I Have A Dream

[Inyos Aamoran]

A warm glow washed over the temple steps, the vague stripes of cloud adding shades and texture to the golden sky as Coruscant Prime disappeared in sunset behind the distant skyline. The air was light and fresh: nothing like the stale, recycled air that pumped around inside the battered and rusted ships of the Wheel; and the gentle breeze that ruffled his robes and brought scents of the blossoms and flowers in the temple guardens was unlike anything he had felt since before he'd been trapped in darkness on Ord Ithil.

The stone steps on which he sat were hard and unrelenting; but a Jedi learned to tolerate such things, and a man could do so easily when faced with the realisation that after so many long, perilous, arduous years, he was finally home.

"This is a dream, isn't it?"

It was a question that didn't need answering; if the fact that he was sat on the great stairway leading to an unscathed Jedi Temple, deep in the heart of the Imperial homeworld without there being even the faintest whisper of a Stormtrooper attempting to stop him wasn't evidence enough, the presence of his companion most certainly was. Mandan Hidatsa was a man long dead; but clad in the same emerald robes and graced with the same boyish smile that he always wore, the man beside him looked anything but.

"Yes, it is," Mandan agreed, his eyes not deviating from the horizon as he replied. "Or perhaps it is a vision. You were always better at getting the terminology right than I was."

A faint breath of laughter escaped from Inyos. "A vision?" He shook his head, dismissing even the faintest notion. "I didn't have those even before the Purge," he countered. "You expect me to believe that I'm having them now, with how clouded my concentration and my conscience are these days? I can hardly feel the Force anymore, let alone decipher what it is whispering to me."

Despite the gruff new tone of cynicism that his old friend had acquired, Mandan couldn't help a faint smile. "It helps to have an old friend around to turn that whisper into a shout."

"A dead friend," Inyos clarified.

Mandan inclined his head, surrendering the point. "I prefer to think of myself as having transcended my physical existance, and become one with the Force."

The muscles along Inyos' jawline clenched, and his eyes tried to waver from the sunset, but he forced them to remain. "I killed you, Mandan. I fought my closest friend, and I cut you down. Then I let my emotions consume me, and murdered another in cold blood."

A surprising, genuine laugh escaped from Mandan at that. "If memory serves," he countered, "That 'another' was posessed by the spirit of an ancient and powerful dark Jedi, who twisted and manipulated me into trying to kill you. And the instant she died - the instant you realised what had happened - you decided that you would rather die than fall to the Dark Side." He shrugged, placing a reassuring hand on Inyos' shoulder. "You can't be blamed if the Dark Side on that planet decided to thwart the swan-dive you took off that building."

"Can't I?" Inyos' voice trembled with bitterness. "I seem to be succeeding in that quite well."

Mandan let out a sigh. "Well, I don't blame you, Inyos. And though you don't need it: you have my forgiveness as well."

At that, Inyos finally did allow himself to look at the spectre beside him: the man who was his brother in all but name and genes. "How can say that with such ease? I took everything from you - you never even met your son."

Mandan smiled: a warm smile, wise beyond his apparent years. "We were both trapped on that planet, old friend. The time that you spent in deepening dispair, I spent coming to terms with it. And as for my son -"

The emerald knight rose, descending a few steps to bring him closer to the seated Inyos' eyeline. "He's here, Inyos. Or there, rather. With you, amongst the fugitive flock that sails across the stars." Mandan's viridian eyes shone, eager and intent as he plucked the hilt of his lightsaber from his belt, extending it towards Inyos' waiting hands. "Find him, Inyos. Lead me to him."

Inyos' eyes fell towards the lightsaber, hand trembling as he reached towards the hilt. So many questions swarmed his mind, things he knew he should ask: but as his fingers closed around the cold, polished steel, his eyes snapped open, and he awoke.

[Wyl Staedtler]

To visit the flight deck was to travel to a world alive with the breath of machinery. The electric-sharp wail of it seemed to rent the very air into pieces, rising in the hissing gasps of forging flame and the bone-rattling clatter of metal tools against stubborn steel, only to turn around and stitch it shut again with it’s sudden jagged silence. Men swore, and women, too, their voices bending to tell the story behind the profanity just as ably as a prisoner under torture; frustrated and riding the back of a chuffed breath meant a difficult repair; high and sharp as a blaster bolt meant an unexpected discovery in one extreme, either excellent and rewarding or devastatingly ominous; loud and raucous just meant the good times were rolling. Most of the colourful phrases fell into this last category and it was a testament to the resilient nature of most mechanics that even against the overwhelmingly solemn backdrop of the Wheel, they were able to paint a mosaic of life getting on.

Beneath the belly of a ship, Wyl Staedtler greeted the cries that reached his ears with a canny grin. In all the galaxy there wasn’t a more heartbracing sound as the din the rose from a bustling flight bay. The boy’s eyes were bright with a thrill of passionate fire that only the smell of engine oil and the heft of a hydrospanner could light and he drew a deep, quick breath of excitement. Forget lessons: a soul could learn practically everything needed to survive in the galaxy just by scuttling about down here.

