Seeking Master
He had been a Jedi all his life. Youngling, initiate, Padawan. What would he be tomorrow? Even as words came out in the form of a detailed report, his mind couldn't keep from circling that very question.
He didn't remember his parents. Oryn had been raised by the Jedi. All he had ever wanted was to become a Jedi Knight. All his role models were Jedi Knights.
The words caught in the back of his throat. It was one thing to suspect he wasn't cut out for this. It was another entirely to experience it real time. This was it. It felt like the end of the line. He powered through.
He omitted nothing. No excuses. He had failed. Even if it put him on a ship to his future and permanent post with the AgriCorps, he refused to hide.
Failure had happened. Lives had been lost. Someone had to be blamed. It was impossible, completely unthinkable to deflect any of it over to someone else. He couldn't even call it being brave. He didn't meet the Grandmaster's eyes once.
"…I believe they were brothers." he felt that his meaning wasn't picked up on, so he elaborated after an extended silence. "When I deflected the blaster bolt that struck the raider." No, that wasn't quite right. Own up to it. "that killed the raider" he corrected. "I felt his pain. The other raider, the brother, I mean. The loss, the anguish, the rage. It…" It had overwhelmed him. It had become his own. And the raider he had killed, he had felt that too, his dying moments.
Oryn had been outnumbered, but not heavily. They had been caught off guard, yes, but even though he was just a Padawan, the situation should've been possible to control. It was the success of his own defensive lightsaber work had been his downfall, not the raiders.
Oryn had taken a blaster bolt himself right after that. But they already knew that. Ambassador Brukina was right now submerged in bakta, fighting for a life that would probably not last the night. But they already knew that.
"I could still make out Ambassador Burkina as they dragged him to their ship. He was alive." a prisoner, held for ransom, knowledge, or even to sabotage the very negotiations Oryn was supposed to oversee.
It wasn't just the people at the mining facility he had failed. Dead workers, dead guards. It was the very balance of peace on Altier.
"I passed out after that."
He took a deep breath. Steeled himself. "I…" understand if I am to be expelled from the Order. That was what he was meant to say, but this time he couldn't force the words out.
He had been a Jedi all his life.
