The hall was a chamber of performance—every marble column and chandelier carefully chosen to convey peace, wealth, and control. Soft orchestral music hummed in the background, just loud enough to dull discomfort, not loud enough to obscure manipulation.
Kaelen Vizsla entered at Master Windu's side. His formal Jedi robes, charcoal-lined with muted bronze, flowed with every step, but beneath the silk, his torso was encased in thin durasteel weave—Temple-sanctioned only because it couldn't be seen.
His saber was not on him. A stipulation of the host. Diplomatic appearances must not be intimidating, they had said. But the irony of muzzling a Jedi at a peace table had never been lost on Kaelen.
He walked with his hands at his sides, his eyes cool, not combative—but constantly measuring. The ceiling. The guards. The servers. The weight of the room.
Windu's presence beside him was calm and commanding. But even Kaelen could sense it: his master was wound tighter than usual tonight.
The host senator stood as they approached the table. He was a tall man draped in polished red and cream robes, his smile too wide to be sincere.
"Master Windu," he greeted with a slight bow, "and your apprentice—though I imagine that word feels too small for a man of his… reputation."
Kaelen didn't move. He kept his gaze locked just beside the senator's face—polite, unreadable.
Windu answered with a neutral nod. "We're here to ensure discussion continues. Nothing more."
"Of course," the senator replied, his voice smooth as wet stone. "And I can only hope that discussion remains the tool of choice. Force… tends to leave a mess."
A few guests at the table chuckled, uncertain whether it was a joke or a warning. Kaelen's jaw tensed, but only for a fraction of a second.
He recognized the game immediately: passive provocation. A public cornering. No insult obvious enough to warrant retaliation, but deep enough to mark territory.
They were seated on the far end of the long circular table, near a visiting Mon Calamari general and a corporate magnate from the Outer Rim Systems Trade Guild. The latter had eyes like a droid scanner—fixed, scanning Kaelen's face as if searching for something unspoken.
The host senator raised his glass.
"To peace," he declared.
"To those who serve it—ideally with open hands, not clenched fists."
The clink of glasses echoed.
Kaelen did not reach for his.
Conversation resumed in waves—colonial trade policy, system security grants, tactical fleet deployments for "deterrence." Windu engaged smoothly, his tone reflective, firm. Always diplomatic.
Kaelen watched. Listened. Calculated.
Then, the real strike came.
The senator smiled toward Kaelen as dessert was served. "I've heard you have a talent for forceful negotiations, Padawan Vizsla. I suppose the Temple has found new uses for… specialized training."
A silence fell sharper than any blade.
Kaelen slowly turned his head toward the speaker, eyes steady.
Windu's voice cut through the tension like calm thunder. "He specializes in resolution. The means are dictated by the needs of the moment."
The senator chuckled, swirling his glass. "Of course. And sometimes, the moment requires more… initiative, I take it."
Another pause.
Then Kaelen responded—not with sarcasm or defense, but with precision.
"I don't speak to justify actions I haven't taken yet."
The table quieted further.
Even the magnate blinked.
Windu glanced at Kaelen—not a warning, not a reprimand. Just acknowledgment.
The senator tried to laugh it off. "Yes, yes. Jedi mystery. So many shadows behind those cloaks."
Kaelen smiled, just slightly.
"No shadows. Just reflections of your own."
Silence.
Then murmurs. Guests returning to conversation—but with altered tones, glances, whispers.
Kaelen's point had landed. And he had not drawn blood.
Windu sat back in his chair, speaking only to Kaelen now, quiet and amused.
"Not everything needs to be cut."
Kaelen's reply was nearly a whisper: "Then it's good I left my blade behind."
The chill of space filtered subtly through the transparisteel balustrades, wrapping the courtyard in a crisp stillness. The stars above shimmered faintly through the atmosphere shielding, distant and cold. From below, soft classical strings floated from the reception hall, their elegance at odds with the tension that clung to Kaelen's shoulders.
