A/N: Hey-o. Wrote this a couple years back for the Jedi Council Forums and I'm on a new mission to transfer some stuff over here after formatting issues over there ate most of it. Sooooo….

This is set about 21 ABY. My Cem is older than Jag because it made more logistical sense to me that way, so he's turning 17 the year this is set, Jag is 14. Otherwise, I tried to reconcile some canon ("Legends"?) discrepancies between Vision of the Future and Survivor's Quest and Red Sky, Blue Flame.

Also compatible with my AU where Cem features a starring role in Value of Sacrifice.

Rated T for some later drama and angst.

Enjoy!

Measure of Merit – Diary of a Shadow Child

Entry 1

My name is Cem Fel. I am sixteen years old, the third of six children. I have two older brothers, one younger brother, and two younger sisters. They are a well-behaved bunch who do their duty by our father and by our sworn fealty to Syndic Mitth'raw'nuruodo's Household Phalanx. They are a well-behaved bunch and I?

I am a problem child.

Only… I am not a child. In the eyes of the chiss amongst whom we live, only my youngest sister, at the tender age of six standard years, would yet be considered juvenile. In the eyes of the chiss, I am not a child, but what do you call someone who has no particular future prospects, lives at home, and relies on his parents for the basic comforts of life?

I have few delusions regarding the tension I have created in my family- between my parents, among my siblings- but I've never considered my qualms to be unreasonable. My younger brother wants a commission to the training academy; my youngest sister wants dolls, and ribbons for her hair.

I want simple acknowledgement.

My father is a stern man and violent by professional necessity but not, I think, by nature. I've never seen him raise a hand against any of my brothers or sisters, and I firmly believe he would die before he raised so much as his voice to my mother. Were he to discover this datacard though, I would not be surprised should he subject me to the first beating of my life. Not for the content, at-times critical though it may be… but rather, for the lie it would reveal, should it fall into the hands of any outside my family.

Because, you see- there is no Cem Fel. And yet…

My name is Cem Fel.

I am a shadow child.

I do not exist.