Before the Saga A World of Strange Wonders (Orla Jareni Oneshot for the Gothic Quote Roulette Challenge)

Title: A World of Strange Wonders

Author: devilinthedetails

Characters: Orla Jareni; Cohmac Vitus; Stellan Gios; Elzar Mann; Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Genre: Angst; Drama; Adventure

Timeline: Set centuries before TPM during the High Republic Era.

Summary: Orla Jareni keeps a promise she made as a Padawan and explores a world of strange wonders.

Author’s Note: Written for the Gothic Literature Quote Roulette Challenge in the wonderful new Angstmongers Annoymous thread. Thanks to @ViariSkywalker for the inspiration and for creating the thread that will add so much great angst to our fanfic community.

My assigned quote was “I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.” The quote, which will appear in italics at the start of my story, is from Bram Stoker’s little known book Dracula, and I take no credit for the line. Also, I embraced the bonus challenge of including the words aberrant, apparition, and ambivalent in my story so you can keep an eye out and hunt for those words if you'd like a more interactive reading experience!

Also, as a heads-up, this story will refer to information learned in Kiersten White’s Padawan. The book has been out for a couple of months, but if (like me) you are behind on your to be read pile, I recommend reading that first to avoid any spoilers here. The book is especially enjoyable as an audiobook, where narrator Gary Furlong captures Obi-Wan’s voice perfectly!

A World of Strange Wonders

“I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.” –Bram Stoker, Dracula

A Wayseeker, Orla Jareni believed, was like a flower seed blowing wherever the wind that was the Force willed it. Hoping to find fertile ground wherever it was carried. The wind that was the Force had swept her back to the Temple on Coruscant, where she had taken her first tentative steps down the long, twisting path of Jedi life.

Many Jedi, especially those who had been raised at the Temple on Coruscant, thought of it as home. A place for rejuvenation and meditation between missions that could be difficult and draining. A sacred sanctuary where they could bond with their fellow Jedi and delve ever deeper into the uncharted waters of the sea that was the Force.

Orla, however, had always been out of sync with this interpretation. She perceived the Temple on Coruscant as little more than a waystation on her journey as a Jedi. A hangar bay to refuel her ship. Archives where she could research important information for her next Force-appointed mission. A headquarters more than a home.

She wondered if that attitude toward the Temple radiated off her like a strange scent. If that was why she drew so many speculative stares from the Jedi Knights, apprentices, and younglings she passed in the corridors.

Wayseekers, she knew, were an oddity among the Jedi. An aberration in that they took their marching orders directly from the Force that whispered to them rather than relying on the Council for guidance. A cloaked mystery. A walking enigma.

Where she was headed through the labyrinthine Temple hallways, Orla herself didn’t even know. She was not in control of her own footsteps. The Force was leading her where it willed. She was only attuned to that will. An agent of its will. Empty of her own desires. A hollow vessel to be filled by the Force.

The Force brought her to the formal banquet hall. A large room with proud pillars that was only used for special celebrations and ceremonies and otherwise deserted. A place that she had almost forgotten existed, because she was a Jedi who preferred to operate alone. Who was not eager to attend massive celebrations and elaborate ceremonies with masses of her fellow Jedi.

As she walked into the banquet hall, boots echoing in a room that felt eerily abandoned in a Temple of a thousand Jedi, she realized that she hadn’t set foot in here for years. Not since she was a Padawan.

As a Padawan, she had come here with her friend, Cohmac Vitus. Back when they had been determined to explore every centimeter of the Temple. To leave their mark on it. Etch their presence into. Change it so it would never be the same after they were gone as it had been before their arrival. Alter it so that their passage through it could not go unnoticed by history. Unobserved by posterity.

If she squinted, she could just glimpse the ghosts of their younger, smaller selves. Apparitions of a past that ran parallel to the present. Visible to it but never intersecting. Forever tangential.

She trailed these grinning ghosts past constellations behind a column supporting the great platform where Council members could sit in a prominent, elevated posited worthy of their exalted rank during formal feasts. Remembered, as the apparitions vanished, fading into oblivion as if they had never been, how she and Cohmac had found a drawing of a planet that appeared to be ringed by an asteroid belt hidden behind that column.

