FicWad

Additional Author's Notes: 1) Again, please keep in mind that lengthy sections in italics often indicate the sharing of thoughts.
2) Again, please keep in mind that this is a work of fiction. Words that appear to be Gaelic in nature are technically place-holders (of sorts) for non-Basic words that are uniquely characteristic of humans springing from one specific shared cultural background; however, the particulars of traditions in the planetary systems colonized by humans from that original specific cultural group are as much dictated by my own particular muse as by the rather scant information available about such peoples/worlds/traditions in the actual SW universe, okay? Please keep this in mind from here on out!








" . . . it’s not my fault! Artoo, for pity’s sake! It wasn’t even my idea! If I’d’ve thought you would go to Naboo with Threepio and the others and not sulk because I was going into a fight without you, I would’ve left you with Bail!" Anakin snaps impatiently as he strides down from the modified Belbullab-22 Soulful One with the indignantly beeping and wailing little astromech droid rolling along at a fairly fast clip at his heels. "You should be thanking Master Obi-Wan for remembering you and fetching you off of Vigilance while I was busy speaking with Port Master Tion Medon instead of scolding me for keeping you shut down on the journey here from Utapau! This ship’s been altered so that it’s incompatible with most droids, you know, so it’s not like you could’ve really done anything on the trip, even if you had been on! Anyway, I figured you deserved the rest, after all the action you’ve seen lately."

"Even droids need rest now and again, little one, or so I have been lead to believe," Obi-Wan adds, his voice soothing and reassuring but his face creased by a thoroughly amused smile as he follows the two out of the ship at a far more sedate pace.

"Oh, good, you’ve brought Artoo! Darred Janren just commed me, at the insistence of his girls, to ask about him. Those girls consider him an honorary member of the family, much as they do with Threepio."

"Keiana Apailana!" Anakin grins widely, holding out his hands to the slender young girl who is making her way towards them from around the left flank of their ship and the other side of the docking bay. Clad in a deceptively simple handmaiden’s gown of dark but bright reddish-purple shell spider silk that all but makes her deeply tanned, almost cinnamon colored skin glow, the rich color complimenting her dark brown eyes and riotously curly dark hair (the deep brown sparking with natural red highlights where the light catches it, somehow making the material of her dress seem redder than it is) and making her look much older than her thirteen years. When she has reached him and clasped his offered hands, Anakin bows politely, respectfully, and then immediately shoots protocol out the airlock, grinning widely as he exclaims, "It’s so good to see you again, Kei’a! You’ve gotten taller since the last time I saw you, haven’t you? I’m sorry I missed the anniversary of your natal day, last year," he adds, sobering slightly. "The war has been keeping us very busy."

"Oh, but I got your well wishes – yours and Master Obi-Wan’s, relayed back here to the Palace by Artoo – and yes, Artoo, thank you, the message came through just fine," she assures Anakin before lowering her gaze to the eagerly rocking little astromech, grinning in response to his whistling, burbled query and slipping her right hand out of Anakin’s grasp to lay it briefly and gently upon his rounded dome, quieting him with the gesture before turning her attention back to the two Jedi, blushing a little as her eyes flicker to Obi-Wan and missing the slight flicker of surprise in Anakin’s eyes because of that brief glance away from his face.

Master? Anakin asks along the bond, shock and gratitude coloring his mental voice.

With a serenity that doesn’t quite entirely hide either his amusement over Anakin’s surprise or his contentment at having recalled and acknowledged the anniversary of the bright young Queen’s birth, Obi-Wan silently replies, Given the incredible amount of aid and support she has offered the Jedi over the course of the war, remembering to wish the young lady a joyous and peaceful natal day seemed the least I could do.

The young Queen of Naboo is still speaking, color rising in her face as she slips her other hand out of Anakin’s and turns slightly to her left, sweeping the Jedi Master a deep curtsey as she murmurs, "Master Kenobi. Your felicitations on my last natal day anniversary honored me. I regret that the anniversary will fall during such sorrowful times, this year."

Smiling gently, reassuringly, Obi-Wan returns the courtesy with a slightly deeper bow than the one Anakin had given her, declaring, "It was an honor to give them, young one, and I will be just as honored to give them again, before we depart from Naboo. You have been a strong and steady ally of the Order during this war, Milady, and that is no small thing, in such troubled times."

"The Jedi have long been the guardians of the Republic and the salvation of her peoples: supporting the Order was the right thing to do, Master Kenobi," Keiana Adrasteia only replies, so disarmingly straightforward and sincere that it is almost possible to forget that she is also Queen Apailana of Naboo.

"Would that more could have shared your sentiment, Milady. Such loyalty has become a rare and precious thing, of late, though hopefully that will be changing soon."

"May it be so, Master Kenobi," the young monarch agrees solemnly before offering him a shy smile. "I’m certain that it’s already coming to pass, what with the news of the Order’s part in the unmasking of Palpatine as the Sith Lord and the part that your new Grand Masters have agreed to pay, at the behest of the Senate and its newly elected junior and senior Consuls, in the proposed peace treaty that will formally end the Clone Wars."

"It is our hope that this will prove to be the case," Obi-Wan nods back, his smile deepening. "The New Jedi Bendu Order is planning to help organize and participate in many of the rebuilding efforts that far too many worlds and systems and even sectors shall require, to recover from the damages wrought by this too long civil war. We intend to do everything in our power, to encourage the renewal of trust between the diverse peoples of the galaxy and the Jedi."

"Is there anything that I or Naboo can do to help, Master?" Keiana Apailana immediately asks, her voice and bearing unconsciously taking on the regal calm of the Queen of Naboo.

With an appreciative nod, Obi-Wan simply replies, "Yes, I believe there is."

"I will do all that I can. Only say the word, Master."

Raising an eyebrow slightly at the immediacy and fervency of her response, Obi-Wan tilts his head slightly to the right, considering her for a few moments as though weighing several options, before finally asking, "Have Master Lo-Jad and Knight Sia-Lan Wezz spoken to you yet in detail regarding the possibility of building a Jedi chapterhouse on Naboo, Milady?"

