#greylam

3653 BBY…

There was blood in the air, the copper-like scent intertwined with smoke and chaos and fear. Eonur felt it thick in his lungs, strangling him as he coughed, pushing his way through the haze. The blue glow of his lightsaber provided what little additional sight it could, but it wasn’t much. All around him he could feel the terror of the other Jedi permeating through the temple halls, the younger ones’ emotions running rampant. Their home was in ruins, the main hall aflame. The great statues and pillars situated there were nothing more than mounds of rubble. Overhead starfighters, Republic and Empire alike, screamed as they pursued one another across Coruscant’s sky.

And all the while he felt it, something he hadn’t felt since he was first rescued by the Jedi years ago. Hatred, a thick miasma in the air. The dark side of the Force.

As he continued down the hall a hand gripped his shoulder from behind. “Hey! Boy! Get back to work!” the voice said in Huttese.

Huttese?

Eonur jolted awake, launching himself upright while seizing his sheets tighter. His scrambling nearly sent him tumbling to the floor, but he caught himself in time. No sooner had he fully come to consciousness than he realized he heard laughter, the light cackling sound of a cathar boy perched across from him. Tyar grinned playfully as he balanced at the foot of Eonur’s bed, his hands planted between his feet as he crouched, looking borderline feral, and his red eyes sparked with mirth.

“What’s the matter Eonur? Did I frighten you?” he said, once again speaking fluent Huttese.

“Jerk.” Eonur reached behind him for his pillow, which he promptly hurled at his friend with the Force, who ducked out of the way with ease. Tyar rolled back, pushed himself to a handstand, and then vaulted from Eonur’s bed. Though he lacked Eonur’s innate strength, the cathar had been blessed with agility unlike any of the other initiates they’d encountered, and was prone to showing it off. With a sigh Eonur shook his head and swung out his legs. “Is everything okay?” His eyes flicked to the window, where golden sunlight was just beginning to crack along Coruscant’s skyline. “Did something happen?”

Tyar shook his head. “Nah you’re fine. Besides, Greylam would be the one at your door right now if you had overslept. Probably would chastise you with one of the Order’s philosophies or something.”

Eonur chuckled despite himself. “He’s been reading The Collected Writings of Master Dorak again. I don’t think he can help it.” He stopped, then shot a blank glance at his friend. “What are you doing in my room anyhow? For that matter, how did you even get in here?”

“Used a security spike that I made.” Tyar shrugged, as though the act of breaking into any part of the Jedi Temple was a frivolity.

“But…why?”

“In part because I can, but mostly because there’s something I want to show you.”

“Ominous.”

Tyar rolled his eyes and, with the flick of his wrist, flung Eonur’s duvet off over the end of his bed using the Force. “Just get dressed and meet me in five minutes.” Still facing Eonur he started to leave, exiting backwards through the door. “And if I have to break in here again because you decided to get some more shut eye then I’m dragging you down the halls.” The door slid open at his approach, and then Tyar was gone.

“Yeah, I’d like to see you try,” he mumbled, though Tyar was well gone by the time the words left his mouth. Eonur didn’t doubt that his friend would make some vain attempt should he go back to sleep. It was for both their sakes that he decided to get up.

How could he go back to sleep anyhow, with the dream still fresh in his head? Everything about it – up until Tyar’s disruption – had felt so real, as though he lived it. A chill ran up his back as he recalled the nightmare. In all his years at the temple, he couldn’t picture it so devastated, that the war would reach the very heart of the Jedi Order in all its terrifying chaos. Yet here he was, safe in his own bed, the Jedi Temple assuredly safe.

It was just a dream.

He dressed quickly, not wanting to keep Tyar waiting any longer. His robes, the standard faire for an initiate, was his fourth set in the past three years. The sudden onset of adolescence had caused Eonur to grow significantly in that time after spending most of his time at the academy as a smaller-than-average youth. His first he’d simply outgrown. The other two he’d tried preserving as long as possible, but they both tore despite his best efforts. He was growing still, and fast at that.

