Finally, we landed.
Oh, my dear faceless clients, how I’ve missed you.
The teacher and Zola went on a farewell bender through the cantinas.
I stayed to perform my regular duties and admire the majestic mountains rising around the spaceport.
Beautiful.
Peaks sinking into clouds, almost invisible from here.
A light ground drift and frosty freshness.
Just the thing to detach myself and get into a philosophical mood.
What a paradox — the ancestors of the Cathars are inhabitants of savannahs and other prairies.
Winter with snow is not exactly a novelty for them, but it was never long and harsh, yet I love snow and coolness.
Hmm, maybe it’s the isekai part of me speaking?
Little remains of the human in me.
I haven’t forgotten, but I don’t know, have I let go?
Yes, probably something like that.
In some ways, it’s similar to parting.
Memory is alive, but over time it becomes veiled.
Only the brightest and most emotional moments remain, and even those are recalled only from time to time.
With the years, less and less.
I always loved winter.
“Good day,” a rosy-cheeked bearded man greeted me, pushing back his fur-trimmed hood.
“Good day,” I nodded affably to the cargo recipient.
“Beautiful weather.”
“That’s true, but the day before yesterday was terrible.
It was snowing so heavily you couldn’t see your fingers at arm’s length.”
“But you can sit by the fire and listen to the blizzard.”
“Ha, you’re right there, kid,” the bearded man smirked sincerely.
“Where are the elders?”
“I’m their representative.
Mirr-ra-Mrr, you can just call me Mir, Mrr, or even Myr, supercargo.”
As experience showed, not everyone can clearly and correctly pronounce Mirr or Mrr, so I long ago give permission for mangling.
It’s easier for everyone.
“I see, sorry, your height confused me.”
“Happens,” I twitched my tail, shrugged.
“Shall we begin?”
“Yes, of course.”
“May these stupid hours pass quickly,” I mentally proclaimed a kind of mantra, setting myself up in advance for a boring pastime.
Where’s my datapad?
Well, let’s begin.
Top-top — the loader droids marched past.
Click-click — I confirmed the notification request that appeared.
* * *
“You’re a fool,” Zola sighed from the bottom of her heart and turned away.
“Wh-why?” Nemak, dead drunk, was surprised.
“All you babble about is darkness and your student!”
“But I wasn’t supposed to get angry.
Don’t you understand?
It leads to the dark side.”
“Why do you keep harping on about the dark side, the dark side?
You said yourself that you only won because of it.
So what’s the problem?”
“You don’t understand!” Nemak pounded his fist on the table.
“No, I don’t understand and I don’t want to.
So you lost your temper, it happens to everyone.
Did you become a psycho because of that?
A maniac?
Did you get the urge to kill everyone around?”
“N-no,” the knight shook his head.
“Well, then why are you moping?
I’m actually trying to say goodbye here, and you,” the girl pouted.
“Uh, well, sorry.
It’s just that this is important to me.
Very.”
“And you’re important to me.
You blockhead!”
“Wh-why am I important?” Nemak completely lost the thread of conversation and downed the strong cocktail his friend had ordered.
“Because I’m a fool,” Zola sniffled.
“Uh?” the completely bewildered Jedi blinked.
“I love you, you idiot!
You big dope!
I just went and fell in love!”
“H-how?” Nemak made an effort to comprehend.
“Well, you know, it happens to us girls.
Sometimes we fall in love.”
“Oh… yeah,” the young knight found salvation in his glass.
“Well, we’re forbidden attachments, we can’t start families, but I really like you too,” he delivered a natural speech, aided by the empty glass.
“But your stupid Code doesn’t forbid you from making love, does it?
Or are you, you know, into each other?”
“Of course not!” Nemak was outraged by such dirty insinuations.
“Then kiss me!” Zola checkmated the Jedi’s drink-fogged brain.
“Uh… well…”
“I’m not against it and I want it!” she absolved the knight’s torments.
“F-fine,” the unfortunate man gave in, overwhelmed by emotions and memories of the recent kiss even more than by the booze.
“Now I believe you’re not one of those.”
“O-one of which?”
“Forget it.”
“F-fine.”
“Let’s go dance instead.”
“Well, I’m not really…”
“I’ll teach you,” the girl cut him off, taking Nemak’s hand.
“Let’s go, please,” she added, looking into his eyes.
“Alright,” the Jedi Knight gave in, pushing away the Order’s dogmas that tried to break through the haze of feelings and alcohol.
* * *
Finished with loading, said goodbye to another bearded man, and went to grab a bite.
What awaited me was either a very late dinner or a very early breakfast.
However, such trifles didn’t matter at all now.
The image of Sensei returning arm-in-arm with Zola kept playing before my eyes.
