I looked up into the bright green eyes, my stomach churning painfully. "You’ll be fine, Tahiri," I try to convince her. And she will be.

"No." A sob tore from her lips, her voice sounding eerie and snarling like it did in my vision. "I’m broken, Anakin. They broke me." Tahiri’s bottom lip trembles. "I hate them," she hissed. "They’re evil."

"No they’re not, Tahiri. They…" I didn’t know how to explain it. They were alien, they were different, but that didn’t make them evil. I remember the Sand People. I’d thought they were evil as a kid, because they looked so…creepy. But Tahiri showed me that just because they weren’t like me didn’t make them bad.

How was I to show her, though? She and Jacen had probably always been the most compassionate people in my life that were my age. I knew what I felt, but I didn’t know how to help someone else feel it.

"Yes they are!" she screamed, tears running down her face.

"Tahiri—"

She said something in Vong, and I didn’t understand it. Then, "I don’t know you. You don’t know me. You’re a liar!"

"Tahiri, I want to help you! Stop it!"

More of the harsh noise that was the Yuuzhan Vong’s language came from her mouth.

"I love you," I whispered. "C’mon, Tahiri…."

The eyes that had turned sickly yellow turned back to their livid green and she shut them, slumping to the floor. "Face it," she said, her voice almost normal again. "I’m broken, Anakin. I’m messed up. There’s nothing you can do."

Broken.