*Me again, going to try to post on Tuesday from now for an upload, give me time to really flush everything out. Appreciate you guys reading and whatnot, way more than I thought would be honest. I have a roadmap of the character, and super rough drafts right up till the Battle of Geonosis, but that's like, 13 years away in the book. So there's a lot I can do. If anyone has any recommendations/ideas/directions they would want to see, I'd love to hear them. Anyway, hope you enjoy. Also, to the person asking for a picture, I've got one, it's just when he's like 17, so... I gotchu tho. Alright, bye-bye*
Jedi Temple – Logistics Briefing Wing, Pre-Dawn
The briefing chamber lights were dimmed—not for ambiance, but for distance.
A single lamp hovered over the central table, casting shadows against the walls like specters holding their breath. The air was too still, too clean, like someone had sanitized the room in case the Force itself decided to speak up.
Kaelen sat at the far end of the table, separate from the others. His elbows rested loosely on his knees, hands clasped, posture relaxed in the way predators sometimes looked relaxed.
He hadn't said a word since entering the room.
A datapad blinked softly in front of him. He hadn't touched it. He didn't need to.
Every assignment came with two layers: the official version… and the reason it was given to him.
Across the table stood a Knight Kaelen had never met. Older. Mid-thirties. Crisp robes. Not quite senior, but confident enough to fake it. His voice had that practiced firmness Kaelen recognized from instructors who believed order could mask fear.
"This mission is simple," the Knight said, tapping the datapad with one finger. "Ilum Sector Theta-Twelve. The outer caverns near the deep-mantle fault line recorded a minor quake cycle three days ago. We will verify if the instability has compromised the primary kyber growth vein."
His eyes flicked up from the data only long enough not to make it look personal.
Kaelen didn't blink. Didn't speak.
The Knight pressed on.
"You'll accompany me to the Theta-Twelve site. We'll run a seismic scan, check stress fractures along the inner crystal lattice, and deploy five long-range thermalscanners."
Kaelen tilted his head slightly.
"That's a two-person job?"
The Knight stiffened. "It is now."
Silence.
Shaak Ti stood near the door. She hadn't spoken. Her arms were folded into her robe sleeves, her presence neutral—but not passive. Her eyes followed the exchange with the calm of someone watching two animals circle each other, waiting to see if one would bite.
The Knight added—just a little too precisely:
"You are not authorized to enter the primary crystal chambers. The Force sanctums are off-limits. You will not deviate from the planned route."
Kaelen finally turned to meet his eyes.
Not aggressive. Not curious.
Flat.
"I didn't ask for a tour."
The room thinned.
Even the light seemed to retract slightly, embarrassed by how little it could illuminate.
The Knight looked toward Shaak Ti, clearing his throat.
"Master Ti has provided oversight for the route. No modifications are permitted without senior Council sign-off."
Shaak Ti stepped forward, eyes on Kaelen now.
Her voice was soft. Intentional.
"The purpose of this mission is observation. Not discovery."
Kaelen stared back.
They both knew what that meant.
He stood slowly. Every movement is measured. Not cautious. Not theatrical. Just… deliberate.
The datapad remained untouched.
"I'll be ready."
He turned to go.
But her voice stopped him.
"Kaelen."
He paused at the threshold.
Not facing her. Just… listening.
"You're not going to Ilum to find something," she said.
There was no edge to her tone. No authority.
Only quiet certainty.
"You're going because something has already found you."
He didn't respond.
Didn't turn.
He walked out, footsteps silent.
In Orbit – Shuttle Bay 117
The shuttle was already prepped.
It was the kind of transport no one remembered. No markings, no escort droids, just a name in the registry that someone in Temple logistics might've inputted months ago and forgotten.
Kaelen stood at the base of the ramp, cloak draped around him. The wind from the hangar bay turbines caught the edge of the fabric and tugged it back slightly, revealing the unfinished saber hilt clipped to his belt.
Still silent. Still incomplete.
The Knight was already inside, checking the navcon readings. Kaelen entered without a word and slid into the co-pilot's seat.
The straps hung loose.
He didn't bother securing them.
The Knight glanced at him, then at the ship's startup diagnostics.
"You'll stay within visual range. No secondary paths. No deep-rift exploration. This is not a kyber retrieval mission."
Kaelen didn't look at him.
