Beyond - Legends Capturing the Temple: OC's diary, J/J and family: Updated 3/5

title: Capturing the Temple
author: padawanlost
timeframe: post Legacy AU, approx 52 ABY
genre: diary
characters: Andra, Davin and Mara Fel (OC's), Jaina, Jag, and the rest of the family.
notes: This is a diary kept by Andra Fel, during a year of study at the Jedi Temple on Ossus, written for the Diary Challenge. As always, the OC's are mine, and everything else belongs to the Grandmaster himself.




My father has always been the more enigmatic of my parents. Considering that my mother is a Jedi Master thats really saying something. Maybe that's just because he understands my mother so well; he's always told me how much I remind him of her, right down to my hair and height. Sometimes he says its too much for my own good.

Case in point, today was my fourteenth lifeday, and all I asked for was an old X-Wing like Mom used to fly when she met Dad. I didn't even say it had to work, I would have fixed it quickly enough. And what then did my father, the Emperor of a third of the known galaxy, celebrate my lifeday by giving me? A book.

Yes, a real book, bound sheets of flimsi, blank as the surface of Csilla. It was something I had never seen except in electronic library files, but Dad said it reminded him of his childhood, when the Chiss had still used real books to store information. This book, he told me, was to be my story, written in my own hand. So here I sit writing, already rusty on my Basic script, wondering what this year will bring.

The Ossan sunset is breaking through the last of the clouds, and soon I know Dad and Davin will be headed for the Pellaeon, and then home. I can feel the regret in Mom, even as she tries to shield her feelings from Mara, who at ten is still not strong enough to break through without difficulty. And when it comes to breaking through, Mara much more the battering ram than the infiltrator. (You should see her spar- all the students in her class are afraid of her.)

When I look out the windows here in the Stellar Observatory I can usually find the twinkle of light Bastion's star makes in the distant sky, but tonight there won't be any stars. For the last four years Mom, Mara, and I have lived here on Ossus, while Dad has remained on Bastion. Davin chose to stay with our father, but that was only after our tenth lifeday, when everything between us changed. Maybe its easier like this for him, but I know we all miss him. To have someone be such a big part of you life, and then completely disappear, it's hard, and worse when its someone you've known since before you were born. Even when he visits, he only spends time with Mara, as if Mom and I have done something to him. I know it bothers both of us, but whenever I bring it up all Mom tells me to do is trust the Force, and that Davin will come back to us when he's ready. It's been four years, and I'm ready.

I guess I can't blame Davin. All of our childhood, we dreamed of being Jedi, like most of our mother's family before us. We always had a bond, Davin and I, and it never seemed like anything would break us apart. But I guess the Force had other plans for us.

You see, Davin isn't Force-sensitive like Mara and I are, and without the bond he and I share he's as incapable of any use of the Force as my father or grandfather. I'm told it was actually my own abilities he could borrow, if you will, when we were in close proximity, but he could never be a Jedi. So when mom began to train me, Davin was left behind.

Maybe mixing the Solo and Fel genes made us too competetive for our own good. Davin's a great pilot, just like our father, and probably better than me, but he can't get over the fact that I can do things he can't. And after four years I really don't know what to do anymore.

All my lessons here at the Temple have shown me that Jedi lead lives of compassion, but how can we be compassionate when the person won't even speak with you? Dad says that in time Davin will find his own place in the galaxy. And Mom's always quick to add that sometimes it takes a lot longer for some of us to find that pla

 

wonderful start!

 

Beautiful! I don't usually read J/J, but this one caught my eye. Your character is so believable and sympathetic. I like how you've blended Jag and Jaina into her.

You've created other characters to interact with your OC who are also people I can care about. I hope her relationship with her brother straightens out. You can sense Audra's loneliness without him. And little sister Mara will be a pistol, I'm sure.

Looking forward to the next installment!

 

comments

SilSolo

Thank you very much.

divapilot

Beautiful! I don't usually read J/J, but this one caught my eye. Your character is so believable and sympathetic. I like how you've blended Jag and Jaina into her.

Thanks I'm glad you gave it a chance. Making an OC come to life in such a colorful universe, and in particular, such a colorful family is a big challenge, and I'm thrilled that you have come to appreciate these children, even if you don't ship J/J.

I'm hoping to have the next entry up soon.

 

Oh, I love Andra...

So, she's a twin, but her twin isn't Force-sensitive......I like that. And great insite in the fact that Fel II may not have been...

But it's sad that Davin is so distant.

I can't wait for more. Great start


FL

 

Flowerlady

Yup, and I'm going to let the cat out that this is the same timeline as Without You and Eternal War. So yes, this will match up to the Legacy comics in its own way in the end, and eventually the stories of Andra, Davin and Mara Fel will explain the break between both the Jedi and Imperial Knights, and the GA and Empire.

So I'll try to make the spoilers of the terribly subtle kind if they don't come with warnings.

Thanks, and I hope to update either tomorrow or Sunday.

 

A heard of elakas moved into the academy grounds just ahead of the storm front that continues to bury us under a heavy blanket of winter. They probably know that the local hunters will not follow them here, and even the cannoks stay out of the way of the Jedi. The elaka's coats bristle in the cold, and each looks twice its normal size. Intrepidly they nuzzle through the deep snow looking for the last of the brushgrass. Of course they did eat through the memorial garden yesterday as Mara and I watched from behind the wampa we were making from the new snow.

Even in the winter the garden is one of my favorite places here. It reminds me of the Pellaeon Rose Gardens in the palace on Bastion. In the summer it is fragrent, and shady, even at the height of day. It's one of Mara's favorite places to play as well, and Mom likes to meditate here too. There is still the Botanical Preserve named for my uncle Anakin inside the academy, since no one truly imagined that Ossus would ever have gardens on its surface when the academy was dedicated after the Great War. But without the war, the rehabilitation and terraforming could never have happened. I think that's one of those moments where Grandma Solo might say it was the will of the Force, but then she'd add that it would have been her brother who would have said it first.

