Swift was still a Padawan, and so he and Master Cordova were assigned to a unit together, but his Master told him that that was very much a temporary thing and that he would soon be put to the Trials.

"You're at a tricky point, pup," he said. "I could say you were ready now, but… I don't think it's quite true yet. Not quite. But it's close."

Swift accepted that, grateful for the extra time to mentally prepare himself, and then they went on to meet the unit they would be partnered with.

There were about four hundred clones total in the currently-half-strength 211th Strike Battalion, broken down into squads and with commanders from the unit with slightly distinct uniforms, but simply meeting clones was… a little eerie.

They weren't exactly the same, and after a few minutes Swift's Force-sense and his scent began picking up the differences, but they were much more alike than many sentients he'd met before. And yet at the same time they were all clearly separate individuals, separate people, and it made Swift realize just how much of how he told people apart was genetic – and how little of what made them actually different.

It was sort of amusing how they'd all said the same word when he entered the room, though. He didn't know their native tongue, but he suspected he knew at least one swearword in it.

The mission they were being rushed off to – because everything was a rush at the moment – was to Dhandu, a world in the Expansion Regions which was important mostly as a way point along the back routes to the shipyard at Bilbringi.

A Separatist invasion had already been reported en route to the planet, and the mission of the 211th was to try and prevent the completion of the Separatist invasion force's mission if possible – and, otherwise, to retake the world.

Swift couldn't say he understood much about strategy, but the hours spent in Hyperspace en route to Dhandu made his hackles raise slightly. It was quite different to the anticipation of danger on Tython, where there were safe places and places that were not safe but the transition between the two was… murky. Instead, they would be entirely safe until they arrived, and then entirely not safe.

After an hour pacing and trying to meditate, and another hour where the big wolf tried to talk to a Clone company commander and understand what he was supposed to do once they reached Dhandu, Swift retired to his quarters and tried to settle his thoughts another way. He sat down, got out his parts box, and set to work on his lightwhip.

Before, it had been a sort of idle curiosity, born of an interest to see how the unusual weapon worked and whether it would fit his body shape… and driven a little by how one of his Ilum crystals actually seemed to like the idea. But now there was something else entirely that was driving him, the urgency of knowing he would be going into battle and wanting a second weapon, and in an odd way that was just what he turned out to need.

It took hours upon hours of work in a focused concentration that turned into a singing, Force-laced trance, but by the end of it Swift had a Lightwhip that glowed a cool green when activated and his fatigue had melted away into the Force.

Thirty minutes after he finished, their ship exited hyperspace over Dhandu.

A dozen starfighters cleared their way to the ground, towards where the local Dhanduese defence forces were defending their capital, and Swift closed his eyes to focus.

"Commander," one of the clones said – CC-8642, the company commander for Swift's transport. "Our briefing says that the gravity on Dhandu is low. You might want to watch out for that."

"I see," Swift said, then adjusted his weight as the Force whispered warning. Their transport jounced to the side a little, sending Swift staggering, but his bulk didn't slam into the clone troopers to his left and that was good enough. "What are we facing?"

"Reports say maybe ten thousand battle droids," CC-8642 said. "All the older type – B1 models."

Swift nodded, checking on his lightsaber and lightwhip.

"Groundside in twenty seconds!" the pilot called. "Dropzone's hot! Get ready, doors opening in… ten!"

The count went down, and at 'three' Swift tensed. Then it hit zero, and the doors slammed open and the first platoon of clones jumped out.

Blaster fire flashed towards them, and Swift sprang into a leap that carried him right over the landed clones. His saber flared to life in his muzzle, the handle bearing unlocked so he could spin it around, and a whirl of blue light deflected the shots heading his way or past him.

"Sir!" a Clone sergeant protested, but blaster bolts were already flashing in both directions. Swift kept moving, his lightwhip igniting in his telekinetic grip, and he had a moment of confusion as he tried to manage how to use both weapons at once – a blaster bolt scored his flank, and he winced – but then he was close enough, and the lightwhip swiped down more than a dozen droids at once.

