Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon showed up a little while after Callera's declaration to check-in on the injured pair.
"I am sorry we weren't there for you and your mother, Anakin." Qui-Gon's calm steady tinged slightly with sadness.
"Where were you?" Anakin's voice tired but curious.
"We were meeting with the Council to talk with a Jedi Master that might help Callera."
"You mean with tracking down Sidious, right?"
Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon look to Callera and she nods before speaking, "I told him about Maul's Master, Sidious, and that we were working on proving who he was."
Obi-Wan then takes up the story, "Master Sifo-Dyas was reticent about talking about the issue over Holonet but did confirm that the project you believed he was directing in underway. He wants to talk to you when he gets back from the talks the Supreme Chancellor and now the Jedi Council have asked him to work on, before giving more information out because he still feels vehemently in the necessity of his work."
"What work?" Anakin tilts his head as he tries to follow the conversation.
"Master Sifo-Dyas believes, rather rightly I might add, that a major conflict is coming and that the Republic will need more than just the Jedi and Judicial Forces to survive it." Callera answers for the young man.
"How will that help you find Sidious?" The boy's curious gaze bouncing between the three older Force users.
The two men nod in deference to Callera before she answers, "An army of the size the Republic would need is going to take a lot of money to create, train and equip. Master Dyas has not used any obvious form of funding to pay for it. Sith thrive on strife and conflict, funding a force like this and then subverting it to their own ends would be something they would do." Ruffling Anakin's hair with a soft smile trying to keep the driven boy at ease, "So we want to run down all the funds used to see if there is any link. Follow that up by looking at the army's gear and training protocols to see if anything is slipped in by Master Dyas' backers without his knowledge."
"Will that work?"
Qui-Gon fields the question this time, "We do not know, but it is an avenue for investigation. As you have seen with Jedi Bladesinger, there can be many avenues to find an answer…" he trails off while looking at Anakin, encouraging him to finish the statement.
"You just need to keep looking for more of those avenues to explore until you find the answer?" His tone curious as he looks at Callera.
"You got it, Ani," she smiles widely and nods, "Even if this does not produce results in the ways we want, it will help everyone know more about Master Dyas' army project. Regardless of how this line of inquiry pans out, it will still be useful to the Jedi Council and the Republic. Remember how I said that everyone has something to teach you, even if it is not what they try to teach you?" Anakin nods, "The same goes with investigations. We might be looking for Sidious, but there are a lot of other potential concerns here that should be checked out; even if there was absolutely no chance of proving his involvement in this project."
Moving back from Anakin's bed Callera looks at Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, "Do you two mind keeping him company for a little while? I need to ask Yoda about a semi-pressing matter." Mouthing the word 'wake' Qui-Gon's eyebrow raises fractionally and Obi-Wan's face remains calm, but his eyes show he knows and understands.
"Of course, Callera."
Nodding in gratitude at the two men before looking at Anakin, "I'll be back as quick as I can," motioning to her crutch and bacta cast."
The boy's eyes dim slightly but he nods, "I know you will."
******
Out of all the Masters in the Temple it had been Master Yoda that had spent the most time with Shmi Skywalker answering her questions, out of those beyond Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan probably the only one who had a story to tell of her for a wake, and in Callera's estimation the one most likely to not understand the need for one.
Finding him dismissing a group of younglings for the midday meal, she waits.
"Questions you have Jedi Bladesinger, negative you feel the response will be." Master Yoda's words prompt a rueful smile.
"You are correct, Master Yoda. I am working on a small wake for Shmi Skywalker, to help Anakin grieve and heal."
"Your own guilt you wish to assuage, I think."
"What if it is both? To help a young boy grieve and show him that his mother lives on in him and those that knew and interacted with her, and at the same time offer my own apology in my heart."
"She is one with the Force, mourn her we should not, miss her we should not."