"Oh, yes, we’ve spoken of it many times since the war began, Master! Sia and I used to speak of it often, when she was still working on her research assignment in the archives and I was only the Princess of Theed. Sia always said that Master Yoda and the Council were against decentralizing the Order further by scattering its members across more planets but that certain members were beginning to fear that the Coruscanti Temple was no longer sufficiently safe to continue housing the Order’s children. She and her former Master have long been of the opinion that the New Theed Project – Dala City, as it was renamed after the liberation of Naboo from the Trade Federation, in honor of Queen Amidala – would serve well as a site for both a secondary archive, backing up the most vital records in the main Temple Archives on Coruscant, and a safe haven for the youngest Jedi initiates. You’re familiar with the New Theed Project?" Keiana asks, all but bouncing in place on her toes in excitement, eyes bright with interest, not even bothering to wait for Obi-Wan’s nod of agreement before enthusiastically launching into an explanation of the project’s background and the reasons why it has come to be all but accepted as the eventual site for a new Jedi chapterhouse, on Naboo. "It started out as a simple exercise, a concept around which Ruwee Naberrie organized his highest level seminar on architecture at Theed University. The idea was to design an entire city, as harmonious in nature as Theed, but even more well-organized and logically and usefully laid out than Theed itself had been planned, incorporating all of the knowledge of certain deficiencies and limitations and also occasional extraneous facilities in Theed itself and building on that to design a new city, one that would be both more efficient and more beautiful than Theed itself. It was Ruwee’s soon to be son by marriage, Darred Janren, who actually made the proposal to turn that finished project into the building plans for a new city for Naboo. Theed has long since advanced as far up Solleu River as it can go without actually breaking off over the distance of the falls and then picking up again on the plains below, far distant from the main body of the city, and the city has already expanded so far upstream that the furthest outlying areas are encroaching on the foothills of the leading eastern edge of the Cymry Mountains. It was one of King Veruna’s last decisions as acting monarch of Naboo to approve the decision to transform that seminar’s organizing principle and final project into actual working plans for a new city, to be situated between the furthest south-western edge of the Lake Country and the plains that lie between it and the foothills of the Gallo Mountains, which traditionally bisect the most densely human-populated areas of Naboo from the most densely Gungan-populated areas. The proposed city was designated New Theed, in honor of the city it was modeled on and designed in, until a more appropriate name could be commissioned, and the final stages of corrective redrafting were all but complete when the Trade Federation’s blockade began and our people began to suffer and die from the many shortages and lack of necessary transportation. In the wake of the invasion, the project was put on hold while more immediate concerns were seen to, but then Darred Janren petitioned to get the project going again near the end of Amidala’s first term and, since it was thought that the project would serve as a sign of the indomitable will of the people, the city was renamed Dala in honor of the Queen and the architects were given the go-ahead to begin offering contracts to various purveyors of materials and specialty construction workers to get a start on building the actual city. Though it was slated to take one and a half to two decade to build, most of the city’s foundations had been laid and many of its outlying structures were well on the way towards completion when the war began. Many of the refugees Naboo has since been host to have made their temporary homes in Dala City. And though the actual need for the city itself has grown less, as we have lost more of our people to the ravages of war, the creation of Dala has become a sign of hope and a symbol of solidarity and trust in a future of peace and prosperity, with many of the refugees collaborating with Naboo architects and builders and design artists on the layout and furnishing of the interiors of many buildings as well as the actual creation of the exterior structures themselves, with some designs being reworked to accommodate both the practical design knowledge and the visionary plans of the refugees themselves. Dala is nearing completion now, but many of those who have worked there and who have made their temporary homes within the growing city are already showing signs of wishing to return to their homeworlds, and Naboo lacks the numbers to truly populate the city. You would be doing us a great honor, as well as attracting both attention and potential new residents for the city, if Dala were to be chosen as the site of a new Jedi enclave. Dala is ideal for a Jedi chapterhouse: well-situated in a place of natural beauty that is somewhat distant from other population centers but not truly isolated from the rest of the world; beautifully designed and appointed; populated only scarcely but by those who so love the city and this world that they will fearlessly and fiercely protect both it and the surrounding countryside against all potential foes, though they are also very eager to see Dala’s reputation as a bastion of peace and beauty and enlightened prosperity grow and become known within the larger galaxy; located on a planet with two peacefully coexisting diverse populations whose people have cause to revere the Force and wholeheartedly support the Jedi Bendu and the Order’s mission of peace and justice in the galaxy, including dispensing of and guardianship for both things; and, best of all, the proposed site for a new university system specifically geared towards bringing in students from all across the galaxy instead of simply seeing to the education of those born on the planet, as Theed University mostly does. Master Lo-Jad has come to support the idea so completely that he has been preparing a petition on the matter for the past few weeks, hoping to convince the High Council to sanction the establishment of the new enclave there. I have no doubt he will ask to speak to your new Grand Masters on the subject, when he and his former Padawan return to Coruscant, after the funeral."

"I have no doubt that you are right about that, Milady. What you may not be aware of, yet, is the extent to which the Order has been and will be continuing to change, now. The New Jedi Bendu Order will not be training or recruiting in the same manner than the Jedi Order has in recent memory. When the time comes and the new Jedi chapterhouse has been opened in Dala, what you may do, both for the Jedi and for yourself, is to consider applying there for training in the ways of the Force. You are strong in the Force, Keiana Apailana, strong enough that I suspect it was the reluctance of your parents to lose you to the Coruscanti Temple alone that kept you from being accepted in the old Order. We have lost so many trained Jedi and potential Jedi over the course of the war that the numbers included within the New Jedi Bendu Order are less than those within the Jedi Order at the end of the last round of Sith-spawned wars in this galaxy. You have the potential strength and wisdom to make a fine strong Jedi Bendu, Milady, and I am sure that the chapterhouse at Dala would be proud to have you," Obi-Wan explains to her in turn, his smile deepening slightly as her eyes grow wide and surprised and her mouth slackens in shock, obviously quite pleased to be able to share such wonderful (albeit startling) news with her.

"Master, you – you honestly think that I – ?" She is so shocked that she cannot even finish the question, instead gesturing helplessly from herself to Obi-Wan and Anakin, mutely begging to know whether or not he’s serious about believing that she could one day become a Jedi Bendu like him and Anakin.

"I would not mention it if I did not believe it were likely to come to pass, Milady," Obi-Wan assures her, voice gentle but firm.

"Anakin – ?" Keiana breathes questioningly, turning wide beseeching eyes towards him.

With a delighted little laugh, Anakin nods vigorously and declares, "If you decide that you want this and dedicate yourself to the Order and your fellow Jedi Bendu, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t become a force to reckon with, in the New Order, Kei’a. And I, for one, would be glad to number you with us in the count of Jedi Bendu!"

With a delighted laugh of her own, Keiana Apailana clasps her hands together in front of her and tilts her head up and back, eyes closed tightly, her entirely body yearnings upwards as though towards a radiance that is flooding down over her and which only she can sense, clearly restraining herself from performing a dance of celebration only through dint of sheer will. After several long moments of standing thus, the whole of her body and being visibly uplifted by what she has been told, the young monarch of Naboo begins to speak again, her voice slightly husky with emotion as she whispers, "Your confidence in me is a far greater gift than I ever could have expected to receive, while your surety that there will indeed be a Jedi chapterhouse in Dala is the greatest honor that the Jedi Bendu could have chosen to give to the peoples of Naboo. We will not fail you, Masters. I will not fail you. Either when my term as Queen has ended or things have become orderly enough for me to be able to abdicate from my position without doing any harm to Naboo, I will go to Dala and I will ask to be allowed to join the Jedi Bendu enclave there as a new initiate. Upon my honor, I swear it. And I vow also that I cannot possibly thank you enough for giving me the chance to make this promise, Masters."

