Private Failing Memories

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cailen Corso ​

After an unfortunate incident that rendered her datapad useless, Cora was at a loss for what to do.

It wasn't the device's demise itself that upset her, but what had been stored on it. Photos of her siblings back on Ukatis, and messages too. Homesickness had set in deeply in the months following her departure to Coruscant, so the datapad had been a sort of mental lifeline for her spirits. Cora's family has been her entire world, and despite a genuine eagerness to assimilate to the Jedi lifestyle, she was still finding it difficult.

Also, she'd spent the last week kicking herself for not backing up such precious memories. Lesson learned.

Procuring a new datapad had been the easy part. Now, she needed to find someone who'd be able to salvage the data from the destroyed device.

Which was how she'd come to find herself knocking on the door to Cailen's room. He was mechanically inclined, so perhaps the young scrapper would know a thing or two about datapads. The thought of him being unable to help her was already causing tears to gather on her lash line. What if her situation was beyond repair? What if she'd never see her siblings again? What if-

Her hands tightened around the pair of datapads—one brand new, the other with a cracked screen—as she tried not to catastrophize too hard.

 

[Cailen Corso]

FAILING MEMORIES

Location: Jedi Temple Quarters, Coruscant
Tags: Corazona von Ascania
Objective: Help a friend
Soundtrack: Hexadecimals

​

Cailen's head plopped into his pillow, a short sigh of relief escaping his lips as he sunk into the welcoming embrace of his bed. It hadn't been a particularly riveting day, but as evening fell on Coruscant, the respite of his room became irresistible. Despite the mess of spare parts, dismantled devices, and boxes of components, Cailen felt completely at peace.

So long as something needed fixing, then it needed him. And that gave him purpose.

Or, at the very least, a distraction. His mind had never been calm, but his recent trip to the Halls of Healing had sent his thoughts into a free fall. There was much to think about, even more to do, and none of it felt achievable. His hazel eyes drifted to the ceiling, blankly staring as he drifted into his own head.

The words of Chief Healer Amani Serys ricocheted inside him.

"Meditation. Self-control. Focus. Meditation. Self-control. Focus. Meditation. Self-control. Focus."

An unexpected knock withdrew him from his thoughts. He cast a glance to the door, unsure who could be seeking him. Had he missed a summons from Master Noble? Or maybe it was Silas, rousing him for a walk about the Temple grounds?

The boy swung his legs over the edge of his bed, pulling his slender frame from the pocket of warmth and stepping across the room. He tapped the maglock, parting the door with a gentle hiss and revealing a friendly - if downtrodden - face.

"C-Cora?" he stammered, a bit surprised to see her. The sadness in her eyes made his chest ache.

"What's wrong? Is everything alright?"

Cailen stepped to the side, gesturing for her to join him. He popped his head into the hall, giving a cursory glance before closing the door.

"What happened?" he asked, a glint of worry in his eyes.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"Cailen." She returned his greeting with a measured, polite smile and a brief bow of her head on instinct. Cora was relieved that he'd been in his quarters after all.

"I'm sorry to approach you so late in the evening, but I have a favor to ask." After glancing at the datapads in her hands, she stepped past the threshold of the door and into his room. A brief flush touched her cheeks when he closed the door and she cleared her throat.

"It...it's nothing terribly important, so please forgive the intrusion." Smiling awkwardly, she suddenly felt a little silly for causing him concern. "My datapad broke earlier, you see--" Shuffling the pair of devices in her arms, she showed him the tablet with the cracked screen. "It won't turn on anymore, and unfortunately I didn't back up the data in time, and well—" Her throat tightened in recollection of what exactly she'd lost, and at the thought that it couldn't be retrieved. He hadn't even been given a chance to respond, and yet she was already anticipating the worst.

Swallowing down around the lump in her throat, she offered him a watery smile. "I know that you're good with technology and the like, so I was wondering if perhaps you knew of a way to retrieve the messages and photos I've lost? I understand that this is a big ask, and I'm prepared to offer compensation for your time. O-of course, I also understand if this is too much, or if I'm bothering you, or if you'd simply rather not—"

Flustered, she averted her gaze and began rubbing at the back of her head.

