Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Seriously, What's the Deal?

Glacier-blue eyes gazed intently at the traffic that whipped by in the crowded sky lanes over Coruscant. Coruscant. Truth be told, he hated this planet. It played host to so many different forms of government over the ages, he was surprised that anybody from Coruscant or on Coruscant had even a remote sense of belonging to any ideal. It was just a bunch of random sentients trying to make whatever type of living they desired. Perhaps that, though, was the ideal nature of galactic society at large. How many people really and truly cared what happened to them? Lately, it seemed most of the people that had much of a vested interest in anything just ran away from what they did not understand or believed themselves incapable of fathoming.

Yeah, sure, Marcello was part of that problem. Or at least, he certainly had been until a certain blonde Jedi had jump-started the maturity that existed deep within the bowels of his soul. In fact, she probably didn't even really realize that she'd done it. They'd not really...seen each other since the blissful interaction that had taken place on Manaan. As they both knew, the reality and necessity of their efforts to the galaxy demanded time apart, without contact. Outside of that, Marcello was very much a rogue in the way he did things. On some level, he had the sense that the Council was happy to permit such. On another level, he knew he didn't really care anyways. Marcello wasn't boult for politics.

However, he'd contacted someone that most certainly was. Marcello did not know Jedi Master [member="Ben Watts"] personally. The man had departed the Order well before Marcello finally joined. Still, Marcello could read, and he also knew that the man had been seen floating around here and there. The Naboo native didn't know what the full story was, but he intended to find out. Given Marcello's very direct nature, he did not expect it to take him very long to get his...points across.

Standing atop some random skyscraper in the commercial district, the Jedi Master waited. Marcello enjoyed being out in the real world, so he conducted very few meetings in official locations. He presumed they both had more important things to do than walk down the halls of the Jedi Temple contemplating the nature of the light side. Marcello wasn't philisophical like that anyways.
 
There was something about Coruscant that Ben absolutely adored. The fact that he had been born and raised there certainly played a large role in it, but besides that, he loved all the people. For so long he had kept himself secluded and hidden away but now he had no reason to hide. Though he did not walk with the same aura he did at one point when he was Grandmaster, he did walk with a bit of a smile, and with his hood down so that he could make eye contact with others. Today, though, he was meeting with someone. A Jedi Master who had requested to speak with Ben on a personal matter, about what, he had no idea but he was always happy to meet with other Jedi.

Why he was traveling to the top of a skyscraper was another question all together but he did not question it. Privacy, a delicate matter, he had no idea why he was being summoned but Marcello stated it was urgent so they arranged the meeting as quickly as possible. How much he knew about Marcello was very little, a great warrior and Jedi Guardian, he was of the same kind as Ben. Though Ben was not particular fond of the great warrior title it had been bestowed upon him by more than one person. He wondered if they would still think that if they knew he had not used his lightsaber in quite some time, to the point that he was not even sure if it still work, either way he would not be finding out because he was once again walking the streets without it.

Stepping through the doors on top of the skyscraper he felt the wind comb through his hair and he took a deep breath. Spotting the Jedi Master, he walked in his direction, while at the same time admiring the view. "Excellent choice for a meeting ground," He exclaimed as he propped himself against the ledge overlooking the city. "I find that I do not come up to see the views as much as I once did. But I suppose we aren't sight seeing, you wanted to talk, so I am all ears."

[member="Marcello Matteo"]
 
Marcello could feel the fellow Jedi Master's approach, but he did not speak until [member="Ben Watts"] chose to address him. The Naboo Jedi Master's glacier-blue gaze turned Ben's direction only when he prompted the conversation to turn more to business. "I merely wished to hear your response to a simple question. Why?"

The pause that followed lasted less than a half a heartbeat. The only person that Marcello had anything more than superficial conversations with these days was Kiskla and even that was few and far between. Certainly, their linguistic engagement was usually a barely navigable maze of innuendo, sarcasm, and other half measures. Yet she seemed to know what he was saying in most instances and vice versa.

Anyways, Marcello recognized the need to be more through without sacrificing brevity. "Why did you abandon that which you had built out of the ashes of galaxy-wide chaos and despair?"
 