How they had carved their names near that planet. Swearing that they would travel there. Discover the planet’s secrets. Learn why it had been painted into the walls of what had once been the Temple’s Archives.

A promise made to Cohmac and to herself. A vow she hadn’t kept. An oath she had forgotten until now. Until the Force reminded her of it. Urged her to go there and unravel its mysteries.

She would obey the will of the Force. That was never in question. She was its humble servant. Not a master of her own fate. The only questions remaining were what the planet was and how she could find it.

This would require research, she noted inwardly with some resignation. She pulled a scrap of flimsi out of her pocket. Scrawled a map of the stars surrounding the planet’s on the flimsi in sloppy handwriting for which her Master had always scolded her. Claiming that it was so illegible only she could read it.

Once she had jotted down her map in the handwriting only she could read, she went to the Archives. Poured over holocharts of the galaxy that lit her face blue for hours until she finally uncovered the map of a cluster that seemed to match the stars she had copied from the banquet hall. Thank the Force for old star charts and half-lost records, she thought.

She scribbled the coordinates on her flimsi and returned to the hangar bay where her ship should be refueled by now. As she rode the turbolift up to the hangar, she contemplated what horrors the planet might have in store for her. Monsters on par with the Drengir?

She thought in terms of horrors, she recognized in a dim corner of her consciousness, not wonders, ever since she had first tangled with the Drengir. She had been darkened by her contact with them. Their rotten nature had contaminated her. Their evil tainting her. Poisoning her mind forever.

When she reached the hangar bay and approached her ship, she was pleased to see that it had been refueled by a diligent Padawan, whom she thanked with a polite wave. As her astromech chirped a cheerful welcome, she boarded her ship. Slipping into the cushioned pilot’s seat and inputting the coordinates she had gathered from her research in the Archives into the navicomputer.

Once she had finished plugging in the numbers, the navicomputer’s screen flashed a warning at her. Alerting her that no planet was logged in the system at the coordinates she had typed. Irritated by the punctilious stupidity of artificial intelligence, she punched in the override code.

Generating immediate pushback from another form of artificial intelligence aboard ship. Her astromech whirred at her in distress. Asking her if she truly meant to fly them to a place where there was no planet. A remote location where help would be far away if they needed it.

In a terse voice, she confirmed that she was because she suspected that there was a planet there. A planet with mysteries for her to unravel. Secrets for her to discover. A planet the Force was pulling her to like gravity drawing an object inexorably downward.

Her astromech beeped at her that the Force was a mystical entity. One as unproven as her probably non-existent planet. One that was not verifiable by science and should not be relied upon in any way. Something that could not be regarded as a universal law like gravity. The Force, in short, was not the same as physics or astrophysics. So the astromech went to considerable pains to establish.

“The Force is the only law a Jedi knows. The only relied-upon constant in his or her existence,” Orla attempted to explain to her astromech even though she had the sneaking suspicion that it would be a fool’s errand to do so.

Her astromech was a droid after all. Programmed by complex algorithms to perform precise tasks in a specified manner. Not a living, breathing creature, and only living, breathing creatures could touch the Force or be touched by it. Be shaped and molded by it.

Besides, many of the living, breathing creatures that were Orla’s fellow Jedi didn’t understand the unique nature of her connection to the Force. How it imbued and inspired her. How it touched her and she touched it. How she permitted it to dominate her destiny. Define the trajectory of her days in service to it.

She had always been out of tune with the song her fellow Jedi sang. Out of step with their marching. That was why she had become a Wayseeker. Finding her own path among the whirling stars. Dancing to the rhythm of the Force. To a music it often seemed only her ears could hear.

The astromech cheeped back at her in an almost resigned fashion that she was the captain of their ship and they would fly wherever she commanded. The droid’s manner implied that what Orla was proposing to do was about as devoid of logic as steering the ship down the gaping, eternally hungry maw of a black hole.

