Tieing off loose ends
Crait
Old Rebel Base
Michael, Gabriel,
Azrael, Sariel, Raphael, Jeremiel, Connel,
Raguel
[Any text in brackets signifies comm-link usage and not face to face conversation]
I did… was almost certain you wouldn’t show.
When saying that, he got up and looked her way, waving a dismissive hand.
I don’t mean that disrespectfully. Buster went back to playing as Connel stood there for a moment and looked at her, then out to the salt flats.
The chamber was quiet—too quiet for the weight it carried. Dust motes drifted like ghosts through the pale light filtering in from the ruined skylight above. Connel stood there, gloved fingers turning the small Holocron over once, twice. Its crystal core pulsed faintly, as though it recognized the blood that held it.
Across from him stood Romi Jade—still, centered, and solemn. The years hadn’t dulled her presence, only sharpened it into something harder, colder. Once, his father had trusted her completely. Once, she had been there side by side through battles and councils alike. But not
that day.
Connel’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. There was no point anymore in the accounting of old debts, even the unfair ones. The dead didn’t ask for vengeance, only remembrance.
The galaxy isn’t smaller, or heavier. Let’s face it. We’ve just gotten too frelling full of ourselves. It has happened all too many times throughout history.
He didn’t like saying it, or thinking it. Clearly Romi, or Askani, or whatever her name is today was feeling it, just by the look of her.
He himself was feeling it, with the weight of all he was carrying right now on him. This wasn’t some game of comparison, just a fact of how things were turning out and it made him visibly angry. He wouldn’t throw things anymore, he wouldn’t rant how those who were needed abandoned the very oaths, the very codes they supposedly believed in. He stopped caring.
He had nothing right now, but his own, and what his father had given him, and still had to give others.
You know, he began quietly, his voice carrying that calm edge of a man long past rage,
my father used to say the Light doesn’t need to win every battle… it just needs to keep showing up.
He glanced down at the Holocron in his hand, the faint blue reflection ghosting across his mask.
He believed that as long as one of us still stood—one Jedi—then the galaxy hadn’t lost itself entirely. ‘One Jedi can make a difference…’ I didn’t understand that before. I do now.
For a moment, his expression softened—grief bleeding through the disciplined control.
There’s so much bitterness in the air now. So many grudges and fractures. We’ve all failed someone. I’ve failed him more than anyone else ever could. But the thing about Light… it doesn’t hold grudges. It just keeps burning.
He never liked keeping all of the things he made, or acquired over the years, felt that they should be passed on to the next generation, people who would make the most use, or respect it the most. He said, pointing to “Conservator”, the Long Handle Lightsaber held by his father for so long, the weapon that was sheathed over his back.
He stepped forward, offering her the Holocron.
He made this a while ago. Called it The Way of the Saber. He taught it to me, part of it to a couple of kids. Said it wasn’t about form or technique, but about intent. About how the weapon only means something if the one holding it still remembers why they fight.
He offered to let Romi reach for it, but Connel didn’t let go right away. His voice dropped, a low, resolute whisper.
He wanted you to have this, to keep it safe, Master Jade. Not for him—for what he stood for. He believed in you, in all that this... He then held both hands out, gesturing to the old base. Was he referring to the old “Rebel Alliance” or her gathering, what seemed like so many years ago, or something else?
... even when the galaxy gave him every reason not to. He believed in you, me, everyone, all of this… believed we were all built different... better and not in the “snooty” way. He believed in all of it. I’m struggling with that right now, but with each item I will out, following his wishes, I understand it a little bit more. Maybe that’s what faith really is. Look, use it, teach it to someone, do what you feel best, but if he mattered to you at all…
It may have sounded a bit harsh, but for once, if she looked for it, she would probably hear a tinge of the voice of the young boy who was awkward, but so “wide-eyed” and vibrant. Not this harsh husk of a man that is much too young to feel that old.
The Holocron’s faint hum deepened, as though in acknowledgment. Connel finally opened it, the short process was something any Jedi who had used a holocron would recognize and then finally a familiar figure filled the glowing blue hue:
Passcode?
The Light still shines. Even now. Especially now.
Hello there. What can I do for you, Connel?
Connel just looked, trying to remain professional, but a person blind in sight and in the FOrce would know full well that his reaction still was one of someone missing a loved one. He ftried to fight off a smile.
Authorizing this woman, you should know her.
As the image that was once Caltin Vanagor turned and looked, “he” nodded.
Romi Jade. I was wondering when I would see you. Not literally, just an aspect of the programming having his personality.
Mother Askani
, but the real @Romi Jade…