With a puzzled scrunching of his nose, Wyl turned his attention back to the task at hand and tilted his head to look up at his current self-decided learning aid. The shuttle was one he’d not seen on the deck before, a Theta-class that seemed out of place surrounded by the rest of the Alliance starfighters; she was as a graceful little bird with secret strength surrounded by hungry, fearsome kree-hawks. Whoever owned her took good care of her, for even though her plating bore the telltale signs of age and battle-stress, her inner-workings were something to marvel at. It had taken a lot of effort to loose one of her bottom panels and Wyl’s hair was tousled with sweat to prove it, but the work had been more than worth it. A shiver of awe scurried across his skin as he lifted a hand and pointed to a thick group of cables running parallel with the wing.

“What’re those?” he asked.

Trip, the little T3 Utility Droid that had become his companion on Bespin, swiveled to take in what those the boy was referring to. “Those are power conduits, Master Wyl.”

Wyl rolled his eyes. “I know that, Trip. But what do they power?”

“It would appear that they are connected to the auxiliary repulsorlift controls."

“Oh. They look kind of corroded, don’t they?”

“That is difficult to ascertain from this vantage point, Master Wyl.”

“I think they look corroded,” the boy supplied cheerily. “Can’t leave ‘em like that. That could spell disaster for a poor, unsuspecting pilot. C’mon, Trip, we just have to borrow some tools.”

If a droid’s hesitance could be counted for a dubious expression, Trip’s pause spoke volumes. But regardless of it’s analysis of the situation, Trip was nothing but loyal. As Wyl bounded off in search of unattended tech gear, the T3 dutifully trailed along behind him on drivers made slow by the objective knowledge that this was by all accounts and angles a bad idea.

[Inyos Aamoran]

To describe himself as 'shaken' by the dream was somehow both an understatement and overstatement at the same time. The experience had been unsettling to say the least - a dream so vivid and so real - that the war-torn Jedi could do nothing but accept it as the vision it claimed to be. There had been old stories in the Jedi Archives that recounted tales of Knights being visited by the ghosts and aparitions of fallen Jedi; as a Padawan, he had always greeted such tales with healthy scepticism, citing the lack of evidence as his excuse to be cynical. The fact that he was now forced to accept what he had previously dismissed was... peterbing.

That was the overstatement; the understatement was that, despite the radical inversion of his understanding of the universe and the status quo, Inyos remained ever the unflappable and stoic pillar of Jedi decorum and calm. It wouldn't matter what truths he uncovered: he would always learn to accept them and integrate them into his understanding with a level of calm comprehension that would have made Master Yoda proud.

Inyos did however manage to hold onto a small crutch of doubt. Even if Mandan's son was on the Wheel - how in the 'verse Mandan could know that, and yet not be able to actually find the child himself left Inyos thoroughly baffled - the odds of identifying a single individual amongst a convoy full of refugee Jedi, Rebel pilots, and an oddment of other galactic riff-raff were astronomical. Perhaps with access to a sample of Mandan's DNA, a well-equipped medical laboratory, and a continguent of analysis droids, he could -

* * *

It was fourty years ago or there abouts, and a far younger, far shorter Inyos Aamoran stood anxiously in the great hall of the Jedi Temple. He had spent a decade under the tutilage of Master Yoda and the other Jedi on Coruscant as a Youngling; but now the Council had decreed that he, and a few other of his clanmates, were too young to continue being trained in that form. As they had not yet been selected to become the Padawan of an existing Knight or Master, a content had been arranged between the aging students. The Jedi would watch and observe: if any of the Younglings were able to impress a potential mentor, they would become apprenticed. If they failed, they would forever be consigned to the ranks of the Jedi Service Corps.

Inyos blamed himself for being here, of course. He had studied every tome in the Jedi Archives: memorised every scripture, and every instruction he had ever been exposed to. His knowledge and understanding was beyond comparison, and yet here he was, overlooked by all until the last moment. Clearly, the failing was not with his knowledge, but with his self; his abilities were obviously trailing behind what he knew full-well he was capable of. He set his jaw and narrowed his eyes - he would strive, with every fibre of his being, and ensure that he did not fail again.

"Hello."

The voice shattered his introvert focus, and pulled Inyos' attention back to his surroundings. He looked around for the source, preparing a stern onslaught of words towards whomever had the audacity to disturb his mental focus. His eyes settled on a Youngling he had not encountered before - ruffled blonde hair, green eyes, and for some reason a smile that came so naturally to his features that it looked like it might never be absent. A hand was thrust out in the direction of Inyos, and he looked at it with momentary confusion.

"My name is Mandan Hidatsa. Pleased to meet you."

* * *

The boy that Inyos saw before him now looked almost as if he had stepped out of a memory. There were differences, granted - the hair was brown, and the eyes weren't green - which no doubt owed to contributions from his mother: but there was something about the eager look in his eyes, the way he moved, and the awkward ruffle of his scruffy hair that left Inyos in no doubt that this boy - whoever he was - was the son that Mandan had assured him was here.

"Damn it, Mandan," Inyos muttered under his breath. "You know how much I hate it when you're right."

He watched as the young boy - and an unusual and archaic-looking astromech droid of a design that Inyos couldn't identify, which trundled along in his wake - ambled casually from point to point across the flight deck, evidently gathering supplies for some project or other. The boy had apparently chosen to use the broad flat platform of the astromech's head as a table on which to store his collected tools, which gave the droid an unusual comedy appearence, as if he were a young Coruscanti gentleman being taught balance and poise.

