Chapter 2

As a youngling, training was at best mildly interesting and at worst, boring. Each day was the same as the last, meditation at least five times a day and studying rules, regulations, laws, customs and language.

Some of the laws were worth studying as I could see loopholes and ways to take advantage but it was hidden behind a wall of lawyer jargon. I was able to power through it using the experience of my previous life and mentality of getting your work done, but I could see that the other nine children that made up the youngling clan I was part of would fall asleep or their minds would wander.

Teachers were a mix of whoever was free at the time. So sometimes you would get a master and then other times it would be a padawan.

It was fine, nothing special. No the biggest problem for me was mediation. I could do it but it felt like a waste of time, especially with how much they wanted me to do.

I thought that this was going to be the cost of using the force and I was willing to pay it but it turns out that meditation was a tool to use for clearing and cleaning your mind of problems. Upset about something, time to meditate. Lost a loved one, the answer was to meditate.

The Jedi's answer was just to meditate. No wonder Jedi fell so heavily to the dark side when it happened. If your answer is to do nothing and cut yourself away from existence then when it goes bad you might break instead of bend.

Nighttime was lonely, even for me. I could hear the soft sniffing of crying children. The Jedi did their initiates dirty. This was why the youngling was placed in a group in the hopes that they would adopt each other into a new family.

It took me three days before I was sick of meditation and yet I would be a fool if I told any of my teachers. I could hear them in my head "Darkside this blah blah, dark side that blah blah" They would mark me as undesirable. If I was going to learn the force then I needed to keep it quiet and relaxed. I have to remind myself that the Jedi developed all kinds of force skills that could read my intentions and future actions through visions.

I visualise an image where I place my un-Jedi-like thoughts in a box and lock them away. It was a shallow thought process and yet that was all I had. It most likely wouldn't work but something that would work was a healthy dose of reason and realism with a dash of scepticism and humour.

The first step I would take was to make sure I enjoyed myself. To do the things I wanted and make sure I didn't regret my stay here. After all, being unhappy leads to annoyance. Annoyance leads to spitefulness, spitefulness leads to becoming a dick, and no one likes a dick. not even the dark side.

So instead of meditating and driving my individuality out through the teaching of how a good Jedi should behave, I did it my way. I would study the things I wanted and avoid the things I didn't want with no regrets.

And yet, I was still just a child, even if I was a potential Jedi in the making I didn't have access to shit. I wanted to visit the library and go through the data cards stored there. But of course, that wasn't going to happen, Jedi rules of some sort.

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The Jedi held certain beliefs and while they didn't prohibit everything, they most definitely looked down on most things. It boggled my mind how the Jedi would use a lightsaber but look down on the mechanics of droid-making.

The Jedi were just like a cult, the same as the Sith but with different superficial ideas, but at their core, it was all about the force.

Six months of political studying was beginning to grind my nerves down. There was a whole galaxy's worth of interesting things at my fingertips but the curriculum was still the same. The only thing that saved my mind from turning to mush was the designs that I had created using the very few blueprints I could find.

And yet without resources to make my construction, it would stay on a data chip. It turns out the Jedi don't give out an allowance to the younglings. A youngling doesn't need cash was the opinion of most people, and it was true.

Meditate, study, eat, sleep and maybe a couple of hours of playing child games with the other initiate. What a terrible life to live, I wasn't going to meditate the long hours, I wasn't going to play child games that offer no stimulation. Studying was becoming a drag without variety. The only thing left was sleeping and eating and yet the food here was plain. It wasn't for the older students as they could go out for meals but that wasn't an option for us. I'll be damned if the only thing I could look forward to was plain oat porridge.

One of the things I had to study was the layout of the Jedi temple as well as the names of the many statues that lined the halls. I used this to my advantage. I was aware that walking with purpose could allow a person access to many places that they shouldn't be but a three-year-old walking down a corridor amongst battle-hardened Jedi stood out like a sore thumb. There was no way I would be left alone to my own devices, however, there was a different way, a way that the Jedi left clear.

The droids that maintained the temple had their own passage. I found them when following a cleaning droid and now had an avenue to almost everywhere, including the kitchen or what the Jedi called the refectory.

Food was prepared by droids for a vegetarian diet. The force was in all living creatures and the thought process was it would be wrong-ish to eat meat. So while eating flesh wasn't banned it was looked at with questioning eyes. Others would say that eating flesh was part of nature and thus part of the force but those people would just eat out.

The droids were cutting and pounding their ingredients ready for the next meal. I tried to get them to prepare something for me but they only took orders from the council. I suppose that was wise as any assassin could come in and order the food to be poisoned. If I wanted something good to eat then it would seem like I would have to do it myself.

Standing on a box filled with orange-coloured cabbage, I created my first meal, fried salted mushrooms on heavily buttered toast. It tasted ok, not great but somewhat rich enough to make the dish acceptable. Cooking was hard when you only had the reach and strength of a three-year-old. It didn't help that the actions of the droids were so precise and planned out that every space in the kitchen was filled with moving metal. Quite a few times I flinched when a droid came too close to my face with a pot, but never once did they hit me. That was the power of droids, precision.

New, cheap or badly designed and constructed droids would fall apart when put into action but these kitchen droids were old and reliable. They had most likely been working here for decades, maybe centuries and the weak had broken down, while the strong continued.

With toast in hand, I continued to explore. The droid pathways seemed to be fixed behind the walls of the Jedi temple. There were rooms now and again but no windows, this area was purely for the droids. Sometimes the rooms held nothing, other times I opened a door to be met with droids bathing in oil. That was an awkward few seconds as I closed the door slowly at the stares of said droids made me feel self-conscious.

A room with non-functioning droids, a room full of atmosphere-controlled climate machines, a room that I didn't even know what it was used for but it had a lot of boxes with blinking lights.

This was by far, more interesting than meditating. I was even able to bypass some of the no-go areas that were blocked to me. I didn't dare go too far down that path as I didn't know if others could sense me. The droid pathway was a treasure trove of easy knowledge, it would be a waste if I was caught and the droid pathway was closed off to me.

I returned to my room for a light nap before the history of the Hutts class started.