Private Coming Home

[Loutaro Juan Raul Conzalla]

Loutaro Juan Raul Conzalla had found her on Lorrd. He had found a Jedi who was like him. A woman who knew right from wrong. Who had not only spoke the code of the New Jedi but lived it. Lou had spent time with her mother. He had spent time eating their food and drinking their wine and feeling like himself again until
he accepted and asked Seo to be his master.

And from that he found his master and he wanted to bring her to his new home. To
The place where he had to be. Because it was where the Jedi came to be. It was all he knew outside of her.

Lou found himself in his room. A small dormitory room. A place where all his needs were met. A room where he was allowed a picture of his father. A picture of his family. A picture of his life before he decided to join this place in honor of his father.

Lou pushed through his morning workout. He pushed through morning lesson on the Jedi lore. All he thought about was Seo and the meeting that was to come. He needed to see her again and to learn from a Jedi who had actual experience in the rough and in the war. Lou finished his day training at the Naboo Temple and waited for.

Lou found himself on the loading pad of the Jedi Temple in the late afternoon that Seo would come and he could show her around.
Seo Linn

 

[Seo Linn]

The Naboo Temple came into view beneath Seo as the small transport descended through the late-afternoon sky, sunlight spilling across the landscape in long bands of gold. Her Choushin vessel had remained above rather than attempting to bring something of its considerable size anywhere near the Temple's landing platforms. Seo possessed enough sense not to announce a personal visit by lowering a five-hundred-meter Jedi vessel over someone's home. The smaller craft carrying her down was considerably less dramatic, and that suited her perfectly well.

She had accepted Lou as her Padawan on Lorrd, surrounded by the place and people that had shaped her. He had eaten at her family's table, met her mother and sisters, and seen a part of Seo that existed well outside whatever image the title of Jedi Knight might otherwise suggest. Now their positions had reversed. Lou had invited her into the life he was building for himself, to the Temple he had chosen after losing the person whose guidance had once defined so much of his path. Seo understood there was more behind the invitation than simply showing his new Master where he slept and trained. She had taken his request seriously for precisely that reason.

The transport settled onto the landing pad with little ceremony, its engines dropping from a steady whine to silence before the ramp lowered. Seo had not dressed especially for the occasion. Her very light blond hair was drawn back from her face, and she wore the familiar practical clothing she preferred while traveling, with her lightsaber secured unobtrusively at her side. There were no formal robes announcing her position and nothing marking this as an official visit from one Jedi institution to another. She had come because her Padawan had asked her to come, and Seo saw no reason to make the occasion more complicated than that.

She spotted Lou before she reached the bottom of the ramp, and a smile warmed her features almost immediately. Their time apart had not been particularly long, yet seeing him waiting there stirred an unexpected little note of pride within her. He had seemed so uncertain when they first met on Lorrd, carrying questions about the Jedi, his father, and himself that Seo could not possibly answer for him. She had never promised that becoming her Padawan would provide those answers. What she had offered was guidance while he searched for them himself. Now he stood before the Temple he had chosen, waiting to welcome her into another piece of his life.

"You know, when you invited me to see your new home, I wasn't expecting you to stand out here looking as though you're waiting for an inspection."

The teasing was gentle as Seo crossed the remaining distance between them. She stopped in front of Lou and allowed her gold eyes to travel briefly over him, taking in whatever subtle changes had come from his training and the routine he had begun establishing here. Her smile remained as she reached out and rested a hand briefly against his upper arm in greeting.

"It's good to see you, Lou. And before you ask, yes, I ate before leaving. My mother made quite certain I wouldn't somehow starve between Lorrd and Naboo."

Seo glanced beyond him, then finally allowed herself a proper look at the Temple. She had been to Jedi enclaves, academies, ruins, temples, and Orders enough times that impressive architecture alone rarely captured her attention anymore. This place mattered for a different reason. Lou had chosen it. Whatever Seo eventually thought of its teachings or customs, this was where her Padawan woke each morning, where he trained when she was elsewhere, and where he was trying to determine what sort of Jedi he intended to become. Her attention returned to him, and rather than immediately beginning to assess the place like the investigator she was, Seo deliberately left that instinct alone.

