A Certain Point of View/Part 5

Narasi stared, open-mouthed, until Rylar Kal-Di sat down on the stone bench beside her.

"I've seen the news, but…he's really here?" he asked. "Tirien?"

"Yes," Narasi managed. "I mean, not here here, but he's on Pantora. Your…your…?"

She realized she didn't know.

"Brother."

Their faces were too similar for her to deny it, but… "He said he didn't have any siblings."

"When he left Pantora, he didn't," Rylar agreed. "My sister was born the next year, and I'm two years younger than her."

"He has a sister, too?" Narasi marveled.

"Yeah. My parents never reached out to the Jedi who found Tirien…what's her name?"

"Harshee?"

"Yeah. They didn't know if Zina and I would have the Force too…"  He trailed off, looking at Narasi inquisitively. "She and I always wondered…"

Narasi extended a hand hesitantly. "I…don't think so?" she waffled. Ayson had stood out—not like Tirien did, but enough that it was noticeable when she concentrated. "I mean, you don't feel like he does to me, but he's a Jedi Knight."

"My mom said…Harshee, was it?...did tests on Tirien. Do you remember them from when you were recruited?"

Narasi tensed. "No, I don't remember," she lied. "I was really young."

He looked a little disappointed, but then shook his head. "Sorry, it was just a thought. Like I said, Zina and I wondered, but Mom and Dad always said Tirien was different as a kid than we were.  Quicker reflexes, just knew stuff when he shouldn't have."

Narasi recalled Ayson telling his father they were at the door. She managed a bit of a smile. "Yeah, he's still kinda like that."

Rylar refocused quickly. "Tell me about him."

"Well, he's…" Narasi found herself struggling. How could she possibly sum up someone like Tirien in a sentence? How could she do him justice to his own family? Her thoughts were cascading around so much she found herself asking instead of answering, "Wait, I thought you lived up in the mountains?"

She realized how stupid it was when she said it; Tirien had been gone twenty-one years, his family could easily have moved. But Rylar nodded. "Yeah, we do, but I'm here for school; I'm at Isalius Central University."

"Oh," Narasi added. Duh. Older than her, but not by a lot.

"Did he tell you about us?"

"A little bit," Narasi hedged. "I mean, he didn't know he had a brother or sister, and he was little when he left, so I guess he doesn't remember your mom and dad much either."

Rylar winced. "They'd hate to hear that. I mean, I get it, it's just…they've kept up with him ever since he started doing big galactic stuff a few years ago; there's a whole holoboard in our house with pictures from the HoloNet or stories that traders bring in.  And even before that, we always knew he was out there somewhere, being a hero."

He didn't sound bitter, as if he coveted the attention his parents had given their absent firstborn; if anything, he seemed to share their wistfulness.

"How long have you been his apprentice?"

"About two years," Narasi said.

"You were with him on Taanab?"

Narasi swallowed. "Yeah, I was. That's where…"

She trailed off, but Rylar's eyes narrowed in a way eerily reminiscent of his older brother. "Where what?"

She sighed. "We had kind of a rocky start; we had to grow into being master and Padawan. But at Taanab we…gave each other a second chance."

Some of her affection for him must have come through in her smile, because Rylar smiled too. "He's a good guy, then? Not just the Sith killer we hear about?"

Narasi's smile faded into a look so serious Rylar leaned back a little. The memory of the woman holding her toddler away and the judgment in the eyes of the mall security cops put fire in her voice as she said, "When people see me…the Jedi on Coruscant are great, but whenever I leave the planet, even the Temple, I can never forget what I am, except when I'm with him. To Tirien I'm always…'a Jedi who happens to be a Zygerrian, not a Zygerrian who happens to be a Jedi'.  He's a great Jedi, but he's not just a great Jedi.  He's kinda rough around the edges, but he's one of the best people I've ever known."