“Thank you for your vote of confidence,” Orla muttered dryly as she completed takeoff procedures and lifted the ship out of the hangar bay. Up into Coruscant’s crowded atmosphere. Grateful that her status as a Jedi gave her priority access to the world’s perpetually jammed departure lanes.

Within minutes, they had left the congested spacelanes of Coruscant behind them and were shooting through hyperspace toward a strange planet Orla only knew existed because of paintings made on the Temple’s walls centuries ago.

For days, they traveled through the black void of space that was illuminated only by the faint, passing pinpricks of stars as they moved at speeds faster than light. Which meant, Orla supposed, that they were leaving light behind them. Crossing into darkness.

At last, they arrived at the coordinates she had input into the navicomputer at the outset of their journey. Her astromech chimed a routine alert as they arrived at their destination and then another, more frantic one as the droid registered the asteroid field encircling the planet like a rocky girdle.

Orla had suspected based on the painting in the Temple’s banquet hall that she might find the planet surrounded by asteroids. Had anticipated that it might require sharp flying to pilot her craft past these gigantic, floating rocks to the surface of the planet from which they had been separated eons ago.

What she didn’t expect were the asteroids to leap out of the way of her craft. As if clearing a path for it to proceed. These asteroids, she thought, were as aberrant among their kind as Wayseekers were among the Jedi. Perhaps that was why she felt an unusual connection to them. A strange kinship which she couldn’t have articulated even if given a million years ago, and who in the galaxy was ever given a million years to do anything?

As her ship cut through the atmosphere, she saw the planet was lush and verdant with life. Life that throbbed and swelled in her head as she approached the green surface. Life that seemed strong although her vessel’s sensors detected no signs of advanced civilization or even sentient life. Only flora and fauna appeared to inhabit this planet. Their presence so strong that she wondered whether the world might be a Force nexus.

She would have to land and investigate further to understand why the Force had drawn her to this strange world. As she reached this conclusion, she flew over a great gash in the landscape. The sort of scar created by the crash of a large starship. A wound that could linger, raw and bleeding, for centuries. Never mending. Festering rather than recovering with time because there were some wounds–carved so deep–that even time couldn’t heal.

Deciding this was the perfect location to commence her investigation, she guided her craft to what seemed to be a safe landing place near the gaping gash left on the landscape by a crashed starship centuries ago. Perhaps the reminder of this ruin was what spurred her to remove the comlink from the pocket of her robes.

Check if she had a signal. To her surprise she did. She keyed in the frequency for the Council’s general message channel. Flagging the message as urgent more on shaky gut instinct that the planet was special than solid evidence but what was a Wayseeker to trust but her shaky gut instincts? Informed the Council of the planet she had traveled to by using old star charts and half-lost records. Explained that she suspected it might be a Force nexus but that she intended to research the matter more thoroughly.

Her transmission complete, she stowed her comlink back in her pocket and exited her vessel. Setting foot on the strange world for the first time.

In the distance, she glimpsed some local fauna in a group. Curious about what she might learn from observing them, she crept closer to them. Taking care to move silently and slowly so as not to alarm them.

They appeared to be friendly lifeforms. Not hostile to her or her presence on their planet. Still, she was careful not to invade their territory out of respect for them and the fact that appearances could be deceiving.

She could see them gathering glowing blue orbs. Pushing them into flowers. As if feeding the planet whose plants sustained them. As if partaking in a great circle of life that wasted nothing and recycled everything.

Watching them engage in this peculiar behavior, she contemplated whether the planet might not be a Force nexus after all. Perhaps it was something else entirely. A closed system that mimicked aspects of the Force in a simpler biomechanical parallel.

An animal approached her. A glowing orb in its outstretched hands. Presented to her as if it were an offering. Yet, she understood that the offering wasn’t for her. It was for the planet.

With a polite Jedi bow, she accepted the orb. Then, mirroring the actions she had observed from the animals, deposited the orb into the flower. Giving something to the planet to maintain its balance, which she could already sense was so delicate. A scale that could so easily be thrown out of alignment by one careless act of selfishness.

The animals and the planet itself seemed to appreciate her offering. She noticed that before she drifted away to continue her investigation of this strange world of wonders.

