Private Legacy Manifest

[Bastila Sal-Soren]

The sparks of anger and frustration had always been her hallmark. Instructors in the New Jedi Order were known for their patience with Lyra, but she had always heard them talking outside of her teaching hours. She was impulsive, quick to give into emotion and deeply scared by her abandonment.
That is what it was. It wasn’t entrusting, or for her safety. It was abandonment, she had been left here by her mother to rot, to become the thing she had no interest in being.
Her eyes were locked not on Brandyn now, but the whitening tips of her knuckles, the blood being pushed from them as the muscles tightened in reaction to her emotion. She knew she shouldn’t feel like this, it wasn’t the Jedi way. She just had to release it and let it go, that is what she had always been told.

She abandoned me.

I was worth nothing to her.

I was…

Warmth seeped into her somewhere, again an unknown sensation that caught her off guard. It started in her mind, in the very place she had earlier been confused on her sudden connection with this Jedi who was sat opposite her. It pushed and fought the negative emotion that had been trying to consume her senses, giving her an unshakable feeling of calm that even if she had tried to wouldn’t be allowed to move.

…She was doing what she knew was right.

Again the warming smile. The smell of Corellian Blueberries. A raggedy old ship that was falling apart, a toy made of welded together ship parts. A small cot, hollowed from a fuel drum with some colourful blankets. Were these memories? Or was her mind trying to present her with what she wanted to see. A face streaming with tears as she walked away from the only good thing to have ever come into her life.

Lyra shook her head sharply.
“I…I apologise.” She said quickly, sounding very much beyond her years all of a sudden. “No one has ever really wanted to talk about her before. I’m usually told to let go and not think about her.” Her knuckles had started to regain colour now, her hands relaxed on her lap. “Maybe they are right.”

Brandyn had offered some words of encouragement. Which probably had more effect then he realised on the sixteen year old. She smiled and looked off towards the door that the others had made their way through. Maybe this was the winds of chance changing for her?

His request to see what she was actually made of snapped her back into reality.
“Sorry?” She spoke with slight panic. “A test? Now? I haven’t even got my…” Her hand reached for her belt. Oh no. She had left her training saber in her room. “...saber.” She was going to get in trouble for this…

Brandyn Sal-Soren Valery Noble Cybelle Sal-Soren

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

As Brandyn guided her towards the door, he found himself instinctively putting his hand on her shoulder to comfort the young Jedi. “Well…we are going to talk about her plenty then…eventually. But today…”

There was a lot going on under the thinly veiled surface of Lyra’s mind. She may have thought it was hidden from his mind’s eye, but it erupted like a solar flare. That and the white knuckles gave it away.

He turned her to face him, eyes locking on her. He was stunned again by how her demeanour and appearance could have easily fit in among his sisters. It was like a prank that Valery was pulling on him. A taste of his own Sal-Soren medicine.

”Look…Lyra…the first thing you are going to find about me…is that I have no clue what I am doing…”

He chuckled. It was meant to be a joke, but he quickly became serious when he realised that could be terrifying to someone.

”…but seriously…if I am good with anything it is with adaption. If you don’t have your saber…we will practice something else. You cannot predict everything I am going to do…”

He released her shoulders and marched out the door that hissed open at his approach.

”…I wouldn’t even bother trying!”

Bastila Sal-Soren

 

[Bastila Sal-Soren]

Maybe I don’t want to talk about her.
The thought flew through her head faster then she could ignore it and for the first time in a while Lyra felt a twang of shame flicker through her. This Jedi was a nice guy. He seemed it anyway, always a step ahead of where she was and with some form of retort or words. He also didn’t come across very Jedi like, which she had to admit, put her at ease.

He also did this thing, where he grabbed her shoulders and spoke at her which was a welcome moment over the very impersonal training she had received so far. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Try me.” She muttered as he said she couldn’t always predict what he would do. Clearly he had never met a Vaal before. “They have taught me basic martial arts as well.” She offered up in the hope it would make her seem more worthy of the conversation. She then realised that perhaps violence wasn’t what he had been mentioning.

“Or we can…” She was at a loss, but Brandyn seemed to know what he was doing.

Brandyn Sal-Soren

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Just as the door closed, Brandyn swung about and pulled a plastic tumbler to his hand. It narrowly missed being crushed by the door, and most of the water in the cup was spilled. He glanced into the cup and winced. Most of it had sloshed onto his sleeve when the vessel hit his palm.

”Oh…well…that is enough,” he said to himself.

“No fighting today,” Brandyn said with a snippy tone, it was belied by his grin as he wandered out onto an empty landing pad and handed Lyra the cup.

“I want you to go over there…” He pointed to the far side of the platform.

”I will turn my back…and then I want you to sneak up on me without my noticing…throw the water on me.”

Given the nature of the landing platform, there was very little as far as hiding places. It was mostly just empty, flat and quiet.

Bastila Sal-Soren