The Force Always Says Yes [Star Wars]

[Hyenanon]

Nerim will be a master when Tetha calls him "Master"

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My inner Tetha read that and said "lewd." and my inner Nerim read that and said "wha?"

 

[Hyenanon]

Chapter 64: Of Course Not Me​

Nerim walked with the two of them towards the medical ship, which was in the process of disgorging the Mandalorians, all fully armored—and carrying blasters. In the distance beyond it, over a metal fence, he saw what appeared to be a large crowd of people of a multitude of different races rushing around and setting up equipment.

"Who are they?" He asked.

Aesha rolled her eyes. "Press. Unfortunately we can't just kick them off the planet."

"Press?"

"Yeah. Ever since word got out, the planet's been full of holonet reporters. It hasn't helped calm tensions at all..." She tilted her head. "Although, it's something of a double-edged sword. I think we're a little better behaved now that we know the Galaxy's eyes are on us."

Nerim blinked, just now remembering that realization he had back on Utapau, talking to Tetha's father. That people could feasibly hear about his antics. "Uh, what exactly is the story?"

"Mm? That's what they're trying to find out," Aesha shrugged. "We haven't released any information beyond the fact that we're sheltering Mandalorian refugees on behalf of a Jedi friend we owe a life debt to."

"Oh," he said quietly, walking alongside her. Then he suddenly stopped and grabbed her arm, wrenching her around to him. "You called me a Jedi?!"

"Yes."

"To the media?!" He grimaced.

"Yes."

"I'm not a Jedi!"

"Yes you are," she said flatly.

"I was exiled! It's illegal to claim to be a member of the Order when you're not!"

"We didn't say you were a member of the Order," she replied calmly. "We just said you are a Jedi friend."

He slowly raised his hands to his head, grabbing his hair. "You can't be a Jedi without being a part of the Order!"

"Nerim, nobody in the Galaxy uses the word that way," she said dismissively, crossing her arms.

"It's true," Tetha agreed, shrugging. "I mean, even the Order refers to Dark Jedi as...well, Jedi. Of a Dark variety."

"Wh—But I'm not a Dark Jedi!"

"Correct. You're a normal Jedi," Aesha nodded.

"I'm not a normal Jedi!"

"Okay. Sheesh. You're an exceptional Jedi," she grinned toothily. "I thought you were more humble than that. Now c'mon."

"I—you—I'm on—The Order will—" He stuttered, as Aesha continued to walk forward one plodding mechanical step at a time. Tetha moved up alongside him and placed a hand on his back, gently pushing him to move forward with her.

When they arrived to the head of the crowd, they saw Jarroa standing a few feet across from one of the Mandalorians, a similarly tall and imposing Human, who had taken his helmet off and was holding it under his arm. Behind the Mandalorian stood, in almost military formation, the vast bulk of the refugees. Behind Jarroa, a few other old Cathar, as well as his wife and brothers.

Aesha gestured for Nerim to walk between the two of them, and then she scampered to her father's side. So Nerim did as he was beckoned, standing between and slightly to the side of either of them, close enough that if they reached their arms out he would be able to touch them both. Directly across from Nerim, a few dozen feet away, was the metal fence, behind which stood a large crowd of reporters and observers.

Finally, Jarroa spoke. "Welcome to our world, Mandalorians. I am Elder Jarroa, and today I speak for the people of Cathar."

The Mandalorian nodded. "Thank you. My name is Laren Cadron. Before you stands Clan Jae'Narkraata."

Jarroa spoke evenly. "It is our solemn duty to provide safe harbor for those in need, cultures fleeing persecution. And it is our honor to assist our Jedi friend—"

Nerim quickly raised his finger. "Not a member of the Order!"

"—But I will speak plainly, Mandalorian," Jarroa continued. "Not all Cathar are happy for you to be here."

"All of us are," Cadron replied laconically.

Jarroa exhaled through his nose and smirked. "Our people have held a deep animosity for one another for four thousand years. It will not be easy to smooth over. The Republic's charter on sentient rights prohibits us from hindering your people's movement, but I suggest we both work to minimize uncontrolled contact. To that end, we've constructed camps a ways outside our City Tree to house your people, which you may run autonomously."