Not far from the site of the long ago crash landing, she found ruins of an ancient civilization. An ancient civilization no doubt built by the survivors of the crash and their descendents. Descendents that no longer lived on this world. Another mystery for Orla to solve.

In a cave accessible via the ground scar, she discovered a temple. It was dark inside, but when she lit her glowrod, she could discern drawings faded with age but still breathtaking in what they depicted. At first, the murals seemed to be a tribute to the planet’s beauty and the ability of the settlers to live in harmony with it. To be sustained and supported by it without exploiting it.

As she progressed through the cave, the drawings became more disturbing. Suggesting that the beings of this long lost civilization had learned how to mine from the gash the starship’s crash had created in the landscape. Mastered the art of extracting the glowing blue orbs of power from within the planet.

The glowing blue orbs that Orla suspected were essential to maintaining the delicate balance that was the planet and the asteroid belt that had once been part of that world before some ancient collision had sundered those rocks from its surface. The glowing blue orbs that might indeed be the physical manifestation of that delicate balance. That connection between the planet and all its flourishing flora and fauna.

The most dreadful weakness of sentient beings, Orla thought with a twist in her stomach that often preceded an outbreak of nausea, was that they couldn’t see something beautiful and shining in the natural world without wanting to possess it. To tame it. To make it their own, and, in the process, utterly destroy everything that was beautiful and shining about it. That was their tragedy. The tragedy they inflicted on the rest of the galaxy.

Descending further into the cave, she found that the temple murals became more and more an elegy to a dead civilization. Testament to a world waging war against the sentient beings who had crash landed on it. Colonized it. Sought to subdue and profit from it. To suck power from it as though slurping a mollusk from its shell.

She wondered, as she reached the last painting and drank in the suffering and destruction on display there, if that was the lesson she was intended to derive from this temple and this planet. Why the Force had drawn her to this world of strange wonders. If she was meant to carry back a warning to her own civilization.

If she was meant to caution this glorious High Repubic in its era of overarching ambition to be humble. More modest in its goals. Not too exuberant in its colonization efforts and business endeavors. Not too narrowly focused and fixated on its noble quest to bring civilization to all worlds. All far-flung corners of the galaxy.

Before she could arrive at a definitive answer to this deep-cutting question, her comlink buzzed in her pocket. Grumbling a series of colorful phrases that couldn’t be constituted as complimentary in any of the thousands of languages spoken throughout the spiral arms of the galaxy, she yanked out her comlink.

Glanced at the incoming frequency. Cursed again when she recognized the number as the newly-minted Master Stellan Gios. A call that couldn’t be ignored just because she was staring at an ancient painting in the ruins of a temple abandoned by a dead civilization long ago.

“Master Gios.” Orla couldn’t prevent a curt, sardonic edge from pervading her greeting. She was never a pleasant creature when interrupted in her work, and, even at the best of times, her feelings toward the Council could optimistically be termed as ambivalent. “I wasn’t expecting the Council to call me back so soon.”

She hadn’t realized that even her urgent messages would be such a high priority.

“The Council to call you back?” Stellan sounded confused. A state that was very uncharacteristic of the usually calm and confident Jedi Master. “No, no. I’m not calling you on behalf of the Council. This is a personal call. A personal request from one Jedi to another.”

“Oh?” Despite herself, Orla was intrigued. Could feel herself taking the dangled bait hook, line, and sinker. “What personal request would that be?”

“Although we don’t always agree, Orla–” Stellan began.

Only for Orla to interject dryly, “Because you are far more of a stick-in-the-swamp than I am when it comes to following Jedi protocol and strictures exactly. Letter for boring letter.”

Stellan ignored this dig. Continuing in the serene Jedi fashion that had earned him many kicks from fellow younglings as an initiate, “I hope you know that I respect you immensely for your dedication to following the Force as you perceive it. Your commitment to journeying wherever the light leads you in this dark universe.”

“I know you respect me.” Orla bit her lip as she made this almost grudging acknowledgement. “I respect you as well. Hide-bound by tradition though you may be.”

