Lok realised that he was angrier today than he had any right to be. He also realised that he needed to deal with his anger and that he really should ask for help. The trouble was that asking Eeth for such help would eventually require him to establish a link with the man, and that was something he simply felt not ready to do. Maybe it was just his stubbornness, or maybe there was a different reason, but he would be damned if he allowed Eeth access to that part of himself. It belonged to his master and no one else, Lok told himself firmly.

And thus, he plodded through his chores and homework with bad grace – not to mention a smarting bottom – and was still sulking when Eeth took him to the scheduled master-padawan sparring session. Lok was not stupid; he recognised this as a ploy to get him to interact with others, and he did not want that.

Alright, so he had to concede that school had not been all bad, not that he would ever admit that to Eeth. People had been friendly, but nobody had asked stupid questions. His best friend, Gareth, had come up in the first break. He had simply put his arm around Lok's shoulders and told him he was glad to see him. Lok had suddenly realised he was glad to see Gareth, too, and he had returned the embrace. That did not mean, however, that he was about to give Eeth the satisfaction of suddenly going to the padawan lounge or arranging meetings with his friends; not after having adamantly refused such things for weeks. The man should simply stop meddling with his private life, Lok thought sullenly, kicking off his boots as they started to change into their gym clothes.

There were four teams registered for today's session. Padawan Tihayli, a Twi'lek girl, was about Lok's age, while the other two padawans were considerably older. The masters thus quickly decided among themselves that Eeth would work with Tihayli during this session and Noonian, Tihayli's Iktotchi master, with Lok. Afterwards, Tihayli and Lok would get to spar against each other.

For some reason, Lok resented the situation, and his resentment grew every time he saw Eeth explaining something to Tihayli, patiently making her rehearse a move or, worst of all, giving her words of praise when she did it right. He was so distracted by this that he did a rather poor job with his own lesson. Noonian was clearly exasperated with his lack of attention, so much so that Eeth saw fit to interrupt his lesson with Tihayli, cross over to where Lok and Noonian were practicing, put his hand onto Lok's shoulder and murmur into his ear to pull himself together and focus. He did not say "Or else", but the message was clear. Lok gritted his teeth and tried to comply, but it was hard. There was so much frustration and aggression boiling under the surface, and there were fears as well although he did his best to push them away. Logically, he knew that would not make them disappear, but he was determined to manage somehow without turning to Eeth for help.

The freestyle sparring session against Tihayli was a disaster. Lok was so worked up at this point that he just rushed into his attacks, neither drawing on the Force nor thinking them through. Tihayli, on the other hand, kept a cool head and had impeccable defences. She scored hit after hit. Lok felt irrational bursts of hatred at the sight of her, with all her talent and her carefree life and her master who was looking out for her and was undoubtedly regretting having to work with Lok today.

