The Talk

Gavyn found a medbay room, and immediately started looking through the cabinets, his mind churning endlessly with how to explain his situation with Ace to Tyro. It was clearly too late to break the news, so now all he could try and do was try and smooth it over. Gavyn looked around the room until he found a shock blanket hanging over a chair, and handed the dry blanket to Tyro. "Can you get your boots and gloves off?" Gavyn asked, unsure of how much feeling Tyro might have lost in his hands.

Where to even begin? Gavyn automatically started pulling wound dressings and bacta out of the cupboard. He couldn't bring himself to turn and face his Padawan's disappointment. "I know…" That what he was doing was forbidden. That he shouldn't have risked Tyro for Ace. That Tyro had seen a master fall from the code before.

"I know what this seems like, Tyro. I know Jedi Code as well." Gavyn told the gauze sitting on the countertop.

Tyro watched Gavyn uneasily from the far corner of the room, painfully shifting his weight from foot to foot. He hugged the blanket to his chest, partially unable to do much else with it, mostly unwilling. Not taking his eyes off the man Tyro shook his head "no" to Gavyn's question. What he could feel of his hands felt too painful and swollen to even try. He had only gotten everything on because of Stitch.

Tyro glanced to the door as Gavyn turned his back. There was nothing he could...or should...be able to say to make this okay. It was just going to be a bunch of lies and excuses; the dark side sounded appealing like that. His former master had had an explanation for everything. Even he never hid his plans and actions from Tyro.

That was the odd thing though. Despite his former master's openness, his rationality, Tyro could feel the dark side working under his actions. Yes, he had tried to excuse it as something else at first, then as the idea that perhaps everyone carried a bit of the dark side with them, especially as they got older, but it had always been undeniably there. Yet here was Gavyn, hiding everything, but even through the bond in the force they shared he could not feel that once familiar darkness. So he stayed in his corner, waiting, listening.

"Take a seat, Tyro." Gavyn requested, gesturing to the examination cot. He waited for Tyro to hold out his hands, and slowly worked the gloves off. It seemed like they had frozen to his skin, he was so swollen. Gavyn grimaced, knowing that it probably made the frostbite hurt more than ever.

Gavyn picked up a bottle of bacta and a roll of gauze, and sat next to his apprentice. He was too distracted to start the treatment, however. He had never discussed his relationship with Ace apart from between themselves. "I tried to let go of my feelings." Gavyn explained hesitantly before the words started gushing from his mouth. "For a long time. I just… I couldn't keep doing that to myself. To Ace. It isn't fair to live that lie, when we're so much more together."

The doubts that had bubbled in the back of his mind for months surfaced violently, cracking Gavyn's voice and tearing up his eyes. "How can the Jedi Code deny passion? If we can't care about anything, love anything, then what is this all for?" Gavyn wasn't addressing Tyro, only spilling his frustrations out into the open. He was supposed to be the certain one. He was the Jedi Master. Yet here he was, questioning the very root of the Jedi Order in front of his apprentice.

Gavyn buried his face in his hands, letting his hair fall over them. He had started growing it out after the battle on Esseles, thinking it would make him feel more spiritual. More in tune with the Force. Clearly, it offered him no answers, only an image.

Tyro pulled his hands back defensively, hiding them in his blanket as soon as Gavyn freed them from his gloves, trying to keep his jaw from quivering with the pain. With everything else the sudden torrent of emotion from Gavyn was too much to bear. Eyes wide, Tyro stumbled back off the exam cot, pressing himself into his corner.

"That's the point," Tyro spat, eyes fixed firmly on the man, "it's supposed to be difficult." A Jedi Master of all people should get that. He squirmed uneasily as though he might be able to shrug off the emotions pouring over him through the force. "You're so kriffing upset about it 'cause even you know that. It's not about your sorry ass, it's about the people you're too distracted to help, that's how."

Gavyn knew that Tyro was going to need help bandaging his hands, but he wasn't about to chase him down about it. Not after the things he had just said to him. This was it, huh. The pretense of a formal Master-Padawan relationship was gone, and what Gavyn was left with was a teenager who was livid with him. A kid he had hurt.