"Be true to yourself and your calling and use the Force wisely and as well as you may, Kei’a, and that is all the thanks either one of us will ever need," Anakin replies, mouth smiling but eyes serious.

"I will, Master Skywalker, Master Kenobi," she promises, all solemnity, every bit the Queen of Naboo as she bows her head to them in turn. "Though I know I can never hope to be so dedicated or true to the Force as you have both been, I will strive to live up to your trust in me by following in your own footsteps, as well as that of your own new Padawan." Then, a widening smile breaking from her like the sun slipping inexorably out from behind a bank of clouds, she is only Keiana again, a bright and spirited young woman still only in her thirteenth year, as she grins and adds, "I shall attempt also to learn enough from your example that I might avoid many of the difficult situations that you have had to pull each other out from, though, if you will not mind! And speaking of not minding and of your Padawan," she continues, tilting her head back towards the direction from which she originally came, around the flank of the ship, "at their request, Bail went with the Naberries to their home, after the ship arrived, to discuss certain necessary arrangements in a matter of some privacy, or so I was told. Apparently, the matter is somewhat urgent but delicate enough in nature that the family wishes to keep the details within the family. The Naberries consider you both – and Bail as well, given his friendship with Milady and his relationship with you both, as your shared Padawan – good sons, children by choice of loyalty and bonds of honor, so you may rest assured that no one will take it amiss that the three of you will be staying with the Naberries. You may also be sure that no one of Naboo will seek to pry into what is a private family matter. Bail commed right before I came down here to ask if I might arrange for a place of privacy, where he might be able to speak with you both for a time without fear of interruption or of eavesdroppers. It was easy enough to secure such a room here in the Palace so, if you’d like, I can show you to that room, now. Bail should be here fairly soon, if he’s not already arrived, since he was in route from the Naberrie home."

Anakin casts Obi-Wan a curious look at that, only to be met by an equally curious glance from his former Master. Do you imagine it’s something serious? Anakin asks, reaching out along the bond so that their discussion can remain private. The Naberries seemed like very nice people, when I met them, although granted we weren’t meeting under the best of circumstances and it was only for a very brief time . . .

Serious enough to warrant both a warning before we can stumble into it unknowing and a planning session for dealing with whatever the issue may be away from the Naberries, though I would think that it is nothing terribly calamitous, since our Padawan apparently believes it to be something that can be taken care of privately and quietly. Otherwise, Bail likely would have already asked for assistance from both Apailana and Mon Mothma.

With a slight tilt of his head to show his understanding and his agreement of Obi-Wan’s assessment of the situation, Anakin smiles brightly at Keiana and then nods at her, declaring, "Of course, Kei’a! If you’re sure it’s no trouble. Please, lead on," quite certain that whatever it is Bail Organa wishes to discuss will turn out to be something relatively minor and easily solved.

It is a conviction that, when he eventually looks back upon it, a little over a standard hour afterwards, will haunt Anakin Skywalker and make him bitterly regret having so carelessly and cavalierly agreed to the private meeting with Bail.

In fact, head aching with tension, eyes itching and burning with unshed tears, and throat hot, tight, and dry from the effort of holding in bitter guffaws of laughter, by the time an entire standard hour has passed since he offered Keiana Apailana his right arm and allowed her to show him and Obi-Wan and even Artoo out of the landing bay, Anakin so thoroughly laments having agreed to the meeting that he finds himself closing his eyes tight and holding up both hands, as though to ward off a blow or push the entire situation back away from him, as if he could simply will the entire awful mess away just by showing, thus, that he wants to do so. The room that Keiana Apailana set aside for their use, so that Anakin and Obi-Wan and Bail would have a chance to speak together privately, turned out to be one of the sitting rooms attached to the young monarch’s personal chambers – one of several such sitting rooms, considering the fact that the Queen’s rooms are more of an interlocking warren of suites spread out across an entire wing of the Theed Palace, to ensure enough room both for her and all of her handmaidens, than a single apartment – a medium-sized room furnished mainly with several extremely well-made but comfortably cushioned couches and chairs, in rich shades of green and gold and russet. Anakin and Obi-Wan had sat down on a two-seated sofa after being shown into the room, but the story their grim-faced Padawan began to recite the moment they were alone had soon driven Anakin up off of the couch into a restless pace around the room. Having swerved from his path to avoid running over Artoo – who had taken up a guard-like position in front of the (closed and locked) door leading back out into the hall soon after Bail first began to talk, where he is now rocking anxiously back and forth every so slightly, beeping softly and nervously – when he opens his eyes again, Anakin finds himself facing Bail with his hands upraised as though to ward off a blow. Resisting the urge to snarl, he forces himself to lower his hands again and wait. At the next pause between words from Bail, he interrupts, raising his voice loud enough to drown out anything else Bail might try to keep saying.

"Okay, wait, hold on, stop a minute and let me get this straight. Please. I’ve been caught a little bit off-guard here and so I’m just a little bit confused. You think that Sola Naberrie has been – what, exactly, again, was it you said? Possessed in some way by the spirit of Sidious, or at least that’s she’s been open in some way to the influence of his mind and will?"

"It was Ryoo Thule who first came to this conclusion, actually, and I find her reasoning to be quite persuasive, Master Skywalker," Bail stiffly responds, holding himself very still and stiffly upright on the edge of the chair he is perched on, conspicuously looking over Anakin’s left shoulder, drilling a hole into the closed door, instead of meeting his youngest Master’s gaze. "Ruwee Naberrie was too busy panicking to piece the clues together, thinking first that his eldest daughter was experiencing some sort of seizure and then that she had to be suffering from some kind of chemically induced psychosis and all along fearing that he might end up losing both of his daughters to the war – and, understandably, therefore not thinking very clearly about what was actually happening with the eldest of his two children. If I have managed to piece together the little I’ve been told correctly, though, Milady Jobal was actually the first to advance the theory – quite plausible, in my estimation – that it was a willing sort of possession, more like to Sola having agreed to allow her body to be used as an extra set of eyes and ears and hands for the Sith Lord, rather than the aftermath of an unwilling encounter where the Dark Lord used his powers to force himself upon her. Though she raved against him bitterly after her sister’s death, her words most closely resembled the ravings of someone who feels she has been double-crossed by a partner than someone who simply feels betrayed by the actions of a government official, and she has, additionally, been far too aggrieved by the Sith Lord’s own death for the relationship between them to have been aught but that of willing coconspirators."

