Realisation (RP)

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

The galaxy trembles under the Clone Wars. While peace talks on the Outer Rim falter, Jedi Master Solen and his Padawan, Taryn Devrane, have been dispatched to aid negotiations on the mountainous planet of Belor IV.

Unclear to Taryn, Master Solen turned against her. Thrown from a cliff, saved only by the Force, she survived—just in time to witness her Master engage the Republic's own clone troopers in combat.

Believing her Master has fallen to darkness, Taryn races to the nearest Jedi Temple, determined to warn the Order of his treachery. But unknown to her, the galaxy has already changed...

---

A lone starfighter approaches the docking bay of a spacestation. KT-12 guides the craft in smoothly. With a hiss of pressure and a clank of metal, the canopy opens—and from within, a teenage girl rises.
Blonde, brown eyed, small for her size. Her robes are quite fashionable. A light saber proudly visible at her belt.

The space station seems in full business. Ships being maintained and droids working.

"Thanks for the ride, KT." Taryn says to the droid. "Now, let's find a representative of the Jedi order."

Taryn barely notices the second ship docking behind her—a Republic transport, large and silent. She’s halfway across the hangar when she hears it: the unmistakable sound of blaster fire.

People are falling. No warning. No questions.

Her instinct is to reach for her lightsaber... but there are so many clones...

Have they followed me? Are they hunting me for what Master Solen did?

She doesn't think it will help much to talk to them right now. She needs to find a Jedi Master, fast. Rapidly, she runs out of the hangar, deeper into the space station....

Voss is floating in the numbness of bakta. Memories are broken and scattered.
She had just disembarked the Tek'marl, her masters spaceship, along with some troopers. Decker and Poltus hand been uploading their weaponry. They had gotten a message, and then turned their weapons at her and her master.
The heavy autocannon...
So many shots...
Could not deflect them all...
A blast to the thighbone... then the other leg.

Her defenses faultered...

Then blackness

Sera sits in the cargo hold of a freighter, adjusting her mini-droid QTπ's servos. As usual, QTπ had been bumping into things again, so Sera was yet again decide she needed some fine tuning. s she sits there, she can feel the hum of the ship as hull vibrations through the floor beneath her, but also in another way--through the Force. Just as some padawans and Jedi can sense life around them, she can sense tech; or, rather, she can sense the intention of living beings left behind in the organizing structures, programming, and interlocking parts of machines. She does not sense metal and electricity, so much as intentional patterns in her environment. If only her awareness extended to the intentional patterns in the human brain; then she might be better and understanding other people.

She raises her eyes and sees Ka'el nearby. The Kel Dor had come to her on Coruscant; he had sensed her. She, however, had not sensed him, not until she could see him of course. As he drew near, she could sense his mask and light saber, though. He claimed he knew the way to safety; she didn't understand how, but she suddenly felt sure she could trust him. She didn't know why she felt that way, but she had learned not to question those inexplicable feelings too much.

As they sit there, she extends her senses out to the area around them. She senses QTπ first, as always; for some reason she could sense the tech that she herself had worked on most easily, as if she recognized her own intention imprinted on the pattern most naturally. She cannot easily detect her light saber, now that she had disassembled it. She senses the tools in her toolkit next, then a few bit of gear on Ka'el. And then of course, the ship.

She closes her eyes, places her hand on the wall behind her, and attunes to the ship for a moment. She opens her eyes again and whispers to Ka'el, "We're arriving at a space station... Docking soon."

---

When the cargo bay doors open, the two padawans slip out, easily avoiding the dumb cargo droids that manage the unloading. Once aboard the space station, she defers to Ka'el to find their way. As they walk through public areas of the station, she relaxes a bit, taking in the environment.

They are in a busy marketplace, filled with bustling merchants and traders, hocking wares and doing deals. Apparently this is a shipping waystation of some sort, probably belonging to one of the trade guilds. Fortunately she sees no sign of clones or battle droids, so it seems safe for the moment.

Ka'el guides her deeper into the station, possibly sensing Jedi nearby. We descend into the bowels of the station, a hooded figure steps out of the shadows and levels a blaster at them!

