It had been a few years since Alexandyr had returned home, for as much as he could call anyplace home. Clan Arcona had taken him in and given him some semblance of purpose, yet everything still felt empty. When he finally settled in, old routines crept back in, and he found some comfort. As he acclimated to Estle, he found city life to be busy but not stressful.

Staying in the same bed for more than a night was something he missed, and waking with the comfort of aircon even more so, but some things never changed. Whether travelling, stationed abroad, or in the comfort of his own home, one such comfort he took with him everywhere was a hot cup of caf. Quick brew in the mornings while abroad, but at home, he enjoyed a longer steep. He showered afterwards to help him focus and settle on plans for the day ahead. After he'd showered and had his first caf of the morning, he made breakfast and a second cup of caf. This one was sweetened to match the taste of his meal. Whenever Alex travelled, he often had meals comprised of nutritional bars or ready-packaged foodstuffs, but now he cooked his own food. He wasn't an award-winning chef by any standards, but nerf and eggs, with some simple flatcakes, were winners in anyone's record. At least Alexandyr thought as much.

Once he'd eaten, Alex sighed and got up to gaze out over the city, the perfect view as he started his morning callisthenics. Daily work kept his muscles limber and the ache away after long journeys, though he had to admit as his age crept up on him, his travels exhausted him further and further. Form practice with his sabre always followed. An outstretched hand called on The Force to deliver his lightsaber from across the apartment before he began. He checked the few pieces of furniture out of his way to open up his main room. His living quarters were relatively sparse, which gave him space to practice.

After his morning routine, Alexandyr felt the familiar wanderlust, part and parcel of why he sojourned so often. The call to see new things or to meet new people meant his bones never felt comfortable in one place long, but even home was alien after a few years away. An easy remedy was to visit the market to take in the new faces, vendors, and sights.

Market stalls were always a favourite of his, and here in Estle, they were as bustling as any other core world. The sights and sounds were enough to swallow a man, but the scent of spices and cooked meats were pure bliss to a man like Alexandyr. He danced between the stalls, investigated the various wares, greeted the new faces, and caught up with the latest gossip in the system. Even at home, he couldn't escape the same cycle he repeated abroad. Find some food, gather local faces, gather intel, and squirrel it away. Anchor yourself in place and remember where everyone and everything belongs.

After a few laps through the market, he doubled back and made a few purchases, some spiced meats, local spices, alcohol, fruits, vegetables, and a broken blaster being sold for a steal. The man loved to find things to tinker with, if nothing else. Once he collected his bounty he made his way back to the apartment and settled in for the night.

"Alright, le'see what's goin' on with this blaster. Prob'ly just a warped emitter or lens, but with these older models, they're gonna be harder to source." He chuckled as he lay the weapon out on his table before he went to put his groceries away.

While he was still in the kitchenette, he pulled a few pans down from storage to prepare a dinner with his haul, setting them aside before he returned to his newest toy. A smirk played across his lips as he began to pull the weapon apart and lost himself in the process. He only stopped to prepare dinner when his stomach complained loudly enough to garner his attention.

"Well, I guess I'll figure you out in the morning. It's a bit later than I'd like tonight." He complained as he looked out to the twilight city.

"Maybe a few more days off will do me some good? Not like I ever change how I do things, anyway. But at least I can relax while doing them at home."

Kowak. It had all begun here, Alexandyr's inscrutable search for a meaning in life. His obsession and anger, borne from trauma, over the absurdities of life and the existence of slavery. Now in his waning years, he sought to correct the stain he had let fester far too long. The market in Sclavos was already in full bustle, slavers hawked those they captured like cattle. It was enough to make anyone sick. No, it was enough to make anyone with morals sick, but morality had long since abandoned this place. Alex knew that far too well, years ago he had been sold in this very block. The cages changed over the years, but the clientele never did.

The man drew his cloak closer around him and pulled his saber close. What he planned to do here was not in his routine operations, but he knew he wasn't long for the world anymore. Each day his breaths grew harder. His cough grew worse. Normally Alex would stalk his targets, or prepare lengthy operations to minimize risks of casualty, this was personal. The drone of the barker, the chatter of the buyers, all of it seemed distant to the man as he made his way into the pens.