"More than reasonable," Cadron nodded. "Fear not, we don't seek to overstay our welcome, or learn dependence. Our culture is that of nomads, not refugees. But if I can ask..." The Mandalorian looked to the sky, as sparse and golden clouds shimmered and swam across the horizon. "...Why here, of all places?"

Jarroa followed his eyes to the sky. "We have asked ourselves the same question. You would struggle to have gone any farther across the Galaxy for aid."

Nerim put his hands behind his back. "Because no one else said yes."

Both men turned to him.

"I don't necessarily blame any individual systems that refused," he clarified. "To say yes when crisis calls is to invite all strife known to sentient kind. It is to place at risk comfort, and prosperity, and safety. It even risks our legacies. A great number of virtues are put at risk for those who say yes, but there is one virtue which belongs to them alone, and that is honor. Honor belongs only to those who step into the arena, and if this world is to be the arena, then we must at least take hold of this one virtue. In this moment it belongs to us alone."

For a moment the two men stared at him, and then the Mandalorian stepped forward and offered his hand. Jarroa took it, and they shook.

___________________________________________________________________________________



From the City Treetop at night, the Mandalorian encampment spread like a conspicuous lattice of golden lights on otherwise shadowy indistinct grasslands around the great tree. Nerim leaned against the railing of the balcony and let the cool autumn winds blow across him, sapping him of heat just enough to make him want to crawl into bed. He had had trouble sleeping lately, but there were a few things that helped.

Tetha placed an arm around him and leaned next to him. "Hey, you're already getting tired?"

He nodded. "It's nice being back on Cathar. I can't wait to sleep in one of the beds here again. I only got to sleep in one once. The rest of the nights I spent here were on a dusty temple floor." Then his eyes flicked up in recollection. "If you count passing out, I guess the last was a bed. A hospital bed. I preferred the temple floor..."

She smiled. "Well before bed, c'mon, you should see this."

Tetha pulled him into the living room, where Aesha, Arwain, and Jianno sat, laughing and trading stories. They had finally swapped Arwain from the dinky Saarkanian wheelchair to a proper hover chair; not without much complaining from Arwain, who greatly enjoyed insisting on being pushed around by anyone she could bother into doing it.

Upon seeing him enter, Aesha raised her hand. "Nerim! The CoCo District Edition just dropped!"

"Cool," he looked between them. "What's that?"

Aesha scoffed. "The biggest HoloNews channel in the Galaxy!"

He blinked. "Did the Saarkanian Sharks win the bolo-ball regionals?"

"Nerim, c'mon! They're talking about us! The Jedi Watch segment has a biography on you!" She laughed, holding up the datapad.

He looked at the screen the way a man without a face mask would look into a furnace while it was running full bore, with squinted eyes and an expression of pained endurance.

"The Rogue Jedi Who Ended A 4000 Year Feud," Jianno repeated the title sarcastically. "A little premature."

"They say that like it's especially impressive because of the length," he frowned. "I figure it would get easier the farther we get from the genocide."

Arwain read her own datapad, much less animated than the others, but relaxed and happy. "Dark Jedi suspect transferred to Jedi Order custody. Hm. Do you suppose she'll tell them about the lightning thing?"

Nerim shrugged. "What'll they do, double exile me?"

Aesha stood up and handed him her datapad as she paced through the room, servos softly whining in her legs. "This will work to our advantage. A suspect in Fae Coven's murder apprehended, slave liberation on Boonta, feel-good reconciliation story with the Cathar and Mandalorians...Surely this will affect the trial. Even Vseyav Irmat may make a comeback, at this rate!"

Nerim scrolled down, seeing an image in the article, and his breath caught in his throat. It was rather theatrical, with Cadron and Jarroa shaking hands, but standing just behind them was what he, for just a split second, mistook for Fae Coven. Only, it was him, standing with his hands behind his back and his eyes closed, smiling, in exactly the way he remembered her doing.

