Time in a Bottle

Thack!

The axe cleaved neatly through the cord of wood, separating it into two halves with visible ease. Like a knife through a ripe purp. It offered almost no resistance to the metal blade. Nothing did. The old stump being used as a chopping block was showing wear from the axe blade biting deeper and deeper into it with each swing. Much deeper than even an experience lumberjack should be able to push the blade, and the wielder in question was neither of those things.

His jacket had been removed and hung carefully from a tree branch from both ends of the collar as to not wrinkle the charcoal fabric. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to his elbows and tucked neatly to not come undone. The matching charcoal vest with golden paisley embroidery stayed in place. Perfectly laundered and great care taken to keep it clean even out here in the woods. Matching slacks nearly completed the outfit but the matching dress shoes were no where to be seen. They had long ago been wrapped out for a pair of exquisitely made and well maintained leather boots. A Fashionable choice among the youth of the galaxy and one that served it's actual purpose on a less civilized planet like Ossus.

The axe raised again, the blade shimmering with a visible blue illumination, before it was brought down again, sliding the halves into quarters and then burying itself in the stump; where it was left. Gathering up the wood he moved it the short distance to the pile of firewood that had been carefully gathered from the forest floor, chopped, and stacked at the edge of the little campground. A brightly colored dome tent suitable in size for two sat off center to the steel ring of the firepit in which several logs had already been placed in preparation for cool nights to come. A few containers were neatly stacked against the tent with the necessary supplies; puff-puff balls, snack foods, and a carefully catered selection of historical reading material suitable for bedtime stories.

The bald headed man dusted his hands and admired his work. It had been a spell since he had a camping night with Teagan and the young girl was always excited to go out into the woods and allow herself a little more freedom to be herself. It was hardly the woods, though. Trees only just blocked the view of the Jedi Camp and you could certainly catch glimpses of people going about their days, trips, and training through the trees. Ossus was a wild world, and it was best to not go too far from the settlement lest they run into the sometimes violent natives and dangerous wildlife. The Jedi were guests on this world and he preferred to leave it a better place than he found it. Salvaging fallen wood, using a proper firepit to avoid wildfires, and cleaning up the campsite each time. It would be so easy to leave it up permanently but it would not be right. Instead he set it up anew every time.

Mr. Feint dragged his forearm across his forehead to wipe sweat that wasn't there. Even with his slight frame it had taken almost no effort to cut the wood, but the motion still felt necessary. It was a humble thing to do, in the least.

This was a good moment, one that would be even better tomorrow night when he was settled around a fire with Teagan eating sweets and telling scary stories. These were the moments that he wished would last forever; captured in a bottle that they would never lose. He knew it would not last. They never did. Peace was always temporary in this horrible galaxy. All he could do was try and leave it a little better than he found it.

And he liked to think he had done that, and still was actively doing that here. He had purpose, even if it was just to put a smile on his Niece's face.

If there was one curse to being 'super smoking hot' (as Yufi liked to describe herself), it was that stealth was difficult. Oh, some might say that was down to the fact that she had almost luminous bright pink skin and was always clad in the skimpiest outfits she could find so that her skin was on show, making her easy to spot, or perhaps down to the fact that she usually ensured her make-up was full of glitter and sparkles, and she covered herself in body glitter, or that her outfits were usually sequined, or otherwise shiny, or maybe even that she tended to wear so much expensive perfume everybody could smell her coming, but Yufi thought that was all a load of garbage. CLEARLY the reason she wasn't good at being stealthy was she was so super hot nobody could take their eyes off her.

But it did present the problem that it made sneaking away from the Jedi Temple difficult.

Why did she need to sneak away from the Jedi Temple? Well, usually it was because she didn't want to study whatever they'd told her to read. Today, however, it was because they were meant to be sitting an exam on something she had snuck away a PREVIOUS day on and not studied. Darned actions having consequences. Why did nobody warn her? Anyway, she figured the best way to deal with it was just not be there for the exam, and then, well, she'd get told off but that'd be it. Besides, a telling off was FUTURE Yufi's problem. She didn't have to worry about that today.

Noisily, she made her way through the small thicket of trees between the Academy and the opening where the stranger was chopping wood. Even these few trees presented a problem to Yufi, who was about as far from an outdoors girl as you could get. Of course, her choice of footwear didn't help. Shimmering gold stiletto boots to match an equally shimmering gold miniskirt and crop top. It was a surprise that you couldn't see her from orbit. Yufi liked to think it was a testament to her developing skills that she had snuck away undetected.

The truth was that nobody cared and if Yufi wanted to skip exams it was Yufi who suffered in the long run, but she didn't know that.

