Chapter 37- The Master and the Padawan

Ahsoka stepped off her ship and breathed in the desert air of Tatooine. The smell of dry heat had never been more appealing to her. Hours stuck in her box of a ship with a broken air filter that made the air smell like burt manure would make anything smell fantastic by comparison. Sure she should've noticed the broken filter before she left. On any other day she would have, except that recently she'd been distracted.

'I should've never brought her in there. She died because I failed.' Such thoughts swam in her head and blocked out other things, like doing propper flight checks before take off. 'Master Anakin would have killed me.' Speaking of which, she was really looking forward to seeing them again. When Bail had suggested she take this trip, she jumped at the opportunity.

"Ahsoka!" Anakin ran to her and slapped a hand across her back while she coughed to get the remaining smell out of her lungs. "What is that smell? I'll have a look at it later. Come now, I want you to meet someone."

Anakin led Ahsoka closer to his house. When they were near the front door Anakin rubbed nervously at the back of his head. "Listen, I wanted to say that this is in no way a rejection. If you ever want to come back, that is."

He looked up at her with such pitiful eyes, Ahsoka almost slapped him. "What is it? When I commed to say I was coming, you said you had news?"

"I've, sort of, taken a Padawan." Anakin looked away again.

Ahsoka beamed. "Anakin, that's great! I'm so happy for you. Who's the lucky youngling?"

Anakin smiled. "His name is Galen Marek. He is inside, if you want to meet him."

"Oh do I ever!" Ahsoka turned to follow Anakin into the house.


"LUKE! Turn around right now! We have a mission to accomplish. I let you pilot so you can learn how to control the craft better, not so you can do tricks." Obi-Wan lectured his twelve year old Padawan.

Luke turned around in his pilot seat and sighed. "Yes Master." Of course if anyone asked him, stunt piloting was an excellent way to learn to control a craft. And if he was using the force to see where he was going, he didn't need to face the view-window. 'But will Uncle Ben think of that, no-ooo.'

"Don't get snippy with me, young man," said Obi-Wan. "Alright we're near the village now. Time to land and drop off the supplies."

"I still don't see why we couldn't attach parachutes to the crates, then drop them from flight. It would look cool. Plus we wouldn't have to land, and we could go back to get more, faster," said Luke.

"But then we wouldn't be able to hand out the goods, making the human connections we are trying to make," Obi-Wan said, and Luke rolled his eyes. "Come on now. Remember, these people lost their homes to the wind storms. The least we can do is greet them with a smile."

Luke forced a fake smile on his face. Obi-Wan reached out and messed up his hair. "Hey!" Luke laughed and his smile became more genuine. Then Obi-Wan smiled as he opened the ship's door.


"Good, good, good. Learning fast you are." Yoda praised. Leia was indeed doing a lot more now with the force than she ever had before. She just wished she didn't have to be doing it upside-down. The blood was sure rushing to her head. But she wanted to impress her Master.

"But I still can't stack the blocks. I'm trying and trying." Leia complained. She hated to leave anything undone.

"Do or do not. There is no try." Yoda corrected her. "Enough for today. Keep practicing you will."

"But not yet, Master. Let me have one more go, please." Leia begged.

"Master Yoda. Are you in here?" Yoda turned to see who was calling.

"Auntie Ahsoka!" Leia called out.

Ahsoka appeared at the door to the garage and almost laughed when she saw her niece standing on her head beside her father's workbench. "Anakin said I could find you in here. I wanted to talk, if you had a moment to spare."

"Ah yes. Down from there, come." Leia tumbled over and righted her posture. Yoda pulled a box with several metal rings and a key attached to the end of it and he handed it to her. "A puzzle, this will be. The box, you will unlock. Speak to you later about this lesson, I will."

Yoda stepped away with Ahsoka, and Leia examined the puzzle. She tried to bend the key towards the box's lock, but it wouldn't go. The chain of metal rings would bend and move, but not that far. Not even with all her strength put to it.

"Bail Organa sends his regards. The rebellion is growing," Ahsoka started.

'Hmm,' Leia gave it another thought. 'The Force.' She first tried reaching into the lock, but she couldn't budge it's pins. Then she tried on the key and the rings, but she couldn't get it to move either. 'What is this thing made out of?' Leia didn't know, but whatever it was, it seemed designed to stump her.