The others turned their attention solely to firing on Swift, and he did his best to balance moving and dodging and attacking. It was a completely different rhythm from battling monsters on Tython, but there was a rhythm to it, and everything suddenly fell into place with a tangible click – then supporting fire flashed out from the Clones, firing disciplined volleys, and within a minute their landing zone was clear.

"Commander, we're supposed to protect you," CC-8642 warned. "We can't do that if you're too far in front."

Swift balked slightly, then exhaled and nodded.

"I'm too used to working alone, or nearly alone," he decided. "Thank you, commander."

"Sir, then," CC-8642 said. "It'd get too confusing if we were both Commanders. Sir."

He held up a hand to his helmet. "CC-8128 reports that General Cordova is on the ground on the other side of the main Separatist push. We're going to link up and cut their spearhead off from their landing site, then form a perimeter."

"You are the expert, Commander," Swift conceded.

The word he had to think here was pack. This was more like pack hunting than solo work, and pack hunting meant cooperation.

"Where do you want me?" he added. "I can protect a group about twice as wide as my lightsaber is long, maybe a bit more."

"Sir, with how much damage you did to those battle droids, having you as part of a shock element is exactly what I want," CC-8642 answered. "But that's part of the shock element, not wading in by yourself."

Over the next half an hour, there were three small battles against battle droid companies before Swift began to run into the flanks of the main Separatist push. He was getting the flow of cooperating with the clones by then, but the fighting got quickly more intense – hundreds of droids at once, with clones advancing by squads to set up bases of fire and then holding their position against the inevitable droid reaction.

Swift was rushed off his paws, or rushing himself off his paws, dancing from one point of contact to another. It helped to use his lightwhip to attack in the same direction as he was pushing out with the Force, swiping through droids at the torso or leg level to knock them out of commission, and along with that the clone troopers seemed to be getting used to the sight of a giant wolf leaping overhead and taking that as the signal to check fire for a moment.

Then, as the fighting intensified and Swift picked up the sounds of blasterfire ahead of them – Master Cordova's company, not far away – came the tank.

It was the same sort Swift had seen being used in historical holos of the Naboo crisis (which had been required learning, as the first sight of a Sith in centuries at least) and the first shot it fired from the main cannon knocked two clone troopers flying into the air.

One of them winked out in the Force, and Swift shuddered for a moment.

Death, yet the Force.

It was a passage he'd translated on Tython, which he and his Master had puzzled over for a while trying out alternate readings before concluding that it was not the standard version of the Jedi Code, but it brought him a little peace as he tried to – not forget what had happened, but accept it as natural.

"We need to stop that tank droid," CC-8642 said. "Sir, you're the most mobile. We need to get a shot at its back."

Swift was surging into motion as soon as the clone had stopped speaking, and loped from one building to another in great springing leaps. That drew attention, and blaster fire flashed up at him, while with one pawstep the Force suddenly blared alarm and Swift had to jump again to avoid being hit by a spread of energized shells at ground level.

His lightwhip swiped out to the side, scattering a squad of droids, and his saber blocked a shot from the side mounted repeating blaster cannon. He was too close for the main gun to track, but it tried, and when he swiped out with his saber he got about an inch deep before being driven away by the supporting droids.

External distractions fell away as Swift contended with the droid assault tank, darting in to threaten it before dodging back and ducking under a main gun shot or leaping over the energized shell cannons.

"Eliminate the Jedi!" one of the battle droids vocalized, then a bunker buster energy shell exploded under his paw. It flung him into the air, and he twisted to land on all fours before wincing at the strain.

His saber was too busy deflecting, still dancing around in his muzzle, and his lightwhip didn't have the penetration. But he had another weapon, and Swift coiled up before pouncing and slamming bodily into the assault tank.

The Force-enhanced impact knocked it reeling over onto its side, overcoming the stabilization of the repulsor coils. Then CC-8642 shouted a warning, and Swift darted away again just before a rocket hit the power convertor and blew the assault tank to pieces.

