Private Solitary Resignment

[Cotan Sar'andor]

Needless to say, the earlier meeting at Romi's enclave hadn't gone nearly the way Cotan might have hoped. More than anything, he'd been left frustrated by it. Frustrated at Kyra, for breaking Ryv's nose in a sudden outburst; frustrated at Romi herself, with the reaction she'd had to it all, after Kyra went and broke Ryv's nose. Frustrated at Julius and his reply, and frustrated at Ryv and the others who followed him for always blasting open their own line of communication rather than trying to follow any of the ones that were already set.

Frustrated at everybody for their constant inability to dig deeper into what anybody else was saying, to look beyond the surface and actually reach out and take the hands that were outstretched, sometimes in supplication, others in aid.

It had been a struggle enough to shake off the psychic after-effects of Ryv's reaching out to anybody open to help him steady himself; everything else that happened, especially when considered alongside the madness that had already seen fit to dog his heels after he came back to try and lend a hand, was going beyond a struggle. Still, he'd gotten everybody that had remained after the confrontation to sit down and relax, drink some tea, and get back to life as normal. Once that was seen to—and after dropping a thermos off at Romi's door as well—he grabbed his own tea pot, cups, and leaves, and set off out from the enclave, into the rapidly cooling night-time desert.

Without bothering to use a Solitude Stone or digging into any records Romi had to figure out where Jend-Ro Quill had went, it took him a while to find the old man's hermitage; Cotan had to wander for a bit before picking up on Quill's 'scent' through the Force. Thus, by the time he had reached the commandeered home, he was quite a bit more relaxed than when he'd started out. Just as he'd intended; it wouldn't do to subject the elder master to any more ridiculous excitement.

Walking up the short set of wooden planks paving the way to what he assumed was the main entrance, Cotan stopped, reached out a hand, and knocked on the duracrete—or, possibly, actual sandstone; it was already too eroded to tell—beside the door, to avoid knocking a hole through the wood.

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

A sound of shuffling from within.

"I have been drinking water out of a hole in a rock," Quill grumped. He opened the door with his good hand; the other, only half Force-healed, was still tucked in a sling made from his outer robe. "Cotan, if you've brought your tea, I'd-"

He opened the door and beheld Cotan's tea set. A smile cracked his demeanor for the first time in a while.

"Well come on in, Master Sar'andor. Welcome to my home."

Cotan Sar'andor

 

[Cotan Sar'andor]

"Must be a good thing I brought some of Asha's special blend, eh? My teapot isn't as fancy as hers, though, so don't expect something miraculous."

Cotan walked in with the invitation, quickly casting his glance around the place for a spot to set up shop and begin brewing the tea. It was easy enough to find—neither Quill nor the previous occupant had carried much in the way of possessions, so the hermitage was rather empty, still. Not that Cotan needed much more than the thankfully-present hot plate and pitcher of water.

If he'd had to go draw his own, well, he didn't have the faintest clue where Quill's hole-in-the-rock actually was. "Also, you know you don't need to bother with all that Master Sar'andor business with me," he told the elder somewhat absent-mindedly as he filled the pot, setting the water to start heating. "It's weird enough that so many of these kids keep saying it, I don't need you to start, too."

Straightening up from the hot plate, Cotan turned, leaning against one wall and nodding at the hand that Quill still carried in a sling. "Want to get that fixed up a bit faster?" he asked. "I still have that crystal we found back in Firefist, if you wanted to just finish the healing and get back up to one-hundred percent."

Jend-Ro Quill

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

Cotan Sar'andor

Quill had no idea who Asha was, but took it in stride.

"Now that's an offer more welcome than the tea. I'd forgotten all about that crystal. I've been trying to heal it myself, but the damage went deep."

As Cotan set up his tea and the crystal and so forth, Quill tidied up a little. That mostly involved sweeping windblown sand off the rickety table and chairs to join the incipient dunes on the floor.

