Chapter Text
*
A gray shuttle coasted low on the horizon, almost brushing the tops of the huge, coniferous forest. It circled once, then settled down to land on the snow-covered surface of a large clearing. This was Oueyjo, a small moon, home of the Oueyjo temple, one of the most isolated and ancient Jedi sanctuaries in the galaxy.
The shuttle’s hatch opened. A landing ramp descended. A boy’s voice broke through the snowy still of the surrounding trees. Rael Averross, twelve year old Jedi Padawan, whooped and hurled his small body out of the ship like a pup who had slipped his bounds.
“I thought that dumb flight would never end!”
“Odd. I had a similar feeling about your complaining.”
Dooku glided down the ramp in his wake, tucking his hands into his robe’s sleeves in a semblance of Jedi-like grace and composure. He wore his dark hair short and neat; his face was clean-shaven, though he had recently begun to entertain the idea of growing a beard. It might make him more readily distinguishable as the fully-fledged Jedi Knight that he was, and not the Padawan he was still occasionally mistaken for at the Temple.
“I wasn’t complaining!” Rael tore around the small, snowy clearing that served as the Oueyjo temple’s landing pad, determinedly frolicking. “I was being mindful of my present moment! You’re always saying to do that!”
“I see.” Dooku fought the instinctive urge to rush after his student. He knew better than that by now. He was twenty-three; having served as Rael’s Master for almost a year, he was all too aware that running after the boy would simply make it into a stupid game, a chase. He did not wish for his first appearance at this sacred, tranquil temple to be a spectacle. There was enough of that in his life already as a new teacher. No, far better to pretend that Rael’s inability to walk at his side at a measured pace like a proper Padawan was something Dooku tolerantly indulged, rather than behavior he was unable to put a stop to.
“But Master! Look at this stuff!” Rael gestured wildly at the snow. He kicked at a snowdrift crusted with ice and it burst to bright pieces. “Amazing!”
“You haven’t ever seen snow?” Dooku asked, bemused. “Not on Ilum?”
“It was all hard ice, frozen solid. Not fluffy like this!” Rael hefted a handful and squeezed. When he opened his fingers, he’d formed a small, misshapen ball. His eyes glittered like a bad little cat’s as he turned to Dooku, sizing him up. The young Master did not need the Force to know that the boy was weighing how much trouble he’d get in against the sheer, unmitigated pleasure of launching the snowball in his direction.
Dooku cleared his throat. “I urge you to reconsider that line of thought, my Padawan. Come along. We have a bit of a walk.” He left unspoken the fact that if he aimed one of those stupid things at him, he would simply use his better control of the Force to lift Rael and dump him in a snow drift. It would be easy.
Without waiting for a reply, Dooku hefted his bag over his shoulder and turned toward the path that led off into the woods toward the temple. A moment later, Rael came chasing behind him with his own bag.
Conifers closed in around the narrow trail. The woods were thick and close and quiet, but the snowfall gave the space a strange, glowing brightness. The air smelled sweet like sap and the smoky cold. The snow on the path was already deep and still falling. It reached Dooku’s thighs, which meant Rael’s shorter legs struggled to push through the drifts. It wasn't very long before the boy was lagging behind.
“Why don't they have a repulsor sled, or something?” Snow flakes melted in Rael’s curly brown hair. He tried to aim his steps so that he walked in Dooku’s footprints.
“Because this temple is designed around simplicity,” Dooku answered. “There are no droids or mechanized shortcuts; physical chores are used as a form of kinetic meditation. To get somewhere, you must walk with your own two legs. To be warm, you must build fire in the hearth. Such simple acts are sacred and important. Grounding.” He paused at his Padawan’s stricken expression. “Do you understand?”
“Oh,” Rael’s reply sounded downright horrified. “I guess.”
