Character Althea Voidwalker - Warden of the Sky

[Althea Voidwalker]

|| THE BASICS ||

• Full name: Althea Voidwalker
• Preferred Name: -
• Alias: Void I
• Pseudonyms:
  
  • Mara Kessan, Talia Veyra, Jessa Ryn
  • Cora Dhal, Veyla Tarren, Elira Vos
  • Kaelen Strynn, Selene Harra
• Titles: N/A
• Species: Near Human
• Race: Aruzan/Hellyni
• Birthworld: Voidborne
• Homeworld:
  
  • Hora - Father's World
  • Aruza - Mothers World
• Faction(s):
  
  • Wardens of the Sky
  • Stars of Hope Initiative
• Rank(s): Warden
• Class:
  
  • Horizon Walker Ranger
  • Way of Kensei Monk
  • Inquisitive Rogue
• Master(s):
  
  • Atheus Voidwalker
• Padawan(s): N/A
• Force Sensitive: Yes
• Force Alignment: Chaotic Good
• Face Claim: N/A
• Voice Claim: N/A

|| PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION ||

• Gender:
  
  • Feminine
  • She, Her, They, Them
• Age: Mid Twenties
• Height: Six Foot.
• Weight: Approx. One-Hundred and Eighty Pounds
• Complexion: Pale
• Eye Color: Electric Violet
• Hair Color: Cobalt Blue
• Distinguishing Marks: A scar on her left eye. Slides down just under her eyebrow and to the bottom of the eye socket. A couple scars over her body from training, physical exertion or field work.
• Voice Sample: N/A

|| ORIENTATIONS ||

• Marital Status: Single
• Sexual Conduct: Pansexual
• Languages:
  
  • Galactic Basic - Native
  • Hellynic - Native
• Occupations:
  • Warden of the Sky
  • Hunt Saboteur
  • Galactic Scout
• Residence: None

|| APPERANCE ||
Althea has a body shaped by both strength and discipline, her physique radiating a blend of power and agility. Her frame is athletic, sculpted with firm muscle definition that speaks to constant training and combat readiness. Her shoulders are broad and strong, leading into well-toned arms lined with faint scars that hint at a history of battle. Each muscle in her arms and forearms is pronounced, built for endurance and precise strikes, while her hands bear the hardened look of someone well-accustomed to fighting. Her torso is lean and cut with visible definition. Firm abdominals and a narrow waist creating a balance between raw strength and flexibility. Her back and chest carry the marks of resilience, her musculature tight yet fluid, showing the capacity for both explosive movement and sustained combat. Across her body, faint scars serve as subtle reminders of the dangers she has faced and survived.

Her legs are particularly powerful. Strong thighs and calves, built to propel her with speed, stability, and force. The muscle is dense yet streamlined, revealing not only the strength to endure heavy combat but also the agility to move with precision. There is no wasted softness to her form; her build is practical, honed, and sharp, like a living weapon.Despite her hardened body, her features carry balance. Her strength does not overshadow her femininity. Lydia's body is one of contrast. Both scarred and striking, both hardened by conflict and shaped with a grace that makes her presence commanding. She looks like someone forged in battle, yet perfectly in control of her power.

|| PERSONALITY ||
I've learned that control is the only real constant in a life that thrives on chaos. I don't chase strength to prove anything. Not to myself, not to anyone else. Strength is a responsibility. Every scar I carry, every muscle I've honed, isn't for show. It's so that when the moment comes, when everything goes wrong as it always does, I'm ready to keep people alive. I don't waste words and I don't waste movements. My presence is deliberate, my breath measured, my eyes always searching for the next detail others will miss. I don't express much on the surface. My face rarely shifts beyond the smallest flickers of irritation or approval, but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking. It means I'm always thinking.