If looks alone weren't enough to identify the child, further observation confirmed it. Apparently satisfied that he had the supplies he needed, the boy turned tail, and returned back towards the ship he had selected: none other than the Emerald Knight, the old Republic shuttle that Inyos had obained and named after the boy's father.

There was a twist of something in Inyos' chest - an emotion, perhaps, though not one that Inyos routinely allowed himself to induge in, and thus not one he was aware of a proper definition for. He let it linger for a moment before locking it away, and then - adopting his best 'I am a Jedi Knight, and thus you should be intimidated by me' pose - strode across the flight deck to where Mandan's son was screwing around with his ship.

[Wyl Staedtler]

Being that he was only eight (and a half, his mind supplied stubbornly) and had yet to reach the great height that he would no doubt one day tower over the galaxy from, Wyl had to adapt his means to fit the given situation. It was a blessing then that ingenuity came easily to the boy, particularly when the proper inspiration fueled it. There was no greater motivator than the chance to refine an already beautiful vessel, impress upon it a few minor improvements that would have a startling effect on overall efficiency.

To get the panel off in the first place, Wyl had simply used Trip as a stepping stool and gone to work with his borrowed hydrospanner. With the utility droid now being used to carry much more important cargo, he was forced into something a little more crude. With a stiff grunt of effort, the padawan hoisted himself up on one of the docking supports, looping his legs around the narrow bar and using his knees to caterpillar his way up until he could grasp the edge of the wing. Wyl swung his way along it's edge hand-over-hand, moving quickly to keep his awkward grip from slipping loose and then flung his legs forward, their momentum giving him enough of a push to reach out and slip his hand into the little wedge of space left where the panel had once been.

Wyl hung on with one hand and used the other to turn himself around. He looked down at Trip. "You're going to have to pass me what I need, okay? That's what assistants do. Looks like - "

But the boy's diagnosis was cut short by the arrival of a rather disgruntled-looking adult. The man's face wasn't one that Wyl recognized but that merely served to make him more interesting and the boy offered a friendly smile and a wave of his free hand as the stranger came to a halt. Sometimes adults wearing that particular face - solemn and faintly disapproving - could be comforted by a little warmth. The hand that was weaving a welcome in the air was held out, Wyl still dangling like a monkey from the other.

"Hello," he said. "M'Wyl. Pleased to meet you."

[Inyos Aamoran]

That was another trait that the boy - Wyl, Inyos committed to memory - had inherited from his father. Had it been Inyos, or perhaps any other rational individual trying to contend with the height complications of reaching the underbelly of the ship, they might perhaps have commandeered a step ladder, or a cargo container to use as a platform. But no. Just like Mandan, Wyl apparently felt the need to form a plan and carry it out as swiftly as possible, regardless of whether or not it was a logical and effective use of time, resources, and effort.

"I am Inyos Aamoran," he replied to Wyl's introduction, but his eyes were looking elsewhere, rather than at the strangely suspended child. "I would ask what you are doing, but -" His gaze found what he was looking for - a yellow duraplast store-case of approximately the right size. Using the Force he reached out, first nudging aside a tool case that blocked it's path, and then pulling the box towards the ship until it came to rest more or less beneath Wyl's slightly flailing legs. Content that he had done enough to satisfy health and safety, he turned his attention back to Wyl directly. "- it seems somewhat obvious that you are in the process of effecting repairs to my ship. What fault have you uncovered?"

[Wyl Staedtler]

"Hey, thanks!"

After a bit of straining to see if his toes could touch the top of the crate Wyl surrendered gamely to the forces of gravity and simply let go, falling the spare six inches or so to the duraplast surface. He landed in a practiced crouch that took the brunt of the impact and spared his joints from a rattling and beamed pleasantly at Inyos. It never failed - a little grin, a little extended hospitality and even the hardest of nuts would crack.

Well, most of them, Wyl amended privately. But one day even Abarai Loki would come around and be won by his efforts, the boy was sure of it.

A little clicking whirr signified Trip's presence by the crate and Wyl leaned over and plucked a wrench from atop the droid's head, giving the faithful little trooper a fond pat for good measure.

"This is your ship?" he raised his eyebrows and turned a measured look on Inyos, filled with new appreciation. "Wow! She's great - and I haven't even seen her guts yet!"

Now, there were a few courtesies that were held at a higher standard than others, lines that, when crossed, extended beyond offense and provided justifiable means for a hostile and drawn-out feud. Stealing a significant other was one; framing an innocent soul for a serious crime another. Splitting open another man's ship without his implicit permission slotted somewhere in-between on a scale of severity and Wyl had the decency to look a bit sheepish at being caught in the act of just that. The best thing to bank on here would be his youth: you couldn't kill kids for being kids, not unless you were a real jerk. Inyos was a Jedi. There was a degree of leeway at his disposal and Wyl dove for it.

The boy tilted his head back, hair spilling off his face in tumbled nests, and surveyed the shuttle before he looked back at Inyos.

"Bit of wear'n'tear on her power conduits, s'all," he explained. An artful downward tilt of his head was offered, keen blue eyes touched with a kiss of guilt as he peered at the man before him imploringly, with that face that always earned him an extra biscuit from the mess hall. "I didn't know she belonged to you."

[Inyos Aamoran]

"Having never met me before," Inyos observed, with a slight arch of his eyebrow, "I don't suppose it would have made a difference to you if you had known."

