Chapter 15

Renovation

The durasteel doors to the Jedi Council chambers were shut. Yoda stood before them with his hands clasped, resting atop his gimer stick, his eyes closed, and his face impassive. He stared at the durasteel doors, waiting. His rock-still position hid the turmoil within. Yoda contemplated the last time he had visited the chamber.

He recalled the disdain he had felt for the Jedi Council. He remembered how he had despised what he had thought of as their elitism. He summoned the disgust he felt for how they were nothing more than a midi-chlorian club.

He had thought them sycophants.

He had thought them weak.

He had been wrong.

Yoda bowed his head and stared at the backs of his hands where they rested atop the twist of wood. At some unknown point in his life, his once-pristine skin had become spotted with darkened blotches. Veins now bulged from his wrist and ran like tributaries, branching along the green landscape. Wispy strands of hair that had once been a lustrous silver now had faded to a dull gray.

Yoda frowned.

He had grown old. How had he not noticed until now? With his age, the Council had seen experience. They had coveted his accumulated knowledge, but he had been too wrapped up in his own concerns to see it. The Council had not wanted him because he had the highest midi-chlorian count on record. They had wanted him because he was ancient. They had wanted him because they had thought him wise.

Yoda nodded.

Wise, I was not, Yoda considered. Great knowledge, I had, but no experience. Knowledge, without experience, a great waste, it is. A marriage, wisdom is, of knowledge and experience.

Yoda raised his head and stared at the ornate designs on the cold metal doors. Distant sunlight glinted off them into his half-lidded eyes. Migruna III's twin suns had sparkled off the discarded Iktotchi's weapon as well.

Yoda sighed.

Closing his eyes, Yoda breathed in the energies of the Force, and the whispers of the dark side that nipped at the edges of his consciousness dissipated.

Inform the future, the past should, Yoda considered, not dictate it.

Sinking further into the placid waters of the Force, the ethereal form of Qui-Lek seemed to materialize in a distant haze of blue-white light. Yoda knitted his brow in concentration, trying to resolve the insubstantial image, but the impression vanished. Yoda could not be sure, but it seemed as though the Jedi Master had…smiled.

Yoda contemplated the vision and the Jedi Masters who waited behind the two massive slabs of metal. They were not prepared for what awaited them. Perhaps his encounter with the Sith had been the will of the Force. Maybe the Force was telling him that he should use his new-found wisdom to make the Jedi stronger. Bound by his agreement with the Dark Lord, Yoda could not talk about his experience. Nothing, however, precluded him from imparting the lessons he had learned. Yoda tightened his lips into a thin line.

The doors suddenly unlocked, and Yoda opened his eyes. He made his face an inscrutable mask and hobbled into the room.

He would lead them.


Master Secura's right lekku twitched involuntarily. Yoda's report had been clear, concise, and…incomplete. Surveying the gathered Masters in the Council chamber, she sensed their unease as disquieting tremors in the Force.

The only visible eye on Master Redous's reptilian head from her vantage point blinked incessantly. Tulook tapped his pale fingers against the side of his chair. Ji-Aba-Zin tilted his long conical head to one side but said nothing.

Elyana's gaze settled on Qui-Lek's conspicuously empty seat.

As expected, it was Fanzeh who finally broke the silence with a snort. "What happened to this darksider who took Qui-Lek's life?" The Klantooinian's tone was harsh. The lips of his split upper jowls flapped as he snorted again.

Yoda's expression was inscrutable. That was abnormal, in and of itself, given that Yoda had never hid his disdain for Fanzeh and normally took every opportunity to confront the unbending Jedi Master. Instead, the once-proud Yoda closed his eyes and drew a long, silent breath.

"Gone, the user of the dark side is," Yoda said at last. Elyana threw a glance toward Fanzeh, but the Jedi Master's attention was focused entirely on Yoda.

"Gone? Gone as in dead? Gone as in escaped? Why are you being so evasive, Yoda?" Fanzeh leaned forward in his seat. "How is it that you have closed yourself off so completely in the Force?"

Yoda turned slightly, squaring himself on Fanzeh. Elyana realized suddenly that she was gripping the sides of her chair so tightly that her lavender skin had turned pale-white along her knuckles. Yoda fixed Fanzeh with a hard stare. Elyana held her breath.

Seconds passed in silence as Yoda held the gaze, unwavering.

At length, Yoda lowered his head.

