The Trials

By: Angie, angiecampo@aol.com

Summary: A Jedi Temple dropout. Angst. Old Republic. Spoilers: Follows canon as best I can assume. Disclaimer: The Jedi are George's. I'm just having fun with them.

He touched the fabric of the rough-spun cloak.

“Are you getting dressed, dear? The traffic will be heavy this time of day.”

He called back that the traffic was always heavy as he continued to rub the brown cloth between his fingers. Back then, he mused, it had been easy deciding what to wear. Back then, he laughed, it fit. He ran a hand over his ample belly. Oh, he had tried dieting before, but there was always some dinner or luncheon to go to and the food was inevitably rich and fattening. So he had given up and his girth had increased.

Selecting clothes gave him a headache even after all these years. He had tried to keep his wardrobe simple, but he did have to keep up appearances and it seemed that every event required a new outfit. The multitude of choices before him was now mindboggling to him and some days he would shut down completely and just stand there looking. On those occasions, she would have to rescue him by making the selection for him from the vast array of colors and fabrics.

He picked a deep-blue synthivelvet over-tunic and black Ottegan silk pants. Simple, but elegant. He hoped. He had worn these before and that’s what she had said then. He hoped they were still in style. He never could keep abreast of the changes in fashion.

He walked over the plush carpeting in his dressing room to the bureau. Opening the top drawer where he kept his socks, he pulled out a pair. This was simple as they were all black. At least he didn’t have to make a choice there. Socks in hand, he continued to rummage around in the back until he found it.

The long, thin braid was light brown. The color of his hair when he was young before his hair had gone gray, then white. He held it behind his right ear where it used to hang and closed his eyes. He remembered the day he had cut it off like it was yesterday.

*

A sabbatical they had called it. He wasn’t being dismissed in shame for he had not done anything wrong. They had explained that he was still his Master’s Padawan, but would no longer be under his direct control anymore. He was free to do as he wished. It was their tactful way of saying he wasn’t going to make Jedi Knight, he wasn’t good enough.

He hadn’t blamed them, not then and not now. They were right, he wasn’t strong enough in the Force, not connected enough. Although training could bring out the natural tenancies of a Force-adept student, it couldn’t put it there. Oh, he had flashes of brilliance, okay, flashes of adequacy, from time to time which had kept him and them hopeful that he would progress and grow stronger. But they had been false hopes and his training plodded along like a bantha in mud.

On that day they had called in his Master to the Council chamber. This was nothing new. It seemed like he was in there discussing his training every month. It very rarely happened to other Padawan’s Masters. He had never been allowed in. He would patiently wait outside for his Master to exit and then explain what new direction his training would take. They were forever trying something new.

Once, he was instructed that he was to spend all of his time in mediation. Alone. So, for a month, he mediated in his room. He mediated and mediated and for a change of pace he went into trances. At the end of the month, his Master was back in the Council chamber discussing what new direction his training would take again.

That last time, however, was different. He was called in. They told him they had found him a position, a job and a place to stay, an apartment. If he wanted, if not he was free to do as he wished.

Not knowing what else to do, he accepted.

And so for awhile, he got up, went to work, ate, watched some holoprograms and went to sleep. And waited for something or someone to tell him what to do with his life.

His friends from the Temple would occasionally stop by and visit to see how he was doing. His Master, too. He told them he was fine. And he was, for he was just going through the motions of living not really thinking about what he was doing or not doing.

Then one day some of his co-workers had invited him to come with them after work. It was that night he came to the realization that he was free, free to do as he wished. Anything that he wished, there was no one to stop him. And no one did.

Days melted into weeks and weeks into months. He had lost his job, found others and lost those, too. He managed to keep his apartment, but just barely.

His neighbors complained to the manager about the noise and the constant comings and goings of visitors to his apartment. The manager would come and talk to him and he would clean up his act for awhile to placate her, but soon he reverted back to his old ways.

His Temple friends no longer came, but his Master did. He invited him back to the Temple, to rest and think. They would find him a new job, get him back on his feet. Go kriff yourself, he had told him. He still remembered the look on his Master’s face. Never had seen that look before. He had laughed and laughed after his Master had left.

But somehow the manager had stopped bothering him about the back rent and didn’t ask about rent for the next couple of months after, either.

And so it went for a time. The never ending parties and good times. Or so he thought.

*

He didn’t know her name. At least he hoped it was a her, he didn’t know the species either.

