Private Happy Anniversary (Solo)

[Caltin Vanagor]

"Sometimes you just have to dance with the girl that brought you." - Old saying

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Almost nine hundred years ago Caltin was a child, a toddler at best when he(as far as he knew) was just a regular little boy. He didn’t know that his older sister Tyria had run away from home. He didn’t know about what his parents did for a living. Caltin didn’t even know that he was sensitive to the Force and that he came from a long line of Jedi, he was just a little boy. One of his earliest, most vivid, and longest-lasting is and has been the image of his parents being taken away by a squad of Coruscant guards under arrest.

He would later find out that they were innocent of the charges bestowed on them. He would find out that his sister was alive on the planet Nar Shadaa, desperate to come home and to find him. He would find all of this later, at a point when his life was set down a path he would never veer from. No, right now the focus of his memory was how he felt, watching them being taken away, one of the troopers wanted to feed him the butt of his rifle for lashing out, the little boy whose world was falling apart around him just wanting his parents not to go away. He remembered the squad leader who shot the trooper for his actions, and (though he would not know) would later resign his commission, not wanting any part of any Republic who would do something like this anymore.

This was a turning point in Caltin’s life. What was happening here settled him on his path. Was it evil? Not if his father had something to say about it. You see, he begged the soon-to-be “Ex” Major just to speak to his son, to calm him down. The Major, showing a heart uncommon with Imperial personnel, relented and ordered the man free for five minutes to hold his son. Caltin’s father, picked up his little boy, trying to hold back his own tears as he wiped the future massive Jedi Master’s. He set the boy on his path, and it was one he would never veer from. He didn’t tell Caltin about his Force Sensitivity, he just wanted his son to be a little boy. No, he made Caltin promise him something. What was that promise?

To always do the right thing.

This promise that Caltin made his father is what held him together. Through all of the foster homes, he went through, all of the neglect, the physical and verbal abuse. It kept him together when he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up being sent to a Juvenile Detention Center. It kept him together when, as a teenager, he took up the defense of those who could not defend themselves, he became a vigilante of sorts. His promise held him together, but it did not truly save his life.

The one who saved his life was not the woman he loved on Coruscant(more on her later), it was a little Twi’Lek girl on Tatooine who he waved to every day. For weeks, months maybe, he would wave to her on the street in Mos Espa and she would wave back to him always smiling. One day, he was tired of fighting and fighting the same Hutts. Caltin had actually found a father figure that took him in and taught him “a different way”. He found that mand slaughtered in his own in the most brutal way imaginable. That day was one where the “getting big guy” was ready to end it all, he was going to kill that Hutt and every one of his lieutenants and thugs or die trying. Then he saw her, that little Twi’Lek girl that he waved to every day, and waved. This time though? She didn’t wave back, she ran across the street, frightened.

That saved his life. He was living long enough to be what he thought he was fighting.

Broken, Caltin booked transport off-planet and back to Coruscant. He was going to face the music and beg the Jedi for help. He didn’t know what else to do, but he knew that they could help him change, help him be able to look at himself in the mirror again. He didn’t know what they had found out. He didn’t know that they learned of his connection. He was just glad to be taken in, no matter what they wanted him to do. He didn’t know either that the Council deliberated on what to do with him. He was “too old” for training, but was exhibiting qualities and traits of even experienced Jedi and he was not even eighteen.

They took a chance and took him in as a Padawan Learner.

His life has been equated to “One personal hell after another” and those did not stop once he became a Jedi Knight(within three years, he trained that hard) but his promise to his father kept him going, it motivated him to teach his own Padawans. Everything about being a Jedi was what he wanted out of life. He had found the home he never had, and more than that, he found purpose, even though all of the strife was hitting him in ways that would destroy many others.

That woman on Corellia? She was one of those “personal hells” as he thought about her every day since she told him it was “over” and called Corsec on him. He didn’t know that she was pregnant with his child. He didn’t know that she sent him away to try to keep him out of prison. He didn’t know because she knew that he had found out that he was a father, Caltin would do everything that he could to be a part of his child’s life. She didn’t want the life of an inmate for him, or her baby, so she sent him away. She called him years later when she was diagnosed with a terminal illness and told him about her. How Alyscia was told that he wanted nothing to do with either of them to keep her from asking about him and wanting to find him. She told him of her incredible regret especially since she was in trouble and needed his help.

Caltin may not have been happy to have found out about his daughter like this, twelve years later, but he would spend the rest of his life trying his hardest to be the best possible father she could have. He had his duties as a Jedi and they were a priority, but he made every bit of what little free time that he had to take care of her and her needs. This increased his desire to be the embodiment of the Jedi so that he could be an example and (mostly to) kick the Sith’s collective asses. He wanted a safe galaxy; one where his daughter (who was Force Sensitive and we’ll get back to her in a second) and her friends did not have to spend their lives looking over their shoulders.

Getting tested on her connection to the Force was Alyscia’s idea. Caltin wanted her to have her own life, just like his father wanted for him. She however was just as stubborn as he was and wanted to be the hero that many claimed that he is. This was not out of jealousy or anything, it was because she was proud of her father, and wanted to be just like him in many ways. So when it was determined that she was indeed strong in the Force, she was trained. Her training was not done officially though as the Jedi Council felt that they had made too many exceptions, but they did not frown on Caltin teaching her anyway. He did not though, felt she would not get the best training from him, but from his most recent Padawan. Alyscia basically learned by proxy.

Alyscia was one of the good points in his life so was finding his sister and watching her marry and have children of her own. There were a lot of bad ones though. One would think that finding his “thought to be long dead” parents would be a good one, but it was just the opposite. He found both of them “alive” on Tatooine. Why the quotes? Caltin found them in some kind of compound wearing collars attached to their brain stems. Those collars shut down their minds, and in effect their free will. They were “alive” and fully aware of the remotes on those collars taking over and controlling their bodies, but they could do nothing about it. The compound was full of them.

