[b]Name:[/b] Seris Vakaan
[b]Age:[/b] 32
[b]Species:[/b] Miraluka
[b]Appearance:[/b]

If you saw Seris, you very likely wouldn’t immediately guess she worked for the Jedi Archives. She is tall, with a slender, whipcord build, and walks with the sort of easy confidence that suggests she [i]should[/i] swagger - but can’t quite be bothered to. Her skin is a rich olive, as though her ancestors were from the desert and she herself spends quite a lot of time in the sun. When she wears something without sleeves, there are myriad small marks on her hands and arms - some the marks of someone who works with her hands, but others clearly the graffiti of violence. Straight, dark hair with streaks of hard, fine silver falls to just below her ears in a playful, almost-but-not-quite-boyish cut. Her features are likewise impish - friendly and pleasant, though more striking than traditionally pretty. Like the rest of her kind, Seris’ eyes are milky-white and blind, though she breaks with the majority of her people and chooses not to keep them covered. Seris’ hands are quick and strong, with long fingers and neatly-trimmed nails. Both of her ears are pierced a number of times, usually filled with small decorations from a handful of worlds.

While closely affiliated with the Order, Seris is [i]not[/i] a Jedi, and does not wear the traditional brown robe. She prefers well-made and hard-wearing clothes, tailored well and usually in earth tones. She’s been told she looks very good in blue but…well, how would she know? She has no tattoos, and her most-visible scar a small mark under her left eye, faded to a barely-visible curve the width of her little fingertip.

[b]Force Abilities:[/b]

[list]
[*] Force Sight - As a Miraluka, Seris is deeply, profoundly connected to the Force. This manifests most obviously as perceiving the world around her through that medium - and that is not always to her advantage.
[*] Of course, this means that Seris is physically blind. She cannot see even in abundant normal light; her brain has no structures to process that information, she lacks an optic nerve, and there are no light-sensitive structures within her eyes. She might be able to “see” in the dark - but those of a sinister persuasion might arrange things such that she [i]cannot[/i] see in the Dark.
[*] Some Basic Jedi Force skills - Telekinesis, Force Jump, Force Speed. There’s a reason for this, keep reading. 
[/list]
[b]Non-Force Abilities:[/b]
[list]
[*] Archaeologist - Seris started her career in archaeology, and genuinely finds chasing through books, stories, and even oral histories to be as exhilarating as following clues in a tractless desert, looking for an ancient and almost-forgotten crypt. She used to be a member of the Republic Archaeology Society, but missed too many meetings and functions to be welcome. Now, of course, that’s not much of a concern.

[*] Pilot - The long-range shuttle that the Order traditionally loans her is by far what Seris is most comfortable with, though she certainly is familiar with the larger transport ship they most recently let her borrow for longer trips into the galaxy. She is an [i]excellent[/i] pilot, and while the ship itself is almost completely stock, the hyperdrive works perfectly - which has made much more of a difference than maneuvering capability.

[*] Mechanic - Seris is on her own a lot, and knows how to repair most minor and routine problems with her shuttle, and even several on the larger transport the Order has loaned her. She also has a keen appreciation of when her skills have run out, and when she needs to swallow her pride and spend some credits at a proper repair depot. 

[*] Cosmopolitan -  Some of the stories Seris follows are so old that even books mentioning them as doubtful rumor have crumbled to dust. And, of course, none of those are written in Galactic Common. She is conversant in a large number of languages, fluent in Huttese, and at home almost everywhere. 

[*] Thief - There’s no point in kicking down the front door if a window’s been left unlocked - or [i]can[/i] be unlocked. Seris has an…unorthodox perspective of personal property laws, and some treasures have returned to the Archives from an officially-anonymous donor, regardless of how incensed their former owners might be about the matter. She’s rather accomplished at disabling security systems, sneaking past guards, and, in general, doing things without getting caught.

[*] Educated - Seris is a University graduate, learns quickly, and still has the kind of flexible, adaptable mind that doomed her career in academia. 

[*] Musical talent - Seris is a fine singer, though she prefers the sort of slow, melodic, contemplative music of her home to the more staccato rhythms of the Core Worlds. She can also play an instrument quite like a guitar, though she’s nothing like a virtuoso. Still, you don’t need to be for campfire songs.

