In Absentia

[Tydeus of Tion]

Another long absence, another load of dirty robes that needed washing. Korr had felt ground down to nothing. He'd seen too many young padawans slain. Too many temples razed. Fearing the limits of his sanity, he disappeared.

Now he returned. Called back into the fight.

He sat in this quiet area of the Jedi's new capital temple, reading a data pad as the laundry machines ran. It wasn't Coruscant, nothing ever would be, but for once he felt as though he had found a measure of contentment.

Korr lowered the data pad slightly, mind taken off catching up on mission reports as he remembered another evening in a laundry room, years gone by.

[member="Corvus Raaf"]

 

[Corvus Raaf]

Returning Jedi were like Sith looking to turn to the Light. Or buses. None for ages and then they all came along at once.

Corvus smiled at the situation as she headed through the underground Temple they’d managed to find and re-fit for today’s purposes. She missed the open air and the jungle. The ability to come and go freely. But for now privacy was key and so they had to keep a low profile in and around the area.

But Lothal was a good planet and out of the way. If you ignored the fact the Black Rose and the First Order were within spitting distance. And spitting seemed an entirely appropriate analogy.

Master Korr had been on the Council that Kiskla set up. And like so many of them, he’d felt the need to disappear. Well, perhaps not disappear. To do what his heart and the Force told him was right. Not the same thing.

If he was back, and for the foreseeable future, she’d be able to reinstate him. His was always a voice of reason and wisdom on the Council. Corvus believed in having individuals that had opinions. And differing ones. Twelve Jedi that thought alike proved that eleven of them were superfluous. No, each Jedi should have a unique perspective to every issue. Together, they would identify the best course of action. Sometimes the least bad course. But the best decisions were made that way.

So she made a point of seeking him out and saw him, datapad in hand. She smiled and bowed, as was her way. She had a million questions. But one at a time…and best to start with the most important one.

“Ryan. So glad to see you. How are you?”

[member="Ryan Korr"]

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

Korr turned toward the entrance. A smile creased his cheeks at the sight of familiar lilac eyes. The laundry machines continued to spin. Whump, whump. Whump, whump. Turning over and over, fiercer and faster than the thoughts in Korr's head. The Jedi stood, setting his data pad down.

"Just thinking about you, actually. We have to stop meeting like this," he said with a dry chuckle. "I am quite well, just catching up on what I missed." A hand-gesture indicated the data pad.

The Grandmaster seemed in good spirits, best as he could tell, but then social cues had never been his forte. Hmm, she was Corellian, wasn't she? He'd forgotten. So, they shared a history, of sorts. A history of two suffering peoples. One on the verge of extinction after the obliteration of their planet, the other in a war against internal darkness. A war they were losing. The Temple medical records would now list him as a Vahla. He hadn't known before Matsu Xiangu's dolorous strike had rendered him bedridden.

That was the beginning of it all. The cause of this recent absence. A search for his people, but a story for another time.

"How fare you?" He searched her gaze with earnest and accustomed intensity.

[member="Corvus Raaf"]

 

[Corvus Raaf]

Corvus smiled. “There is a certain familiarity with the setting. If I ever need to find you, perhaps I just have to locate the nearest launderette?”

“In some ways you’ve missed much, in other ways not so much.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Details have changed but the big things? The One Sith juggernaut continues unabated. Jedi turn to the Dark-side. Sith turn to the Light.”

“The biggest difference is a new Order. A New Jedi Order to be precise. I suspect the One Sith will need to either turn their attention to the new Galactic Alliance and leave the Republic be, or continue to chase us down and be outflanked.”

“But it’s early days for sure.”

“As for me? I’m good…as always. I’ve started to embrace my emotions now. Oddly I have a Sith to thank…in a roundabout way. Sadly she died. I fought her…” Her voice trailed off. Many thought the only good Sith was a dead Sith, but Corvus was a Jedi that believed passionately in the Code. And that all life was sacred. Even the Sith. Not that they should be allowed to run riot, but death was always a last option.

“So…” she said, the smile returning to her lips. “How are you?”

[member="Ryan Korr"]

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

A dry chuckle met her joke and Korr continued to listen silently to the rest of her short briefing, nodding at the last.

"Good," said Korr, "or good as can be given the state of the galaxy. But as you say, the One Sith seem to be on the verge of the galactic reprisal they so deserve. So there's some hope yet."

Steady grey eyes stared out from scarred features.

"I also had an... encounter with a Sith, before I left. She made me realize a great many things were absent from my life, making me weak. Vulnerable." He shrugged a shoulder, almost as if testing to see if it still worked. A twitch of the lips told of a smile dying in infancy. "I guess we all have emotions we need to work through, or embrace, as you term it."

Korr gestured toward the seat, indicating she sit, while he pulled up another chair. He leaned forward, elbows on knees. "So, this Sith. Did you kill her?"

[member="Corvus Raaf"]

 

[Corvus Raaf]

Corvus nodded. “History may be a rear-view mirror, but if it has taught us one thing, it is that these things go in cycles. Sith in ascendancy, Jedi in ascendancy. Maybe the time of the Knights of Ren has come?” She shrugged. “Who knows for sure.”

“Emotions and Jedi?” She smiled wanly. “An odd cocktail. But one that makes is Jedi I guess. I’m finding ones I don't even have a name for. I denied myself them for over two decades. There are so many that are similar and I can’t always differentiate. But I’ll get there. I always do.”

“And you will too, I’m sure of that.”

Memories of Silara were still a little raw. Given the whole set of circumstances. “No. We fought and she left. But she was hurt. Not from the fight necessarily. She was dying.”

“She asked me to kill her. To meet her on another planet and end her life. I went there — not to end her life per se, but to see her. But she’d already been killed. And scavengers had stripped her of valuables. She seemed oddly vulnerable like that.”

“So I buried her. But her legacy…my emotions…they live on.”

“Wow, that got deep very quickly. Tell me, how are you coping?”

[member="Ryan Korr"]