He took a seat and unwrapped the sling from his arm. His hand wasn't bloody, but there were plenty of things wrong with it.

"Thalia - the Padawan - was working herself up to a major attack when I hit her with Force Light. She lost control and the energy she'd gathered blew her hand apart. So I took her injury on myself - it's a strange rare skill - and came here. Been trying to heal it myself, like I said."

 

[Cotan Sar'andor]

Cotan joined Quill at the table, measuring some of the tea leaves into a pair of infusers, one for each cup. "That's what I've been told," he said in response to the master's short tale. "Lucky she at least had sense enough not to keep running after you. No need to worry about her for the moment, anyways—at least no more than usual. She's on a shuttle headed to Tribunal station, for the enclave I've helped set up there." Almost abruptly he turned, taking the pot off of the hot plate so that the water didn't get too warm, pouring some into each of the prepared cups.

Trust Cotan never to get distracted from the particulars of tea making.

Setting the pot back down, he reacehd into a pocket, withdrawing the pendant that Jend-ro had helped him procure, and passed it across the table. "Things certainly aren't coming across as simple as they did in the Coalition, are they? First that talk of the Silvers allying with the Sith, all the trouble with the Bryn'adul, and now this mess." He let out a short snort, a wry smile starting to come across his face.

"Can't wait for the day that we can all stop making each other's mistakes and start taking some real steps forward, as an entire galaxy. What do you think we'll see next? An eighteenth Alsakan Crisis?"

Jend-Ro Quill

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

Quill snorted, perhaps more volubly than intended. A clot of sand exited his nose.

"Or a fifteenth Republic," he said in a voice as dry as Jakku. "Tell me about this Asha - I've heard the name before."

He wanted to express relief that Thalia Senn was safe and still among Jedi. But honestly, he couldn't find that much purity of feeling in himself. He'd invested a few weeks in teaching her before she tried to kill him. He understood how betrayed she'd felt; he felt it too. So he left the subject of Thalia alone for now.


Cotan Sar'andor

 

[Cotan Sar'andor]

"You might be thinking of Asha Seren," was Cotan's reply, stifling a laugh at Jend-Ro's response to his joke. "Thurion Heavenshield's old master, if I remember right. That's been a pretty long time ago, now." While it was possible that the older master had heard of the Asha that he was referencing, he considered it fairly unlikely. Unless he had mentioned her before to Quill...

Had he?

"Anyways, I'm thinking of Asha Hex. I ran into her one day on Aaris III, trying to track down a pirate that had hidden somewhere in the forests there. I stopped, took a break and had some tea with her at her invitation—she was very accomodating, considering that our first meeting was me stepping out of a bush with a blaster in hand. Set to stun, of course, but still." Not necessarily the best sort of first impression, and yet somehow, things had gone well in the time since. "Then I helped oversee her group make a temple on Ceto, and joined in with them to learn a bit after that time I fought Darths Carnifex and Prazutis on Coruscant. Since then, well..."

He gave Jend-Ro Quill a small smile, pulling his cup closer to warm his hands.

"I suppose you could say we've grown fond of each other."

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

"Sounds like a real point of light, the kind that isn't, mm, ostentatious about it."

Quill was quiet for a while, pondering what his life would have been like if he'd been inclined to form romantic attachments at all. Or even just attachments. Much as Quill liked his solitude, people like Cotan Sar'andor seemed to draw real strength and groundedness from their relationships.

"I envy that," he said eventually. "Having someone to rely on, trust unconditionally."

 

[Cotan Sar'andor]

Cotan fell quiet as Quill did, not bothering to break the silence—and likely with it, the elder man's thoughts. Thankfully, though, the Jedi Master never failed to start speaking again just before it would get awkward to continue not doing so. "Who says it has to come in that way, though?" he asked, after Quill stated his small envy. "There's a kindred spirit for everyone in the galaxy, in some sort—as painful and frustrating as the act of finding them might be, let alone afterwards. Giving yourself over to anybody like that, close friend, lover, or anything in between, is inviting suffering in; after all, I'd be lying if I said Asha's propensity to disappear at a moment's notice when she hears the Force calling about something hasn't been a stumbling block."

