Chapter Text
Jedi traditions have been passed down from generation to generation for over twenty-five thousand years. However, these traditions underwent much change throughout the millenniums, with the most significant changes being undergone during the century following the New Sith Wars, the last war between the Jedi and the Sith before the latter was presumed extinct. After this war, the Republic was reorganized, its military disbanded, and the Jedi moved away from leading armies to maintaining peace through diplomacy and the occasional fight. Over the last millennium, the Jedi had fallen into a cycle of repetition over and over again. Keeping to the laws past long ago, their loyalty unshaken despite the corruption that polluted the Galactic Senate.
Most Jedi were not troubled by this, as they believed the system worked, given how the galaxy had been at peace for a thousand years. However, some Jedi were not content with the steady course the Order was on, as it had also led to the Galactic Senate becoming overconfident and thus sloppy with maintaining Republic law.
Stara Karbaz, a Zabrak Jedi youngling, had often questioned the current state of the Republic based on what she'd read of current events. Her mentors, including the ever-wise Grand Master Yoda, would always assure her that the Force was in harmony and would remain so as long as the Jedi remained faithful to the light and served the Republic as they'd always had.
Each time seemed to work to ease Karbaz's mind. But only for a while before she asked the same questions again. Only to receive a similar response from Master Yoda or one of the other Jedi instructors. Which made her question the Order repeatedly. She did this in front of her fellow younglings, making her stick out like a sore thumb even more so than she had since joining the Jedi Order. Her story differed from most Jedi, and others didn't consider it worthy of praise.
In many ways, she was an outsider to even those who were supposed to be her kind. The instructors did their best to make her feel welcome, but Karbaz desired more than anything to have someone she could connect to on a deeper level, someone she could form a bond with—a bond filled with happiness and compassion.
Karbaz was sitting in a secluded part of a study room where younglings gathered to meditate and practice their lessons, reading a book she'd gotten from the archives earlier that day. Suddenly, a fellow youngling, Maze Stallite, came running up to her while calling her name. "Stara, Stara!" the human boy said as he raced through the room towards her.
Looking up from her book, annoyed by the interruption, she spoke up. "What is it, Maze?" she asked suspiciously. The two younglings had been in the same clan since Karbaz had joined the Jedi Order, but usually, Stallite only interacted with her when paired up by one of their instructors. Or when he joined the other younglings when they teased her.
A bit tired from running, Stallite took a few breaths in and out before answering. "There's a new Jedi in the temple. A human like me. One our age. And he didn't come from another Jedi academy outside of Coruscant. The Council just accepted him into the Order a few days ago."
Karbaz froze, her eyes widening upon hearing this. This… this was not something she'd been expecting. It had been a miracle that the Jedi allowed her to join them since she was a bit older than most. And she had been less than five years old in humanoid years. Yet the Council had allowed someone nearly a decade old to join them? It was unheard of in over a thousand years.
"Really?!" she couldn't help but beam.
"Yeah. And even more bizarre, is that he's already been accepted as a Padawan, to a newly knighted Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi."
Karbaz had heard of that name. It belonged to a Jedi who'd been apprenticed to a master she admired, Qui-Gon Jinn, known to be unorthodox and not afraid to speak his mind to the Council.
She wasted no time putting her book down and stood up to Stallite's eye level, a glimmer in her eyes as she looked at him eagerly. "Tell me everything," she demanded.
The story of the newcomer, Anakin Skywalker, the one believed to be the prophesied chosen one who would bring balance to the Force, spread like wildfire throughout the Jedi Temple, from how he'd been born into slavery in the Outer Rim, to earning his freedom by winning a dangerous podrace and being taken offworld by Master Qui-Gon Jinn, to being selected by Kenobi as an apprentice after single handily destroying an entire Trade Federation battleship and freeing the world of Naboo from the corporation's occupation. To top that off, according to a test run by Kenobi before bringing the boy to Coruscant, he possessed a midi-chlorian count higher than any Jedi in the Order's history, theorizing that he was potentially more powerful than all the Jedi of the present.
From Karbaz's perspective, it was no wonder that Skywalker had been welcomed into the Jedi Order even though he was considered far too old to begin the training. This made her very eager to meet him.
To her luck, Skywalker was assigned to her clan of younglings. Although technically already a Padawan learner, he was still too young to go on missions with his master. Also, he had a lot of training to catch up on and needed to learn with other young Jedi around his age.
