Private Who I Used to Be

[Iandre Athlea]

There was something comforting about walking the almost familiar streets of Naboo. Things had changed a little since Iandre had last been here. One thing remained, though, and that was one of the gardens. She retraced her steps and walked through the nature path before heading in the direction of the place she was here to visit.

A chance encounter at the gala had brought her here. A man she bumped into there had invited her to search for the Jedi of the High Republic and maybe reconcile some of the differences she had come across. He might have learned she wasn't from this time, but she hadn't told him at that event. Rumors flew, and perhaps that was why he had extended this opportunity to her. It didn't actually matter, but what he offered had her interested.

When she had emerged from her hibernation, she had awoken to a galaxy that had changed. The Jedi she had known were long gone, and she needed to adjust to this new time. Friends had helped her with that, and she had learned how to love and be open to people. Even if she remained stoic most of the time, she recognized she had emotions and it was okay to show them. Yet she still wanted to understand the current affairs of the Jedi.

That brought her to Naboo, and following the directions given to her by the man, she openly approached this new temple. Well, new to her. One seemingly hidden in the mountains, but she was able to find it with the guidance that had been given to her. She didn't anticipate staying for anything long-term; the atmosphere and feeling she got on these grounds were a temptation. She had a life, though, and she would return to that. Duty and honor also played a role in her decision, but now that she was free for a time, she wanted some questions answered. Just who were the Jedi of this time?

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea
​

The mountain wind carried with it the scent of rain and stone. It slipped down the terraced slopes like a sigh, threading between the pillars and moss-wrapped archways of the sanctuary. Morning sunlight filtered through the mist, painting soft gold across the carved marble each ripple of the light gliding over years of patient craftsmanship.

Aiden Porte paused on the steps that overlooked the valley below. From here, he could see the vines that grew along the lower terraces, their small, pale blossoms swaying like quiet prayers. He often came here at dawn, when the temple's song was still when the air was thin and he could hear the Force move clearly, like a stream running beneath the surface of the world.

Today, it felt different.

He turned his gaze toward the path winding up from the foothills, where the forest met the stone. The sensation had arrived before the sight the quiet ripple in the current of the Force, a familiar hum wrapped in something ancient. Not darkness, but age. Echoes of a time when the Order had walked a different rhythm, when the light felt closer to myth than method.

Someone was coming.

He exhaled slowly, grounding himself in the stillness. The mountain birds stirred, wings catching the sunlight as they scattered across the open air. The Force responded, not warning him, but whispering of arrival of something long-preserved stepping into the present.

Aiden's hand brushed the small satchel at his side, where a datapad rested beside a bundle of wildflowers gathered from the lower gardens. He didn't move to greet the figure yet; he simply waited, posture open, presence calm. When she finally appeared on the trail, the wind shifted again. Cloaked in travel's dust and the poise of someone accustomed to solitude, the woman paused at the gate as though listening to the world breathe around her. Even from this distance, he could feel it the pulse of the past lingering within her.

Aiden inclined his head slightly, more out of respect than formality.

The Force stirred again, and for a moment, he thought he heard a whisper carried on the breeze.

One who remembers the beginning has come to see how it ends.

He stepped forward, voice quiet, yet clear enough to carry through the still air. "Welcome to Shiraya's sanctuary." he said. "You've come a long way, I'm glad you were able to find your way my friend."

 

[Iandre Athlea]

One of the things her master from this time had told her to do was slow down. Take the time to appreciate the beauty of the world. Not everything had a deadline, and she didn't always need to hurry. As she walked the winding mountain path, she could feel the life around her. Not only that of the Jedi but of nature'

Breathing in deeply, she smelled the distant rain and the earthy scent of the ground. The breeze carried the spores of pollen from the flowers, but it didn't bother Iandre. Stopping next to a stream, she listened as it flowed over the rocks and through the grasses at its bank.

When she finished admiring the scene of everyday life, she looked up at the lightening sky and wore a small smile. If she didn't have her life on Bastion to return to or a man waiting for her, she might like to build a home here. It would be something for her to keep in mind and maybe a goal she could carry back to the Diarchy.