I don't assume things will go right. I assume they won't. That's why I prepare for every angle, for every failure point. I keep supplies where they need to be, memorize routes before I travel them, and judge people by what they've shown, not what they promise. Trust doesn't come quickly with me. It comes in layers, earned by consistency, not words. I think in contingencies, in stacked advantages, in patterns that others might overlook. I don't need glory. I don't need a grand victory. I just need the outcome to be inevitable, clean, and survivable. And if a plan does fracture, it rarely surprises me. I've already rehearsed the pivot. Violence, for me, isn't a thrill or a stage. It's the last tool I keep in the kit, polished, ready, and dangerous, but only drawn when every other option is exhausted. When I fight, I don't linger. I don't waste motion. I end things surgically. Three movements, precise, and it's done. And when it is, I don't tally the victory. I count the cost. I ask myself what could have been done differently, what I can learn to ensure the same mistake isn't repeated.

With strangers, I keep my distance. Polite, but reserved. Observation comes first, judgment second. With those I fight beside, my care doesn't show in words or sentiment. It shows in preparedness. I'll be the one with the maps updated, the medkit cut and ready, the spare ammunition where it needs to be. With the few who've managed to get close, I allow myself to loosen. My humor is dry, my words sparse, but I'll pass you water before you ask and sit with you in silence when silence is enough.

People say I never lose my composure, and they're right. Stress doesn't rattle me. My heart barely quickens. Discipline carries me through the unglamorous work, the quiet grind no one notices but everyone benefits from. I see patterns where others see only noise, and I can wait out a storm longer than most would dare. But all that steadiness comes at a price. People often misread my silence as judgment, and I know I keep myself too tightly sealed. I verify and re-verify when sometimes decisiveness would serve me better. And I take too much on myself. I carry the weight of failures that were never mine to hold, because in my mind, if I'd been sharper, stronger, more prepared, it could have been avoided. Delegating doesn't come easy, because handing control to someone else feels like gambling with lives.

I keep habits that center me. When anger stirs, I count breaths in fours, tapping my thumb in rhythm until calm returns. I scan every room without thinking. All the exits, angles, weaknesses, tells. After conflict, I clean my gear before I speak to anyone, a ritual that resets my order. And tucked away, I keep a token, worn from years of handling. It's small, but it reminds me why restraint matters, why every scar is better borne by me than by someone who couldn't carry it. Others see me differently depending on where they stand. To my allies, I'm stability. If I say we'll get through, they believe it, because they've seen me make good on those words. To enemies, I'm maddeningly hard to corner, unbaitable, unreadable. To civilians or clients, I seem professional to the point of coldness at first, but trust grows with results. Always with results.

I know I still have room to grow. I need to learn that sharing the burden isn't weakness, that delegation isn't a loss of control but a multiplication of it. I know there may come a day when holding back costs more than it saves, and when it does, I'll have to decide if my restraint is worth the price. And maybe, if I let someone in enough, they'll remind me that being understood isn't a risk. It's another form of safety. I am Althea Voidwalker. I don't fight for glory, and I don't fight to prove myself. I fight because someone has to. And if that someone is me, then I'll carry it, clean and controlled, so no one else has to.

|| ATTRIBUTES ||
I grew up in the long shadow of my father. Demikas, Atheus Voidwalker to most, and I learned early that strength without restraint is just noise. He rebuilt himself for the sake of the people around him, and for me most of all, and I took that lesson into my bones. Control saves lives. I train to keep chaos small, not to look formidable. I plan routes before I travel them, set backup plans for my backup plans, and carry what others forget: extra power cells, med tape already torn, a spare transmitter coded and quiet. I don't rely on any single edge. I fight with what works. Blasters, rifles, handguns, knives, my own knuckles, and I let the Force thread through all of it like wire inside a cable, strengthening everything without drawing attention to itself. As a Warden of the Sky, that anonymity is a discipline. Move lightly, watch closely, intervene precisely, and be gone before anyone learns your name. I don't need spectacle. I need outcomes.

My strengths are simple. I don't rattle. Pressure narrows my focus instead of scattering it. I read patterns fast. Terrain, timing, how a room breathes when trouble is coming. And I stack small advantages until the result is almost inevitable. If a plan breaks, the pivot was already rehearsed; I don't improvise to feel clever, I adjust to stay alive. I can fight with or without a blade, at distance or in close, and I use the Force like a scalpel. Steadying my aim, turning a step into a slip past a guard, catching the tremor before a trigger pull. I carry my father's lesson about darkness without letting it own me. I know what anger can do and I choose not to feed it. Most of all, I keep moving. Wardens don't plant flags. We put out fires and leave before the smoke becomes a story.

The same traits cut both ways. Restraint can cost time I don't always have. I will hold back until I'm sure, and in certain moments the merciful second is the one that gets someone hurt. I don't emote much, and people fill my silence with whatever they fear. That distance can starve trust I mean to cultivate. I verify and re-verify because I've seen what a missed detail costs, but over-checking can shut doors that only open once. I carry more weight than belongs to me—failures, near misses, ghosts I couldn't have saved even on my best day, and while that keeps me honest, it also wears grooves in the mind. And though I'm competent in the Force, I'm not a storm of it; if someone comes at me with raw, overwhelming power, Sith fury or the unblinking certainty of a Jedi master, I have to win on positioning, patience, and grit. Balance is my method, and zealots try to break balance on principle.

I know the risks that come with my name. My father's past has enemies with long memories, and some of them look at me and see an easier target. I use that expectation the way I use a corridor's angles. Should they think I'm only his shadow, they won't notice my footwork until the floor is already gone beneath them. But I'm not blind to the other danger. The parts of him that were sharp enough to cut the wrong way live in me too. When I feel that edge, I measure it against what he chose in the end and what I choose now. I keep a small token in my pocket to remind me why the holster stays snapped until there's no other choice. I'm working on the parts that make me difficult to stand beside. Delegation still feels like gambling with lives, but I am learning that trust, placed carefully, multiplies control rather than diluting it. I am learning that sometimes striking first prevents the larger harm my restraint was trying to avoid. And I am learning to let a few people translate my quiet into understanding, to accept that being known is not a liability but another layer of safety.

|| STRENGTHS ||

• Tactical Discipline - Althea doesn't improvise recklessly. She plans, assesses, and acts with surgical precision. Her father drilled into her the idea that survival is less about strength and more about discipline, and she has refined this teaching into a combat style where every move serves a purpose. She anticipates enemy behavior, sets up fallback positions, and never enters a fight without knowing three different ways she can leave it. A common usage would be if an enemy squad is sweeping a corridor, Althea won't charge headlong. Instead, she'll position herself so their line of sight overlaps, disable lighting in a section of the hallway, and force them into a chokepoint where her shots land first. Where others waste stamina in drawn-out duels, she ends encounters swiftly and with as little risk as possible.
• Mastery of Conventional and Unconventional Combat - Where most Force users over-rely on sabers or raw power, Althea thrives on versatility. She treats her firearms, knives, and martial arts as equal extensions of her will, each augmented subtly by the Force. She can match a gunslinger in speed, flow seamlessly into a hand-to-hand grappling exchange, and finish with a Force-enhanced takedown. All in one fluid sequence. During a skirmish in a docking bay, Althea could disable a target at distance with a blaster, spin into a low strike against another opponent's knee, and finish with a Force-assisted throw that slams a third into a cargo crate. The unpredictability of blending conventional weapons with the mystical makes her difficult to anticipate, and deadly even when stripped of standard Jedi or Sith tools.
• Warden of the Sky Training - As a Warden, Althea embodies freedom of movement and anonymity. She isn't a general who commands armies. She is a shadow who acts when needed, then vanishes. She knows how to disappear into crowds, switch identities, and navigate ports and hyperlanes without ever leaving a clear trail. Her training allows her to travel across systems unnoticed, intervene where she's most needed, and leave before enemies realize what's happened. If a Hutt cartel stages an ambush on a frontier world, Althea won't fight them head-on. She'll arrive under a false manifest, use maintenance tunnels to bypass strongholds, and quietly sabotage key systems until the cartel flees. Without anyone ever learning who struck them.
• Emotional Resilience - Althea's strength isn't only physical. It's internal. Her father's story taught her how easy it is to fall into darkness, and how much harder it is to climb back out. Because of this, she has cultivated a level of emotional control that makes her nearly impossible to provoke. Anger, fear, and mockery slide off her. She thinks before she reacts, and she doesn't rise to bait. In a duel, an opponent might taunt her by invoking her father's past or calling her a coward for not striking first. Where others would lash out, Althea simply watches, adjusts her breathing, and uses her opponent's wasted fury to her advantage.
• Hybrid Force Use - Althea doesn't throw starships across the sky or summon storms of lightning. Her strength lies in subtle, efficient Force applications. Sharpening her senses, slowing her perception of time, steadying her aim, or guiding her hand during a strike. She uses the Force like a scalpel, not a hammer, and this makes her far less predictable than most Jedi or Sith. In the middle of a firefight, she might nudge a blaster bolt a few degrees off course with a flicker of telekinesis. So subtly that her enemy believes they missed. Or she might sense the faint hesitation in a foe's heartbeat before they move, allowing her to react half a second faster.
• Survivor's Mentality - Althea doesn't expect fairness, nor does she rely on luck. Her entire worldview is shaped by the assumption that things will go wrong, and she prepares accordingly. When a mission collapses, she doesn't freeze. She adapts, re-centers, and rebuilds a plan from what's left. If cornered in a city with no allies, Althea won't waste time panicking. She'll scavenge from the environment, use broken equipment as traps, and lure pursuers into terrain that favors her. The harder the circumstances, the sharper her instincts become.
• Dual Legacy - As the daughter of Atheus Voidwalker, Althea carries both a burden and a gift. His name casts a long shadow, but it also carries weight. Those who once respected him often grant her respect before she's even proven herself, and those who hated him underestimate her, expecting a copy of the man they knew. Either way, she wields her lineage as a tool. Sometimes shield, sometimes weapon. A mercenary leader who once fought against her father may approach her with arrogance, believing she's nothing but his echo. By the time they realize she has carved her own path, it's already too late.

|| FAULTS ||

• The Burden of Restraint - Althea's greatest strength, her restraint, can also paralyze her. She is slow to escalate, always looking for another way out before committing to lethal force. This hesitation can cost lives when dealing with ruthless or fanatical enemies who strike first and think later. Against a Sith who ignites their saber and attacks without warning, Althea might hesitate for a fraction of a second, looking for a way to disarm without killing. That instant can decide the outcome.
• Emotional Distance - Althea's cool demeanor makes her difficult to connect with. She doesn't easily show affection or vulnerability, and while this shields her from manipulation, it also creates rifts between her and those who might want to trust her. Teammates may interpret her silence as judgment, or her restraint as lack of care. A squadmate wounded in battle may look to her for comfort, but Althea's instinct is to patch them up efficiently and move on. They may see her as cold, even when her actions were rooted in care.
• Inherited Shadows - Her father was a Dark Jedi before he refined himself, and his past clings to her name. Old enemies may target her for what he was, and whispers of darkness follow her wherever she goes. More dangerously, the same ruthless instincts that lived in him could surface in her if she ever allowed anger or desperation to take control. If cornered and forced to choose between restraint and annihilation, Althea might feel the pull of that inherited ruthlessness, and if she indulges it, she risks becoming what her father once was.
• Reliance on Preparedness - Althea thrives when she has the chance to plan, assess, and prepare. In chaotic situations where everything collapses instantly and no time exists to think, she may stumble. Her instinct is to analyze, but too much analysis can cost the narrow windows where raw instinct is needed. If caught in an ambush with no intel and no time to plan, she may hesitate as she scans for the best path. Only to find her chance already gone.
• Moral Weight - Like her father before her, Althea bears the weight of her choices heavily. Even when she logically knows a loss wasn't her fault, she internalizes the guilt, wondering what she could have done differently. This can make her overly cautious in the future, or erode her self-confidence if the weight builds too high. If a civilian dies in crossfire, Althea won't shrug it off. She'll replay the moment endlessly, convincing herself she should have positioned differently, moved sooner, or sacrificed more. Wearing herself down emotionally.
• Vulnerability to Extremes - Althea lives in balance. between weapons and the Force, between restraint and necessity, between light and darkness. But those who embody extremes can overwhelm her. A Sith who embraces pure, unbridled fury or a Jedi who channels unwavering light may push her off-center, making her balance a liability instead of an advantage. Against a Sith berserker, her restraint could be steamrolled by sheer ferocity. Against a pure, radiant Jedi who sees only absolutes, her pragmatic middle path might look like compromise. Leaving her isolated.

