Lord Darth Yoda - I actually was sort of going for a 'Phantom Menace'-esque title, though there is certainly a 'hidden threat' that will emerge to dominate most of the book. And yeah, Sascha isn't the best place right now - you are right to say that he's just lashing out without thinking about it. As for who will get him out of his funk...you'll see...

thejoker122- It's like poetry, it rhymes! Weliss' story was left kind of unfinished wasn't it. I wonder why that was...(though don't expect him to show up anything soon.

A/N - Welcome back! I don't have much to say, other than I hope everyone is still following along!

Please enjoy the next chapter! As always, follows, favourites and reviews are appreciated.

Chapter 2: Old Friends and New

A few days after returning from Bothawui, Aurine Brynar was eating dinner alone in one of the many refectories that dotted the Jedi Temple. While normally Sascha would have been sitting right across from her, once her Padawan had returned to the Jedi Temple, he had become a recluse, simply retreating to his room and rarely emerging. He would politely converse with her when she came to visit, but otherwise he seemed to have cut himself off from the larger world.

Aurine shook her head, she was starting to miss her Padawan. She had come to appreciate his companionship in the months they had been together. Now, to have him disappear so suddenly from her daily routine had left a void in her life. She sighed to herself, and stirred her drink, she had always prided herself on being an independent and free-spirited Jedi, but taking an apprentice had changed all that. During her time as Sascha's Master she had grown more mature, more sure of herself and the older she got the more she appreciated having friends around her. Being a Jedi was hard, but having people that cared about you made it a little easier to deal with the harrowing adventures they all endured.

To get Sascha back to himself, she had enlisted the help of his friends. It had not been a coincidence that Doro, Trigg and Nara had interrupted her conversation with Sascha, she had planned that it happen that way. And now she was hoping to hear a report from the three Padawans, confirming that Sascha had been brought out of his shell just a little. Because if there was one thing that she knew about Sascha, it was that he valued his friends.

Aurine watched as the three Padawans in question entered the refectory. Their moods were glum, and instantly she knew it was because something had happened with Sascha. She sighed and picked at her food, this had not been the result she had been looking for, or expected. On the bright side, at least she wouldn't have to worry about eating this dinner alone.

Trigg, Doro and Nara all sat across from her. She noticed that the Togruta hadn't even brought a meal with her and she stared down at the table, paying little attention to her. Trigg Daniel and Doro Roa had both brought nerf steak salads with them, though Trigg had slathered his with some sort of spice, which made his meal smell rather delicious.

"Where's Sascha?" she asked, in lieu of anything better to say.

"Halls of Healing," said Doro.

She frowned, "What happened?"

"He cut himself while peeling tubers," said Trigg.

That explanation would have been amusing – a well-trained Jedi Padawan cutting his hand while doing basic kitchen duties – but somehow Aurine didn't think the story was ever going to be retold for amusement. "How bad was the cut?"

"No one really got a good look at it," replied Trigg, "But I don't think it was too bad."

"So besides that, everything went okay, right?" she asked hopefully.

Doro shook his head, "Not even close. Sascha was…just totally not himself. It was like someone else possessed his body. That wasn't the Sascha Whitestar that I grew up with. He was just so…bitter and hurt and he lashed out as us." The young Padawan shook his head, "As I said, totally unlike him."

Nara, who continued to do little more than stare at the table, interrupted, "What happened to him?"

"Sascha is still dealing with his last mission, it was a difficult one for both of us, and it took a toll on him mentally and physically," she answered

Trigg and Doro shared a serious look, "Master Brynar, I know our reputation for being practical jokers is well known in the Temple, but if there is anything we can do to help Sascha, we'll do it," said Trigg.

She picked at her food some more. Somehow, none of the food that she'd picked out a few minute ago seemed particularly appetizing anymore. "Thank you for today. I had hoped that spending some time with his friends would cheer him up. But apparently he is still the same. If I or Sascha need your help, rest assured I will contact you," she said curtly.

"Sascha had some sort of fallout with Tyra, didn't he?" blurted Trigg.

Aurine bowed her head in defeat, there was no point in trying to avoid this conversation any longer, "Yes, Sascha and Tyra admitted their feelings for each other," she said bluntly.

Doro and Trigg glanced at each other, not seeming surprised in the least. The only person that seemed to be surprised was Nara. "So, it finally happened?" said Doro, "They finally admitted that they loved each other?"

"That's what I just said," Aurine replied testily.

"Oh boy," commented Trigg, "That's not good."

"I think we both knew this day would come," Doro said to her, "We just both dreaded it, because…well…we always thought that would be the end of Sascha as a Jedi."

Aurine brushed aside their comment, "Sascha would be a Jedi with or without Tyra Harker, and he will continue to be a Jedi when he finishes his rehabilitation," she said firmly. This was what she believed. This is what she had to believe.

