Lord Darth Yoda - I took a lot of words to describe something pretty simple, didn't I... Sometimes, writing more is not better (a lesson, I will hopefully learn)

thejoker122- Good point about how quickly things got out of hand for Sascha. It's really been a whirlwind for him since Weliss captured him. But if you think about all the things Sascha has been through in the 2-3 months or so since being a Padawan, it's been a trying period for him.

A/N - So, this chapter went through a drastic change based off a throwaway comment by Lord Darth Yoda in a previous review. I decided that yes, it would be a cool idea if Sascha had a talk with Yoda about his life. Which is great in theory, and then you start writing thousands of words of Yoda dialog. I like dialog, that should be obvious by now, but when Yoda speaks, you have to use that odd grammar of his, and its super annoying to write. Still, I think it came out well. Let me know if you agree/disagree :p.

Anyways, please enjoy the next chapter!

Chapter 6: Sorting it Out

When Sascha awoke the day after his Master left, he decided that he had slept too much over the past few weeks. He had slept so much that it seemed like he was sleepwalking through his own life. He hadn't reached out and taken control of it. Perhaps, he decided, it was time to change that. And he would try to change it today.

The only question was how he was supposed to do that. He didn't trust the Force. It was supposed to be his ally, a companion, but recently it seemed more like a millstone. Just because he could lift rocks with his mind didn't mean that he was immune to having fears. Fears that he knew were real. He had lost Tyra's friendship, at least for a little while, and he was not prepared for even the possibility of losing someone else close to him. There was just no way he could take it, no way he even wanted to consider it.

He ha thought that he would be prepared to deal with loss. He wasn't. The Jedi Code stated that there is no death, there is the Force, and he had thought that he understood this precept when he was younger, but now he realized that he really did not. Losing Tyra's friendship was the worst thing that had ever happened to him, and while the precept tried to comfort you with the idea that death and loss was just a part of the grand plan of the Force, Sascha found that it did not make it easier to deal with.

He could get over the loss of his best friend; in fact, the pain he felt now was much different from what he had felt just days after breaking up with her. The pain in his heart was still there, but it was lessened. Perhaps, one day it might fade completely. Perhaps one day he could be friends with Tyra without it being unnecessarily complicated. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps... Always perhaps, and never certainty. That was the way of his life recently. And he hated it, to say the least. He wanted to back to the days where he was certain that he wanted to be a Jedi Knight, certain that he would always have Tyra's friendship.

He wanted to go back to the days where he was a naive child.

Sascha found himself looking at the robe that Aurine had bought for him for his birthday. He'd left it hanging in the corner of his room, giving it a place of honor in his room. The robe was lovely, grey with slight hints of teal, and it looked really nice on him, but he hadn't worn it in a long time and he didn't think he would start anytime soon.

Still, something about it was drawing his attention for the moment so he walked over where it was hanging and brushed off some unseen dust from it. He wasn't worthy of this robe, he thought. This robe had been custom made, and Sascha had no idea how Aurine had managed to get this robe made – it wasn't like Jedi had a savings account that they could make purchases from. The fact that Aurine went through all this effort to get something for him made him feel ashamed. His Master was brilliant, but he had failed her. And it was his fault.

Absentmindedly, he read out the inscription that was on the robe, "Warrior of light, beacon in the dark, Sascha of White-star." He sighed and turned away from the robe. Sascha wasn't a warrior of any description. And he certainly was not a beacon in the dark. It actually seemed recently as if the dark had swallowed him whole.

He dressed in his normal grey robe, leaving his immaculate robe hanging peacefully on its hanger, waiting for the day he wouldn't feel like a total fraud if he wore it. He left his room, needing a change of scenery. As he wandered aimlessly around the building he called home, he wondered how much of an effect Weliss' philosophy was having on him. He had been captured by the fallen Jedi and subjected to his unconventional thoughts on Jedi philosophy, several of which had made sense to Sascha.

Weliss had been obsessed with the idea that the Jedi were slaves, both figuratively and literally. Sascha rejected the idea that he was a slave in the literal sense of the word, while he had been taken by the Jedi at a young age, if he wanted to he could resign and walk out the door of the Jedi Temple. Somehow, he didn't think that most slaves got a chance to resign from being a slave, well, except by very dramatic measures.

