Summary:There's a Lothwolf. He's a Jedi. Why not, after all?
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/14012005/1/
Word count:44k
Chapters:11
Chapter 1: Initiate
This is not what we are meant to do, Whitepaw sent.
It was as much an impression as words, a feeling of dignified-disapproval and calm-warning, and Swift shook his head.
"It is not what we have done," he replied, speaking in Basic rather than using a mind touch. "But that does not mean it is not what we are meant to do. I have a feeling."
Feelings matter, Whitepaw agreed. But you have always been quick to roam. Is it not possible your wish has caused your feeling, rather than your feeling making you want to leave?
"I think it's both," Swift said, sitting down on his haunches. "If one of us had to leave, then it would have to be the one who was most comfortable with it."
He sighed. And you felt the pain as much as I did. So much death has happened… if I can stop that?
Or you could become part of it, Whitepaw warned.
The younger sighed. I know. I accept this risk.
I do not think you truly understand this risk, young one, Whitepaw said.
Swift looked up, a retort rising to the surface of his mind – ready to protest that he wasn't truly a young one any more – then reconsidered, and let it go.
I know what death is, he sent. And what it means. I know that there cannot be life without death. But… there can be more joy than suffering, just as there can be more suffering than joy. And I think that there is more suffering than joy, and I would change that.
Whitepaw nodded her head, accepting the logic.
Remember, she said. You can leave, and your life will be your own. But that also means we will no longer be able to protect you. And we know nothing of what has caused this suffering.
"That's okay," Swift said. "All I can do is the best that I can."
And, with that, he walked into the void.
Years before and parsecs away, a little after midnight, an attendance chime rang in the far-off halls of a great building.
Swift lowered himself back to the ground, sat on his haunches, and did his best to smile pleasantly.
He didn't have long to wait. After about fifteen seconds, a human or near-human opened the door – and stared at him.
"Hello," Swift said, keen to make a good first impression. "My name is Swift. I am a force-sensitive who is around one standard year of age, and it is my understanding that this qualifies me to begin training as a Jedi."
The Jedi (?) he was speaking to stared for a long moment more, then shook his head.
"The Grand Master is going to love this," he said. "Are you sure you're only a year old? You're huge."
"I am fairly sure of my age, yes," Swift confirmed, then tilted his head slightly. "Is it the fact that I am a quadruped without any arms? I did think about how it would be possible to hold a lightsaber, but after reasoning that some sort of separate handle arrangement would be possible I decided to leave it to the experts."
He nodded. "That would be you, by the way. Collectively, I mean."
The Jedi sighed.
"It's up to the Council, not me," he said, opening the door. "Quinlan Vos, by the way."
Swift tried to soak everything up as he passed through the Jedi Temple, which was unlike just about anything he'd ever experienced on Loth.
Even the Jedi Temple there was quite different, empty and solemn, still charged with the Force but not truly living any more. This Temple was full of life, not exactly vibrant but full of a profound peace that came not from being empty but from being full of calm.
A lot of them also seemed to be paying attention to him, as he walked through the halls behind Quinlan Vos.
They had to wait, a bit, to be able to speak to the Jedi Council. That at least was something that Swift was entirely familiar with – serenity and calm was essential when hunting, if nothing else – and he just let the Force flow through him in a current.
There was a steadily rising tingle of excitement as he accepted that it had actually worked. He was clearly before whatever terrible event had created that rush of pain and death into the Force.
And, then, there was worry. He was now far away from the safety of Lothal… and, quite possibly, he would be part of that event. He could even be the cause.
Swift took those emotions and a dozen others, thought about them, and then accepted what they meant and let everything else flow out of him.
"Looks like it's our turn," Jedi Vos said, and Swift's ears flicked up. "Follow me."
"Hmm," Master Yaddle said, examining Swift. "A year old, you are?"
"I am around one standard year old," Swift confirmed. "I know I am less than two, but do not know the exact number."
Yaddle stroked her chin.
"Big, you are," she said. "Especially for one so young."
She looked across at Ki-Adi-Mundi. "Your opinion, Master Mundi?"
"We made an exception for Padawan Skywalker," Ki-Adi-Mundi said. "We should think about if we should make another."
Swift said nothing, not wanting to object before he knew what people were actually thinking.
