Huddled closely in the confined space, Ahsoka could not have asked for a more comforting feeling. Rubbing elbows with Kowani, who was plowing through some form of stew with reckless abandon, she noted how at ease she truly was. A soot blackened hearth cuddled a small cookfire against the wall, Yoda stirring the interesting concoction from time to time in a tiny kettle hanging over it.
“Master, I didn’t know you could cook.” She said.
“Feed myself yes, feed others, yes. Cook? I think not.” Yoda replied with a lighthearted chirp of laughter Ahsoka wasn’t sure she’d ever heard before.
“This is delicious!” Kowani chimed in with enthusiasm between mouthfuls. “What is it?”
Yoda considered it. “Of this a little, of that a little.” He took a small spoonful himself from the pot and chewed it slowly, his eyes narrowing. Bringing a three fingered hand to his stubbled chin, “Need something else this does.” His eyes scouring the various shelves, Ahsoka following his gaze noted the small shelves created from the same mud and grasses that made up the whole of the structure. She didn’t, however, see anything edible that he could have been considering. “Ah, you’ll do.” He seemed to finalize as he ambled over to a shelf. Ahsoka stopped chewing momentarily in avid curiosity and witnessed Yoda snap his left hand faster than she thought possible underneath the shelf and return it to his side with a barely audible snap. Ahsoka’s curiosity bristling, she narrowed her own eyes as he turned around to witness a headless salamander arc through the air between his tiny hand and the hovering kettle. Peripherally, she noted Kowani paying attention as well and stop chewing altogether when the four-legged ingredient splashed home into the stew pot. Their eyes glancing from the lightly swaying kettle to their wooden bowls and finally at each other, unconsciously shrugging in each other’s direction, ‘hot food is hot food,’ they both continued to finish their meals.
“To discuss culinary arts, you did not come to Dagobah for.” Yoda said, breaking into the sounds of slurping and chewing.
“No Master, although we really do…. appreciate…the hospitality.” Ahsoka spoke evenly. “There are questions I would ask you regarding the force, the dark side, more to the point.”
“A lighthearted topic that is not.” Again, he chuckled in only the way he could, Ahsoka decided, having never heard anything to compare it to. She could not help but laugh along with him, more at what just seemed to be an almost youthful exuberance, rather than the actual punch line to his joke. “Ahsoka,” he began, adopting a more serious expression and a noticeable change in his voice, “But an element the Dark Side is, and only in your mind it resides. Consider the salamander you should. Responsible for its death one could think the Dark Side is but die all living things must. Responsible for that cycle the Dark Side is not, for balance is achieved. So that we may eat, the creature dies.” He finished tapping the kettle with the butt end of his gimmer stick for emphasis.
“I do understand that Master and said as much to Obi-wan. There is only the Force, it is intent that places it at either end of the spectrum.” Ahsoka answered.
“More, more. Greatly impact an outcome, one’s thought alone can. The pathway to one’s destiny thinking creates.” He said, ambling back to the shelf to get a wooden bowl for himself. “Tempted you have been?”
Kowani listened intently to the exchange, fascinated at the immediate depth with which they unhesitatingly dove.
“Tempted? No.” She said, turning her face downward somewhat as she explained her escape from the temple on Malachor as well as her account of her own ruthlessness on Nar Shaddaa.
“Ah, on Malachor this began. Reluctant to inform young Bridger I was, much pain, sorrow and suffering did I foresee.” Yoda spoke as he sat to begin his own meal with a muddled grunt.
Ahsoka thought about that for a moment. “There was much of that, all around.” Looking back up at Yoda she wasn’t quite sure how to phrase her next statement, “More for Anakin I would suspect” she decided.
Unexpectedly Yoda let out another laugh. “You’ve now mentioned the very things together you wish to never become. Fall prey to the dark side you fear, that you would be entangled, in like your former master?” He set his bowl down. “Ahsoka, many Jedi have I known and trained,” his full attention, and gaze, now upon her, “That have taken my teachings to heart there are but few, implemented two of the most difficult to practice in the same action, except for you, no one has.”
Kowani looked to Ahsoka for some verification that she still had her faculties because she understood nothing that just transpired. Ahsoka took the cue. “Ani, those discussions we keep putting off relate heavily to this. Master Yoda is referring to my leaving the Jedi order.” Holding up her right index finger she continued, “Unlearn what you have learned. My perception of what the order had become was not something I could support any longer, so I did the only thing I felt I could do to maintain integrity,” She added the middle finger to the index aloft, “Do or do not, there is no try…. I walked away.” Ahsoka swallowed hard and Kowani was certain she didn’t want to continue. Ahsoka closed her eyes and spoke without opening them, “I walked away from the order and also in the same action turned my back on my former master.”