"I need a bigger weapon," Swift muttered to himself, then shook his head.

It could be folly to draw too heavily on one event for inspiration.

The rest of the fighting went a little easier, as the Separatist drive for the Dhanduese command post was stymied and the local forces were able to concentrate more generally on fighting instead of specifically defending their command post. The Dhanduese then launched a counter-attack, with the clones and the Jedi forming a spearhead, and by the end of a long, tiring day the Separatist landers had evacuated and the forces they'd left behind were destroyed.

Swift had acquired more than a dozen minor injuries, mostly blaster fire despite using his fur as a focus for an energy resistance technique, and the paw that had been close to a bunker buster shell had developed a definite limp. That was enough that, when they went back to the Temple, he spent a few hours in the infirmary before being discharged to spend a day convalescing.

It was while doing that – inhaling and exhaling in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, letting a thousand years of peace wind around him and trying to forget the war – that Swift encountered Padawan Skywalker again.

The human seemed more assured of himself now than when they had last met, but also afflicted with a recent pain – missing a hand, which Swift recalled had been severed on Geonosis by Count Dooku, and with a Bacta dressing over the stump.

"I heard about what happened," Swift said. "Are you all right?"

"No," the Padawan said, then interrupted himself. "I – no, I'm fine."

Swift thought his first answer had probably been more accurate, but decided not to make an issue of it directly.

"What is going to happen now?" Skywalker said, speaking half to himself. "Chancellor Palpatine says that – that, ah, the Separatists are resorting to violence because they want to keep their wealth, not because they have legitimate problems, but on Tatooine there was slavery and the Republic didn't do anything about it… so, I don't know what to think."

"The Republic can be the better choice, without being perfect," Swift said, sitting down next to Skywalker, and the human Padawan's remaining hand reached out to twine absently into his fur. "And the Separatists can say things which are correct, without being the better choice. We should listen to what they say, and then decide whether to believe it."

Skywalker chuckled. "It sounds easy when you say it," he muttered. "I just…"

With that, he shook his head. "There's part of me that wants to just throw it all over, to say that if the Jedi don't believe in attachment then we shouldn't be attached to the Republic."

"I don't think that's how that's supposed to work," Swift replied. "Avoiding attachments is meant to be to avoid the Dark Side, but there are whole species out there who are Force-sensitive. Vulnerable to the Dark Side. I'm from one of them and we hunt in packs, which are big extended families, then there are the Miraluka… and they have families as well."

Skywalker's hand stilled.

"How do you think it works, then?" he asked, after a long moment.

"Any being can form attachments," Swift said. "Master and Padawan. Brother and sister. Friendships… but where it goes wrong is if the attachment becomes too important to you. So important that it makes you make the wrong decision."

He flicked his tail. "Attachments are a vulnerability. You need to be careful around them."

Skywalker was silent, and Swift wondered what he was thinking. The other Padawan was stronger in the Force than he was, and definitely more emotional, but they'd only really met a few times and he didn't know Skywalker's moods.

Except that, by rumour, Skywalker would not have been happy digging up Tython for years on end.

"So…" Skywalker said, eventually. "It's okay to want the Republic to win, but being so attached to the Republic that you bombard a planet… that's wrong."

His voice dropped to a whisper. "And getting revenge for the death of a parent…"

"That's what I think," Swift agreed. "But… there is no rule. There are only guidelines. If you think a rule will keep you safe, instead of helping, that is an easy way to make a mistake, I think. You just have to be careful, and know when to let something go."

The Force seemed to agree with that, the air brightening like a thundercloud had just been defused, but then an initiate turned up asking for Swift to report to one of the rooms downstairs.

Legs steady, Swift looked up at the room overhead.

His objective was visible right at the top, but there was no easy way up there. What there was was a maze of moving platforms, all controlled by repulsor coils and some of them erratically moving directly underneath other platforms – to scrape off any Lothwolf that might be standing on top – and others flipping end-over-end at irregular intervals.

Swift concentrated, drawing the Force around himself like a cloak, and jumped.