“Try not to be so enthusiastic.” Dooku suppressed a smile. “In truth, Rael, I came here when I was your age with Master Yoda. This is a treat. A lineage tradition. A rare chance for the two of us to take a break for meditation and rest.”
“Huh.” Rael looked down, picking his way through the drifts.
It was actually Yoda himself who had suggested this trip. He’d pointed out that the two of them might benefit from a break together. Their first year together as student and teacher had been… difficult, to say the least. And if Dooku was honest with himself, that might be putting it lightly.
Before he was Knighted, Dooku had often volunteered as an aide in sparring classes. He’d found he loved teaching, he was good at it, and he enjoyed seeing young lightsaber students begin to grasp the art of the swordplay and flourish. But it had always stung him when the youngsters were initially anxious around him. While his best friend Sifo-Dyas was being swarmed by laughing, affectionate kids, hanging off his legs and arms, the Creche children initially looked askance at Dooku with his stature and deep, dark voice.
Even he could admit, it was understandable. Besides his imposing physical appearance, he was Grand Master Yoda’s own Padawan, and already had the reputation as a lightsaber prodigy, uncommonly strong in the Force. Dooku supposed those intimidating qualities would serve him in good stead once he took an apprentice and needed to establish his authority as a young Master in his own right.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Rael Averross was not the least bit afraid of him. His response to any order Dooku gave was usually “why?” and more often, “no.” The very day he had accepted him as his Padawan Learner, Rael’s first question had been “how old even are you?” and Dooku had been too busy sputtering over the answer to think to reprimand him for his rudeness.
Even now, when the boy looked at him, Dooku had the uncomfortable sense that Rael really saw him: saw straight through to the real him, with all of his flaws and fears. Who are you? His bright brown eyes seemed to ask, insistent. And, why do you think you’re any good at this? Why should I even listen to you?
Rael Averross was difficult. When he had first considered taking him on as his apprentice, Dooku had heard it all from teachers, trainers, and Creche Masters. Brought to the Temple at five, Rael had been the oldest child taken in by the Jedi in as far back as his friend Jocasta Nu could find any record of in the Archives. A former starport urchin with all the habits, emotions, and memories of his life before the Jedi Order, he stuck out among the other children as awkwardly obvious as his brassy Ringo Vinda accent.
Willful, some instructors called him, politely, kindly. Defiant, said others, muttering. A child with a complicated history. Dooku knew there were plenty of whispers and raised eyebrows over his decision to train him: he, so young and inexperienced, and Rael, so wild and unteachable.
Only Sifo-Dyas had understood. When he’d told him of the choice, the seer’s black eyes had softened. “Of course the Force would bring the two of you together as Master and Padawan.” He smiled. “You’re exactly alike.”
Because Dooku had been a child with a complicated history as well.
The pair of them were getting better. They were. The last few missions, there had been no blow-ups, no massive miscommunications, no deliberate acting out. Dooku might not know everything yet about being a perfect Master to a pupil, but he did know that important things in life were rarely easy right away. He was starting to feel like they were finding their rhythm together at long last. That was another part of why they were here. A celebration, of sorts.
Dooku fingered the hidden pocket in the sleeve of his robe, where the obsidian bead nestled in its velvet bag. A small treasure, relatively worthless in monetary value, yet priceless to him. It was a Padawan braid adornment: elegant, sleek, and beautiful. Yoda had given it to him on this very moon, eleven years ago, when he was exactly Rael’s age. And now, on this trip, he would pass it on to Rael. Perhaps, someday, Rael might even give it to his own Padawan. And on, and on, and on…
“I’m so cold,” Rael’s voice broke through Dooku’s daydreams about his nonexistent Jedi lineage. “Is it much further?”
Dooku shielded his eyes against the falling snow. “When we get to the temple, you can change into the warmer gear we packed.” He glanced back at his Padawan, who had stopped walking and stood in the deep snow, looking at him plaintively. It was cold, and he was only twelve. Dooku tried to make his voice softer, more encouraging. “We cannot be far now.”