There wasn't even a hint of accusation in Inyos' tone: merely a simple statement of logic and fact. In truth he didn't particularly mind the violation of his craft, provided that careful hands were employed, and nothing was broken. A few of the deck technicians had expressed an interest in exploring the innards of the archaic craft: and Inyos was a sensible enough man to not turn down the possibility of free repairs and system refinements.

Hands clasped behind his back, he watched young Wyl with what he hoped seemed like casual interest. "If you don't mind me asking: what drew you to this ship in particular?"

[Wyl Staedtler]

It was hard to determine whether or not a safe ground had been reached. Inyos had a fascinating inscrutable air about him, he was a fortress of a man who didn't let anything past the wall without a purpose. He wasn't intimidating but there was an unreadable quality to his piercing gaze that both stirred Wyl's curiosity and alerted his caution; of course, the tow-haired boy generally ignored the latter in favour of satisfying the former but acknowledging a need to tread honestly was often the most important part of satisfying instinct.

Wyl spun the wrench in his hand, twirling it in a dizzying step from finger to finger and then over to his other hand. "Well, I've never seen a Theta-class up close before," he explained. "And there wasn't anybody about. She felt lonely."

Indeed, while the rest of the deck was a teeming sea of activity marked by screeching lifts and raised voices and showering sparks, the space around the shuttle was comparatively silent. The marked docking space was practically a ghost town.

Wyl glanced upward at the power lines again, uncertain. Inyos had not yet expressed any direct upset at having his ship so brazenly operated on but neither had he given his permission to continue.

"I wouldn't have hurt her," Wyl's voice took on a note of defense, for the first time betraying his projection of innocence. Small hands stopped the wrench in it's tumbling dance and closed around the tapered end, the press of it against his palm a comforting friction. "Morgan's taught me a lot and he knows everything about ships, absolutely everything."

[Inyos Aamoran]

There were times when the reactions and perceptions of others came as a mystery to Inyos. He was learned enough to predict them, to accept them, and to expect them: but he couldn't comprehend or fathom their nature. Empathy was always Mandan's forté; and Inyos supposed that he had grown complacent, relying on his frequent companion's skills and letting his own admittedly sub-par perceptions become atrophied.

Having served the Jedi Order, Inyos had been raised using craft that were owned by the Temple. Every shuttle, fighter, and speeder he had ever flown had never been his. He liked it that way: while he'd never known any different, he'd always assumed that had he owned the craft and been responsible for their repair and maintenance himself, he would have been much less tolerant of the frequency with which he and Mandan managed to cause extreme damage and destruction to them.

The shuttle beneath which they now stood was the first craft that had ever fallen under his legal ownership; and even then, he didn't really regard it as his. It was a means to an end, and even now he still thought of it as 'borrowed'. Best not to become attached, he mused.

His brow furrowed slightly as he offered an observation. "Actually, the Emerald Knight is a he," he explained; he never had understood why pilots so frequently referred to their vessels as feminine. Perhaps it was due to their obvious affection for the craft, but then, why did female pilots not refer to their ships as male?

He tried to keep his voice steady, but there was a slight falter as he raised his next question. "Do your parents know you're here?"

[Wyl Staedtler]

If Inyos had suggested that they were seconds away from the galaxy imploding with no chance of survival, he might have got a less incredulous reaction. But the idea of a ship being anything other than female was too ridiculous a notion to entertain without a massive grain of salt. A wash of disbelief fell across Wyl's face, twisting his features into a mask of angled lines that radiated a deep censure born of the confidence of children.

There was no point in sugar-coating it. "That's terrible luck," he said. "Any old spacer will tell you as much. You could die."

On Coruscant there was no shortage of weathered old travelers with more tales than they had time to tell them in. Veterans of a thousand different wars, merchants, smugglers, simple wandering souls - they all eventually settled somewhere and the Core had the distinct advantage of condensed amenities. Old Maeron had lived in the apartment above Wyl's own childhood home. Broad-shouldered and barrel-chested with eyebrows that grew long and thick as targeray bushes, he cut an imposing figure that made even men who were half his seventy years think twice about sassing him. Maeron hadn't been charming, his brusque and short-tempered nature only casting a scarier glint to his pockmarked, craggy face, but he had a voice that was a sweet and soft as the finest silk. At one time he had made a living as a musician, traveling from one end of the galaxy to the other and capturing it all in lyrical memory. They were mostly hauntingly hopeful ballads that ignited a longing in the hearts of those who heard them but Wyl's favourites were always been the ones about calamity in the vastness of space, something beautiful in the harshness of the tales always making him shudder and look to the skies above as though a part of him were out there, too, lost and forgotten.

The quickest way to die amongst the stars, Maeron always rasped, Is to anger the Gods by disrespecting the order of things. Even the most cynical captain don't dare disregard the old superstitions, my boy - they've lingered through the ages for a reason.

But perhaps Inyos hadn't ever met an old spacer who could tell him such things. Wyl readied himself to pass on the age-old beliefs in his own tutor's stead but never got the chance, intercepted by the Jedi's next question.

His heart gave a funny sideways thump that sort of made him feel as though he were being pressed in a vice. "I haven't got parents," Wyl said after only the slightest pause, narrow shoulders jerking up in a shrug. "I mean, I did have but they're dead now."

In anticipation of the awkwardness that always seemed to follow that information, the boy hurried to fill the silence. He frowned at Inyos.

