Dxun Daycare

[Daria Nytherciria]

On Dxun, it was almost impossible to sleep past dawn. Once the wildlife awoke, the jungle was alive with movement and sound. The calls of scores of creatures, land and airborne, carried clearly through the morning. Rather than being roused from sleep, it was meditation that Daria was taken from. The grunt of a boma brought her out of her trance.

She shook away the haze that the Force left on her mind, and cast her eyes around the room in which she was sat. A number of unmarked crates littered the floor and a double-bunk stood against one grubby metal wall. A young boy, Wyl, was sleeping there, with his back towards her. She could feel that he was not sleeping, but rather pretending to do so.

“Good morning.”

[Wyl Staedtler]

Sleep was a treacherous thing--a wild, yawling black eddy of nightmares that exausted, pulled taut. Wyl could only navigate a few hours before bursting awake, sweat-drenched and jaw clenched so tightly he felt sure there would be bruising by morning. He would sit, feet cold even under the blanket, biting the inside of his cheeks to keep from making noise, until his muscles relaxed enough to lay him down again. There was an hour or so before the cacophony of the outside world came forth when everything fell absolutely silent, so still and pressing that sometimes Wyl wondered if he was only imagining the sound of his own breathing. It was his favourite time.

The boy would lie there, safe with the knowledge that soon the dark room would begin to take shadowy shape, and allow his mind to wander. Usually he thought about silly things, imagining speeder races and the like. Sometimes, very rarely, he thought about how he had come to be here, in this room, far from home. The knawing feeling that somehow he had summoned death to someone dear and the enormousness of everything else soon sent these thoughts tumbling underneath the bed amongst his discarded socks.

Today, eyes tracing the shape of a bantha in the dirt on the wall, he considered Daria; The Jedi was fascinating and mysterious and--

"Good morning."

and knew he was awake. A little startled (he'd been sure she hadn't known) Wyl didn't move for a moment. Finally he rolled over onto his other side and blinked at the woman. The blanket was tugged up to cover his bared shoulders, and Wyl pulled his knees up beneath it, tucked them into the oversized shirt he used as pajamas. "Morning."

[Daria Nytherciria]

Carefully, the Jedi pushed away the hood covered her head. She looked towards Wyl. A thin band of patterned fabric was, still, tied tightly over her eyes, with guilty tips of scar tissue peeking out from beneath its edges. “You are still tired,” Daria observed. “Did you not sleep well?”

[Wyl Staedtler]

Wyl shrugged noncommitally and sat up, blinking owlishly beneath his tousled bed-head hair. The boy's eyes skittered over the bandage on the Jedi's face before darting elsewhere, returning, and dashing off again.

"What were you doin'?" He asked, propping his pillow against the wall and sinking into it, blanket wrapped about his legs to ward off the early-morning chill. Wyl was still small enough that he didn't have to hunch on the lower bunk, providing a sort of cave for himself. "I heard you get up but then you just were sittin' there. How come?"

[Daria Nytherciria]

“I was meditating.” For a boy raised in the hub, it was highly likely that the concept was unfamiliar, perhaps even unheard of. “Meditation helps me to clear my mind of distractions... to focus my thoughts on what is important. It allows a Jedi to communicate with the Force. It is one of the first things young Padawan's must learn,” Daria explained.

[Wyl Staedtler]

"Oh." Wyl pawed at his eyes sleepily and yawned, the last urgings of slumber finally giving way to alertness. He scrunched his face up and said, "When I have to sit still for too long my legs get bored." With a wriggle the boy slid off the bed and raised his arms above his head, stretching until he was on tip-toe with the effort.

"Mmm." He remarked with satisfaction as he sat down a few feet from Daria. "What kind of important stuff do you think of when you med-i-tate? Like how to beat people in fights and stuff?"

[Daria Nytherciria]

There was a pause. Wyl's naivety brought to mind memories from the past, of early training sessions with eager Padawans.

“What do you know about the Jedi?” Daria asked.

[Wyl Staedtler]

"I know lots." Wyl said, dragging the last syllable out. The boy held out a hand and began to tick off with his fingers. "They use the Force, they helped people, the Temple was really, really big and had a room with a pond in it and big rocks so you could do dives, they have lightsabres, they can float and make other stuff float 'cause that's what the Force does..." He paused and glanced at Daria warily before continuing, "And they mostly are all dead."