"Ew, gettoff! Yuck! Ew!" she was remarking as she made her way through the thin thicket of trees, emerging with a stumble facing backwards, and waving manicured hands in disgust as she peeled a tiny twig from her overly glossy lips and tried to shake her stiletto loose from one final bit of soil. She stumbled into the clearing, and froze, surprised to see a man there, chopping wood. (How she hadn't heard was down to how completely self absorbed she'd been in her escape). The man facing her seemed to be in a dress shirt and slacks, which she approved of, given her own glamorous appearance. The only hint that she was a Jedi at all was the lightsaber hanging from an overly sparkly belt. "Oh, uh, hiya!" she said, with an energetic smile at the stranger.

"Uh, you know, we have droids for that, right?" she said, pointing a manicured finger at the pile of wood. And then her lekku very slightly twitched at the realisation she was busted. "Uh, I'm, just, y'know, part of the Jedi detachment. To, uh, check up on you and check you're okay! Yep, totally meant to be here! That's me!" she said quickly, settling into the lie. "Name's Yufi! Nice to meetcha!" she stuck out one of her soft, manicured hands for him to shake, an enthusiastic smile on her face.

The crash that entered the clearing had him immediately on edge, and in the moment the intruder had pulled themselves up off the ground he had already retrieved and returned the axe to the stump, and his face had switched between a dozen other faces before returning to his own. Feint could only scold himself for his lack of guard. Truly he had felt safer than he had in a long time on this world; so very far away from the Unknown Regions, with the Alliance and the Jedi standing in between. It would be something for the Arbiter and his men to track him here, and even more to actually land and sneak up on him. Difficult, but not impossible. There was a very real urge to begin manipulating the battlefield, to spring up trees where none existed, to create distractions and avenues for escape, but he knew, deep down, that he had no cause for it.

What appeared to be a brightly colored alien child could not possible be a threat. He'd put himself in greater danger by simply trying to trim Teagan's toenails.

"Feint, or Mister Feint if you prefer. It's a pleasure, Yufi."

Taking her hand he gave it a very formal shake before returning his hands to his sides. Looking over his shoulder at the axe he returned her gaze with a little smile on his face. "I find there is a certain joy to be found in the use of one's own hands, to return to the simplicity of a rougher living. Also, droids tent to take on an excessive amount of wear and tear out here in the woods. You look to be suffering much the same. I would recommend dressing more appropriately for the woods. There are still many dangers on Ossus, and they multiply the further you move from the compound. Speaking of which, what brings a... Padawan? Is that the right term? This far away from the compound, hmm?"

Yufi was a little startled by the sheer formality of the greeting. Sure, she'd stuck her hand out for it to be shaken, but she hadn't quite expected the response. 'Mister Feint'. She wondered what kind of name that was. On the bright side, it wasn't 'Master Feint', which meant he wasn't a Jedi, and she wouldn't be in trouble for skipping classes. At least not with him. She paused.
"Feint..." she rolled it around on her tongue, as if getting used to the word. "Can I call you 'Feinty'?" she asked cheerfully, deciding she liked it more than his decidingly more formal version.

He went on about the joys of using one's hands and a 'rougher' living, and Yufi made a face that summed up exactly what she thought of a rougher living.
"Ew, not for me, thanks! My hands don't do 'work'. They're for manicures, and super cute jewellery, and maybe swinging a lightsaber like a badass," she answered, obviously not liking the idea of any physical labour. Which was fairly obvious just by looking at her, truth be told.

When he criticised her choice of outfit, she looked down over herself, as if trying to spot the problem, and then looked back up at him.
"What's wrong with this outfit? I look super hot! It's not my fault the woods are so sucky," she remarked, which was as close as Yufi got to logic. It wasn't her outfit's fault she struggled in the woods. It was the woods itself. He mentioned danger, and she just grinned. "That's okay! I'm Yufi Hercula! I eat danger for breakfast!" she beamed. "I've got a lightsaber and Force powers and my Dad, Hades Hercula, you might have heard of him, well, he was a TOTAL badass, he helped liberate Ryloth, so you just know I am too!" she couldn't stop name dropping her father, of course. She wasn't RIDING on his reputation, she insisted to herself. Just making everybody knew what a badass she was!

"Uh, well, technically speaking, I'm an Initiate... Not a Padawan. I haven't, uh, really, got a master yet," Yufi said awkwardly, not wanting to admit that she wasn't perfect, of course. "Uh, I'm sure it's just 'cause all the masters are intimidated by training me, though! Y'know, with my reputation 'n all. Plus, like I said, SUPER hot, and I bet that makes the whole 'no attachments' thing super hard for them," she added quickly, to bolster her own ego. "I'm sure as soon as I have a Master I'll be a Knight in no time!" she chirped enthusiastically.

