When Arya woke up, the room felt too warm. She did not understand where the feeling of nice coolness and calmness had come from, but there seemed to be something wrong with the temperature of the room. She knew that it did not matter much to her, so she just moved on and changed her clothes before the morning meditation.

There seemed to be some hassle inside the Temple. Arya felt it more clearly during her meditation. As she shook the odd, dreamy coolness away – the Master-like calmness disappeared along with it, too, even though she tried to keep it with her – she noticed that the air was in fact far hotter that it was supposed to be. Arya moved to the thermostat to change the temperature, but after five minutes of changing the settings she realized that it was out of commission. As she left the quarters for breakfast, even hotter air hit her face as she entered the corridors outside her quarters.

At the dining hall, the usual noise sounded more like a chaos than a hundred different conversations. Swearwords of different languages rumbled all around the hall, coloring up conversations everywhere. Arya tried to call the coolness back, but at this point she did not succeed anymore. It had faded away, its traces lingering scattered in the bond between her and her Master. Arya could only wonder why it was there.

It was easy to find Gomorrah, but this time the Veledosian girl did not find the Wookiee due to his tallness – it was the loud roaring in Shyriiwok that helped her find her friend. She could not recognize about a fourth of the words, but she sensed immense irritation coming from her friend.
"Hey! What's going on around here?" she asked once she reached the table.
"Air conditioning is broken." Qui-Gon grinned after that. "Everyone's hitting the roofs for that."
"I can hear that," Arya said when she heard someone behind her yell about the hot air, the sentences spiced up with Huttese profanities.
[It's so krraaar raarrrr hot!] Gomorrah roared and smacked his fist to the table – again, as the dent on the table implied.
"Gomorrah, calm down," Arya said. "Are you using profanities or what since I can't understand a part of what you're saying?"
[Who cannot yell some raarrrrr profanities when they're being literally krroookked in their fur?!] Gomorrah asked, his voice rising over the chatter.
"Gomorrah, I understand that this is hard for you. But so it is for others, too," Tahl said. She sighed and swept her forehead. "This heat is not good at all. And it's starting to be dry, too, so those like Mon Calamari will have trouble here."
"The problem is real," Qui-Gon noted, now more somber. "I saw Master Okiar on my way here. She didn't look good at all."
"Well, is anyone doing something about it?!" Arya asked in dismay. Master Okiar was one of the Force technique teachers at the Temple and Arya's favorite teacher, for she concentrated of Altus sopor section of Control abilities and was one of the kindest yet funniest persons she knew inside the Temple.
"Some repair droids are on it now, I guess," Qui-Gon said. "At least my Master believes so."
"Repair droids are useless!" someone older than them scoffed at the adjacent table. "We'll be cooked!"

Arya sighed. The coolness had already evaporated from the folds of the Force. She found herself grasping for whatever traces of calmness there had been, but the masterly and soothing essence of someone else was now out of her reach.

She had to admit that the heat started to feel annoying; this was out of what she was used to and her clothing was not meant to this kind of a heat. She could not remember the difference between the climates of Coruscant and Kiros, so she had nothing to compare the current situation with. Her memories of childhood had faded away gradually as all the information and hard work had flooded in and buried everything else.

The lessons went by. The temperature rose and the amount of clothes was slowly reduced until they had gone to the absolute edge of being appropriate clothed. It was not like anyone could just go around in underwear, if even that.

Gomorrah was usually calm, but as the torture continued the Wookiee seemed to go closer and closer to throwing a fit. Despite of that, he let go of his fury well so that he could keep on going despite of the horrid heat.

He did well, he trily did, until he met his ultimate limit late in the afternoon; he suddenly got up when he was meditating with Arya and Tahl and stormed off without saying a word, although a while later the two girls could hear the Wookiee roar something. He could not take it anymore.
"Poor Gomorrah. This temperature must be pure torture to him," Arya said. Tahl sighed and muttered something about "feeling tortured". She returned to meditation and Arya did the same, but not without sweeping her forehead.

This heat was insufferable. Yet the droids took a lot of time to repair things. Those good-for-nothing junk piles, Arya mused. Droids were not her favorite things in the galaxy; while she acknowledged that she had not seen much of the world outside the Jedi Temple and thus lacked a vast amount of knowledge, the droids she had met at the Temple usually did not do a good job. That was annoying. The droids here must originate to the last millennium, at least. Or their last upgrade does.

Tahl left at some point, but Arya stayed for some time. Her meditation was later disturbed by the beep of her comlink. She answered it immediately.
"Hello Padawan. I hope I am not disturbing you," her Master's voice said.
"Not really, Master," Arya said. She suddenly realized that small beads of sweat were crawling down her face and neck. "I was meditating. How's your mission?"
"It's fine. "Jedovar's voice was colorless. "Is everything alright there?"
"The air conditioning is broken," Arya lamented. "We're being cooked here."
"Really?" Jedova could barely stifle a chuckle.
"Yeah. It's been like this all day. I guess the repair droids are broken too. At least by now they should be, since not all Jedi really can take this with grace or something like that."
"Can you?" The Master's voice was innocent, but that did not stop the Padawan from getting on defensive for a fleeting moment.
"At least I am not throwing any sort of fits here. Yet."
"That's good," Jedova approved. Arya could not help feeling good because of the warm tone. It felt good to be approved by just someone, let alone her own Master. This prompted her to dare to ask, "Do you have any idea about when you'll come back, Master?"
"I'll come back in a month. That's how long it'll take at the most, I believe."
"A month?! Wow, things must be really messed up there." Arya could not keep astonishment away from her voice.
"I wouldn't say 'messed up'." Jedova considered his words. "Just quite complicated. More complicated than I thought."
Arya nodded. Then she remembered that her Master could not see it. "Ok."
"I'll be back as soon as I can, I promise you, Padawan." Jedova wanted to hold onto that promise, and he hoped that he also would be able to do that.
"Alright. I'll see you then, Master."
"I need to go now. May the Force be with you, young one." Jedova's voice was suddenly rushed. Arya could not answer her Master when the transmission already ended.

Arya put the comlink back to its place on her utility belt and stared into the vast depths of the garden. She had lost the track of time while meditating and it was getting dark already; the dimmed lighting indicated that. She would be away from her Master for a month and all that time she would possibly have to fight against the disbelief that someone had actually chosen her. As long as her Master was not around, she would have to deal with it. In the end, that would not be a problem; it was two months until her birthday, so no one even could kick her out – and even if they tried to, Arya knew she could just contact her Master if the Council would not help in the situation.

Arya's stomach growled. She was late for her usual dinner time, and her body knew that.

Time to go then, she mused as she stood up and walked away, the dining hall as her destination.

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