As he spoke, he pulled the infuser out of his cup of tea; this particular blend didn't require long to steep, unlike some of the darker varieties Cotan was often partial to when he didn't have a redheaded young Je'daii around to steal the leaves from. "Call me brave or foolish, though, but I prefer to keep myself a lot more open that way. A lot of people need to find that sort of person, but just as many need that sort of trust put in them. Spurs them to learn and grow, gives me a bit more of a hand in things—and, well, a bit of pain and disappointment on my part is a small price to pay if it helps make the galaxy a better place."

He nodded at Quill's hand, still conspicuously sat upon the table, still as-of-yet unintroduced to the abilities of the pendant Cotan had produced. "A bit like that, I'd say, but on a...definitely a different level."

Jend-Ro Quill ​

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

Almost reluctantly - he couldn't say why - Quill picked up the ancient healing pendant with his good hand. Using any healing artifact to its full potential, he knew, required a deep trance on the part of the user.

"You have a point or five," he said absently, looking into the smoky kyber. He wrapped the chain around his ruined hand and tucked the crystal into the sling against the inside of his wrist. The complex structures there had proved the hardest to heal. "I envy you, you know. Not just...well, all of that, but you..." He sucked his teeth in thought.

"..I think the Je'daii have a healthier relationship with their own humanity than the Jedi do. Our way is repression, denial, sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice. What's repressed can vary." He shrugged. "Sometimes it's things that need repression. Megalomania, narcissism, vengeance. Often it's not, and repression does more harm than good. Thirty years I've given to this Order, Cotan."


Cotan Sar'andor

 

[Cotan Sar'andor]

"I've always felt that the code—at least, the way that it's normally presented, after Odan-urr's revisions, if you think that side of history is the right of it all—is flawed," Cotan admitted. "Denial, indeed. There is no emotion, and all that. It's unhealthy. My master—you'd probably have liked him, come to think of it—taught me to focus on the older version, and every day I have to thank him for it, even if I don't really consider myself a Jedi any longer." He looked down into his cup, thinking back on his master. The venerable Rishii Jedi had been dead and gone for years, and Cotan left with no clue what had happened to any of his other Padawans; still, he had a lot to owe to the old bird.

"He always felt that the old code was wiser, and that the attempted clarification, the revisions, they lost the truth of it. Acceptance, not denial. We all have flaws, after all. It's part of what makes us us. Would there be any meaning to existing if we were all perfect, with no room to learn and grow?" He glanced back up. "And Kha'rii had already given seventy to the order by the time he was cut down."

Another thoughtful sip.

"Don't let yourself get too bogged down in it. You're a good Jedi, a good man, by any standard. Taking on the wound of somebody trying to kill you, to spare them the pain, to show them a better way, to save them, any of it, is proof of that. But it's never enough to accept your own flaws, you know; you have to accept others', too." He drained the last of his tea, setting the cup down, with another thoughtful stare at the last few drops that clung, defiantly, to the side of it.

No doubt, a man as perceptive as Jend-Ro Quill would notice the small frustration that already built up in him with his next thoughts.

"These kids, Ryv, Tafo, and the rest...they're phenomenally stupid in some ways. The Imperial Knights, and the order at large, are often just as brutal as the Sith they've tried to break away from. But so was I, once. So was Romi, so was Coren. But then, with Romi, at the enclave earlier...I understand her frustrations. They all showed up, like a bunch of idiots, unannounced, knocking at the door and expecting a meeting. It was more understandable when I went with them to Commenor, but here, it was ridiculous."