“Ahsoka, blame yourself for his fall you should not. Take responsibility for yourself you did, owe Skywalker nothing you do.” Yoda said, pushing himself up to his feet. “Tragic his fall still is.” Yoda stopped himself briefly and cocked his head to the left, deciding on his next words he pointed a small, clawed finger at her. “Ahh, a truth you have learned, one which causes doubt within.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.” Ahsoka quietly responded, casting her gaze down to her folded legs.
Kowani sensed the turmoil and a deepened sadness that were overtaking her Togrutan friend.
“Born were new fears, for yourself and your Padawan on Nar Shaddaa I sense.” Yoda finished.
“Yes Master.” Came an even more downtrodden response from Ahsoka. Unable to hold back, she shuddered and began to quietly sob into her knees. Kowani had no idea what ‘Padawan’ meant but knew, through Ahsoka’s admission, that there was a great fear in her and with that thought in mind threw her arm around her friend’s head and pulled it into her own shoulder.
Yoda smiled broadly at the exchange, “Be afraid you should not be, Ahsoka, in good hands you are…as she is.” He remarked with a glance toward Kowani.
“I do have one question…actually I have many, but for now, just the one.” Kowani said finishing the embrace with a pat on Ahsoka’s shoulder. “Who is Skywalker?”
Wiping tears from her eyes, Ahsoka glanced briefly at Yoda who gave an approving nod, “My former master Ani, Anakin Skywalker.” She let the name float from her. Kowani squinted in an apparent effort to access any recollection the name might have for her.
“I am drawing a blank,” she replied.
“You may know him by…another…name.” Ahsoka returned with heavy emphasis and deliberate pause toward the end of the statement. Kowani noticed Yoda close his eyes slowly and slightly droop his head. “Darth Vader.” Ahsoka finished.
“Yes…. yes, I can see why that is incredibly heavy to bear.” Kowani said after staring at Ahsoka blankly for a few awkward moments. Immediately she had no problem accepting it as fact, Ahsoka’s strange and somewhat erratic behaviors, Yoda’s mannerisms throughout the exchange, as well as her own sense of knowing told her as much. “What I don’t understand is why you had ever held yourself responsible.” She said, matter of fact.
“I should have done more Ani.” Ahsoka tried to explain.
“Of what use would that have been?” Yoda interjected, “Change his path you think you can? Dispel his perception of reality? Release him from the grip of the Emperor perhaps?”
“Yes Master! I know that I could!” Ahsoka shot to her feet, banging her montral in the process on the low adobe ceiling.
“Ahh, you would cast reason aside for fulfillment of your own guilt.” Yoda spoke slowly and calmly, folding both of his clawed hands atop his gimmer stick. “Reacting on emotion will do nothing for your prospects of achievement Ahsoka. Your determination makes you powerful, but at a cost….do you not see?” Yoda said, offering a pointed finger to the top of her head, where her own hand was massaging. “Think Ahsoka, if at your hand Vader falls, what would become of that which we have all sacrificed? The line would continue under the influence of Sidious.”
“Luke.” Ahsoka mumbled.
“Exactly.” Yoda replied, wide eyed and arms raised. “The truth he must learn on his own for the same reason.”
Ahsoka considered it for a moment and closed her eyes in a sigh, “I would assume the same is true for his sister?”
Yoda only nodded in agreement, hiding his surprise expertly in how deeply her knowledge ran, “In agreement both Obi-wan and I are on the destiny of his son, argued we have many times on your involvement however.”
Ahsoka opened her eyes and adopted a surprised expression, “In what way? Master Kenobi made it very clear he didn’t want me to interfere at all!”
“Precisely why we argued.” Yoda said, “If nothing but stubborn, Obi-wan is.”
Ahsoka couldn’t help but laugh at the remark.
“The knowledge of his progeny must be his to decipher or face the fate of his father he will. A pathway to untap his abilities and claim that which is his is the involvement I spoke of…. Obi-wan….” Yoda paused momentarily, suddenly downtrodden with a sudden wave of grief.
“I know Master,” Ahsoka cut him off and reached for his hand, cupping it, and overlaying her other hand atop it. “He said without saying.” Yoda simply smiled.