The Force suddenly exploded in a deluge of emotion with Yoda at its source. Driven back into her chair, Elyana swallowed hard against the dizzying sensation assaulting her senses. Pushing hard against the curved sides of her chair, Elyana pulled herself up and focused her gaze on the tiny creature who stood solemnly at the center of the chamber. Yoda leaned heavily against his makeshift cane, eyes closed, his face somber. Haphazard images flashed in and out of her consciousness.

Qui-Lek lay on a forest floor, impaled through the chest by a crimson particle blade…

A small migru child, a source of light…

A torrent of green energy enveloped a tiny blue-green orb…

The impressions came in a flood without meaning, and Elyana struggled to make sense of it all. But the emotional onslaught did not let up. Grief and guilt poured from Yoda in seemingly unending waves. Unbidden tears rushed to Elyana's eyes and poured down her face.

"Yoda…" Elyana could barely hear her own voice. "Please…"

A sharp surge in the Force, and the gush of sensations ceased. The Jedi Masters all stumbled forward, and Elyana swallowed back the nausea that threatened to erupt from her throat.

Silence.

As Elyana slowly recovered, she scrutinized the other Jedi Masters. They all seemed deeply moved in the same way she had been—even Fanzeh's face had softened. They began glancing around the room, clearly unsure of how to proceed. With each passing moment, the images faded from Elyana's mind like the diminishing light that accompanied the nightly shutdown of Coruscant's orbital mirrors. Once again, it was Fanzeh who broke the calm.

"Yoda…" Fanzeh's tone was much softer than before. "What…happened?"

Yoda let out a slow breath, as if he had been holding it for a long time. It was still several more moments before he finally opened his eyes. They were red and slightly swollen with unshed tears.

"Suffered much, I have, on this mission," Yoda replied. "Faced and defeated the dark side, I have. A great loss—" Yoda's voice broke. He paused for a moment and lowered his head again. He swallowed silently before looking back up at Fanzeh. "Give you details, I cannot." With apparent great difficulty, Yoda turned about the room to look at each Jedi Master as he spoke. "Swear to you, I do, that no more danger this dark one poses for now. Learned much, I have. Stay here with the Council, I will. If you accept me, lead you, I will."

Fanzeh's bushy eye-brows lifted high onto his forehead. "You would lead the Council at last?" he asked incredulously. "You have never been interested in even being on the Council, let alone leading it. We've been after you to assume this position for decades!" He leaned forward, his eyebrows drawn together and his jagged lower teeth bared. "What changed?"

Pulling the corners of his mouth down farther than Elyana had ever seen before, Yoda looked down to where his stick met the brilliantly polished stone floor. He picked up the wood and tapped it lightly against the stone. Lucidity settled on Elyana for the first time. She had not been sure until that moment, but it was now clear to her that Yoda had sunk lower than he ever had. The grief and sorrow that had washed over them moments before was only a hint at the agony he was now enduring. He was grasping. He needed the Jedi; he needed….

"Master Fanzeh," Elyana said, he voice firm and clear. "We are Master Yoda's…" she glanced at Yoda, "…family." She smiled. Turning back to Fanzeh, she drew her eyebrows together, and pulled her lips into thin line. "He has spared us the brunt of the torture he suffers even now. He deserves our compassion, not our distrust."

"Agreed," Redous interjected. "Whatever Yoda suffered, he has clearly returned to us."

The other Jedi Masters nodded assent. Fanzeh glanced about the room. His lower jaw dropped. "He has given us more questions than answers!" Fanzeh roared. "Don't you all see that? How can we let him lead this Council if he cannot—no!—will not tell us what we need to know!"

"Seek answers, a Jedi need not," Yoda whispered. The entire Council returned their attention to him. He picked up his gimer stick and began to hobble across the room. "Understand the question, we must." Yoda stopped directly in front of Fanzeh. His voice was soft, sad. "Answers, too concerned with outcomes, they are. It is the path that matters. The path we Jedi walk, difficult it is. More difficult still, it needs to be. Unprepared, we are, to face the darkness." Yoda's grip on the gimer stick tightened.

"But…" Fanzeh began to protest when Yoda placed his hand on his fellow Jedi Master's knee.

"Search your feelings, Fanzeh." Yoda whispered. "Trust your feelings, you must."