Caltin found them and “freed” them, there was no other way, they would either die this way or the collars would have to be removed and they die that way. The big guy removed the collars and gave them a few minutes of freedom before they would pass. He talked to them, they talked to him, they got their “goodbyes” and that was that. Every year on the day it happened, he would return to the location and leave two flowers after spending some time(the time he spent conversing with them) and would leave.

That is where he is today sitting on a hilltop right next to what is now a resort. This was the first time that the big guy had been here since coming out of the ice of Rhen Var so long ago. It seems really weird to come back after so long, but it really wasn’t to him. One day he was being ambushed in the air by… well… by some group. No matter how much digging, the massive Jedi Master could not pull up who it was that attacked him or operated in the area. Anyway, it seemed like that one day; the next he was being awoken by Jedi healers over eight hundred fifty years later.

He was trying. Trying his hardest to be the Jedi he was “way back when” but how can you when everyone you knew and cared about are gone. Yes, he has “family” around, descendants in both Jax Thio , and Liram Angellus . There is also Ala Quin who is not family by blood but by choice; sure she’s a clone, yes, he was there when it happened but things are still differences between them. As much as he accepted all of this, it still sucked. Everything he stood for was considered “passe” and “old”; it was hard to accept and probably one of the reasons that he always seemed so “standoffish”.

The truth is, the loss of everything and this new world of how everything has changed has been debilitating to his morale. He finds himself in a position that he does not want to be in he was the Jedi who just wanted to disappear into the crowd and fit now Caltin stood out more than ever. “Big guy” indeed. He tried to offer what he knew to this generation, the problem is he did so with the inclination that the other Jedi knew who he was. They didn’t and his attempts turned out to be a disaster. Some saw his attitude as “cocksure” and an “ego” and maybe in a way it was but much of what he was seeing was in its own way a repeat of what he had seen in the past. Caltin just wanted to help and his inadvertently backhanded attempts were thrown right back in his face.

It made him bitter. The whole thing made him angry and at first, he blamed “this generation of Jedi” feeling like it was their fault for how low the galaxy had sunk to. However, over time he let his sense actually return to normal and realize that this is just the way that things were and how the galaxy evolved. That did not mean that he would. His time and training spent as a Jedi was a part of him and not something he could simply let go of. He was going to remain the Jedi that he was one way or the other. If the Silver Jedi Concord, or the New Jedi Order, or the Ashlan Crusade, or whatever Jedi out there want to follow? That would be great! If they chose their own path? That is their prerogative.

Either way, Caltin would be out there.

So why was he here? Why was he on this hilltop overlooking this resort? It was the anniversary of their deaths; sure but he could remember it in some other way right? It would mean nothing any other way, at least not to him.

Hi Mom, Dad. It has been a long time; I know and I feel the same way. It has been so hard lately. I wonder if this is why you wanted me to make that promise to you so long ago. I don’t know myself but it is just… it would be easier if there were more that I knew around me. I mean there is Ala and I have told you about her but she is doing her own thing now. I am proud of her, I am. I guess it would not be so “final” this feeling between us.

Here come the feelings of “failure” again. The massive Jedi Master could not have been at fault for the events affecting him and his family, but that is exactly what he was feeling. It was the nature of his mentality; no matter what he did Caltin always took on way too much. He was well aware of this but was terrible at letting others do their job. This was not from any kind of lack of trust or anything, he just grew up relying on only himself. That had to change as he could not live like this anymore.

Easier said than done though. This new galaxy was different, to say the least. For all of its attempts to be similar; this only proved more and more that this time was not his. It did not matter now and in truth probably did not matter anymore. He would adapt and make the best of the situation. He’d been doing so for the past year.

He’d been doing so his entire life.

No.

Not this time.

Mom, Dad. I cannot do this anymore. I don’t care if I am out of time, or how different this galaxy is now. I am not going to change who I am. I know that neither of you would have ever wanted me to do that. I have tried for too long to change and be the person I thought that the galaxy needed to be now, but all it has done was bring me down this ridiculous spiral. The truth is; I do not care if I am as alone as I feel, this galaxy needs something. I would say that t needs a “spark”, but with everything that has happened to me recently, it would just sound stupid. Anyway, if you see Alyscia, or Tyria, the twins, even Aliandra, let them know that I’m okay? Let them know that I will always miss them as I do you, but I have to accept that my time is passed. I have to deal with the fact that I am a part of a galaxy that really has no place for the Jedi that I was trying to be so they are going to have to make a place for the Jedi that I am.

With that, he took one last look at the resort and was reminded of the place he once attacked and dropped the flowers. Caltin closed his eyes and said a little prayer before getting up to leave. Taking a total of two steps, his holo-communicator started to buzz, pulling it out and pressing the activation switch the big guy watched as the blue shimmered image of the Nautolan informant “Tannet” filled the screen. Tannet was a career “snitch”; an inside man with “street credibility” who always managed to get into the worst situations. If he was Force Sensitive, Tannet would definitely be a “Shadow”.

Tannet? What’s up?

“The place is about to blow. They need help. It’s about to be war.

Settle down. What’s going on?

“Jedha! There’s incoming. A LOT OF THEM! Sith! Every contact I have has been telling me it’s war! I’ve called every Jedi I know.”

Sit tight. We’re on our way.

With that, the massive Jedi Master burst into a sprint towards his ship. He was not the best "Jedi" in the galaxy and regardless of how he might have come off, he never tried to be. Caltin knew how to fight, and how to stand between the helpless and those who would stand to do them harm. "Sometimes you just have to dance with the girl that brought you."

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OOC: See you on the 17th