Hey everyone! Chapter 3 here and the first from the eyes of this story's perspective character, Caelum. This one was tough to write both because I was getting back into first person writing after two chapters of third, which I ended up finding quite nice in all honesty. But anyways, and because this is how the majority of the story is going to be told, so I really tried my best to give a strong showing as to what this character has to offer right now and what he could end up becoming.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the chapter. Enjoy!

(There have been edits made to this chapter after it was first put up, but for first time readers it's nothing important. Those who are seeing this after reading this the first time, don't worry. I was an idiot when planning the story and upon rereading, realised I cocked up something small in the chapter, so I figured I'd go ahead and fix that.)

There are days when destiny comes knocking on your door, and there are days when you need to go out and seize it with your own two hands. But on this day, I could do nothing but watch.

The weather had been great when I finished up in my workshop for the morning, so I decided to go do my exercises outside. I stuck to Thalia's watered down training plan she'd given me because, as she said in that weird drawl of hers: "You're too young for the tough exercises." It wasn't hard, though, at least not anymore. The first two months had been tough going, of course, but by this point I'd done the exercises for nearly a whole year.

So, up on the roof of the abandoned lab I'd made my home, under the sun and in the cool breeze - I ran through Thalia's little regimen like I did every day. And when that was finished, despite my adoptive-sister's orders, I did it again, like I'd been doing since one loop a day stopped being enough. And again, and again.

I was nine years old, and people that age didn't need to train as hard as I did, but I had to prepare.

I'd seen it, in visions and dreams, and I knew that my fate lay somewhere off Revenant Five. They didn't always make sense - sometimes they were too short, other times I couldn't focus enough to really see what was happening, but no matter where or even when these visions took me, they always showed the same thing.

They showed a robed woman with hair as white as snow, carrying a blade of blazing ivory light. And she was training me. Meditation, exercise, sparring with fists and swords - she was teaching me how to be something, though I couldn't say what. Sometimes I was older, maybe fifteen or sixteen, and other times I looked to have barely aged a day. For the version of me in the visions, the only thing that remained the same were the clothes upon my back, brown and white robes of a kind to the white-haired woman, and the sword of pure sunlight I carried in my hands - the one I'd fixed and modified nearly a year ago, just a few nights after I moved up the mountain.

The fact that Thalia and Enra, Remnant's appointed Quartermaster, had gifted me the broken weapon just a day after my visions first started seemed more than a coincidence to me, but I had no idea what to make of that so I ended up letting that one go.

I needed to be good enough at whatever it was I could do; these powers I'd been born with that no one around me could explain, so that I could reach the place I'd seen in my dreams. A temple of rock and steel, reaching to the sky and down into the dirt like a spire. Me and this pale-haired teacher; I watched as we entered this sanctum, full of purpose and devotion, and I knew I needed to be as strong and as skilled as possible - so that when I reached this place I wouldn't fail at whatever it was I needed to do.

Thalia had always said Destiny was a fool's belief, but I wasn't so sure.

Nothing had come of those premonitions, though. Eleven months of training like Thalia had shown me, along with practicing the same things as the white-haired woman had taught the future-me - or will someday teach me. Nothing came, until the day I watched a star fall from the sky.

Even as I sat in my workshop hours later, tinkering with the broken-shield generator Enra had given to me a couple days back, (a gift, and something useful for the city's defenses, should I want to put it to good use once I'd repaired it), I kept seeing the damaged crimson hull of this starship in my mind.

Falling, burning - the screams of the two passengers in the back seat and the desperation of the crew; it was seared into my mind. Closer to a brand or marking than a memory, borne of the sixth sense I'd had for as long as I could remember. Images of stained glass steel against a painting of a fractured sky filled my brain, along with information I shouldn't have known.

Kilnen, Cear, Naeth and Vosh. Those were the members of the crew aboard the Republic issued light frigate Defender, whatever that meant. Them, and one person who's name I wasn't able to learn; someone whose presence in my mind shone like a beacon in space. The pressure pervaded my mind even as I had tried to catch the Defender in the sky using whatever measly power I could conjure, but I couldn't focus because this light was something I'd never sensed before, at least one as bright as that.

