The Wookiee twins sat shoulder to shoulder at the refectory table, eating their usual bowl of thick mash. The food came out warm and dense, a little sweet from fruit puree mixed through it. Aavruun ate like it was fuel, steady scoops, quick chews. Krawruuk ate the same way, quiet and efficient, ears flicking now and then at the noise of trays and chatter around them.
Tru Veld slid onto the bench beside them with the easy confidence he always carried. The Teevan boy was small for his age compared to the twins, warm-brown skin and dark hair that never stayed flat no matter how often caretakers tried to tame it. He smelled faintly like soap and the citrus rinse the kitchens used, like he'd already been near a wash station this morning. He set his tray down with a soft clack and leaned in like he belonged there.
Tru smiled at both of them. "Hey. Morning, my friends."
Aavruun glanced sideways while he kept eating. Tru's smile stayed bright, the kind that pulled attention without him having to work for it. The kid had a way of making every table feel like his table.
Tru nodded at their bowls, then at the way they were already chewing like they had somewhere to be. "Let me guess. Training, training, and more training. That the plan? And then—" he lifted his spoon like he was counting "—more training?"
Krawruuk kept eating. He didn't even look up.
Aavruun huffed a low growl that counted as yes.
The twins had made a call about that a while back—simple and practical. They were twins, they looked like a matched set, except for the color of the fur they looked like identical twins, and people already treated them like one unit, especially on a personas they decided to take on. Aavruun and Krawruuk decided they would carry different "personas" on purpose. Not fake. Just different roles, Aavruun was the talker and Krawruuk would be the quiet twin.
Krawruuk would course handle class when he needed to. He answered when an instructor called on him, did the work, followed the schedule. Outside of that in social circles, he stayed quiet. He liked being the calm presence, the one who watched.
Aavruun did the talking for the both of them.
Their bond made it easy. Through the Doppelganger link—and the way the Force carried intent—Aavruun could feel what Krawruuk wanted and put it into words without turning it into a whole performance. They kept it open. They didn't treat it like a secret. The Temple felt structured and safe, and the Jedi paid attention when something mattered.
Aavruun finally turned his head enough to look at Tru directly.
Aavruun rumbled, "Yeah. Free time too. You want in, come. Bring a friend."
He said it like an invitation and a challenge at the same time. Aavruun didn't mind leading, and he liked leading through action. If someone trained with them, they got better. If someone didn't, they stayed where they were.
Tru's eyes lit the way they always did when he got what he came for.
Tru grinned. "Deal. I'll bring a few. Ferus has been itching for a rematch. He pretends he isn't, but I can feel it."
Aavruun went back to his bowl, still listening. Tru talked while he ate, spoon moving, shoulders relaxed. He wasn't loud. He didn't have to be. Kids drifted his way even when he didn't call them over.
Aavruun liked Tru for that. Tru knew who was talented, and he didn't play games about it. He was genuine, and he paid attention.
Aavruun also had a reputation now, and he knew it. People called him intense. Some of the kids started earlier drills just because they saw the white-furred Wookiee doing them. Krawruuk backed it up in his own way—silent, arms crossed, looming presence when someone started slacking in the middle of a rep.
Aavruun kept the line clean in his head. Push hard. Be fair. Help people who showed up. He'd seen the difference in his last life between a hardass and someone who actually wanted you to improve.
The other younglings around them were still kids, still figuring themselves out. Aavruun and Krawruuk had something heavier behind their eyes—conviction from a life before, and a clear picture of what they were building toward—so free time turned into training time as naturally as breathing.
After that was class.
Aavruun and Krawruuk moved through the youngling wing with the after-smell of breakfast still on their fur—warm grain, sweet fruit mash, a little steam trapped in the braids along their shoulders. The Temple ran classes in small groups, and the twins felt it more each week: more blocks where they got split on purpose. Aavruun noticed the pattern on the wall schedule boards.
The twins situation was unique Aavruun thought, having familial in the Order. The Jedi avoided building family-style attachment lines inside the Temple, and twin brothers made that risk obvious. So the schedule boards kept putting them in separate rooms more often as they got older.
They didn't try to hide their bond either.
Aavruun assumed because of their age the Jedi believed they could be conditioned early and taught to adhere to the Jedi Code without it turning into a problem.
Aavruun and Krawruuk were fine with that. They would just share each other's experiences later.
Seven days out of thirty, they could relive each other's time through the Doppelganger perk—168 hours, 10,080 minutes, 604,800 seconds of unburdened experience. Aavruun could live Krawruuk's time, and Krawruuk could live Aavruun's time. They couldn't "double dip" their own day by watching themselves.
The physical side stayed with the body that did it. The mental side carried across. Aavruun didn't gain Krawruuk's muscle by watching him run, and Krawruuk didn't gain Aavruun's muscle by watching him climb. They did gain the nervous system benefit: timing, coordination, sequencing, the "this is how it fires" piece people called muscle memory even though it lived in the brain. That made practicing the same categories of movement worthwhile.
Caleb had lived that lesson hard in his last life. Loading a rifle was basic mechanics, and he still spent days practicing it over the course of years. Dry fire for an hour a day. Dry reloads until his fingers moved without thought. That kind of repetition mattered because when stress hit, you fell back to wiring, not intentions. For Aavruun and Krawruuk, the Doppelganger made wiring easier to stack as long as they trained in similar lanes.
They missed the physical burn when the other one ran or climbed, yet they still got the nervous-system part—the timing, the coordination, the "this is how it fires." Aavruun thought it felt unfair in the cleanest way: efficient.
Book work was really easy.
Aavruun handled text well enough, and he still read when he had to, but his best learning came through audio—auditory learning, the kind where you lock onto a voice and the words stick. Back on Earth, Caleb did the same thing with briefs and lectures, earbuds in while he cleaned gear or ran. Here, Aavruun did it with Temple material. He asked the service droids to convert assigned readings into audio files, and they complied with the same calm chirps they used for everything else. He listened a lot while he trained, because audio let him learn while his body worked—and later he could live that whole block again through Krawruuk, and Krawruuk could live it through him.
The corridors to class carried their usual Temple details: smooth stone underfoot, air that stayed cool and filtered, distant hum of vents, the occasional soft whirr as a caretaker droid rolled past with folded linens. Light came down in steady panels from high above, clean enough to make the polished floor look slightly damp even when it stayed dry.
Aavruun and Krawruuk reached the day's classroom doors at the same time—different doors, different groups.
Aavruun paused at his threshold and sent a quick, wordless pulse down the bond: later. Krawruuk answered with the feeling of a nod—solid, present, already moving on.
Inside Aavruun's room, the group sat in a loose half-circle on floor cushions sized for younglings. Today's class was smaller than usual. Most days philosophy blocks ran closer to fifteen or twenty kids. Today there were ten. A training droid stood tucked against the wall, arms folded in, optic light dimmed to a patient glow. The droids handled plenty of "logical" instruction—language drills, numbers, history recitations, basic mechanics—because repetition and consistency came easy to machines.
Today the lesson, if you looked deeper, was about attachments in a kid-friendly way. The Jedi were good at hitting you at your level, Aavruun thought, as he sat there with the other nine younglings and listened to the room settle.
Then their teacher walked in…
Yoda.