“Something happened to Elzar Mann on Valo.” Stellan’s composure cracked for the first time. Like a planet buckling and breaking under a crashed starship. And something inside Orla broke too. Hearing Stellan’s cracking as he spoke of his childhood friend Elzar’s shattering. “I can’t describe it exactly. Words always fail me when I try to because I can’t understand precisely what happened to him. What made him unravel. I only know it hurts to see one of my oldest friends crumbling. Sinking into the dark side. Falling away from the light.”

“I’m sorry, Stellan.” Orla spoke sincerely now. All trace of sarcasm vanished from her voice as if it had never been. Never existed on any world under any stars. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“That was actually what I was contacting you about.” Stellan cleared his throat. An awkward, borderline sheepish noise that reached her ears oddly across the lightyears that separated her comlink from his. “I was hoping you’d be willing to take him under your wing for awhile. Help him regain his balance. The sense of equilibrium he lost when the Nihl attacked the Republic Fair.”

Balance. That encompassed everything this planet had been trying to teach her.

Achingly aware that the lesson of this planet was one to ignore only at grave cost, she responded swiftly, without a heartbeat of hesitation, recalling a world where a cold island had once been a consolation to her, “I will help him as best I can. Tell him to meet me on Ledalau.”

Before Stellan could thank her–she didn’t require his gratitude for doing what duty to the light and balance in the universe demanded of her–she added crisply, “Orla out.”

She clicked off the communication. Thrust her comlink back into her pocket. Whipped out a data chip. Uploaded and encrypted it with what she had discovered on this world and with her hope that another Jedi would continue her research in the future. Another Jedi who might find the planet as instructive as she had in the ways of balance in the universe they all inhabited beneath circling stars.

Using her lightsaber to slice a hole in the wall next to the final mural where she could hide the data chip. Keeping it secure until it could be discovered by a future Jedi.

It would be centuries before that future Jedi arrived on the planet and ventured into the abandoned temple of a long dead civilization. Exploring its depths to learn its lessons of balance and harmony as she had.

The future Jedi’s name was an eager but cynical Padawan named Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Force–though he had doubted and questioned it–had drawn him to the planet when he spotted the drawing of the world in what had once been the Jedi Archives but had become their formal banquet hall.

When he had noticed her name, written alongside Cohmac’s when she was a Padawan just like him, and he had felt an inexplicable connection to her that compelled him to research her in the Archives. Uncover and listen to her urgently flagged message about exploring this planet she believed to be a potential Force nexus. A message no other Jedi had bothered to listen to in the intervening centuries.

Perhaps he listened and followed her to that world of strange wonders because he was searching for meaning and balance in his life. Painfully aware that he was lacking both. The Force worked its miracles in strange ways that could only be understood when the span and perspective of centuries was taken into account.

Because the Force was that balance, that meaning, and that unending search for that meaning and balance. It was that connection between Jedi who had lived and breathed centuries apart. Allowing them to share their knowledge and experience through messages in temple walls.

It was that transcendent power. In all beings. Linking all beings alive and dead. Impervious to time. Not comprehensible by any one being because it encompassed all beings. Once one understood that–realized how small one was in comparison to it–one could live in harmony and balance with it. As a humble servant of its light in even the darkest times.

As Orla Jareni did when the Nihl and Drengir attacked the High Republic. Laying low its shining Starlight Beacon. As Obi-Wan Kenobi did in the dying days of that Republic. When civil war, corporate greed, and tyranny tore that Republic apart and when the Sith avenged themselves on the Jedi.

Centuries apart, Orla Jareni and Obi-Wan Kenobi lived for the balance. Found their meaning in the Jedi and the Republic the Jedi were sworn to serve, and died in the transcendent light of the Force. Darkness unable to claim them though it tried. Though it sought to make them cold and afraid in their last moments.

