Yunling

"Will I be a Jedi?" I asked, hanging my head.

"If you want to, son. You can leave the Order, I tell you that from my own experience. But you'll have to study there for a while."

"I'll be back," I nodded. "Dakari do not abandon their own."

"Right. And we'll be waiting for you, son. No matter what happens, no matter how long it takes. You must remember, this is your home, where they will be waiting for you. And love," He hugged me. "Always."

The rest of the day was a blur. If it weren't for empathy, maybe it would have been easier for me, but it was getting more and more frustrating every hour. My mother was especially zealous in this regard. All I could do was try not to show how bad I felt.

We were supposed to go to the city in the early morning. I could hear my mom crying all night, and that was despite Bane's crying. I can't interpret the sounds he made any other way. That's another crybaby on my head. I don't even need to imagine what it was like for my father there, I felt it anyway. I spent half the day trying to calm my mother down, but the trouble was, as soon as I mentioned that I would be back, she started sobbing and very quickly went to her room, from where she only came out after about twenty minutes. So it was difficult to immediately determine which of us did not get enough sleep in the morning.

After breakfast, we went to the garage, where I was given to my mother. Who didn't want to let me out of her arms for fifteen minutes. And when I finally let go, my father came up to me.

"We have collected the necessary things for you." He said, squatting down. "But I want to give you something personally. With these words, he showed me an oblong plastic cylinder, which he had been holding in his hands all this time. I do not know if you will need it, but if anything, you can sell them. In the Order, the situation with money for Younglings is not very good. And then.... In general, here," He finished by opening the cylinder.

It contained crystals for a lightsaber. Four exhibits from my father's collection.

"This," he touched the crystal on the far right, "The Lorrdian gem. Inserted into the hilt of the sword, it helps to anticipate the enemy's movement. That's what they say, anyway. It's also said to help deflect blaster fire. This," He pointed to the next crystal, "Kasha. Helps to clear the mind. It can be very useful in battle. And this stone you should remember is the pearl of the krayt dragon. It helps to increase the beam power of the light blade without consuming extra energy. And the last one is Luxum. Adds an ionic effect to the blade. I think it would be perfect against droids. What to do with them," he said, closing the cylinder, "will be explained to you at the academy. I would give you more, but a lightsaber and crystals for it are such an individual thing... I wish you could use these. But if anything, feel free to sell, I allow it. Just do it through mentors, please. It will be much more difficult to cheat them." I don't want them to screw me over. "And don't be afraid of anything," he patted me on the head. "No matter how I feel about the Order, they won't cheat you with crystals."

Does he read minds?

But now we're finally on our way. For half an hour, during which the father did not utter a word. We didn't stop anywhere in the city, we went straight to the spaceport. Although I would probably be careful not to call this place by such a word out loud. It was just three large concrete pads, and one of them was currently holding the Jedi ship we were staying next to.

"Barloz," my father said, stopping not far from the ship. "They got a good car."

I didn't know what it was good for. But it looked like this vessel... It's not presentable. In length... About forty meters, I can't say for sure. As well as the shape, it's hard to determine from my angle, but it looks like a kind of projectile with a cockpit tip and a huge antenna above it.

Less than five minutes later, a Jedi emerged from the ship. The man is a man in his thirties. In a traditional Jedi robe.

"Here you go, son," my father handed me a small backpack. "The academy will provide you with everything you need, but here your mother has saved for you..." He pushed through the lump in his throat. "lunch. And a container with crystals." Then he took out a leather belt and, sitting down next to me, tightened it on my belt. "To grow," he noted. "There are three anonymized chips with a certain amount in their pockets. Spend wisely, son." My God, doesn't he realize that he's saying this to a four-year-old kid? No, he understands everything. But he can't do anything.

"I'll be back, Father," I said for the umpteenth time. But now I didn't stop there. "After all, I am your heir. Dakari. You'll be proud of me... When I get back. Just take care of Bane. And tell Mom, as soon as I get the chance, I'll leave them."

I had to keep my voice down with each word, because the Jedi was approaching, albeit slowly, probably allowing us to say goodbye.

"We'll be waiting, son," Dad hugged me. After that, he got up and squinted at the man who came up. That's why so many people hate you," he said harshly.

"Let them," the Jedi replied. "If only there was someone to hate."

My father handed me over to the man and patted the top of my head.

"Don't embarrass the Dakari family there, kid."

After leading me through the entire ship, the Jedi led me to a small room with two rows of chairs and a holographic projector. Probably something like a mess hall or a meeting room. Where he left it, warning that we were taking off soon. It looks like they were just waiting for me. Five minutes later, I felt a slight hum, which, however, soon stopped.