"It would not be an exception," Master Windu said. "Not in the same way as Skywalker… but that is not the same as saying it would be normal. Swift is the right age, but he would need a different education."
"Special treatment," Master Piell said, disapproving.
"Any Jedi is special," Master Gallia chided. "Any sapient is special."
"Then why should we treat this one differently?" Piell asked.
"Treat Swift like everyone else, we could," Master Yoda said, sounding amused. "A standard helmet, a training lightsaber, give him. Fit, they would not."
He tapped his staff on the floor. "Decades it took, for me to grow up. Compared to me, except Yaddle, young you all are. Hmm?"
"Hundreds of years younger than you, I am," Yaddle pointed out.
Swift's ears twitched as he picked up a back-and-forth ripple of humour from the councillors.
"Presume to ask a lady's age, I would not," Yoda said firmly. "Hm!"
He regarded Swift calmly.
"All in favour of young Swift's acceptance?" he asked.
Swift coughed.
"Should I put my paw up?" he asked. "I am in favour of my own acceptance."
Master Tinn chuckled. "Well spotted."
Taking that as a yes, Swift raised his paw. Several councillors indicated their agreement as well, and Yoda nodded firmly.
"Agreed, it is," he said. "Knight Vos, to the younglings quarters, take Swift."
Swift bowed, not trusting himself to say anything at the moment, then followed Vos.
He had a chance to fix whatever had gone wrong. But he knew so little about it, or even about what had caused it, that he would just have to go along with what was happening and do his best to be mindful.
Even as Whitepaw had said, he had already become a part of events.
"Oh, my word," Master Xan said. "We… don't usually have initiates who are so big."
"I had gathered," Swift replied.
"Or so erudite," Xan added. "Are you sure you're only one year old?"
Swift nodded, a little annoyed, then reminded himself that he was likely the first Loth-wolf that anyone at the Temple had seen… or, at least, talked to at length.
"I learned Galactic Standard from a member of my birth pack," he explained. "He taught me through a sharing of knowledge."
"Well, you'll find that in the Jedi Order we usually share knowledge in less direct ways," Master Xan told him. "I know it's a little irregular, but I'm sure you will fit in well with Wolf Clan."
He looked Swift up and down, mostly up. "You may end up doing double duty as mascot. Now, first we will need to make sure you have the basic possessions that other initiates already have as part of the Clan… ah."
The Master rubbed his chin. "I suppose we can skip the clothes section, unless there's anything in particular you feel you should have for clothing? In which case the next thing we'll need is a book reader."
Swift raised a paw, balancing on the other three.
"What's a book reader?" he asked. "I recognize the word, something about storing knowledge on paper instead of remembering it, but I don't know how it would work."
"Fortunately, Initiate Swift, learning to read is something that we do teach at the Jedi Temple," Xan told him.
He looked at Swift's paws, this time. "We may need to get a custom book reader for you, though. How good are you with those claws?"
Swift met Master Jocasta Nu, a Jedi whose entire job was managing knowledge and information, and learned about the idea of written language as a way of representing meaning without needing someone else to transfer it to you or teach you directly.
It sounded interesting, but hard, and it wasn't helped by how Swift would have to use an outsized book reader to read something from the library (and Master Nu took the idea of Swift picking up a book in his mouth with something between shock and dismay).
After that came the problem of the training lightsaber – much weaker than the normal lightsaber that was a badge of office as much as a weapon – and here Master Xan just looked at Swift, for long enough that the Loth-wolf started to get worried.
"Is something wrong, Master?" he asked.
"I'm trying to redesign lightsaber forms so that you can use them," Master Xan explained. "In my head. That way I can get an idea of how we're going to need to modify a lightsaber so you can use it."
He tapped his own lightsaber against the palm of his other hand. "I suppose we can't stick one to your tail…"
To Swift's relief, the eventual answer Master Xan came up with was to attach a thick, grippable handle to the side of the 'saber, covering the main switch, and with a replacement switch that Swift could toggle with his tongue. Then he met Wolf Clan, who were all pleased to have a giant wolf in their midst, and began to really settle down to the life of an initiate.
It turned out not all the things that a Jedi Initiate had to learn came as easily as others.
Meditation was easy, Swift had been doing that just about all his life, and those parts of the general education which relied on remembering something weren't hard either. But learning to read was slow and frustrating at times, lightsaber drill was difficult despite Master Xan's best efforts because Swift couldn't watch what the other students were doing, and the less said about the swimming lessons the better.
