A/N
I made a casual Tumblr post regarding a guesswork/fantasy about Kanan and Hera, post-Empire. Then a tag asked me if I could do a fanfic. So I whipped this up. There are some allusions to sexual actions but tempered down within the T-rating. This took quite some time and I wisely waited until "Twilight of the Apprentice" to incorporate new info and attributes (namely, that so minor matter of Kanan's blinding on Malachor).
The setting here, as a bottle episode-type story is staged in a bedroom, though it's ambiguous what planet they reside on (Ryloth could be the closest interpretation).
Before making this fanfic, I was aware of the Dawn Syndulla phenomena (created by Tumblr). Initially, while I left the name of said character, the "little co-pilot," ambiguous, I ultimately made my own decision to give name to the character.
There're psychological allusions to the Sequel Trilogy abound.
Without further ado, I do not own Kanan, Hera, Yoda, Ezra, Cham, Hera, Sabine, Depa, Zeb. But I do own said "little co-pilot" here.
This story has been cross-post to AO3.
"The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster."- Elizabeth Bishop in "One Art."
I report there is peace in this world. No, I report there is peace in this world for now. No, for now there is peace in this world.
There is peace, for now.
He only wanted to hear the croak of the old Master's voice. No urgency, no beseeching for battle or philosophical advice. Maybe he just wanted to greet Yoda, update him on the state of the world and maybe the New Order.
He no longer got off this bed whenever he meditated because the mattress had acquired a sacred concentrated aura upon the Rylothian-spun sheets (there would be the bonus of Hera's contemplative eyes studying him from behind if she wasn't absent).
He cleared his mind to impose a clairvoyance over the room, becoming keen about its ambience, the humid smells, anchored to the scope of the room yet more open to the space beyond the box of this room, wary of the hum of the wind, the rustling of sand, and the patter of tiny feet on the other side.
In the induced vacuum of his mind, he produced a name:
Master Yoda.
A whisp breezed into the room, cuing an entrance.
"Ah, Young Jedi Knight," the voice croaked in his rickety scratchiness.
"Master Yoda." If he were to have his old sight, he would see the phantom of the Master. His blindness had given him the ability to sense the presence of others in proximity and the physical heaviness of their body. Yoda hovered as something in-between: physical and spectral, something airy and light yet tangible in the present cluster of its energy, not just a lump of a disembodied voice.
"Young Caleb Dume, we have met again. Or Kanan, shall I call you?"
Caleb. Surreal, this initial address, for he always looked back at "Young Caleb" as a separate entity, sometimes an unwelcomed culprit in his conscience. Heh, young. The "young" was not patronizing—not like being called "kid"—but affectionate, as if the Old Master understood that he still felt were things ahead of him in his adulthood.
He had always fancied he would tell someone—Hera, he imagined, would have that honor of being the recipient (she almost did), and then Ezra came in second—that he was once Caleb, but never worked out when Kanan Jarrus occupied himself in the War against the Empire. When the load of the War lifted, he almost, on the brink of it, uttered his first willful confession "I am—was—Caleb Dume" to someone else, that would have presented a poignant volition, beneath the cool sanctuary of the woolen Rylothian wedding sheets, so sheltering that it seemed soundproof, even to the Force. But no, all that spilt was, "You know I wasn't always Kanan Jarrus," and her soothing response, "I know," and halting of kissing his scars to await for him to elaborate on this pre-Kanan era. Then she resumed pressing her lips to his to tell him in her own language that he didn't have to feel guilty for sealing his lips on the matter.
At the very least, in this moment, he could welcome back the long-lost Padawan. "There is peace in this world, for now."
Ironic, peace didn't occur when the world legally declared the finality of the War over Endor. Battles had continued, aftermaths have thundered, the remnants of the Dark Side resurfaced sparingly with a vengeance. It was after the Battle of Jakku, so far the final major attack from the shards of the Empire, did Jarrus decided to wait a few months of inactivity to decide if "peace" really had occurred.
"Peace there is. How long it last, we'll see." The Master expected War. The Clone Wars had sapped him of his optimism even beyond death. How much visions did Yoda receive? Could Yoda see war-or wars-on the horizon? "Visions I always have of war. Time of when can elude. I've foreseen war postponed, averted, canceled, reemerging, on schedule. The motion of time, always unpredictable and changing."
Time had always been an arbitrary ticking bomb in Kanan's life. Back on his bygone Gorse days, his planet-to-planet drifter routine operated on a "enjoy it while it last" front. The alcohol money, the entertainment of brawls to let off steam, and the adrenaline of combat. Time was a distant entity. Now time has become a strange reaper hovering in the alleys.