Eeth cut the match short after a while, which only seemed to add to Lok's humiliation. He glared at Eeth as the man talked to Noonian for a moment, probably about how much of a disappointment Lok was, and crossed his arms about his chest defiantly, his lips pursed, as the Zabrak master came to fetch him.
"Come," said Eeth calmly. "This was clearly not a good idea. We will try it again some other time."
"No, we won't," Lok spat, standing his ground. "Do you see now what I meant when I said that you're not my master? You aren't and you won't be and you don't even want to be. You want a proper padawan, someone like Tihayli, who is neat and compliant and oh-so-skilled with her saber. Why don't you go and look for one?"
Eeth did not rise to this challenge. He merely looked at Lok for a long while and then said softly, as if speaking to himself: "You are jealous."
"No, I'm not," Lok said hotly. "Why should I be?"
"Because you are insecure of your position with me," Eeth replied slowly, as if he was working this out while he spoke, which he probably was. "That makes you afraid. And your fears make you angry."
"Stop analysing me as if you were a freaking soul healer," Lok snapped. What Eeth said made an awful lot of sense, and that fact was making him even angrier.
Eeth's eyes narrowed.
"Normally, behaviour like yours would have earned you a paddling three times over," he said sternly. "More importantly, though, your anger needs to be dealt with. You are clearly not doing a very good job at it on your own, so you will simply have to accept help, whether you want it or not."
His hand clamped around Lok's upper arm. He steered the boy towards the exit of the gym, ignoring their gym bags that were still in the change rooms, and turned left into the corridor.
At this point, Lok stopped, pulling against Eeth's hold with all his strength.
"No," he said quietly, his voice shaking with barely contained emotion. "I can do this on my own. I will not let you intrude. Paddle me all you like, but I will not allow you to pry into my feelings. They are none of your business."
Eeth turned around and, again, looked at him for a long moment.
"I never paddle you because I LIKE to," he said, his voice level. "Sometimes, however, you need me to. And if you need me to paddle you right here and now until you are ready to drop your resistance against accepting help with your meditations, that is what I will do. I would much prefer not to have to coerce you, though."
He put his finger under Lok's chin and lifted the boy's head, forcing him to look into his face.
"Tell me", he asked quietly, "do you trust me at all?"
Lok stared into Eeth's face at the unexpected question, searching the man's black eyes, and he suddenly found he could not bring himself to lie to Eeth's face. He nodded mutely.
"But I don't want to meditate," he mumbled after a brief pause; it did not sound defiant any longer, though, merely unhappy and a little forlorn.
"I know," said Eeth, and he sounded more compassionate than ever before. "I know, and I understand. I am much the same as you in that respect; I prefer to deal with problems on my own. But I have had to learn that this is not always possible, and not always sufficient. There was a time at which I exposed my padawan to tremendous danger, just because I thought I could conquer my fears all by myself. I could not; and I came to accept that there is no shame in seeking help. I also know that you are afraid of what you will find when you allow yourself to meditate with me. But it will no go away just because you refuse to acknowledge it. It will merely eat you up. Look at how your fears made you act today. Do you honestly want to go on like this?"

Lok was suddenly reminded of a situation that had not at all been dissimilar to this one, with a tall Twi'lek Jedi asking him, the creche's worst troublemaker, the same question, very bluntly and very solemnly. Everything in him screamed in protest at the thought of ever granting another person the position in his life that his master had had; but it seemed as if he desperately needed to because Eeth was entirely right, he did not want to go on like this. It had been a relief when Master Jerad had taken charge of him, reining in his temper, his defiance and his outbursts, pushing him to become the kind of padawan he had always wanted to be, but had not really believed he could ever become. Jerad had put his unwavering trust in him, and every time he had disciplined Lok, this had shown the boy that his master expected better of him, that he believed he could do better. That, in turn, had given Lok the strength to believe in himself. He had lost that faith when his master had died. And only now did he realise that Eeth was offering to give it back to him.

"I don't," he replied in a shaking voice. "But… I don't know if I'm ready move on either."
Eeth raised his eyebrows.
"Fortunately for you, I have not been asking you about your wishes," he said mildly. "Simply following my orders will suffice. Now come."
He turned and led the way towards the nearest meditation garden, the same he had taken Lok to on their first night. This time, it was not empty, but Eeth chose a secluded corner for them and sat down, motioning for Lok to sit opposite him.
Lok complied hesitantly, looking at Eeth for further instructions.
"Now drop your shields," Eeth ordered bluntly. "Completely."
Lok felt his breath quicken. This was happening too fast. He suddenly realised that Eeth had been right; he was afraid. Very afraid.
"I… no… I… can't you…" he stammered, having no clue what it was that he wanted to say.
Eeth shook his head.
"It is not going to get any easier," he said firmly. "Your anger needs to be dealt with now, and I will help you do so. But I cannot do that if you keep closing yourself up. Drop your shields."
Lok closed his eyes. He felt himself starting to sweat. He was close to panicking when he felt a comforting hand on his shoulder and heard Eeth's voice say, gently and patiently: "You can do this. You can be brave if you want to be, Padawan Lok Dar. Your master recognised this in you, I am sure of that. Will you honor his memory by showing how brave you can be?"
This tore Lok out of the haze of fear and guilt that was threatening to overwhelm him. He opened his eyes again and looked at Eeth. Then he drew a deep breath and dropped his shields completely. And all the fears, aggression and frustration he had bottled up inside him flooded out.

To his credit, Eeth did not even flinch. He had established a link almost instantly, and through that link helped to channel the onslaught of emotions emanating from Lok. It was hard work, for both of them; but Lok had been trained to do this, and Jerad had taught him better than to give up easily. With every minute, his heart felt a little lighter. And the lighter his heart felt, the more he realised that the empty spot inside, the part where his bond with his master had been anchored, yearned to be filled and that the Force pulled him towards Eeth.