It was, after all, the Yuuzhan Vong who brought Ossus back to life.

Three years later, elakas, banthas, cannoks, and thousands of other species thrive here. And more amazing than that, we have weather. When we first came here there were no seasons whatsoever; and not like Coruscant where it's always spring thanks to the climate orientation matrix, even if Mom swares its warmer than when she was my age. In Jedi History lecture we learned about the devestation the ancient Sith inflicted on Ossus, and how it had taken the Jedi centuries to reconstruct the knowledge that had been lost in the first academy's destruction. It took nearly 6,000 years and the end of another Sith's reign of terror for Ossus to have her chance to recover.

The Yuuzhan Vong, fresh in the minds of the galaxy following their role in the start of the Chiss War, were suddenly no longer the galaxy's most hated species, and their leaders took the opportunity to convince the Jedi that their bio-engineers could possibly assist with the restoration of some of the planets that Yuuzhan Vong forces had destroyed in the Great War. The Jedi agreed to the idea, as long as Ossus served as the test world.

That was four years ago.

I think its helped the galaxy come together again, and many beings have rethought their opinions of the Yuuzhan Vong. I know my mother, who truly lost both her brothers in the war, has moved on, knowing that a prejudiced heart can never serve the light. Killing never accomplishes anything that a Jedi shouldn't have first tried to accomplish in every other possible way- that's one of Master Horn's favorites sayings, and though I don't know where she heard it, I think of it often. I shouldn't be so formal with things like that, considering she's like an aunt to me, and I spend so much time trying to ignore my own title that it just occured to me that I haven't even told you, my diary. But then again, you've probably guessed.

So I sit here bundled tightly in my robes, watching life triumph over hate, one breath of cleaned air, and for the elakas, one mouthful of brushgrass, at a time. I don't know, I can't imagine that brushgrass tastes terribly good, but to each their own. I remember the thought that went through my head the first time I saw blue milk, and it looks like the elakas love it.

The icicles hanging from the gnarl tree leaves and heskas shrubs chime in the wind, and the heard has spread out all the way to the great wroshyr tree that marks the memorial to my mother's friend Lowbacca, one of the many Jedi my uncle Jacen killed.

It's hard to think about, but it happened, and Jedi can't ignore the past any more than they can ignore the will of the Force. I hope my family h

 

Wow!!!

This is wonderful...what an awesome post!!!!

I simply love Andra. So insightful and I loved the imagery in the entry...

Great job, and I can't wait for more...


FL

 

This is an intrasting take on the future, again you're acting on my Muses.
-FBS

 

comments

Flowerlady

Thanks I'm thrilled to hear that you've fallen for her. I'm really enjoying having only one perspective to tell in this story. It does make room for imagery, and since this is a new time to write in, its open season on whatever I want to invent; which makes for extra fun.

The only trick is to not give too much away that readers have yet to see in the other story. So many spoilers, so little time...


Ob-Da_factor

This is an intrasting take on the future, again you're acting on my Muses

Well, then something seems to be working for both of us

We'll see how close you are in the end.

 

Wow. Have to love it when characters come to life right before your eyes. I can't wait to read more!

And about time we've seen a post.

 

I guess with all this talk about love, I should admit that I know nothing about it besides the tales that my grandmothers have read me, and Grandma Fel's old holodramas. I mean, I love mom and dad, and Davin and Mara and the rest of my family, and I know love can save you- every youngling knows that now. Love saved my great grandfather when he finally defeated Darth Sidious, but I'm not looking to sacrifice myself to anything. I want the love that keeps two people together through anything, like mom and dad, or even the way Great Aunt Mara still feels for Master Skywalker, and he's been dead since well before I was born.

Holovids call it romance, but it always seemed to be more ephemeral, like a Force-vision: powerful but incomplete. I don't know, maybe that burst of lightening they describe is just the start of love, and I've seen too many girls take crushes far too seriously.

Its like when one of my ladies in waiting, who herself is only sixteen, became smitten with one of the guard captains . Ten years her senior, and far too prudent to risk such a situation, the kiss she desperately wanted was never to come. Romantic, maybe to a child's tale from Alderaan that Grandma Leia might tell, but then again, being a princess isn't all its supposed to be either.

Let me tell you.

My mom says she feels for me, having grown up the daughter of the Republic's Chief of State, with holojournalists constantly following everything they did. Grandma Leia was of course a princess too. I know I probably wouldn't have made it through all to the mundane events that I'm supposed to go to without her support and encouragement. The parites, galas, spectacles, and events that I'm supposed to attend every year take far more of my time than a young Jedi trainee can spare, and fortunately my father understands, even if it means that he usually has to go by himself. Mom has never really become comfortable with what my father is, even though she loves him more than anything.

Even though I can dodge most of the pomp surrounding my position, without grandma's help, and understanding, I don't think I'd ever be able to put up with all the duties of I have. I can tell you that its easier being a Jedi any day of the week than being the Empire's crown princess.

I'm glad this isn't an audio journal, because its taken me a few minutes to stop laughing after writing that last line. I probably should have mentioned, diary, that fact that further complicates everything I do, particularly my relationship with Davin. By virtue of being six minutes older than my brother, I have been, since my father accepted the crown from the Moff's Council, the heir to the Imperial thrown.

I sometimes wonder what Palpatine would have thought if he'd known a Skywalker would end up with his crown after all. Of course most of the time I try to forget it.

~andra