Wind pulled at her braid as it gusted for a moment before dying away. Sensing no danger in front of her, she continued her walk. Passing through the threshold of the sanctuary grounds, she saw the motion of Aiden. The man who had told her to search for this place. He was here to meet her, and she lifted the hem of her robe to join him.

"Thank you for meeting me here, Aiden. And inviting me to find this place. I hope your life has been well since we met at the gala."

Aiden might sense some of the same not-quite confusion she had felt then. It was different now. Instead of the simple question of, "Who are the Jedi?", it was also, "Where do I belong?" She didn't ask these questions, but he already knew about the first.

"This is a beautiful planet, and I'm glad to be walking here again. It's been a very long time."

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea
​

Aiden inclined his head as she approached, her robes brushing softly against the stone path. The morning light caught on the strands of her braid and for a moment he could feel the faint ripple of warmth that followed her through the Force steady, but layered, like an old melody played on new strings.

When she spoke, he felt her tone carried both courtesy and a quiet searching, and Aiden listened in silence. It was not only her words that reached him, but the emotions beneath them curiosity, tempered by longing at least in his mind. The kind that came from someone who had walked far through time as much as space.

"The world doesn't rush here. It breathes, and the Force breathes with it."

For a few moments, the only sound was the wind moving through the nearby trees, the gentle rhythm of the Sanctuary bells marking the passing hours.

He stepped aside, gesturing toward the garden beyond the courtyard. "If you'd like, I can show you what's been built here. It's not a grand temple like those of your time. It's quieter. Closer to the soil."

Aiden's gaze lingered on her a moment longer as if seeing not only the woman before him, but the centuries of light she carried.

"Tell me." he said at last, "What do you hope to find?"

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre paused at the edge of the garden path, letting the soft morning light brush over her grey robes. Her braid caught a glint of sunlight as she stepped closer, grey eyes scanning the careful harmony of soil and stone. The Force hummed around her, steady but layered, a quiet melody she had not yet fully learned to read. As she moved, the breeze seemed to shift with her, a subtle acknowledgment of her presence—leaves tilting, petals brushing the air as if the garden itself recognized her question before it left her lips.


She inclined her head slightly, voice calm but carrying the weight of searching. "How do you listen to the Force when it doesn't speak clearly? When it's tangled?"

Her thoughts flickered briefly, unbidden: the lessons Aisha had pressed into her mind long ago, the patient guidance of a master who had shaped her discipline. And beneath that, the quiet ache of absence—the one whose presence lingered even when he was near in memory, Rellik, whose warmth she could still feel in fleeting moments. She pushed the thought back, centering herself, knowing this was the question she had come here to ask.

The garden held its breath, the wind rustling the leaves, carrying the scent of damp earth and growing things. A faint pulse in the Force reached out to her fingertips as if inviting her to reach deeper, to feel the rhythm beneath the surface of all living things. She kept her gaze on him, not just on the man before her but the centuries of knowledge he seemed to carry, and beneath it, the faint pulse of understanding she hoped might guide her own steps

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea
​

Aiden's expression softened at her question, though his silence lingered long after the sound of it had faded. The garden around them seemed to fold into that quiet the air still, the birdsong retreating to the edges of the moment as if even nature wished to listen.

He stepped closer, not to crowd her but to share the same patch of sunlight that spilled across the stone path. "The Force doesn't always speak in words." he said at last. "Sometimes it murmurs in patterns the shift of wind, the flicker of instinct, the ache that reminds you of something lost."

His gaze followed the arc of a small blossom swaying beside the path. "When it tangles, it's not because it's gone silent. It's because it's trying to show us everything at once. Every possibility, every echo, every fear we haven't laid down yet."

He paused, the faintest smile ghosting across his features. "Most of us mistake that noise for confusion. But it's only the reflection of our own unrest. The Force doesn't unravel we do."