Tyar had his arms crossed when Eonur stepped outside. The cathar tapped his foot impatiently against the opposite wall, ignorant of the other initiates likely trying to sleep at this early hour. He was up far earlier than most of their peers, aside from Greylam of course, who most often awoke before dawn to meditate in the gardens. Most mornings they would both be asleep at this particular hour, yet Tyar was already his robes, but they were covered in light patches of dirt and grime smears. His black hair had been tied back into his usual topknot, but stray strands of hair stuck out on parts of his head. He’d been out – again – and something had him excited.

“You ready? Let’s go,” Tyar said, waving Eonur along down the hall without even giving him a moment’s pause.

Eonur quickened his pace to match his friend’s stride. “Where are we even going?” He kept his voice low, though they were nearly out of earshot of the nearby rooms.

“You’re pretty jumpy this morning,” Tyar replied, flashing another playful grin. “I didn’t mean to scare you that badly. All in good fun.” He rounded the corner to the elevators and pressed the “up” button, which glowed red in response.

“It’s not that, just…” he paused, watching the unlit arrow on the wall above them. “I had a dream. A bad one. Right before you woke me up, actually.”

“So?”

“So, it felt real. It wasn’t like other dreams I’ve had that only felt real while I was having them. This one felt different, like it could actually happen. I’ve heard some masters talking about how sometimes the Force gives us visions of things yet to come, and I was thinking-”

“It’s not real,” Tyar said, his voice softer now, sympathetic even. The elevator opened before them, and he waved Eonur inside. Outside the glass Coruscant’s cityscape lay sprawling across the horizon. A golden sun rose just beyond the skyline, setting the morning sky ablaze with beautiful color, and they too rose with it as the elevator ascended. He could hardly stand to picture what the skies would look like ablaze, though he knew from history it had been several times before.

“I used to have dreams that I was flying with Cirak.”

Eonur blinked back his surprise. It had been some time since he’d heard Tyar mention his older brother. The name seemed heavy on his lips, and it took several moments before he spoke again. “We’d be back on Nar Shaddaa in an old speeder he fixed up, and he was driving so fast that all the lights blended together as they passed. It felt so real that I still remember the smoky air in my lungs and the rush of the wind and my big brother’s smile.” He shrugged. “I was nine when I had that dream, and I was the same age in it. I had it again seven more times. Four years later and not much has changed. I’m not on Nar Shaddaa, and I haven’t seen my brother since I was five. Don’t put too much stock in dreams.”

Eonur frowned, but nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right,” Tyar said. Crossing his arms, he added, “Ugh, now you’ve gone and soured the mood. I was real’ excited for this too.”

Somewhere beneath them those remaining at the Jedi Temple were beginning to wake. There were some older Jedi already stirring, initiates and padawans who hadn’t yet left, but they were few in number. War had hollowed out the temple’s halls, and every day it seemed as though more left to fight for the Republic. It had raged on since he before was first brought to Coruscant, back on the day Orgus Din rescued him from Imperial captivity. If it was to ever end, Eonur doubted that such a day would occur in his lifetime.

Eonur hoped that perhaps by some stroke of luck he’d see the Jedi Master roaming the Great Hall one of these days, but it never happened. He’d only seen his rescuer once in the years following his liberation, just as he was boarding a starfighter with Bengel Morr. Too often he was away in battle. He’d hear stories of his valor, his heroism, and from personal experience Eonur knew they were all true. There’d been no opportunity to thank him, let alone for him to see the Jedi Eonur was becoming in large part to him. Even if it was once, a single exchange even, Eonur wished he could express the gratitude he held that words could not begin to capture.

