Jorec's black hair, damp with sweat, stuck closely to his head as he raced through the swamps of Dagobah. With what some people would consider inhuman speed, he kept running despite the burning in his lungs and the tiredness of his legs. He had used the Force to enhance his speed in the past – even during the time he had lived a "normal life" on Selvernos – but never to the extent in which he was now. At the moment, he was going faster, farther, and longer than he had ever attempted before.
"Left! Turn left you must," Yoda instructed, changing the course. The nearly 900 year-old Jedi Master was perched in a customized backpack. With a tired nod, Jorec complied.
It was the fifth time that day that Jorec had reached this portion of the running course that Yoda had set up, and now Jorec doubted that he could pull of the stunt required of him one more time. He neared what be his vault, a small log that was just a meter high. Properly trained humanoids could easily clear this barrier, yet it was what lay beyond that he would have trouble with.
Jorec felt his boot connect with the moss-covered log, at the same time feeling the Force flow through his tired body. The hot and humid air blew into his face as he soared over the small lake. Jorec could see the dry ground begin rushing towards him as he reached the peak of his leap and mentally celebrated that he would actually complete his jump. He also hoped that this would be his final run-through of Yoda's course for that day.
He landed on the soft ground, nearly slipping as his left foot came extremely close to catching the soft mud that made up the edges of the lake, and continued on with the course. He finally came to a stop outside of Yoda's hut. Jorec did his best to wipe the sweat off of his forehead, yet only succeeded in adding more perspiration from his sleeve.
"Over you training is for the day," Yoda said after he jumped out of the backpack and began walking towards his small hut. "Progress you have made."
"Thank you Master Yoda," Jorec replied with a bow, taking Yoda's compliment with honor.
"Tough day?" Lia asked as she heard her husband struggled to remain standing as he entered the transport. At the moment, however, her attention was mainly focused on her crying son. Tears were in Gavin's eyes as the small child did his best to deal with the pain of the situation. Lia did her best to try and get her son to bite down on an apparatus designed to help infants with the teething process.
"An understatement," Jorec replied as he limped into the ship's lounge. "I don't want to even think about how many kilometers I ran today." He walked up to his wife and son and began watching as Lia continued to attempt to help Gavin. "How's he doing?" Jorec asked, concerned over his son's status at the moment.
"The development holobook we have says that this is normal," Lia answered as she gestured towards the datapad on a nearby desk. "Yet I can't help but worry."
"I'm pretty sure that he'll be fine," Jorec said, doing his best to reassure his wife. It was obvious that neither of them had any previous experience with caring for infants before. Lia had been an only child to an only child, and thus had no younger siblings or other family members to "practice" with; and Jorec being a Jedi, had no one to help with either. The only experience that Jorec had with managing small children previously was he being responsible for a group of 7-10 year-olds during the Battle of Coruscant. That guard duty had lasted about an hour, and the highly disciplined group of younglings didn't require much attention. Parenting, however, was an altogether different process.
"Yeah, he will," Lia conceded. "He hasn't gone through anything abnormal yet."
"That's the last thing we'd need," Jorec added, "our son performing a very public display of his Force-
sensitivity."
"With the Force, things you will see," Yoda instructed, his voice sounded wavy and ethereal as Jorec did his best to follow through on this new lesson. "Open to you is the past, the present, and the future."
Sensing the future had happened sporadically in Jorec's life, yet the visions had always been slightly vague and warned him of dangers that were sometimes years in the future. At the moment, Yoda was trying to train him in fine-tuning this ability.
"See anything do you? Sense anything?"
"It's hazy at the moment," Jorec reported, "but I can see something."
What he could see was the view of four lightsabers – one blue, one green, and two red-- moving in darkness. After a few seconds of viewing the "good" lightsabers, the weapons' wielders eventually came into view. There were two of them: a man and a woman, both of whom were in their mid-twenties. The man had short brown hair and something about him felt familiar in the Force, and the blonde woman next to him seemed connected to him somehow.
"Gavin," Jorec blurted out as he finally recognized the male in his vision. "I see my son. He's grown—older than me—but it's him…"
The two Jedi raised their blades against the wielder of the red lightsabers, doing their best to fend off their attacker. "They're fighting someone," Jorec reported, "don't know who." A small amount of blood fell upon the floor as the unknown assailant managed to score a hit on Jorec's son. The shock and worry of seeing his son wounded, even over 30 years in the future, caused Jorec to snap out of the meditative trance that he was in.
"What did you see?" Yoda simply asked, his voice slightly betraying concern.
"Gavin and someone else were fighting something," Jorec said, doing his best to explain. "I couldn't see what it was, but Gavin was slightly wounded in the battle." Jorec watched as Yoda nodded; the almost deceptively powerful Jedi Master stood still for a moment.
