Aoife Caaso

[Otterling]

Name: Aoife Caaso (Pronounced EE-fa Kah-so) / Stage name: Diva Jehaa (Zhe-hah)
Race: Half Theelin / Half Human
Age: 29
Height: 5' 4"
Weight: 120 (145 is her normal weight)
Birth place: Dantooine/Khoonda

Appearance: Aoife is just under average height for a half Theelin but what she lacks in height, she makes up for in curves. Busty and wide hipped, she is a great beauty, or had been at one point. Her addiction to various spices has left her thin and gaunt and while her body still retains much of its curviness thanks to her wide hip bones, her skin now pulls tight over lean muscle and her beautiful face is now gaunt. Her striking aqua blue eyes are now bloodshot and ribs show clearly under the pale skin her race are renowned for. Aoife's hair is a brilliant shade of violet normally reserved for speeder paint and blacklight parties and a light smattering of small lavender spots is scattered across her high forehead, cheeks, throat and upper chest. Were it not for her coloration and the shock of thick hair that springs up from her head, Aoife could be mistaken for a normal human as she lacks any other distinctive signs of her heritage.

Aoife’s normal dress ranges greatly depending on what job she is working at the time. When hunting, she is normally seen wearing a legless black bodysuit with a high neck over semi-sheer black tights, black leather gloves, knee-high black combat boots, three belts of varying widths, and a headwrap. Her outfits for when she is working as a singer vary heavily but are always as little as possible strapped tightly over her form and have been known to consist of little more than a leather jacket that stops just under her chest, tiny shorts, and knee high platform boots.

(The below is a representation of Aoife in a state of good health)



Personality: To say Aoife is jaded would be an extreme understatement. Before her fall from grace, she was self-confident bordering on cocky but tended to be good natured about her ribbing of others. She had a wild sense of humor and was often seen laughing; an overall bright, cheerful young woman. She was a loyal Jedi and friend who believed firmly in the code and she truly felt that her job as an investigator would help save innocents from horrible fates. After her fall from grace, she has become bitter, outwardly showing disrespect and even hatred for the Jedi. This is little more than a thin shell however as it isn't the Jedi she hates but herself and her own weakness. She wishes she could return to the Temple but feels she can never go home due to the crimes she has committed in her absence. Her addiction to spice has stolen her cockiness and replaced it with a meanstreak a mile wide and she does not hesitate to commit crimes against those she feels are bad people. She has learned to survive using the skills she was taught as a Jedi though they are now put to much darker uses. Her ability to laugh is still intact though tainted quite a bit toward gallows humor and she laughs a lot less than she used to.

Despite this, however, Aoife isn't entirely lost. She is horribly guilt ridden by the few innocents she has harmed in her life and will not work any job that would harm someone she feels fits that profile. She only accepts hits against other criminals and has a weak spot for younglings and animals, both of which she sees as being the few innocent things left in the galaxy. While Aoife talks a big game about her distaste for the Jedi as a whole, she will also jump to the defense of any she feels are in trouble and refuses adamantly to harm one.

Profession: Hired Assassin/Singer

Skills: Sniper’s Aim, Vocalist

Previous Faction: Jedi

Mastery Level: Knight – Sentinel: Investigator

Lightsaber: Dual phase, curved durasteel hilt with chrome casing, adult hawkbat leather inlay along grip. Single Blade
Color: Yellow

Practiced Lightsaber forms:

Shii-Cho: 5
Makashi: N/A
Soresu: 2
Ataru: 4
Shien / Djem So: N/A
>>Sub-form Backhanded
Niman: N/A
>>Sub-form Jar-kai, or Dual Wield: N/A
Juyo: N/A
Double Bladed Combat: N/A

Force-Sensitive Abilities or practices:

Force Illusion/Masquerade
Force Stealth

Specialized Skills:

Telekinetic: 5
Telepathic: 7
Body: 7
Sense: 6
Protection: 4
Healing: 2
Destruction: 0

Attributes:

Physical Strength: 5
Intelligence: 7
Speed: 8
Leadership: 3

Unarmed: 3
Melee Weapons: 5
Ranged Weapons: 7

Force Attunement: +3

Bio:

Humble Origins: Birth to Age 10

"Siúl, siúl, siúl, a rún, Siúl go socair agus siúl go cúin, Siúl go dti an doras agus ailig liom. Is go dteighigh tú a bhoirnín, slán." - Sung by Diva Nesua

The early life of Aoife is a simple if happy story. She was born on a bright afternoon in Khoonda when the wind was blowing cool and the sun shining warm and vibrant. Her mother, Diva Nesua, was a freed Theelin slave who had been purchased by her father, a human man named Vant Caaso. Vant was a fairly well off businessman from Dantooine who had discovered Diva working as a backup singer in a small band owned by Sulnada the Hutt. He’d only been on Tattooine to seal a small trade agreement between his company and the Hutt, a fairly legal trade if unsual, and he hadn’t intended to take anything home with him but a few souvenirs and the news that the deal was made. From the moment he laid eyes on young Diva though, Vant’s heart was no longer his. She was a vision of beauty as far as he was concerned and he made an offer to the Hutt to purchase her. As Diva’s voice was nice but nothing to crow about, the Hutt agreed and, taking Vant for every bit of cash he could, he sold the Theelin. Diva wasn’t sure what to expect at first but Vant quickly signed her emancipation papers and told her that while she was free to leave him, he would like her to stay at his home at least until she got on her feet. Three years later, they were married. One year after that, young Aoife was born.

Diva had wanted originally to name her child in the tradition of her people but Vant begged for her to be named after his mother and so Diva agreed. The child was excitable and precocious right from the start and was adored by her parents. Vant’s job had him traveling a lot but Aoife spent most of her days with her mother in perfect happiness. She was always into something, her curiosity evident from the moment she could crawl and Diva found she couldn’t turn her back on the toddler for a moment lest she find her in the hallway dismantling the carpet and giggling about it. Diva sang to her daughter often, lulling her to sleep and teaching her the songs she knew though the youngling wasn’t capable of remembering them. Time passed quickly for the family as it tends to do in happy times and before they knew it, young Aoife was celebrating her third birthday. As a treat for his family, Vant took Aoife and Diva to Coruscant. He had scored some tickets to an opera there and thought it would make his wife happy to see it while offering a chance as well to educate young Aoife on the joy of music.

After the concert, Vant and Diva stopped at a small restaurant to get some dinner before returning to their hotel. It was there that everything would change for them. A man sitting in the corner, hidden behind heavy brown robes, was enjoying a nice cup of tea by himself when the family entered. He perked up at their arrival and watched them curiously as the moved to a table and ordered their food. As the evening wore on and the family ate in peace, the man continued to look up at them, a fact which made Vant a little nervous. Finally, the robed figure stood and moved to their table. When he withdrew his hood, it was to reveal a Shistavanen. Diva was frightened at first but the man calmed her quickly and explained that he was a Jedi from the nearby Temple. He had stopped in for nothing more than some tea and had felt the stirring of the Force when they had entered. He bade them to let him see young Aoife and though reluctant at first, they offered the child over to him after assurances from the restaurant owner that the man was indeed a Jedi and not likely to eat their daughter.

Aoife was fearless and curious as ever, reaching out with small chubby hands to grab at the fur around the Jedi’s face and giggling as she squished his cheeks together. The Jedi, Master Kut Vetlasew, searched the youngling and despite being distracted by having someone use his face as a playground, he discovered that the child was indeed Force sensitive. He explained this to the family and handed the girl back to them. He requested simply that they consider the life their daughter could have as a Jedi, a guardian of the galaxy, and bade them bring Aoife to the restaurant the next day if they agreed. That night, Vant and Diva argued more than they ever had in their marriage. Vant did not want to give his precious daughter over to the Jedi but Diva insisted that she was meant for something greater and if it wasn’t to be music, then it should be the honor of being a Jedi for truly they were respected even more than singers. The next morning found them both exhausted and saddened but hopeful for their child’s future.