"I'm sorry I left you on the rescue mission alone. I feel like I used you, without giving you all of the facts. Although, if it had been someone else lost in the snow, I'd like to think we'd have gone out and looked for them as well." Gavyn apologized. "But that is my point. I had to do my duty. See the council, no matter how much I wanted to be on the ground searching."

"No that's not it!" Tyro immediately shot back. "I know you had to go, and I'm supposed to be able to do stuff on my own," he followed up more softly, looking down. As much as he had wanted Gavyn there he did not blame him for it.

"I know you wanted to come…" Tyro acknowledged. Then it kind of dawned on him…how difficult that must have been...how much Gavyn had wanted to go on the mission, not just for him, but for Ace. Ace who clearly meant the code, the world to him. Even despite that he hadn't. Ace had been angry but Gavyn was just...apologetic.

But what about the code? Gavyn had openly admitted to having a partner, mentioned the passion he felt, openly questioned it all. Questioned, but not twisted. His old master had excused and repurposed what it meant to be a jedi until it hardly meant anything anymore. This too seemed different.

What did he even want then? Was he supposed to expect Gavyn to feel bad? How was that any better?

He didn't know the answer to that, and that somehow felt just as bad. What he did know was what it felt like to be used, and what Gavyn had done wasn't that. Confused and in pain Tyro sunk to the floor, tears welling up in his eyes.

"You didn't use me!" Tyro cried. "H-he did...h-he.." Tyro hiccuped as tears began to pour down his face. "H-he..." Tyro tried again but he couldn't say anything else.

Tyro's reaction surprised Gavyn, he had not expected to upset him this way. He had actually braced himself for an argument, expecting that he would need to continue to explain himself. When he took Tyro as an apprentice, he hoped that Tyro would challenge him. For them to come to an understanding of the Jedi Code.

What Gavyn only now realized was that Tyro had been hurt by the betrayal of his former master. It wasn't just an act of heroism, it was a sacrifice. It left scars.

Any guilt and doubt weighing on Gavyn vanished the instant he saw a tear on his apprentice's face. He had to be there for him now. Gavyn darted to Tyro's side, throwing his arms around him. No wonder Tyro felt betrayed. Gavyn had gone and bent the rules again. Boy, if only Tyro could have met his own master. They would have got along, Gavyn suspected.

"I promise I will never lie to you. I am so sorry, Tyro. I should have told you. I should have told you."

Tyro stiffened at the initial contact. Questions and concerns lingered in the back of his mind, but he would ask them later, when they could actually talk. For now all he knew what he needed-Gavyn could be trusted.

With another choked sob Tyro melted in Gavyn's arms, burying his face in the warmth of his jacket. He cried until his tears had thoroughly soaked through Gavyn's clothes, before relaxing against his chest to the sound of Gavyn's heartbeat, breathing raggedly until he felt he could at last say something.

"H-he never hurt me or used the force against me. He was kind. He gave me things and knew what I was good at and let me do what I wanted on missions," Tyro said quietly, sniffing back intermittent sobs. "B-but whenever he used the force or had me meditate, it was about power...taking control. If we controlled it, it couldn't control us, it couldn't control fate," Tyro recalled hollowly, staring at the texture of the fabric in front of him. "I-it felt wrong though. I knew that but I excused it and people got hurt. I-I thought because he was my master maybe he knew something I didn't...that maybe I didn't get it. But it got too bad to ignore."

"I had to run away during a mission to tell the council...it was the only way. The look on his face when he found me. He was so relieved, he thought something had happened to me. Then they arrested him." Now that he had started saying it out loud he couldn't stop. He hadn't told anyone about it before. His friend, Donol, had been there when it had happened, but he hadn't been allowed to say what was going on during the weeks of court and council meetings that followed. He told Gavyn the rest, the look of betrayal on his former master's face as day after day he presented his carefully gathered evidence. How he knew all along he wouldn't be getting another Master, another chance. The day they finally took him away.

And at last the day that Tyro had been expecting, only two days after that, when without explanation they handed him his assignment to the AgriCorps group on Tirahann. AgriCorps, not the Exploration Corps where he would have too much freedom despite how much he loved seeing new places. Not the Education Corps where he could influence the minds of others despite being top of all his classes and having done more research into ancient force histories and lore at the age of thirteen than most fully grown Jedi ever did. AgriCorps, where, after nearly a year of trying to twist any skill he had with the living force into a gross distortion of the unifying force, he had only managed to wilt crops until they let him work with machines.

