Axel Greylark

Axel Greylark was born into the prestigious Greylark family. Both of his parents were heavily steeped in the chaotic politics of the Galactic Senate on Coruscant. Young Axel found himself surrounded by the snotty royal children of the Core World elite. As he grew into a teenager, Greylark began to feel like he would never measure up to the legacy his parents were leaving, but he kept his insecurity to himself.

Sometime before 397 BBY, Greylark's mother decided he would grow in character by attending a university farther from home than Alderaan or elsewhere on Coruscant. As such, she enrolled him at the prestigious Reena University in the Colonies. Greylark was in an accelerated study program and quickly learned every inch of the university grounds, as well as the names of nearly every member of the university faculty and staff. Greylark enjoyed connecting with the university employees since it provided him access to stories of everyday people, rather than snobby elites. Greylark received top marks, was successful at galactic debate tournaments, and played center striker in grav-ball.

Although Greylark excelled in his studies at Reena University, he developed a bit of a rebellious streak while he was there. Due to careful planning and execution of his schemes, however, he almost always escaped blame. Greylark's scheming caused significant stress for Dean of Student Affairs Ry Harket, who suspected the Coruscanti youth responsible for pranks such as graffitiing the atrium with lewd drawings, flooding the refreshers in the west tower dormitories, and releasing mynocks from the laboratory. One term, he accumulated at least 30 absences from faking illness, all excused by nurse droids. After some trial and error, Greylark found success in faking illness by consuming several extremely spicy guiji fire peppers, which replicated the symptoms of malongo pox. As a precaution, Greylark somehow got his student medical file to contraindicate sedative administration, allowing the teen to move unrestricted once the effects of the peppers wore off.

Around 396 BBY, during the time of the annual Queen's Bloom Festival on Reena, Greylark successfully faked malongo pox to skirt his responsibilities for the school's celebration. Instead, Greylark joined his crush, a Kilotowan girl named Leyli Romero, and his nemesis, Lord Kozmo Sundrel IV of Luzalite, on an unsanctioned field trip of the nearby city. Greylark had met Leyli at the start of the new term, noticing she frequently sat alone, and the two connected over their shared goal to make their own marks in spite of their family legacies. He was smitten with her, and was jealous when she brought along Kozmo. Even so, the three snuck past the fairgrounds to the hangar, where they retrieved Sundrel's speeder. On their way, Greylark accidentally bumped into a female Jedi Padawan. Looking back, he noticed her pause briefly, her hands over her two lightsabers. This interaction caused a slight twitch of Greylark's fingers.

The trio of students rode into the seaside city, and Greylark proposed enjoying the Queen's Bloom phenomenon at Ealy's rooftop tavern deck, a favorite spot of his to converse with traders and pilots. Leyli, however, set her sights on the Gorag Tower, where the House of Reena was hosting a penthouse party. Greylark impersonated his father to gain entry, only to find his mother was already in attendance, having arrived a day early for their visit. Greylark tried avoiding his mother before seeing his father enter the party. Leyli then suggested the trio escape through the kitchen.

When Greylark entered the kitchen, he found the staff being escorted to the freezer at gunpoint by Elicia Zeveron and her crew. They took Leyli with the staff to the freezer and made Greylark and Sundrel dress in the visored uniforms of the party staff to steal items from the wealthy guests as they were distracted by the bioluminescence of the Queen's Bloom. Greylark complied to protect Leyli. After stealing a few items, including a blaster pistol, Greylark returned to the kitchen to face his captors. Zeveron sent one of her crew to retrieve Leyli, and Greylark felt immense relief. He used the stolen blaster to stun two of the ten captors, but he realized he was too outnumbered. That was when he noticed Leyli wasn't bound and was wearing a holster. She raised a hitherto unseen blaster and shot Sundrel in the chest before leaving with Zeveron.

