I couldn't deny I felt like a fool in some ways for refusing Padme, but I'd made my choice and intended to stick to it.
Padme made as if to move closer despite my words, but I went over her head in one great bound and landed like a cat on the opposite side of the clearing perhaps twelve or thirteen meters away. She turned in my direction with one hand outstretched, and a pleading heartbroken look of anguish twisting her lovely features.
...
The look on her face twisted a knife in my chest. In both of my lives I remained a man who hurt for hurting a woman. It might be anachronistic nonsense to some, but I'd been raised the first time around to believe causing a woman undue pain to be one of the worst offenses a man could be guilty of.
Seeing Padme's devastation was intolerable enough I bowed my head, but nevertheless shook it firmly as I did so and held up a hand with my palm up to forestall and go on refusing her.
The throaty, almost manic laugh in an entirely different feminine register caused my head to snap upward. On the opposite side of the clearing stood a pale blonde woman a little taller than Padme.
One with considerably more lean muscle in the arms exposed by her sleeveless red shirt, and the carriage of one trained to use their body as a weapon. Harlequin-like tattoos ran upward and down past sulfurous yellow eyes marking her as a Dark Sider, but she posture was relaxed as she continued observing me.
A pouting expression on her admittedly beautiful face making her seem like this was all just a round she'd lost in a grand game.
I knew her at once, of course. Feeling sickened by being taken in during one of Darth Zannah's twisted games.
"Funny you should mention madness, Maybe-Vader-Someday-Later. I so very nearly had you. Mind telling me what vagary of the Force allowed you to escape my grasp at the last moment?"
Zannah drawled with all the confidence of a Dark Lady who'd ended more men with feminine wiles than she ever had with the Dark Side or a lightsaber.
Packing away a dying dream without allowing anything to show on my face, I quietly replied "Just some good advice I was smart enough to take."
Nodding as if this made perfect sense, Darth Zannah eyed the red cracks forming in our immediate surroundings, sighed dramatically, then tossed off a mock-salute and a jaunty wave.
"See you on your darkest day, Skywalker" The echo of the Sith's voice followed me, as I once more tumbled into endless night.
...
I dropped into a crouch as my feet touched down. Hand coming to rest on my lightsaber, and the hope that something would be stupid enough to give me a reason to start cutting kindled in my heart.
Zannah had wounded me, because she'd come at me by way of a weakness I couldn't eliminate. I was man enough to admit her deception had cut me deeply. It simply didn't make it hurt any less.
The room resolved into the center of the Room of a Thousand Fountains. It's great waterfall a muted roar as it fell into a pool feeding several river-like channels which wound round the central stone platform I stood upon and between the many rows of exotic plants and flowers planted in eye-pleasing configurations.
All of it framed the many different kinds of fountains about the platform's perimeter beneath a ceiling disguised by holograms to look like the sky.
A masterful mixture of the crafted and the natural, the room's heart was one of the most peaceful and spiritually refreshing locations I had ever encountered.
For a change, I spotted a shimmering disturbance in the air low to the ground before one of the benches around the edge of the circular platform. It was very much like a heat-distortion, but only lasted for two or three seconds.
When it was gone, Ferus Olin stood directly in front of the bench. His arms were folded across his chest, and his dark brown eyes were fixed on me.
A look equal parts disapproval and disdain twisting coldly handsome features many stone-cutters would be happy to take responsibility for creating.
The gold-streaked dark brown hair which was his most visually distinctive trait the only thing which differed from the last time we'd met. It had grown out fully, so he now looked every inch the holo-novel depiction of a Jedi Knight.
Ferus's mere presence was enough to stoke my anger in the wake of Zannah's emotional manipulations. He didn't need to say a word. His existence was to me a representation of every negative I'd experienced as part of the Jedi Order.
The fact that he was also the protege of the very High Council member who wanted me expelled from the Order just made things worse. Finally, the tall and perfectly proportioned Jedi Knight embodied all the inertia and resistance to change I would have to overcome to bring real reform to the Order.
