Private Country Roads, Take me Home

[Coren Starchaser]

Brooke Waters was out here on Bespin for her own reasons, but now she was also having the second task of keeping tabs on people for Coren Starchaser. But she was technically on a vacation with her pal Pell. It didn’t hurt though, since it was on Bespin. There was a woman at the bar last night who seemed very familiar. But the woman was someone she had an eye out for, one of Coren’s apprentices. Mishel Kryze . But that was what the blonde had sent out to Coren, that his apprentice was here. The Master was at Commenor with his wife and twins. Coren made a quick call that she was going to have to take this trip out to the Rim, he shouldn’t be gone more than a day, or more than two at the most.

His YT-2000, made the trip quickly and Coren found himself landing in Cloud City and met up with Brooke at the girl’s meeting space. It was one of the parks that had one of the larger fountains. The Brubreen had to keep near the water, and she gave the location of where Mishel was last seen, another park. And he caught up with the Witch who was helping with the Praxeum, and how her friend was still passed out. Must have been some party.

He stepped out of the park after bidding the witch good bye and made his way down to where he was supposed to go, where Mishel was.

 

[Mishel Kryze]

Calrissian Plaza still held some of the best views on all of Cloud City. Mishel leaned up against the rail and looked out over the concourse of the city below. The water features that ran throughout the plaza were calming as were the ambient sounds of the cloud cars, and people walking to and fro. The absence of Stormtroopers was slightly jarring, as was the disorganization of Cloud City itself. It lacked the pristine efficiency that the First Order brought to its worlds. Mishel placed her hands on the railing as she stood up straight and took a deep breath and exhaled. ​

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The Force pulled around her as it did all living things. It was as she exhaled that she felt an all too familiar presence, one that left her with a wave of burning anger some years ago. A small smirk tugged at the corner of her lips she held some doubt that the man would recognize her after all this time. Mishel ran a hand through her hair and shifted the blast vest that rested on her person. Corellian flight pants with the blood stripe, and a white tunic she looked like any other scoundrel with a freighter ready to smuggle whatever it was that paid good coin.​

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Coren Starchaser ​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Even when this area was part of the Alliance, Starchaser rarely spent time here. Tibanna mining was not something his family was in the business of, ad this world didn’t tend to bring Sith force en masse, but maybe the Enterprises should make something that can start collecting gasses, at least for use later on, for storage and to sell. Though it could open up the market for some new fuels and engines. He’d have to consider this fleeting thought later on. For now, he was on his way to Calrissian Plaza, intent to confirm Brooke’s suspicions that the girl she saw was indeed his wayward student. One he had failed. But maybe he could rectify the past. Or find some middle ground that worked.

As he entered the Plaza, he could feel her presence and it almost knocked the air out from him. What was he going to say? ‘hi Mish, how you’re not mad.’ ‘Sorry.’? He wasn’t sure, but when he saw the source of the energy, he couldn’t help but smile. The young woman who had seen so much in the Force and was left by him. But it would have gotten them both killed… Coren knew that there was value in apologies, and was working on being a better version of himself than Mishel had known.

Remembering how it felt to speak to Krya, and to be there for the birth of the Twins, he took a deep breath. “Hey Mishel…” His voice trailing. It was her, but…

Mishel Kryze

 

[Mishel Kryze]

Mishel's life seemed to be out of her control for a very, very long time. From the first steps to the last on Atrisia, she had come to know darkness and light, she sought to find her purpose in this Galaxy. It took death and dying to learn that her purpose and her destiny was what she made it. Chronologically her age made little sense, but the Force was far more mysterious than the events that had occurred in her life. She could feel Coren's apprehension, his anxiety - the guilt, all the emotions that came with approaching someone that had been failed. Or maybe Mishel had failed herself, and in many ways, she would agree. ​

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She turned her head to catch a glimpse of Coren over her shoulder. Mishel turned back to face the view, "Coren." The rasp in her voice was as natural as the sunlight that fell on Cloud City's platforms. Slowly she moved to face him, back against the rails with a Corellian pilot's lean. Mishel's gaze landed on him and she examined the man before her. Mishel sensed there was something different about him and only gave him a small uptick of a smile. "Been awhile, seems like you've healed up since the last time I saw you." She remembered the battle, not the planet, it was Coren and Romi facing her down. ​

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Coren Starchaser ​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

The war and Coren’s approach to it were definitely things that set him apart from the galaxy. He had a very specific way he felt the Jedi should behave, and it even separated him from other Jedi. But at times, he was doing his best to unify them under at least a common goal. It was here that he learning what it meant to truly be a Jedi, to truly be a protector of the light side and the Force, of the people who swore to defend. The Jedi was working on revisiting his approach to most things, and was working to learn how to be the best he could.

