Ingrid Vuull - Holding it Together

[Echohawk]

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Some Backstory

Monkey Majik + 吉田兄弟 Change

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In the grand and majestic halls of the High Temple carved and formed with such elegance and richness that it seemed rather in contrast to the humble intent of those within seeking to commune with the grand will of the Force by liberating their consciousnesses. But the building reigned as a truly inspired point on the Coruscanti skyline. The world was in a state of perceptuality, without season or age as the structures rose and fell as construction allowed.

Yet it was in these halls where yet another argument had broken out. Dressed in white as the lone girl was debating with her fellow initiates after being teased and harassed about her attention and worry about the war. Backed into an alcove as the others surrounded, such things echoed down the halls and would pick up notice in due time.

Softly shushed by one of the custodians she’d be guided with a tender grasp on her shoulder towards the medical area, they needed an extra pair of hands anyway.

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As the years went by, one by one, those same faces that once surrounded her started to disappear. Going off into the war to do good in the galaxy.

But Ingrid obeyed the Council’s order, she stayed behind.

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The laughter of Life Day, the hustle of young Jedi towards their specific cubby places where their companions and masters could leave all manner of gifts, things that were made and given with someone else in mind.

Yet the one in white came slowly rather than eagerly. There were packages with the name Ingrid scrawled in various ways, but in feeling them out it was a familiar weight and shape to each of them. Socks. It was always socks.

Trained not to respond to those more intense emotions that set in she’d sink to her knees before her spot as the others hugged and embraced, thrilling in their model starfighters and other play things. Just as she was to reach up and wipe her eyes after the first package opened revealed what she expected there came a presence over her that was much taller than the others, so unexpected the others gave them a bit of a pause and issued a respectful bow.

"Master Zhaf" they all answered in synchronized greeting.

Dropping to a knee the figure came to Ingrid with an outstretched offering. After the momentary stun of being caught off guard her hands reach out to take it up. Opening the silken ribbon to allow the concealing cloth to reveal a hand carved wooden horse figurine.

She forgot herself, only springing into the arms and hugging him tight. A gentle laugh in her ear.

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A year away from the High Temple was something healing, seeing something other than the same halls, hearing the memories of her former fellows who’d never return. But even here the other Jedi could sense the fury in the pit of her stomach, that anger that had yet to be quelled. Master Zhaf payed them little mind, keeping her at his side.

Until one day, the question would one day come while she served him a new blend of tea they had been experimenting with out in the garden. "You know, it’s been a few years since I trained a Padawan of my own…"

But the moment was broken as the scream of an opening artillery strike pierced the skyline…
The Sith had arrived on Dantooine.

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Expending a social battery in an unfamiliar hall of Jedi, Initiates, Padawans, Knights, and a Knight-Captain all looking on with focus and interest. Keeping her feet under her, the little one waited to be dismissed even though she was the one speaking.

With a brief word, the Knight Mannor helping her offered that she close out her own lesson.

A shy adjustment and the end of the day she would retreat to a space where she could simply settle and meditate. Only to limply fall sideways and just lay there for a bit.

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But you wouldn’t know it by looking at her, all dressed in white.

[Echohawk]

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The Jedi Who Feared the Blade

I Believe - Christina Perri

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"I notice you have hesitation when it comes to the weapon…"
A moment held after a group gathering in the training room, she was asked to stay behind to be addressed on her own as the Kaleesh Jedi Knight regarded her. Though this question was not the first time the observation had been noted.

On purpose she’d been set against live lightsabers, pushing that anxiety directly into the light, and with each swing of Shii-cho it had been a contest not to succumb to the thrumming pressure inside of her own head. Yet now the question was poised, why did this fear exist? Why did she, a Jedi from her youngling years carry such repulsion and reaction from this icon of the Order?

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Grasses aflame, smoke filling the landscape as the Jedi responded to the attack in sudden formation. Dantooine was under threat. While the others managed to rally to their emergency points Master Zhaf and Ingrid were one of those groups that were further out.

The Sith pulled with their hands out like eager claws for her, wrapping their grip as one Sith took each forearm. Facing them she could see their masks, their dark cloaks, and then the burning crimson lights of the sabers they wielded. Confident, sadistic, malicious. The vicious hum of those tainted kyber fueled weapons as they closed in around her, everything started to go dark.

At least…
Until the reverse pull would draw her back, and while the Sith held fast the pressure eventually grew to be too much. It might be painful, but the master Jedi knew in the moment there was no other way. Bones snapped, the Sith couldn’t maintain grasp, Ingrid screamed in agonizing pain before being thrown towards the temple grounds. Of the few things she could remember was a single command as the master strode forth to intercept the wave on oncoming Sith, their number piercing through the smoke with each red blade.

"Run!"

Blinded by pain, by smoke, she didn’t know which way she was running entirely. But she still could feel the bite of the blade as the master’s sacrifice had bought her time. Broken bones instead of severed arms, or her own demise…

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Retelling it always left the Jedi learner in a state of disarray and shock, grief and survivor’s guilt riddling her features. And along with such emotions came the memory pain that made her arms shake, for her it was only a few weeks ago and her body had been able to heal and recover. But it still held onto pieces of that past because she had never fully processed it all herself.

