FicWad

It is a simple enough matter to wrap the stone intended for Bail in a simple leather thong, so that he can wear it properly. Eventually, that is. The twins are asleep, and Bant takes one look at them before summarily, silently shooing them back out of the room, effectively answering the question as to whether or not they’ll be able to take Luke and Leia with them on this particular tour of the Temple’s facilities. Not too long after that firm dismissal, Obi-Wan and Anakin find themselves double-checking their clothes to make sure they’re presentable, putting away three of the four remaining ungifted Nubian starfire adamants, and heading out to find Mace and Bail, the fourth gem tucked away in the slightly larger pouch on Obi-Wan’s utility belt. Perhaps because their eyes are red from shed tears, though their faces are a calm blaze of shared peace; perhaps because Mace and Bail are already so very nearly friends, allies of such long standing and such deep mutual respect, that they honestly haven’t noticed the rather longer than strictly necessary passage of time since Obi-Wan and Anakin went to check on the twins and are also so involved in their conversation that they fail to take note of any of the lingering signs of what the two Jedi Bendu have been up to; perhaps because the Temple and the Force have shivered and shone with such violence in time to Obi-Wan and Anakin’s love; or perhaps because they present the jewel to their Padawan so soon after rejoining them that it distracts from any observations that Mace or Bail might have otherwise made: for whatever reason, no one says anything about the extra hour that the two men have taken for themselves, a fact for which they are both quite grateful, being more than a little tired after the discussion they’ve had. Bail does give them a half questioning and half worried look, after they first reappear, as if wondering if he should perhaps ask, but the gift of the gem catches him so completely off-guard and fills him with such uncomplicated joy that (fortunately enough) he apparently loses track of the thought.

The Temple seems oddly empty, considering how many Jedi must have already returned from the various battlefields and missions of the war, in response to the truce and the General Recall. Obi-Wan asks Mace about it and is told, with a small quirk of lips that might have gone unnoticed as a smile on anyone other than Mace Windu, that the residents of the Temple are in such awe of the famous Kenobi and Skywalker that they’re likely keeping as much as possible to their quarters. An odd mixture of rumors and truth have flooded the whole of the Temple since the revelation that none other than the Supreme Chancellor Palpatine himself was the mysterious Darth Sidious, and, according to the Korun Jedi, the various holos and audio recordings made of their confrontation and defeat of the Sith Lord, their confrontation with the High Council, and the assembly called for the entire Temple, afterwards, have only added to the level of near-reverence with which so many in the Temple now regard Anakin and Obi-Wan. The news doesn’t seem all that reassuring, to Obi-Wan, but Anakin, if anything, seems even more amused by it than Mace, and notes silently, along the bond, that it should, hopefully, help to make the Jedi more open to the changes they’ve made and are going to continue to make to the Order and the way that Jedi live and work and believe, as the ranks of the New Jedi Bendu Order swell and they continue to alter the way that Jedi Bendu are taught and expected to behave. Obi-Wan has to concede that he may be right, at that, but still isn’t particularly comfortable with the idea of having so many of his former fellows seem to be almost afraid of him, and he remains mostly silent as Mace picks the thread of the conversation he’d been having with Bail back up, explaining about how they’ve been getting some of the orphaned Padawans and older younglings who likely would have been chosen as Padawans by now (or else would’ve been being chosen in short order), if not for the war, together with the other younglings and new recruits, trying to help teach (and in some cases re-teach) them some of the basics of control, with the Force clean of the taint, now.

Destroying the dark taint of near-impenetrable foulness from the Force has made the presence of the Force suddenly seem to become superabundant, especially to those Jedi whose lives aren’t yet long enough to include a great deal of time working with the Force before the actions of the Sith and the growing suffering and darkness of the galaxy began to establish that poisonous pall between the Force and those sensitive to its energies. Younglings and Padawans who, before, were struggling to reach enough of the Force (without also permitting some of the foulness of that cancerous taint to enter and influence them) to be able to do simple things like levitating stones or gathering in enough energy from the Force to coordinate with the movements of their bodies for a Force-aided push or pull to allow them to exhibit the typically excessive (to the point of seeming impossible to nonJedi) agility and strength, in battle, rather abruptly found themselves able to (and in many cases actually accidentally proving their ability to) send boulders hurtling swiftly up through the air to ridiculous heights and to propel themselves and/or sparring opponents into (and, in a few painful cases, through) walls or ceilings, if they weren’t extremely careful. According to Mace, in the first three weeks alone following their cleansing of the Force, hundreds of these accidents (ranging in nature from the merely absurdly funny – including more than a few mistakes on his own part, which the Korun Jedi good-naturedly promises to tell them about sometime, when they need a good laugh – to the potentially fatally dangerous) have been observed, with easily dozens more likely going unreported by those responsible for them, either due to the abortive natures of such unintentionally overly powerful attempts to draw on the Force or the negligent effects such inadvertent mistakes have had on both those responsible for causing them and the immediate surrounding areas, or else out of simple embarrassment over such errors in judgment and slips of control.

In any case, irregardless of which mistakes have and have not been reported, the clone troopers responsible for the abortive attack on the Temple complex, in the wake of Sidious’ (mostly failed) attempt to issue Order Sixty-Six (the treacherous command to destroy all Jedi, Jedi learners, and obvious Jedi supporters, including those working closely enough with the Jedi to reside in the Coruscanti Temple), have been kept extremely busy while Obi-Wan and Anakin have been gone, helping to effect repairs to various areas of the Temple complex that have damaged by such over-enthusiastic uses of the Force, and the Temple’s Healers have similarly been keep busy, seeing to injuries (luckily, mostly minor, and even more fortunately all of them nonfatal, at least to date) inflicted during such accidents. Master Yoda, as one of the (pitifully) few remaining Jedi to have lived long enough to have at least initially grown and studied and existed within the embrace of a generally only moderately tainted Force, has also been kept extremely busy, with his experience in keeping control in the midst of so much readily available power being called upon constantly by the other Force-sensitive residents of the Temple. As Mace explains it, they have yet to see the diminutive former Grand Master and likely will not see him this day (or any other, unless they deliberately seek him out either during one of his many teaching periods or else far before or long after his teaching day is set to begin and end) precisely because of this, given that the ancient Jedi Master is currently scheduled for approximately fifteen hours of training classes – many of them geared towards the establishment of control for the kinds of Force-assisted tasks generally considered everyday abilities by the Jedi – every day of the week and will be keeping to this schedule for some time to come, at least until everyone who intends to obey the General Recall order has had a chance to do so and make their way home to the Temple.