His first landing put him onto a platform that had just spun back upright, only for it to continue wheeling around, and he tensed-and-sprang to a new platform. That one dropped like a stone as soon as he touched it, the repulsors cutting out, and he reached out to support the platform himself instead – then jumped again, this time to another new platform.

Training remotes started firing stun bolts towards him, and Swift uncoiled his lightwhip. It spun around him under telekinetic control in time with the flicking of his tail, driving away the stun bolts which were coming closest to hitting him, and all the time he was looking out for the next good pawhold or platform that was in the right place… or that could be coaxed to be in the right place, he amended, as he yanked one closer so he could use it as a springboard.

Everything became a trance-like blur of jumps and dodges and a whirl of green light, and when it ended Swift had landed atop the ledge right at the apex of the room.

"Good," Master Yoda said. "Completed all the rooms, you have. Your trial of skill, complete it is."

"Thank you, Master," Swift replied, with a low bow. "I must admit, I'm glad it's over…"

Master Yoda chuckled. "Over, this trial is," he corrected. "Over, the trials are not."

"There are five trials," Master Windu added, speaking up for the first time. "You have completed three, and so we can tell you what they are. The Trial of Skill is to show your proficiency in the Force, as you have just done. The Trial of Insight is to show your depth of understanding, and you passed that trial on Tython."

"Passed more than once, you did," Master Yoda added. "Brought the council many questions, you have."

Swift nodded his understanding.

"Your Trial of Courage was passed on Dhandu," Master Windu said, beginning to walk, and Swift followed him out of the room with the platform challenge and down a corridor. "Your duel with the tank droid was enough for that, though we would have accounted for what happened on Tython if that was not there to use."

"Two trials left, there are," Master Yoda agreed, as they approached a door.

The air was full of smoke, and Swift coughed before reaching to his left.

His lightwhip fell from the harness, and he caught it in his muzzle as an anchor point while igniting it at the same time.

What's going on? He asked, casting the thought out with the Force, and sniffed. His ears pricked up, and he strained his eyes – trying to get every possible source of information going at once, the better to tell where he was and what was going on.

His lightwhip's green glow lit the air as it coiled and re-coiled, then the air surged to the side and took the smoke with it.

Swift stared.

It was the Valley of the Midwinter Sun, a dead-straight valley between two escarpments on either side and pointing straight at where the sun rose on the shortest day of the year, and Swift knew every route and slope like the back of his paw. It was where he'd grown up, spent long summer days playing around, and two large Lothwolf packs called it home.

It was also scorched and burned, with anonymous furry lumps scattered around in heartbreaking stillness.

You made it worse, Whitepaw's mental voice whispered, and the terrible thing was that Swift knew she was right.

Then he saw the one who had done all this.

A massive Lothwolf, even bigger than he was – and Swift hadn't really recognized that he had grown so much bigger than normal Lothwolves until this moment of comparison – with a blazing red lightclub in its muzzle, and fur streaked with soot, and glittering yellow-red-golden eyes.

I missed one, the Lothwolf said, turning to face him, and Swift took his loss and grief and guilt and bundled them up.

He looked at them, and understood them, and accepted that they were his feelings and why he had them. Then, he let them expand and drift away.

Emotion, yet peace.

Ignorance, yet knowledge

Passion, yet serenity.

Chaos, yet harmony.

Death, yet the Force.

I need to kill you, because you need to be stopped, Swift decided. Not for revenge, but because it must be done.

Swift floated his lightwhip out of his muzzle, replaced it with his saber, and broke into a loping run.

The dark wolf matched him, and they met with a crash of blade-on-blade halfway across the valley.

Only three blows into the exchange, Swift was already on the back paw.

The other Lothwolf – the Sith – was stronger than him, not by much but slightly, and he had the same kind of hard, tense muscle that Swift had. It made him fast, not faster than Swift because of his greater mass but no slower either, and they were either evenly matched in skill or so close as to make little to no difference.

