Seeing Destiny

Hi Everyone! This is my first attempt at a fanfic so please be nice and review so I know whether it's worth continuing!

Deep Breaths, Mylua reminded herself as she silently guided Qui-Gon through a meditative exercise. It had been several weeks since Qui-Gon's apprentice Xanatos had turned his back on the Jedi Order when Qui-Gon had been forced to kill the young man's father on a mission to his home planet, and Qui-Gon was still struggling with the crippling emotional blow of his student's actions. He stayed in his quarters most of the day and seemed to haunt the Room of a Thousand Fountains at night. He claimed to be well rested, but Mylua secretly suspected he had not slept since Xanatos's betrayal.

Concerned for his health, Qui-Gon's friend Tahl had eventually convinced him to let Mylua, one of the temple's most calming presences and a personal friend of Qui-Gon's, guide him into a healing trance. Though roughly fifteen years younger than him, Mylua was a renowned Jedi Master in her own right. She had refused a seat on the Jedi Council more than once, but was still often called upon to attend Council meetings and offer advice due to her ability to interpret premonitions and her compassionate understanding of beings' behavior. Qui-Gon and Mylua had always shared a close friendship as well as a last name. It was because of this that many Jedi suspected the two were actually related. At that moment Mylua was trying to take advantage of their close Force bond to get Qui-Gon to reconnect himself with the Living Force and numb his grief over his lost student. At first she had been optimistic, but it had been several hours, and Qui-Gon's whirlwind of emotions was starting to try even her patience. Each time she reached out to him through their bond, she felt him begin to reach back and then seem to think better of it, as if trying to conceal something within him that had broken loose yet again.

Suddenly the older Jedi opened his eyes. After a moment Mylua followed suit. "You can't keep this up, Qui-Gon," she sighed wearily.

"We've been meditating for hours. It's not going to help any more than it has." he replied.

There was a short pause.

"I can't help if you won't let me in," she begged softly.

Qui-Gon stood. "Goodnight Mylua." He offered a slight bow before making his way back towards his quarters. Mylua sighed as she got to her feet and started down the hallway to find Tahl.

When Mylua entered the library, she saw Tahl speaking with Orykan Tamarik, the young Padawan who had accompanied Tahl, Qui-Gon, and Xanatos to Telos, where she had witnessed Xanatos's betrayal. Orykan smiled in greeting but quickly excused herself, understanding that Mylua was hoping to speak with Tahl alone.

"Perhaps Master Yoda does intend for Qui-Gon to take Orykan as his next student," Tahl mused.

"It doesn't seem right," Mylua shook her head. "If Master Yoda wanted Qui-gon to accept her as his student, it doesn't make sense for him to use Orykan to test Xanatos. Qui-gon still feels responsible for him, and it would feel like a betrayal to replace him with the very girl he feared was meant to take his place."

"But it is likely that, despite his reservations, Master Yoda was not certain that Xanatos would fail his test. He would have been knighted had he passed."

"And Qui-gon would have been free to take on a new student," Mylua finished her thought. She paused. "As it is, Qui-Gon is in no emotional state to be taking on new responsibilities."

Tahl nodded slowly in agreement. "Master Yoda has asked me to take her under my wing until the Council finds a new Master for her, after what happened on Telos. How was your meditation session?"

Mylua sighed quietly. "He kept pulling away from me. Perhaps I should have tried to force my way in."

"He wouldn't have trusted you then."

"I agree. But he can't continue like this. He'll drive himself insane."

•••••••

Qui-Gon stared into one of the many fountains around him. At first he had refused to return to the temple after the mission to Telos, but after a short time he realized that there was no healing to be done by roaming the galaxy alone, and he returned home. Tahl and Orykan had made the official report of their mission to the Jedi Council, and Master Yoda had not sought him out afterward, though Qui-Gon suspected it would only be a matter of time. He knew Mylua and Tahl had been talking about him, if only because Mylua was giving him plenty of space and allowing Tahl to be his main confidant. He sighed, remembering Mylua's gentle reproach: I can't help if you won't let me in. It was the first time either of them had challenged him about isolating himself since the Telos mission. But Qui-Gon couldn't let her in. If he reached out past his own mental shields, she would see everything he worked so hard to conceal—the hopelessness, the anger, the shame. He wondered why he cared so much about hiding those things—Mylua certainly suspected they were there. He supposed it was a matter of remaining in control. Mylua could provide better guidance if he let her see those things, but he didn't want her advice. She had never had an apprentice of her own let alone felt the pain of losing that student due to her own failure. Better to work through his emotions by himself than to give others the opportunity to make him move on more quickly than he was willing to.

•••••••

Mylua sat crossed-legged on the roof of the Jedi temple, gazing out over the streets of Coruscant. Premonitions involving Orykan's future Master continued to elude her, but it didn't mean she was entirely in the dark on the matter. What only Master Yoda knew was that while the Force often allowed her to see glimpses of possible futures, she rarely saw herself or those close to her in these visions. She had long ago accepted that the Force had tasked her with using her knowledge to guide others and realized it was probably best not to have knowledge of her own future and fate. Of course, there were other things the Force did not show her, but her inability to sense anything about Orykan's future made her wonder if a certain friend of hers might indeed be a part of it.