A/N: Thanks be to ArgenteusDraco for betareading even more than usual. Thanks to Layana Danare as well, for her thorough reviews.

Chapter 3: Intimacy and Distance

Luke knelt on the ancient paving stones beside Kylus Calrissian and tried to look at the boy kindly. Tried, he realized, not to look at him as though he had a disease he had been thought to be immune from. "You aren't Force-sensitive."

"I know." Kylus spoke very slowly, and Luke thought he sounded far too serious for a child his age. "I think mom knows too. I don't…understand her sometimes."

But you're here! Luke thought, surprised—certainly Mara would have known her own children well enough to see signs of…normalcy in this one. Why would she have handed him over to Luke anyway? She wasn't idealist enough to hope that Kylus could be somehow changed…Maybe, Luke thought half-seriously, she'd just given Kylus to him out of a sort of spite. Here, Skywalker, take care of this one too. By the way, you're going to have to break the news to him, because I'm not sure how. Thank you.

Pity, he thought, that none of us heroes have very good people skills. "We'll get them on the comm." He said softly. "They'll come back."

Kylus moved his mouth a few times without any words manifesting; then he reached out and took hold of the wide sleeve of Luke's cloak. "Can I stay some?"

He had all reason to, Luke knew. He'd want to stay with his siblings, to understand what their distant lives were like, to be trained to do the things that his family members could do—things necessary for survival in a world of conflict, not necessarily having anything to do with the Force—and to feel that he was making up for what he lacked. Who was Master Skywalker to quash the hopes of both Kylus and Mara, to whom he owed much and whose decisions he trusted?

Luke nodded. Strangely for him, it was hard to meet the child's glinting eyes. He squeezed Kylus' shoulder. "You can stay for a bit. We'll see what you can learn."

Little Kylus gave a small smile. "Can I have a room next to Cassie and Max?" "Possibly." Luke stood up. "We can go see them now if you'd like."

"Sure." Kylus followed Luke along the wall of the temple.

They walked for a few moments in silence, the man in black and the boy in red, steps and shoulders looking equally burdened.

Cassie and four other apprentices, all of whom Luke recognized from one class or another, sat on a paved porch beside the stream which ran across the back of the temple ziggurat, throwing dice onto a grid. Max stood a few meters away on the slope of a hillock, talking to another human his age.

The red-haired apprentice counted under her breath as she released a die from her hand. "Seventeen."

A purple-skinned boy across the circle (Criss, Luke thought, good at teras kasi) spoke. "Lisatz takes four points of damage."

"What?" The Anx sitting next to Cassie threw her clawed hands into the air in apparent frustration. Casting her eyes at the sky in mock exasperation, her sense registered good-natured competitiveness.Before she could lightly shove Cassie as she’d intended to, she caught sight of Luke. Immediately she stiffened her pose and set her mouth into a serious line between her crests. The Jedi Master held out a placating hand as the others turned around attentively.

He spoke softly but firmly. "I need to speak to the Calrissians."

Graciously, Cassie extricated herself from the group. Max trotted down the hill, his hands in the pockets of his olive jumpsuit. He also wore a black cloak lined with shining purple, reminiscent of the kind Lando would sport. Luke walked backwards onto the paving stone for a few paces, until Mara's children stood in a circle around him, separate from their peers. Kylus broached the subject bluntly before Luke could do so more carefully.

"I'm not like mom," he said. In the Force, he screamed through the sibling bond which Luke could only distantly hear.

Cassie looked up at Luke in surprise, green eyes wide.

Realization dawned more slowly on Max, and he rushed his first few words. "You mean you’ve never been able to…? I never noticed. I'm sorry."

Kylus' voice piped up again, almost covered by bird calls and the babble of the other students. "Mom knew. I know she did."

The three Calrissians shuffled their feet. Luke consoled, "Then I'm sure that she had a good reason for sending you. You'll stay for a time. See what destiny brings you."

Kylus nodded, serious once more.

"Come," Luke said. "We'll assign you a room."

"Can I meet you there in a sec?" Cassie asked.

Luke nodded. "Of course."

She spun and jogged back to her friends to finish what she had been doing. Max moved slowly away to sit again on the grass, watched over by his silent friend, carefully keeping his gaudy cloak from dragging on the ground.

Kylus turned back toward the temple before Luke did, and began to walk back around the corner. Cassie came running up behind them a moment later. She exuded concern for her excluded brother. Max, Luke knew, whole-heartedly wanted to be a good Jedi, but he might therefore think it inappropriate to reveal too much emotion now which could be perceived as lack of discipline. He will see that I am not correcting Cassie, Luke thought, and follow us if he chooses.

That, or Max simply did not know what to say to Kylus without sounding pitying. Luke certainly didn't.

Kylus sat on his newly-granted bed, tucked between the walls around its furthest corner, with Cassie perched on the edge of the orange bedspread in front of him. Her back was a yellow-clad wall between his flickering eyelids.

