.3 Anduil Siron, an eighteen year old Human kept up with Master Shi’lynn, a thirty-nine year old female Miraluka. Miraluka, born blind to light but inherently able to sense the world through the force. She moved like a siren across ghostly calm water through the winding, unfamiliar halls of the newly constructed Jedi temple on Coruscant. The two of them entered the ground floor of one of the four spires that surrounded the center-most, thicker spire whose top floor was occupied by the grand jedi council chamber. The elevator glided upward softly without much sound and left the two in silence. "Your Master Orsin Beserek was sorry to not attend the trials, young Siron." Anduil turned to this with his jaw dropped. He tried to lift it back up into place and found it was easier thought to be done then actually executed. "I was under the impression my master was setting the trials up," he said, his voice cracking on ‘up’. Shi’lynn nodded quietly. "He had business to attend to—he did set it up however before he left to take care a small matter offworld." She hesitated to state what it was at first, and Anduil could sense this. "It shouldn’t take more then a day or two for him to be back, then you will be on your way to helping Master Uban and his apprentice with the diplomatic situation on Xolatis." "We’re to help Ikeeriot and Alec?" Anduil asked eagerly. "Master Alec, I mean." Shi’lynn nodded again but said nothing, taking a step forward just in time for the elevator to stop and the door to slide open for her to step through. Her command of the Force was uncanny, at least Anduil thought so. She smiled as though she overheard his very thoughts, "Soon, a day will come when others may think the same of you, padawan Siron, if you are to pass the Trial set before you." Anduil nodded, a little disheveled from having his thoughts read so plainly. They both stepped out into the plain circular room and stood, Anduil at least, looking out the tall and wide window panes that stretched upward to almost reach the top of the ceiling’s cone shape. "There is a door, am I correct, Siron?" Shi’lynn stated more then asked, letting her hand drift out in the direction of the huge door. Behind it was a catwalk that led from this corner spire to the middle of the Jedi Temple’s spire structures. There was no walls or even railings guarding the edge of the catwalk between each spire. Only a jedi’s balance would get someone from one spire to another, balancing against the wind sheers at such height and the height itself. Shi’lynn exited the room and walked all the way down the catwalk and into the adjacent Jedi Council room where she took a seat in her newly appointed chair. Anduil watched her walk all the way, sensing that he was going to have to walk it alone. A part of the trial. Still, it seems like a pleasantry then a real part of the trial . .I mean any jedi could walk across such a thing, I think a few younglings could walk across with no problems . .he thought. His heart sank when he looked at the catwalk outside though and dipped a little lower when he heard the howl of the graceless wind. The door opened of it’s own accord seemingly, but to anyone who was a jedi they would have known he slid the door open with a slight waggle of his fingers. Sure enough the wind was howling with every bit of tenacity it owned and commanded at such a height. A surge of fear planted Anduil Siron to the floor. He had never been fond of heights, but this situation in front of him demanded that he ignore the tiny fear inside of him. His very name and title demanded that he forget all of that emotion. There is no emotion; there is peace. He took a deep breath and took his first step. He looked from his left and then to his right, seeing huge clouds of congested, Coruscanti air traffic racing to and fro, but there was nothing in his vicinity except for the wind. Another step. He exhaled easily and started to walk just as easily. Swimming in pools and eddies around him was the Force and every time he breathed inward his thoughts grew clearer, more attuned and his physical nervousness wilted away like a flower touched by winter. About a quarter of the way across the catwalk, images started to stab into his Force calmed mind and pelt him with uneasiness, like a storm raining discouragement. Thoughts, painful memories, premonitions, all of them crackled with Force energy and snapped and scratched at him like an animal. He was in a whirlwind of the Force, he could feel both it and the wind pushing against him, forcing him off balance and trying to push him off the catwalk. His Wookie Jedi Master, Orsin, who’d been abandoned to a smuggler’s doorstep and took the name of that same smuggler, came to Anduil Siron in a past memory, a very young one: ‘Calm yourself padawan, remember what we do when we cannot find our calm?’ Orsin had inquired through the translator he wore. Anduil had been trying to balance pebbles through the air and create a pyramid out of them, an easy starting lesson for most padawans. Anduil, who had thought he would have been the first to get done, hadn’t yet had the grasp or understanding of the Force the other students had. Anduil remembered though, he remembered clearly that he thought it was just like turning on the water or as simple as walking—his overconfidence had made him wrong that day. Other students had finished, and whole class had, but Anduil had stayed, even after the lesson had concluded. Orsin came to him then, just as Anduil was hoping he could gather the pebbles in the pyramid shape. ‘We wait,’ Anduil had said in reply to his master. ‘But why do we have to wait? Why can’t we just make it happen when we want it to?’ Orsin replied with a thin smile. Anduil had been very young, but Orsin had to be stern with his answer—it was a question most asked by the young and inexperienced. Why. ‘To wait is a Jedi’s way—to let the Force come up with it’s own solution. To try and make anything happen is far too aggressive. Calm and meditation, young padawan, never aggression and easy path. Those are the things of the Dark Side, things of which you want no part of.’ So, high above certain death, Anduil wrestled with his inner fear. He was balancing on one foot, leaning one way, the Force tugging him and the wind pushing him. He half closed his eyes, a dangerous thing he knew, but let himself be pulled into the tugging current of the Force. He felt his body drop off the catwalk and underneath it, but at the last second his arms shot up and grabbed it’s ledge, catching it and with the Force streaming through his body like a river, he swung back up into the air on the other side of the catwalk and landed on two feet. ‘The Force is in everything—in the earth, in the sky, in the wind, it is what binds the galaxy together,’ another teacher echoed through his mind. So Anduil began walking again. He came to the glass door and stretched out with the Force into the Council chamber. It was pitch black, by some way he didn’t know, no rays from the setting sun pierced the glass window to illuminate the chamber. Anduil opened the door and stepped in, finding himself like the tournament circle he’d come from, shrouded not by steam now, but by total eclipse. Stretched thin in the Force in all directions, Anduil came to what he felt was the center of the room. He turned and tried to locate himself relative to the light filtering in from his entrance, but he found that too, was no longer there. He felt sudden vertigo within the blackness, feeling as though he was floating through space. The Force alerted him to the attack from behind, and just in a nick of time. Ba-zew, came a red blast bolt from behind him. Anduil’s hands dipped to his side and his blue green lightsaber ignited and deflected the bolt—not back to it’s source, but gratefully, in any other direction. Anduil felt the room around him begin to settle from the intense red light that the blaster bolt had cast and now the green glow of his lightsaber settled down over his body and out over the room. A distant clank, then a dink, and a brilliant WHOOSH as a grenade was propelled through the air toward Anduil. His eyes widened, assassin droid! He knew it wasn’t right after he thought that, but either way, a grenade had been thrown. Using the Force he grasped the grenade, kept it flying through the air and then threw his lightsaber toward where he thought the door was and heard a great crash of the glass shattering. A moment later a distant BOOM as the grenade blew up in the air outside the Temple. Anduil called back the lightsaber to him just in time, hearing the metal footsteps coming rapidly toward him, when he gripped the lightsaber he swiped once, ducked under the bi-sected droid’s first and last punch and swung behind him, clipping the head from it’s robotic neck. Anduil held the pose, his lightsaber held out behind him arced upward and his other hand dropped onto the ground for balance. He took a steady, deep breath. There is no passion; there is serenity. A small blue flash in front of him and then a holograph appeared showing none other then his Master Orsin Beserek. He was speaking: "Anduil, if you are watching this, then by now, I must be dead. My mission must have proved more dangerous then I had thought," the voice went on, but Anduil couldn’t hear it above the clamor in his head. No! He can’t be dead! Wait, another voice said. Calm. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. He is not dead. You would have felt it. The link between padawan and master is one that exceeds the stars. He nodded once and forced his hand through the hologram, and it vanished. "Very well, Jedi Knight Anduil Siron," the familiar voice of Shi’lynn interrupted the silent black of the Council chamber. Her violet lightsaber lit behind him and he straightened perfectly, not even noticing that she hadn’t called him padawan. A familiar Wookie snuffed and roared in it’s own language too and the blue lightsaber of his Master Beserek lit to Shi’lynn’s side. "You have done well, Orsin," a voice came, and then another green blade ignited, showing the face of a small but powerful Bothan Jedi Master—his fur ruffled against the emerald light his saber cast. Two more blades, one orange and another white, from a Bloodcarver and a Twi’Lek, ignited and the blackness of the room ceased. All of the lights joined together and became a general light source. All of the Jedi masters formed around Anduil Siron rose their blades above him and recited the jedi code: "There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no death; there is only the," "Force." Anduil Siron finished, sensing the gaping hole in the code as the room fell silent once more. Satisfaction flooded him from his Wookie master and Orsin stepped forward with his blade still ignited. He swiped once behind Anduil and cut the padawan braid off of Anduil’s head. Anduil watched it hit the floor and allowed himself a smile. "You are a Knight, now," Orsin said through his vocabulator-droid. "Go, serve the galaxy as a guardian to those who need protection and serve the Force." The lightsabers in the room fizzled and shut off, each of the Jedi Masters greeting him and shaking his head, giving them their congratulations. "Thank you," he said to each of them. Shi’lynn smiled at him when he did so. "Perhaps your friend Ikeeriot will become a Knight someday soon too." Anduil nodded. "I hope he will." He turned to his Master—no, he turned to Orsin. "Are we still to go to Xolatis?" Orsin nodded. "As soon as you’re ready . .and once Ikeeriot goes through his punishment. It would be a waste of resources if he did not just come with us. However," he gave his goodbyes to the Master filtering out of the council chamber. "However we will only be there shortly. It is a small political dispute and I sense Master Uban won’t need our help anyway, but . ." "What?" Anduil asked. "Nothing. It’s nothing." Orsin replied. "We will be going to the front of the war after Xolatis, to fight the Mandalorians." Anduil narrowed his eyes. "I don’t think it is our place to be fighting like soldiers, Master. We’re guardians." He cringed afterward, remembering, not master. Orsin chuckled in his Wookie way, picking up on his former padawan’s thoughts only a bit. "It is our duty to protect all those threatened, and if those who are threatened are in the Republic and are attacked from outside our Republic, then it is those who attack we must thwart." Anduil nodded, not totally agreeing, but to some degree understanding his former Master’s thoughts. "Am I to build a new lightsaber on the way to Xolatis?" Orsin nodded and looked like he remembered something and out from the satchel behind a small chair to his left he withdrew a wooden box. "These are three crystals. Choose one and may it be chosen well." Anduil nodded but pushed the box away. "I will construct it during the flight there. We should get going now though, shouldn’t we?" Orsin’s shaggy head nodded. "I sense that your friend Ikeeriot is growing fairly impatient with his punishment as it is . ."