Chapter Text
When Yoda passes the mantle of Master of the Order off onto Poli Dapatian, it’s the talk of the Order for about a day. No-one is that surprised; Yoda never holds onto the administrative stewardship of the Order for longer than it takes to remind everyone of why he gives it away. Master Dapatian disappears under a mountain of inherited paperwork, and Yoda vanishes into the creche, where his particular brand of wisdom is a boon rather than a pain in the behind.
Tyvokka waits a few months to tender his resignation from the Council of Reconciliation out of sympathy for Master Dapatian. Unfortunately, this means that now he is the preferred subject of Temple gossip, and regrettably this is the sort of gossip that lasts. Perhaps, the gossiping Knights and Masters speculate, Tyvokka is offloading his additional responsibilities in preparation for taking on a padawan.
The gossips are dead right on that account. It’s rather irritating.
Tyvokka celebrates his four-hundredth nameday in the company of his two remaining former padawans. Master Kuriyasa brings his own new padawan, a little human girl named Jannieke. She seems a little overwhelmed. Tyvokka introduces himself, kneeling to make himself a more approachable height, and his knees punish him for the audacity as he gets up again after.
Four hundred is a reasonable age, for a wookiee. He’s fairly sure this next padawan will be his last.
His former padawans know better than to ask. Oh, they want to, he can feel the curiosity swirling in the Force about them. They know better. He’d trained them better. Tyvokka follows the will of the Force, as any Jedi, but in the absence of a clear signal he’s got a well-earned reputation for being the proverbial immovable object. If he doesn’t want to spill the beans, he simply will not.
So Kuriyasa and Chimita simply share a meaningful look above Jannieke’s head, and make conversation along more productive lines.
Master Yoda has no such polite restraint.
“Becoming restless in your old age you are, hmm?” The Grandmaster of the Order cackles, waving a hand, and the door of Tyvokka’s apartment slides shut behind him. “Miss the company of young ones, do you?”
It’s late in the evening; Tyvokka spares a moment to be glad that his padawans aren’t here to witness this. Tyvokka may be the immovable object, but Yoda comes closest to the unstoppable force.
“You are the last person to be talking about the restlessness of old age,” he growls, “since you seem to have taken that as an excuse for the last three hundred years.”
“Then perhaps an expert on the subject I am.” Yoda grins, gestures with his gimer stick, and the tall wicker stool Tyvokka keeps for exactly this occasion flies out from behind the comfy wookiee-sized couch. He scales the stool with ease entirely at odds with his wizened appearance. “Good for you it will be, I think. Agree with me the Council does.”
“Sometimes I wonder if the primary purpose of the Council is not in fact to facilitate gossip among the Councillors.” Tyvokka sighs, rumbling disapproval deep in his chest. Shyriiwook hasn’t got the extensive vocabulary of Basic, but it is a very good language for being judgemental in.
Yoda laughs, taps his stick against his knee. “Call it social awareness, hm? Keep abreast of each other’s trials and tribulations, we must, if to offer help we are.”
“You have a strange definition of help, then.” Tyvokka heaves himself up off the couch. The sun had gone down hours ago, and the flickering electric candle on his reading table gives the little apartment a melancholy air. He turns on the overhead lights, and offers Yoda a drink.
“Appreciate it, I would.” Yoda cocks his head to the side, mischief shining in his eyes. “Swamp tea, if you have it?”
Tyvokka grumbles louder. “There may be a jar in the back, yes.” There is; he keeps it for Yaddle, who is far more sympathetic a houseguest. He boils the kettle halfway—swamp tea is best with lukewarm water—and puts it back on the hob to finish. Swamp tea needs to steep for three minutes, which gives him time to make himself his nightly mug of bitter black caf.
Three minutes later, he hands Yoda the smallest cup he’s got and sinks down onto his couch once more, steaming caf cradled in his paws. “Surely you’re not just here to entertain yourself with my advancing age.”
Master Yoda sighs. He takes an indelicate slurp of tea. “A padawan, you plan to take?”
“No,” says Tyvokka, scowling.
Yoda returns the unimpressed expression. “A lie, that is.”
“Why do I bother?” Tyvokka blows gently on his caf. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”
“Hm,” says Yoda. He takes another slurp. “Put it off a year or so, might you?”
Tyvokka blinks. “Tell me why I might do that, Yoda, when you’ve just been telling me how yourself and the rest of the gossips think I ought to take another student.”
Yoda looks down into the rippling dark surface of the swamp tea. The Force around him lurches and bends like tall grass in a sudden gust of wind. For a moment, Tyvokka catches a glimpse of roughly-worn paths leading out from around the Grandmaster of the Order, infinite futures waiting to be trod.
“Recall our young Seer, do you?”
Tyvokka nods cautiously, his suspicions leaping ahead to a conclusion. “I do.”
‘Seer’ may be pushing the definition a little. As far as he’s heard, the child has had no further visions in the five months since his nine-day ordeal.
