Catching up (Rianna)

[Leori Sheltrak]

[member="Rianna Ordo"]

Leori was pleased that Rianna wanted her help. It might be just the change she was looking for. That would probably have to be planned out a little more thoroughly before any definite plans could be made. "That sounds like a good start."

She paused. "And I don't think that we have lost anything along the way. I think we've gained much more as people and Jedi. Those that are incapable of separating personal life and emotion from their thoughts, should not be among the Jedi." It was simply reality. Those that could not separate it, acted irrationally.

Smiling, she continued to walk with Rianna in the rain. "Ten years. Hmm." Leori thought about it. It was a good question. Then she smiled. "I suppose that I will be training a padawan. And that's without any prior knowledge. I don't often get premonitions." Leori chuckled. "What about you? Where do you think you'll be in ten years?"

 

[Rianna Organa]

[member="Leori Sheltrak"]

"I have thought about this its why I ask" The drops began to fall it was a light rain enough to renew but not drench and drown. "I think I will be living on Mandalore the wife of a farmer, and be the local doctor." She smiled, "Simplicity, it is something I have always wanted"

They walked slowly, "I look to the future many times not for myself but for others. I just have not figured out how I fit into all of it" Quiet the jungle had grown quiet all that could be heard was the gentle tapping of rain as it fell on the leaves.

"My [member="Ordo"] and I often talk about stepping away from the galaxy, and just for a little while live for ourselves." Rianna looked down, "You don't want simpler things?" Being a Jedi could be so complicated.

 

[Leori Sheltrak]

[member="Rianna Ordo"]


Leori smiled. "It sounds wonderful. I know what you mean by simplicity. When I go to Zeltros, the pheromones allow me to relax completely and just enjoy the time I spend there. There is no urgency. No frequent communications. No chaos. Just time. And someone that wants to spend that time with me."

She listened as Rianna spoke of other's futures. That was always the question. Where did they fit in? They were but two people, and could not be everywhere in the Galaxy that they were needed. So where did they belong? Why not with one person that would stay by their side no matter where they were in the Galaxy? Did she want simpler things? Absolutely. Being a Jedi had always been complicated. Because to her it meant that she had to put her duty and responsibilities before everything. She'd been doing it for over three decades. Even the Jedi had changed in that time. It was simply getting more complicated to be a Jedi, and easier to just be a woman.

"I have thought of it, and done it many times but ultimately returned to the complicated life when I grew bored of the simple life. But, I didn't have anyone to share it with either, so it would be a very different experience now."

 

[Rianna Organa]

[member="Leori Sheltrak"]

Rianna wondered what Leori meant by relax, she was not sure if she meant letting it all hang out, or if it meant that she had developed a sense of control and it allowed her to forget she was a Jedi. Oh no it could not be that too. My goodness. Such thoughts Rianna had.

"I think I would have a sense of guilt if I left completely and something happened. I would always ask myself what if I had not" It was a serious conversation these two Jedi were having, two married Jedi who knew where duty called, but now being married the thoughts of their husbands often slipped in.

"Perhaps we are not as effective as we once were now" She said quietly, did she feel less effective? Perhaps this was why she was thinking she could keep to her calling, but perhaps among the mandalorians. Hard decisions lay ahead for certain.

 

[Leori Sheltrak]

[member="Rianna Ordo"]

Leori was reasonably modest, and didn't let it all hang out. While she was very relaxed, she still had the good sense to keep her private parts covered in public areas. Plus, she wasn't a partier anyway. And she certainly couldn't forget that she was a Jedi, but she could forget the politics.

To Rianna she offered a smile. "I don't think I could leave completely. But, I can absolutely leave the politics and paper pushing out of my consciousness when I go to Zeltros. I don't lose all self control, but it's easy to forget the troubles of the galaxy for a little while."

The Jedi Master considered her friend's suggestion for a moment. "Perhaps as a whole the Jedi are not as effective as previously, however, I don't think that you or I is any less effective. We are still very effective healers, and that will not change, no matter where we go or what we choose to do with the rest of our lives. We have taken our oaths, and they are for life."

It had always been easy to uphold her oaths, both as a Jedi and as a healer, because they had never contradicted each other. In times such as these, with the galaxy at such unrest, it was not difficult for Leori to choose to put her oaths as a healer before all others. The galaxy could do with one less being out to destroy something.

"This is the first time in my life that I have felt as though my oaths are beginning to conflict. But if I have to choose, my oaths as a healer will come first and foremost. That is my stand. It is one that I can live with, no matter what."

 

[Rianna Organa]

[member="Leori Sheltrak"]

Rianna listened to her friend and remembered history, "Remember the days of Yoda, and Obi Wan, so lax had the Jedi become blinded that they did not see what was unfolding around them, and by time they had it was too late" Rianna remembered the archive footage, the dead younglings. Many images she could forget but not those of dead children their whole lives before them to be taken so soon, so quick.