Now on the public dole, he had lost his decent apartment and the view from where he lay was positively grim. It was among the worst of the worst when it came to shelter. Filth encrusted and vermin infested, he laid there for awhile wondering how he had gotten there, so far from the spartan, but clean dormitories of the Temple.

He shook her awake. She groaned and rolled over. He shook her again and ordered her out. Stepping over the bodies laying on his floor, he then started kicking them awake and shouting for them to get out. They cursed him soundly, but they obeyed, dressing and then stumbling out.

And he was alone again.

*

His Master refused to see him, but sent his new Padawan to inquire what he wanted. He told the young boy he just wanted to clean up and maybe have a decent change of clothes. He would find his own job.

The Padawan padded out of the reception room and was gone for a long time. When he returned, he told him he would be allowed to wash, eat a hot meal and new clothes would be provided, but that was all. But that hadn’t been all, for inside one pocket was a small amount of dataries.

He found a new job and then regained his old apartment, but he didn’t spend the dataries. At least not right away. And then he didn’t really spend them. He wagered with them.

He knew where all the gaming rooms were, but that had not been his particular form of vice. For some reason he had steered clear of them, but now he headed straight for them like a hawk-bat after a granite slug.

Gaming was against the rules of the Temple for the Jedi had an unfair advantage and since he was no longer a Jedi the rules did not apply to him. And so he took advantage. With his small abilities with the Force, he was able to influence the outcome of dice and the Jubilee wheel. Sabacc was a different matter, it was too complicated as it also involved strategy so he stayed away from that.

He made sure that his winnings were never large enough to attract notice and he spread himself out, never visiting the same house too often. And soon he had an ante. A considerable ante.

*

He invested in toys.

Buying a failing children’s toy manufacturing business, he had a knack of knowing what toys would appeal to children causing their parents to buy them. He had turned the business around making it profitable. Very profitable.

One day, after signing a lucrative contract he was feeling philanthropic and sent a shipment of the latest, best selling items to the Temple’s children. Anonymously.

With the new contract came new contacts and new opportunities and soon he expanded into other fields. If it had the least bit of glamor, it wasn’t his. Garbage collection services. Disposal and recycling plants. Personal hygiene products. Droid restraining bolts. Funeral homes. Fertilizer.

And as he grew richer, he sent more material to the Temple. Never credits, he always gave the physical, tangible goods themselves. Mountains of rough-spun sand-hued cloth. Bolts and bolts of the stuff. Their robes, ample and voluminous, required many meters and they went through a lot of clothing, especially the Padawans.

And so he bought a cloth factory. It prospered and grew. And made him more money.

He sent food. Not the ordinary kind that most species could digest, but the specialized foodstuffs that certain species required.

And so he bought an exotic food import company.

Soon, he was sending almost everything he could recall them needing. Carbon rope. Rebreather masks. Special gasses for those who needed extra additives to Coruscant’s atmosphere. Travel bags. Power packs. Comlinks. Data pads.

*

“Honey, are you dressed, yet?”

He called back that he was and asked if she wanted a drink before they left.

“Just something light, maybe a glass of that Alderaan wine we opened last night.”

He left his dressing room and made his way to the bar. Uncorking the bottle, he poured some into two fine, long-stemmed glasses. He added ice to his.

Ice on ice. That’s how he described his business transactions. He liked as little friction as possible. He obeyed all the laws. He kept only one set of books, the real ones. And greased the right palms. Nothing out right illegal, just to keep him from being overlooked when goodies were being doled out, just to keep things running smoothly, like ice on ice.

That was the only business he engaged in that didn’t reward him in credits. The turbo-ski and tauntaun ride concessions on Coruscant’s ice caps. The only place on the city that was a planet that was free of buildings. All from the Temple were given free access and that ate into the profits. It was very popular with the Padawans and their meager allowances. That was the reason he kept it.

He took a sip of his iced wine and looked at the expensive vista out the window. His home was one of the most costly pieces of real estate in the city. His business dealings required that he have sumptuous surroundings in which to entertain, however, it was for the view he had chosen this particular site.

He sat down in the large, over-stuffed chair that he had turned around to admire the view. She was forever turning it back around to face the other furniture and he likewise turned it back to the window. He ran his hand over its supple nerf hide, enjoying the buttery feel underneath his fingers.