Yoda nods along, visibly thinking over what he’s come to say. “Worked with him, I have, for the last few months.”
“And?” Tyvokka raises his brows.
Yoda snorts a laugh. “Know, do you, what he asks of me? Research. Asks this of his crechemates too, he does. And comply, they do, though not without complaint.”
Tyvokka’s lips lift away from his teeth, half a surprised smile and half concern. “Master Nawut may have mentioned it. What has he got you looking into?”
Yoda makes an approximating gesture with his free hand. “Many different topics. None unsuitable for a Senior Initiate. Some, perhaps, more suitable for a history class. Others, definitely more suitable for an exogeography class.” He smiles despite the concern in his presence. “Learned more I have of the mining and exploration industry in the past four months, hmm, than in the eight centuries before it.”
“I see.” Tyvokka leans back into the couch cushions. “Why mining and exploration?”
“Share little of his thoughts, young Plo does.” Yoda’s smile turns wry, resigned. “A matter of tracing resources yet to be used, perhaps. Mapping financial relationships between entities, perhaps. Interested, he is, in the influence of Mining Guild interests over Outer Rim governments. Surprising, his findings are not. Unsure, I am, of their significance. Clouded, the Force around him is.”
Tyvokka rumbles his discontent. “Not what we expected, but no less worrisome, I would say.”
Yoda nods, agreement flickering into the breezy ripple of the Force around him. “Uncharted territory, this is.”
He tilts his head, thoughtful, his big ears flicking.
Tyvokka waits for Yoda to sort through his thoughts. He is the Council liaison to the Master Seers’ department, and he’s listened to enough of Master Nawut’s somewhat-rambling reports to pick up on a few points of concern.
They’d been prepared, apparently, to be dealing with panic-stricken neurosis. Major visions frequently leave even full Masters reeling, struggling to pull their minds out of a future that has not and may never come to pass. An Initiate waking up after nine full days in the trance is more or less the nightmare scenario.
Instead, the child had woken—and near-immediately determined that a nine-day vision, the longest recorded in more than five thousand years, had not shown him nearly enough to act upon.
Tyvokka remembers that first report well. It's not often that a turn of events leaves all twelve High Councillors that bemused.
At every turn, young Plo's reactions had surprised them. His vision had clearly distressed him, and yet he had dealt with that distress so smoothly and with such familiarity that his assigned mindhealer has begun to express more concern over that than the contents of the vision itself. His crechemasters report that, from time to time, he slips into unfamiliar speech patterns—more formal, more grammatically complex, and perfectly fluent nevertheless. His Astronavigation Instructor adds that sometimes he knows things he has not been taught—that he would not have been taught for years to come.
The latter is not unheard of, and if any vision might impart more than simple knowledge it would be this one. It does make helping the child a much more complex prospect.
Yoda sighs, and takes another slurp of his disgusting tea. “Too young he is to take the Padawan Trials, according to his species. Reluctant, he is, to take the Trials early. Yet agree, his teachers do, that he is ready—in mind, if not in body.”
“Interesting,” says Tyvokka. It’s rare that any Initiate would not jump at the chance to advance to padawanship. “Why that reluctance, do you know?”
Yoda frowns down into his teacup. “Cautious, he is. Implications he has made, but explanations he is unwilling to give. Safety, his concern is—his own, and others’.”
“And you trust him to be telling the truth?” Tyvokka doesn’t like how little detail the Initiate has shared of his experiences, but he especially doesn’t like that the reason behind little Plo’s reluctance seems increasingly to be lack of trust.
Yoda nods, decisive. “I do. Honest, he has been. Explain little, he does, but suspect I do that what he does share is most relevant. Perhaps, he says, the details and events will change with the time, so seek a way to address the root causes instead he must.” Yoda’s shoulders slump, and suddenly he seems to shrink into the wicker stool. “A very dark future it was, I suspect. Resigned, he is, to some level of failure.”
Hm. Perhaps that goes some way to explaining his standoffishness. In fact, perhaps what Tyvokka has seen as mistrust and standoffishness is in fact his reluctance to commit himself to any one interpretation of the things he has Seen—or any one solution. Sensible, when dealing with visions. And really, really unusual, coming from a child.
Tyvokka lets the silence stretch out. Yoda won’t say it outright, he suspects, but the implication is clear—when the little Seer becomes eligible for padawanship, Yoda wants Tyvokka to take him on.
It’s an odd prospect, Tyvokka thinks. He’s not a Seer himself, exactly; his gift is in divining many different futures writ large rather than one single possibility in detail. It’s made him rather ruthless, apparently. None of his previous students have been Seers, either; children afflicted with glimpses of the future tend to need a softer hand.
“It seems risky to inflict a Master like myself on the child,” he says, since Yoda seems happy to keep staring morosely into his tea. “I would have thought one of the Master Seers would take him.”
Yoda blinks, and comes back to life. Mischief blooms in the Force.
“No ordinary child he is, and an experienced Master he will need. A great deal of experience you have, yes?”
