Aavruun and Krawruuk were in their room a few days before their seventh standard year.
In the Temple, a birthday counted as a marker in the training cycle more than a personal holiday. Archivists and healers updated a youngling's records, instructors shifted them into the next age bracket, and duty rosters adjusted to match new expectations. The Code framed it less as "my special day" and more as a small step along a lifelong path of discipline and service. A child grew older, so lessons deepened, meditations lengthened, and the kinds of responsibilities they were trusted with widened.
The Order kept celebration restrained on purpose. Attachment and ego grew fastest around moments that said "this is about me", so the Temple culture leaned away from that and toward shared progress. Caretakers sometimes added a slightly sweeter portion at the evening meal or offered a quiet, direct comment—"you've trained well this year", "your focus has improved". The mood centered on growth rather than reward: another year lived, another layer of control, knowledge, and connection to the Force expected from the student.
The twins were in juggling practice.
For Aavruun and Krawruuk, juggling meant training dexterity and agility. They planned to hit weight training around ten standard years. In his last life Aavruun had put a lot of work into staying strong; as a Wookiee he intended to do the same, and their physiology would let them handle serious load earlier than human boys, who usually started real lifting closer to fourteen to sixteen. For now they focused on agility, flexibility, and fine control. Being young made it the best time to build a solid base. With their focus and discipline, the goal was to make that foundation as clean as possible.
Sometimes they used the Force when they juggled. Other times they relied only on muscle and reflex.
The Force helped, but Aavruun believed the basic body needed its own training. The system overlay in his mind reinforced that idea every time he looked at his life-force and stats.
Their Force abilities had grown. With enough meditation and effort they could make objects drift now—slow lifts, long pushes, short moments of suspension. Both brothers liked using the Force to shove things in line with a kick or a punch. The motion only gave a small extra shake or push, yet it was still more than most children their age managed.
Aavruun believed the physical movement mattered. A kick or a punch helped his mind accept the outcome. The Jedi repeated that in the Force there was no try, only do; tying that idea to a strike or a step gave his thoughts a clear hook.
Six balls moved between them now, bright training spheres arcing through the air in a shifting pattern. Aavruun stood near the center of the room, bare feet planted on the smooth floor. Krawruuk faced him a few paces away, braids brushing his shoulders each time he rolled a joint or shifted his stance. They sent the balls back and forth, changing the rhythm, crossing throws, pushing the tempo. Each adjustment came from a shared sense more than from sight—small jolts of focus and amusement sliding along the Doppelganger link and through the Force.
Using both their Doppelganger connection and the Force together made that inner line feel sharper, even if details stayed fuzzy. Aavruun and Krawruuk trusted it could grow stronger over time, so they trained.
They had spent much of the last year using spare minutes to practice. The twins juggled in corners of the play hall, in their room between lessons, on walkways when caretakers gave them a little space. That brought its own growing pains, especially after they agreed to treat juggling as a team skill. Harder patterns only counted when they worked together, which meant they had to stay in sync.
At first it felt clumsy—dropped balls, late catches, crossed signals down the link. Over the months their hands and shared sense caught up with their ambition.
Right now Krawruuk stood with a strip of cloth tied over his eyes.
Aavruun kept the pattern steady and sent firm, clear intent down their link—here, up, over, now. Krawruuk tracked the balls through shared sensation and faint ripples in the Force. His shoulders rolled with each catch, elbows opening and closing in smooth arcs. His hands rose into the path of the spheres, claws tapping lightly against the surfaces. When Aavruun shifted the pattern, Krawruuk's ears twitched and his arms followed a moment later.
It would be Aavruun's turn for the blindfold next.
They had tried juggling with both of them blindfolded once, relying fully on the Force. The result turned into a mess of dropped balls and wild swipes, so the twins answered that failure the way they preferred: they trained more.
Now, as Aavruun worked the throws, the pattern kept changing. He sent two balls high in a long, slow arc while four moved in a tight, low cycle between their chests. From the doorway, a watcher would see six colored spheres weaving through the air in layered loops—some drifting in smooth, floating paths touched by the Force, others snapping from hand to hand in sharp, precise lines. Aavruun's wrists flicked to angle a throw across his body; Krawruuk's hands rose to meet it as if he had watched the motion with open eyes. One ball skimmed close to Krawruuk's shoulder fur, brushed it, and still settled into his palm. Another snapped in low toward Aavruun's hip, and he dipped, caught it on the upswing, and sent it back into the outer ring of the pattern.
Breath, soft growls, the faint thump of balls against padded palms, and the steady clack of spheres as they brushed in midair filled the room while the pattern rolled on.
There was a knock at the door.
Aavruun snapped his hands closed. Six balls dropped into his palms and against his chest in a quick cascade. Across from him, Krawruuk caught the shift in their link and lifted his blindfold with one paw, squinting as light hit his eyes. One stray ball bounced off his foot and rolled into the corner.
Aavruun padded over to the door.
He treated it like part of training. He set his feet, centered his weight, reached into the Force for a quick read of the presence outside. Familiar. Calm. Focused. Barriss didn't bother to mask her signature; she let it sit in the corridor like a steady candle flame. In her own way, she trained as constantly as they did, only with scrolls, meditation, and careful thought instead of sticks and climbing frames.
