Author's note: Judging by the entries on this site for stories about Jolee, I'm the only person who wanted to romance the cantankerous old Jedi with the snarky sense of humour. I've wanted to do a story for him for a while, which morphed into an alphabet of drabbles because I liked the challenge. Each drabble is 100 words, not including title, and they are not chronological. While it's probably not necessary, I'll just mention that Peri Vasilat was my first playthrough, a Light-Side Scoundrel/Sentinel.
I also want to say thank you to the fabulous DarthAmmonite (who will probably never read this); not only have I borrowed a few concepts from their fantastic story On Being a Sith Lord, but the story inspired me to play the game in the first place.
A – Age
Getting old's not so bad, really. He misses his hair sometimes, but he's still flexible, he can still fight, and if his wits go wandering sometimes, they always come back eventually. He's not sure why they'd bother, given that the scenery on Kashyyyk is all big trees and big predators, but he hopes they enjoy it.
He gets to be cranky and eccentric – although that's less fun without anyone to be cranky and eccentric at – and the passions of his youth settle down quietly, like falling asleep.
He sees her and wakes.
Life is about to get very, very interesting.
B – Balance
"I've been the hero of the Republic, the shining Jedi with all her ideals," Peri says. She doesn't sound melodramatic so much as tired. "Then I was the Sith Lord who crushed worlds in my fist just to watch them suffer. Who am I now, Jolee? The Light burns and the Dark blinds."
"You're asking the crazy old man for advice?"
"You heard me."
In all his life, there are only a few bits of genuine wisdom he's garnered, and this is one of them. "Extremes are annoying, child. Not to mention exhausting. Take a middle path if you can."
C – Carth
Jolee has more in common with Carth than the young pilot suspects.
Some of it's minor: they share a shoe size and dislike pazaak.
Other parts are more significant. They both suspect the motives of the Jedi Council in sending Bastila and Peri on this quest; they have lost the ones they loved to evil; they have known betrayal and failure; they watch their shipmates for the first sign of treachery to come.
The major one: they are both lovesick over the fiery, lovely young woman who is all that remains of Revan.
Jolee thinks he hides it better, though.
D – Darkness
It's never truly dark or silent on the Ebon Hawk, and there's always someone around. It gets frustrating, particularly for an old man who spent years alone in the Shadowlands. Peri seems to feel it too, for she announces before they leave Manaan that everyone gets their own hotel room for a night.
He half expects the quiet knock on his door just before midnight. She looks far too young and beautiful. "Jolee. I hope -"
"My dear, I'm -"
"I'll go, if you prefer, but don't say you're too old."
In the darkness, her kiss makes him young again.
E – Eyes
"You keep calling me a child."
"It's one of the privileges of age, along with being cryptic and complaining about everything. Like the gizkas everywhere -"
"Do I seem so young to you?"
"When you're as old as I am, most everyone does."
"Look again," she says, and stares at him, unblinking, with eyes that have witnessed the fall of worlds. He sees all of her there; the cool detachment of Revan the Jedi warring with the black amusement of Revan the Sith. Caught between them is a fragile, artificial creation named Peri Vasilat.
He never calls her 'child' again.
F- Fake
"You knew. You knew, and you didn't tell me –"
"Wasn't my place." He shrugs. "Besides, I would've sounded completely senile if I tried. 'Uh, did you know you're actually a personality constructed by the Jedi Council out of bits of the former Dark Lord?'"
She looks... heartbroken. "I have more than thirty years of memories, and none of them real. My family – my first love – the war – all fake. Like me."
"Now, now, none of that." He gathers her into his arms, holds her while she cries. "You're as real as Revan, and you've become more than she was."
G – Game
The droids have no interest in pazaak. Carth loathes it, Bastila considers it beneath her, and Jolee doesn't see the point.
It was probably Canderous who suggested playing by Nar Shaddaa rules, but it's a nicety Jolee is in no position to appreciate when he walks in on the game in progress. Mission and Juhani giggle as Peri pulls off her trousers and throws them over her shoulder.
They hit him in the face.
He's not too old to enjoy the view – well, the bits of it that aren't Canderous, Zaalbar or Mission.
"Nice legs," he says, and Peri blushes.
H – Home
The Ebon Hawk is not a pretty ship. It's fast, efficient, not too cramped, and a nice change from trees and tachs, but the grey metal is strictly utilitarian. There's little privacy, and ships are noisy places even when they aren't filled with people, droids and gizka.
For all that, though, the ship's something special. If she lacks the graciousness of larger, newer vessels, she makes up for it with character. You look after me, she seems to say, and keep me company, and I'll take care of you.
