Aayla Vigil
Jedi Master - Former High Councilor
Homeworld: Ryloth
Mentor(s): Ctathos Ederoi, Phoe Nhix
Species: Twi'lek
Padawan(s): Simus Cnydaria, Illrian Damaris
Abilities
“Aayla has been gifted with an easy understanding of the Force and always shows great compassion. However, this young Jedi Knight is also very proficient in Lightsaber combat. Always true to good morals, She’s indeed a reliable Jedi.” – Phoe Nhix.
Aayla always manifested a deep predisposition for sensing abilities. In particular, after her knighthood, she trained strenuously until she managed to control her visions, eventually developing all the prerequisites to become a seer.
Biography
Aayla is a female twi’lek, born in Ryloth on 231.10, but her parents, Neluu and Kela, were from Nar Shaddaa, descending from twi’leks who left Ryloth in their past. When they decided to marry they wanted to return to twi’lek home-world due to gambling debts created by Kela. Neluu was a pilot, working privately on Nar Shadaa, and later became a pilot trainer on Ryloth, working for the GA. Kela, however, was an extravagant person, she loves adventure and she’s always seeking for some treasure, getting often in trouble.
Aayla has always been very shy, since she was never able to adapt perfectly to the Twi’lek life, and since she was six, strange events kept happening to her. As she lived in a small village on the twilight band surface, not far from the large subterranean capital Kala’uun, that her family often visited. Aayla learnt from her parents in her early life, and at the age of six she attended the public school at the upper level of Kala’uun, with always good performances.
In the last period before her advent to Yavin 4, she started having strange dreams that couldn’t be ignored as the other “accidental happenings”. These dreams showed her pain and death, that she was certain that they were going to occur, but whenever she was going to talk about it, her parents became upset with her, making her feel alienated and odd. Her father was fearful of the situation, and told her not to share these visions with anyone. She realised that her father was right, and tried to keep it a secret as best as she could. But as she kept silent about her frightening dreams they became more frequent. This was a shift in her life, as from playful as she was, she became cold and solitary, afraid of talking and mostly kept to herself, repressing her friendly and outgoing nature.
Sometime around the age of sixteen she dreamed about her father. He was being murdered by a group of smugglers in a dark corner street of one underground town, most likely Kala’uun, but she was never able to tell, since her dreams were hazy and inconsistent in physical details.
She was scared for her father’s life. But doing as she was told, kept quiet about what she had dreamed.
However she kept having that same dream every day since that day. Unable to bear the burden of it she shared it with her mother.
Two days later her father was murdered just as she had envisioned. In shock, despair and concern, Kela brought Aalya to the Jedi on Yavin 4 seeking help.
At her arrival to Yavin 4 she met Padawan Jared Quell, a man who would come to play a major role in her life. He was the first Jedi she met at the academy, and since that moment he was always on her side lending his support.
Aayla’s dreams however didn’t stop. One day she had a dream that signed her future:
In the dream she was in a dark place, with a door in front of her and the empty darkness all around. As she approached the door, the air became reddish and when she went through it there was a large room, with pillars around and an empty square in the middle. The atmosphere was intensely red, when suddenly she notices a dark figure in the middle of the room. The shadow slowly looks up at her, then starts approaching slowly, and as she tries to go back, she finds a blaster in her hands and starts shooting at that figure. Not one shoot success to hit him, when suddenly he ignites a red lightsaber, and at that moment, when he attempt to strike her down, Jared Quell appears from her side and blocks the hit. However Aayla falls on the ground as if she is hit instead of Jared’s blade, and at that moment of pain she awakes.This dream afflicted her greatly, and, since Ryloth was the place in which she sensed the dream was taking place, she promised herself not to go back on Ryloth until she would have been ready to face such a situation. Since that moment she lost contacts with her mother, which left a great sorrow in her heart.
Another important moment for Aayla is the knighthood of Jared Quell, a moment of joy, but at the same time it gave her a certain sense of detach from him, since she felt in duty to give him more respect as a Jedi Knight, and since then she felt she couldn’t any more act as a pair. Nevertheless Knight Quell continued to help her as he had always done.
An unfortunate encounter she had, was with Knight Loist’s brother. When Rash Loist had a moment of crisis in which his dark brother broke in his mind, Aayla, ignoring the situation and trying to help him, touched his forehead and was tainted by Vash. Soon after being knocked back on the ground, she lost consciousness and she found herself in a state of dream-vision in which Vash tried to show her visions especially regarding Jared Quell’s youth, in which Vash killed his father, and wiped his memory. Luckily, and thanks to her strength of will, she was successfully healed from the wound.
It had been a busy year, full of many doubts and questions but finally in 247 ABY, Aayla was initiated into the Jedi order. As an initiate she worked hard and attended all the classes she could. Her diligence paid off and on 248.17, at the age of 17, she was assigned as Padawan learner of Jedi Knight Ctathos Ederoi.
