He tried to remember when it was that he had stopped loving Coruscant, with its incredible wealth of life signs, its endless display of arts and culture and entrepreneurial enthusiasm – even its rampant commercialism and economic upheavals and sometimes bloody turf wars. At one time, he had been fond of it all – but that fondness had simply deserted him somewhere along the way. Probably, he conceded, at the same time when he had stopped thinking of the Jedi Temple as his home.
It wasn’t as if something else had moved in to supplant either the planet or the great edifice.
He no longer loved much of anything – and he no longer had a home.
He had the Force – and his precious connection to it – and he was determined that it would be enough to sustain him for the remainder of his life.
He was, after all, a Jedi, and, with very few exceptions, the life expectancy of members of the knighthood was decidedly brief.
He sat on the balcony outside his living quarters and sipped listlessly at a glass of very pedestrian red wine that he had unearthed from a cabinet – probably a parting gift from some diplomatic associate on some long-forgotten mission. He remembered that he had once taken some pride in his ability to recall all of his missions, usually in great detail, but that ability had also gone the way of all flesh – and he cared as little about that as about most other things these days.
Sunsets on Coruscant were always a setting for great spectacle, and he watched now in bemused silence as the day plunged toward extinction.
He generally avoided these sunsets; they were entirely too fraught with memories.
The sun settled toward twilight over the planet Krish was a bright, acid green, radiating intense lime-gold light that set off an explosion of brilliant saffron and jade and bitter orange as it sank toward the horizon. The jungle grew still, and the silence around him seemed heavier as the quality of the light thickened somehow, almost receding from his touch.
Padawan Jinn chided himself for being entirely too imaginative; the light was the light. It was NOT shrinking away from him – and wouldn’t his elegant and dignified Master be amused at his apprentice’s flights of fancy if he deigned to notice them? Amused – but still basically disappointed in the teen-ager’s inability to maintain his focus and his serenity.
There was nothing here for the boy to fear; he KNEW that; KNEW that his Master would not have put him in harm’s way. Would most certainly not have abandoned him here, in this strange place, where the Force seemed almost twisted – almost perverted, where the Padawan’s connection to the great energy field had become tenuous and uncertain.
No. His Master was nearby – undoubtedly deep in meditation, waiting for his apprentice to calm himself sufficiently to locate the Master’s Force signature and make his way out of the heavy jungle growth.
Master Dooku’s entire aura was one of tranquility and deep connection to the Force; he should be as easy to find as a nova in a starless void.
But something – something that was somehow not quite in the moment, but rather on the cusp of time suspended – seemed to be interfering with his ability to trace his Master.
Much to his bitter embarrassment, he realized that he had been traveling in circles when he stumbled across a broken section of tiled paving that he remembered seeing earlier.
And now it was growing dark – but it was a strange darkness, threaded with pale sparks of the same greenish luminescence that seemed to stream from the setting sun.
Qui-Gon sighed, and decided that he would need to find his center, to reset himself, before proceeding. He dropped to his knees – and tried to release his own impatience and frustration into the Force. He was a thirteen-year-old Jedi padawan, for Force’s sake – not some helpless novice who needed someone to hold his hand.
He tried to focus – tried to center himself – tried to sink into a meditative state and had begun to achieve some small success – when he felt the presence at his back, or – more accurately – several presences.
His shielding at that moment was somewhat shaky, but it would have made no difference if it had been as firm as durasteel. He was abruptly assaulted with wave upon wave of viciousness and aggression – and dark hungers.
He didn’t wait to learn the identity of the beings that were generating those violent emotions; he leapt to his feet – and ran, tapping into the Force to augment his own considerable speed.
In the end, rather than the apprentice finding Master Dooku, it was the Master who found the padawan, and the elder Jedi had not bothered to conceal his disappointment in the youth’s failures – his failure to overcome the interference generated by the planet’s environment, which, as it happened, was renowned for being touched by Darkness – and his failure to deal with the bloodthirsty Krish hunters, who would undoubtedly boast of their successful rout of a Jedi padawan and embroider the tale to pass on to future generations.
Padawan Jinn had spent many weeks atoning for his shortcomings.
Qui-Gon Jinn – the Master – shook himself out of the grasp of reverie as the last streaks of sunset drained from the sky over Coruscant, and was slightly surprised at the direction of his musings. He had not thought about Master Dooku in a very long time – years, in fact – and he had no desire to do so now. Though their association would certainly have been deemed a successful one by the rank and file of the Order – it had, after all, produced a tremendously skilled and exceptionally well-trained Jedi knight – it had never been a comfortable or pleasant arrangement for either of them.