Put together, it meant that Swift had to focus on defending rather than attacking. The strength of the saber blows that the Sith was hammering into his 'saber was enough that it sent a jarring shiver up through his body, and while they were pacing and circling as much as they were duelling Swift had to time his engagements and disengagements carefully just to avoid a single misstep leading to defeat.

Weaker, the Sith taunted, and Swift frowned slightly before refocusing.

There was something he was missing…

In the next moment, he saw it. The Sith had a saber, but no lightwhip, and that gave him options.

When the next strike came in, the Force whispering a warning just as the strike happened, Swift flicked his tail and his lightwhip with it. The little bit of extra focus gained from linking the two movements let him get the drop on the Sith, and the strands of his green lightwhip wrapped around the red lightsaber to rob the strike of most of its momentum.

Swift whipped his muzzle to the side, knocking the blade away, then followed up with a quick return swipe that left a red slash across the eye of his opponent.

Two red-and-gold eyes glared at him, showing that the blow had missed the eye itself, then a blast of the Force knocked Swift backwards and away from his opponent.

The Sith howled, and as Swift landed a blast of lightning stabbed out from the Lothwolf's teeth to crash into Swift's flank.

Pain flashed, but Swift grit his teeth, and when the second blast came he intercepted it with the coils of his green lightwhip. It flared more yellow than green as it absorbed the power, dissipating it in flashes of sidescatter, and when it was gone Swift twitched his tail to send the lightwhip coiling.

You cannot overcome the Dark Side, the Sith said, glaring at Swift. Your devotion to the Light blinds you to so many things… including the best way, the only way, to save those you care for.

Swift did just as he'd told Padawan Skywalker, and heard the words. Thought about them, examined them, and made his own decision on whether they were true.

I choose to believe there are other paths, he said.

The Sith snarled, then flung lightning at him again. Swift blocked with his lightwhip, but that put it out of position when the Sith pounced in a blur of speed.

There was a flash of pain before Swift pushed his opponent away in a great shove of telekinetic strength, and the Padawan staggered – his right forepaw was gone, carried away just above where the toes came together.

The Sith could have followed up his attack, but none came, and Swift breathed deeply and evenly as he let the pain fade away.

He wouldn't move as well as his opponent, now.

But he still had more options.

Swift turned the containment on his lightwhip up to maximum strength, reducing the cutting strength down so much that it was weaker than even a training weapon, then coiled it around his neck. The hilt went into his webbing, just below his throat, and the strands made two complete coils of woven green light before reaching the tips.

A collar, now? The Sith asked. What a fitting metaphor, for a slave of the light.

Great things may come from any beginning, even one so humble, Swift replied, and the Sith snarled before circling towards Swift's weakened side.

The injured leg wouldn't bear his whole weight, but Swift didn't need it to. That was what the Sith had missed, which was that the coiled lightwhip under Swift's control could be everywhere – and it uncoiled and snapped out at the Sith as he approached, wrapping around the tip of the red 'saber and pulling it to the side.

Swift's opponent stumbled, and Swift swiped out, and this time he did take one of his opponent's eyes.

The next few minutes… or hours… were a blur of action and reaction, both wolves sunk deep into their respective sides of the Force, and they accumulated injuries as a strike went through or a trick worked or a previous injury distracted at the wrong time.

Swift was holding his own, now, as his unusual combination of tools gelled rapidly together, and he even managed a new trick by floating his lightsaber over his back entirely by telekinetic control – it wasn't quite long enough to be the battle-ending move he had hoped for, but it left the Sith with a deep wound and that was enough in a battle like this.

Their fight was almost timeless, two persistence predators clashing back and forth for hours on end, until finally the Sith stepped back into the deep night around them.

We could be great, together, he said. Strong, together. The Dark Side brings strength you cannot reject.

It is tempting, Swift agreed. Because that is what the Dark Side is. It offers exactly what you want, and what you need, and there is a part of me that wants it every moment of every day.

He stood on three paws, then put the stump down on air, and told the Force that he had four paws. But the fact that that is a part of me does not mean that I have to comply. I am my own person, whole and complete, and I can decide for myself.