The only lights on this world were the small, flickering candles of the citizens of Remnant - lost among endless shadows. But whoever this was, they were a burning torch that banished the dark.

But the light blinded me, blinded whatever sense I used to control this power, and before I could try and do anything, the ship crashed in a blaze of blue and red light. I felt some kind of barrier forming before the thing went down, so I held out hope that maybe one or two of them had survived, but I wasn't too sure.

They crashed far beyond what I was able to sense with my abilities, somewhere deep in the woods away from Remnant, and I knew I wouldn't be able to go out and help them without Thalia giving the go ahead. It wasn't just that she was one of my guardians, either - she was the Captain of the Guard, one of the highest positions in the city alongside Enra as the Quartermaster and other chief individuals. The gates wouldn't open for me unless she gave the order.

Besides, my instincts were telling me to wait, to be patient. As much as it annoyed Thalia, I trusted my instincts before almost anything else, and so far they'd never steered me wrong. And my instincts told me that running off to try and find these people would help no one.

So, in the end, I returned home and continued to tinker with my shield, only stopping when I sensed Her wake from a three year long slumber.

The Dragon, as a lot of the people around Remnant called Her, came little over three years ago in the middle of the night. She woke nearly the entire city when She crawled towards our walls. Except for me, that is. While Thalia and the rest of the city's forces scrambled to ready the defences, I dreamt of a field covered in shadow and storm. In this dream, I inhabited a body of clouds and sunlight, and the encroaching darkness, as dangerous as She was, did not wish to harm me. From it, I could feel pain and sorrow and loneliness, and it was so very tired.

In the face of that, I did the only thing that made sense - I asked Her to rest.

The next morning, the city was abuzz with news of a huge lizard-like creature that had burrowed into the ground some Klicks away from the city. Countermeasures were being made that very day, seismic charges and seismographs were being gathered and used to monitor for any changes, but after I'd had a long and arduous conversation with Thalia explaining how, why and what I'd learned from my conversation with Her, we'd come to the conclusion that we wouldn't disturb Her as long as she didn't disturb us.

And then, barely an hour after the Defender had crashed, something had woken Her up, and I was pretty sure it was the same presence I'd felt from the ship. The one presence I'd never been able to identify with my powers, which honestly confused me more than anything else.

When the ground shook beneath my feet and I felt that old, familiar darkness in the forefront of my mind, I had to fight the urge to rush outside to see what was happening. I hadn't gotten much information about Her from my dream, but one thing that stood out to me was the sense of self-loathing She had for her body, something I knew She'd been forced into.

So I made myself sit down and kept my eyes off what was happening outside, because, if nothing else, I wanted Her to have the privacy she desired.

After that, until the darkness disappeared and She returned to her slumber, I meditated. And when that came to pass I was left with the feeling, as all-encompassing as it was inescapable, that my life was about to change.

Which is how I ended up lying on the floor of my workshop, weaning nothing but a pair of grease stained trousers and a pair of weathered old boots. I'd balled up my shirt and was using it like a pillow, cushioning my head as I stared up at the ceiling like for all the world I could see the stars, and that they would offer me the answers and peace I sought.

But I couldn't see the stars, at least not without going outside, and I doubted they'd helped me either way.

I looked around me, taking in the worn steel walls from an age gone by and the small, personal touches I'd added over the last year; posters and paintings I'd bought or traded with merchants for, along with the few pieces of artwork I'd managed to get Thalia to paint me when she wasn't busy. She was talented, that much was obvious, but she would never admit it.

That cupboard full of weapons or "the good stuff", or whatever she called it? It was her stash of paints, sprays, brushes and canvases - tools of a trade she'd never admit to having. It didn't fit with the cool warrior aesthetic she tried to paint herself only people she'd let look at her work were Enra, his wife Uyos and I. Nobody else was even allowed to know they existed.

I sat up, eyes falling on the first painting she'd given me, a gift from when I'd first moved here. It was a portrait of the Lord's Hand viewed from the city grounds, the clouds in the blue sky swirling around its peak with the sun rising from the east, and centered in the middle was the laboratory I was living in now - distant in the art but the clear focus of the painting. According to Thalia it had been painted from within a tent she'd set up outside her home, the home I'd just moved out of because, even though she wanted to get the painting as accurate as possible, she wasn't willing to be seen painting in public.