Tyvokka grumbles emphatically at the little old troublemaker. “You are far older and more experienced than I—why not take him on yourself?”
“The Force wills it not,” says Yoda, sighing. “An advisor I will be, nothing more.”
Ghostly paths open up once more around him; some cut roughly through brambles, others grown over with vines. Tyvokka blinks the vision away.
“I’ll consider it,” he says, which is not what he intended to say. He pauses, mouth half-open, and his own path branches ahead of him.
Yoda watches him, his eyes large and knowing. “Good for you, it will be. Good for him too, I think.”
It won’t hurt to take his time in choosing, Tyvokka thinks. It’s been thirty-five years since he’d knighted Chimita; another on top of that will make little difference.
Resigning from the Council of Reconciliation leaves him with three free mornings a week. It’s good to have some time to relax, he thinks at first, and to catch up on goings-on among his lineage. There’s Kuriyasa and little Jannieke, who quickly comes out of her shell the more Tyvokka comes to visit. There’s Chimita, who’s always happy to chat, and her former Padawan Lu-Jai, who talks Tyvokka into a bout in the salles. There’s Nivi, and S’changiya, grandpadawans whose Masters have now passed on, and a growing crop of great-grands to occupy his time.
And yet, it’s a mere couple of months before Tyvokka begins to feel restless once more.
“Maybe you could teach a class?” Chimita suggests. She floats a mug of caf out of her kitchenette, across the sunny little corner apartment she’d somehow managed to squeeze out of the quartermasters years ago. Tyvokka carefully plucks it out of the air. The strong dark scent of the caf blend he prefers rises from the steaming black surface. Chimita’s always made the best drinks.
“I have tried that a number of years ago and it did not go well.” Tyvokka leans back into the oversized beanbags his youngest keeps strewn around her apartment. Chimita is laukuchemi, eight feet tall with delicate digitigrade legs that don’t fit well in any form of chair or couch yet built—the beanbags are her concession to visitors. “Not quite enough Knights these days have any fluency in Shyriiwook and I certainly haven’t got the patience to teach them.”
Chimita shrugs. “We haven’t had a qualified instructor since Master Barro died, if I recall. That’s forty-odd years without consistent classes.” She folds herself into the nest of beanbags, a plate of dried meats floating down between them. “I learned well enough from you. Perhaps if you round up some of the bolder Initiates you’ll find some willing to put up with your teaching style.”
Tyvokka grunts, skeptical. “I wouldn’t have called you bold so much as bomb-proof.”
She offers him the plate of dried meat, serene. “It’s only a suggestion, Master.”
“I have a year to fill in, I can afford to think it over.” Tyvokka selects one of the darker hot-smoked fillets. Chimita has a friend in the kitchens who likes to experiment, and their recipes have not failed his tastebuds yet.
“Oh?” Chimita’s delicate eyebrows twitch upward. “Have you taken on a long-term assignment?”
Tyvokka huffs, and takes his sweet time savouring the meat. There’s a fruity tang to it, and the clear notes of woodsmoke. Could do with a little more spice, he thinks.
“Master Yoda has made a particular suggestion,” he admits. “I am… considering its merits.”
She blinks, owlishly. Comprehension flickers in her presence, and then sympathetic humor. “Has he been listening to the gossip?”
Tyvokka grumbles. “Creating it, I suspect.”
“Ah.” Chimita doesn’t even bother fighting the smile. “Well, all I can say is I’ll be delighted to no longer be the youngest, and I reserve the right to spoil whoever it is half to death.”
“Of course you will,” he says, sighing. “Don’t get ahead of yourself—I haven’t decided either way yet.”
There is no such thing as a coincidence in Tyvokka’s world. The paths he sees that lead outward from every person he encounters are always there in the background, even if it’s only sometimes that they loom into the present strongly enough to be noticed.
He’d planned to head down to the Quartermasters’ offices later in the afternoon to make his monthly import order. The pot of stringbark pepper in his kitchenette is running low, and there’s a few seasonal Kashyyyk delicacies best ordered earlier in the local year. Kashyyyk’s thirteen-month calendar is always out of step with the Galactic Standard by some amount; Tyvokka keeps a reminder on his personal datapad and resets it every year in advance.
Instead, he steps out of his fresher into the mid-morning sunlight, and a broad shade-dappled path leads him directly to his front door and out into the Temple.
Well. Sometimes the Force lives up to its name.
The sense of strolling along a quiet forest trail fades away as Tyvokka descends into the bowels of the Temple. If he turns away, the vision will reappear—he’d experimented with it as a Padawan himself. If he stops in his tracks when the vision is this strong, sooner or later there’ll be a nudge at his back, like a sudden gust of wind. The Force is not sentient, says the maxim they’re all taught as crechelings, but sometimes Tyvokka really does wonder.
He has nothing else planned for today, so he might as well play along.
