Disclaimer: Star Wars belongs to Lucas. My love for it belongs to me.
The stench of the swamp did not bother Yoda any more than the feeling of cool, slick mud seeping through what remained of his robes. He sat quite still against the trunk of the tree that had guided him to this remote place, aware of its power radiating in the air around him. He had no desire to move. He had no desire at all. Not even to build a shelter; the transport capsule was enough for now. The fact that he strongly disliked the idea of living in the capsule only meant that it was necessary to do it, until the emotion was tamed. He had already examined the feeling to discover its roots and lift them out. He knew perfectly well why he wished to avoid the capsule, to let the swamp overgrow it, to let it sink into the mud and vanish from sight, along with the places it had been and the memories it carried.
Loss. Suffering.
Yoda raised a hand to his eyes and covered them.
"Profound, my failure is." The words were soft, and the Force shifted gently to give them space. "Arrogant, I have been. Right was he, about that."
Faith in the Force, he could have forgiven himself. Faith that it would guide his actions, faith that its light was strong enough to overcome its darkness.
Faith in his own ability, he could not forgive. That had been his failure. He had harbored misplaced pride, hidden it even from himself, and its presence had blocked the Force from channeling its wholeness through him. Somehow, he had come to trust his knowledge of the Force, rather than the Force itself, as the key to the effort.
How small a difference it seemed to be, and how vast it truly was.
"Always learning, I am." Yoda sighed softly and lowered his hand. He opened his eyes and looked unseeingly into the foggy swamps of Dagobah. "Too late, this lesson has come."
But even that was arrogance, he realized at once, and he nodded out of habit. It was too late for him, perhaps. Too late for them all, at this moment. But never too late for the Force. Things would right themselves, in time. Balance was irresistible. Perhaps he would not live long enough to observe its restoration, but that would not make it less valid. His presence was unimportant.
Yoda smiled slightly. More than eight hundred years among the Jedi, yet his ego remained. An infinite journey it was, to true selflessness. Every time he arrived, he recognized himself still there and began the journey again. Difficult, it was. Next to impossible, even for the most willing Jedi. Even for the innocent.
"But that's impossible, Master Yoda." Obi-Wan had been a youngling himself, still very small, when first he had begun to struggle with the concept of no self. "I know I'm here."
"How do you?"
"I can feel my toes wiggling."
"Then wiggle them, do not."
Obi-Wan had looked surprised, and then he had laughed. "Oh, I see," he had said happily, his face lighting up with the first and most unfettered kind of understanding. "Must I hold very still, then, to feel the Force?"
"That, Obi-Wan, you must."
Yoda's spirit sagged under the weight of the memory. It was so clear. As if time had not passed since. His chin dropped to touch his chest and he did not block the grief that flowed through him.
"Destroyed, the Temple is." The words felt foreign in his mouth, but he had to grow familiar with the truth. Had to accept it. The Council, dead. The younglings, slaughtered. The chambers wrecked and smoking. The Order, gone. The prophecy, misread. So much time it took, to build things. So little time to destroy them. A mistake in nature, that seemed to be. A violation of balance. A flaw, in the Force.
Yoda shuddered at his thoughts and quickly banished them.
"Dangerous," he muttered. "All paths begin in the mind." He thought of where young Skywalker's defiance of death had led him, and compassion touched his heart. Such a struggle it was for the young to accept life on its own, impermanent terms. A struggle even for those so old that death was no longer a stranger.
Yoda breathed out slowly. Though he had not acknowledged it, he too had feared to lose. The slaughter of the Order had shown him what lay in his heart. To the Jedi, he felt deep attachment. The Jedi Order, he had wished to protect. And despite his counsel to young Skywalker, he could not yet fully rejoice for those who had transformed into the Force. Mourn them, he did. Miss them, he did.
He stood slowly, bracing himself with one hand on his walking stick and the other on the trunk of the tree. Its energy flowed into his palm and traveled through him. Beckoning. Yoda rubbed it in reply and the damp bark rasped against his fingers.
"Patience," he said to it. "Patience. Much time, we will have together."
Full of the Dark Side, it was. Full of seduction. Of rage.
Yoda folded his hands on top of his walking stick and reflected on his own emotions. A week had he been here, sitting beside this tree, preparing himself, though he did not know what waited for him within. By now he could have explored the source of what had drawn him here. Yet he had not ventured into the black depths of the tree's gaping trunk.
And perhaps patience was not what was truly stopping him.
"Be always aware," he said quietly, and he looked up into the dull and misty treetops to repeat an old lesson to himself. "Aware of the many faces of fear, a Jedi must always be. Insidious and deceptive, it is. Ancient and evil. It masquerades as many things. Hatred. Greed. Sometimes exhaustion. Even kindness, neutrality and patience can serve as its agents. Be always aware."
How many times had he said it to the younglings, he had lost count. And what he had asked of them, he must ask also of himself.
He turned to face the tree's dark mouth. He limped over the twisting roots and pushed aside the hanging moss. He ducked the branches that hung nearly to the muddy ground, and stopped in the passage entry for a moment.