 

@earlybird-obi-wan As always, thank you so much for commenting on my work! I'm super happy to hear that you thought this was a beautiful story because I really wanted to do justice to Orla's fascinating character in this piece. Her research was really interesting to me and it is awesome to know that it kept you engaged throughout! As a librarian, I feel like I can always connect to a character invested in research and discovery as Orla is! The conclusion of her having the opportunity to help Elzar Mann was a conclusion I was planning for the fic from the outset so I am glad that part resonated with you. And that connection between the Jedi of the High Republic era and Obi-Wan's time was something I really wanted to capture at the end, so it is wonderful to hear that was a highlight for you! I definitely think that Orla and Obi-Wan have a great deal in common in terms of being Jedi who are committed to balance and to being humble servants. Balance and service is really what defined their lives, giving them a sense of meaning and purpose, so I was hoping to convey that at the end of this piece and celebrate that admirable component of their personalities!

@Nehru_Amidala Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm so glad that this could be an excellent morning read for you even though you aren't familiar with the High Republic era. Orla's desire to explore something overlooked by the other Jedi was one that I really connected with as I was writing this piece, and it is great to know that resonated with you as well as you read the story! And it really means the world to me that my description of how Orla felt different from other Jedi was relatable to your own experiences with autismI am on the autistic spectrum as well, and I do think a lot of my feelings, experiences, and struggles with it get channeled into the characters I write. Especially the point of view characters I write from. Ultimately, the way I perceive the world is through my lens as a person with autism, so that inevitably shapes how I write the characters in my stories. It really does mean a lot to me to think that I might be able to help other people on the autistic spectrum feel seen and heard and validated in some way by my fanfiction.

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Thank you so much for being a faithful reader and commenter on all my storiesI'm so flattered that you found this piece exquisitely compelling because it really always is a treat for me to be able to write something set in the High Republic era with the High Republic characters I love so much! I imagine Orla as a Wayseeker have a strong but somewhat unique connection to the Force that can make her feel different from other Jedi. Plus, in my mind, she has a bit of an independent streak that makes her inclined to carve out her own path within the Jedi Order. Despite that, she is committed to the Jedi Order and willing to do what she can to help another Jedi like Elzar Mann, and she does have the respect of a Master like Stellan Gios even if he is more conventional than her, so I don't picture her as being totally alienated from them. Maybe a little like a female, High Republic version of a Qui-Gon Jinn in her attitude toward the Force and the respect that fellow Jedi have for her? I think that might be a good way to describe how I perceive her! And I am like you in that I am so glad Stellan reached out to her at the end of the fic and I very much imagine her being able to help Elzar Mann through a dark time because of her unique perception of the Force, which I think would resonate with the independent side that Elzar also has!

Orla's snark was very enjoyable for me to writeso I am so glad that you enjoyed reading it, and I admired Orla's persistence in exploring this strange world that can teach so many important lessons about balance first to Orla, and, then centuries later, to Obi-Wan. And I loved the connection that could create between Orla and Obi-Wan despite the different times that they existed! It really captured the transcendent nature of the Force for me!

 

You had one of the most unique prompts in the entire challenge, in my opinion, and I love how you applied your inspiration to this vignette! Your angst in this story was of an equally unique sort - there's a lonely sense of wanderlust throughout this piece, a sense of seeking and searching, before the resolution of harmony and balance in the end. I was intrigued from start to finish, even being unfamiliar with the High Republic characters as I am.

In particular, I enjoyed . . .

What a wonderful description! This drew me in from the first, and really helped me understand just what a Wayseeker is.

More excellent prose!

She fits in perfectly with SW's collection of sassy droids.

I love how you took the wording of your prompt almost literally! This was beautiful.

Ain't this the truth?

More A+ prose!

This was such a poignant lesson, and I love that it was shared between Orla and Obi-Wan!

Perfect - especially that last line!


This was a fantastic, thought-provoking response to the challenge! Thank you so much for sharing it with the rest of us!

 

@Mira_Jade As always, thank you so much for reading and commenting! I really did love my prompt because while it captures that sense of doubt and dread, it also conveys a sense of wonder that I love for the duality it represents, and so I wanted to reflect both those aspects in this fic if I could. I definitely picture the angst in this piece to be of a softer, gentler quality where there is that sense of wanderlust that takes Orla to a world of strange wonders and of overall seeking and searching in both physical and spiritual senses before she finds a harmony and balance she can hopefully pass along to Elzar Mann in his time of trial.