Unbidden, a deep frown pulled at the corners of his mouth. "Then Kyra Perl lost her cool and broke Ryv's nose. Romi got fed up with it, pointed out all the ways that she, myself, Coren, and so many others had been the same as them, jumping into action, even when the older masters told us not to, before they shut the door in our faces...and then she basically did the exact same thing, the way I took it. So on and so forth, all through history, with every council, every enclave leadership, everything like that...even while so many of us in the galaxy venerate and revere Jedi that bucked the trend. Qui-Gon Jinn sound familiar?"

The frown turned into a wry smile at that. There were others, Revan chief among them; both before his fall, and after his redemption, his willingness to tell the council and elder masters to more-or-less shove it was well known, as were the deeds he accomplished by refusing to follow the council's urging. Meetra Surik was another, and there would always be more to be found, if one just looked.

"You're a good teacher, Quill. Everything I've seen points to that. But sometimes we need something new—a lot of us, for a long time, have just been trying to counsel and guide. The way I see it, sometimes you have to get up and ride the tauntaun to get it to the hot springs, you can't just hope it'll listen. Keep calling them out, but don't give up on any of them. Don't let them try to buck you off, either. These kids are stubborn, and they'll need a firmer hand than the Jedi normally call for. You've got at least another thirty in you somewhere, I'm sure of it. And if you do ever need a break, or if everything goes mad and you think you need to leave outright just to be safe, you're always welcome back on Tribunal station. I can give you a place separate from everybody else, and there's a garden I think you might really enjoy, although you might have to contend with my—"

He stopped, pursing his lips while he contemplated what terminology to use. Obviously they weren't married, but girlfriend didn't seem to carry the right gravitas, the right sense of what the relationship meant.

"—My partner to have an uninterrupted time in it. You'd probably like her too, though; and like I said, she makes the best tea in the galaxy."

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

"Too much has been lost. Diluted, muddied, buried, forgotten. When I crack open a rediscovered holocron, I know one thing for sure: whatever form the Jedi took back then, it's unrelated to the form...we...take now. Reforms are just patches on threadbare clothes. Restoration - that's what's needed, or starting fresh. Bah - ignore me."

Throughout Cotan's commentary, the crystal had done its work well, or begun at least. Quill dared to take down the walls of crucitorn he'd built to blunt the pain.

"Before you showed up, I'd nearly made up my mind to hang up my lightsaber for good. I don't want to feel like this anymore.

"But again - ignore my self-pity. Let me ask you something. If you were to move to neuter the Sith threat, without being part of the New Orders and their war, what would you do? What direction would you take?"

 

[Cotan Sar'andor]

"The same direction I take now," Cotan replied, almost instantly. "Ultimately, the orders mean nothing to me. There've always been, and there will always be groups and orders that study the Force, that interact with it in their way, have their own understanding, and in various ways oppose each other, oppose the Force itself, at times. No matter what, they all share a lot more than they might ever want to admit. The galaxy could be divided into Jal Shey versus the Sorcerers of Tund and things would hardly be any different. It's not about that, and it's not about the wars.

"If I can argue someone into dropping their weapon, I'll do it. If I can take someone alive, I'll do it. If I have to kill, to save someone else, or to ensure the safety of vast swathes of the galaxy...I'll do it, with no hesitation. That's something that I think far too many among the Jedi of this era consider a duty, and not the sacrifice that it is; nobody is beyond redemption, but sometimes circumstances just don't allow that path to be taken without condemning someone entirely undeserving, and no matter what choice you make, it hurts. Taking a life is a pain that'll stay with you the rest of your life, no matter what you do to avoid it. I just hope I can get some of these kids to learn that before it tears them apart."

He drummed his fingers on the table, thinking a moment more. "Everything evolves, though. Today's Jedi might not be the Jedi of the past, of any point in the past, but I wouldn't call it unrelated. The same threads are there. Restoration, starting fresh, reforms...maybe it's time for a rebirth, instead. If you cut the shirt into rags it still serves an important purpose. And Quill?"

He smiled up at the older man.