“Will you carry my bag?”
“No.” Dooku snorted.
“....Will you carry me?”
“Absolutely not.”
So it was that they reached the ancient temple of Oueyjo, with Dooku carrying both bags slung over each shoulder and Rael riding on his back.
The temple looked more like some strange old stave church rather than a classic Jedi ziggurat, with its steep roofs of wooden beams, and intricate carvings, mute signals over the eaves and doors. It sat nestled in the deepest part of the forest, although the snow was light here, the air damp and slightly warmer. A cloak of mist hung ever present around the shoulders of the great building. Dooku knew it was a result of the famous hot springs that dotted around the temple grounds in secluded little rocky pools. The geothermally heated water was even pumped up into the stone walls of the temple itself, to fill bathing pools and provide an extra layer of warmth from the cold of the moon.
The figure of a small, robed woman stood on the first stone step of the temple entrance. Dooku deposited both Padawan and bags in a heap, and moved to greet her.
Master Ko Shka was waiting. The Archivist wore her white-blonde hair in braids woven like a crown around her head. She was Jocasta’s dear friend and her same age, a few years older than Sifo-Dyas and Dooku, yet she had already achieved the rank of Jedi Master. She might have been on track to become Chief Librarian; her powerful Arkanian mind could memorize and process vast amounts of knowledge. But her passion was translation, not the more interaction-based Temple Archive work that Jocasta did. She was two years into moving an ancient Jedi encyclopedic tome into Basic; silent, solitary work well suited to the isolated caretaker of a notoriously remote and quiet temple.
“Welcome,” she spoke in sign language, dipping a neat bow, and then abandoned her formality to embrace Dooku.
He returned the hug gladly, without a trace of his usual awkwardness. Dooku knew Ko well from their Padawan years. Seeing her again brought back a hundred happy memories. They’d all become friends when she’d been the Instructor’s aide for one of their Ancient Languages courses, which was more than a little remarkable because if he remembered correctly, Sifo-Dyas had actually gotten both himself and Dooku expelled from the class.
“It’s good to see you again,” he signed back to her, feeling the echo of his emotion bloom, warm, in the Force. “Allow me to introduce my Padawan, Rael Averross.”
“Padawan?!” Her green eyes went wide as her hands flew through the words. “You didn’t say you had taken a Learner?”
“We’ve been training together for almost a year.” Dooku very much suspected Jocasta Nu’s gossip about his misadventures as a young Master had come to her long ahead of this visit, but Ko was doing a very polite job of pretending. He pulled Rael over and rested his hands on his shoulders; a fond gesture, but also one intended to keep the boy from immediately bolting off to explore.
To his credit, Rael nodded his head respectfully. “Thank you for having us at your temple.” He glanced uncertainly up at the looming wooden hulk that was Oueyjo. “Nice,” he added the word with his hands, clarifying. “Your nice temple.”
Ko smiled at his belated addition. “Your nice temple too now, Padawan. Many Jedi lineages choose one of these smaller temples as their line’s place to have a retreat, to heal from injury, or to mark special occasions.”
“So why does our lineage come here, and not one of the other ones?” Rael asked, as they collected the bags and moved through the heavy oak doors into the temple’s interior. Inside, the temple was so dim that it was difficult to make out the vast space of the entry hall. The place smelled cold and old, like dark smoky wood, incense, and the faint mineral tang of the hot spring water. A row of beeswax candles burning in brackets on the wall provided the only illumination.
On the way here, Dooku had made the mistake of describing some of the other of the Order’s unique, small temples to Rael - particularly the one with the secret, hidden waterfall entrance – and he detected a certain resignation in the question. It seemed yet one more disappointment associated with Dooku having chosen him as a Padawan, and not a better, more fun Master.
