Tiland had spent long hours pacing the cold landscapes, communing with the elders of the blue banthas, discussing the ambiguity of memory, it’s strengths, and it’s drawbacks, as well as salvaging what could be salvaged of a thousand years worth of old memories. Many they had brought back had not been recollected in decades, if not centuries worth of standard years.
Eventually, he practiced on several memories, smaller, but precious only in the experiences of the moments. A perfect cup of tea. A lily pond arranged in the most exquisite concentric patterns. Snapshots of life becoming art.
But he also saved many of the others, including the ones the elders suggested not to, for their pain and their heartbreak. They said it would be a burden, to which Tiland only nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said, “But it is our burdens that develop the foundations of wisdom. And I must ensure the wisdom I have found can be preserved.”
As they all gathered shortly after, he accepted the other’s memories gratefully, and with reverence for what those experiences met. As for his own, he thought long and hard, sorting through the many he and saved.
“Two, I offer,” Tiland said at last, after receiving and sifting through the other old Jedi’s memory. “One for practicality and one as a reminder of what it can mean to others to meet a Jedi. The first is my duel with Darth Carnifex aboard the bridge of his bow destroyed super weapon. Only accept it if you can carry that with you. Shared it with your councils, your sages, and your battle-masters. See what they can learn from it and if there’s any clues to how he was brought back from the dead.”
To those who wanted it, he would offer it. As for the second, he considered. “This is an ancient memory, dating back about forty years prior to the onset of the ancient Clone Wars.”
To those who knew the Outer Rim well, they would recognized the unforgettable streets and cityscapes of Terminus, not altogether unchanged from how they were now, despite the millennia of difference.
It rained, cold and hard, in an alleyway filled with refuse and detritus. A young Tiland, unrecognizable except for the the proboscis that extended from their flaps sat pressed up against the walls, a bloody knife laying on the duracrete next to a stiffening body.
Emotions surged and roiled beneath a growing mask of shock and numbness as the memory seemed to grow more and more dark, as the sensations of horror and guilt warred with a growing insistence to feed and consume. Not that it was possible now, but it had been the quickness and the unexpectedness. Seeking his first prey to feed on, based on a particularly powerful feeling Force sensitive, when the Rodian had come out of nowhere with a vibroblade going at his ribs. Training had taken over before Tiland, though he had not yet taken a name, was aware of it and taken the knife, reversed it, and the assailant was gone in less than three heart beats.
The darkness had nearly taken over before he was aware of a light shimmering in the corner of his vision. Two lights, in fact. A green one accompanied by a hum, and a different one that he felt more than saw.
A Jedi. The quarry his uncle had sent him to track down. Ironic, wasn’t it? The hunter had become the prey. He looked up and shrugged, holding his hands up in surrender. He hoped it would be quick.
The Jedi was a female Miraluka, judging by the cloth tied around her eyes. Yet there was something different. She was neither young nor old, but something about her felt ancient. For those who took the memory, they would recognize the face from the memories shared by the elders as one of their visitors.
In the memory, the lightsaber blade deactivated. And instead, the Jedi sat next to him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder as tiny Tiland broke down into tears.
“I didn’t mean to,” he said, fighting back tears and choking on sobs. “They trained me to be an apex hunter and he just stepped out from the shadows and there was the vibroblade coming towards me.”
“I know,” the Jedi said simply. “I saw. The Force brought me here and I heard rumors of an Anzati presence. I let you sense me in hopes of luring you to me and not anyone else.” Tiland felt the Jedi shrug. “I didn’t foresee this.”
“Best take me into custody,” Tiland forced out. “I confess and will not resist.”
There was a long silence.
“Self defense is not illegal here, or in the Republic,” the Jedi finally said. “You committed no crime. And I see clearly you have killed no one, correct?”
Tiland only nodded. Another long silence.
“We each come to our own shatterpoint,” she said after a moment. “A time when our beliefs about ourselves and everything else are confronted with reality. And in that moment we must make a choice about who we truly are and what it is we want to be.”
The young Tiland sat in silence, watching the rain wash his hands clean, drop by drop. He wiped
“What are the options I even have?” Tiland finally asked.
“Infinite choices,” the Jedi said. “The galaxy and the future are always moving, always shifting. We are not defined by our past. Nor are we limited by our pasts. Look beyond the binaries, my young friend. There is never a question of either one choice or only another. The Jedi way is to step back from the situation and look at all possible options, not just the ones that are most obvious.”
His hands were almost clear, now visible in the yellow glare of the lights from the street.
“I sense much potential in you,” the woman continued. “Have you ever considered being a Jedi?”
Tiland raised his head in confusion. “I was told the Jedi only indoctrinated the children they kidnapped.”
There was a low chuckle. “In the recent eras, yes, but I am old, older than any right I have to be. And I haven’t been to the temple in many decades. I don’t need permission to take a student of my own. What’s your name?”
“I don’t have one yet,” Tiland answered. “We’re not given names. We take them to blend in.”
The Miraluka only nodded and rubbed a hand along his shoulder comfortingly. “You’ll find one that suits you. Come, let us go somewhere far from here, somewhere remote, where we can take your training in the assassin arts and teach you full control. Take what you learned for evil and use it for good. All beings deserve this option. It’s the Jedi way to remind others of this choice.”
The memory came to an end with that and Tiland leaned back, face strained with the effort of reliving that experience.