"Yes, Master, there is peace now for the Universe." He and Hera would still brace themselves for any post-Jakku warfare.
Then he discerned the presence outside the hallway and a creak of the door.
She walked more physical than Yoda's signature, like comparing the weight between a stone or a paper. Yoda was a weightless specter, but she, as tangible as the mattress he sits on.
She didn't knock. Tiny feet padded across the carpet. He could intercept an inkling of her thoughts, she always had a shower of questions before bedtime, as inquisitive as Caleb, why was daddy talking? He traced outlines of her pitter-patter of her tip-toes getting closer. Though lithe as her mother, he could hear that she had gotten heavier. One day, because he was confident in this era that this future would happen, her footsteps will have the weight and noise of an adult.
Unaware of the master's presence, she had scaled the bed, her hands pawing on the mattress, then settled a few inches in front of him, perched on her knobby knees, awaiting his gesture, an acknowledgement that she existed.
She used to act on the motive of "waking" him up whenever she spied him in his meditative pose ("wake up daddy!"), but she had learned enough, thanks to her mother's lecture, that meditation was daddy's time and he must not be tapped on. Meditating hailed as a solitary activity. But it was one he shared in front of his family, in front of Hera, because of the intensity of her observant eyes on him. In front of the little one, who made it her mission to emulate him, convenient, so she could watch and learn. She and Hera never distracted, they just added things to focus on, an exercise of multi-tasking and maneuvering around focus like adding objects to a juggling ring.
The Master engaged in pauses whenever absorb something or let the asker think it over.
Could Yoda see that she had Caleb Dume's eyes?
"Broken your chastity vow have you, Jarrus?" He mused.
Kanan had to grin at the euphemism, funny thing to say in front of the little one—if she could even hear him, she was still examining daddy. Yoda knew. It also was refreshing to hear this as a good-natured jab. Really, he wouldn't really expect anger from Yoda at this revelation, though it was a nice change from getting a mocking "Wait, don't Jedi have to be pure?" from Cham that one point when approaching him for his blessing.
"In the end of War, slackened on your Jedi ways, have you?" Kanan wondered whether this Force-ghost practice granted Yoda omniscience. Did this power allowed Yoda to be everywhere at once and this spirit was only a fraction of his consciousness? Surely Yoda would have brought up the subject of "broken chastity vows" if he was aware of his girl's existence or even the vows made on Ryloth. Or maybe the Master waited for the appropriate scenario to pursue the subject.
He stopped himself from slipping out a "Yup" and converted it into a mannered "Yes." Kanan had meant to be a smidge humorous, though despite all temptation and reflexes to smirk, he didn't want to insinuate mockery.
"Mhmph, not the Jedi way it is. Justify this, how do you, Jarrus?"
Justify, funny application of semantics, as if to entrap any answer into being a rationalization rather than an explanation. "I forged my own path in my own way. I'll always uphold the Jedi way and my family."
To accentuate this declaration, Kanan opened one palm to coax her. He buckled his kneecaps to prepare the oncoming weight as she curled up between his criss-crossed legs like a domesticated Loth-cat, rolling over. It had been a family game and exercise of willpower: Let her near him and focus on the Force without getting distracted. Be aware of her proximity, but don't let her break his focus. If he focused for that reasonable passage of time, he'll let her into his lap, a reward to himself, a reward to her for waiting. It effectively trained her patience.
Once her unblemished fingers landed on his calloused palms, she turned her head to the ghost, in a fit of astonishment of this entity in the room (he could tell by the rapid swing of her tiny lekku brushing his chest). Now her eyes were meeting Yoda's glassy eyes, he could imagine.
"Say hello to Master Yoda, little co-pilot." If she could see him, or just sense the tremor in that spot in the air.
She pried one hand off her father's and he heard the motion of her pensive wave before reverting it back to his hand. She liked his hands, on those moments of daddy's homecoming, she made it a habit of yanking his gloves off to run her hands over his, like petting a Loth-cat. She thought that rubbing enough would be the bacta-antidote to clear away the year-weathered rough bumps and scars.
"Strong in the Force, this little blessing is." Now his expression had melded into skepticism, the frown shaping in the wrinkles, Kanan could sense. Yet, he could sense the bit of light in Yoda at the sight of the child.
"She is, isn't she, Master?" Had she been born during the war, or even shortly after where battles, like the one that transpired on Jakku, still existed, her Force sensitivity would have been a dangerous mark, a target for the Inquisitors' mission.
