Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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A Song of Ice and Beorni

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kVSVRdmnTE​
THE PLANET
RHEN VAR
THE SILVER CITADEL

What to do..?

What to do? Oh, bother...

The young Beorni was pacing back and forth, inside the workshop that had started to take shape and dimension within the citadel of the Silver Watch upon the surface of Rhen Var.

There was a smithy and forge on the outside, facing into the open courtyard, where the blacksmith bear could work Valkyri steel and practice the timeless craftsmanship that the Beorni had passed down to the Valkyri many, many centuries before. There were any number of swords and the beginning of swords -- blades in various stages of craftsmanship -- denoting the bear's practice in those timeless arts, but the swing of the hammer simply wasn't singing the song of his muse at present.

There was a Sasori loom in one corner. Bolts of fabric, armor and crystal weaves, stood up in boxes. Male and female mannequins of varying species stereotypical builds shoved off to one side, decorated haphazardly as the cub tried his paw at tailoring. None of which was working for him now.

He wanted to create something.

He just had no idea what that something was, and it was driving him quite mad actually.
 
As much as athletic progress in pacing was progressing to the point that the cub could have competed for gold in the next Procrastination Olympics, the young Beorni had decided to take a walk in order to gather his thoughts.

Well, gather his thoughts and also a snack from the vending machines.

Then a meal at the cafeteria.

Then dessert. Then a second dessert because he wasn't sure if he liked the first one or not, and required a second sampling to be sure.

That required he pick up another snack, because he'd clearly need something to munch on back at the crafts shop. Also, for the walk back to the crafts shop, so actually two snacks were required.

"I ordered transparisteel!"

The soft, rounded ears on the boy's head twitched as he passed near the hangar. The statement, and more so the abrupt and flustered manner in which it had been articulated, prompted the bear to peek his head into the large shipping bay. The deck officer and a foreman were arguing over a stack of crates.

"That is transparisteel," the one man barked back at the other.

In response, the deck officer reached inside of a crate and pulled out a sheet of something rather marvelous.

It looked like a pane of stained glass.

"What am I supposed to do with this!?" the deck officer shouted hoarsely, clearly not at all pleased with the colorful pane of material.

For his part, the foreman seemed to have little, if any, sympathy for the other man. "Make a window," the foreman offered, thrusting out an invoice for the deck officer to sign.

The deck officer snatched the device out of the foreman's hands, all the while muttering under his breath something about gorram subcontractors.

The bear waddled his way over to the box, sifting through the panes of glass-like material until he found one that was monochrome. Holding it up to the light, it was as though someone had frozen smoke. It was silvery and grey, swirling like mercury spilled across a canvas.

"Well, if you're not going to use this, I think I might like to," the cub opined aloud.

What for..?

...to be honest, he wasn't sure yet.
 
The packaging identified it as transparisteel from the planet Sullust.

The Sullustans called it b'sant. So it was precisely what the Silver Jedi had ordered. It merely was not clear, or transparent, transparisteel. Now, perhaps one would assume from the name that transparisteel would be transparent. But clearly that was not always the case, and so it was the Jedi who had failed to communicate clearly what their requirements for sheets of transparisteel were.

That much was understandable, so he didn't understand why the deck officer and the foreman would be so cross with one another.

In any event, now the cub had a problem of his own. He had a crate full of b'sant in his crafts shop... and had no idea what he was doing with any of it.

Perhaps making a window was, indeed, a valid suggestion. And, yet, the cub didn't feel his muse pulled in quite that direction. More's the pity, really. The Silver Citadel could have used a stained glass window. Maybe something in main corridor to add some color...

Snatching up his loub-paper sketching pad and tucking a charcoal stick behind one ear, the young Beorni waddled out to the court yard. Maybe to sketch out a few ideas. Or maybe to take a nap. He honestly hadn't decided which was happening yet, and liked to remain open to possibilities.

Taking a seat on the frost-covered ground, the roly-poly bear cub plopped down as any number of Jedi knights and padawans were practicing various arts in the outer chamber of their enclosed courtyard. There were a knight and apprentice fencing. A pair of padawans practicing breathing and meditation exercises. And a solitary knight, wearing only his undergarments, clearly meditating upon Tapas as he sat under a rather good accumulation of snow upon his body.

It was all rather interesting to take in, albeit for different reasons.

Taking the charcoal stick in hand, the bear first applied himself to the largely undressed figure. The fur-less bodies of humanoids presented a rather interesting artistic challenge in the definition and tone. The lines of the body. The subtle manner in which muscle and bone connected under the flesh. Those were the details he was trying to capture in a series of sketches of the knight meditating under snow.

