Private Crisis of Faith

[Kahlil Noble]

"You're not a very good mother."

He responded rather bluntly. This explained quite a bit, if he was being honest. His gaze drifted to Jonyna, giving her a brief and sad smile. None of this was her fault, but this did need to be handled and addressed.

"There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force. It is the code of all Jedi of this era. If you want to be a Jedi in this time it is something you will have to learn, Jonyna."

Valery Noble | Jonyna Si

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

The sudden critique caused Jonyna to give Kahlil Noble a snarl, but Cici gestured to her daughter to stop her aggression.

"I never really got the chance." The ghost admitted. "I had sent Jonyna off to become a youngling at 5, and by the time she returned to me, she was well into her 20s."

Jonyna's gaze never left the jedi master, but her initial aggression was muted. Clearly though, she had lost a bit of respect for the master in that moment. Family, to a cathar, was everything. Whether that family be by blood or by religion, it didn't matter. To insult one, to throw accusations without understanding, that was quite the mark if disrespect. But...ignorance was excusable. She wished to be a jedi, but what that word meant anymore was still up in the air. "...I hid." She admitted. "I hid from the Empire, the Hutts, the smugglers and pirates, wasn't until I met my crew that I felt like I could go home."

"I trained her to continue that." Cici added. "To survive in a world where being a jedi would get you killed. My daughter here..." She looked to Jonyna, looking on her with some of the same sorrow that Kahlil had showed her. In a lot of ways, she had failed her. Failed to train her to be a jedi, absolutely. But that was never her intention. Failed to be a mother? Perhaps. A mother should've shown her daughter love, and she was certainly trying to catch up on that, even in her own afterlife. "She's always been headstrong and morally driven. The code you speak, the code all three of us trained under, if I had taught her that, it would've emboldened her to go out and try and save the galaxy. To face down that same scared child they had mistreated, as you said. But that jedi, the boy Anakin, he was now a lord of the Sith. I love my daughter too much to put that mindset in her heart, and allow her to go off and get herself killed when she was never going to be prepared to fight him or the emperor under my tutelage. No one would've been. It took his son to do that, a boy far beyond the capabilities of any other jedi of our era."

"...I did everything I was asked to." Jonyna muttered, speaking just loud enough for the others to hear. "Passed every trial I was given. My mother, her and Sylvar trained me to be the best hero I could be. The best jedi the galaxy would allow at the time I was alive. Does that not mean anything? Or does that mean I just didn't follow your ways? I want to be a jedi, but if that means the code I made to keep myself from falling to-" Jonyna spoke a word in Cathar. Both could understand it was the phrase 'The Predator', though the way Jonyna used it, it seemed to have some deeper cultural meaning "means nothing to this order, then..." She struggled with the next few words. "...then what's the point?"

Cici let out a sigh, or at least as much of one as she could as a ghost. "I pray you can do better than I could. Teach her to be the ideal she dreams of. You're right, the jedi of my youth failed to follow the code they preached, and I watched it happen. I was there when the Trade Federation started the war that would consume the Republic. If I had stayed with the jedi into the war, I probably would've joined them. Perhaps my training is outdated."

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Coruscant Temple

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Appearance: Link
Ship: Link
Tag: Kahlil Noble Jonyna Si

"You're not a very good mother."

Valery blinked at the rather blunt reaction of her husband, and noticed quickly that Jonyna was quite bothered by it. But rather than linger on it, she focused on the Force Ghost and listened intently before turning to Jonyna again. This was clearly quite a shock, and it only made sense that she felt conflicted — she had been raised a certain way by her mother and suddenly it was being called wrong or outdated.

That kind of change wouldn't be easy on anybody.

"It does mean something, and nobody can fault you for having adopted a way of living that kept you alive during that time. But our point is that things have changed. Even the Code my husband just told you is being interpreted differently now than it was before the Clone Wars." A notable example being the Jedi's stance on attachments. After now having started a family, Valery couldn't imagine a life in the Old Republic times anymore.

"All we want is to help teach you the way the Jedi are supposed to be now. What you learned in the past is valuable and has helped you become who you are today, but the life of a Jedi is that of an eternal student. Even now as a Jedi Knight, and perhaps in the future as a Jedi Master, you'll always have to learn, change and grow in new ways."

 

[Kahlil Noble]

Kahlil's gaze remained passive on Jonyna even as she snarled. It was what he expected. She wore her emotions on her sleeve. And while it wasn't a bad thing for a Jedi to be honest about how they felt, aggression, anger, they weren't an emotion a Jedi was supposed to act on.

