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 Selkie (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 grew up in a close-knit community of Corellian Jedi, many of whom had a history of defying Jedi regulations.

Berit's death at Geonosis forced Fionn's hand: Nya was entrusted to the care of the Temple as he himself was called upon to act as a General in the Clone Wars after initially trying to leave the order. But the two-year-old proved withdrawn and detached to a worrying degree, as unbeknownst to anyone, her mother had latched on to her at the moment of her death and the child had "felt" her mother die; thus the council agreed to let Fionn take her back to familiar surroundings, and she spent the next few years either at her father's side, or, as the Clone Wars and his commitments to the Order increased, in the care of friends.

The Halcyon Family

"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

Nya was 5 years old, and settled into a semblance of "normal" life on Corellia, when her world tumbled further out of control. Her father never returned from his journey to find out what was happening to the Jedi on Coruscant, where he was struck down mercilessly by a group of clones in disguise while penetrating the still burning ruins of the Jedi temple.

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 killed him. Taking up Fionn's lightsaber, the soldier struck down the rest of the clone squad and escaped. On Corellia, young Nya felt her father's passing, but her guardians - no Jedi - did not want to believe her.

Hours later, an already scared and confused Nya found herself snatched from her bed by a "monster" dressed entirely in black who took her on board of a ship, and then far far away.

Nya at 5

After this shaky beginning, she strikes up a friendship with the man who soon opens up to her, telling her what he is and of all that has happened in the galaxy (except for the deed he can not tell her). To her childish senses, the clone's story is more horrible than anything she can imagine: a life full of death. And yet... deep down he feels just like another child to her, eager for the same things as she feels and as incapable of understanding what is happening around him as she is; as innocent of life as a whole as she. In some ways, she feels his equal or even his superior; the times when he hungrily follows the stories of her childhood, of her days with her parents and other people and children. To her, his reality of never having known, never having had a parent or time to play with other children even though he had so many brothers, seems utterly horrifying, and she doesn't realise how fortunate she was to have experienced that herself, as a Jedi.

Darven

Bereft of the chances to train as a Jedi child should, she looks to Darven for guidance, and indeed the clone teaches her much of the ways of the warrior as he once learned them. Yet she sometimes gets the feeling that he is holding back, that he seems to think he should not be showing her this. And there are times when he refuses to teach her, and encourages her to remember the Jedi routines her parents showed her. But she senses bitterness behind that encouragement, and it is confusing.

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 might not be telling her all because he wants to keep her safe. But 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 three years of travelling through space and successfully hiding from whomever might come after them, an unpleasant encounter with an Imperial Inquisitor leads to the man taking a little too much interest in the young girl who cannot always hide her Force skills. But the pair escape from his presence before anything can happen and Darven retreats with her to the one place he knows which holds a sanctuary for men like him and Jedi like her - they make their way to Kyrimorut, on Mandalore.

The only family they have left

Thus cornered, her friend's volatile emotional barriers start cracking and he reveals one morsel of truth that she'd not known before - and one that makes understanding his motives easier to her: he tells her that he came too late to save her father, and had to kill his brothers to be able to go and save her - something for which he made himself an outcast amongst his brothers and had felt terrible guilt and remorse ever since, even if it meant he had done the right thing. He explains that there are some clones on Mandalore that might recognise him and in their eyes he is guilty of fratricide; she would have no future staying with him and the only thing they could both do now was to turn around and face their different heritages - she by training to become a Jedi, and he by doing what he has been trained for.

She doesn't question him any more; it makes terrible sense to her even if she does not want to accept it. It puts his grief and his motivations into a new perspective - one that is easier to understand, makes her cling to him all the more for his "sacrifice". Yet now Nya knows his decision to leave her with the Jedi is final and for the best. Darven has become the closest thing to a family, and to the girl this is important, now more than ever - yet now she can only ask him not to forget her. The same emotions she sensed from him the night she met him are coming back, the closer they get to the Jedi, but they no longer frighten her because she now understands him. Emotional herself, she wants the last hours with him to be something to remember fondly, and they spend their last hours together sharing memories of their times together so that neither of them could ever forget. But eventually, they reach their destination, and in front of her eyes Darven transforms himself into a fierce looking Mandalorian warrior, and with every piece of the armor that he puts on she feels him erecting a wall between her and him.

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.

Her Jedi 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. And above all, he teaches her the ways of the Mando'ade, and trains her in the ways of the warrior. He teaches her about her responsibility towards other creatures, and listening to her conscience and her sense of good and evil.

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 Kad instead of her. 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 passed that trial with flying colors, earning her the right to call herself a true Mandalorian warrior.

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