Wyl was quiet for a moment, with that in between them, and then he gave a small, slow shrug. "I don't know what happened though," his voiced had dropped to nearly a whisper, "My mom doesn't like to talk about it, but her face gets sad. I think she misses my grampa. He was a Jedi."

[Daria Nytherciria]

Wyl spoke of his mother in the present tense. It was clear, and wholly understandable, that he had not yet come to terms with her passing. It would be a difficult issue to broach, but a hurdle that would nonetheless have to be overcome in the long run.

“Did you learn all of that from your grandfather?” she asked.

[Wyl Staedtler]

Wyl shook his head mournfully. "No. He died too. Before I was born." the boy tugged at the end of one sock, pulling it so it flopped over his toes. "But I heard lots of stories about him. My mom lived in the temple too, you know. When she was little."

He stretched his legs out straight in front of him and bounced his knees against the floor, creating a rhythmic shuffling sound. One of the benefits--or curses--of being seven was always having excess energy; there was hardly ever a moment when he was completely still. Daria was a study in opposite, sitting serenely across from him. Wyl wondered why adults always sat so straight when it was so much more comfortably to lounge.

A thought came to him and the boy tilted his head to a shoulder, hair that had gone uncut longer than usual flopping into his eye and mirroring his own hasty excitement. "Maybe you even knowed her!"

[Daria Nytherciria]

“Perhaps I did. What was her name?” It was a long shot. There were so many people that had called the Temple home, once upon a time, that it seemed almost impossible that she would have known his mother. Then again, the Force had a habit of turning the impossible into reality, so it would have been no surprise to hear a familiar name.

[Wyl Staedtler]

"Oa. Umi'u." Wyl said. "She had a different name from my grampa. His name was Kardo Staedtler."

The boy rattled off a lengthy explanation about why his mother's name had been different, one that was not at all illuminating and sounded as if he was confused by it himself. When he came to the end of it, Wyl shrugged. "Mom helped watch the littler ones because she wasn't a Jedi and so she kept busy so's she wouldn't get bored. And because my mom likes kids."

The boy slanted a gaze at Daria and, quietly, asked, "Do you like kids?"

[Daria Nytherciria]

“Do I like kids?”

Daria was a little surprised by the question. She thought for a moment, the name Oa Umi'u still turning over in her mind, unearthing no recollection.

“When I was very little, my parents did not like me leaving our home. They said that because of who, or rather what, I was that the local children would tease me. The first time I had any really contact with children, outside of the protected sphere of my parents influence, was when I began my Jedi training. By that time the Jedi Temple was no longer safe... so I was taken to Telos, with two boys who were at least five or six years older than me, already young men in fact.”

The Jedi absently rubbed at her forehead with two fingertips, wondering where exactly this anecdote of hers was going.

“...I suppose, then, that you are the first child I have spent any lengthy amount of time with.”

[Wyl Staedtler]

"Oh." What he would have liked to hear was that Daria was mad about children, that, given a choice, she'd choose to surround herself with them by the hundredfold so strong was her delight in little ones. In Wyl's limited experience, people who loved children were much easier to get along with than those who didn't. Every so often, back home, his mother had left him in the care of their next door neighbor Ms. Eruet. She had not been fond of children--although she had been fond of pinching their ears when they accidently spilled namana juice all over the freshly cleaned carpet.

... Still, Daria hadn't gone anywhere near his ears. And she hadn't said that she didn't like kids, just that she hadn't spent much time with them. The funny feeling that he sometimes got in the pit of his belly, which usually signalled he was about to have another episode, felt different with Daria. Daria made it hum.

"There were boys in my class who called me a freak. They used to throw rocks at my head, so I'd punch 'em." Wyl tried not to think about the last time they'd done that. "So maybe your mum and dad were right." The little boy drew his legs up towards his chest, settling his chin in the space between his knees. His eyes followed Daria's hand to her head, and stared intently at the bandage which covered her eyes. Wyl's brow furrowed slightly.

"Does that hurt?"

[Daria Nytherciria]

“Hurt? No, not at all.”

Daria's words hung in the air, as if unfinished. She seemed to freeze for a moment, then exhaled. Brushing aside her hair, she worked loose the knot that held the bandage in place. She carefully removed the cloth, letting it fall forwards into her hands. Beneath the covering the Jedi had two eyes, like any human, yet at the same time... not human at all. There was no coloured pigment in those eyes, no iris or pupil. The skin around them seemed taut in places, marked a darker hue by what looked as if it might have been scar tissue.