He looked back to her then, meeting her gaze with quiet steadiness. "When I can't hear it clearly, I stop listening for words. I let the silence speak first. A breath. A moment. The Force is patient more patient than we ever are with ourselves."

A breeze stirred the air between them, scattering petals across the path. For a heartbeat, it seemed as though the wind had paused just to listen.

"You've carried a great deal of sound with you." he said softly. "Old echoes. Memories that still want to be heard. If you sit with them long enough, they'll stop shouting. And what remains… that will be the Force."

Aiden gestured toward the bench beneath a canopy of pale blossoms, stone worn smooth by rain and time. "Walk with me, Iandre. Let the garden show you what words can't."

He started down the path beside her, their steps falling into quiet rhythm, two presences moving through sunlight and shadow, bound not by answers but by the same question that had always carried the Jedi forward.

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre fell into step beside him, her movements unhurried for once. The sunlight filtered through the canopy in fractured gold, warming the edges of her grey robes. The air felt still in a way she hadn't allowed herself to feel in a long time, calm, unburdened, patient.

As they walked, she heard her master's voice in memory, gentle but firm: Slow down, little one. The galaxy won't break if you stop to breathe. The echo settled deep in her chest, a quiet ache threaded with fondness.

When they reached the bench, she sat slowly, her palms brushing against the cool stone. Her gaze wandered across the garden. The way the blossoms leaned toward the light, the way the breeze stirred without urgency. It was grounding.

"It's strange," she said at last, her voice subdued but thoughtful. "I've been told to be still a hundred times, but I never really understood why it mattered. I thought stillness meant doing nothing...wasting time."

Her eyes followed a petal as it drifted down to the path. "But maybe it's the only way to hear what's been waiting all along."

She exhaled quietly, leaning back against the bench. "I think I've spent so long running toward what's next that I forgot how to just… be."

The words lingered in the air, carried off by the same wind that stirred the blossoms. For once, Iandre didn't chase after them; she let the silence remain.

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea
​

Then he sat beside her, the stone cool beneath his palms, the hush between them settling into something steady and unspoken.

"Stillness isn't the absence of motion." he said after a long pause. "It's the moment you stop running from where you are."

He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees, gaze sweeping across the garden's slow dance of color and breeze. "When I was younger, I thought the same thing that if I wasn't moving, I was wasting time. To answer every call, to always do something. But the Force doesn't move like that. It doesn't rush. It simply is."

He drew in a breath, feeling the rhythm of it the air warm and full of pollen, the faint hum of the temple bells in the distance. "Sometimes the greatest act of trust is to stop. To listen. To let the galaxy breathe without our hands trying to shape it."

His voice softened, more personal now. "You've lived through change that most beings couldn't begin to imagine. To awaken in a different age to find that everything familiar has become history that's no small weight to carry. The instinct to keep moving it's survival."

He looked at her then, really looked not with the cool assessment of a Jedi, but with quiet understanding. "But you don't have to survive here. Not in this moment."

He let the words fade, allowing silence to reclaim its place. The garden filled it easily a whisper of wind, the ripple of the stream beyond the hedge, the slow pulse of life beneath their feet.

Aiden's gaze followed the drifting petal that had caught her eye earlier, its slow spiral downward reflecting something almost sacred in its simplicity. "Maybe." he said quietly, "This is what the Force wanted you to find not answers, not purpose. Just permission."

He turned his palms upward, resting them loosely on his knees, the faintest shimmer of light tracing the air between his fingers not a deliberate act, just the natural current of calm moving through him. "When you stop chasing the next step." he murmured, "Sometimes the path finds you."

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre shifted slightly, letting her hands rest loosely in her lap, the stone bench cool beneath her palms. Her grey eyes lifted for a moment, then closed, allowing the garden's warmth and the faint hum of the temple bells to settle around her. The slow spiral of a petal caught in the breeze drifted past her face, and she imagined it carrying some quiet truth meant only for her.

Stop chasing. Let it find me. The thought surfaced softly, tentative, and she tested it against the cadence of her own instincts. Always moving. Always surviving, always searching, and always remembering Rellik. For once, she allowed herself a pause, letting the notion rest without judgment.