She told me to think of it as her way of being there with me, even when I was living away from her. Enra had laughed, joking that in a way, the painting was her way of saying she was always watching. Thalia gave him a good smack for that, of course, but I knew that it was her way of coping with the fact that I was moving out before she'd had a chance to really process it. I didn't really have a choice, though, with abilities I could barely control making it very difficult to be around people. I could feel their emotions, their fear; fear of what I represented. They were scared that I'd bring about another calamity, another broken home in our world.

After the things they'd seen me do, though, could I really blame them?

I shook my head and climbed to my feet, swiping my shirt off the floor and unfolding it. I pulled it over my head before walking towards my workbench.

It was a simple durasteel table with a set of drawers on the underside, containing tools that I'd bought either new or secondhand, or ones that I found and repaired in the storage area of this facility when I first came to this place. Atop the desk was the shield generator I was working on, mostly done but for the central circuit board that was giving me trouble. I had to strip the circuit bare, analyse all the parts and their function and determine what, if anything, was missing from the wiring. But I wasn't looking to tinker right then.

Instead, my hands went to the right drawer under the bench, pulling out the compartment and reaching to its back. Hidden behind the tools and spare bolts and circuits was a long, wooden box. It was brown with a coat of varnish, and a simple steel lock in the front. I reached into my pocket and retrieved the key, something I kept on me at all times, and unlocked the case.

I opened up the case and retrieved the cylindrical metal device within.

My lightsaber.

Turning the machine over in my hand, I inspected the hilt's outer casing for any damage, despite the fact that I looked over it every time I trained with it. It was around fifty five centimeters in length with a white-painted steel case, along with blue leather straps wrapped around the hilt and two bright gold emitters at each end, with ornate pointed edges that reminded me of a crown. Exactly halfway down the middle of the hilt was a locking mechanism that, when the two ends of the weapon were twisted opposite ways, allowed for the lightsaber to split into two.

I swept the hilt up into a stance Thalia had shown me, legs wide and bent at the knees with my weapon pointed out and away from me, and ignited the blade.

Yellow-gold light erupted from the hilt, a blade of sunlight that banished what little shadow had crept into the corners of the room, and I was left holding the weapon I'd seen in my dreams. Gold mist drifted away from the blade, reaching halfway to the roof before dissipating beautifully, impossibly.

I'd disassembled and rebuilt my lightsaber more times than I could count, and yet I could never find an explanation for the smoke; all the test's I had run showed the magnetic field containing and shaping the energy produced by the weird, magic crystals, was functioning at one hundred percent. The best theory I had was that when I modified my lightsabers design, a few days after receiving it, whatever I'd done to the crystals within had...

Well, overload is the only word that fits.

I'd only been trying to change the way the crystals looked, honestly. After all, red really wasn't my colour.

The crimson leather and black steel had been easy to change. When I first laid hands on the sources of the light within the saber, however, I could feel that they were not some ordinary crystals - nor did they wish to be changed. I was ready to leave it at that, truth be told, but when I sat out in the open air on the mountainside with the gems in my hands, I felt something within my mind and heart telling me that this was wrong, that someone had taken these channels of energy and power and twisted it, and that it was up to me to fix it.

From then on I spent hours every day trying to rid the crystals of the darkness plaguing it; keeping at it for nearly two weeks. I pictured it like drawing poison from a wound, but despite my efforts, I wasn't trained enough - powerful enough, to mend the wounds that had been done to them.

So I improvised. Instead of emptying the gems and letting it work itself out, I reached out with my power and drew in light. This planet was dark and full of terror yet the lives and souls of the people in Remnant were like stars, creating a shared history and a bright future so strong that I could almost touch it. I took that power and channeled it through and into the crystals, filling them with energy and forcing the darkness out as a result. I had no idea why that worked, but it did, and it left me with a pair of yellow-gold crystals that smoked, so I wasn't about to complain.