They spent the day spoiling their young daughter as much as they could before finally returning to the restaurant and their fateful meeting with Kut. It was with many tears, a lot of “last one” hugs on the part of the parents, and a lot of patience on the part of Kut, that young Aoife found herself leaving the family she knew for a new one she would come to love. Upon her arrival at the Temple, the girl was placed in with the other toddlers in the crèche. At first, Aoife cried and demanded to see her parents but her curiosity was such that over time the lure of the many rooms of the Temple outweighed her desire to leave and she settled in nicely with her fellow younglings. She would remain there until her fifth birthday when she could begin classes. In the meantime, she was a true test of patience to her caretakers who found themselves having to lock the doors to all the crèche rooms just to keep her inside at nights as she had a bad tendency to wander.

As time wore on and Aoife grew older, she began to learn the ways of the Force from the teachers at the Temple. The memories of her parents and her life along the shores of a Dantooine lake faded into nothingness and were replaced with memories of her lessons and the many happy years spent at the only home she now knew. Right from the start, young Aoife was the epitome of charisma and it earned her a lot of friends. Bright and cheerful, she was always ready with some joke or another and there was never a holo of her where she wasn’t making some silly face or inciting her fellow younglings to laughter. It was never hard to find her in group pictures as her brilliant hued hair, oddly colored eyes, and pretty face made her stand out amidst a crowd. Despite this though, the girl did not truly gain any arrogance; instead, she harbored only a steep naiveté within the sheltered halls of the Temple. For Aoife, life was rainbows and sunshine…and a desperate need to poke her nose in places it didn’t belong. Aoife’s curiosity did not waver in the least as she grew older and she often snuck off with her friends in the dead of night to explore whatever section of the Temple looked the most interesting. Even being caught multiple times and given punishments like cleaning duties didn’t seem to deter her in the least. The older Jedi weren’t thrilled with the habit but they didn’t feel it was something that would bar her from being a Jedi either.

As the youngling classes progressed, Aoife discovered that sheer brute strength was not something she had access to. She was more flexible than muscular and she delighted in contorting into strange shapes to amuse her friends. Saber duels were difficult for her to win since she could not seem to land any blows but she became very adept at simply denying her opponent that ability either by using her dexterity to its full advantage and usually her duels were ended in draws. This was frustrating for the youngling since she didn’t want to just avoid being hit but to actually WIN a fight. What she lacked in saber ability, however, she made up for in Force use to some extent. She wasn’t overly gifted with telekinetics though she wasn’t horrible at it either but it was in the realm of the mind that Aoife seemed to shine best. She could read a crowd fairly well, determining what she needed to do to make them smile, and while this made her popular, some of her teachers decided it could have other more long term uses.

Coupled with her natural curiosity, her ability to feel out emotions and play a crowd to her advantage made her a perfect candidate for one of the more dangerous jobs among the Jedi. The investigators of the Jedi were individuals who used their skills to go undercover, often into dangerous situations, to glean information from less than reputable sources and to aid in getting the evidence needed to take down the more clever criminals who would not be stopped any other way. One of the crèche masters had a friend in that area and she reached out to him to come take a look at young Aoife. Master Nuk Zep, a Gran, agreed to visit the child on one of his fairly rare returns to the Temple. His job often kept him very busy but the message from the crèche master had come just a day before he was to leave again and he made his way down to the youngling training rooms. There he watched with interest as young Aoife went through her saber drills with the others. During the break, he was far more amused to see her folding herself into living origami much to the delight of her friends and while he couldn’t quite decide what it was, he could definitely see something promising in the youngling. Little did Aoife know that she had been chosen that day as a padawan. It was something she would not find out until three years later.

A Whole Galaxy to Explore: Ages 11 - 20

"The first thing you need to know about being an investigator is that no one talks about being an investigator." - Nuk Zep

Life for Aoife continued as normal for the next three years. She trained with the other younglings, explored the Temple any chance she got, and spent the time laughing and playing with friends. It was during these years that she also began to notice a certain Jedi Master who would come in and simply watch her and her friends training. The visits weren’t often, usually he’d show up for a few days, come to watch them train and then leave again for up to a year at a time, and he never spoke to them but Aoife was more curious than bothered by this. It was odd that this Jedi only seemed to show up at random intervals, watch for a while, and then up and disappear again. She asked the teachers about him at one point and was informed that he was a respected Investigator named Nuk Zep but little more information was offered. The ever curious Aoife was not to be put aside though and the very next time she saw him, she made a bee-line for him to talk. The two shared a cordial introduction and after a bit of light banter, Aoife discovered him to be a very charismatic being with a delightful sense of humor. Her fearlessness had caught him by surprise but he saw this as a good thing and decided he’d made the right choice in her. Nuk finally revealed to the girl that he would be leaving on one last mission and that, when he returned, he would take her for his padawan.

Aoife was delighted and spent the next few weeks in barely contained anticipation. Her naturally boundless energy was magnified and she could barely keep still for any period of time, much to the chagrin of her already patience weary teachers. It was hard not to like the child but she was someone they had to take in small doses. The weeks stretched into a month and the month stretched into several and soon Aoife began to worry that Master Nuk had forgotten about her. Her thirteenth birthday was drawing close by that point and still no word had been received. She waited as patiently as she ever could but hope began to dwindle as the months turned into half a year with no more word. As the year itself finally drew to a close, Aoife stared her thirteenth birthday in the face with growing dread. She had yet to be chosen since she hadn’t done much to pursue the eye of another master and she began to feel cheated of her own destiny. Something in her refused to handle the disappointment with anything less than a last clinging to hope and as her birthday came and went, she did her best to cling to what was left of her dignity. The crèche masters informed her that since no master had claimed her, she would be heading to the agri-corps and they didn’t believe her when she told them Nuk had chosen her and simply not arrived yet. Only one teacher, the friend of Nuk’s, knew this to be the case and she argued on Aoife’s behalf to keep her within the Temple till his return.

Fortunately, the Council agreed, giving Aoife one more week to wait for her master to arrive and arrive he did, right in the nick of time. Nuk had been caught up in the case he was working and hadn’t been able to break away or risk losing out on months of hard work. He had known the time for Aoife was drawing short and as soon as the case had wrapped up, he’d made all haste back to the Temple once more. Finally, master and student were united and Aoife began her journey on the path to becoming an Investigator.

The beginning of Aoife’s apprenticeship wasn’t quite what she’d expected upon becoming a padawan. She had imagined going out right away at the side of her master, fighting bad guys and saving the day, but had been swiftly disappointed when he’d informed her that her first year of training at least would take place entirely within the Temple itself and that he wasn’t going to be available for all of it. In fact, he wasn’t going to be around for most of it. Nuk’s job within the Jedi was a dangerous one on many levels and he couldn’t take the youngling with him until she had some basic understanding of certain skills first. A simple mistake on her part could easily get them both killed and there wasn’t likely to be a rescue party coming for them in the places they were going to wind up in, especially since very few within the Temple would have any idea where they were actually headed. As an investigator for the Jedi, Nuk was often exactly where people didn’t think he was and at any given time, when he was gone on a mission, there would be at least three different stories floating around about what mission he was on. It was not uncommon at all for one person to say he’d gone on a peacekeeping mission to Dantooine, while another was certain that he’d left to pick up a Force sensitive child on Malestare. Still another would state with utter certainty that they knew he had been given a mission on Alderaan. Often, young Aoife would have no idea where her master had been till he returned.

The situation wasn’t something Aoife cared for but arguing to go with him was pointless and she eventually buckled down to just trying to learn all she could as quickly as possible while waiting for his returns. Nuk set her up with several tutors which included historians, other investigators, saber masters, and even arts teachers though all of them, with the exception of the other investigators, were given a million varying reasons for why she was suddenly under their tutelage, none of which was true. For the first year of her apprenticeship, Aoife found herself being passed around from teacher to teacher, her mind reeling from all of the information they were pouring into her while she waited eagerly for any word of her master returning from one of his trips. He stopped in as often as he could, turning down assignments that would keep him away for more than a few months at most, and his arrival usually heralded a time of great enjoyment for his young padawan who would bug him until he regaled her with tales of whatever job he’d just completed.