She so rarely had the opportunity or the reason to put it into words that, to her embarrassment, her voice was shaking a little as she finished. But Rylar did not laugh at the tremble in her words; he seemed to hang on every one, and only looked frustrated that there weren't more.

"Where is he now?"

"He's…you know, I don't know," Narasi admitted. "He's somewhere in Isalius, but…"

She checked her comlink reflexively, but he hadn't called. How long was she supposed to wander the capital? Had he intuited this—that her meanderings would accidentally take her to his brother? Was it an accident? She felt her head start to ache; an occupational hazard of studying under a Jedi Consular was that everything started to feel like part of something bigger.

She was amusing herself picturing Divar and his friends as the instruments of grand destiny when Rylar cleared his throat to recapture her attention. "But what?"

She wasn't sure she should tell him about Tirien fending off the media. "He told me to explore a bit—get acquainted with the planet."

"Are you staying?" Rylar asked hopefully.

"I don't know." Narasi wondered how long it would take to wear Dorje Sokos down, if that was even possible.

"I…" Tirien so rarely hesitated over anything that Narasi found it odd seeing the expression on a face so much like her master's.  "I'd like to meet him.  He is my brother."

"Yeah, that'd be…that'd…" Narasi wanted to call Tirien that moment, but she hesitated.

''They're the family I was born to, but the Jedi are the family I chose. Suwo and Master Z'dar, Mali and Slejux.'' You. You are all my family now.

"Could you set it up for us?"

Rylar's request made sense to Narasi, but when she forced herself to think about it, she wasn't sure how Tirien would take having a little brother, and she could vividly imagine how he would react to the situation being dumped in his lap without warning. "I can ask," she offered as a compromise. "Give him a heads-up, you know? Remember, he doesn't know about you."

Rylar looked disappointed only for a moment. "That's fair," he conceded. "Besides, if we can set something up, I should call Zina and Mom and Dad."

This was getting complicated. Getting to her feet and snugging her jacket a little, Narasi gestured. "Do you want to walk with me?" A new thought had occurred to her—a way to get Rylar off the potential reunion while finally sating some of her own curiosity. "I haven't seen much of the city."

"Sure," he agreed, and they started across one of the arched walkways connecting the rooftops.

"Sooo," Narasi said, hoping for a casual tone, "it seems like he's a pretty big deal here. Or is it just because we're visiting?"

"It's not just because you're here," Rylar responded seriously. "Since we're not part of the Republic, Pantora doesn't really have a major impact on the galaxy. But Tirien's out there on the front lines; they talk about this being the biggest war in galactic history.  I don't know if that's true, but he's fighting in it, and he's probably the most famous Pantoran off Pantora."

"How much do you guys hear out here?"

"The big things," Rylar said, but added, "but stories about Tirien tend to get out here when they wouldn't if it was another Jedi. Sometimes people will send us holos—I mean, my family specifically."

He paused, frowning. "Does…does he really have these?" He touched his cheek. "The clan tattoos?"

"Yeah," Narasi replied, puzzled.

"Oh. Good," Rylar said, relieved.

Narasi frowned. "I thought you said you had holos?"

"Yeah, we do, but…" He sighed. "Zina had this theory that…well, that maybe the Chairman's office had, er…doctored the holos. Added the tattoos in, you know?  I mean, he didn't have them when he left, but it's a really weird thing in our culture to not have them as an adult.  You have to be a criminal or a really rebellious type or something.  It's like…rejecting your heritage."

For all Tirien insisted that the Jedi were his family, he hadn't made that rejection. Now more than ever Narasi wanted to ask him about the decision. "Why would the Chairman add them if he didn't have them?"

"Well…I don't know how much you know about the Sujimis Collective thing, but there's a lot of pressure on the Assembly this last year or so to keep us safe. We've got slavers operating in the sector…uh, no offense."

''Why would I be offended? Do I look like a slaver?'' Narasi almost demanded, but she dared not ask the question, because she knew what the answer would be. She took a deep breath; learning all this was too important to sabotage with anger. "It's fine. Local problems?"