He looked up, and caught Arwain's eyes, as she placidly rested her head on her hand. "She told me not to let you get into politics, y'know."

"I'm not!" He defended himself. "I'm just...doing things!"

"I'm sure that's what she said moments before becoming Grand Master," Arwain waved her hand dismissively.

"You don't just fall into being Grand Master," Nerim rebuked. "And I'm not involved in any of this! Look, it's just...vague speculation using my image!"

The article, blessedly, did not have much information on him. Jedi as a rule refused interviews, especially on the subject of other Jedi. Or, er, other former Jedi. The only individual they could find for an interview was an Ithorian on Raxus Secundus who he vaguely recalled as the owner of the diner he and Aesha visited, and who only reservedly claimed that Nerim was a charming young man who liked burgers and saved him from a terrorist attack.

"Likes burgers, fantastic, put that on my tombstone," Nerim rubbed his forehead.

Aesha pointed at him. "They were good burgers!"

Tetha frowned slightly. "You took her to a diner?"

The Cathar grinned smugly. "I took him."

"I should've shot you when you started running out of the opera house!" Nerim scowled, pointing back at her.

"Opera house..." Tetha raised an eyebrow. "Opera house into diner? What kind of order is that—"

Jianno groaned in disgust. "These articles are kriffin' awful. Taming the savage Mandalorian heart? I'm gonna claim Mandalore and start scorching planets." She looked up at Aesha. "No offense."

Aesha shrugged. "Listen, it's pageantry, but it'll be good for all of us. It'll even start rehabilitating the Mandalorian image!"

"Mm, see, we don't like that," Jianno tossed the datapad onto the couch. "Every time a Mandalorian starts being 'redeemed' in the eyes of the masses, they expect us to act like soft, pudgy little civilians, and the moment they see we're still warriors, they freak out ten times worse than before. They feel betrayed that we still exist. It's worse than being an outsider."

Aesha frowned and thought for a moment. "Hm. I can see where you're coming from, yeah...But rest assured, we won't be claiming any sort of taming."

"Better not," Jianno nodded curtly, taking a drink from a small glass canister of green liquid. "Y'know, we had a vote on whether or not to mutiny on the medical ship and scatter before we could be stranded planetside on Cathar and corralled onto a reservation."

Arwain raised her head at that. "What? Really?"

Jianno nodded. "Yeah. I told Laren I'd rip his balls off if he screwed everything up the moment we got off Boonta. After enough screaming they ended up listening to me."

Arwain thought for a moment, and then shrugged, impressed. "You know, maybe I'm glad you went to that ship instead of ours for the flight."

Jianno lowered her drink. "I'll tell you right now, the number one priority of everyone in the camp is to get their hands on hyperdrives ASAP. Nobody wants to be grounded."

Nerim crossed his arms. "Even if you get ships, you won't be able to fly them in Republic Space until your legal status is resolved. But I don't wanna make a Mandalorian feel cornered. We should at least get some ships on the lot so they know they aren't trapped."

Aesha tilted her head. "That's the problem. Cathar isn't going to pay for ships for all of them—at least not yet. Maybe if we get sick enough of them, but I'd rather not get to that point. We're going to have to find some way to fund them."

"That's the problem," Jianno said. "Without ships, Mandalorians don't make money. We can perform subsistence just fine, but we don't do petty employment. Can't even hunt here, because it's all nature reserves and law-abiding citizens on Cathar."

Nerim put a hand to his chin. "Well, if there's one thing the Republic is good at, it's throwing money at problems. They could potentially give us aid. We'll need a back up though."

Tetha looked ruefully down at the floor. "We're kind of down a ship, also," she said quietly.

Nerim frowned. They hadn't managed to collect the Lucky Worm on the way out, and it was too dangerous to go back now—besides, it would probably be stolen off the lot by the end of a week without check in, which had already come and gone. "I'm sorry."

She looked back up and nudged him with her elbow. "It's not your fault."

Arwain stretched her arms out over her head and yawned, the yawn interrupted by a cringe of pain. "We can brainstorm tomorrow," she said, placing a hand lightly over her wound. "We're going to be here for a while, so we'll have to adjust our sleep schedule to Cathar time. Ought to get to bed now."

