When Jedova woke up, the chrono read 0900. The Jedi Master got up, yawning and unable to understand how his body's rhythm had been disturbed like this. He should have woken up an hour ago yet he was still tired.
It did not matter. He would wake up properly by the time he finished his morning routines.
Stretching as usual. Then he changed his clothes, musing that if he had slept for this long, then Arya must still be asleep.
He was surprised to find the girl in the common room, meditating on the floor. She did not sit with her legs crossed like Jedi usually did, kneeling on the floor instead. There was nothing odd with meditating on one's knees – some Jedi preferred that in all situations, after all – but Arya had bent her ankles so that her toes were against the floor, her sole otherwise exposed. Had anyone pushed her from behind, she could have easily fallen on her face.
Suddenly aware of his presence, the girl stood up from the floor, smiling. "Good morning, Master!"
"Good morning to you too, Padawan. You have been busy, haven't you?" Jedova asked, taking a look at the pot of tea that, judging from the smell and the steam coming out of it, waited for a drinker.
"Not really." Any grimness Arya had had yesterday seemed to be gone. "I really am not one to drink tea but I decided to prepare some before you woke up."
"That's very kind of you, my Padawan." Jedova could not help smiling at the carefree attitude – it was likely that he would not see it for too long in the girl. He had seen such carefreeness fade away as younglings and Padawans had grown older.
Sören and Lucian had always been different than Arya, more serious from the start, but Jedova could see some similarities between her and Degu; at the age of twelve, they had both been cheerful even to the point of it being contagious. However, during the years, Degu had become more serious and reserved, as if incorporating his Master's demeanor into his own. Being a Veledosian, Arya would live much longer than any human. Jedova could not help but wonder what the now smiling girl would be like when she would be a Jedi Master herself. Would she glare at the world around her, deeply hurt by something, or gaze to the horizon with wisdom – wisdom part of which Jedova hoped would be from him – or just march onwards because there was nothing else to be done?
From those options, Jedova wished it would be the one with wisdom. However, if he could decide it, if he could do just anything to affect what Arya would be like, Jedova wished her to look to the future with hope and a smile on her face. Jedova knew that such a matter was not in his hands, though. In the end, he would not be there to see the outcome.
"Is everything ok, Master?" Arya's worried voice woke Jedova up from his thoughts.
"Ah, yes, everything is fine," Jedova told.
"Is that dream you saw at the artisan workspace bothering you?" Arya asked. She knew that Padawans are not allowed to interrogate their Master, but she was worried; she had not forgotten how Jedova had writhed in his sleep. The dream must have been a violent one, she thought.
Jedova blinked and stayed silent. He had not even thought about it; he had only focused on getting the yellow and blue out of his eyes after the dream. Yet the words of that odd specter returned to his mind and he could not comprehend them. What was the countdown it had spoken about? What did the specter mean by anything it had said?
"Dreams are just dreams. Even those the Force gives usually are not what they look like," Jedova told.
Arya frowned. "You did not answer the question, Master."
Jedova sighed. The girl was persistent.
"I really don't know if it bothers me," he told. "I hope not."
Arya did not seem satisfied with the answer but she did not say anything about it. Instead, she just nodded and sat back down on the floor, crossing her legs this time. Jedova joined her for a moment for his morning meditation, but after refreshing his mind he got up and got his mug. There was nothing that could beat a cup of good tea in the morning. Jedova knew that many would think that it was very little for someone to be satisfied with, but during the course of the many years of his life he had learned to appreciate the tiny things in life. He hoped that he had managed to pass at least a hint of it to his apprentices.
Jedova looked at Arya. The Padawan was taking time with her meditation. Could she be upset about something?
Then he understood what was going on as a new Force signature flickered to life in the girl's hands. The crystal!
With a great amount of interest, Jedova got up from the table and, taking his mug with him, he sat next to Arya and watched as the gray crystal's glow dimmed and brightened steadily like it was breathing. Arya attuned the crystal to the Force with a lot of care; she did not want to fail this important part.
The girl's stomach growled; she had not eaten anything ever since yesterday's lunch. Jedova waited patiently for her to finish with the crystal. Outside of missions, it was up to Arya herself to make sure that she ate something regularly.
Arya opened up her eyes at some point, blinking. Then she turned to look at the crystal.
"Do you think the crystal is ready?" Jedova asked. Arya turned her head quickly to him, blinking even more. Then she turned her head back and massaged her temples, huffing.
"You were in a deep trance," Jedova noted.
"I know. I got some hellish visions," Arya told, frowning. Her head hurt from the visions. "It was intense."
Jedova remembered having visions when he had been in the same situation; that had been on Ilum, where such visions happened to everyone who finished their lightsabers there. Years later, he had also seen quite some visions in the peace of one the Temple's most secluded meditation rooms when he had created and imbued his synthetic purple crystal with the Force after receiving the rank of a Jedi Master for training Sören into knighthood and deciding that it was time for him to cut all ties to his past as a Padawan.
"Do you want to tell what they were about?" he asked, then added hastily, "Just like with the visions on Ilum, you don't need to share the visions you saw here, though."