“This is why my mother and father worried, because I'm... blind. I always have been. It's how my people are born.”

[Wyl Staedtler]

Wyl studied Daria's face, his expression showing nothing but curiosity. He had seen plenty of strange beings growing up on Coruscant and so there was little physicality that puzzled the boy. Wyl frowned, and cocked his head to the side.

"How come you wear that mask thing if it doesn't hurt?"

[Daria Nytherciria]

“Some people feel more at ease around me, when I'm wearing it. Perhaps they find it disconcerting, to have empty eyes looking at them.” Daria gave a little shrug of her shoulders. It was simply the 'done thing' in Miraluka society, as her parents had described it to her. She was quiet for a moment, in thought, and then asked: “Would you prefer I didn't wear it?”

[Wyl Staedtler]

Wyl considered for a moment, and then shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe it would sort of make, um, some people feel better. Like, it'd be more..." the boy scrunched his face, searching for the right word. "Open. Sorta."

He didn't say that 'some people' were him, and that Daria's revealed eyes seemed to make her somehow more approachable to him. He shrugged and looked away shyly, adding, "But you don't have to if you, um, don't wanna."

There was a moment of silence and then, much more heartily, "I'm hungry."

A loud growl followed, testifying to it. Wyl smiled proudly. "Are you finished med-i-tating?"

[Daria Nytherciria]

The boys stammering was somehow... endearing. Daria's lips turned up at one corner, as he pushed the cloth that had covered her eyes into a pocket within her robe.

“I am, yes. Shall we make something to eat?”

The 'kitchen' area of their current domicile wasn't exactly luxurious and the selection of food in stock was minimal at best, but Daria had no qualms with this. A simple meal was all that a Jedi needed. As she looked through the cupboards for something suitable, she felt the boy watching her.

“What do you like to do, Wyl? What are your hobbies?”

[Wyl Staedtler]

Wyl raised his shoulders casually as he padded behind Daria, hems of his pajama bottoms dragging doggedly at his heels. It took a moment for the boy to realize that she hadn't been able to see him shrug--although he had a sneaking suspicious that she knew anyways.

"I dunno. Lots of stuff. I like ships." The boy watched Daria rifling through the cupboards and dropped to his knees beside her, digging merrily through the almost empty bottom shelf. It was just big enough for him to squeeze into, and the child made a note of it as a potential fort for later. "There's a store back home that has gazillions of model ships. They got Corellian Gunships and Y-wings and they even got models of stuff that isn't ships but is sort of like a ship. I have a racewing model, and it looks just like a real pair of racewings!" Wyl raised his eyebrows and shot an upwards look that said, isn't that just incredible?

"And I like hoverboards. My friend Javen is teachin' me how to ollie--ooh! oatmeal!--'cause he's probably the best hoverboarder ever. Like a pro, even." Wyl emerged from the cupboard, a tin of oatmeal in hand which he put onto the counter. Suddenly self-concious and aware of his chattiness, the boy picked at the label. "What do you like to do? Is this okay?" He motioned at the oatmeal on that last question.

[Daria Nytherciria]

“That's fine, yes.” Sensing her way around the kitchen was an easy task. Wyl would have been able to rifle through the entire contents of the cupboards before she had examined just one shelf, so Daria was thankful that he had found something he liked the look of. She thought a little about his first question, wondering what she did like to do, and skipped on answering. “You like ships, hm. Would you like to be a pilot, someday?”

[Wyl Staedtler]

"Hah, no." Wyl chuckled and shook his head. "'Cause I'm gonna be a perfessional jet-ball player." Almost as a afterthought the boy ammended his future. "And a Jedi, of course."

With an impressive jump, Wyl scrambled onto the narrow strip of durasteel that served as a counter, banging his heels against the cupboard doors rhythmically as he continued to pick at the oatmeal label, littering the counter with miniscule specks of glue-coated paper. "But maybe I might, um, learn to fly too 'cause I guess it comes in handy, like if you have to get away from people, huh?"

[Daria Nytherciria]

“Learning to pilot a ship is one of the necessities of life, unfortunately. If you cannot fly a ship of your own, you must rely on others to fly for you. Any kind of reliance upon others, no matter how small, can be of great danger.”