|| SKILLS ||
If you want the short of it: I fight clean and I move fast. Give me a blaster, a blade, or just my hands and I'll make the space around me behave. I run pistols, rifles, and heavies with the same economy. Quickdraws that don't waste a breath, rapid acquisition when the room explodes, and calm, steady sharpshooting when everyone else is shaking. Up close I switch to locks, throws, and knife-work. I'm just as comfortable using a chair leg, a broken panel, or the wall itself. I train to flow between tools without a hitch. Pistol to elbow, knife to clinch, strike to draw. Ambidextrous when it matters. If capture is cleaner than killing, I'm built for that too: disarms, joint breaks that stop fights without ending lives, and control holds that keep someone breathing and still. I use the room as part of the plan. Kicking off bulkheads, smashing lights to redraw lines of sight, setting quick pressure traps mid-fight. In zero-G I don't flail. I vector, anchor, and turn momentum into a weapon. And when doors need convincing, I know my way around grenades, breaching charges, and tidy demolitions that leave the blast where I put it.

I keep my feet under me because I've trained the way I move as hard as the way I shoot. Rolls, slips, wall-runs, shipboard ladder lines. Advanced parkour tuned for narrow corridors and exposed catwalks. Stress doesn't take the wheel; I've conditioned for it. I breathe on a four-count under fire, resist fear and intimidation, manufactured or otherwise, and hold focus even when the room is designed to break it. Situational awareness is the constant: peripheral tells, odd reflections in glass, the hitch in a guard's step that says where his attention isn't. I read people cold. Posture, cadence, microexpressions, and I can smell a lie even when it's wrapped in the right words.

Ships are home as much as planets. I pilot small freighters and fighters, manage astrogation and hyperspace plotting without handing my life to the wrong beacon, and handle vehicles from speeders to walkers to whatever heavy machinery a job demands. If something breaks, and something always breaks, I can jury-rig it to run long enough to matter: reroute power, bypass scorched circuits, swap parts that were never meant to meet. I slice at a working level: pop basic locks, spoof a reader, get into a terminal long enough to plant a countermeasure. I scramble signals when I need a clean window and throw electronic countermeasures when I need ghosts. Things like decoys, sensor fog, and footprints that lead away from me.

Finding my way is second nature. I map as I move. New routes through stations and cities, the bones of a ship after one walk-through, and I can read obscure star charts, follow old beacons, and use instinct to pick the safe lane when the obvious one is bait. On the ground I don't die because I forgot how to live: survival skills keep me fed, sheltered, and moving across hostile terrain; medic training keeps people from bleeding out while I buy us time. I know my poisons. How to recognize them, neutralize them, and, if there's no kinder path, apply them with precision. Tracking and forensics bridge the gap between wilderness and steel: footprints in dust, oil smears on deck plating, the wrong smell in recycled air.