Aavruun thumbed the panel and slid the door aside.
Barriss Offee stood in the hall. Her Mirialan skin carried its soft green hue under the corridor lights, hair tied back in a short tail that brushed the back of her neck. A thin training robe sat over her standard tunic, sleeves pushed up just far enough to free her wrists. She held a flat, slate-colored holo-board in both hands, edges worn a little from regular use.
Barriss looked at him once, gave a small nod that counted as a greeting, and stepped past him into the room.
Aavruun shifted aside to let her through. Her scent carried ink, dust from the archive halls, and a hint of morning tea from the refectory.
Barriss crossed to the low table near the wall and sat with her legs folded under her. She set the holo-board down, tapped one corner, and brought it to life. Soft lines rose in pale blue above the surface—a circular grid of intersecting paths, marked with faint rings for piece positions.
This was their game.
The Temple called it lightstones, a simple strategy board used in youngling classes. Each side placed small markers to claim routes and surround key circles. The game rewarded pattern recognition, patience, and the ability to think several moves ahead. Masters said it trained the same habits that made a good tactician and a careful negotiator.
They played once a week.
Krawruuk trotted over, claws clicking lightly against the floor. He dropped onto the cushion opposite Barriss, big dark eyes already fixed on the grid. His braids slid over his shoulders as he leaned in.
Barriss glanced at the board, then at him. "Same rules," she said. "Three stones capture a circle. Five in a line wins."
Krawruuk gave a short, eager rumble. Aavruun felt the anticipation flick down their link—competitive, bright, focused.
Aavruun moved to his small meditation mat in the corner. He sat, folded his legs, and rested his hands on his knees. From there he could see the edge of the board, Barriss' steady hands, and Krawruuk's shifting shoulders.
Barriss placed the first lightstone. A small point of gold appeared where her fingertip touched the grid, hovering just above the lines. Krawruuk answered with a deep-blue stone on the opposite side, guided by instinct, mood, and the vague sense of pressure he felt from her intentions.
As the game began, Aavruun slid his focus inward.
He followed their moves through the Force and through Krawruuk's side of the link—Barriss' careful, measured placements against Krawruuk's sharper, more aggressive choices. Each soft tap of a new stone marked another line in a pattern the twins intended to learn as surely as any strike or throw.
Barriss Offee sat cross-legged at the dejarik board, hands folded in her lap between moves, eyes fixed on the holographic pieces. The soft blue light from the projector edged her small Mirialan features and caught on the faint geometric marks at her temples. When it was her turn, she reached out with calm, precise motions, sliding a piece along its path and then settling back to watch the position unfold.
Barriss rarely bothered with small talk. That suited the twins. Aavruun and Krawruuk treated these sessions like any other training block—full focus, clear goal, no wasted energy.
On her own, Barriss outplayed either brother. Together, the twins pushed back. Aavruun leaned on the Doppelganger bond and the Force both, riding along Krawruuk's eyes and hands while he lay stretched out on the sleeping mat. He watched the board through his brother's perspective, sent small nudges along their link—shift left, guard that angle, press that flank—and Krawruuk's claws tapped the console to match.
A few months earlier, Barriss had caught on.
One quiet morning she had paused mid-move, gaze sliding from the board to the black-furred Wookiee resting on the pallet—Krawruuk's chest rising and falling in slow, even breaths. Then she looked straight at Aavruun, who sat at the board with his paws on the controls.
"You are both playing," she said.
Aavruun had given a short nod.
Barriss held his gaze for a long second, then glanced once more between the sleeping twin and the white-furred one at the table, as if measuring the distance between them and the feel of the room.
"That means we can focus on one partner each week," she decided. "Do your best. Hold nothing back."
The twins took that as permission. Since then, they treated every match as a full engagement. Their combined win rate hovered around sixty percent, and Barriss's growth matched theirs. Her openings grew sharper, her traps more layered. She started laying long sequences several turns ahead, reading their habits, forcing Aavruun and Krawruuk to adjust on the fly.
Aavruun respected her for it. In his first life, instinct and planning had been his real strengths. Here, he chased the same edge—spotting patterns, building lines of attack, refusing to accept a losing position without dragging the whole board through one more pass.
They played for roughly an hour, early light from the corridor spilling across the room in a thin strip while the Temple stayed quiet around them. Krawruuk's breathing stayed slow and steady on the mat. Aavruun's paws moved from control to control. Barriss's fingers tapped her knee in a small, thoughtful rhythm each time she waited on their turn.
This game belonged to her.
She tightened one flank, sacrificed a piece, and rolled pressure into the twins' weak side. Three moves later, Aavruun saw the trap close. The next sequence forced their commander into a corner, cut off their last escape path, and pinned the board.
Checkmate.
Aavruun exhaled, opened his eyes fully, and let the shared view from Krawruuk fade back to a background hum. Damn, he thought, a flicker of wry respect moving along the bond. She had earned that one clean.
Barriss drew in a slow breath, then rose to her feet. She placed her hands together and gave the twins a small, precise bow.
"I will return the same day next week," she said.
Aavruun dipped his head in return. Krawruuk shifted on the mat, one ear flicking at the sound of her voice.
Barriss turned and walked out into the corridor, robes whispering against the floor, already thinking through openings for their next match.