"Mastery does not come with time. It comes when time no longer matters."
The sun rose again over Coruscant, filtered through the high spires of the Temple and caught in the soft golden lattice of morning mist. The Jedi Temple did not greet it with fanfare or ritual. No gongs. No salutes. Just movement—silent and measured. Forms in motion. Breath matched to thought. And time, passing like still water through stone.
Another year had begun. Quietly. But not unnoticed.
In one of the outer meditation courtyards, a barefoot child knelt in stillness beside a Loth-wolf with fur white as starlight. His eyes were closed, but not unseeing. His hands rested with intent, not stillness alone. The Temple's hum passed through him, not merely beside.
Elai is five now.
And the change in him was not just physical.
His steps no longer wavered. His rhythm no longer served control—it had become its own guide. He no longer waited for instruction—he moved with understanding, and the Temple began to move with him.
He could speak Galactic Basic fluently, his accent soft but precise. He could hold a full conversation in Huttese—though he disliked its crudeness—and had picked up a dozen idiomatic expressions in Togruti, often teasing Kcaj by answering his rhetorical questions in old ceremonial phrasing. He understood trade dialects from the Mid Rim and Outer Sectors, and could recite planetary alignments by galactic region with frightening accuracy. When he read from holos, he didn't just translate—he interpreted. Asked why a writer had chosen a particular word. Wondered what they might have meant instead.
Once, during a quiet evening session, a Knight introduced the Third Revision of the Jedi Code as a discussion point. Elai asked a question—The question held no defiance, no irreverence—only unsettling clarity, the Knight's certainty. They debated quietly for nearly a full hour. In the end, the Knight bowed their head and left the room in contemplation. Elai had not smiled. He hadn't tried to win. He simply saw that meaning was still in motion.
And the Temple took notice.
He no longer passed silently through halls once unfamiliar. Now, his presence was felt. Knights paused to watch him during kata. Masters listened when he asked. Not because of arrogance—he had none. But because his clarity left no room for pretense.
In the Form halls, his twin lightsabers struck with mirrored precision, his footing sure even in shifting ground stances. He had begun to integrate the forms into something else—it didn't clash with the Forms—it flowed through them in resonance. Something that did not mimic the Forms, but sang through them.
Other learners—some older, many taller—had begun to circle quietly around his sessions. They didn't gather to compete. Not yet, at least. Not yet. But in the same way acolytes gathered at mountain springs. To observe what moved without instruction.
And Master Coleman Kcaj, who rarely raised his voice and never gave false praise, once murmured in passing:
"He's not just learning. He's remembering something the Order forgot it once knew."
The day began—not born anew, but remembered into motion.
And in that rhythm, Elai stepped forward again.
Coleman Kcaj no longer called Elai to morning sessions.
Not because the learning had ended—but because Elai had outgrown the shape of lessons.
The teachings had already taken root: the structure of the Republic, the ebb and rise of political tides across the Mid and Outer Rims, the unspoken power held by guilds and sectors, the hidden histories not recorded in standard archives. He knew the names of every chancellor from the last three centuries, could trace the rise of the Rimward Alliances without consulting a holomap, and had read each of the twelve Force philosophies that had once shaped Jedi law—including those no longer cited by the Council.
Especially those.
The Baran Do. The Matukai. The Tyia. Even the obscure philosophies like the Disciples of the Whills and the Chalactan Adepts. He'd learned their tenets not just as curiosities, but as echoes—remnants of a larger truth that the Jedi had curated into singularity. He did not judge it. But he noticed it.
Elai did not need to be summoned anymore.
He listened to the rhythm of his own awareness.
And the mornings belonged to it.
Each dawn, before the Temple's skylights carried their filtered warmth into the high ceilings, Elai was already awake—barefoot in the soft-matted chamber that Kcaj had long since cleared and entrusted to his daily use. No distractions. No datapads. No voice giving instruction.
Only the quiet breath of the Temple and the pulse of movement beneath it.
In the far corner, his twin training lightsabers rested—smooth, balanced lengths of treated wood, polished by repeated use. They bore no power cells. No emitters. But they did not need them.
The energy came from elsewhere.