Her bitty finger pointed at Yoda, he could sense the woosh of her arm, as the ghost presided over them. She liked to point at strangers. She always was quiet, old enough to articulate the name of ship parts, but taciturn around others. Shyness wasn't the word to describe it. She withheld verbal interaction because that would distract her from studying people who weren't mommy and daddy.
He lifted the girl with one arm and begin to bounce her, in tandem with her heartbeat.
Over the girl's giggles, the Master went "Your choice, a contradiction of duties and loyalty, is it not? Recall the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker, do you? The result of Anakin Skywalker's attachment, a cautionary tale to learn from."
He didn't break the rhythm of bouncing her. Was Yoda likening him to the late Anakin Skywalker? "In all due respect, I disagree that these apply to me today." In another time, he would have agreed he did commit serious insubordination, one that would have prompted him to forgo his Jedi Knight title and possibly endure internal tension like Ahsoka, who had cast off her affiliation with the Order but remained a lightsaber-wielding servant of the Light. "Or these views can be subverted with the right mindset. Hera and I knew what we got into and paced ourselves toward these commitments."
"Perhaps, but reason there was to our prohibition of marriage, due to danger of attachment. But possession you must consider. Marriage is possession."
Kanan paused to flash his daughter a momentary grin, a display of contentment with her company, a demonstration: Open affection was part of the responsibility rather than indulgence. He could feel the grinding of her teeth. She's reciprocating. She probably lives up to Hera's joke that she inherited his smugness.
"Hera and I made an agreement as two adults." He recalled the pivotal moment, the turning point, under the smell of dying fireworks over Endor, where they resolved to allow their partnership to ascend into a plane of closer intimacy. If not, they were open to continue their partnership on platonic terms, relaying alliance, favors, and the occasional banter and fancies of would-could-have-been. But they steered clear of that regret. And she might have respected any of his decision, but Hera would not be fond of the idea of him sacrificing this Jedi title-"I never apologized for priorities. Neither should you, luv." His Jedihood would not exclude her from his life. "Let me do the grappling with my Jedi beliefs, I'm not going back on the decision, Hera."
The little girl stared up, tuning in, even if she lacked the extended vocabulary to process everything. He could feel the questions within her. She may be quieter than Caleb in public, but she was full of questions in her lekku, questions saved for him when he tucked her into bed.
"We knew we wanted to be together and we do not belong to each other. We've always respected each other independence in the War. In Wartime, we understood that we had to learn to live without each other. And when the War ended, we acted on the privilege of being together. The time and circumstances were right for our decision." He remembered those extended hours of meditation, searching for a shift in the Force, and surprised he couldn't detect Darkness in the Force. Any disturbances amounted to minor ripples, in the recovery of the Republic, which opened the leeway for becoming closer to Hera.
"What I'm articulating, Master, is that our marriage is not an act of possession. Our marriage is an agreement of a relationship and responsibility, not possession. I do not possess Hera as I do not possess my girl. But I do bear a responsibility to her as a father. Yes I am giving into to a privilege, enjoying it even, but I also understand this as a worthy discipline."
The voice murmured, "In the previous era, disciplined you, we could have."
Surreal, to imagine the alternate universe out there, a distant narrative, when the Temple stood safe, when Coruscant hadn't fallen, when he had the formality of a Jedi Knight ceremony witnessed by a beaming Depa Billaba. And maybe he would have encountered Hera Syndulla some other circumstances or another woman he would've loved as much as the Hera Syndulla of this reality. He knew then, or at least assumed of Caleb, that he would have rejected any romantic relationship, trained himself to dismiss attraction as an ephemeral flirtation, and adhered to the Order dogma. But this was not that alternate narrative where the Jedi won the War and Anakin Skywalker didn't succumb to temptation, Ahsoka might have ascended a Knight (or broke away from the Order under different circumstances), and the Bridger kid lived happily ever after with his parents. No, he lived in the aftermath of the shattered Old Order and new orders sprouted from the ashes into uncertainty. He lived in the era where his little co-pilot emerged because of the wild cards of the universe. He somehow evaded the bleaker alternative universe: the one where Kanan Jarrus didn't survive, whether it was over the orbit of Mustafar or the deadly swipe on Malachor, Kanan Jarrus didn't live to receive another warm embrace from Hera Syndulla, or Hera Syndulla never rescued a Kanan Jarrus from his debauched complacency on Gorse, Ezra grew up alone, and the girl playing on his lap didn't exist.
"Expelled you, we might have." Yoda mused, wording it ominously and bemused. "Call yourself a Jedi still?"