"Tell me again what happened to make all of you believe this," Anakin only demands, voice hardening in response both to Bail’s avoidance of his gaze and the interjection of his own opinions into what should be a dispassionate recitation of the facts. "Slowly, chronologically, and with as much detail as possible, please, Padawan. The last time I saw Sola Naberrie, she was overjoyed that her little sister had finally found a suitor. I find it hard to connect that memory with what it is that you’re telling me now, especially with all of this jumping about from what one person thought to what another now believes and back again."

"According to Jobal Naberrie, Sola had a fit of some kind immediately after Padmé’s death. After comparing times for when that began to what I was able to tell them about when the skimmer crash occurred, we’re fairly certain that Sola knew about Padmé’s death the moment it occurred, even though Darth Sidious didn’t seem to realize it when the two of you later went to confront him. I’m of the opinion that this means that Sola Naberrie was either somehow acting as a conduit of some sort between the Sith Master and her sister or else that while he either just didn’t bother to establish a strong enough bond between himself and Milady to know when she was suffering or else had already severed such a bond, in anticipation of her suffering and dying in childbirth – and I suspect the latter, considering the contents of some of Sola’s ravings on the subject of when her sister was supposed to die – Sola wished to monitor her sister more closely and so used what she knew about the bond that had formed between the Sith Lord and herself to form a rudimentary bond of her own between herself and her younger sister. According to Ryoo Thule, Sola has been quite vehement about the fact that Padmé Amidala was supposed to die in ignominious shame for betraying her duty to the Republic and destroying the honor of the Jedi, not a piteous martyr’s exalted death upon a battlefield, and Sola was supposed to be rewarded for her sacrifices with the task of raising the instrument of her sister’s downfall into a suitable heir for the glorious Empire that would arise from the ashes of the old Republic to spread across all of the known galaxy. The conclusion that Sola was a willing accomplish to at least some of Sidious’ heinous crimes and even more terrible plans seems eminently logical to me, based on such statements. In any case, though, Sola was helping her mother prepare a family dinner at the time of her sister’s death, and the first anyone knew of something wrong was when she suddenly flung a bowl full of half prepared salad across the kitchen into one of the windows, with enough power to shatter the bowl and crack part of the transparisteel pane’s decorative casing. She then began to wail and scream incoherently, keening with such ferocity that the sound penetrated the whole of the house and brought its other occupants running, and collapsed, kicking and jerking and flailing about almost as if in the grips of some kind of extremely violent seizure, lashing her head against the floor with enough unrestrained force that her mother was afraid she would split her head open. It took four adults – Ryoo, Ruwee, Jobal, and Darred Janren – working together to restrain her enough to hold her flat to the floor, so that she couldn’t continue to beat her head against it. As soon as they got her securely pinned, her eyes rolled back in her head and she went limp, losing consciousness. They were unable to rouse Sola again afterwards and, although local healers were brought in to see her and she was even taken to the medical center so that she could be more closely examined, in spite of the application of various remedies that should have been able to wake her and several thorough examinations no one on Naboo was able to either induce her to return to consciousness or to find anything that was physically wrong with her, aside from some assorted minor bumps and bruises from her collapse and thrashing about. When the news of Padmé’s death reached Naboo, three days after Sola’s episode, the family chose to bring Sola home from the medical center, regardless of the fact that the various doctors and med-droids had been unable to find anything wrong, even though she was still deeply unconscious, so that they could begin to prepare for Padmé’s funeral and mourn her passing in private. Sola’s condition remained unchanged until the day of the Sith Lord’s death – the very hour of his demise, in fact, from what I gather. The peace of the Naberrie household was broken by a shriek of rage and a tremendous crash. Those same four adults raced to Sola’s room to find that she was awake and methodically destroying her room, the crash they had heard being the violent overturning of her bed. She would not stop struggling and they had to sedate her twice to knock her out, with her struggling and screaming all the while about such things as a two-faced Sith-spawned serpent who specialized in speaking out of both sides of his mouth and an excessively arrogant, holier-than-thou, but ultimately weak-willed and proven to be a harlot at heart uppity streppoch – a term of opprobrium that means, roughly, ‘one who has been forsworn and cast off by family for deeds too foul to name,’ if that word means the same on Naboo as it does on Alderaan. Mark this word, please, for if it is ascertained that Sola was indeed the Dark Lord’s willing servant, it is likely that Ryoo Thule, Jobal and Ruwee Naberrie, and Darred Janren will all formally declare Sola streppoch and khiel-streppain/, stripping her of all claim to their families, hearths and hearts alike. The only reason this hasn’t already been done so is because of the incoherency of most of Sola’s ravings. She is dangerous and damagingly violent both towards herself and others when conscious and cannot be made to answer questions that are put to her. Additionally, as Ruwee Naberrie attests, it is difficult to know what precisely Sola was saying a majority of the time because she frequently interrupts her own tirades in order to simply scream inchoately with fury and curses so often that the meaning of her words frequently becomes so tangled and buried beneath that constant stream of foulness and vituperation and rage that the overall sense of her meaning becomes lost. They asked me to try to look at her, Masters, and the feeling of darkness with that room . . . " Bail shudders then, his eyes falling closed, and when he opens them again his gaze finds Obi-Wan (still sitting on the two-seated couch) and locks there, as though just the sight of Obi-Wan in some way both calms him and gives him strength. "I have never felt anything like that before, Bendu. The sense of evil was overpowering. I felt unclean when I departed the room and had to excuse myself to keep from being violently sick in front of my hosts. It was – it was like being immersed suddenly in slime, something caustic and bitter beneath its coldness, and being plunged simultaneously and unexpectedly into a room with no light, though I could still everything see quite plainly and feel the warmth of the light on my face and hands. I've washed myself thoroughly since then but I swear to you that I can still feel the touch of that – that coldness, that contamination, upon me, like the kind of tainted scree of filth that will gather upon the surface of a pool of stagnant water, one that is also in the process of freezing solid. I am cold, still, and I feel unclean, though I know, logically, that I should not. Whatever it is that is amiss with Mistress Sola . . . Bendu, it is something serious and it is something awful. I know that it is. I can feel that it is. This isn’t just the grief-stricken hysterics of a woman who has lost her only sibling and discovered that a man from her own world – a man considered a friend and mentor by members of her family, a man trusted to guide the Galactic Republic through these dark times and to work tirelessly and ceaselessly to protect its peoples and to ensure liberty and justice for all sentient beings in the galaxy – is in fact the Sith Lord and Master who for decades has been striving both to dismantle the Republic and utterly destroy its strongest agents and protectors of peace and justice within the galaxy and, therefore, is the one most responsible for the death and suffering of billions of sentient beings, including that of her own and only sister. This woman . . . she has been touched in some way by evil, and that touch lingers upon her like a stain and surrounds her as palpably as the pall of a shadow. And since she has both screamed for one Palpatine, Lord Sidious, to come and set her free and make good on his word to her, and railed against him bitterly for breaking his word to her, I think it is safe to say that the root cause of this evil somehow lies with Darth Sidious himself. The Dark Lord turned her somehow, in some way, Bendu, and she has been his willing tool. I don’t know how or why she might have allowed him to do it, but I am certain of it. The only reason she has not done any serious harm to anyone is because the Naberries have been keeping her deeply sedated and securely locked within her mostly stripped bare bedroom. Ryoo Thule and Jobal Naberrie are both certain that Sola wishes to try some mischief against Padmé’s body and that she means to do the both of you some harm, or else they would have already cut her out from their family and cast her forth from here, petitioning Queen Apailana to banish her from Naboo entirely. Padmé sought a binding promise from her family, giving her the power to require that all knowledge of the nature and depth of her relationship with the both of you – especially Master Anakin – be summarily blocked and overwritten or even entirely erased from their minds, before she would trust them with the . . . complexities of those truths. Ryoo Thule, the Naberries, and Darred Janren all wish for you to examine Sola yourselves, to determine the exact nature of her corruption and the extent of her crimes, so that you may, if necessary, wipe her mind of all potentially damaging knowledge, while she is still morally bound by both her promise to Padmé and the bonds of her name, including a very real legal obligation to uphold all of the oaths sworn by her family, before they declare her /streppoch and khiel-streppain and see to her banishment from Naboo and the surrounding system. I’m not entirely sure why they think these bonds will in any way bind Sola, if she has in truth willingly betrayed both her sister and the Republic by knowingly aiding Darth Sidious in his machinations; however, if she is indeed a voluntary blood-traitor, then removing certain information from her mind should make her far less dangerous. More, the legal aspects of being declared streppoch and formally banished as a khiel-streppain are very serious and rather restrictive – quite similar to the Alderaanian practice of kàil’strìosaim/, which was brought to bear against the Traitor of Alderaan in conjunction with High Justice for his crimes against his family as well as his crimes against Alderaan and the evil he attempted to help bring down upon the sentient beings of the galaxy during the Hundred-Year Darkness – and they should limit her ability to cause us or her family any further harm. If Sola ever attempts to return to Naboo or to the Naboo system after her banishment, her life will be immediately forfeit. Her surname, her holdings, and her rights to all of her kin will be stripped from her, and all members of her former extended family will have the right to declare formal blood-feud and demand her life in repayment for the dishonor offered up to them if she ever attempts to reclaim any of these rights afterwards. If it can be proven that she has attempted either to profit in any way from knowledge gained during her time as a member of the Thule, Naberrie, or Janren families or to seek retribution for being declared outcast and banished as a blood-traitor through the use of such knowledge, any member of all three families will have the right to immediately claim her life as forfeit for the further evil offered against them when they had originally refrained from demanding her death as penalty for the original crimes that gave them the right to legally declare her /streppoch and khiel-streppain in the first place. Normally such bindings would be sufficient to guarantee the silence and good behavior of a banished one, but neither Ryoo Thule, the Naberries, or Darred Janren are entirely certain that being declared streppoch and khiel-streppain will be enough to keep Sola from seeking both to profit and to seek revenge by using her knowledge of Padmé’s relationships with you both, Masters," Bail’s eyes flicker towards Anakin but never quite manage to meet his eyes before they return to Obi-Wan again, "towards some dark end. Which, again, is why they want you to examine her before they make anything final. Ruwee Naberrie is of the opinion that it would be safest, in the long run, to simply demand Sola’s life now, for her crimes – which they legally have the right to do if she has in fact been working willingly for the Sith Lord and plotting against her sister – but the others fear that it would draw too much outside attention and, thus, possibly place both you and the Republic in unnecessary danger. That’s why the Naberries and Ryoo Thule sought to speak to me about all of this as soon as the ship arrived, and why all four of the adults willing to press charges against Sola, if it becomes necessary, asked me to try to explain it all to you both before you came to the Naberrie house. I can’t claim that I understand how things were allowed to get to the point that they did, between Padmé and Master Anakin, Bendu," he continues, eyes bleak and dark but his voice and posture both firmly resolute, "but I am well aware that she loved you essentially from the moment she first met you, in a way that . . . might not present her character or her motivations for certain actions that she undertook after meeting you in the most flattering of lights. There is a real risk here. And I believe it is a risk best dealt with quickly and quietly."