He stood still for a long moment, feet shoulder-width apart, back straight, arms at his sides. Not meditating. Listening.
Then—motion.
Right hand first. Forward arc. The first form of Shii-Cho, the Way of the Sarlacc—wide, deliberate, without flourish. It was not a Form meant to impress. It was a Form that grounded.
Then they left.
A countermeasure.
A curved step into the back guard.
It didn't guard—it anticipated.
The twin motion, practiced now to instinct, met not in symmetry but in resolution. Like two opposing questions answered with the same stillness.
Uncertainty, forged into form.
He repeated the sequence slowly, again and again—his repetition wasn't driven by haste or force, but by presence alone.
Each motion belonged fully to its moment.
No thought for the one before.
No anticipation of the one after.
When the first ray of Coruscant's sun finally kissed the upper rim of the training chamber's skylight, Elai's arms were moving as if he had never begun—only continued.
And across the room, unnoticed at first, Master Kcaj stood in the archway, arms folded.
He said nothing.
He had not come to correct.
Only to witness how the boy had begun teaching himself.
By the second month of the new year, the Temple had begun to whisper.
Not aloud. Not in ceremony.
But in quiet glances shared by knights in the archways of the training halls.
In subtle nods between Masters observing from shadowed balconies.
In the way instructors paused, just briefly, when passing an open chamber and seeing him in motion.
The whispers were not about his presence.
They were about his memory.
Not the kind stored in thought or word—but in muscle, in balance, in timing that could not be taught because it had already been lived.
They called it form memory.
And Elai had it.
Shii-Cho, in both hands.
Makashi pivots, even though no one has shown him the Form yet.
Basic sweeps and angled cuts mirrored perfectly—even when performed from reverse stance, eyes closed.
He didn't do it for praise.
He didn't echo for attention.
He moved because movement itself had begun to live inside him—like breath, like pulse, like music remembered from before he was born.
It was not mimicry.
It was embodiment.
There were no errors because he did not rely on thought. No stumbles because he didn't chase each step. He was within it, every time.
He didn't move to remember.
He moved because remembering was no longer necessary.
But even that… wasn't mastery.
It was instinct.
It was rhythm.
It was the body recalling what the soul had already known in silence.
And what came next—Kcaj reminded him softly, one morning while placing the lightsabers into his hands—would not be more perfect.
It would be a choice.
Where to cut.
When to stop.
Why to begin.
And what not to become.
Kcaj stood one afternoon on the balcony above the sparring dome, arms folded, robes catching in the wind.
Below, Elai stood alone in the circular training ring.
Two hilts in hand.
Neither blade ignited.
The lightsabers were practice-grade still—weighted, but non-lethal. Wood-core, metal-sleeved. Balanced like real lightsabers. But they hummed with silence instead of plasma.
"You've remembered enough," Kcaj said finally, his voice distant but sharp. "Now you will forget."
Elai didn't respond.
He simply shifted his stance—left foot behind, shoulders low, blades crisscrossed in front.
Kcaj's eyes narrowed slightly.
He recognized the stance.
It didn't come from the Jedi archives.
It came from instinct.
A stance born not from kata—but from walking beside a Loth-wolf.
From defending a kyber crystal.
From loss.
Kcaj nodded once.
Then turned, leaving the balcony.
He did not watch the rest.
He didn't need to.
He dropped the left lightsaber three times that week.
Not from pain.
From hesitation.
There was a difference.
Kcaj said nothing. Only watched. Occasionally adjusted the angle of Elai's foot or the line of a wrist. But he gave no praise. No correction.
Only presence.
The form came slowly.
Shii-Cho was never meant for two blades—not like this. Its wide, sweeping arcs lost balance when mirrored. Too much motion. Not enough grounding.
But Elai did not try to force it into place.
He adapted.
He removed what felt noisy.
He let stillness enter where effort once lived.
Day by day, he struck less wildly. His strikes became conversation—one hand listening, the other answering.
And still, Kcaj waited.
Late into the seventh month, Elai bled.
It wasn't dramatic.
No crowd gasped. No Master shouted.
Just the quick sting of plasma grazing skin, and a line of red drawn across his forearm—bright against his pale stillness.