The Quartermasters’ waiting room is deserted when he enters. There’s a tiny togruta youngling manning the service window; she’s spinning around on Master G’nari’s oversized office chair, staring up at the ceiling. Her presence in the Force is tangled with the sort of devastating boredom only the younglings on an unwanted Temple Service rotation seem to manage.
She catches sight of him with a squeak, and attempts to stand to some sort of attention. The rotation of the chair throws off her balance. She trips over her own feet and goes tumbling to the floor, where she turns into a sort of lump on the carpet, the Force around her incandescent with shame.
Tyvokka judiciously rings the bell on the desk.
Another Initiate peeks out of the filing office. This one is just about as small, but the full mask on his face and the curving sensory horns on either side of his head mark him as a kel dor, and therefore probably five or six years older than he looks.
“One moment please, Master,” says the Initiate. He crouches beside the disconsolate Junior Initiate, coaxing her up off the floor. She immediately transforms into a limpet, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his robes. The kel dor makes a sympathetic noise, patting her back with one arm. Then, finally, he looks up through the window at Tyvokka.
“I’m sorry, Master, our supervisor was called away for an issue, so it’s just us at the moment. I can help you if it’s a personal order, but I haven’t got Council certification yet.”
Tyvokka blinks. As far as he knows, there is only one kel dor Initiate currently within the Order.
“You may need the protocol droid,” he points out, gesturing toward the office where he knows it’s kept. Quartermaster Kjarnesk is a fluent speaker of Shyriiwook, and Tyvokka gets lucky and catches the man roughly once every four years or so. His underlings mostly need the droid to translate.
The Initiate shakes his head, a curious tinge of familiarity in the Force around him. “I understand you just fine, Master. C8’s on the charging port. He had a big day yesterday and he might take a while to recover his wits. No need to disturb him.”
Tyvokka finds himself momentarily lost for words.
Initiate Plo turns back to the little togruta. “Shaak, do you want to go and sit in the office? There’s a bit of caramel in the stamp drawer; you can have it if you want.”
She clearly has to think about it for a few moments, but in the end the lure of candy wins out. She detaches herself, mortification smoothing out into residual shudders of emotion, and makes herself scarce.
The Initiate stands, retrieving the errant office chair. “Was she spinning?”
Tyvokka nods. “I take it this is not the first spill.”
The chair is sized to fit the Quartermasters’ usual office supervisor, a bothan almost as tall as Tyvokka himself. Young Plo Koon has to use a touch of the Force to get himself into the seat, and then again to get himself within arms’ reach of the inbuilt datapoint. “It is not,” he says, cheerfully. “Just the first time she’s managed it in front of someone other than myself.”
That explained the overwhelming sense of embarrassment. She hadn’t been hurt—Tyvokka would have felt the pain if she had—she had just been trying very hard not to exist on the same plane of reality as the source of that embarrassment.
“Error can be an effective teacher,” Tyvokka observes, “particularly with the motivation of having one’s error witnessed.”
“Apparently I’m not a very motivating witness.” Initiate Plo is positively radiating affection and good humor like a stone wall after a sunny day. “It’s her first Temple Service rotation, and I understand she wanted to go to the gardens instead. I can’t blame her for finding her own entertainment.”
Tyvokka rumbles a laugh. “We all do, at that age.”
Kel dor expressions aren’t easy to read beneath the goggles and mask, but the Temple kel dor make up for it with body language and judicious broadcasting of emotions through the Force. Young Plo laughs, visibly far more relaxed in Tyvokka’s presence than most younglings would be. “May I ask after your order?”
“Planet of origin will be Kashyyyk,” says Tyvokka. “Stringbark pepper, thirty units of half-kilo pots.” Sometimes the assistants point out that one bulk fifteen-kilo unit would be significantly cheaper; Tyvokka then explains that stringbark degrades into a guaranteed upset stomach within a few months of breaking the airtight seals. Little Plo makes no such argument. Given his apparent familiarity with Shyriiwook, Tyvokka isn’t so sure that this can simply be explained as ignorance.
The rest of the order is small amounts of various nuts, fruits, and cooked insects, timed to go out ahead of each seasonal harvest. Plo only interrupts once, to ask after the Basic spelling of rrlamgiyyaam chyargaugym, a spicy protein-meal mix. It’s not one of Tyvokka’s usual orders—a regional staple from Kgaurillram in the far north, it’s made of minced and dried leeches, which puts off all but the most adventurous eaters.
(He mentions this offhandedly, wondering what the Initiate will make of it. Plo only pauses for a moment, head tilted to one side. “Interesting,” he says.)
By the end of their interaction, Tyvokka is sure of one thing—young Plo is not just fluent in Shyriiwook but very familiar with it.
Where has he come by that fluency? Why is it so familiar to him? The wookiee languages are not exactly commonplace among the Order to begin with, and Shyriiwook has just about nothing in common with keldeorinyaa.
(On the other hand, the idea of taking him as a padawan suddenly seems much more realistic. Damn Yoda and his meddling.)
He leaves the Quartermasters’ offices with much to think about, and ghostly branching paths flicker in and out of existence beneath his feet.