Aoife followed Nuk around with wide eyed admiration whenever he was at the Temple between missions. Everywhere he went he seemed to know someone and she would watch in awe as he swapped personalities like old clothes to fit any situation. It was something the young girl aspired to and watching him made it easier to tolerate all her lessons since she knew he was training her to walk in his footsteps. She watched her master’s every move with rapt attention, soaking in every tiny nuance, every small bit of body language he used to tweak the emotions and thoughts of those around him to suit what he needed. Whenever he would arrive, Nuk would start her right away into all sorts of lessons which he felt every investigator worth his salt should know, some more entertaining than others. Aoife didn’t really understand at first what some of the lessons were for or why they were important but she did as she was told none the less. She learned how to sew her own clothing, various sign languages, secret codes, and even took acting lessons from her Master. He encouraged her to continue her stretches and to maintain her flexibility as he felt it would be a great asset to her in a fight, and he often took her to see concerts. Not all of her studies were entertaining however and usually after Nuk left on assignment again, Aoife would find herself in the Temple library pouring over the datapads her Master had pulled aside for her. NaDir of Race Relations. Cultural Transmission. Experimental Modeling. Critical Thinking…

The information in the datapads didn’t really make much sense to Aoife and she found herself wondering what learning to sew and culture studies had to do with investigating bad guys but as time wore on, she would begin to see that what her master was teaching her was worth more than all the aurodium in the galaxy. These lessons didn’t truly begin to sink in until Nuk finally returned to the Temple after a mission and announced that Aoife was ready to begin accompanying him. She practically bounded onto the ship bearing them out to the outer rim, their mission a fairly straightforward and simple one since it was her first. They would be heading out toward Nar Shaddaa after word reached the Temple that the body of a young Jedi knight had been recovered but that his saber was missing. The trail had lead straight to the city moon outside of Republic space and Nuk had been sent to see if he could locate the lost saber so it might be brought home to the Temple where it belonged. The Jedi would much prefer if a lightsaber were not floating about in the underworld in the hands of someone who might use it to do harm and Nuk was determined to make sure that whoever stole it left the encounter convinced it was a bad idea in the future.

On the trip there, Nuk began to explain how some of the things Aoife was learning might come in handy on their mission. The Jedi couldn’t just show up outside of Republic territory and start rushing about waving their sabers, that was a surefire way of getting oneself killed, so they would need to adopt new identities for the duration of their mission. It was here that Aoife began to piece together all that she had learned so far. Her studies into cultures would allow her to adopt a realistic façade for whatever role she was to play, her acting lessons would let her improvise when a plan went wrong, her ability to sew her own clothes would let her make a costume on the fly should she find that her own clothing suddenly no longer fit the situation, and knowing secret codes would allow her to speak with her master in private even if they were in the middle of a crowd. Slowly the pieces all began to fall into place and suddenly Aoife was grateful that she’d studied hard even if she hadn’t really understood it all. On that particular mission, she was given the role of a young slave at her master’s side, thus allowing her to call him Master still without drawing odd looks. The less she had to slip up, the better. She followed silently in his wake, mindful of her instructions to watch and learn instead of interacting, and discovered that the sly tricks her master used at the Temple were nothing compared to what he used while in the field.

Nuk was able to move through a crowd as if he’d lived there his whole life and everywhere he went he was able to make at least friendly small talk with those he met. The duo hunted through various markets, skipping from port to port in their search, always with Nuk asking about the lightsaber with great tact. She noticed that he would switch tactics in his questioning from one dealer to the next, playing off of their race and preconceived notions about his own, but he was careful to never mention the word ‘lightsaber’, instead opting for the more colloquial ‘laser sword’ that the civilians used. It was on one such visit to a dealer that life became a lot more complicated for Aoife. She had followed her master down a series of winding streets, ducking between crowds of people as they moved, until he’d stopped at last in front of a small cantina. The sign outside clearly stated no minors allowed and though Nuk tried his best to explain that Aoife was his property and shouldn’t count, the bouncer at the door had refused to admit her. The only lead they’d had so far had brought them to that cantina and a man inside who might be able to lead them right to what they were looking for and so they couldn’t simply walk away. Nuk had bade Aoife to wait just outside the door, ordering her point blank not to take so much as a single step away from where he’d left her and then disappeared into the raucous lights and laughter of the bar.

Aoife waited as patiently as she could for a short while but her boredom was growing. She had never been outside the Temple before and her curiosity was killing her. Aliens of all races wandered past her and just down the way, brightly lit signs showed other storefronts and restaurants. She hesitated at first but figured that her master was obviously going to be a while and she thought as long as she stayed close to the nightclub he’d entered, she would be just fine. She peered just down the street to her left and noticed an interesting looking shop window just up the street. Before her common sense could stop her, Aoife was off to investigate. She wandered across the street and made her way down toward the shop but sadly never quite made it.

The warning that echoed through the Force was foreign to Aoife who had grown up her whole life in the safety of the Temple and so she didn’t react to it in time to stop the slave peddler that sent a jolt of electricity through her spine. The peddler had seen the beautiful young girl and knew Theelin could fetch a good price on the market. If her owner was foolish enough to let her out of his sight, so much the better. Aoife awoke several hours later in the back of a speeder as it tore through the narrow streets of Nar Shadaa and instinct alone saved her from a life of slavery at the hands of her captor. She sat upright, realized what had happened, and without thinking about it, scrambled to her feet and leapt from the back of the speeder. Some small part of her had meant to use the Force to leap to safety but she hadn’t had many lessons in such things yet and her grasp of it was still shaky. She managed to jump, much to the surprise of her abductor, but fell just a few feet short of her goal, missing the sidewalk entirely and plummeting about twenty feet before fate and the Force intervened. Aoife would have easily died from the fall had she not landed in a passing open topped speeder heading in the opposite lane of traffic.

The impact knocked the wind from her and left her right leg throbbing from where she had hit the seat and bounced off the driver’s back. Fortune and the Force were with her though and she survived relatively intact. Her impromptu driver was not pleased at all by the sudden inclusion of a passenger in his vehicle and he pulled over after regaining control of his speeder to deposit the unwanted child back onto the street. Aoife didn’t understand the language the man was yelling at her but she got the hint well enough after she was hauled from his car and tossed bodily onto the pavement. The driver was gone in a flash leaving a trail of profanities streaming behind him and leaving young Aoife utterly alone and lost in a planet wide city. Nothing in her fourteen years of life had prepared her for this. She tried to reach her master through the Force but their bond was still too new to allow for any long distance communication. She would have to find her way back to him alone.

Despair and fear were two emotions the girl wasn’t used to but she found them in spades as she wandered along the city street. She had decided to head back in the opposite direction from where the man who had abducted her had come as it was the only course of action she could figure on. Her master would never find her among the millions of other souls if she didn’t get close enough for him to sense her and though she knew the odds on finding him again were ridiculously small, she couldn’t give up. There was a tenacity in her that refused to believe things would end like that and she knew it couldn’t be her destiny to be lost to the Jedi for good so soon after being apprenticed, and so she began the very long walk back to where she thought her Master might be waiting. Her thoughts ran rampant around what he might be thinking, how angry or disappointed , or worse, how worried he might be right then. She wanted to find him, to apologize for not heeding him well enough, to swear on the living Force itself that she would never again disobey an order but finding him would prove a lot more difficult than she could know.

Aoife wandered for hours down the same street but nothing looked familiar. She had grown hungry and the night was cold. She was also becoming more and more uncomfortable and frightened of the stares she would get when walking. She felt like there was a neon sign painted on her forehead that she didn’t belong there and certainly it was a rare sight to see a young Theelin girl dressed like a slave wandering the streets alone. Despite knowing that she should only use it as a last resort, Aoife was grateful for the lightsaber concealed at her side and her fingers went to it repeatedly. She dared to ask a few of the less openly frightening people she passed for directions to the cantina her master had entered but was met with mostly just shrugs. A few times she was met with worse and she would hurry away, chased by cussing or offers she didn’t want to think too hard about. As sunrise broke overhead, Aoife realized that she was hopelessly lost and for the first time in her life, she couldn’t figure out what to do. She made her way into a nearby alley and, exhausted, hungry and cold, she curled up amidst the garbage with her back to a refuse receptacle for some semblance of protection. There she fell into a fitful sleep full of unpleasant dreams. Hours turned into days and days into weeks and all the while, Aoife’s goal to find her master devolved into a day to day struggle for survival. She scrounged and begged for food where she could get it, collected rainwater from gutters to drink, and made her home in alleyways and abandoned buildings.

