Private Home Sweet Home

[Kell Masaara]

So. This is it. This is real. She's finally here. Kell takes a deep breath and releases it slowly, casting her gaze once again around her room at the Tython temple, appearing untouched by any hand before hers. It's sterile, in the way that any good housekeeping would keep a room that saw turnover - inviting, comfortable, yes, but empty all the same. How many padawans came before her here? How many felt nervous under the weight of expectations, some they really only placed upon themselves?

How many of them were in their karking twenties?

She falls backwards, eyes closed and arms spread, onto one of the more comfortable beds she's laid on these past few years. It was... intimidating? Yes, that and a little embarrassing, she thinks. They're so competent in such a broader range of things. Jerem tought her so little in those years, even if what he did kept them safe; she'd never even held a saber - not counting trying to steal his the first time they met - before, never mind learned to fight with one. 'If you or I are ever forced to draw a blade, it is already too late'. She believed it. If he was going to run from the Sith, she sure didn't have a shot. It was always safer to disappear in the crowd, to sense them coming first, and leave.

Again. Always running.

A lifelong game of cats and mice. In a way, she was glad to have been left behind - it's an exhausting life to live, and if the other jedi were anything to measure by, it had certainly taken its toll on Jerem. They were so much less intense, less... focused isn't the right word, their focus is just different, but it's not frantic, not constantly needing to outmaneuver something as smart as you are. They were certainly more peaceful. It's hard to slow down when you only ever live in the fast lane.

Kell opens her eyes to the soft glow of the ceiling light near-imperceptibly humming at her in return, like a little hello. She stares vacantly at it for a full minute before dragging herself back into a seated position, rubbing at her face with the palms of her hands. You can slow down, now. It'll be okay, right? Being behind doesn't mean you'll be kicked out, it just means you have to catch up, and you always learned quick. You've always had to.

With another breath, another sigh, Kell rubs a thumb across the crystal - a lightsaber crystal, she now knows - left for her, tucked away like a little treasure in her pocket. Maybe it's time, now. Build a lightsaber. Little kids do that before their masters accept them, everybody else has one, you still have enough chop credits to nab stuff they won't pay for. It's something, right? They gotta have books on doing this, maybe some spare parts, some paint? Decking it out like a Sleemo album cover probably isn't in the cards, but none that she caught a glimpse of looked standardized. Yeah, you can do this - people do it all the time! You'll be a real jedi in no time flat!

It's going to be a long, long day.

 

[Kell Masaara]

"-must first and foremost be used for defence-"
"-blade is more than a tool, it is a symbol-"
"-care to not invert the emitter matrix-"
"-crystals can exhibit a variety of instabilities in their structure-"

Kell was surrounded by holobooks and flimsiplast diagrams. Never in all her days did she think experience with hotwiring speeders, shorting out alarms, and bypassing repulsor lockouts would prepare her for being a Jedi, but what electrical experience she did have allowed for a sort of intuitive sense to be made from the available material concerning the construction of a lightsaber. At its core, it's not a difficult series of doohickeys to wire together, but all the other gizmos and features these guides described sent her swirling with the possibilities. She wanted them all.

How often do Jedi run into cortosis? Why were handguards so uncommon? Shouldn't two blades be better than one? A dual phase switch sounds cool. Working underwater? Rather have it than not - better grab the stuff for the fancy ignition system. It's gotta be textured - don't want it to slip - but if it's too grippy it might be uncomfortable.

Techniques! What form was she going to do? Never mind that she hadn't even touched Shii-cho yet. What about a choke in the grip, that's gotta be useful and versatile. How about a big fat pommel in case she has to hit someone with it. Do they have a lot of phrik available here?

Kell rubs her face with her hands, leaning back into her seat with a deep breath as the book drones on. It's been... how many hours? She lost track, and part of her doesn't want to know.

"-lenses ought to be mounted directly above the energy modulation circuit-"

Click.

It was getting dark by the time she finished. Beyond a handguard she intended to slip on at a later time, this was it. Done. She looked over her creation with an exhausted smile, having checked and rechecked every little detail to make sure it didn't explode in the very nice archive and ruin their nice holos and fancy furniture. Turn it on, baby, let's see what she's got.

KZS-SHEEEM

The blade hummed, deep like an engine, and pulsed like a, uh. Pulsing lightsaber blade, she guessed. Was this crystal structure compressed? It had to be, a normal crystal shouldn't create oscillations like that in the energy feed. Kell didn't care. It was hers, she made it, and she was so karking proud.

Suppressing the urge to jump up and celebrate, she deactivated the blade before odd looks started coming her way, returned her learning materials since librarians are people too, not servants, and tidied up what scraps were left before returning to her room. It's going to be a long night.

Or not; as if to spite her, or maybe just with a body more tired than the mind was excited, she fell quickly to sleep.

Night night, sword girl.