Private Fable of the Green Blade | Tel Ahren

[Sienna]

Sienna stood at attention when Knight Brysti entered the training chambers. She was the only one to do so out of the five students present. The others ran up to crowd around the Klatooinian Knight, excitement palpable.

"Settle down," Brysti laughed, waving down their various questions.

He was holding a datapad, likely one containing mission details for their little group. They'd been told to assemble early in the day to prepare for something, and so they had. Sienna had brought her kit—everything she needed for a survival mission. Perhaps a little overkill, but it paid to be prepared.

"I said settle down. I'll explain everything on the way. Get ready, we'll be heading out soon," the knight continued.

"Where are we going, Bry?" One of the students asked.

"Now, I can't tell, but it'll be sandy," Brysti replied.

Sienna couldn't help the slight smirk. Sandy likely meant desert. She'd grown up in one and her kit had everything she needed for desert survival. She'd finally be able to show of her skills, and maybe even pass some of them on to her peers. Maybe that'd finally break that wall of ice she couldn't figure out how to navigate.

"Gather your things and go to shuttle bay nine, I'll meet you there," Brysti said.

The students quickly grabbed their gear and made their way out of the training hall. Sienna slung her backpack over her shoulder and made to follow, but stopped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Knight Brysti's, and he was looking at her with sternness to his expression.

"Sienna, you're not going," he began.

"I, what?" Sienna exclaimed, but Brysti continued before she could go on.

"After what happened on Devaron...the instructors and I think it's best if you don't go out into danger for a while. Get some time to recover from it," Brysti explained.

Sienna scoffed.

"That's unfair! I don't need time to recover, I want to—"

"Sienna," Brysti interrupted her with a hard stare. "Our minds are made up, you're not going."

Sienna watched Brysti in silence. The Knight gave her one last look, a nod, then turned and left her standing by the doorway as he made his way to the hangar bays.

#​

Sienna punched a wall. A quiet clang rang out as the painful warmth of the impact spread across her fingers. She'd gone deep enough into the library's maze of archives that no one would pay her any heed for this.

She punched the wall again, the solid metal yielding nothing. She breathed deep breaths, the way father had taught her to when her uncle had stolen her favourite rifle to sell to a sun oil peddler. But that breathing had never really helped when she'd tried it.

She turned from the wall and moved down the corridor of tall shelves filled with archival data. There must have been thousands of years of history, carefully curated by the Jedi, and she didn't want to see any of it.

Tel Ahren

 

[Tel Ahren]

Clang.

Tel turned a page in his book. Old-fashioned, not one of the holobooks that were contained in racks on racks of data files that he could just download to his datapad, but an actual, physical book. No telling how many times it had been copied through the years, but with as much reading as he'd done in the past, he'd learned to be careful with them even if they were fairly fresh, new editions. Turn the page carefully, make sure you're not tugging on it, make sure you're not bending the spine—

Clang.

—and try not to let the noise get to you.

That last part usually wasn't among the thoughts he had when he was reading, but there was always room for something new. Even if he had no clue just what was going on wi—

Clang.

The book snapped shut, Tel standing up with it in one hand. At the very least, he could go figure out what was causing that sound, given that it seemed to be coming from within the archives, and as far as he could tell, there were only one or two others in it with him at the time. He just had to follow his senses to the source. Tracking through the maze of shelves, server racks, and holographic displays, reaching out with the Force and then following the sound of footsteps once it was clear that whatever his quarry had been banging on had ceased to hold their interest.

He turned one corner quickly, nearly running headlong into Sienna as she came to the same intersection between the shelves.

"Ah. Sienna." That, at least, answered who else was in the archives with him. Whether her presence answered the other part of the question remained to be seen, though as he stepped back to make some space, glancing down with a short bow of his head...he noticed some obvious, albeit light, bruising on the knuckles of one hand.

He looked back up again in silent question.

 

[Sienna]

Sienna had messed up on Devaron. She knew that. But the feeling of being left behind hurt, still. Not because she missed her peers, but because it was humiliating.