"Er, yeah. Slavers, and some Sith too, and the Assembly doesn't really seem to have a plan.  People aren't exactly thrilled about that—we're out of the galactic loop and we look like a ripe target.  But some of the local news stories about Tirien are 'Hey, we've got this badass Jedi Knight out there killing Sith and taking names, if anybody messes with us they're messing with him, and that's not gonna go well for them at all'…  We're Pantorans, we're not looking to beg help from other species, but Tirien's different—he's one of us, and Zina thought that the Chairman might want him to look like…well, not just a hero, but our hero."

Narasi wondered about that. If Tarni Hadan or somebody did target Pantora, would Tirien intervene? She honestly wasn't sure. He had bucked the Praxeum Council to go to Milagro, and whatever he might say about different perspectives, it was clear he didn't really regret the decision, but shs suspected that had been for Master Darakhan's sake more than Milagro's. Would it change if it was his own homeworld? She had no basis for comparison herself; Zygerria was willingly in the Sith fold, and she'd happily let it burn if the Sith ever got angry with the Slave Empire.

"So you all get the HoloNet out here?" Narasi asked, trying not to dwell on that image.

"It's spotty sometimes," Rylar admitted. "It relies on s-threads distributed through space, and occasionally they're damaged by meteors or something, or they just decay from solar radiation. Normally the Republic Communications Bureau maintains the system, but these past couple centuries it hasn't exactly been a priority."

Narasi was impressed. "You know a lot about it."

"I'm studying Communications Engineering," Rylar explained. He paused, then asked, "Is he into that sort of stuff?"

"Tirien? Well…"  She caught an unusual edge to Rylar's thoughts and realized he wanted Tirien to share his passion—wanted something in common with his brother. "We do some mechanical stuff together. We're revamping and upgrading our ship; he knows a lot of ship mechanics."

It was better than nothing, and Rylar nodded thoughtfully. Narasi asked, "What does your sister do?"

"Zina's studying Law. She wants to do something with intellectual property."

"I guess brains run in the family at least; he's really smart too." She remembered her conversation with Harshee the day before and blurted out, "Do you ever get…I dunno, pressure because of who your brother is? Do people judge you because of your family?"

"I'm not sure I'd say judge," Rylar mused. "I mean, there are a whole bunch of Kal-Dis up in Azreigia and the surrounding cities, so around there everybody knows I am related to him, but they don't necessarily know how or how closely. Down here…"

He sighed. "People do ask; it's usually their first question, actually. But when they find out I'm not a Jedi and I've never met him, interest usually trails off.  When you come down to it, I don't really know much more than they do about Tirien the Jedi."

He sounded frustrated, and Narasi felt frustrated on his behalf. In the back of her mind she started working on a script for how she was going to talk Tirien into this reunion. She fell silent as she did so, though, and Rylar picked up the conversation.

"Is it like that for you? I mean, I know how we think of him, but does everybody else in the Republic see him the same way?"

Narasi considered it. "Not exactly the same, I guess. I mean, he's a hero, don't get me wrong.  When I was an Initiate at the Temple my whole Clan knew about him.  But we have Master Darakhan too, and Slejux, and the Jedi Council…"

"Mali Darakhan? The Corellian?"

"Yeah. He and my mast—he and Tirien are friends.  They actually traded lightsabers." At Rylar's blank look, she explained, "It's a Jedi thing. It's a…a…how'd he say it?  'A mutual, masterless learning relationship'."

"Huh." A wind whipped through the trees, tearing a red leaf off and flattening it against Rylar's face; he laughed as he brushed it off. Narasi shivered in the breeze, but as a second leaf cascaded toward her, she shot her hand out without looking and caught it in midair. Rylar raised an eyebrow. "Sooo…those would be the reflexes Mom talks about?"

Narasi dropped the leaf sheepishly. "I guess so?"

He smiled in resignation. "Yeah, I'm definitely not that fast."