Part of that was making sure you could love with yourself, that you could sleep easy, and that you had cleared the emotions that held you back as best as you could. There is no emotion, there is peace. The Code made it clear how he was supposed to act, but sometimes that meant just finding peace within the emotions. Maybe that was what he was trying to do here. But when she turned, he could see her, and he smiled. The woman had grown up.

“It’s been a while… I heard you were out here.” He tried to provided a smile, albeit a bit uneasy. “You look well. How… are you?” He was watching from a distance, unsure how to best approach her.

Mishel Kryze

 

[Mishel Kryze]

Mishel seethed through her teeth as she toyed with how to best tell him that answer, it was complicated - at best, at worse it was just a mess. "Alive, for starters." Couldn't have said that a few weeks ago, her soul still resided within Alessandra Creed and her body? Gone. She surrendered it to the Force at Atrisia. Thankfully Sieger Ren had been paranoid enough to keep a few spare parts of his beloved weapon around. In all honesty, Mishel didn't know what to say to Coren, or what to ask. Sure, Mishel was always a big girl and could take care of herself, but two years with the Sith and specifically with Darth Carnifex and Taeli Raaf definitely did a few things to the brain. ​

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Even if that grey matter had dissipated she still held the memories from those days. Memories as a Ren, a Jedi, and all of it seemed to blur together, the light, the dark. It didn't quite seem to matter to Mishel anymore all of it was arbitrary. All of it was one extreme or another, she just wanted people to be free. Free to choose their own destiny, and not be forced or cajoled into one role or another. "Keeping a low profile, staying out of the way mostly." Mishel paused, she ran her tongue along the top of her teeth. A moment lingered into two, before she could put together words, or rather a question. "What about you? What have you been up to?"​

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Coren Starchaser ​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

He wasn’t sure if this was a good move or not, to be speaking to her, but he figured it would be a far worse one for someone to catch Brooke and realize she was working for Coren. And then somehow Mishel found out that Coren knew she was alive and in a friendly space. The nice thing about Cloud City here was that he didn’t feel like he definitely needed to be on his toes, but he still… was. Watching her he nodded. “Alive is good.” Better than he could have left her. He doubted he had it in him to kill her. He didn’t really have it in him to kill many, perhaps he didn’t have it to kill many. There were a few, but it was life or death, and starfighters… well, it was easier in them.

She seemed to have found some Balance in herself. Maybe from all the different sides of the Force she had seen. It was good to feel the balance from her. “I’ve been… me. Good, in an endless battle. But I have been spending some time learning, my place in… everything.” He made a loose gesture. Tipping his head to the side, he look a look at Mishel. “You do look good. I uh… I heard you were out here, I wanted to come…” Say what? Do what? He stood there a bit awkwardly.

Mishel Kryze

 

[Mishel Kryze]

A light scoff, "you can relax." Mishel told Coren, who was more nervous than a womp rat staring down a speeder on Tatooine. "Yeah, that's sort of thing these days, right? Learning where you fit into this whole big picture thing." She stood up straight, her arms no longer on the rails as she put her hands in her pockets and cast a glance over her shoulder, and then fixated her attention on Coren specifically. "To say hello? Hey, how are you? By the way, hope you're still alive? How'd you get out of Sith hands?"​

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"I'm sure it's a long, long list." Mishel held a sardonic tone in her voice, "but I'm glad you managed to find your way here." She resisted the urge to slap him with the, whatever hole you crawled out of line. To say she was still bitter and angry would be an understatement, but to say she was learning to get past it would be more accurate. "For a long time I looked up to you, I wanted to be like you," here it goes, "but then there I was alone in a cell."​

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"Not worth the search and rescue effort, hearing the voice of Sieger, Samka, Ara, and every other dark sider who could whisper through the Force." Mishel took a deep breath and exhaled. "I hated you so much, you and Romi."​

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"But... After Atrisia." ​

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Here came the truth.​

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"I died on Atrisia, Coren."​

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"I am only here because my sister cared enough to save me, I haven't been back long but I'm learning to come to terms with my past." Which included her old Master. She wanted so much to fit somewhere back then, Ren, Jedi... Kriff. Even the Sith if it gave her a sense of family, but she learned that family wasn't always blood or even made of the Force. It was what you made it, she could choose who she let in her life. ​

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Coren Starchaser ​

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[Coren Starchaser]

Shouldn’t he have been nervous? He fought her, he all but abandoned her. “Yeah, I think as much as I was given the rank of Jedi Master, I may not have satisfied all the requirements. I lived too much in the now in the Living Force… Not the greater Unifying Force, and it may have … did make short sighted.” He shook his head as he corrected his own verbiage. Coren Starchaser had learned a fair bit and was learning more by the day, writings from Luke Skywalker and Rey Skywalker…

“Yes, to say hello, to apologize for my failure to you…” He trailed off. It was true, he did fail. “No, you shouldn’t have wanted that…” He didn’t know if this was going to be a relationship that was able to be salvaged. He hoped so. Mishel was a brilliant Force user. He had no way to defend against what she was saying, but he stood there and listened, watching her. Nodding slowly.