"The Silver Jedi of this age waged open war against the Mandalorians. They chose to fight when peace was still an option. There were more reasons, but at the time I couldn't understand it. I spoke out against it, angrily so, and eventually just left them to return to my life as a Spacer. By the time the war ended, what I expected happened. Their Sith allies turned on them and razed Mandalore to the ground. Stripped mind it's surface and left nothing on half the planet."

It was likely what continued to fuel the distrust of the Jedi. Why the Mandalorians of this age were so willing to wage open war against them and the Alliance.

"There were no right answers then. There are no right answers now. But when you act in emotion, when you let them control you rather than rise above them, you risk a fall. Even now when your beliefs are challenged, you let your emotions get the better of you. Your code isn't wrong, but you must learn how to coexist with your feelings. It is a Jedi's duty to act with a clear head no matter the stress around them.

Your own code says as much. Fight evil with kindness and fury. The Inquisitor you met, you immediately tried to kill. Not bring in, not arrest. In your day, it was the Jedi who were killed on sight. It was why you hid. In turn, you chose to do the same as the Inquistiors then. Always seek betterment. Do not be afraid to do wrong. We are not the Jedi of old. You worry that we'll demote you, correct? Kaleleon was demoted because he sought punishment. There is nothing more frustrating than to know you did something wrong and for others to let it go. These trials for him will be easy to complete if he truly has returned to the Jedi, and it's a chance for him to prove it to his peers and himself. To re earn trust. You are a Jedi, Jonyna. And we're still human and mess up."

He paused at that, glancing between all of them before chuckling. "Well, none of us are, but you get the idea."

Valery Noble | Jonyna Si

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

Jonyna stared at Kahlil Noble , lost in her own thoughts.

The predator. A concept that had been built into the core of her people's culture. A concept born out of the tale of Sylvar and her mate's turn to the dark.

"...within my culture, the Denik, there's a tale. The Predator. Something within every Denik, and every Cathar. It's the primal urge every sentient being have, but with Cathar, it's even more. The urge to solve everything with violence. To hunt those who wrong you like prey. It's a balance, because to Cathar, we're born predators. Born with that instinct. But on the other side, Cathar value being a jedi over everything. When I first went home, I was heralded as the last Cathar savior. And then when I went back in this era...they held me as a legend."

Jonyna kicked her foot a bit, her tail flicking. She still struggled with the fact that she was now held up on a pedastal within her own culture. Not through merit, but through myth.

"It's why I had to stand up against those imperials." She looked to Valery Noble , biting her lip at the thought. "My people, ever since the Mandos tried to conquer our planet, my people have had this...instilled cultural fear. Generationally deep to the point where the Denik of this era don't even remember why their first reaction to a problem is to hide from it. I was trying to break that. Break a trauma that has held my people down since long before I was born. But all that comes with a price. The Predator. I need to keep it in check."

To a Cathar, being a jedi is exceptionally hard. Keeping the violent tendencies in check, keeping yourself in a regiment that went against your very instincts, that was tough.

But Jonyna was no normal Cathar. No normal Denik.

But even she slipped up occasionally.

"I should've gone for the peaceful option first with that inquisitor, but..." She paused, snarling at the thought. "...But answer me this then. What do we do with people like that? People who have been conditioned to hate us to the point of violence? Those who seek but nothing to wipe us from the galaxy?"

Cici looked to the two. In her time, in her training, the dark side was the evil of the galaxy. But slavers, hutts, they still were on the list, and yet the republic did nothing about them. The jedi did nothing about them. She long lamented this fact, but she was never in the position to oppose it. To her generation, it wasn't their place to act on societal problems such as that. Much like Jonyna, she had her own moral lines in the sand that she disagreed with the people above her did. But unlike her daughter, she never had the stones to stand up against the jedi council.

 

[Valery Noble]

Coruscant Temple

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Appearance: Link
Ship: Link
Tag: Kahlil Noble Jonyna Si

"We make sure we don't become just like them," Valery said after she had listened to Jonyna, and when she asked about the Inquisitor she had tried to kill. "If we deny them mercy and proper justice, we're becoming the monsters we've sworn to defend others against. We'd be hunting them down and killing them just because we fear that's what they'll do to us. Are we to judge that they should die when there are alternatives?" Valery let the question linger and briefly glanced at her husband before turning back to Jonyna.

"We have special prisons and asylum's in the Alliance, meant to contain people like that or even help them if there's a way to do that. If we capture an inquisitor like the one you encountered, that's where they should go." Valery then paused for a moment and decided to change the topic a tiny bit to make her point even more clear.