Fanzeh frowned briefly, and then closed his eyes. Almost immediately, the entire Council followed suit. Yoda removed his hand from Fanzeh's knee and leaned heavily once again on his gimer stick. He turned his head toward Elyana and stared at her quietly. A weak smile crossed his lips and he nodded reassuringly. Then he closed his eyes, joining his fellow Jedi Masters.

Elyana continued to gaze at Yoda for several breaths before she finally linked with the others in silent communion with the Force.


"I thought I might find you here."

The gentle trickling of water filled the entire chamber. Yoda was perched atop the large boulder that sat near the edge of the artificial pond, his legs dangling over the water. His gimer stick lay next to him. Elyana crossed the distance between them cautiously, and stopped a respectful two meters away.

Any hope that Yoda's presence in the Room of a Thousand Fountains would have somehow disrupted his melancholy state vanished when she saw him. Yoda stared blankly at the placid water, seemingly oblivious to her presence. The artificial waterfall seemed to have his undivided attention. Elyana held her breath, waiting. It had been his way when she was a padawan, to make her linger in his presence for extended periods of time in absolute silence. Inevitably, he would break the stillness with some Jedi teaching or another.

The silence extended…

After an hour, Elyana decided to attempt a different approach. She reached down to her belt and unfastened it. She slid out of her robes, folded them neatly and placed them on the duracrete boundary of the pool. Yoda raised his head and looked up at her mostly naked form, arching his right eyebrow. She cast him a sidelong glance, smiling, and then stepped into the water. The pool rose to just above her knee. When Yoda went back to staring at the waterfall, Elyana slid to the pool floor and lay back in the water.

"Care to join me for a swim?" Elyana grinned.

Yoda sighed.

"Enough!" Elyana's sudden shout surprised even her. Yoda looked up in apparent confusion. Water cascaded off her body as she quickly rose and plodded through the water to stand directly in front of her former Master. She placed her hands akimbo and waited.

Yoda stared at her, his mouth slack and his eyes wide. Clearly he had not expected a frontal assault. Elyana smiled inwardly.

"What do you want?" Yoda finally whispered.

"I want you to start acting like yourself, Yoda!" Elyana decided she preferred this assertive approach. "You're the head of the Jedi Order now—Force only knows why!—and you have a responsibility to the liv—" She caught herself a moment too late. Yoda's eyes misted. She frowned and chose to barrel onward. "Yes, Yoda! To the living! I realize you won't tell me precisely what happened but we both know that I, better than anyone else on the Council, know."

Of course, she was referring to her species' ability to store memories in their lekku and retrieve them at a later time. She had sifted through the images that Yoda had given them over and over again. She wasn't sure exactly what they all meant, but she knew that Yoda had a reason for the guilt he felt that extended beyond an inability to save Qui-Lek.

"Time alone, I need," Yoda whispered simply.

Elyana softened. She reached up to touch Yoda's face but the Jedi Master jerked away, a look of anguish and…fear?...in his eyes. "Yoda…" Elyana ventured. "You may have a thousand lifetimes to work through this, but the rest of us don't." The corners of Yoda's mouth turned downward. She pushed on. "Please…come back to us."

"I am here," Yoda replied.

"No, you're not."

Yoda stared blankly.

Driven by a sudden impulse, Elyana turned and stretched out her palms over the water. Two small pebbles leapt to her hand—one from the calm bottom of the fountain, and the other from within the waterfall. She turned and placed them both in Yoda's hand. Yoda stared down at the two pebbles—one coarse and rough, the other smooth.

Yoda nodded.

Elyana stepped out of the pool and slid her robes back on. He would snap out of this, she was sure. He simply had to. She heard an odd shift in the normal trickle of the water into the pool behind her. Confused, she spun around and came to a stunned halt.

She glanced down at the unexpectedly empty pool, a sinking feeling settling in her gut. She turned to Yoda, who now sported a disturbingly mischievous glint in his eyes. Hesitantly, Elyana looked up above her head, and her mouth fell open.

The entire contents of the pool hung in the air two meters above, contained in an invisible bowl.

"You wouldn't!"

Yoda grinned.

A moment later, Elyana was drenched and water gushed onto the floor, pooling around her ankles. Her clogged ears didn't drown out the welcome sound that emanated from her friend.

It started low, like the rumble of a distant cloud…

It grew louder and more insistent by the second…

In spite of herself, Elyana grinned and sighed inwardly with relief.

For the first time in the three months since his return, Yoda laughed.