Anakin, whose temper had begun to keep pace with his worsening headache the moment that Bail began to speak to him without meeting his gaze, manages to get as far as planting his fisted hands combatively on his hips and taking a deep breath in preparation for launching into a scathing dressing down of his obviously disrespectful Padawan learner before he is cut short by Obi-Wan’s voice, as cold and hard as he has heard it since . . . since . . . well, probably since their battle with Sidious, though even then Anakin is not entirely certain if his former Master’s tone had been quite so implacable. While Anakin has been staring with growing anger at their Padawan, who has continued to look everywhere but at Anakin’s face while he answered his questions, Obi-Wan has slipped out of his loose outer robe (leaving it behind in a neatly folded pile on the sofa), risen, and strode to the center of the room. Now, feet planted shoulder-width apart in an obvious fighting stance, right hand hovering threateningly near the hilt of his lightsaber, Obi-Wan stares at Bail, eyes gone a cold, hard, merciless silvery gray (gold flecks glinting here and there like bits of honey floating in mead) – one of the rare color shifts of Obi-Wan’s mercurial eyes that Anakin hardly ever sees, as it is a shade that denotes actual unbridled fury: a frighteningly metallic sheen that Anakin has not seen in Obi-Wan’s eyes since that time he was captured on Vanqor and taken to Jenna Zan Arbor’s Zone of Self-Containment, where he was experimented on and drugged into docility. Well. Actually, in had been more like a state so far past docility that it was total unfeelingness, so much so that the terrifying color of Obi-Wan’s eyes hadn’t even registered on him at the time. It wasn’t until days later, when the mission was over and Anakin had finally had the courage to cast his mind back to his time in that place, using the Force to augment his memory so that he could observe even the details that he might have missed in his drugged state, that the awful color of Obi-Wan’s eyes had even registered on him (a fact that had given Anakin nightmares for months, afterwards) – and challengingly demands, "Would you wish to be judged for the most foolish and selfish decision of your life – a decision that never would have been made, if not for the machinations of the last remaining full Dark Lord of the Sith and the insidious influence of his evil power over both you and the other person involved in allowing that decision to be made – rather than the true nature of your heart and soul, Bail Prestor Organa? I seem to recall, former Crown Prince and Viceroy and Senator of Alderaan, that but a few days ago you freely admitted to being married to a woman who is not the be-all and end-all of your life or the highest object of your affections or loyalty. Do you wish now to claim that your own knowledge of alliances based more on friendship and respect, born out of loneliness and resignation and perhaps even despair over the unconscious realization that you may likely never receive the truest desire of your heart and soul, rather than pure love and passion, in some way renders you fit you to judge others who have made similar choices? And before you think to cry foul for some wrong that you imagine was done to me, Padawan, I suggest that you consider the following: I took a vow of chastity at the age of nine. There are ways for those strong in the Force to teach the body to completely bypass both all of the involuntary physical responses to such feelings as love and attraction as well as the natural chemical and hormonal reactions that simply accompany the process of growing to physical, and therefore sexual, maturity. I chose to deny myself all firsthand knowledge of what is colloquially referred to as the pleasures of the flesh for fear that experiencing such things would distract me in some way from my duty to the Jedi Order. You know very well that, outside of its toleration for the Master-Padawan bond, the old Jedi Order did not allow its members to form attachments, for fear that such would lead to feelings of possessiveness and, thence, to the Dark Side. Even for those members who belong to species whose numbers are so few that the members of the High Council felt obliged to allow for marriage outside of the Order, attachment was not permitted. Members of the Order were told to know compassion for all beings but were not allowed to experience such things as love. And though some . . . experimentation was technically permissible for the younger members of the Order, so long as it did not involve or encourage the formation of actual attachments, such things were frowned upon by the Masters. I made my decision in an effort to please the Masters, in an attempt to focus myself wholly upon the task of becoming a better Jedi, and my understanding of what I had given up was so nonexistent that it did not occur to me until far later that I had made a mistake and that it was extremely hypocritical for the Jedi Order to declare that its members were not allowed to feel love or to form attachments when the Masters clear expect all members of the Order to be attacked to the Order itself and to be loyal towards and to feel love for each other – especially within the bonds of a Master-Padawan relationship – as well as for the Order and what it stands for, for the ideals of the Republic and indeed the Galactic Republic itself, as the bastion of those ideals and the primary reason for the continued existence of the Jedi. Before the day of revelations that culminated in the Sith Lord’s defeat and death, I had not experienced even so much as a single touch – not a kiss, not a caress, not an embrace – solely for the sake of passion or pleasure alone. Anakin Skywalker had been the center of my life for over thirteen years before I finally realized that I not only loved him but was actually in love with him, despite the unaltered state of the vow I had taken after turning nine. Before Anakin Skywalker came into my life and proceeded to teach me so many of the different meanings embodied by the word love/, I had no real concept of what it meant to love or to be loved wholeheartedly, without doubt or restraint or condition, by another living being. Before Anakin, I learned to care for several different beings as friends and mentors and teachers, but not until him did I know what it meant to truly love. And it was only because the final words and request of a dying Padmé Amidala Naberrie Skywalker were brought to me that I finally gained sufficient self-knowledge and need and courage to free myself from the bonds of the vow that I had taken. If not for that, if not for /her/, we would not be standing here before you now and the Sith Lord Sidious would be in a position to abolish the Galactic Republic by publically declaring himself Emperor Palpatine, to the thunderous applause of the Galactic Senate. I /strongly suggest that you consider that, Padawan, before you respond to my earlier question. And while you’re at it, you may also wish to consider the following: while the Jedi Order discontinued the practice of honor duels over a century ago, after a lightsaber malfunction led to the death of an innocent bystander halfway through just such a duel, there has been no formal ruling on the matter, as yet, within the New Jedi Bendu Order."