Cailen Corso

 

[Cailen Corso]

Location: Jedi Temple Quarters, Coruscant
Tags: Corazona von Ascania
Objective: Help a friend
Soundtrack: Hexadecimals

​

Cailen sat at the foot of his bed, listening intently to Cora's words. A familiar pang of sadness struck his heart as he thought about the loss of her data. It had been almost four years since he'd seen his own parents, with their only correspondences being much the same as Cora's - hundreds of HoloNet messages, photos, voice memos... if he'd lost even one of them, the sting would be indescribable.

"O-of course, I also understand if this is too much, or if I'm bothering you, or if you'd simply rather not—"

"I'll fix it!" he interjected, a familiar shimmer of determination in his eyes.

He offered her a sincere smile, hoping she'd feel like her request was of no bother to him. Cailen would have done anything to help her, but even more so with his mind in such dire need of a distraction. He reached for the pair of holopads, taking them earnestly into his hands. His fingertips brushed across the shattered screen, feeling the tiny splinters of glass against his skin.

Although Cora had already mentioned the broken device refused to power on, Cailen still gave the button a hopeful press. When the screen remained stubbornly black, he let out a little huff and hopped from his bed.

"How did it break?" he asked, stepping past Cora and laying the holopads on his desk.

As she spoke, he sifted through the drawers, examining a humble collection of hand-me-down tools and parts.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"Oh!" Cora exclaimed, looking utterly relieved and on the verge of tears at the same time. "You're a lifesaver! Thank you, Cailen!"

She handed over the datapads and couldn't help but hover over his shoulder while he assessed the broken one. The new device had been purchased with anticipation of loading the retrieved data onto it, provided something could be recovered in the first place.

"Ah…" Cora winced, scratching at her cheek absently. "That's...er, well I was sitting in the garden, drinking tea and reading a message when someone ran into me. I spilled the tea, cup and all onto the datapad." An awkward smile settled onto her lips as she recalled Maran quite literally tripping into her while she was sitting on a bench. "That's why the screen is chipped, and some of the tea soaked into the back panel, so…"

It was perhaps the poshest way to break a holopad, ever.

Cora shifted to the side to give Cailen some space as he worked, yet she still peered over his desk as he searched for whatever tools or parts he may need.

"I'm not particular about any of the apps, but I do wish to recover the messages and photos from my brothers and sisters." A blush of embarrassment dusted her cheeks as she looked to the damaged device longingly. "I admit I've been missing them quite terribly." She laughed softly, awkwardly. Cailen had already seen her so vulnerable during their mission on Altier, and now she could only feel silly and a bit foolish.

Cailen Corso

 

[Cailen Corso]

Location: Jedi Temple Quarters, Coruscant
Tags: Corazona von Ascania
Objective: Help a friend
Soundtrack: Hexadecimals

​

Cailen giggled lightly as she told him about the tea. Not because it was a humorous dilemma, but that it was perfectly Cora. He listened as she went on about her family, their situation mirroring his own.

Cailen was an only child, but he could still empathize with her struggle to a certain degree; His fellow Padawan, Silas, was as close to a big brother as anyone could ever be... on long bouts like this one, when the boys were separated by assignments and training excursions, he deeply missed his friend. His brother.

Where Cailen truly resonated was the familiar pain of distance. He left Anaxes when he was ten years old, swept away by the never-ending current of galactic events. Although opportunities have presented themselves in the past, making the journey back home to see his parents seemed selfish and wasteful when compared to the scope of the Jedi Order's purview.

His hands stopped as the found a small screwdriver, and then he set to work. Under the anxious watch of his friend, Cailen carefully flipped the holopad onto its face, a few drops of amber liquid leaking from the casing. He curtailed another lighthearted giggle as he slid a spudger under the panel.