The minimal publicity around the Jassh'rr had been benign if not bizarre. The few Ryloth allowed into the ceremony had divided into two camps: those who said, "The Syndulla daughter married a Jedi" or those who assumed "the Syndulla daughter married an ex-Jedi." The opinions of outsiders to their relationship shouldn't irk him as long as they weren't aiming blasters at him, but it was eye-rolling inducing, especially when one approaching couple exclaimed, "You have quite a catch, Mrs. Jarr-, sorry Mrs. Syndulla, a husband who would devote his time only for you instead of the world."
"He gave up all his vows just for her, renounced all his Jedi ways," that latter camp would whisper. Hera would shake her head, and not just because they would reduce her in their narrative as "the Syndulla daughter." This did yield one memorable soundbite he overheard: "If he's not a Jedi anymore, why does he wear the Jedi tunic?" "It becomes symbolic when he lets his bride strip it off him." To disprove it, even in the discretion of their chamber, they disrobed their own apparel independently (though she called dibs on unbinding his hair-tie, sparking a bedroom tradition). Kanan heard the mild sweep of her fingernails unlacing her wedding boots and unfurling her stockings when she muttered, "I can see why they made up that part, that little narrative. The idea of you giving up—"sacrificing"—a very crucial duty for me romanticizes the story in their heads."
"Though I would say, fought for your discipline rather than expulsion I would have." If that were to happen, Jedi disciplined, not divorced. They can't revoke a marriage. It would not reversed the vows.
He admitted, "I am still a Jedi Knight. I wear that title still. Even if I do live in contradiction." He remember beholding the airy soft folds of a Jedi tunic, salvaged from Coruscant, by miracle, happened to fit his size, deliberating whether his choice of Jassh'rr attire was an unwitting perversion or frank allegiance to the Jedi tradition.
Didn't Yoda lived in the era before the marriage ban? There might have been the word "marriage" showing up on the index of the Jedi archive. What cases of "extreme fatal attachment" happened? Besides Ki-Adi-Mundi, among the few permitted to build a family due to the endangered status of his species, and had to figure out the balance with himself. Maybe there were pros to marriage. Maybe there were cons. Maybe the Jedi sacrificed those pros to cleanse the Order of those cons.
The little girl's lekku brushed his cheek. "I say this with a different point-of-view, I had found my balance between the Jedi Way and the earthly matters. I call myself a Jedi. I call myself a husband and father and bear its responsibilities. I do not live as Jedi and family man as a contradiction but a co-existence."
"Interesting dialogue, this is. The technique of debate, Master Billaba has taught you well, has she?"
Master Billaba. She never learned the Ghost technique. He never asked if Yoda saw Billaba. Could Yoda have some power to reach into the void of the Cosmic Force and converse with her? That question held in restraint. She would be providing him that. Did Billaba, where ever she be, have the consciousness to know how Kanan was doing, even if she couldn't relay any message from the other side. Did Depa take her memories with her? Or was it a cessation of individual consciousness? Would Depa be locked in eternal conversations with her fallen comrades, Master Windu, forgiving Styles and Grey, if they were permitted in to the realm. Would the "non Force-sensitives" beings be permitted to mingle with that plane of consciousness. He wondered dozens of time, in nights in the Ghost, would Hera be permitted into that realm when her time came (though Ryloth code stipulated that even death could not severe their union as One. He knew he would take "part" of her to the Cosmic Force. Would that "part" only amount to the memory of her, but never her full consciousness with no new strong-willed witticisms and soothing reassurances? Would she be allowed to look upon the universe, even if she could not reach out to the living like Obi-Wan or Yoda? That was why he made vows with her, because if he couldn't find that peace in the Cosmic Force, than he'll have her in this lifetime in the Living Force.
Little Caleb would ambush with inquiry. Kanan Jarrus preserved his in a chest to be opened later, like a smuggler bartering some products and reserving portions pragmatically. The subject of the Cosmic Force will be another topic, another dialogue, archived for another year.
"But contradiction or co-existence, fear, I do sense in you." It always occurred to Kanan that Yoda never conquered or vanished fear, but learn to live with it.
Kanan had admitted such fears to Hera, long before he unearth Zeb from the ruins of Lasat, that he won't have a reunion with Billaba, but that would be a confession for another day for the Master. Or maybe something he would have to be patient for. Then these fears promptly became supplemented by other fears, losing Hera, losing Ezra, losing his crew. But these were fears he lived with and survived, even, arguably in Hera's words, might have helped kept him alive. Never erased.
