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There were ten younglings sitting around him in The Room of a Thousand Fountains. Each hung on to his every word, joining him in his meditation. Like his Master before him, Luke enjoyed spending his days teaching the younglings of the Temple.
“Can you feel it? The Force moving through you? Take a breath.” He took a deep breath and the youngling copied him. “The Force moves through the air, through our lungs and gills and skin.”
He spread his finger through the moss under his hands. “The Force connects us to the very moss we’re sitting on.”
“But Master Luke,” Finn said, the 8 year old raising his hand as he spoke. “The moss isn’t Force sensitive like Master Kenobi’s rock and it’s not sentient, so how are we connected to it?”
“Good question Finn.” Luke said, smiling at the boy. Finn was a sweet kid and deeply intelligent. He and Rey, only an infant at the time, had been found four years ago on Jakku, neither with a name. Luke had named both children himself. “You all can feel a bug in the Force?” The younglings nodded. “It’s the same thing, everything in the Galaxy is connected in the Force, even if they’re tuyh'au . Does that make sense?”
“Yes, Jaieh .” The children chirped. The younglings ranged from three to ten, all from different clans. It wasn’t a formal instruction, Luke had been meditating and the children had slowly joined him.
“The Force connects all of us, all throughout the galaxy.” He said, closing his eyes. “Close your eyes and feel the Force move through you. It moves through the suns and the stars far away. Can you feel it?” The younglings sent him their understanding through the Force, understanding, on some level, that the moment required quiet.
“The Force connects us to the smallest porg on Ahch-To-” Luke had first seen them very soon after he was knighted. He was sent on a research mission on Ahch-To, an old Temple had been found and he had been asked to investigate. The porgs were some of the cutest things he had ever seen. “-to the biggest tree on Kashyyyk.” The trees on Kashyyyk had taken his breath away the first time he saw them as a padawan with his Master. One tree could sustain an entire city.
He released the tension from the day into the Force. “Release your emotions into the Force, allow your feelings to move through you, but do not hold on to them.”
The youngling followed his example, some having an easier time than others. Rey, only four, struggled with the technique, but was improving everyday. She had struggled with her attachment but that wasn’t uncommon for the younglings, but they all outgrew it.
“Feel your emotion swirl around you, swirling around the Force.” When Luke had been young, he had always pictured his emotions as threads of string flying away in the wind.
“The Force flows through the dust in space.” Dust made up of fallen ships and millennia old meteors. “Think of it like water, no matter who you are you need it to survive. Some of us need more than others.”
Luke felt the strands connecting them strengthen, feeling the younglings’ minds brush against him. His Master was right to say the mind of a child was like no other. These children were the future of the Order, so vastly different from each other, but still a family unlike any other.
Leia was his sister, but she was not his only sibling. Ezra, only two days younger than the twins, but raised in a different clan. Rimia, now the head of the archives after Master Nu stepped down. Tobee, a Crechemaster, the man was raising many of the younglings sitting in front of Luke. Rinninin, who had died, before he had been made a Master, saving a group of Force sensitive younglings from pirates. Claybra and Nalah, who worked together on distant worlds, ending pandemics and delivering babies. Alid, now working as a quartermaster, training Temple Guards.
These were his family, not by blood but by the will of the Force.
The Force hummed around them, as it always did in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, calm and content.
“The Force is life.” Luke reminded the children. “As Jedi, we serve the Force and it helps us in return. We must never bend the Force to our will, for that is the way of the Sii .” The children shivered, some of them had felt the Dark before, most Jedi did. It was their job to fight it, to keep balance within themselves and not fall into the Dark.
“Do all the xari bend the Force to their will?” Yuno asked, the small girl blinking up at him. She would make a good padawan someday and many were hoping to be her Master.
“The Nightsisters of Dathomir do not bend the Force to their will, but they do not serve the Force either. While they use xari, they are not Sith.” Luke said. “There are many Darksiders who use the Dark but are not Sith.”
“ Are they evil like the Sith ?” Wule asked. He had been born into the Jedi, with Dai Bendu being his first language and often refused to speak Basic.
“No.” Luke laughed. “They’re not evil. Ask Master Kestis about his friend Merrin sometime. She’s a Nightsister and often works closely with him.” He paused, voice becoming more serious. “But, the Dark is often like an addiction, very few people can stay balanced in it. The Fallen are called the Fallen for a reason. The Nightsisters are one of the few groups who can mostly stay balanced using the Dark. Even then they have sometimes joined the Sith.”
“Master Vos said that as long as we stay in kaital , we’ll be okay!” Tor said, excited to contribute something.
“But he also says the Code ‘is more a suggestion than a set of rules’.” Zay Wuloo put air quotes around the statement.
Luke smiled. “Master Vos is rather loose with his interpretation of kaital . If you want a different perspective, ask Master Kenobi about his interpretation of the Code.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “He’s very spiritual and he sat on the council for twenty years, so I bet he has some good things to say.”
Rey giggled and got up, deciding she didn’t want to sit on the ground any longer and sat in Luke’s lap, curling into his cloak. Luke knew that she was destined to someday be in his lineage, whether she be trained by himself or his sister.
Luke loved working with the younglings, even considering becoming a Crechemaster a few years back, but he decided to stay with what he was doing, a jack-of-all-trades. He helped where he was needed, whether it be fetching a youngling or dealing with the Death Watch. Leia had ended up on the Council and was expected to be the next Grandmaster after Master Mace stepped down.
Luke stood up, scooping Rey into his arms. “Now, I’m guessing you’re all pretty hungry right?” The children nodded. “Let’s head back to my rooms and I’ll show you how to make jogan fruit cake.”
The children trailed behind him, Finn holding his hand and Yuno holding onto his robes, and they followed him through their home.