There was no doubt I’d see the girl again — after all, she left the ship without a bag.
So the obvious conclusion wasn’t hard to draw.
That they’d be considerably merry when they returned was also expected.
But that Nemak would be openly groping and kissing her…
that almost made me drop my datapad.
If not for my meditative-detached state, I’d definitely have disrupted the loading schedule.
“Pif, buddy, disprove my assumption that our passenger still managed to get into the mentor’s bed.”
“Lie?”
“I see.
Never mind.”
Well, let’s hope there won’t be any consequences from this drunken sex.
The lady definitely won’t fly further with us.
She has business here, and we can’t delay.
For the first time, I was glad of the schedule drawn up by the treasury.
Completely not tasting the food, I wolfed down everything on the plates.
Sent the dishes into the recycler.
Estimated how much longer we could stay on the planet, and went to swing my sword.
I really don’t feel like meditating and immersing myself in the Force.
I get enough of the echoes of the emotions the teacher is experiencing.
That’s it!
I’ll train concealment.
Testing my progress and success on phantom masters is perfect.
They don’t see the world with their eyes.
If I cocoon myself properly, create a kind of shell, and then compress it, they shouldn’t react to me at all.
At the same time, I’ll detach myself from the Force.
Ha, this is a great idea.
It was high time I tried something like this — I’ve been training and still unconsciously using the gift.
Surely it affects the efficiency of body development.
I’m absolutely sure progress is slowing down.
Better use medical techniques on myself later to recover faster and boost self-development.
Yes, exactly, that will be the right thing.
The idea might have been sound, but I couldn’t simultaneously work with the sword, block the bond with the teacher, and apply a rather complex Force technique.
The first one, the body handled more or less normally through muscle memory, but everything else was a complete mess.
One thing would slip, then another.
In short, it wasn’t a training session but a session of sadomasochism.
Needless to say, by the time the teacher, who was in complete emotional turmoil, crawled out of his cabin, I was swishing my tail and bristling my fur as if I had spotted a rival male on my territory in spring?
In short, we were both in a bad mood and ended up crossing paths at the food dispenser.
“Are you leaving the Order, Master?”
“Why?”
“Jedi are forbidden to have families and children.”
“Oh, so you were engaging in perversion.”
“What do you mean?!”
“Well, I read on the net that mating is for procreation.
Sex without reason is just perversion.”
“Actually, it gives pleasure,” Nemak literally growled.
“Drugs give pleasure too,” I replied in the same vein.
“That’s different.”
“Oh really?
Want me to give you links to a couple of agencies?
They have branches all over the galaxy, they’ll pick out some toys for entertainment and…”
“Shut up.”
“…whips and stuff, masks…”
“Padawan!”
“…they also have costumes.
Mandalorian armor without pants and…”
“Shut the hell up!” Nemak hissed, but I was on a roll.
“…if you’re tired, they have all sorts of replacement gadgets for any…”
That’s when I got hit in the face.
That’s when I came to my senses.
“Forgive me, Master, I…”
“Hi,” Zola’s ringing voice interrupted me.
“You were magnificent,” the girl pecked the teacher without any embarrassment.
“I’ll go meditate,” I muttered, picking up a tray with meat cuts and fish salad.
“Go,” Nemak waved me off.
“What a pity we have to part,” my keen hearing caught, “but I understand everything and regret nothing.
You will remember me, won’t you?”
“Of course…”
Whatever they talked about next didn’t concern me.
Zola is leaving us, well, good riddance.
And I really should meditate.
I did overdo it and got hit in the face for a reason.
I saw what state Sensei was in, but no, I allowed myself to make it worse.
Fool.
I’m not a boy.
Not a stupid offended teenager who thinks everyone owes him.
Grr.
Okay, calm down.
Here we have a lot of tasty meat, excellent fish.
I’ll eat now, calm down, and then start meditating.
In short, not immediately, but I managed to come to an agreement with the inner beast.
Lately, we’ve been starting to exist separately from each other.
That’s not right.
One can live only as a whole person and nothing else.
The rest are just forms of stagnation.
The Ocean of the Great Force accepted me as its own.
Good.
Calm.
Interesting.
I dive.
I dissolve.
I perceive.
I am the Force and the Force is me.
We are one.
Closed.
A ring.
Alpha and omega.
Beginning and end.
Peace.
Not knowledge, but understanding.
Not passions, but desire.
Will, but not reason.
The snares of destinies.
The threads of probabilities.
Countless facets of future and past.
Lines of possibility and branches of the missed.
No need to think, no need to reflect, no need to cognize.
Discard everything.
Here nothing matters and every little thing is incredibly important.
It is enough just to see, hear, smell, and touch.
Simply to be.