"Well?" Her smile widened slightly as she gestured toward the Temple behind him. "You came all the way to Lorrd and let three little girls drag you through my family's home before you had any idea what you were getting yourself into. It seems only fair that I return the favor."

Seo stepped alongside him rather than ahead, leaving Lou to decide where they went first. This was his opportunity to show her the place that had become important to him, and she was content to experience it through his eyes rather than deciding for herself what mattered.

"Show me your home, Padawan."

Loutaro Juan Raul Conzalla

 

[Loutaro Juan Raul Conzalla]

Loutaro had done his best in his mind to call this place home now. He knew that if he thought of his little patch of dirt in the backwater of the Republic all of this would hurt so much more. The place he once called home would just have to be reduced to a place to visit, a vacation spot to go once in a blue moon when his duties as a Jedi did not press upon him. He envied that about his new master. Her level of freedom. He envied the Silver Order despite their fall from prominence in the last few years. An order of people who could realistically do what they pleased and choose those they focused their resources on. Yet Loutaro knew that the ability to help the most amount of people lay here.

He was just glad that Master Seo had agreed to be his master here. He wasn't sure if they had some inter order exchange program or it was just casual Friday every day, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that she was here now and they could start to actually hone these powers that Loutaro had within. Most days it felt like a roiling tempest inside him. A Gordian knot made from threads of power tangled within him. As if it was this alien creature implanted within his core yet always a part of him somehow. He didn't know how to make sense of it all. All be really knew was that it could help people. Another war had taken place with the Sith and he was here training.

Lou had no desire to fight and to kill or be killed but he knew the Galaxy was full of evil people who would do harm to others for the sheer fun of it. He however let those thoughts of war and death slip from his mind as his master's shuttle landed. Without fanfare or ceremony she exited and it was such a good feeling to see her once more. As if looking upon the face of a Saint his abuela used to tell him about in her stories when he was a child. He welcomed the small teasing and ice breaking because everything in Lou's body wanted to shout 'WHAT IS THIS?!' in regards to the force.

All of the instructors had made it sound so impersonal. This magical force that was everything and nothing at the same time. It had boggled the senses and confused Lou whenever he tried to find any deeper meaning in it. However those thoughts had to be pushed to the outside for now. Master Seo was here.

"Master Seo! You are here!" Well obviously, Lou had immediately felt dumb for saying that.

"Let's go for sure. I'll show you around it's… nice here?" he said with a bit of hesitation.

It was certainly physically beautiful and jaw dropping. However behind the beauty of the temple and natural splendor. The temple felt deeply impersonal. That it was this university or place designed to produce guardians of this galaxy. Though Lou supposed that was what was most efficient while making sure its students kept their humanity. However without missing a beat Lou about faced and walked forward.

"I'll show you the gardens first!" Lou said almost exited to see them again. He proceeded to walk forward with Seo to do so.

Seo Linn

 

[Seo Linn]

The enthusiasm with which Lou greeted her brought a warmer smile to Seo's face, and she decided not to point out the obviousness of his announcement. He was happy to see her. That mattered considerably more than whether the words themselves made much sense.

"I am," she replied simply, falling into step beside him when he turned toward the Temple.

His hesitation over describing the place as nice did not escape her. Seo was Lorrdian, and reading the subtleties of another person's expression and movement had been part of her culture long before the Jedi taught her to reach for the Force. Lou could tell her the Temple was nice, but the slight uncertainty accompanying the words told her there was considerably more beneath them. She didn't immediately ask about it. This was his home now, or at least the place he was trying to make into one, and Seo wanted to see what he chose to show her before asking him to explain what he hadn't said.

The sudden excitement at the mention of the gardens, however, required considerably less interpretation.

"Gardens first," Seo agreed, amusement warming her voice as she walked beside him. "Somehow, I suspected they might be high on the list."