Obi-Wan’s face is as hard and closed-off as that of a durasteel statue, his voice so hard and cold that he might have never known either warmth or pity, and his demeanor is so glacially cold that he could have challenged Hoth for sheer inhospitableness. Even Anakin finds himself shrinking back from him, his mouth suddenly dry with fear, because this – this face, this voice, this whole frozen and implacable, ungiving and unforgiving mien – is, quite frankly, one of Anakin’s three worst fears suddenly sprung to life (if, granted, in a direction other than towards himself). He used to have nightmares about finally doing something awful enough that it would make Obi-Wan behave towards him in just such a manner, and seeing him turn on Bail like this, hearing him speak in such a manner to one addressed as Padawan, makes the blood run cold in Anakin’s veins. He’s so completely stunned that Obi-Wan actually could become angry enough with someone to become so deadly cold like this that at first it hardly registers that it is because of him, because Obi-Wan believes that Bail is offering up insult to Anakin, that Obi-Wan is, in essence, asking Bail to give him an excuse to challenge him. Like Bail, he is at first quite simply struck dumb with fear – so much so that it takes almost a full minute (a minute in which Obi-Wan unblinkingly holds Bail’s gaze and Bail stares at him with terrified eyes, speechless with horror) for it to sink in that, first of all, while Obi-Wan is indeed enraged, he is not actually angry with /Anakin/, and, second of all, that he is furious enough to do something both dangerous and foolish (as when he had been so distracted over Anakin’s behavior in his drugged state on Vanqor that he had allowed himself to fall into a nest of gundarks). It’s the second realization that shocks him out of his stunned state, because Anakin knows how long Bail Organa has been a friend of Obi-Wan’s, just as he also knows how much that friendship means to Obi-Wan, and, having let anger driven him to make some terrible mistakes, he can also guess just how much Obi-Wan would likely come to regret it, if he were to act against Bail because of his current outrage. Anakin manages to take one step towards Obi-Wan and to begin to reach out to him along the bond, but he doesn’t quite manage to recover enough from the shock quickly enough to get any further than opening his mouth before Bail begins to speak.

