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“Your assistance has been greatly appreciated, Master Jedi,” the mayor said, with the utmost sincerity. The avalanche had been devastating, overpowering their safeguards and destroying half of their capital city. Rescue organizations and crews had arrived quickly after the request for help had gone out, but even with all their tireless hard work, things would have gone a lot differently without the aid of the Jedi, who could sense where people were trapped more quickly and accurately than the most sophisticated rescue droids, could predict and could lift snow and debris with their minds.
Many lives had been lost in the initial disaster, but so many more had been trapped, their survival entirely dependent on how quickly they could be reached and given medical attention. For many of those people, the involvement of the Jedi was that very difference between life and death.
There were so many more people saved today than the mayor could have ever imagined hoping for.
“You have our gratitude, and our friendship,” he continued, “and if there is any way we can repay you, you have but to name it.”
“Glad to be of service, we are,” Master Yoda said. “No reward do we require. But if offered, your friendship is, then glad we are to accept. No greater reward, could there be.”
A group of young children ran up to them. Not ones who had been rescued – they would still be receiving medical attention if they were – but children who had had family members and friends trapped, or knew someone who did, and had helped in whatever way they could, running comms between rescue teams, bringing food and water where it was needed, etc.
As such, they had witnessed the Jedi’s help as well.
“Show us your magic again!” one of them begged Yoda.
“It was amazing!”
“Please! Do some magic!”
The mayor frowned. They were children and didn’t know any better, of course, but he knew that the Jedi didn’t call their talents “magic”, so it seemed disrespectful to call it as such, even if it might as well have been to his eyes.
“I apologize…” he started to say to Yoda, but the Jedi had a twinkle in his eyes, and made the slightest shake of his head, so the mayor fell silent, and watched as Yoda turned to face the children.
“Magic?” he asked, with a teasing tone. “Magic, I know not. A magician, I saw once. Pull a coin from your ear, he could, and turn a scarf into a bird. Very impressive, it was. Offered his audience a turn, he did. Very bad at it, I was. Better at magic, I think, you would be, than old Yoda!”
The children were unconvinced.
“We saw you!” the first said.
“You lifted all the snow and ice!”
“The wind, it could have been,” Yoda said.
“The wind doesn’t lift up people,” another child said, matter-of-factly.
“Hmph! Say that, you do, but floating, you are!” Yoda said.
The children all looked down, realizing that in fact, their feet were no longer on the ground. They shrieked with delighted laughter, and two of them reached out to spin the third around in mid-air, to the amusement of all three.
“See?” Yoda said, “The wind, it was.”
“No, you’re doing this!” one of the children accused, giggling.
“Know what you’re talking about, I do not.”
“Yes, you do!”
“The mayor knows you’re doing it, too, right, Mr. Mayor?”
The mayor was a little taken aback by the question, unsure how he should respond. It was, of course, obvious that Master Yoda was lifting the children, but it was also clear that he was playing a game with them.
“I’m...afraid this is out of my area of expertise,” he said, finally.
The child pouted at him, but quickly bounced back to cheerfulness as the three of them floated higher into the air. It would have been alarming if the mayor had not completely trusted Yoda to keep them safe.
Slowly, the children were brought back down to the ground, only mildly disappointed to be back on their own feet.
“Thank you, Mr. Jedi! That was fun!”
“I always wanted to fly,” another said.
“Good-bye, Mr. Jedi!”
The three children ran off, and Yoda chuckled.
“Joy,” he said, “for the children, easy it is, to be found. Good, it is, to play. A relief from worries, it is.”
And, well, the mayor, even being of a more serious disposition himself, couldn’t argue with that.