Upon reaching the upper dormitories of the Jedi Temple, Tyar guided Eonur over to his room. His friend’s fingers danced along the keypad so quickly that he entered his own password incorrectly twice, and he barely waited for the door to slide open before pulling Eonur along with him inside. Tyar’s room was no different from his own, sharing the same simplicity, but it was due to this fact that the medium-sized lump under a black tarp by his desk became more readily apparent, even with the room still coated in dark. Eonur stopped in his tracks as Tyar dramatically gripped the tarp, poised for the unveiling.

“Okay, promise to be quiet?”

“What is that?”

“That,” Tyar started, “is not a yes. Promise to be quiet?”

Eonur waved him off. “Yeah, yeah I promise. Just show me!”

Without another word Tyar ripped off the tarp. An astromech droid lay on its side, just barely short enough to fit underneath Tyar’s desk. No lights blinked, and the droid did not whir or shake as most did when placed in such a position. In fact, it appeared as though it hadn’t been active for some time. Its metal plating was rusted in places along its dome, and its whole body was covered in dents and scratches. Several emitters had been smashed, and from a basic lookover it seemed impossible that the droid would ever be able to play holorecordings in its current state. Eonur ran his hand down the length of the droid, incurring a light film of dust and ash on his fingertips. Even the model seemed older, decades old at least.

“Where did you find this?” Eonur asked. He could barely mask the amazement in his voice.

“I was down in the lower city again-”

Eonur pressed his palm to his face. “Tyar…”

“No, I was careful! Nobody even saw me go. Anyways, I was exploring, and I came across this part of a wrecked cruiser. Somehow scrappers never got around to tearing it up.

“But that’s not the best part,” Tyar continued. He rolled the droid over onto its face. There, on its back, was a painted sigil of a horned creature, an icon all Jedi had become familiar with in the years past. Years ago, before his or Tyar’s own time at the Temple, ships bearing that emblem had torn Coruscant’s skies asunder.

Eonur met Tyar’s eyes. “It’s Mandalorian?”

His friend nodded excitedly. “Looks like. I heard that Mandos don’t even use droids all that often, so whatever they had this one for it must’ve been important.”

“Do you think it was shot down during Hydian Way?”

“That’s what makes the most amount of sense to me.”

“This is incredible,” Eonur breathed. “I can’t believe it survived crashing from orbit.”

“Can you fix it?”

Eonur shot Tyar a sideways glance. “Fix it?”

“Yeah. It might have some old recordings on it that the Republic never found. Even if not the droid’s in good enough shape that we could probably pry loose its memory core if need be. So, do you think you can?”

The last time he’d worked on droid maintenance was as a small child, but the skills he’d learned as a slave hadn’t left him either. Threats of beatings – often fulfilled – instilled that knowledge within him for life. Astromech droids were simple, at least compared to some war droids one of his masters possessed. They’d been armed with plasma and a self-destruct sequence in case of irreparable damage; a “parting gift” for his master’s enemies. Eonur doubted the little tin can would be carrying that same destructive capability.

“Sure, I can, but am I really the best one to have work on this? I mean, have you even told the council about it yet?”

Tyar’s grin faded as the question reached his ears, his mouth flattening into a taciturn line. The sudden grimness startled Eonur, but he remained quiet for his response. “If I told them they’d probably just confiscate it and we wouldn’t get to learn anything. I’d probably even get in trouble for going out on my own again. I just want this to remain between us.” His eyes carried the plea with a greater volume than his words could carry.

“What about Greylam?” Eonur asked, but he knew from Tyar’s scoffing that it would essentially be the same as telling the Jedi Council. Even he – Greylam’s most staunch advocate when it came to these matters – couldn’t deny that their friend’s first instinct would be to run and tell one of the Jedi Masters about Tyar’s discovery. He likely wouldn’t even understand what the problem would be.

“Think about it Eonur: we don’t know what kind of data this droid might have stored on it. If it has some battle plans, or schematics for Mando ships-”

“They would be outdated.”

“But it could give us insight to their strategies.” Tyar’s tone shifted, foregoing his grim seriousness in favor of the enthusiasm he’d held when he first unveiled the droid. “It’s possible we could even prevent another blockade. We’d be heroes!”