I'm so flattered that you were intrigued from the start even without being familiar with the High Republic era and characters. I love the idea of the Wayseekers that the High Republic introduced to the Jedi, so I really wanted to do justice to their philosophy and way of being. It is awesome to hear that you felt I provided a wonderful description of a Wayseeker that drew you in and helped you understand what they are and how they are unique among the Jedi.

That line about Orla being attuned to the will of the Force and an agent of its will was one of my favorite bits of prose from this story, so I am delighted it was a highlight for you as well!

I had the biggest grin on my face when I was writing the interaction between Orla and her droid! Artoo did a marvelous job cementing the idea of an astromech with attitude into my head, so I couldn't resist drawing on that noble tradition of sassy astromech with Orla's droid

"The sea of wonders" bit of the quote really stuck out at me the first time I read it, so I wanted to capture that feeling of a sea of wonders in an almost literal way with a planet that was filled with many strange wonders for Orla to explore and try to understand. I'm so glad that you found that aspect and the planet beautiful.

I think the drive for possession is behind so much destruction (of nature and other things) so it was definitely very moving and poignant to me for Orla to have that realization and to see the warning tale of a lost civilization written into an ancient, abandoned temple. And that mollusk image was one that I was proud of when I came up with it, so I am so thrilled that it resonated with you as well.

Ever since I was a little girl, I've loved that transcendent aspect of the Force, so it was a true treat for me to be able to write about Orla and Obi-Wan developing a deeper understanding of the transcendent nature of the Force, and I also loved how that growing understanding could be a connecting thread between these two Jedi separated by so much time and space. Because it really shows the transcendent nature of the Force that time and space didn't matter in terms of that connection and that sense of being bound by a common lesson.

The last line might have been my favorite of the entire piece because to me it seemed to sum everything up and really lingered with me after I was done writing the story! Conclusions can be hard to write, so it is awesome to know that you thought this one was perfect!

Thank you so much for the kind words of support as always!

 

@Oddly_Salacious Thank you so much for reading and commenting!

I'm so glad that statement about Orly perceiving the Temple on Coruscant as a way station on her Jedi journey, a hangar bay to refuel her ship. When there was just the OT, there were so many ways to imagine how the Jedi would have acted prior to the collapse of the Republic and the advent of the Empire. The PT presented one version of that, and the High Republic comes along and shows how the Jedi might have operated in the Republic Golden Age. It makes sense that the Jedi throughout their long history would've operated differently in various historical eras, and I do love that the High Republic has introduced us to Wayseekers like Orla who are not as bound to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant as the ones in the PT seemed to be. So I am so happy to hear that the description of Orla the Wayseeker resonated with you here and how you imagined the Jedi back when there was only the OT!

I am so flattered that the style in which this was written reminded you of Gabriel Marquez and Virginia Woolf! It is always an honor to be compared to two such talented wordsmiths

Thank you so much for the thoughtful words, and I'm so pleased that you found this piece to be well-done!

 

@Thumper09 Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! I'm so glad that the audiobook of Padawan, which I thought was brilliant and had a narrator who could sound exactly like Obi-Wan, made you intrigued by Orla. One of my favorite things about the Padawan book were the connections to the High Republic era, and it was a joy for me to be able to focus on those connections in a little more detail while taking a deep look into Orla as a character and what her mindset as a Wayseeker might have been like. I find the concept of Wayseekers so interesting, and that it was truly fascinating for me to be able to delve into that a little more in this fic

I think those connections across time both between Orla and her past self (memories of her younger self and her friend carving their names in the banquet hall) and between herself and Obi-Wan (though separated by centuries) are such key parts of the story, and I am so pleased they resonated with you!

The Force is truly fascinating because it has both those components of all beings being connected from a higher perspective across space and time (a sort of cosmic view) and also the more personal, immediate view of "what does it want right now" as you phrase it, and of course that eternal confusion of being "always in motion" in terms of the future. And it can be interpreted in so many different ways by authors, which is part of the fun of writing Star Wars fanfic!

I am so glad that you felt I did justice to Orla's story here, and thank you again for the kind words and for reading