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The vegetation growing in the Room of a Thousand Fountains was part exotic gifts, part flora native to Coruscant that survived nowhere else. It grew under a holoprojection of the sky, but all lighting was natural; optical fibers carried it from focusing crystals at the facade of the Temple down to its lower levels.
The Room was the favorite place of most younglings to rest after lightsaber practice when there was no energy left for playing and running around, to bask in the warm glow of the Force radiating from the countless lifeforms around.
Ahsoka had found a new spot - a prime location: a patch of sand deep in the gardens, with a stream partially encircling it. Wild grasses grew on both sides. No one would find her there.
She took off her robe and spread it on the ground, then lay down on it, folding her arms behind her head to protect her montrals from excessive vibration.
It was the nicest way to take a brief rest, daydreaming, half-asleep, mind adrift in the Force without conscious effort. Just ten minutes, and then she would go look for her friends.
It was never just ten minutes.
She lay there until she sensed one presence move close, in mind and in distance. Another Jedi, human, much older than her, feeling of unimaginable kindness and patience. The crunching of sand under his boots got louder and louder until it was just next to her and stopped after another moment. He had walked around her so that his shadow would not block out the sunrays.
"Hello there," he said in Basic.
She opened her eyes and sat up. She had never talked to him, or at the very least could not recall it; most Jedi were at some point of their path involved with raising younglings one way or another. But it would have been impossible not to recognize him. Everyone in the Temple knew of the Sith Slayer.
"Hello, Master Kenobi."
She would have given a lot, once the time of her apprenticeship comes, to have her own Master look at her and smile like that.
In a smooth motion, he settled down on the warm sand next to her.
"I am very sorry about what happened to Anakin," she said.
A flash of something cold echoed in the Force before he silenced it.
She felt guilty. "Uh. I'm sorry. That was probably a wrong thing to say."
Maybe that was his favorite meditation spot and he wanted some peace. A youngling like her was not the best choice of company for that.
"Ahsoka. It's okay."
He picked up a twig and began to idly scratch the dirt with its tip.
"Should I go?"
"Stay, please. It is a good place, don't you think? My Master showed it to me a long time ago."
She knew the story about his duel with the Sith; he lost his Master then. And now he lost his padawan. She didn't know what to say to him.
But at least he seemed to draw comfort from the proximity of another being.
Reading her must have come to him very easily, because he reached out in the Force to her. "Sadness doesn't help a Jedi, you know."
She shifted from a cross-legged stance to hugging her knees, because she needed to hug something. She should work on her shielding, in both directions.
"Don't you miss him sometimes? Don't you miss both of them?"
"Haj dai," he said.
She took that as an invitation to switch back to Dai Bendu. "I thought if someone dies in battle, that's the opposite of the will of the Force."
He was silent for a moment, continuously scratching at the sand. Some Jedi would trace intricate patterns as meditation aid, though for Ahsoka this just looked like random scribbles.
"Needless death is certainly against it. But all dead things rejoin the Force. We can despair that they're no longer with us in the way we are used to, or we can do what we can to deal with the fallout. While you can't do much for someone already dead, you can do your best to prevent more death."
With his other hand, he flattened the sand over his scratches to have a clear surface again.
"This is a path of a Jedi. Me, you, Master Yoda, anyone."
He drew a wobbly line and added a couple of dots around it.
"Things happen in the universe, many times outside of our control."
He added a dot in the middle of the line.
"Does the Cosmic Force have consciousness? No one knows. The greatest Jedi scholars have debated that for millenia. Regardless, the Force sometimes warns us about things to come. Usually in vague ways - maybe it's because they haven't happened yet, or maybe it's because we don't always know how to listen. But it has a clear direction. It blossoms from thriving life. It withers from suffering. In that sense, its will is always oriented towards peace. As Jedi, we serve it. Some things, like death, we learn to accept."
He drew a short curve around the obstacle it to join the two parts of the path again.
"In the beginning, it hurts. The more you love someone, the more it hurts to lose them. But over time, it hurts less and less. The galaxy doesn't stop spinning to give you time to adjust. There is always darkness somewhere."
He erased his pattern again and began tracing a new one. It looked like a branching spiral or a blooming tree.
"I don't know how long my duties will keep me in the Temple, with other Jedi. But it feels good to be here again."
"Thank you for the lesson, Master Kenobi."
She got up slowly so as not to disturb him.
"Ahsoka, wait."
She stopped.
"I know I'm not Master Plo," he said. "And that you still have a while before you would start looking for a Master. But I would be more than willing to teach you, if you want."