"You've also talked about your desire to be a hero before. That's not something Jedi typically care about either — it means image becomes too important, and perhaps more important than what we actually accomplish. But there's another side to that. Do you want your image, your potential status as 'hero', to be that you show no mercy to anybody who threatens you? That you'll kill someone before even considering a chance at capture or redemption?"

"If I cared about status or being a hero, I wouldn't want people to think of me that way. And that's not even considering the image you create for the Jedi as a whole. Back in my old days, we were taught to Honor the Jedi Order and the Jedi Council, which meant that our actions represent more than our own beliefs. If I were to go on a killing spree, people across the Galaxy wouldn't just hate me - they'd hate all Jedi."

"Your actions and decisions have a lot of weight, Jonyna, so consider them heavily."

 

[Kahlil Noble]

"As a Jedi, you have to rise above more than just your inner demons. Your people, their culture, you must see the flaws within them and help them be better. The Epicanthix have a brutal history under the regime of my family. Burning people on pyres, executions of any who stand against the Zambrano. There is so much beauty still, but if I don't try to help and show them a better path, the galaxy will only ever see them as the pawns of the Butcher."

Kahlil nodded in Valery's direction as he spoke.

"Your actions inspire. That is what it means to be Jedi. Just remember what you're trying to inspire in your own people."

Valery Noble | Jonyna Si

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

Jonyna took a moment to take that in, the ghost clearing her throat as she did.

"Did you have any other questions for me? My daughter has had many in the past few months."

Kahlil Noble Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Coruscant Temple

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Appearance: Link
Ship: Link
Tag: Kahlil Noble Jonyna Si

Valery offered Kahlil a warm smile as he spoke, before turning back to Jonyna's mother. Time was running out, and they had made a lot of progress. Or, at the very least, Valery felt they had an understanding now and would be able to help Jonyna, as long as the Jedi Knight was open to such help.

"I don't have any other questions myself. Love, what about you?" she then asked her husband before glancing back at the spirit of Jonyna's mother.

This was going to be their last chance for now.

After she disappeared, their focus would have to shift to Jonyna herself, so they can figure out the path forward. Without demotion, but perhaps a way to adjust to the Jedi as they are today.

 

[Kahlil Noble]

"Nope, none."

Valery Noble | Jonyna Si

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

"Right then. I bid you all farewell then. And Jonyna?" The ghost looked to her daughter.

"...yes mom?" The Cathar looked up, still clearly struggling with the concepts presented to her.

"You're a hero to our people regardless of what happens. Remember that. You've earned your place on Ran Dom Kuun's trunk."

Before Jonyna could respond, the ghost's time was up, and she faded away, leaving her daughter to simmer on those words.

"...right." Jonyna sunk into her chair. She knew what she wanted to be, and how she wanted to be it. A hero. A righter of wrongs and a slayer of evil. But evil was no longer clear cut as it was when she was an orphaned child, wandering the outer rim in an attempt to flee from scum and villainy, desperately trying to do what little she could to salvage the goodness left in the galaxy outside of the Empire. Now the galaxy had been saved, and what evils were left were down to politicians to choose when to solve. She could never wait like that, never had the patience for legal processes. Justice required swift action, in her eyes. Whether that be saving someone from a burning building, or hunting down criminals and monsters.

But now she was a jedi. Not just throwing the term onto herself for the sake of some sense of legitamacy in a world where being a jedi meant you were the last of your kind, a mythical hero that would come to smite the evils of the Empire, but a real one. A real one that now had to follow the rules of the world. Was swift justice too easy? Was it too simple to bring down the sword on those who have done wrong, those who have shown no capacity for goodness, those who have actively chosen to commit atrocities?

Maybe.

But maybe it was too simple to let every monster the chance to reform. True evil did exist. She'd stared it down herself. People who were so committed to causing suffering that she felt no remorse in leaving them as rust upon her blade to be cleaned off.

Valery Noble Kahlil Noble

 

[Kahlil Noble]

".. Well. Is there anything else you might have to ask of us, Jonyna?" He bowed his head as her mother left, but now his eyes were on the Cathar. There were clearly more things on her mind, but if she didn't want to open up, he wasn't going to make her. So long as she didn't give something more for them to be worried about, anyway.

Valery Noble | Jonyna Si

 

[Valery Noble]

Coruscant Temple

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Appearance: Link
Ship: Link
Tag: Kahlil Noble Jonyna Si

Valery watched the exchange between mother and daughter, before turning to her husband with a soft smile. She felt they had made some good progress, so now all that remained was for them to see things change in the field. That part was going to be up to Jonyna, and she'd get as much help as she needed.

