your mother...."

"One?! I seem to remember four holes in my best dravensilk tunic. Who'd have thought a Shrine Priestess was so good with knives...."

The familiar banter drifted across the sunlit meadow as Rána climbed up a small cairn of stones. She watched as a flock of avians soared through the clear cerulean sky, wishing with all her heart that she could fly with them. Looking over at her parents to see if they were appreciating her climbing skills, Rána noticed six dark forms with blasters sneaking through the tall flowers of the meadow towards her family. "Assassins!!" she screamed, gesturing frantically in the direction of the approaching killers. Alerted to their danger, Rána's parents pulled out the blasters that were never far away and laid down covering fire while her grandmother rushed the baby to the minimal protection offered by their hovercar. The assassins had lost the advantage of surprise but continued the attack, targeting the hovercar first to prevent escape. Two of them broke off from the main group and headed towards Rána.

Dame Kaltari, Shrine Priestess for the Starwind Clan, mentally kicked herself for not sensing the ambush. A well-placed throwing knife accounted for one of the four attackers while her daughter's blaster took another one down. Under cover of their return fire, Gaerion jumped aboard the hovercar and tried unsuccessfully to start the engines. "Damn!" he muttered. Turning to the two women, he shouted, "They hit the engines!"

"You stay with Elena and Mother, I'm going after Rána," Lady Miriel shouted back as she ran towards the tall cairn of stones where she had last seen her daughter.

Her husband waved in acknowledgement then ducked another spate of blaster fire. He left the damaged engines to join Dame Kaltari crouching behind the rail of the hovercar. The former Thieves' Guild operative nodded at him. "You take the one on the right. I've got the left one." Coolly she handed the now fussy Elena a nerf cracker to quiet her then readied her last throwing knife. She grinned as a yelp indicated that her son-in-law had accounted for his target with just a few well-placed shots. He was a worthy match for her beloved daughter, she thought with amusement. Concentrating, she stretched out with her feelings, focusing on the aura of menace she felt from her own target and stood up. A quick flick of her wrist, a touch of the Force, and the assassin went down gurgling with a blade in his throat. Smiling grimly in satisfaction, she ordered her son-in-law, "Go help Miriel, I'll stay with Elena and try to get the comm unit working." Lord Gaerion nodded, jumping down from the hovercar and running in the direction of his precious wife and daughter.

Rána peeked from her hiding place in time to see two dark figures advancing slowly through the tall flowers, looking for her. "Eeeek!!" she squeaked, diving back behind the pile of stones, trying to think of what she should do.

"I'm coming, Rána! Hold on!" her mother screamed. Turning away from their pursuit of the little girl, the remaining assassins focused on the much more important target of the Merchant Guild Mistress just as she had prayed.

The little girl's heart filled with hope at the sound of her mother's voice. "Mama will need my help!" she told herself. "I must be strong....!" Taking a deep breath, Rána clamped down on her worries. She readied the beautiful matched set of razor sharp throwing knives her Grandmama had given her in honor of her Name Day.

She crawled out from behind the shaded shelter of the piled rocks just in time to see her mother go down from a blaster shot to the leg. "Nooooooo!" Rána screamed helplessly. She was just too far away! She'd never be able to hit them at her present range. But she could NOT lose her mother! The despair and fear built up to an unbearable point inside. Casting a quick prayer to the Windlord, Rána poured all of her desperation and love into her knives and threw.

Lady Miriel lay on the soft carpet of pale turquoise grass, blaster far out of reach, and groaned at the pain in her leg and heart. "Please, Windlord, let her get away safely," she prayed to the capricious Wroonian Deity. Looking up in defiance at the men about to finish her off, her grimace of pain turned to an expression of astonishment as her two attackers went down, each with a throwing knife hilt protruding from a bloody eye socket. She levered herself up into a sitting position, wincing as the movement pulled at the raw blaster burn on her right leg. Hearing ragged footsteps she braced herself just in time to hold her frightened daughter close.

"Mama!!" Rána cried. "I thought I'd lose you!"

"Oof!" Lady Miriel grimaced against the pain of her injury then hugged her daughter closely. "Thank the Windlord you're safe!" Stroking Rána's dark sapphire hair she continued with a relieved smile, "I am so proud of you!"

Lord Gaerion ran up, breathing heavily. He knelt in the flattened grass and hugged them both tightly. "Sith take it! That was too close!" Sniffing away a relieved tear, he stood and went over to examine the dead bodies of their attackers. Turning one with a booted foot, he saw revealed a blood red symbol of the Crimson Circle, the assassin branch of a notorious off-world crime syndicate, the Dis. "Ha!" he grunted. "The Dis were behind it, just as you thought, Miri!" He leaned over and tugged at Rána's knives. It took considerable effort to pull the embedded blades out of their bloody resting places. He grinned over at his shaken daughter. "Well, sweetie, I was hoping we'd be able to interrogate at least one, but you seemed to have had other ideas." He wiped the blades on the nearest assassin's tunic and passed them back to his daughter.

Rána absent-mindedly tucked them back into their sheaths and stammered. "I....I....didn't mean to!" She turned and sniffled into her mother's tunic. "I ....I'm sorry. I thought they were going to kill Mama.... but I was so far away I wasn't sure I could hit them but I had to try and....and....it just happened!" she wailed.