Which counted for nothing, of course. Comfort and pleasure had little meaning for the Jedi.
But the memory had, in reality, not been about Master Dooku; it had been about a subject with which Qui-Gon was much more intimately acquainted.
Failure.
And, oh, my, he did know that particular subject well!
Failure . . . which sometimes felt like an old friend.
”Come look at the sunset, Master.” His padawan’s voice rang with pride and happiness. “There is no sunset anywhere so spectacular as on Telos, when the twin suns set in tandem.”
Qui-Gon stepped out on the terrace that looked out over the royal gardens of the Telosian palace, and joined his apprentice at the railing to gaze up into the riotous explosion of color that roiled upon the western horizon. “Breathtaking, my padawan,” he remarked, “but we have duties to attend before we can afford to indulge ourselves in taking in the sights.”
“I know,” said Xanatos, his amazingly blue eyes almost as radiant as the sun’s display. “It just feels wonderful to be home. I’d forgotten how much I love this place.”
The Master allowed himself a small frown, as a frisson of unease traced up his spine. “The Jedi are your home now, Padawan. To allow yourself to reanimate old loyalties would be – painful for you. Be mindful of your feelings.”
“Yes, Master.”
Xanatos’ tone was acceptably obedient – but there was still a small gleam of defiance deep in his eyes – and the Jedi Master wondered again why Master Yoda had insisted that he and his apprentice were the only team suitable for this assignment.
There was a grave potential for conflict here, especially since Xanatos’ father was a central figure in the civil unrest that was threatening to erupt into bloody war. A full-grown Jedi knight might find the situation difficult to resolve; for a young padawan, it might be virtually impossible.
A test, Master Yoda had suggested. Master Jinn suppressed a shudder; a test that might be beyond the boy’s ability to withstand.
That thought caught him off guard, and his eyes widened. Did he have so little faith in his student – the boy that he had trained and educated and molded with his own hands for so many years?
No. Xanatos’ loyalty was beyond question. No test, no matter how difficult, would shake his resolve or his commitment to the Jedi.
“Come, Xani,” he said quietly, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “We must find your father.”
Failure – a taste far more bitter than the sediment of the wine that settled on his tongue.
A failure he would NOT compound – no matter how insistent a certain short, green troll might become.
The door chime interrupted his thoughts – and he debated ignoring it, but decided, given the identity of the caller, that it would do no good. Mace Windu was entirely capable of using his security clearance codes to override the lock.
A gentle nudge of the Force admitted the dark Council member, and guided him to a seat at Qui-Gon’s side.
“Wine?” Master Jinn’s invitation wasn’t particularly gracious, as he really didn’t relish company at the moment, but Master Windu decided to ignore the lack of enthusiasm – and upended the almost empty bottle.
He then proceeded to sputter dramatically. “Tastes like vinegar,” he gasped.
Qui-Gon merely shrugged. “If you want a quality vintage – go raid Adi’s cellar.”
Windu sighed. “I’m not here to debate your taste in wines – and, more to the point, neither are you. There is a sparring exhibition scheduled to begin in ten minutes – and you’re supposed to attend.”
“Pointless.” Jinn was pleased with the succinctness of his response. Pithy, minimalist, and dead-on accurate.
“Qui-Gon,” said Mace, his voice gentle, “you can’t keep on this way. You are destroying yourself – and you’re cheating some gifted child out of his chance to be trained to knighthood.”
“The odds are hardly favorable for that,” replied Master Jinn. “Fifty-fifty. Not a good bet – even on a good day.”
“How long?”
Qui-Gon remained quiet, not bothering to pretend that he didn’t understand the question.
“It’s been almost three years,” continued Mace. “Three years of back-to-back-to-back missions – most of them extremely hazardous. Many even considered borderline suicidal. But we let you continue – because we believed you needed to purge this madness from your system – even though we can’t afford to lose you. It’s time to stop this insanity, Qui-Gon. It’s time to come home.”
Qui-Gon turned and stared into the face of his old friend. “I have no home, Mace,” he said softly, “and it’s time for you and Master Yoda to accept that. I have no bonds left to tie me to this place – or anyone in it.”