It had come from a Padawan older than him by three years.
A standard rotational sparring drill. Mid-tempo. No aggression.
The older boy's arc had overextended by half a breath—barely a mistake—but Elai's correction came just a moment too late.
The strike landed.
A shallow cut.
The Padawan froze, training lightsaber still buzzing in his grip.
"I'm sorry," he said, startled—anxious, even.
"I didn't mean—"
But Elai didn't flinch.
Didn't recoil.
Didn't press a hand to the wound.
He stepped back.
Breathed in.
Once.
And turned calmly toward Master Kcaj, standing silent at the edge of the ring beneath the shadowed archway.
"I'd like to continue," Elai said.
Kcaj did not nod immediately.
He watched.
Not the wound. Not the opponent.
Elai.
Then, the faintest nod.
Permission—not for pride.
For presence.
The duel resumed.
Elai's movements were tighter now. Not cautious—clear.
Each block met its mark.
Each step struck with balance.
Not fueled by pain. Not hardened by anger.
Only refined.
When the final sequence ended and the match concluded, the Padawan bowed respectfully. Elai returned it with the same depth, then turned, stepped down from the mat, and walked—without instruction—to the med station.
He did not ask for assistance.
He cleaned the cut with still hands.
Wrapped it with simple cloth.
Then returned.
The training ring was empty now.
Only his wooden practice blades waited on the mats.
Elai picked them up.
And began again.
Ten repetitions.
His kata hadn't failed in motion—only in meaning.
His strikes were not rushed. His stance was not altered.
But this time, each breath aligned.
This wasn't penance. It was the pursuit of truth in motion.
He repeated because something in the form had not felt true.
And he had promised himself, quietly, months ago—
—to never leave a movement behind until it remembered who he was.
By the ninth month, the rhythm had changed.
The shift came—not just in breath or form—but in the silence between them.
The early days of repeating katas had long since passed. His body no longer asked how to move—only why.
And that question had begun to shape everything.
It was no longer about precision.
Not about angle or timing or the right lightsaber to draw.
It had become about placement.
About what part of the path to step into—
—and what part to leave empty.
Some called it instinct. Others might say foresight.
But it wasn't either.
It was listening.
Before a strike came, Elai was already gone.
He wasn't the quickest. But he arrived before the thought did.
But he was already standing where they wouldn't think to look.
He stopped thinking of his second blade as his offhand.
It had become its own thought.
It circled when the first struck.
Held still when the body shifted.
Moved behind him like a shadow in the wind—detached but never absent.
It didn't mirror the first lightsaber anymore.
It didn't need to.
Sometimes, it did nothing at all.
And in that nothing—there was choice.
One late session, as dusk pooled behind the Temple's stained-glass skylights, a Knight lingered by the corridor wall. He had watched the boy train a dozen times.
This time, he leaned toward his companion and whispered quietly:
"He's not learning to fight."
The other Knight, older, kept his arms folded.
Eyes narrowed slightly—not from suspicion. From awe.
"He's learning to choose."
And on the mat below, barefoot and steady, Elai turned his stance once more—
he didn't move to conquer. He moved to understand.
but to know whether this movement needed to happen at all.
In the quiet hour before the evening meal, Elai sat beside Seryth in the courtyard near the northern spire.
His twin hilts rested on either knee.
The hilts remained unlit. Their silence said enough.
Kcaj sat across from him, offering no guidance this time. Only shared space.
Just a present.
"You're not afraid of the blades," the Master said.
"No," Elai replied.
"What are you afraid of?"
Elai touched the empty air between his two hilts.
"That they'll make too much noise."
Kcaj closed his eyes for a moment.
"Good. That means you're still listening."
The final stretch of the year was not marked by sparring.
Nor was it marked by victory.
It was marked by silence.
Kcaj no longer demonstrated.
He no longer walked the circle around Elai's forms.
Instead, he stood far away—sometimes at the edge of the garden, sometimes not in the chamber at all.
Elai moved without a guide now.
His twin blades ignited less often.
When they did, it was not for drills.
It was for breath.
They danced in wide spirals across the floor, not in aggression but in attention. One hand flowed ahead, the other followed behind. Left became a shadow. