Age: 19
Species: Human
Height: 5’9
Skin Color: Pale
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Sky Blue
Birthplace: Tepasi
Theme Song: Idina Menzel - Let It Go (from "Frozen") (Audio) - YouTube
Noble Beginnings
Loud, pained screams echoed through gilded halls paved with white marble, walls adorned with ornate columns and the most exquisite of artwork depicting a long lineage of weathered family figureheads stretching back hundreds of years, all of their eyes seemingly upon the young maid girl who rushed through the halls with a bundle of pristine white blankets in her arms. As she snapped ninety degrees to round the corner into a room through a ten foot, lavishly decorated entryway she paused, her mouth agape as she watched the scene in front of her. A beautiful, golden haired woman lay upon the bed in childbirth, shielded by an array of draped silken sheets around the four-poster bed she lay upon. The young maid’s trance was broken by the harsh bark of the aged midwife kneeling upon the floor of the bedchamber.
“Towels, give them here now… and I told you hot water, hurry up girl!”
The timid maid jumped to attention, handing over the bundle of fresh blankets and rushing away again through those long hallways and the rooms they connected, a long way back down to the servant quarters for hot water.
A young girl with long, flowing blonde hair down to her waist twirled and twirled through an emerald green field ringed by well-kept gardens of multi-chromatic flowerbeds, spinning until she collapsed on the grass with a giggle, a small dog bounding over and licking her face affectionately.
Nearby two men and a woman watched on, her mother, Lady Katarina, and her father, Duke Nikita, though the last man was a stranger. In stark contrast to her parents who were dressed extravagantly with jewels and gilded capes even while relaxing at home, he wore a set of dull brown robes, rough hewn fabrics, his synthleather boots were muddy around the toes. He had long, dark brown hair that went down his back and landed around his shoulders lazily, a poorly maintained goatee beard and a serene air about him as the trio engaged in what seemed to be a heated discussion.
"As I’ve said before… Duke, M’lady, there is absolutely no doubt about it. The girl has a deep connection to the force, you must allow her to go to the Jedi Temple and be trained in their ways."
"There must be some kind of mistake…"
"You listen to me, Jedi, my wife is correct, you have made a mistake here. I suggest you reassess the situation."
The Duke squared up to the Jedi, his wife clinging to his arm as he stared the scruffy monk down. He was no pushover, standing at six foot two with a broad chest and a muscular physique from decades of martial combat training, but he was surely no match for a force user as the Knight simply smiled and responded calmly with a light gesture of his hand through the air.
"You don’t want to fight me, Duke."
"I don’t want to fight you…" He responded somewhat languidly.
"Then call the guards, Niki…" Katarina murmured to her dazed husband.
"I will reassess her, in two standard years time. I will return on this day to meet with her again and we can have this conversation again."
Valanessa came wandering over with her dog at her side and a tweeting, bright yellow bird sitting on the back of her hand as she called out brightly to her parents who had yet to notice her, only the Jedi inclining his head to the small girl with a smile on his lips.
"Mama, papa, look what I’ve found, can I keep him?"
"Eugh, she has an animal, Niki, do something." Katarina blurted out, recoiling away from the feathered menace.
The Duke shook his head lightly, still staring into the Jedi’s eyes before he turned to his daughter and looked down at her, her beaming smile and her bird. He couldn’t help but return the gesture and he knelt down to face her and tried to lift a finger to the bird, but it suddenly flew off when he drew close. Valanessa’s eyes welled with tears as she started to sob on the spot, her little dog barking at her leg as Nikita pulled her into a tight embrace.
"Now, now, Val, don’t cry… birds want to be free, it isn’t right to keep them as pets, they aren’t like Hunter." He spoke softly, stroking the back of her head as he reached down with a free hand to clap the dog’s head, quietening it for now as his wife stood coldly with her arms folded.
"Your father is right, Valanessa. He is a very wise man." The Jedi spoke as he slipped his hands inside the wide sleeves of his robes, drawing a glance from the Duke as he consoled his daughter.