Staying unseen is often the whole point. I build covers that fit like skin and rotate identities before they wear thin. Camouflage and disguise. From a change of posture and gait to a full rebuild with voice modulation, let me move through crowds without catching light. I travel silently: board or leave ships without logging a ripple, smuggle tools or myself through ports, and shadow targets for days without becoming part of their story. The underworld speaks its own language; I know the routes smugglers favor, the etiquette that keeps you breathing in a syndicate's shadow, and which favors buy more than credits. I trade information like currency. Small truths for access, big truths for exits.

When talking is better than fighting, I'm not helpless. I speak enough languages to get by and enough dialects to pass; I adapt to local customs so I don't clang against them. Negotiation and mediation keep a lot of blood off the deck. Cutting quick deals, talking down heated rooms, or leaning on someone's nerves when the soft word won't land. If a bluff is cleaner than a firefight, I can slip into a persona cold, carry it long enough to matter, and set it down without leaving fingerprints.

All of it sits inside a tactical frame. I think like a small-unit commander: battlefield geometry, urban infiltration, ambush planning, and the timing that turns three small advantages into a decisive outcome. I keep the discipline to follow the plan, and the calm to break it the instant the ground changes. That's my toolbox. It isn't glamorous, but it works. From the alleys under neon to the dead corridors between stars.

|| FORCE PHILOSOPHY ||
The Force has never been a storm to me. It isn't meant to be something I drown myself in, or a weapon I brandish to prove I'm greater than the next fighter. To me, it's a current. Steady, constant, quiet. It flows through all things, and if you're willing to listen, it will show you where to step and when to hold your breath. I don't scream with it, I don't throw it around to impress or intimidate. I dip into it the way you dip a hand into a river. Feeling where it runs strongest, taking only what I need, and leaving the rest to flow. Jedi call that weakness. Sith call it waste. I call it survival.

Most see the Force as a blade, but I've come to think of it as a compass. A blade wins you one fight; a compass keeps you alive through a hundred. When I feel the Force, it isn't about crushing someone with my power or proving that I can outshine them. It's about the fraction of a second it gives me. The whisper that tells me an enemy will strike high instead of low, or that the corridor I'm about to step into is death waiting for me. That's all I need. A nudge, a warning, the smallest tilt of fate in my favor. That's how I've lived this long, not through grandeur but through restraint. I've always carried the belief that the Force is responsibility, not glory. Every time I call on it, I know I'm touching something vast and dangerous, something that has ruined more lives than it's saved. My father taught me that. He knew what it was to lose yourself in it, to let it become everything you are until there's nothing left but hunger. I don't make that mistake. I won't. The Force doesn't care if you're Jedi or Sith. It keeps score all the same. Overreach, and it'll cut you down faster than any blade.

Balance. That's the word that makes sense to me. The Force isn't light or dark, not really. It's both, and more. The Jedi blind themselves by denying the shadows, and the Sith choke because they gorge on them. I refuse to cut myself in two just to make someone else's doctrine comfortable. I won't lie to myself about what the Force is. I'll use it as it comes, but never let it use me. I'll let it sharpen my aim, steady my breathing, and give me that heartbeat of clarity when I need it most. But I will not let it define me. I am not the Force. I am not bound by it. If tomorrow I woke and found it gone, I would still fight. I would still survive. That is why I train with a blaster, with my fists, with my body and my mind. If you can't stand without the Force, then you were never strong. You were only dependent. That's a truth too many forget. The Force is fire. It can warm your hands, guide you through the dark. But hold it too long, too carelessly, and it burns away who you are. I've seen it strip men to their bones, leaving only ambition and ash behind. I won't let it take me. I use it when it matters, and I sheath it when it doesn't. That's how I live, and how I'll die. Measured, deliberate, and unbroken.

|| POSSESSIONS ||
Weapons
Paramour Particle Blaster - Heavy particle Blaster for when chit goes south.
Stormclaw Gauss Pistol - Easy to use, carry and fire Slugthrower.
Mentor Blaster Carbine - Useful Medium ranged weapon for reaching out.
Gravetail Vibroblade - One of many. Heavier for better striking.