I relaxed and let my arms fall to my side, taking extra care to keep my lightsaber's blades away from my body. I'd made that mistake early on with my training and I nearly lost my legs as a result. That night, I'd had another vision, this time of the white-haired woman explaining that a key part of lightsaber usage was the ability to feel the blade; to become one with it.

Simply put: Keep track of the pointy laser stick, Caelum.

It had taken a little while, but I'd figured out that if my lightsaber was, in perhaps a simpler sense, alive, then all I needed to do was connect with it, like I could do with the animals that came and went from Remnant. Birds and wolves and the like didn't attract the attention of the Shadows, the monsters outside our walls, so they could go wherever they wanted. But, using these powers, I figured out that I could touch the minds of creatures and align them, so that we could feel each other's emotions and that we could communicate. And, if I was so inclined, they would listen to my commands.

What I needed to do with my lightsaber wasn't so different, but it wasn't something I could just sit down and set about doing, per se, which I'd only learned after some wasted hours meditating with my blade ignited in my hands. No, I couldn't force the connection with my lightsaber; I had to forge a bond with my blade through training and practice, and in doing so let myself become an extension of the weapon even as it became an extension of myself.

At least, that's how it felt. When I explained this all to Thalia she looked at me like I'd sprouted a second head. She said something about living weapons being too much for her, before quickly changing the subject.

What did she know? Living weapons were awesome, especially the sounds mine made.

I began moving through a series of exercises I'd seen my future self practice during one of my visions, all the while listening to the noises my lightsaber was making.

"I love this thing", I said with a laugh, holding the saber up while running my eyes over it's casing. I glanced at the solid sword of light, it's faintly smoking form, before my mirth faded. This was a weapon that could cut through steel and stone with ease. I shouldn't have enjoyed using it as much as I did, but I guess it was justified in that training and real combat were two entirely different things. Enjoying my training when there was nothing at stake couldn't be too bad, really.

The yellow light of my blade soared through the air as I began moving through the different moves and stances I'd been taught by my sister and the ones I'd seen in my dreams. I'd never seen another lightsaber outside my dreams and visions before, but even I knew I wasn't amazing with it. I was barely even an ametuer, despite the amount of effort I'd put in, but that was what happened when half of what I knew about my weapon came from watching my future self in disjointed dreams every now and again. Thalia had given me lessons, but those were for weapons without blades of solid light, so they weren't too useful either.

That was fine, though. I knew I wasn't actually going to fight with this weapon just yet, so I'd settle for getting comfortable with what little movements I knew.

I normally practiced with my lightsaber in the morning but with all the things that had happened today I had missed out on those exercises, and I may as well use my time wisely instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Whoever those strangers were aboard the Defender, I'd be hearing something about them before the night was up - my instincts told me that much was true.

But I shouldn't be focusing on the future when there was still something left for today, so I kept cycling through movements, simulating attacks and parries, finding different stances for defence while staying light on my feet. I made sure to take short breaks every five or so minutes, relying on interval training instead of prolonged bouts of effort because this was about bettering my technique, what little of it I had - not my physical abilities. After all, I wouldn't be able to learn and improve my form if I was a heaving mess on the floor.

I spent some more time practicing with my single saber when, after delivering a horizontal strike, I switched on the second blade and gripped my lightsaber in both hands, angling the weapon now like a staff instead of a sword. I moved through different forms and stances I'd been shown, moving from strikes to blocks with as little wasted movement as I could manage, which wasn't all that little if I was being honest since I was even less skilled with my weapon as a staff than a single sword.

Finally, I shifted my grip down to the center of the hilt, twisting the two ends of the lightsaber and pulling them apart, leaving me with two single sabers. I took a deep breath, centering myself and working through the static forms I'd devised. Out of the three modes my lightsaber had, I was least skilled with the two blades. Keeping track of one blade was hard, a staff even harder, but working with two seperate swords was pushing it. Still, I kept going through the exercises, eventually switching back to the single blade when I exhausted all the moves I was comfortable using with two lightsabers.

I'd have continued for nearly an hour, pushing through the inevitable exhaustion by drawing my power into my body, but when I moved from a downward strike into a spin and swept my lightsaber up in a vertical slash, I expected to slice through the air before thrusting my blade forward.

