The Force Always Says Yes [Star Wars]

[BC1]

There is plenty to fear and hate even when completely confident you are immortal. People are hardly going to become less annoying and problematic as the decades go by.

And I really don't agree with the idea that fear of death is an actual important drive. You should be doing whatever you want with your time, for whatever reasons you like, regardless of whether your time is limited.

Click to shrink...

Counterpoint, look at Darth Plagueis. His obsession with immortality and wanting to focus on it left him to become complacent and put far too much trust and power into Darth Sidious which led to his ignoble death.

 

[Hyenanon]

Chapter 45: I'm...I'm Sorry​

At the far end of the hangar, a yellow blade stabbed through a wall, and traced an impossibly quick and perfect square. The durasteel fell, revealing a series of holes cut through several rooms, and Arwain on the other side. Her hair was coming undone from its bun and her face was gaunt with shock and grief, but she ran regardless, crossing the distance by the time the robotic voice told them they had 30 seconds to leave.

Wordlessly, Arwain grabbed Nerim's arm and dragged him up the boarding ramp, and it shut behind them. The ship raised and then rocketed forward, and by the time Nerim had made it to the cockpit, he felt a rumbling thrum throughout the ship. A back-facing camera displayed on the dashboard confirmed that the station behind them was a smoldering wreck, imploding in on itself and melting in its entirety until it formed one gigantic ball of molten slag. He saw flashing trails as a handful of ships entered hyperspace away from the wreck.

"...What do we do?" Nerim asked.

"We can't pursue them all," Arwain said soberly, her throat tight. "The most important thing is to return the information we've gathered back to the Order. Back to Saarkane, to get Tetha on her ship, and then we go back to Coruscant."

Tetha steered them around dangerous debris. Now, Nerim noticed as he finally had time to scan their environment, he saw it. It was nearly invisible, only really noticeable through the lack of starlight. The station orbited a rogue planet, a perfectly black circle which blocked out the light of the stars behind it. Tetha turned slightly, keeping her eyes out front as she spoke. "We have no starcharts, it's not safe to jump."

"I can get us to the hyperlane," Arwain reassured her. "On my mark. Bearing..." She began listing off numbers Nerim only half-understood and didn't have half the energy necessary to comprehend. The ship smoothly changed direction, pointing its nose towards a particular patch of sky.

Nerim looked down, and found his grip still tight on his lightsaber hilt. He took a deep breath, and returned it to his belt, noticing the shards of glass still embedded in his robes. He stood up and left, plodding through The Wellspring as if it had become an alien environment in the last few minutes. He took off the crinkling robe and stored it, trying not to track any more broken glass through the ship. The rooms were still just as bright, the plants still just as vibrant. It was only he that had lost vitality.

He leaned against the wall as he felt the snap to hyperspace, and then slid down it, sitting on the floor of the storage room aimlessly as tears rolled down his face. After a moment, a mouse droid rolled through the room and gently bumped into him. "Analysis indicates dehydration. Tea?" It offered. Nerim vaguely shrugged, and a tube popped out of the top of the droid, along with a cup, and the drink was quickly made.

He took the drink and quietly thanked the droid as it rolled away. He took a sip and then stood up, moving back towards the cockpit. The ship snapped out of hyperspace as he entered, The Wellspring's drives so smooth that his drink didn't even spill.

Saarkane lay in front of them, and he felt Tetha let loose a breath of relief. "Alright, the computers know where we are now. I think..." She tapped the monitor, and frowned. "Mm, no. Navigation computers still not responding. It's almost like it's frozen on...what day is it?"

"Sithspit, it's the slice," Arwain cursed, her hands balling into fists. "It's dumped all the data from the past week. It hasn't even logged where we just were."

"...So we won't be able to find our way back for an investigation," Tetha said evenly, without a hint of emotion. And then slammed her fist on the console.

Nerim wiped his face with his sleeve. "We can contact a control tower and have them guide us to a landing in Saarkane's capital again."

Arwain took a deep breath and nodded. "That's my student, always looking forward. Okay, we'll—"

The comms crackled to life, without even a prompt to accept the call. A hologram appeared on the dashboard of a Jedi Master that Nerim recognized from the High Council, an Anomid named Jahl Vocta. As an Anomid, he had no vocal chords, but a metallic mask akin to a droid's vocabulator, which produced a booming, low voice. "Master Arwain."

Arwain stood up, letting the projector lock onto her. "Hello," she said flatly, tiredly.

