Bril disliked visiting Arx.
The Dark Side of the Force like an impenetrable fog here, permeating the planet thanks to the concentration of Sith and other similarly aligned Force users. To him, it presented itself as a dull ache behind his eyes, clouding his senses. This must have been what the Jedi of the Clone Wars felt.
The sooner he got off this Ashla-forsaken rock, the better. He’d spent most of his life around Force users who relied on the Dark; he’d been trained by Tahiri, then Nora, and then Ruka. But after fully committing himself to the Light Side of the Force, his ability to tolerate the malevolent energies of the Dark Side had been … tested. And now, here, in the seat of the Brotherhood’s power, he wasn’t enjoying himself.
How then did his grand master, Turel Sorenn, spend so much time here as the new Headmaster? Master Cora had mentioned (or perhaps warned) that Turel was unorthodox as far as Jedi went, and Bril hadn’t given that much thought because he wasn’t, either. But he certainly was now.
The Headmaster’s Office, The Dark Ascent
“Sir, you have a visitor,” intoned the voice of a protocol droid standing at Turel’s front door.
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Turel looked up from a pile of datapads. Another war, another wave of students irrevocably scarred by it. When would it end?
“Send them in,” the Headmaster replied absently before remembering that he was indeed expecting a visitor. “Oh right, Bril is coming. Cora called me the other day about it.”
The Jedi’s thoughts turned toward his former padawan, who was very nearly a Jedi Master now in his own right. Cora had always been a burning light in the darkness, a creative gentle soul who embodied the best of the Jedi. When they last spoke Cora was worried about the instability in Kiast and his noble family.
Turel’s glance turned toward the broken holocron on his desk. It was ancient, Sith Wars era design, but non-functional. Struck by a lightsaber. Unremarkable save its age. But something drew the Odanite to it. He kept it close. Something told him the answers to all the dreams he had been having about a dark shroud over Kiast lie with that piece of junk.
Shaking his head, the Jedi Master stood up to greet his visitor.
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Bril stepped through the door with his arms folded behind his back. Typically, he opted for a more casual approach when meeting with others, but his time spent in the halls of the Dajorran Confederacy had taught him the importance of first impressions. Cora always said that a little decorum went a long way. Did Turel share those sentiments?
“Master Sorenn,” he began, lowering his head in a bow, “Thank you for meeting with me. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to find time for it given everything that has occurred as of late.”
Bril’s eyes drifted to the holocron. Based on its design, it appeared to be several millennia old, though the specifics of its origin were lost on him without a closer inspection.
Turel nodded as his mind wandered elsewhere, to the war, everything that had been lost. “I always have time for one curious about the Jedi path…it’s a welcome distraction.” He gestured toward one of the chairs in front of his desk, “make yourself comfortable. No need to be so formal. Turel is fine. Can I call you Bril?”
“Of course,” Bril said before moving to sit in one of the chairs, offering up a quick nod in thanks for the invitation. “I’ve always admired the Jedi, but now that the Force is calling me to walk this path, I feel it necessary to learn more about my lineage through Cora. It may seem odd, but learning about where you come from is important to my people.”
The first thing that he felt when he sat was the emotional weight bearing down on his grandmaster – the heartbreak of losing an old friend. There was something else, too. A foreign presence just lurking beneath the surface, but he couldn’t pinpoint what its origins or intentions were.
A frown appeared on the zabrak’s face.
Turel’s eyes subconsciously drifted toward the relic on his desk. Resisting the temptation, he closed his eyes for a moment and focused his mind on the present, not ephemeral matters of possible futures.
“I see,” he nodded thoughtfully. “Cora is an upstanding Jedi, better than I am in many ways. The light comes so naturally to him, it radiates from him.” A pregnant pause lingered in the air as Turel searched for the right thing to say, “I’m afraid I can take little credit for the man and Jedi that he is.”
“So humble,” Bril said with a soft smile after making note of the way Turel’s eyes drifted to the relic again, “Were you not his teacher for long? Surely, you imparted plenty of wisdom to him during his tutelage.”
Turel thought for a moment, “Wisdom yes but probably a lot of what not to do, heh. Cora was always wise enough to learn from multiple mentors and strong enough in his convictions to follow his own path rather than one his teachers had laid out for him.”
“Maybe that’s why he and I get along so well, then,” Bril said while reflecting on his own history with various teachers over the years. “And what of you? How did you become a Jedi? Who taught you, and what kind of Jedi are you now?”
“How I became a Jedi? Oh geez,” the Odanite paused as he tried to organize his thoughts on how to tell this story. “Let’s just say prior to becoming a Jedi I was a real bastard. Well, the consequences of life in the Hutt world caught up with me and I was on the run. A random hyperspace jump in a desperate escape later, and I ran into Odan-Urr.”
Turel paced as he continued the story, “they were on the run too at the time and picked up on my Force sensitivity. I was at absolute rock bottom and Vorsa saw something in me I didn’t see in myself. She trained me and never stopped believing in the best version of me, even when I stumbled.” He smiled, “eventually we became more than master and student but there isn’t a day that I don’t value her wisdom and spirit. As to what kind of Jedi I am now? I gravitated to the Sentinel path.”
He smiled. “That’s wonderful. I’m glad you found someone who could help discover the best qualities of yourself.”
Then, his expression darkened a bit, like a cloud of uncertainty that manifested within the Force for the more seasoned Jedi to sense. “Do you ever feel like your connection to the Brotherhood leaves you compromised? I’ve been wondering about that a lot lately.”