Nerim continued thinking, his leg anxiously bouncing in place. Whatever readiness he had carefully cultivated for bedtime, he had definitely lost it at this point. "Think I might have to do an all-nighter for a full reset."

Arwain shrugged. "If you must. Just make sure to take care of yourself, Padawan. Remember to meditate," she said, and then turned to Jianno. "Jiannooo, push me."

To Nerim's utter shock, instead of telling Arwain to pound sand, Jianno tiredly sighed and stood up. Even Arwain seemed surprised, and Jianno put a hand to the back of her chair and silently began pushing the floating chair forward. They both waved as they exited the room up the stairs.

Nerim turned to Tetha. "What about you?"

She shrugged neutrally. "If you're staying up, I will too."

Aesha leaned over to them, bending down to their height. "I know a good place to get caf."

"Can royalty do all-nighters?" Tetha asked skeptically.

"We have to," she chuckled. "Besides, I want to get to know you better!"

Tetha's eyes narrowed.

 

[TroubleFait]

Why are they all so cute!

 

[Hyenanon]

Why are they all so cute!

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My one weakness(?) as a writer: Any character I lay my hands on can only last so long before I turn them cute.

 

[Psyentific]

I think I figured it out; it's a scheme. All the worst jedi stay in the temple, the good jedi go out and fix problems ("will of the force"), and the really good jedi get "exiled" so they can't come back to the temple (bad jedi warehouse) and get messed up by the bad jedi. They have to stay out there doing jedi stuff and unfucking plotlines, forever. Was this Grandmaster Coven's plan? I don't think it was intentional...

Nerim will be a master when...

Click to shrink...

It was rather theatrical, with Cadron and Jarroa shaking hands, but standing just behind them was what he, for just a split second, mistook for Fae Coven. Only, it was him, standing with his hands behind his back and his eyes closed, smiling, in exactly the way he remembered her doing.

Click to shrink...

I take it back, Nerim is already a master. He'll be a master when he looks in a kriffing mirror!

 

[TroubleFait]

Fae Coven is trolling him from beyond the grave.

 

[Hyenanon]

I think I figured it out; it's a scheme. All the worst jedi stay in the temple, the good jedi go out and fix problems ("will of the force"), and the really good jedi get "exiled" so they can't come back to the temple (bad jedi warehouse) and get messed up by the bad jedi. They have to stay out there doing jedi stuff and unfucking plotlines, forever. Was this Grandmaster Coven's plan? I don't think it was intentional...

Click to shrink...

Joke or not, there is a grain of truth in this! Assigning problem Jedi to Temple duties is a good way to keep them under your thumb without taking the step to throw them out unmonitored into the Galaxy either as a Knight or an Exile. The Temple is also largely made up of Jedi not in the prime of their life, by necessity, since younglings stay there to train and old people can't take on as many missions as they once did. But also, we rarely ever see any of the bad Jedi as they're going around poking their noses into things and making stuff worse in the wider Galaxy. Most Star Wars media only brings them up when the protagonists stumble upon the aftermath of their fuckups. Or, y'know, it's Darth Revan.

I take it back, Nerim is already a master. He'll be a master when he looks in a kriffing mirror!

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"That's not how it works, I need to be ordained, or...or something! I think! Hold on," *cracks open The Jedi Path*

Fae Coven is trolling him from beyond the grave.

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He does kind of deserve it! He should also read her book more thoroughly.

One of the interesting things about The Jedi Path in the edition we got it IRL (which actually postdates this story) is that it only has a small handful of segments written by Fae Coven herself, most of it having been written by various Masters throughout the timeline leading up to the movies. Of the things she wrote down with her own hand, one of the only pieces of advice she gives is "Listen to your Master, even if their teachings seem to contradict the Temple," which seems bizarre to every other in-universe character that reads it.

Really makes you think...

 

[Psyentific]

The best advice anyone could give about The Force is "Everyone else is wrong. Trust your gut."