However, Weliss had also argued that he was a slave to the dogmatic ideals of the Jedi. That, thought Sascha Whitestar, was very true. Certain types of learning were forbidden. Information about the Sith and so-called 'dark' Force techniques was very tightly controlled. Only Jedi Masters sitting on the High Council could access the collection of Sith Holocrons that were held inside a vault in the archives. Sascha didn't have any particular interest in researching the Sith, but it showed that the information available in the archives was only available because someone decided that it could be. Far from being open with their knowledge, the Jedi curated their knowledge carefully.

Everyone had to be forced down one singular, narrow path. There was no room for emotion, for attachment, only listening to the Force and being a conduit for its will. As a Jedi, he was to have no possession besides what the Force provided him. A Jedi was not supposed cling to the past, he snorted, he was certainly failing in that particular tenant. Padawans were also expected to show great respect to their Masters, especially in front of others. He had been taught to never disagree with his Master to the point of argument, and that when they were in discussion with others, Padawans should only address their Masters when they had been addressed themselves.

He was aware that many of the rules were there for a good reason. Certainly, the ban on attachments made sense to him – he had not been able to handle his feelings towards Tyra. In his opinion, all rules should have corollaries. If his Master was doing something wrong, was he supposed to be limited by the Jedi Code to just meekly watch it happen? Why was everything so restrictive?

He shook his head. He had not signed up for this. Unlike any other person his age he did not get his choice of what his future would be. It was be a Jedi Padawan under the tutelage of his Master, prepare for life in the Jedi Service Corps, or leave the Jedi Order entirely. While everyone said that the Jedi Service Corps were an 'honorable' way to live your life as a Jedi, he couldn't see himself being happy living a life as a simple farmer.

But there would be opportunities in a wider galaxy for someone like him. There wasn't a military in the galaxy that wouldn't want him; he could spend a few years as a pilot before inevitably being promoted, likely ending his career as an Admiral. Or, he could pursue academia, even at sixteen he would have no problem picking a University of his choice and gaining admittance. What University would not want a former Jedi apprentice amongst it's undergraduate population?

The benefits to living a civilian life were numerous; he could even have a family of his own. In what he now would admit was a mistake, he had kissed Tyra, and that moment when his lips met hers was etched in his mind. It had felt so right, so natural that his thoughts often drifted back to it. It wasn't as if Jedi were banned from enjoying physical pleasures, there was a ban on attachment, not on kissing, and there was always gossip on which Padawans or even Jedi Knights were currently amorous with each other. Attachments were to be avoided at all costs though.

As he wandered around the Room of a Thousand Fountains, watching water rush over a large grey rock and tumble into a stream that led towards a lower level of the room, he pondered what it meant to be a Jedi. He always knew that it would involve a certain amount of self-sacrifice, but when he was younger he thought there was a certain amount of fun to being a Jedi. You got to visit hundreds of different worlds, interact with the most important of statesmen and arrest the most dangerous of criminals, which sounded like the plot of a good action holo. It had also seemed like a worthy life to lead. Now he wasn't so sure.

He was making his way to his favourite spot in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, a place that had always brought him comfort. It was beside a waterfall, just beside a little collection of vermilion flowers from Bimmiel. The soft tricking of the water had always seemed so calming, so peaceful. There was still no better place to confront the biggest questions in his life. There were lots of minor ones, of course, but the biggest one was whether he, Sascha Whitestar, wanted to be a Jedi. Certainly, he had put in long hours of training to become one, but that wasn't the same as wanting to be one. He figured that instead of endlessly debating it in his own subconscious, that there was a better way to find out.

As he rounded the corner his destination close at hand he saw that instead of being alone in his little place of sanctuary, he would have company. But he was totally surprised to see who was sitting there.

"Master Yoda?" he blurted. "What are you doing here?"

Yoda, who was sitting on a small boulder and letting his legs dangle almost comically off the ground. The Jedi Master appraised him behind those wise, penetrating eyes,"Waiting for you, I am," said Yoda.

That didn't make any sense to Sascha, "Waiting…for me? Why? How did you know I would be here?"

Yoda smiled, "Tell you, I will. Come closer."