"Bendu, I’m not – it isn’t that I – I mean, I – I don’t – I’m not – Bendu, I wouldn’t – " Bail stammers helplessly at that, eyes wide and face suddenly seeming pale and sickly despite the caramel hue of his skin, his expression clearly stricken. For another handful of moments he simply sits there, hands clasped together so tightly that he almost appears to be wringing them, and then, with an abruptness and swiftness so startling that it almost makes Anakin take a step back in surprise, Bail launches himself to his feet and whirls around to face Anakin, deliberately seeking out and holding his gaze. "I would never think of judging you for your relationship with Senator Amidala, Master Skywalker, no more than I would ever seek to judge Padmé Amidala for caring about you or for loving Master Kenobi, and I apologize if my behavior has seemed to indicate otherwise. I’m just . . . confused, still, over some of the things I’ve been told recently, and having a hard time trying to figure out how much of what’s happened can be laid directly at Sidious’ feet." Bail pauses then for the barest sliver of a moment, taking in a deep breath as though gathering in courage, before he finally admits, eyes dark with anguish and cheeks flushed a scalded looking bright red with shame, "It also hurt, a little, to have to find these things out from Padmé’s family, though I understand, logically, that there simply wasn’t enough time to tell me about these things before you and Master Kenobi had to leave for Utapau. It’s irrational, I know, but there was no warning about this on the datapad, and finding out this way made me feel excluded from your lives and isolated from you. You are my Masters. I will not pretend that I know you both equally or that I feel exactly the same way about you, but do I care about you, both of you, a great deal, and I truly do want to be an important part of your lives. I want to be useful, but I feel like I don’t know enough to really be of any help to you. I dislike feeling useless, Masters. It’s a failing of mine to always need to be in the thick of things," Bail explains, a slight flicker of a somewhat self-depreciatory but nonetheless genuinely amused smile momentarily lightening his anguished countenance. "I want to help, but I don’t know how I can. I feel like I need to know more and I don’t know how to ask the questions I want to without giving offense. But I swear to you both, it’s not that I’ve judged either one of you or Milady Amidala – because I have no right to do that and it would be hypocritical of me to even try, considering such things as my marriage to Breha. It’s that I’m trying – and obviously failing miserably – " and again there is that brief flicker of a self-depreciatory smile, one that wrenches painfully at Anakin’s heart because it is so very like an expression he has seen far too many times on his beloved Obi-Wan’s face, "to avoid giving you reasons to judge me. I was terrified over being left behind on Coruscant, even though I knew all of the reasons why you had to go while I needed to stay and was well aware of the fact that it would only be a temporary parting, and I’m afraid that my reaction to finding out about these things from sources other than the two of you has been at least as illogical and ridiculous as my earlier fear of being abandoned was. /Please/, don’t take offense, Masters. I’m just – I feel out of my depth, here. And that sense of evil surrounding Sola . . . I’ve experienced so few things that I know, without a doubt, were from the Force, and none of them have been anything like what I felt in that room. If I didn’t know that Sidious was the last of the Sith, I would swear to you that what I sensed could be nothing else but the presence of another Sith Lord. Nothing I’ve done since then has been able to make me stop feeling that sense of cold. Nothing I’ve told myself has made me stop feeling as if I’ve been contaminated in some way by that evil. I just – I’m not handling this very well, Masters, and I don’t want to disappoint you. Either of you. I don’t want you to regret having taken me on as your Padawan. Which I’m sure you’re both doing right now, anyway," he adds with a bitter little laugh, spreading his hands before him helplessly and shrugging slightly, "since I’m making such as hash of this. Masters – "

His voice as gentle now as it had been unyielding when he spoke to him before, Obi-Wan interrupts Bail, declaring, "That’s enough, Padawan."

"But Bendu, I – "

"Bail. I said that is enough. Come here," Obi-Wan insists, gesturing with his right hand. Anakin doesn’t even have to ask to know what Obi-Wan intends: the bond between them – only a few moments earlier all but overwhelmed with furious affront and a mercilessly unforgiving cold rage – hums now with a mixture of exasperated fondness, concern, and shared pain over the memory of a similar fear of abandonment, of failing to please and causing disappointment or regret, their emotions on these matters, at least, matching so perfectly that it would have been impossible for either one to say with any certainty if all of that exasperation came solely from Anakin or if some of it was felt by Obi-Wan as well or whose concern and whose far too well remembered painful fear was greater. There is something disconcertingly sad and embarrassing about the fact that, for all of their promises about changing the Order and seeing to it that no more Jedi will be made to suffer because of the many rules and expectations inspired by an impossible Code, the very first new initiate of the New Jedi Bendu Order and their own shared Padawan to boot has nonetheless come to feel the exact same sense of personal failure and fear of inadequacy and possible abandonment that so many have suffered from and struggled against under that now thankfully defunct Code. The absolute necessity of their mission to Utapau, the need for Bail’s presence on Coruscant to help steer the Senate and keep it from floundering utterly in the wake of the revelation of Palpatine’s identity as Darth Sidious, and Bail’s eventual seemingly calmly resigned and understanding acceptance of both things, on that landing deck, have tricked them into neglecting their responsibilities as Bail’s Masters.

Of course, it doesn’t change the fact that, while they were the ones who needed to go to Utapau and that it had to happen when it did, so that they could catch Grievous before he could simply flee once more, Bail had been needed on Coruscant just then, so that the Senate would have enough strong leadership to be able to work its way through the aftermath of so much shock and betrayal and loss and still summon enough strength of purpose and solidarity to not only agree upon and even begin to enact several changes and plans for the future that would result in a new, stronger, and more just government but also to accept a proposal for peace that should allow that new government to flourish. But it does mean that they have not been paying close enough attention to their Padawan, who deserves better from them, and that they need to be here for Bail now, if they don’t want to begin their time together by failing him as Masters. So Anakin strides over to Obi-Wan’s side, curling his hand warmly around his left shoulder and squeezing it so that Obi-Wan will know that he has Anakin’s full support (though he does direct a half-incredulous and half-sardonic mental whisper –

An "honor duel," Obi-Wan? And you still claim that /I need to work harder at controlling my anger, just because I reduced some droids to their composite parts! I think you and I are going to have to have a little talk, later on, about how I can – and will, if necessary! – deal with anything like this that might come up because my own mistakes and stupidities. I love you more than words could ever explain, Master, and I know you want to protect me – believe me, I know how great the need to protect someone can be! – but you can’t always shield me or save me from everything, Obi-Wan, especially not from the repercussions of my own actions or decisions. Part of the hold Sidious had over me came from my willingness to run away from my mistakes, to turn away from them and refuse to think about or deal with their consequences, and I don’t ever want to make that same mistake again! We talked about this – or at least I thought we did, during our few days before Utapau – and I thought we’d decided that I need to be able to clean up my own messes, love. How am I supposed to do that if you’re always trying to shield me from them?/

– towards his former Master first, determinedly ignoring the answering, equally sardonic, if somewhat more tired and slightly guilt-tinged, reply –

That’s funny, Anakin, I don’t recall agreeing to abandon you in your time of greatest need, though I /do seem to remember a promise being made to help one another come to terms with our emotions – all our emotions – without either trying to deny them utterly or allowing them to come to rule us entirely. I also seem to recall several discussions about mistakes that we’ve both made, in the past, concerning our emotions, and coming to the tentative conclusion that it isn’t emotion per se that is so potentially damaging to a Force-user as it is the possibility of abandoning oneself entirely to one emotion and then allowing that one emotion to so wholly dictate one’s behavior that one becomes unbalanced and irrational – something I’d thought you understood, though your behavior on Utapau would seem to indicate otherwise. Only you would call tens of thousands of droids "a few," O former Padawan-mine, and bringing that up in this context does not, by the way, incline me to forget that you and I are apparently also due another little discussion on the very real dangers of unbridled emotions of all sorts – beginning with righteous anger and including over-protectiveness, as I believe we’ve both managed to demonstrate quite well! – to both the stability of a Force-user and the natural flow of the Force itself. Just because we know that we can cleanse the Force of any taint that would eventually arise because of such a warping in its flows doesn’t mean that we should indulge in or encourage behavior that could lead to such a need again, even in ourselves, don’t you agree?/

– because while, on the one hand, the promise of yet another lecture makes him want to sigh and throw his hands up in disgust, on the other hand, Anakin also knows very well just how good a point Obi-Wan has. Besides which, the thought that Obi-Wan loves Anakin so much that he could have come as close as he just did to actually challenging their Padawan to a real honor duel, for Anakin’s sake, is more than a little . . . disconcerting, if not outright terrifying). Pushing away the headache that suddenly wants very much to resurface, Anakin waits until Bail finally slowly and hesitantly obeys Obi-Wan’s summons and comes to stand directly in front of them, and then he carefully removes the various layers of shielding that he, like Obi-Wan, has placed across their end of the bond to Bail so that the virtually wide open and unshielded (except for the protection that his lack of training in and experience with the Force and the very existence of the five-way, multiply-layered bond between him and Anakin and Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon and Dooku naturally granted him) Force-sensitive couldn’t accidentally find himself suddenly experiencing one of his Masters’ bondings with each other and the Force or else find himself precipitously pulled along with them into their own particular version of a Battle Meditation meld.