[*] Dancer - Seris has learned small, useful things from her years roaming the galaxy, but there are few things she loves more than making her body move with kind of smooth, sensuous, irresistible motions that would make even a seasoned Twi’lek blush.

[*] Body Awareness - Seris has a very nearly perfect sense of proprioception, and both knows where her body is at all times, and how to make it do what she wants. She is graceful, confident, and moves with the subtle beauty of wind on water.

[/list]
[b]Personality/Motivation:[/b] Many Miraluka are calm, cool, and even reserved, but Seris has always been the black sheep of her family. While she is charming, articulate, friendly and witty, she is also ambitious and proud. These last, combined with a wide streak of willfulness, stubbornness, and incandescent curiosity, have gotten Seris into more than a few complex situations - and out of them, as well. She is meticulous and careful, with none of the rash wildness some might expect, and cannot abide the idea of doing a thing badly. Saying she has a problem with authority isn’t entirely true - but you’ll know when she disagrees or has problems with an idea.

Seris is ferociously proud of her sister and of her accomplishments within the Order, and she is cognizant of how unusual her own affiliation with the Jedi is. While her thoughts and feelings on Jedi philosophies are complex, she is familiar with them and at her core, Seris believes that the Jedi are a force for good. She also tends to hold members of the Order to a very high standard, and despite her near-total lack of actual authority, has chastised Padawans, Initiates, Knights and Masters with a whip-crack sternness and almost total fearlessness. Maybe she’s even done some good that way. 


[b]Biography:[/b] 


Even to the Jedi, the Miraluka have always been something of a mystery. The protectors of the Republic rarely came to Alpheridies, and those who did tended not to stay for long. The quiet, industrious people of that planet would seem to have much to offer the Order, but few of them wanted a place in galactic affairs. Their strange, dark world still carried scars of the last great war thousands of years ago, and among the Miraluka, memory was long and slow. These people knew their families, their soil, their history, and the Force, and they preferred to keep to themselves. Certainly, the thinkers and philosophers of Alpheridies had contact with the Order - but only at arm’s length. Respected colleagues, yes…but not the sort invited over for dinner. 

That Seris’ family has been involved with the Jedi Order since for as long as she can remember is, therefore, rather unusual. They never sought the Order out, not directly, in any case. Her mother and father were, and remain, winemakers on a series of pleasant hills on their home world, growing a variety of grapes that thrive under their star’s mostly-invisible light. Generations of her family have tended soil, pruned vines, and become quietly, slowly prosperous, the roots of her family spreading further into the land and, indeed, the Force as well. In fact, when a member of the Order came calling, years before Seris was born, she claimed that her enjoyment of the Vakaan family wines had brought her to Alpheridies rather than the currents of the Force. Later, Seris would wonder about connected those two might have been.

Seris is the youngest of two sisters, separated by only a couple of years, both loved and cherished by their parents but very different from one another. While Keran was as playful and fiercely intelligent as her younger sister, she also seemed to be more traditionally Miraluka. Even as a child, she spent time thinking, watching the Force swirl through the world, quietly wondering. Seris, by comparison, broke her arm by the time she was four, and gave herself a scar she still carries after tumbling down a hill, having found a way past a fence her parents had forbidden her to go through.

At irregular intervals, but always at least once a year, the Jedi woman came to visit Seris’ family. Over time, her parents even invited her to stay for days or weeks, growing closer over glasses of wine or even working in the vineyard. Both sisters would ask the woman about her Order, tell her the tall tales and stories they’d heard, and listen to her in return. They would ask about her life and her travels, and she would ask the girls about the Force and how they perceived the world around them. Whenever she left, the Jedi would seem a little more thoughtful, and between Seris’ parents, they were convinced a day would come when she’d not want to leave. They decided they would let her have Seris’ bedroom when that happened.

When Seris was seven, the Jedi woman came again, but his time even the girls could see how the Force swirled and bent around her, pulled by uncertainty and excitement. A couple of days later, Seris’ parents shooed her out of the room, saying that they had something to talk about between themselves, Keran, and the Jedi woman. Seris didn’t quite know what to make of things - but she also had little trouble entertaining herself. She wondered what might be happening back at the house, but something told her even then that she should go sneak through the window and listen in. Later in life, she would recall that as being possibly the only time she’d ever done that.