Rianna looked at Leori, "I will always be a healer, and my heart is always with Jedi it has been all I've known for so long it stabs into my heart to think history could repeat itself again" How true were the words as these events took place before the devastation on Coruscant when the Sith would take their home temple again.

"Oaths, politicans will say oaths are made to be broken." Rianna half smiled. "I have taken three oaths one to the order, one as a healer, and now as a wife. Conflict is going to come, I just don't know when" Too soon it would.

Rianna slowed her pace again, thinking. "Will these Jedi also begin to make war in the name of peace?" Rianna was looking for Leori's knowledge of the Silver Jed.

 

[Leori Sheltrak]

[member="Rianna Ordo"]

Leori nodded in response to her inquiry about the history of the order. "Corruption blinded them. And the dark side. I would like to believe that it couldn't repeat itself, but I know that simply isn't true. It was difficult to leave, but I couldn't be there when it happened to witness it with my own eyes. I know that it would break me. And so I decided to leave, regroup and compose myself and see things with new perspective. Now, here, I am not certain what will happen. There are those that only wish to offer support, but others that are restless. It is difficult to tell."

The Jedi Master sighed. "I do hope not. Because I cannot be a part of it. I made it clear that I will not be." It could end up being a very brief stint with the Silver Jedi by comparison to the Jedi Order.

 

[Rianna Organa]

Rianna nodded, "I've spent many years within the Order staying away from the Council though offered a seat many times." Rianna knew that all policies were made on the Council but when policy blurrs it was hard to sit. Yes she had tried in the past to always be part of the solution offering her view, her thoughts but all too often her voice was drown out by the younger more reactive Jedi.

"I hope not too, but in truth Leori was must find a way to keep the Jedi as one group not splintered like this, it can make us all weaker" Rianna sighed, "this separation can be used as weapon to undermine. If this order begins to do the things that everyone gave as reasons for leaving it will make the wrong impression to those watching this enclave" Did Rianna worry on this, yes. Small groups of Jedi were easier to wipe out.

She had once listened to a holocron of a Jedi Master who had been on Geonosis and how the images of the all the fallen Jedi haunted his dreams. Rianna did not want to see this happen, not her life time not in any lifetime.

[member="Leori Sheltrak"]

 

[Leori Sheltrak]

[member="Rianna Ordo"]

Leori nodded. “I don’t feel as though I’m heard even when I’m in the seat.” Her answer usually came in the form of action in the opposite direction than her experience suggested was the right one.

“You are right of course. We are weaker as a whole. However, we were not whole. We were splintered already. And corrupted. And tainted. And blinded. We are divided. Some of us are influenced by politics, others by corruption, others simply because they notice the influences. We live in troubling times and of unrest in the galaxy. Conflict will always come.”

She sighed. “I wish it were not so, but the will of the Force cannot be changed.”

 

[Rianna Organa]

"Is it the will of the force, or the will of those who are touched by it?" Rianna knew that Jedi could get lost along the way. She had seen it, she had even felt the loss she thought of the sudden pain of feeling an associate change, hidden in shadows now unable to see them or know if they were alive.

The cost of separation was too great, but perhaps it was time to do something else. Rianna had already talked to Ordo about joining him, perhaps it was time to do that.

[member="Leori Sheltrak"]

 

[Leori Sheltrak]

[member="Rianna Ordo"]

“Both. That is certain.” Once again, her friend was right. The Force had a way of bending beings wills to match it’s own. And of course there were those that were more than happy to change their wills.

Leori sighed. “It is difficult to tell which is prominent at times however.” And that was the power that the dark side held. The ability to cloud everything.

 

[Rianna Organa]

[member="Leori Sheltrak"]

"I have talked with [member="Ordo"] many times and I believe I will be joining him within the Mandalorian empire so that we may spend more time together. So Leori, this may be the last time we see each other for a while" Rianna had considered it, and she and Ordo had worked out the designs, and hierarchy for medical staff.

"So, you will stay here for now?"

 

[Leori Sheltrak]

[member="Rianna Ordo"]

Leori nodded. Somehow she had already expected that their talk would be the first and last for a while. Why? Well, because that was how it was with her travelling constantly, and for extended periods of time. However, this time it wasn’t as open ended. This was a very clear ending for a while.

“I am glad that you’re putting happiness first for a while at least. I will probably stay here for a time, yes. Until the time comes for me to move on.” It had come many times before, and would do so again. Where she would end up was uncertain though.

“I do hope that you’ll call if you need me. I will always be there for you.”

 

[Rianna Organa]

[member="Leori Sheltrak"]

"Thank you Leori as you know we are all always changing our paths sometimes together sometimes a part. You will know where to find me if needed, and I you"

The two friends would walk and talk for a while longer discussing simplier things but it was evident that life for them both had changed and now they were caught up, and could see a little ahead to the future.


Fini