“Overwhelming your empathy is, Ahsoka, but leaving Obi-wan is not.” His smile broadened extensively, “In truth he will be everywhere.” Ahsoka did her best not to roll her eyes.
“Yes Master, I understand we become one with the force, that there is an existence beyond our mortality.” She said, almost in exasperation.
“What Master Yoda refers to, is the gift, Ahsoka.” The voice of Qui-gon interceded. “A very large part of the reason, in fact, that he called to you.” Kowani had been following along with rapt attention up to that point and Ahsoka assumed she’d heard Qui-gon as well, as her gaze caught Ahsoka’s instantly. “Obi-wan is in possession of this knowledge. They both requested of the fates and destiny that you be gifted as well. Witnessing your ability through meditation however, I believe, as Yoda does, that you may already have that gift…. or something more perhaps.”
Ahsoka crossed her arms before her chest and slowly walked to the doorway letting Qui-gon’s last statement recycle through her conscious mind. Kowani made to place herself at her friends’ side, but Yoda motioned for her to give Ahsoka some space.
“Commendable it is to see such trust shown Ahsoka, not much she has seen in over twenty years.” He said in a hushed tone, meant for Kowani’s ears only. “Much to think about she has, a little time we should give her. Acquainted we can become in her absence?”
Her mind reeling, Ahsoka blindly walked hunched over through the doorway and into the inky blackness of the Dagobah night. She immediately felt a calming relief as the cooler air washed over her, easing her mind somewhat. Closing her eyes briefly to assist in the transition to darkness, she was drawn to her questions regarding the Dark side of the Force. The questions she had been armed with initially were yet unanswered, at least to her liking. She slowly opened her eyes to see the flickering of firelight from Yoda’s hovel dancing across the swampy surroundings and dissipating quickly into the encroaching blackness. She let out a slight laugh as the irony of her surroundings reflected her own thoughts, shook her head slowly and walked off into the wall of darkness.
“She’ll be alright then?” Kowani asked.
Yoda brimmed with elation. “Safe she is miss Y’mmat.” Rising to his feet, he shuffled slowly to the cookfire and reached for another small log to feed it. “Interested I am in your story, A genuine surprise it is to hear Ahsoka taking an apprentice.” He reached for a small pouch at his waste and pinched a small amount of its contents between his fingers, quickly feeding it to the fire as well.
“Not much to tell, my story isn’t much different than most I am afraid. Lost my parents to the Empire in one way or another...dead, in prison….no idea.” She shrugged. “Did what I had to do to survive at a young age I guess.” She leaned heavily upon the commonality, digesting the worth of divulging upon the entirety of her truth.
“Yes, yes, disrupted many things the Empire has, families destroyed, people lost.” Yoda spoke slowly, shaking his head with the same cadence. He raised his right hand to flatten his stringy white hair to his scalp. “Inscrutable the Emperor is.” He shook his head again, “as is his Empire.”
Kowani could not argue that point at all, the man seemed truly above reproach. “Many don't even try to understand anymore, they only do what they can to provide for themselves or their families.” Kowani added.
“Ah.” Yoda took on a more attentive expression and brought his hand to his chin in contemplation. “Destroy hope for civilization the Emperor does, instilling that hopelessness to the individual to prevent revolution.”
Kowani didn’t even give it a thought, “Precisely what I believe is happening but there is something deeper that I haven’t figured out yet.”
Yoda emitted the childish chuckle again, “Learning much about you I am miss Y’mmat. You separate yourself from most just by thinking for yourself. Understand I can what brought Ahsoka in.” He finished smiling. “As well as your connection to the force yet speak of it you seem hesitant to do. Ask something of you, can I?”
“Of course you can…. Master?” She returned, unsure how to identify him.
“Whatever your preference is.” Yoda said, the wide-eyed smile returning, briefly. “What connection have you with the force? Sense a great deal of energy within you I can.”
Kowani considered the question without speaking for a moment. “That energy is yours…. Master. I can sense the flows of force energy and at times with great concentration, redirect it.” She admitted. “I feel its currents flowing through all things.”
“Mine you say?” Yoda was genuinely curious.
“Yes.” Kowani said confidently “Perhaps it would be easier to show you?”
“Please do!”
She focused entirely on Yoda, feeling the boundaries of the force flow in and out of him, then fixated that knowledge in her mind overlaying it to the already memorized parameters of her own boundaries. She cut the flow into Yoda and directed it into her own intake. Opening eyes she didn’t remember closing, she was surprised to see the open-mouthed look of shock on Yoda’s face and thought she had hurt him somewhere in the process. With her concentration broken, the link severed, and the flows returned to their natural state.
