Seth walked out of the temple the next morning to find the students on the landing pad sparring with each other. Ben sat on the ground nearby watching them and Rey sat next to him, her eyes transfixed on the clashing lightsabers. As a young girl of only eight years old, it would be a very long time before she could build her own and join in the sparring, and watching the older students only made her more impatient. Master Skywalker was nowhere to be found, but that was hardly out of the ordinary these days.

One of the students, a human, looked in his and waved him over.

"C'mon, Master Brennan!" Vaylek Tiglor, a human male student from Corellia, called from across the landing pad.

Seth smiled and held up his hands. "Not today, Vaylek."

"You say that every day," Celhiba Wongo, a female Mon Calamari, groaned.

"And I'll say it tomorrow as well."

"Why?" Gemag Lyndron, a human male from Chandrila, asked.

"A Jedi's strength comes from the Force, not a weapon.. The Force is your greatest ally, not a lightsaber."

"But shouldn't you know how to use one in case you do need it?" Caseth Artho, a human female from Corellia, asked matter-of-factly.

"What makes you think I don't know how to use one?" Seth raised an eyebrow.

This was hardly a strange question, as many of the students had never even seen his lightsaber. The closest they had ever gotten was just a few months earlier when an argument with Ben had escalated to him pulling his lightsaber. Seth had produced his own, but Master Skywalker had put a swift end to the confrontation before either had ignited them.

In fact, most of the students didn't even know the color of his lightsaber. The only people who had ever seen it were Master Skywalker, Mara, Ben, Rey, the Latholian male Nazrhu Pruk, and the Serennian female Andi Lavlam; and they had only seen it because Seth used to frequently spar with Master Skywalker while the other students watched, back when the only students at the Academy besides Ben and Seth were Nazrhu and Andi.

Seth still trained extensively with his lightsaber before dawn every day, but he would never let the students know that.

"Then why don't you prove it?" Ollem Dantellai, a human male from Alderaan challenged him. His home planet had been destroyed before he had been born while his parents were visiting family on Naboo, and though he had spent all of his life on Naboo, he still claimed Alderaan as his home planet.

"The Force is a more powerful ally than a lightsaber could ever be," Seth smiled and turned to walk in the direction of Ben and Rey.

As he was walking he felt a tingle at the base of his skull. He turned around and, without raising a hand, he stopped Ollem in his tracks as if he had hit a stone wall, his blue lightsaber still raised high above his head. He heard a loud crunch from his nose before he fell to the ground. Seth stared down at him, his hands clasped behind his back, showing neither anger nor delight at what he had just done.

The student slowly rose, anger boiling inside of him. He rushed towards Seth and swung his lightsaber, which Seth easily sidestepped. He dodged two more strikes and did a large flip over the third, landing behind Ollem. He nudged him in the back of the knee with the tip of his toes, causing him to stumble, then caught his wrist as he blindly swung his lightsaber behind him. He plucked the lightsaber out of his hand and threw him across the landing pad, where he came to a stop against one of the stone walls.

Seth turned the student's lightsaber over in his hands, examining it, then tossed it in the direction of Ollem. The lightsaber slid over to him and came to a stop a centimeter from his head.

Seth walked away from the students, past Ben and Rey, and across the landing pad to a set of stairs. He climbed them two levels and walked down a short hallway to a door. He stopped at the door and it immediately slid open before he could knock. He slipped inside and saw Master Skywalker sitting at his desk, immersed in a large book.

"Busy?" Seth walked in and sat down on a nearby cushion raised off of the floor on a small platform. He crossed his legs and turned to face the Jedi Master.

"No more than usual," he replied, not looking up with the black book. "Need something?"

"Just checking in," Seth shrugged his shoulders.

"I sense conflict in you."

"Oh, the usual," Seth replied nonchalantly, unphased by Master Skywalker's insight.

"I recognized you as a Master for a reason, and I haven't grown to regret it. You just gained the title a few months ago, you'll grow into it in time."

"How did you?"

"With enormous difficulty," he turned in his chair to face Seth. Though his blonde hair was shot through with grey, he still appeared to be fairly young for his age of nearly fifty years old. "It took a long time for me to come to terms with my position and the title I'd been left with as the last of the Jedi.

"After the Battle of Endor there was so much to do that I didn't even consider starting a New Jedi Order for several years. Ben was born a year after and I knew I would eventually have to as he grew older and discovered his potential, but that was a problem for the future. I lived for the next ten or so years largely in solitude with intermittent returns to Coruscant as I traveled the galaxy in search of ancient Jedi temples and texts to guide me, but in actuality I was running from something that I knew I had to do. I've told you before that my own training wasn't exactly orthodox, so I had trouble even calling myself a Master for years since I had had nobody formally give me the title.

"As Ben grew older I began to grow more comfortable with the title as he began to show his aptitude for the Force and looked to me for guidance, and I knew that my time to officially restart the Jedi Order was coming. The burden of a Jedi Master isn't light, but you get used to it and grow more confident with time."