After his years in a rotting stump, she feels like home.
I - Isolation
Peri leaves Juhani to guard a repentant Bastila; she and Jolee go after Malak.
Then she crosses a threshold and a steel door slams up behind her before Jolee can follow.
She's alone.
The door won't yield, and somewhere beyond it, she faces the Dark Lord of the Sith.
Time crawls.
The door falls, and there's Revan – triumphant, despite the long lightsaber burn down her side and the smoking stubble of her beautiful hair.
Revan.
He's known this moment was inevitable – a spirit as vital as hers could never be suppressed for long – but –
"Jolee." It's Peri's smile. "I'm back."
J – Justice
"I'll save Sunry for you," she promises Elora.
They traipse all over Ahto, and the more they learn, the more reserved she becomes. She can see the patterns forming, just as he can.
They watch the footage of his old friend shooting a woman in the back and fleeing. She says nothing; he has nothing to say.
She stands in front of the judges and tells them carefully selected truths; they eventually pronounce Sunry innocent.
"Do you think justice has been done?" he asks her, later.
"It seemed... more grey than dark or light. Besides, I promised Elora. And you."
K – Kiss
He doesn't understand why she spends so much time talking with him. He wishes she wouldn't; he doesn't want to get too used to it or miss her when she inevitably succumbs to Carth's puppy eyes.
He finishes another tale, and –
"Damn you, Jolee," she says. "Do I have to do everything?"
"Huh?"
In one moment she's looking at him all amused and exasperated, and then her lips are on his. His arms close about her instinctively.
"Oh, good," she says, after a while. "I was thinking I'd have to tell you a cryptic story to get my point across."
L – Language
She has a knack for languages. He's heard her at it; on the Ebon Hawk, or strolling through a crowded cantina, she chats to everyone in their native language. Well, almost everyone. Sometimes a human tongue isn't capable of twisting into the right knots, but that doesn't always stop her. She has a perfectly good translator droid, but she uses it to shoot things and teach her the Tusken language.
So when she says it, he thinks she must be speaking some obscure Mandalorian dialect, or something that just happens to sound like the Galactic Basic for "I love you."
M – Meatbag
"Statement: I have observed you engaging in meatbag behaviour with the master."
"Heh. I don't have the parts for droid behaviour."
"Statement: Indeed not. Specification: you have been rubbing your faces together and making disgusting squishy noises. Observation: In many cases, this leads to other meatbag activities that my processors stutter over, up to and including the creation of small additional meatbags. Additional observation: Usually this includes the malfunction known as a broken heart."
"What?"
"Threat: Should you be the cause of malfunction in the master, I will take a great deal of pleasure in terminating your existence. Specification: slowly."
N – Nayama
It was an unusual courtship; she shot his ship down and arrested him. He broke out of prison and kidnapped her. He defied the Council to marry her and teach her. The years they had together were blissful – too perfect to last.
He still dreams of her. He looks down at his fallen wife – and some nights he lets her go (as he did) and some nights he raises his lightsaber to kill her (as he should have). One night he lets himself fall, just to be with her.
Another night she lifts off her face and reveals Revan's mask.
O –Others
The ship's too small to keep a secret for long, even if either of them were really trying, and the reactions of the others are both amusing and predictable.
Juhani blinks and accepts it.
Mission is enthusiastic, and probably planning a wedding.
Zaalbar and the droids don't really care.
Canderous sneers a bit, but his hero-worship of Revan survives the shock.
Carth is flabbergasted and a bit jealous.
Bastila takes it upon herself to lecture them both on the Jedi Code. Peri tells her to get knotted; Jolee tells her a story in which the same moral may be discerned.
P – Persuade
Nothing better than the old Jedi mind trick...
...for getting past an overly curious customs officer.
... for haggling over an over-priced droid.
...for avoiding docking fees.
... for providing an alibi.
... for preventing a pair of idiots killing each other.
... for getting into places he isn't supposed to be.
... for stopping a greaseball flirting with Peri.
... for making a guard lock himself in his cell.
When he finds her curled at the bottom of a cage, he remembers, again, that it's only useful for small things. You can change a mind, but not the past.
Q – Questions
She never stops asking questions. It's almost as endearing as it is irritating.
"What were you doing on Kashyyyk?"
"What was that?"
"Are you avoiding me?"
"So when the Wookiees called you 'the hairless one', was that because you're not a Wookiee, or because you're practically bald?"
"Have you gone completely senile?"
"What was she like, your wife?"
"Was there any purpose to that story?"
"What happened then?"
"Got any dye? Should I have checked before Mission stole Carth's jacket?"
"Where were we going?"