Dinner that night was quiet, but not grim. Seris learned that the Jedi woman had come with an offer, that her sister be trained at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. The Jedi woman had, over the years, become increasingly convinced that she would make an excellent addition to the Jedi, and that both could learn much from one another. She said that Seris’ family had deep roots in the Force, that each of them were connected in ways even the Jedi didn’t entirely understand, but wanted to. She said that talent and potential like Keran’s ran in families, and she mentioned how close the two always were.

Seris asked if she could visit on Coruscant, her voice excited, her eyes wide.

The Jedi woman left a few weeks later, Keran and her belongings in tow. As her transport left, she watched Seris tending a vine, her small fingers gently guiding and caressing the stem, following where she knew the plant wanted to grow. Not for the last time, she let out a bemused sigh.

The next years were hard on Seris, her excitement for her sister at odds with suddenly losing a family member, her playmate, and her closest friend. The Order provided Seris’ family with occasional updates on Keran, but for many years the sisters did not see one another. Still, as the years passed, Seris adapted to her new, more solitary place, and threw herself into her own schooling. Despite their distance, Seris worked to, she believed, make her sister as proud of her as Seris was of Keran - but not always with perfect results. She struggled with a complex miasma of emotion that a child is poorly-equipped for, which caused her some trouble at school. Never in her life was Seris more ashamed than when, unannounced, Keran and her teacher came to visit - and Seris had to explain that not only was her black eye from a fight at school, she’d been the one to throw the first punch.

When Seris found out that she’d been accepted to a university on Coruscant, she sat on the dining room floor, letter in hand, and wept with a complex mix of elation, sadness, and wistfulness. She would only be on Alpheridies for one more harvest, only feel her father’s hands or hear her mother’s voice for a short while more, at least for quite a while. She wondered if Keran had felt the same thing when she left. She hadn’t acted like she had at the time.  Perhaps that had been a child’s simpler outlook on the world - or, Seris wondered, if her sister hadn’t wanted her to cry. 

A season later, Seris stood at the same transport station the Jedi woman had, and that Keran had when they left. Her parents had told her not to worry, that they had more than enough business to hire hands for the harvest and to guide the new growth on old vines. She wondered if the wine would taste the same without her touch. She wondered when she would see home again. But when her father kissed her, and her mother hugged her, and both told her to stay out of trouble, Seris smiled.

Coruscant, at first, had been utterly overwhelming, a riot of minds and wills endlessly churning through the Force. The planet itself blazed and distorted everything around it, a trillion lives touching, connecting, and pulling apart from one another. The University had been in one of the busier parts of the world-city, but with the flexibility of youth and a certain amount of teeth-gritted determination, she got used to the endless stimulation of so many people. She took a certain amount of comfort in that, near the horizon, she could feel the brilliant, soothing power of the Jedi temple, a beacon of calm and order.

Despite both being based on the same world, Seris still saw little of her sister. Keran had begun traveling with a Master some years before, though the two did return on an irregular basis, and those times were more precious to the sisters than any weight of gold. When their lives allowed, the three of them spent as much time as they could together. In Coruscant’s sunsets and glittering evening, they would discuss everything from the taste of water on distant world to, quite often, and usually with the air of a lesson, the nature of the Force, or even Jedi philosophies. Seris found that she appreciated Keran’s Master - an older woman than the Jedi who had taken her from Alpheridies - with her gentle wit, tendency to thoughtfulness, and quiet, iron-hard self-discipline. She even offered to give Seris some advice on meditation and centering oneself, something that Seris found both deeply flattering, and an offer she accepted almost before the Master had finished speaking.

For herself, Seris had endless amounts of work to do at the University. As before, she excelled academically, devouring her classes with a voracious intellect. She had chosen archaeology as her field of study, having been fascinated by ancient legends, dead civilizations, and the long, long history of so many of the galaxy’s peoples and cultures. While Keran distinguished herself as one of the Temple’s Padawans, Seris made her mark at the University - though not exactly as a model student. While clearly brilliant, Seris spent much of her time at first politely discussing, then having increasingly truculent conversations with her instructors and fellow students about many points of conventional wisdom. She could feel how some understanding was incomplete or wrong and constantly sought for the deeper truths, only rarely satisfied with the answers her books and lectures could provide.