The two padawans applying themselves to Alchaka were different. The layers of clothing masked the body, yet still suggested the form underneath. And the subtle details of the clothing itself were all nuances that the bear was interested to try and capture, as he quickly worked on a few sketches to try and commit those details to paper.
 
As he transitioned to the pair that were practicing their fencing, the boy's drawing departed from what was before him and moved to what he saw in his mind's eye.

A Jedi Knight. The fencing pair was a good reference point for the heroic pose that was taking shape through the rough assortment of lines etched out across the loub-paper with the charcoal, yet neither were represented in the figure. It was only when he had started upon filling in the details and shading of the face that even Kiriko knew who was.

It was a drawing of [member="Théodred Heavenshield"]. The wavy hair framing the angular lines of the face, which was shaded by the scraggly beard.

He was meant to be holding something aloft. And what else would a Jedi be holding aloft but a lightsaber? Except, it sort of begged the question... what should Master Theo's lightsaber look like?

Not, what did Master Theo's lightsaber look like. Which was a different question. And, yes, Master Theo did, indeed, have a lightsaber. It was a horrible, plain thing. About as basic as a lightsaber could be.

Why couldn't a lightsaber be a pretty thing? Like a stained glass window?

...actually, why couldn't a lightsaber be a pretty thing? Precisely like a stained glass window.

The bear popped back to his feet.

Or he would have liked to have. He made several attempts at it. Each resulting in him rocking back down to the ground as he wasn't quite able to summon enough 'omph!' to haul his heavy tail up from the ground. So, instead, he just rolled over and picked himself up that way. Which, wasn't nearly as dramatic as one jumping back to their feet. But, it would simply have to do.

Gathering up his sketch book and charcoal, the cub hurried off back inside of his crafts shop.

Now he knew what he was going to make.
 
He knew what he was going to make.

He simply wasn't sure how he was going to make it.

Yet, that is. He was working on those details. To start with, this process was made slightly complicated by the fact that the young cub had never made a lightsaber before. Or even really held one. He simply didn't get the appeal of laser swords. They were flashy, and usually in the most garrish tone of what should otherwise be pretty colors. Not subtle in the least. And he swore they only came in two variations: Intense Blue and Neon Green. Neither of which would have been his picks for a color palette.

So, he had a number of technical manuals that described the mechanical process and assembly of what, precisely, a lightsaber was. Which, honestly, was far more surprisingly simple than he'd imagined. Energy from a diatum cell was directed at a piece of crystal, the resulting discharge from which was then funneled through a beam gem lens by way of an emitter matrix, which really just kept the directed energy inside a magnetic containment sheath.

That was all very well and practical. And so Jedi tended to put little, if any, thought to actual aesthetics. To produce what he had in mind, he merely needed to put a proper covering on what was, otherwise, a rather basic principle.

As it happened, this was a Jedi citadel. So they had plenty of the regular components. Power cells. Emitter matrix. It seemed about the only thing they didn't have a surplus of, was lightsaber crystals.

He supposed to did hear of Jedi going out and getting their own.

Oh well, it wasn't like the cold of Rhen Var was going to bother him.
 
That Force ghost had the most peculiar accent...

In any case, the bear returned with a shard of a kyber crystal in hand. It seemed the spirits inhabiting the crystal cave had been most confused when confronted by a padawan who had come in order to create something for someone else and not themselves. Suffice to say, they had all been working outside their comfort zones. For Kiriko, it had been the first time gathering a crystal, so he hadn't exactly known how it was supposed to work in the instance in which one was gathering for themselves.

But, they'd muddled through it together.

He had his assembly instructions in front of him, and all of the required materials. Now, all he needed to do was put together the functional lightsaber and then he could work on the cowl.

Sadly, whoever had written these instructions obviously did so in a homage to Ikea. He didn't have enough screws, apparently had parts that were going to be left over -- for whatever reason -- and questioned both the grammatical structure and literal interpretation of more than one step in the process.

The easiest solution was to take a look at a practice lightsaber, and see how it was constructed. As he understood it, the underlying technical aspects were the same. It was the crystal and power supply that were markedly different.

Lo, whoever handled the budget would not be happy, as on this day not one, not two, but five training lightsabers lost their lives on the field of the Beorni's workbench.

At some point, he'd go back and re-assemble them.

Or, maybe re-design them.

Or use them for parts.

...probably use them for parts.

But, now that he had an exact idea of what the foundation of the piece would look and measure out to, he could start working with the b'sant. And then decide of any final touches.
 
