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“Alora-“ Alora snaps out of her thoughts at her name. She looks up at the instructor before her. “Pay attention.” She nods and focuses up front again. The instructor continues her lesson. Alora tries to pay attention but she soon finds her mind wandering again.
It wasn’t that Alora wasn’t interested in her lessons or didn’t care, it’s just that she had other things on her mind. She has spent her entire life in the Jedi temple or as far back as she can remember. Like any other Jedi, she was taken from her home, Pantora, when she was too young to remember. Since then her schedule is the same everyday. She wakes up and joins the rest of her group. Together they go from lesson to lesson, break for lunch and then more lessons. Once lessons are finished it’s time for training or studying or meditating. Then dinner, then bed. This was the life of a Jedi youngling.
It wasn’t bad, it was just sort of boring. Alora knew she wasn’t the only one of this opinion. Many younglings were curious about the world outside the Jedi temple. She wanted to know how normal people lived. She wanted to see things she had only ever heard of. She wanted just one day to see the world outside.
Alora smiles as she completes another test with her practice stick. The instructors in the room nod their approval. They bow to each other then Alora takes her seat so the next youngling can take their test. She takes a seat next to her friend Cato, who’s a nautolan. Since Younglings are placed in groups since they’re very young, she’s known him for most of her life. At least as long as she can remember.
“Good job, Alora,” he congratulates. He went before her, and as expected did better than her. Though he’s always been better at lightsaber skills. She doesn’t mind, it just means she’ll have a better opponent to spar with when they finally get their lightsabers.
“Thank you,” she replies. It’s not long until their lesson is done and they are given some free time. Alora and Cato walk together through the halls of the Jedi temple. Every step of the way Alora looks outside. There are speeders and ships zipping around as they always do. Coruscant is so big and filled so much life, she doesn’t even need to close her eyes to sense it. And yet, she’s never seen it.
“You're doing it again,” Cato says exasperatedly. She turns to look at him with an innocent look.
“Doing what?” she replies as if she didn’t know.
“Think about what it’s like out there,” Cato says to speed things along. “You should be happy here. Being a Jedi, even a Youngling, is a great honor.” Alora rolls her eyes. How many times has she heard that? Being a Jadi is a great honor, everyone tells her. She believes them but that doesn’t change her stance.
“What’s so wrong with being curious?” she asks, a little more genuinely that she may have wanted it to be.
“Curiosity killed the Gungan, Alora,” Cato says tiredly. This is far from the first time they’ve had this conversation and it always ends the same. Cato will say that when she’s a Padawan, she’ll get her chance to explore, albeit supervised. She will then agree and that will be it but not this time. She senses the people outside every time she wakes up and she has to know them. She has to understand. What she needs to understand, she’s not sure but she does.
“I’m sneaking out, are you with me?” she says and leaves no room for argument.
“This is a mistake,” Cato tells her.
“Perhaps, but… It feels right. Can you at least cover for me?”
“Fine, I’ll tell them you weren’t feeling well and decided to miss lessons to get some rest,” Cato concedes and she smiles. He really is a good friend. She tells him such before trotting away.
Sneaking out of the Jedi Temple, much like sneaking in, is basically impossible. However, Alora sort of has a reputation for being an escape artist. She’s really good at finding the flaws in a design and exploiting them. It takes her a longer time to find the flaws in the Jedi Temple's security than anything else she’s tried, though that doesn’t surprise her. What does surprise her is how almost laughably easy it was once she found it. While there are places restricted to Younglings, unless in certain circumstances, strangely the hanger is not one of them. All she had to do was wait for the end of the day and then stow away on one of the workers' ships. Easy! Well, so long as she’s not caught.
The unfortunate thing about stowing away is hiding away. She has to wait for the ship to dock and the one worker to leave. It all takes about an hour before she is able to claw her way out from under a mountain of blankets. However, when she does she gawks at the city. She has never seen it so up close. Puting the hood up on her cloak, she begins to explore.
The place, if she’s being honest, is not exactly as expected. Many people look to be barely scraping by. There are those living on the street and it all looks unclean. She knew the upper levels of Coruscant are for those with a bit more wealth but she didn’t expect there to be such a vast difference between there and here. She begins to look around, this way and that but nothing is different. Why isn’t the Chancellor doing anything about this?
“Hey! You,” she halts when police come into view. This isn’t good, she thinks. “Why aren’t you in school with the other kids?” She blinks once, then twice before fully registering the question. She nearly breathes a sigh of relief.