She let Lou choose their route and set the pace, resisting the investigator's instinct to study every corridor they passed as though she were assessing a location for a case. There would be time enough to understand the Temple itself. Right now, Seo was more interested in understanding how Lou existed within it. She noticed where his attention naturally went, whether he acknowledged anyone they passed, and the subtle differences in his posture as they moved farther from the landing area. She was his Master now. Teaching him to use the Force was certainly part of that responsibility, but Seo had never believed that training someone began and ended with showing them how to move objects or wield a lightsaber.

Especially not Lou.

She remembered too clearly the young man who had broken down on Lorrd because he feared becoming something he had never wanted to be. Lou wanted to help people. He wanted to honor the promise he had made to his father, but war and the expectations surrounding the Jedi had made him question what keeping that promise would eventually require of him. Seo could not remove those questions. She could only help him find answers that belonged to him, rather than forcing him into hers.

As they walked, she glanced toward him. "You know, you don't have to convince me that you love everything about this place."

There was no criticism of the Temple in her tone, nor any suggestion that Lou had made the wrong choice by coming here. Seo had been taught the basics by her first teacher before eventually finding her place among the Silver Jedi, and she had remained with them ever since. She understood what it meant to discover where one belonged, but she also knew that belonging did not require loving every aspect of the place or people one had chosen. Lou could believe this was where he needed to be and still need time before it truly felt like home.

"You hesitated when you called it nice." A faint smile touched her lips. "Lorrdian, remember? You may eventually discover that lying to me is considerably harder than lying to most people."

The teasing softened what followed.

"It can be beautiful here and still feel strange. You haven't been here long, and you're trying to build a new life while part of you is still thinking about the one you left behind." Seo looked ahead again, allowing him the freedom not to answer immediately. "You don't have to stop thinking of your family's farm as home just because you're becoming a Jedi, Lou. There is room in your life for both."

She understood that better than most. The Jedi had given Seo purpose, training, and a path she had chosen for herself, but none of it had erased Lorrd or the family waiting for her there. Nor did she believe it should. Her responsibilities might take her across the galaxy and keep her away for longer than she sometimes wanted, yet she had never needed to diminish one part of her life to make room for another.

Her attention shifted back to Lou, and a little of the seriousness left her expression.

"Besides, I want to see this garden you've become so excited about." Her smile broadened. "You survived my three younger sisters at my family's house. The least I can do is let you show off a few plants."

Seo continued alongside him rather than taking the lead, content to let her Padawan guide her through this particular part of his world. Whatever uncertainty he felt about the Temple as a whole, the change in him when he mentioned the gardens had been unmistakable. Perhaps that was where he had begun finding a small piece of himself among everything unfamiliar.

"So, tell me about it. Have they actually let you put your hands in the dirt yet, or are the Jedi here going to make me intervene on your behalf?"

Loutaro Juan Raul Conzalla

 

[Loutaro Juan Raul Conzalla]

There was a soft pause in Lou's step. A brief moment of hesitation again at his Master's words. Loutaro knew that he didn't have to view this place as home to some degree, he knew that he could have room in his heart for both. The pause turned into a brief skip before falling back into pace. He had smiled at her light jest and didn't reply to her earlier words. He listened carefully to her and truly weighed what they meant to him and how they meant and when he was finally ready he spoke.

"You'll love them just this way." With a brief left down a hall of marble and stone. The inner workings and visuals of the temple truly came into display.

Before them was a short walkway flanked with hanging pots of flowers and open air balconies and railing that looked upon the rolling green hills and clear blue water of Naboo. A truly gorgeous place where the force had truly labored to create such natural and stunning splendor. Loutaro had appreciated the view each time he had to come up to the landing pads. It was somewhere he liked to come and look at after a day a training. A view that never truly aged. Plus it was a straight shot down into the meditation gardens from the access stairs.

With another brief left turn and a flight of stairs Lou had remained quiet for the trip. Truly measuring what he wanted to say to Master Seo and when the smell of freshly fertilized plants and the moist humidity of water in a room full plants hit him upon trip down the stairs he spoke.