The Jedi returned when I was almost asleep. I won't say that he was gone for a long time, but a sleepless night for my young body was still a noticeable challenge. His padawan came into the mess with him, and in my opinion, a guy of about fifteen or sixteen couldn't have been anyone else.

"Well, let's get acquainted. And then I'll show you where you're going to live for the next few days. So," He rubbed his palms together. "My name is Kor Chuu-tal. I'm a thirty-year-old Jedi knight, and unfortunately, I'm the one who took you away from your parents. I'm sorry, man, but neither your father nor I could have done anything else. You'll figure it out when you're older. And this young man is my padawan. A student, to put it simply. His name is Danil Sak, and despite his sullen appearance, he's a kind guy. Now let's go and show you your cabin, and then Danil will take a couple of tests from you. But don't worry," he smiled, "it doesn't hurt at all. And if you want, he'll give you a tour of the ship later." After these words, the guy sighed. But he didn't say anything. "He'll show you where everything is. Well, let's go?"

The cabin was small. Three by three meters, to be exact. I'm fine with my childish body, but I have no idea how adults live here for weeks. When Danil took my blood with the help of some kind of device similar to a pistol, I asked the question:

"why" — and received the same simple answer:

"to measure the level of midi-chlorians in the blood."

And then I asked a slightly more tricky question:

"why"?

The guy thought about it and said,

"That's the way it's supposed to be. Preliminary tests before a full examination at the Academy."

I wanted to ask my question again, but I felt sorry for the guy — how would he know why to do the same job twice? But it became clear that this was not the curiosity of individual Jedi.

"Will you tell me... well... this...?" I asked another question, and hesitated.

"Test results?" He clarified. And after my nod, he shrugged his shoulders: "If you want. It's not a secret."

Great job. I was afraid I'd have to be curious. Although, remembering the canon, when Skywalker Sr. measured the level of these midi-Chlorians, Obi-Wan, being only a padawan at the time, quite clearly indicated that there were more of them than Yoda. That is, he had some knowledge in this regard. However, there are many nuances here. Take for example the fact that I do not know what era it is now. Maybe a hundred or two hundred years before that incident, the Jedi kept such information secret. I wish I knew what time I was in. I know that it's the year 969 of the ARR, after the Ruusan reform, but that doesn't mean anything to me at all. I'm not lying, he says. This year means that I got there before the Uprising and the New Republic. That means before the Yuuzhan Vong, who carved out a third of the galaxy. Or a quarter? In general, it doesn't matter. And the worst part is that I don't know anything about that war. Almost. According to the canon, I've watched movies, animated series... a couple of seasons... I scrolled through it... I've read a few books about that period.... If you think about it, there are also a lot of things, but these were links on the Internet, the information was not visually supported. For me, it's like statistics — I read it, I forgot. If the Power allows you to stimulate my memory, everything is great, if not, I can only hope that I am far enough away from those events in time.

What else can I say about the flight? The tour of the ship was boring. At least, they didn't show me anything interesting. Except maybe the bridge. Or what do they call it here? The cockpit? Oh yes, they also told me how many midi-chlorians I have in my blood, or rather in every cell. Drum roll... 19361. When asked if this was a lot, I was told: "above the standard." So understand it as you want. Well, at least higher, and that's okay. I wouldn't be upset by "lower" either-it's easier to leave the Order that way.

I was extremely happy that we finally reached our destination. Doing nothing for more than three weeks can make an adult lose his temper, but despite my consciousness, I am physically a child, and biochemistry requires action. When asked to teach me something, they put me in a cabin and gave me a lecture on meditation. I was afraid to ask them to teach me anything else. Although, what could be scarier than meditation? In general, I was glad to arrive on Coruscant. Let's start quickly, let's finish quickly. I'll get through the training as soon as possible, I'll go home as soon as possible. The main thing is not to stand out and get away from the teacher. At the Academy, if my memory serves me correctly, yunling goes without a teacher... I don't remember what it's called, but in short, he becomes a farmer. Or something like that. There seem to be several departments. But I don't know how they become padawans. Either the Council chooses them, or the knights choose them themselves.... Nonsense, I have more than one year of study ahead of me, but I'll know about that for sure. You can ask the same Danil, but I, in theory, don't know about anything at all, but here are such questions. Mm-hmm... After all, the age of four has more cons than pros.

The Jedi Temple was impressive, especially looking at it from above, from the glider. Not as much as the city as a whole, but yes, there was something about it. When I saw him, I thought the Jedi were just being greedy. Probably, when they were given a place in the capital, they didn't have enough space for anything serious, but they didn't want to give back the extra square meters either. So they built... a house. One, but a huge one. And they called it a temple. What's the temple for, I just can't figure it out. And yet, when we flew up to this building, I thought about those dozens... hundreds of bullies that I'll have to live with for the next ten years. Lord, save and preserve!