"You've repeated that three times."
The Knight narrowed his eyes. "Because I expect it to be followed."
Kaelen turned his head—slowly—until their gazes met.
Flat. Unflinching.
"You're not here to watch the planet."
A pause.
"You're here to watch me."
The Knight didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
Kaelen turned back to the viewport.
Ilum loomed ahead, pale and beautiful in its cruelty. Jagged veins of ice cut across the surface like open scars. The upper atmosphere shimmered faintly where the Force met cold gas and friction, forming a corona of light that blinked like a dying star.
He stared through the glass, his reflection faint—just a silhouette divided by a faultline of brightness.
The ship began its descent.
The Force stirred.
But not with anticipation.
With memory.
And it wasn't pulling him toward destiny.
It was waiting for what he'd bring into its silence.
Ilum – Surface, Theta-Twelve Sector
Midday – Local Cycle
The cold didn't strike.
It settled.
It crawled down the back of Kaelen's neck like an old instinct—the kind that said survival wasn't something you earned, but something you held onto until your fingers bled.
Snow crunched beneath his boots with a softness that felt almost disrespectful, like Ilum was mocking how quietly he tried to exist.
He stepped off the shuttle ramp in silence.
His breath fogged once. Then again. Then stopped fogging entirely, the cold biting so deep the air no longer steamed as it left him.
The Knight descended behind him, adjusting his hood and flicking on a tracking beacon.
"Air's stable," he muttered, voice dampened by his breath mask. "No ion interference this far north. Should be a clean route."
Kaelen didn't respond.
He'd already tuned the man out. Not with arrogance. With intention.
The Theta-Twelve region had no ceremonial entryways. No pillars. No torch-lit corridors for younglings to gaze upon with reverence. This was the part of Ilum that the Order didn't talk about. Fractured. Wild. Half-mapped by automated sensors and forgotten by everyone who didn't need it.
Which made it perfect.
Kaelen looked toward the mountains ahead.
A fault line stretched across the horizon, like the planet had been split and stitched together with ice. Wind pouring down through the canyon ridges in waves, howling low and sharp through unseen crevices.
There were no birds here. No animal tracks. No signs of life.
Just breath and stone and the pressure of a world that had never been tamed.
The Knight tapped a control stick on his wrist.
"Survey route begins northeast. Two kilometers. Thermal calibration, seismic diagnostics, and visual confirmation. Non-Force methodology only."
Kaelen began walking.
"I'll manage."
They moved without further exchange. Kaelen ahead. The Knight was trailing a deliberate ten paces behind. Not close enough to interfere. Just close enough to report him.
The wind grew louder the deeper they went.
But Kaelen didn't hear it as a sound.
He heard it like a feeling.
A pressure in the chest. A drumbeat in the ears. The kind of noise that came before your nerves remembered they weren't safe.
He planted the first thermal beacon in silence. It chirped once. Logged a stable core temperature.
He moved on.
Another twenty meters, a second beacon.
The Knight noted it with a nod, tapping it into the scanlog on his pad.
But Kaelen wasn't watching the scanner.
He was watching the way the snow moved.
Not drifted. Moved.
Like it was being pulled. Gently. Downward.
Toward something.
A fissure appeared half a klick ahead. Small. Easy to miss if you were following the route with blind obedience. But Kaelen's eyes locked on it immediately.
It was tucked into the side of a stone ridge—barely wide enough to crawl through. Framed in black ice.
There was no marker near it. No scan beacon. The Temple hadn't logged this split.
Which meant they hadn't listened.
He changed course.
The Knight's voice flared behind him.
"That's not on your route. You don't have authorization to deviate."
Kaelen didn't slow.
"There's movement in the snow."
"You think the wind has a map?"
"I don't think it needs one."
Kaelen reached the edge of the crevice.
Knelt. Brushed the snow aside with his gloved fingers.
Beneath it, a hairline seam in the rock—barely perceptible.
But warm.
Not hot. Not radiant.
Warm. Like something breathing just beneath the surface.
He pressed his palm to it.
And felt memory.
It wasn't a voice.
It wasn't the Force.
It was he.
—A scream from a woman with his eyes
—A circle of Death Watch helmets cheering his first kill
—A child's hands trembling in the Garden
—Shaak Ti's voice, not commanding… simply there
The breath caught in his throat.