Heroics aside, Eonur couldn’t deny the appeal of Tyar’s reasoning. If the droid did carry any sensitive information it could be critical in the Republic’s war effort. The Mandalorian blockade had nearly cost them the war back before he’d even had the opportunity to join the Jedi Order, and it had cost countless soldiers their lives restoring peace to Coruscant. Without the smuggler Hylo Visz, the toll could’ve been even worse. This droid could prevent something like that from ever happening again; Jedi were as much the shields of the Republic as their swords.

They could prevent his nightmare from becoming a reality.

“Okay, I’ll help.”

Tyar pumped his fist, flashing a toothy and fanged smile. “Yes! I knew I could count on you.”

“We’ll need some tools before we get to work on it, but they shouldn’t be too hard to-”

A knock interrupted Eonur’s instruction, and both their heads turned towards the door. “Hide it!” Eonur whispered. Tyar threw the tarp back over the droid as Eonur backed himself up against the wall, attempting to lean against it nonchalantly. He knew without even a mirror that he was failing spectacularly at that.

The doors slid open at Tyar’s beckoning. “Oh, I really should’ve expected it to be you.”

Greylam Cormat stood in the doorway, his posture straight and narrow and completely emotionless, like always. Eonur didn’t even need to see his face – silhouetted against the hallway lights against Tyar’s dark room – to know that his expression too was devoid of any expression. It was a fact about Greylam that Eonur had never fully understood, how to heart he took the Jedi teaching of “there is no emotion; there is peace.” Perfect tranquility accompanied him in every activity, more so than some masters in the Order. Eonur was as awed by his devotion to the teachings as he was troubled by how unnatural it all seemed.

“You’re here early,” Tyar continued, crossing his arms as he braced himself against the doorframe. “How were the gardens? Successful meditation?”

“Meditation isn’t something that is successful or not. That is not the point of it.”

“That’s not…argh, never mind. Still, I’m surprised to see you Grey. For all you know I could’ve still been sleeping.”

“But you weren’t, not unless you and Eonur have begun cohabitating, but I know you haven’t. There are policies against such arrangements.” Greylam’s gaze tilted towards Eonur is the slightest of movements. “Good morning my friend. I checked your room first but did not find you there. You must have left minutes before my arrival.”

“Morning Greylam,” Eonur said. He crossed the room, hoping to block Greylam’s view of the desk from the door. “Is everything all right?”

“Of course,” Greylam replied, “There is nothing to be concerned over, but I was just curious if you two would actually remember today or not. It would appear not.”

“What in the heck are you talking about?” Tyar asked.

Eonur broke his gaze away from his friends as he wracked his brain for some earthly idea of what Greylam might be referring to. It wasn’t a holiday, and they’d made no plans for the day to spend together. Lessons wouldn’t start for a few more hours unless under special circumstances such as…

“Oh!” Eonur exclaimed, pushing himself up from against the desk. “Oh that’s right!”

“What?”

Excitement barred Eonur’s mind from processing all the words needed to convey what they were missing. “Master Melara! Training grounds!” How could they have possibly forgotten? They had talked about it on end since they were first told.

Understanding glinted in Tyar’s red eyes as they widened in a look of equal parts joy and horror. Without a word he bolted out the door past Greylam, who in turn watched quietly as the cathar sprinted down the hallway towards the elevators.

Eonur stopped beside Greylam, patting him on the shoulder. “Thanks for getting us.”

“You were late,” Greylam said, “And I was asked.”

“I owe you,” Eonur said, quickening his pace to catch up with Tyar, already down the hall. “At dinner tonight would you like my dessert?”

“That would be nice.” Although his face didn’t contain any hint of it, Eonur knew Greylam’s words were the closest he’d come to expressing any sort of excitement.

“Come on let’s go!” Tyar shouted from the end of the corridor. If other students weren’t awake yet, they were now.