“And we were worth your hate for what happened.” It hurt to say, but it was the truth.

Hearing about her dying, he stood, silent, and listening, if she was looking at him through the Force, his own aura was pulled in so tightly, like a feline under attack, or duress, looking to be smaller, and hide. He wasn’t doing it on purpose but it was the natural response to her words. She died, and was back.

He watched in silence for another moment. “I’m sorry.” He was starting to sound like a broken record. “What do you plan to do… now?”

Mishel Kryze

 

[Mishel Kryze]

Mishel pushed her lips together and only nodded along. Coren and the Light, always a crusade - always another Sith, or someone who fell onto the wrong side of the Force. Did it make him short-sighted? In Mishel's opinion, it made him short-sighted on a lot of things. She listened as his voice trailed off having admitted failures and that she had been right on her feelings when she faced off against him and Romi. Admittedly she thought he would've bulked by now, but the fact that he still stood there said more than his words could.​

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He apologized for whatever it was worth. She could sense his feelings and suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she listened to him and what he had to say, the lone question that now lingered between them. Mishel looked at him and studied his expression before she answered in truth, "not sure."​

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Still, there was something homely about retracing her steps, living from port to port. "Just floatin' on a breeze these days," Mishel admitted. "I don't have any obligations, no one to answer to, it's a new kind of freedom." Eventually, she'd find her place in the Galaxy again, of that much she was sure but where that place would be was still up in the air. Mishel still worked with crystals and studied formations, it was the only thing solid in her life these days. "For what it's worth, I hope you've found your happy place, Coren."​

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Coren Starchaser ​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Mishel always was a bit of a anchor for Coren, but since everything happened… Well, it got worse. Now here he was, hoping that he could repair something… anything… with her. The Master was doing his best to learn from his failures, and the failures of the Jedi in the past. The holocrons and tomes he was finding were helpful, teaching him more and more. “I need to be better. I’m working on it.”

“I have. I’m married again, Master Rigel from the Silvers. Even have two girls recently born.” He was sounding more like a man than a soldier. “We spent some time exploring the Wilds and Unknown Space… Looking for the Jedi history. Tracking down some of Skywalker’s records.” More for him than anything else. Coren always respected that family, for better or worse.

“Even a few on imbuing with the Light Side.” He offered off the cuff.

Mishel Kryze

 

[Mishel Kryze]

"It's okay to be a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously, Coren." She told him plainly, relaxed as ever. Even as mad as she was, and as every right, she had to be mad as hell. Mishel knew she'd have to let it go. She listened to him speak about his wife and kids, how fortunate for him she thought. Coren managed to have it all now, and once more there was a pang of jealously and anger. Mishel's wife all but left her going on four years now. "I'd say you're chasing after a wild nexu, but stranger things have been found these days." In reference to Coren's hunt for Skywalker records. ​

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"Good."​

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Imbuing was certainly a thing, not something that Mishel was familiar with on a technical scale although perhaps she should be given her experiences. A lot of people seemed to think she was some sort of artificer. Perhaps she was, but to truly go down that line would require a lot more than spelunking and hiking the average canyon. "Once I figure things out, I suppose resuming my research on crystals wouldn't be a bad place to start." Mishel was sure though it would take her all over the galaxy, and she needed to be better prepared for the new dangers that it presented in an ever-shifting fight between nations, factions and the like. ​

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Coren Starchaser ​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Now who was the Master? He could sense that in Mishel, that calm collectedness that she was exuding. Maybe he needed that more. He felt that way on his extended honeymoon, searching for records of the old days. Of the Jedi under Skywalker, no matter how varied the tales were. Maybe they could give him a notion of what kind of leader and Jedi he should be. The Sith were there but when he fought? It made matters worse. He was an explorer, and maybe he should go back to that… “You are sounding awfully like someone who should be teaching their own students.” He winked at her first comment.

“I may be, the stories I’m finding are wide and varied, but there are some teachings from Skywalker, someone named ‘Kenobi’, and Rey herself.” The latter was who he really enjoyed learning about, Luke and this Obi-Wan, though, they had interesting approaches. Though Coren though the figure ‘Yoda’ had been the teacher. Didn’t matter.