Obi-Wan surprises him a little bit, though. Instead of just reaching out to their Padawan along the bond, the Jedi Bendu Master stretches out both physically and mentally, reaching out to take hold of Bail’s left hand even as he drops his part of the shields meant to protect their untrained and extremely strong in the Force Padawan, tugging Bail forward until he is enfolded in a tight three-way embrace (Anakin gamely sliding his hand down from Obi-Wan’s shoulder so that he can, instead, wrap that arm securely around his waist before reaching out to loop his left around Bail’s back, nestling it directly over Obi-Wan’s similarly positioned right arm). As one, they flood their end of the bond with warmth and affection, understanding and respect and, yes, even love, soothing and reassuring Bail and promising him, You are our Padawan, Bail, and there is nothing that you could do or say – or not do, or not say, for that matter – that could ever make us truly regret or wish to deny that bond. Please forgive us for not making this clearer before leaving on the mission. Duty can be a harsh mistress, but that is no excuse for leaving you in doubt of your place in our lives. And you will /always be an important part of our lives, Padawan. Never doubt that. You are our Padawan Bail Organa, and we have no intention of ever truly abandoning you. Know that. We do not abandon our own. Ever. Whatever evil Sola Naberrie embraces, it cannot touch you. Any evil she might embody would have to go through the both of us, first, and then the Grand Masters, as well, to get to you, Padawan./

There is a moment of silence then, nothing coming from Bail’s end of the bond except for pure shock. But then, hesitantly at first yet with increasing strength and surety, there comes a reply. Masters? Is it – is it truly you? I – I thought – I feared – I couldn’t tell if it was real or not, when I thought I’d felt you before! But it was you, wasn’t it, not just my imagination and the Force getting away from me again? I felt you, when you were on Utapau, and that was real! And this is real, too, we truly can touch each other’s minds, thoughts and emotions both? Masters –

Calm yourself, please, Padawan. This is neither the time nor the place. It will be soon, but not quite yet. This is one of the benefits of the Master-Padawan bond, when it is not stifled halfway or more by fear of what such a close communion might lead to. The old Jedi Order clung to a . . . misguided Code and, as a result, all but stifled itself with fear. We will teach you about all of this, but unfortunately there’s not enough time, now, to explain properly. Just know this: you are very strong in the Force, Bail, and it is only because the taint upon the Force and your lack of training that you’ve failed to exhibit any more obvious signs of that strength before now. Our removal and destruction of that taint has destroyed a barrier that has been limiting access to the Force for all Force-sensitive beings, both trained and untrained, and, as a result, the powers and abilities of all such Force-sensitives have all suddenly seemed to grow, almost exponentially. It is not your strength in the Force that has changed, Padawan: it is your ability to perceive the Force and for the Force itself to touch you. The energies of the Force are all around us, binding us together. It is natural that you should be able to sense those to whom you are connected, especially when such ties include the Master-Padawan bond. Since you have no training, you lack the mental discipline to place shields between yourself and those around you. We tried to protect you by placing shields of our own making around you, but unfortunately they can only protect you from so much. Extremely strong emotions and thoughts of immediate importance to those around you can and will sometimes bleed through even the strongest of personal shields. It has been thought of as . . . a courtesy, among the Jedi of the old Order, to try to avoid such accidental eavesdropping by seeking to limit or even to close off one’s personal telepathy and empathetic sensory ability, both through seeking the help of others in the creation of stronger shields and by simply refusing to exercise such abilities, that they might atrophy and fail. But to do such is to deny both a part of the Force and a part of ourselves, and it is because of such denials that the old Jedi Order failed in its mandate. We let fear rule us, in such things, and it all but destroyed us. We cannot afford to repeat this mistake. The New Jedi Bendu Order will seek other ways of dealing with such things, ways that both will not involve us giving in to fear of ourselves, of possibly misusing our abilities, and that will see to it that the rights of other beings – including the privacy of their thoughts and emotions – will be protected as sacrosanct whenever possible. These things will take time, though, and training, and time is something that we currently do not possess a great deal of – which, unfortunately, only compounds your lack of training, Padawan.

But there is something that can be done until then, right? I mean, you can help me keep it from happening again, until we have time to figure out something that’ll work better than just trying to close my mind off to both the Force and everyone around me, can’t you? For a while there I was hearing other people’s thoughts again just as plainly as if they were spoken words, and I would really rather not do so again, even though I didn’t hear anything worse than the grief of the handmaidens over losing Milady Amidala and my cousin, Sheltay, trying to figure out if the shifts in pronunciation and spelling of certain nonBasic words with mostly equivalent meanings in Alderaanian, Chandrilan, Grizmalltian, and Nabooian more logically seemed to support the theory that the inhabitants of the three Core Worlds having been colonized by the same group of unknowns, from whom an original, progenitor language and culture came, or if they might more rationally support the notion of one of those worlds being the actual end source for the language and culture of the other three worlds, instead, through first- and second-generation colonization. I would especially not want to have it happen again, if what I felt in Sola Naberrie’s presence was some kind of variation on sensing somebody’s emotions. There was so much darkness around her, Masters, and I –

Calmness, Padawan. Remain calm, please. We will rebuild your shields and make them stronger than they were before, for the moment at least, but you should not let yourself come to rely on them. Please, keep that in mind.

I will, Masters. Just, please –

Patience, Padawan. This will only take a few moments. The next time, you should watch us building these shields, so you’ll know how to do it for yourself. But for now, this should do. Just another moment, so that the shields will still allow us to sense you, should you find yourself in any difficulty . . . ah! There. That should do, until we can find a better solution. Now. Come and sit down with us. And explain to us one more time, if you will, everything that you have been told about and everything you have experienced that has convinced you that Sola Naberrie was indeed in league in Sidious and that she is some manner possessed of an evil inspired by the late Sith Lord and Master . . .

***