"The Council sensed catastrophe, and because I was already in the area, they bid me to join this...mission. And yet, I sense I am too late to help."

"Grand Master Fae Coven is...gone," Arwain said quietly, avoiding the word 'dead' like a plague.

"I know," he rumbled. "We must return to Coruscant."

"Yes. I will land on Saarkane and—"

"We must return to Coruscant now," he insisted.

Arwain's jaw clenched. "The Wellspring's navigation computers are inoperable. We need maintenance."

"I can sense the issue. I will broadcast directly from The Perpetual," he said, gesturing broadly to his own ship. Nerim saw it distantly out of the cockpit window, a large triangular frigate of white and red. "It will bypass your locked up systems through remote control."

Her fists clenched tighter. "I have an unrelated party onboard who must be returned to S—"

"Arwain," Master Jahl cut her off. Coordinates arrived on the computer console with a ding. "We are going to Coruscant."

There was a tense, low rumbling in the air as Arwain glared past the hologram at the ship out of the window. Then she let go of her breath. "Okay."

"Assuming control," Jahl Vocta said, as the controls in front of Tetha began to move on their own. A moment later, the hyperdrive spooled up once more, and they snapped to lightspeed.

Tetha swiveled in her chair and looked up at Arwain and Nerim, an unsure frown on her face.

Arwain gestured for the call to be ended, and it cut off. "I'm sorry, Tetha. I promise you will be okay."

She stood up, and put her hands into her ripped pockets. She paused, as if considering what to say, and then left the room silently.

Nerim turned to Arwain, having only just stopped crying. "Master...what happens now?"

Arwain looked at him with a dismal expression. She raised her hand up towards his head, paused for a moment, and then stepped forward and threw her arms around him, pulling him into a hug. "No one knows, Padawan," she admitted.

Nerim returned the hug, feeling the pain radiating off of his Master's soul. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "If I..."

"No," Arwain said, holding him tighter. "No ifs. She knew what she was doing, from start to finish, and I don't think she regretted a single step. Even to the end."

"If she hadn't died there...She could have lived forever," Nerim said breathlessly, holding onto his Master for dear life, trying and failing to stop his tears from welling up again.

"Chaos, yet harmony. Death," Arwain said gently, quoting an ancient variation of the Jedi Code, "Yet, the Force."

They stood there for a time, until they both managed to catch their breath. They broke, and Arwain moved to the front, to gaze out into the hyperspace. Nerim wiped his eyes, took one last sip of his tea, and exited out the back towards the main room. There, he found Tetha, sitting curled up on the small couch and staring at the ceiling. He sat down next to her, and she leaned on him.

___________________________________________________________________________________



The Wellspring gently hovered in for a soft landing back in its home hangar at the Jedi Temple. Once the boarding ramp lowered and the trio exited, they were immediately flanked on either side by Jedi Knights, who silently directed them towards the High Council chambers. Nerim felt remarkably not at liberty to disagree.

They walked in silence, Nerim noting that Tetha's intense eyes scanned every inch of the building he found so dull and frustrating as if they were the most important things she had ever seen. They walked through hallways and chambers until they reached the elevator, and were practically pushed in by the gazes of the Jedi watching over them.

They stepped into the elevator, and it began slowly rising. Nerim roughly exhaled. "I hate this stupid karkin' elevator so much in ways I cannot express."

Arwain nodded in solidarity. He realized that he now fully mirrored her reticence to appear in front of the Council, and shook his head. Tetha, for her part, simply watched out the window in awe at the truly endless city below, shining gold in the sunset. "There's...so much..." She trailed off softly. "This Temple alone is bigger than my home sinkhole on Utapau..."

"Awful, isn't it?" Nerim grumbled. "If there's a place in the Galaxy where everyone loves one another and things work how they're supposed to, this building is the farthest from it."

Slowly, painfully slowly, the elevator came to a stop and the door behind them opened. The Jedi High Council was arranged, every member present...save one. The three exited the elevator and walked towards the center, which inevitably had them facing the empty throne of Fae Coven.

"Master Arwain," the old man, Gendi, spoke. "Much has happened since we last spoke."

"I feel as though nothing has happened for centuries," Master Jahl said pensively, "And suddenly, centuries have happened in the last twenty four hours."

Master Arwain took a breath, placed her hands behind her back, and stood up straight. "There's no use beating around the bush. Grand Master Fae Coven has passed away. I did not personally witness her death, but I am certain it was in combat with forces of Darkness."