"Or did you mean here specifically, on the deck? Because my master doesn't mind if m'down here on occasion, so long as I don't muck about where I'll get in the way."

[Inyos Aamoran]

That Wyl already knew his parents were deceased - to call it a relief would be a step too far, but at least he knew he was safe from shattering the protective lies of the boy's adoptive parents. While Inyos was a firm believer that the truth was always best known, no matter what it entailed, a good many sentients in the galaxy seemed to disagree with that assessment, particularly when it regarded their children, and the harsh realities of life.

Mention of the boy's master sparked something in Inyos that he hadn't expected: pride. It was of course common knowledge amongst the Jedi that an affinity with the Force could be a hereditary trait. While most Jedi were forbidden to wed and have offspring by the tennets of the Jedi Code, some Knights were given special dispensation to do so by the Council; and both they and history made it clear that a powerful bloodline could be passed from parent to child.

"Old spacers have their traditions," Inyos conceeded, steering their conversation back towards ships: a subject that Wyl seemed infinately more comfortable discussing. "And they have their reasons for upholding them, I'm sure. I, meanwhile, have my own reasons for ignoring them completely."

His eyes climbed to the ship above, fingers reaching up to gently press against the space-burnished hull. "This is more than a ship," he explained. "The Emerald Knight is more than just a name - he was a man; a Jedi named Mandan Hidatsa. We first met when I was only a little older than you; and though we were the students of different Masters, we came to know each other well."

His lips tightened into a hint of a grim smile. "When the Clone Wars began, Mandan's master was slain. I was already a Knight by then, but the Jedi Council had -" He hesitated, searching for the words. "- reservations. I petitioned that he be allowed to accompany me until such a time as the Council deemed him worthy. For the rest of the war we fought side by side: and when the end came, and the Jedi fell, we saved each other and found a way to survive."

His eyes fell away, a hint of sadness furrowing his brows. "He died, many years ago. But he was my brother, in all but blood: and this ship is a reminder that, even in death, he will be walking beside me. So whatever beliefs others may hold about luck and fate: the Emerald Knight was named for the greatest man I ever met, and I will not address this ship as anything but the same."

Silence fell, and so did Inyos' gaze, a mix of memories fading into his consciousness like ghosts from the past. He indulged them for just a moment, before bidding their silence.

One sentence shattered the quiet that had fallen. "Your mother's name was Oa, was it not?"

[Wyl Staedtler]

The boy flinched, a two-syllable slap sending him tumbling away from memories of a different age and the steady-eyed Jedi alike. That name hadn't been spoken aloud in so long that it seemed a profanity, stinging the air with it's ragged outline and scraping across his skin like a blunted razor with just enough edge to leave a mark. Ghosts were cruel in that way, hurtful as they hadn't been able to be when their lungs still drew breath. It was the weight, Wyl thought, the weight of remembering and regretting that sharpened the spirit of them to a fine point that stabbed coldly.

His eyes lost their friendly glimmer as he took a few steps back. Wyl stared at Inyos with hard suspicion, aware that only a few inches of crate remained at his heels.

"Did you stay with her?" he asked. "That's how you know her name, isn't it- she helped you get away? I must have been very small because I don't remember you."

[Inyos Aamoran]

"Yes," Inyos said, a blanket answer to all of Wyl's questions. "And no."

Suddenly, Inyos felt very weary; so much so that he reached out with the Force, and dragged over a crate upon which to sit, gesturing for Wyl to do the same. He chose his words carefully, delicately, staring at the floor until he know what it was he needed to say.

"A few years after the end of the Clone Wars, while Mandan Hidatsa, my Padawan and I were on the run from the new Empire, your mother found us. But that wasn't the first time we met her: we'd known her for years beforehand, on Coruscant. I even considered her a friend, and back then -" He offered a grim smile. "- I didn't have many. Your mother meant a lot to me." His eyes flicked upwards to make direct contact with Wyl's. "But not as much as she meant to Mandan."

A silence fell as once again Inyos gathered his thoughts. Though honesty was his policy regardless of the situation, he needed to choose his words wisely: be wary of revealing too much too quickly. Old and addled as he was, even Inyos had trouble wrapping his head around the truth. For young Wyl, it could potentially have been indecipherable. He scanned Wyl's features carefully, trying to read the young boy's emotions.

"We left your mother a few months before you were born; I never saw her again." Inyos' voice faltered for an instant, but he forced himself to keep talking. "Not long after that, Mandan died. He made me promise something. He told me that the woman he loved was carrying his child, and made me promise to find him; to make sure that he was safe."

"Today, that promise is fulfilled." Inyos reached out, a hand gently resting on Wyl's shoulder, peering deep into the boy's eyes. "Wyl: Mandan Hidatsa is your father."

[Wyl Staedtler]

For an instant the ship seemed to move too quickly to process the changing velocity, everything around them slowing to a series of snapshots. Wyl felt dizzy as he took the static scenes in one at a time and all at once: Trip rolling backwards with a spanner coil about to slip off the flat plane of his head; a stilted burst of white light to the left where a technician touched a welding torch to a loose bracket; a loop of wire caught in the air behind Inyos, sailing across the deck on it's way to a pair of waiting hands held out by a grinning man.

And then he was left with nothing but a heavy gaze filled with a truth so large that Wyl felt he was being crushed beneath it, the scope of it squeezing the very air from his lungs. She had lied. His mother had lied to him.