"Yes, see something you did," Yoda finally replied. "Dwell on it do not," Yoda warned, "for always in--"
"Motion the future is," Jorec finished Yoda's warning. "I won't dwell on it. A lot can happen in thirty years." That comment earned another nod from Yoda, who knew all too well what could change with time.
Of all the skills that Jedi were taught, sensing the future was one of the most dangerous. That was a fact that Yoda knew very well. The man who would become Darth Vader had come to him before the rise of the Empire, complaining about visions of death—death in which he would be responsible for. In Yoda's mind, Anakin had probably fallen in an attempt to prevent those visions from coming true. He wasn't the first, and Yoda knew that Anakin wouldn't be the last.
In this case; a Jedi who had barely been a Padawan when the Emperor had sprung his far-reaching trap, one who had seen and been through a lot in his short life, and one who had a wife and newborn child, there were obviously some risks in teaching Jorec how to sense the future.
"Serious I am," Yoda scolded. "In these dark times careful all Jedi must be. Many of us left there aren't, and many are those opposed to us. Need another member they do not," he warned.
"I—I didn't mean to imply that I wasn't taking your warning seriously, Master Yoda," Jorec stammered, doing his best to apologize. "I can imagine that there is a lot of danger that comes from misinterpreting visions."
"No apologies needed," Yoda replied. "And danger there is. A helpful tool visions are, but a tool for both sides."
"I understand," Jorec said.
Yoda walked with the aid of his cane towards the edge of a tree, the legs of his weathered Jedi tunic lightly brushing against the ground. "As said before; strong the Dark Side is at these times. Tell me: what are the emotions considered of the Dark Side?"
"Anger, hatred, fear, jealousy," Jorec recited, easily remembering one of the first lessons that younglings in the Jedi Temple learned.
Yoda nodded at his pupil's easy recitation of the core piece of Jedi dogma. "Good, good. Why considered dark they are?" Yoda asked.
"They're negative emotions of a sentient mind," Jorec answered. "The Dark Side feeds off of these negative emotions just as the Light Side gains power through positive emotions," Jorec said, reciting a theory learned in a philosophy class.
"Now, since the betrayal, experienced these negative emotions have you?"
Yoda's question gave Jorec a reason to pause. In the years before his capture he had indeed experienced the negative emotions that the Dark Side seemingly thrived on.
"Examples give me," Yoda said, sensing the hesitation to reply. "Anger."
"At the beginning I was angry at a lot of things," Jorec admitted. I was angry at myself for not doing anything better to help the other Jedi, I was angry at the clones for betraying me, and I was angry at Master Fionst for not surviving."
"Hatred," Yoda said, naming off another emotion.
"The Empire," Jorec simply replied. "At least I used to."
"Jealousy."
Jealousy; an emotion that Yoda and the other Jedi Masters had likened to greed, a vice that was heavily looked down upon by the Order. It was an emotion that Jorec realized that he still carried.
"I'm jealous of all the 'normal' families that I've seen," Jorec admitted. "Families that don't have to worry about being discovered by the Empire; families that don't fear a simple knock on the door…I'm afraid that at any moment I'll be discovered again, only this time my family won't be so lucky. I guess that answers the next question as well," Jorec added.
"Ever acted out of these negative emotions?" Yoda asked.
"Not that I know of," Jorec answered. "I did come close a few times, though."
"What learned have you today?" Yoda asked.
"The Dark Side is prevalent today and, as Jedi, we must do our best to steer clear from it. It's an easy path, one that almost everyone has at least taken a step on in his or her life. It's even easier today to fall than it was ten years ago."
"Remember, Jorec, hard the life of a Jedi is, especially one in your position," Yoda added. "Learned I have that love isn't the great evil that we thought it was, yet still caution must be taken."
"I know, Master Yoda, I've faced a situation like this before," Jorec replied. "Both Lia and I were in grave danger when we were forced to flee from Selvernos. I had to fight my way out of an apartment building with Lia by my side, and there was no Dark Side influence on me then."
"A formidable test it must have been," Yoda added.
"Now that I know of these close calls with the Dark Side what do I do about it?" Jorec asked.
"Learn from them," Yoda instructed. "Steer clear of the Dark Side, or bring ruin to all you have accomplished you will."
"I will learn from those experiences, and I won't fall," Jorec assured Yoda. "But there's something I've been wondering," Jorec added. "Why did Anakin fall? Do you know?"
"Pieced together the bits and pieces of information I have," Yoda said, doing his best to arrange the story in his mind to take out all of the bits and pieces regarding the young Luke and Leia. "Tell you tomorrow I will," Yoda finally said, knowing that twelve hours would be more than sufficient to tell a believable enough cover story without having to fully lie. "A long story it is, and brush up on the details I must."