After a moment, the blaster lowers and hands emerge from the shadows of the cloak to throw back the hood, revealing a familiar face. It is Findal, a Padawan that Sera recognizes but does not know well. "Oh good! You've made it! Quick let me show you to the safe house..." Findal is an older boy, human, age 19. He is tall and lanky, with tan skin and short black hair. At the Temple, Sera didn't interact with him much; he was obsessed with learning light saber forms from Master Windu. The few times they did interact, Sera got the impression that he was unimpressed with her and found her special interest in tech to be uncouth.

He guides them through some winding tunnels to a large chamber that is indeed outfitted like a safe house. There are simple bunks, a small cache of food and water, and a comms terminal. Sera immediately senses the tech in the room, but can tell that the comms term is currently offline. FIndal relaxes visibly when they arrive and he closes the door behind them.

There is one other person here, a Twi'lek woman named Tai'ar. She is maybe 20 years old and Sera recognizes her as a member of the Jedi Temple civilian staff, a courier and diplomatic attache of some sort. She waves a small hello and says, "Sera, right? I recognize you. I'm so glad you got out! I was on Alderaan with Jindal. We were boarding our craft, ready to depart, when..." She pauses, visibly upset, but then gathers herself and continues, saying, "...when the clones turned on us. Master Setna was there, too, and I think they were more concerned with her than us. We fled and barely escaped. The Jindal led us here." Jindal nods, confirming the story.

Sera looks to Ka'el and says, "What is happening??" She feels fear, a rare experience for her, and decides to sit quietly until it passes.

The cargo bay hissed open with a mechanical groan, revealing the crowded bustle of a working trade station. Crates clanked. Droids beeped in clipped binary. No one noticed the cloacked gungan walking with purpose, a low-floating repulsor gurney gliding beside her.

Brenya’s eyes darted, scanning for threats, for signs of armor-white helmets or battle droid silhouettes. Nothing. Just noise and metal and life. The station was loud with motion, with heat, with the smell of oil and bodies and spice wafting from market stalls.

"Okeeday, Brenya. Looken around. Pay attenteon." she murmured under her breath, more to herself than to the unconscious girl beside her. Something was wrong. She didn’t know what.

Voss floated silently in the mobile bacta tank, limbs still gone, skin pale against the healing blue. Wires and tubes wrapped around her like vines. Brenya kept one hand lightly on the side of the tank, grounding herself, as if just Voss presence could somehow help.

Findal found them near the central terminal, stepping out of a side corridor like he’d expected her all along. He raised a blaster—Brenya didn’t flinch, just narrowed her eyes—but he quickly dropped it, recognition dawning.

"Brenya," he said. "Come on. This way."

She didn’t ask questions. Just nodded and followed, guiding Voss’s gurney behind him as they slipped into a side tunnel, the station’s light dimming to flickering panels and low maintenance glows. They wound through tight passages, down ramps slick with oil. Eventually, Findal keyed open a thick metal door.

---

The safe house inside was dim. Plain bunks, a stack of ration packs, a water recycler humming in the corner. Then her gaze shifted to the others already present—Ka’el, Sera. Brenya gave them a faint nod, something quiet passing between the padawans, who survived their unique ordeals. She moved to a corner, easing Voss’s tank into position where it wouldn’t be in the way.

Suddenly, a shiver rippled through Brenya’s spine — not cold, but that feeling. Like pressure in the air before lightning. She stiffened, hand still resting against Voss’s bacta tank.

The Force twisted, sharp and sudden.

She turned her head toward the door, eyes narrowing. The others were still talking — but Brenya barely heard them now.

Something was coming.

No—someone.

The vision was fleeting, like a glint of metal through fog: a flash of blonde hair, the glimmer of a lightsaber hilt, boots hitting the floor in a dead sprint.

"A girl. Jedi? Then why does the Force feel like it’s clenching its teeth?" - she thinks.

---

Brenya had always noticed things early.

"We'sa got no time for dis," she muttered to no one, palm pressed to the tank. "Sorry-sorry, sleepy girl, but it’s up-and-go now."