The Order
Nearly two years later, life had continued for the Lanshradc Family. Valanessa’s older brother had left a year prior to join the Republic Navy, serving as a junior officer aboard a battleship called the Rose of Coruscant. He kept in touch regularly and had sent her pictures and schematics of it, a beast of a warship constructed out of the Kuat shipyards, boasting a crew compliment of well in excess of two thousand personnel and marines. He could never tell them very much about his missions, but they were never too concerned about him, he was a bright young lad aboard a powerful vessel, despite the war his father had used his political connections to learn a little more than the rest of his family about his sons assignments, well assured in the knowledge that the Rose of Coruscant never went anywhere too dangerous. Nikita had began lessons with Valanessa in saber fencing not long after the Jedi’s visit, she enjoyed it, spending time with her father. They trained most days and as the months passed he devoted more and more time to his daughter. In contrast, her mother Katarina grew more distant, she fought with her father. The palace was large but echoes carried through it, so too was it easy to sneak around and listen if one so desired, and Valanessa often did, listening to them scream at each other night after night, never quite sure of the source of all of the misery in her family.
The sun rose on Tepasi as Nikita drew back the curtains in Valanessa’s room, Hunter rising from his bed with a yawn as he walked up to the Duke for a pat on the head.
"Get up, Val, it’s time to train."
Valanessa rolled over in her queen sized bed, hiding under a fluffy feather pillow as she mumbled from underneath it "Aww, do we have to? We’ve been training every day this week."
Nikita tightened his lips a little, then relaxed into a smile and went over to sit on the side of her bed, pulling the pillow off of her. "We don’t have very long left together, and I want you to be ready."
"What do you mean?" She asked, sitting up in bed.
"That man… who came, years ago, when you were younger, do you remember him?"
"The nice man with the long hair?"
The Duke just smiled and reached out to brush a wispy strand of hair away from Val’s face. "Yes. He was a Jedi, he believes that you have what it takes to become one too."
"Oh… what does that mean? Is he going to come and train me?"
"No… not exactly, you’re going to go with him. To the Jedi Temple on Coruscant."
"But why? Can’t you just pay him to stay here?"
"I’m afraid that’s not really how it works."
"Why not? I want to stay here with you."
"I want you to stay here too, Val…" He reached out and pulled her into a hug, sucking a breath. "But this is the right thing to do."
Months passed, Nikita and Valanessa spent almost every waking hour together and they spoke more about the Jedi, who they were, why she had to go, what the force was, as best her father could explain any of that to a curious seven year old, but he had done his research as best he could, learned about what he was sending his daughter to become, why he had to do it.
Soon, the day came when the Jedi returned to them, early in the morning before the sun had even risen. The Duke met him at the gates and escorted him in, the two shared nary a word as the sound of tweeting birds on the estate filled the silence. They ascended the gold-trimmed spiral staircase to collect Valanessa but found her already standing at the top of the stairs in a fancy ballgown she had worn to an official ceremony last Republic Day.
"Are you all ready to go then?"
"I think so…"
"You are. I can feel it." The Jedi added warmly, extending a hand to the Duke’s shoulder. "You made the right choice, Duke."
"That doesn’t make it any easier. Please… go before my wife wakes up."
Nikita swallowed hard and prepared to turn and leave, but Valanessa ran to him and clung to him in a tight embrace, crying a little bit as she dropped her bag at her side. He nearly cried himself as he reached around to hold her, the Jedi turned and left them a moment, retreating to the bottom of the stairs and waiting by the front door.
"You know I’ll always love you, Val."
"I love you too." She mumbled through a half sob, lingering a while before wiping her tears on her father’s jacket and picked her bag back up, turning and running down the stairs to join the Jedi.
He welcomed her with a smile before glancing back to her father half way up the spiral staircase, nodding at him simply before they departed the house, the estate, the planet all together, making their way to the Jedi’s ship and heading back to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.
Valanessa was practically glued to the window as the Jedi brought them in to land, awestruck by the vastness of Coruscant, a feeling that didn’t relent the closer they got to the temple itself. At once it made the palace she called him seem tiny, insignificant, it’s main spire rose so high into the sky she could barely see the top anymore once they landed at the base of it, her gaze captivated by the splendour of the boulevard leading up to the temple, lined with trees, gardens and water features that defied belief. The Jedi walked in from the cockpit with her bag in his hand and clapped her on the shoulder gently.
"We’ve arrived. I’ll take you to meet the masters first and then we’ll get you settled. I’ll find you something else to wear, too. That dress is lovely but you are going to stand out a little bit." He offered with a slight smirk as he escorted her off the ship.