As Daria spoke, she heard her former Master's tone in her voice. Chastising, foreboding – it was the voice that could turn even the most trivial of discussions towards a more sombre tone, and in doing so had robbed a handful of children of their carefree childhoods. It had instilled in Daria the same severity and conscience; an almost paranoid awareness of the sheer peril of the Galaxy.

“Wyl...”

She paused.

“Wyl... I cannot force you to become a Jedi, if it is not the path you wish to take.”

[Wyl Staedtler]

"Oh I know." The boy said as he worked busily at prying the lid from the oatmeal tin. The coversation had taken an odd turn and Wyl felt somehow as if he'd been caught doing something he oughtn't. With a pop of released air, the cover slid from the container. Wyl reached in and plucked a tiny metal scoop, half-buried in cereal.

Fingering the shiny utensil, the boy continued drumming his feet on the cupboards, now accompanied by an occasional ting by the spoon upon the countertop. He kept his eyes on everything but Daria, who seemed to be waiting for him to say something more. "What happens if I don't want to?"

[Daria Nytherciria]

What indeed, Daria wondered. The boy had become her burden – no, responsibility – upon accepting the offer presented to her by the Rebel Alliance. If Wyl elected against becoming a student of the Jedi Arts, it would fall to Daria to find him a place elsewhere in the Galaxy.

“I'm... not certain. It is possible that you could be taken into the care of a family who are sympathetic towards the Rebellion, and live out of a relatively normal life.”

Normal. It wasn't the most fitting of words. There was likely nowhere in the Galaxy that could be said to be safe for those with Jedi or Rebel sympathies, but there were some places that were safer than others – and at Daria's side wasn't one of them. Although she was able to protect herself and the boy, much of what she protected him from was brought on by their own actions in the first place.

[Wyl Staedtler]

Wyl nodded, glad that Daria had the decency to be honest with him. Some adults had the tendency to speak in falsely bright tones when answering children, as if a cheery tenor could right a situation. With a sharp pang of lonliness the child remembered how his mother, though protective, had always made a point of being up front with him. Even in the worst of times Oa had openly laid all clearly out on the line; when she'd told him he was to be sent away, for instance.

He was suddenly furious, though he didn't understand why. With no other place to direct his anger, Wyl found himself looking at Daria with a strange sense of mutiny and gratitude. The boy slipped from the counter to stand on the same ground as the Knight. "I wanna be a Jedi, really." He said before he puffed out his chest and crossed his arms. "But you don't have to make rules or teach me anythin' 'cept Jedi stuff. I'm not a little kid."

[Daria Nytherciria]

“You have shown a great deal of maturity, Wyl. I would not do you the disrespect of treating you otherwise.”

It wasn't Daria's place or purpose to mother Wyl. She had not accepted him as an apprentice with intention of acting as a surrogate parent. They were teacher and pupil, and she intended to treat Wyl as Bra'jaa had her – like an adult, with none of the concessions or platitudes so often afforded to children.

“This situation isn't the most conductive to learning, but there isn't much we can do about that... so whenever you feel ready to commence your studies, we can begin.”

[Wyl Staedtler]

Wyl nodded, a feeling of small victory soothing the sharp spikes in his throat. He was getting used to the big words that Daria liked to use, and the stiff manner in which the Knight held herself made it easier for the boy to push aside his grief. "Okay." He dug a pot out from another cupboard. "We should eat first 'cause breakfast is the most important meal of the day and if you don't eat it you're dumber when you try'n learn new stuff."

Together they prepared the cereal, Wyl calling dibs on all scooping and stirring missions. When it was done two bowls were proffered and, steaming meal in hand, the boy crossed to a table at one end of the kitchenette. The oatmeal was too hot to eat right away, so he stirred it about and blew on it. "Daria?" Wyl asked as he puckered his lips and sent steam skittering. "Can Jedi make dead stuff alive again?"

[Daria Nytherciria]

“No.”

Daria's response was swift. It was a question that had been asking many times before, by countless Jedi making their first forays into the training that lay ahead of them. The Jedi Knight recalled the fall of Darth Vader, the blade of the Jedi Purge, a fall which had begun with the troubling notion that one day he would become powerful enough to return the dead to the world of the living.

“Whilst death may be – at times - regrettable, it is an important and integral part of life. There are myths of ancient Sith Lords with the power to give life to the dead, but they are just that – myths. Though we as Jedi learn how to heal wounds it is not our place, nor is it within our power, to revive those who have passed from this world into the next.”

