Cerena Delaissen
Age: 39 (born 40 BBY)
Race: female human
Appearance: 1.72m tall, average build. Long blonde hair (usually braided). Brown eyes. Her right arm is lightly scarred from hand to shoulder. Her right jawline is similarly scarred.
Current alias: Saylen Dantreia
Personality
Cerena is normally light-hearted and nurturing. She is capable of great bravery and selflessness, but these traits are in constant struggle with her desire to stay hidden from the Empire. The ruthlessness of the Great Jedi Purge has left her paranoid and frightened.
It's true that she's timid about going public with her powers, and does her best to avoid attention from the authorities (especially the Empire).
But her life isn't one of constant fear and self-doubt. She's on the run, but she doesn't let that dominate her life. She's content with the simpler pleasures in life and she attempts to keep to the Jedi way - not letting her fear dominate her every waking thought.
Cerena is still uncomfortable with the idea of needing money. Growing up as a member of the Order, all of her needs were taken care of.
Cerena is a philanthropist, given to generosity with her time and belongings. This, of course, weighs against her paranoia about being found by the Empire.
Cerena has become familiar, if not quite proficient, with blasters. She is a talented pilot (though a little rusty), but has little mechanical aptitude otherwise.
Background
Cerena's family were simple farmers on one of the Core Worlds. She was identified as Force-sensitive and taken to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant at a young age, and lived there until she was eleven. At that time, she was taken as padawan by an older Jedi, Shaelis Raal, with whom she travelled for the next several years.
During the Clone Wars, Shaelis was reassigned to military duty, and Cerena herself was advanced to Jedi Knight (somewhat prematurely) at the age of 19, in 21 BBY. She subsequently spent approximately a year and a half travelling between diplomatic posts on behalf of the Jedi Council, at the height of the war.
She was at one of these posts when the Empire enacted Order 66 (19 BBY). She returned to Coruscant but was warned off by the beacon from the Jedi Temple. Certain that the Jedi would rise again, she refused to abandon the trappings of her calling. However, she found that public response to the Jedi ranged from glowering suspicion to outright hostility. The citizens of the Empire largely believed the party line that the Jedi had been responsible for the Clone Wars.
It wasn't until Cerena was ambushed by Imperial soldiers several months later (18 BBY) that she stopped publicly bearing her lightsaber. She barely escaped with her life, and was badly wounded in the attack. It was several days before she could get to a place of relative safety; by that time, even a Jedi healing trance couldn't completely heal all of the burns she'd sustained.
Cerena subsequently went into hiding, adopting a series of false names and moving from planet to planet along the Outer Rim. Afraid to fight, and hating herself for her fear, she eventually decided that she could contribute by training apprentices to continue the Jedi way. Her search led her to Mirial, where she met Carr'Dyth and accepted him as her apprentice (approx. 6 BBY). She subsequently met Josh Kenaran a couple of years later (approx. 4 BBY). Impressed by the young man, she also took him as her apprentice.
Jedi powers and fighting style
Cerena prefers a defensive, two-handed lightsaber style.
Quotes
"I understand," Cerena said quietly, starting to appreciate just how important it must be to Josh to get his family's freighter back, or at least find out what happened to it. "I lost my home too – or at least the place I thought of as home. I can't go back there again."
As a Jedi, Cerena constantly stayed aware of her emotions, keeping them in check. She didn't feel angry about what the Empire had done to the Jedi. But she did feel regret, and loneliness... and sometimes even fear.
"I'm tired of being alone, Josh. I'm tired of running while always looking back over my shoulder. Not knowing who to trust... Paranoia doesn't sit well with me. It can be exhausting, to tell you the truth. And yet, somehow... it's become my way of life."
"Maybe one day, we'll both get what we want. Safety isn't necessarily a /place/, after all. It can be the company you keep, as well."