"Cora?" Cailen said with a hint of caution, glancing over his shoulder at her.

"I promise this isn't going to break anything, okay?"

He met her eyes for a moment, making sure she understood before turning to the holopad and popping the casing open with a loud snap.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora had been trying to wrangle her curiosity while still giving Cailen the space to work. She found it to be a difficult balance, hovering near him and his tools while not breathing down his neck.

The note of caution in his voice caused her face to crease in concern, but she nodded in understanding anyway.

Then she grimaced at the loud snap, fingers twitching for some reason.

"Oh…" She said softly, peering closer with worried eyes. The inner guts of the device were exposed now.

"Thank you again for doing this, Cailen." Cora smiled anxiously. "My sister Fantine sent me a video of our baby brother, Emile, taking his first steps. I've been watching it every night before I go to sleep." The admission caused her to flush in embarassment.

A slow, genuine grin dissolved her nerves as she pictured the blonde child taking his first tentative steps to the encouragement of his off-screen siblings. Despite being able to remember the short clip frame for frame, she'd be devastated if it were lost forever. Perhaps she'd be away for so long that the baby wouldn't even recognize who she was by the time she'd returned. Cora did her best to smother that thought with a subject shift. Her eyes found the spudger in Cailen's hands, recalling the number of widgets she'd seen as he rifled through the drawers.

"You certainly have quite the collection of tools. Where did you learn to do all of this?"

Cailen Corso

 

[Cailen Corso]

Location: Jedi Temple Quarters, Coruscant
Tags: Corazona von Ascania
Objective: Help a friend
Soundtrack: Hexadecimals

​

“I learned a lot from my mom,” Cailen said, his cheeks tightening as he thought of her.

“And my dad, too. They’re really good at salvaging.”

He missed both of them terribly, a feeling only compounded by Cora’s dilemma. Everything he knew was learned from watching them toil in the shipyards, and everything he’d experienced since then had been (at least in his mind) a way to give back to his family. Something to bring back home and share with them, the same way they had with him.

He owed them… well, everything.

Even Cailen’s tools, which he was now using to delicately dislodge the memory bank from its slot, had been given to him by friends and family.

“This was my mom’s,” he said, gesturing with the hot soldering iron.

“She works with droids, and they’re full of little things that have to be melted in place.”

He pressed the tip against a glob of silvery metal, melting it back to reveal the memory card’s contacts. Once it was loose enough, he nudged it out of place with his finger and lifted it from the motherboard.

“Okay, here we go…” Cailen said in a careful voice, trying to remain even-toned.

Even though he was confident he could salvage her data, he didn’t want to give her any false hope in the event she’d lost most - or even all - of her correspondences.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

His parents—that made sense. There was affection, and perhaps a hint of longing with how he spoke of them.

Since joining the New Jedi, she'd come to find that many of her fellow Padawans didn't have family beyond the Order. Others were given up at birth, or had pasts that were shrouded entirely in mystery. Some, like Cora and Cailen, had willingly left established homes.

"It sounds like you were close to them." Cora observed with a soft smile.

Worry flashed in her eyes as Cailen drew her attention back to the datapad. Watching him work the device's interior made her anxious, but she did her best to place her trust in the young scrapper.

"You've…done this before, right?" She ventured.

Cailen Corso

 

[Cailen Corso]

Location: Jedi Temple Quarters, Coruscant
Tags: Corazona von Ascania
Objective: Help a friend
Soundtrack: Hexadecimals

​

He nodded gleefully as a flurry of warm memories came to mind.

His father, ever the daring pilot, once taught Cailen how to dismantle the control panel of a derelict TIE fighter. It was the only one he'd ever seen up close, and due to their rarity in the Core, it had been the only Imperial vessel Jace had the opportunity to work with. He couldn't pass up the chance to show his son what made the backbone of the Imperial Navy tick.

Cailen smiled as he transferred the databank from the tea-soaked holopad to his desktop terminal. The computer powered up with a low hum, its screen flickering to life as the piecemeal system fired up. Even the most common of Cailen's amenities had been salvaged, repurposed, or built by hand.

