Consequence of Oversight

New Friend

Kelei Torel considered herself to be pretty competent. She was a general in the war. She was a Jedi who apprenticed under Jedi Master Kit Fisto. She led men to victory. She had a Padawan who she loved—maybe a little too much to not be considered attachment. 

Yeah, she was probably more than competent. Until she wasn't. Until the proverbial bantha-fur rug was pulled from under her feet and the galaxy decided to turn on its protectors. 

Until the men she bonded with through battle-tested trust turned on her.

Until she felt the weight of Jedi deaths across the galaxy, including her master's.

Until she held her dying padawan in her arms surrounded by dead clone troopers.

Until she lost everything.

Now, the former Jedi felt lost. Always on the run and fearful for her life. Fighting to survive.

She felt betrayed. Where was the Force which she was taught to rely on since she was a child? Where were the men she used to call her friends? Where did all the people she protected go when she and her people need their protection?

Silent.

Dead.

Gone.

In the back of her mind, she understood that it was not the Jedi way to feel anger or hatred. But there wasn't a Jedi Order anymore, was there?  

Since the rise of the Empire, she had felt the shift in the living Force: from pure blinding light to numbing grey. And since then, she allowed herself to feel. 

Kelei allowed herself to become more than the Code could ever let her be. She let herself be human. She let herself acknowledge her pain. And she worked through it.

Now, she had to admit, old habits die hard. Pushing down emotions. The righteousness. The selflessness. The basic adherence to the Code. But she was slowly getting better. She picked herself up from the metaphorical Sarlac pit and started over. As a living, feeling human being.

She started working as a smuggler. Kelei was surprised when she found her Jedi skills to be useful in the occupation of smuggling—especially Force suggestion. She was able to make enough to buy herself a ship, then a droid, then her freedom. 

She became known as the Light Shadow in the underground; a nickname that she gained for her stealth and silence when working a job—jobs that always helped people, never hurt. It was part of her own code. She didn't take immoral jobs, and she didn't kill for gain. Only when she had to. And almost never with her lightsabers.

Nowadays, Inquisitors ran rampant throughout the galaxy hunting and killing any surviving Jedi. She herself had seen some of their executions. And while she longed to bring peace and justice back to the worlds around her, she knew she was outnumbered. So, she did what she could as a smuggler and kept her identity a secret however hard it might be to resist the urge to be the Jedi she once was.

And the ugly sins of the galaxy—the ones she saw constantly in her line of work—did not help her to keep the urges at bay. Every injustice irked her sense of righteousness. Conflict was a constant in her life.

So, when she walked into the underground markets and cantina of Tatooine and saw a small girl in the line of slaves, that was the breaking point of her conflict. 

"Ah, Shadow. Here for another job?" 

Her gaze switched over from the strawberry blonde to the Quarren in front of her. He placed a drink in front of her along with a puck. "It's pretty standard, just getting a few fugitives from Corelia to wherever they need to go."