Years passed, and Seris both frustrated and elated her teachers by turns, her refusal to be satisfied with easy answers making her few friends. After her 21st birthday, spent with a bottle of her family’s wine, briefly a study partner, and seeing two sunrises before finally going to sleep, she got a wholly different kind of message from her sister than the usual updates on her travel and adventures. Keran had, in the eyes of the Order, completed her training, and would be elevated to the rank of Knight. The sisters reunited for the first time in months soon after, and the two spent long nights talking, laughing, and, Seris suspected, relaxing for the first time in quite a long while. A week later, and Seris saw the Jedi Temple for the first time - though all her persuasion couldn’t convince either Master escorting her that she should be allowed to view Keran’s Knighting Ceremony within the High Council’s chambers. She contented herself with being just outside, and feeling, for the first time, humbled before something truly awesome.

Seris’ trip to the Temple had something of a transformative effect on her. She felt as though something in her soul resonated with the place, like the strings of a musical instrument. The gentle, edgeless certainty, the power and grace that washed out from the High Council’s chambers as the Order accepted her sister as one of their own filled Seris with a sense of quiet belonging, the sort she had only ever felt before at home, in her own bed. Some days later, Keran - and her now-former Master - would suggest Seris look into a field expedition being undertaken by her University and the Jedi Archives, following up on the location of an ancient Master’s writings. The University was only too happy to sign any and every piece of paper it took to get Seris out of the University, away from her teachers, and, in short, to make her someone else’s problem. 

[Note: The following can be an area where another character comes into Seris’ story.]

Field work has an entirely different set of skills than working in a classroom. Conditions are never ideal, tools are always missing, and never, never have all of the necessary materials been brought on board. Seris found her patience being tested to its limits within the first few days of setting out on the expedition as she adjusted to another set of rules, constraints, and norms. She learned the basics of piloting, more or less bullying the transport’s captain into teaching her what the dials and buttons did, a skill that would serve her well over the coming decade. From members of the Archives, and field agents from the University, Seris learned to operate heavy equipment, deploy sounding charges, read the wind and follow clues eroded by centuries of weather. In cloying humidity and hot, steaming downpours that did nothing to wash away the heat, Seris performed the heavy, manual tasks that University staff had decided would build a young person’s character. 

During those times, setting charges, moving sensor arrays, or hauling generators, Seris became acquainted with the Jedi archaeologist and his own Padawan learner, a young woman a few years Seris’ junior. At first, she and the Padawan mutually griped about working in the sweltering heat, the woman’s Master apparently having quite similar views as her University superiors as to what young people were good for; or, at least, that having them tired and hot might be a good idea. As the weeks passed, however, they began to talk more, their shared background with the Order - Seris’ as an eccentric orbit, the Padawan’s at the core of her life - giving them common ground.

As happened often, the Padawan asked Seris about the way she perceived the Force; she, in turn, asked her about the way the Jedi understood that energy, the structured, rigid, codified manipulation. Se showed her some simple manipulations, the kind Seris had never been able to bring herself to ask her sister about. She saw the way her mind pulled, braided, wove the Force around her, projected her will into the world. Seris marveled at the careful control, how nothing was forced into place. The Padawan’s will didn’t subjugate the energies around her, they worked together, twining together and creating something new from their combined strength. What she saw, she thought was beautiful, and she told the Padawan so. She blushed, and said she heard her Master calling.

After two months of work, the expedition found what they had been looking for. Deep under a centuries-old tree, in a small chamber made by roots and soil, an ancient journal lay nestled on a bed of moss. The pages were weathered, the ink faded, but everything remained perfectly legible. Officially, no one person would be given credit for the journal’s discovery, and within hours the artifact had been carefully packaged and given to the pair of Jedi, who boarded their own transport back to Coruscant and the Jedi Archives. Despite all this, Seris’ fingers were the first to touch it for all those long, long years.

From then to her graduation, Seris spent much of her time on similar expeditions, though few were as successful as that first. Still, the University seemed pleased to offer her credit for them, possibly simply to avoid having her disrupt more lectures - even tenured professors have their limits on troublesome students. At her own graduation ceremony, Seris smiled out at the crowd and the small but conspicuous gap around her family, and the murmurs that she could hear even from the raised stage. Both her parents had come to to Coruscant and beside them, Keran stood out in full Jedi regalia, every crease in her robe carefully pressed, the silvery hilt of her lightsaber winking in the bright sunlight. 