On Thyrsus, her instructors valued initiative and the strength it took to face danger and come back alive. Back home she had disobeyed her elder, Rahsmi, plenty of times. Going on hunts by herself and risking danger. Same as she had on Devaron. She'd taken the initiative to hunt down the criminals responsible for looting the Jedi temple. She'd faced the dangers of the jungle and come back with the recovered temple items and had confirmed several criminals' deaths. Real value, brought back on her own initiative and strength.

But instead of some words of chastisement and another hunt to do better on, the Jedi had thought it best to ground her.

She was grounded!

Elder Rahsmi might have made sure she was reminded of her place in the tribe, but she'd have taken her along for the next hunt! Rahsmi knew to maintain discipline, but also to correct Sienna's mistakes with more experience in the deserts. Here, Bysti and the instructors had simply grounded her. Like a child.

Sienna stalked the archives simmering with that wound to her pride. Movement emerged at the edge of her vision. Her fists clenched, feet settling against the ground to spring into action if...

Except, it was another Jedi. He'd rounded the corner, wearing a Padawan's attire and a familiar face. It was her peer, Tel Ahren.

Sienna relaxed, breathing out. She hadn't expected to run into another Jedi in the farthest corners of the archives at this early hour.

"Jedi Ahren, you startled me. I hadn't expected anyone this far back. Are you here looking for something?" She asked, brows still furrowed.

Tel Ahren

 

[Tel Ahren]

"Your hand is bruised," he replied, not answering her question. Possibly a dangerous route to take in the conversation, given just how agitated she already seemed to be...but he'd been subject to too much of the enigmatic non-responses, controlling-the-talk sort of flow from the masters that he wasn't going to skip on the opportunity to try it out for himself. It might be useful, anyways; at least in the little bit he'd known her, Sienna was an open book.

Probably how all the masters felt about all of his generation so far.

If she lost her temper with him entirely, he was somewhat confident that he'd be able to avoid any physical reprisal. Ideally it wouldn't come to that, but after what he'd already seen of her temper out in the jungle on Devaron...he wasn't sure. "Are you looking for something back here?"

Sienna

 

[Sienna]

Sienna scowled at Tel. Your face will be bruised if you don't...

She breathed out slow. Letting her temper out on another Padawan wans't fair. She had been the one to mess up, and she should take responsibility for it. Even if the Jedi had turned out to be infuriatingly dense in every way she could think of, she'd come to train with them to become a better person.

Even if the path to becoming one seemed increasingly impossible to walk.

"I was, but then that wall back there decided it needed to get punched," Sienna gave a sardonic smirk, crossing her arms. She nodded to the book he was carrying.

"What's with the book? I thought everything in these archives came on neat datachips?"

Tel Ahren

 

[Tel Ahren]

Tel shrugged. "It would be boring if it did." Actual books were nice sometimes. "Why were you punching the wall?"

Right back to the questions. She could always take the route of 'I don't want to talk about it,' of course, but somehow Tel had trouble believing that she would. Or, even if she did, that she'd completely mean it. If that was the case, she probably wouldn't have mentioned punching the wall in the first place.

Sienna

 

[Sienna]

Sienna glanced at her hand. Her fingers tingled, but they'd barely been hurt. Tel's concern was nice, but entirely unwarranted.

"It looked particularly punchable," Sienna gave him a look. One of those 'drop it' looks.

As much as she'd wanted to take her anger out on a sparring droid, she'd needed some time to herself. The training dojos had been occupied, which left the library as her last refuge. Reading hat turned out too difficult with all the turmoil she felt, and getting a few good punches in, with the feedback of the hits, had at least drained some of the excess nervous energy.

She considered saying her goodbyes to Tel to find some other way to occupy her time, but the company of another Jedi might help distract her from the sinking feeling that she didn't actually belong with the Order.

"What were you reading?" Maybe it was an interesting enough story.