Arya frowned at the crystal, visibly troubled. "How can they be explained? There so many things happening and they changed so quickly that I could barely follow them. There were explosions, fighting, shrieking and whatnot. It was a literal hell."
"Visions that people get when they work on their crystals, whether it's on Ilum or somewhere else, never make sense, especially on Ilum. They should be called hallucinations, rather than visions," Jedova told. It did not seem to cheer Arya up at all. "Maybe you could take them all apart, describe what happened between each change. Could it help you to at least fathom what you saw?"
Arya turned her head back towards him. "I didn't say that those visions trouble me or anything."
"But they do trouble you. Trust me, I see it," Jedova said softly. "You don't need to say it aloud."
Arya tore her gaze away from her Master again and closed her eyes. She felt her Master's hand on her shoulder. The light grip was comforting. Arya let the crystal fall to her left hand and raised her right hand to take a hold of her Master's hand. The skin of the back of Jedova's hand was rough, it's smoothness lost during the course of countless of missions in different environments.
"You are not alone, Padawan," Jedova's voice told with a soft tone. "You can always share your burden with me."
The deep bass voice was calming. Arya concentrated on that feeling and her Master's encouraging presence. It did not make the entangled visions any clearer, but it made thinking easier. It made letting go of the anxiety easier.
"I think I can separate the visions, but if I just say the words aloud, it won't help. It won't help me understand, because I forget the rest," Arya said, opening her eyes.
"Then write it all down," Jedova said. "We can recount the visions and what happened in them that way."
Arya turned to look at him, eyes lighted with realization. Jedova smiled and said, "Go get your datapad and start writing. Write every detail you can recall."
"Yes, Master," the Padawan replied, got up and quickly fetched her datapad. Jedova got up from the floor and returned to the table. What was left of his tea had cooled down a long time ago, but despite of that he kept sipping it as he watched how swiftly Arya typed. Numerous lines of text came within minutes.
When Arya was done, she shook her hands. They hurt after such a workout.
"Eleven visions," she sighed and turned the datapad to face her Master, "here you go."
"Thank you," Jedova said and started to read.
Vision one: Complete darkness. Ten lightsabers – two blue, two green, two purple (different shades), two white, one yellow, one gray – all ignited at once with numerous red lightsabers. A fight ensues. Some other lightsabers join it as faint lights.
Vision two: A group of Veledosians on a battle field, singing a song I can't identify nor understand, standing against three tanks which have the Republic's emblem on them. The tanks shoot once, hitting the group and killing them immediately. Only corpses and fire are left as the tanks drive over the remains.
Vision three: The Jedi Temple is on fire. Then I see seven villages on fire – one looks like the village of Lianoros and I feel the need to rush there to help. I can't move. Fire engulfs me.
Vision four: Giant blue crystals shatter with noise, and I see myself in the middle of them. Pieces fall all around me and I have nowhere to go to avoid getting hit. The sharp edges cut me and I bleed. There's nothing I can do to stop it. I fall down on my knees.
Vision five: A purple lightsaber fighting against someone with a red lightsaber. Suddenly the red blade hits through the purple blade, breaking it. The purple-bladed lightsaber shorts out and refuses to reactivate. The red blade comes right at the person with the purple blade – right at my very own perspective.
Vision six: Blaster shots. I couldn't notice anything else before the vision changed.
Vision seven: Dark, rotten forms attack a man who is lying on his right side on the ground, badly hurt. He ignites a magenta-bladed lightsaber, trying to defend himself. I can't see the forms falling in front of that blade, but I hear them shrieking. I am somewhere high and I can't go down to help. It feels like I'm chained. Then voices of countless of explosions vibrate and make the walls shake. I fall but the pit does not end.
Vision eight: A team falls into a crevice of rock and snow. Some die immediately, others survive. They can't move. Raven-like birds encircle them and some start to pick the flesh of the dead. Others take their weapons, their comlinks, whatever items they have that they can get. Then my perspective changes to that of one of the survivors. With agony gnawing my body, I see one of the birds taking something that looks like a lightsaber. I reach for it, whispering a name I don't remember, but it's useless. The rest of the birds suddenly fly away as something startles them. I see nothing... nothing else than the red blade which finishes every surviving one off... After that it's just me and the blue sky.
Vision nine: Tribespeople look up to the sky from their hideout and gasp. Some of their own land near them with jetpacks, carrying bodies of young and dead. There had been a carnage.
Vision ten: A class of Jedi Initiates practicing katas. The walls suddenly crumble and fall apart right on them. They don't have enough time to run at all, and only one survives – one Dark...
Vision eleven: A Rancor is let out of the cage. It rushes towards a village.
Jedova lifted his eyes from the text and looked at Arya. The Padawan had been fiddling the crystal all the time he had been reading.
"Quite violent and hopeless visions," he remarked quietly. "The feeling of being unable to do anything to stop horrible things from happening is dominant in them."
"Like I said, hellish," Arya whispered, looking at the table.
"But they mean nothing. Those visions are not real," Jedova said.