Following her graduation, Seris’ association with the Jedi Archives continued, almost out of a sense of inertia. She was well-liked among the younger Archivists and had shown herself to be useful, competent, and her outsider’s perspective had proven valuable on more than one occasion. She spent more and more of her time at the Temple and, in particular, the Archives and, in a way that would likely shock her professors, showed almost perfect respect to the Order and its authority. As the years passed, no-one in the Archives, or the Temple, would claim Seris as part of the Order, they nevertheless treated her like one of their own. By slow degrees, the two came to trust one another, and the Chief Archivist never had to have a conversation with Seris about how she was not to claim a title as Jedi. She was, and would remain an outsider - but a trusted one, one who knew the Jedi’s ways…and maybe a few of the Order’s secrets.

In working with the Archives and spending time at the Temple, spending years among the Younglings, Learners, Knights and Masters, Seris has learned, or been taught, a few small tricks. Once, a Knight at the Archives found her trying to duplicate what she’d seen the Padawan do, pull the Force into a structure of will and thought, just to slide a data pad across a desk. After failing over and over again, each mental exercise subtly different from the one before, Seris had sighed, shook her head, and picked the data pad up, scrolling through entries. The Knight asked Seris what she had been doing, and she explained, more than a little embarrassed, her encounter with a Padawan in that steaming jungle. She laughed, and said there must be a lifetime’s training she didn’t have. The Knight considered, smiled, and proposed a trade. In exchange for a week’s worth of evenings in discussion, contemplation and meditation culminating in the Knight using his own skills with the Force to, briefly, “see” through Seris’ perceptions, the Knight would arrange for Seris to sit in with a class of Younglings, to see if perhaps she might not be as hopeless as she thought.

As for Keran, the Order saw fit to send her on extended missions for the Republic, her skills as a diplomat and negotiator being immensely valuable in a time when political savvy had become every bit as valuable as martial prowess. The sisters, ironically, did see more of one another - but only in brief snatches, a few days at a time. As wars bloomed across the Republic and battles flared where the Jedi were called in more and more, Seris found herself increasingly confined to Coruscant while Keran was sent to fight. 

An hour ago, Seris heard a panicked message from Keran, sent from somewhere beyond the Core Worlds. As she listened, she heard the first blaster bolts, the hum of a lightsaber, the screams of children. From her viewpoint above the Temple entrance, she saw a man, a company of white-armored soldiers behind him, and saw them raise their rifles to their shoulder.

She ran into the Archives. Whatever else might happen, some things couldn’t be allowed to burn.

[b]Secrets:[/b]


[hider=A Story in a Cave]



Sweat did not stand out on her forehead. That had probably been the first thing that surprised her. The delicate dance of energies around the thing under her hand had at first seemed impenetrable chaos, a riot of sensation with no form or direction. Then, like the first note of a symphony, she had…seen, or sensed, or maybe even [i]heard[/i] the first tiny point of order. The first infinitesimal speck of first one vast and ever-shifting pattern, then upon reaching its edges, the glimpse of another, then another. A fractal of energy, potential and real, spreading out into the stone, the air, the Force ahead of her. They only needed the nudge of a will to be joined into a whole, greater and more humbling than any of its pieces. And they weren't patterns for anyone; no other person could put these pieces together. Only she could. Only her will could move and touch the edges, guide them into one another and bind them into a blinding, beautiful whole.

When her mind moved, she made almost no effort, needing only care and the most delicate concentration. One misstep and everything would shatter into a thousand new shards, a million new shapes and patterns. Her eyes closed and Seris took in a deep, slow breath as she felt the pieces in her mind, and in the Force, felt them glitter and shimmer. Her fingers moved in a slow, swaying dance as she held her hand out ahead of her, first one way, then another, as though she were conducting some slow, dreamlike music. She touched the edge of a great, shining arc in her perception, pulled it into another, willing the fragments together and pouring her will into the join. All at once, the two pieces became one, a flare of power that pressed against her senses. The new piece, more than a simple joining of its parts, became something else, a new shape in time and space. With care and precision and slow, deliberate, meticulous effort, Seris held the new creation in her mind and pulled another piece from the riot in front of her.