She felt the rough texture of the stone beneath her fingers, the subtle rustle of leaves overhead, the distant drip of water from a moss-covered fountain, all ordinary things, yet together forming a language of calm.

"I think I understand," she murmured, voice barely above the breeze, more to herself than anyone else. Her shoulders eased, the taut weight of perpetual vigilance slackening for the first time in what felt like ages.

She let the Force's subtle current flow around her, feeling it not as command or instruction, but as a quiet companion. The garden, the petal, the filtered sunlight—it was enough. The silence itself had a language, and for now, she was willing to hear it.

Even with her eyes closed, she sensed Aiden's presence beside her, steady and patient. He didn't speak or move closer, allowed the moment to exist, aware of the pause she had taken. His quiet patience became part of the rhythm, a reminder that observation could exist without intrusion.

Yet her thoughts rested elsewhere. It wasn't him she carried in this calm—it was Rellik, his presence lingering in memory and intention, a quiet anchor that reminded her of why she moved at all.

Perhaps this was what he had meant by permission: the right to exist without expectation, without motion simply, and to breathe for herself—even if only for a single moment.

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea
​

He did not speak. There was no need to.

The Force had already filled the space between them, rich and unhurried, like the air before a summer rain. Aiden let it move through him, tracing the edges of his breath and the rhythm of his pulse. He could feel the subtle balance how the garden itself seemed to lean toward her presence, as though recognizing that something within her had shifted.

When she closed her eyes, he looked away, not out of distance but respect. His gaze fell upon the fountain beyond the path its steady drip of water glinting in the light, and he found himself matching its cadence without meaning to. There was a symmetry in this kind of stillness, an unspoken truth the Jedi often forgot in the noise of duty and the clamor of the galaxy: peace was never granted, only remembered.

The wind carried the sound of the bells again, distant but clear. Each tone felt like a heartbeat in the Force, a reminder that even silence had rhythm.

He could feel her presence there beside him not her thoughts, not her memories, only the shape of her calm as it deepened, spreading outward like ripples on water. The faint traces of grief still lingered at the edges not gone, but softened. Transformed.

Aiden exhaled slowly, closing his eyes in quiet reflection.

This is what she needed, he thought. Not doctrine. Not answers. Just stillness enough to hear herself again.

He turned his palms over, feeling the warmth of the sun and the faint vibration of life beneath the stone. "Sometimes," he said at last, voice low, more breath than sound, "The hardest lesson is that peace doesn't need to be earned."

He let the words fall gently between them, carried by the same wind that stirred her braid. "It only needs to be remembered."

Then, silence again not empty, but full.

The moment stretched the two of them seated side by side, the Force flowing between them like a tide drawn to still shores. And for once, the galaxy did not ask anything of them. It simply was.

 

[Iandre Athlea]

She closed her eyes, letting the garden's quiet wrap around her like a soft cloak. The fountain's drip, the slow flutter of leaves, the hum of the Force beneath her palms. Everything moved deliberately, measured, and patient.

She had come seeking clarity about the Jedi, curious how the Order now compared to the one she had known as a child. Memories surfaced: the Clone Wars, the strict codes, the constant striving for balance that often felt like control. And now… this. A subtle, gentler current, yet one that carried weight she hadn't anticipated.

Her jaw tightened, a ghost of frustration flickering through her. "It's not the same," she whispered, voice low, almost to herself. "It's…lighter, maybe. But it doesn't feel empty, it just asks for something different from me."

She could feel the echoes of her past Order pressing at the edges of her awareness, the lessons learned, the mistakes endured. Grief lingered there too, soft but persistent—the loss of mentors, the shadows of battles, the silence left behind when trust fractured.

"I thought I needed answers," she murmured, "but maybe…maybe it's enough just to remember what it once meant. To carry it with me, even if it's changed. To see what I am now, not just what I was."

Her thoughts flickered briefly to Rellik—steady, unyielding, someone whose presence reminded her of her own strength without needing to claim it. That quiet certainty bolstered her resolve, even here, in the stillness of the garden.

