Beyond - Legends The Foundling (OC Lens Eli) one shot introspection - Mod!Challenge

Title: The Foundling
Character(s): OC Lens Eli
Genre: introspection
Summary: Lens contemplates what his life is and what it might have been.
Challenge: Representing the Underrepresented Challenge!
A/N: This fic is intended to show some of Lens' thoughts on his birth parents and the fact of his 'adoption'. It also touches on his feeling regarding his adoptive parents and the larger support system.

The Foundling

Lens Eli had thought long and hard about his mother, the woman whom had left him on the steps of the Jedi Temple. He thought about where she might be, alive or dead, near to him or far away. He wondered about brothers and sisters he might have, but will never know. Was there an entire family out there that shared his blood, if not his life as a Jedi. Do they think about him? Has she even told them about him? Is it too painful for her to think about, the man who loved her and left her alone. The Jedi Knight, or, at least the Force sensitive man who loved her, but left her pregnant, against his will, and fled Coruscant in fear of his life. Or, did he leave to protect them? Was there a Sith danger that threatened them all. Was his only choice to leave his pregnant lover, a woman whom, ultimately, did not have the means or capability, to keep her son. Then again, perhaps neither one of them was as noble as he fantasized them to be. It is just as possible that his father was a philandering Jedi and that his mother was a flesh trading bim on the lower levels. He did not like to dwell on those possibilities. When you just don't know and will never know, the ideal imagery makes or less heartache. So much speculation. So many potential conclusions. So few real answers. The only truth he had of her was the note left with the basket:

"Take care of my son, please! I love you, my little Lens. His name is Lens Eli, but there is nothing to trace. I gave him the name, but it is not connected to me or the father. He belongs with you. I have no means, but you do. Take care of him, please."

It is hard, even in living the privileged life of a Jedi, not wonder about your origins; the parents and life that might have been. Lens wonders what he would say to his mother and father if he had the chance. Why always bubbles to the surface. Why was he given away? Why was his mother alone? Why was his father absent? How did she know he was a Jedi? Did she know, or was is pure coincidence that she left him on those steps?

Master Tionne would say there are no coincidences. There is only the will of the Force, even in the lives of those who are not as closely connected to it as we are. She was his mother, Tionne. It was unmistakable. She may not have given birth to him, but in every other conceivable way, from the moment he was discovered on those mighty steps, she had cared form him. And, not just as with any initiate, but as her own. It was as if the Force knew she wanted a child as much as he would need a mother.

That is not the say that the Foundling was spared heartache in the Jedi Temple. As he grew up, he met the cruelty of small minded bullies and insecure initiates. Duster and his goons, Zeelon and Takkar, made sure of that. They learned of his mother's failings, that he was an orphan, and made him pay for it.

Sometimes, he thinks about taking the journey, doing what research he can, to know whom and where he came from. What was the history of the family he never knew Who were the people whose blood coursed through his veins. Were the subjugated by the Empire? Did they fight in the Clone Wars? Were there great inventors or holo stars or Knights of the Old Republic?

But, then he remembers who he is and who he has learned from and been loved by. Tionne and Kam Solusar. His parents. He could not deny that they frustrated him at times, when their attentions weighed heavily on him, when not as much on other initiates. He gripes at their ground rules. He rages at their restrictions. He defies their discipline. In those moments, his mind wanders to what might have been.

But, then he remembers their love and guidance; their grace and willingness to forgive. He remembers patience and understanding and compassion. It is sufficient for him.

He also remembers his friend, no his brother, Ben Skywalker, and how he never would have been in Lens' life if it ha gone another way. Kayla, Jysella, and Shorty. They are his family. Luke, Mara, Han, Leia, Kyp, Terris, Corran, Mirax, Valin, Zekk, and Streen. It is a large family; one that is loyal and loving to the core. He would not have it any other way.

 

Nice introspective piece. Family is the people who love you, and he realizes at the end he is loved. But still, the urge to have the biological connection is strong. Who do i look like? Which parent had those same eyes, that same laugh? It’s all part of the essential questions: who am I and where do I belong?

It must have been especially difficult for Lens, since the taboo of attachment had been lessened by this time in the NJO. Under the old rules of the Jedi Order, it was the norm for babies to be taken from their birth families and raised in the Temple. But at this point, the family connections were still intact. In the old order his unconventional arrival at the temple probably wouldn’t have been such a big deal.

I guess the unspoken thing that being literally left on the footsteps of the temple is this unanswerable question: didn’t my people want me? That must always tug at the corner of his mind.

 

Oh, @brodiew -- I adore these reflections! They are true in our galaxy as well!

 

Love and acceptance is all around in that story of your´s. Thanks!