"As a result of your union, new fears you have forged. You yearn for your wife. You yearn to have your daughter always. Live without, can you?"
The art of living without was a tricky necessity and coping mechanism in wartime. He already learned to live without Hera when they split up on separate missions, knowing they might never see each other again, and valuing their time with quips and banter whenever circumstances yielded breathing space to be in the same room or linked through the com-link. He learned to live without Ezra to let the boy experience on his own. Ezra learned to live without him without severing their connection, and Kanan considered that a completion to the lesson, another test passed. The longevity of this stability would last. Then the baby's arrival poised advanced challenges. She was not his "possession," as Jedi dogma could label it, but she was a relationship and a responsibility, like Hera. But the more fragile the person in the relationship, the more difficult. It was hard caring for young Ezra because of this.
He stroked the stumps of her budding lekku. "Correct, Master Yoda. I do fear for my family." Honestly, the concept of "fear for family" had long existed since he ran the Ghost crew and even deeper into his childhood when Styles and Grey were his brothers, his Nerra. But it was a whole new category of "fear for family," amplified when you had bloodlines running around. His thoughts soared to Hera, occupied with a two-week trip to deliver supplies to a distant planets with her belly full with their "second little co-pilot" and questions that will come with a second child to challenge the familial dynamic.
"The more you have to lose. The more weight of fear you will bear."
Obvious from the getgo. A slice of elementary lecture a Youngling could fall asleep to. Jarrus had asked himself that already. Then he asked Hera that night before she soared away on the relief mission. He was rubbing her swollen abdomen, his senses ultrasounding the contour of the Force-signature of the second co-pilot. When the delicate spectral infant fingers tugged at his calloused thumb through the sliver string in the Force, he blurted it out. "Hera, it's been vexing me." He knew that he might never ask her if he didn't say it now. "I don't regret it, but I see why the Jedi forbad this, the more children you make, the more you fear to lose them. Maybe the Jedi were... afraid to carry that weight." The avoidance of fear was fear itself, but it appeared to be a mode of life, one endorsed by Obi-Wan and worked for him. For the late Skywalker? Not so much.
She had assured him, "Maybe, luv, but one can get stronger learning to carry that weight. I certainly did. And if or when you lose that weight, do you lose the strength the weight gives you?" He didn't have to ask her about her fallen mother or her deceased Ryloth friends. She had gotten versed in Jedi tongue. Maybe that's why the Force left the "non-Force sensitives" to their own devices without heightened abilities. Because the Force trusted there were those who could scavenge the answers and strength without its help.
He felt his girl's little hands trace the veins on his wrist, not ignoring the subtle increase of weight: she had been growing up, he could detect the inches of a growth spurt. "This is a weight I choose to bear, Master Yoda. I know I had contradicted the old teachings. We were taught to live away from attachment. I choose to live with it."
That's when the girl whimpered in squeaky "Hmmm." She clung to him, burying her face in the security of his torso, as if to transfer her anxiety to him or comfort the fear within him. Her whimpers seemed to be the build-up for wailing, though she mostly outgrew her infant crying phases, but that didn't lessen the tension. Her whines teleported him back to the white sterilized hospital room where he re-immersed in the paternal anxiety of beholding his girl's fragile body as she wailed, torn from the comfort-cavern of the womb, two weeks sooner than scheduled, overwhelmed by the light. For the occasion, he peeled off his mask to absorb the warmth identical to the direction of a sunrise (he almost considered "Dawn" as a viable name). Sensing her squints in the light, he held his hand out to guard her vision. Beneath the shade of his palm, the baby's fluttering eyelids sent tremors down his fingers and he fancied he would have detected glimpses of Caleb in the mirror of her pupils, not with the glowering why-have-you-forsaken-me pout of Caleb that pestered his reflections in the earlier lifetime of rogue Kanan Jarrus, but trusting eyes that said, thank you for being there for me, Kanan Jarrus, for I hope I had saved you too. He didn't say aloud, "Hera, I see why the Jedi were only taught to be protectors of life, not creators of life." Overwhelming, like voluntarily sinking oneself in an overembracing sea into cool but cryptic depths, so much that he could barely heed Hera imploring, "Luv, if she shall have my surname, you will decide what we will call her." He couldn't ignore that he had disobeyed Depa's philosophy, one he valued: "You mustn't become drunk on emotions."He began to bounce her and she released her face from his torso. "Shhhhhhhh."
She mirrored him in her "Shhhhhhh."
