Private Jedi Pilgrimage : Destination # 1 - Naboo

[Katarine Ryiah]

Tags: Aiden Porte

The silver-blue silhouette of the Northstar cut quietly across Naboo's morning sky, gliding like a star fallen into flight. Sleek, intelligent, and obedient to every silent command, the vessel guided itself with grace that its owner could never mirror. Katarine Ryiah stood in the observation bay, hands folded within the sleeves of her simple robe, watching the glimmering surface of Lake Paonga drift beneath the clouds. Naboo, peaceful, serene, steeped in memory. It was a world that cherished beauty, and one she had not walked in many years.

She had sent her message ahead days ago, a formal contact to the local Jedi Council. Not the New Jedi Order she had once known, fractured now into rumor and refuge, but another circle, rooted here among marble domes and echoing colonnades. This enclave, she had heard, studied harmony and heritage above war. Something in that had quietly called to her.

The Northstar slowed, repulsors humming softly as it aligned with the landing platform just beyond the Theed Temple grounds. White stone glistened with dew. The ship settled without a tremor.

Katarine drew a calm breath, gathering her travel pack over one shoulder. Behind her, there was no co-pilot, no astromech, only the soft lull of the ship's core powering down, loyal in its silence. She was alone, but not uncertain.

The ramp descended.

In the stillness of Naboo's dawn, Katarine stepped onto polished stone, emerald eyes lifted to meet the future that approached. She had not come seeking rank, nor refuge. Only understanding.

And perhaps, at last, a place where the Force was not spoken through war.

 

[Aiden Porte]

Katarine Ryiah
​

The light had changed.


Aiden noticed it first, that soft, quicksilver gleam that comes when dawn has truly broken, when Naboo exhales the last of the night. He'd been standing there for some time, the low murmur of the fountains behind him and the rustle of waterbirds down by the gardens filling the air. Theed's always felt different at this hour not quiet, exactly, but alive in the kind of way that did not need to speak.

He sensed her before he saw the ship.

The Northstar's signature was unlike most vessels that came through Theed's airspace its arrival was measured, its motion deliberate, wrapped in a stillness that reminded him of meditation more than travel. Even the way it settled onto the pad beyond the colonnade carried a discipline that spoke of the person behind it.

When the ramp touched down, Aiden drew his hood back.

The woman who emerged was not a stranger to the Force. The current shifted around her not turbulent, but deep, like the undertow beneath a calm sea. Her presence brushed against his senses with something that felt both weathered and clean. There was age in it not of years, but of distance.

He stepped forward, the sound of his boots soft against the marble.

"Master Ryiah," he said not with ceremony, but quiet recognition. Her name had carried through the Council's notice days before, though most there had only spoken it with scholarly curiosity. A Jedi from the old wars who had walked away from the Order before its fall, returned now to a world that refused to remember it had once been divided.

Aiden inclined his head. "Welcome to Theed. You'll find the lake looks the same, even when everything else has changed. I'm here to escort you to Shiraya's sanctuary, I hope your journey was pleasant." He nodded towards a speeder nearby as he gave her a polite bow.

A faint smile ghosted across his features, the kind that did not quite reach his eyes but spoke of warmth nonetheless. "We were expecting you, though not this early. Naboo mornings have a way of surprising us all."