She might have taken minutes, or hours, or geologic ages. She lost track of time and of herself in the glory of the thing she made, one piece at a time. Awe, wonder, and even humility washed over her in palpable waves as her mind moved. Her work burned in her mind, the fires of a something new, something utterly unique being born. As she worked, each step came easier, a path becoming clearer with each step. After an eternity - or, perhaps, no time at all -  Seris took a deep, satisfied breath as the last part of the pattern combined, or unfurled, or grew, and the thing seemed to wrap in on itself. The searing, unending brilliance folded together, all its marvelous fire and power collapsing onto itself, becoming more complex by every magnitude that it became more compact. There had been no surge of force, no mental crisis to overcome; only the gentlest kiss of focused power, like letting a wagon of stones roll down a sandy hill. When that, at last, finished, she could see something below her hand, a star-bright jewel of will and power, focus and strength. A vast potential, distilled into this one moment in time. As Seris opened her eyes and felt the world wash in around her, she smiled.

"Well, well," came a voice to her right, deep and sonorous, touched by the accent of a desert world far from the Republic's core, "You are finished, then?"

"I…think so," Seris replied, her voice shaking more than she had expected. Beneath the tremor, her own voice carried the musical, lilting accent of her home world, tempered by years with a hundred other cultures from her travels. She rubbed her hands together, suddenly feeling as though her fingers had been chilled.

"That was sweetly done," the Master replied, his voice carrying a mix of emotions. Pride, happiness, trepidation, and perhaps the slightest touch of fear.

"I see what you mean about no two being alike," Seris said, and she reached out her hand, the fingers already curling around the thing on the stone in front of her.

"Ah-ah," the Master said, his old but strong hand wrapping with a gentle but implacable strength around the Miraluka woman's wrist, "Patience, my friend. Do you know how many of these I have had explode in my hands?"

"I suspect the answer to that is to listen to you tell me?" Seris grinned as she pulled her hand back and rested her palm on her knee.

The Master grinned, and the Force swirled around him in good humor, "Well said, indeed. In point of fact, I have never had one do that. And that is because, in all things, I take care. I do not move rashly, or without consideration for what comes ahead. We are not islands in time, and we must consider how our actions affect others, to harm or to heal. This is -"

"-The path of the Force, and the way of the Jedi," Seris finished, a smile tugging at her lips. She had heard the Master say the phrase more times than she could remember, but found no irritation in the repetition. The words had become a mantra, something that, at this point, she almost didn't realize she thought about, a subconscious thread.

"Very good, my friend," the Master said, and nodded, "Very good. Now, let's see what you've made, hm?" He reached out and hefted the thing. It seemed small in his broad, work-calloused hands, but not child-sized - just as though it hadn't been made for him. He closed his eyes and raised his other hand over it, much as Seris had done a moment before. His fingers spread, and a look of concentration pulled the lines of his face into something somehow searching, seeking. Seris could see the Force whirl around him, arcs and whorls and streamers of his own will flickering over the thing in his hand. They held no violence, no ill intent…only curiosity, testing, probing for weak points but not seeking to create them. He moved his hand this way and that for several moments, feeling out with the Force, and at length a small smile pulled at one side of his mouth. He opened his eyes, and the smile bloomed over the rest of his face, his happiness an almost palpable warmth.

"Here," he said, and he held the object out to Seris, "You have done well. You deserve to turn it on."

Seris reached out and took her work from the Master. There were no perfectly straight surfaces, all soft curves, and they fit her strong, smaller hand perfectly as, of course, they should. She spun he thing between her palms once, twice, finding just the right place to wrap her fingers around the warm, contoured metal. Then, after a quick glance at the Master, she touched her thumb to a pad which, like everything else, lay in exactly the right place. The air split with the bright, sharp sound, and a needle of bright power leapt not only into the air, but into the Force itself. The glow seemed to brighten everything it touched, and cast gentle shadows on both Seris and the Master's face. She marveled, looking along the length - at once weapon and shield, symbol and strength. She could feel the power, her own will and intent that had gone into it, and she felt deeply aware of the knowledge such a thing represented.

"You hold one of the Order's greatest secrets now," the Master said, his voice quiet, proud, anxious, gentle.

"You do me honor," Seris said, turning the blade this way and that, listening as it hummed through the air. As she moved, the blade resisted strangely, like a spinning wheel. The coruscating fire it made in the Force captivated her, left her speechless if she focused too closely.

