Rihani Ambrai

"To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet onto the path of peace - that is our goal."

- Rihani Ambrai

Rihani Ambrai is a Jedi Master from Delaya, Alderaan's sister planet. He lives on Vallera with his wife, Sabal Ambrai (née Naerth) and their child, Serenity.

Early Years
Rihani was born to a man named Rohario Ambrai on Delaya, sister-planet to Alderaan. It was discovered early that Rohario had potential to train as a Jedi, but not early enough - the Jedi Council deemed him too old, and so he grew up as any other normal man on Delaya. Later he married, and had two children, Rihani and Rohan. Rihani's potency in the Force could not be hidden, though his parents were reluctant to send him for training. As his latent powers grew, his parents had no choice but to send him away quite early in his life, and Rihani was trained under Echuu Shen-Jon, Mace Windu's former apprentice. Shen-Jon was already training an apprentice, his third, Sarra Liwellan, at the time. Only two years older than Rihani, the two of them competed often to try and best one another. Sarra, however, was the elder, and often beat the younger Rihani in their early lightsaber practises. So it was that Rihani decided to focus on defense, whereas Sarra focussed on physical and mental power. Shen-Jon, having been a member of the previous Jedi Order, knew enough about both to give them training that, compared to Luke Skywalker's, was a luxury.

As the two young apprentices grew up, Shen-Jon often left them on the planet alone to train by themselves, setting them tasks to complete by leaving them holos of himself that he had recorded. They became almost inseperable, pushing each other's limits often when Shen-Jon was away, and only barely completing the holo's before their master was due to return. As they entered their teens, they began to grow passionate about the other, and did their best to hide this from Shen-Jon. They both thought they could keep away from desires and, ultimately, the Dark Side, but they were to be proven tragically wrong. As they moved into adulthood, Sarra began to look down on the local people who had always treated them with respect, using the Force to meddle with their minds, forcing them to do what they did not want. Rihani, for his part, kept silent on this at first, but it deeply troubled him. One day, when Shen-Jon was away, he stopped her from harming one of the locals. Feeling betrayed, she turned on him, and it was this that finally pushed her to the Dark Side. The two duelled for quite some time, knowing each other's strengths and weaknesses. Though he was almost as emotional as she at first, for he had never expected this, he found a calm within himself that embodied the discipline had chosen to study. Sarra, meanwhile, relied on her passion to give her the energy she wanted, and as she railed against him, she grew tired. In the heat of the moment, attacking him with all of what remained of her strength, she tripped on a rock and Rihani's lightsaber, which had been aimed at pushing hers away, went through her right rib, but because of her motion, while inside her flesh it moved to the left, severing her spinal cord. As she fell to the ground, already dead, shock and despair overtook him and he too, fell down beside her. He took her body into the forest and cremated it at a secret place, which Shen-Jon never found. When he returned, it was to a vastly different apprentice, who related in an emotionless tone all that had happened.

Shen-Jon, for his part, thought that Rihani had learned an important lesson, and decided to continue to train him. Despite almost having fallen to the Dark Side himself long ago, Shen-Jon proved a competent teacher and continued to teach Rihani everything he knew. Quick and willing to learn, his training passed with few problems. He grew into a tall young man, with a level, practical mind and a flair for politics. When using his lightsaber, he entered an emotionless state that allowed him to easily assess his opponent and take advantage of any aggression, or even any emotion - his duel with Sarra had indeed shown him an important lesson. He let his hair grow long in the old tradition of the previous Jedi Order, out of respect for his master. After his training, he went to Coruscant to be trained in diplomacy and politics. After studying for some time, he chose to disregard politics and pursue diplomacy.

Career
In the following years, his career blossomed, and he became the first choice for many missions in the Corps. He often managed to refute Palpatine's order's on certain planets, when it came to slaughter of the populations, managing to get many out on transports, using great secrecy to do so. After Alderaan had been destroyed, he met with and spoke to a number of infuriated Alderaanians, and convinced them not to confront Palpatine, but to help care for orphans, or people from their planet who had nowhere to go. He also gave a speech on his native planet of Delaya, sister-planet to Alderaan, that they try their best to save all aspects of Alderaanian culture and history. He once was in the very same room as the Emperor, and watched him from a very close range before leaving the planet altogether for a small time, to ensure that Palpatine did not become suspicious. After taking on an apprentice at Luke's behest, he eased up on his diplomatic duties and moved to Tatooine, to better concentrate on training his new Padawan. He made many trips to Coruscant in the intervening period, leaving his apprentice the holos Shen-Jon had once left him. He helped the fledgling New Republic branch off into other directions, to make contact with new species or open dialogue with planets that had closed themselves off from everyone else, fearful of a resurgence of the Emperor and mistrusting that which had failed before - the Republic. He eventually retired, concentrating instead on helping Luke Skywalker to run his praxeum, and to train other students. After successfully training a few apprentices, he returned to Coruscant wth NRI agent Sabal Naerth, his partner.