He actually wasn’t sure why they’d always come here specifically, but he felt like he needed to have an answer for Rael. “Master Yoda is the grandmaster of our lineage. This temple dates a very long way back in our Order’s history. Perhaps it is simply more familiar to him than the newer temples. After all, Master Yoda is very…” Dooku trailed off.
“Old?” Ko signed to Rael, bugging her eyes and making a remarkably Yoda-like face.
The boy burst out laughing. Dooku felt again the relief of having friends: funnier, kinder friends who knew how to talk to twelve year olds, even if he was still learning.
“Good guess, Dooku, but Master Yoda likes to come here because of the hot springs.” Ko explained, with an expression that made him think she was half-joking, half-serious. “They’re very relaxing.”
Relaxing. Yes. Dooku remembered his own experience of the springs as a Padawan: sitting sullenly in the hot water, bored out of his mind, waiting for something to happen while Yoda simmered like a bug cooking in one of his beloved swamp stews. It was only afterward, with the long talks and walks in the woods, the meditation together, and in no small part, the one-on-one sparring, that Dooku had realized what a gift the time together was. All of Coruscant, the Temple, the Council, the vigorous training schedule left behind. A chance to simply be and to connect. Surely Rael would come to see that too?
A glance at Rael’s face revealed mutinous undertones, as if he was going along with this threat of relaxation for now, but might at any minute make a break for their ship.
“Why don’t you give us a tour?” Dooku asked Ko quickly.
“Wonderful,” she gestured. “We can start with the kitchens.”
Dooku could feel Rael’s attention perk up in the Force at that, all bright and interested, and he suppressed his smile. Alright, if he admitted it, he was a little bit hungry too. The three of them headed toward the long stone hallway that led down toward the kitchen area.
“Ah,” his commlink signaled. Dooku glanced at the ID readout. Jocasta Nu. She would not be contacting him just to chat. “I apologize, I need to answer this.” He turned to his apprentice. “Rael, finish the tour with Master Shka and I will catch up with you. Don’t–” He had been about to forbid him from any number of his Padawan’s favorite activities, but this was the benefit of bringing Rael here to this place designed for Jedi, occupied by an old friend and with no one else around to bother. He could actually relax here and behave like the twelve year old he was. Within reason.
“...I want you to enjoy yourself, but pay close attention to the information on the temple’s history and grounds. I will have questions prepared for you when I return.”
Rael gave him a “we’ll see” sort of look that Dooku did not appreciate in the least, but his comm was still chiming and he didn’t have time for an argument. He left his student in his friend’s capable hands and ducked into an antechamber to take the call.
“Sifo-Dyas missed a check-in.” Jocasta’s audio came through before her blue hologram fully materialized into flickering shape. She sounded breathless, her voice tight in a way that let him know there was more to this than a simple breach in their standard safety protocol.
Since youth, Sifo-Dyas had suffered from visions that could range from distracting nightmares to full physical incapacitations. All Jedi life came with certain risk, but the visions added an unpredictable element of danger to Sifo-Dyas’s life in the field. When he had first made Knight and begun taking solo missions, the friends had come up with a system of brief check-ins as a safety net. Jocasta’s Archive work kept her stationed at the Temple full time; if his visions were becoming a disruption on a mission, she could easily direct backup to him.
“How long is he overdue by?”
“Going on thirty hours. He contacted me when he landed, and then again, on the second day of negotiations.”
Dooku tried to swallow down on his growing panic, clear his mind, and think. Sifo-Dyas tended to be exasperated by the check-in system; he played along with it only to appease them, with quite a lot of unnecessary eye-rolling. Could there be a simple explanation? He’d once slept through the appointed time for a check in call, and only contacted Jocasta two hours late. Another time, he’d gotten caught up socializing on a mission and lost track of the time. In spite of all the mystique of his arcane and terrible abilities, or perhaps because of them, Sifo-Dyas could be remarkably absent-minded. But thirty hours…
“There’s something else,” Jocasta tapped something on her datapad, and the hologram of her image switched to a recording. “At some point, he sent me… something, a recording, but the file was corrupted; I had to clean it up to even open it. I couldn’t tell if he’d even intended to send it, or if it was recorded accidentally. Have a look.”
