A celebration

Firith Mobak is walking down a street you vaguely recognize from your time on Coruscant. A young adult Lilikai Singan keeps pace on one side of him, while Damasa Kovani walks a few steps ahead. This memory is tinged with a strong positive emotional charge: pride and optimism and accomplishment, a sense that something good has happened and that even better things are on the way. Damasa looks back over her shoulder to urge Firith and Lilikai onward.

Damasa: This is it. Come on.

She turns and leads the others through the front door of a generic and nondescript bar/restaurant, the kind you'd find a dozen of in any square kilometer of Coruscant. The sign in the window reads "Crystal Cave Cantina." Once inside, you recognize the interior as belonging to the same establishment you saw in one of Firith's earlier memories, minus several years of wear and tear. Lilikai looks around, frowning.

Lilikai: We left the reception at the Temple for this?

Damasa: Of course we did. Too many stuck-up Jedi there, all comparing the size and potency of their Force kagas. [GM's note: as the rest of you can probably guess from the context, Efnir Kis recognizes this word as an extremely vulgar Iktotchi term for the genitals.] I like being here much better. You will too. Besides, I have to enjoy this place while I can before it burns down.

Lilikai glances over at Firith with alarm, her expression mirroring that of a passing server - Damasa has spoken rather loudly. Noticing their reactions, Damasa adds:

Damasa: I mean, not tonight. It won't happen for a long time. Nobody gets hurt. Calm down. I'll get us a table.

As Damasa steps aside to flag down the same server she just weirded out, Firith looks back at Lilikai, who now exchanges a slight smile with him.

Lilikai: We did it.

Firith: I knew we could.

Lilikai looks like she might be about to say more before Damasa barges in.

Damasa: This way! When I told them what you're celebrating they said the first round's on the house.

The three of them make their way to a booth by the window - the same one they sat at before, or will sit at in the future. Damasa sits down across from Firith and Lilikai. The server comes over with a tray and sets three shot glasses of something thick, creamy, and golden in front of them. Damasa hoists hers, and the others follow suit.

Damasa: Look at you two. Jedi Knights. It's about time the Council got its act together and saw what I've always seen in you. So here's to the both of you.

Firith: And to the future.

Lilikai: To the future!

They all toss back the contents of the glasses. Taste and smell don't transmit through the artifact as readily as sight and sound do, but the apparently traumatic memory of this beverage is clear enough to give you a pretty good idea of how rancid (and potent) it was. Damasa doesn't seem bothered. Next to Firith, Lilikai looks like she's struggling not to retch.

Firith: Do I want to know what I just drank?

Damasa: Fermented bantha milk. The Tuskens toast with it for special occasions on Tatooine.

Lilikai: How nice for the Tuskens. You can warn a person sometimes, you know.

Damasa: That'd be the first time you ever believed me when I warned you about something that would happen.

An awkward pause. Damasa seems to have meant this as some kind of joke, but Lilikai doesn't seem to have taken it that way. Abruptly and noisily, Damasa slides her empty glass to the edge of the table.

Damasa: Want another?

Firith and Lilikai: No.

Lilikai gets the server's attention before Damasa can make any other suggestions.

Lilikai: Blossom wine for the table, please. And something to eat. I don't really care what, as long as it didn't come out of a bantha.

The server nods and scurries away. Damasa is back to grinning, the earlier momentary tension seemingly forgotten.

Damasa: So, now that your training is complete, where do you think the Council will assign you?

Firith and Lilikai smile at each other again. They've been waiting to share this news.

Firith: Well, in the end it's still up to them and not to us, but they let us offer some suggestions so they'd know where our interests lie. So we told them we both wanted to go on some expeditions with you.

Damasa looks completely floored, in a positive sense. Her smile somehow gets even bigger and she shakes her head as if in disbelief.

Damasa: You two...Never thought I'd see the day.

Lilikai laughs, equally disbelieving.

Lilikai: "Never thought you'd see the day?" What's that supposed to mean? Isn't this exactly what we always talked about doing, ever since we were younglings together? I never forgot what I promised you. Did you?

Damasa: No. Of course not. It's hard for me to remember sometimes, after everything else that will happen - I mean, everything that's happened - that things can still work out the way you plan them to. The way you want them to.

Damasa is flustered and distracted as she speaks - as if her focus isn't entirely there, instead being drawn away by something else. From somewhere outside the memory, Firith's voice seems to whisper: ''It didn't make sense to me then, but now it does. Even at a time like this, when we were happiest, some part of her couldn't ignore how she knew it all would end.''

In the memory, Firith reaches across the table and takes Damasa's hand in his. Lilikai takes her other hand.

Firith: You're my family, Damasa.

Lilikai: Mine too.

Firith: We didn't ask to work with you because we thought we owed you a favor, or anything like that. We did it because we believe in you, and what you're doing. Now we can finally do more than just listen to stories. We can help you. So let's do it.

Lilikai: Together.

Damasa's looking down at the tabletop where her hands are joined with Firith's and Lilikai's. Finally she lifts her head and echoes:

Damasa: Together.

The memory fades out as the three of them are beginning to talk about all the things they might do together next. As you wake you're left with the feeling that all these memories are starting to build toward something important - a culmination, or a central point of some sort - but you can't be sure what form it will take.