It’s reassuring to know that so much of the training currently going on in the Temple is meant to help get everyone comfortable with the Force as it truly is, but Obi-Wan and Anakin are interested in far more than just what’s going on in one Temple, and so, when Mace seems to be done with his explanation, Obi-Wan helps Anakin bend the conversation away from the Temple and towards the way that they want the New Jedi Bendu to end up living in more praxeum-type enclaves, side-by-side with those who aren’t necessarily Force-sensitive and with no more separation of children from their families, so that there won’t be such a remove between the Jedi Bendu and the other sentient beings of the galaxy. Bail helps them by pressing how beneficial such an arrangement will be, noting how it should help negate most of the distressing lack of empathy and subsequent tendency to come to regard other beings as expendable pawns, rather than thinking, feeling individuals, that has, unfortunately, become a hallmark of many of the Jedi who have proven vulnerable to the lure of power that leads to the twisting of the Force so many call the Dark Side. Mace surprises them a little by acknowledging that he’s heard the Grand Masters speaking of the need for Jedi Bendu to not only have actual blood families but functional family units amongst themselves, as well – multigenerational clans of smaller, interconnected, bonded units whose members have all actually chosen to associate with and bond to one another, not just been arbitrary grouped together for purposes of teaching or classification according to their age or maturity or assumed ability – with the individual members of those Jedi Bendu families possessing multiple bonds of varying strength that will, hopefully, be strong enough to help keep all of their members safely centered and anchored in the Force, so that individuals should no longer be so vulnerable to the lure of the dark. He then surprises them even more by agreeing that it seems like a good idea, both to foster such bonds and to essentially reverse the Order’s stance on telepathy and empathy between those who share such bonds, since such a level of connection should let others within a specific family or clan know whenever one of its members is suffering or in need of reassurance or help letting go of a strong emotion that might otherwise fester into something dark and allow those others to respond in whatever manner would best help keep that individual being anchored in the Force.

Their explanation soon turns to a lively discussion of the ways in which such a network of bonds will function both like and unalike the network of minds bound together during such exercises of the Force as a full-fledged Battle Meditation or the kind of battle meld that can be accomplished through Force melds, Mace enthusiastically agreeing that such family-based melds will allow the Jedi Bendu within them to add their strength to each other and pool their resources so that those who are perhaps less Force-sensitive or not as obviously powerful as other will have little to no cause to feel inadequate, given that the potential collective power of even the smallest working units within a larger clan should be more than enough to allow such bonded couples to perform feats of strength equal to that of the more powerful single Knights of the old Order and speaking to them of the Four Pillars of the Korun culture – Honor, Duty, Family, Herd – which he believes might be considered applicable to such a system of clans. As Mace explains it, the First Pillar is Honor, an individual’s obligation to his or her or its self. According to the wisdom of this principle, the Korunnai teach their children to act with integrity, speak the truth, fight without fear, and love without reservation. Greater than this, though, is the Second Pillar, Duty, one’s obligation to others. This precept requires that each member of a ghôsh – the Korunnai word for both clan and community – do the job given to that person, work hard, obey the elders, and to always stand by the ghôsh. Greater still is the Third Pillar, Family. This doctrine instructs individuals of their responsibility to care for their parents, love their spouse, teach their children, and defend their blood. And greatest of all is the Fourth Pillar, Herd, for it is on the grasser herds that the life of the ghôsh depends. For the Korunnai, family is more important than duty, just as duty outweighs honor, but nothing is more important than the herd. If the well-being of the herd requires the sacrifice of personal honor, then that is what is done. If it requires an individual to shirk duty, then it is done. Whatever it takes, it is done. Even if it requires sacrificing family.

He explains to them how Yoda once observed that, even though Mace left Haruun Kal as an infant and, before returning there during the war to seek after Depa, returned to the planet only once, as a youth, to train in the Korun-style Force-bond formed with the world’s great akk dogs, to help mind and protect the grasser herds, the Four Pillars nevertheless appear to flow in Mace’s veins along with his Korun blood. Yoda has long believed that Honor and Duty are as natural to Mace as breathing, and that the only real difference his Jedi training has imparted is that the Jedi have become his Family, while the whole of the Republic functions as his Herd. Obi-Wan and Anakin trade meaningful looks at that, silently acknowledging that this is the one instance where the strictures of the old Jedi Order have, unfortunately, failed to coincide properly with the belief system held to by the Korunnai. It is not the Galactic Republic itself that Mace Windu should have come to consider his Herd, but rather the ideals of harmony, peace, justice, order, growth, democracy, and cooperation upon which the Republic was originally founded. It is the living will of the Force itself that should always have been considered the Herd of both the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic, and it is in this failure to understand the true sustenance, the lifeblood and support system, of both organizations that has, in part, led to the gradual disintegration of both bodies into chaos. The flaw isn’t in the actual system of rules as much as it is in the decision to equate a specific political organization and the importance of its preservation with the will of the Force and obedience to that will. The Korunnai assign the grasser herds and their akk watchers a preeminent position because the ghôsh clans and communities literally could not survive, much less exist in any kind of tranquility or state of possible growth with the natural world, without the source of nourishment and protection offered by these guarded herds.