“Miss Y’mmat, for more than 800 years have I trained Jedi and communed with the force.” Yoda spoke quickly without moving. “Almost a millennium have I lived and never without a connection to the force, until now.”
“You, of course, allowed the demonstration. With resistance it is much more difficult, but the effect is the same.” She finished with ragged breaths.
“Formidable that skill could be, training you need young one.”
“Ahsoka mentioned the same, I don’t know though, Master, she seems very hesitant.”
“A storied life that one has lived.” Started Yoda, speaking slowly, as if through time itself. He was temporarily lost to his thoughts, focused solely on Ahsoka. She truly knew nothing but strife. War and death. Betrayal and sacrifice. He re-centered his gaze upon the Mirialan, sensing a truthful intensity within her. She inwardly recoiled as Yoda’s gaze brought with it both the warmth a father’s eyes and the soul penetrating glare that begged for truth’s entirety.
Kowani found it difficult to withhold anything from the strange looking Jedi master. His mannerisms and charisma, despite his aged and weathered exterior, prompted her thoughts to expunge the totality of her past. “Master, my parents were taken by the Empire. My siblings and I were separated. Globalized occupation allowed them to ‘sort’ my people into camps. I have not heard from any member of my family in over six years.” The words, although painful, felt good to release upon someone other than herself. Kowani let her final words die off into the silence between them, fully expecting master Yoda to comment or offer sympathy of a sort, yet he remained silent. His wide curious eyes invited her to continue without prompt, and more to the point she realized, without judgment. A spark crackled within the small fire, causing the flame to burst openly with a flash of brilliance, bathing them in its glow. Yoda’s gaze remained focused and steady, Kowani’s adopting a peace and calm, eliciting a sudden wave of deeply rooted harmony with her surroundings. She felt her eyes fill with tears, knowing that the squat Jedi master was reaching out to her with the Force, allowing it to ease whatever pain the past held for her. She toyed with the idea of diverting his efforts but only for a moment, understanding taking root within her very core that the act was one of selfless guidance toward her own healing. She flushed the welling tears with a flutter of her eyes and brought her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “I don’t know what happened to any of them Master. I can only relate my own experience.” She mustered through silent sobs, “I was taken to an academy of sorts, one that catered to force users for lack of a better term.” Distant shouts cut from her memory split the silence within the hovel, blaster fire from the past sounded out over the crackle of burning logs in the fire before them both, Kowani realizing her memories were overriding her present. She felt the influx of Force energy from the master in front of her, the gentle waves washing the memories from her emotion. Kowani adjusted herself into a more stoic position, dropping her knees to the ground and crossing her legs before her while straightening her back. She steeled her own resolve to regain her lost composure and focused her mindset, devoid of feeling.
“Feel the flow of the Force young one, let it consume you.” Yoda said in a light whisper.
Kowani could not help her reaction to his words. Breathing deeply through her nose, she felt the Force within her, and for the first time in her life, relinquished her sense of control over it, letting it flow unhindered throughout her. She understood the Master hadn’t even asked her to disclose any of the details as the need to do so began to consume her. She was overtaken by a consenting peacefulness she could only liken to her days playing games with her father, composing poetic diatribes with her mother or the comfort of going to sleep at night in her own home knowing she was safe….and then she understood. She was in a safe place in the here and now, one in which she could unburden herself from memories of her past without fear.
“They made us kill.” Kowani began, “they made us kill our own.” This was easier than she had thought. “I was trained to withstand assault, both physical and mental.” She paused for a moment to assemble her next thought into words. “Then I was trained to utilize my abilities to overcome others.” That was the best way she could phrase it.
“The work of Sidious this is, not of the Empire.” Yoda finally broke his silence, eyes widening with a hint of remorse.
Kowani studied him for a long moment, sensing his comment had little to do with what she was relating and more to do with something deeper within him.
“Prevented this I could have, not strong enough I was.” He spoke. Kowani felt his presence but knew his thoughts were of a time and place far distant in the galaxy. “Underestimate the Emperor we all did.” He continued, turning his head to stare off into the dying fire. Smoldering embers remained under the hanging kettle, pockets of red and orange within the blackness of the ash. One last ember popped filling the fireplace with a shower of red sparks, like the stars in the night sky, until their own fire snuffed out and were swallowed up by the darkness outside.