"I didn't want to do it," Tyro admitted finally. "But I knew I had to." He sighed tiredly, pulling his stinging hands and feet close, curling up in Gavyn's lap.

Gavyn held onto Tyro as he spilled his feelings about his former master. He ran his fingers through Tyro's hair, letting his apprentice fall against him. Gavyn was sturdy, solid, and unshakable.

It was refreshing to hear Tyro's side of the scandal. After all of the rumors and hearsay, Gavyn finally understood what the boy had gone through. He had done the right thing, and still it had felt like a betrayal to him. He was only doing his duty.

Since Gavyn first took Tyro as a Padawan, he had been concerned about his reaction to his relationship with Ace. It was also against the Jedi Code. Of course, Gavyn did not feel like it was a dark path, though strictly speaking it was forbidden. As he watched Tyro sob into his robe, Gavyn felt like he could trust Tyro to keep his secret. He wasn't a rat. He was just a kid trying to do the right thing. And Gavyn was sure that Tyro would come around, and see that his love for Ace wasn't a threat.

"You did the right thing, Tyro." Gavyn assured him. "You have good judgement." A smile flickered across his lips.

"Yeah, well, sometimes doing the right thing sucks," Tyro said quietly, venturing a glance at his mangled hands held stiffly in front of him, carefully touching neither him nor Gavyn's robe. His feet likely weren't much better. They still hadn't found Sparks. Quickly he pulled his gaze away, resting his head back against Gavyn.

Gavyn reached out and cupped Tyro's tiny hands in his. The Force… the Force was too turbulent between them right now for him to try and heal him. He could dress the wounds however. With some effort, Gavyn lifted the bacta and bandages from the countertop and floated it into his lap. He had never been elegant with moving objects around.

He started soaking the bandages in the gelatinous bacta, as he addressed Tyro. "I don't think anyone would try and claim that the right thing is always the easy thing." Gavyn reminded his apprentice. And sometimes it was hard to tell what the right thing even was anymore, in the middle of war. The Jedi Master could still feel the clarity that came with his order to burn out Esseles. In that moment, he was sure he was doing the right thing, but the consequences showed another side.

Tyro inhaled sharply when Gavyn took his hands but set a stoic face against the pain, focusing instead on the sound of Gavyn's deep voice echoing in his chest. "I know," he agreed. "Something being difficult wouldn't stop me but…"

He hesitated a moment, gathering the courage to ask, before looking up into Gavyn's eyes.

"It gets a kinda easier though, right, when you're a Jedi Master? You would know what to do right away. About stuff like my master before...and everything?"

Tyro's question caught Gavyn off guard. He still carried those kinds of choices with him every day. He was asked to make the kind of choices more and more often. He never felt like a wise Jedi Master when it came to that kind of thing. He just did the best he could with the experience he had. But he still felt like the kid he was the day he lost his master, and he had to step out on his own. As far as letting his emotions go, Gavyn seemed to struggle with that more and more as he got older. His emotions came with higher stakes than ever.

"You learn from your experience. But it is probably a bad sign if you feel wise." Gavyn warned him. It was hard for him to admit, since he had to put on a face of utmost certainty for the troops. But it was true. At the moments where he felt the most clarity, he had made his biggest mistakes.

"So you don't feel wise?" Tyro asked incredulously. Gavyn seemed wise, but if that was the case, did any of the other Jedi Masters, famously renowned for their wisdom feel that way? If people called a Jedi one thing it was either that...or some variation of "freaky"... depending on the neighborhood. Admittedly it had been something he had been hoping for, that once he became a master he would be better or know more or something, and he couldn't shake the feeling that he would, but Gavyn's comment was so unlike how his instructors spoke to him back at the temple.

"But what does it feel like to be a Master then?"

Gavyn leaned his head back on the wall. He felt the sudden spin of not sleeping in two days. That wall seemed like the most comfortable place in the world at that moment. Maybe that was what being a Jedi Master felt like: being tired.

Honestly, Gavyn had never felt much like a Jedi Master. He was given the title when they needed him to be a General. Gavyn took Tyro's hand and started wrapping the bandages around his fingers.. "Right now, if feels a lot like being a General." Gavyn told him.