"I feel the same way. I felt like I could trust you almost from the first moment we met. That's... that's something very rare for me." (Cerena to Josh)
"Spoken like a true Jedi," Cerena said, then blushed slightly at the sense of... of pride that was spreading through her. It was highly inappropriate for a Jedi to feel that way. And besides, Josh was his own person, not solely a product of her teaching. But still... she couldn't help it. After years of frustration with Carr, hearing Josh embrace the Code so fervently was a soothing balm to Cerena's mind and heart. (source)
"My master, Shaelis, chose me not because I was the best at anything, but because I was the best for her, or so she always said. She sensed something about me; she felt that we had a similar outlook on life." (source)
Relationship with Carr
Cerena would have fairly quickly identified Carr's lack of patience and has probably been attempting to 'mellow' him and bring him around to the mindset of the Jedi Order. The best way to do that, to her mind, is to train him the same way that she was trained - slowly and methodically. She thinks that he will learn patience and discipline that way. What she doesn't realise is that her approach is kind of having the opposite effect. He's not a child, after all. She was a child when she went through this phase of her training. Carr is an adult and wants full control of his growing powers now.
Their dynamic is probably that she keeps trying to keep him reined in, to little effect. He is strong-willed, but she's also set in her ways. And, up to this point, there haven't been any other options for either of them.
He could certainly see that she's being hypocritical about the Jedi's role as protectors and guardians, given the fact that she seems to have abandoned that role. For Cerena's part, she can't see why Carr keeps insisting that they do things to draw attention to themselves. She lost a lot of her self-worth when she ran from the Imperials and stopped openly declaring herself as a Jedi. Currently, a lot of her remaining self-worth is invested in the idea that she can do good by creating a legacy - by perpetuating the Jedi's teachings in some way, shape or form. That's what's become most important to her, but it's also what eats at her inside. The idealistic part of her agrees with Carr and thinks that she should still be fighting the good fight.
But this is mostly internal conflict inside her. Carr definitely wouldn't know everything that's going on inside her head. He would only see the surface-level contradictions between what she teaches and how she lives.
Cerena interprets Carr's attempts to hide his strong emotions during combat as attempts at self-control. My theory is that he's grown better at hiding his emotions from her in non-combat situations, but they slip out a bit when he's in the heat of battle. (source)
Dedication to preserving the Jedi way
"As I've said, I don't see myself being a front-line combatant in the war against the Empire or the Sith. But there are other worthy roles in the ongoing conflict, roles which do not necessitate violence or the taking up of arms. It is possible for us to keep hope alive, simply by ensuring that vital knowledge is passed from one generation to the next, rather than being lost - knowledge that might one day ensure the downfall of the Empire... and perhaps even the Sith, as well.""I agree that there are specific times and circumstances when one person can be pivotal in determining the fate of the galaxy. But at the same time, how are we to know if that person is us, or if the opportune time is now? My goal is just to keep the memory and the legacy of the Jedi Order alive, so perhaps one day someone - or a group of someones - will arise capable of playing their part. That is all I can do. I'm not a warrior or a crusader. Not anymore."
"But what if the ability you possessed were something that could be passed on to others," Cerena persisted, "and you were the only one capable of doing that - passing it on. But passing it on would take time - years, perhaps decades. Would it make sense to put yourself in danger when you might be the only person, to your knowledge, who could teach others? If you were killed, that knowledge could be lost forever."
"No matter how big the galaxy is, it looks like there eventually will be no places left where anyone would be safe," Josh said.
Cerena has to come to realise this. She can run to the corners of the galaxy and try to hide, rebuilding the Jedi, but all the while the Sith are advancing their sinister agendas. Maybe the Rebellion /does/ need the help of a Jedi - or maybe they just need to try to destroy Darth Vader.
Attitude to the idea of 'fate'
"I don't believe we're puppets at the mercy of fate," she told him. "I do believe that the Force moves us and guides us, sometimes in ways that seem inscrutable to us. But I have to trust that eventually, the balance will correct itself. The Rebel Alliance seems to be one manifestation of the universe trying to balance itself out again."
"I have to believe that there's some larger pattern at work. Otherwise, what sense does it make? How can it be right that the Jedi and the Republic were both thrown down? I don't believe that anything happens completely randomly, Josh. There are elements of chance to our lives, but things like this... No. Things like this happen for a reason."
"We can try," Cerena agreed, "but that's no guarantee that we're in a position to make a difference. That's the difficult part, I guess - being able to tell when our actions can have an effect on what happens next. Sometimes you can try as hard as you like and still not be able to change the outcome. And at other times all you have to do is be there in the right place at the right time to alter the fate of the entire galaxy."