He stood near the edge, posture sharp but still. His hands rested behind his back, hidden beneath the folds of formal Jedi robes, armor plates faintly visible beneath the ceremonial layers. Windu approached quietly, steps slow, measured—as if not to break something fragile in the air between them.
For a while, neither spoke. They watched the lights of shuttle traffic flicker overhead, steady and artificial like constellations on a broken sky.
Windu broke the silence with a question that was not quite a question.
"What did you feel?"
Kaelen's jaw flexed slightly, his gaze narrowing toward the landing pads in the distance. His voice, when it came, was level but alert:
"The room was too controlled. Too calm."
A pause. The breeze stirred the folds of his cloak.
"They weren't afraid. Not really. They were... rehearsed. Not just the hosts. Everyone."
He shifted his stance slightly.
"They're stalling. Someone hasn't arrived. Or something is about to begin."
Windu nodded slowly, still not looking at him.
"Then don't give them a reason to act before they're ready."
Kaelen glanced sideways.
"That's the lesson?"
"That's the opportunity," Windu corrected.
Kaelen's brow furrowed. He watched as a server passed through the lower corridors below, offering drinks to a small group of off-duty guards. One of them laughed—but Kaelen noted the subtle pattern: two minutes on post, then movement, then another. Coordinated. Polished. The facade of casual disorder.
"Stillness unnerves people when they expect fire," Windu added, reading the tension in Kaelen's frame.
"Give them silence—and they'll start hearing the of their own doubt."
Kaelen exhaled slowly, gaze falling to his hands. His fingers flexed once, then settled.
He wasn't a blade in this moment. He was the scabbard.
His voice dropped to a near whisper.
"Let them guess if we know more than we do."
That drew the faintest curve of a smirk from Windu—not humor, but something rarer. Respect.
He turned fully now, facing Kaelen.
"You're not wrong to see what's coming. But don't be so eager to meet it that you signal fear. Patience doesn't mean surrender."
Kaelen nodded once.
Then again—slower. Internalized.
They stood side by side in silence again. Below, the dinner resumed, lights flickering back to full glow. Laughter rang louder this time—too loud.
It was beginning.
Kaelen didn't flinch.
He just watched.
Waiting for the moment to matter.
The second course had long gone cold. Conversation now lingered like smoke—thick with implication, sweetened with deceit.
Kaelen sat among senators, dignitaries, trade delegates. He wore formal Jedi robes, but the lines of Mandalorian armor pressed faintly underneath—shoulder plating hidden beneath flowing sleeves, reinforced boots dulled for diplomacy.
They were in a circle by design—no head, no throne, no singular voice. A lie told through geometry.
Across from Kaelen, Senator Tarkin Vos Arlen—mid-fifties, eyes sharp like a predator long since tamed by politics—leaned in just slightly. A practiced move. The kind that looked casual but cut deep.
"It's rare," Arlen began smoothly, "to see a Jedi so... layered. Armor beneath robes. Discipline beneath violence. Mandalorian blood beneath Jedi oaths."
A few chuckles. Too light. Too rehearsed. The kind of people used when testing the air before lighting a match.
Windu remained unreadable.
Arlen went on, swirling his drink.
"Tell me, Kaelen Vizsla, is your loyalty more taught or inherited?"
The table stilled. Kaelen didn't blink.
Another senator chimed in, this time from the Mid Rim. "I heard Death Watch claimed Mandalore's ancient creed—that strength was truth."
She sipped wine. "So why kneel to peace?"
Kaelen could feel the tension collecting like storm vapor. It wasn't new. It was old—centuries of distrust between Mandalore and the Republic, sharpened now into veiled questions and poisoned compliments.
Another voice:
"Jedi are peacekeepers."
"Mandalorians are warriors."
"How do you reconcile that contradiction?"
Windu's eyes remained fixed on his plate, unmoving. But Kaelen could sense it—the edge of attention sharpened and waiting.
Kaelen's jaw tensed. One breath in.
He didn't rise. He didn't lash. He just spoke—his voice cool, deliberate, echoing like stone dropped into still water.