Visiting the kel dor wing of Temple residences is not something Tyvokka does lightly. Among the perils of head-to-toe long fur is a certain difficulty in wearing rebreathers, outside of full-coverage atmospheric isolation suits.
Tyvokka volunteers regardless, because it is good manners. Master Ang Koon scolds him for his lack of good sense and insists instead on meeting in their usual place in the meditation gardens, a shady corner beneath a trio of juvenile kauri trees.
They’ve been meeting here in the gardens for decades now. It is a handy little spot, not far from Ang’s apartment, and while the kauri are certainly not wroshyr the thick trunks that rise ten metres before branching out and the flaking bark that piles about the buttress-like roots nevertheless satisfy some ancestral memory in Tyvokka’s mind. He settles down among the litter and the scuttling insects ten minutes ahead of time, and sinks into a shallow meditation.
Ang is always a little bit late. The hurried scuff of his boots through fallen leaves leaves heralds his presence. Tyvokka opens his eyes, offering Ang a steadying paw.
Ang takes it, gratitude flickering through his presence. His balance isn’t what it used to be. He gets himself settled cross-legged at Tyvokka’s side, and a gusty sigh rattles forth out of his rebreather.
“Sorry to miss your nameday, old friend. I trust you and the children had a nice quiet party?”
“That we did,” Tyvokka says wryly. “Kuriyasa took the opportunity to introduce me to my newest grandpadawan, which gave us all an incentive to behave. It remains to be seen how long we can keep the illusion intact.”
Ang laughs. “Twenty credits on six months. Certainly no more than a year.”
Tyvokka grumbles at him. “I appreciate your faith.”
In a roundabout fashion, they come to the topic of Tyvokka’s latest headache.
Ang is Plo Koon’s uncle, the much older half-brother of his mother. This means little among the Jedi—any older Knight can fill much the same role for the younglings, both parties willing. It means even less among the kel dor. Plo, apparently, has twelve full uncles and one hundred and forty-three half-uncles. Ang has over a thousand niblings, some of which are older than he is. (On a related note, kel dor familial structures give Tyvokka a headache.)
“Have you spoken to your nephew lately?” Tyvokka asks.
Ang sighs through his respirator, a flicker of uncertainty creeping through his breezy presence in the Force. He folds his hands fastidiously in his lap.
“Last week—Lan and Aisi invited the two of us over for lastmeal. He’s doing… well, I would say.” He pauses, long enough for the uncertainty to darken into a cloudy sort of worry. “Very focused on his research, but not consumed by it, yet. Master Yoda has a good eye on him. I try to do the same, but… I can’t help but worry.”
Tyvokka nods, slow and thoughtful. “I had an interesting conversation with him the other day.”
Ang turns to stare at him out of black-lensed goggles. “A conversation?” he repeats.
“I went to place my usual order with the Quartermasters, and by chance the usual office supervisor had been called away, which left young Plo in charge.” Tyvokka gives Ang a meaningful look, brows raised and whiskers pulled back. “I don’t suppose you’ve been teaching him Shyriiwook on the side?”
“Not at all.” Ang’s concern morphs into confusion. He looks down, counting on his fingers. “He should have, let’s see, fluency in Basic, Standard and Southern keldeorinyaa, and intermediate certificates in Huttese, Bocce, and… I don’t recall either of his electives, I’m sorry, but I know they weren’t Shyriiwook.”
Tyvokka breathes deep, letting it out as a slow sigh. “They wouldn’t be—we haven’t had more than informal tutoring options for a long time. The thing is, Ang, he didn’t need the protocol droid to translate for him at all. He understood everything I said to him, as far as I could tell—he responded to most of it verbally. He showed me the written order to confirm, and not only had he correctly understood the names of the things I was ordering, he had transcribed them into Basic correctly as well. He only had to ask after spelling once.”
“I see,” says Ang. “Which one was that?”
“Rrlamgiyyaam chyargaugym. Not exactly a common ingredient.”
“The one with the leeches, right?” Ang makes a face beneath his mask; wrinkles appear between his brows and at his temples. “I’ll never understand the appeal.”
“Revenge, mostly,” laughs Tyvokka. He’d had a horrifying encounter with giant leeches once as a young Knight and while the idea of leech stew had started out as a joke, he’d found it went well with tofu and stringbark.
Ang sighs pointedly. “Well, I wouldn’t have the slightest clue where young Plo has learned to speak Shyriiwook, but at least it wasn’t from you.”
Tyvokka snorts. “Then you’ll be delighted to know that Master Yoda is trying to convince me to take him as my Padawan.”
“Oh, is he now?” Ang breathes sharply in, and his mask makes a low metallic hum. “That’s a surprise, actually. Given the time he’s been spending with Plo I’d wondered if he was considering it himself.”
“I suspect he may have,” Tyvokka agrees. “Apparently the Force has other plans for young Plo.”
Ang glances his way. “Perhaps it should be you, then.”