"Do or do not," he muttered.
Yoda dropped his walking stick and plunged into the depths of the tree.
The air inside it was dry. Cold. The immediate trunk opened into a much wider space beyond – there was more to explore than met the eye. Yoda went steadily forward, guiding himself along the knobbly bark, passing through the tilting shafts of grey and filthy light, untroubled by the scuttling creatures that fled in all directions at his approach. What troubled him was something he could neither see nor touch. Fear. It increased with every step he took, but it was not his own. It simply existed in the air, flowing from the ground below his feet, stretching up and outward along the branches. It whispered to him, penetrated his skin and flowed into his blood.
Yoda paused again and listened. From below, there came the echo of a voice. Familiar, it was, but too distant to place. His eyes traveled the earthen floor and found a passage in it. He crouched and crawled into the space, dropping feet-first into a dark and cave-like opening beneath the ground. It became harder to see, and he felt for the wall with his hand.
He stepped forward and stumbled. Beneath his feet, something groaned and moved.
Yoda slowly looked down, and his lungs contracted.
"Obi-Wan," he said in disbelief, and knelt immediately beside him. "Why are you here? To Tatooine, you took the boy."
"No… he… found…" Obi-Wan choked the words. Blood spilled from his mouth and trickled down his cheek to pool on the ground. "Anakin… found…"
Horror touched Yoda's heart. And anger.
"Found his children, has he?" Yoda found the words to be nearly impossible to speak. Aside from himself and Obi-Wan, the children were the last. "Hurt them, has he?"
"Killed…" Obi-Wan jerked and shuddered. His eyes fell shut. "Both… of them. All of us… gone. No one… left."
His body jerked once more, and stiffened in death.
And vanished.
Yoda blinked at the empty space where his old friend had just been, and then he rose to his feet, shaking.
"Trickery," he said grimly, looking furiously up at the base of the tree, his heart racing at having faced the darkest fear that lived in him, his mind reeling at having failed to detect the truth from the start. "Deceived me, you have. Do it again, you shall not."
Yoda turned his back on the empty space. Foolish he was, if the phantoms of the Dark Side could cloud his judgment so completely. Nothing had he learned, if he could be so fully manipulated by his own fear.
Little could he blame young Skywalker.
"I saw… I saw a city in the clouds."
Yoda stood still. The new voice at his back was another vision – another trick. He would not hear it.
"They were in pain… Will they die?"
Yoda's head turned. Something in that voice was…curious. He did not know it… yet he knew it. He looked over his shoulder and pinned his narrow gaze on a grown boy with golden hair whose heart lay naked in his eyes. They were full of love and fear. Desperation to save those he cared for.
His father's eyes, he had.
Again, it would happen.
"I've got to go to them." He moved toward his ship.
"If you leave now," Yoda whispered, "help them you could. But you would destroy all for which they have fought and suffered."
The boy – Luke – did not heed him. "I can't keep the vision out of my head," he said hotly. "They're my friends. I've got to help them."
"You must not go."
"But Han and Leia will die if I don't!"
Yoda went cold. Leia. Both of the children, entangled in this future plot. Both of them at risk. All hope endangered. How would he reply to the boy, when this moment came? How? Save at least one of them, he had to. At all costs.
But...
Yoda breathed deeply, opened his hands, and shed the pressing weight of doubt, of fear. This place was a source of great darkness. But darkness would not prevail. And it would not influence his actions, even in a vision.
He opened himself to the source of all light.
The Force crashed through him, chasing fear from his blood, expelling his doubts, illuminating the tree cave. Luke's face shone ahead of him, still twisted by anxiety.
"If you end your training now," Yoda replied, "if you choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did, you will become an agent of evil."
"And sacrifice Han and Leia?"
"If you honor what they fight for…" Yoda struggled, bowed his head, and let go. "Yes."
Luke stared at Yoda for a moment, and then his image burst into light and vanished.
The cave grew dim and quiet once more, its power temporarily depleted.
Yoda gazed for a while at the emptiness. After a measureless time of reflection, he turned away. He rested against the earthen wall for as long as he needed, then reached up both arms and pulled himself out of the hole. Slowly, he made his way back through the hanging moss and scuttling creatures. He picked up his walking stick and limped once more into the swamp.
"So be it," he said, to no one. "So be it. Here will I wait for him, and when he comes, his own choices will he make." Yoda's eyes traveled over the swamp. Empty and still it was, but it overflowed with life, and new warmth surged through him. New hope.
"Fear the outcome, I will not. For my ally is the Force."
The Force moved. Branches creaked and swayed. Mud bubbled, and bugs skimmed the surface of the swamp. Around him, all life thrummed, unselfconscious and harmonious, one with the Force.
Simple and quiet, his exile would be. Full of lessons.
Yoda smiled and began to pick his way through the mud, past the capsule and into the thicket of grey trees. Time it was, to choose a patch to call his home.
Time it was, to begin the waiting.