I didn't expect my lightsaber to be stopped by a blade of white starlight, barely halfway through the attack. Nor did I expect to glance at the face of the person wielding the very familiar lightsaber, only to see the white-haired woman from my dreams gripping the weapon.

I froze. Our lightsabers locked while my brain struggled for something, anything, to say or do. All I could do, however, was meet her striking pale blue eyes. For all I imagined my face was twisted with shock, hers was calm - maybe even amused, if only slightly. She held her lightsaber in two hands and to the left, holding my blade at bay with zero visible effort. From the corner of my eye I spotted Thalia in the doorway that led to my home's main entrance, but for now I paid her no mind.

We looked upon one another for a single, drawn out moment, as if we were seeking answers for questions both new and old in each other's eyes.

I found nothing. Her gaze was a strict mask of carefully balanced emotions that gave nothing away, but when her eyes softened and her posture relaxed I knew she must've found whatever she was looking for, though what that might've been was beyond me.

I looked away, because what else could I do against eyes that saw right through me?

My blade retracted with a hiss of yellow-gold light and translucent smoke and I took two small steps back. I wasn't wearing my belt so I kept hold of my lightsaber in a loose, non-threatening grip, though that was probably unnecessary all things considered. Thalia was watching from the sidelines instead of letting loose with her blaster, so she must've thought I wasn't in any danger.

Briefly, I considered the idea that this woman had somehow taken control of my adoptive sister, my family, because I could give commands to creatures I had bonded with - who's to say such a thing couldn't be done by force? Still, I let go of the idea the second it entered my mind.

This woman was to become my teacher or at least something in a similar vein. My feelings said she could be trusted. I was proven right when she switched off her lightsaber and held it in her left hand by the pommel.

"You must be Caelum", the white haired, and quite frankly beautiful woman began. "My name is Cirinis, and it seems you and I may have something in common. Is that right?" Cirinis, and now I finally had a name for the woman I'd been seeing in visions for nearly a year, spoke with an easy smile; one that I could feel was practiced but was no less genuine for being so.

There were words I wanted to say in that moment but I couldn't get them in order in my head and I didn't want her first impression of me to be as a stuttering fool. "Starfall", I said, instead. "My name is Caelum Starfall."

Cirinis nodded and made to speak but stopped before saying anything, understanding dawning in her eyes as she considered her words for a moment. Thalia took the chance to join the conversation, stepping into the room and saying: "You know you can use my family name, right?" She explained, moving towards me. She took a gentle hold of my arms and squatted down in front of me, so that I didn't have to look up at her. She met my eyes with a gentle smile. "Horco isn't the prettiest name in the galaxy, you don't have to tell me twice, but it's yours if you want it."

I want you to have my name, went unspoken, but I was young - not dense. I could tell what she was thinking, both through my own intuition and the powers I'd been born with that allowed me to feel the minds of others. There were words that could put her mind at ease, that could tell her all the things I felt without hurting her feelings, but I wasn't old or wise enough to know what they were, so I had to settle for what I knew.

"But it's not my name..." I said, in what was almost a whisper.

"And Starfall is?" My sister took my hands in her own. "Sweetie..." She considered her words for a moment. "Names should have history and they should be shared among family, that's all I'm saying." She shook her head with a rueful smile and gestured to Cirinis with a hand. "We've had this discussion before and I'm sure we'll have it again. But in the meantime, I have someone I'd like you to meet."

Cirinis laid her lightsaber down on my workbench and approached. "Starfall? As in the Falling Star Inn?"

"It's how I landed on this world." I explained with a shrug. "Names should have history", I repeated with a look to my sister, who was busy pulling a series of metal stools out from a small compartment by the wall. "That's mine."

Thalia placed a stoll behind Cirinis and I before sitting down on her own, forming a sort of triangle where we each took a seat. "It's unusual, I admit, but there is a boy in my order with a similar name."

"Really?"

"His name is Skywalker." She said, resting her arms on her thighs. Cirinis leaned forward. "He's a Vergence in the Force, and the first living Vergence the Order has found in thousands of years." I must've looked as confused as I felt, because Cirinis took one look at me and asked, "How much do you know about the Force?"

I let out a nervous chuckle; more out of instinct than anything. "I'm sorry, I don't even know what the Force is."

