Mist
taken from star wars - dark rendevous
The tiny hologrammic Dooku touched the candle Yoda had sent, turning it over in his old fingers. "I want to meet. But nobody outside the Temple must know. I am always watched, and you are betrayed more profoundly than you guess, Master. Come to me; Jai will show you the way. We will talk. I promise nothing more. I cannot think you corrupt, but even you, Master, are snared beyond your understanding. If word reaches my allies of your coming, they will stop at nothing to kill you. If they guess why you are coming, they will stop at nothing to destroy me."
His eyes came fully back into the present: shrewd and practical. "I would be disappointed if you took my invitation as a tactical opportunity. If I see even the slightest sign of new forces deploying in the direction of the Hydian Way, I will abandon my current location, and carry the war forward until droid battle cruisers burn the life out of Coruscant with a rain of plasma fire. Bring none but Jedi with you." He gave a sad, crooked smile. "There are some things that should be kept inside the family . . ."
Count Dooku of Serenno, warlord of a mighty army, among the richest beings in the galaxy, legendary swordmaster, former student, notorious traitor, lost son, flickered in front of Yoda's ancient eyes, and went out.
Yoda tabbed the lightsaber's power switch and watched the recording again, three more times. He clambered back onto his favorite rock, deep in thought. Somewhere above him, in his private quarters, messages from the Republic would be piling up: dispatches from military commanders, questions from far-flung Jedi about their various assignments and commands, perhaps a summons from the Senate or a meeting request from the Chancellor's office. He had come to know the weight of all those anxious eyes far too well. Today they would have to wait. Today, Yoda needed Yoda's wisdom more than anyone else.
He breathed deeply, trying to clear his mind in meditation, letting thoughts rise up before him.
Dooku's hands on that candle, the hum of emotion like a current, making his fingertips tremble.
Jai Maruk giving his clipped report in the Council Chamber with the charred welt of a lightsaber burn on his gaunt cheek.
Farther back, he and Dooku in a cave on Geonosis. The hiss and flash of humming lightsabers, darkly beautiful, like dragonflies, and Dooku still a boy of twenty, not the old man whispering on top of poor dead Jang's blade. Yoda's ears slowly drooped as he sank deeper into the Force, time melting out beneath his mind like rotten ice, setting past and present free to mix together. That proud boy in the garden sixty years ago who murmured, Every Jedi is a child his parents decided they could live without.
Little Jang Li-Li, eight years old, misting the orchids in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. A bright day, sunlight pouring through transparisteel panels, Li-Li making puffs of water with her mister and shrieking with laughter as every little cloud she made broke a sunbeam into colors, fugitive bars of red and violet and green. Master, Master, I'm making rainbows! Those colors hadn't come to mean military signals, yet, or starship navigating lights, or lightsaber blades. Just a girl making rainbows.
Dooku newly brought from Serenno, grave-eyed, old enough to know his mother had given him away. Old enough to learn one can always be betrayed.
Water bubbled and seeped and trickled around Yoda, time past and time present, liquid and elusive: and then Qui-Gon was beside him. It would be wrong to say the dead Jedi came to Yoda; truer would it be to say Qui- Gon had always been there, in the still point around which time wheels. Qui-Gon waiting for Yoda to find his way down the untaken path and pass through the unopened door into the garden at the still heart of things.
Yoda opened his eyes. The feel of Qui-Gon in the Force was the same as always: stern and energetic, like a hank of good rope pulled into a fine sailor's knot. Become a wave he has, Yoda thought. A wave without a shore.
Yoda tapped the handle of Jang Li-Li's lightsaber. "You saw?"
I did.
"Cunning, it is. If I move to see him, I must keep any Republic ships away from the Hydian Way. Deny the chance of peace utterly, must I, or else give him extra months unharried in his lair."
He is a fencer, Qui-Gon agreed. Leverage, position, advantage -- they are as natural to him as breathing.
"My old student -- your old Master, Qui-Gon. The truth he is telling?"
He thinks he is lying.
Yoda's ears pricked up. "Hmm?"
He thinks he is lying.
A slow smile began to light Yoda's round face. "Yessssss!" he murmured.
A moment later Yoda felt a vibration in the Force, a ripple rolling out from the student dormitories far below, like the faint sound of distant thunder. Qui-Gon shivered and was gone, as if the Force were a pool of water and he a reflection on its surface, broken up by the splash of whatever disturbance had just struck the Temple.