Tyra Voss floated like a ghost, limbs half-metal, half-healed, half-everything. Her eyes twitched beneath swollen lids.

Brenya didn’t wait to see what others would do or say. Impulsive, she jabbed the release and bacta sluiced out in a sudden rush, splashing across the floor like a burst dam. Voss dropped hard into Brenya’s arms — heavier than expected. Dead weight. Too much metal.

"Ooof—Yousa heavier than you look," Brenya wheezed, half-dragging, half-cradling the girl to the floor. "C’mon, wake up. Wake up, girl."

My arm hurts and my legs are all pins and needles. Brenya? Something is happening... I'm getting heavy. Thoughts are slowly picking up speed. Right now they are working at a snails pace.

Brenya? Whats going on? Where are we? She mutters drunkenly as she is pulled from the tank

What?! What happened to my arm? My legs?! There is a slight panic in her voice now. Thoughts are no longer slowed by medicine

What is going on?

Ka’el remained still after Tai’ar’s story, the sound of the door locking behind them settling like the final note of a dirge. The air in the safehouse was thin with grief and unspoken questions. Across from him, Sera had gone quiet—her question fragile, uncertain.
He did not answer immediately.

Instead, he lowered himself to a seated position, cross-legged, his robes folding like waves around him. The soft hiss of his breath mask filled the quiet with its patient cadence—measured, organic, almost meditative. In the silence, the Force whispered not with alarms or clarity, but with the subtle pull of presence—wounded, tangled, yet still flowing.

Ka’el raised his head and turned slightly toward Sera. When he spoke, his voice hummed softly through the mask, with the resonance of wind echoing across a canyon—measured, deliberate, and calm.

"Situation... grave. The Order is broken... My Master, Tor Valen... he sensed danger early. Warned of betrayal..." He paused briefly, steady and careful, "Clones turned. Attacked without warning... Tor Valen... he fought to protect. But he was killed..." Ka’el’s voice softened, but remained clear, "I escaped by the will of the Force... We must move quietly. Stay hidden... Temple is no longer safe. Trust few."

He glanced toward Sera, sensing fear.

"Fear is natural. But control breath. Control mind. The Force will guide." he paused briefly, then said, "The path before us is shadowed, yet strength flows from unity. If others like us walk this hidden way, we shall find them—and together, our chances to endure will grow."

He glanced toward her, calm and steady. In the quiet that followed, a sense of cautious hope began to settle between them.

Ka’el’s voice drifted to silence, the weight of his words still clinging to the air like vapor. He exhaled slow and long, then bowed his head for a moment, as if settling the Force inside him.

That was when the door hissed open.

A figure entered — cloaked, wary, moving with purpose. The hover-tank beside her emitted a low whine, hovering steadily over the floor. The presence within it stirred the currents of the Force like a stone breaking the surface of still water.

Ka’el’s eyes opened and shifted toward the doorway, his senses extending like a hand into flame.

"…Two threads…" he murmured, barely audible, almost to himself. "Entwined. Familiar."

He rose — not with surprise, but with gravity — and stepped forward slowly as Brenya guided the tank further into the safehouse. He studied her face first, and then the one suspended in bacta.

His gaze lingered.

"Brenya," he said, voice low, steady. "You found the storm and rode it here. And you brought a soul with you… One I knew by name. Voss… yes." He turned slightly, addressing the room. "You remember her, don’t you? She climbed higher than her reach allowed, laughed harder than her breath could carry. She was of our clan."

He gestured toward the open space beside them. "Come. Be seated. Tell us what passed. We must learn how the others—how you—survived."

But the words had barely passed his lips when the tank hissed sharply, and the thick scent of bacta wafted into the room. Brenya was already moving, sharp with instinct, murmuring urgently:
The release engaged with a hydraulic groan, and liquid sluiced out in a flood. Voss fell — not with grace, but gravity — into Brenya’s arms, metal-laced limbs dragging with weight and unhealed trauma. She collapsed to the ground beside her, grunting under the strain.
Ka’el knelt slowly across from them, his cloak pooling around his feet. His eyes locked onto Voss, their depth shifting from memory to recognition to grief and awe.

