Private Arrival

[Razh Sho]

Coruscant Spaceport, Midday.

The sky is streaked with traffic lanes. The relic hunters' vessel—a battered but functional freighter—settles onto the landing pad with a hiss of stabilizers and heat-venting steam. The ramp lowers. Razh Sho descends with deliberate grace, his robes still slightly tattered from his long entombment, utility belt bare of lightsaber, but his bearing unbroken. His lekku shifted behind him like banners in still air. Flanking him are the relic hunters, already eyeing the Jedi delegation with the greedy caution of those who know negotiations may sour at any moment.

At the front of the Jedi welcoming party stands Grandmaster Valery Noble. Her presence is serene but unmistakably sharp, like a blade sheathed in silk. Her large, fiery, orange eyes are fixed on Razh Sho, which is unreadable.

Razh Sho came to a stop before her, inclining his head. "Grandmaster Noble!" assumed that was who he was talking to from the exchange of holo messages. "The last time I stood on Coruscant, the Jedi Temple still bore the scent of incense and war. Now it greets me with suspicion." Which, of course, was understandable. Razh was reported MIA 477 years ago. There was nothing normal about this situation.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Combat Jumpsuit | Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery stood still at the center of the landing platform, posture straight and expression unreadable — save for the way her arms were folded and her eyes remained fixed on the Twi'lek descending the ramp. Behind her, the Coruscant skyline rose in spires of durasteel and transparisteel, bathed in the glow of midday light.

She looked every part the Grandmaster: black jumpsuit sleek and modern, lightsaber at her hip, the breeze catching strands of hair that had slipped from her ponytail. Strong. Composed. Quietly alert. When Razh Sho stepped forward and spoke, Valery didn't answer right away.

Her eyes narrowed just slightly — not in hostility, but in study. And then, slowly, her stance shifted. The tension in her shoulders eased. The corners of her lips curved upward, just a bit. She unfolded her arms and stepped forward, gaze softening as she spoke to him, "You're not wrong," she said quietly, voice calm and clear. "Suspicion is a language this era speaks fluently. But I don't blame it — we've survived war, betrayal, darkness that wore too many familiar faces."

She paused in front of him and inclined her head in return.

"But I also know what it's like to open your eyes after centuries, only to realize everything has changed. That the people you knew are gone. That history moved on." Her gaze met his again. "So I'd rather greet you with understanding."

Valery extended her hand.

"Welcome back, Master Sho. You've got a lot to catch up on... but you're not alone."

Razh Sho ​

 

[Razh Sho]

Coruscant – Galactic Spaceport Terminal


The Jedi Temple loomed in the distance like a memory rising from fog. But Razh Sho stood now not in ceremony or comfort, but in administration, beside the docking struts of the relic hunters' freighter, flanked by Republic officials and Jedi Watchers in muted robes. The air here was clinical, full of datapads and quiet suspicion. A part of him felt eased by the Grandmaster's admission of having had the same life-altering experience as he had.

The relic hunters were growing impatient.

"We brought you a frozen Jedi, didn't we?" snapped their captain, arms crossed, datapad in hand. "Alive, mostly intact, and in style. We were promised compensation."

Razh stood calmly between them and the Jedi delegation, his long cloak stirring faintly in the breeze of passing hovercraft. He offered the captain a composed nod.

"I will see that you're paid." He paused, "Though I am, at present, not a man with a credit to his name."

The hunter scoffed. "Convenient."

Razh's eyes gleamed coolly. "Is it? My Chain Code was archived before your grandparents' grandparents were born. My accounts, titles, and holdings—erased, forgotten, or absorbed by interest. I am, for all legal purposes..."He turned slightly to the Jedi officials handling the process."...a ghost requesting an audience with the living."

He turned his attention to Valery's inquisitive gaze."If it were not for the Code, Grandmaster," he said with faint amusement, "I might accuse the Order of losing my paperwork."

A small terminal was rolled forward. A tech droned the list of confirmations.

"Please present your hand for fingerprint verification."

Razh complied, placing a blue-skinned palm on the sensor. It chirped.

"DNA sample, please."

He extended his hand, allowing a Jedi medic to extract a microblood sample carefully.

"Final biometric—facial scan for Chain Code match."

He stood, expression neutral, as the scan swept his features.

A beat. Then a soft tone.

MATCH CONFIRMED – JEDI MASTER RAZH SHO – ARCHIVED: 385 ABY

The terminal pinged. A record flared to life in the temple databanks, showing Razh Sho's credentials—rank, saber style, diplomatic records, and mission logs from centuries ago. The relic hunters perked up instantly.

"Well, then," said the captain, grinning, "it looks like your Order still owes us."

Razh Sho gave a slight grin, entertained by the captain's impatience and insecurities."You will be paid. I am certain the Jedi Treasury will transfer funds to the account you have given me. You are dismissed Captain." The Twi'lek safely assumed that the Grandmaster would approve of the credit transfer.

The relic hunters departed without a backward glance, credit-bound and satisfied.

Razh turned to her fully now.
"You mentioned..." he began slowly, "...that you have known hibernation. Long absence."


Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Combat Jumpsuit | Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery inclined her head slightly as the terminal chirped and the confirmation rang out — Razh Sho, Jedi Master, archived and now restored. The sound was oddly satisfying. Proof that time may scatter names to the winds, but not all of them are forgotten. With a subtle hand gesture to the Temple clerk nearby, she confirmed the captain's payment without needing a word. The credits would be wired. The relic hunters could go — and they did, eagerly.

Her attention returned to Razh, softer now. She regarded him with a quiet patience, her arms folding loosely again in front of her. The breeze picked up, tugging lightly at her long hair.

"I wasn't born in this era either," she said, tone more personal than before. "I'm from the time of the Old Republic. Fought in the wars of my age. Stood at the side of an Order that no longer exists."

Her eyes met his, golden and calm.

"Four thousand years," she said, like it was a number she still hadn't quite made peace with. "I was kept in stasis aftter a battle on Onderon — an act of desperation, really. To keep me alive after I was injured."

She extended her arm in invitation, this time not for a handshake — but for a walk.

"Would you join me? The Temple's changed a lot since your time, but… it remembers you. Just like the Force does."She gestured gently toward the towering structure behind her — ancient roots, modern frame, and all the weight of memory between.

"Come. Let's get you reacquainted."

Razh Sho ​

 

[Razh Sho]

Razh Sho regarded her silently for a moment. The steady hum of the Coruscanti skyline buzzed faintly in the distance, but between them, there was only the sound of breath and the quiet murmur of history resurfacing.

"Four thousand years..." he echoed, not in disbelief but reverence. His voice was low, reflective. "Your stasis was born of desperation. Mine was a punishment."

He let the words linger. No bitterness—only the quiet weight of truth. His eyes, sharp but weathered, searched hers. "Yet we both woke in a time not our own. Survivors, not of war, but of memory."

He stepped forward and took the offered path beside her, his gait slow but dignified, the folds of his cloak trailing like the tail of a comet long thought lost.

"The Temple may have changed..." he said, glancing up at its new architecture rising from old bones, "...but so have we."

A pause, then softer

"Perhaps what remains of the old—within us—is meant to challenge the shape of the new. Not to oppose it..." he glanced at her sidelong "...but to help it grow stronger."

He clasped his hands behind his back, posture straight, his voice thoughtful.

"Tell me, Grandmaster... in these four thousand years, has the Force grown quieter? Or have we merely grown worse at listening?"

The question had no judgment—only a rare honesty from long silence and more extended reflection.

And as the two Jedi walked together beneath the shadow of the great Temple, time did not feel linear. It folded quietly between their steps, like the Force itself was listening.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Combat Jumpsuit | Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery walked in step with him, her pace slow, deliberate — not out of caution, but respect. Respect for the weight he carried, and the time between them both. Her hands rested loosely behind her back, and her gaze lifted with his to the Temple's towering spires.

When he spoke, she glanced at him — not startled by the confession of punishment, but marked by it. And yet, she didn't press. She had her own ghosts. Her own regrets. The Force had long since taught her that the stories carried in silence were often heavier than the ones told aloud.

His question, though — that stirred something deeper.

"I think the Force is just as loud as it's ever been," she said, her eyes distant. "But the galaxy?" Her lips curled faintly, somewhere between a smile and a frown. "It's noisier now. Louder. Faster. We build, we fight, we chase progress at the cost of stillness." Her eyes shifted to him again.

"So maybe it's not that the Force has grown quiet — it's that we've forgotten how to be still long enough to truly hear it." Another step. The Temple gates loomed closer now. And behind her words, there was something personal — not doctrine, but hard-earned wisdom from long years of burning both ends of herself to keep others safe.

Razh Sho ​

 

[Razh Sho]

Razh Sho walked in silence for a moment longer, the slow rhythm of their steps echoing gently beneath the towering archways. The sun, now cresting Coruscant's endless skyline, poured gold across the durasteel and stone, catching in the folds of their robes like firelight caught in memory. His gaze remained fixed on the Temple spires, but beyond them, too, on something far older than stone and ceremony.

Then he spoke, his voice soft, carved from reflection more than conviction: "Stillness is a discipline."He glanced at her, the curve of one brow slightly raised."One many mistakes for passivity."

He paused beside a broad column etched with high-relief symbols of Jedi history—some he recognized from his own time, others newer, layered over like a palimpsest of intention. "When I was young, we taught stillness like breath—first to be mastered, then forgotten in motion. Now, it seems it must be fought for. Protected. Like a species on the edge of extinction."

His expression shifted—not bitter, but contemplative.

"Perhaps the Force hasn't changed at all. Perhaps it waits, as it always has… patient. Eternal. It's the listener who must evolve—or remember how to listen." He exhaled quietly, almost a laugh, but with no amusement. "And now we walk among stars that no longer remember our names. Teaching Padawans to hear in a galaxy that only teaches them to speak louder."

He turned to Valery fully then, and for a flicker of a moment, his mask of composure gave way to something open, sincere, wounded but intact.

"You've held stillness through four thousand years of motion. That is no small feat." His voice softened, nearly reverent. "Perhaps the Order needs fewer warriors… and more listeners."

The Temple gates yawned open ahead, casting long shadows at their feet. As they stepped forward, Razh Sho glanced sideways once more, the faintest smile at the corner of his mouth.

"Tell me, Grandmaster—when you find stillness… what do you hear?"

Valery Noble