[Junior Jedi Knights] - 02(5)

Anakin scowled at Tahiri. Sometimes she could be rude!

“Not exactly,” Lyric said, laughing. “Our upper body remains about the same, but our ability to breathe, as well as the form of our lower body, changes.”

“What is the changing like?” Anakin asked. He had sensed deep fear beneath Lyric’s lighthearted laugh.

“Seldom do all of us survive,” Lyric replied softly. “Very seldom. I leave tomorrow morning for Yavin… for my changing. That is why I was at the academy before you arrived, Tahiri,” Lyric explained. “My time to study the Force is limited.”

When it was time for the candidates to leave the Grand Audience Chamber, Lyric hung back.

“Go ahead, I’ll meet up with you later,” she called to her new friends. They hesitated.

“Please go,” Lyric said softly.

Anakin and Tahiri both saw that thick salty tears were on the brink of spilling from Lyric’s eyes. They left the chamber and waited for their new friend in the corridor. The Jedi Knight Tionne walked over to Lyric and sat on a stone seat by her side.

“I don’t want to go,” Lyric cried to Tionne. “Tomorrow I’ll be sent back to Yavin 8 when the supply shuttle leaves. I’ll be taken to the cove where the others who were born at the same time as me will be waiting for the changing, just below the blue - green algae that covers the surface of the waters in the cove. And while I’m changing, I’ll be defenseless,”

Lyric wailed. Tionne knew all too well what Lyric was going to face. She’d been to Yavin 8 during her search for Jedi candidates for the academy, and had witnessed a changing ceremony. Tionne recalled the explanation Lyric had given her months before, when she’d questioned why the Melodies had to partake in a ceremony set in such a dangerous place. The shallow algae-covered waters of the cove were the only place on the mountain where the changing could occur. Until the changing was complete, the young Melodies needed the blue - green algae that carpeted the waters and created oxygen through photosynthesis, to provide them with enough oxygen to breathe. Once their gill slits were completely formed, the Melodies would be able to extract oxygen from water without the help of the algae and could be moved to safety-to the deep pool of water within the mountain. Until that time, Melodie children did their best to protect the changelings. The children circled the shallow cove and sat on its banks with bags of rocks to fight off the purella, avrils, reels, and raiths that came to feed on the changing Melodies.

Those creatures seemed to instinctively know the right season to hunt for changelings, Tionne grimly recalled. Lyric had ringed the cove with the other children for many seasons of changing ceremonies. She knew all too well, Tionne thought, that though the children always fought without fear for their lives, some of the changelings as well as some of the children didn’t survive the day.

“I don’t want to go,” Lyric said plaintively. “I want to stay at the academy.”

Tionne studied the young Melodie. From what she’d seen, Lyric was more than ready for the changing. In the past few weeks, she’d noticed that the child had begun to have difficulty breathing, her breaths sometimes sounding like rattling, dry gasps.

“Lyric, do you remember when I fought by your side at the cove?” Tionne asked.

Lyric nodded. “You came in search of Jedi candidates, but it was the day of the changing, and you fought to help save those who would become elders,” she whispered. “I remember an avril swooped over your head and tried to slash you with its sharp talons, and you didn’t see the reel that slithered up behind you,” Lyric said.

“You saw the thick violet snake moments before it wrapped me in its coils and began to hiss and squeeze,” Tionne said softly. “I recall that you turned and, without thought, stared into its black eyes and began to hiss at the long creature. Lyric, your voice, the voice of rushing streams and tinkling water, became the snake’s voice. Just as I was about to be crushed, the creature released me from its coils and slithered away. For that reason, I took you to study at the Jedi academy.

“You were strong in the Force, even then,” Tionne said to her student. “You are even stronger now. But if you don’t return to Yavin 8 and undergo the changing, you’ll die. You knew that you wouldn’t have a lot of time at the academy,” Tionne continued. “You said that you wanted to study here anyway, in the hopes that you could use your training to help your people when you returned to Yavin 8. If you want to help them, you must return. And you must survive.”

Slowly Lyric turned and left the room. Tionne was right, she thought. The only way to help her people learn to fight and survive was to teach them what she had learned at the academy. To find other Melodies who were sensitive to the Force, and train them to use their voices and minds to fight the predators that fed on the Melodies ‘ eggs and changelings.