Never had a more by-the-book, follow the rules to the detriment of mission goals intended to accomplish good Jedi ever existed. Which only made his popularity throughout the Jedi ranks, and his reputation as an effective Jedi Guardian even more of a mystery to me.
It was surprisingly difficult to rein my anger in. I was forced to work my way through a centering exercise.
All the while minding my breathing and keeping it even as I reclaimed the larger part of my emotional equilibrium. Pain and frustration still lurked in the deeper recesses of my being, but the mere sight of Olin wasn't goading me to do something rash anymore.
Ferus tried to upset my regained balance immediately. Judgmentally clucking his tongue, as he looked me up and down, shook his head slowly, then dismissively observed "Anakin Skywalker, improve the Jedi Order? What could a self-righteous outsider lacking any respect for the Order's ways possibly hope to contribute?"
"A methodology which uses facts, statistics, and the scientific method to determine if a proscription, policy, or secondary article of the Jedi Code remains effective in upholding it's purported reason for existing?
How about a reexamination of the present points of emphasis in Jedi philosophy, with an eye to determining if veneration for this or that luminary from antiquity has prevented their take on things from being considered critically, if that first point isn't to your fancy?"
I retorted a bit more acerbically than I'd wanted to. My blue eyes met Ferus's brown ones, and our gazes remained locked as he scoffed.
"That's just like you, Skywalker. Presuming without the slightest basis for such a presumption that a Jedi Master you never met was just as likely to be wrong as right.
Your self-centered arrogance is a thing of immense proportions. Making you unfit to even be a Jedi. Let alone someone in a position to remake what you hardly understand"
The broad-shouldered Knight retorted assertively. His eyes bored into me, and his expression made it clear he had no doubts about what he was saying whatsoever.
If Ferus thought this would aggravate or unbalance me, he was in for a surprise. My passion and zeal for improving the life experience of each Jedi who committed so much of themselves to the common good was one of my better qualities.
It was a dream which inspired me to be better than I was, because it used my own negative experiences as a spur prompting me to protect other young Jedi from going through what I had.
"The Jedi Code and the vast majority of the Order's current rules are the fruit of this or that Jedi Master's unsupported opinion, Ferus.
There were never any facts to suggest that the Jedi Order subordinating itself to a government which has been more corrupt than not for the majority of it's existence would be in the interests of either the people or the Jedi.
On the contrary, there is a ream of evidence declaring the point we Jedi became more concerned with the will of the Republic than the will of the Force as when everything really began to go wrong.
The Republic has always been a mess, but it's the best anyone can do for a government.
Our forebears knew we had to either be the ones running such a flawed regime, or limit ourselves only to cooperating with the government from the outside.
Yet instead of examining our present circumstances, then comparing them qualitatively to other alternative configurations of operation the Order has employed at different times to see how our current methods stack up, the High Council simply defaults to assuming the current way is the right way.
Let tradition dominate until some cataclysm causes such an outcry among the rank-and-file that the Council is left with no choice except change, being the order of the day!" I declared with passion and the unwavering conviction born of truth.
Ferus's lips drew back in an offended grimace as he stared at me with something akin to revulsion. "You wonder why you've never been truly accepted, and why you never will be. Dress it up however you wish, Gray, it amounts to rebellion against the teachings and ways of the Order. You're not a Jedi, Anakin.
Just another powerful Force-sensitive who thinks his way is the one true path to a galactic paradise. It will be less than the blink of an eye, before you begin justifying the use of violence against those who disagree with you.
All for the greater good, of course. For someone who styles themselves a student of history, this is an incredibly large blind-spot you possess."
It was maddening dealing with this man. Not just in his own person, but due to the unthinking worship of the status quo he was a symbol for.
The galaxy was on the brink of a conflict all set to be worse than the Clone Wars, and this arch-traditionalist had no questions or doubts. He would have died surprised by mind-controlled clone treachery, if not for my intervention, but to him, I was the problem.
...
Hey guys can you throw some power stones to Elevate the ranking.
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