This... child? was certainly an interesting character. He was as bad judge of age. Every species in the galaxy has different lifespans and points of puberty. In conclusion, she was either incredibly immature, or still young and developing. His own culture had long ago decided that children had no place in a society and should be immediately pushed to professions and combat training. They start young, not so dissimilar from the Jedi of the Old Republic. Child soldiers, trained in the Way of Light, to be Solfar's cleansing vengeance. Those who did not possess the Light were forced into the Templar Guard, and upon graduation from the Academy were either pushed into a tradeskill to benefit the whole of society, or left in the Guard to die on some foreign battlefield underneath the claws of a Beast or under the boot of an aggressed upon sovereign nation.

He did not agree with that way. He thought children had a place, and this was it. Being silly and ignorant until they found their place in the galaxy.

"Hercula. I believe I have heard that name. If I had to fathom a guess I would say I read or heard it when I was visiting the Hidden Library in Rhovari. A wonderful place. So many generations of hidden away knowledge and history. It's a testament to your people to be able to maintain such a library despite the horrid conditions visited upon your planet for hundreds of years. I scanned several copies of the oldest works to take back to Leh'ben back to my- I mean, to the Grand Library. Back when it was my library."

Feint tried a smile, but it game up weak. So many fond memories of investigating hidden troves of knowledge when he was supposed to be tracking down information pertaining to the location of the Lupine. So many times he found himself lost for weeks with nothing but books for his company. Great insights into foreign cultures. Incredible histories of persevering people. And in the end, it was how he came into contact with S'Il in the first place and ultimately ended up here. A refuge and a traitor.

"Ah, yes. The great weapon of the Jedi. The lightsabre. It's quite poetic, is it not? A literal weapon of light for the pure hearted warrior priests of the Force. My people would have greatly benefited from such a weapon when they rose from beneath the feet of their enslavers. We might have freed ourselves years sooner with such weapons, but alas all we had were axes, pitchforks, and torches."

Although, one might point out that even despite the huge technological difference between the Leh'beni slaves and the Jedi, that they ended up in a similar place in the end, although a solution without the need of technology. Thankfully his people were so mired in the past that they would never consider adopting such technology. He feared the horrible acts of violence they would become capable of with Lightsabres on every Hunter; or worse what perversion of the technology they would conjure up in their weapon labs. Something gaudy and grotesque that would taint the history of the weapon. Mr. Slate would jump at the opportunity, if only he was not blinded by his own hubris.

"You must be quite talented then to already be ready for the prestigious heraldry of the Jedi Knight. One is hard pressed to find a point in recorded history that the Jedi did not exist in one form or another. Over twenty-thousand years. That is a lot of history to honor. I do not envy you that responsibility."

If Yufi had been smiling before, she was positively beaming when Mr Feint went on to say that he had, indeed, heard of her. Or at least, her family name. See, she was totally super famous! It wasn't her imagination at all. She practically glowed with pride (although that might just be the sunlight catching her not inconsiderable amounts of body glitter). Of course, the compliment to the twi'leks and Ryloth helped. Yufi was fiercely proud of her home, and how it had fought to liberate itself, and she seemed to beam at the news that he was impressed.
"That's us! You can crush us, oppress us, enslave us, but twi'leks never give up! Even if it means saving something as boring as a library!" Obviously, Yufi's own opinion on reading and history was somewhat different from Mr Feint's. Although she did notice him mentioning 'his' library. "Wait? You ran a library? Wow, that must have been SO BORING. No wonder you're busy escapin' out here into the wilderness," Yufi remarked, before pausing and looking around, and making a face. "Although between mud and bugs and a library, tough call, but I'd choose the library," she decided, elegantly reinforcing how out of place she was in the woods.

"Wow, you guys were slaves too?" It was, of course, not uncommon for twi'leks to be enslaved. Even with Ryloth liberated, twi'lek slaves were to be found all over the galaxy. "Hate to break it to you, but lightsabers? No good if they're not in the hands of a super cool Jedi like myself. They're just like swords, except they'll also cut YOU and they don't weigh anything so it's super easy to do. You gotta be able to use the Force. If my people, or your people, had these, but didn't have the Force, they'd probably just chop themselves up before any bad guys," she explained casually, in her usual bubbly style. "Buuuuuuuuuuut," she added, dragging out the word with a grin, and-

SHA-ZOOM!

She ignited her blade, the green hue reflecting off the glitter and pink hue of her skin.
"If you have the Force, you can do SUPER awesome stuff with it! Like, deflect blaster bolts RIGHT back at the enemy!" she mimed out fighting imaginary enemies, even making the lightsaber buzz with her tongue along with the weapon as she dropped into a few basic defensive stances, even if they weren't very advanced, and hampered by the fact she was doing it in high heels on damp soil. And then she shut off her blade, the green hue retreating into the flashy golden hilt, itself decorated with a golden star by the emitter. "Pretty neat, huh?" she grinned, obviously proud of herself.