"I know, but sometimes I feel. I know theres not enough room for all three. For this place. For my promise and what that will eventually mean, and my family back home." There was a brief pause again in Lou's step as they hit the bottom of the stairs.

The door leading into the gardens was square in front of them and Lou just stood there looking at it with Seo by his side.

"It hurts too much having them all say there. Like a bantha is on my chest when I sleep at night, and for the first time in a long time after compartmentalizing it. It felt like it took a foot off." Lou took a deep breath and then stepped forward.

The doors opened and the light shined in. An awe inspiring meditation garden fit for a royal palace. A massive room that contained trees, grass, flowers of almost every variety. A room and space that almost felt separate from the building that surrounded it.

"Im glad you intervened on my behalf. I'd not have anyone else." Lou gave a genuine smile as he stepped into the gardens and basked in its nature.


Seo Linn

 

[Seo Linn]

Seo noticed the pause in Lou's step but did not rush to fill it. He had always seemed to need time with the things that mattered most, turning them over carefully until he understood enough of what he felt to put it into words. She was content to give him that time. Her attention wandered instead toward the open balconies as they passed, and even Seo slowed slightly at the view beyond them. Rolling green stretched toward brilliant blue water beneath the Naboo sky, flowers hanging along the walkway adding splashes of color to a landscape that hardly needed the help.

She could understand why Lou liked this part of the Temple. There was something less institutional about it than the corridors they had passed through before, something that belonged more to Naboo than to the Jedi who had built upon it. Yet it was the change in Lou himself that interested Seo more than the view. He knew where he was going without thought, and there was an ease to his movements as he led her toward the gardens that hadn't been there when he spoke about the Temple as his home.

His words on the stairs brought her attention fully back to him, and Seo listened without interrupting, even when he stopped before the doors. She understood the instinct behind compartmentalizing far better than she wished she did. Sometimes, putting something painful into a smaller corner of oneself made it possible to carry everything else. She also knew how easily something done to survive one difficult period could become a habit long after it stopped helping. Lou was trying to fit three enormous parts of himself into a life that had changed much faster than he had been prepared for, and Seo wasn't going to pretend there was a simple arrangement that would make them fit comfortably.

"I don't think you have to decide how all three fit yet," she said quietly. "Your promise doesn't have to take its final shape today, and neither does whatever this place becomes to you. Your family isn't going anywhere simply because you need some distance from thinking about what you left behind." Seo turned slightly toward him, her expression gentle. "If calling this home makes that weight easier to carry right now, then call it home. That doesn't take anything away from them."

When the doors opened, whatever else she might have said momentarily disappeared. Seo stepped through beside him and slowed as she took in the garden beyond. It seemed almost impossible to reconcile with the stone and marble surrounding it. Trees rose within the enormous space amid expanses of grass and flowers, the moisture she had noticed on the stairs now settling pleasantly against her skin. After corridors built for movement, training, and purpose, this felt alive in an entirely different way. Her gold eyes traveled upward through the branches before following the paths that disappeared among the vegetation, eventually returning to Lou and the genuine smile on his face.

That smile told her more than any explanation of the garden could have. This was the first place he had shown her where she didn't need her Lorrdian upbringing to find the hesitation hidden beneath his words. He loved it here, and Seo found herself pleased that among everything unfamiliar in the life he was trying to build, Lou had already found somewhere that brought that expression to his face.

"I'm beginning to think you brought me here because you knew this would make the rest of the Temple very difficult to compete with," Seo said, her own smile answering his. "And I'm glad you asked me to be your Master, Lou. I wouldn't have accepted if I didn't want to be here."

She moved farther into the garden with him, but this time there was a subtle difference in the way Seo followed. She wasn't merely allowing Lou to choose the direction because he was showing her his home. Her attention moved over the plants around them with open curiosity before returning to him. "You know more about this than I do," she admitted easily. "I can identify evidence at a crime scene, follow someone through a city, tell you what an object remembers when I touch it, and probably notice when you're trying not to tell me something. Put me in a garden, though, and eventually you're going to discover the limits of your Master's expertise."

