Chapter Text
Rachel turned from Thran to the opening door and saw Ketrin and the Togruta Master.
“Hello again, Rachel,” the Togruta said. “My name is Master Mitra Sahga. We are ready for your test now if you’ll follow me.”
Rachel stood and shoved the comm Thran had given her into the pocket of her coat and started to follow. Thran had also stood and made to follow her.
“Just Rachel,” Master Sahga said, raising a hand. “Ketrin will stay with you, Mitth’ra’nikuru.”
“With due respect, Master Sahga,” Thran said, “I would prefer to remain with Ra’chel and watch this test. If that is all right.”
“Unfortunately,” she said, “the Council prefers it otherwise. Ketrin will remain with you.”
Rachel couldn't shake the sudden uneasy feeling that washed over her—only, she didn't know if it was her own feeling or Thran's. His face gave nothing away as he nodded his agreement to the situation, but his eyes found hers in a steady stare.
“Why can’t he come too?” Rachel asked Master Sahga.
“This is how the Council wishes it,” Master Sahga said with a tone of finality. “Now please, follow me.”
Rachel turned and looked at Thran with a pit in her stomach.
“I’ll see you soon,” she told him as she turned to follow the Togruta out of the room.
“I hope so,” Thran said with a glance at Ketrin.
Soon, she was again walking down the large hallway, following Master Sahga to a turbolift.
“Where are we going?” Rachel asked as they stepped inside.
“To one of our training rooms,” she answered. “It isn't far.”
The turbolift barely got going before it stopped again and opened to a hall with a much shorter ceiling. Master Sahga led her to the left and before she knew it, she was standing in a large training room.
“Welcome,” Master Zhulung greeted her. “We have prepared our test for you. Are you ready?”
Rachel looked at him and then at the other Masters beside him.
“Perhaps,” one of them—the older human man—said, “we should introduce ourselves first. I am Master Kyan Ywin.”
The Wookie standing next to him growled something, and Master Zev stood next to him and translated.
“His name is Master Lowporin, and I am Master Pan Zev.”
“Thank you,” Rachel said.
“Very good,” Master Zhulung said, walking towards her with a piece of cloth in his hand. “Let us begin. Put this around your eyes in such a way that you cannot see anything around you, and we shall go from there.”
Rachel nodded even though it was confusing, and even as she began to tie the blindfold over her eyes, she could see the lights around her being darkened. Not only were they putting a cover over her eyes, but they were also turning out the lights.
With very little instruction and only darkness to see, she tried using her hearing and other senses like she used to on Earth when she couldn’t see.
“Do not rely on what you see and hear,” she heard Master Zhulung’s voice. “Your eyes and ears can deceive you. Reach out. Feel.”
Feel? There was nothing in her hands to feel, the air didn’t move around her, and it was neither warm nor cold in the room.
Then she understood, and she tried to reach out the way she had before with the Force, and she felt the presence of the other people in the room. Master Zhulung, Master Sahga, Master Ywin, Master Lowporin, and Master Zev each felt unique and distinct from the others and yet each had something similar about them. They were watching her, and she could feel their eyes on her—their thoughts, their emotions, their tendencies.
There was more, and she took a slow, careful, deep breath.
She could feel other people. Behind the wall to her left was another training room just like this one, and there were a group of younger beings moving as one to the instructions of another being. Their young minds concentrated yet wandering. Their breathing, their hearts beating, and though she couldn’t hear words, she sensed the instruction, the acceptance, obedience, and their child-like trust and willingness to learn.
She took another slow breath and shifted her focus to the other wall, but there was no one on the other side of that one, and yet, she could still feel the presence of many others surrounding her, and just as it began to become too much, somewhere nearby—she couldn’t pinpoint where—she felt a very familiar presence.
Thran? she thought. The minds and emotions that had threatened to overwhelm her just moments before suddenly quieted as she tried to locate where he was, but she saw only the cityscape of Coruscant and felt a pained sorrow.