Armor/Clothing
Venture Multipurpose Attire - Various iterations of the clothing. Good for General use.
Midnight Duster - Good full length Duster coat when needed.
B-11 Combat Boots - Good reliable boots.
HH-78 Holster - Good for various Pistol based systems.
Retention Anti-Disruptor System - A small unit on her belt that prevents Disruptor Weaponry.

Ships & Vehicles
Monocycle - Good to get around planets and ports.
Phalanx Class Superlight Corvette - Anti-Pirate Criminal ship. Mobile Home.

Others
SV-5 Survival Kit - Never go anywhere without it.

|| RELATIONS ||
- TBA

|| BOUNTIES ||
- None

|| BIOGRAPHY ||
I was born on Aruza, where the wind scours the plains clean and the locals build their lives like fortifications. One measured choice at a time. My mornings began before the sun crested the ridge: boots laced, breath counted in fours, gravel biting my palms as I ground out push-ups beside my father. Atheus Voidwalker, Demikas, to those who knew his shadow, ran our home like a barracks, not out of cruelty but conviction. He believed routine carved out the person you wanted to be, and he intended to carve me into someone who survived. My mother balanced him like a steadying hand on a blade. Where he taught cadence and consequence, she taught stillness and sense. She'd press a mug of steeped herbs into my hands after drills and ask what I'd learned that had nothing to do with speed or strength: what I'd noticed about the sky, the mood of the workers at the east landing strip, the way a frightened foal calmed if you slowed your breathing first. Between them I learned that discipline without empathy becomes stone, and empathy without discipline becomes mud.

The first time the Force announced itself, it didn't roar. It murmured. I was twelve, running a live-fire lane my father had modified with moving blinds and sound baffles to foul my sense of direction. The rules were simple. Keep low, clear the corners, move when the sound dies. A remote turret he'd hidden in the rafters snapped awake with a shrill whine, and everything should have gone wrong. Instead, time thinned like a held breath. I didn't think. I pivoted before the barrel completed its traverse, felt the bolt pass through the space where my ribs had been a blink earlier, and reappeared behind a stack of crates, heart slow, hands steady. My father froze at the console. He hadn't trained me for that. I hadn't trained me for that. We repeated the pass three times with different angles. Three times I moved a fraction before the trigger broke, as if the shot had warned me it was coming. When the system powered down, he came onto the floor and set a gloved hand on my shoulder, not speaking. My mother's eyes were bright, not with fear, but with understanding, as if I'd finally said aloud something she'd long suspected.

Training changed after that, but not into mysticism. My father refused to let the Force become an identity. "A tool," he said, "and a dangerous one. We treat it with respect and with limits." He taught me to listen for it the way my mother had taught me to listen to animals and weather. Noticing before naming. We built drills that asked the Force for a breath more reaction time, a narrower sight picture, a cleaner balance through the hips. He made me shoot on a metronome, then had me break rhythm only when a prickle along the spine insisted; he wired targets to punish guesses and reward patience. For every exercise that called on the Force, there were five that denied it. Gloved hands to blunt sensation, blackout goggles to strip sight, weighted vests to roughen grace, because if I couldn't perform without it, I wasn't performing. Evenings, he walked me through the history he knew too well. The seductions of power, the cost of shortcuts, the way intention curdles when you stop counting the bill. My mother was there for those talks, too, not to soften them but to anchor them. She'd ask me what I felt when I reached, and whether I could set that feeling down without flinching. I learned to say yes.

I left Aruza for the first time under an alias we'd practiced until it fit like a second skin. Ports smell the same everywhere. The ozone, oil, and hunger. It was in one of those in-between places that I met a Warden of the Sky. She noticed the way I tracked a room and the way I didn't announce myself to it. Noticed the holster set half an inch forward for speed and the callus at the base of my trigger finger. Noticed that I took the long wall with the dead camera instead of the open aisle with the clean sightline. She didn't ask if I was a Jedi. She asked if I wanted to do good work without applause. The Wardens' creed wasn't a catechism. More like a posture. Arrive lightly, interfere precisely, leave no ripples larger than the harm you corrected. My father listened when she spoke to us, and I watched his jaw loosen by a degree I rarely saw. He gave his blessing with very few words. My mother pulled me into a long, wordless embrace that said, Be who you are, not who anyone wants you to be, us included.