Haruun Kal is not a soft or easy world to live on: humans quite simply cannot survive in the jungles of Haruun Kal without the Force and the akk-guarded grasser herds. Grassers, great six-limbed bovine behemoths, live by tearing down the jungle with their forehands and massive jaws, leaving behind grassy meadows in their wake, and it is in these cleared meadows that the Korunnai are able to establish and support themselves, in a relatively harmonious if precarious balance with the natural world. The constantly wandering grassers provide the Korunnai with respite from the jungle and a safe, steady source of nourishment, and the Korunnai, with their Force-bonded companions, the fierce akk dogs, in turn protect the herbivorous grassers from the dangers of the jungle. Thus, the Herd, for the Korunnai, truly is a living manifestation of the will of the Force. For the rest of the galaxy, though, things aren’t nearly so clear-cut or simple. While the Republic may technically be founded on principles that support not only the survival but the growth and healthful prosperity of numerous sentient species and their innumerable cultures and societies through peaceful cooperation and harmonious existence within the complex network of ties that make up the greater sphere of the galaxy, and the Jedi Order’s mandate may very well have originally been the cultivation of that cooperation, husbandry of that peaceful growth, and just protection of that healthful prosperity, as the Republic has, unfortunately, moved away from the more communal and selfless aspects of its ideology, the well-being and protection of all has come to be sacrificed more and more often upon the altar of individual greed and self-promotion. Meanwhile, the Order, in choosing to protect and serve the offices of the Republic rather than champion and ensure the needs and rights of its various peoples, has advanced from violating in spirit the root cause and justification for its very existence to an increasing amount of outright instances in which its mandate has been broken outright.

This is the danger that the Order failed to perceive, the mistaking of a certain system of government, with its trappings of order and justice and symbols of peace and prosperity, with the living will of the Force, the conflation of just one specific way of being, of seeking after both personal growth and balance with the greater whole of the surrounding galaxy and universe, with the only possible right path and methodology for such existence. And that is a blindness that the Sith and their ilk have cultivated and exploited, over and over and over again, for hundreds of thousands of years, to the point where all it so nearly took was the eventual infiltration of the highest circles of the government of the Galactic Republic by the Sith to bring the whole of it all – both Jedi Order and Galactic Republic – crashing down in ruins about their ears. If not for the timely discovery that Palpatine was Sidious, they would have been lost to the Sith Lord’s evil, and, while hope would have remained for the eventual defeat of that evil, it would have been at a tremendous cost, one almost too much for the galaxy to weather. The New Jedi Bendu cannot afford to repeat such a dangerous mistake. They cannot give their loyalty and power over blindly to a group of potentially power-hungry politicians who may only have the interests of themselves or their own small group of supporters in mind. They must be of the whole of the people, not at the beck and call of only those in power (and perhaps only in power because they have the money and influence to bully and buy their way into those seats of power). They may seek to honor the requests of the government and work within the bounds of its laws, but they cannot exist under the control of the government. The distinction may seem little more than a matter of semantics, but it is an important one, as important as the distinction between a specific form of government founded on ideals of peace and growth and harmony and the living will of the Force itself.

Mace Windu, though, hasn’t exactly had a reputation as the most receptive person in the Order, when it comes to matters touching on loyalty to the Republic, so it isn’t precisely in their best interests to attempt to broach this subject with the Korun Jedi, at least not at this particular juncture. Give the Grand Masters and Bail (and, hopefully, also individuals like Mon Mothma) some more time to work with the man and get him used to the idea of the Jedi Bendu working and existing out among the many different sentient beings of the galaxy and being separate from even while working with (and eventually, in the case of some individuals, even within) the new government, first. The Four Pillars and the basic progression of importance leading away from one’s duties towards the self and to more universal responsibilities to the greater whole and the Force itself are, indeed, likely to be of use, if for no other purpose than the easy illustration of a general rule of thumb that, while certainly able of being at least occasionally variable among its uppermost levels as the will of the Force alters and flows with each new situation as it arises in the greater embrace of the galaxy and the universe, just as surely should never be intentionally violated with no purpose but the exaltation of the personal, the selfish, above the communal and the universal. It will be an individual’s duty to the Force, though, and not the government of the New Alliance of the Republic, that will form the Fourth Pillar of the New Jedi Bendu Order. To seek to demand loyalty to another doctrine as the greatest of all possible necessities would be to eventually doom anything that they might seek to build. Mace Windu, though, does not need to know this quite yet, and so they use the Korunnai ghôsh as a way to guide the conversation back towards the concept of working in families or clans, skillfully turning the discussion until Mace thoughtfully peaks his hands and begins to ask them insightful questions about the new system they have in mind to replace the old progression of youngling to Padawan to Knight to Master.

They are about to address the issue when an unexpected interruption comes in the form of a familiar young Padawan, who enters the room – one of the smaller classrooms off to the side of one of the larger training salles – with his blond head bowed so far that it looks almost as if he’s offering his neck for a sacrificial blow.

“Padawan Malreaux?” Mace politely inquires as the teenaged boy quietly enters into the room, his tone of voice calm enough but his manner somehow nevertheless making it clear that the boy is trespassing where he is not currently wanted and should not be attempting to enter. “Is there something that we can do for you?”

“I apologize for my intrusion, Master Windu,” Whie Malreaux quietly replies, unbending his neck but keeping his gaze locking firmly on the floor before his feet. “A message has come from the Consuls to a communication center in the holocomm center of Jedi Command. The junior Consul requested that the message be given to Bendu Masters Kenobi and Skywalker, but she did not wish for them to be disturbed if they were working.”

“Oh?” Mace asks, tilting his head consideringly to one side and regarding the boy in that almost eerily calm and yet utterly focused way of his that so easily unnerves the faint of heart.

“Yes, Master. Junior Consul Mothma wished for the Bendu Masters to know that certain plans arrived at on Alderaan are in the process of being passed along to trustworthy allies among the Senate,” Whie simply quietly explains. “She said that she would surely end up earning her place among her family, but that she is confident this stage will be accomplished as it must, for the whole of the overall plan to succeed, and that the Bendu Masters would understand.”