Smiling at the Artifacer, as he found a comfortable pose near her, he smiled. “Its definitely a way I can assist without making decisions. I’ll be able to protect, or provide some assistance to those who are on the battlefield.” Not that he wasn’t on the field. But he couldn’t be there for everyone, this allowed him to, however. “Its not the same as what you do, but Celeste and I have been working together, a bit of enchanting the metals while we melt and shape them.” He wasn’t a metallurgist in the strictest sense, but working with songsteel, and someone who was qualified for it, definitely made things a bit easier.

Payrolls were nice.

“And we, the royal we, people who you feel deserve it, can always use your expertise with crystals.”

Mishel Kryze

 

[Mishel Kryze]

Mishel went bashful for a second or two and let out a light scoff, "not so sure about that, but once I figure myself out then uh, maybe, we'll see." Taking on a student was a lot you became invested in them and they in you. Deep down Mishel wasn't sure she was ready for that but only the Force could see what would be. If she became a teacher then so be it. She listened as he spoke of what he had found thus far, and could only comment, "their archives are buried I'm sure, but this galaxy has seen so much destruction that knowledge is repeatedly burnt but it is also often rediscovered so perhaps you could look for more recent examples?"​

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She was distracted momentarily when he mentioned battle. "Mhmmm, staying out of the battlefield sounds healthy, there's less of a chance for you catch this awful thing called death," she quipped. Mishel nodded along with what he had to say regarding imbuement and metals. ​

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Her thoughts formed as she spoke, "there's a library on Monastery buried some kilometers beneath the surface, the Rave Merrill Library." Mishel would know, she helped build it. "Got some great stuff in it, and if anyone was a Master at Force Imbuement? It was Rave." She smiled knowingly because after all, what was an artificer without looking at some of Merrill's work? If not all of it. "Kriff, I spent my younger years, before meeting you running on the knowledge Jorus put together about crystals."​

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Coren Starchaser ​

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[Coren Starchaser]

For the Force to grow, and for the students to learn, it meant that others needed to teach. Coren had, and he was decidedly terrible at it. Case and point, was the way that things went down with both Romi and Mishel. Coren had a warrior’s heart, a defender’s soul, but he was burned hot and fast, casting shadows when he was in the fight. When it came to it, though, he was obsessed with fighting the darkness, and that at times threw those he cared most deeply about directly into the path. But uncovering the path, maybe that could help. “I have bee seeking out all traces of the past, before the Plague, maybe something that can help direct the Jedi.”
Or anyone, really.

A laugh, the first real one since the two had seen each other from him. “Yeah, catching Death is not a goal for me. And with the past… I need to step in a different direction.” Maybe go back to being an explorer, he wasn’t certain.

But with the discussion of Merrill coming around, that did give Coren an idea. Jorus Merrill was a long time mentor, even if his… relative of Rave had her own way of approaching it. “She did know how to do a few things, didn’t she?” Another grin. “Jorus had a lot to teach. Half of the Starchaser exploration trips were from leads he gave us. Still working on trying to… I don’t know, emulate what he did, the role he played. Maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do.” He shrugged.

Mishel Kryze

 

[Mishel Kryze]

Mishel nodded in acknowledgment as her old master spoke of tracing the past. A smile on her face that leaned far more in one direction than the other as she stood up straight and dusted off her sleeves. "Don't dwell on it, the past that is, it's not a healthy thing for anyone." She told him plainly and looked around them with a bit of a sigh. "She did, and that is why learning from the Merrills might not be a bad thing." Mishel chuckled lightly right as Coren mentioned having learned from Jorus. "Yeah, yeah half of my trips were thanks in part to that man."​

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"You're not meant to be anything or anyone else other than yourself, keep that in mind as you go tracing the past. The past can be a great teacher, history has shown us this - but do not let it weigh you down, and always keep moving forward." It did no one a lick of good to keep looking over their shoulder, to the past. Then you'll never be able to see what's ahead of you, or worst get slapped by something that was rather obvious. Mishel took another deep breath and exhaled again. She looked at Coren with those hazel eyes and smiled again, "because Force knows if I dwelled on the past I'd still be stuck on Kerrigan or worse, Sieger."​

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"It was good seeing you again, we should catch up again, maybe next time I'll get to meet the new Missus Starchaser."​

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"But the hyperlanes are calling me back to travel."​

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Mishel took a few steps forward toward Coren and placed a reassuring hand on her old master's shoulder. "For what it's worth, you did good with what you had, until we meet again old friend." Another pat on the shoulder as she headed off toward the landing pads. Who knew what backwater lanes laid out there just waiting to be explored, or lightsaber crystals yet to be discovered or formed. Either way, there wasn't going to be much standing in between Mishel and a new life of ease. ​

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Coren Starchaser ​

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