Then you are a fool, the Sith replied. Look at what your rectitude has done! It has brought pain and death to our world, when you could have so easily taken the power to make things right.

The Dark Side has brought ruin to this world, Swift agreed, casting his vision over the valley lit only by starlight and three glowing weapons. But that is not a reason to accept the Dark Side, but to reject it.

With a snarl, the Sith hurled lightning at him again. Swift deflected it away with a flash of his blue lightsaber, then charged without conscious intent.

The Sith was charging as well, and their blades swiped out-

It was morning, and the sun shone directly down the valley, and there was a dead Lothwolf in front of him.

It was him. And it was not him, and it was sorely wounded – a missing paw, a missing eye, scorch marks from lightwhip and sabers and lightning, while Swift himself was whole.

Swift bent his head, as understanding flowed through him.

"That is who I could be," he said. "But it is not me. Not now, and not on the path I seek to walk."

"Correct," Master Windu said, and the Valley dissolved around him.

"The Trial of the Spirit is to face the mirror," Master Windu told him. "To confront the darkness in yourself."

"A little on the nose, your mind was," Master Yoda added. "Though, hmm, to dawn deepest night leads, yes?"

"And I couldn't know what it was," Swift guessed. "Or it would spoil the trial."

They were in a mirror-lined chamber in the depths of the Temple, and Master Windu nodded in confirmation.

"The final trial is the Trial of the Flesh," he said. "To face deep personal loss, or a difficult choice, and to continue. It is our judgement that your vision has satisfied the Trial of the Flesh, because your wounds felt real enough in battle."

Swift swallowed. "I understand, Masters."

"Overwhelmed, you feel?" Yoda asked. "Fade it will, some day. Assured of this, I have been."

He laughed.

The actual graduation from Padawan to Knight was a small ceremony, which took place after a night of quiet reflection and meditation.

Swift spent most of the night thinking about his fears, and worries – trying to let all the emotion go into the Force and think about the rest – and by morning he felt that he had at least some idea of where he wanted to go.

Just as he'd told Padawan Skywalker, he was under no illusion that the Galactic Republic was perfect. But they were what was there, and they were trying, and the Confederacy seemed mostly to be involved in trying to wreck the Galaxy rather than actually fixing anything… and, of course, he had noticed that more than a few of the actual crises of the last decade and more had been provoked by companies or organizations that were now part of the Confederacy.

Swift would fight, and try to help bring the war to a conclusion as soon as possible… and he would try to make sure that the Jedi Order he had come to love was able to keep its soul, as well.

"Padawan Swift, step forwards," Master Windu invited, stepping back to form a circle with the rest of the Grand Council.

Swift did so, paws treading on the floor of the Hall of Knighthood, and Master Yoda eyed him.

"Bend down, I hope you can," he said. "Or a stool, we will need."

In response, Swift lowered his head, and Master Yoda lit his lightsaber.

"Swift, by the right of the Council, by the will of the Force, dub thee I do, Jedi Knight of the Republic."

The Grand Master's blade severed his Padawan braid at the base, without harming another hair on his hide, and Swift was a Padawan no longer.

"Congratulations, pup," Master Cordova said. "You've taken your next step into a larger world."

"Indeed he has," Master Mundi said. "I wish we could spend longer talking, Knight Swift, but enough of the Council are here that we must rush through the Knightings."

Master Cordova followed Swift as he left. "Pup, there's something you should think about yourself… how long you will leave it before training a Padawan of your own."

He patted Swift on the flank. "You don't have to decide straight away. But it's something you should think about some time, and probably best to do your thinking- sooner rather than later… to decide against a Padawan during wartime would be a reasonable choice, but you know as well as I do how often wartime Padawans were taken in the old Order."

"Our research has often been a comfort," Swift agreed, thinking about a Holocron full of a thousand years of child's songs.

The Force was for more than war and battle, and he would remember that.

AN:

The Trial of the Flesh is a tricky one to write, because of the abundance of Jedi Knights whose masters and limbs are still all present.