As they sat down at a table in the dining hall, Jedova could not help being amused by the differences between the amounts of food he and his apprentice, an adult man and a young girl probably half his weight, had taken. It was just like when he had been a Padawan; Xurego had taken a relatively small amount while he had taken a lot of food. Well, he had usually been terribly hungry when he had gotten to eat.

Now, from his point of view, the roles were reversed; he was the Master, not the Padawan, and with the years of his body growing far behind he did not require just as much food to keep going.

Arya did not note anything about the situation. She just ate with a lot of enthusiasm. Jedova could not help grinning at it; it was like he had been transported back into the early years with Degu. He started to eat more calmly than his apprentice; with the lesser amount of food he could take his time.

Sooner than the Master expected, Arya was already finished with her heap of food. Jedova did not make any remarks on that. The girl waited for him to finish, but against her expectations Jedova slowed down.
"Master," Arya said quietly. She was getting impatient; she wanted to finish her lightsaber.

Jedova stopped eating and glanced at his Padawan.
"Yes?" he asked with the same volume.
"Why are you still slowing down? Are you like... testing my patience or something?" Arya tried to make her message clear without sounding disrespectful.
"Are you in a hurry?" Jedova asked. "You do not have lessons due to timetable arrangements, right?"
"I'd like to get to finish my lightsaber," Arya noted. Screw sounding respectful! "It's taken too long already!"
"You know you sound disrespectful, do not you?" Jedova said, his voice more even than the girl had expected it to be.
"Yes, I do, Master," Arya confessed and sighed. "I'm impatient, yes, but I... I just can't sit here and wait all day when you finish your meal slower than a snail!"

The calmness in Jedova's eyes turned into hard disapproval. Arya slapped her hand to her mouth; she had gone way too far now.
"I... I apologize, Master," the girl whispered and left quickly, making sure she seemed like nothing had happened, but once she was out of the dining hall she started to run. It was easier to just run instead of facing the consequences of blurting out things she had not meant to say. It was just easier to run away and hide.

She did not want it to be like that but she could not help herself. She had just become a Padawan finally and she had already screwed up that badly. She could not believe herself!

Arya rushed to random turbolifts, going down with every lift. Then she found herself from a low level. It was quite dark there, but not so dark that she could not have seen with her eyes. No one else was there.

It was a good place to stay away from everyone and think through her actions without anyone's blaming stare.

Arya ran deeper into the corridors.

At some point, she stopped, panting lightly after the spurt. Even after her breathing became steady, her heart still raced, punching her ribcage. She could not understand how she had let her impatience control what she said aloud. She could not understand how she had made such a simple mistake.

In the dark, cold and long-abandoned corridors, it was easy for anyone to hate themselves. It was even easier to be disappointed. Arya did not remember being even this disappointed in herself, let alone feeling such self-hatred, guilt and fear she now felt. Yet she felt all of that and perhaps even something more.

She knew that it was completely possible that she had just screwed up her only chance to become a Jedi Knight permanently.

Sighing, Arya sat down, leaning to a wall. She could pass the time in the darkness perhaps even indefinitely if she could survive without water and food. No one would find her there. No one usually even came to a level this low at least as far as the Padawan knew.

All this just because of a lightsaber...

The silence made it easy to meditate on what had just happened. Arya had been in trouble in the past, she could have never denied that, but this was much worse than all of those incidents combined together.

With all the bustling of the Order far above, Arya found nothing to disturb her and her concentration. On the other hand, the silence also lacked an anchor to pick up from the Force. This time, Arya had to make her own anchor. Usually, she could have done that, but now her own feelings plagued any anchor she would make for herself. They refused to leave her.

Suddenly, the clang of a turbolift came from somewhere nearby in the same level. Arya could hear the door open, then identify the Force signature: it was her Master.
"Sithspit," Arya hissed, scrambling on her feet. The footsteps were approaching her, calm but certain of the direction they were heading to.

It would be easiest to just wait until the Jedi Master came. It was the easiest course of action, probably the best as well. But did Arya want to make it easy?

The footsteps were growing louder. Now that Master Jedova has come this far already, would making this a chase make things any worse?

No, it would not. Arya turned on her heels and walked away from her approaching Master. She refused to get help from the Force to help with navigating; it would just highlight her position to Jedova. The pace of the footsteps sped up a bit. Arya picked up something like anger from the silence. The turn of events certainly did not please the Jedi Master.

Frankly, Arya could not blame him.

Slipping around, making as little sound as she could, the Padawan navigated through the corridors randomly. Echoes of the footsteps grew fainter, but suddenly, as Arya got to a crossing, there were two Force signatures of Jedova Wang.

The Jedi Master attempted to trick her with a Force illusion. Luckily, Arya remembered where the first Force signature had been.

But what if the first one had been the illusion and the second one was the real one and just had been cloaked?

It would not matter anyway, Arya mused. If she went to the direction of the illusion, her Master could easily get there to catch her.

Arya rushed to the left, away from both the signatures, hoping that Jedova would not be waiting for her there, cloaking his actual Force signature while giving her two fake ones to run away from – which would be straight right to him.

Another crossing was right ahead, but there was a tall form which resembled Jedova. Arya swore in Veledosian as quietly as she could; she had started to enjoy the adrenaline coming from this chase yet now it seemed to end already.

Attempting to cloak her own Force signature, Arya crept closer. The form's back faced her. There was the possibility of getting past it to the right.

When Arya had gotten to the small square in which the corridors joined, the form turned, revealing it to be Jedova. They stared at each other, waiting for the other's next move.

The Force signatures were getting closer. Footsteps were audible right behind her.

Either of them was the illusion: the Jedova in front of her or the voices and Force signatures behind her.

Arya tested it by dashing to the right. Jedova did not follow her but Arya knew now that she gave her position easily even without the Force; the sound of her footsteps rumbled in the corridors. As a sudden prediction, Arya sensed that Jedova would catch her if she turned right next time. Therefore, she turned left, hearing fast-paced footsteps close to her.

Arya did not dare to look behind herself. The adrenaline was so strong in her veins that she could not help enjoying it and continuing. A chase in a low, dark and deserted level of the Jedi Temple without the danger of dying or getting fatal injuries was exciting in some strange way unsuitable for a Jedi – it suited a mere child more than her.

Arya knew this would be the last time she could ever act like a child. Maybe this would be the last time she would ever even think about it. She knew that Jedi were not supposed to look for excitement, but Arya also knew that she had never been one to follow the rules to the maximum anyway.

Another crossing. Arya ran straight forward, then turned left at the next one.

The first door was open but Arya did not notice it before something rushed to the corridor, right in front of her. Arya stopped and slid on the stone floor, bumping into whatever had come to her way. Hands gripped her shoulders and a familiar voice murmured to her ear, "Now I caught you, my very ill-mannered Padawan."

Arya sighed. The Force signatures disappeared, leaving only the real one there.

Jedova had caught her.

/Star Wars (c) Lucasfilm, any characters you cannot find on Wookieepedia, Veledos, Veledosians and their language (c) Me/