“I’m considering it,” Tyvokka admits grudgingly. “However he learned to speak Shyriiwook, the fact that he does makes him the most suitable candidate among the current Initiate cohort.”
“Personality-wise, I think he would do well with you,” Ang offers, his presence breezy with enthusiasm for a sudden idea. “I know you usually pick them when they’re older, but that’s the thing about Plo. We always used to call him an elder spirit when he was younger—sokoderi karaak, you know, a piece of the world reborn. Since he’s had this vision, I’ve been wondering if we weren’t right about that.”
Tyvokka combs a wayward fallen leaf out of his fur, thinking of Master Nawut’s reports. “In what way?”
Ang leans back, digging his hands into the carpet of bark and leaf litter that covers the bare ground. His forehead furrows above the padded rim of his goggles, twisting unevenly on the right around the massive scar that branches forward from the base of his sensory horn. His presence evens out, currents of thought coming together.
“It’s hard to say for sure—an impression, mostly. He’s always been a thoughtful sort of child—he listens to instructions, thinks things through, and learns from his mistakes the first time instead of repeating them. He’s very intelligent, very well-read—but so are so many other Initiates.” He tips his head to the side, lantern-light glinting off the lenses of his goggles. “I don’t think it’s just that he knows things we don’t expect, but that… he seems so comfortable with using them. It feels as though now he has experience as well as knowledge. And that bothers me, because where has this experience come from? Visions don’t usually impart more than knowledge, do they?”
“Not typically, no.” One of the younger Seers in the department has been tasked with scouring the Archives for information on skill development through visions. As far as Tyvokka has heard, they’ve not found much.
“I thought so.” Ang sighs gustily through his rebreather. “Aside from the inexplicable skill in Shyriiwook, how did you find him?”
“Remarkably unbothered,” Tyvokka says, considering. “In my experience, most Initiates are at least a little anxious around me, whether that’s because of the language barrier, my status as a Councillor, or simply my size. I did not have the impression that any of those mattered to him.” He shares with Ang the story of the little togruta who had spun herself off the chair, which immediately brightens their moods. “He was perfectly polite, but he prioritised her rather than myself without any hesitation—which I approve of, to be clear. It’s just a little unusual for a youngling to disregard the usual dynamics of authority, even for a good reason.”
Amusement billows out of Ang’s presence like clouds of pollen from a flowering tree, infectious. “He has always had very definite opinions on justice and authority. I don’t think that’s changed.”
“Oh?” Tyvokka raises an eyebrow. “Pray tell.”
Ang makes a noncommittal wave of his hand, palm down. “He isn’t a habitual rule-breaker or a troublemaker—beyond the usual Initiate nonsense, of course, which I’m told he and his friends are partial to. With that said, he never was shy about objecting whenever he thought someone was being treated unfairly. He’s also very… how can I phrase this kindly? Determined that those who violate the principles of justice should face consequences, perhaps.”
Tyvokka’s other eyebrow goes up. “Get into fights, did he?”
Ang laughs, the clouds of his amusement resigned. “Once or twice, as a Junior. We didn’t have to try very hard to convince him that there are more effective ways of ensuring that justice is done.”
No, that does not surprise Tyvokka in the slightest. “I’d imagine so, as small as he is.”
“He is a little small,” Ang agrees. “You might have to start watching where you step.”
“I haven’t made him an offer yet,” Tyvokka grumbles, ignoring the ripple of mischief it draws from Ang. “It’s a year or so until he’s eligible, is it not?”
Ang nods, still a little smug. “I’d say so. He really could do with being advanced ahead of schedule, in my opinion, but as long as he’s determined to do it the usual way it might be more of a struggle than it’s worth.”
“Stubborn?”
“Very stubborn.” Ang reaches out, pats Tyvokka’s knee. “Not to worry, old friend, he’s generally receptive to a good debate.”
“Of course.” Tyvokka gives him a dubious sidelong look. “My primary concern was actually that my teaching style might be harsh, for a child who has experienced such a comprehensive vision.”
Ang shakes his head. “Won’t be a problem. The vision itself, he’s still a little skittish around, but he seems to prefer it when we speak plainly as opposed to hinting at the issue. He won’t share details of events or individuals, but if you get him talking about underlying causes and institutional dynamics he has plenty to say, and most of it startlingly insightful for someone his age.” His shoulders lose tension, the Force clouding over around him. “I will say, the more I listen to him, the more I worry about what the future holds for us all.”
Tyvokka thinks of Master Nawut’s more speculative reports, and of Yoda, drooping into the wicker chair. Neither are exactly the type to uncritically accept one person’s vision of a potential future. Neither is Ang, in fact.
“Is what he has to say that foreboding?”
Ang thinks it over for a long minute. His thin shoulders hunch, and there’s a glimpse of the lightning-scars that cover most of his body through his loose Dorin-style robes.