"With respect, Master Brynar, I'm not so sure," said Doro. "Sascha and Tyra were always joined at the hip, they did everything together. The hardest part of being a Padawan for Tyra was leaving Sascha behind at the Temple. And the hardest point in Sascha's life was being left behind by Tyra after she became an apprentice and he did not."

"Of course that was his own fault, he would have become a Padawan at the same time as us had he not failed so hard in the first Apprentice Tournament that he participated in," Trigg pointed out.

"Not really the point, Trigg," Doro replied testily. He turned his attention back to her "I'm not sure Sascha really even wants to be a Jedi. Tyra wanted him to be a Jedi, so that they could be Jedi together and he was happy to follow in her footsteps, but as soon as she was gone, Sascha stopped trying to be a Jedi. He spent his time in the archives and helping in the library, not continuing to train like he wanted to become a Jedi Knight. That's because Sascha, if left to his own devices, wants to be a librarian or a researcher more than he wants to be a Knight."

An uncomfortable feeling was starting to develop in the pit of Aurine's stomach. These were Sascha's closest friends and even they were admitting to her that Sascha might not be cut out for life as a Jedi Knight. Combined with Sascha's reaction since Bothawui, she was starting to see how he could wash out of the Jedi Order. She still had faith that Sascha did want to be her Padawan, but given the trauma he had endured, could he revert back to the person who preferred the archives over lightsaber training? Aurine had to admit that it seemed possible.

Trigg seemed to notice her discomfort, "Master Brynar we aren't saying he can't be a Jedi Knight, or that he won't eventually figure out his path, heck, I think he'll make a great Jedi Knight, he's determined, smart and a compassionate person, all great traits for a Jedi, some traits I wish that I had. But, Sascha is a very emotional person, as I'm sure you know, and his closest connection was always to Tyra. Take that away and who knows what his left."

"If this is supposed to cheer me up Padawans, you are doing a terrible job."

Both Corelians looked downward in unison, "Apologies, Master Brynar."

Doro looked up first, "Perhaps we should tell the story of what happened the first time that Sascha confessed his love for Tyra. It's not a happy story, but it is a pertinent one." Aurine nodded that the two Corelians should continue.

Trigg started the story, "Sascha and Tyra were what? Thirteen? When it became obvious to even the most dunderheaded observer that Sascha was in love with Tyra. Eventually, one day he just confessed his feelings to her, and let me say Tyra did not take it well. She had always seen Sascha as her friend and nothing more, and she was so offended that Sascha had fallen for her, like he could control his feelings on a whim," Trigg snorted in derision. "Their friendship collapsed, basically. One day they were the best of friends, the next they were almost enemies."

Doro picked up the story, "Sascha turned instantly from one of the best students in the clan to the absolute worst student. He sulked through every class, didn't answer any questions, and didn't do any of the assignments. He was officially reprimanded a couple of times, but still he just moped."

Trigg nodded, "Doro and I tried to cheer him up, help him get through the rough patch, but he basically just ignored us. We even made up a fake rumour that we had overheard Masters Leem and Yoda talking about him and how he was perilously close to being expelled, but even that didn't change his mood. Eventually, we both went to Tyra together and just flat out begged her to have a conversation with Sascha, eventually she relented and they talked. I don't know what they said to each other, but the next day, Sascha was back to his normal self."

"Only Tyra knows how to put him back together," Doro said. "Sascha and I are friends, and I know he has my back, but we were never close in the way he was with her. I don't know what it was, but we never talked about anything super important together."

"It's possibly because we are males, and we are programmed not to talk about our feelings to each other," Trigg said drolly.

Doro laughed, "That might be true Trigg. Though for all his prudish sensibility, Sascha was always more comfortable in talking with females, whether it be, Master Brynar, Tyra or Master Unduli."

"Yes, Sascha is indeed a ladies man," Trigg drawled, producing a laugh from the two Corelians and a smile from the Jedi Knight. The joke even stirred Nara out of her stupor for a moment. You could call Sascha Whitestar many different things, but he was not exactly adept at handling himself around young women his age.

"What do you think I should do?" she asked.

"Find Tyra and have her talk with him," suggested Doro.

She shook her head, "I'm afraid that is impossible."

"Why?"

"Because I have no idea where she is," she said honestly. Aurine was also pretty sure that Tyra had no intention of talking to Sascha and reopening wounds that were just beginning to heal. She couldn't help but feel a little bit upset with Tyra. While she understood Tyra's reasoning, she had to have known that Sascha would react like this.

Nara spoke for the first time, "Sascha will find his way again. I'm sure of it."

Trigg and Doro offered her comforting looks, "We are sure too." But to Aurine's experienced eyes, she detected less than a hundred percent certainty in their voices.