But she'd have to ask.

"It's going to be up to you now to do something with what we covered today," Valery said after eyeing her husband a moment longer. "But we'll answer any questions or help with anything we can."

"All you need to do is ask."

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

She only really had one. One that had been on her mind for a while. Ever since the meeting with that Moff.

"...if we're really guardians of peace, to bring light to the darkness...then what does that mean? If we're going to allow people like the mandos, the Empire, awful people to exist, then are we really guardians of peace? Sure, it's not the GA, but why does that matter? Why do we allow evil to rise once more and not strike it down when it's still weak?"

 

[Kahlil Noble]

"So by that logic, you would have killed me on the spot as a child, yes?"

His past as a Sith was no secret. Kahlil was born and raised in the Sith Empire at the height of their power. Where their cruelty and abuse was expected and celebrated by their peers. Anything less was weakness. Anything less meant death.

"It's difficult to know where that line is between butchering children before they have a chance at redemption and killing an absolute evil. We can't foresee everything. We can't be everywhere. We can only do what we can. But if you think killing is always the answer, remember the Sith, the Empire, they loved being able to choose who lives and who dies. If you cannot say without a doubt that someone can't be redeemed, then is death what they truly deserve?"

Valery Noble | Jonyna Si

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

"No! Sylvar no. You were a child. Free of sin and innocent to the larger galaxy. But that doesn't mean we can say everyone is free to go about what evils they commit at the chance they might find redemption later on." Jonyna reasoned. She'd spent the last few months holding this in. "It's not difficult for me. It's so, so simple. I spent twenty years living in places like Tatoonie, hives of scum and villainy where the Hutts ruled through greed and abuse. The fact that those institutions, slavers and mob bosses still exist 900 years later? Does that not make you questions if we're not doing enough? The child you mentioned, Anakin Skywalker. He came out of that system. And look where it ended him? Because the jedi were too much of cowards to tear down a system that got his mother killed. I've done a lot of catching up since I got out of the ice, and you know what I see? The same mistakes the jedi of my time made. The same mistakes my mother's generation made that you're so quick to critique. If I had been as strong as I am now back then, I'd have thrown the shackles off the outer rim and taken on Vader myself. Is that not being a guardian of life? Is that not bringing Light to the Darkness? Or does the code mean only what you say it means..." There was a testing tone to the Cathar's voice. Kahlil Noble had the gall to insult her mother, and yet he called himself a master. A superior. What she wanted to know, what she really wanted to ask, she couldn't say with words.

She wanted to know why this world hadn't changed in 900 years. Why the jedi still refused to stand up and fight against the darkness, not of the sith, but of society. She cared not for the argument of dark vs light. The answer to that was obvious. The Light was a symbol she had held the torch for since she was a young kit. But good vs evil? That was her calling. Why were slavers and imperials, monsters and demons, the damned and the vile, still allowed to roam free among the galaxy, unpunished by those who called themselves guardians?

The wars of the GA didn't matter to her. The battles fought and the stories told. They were in the past. What was now was a galaxy still fraught with corruption and sin, a galaxy filled with people like Sully and the Volands. People who hid behind masks and committed atrocities behind closed doors.

 

[Kahlil Noble]

"I am being patient, Knight Si. But you continue to speak like these aren't things known or being taken care of. Did you know of the Hutt Cartel's attempt to reunify the Hutt Empire of old that we thwarted? The Maw, and their brutality that has claimed countless worlds, some irreversibly? They were stopped by Jedi. Us, the Silvers. The Sith Empire my father lead as a Butcher King, fell. The Sith scattered. They've reunified, and we're already taking action against it. You think we're not doing anything because we believe that there are some people out there worth redeeming?"

Kahlil's gaze hardened as he stared down at Jonyna.

"Countless Jedi have died in these fights against the Darkness. Masters, Knights. Padawans. Friends of mine. Friends of Valery's. People we consider family. Calix, a boy I consider my son. The order of your time did not have to face those losses until it's end and you want to sit here and spit on the graves of the people we lost because I told you to think about who actually deserves to be killed just because of the title they carry? The name they might hold? I am Kahlil Zambrano. And this age, that name would be the name you kill me on the spot with if you keep this mentality. So shut the fuck up about being a guardian of life when you don't even care to try and see the people we've lost so many save."

He kept his tone level, but this was no longer a discussion he wanted a part in. One he couldn't keep his mind clear in. He took a deep breath, then stepped away. Kahlil set a gentle hand on Valery's shoulder as he passed by, showing only a weary smile before he left the room before he truly blew up.