Anakin can feel Obi-Wan’s amusement at the young Padawan’s excessive formality along the bond, and can’t help but remember how disheveled and openly glad to see them the boy had been, on Vjun, when he and Obi-Wan had arrived, ordered there (rather belatedly, unfortunately, or they might have been able to capture at least Ventress, if not Dooku) by the High Council to protect Yoda from whatever treachery Dooku and Asajj Ventress might have been planning to hatch, in luring the ancient, diminutive Grand Master out of the Temple (supposedly for a parlay with Dooku, who’d sent a message to his old mentor indicating that he found his loyalties to the Separatists and the Dark Side wavering and wished to come back to the Order, if he would still be welcome there). That had been over half a year ago – closer to a full year now than only half of one, in fact – and, though the then barely thirteen-year-old Padawan and his slightly older, red-haired fellow apprentice, Tallisibeth Enwandung-Esterhazy (better known as Scout), had both been orphaned by Ventress during the course of the operation, the two teens had nevertheless performed admirably on the mission, so much so that, in the aftermath, Yoda had taken them both under his wing, continuing their training and pledging himself to be their mentor until such a time as new Masters might be found for them both. Whie and Scout had made such a favorable impression on them in the short time they spent together, on the way back to the Temple, that Anakin and Obi-Wan had been very glad to hear of Yoda taking such an interest in the orphaned Padawans, having feared that they might be sent to the Agri-Corps for the simple reason that it was beginning to appear unlikely that there would be enough Masters left to go around by the time the Clone Wars finally came to an end. So it’s good to see Whie again now, looking and sounding every bit the proper young Padawan learner, even if he appears to be suffering from a sudden attack of bashfulness, judging by the way he keeps studiously looking only at Mace.

“You know, you can look at us and talk to us directly when you’re passing on a message meant for us, small fry,” Anakin points out, smiling in amusement over Whie’s apparent shyness. “Obi-Wan and I won’t bite.”

“Yes, Bendu Master Skywalker,” Whie politely acknowledges, bowing in Anakin’s direction in apparent agreement and compliance with Anakin’s suggestion without ever quite raising his gaze to Anakin.

“Padawan, is something wrong?” Obi-Wan asks, a little concerned by Whie’s obvious reluctance to look at them.

“No, Bendu Master Kenobi!”

Obi-Wan frowns, not at all reassured by Whie’s response, which to him seems a little too hasty and a little too vehement to ring entirely true. “Then look at us.”

The boy’s shoulders hunch inwards as he desperately looks everywhere else in the room except at Obi-Wan and Anakin. “Master?”

“He said to /look at us/, Whie!” Anakin snaps, unsettled enough by Obi-Wan’s growing concern and the teen’s unusual reticence to make it a command, the Force in his voice jerking the blond boys head up quickly enough to set the Padawan braid to swaying by his ear.

The teenager’s blue eyes are wide and frightened as his head automatically snaps up and around to bring his gaze over to where Obi-Wan and Anakin are standing together by one of the room’s control tables, leaning against its slightly taller than waist-high (even for Anakin) bulk, Anakin’s left arm slung companionably around Obi-Wan’s waist, Obi-Wan’s right hand resting lightly on the hand Anakin has curled around the leather of his belt. He shies back a little as he meets their gazes, his hand drifting across the hilt of his lightsaber as his eyes shift from Obi-Wan to Anakin, and Obi-Wan instantly comes to glaring attention, drawing and igniting his lightsaber in a protective stance in one smooth, sure motion. “/Don’t/ try it!”

A flinch backward from the swift blur of Obi-Wan’s motion brings the lightsaber up into the boy’s hand, but the whip-crack of command in Obi-Wan’s voice makes him hurl the weapon away from him, violently enough that Anakin automatically reaches out to the Force to catch the hilt rather than let it crash into a wall and bounce back hard enough to possibly strike someone. The boy gives a strangled cry as the hilt of his weapon comes to rest in Anakin’s right hand, his eyes so dilated that they appear black, and curls in on himself as if he’s been injured, clutching at his chest as if at a wound. Then, while Obi-Wan is still blinking at him in surprise over that, he quite suddenly hurls himself to the floor, practically diving at it in his haste to prostrate himself, the position the same as the one Qui-Gon took during his first conversation alone with Obi-Wan, after the Force spirit (with Dooku at his side) made himself known to Obi-Wan and Anakin again – a posture of absolute submission and utter supplication, not just kneeling down but actually completely prostrate before the two of them, Whie’s forehead pressing so tightly against the floor that it looks at if it should hurt, hands flat against the floor off to either side of his head – except for the lightsaber currently held in Anakin’s right hand, instead of placed in front of the boy on the floor. Whie shivers once, convulsively, his entire body jittering violently against the floor, and then goes very still, so still that Obi-Wan has thumbed off his lightsaber and is about to rush to the boy’s side when he finally begins to speak, a soft, oddly choked sounding rush of words. “Forgive me, Masters, I didn’t mean to see! I would unlearn the knowledge if I could! I can’t control the dreams when they come – the visions come when they come, and never when I’m awake. And I thought – I thought I wanted to see, I thought that I needed to see, I was so afraid that the dream meant I was going to turn to the Dark Side! I’m sorry! If I were stronger, if I were a better person, I wouldn’t have wanted to know so badly, and perhaps the vision, the dream, wouldn’t have come, and I – I – I wouldn’t – k-know – ” Despite the way Whie’s face is smashed against the floor, there comes an audible sound of breath then, with a painful hitch at the end as if the not quite fourteen-year-old boy were trying very hard not to cry. When he speaks again, after several long moments in which the only sound is his increasingly labored breathing, his voice is so muffled that it sounds almost as if he were being suffocated. “Please, /please/, don’t be angry! I haven’t told anyone – not even Scout!”

Obi-Wan and Anakin trade a dismayed look of helpless bafflement. Halfway around the chamber, perched on an oversized desk meant for a Wookiee student so tall that he’s been able to swing his swing his legs without letting his feet touch the ground (an action that has made him look oddly almost childlike), Bail goes very still, eyes wide in shock. He makes as if too move, as though to slide down to his feet and rush across to the distraught boy, but Mace swiftly crosses the distance between them, placing a restraining hand on Bail’s right arm and silently shaking his head, sending Obi-Wan and Anakin a significant look that leaves no doubt as to just whom the Korun expects to deal with this.

Anakin gives a mental groan and somehow manages to refrain from either dropping his head down into his hands or finding something (preferably good-sized and heavy) to throw at the former second-in-command of the Jedi Order. / (preferably good-sized and heavy) to throw at the former second-in-command of the Jedi Order. Oh, great! Looks like we’ve been volunteered to resolve this. I don’t suppose you have /any /idea whatsoever what he’s going on about, do you? /he rather plaintively asks along the bond, eyes almost comically wide with distress.

