Difference between revisions of "Nya Halcyon"

"A Jedi is a Jedi, first and foremost, and only. For a Jedi to divide his attention between the will of the Force and the will of others is to invite disaster."

―Jedi Master Hoche Trit

For Jedi to marry and bear children is against the code, yet Fionn Halcyon and Berit Selki (not unlike other Corellian Jedi) defy the code, get married and conceive a child, all without the knowledge of the Jedi Council on far Coruscant. The daughter they named Nya grows up in the relatively "safe" community of Corellian Jedi of whom many have a history of defying Jedi regulations, with both her parents as her teachers.

Fionn Halcyon

"Have we had any contact from the Temple?"
"Received a coded retreat message, we have."
"It requests all Jedi to return to the Temple. It says the war is over."
"Well, then we must go back. If there are any stragglers, they will fall into the trap and be killed."

―Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Bail Organa

Berit Selki

Her father's last deed as a Jedi, however, was implanting the need to rescue and keep his daughter safe into the clone commando who towered over him, readying a last strike. The commando, already terribly conflicted over his orders and trying to come to terms with what he has become, strikes him down and kills him, but Fionn Halcyon's last command gives his tortured soul the necessary fuel to overcome his initial inbred loyalty to his superiors. Taking up Fionn's lightsaber, he strikes down the rest of the clone squad and escapes.

Hours later, young Nya finds herself snatched from her comfortable bed by a creature dressed entirely in black, and to her unfiltering mind the flood of emotions coming from the murderer - for such he is, Nya is sure - is so overpowering that she can't even find the chance to alert her guardian and falls unconscious. The commando takes her on board of a ship, and then far far away.

But there is something about the man that he is keeping from her, that deep and dark emotion that first made her sure he was someone who had killed, and she doesn't feel safe with him at first. She doesn't understand why her father is not there in his stead, and the man - Darven he tells her to call him - explains that her parents are forever gone. That she does understand, even at her young age, and then there is only emotion. Pain. Loss. But also anger. They are what she feels, and it makes what she senses from him understandable as it feels the same. Her initial fear of him forgotten, she accepts her rescuer fully.

Darven

The two of them travel through space for long months, daring only to stop at the most outlying spaceports. At such times they only leave the ship in disguise - an injured father, face heavily bandaged, and his small child - stocking up supplies. Darven does not dare show his face because he has explained to Nya that it is a face too widely known, belonging to any of the million and more soldiers of the Empire, and it would be too dangerous were he to be recognised as a clone dressed up in civilian clothing.

But Darven wants her to be able to lead a different life - not one where she must hide. And to achieve this, he is torn: should he let her become what he ultimately hates, and find her a Jedi tutor? or let her forget about that aspect of her life and teach her the ways of a warrior? But the Jedi Purge seems to have been horribly efficient, and no Jedi can be found to take the matter out of his hands.

And as Nya grows older, her finely attuned force senses make her realise that the bleakness at the bottom of her companion's heart comes from something deeper than the simple loss of the brothers he had; she begins to notice the subtle hints the man's conflicted soul is leaving behind for anyone but a child to read. She slowly starts to question the truths she was told by him, willing to accept that he had not known any different, either, when he told her. Unable to harbor any ill-will against her "hero", she keeps such thoughts and observations to herself, not wishing to harm him with harsh words for she senses that he's as vulnerable as she is.

After two years of travelling through space the credits he "liberated" from her parents' accounts run out and the pair is forced to settle down somewhere and earn a living. And Darven choses the only place that could ever mean home to him - in spite of his fear of being recognised for what he is - and they make their way for Mandalore.

So, upon landing on Mandalore, he dons a suit of Mandalorian armor he cobbled together from different parts he bought, and sets off with Nya in search for this Jedi. On the way, he admonishes the little girl to make sure not to talk to anyone of her connection to him, and repeats to her again the story of the events surrounding her parents' death: that he came too late to save them, and had to kill their killers in order to carry out their last command - something for which he made himself an outcast amongst his brothers.

