He had been sitting cross-legged on the floor of his room for the better part of an hour, both anticipating and dreading the conversation he was about to have. A palpable sense of unease had driven him to rehearse his words, again and again far beyond the point of usefulness. Finally, irritated at himself, he willed his focus upon the holocron, feeling it stir underneath the tendrils of his mind as it filled with the pulsating strength of the force. When he opened his eyes she was already standing in front of him, seemingly bemused by his efforts.
It never stopped feeling strange to have her appear like this, a conglomeration of light whose movements were accompanied by static and mechanical whirring coming from the holocron, a machine and yet undeniably human.
He cleared his throat.
"I'm sorry, but I decided I won't be calling you forth in the future. This is the last time we will speak."
The words were difficult to form in spite of the times he rehearsed them. He raised his gaze to look her in the eyes, imagining he would see a face brimming with anger. Instead, he saw eyebrows raised quizzically without emotion.
"Is that so, my padawan?"
"I am not your padawan," he replied quickly.
"Do not mistake me," he continued more calmly after a moment's pause, "I am grateful for everything you have done for me. But I do not want to follow down the path you lead."
He paused again.
"I promise to put you back where I found you soon enough. It will be some weeks before I can request leave from my master."
She smiled wearily.
"All my efforts to corrupt you, then, have been for nothing?"
He glared at at her.
"Very well, then, let us be serious. What will you do now? Will you become an earnest padawan for your master?"
"Yes," Noval said, "Yes, I will."
He had been mulling it over in his mind over the past weeks and had decided there was much to admire in master Nimbo. He was not the most perceptive of the Jedi, true, but his heart was noble and he was brimming with self-sacrifice. Noval should consider himself fortunate to be apprenticed with him.
"And what is it, exactly, that you imagine you will learn? How to become more proficient at waving a lightsaber?"
"That and other things," he said. "You mock, but my master has accomplished much."
"Have you learned nothing from me indeed?" her voice was one part disappointment to ten parts scorn. "If you are to truly understand, you need the contrast, not adherence to a single idea. The Jedi code does not give all the answers."
He shook his head.
"I will not be turning to the teachings of the Sith."
"The Sith is a belief, an idea, nothing more," she replied quietly, "and there is great value in it as long as you hold both Jedi and Sith for what they are, pieces of a whole."
There was some truth in what she said and yet it was a teaching he had to cast aside.
He had followed her guidance dutifully over the past months. By day he was one of his master's most devoted padawans, and by night he took instructions from her, whispering back and forth in the privacy of his chambers. He had quickly grown strong in the force, much more than he had any right to be, and in many ways his abilities already exceeded those of his master's.
But there had been portents of trouble from the start.
Though he believed her when she told him that she was not Sith, the frank admiration she displayed for the Sith lords of old disturbed him. He voiced his dismay, but her only response was to observe that his own achievements were due to battle stances that came from the old Sith masters, secrets she had obtained in her own time sleuthing through the ancient tombs on Korriban.
"You emulate them even as you profess to disdain them," she said with a wry smile.
"In any case," she added more distantly, "Sith is a title, yes, but that title is not who I am. It is not what I believe."
He felt himself changing the longer he had been her student, long-suppressed emotions floating to the surface. He had never been fond of the Jedi, not since his first years at the academy, but now his dislike had turned into an obsessive loathing. Every Jedi platitude he heard - and quite a few came from his master, who had told him only yesterday to "trust in the ways of the force" - seemed to put him on the verge of a blind rage.
He no longer worked to suppress his feelings, as the Jedi were wont to do, and he found the intensity of them - anger, fear, lust - to be overwhelming. It was almost as if he were a bystander, watching himself consumed by one of these emotions, the tiny speck of wisdom in his mind crying helplessly to change course.
"It is life," she had said when he brought it up with her, "you have been dead inside all this time. Now your true self is coming to the surface."
But he did not like what he was becoming. He seemed to exist in a perpetual state of anger: at the Jedi, for their rigidity and closed-mindedness; at the galaxy, for the callous brutality which pervaded it; at other sentients, for going about their daily business indifferently while this appalling state of affairs continued. He found himself laying awake at night, nearly consumed by anger and impotent frustration, concocting self-serving fantasies of saving the universe from itself. Although he had always believed in the Jedi mission to bring lasting peace to the galaxy, now the desire came accompanied with contempt for the hapless sentients who were always and inevitably at war with each other.
It had only been months since he first caught sight of the holocron, and he already felt like a wholly different person. He shuddered to think of what he might be like months or years in the future. The universe was full of choices, trails constantly diverging in all directions, and he was scared to follow this path any further.
He would not argue with her now. It did not matter whether there was value in Sith ideas, as she said. His path led elsewhere.
"The Jedi code will have to be good enough for me," he said simply.
She tapped her fingers rhythmically at her side.
"How many times have we talked about peace in the galaxy? I offer you the means to accomplish your goals and you spurn me."
She sighed.
"I knew this moment would come. I can lecture you about the emptiness of the Jedi teachings until the galaxy turns over, but it does no good unless you've felt it, unless you've experienced it at the core of your being. "
"Tell me," she said, "have we not come quite far together?"
She was right. Only a few months ago he was on the verge of being ejected from the order and now he was unquestionably his master's best pupil. With a shudder he thought of himself as he was back then, full of anxiety and hopes for a future that would never come.
"The Jedi seek to chain you inside, to make you a slave to an idea and make it so that idea would always rule you. I seek to break your chains, to make your choices wholly your own."
"You pretend to be concerned for me," Noval replied with contempt, "but I am only a tool for you, someone you can use to obtain a new body."
"But, my padawan," she replied, seemingly unfazed by the accusation, "you are so much more than that. You must realize I have grand plans for you."
"A shame they will never come to pass."
"Well, then," she said, looking stern now, "Go on and make another attempt with the Jedi. You will be back begging for my help soon enough."
A self-satisfied smile broke through her expression.
"Do not forget that I am not Jedi; I do not train padawans, I forge them from the fire that burns within their souls."
She furrowed her brow again.
"When the time comes I will exact a price upon you for this defiance."
He found himself breathing out with relief. If ever there was confirmation he was making the right choice, this petty and rancorous speech was it.
"May the force be with you, Nerra."
He had never addressed her by her name before, in keeping with Jedi conventions of conversation between students and masters, and it felt uncomfortably familiar now. He let the energy drain from the holocron and the whirring ceased, her image quickly flickering away. A few moments later he was staring into empty space.