Obi-Wan, unfortunately, frowns and helplessly shakes his head, clipping his lightsaber hilt back to his belt. I’m afraid not, although . . . I seem to recall Master Leem saying something about him having visions when he slept that would come true, later.

Visions? What, you mean like actual far-sight visions and not just – ?

Anakin. Calm yourself. I’m fairly certain Sidious had no contact with Padawan Malreaux and likely didn’t even know about the boy. Whie is much too young to have reached his notice.

Alright, alright! So Sidious probably wasn’t messing with his head. What’s he so upset about, then? What could he have possibly seen to’ve – ? Oh. Oh./ Oh, this may not be good . . . /

Obi-Wan turns a look of wary curiosity on him, at that. What are you thinking, Anakin?

Whie said something to me, on Vjun, after we all caught up to each other. I didn’t really understand it, at the time, but I thought it had something to do with the fact that he’d managed to survive another run-in with Ventress. Do you remember? He said –

– “I’m so glad you’re not coming to kill me!” Great stars! You don’t think –

I do. He mentioned being afraid his vision meant he was going to fall to the Dark Side. A Jedi’s lightsaber would have struck him down, in the assault on the Temple, if Sidious had won. He’s seen me, in that other timeline. What else could explain this kind of distress? He’s in love with Scout – I saw the way he looked at her, on Vjun – and if he hasn’t told her, it’s got to be because he’s afraid of somehow getting her in trouble, on top of just being scared. Whie isn’t exactly timid – he faced down Ventress more than once, going by the way Master Yoda talked about that mission to try to get to Dooku. He has to have seen me. Nothing else makes sense.

Do you want me to – ?

No. I’ll do it. This is my mess. Anakin sighs silently, wishing (not for the first time) that he could convince himself that he wouldn’t simply look as if he’s mimicking one of Obi-Wan’s more familiar gestures if he put a hand up and pinched at the bridge of his nose to relieve the pressure he feels growing in his head, threatening a headache. Stepping forward until the toes of his boots are a little less than the width of his palm from Whie’s fingertips, he sighs again, this time not quite soundlessly, and crouches down low to the ground, thankful for effortless balance when, after switching the hilt of the Padawan’s deactivated lightsaber to his other hand in order to place his right hand gently on Whie’s shoulder, the teenagers shudders convulsively against the floor again, so violently that it almost rocks him back on his heels. “Whie – no, wait, don’t do that, you’re going to split your forehead open if you keep digging it in like that – it’s alright. No one is mad at you. Honestly. Here, look up at me – no, Padawan, don’t do that, you’ll split the skin – I’m not going to hurt you. Here, come on, now, I’ve got your lightsaber, look up here –/ Whie!/ Stop doing that or you’ll break the skin, and I’ll pick you up and sling you over a shoulder and carry you down to the Healers’ Wing and get Bant to give you such a scolding that you’ll start running in the other direction every time you see her coming down a hallway towards you!” An impression of a muffled snort of laughter along the bond makes Anakin mentally send Obi-Wan a dirty look. He would have turned around to actually shoot Obi-Wan a narrow-eyed look of utter unamusement, but Whie has gone so utterly still against the floor that it looks as if the boy has forgotten to breathe, and it worries him enough that he reaches out into the Force, instead, just to try to get a feel for what’s going through the teenager’s head so he’ll know what in the uncounted stars to try saying next, since his attempts at reassurance only seem to have made the orphaned Padawan even more upset than before. Quietly, soothingly, in as understanding a voice as possible, he continues to speak, noting, “If the Force wished for you to have a true vision, then there was nothing that you could have done to keep from seeing it. Whatever you saw, no matter what it was, no one is going to blame you for having seen it. Least of all me. I’d be the last one who could say anything about visions. I’m not going to get mad at you over whatever you saw. I promise, alright? Come on, small fry, work with me here. I thought we were getting along pretty well, by the time we got back to the Temple from Vjun. I’m going to start thinking you were just being nice to me because of that silly Hero With No Fear nonsense. And that’ll hurt my feelings. You don’t want to hurt my feelings, do you?”

Persistence pays off. The trembling Padawan murmurs against the polished parquet of the hardwood floor, almost inaudibly, “N-no . . . but you don’t know what I’ve seen.”

“No, but I can take a good guess, from the way you’re acting. You saw me become the Sith Lord’s tool, didn’t you?” Anakin asks, carefully keeping his voice calm, level, and as soft as possible (without making it quiet enough that anyone in the room would have to actively strain to hear it) to keep from spooking the teenager any further, whose anguish and fear are practically palpable in the Force, eddying and swirling around the boy with so much strength that Anakin finds himself mentally reassessing just how strong in the Force White Malreaux actually is. The way the Padawan is affecting the Force around him, Anakin would guess that he’s going to be about on a level with former Council Master Ki-Adi-Mundi in another handful or so of years, and the realization startles him for some reason (perhaps because Whie has, until so recently, been just another one of the eager, shining young faces down in the Temple crèche and youngling dormitories and Ki-Adi-Mundi had, in the wake of Jabiim, been singled out by the Council as a suitable replacement for Obi-Wan as Anakin’s Master). He puts the surprise away, though, for a time when he’ll be able to give it more attention and thought than he can currently afford to spare at the moment. The noise Whie makes in answer to his declaration isn’t so much agreement as it is simply a vocalization of irrepressible pain, but Anakin takes it for an acknowledgment and pushes on, telling him again, “It’s alright. Really, it is. I know all about what happened, in pretty much every possible branching of that other timeline, where Senator Amidala didn’t die during the attack on Coruscant and Obi-Wan and I weren’t given enough of a jolt to figure out who the Sith Lord was. Obi-Wan’s had several far-sight visions recently, and he’s shared them with me, so I know what I did, at least most of the time. I kept seeing Senator Amidala suffering and dying in childbirth, like I’d seen my mom suffering and dying too late to realize I was seeing her future, and I was desperate to save her. And Obi-Wan wasn’t here. In every branching where Obi-Wan wasn’t here when the Supreme Chancellor let slip enough of the truth that I finally figured it out and I wasn’t allowed to comm him and speak to him after I knew what Palpatine really was, I fell far enough that the Temple ended up burning. That place you were clutching, along your chest, I cut you there, didn’t I? You were sparring with Padawan Bene, weren’t you? I think . . . yes, the two of you were always sparring, either in or just off of the Room of Thousand Fountains. What were you doing, sparring in a place like that, anyway? Trying to short out your ’sabers, falling in a fountain? Or no, wait, Master Drallig was with you, wasn’t he? I suppose he was trying to get the two of you more used to fighting under less than ideal conditions. The Troll would’ve made students practice in storms and fire and Force alone only knows what all else, if he could’ve.”

