In the Jedi Temple, towering over the bustling city planet of Coruscant, were three Jedi padawans. Of course, at any one time, there were hundreds of Padawans being trained, and to the inattentive observer these three were no more remarkable than any other juvenile Jedi, to everyone else though, their strength in the Force, and promising destinies were clear.
First, there was Maxine Celeste (Max, to anyone who didn't want a deathly, disapproving glare). She was a human, born on Alderaan to a wealthy senator and her husband. While it hadn't been easy, the promise of a prosperous future among the Jedi had eventually convinced her parents to part with her, as a toddler.
Max was a quiet child. While she was prone to distress and heightened emotional states when under pressure, she did a good job of keeping her emotions under control, as Jedi should. In many ways, she was the ideal Padawan, one of the few ways she wasn't, was her penchant for creativity. Jedi weren't supposed to have hobbies, or much in the way of personalities at all, wherever their masters could control it, nevertheless, Max could do nothing about the fact that, in her heart, she was a photographer.
Photography was something of a dying art, especially on Coruscant. With the gaps between classes widening every year, everyone was either too poor or busy to appreciate art, or too rich to appreciate anything that wasn't carved or painted by someone who was already a galaxy-renowned artist, and it was hardly as though Max, as a Jedi, could seek critical acclaim, even if there was a market for artistic photography.
Nevertheless, whenever Max caught sight of something that stirred feelings within her, be they of appreciation, awe, or sometimes even fear, she couldn't help but whip out her data pad and record it for her expansive collection, kept safe from her disapproving masters by layers of encryption, and cunningly hidden backups (courtesy of her more technologically inclined fellow padawans).
The crown jewel of her collection, she had captured while sneaking across the roofs, surrounding one of the temple courtyards, to glimpse a sparring match between Master Windu and Master Yoda. She had captured a moment in which Yoda had leapt over his opponent's head, and struck downwards, with a glorious collision of their lightsabers and a gleam of green and purple which, thanks to Max's talent, only framed the dramatic scene, rather than obscuring the subjects. Even though she had done her best to mask her presence, Max fully expected to get caught (it was worth the risk, in her mind). To her surprise though, neither Jedi master called out to her, and, although she was far away, she could have sworn she saw Master Yoda look up and wink.
Next, there was Chloe Preeva, a Dathomirian. Her mother had been one of the Night Sisters, who had left Dathomir with her when she was a baby, in search of a less stifling life, where she might be more free to express herself. Unfortunately, the life she found didn't quite meet her expectations. After travelling to Coruscant, she soon became stuck in its swamp-like economy, her pockets emptying before she knew it, and barely being able to feed herself and her child, much less travel to a nicer planet. Her luck improved somewhat, when she fell in love with a handsome Twi'lek, and worsened, when they were both murdered by a mugger a year later.
When the Jedi had found Chloe, she had been in the care of her teenage stepbrother. Jedi were discouraged from finding out too much about their personal histories, from before they joined the order, but Chloe had been told that a small sum of credits, had been all it took to separate her and her brother. As Chloe would come to understand, though, the Jedi were not above lying, to get their way...
Of course, Chloe had never had the facial tattoos around her eyes and lips, which were common for Night Sisters, she was, however, able to persuade her masters to allow her to dye her hair. While naturally silver, she perpetually kept it a light, sky blue.
Chloe was an artist, too. Unlike Max, however, she liked to leave an impression. For a long time, in her youth, she would gather anything that could leave a mark, be it paint, ink, or even sharp objects, and then express her feelings and emotions, over every inch of the walls of her small chambers. Of course, her murals would be quickly erased, and she would be chastised and/or punished, but like Max, Chloe's creativity would not be suppressed. She attempted to sneak to the deeper, less used areas of the temple, to use the walls there as her canvasses, only to be caught by the temple archivist, Madame Yocasta, who spent over an hour berating her, and insulting both her attitude, and her artistic ability. That night, burning with resentment and anger, Chloe had hijacked one of the temple's security drones, and used it to scorch a hundred-foot illustration of a demonic Sarlacc onto the wall of the temple foyer. Chloe had spent a month in the temple cells for her crime, and her place at the temple was left hanging by a thread.
Since then, Chloe had rethought her strategy, and instead snuck out of the temple at night, to take her art to the streets of Coruscant. While she still got caught from time to time, her new crime was far more palatable to her superiors, since they no longer had to clean up after her.
Finally, there was Rachel Aether, a Diathim. Often mistaken for angels (and more commonly still, referred to as such), Diathim bore the curious trait of adopting an entirely different appearance, for each person who laid eyes upon them. Specifically, Diathim appeared as an angelic adaptation of each observer's species, the common denominators often being clear, pale skin, a glowing aura and six translucent, veil-like wings. While Madame Yocasta would inform anyone curious enough that there had, in fact, been Diathim Jedi in the past, there hadn't been, as long as anyone alive could remember, first hand.
Rachel was truly a free spirit, she respected the rules of the Jedi, and gave 100% towards each new lesson, excelling at almost all Jedi disciplines, but at the same time, encouraged her friends to express themselves through their rule-breaking, without putting pressure on them. She relished in posing for Max's pictures, and was Chloe's biggest fan, squealing and clapping her hands in excitement, whenever she heard she was starting a new project.
The three girls adored each other. It was incredible that three who got along so well, would be brought together from such distant parts of the galaxy and such different walks of life. Unfortunately, what had brought them together was the Jedi, which meant affection was frowned upon, romance was strictly forbidden, and danger was ever present on the horizon.