And then everything came rushing back, and it became too much. There were so many different minds with all kinds of intentions and emotions mixing together.
It was just like Earth.
“Focus,” she heard Master Ywin tell her. “Your mind wanders.”
“I can’t control it,” she said, trying to bring her mind back to the room she was standing in.
“Center your mind inward,” she heard Master Zev’s voice. “Sense your own thoughts and focus on your breathing.”
She tried it. While her own thoughts were scrambled and she felt her emotions matching the chaos she had felt, she tried to focus on taking slow, deep breaths and listening to her heart as it pounded in her chest.
Slowly, she felt the commotion dissipate into calmness.
“Very good,” she heard Master Sahga say.
“Tell us what you see,” Master Zhulung’s voice was distinct.
“I can sense others,” Rachel tried to explain. “In the room next to us there’s a class being led, isn’t there? Children?”
She heard silence for a few moments, and she wondered if she wasn’t supposed to know that.
“I’m sorr—”
“Master Xal is leading a class of Younglings,” she heard Master Sahga’s calm voice interrupt her. “But they are not in the room next to us.”
Rachel looked toward where she felt their presence. “Where are they?”
“This room is near the middle of the Temple,” Master Zhulung said. “The room in which Master Xal trains his Younglings is at the far end of the Temple where they can see out the large windows.”
Rachel couldn’t comprehend what they were saying. “You’re telling me that I sensed their presence from half the temple away?”
“Evidently so,” Master Zev said flatly.
“You began to lose control, regained it momentarily, and lost it again,” Master Zhulung said. “Can you explain what you felt?”
Rachel hesitated. “I could feel so many minds,” she said, thinking back. “But then I could sense Thran, and I felt calmer before everything became too much again.”
Another silence.
“He is currently in the hangar, is he not?” Master Ywin asked.
“That’s where he’s supposed to be,” Master Zhulung replied.
“You can not only sense things that are half-way across the Temple,” Master Zev started, “but also beings that are not in the Temple at all.”
“Thran isn’t here?” Rachel asked, a combination of uncertainty and loss wafting through her chest. He had left without saying goodbye…
“He was sent to the hangar to be on his way back to his home world,” Master Zhulung explained.
“Is there a problem with that?” Master Ywin asked.
Rachel’s chest felt both hollow and heavy at the same time. They’d sent him away?
She thought back to the cityscape she had seen when she felt his presence and she felt herself try to catch her breath. It wasn’t just the cityscape. It was the Jedi Temple. She had seen what he was looking at.
She ignored Master Ywin’s question. “How was I able to see what he saw?” she blurted out.
“What do you mean?” Master Zev asked.
“When I felt Thran’s presence, I reached out towards it and saw what I thought was the Coruscant cityscape. But now that I look back at it, it was his view of the Jedi Temple as he is leaving.”
She felt a collective stirring of astonishment and concern.
“You may take off the blindfold,” Master Zhulung said.
She did so, and she blinked against the lights as they came on as well.
The five Masters all stood in front of her staring with mixed expressions. Master Sahga’s was the most comforting of the five since her face was simply neutral. She didn’t know how to read a Wookie’s face, and the other three all had furrowed brows and creased foreheads. Master Ywin’s arms were crossed in front of his chest. Master Zhulung had one arm across his chest while his other hand stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“What now?” Rachel asked.
Master Zhulung seemed to come out of his contemplation as he stepped forward and clasped his hands behind his back.
“Now we need to make a decision,” he said.
“Based on what?” Rachel asked. “I haven’t done anything.”
“On the contrary,” Master Sahga said. “You have done quite a bit in these last few minutes.”
Master Lowporin growled something, but Rachel couldn’t understand him, so she looked back to Master Sahga.
“He said his decision has already been made,” Master Sahga translated, looking between Masters Lowporin and Zhulung.
“But come now,” Master Ywin said. “We will not be making a decision here and now. Let us go.”