Not from emotion.
From recognition.
Behind him, the Knight stepped closer.
"I said that's not part of the assigned path."
Kaelen stood slowly.
Turned just enough to meet the Knight's eyes.
"I didn't ask for permission."
Then turned back—and stepped into the fissure.
Without a word.
Without hesitation.
The Knight hesitated at the threshold.
Then stopped.
Kaelen's shadow disappeared into the dark.
And Ilum swallowed him whole.
Ilum – Subsurface Caves, Beneath Theta-Twelve
There was no path.
There were no torches. No carved steps. No guiding glyphs were etched into the ice by generations of Jedi who had come before.
There was only a stone.
Stone and pressure, and the slow hum of silence that refused to explain itself.
Kaelen moved with steady breath through the narrow cut of ice and obsidian, each step downward like peeling away a layer of thought. The deeper he went, the quieter the Force became, not absent, just… observing.
The walls pressed in around him. At times, they were so narrow he had to turn sideways and slide between them, his armor scraping gently against the frozen rock. His breath fogged against the back of his hood, cold enough to sting his eyes.
But he never slowed.
The way forward wasn't direction.
It was a drift.
The wind had died long ago.
The only sound was his heartbeat. And sometimes, not even that.
Then came the echoes.
Not around him.
Within him.
The first was soft—so soft he almost missed it.
A woman's voice. Familiar. Threaded with panic.
"Run, Kael—"
Cut off. Not by silence, but by memory itself giving out.
Then—his name again. From a different voice. Older. Rougher. Crueler.
"You're not a boy. You're a tool. Stop crying like one."
Pre Vizsla's voice.
Kaelen didn't shake the memory off.
He let it in.
Another step.
Another.
Shaak Ti this time. Not an order. A question.
"If they always see a weapon… what will you become when they stop watching?"
His hands clenched without meaning to.
He wasn't hearing voices from the Force.
He was hearing his life.
Condensed into fragments that hadn't left him. They had just gotten quieter.
And now the cave was asking him to listen.
The descent ended in a jagged shelf of blackened stone that cracked outward into a shallow basin—an unnatural crater of obsidian glass. Sharp edges framed its rim. It didn't look like it had formed. It looked like it had been struck.
The walls radiated cold. Not the surface chill of wind or shadow.
The cold of being buried for too long.
Kaelen stepped to the edge.
And there at the far side of the basin, embedded inside a fractured knot of dark obsidian, was something faintly pulsing.
Not glowing.
Not humming.
Just beating.
Slow. Faint. Like the world's quietest drum.
A crystal. No bigger than a thumb joint. Trapped beneath layers of jagged stone.
Kaelen dropped to a crouch and approached with caution, not because he feared it…
Because it felt like looking in a mirror.
The pulse was uneven, asymmetrical, faint purple streaks wove through its core, twisting like scars. The rest of the crystal was cloudy—like it had once shattered and re-formed itself out of instinct.
Not beauty.
Survival.
He reached out.
Didn't try to move it. Didn't use the Force. Didn't call.
He just placed his palm on the stone.
And waited.
Nothing moved.
Nothing shifted.
Until Kaelen stopped waiting for a sign.
And let the truth surface.
In the silence, he remembered:
The boy he used to be, hands trembling, holding his first knife
The stone floor of the Garden, warm beneath his knees
The saber hilt on the workbench, still unfinished—still waiting
And then—quietly, beneath his hand—the obsidian cracked.
Not violently.
Like something breathing for the first time in years.
A hairline fracture split across the surface. Then another. Then...
A low hiss.
The obsidian split down the middle, and the crystal rose.
Not in triumph.
In trust.
It hovered before him, irregular, uneven, heavy at one end. The violet streak inside pulsed once. Not with power. But with presence.
Kaelen didn't take it with the Force.
He cupped it in his hands.
And breathed.
The crystal was silent.
It didn't glow. Didn't hum.
It listened.
Kaelen held it close.
And finally whispered:
"You don't need to be perfect.
You just need to be real."
The crystal pulsed. Once. Gently.
Not like a response.
Like an agreement.
He lowered himself onto the floor, knees in frost, elbows resting on his thighs.
And whispered again.
"You're not ready to be a weapon.
And neither am I.
We'll learn from each other."
There was no.
Just stillness.
And a heartbeat.
Shared.