Clearing her throat and pulling her hood up, Narasi said, "So tell me about where you're from."

They walked from rooftop to rooftop, Narasi listening raptly as Rylar described the mountain city of Azreigia, the famous city square and the hot spring the Pantorans had long since channeled into a fountain that stayed liquid even in winter, the songbirds and raptors that preyed on the various pests that could survive up that high. He told her about the mag-levs connecting the city to its suburbs and the larger trains that swept down the mountainside to the capital, as well as ongoing plans to bore straight through and finally abandon the repulsorferry currently needed to go over or around the mountains to the other side. He paused occasionally to point out some landmark in the capital city that had come within view, but always took her gentle prods to return the conversation to his hometown. The more she heard, the more Narasi wanted to see it with her own eyes, though she thought she'd have to buy a parka and a portable heater if Pantora was going to get any colder.

"Sounds like a cool place to grow up," she remarked, gazing at the mountains just visible over a distant building; the sunset threw them into silhouette.

"Yeah, it's not bad," Rylar agreed. He cocked his head. "What about you? Where'd you grow up?"

He reminded her enough of Tirien that she was half-tempted to tell him, but he also reminded her enough of Tirien that she smothered the temptation. "At the Jedi Temple," she answered simply. Reflecting on her youth on Coruscant, though, she had a sudden thought, remembering why she was actually here. "Can I ask you something? A personal thing?"

He seemed surprised, but nodded. "Sure."

"If you did have the Force, would you have wanted to be a Jedi like Tirien?"

"Yeah."

"Even though you'd have to leave your family? Even though they'd have to give up two kids?"

Rylar hesitated this time, but then firmed his face. "Yes. I know it'd be hard—for me and them—but all my life I've heard about how Tirien was out there making a difference.  That he had this gift, and he was using it to do good instead of just hoarding it to himself.  That's something important—something meaningful.  And the Sith are just out to control everything, right?  So yeah, I'd go.  And my parents and Zina might be sad, but they'd understand."

"Is that why your parents gave up Tirien?" Narasi asked. "He was their only kid then."

"It is," Rylar confirmed; he looked a little discomfited. "They always say they miss him—although hopefully they can see him soon?—but they've never said they regretted it. Not to me, anyway.  Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering," Narasi said, but Rylar narrowed his eyes.

"No you're not," he accused. "You're thinking something."

Narasi stuck out her tongue, trying to make light of it. "I thought your brother was reading my mind whenever he does that; I guess you're both just perceptive."

The tactic worked; Rylar smirked, and Narasi could tell he was pleased by the comparison, but she felt a little squeamish manipulating him that way. She tried to figure out what Tirien would think. Would he be proud of her for having the presence of mind to win with words? Could you use the dark side without using the Force?

Her comlink buzzed, and she took it off her belt. Rylar's eyes widened, but Narasi held a finger to her lips, and he nodded. Depressing the key, she said, "Yes, Master."

"I'm sending you my coordinates, Narasi. Where are you?"

She looked at the data packet, compared it to her datapad, and replied, "About two klicks away, Master."

"Come meet me here."

"On my way, Master."

There was something odd about his voice, and she almost asked, but restrained herself at the last second, not wanting to get Rylar worried. She replaced the comlink on her belt as Rylar grinned. "He sounds just like my Uncle Therrin."

Narasi smiled briefly. "I'll talk to him."

"Please," Rylar said seriously, then took out his own comlink. "Here, I'll send you my frequency…"

They exchanged contact information. "Thank you, Narasi," Rylar said. "From all my family, thank you."

She squirmed inside. "I can't guarantee—"

"I know," he assured her, "but…I've dreamed about this ever since I was a little kid. Tell him that for me, won't you?  We're not going to ask anything from him, he doesn't have to stay; I know you both have big things to do, and you have a life we'll never really be part of.  But he's still my brother."

Narasi swallowed and nodded. "I'll tell him."