Recent Years
He has trained three successive apprentices - Haley Lorian, Solis G'mor and Mavek Fol, while having a hand in the trials of a fourth, Melyndy Danon. He became increasingly aware of the corruption of the Senate and suspicious of the motives of those who signed to vote for the Registration Act, and these suspicions were confirmed when he was lured by the then head of New Republic Intelligence, Chele Vesyu. Vesyu captured Mavek and lured Rihani in under the false pretense of having to defend him in court. After a foiled attempt to destroy her Interdictor cruiser, he was tortured extensively and dropped on Hoth, severely injured. Rescued by Haley, Solis, Leernos and Zayri, he returned to his lifetime habit of performing missions alone, doing what he could to protect the fragile Jedi Order, including travelling to Coruscant under disguise and bringing to light the falsehoods of the organisation currently posing as the Order in the old Temple building.

After a decade of being by each other's side, he and Sabal finally married in a ceremony presided over by Lianara Skai, and settled on Vallera for a short time. In between a mission to rescue Yun Sunrunner and his final retirement from the Jedi Order, he helped Neo Vallera's citizens defend their homes by killing many of the creatures the Empress Phoenix had conjured, and saved Sileen Tenlae from the Emperor's wrath. After this he retired, living with Sabal in their home on Vallera. Shortly after came the birth of their daughter, Serenity. Only a year after his retirement, being called on by the President of the Republic Alliance to return to service, the family moved to Coruscant where Rihani took up the job of both the renovation of the Jedi Temple and getting the Jedi Order back into a working state. Holding a special position next only to the Grand Master where the two would in times of emergencies work without the Council, he advocated an assertive manner in the running of the Order, where known enemies would be actively hunted and potential Jedi be searched for to rectify the disastrously low number of members.

Sadly, betrayals from within, including the Council, severely hindered this work. With Lianara's stepping down and the new Grand Master, Jenalia Safilon, abandoning the Temple on Coruscant in favour of a remote and hidden location, Rihani significantly reduced his role in the running of the Order. Setting his mind to the initiation of a project he had long discussed with Lianara, the goal being to provide safe places for the Jedi to survive in when the need was great, he instituted an innovative program whereby the equipment coming out of the Temple could not possibly be tracked by even the most determined of enemies. Once this was in place, he brought Sabal and Serenity back to Vallera, where he began work on yet another - smaller - project.

It is unknown what his future role in the Order may encompass.

Abilities
Rihani is the acknowledged master of Form III/Soresu lightsaber combat in his time, but he has also studied Form V/Djem So and, to a lesser extent, Form VI/Niman. His style is characterised by rapid, defensive swings of the lightsaber, exposing minimal target area. His style shares some small similarities to that of the Jedi Master Mace Windu, which is no coincidence as Windu trained Master Shen-Jon - however, their chosen disciplines are radically different. He can also extend the length of his lightsaber's blade and wield it like a spear. While he has mastered Form III, he feels it can be too limiting at times and so, like many Form III practitioners before him, has in more recent years begun to study Form V, employing it against Matmar T'gan to some effect. He has demonstrated himself to be a cunning whirlwind in a knife fight, though he very rarely gets to display his skill. His Force powers are well developed, and he often uses the environment around him to his advantage - like manipulating billions of sand particles on Tatooine to create a small sandstorm. He has displayed a powerful grasp of Telekinesis in the past, lifting large items and throwing them at opponents, forcefully thrusting gun turrets off their mountings, lifting a person several feet off the ground and having them remain there with seemingly no strain or even concentration, and on one occasion managing to stop a missile that had been fired at his ship.

He is also able to wrap the Force around him to deflect Force-based attacks. His mastery of Form III allows him to act mostly unhindered - handheld and most rifle blasters are no longer a threat to him, unless he is distracted. He chooses not to stick to either discipline of the Force, the Unifying Force or the Living Force, but treads a thin line in between. On one hand is his traditional training under Echuu Shen-Jon, who was a Jedi Knight around the time when the Unifying Force was all that was taught, and on the other is his natural inclination toward the Living Force. He has been known to be somewhat ruthless with his apprentices, always pushing them on, and demanding the same level of performance in real world situations.

While age is beginning to make itself known - he is not as fast as he once was - he remains a formidable opponent and a powerful Jedi.