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Jocasta—
Meditation does not come easy to her, these days. She will attempt it again later.
For now, she stares out at the stars from where she sits— the pilot’s seat of the shuttle that she and Ezra share as home— and thinks. It is difficult to do anything else, in these silent moments between.
When she had entered the Jedi Temple for the last time, she hadn’t expected to leave alive. Not as she confronted the Inquisitor; not as she stood on the transport, surrounded by clones as she challenged Vader.
Darth Vader, and even now the name fills her with a sort of helpless rage, something slick as oil, difficult to banish when it surfaces, even years after the Republic’s fall.
The Republic’s fall. The Jedi Order’s death. Its murder , really, and the sick injustice, the pervasive evil of it all stokes embers in her heart. Makes her feel like a Padawan again, the girl she was once. Fire contained, electricity under skin like nervous energy, and a supernova hidden behind blue eyes and lightsaber.
It’s been so long since she was that girl. Her anger was kept under lock and key, carefully used— not stifled, but calmed and channeled and brought to a far brighter, kinder flame through years of dedication— in her years as first Librarian and then Chief Librarian, in the years following promotion to Jedi Master.
That, too, had been so many years onward from the cutting of her braid, and now in her old age the storm of red-hot fire that once flowed so freely wants once more to consume her, even though she is far too old to fight.
Too old; too decrepit, she sometimes thinks, in her old age, to keep up with Stormtroopers and the tormented young once-Jedi that make up the Inquisitorius, despite her easy skill with a lightsaber rifle.
She does not think that she is unable— but could she do it with regularity? Would it be possible? Would it be sustainable, to put herself on a battlefield, and expect to not be killed or captured but instead to return home?
Jocasta hadn’t expected to survive Vader. Hadn’t expected to survive Anakin , because how could she not know? He was far from a stranger to the Archives, after all, during his own apprenticeship. Memories once held treasured, of helping the young boy who so often seemed a desert wraith in uncertain moments with reports, presentations— she wishes not to feel as she once did, when she thinks of them. Anakin betrayed their family, betrayed the galaxy— killed younglings, and oh how it burns like molten rock and dust hanging low and bitter in the air, that they are dead, now, and she could-not-did-not help—
She breathes through it. This war, this stain over the stars she catalogued so dutifully— it provokes her. She feels as she once did. Helpless to save the innocent who suffer, and it makes her feel as it makes— made— all Jedi— angry .
Vader’s men had dumped her body in a tomb , and she had woken up against all odds. She should’ve died. It takes every year of discipline not to wish she had.
Jocasta had woken up in the grave of her Order and family, the remains of her culture around her in that pit, and she had climbed her way out, pulled herself over the cliff edge. She’s sure the Empire— the Sith— would call it a cockroach’s survival. The thought doesn’t bother her— after all, she is a survivor.
The scar across her abdomen— the red haze over her left eye— are both proof of that.
Perhaps, if things were different, she would not worry about sustainability. She would not worry about her own life and her presence in those of others. It would not matter. But—
As it stands, her presence is needed most not in the Rebellion, with righteous Tano and brave Organa, but here, on her own ship.
Among the stars.
The Rebellion has no shortage of fighters, and that is what Jocasta would be for them; just one fighter out of many, no matter how skilled and deadly she is.
This, though— is a job meant only for Jedi. Jocasta’s responsibility alone.
And there are precious few left, so when Jocasta had felt something like string tugging her to Lothal, had stood on the street and let her eyes be guided to the small figure at the alleyway entrance, black hair ruffled in the wind—
It hadn’t even been a choice, to train small Ezra Bridger. And even though she is old, even though the responsibility is a dedication of years she may not even have, Jocasta has never regretted her decision. Not for a second, in all the years she has cared for her boy.
Her Padawan, really— but for all her wishes to use the word, it carries a high price of danger, these days. Better Ezra remains safe; remains, as far as the galaxy knows, the war orphan she has adopted and cares for in the Clone Wars’ aftermath.
Nobody ever thinks it of her and Ezra— that two people, one so young, one so old, could be the Jedi traitors so effectively mass-murdered.
Yet in her own mind— she, her Padawan—
They are so undeniably, completely Jedi .