"The fire did not take her," he murmured. "Not all of her."

He extended one hand — not touching, but open above her shoulder, a conduit for calm.

"Awake now, if you can. Wake not to peace, but purpose. Many threads torn… but you hold one still. Hold it tight."

He looked to Brenya then, quiet intensity behind his words.

"Your risk… your timing… was no accident. She was meant to wake here. With us."

He nodded, inviting without demand.

"When breath returns… tell us. Speak of your road. What you lost. What you kept. The telling will not break here. Not anymore."

And then, Ka’el waited.

Taryn runs. Her boots echo across the durasteel floor. Blaster fire in the air. She doesn't look back.

There has to be a Jedi here. Someone must know what's going on. Anyone.

There is the pull of the Force. She turns a corner she hadn’t meant to. Her head tells her it’s the wrong way, but her feet don’t stop.
Down a corridor.

Then she feels it—like a brush of wind against her mind. Presence.
Something… someone.

She stops in front of a sealed door. Her hand hovers over the panel. She hesitates.

Behind her she senses people...

"Please be Jedi..." she mutters, and ducks inside.

Sera sits, eyes closed, doing as Ka'el instructed. She focuses on her breath, in and out. She lets go entirely of her ego, of her will to control her environment, for she has learned that fear is our response to our natural desire to control that which we cannot. When we let go of that desire and accept all things as they are, fear leaves us. So her master Palter Dinn had taught her, and so she came to know is true.

Her quiet meditation works, as always. She recognizes that she could not have done anything to prevent the clones attacking the Temple; she had heard the cries of pain and death over the comms and, somehow, she had felt the death of Master Dinn. There is still grief to be felt, loss to be acknowledged, but that is natural, that she also cannot control or deny; but by accepting all these things, they no longer control her. So, paradoxically, by accepting that she cannot control things, she also gains freedom from them controlling her. And thus she finds her center; thus she finds peace.

In her way of thinking, all creatures are a part of the great electrical current flowing through the circuits of reality. If we resist --if we try to jump to another circuit--we merely create resistance and generate heat and waste. We cannot change the current's ultimate destination. It is better to allow the flow to occur and to follow it than to fight it. That is most efficient; that produces the least heat waste. That generates serenity.

As Ka'el continues his profound communion with the Force, Sera opens her eyes and listens. She accepts his words, their meaning. She senses and then sees the other young padawans arrive, especially Voss, to whom Sera feels drawn.

Sera stands. She nods to Brenya and approaches Voss, examining the robotic elements of her body. She puts a hand on the robotic shoulder (she's much more comfortable touching that than the flesh one) and speaks, her voice calm. She says, "Hi. You've been given some mechanical prosthetics, not custom designed for you, so they might feel a little...odd. I can help you manage them, if you like. I'm Sera, in case you don't remember... from the Temple."

Brenya's long ears twitched, just slightly. She felt like a predator was already in the reef, teeth hidden in shadow. She rose slowly, wide eyes scanning the door, the vents, the air. She’d felt this before — in the Otoh Gunga depths, just before the sando aqua monster struck — and again in the Temple, when a sparring saber moved just a breath faster than it should’ve.

"Uh-oh," she whispered. "Dissen not feelin’ like safe place no more."

Voss looks at Brenya and then Sera, smiling at them both as they both help her to stand. She stumbles. These droid legs feel wrong - too heavy and stiff. They don't move like her normal legs. Sera's touch on her oversized arm feels odd, but the force connection is there. By all things that is a rock in a stormy sea.

Whose body is this? She asks, looking at the big yellow arm and the grey legs. At this moment, this is not her body, she is an observer, not connected to her body. The fact that the body is just covered by bakta-drenced sports bra and knickers, doesn't phase as it's not her modesty on the line - besides Brenya and Sera are girls aswell, and they have shared a lockerroom in the temple.