"What about your friend Eida? Padawan Nascal has been assigned to help Sascha recover." That had come courtesy of Master Windu, who had helped in reassigning the young Padawan to Coruscant. While she wasn't sure that Sascha needed a Jedi Healer, she figured that it couldn't possibly hurt.

Doro smirked, "Eida's a nice girl and a great young healer. She's definitely not as, uh, enthusiastic as the rest of us, but she was the sort of level-headed person that we needed in dragon clan."

Trigg spoke up, "If Doro, Tyra and myself are all defined by our abilities in combat, Eida was the exact opposite. She hates combat and only practices with her lightsaber to defend herself."

"How is her relationship with Sascha?" she asked.

Doro and Trigg shared a look, trying to decide who should speak. Aurine spared a second to look over at Nara. If it wasn't for the slight swaying of Nara's lekku, she might have assumed that Nara was comatose. Odd, to say the least. She returned her attention back to Doro, who had apparently decided to speak, "Eida and Sascha, they were the two Jedi that we tried to protect in dragon clan. Sascha...isn't talented with the Force, and neither is Eida, so whenever possible, whenever they could be shielded, we did that for them."

"Yet, I don't think they are that close," added Trigg. "Eida was always too reserved for him, and he spent a lot of his time following Tyra around."

"But she knows him pretty well though, right? Especially regarding his relationship with Tyra?"

Trigg looked contemplative, "She'll know Sascha well enough. But as I said before, only Tyra really knows what makes him tick."

Aurine shovelled a forkful of rapidly cooling food into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. It was possible that the person that Sascha needed was a healer that knew him well, and Eida seemed to fit this bill. It was possible, however, that Sascha would come to resent more people being concerned for him. Sascha was, generally speaking, an introvert and did seem to prize having time alone. Why doesn't this problem have an obvious solution, she wondered.

"Would you do me a favour?" asked Aurine.

"Of course, Master Brynar," Doro responded.

"Try to cheer up Sascha for me? Losing Tyra was not the only thing that happened to him on his last mission and I know that he needs his friends. Don't give up on him just because he pushes you away."

"We shall try, Master Brynar," promised Trigg.

"We'll never give up on him," said Nara, finally deigning to look her in the eye

The two Corelians then shared some lighter stories about Sascha and their earlier years in the Temple. She could tell that both Trigg and Doro thought highly of her Padawan and to an extent that cheered her more than the stories themselves.

Eventually the three Padawans had to return to their studies and bid her a fond farewell. Aurine picked at what remained of her food, but it had gone cold a long time ago. She figured that it might be time to do a little therapy of her own, of course her definition of therapy was much different from what Sascha was going through.

Her version of therapy had always been finding a skilled opponent and hitting that opponent as hard as she could. She was sure she could find a willing volunteer somewhere in the Jedi Temple…

After a very satisfying sparring session in which she both hit and got hit, Aurine showered and returned to her room, intending to spend some time in meditation before turning in for the night. She started by lighting an incense candle in preparation for her meditation. The incense reminded her of her time as a Padawan under her Master, Nova Trynith. Nova had been a stern and occasionally unfeeling Master, but she had absolutely been the Master that she had needed. She considered writing her a message to her Master outlining her current problem with Sascha and asking for her advice, but knowing Nova, her advice her reply would probably be something along the lines of 'drop Sascha in the middle of a jungle and tell him that it's a three day trek to the nearest spaceport.'

To say that Nova Trynith was in the 'tough love' school of teaching was perhaps an understatement. But occasionally people needed to be reminded that things could be much, much worse.

Aurine was settling into a cross-legged position in the middle of her room and preparing to meditate when the door chime rang. Curious, she extended her senses outward, wanting to know who it was that was at her door. She was surprised to detect the presence of Nara Nalto outside. "You can come in, Padawan Nalto," she said.

The purple-skinned Togruta stepped through the door. "Thank you…" Nara's eyes widened as she got her first whiff of her incense. "…Master Brynar," she managed to say before she sneezed.

Aurine got to her feet and extinguished the candle that was providing the room's peaceful aroma, "Sorry about the smell, but I was getting ready to meditate before bed and I wasn't expecting visitors." Especially ones with such sensitive senses, thought Aurine, who knew that the Togruta's sense of smell was far superior to her own.

"No…it smells nice," said Nara. Aurine could tell by the way the Togruta's nose was constantly ruffling that she was lying, but she chalked it up to an attempt at being polite.

"What can I do for you, Padawan Nalto?"

The Togruta visibly steeled herself, "I'll be quick, but I wanted to talk about Sascha."

She smiled slightly, "I figured that, I didn't think you wanted to talk about galactic politics."

Nara decided to lean lightly against her wall, "I'm still shaken by the way Sascha was acting today," she admitted.