The tiny hologrammic Dooku touched the candle Yoda had sent, turning it over in his old fingers. "I want to meet. But nobody outside the Temple must know. I am always watched, and you are betrayed more profoundly than you guess, Master. Come to me; Jai will show you the way. We will talk. I promise nothing more. I cannot think you corrupt, but even you, Master, are snared beyond your understanding. If word reaches my allies of your coming, they will stop at nothing to kill you. If they guess why you are coming, they will stop at nothing to destroy me."
His eyes came fully back into the present: shrewd and practical. "I would be disappointed if you took my invitation as a tactical opportunity. If I see even the slightest sign of new forces deploying in the direction of the Hydian Way, I will abandon my current location, and carry the war forward until droid battle cruisers burn the life out of Coruscant with a rain of plasma fire. Bring none but Jedi with you." He gave a sad, crooked smile. "There are some things that should be kept inside the family . . ."
Count Dooku of Serenno, warlord of a mighty army, among the richest beings in the galaxy, legendary swordmaster, former student, notorious traitor, lost son, flickered in front of Yoda's ancient eyes, and went out.
Yoda tabbed the lightsaber's power switch and watched the recording again, three more times. He clambered back onto his favorite rock, deep in thought. Somewhere above him, in his private quarters, messages from the Republic would be piling up: dispatches from military commanders, questions from far-flung Jedi about their various assignments and commands, perhaps a summons from the Senate or a meeting request from the Chancellor's office. He had come to know the weight of all those anxious eyes far too well. Today they would have to wait. Today, Yoda needed Yoda's wisdom more than anyone else.
He breathed deeply, trying to clear his mind in meditation, letting thoughts rise up before him.
Dooku's hands on that candle, the hum of emotion like a current, making his fingertips tremble.
Jai Maruk giving his clipped report in the Council Chamber with the charred welt of a lightsaber burn on his gaunt cheek.
Farther back, he and Dooku in a cave on Geonosis. The hiss and flash of humming lightsabers, darkly beautiful, like dragonflies, and Dooku still a boy of twenty, not the old man whispering on top of poor dead Jang's blade. Yoda's ears slowly drooped as he sank deeper into the Force, time melting out beneath his mind like rotten ice, setting past and present free to mix together. That proud boy in the garden sixty years ago who murmured, Every Jedi is a child his parents decided they could live without.
Little Jang Li-Li, eight years old, misting the orchids in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. A bright day, sunlight pouring through transparisteel panels, Li-Li making puffs of water with her mister and shrieking with laughter as every little cloud she made broke a sunbeam into colors, fugitive bars of red and violet and green. Master, Master, I'm making rainbows! Those colors hadn't come to mean military signals, yet, or starship navigating lights, or lightsaber blades. Just a girl making rainbows.
Dooku newly brought from Serenno, grave-eyed, old enough to know his mother had given him away. Old enough to learn one can always be betrayed.
Water bubbled and seeped and trickled around Yoda, time past and time present, liquid and elusive: and then Qui-Gon was beside him. It would be wrong to say the dead Jedi came to Yoda; truer would it be to say Qui- Gon had always been there, in the still point around which time wheels. Qui-Gon waiting for Yoda to find his way down the untaken path and pass through the unopened door into the garden at the still heart of things.
Yoda opened his eyes. The feel of Qui-Gon in the Force was the same as always: stern and energetic, like a hank of good rope pulled into a fine sailor's knot. Become a wave he has, Yoda thought. A wave without a shore.
Yoda tapped the handle of Jang Li-Li's lightsaber. "You saw?"
I did.
"Cunning, it is. If I move to see him, I must keep any Republic ships away from the Hydian Way. Deny the chance of peace utterly, must I, or else give him extra months unharried in his lair."
He is a fencer, Qui-Gon agreed. Leverage, position, advantage -- they are as natural to him as breathing.
"My old student -- your old Master, Qui-Gon. The truth he is telling?"
He thinks he is lying.
Yoda's ears pricked up. "Hmm?"
He thinks he is lying.
A slow smile began to light Yoda's round face. "Yessssss!" he murmured.
A moment later Yoda felt a vibration in the Force, a ripple rolling out from the student dormitories far below, like the faint sound of distant thunder. Qui-Gon shivered and was gone, as if the Force were a pool of water and he a reflection on its surface, broken up by the splash of whatever disturbance had just struck the Temple.