The holorecording lacked audio and Dooku could see what she meant by corrupted. The image was grainy, sputtering, as if it had been interrupted in the middle of transferring, or perhaps damaged. He could make out a dim room, presumably Sifo-Dyas’s, and then just a glimpse of Sifo-Dyas himself, glancing into the holorecorder as if to check a setting, before he smeared away into static.
Dooku studied the playback again. “His eyes.” He reached out as if to touch the holorecording, the tips of his fingers passing through the image of Sifo-Dyas. “Look at his eyes.”
In a galaxy full of diverse people with striking features of all shapes and colors, Sifo-Dyas’s eyes were not uncommon: plain black, their shape curved to the eyelid, like many people from Minashee. And yet, if you knew him well, and perhaps loved him, it was easy to see how exceptional those eyes truly were. How when he was happy, they shone as wonderfully as the dark pearls that made up his tiny birthworld’s only export. How they could turn to flat, immovable stone when he was being stupidly stubborn about something.
…And then, there was that other, stranger thing that happened to them when the visions came. A small tell. A warning sign. How many times had Sifo-Dyas been still acting normally, and yet Dooku could see the darkness beginning to widen in his eyes, the whites eroding away, and knew what it meant. Knew what would come. When the visions fully took Sifo-Dyas, his eyes went completely black from pupil to eyelid.
“I see it too.” Jocasta exhaled shakily.
“Where is he?” Dooku was distracted now, already mentally tracing his forest path back to the ship, the switches he’d need to flip to start warming it up for flight, calculating the beginning of a hyperspace jump…
“Melas,” Jocasta switched the mode back to the hologram of her own worried face.
“What in hell is he doing there?” Dooku growled. The place had an ugly reputation. A former colony of a much larger system, if he remembered correctly, a backwater, but one that had turned strange in isolation. There were odd rumors about the place, a cult-ruled system of government, some bleak, horrific holonet story that he couldn’t quite remember all the details of, but which left him with a deep disquiet.
“This new hyperspace lane project.” Jocasta shook her head. “It passes close enough to their sovereign space that the Senate wanted to send a Jedi ambassador to talk through the details.” She looked up. “Dooku, do you think you could–”
“I'm leaving now. I'm already in the Outer Rim. I can get there faster than anyone you could send from the Temple.” He left unspoken the rest: that he knew Sifo-Dyas better than anyone. If he could be found, Dooku would find him.
“Go to him, but please, be careful,” she locked eyes with him, her voice firm. “May the Force be with you.”
As he hurried back into the hall, Dooku wondered if Ko Shka had sensed the disturbance, or maybe simply read the concern on his face when he took the call, for she and Rael hadn’t gone very far. He felt a deep wave of gratitude to her; out of anywhere he could have been when something like this came up, for it to be here, with a trusted friend on hand who knew Sifo-Dyas’s history, who would understand what was needed and help.
“Sifo-Dyas is missing.” Dooku told her, his hands flying through the words. “I need to leave at once.”
“Something happened to Sifo-Dyas?” Rael asked him, a rare uncertainty tingeing his usually bright presence. The boy rather liked the playful seer.
“A vision, I suspect,” Dooku said. There was no time to get into theories and speculation. He needed to go. Thirty hours missing. Soon it would be thirty one. “Ko, could you keep Rael here until I return?”
The Archivist nodded. “Of course,” she signed. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
“Thank you,” Dooku told her, meaning it deeply. “I’ll be in contact as soon as I know more.”
“What?” Rael said, belatedly, as if he just realized that “Rael” meant him, and “until I return” meant that he was being left behind.
Dooku turned and strode back the way they had come.