"Uh, yeah, I am SUPER talented, haven't you been listening?" she remarked, returning her lightsaber to her belt and cocking her hips to the side as she struck a pose. "But, hey, everybody's got history. Who cares about that? I mean, you wanna be a baker, and, what, for over twenty thousand years, there's not been a point in recorded history that bakers didn't exist. Doesn't mean I'd get all hung up on it. History's for old people and people stuck in the past. The present is where it's at. An' I'm gonna be the best Jedi there ever was!" she beamed.

"Yes. My people were enslaved for hundreds of years. We were the stones with which the Lupine paved their empire. Then we rose up, took back our world, and pushed our masters to the precipice of extinction..."

Lifting his hand up with a magicians flair he revealed it to be empty and then gestured it toward the stump, and the axe handle tugged as if caught in a tractor beam, and then flew the distance between him and it, spinning wildly before smacking harmlessly into the palm of his hand. Twirling the simple tool in his hands it came out the end of the motion no longer resembling an axe; and instead looked like a near identical copy of Yufi's lightsabre hilt. The blade sprung to life, but this one was gold instead of green. It cast no light on his face, and created no shadows in the woods.

"...and we did it with the Light of Solfar; or the Force if you prefer."

The golden blade and handle disintegrated into golden dust that faded away to nothing, revealing the axe in his hand again. Better Guardian Hunters than himself could no doubt display their prowess with the connective energy of the galaxy far better. He was simply a scholar and a historian. Not a warrior. His strength lied in his knowledge and intellect, and empathy. The latter was in short supply amount his people. They also greatly lacked the prowess with illusions that he possessed, and preferred a more forward, combative focus.

"Victory without a single lightsabre; for clarification. We did it with weapons like this." He held up the axe, and it's entire length began to glow a faint blue illumination. "Desperate people will make due with whatever they have. I'm sure your people would agree with that."

"So what is in the future for Jedi Knight Yufi Hercula? The dissolution of the Empire? The end of the Sith Order? Riding a Krayt Dragon into battle atop a... glittering saddle?"

"Yeah, we're still working on that last bit," Yufi replied with obvious sarcasm, regarding his claim that they 'punished their masters to the brink of extinction'. Given almost every sentient species in the galaxy owned twi'lek slaves somewhere among the stars, if the twi'leks did that, well, there wouldn't be a lot of the galaxy left. Not that Yufi was against the total murder of any slave owners, just maybe not the annihilation of every species who had slave owners as a part of them. Except the Hutts. She'd happily see the Hutts wiped out. But she kept that to herself. It was probably NOT a Jedi thought.

Her attitude changed a little as he performed his trick with the axe. For a moment, Yufi's expression was curiously blank. She was utterly stunned. How... Not even the Force could do that, right? He seemed to explain it as the 'Light of Solfar', which was what he called the Force. Yufi knew other Force users existed, like the Witches of Dathomir and... well, actually, that was the only one she could name. But legend said they could do all kinds of weird magical stuff that Jedi and Sith couldn't do, still using the Force. But transforming an axe into a lightsaber blade? How was that even possible?
"That was... that was...." Yufi gawped for a moment. "....SO COOL!" she added quickly, pumping a fist in the air. "How did you do that!? You did that with the Force? You gotta teach me how! That's WAY cooler than the boring Force stuff they teach us in the Jedi Academy!" she said quickly, her face glowing with eagerness.

But then he went back to pointing out how they won their rebellion with only weapons like the axe, and she paused, and pointed at it sceptically.
"Not sure it counts if you can turn it into a lightsaber at any time," she pointed out. "But still, cool. And yeah, we twi'leks know all about fighting back with nothin'. People think Ryloth surrendered easily or something. Like when the Seperatists invaded, and we were faced with overwhelming force, we just, gave up. But those people are dumb. Because when our world was invaded, sure, maybe they took over our cities and our Government, but our people... we never stopped fighting back. No orders, no official army, but we never stopped. And it took years, but we got our freedom back. Never underestimate a twi'lek. We never give up," she reminded him. Twi'leks were easily dismissed as a weak race, easily conquered, because of their reputation as slaves or criminals. But there was so much more to them than that, Yufi knew, and she wanted to make sure everybody else knew it too.

Then he asked about Yufi's future, and Yufi grinned again, hands on her hips as she cocked them to the side.
"Well, that DOES all sound super cool. Totally all on the list. I never even thought about riding a Krayt Dragon, but that'd be totally awesome! And obviously, the glittery saddle is a MUST," she beamed happily. She didn't even know they made glittering saddles for Krayt Dragons, but she'd have to get one now!