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Funerals are an important custom for the Jedi.
There is no death, of course. Those who die become one with the Force and gain a kind of peace that Yoda can only envy now in his old age. But there is still loss, and that loss must be recognized in order to be let go.
Before the war, Temple funerals used to be brighter occasions. Stories of the deceased would be shared. Old companions would gather and find friendship and solace in each other’s company. Almost always, the evening would end with hearts fuller than when it began.
There was little time for that once the war started. The Clone Wars began on Geonosis, but for Yoda the harsh reality had sunk in once they reached the Temple and he watched more pyres lit than he had ever seen at one time in all his nearly 900 years. Watched newly orphaned padawans weep or walk the Temple aimlessly, watched Knights and Masters become Generals. Felt the exhaustion and sadness, felt the fear that now permeated the Temple. Watched an army of men created to fight and die march and realized that they had no better options.
And the blame could be laid on one man.
When Obi-Wan tells him that Anakin killed Dooku, that a child of his lineage has ended the suffering he wrought and brought him back to the Force, Yoda’s first response is relief, with only a small stab of grief. He has spent the entire war mourning Dooku. It is a type of closure, Dooku’s death, though not the one he had once dared to hope for.
Yoda had loved each one of his padawans, and he had lived to see each of them die. He enjoyed teaching, but he had stopped taking apprentices for a reason. He had always thought that Dooku would outlive him. Yoda would not have let himself take one last student if he had not thought that.
He goes to the funeral chambers alone, slipping silently away from another tense Council meeting. After three years of war, three years of bloodshed like the Order has not seen for a thousand years, he knows he is the only Jedi who would mourn Dooku.
There is a protocol for Jedi whose bodies were unable to be recovered. A pyre would still be lit, but an item would be burned in place of the corpse. Sometimes an old robe or another item of clothing. Sometimes their lightsaber, the Kyber crystal being removed beforehand. Yoda is a true believer in the Jedi’s vow of no possessions and thus has nothing left of Dooku physically, but he found an old blanket in his rooms that his last padawan likely used. It is old and weathered, moth-bitten. Not something to be reused, Yoda justifies to himself.
He places the folded blanket carefully and works the old lighting mechanisms by himself. Then, as the makeshift pyre burns, and the reflected light begins to shine up from the casket into the ceiling, nearly too bright to look at, Yoda closes his eyes and lets himself remember.
Dooku had always struggled with finding his own peace. From the first day Yoda saw him in the créche, the boy was ambitious. He had always thought himself important, always believed, even at his worst, that he was the hero of the story of the galaxy.
Dooku had believed in the old prophecies and had taught his padawans to do the same. Yoda had always privately suspected that he thought himself the subject of some of them. Yoda had long since learned to mistrust visions, and the urge they brought on in some to try to control the future. The will of the Force, Yoda knew, could rarely be countermined so easily.
Dooku was at peace now. Returning to the Force would achieve what a lifetime of striving and dissatisfaction had not. Yoda believes that, and the thought brings him closer to the serenity that a Jedi strives for.
Still. Yoda has lived a long life, but he can remember the day he took Dooku as his padawan like yesterday. He had been a gifted child and undeniably talented and strong in the Force. Overconfident, perhaps. Arrogant, most definitely. But beyond that, Yoda had seen a boy with passion and drive, a boy who believed wholeheartedly that he could change the galaxy for the better.
Dooku had never really stopped believing that.
Yoda once had such dreams for Dooku. A great Jedi. A good man. He had hoped to retire from the Council years ago and had wished for Dooku to permanently take his place. He had been disappointed when Dooku left the Order, but a part of him was optimistic. He had known his old padawan had been unhappy with the Order for quite some time, but he had hoped that Dooku would find the purpose he was searching for.
(He had, in a way. Just not how Yoda had wanted.)
There is little to celebrate about Dooku’s life with the memories of what he became so fresh, but Yoda tries anyway. His padawan had saved many lives before he became the kind of man who didn’t blink at the murder of thousands.
Yoda remembers: Dooku coming back to the Temple from his first solo mission as a Knight, his quiet pride in a job well done. Dooku, embarrassed after getting kicked out of the Halls of Healing after giving the Head Healer a headache with his worry over Qui-Gon, sick with the Rylothi flu. Dooku, quietly fuming, attempting to meditate with Yoda after being unable to overcome Senate bureaucracy to help a world in need.
The ceremony ends as the flames die down inside the empty casket. Yoda opens his eyes and begins to leave the chambers, the only sound the quiet tapping of his cane.
Dooku is gone. He has been for a long time, and the fact still hurts, despite everything. But even grief is an attachment, and so Yoda lets it go.
A few hours later, that very evening, Anakin comes to his chambers, as he has for years now. Yoda enjoys Anakin’s company, for all that the younger Jedi never seems to take his advice to heart. He is bright and restless in a way Yoda remembers he once was when he was a Knight, many hundreds of years ago.
Yoda resists the urge to ask him about Dooku’s last moments. He had already heard Obi-Wan’s report—Anakin killed a Sith Lord in the throes of battle and has nothing to feel ashamed for. Yoda knows that if he had that opportunity on Geonosis, he would have done the same thing. His padawan had died a tool of the Dark Side. Yoda accepts that. There is nothing Anakin could tell him that would bring him comfort.
Anakin sits in front of him as Dooku once did, the passion in his eyes strangely familiar. He tells him of his visions, his fear of loss. Though the boy is evasive, Yoda knows who Anakin is speaking of. Obi-Wan, or perhaps another wayward padawan in the form of Ahsoka Tano. But it is a dangerous time, and Yoda can do nothing for them.
Yoda gives Anakin the advice that has sustained him over a lifetime of loss, the wisdom that kept him strong and whole through three years of war with the boy he had raised. The same advice that Yoda’s Master once gave him, many years ago.
Let go of everything you fear to lose.
The younger Jedi nods slowly, his countenance still grim. He is unreadable otherwise; the Force is as Dark and clouded as ever. Anakin makes his excuses to leave shortly after and Yoda can only hope that he will heed his advice.