Progress under Knight Ederoi was slow and on 253.11 the Force called him away from the temple to stand watch on Korriban. Aayla was not left master-less however and was transferred to Phoe Nhix, Jedi Master and High Councillor of the Yavin IV Temple.
Under Phoe Aayla witnessed first hand the life of a Jedi Council member, often Phoe would take her and her fellow Padawan Aldia Crestrunner on missions. One such occasion on 253.13, Master and Padawans journeyed to Alzoc III to mediate diplomatic negotiations between rival fuel companies. The situation came to a head when Trandoshan terrorists took a blockade runner and it’s passengers hostages, choosing to make their stand with explosives. Working together, Master and Padawans created a diversion with the two female Jedi posing as dancers allowing Phoe to sneak aboard the ship. The plan worked and the Jedi were able to ‘diffuse’ the situation (at the expense of the ship itself but with no casualties).
After a few years under Phoe, Aayla along with the rest of the order transferred to a new structure, an Enclave built on the planet Dac. It was here she spent the final months of her padawanhood. The new enclave didn’t last however, and structural instability forced the order back Yavin IV. In the months following the incident, Aayla and Phoe participated in many missions. Meanwhile Aldia left the Jedi order but never severed her contact with Aayla and the two continue to contact each other as friends.
Aayla’s final test came when Phoe instructed her to obtain a unique power cell for the lightsaber she was constructing. She journeyed to Tatooine to meet the old hermit, Master Haa’nz. The meeting would end in tragedy as he was struck down by a mysterious Zeltron girl, but not before he gifted Aayla the power cell she required. Armed with her new lightsaber she faced down against this alleged ‘Sith’ and held her own until Master Nhix and Jared Quell arrived. She was summarily Knighted and quickly established herself amongst her knew peers.
Towards the end of the year she journeyed to Ryloth with Master Quell on a surprise trip to visit her Mother. Once again, disaster seemed to accompany the pair as they encountered a terrorist plot that culminated in a confrontation with a Dark Jedi that left Aayla seriously injured. She recovered however, and with the Dark Jedi dispatched, the pair shared a much closer bond. The incident fulfilled her prophetic dreams from her time as a hopeful and closed a significant and traumatic chapter of her life for good. There could be no doubts though, that she possessed the potential of a Seer.
On 263.06, Aayla took Simus Cnydaria as her first Padawan Learner who she trained for all his apprenticeship.
In time Aayla managed to master her seer abilities, being recognized as such when she foresaw the imminent invasion of Coruscant during the war of Rishi, the dark Jedi who was able to control an army of dead bodies subjected to become his servants. The invasion of the GA was finally stopped in a long remembered battle in the inner rim, where many Jedi lost their lives, but managed to defeat the dark lord.
Among the many missions she and her padawan were sent to, a remarkable one the one in which they tracked a band of terrorists supported by space pirates on the planet of Cirrus. In this mission they were to save hostages kept in a facility in which the rebel terrorists had planted powerful explosives. They were captured during their first infiltration, but they managed to escape upon the arrival of the GA forces led by Jared Quell and Aslyn Denethorn to free the facility, and managed to secretly embark on one of the pirate ships, who led them to a space station in the local system’s asteroid belt. With the help of Jared Quell and Aslyn Denethorn, who tracked and joined them on the space station, the four jedi managed to signal the position of the station to the GA fleet and escape before it was destroyed.
The last mission before the knighthood of her padawan, was on Ziost, where the two were sent to investigate on mysterious disappearings in a recently discovered excavation site.
The site revealed to be an ancient sith ruin, imbued with dark force energy, that set the two jedi in front of hard trials. Little information is available about what really happened, but eventually it is well known that the ancient spirit of a sith lord was defeated by Simus Cnydaria, which proved him ready for knighthood to the high Council, concluding this phase for Aayla.
After her first padawan’s knighthood, she remained active within the Yavin 4 temple, continuing to teach the Force Theory and Mastery class over the years, until the attack of the Mandalorians to the temple, which led the whole temple’s populace to wander through the galaxy seeking for a new home.
During their stay on Tatooine, she took part to the battle to defend the temple from the tuskens; subsequently she stayed on Mon Calamari and finally to Alzoc III, where the new temple was finally located.
Aayla did not sign up for the Coalition during the attrition wars, convinced that her services to the Alzoc III temple as councillor, and her services to the Jedi Order as seer required her not go in the battlefield, where most of her attention remained pointed to over this time however.
It was during the years of this war that she decided to request another padawan to the Council. This time it was a zabrak child by the name of Illrian Damaris, who had been brought to the temple by herself, upon the arrest of his father during a mission assigned to her by the Council. The new pair worked in serenity during the following years at the Alzoc III temple, far from the war, training to be ready for when their services would have been required.