Family, he knew, did not always equal safety.

Kylus had fuzzy memories of the twins' visits home. Lando would brighten during those times—he was usually happy, but he was in his element with the family. Mara, though, became less accessible when the older children returned from training. She set them to tasks which were like tests. Obstacle courses made of couch cushions and household objects were fun, but sometimes Kylus slept against his mother's shoulder instead of participating, and then he saw her watching his siblings, steely-eyed, with the severe expression of a teacher instead of the loving one of a mother.

Then, too, she would ask Max or Cassie to move things without touching them. Cups or weapons would drift into the air after only waves of their hands. Every time, Mara would ask Kylus last. He would wave his pudgy hand and try to connect everything in the universe he knew to the lines of energy which were supposedly there. But it was as if those famous lines were drawn in an ink invisible to the spectrum his eyes could see. The Force might as well have been nonexistent but for the tricks his family could do.

Eventually, Mara had stopped asking Kylus to move things.

He was not pressured all the time to feel that he was a failure for his shortcomings; his parent's friends spoke none at all or very little about the Jedi. The pressure came from Mara's eyes, from the Academy which loomed in his future, and from dark-cloaked, soft-spoken Uncle Luke.

There are plenty of others like me. Uncle Solo. Chewie. Mister Karrde.

But he knew that in this company, in this building, he was not normal. The pressure would come because he was different. And he was beginning to enter the age where being normal was very important.

Cassie is silent. She doesn't know what to say, because we’ve been apart for so long. Max won’t even come here, because he doesn't know what to say either and I don't know why! His thoughts could be more alien than an Anzati's, because he lives here. Because he has a whole other sense that I don't—

Tears brimmed over and he closed his eyes fully, pushing the droplets away, crinkling his cheeks against the heat.

"I don't know what to do with Kylus." Luke sat down wearily behind the desk in his office, steepled his fingers on the false wood desk, and flicked his gaze between his hands and the person standing on the other side of the desk. Jedi Master Cy-Raxx Neirharmn, a woman in her late twenties with short, blonde hair, leaned against the wall, jauntily dangling a pilot's helmet from her fingers. In her apprentice's free time, she had gone flying for fun and practice. She had been passing by Luke's office on the way to her room when he'd stopped her and said that they needed to talk about her apprentice's family.

"Not yet," she replied softly. “You don’t know what to do with him yet.”

"I’m sure there's a lesson he can learn from this. It simply needs to come from someone who he won't feel is looking down on him. And I'm afraid I do that just by virtue of my title."

"You're probably right about that." She smiled jokingly. "Are there any outside contacts that would do? Non-Force-sensitives that he could relate to?"

Luke considered this. "You know, I do think I know someone who could help."

"What do you think I should tell Cassie?"

"If she asks why he's here, tell her that we don't know." Such was the truth, really. "Mara obviously wanted Kylus to stay at the praxeum to learn something. I think I've got a good one for him."

"Who are you going to bring in?"

"You'll see." He laughed quietly when he realized how ludicrous his own next words would sound. "One of them is a former student of mine. Now he's a sort of…interplanetary delivery boy."

"Er, how illustrative."

He held out a hand as it to ward off her disbelief. "Trust me, Cy. Sidi and Eeth know their stuff about the Force…or lack thereof."

When Max walked into Kylus' room, following the presence of his sister, he found the other Calrissian children silent and seated beside one another on the bed. Tentatively he put am arm around his brother's shoulders.

"It's okay," he tried. "You're not useless just because you can't use the Force."

"But I am." The boy retorted, defiant through threatening tears. "To you, to mom—she sends me here even though I'm useless to Master Skywalker and I don't know why!" Tears spilled, following the paths of their forbearers.

He's just a child, Max thought, wanting approval from mom.

But she taught us not to hold on to pleasure, because it’s fleeting and causes suffering for want of it. That's not easy, even with the training of monks. Father lives by taking whatever pleasure he can get, however transitory. I find myself leaning that way as well. I can't expect a child to understand that distinction.

Is it the most I can do to sit here?

Cassie was saying something consoling to her brother, denying his opinions. Max, though, was distracted, first by his own thoughts, and then by the opening of the room's door and the entrance of Masters Skywalker and Neirharmn. The Grand Master lurked for a moment before turning away, black cloak sweeping, leaving Cassie's teacher to step into the room.

"All right, kids," she set her hands on her orange-clad hips. "Enough resting. We're going running."

Cassie released an exasperated breath.

Kylus spoke with the tone of a plea. "Me too?"

"What, you think we’re gonna treat you special?"

Kylus smiled. He may be one of the few students at the academy who had ever looked so enthusiastic about running. Max, though, could understand his brother's enthusiasm on another level. Running was something that everyone could participate in. The Masters had chosen well. Even if it was because of the pain in his legs and lungs, Kylus would temporarily forget that he was an outsider.