"Yes...Felt it, we all did," Yoda said hoarsely, sitting in his chair next to Fae Coven's empty seat. "Impossible to mistake."

"In your absence, the chain of command has renewed," a Human Master with short hair by the name of Kaad-Ro Anada explained. "The rank of Grand Master, per tradition and prudence, falls without question upon Grand Master Yoda, as the oldest and most connected to the Force."

"Fay was not under consideration, I see?" Arwain's eye twitched.

"Fay is not here," Gendi shook his head dismissively. "She has not been here. She will not be here. She is only tenuously a member of our Order."

"Wise and powerful, Master Fay is," Yoda nodded. "A great Jedi, despite your doubts. But a Grand Master, she cannot be, for the Temple, she cannot hold."

Gendi threaded his fingers together. "Of course. And, following some discussion, Grand Master Yoda has made a persuasive argument to split the title of Master of the Order back into its own right, divesting it from the Grand Master's hold."

Nerim blinked in surprise. He barely even recognized the title 'Master of the Order.' It was just a piece of interesting trivia that, technically, the Grand Master did not necessarily hold leadership over the High Council, but rather Fae had simply also held the title Master of the Order, which did.

"Master of the Order, Gendi is," Yoda nodded, resting his chin on his hands as they held his cane. "In spiritual matters and training of the Younglings, I shall preside. Temporal power, we invest in Gendi's capable hands."

Arwain's face was inscrutable, her expression unreadable. "I see the wheels of the Council can move quickly, under certain conditions."

"This is an emergency of the highest order," a separate Human Master argued, her voice strained with age. "How could it be that the death of Fae Coven has happened so suddenly, without warning?"

Arwain's eyes stared aimlessly out of the window into the evening Coruscant skyline. "The warnings existed, we were just all too young to have seen them."

"Right, I fear Arwain is," Yoda sighed.

"Before we continue," a snake-like Sluissi Master spoke calmly, "We have an unknown guest."

Yoda gestured to Tetha. "Yes. And who are you?"

Tetha stood stock-still, her expression neutral and her tone bored as ever, just as hard to read as Nerim had ever seen her. "My name is Tetha. I am a Force User from Utapau. I accompanied the Jedi on their mission."

There was a tense silence, as Nerim felt near a dozen suspicious gazes suddenly settle on not just her, but him. "Educated in the Force, you are, hmm?" Yoda asked. "Directed, your mind is. Focused. Who, or what, taught you?"

Tetha didn't respond immediately, but Arwain spoke up. "We found her studying from the holocron of Darth Machina, during our mission to Utapau."

There was a sudden uproar in the Council as half of the Councilors asked their own questions simultaneously, of varying degrees of accusatory tone. Yoda's was the clearest, cutting through the noise. "Forgot to mention this during your report, hmm?!"

"Fae was fully aware," Arwain defended herself firmly.

"A shame she cannot corroborate your story," Gendi said skeptically. Nerim felt a sudden snap, like a firecracker going off, and the heat of anger radiating from Arwain.

"If you must question her motives, I invite you to examine the security footage of The Wellspring. You will see she kept Tetha's company in civility just fine," Arwain hissed out.

"I sense an undue attachment," the Sluissi said softly. "Young Nerim's aura flickers as we focusss on her. He is protective."

Nerim frowned tightly, continuing to repeat the Litany of the Formless in his mind as he felt the Masters' presence poke and prod at his psyche.

"No, not just that," another Master spoke from behind them, "It goes both ways."

"Worrisome. Worrisome," Yoda tilted his head downwards, resting his forehead on the back of his hands. "In twos, trouble always comes. Helpful even now, Fae's words are."

"Fae did not say that just so you could attack my Padawan," Arwain said, her voice teetering dangerously close to an angry tone.

"Silent, they both are," Yoda raised his head, pointing his cane at the two. "Why is that?"

Nerim shared a moment of eye contact with Tetha, and then both turned back to the diminutive Grand Master. Neither spoke.

"Hm. And in her jacket, there rings unnaturally..." He pointed his cane directly at her, and she jumped in surprise as her jacket opened. Her lightsaber fell from the internal pocket, and she quickly caught it, and then looked blankly between the Masters who sat tensely around her.

Nerim raised an arm defensively in front of Tetha. "Fae said it was okay!" He quickly belted out the words.

Arwain nodded. "She did say it was okay," she half-lied.

"Mm," Yoda hummed, staring intently at Arwain. "Does this have to do with her death?"

"Explain how you entered combat in the first place," demanded the Nautolan Master, Iir Toano. "How is this possible?"

