A month had passed since Kaelen first set foot on Coruscant, and though time had marched forward, he still felt trapped in the past. The towering spires of the galactic capital had lost their awe, replaced instead with a dull, steel monotony. Where Mandalore was harsh, vast, and honest, Coruscant was veiled in glass and politics. There was no sun here—only the endless glow of skylanes and the shadows of ambition.
Kaelen stood in the centre of a sprawling training hall within the Jedi Temple, his chest rising and falling with the rhythm of exhaustion. Training had become his only reprieve—a place where words faded and action spoke. His strikes were precise, aggressive, his footwork sharp, but there was no elegance in his form, only brutality.
Around him, whispers.
They always whispered.
"Did you hear? Another fight—this time in the archives."
"He's dangerous."
"Not Jedi."
"Mandalorian."
Kaelen tuned them out, but not without effort. Their words were thorns, each one buried just beneath the skin.
He had been in three more altercations since his first clash with a youngling. Each time, the provocation had been subtle-a—sneer, a slur, a shove too deliberate to be accidental. But each time, he had retaliated with unrelenting fury. The latest fight ended with a Padawan losing two teeth and a dislocated shoulder.
The Council noticed. Of course, they noticed.
Now they watched him even more closely—evaluated his breathing, dissected his expressions. Mace Windu, in particular, ar never missed a training session where Kaelen was present. His gaze was not that of a teacher, but a warden watching a prisoner.
Today, Kaelen had drawn a crowd. Among them were Shaak Ti, Plo Koon, Depa Billaba, and even Yoda, seated on a small platform in quiet observation.
He rolled his shoulders and turned as the next opponent stepped forward.
Aayla Secura.
Her skin was the color of cool moonlight, lekku wrapped loosely over her shoulders. Confident, composed—there was no hatred in her eyes, only curiosity. She held her training saber casually, the barest hint of a smirk on her lips.
Aayla Secura stood across from Kaelen in the centre of the main training floor, her cerulean skin gleaming with sweat from the prior round. Younglings and Padawans lined the edges of the room, many perched atop small seating rows, silent and wide-eyed.
This was no ordinary duel.
Kaelen stepped forward, silent and calm, his training saber in hand. His posture held the controlled stillness of a warrior before battle—shoulders loose, grip firm, feet grounded. The murmurs from the gathered Jedi were already beginning.
"Why would she volunteer to fight him?"
"She's strong, but not that strong…"
"Look at his posture. He's enjoying this."
Aayla smiled faintly, offering a respectful nod. "Let's keep this clean."
Kaelen didn't return the smile. "Don't hold back."
The duel began.
Aayla opened with a high arc slash aimed at his shoulder. Kaelen parried with a metallic grunt and swept low in response. She leapt backward with acrobatic grace, landing light on her feet and countering with a spin. Her style—Ataru—was fast and fluid. Each strike was a flourish, each dodge a dance.
Kaelen was unmoved by elegance.
He pressed forward with relentless pressure, right, brutal swings that sought bone and breath. His saber crashed against hers with hammer-like force, the sheer weight behind each movement forcing Aayla off balance. She flipped over him, trying to catch him from behind with a reverse sweep, but he ducked and shoulder-checked her mid-air, sending her crashing to the ground.
The crowd gasped.
Aayla gritted her teeth, recovered fast, and came at him again. Kaelen didn't dodge—he absorbed the blows with deflections that sent sharp jolts through their blades. He feinted a strike, spun behind her, and drove a knee into her side. She stumbled, and in that heartbeat of weakness—
—he was on her.
In a brutal flurry of strikes, Kaelen disarmed her and drove her backward until she hit the wall, his training saber ignited and crackling inches from her throat. Aayla froze, breath ragged, stunned.
Silence.
Gasps. Then murmurs. The room was full of them again.
"He didn't need to go that far."
"Did you see how hard he hit her?"
"Savage. That wasn't sparring. That was war."
Kaelen slowly lowered the saber, stepping back.
Aayla dropped to one knee, holding her side, sweat dripping from her brow. She didn't meet his eyes, but there was no hatred—only pain, confusion, and something else… understanding.
Still, the damage had been done.
He glanced toward the balcony above. The Council observed in silence. Mace Windu's expression was unreadable. Plo Koon tilted his head slightly. Shaak Ti narrowed her eyes.
Even Master Yoda's ears seemed to droop.
Kaelen stood amidst the judgment, his face emotionless beneath his helmet.
But inside?
He felt everything.
The heat of shame… mixed with pride.
The sting of regret… paired with the addictive high of winning.
And beneath it all, loneliness, vast and cold.
......….
Later that evening, Kaelen sat cross-legged in the meditation chamber. Or tried to.
His knees ached. His breath was too shallow. His mind wouldn't slow.
Memories screamed at him.
Viszla's last words.
The Death Watch bodies littered in the mud.
His blood-stained armour.
"Your birth was a mistake."
He trembled.
"You're not breathing properly," came the voice from behind him.
Kaelen opened one eye.
Qui-Gon Jinn entered the chamber slowly, robes trailing behind him like whispers on marble. He sat beside the boy without ceremony, palms resting gently on his knees.
"Focus inward," he said. "Let the past fall away like leaves in the wind."
"I can't," Kaelen growled. "I see it all… every time I close my eyes."
"Then let it come. Watch it. Observe it. Do not let it control you."
Kaelen shook his head. "That's easy for you to say. You weren't made to fight."
Qui-Gon chuckled gently. "I have fought many battles, Kaelen. The most difficult ones are never with lightsabers."
There was a silence between them. Heavy but not uncomfortable.
"I heard you're leaving," Kaelen finally muttered.