Her eyes went wide and she took a glance over towards my sister. Thalia looked back with a small smirk and said: "I told you. There's no one here to teach him."

Cirinis shook her head before turning back to me. "There is no simple explanation of the Force, or at least one that won't lead to misconceptions later down the line. Though for the sake of conversation, let's call it an energy field that binds all the universe and life together. Where there is something that exists, there is the Force. Everyone and every living thing you have ever met has the Force coursing through them, though they may not know it."

"The Force is life", I concluded as I looked down into my palm, reaching out with my senses and feeling energy within myself and the world around me.

This was the Force?

"That's a good way to look at it, at least for the moment." Cirinis agreed, but I wasn't looking at her. I didn't need to. I could feel her curiosity and growing understanding as if I were feeling them myself. "But while the Force does not overtly affect the majority of sentient beings, there are few who are able to tap into its power." She pointed her thumb at herself. "Someone like me."

I held my lightsaber up with one hand, still deactivated, and relaxed with a breath. I began to use my power, but it wasn't that at all, was it? I reached for my weapon with the Force, feeling the device in my mind through something much more than simple touch, and lifted.

My lightsaber rose from my palm, held aloft by nothing but my own will and what I now knew to be the Force.

"And someone like me", I said honestly - finally.

"You're Force-Sensitive. Like me and the rest of the Jedi Order." Cirinis said. "Now that we've established this, I do have a couple questions for you."

I raised my right hand up so that it was level with my gaze and, with a thought, sent my lightsaber in a gentle spinning arc around my arm. As I did, I asked; "What do you need to know?"

Cirinis let the moment drag on for a moment, eyes lingering on my floating lightsaber. "I think I already know the answer to this, but I need to know for certain so please be honest with me here", she implored, expression serious. "Has anyone ever tried to teach you the ways of the Force?"

"That's complicated." I said. My gaze flitted over Thalia for a moment, but her expression was unreadable. Through the Force, however, I felt her trepidation rising at my words.

"What do you mean, 'complicated'", Thalia asked. Her voice was calm but she was clearly nervous. I hadn't told her about my visions mainly because I didn't want her to think I was crazy, even though I'd proven to her I could see the future in some capacity. I managed that by predicting the weather every day for two weeks straight four months ago, but that was still a far cry from telling her about the visions I'd had where I was being trained by a complete stranger.

"You know I can see the future, right?" I began hesitantly. I waited for Cirinis and my sister to nod before continuing. "I'm not very good at it, but if I try really hard I can see some stuff that's gonna happen in a day or two. But when I go to sleep, I sometimes see things?..." I finished, unsure of myself.

"You've been having visions?" Cirinis said, leaning forward in her seat with her fingers interlocked. "Of what? And for how long?"

"For nearly a year. But on-" I was interrupted by a shrill cry from my sister, who looked for all the world like she was about to leap from her seat. She stayed sat, but the mask of composure had broken and her face was twisted now with anger and concern.

"Excuse me!?" She shouted. "I can't!..." She took a deep breath and visibly calmed herself. "Okay. Right. Nearly a year and you didn't tell me because?..."

"You'd think I went crazy." My voice was meek, but then I'd never been very good at speaking when my big sister was upset with me.

"This whole situation is crazy!" She let out a monumental sigh and leaned back, frustration evident through her body language and her presence in the Force. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and met my eyes. "I'm really out of my element here, but I know that you don't keep things from family, okay? You should've told me - I won't dismiss what you say because it's 'crazy.' I love you too much for that."

Thalia was good at hiding her feelings, she had been ever since her parents died, but she couldn't hide them from me. I felt the flash of sadness and hurt from her as clear as day, old pain brought back anew, and I threw myself at her in a hug that nearly knocked her from her seat, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and pressing my cheek to hers.

"I'm sorry." Was all I could say. My words weren't enough to fix things - they never were, but even I knew that actions spoke louder than words. Still, an honest apology never hurt anyone. "I didn't want you to worry. I'm sorry. Forgive me?"

She wrapped her arms around me, and I felt the pain in her subside somewhat. She laughed, quiet and subdued, but as honest as I'd ever heard from her, and that would do for now. "I forgive you, don't ever doubt that, just don't do it again - please?"