“Go where?” Rachel asked.
“I will show you where you can get something to eat,” Master Sahga said, stepping to her side as the other Masters turned to leave. “I’m sure you must be hungry.”
Rachel looked away from her as her emotions and thoughts clashed. They had sent Thran away, which meant she was stuck here, yet the Council didn’t seem keen on making her feel welcome or even seem like they wanted her here at all.
As she and Master Sahga walked down the hallway, Rachel tried again to reach out and feel for Thran’s presence, but the concentration it took caused her to veer sideways almost into a wall.
“I don’t think you will sense his presence any longer,” Master Sahga said. Her voice held a hint of actual sympathy in it. “If you saw what you said, he would have been on a shuttle on the way back to his ship. He may already be on his ship by now.”
“I just wish,” Rachel started to say, but thought she shouldn’t say it to a Master.
“You wish you had said goodbye?” Master Sahga offered.
Rachel looked up at her. “Is it wrong to want to say goodbye to a friend?” Rachel asked.
Master Sahga seemed to think carefully before speaking. “It was voted on and decided that it would be best if you two have no parting words. The others believe you have too much of an attachment to him.”
“He’s my friend,” Rachel said defensively. “Are Jedi not allowed to have friends?”
Master Sahga stopped walking and turned to face Rachel. “It is very important that you understand this, Rachel,” she said, “forming friendships, especially close ones, is a very fine line for a Jedi. Attachments are forbidden. They can lead a Jedi to be filled with emotions that lead down the path of the dark side.”
Rachel stared at her. “I have felt loss. I’ve lost family. I’ve had friends abandon me. I left my home and my whole life behind. I don’t think that my emotions are an issue.”
“No?” Master Sahga asked, raising an eyebrow.
Rachel had to take a breath. She had gotten worked up just speaking about those things. And the mention of the people who had died brought back feelings of sadness and grief long buried. The sting of betrayal still felt fresh when she thought of the friends who abandoned her without a second thought.
And she’d just left it all behind. Earth was still spinning on its axis and orbiting around its star in a galaxy beyond the Unknown Regions. It wouldn’t be the same if she ever went back. And that was a big if.
“I don’t think that emotions are bad,” Rachel said. “I think it’s what people do with them that makes them bad.”
She continued walking down the hall barely aware that that Master Sahga didn’t start walking with her right away.
When they arrived in the dining hall, Master Sahga insisted that she eat something, but she didn’t feel hungry, and, here, there were more kinds of new food. She had liked the food the Chiss had offered, so she decided to test a couple different things and found them edible.
She tried to ask Master Sahga about the test—how she had thought she had done, especially considering how she had lost control—but Master Sahga said that it was up to the Council.
When they arrived back in her temporary quarters, Rachel went and sat on the bed.
Master Sahga stood for a moment in the doorway, and she thought she detected sympathy or pity coming from her.
“I’m fine,” Rachel said, trying to push back against the feelings.
Master Sahga startled a little. “I’m sure you are,” she said. She reached into her pocket and handed Rachel a small cylindrical device. “Here. The Council will call you on this when they are ready for you.”
Rachel took the communicator and set it on the desk.
“I will let you rest,” Master Sahga said as she turned to leave.
The door shut behind her, and Rachel felt herself physically, mentally, and emotionally collapse onto the bed. Despite what Master Sahga said, she closed her eyes and tried again to reach out and feel for Thran’s presence, but she felt and saw nothing. He was gone.
She rolled to her side and felt her knife press into her hip, so she rolled to the other side but felt something in her coat pocket and remembered the comm Thran had given her.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the comm. He probably wouldn’t contact her until he reached the Ascendency. And even then, would he really? So many people had made the same promises he had about remaining friends despite distance or circumstance, and they had never followed through. And they were on the same planet. Thran had promised that no matter where in the galaxy he went, he would remain her friend. It seemed unlikely.
She would have to try and do her best on her own.