The first step was going to be cutting the b'sant.

Under ordinary circumstances, glass cutting was a delicate process. The fact that this glass had the hardness of steel made the prospect of cutting it a rather unique undertaking. He could melt it down and mold it, rather than re-shaping it, but he wanted to preserve the patterns and color of the glass-like substance.

He had the forge fired up, in preparation for heating and re-shaping the cut b'sant once he had the piece for the cowling. Donning an apron of armorweave and protective goggles, the cub tugged on a pair of thick, smithing gloves and set to work. The sounds of a fusing pen, the smell of burning metal, and sparks all sprang into the air as the boy set himself to the task or measuring, aligning, and cutting the piece that he wanted.

By the time he had the sheet cut, the forge had warmed to several hundred degrees. Working with a pair of heavy tongs, the bear carefully inserted the sheet for heating. He just wanted enough as to make the piece pliable, after which he could work at re-hardening the metal. And hopefully without losing any of the aesthetic characteristics.

As he worked it, in and out of the oven, he eventually arrived at a piece folded around a dowel to create a shroud.

From there, he used the fusing pen and a binding agent mixed with some of the b'sant shavings from the earlier cutting to minimize the seam where he soldered together the ends of the piece to form the round sheath.

Holding it up, he inspected the final product. He would need to polish it, but it seemed no worse for wear. And hardy enough to serve as the sheath.

Now, for the lightsaber to start to come together.
 
He made tea while waiting for the shroud to cool.

But tea required cookies, and so he also had cookies.

But, when he'd finished with the tea and the cookies -- the entire box, that is -- he had everything he needed to finish the construction of the stained glass lightsaber. Oh, there were a few nuances here and there. Such as lining up the emitter assembly and the shroud to determine where to put the fittings that would secure it all together. It was all rather like building a set of legos. Everything had its place and it was all just a matter of understanding the directions to know how it all went together.

As he screwed the base on at the end, the bear picked up a small knob to screw toward the lower end. Then, fiddled with that, as he depressed the activation switch to bring the piece to life.

The blade was wild, chaotic. He'd need to install a beam gem lens to help refine that, but the color was perfect. A rich, muted indigo. A deep blue, bordering on violet. The intensity of which was visibly altered as the boy lowered and increased the amount of power fed to the crystal core.

Hmmm...

Holding the lightsaber in his paw, the cub weaved the piece around for a moment.

Not quite balanced...

He'd have to work on that.
 
Pommel caps.

The Jedi used hunks of metal, or similar weighty materials, at the ends of the lightsaber, to balance the hilt.

In this particular case, that left the cub in a bit of a quandary. You see, the weapon was constructed of materials that were rather non-ferrous, and thus not prone to corrosion. So whatever he used for the pommel cap needed to not detract from the appearance of the remainder of the weapon. It needed to be shale in color, not prone to rust, and able to withstand the weight of years.

After much consideration, including the assistance of a most helpful analyst droid and two bags of cookies, the young Beorni had decided upon the metal known as ferrocarbon. It had the right color, the right properties, and the right weight. But, it couldn't be a plain pommel cap, and so the bear had worked on crafting a proper mold so that the piece would accentuate the rest of the design. Luckily, the forge was still hot and so it was a relatively simple matter to obtain some ferrocarbon - it turned out to be somewhat common as a construction material - and melt it down for fashioning with the mold.

That was all very hot work. So he didn't feel bad for feeling as though he'd earned a nap whilst the ferrocarbon cooled in the mold.
 
At last, a masterpiece came together.

Attaching the pommel cap to the end of the hilt, the Beorni turned his attention to the final details: The emitter matrix. It needed a beam gem lens to refine the angular confinement 'sheath' that housed the actual blade. But, like the pommel cap, that too could not be plain. It needed to accentuate the design, and so the boy set out to make a rather complicated piece. Sweeping loops that were both beautiful and functional, refracting the energy of the plasma blade so that the magnetic field was reinforced.

As he finished, the Beorni was polishing the smoky stained glass of the final weapon.

Igniting the weapon, the richly indigo light of the blade that it produced was truly a thing of art. The balance was exactly as he'd hoped to achieve. The appearance and qualities of the hilt were elegant and refined.

This was truly the weapon of a Jedi Knight.

But, that was not to say that he had any aspirations for such. The joy in creating art was the same as that of giving a gift. Its joy was in the giving, not the receiving. And so the boy looked forward to presenting this lightsaber to its intended owner.

[member="Théodred Heavenshield"]
 

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