A blaster-shot is heard from the outside. Voss drops into a crouch and raises her yellow arm defensively, hiding behind it. Her real hand stretches out, feeling for the familiar form. A small bundle next to the bakta-tank flies through the air. The bundle dissolves in mid air as the remembers of her robe and clothes fall the the floor. Into her hand lands a blue metal cylinder, her lightsaber!


Voss is almost hyperventilating as the green blade is emitted. She is doing her very best to keep the images of her being gunned down from overwhelming her.

Taryn doesn't remember drawing her lightsaber—but it's already in her hand, unlit yet firm in her grip.

She steps into the room, scanning the figures inside with her eyes. A brief flicker of confusion crosses her face. Teenagers. Some wounded.

Padawans?

Her gaze lingers on the half-cybernetic girl—there’s a lit lightsaber in her hands. That’s all the proof she needs.

Why does she feel threathened?

"Yes... Republic blaster rifles..." she says quickly to the boy who asked if he heard blasters. "I need to see a Council. I swear, I am no part of—"
She stops herself. Her breath catches.

There’s no time to explain.

"Half a battalion of clone troopers are chasing me down that hallway, they can catch up with me any moment..."

Taryn blinks. The thought hits like cold water.
Her voice cracks slightly.

"Where are your Masters? Are they here—nearby?"

She doesn't really want to know the answer.

The clones are not here just for me... they are here for everyone.

Voss powerdown her saber again.
I'm sorry. She begins and tries to store it in her belt pouh as she usually does.
Where is my clo... oh, there. She starts to pick up her scattered clothes.
Brenya will you help me get dressed?

The padawans make quick work, and Voss is surprised by her newfound strength when she rips half the pants legs off, transforming them into shorts.
They give a jacket the same treatment as her new arm, which is just too big to fit into her normal jacket.

I think my master is dead. And if the troopers are chasing you, we have to get out of here.

Sera steps back as Voss reacts with speed and aggression. When Taryn enters, Sera recognizes the older girl, but it takes a moment to process what she says.

She hears Voss report the death of her master, and then she herself replies, "I felt my master die, I think. At the Temple. They were killing everyone. I ran. Wait... you weren't at the Temple. Is this happening beyond Coruscant?! I just assumed... I assumed it was just on one planet. Oh... oh no..." She trails off as she begins to realize the scope of what must be happening. "Where did you all come from? What systems‽ And were you all attacked by clones? Were they going after the Jedi? WHAT is happening? We have to get out of here now!"

She had begun to panic again, but she remembered Ka'el's words and focused once again on her breathing. She was struggling, until she felt something bump into her softly. She looked down to see QTpi hovering there, gently nudging her. This calmed Sera immediately and she nodded and said, more calmly, "Let's look for a way out, yeah?"

Brenya seeks cover and tries to see who is setting up the defense.

She lost her lightsaber during the escape to the station and will keep an eye out for a new weapon. Ideally, a blaster, but she doesn't think she'll be so lucky as to find some weapon lying around... Who knows?

Taryn glances toward the door as the sounds of combat filter in.
Someone is fighting out there. But who? She can’t tell. And at this point... she’s not even sure who counts as the good guys anymore. She's not even sure if she is with the good guys.

Master Solen turned Dark. But the clones—they were shooting everyone, not just Jedi. Are we still the defenders of the galaxy? Am I even part of the Order anymore? The reports of the Mirialan are worrying.

She looks at the others. Some younger. Some injured. All just as lost.

"Right... we’re the future Jedi. Defenders of the galaxy..." she says, more to herself than anyone else. Her tone walks the line between sarcasm and conviction. "I am not sure what is going on, but being a Jedi is our destiny. We’re not going to let others do the fighting for us, right?"

"That door is our way out," Taryn answers the Mirialan, whose name she doens't even know yet. "And yes, I'd like to know what's going on. I have a bad feeling about this all."

Her lightsaber ignites with the distinct hiss—the light green blade casting a glow against her face as it emerges from the golden hilt.

She steps forward, posture sharp and practiced. Saber in hand, blade in front of her face, almost as if greeting a yet unknown enemy. She stands ready at the door.