Aoife made two friends in those long weeks. One was a small feline she named Max, a tiny starved kitten that she had shared her food with as best she could and whose company was a small comfort to her in her loneliness. The other was a young Rodian named Deska. He had come down from the tiny dingy apartment he'd shared with his mother and given her a plate of his meager food when he'd seen her singing on the corner just outside his window. It wasn't a lot to eat but Aoife realized just from looking at the youngling that it was probably more than he had to eat on a normal basis and she was infinitely grateful to him. For a few nights, Aoife sat with him on the dark corner, singing him any song he wanted to while his mother worked her trade upstairs. He told Aoife that he loved her music because it drowned out the sound of his mother and her clients, something he didn't think he could listen to anymore. Every night the pair sat on the corner while Aoife sang and Deska would bring her food to share. She knew he had to be sneaking it out without his mother knowing and that only endeared the boy to her more.

On the fifth night, Deska didn't show up. Aoife waited outside for hours, singing alone until the security for the building came outside. She thought they were coming for her at first, it wasn't the first time since she'd become lost that some establishment's security would chase her off as a vagrant, but instead they bore down two long black bags with them. After asking one of the men, Aoife discovered that one of the clients Deska's mother entertained had apparently gotten a little too lost into the drugs he'd been taking and had strangled them both in his madness. Aoife sang for him as they carried Deska away. She didn't stick around after that but moved on further down the street, unable to look at the empty corner anymore. Max, her kitten, followed her for a little while but after a few more days, he'd apparently moved on to other grounds himself and she never saw him again.

Aoife's hope of finding her master had dwindled to nothing and she felt sure by now that he was most likely not even on the planet anymore. He had given her up for dead and she wasn’t sure what would become her. Aoife’s fighting spirit wouldn’t completely give out though and she took to singing on street corners to gain enough money for food. It wasn’t easy and often the money came with requests she wasn’t willing to fill even if she understood them, but she managed the best she could.

As the third week drew to a close, Aoife curled up once more in the small cardboard shelter she had set up in the back corner of a condemned apartment. She was about to go to sleep, praying to the Force that her dreams wouldn’t lead her back to the Temple as they usually did for she didn’t think she could bear waking up from them anymore. It was then, as she closed her eyes, that Aoife felt a pull in the Force. The signature was warm and familiar and she almost didn’t believe it was true. The signature didn’t fade though but instead grew stronger and Aoife scrambled out of her lodging to locate it. She could feel her master nearby and hope leapt up in her stronger than it had since she’d become lost. She raced outside and trailed the signature until at last she spotted an older looking man walking in her direction. She didn’t recognize the face but his signature was clear as day. Confused, Aoife watched as the man’s eyes turned her way and he rushed over to her with a relieved smile on his face. The façade flickered and died away to reveal a very tired looking Nuk. He bundled her into his cloak and carried her back to the waiting speeder that would take them to their ship.

As the ship pulled into space and Aoife stuffed her face with all the food she could find, Nuk explained that he had come back out of the cantina to find her missing. He had a solid lead on the missing lightsaber but time was essential and after he had searched for any sign of her for a full day, he’d had to go finish the mission. Once it was done, he’d informed the Council of what had happened and stayed on Nar Shaddaa, using what contacts he could to find his missing apprentice. He’d eventually found the man who had taken her after a lot of digging only to discover that the man had already sold a load of young slave girls to another dealer off world. He’d feared the worst but discovered that she’d escaped somewhere along the way and wasn’t among the children the man had already sold. From there, he’d had to conduct a block by block search working back from where the kidnapper had told him Aoife had jumped out. He’d spent the weeks asking around, checking for anyone who might have seen her and fortunately Aoife’s vibrant hair and talent for singing had been what had helped him to locate her. Several store owners had seen her singing on their corners and seeing as there weren’t many fourteen year old girls with purple hair who were out singing along that stretch of the city, Nuk had been able to finally track her down.

From that point on, Aoife was ever at her master’s side. She had learned a valuable lesson about not following orders and she stayed close to Nuk, her curiosity curbed some. The horrors she’d seen on the streets of Nar Shadaa, from hookers in alleys to abandoned children no one else wanted and muggings turned murder that she couldn’t prevent, Aoife had learned a lot about real life and how dark it could actually get. Instead of scaring her into reconsidering her job though, it only cemented in her a need to stop such evil where she found it. Deska’s death had moved her quite a bit as had the fates of all those young girls she had almost joined at the hands of a slaver and Aoife knew that with Nuk’s teachings, she could make a real difference in the galaxy. As an investigator, she knew she would play an integral part in helping to save many lives by taking down the worst of the worst and stopping the evil at its roots instead of simply handling smaller individual crimes that were merely the result of such deep seated corruption.

She played a variety of roles during their missions, everything from a dancing girl to Nuk’s adopted daughter, and she loved every minute. Her first mission had killed a lot of her naiveté and had only served to make her wiser to what was really out beyond the walls of the Temple. She reveled in the rush of taking on each new role and as she grew older, her master trusted her more and more on each mission, encouraging her to learn through doing. She continued her social studies lessons and was even afforded singing lessons via holovid while traveling between missions so that she might cultivate her voice into a strong tool in her arsenal of tricks. Her flexibility suffered a bit when she turned fifteen and her body went from that of a girl to that of a woman. Puberty didn’t so much hit Aoife as it snuck up and mugged her in a dark alley as her master put it. Her hips widened considerably and her bust filled out making it hard to squeeze into the tight places she used to be able to fit easily but she refused to quit, as usual, and learned instead to adapt. She continued her aerobics lessons and still delighted in twisting herself into knots even if they weren’t as intricate as they used to be. Her suddenly blooming had its advantages as well though and Aoife learned all the perks there were to being a beautiful young woman who could turn heads. As she continued to mature, her looks helped get her and her master into places words alone couldn’t and she played on them any chance she got without remorse. After all, Nuk had taught her to use any and every advantage offered to them since the people they would be investigating wouldn’t play by any rules one could deem fair.

Nuk also taught Aoife the trick she’d seen him do when he’d found her on Nar Shadaa. Sometimes costumes simply weren’t enough and Nuk had worked hard at perfecting a technique known as the masquerade. He taught her to weave the Force around her to show an image that wasn’t truly there thus allowing them to pass themselves off as someone entirely different. The illusions were powerful, no doubt, but wouldn’t work on Force sensitives as they were too aware of the Force itself to be swayed by such things. Still it was a handy skill and by seventeen, Aoife had gotten good enough at it to change her hair style and color. By the time she was twenty, she’d become fairly adept at it and could convincingly pull of changing into an old woman or even a man. Her master also spent much time teaching Aoife how to hide her Force signature to at least some extent though she was not as adept in this as with illusions. It would allow her to hide herself from Force sensitives since her illusions would not work on them but she knew it was not her strong point. She poured herself into her master’s lessons regardless, eager to become a master at them the way Nuk was and the gran watched his pupil grow from an eager but foolish young girl into a capable and crafty young woman.

To Walk In My Father's Shoes: Age 20 - 25

Lightsabers and Trials

On the day of Aoife’s 20th birthday, her master gave her the best gift she had received this far: permission to build her own lightsaber. She leapt at the chance with great enthusiasm and spent the next few weeks taking lessons from her master on the proper methods for piecing one together. She would need to find all the components to make it work and right away Aoife began her hunt. She hunted through all the local pawn shops, vehicle repair shops, and collectable stores in a radius around the Jedi Temple. Slowly but surely she collected the various internal workings she would use to activate her saber but she still needed the hilt, crystals, and any decoration she wanted to add. She continued her hunt until at last her eye fell on the remnants of an old Flare-S swoop in a lower level mechanic’s shop. The original owner had made modifications to it to include lovely chromed curved hand grips. Aoife haggled with the dealer, who had been convinced he was talking to a local actress who had a thing for racing bikes, until she finally wore him down to an acceptable price. Suffice it to say he was a bit taken aback when she removed only the left grip of the bike and walked out without the rest of her purchase. With precision and care, Aoife cut the outer tubing to allow for inlay to be added when she was ready for it and then began the tedious work of fitting all the components of her saber into the modified handle.