"But the galaxy is suffering. The atrocities the empire is committing every day are astounding. It won't be worth staying in hiding much longer. There won't be much of a galaxy to save if we don't act fast." Ahsoka continued. Master Yoda didn't look like he put much weight to her words, but Leia's brow crossed with more than just frustration with her puzzle, as she listened.

Leia examined the key. Then she smiled. They were having their lesson in the Skywalker family garage. Her father's tools lay everywhere. Leia had seen him forge equipment before. The process was simple. All she needed was a mold. In one cupboard she found a bucket of a soft waxy material, and she pressed both sides of the key into the wax. Then she brought both sides of her mold over to her father's worktable.

From here she could hear her Master and Aunt arguing, but not exactly what they were saying.

She used the Force to heat up a metal alloy her father often worked with, and filled her mold with it. She pressed both sides of the mold together, and then she used the force to cool the metal faster. Leia knew her father had the equipment to heat and cool the metal manually, but she had often seen him take shortcuts and use the Force, and she was excited to try the same. Last minute she remembered the thick heat proof glove her father used, and she opened her mold to topple the new key into her gloved hand. It was perfect.

Leia went back to the puzzle with her new key and pushed it into the box. With a click she opened it to reveal…

'A rock! Why a rock?'

"Yoda don't you see. You have to join the rebellion. The universe's issues won't be solved by you doing nothing," Ahsoka argued.

"Too risky, it is. Lose everything, we still can. Defeat the sith, we cannot," Yoda protested.

"Fine then. Let the universe burn. You Jedi are still as stubborn as you always were!" Ahsoka left, slamming the door behind her.

Yoda sighed, then he turned back to Leia. His brow creased with confusion.

"I got the box opened. What is it with the rock?" Leia asked.

Yoda looked down at the opened box, then up at Leia again, and again. "Impossible, this is. How?"

"Wait, you knew this box was impossible to get open. Why would you ever give me a puzzle that can't be solved?" Leia's tone became confrontational.

"Solvable, all problems are not. Keep doing, we must, but also accept not doing. This, the puzzle teaches," Yoda lectured.

"But I did it," Leia pointed out. "I've got to go now. Mom's making lunch." She put the rock back into the open box, then ran into the house.


"Hello Master Obi-Wan." Ahsoka greeted eagerly.

"Ahsoka, Anakin said you'd be coming." Obi-Wan said as he and Luke exited their speeder.

"Yes, Master. I uh, I wanted to talk to you." Ahsoka didn't know why she was so nervous. She'd rehearsed this conversation in her head a thousand times since she'd left Alderaan. She needed to talk to someone about her feelings, the guilt especially, and her grandmaster seemed like the best option, in theory anyway.

"It's nice to see you. I'm sorry we couldn't be there for your arrival, but Luke and I had a mission. Luke's first in fact." Obi-Wan said as he placed an arm over Luke's shoulder.

"Really, Luke, your first mission! How did it go?" Ahsoka asked.

Luke's face turned sullen.

"Now Luke," Obi-Wan positioned himself directly in front of the twelve year old. "You did very well for your first mission."

"B-but the supplies were stolen," Luke wailed.

"That's not your fault. Look, could we have caught them if we took up the chase? Maybe. But they also could have fought us, and then you might've gotten hurt. I'm your Master, and it's my job to protect you first." Obi-Wan paused. Tears continued to flow from Luke's eyes. "Luke, you didn't decide to rob the transport today. No. The crooks decided to wake up today and steal our supplies. They alone are to blame, and now that we know about them, I will tell Master Coleman and he'll keep an eye out for them. If they come back, we'll be more prepared next time."

Luke wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and nodded quietly.

"Awe, poor kid. All that on his first mission? Yikes!" Ahsoka said as Luke walked away.

"Yes, it was supposed to be a simple handout of supplies. What luck, huh! Don't tell Anakin I said that." said Obi-Wan. "So, what did you want to talk about."

"Oh, well. Something happened recently, and I'd been feeling like a failure for not stopping it. I'd say more, but I have the feeling I'd get the same lecture Luke just got, and I'd hate to make you repeat yourself."