Padawan to "Gotab"

The Jedi turns out to be a human man in his late twenties who goes by the name of Gotab and does not at first agree to let her stay. He is no longer a Jedi, he claims, he gave up his former life for his present one. But then Darven sends Nya outside of the Jedi's modest home, and talks with him, and finally comes out and tells her she can stay. There is a finality in his voice, and terrible pain. Something got said in there - she can feel it, but she has no way of telling what. Darven bids the girl goodbye and walks off, without another word or even a glance back. But she can feel his pain long after he vanished from her sight.

Thus begins her life as a Jedi learner. It is unlike anything else she has ever experienced. Gotab is not like the other Jedi of the community she lived with - he is more raw, but yet more refined in some ways. He is a healer. And a proper Mandalorian warrior. But what is more - he is not training only her: a small boy sometimes comes to him, younger than herself, who reminds her oddly of Darven. Gotab explains that it is the child of one of Darven's clone brothers, but when she expresses curiosity beyond that, he tells her that it is not for her to know.

Her training makes slow progress. Gotab is no Corellian Jedi, he is a stranger to the limitations that she seems to have inherited from her parents' line. She wrestles with telekinesis until Gotab makes her stop; it is pointless to continue trying to learn a skill that it seems she is incapable of handling. Remembering what he knew of the other Halcyon Jedi master, Gotab makes her focus her skills on matters of the mind instead: she learns how to use her skills to influence other people, to shift their thoughts into avenues otherwise left undiscovered, to confuse them. This, to her, somehow feels wrong; it feels like the kind of thing a Jedi should not do. But he tells her that with the remaining Jedi being hunted like dumb beasts, these skills are going to ensure she has an edge over others.

He also teaches her healing, although she is not a natural as he seems to be at it. He teaches her how to fight with a lightsaber, and gives her the saber Darven retrieved from her father when she gets good enough with the practice blade. He teaches her about her responsibility towards other creatures, and listening to her conscience and her sense of good and evil. And above all, he teaches her the ways of the Mando'ade, which he feels are complementing a true Jedi in these dark times.

And every now and then, she senses Darven's presence. He is watching over her. It makes her very happy that he has not forgotten her, but also very sad that he will not come and see her. She knows that Gotab can sense it, too, and she can feel his irritation at the clone's visits. She senses with crystalline clearness that there is something left unsaid, something that she should know about, but she cannot ask Darven and Gotab will only shake his head. Still, the visits fill her with gladness.

The years pass. They travel to other planets, to study other civilisations, to meet other people; but more often Gotab leaves without her, taking the boy instead who lives with them sometimes when his other uncles are not there to look after him. At such times when she is left behind she is free to embrace the life of an ordinary child, but on Mandalore that only means embracing the life of a true warrior as children are considered adults following their verd'goten - their coming of age - at thirteen. And she had passed that trial with flying colors, earning her the right to call herself a true Mandalorian warrior.

• Able to absorb large amounts of Force energy, and out of necessity learned to draw even the minutest amount of this energy out of her surroundings
• Trained as an actress, able to augment her speech with the Force and thereby gain advantage over others - she rarely used this, however, as she considered it "child's play"
• Able to influence others' visual senses by overlaying them with her own - useful for throwing of her enemies in an attack by forcing them to act and react to her liking
• A natural talent for languages, able to understand the meaning of conversations in foreign languages through her Force-gift, and even able to understand some birds and beasts
• In earlier years unable to move even a pebble through the Force unless "charged" with absorbed Force Energy, she learned to overcome this by drawing on the smallest source of such energy available
• Found she had a rare talent: the Force Scream - if used during a fight it will throw anyone nearby into a near-catatonic state, thus effectively disarming them. Unfortunately this would also affect her severely and render her unconscious for a short time, thereby negating any advantage she might have

For information about the person behind the character and an overview of alternate characters, see Mara