Little did she know but the next day would test the Jedi in ways she hadn’t expected. Aoife had gone out on another shopping trip, this time looking for something to decorate her saber hilt with, and she had stopped into a lower level pawnshop when four members of a local swoop gang entered looking for more than antiques. Aoife tried her best to talk the men out of what they were intent on but credits meant more than words to them and they knew they had numbers on their side. She fought off three of the thugs before one of them panicked at the sight of her old saber in her hands and opened fire in the tiny shop. Blaster fire was raining down around her almost faster than she could deflect it the other thugs got the same idea and joined in. Skill and her training as a Jedi won out in the end and the men scattered after she deflected a few shots close enough to their heads for them to get the idea that she could have been aiming those shots at their chests instead. The four men fled outside to their swoops and took off with Aoife in pursuit. She stopped at the edge of the walkway to watch them fly off, proud of herself for a job well done but when she turned around to tell the owner not to worry about those criminals anymore, it was to find a blaster pointed at her. The shopkeeper had apparently been selling a few illegal things he’d rather no one know of and the sight of a Jedi in his shop had frightened him enough to take action. Aoife didn’t even get a word out of her mouth before the shot was fired off. She managed to avoid being hit by a fraction of an inch but only by diving backward off the walkway and letting gravity pull her out of the way.

As she plummeted, Aoife reached out with the Force to slow her fall, her ability with such things having been honed since that first mission long ago on Nar Shadaa, and she managed to angle herself to land into a roll on a walkway eight stories down from where she’d been shot at. The impact knocked the wind from her but she’d walk away from it with little more than some nice bruises to show and as she hopped to her feet, she popped her back and rolled her neck to make sure everything was still intact. As she looked around she realized she’d come out of the roll on a small dark section of street between a smelting plant and an old warehouse. The area was fairly clear and quiet at that time of day and she glanced around for an easy way to get back up to the higher levels. As she began to walk back toward the edge of the walkway so as to locate a taxi, she heard a low growl and a scratch of claws against the duracrete wall behind and above her. The Force screamed at her to move and she propelled herself straight into the air in a Force assisted jump just as something large lunged out for where she had been standing only a second before. Unfortunately she came back down and landed squarely on the thing’s back, knocking them both from the walkway into another dive. The day was not going according to plan.

As she fell, she realized what she was holding on to. It was a large hawkbat. Panicked, Aoife clung to the beast’s neck and looked frantically behind her for any sign of the rest of its flock but death on wings she had expected wasn’t there. The animal she was clinging to was apparently alone. The pair plummeted downward into the darkness and it was all Aoife could do to hang on to the screeching animal. She clung to its back as it wheeled and flapped its wings in an attempt to fall with its unexpected cargo weighing it down. Her mind reached out to the creature but her attempts to calm it failed since her own mind was far too frantic at that moment. The creature shot through one of the dark canyons bewteen two buildings on the other side of the street and the pair glided in an ungraceful path until finally slamming to the pavement of a lower walkway. Aoife was thrown a few feet and came out of her rolling skid into a ready stance with her saber still in her hand. The hawkbat wasn’t far behind her.

It screeched and lunged for her but its movements were dulled by sickness. Now that they were in better light, Aoife could see why the animal wasn’t traveling as part of a pack. It had apparently been wounded at some point recently and its jaw was badly mangled on the lower right side. Such an injury would prevent it from properly hunting, explaining why it had dared risk an attack against Aoife on its own, and the way the beast’s skin was pulled taught over its bones said clearly that the unfortunate thing was starving to death. A fully grown hawkbat was still nothing to sneer at and despite the damage to its jaw, the creature was more than capable of wielding its rows of sharp teeth and talon-like claws to deadly affect. The fight between the two was brutal to say the least as the creature slashed and lunged at Aoife with all the rage of a dying thing. She knew it was a matter of survival for the both of them and fended the hawkbat off the best she could. She managed to slash it a few times, tattering its wings as it clawed at her but as she leapt high over its head to gain the monster’s back, it caught her with the trailing edge of one wing.

The powerful muscles of the animal snapped the appendage against Aoife’s ribcage and slammed her against the wall. She had barely shaken off the shock of impact when the creature lunged at her with open jaws. Aoife brought her saber up in time to have her arm swallowed up to the shoulder in the creature’s mouth. Sharp teeth sank into her flesh and Aoife screamed in agony even as she relit her saber. The blade shot up straight through the back of the creature’s neck, sending it into a few death throes as its spinal cord was severed and it collapsed to the pavement, dragging Aoife with it. She curled up in pain and tried to pry open the creature’s mouth with her free hand. The pain of the animal’s teeth being wrenched back out of her skin sent fire all the way through the padawan’s chest and she saw black spots dance before her eyes. Bleeding and exhausted, Aoife collapsed next to the animal’s body as unconsciousness swept over her. When she next awoke, it was in the healer’s ward of the Temple. She had been patched up and had little more to show for the ordeal than a small series of almost invisible scars along the top of her shoulder and underside of her arm. Her pale skin had hidden most of the leftovers of the damage.

When she asked about what had happened, she learned from her master that he had gone searching for her when she hadn’t come back from her trip after dark. By the time he had found her she had lost an extreme amount of blood from her wounds. As a consolation, however, her master had brought her back a present. While she had been healing, he’d had the hawk bat carcass taken to a reputable tanner he knew and the man had used the leather to make Aoife a small jacket. Her master’s wry sense of humor also extended to his bringing her back the scraps to use in her lightsaber construction. He felt it might be poetically appropriate for her to have hawkbat leather in the hilt since the form that had saved her life was Ataru…the hawkbat form. She had studied it from Nuk during her years under his tutelage and had taken to the form as if it was made for her and so she agreed that the leather was certainly well in order. Once she was recovered enough to work on her saber again, Aoife inserted the purple and grey strips into the hilt and finally her saber needed only one thing more. From there, she had only to find her crystals.

With her hilt now fully pieced together, Aoife was in need of finding the last and most important component. She talked with her master about where and how to find the crystals she would need but his only advice on the subject was that he couldn’t tell her where to find them and that meditation was the only answer. Aoife wasn’t big on meditating. She’d never much cared for it, finding sitting still for hours to be rather boring, but there was nothing for it. She’d have to resort to such methods if she was to find just the right crystals to make her lightsaber a true part of her. For days on end, Aoife meditated in various sections of the Temple. She tried the gardens, the silence of the meditation rooms, the Tranquility Spire with its long line of Jedi history stretching out in holograms but it was surprisingly in none of these places that she finally got her answer. Instead, the Force waited until she was crouched in a noisy corner of one of the Temple garages. She was waiting for one of the mechanics to finish up with a speeder she and her master were planning to take out for the evening and had decided it couldn’t hurt to meditate while waiting.

The noise of the garage had faded out to nothing as she sat concentrating on the Force and it was then that she saw a flicker of a desert and the name Ruusan came to mind. Aoife was so thrilled that she’d had any sign at all on the whereabouts of her crystals that she ran from the garage immediately, leaving a very confused mechanic in her wake, and sought out her master to tell him. Her insistence would not be put aside and Nuk agreed to take her out to the Mid-Rim planet to get what she was looking for. They hitched a ride there with a freighter heading out in that direction and once they were on planet, they sought out one of the world’s deserts. For several days and nights, the pair meditated together, consulting to Force to lead them in the right direction until at last they came to a large cave opening in a canyon wall. Nuk instructed Aoife to go within and seek out what she needed. He could not come with her and would watch from the cave entrance to ensure she was not disturbed. Aoife made her way into the darkness and reached out with the Force, seeking out what she had come for.