Arwain recounted their activities on Saarkane, leading up to their jump to the Anatra Survey. She began to describe the station, when Jahl cut her off.

"And where did you exit hyperspace?" He asked.

Arwain pursed her lips. "I don't know. A computer virus wiped our navigational data and prevented us from logging more. It was in orbit of a rogue planet, a couple of lightyears from Saarkane."

The Council shared bewildered expressions. A Feeoran Master, hulking and oversized for his chair, leaned forward and spoke as his tentacles writhed around his head. "You don't know? How are we to investigate?"

Arwain shrugged. "I don't know."

Gendi raised a hand. "Let her continue. You say there were more Dark Siders there?"

"Yes," Arwain said. "They were not of the same group we met on Saarkane. There were, in fact, at least two separate groups there."

"Three novel Dark Orders? That the Jedi Order is unaware of?" Iir Toano shook his head in disbelief. "Unbelievable. Are you sure?"

"Yes. We found one, attempting to escape with deadly wounds. He identified himself as a member of the Brotherhood of Khaol, which I suspect to be a Brotherhood of Darkness revivalist group based in Hutt Space."

There was some murmurs throughout the Council at that. Jahl Vocta raised his electric voice. "And what were the others?"

Arwain shook her head. "I don't know. He only survived for a short time—and a miraculous amount even at that. He described the other group as Old Sith, and as a dying wish asked us to kill both groups."

She barely finished her sentence as the murmurs increased in volume. Gendi leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Old Sith?" He repeated. "You mean a revivalist group for a sect older than the Brotherhood?"

Arwain took a deep breath, and then spoke firmly. "No. I believe it to be the Sith."

"Impossible!" Iir Toano exclaimed. Several other comments were made to that effect, the Council in large part in disbelief. Nerim turned to her, eyes wide. Even he was caught offguard.

"And what evidence, have you?" Yoda asked, eyes narrowed.

"I have known Fae since I was an infant," Arwain began, placing a hand to her collar—where the Zabrak's bloodstain still was. "I don't think she would have acted so rashly for anything less than real Sith. And I don't think anything else could have killed her."

"Conjecture alone? Personal intuition?" Yoda prodded.

"More than personal," Arwain replied, "Her intuition. She had told me before that, in visions, she and her Master had seen it that she would die in battle with the Sith. This troubled her deeply—I know many of you are aware of this! She was preoccupied often with prophecies that indirectly implied the Sith remained."

"Mm," Yoda hummed. "Difficult to see, the future is. Always a possibility she was wrong—I remember agreeing on that, you and I."

"Well, now I think she was right," Arwain said, a slight quiver in her voice.

Gendi turned up his hands. "And did you witness these so-called real Sith? In any capacity?"

"...No," Arwain admitted.

"And do you have any solid idea of what caused the Wound in the Force?" he asked.

Arwain didn't respond.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, exasperated. "What did you encounter, personally, in there?"

She took a deep breath. "Just four members of the Brotherhood of Khaol."

"And, might I ask for clarification, do you still not know anything about the Dark Order you encountered on Saarkane's surface?"

Arwain stared at him, silently.

Jahl Vocta shook his head emphatically. "Why are we entertaining this? Do we trust Arwain's personal judgment? After concealing that?" He said, gesturing towards Tetha. "Or producing that?" He gestured towards Nerim.

"Excuse me?" Nerim said, somewhat offended.

"We should be holding the investigation on our own terms, her reports are untrustworthy at best."

"She is still a Master," the Sluissi argued. "Unconventional, but untrustworthy? I don't know about that. She's served us well longer than I have. I'm inclined to believe she had Fae's blessssing."

Kaad-Ro placed a hand to his chin in thought. "Yet...Our original suspicions were perhaps too narrowly placed on the Padawan."

"What?" Nerim asked, looking between each of the faces of the Council.

Iir Toano crossed one leg over the other. "None of this conjecture adds up. Simplify the story, and it makes sense. We know why Fae Coven went on this mission."

"...Do we?" Arwain asked, furrowing her brow.

"Hm," Yoda nodded slowly. "An evaluation, it was. An objection."

"Objection?" She asked, the contained anger in her voice starting to be overshadowed by a breathless confusion. "What are you saying?"

"We are moving too quickly to this topic, and in the wrong order," the Sluissi warned.