Though Kenobi was still off the mission roster, it was not difficult to find him.
Ever since he returned from Tatooine, he had changed; strolled the Temple deep in his thoughts, weathered as if he had spent not a day but decades in the desert. Something softened in him. He smiled a lot. Cried even more. Gradually, he was regaining peace.
Every Jedi dealt with grief in their own way. Mace, though he had trained three Padawans to Knighthood and his fourth one would soon seek out the Trials, never had to cope with one of them dying. He wasn't sure how long it would take for him to find his way back to serenity, or what he would do to keep his mind occupied.
A shame about young Skywalker. Very kind, very talented. Mace had liked the boy, despite his temper.
Kenobi sensed Mace approaching from behind and stopped to let him catch up.
"The Council has considered your proposed course of action. You are to be present for a meeting today at 2300 hours."
Kenobi sharply turned his head. "Already? Good. Very good. I will be there."
For a moment, Mace saw him as he had been before the mission, radiating focus, slightly stressed but ready to rise to the challenge.
"I recommended that you continue to be directly involved with this project. Your varied skills and being a direct witness aside, you're one of the very few Jedi to have previous experience with it."
"I suppose you are right." Kenobi smiled. "That is, after all, my specialty."
The Jedi needed to act fast. The wealth of information Kenobi had obtained on Geonosis before he turned back to Tatooine needed to be analyzed, more sources gathered. Plans needed to be made on how to proceed with the horrifying revelation of a plot to destroy the Republic. Tensions in the Senate were high; there was work to be done to prevent a war and stop the rise of the Sith.
If it was necessary to assassinate the Chancellor to achieve that, so be it.
Most Jedi with lifeforms surrounded themselves: plants, critters, microbes, fungi and slime molds; but sparsely inhabited and furnished Yoda's quarters were. Even the singing stones in his fountain Force-sensitive were not. In an empty space, more easily focus came.
And no distraction Obi-Wan could find.
Drank half a mug of hot sapir tea already, he had. An easy excuse not to talk, it was.
"Burn yourself you will," warn him Yoda did. "Glad I am that accepted my invitation you have. Ask you about your Padawan, I want."
"Ahsoka is doing great."
"Not her, I meant. Know this, you do." Play stupid with me, do not.
For the first time, look up from his mug Obi-Wan did. Cold his gaze was, and hostile.
"He's dead. What else do you want from me, Master Yoda?"
Lean on his stick Yoda did, and sighed deeply. "Help you, I want."
"Leave me to it," said Obi-Wan. "I meditate. I do not want to see a mind healer, at least not right now. But I promise, I am dealing with it - in my own way."
With the kind of resigned calm that came from tiredness he did speak. Tired, Yoda himself was as well; to convince the young Master to come to Yoda's quarters, much effort took.
"Worried, I am," Yoda said.
Want to talk Obi-Wan did not. Disappear his presence from the Force for long times did. And when asked about young Skywalker - sometimes, anger there was in Obi-Wan, the kind that simmers for long if untreated it is. Anger at self, perhaps.
"Back from a difficult mission you are. Pushing yourself too far you are, as often you do. This tendency you always had, even as a youngling. Healthy, this is not."
"This is what helps me most. A return to normalcy, to Temple routine. Preparations for the current operation. Teaching Ahsoka. Lightsaber practice. Even just walking around or staying in the gardens to meditate."
Worried not only about him, Yoda was. Ask the Council he did not. No obligation to do so there was in the Jedi Code, but out of balance Obi-Wan was. Harm both the Padawan and the Master a rushed decision would.
"Unwise, this is, to take on another apprentice so soon. Irresponsible, you are being. Affect Ahsoka badly, this could." Calm and smooth his own presence Yoda made, like water on a windless day. Sense it, Obi-Wan would. Advice it was, wise words of an elder Jedi, not an accusation. "Peace, you should find yourself, before teaching others."
Stiff, with a dark expression, he did listen.
"I am at peace," said he. "I'm careful of her, I promise. And you're welcome to talk to her, too, of course."
That, Yoda would do. Sip his tea he did with no hurry; Obi-Wan's mug already empty was. Thinking Yoda was, to make him open up what to say. If persist he did now, only more upset Obi-Wan would become. Peace, he needed.
"Meditate on this all, both of us should."
Deflated, nod Obi-Wan did. "I will do so, Master Yoda."
"Talk before acting, will you, hmm? Need you at your best, we do." A warm mind-touch in the Force Yoda offered. "Always open, my quarters are."