Sascha reluctantly got closer to the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, still a bit too shocked to do anything but follow instructions. He found a reasonably comfortable looking rock, sat on it, and focused his attention on Yoda.

Once Yoda seemed sure that he was ready, Yoda snuffed, "Grand Master of the Jedi Order, I am. Think that I won this job in a raffle do you, hmm?"

"I…"

Yoda tapped his gimer stick against the ground, "My job it is to know such things."

"Know what things, Master Yoda?"

"Know about you I do. Questioning your path, you are."

"Who told you?"

Yoda whacked him in the shin with his gimer stick, "Told not, I need to be. Know this, I do."

Sascha rubbed his shin where Yoda had hit him. It hadn't hurt, but he rubbed it nonetheless. "Yes, I'm questioning my path. My Master just left on a mission and I'm here, supposedly figuring my life out." Sascha almost added, 'which I would have been doing right now if you weren't here right now,' but had the good sense not to.

Yoda grunted, "So your Master's fault it is?"

"What! No! She's a great Master."

"Hmm," said Yoda. "A problem, is this."

He looked downward, "I know. I just can't find that part of me that loved being a Jedi anymore. I think it got crushed. I think Tyra took it away from me."

Yoda tapped his stick against the ground again, "Love her, you do." It wasn't a question.

"Yes...I mean my feelings for her are fading, maybe."

"Love. A tough subject for many Jedi, it is," Yoda said, not unkindly.

Sascha blew out a long breath, "I do understand why attachment is banned. I found that I could be pushed and pulled by people because I cared about Tyra too much. I even slipped into using the dark side because of my feelings towards her. I pulled myself back, but...I know now that if I kept loving Tyra, the dark side could always tempt me."

Yoda's ears drooped, "Lies, the dark side shows us. Taunts us, it does. Resist it, a Jedi must."

"I won't ever use the dark side ever again," Sascha promised. "But why do we have to resist our feelings? Aren't they natural?"

Yoda swirled his gimer stick as if he was stirring a soup, "Accept our feelings a Jedi must. Understand them, control them, be aware of them, he must. A Jedi must only answer to the Force, not himself."

He snorted derisively, "No offence, Master Yoda, but that basically tells me to just repress my emotions. Is the Jedi Order full of people who are emotionally repressed? It doesn't sound like something I want to be a part of."

Yoda nodded slowly, "Misunderstanding me, you are. Your Master, repressed is she?"

He reflected on Aurine. Emotionally repressed didn't seem to be a word that could be used to describe her...ever. "No, I don't think so."

"What about your friends?"

"I don't think they are exactly repressed either," he admitted. Doro and Trigg in particular seemed to be the opposite of repressed.

Yoda tapped him lightly on the shin with his stick, "Learned the lesson, they have. Time for you, it now is."

"What lesson? What have I not learned?"

Yoda sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, "Balance."

"Explain please."

"Not something I can tell you, this is. Something you must experience."

Sascha stood up as his frustration boiled over, "Is this another one of your riddles, Master Yoda? Because if it is, I don't have the time or patience for one of them right now."

Yoda took his outburst stoically, "Then lost yourself, you have."

"I know! That's the problem!"

Yoda, ever patient, continued to just sit on his rock, swirling his stick slowly, "Remember who you were, you should."

Sascha threw his hands in the air, "Remember...who I was? How exactly I am supposed to do that? Go back in time, maybe?"

"Sit," said Yoda.

Sascha sat without thinking about it. Had Yoda used the Force on him? Or did Yoda just have that sort of power in his voice? "How did you..."

"Used the Force, I did."

"But I didn't sense..."

Yoda smiled slightly, amused at his reaction, "When eight hundred years old you are, a few tricks you learn."

Sascha calmed himself down, awed by the power that Yoda had at his fingertips. He smiled ruefully, "Sorry Master Yoda...but I don't know what I'm doing or who I am anymore."

"Last time we talked, remember you?"

"After the Apprentice Tournament," said Sascha.

"Remember what you said to me, do you?"

The young human blinked, trying to think about what Yoda could be referring to. "You named me brightest light of the Apprentice Tournament."

Yoda grunted in affirmation, "True it was then, true it is now. Said something else to me you did."

