"Master Yoda?"

The Temple quarters reserved for the Council members' use were large, if built in the same archaic milieu as the rest of the compound. I had not had a reason to visit Yoda's room before now, and stepping over a pile of old newsletters and around a half-disassembled tea-maker, I could see why.

The mismatched furniture was sized for a human, including three different tables and a queen-sized four-poster bed. Every surface, even the bed, was covered in clutter. Much of it was old documents - manuals, journals, star charts - but random consumer items and clothes were strewn about as well.

"Master?" I called again, and only then did the tiny Jedi's presence register. He was further in, somewhere… over…

"Obi-wan." The wrinkled face and green ears popped from underneath the bed. He wasn't smiling. "Meet again in two days the Council will. Wait until then, your question cannot?"

I stepped farther into the room. "Master Jinn recommended I come to you personally with this. Not by way of the Council."

"Mmmm, yes. A personal chat, this space is suited for. Join me you will." His head disappeared under the duvet.

It was with some trepidation that I got down on hands and knees to follow the Grand Master of the Order under his bed. As incongruous as it was, I found myself thinking of the blanket forts and burrows that my sons had always built behind couches or under the table. There were plenty of bedclothes piled around, and a thick rug that covered most of the stone floor below the bed. Yoda settled into a nest of pillows; a portable light and stack of books lay within his easy reach.

The old man regarded me patiently, seeming content to sit quietly until I was ready to speak.

"I made a mistake," I began, and the Master nodded.

"The folly of youth, this is. Advice you seek, only after mistakes you have made. More valuable my wisdom might have been, if sought it before a decision you made."

I nodded, conceding the point. "The problem with consulting with the Council, is that it effectively takes the decision away from us."

He shook his head sharply at this. "Consult with the Council, did I suggest? No! Consult with me, I said. Trust me, do you not?"

The silence stretched, before I finally decided to say it. "No, Master. I suppose I do not, really. I trust your intent, certainly, but not your judgement."

"Mmmm, yes. Failures you saw, in your Visions, and so my judgment you find questionable." He let the conclusion linger. "Remind me, then: your judgment, in these Visions of the future? Sound it was, yes? Fail you did not?"

I scowled. "You know very well that Obi-wan's failure in the original timeline was as great as any. But that's the point. I'm not acting as he did. The Visions changed me."

"Unique in this, do you suppose you are?" Yoda asked. "A new path you can learn, while destined are the rest of us to trudge toward our predicted ends?"

"No, that isn't - " I had trouble meeting his eyes as I assembled my response.

"Learn we can, too, Obi-wan." He reached a clawed, three-fingered hand to my face, holding my gaze in his. "If let us in, you will. Still trying to save the Galaxy yourself, you are, yet many allies other than just the Force you have. Learn more lessons than just from your Visions, you must."

"Okay, I'll tr… I will. Yes, Master."

"Good. So," Yoda sat back, swiping up a book almost his own size to paw through. "The Mind Spike your Padawan knows. Teach it to her, did you?"

I shook my head. "Mind Spike? This is the first I've heard of it."

Claws swiveled the manuscript around to face me. It was a handwritten folio of the type common on worlds with paper but no automated press. The Aurabeth was blocky but legible. I read aloud.

"... and a third Spirit Warrior did he slay. So did the squire say unto Mara Din, Ho-Laja will pierce my mind before we draw blades, and how can I withstand this attack? And Mara Din said, your mind is your home, so if he lays siege, prepare for the assault. Within your Soul is an empty Darkness. Place within it a Spike of burning Agonies, and disguise it with a longsuffering look. So shall Ho-Laja step into your mind, and encounter the Pit, and himself become impaled, and you shall strike him down with your Unholy Blade, in the name of Mara Din. It came to pass, that Ho-Laja was slain. Thereafter the Spirit Warriors did battle with Blades alone, for although a Mind Spear was a great feat of Spirit, the Mind Spike could be placed by even the weakest apprentice."

"A kernel of truth legends hold, and often much more," the Master said as he took the old tome back from my hand. "But teach Olana, this book could not have, nor any I know in the Archives. Another teacher does she have?"

I sighed, giving a wordless nod.

"Ask you how she acquired it, I will not." His sigh was a counterpoint to my own. "Safe from the corruption of a Sith holocron, most Masters do not believe themselves to be. Yet, allow a youngling one you did? Why?"

"She made it an issue of trust." I felt Yoda's consternation as his attention beat on me like the hot sun. "I let her have it - just for a little while - and this all happened so fast. There should have been a learning curve. Warning signs. Not… just… suddenly a new Force power."

"Far more driven than you realize, she is. Your expectations she will always strive to exceed. Her ultimate objective she will never meet otherwise."

"Right," I shook my head. "I still think of her as a child, needing to be guided. But she's smarter than I am. More determined."

"Still in need of guidance she is, more now than ever," Yoda rejoined. "But think of her as a child you cannot. Mistake your tenderness for love, she will. Your fatherly affection for romantic attachment."

"You're not going to chide me for making these connections?" I searched his eyes; his thoughts radiated worry and concern but nothing more.

Yoda shook his head. "An unfeeling machine I am not, Obi-wan. Attachment we spurn, but not connection. Compassion… affection… loyalty. Strengthened by these things, a Jedi can be. Father and mother are we all to the younglings; brother and sister to each other."

I felt apprehension from him as he said these things, as though he was holding back from addressing something else. I asked, "So what do I do?"

"About what?" he asked with a neutral expression, but he felt far less relaxed than he made himself look.

"About the holocron, the Dark technique."

He leaned forward, his voice barely above a growl. "What to do, you know already, yes?" He nodded to himself when I didn't answer. "Go, then. Decide for you I cannot."