A slow breath drew the tension out of her shoulders. The Force flowed quietly, a gentle tide beneath her skin, reminding her that she didn't always need clarity to move forward. Sometimes, stillness was enough. Sometimes, remembering who she was and what she carried was the answer.

And as she opened her eyes, the sunlight filtering through the leaves touched her face, a quiet nudge of possibility. The galaxy was vast, the Order shifted, but she could meet it on her own terms. Not as a child of war, not as a shadow of the past, but as herself—stronger, tempered, and ready for the paths she had yet to walk.

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea
​

When she opened her eyes, the light caught them just so the pale grey softened to silver, like the reflection of clouds across still water. Aiden didn't move or speak at first. The Force had grown calm around her, its current no longer searching or uncertain, but quiet and whole, as though it had been waiting for this breath all along.

He sensed it the way her grief no longer clung, but rested. The way her thoughts no longer raced ahead, but circled back to the present, gentle as a returning tide. It was the kind of peace that could not be given or taught. Only found.

He drew a slow breath, the faintest smile tracing his expression. "The galaxy changes." he said softly, "And so do we. The Jedi are not what they were and maybe they never should be again."

He let the words linger, not as judgment but as truth. "The Order used to believe that clarity was the goal that the Force could be mastered if only we listened hard enough. But I've come to think it's not something we solve. It's something we live beside."

The fountain's rhythm filled the small silence that followed. Somewhere above, a bird called once, then was quiet again.

Aiden turned his gaze toward the distant mountains, their peaks washed in pale morning gold. "You don't have to understand it all." he said, his tone steady but warm. "You only have to let yourself belong where you are even if it's only for a moment."

He looked back to her then, meeting her eyes not as teacher to student, or knight to knight, but as two new friends who had both carried the weight of a name that meant Jedi and were learning, in their own ways, what that still meant.

"The Force doesn't ask for the same thing from any of us." he said. "It only asks that we listen."

For a long time, neither of them spoke. The mountain air was cool, the garden alive, and the sound of water wove quietly between them. The moment felt suspended not an ending, but a beginning without urgency.

And as the wind shifted, carrying the faint scent of wet earth and blossoms, Aiden closed his eyes, feeling the peace she had found ripple outward through the sanctuary like sunlight through leaves.

It would not last forever. No peace ever did. But for now, it was enough.

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre let the silence linger, feeling it stretch between them like the breath between waves. The wind moved softly through the garden, carrying the faint scent of wet stone and morning blossoms. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and measured, as if each word was weighed before it left her lips.

"The Code hasn't changed," she said at last. "Maybe it never needed to. It's me who keeps learning how to understand it."

Her gaze followed the line of the mountains, their edges limned in soft gold. "Laphisto once told me that the Code isn't a cage, it's a mirror. It shows us what we are, not what we're meant to become." Her tone softened, the faintest trace of a smile shaping her words. "I think I believe him now."

She drew a slow breath, her eyes distant. "It doesn't ask us to stop feeling. Only to see clearly through what we feel. To love without losing the part of ourselves that still listens to the Force."

For a heartbeat, her thoughts drifted elsewhere—somewhere far, warm, and steady—and when she looked back to Aiden, there was quiet light in her eyes.

"The Code hasn't failed us," she said. "We just forget that it was never meant to keep us apart from the living Force…only to keep us whole beside it."

The sound of water returned to fill the silence that followed, soft and grounding. Iandre closed her eyes briefly, as though offering the moment to the Force itself—peaceful, fleeting, and enough.

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea
​

Aiden listened in stillness, letting her words settle the way dew gathers on the edge of a leaf light, inevitable, and wholly natural. When she spoke of the Code, of mirrors and love that did not erase the self, something within him loosened not surprise, but recognition.