“For me, it’s that he’s not, actually, saying anything truly new. We know that certain sectors of Republic government are bloated and inefficient and at least some of those sectors are actively rotten with corruption. We know that monopolies aren’t healthy economic policy, and yet the Senate has not only let them grow but at times encouraged them. We know that Republic resources are disproportionately allotted to influential Core worlds over the Rim. Even within the Core, there’s more and more in the way of—frankly, stupidly short-sighted policy that results in everything from environmental degradation to brain drains and labor shortages. And we have a thousand years of research that links all these things to serious societal instability. It doesn’t take a tremendous amount of imagination to wonder if we might be heading down that path sooner rather than later.”
Tyvokka grunts, reining in his skepticism. The Republic has stood a thousand years in peace, but Ang is right; they are in something of a declining period right now. Whether that decline can be arrested, the rotten limbs pruned and new growth encouraged… this is a matter of considerable debate.
“So no predictions of cataclysm, then.”
Ang chuckles, mirthless. “Sorry to disappoint. Plo hasn’t got much of a sense of drama.”
“Now that is a relief.” Tyvokka reluctantly adds a few more points to Yoda’s suggestion. He has little patience for drama or hysterics, reasonable or not. “How does he react to argument?”
“Positively, for the most part. He seems to have solid evidence for much of what he speaks of, and he’s happy to drag it out.” Ang’s presence warms, fondness bubbling to the surface once more. “If he is only speculating, he says so outright. If Yoda or I believe he is making unreasonable assumptions, we point it out, but I have to say thus far that has only happened twice. He argued the point with me, and we both concluded there were reasonable arguments on both sides. With Yoda, it seemed to be something he genuinely hadn’t considered, so he made a note of it and went off to look it up.”
Tyvokka finds himself approving. “He comes prepared for a debate, then.”
A breathy laugh escapes through Ang’s mask. “Yes, but he’s always been like that, a little. Approaches things from three different sides of an argument, all by himself.”
“Sensible,” Tyvokka says, and sighs. He’s always been an opinionated sort himself—which hasn’t always earned him accolades. “Well, then, allow me to wrap up this interrogation. How is his saberwork?”
“He was doing very well in Ataru, and then, the week after he woke up, he dropped it.” Ang makes a face behind his mask—Ataru had been his own preferred saber form. “Crechemaster Hukatere told me he’d alluded to having seen himself using a different primary style as an adult. I’ve heard he does well in Soresu now, but I haven’t yet had the chance to look in on his classes.”
The ghostly paths beneath them slip the faintest bit sideways. Tyvokka frowns. “Interesting choice.”
“Mmm. Strongly defensive, focused on endurance.” Ang’s grimace fades. “I wonder if he had a glimpse of the Sages? The sort of physical conditioning Soresu requires is quite similar to the stormwalkers’ training.”
One path grows a little brighter; others fade away into the shadows of the oncoming night.
The Jedi Order takes in children from all over the galaxy, thousands of different species coming together as one under the Temple’s vaulted roof. For thousands of years, the Order has known that maintaining connections to their ancestral cultures helps keep their Initiates grounded, secure in their place as Jedi, but knowing also where they came from and why. The Jedi religion is a syncretic thing by design—there is no ignorance, there is knowledge, and there is a whole galaxy out there to learn from.
Dorin’s Sages don’t often give their children to the Jedi—but only because they are perfectly capable of raising little Force-sensitives themselves. They listen to the Force, as Jedi do, and only occasionally does the Force see fit to send a child to the Jedi. The occasion is celebrated as a rare blessing. And when the child grows up, the Baran Do extend an invitation to learn among them, and the Jedi in turn celebrate this shared blessing.
Tyvokka knows only a little of how the Sages’ training works. “Perhaps you should ask. I’m sure we could find him a few mountains to practice on.”
Ang laughs outright at the joke. He’d gone to learn from the Baran Do, and Tyvokka knows he’s been hoping Plo will choose the same. “You’re right, my friend, and I think you should tag along. How long has it been since either of us had the time to enjoy the natural world? There’s only so much variety a training room can provide.”
Tyvokka shakes his head, resigned. “It better be a small mountain, for the sake of my knees.”
“Not to worry, I know of a few. Perhaps Sabra Park, on Alderaan—a pleasing temperate climate, and a beautiful ria coastline below. I’m sure we could convince the crechemasters to let us borrow Plo for the trip.”
Ang is smirking beneath that mask, Tyvokka just knows it. He’s always been a little hedonist.
He smirks back, teeth bared in challenge. “Well, if you’re volunteering to do the convincing, I’ll find us a date.”
Nawut Srigoey is not really what most people think of as a Seer. The popular image of a person prone to sudden, terrific visions of futures great and terrible tends to be… waifish, Tyvokka thinks, uncharitably. Not the cheerful, grounded personality of the man who sits at the desk in front of him, alternating between scribbling his thoughts down at lightning speed and ruefully doing his physiotherapy exercises so that his writing hand gets a chance to rest between thoughts.
Nawut is uncharacteristically quiet today. For him, that means sentences that trail off into thoughtful silences, minute-long gaps between conversation topics. Normally he’s happy to talk Tyvokka’s ears off about some project or the other. Their twice-monthly meetings tend to run long.
