This was surprisingly disturbing for Siri. She found herself taken aback by this revelation from her padawan. She needed to think very carefully about how to respond.
But her own emotional response was getting in the way...
"Ferus I can't believe you'd leave the order."
"Siri, I'm not sure I belong here. It's because of me that Darra is dead"
Darra Thel-Tanis had fallen after a battle that the padawans should never have been in without a more experienced Jedi. Siri had been worried that Ferus would feel more than his share of responsibility for his fellow padawans death. Her concerns were apparently well founded.
"Ferus there's plenty of responsibility to go around on that. You bear some, yes, but so does Anakin, so do all of the masters on the mission, including me. You don't suggest that we all leave the order do you?"
"Well no..."
"Well then don't hold yourself to a higher standard than the rest of us. It's not noble it's arrogant. Frankly it sounds like something Anakin would do." Ferus' expression told her she'd made a direct hit with that. She tried not to let the slight amusement show on her face. She continued, "He's the chosen one," she said in a mockingly dramatic tone, adding, "He carries a burden we mere Jedi can't understand." She returned to her normal tone. "That doesn't sound like you. I think you're hurting, a pain you haven't felt before but must face now. Will you face it, or run away?"
It was in this moment that Siri realized, This is one of his trials. Not in the formal way that she was preparing him to face soon, but one handed to him by life it's self, essentially by the force it's self.
She waited for his answer.
Ferus stood there for a moment thinking over the words of his teacher...and partner, and best friend, and just about every other kind of connection two humans can have with each other.
Could he let her down? Could he leave her? Ferus remembered his first hand to hand exercise just after Siri had taken him as her padawan. He laid on the mat after a very one sided training session with another student when Siri walked up and said, "No matter how great you may become this kind of thing will happen to you from time to time, metaphorically and literally, in some cases. Will you get up, or will you lay there and pout?"
He had gotten up back then. Now he had taken a much harder fall. Wallowing in guilt would be easy, deliberately rubbing salt into his own wounds as some kind of penance. But that wouldn't bring Darra back. Honor her by doing what they had both committed their lives to.
He looked her in those pretty blue eyes of hers and said. "You're right. I don't know how to handle this. But I know I have a great friend to help me through it." He put a hand on her shoulder.
She looked up at him with a smile. "That's right you do." She said giving him a reassuring hug; something she would only do in the privacy of their shared quarters. She then motioned for him to follow her out. "Now come along. We have some things to talk to the counsel about."
As they walked Siri had a momentary force vision brought a smile to her face. In it she was reaching up to cut the padwan braid of her once student, and now partner.
