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Funny how you go to sleep one night, and wake up one morning, and it’s a whole new year. Ah, well. That’s how time works.

So, other than the obvious, I’m working on the story I mentioned last night. I may or may not put up a preview on the blog.

I also want to wish all my readers a very happy New Year. Stay warm. Stay safe. Even if you don’t have snow on the ground like we do, please drive safely.

Anyway, I wrote another Padawan Threeb-inspired story. Nasriel Threeb belongs to my good friend coruscantbookshelf. This was intended as a Christmas gift to her, but it will have to be an Epiphany one. 😉 I’m rating this one higher, because I might offend someone otherwise. So it’s rated PG for egregious use of the well-wish “Merry Christmas.” Other than that one warning, enjoy!

The Kindness of Strangers

                It’s been years since that day, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

There were two of them—a smallish, worn-looking Jedi Master—you can tell them anywhere—and an even smaller blue-skinned Padawan. At first, I wondered if the younger Jedi was blue from the cold, but I guess it must have been natural. Her mentor didn’t seem to be too worried about it, and I could tell from his eyes that he had a kind heart. You can always tell them, after you’ve been on the streets for a while.

It seemed like they were sort of lost; aimless, almost. You never see an aimless Jedi. It used to be that you’d only occasionally see one and then they’d be around for a while; now, though, with the war, they pass frequently, but hurriedly. And they look tired, more worn, stressed, stretched thin.

I didn’t expect them to come over to me, but when they did, I wasn’t put out, or frightened. Closer up, the Jedi Master had quite the presence, intimidating, unfeeling, almost forbidding. It would have been if not for the spark of warmth in his eyes. He had coppery-colored hair, aquamarine eyes. The Padawan looked up to him, I could tell. She was tiny, fragile-looking, but that was probably not an accurate impression. Both of them looked familiar, somehow, even though I was absolutely certain I had never seen them in my life before.

“Is this the right way to the North Road out of the city?” the Master shouted over the wind, his voice remotely pleasant despite its broken aspect.

“Two streets over, then back in this direction,” I confirmed. The Padawan looked up at her mentor.

“Master—” she began. It was obviously an argument or a discussion or an agreement they had had often enough so that they didn’t have to have it aloud. The Master gave her a winning smile—it had probably turned heads when he was younger, and it still might, for all I knew—and took off his cloak.

“Thank you,” he said, sweeping it gracefully about my shoulders in a single, even, measured movement. “A very merry Christmas to you.”

“And a happy New Year,” the Padawan added. For the first time in what felt like years, I smiled.

“And to you as well!” I shouted after them as they rapidly disappeared into the swirling snow.

 

When the Purge came, I didn’t believe the lies about how the Jedi had betrayed the Republic. Because I knew that, in all the ways that mattered, they were, in fact, good people. And years later when my son joined the Rebellion, I gave him my blessing.

And to that Master and that Padawan, wherever they are, whether they survived or not, I want to tell them that they are not forgotten. That I am thankful. And that I wish them a very merry Christmas back.