"I promise", I said with a bright smile.

"Okay, okay!" Thalia laughed. "Now off. You're embarrassing me in front of the magic lady." I let go and scooted back onto my stool, looking back to Cirinis. She was watching us with a patient smile and a fond look in her eyes.

"And what were these visions of?" She asked in an effort to get the conversation back on track.

"That's also complicated."

"Of course it is..." Thalia mumbled, but otherwise did not react.

"So, I've never had a teacher, but the Force showed me - I'm assuming it's the Force?" I cut off, looking at Cirinis. She nodded and I continued. "The Force showed me visions of myself - and I was older, which was really confusing the first couple of times - but that wasn't even the weirdest part. In nearly all of them, I was with an instructor or a teacher and they were showing me how to use the Force."

Cirinis looked taken aback for a moment, as if she couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. "That is... extremely odd, for lack of a better phrase. In all my years as a Jedi, I've never heard of anyone in my Order having visions quite like that." She nodded and thought over her words, speaking after a moment. "But still, that can't have been enough for you to learn from."

I shrugged my shoulders, looking down at my feet as I thought up my response. "It wasn't; not really", I admitted. "They were always really scratchy and fuzzy and I struggled to make sense of a lot of them, but I always came to with a bit of an understanding of what I was trying to do - at least enough to figure some stuff out from there." I paused to make sure Cirinis and Thalia were still following and continued. "Sometimes the visions would come and show me from the future doing something I hadn't done yet, and I'd need to sort of reverse engineer whatever it was, but other times I'd see a lesson that seemed almost chosen to help me with whatever I'd been struggling with at the time."

Cirinis rubbed her chin in thought for a moment and looked briefly towards Thalia, who's gaze was fixed on me. Then she asked: "And can you tell me who was training you?"

Ah, I thought, considering my options. I need to be tactical with this one.

"It was you."

Good enough.

She rocked back as if I'd slapped her and her expression was near comical, eyes wide with her mouth looking to be in the process of hanging open. Thalia wasn't much better, though her expression was more of a "this keeps getting better and better" whereas Cirinis wore a look of "my entire worldview has just collapsed", or words to that effect.

It wasn't as dramatic as I made it out to be, but it was the most emotion I'd seen from the woman - vision or reality.

"That complicates things..." She said after a moment of almost-tense silence.

Thalia's head whipped to Cirinis. "What does that mean?"

Cirinis ignored her and leaned towards me, closing the distance between us as much as possible without leaving her seat. Her eyes met mine and her expression was as deathly serious. "Do you trust in the Force, young one?"

Did I?

It didn't take me long to work out the answer to that question, because of course I believed in the Force; even if I only just learnt its name. The Force had been a part of me for as long as I could remember, and it had never steered me wrong. Beyond that, even, because, the way I saw it, doubting the Force seemed to me equal to doubting life itself, and that wasn't something I could do.

The Light was all around me; within me and in the face of it the Dark held no power over me. So long as I held true to my faith. Once, I explained my thoughts on life to Enra and he'd called it the "simplicity of youth" - but simplicity was its own strength. It didn't matter what I called it: Life, Light, The Force.

It was all the same. My answer couldn't be any clearer.

I drew upon The Moment and watched the Jedi's eyes grow wide, and I knew she could feel the Force running through me as my sight left the material world. The bland lab filled with tools and machines, brought to life by the paintings and items I'd brought with me, was overrun with sharp, stained glass approximations of what I knew were my surroundings, but what I saw was somehow so much more than that.

The paintings on the wall began to move; the scenery, people and animals depicted in the art coming to life in a way that reflected the amount of love and dedication my sister had put into them. The pale steel walls they hung on, once stained and aged with time, shifted to a purest white that was as fresh and new as the coming dawn with the only imperfections being the cracks that appeared in the otherwise perfect construction.

I was seeing the world as it was in the Force, or at least how I interpreted what I was seeing. This was The Moment: the world as it was at this exact time, seen through the energy of the universe.