He was also a nerf herder. And not just any nerf herder. He was the biggest nerf herder he knew of. Not that he actually herded the nerfs himself, he hired the herders and owned the herds and the ranches. He had holdings on numerous planets totaling millions of square kilometers, all grazing nerfs. He liked them. His friends made fun of them, but the multitude of items you could make from them was staggering. Like this chair. Or boots. He didn’t know anyone who went through more footwear than the Jedi. His shipments to them were quite large. And belts. They didn’t seem to go through those as fast, though.

The call announcer rang. And as usual, his son ran to answer the door. Seventeen-years-old, he was the last of their brood. How could the two of them produce four beautiful, intelligent offspring and then produce him? A comlink had more in the way of brains then this kid.

When their first child had been born, the argument had been quite nasty, the worst that they had ever had. He finally convinced her to at least have the child tested and once they knew the results, then they could decide. She reluctantly agreed to this. The Jedi came and there was no decision to make. His first born was not suitable for training.

She did not have to be convinced to let the second child be tested. She knew. Yet, she had been agreeable to having many children. They raised them all. He hoped for grandchildren. Perhaps it would skip a generation, like other traits.

Theirs was latest, most expensive protocol droid there was on the market, yet comlink-for-brains was so infatuated with his latest love that he raced to beat the droid to the door in case it was her.

*

And so it had been around a month ago, but it had not been her, but her.

“Your Master bids you to come to the Temple of the Jedi for The Trials,” the young Padawan announced.

He had been invited to the Temple as an outsider to witness one of the most important rites of the Jedi, the culmination of years of study, rituals and practice during which an apprentice was tested. The candidate who was successful was elevated to the rank of Knight.

He had smiled, his Master was still alive. It had been years since he last saw him. Being one of the longer-living species, he had only been in middle-age when he had truly been his Master. Now that he was well passed his own middle-age, his Master must be nearing the end of his kind’s life-span.

*

A number of years after he had started sending gifts to the Temple, he had arrived, unannounced. They had talked for awhile about nothing in particular, looking out the window at the scenery. Then his Master changed the subject subtly, turning it to an upcoming mission of the Temple. He was scant on details, until he started listing the items they would need. Abruptly, he was very specific about all sorts of esoteric equipment and supplies.

His Master had wished him well and that the Force be with him and he had left.

Before the eddies of air disturbed by the closing door had settled, he was on his comlink and the needed equipment and supplies were at the Temple by morning.

From then on, he no longer tried to hide that it was he who was sending the provisions although he did not trumpet it either.

And so it went. Their basic, everyday needs where sent automatically and his Master would arrive periodically to tell him about special needs. Sometimes, his Master would stay longer than necessary and the two of them would sit and stare out the window at the spires. Never did they discuss old times.

*

He called back to her to ask if she was finished dressing yet.

“Almost. Are you going to wear your ring?”

He thanked her for reminding him and got up. Palming the photoplate and keying in the security code, he opened the jewelry box. He removed a large ring. A Durindfire.

He had joined all the right clubs and associations to meet all the right contacts. It was through one of these contacts that he brought a seat on the Durindfire exchange and could buy directly from the cartel.

And so the Jedi were supplied with gemstones. Rubies. Coruscas. Chrysoberyls. Emeralds. Sapphires. And Durindfires.

*

His contact had become a friend. He collected nothing. His friend collected weapons. Ancient weapons. His friend tried to get him interested in the pursuit and had started to invite him along when he made purchases to whet his appetite. It was on one of these hunting expeditions as his friend called them that he had seen it. Silver and black, there was no mistaking the cylinder. He had asked the gun dealer to remove it from the case so he could inspect it. However, that had been a lie for he had already decided to buy it.

He had played with it for a few days scaring her half to death that he would cauterize off a hand or worse. When he was done, he brought this item personally to the Temple.

His Master received him then. He examined the weapon, turning it over in his hands. He sent his Padawan away. His Padawan came back with an elderly Jedi Master. His Master handed the haft to her, and a spark of recognition came over her face. She thanked him for the return of her Master’s weapon and that she would make sure it would be in her Master’s family’s hands soon.

*

He placed the ring on his finger admiring the way it reflected the light, scattering rays across the room. It was a special cut - the specifications of the facets were to focus and define.

*

The ritual was an important step, a milestone, and a long one, a month of fasting and meditating. Assembling the pieces together and then the trance for melding the pieces together to make the many, one. Drawing on the Force to charge the battery that all important first time, so that it was integrated with the rest.

He had tried, really tried. But with the Jedi there was no try and he did not do.

The End