Yet this all hardly deterred the Viscaran Knights. From Knight Vas, to Knight Tyl, and in time Knight Spencer all would work to introduce her to their own kyber crystals, the hilts of their sabers that Ingrid cowered in the light of. With each contact came a new profound connection. The saber was indeed a weapon, but it carried so much more within that exterior casing, such was something she needed to understand.

With each there was a reassurance in their tone, each teaching aspects of its greater meaning, the inner voice, and the protection rather than the power it would be for her.

Slowly but surely she would flinch less as the weapon was brandished against her in challenge as she eventually found the courage and the calm to place her hand atop their own, and to hold the lit blade of another in her own hands.

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This was not the first time Ingrid had ventured into the crystal caverns of Viscara, but there was a different flow in the air as she was escorted by Daldinsi and her lifelong training partner from Coruscant Anlithan. Before on her own there was a vision of the strife within her, as she had started to meditate and listen to the call from within having to dance with visions of rivals and foes from every side.

In her initial confrontation she was angry, her fury wouldn’t allow her to forgive that which had taken so much from her already and distracted her away from the focus needed to find her partner. But the forces within seemed to understand her better than she knew herself, such things would take time. Much like a planted seed, care and patience would see growth…

Now, relinquishing the anger, the frustration, the fears, and all the worries she was in the company of those on their own paths forward. There was no instruction needed as she was observed reaching out towards the crystalline structures once more, remembering how mere meditation was not quite deep enough to hear and make sense of the collective voices.

As she’d released control, surrendered her body to this weightless embrace she was not being carried off of any battlefield, but in the warm robed arms of someone protective and familiar. Carried through a memory of a master that didn’t wish to wake her quite yet as he was bringing her out into the open to watch a meteor shower she wanted to see one special early morning.

Blooming through the rocks and stone came a sort of flower, indeed that growth had finally seemed to mature. Presenting the kyber that she had begun to find her connection with, finding the moment they were both ready. The softly rolling colors filtering and flowing until a color was at long last settled upon…

"I’m still here. It’s going to be okay, Padawan."

[Echohawk]

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Open Hands

Anduin’s Theme - WoW

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The sanctum of a hospital room, a mebday area was the battlefield that Ingrid would so often take to. Whether it was in the colony, or upon Republic or Jedi grounds, her presence was not that of a fighter or intelligence, her vow was strictly minded on healing. To first, do no harm.

Working in tandem alongside the medical droids she could expand and enhance their proficiency as well as increase the chances of both survival and favorable outcomes. Ingrid’s presence was often in the proximity of Knight Selendar who she grew steadily more familiar with by the day. She was devoted to her duty of healing to the point where days might pass and she would not emerge until the patients were all stable, until she could truly do no more in that moment.

Proficient in triage the most immediate wounds were able to arrive to her, and within minutes their condition was already assessed and methods of treatment applied. With the same grace others applied to duels and combat, she did so with gauze and IV placements. Even with the reduced kolto supply that had been so often relied on, she did not hesitate or despair in the least. The only odd thing of note was her hesitation in employing the Force to heal, but her reasoning was simple. It had to be reserved for the most important tasks if possible, one’s energy and focus was not infinite even if the Force itself was.

Instead it along with her knowledge would guide every motion efficiently to ensure life was preserved. A humble place compared to many other tasks the Jedi sought to complete around her, but this need had no end. Those white robes fluttering with her steps from patient to patient as she ensured they were able to rest in some degree of comfort. When the request came from the masters to ensure Veles was also seen to, Ingrid took the initiative to ensure that their hospital and the resident Ithorian doctor Ipol became familiar as well.

Working to softly immunize, treat, and aid any who came to her attention in need. It mattered not if they were Republic, refugee, independent, or even those working with the local Sith. Occasional mutters from her patients or onlookers would note how different she was…

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Ingrid remembered that moment on the prison ship, first feeling her master’s presence, but to finally see him again. Though at first he didn’t look at her, didn’t approach. After all the stress, all the reassurances he’d endeavored to send out the hesitation didn’t make sense.

Her eyes widened when Daldinsi finally did move, drawing up a pair of sabers he’d been left with. But with their ignition came horrific recognition, crimson light.

Every nightmare from the prior months was made manifest in a breath, as the other Knights Vas and Merarr palmed their hilts in readiness to respond. But this was not the master she’d come to take, she knew something had afflicted him, affected him. And against her own preservation her foil was stowed, the kinetic shield was deactivated as she looked to Daldinsi and reached for that connection they were forming.

Forsaking aggression she trusted in the Force, and walked into the reach of destruction, defenseless.

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Another shift came and went, as she set back the datacharts at her leave. It was a wonder how and if she ever rested.

[Echohawk]

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Lingering Burns

BG3 - Harpy Song

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“What is your business here Jetii!?”
The involuntary shudder couldn’t be completely suppressed, that slur of a word they used in their tongue when the same warmongers from half a decade ago couldn’t be bothered to use the correct pronunciation. Ingrid had just gone out to train, to keep some of her basic skills sharp when she happened across a lone male Force sensitive at first, but now here came a second, a Mandalorian female.