They walked the boulevard towards the entrance, hundreds of people of all descriptions passed them by, chatted by the fountain, sat and ate lunch in the sun, younglings ran around laughing, catching Val’s eye briefly as her Jedi companion edged her on. "All in good time."
She found herself standing before the Jedi Council, seated around the little princess in a ring as they hummed and whispered amongst themselves and she stood awkwardly, playing with her dress, the Jedi Knight who had brought her stood in the back of the room with his hands in his sleeves, a smile on his face as he awaited what he considered an inevitable verdict from the Council.
A tall, slender alien with grey skin leaned forwards out of his deep set chair and spoke up, apparently for the whole council. "Why did you not bring her two years past?"
The Jedi in the back of the room spoke up plainly, "She was not ready."
"And you made that decision yourself." The Muun recoiled in his chair with a light huff.
"I saw no alternative. The Jedi do not steal children from their families."
"Steal we do not, offer guidance do we to those in need." Another master spoke up.
"In any case we shall train her."
"I knew that you would see the potential in her." He spoke with a dip of his head respectfully to the council, turning to leave, beckoning to Valanessa to come with him.
Valanessa paused a while, staring around the faces of the Jedi Council, many of them alien ones, ones she had never seen before, lightly awestruck by the whole affair before her attention was captured by the Knight at the door, motioning for her to follow, to which she gathered her long dress and trundled along quickly, a light skip in her step as some of the masters chuckled amongst themselves.
Jedi
In short order Valanessa settled into her new life at the Temple. Much of her training revolved around the core tenets of the Jedi, their Code and philosophies to begin with. There had been a few classes where her and some of the other younglings got training sabers and began learning some basic movements with them. In another class they practiced lifting small stones using the force, one of the children was able to hurl it across the room at another, earning himself a stern telling off from their teacher. The food left a little to be desired but all in all, it was good, she was busy, too busy to think of home, but she also learned in time that she shouldn’t dwell on what her life was before, but devote herself to becoming a great jedi so that she could bring honour to her family.
One day at on the Temple Grounds she spotted a young green boy, about her age, sitting alone reading a book by the fountain. She skipped over to him and seated herself next to him, glancing over his shoulder at what he was reading as she introduced herself.
"Hey, my name’s Valanessa, but you can just call me Val if you want. What’s yours?"
The boy shivered a little bit and didn’t look up from his book, lips trembling lightly as he struggled to find the words to answer her.
"M-m-m-m-my n-n-name’s Th-th-th-Thel-Thelion…"
"What are you reading Thelion?" She asked, smiling as she stabbed a straw into the top of a milk pack and started to slurp, then offered it to the Mirialan.
Thelion shook his head a little bit, lifting his head to look her in the eye. "N-n-n-no th-th-thank y-y-y-you." He then lifted his book up to show her the front cover, “The Teachings of Master Odan-Urr”.
"Huh. Neat." A long slurp of milk. "Who’s Odan-Urr?"
After her first year at the temple things began to get a little more serious, lessons got longer and more of the day was filled up by more of them. She looked back on her initial lessons with the saber and felt like they were just swinging them around in the air. Now she had been taught of the forms, their names at least, and had begun instruction in Shii Cho along with the rest of her group. General teachings on philosophy had spun into long discussions about the Three Pillars of the Jedi and what it means to live by the code.
One day they were in the training hall practicing deflection against the training remotes, all lined up in a row. The droids were tuned to fire at a slow, steady pace, the blasts slowed down as much as they could be for these low level sessions with the initiates. Valanessa had taken to the training saber well, her fathers lessons had given her a good basis and perhaps most of all a strong arm, and these Jedi training sabers were thankfully far lighter than the cold steel her father had her practice with. She didn’t often think of her family now, but it was hard to push her father from her mind whenever she fought. She quickly raised her saber up horizontally to block a headshot, glancing aside to Thelion who’d just done the same.
"Hey, you’re pretty good."
Thelion never offered a response, his skinny arms shook lightly as he held the training saber in both hands, slowly lowering it out of the block back to his side whilst most of the other students remained at the ready for the next shot. Val frowned a little bit as she saw the light turn on the droid, indicating an incoming shot. The Mirialan saw it too, but he just gave a quiet huff and closed his eyes, almost letting the training saber slip from his grasp. Valanessa kicked off the spot and launched herself in front of him, saber outstretched to catch the shot from his training droid, her own tracking her across the hall and firing a second shot towards her unprotected core. Just then their teacher stepped in, deactivating all of the droids with the push of a button and extending a hand to deflect the bolt using the force before it ever reached Val. A tall, gruff looking Darian Twi’lek with a dark brown skin tone.