"You can join the club," said Aurine.

"I understand that it is none of my business, but…Sascha means a lot to me." Upon seeing her eyes widen, Nara quickly added, "Not in that way, but as a friend."

"I wasn't aware that you two were particularly close," she said.

The purple-skinned Togruta blushed in embarrassment, "I think to him, I'm just one of many friends, and not one of his closer ones. But to me, he's my first real friend."

"Your…first real friend?" she said in disbelief. That seemed impossible in the Jedi Temple, younglings were encouraged to make friends with each other, to give each young Jedi a support system that they could rely on.

Nara nodded, subdued, "I'm not particularly popular…and it is because up until very recently I was…kind of a jerk. I pushed people away, I was arrogant, I wasn't very much fun to be around, so naturally people avoided me. And I avoided them."

"What changed you?" she asked, already suspecting that she knew the answer.

"The Apprentice Tournament… and Sascha."

"You beat my Padawan at the Apprentice Tournament," she observed, remembering watching the recording of that duel. "It was a close match." Much closer than it should have been given the discrepancy of talent between Nara and Sascha, thought Aurine.

The Togruta stopped leaning on the wall and hugged herself tightly, "It wasn't that I beat him, it was the way that Sascha comported himself during the duel that made me see that I was doing everything in my life totally wrong." Nara sighed, "I'm talented, and I've always known that I'm talented. Force skills come easy to me. So I was just flat out better than most people my age, not because I was smarter or worked harder, but because I have a certain level of power in the Force."

"And Sascha is your polar opposite," she said.

Nara nodded, "Sascha didn't become a Padawan on talent, he became one because he's tough and talented and smart and a hundred different positive things I could say about him. When I fought him in the Apprentice Tournament, and this…old, untalented Jedi was in my way and refusing to lose, he made me see that for all my talents, that he was a better Jedi than I was." Nara smiled, "After the tournament, although Sascha had plenty of friends, he always made time for me, to train with me, to hear me vent about things and to generally just…be there for me. He even introduced me to his friends and let me be friends with them as well. He didn't have to do that, but he did. And that means something to me."

She smiled at the Togruta, "Thank you for sharing this story with me. I had honestly thought that you and Sascha had known each other before the Apprentice Tournament. But it is nice to be reminded that Sascha is a kind soul, and I know he does enjoy helping you out."

"Right, that's what I came here to say." Nara paused, "I don't know how much you know about Togruta culture," she said.

"You might be surprised," Aurine replied.

Nara's eyes widened in surprise for a moment before returning to their normal size, "Okay, so I have this idea to help Sascha. In Togruta culture, when someone rejects the pack like Sascha is threatening to do, the pack selects one person to convince this person to stay with the pack. If this person fails to bring him back to the pack, this person is ostracized. In Sascha's case…you'd probably ask the Council for permission to terminate your apprenticeship with him."

"That's pretty drastic," she observed.

"It is," agreed Nara. "However it promotes solidarity within the pack, and for Togruta that is something of paramount importance. As it is for Jedi, I think. We have disagreements internally, but when it comes down to it, we are all Jedi. Once you choose the life of a Jedi, you don't really choose to opt out of it."

Aurine put a finger on her chin, "You are suggesting that this person that is in charge of bringing Sascha back to the pack be you," she said.

Nara met her gaze, "Yes. Doro and Trigg have known Sascha longer, but Sascha means more to me than he does to them."

"I'm not sure I'm willing to try anything so drastic quite yet," she said. "But the idea is good. Sascha may need an additional incentive to be brought back to his usual self. He might need someone to, ahem, beat some sense into him."

Nara smiled bowed politely, "Exactly. Thank you for hearing me out, Master Brynar. Sorry I interrupted your meditation."

"It wasn't a problem, Padawan Nalto."

The Togruta bowed again, fractionally, and exited the room.

Aurine paced around her room for a second, taking stock of Nara's idea more fully. While she appreciated Nara's honesty and her determination to see her friend brought back to his normal self, she hesitated at taking her up on her offer. For one, she tended to think that bringing Sascha out of his mood would be a process and not something done by one person in one moment. For another, she was wary of letting another female get close to Sascha.

While Nara wasn't exactly the most beautiful Togruta that Aurine had ever seen, there was enough similarities between Tyra and Nara, personality wise, that she was wary about putting the two of them together. She certainly didn't intend to fix Sascha's problem with Tyra by giving him another close female friend to fixate on. It was maybe being too overprotective, but Sascha had shown that he wasn't totally capable of having close female friends.

By the time that Aurine sat back down, most of the incense had already scattered, she was still able to meditate peacefully. But when she searched into the Force for an answer to Sascha's predicament, the Force was silent. Aurine wondered if that was a sign in and of itself.