Ben bowed his head at the question, looking down in the direction of the ground, not able to see the bottom. The silence drifted over the two as the only sounds that were audible was the wind in their ears and the sound of the traffic flowing below them. He wondered when the questions would come and he still had not formulated a response he was sufficient with. He was not sure how others would react to his true intentions, the failures he had felt that day on Metalorn, every way it was worded came out sounding like an excuse.

"Abandoned....." It came out as a mumble if anything as he mulled his thoughts. "The decision to invade Metalorn was not an easy one. I remember I lost a lot of sleeps in the weeks leading up to it. It never felt.... right. Pressure from the Senate, pressure to conquer the Sith, those decisions weighed heavily on me. So after much Council deliberation we decided to invade Metalorn with the final decision coming down to me. Despite my gut I gave the go ahead and so it was done. Afterwards I knew I was in no place to lead the Jedi anymore, I am a peacekeeper, not a war general. I felt like I had betrayed the Jedi by leading them to war, I had forsaken my own morals, I no longer considered myself a Jedi."

The emotion was apparent in his voice but he looked as calm as he ever did. Though his mind was in turmoil his outward appearance seemed cool and collected. He had found a middle ground, a way to feel fear and control it, but not in the same way as the Sith. He gained power through his emotions but he harnessed them in a different way. He did not linger on the emotions, they simply floated away, and it made him seem as if he was always as calm as ever.

"The decision to exile myself was not an easy one. I have been a Jedi since the day I was born like my father before me. I love the Jedi with all of my heart and with the direction we were going at the time.... I would have been doing nothing but holding us back. I never had any intention of leaving forever, I knew I would be back, the only question was when. As difficult as it is to believe, I am more needed when the Jedi are in disarray, when we are on our heels and we need a calming presence to keep us going. I do understand that it seems as if I abandoned you, that I did not care, that my own personal problems seemed to care more than the Orders but that is not true. Why did I leave? I left to let the Order grow, and in some sense, to grow up myself."

[member="Marcello Matteo"]
 
Marcello was...pensive as he continued to listen to [member="Ben Watts"]. Truthfully, Marcello could not relate to much of what the man was saying. The Naboo native had not been a member of the Order through...any of Master Watts' time. However, Marcello did know a little bit about detaching from a greater society to find one's way. In the end Marcello came to one conclusion - there was neither a perfect person nor perfect organization in the galaxy. That was reality, that was life. Their mandate was simply to do what they could to maintain some semblance of peace.

"I see." Pausing, Marcello considered his words for a moment. "You are wrong to think that so-called flaws make you a flawed individual. To err is to be a sentient being...an organism within the Force. Even the Force itself is not perfect because perfection is a fallacy." Waving a dismissive hand, Marcello smiled thinly. "We rise and fall on the tides of our own ability to accept what the truth of existence is in the galaxy. Make decisions, don't look back. That is why we train...to know that we are making a continuous effort to be the best version of ourselves."

Turning his gaze back to the skyline, he motioned to Coruscant as a whole. "This planet is very indicative of life. It's dirty and clean, ugly and beautiful, safe and dangerous..." Slowly, Marcello turned his full attention back to Ben. "...and it will thrive or perish as such dependent upon how many good men and women fall from their solemn vow to do right by it because they suffer some attack of conscience."

Smiling, Marcello concluded his thoughts. "Your experience both in and out of the Order are what it needs. What the galaxy needs. This, of course, presumes you have the strength to fight alongside like-minded individuals to make it work."

Man. If only they could see him now, fighting for the honor of the Order. Yeah. That wasn't him. "The Order is jacked. This continues only because it suffers a critical lack of experienced membership to guide its path."

Preach. Most of the Council had been masters for a handful of seconds in the grand scheme. Life experience was very much an important asset to leadership, but it did not take sitting upon the Council to be a leader. Marcello would leave that for the politically inclined. He wanted Ben with him, in the trenches, slugging it out for the betterment of all.

The Jedi Master knew others would want to pull him into the political sphere, but the Naboo native did not sense that was where Ben wanted to really be. Where he was of most use.
 

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