Qui-Gon nodded. "The Trade Federation has blockaded the planet of Naboo. The Council is sending Obi-Wan and me to resolve the dispute."
Kaelen swallowed. "So you're abandoning me, too."
Qui-Gon didn't respond immediately. "Sometimes the Force pulls us where we are most needed. But I did not come to say goodbye. I came to remind you of something."
He turned toward the boy. "You are not defined by your blood or your past. You are defined by your choices."
Kaelen didn't answer. But this time, he closed his eyes.
..................…..
The next morning, the Council convened.
Tension simmered beneath the serenity. The room—circular, lined with gleaming windows—held twelve Masters, all cloaked in the heavy burden of leadership.
"He is not adjusting," Mace Windu stated coldly. "More violence. More chaos."
"There is danger in him," Ki-Adi-Mundi agreed. "The boy holds tightly to his Mandalorian ways. It prevents his growth."
Yoda tapped his gimer stick slowly. "Conflict, I sense. But potential… perhaps."
"The Jedi are not just peacekeepers," Shaak Ti offered. "In times past, they were warriors too."
"He beat another Padawan," Depa said. "There are limits to what we can excuse."
Qui-Gon, standing beside the holoprojection of Naboo, kept his hands folded calmly.
"He is not ready to be cast aside," he said. "If we throw him away now, we create the monster we fear."
Mace's jaw tightened. "Are you suggesting we coddle him?"
"I'm suggesting we teach him."
Yoda looked to the hologram flickering between them—Queen Amidala pleading with the Senate. "On Naboo, I must meditate. But watch him… someone must."
"I will," said Shaak Ti. "And Aayla. She's taken an interest."
"Very well," Windu relented. "But if he lashes out again…"
The words didn't need finishing.
Later, during weapons training, Kaelen found himself seated alone, his armour drawing glares like a beacon. The younglings whispered again. Some stared. Some turned away.
He heard a boy's voice behind him: "Murderer. Terrorist."
Kaelen's jaw clenched. He turned slowly.
The same boy from the archives incident.
"You think you belong here? With your blood-stained armour and your dead clan? You'll never be one of us."
Kaelen whispered something under his breath. Mandalorian. Old tongue.
The boy stepped closer. "What was that?"
Kaelen rose in one smooth motion—and attacked.
The fight was quick, vicious. A flurry of strikes and takedowns. Kaelen didn't hold back. Elbows, knees, crushing blows. The boy screamed as a rib cracked under Kaelen's armoured fist.
Cries erupted across the chamber. Children fled. The instructor—a Zabrak Master named Etran Vos—stepped in, Force-pushing Kaelen across the room.
"Enough!"
Kaelen snarled on the ground, chest heaving. Blood on his knuckles. Blood on the floor.
Two Padawans dragged the boy to the infirmary. Kaelen was escorted behind them, surrounded by silence.
In the medical chamber, Kaelen sat quietly as bacta was sprayed over his bruised knuckles.
The antiseptic hiss filled the room, cold against his skin, but he didn't flinch. The droid attending to him worked in silence, scanning and treating the minor abrasions, but Kaelen barely noticed.
He was too focused on the blood.
It was still there, streaked along the creases of his armour, smeared across his gauntlets, drying like old war paint. Not the boy's blood. His.
The boy had broken skin with his fingernails in a last desperate scramble, and Kaelen hadn't even felt it until now.
He flexed his fingers. One of them popped. A wave of dull ache rippled through the wrist. Still, he didn't wince.
The droid beeped once and hovered away.
Kaelen remained seated on the sterile bed, alone now, surrounded by pale blue light and the faint scent of bacta. The walls were too smooth, too polished—another reminder of how artificial this world was. Even pain felt distant here.
His gaze drifted to the edge of the room where a stack of unused bandages sat in a neat, untouched pile. Order. Precision. Calm.
Everything he wasn't.
A soft thrum pulsed through the Temple walls—the hum of energy conduits, the mechanical heartbeat of Coruscant. It was constant, inescapable. It reminded him of the mines on Concordia, where Death Watch had trained young warriors with knives and blasters. Where darkness didn't sleep.
His hand twitched.
He missed silence. He missed home.
The silence of sandstorms rolling across the plains. The silence before a fight. The silence after.
Here, it was never truly quiet. Not even now.
Not with their voices echoing in his mind.
"He's dangerous."
"Not Jedi."
"Murderer."
He exhaled slowly and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, letting his shoulders slump. The armor felt heavier today. As if each plate remembered every sin.
He glanced down at his helmet, resting beside him on the cot. Its T-shaped visor stared back, hollow and unblinking.
A mask.
A prison.
A promise.
His reflection warped in the polished chrome of the medical tray. For a moment, he didn't recognise the boy looking back. The sharp jaw, the bruises along the cheekbone, the dried sweat in his hair. It wasn't the face of a Jedi.
But it wasn't a Mandalorian's either.
It was something in between.
Something lost.
"You'll never be one of us."
Maybe they were right.
Maybe he didn't belong anywhere.
He let out a breath and clenched his fists again. Blood welled up beneath one cracked knuckle. The droid beeped in protest from the corner, but Kaelen ignored it.
"Let it bleed," he whispered.
That night, Kaelen sat on the edge of his room's bed, staring out at the shimmering maze of Coruscant. Airspeeders wove through the sky like fireflies, each on some mission, some goal. So, unlike Mandalore, where silence spoke louder than noise.
He looked down at his armour, still stained from the day's fight.
He touched the chestplate—scarred, blackened. A symbol of a life the Jedi would never understand.
But still…
"I'll learn their ways…" he whispered, eyes dark with resolve. "…but I won't forget mine."