"There there, sweetie," her mother crooned, patting her distraught daughter's back. "You did exactly right!" She grimaced in pain. "Now blow your nose and retrieve my blaster while your father carries me back to the hovercar. I need some bacta for this blaster burn."

Rána obediently pulled away, blew her nose on the handkerchief her mother always insisted she carry and turned to hunt through the trampled flowers for her mother's blaster.

Lord Gaerion carefully swept his wife up into his strong arms. "I'll have you back to the hovercar and your mother's messy healing salves in a quartermark, oh heart of mine," he said, hugging his precious burden closely. She smiled, snuggled closer and concentrated on keeping the pain at bay. They headed back towards their hovercar, Rána a few paces behind, keeping a nervous lookout for any more attackers, her mother's blaster at the ready.

Back at the battle-scarred hovercar, Dame Kaltari had gotten the comm unit to work so the family settled down to wait for the authorities. She spread bacta carefully over her daughter's blast burn. "You're lucky the blast wasn't a mil to the right, Miri, or you'd have lost the leg," she grumbled, slapping a fresh bandage over the numbed leg.

Miriel winced and turned her attention to Rána who was busy helping her father devour the remnants of their interrupted meal. "Rána, do you remember how you hit those two assassins with your knives?" her mother asked carefully, half afraid of the answer.

Caught with a mouth full of dew cake, Rána washed it down with a swig of Flava berry juice then answered her mother. "Well, I was kinda scared," she said matter-of-factly. "But I remember you and Papa telling me that courage was just facing your fears so I concentrated real hard like Grandmama does sometimes." She made a face in imitation, squinting her eyes and frowning. "It felt like something popped inside my head and then I could see the bad guys' faces. Then I asked the Wind's blessing and threw my knives." She shrugged and turned her attention back to the sugary sweet dew cakes.

"That's what I thought, sweetie. Thank you," sighed Lady Miriel unhappily. "That confirms it. She's Gifted!"

"Our little Rána, Force-Gifted, thank the Windlord!" marveled her father as he snatched up the very last cake, grinning at his now pouting daughter. Chuckling, he tossed it over to her, winning a bright smile from his little princess.

"Hah!" chortled Rána's grandmother, tucking a blanket around the now sleeping Elena. "I always thought Rána might have a latent Gift. Luckiest youngster I've seen even in all my years with the Thieves' Guild. I'm sure she'll be much stronger in the Force than I ever was."

Rána's mother sighed unhappily. "I'll contact the Jedi Temple on Calus tomorrow and arrange the necessary training. Rána can start the next school year with them."

"Training? You mean like lessons?" Rána said with dismay. "But, the Jedi are so....stuffy!" she protested. Seeing no signs of relenting in the faces of her mother and grandmother, Rána turned to her father. "Daddy!!" she whimpered, throwing her arms as far around the big man as she could. Pulling out her ultimate weapon, she turned shining eyes full of tears on him while her lower lip quivered pitifully. "I don't want to go to Calus and study with those grumpy old humans!"

"Well...." her father looked down at his daughter's pleading face and wavered. "I suppose...."

"Gaerion Elendil Starwind, don't you dare back down!" warned Miriel. "This is much too important!"

Dame Kaltari sighed, cleaning her nails with a sharp blade that seemed to appear from nowhere. Sapphire eyes full of sympathy met the concerned ones of her son-in-law. "You realize that she must be trained, Gaerion, otherwise her Gift could end up controlling her instead of her controlling it."

Heaving a deep sigh of surrender, Lord Gaerion stroked his daughter's hair lovingly. "I'm sorry, Princess, but your grandmama is right. You must have training." Forestalling the impending flood of tears, he raised a hand warningly. "Now, now don't cry. You've been complaining that things were getting boring here since most of your friends went off to boarding schools. You'll have a wonderful adventure and make lots of new friends! Besides, I'm sure they'll let you visit us." He looked questioningly at his mother-in-law.

"Yes, Padawans are given regular leave after their initial training period. And, as a former student of the Temple, I'll be able to visit her as well. Calus is just a short hyperspace jump away through Keller's Void." Dame Kaltari smiled down fondly at her granddaughter. "Rána, the Gift of the Force occurs seldom in Wroonians. If Master Fate has blessed you with His favor, you cannot refuse His gift! This is a rare chance for you to bring much honor to the Starwind clan. My own Gift was never that strong, so I didn't stay to become a full Jedi or even complete a lightsaber, but I can feel that your Gift will be much stronger."

"Oooo! So becoming a Jedi will bring my family honor?" Rána brightened at the thought. Every Wroonian child grew up dreaming of being the one to bring great honor and prestige to their clan. Names of the famous and wealthy were enshrined in family histories, their stories told and retold to each new generation of Wroonian children until they achieved almost mythic proportions. The possibility that her name could someday reach such fame filled her eyes with stars and stilled her protests. "Then I'll study hard and become the Best Jedi Ever!"

"Oh, Rána, I'm sure there will be no other Jedi quite like you!" her mother chuckled indulgently.

"Wonder if they realize what they'll be in for," her father said with a solemn face.

"Daaaddy!" Rána rolled her eyes at her father's teasing. "Ooo, look!" she pointed at a rapidly approaching hoversled. Here comes Commander Faram with a troop of Council guards!"

The wind blew gently through the wide meadow as the Starwind family was quickly bundled onto the sled for the trip back to their homestead. The tall turquoise flowers bent their lovely heads to the breeze as a soft voice seemed to whisper. "It has begun...."

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