"You know I can't just ignore that. Hang up your lightsaber all you want, but don't hang up who you are. We're in one of those turbulent periods, where what it means to be a Jedi, a Je'daii, or anything else—hell, what it means to serve the Force itself—is constantly under question and scrutiny. I'd much rather we lived in a time of peace and stability, and I could just go back to Naboo and be an artist, but the Force wants us here, and I care too much to walk away from that...and while I don't know you half as well as I would like, I'd hazard a guess that you're the same way, so just take the reins and pull. You're in a unique place to help determine what serving the Force will look like in another few centuries." He pursed his lips once more, thoughtfully, and withdrew something else from his pockets—the holocron his master had left him with.

"It'll hurt, a lot. It always does. But it isn't sacrifice for sacrifice's sake—it's a sacrifice to try and make things better for everybody who comes after us. The same thing so many orders, and all Je'daii and Jedi have been trying to do since the former were founded, what, some thirty-thousand years ago? Supposedly, anyways. Counterintuitive as it is, I think there are some pains that should be welcomed, but out of compassion for others, not out of duty. That holocron can show you how that simple difference has been the stumbling block for so many of us for...well, forever. In stories and histories both."

Jend-Ro Quill ​

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

"Compassion." Quill shook his head and took the holocron with his good hand. It had a feeling of immense antiquity, like most of the best holocrons and some of the crappier ones. This particular specimen clearly meant a lot to Cotan. The physicality of his interaction with it held as much care as when he'd pulled out the healing crystal, and Quill knew for sure how Cotan felt about that one. "I spoke with my friend Sargon Vynea - I think your partner knows him; he's mentioned an Asha before. Sargon gave a similar...well, not similar, but compatible, parallel answer to a similar question. Compassion for the Sith, compassion for the fools."

He set the holocron carefully on his good shelf, the one that hadn't yet fallen out of the wall.

"I don't take reins, and it's more than a matter of comfort zones. I'm wired wrong, Cotan. Neurodiverse is the modern term. Call it an excuse if you like, but I-"

But it was an excuse, wasn't it, or at least he'd been using it like one. He grimaced and stopped talking.

On the plus side, his hand felt significantly better.

 

[Cotan Sar'andor]

"Wait, Sargon?"

Now it was Cotan's turn to fall fully speechless. One eyebrow raised, though he at least had presence of mind enough to keep his jaw from hanging open. "He was her old master, more or less...hell, he might as well be her adoptive father. From what she's told me, it sounds like her original wasn't always the best." He had to wonder just how deep the various connections between him and the old master before him went. He was friends with Sargon, obviously they had both done quite a bit with the old Outer Rim Coalition...

"You haven't spoken to Caedyn Arenais recently too, have you? He used to be her apprentice, a long time ago."

At that point, he couldn't help but laugh at the coincidence of it all. Once he finished with his surprised laughter, he gestured to the holocron. "Hold onto that for a week," he bid the elder man. "Or a month, even. You know how to find me once you've exhausted your curiosity with it for the time being, but other than memories, that's all I have left of Kha'rii. Feel free to add to it, too, if the mood strikes you." A generous opportunity that Cotan hadn't offered to anybody else yet. Letting the holocron out of his possession for any length of time was hard enough; to let someone else add to it took quite a bit of trust.

But after everything he'd just been saying earlier, it would prove him a hypocrite to simply deny Quill the opportunity.

"Like I said, though. Helping guide anybody—not just advise, but guide—is going to hurt. Some more than others, some differently than others, but it'll hurt all the same. Your wiring is part of what makes you you, and just as much as I think a lot of them need to hear from me, even things they won't want to hear, they need to hear from somebody like you, too. More than they have. At least the opportunity to keep steering them away from Grayson's war-seeking ways should be taken. They all deserve better, and I can't guarantee my ability to keep that up when I'm dealing with the Rim, the new Je'daii hopefuls Asha's found, and trying to get Tavlar and his followers to look up to Gilad Pellaeon and Jag Fel more than they do to Thrawn and Trachta."