"You knew it!" he said suddenly and accusingly, pulling out of the link abruptly and glaring at Eeth.
"Yes, I knew it," said Eeth calmly. "So?"
"Err," said Lok, taken aback by that unfazed reaction. "Umm. So… so you could have told me?"
"Yes, I am sure that would have gone over exceedingly well," Eeth replied drily. "And we are not finished with our meditation yet. Since when do you get to terminate it whenever you feel like throwing around accusations?"
"Since never, of course," Lok replied with a sigh and a half-smile, closed his eyes and linked with Eeth again. Eeth's Force presence was pulling at him, and suddenly, he just wanted to end all the uncertainty and loneliness, and with reckless abandon, he plunged towards it.

This time, it was Eeth who withdrew, albeit much less abruptly than Lok had done.
"Are you entirely sure you want to do this now?" he asked softly. "I have no doubt that the Force means for it to happen, but I do not want you to wake up tomorrow morning and regret it."
Lok thought about this for quite a while, and as Eeth waited patiently without speaking, Lok realised he was thankful to the man for having asked this.
"Yes and no," he said slowly. "I know now that the Force means for it to happen, and it feels right. I trust you. And yet, it makes me feel tremendously guilty. As if I'd take a huge step away from my master, and a very final one."
"I think," said Eeth, "that the one event that was truly final was your master's death, and that is what you do not want to acknowledge. Taking on a new master means accepting it. That is what you are afraid of."
He said it very matter-of-factly, without judgment, and Lok knew that he was right. He drew a deep breath and said with determination: "I do want you as my master. Because you're right, I'm not a coward. I need to move on."
"You do," said Eeth gently. "And make no mistake, it will be hard. It will not make the grief go away, nor will it make you stop feeling guilty. But you will not be alone any more, you can be sure of that."
For the first time since his master had died, Lok thought he could at least imagine that there was a way forward. He did not yet see it clearly, but he might just be able to believe that it existed.

An hour later, Lok found himself sitting on Eeth's lap, hiding his face in his new master's robes. He had no idea how he had ended up here; at the beginning of their meditation, he had sat opposite Eeth, but when he had surfaced from his trance, he had been clinging to Eeth with all his might, his face wet with tears. Eeth had his arms wrapped around him and did not speak.

"Didn't we, I dunno, have to ask the Council first?" Lok asked, his voice muffled by Eeth's robes.
"Ordinarily, that's the correct procedure, yes," Eeth replied.
"Since when do you not follow proper procedure, then?" Lok asked a tad cheekily, in a valiant attempt to get a grip on himself. He detached himself from Eeth a bit and looked up at the man's face. Eeth gave the impression of trying hard to suppress a smile.
"I have been in touch with the Council regularly about you," Eeth said. "I know for a fact they will approve of our pairing."
"Why didn't I know about this?" Lok inquired, his body stiffening a little at what he perceived as rather insulting.
Eeth raised his eyebrows.
"Was it so terribly hard to guess that the Council would be interested in how you are faring?" he asked.
Put like that, no, it was not so terribly hard to guess. Lok sighed.
"No," he said. "Alright then. So we don't have to seem them?"
"Oh yes, we do," said Eeth. "I will make an appointment for tomorrow morning once we are back at our quarters."
There was a moment's silence. Then Lok said: "Uh, Master Eeth – I mean, Master? About my behaviour earlier? I'm sorry. I was so angry, and I knew I should ask for help, but I didn't because my pride was getting in the way. I just wanted to do this on my own, and I was also afraid of what meditating with you would mean for me. That was wrong, and I really feel bad about it."
"Apology accepted," Eeth said quietly. And nothing more.
Lok looked at him quizzically.
"That's all?" he asked in surprise. "I mean… seeing how rude I was to you and how angry I got and…"
"I think," said Eeth, "you were in an exceptional situation. And I do not particularly want to start our pairing by calling you to task for the inappropriate way in which you dealt with your emotions. But rest assured that you will not get away with behaviour like this again. When you feel more anger than you can deal with, you do not neglect to ask for help again, or there will be serious consequences."
Lok heaved a sigh of relief. The rules were still there, which was a comfort; but apparently Eeth was ready to dispense with enforcing them just this once. That was unexpected and rather welcome.