Chapter Text
[The Present – Somewhere in the Outer Rim]
It hurts now and again. Far less than it did years ago, but the stinging feeling rippling across the phantom space struck F’s senses with that same old pain.
With a quiet click, her left prosthetic leg latched onto her person. The Jedi takes a sharp breath right as the surface of her robotic legs begins to blur before her eyes, as if these thin spaces of reality warp. To an outsider’s eyes, it was as if a shower of particles rained over F’s legs until eventually it was like she had her old legs again.
They weren’t, of course, and F has long since grappled and accepted that. These weren’t her old limbs, just as she is not her old self, but she didn’t view these new limbs as any lesser, just as she doesn’t see who she is now as any lesser. She’s changed, adapted, and eventually found a newfound happiness in her new life despite the many forces in this galaxy trying to say otherwise.
Yet, the old pain lingers like a scar, and F wonders at times if she could find true inner peace and the consequences for others if she doesn’t.
“Master!”
A young voice cries from the other side of her chamber door. F rises from her bed, covering her eyes from the morning sunlight beaming through the window of her personal quarters. Made of cobblestone, wood, and tile, her chambers make a humble abode, with as many old scrolls and tools as there are plants and knick-knacks collected from her years of travel.
Shuffling through the room, F starts to truly wake up as she grabs herself warm tea and opens the door. With a squint of her eyes, F finds her student, no older than nine, at the foot of her door.
“Padawan,” F yawned, “you finished your routine already? It’s barely dawn.”
“Yep, and the faeirlas are still fresh. The dew is still on them,” the young Padawan said, holding up a bundle of flowers native to the faeir mountain range, which can only be found in steep portions of the side facing the valley. F smiles as she gently grabs the flowers, which smell as fresh as they looked. Her Padawan is as vigorous as always, especially whenever on a quest to accomplish the latest mission F gives them. Why, even the way they wield the training stick recalls memories of F’s younger years—a more innocent, civilized time.
“Oh,” her Padawan exclaimed, as if they just remembered, “and today’s visitors, master. Tee-two picked up and recognized a friendly signal just now.”
How could she forget, F wondered to herself as she nodded and said, “Thank you, Padawan. If you don’t mind, would you please work with Tee-two to finish preparing our temple for our guests? It’ll be your last task of the day.”
“Okay,” the Padawan said with a nod. “And what will you be doing till then?”
“I already have most of everything ready; I just have my usual personal matters to attend to.”
Her Padawan peeked inside before it dawned on them what F meant. “Oooh. Wait, does that mean I get to read them soon!”
“Maaaybe,” F said with a chuckle.
“Don’t let me slow you down then, master,” the Padawan said, their feet tapping with enthusiasm. “Tee-two and I will have the temple spotless when you arrive. I promise,” they said before jubilantly rushing away on the cobble path, towards the distant hill where F and her Padawan’s personal temple resides.
“So proud,” F said to herself, watching her student, happy and safe here and away from the eyes of the dark. Her eyes looked down at her reflection in the tea, a distant look in her blue eyes as she whispered, “You must’ve thought the same, too. Right, master?”
F steps back, closing the red door behind her as her gaze is drawn to the stone staircase at the back of her quarters. Finishing her tea, F grabs her cloak before ascending the steps of a small tower, about a few feet higher than her personal chambers.
At the top was a simple oval-shaped observation space, where one could see the misty mountains and hear the echoes of the jungles below. Underneath the dozen windows were neatly organized stacks of writings, and at the center of the room was a small, old wooden table with a fresh block of stone and blocks on top.
F saw the luminescent ink to her left was full, and the brush right before her, waiting for its user. Kneeling on a red pillow, F uses the blocks to brush the smooth stone’s surface before grabbing the brush, the tip of which has a fresh coat of ink.
Her brush hovers over the stone in hesitation; she’s been up all night trying to find the right words. It’s just one of many nights she’s had ever since she began. She was so close to finishing, yet the beginning of it all remains ever challenging to approach.
Yet, amid this self-doubt, she feels she must gather the bravery to write. Otherwise nobody else will, and this story MUST be told.
So, for this crucial task infront of her, F lets the Force guide her hand.
Glowing text began to appear on the slab. It read:
It was the last years of the grand republic, when peace should’ve been more cherished and when the hope of a bright future still seemed possible.
In a distant world, I was born a nameless child. No guardian to give me one, and no home sheltered me. My name was a name only the abandoned could have, from a child who couldn’t write it, couldn’t read it, but was given the minor miracle to speak it. My name is F, and for years, it seemed my story was already over before it could begin. A lost, wandering speck doomed to be alone in a universe built by the power of forces that bonded everyone together.
My story truly began only when this imperceptible Force of our universe bonded me to another. My master. My teacher. My guardian angel, Shad-Rah Varcanella.
The unfathomable cruelty of the Purge made it so that you will find no record of him if you search for this name. Those who knew him can only piece together so much of his story. Shad-Rah rarely told anyone, even me, much of his life. It’s a puzzle I’ve yet to solve or fully accept as unsolvable. Was he simply just quiet about it? Figuring his life story to be uninteresting to a young, reckless padawan like me? Was he afraid of it? Or, perhaps, Ashamed?
It’s with this precedent that I hope to explain why I begin where I begin. Why this tale is but another upon an endless line of dangling strands at the corners of the grand tapestry that is the galaxy. It is another valuable lesson on the preciousness and power of memories, history, and stories.
How, sometimes, why we do anything in the first place is because of the paths opened by those before us.
It began a long, long time ago at the capital of the galaxy. Deep inside the grand halls of the great temple, a Jedi Master was on his way to an important mission….”
Thank you for reading! Hope you all enjoyed.