The touch of Inyos hand was like a scalding iron and Wyl shrugged out from under it to jump to his feet, regretting the decision almost as soon as his soles landed upon steel planking. With his brain trying desperately to parse this bold new assertion, little room was spared for muscle direction. His legs trembled like a yearling's, caught in a harsh crosswind that was sending everything he'd known scattering away like so much insubstantial chaff.

Wyl kept the Jedi's gaze, though the hammering ache in his chest urged him to run, to run far away and find escape from the absurd claim before it pulled him down - or maybe to seek privacy, a place of solace where he could let it settle over him and test the heft of it. But his legs wouldn't obey, they were steadfastly anchored by a tractor beam of intensity and as he stared at Inyos an awful certain weight settled in his stomach, and curdled. For a moment he thought he might be sick but then the feeling passed and there was only a strange hollowness left.

When Wyl finally spoke his voice was a trembling fire, coals heating the boyish timbre ever so slightly:

"She said he was a pilot." he said. "My mother said that he was a pilot, a trader from the outer regions. Not a Jedi."

[Inyos Aamoran]

As he beheld the boy's world come crashing down around his ears, Inyos finally understood what heartbreak was: for the sight of such agony wrenched his chest clean in two. His body turned leaden with regret; but his mind chastised him for it in an instant. Like everyone else in the universe, Wyl deserved the whole truth, no matter what that entailed.

That wasn't license to be insensitive however, as Inyos suddenly realised he must have been. His eyebrows twisted with a hint of sorrow, as he searched for the right words to repair the damage he'd wrought.

"Your father wasn't just a pilot, Wyl. When we were Knights together, I was always the better one with a sword; but put him in the cockpit, and he could fly rings around around some of the best pilots in the galaxy. The things he could pull off in a Jedi Starfighter -"

A whistful smile thought about forming on his lips, but he killed it before it had the opportunity to take hold. "After Mandan and I met your mother," he continued to explain instead, "We hid in the Outer Rim, moving from planet to planet, staying as many steps ahead of the people pursuing us as we possibly could. We needed credits, of course, so we played to his strengths: signed on with freighter crews, working short stints as traders all across the Rim. So you see -"

Inyos voice trailed off, and he looked at Wyl with honesty, and regret, and hope. "Your mother didn't lie to you, Wyl: what she told you was correct, from a certain point of view."

He frowned for a moment, considering a different approach. "She kept a secret from you, in order to keep you safe. Tell me, Wyl - have you ever kept anything a secret from your Master, or from -" He searched his memory for the name. "- Morgan, so that they'd remain happy; so that they wouldn't worry? Did that feel like lying to you?"

[Wyl Staedtler]

“No,” Wyl admitted, quick to add, “But that’s different. That’s now. Things have changed. My mother and I didn’t keep secrets, s’too dangerous.” Even as he said it he knew how foolish the words were. The belief that complete and utter honesty had governed the modest keep of their flat went beyond self-deception, it was impractical. To pretend and act otherwise in the climate of the Core would only have cost them their lives, and quickly. They had relied on a web of discretion in order to survive and to ensure the survival of those that had found amnesty within their home. It was not far off to assume that Oa had borne the brunt of those deceptions and held more in her hand than he could ever hope to guess; after all, he’d been a kid, then, trusting everything to work itself out because that was the way of the world when there were older hands to guide it.

And Inyos was right, he’d had his secrets, too. Perhaps not so very grave as his mother’s - the stuff of play and little alterations of truth to stay out of trouble but hidden all the same. Wyl felt a cold lick of something deeper curl in his belly, something darker. Yes, he held his own private conspiracies even know, closely guarded.

But that didn’t lessen the sting of having all the carefully packed bits of his past overturned and dumped out. A pain in his hand brought the padawan’s gaze down and he saw that he was still clutching the wrench, gripping it so hard that the metal edge bit into his palm and left an angry, wounded line. Wyl turned, his back to Inyos, and let the tool drop onto the crate. What he wanted now more than anything was to find Tak and rattle up a game, lose himself in the easy worlds that could be created on a whim to suit their needs. He wanted his feet to feel steady beneath him again. He wanted to understand and to shape that which he did not until it could be absorbed. He wanted to play, not fight against this awful tightness in his throat.

It was stupid, he reasoned, to be so upset over such hollow little imaginings being wrong. The dreams of his father that he had conjured up from the dim outline his mother had given were mere fluff, stories that he’d spun out of eager curiosity. To have something solid, wasn’t that what he’d always wanted? It had started his career as an explorer, the hunger for a discovery of substantial knowledge about the mysterious figure he’d never known. And that he’d been a Jedi - that was more than Wyl had been expecting.

When he thought he could contain himself, the boy turned back around, the wild mess of his dark hair falling across his forehead and making the blue of his eyes seem brighter by contrast. His mouth drew up on an angle as he surveyed Inyos.

“M’not sure if I should believe you,” he said. “If you were supposed to find me, why did it take so long? I’m nearly nine.”

[Inyos Aamoran]

Such a simple question and yet, such a difficult one to answer. Struggling to believe even a partial truth, how would Wyl ever accept the notion that Inyos had recieved instructions from the ghost of his father, or that Mandan had visited him in dreams?