The whole clan had smelled of wet wolf for hours.
What had been honestly the most interesting moment so far, though, was when learning how to use the Force to push or pull objects. It was a basic physical use of the Force, but the training was mostly based around using gestures to focus your mind, and when a big part of how to learn involved using a hand gesture and Swift didn't have a hand in the first place it was both puzzling and frustrating… until, that was, the moment when Swift had flicked his tail and the ball he'd been staring at had bounced across the room.
Then it was like sunlight breaking through clouds.
Month by month, Swift learned the arts of the Jedi. His Aurabesh came along slowly but steadily, aided in particular when he got his Force levitation to the point that he could move a databook from the shelves into his specially enlarged book reader without having to touch it.
He was still carrying the book reader in his muzzle when it needed to be moved, but it seemed to settle Master Nu's nerves.
The big Loth-wolf also picked up an actual outfit, not normal Jedi robes but more like a combination of combat webbing and harness, from which he could hang or retrieve objects like a commlink – or his training lightsaber, when necessary, or the other things which for most Jedi learners would go in their pockets.
"Sometimes, I think that it must be really wizard to be you," his fellow trainee Reep Oli said one evening, as Swift was trying to get himself sorted out before bed. "Then I remember how much harder it is for you to do some things, too. So it's all mixed up."
"I think at this point I'm supposed to say something wise," Swift replied.
Oli laughed.
"I wonder how Master Xan manages to say something wise so often," he said, as Swift finally got his harness unclasped. "Maybe it's something you learn as a Padawan, or maybe as a Knight?"
Swift shrugged, then got down on his bed with a chuff.
Not everything was as he'd imagined it would be, but as he approached the point when he might be considered as a Padawan… he thought it was all going well.
The next morning they had free time, and Swift went to the Room of a Thousand Fountains.
It hadn't even been where he planned to go, but his paws took him there, and once he was in the massive green space full of soothing sounds and scents he decided that clearly he knew what was best for himself and began padding along first one path and then another.
For many Jedi, the sounds of the fountains blended together into a white noise which helped them shut out the outside world. Swift had the same sort of experience with the many scents in the room, and he hadn't been to the Room nearly often enough to memorize it, so with his ears up and his eyes unfocused he simply walked and let his mind wander.
In philosophy classes, Wolf Clan had learned about the different interpretations of the Force. There was the Living Force, which was the aspect that represented life and the energy of life, and the Cosmic Force which was the constant that was not influenced by life but which instead had an influence of its own on the universe.
Then, less respected but still taught as theoretical exercises, were the Unifying Force and the Physical Force. The Unifying Force transcended light and dark, and past and future, connecting all things and bringing visions of what might be or what had been, while the Physical Force was thought to be the influence a particular Force-sensitive individual had or could have on their surroundings.
Swift wasn't so sure that they could truly be divided into aspects, at least not in a proscriptive way. The different labels could be more like words, which described the same thing in different ways… and here, in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, it sometimes felt like they were all exactly the same.
The Force was everywhere, and it was just sometimes easier to feel it.
Even as he thought that, though, Swift turned a corner and came across a human male staring into one of the pools. They were younger than any of the Knights he'd yet met, but older than the human members of any Youngling Clan, and Swift noticed a Padawan's braid on the side of his head.
"Good morning, Padawan," he said, bowing, and the Padawan startled slightly. Then he actually saw Swift, and blinked a few times in shock.
"I think you might be the biggest Jedi I've ever seen," he admitted. "Not the tallest, but you must be as long as a Hutt… oh, I'm Padawan Skywalker."
"Initiate Swift," Swift introduced himself.
Skywalker muttered a word Swift didn't recognize, but the tingle in the Force informed him it was probably some sort of swear word.
"Initiate?" he repeated. "You mean you're going to get bigger?"
"I don't actually know," Swift admitted. "I heard that occasionally someone can get much bigger, but I don't think I ever memorized how."
"Shavit," Skywalker said to himself, then shook his head. "Sorry. Master Kenobi is always going on about my manners."
He sat down next to the water, and Swift followed suit – then lay down, bringing himself down to the same level as the Padawan.
"Apparently, because I'm a special case, I have to make sure I don't offend anyone," Skywalker said. "People might already think poorly of me, and the more I give them a reason to the worse it'll get."