"Please, can I trim your scary eyebrows?"
After the Leviathan, she asks no questions at all.
R – Revelation
There's a heavy silence on the ship. They all know, now, who Peri was and what she may still become. There are some who are pleased to have Revan back among them, no matter her form, and others who don't care who Peri used to be.
There is Carth, who hates her.
There is Peri, who speaks to nobody.
And there is Jolee, who lets her mope for a couple of days and then corners her. "Get up, lass. We all have a past. Sure, yours is plenty colourful, but –"
"Jolee-"
"-but it doesn't change anything. I trust you."
S- Sith
She demands entrance to the Sith Academy with her head held high, announcing herself as Darth Revan. Nobody believes her, although Jolee and Carth exchange glances and start to wonder; there's a different note to her voice, something colder and determined.
"And who are these?" the Twi'lek in charge of admissions asks.
"They are my slaves."
"What?" Carth says.
Jolee elbows him. "My hearing's not so good. I'm just pleased my nice master doesn't beat me so much anymore, yes sir."
He hears the hitch of her breath that means she's suppressing laughter, and knows they haven't lost her yet.
T – Temple
The Rakata want her to go alone. Jolee knows she's capable, but dammit, a man's got a right to feel protective of the woman he loves! He grumbles and paces until Mission banishes him to the medbay.
-The Force hits him with all the subtlety of a rancor in heat. Peril in the temple, the possibility of catastrophe, he has to be there to stop it -
He's halfway up the grassy slope, lightsaber in hand, before he realises Juhani is racing beside him. "I felt it too," the Cathar says.
When they find Bastila atop the temple, he understands.
U – Underwater
After jumping through the usual hoops (nobody ever helps her immediately, and Jolee's just as guilty as the rest of them) Wann gives Peri access to their submersible. It's only large enough for three of them, which is another coincidence that keeps turning up on their travels.
"Did I mention," Peri asks, "I'm terrified of sharks?"
The station is full of windows seemingly designed to draw attention to the circling firaxa. There's only one envirosuit, which only fits Peri.
She gets back over an hour later. Out of the suit, she's white and shaking. She tells them, "Just don't ask."
V –Vow
They sit in the sand beside the Ebon Hawk as Carth and T3-M4 fix the ship. A blue sky arches overhead, with the Star Forge waiting beyond it.
"I... need you with me, Jolee. To help me be Peri instead of Revan."
"You know I won't leave you."
She nods, but her next words come slowly. "You regret sparing Nayama when she fell. If I –"
"You won't."
"You know nobody else will. Or can."
"Have a little faith," he says, and kisses her as though he could banish all her fears. It's a promise, too: he won't fail her.
W- When
Jolee,
I've remembered everything.
There's no choice. I have to go. I hope I can come back to you, but I don't know if it's possible, and I can't take you with me this time. Prepare the Republic and the Council if you can, if they'll listen.
A wise man once told me: "Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you and the one you love simply aren't meant to be together. The trick is to know when it's time to fight and when it's time to part ways."
I shall always treasure the time we had.
I love you.
X – Xeric
Tatooine's sands could swallow them and leave no trace, and the heat of the twin suns is staggering. It's hot and dry enough to steal the spit out of your mouth, but that doesn't stop Peri from grinning at her first sight of a bantha.
"That's actually... kind of cute. Do you think I could ride one?"
"I wouldn't try," Jolee says. "They're sacred to the Sand People. Besides, child, can't you smell them?"
"You come aboard the Ebon Hawk smelling like bantha," Carth adds, "I can guarantee there'll be mutiny."
She shakes her head. "You spoil all my fun."
Y – Yes
He has learnt much of love, and remembers most of it even at his advanced age. He knows what he feels for her, but she is young, and he's just a lonely old man who knows she's not for him.
He plays his part well – the rambling eccentric – but one day they speak of the Jedi Council and their rulings on avoiding love, and he forgets to keep up the act.
"Let me ask you this: have you ever been in love? Truly in love, I mean, and not simple infatuation."
"Well..." she says slowly, staring at the floor. "Yes."
Z – Zaalbar
Sharing living quarters with a Wookiee can be trying. Zaalbar sheds the way you'd expect a giant walking carpet to shed, smells about the same, and the snoring... Canderous is bad enough, but a Wookiee has much bigger lungs. Amidst the thundering and the snorts and the blarts, Zaalbar mixes the howls and shrieks and yodels of Shyriiwook, and the resulting cacophony would give anyone nightmares, presuming they could sleep through it in the first place.
Mealtimes can be a bit of a trial too, what with the Wookiee taboo against basic oral hygiene, but everyone has their little quirks.