"After your father died," he explained, fumbling his way through the explanation as if he were struggling to navigate his way down a pitch-dark corridor. "I became trapped on that world. There was no ship that could allow me to escape that planet; no communications array to allow me to signal for help." He couldn't hold Wyl's gaze anymore; better to let the boy believe he was lying than to allow him to see the horrors that swam behind Inyos' eyes as he recalled his ordeal. "I was trapped and alone on that world, for eight years."

He frowned heavily, his attention suddenly focussed on his hands, fingers laced together tightly to prevent them from forming fists. "About a year ago, a man - your cousin, in fact: the son of your father's sister - arrived on the world where I was stranded, and I was finally able to leave. I found my way here, but -"

He trailed off, finally allowing himself to look at Wyl again. "The galaxy is a big place, Wyl. It is only due to luck, and the will of the Force that I found you at all."

Not the will of the Force, he mused, though he didn't let the thought express itself aloud. More likely the will of your father.

[Wyl Staedtler]

It was almost uncomfortable, listening to Inyos explain. Though the man spoke plainly and with a steady voice, Wyl got the distinct impression that every syllable cost him something. The way his eyes dropped, as though each word weighed more than the last... the boy very nearly reached out to stop the man, to tell him that it was alright and that he didn't really need to know, if just to stop the burden of the telling.

But that would have been a lie. He did need to know, desperately, he realized. Besides, there were already enough veils out on the table.

In the silence that fell between them as Inyos stopped speaking, Wyl tried to sift through the enormity of all that had been laid out. There was a pregnant halt to the air as though a great many truths were yet to come and pulled impatiently at the tethers which bound them back. Yet even through the storm of emotions which rattled against his narrow ribcage - confusion, anger, fear, curiosity - Wyl found himself overwhelmed with a sympathy for the Jedi before him. This man, this stranger whose past was so intimately entwined with his own, who had lost so much of what he himself had never experienced.

Wyl took a deep breath. Then another. "Have you told anyone else?"

[Inyos Aamoran]

Inyos shook his head. "I have told no one but you."

Aside from the ghost of your dead father, of course, his mind silently corrected, but Inyos decided against revealing that particular detail. One universe-shattering revelation seemed enough for now.

He wished he could say more; say something that would offer comfort to the boy. While Wyl was nothing but a stranger to him now, things could have turned out very different had events unfolded in an even slightly alternate way. Had he and Mandan never left, this boy could have been almost family. His imagination fired into action - a quiet life, perhaps back on Naboo; sunshine, greenery, Mandan, Oa, Wyl, and he; laughing, smiling, enjoying life.

It shattered in an instant, as memories of Ord Ithil surfaced once again. He looked at Wyl once again, and a fledgeling realisation formed in his mind. He was nothing to Wyl; but the boy was more than nothing to him. He was an echo; the last piece of Mandan left alive in this universe; and a reminder of everything that Inyos had done, and lost.

Sadness gripped Inyos, and it was only the years of practiced stoicism and Jedi training that kept his eyes free of tears. He knew that Mandan would wish him to stay and watch over his son, and yet he also knew that he could not remain.

Even so, there was one last sentimental act that needed to be performed.

His eyes climbed to the shuttle above, and slowly, stiffly, he rose to his feet. "Come inside," he gestured, hand reaching up to trigger the manual control of the boarding ramp. "I have something that your father would have wanted you to see."

[Wyl Staedtler]

Wyl nodded, relief washing over him in torrents. It seemed suddenly the most important thing in the world, to keep the secrecy of his father’s identity a secret for a while longer. There was no shame driving the urge to do so, nor was that he didn’t trust Daria or his friends - his family, now - enough to share the information with them. Eventually they would know. The number of gathered Jedi was growing by the week, it seemed, but they were still a small community and life had a funny way of unearthing closely kept things when the ground was well traveled. Beyond that, the boy had one of those faces which tried desperately to keep things hidden and never quite managed it, honesty always lurking in some small space that gave him away: the downturning of his eyes; a twist of his mouth; the wringing of small, narrow hands.

It was just... Wyl had lived so long without any idea of who his father was, let alone what. Now, in the span of a heartbeat, he was suddenly drowning in knowledge. Just the fact that his lips could shape that name, could wrap around the smooth, rounded syllables and clap out the staccato rhythm of it, was overwhelming. Selfishly, he wanted to keep it only for himself, just for a little while. He wanted to live with the weight of knowing tucked up in his breast, wanted time to sort through the piercing anger and aching sorrow that limped around the feeling of exhileration, wanted to get lost in it and endure with it in a lonely, singular manner because he’d never possessed something like this, this magnificent and terrible truth.

My father was a Jedi, Wyl thought, just for the sake of being able to. His eyes never strayed from Inyos. His name was Mandan. He liked to fly, like me.

The glimmer in that last statement was nearly too much and Wyl’s breath dragged like cotton on a nail for a moment. By the time his lungs recalled how to inhale, Inyos was already walking up the ramp and Wyl was glad for the excuse to move, motion distilling his thoughts to peripheral ghosts as he concentrated on not scuffing his boots against the perforated metal.

“She’s... he’s bigger than I thought,” Wyl said, blue gaze glancing off the interior of the ship. He gestured quietly when Inyos looked back, clarifying, “Your ship, I mean, on the inside. The schematics I’ve seen don’t really get you ready for it in real life.”

[Inyos Aamoran]

Inyos offered a rare smile. "You might not feel the same after you've been stuck aboard for a few weeks at a time."