"But what if they are?" Arya looked into her Master's eyes. "What if they will come true someday? The Jedi Temple has been attacked before. It could be attacked again!"
"It was during the time of the Sith. The Sith have been no more for almost a millennium now," Jedova reminded the girl.
"But... what if they return? What if they are reborn?" Arya asked, frightened by the idea. "They came to being once. They could do that again!"
"They cannot. There are too few Sith artifacts and and too little knowledge left outside our hold. And even if there was enough, we could prevent their rise or at least defeat them. Arya, don't think of such absurd 'if's," Jedova said. "That's not what a Jedi does."
Once again, Arya turned her gaze away from her Master's eyes and looked down on something – this time the table. Jedova could sense what it was about: a need to know everything. Luckily, he knew exactly how to react to it.
"Listen, Padawan. You can't know everything. There will always be holes in one's knowledge and not all things are healthy to know at all anyway. Some things we see, hear or even know are not true. Especially when missions become much more complicated, you will no doubt have little to no information about something important," he told. Arya frowned, a bit bothered by the fact that her Master had seen through her like that.
"Are you frowning because of what I said or is there something else?" Jedova asked.
"I'm just not used to someone noticing everything I feel," Arya muttered as an answer.
Jedova smiled with understanding. "I remember how that felt. Don't worry about it. It'll go away during the course of the years when your personality gets more depth. It's part of growing up."
Preoccupied by the attempt to turn her impatient thoughts into words without sounding like a youngling, Arya did not say anything.
"Besides, I have extensive studies at psychology. I had to get such when I was the apprentice of Xyrego Odyrogo," Jedova added.
"What was it like to be his Padawan?" Arya asked, raising her eyes again, this time determined to keep the eye contact. The change of subject was welcome.
"It wasn't the most orthodox Master-Padawan relationship. You know, usually people discuss with words – even if they are not said aloud," Jedova said, reminiscing a team he had met a long time ago; that team had shared information in written form. "Master Xurego rarely used any words especially in the first years, mostly because of the limited capability of telepathy between us. Usually, there wasn't time to write anything, which is no miracle, considering that... how often we had trouble we could not affect."
"But you still managed to work things out," Arya remarked. "You still finished the training, Master."
A flash of pain flickered in Jedova's eyes as Xurego's maddened anger hit his mind, like a punch to the gut.
"Master? Did I say something wrong?" Arya asked, worried. Jedova shook himself out of the painful memories mentally and shook his head.
"I finished my training, yes, but not with Master Xurego." He sighed. "Even before... before he... became incapable of continuing to teach me due to his health going down, I had to rely on other Jedi Masters to progress in quite a lot of things. And for the last months I trained under a Weapon Master named Thrion Aslas."
Arya remembered what she had heard about Xurego Odyrogo. She did not want to open up such scars her Master had borne for so many years. Therefore, she fell silent.
"You know, I noticed that you stayed to watch me spar with Phayeth yesterday," Jedova changed the subject, pushing the old thoughts away.
"What about it?" Arya asked.
"You did pick up something after my shields got shattered, am I correct?" Jedova asked, trying to avoid looking like he was interrogating his Padawan.
"I... I felt that it was for the best to not meddle with that and just... released it to the Force," Arya told.
"Do you recall something specific about them?" Jedova asked.
Arya turned her head away. She did not want to go through this conversation. She did not want to face what she had left behind: those feelings, the sudden feeling of violating someone's privacy.
"It's ok, Padawan," Jedova said. "There is nothing wrong with what you sensed. They are not your feelings."
"They are yours," Arya told. "No matter how old they might be, they are yours. I feel like I violated your privacy."
"It is not your fault." Jedova's voice was a bit sterner. "The fault is mine for letting Phayeth smash my shields into pieces like that. Maybe I can't avoid such a situation sometime in the future, but there is one way to prevent you from sensing my feelings. It's that I teach you mental shielding so that you can keep external influences away from vexing you."
Arya turned back to look at the adamant expression of her Master's with hope. She remembered yesterday's kata lesson, but she was more than willing to learn something completely new to her.
"It will take a long time to learn, let alone master, but I'm sure you can do it," Jedova said. "However, before that you really should finish up your lightsaber."
"Sure," Arya said.
Then her stomach roared louder than it had in a long time. The girl's face went dark red and she looked away in embarrassment. Jedova started to laugh but covered his mouth to stifle that laughter as he sensed Arya's embarrassment. He cleared his throat.
"Although, maybe you should go to eat something first," he said and heard his own stomach grumble. "And I have a feeling I'd better do the same."
Arya nodded and took a deep breath. She tried to will her face to go back to its normal color. For a moment she just waited, her face slowly paling. Jedova stood up and waited for his Padawan to do the same. The girl followed suit when she was ready.
It still felt odd for Arya to follow a Jedi Master inside the Temple. She had been a loner for a good while, so being part of a team consisting of a Master and a Padawan was odd and unfamiliar. Nevertheless, Arya knew that she would get used to it.
She had to.
/Star Wars (c) Lucasfilm, any characters you cannot find on Wookieepedia, Veledos, Veledosians and their language (c) Me/