Karbaz wanted to talk to him immediately and introduce herself, but she was nervous. Having never truly fit in had damaged her confidence over the years. She doubted someone as famous as Skywalker would be interested in being friends with an outcast like her.
She soon learned just how wrong she'd been.
It wasn't easy for Skywalker. He struggled to keep up with the other younglings in his clan. Tapping into the Force was very difficult despite his immense powers. While the other younglings had been practicing since infancy, Skywalker could barely make pebbles float. This resulted in the others laughing and making fun of him, saying he should train with the toddlers.
Skywalker hated the mockery and ridicule. It reminded him of his days as an enslaved person, when he was looked down upon simply because someone owned him.
During a practice session with training remotes and sabers while wearing blinding helmets to teach younglings to fight using the Force to see instead of their eyes, Skywalker was having some… difficulty.
While he was used to speeding through race tracks with smoke and sand covering up the lenses on his goggles, it was very different without feeling the tools of his podracer as his guide. This resulted in him being hit numerous times by the remotes. Each one snapped him with a painful shock that irritated him intensely. It didn't help that the other younglings could hear his frustrated groans and giggled in response.
Worse, because Master Yoda had left the room to talk with Master Windu, almost all the others had removed their helmets to watch Skywalker as he continued to mess up. Each time he got hit by the remotes, the giggling turned to further laughter, and some began to mock him openly.
"Not so impressive, is he?"
"They say the Force itself conceived him. Yet he's not doing the source of all creation any credit."
When he first came to Coruscant, Skywalker had been warned about giving in to anger. It led towards the dark side. But after weeks of struggling, constant ridicule, and rejection by the other Jedi, something inside Skywalker snapped. He dropped his training sabre, reaching his arms out physically and mentally, calling the Force to grab hold of the training remotes and crushing them.
Clanking metal flooded Skywalker's ears as he lifted his helmet. He saw the other younglings looking at him, some in shock, while others were terrified. Scattered throughout the room, lying on the floor, were broken training remotes, short-circuiting, and smoke poured out of a few.
The sound of a wooden stick tapping the floor soon followed, and everyone turned to see Master Yoda standing just inside the room. A look of disappointment was plastered all over his face, and his green eyes were aimed at Skywalker.
Everyone remained silent while moving out of the way as the Grand Master moved slowly towards the source of the class's disturbance.
"Very disappointed you should be Skywalker!" Master Yoda said coldly, making Skywalker slouch in embarrassment. But it wasn't over as the Grand Master went further. "Often have I told you that anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Give in to your anger, and begin to walk down the dark path you will."
"I'm deeply sorry, master," Skywalker apologized. Yoda didn't seem assured. "If not ready to train with younglings your age, then perhaps we could-"
"Master Yoda, no!" one of the younglings in the class called out. Skywalker recognized her. She was a female Zabrak, who Skywalker noted was one of the few not to mock him since he'd arrived.
She managed to gain the Grand Master's attention as the older Jedi spoke to her. "Yes, young one?"
"Yes, Skywalker has been struggling with learning our ways. But he's doing his best. The others turn it into a big deal whenever he messes up and criticize him for it. It's been going on since he came, and it's just gone too far for him. You always tell us to restrain our darker emotions. But you also have warned us that even a master like yourself can be pushed to the limit and break. Skywalker's new, and he held himself back from the constant ridicule for weeks. Being a Jedi is about being compassionate and understanding. And that is not what he's been receiving from the others in this class."
Her words stunned everyone. And gave the ever-wise Grand Master something to think. "Hmm… True this?" Yoda asked the others, who reluctantly nodded their heads and muttered yeses. They knew better than to lie to a Jedi Master, especially the leader of their Order.
After seeing the other students' responses, Yoda returned his focus to Skywalker, who was not as stern as before. "Still much to learn, you have Anakin. But find solace you will, knowing light there can be when all appears dark."
This was Master Yoda's equivalent of saying, "You are forgiven." Which Skywalker greatly appreciated. "Thank you, Master Yoda. I'm sorry, master, for the damage. It… it won't happen again. I'll even repair and upgrade the remotes so that such an accident can't happen again."
This made the shrivelled-green-skinned master smile. "Look forward to seeing these upgrades, I do," he said before returning to the other younglings. "A lesson you should all learn from this. When playing with a spark, expect it to ignite into an engulfing flame. Only with the waters of compassion and honesty can you extinguish the fire as Starre has done today. Think about this during mediation, you will."