A thought bunched his brows together. "Or maybe once you've grown another foot or so."

The boarding ramp had led them beneath the cockpit, into the short corridor that connected the cockpit to the aft section, and through the thick, circular hatch that sealed the back half of the airlock. The chamber beyond - intended for passengers or cargo - had been turned into a modest living space. A simple mattress lay across one end; a few containers of belongings and emergency supplies were stacked at another. Inyos had very little need for anything save for those skant few items - nor had he had the opportunity to obtain them since returning from his exile.

There were a few items not openly on display, however. Located along the internal spine of the shuttle, a series of secure lockers existed for storing passenger valuables and other important items: and the item Inyos searched for was of deep value and importance. Reaching above him, he typed in the security code and retrieved a small, unremarkable box: something salvaged from somewhere or other, and not nearly as grand as it should have been, given the context.

Inyos lifted it down with reverence, stepping over to one of the seats that hadn't been stripped out of the aft section by whoever had last owned the craft. He sat, and set the box atop his knees, opening it. Wrapped in a sheer green cloth - a sentimental touch, but one that Inyos felt justified in making - was a cylinder, a few inches thick and eight or so long. The hilt was polished durasteel, but inlayed in bronzium was a swirling, interconnected, woven pattern; a pattern that implied the interconnected weave of the Force. Many Jedi constructed such things to be simple and functional, but not Mandan: he had wanted a metaphor; something that implied that his true weapon was really the Force.

Feeling as if touching it would somehow be wrong, he instead kept a hold of the box, and offered it towards Wyl. "This lightsaber belonged to your father."

[Wyl Staedtler]

Was Inyos making fun of him? Wyl's head drifted to the side and he studied the man intently, the delicate stretch of his smile that had a dusty, unused quality to it like paper gone brittle with age. The older Jedi didn't seem the sort to draw out the ire in others and after a moment, Wyl decided that his remark had been less insult about his stature (or lack thereof) and more a commentary on Inyos' own height - which, as they gently maneuvered down the corridor, did seem a bit cumbersome in comparison to the boy's smaller, more compact frame.

Was my father short? The question nearly tumbled out, saved at the last minute by the arid dryness in Wyl's mouth that made an impossibility out of speaking. Did he have a crooked smile, like mine? Why did you like him? What did his voice sound like?

There was so much he wanted to know and yet, in the same instant, Wyl felt certain that he would not survive Inyos telling him anything more. His feet felt leaden, weighted by a strange unwillingness as he moved them forward, as though some great magnetic force were trying to tug him bodily back the way he had come. He wanted to know, but he didn't. He was angry, but he wasn't. The dichotomy of it all made Wyl's head hurt.

So it was a relief to realize that he needed only resign himself to the position of co-pilot and allow the wake of Inyos' path to pull him bonelessly along. The boy let the buzz of his mind wash over him, a numbing blanket of toomuchnotnowstopthinking and concentrated instead on keeping close on the heels of the older Jedi; on slowing as they entered the makeshift quarters, so that he did not bump clumsily into the man's frame; on keeping his breathing as even and quiet as possible, so as not to disturb the strange, private hush that had fallen between them.

Until finally, all his concentration scattered like a murder of corpsebirds, and Wyl was left with a staggering uncertainty as he looked upon the ancient weapon that had once rested in his father's palms.

It was beautiful. More than that, it was unspeakably lovely, more precious than anything he had ever seen before in his life. Wyl's eyes slid down the length of the weapon, tracing the graceful artistry of the hilt, and he tried to envision how they had gotten there. His own hands flexed unconsciously at his sides, fingers bending in imagined mimicry of how an older, more experienced grip had no doubt formed in order to carve the finer details into the lightsaber.

Very slowly, the boy reached out and ran a single finger down the weapon's gilded casing.

"Do they have names?" Wyl whispered. "Like ships?"

[Inyos Aamoran]

He breathed out a hint of laughter. Only the son of Mandan Hidatsa could ask a question like that.

"Some do, and some don't," he answered enigmatically, recalling an argument on a somewhat similar subject that he and Mandan had once shared. "Many Jedi perceive their lightsaber to be an extension of themselves: for them, a name would give the weapon too much individuality, and make it something separate. I am one of those Jedi; your father, however, was not."

Inyos frowned, contemplating the Nabooian craftsmanship. "At the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, initiates and Padawans were taught to distance themselves from their pasts. In the minds of the Order, Knights should be Jedi above all things: their origins and heritage were merely distractions. Some Jedi felt differently. Corellians for example remain staunchly proud of their origins: their knighthood is celebrated by their family, and despite what is stated by the Jedi Code, many of them marry. Wookiees, Cereans, and many others remain similarly loyal to their home and heritage, despite the Order's disapproval."

The look on Inyos' face seemed almost embarrassed, like a school child confessing a secret that he knew would get his friend in trouble. "Your father's master was from Corellia, and so he was encouraged to share that attitude. Mandan believed that the family the Order had taken him from as a child was an essential aspect of who he was, and that to turn his back on it was to turn his back on part of himself. Instead, he wanted his family to be part of him; and so when the time came for your father to construct his lightsaber, he turned it into a reminder, so that his family would be with him always."

"So yes," Inyos continued. "This lightsaber does have a name. Your father named her Cheyenne, after his sister; your aunt."