“I’m new to these parts of Coruscant. I got lost on my way,” she replies. Her voice wavers in some areas but overall she thinks she was convincing. The officer studies her a moment before nodding.
“Alright kid, get and just this once we’ll take you,” the man replies and she follows him to the speeder. It would look suspicious if she didn’t. The speeder takes off and the zip through Coruscant, fascinated with the world around her. This is the first time being on a speeder and not needing to hide. It isn’t too long before they make it to the school. She steps out and thanks the officers. At first she intends to go her own way but then changes her mind. She did want to know what normal people lived like.
The school was a fairly big size. No where near the size of the Jedi Temple but still big. To be fair, it did have to teach all the kids in this district. Alora found herself wandering, not sure where to go. Each room looked the same. Eventually she found a cluster of students and decided to simply follow them. Alora followed them to a room that had windows down one side. In the front, where she walked in, there was a desk. The rest of the room had smaller desks and chairs facing the front. Not wanting to draw attention to herself, she takes a seat in the back.
The class begins and the teacher begins to speak about the history of Coruscant. Nothing new of course. She already learned this awhile back. The Jedi focus education on the force but alternative education is fairly detailed so they were learning far more advanced thing than the instructor here was teaching. She looked around the room at the other kids. Most of which seemed to have as little interest in the lesson as she did. Some were glancing at her curiously. She kept her head down as best she could.
“And what is your name dear?” the instructor asked her. For a second her heart skipped a beat until she realized she sort of already created a false identity.
“Alora. I’m new,” she explains and the instructor nods.
“I was not informed of a new student?” she questions.
“My paperwork must have gotten lost,” she replied, though unsurely. In spite of that the Instructor seems to take that response. She nods and continues her lesson. She sighs before noticing that everyone in the room, save the teacher, is watching her. Oops.
The moment the class ends, she makes a beeline for the door. It’s not a good idea to stay here longer than needed. She saw outside and now she needs to get back. As soon as she makes it out of the room, she begins to find a trail back. However, she suddenly stops at some voices. None of them sound happy. She turns to an ally where a girl from the class. She’s a Twi’lek with blue skin and she has brown eyes. Two kids stand in front of her menacingly. One is a human and the other is a Rodian.
“C’mon, hand it over,” the human sneers at the girl.
“No, stay away from me!” she exclaims.
“Can’t do that,” the Rodian says.
“Hey!” Alora finally jumps in. It doesn’t matter if she’s just a Youngling, a Jedi protects the innocent.
“Stay out of this,” the human boy snaps at her. She is not at all fazed. He sounds more like a petulant child than someone actually intimidating. Instead she crosses her arms and stares the boy down. To his credit, he rolls his eyes, completely unfazed himself. Then again, she doesn’t exactly look much like a Jedi yet.
“Look you obviously must have transferred from the upper levels,” the Rodian breaks. “You don’t know how things work here. Go back to where you belong.”
“You're right, I don’t know how things work here,” she admits, “there's really no point in hiding it if it’s so obvious. “But I do know that cornering someone in an alley and intimidating her is never a good sign.” The two boys glare at her, as if she’s said something atrocious.
“She stole from us!” the Human boy exclaims.
“It’s not yours, it’s mine!” Twi’lek finally chimes in. It's at this point she notices the girl clutching a necklace in her hand. “My mother gave it to me. It’s artwork from my culture and precious.”
“That’s ridiculous! It was in my father’s shop!” the human boy says. Alora rolls her eyes and walks over to the Twi’lek. There’s another Youngling in her group who’s a Twi’lek. She talks about her culture quite often. She has studied it a lot, curious about her people. She often showed them work from her home and told them facts about it. Alora wouldn’t say she’s an expert but she will probably be able to judge if it really is a piece of Twi'lek art or just something from a shop.
“Can I see it?” the Twi’lek seems hesitant at first but somewhat reluctantly nods. She hands over the necklace and Alora studies it a bit. She remembers some of her more recent lessons when pertaining to the force. Their Jedi senses are the first things to develop in a child. Often Jedi will know before the parents do. So controlling one's senses is the first thing that is learned. Slowly, Alora takes a breath and closes her. She reaches out with the force to feel for an emotional connection with the necklace. It takes her a moment to focus past the boy's anger and the girls worry until she finally finds it. The Twi’lek considers this a sacred possession. There is love and grief around it. Alora’s eyes flutter back open. She doesn’t even realize that tears formed in her eyes until she sees her vision fog.