Greylark reeled from Leyli's betrayal; she had played him all along. As the thieves left, Zeveron looked back at Greylark, admiring his bravery and chaos. Greylark ran to his rival-turned-friend and found the boy had survived the blaster shot, which struck his family diamond medallion. The two fled back to the university, where Greylark found his father already in his dormitory. The two shared a moment before heading down to the university's festival.

At the age of eighteen, Greylark joined his father on a diplomatic mission to Melida/Daan, where they would work with the Jedi to ensure the Daan leader was freed from Melida custody. The incident turned out to be a trap that resulted in the death of Greylark's father. While a Jedi Knight managed to save Axel, she needed to pull him away from his trapped-under-rubble father to escape the incoming Melida.

In 382 BBY, he was sent by his mother to represent her and the Republic's interests in the negotiation of a peace between warring planets Eiram and E'ronoh, where he clashed with Jedi Knight Gella Nattai. After it was decided that the heirs of the planets would marry in order to usher in peace, Greylark and Nattai accompanied them on their tour of E'ronoh that they were taking prior to the wedding. Nattai and Greylark formed a bond and a mutual respect for each other during this experience, and he helped her investigate assassination attempts against the heirs.

However, Greylark was secretly part of a conspiracy to prolong the war orchestrated by the anti-Jedi Path of the Open Hand cult under Zeveron, known by then as the cult leader's under the name of the Mother, who he had become involved with in his youth because he blamed the Jedi for his father's death. This was discovered after he killed both a Path assassin who had been captured and Viceroy Ferrol of E'ronoh and his therapy droid QN-1 was recovered, which contained records of him communicating with the Mother and committing crimes. Greylark attempted to disrupt the heirs' wedding by sending out a beacon that he was there, drawing many bounty hunters to the event. After experiencing the effects of an Eirami poison that the Mother wanted him to retrieve for her, Greylark decided that it was better to just destroy the planet's Erasmus Capital City where more of it was stored. Nattai, who he had developed feelings for and kept alive despite the Mother's orders, attempted to talk him down. She got through to him, but only after the towers detonated, wreaking havoc on the city. Afterward, Greylark was arrested and was imprisoned.

Greylark was eventually moved to a prison on Pipyyr, where Nattai and Jedi Master Orin Darhga went to interrogate him after learning that the Path of the Open Hand had incited the Battle of Jedha. Greylark feigned illness to avoid the questioning and make it seem like he was unwell there. After the warden received a message for Greylark to be transferred, Nattai and Dargha decided to do it themselves, but the message had been fabricated by the Path and Greylark's friend in the Path Binnot Ullo helped him escape during the transfer. Greylark met with the Mother in the Path compound on Dalna, who told him to send a message to his mother to come there so that they could exploit her power for the Path's betterment. However, Kyong just informed them that she would be resigning from being chancellor before coming there, leaving the Mother uninterested in Axel and allowing Ullo to force him to do ground fighting for the Path in a battle against the Jedi that became known as the Night of Sorrow.

After Ullo tried to get Greylark to kill a kid who did not want to fight, Greylark turned against the Path and freed Nattai, who had been imprisoned after she followed him there. Together, they fought alongside his mother and took down Ullo while forces from Eiram and E'ronoh turned the tide of the conflict in the Jedi's favor. After the compound's caves were flooded and collapsed, he and Nattai were saved and brought to the surface by Jedi Grand Master Yoda and Jedi Master Yaddle using the Force. After the battle, Greylark decided to live out the rest of his sentence in a prison on Coruscant and rebuild his relationship with his mother. With his relationship with Nattai also in the process of being restored, she decided to visit him in prison before leaving to continue her Wayseeker journey.

Greylark went onto have descendants, including Zenny Greylark.

Axel Greylark was a co-creation of authors Zoraida Córdova and Lydia Kang for their respective novels The High Republic: Convergence and The High Republic: Cataclysm, both of which were part of the Star Wars: The High Republic multimedia project's Phase II. He debuted in the aforementioned Convergence, which was published in 2022.