Sweat flowed in tiny rivers all around Jedova's face. One part of him, the part which had been numbed by the work in the heat, could not tell for how many hours they had worked, but his disciplined Jedi part told him that they had been working for four hours and 41 minutes, galactic standard time. Jedova watched the small parts that had been made. They had begun with a small orb, and with care they had started to make parts out of it. It was a very difficult and critical task, and it had been the most painstaking job the Jedi Master had done in decades. Yet as Jedova watched the parts, he felt that they had not done much.
"It'll take days to complete this. It's very intricate," Tureq had explained to him.

Once Ta'koa deemed that they had done enough for the day, the three men left the workshop into the slowly cooling air. Arak and Jedova were merely exhausted, but Tureq, who inclined to more careful, detail-oriented and lighter works, could not help but complain about his aching muscles.
"I really don't know if I will be able to do the night shift," he muttered. After working for a long time, he did not want to immediately ask the Jedi Master to go on his patrol shift at night.

Jedova, however, felt the urge to offer to do the aforementioned shift. After all, it would just lessen the number of things he would have to do.
"When is the night shift?" he asked tentatively.
"At midnight," Tureq told.
"I can do it," Jedova noted.
"But you've worked a lot already. You must be exhausted too," Tureq noted. "Plus, don't you need to sleep well too?"
"I can get enough rest before that. And sleeping? It's no problem for me to go a day or two with little to no sleep," Jedova replied. "No need to worry. I'll tell you if I am too exhausted."

Jedova had a feeling that he may or may not keep his word on that. When it came to telling his fellows that he was too exhausted to go on, he failed more often than not. He had always felt that he needed to stay strong for them and not falter.
"Well, try to sleep before that. I'll wake you up when you need to get ready for the patrol," Arak told. "I'll do that since I believe Tureq will oversleep anyways."

Tureq had a wry smile on his lips when he nodded and muttered something in Veledosian. He knew that his elder brother was right.

Near midnight

Arak knocked at the door and opened it. He was surprised to see Master Wang awake.
"Have you slept at all?" he asked carefully. The Jedi turned to look at him with a neutral expression.
"Yes, I have. Is it time now?" he said. He had slept a deep sleep for two hours, then woken up just ten minutes ago to meditate a bit in order to fully wake up. It was something Master Xurego had taught him for times when he had to operate with very little sleep. It had been useful during the worst of crises when he had had to be up for most of the time and he had had just a few hours of sleep or rest at the most.

Anyhow, he was bugged by missing the right moment to contact Arya via comlink. The girl had gone to sleep before he had gotten time to talk in silence. He did not know what was going on Coruscant, and since he would most likely be away for a relatively long time, he wanted to be in touch with his apprentice as much as possible under the current circumstances.

As he stood up from the meditation pose, he knew that bothering his mind with it would not change anything.
"Follow me," Arak told. Without looking behind himself, he left. He knew that the Jedi Master followed.

"What am I supposed to do on the patrol?" Jedova asked quietly; most of the tribespeople were asleep.
"You follow the lead, check if there are any marks of intruders, and if there are, you guys drive those intruders away at sight. Don't worry, they know enough Basic to tell you what to do," Arak told. Jedova nodded, not daring to talk any more than he needed to.

The stables were the only place that was not silent. The brekos snorted every so often; Jedova believed that it was the sound they usually made.

The Lianorosians in the stable turned to look at the newcomers as they came. Arak told them something in Veledosian. Jedova could hear his name mentioned, Tureq's name as well. One of the men nodded to him. He was much smaller than Arak, but there was confidence in his green eyes. There was not much light despite of the torches on the walls and in the tribespeople's hands, but he could make out the man's cropped hair even though he could not tell its color for sure. He would have said red or golden, but he could not be sure in the yellowish light of the fire.
"Miicah, you take care of our fellow," the man said to another tribesman. Miicah, a tallish, thin man with longish hair nodded and gestured Jedova to come closer.

Arak patted Jedova to the back.
"May the Force be with you, Master Wang," he said. Then he left to get the needed sleep.

Jedova walked to Miicah, trying to ignore the distrusting glances others made. He noticed that even Miicah's smile was tight, but he chose to ignore it. Hopefully, they would get used to him. Jedova could not help noticing that from the twelve tribespeople who were in the stable, only two were female.

Miicah quickly instructed the Jedi Master on how to mount a breko. With more ease and success than anyone, Jedova included, had expected, he managed to do it and follow the group as they rode out of the stable and the village. His breko – her name was Harhhoo, so the tribespeople told – only listened to Miicah, though, despite of not protesting Jedova's presence. Jedova was in the right side of the group, next to Miicah.

The illumination of the two moons lighted the valley. Jedova watched the beautiful, calm and quiet scenery with relaxation. He could not help but wish he could show this marvelous scenery to Arya. He was quite sure that their bond and his skills were not enough to do that right now, but he knew that he had nothing to lose if he tried.

Partly sinking to a meditation with the Force gathering around him, he focused on broadcasting the scenery through the small bond. He knew that his young Padawan was asleep and might not notice or remember anything later.

Jedova turned his attention to the other Force-sensitives around him. The Lianorosians were different from the Force-sensitives he usually encountered, even outside of the Jedi Order. They seemed to be neither Light nor Dark. Had Jedova met enough of such people to recognize this, he could have called them Gray. However, he had not met or heard about such people enough, so he had no word to call the tribespeople around himself.

There seemed to be nothing out of ordinary around the village perimeter. The tribespeople talked little with quiet and calm tones. Jedova could not understand what they were saying aside from the tone. He accepted that, knowing that he may never learn to understand the swift chatter that made the Living Force waver in sync with the words.

They went further away. The scenery was silent. Gazing up to the stars, Jedova could not help marveling the beauty of the galaxy.

His friends and Master Aslas had taught him to see that beauty and its many forms. That day, that single day, when he had truly realized it, had been decades ago, but he still remembered it. It was crystal clear and the most valuable treasure in his life.

It had been that day, when he had finally, after months of fighting against everything, overcome his depression.

Jedova knew that it and the incidents behind his depression had left scars and eternal marks to him, and there was always the risk of the depression resurfacing, should he not take proper care of himself. Nevertheless, after seeing the beauty for what felt like the first time in his life, Jedova was resolved to fight against everything inside his mind that would prevent him from enjoying his life to its fullest.

The mind healers supported him with this objective, and therefore he had annual checkouts in order to make sure that his psyche was healthy and stable. As more time passed since the last time he had had needed professional help, he grew more and more disliking of anyone going through his mind. He knew that it was worth the discomfort, though; a few times the annual checkout had let them notice the problems resurfacing before it was too late to stop those problems from swaying the Jedi Master's stability.

With an odd form of amusement, he realized that if he stayed for a week in the Lianorosians' village, he would miss the checkout this time.

Jedova needed to remember to contact the Halls of Healing in the morning. He needed to change the time of that appointment.

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