"But why me?"

Master Skywalker smiled. "I didn't give you the title lightly, and I meant it. You're a Master because I know you can handle it."

"Luke," Seth said quietly. Seth rarely called the Jedi Master by his first name, even though Master Skywalker had asked him to on many occasions. "I've needed to know this for a long time."

Luke sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. "You're stronger than you think, and you're much farther along in your training than you'll let yourself believe. The students look up to you. I'm a so-called 'Legendary Jedi Master' in the eyes of everyone in the galaxy. They'll always think they're below me, but they can relate to you. You can teach and train them more effectively because you can get down on their level in a way that I can't due to the fact that the entire galaxy seems to think I'm some sort of god. I'm strong with the Force, but I'm not what they think.

"So you made me a Master because I can relate to the students better than you can?" Seth raised an eyebrow.

"That was certainly a contributing factor."

"But that's not the reason."

"You want the reason?" Luke snapped, frustration briefly creeping into his voice, which Seth had never seen or expected.

"Yes," Seth replied simply.

"You're the only one here I can really trust here," he slumped back in his chair and seemed to age by decades. "Ben…" he paused. "I don't know about Ben. I've sensed a slight presence of the Dark Side in him for years, but it's always been fleeting, so I told myself I'd look into it more if it began to appear more frequently or linger for longer periods of time. As he's grown more powerful I've started to trust him less because I know what he may be capable of if he turned."

"You can't just write him off like that."

"I know, but after losing Mara I don't think I can lose Rey too." he seemed to choke slightly on the last part of his sentence.

Seth didn't offer any words of condolence. He had never seen the Jedi Master like this, so he had no idea what he could say.

"I want you to promise me something," Luke said after he had composed himself.

"Anything," Seth replied immediately, and he meant it.

"Not as a student or a fellow Master. As a friend."

Seth nodded.

"If anything happens, if any of my students turn and attack, get Rey off of this planet. Don't worry about the other students, I can take care of them. Just get my daughter off of this planet," he voice took on a slight pleading tone.

"I assume you're talking about Ben?"

Luke was quiet for several seconds. "Yes," he finally said. "I hope it never happens and I feel terrible for even entertaining the thought that he might, but I have to be prepared."

Love and hurt breeds paranoia, even for the man who saw the good in Darth Vader himself and risked his own life to turn him back to the Light.

"I don't like this."

"I understand, and I don't either," Luke replied stoically, "but I need your word."

Seth nodded. "I will."

"Thank you," Luke nodded, putting the topic to rest with those two words. "Now, what did you actually come for?" Luke asked, as if they hadn't just had a conversation about his fear of his nephew turning to the Dark Side and threatening the life of his family. His entire demeanor, from his facial expression to his posture, changed like a button had been pressed.

"Just to check in and see how you've been doing," Seth shrugged his shoulders. "Nothing in particular."

"I'm doing better, actually," Luke adjusted himself in his chair and raised his right leg to rest his ankle on his left knee. "It feels like just yesterday that I lost her, but it's getting a bit easier to handle. I doubt I'll ever be completely back to normal."

"I don't think anyone's expecting you to be," Seth replied. "Everybody knows how close you two were."

"I'm just dreading tomorrow," he sighed and pushed a hand through his hair.

"Why's that?"

"It's the first time since Mara's death that I'll be out in the public eye, and her passing isn't a secret. I'd really rather not spend the whole night listening to people give their condolences at a banquet to celebrate one of my oldest friends' years of service in the Rebellion and the New Republic military."

"Unfortunately I think you'll have to deal with that anyways."

"Being the Grand Master of the Jedi Order commands respect and lends credibility, but being famous and in the public eye isn't as great as it may sound. I have the option to stay here when I get tired of it. I can't imagine how Leia must feel being front and center in the public eye and having all of the responsibilities and obligations she has. Poor Ben hardly had a childhood with how much Leia was gone putting together the New Republic after the fall of the Empire. He spent most of the time with his caretaker, Winter, than with his own mother for his formative years. Jaina was born after things were beginning to fall into place and the entire galaxy didn't demand all of Leia's time, so she at least had a chance at a somewhat normal childhood. Of course, you're not much of a stranger to abnormal childhoods yourself," Luke added.

"Not really, no," Seth smiled.

"How're you feeling about tomorrow? The thought of getting away for a while must be nice."

"You have no idea," Seth smiled. "Hopefully some different scenery will help clear my head."

"It will, trust me."

"If it doesn't then it's on your head," Seth smiled and slid off of the cushion.

"Taking off so soon?"

"Yes," Seth smiled and walked over to the doorway. "See you in the morning." He opened the door and walked out into the hallway.

"See you then." Luke replied as Seth turned and walked down the hallway.

He had left Master Skywalker rather abruptly, but he knew the Jedi Master preferred it that way. The two Masters had always enjoyed each other's company, but Master Skywalker seemed to have less energy for holding conversations for extended periods of time these days. If there was only one thing that he said that was true, he would definitely never be back to his old self.