There was no embarrassment in the admission. Seo had never believed accepting a Padawan meant pretending she possessed every answer he could possibly need. Lou had spent most of his life working the land. Plants, soil, seasons, and the thousand small details involved in keeping something alive belonged to a world he understood far better than she did. That difference did not undermine their relationship. If anything, Seo thought it made it healthier. A Master and Padawan relationship was not meant to be a one-way exchange in which one person possessed all the knowledge, and the other merely received it.

"This isn't supposed to work in only one direction," she continued as they walked. "There are things I can teach you, but there will be things you can teach me too. Being your Master doesn't mean I stop being a student whenever you know something I don't." Seo gestured toward the abundance surrounding them, giving him an expectant smile as she willingly surrendered the role of expert to her Padawan. "So this part is yours. Show me what you love about it. Teach me something."

Loutaro Juan Raul Conzalla

 

[Loutaro Juan Raul Conzalla]

Seo Linn

Lo

Loutaro smiled at his Master for her suggestion. It had comforted the boy in this moment to know that someone had his best interest in mind outside of training and becoming a Jedi. To remove his thoughts of war and violence and focus on the activities and interests that he was close to. There a was a brief inhale of air before Loutaro spoke. If he was going to show Master Seo a thing or two, then he was going to go big. Shock and Awe was always a great strategy. It had reminded of something his father had always told him. Something or the other about 'Son, the first offer is usually the best offer.'

"Okay so you HAVE to see this!" Loutaro smiled and hurried forward towards a suspended garden bed that looked almost slapchopped together with recycled parts of discarded boxes and rubber piping. Almost a ramshackled modern art piece that existed for function.

Sitting within that container was of course dirt and a small water drip system connected to what could only be described as a contraption that an aggrieved office worker would send to their boss in the mail. A small electric device that looked like it was wired and held together by Dummy's Guide to Bomb Making and a Dream. Loutaro gently turned the dial on the device back a couple of inches and with the puttering whir of a dying machine, the device began to blend liquid fertilizer with water to create a solution for a timed release of nutrients to what was the crown jewel of the display. Listen Lou is not an Engineer.

What sat in the garden bed was an alien beauty. Lavagave. This beautiful cacti that looked like the beautiful multicolored green and red tentacles of a kraken rising out of the sea of dirt beneath it. Long healthy stalks of a beautiful succulent that reached up to a meter tall.

"Lavagave! They're native to Dantooine. One of my fellow Padawans is from there and they had a stalk that they brought from home. It was dying sadly. So I offered to rehabilitate it and get it back to life! He was over watering it plus the sunlight and the ocean salt air coming off the coast. He likes an open window." Lou gabbed for a bit before focusing up on the plant itself.

"I'm proud to say that these aren't his. I was able to nurse it back to health and take some of its stalls to grow these. Lavagave has genuine healing properties and applications for skin and hair care. Do I know anything about those? Nope! I just grow them but just look at them." Lou hunched over and gently took a gardening knife from his side and gently cut a piece of the Lavagave from its tip.

Looking back at Seo he smiled and handed her the piece.

"Here, rub some on your skin. It should produce a very pleasant warming sensation. Ive been using it for these." Loutaro pulled up his sleeves and showed the various light burns from training saber strikes and how the plant did help the healing process by quite a bit.

"Ive been thinking once they're big enough I could start to harvest them and press them into a salve for the other Padawans lightsaber burns. They save the bacta and kolto for more serious burns and most of the time it's just cold water and a cloth but I think this could be very helpful for the minor burns. I don't think people should have to go without if there's a viable option you know?" Lou had smiled once more as his mind moved a mile a minute for his love for plants.

 

[Seo Linn]

Lou's sudden enthusiasm drew an immediate smile from Seo, and she followed as he hurried deeper into the garden. Whatever uncertainty had followed him through the rest of the Temple seemed to disappear here. There was no hesitation in his voice now, no careful weighing of where he belonged or what becoming a Jedi might eventually demand of him. He simply wanted to show her something he loved, and Seo was more than willing to be swept up in that excitement.