The human snorted, and Swift began to get the feeling that Skywalker wasn't truly talking to him any more. "But if they already think that, how am I supposed to change their mind by being someone I'm not? I'm strong, and we always get out of trouble… I thought being a Jedi was supposed to be about saving people, about being a hero, not petty kriff like this."
The words hung in the air, charged with frustration, and Swift took a deep breath in before letting it out.
"Sometimes it's hard being someone who's unusual," he said. "People can look at you and see what's unusual, rather than seeing you."
"And what would you know about-" Skywalker began, then remembered that he was talking to an extremely large wolf. "-...right."
"I think you're never going to be able to please everyone," Swift went on. "But you should probably still try, just because otherwise you just end up annoying some of the people who otherwise would have liked you."
Skywalker let out a sigh, but it seemed like the pressure around him in the Force had lightened a little.
"It just seems like when I try, all these… annoyances build up," Skywalker grumbled. "And meditating doesn't help… I just get restless."
"I was meditating by walking," Swift said, helpfully. "Maybe that would work for you."
For some reason, it felt like the Force liked that answer.
One week, Swift and around a dozen other members of Wolf Clan – all older than him – were taken to the planet Ilum in a starship called the Crucible.
It was the first time Swift had actually been on a starship, even though he'd come a long way to reach the Temple, and he was as excited as anyone else to be aboard the ancient, thousand-year-old ship… and there was an odd urge to stick his head out the window, though he controlled it and let it go into the Force because it both didn't make much sense and was a very stupid idea.
When they arrived, though, there was a kind of subtle feeling of expectation in the Force. It was clear even from orbit that Ilum was a special place, like the Jedi Temple, and Swift followed the rest of the Clan as they disembarked on landing and Master Xan explained what would happen.
They were taking part in the ritual of the Gathering, the sacred moment when a Jedi Initiate first constructed their lightsaber.
First came clearing away the snow from the temple doors, then a lecture on the Kyber Crystal and the place of a lightsaber in the life and mind of a Jedi. It was all interesting, some of it things Swift had heard before, but in the charged atmosphere of the Ilum temple it took on a kind of transcendent quality that left Swift in a state of strange, calm focus.
As Master Xan finished, sunlight shone through a gap in the temple ceiling, and a massive Kyber crystal focused it into a pulse of warmth and light that melted away an icy wall… revealing it to be a frozen waterfall, now melted into a pure curtain of chill water that was almost entirely transparent.
"The waterfall will freeze over before the end of the day," Master Xan warned. "Each of you will face your own journey in the Crystal Caves behind the waterfall… I cannot prepare you for the trial you will face, beyond what you have already learned. Step through, and seek truth within the illusions."
Swift waited until most of the others had gone through, then followed.
Within a few paces of passing though the waterfall, the scents of everyone else who had been taking part had gone entirely. Swift found himself walking alone through dark caverns, lit mostly by the glitters of light from crystals all around, and it felt as if he was alone on the planet with nothing but the Force.
He reached out around him, searching for guidance, but nothing obvious seemed to present itself. Then he turned down a winding corridor, going deeper into the planet, and accelerated to a steady lope which was slow enough to be controllable but fast enough that he didn't feel too rushed.
The warning about time was one that he had to keep in mind.
Left, then right, then left… each turning offered a choice, and Swift didn't see how one was better than another. He chose at random, or based on guesswork, then slowed as he entered a much larger cavern.
"You're not ready," Master Piell said.
Swift turned to look at the disapproving Jedi master.
"You joined us older than you should have," Piell told him. "And you spent fewer years in training than others did. You're not mature enough for this ritual."
"I don't know if I am or not," Swift replied. "I trust Master Xan."
"And can you trust that Master Xan is unbiased?" Piell asked. "You know that a Jedi is not supposed to be attached."
With a sudden lurch, Swift was standing on the deck of an unfamiliar ship. Master Xan was just in front of him, with his saber lit, and hundreds of skeletal droids were coming his way.
"Go!" Xan said. "Run! I'll hold them off!"
"Master!" Swift called.
"Go!" Xan insisted, as the droids began firing.
Swift growled, the sound rippling up from deep in his throat, then glanced behind him.
The rest of Wolf Clan were there, looking scared, and sudden fear – for them – lanced through him.