Sascha reflected for a moment, remembering that conversation, "I said something like 'I'll always be a Jedi. That my life was dedicated to the ideals of the Jedi, whether I was in the Order or not."

A small smile appeared on Yoda's aged lips, "True now, true then."

He hesitated, "I'm not sure it is."

"Changed, what has?"

"I finally saw what life is like as a Jedi. It wasn't like how I imagined it being. It's easy to be idealistic from the sidelines, and much harder to do so when you get in the trenches."

Yoda nodded but said nothing, "A war you are fighting?" inquired Yoda gently.

He waved Yoda's comment away, "A poor choice of metaphor. But the fact remains, that if I have to keep letting go of the people I care about to be a Jedi, I'm not sure I want to be that person. I care about my friends, Master Yoda. That's a part of me that I'm sure of."

Yoda waited for a couple of long moments before speaking. "Love one person, you cannot. Love everyone, you can."

"That doesn't make sense, Master Yoda."

The wizened Jedi Master smiled, "No? Yoda does."

Sascha looked incredulously at the Jedi Master, "You love everyone?"

Yoda's eyes searched out his, "Every Jedi."

Sascha, even though he was sitting, almost fell over and was stunned into silence.

"Over my lifetime many friends lost, have I. Many friends gained, have I. Many students trained, I have. Many students gone, they have. This is the life Yoda lives. Pain and loss. But love also. Know you how many friends you can lose in eight hundred years?"

Sascha shook his head.

"A great many," Yoda cackled, somehow amused by the idea. "Each one, a great loss." Yoda rapped at his ankle again with this gimer stick, "But what should Yoda have done? Given up? Given in? Become bitter? Never made friends again?"

The young Padawan was on very uncertain ground in this conversation, "I…don't know."

"Tell you what I did, I will. Filled his heart with love, Yoda did. Love you, love your friends, love your Master, Yoda does."

Sascha sat back, stunned. He hadn't even considered how many friends that Yoda must have had over his hundreds of years of living. Friends that had passed on. Heck, out of the dozens and dozens of the Padawans that Yoda had trained over the years, only a few if any, remained. Yet Yoda still made the time to teach a class of Initiates each year and take a personal interest in every Jedi that set foot in the Temple. Even though he knew that he would outlive most of them.

So to Yoda, each Jedi that died, whether by natural causes or otherwise, was someone that Yoda knew, had watched grow up and in many cases, he had been the person to cut off their Padawan braid, a seminal moment in every Jedi's life. It was as if Yoda was as much part of the Jedi Order as the Jedi Temple itself, and all the other Jedi just came and went, but still Yoda remained.

Sascha couldn't even fathom losing all the people he had grown up with. He was having a hard enough time coming to terms with losing Tyra's friendship, something that didn't even need to be permanent. Yoda had lost hundreds of friends, but here he was spending time with him, someone that he would probably outlive. While most would have become bitter and disenfranchised, or become cold and heartless, Yoda had apparently chosen the opposite, to love each and every person that called him or herself a Jedi.

Including him, Sascha Whitestar.

So, while maybe he couldn't be in love with Tyra, maybe there was a way to redefine their relationship, while still affirming that they cared for each other. After all, if the Grand Master was doing it, surely he could too. And wasn't that what Yoda was getting at here? At an oblique angle, surely, but that was the point, wasn't it? To not be bitter and closed off, but instead fill your heart with love?

"I…don't know what to say, Master Yoda."

Yoda tapped his stick softly against the ground a couple of times, "Nothing to say, there is."

Sascha waited for another few moments, "Maybe I should do what I should have in the first place, what advice do you have for me, Master Yoda?"

"Hurting you are. Without cause it is not. A bright light for the Jedi Order you should remain. Not let you go without a fight, I will. Your Master feels similar, think I."

He bowed his head politely, "Thank you, Master Yoda. But I was asking for what I should do."

Yoda shrugged in a casual motion, "Trust in the Force, should you. Trust in yourself, should you."

"I...don't know how anymore."

Yoda grunted and got off the stone he had been sitting on. He moved methodically towards him and rapped him on the shin again, "Forget yourself, you have not. Forgotten the Force, you have not either."

"But..."

"No more I have to say. Do the rest, you must."

Sascha turned as Yoda walked past him slowly, "Can't you be a little more specific?"