“Always be prepared. The unexpected is one of the only constants, on missions.” The whisper is little more than a half-swallowed breath of noise, but Anakin finds himself smiling, encouraged by the paraphrasing of the speech Cin Drallig’s has become (in)famous for giving to each new classes of Padawan learners he began to instruct, as the Order’s Battlemaster.

“That certainly sounds like Master Drallig.”

“I – I think it was supposed to be a distraction. From the lockdown of the Temple.”

“That sounds very likely. He would’ve wanted to keep you all too busy to worry. Worry is counterproductive. It distracts needlessly. Battles have been lost for less. Of course, there wasn’t much that could’ve been done, once the battle became inevitable,” Anakin admits, grimacing. “The Sith’ari is strong enough to be mistaken for the Chosen One. And there was the 501st and the element of surprise. If Obi-Wan wasn’t here, the Temple didn’t have a chance. Even along the few probable branchings where there wasn’t an outright slaughter, the Temple itself burned. Always. Sidious would have seen to it, even if I hadn’t been able to do it. He wanted the Temple desecrated, razed, the symbol of all it stood for destroyed in the eyes and minds of everyone.”

Whie’s head and shoulders finally come up, at that, the boy pushing away from the floor enough to raise a tear-streaked face up towards him. “And you – you – you helped him!”

The anguished cry knifes through him as effortlessly as a lightsaber through the heart, and Anakin shudders, utterly miserable with the knowledge that Whie is right, his voice dropping to a pained whisper as he admits, “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t – I wasn’t myself.”

“The Temple – all of us – your home, you family!/ Why?/”

Even though he’s expecting it, the boy’s wailing question hurts him so badly that Obi-Wan starts to take a step towards them, concern and a fierce protectiveness that, oddly enough, feels almost like outrage for Anakin’s sake (as if he were actually angry with the teenager for asking such a question) flooding the bond. Anakin is forced to reach back along the bond, to keep Obi-Wan from charging in to “rescue” him from Whie, not because he particularly wants to be having this conversation (he doesn’t!) or is foolish enough to feel as if he owes it to the Padawan, but because he can feel, through the Force, that this is important, somehow. He need to do this, to explain this to Whie. (He can’t tell why, but he has an inkling of the reason, based on the sudden realization of just how potentially strong in the Force Whie is and will be.) Sadly, he sighs and holds out the boy’s lightsaber again, keeping his face carefully blank so as to not reveal his pain when Whie snatches it out of his hands as though grabbing a baby from a monster. Not bothering to try to hide the sorrow in his voice, Anakin tells him, “This isn’t my home, Whie, and the Jedi have never been my family. My home is with Obi-Wan. He’s my family I thought he’d deserted me, turned on me, taken the only other person I had who was my ally, my friend, like family to me, away from me. I wanted to save Padmé, and Master Yoda had made it clear that he had no interest in trying to save the life of the person I’d been having visions about suffering and dying. He wanted me to learn how to let go. And I didn’t want to do that. I thought I’d had to let go of too many people already. I wasn’t willing to let Padmé go, too. I wanted to save her. I thought I’d die, if I didn’t save her. And I thought I needed Palpatine to do it. He’d convinced me he could keep her from dying and would teach me how to use the techniques his Darth Plagueis the Wise had come up with, for influencing midi-chlorians and preserving life, so I could save her, if only I’d do what he wanted. I thought I could pretend to obey him until I could save her, and that I’d be able to kill him and be the hero for everyone, afterwards. He only seemed to want to end the war. I didn’t realize the war was only happening in the first place because of him. I didn’t realize a lot of things. I wasn’t thinking very clearly. I couldn’t sleep, for all the nightmares, and it was starting to make me imagine things that weren’t there, that weren’t really true. And he was doing it all, encouraging it all, sending the dreams and calling on me all the time, so he could influence me and shape me into a better tool for his ambitions with his words, and his thoughts, and his power. I was alone, with Obi-Wan sent after Grievous, and I had no shields against him. I trusted him, Whie. It’s no excuse, I know, but that’s how it happened. And why. I just – I never thought to shield myself from Palpatine. I honestly thought he was my friend, that he was the only person left in the world who believed in me and wanted to help me, even if only to get me on his side. I don’t know how many years he’d spent, by then, worming his way into my mind and my soul and corrupting me, bending me, just a little at a time, just enough that I’d be more willing to listen to him and believe him and do whatever he wanted but not change enough that anyone would make the connection between my mood-swings and him. I just – I trusted him/, Whie. I was stupid and naive, and /I trusted him. When I found out what he was, I felt betrayed, but I was so desperate I didn’t think I could turn away from him. With Master Windu and his entire task force dead, I thought I had no other options, but to pretend to go along, pretend to obey. I couldn’t see a way out. Obi-Wan . . . sometimes he reached me enough or in time, before I became so afraid that I stopped listening to anyone or anything else but the fear, but even so, it would have been too late for you and the Temple. I’m sorry, Whie. I know it’s not anything like enough to make this any better, but I am sorry. I failed you – all of you. Obi-Wan still would have brought balance to the Force through me, regardless of anything I might have done, but it would have been too late for all of you. And it would’ve been my fault. Mine. I’m so sorry, Padawan. You have no idea how sorry I am. You don’t – you have no idea what I did, how many terrible things I did, in that other timeline, when Sidious claimed what was left of me from Mustafar and I stayed with him. I’m never going to be able to forget what I did, in the times I stayed with him. I know it didn’t really happen, but it so nearly did that I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to really forgive myself completely. Force knows I wouldn’t blame you if you never did. Just – just don’t hate me, Whie. Don’t hurt yourself with hate, on my account. I’m not worth that. Don’t like me, don’t trust me, just don’t – don’t hate me, Padawan, alright? I don’t want to be the cause for any more evil. And hate, like fear, is a cancer of evil that’ll eat you alive, if you let it, until there’s basically nothing at all left of the person you were, and you’ll have transformed into what you most hate and fear. Don’t – don’t do that, because of me. /Don’t let hatred have you/.” The breath Anakin draws in is ragged and shaky, but the hand that Obi-Wan comes over to place on his shoulder, leaning over to grasp him in a warm, solid grip of silent solidarity, gives him enough strength to blink back the tears he feels threatening to rise up and spill out of him. The look Whie turns up to him – half incredulous, clearly insulted hurt and half confusion – helps, too. “You deserve better than that kind of end, small fry,” he adds, smoothing away the confusion until only the look of surprised indignation remains, the feeling so strong that it even begins to eclipse Whie’s fearful agony.