It had taken years for me to gain control of this ability, making it into something I did instead of something that happened without my permission. But now that I'd gotten even the slightest handle on it, where I could look upon the truth of the world without my mind fracturing under the strain, there was nothing that could hide from me.

This ability didn't bring the paintings on my walls to life, but rather showed them as the world saw them to be - a testament to Thalia's skill and the beauty she had created. The facility I called my home hadn't suddenly fixed itself bar the few imperfections that remained, but rather showed me the once cutting-edge design that had developed flaws through time - ones that, with the right application of Force, could cause the entire building to crumble like dust.

But in this world of colour and glass, nothing stood out more than the people around me. The Force was in everything, which was why I could see inanimate objects in The Moment, but it was like comparing a campfire to a star.

Thalia hadn't moved so much as transformed in her seat. Where once was a human woman was now a golem of steel and stone, made up of hundreds of interlocking pieces that shifted and whirled with every movement and made her look both strong and tough but fast and nimble as well, odd as that sounded. The only thing shared between my sister's real body and this form was the face. Yet, despite the fact that in The Moment my sister's face was carved from literal stone, her face was somehow more expressive in this body.

Beyond that, every inch of her body was covered in bright, multicoloured paint that shifted with every movement and somehow formed into paintings of their own, but instead of showing a clear image they portrayed simple renditions of emotions. I couldn't explain the colours I was seeing; they shifted too fast for me to get a good look at them, but I saw the pictures for what they were.

Love. Fear. Sadness.

And at the centre of it all was a beating glass heart that pumped colour and life throughout the golem, cracked and damaged but stronger and brighter than anything on her.

This was my sister. Hurt, conflicted, but filled with enough strength and loyalty to make a soldier jealous, and capable of such love and emotion that she could make the greatest artists weep.

I cried the first time I saw Thalia like this two years ago and it was an effort not to break down again.

Instead, I turned the threat of tears into a smile that did nothing to hide my watery eyes that were no less happy for being so.

Then I turned to Cirinis, and I saw an angel.

I saw an almost shapeless figure made of white robes and similarly coloured strips of fabric, flowing and tying together to give the illusion of a person. She lacked any physical form bar a faceless head under a starlight hood that stretched out to become wings, currently folded behind her - ready and waiting. Her entire being radiated light, but the only solid parts of her were the solid sword of pale light at the edge of her form - her lightsaber, and small, crystalline gem at the centre of her forehead.

Ethereal yet human, and born of a power beyond comprehension. That was who this Jedi was.

I wondered if I looked like that, in The Moment, because even though my body looked the same from my perspective, something told me that wasn't entirely true. I'd never had the courage to find out, though, even when all it would take was a look in the mirror.

This power could show me the answers to all the questions I'd ever had about myself, but that was the funny part about all this: finding the truth was easy, but that didn't mean the truth would be easier to accept. And I truly doubted my past was as sunny and good as I'd hoped.

It didn't matter.

I allowed The Moment to fade and met Cirinis' eyes with as much confidence as I could muster.

"I trust in the Force, because it is all I have ever known, and because it will be with me."

A slow smile crept across my face, feeling a flash of certainty within.

"Always."

And thats it for now!

Now something I wanted to talk about here was the way the Force is presented, especially with the use of Force Abilities. I want to explore the nature of the Force in this fic, among other things, and that means showing that the Force is more than the documented abilities the Jedi teach the majority of their members. The Force is life, and as such there are as many ways to use the Force as there are ways to live, and that's something I'm going to show with a large amount of the cast of this story - canon or not.

With The Moment, don't worry if you feel confused by that ability. It's something I came up with in this story after giving Caelum in the CYOA I built him in both proficiency in Force Sense and the Observation skill, which at a second level boosts the level of his Force Sense. Considering the fact that he has the Powerful perk, I figured why not give him a unique sensory skill. But more will be explained about that next chapter, along with some exposition about Caelum himself, curtesy of Cirinis.

To be honest, the complexities of the Force is one of my favourite parts of Star Wars, so be prepared for some Force Abilities both from Legends and my own head but kept in line with the power of canon, because that power level fits the majority of Star Wars characters and keeps things interesting.

Anyways, leave a review because as always criticism and feedback is welcomed with open arms. Be safe out there and have a good one! Bye!