===RECORDING COMMENCED===

Today is, without a doubt, the single most horrid day I've had in all my life.

Master Zhar found me in the kitchen garden this morning. He took me aside so that we could talk privately.

That takeover of my training I spoke about a couple days ago - that's going to happen faster than I ever thought. Master Zhar will take over from tomorrow onwards.

Tomorrow! I was stunned. I wanted to know what Master was going to do, and Master Zhar said that that was a question best answered by Master herself. Then he gave a funny sort of cough, which made me wonder, is there something he's not telling me? Like, there is something I ought to know - but he's... not saying it? And why?

I still feel like I'm having a bad dream. Only I know this isn't a dream, and it's frickin' real.

...Force, I wish all this were a bad dream.

Then at least I could wake up, and laugh about it. But I can't.

*sigh*

...maybe it was tactless of me - maybe I shouldn't have, but I asked Master Zhar, why the rush - I thought that Master would be handing me over in the summer - but it's only spring...?

We were kind of strolling around the kitchen garden as we talked and we were standing next to the cabbage patch at this point. I'll never forget it as long as I live.

Master is leaving.

She is leaving. Leaving.

She is leaving the Order.

THE ORDER.

My heart nearly stopped. I must have looked like I was about to faint because Master Zhar grabbed my hand and squeezed it really hard and said something like "Courage! Courage!", but it was all Toydarian to me - the only thing I could think of was that Master was going.

Going.

Where! Why? I mean - she's so dedicated, and she's lovely and kind and she's my Master - and, and, a really good Jedi, why would she leave the Order - it didn't make sense...

I probably owe Master Zhar an apology now, because I kind of lost it at that point and I ran off to look for Master.

Master was in her quarters, folding up an extra change of clothes and putting it into a travelling bag. The little Echani figurines she used to have on the shelf next to her cot were gone. It's like - her room was completely devoid of anything that was her. Like she had never been there. Ever.

And then I noticed she wasn't carrying her comlink... and that she didn't have her lightsaber anymore.

Do you know what that means?

It means a Jedi has been cast out of the Order. Cast out! My Master - an outcast! A Jedi's lightsaber is the work of their own hands, but if the Order exiles you, casts you out, you can't even take that with you. Not even a shard of crystal. That's how serious exile is.

Do you know how sad she was? I could feel it in the Force.

She was hurting so badly that she didn't even sense me coming to look for her - and if my Master can't sense a being around, you know that something's seriously wrong.

And... I'll never forget this, either.

My Master was crying.

Crying!

There were, these, these streaks down her face and I saw them when she looked up - and it really broke my heart, holocron. My Master has never cried before. Never.

I asked her where she was going. How would she live? The Order is all my Master - any of us! - have known, our entire lives. It's more than just a 'job' - it's a way of life. Jedi - most Jedi, at least - don't have families. And Master isn't exactly a Draay, who are all up to their eyeballs in credits. Who's going to look out for her? How is she going to get by? Will she be able to find... honest paying work?

She said she didn't know.

And then I got really, really frightened - worried, yes, but more frightened than anything - how do I put this? I may have spent nearly all my eighteen, nearly nineteen years, in the Order. But that doesn't make me a nerf-herder. The galaxy is a rough place, and it can be so incredibly cruel. I know that from all that I've seen on my travels outside the Enclave with Master, and I've seen the depths to which desperation can drive a being.

There's so much that can go wrong in the galaxy - especially for beings with no credits. Female beings with no credits and in desperate circumstances have it the worst... and there are places - beings - who'll gladly take advantage of that desperation and just... just... use a woman, take away her dignity, because all too often it's the only thing of value she has left to sell.

Am I being paranoid? I know Master is capable - she's taught me so much - but Jedi are so widely misunderstood, and our skill set is so... specific... am I crazy for being this scared for Master?

The idea that Master might be reduced to selling herself on a street somewhere appalled me entirely. So I emptied out every fold in my tunic and every single pouch on my belt down to the very last credit, and I insisted that Master take it all. Frack. I feel so shit now for having spent some going out last week with Alek. Otherwise I could have given Master more. Frack!

I wanted to know if Master and I could still talk after she left the Enclave behind, if we could still keep in touch. Master cried again and gave me a hug - something she's not done since I turned thirteen and told her I was "too big for hugs"... and she said that someday, soon, I'd become a Knight - that she could see it in the future for me, and that I must never let the Order down - and then she promised that one day, after I am Knighted, when the time is right, she would find me.

When I asked Master why the Order had made her leave, she kind of smiled at me... a strange, sad sort of smile... and she straightened my tunic like she used to do when I was a kid, and she said that it had to do with "a misunderstanding".

"What about?" I asked. "Love," she said.

I told Master that I did not understand. Then Master smiled again, cried a little more and said that one day, I would.

Then she said something else, which I didn't understand either... but I know it's important, and that she meant for me to understand it, so I've committed it to memory... and maybe one day I will understand -

"This is my last teaching to you, Revan. Love is like a plant. It cannot live without Light. Our Code is empty without it. Learn what love truly is, and how to love. Train that plant as you would a hedge, and it will guard you, and tell you when the Light is failing in you."

Then my Master left.

I feel so desolate, holocron.

===RECORDING ENDED===