A thin pull drew her back into the cave and she relished the chill of the dank space in contrast to the heat they’d endured while searching. As she dropped down from a small ledge and her shadow moved out of the way, she looked up to see the meager light from the sun glinting off of something along the back wall. The Force drew her closer and she made her way over to find a small cluster of yellow crystals nestled into a crevice. It would have been hard to see them had she not had the Force guiding her for they blended well with the color of the cave wall. It seemed appropriate that even her crystals were capable of camouflage. Aoife pulled out a small vibroblade and worked at the base of the crystals with it. The task was slow going since she had to be careful not to crack them in their removal but eventually she managed to pry three glittering crystals free of the rock. She clutched them to her chest and thanked the Force for its gift as she raced back to her master. The entire trip home was spent in meditation over the prize she’d acquired and true to her less than silent nature, Aoife found that the stones resonated better with her when she sang during her meditations. On the day they pulled back into Republic space, Aoife installed the crystals into her lightsaber. It took her a few tries to get it right but before they’d even landed she was staring into a thin bright yellow beam of light that hummed wonderfully.

Only By Looking To The Past Can We Know The Future: The Trial of Skill and Courage

Two months after Aoife’s 23rd birthday, Nuk pulled her aside after a mission. He told her how proud he was of her, how he had watched her grow, and how she had become his friend and practically his child but the time had come that he could teach her no more. She had grown in many ways and had become a strong young woman, capable and confident. He brought her before the Council and requested that she be tested for knighthood. Aoife was thrilled but understood the seriousness of the trials and how much they could push a person to their limits. She prepared herself as best she could for the next few days and then her master informed her it was time. They boarded a shuttle headed for the Outer Rim and as they flew, Nuk explained that her first two trials would be combined into one. Her very first mission had been less than optimal to say the least and the Council felt that a test of her skill would be best served in conjunction with a test of her spirit. She would have to face the streets of Nar Shadaa once more, alone with nothing but her lightsaber in the way of supplies. Her master would give her a twenty four hour start and then she would be hunted by him and staying off the proverbial radar would prove vital to success.

It would test her skills to their limits to stay hidden from Nuk, using everything from hiding her signature in the Force to hiding her appearance to any potential eye witnesses that would give away her location. Aoife wasn’t thrilled at the idea and that was part of the point. Once more she’d have to face the streets without food, money or supplies. She’d have to look the past in the face and see the enslaved children, the starving beggars, the horrid squalor that she’d endured for three long weeks and she would have to confront the memories of Deska and the young girls whose fate she had almost shared. She would have to reevaluate the images that had driven her to be a good investigator in the first place to ensure she was doing it for the right reasons. Aoife would have to stay hidden for a full three weeks just as she had last time but the task would be far more difficult since she wouldn’t be looking for her master but instead trying to avoid him. The minute the door to the transport opened and Aoife tore off into the city to lose herself as much as possible, she knew it was going to be a very long and arduous test. She had blocked much of the lower city’s misery out of her mind but as she wandered those crowded streets once more, she found herself battling emotions she hadn’t realized she’d harbored for it all those years.

Hate was the most prevalent. She hated the scum that wandered along taking advantage of any they could. She hated the filth that discarded children were curled up in. She hated the mingle of smells: garbage, feces, cheap perfume and desperation. She worked her way downward through the city, heading for the rougher neighborhoods where Nuk would have more trouble finding a friendly face to question, and then drew the Force around her like a cloak to hide herself within the crowd. She hadn’t been given any change of clothes and knew her robes stood out too much and so she found a small dark alley, hunted through a garbage can until she found a discarded fish carcass and pulled out one of the bones to use as a needle. She shed her outer garments and pulled the thread from the lining, using her saber to slice the cloth into something she could use and then hemming up the burnt edges. It took her a few precious hours to stitch together a new outfit from the pieces of her old one but it would help keep her master off her trail if she wasn’t walking around in Jedi garb. She burned the remnants of her robes in an old trash receptacle and then drew the Force around her once more to convince those in the immediate area that what emerged from the alley in tattered loose breeches and a makeshift haltertop was little more than some road weary pa’lowick.

Her days were spent singing as before on various street corners though she did so as little as possible, opting instead for simply using card tricks her master had shown her to scam a few locals out of enough cash to eat with. Her nights were a little more comfortable than they had been in her childhood as she used her skill with breaking and entering to sleep in various vacant apartments whose owners were out working night shifts. Every night, she struggled with her hatred of the place, of the people who let it get that bad and who lived in such squalor, but it wasn’t until she came across an old woman digging through someone’s trash that she truly came to terms with her feelings. The woman had commented on Aoife singing, saying she should be up higher in the city with a voice that sweet, and it got the two of them involved in a long conversation. The older woman told the Aoife the tale of her life and how she’d come to be in an alley scrounging for food. She had wanted more from life but sometimes things simply didn’t work out well. She and her husband had come to Nar Shadaa in the hope of making a new life for themselves after both were released from slavery. Her husband had become involved with a drug ring while trying to make enough money to get his family off planet. She’d done what she could to bring money in but in the end, the love of her life had died of an overdose leaving her alone to raise their children. Her youngest had died from a disease that she couldn’t have afforded the medication for, a medication that would have only cost less than a cup of coffee on Coruscant. Her oldest boy had been lost to the streets, having become involved in the gangs in their neighborhood. He’d been lured by the idea of power in a life where he had none and it had cost him everything.

[Otterling]

((Holy crap this is longer than I intended. >__> Cont. from above. Sorry. I'll wrap it up soon...I promise.))

Aoife walked away from the whole scene feeling sick to her stomach. She forced herself to take a long hard look at how she had viewed people like that old woman. She had thought them weak and horrid for living like animals, had done her job as an investigator seeing the whole world in black and white. If someone did something illegal, they were the bad guy, end of story, and she and her master were going to take them down. It had all just been one grand adventure. After the encounter though she had to learn to see life through the eyes of the people who were most affected. The Republic security forces did the best they could, as did the other Jedi, to keep the galaxy safe but sometimes there were those who couldn’t be taken down by normal means. The clever and power hungry who had found a way to settle into their niche like an infection, using technicalities of the laws to keep themselves safe and render justice useless. People like that old woman in the alley were left helpless to defend themselves in the wake of those who lived to take advantage of them, who couldn’t be stopped and wouldn’t pay any price for their crimes if everyone else kept playing by the rules. Finally Aoife understood what her job was, what it meant, and why the Jedi didn’t talk about them much. She knew then why her master told lies to everyone around him about what missions he was on and where he was going. They would exist in a realm outside the law where justice split off from legality.

The rest of her time on Nar Shadaa wasn’t easy by any stretch of imagination but she hated it less than before. She felt a renewed sense of purpose that made what she had to do every day a little easier. She couldn’t help those she saw living in poverty along those city streets but she could help prevent others from sharing their fate in the future. Aoife worked hard to keep her master off her trail, determined to pass the test and take her place among those who would bring justice even if it meant breaking the laws to get it, and though she had a few close calls where she had even seen her master walking down the streets looking for her, she managed to avoid him. On the last day of her trial, Nuk returned to the ship to find Aoife sitting on the loading platform, filthy, tired, and grinning from ear to ear. He shook his head and patted her on the back, congratulating her on avoiding him, all while hinting that he could have found her if he really wanted to. It was a friendly argument the two shared all the way back to the Temple. When Aoife went before the Council again, after a much needed bath, it was to be told that she was being knighted. She asked about the other trials she was supposed to undertake and was informed that her fight with the hawkbat had shown great courage in facing a creature maddened by hunger and her trial of the flesh was still evident in the thin scars along her shoulder from the creature’s bite. That day, Aoife Caaso became a Jedi Knight.