Fifteen years as a slave. Sold into slavery alongside his mother at the age of five, he found no identity in those years. His first owners sold him two years later, separating him from his mother, to a couple who raised slave children to fill their empty nest. Three years later he was sold again, and then every two years on, until a rebellion in 21 ABY. The memories flooded back through him as his eyes acclimated to the darkness of the pens.

His contact in the city, a Zabrak, Haruk, nodded as reached out to palm a key to Alex, who in turn shook his head and produced his Saber. Today would be different, today would be like the rebellion that freed him.

The flicker of a lightsaber is an unmistakable sound to many across the known galaxy. To those who recall it, a sense of hope or terror are often accompanied with it. Alexandyr first ignited his with hope. The hope he would return home and repay what the lone Knight did for him. And in his dying moments he intended to live up to his dreams.

His cloak fell from his shoulders and revealed the form of the ageing Disciple, long in the fang and grey in his age. But as the first guards realized what had ignited, it was too late. The amber saber sliced into the locking bar on the cages holding the children. As he cored the cages of the others he barraged the guards with telekinetic bursts to keep them at bay.

"Life is fleeting, and we owe it to ourselves to pay the debts we incur." He called to those he freed, throwing his saber to a sensitive among them as he waded to his death.

The Jedi pressed pursed lips to a clenched fist while he gazed into the distance, the faint scratch of his untrimmed beard, a momentary sensation, recalled him to the present. The memory of Nar Shaddaa clawed within his mind, the innocents in the street caught in the blast of the Plagueian's grenade. The concourse had emptied which left Wolfe alone to sulk, something he preferred at this point. Wolfe stood with the weight of his heel upon his well-worn cloak which caught, held fast, and he stumbled to catch his balance afterward.

"Introspection never was your strong suit, was it, child?" The calloused voice rasped, a shiver to match traversed the Jedi's spine.

"You've wallowed in doubt quite long enough, child, much longer and the Jedi will begin to wonder. Aren't attachments forbidden, after all? Ever still, sentimental as you are, you couldn't pick a path to follow attack and throw yourself before your enemy to protect those you never knew he would dare to target, like a fool. Or accept risks and mitigate." The specter made a visible gesture of defeat and moved across the concourse, its face contorted in the devilish sneer he had always given the Acolyte when he had been his Master.

The air between them was filled with the silence that came before storms, Wolfe had grown used to this over the last several years, but now it only punctuated the severity of the moment. The projection of his Master crossed the concourse and the pallor of the Sith was clear now to his student. Still, in this moment Wolfe grasped for words but could find none, and his Master's ghost continued to overshadow him. The poltergeist spoke his innermost doubts aloud and shook him to his core.

"I wonder, how efficient was that grenade? What was the casualty rate? Two or three, perhaps a dozen civilians? How many did he wound because of your inaction, my pet?"

Wolfe looked into the ephemeral eyes of his long-dead master, rage boiled over and his hands shook with an unmitigated source. But he was given something he had an answer to at this point, a question with a solid, definitive answer.

"Eleven dead, thirty wounded from the detonator. Degrees of injury vary. Collapsed lungs, burns, falling injuries from the detonation. Multiple injuries stem from the panic we caused in our fight. Largely those are attributed to trampling and crushing injuries from people trying to escape the source of the blast and gunfire." The Jedi spoke with an almost obscene clarity to his voice, eyes locked with his Master, old habits died hard.

"It speaks."

"I wasn't finished," Wolfe cut his master off, eyes forward as he looked through him and to the city beyond, "I wanted to say you were right, but I was so intent back then on getting away from you I never could admit it. Nothing in this world is the way we see it, and everything can be altered to suit our purposes. We can even be broken down to suit the needs of others. At the same time, there are aspects of this world that do not change. We do have to choose a path and walk it, what we face on that path can be altered, but we choose how we get there, and we cannot change how got where we are. I'm forever stuck with what you did to me, but I get to choose now what I do with this gift."

The sound of the imploder played once more in the Jedi's mind and he sighed.

"People will die, it is an immutable fact of our world. I had to kill you to get to where I am, I cannot be so naive as to think people will not die where your ilk or mine are involved."