The Master broke the lengthly ice of contemplation, "Recall Master Mundi do you, young Caleb? Approached me of those identical fears he did. When tragedy claimed his family, in grief, he always was, until the end." Mundi's wives and children were casualties of a war. "Even a Master mourns."
Even a Master mourns. He wondered whether this was Yoda's admission of a perceived fault of Mundi (mourning might as well be pegged a red flag of "attachment") or a reassurance that he wasn't alone in his familial conflict. He wondered if Ki-Adi-Mundi could converse with his family on the side of the Cosmic Force and kiss the foreheads of his daughters.
"I do feel alone in this, Master." Alone was a drastic word. Having Hera in his life (even if she wasn't in proximity) and this little girl in his arms should be the antithesis of alone. This "aloneness" existed because there was no other surviving Jedi (unless they haven't popped out of hiding) who had children to trade advice with. No access to the voice of Master Mundi for assistance.
With that said: "Even in peace, fear still prevails."
He knew what he was getting into when he made his vows on Ryloth. But the mental mantra "knowing what I got into" didn't decrease the effects and fear once things set in motion. Whatever one "got into" would only pile more of the unexpected. Meeting someone new, like encountering Ezra so long on Lothal, reset the lesson all over again. Knowing someone new, loving someone new was a challenge. He trained himself to exercise the restraint with Hera first, then with Ezra, then with others-Zeb and Sabine-he met along the way. The lesson was ongoing with his little one and would be reset once the second co-pilot emerged, like how one ventures into a cave or Temple "feeling ready" but unprepared for surprises.
That was the lesson passed down to Ezra: Letting your guard down, letting someone in, and being capable of letting go. He never stated this lesson to Hera, because she was accustomed to the brutality of War to familiarize with this philosophy ("If you never came back from Malachor, I know I'll be capable of moving on, but I know I would never stop mourning"). It was a profession, a means to lockdown.
"I know that there is peace now. I know that War is a constant in this universe, but I don't know if we will live to fight in another era of War. I do think of War in the future, even though I don't know yet whether we will be involved. Or when it calls us back into action." Will it call our children into action?
There was the well-meaning but precarious "small-talk" inquiry of Cham's jocular but dissonant "When shall you give Hera another little warrior?" as it appeared to be Ryloth custom to ambush a couple with those questions. Nerving notion, particularly with the tacked-label of "little warrior," a nerving insinuation: it was mandatory for children to be furnished for high-risk situations. Even when Ryloth and the Universe achieved peace, there lingered residue paranoia about another ensuing war due to the hazard of false promises. Wielding blasters and weapons became part of Twi'lek children's education past the war. Even with the "second little co-pilot" scheduled to emerge in about three months (not in compliance to Cham's urging but of their own carefully-timed agreement, "We have room for one more"), he and Hera would face a reset of the lesson and worries with a new person.
It dawned on Kanan why he called upon the old Master in the first place.
"Contradiction or not, I'm learning to manage the fear. Just like I did with Ezra."
Now he had this added weight in his arms; she was getting exponentially heavier and latched against his pulse with the strength of a polished magnet. This little one felt fear too, not like his restrained fear. Hers was raw like young Ezra, and she would learn to tame it without being in his arms or retreating behind him when meeting strangers when she become too heavy to curl up on his knees.
He had faith that his story will never morphed into as close a tragedy like Anakin Skywalker, but regardless, the complications would remain. It was like at the pedestal of Jedi Knighthood from the distance when he was a Padawan. As a Youngling, Knighthood had been his destination, a long-term mission, a far-off beacon in the horizon. But the how to reach that light was the adventure.
He whispered, "Don't hold daddy so tight, co-pilot. Let go a little." She obeyed and the pressure on him receded. She brushed her eye lashes against his cheek.
"Deliberated with young Luke Skywalker I have, regarding the foundation of a New Order." The Skywalker boy. So surreal that he existed and likewise so surreal that Leia, he was one of the select few aware and hushed of her heritage, existed. So surreal that Luke and Leia were the bloodlines of the Sith Lord, the fallen Anakin Skywalker. So surreal that at one point, the late Anakin Skywalker, before his fall, perhaps experienced the paternal worry of raising his own bloodlines. Perhaps he and Anakin did share that in common.
Surreal that the Skywalker bloodline continued on, a news snippet Luke probably informed Yoda. "My sister is carrying a Youngling," Luke had declared pridefully at his impending unclehood. "We got ourselves long-awaited blessing for the New Order." Luke seemed to reserve the boy in the discretion of private training.
One message relayed from Luke was that, "If we need this world to be populated with more potential Jedi, should we think about lifting the marriage ban completely?"