Tel Ahren

 

[Tel Ahren]

The look she got in return was one that made it abundantly clear Tel was entirely unsatisfied with that answer, as well as her choice to entirely pivot over to a different topic. Were the situations reversed, he honestly expected she may have been inclined to continue pursuing the topic despite any warnings not to pursue; in this case, Tel wasn't going to push quite so hard. But he wasn't going to let her forget that he'd been gracious enough to give her a full answer out in the jungle, either. "You'll tell me eventually," he concluded with a shrug.

Then he held the book out towards Sienna . "It's ancient history, more or less. First schism." Not something that most outside of the historians bothered to study. In truth, he wasn't really studying it, it was just the first thing that caught his interest when he decided it felt like a day for reading. "Just the last volume, but I can show you where the others are, if you'd like."

Better than letting her start punching the walls again.

 

[Sienna]

Oh no, he did not just—this stuck up, extremely punchable, arrogant Jedi Padawan had not just said that, had he?

But before Sienna let herself get further carried away by the desire to punch his lights out, she took the book from him—well, practically ripped it from his hands—, and choose peace instead. It was one of the Jedi's major tenets, after all, and she still wanted to be a Jedi. That's what she told herself, at least, even if their collective arrogance was really starting to piss her off.

She flipped through the book, landing on a the introduction of a renowned Jedi of that time, and read a few of the passages. Her blood still boiled, but the words and the history bound to them captured her attention.

"Jedi Master Awdrysta Pina," she read aloud. "It says here he was a great leader, that he died fighting the dark legions of his time."

She read on. The account told of the battles between the Jedi and the Legions of Lettow, ancient history by every standard, but completely novel to her. Awdrysta, named the Green Blade by his peers, had led the Jedi to victory and then pursued the surviving Dark Siders bent on their destruction. Though he'd killed most of them, he ultimately died in a confrontation with the wife of the Dark Sider's rebellious leader.

The commentary about him made her cock her head, however, expression twisted in confusion. The anger she felt made way for scholarly curiosity. It wasn't gone, she'd just found somewhere else to channel it.

"The commentary claims he's a cautionary figure for Jedi. Why? He did everything right."

Tel Ahren

 

[Tel Ahren]

"What else does it say about him?" Tel asked in return. He already knew, having been most of the way to finished with it, but he couldn't just hand over all the answers. He cracked a small smirk. "Haven't you heard? 'All the answers are right in front of you, you just have to open your eyes,' or something like that." Maybe if he went looking he'd be able to figure out just why she seemed so agitated, as well, but he'd already said that she'd tell him eventually.

He was going to hold her to his prediction. Reciprocity was important, after all.

After the arguments she'd been throwing his way out in the jungle, he also couldn't help but think that maybe reading a cautionary tale about the Jedi in their first major altercation since their founding would help her figure out why he'd just discounted everything she'd said. Her sulking about it the entire walk back was bad enough, hopefully she wasn't still finding moments to be mad about it days later.

"While you read that, follow me—let's find somewhere we can sit down rather than just standing here in the middle of everything."

Sienna

 

[Sienna]

"I know a spot," she mumbled, concentrated on her reading.

She began moving toward the front of the library again, leading the way toward the stairs toward the upper levels where light streamed in through actual windows. She never understood why Jedi built their temples in a way that let in so little direct sunlight.

"It says," she continued as they walked. "That Awdrysta defeated Xendor, the dark legion's leader, and broke the enemy legion, but that he lost himself in the process. He became preoccupied with hunting down the survivors who had rebelled and opposed the Jedi, practically became obsessed with this hunt."

Sienna considered that. Strategically, his actions seemed thoroughly sound. Tactically, he had seized victory for the Jedi in a brilliant way. The failure then, had to be a personal one, or perhaps...

"Was it his obsession with the surviving members of the dark legions?" She asked.

"I can't find flaws in his strategy or tactics. I'm actually surprised the other Jedi didn't join in his hunt."

Tel Ahren