Mace faced his counterpart squarely. “Qui, I know you’ll never completely recover from losing the bond to Xanatos. Force, I can’t even imagine what that must have been like. And, beyond that, there was probably still a lingering pain from the severance of your residual bond with Master Dooku – but that doesn’t mean you are not bonded to any of us here. They may not be training bonds – or Force bonds – but there are bonds of friendship, of companionship, of shared history. We can’t afford to lose you.”
“Have you spoken to him, Mace?”
Now it was Windu’s turn to avoid pretending that he didn’t know to whom his friend was referring.
“No. Never. Although I think perhaps Master Yoda has. He maintains his ties to the Order, even though he has severed his Force bonds. Once a Jedi – always a Jedi, I suppose, even if not actively engaged in missions – and even if disenchanted with the knighthood’s philosophy.”
“I wonder,” Qui-Gon said softly, absently, “if he ever . . .”
“Asked about you?”
Qui-Gon’s smile was small – and bittersweet. “No. Of course, he didn’t. He wouldn’t, would he?”
Mace resisted an urge to squirm. “Your bond with him was rather – unique.”
And this time, Qui-Gon actually laughed, although it was a very small laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.”
Mace closed his eyes briefly – and wished he hadn’t when an image rose in his mind; an image of the best friend of his childhood, collapsed on the floor of his bedroom, the flesh flayed from every inch of his back, as he trembled from pain and blood loss. It was a silent image – for Qui-Gon had never made a single sound, either during the caning administered so thoroughly by his Master, or afterwards. The padawan had adamantly refused to be taken to the Healers’ wing. The two of them, Mace and Qui-Gon – age fourteen - had healed those horrible wounds together, and never told anyone what had happened.
Mace believed that it had never happened again – but he had to admit that he wasn’t entirely certain. If it had, Qui-Gon would probably not have mentioned it – just as he would never have revealed the first incident if Mace had not come bursting into his room at just that moment.
“He believed he was doing the right thing,” Qui-Gon observed quietly, correctly guessing the direction of his friend’s thoughts. “He believed that my stubbornness would prevent me from becoming a knight – and there was only one way to deal with it.”
“I know,” replied Mace sternly, “but he was wrong, Qui-Gon. And what he taught you was wrong.”
Qui-Gon merely sighed and nodded. “Was it? I’ve asked myself that questions a thousand times, Mace. I swore on my link to the Living Force that I would never do that to a child – that I would never inflict that kind of pain. Yet - maybe that’s why I’ve failed.”
Abruptly, Mace surged to his feet. “STOP that! RIGHT NOW! YOU didn’t fail. The failure was your padawan’s – not yours.”
But Qui-Gon was obviously unconvinced, his eyes lost in the distance, dark with a pain that only he could fathom. “Because I allowed myself to be blinded by my affection for him. Because I refused to see what I didn’t want to see. So tell me, Mace, how do I trust my judgment now? How do I know that what I see when I look at the next child is what’s really there – or only what I want to be there? I can’t risk it. For the child’s sake – I can’t risk it.”
But Mace understood something that Qui-Gon had not yet confronted. This was not about the next child. It wasn’t even about the last child. It was about the Master – and a heart too bruised to take a risk.
So deep was Master Jinn within his own cognizance that he shied violently as Mace reached out with a gentle hand and smoothed a lock of silver-traced chestnut hair back from his brow. “Listen to me, Old Friend – and mark my words, for I’ve never said anything to you before that means as much as this does. You aren’t locking yourself away from life because of what you fear to do to a child; you’re locking yourself away from what you fear the child will do to you. You’re afraid to risk your heart again – and I understand that. But what happens to you if you don’t take that risk? What happens if you don’t reach out? And only after you can answer that – truthfully – can you afford to worry about what happens to the child.”
Qui-Gon rose, and moved to the railing, his gaze falling into the inky depths below the Tower, to the dark, cave-like levels of the great city/planet where no light ever penetrated – and no timid beings ever ventured. “I can’t do this, Mace. I will go, and I will circulate among the Masters gathered for this little display – but it will profit no one. I cannot . . .”
“Do you remember Arizalyn Muillo, Qui-Gon?” There was a curious note in Mace’s voice that Master Jinn could not quite identify.
“I don’t think so. Should I?”
Mace shrugged. “Probably not – though you did meet her, I think. When you brought little Kenobi into the crèche, she would have been there. That’s where she spent most of her time, when she wasn’t in training.”
Qui-Gon sighed. “I assume there’s a point here.”
“Oh, indeed there is,” replied Mace, an element of sarcasm creeping into his tone. “Riz was Firrerreo. You DO know about the cultural imperative that compels her race’s complete obedience?”