To Fall From Grace: Age 25 - 28

“Truth be told I've tried my best
But somewhere along the way
I got caught up in all there was to offer
And the cost was so much more than I could bear”

- Sarah McLachlan, Fallen [/center]

Aoife tackled all the missions of her knighthood with the same enthusiasm she had shown during her padawan years. Though the opportunities to go with her master were all but non-existent, she still looked forward to the rare opportunity when they were both on planet at the same time and could attend a concert together once more. Her work kept her very busy the rest of the time and it became an unusual sight indeed for Aoife to be seen wandering the Temple. She would barely walk through the doors before seeking out a new assignment and new adventure. Her skills at persuasion and acting only seemed to grow with time and practice and her master often joked that she could charm the wings off a toydarian if given half a chance. She loved the thrill of a good hunt, loved the look of shock on people’s faces when their “fool-proof” schemes failed after a few anonymous calls to security forces told them what evidence to find and where. All in all, Aoife had shaped up to be a pretty good investigator who took a great deal of pleasure from her job.

In Aoife’s 25th year, the Council approached her with a new assignment. A senator’s son had died of an overdose on spice. The gang that had supplied the drug had fingered a larger cartel working right out of Coruscant but unsurprisingly all the witnesses had succumbed to accidents of vary and horrible natures. Strange how someone could jam themselves into a furnace head first and activate it from across the room after leaving a convenient suicide note. The police couldn’t seem to scrounge up any hard evidence on the group and all attempts to infiltrate them thus far had failed. Aoife was given the task of getting close to their leader and then providing the Republic security forces with information on the group’s movements and potential inbound shipments. She happily accepted and after a few days search, she managed to locate a bar she knew the leader of the gang frequented.

Del Tharnin was from Corellia and ran the Nexus gang. Aoife had set herself up as a singer at the bar where Del frequented and made sure to flirt with him as much as possible during a few of her sets. It didn’t take long for her to cement her place at his side as his girlfriend but getting what she needed from him proved a lot harder than expected. Del wasn’t just selling the drugs, he was taking them too and he didn’t trust anyone who wouldn’t join him in a few hits. One night he offered Aoife Gree Spice, a legal drug that she couldn’t bust him for. She hedged at first but Del began to question her a little too hard on why she wouldn’t take it and she could practically see her chances of infiltrating the group fading away. She took the hits of spice with the thought that only a few encounters with such things wouldn’t leave her addicted but a few turned into many as the months passed with no further evidence being presented to her. Aoife knew she was starting to get hooked on the Gree when she found herself craving it and even asking Del for it when they would meet but she kept telling herself that she could stop once the case had been busted and comforted herself with the knowledge of how many young lives she would save once she had brought the ring down and stopped the flow of spice into the streets.

Aoife resolve was tested sorely on one night five months into the investigation. Del brought her the usual hit of Gree and while she was high and unable to stop him, he slipped her a Crash n Burn tablet. Aoife didn’t know until too late what had happened and before she knew it, she was lost in a high that seemed to burn through her veins like nothing before it. Del invited over a few of his friends in the gang and Aoife suffered greatly at their hands for the evening, too high to stop them. When she woke the next day, she came very close to calling it quits and pulling away from the case but she found she couldn’t. As much as she knew she shouldn’t she found herself hating Del and his gang for what they had done to her and she didn’t want to risk them doing it to someone else. She wanted to see the mission through, to tear the smirk off the man’s face when his organization fell. While she refused to admit it outwardly, Aoife’s reason for being an investigator had begun to change. She didn’t care any longer about the spice affecting other people on the street, she just wanted Del to pay for what he’d done.

It tore Aoife apart to stay at Del’s side but she kept seeing him regardless. When she asked Del about it, he said it had been some sort of initiation ceremony into the gang and he’d promised her it wouldn’t happen again. Regardless, Aoife was careful about what she let him give her from then on. The one illegal hit he’d given her hadn’t been enough to convict him on and so she stayed at his side, waiting for more information, for any kind of slip that would let her take him down for good. As the months passed, she checked in less and less frequently with the Temple, tired of their pressing for more answers and their parental concern over whether she had taken any of the product herself. She had lied of course, she knew they would pull her away if they found out how often she was taking the Gree Del was bringing her, and simply stopped calling quite so much.

After almost a full year of investigation, the Council told Aoife to call off the mission and return to the Temple. They were ready to put her on another assignment but Aoife had been through too much to give up that easily and her hatred of Del had become an obsession. She refused the Council’s orders and cut off communication, telling herself that they would forgive her and take her back once she’d brought Del and his gang to justice. Finally the night she’d been waiting for came and Del invited her to sit in on a meeting to discuss a shipment they’d just received. The gang had brought in a large cargo of a drug known as ThrustHead and were discussing where and how to sell it. Aoife had hit the jackpot of information and she took in everything she could. Sadly she’d never get to use it. Del brought out five syringes and laid one in front of each member to include Aoife. He insisted that they all try the product to make sure it was good and to celebrate the fortunes they would make off the shipment.

Aoife had come too far and been through too much to stop then and she took the hit, celebrating in her own way that the case was finally going to be over. She had never done that particular drug before though and discovered the hard way that it had an effect she hadn’t prepared for. Every drug she’d had up to that point had been designed to induce euphoria in some form or another but ThrustHead was a whole different type of demon. It increased mental capacity tenfold and suddenly the Force was raging through Aoife in uncontrolled torrents. Unfortunately it also induced anxiety and as she huddled in a corner of the room watching the other members of the gang rough house and laugh, she became utterly convinced that they would repeat the assault she’d already been through earlier that year. Her fear turned to anger and a hatred so deep it felt like it would burn her away to nothing and with the drug raging through her system, Aoife let loose on her unsuspecting companions.

She barely came back to her senses enough to find herself standing over the mutilated bodies of what had been four men, lightsaber burns marring the walls of the room and pieces of furniture impaled through various body parts now strewn across the floor. Her horror at what she had done was utter and absolute but the drug was still coursing through her body and she was certain the Jedi would kill her outright if they saw what she had just done. In panic, Aoife grabbed a container of fuel from the back of one of the swoop bikes outside the gang’s hideout and doused the whole room in it. She lit the fire with her saber and ran from the building as fast as she could. She holed up in the dingy little apartment she’d been living in since the mission had begun and spent the night curled up and flinching at any noise, imagining the Jedi bursting through the door at any moment to find her and punish her.

Aoife stayed in her room for a full twenty four hours before the burn of need began to drive her again. The drugs had burnt out of her system and she could feel the emptiness they left in their wake eating her from the inside out. She risked going out and found one of the dealers she knew Del had used on the street. He gave her a small bag of obnoxiously pink pills and told her it would make her pretty smile come back. She took it gladly and handed him what little money she had left from her singing job at the bar before making her way back to her rooms. She needed a smile more than anything by that point. Thus Aoife was introduced for the first time to Neutron Pixie. The sweet spice tore away her pain and shame and left her nothing but sensation and joy. She stayed locked in her room for the next four days, barely eating and barely sleeping as she went through the bag of pills. Every time the drug would wear off, reality would wash back in and her mind would turn back to the visions of blood on her hands and bodies laying about the room. She would dive back for the bag and its temporary promises of escape.

When the bag was finished at last, Aoife told herself the time had come to go back to the Jedi and confess to what she had done. They might take her back if she explained that it hadn’t been her fault, that she’d been drugged, that she needed them. She just couldn’t do it until she’d had one last hit though, something to bolster her courage and let her have enough spine to walk in and face the other Jedi. She scrounged up what small valuables she owned and sold them at a local pawn shop before heading back to her dealer for a last fix. He told her he had no Neutrons left to give her but that he had just the thing for raising one’s courage. He’d said it would make her feel ten feet tall and blaster proof and so he gave Aoife her first, and ultimately last, hit of Pyrepenol.

Aoife didn’t remember the rest of that night after it hit her bloodstream. All she remembered was waking the next morning in the remnants of her torn apart apartment and the amount of blood that was all over the floor. She found what was left of two Coruscant security men laying in her bathroom and a vibroblade covered in their blood in her sink. The Pyrepenol had stolen her sense of justice, had robbed her of her conscience and her sense of right and wrong and in her rage at all that had happened, in her hatred of herself, she’d killed two innocent men. They hadn’t been criminals, hadn’t been part of any gang. They had been people doing their job to stop the bad guys and she’d slaughtered them. Aoife was beside herself with grief. She knew she couldn’t go back to the Jedi, not with innocent blood on her hands, but her survival instincts kicked in and she worked quickly to hide what she’d done.