 

Very nice to see your OC again musing about where he came from and what he has gained

 

What a touching look at Lens’ reflections on who he is and where he came from. It’s natural that he would wonder about his birth family—to think about who they were and why they gave him up. His musings about his valiant Jedi father and his desperate lover, about a family tree full of inventors and holostars reminds me of the song “Maybe” from the musical Annie in which the orphans spin idealized visions of their parents, but then conclude:
Maybe they're strict
As straight as a line...
don't really care
As long as they're mine!

Since Lens is an adult, he’s able to admit the possibility that his fantasies are just that, that his parents may be “a philandering Jedi and...a flesh trading bim.” But even if they were, it doesn’t preclude his mother loving him. Indeed, whoever she was, she loved him enough to ensure a good future for him, though that meant giving him up; that selfless, loving act couldn’t have been easy for her, but from her note it seems that she knew in her heart it was the best thing for him.

And it made all the difference in Lens’ life. He has loving adoptive parents in Tionne and Kam. I love this part:

It really sums up adoption so beautifully. Adoptive families are “real” families in all the ways that matter; the love they share is far more important than the fact that they don’t share DNA. Tionne and Kam May have been strict at times, they may have frustrated Lensand annoyed him—but that’s what parents—all parents!—do sometimes. Their discipline and their patience, love and guidance makes Lens into the man that he is. And in the end, he realizes this and:

Thank you for this lovely addition to the Underrepresented Challenge!

 

I have to agree on what Mira_Jade says about found family. Close friends of mine and some colleagues had to grow up in institutions. They did not get foster families or folk who adopted them.

Therefore I am very glad that your character did get the bigger deal and gained so much from it.

 

Where did I come from? Who am I? Why was I named after part of a telescope?

Interesting and welcome angle from which to explore the predicament. Abandoning a child can be a disruptive force, to all parties, and here, perhaps only Master Tionne and Kam Solusar get through this, perfectly fine.

Young Lens is displaced, feeling no foundation on which to base his life and existence, although eventually he learns to accept the "family" that he does have around him, and try to use them to fill that void.

One of my best friends at school, I observed one day, four years in, had a cute 'Squirrel Nutkin' kind of appearance, and based on a child's knowledge of nuclear families, and genetics, asked if either parent shared this trait; "Actually, I'm adopted."
To hear that, a small disruption to a world view.

My cousin's Mum was a live-in worker at children's home, and he always felt that she cared for those kids, more than for him; whether true or not, it is another disruption in the lives of adjacent beings. There are ripple effects.

I have no idea how bullying can exist in an environment such as a Jedi Temple, beyond the first incident. I would think all those mental powers would detect and put a stop to that, unless there was some feeling of not interfering with the youngling layer of existence, like parents assuming that two small children who know each other, must automatically be friends, whilst for the kids, one could be a bully to their son or daughter.

Good stuff. Evoked memories from the past.

 

Okay, brace yourself and feel free to shake your head - here comes a very different interpretation.

This story - to me at least - reads like a newspaper feature on somebody notable. It's probably a strange way to interpret it, but in my head, it makes sense. Perhaps some of the records of the Jedi of Lens' era have been discovered many centuries, even millennia on?

From what I know about Tionne, she is a fascinating character with so much love to give - and the idea of her being Lens' mother definitely makes sense. Still, the whole process of growing up in the liberal surroundings of the Legends' NJO must have been painful until he realised that his family does not necessarily have to be his birth family.

So, that's your Moses. He found his way. It was not without struggles, but he did! And he's HAPPY.

 

It's really nice to see a piece on adoption when it's such a huge part of Star Wars (many, many orphans and found families and so forth!) but tends to go unmentioned most of the time. There are so many questions that come with not knowing where one came from, and it's very believable that Lens has to wonder sometimes. Someone cared enough to leave that note, but then they left for reasons that he may never know -- that's a painful mystery for a kid to try to understand.

He has his theories, ranging from the idealized to the heartbreaking, but no way of knowing for sure. The only evidence he does have is that his mother (or someone claiming to be, for all he knows) left him and that note with the Jedi, presumably knowing that he might be Force-sensitive. That isn't much to go on and yet just enough to spark so many different possibilities.

Thankfully, Lens has been accepted and loved by his adoptive family for many years and knows how valuable that is. I really liked his thoughts on how the universe seems to have brought them together to be the family they needed. That he has a whole network of friends who are also basically family through the Jedi doesn't hurt either!

Lens is really insightful here, and I think that knowledge will stick with him whether he ever decides to seek out his biological parents or not. Whoever they are, if they're not completely terrible then they would be an addition to his life -- not a replacement, because he doesn't need that. He already has the people who matter and who care about him the most.

 

Sweet. I like how he continues to have doubts, even as he pushes them away.

Parents, you can be born with, and sometimes you get your true parents later in life. Lens is wise to appreciate what he has, rather than long too much for what he might have had, which might have been better, or far worse than what he has now. You never know what life will throw at you until it happens. And then sometimes it's far too late.

Good story.