"What are you doing Initiate Valanessa? Why did you leave your position?"
He asked with a light scowl, folding his thickset arms as Val shrunk before him and lowered her training saber, eyes down at the ground as the whole room stopped and stared at them.
"I was just uhh…"
"I… dropped m-my g-g-guard…" Thelion panted lightly as he rested the end of his saber on the floor, using it as a crutch. "T-to dodge it…"
Val side-eyed Thelion who looked back at her, tilting his head to the side a bit as their teacher snickered a little, his overall stony demeanour softening.
"Well we aren’t here to learn how to dodge blaster fire, Initiate Thelion, nor are we here to learn about safeguarding your allies Initiate Valanessa. Everyone return to the ready, we will continue the lesson."
Valanessa and Thelion both nodded, the former having gotten his breath back enough to continue after the short interlude, Val looked back at him and offered a friendly smile as she assumed her ready stance again.
As the years continued to draw on the galaxy kept on spinning as it did, wars happened, many Jedi left the temple, it’s halls grew quieter, but her training only intensified. After a year of learning Form I, Shii-Cho, she progressed to Form II, Makashi. Learning the duelists form reminded her even more of her childhood, even so far as those years seemed behind her now. All the while lessons on the force complimented the more martial skills, she learned of the three themes, distinct disciplines, Alter, Sense and Control. Many of the initiates were most interested in Alter, especially that one who’d hit another student on the back of the head with a pebble when they were younglings, and some already had sharp senses naturally and liked the idea of becoming as completely omniscient as many of their instructors seemed to be at times. Val was most interested in Control and dedicated herself to learning a multitude of techniques, Tutaminis, the absorption of energy, harmful radiation, , Curato salva, the restoration of one’s own body, purging of toxins, resistance to mind altering effects, controlling pain, Altus sopor, ones own focus on the force, the Art of Movement, trained time and time again on the obstacle courses of the temple to strengthen her body and her ability to use the force for increasingly greater feats of acrobatics, and Tapas, a technique that allowed her to remain warm in a cold environment.
All of this, she knew, after speaking to some of the Knights who were still in the temple, would open up more options for her training, and she wanted all of the options she could get. There were so many arts and disciplines to throw herself into, so much to learn and to prove herself capable of. At the back of her mind was always the thought of her First Life, but she had come to accept the need to distance herself from them, why it was necessary for her to leave, why they simply could not have brought all of this to their comparatively little plot of land on Tepasi. She wished to learn more of the blade arts, to master them, something that drew some amusement from the longer lived Jedi among the Temple but they taught her what they could and what she was able to learn.
The next year after her Makashi studies had concluded was spent learning Form III, Soresu, a form that required near total control of the practitioners body, to remain in constant flowing motions to remain unpredictable, to be able to meet blows from whichever angle they might come from, to deflect blaster fire in a far more efficient and reliable manner than she had learned before. The year after that came Form IV, Ataru. Now she was older, a little bit taller, stronger, far quicker and smarter than she had been before. Now she was able to use her control of the Force to increase her speed, dexterity, to slow her perception of time and offer the level of focus required to learn the relentless form that demanded never ending endurance from practitioners in a way that reminded her of the previous year learning Form III. The next year her teaching expanded to Form V, the Perseverance Form, she learned of it’s duality, both sides of the combat form, Djem So and Shien. Most of her instructors preached against Djem So due to its dominating nature, the feelings it imbues upon those who fight in such a way, the dangers of how such a path could lead to the Dark Side, and Val took their warnings in earnest, learning a little of what Djem So entailed but spending the majority of her time practicing Shien, the fluid deflection of blaster fire back at targets, destroying dozens of training remotes a week now.