He had heard and read countless interpretations of the Code in his lifetime and he was only twenty-three years old. From masters who wielded it like scripture, from knights who recited it as shield or creed. But this her phrasing, her quiet conviction felt truer than most. He inclined his head slightly, a gesture of respect rather than agreement. "Then you've understood something most of us spend years chasing." he said softly. "The Code isn't the answer. It's the reflection we test ourselves against. The way light falls differently each time we stand before it."

His gaze turned to the horizon, where the morning mist was beginning to lift from the valley. "If we look too long for perfection, we stop seeing what's already alive around us. The Code reminds us to look inward only long enough to remember how to look outward again." He turned toward her, eyes steady, voice carrying the same warmth as the sunlight now spilling through the canopy. "What you said about love, and listening that's what the old Order lost sight of. We learned discipline, but we forgot to trust the living Force to hold us together."

For a while, neither spoke. The air was full of life the soft hum of insects in the brush, the drip of the fountain, the whisper of wind moving through branches. It was as if the world itself had accepted their quiet reflection as part of its rhythm.

Aiden finally rose. "You've carried the wisdom of two ages." he said, offering her a faint smile. "That's a rare kind of balance. Don't let the galaxy convince you that you have to choose between them."

He extended a hand not as a summons, but as invitation to rise, to walk, to return. "Come. There is much more to see, but the air stays gentle all the way. Naboo has a way of reminding you that the Force doesn't end at the sanctuary gates."

The Force was never something to chase. It was already there, waiting, patient, alive.

 

[Iandre Athlea]

For a moment, Iandre only looked at his hand, not hesitant, but thoughtful, as though the gesture itself was part of some quiet ritual. The breeze carried the scent of dew and moss between them, and when she finally reached out, her fingers brushed his with a calm, grounding warmth.

"Then maybe we were never meant to perfect the Code," she said softly as she rose beside him. "Maybe we're meant to outgrow it but not abandon what it taught us, but see what it was pointing toward all along."

Her eyes followed his toward the distant hills, where the morning light spilled like water through the mist. "Connection. Presence. That the Force isn't some far-off ideal waiting to be earned it's what's already breathing with us, in every moment we remember to notice."

For a time, neither of them spoke. The quiet wasn't heavy, it was whole. Filled with the soft hum of insects in the brush, the sigh of wind through the trees, and the easy rhythm of two lives momentarily in balance.

"You remind me why I stayed," she said at last, her voice low, steady. "Why I didn't let the wars or the creeds take everything from me. The galaxy forgets. It breaks and rebuilds, again and again. But the Force…it never stops teaching the same lesson. To listen. To feel. To keep moving forward."

Her lips curved faintly not quite a smile, but something peaceful, something sure. "So I will. I'll walk with you. For a while."

And when she stepped beside him, it was as an equal, not a student or mentor. Two travelers, two lights quietly aligned. The valley stretched wide and golden before them, the air alive with the same stillness that lived in their hearts — the living Force itself, patient and bright, moving gently through the morning.

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea ​

Aiden felt the warmth of her hand settle into his, steady and deliberate not a bond, but an acknowledgment. The Force threaded quietly between them, light as breath, the same current that moved through the soil beneath their feet and the wind winding through the terraces below.

Her words lingered in the air, and he carried them with him as they began to walk, hands placed behind his back as they began to walk the steps.

“Maybe that’s all the Code was ever meant to do.” he said quietly. “Point us back to the moment to the truth that the Force was never outside of us to begin with.”

For a while, they didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. The silence between them wasn’t the absence of words, but the presence of understanding two lives balanced in the same current, each carrying what the other had reflected.

As they ascended, steering them towards the meditation summit as the first stop on the tour, Aiden glanced toward her once, his expression unreadable but calm. “The galaxy will ask again.” he said, his tone almost a murmur. “For answers, for action, for clarity. When it does…..”

He gestured faintly toward the valley, the sky, the quiet pulse that lived in everything around them.

“The Force sometimes isn’t waiting to be found. It’s waiting to be noticed.”

And then the wind rose, tugging lightly cloak, armor steadfast against him, carrying their steps forward, not toward an ending, but toward the long road that always followed clarity: the living journey, endless and bright.