Yoda sighed, a long, tired sigh, "Remember you, the first time you used the Force?"

"Not really."

"Young, you were?"

"Of course." Sascha had memories of being four or five and playing with the Force. All he had used the Force for in those days was playing.

"Trust the Force then, did you?" inquired Yoda.

Sascha smiled widely, "I barely knew what the Force was Master Yoda. I don't even know if I understood what the word trust was."

Yoda returned his smiled, "Then like a child again, you must be."

"But..."

Yoda waved his hand, "No more to say, have I. Important places Yoda has to be."

He felt guilty instantly, here Yoda was speaking to Sascha Whitestar, one of the least important Padawans in the Jedi Order, and here he was asking for more time with the Grand Master, when Yoda had already been more than generous with it.

Yoda tapped his stick on the ground again, "Least important Padawan you are not, Jedi Whitestar."

Sascha was about to ask how Yoda knew how he was thinking that, but decided that it might have been the stupidest question in the history of stupid questions. "Thank you, Master Yoda," he said.

Yoda paused, nodded respectfully to him and then continued on his way. Sascha watched him go in amazement. Amazed at the strength of character that Yoda had. Amazed at how much power was in that tiny frame. Amazed at how he knew to be here, waiting for him. And he was truly in awe of how Yoda had kept going through more than eight hundred years of life without becoming bitter.

With his favourite spot in the Room of a Thousand Fountains now empty, he went and claimed that spot. He chewed over Yoda's statement. How did one exactly go about being a child again? "Well, when you were a child, things were much simpler," he said out loud.

It was true though, when he was a child he hadn't worried about things like whether he and Tyra could be friends. He hadn't worried about his place in the galaxy. He hadn't worried about...well...anything.

The only thing that Sascha could remember doing as a child was just playing for the sake of playing. It wasn't sparring to improve technique, though he enjoyed that. It wasn't learning piloting skills in the simulator, though he enjoyed that as well. No, a child just played.

One memory from his childhood seemed to stick out to him. As a reward for being 'good little Jedi,' he had been promised to be shown the 'secret' of levitation by a Jedi Master. He had been told to close his eyes and concentrate. Like the good little boy he had been, he had closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he had found himself floating a few inches off the ground. While he now knew that the Jedi Master had just been lifting him with the Force, he remembered the feeling of exhilaration he felt as he was floating off the ground, defying gravity. He remembered feeling like he could literally do anything. The fact that he could not was yet to be etched into his psyche.

Sascha decided that he wanted to be that child again, just for a moment. While he couldn't actually levitate himself with the Force, there was a technique that allowed a Jedi to defy gravity for short periods of time. It was called rising meditation, and it was attainable only once deeply submerged in the Force. Yet, if done correctly, this form of meditation allowed practitioners to rise several meters off the ground.

He had never done it himself, he had always considered himself to be not powerful enough in the Force to do something like that. But, it might be fun to try...

What exactly did he have to lose anyway?

He gathered the Force around him, pushing himself deeper into the current then he had in a long time, simply and freely embracing his heritage as a child of the Force. For the first time in a long time, he meditated, letting the Force wash over him. He meditated like a child would, not bringing in any worries or fears, but a simple purity of spirit. And for the first time in a long time, he found peace.

When he returned to full awareness of his senses, he found that he was floating half a foot the air. The shock at unintentionally lifting himself off the ground like that caused his concentration to break, and that sent him falling towards the ground. He had enough training and wherewithal to turn his short fall into a vaguely graceful tumble that stung his hands and knees.

Apparently, he had just done rising meditation without thinking about it or without really knowing the technique to performing rising meditation. And for the first time in what felt like weeks, Sascha laughed. He laughed loud and hard. He laughed so hard that tears started falling down his face. He only managed to stop when he saw a Jedi walking nearby, staring at him oddly, clearly wondering if he had lost his sanity.

He took a long moment to compose himself and then decided that he'd done enough finding himself for one day. As he turned to go back to his room, there was a little more spring in his step and his boots didn't nearly feel as heavy as they had. When he got back to his room, he looked at the robe that Aurine had bought for him, hanging pristine in the corner. He decided that he had soiled his current robe with his tears, so he shucked that one off, and put on his gray and teal robe, smiling as he did it.