A Jedi Wizard Tale
Chapter 4
"It's a trap!" Jocasta shouted, bursting into the Council chambers.
Mace felt his eye twitch. He hoped no one noticed. What was with usually calm and reliable wizard knights being convinced everything was a trap?!
The records keeper was clutching a small scroll in her hand, the kind found in the darkest, dustiest corners of the Archives. Many of them contained legends and stories from the Sith Wars, ended now over a thousand years ago. Mace resisted the urge to rub his temples.
"Madam Record's Keeper, I must declare that I have no memory of asking you to report," Mace snapped.
"Don't you talk that way to me when I taught you how to clean a toilet, Mace," Jocasta snapped. Her eyes flashed dangerously, a sharp crackle in the air.
Had everyone lost their flipping minds?!
"Enough!" Yoda barked before Mace could. "Fighting amongst ourselves, not the Jedi way it is," the little troll said, long ears pivoting between Mace and Jocasta.
Jocasta all but ignored him, the air still charged as she brandished the scroll towards both Yoda and himself. "You must recall Kenobi at once before it is too late!"
"Too late for what?" Mace demanded. He leaned forward in his seat, tried to appear more imposing. He didn't particularly care to be reminded that he had to scrub toilets as a page.
"Too late to stop that—that Sith from capturing poor Obi-Wan!" Jocasta cried.
"Why do you both think Skywalker is, is fixated on Obi-Wan?" Mace asked.
Yoda was suddenly between them, hobbling across the room in jerky little hops as he used his wizard stick like a cane. Both Jocasta and Mace followed him with their eyes. With a quick snap of his fingers, a teapot appeared out of thin air along with a hovering little flame. "Have some tea we should," Yoda murmured then chuckled to himself.
Transmutation was a disturbing amount of magic to use so casually. Which Yoda undoubtedly knew and had done on purpose to remind both of the humans in the room that if he got annoyed, he could just flatten them to a seat and seal their mouths shut.
Mace and Jocasta calmly joined Yoda for a cup of tea. They sat on the low cushioned stools where the teapot hovered.
"Now, tell us about your concerns you should," Yoda urged as he wrapped Jocasta's hands around a kitschy little tea cup. Mace found a similar cup dwarfed in his own hands not a moment later.
Jocasta sipped her tea.
Mace figured he best do the same.
"Are you familiar with the story of Bastila Shan and Revan?"
Mace rolled his eyes. He was so past the point of dignity. "The love story?!"
"More than one version of that story there is," Yoda chimed in, sipping his own cup of tea.
Jocasta shifted forward in her seat. "But a common thread in all the tellings."
"The soul bond?!" Mace demanded, setting his tea firmly down on a neighboring stool.
Yoda bared his teeth. "Need some more tea, you do," he murmured and hobbled over to fill Mace's cup back to the rim. Mace blinked at the little green troll. Then he gingerly picked up his cup and sipped his tea. He idly wondered if he was being drugged.
"Yes the soul bond!" Jocasta snapped. "Obi-Wan told me about one of his encounters before he left—"
Mace waved a hand. "He told us too! I don't know what has gotten into the both of you—"
"Let Madam Nu speak, you must!" Yoda cried, banging his stick on the ground again. "Of dire consequence I fear this to be!"
Mace furrowed his brows at Yoda then lifted them meaningfully at Jocasta.
She took a sip of tea, slowly raising an eyebrow back at him. He rolled his eyes and gestured for her to continue. "My apologies for interrupting, Madam Record's Keeper. Please continue."
Jocasta proceeded to share Obi-Wan's account of his first direct encounter with Skywalker and the skin-to-skin contact and the fallout. "None of that was in the report," Mace said, his stomach suddenly twisting in knots.
The story of Bastila Shan and Revan did vary. Most people liked to tell the story of how Bastila saved Revan from the Dark Side and healed his soul with her love. In the darker account, where Revan was Darth Revan of the Sith instead of an altruistic Jedi seduced to the dark, Revan had discovered the soul bond between the two of them, and had used it to bind Bastila to him to be used like an energy source until he had sucked the very life from her. He had realized too late that she was a part of him, and he died, having drained out her soul and consequently his own in his machinations to take over the kingdom.
"Wonder, we must, what else Kenobi may have left out of his reports," Yoda mused.
"But why?" Mace asked.
"I think he was embarrassed," Jocasta said. "And he didn't know what to make of it. He probably assumed, and rightfully so, that the Council would brush aside his concerns as a child's tale."
"So what are you suggesting?" Mace said.
"I'm suggesting that Obi-Wan is in more danger than just going for peace negotiations with a Sith. If it is a soul bond, and Skywalker knows…"
"Bind Kenobi to himself, he can, and even more formidable Skywalker's power will be."
"Dammit!" Mace snarled. "We need to contact Kenobi and tell him to pull back immediately!"
Suddenly Quinlan burst through the door. "I'm sorry to interrupt but this can't wait!"
"Like Sith hell it can't!" Mace said. Somewhere he had spilled his cup of tea, the cup rolling around on the ground. Quinlan seemed for a moment shocked at the sight of the hovering teapot and flame.
Then Rex and Cody stumbled in behind him. The two were bruised and battered, leaning against each other as though drunk—or severely injured.
Jocasta placed a delicate hand over her lips and murmured, "Then we are too late."