"Did it help?" Obi-Wan enquired.

"Yes, I believe it did," she answered with a smile.

"The blessing of Younglings. They teach so much without even trying. You'll learn that one day." he said with a wink.

"Oh, I think I may be learning that now. Bail's daughter is force sensitive, and I've been giving her a few lessons," Ahsoka said.

Obi-Wan smiled. "That's wonderful. She couldn't have a better teacher. Just remember, if you ever need to talk. Anakin and I are only a comm call away. We'll always be willing to listen."

"Thank you, I will remember that." Ahsoka grinned again, then turned to rush after Luke.


Later that day, Grandmaster Yoda carried the opened puzzle box with the strange rock inside of it to his quarters. He set a kettle on to brew some tea, then he meditated well into the evening. Yoda was used to meditating, and stray thoughts rarely interrupted his focus, but today he found himself wondering about the lesson he gave Leia today. 'Hmm, how clever a Padawan, she is.'

He found himself thinking about the lesson when his own Master gave it to him. Yoda had meditated long hours trying to strengthen his connection to the force, and turned the chain this way and that, trying to get the key into the lock, all to no avail. As a youngling he had a habit of focusing on a problem so intently that he often went without sleep or meals for days on end. It was this habit that inspired his master to give him the doomed puzzle box in the first place.

But Leia Skywalker, of all people, managed to get it open. And what did she say when she did? "What's with the rock?" Master Yoda had given the box the old shake test, but assumed the box was empty. He couldn't hear anything inside it. And if it had been designed not to open, then why would there be? But it wasn't empty after all.

Yoda quit his meditation early and went to go get the box. He pulled out the rock and turned it over in his hand. Yoda's eyes smiled with a youthful energy as he recognized something from his past. When Yoda's Master made Holocrons, they were always rugged and rustic in design. Some to the point that they could be mistaken for average rocks. This rock was such a Holocron.

Yoda closed his eyes and the Force flowed through him and into the Holocron. In his hands it began to glow with a green light.

"Padawan?"

At this voice Yoda nearly dropped the Holocron. "Ma- Master?" Yoda opened his eyes to see a holoprojection of the Holocron's gatekeeper, in the form of his old Master, standing before him.

The gatekeeper smiled down at Yoda. "You are the Master now, I sense. Tell me, does your padawan frustrate her master with the same perfectionistic tendencies you once frustrated me with?" the gatekeeper laughed. "The way of the universe, such fates are."

Yoda chuckled too. "A sense of humor, the force has."

"It does, does it not? But sometimes unsolvable problems must be solved." The gatekeeper's tone became more serious. "That is why I put this holocron into the box. To remind you that when you have an unusual problem, you often need an unusual solution to solve it. Pay attention to the one who did open this box. A solution bringer, your Padawan is."

"Leia, that she is," Yoda hummed.

"That is the end of my message for you. Padawan of mine, may the force be with you." With a brief wave the hologram disintegrated, and the holocron stopped glowing.

Yoda stood there for a moment, staring off to where the projection once stood. Then he picked up the holocron. He considered placing it back into the box, then changed his mind. Instead he carried it over to a chest by his bed and placed it on top.


This chapter takes place shortly after the last one does. A couple of months later at most. The Twins are Twelve.

I decided to give Anakin the padawan Galen Marek because in the Legends 'Verse, Darth Vader actually killed his father and took the boy as his secret apprentice, Starkiller, to try and kill Palpatine. Darth Vader was supposedly cruel to the boy to drive him further towards the dark side. I wanted this universe to be different. Anakin is a good master who trains Galen Marek towards the light side instead.

The bit with Yoda and the puzzle box. I was slightly nervous as this lesson is contradicted by his cannon "do or do not, there is no try," lesson, but when I thought up how to have Leia stump her Master, I couldn't resist. I figure that as a grandmaster, he would've needed to accept defeat is a part of life. I figure he'd want to teach her that failure is a part of growing and not to put too much pressure on herself to be perfect every time.

Only some lessons go around. The final part with Yoda and his old Master was irresistible too. I hope you understand why this Holocron looks like an ordinary rock and not the usual glowy cubes seen in other illustrations. And Yoda's Master is never talked about anywhere, so I found I had so much room for creative freedom there too.