“You lost her, didn’t you?” Alora says softly, sadly, referring to the girl's mother. Now that she is privy to it, the grief that surrounds the girl is quite evident. So strong that Alora is almost sucked into grief with her. The girl's eyes fill with tears at the mention.
“A few months ago,” she replies just as softly. “She gave that to me before she died. I had lost it soon after and searched everywhere for it. I found it in the shop but it was too expensive so I…”
“You stole it,” Alora finished for her.
“It doesn’t matter, she still stole it from the shop,” the Rodian cut in.
“Twi’lek art is made from wood and leaves and things that can be found in any natural environment. They are made to be symbols, only truly meaningful to the family who makes them,” she says, quoting the Youngling from her group. “It would be of very little value to anyone but her. Why would it be so expensive?” The two boys seemed to blink in contemplation for a moment. “I am saying, if you offer a more reasonable price for it than she can pay for it and there no longer has to be any trouble.” The two boys glare at her for a while before finally nodding. To them, it really is nothing more than an ordinary necklace.
“Fine, two credits and we can get this over with,” the Human boy agrees and the girl beams. She reaches into her bag and pulls out the aforementioned currency. The two boy take it and don’t stick around for another second.
“Thank you, Alora,” the girl says with a smile.
“You're welcome, I’m always happy to help,” she says with a smile. She was always curious about what it was like to be them. What the outside world was like. She never understood why being a Jedi was such an honor until now. Getting to help people just like this is worth all the training and studying she does.
The Twi’lek girl wanders away to her home. Alora begins her own journey to find her way back. Next time she sneaks out of somewhere, she’ll make sure she has a plan back. There were more flaws than she considered this time around. She wonders only a short distance when, for the fourth time that day, someone calls her out of her thoughts. Her instructors were right, her head really is in the clouds.
“Alora,” she turns to see a Jedi from the Temple. He’s human with blue eyes and brown hair and fair skin. He doesn’t seem very strong at first look but no Jedi does really. She has seen him before, in the hallways but has never spoken to him. She didn’t even think he knew her name. In fact she doesn’t know his name or what he’s doing here. She’s both relieved that she is now safe and worried because she knows she’s in a lot of trouble. She walks up to the Jedi and gives a small bow at her waist.
“I apologize for sneaking out, Master,” she says. It’s really her best move at this point. The Jedi studies her for a good few moments before nodding. She stands up straight and looks to him, only to find that he is staring back at the ally.
“Why did you sneak out?” he asks eventually. She swallows a bit, she was at least hoping the question would wait until they were back at the Temple.
“I wanted to see things for myself. The books aren’t the same as being here. I wanted to understand them and why we are so different,” she says finally admitting it outloud. The doubt that was inside. The fact that understand what was so great about being a Jedi if she was locked away.
“And what did you learn?” he asks. She blinks a few times before answering.
“I learned that these people need help, our help. It’s why we train and study so much, we need to prepare. A Jedi is to serve the people,” she says. The Jedi looks on curiously, however a smile plays on his face.
“Someone sent to check on you. It was quickly found out that you had gone missing. Your friend isn’t a great liar and using surveillance, you were easy to find,” he says, answering some of her earlier questions that hadn't been asked vocally. Sometimes it was better not to question but sometimes she had to.
“If I may ask, Master,” when she had his full attention she continued, “Why did you come to get me?”
“I have seen you in the halls of the Jedi Temple. Each time you're looking out a window and not ahead of you. You are a clever girl, and will make a fine Padawan one day,” he says and her eyes widen at the compliment. A Jedi Knight said that she would become a fine Padawan! She snaps out of it when he kneels down to her. “Knowing the people you're protecting is good. But remember not to become attached, you may not save everybody.” Alora lowers her head in understanding. She never felt grief before today and it was the grief of another. It’s not something she would like to experience again, but she may have to.
“Of course, Master–” she goes to say his name before realizing she doesn’t actually know.
“Van,” he replies kindly.
“Thank you, Master Van,” she says.
“Your welcome, Alora.” After that, Master Van escorts her back to the Jedi Temple. Cato worries for her a bit until she explains what happened. The other Younglings are enamored by her story and even the instructors listen and spread the lesson she learned. As expected, she was punished. She’s not allowed to go back to the hanger or wander around on her own for a while. Also, more studies. But she doesn’t mind too much. That she knows the place of a Jedi and what she’s meant to do, she becomes more dedicated than ever before.
By the time she’s able to become a Padawan, the Clone Wars have already begun. Master Van chooses her for an apprentice. And she’s eager. There are a lot of people that need her help and she’s ready to help them. Just like a Jedi.