IX. Always In Motion
A young girl of maybe six or seven answered the chime at Yoda's door. Like the other initiates Cathleen had seen, she wore no Padawan braid. Obi-Wan explained their business, speaking to the girl as if she were his equal. She bowed, and told Cathleen to have a seat inside while she tracked down "the Master." Obi-Wan gave her a wink and disappeared. Shrugging, she sat down on a cushion to wait.
Cathleen had thought Yoda's quarters would be just as bare as Yaddle's. True, the same nondescript cushions and low table graced the floor, but there the resemblance ended. Where Yaddle's main room was nearly bare, Yoda's was thick with greenery. Potted plants grew wherever she looked. *Everyone talks about Master Qui-Gon's connection to the Living Force,* she mused. *But I think Yoda's got him beat, hands down.*
In one corner stood a blossoming fruit tree that filled the air with its sweet scent. A ch'hala tree grew in another spot, small ripples of color dancing over its trunk at every stray sound. A few feet away stood a water sculpture-cum-aquarium. An antigrav pillar field held free-floating spheres of water; they rose and sank, merged and split, not unlike the 'lava' in a lava lamp. Inside them swam semitransparent fish, migrating from one globule to another each time they connected. The water sculpture was so entrancing that she didn't hear the Master enter.
A three-fingered hand resting lightly on her shoulder pulled her back out of her reverie. His deep, green eyes seemed to already understand what she had to say.
She took a deep breath, fighting the urge to cry, and told him everything.
* * *
Darsha paused at the Library doors and turned to look at the worker who had just passed her. She was something of a favorite among the Temple workers, since she knew so many of them by name, but she couldn't remember meeting this man.
A Zabrak in this sector was rare enough--the only one she knew of in the Temple was Master Koth--and they were fairly insular as a species, as well. All the more reason she should have remembered this one. A frisson of warning crawled up her spine. The Zabrak glanced back at her before turning into an adjacent corridor.
Darsha shook herself. She stared at the Library doors, wondering what she had been doing just standing there--Master Bondara was needing those books.
* * *
"Always within us is the Dark Side," Yoda sighed when she was done. "Fallen, we are, and with us, the Republic. Once, counted in the millions were the Jedi. Now, only a fraction. Peace, heh? Justice? Hah! Only in hindsight does a golden age exist." He tapped his gimer stick a couple times, then his voice gentled again. "Fallen, we are."
Cathleen shook her head. "If that's true, then why am I here? If not to prevent the future from going wrong?"
"Wrong, you say?" His ears pricked up in amusement. "An empty question, this is, mmm. Ask only questions of the Force, only questions will you receive!" He tapped his gimer stick again, a sonic exclamation point. At the crack, little explosions of color detonated over the ch'hala tree's trunk.
"But then--then nothing will change!" This wasn't going the way she'd expected. He was supposed to be surprised, dismayed, anything other than this eerie acceptance.
"Oho! So certain, are you?" The long, green ears drooped again. "For eight hundred years, have I known the ways of the Force. It flows where it will." His gimer stick tap-tapping at every step, Yoda circled around to stand in front of the water sculpture. He watched it in silence for a moment, then said, "No one else, will you tell what has been said here."
A young girl of maybe six or seven answered the chime at Yoda's door. Like the other initiates Cathleen had seen, she wore no Padawan braid. Obi-Wan explained their business, speaking to the girl as if she were his equal. She bowed, and told Cathleen to have a seat inside while she tracked down "the Master." Obi-Wan gave her a wink and disappeared. Shrugging, she sat down on a cushion to wait.
Cathleen had thought Yoda's quarters would be just as bare as Yaddle's. True, the same nondescript cushions and low table graced the floor, but there the resemblance ended. Where Yaddle's main room was nearly bare, Yoda's was thick with greenery. Potted plants grew wherever she looked. *Everyone talks about Master Qui-Gon's connection to the Living Force,* she mused. *But I think Yoda's got him beat, hands down.*
In one corner stood a blossoming fruit tree that filled the air with its sweet scent. A ch'hala tree grew in another spot, small ripples of color dancing over its trunk at every stray sound. A few feet away stood a water sculpture-cum-aquarium. An antigrav pillar field held free-floating spheres of water; they rose and sank, merged and split, not unlike the 'lava' in a lava lamp. Inside them swam semitransparent fish, migrating from one globule to another each time they connected. The water sculpture was so entrancing that she didn't hear the Master enter.
A three-fingered hand resting lightly on her shoulder pulled her back out of her reverie. His deep, green eyes seemed to already understand what she had to say.
She took a deep breath, fighting the urge to cry, and told him everything.
* * *
Darsha paused at the Library doors and turned to look at the worker who had just passed her. She was something of a favorite among the Temple workers, since she knew so many of them by name, but she couldn't remember meeting this man.
A Zabrak in this sector was rare enough--the only one she knew of in the Temple was Master Koth--and they were fairly insular as a species, as well. All the more reason she should have remembered this one. A frisson of warning crawled up her spine. The Zabrak glanced back at her before turning into an adjacent corridor.
Darsha shook herself. She stared at the Library doors, wondering what she had been doing just standing there--Master Bondara was needing those books.
* * *
"Always within us is the Dark Side," Yoda sighed when she was done. "Fallen, we are, and with us, the Republic. Once, counted in the millions were the Jedi. Now, only a fraction. Peace, heh? Justice? Hah! Only in hindsight does a golden age exist." He tapped his gimer stick a couple times, then his voice gentled again. "Fallen, we are."
Cathleen shook her head. "If that's true, then why am I here? If not to prevent the future from going wrong?"
"Wrong, you say?" His ears pricked up in amusement. "An empty question, this is, mmm. Ask only questions of the Force, only questions will you receive!" He tapped his gimer stick again, a sonic exclamation point. At the crack, little explosions of color detonated over the ch'hala tree's trunk.
"But then--then nothing will change!" This wasn't going the way she'd expected. He was supposed to be surprised, dismayed, anything other than this eerie acceptance.
"Oho! So certain, are you?" The long, green ears drooped again. "For eight hundred years, have I known the ways of the Force. It flows where it will." His gimer stick tap-tapping at every step, Yoda circled around to stand in front of the water sculpture. He watched it in silence for a moment, then said, "No one else, will you tell what has been said here."