Jonyna Si | Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Coruscant Temple

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Appearance: Link
Ship: Link
Tag: Kahlil Noble Jonyna Si

Valery frowned at what Jonyna was saying, but any emotion or thoughts were quickly overshadowed when Kahlil addressed it very directly. She wanted to place a hand on his leg, not to stop him but to keep him calm, but she didn't. This was one of those times when Valery just quietly watched and decided it was best for her to talk to him later. He'd need that, she knew, and the hand he placed on her shoulder was confirmation of that.

He knew he'd have to separate himself from the situation to calm down, but she was going to help him as well, as his wife. But only after she was done with Jonyna, who she figured might be a little spooked.

"I'll talk to him in a bit," she assured her first. "But there is a lot that happened in those 900 years. Only a few years ago, we were in a huge war on multiple fronts that claimed more lives than most other wars in history and saw the destruction of several planets, and the complete ruining of many more. Before that, there have been times when the Sith were in total control of the entire core as well. Much like in the days of the Empire you were trying to survive."

Her tone was softer than Kahlil's, but still direct in how she wanted to portray history.

"Sometimes, when you look at the strength we have, it's easy to imagine that we can stop evil everywhere and make this Galaxy a better place. But there aren't that many of us, and this Galaxy is far bigger than anybody could imagine. It hasn't stopped us from giving everything to defend the Alliance and people everywhere though, and a lot of us have given the ultimate sacrifice for it too. But we can't save everybody, no matter how much we want to."

"So please, be careful with judging the Jedi now and of the past. Especially if you're not aware of everything that happened in those 900 years just yet. You'll learn with time and research, just as the Code describes."

"There is no ignorance, there is knowledge."

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

The Cathar was left stunned by Kahlil's sudden uproar and departure, and once again she seemed to sink into her chair.

Once Valery Noble spoke up, it at first looked to fall on deaf ears. The Cathar was deep in thought, before she finally gathered the strength to speak.

"...when I was very young, I watched a squad of stormtroopers burn a man's house down with him inside. His whole family inside. They didn't even hesitate. They just got the order and did it. To me, that was evil. True evil. There was no redemption for them, and I nearly got myself killed trying to fight them. I couldn't save any of that family. So I made my code. A code I swore by, a vow I could never think to break." She paused, looking up to Val. "Now you're all asking me to swear by a new code. The Jedi code. And all I want to do is understand what I'm signing up for. Because to me, a code is a way of life. To change the way I live, the way I fight, the way I see the world...that's not a simple ask. I called myself a jedi before because that word held power. Because that was the word people used for heroes. In the dark times I grew up in, calling yourself a jedi was a blatant spit in the face of the Empire and any wicked folks who dared to commit evil. But now...you're telling me it means something different and new to me. I don't...mean to disrespect any of you. I just want to know what I'm supposed to be in this new age. A hero? A monk? Some sort of diplomat or military commander? Because I can't be all of those things. I can't be anything more than a shield to those behind me. That's what I trained to be, at the expense of myself. That's why I'm making such a big deal out of this. I want to know what you're asking of me..."

The Cathar's voice never rose above a whisper. The woman who sat in the chair before the Jedi Master seemed...defeated. Completely lost in a galaxy that preached the jedi way, and yet that way seemed so contradictory in so many ways. Before, it was simple. The jedi fight the evils of the galaxy. The Empire, the Hutts, the Inquisitors and the Sith.

Now everything was sideways and caught up in politics and wars. The galaxy had left Jonyna behind, and she found herself falling back on old habits. Rage against the dying of the light. Rage against the storm and sea, against the passage of time and the changing of the seasons. Time had left Jonyna Si behind, so Jonyna Si would claw against it as hard as she could.

 

[Valery Noble]

Coruscant Temple

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Appearance: Link
Ship: Link
Tag: Kahlil Noble Jonyna Si

"We're asking you to be a peacekeeper," Valery said after listening to Jonyna. "The Jedi of this age aren't monks anymore, and we're not military commanders either. A lot of what you stand for — protecting others potentially at your own expense — is exactly what the Jedi stand for. But how we go about it does matter for the reasons both Kahlil and I have already covered. If you want to learn more about the Code and what it means, I can cover it in-depth with you though."

"But at a first glance, a lot of our problems stem from your very aggressive approach to being a Jedi. It was perhaps something you needed to stay alive back then, but things have changed drastically."

She paused and offered the Cathar a gentle smile.

"Your desire to protect is something to hold onto, but we need you to take a moment longer to stand still and consider your options, as well as your actions. They can have huge consequences for those around you, and for who and what you represent as a Jedi of the Order."