He looked back at the droids, and flicked his tail. More than a dozen went flying, and Swift came up to stand just behind Master Xan.
"I told you to leave!" Master Xan said, as another sweep of Swift's tail knocked more droids aside, then he was hit by a blaster bolt and fell backwards.
The vision dissolved like smoke, no longer feeling real, and Piell folded his arms.
"Do you think you know better than Master Xan, then?" he asked.
"I think Master Xan is not perfect," Swift said. "I can only base what I do on what I think is right, and the advice of those around me. And I didn't want to leave him to die when I could help."
He closed his eyes, trying to gather his thoughts. "Compassion is not a weakness."
When he opened them again, Master Piell was gone.
Do you think you can change things? Whitepaw asked.
Swift was deeper in the caves, now, and he looked to the Loth-wolf walking by his side.
"I don't know," he said. "But I want to try."
There is no trying, in the Force, Whitepaw chided. There is doing, and there is not doing.
"And if I had a choice, I would do," Swift replied. "But the change has to be something that is actually good. I know- no," he corrected himself. "I think that I was not here before I stepped into the World Between Worlds, so everything I do is a change. But if it isn't… then I was always meant to be here. And if it is, then I can make things better."
Or worse, Whitepaw said. What arrogance is in your heart that you choose to set yourself against what has happened?
"If I see someone about to fall off a cliff, then I know what will happen if they fall," Swift answered. "But stopping them from falling isn't arrogance."
And is what you did truly free of arrogance?
"Maybe it isn't," Swift said, inhaling and then exhaling a calming breath. "But you could say the same about anything anyone ever decides to do… what matters is that you think about it. That you act to do good because it's good, rather than so that you can call yourself right."
Whitepaw was no longer there, and Swift kept going as the cold air whispered through his fur.
"You're going to die."
Swift looked up, surprised, and this time he saw someone who he didn't know. A human or near-human Jedi, who looked at most vaguely familiar, but there were so many near-humans that Swift couldn't really tell – though he thought he'd recognize the slash across the Jedi's eyes, which had clearly left him blind.
"Don't you understand that?" the Jedi asked. "You are going to die."
"Everyone is going to die," Swift replied. "It's part of being born."
"But you still don't think it will happen to you," the Jedi replied, and for a moment Swift instead saw an enormous Loth-wolf – towering over him, bigger than any he'd seen before – until the double-image faded and was replaced by just the near-human. "And it will. You will die, and so will all the people you now know, and you will have changed nothing."
That was something Swift had been worried about for all the time since he had stepped into the World Between Worlds. The idea that he would do nothing, amount to nothing, except being another death in the tide of death that had swept over the Force-wielders of the galaxy in what was – he felt – not so very far in the future.
"If I die, then I die," Swift said. "I won't say I've made my peace with it. I haven't. But that's because I want to help people with my life… and if the way my life goes means that I do end up dying, that's what happens."
"You don't believe that," the Jedi accused him.
"No, I don't," Swift said. "But it's the person I want to be."
He blinked, and the Jedi was gone.
Instead, there were three glittering white crystals.
Swift got back to the Ilum temple hours after he had left, and the waterfall had already begun to freeze over again. Then Wolf Clan was taken up to the Crucible, and on the way back to Coruscant they were taken through the process of constructing their lightsabers.
The loth-wolf Initiate had to pay even more attention than his fellows, not least because of the three crystals he'd obtained only one of them actually consented to being put into a lightsaber. The other two remained pure and white, reacting to his Force signature but not attuning to the power system, but the largest one of the three turned a soft blue over the course of the construction process – a process which Swift had to do entirely with careful telekinesis and the occasional contribution from his claws – and at the end of an exhausting two-day stint of concentration and reworking Swift ended up with a large, blue-bladed 'saber that fitted neatly into his muzzle, equipped with the same sort of tongue switch as his training saber and a fold-out side handle to let him use it the way he'd originally trained.
"Well!" the droid Professor Huyang said, as Swift tried not to collapse on the floor of the workshop. "An unusual weapon… but you could hardly wield a usual weapon, yes?"
"I've tried," Swift admitted. "But this one should be tough enough that I can't break it."
"Always a consideration," Professor Huyang agreed. "Always a consideration. Well, Initiate, my congratulations. Now, go and get some sleep before you fall over."
He was only too happy to oblige.
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/14012005/1/