“It’s fascinating,” he says, at length, “how much of a distinction there is between his two modes of speech, and how sharply or gradually he makes the transition. The more fluent speech frequently seems to be associated with strong emotions, but he’s so good at processing and passing on those emotions that it’s sometimes hard to tell. The… simpler speech, the more childish phrasing, seems to come up in group situations regardless of the composition of those groups, whereas one-on-one conversations, particularly with myself or Master Yoda, seem to foster more precise, thoughtful speech.”
Today, they're discussing young Plo Koon. It's an auspicious occasion; a year to the day since the child woke from his vision trance.
“Is it deliberate, do you think, or subconscious?” Tyvokka asks.
The Master Seer holds his hand out, waving it from side to side in an ambivalent gesture. “Hard to tell. Both modes seem natural, even when the switch is rapid. The childish mode is obviously the natural one—his crechemasters say they’ve picked up on a change there, but they aren’t quite sure what’s changed, exactly, so it may be related to the inevitable overall changes that come about as a result of the vision. That said, while I suspect the switching is deliberate in some cases, the fluent mode itself is… too comfortable to be unnatural.”
He falls silent, staring down at his datapad. The stylus lays forgotten to the side of his desk.
“Ang mentioned, some time ago, that it seems to him as if Initiate Plo has far more worldly experience than a child his age ought. I have to say, I agree with that assessment. He goes from asking questions about concepts that come up in his classes like any Initiate tackling a new module, to speaking confidently and correctly about topics that require much deeper study. Political topics, especially, but that Mining Guild research of his has gone down some extremely specific technical rabbitholes.”
Nawut pauses, smiling lopsidedly up at Tyvokka. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of a chromitite reef, Master? I may have had some forcible education on the topic.”
Tyvokka snorts. “Do I look like a miner?”
Nawut’s smile turns into a chuckle. “Not at all. So, the primary targets of his research so far have been fourteen specific Mining Guild sites in the Expansion Regions to Outer Rim. These are all massive operations, some of which have been active for more than a century. All fourteen are a specific type of geologic structure called a layered intrusion, which—don’t ask me for details, but I gather that magma rich in particular minerals wells upward through the crust and cools very gradually, which allows minerals of specific compositions to form in layers. The sites he is looking at are some of the Republic’s richest planetary sources of platinum-group minerals, among others.
“Now, chromitite is one of those minerals. It’s also the primary ore source of chromium. Chromium alloys have a whole host of uses, but they’re particularly in-demand in the shipbuilding industry. Apparently, nearly twenty percent of the chromium used in shipbuilding in this galaxy comes from those fourteen sites.”
“Hm.” Tyvokka blinks, and lets out a sharp, startled breath. “Is there a significance to these sites, other than no doubt making their owners obscenely rich?”
Nawut shrugs. “Honestly, I do feel a little nudge from the Force over this, as if I ought to be paying attention, but I’m really not sure why. Master Yoda’s theory is that perhaps the output of these mines might be related to some future event, but he’s also very clear that that’s just a guess.”
He presses the back of his hand to his desk, closing and opening his fist with a wince. “I did a little digging of my own, and found out that one of these sites is a few years from being spent and three more have not much more than a decade of expected lifetime remaining, so… I don’t know. Perhaps we’re due for a chromium shortage?”
“Speculating at this stage won’t help us. He hasn’t explained why he’s so intent on these sites?”
Nawut shakes his head. “Not in so many words, no. I have asked him, but all he says are that these are his focus for now, and there will be different focuses later.”
“Hm.” Tyvokka grumbles deep in his chest. “I don’t like that he’s keeping things so closely to himself. He wants to do something about these potential futures, which is understandable, but how can we help him if he won’t give us the information to act on?”
“It is a little unnerving,” Master Nawut admits. He lifts his hand, straightening the elbow and twiddling his fingers. “With that said, I also haven’t seen any reason so far not to be patient and trust him for a little while longer. He isn’t panicking, he’s not so obsessed with his research that his classwork or his friendships are suffering—and he’s quite happy to have both myself and Master Yoda around to observe his research. I would like to know what are those larger mega-events he’s so certain must be averted, but given his remarkably grounded attitude I’m also inclined to believe him when he says the contributory factors are more important.”
Tyvokka sighs, frustrated, but more by the circumstances than the Master Seer’s opinion. It wasn’t right to begin with that a vision of this magnitude should be inflicted upon a child, and perhaps there is no wholly correct way of handling the fallout. It galls him to leave the weight of that knowledge with young Plo, knowing how badly it could damage his psyche, but they would be making a grave mistake indeed to force it out of him before he was ready.
Nawut smiles wryly up at him, his black eyes knowing. “In some ways, I hope Ang is right about that extra experience. It was a nine-day vision, Master; there’s a lot of temporal real estate it could have covered.”
Tyvokka grumbles. “I’m not sure which would worry me more.”