"I don't wear armor to remind others what I am."
The room hushed. Forks paused mid-cut. A wine glass trembled in someone's fingers.
"I wear it to remember."
He let silence do the rest.
The words weren't loud, but they carried weight. And in the Force, Windu could feel it—how that one sentence rearranged the emotional architecture of the room. Shame. Uncertainty. Quiet respect.
Even the corporate magnate, who had been eyeing Kaelen like a threat, shifted uncomfortably.
Senator Arlen smirked, but it faltered at the edges.
"Remember what, exactly?" he prodded. His voice was a touch too quick now.
Kaelen didn't give him the satisfaction. He didn't explain. He didn't need to.
Instead, he returned to his glass. Took a sip. And never broke eye contact.
The silence returned—this time not tense, but heavy with new understanding.
Windu, without looking at him, allowed one breath of approval to slip out. Subtle. Almost imperceptible.
Beneath the table, Windu's hand curled briefly into a fist—not in discipline, but in quiet recognition.
Kaelen had passed another trial. Not one of combat.
But one of restraint. One of identity held intact, not erased.
Kaelen enters first. The moment the door seals, the weight he's been carrying drops silently from his shoulders. He doesn't sigh. He doesn't pace. He just stands — centered in the room, arms crossed behind his back, facing the starlit void.
Windu follows, slower. He doesn't speak immediately. Instead, he moves to the side table, pouring water from a crystal decanter into two cups. He offers one. Kaelen accepts with a slight nod — no words exchanged yet.
Windu (calmly):
"You didn't strike back. Even when they tried to draw blood with words."
Kaelen sets the cup down.
Kaelen:
"Wasn't silence. It was restraint."
Windu studies him, noting the tightly clenched jaw, the tension still coiled in his shoulders despite the calm exterior.
Windu:
"And what stopped you?"
Kaelen (after a pause):
"My saber wasn't on me."
Windu raises a brow, half-amused.
Kaelen (adds quietly):
"But it didn't need to be."
A beat of silence.
Windu:
"They pushed Mandalore. Death Watch. They wanted a reaction."
Kaelen (sharp):
"They wanted a monster. A reason to call us what they already believe we are."
He turns, locking eyes with Windu. The lights in the room are low, casting half-shadows across his face.
Kaelen:
"Why let them speak like that? Why let them take shots at the Order and… at me?"
Windu doesn't answer at first. Instead, he folds his arms and slowly walks to the edge of the viewport.
Windu (softly):
"Because peace isn't enforced with rebuttals. It's maintained with discipline. With patience. The galaxy doesn't need more swords drawn."
A pause.
"It needs people who know when not to."
Kaelen (cold):
"Diplomacy isn't peace. It's performance."
Windu (turning):
"Yes. And today, you performed restraint."
Kaelen clenches his fists.
Kaelen:
"I didn't want to."
Windu (nods):
"I know."
He walks closer now, tone shifting — less Master to student, more equal to equal.
Windu:
"But you also didn't want to prove them right."
Kaelen (quiet):
"No. I wanted them to remember."
Windu tilts his head.
Windu:
"Remember what?"
Kaelen (steadily):
"That I chose not to break them."
A long silence passes between them. Windu finally speaks again, this time with something rare: respect.
Windu:
"I've seen Jedi rise to with elegance. I've seen warriors fall trying to be Jedi. But you... you walk between."
Kaelen (coolly):
"Because the Order won't let me be either."
Windu:
"Maybe that's why you're needed."
Kaelen looks at him — not with hope, not with certainty. But with clarity.
Kaelen:
"You're testing me."
Windu (quietly):
"Every room tests you. I just stopped shielding you from the ones that matter."
He turns back to the stars. Kaelen follows his gaze. The silence is no longer tense — it's grounding.
Windu sips from his cup. Then:
Windu:
"You've learned the most dangerous skill of all."
Kaelen waits.
Windu:
"You know when not to fight."
The scene ends with both men looking out at the void — two shadows cast across polished floors. A stillness earned, not given.