On 283.09, after having served the Council as Council Advisors since 263.25, Aayla and Jedi Knight Arkallon, friend towards whom she always had deep respect, were appointed as High Councilors.
On 290.01 Aayla left the temple with Illrian for a long journey. They went to Coruscant to meet a Jedi healer who offered assistance to heal a minor bone diease Illrian was affected by.
After departing from Coruscant, Aayla and Illrian went to Veron, Sennext system, located in the war frontline with the chiss, because of a secret Council mission.
After running their investigation, they were contacted by the Galactic Alliance, and were requested of assistance on several military operations. They provided help only in part of them, delaying their original investigation.
Despite most of the battles faced by the Jedi pair during this time remains secret, it is known that the two took part to the liberation of Arbra, one of the first southern planets previously conquered by the Chiss Empire that was freed by the GA, at the begin of the great GA counter-offense that led towards the end of the Attrition War.
During a large scale space battle in one of their missions with the GA, they lost contact with the GA fleet and decided to continue their previous investigation. This led them to visit various planets and systems, occasionally being involved into local matters.
While travelling to Adumar, the long range communications of Aayla’s ship completely became unavailable. It was during the final battles of the Attrition Wars.
After some days, they received a message from the Jedi Council, asking them to head to Ilum as soon as possible, after offering some information about the Ilum attack by the mandalorians.
Before reaching Ilum, Aayla managed to contact the Alzoc III temple and learnt more about the current war situation, specifically about the GA successful manouvers in the southerns regions, the death of mandalore and the request of peace of the Chiss Ascendancy.
Aayla and Illrian reached Ilum the next day, where they found the temple evacuated, and proceeded overseeing what was its status after the battle, as requested by the Jedi Council.
With their original investigation still not come to a close, under the light of the recent war evolvings, the two returned to Alzoc III.
After a few more years under Master Vigil’s training, Illrian, alongside with Johauna Darkrider, Sebastin Creed’s padawan, were brought before the Council and tasked with a mission to find an artifact that Aayla and other seers had seen through a vision, the artifact was strongly connected to the Dark Side of the Force, and because of this Master Creed was to accompany the two Padawan’s on this mission. When the three got to Kesh and began their investigations, they were met by a dark man, who called himself Darth Syphon, who was evidently aware of their arrival.
After discussions between the three, Syphon eventually attacked the two Padawans, and took them both near to death. Illrian only returned to consciousness after hearing his Master’s voice in his mind, almost as if to grab him by the hand and pull him back on his feet. When Illrian woke Master Creed was standing above him, and the three left to return home where the two padawans would stay the night in bacta tanks to help heal their wounds, both severally scared from the intense torture brought onto them by Darth Syphon. The padawans could feel a connection between themselves growing, however Illrian was unsure what it meant at the time. After a few days, the pair was summoned to the Council once more to both deliver their report and to be informed of news about where Syphon and a mission Jedi Knight are most likely at.
This time, no chances were taken and the original three were now paired with Master Vigil herself. So the four of them would venture to the planet and eventually ran into Darth Syphon, who used droids to try and stop everyone. At the beginning Master Creed stayed behind to hold off the droids as Illrian, Johauna and Master Vigil ventured forward…only for Master Vigil to soon perform the same. Illrian and Johauna quickly found themselves alone, venturing onward to try and find Jedi Knight Pendred and confront Darth Syphon if needed. The two quickly were faced with both the Knight and Syphon, and once more were placed under the torture of Darth Syphon, pleading to Knight Pendred to let go of the corruption and aid them, and soon the Jedi Knight did just that…saving both Illrian and Johauna.
When the four returned to the Temple, Illrian and Johauna were brought before the entire Council body; Jedi Master Raun, Jedi Master Vigil, Jedi Knight Akiada, and Jedi Knight Creed. They delivered their report on events after separating from both Master Creed and Master Vigil, and after discussing this the Council felt both Padawan’s had demonstrated great connection to the Force, great skill and everything that it takes to become a Jedi Knight. On 298.25 ABY, both Illrian Damaris and Johauna Darkrider were granted the title and honor of Jedi Knight of the Order, finishing their training as students and becoming a true Jedi, though their training is far from over.
After Illrian’s Knighthood, Aayla dedicated herself to the Council duties, but also to the secret Circle of Seers, in which she kept assuming a prominent role.
On 321.02 Aayla decided to retire from the High Council and serve the Order in her new position of leader of the Circle of Seers, on Coruscant, in strict contact to her previous fellow councillors, but with less concerns for the daily concerns of the Hgih Jedi Council. With this decision, she was also officially transferred to Coruscant, leaving the branch of Alzoc III, which had always been her home.