"Stalwart, I will stand, until mountains turn to sand."
TIME: Morning
THEME: Ambience - Reading Music
A Jedi's work is never done.
Sitting down with a steaming mug of caf at the holoterminal aboard his ship - a second home in some ways and brought up to standards with a refresh in the past year - Merrick opened his mail only to find himself faced with a request to consider another student, among other business; as ever, it was all hands on deck, as the Brotherhood carved a path of destruction that rivalled the Bryn'adûl of his younger years. With his padawan of the past twelve years being soon up for knighthood and both of his teenage children now largely the responsibility of the Praxeum on Ossus, it wasn't an unreasonable thing, but this still caused a bevy of thoughts to swim across the forefront of his mind... the recent ravaging of Naboo being prominent amongst his present concerns.
But as for this request? There was nothing in the profile of the young Pantoran that gave him cause for concern, as his eyes took in the details line by line. Age wasn't a factor, as even Osenia had been older, but with no prior knowledge about the boy it would be a truly blank slate. Each of his first two students had to be handled differently from the other, regardless of his prior acquaintance with them from the outset, and it would be no different, here... but when it came to the analysis of the boy's strengths, it became abundantly clear why the New Jedi Order had made the offer to him, specifically: many of their number were suited to direct conflict, what the Jedi Orders over countless millennia had codified as a 'Jedi Guardian', but he occupied a different role that few of them fit. Always, the Jedi trained their numbers to the state of the galaxy.
Settling back into his chair with both hands wrapped around the mug, a hand came to rest on his shoulder, and featherlight lips pressed to his temple, "Good morning," he half-whispered, tilting his head back to see the face of Chiara Viren as her violet eyes looked to the screen, and the profile of the Pantoran teenager, Iri. "They're really not wasting time..." she began; he tilted his head forward to look at the photo, again, "...no one can afford to," he said with the mildest sigh, "I suppose we should be glad May isn't here."
Force only knows what their daughter would think... or do.
"You say that," she said with a small laugh, "like there aren't boys at the Praxeum."
Well, she wasn't wrong.
LOCATION: Jedi Temple at Coruscant
TIME: Morning - Four Days Later
TAGS: Iri Tuteru
Having dropped his wife off at Ossus for some meetings involving her expertise as a healer, and attending a couple meetings there himself after transmitting his acceptance of the request on the matter of Iri Teteru, Merrick set foot on Coruscant four mornings later to finally meet the young man. As a speeder shuttled him from the starport to the Jedi Temple, he noticed how the landscape of buildings had changed against their will since the last time he was in this place, and it was not unlike how Naboo might look in the months ahead... with the temple apparently having taken the worst of it, he noted, as it came into view.
"Not the first time," he murmured to himself after exiting the speeder cab, craning his head to look up at the damaged structure from base of the now-precarious steps. "and probably not the last," if history was any indication. He was old enough to be aware of what the One Sith had done here in decades past, even if he hadn't been in the thick of it, and by many accounts that had been worse; the common whisper being that to hold Coruscant was to willingly paint a target on your back - a blood jewel, so to speak. Merrick looked away from the rubble, and looked around; his newest student was to meet him here, and he glanced at his chrono to check the time."Well, he's not late... but I am early," for once. Over a decade of child-rearing on top of being a Jedi was a challenge to timeliness, so being early was just a tad surprising. "I wonder if he drinks caf."
The profile didn't say, but he wouldn't mind another cup.
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