Yoda and Gendi shared a moment of eye contact, and nodded. Gendi turned back to them. "We have had great doubts about your Padawan, Arwain. He is unbalanced, and interacts with the Force in an unnatural manner. He has proven defiant and dismissive of the Code, and now we know, harbors attachments—"

"No. No, no, no," Arwain shook her head, a noticeable glint of panic in her eye. Nerim felt the blood rush away from his face and extremities, feeling himself pale not at the words of the Council, but at the desperate note in his Master's voice.

"—We voted to exile him a week ago," Gendi spoke over her. "Unanimous, except for Fae Coven's conditional dissent. She told us that she would accompany you on an otherwise important mission, to watch over your Master-Padawan relationship and evaluate Nerim's performance. She would return with a report, and see if any of us changed our minds. Or, if she did."

"But here, she is not," Yoda said softly. "A report, we have only from you. Test your Padawan's alignment with our Order, she set out to do, and never come back from that decision, will she."

"A bad omen if ever there was one," the Nautolan sighed.

"You can't be serious!" Arwain said, her voice noticeably raising in volume. "You can't hold Nerim accountable for this!"

"Only for his previous actions, are we holding him accountable," Yoda nodded to himself. "And measure very poorly, they do."

The Sluissi looked sadly to Nerim. "We hold no ill will towards you, I hope you undersstand. You simply are not meant to be a Knight."

"Or a Jedi," Jahl tapped on the armrest of his seat for emphasis. "Not even in the Service Corps."

Nerim felt a sort of strange disconnect as the words crashed against him. His heart was beating quickly, his skin was pale, a cold sweat had broken out—but he didn't feel it. There was some sort of distance between the situation and him. He just stood there as the sun glared in his eyes one last time and then set beneath a wall of skyscrapers, wordless and thoughtless like a prey animal that had wandered into a grand palace.

"In light of this sentence, anything to say, have you?" Yoda asked gently. "Deny you the last word, we will not."

Nerim tried as hard as he could to reach for something, anything, but nothing came to him. After a few awkward seconds of silence, he shook his head. "No. I have nothing to say."

Yoda nodded gravely, and stood up, walking over to him. "Hand over your lightsaber, then."

In a haze, Nerim unclipped the lightsaber from his belt, and placed it in Yoda's claws. The dark brown handle left his fingertips with a slight ring, and his crystal left his presence with confusion and anxiety, like he had left a child he was in charge of on a street corner.

"You, as well. Amnesty for this crime, you shall have just once," Yoda said, turning to Tetha.

Tetha looked at Nerim, and her careful facade of neutrality began to break. Her lower lip quivered, and she slowly handed her weapon over to Yoda. He took the lightsabers and returned to his seat, placing them together upon the armrest. "Escorted out, you shall be. Transport, you shall have to any destination you require. A stipend shall be issued to you, Nerim, for your—"

Yoda was cut off as a third lightsaber scraped against the metal floor of the High Council chamber. Arwain's lightsaber threw off a few sparks and rolled to a stop at his feet. Nerim looked up in surprise at Arwain, and saw an expression of absolute fury.

"The arrogance," she growled out. "Fae believed in Nerim so thoroughly she died on a mission she undertook to prove his innocence, and you condemn him for her sacrifice," she spoke, louder and louder with each word, until she was shouting. "I can scarcely imagine a worse way to spit on Fae Coven's grave than to pretend like you are anything resembling a Grand Master!"

"Arwain!" Gendi spoke up, "Recenter yourself!"

"I am centered!" She responded, taking a breath. "I know where I'm going. And it's not going to be off the cliff you fools are driving towards. I—" She paused for a moment as her throat choked up, "—I've never been more ashamed of this Order. I spent decades trying to convince myself you were all misguided, and that you just didn't know the way to walk in the Light. But I understand now. I was right when I was a child. You do know the way. You just don't want to."

She turned and stormed out, and Tetha gently placed a hand on Nerim's shoulder and guided him alongside to the elevator. Gendi spoke, his voice raised. "Arwain, there is still the matter of the investigation into Fae Coven's death, and the Dark Siders! We are not done here!"

"Oh, I think we are," Arwain said icily, punching the button to begin their descent.

Before the doors could close, Nerim heard Yoda's somber voice. "19 Lost, there are," he solemnly noted as the doors shut with a hiss.

 

[Transreal Clouden]

... well then. We always knew Yoda sucked but not that he sucked this much.

 

[CFLAddLoader]

Yikes. Well, if they are leaving the Jedi order, no real reason not to fix Aesha's lightsaber.

Probably go visit that alternate crystal cave too.