Callera feels a white-hot stab through her heart, "You are wrong Master Yoda. Mourn we should. Not for her, but for our own loss of someone connected to us. Grief is for those of us still alive. Honor the fallen, treasure them in memory, but mourning is natural. Grief is natural. Processing it properly makes us stronger for the break that caused grief."
The wizened master stays silent as Callera builds a full head of steam.
"My Order mourned our losses. We honored those that fell in the service of life and the Force, but we still grieved. Each and every loss, we grieved. But we also celebrated life. The lives the departed left behind, those of us still here to carry on legacies. When we felt Anakin…" Callera's eyes go wide as she blurts out that name.
"Not Anakin Skywalker, descendant perhaps?" Yoda's eyes piercing through Callera.
She nods tiredly, "A grandson Anakin Solo, at the time of his death the second youngest. I was a contemporary of his oldest grandchildren. Died so that the rest of his team would live, and in so doing give all Force users in the galaxy a chance to live. There are beasts that hunt using the Force, and Yuuzhan Vong shaped one of them into the ultimate Jedi hunter, the Voxyn. But their bioforming relies heavily on cloning, they had only one master sample or Queen. A group of my contemporaries launched a daring raid to kill the Queen. They succeeded but at a high cost."
"To avoid the names so much, another Skywalker the head of your order is."
Callera nods, "Anakin's own son, Luke. Obi-Wan and you taught him, and he confronted his father with Emperor Palpatine watching. The son defeats the father but refuses to kill him. The Emperor then tortures the son with the intent of killing him, but Anakin Skywalker in that moment chose his son over his own life and threw the Emperor into a reactor core."
"Afraid you are to speak of them."
"As I told Master Qui-Gon with all the ripples I have already created mean that many noble good-hearted Jedi might never come to be…" Her eyes cloudy as she finishes, "but what kind of Jedi, what kind of sentient would I be; to let suffering happen when I can do something about it?"
"That is why you are a Jedi, Jedi Bladesinger. Involved the debate was in recognizing your Knighthood. Many questioned your emotional state and others your commitment to the Order with your Witch training and not engaging with your Council before going to the refugee camps. But your concern for life and the Force, cannot be questioned." Yoda starts to move through the room towards the door before continuing, his eyes thoughtful.
"Like Master Sifo-Dyas, you have reminded us there might be problems that the Jedi might not be able to confront as we are. Like Master Qui-Gon's call to remember the Living Force and be in the moment; you remind the order with your constant actions and drives to focus on the issue immediately in front of us. Regardless of the matter of Palpatine and Sidious, you showed us Maul and shown that in some ways complacent we have become."
"In some cultures," Callera moves next to him to walk into the hallway with him speaking as she does so, "there is the role of the questioner. Someone who pokes at traditions and knowledge, to help affirm why things are the way they are and shine light if something has become harmful to the group."
"Think the Jedi need this you do?"
"As you said Masters Dyas and Jinn both have called certain elements of the Order into question, but how they have said their concerns made them outcasts from what I have gathered."
"Hard to hear criticism is."
"And yet it is the constructive criticism from a teacher, that can help a student grow. And what is a teacher but a constant student? "
A pondering hum from the small master is the only reply for some time, "Reflect on your words, I will. When do you wish to hold the wake?"
"I wish to hold off until I can ask Queen Amidala if she or any of her court wish to participate."
"Deliver your request in person, Jedi Bladesinger. Shmi Skywalker was a member of her staff as well as Anakin's mother."
"I am currently restricted to the Temple grounds on Chief Healer Che's authority, Master Yoda."
"Ask for a Healer to go with you, interview the queen and her staff they shall about their injuries and what they witnessed. If Palpatine is there, interview him you shall under the Healer's supervision. With both you and he injured, unlikely he is to lash out in front of others, but a chance for a probe we have. Know most what to ask and what not to." He turns to look Callera in the eyes.
"It was my belief that the departure was too public to retaliate at that landed us here Master Yoda."
"Lightning rod and target you already are, heal you must, but this opportunity the Order cannot miss if you are correct."