Apprenticeship unspooled across cold decks and hot tarmacs. I learned routes smugglers favor when the patrols run short, the names of dockmasters who will look the other way for a kindness instead of a credit chit, and which maintenance corridors share a wall with which corporate offices. The Warden taught me to disappear into traffic. Change the angle of your braid, switch jackets at the blind corner, let the exhausted slump in your shoulders carry you past scrutiny. We practiced strikes that looked like accidents and exits that looked like errands. The Force came along the way a compass comes on a walk. You consult it, you don't worship it. On one job we took apart a slaver ring by fouling their manifests, scrambling their alerts, and making their crew chief believe a rival syndicate had marked him; when it finally erupted, we were three systems away, watching a news burst that never learned our names.

Becoming a full Warden wasn't a ceremony. One day I realized my mentor had stopped stepping ahead of me to check my work, and then she was gone. Another star to steer by, not a hand on my shoulder. Since then I've made a life of small, decisive corrections. On Yelthar Station, I tripped a fire damper and re-routed a security team into a sealed promenade to keep civilians out of a gang shootout; the feed labeled it "systems error," which was exactly what I wanted. In the Mid Rim, I watched a rebel cell walk into a trap they didn't know they'd sprung and used a service drone to "accidentally" knock out a light grid, gifting them darkness and noise. They escaped and believed in luck for one more month. I've fought Sith marauders and garden-variety butchers alike. The only difference is that with the former I spend more time mapping how to avoid their storms. I don't measure success by trophies. I measure it by the size of the crater that didn't happen.

My mother's voice travels with me as surely as my father's. When my breathing runs ragged with anger, hers steadies it. When I start to count only variables and forget people, hers reminds me that control is a means, not an end. She taught me to sit with the living after the dust settles: pour water, hold silence, let someone shake without telling them to stop. Because of her, I understand that restraint is not just about not firing. It's about knowing when to stay, when to listen, when to let someone keep their story instead of prying it out under the banner of help. Because of my father, I know restraint also means taking the shot when it's the cleanest way to end harm.

I carry weaknesses the way I carry tools. Named, maintained, never ignored. I wait for certainty longer than some moments allow. That fraction of mercy has teeth, and I've felt them. I can be hard to read, and allies sometimes mistake my quiet for indifference; the truth is I am counting costs, and I am always counting. In chaos without a seam to catch, I will scan for one anyway, and sometimes the scan is the seam I miss. When a sorcerer decides to make a theater of power, I don't meet them on their stage; I look for the curtain rope. But there are places where there is only stage, only light and thunder, and in those rooms I win by surviving, not by conquering. I accept that. I keep moving. I keep learning where the exits are before I enter.

People ask me, sometimes, what I think of legacy. I don't offer them the romance of blood or the melodrama of renunciation. My father's shadow is long because he stood between worse things and the people he loved, and because he learned to shorten that shadow when it began to swallow him. I honor him by keeping my own shadow trimmed. My mother's light is quiet; it does not announce itself, but you see by it all the same. I honor her by remembering that the point of a steady hand is not just to hit the target, but to make sure you needed to fire in the first place. Between them, I learned to be a Warden: walk lightly, strike surely, leave less harm than you found.

So this is the shape of my life: Aruza in my bones, discipline in my breath, compassion in my hands, and the Force like a compass I consult, not a god I serve. I am Althea Voidwalker. I travel under names that won't be remembered and fix problems that won't make reports. If you ask where I've been, I'll point at a crater that isn't there and say: there. If you ask what I am, I'll tell you I'm a woman who learned to move before the shot and to stop before the fall, and who still, every day, practices both.