He made it outside, as far as the snow-covered stone steps of the temple when the sound of running feet made him stop. Rael, pink-cheeked and clutching his bag, wearing a volatile expression, like a thermal detonator clicking rapidly down toward implosion.
“I’m coming too!” He puffed.
“No, you are not!” Dooku said in a voice he knew was too clipped. His worry for Sifo-Dyas was becoming an all-consuming roar in his chest. Rael coming was completely out of the question. He needed to move swiftly, unencumbered, without the extra complication of a twelve year old, let alone one who had a knack for simply ignoring whatever he said to do. Dooku did not know what he would find on Melas, but it was not the place for a young Padawan who was barely field-trained and inconstant at best.
“I am,” Rael insisted.
“Rael,” Dooku closed his eyes briefly, fighting the urge to knead his forehead with his fingers. He did not have time for this. “Knight Sifo-Dyas needs my help. You are to stay here with Master Shka and–”
“No!” His yell echoed back off the walls of the temple.
Dooku blinked. He could see rare tears gleaming in the boy’s brown eyes. “...Yes,” he said, baffled that giving his own student a direct order would prove so impossible. He tried again, as if it might sink in this time. “You are to stay here at this temple. I will return soon. This is an emergency situation that I need to handle. Your place is here…”
“My place is by your side!”
The fierceness of the sentiment touched Dooku, even through all the worry and exasperation. He could remember that feeling. Early in his days with Yoda, feeling like he was fighting for every drop of his Master's attention and approval, just wanting to know that he was good at this new role, that he was useful and wanted. And the way that Yoda had answered that question on this very moon.
He dropped to one knee in the snow to look him in the eye. Rael was quite short for his age, and Dooku was too tall, always too tall for these things.
“Padawan. Listen to me.” Dooku slipped his hand into his robes and came out with the small velvet bag. “I wanted to give this to you at a better moment, but perhaps the Force has decided that it should be now.” He pressed the bead into Rael’s palm. “This was given to me by Master Yoda when I was your age, on this very moon. Now, it is yours.”
Rael said nothing, looking at the little bead.
Dooku wasn’t sure that this was exactly what Yoda had said to him when he himself received the bead, but he hadn’t had enough time to think about what he really wanted to say to Rael yet. He grasped for metaphor. “We use a Padawan braid to signify the woven bond between Master, Padawan, and the Force, and such beads as this one are given to adorn it, marking chapters in our journey together.” He took a breath. “You and I are just beginning, but already, we have made a strong, important commitment to each other. There will be times like this one where we don’t always understand each other, but you can look at this bead and remember that promise - to each other, to our Order, and to the Force - and trust in that connection.”
That was… fairly decent, wasn’t it? Dooku stood smoothly, dusting snow off his pants. Rael remained silent, which was unusual. The young Knight decided to take as a good sign. Perhaps he was speechless at the depth of the gesture. “We can talk further upon my return.” He added, hopeful that this would please the boy.
Dooku turned again to go and managed about five steps before understanding how wrong he was.
“I don’t want any stupid bead!” Rael drew himself up to his full height, which was not substantial. “I want to go with you and help Sifo-Dyas! I’m your Padawan!”
He threw the bead at Dooku. It winked out in the snow at his feet like a dark eye closing.
The sheer will of this child. The ferocity. Dooku watched, utterly incredulous, as Rael once again picked up his bag and moved to follow him.
But Rael was only twelve years old, just beginning to learn true control, and Dooku was twenty-three, a full, tested Knight trained in his powers by the Jedi Order’s best, and a natural prodigy at that. All he needed to do was touch the Force. The Padawan froze in place as if he’d struck up against an invisible wall.
Dooku filled his deep voice with a thunder he rarely allowed into it, a tone he had certainly never used with Rael. “You will stay! And you will learn your place!”
He whirled, his cloak snapping behind him in a swirl of snow, and headed for the ship.