“I wouldn’t go Dark over something like this/! You – you and Master Kenobi unmasked and defeated Sidious!” Whie’s gaze flicks up towards Obi-Wan, and whatever he sees in the Bendu Master’s face is enough to make him quail just enough to lose the edge of building anger in his voice and manner. He visibly deflates, even as he pushes up from the floor enough to assume a seated, cross-legged position. Quietly, with the barest hint of a tremor in his voice, he adds, “I /try to be a good person, Master Skywalker. Honestly, I do. I just – I don’t know what to do/. I don’t know how I’m supposed to react to this. I don’t want to say or do the wrong thing. I – I know what you did, not just what you could have done. The two of you saved us. You saved us all. I don’t – I don’t want to take away from that. I don’t want to make any trouble. Just – it’s just that I – I – I don’t understand /why you would’ve done it, and I – I – I don’t know what to do with this knowledge!” he cries, the final few words emerging at a volume and pitch somewhere between frustrated shout and a desperate wail.

Anakin puts his right hand back on Whie’s shoulder (the hand having been shaken off earlier, when the young Padawan moved enough to reach out and snatch his proffered lightsaber back), and, encouraged by the fact that the teenager sags against the hand, tiredly but trustingly, instead of flinching back, squeezes gently, telling him, “Take it as a lesson. And a test of your character. Don’t let it tie you up in knots, like this. And don’t keep it to yourself. Tell your girl Scout about it. She seems to have her head on straight. She can help you with this, if you let her.”

“But – but – you – I – ”

Anakin cuts him off before his painful stammering can degenerate any further. “Whie. It won’t be a secret. What I would have done. It’s going to be a teaching lesson on the power of love and the danger of attempting to do too much alone, among other things, and a cautionary tale, of sorts, on the very real horrors that can and will follow, if you not only give in but choose to blindly embrace fear and anger. You really don’t need to act like you’re afraid of spilling a state secret that’ll get you killed. It’s not exactly going to be a secret – not within the Jedi Bendu Order, anyway. Besides, you and Scout are good kids. You helped keep Master Yoda safe, so he could get back to the Temple in one piece, and you didn’t let Asajj Ventress get to you. I think you’re both trustworthy.”

Whie looks for a moment as if he were about to cry, but then determination seems to set in, and his shoulders square themselves, his chin tilting up, and he returns Anakin’s gaze directly, his blue eyes becoming resolute and calm. “I won’t disappoint you, Master. Either of you. Scout and I will prove worthy of your trust.”

“You’ll do more than that. Both of you,” Obi-Wan abruptly declares, his voice sounding strange and curiously flat, as though coming from an odd remove, all of its warmth and cultured personality leached out as if by a combination of distance and a faulty connection, the sense of detachment permeating it letting Anakin know that Obi-Wan has just seen something, the Force giving him a glimpse of the most probable futures surrounding the two teens. “But there will be time enough for all of those things later. I’m sure you have studies that need attending to now.”

“Yes, Bendu Master Kenobi,” Whie agrees, his voice taking on the more serenely sure cadence of a Jedi as he bows his head, as if in acknowledgment of an order.

Do I need to know what you saw, just now, before I send him out of here?

Not particularly, no. I’ll tell you later, love. You may just want to keep in mind that Scout apparently has an extremely strong maternal instinct and is very good with children, Obi-Wan silently replies along the bond.

Anakin sends a wave of calm acceptance back along the bond and then pushes himself to his feet, placing his other hand on Whie’s right shoulder so he can draw the boy up with him without being in danger of hauling painfully on just one the thin joint. He lets go, flicking at the teen’s Padawan braid (on the left side, opposite of where Anakin and Obi-Wan had both worn their braids, the braid either having been moved out of respect for his fallen Master, Maks Leem, or else placed there by the female Gran to indicate the placement of the braid not for herself as a Padawan – Gran being hairless – but however many generations back one might have to go along the direct line of Masters to Padawans to find a Padawan with hair enough for such a braid who was responsible, if at a remove, for the training of Master Leem and therefore of Whie Malreaux. Anakin isn’t entirely sure which, though he’s certain Obi-Wan could tell him, as Obi-Wan has an eye for many small but telling variants in traditions passed along down specific Master to Padawan to Master to Padawan lines) lightly with his right hand, after one more reassuring squeeze to those thin but firmly squared shoulders. “Obi-Wan’s right. It’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Go ahead and see Scout, if you can, or else talk to her later. We’ve kept you here long enough. Thank you for delivering the message, though. Obi-Wan and I know what Mon’s talking about and we appreciate being told about her progress.”

“Of course, Master,” Whie murmurs, bowing towards him and then turning slightly to bow at Obi-Wan at well before, with a smile, turning to slip back out of the room, smiling at them gratefully as he goes.

Perhaps a minute after his departure, when he should be far enough away to not be able to overhear him, Obi-Wan sighs and quietly notes, “Well, /that /was interesting.”

“Indeed,” Mace declares, his deep voice almost startling in the quiet of the room. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but by chance am I supposed to know what it was that you were just discussing with Padawan Malreaux?”