That train of thinking came straight from his mother, Brenna. She was the one with the brains for droids, electronics, and technology. He remembered fondly the time she brought home a damaged Spark droid. A particularly nasty thunderstorm had rolled in that morning, and the foremen decided to give the scrappers a well-deserved day off. Cailen spent the entire afternoon helping his mom take apart the little droid, one painstaking screw at a time.

"Don't worry, Cora. I won't lose anything," he said, the memories renewing his confidence.

The scanlines of the desktop terminal flickered as lines of strange code filed the screen. To the untrained eye, it might have looked like some kind of technical failure or a system error, but Cailen's grin meant that everything was working as expected.

A few moments later, a holodisk ejected from the computer. Cailen took it gingerly and handed it to Cora. He gave her a warm smile.

"It's all there. Most of it, at least. I couldn't save some of your oldest messages, but all the pictures and holovids are there."

"Go on, plug it in!"

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora received the disk with wide eyes. She didn't understand the wizardry Cailen had used to recover her data, but she had placed her trust in him.

Nodding, she plugged the disk into her new holopad with nervous energy. The screen flickered to life, and a few taps was all that it took for her face to light up.

Another swipe, and she brought up a short video—it started out of focus, then quickly stabilized as the person behind the camera settled.

The setting was an opulent garden with well manicured hedges and carefully cultivated flowers. Snippets of a finely architectured stone building could be seen in the background, but the focus was on a blonde toddler sitting in the grass. Wide blue eyes stared at the person taking the video, a young woman by the sound of her voice.

"Come on, Emile!" She cooed. "Show Cora how you can walk!"

A wide smile played out on the baby's face and he slapped the ground beneath him with a giggle. Both hands braced in front of him in the grass, bottom pushed out, he tentatively rose to his feet. Chubby arms splayed to the side in an effort to keep his balance.

"You can do it!" Fantine encouraged. "Come to me!"

Emile wobbled for a few moments, then found his footing. One little leg lurched forward, then pressed to the ground to catch his weight. He looked up at Fantine and smiled wide.

"Good job, Emile! Keep going!"

One more tentative step, then another. Slowly but surely, the baby toddled forward until he collapsed playfully into his sister's arms, laughing and smiling up into the camera.

The clip ended, frozen on the sheer joy of Emile's face.

Cora had a hand clasped over her mouth, fighting back the tears thathad gathered on her lashes. She was both immensely pleased at recovering the little fragments from the family she'd left behind, and incredibly moved at what she'd been missing out on.

"Oh, thank you Cailen!" She gasped, suddenly wrapping her arms around the boy and pulling him into a hug. "This means the galaxy to me, thank you thank you!"

Cailen Corso

 

[Cailen Corso]

Location: Jedi Temple Quarters, Coruscant
Tags: Corazona von Ascania
Objective: Help a friend
Soundtrack: Hexadecimals

​

Cailen stayed at his desk, giving her a moment to herself as she confirmed her data had been restored.

He listened to what sounded like a video of her younger brother - the one she'd mentioned before, of his first steps. A warm smile spread across his face as he watched her, thoroughly pleased to have rescued the memory from a watery, tea-stained grave.

When the holovid ended, Cailen pushed in his desk chair and stepped over to check that everything was in order with her holopad. But he was instead met with a sudden embrace that turned his legs to jelly. At first, Cailen wasn't sure what to do - should he hold her, too? Give her a friendly pat? Just stand there? With cheeks reddening fast, he chose the former, wrapping his arms around her.

"This means the galaxy to me, thank you, thank you!"

"Y-you're welcome!" he stammered, trying to keep his cool.

When they separated, he tried to keep her focus on the holopad so that she wouldn't notice his rosy face.

"I-it sounds like your holovids were saved... are the rest of your photos and messages there, too?"

He knew they were; He just needed another moment or two to regain his composure.

"Everything is... fixed?"