The garden bed he stopped beside was not quite what she had expected.

Seo's gold eyes moved from the recycled containers to the rubber piping and finally settled on the small electrical contraption that mixed the water and fertilizer. She regarded that particular component for several seconds as it sputtered reluctantly into operation. There were wires. Quite a few wires, actually. Some appeared more confidently placed than others. Seo knew enough about technology to recognize functional improvisation when she saw it, although she wasn't entirely convinced this particular example had decided whether it wanted to irrigate a plant or explode.

Her attention shifted toward Lou. He seemed pleased with himself. She decided not to ask.

The plant itself was considerably easier to appreciate. Seo stepped closer as Lou introduced the lavagave, studying the long red and green stalks rising from the soil while he explained where it had come from. What interested her most was not the plant's appearance or even its healing properties, but the story of how it had ended up here. Another Padawan had brought something from home; it had begun to die in an environment ill-suited to it, and Lou had recognized what was wrong. He had not merely saved it. He had taken something struggling to survive and made it healthy enough to propagate.

"Now this I understand," Seo murmured, though she let him continue without further interruption.

When Lou offered her the freshly cut piece, Seo accepted it and examined the exposed interior before cautiously rubbing a little against the back of her hand. The gradual warmth that followed earned a surprised lift of her eyebrows, and she turned her hand slightly as though that might somehow help her understand what was happening beneath the skin. Healing was something she knew considerably better than gardening, although her knowledge came through the Force rather than from cultivating medicinal plants.

Then Lou rolled up his sleeves.

The light burns scattered along his arms wiped some of the amusement from Seo's expression. She didn't panic at the sight of them. Training injuries happened, and nothing he showed her appeared serious enough to warrant treating him as though someone had endangered his life. Still, she was his Master, and concern entered her gaze as naturally as breathing. Her eyes moved over the marks before returning to his face.

"I see you've neglected to mention a few things in your messages to me," she observed, though there was more fondness than reprimand in her voice. "We'll discuss how you're collecting quite this many burns eventually."

For now, however, she returned her attention to the lavagave and listened as Lou explained what he hoped to do with it. The longer he spoke, the warmer Seo's expression became. He had begun by helping one Padawan save something from home. From there, his thoughts had turned to growing more of it, harvesting it, learning how to turn it into something useful, and making certain other students had an option when their injuries were too minor to justify using limited medical supplies.

This was Lou.

"You know what I find most interesting about everything you just told me?" Seo asked. She held the piece of lavagave between her fingers and glanced toward the healthy plants before looking at him again. "Not once did you talk about what this could do for you. Someone else's plant was dying, so you helped him. Then you realized it could help people with minor injuries, so your next thought was how to grow enough to share it."

Seo stepped closer to the garden bed, careful not to disturb anything as she studied the lavagave again. "When we talked on Lorrd, you were afraid that becoming a Jedi meant becoming a warrior. I told you then that helping people doesn't have to look the same for every Jedi." Her gaze returned to him. "This counts, Lou. It isn't less important because nobody is swinging a lightsaber at you while you do it."

There was something else she wanted him to understand, though. Seo had encouraged him to teach her because their relationship could not consist solely of her handing down knowledge while Lou listened. If she meant that, then she needed to treat what he knew with the same seriousness she expected from him when their roles were reversed.

"So if you want to make a salve, I'd like to help you figure it out," she continued. "I know healing, and you know the plant. Between us, we should at least be able to determine what questions need answering before you start putting it on every Padawan in the Temple." A touch of humor returned to her expression. "Preferably without involving whatever that is."

Seo nodded toward the fertilizer contraption, finally allowing herself to acknowledge it.

"I promised to learn from you, not pretend I didn't see the device that looks like it might declare war on the garden."

Her smile widened before she held up the piece he had given her. "But the lavagave is impressive. You brought a dying plant back, learned enough about it to propagate it, and you're already thinking about how to make it useful to other people." She gestured toward the healthy stalks with genuine curiosity. "So keep teaching me. How did you know what was wrong with the original plant?"

Loutaro Juan Raul Conzalla