When class was over, Karbaz left along with the others. She received several unhappy glances from the others for getting them in trouble for Skywalker's mistake, but paid them no mind as she felt proud of her actions.
Along with Master Yoda, there was another who appreciated her actions.
"Stara? Stara, wait up?" Skywalker called from behind.
Doing as asked, Karbaz halted and turned around to face the young human who was smiling at her, and she returned the smile.
"Thanks for your help back there," he said. "No one else besides Obi-Wan would've stuck up for me in a situation like that. You're something special."
Karbaz did her best to hide a blush on her cheeks when he said this, attempting to distract Skywalker from noticing by adding to the conversation. "You're special too. Like Master Yoda, I look forward to seeing what you do with those training remotes."
"Trust me, I'll make sure they are truly amazing," Skywalker promised. "Anywho, would you like to join me in the dining hall for a meal later? I've noticed you tend to eat alone there, and I'm usually alone whenever my master is away on missions. But if you prefer eating alone, then I won't-"
"I'd like to eat with you," she replied eagerly.
Karbaz and Skywalker became fast friends, with the former tutoring the latter as he worked towards catching up with the other Jedi who were at their age. It wasn't easy, but Skywalker began to catch up and even exceed expectations in his studies over time. He also began to assist Karbaz, helping her with her studies that she had difficulty with, such as flight training, and later lightsaber maintenance in preparation for when they could construct their own. They made a great team. Both were happy to have each other as friends, allowing them to have a place within the Order they felt they belonged to.
Three years after Skywalker joined the Order, he and Karbaz were inside the former's sleeping quarters, filled with machinery and spare parts. Skywalker was working on his newest project when Karbaz announced something genuinely extraordinary.
"A member of the Jedi Council, Master Shaak Ti, asked me to be her apprentice," she cheered. "I'm finally going to be a Padawan!"
Skywalker immediately rose from his workbench faster than even his winning podracer. Swooping up his friend in a hug as he celebrated with her. "Congratulations Stara! I always knew someone would see your potential. And a member of the Jedi Council? That's huge!"
With a blush on her face, Karbaz hugged Skywalker back as they cheered together.
Later, they were in the dining hall, eating slices of jogan fruitcake to celebrate Karbaz's apprenticeship. As they ate, Karbaz appeared to be looking off into the void of space, which Skywalker soon noticed.
"You alright, Stara?" he asked, snapping the new Padawan out of her trance.
"Yeah… um… fine…" she stammered. "I was just… Well, you've been a Padawan since you joined the Jedi Order. What are the difficulties of being one? Besides the obvious life-threatening dangers of regular missions."
A long pause followed. Karbaz worried if she'd crossed a line. She knew Skywalker and his master had a rocky relationship at times, but also assumed that they were bonded well, like a pair of nexu at other times.
"The main difficulty is trying to understand your master at times," Skywalker finally spoke up. "Sometimes they do things you're unsure of, even though they claim it's for the greater good. You'll be expected to figure some things out on your own. Adapting it to your perspective. And there will be times when you question whether or not you are worthy of being Master Ti's apprentice. But if she's anything like Obi-Wan in terms of being a mentor, she'll directly and indirectly help you understand much about the Force. Leading you down the path where you will eventually unlock the answers. Also, while Padawans face dangerous situations that threaten their lives on missions regularly, the masters face even more of those situations. They do so, trying to protect us, but we usually must get involved to rescue them. I've had to get Obi-Wan out of several bad situations he usually causes. That's another thing about being a Jedi; whether you're a Master, Knight, or Padawan, danger is drawn to us like a Jawa is to spare parts."
Karbaz couldn't help but chuckle at that last part, as Skywalker's explanation eased her worries.
"Well, I just hope we'll get paired up occasionally so that I have an experienced Padawan helping me along the way."
"Hey, don't sell yourself short, Stara," Skywalker rebuffed. "I wouldn't have gotten as far without your tutoring."
Karbaz felt her heart flutter because of Skywalker's words. Unlike the other Jedi, Skywalker wasn't afraid to show his emotions, good or bad, but the latter didn't make her see less of him. She greatly admired him and had valued their friendship since it had formed three years ago.
"Let's make a pact to stand by each other throughout our time as Padawans," she offered, extending her right pinky finger towards him as she spoke.
"Friends in the Force?"
Smiling back at his friend, Skywalker extended his right pinky finger and locked it with Karbaz's. "Friends in the Force."