When their words sounded more like the Jedi and their ability to talk at people rather than talk to them she grew more than disinterested, wanting to take on the challenge that was ahead of them and test herself in the field. However this stranger she’d come to have encountered was far more visceral than she was, and argued further to irritate the Mandalorian. But he never drew a weapon, never moved to strike.

She couldn’t have known offhand that he was harboring talents from the dark inside of him.

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Before she could get in to even write a report there was that same Mandalorian storming the gates they knew they weren’t to cross, giving her retelling of this dark sider. Sure enough even coming close she was pointed out, accused.

Which only turned to set Ingrid off as she watched them strut about trying to start problems and tear her reputation down because she didn’t get what she wanted and wanted to act like she knew better. So Ingrid spoke the words back to her, of the contempt she had of the same Jedi she came to run to cry to. This however of course was quickly silenced.

“And how are you going to punish her!?”

By this point, Ingrid had enough and walked away rather than continue to be attacked and insulted yet again. She would not take the Mandalorian’s goading, not that she should’ve spoken she knew. But even this minor misstep would earn the ire of one of the Knights. Knight Palisade made her displeasure apparent with her tone as she and Ingrid stepped aside, a snap back.

It didn’t really surprise Ingrid anymore, the protests of the majority of attending Jedi during an award ceremony at the Republic base, the Hutt assassination.

Maybe all the recent deaths were to blame…
Maybe this is how Viscaran Jedi simply were…
Just a bystander to the wrath and grief of this Rook…

Now with Knight Spencer drifting further away, there was a familiar coldness settling in. Now it was just easier to fall in line, to be silent and act little better than a doll. It was something the Knights that taught her disliked, but she felt no other choice right now.

Not knowing if she was abandoned or if anything was going to get better, it was a sore time.

[Echohawk]

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Way of the healer.

credits song for my death but im the final boss.

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In the Veles hospital news and cycling holonet topics filled the waiting room as Ingrid strode in, never having really left but committing herself fully to the duties and needs of a practicing physician. The more recent dialogues that echoed off the largely barren walls pinged with slight amplified echo that rattled in the brain, a mounting frustration and mistrust that now spilled over with revelations and grand events in the Core. A tension grasping around the throats of those who were toeing lines and pressing their luck with confidence, a burden she herself didn’t feel or carry as she moved through her duties with the familiar discipline that Coruscant had always demanded.

Though as she made her way to the surgical suite to sanitize and prepare for the next scheduled procedure a faint timely buzz sounded in her pocket from the datapad resting securely there. Drawing the screen into her view the motion was fluid and routine for the countless charts and medication updates that tended to swarm her notifications, but this time it was her recent teacher.

Ingrid Vuull will be committed to the Corps until such time as she can find another master.

It hardly came as a surprise, but merely a confirmation of the reality that already persisted. Several weeks had already come and gone without much in the way of word or communication between the two and this wouldn’t really affect or change any of her present routines. Even if they asked for her saber back, she’d give it without hesitation. After all, what use is a saber to one who mends.

And yet while all these thoughts rolled through her mind, no others would see the flurry of brief thought and consideration. For all she did was simply draw a breath and mark such read with a mere tap of her digit. Her expression was ever cowled, hidden, now masked to ensure the safety of the patients in need. They would never see nor touch upon the emotions that were there, as all her focus was on them and improving the lives that she could.

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There had been more confidence before swinging steadily between automated responses accompanied by compliant behavior, or allowing herself the safe private spaces to air grievances and concerns in a far more candid way. But the latter had evaporated, just another thing stolen, any ability to release and process the frustrations buried within. She had her place now, even if she would not be anything more than this it no longer bothered her. Though the appropriate self care would be needed, she was on her own with her training, whatever might come of it now.

As she entered the operating theatre to install what seemed to be a small production line of prosthetics she would draw the focus and calm needed to help ally the Force’s will to her own well practiced and studied applications of medicine both mundane and that of the Jedi arts. Meditation moved where she moved, where the moment was, she was within it. In the process of the hours that went by while she worked on over a dozen individuals, her mentality gently gave further thought and attention to words from the deceased Jedi…

There are four lights.
Agriculture to build and create sustainable infrastructure for populations for all to thrive.
Exploration to handle domains new and known to confront hazards they prepare for.
Education to ensure the passage of knowledge and the honing of understanding.
And medical, that grants hope and peace in our most fragile hours of a lifetime.

"Relax for me, your leg is going to feel numb. But once we’re done here you’ll be able to walk more evenly than before." Her tone warm, reassuring, helping to set the girl at ease. With a body still growing, several replacements would be needed as their body changed, one of the many challenges of prosthetics. A victim of one of countless assaults on the colony, damage done before Ingrid had even arrived here.

With such a light, one can see the detail and at times the darkness of the sentient condition. The nature of people when they are desperate, facing the consequences of their choices, or confronting mortality. But this dedication, this duty, this sacrifice is to defy every impulse to turn away, rebuke, or abandon.
This is the way of the healer, one of the many paths of a Jedi.