"Yes, I do," the Master replied. This time, his voice held a gentle sadness, "But I think you know what comes next."

Seris looked pained, and, with an effort, pulled her attention away from the shining light. She turned to the Master, her expression searching.

"I can't let you keep it," the Master said, his voice carrying all of the quiet gentleness he always did, but with a deep, unyielding sternness below the surface, ”You know why."

"Suppose I disagree?" Seris said.

"You don't," the Master said. 

"You're right," Seris replied, suddenly feeling weary, "I don't."

Seris touched her thumb to the pad again, and with a soft snap, the blade winked out. It seemed to take some time for the after-images, the shapes the blade left in the Force, to disappear. As though it had a will of its own, and it didn't want to go. She watched as the last wisps whirled away into the Force, leaving only the gentle currents of the ever-moving world in the air around her. Her gaze focused on the hilt in her hands, and she turned it over and over, looking at it, running her fingers over the smooth metal. Her fingers moved over every seam, every crevice, every meticulously placed curve. She saw the shimmering power inside and once again felt the surge of something incredible through her hands, her spirit, her very being. Then she sighed, and held it out ahead of her, this time with her palm underneath. Her fingers flexed open, and the weapon rose into the air, spinning gently as though in a slow breeze.

"Can you see how to unmake it?" The Master asked, his voice still gentle, still quiet, still with the solid strength of a rock-old oak.

"Yes," Seris said, and her voice was choked and tight. Before her lay an object of incredible beauty, however short-lived, and destroying that beauty seemed worthy of grief. The Master said nothing in reply, only leaning forward, his hands on his knees. 

Like a perfectly-cut gemstone, the construct of the weapon would shatter if struck in precisely the right way. Seris gathered her mind, and her will, and her considerable strength, and hesitated. So much perfect beauty. Order from chaos - purpose and will, protection and strength. Harmony. A symphony of forces, forever ringing with the music of life and will and power. 

But it was more than just a weapon. More than a tool, more than a secret. It was a mark of responsibility, of pride, office, and station. It marked not only the ability to create such a work of art, but the knowledge of when and how to use it. Seris may have built it from her will and strength, but she had no right to wield it. No right to keep it. No right to want to.

So she closed her eyes again, took a deep, slow breath, and let her will fly against the construct. It rang like a bell, disproportionately loud and deep, and the entire cave resonated as the pattern faltered, bent, cracked. A flaw spread through the entire working, slowly at first and then with the speed of a lightning flash. In seconds, a shower of dust fell to the ground, a small, bright cut crystal at its center. Seris leaned down and picked it up, twirling it through her fingers. She looked at the Master, and held the crystal out to him. It winked and danced in the Force, a dim, flickering echo of the vast tapestry of forces it had been bound in until only a moment before.

"You don't want to keep it?" the Master said, arching one bushy eyebrow.

"I want to," Seris admitted, and stretched her arm a little further toward the Master, "But I don't think I should."

The Master made a thoughtful sound, deep in his throat. It sounded like the gentle rush of tide in a faraway cave, an almost subvocal rumble.

"That is a truth my Order could stand to learn a little more," he said, and his fingers reached out, touching the crystal Seris held out, but not taking it yet.

"What's that?" Seris asked.

"That while we serve preservation, while we strive to heal, while we delve into the mysteries of the Force…" He sighed, and gently pulled the crystal into his own hand, his hard, strong fingers brushing Seris's, "That while there is a time to give, there is one to take, also. A time to heal, and a time to destroy. Too often we stand immobile, only willing to see one part of the Light. Fire creates and destroys; it gives light and burns the unwary. I fear that may cost us all too dearly, in the end." He sighed and then smiled, then tucked the crystal away in a pocket of his robe.

"I'll keep this, I think. For you. For when it's the right time." He said, thoughtful.

"For when I join the Order?" Seris said with a little laugh. Her blank, white eyes glimmered with tears, still held back, "I'm a little old to-" She stopped as the Master waved her objection away, waving a hand.

"For when you're ready," he said, and smiled.

[/hider]

[b]Relations:[/b]

Tamar Vakaan - Seris’ father.
Alir Vakaan - Seris’ mother.
Keran Vakaan - Seris’ sister, Jedi Knight
Worror Taldura - Friend, occasional dinner companion, Jedi Master