Now she was thirteen, a budding young Jedi that had devoted herself to her teachings for many years amid the growing unrest in the Galaxy, her mind focused within and not without for the most part. A time came when she was brought before her teachers and asked what she wanted to be, where she saw herself in the Jedi Order and she responded that she wished to become a Knight, to defend the Galaxy and the people in it and uphold peace and justice for all. The answer pleased them and she was made offers of Padawanship, but the decision weighed heavily upon her young mind as she spent many days and nights ruminating over the choices - which Knight would suit her best, was she ready, how quickly would she be expected to face the trials after saying Yes. She had heard about what happened to those who failed the trials, not a disgraceful thing by any stretch of the imagination, but she couldn’t fail, she had to succeed for House Lanshradc, a failure of a Jedi daughter would not do.
In the end she went back to one of her more trusted teachers and explained the bulk of her worries, why she didn’t feel like she could make a decision, and asked if there were other options. The teacher simply smiled, took her into the Reassignment Council to learn more about the Service Corps, where he explained she could bide her time, continue practicing and learning from Jedi there, devoting herself to a good cause, but without the need to make any sort of lifelong decision just yet. This eased her mind and made the three choices before her a little bit easier to handle. The Agricultural Corps sounded very important but she couldn’t see herself on her hands and knees tending to seedlings, The Medical and Education Corps were alluring, not personally per say, but she had heard that Initiate Thelion had joined up with a few years prior and part of her wished to meet up with him again and make sure he was doing alright. Then there was the Exploration Corps, a life among the stars, their operational territory ‘the whole galaxy, known and unknown.’ Something about that seemed rather glamourous to her, something she could get behind. Her request was made to join them and before too long a ship arrived for her, a gruff young human Jedi Knight with a poncho over his traditional robes, his floppy blonde hair blowing in the breeze as he walked down the shuttle ramp to collect her.
"You’ll be Initiate Valanessa then?"
"Yes, that’s me!" She piped up, grabbing her bag and jogging over to meet him.
"I’m Knight Ardo, nice to meet you. If you’re all ready to go, we’ll just depart."
She looked back over her shoulder one last time before turning back to Ardo and nodding. "Yeah, I’m ready."
Explorer
Valanessa spent the next five or so years with the Exploration Corps, spending the entirety of it with Knight Ardo who continued her training as best he could between missions. Oh, the missions. Perhaps that was how she managed to spend so long out there, cavorting about the galaxy and adventuring in the deepest reaches of known space, exploring planets that no sentient had set foot on for likely thousands of years, delving ancient ruins and tombs, running from the local wildlife whenever they got a bit too hungry. It was a life that was easy to fall into, it consumed almost every fiber of her being and she quickly forgot all about her trials, her dreams of coming a Knight like Ardo, for the time being she was quite content to be his sidekick. Sometimes she thought that she should just ask to be Ardo’s Padawan, though part of her also saw why the Council might reject such a proposal, after all there must have been some reason that Ardo didn’t have one already and was stuck looking after Initiates in the Exploration Corps instead.
Before long, or so it seemed, she was celebrating her 18th birthday onboard a Praxeum Ship, not one of the great Correllian Colonizers, little more than a converted garbage hauler that had collection bays converted as hangers and space enough for the crew to live and work. She approached Ardo over breakfast.
"Ardo I… think I’m ready to face my trials now."
"What like, right now?" The Knight joked as he shoveled a mouthful of cereal into his mouth.
"No, you know what I mean. To go back and find a Knight to take me on as a Padawan."
"Good, I thought you were gonna ask me."
"Why, would you turn me down?" She quipped back.
"Absolutely, you’ve been in my hair for way too long." He said with a gentle chuckle.
"So… obviously you can’t just take me back, how long are we expected to be on this trip for?"
"Oh, I think probably another eight or nine standard months, could be longer though, just depends what we find."
"Alright… well, that’s fine. Gives me time to think about it."
"Don’t think too hard, might hurt yourself."
Val snorted and rolled her eyes at Ardo dismissively.
"Really though, you might talk yourself out of it. If you feel like you’re ready now, do it. Don’t try, don’t think about it, just do it."
Trials
After returning from her final voyage with the Exploration Corps, Knight Ardo put through her request to return to the Temple and seek to become a Padawan and face her trials. He received a response that the Jedi Temple on Viscara would be better suited and able to receive Valanessa at this time, convenient as they were closer to Viscara in the Outer Rim than they were to Coruscant. Ardo delivered the news and reassured Val that she would be fine.
They made their way there to drop her off, one last trip in Ardo’s rickety little starship.