For the two years following the incident, Aoife turned her thoughts from returning to her beloved Jedi Order to simply surviving for her next hit. The drugs kept the memories at bay though they could not save her from her own nightmares, and so she sought them out at every turn. She moved from area to area, getting jobs as a singer at various bars and when those jobs failed to yield enough to fuel her habits, Aoife turned to less reputable professions. She still had her Jedi training and she put it to good use, hiring herself out to any criminals looking to get rid of competition. She refused to take any jobs that would require her to hurt innocents, knowing she had sold far too much of her soul down that road already, but there was good pay to be had in offing rival gang members and other scum of the slums and it was better than selling her body. She filled her days with excuses for why she did what she did until the excuses sounded hollow even to her and then she stopped making them at all. It was easy to forget why excuses were necessary if she could just lose herself into the ecstasy of a good hit though she never again touched Pyrepenol or ThrustHead, opting for Neuron Pixie, Booster Blues, and even some Giggle dust when she could get it.

RP Sample:

Thomas Gastin.

Father of two.

Devoted Husband.

And his mangled body was laying disjointed and crumpled on the bathroom floor. His face was twisted in shock and pain, his eyes wide, his mouth slack, and far too much blood was pooling around his limp hand as it lay at an awkward angle. So much blood…it crept along the floor and Aoife looked down at her feet to see it inching toward her. She was covered in it, her pants were clinging to her skin, her arms were dripping and the knife in her hand was coated in it. She stared at him, feeling the tremble start in her legs and work its way up her body until she was shivering everywhere. So much blood. She could barely tear her eyes from the gleaming brass name badge clinging to what was left of his uniform. It was one of the few things in the room not stained in crimson.

When she finally looked up, she immediately wished she hadn’t. Her eyes met her own reflection in the mirror and she withdrew in horror. Her hair was matted in gore, her pale skin smeared with red but it wasn’t that which frightened her, it was the way her reflection was looking back at her. She watched herself in mute fascination as the face of the woman in the mirror elongated unnaturally, its maw dropping and eyes rolling back as the skin began to peel and turn gray. The lips pulled back to reveal razor sharp needle-like teeth and then it lunged at her, pulling itself through the mirror and reaching for her with sharp claws and a scream like a dying thing.

Aoife screamed as she sat bolt upright in bed. Her clothes were soaked in sweat and she was shaking from head to toe. It had been too long. Her last hit had worn off and the nightmares were coming back. She knew those shakes well, knew that the tremble wasn’t just from the fear of her own dreams but from the need her body was feeling as it screamed for a fix. She coughed and shuddered in the chill of her tiny shelter. She’d broken in a few days after completing a hit on the previous owner. She figured the crime scene tape on the front door would keep most people away and afford her a little rest and she doubted the security forces would waste much time searching through the apartment again. After all, who cared if some local pimp got himself shanked after ripping off a rival gang member? The city wasn’t going to waste precious man-power on the likes of him.

Aoife sighed and ran her fingers through her tangled hair. How long had it been since she’d washed it? She hadn’t really even left the room for over a day. Her stomach growled at her to spend what little money she had left on something more substantial than some pills and water to wash them down with but she ignored it for now. She needed to calm the shakes before things got worse. She knew what would come next. The pain would start in her knees, always in her knees, then it would work up through her bones into her knuckles. Next would be the vomiting, oh how she hated the vomiting, and then the lack of energy that would leave her wishing for death. No, she’d like to avoid all that.

She slip from the bed and shuffled wearily across the room to where she’d discarded her clothing earlier. A few minutes of rifling through her pants produced a small baggy with a single pink pill in it. Her last one. She’d need a refill soon. That would mean going to one of her contacts and seeing if there was anyone looking to snuff somebody else. That was the great thing about the criminals of the Coruscant slums, there was never any shortage of people willing to pay to smooth their path to more power. Aoife didn’t like to think too hard about how many paths she’d smoothed over the last few years. In fact, she didn’t like to think too hard about anything really. Neutron Pixie was good for that.

She sat back and pulled the little pill from its bag with all the reverence of a holy item, holding it up before her between two fingers. She should stop, she knew that, should just chuck the damnable thing into the toilet and go buy herself a sandwich, but she also knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not if she didn’t want to see that sandwich come back again…and again…and again, long after it should have been purged from her system. Aoife smiled sadly at the pill and looked up through the grimy window. The room was bathed in a lurid red glow from a flickering neon sign across the street. It was the closest thing to a sunrise she’d gotten to see since losing herself to the slums over two years ago. “Looks like it’s just you and me,” she said wistfully to the pill before slipping it onto her tongue.

As soon as it began to melt she could feel the first tingle start. It was so good…so bright, like someone setting off a nova in her brain. The tingle grew stronger as the tablet dissolved completely and suddenly she was sure she could fly. She could do anything if she wanted to. A feeling of pure bliss washed over her and her eyes rolled back in her head as she flopped over backward onto the floor. This was better than a sandwich. This was better than sex. It was better than sunrises or the Jedi and their ridiculous Order. It was better than everything and she could live the rest of her life happily if she could just cling that that feeling long enough.

But that was the problem with Neutron Pixies and their ilk. They were fickle little b****s. There was always an end to the feeling, the pixie always flew away on her, and tomorrow she’d have to take a job if she wanted to lure that pink minx back again.

There was always an end to the high…and Aoife would kill to get another.

[Dutch]

Here-we-goooooo!

Birthplace: Dun forget city/settlement/ area where born

Bio: I've already read most of this, and didn't find any problems at all, but now to check over what I haven't...

Multiple posts for one bio! Welcome to the club!

well... wow, what a bio. What a unique character. It was just amazing otter, nicely done. Couldn't find a thing wrong with it.

Rp Sample: Holy crap I dun think I have much else to say XD

Final Notes: Near perfect app you got here, just add that she was born on Khoonda in the birthplace area and I'd say you're set!

[Otterling]

FIXED! Glad you liked it so much and thanks for having the patience to read through all that. LOL!

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

alright, and with Max's okay

[Otterling]

SWEEEET!! Thank you! Oh and I almost forgot, Jenno gave me the ok for the additional character so I wanted to note that in here somewhere in case someone asks.

Thank you so much Tal!!!!!! *clings*

[Jenno]

Okay, if I'm honest I think the force stats are a little high. Saber ones are perfect but having an 8, 7 and two 6s as Sentinel at the age of 28? That seems to be pushing it to me.

As this profile has only just been accepted I would like to request that the force stats be lowered. More specifically, the 8 reduced to a 7 and one of the 6s dropped down to a 5. Still leaves your character with a mighty fine set of stats.

Otter, if you wish to keep the stats as they are then you can PM me and we can discuss them. Hope you understand.

Thank you,

~Jenno

[Otterling]

Hey, tis, not a problem at all, Jenno. I totally respect and trust your opinion so if ya say they're too high, I'm perfectly ok with changing it. I already lowered the two you asked me to so I hope that looks better now. ^__^

[Silas]

Accepted Stats:

Practiced Lightsaber forms:

Shii-Cho: 5
Makashi: N/A
Soresu: 2
Ataru: 4
Shien / Djem So: N/A
>>Sub-form Backhanded
Niman: N/A
>>Sub-form Jar-kai, or Dual Wield: N/A
Juyo: N/A
Double Bladed Combat: N/A

Force-Sensitive Abilities or practices:

Force Illusion/Masquerade
Force Stealth

Specialized Skills:

Telekinetic: 5
Telepathic: 7
Body: 7
Sense: 6
Protection: 4
Healing: 2
Destruction: 0

Attributes:

Physical Strength: 5
Intelligence: 7
Speed: 8
Leadership: 3

Unarmed: 3
Melee Weapons: 5
Ranged Weapons: 7

Force Attunement: +3

[Silas]

Moved to inactive due to member's absence

[Cain]

Reactivated upon member request.

[Dutch]

Moved to Inactive :C