Kanan had replied, "Skywalker, you've been aware, that if we keep the rule, I have already broken it."
"Well, I'm honestly at a loss at how to discipline you, Master Jarrus." Despite being two fellow Knights, the sarcastic nickname had stemmed from the fact that Luke had been so acquainted with older Jedi with Master ranks and almost regarded Jarrus as a "Master" by default naivete, age deference, and first-hand experience with the Old Order.
Yoda carried on, "Much uncertainty Skywalker faces. Skywalker's New Order has cloud of uncertainty. How stable we can keep it is the question. So many questions, even that elude me. But this I am certain of: last of the Jedi you were, Caleb Dume, now first of the New Jedi you are, Kanan Jarrus."
So Yoda didn't renounce him as a Jedi in his eyes.
A tint of elation spurred him to lightly tickle his girl's belly. "So I am an Old and New Jedi?" The girl's giggles echoed melodically. "Please clarify, Master."
"A riddle you will figure, Kanan Jarrus." For the first time, he discerned a smile.
New and Old. A contradiction. Co-existing.
He halted the tickles, though the laugh reverberated. "Then I must ask about the New Jedi, would, should, this little one has her eyes on the New Order. She might be a new Jedi. How shall her training begin?" He didn't know if he'd agree with Yoda's answer but at least an old master's input might prove useful.
He and Hera had a long talk about this when the little one was in her womb.
"No, she will not be born a Jedi, but she'll might grow up to be one. Because she'll choose. She won't be born into a decision, or destiny, made by adults. I admire the Jedi, but I'm not so sure about their ways sometimes. She won't be a case like in the old way, she can't, because as far as we know, we, the parents are going to be in her life as long as we can be. You train her, I watch from the window or the sidelines. I'll teach her how to fly. And you'll be in the cockpit as she'll flies like her mother."
He remembered Ezra, knowing that a Force-sensitive being his age wouldn't usually get reared into Jedi teachings. Ezra had the circumstantial privilege of choosing the Jedi way in Wartime at his adolescent age. Caleb's parents (or perhaps only Miss Dume, for he fancied a previous speculation that she was a single mother without a known lover) did the choosing for Caleb. It never occurred to Youngling Caleb to ask whether he would have selected the Jedi Way or his family if he was old enough, the advanced cognitive capacity that infant Initiatives lacked, for the consciousness of choice. That question Kanan did ask himself when he ducked from the Empire in Gorse.
Luke's own rapid ascension to Knighthood had been brought up before-"You decided on the same privilege to young Bridger, Youngling to Padawan speed training and all. We might need to up the age of requirement to give children a choice."
Parents of Force-sensitive babies refused to offer their babies to the New Order. In the era of the Republic, it used denote honor to give an infant to the Jedi cause (in many cases, means of placing children in top-notch education and accommodations), but now Jedihood marked fatality for said child with the infamous history of The Clone Wars. He remembered Pypey and Alora, babies rescued from Inquisitors. Alora's guardian refused her. But Pypey's decision to join the Order was "pending." No disappointment came out of the refusals, after all, the Jedi respected the concerns of parents. Kanan choose to see it not as setbacks, but as part of the slow progression.
The whole reconstruction relied on a precarious tightrope of trial-and-error.
Like parenting, Hera joked, you make unforeseen mistakes with first child so that the second, the next co-pilot, can have the privilege of suffering less parental incompetence. Synonymous with the old Padawan joke, "The Masters take a first Padawan to train and loss. Master takes second Padawan to replace the first," a prevailing concept that made Younglings search for Masters who had Padawans that survived under their wing.
Make mistakes with the first, so the second will suffer less, the parental adage went. Trial-and-error.
"I might have to teach my own girl. And the child to come." He could discern, imagine through the Force, the Master's brow arching at "child to come," in tranquil bafflement.
Was it appropriate for her to be daughter and disciple at once to him? To her, he was a father first and foremost. Before tucking her into bed, he had lectured her a sizable chunk of the tenets - the philosophy wasn't exclusive to Force-sensitives - but the physical techniques? The power of a Force pull-push or the art of the lightsaber? Doubtful. He didn't want her chained to the obligation of being his Jedi successor-he didn't know how to express to Skywalker how disagreeable it was to pin the burden-heavy Jedi legacy on the young Ben Solo, that haunting grimace of the boy when Skywalker pushed him forward for introduction ("give Master Jarrus a smile, he can sense your pout"), the mumbled greeting, the non-committal handshake of his wobbly hands, and terse aversion to meeting eyes (he could sense the boy fixated on the dirt). Whenever Ben Solo walked in his proximity, he felt the shadow-copy of younger Ezra in his borderline veering into the Dark Side. He joked once to Hera, Ben Solo, not quite the recommended playmate for their girl, but then again, at least Ben was capable of an amiable chat with other students.