"Oh," Tyro commented simply, disappointment seeping into his tone. A General wasn't what he thought of when he thought about being a Jedi Knight or Master. Being a Commander wasn't how he thought being a Padawan would be. A Jedi was supposed to bring hope and peace. They were supposed to help people, planets, when no one else could. They were strong, selfless warriors and wielders of the force.

As the thoughts he had held as long as he could remember crossed his mind he realized that a Jedi General was all of those things as well, but something about it still seemed...off. Perhaps it was time to let go of all the images he held in his mind and heart of the Jedi he had read about in texts or seen in holovids. Perhaps that was what it meant to grow up. Perhaps that was what it meant to be a Jedi Master.

Tyro barely stifled a whimper as Gavyn reached an especially sore finger, quickly burying his face in his master's robe. Perhaps it was fortunate the pain brought him back to the present. He turned his mind over to those thoughts instead. "Does this mean I can't play in the snow anymore?" He asked into Gavyn's robes, thinking of his fingers.

Gavyn paled when Tyro asked if he could go back in the snow. He had nearly lost Ace and Tyro to the foul weather on this planet, and Tyro was still treating it like a game. "What?" He exclaimed. "Are you insane? You're going to lose your fingers if you go back out there again!" As soon as he said it, Gavyn knew the news would break Tyro's heart. His voice softened. "You want to still be able to use your data-tablet." He reminded him.

Tyro nodded slowly against Gavyn's chest. Those few minutes they had spent in the snow when they first arrived had been the most fun since he lived on Coruscant. "I just…" He took a deep breath, trying to let the disappointment that sat heavy on his chest go. Being a Jedi wasn't about having fun he reminded himself. He was a Padawan now...again...he was supposed to be mature.

"It's not the snow's fault," he admitted. "I knew there was snow, there was nothing I could do to change that, I just wasn't prepared for it." Or for anything that happened out there, even losing Sparks. "I tried to do what you said, I tried to meditate and open myself up to the force, but I couldn't. I can't."

Gavyn grimaced. If their lessons had not been interrupted- and they had not been distracted by throwing snowballs around- Tyro would have known there was a lot more to fending off the cold than just meditation. It was a practiced skill to control your body like that, and this environment was a truly dangerous place to practice.

There was more to it, however. Gavyn had noticed for some time that Tyro was struggling to focus. He had chocked it up to Tyro being in an new environment, just getting to know him, being injured, and a half a dozen other poor excuses. Clearly, it was time to address the problem more seriously.

Gavyn finished tying down the bandage around Tyro's hand. "We'll start meditating together." Gavyn assured him. "I'm sure you're simply out of practice. The Force never leaves you, Tyro." He smile told Tyro that he would never leave him either.

Tyro's stomach dropped at Gavyn's suggestion, as unbidden thoughts and memories of meditating with his old master surfaced. The skin on his arms prickled at that. That feeling, how off it the force had felt when they reached out into it, had been the first thing that told him something was wrong. He couldn't go back to that. He shivered; suddenly the room felt very cold.

Gavyn was different though, he reminded himself. Even this, whatever it was, attachment to Ace felt like something they needed to talk through, rather than the darkness that had twisted about his former master's intentions. Tentatively Tyro looked up from his hand as Gavyn finished with it, studying his Master's face. There was so much kindness and assurance in his smile, enough to make him think that perhaps it would be okay. Cautiously he returned his Master's smile.

He realized then that he was the one holding onto old thoughts and fears. It was not what a Jedi did. He had tried, he had been trying, but none of it was working. Here he had been, accusing Gavyn when he could barely keep the Code. Frustrated, he looked down quickly, letting out a shuddering breath. Another shiver passed through him. It was cold, so cold, and his hands and feet hurt so much, and he was so tired. A good Jedi wouldn't care about any of it, and yet it felt like everything in the world right now. With a frustrated sob he shrugged himself further under his blanket, burying his face once more in the warmth of Gavyn's robes, hiding his tears until he fell asleep.

Gavyn put a hand on Tyro's back. Both sitting on the floor, exhausted, and would certainly be a sight to behold if any of the medics came by. Gavyn picked Tyro up and carried him to a medbay bed for him to rest, shaking off the feeling of deja vu. He desperately hoped that this would not become a recurring theme in the missions they were assigned to.