It hurts, to know that so much has been erased, that any civilian on the street would perhaps not recognise a lightsaber as anything but the weapon of an Inquisitor, the piece of evidence they’d hand to the ISB.
Maybe one day, it will be different. Maybe one day, her Padawan will walk on Lothal’s soil once more, and his name will not just be that of one of the planet’s many sons, but that of a Jedi , a hero .
But that is the future. This is now, and if he is ever to become a Jedi Knight Ezra will need more guidance, more training. Caution, and discipline, and—
He already has a hero’s soul, her boy. Trained or not, he will save so many.
Jocasta just hopes that in training him, perhaps she will save him, too.
Because—
He has the soul of a hero, that is true, and—
Heroes die early deaths.
When she took Ezra into her care, Jocasta promised the Force, the galaxy, the stars—
He will live long. She will train him to. He will be a hero, yes, it is in his nature, but above all, he will be a Jedi, and he will live. This promise seems etched on her heart, written by the hand of every murdered Jedi.
So many young Force-sensitives meet the same sad fate, dragged into the darkness until they are themselves not bone and blood but shadow, brittle glass, and—
Jocasta can’t help them. She is only one Jedi, and her talents are better served elsewhere.
Still, she can help Ezra. Can protect him; can save him, where so many others will not be saved. She can, will, guide him, teach him to remain stood, defiant of the universe, in the light, and—
At the end of all this, if she has done her job right, he will be a Jedi.
A Knight. A spray of light among the stars, in a galaxy that seems so starved of any warmth or brightness.
He is up to the task, she knows. She’s known , since the very first day she turned the corner on Lothal and discovered the boy with black hair who held a loth-cat so gently in skinny arms, cradled so softly against a starving body and a ladder of ribs.
It twines around her ankles now, body vibrating with the force of its contentment, fur sleek and soft against her skin. Ezra takes better care of those he loves than he does himself, and the cat— after he had refused to abandon it, had so calmly held it close and stared Jocasta down and told her that he wouldn’t leave his friend behind—
The cat is all of him. Every choice he ever makes, condensed.
She never needed to teach him compassion. It bleeds out of every orifice, every pore in his skin. Kindness born , laid into the fabric of every bone, and Jocasta is so proud of him, every day.
He’s still so gentle , even after anything. Even after countless brushes with the Empire, endless moments spent balancing on the edge of the Light, the beginning of the Dark.
He is often so angry. It reminds her of herself, of so many others, that helpless rage. The warmth of kindness so easily feeding flames.
Sometimes, she worries for him— but he is young, and learning, and every day he proves to her that there is no need to worry, that he will not slip to the dark easily.
Jocasta is so, so proud of him. Every day.
If she listens carefully, eyes fixed on the stars as a waypoint, she can hear the low hum and swoop of his lightsaber as he swings it, the sound quiet and soft from the low setting she insists on, for now.
For hours every day, he practices in this box hung among the stars. She knows every one of his movements by heart.
He’s currently learning Niman. The fluidity still throws him off, after the structured aggression of Djem So, but every day he improves. Bit by bit, they are ironing out the creases in his forms, the indecision; the occasional halt or stutter in a strike.
The adaptability of form six suits Ezra well: with time, Jocasta can see him using it more and more, a graceful counterpoint to the Soresu he currently favours most.
He already knows how to use a blaster rifle— it was the first thing she taught him. One day— she knows she will have to teach him to use her own. It’s a weapon not easily wielded, and though after everything—
When she won this ship, she hid the lightsaber rifle deep in the bowels of the engine, insulated by durasteel and hard plastoid casing. One day— soon , the Force seems to whisper, the universe speaking through air to reach her thoughts— she will open the lock, and let light touch the electrum-gold metal of the barrel once more.
She can only hope, that when the time comes, Ezra will be ready.
Jocasta Nu—
Looking out at the stars, she is alone, adrift in the galaxy. A new galaxy, it seems, without her people or her creed to anchor her among the suns and planets.
But, she thinks, as behind her she hears the faint sound of buzzing, the familiar hiss and swipe of a lightsaber parrying in thin air, it seems that she isn’t so alone, after all.