Obi-Wan and Anakin trade another look – this one considering, rather than confused – as Anakin shifts over to the side and backwards a little until he can curl his right arm around Obi-Wan’s waist. Obi-Wan tilts his head ever so slightly, as if in agreement or to grant permission, and Anakin shrugs slightly before, with a sigh, starting to explain, noting, “Well, you see, there was a very specific outcome that Darth Sidious was working towards, with this war, and his plans involved me a great deal. We know what he wanted to have happen because of Obi-Wan’s far-sight visions. Basically, if Padmé hadn’t died when she did, things would have begun to go downhill fairly rapidly after our /rescue/,” Anakin spits the word out contemptuously, obviously still upset over the Sith Lord’s manipulatory staging of his capture, “of the supposedly kidnaped Supreme Chancellor. And then later on, when the Council decided to split the Team up and send Obi-Wan after Grievous, alone, things would’ve started to spiral wildly out of control . . . ”

***

Mace Windu seems stunned by the knowledge that Anakin could have become the Sith Lord Sidious’ new apprentice. He takes it a little better than they might’ve expected, all things considered (and certainly appears to have an easier time sorting out whether or not he should let this new information alter his thinking or his feelings towards Anakin than Whie did, most likely because he has lived long enough to experience the dark lure of the kind of insanity found in the utterly unrestrained embracement of one’s anger, one’s fear), but appears to fixate slightly on the knowledge that, in most of the possible branchings of this other timeline, he essentially doomed the Temple to destruction and most of the known galaxy to being taken over and made a part of the Sith Lord’s Empire when he first refused to allow Anakin to try to contact Obi-Wan, then ordered Anakin to stay behind when he organized a group of Jedi to go and arrest Sidious (thus keeping him from witnessing the vindictive, ruthless, manipulatory manner of the Sith’s deadly response to their attempt to enter his inner office and inform him of his arrest – something which, in more than one of the possible branchings of that timeline, had been horrifying enough to keep Anakin from falling completely under the Sith Lord’s spell), and then attempted to command him to help him kill Sidious, appealing to Anakin’s supposed status as the Chosen One and as a Jedi, when Anakin had shown up regardless, instead of trying to get him to help Mace capture the Sith or taking the time to read the shatterpoints around the conflicted Jedi so he would’ve known to speak of Anakin’s commitment to Obi-Wan instead of to the Order and of Obi-Wan’s trust in and expectations of him under such circumstances (something which could have still tipped the balance away from Anakin’s [mostly willing] fall, to the point where he would have either fled the battle back to the Temple on Mace’s orders and organized a hasty exodus of its inhabitants or else would have had to be captured and tortured by Sidious and threatened with the loss of both Padmé and Obi-Wan before he would have turned).

Anakin, in an unbelievably odd turn of events, is trying to reassure Mace that what most likely would have happened in that other timeline isn’t the Korun’s fault (or at least isn’t solely his fault) and looking more than a little rattled by the need to argue with him about it, when Bail surprises them all by speaking out, abruptly raising his voice to cut through the argument, asking in somewhat acerbic tone, “Does it really matter all that much whose fault it would or not have been? It didn’t happen. Surely we have more important things to discuss the proper assignment of blame for a series of events that didn’t even occur and which have no chance whatsoever of ever occurring now. I would’ve thought that Master Windu would be more interested in the plans that Mon Mothma referred to so obliquely in her message than this!”

Anakin, grateful for the rescue, shoots Bail a thankful smile, while Mace looks abashed and inclines his head to Bail, like a shame-faced youngling caught in the midst of some act of mischief and accepting a much deserved chiding rebuke from a disappointed Master. “Of course. It is a rather moot point, at this juncture. The knowledge is simply somewhat . . . overwhelming,” Mace admits, a disquiet frown momentarily furrowing his forehead before he turns his gaze away from Bail and back towards Obi-Wan and Anakin. “Are these rather mysterious sounding plans something I should be concerned about?”

Anakin starts to answer, notices the feeling of guardedness along the bond, as if Obi-Wan isn’t sure how Mace will react to the plans and therefore isn’t entirely certain he needs to know about them yet, and shrugs and smiles instead, vaguely noting, “Oh, it’s just more of the usual – plans for uniting the people, for bringing peace to the galaxy, for letting more people know that the Order’s changing, so they’ll know to arrange for testing, if they want to try to join.”

Mace steeples his fingers together again and tilts his head to the side, the slightly narrow-eyed look he gives Anakin plainly declaring that he knows that Anakin is deliberately avoiding truly answering the question, but before he can quite manage to open his mouth to say something to that effect, a shiver in the Force announces the arrival of yet another interruption.

It shouldn’t be possible for Force spirits to stagger. Qui-Gon and Dooku both manage to do so, quite spectacularly, as they appear in the center of the room, by virtue of the fact that they are no longer immaterial.

They have apparently mastered the trick of creating new bodies for themselves . . . just in time to attacked, dragged through an extremely noisome swamp backwards (by their hair, from the looks of things, though there is so little of Qui-Gon’s hair left that it is hard to say for sure), and had someone attempt to set the hems of their robes and the soles of their boots on fire.

In short, they both look a right mess.

Obi-Wan blinks at them, startled, almost not recognizing his former Master with his hair hacked off at the base of the neck and his face weirdly smooth, too surprised to even ask.

Anakin does it for him, breathing out a shaky curse in a voice so low that not even Obi-Wan can quite catch it before exclaiming, “Great star! What in the name of the Force happened to you two?”

“We seem to have a problem,” Dooku replies, panting a little as he leans heavily against Qui-Gon, clutching what appears to be a broken or burned (or perhaps both) left arm protectively close to his body, so much mud and vegetable matter caked in his hair that it’s impossible to see what color it is beneath the filth – whether the (falsely pure) snowy white of Count Dooku of Serenno or the glossy jet black of Jedi Master Dooku.

Mace is the first to recover, this time. “And?” he asks, in the same utterly calm and yet completely focused fashion that has spooked and intimidated guilty-minded beings all over the known galaxy for the past three decades and more.

“We . . . have a new enemy,” Qui-Gon wheezes, shuddering slightly, before silently folding up and collapsing against his former Master, only the weight of Dooku’s one good arm around him keeping him from falling face-first into the floor.

***