Screaming For Myself

We are not yet at the point in human space travel where you can just up and career change to being a working astronaut* unless you already are very well-established in a closely relevant career (like medicine), or you're part of a specialty program training mission specialists (like Christa McAuliffe was).

-most famous jedi who ever lived

-deeply fucking evil

-enemy of the state

-hermit

There is emotion, yet there is peace.

They could be sitting in meditation with their Jedi partner/s because even if they cannot touch the Force, they've found this quiets their buzzing mind, and it's like their Jedi taught them how to breathe again. (The serene face of their Jedi sitting in the sunshine with their eyes closed, their lashes casting tiny shadows on their cheeks as they reach out to the universe, to the Manda, to the Force? Well, thats not half bad either.)

There is ignorance, yet there is knowledge.

Understanding is entwined with intimacy, and the foundations of your relationship are being built of beskar when you care, when you try to understand what is so fundamental to the world of the person you love. So much of Jedi culture is based on teaching and learning. When you're a Mando who could only guess at what is truth and what is legend about the Order though youve heard a lot of wild tales, every time you're at the Temple its not just your Jedi, its all the knights, masters and right down to the younglings who want to share their knowledge. That's how it begins to feel like home. (And the Jedi library? You've never seen anything that could hold a candle to it.)

There is passion, yet there is serenity.

You never knew Jedi could get angry before you spent any time with them. Just hadn't thought about it. Now you could see it, clear as day. They were shaking with it, silently burning up with it. And yet they did not act. "There's kids in there. They've got ad'ike, younglings!" You gesture sharply towards the warehouse you've been scouting out that should've been abandoned. From your vantage point, through the high windows you can both see heavily armed beings shoving around children. The zoom on your HUD lets you see the tear tracks on their faces. You start forwards, ready to jump off the ledge, jet-pack roaring. "Stop." Bare fingers close around your gloved hand. Fierfek, sometimes you wished they'd wear more armour than one white vambrace swirled with gold like you'd seen on the Temple Guards and its pair, your own bright painted beskar. You take a breath and you can see your Jedi's chest rise and fall in time with it. You could break their grip, their hand, but you won't. Not never. You trust them. They're as angry as you are. You trust them to see what you can't. "Why? What do you think we should do?" "If we go in there 'sabers and blasters blazing, it'll be the kids who'll get hurt. Not us. Not those shabuir'e who are doing this. Those kids." "Ka'ra. Oh Force. You're right." They don't rub it in, just nod grimly. "We do this my way. We do this carefully, and Force willing, everyone goes home tonight." You slide your hand through their loosened fingers to slot them together, to hold them. They lean in and press your foreheads together.

There is chaos, yet there is harmony.

Jedi go through lightsaber katas like they are not only fighting but creating, footsteps soft, barely brushing salle or sparring circle floor. They dance. When they fight, they are a whirlwind of flashing, shrieking plasma. It's blue, it's yellow, it's green, it's purple, it's all so bright, raining down like the long ago monsoons of Mandalore's jungles. It takes a far more skilled warrior to wound not kill in the tulmult of combat as those burning blades find their mark. And you follow them, stepping in where they leave themselves open (they know you'll be there), staying close even as searing light skims over your head (they know you'll be there), walking away from the fight to finish the rescue no matter how much it pains you, letting them dive into the fray alone (because they know you'll be there). (The Ka'ra and the Force shine upon you. You take the kids home together. You all get out.)

There is death, yet there is the Force.

When they watch their Jedi use the Force, it feels like the universe itself is in the room. Their Jedi laughs and tells them that the universe has been here all along. The Force flows through us, the Force protects us, and the Force ties us together. It is part of all of us since before we became us and we will be part of it for always after us. It doesn't end, it doesn't need to begin, it just is. We are the universe, you and me, we are our two peoples whether they fight or die side by side, hand in hand. It is the Temple and it is Manda'yaim. It goes beyond the galaxy and all we know and love, it is all we know and love. We are something and we are everything.