For a reason he was processing, he had interpreted young Solo's perpetual glower as a sign that his girl should wait, serve as a "pending" case. He heeded her eager requests, "I wanna be like you, daddy." But he and her mother wanted her to be old enough to make an educated choice rather than base her choice on fanciful ideas of Jedihood to process that "wanting to save people like daddy" wasn't a qualified motive for this occupational hazard.
If his little one, and maybe her sibling, aspired to the humble goals of being a daughter, let that be. Should she reject Jedihood, her mother could teach her values that would sustain her survival through adulthood or another war. Then again, plenty of Younglings had to tread through the profession with naiveté as the path of maturation. That was how Caleb outgrew his glory-hound mentality. Maybe either way, the little one would enter the profession with grandiose ideas to outgrow.
Should she be a Jedi... "Only time can unfold what she chooses. Just because I'm ready for the unknown doesn't mean I'm entirely prepared."
"As am I." Even the ghost didn't know. He could have an eternity to figure things out, but never would it float toward him on a platter. The living had to do the work.
He stroked her lotion-smooth hands, envisioning the inevitability of the trenches of scars and bumps of fresh calluses once she endures training. "Whether she grows into understanding that, will be in her own hands. She'll grow out of my hands, someday, much like Ezra." Children growing into the pilots. Children crashing without parents to guide them through the right course. He could feel the increasing meatiness of her palms and the extra millimeters of her fingers from last week.
Yoda paused, as per the usual, but something rang conclusive. He didn't know whether Yoda would vanish, retreat gently back into the Cosmic Force, or await a catalyst to continue the conversation.
Maybe Yoda permitted space to lull the girl, possibly to observe how he would pacify the child, who was re-tightening her grasp around him, almost like an ineffectual chokehold. The heft of her hot breathing upon his skin intensified.
"Let go, let go." But she did not obey. The heat did not alleviate.
"Mhm." The Master remained at a loss. Did Yoda dodge questions with riddles? Or left it to the question-asker. Maybe Yoda was being the spiritual proctor of a Jedi riddles. He was exercising patience, the aptitude to let the answers simmer slowly but surely. Mutual patience that allowed these wordless cavities in their dialogue, unburdened by urgency.
But really, whatever riddle, agreeable pearls of wisdom, or dodgy answer rasped out of the Master's lips, the Jedi Master couldn't preside as the adequate judge. Even a Master unconquered and unanchored by death couldn't answer much to fatherhood any more than Kanan Jarrus could. In the eyes of this ancient master, a Jedi embracing domestic bounds rang as a new concept, too current and new to exercise an expertise on, something outdated too (contradiction!), being that Yoda lived in the era before the marriage prohibition. Even if Master Mundi would have been a more empathetic counsel, he'll probably fall short.
The verdict of passes-or-fails fell at the mercy of his whole subjectivity. Trial-and-error.
The tiny arms pressuring his neck created a brand of fingerprints. Her whimpers reverted. From the potency of her stares, her eyes flickered, easily extinguishable, not unlike Caleb's eyes, he imagined.
By paternal instinct, he permitted himself to reciprocate her tight squeeze while letting control and a common sense act timely enough to slacken his grip.
Through the mild pressure on his windpipe, he vocalized,
"Kaleb Syndulla."
He administered his teaching tone, the methodical stern vocality once practiced on Ezra and Sabine, affection not absent but on lockdown, archiving all playful fatherly sentiments.
Kaleb's eyes blazed upon him with disquieted curiosity, heeding, but not loosening her arms.
"Let go a little."
She did not relinquish, in passive defiance to her father, who could feel questions swarming in her budding lekku, questions swallowed in trepidation, questions she won't ask before bedtime. Whenever she wasn't Little Co-pilot to daddy, he must be preparing a scolding, a lecture, or, worse, a scary story, those chilling "teaching moments," like the time he let himself tell her of Malachor to explain that he used to have eyes.
That knot of trepidation in her, not dissimilar from the chronic knot of turmoil within Ben Solo.
Bouncing her wasn't the right option. It would be an effective remedy with a crucial side effect: If she got too comfortable in his arms, she wouldn't leave even if he released her.
When he managed enough breath, he reiterated, "Kaleb, let go a little. Will you let go?" the old and new Jedi father whispered to her. And himself.