Master Jinn nodded. He had once spent several weeks on Firrerre, in search of a group of slavers, and had become only too well acquainted with the cultural custom that had rendered that planet’s natives helpless in the face of the slaver’s exploitation.
“Riz,” continued Mace, “was determined to become a Jedi knight. More than that, she was compelled to do so, in order to erase a stain upon the honor of her clan.”
“But surely, that’s impossible. With an inability to disobey commands . . . .”
“Yes,” agreed Mace. “That’s the conclusion we all came to – with the very best intentions, of course. With our great high-minded – and high-handed – attitude, we determined that Riz could not possibly overcome that huge obstacle – that she could never be a Jedi knight. And we told her that there were other ways that she could serve; other means to make herself useful.”
“And?” Qui-Gon heard something in Mace’s voice that compelled him to hear the whole story, even though he was pretty sure he wouldn’t like it.
“We forgot something,” said Mace. “We forgot that it was HER life we were so casually re-ordering; her needs that we were ignoring.” His voice softened. “She had the loveliest Force aura I’ve ever seen – not the strongest or the brightest or the purest – that distinction belongs to another young initiate with whom you’re acquainted – but the gentlest, and the sweetest. It was as if her spirit glowed with kindness.”
“Where is she now?”
Mace drew a deep shaky breath. “The night we told her of our decision, she jumped from the balcony of the children’s garden. From that level – there was hardly enough left of her body to identify.”
Qui-Gon winced – and felt his friend’s agony deep within his own heart.
“That’s what happens when we turn our backs on them, Qui-Gon. That’s what happens when we forget that these are not just idle daydreams we deal with; this is life and death to them. This is everything they are, and everything they ever will be. You turn your back – and one child is, perhaps, forever lost – and who are you – or who am I – to say what wonders that child might have wrought?”
Qui-Gon’s response was almost a snarl. “And who’s to say that I won’t take that beautiful light that shines so purely from a child’s heart – and turn it dark and deadly? You didn’t see Xan after what happened on Telos, Mace. None of you saw him – saw what he became. All of the light within him – all of that brilliance that dazzled us all – was just . . . gone. Dead. And I’m the one who took it from him.”
He turned and allowed Mace to glimpse the depth of despair that smothered his soul. “I can’t do it again, Mace. I have no warmth within me – no love within me – to give. I’m empty – and cold – and barren.”
Mace was silent for a moment, lost in thought, before gathering his robes around him. “Nevertheless, you must make an appearance. The children have earned the right to be evaluated – and you will not deny them that.”
“But . . .”
“No,” the dark Master said firmly. “I’ll hear no more of this. No one can force you to take a padawan, Qui-Gon. You know that as well as I. But you should also know that you are closing your mind and your heart to the will of the Force – and you are allowing your life to shut down around you, wrapping you in a shell of silence and loneliness that no one else can ever penetrate – unless you allow it.”
“I can’t.” It had become Master Jinn’s mantra – and he would cling to it for a very long time.
Mace nodded, but still wrapped his hand around his friend’s arm, refusing to allow the towering Jedi to remain locked away in the solitude of his quarters – sterile, lifeless, characterless quarters that bore no mark of the man who lived there.
“Very well,” said Mace softly, “for now. But I refuse to believe that this is a condition you wish to perpetuate – forever. There is yet tomorrow, Qui-Gon Jinn, and there is, somewhere out there, a child who will tear down the shields you have erected around your heart – and I am content to await the day when he stands before you – and reawakens your taste for life.”
Qui-Gon smiled wearily. “After all these years, Old Friend, you’re still a dreamer.”
Mace smiled. “As you were once – and will someday be again. He will see to that.”
Master Jinn took a moment to glance at his friend, wondering if his certainty was just idle speculation – or something more.
It was all nonsense, of course; yet . . . .
No. He would not hope; he would not even wish to hope. He would forget that such a thing as hope even existed.
But – maybe – he would simply wait – and see. Forever, after all, was a very, very long time to live in solitude.
As the two Masters emerged into the corridor, a swarm of initiates was hurrying past, intent on some errand of their own. They were all focused and linked hand to hand, short legs pumping to maintain a steady pace.
And they were laughing, luminous waves of joy emanating from them like rays of light.
Qui-Gon felt a heaviness shift within his chest. The laughter was physically painful – but it was also lovelier than the sweetest melody he had ever heard.
And Master Mace Windu observed silently that the Force had absolutely perfect timing.