[Wyl Staedtler]

The boy listened with his head down; he was afraid that if he watched Daria while she spoke, his dissapointment would somehow be worse. As it was, Wyl felt his heart drop lowly.

"Oh." Was all he said in reply. For a brief second there was the threat of tears, because it became clear at that moment how very far away from home they'd gone. Instead of crying like some sissy-baby, Wyl shoveled a tremendous spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth, and then another and another. He swallowed it indiscriminately, even though it felt like it was all getting jammed up in his throat like traffic in the skylanes at five. It was hot and burned the back of his mouth, but Wyl took a crooked relief from the sensation.

Nearly sick, the boy dropped his spoon just as suddenly as he'd picked it up, abandoning the rest of the breakfast. He could feel Daria watching him. Setting his elfin face into a stoic expression, Wyl stood from the table. "I'm goin' to get dressed." Was given in explanation, before the boy shuffled back towards the sleeping quarters.

[Daria Nytherciria]

Daria sat in silence as Wyl sloped away into his bunk. It was clear that her answer had not been expected – but as she had promised only minutes earlier, she would not sugar-coat the truth for him. He was only a child and she understood - from her own equally tumultuous childhood, marked forever by the horrendous Purge - that it was not easy for him to accept the truth, as much as he might have wanted to be brave and 'mature'. She could feel the struggle inside of him; the carefree spirit of a child fighting a valiant yet ultimately fruitless battle against the world, the burden of reality growing heavier with each passing year...

In Daria's hands, the oatmeal grew cold. With her lips set into a firm line, she placed the bowl aside. She gathered up her robes and stopped by Wyl's closed doorway for only a moment, speaking into the grain of the wood. “If you need me, Wyl, I'm going to be outside.”

With this said, she stepped out of their temporary 'home' and into the clearing that surrounded it. Bordered by the Dxun jungle, it was like an oasis, though far from paradise.

[Wyl Staedtler]

It took a long time for Wyl to change clothes.

When the boy finally did emerge, squinting in the bright morning light, he carried an expression of ease with him. There were no reddened eyes or tear-stained cheeks, though perhaps a slight stuffiness in his nose might be heard. Wyl watched Daria from atop the ramp, leaning against the side of the ship, as she surveyed their surroundings. No, not really surveyed, that didn't make sense. The boy frowned, not quite understanding why it was that the Knight appeared to be observing when he knew she was quite blind; a Jedi trick?

With a slowness that suggested he was feigning nonchalance, Wyl hunkered down to the mossy ground, kicking at a clump of fuschia blossoms. Green-spotted rocks littered the ground, and the boy chose a few good sized ones which he proceeded to throw into the surrounding tangle of vegetation. They made little crashing noises and out of the corner of his eye Wyl watched Daria, making sure she knew he was there.

[Daria Nytherciria]

Daria's head turned ever so slightly, though she did not look directly towards Wyl. There was no need. She heard the stones he threw colliding with the soft earth; heard the air displaced as his body moved. If she listened hard enough, she could hear everything.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

[Wyl Staedtler]

"Throwin' rocks." The boy answered readily, his voice implying the unvoiced 'duh'. He was glad that Daria had spoken first, because he was somehow embarrassed about their inside conversation.

Wyl lobbed another stone into the foliage. "There's lizards 'n stuff in there that eat people. Grace," He paused mid-throw, "Remember her? She killed a huge thing with horns." That Boma had been particularly frightening.

The boy tossed another shard of slag, dutifully steering the conversation as far away from previous topics as possible. "They're probably scared of rocks. This way they won't bother us while we're here."

[Daria Nytherciria]

One of the rocks that Wyl was reaching for suddenly bobbed into the air, darting away from his hand. It flew in an arc through the air, and landed in Daria's open palm. It puzzled her that the boy could be amused by such simple things, but then there was very little to occupy his mind on Dxun, beyond his studies.

“Why don't we use our time a little more productively,” she said, “And begin one of your lessons.”

[Wyl Staedtler]

He was about to protest indignantly, because there was a hint of a tone in Daria's voice, that he hadn't been wasting time and she'd be glad when they weren't suddenly attacked. If he was supposed to be mature, however, he couldn't sulk like a child. This was exhausting, the way his emotions jerked about at the drop of a hat.

With a little shrug, Wyl shuffled over to Daria and held out his hand cautiously for the stone. "That was cool. Is that what you're gonna teach me?"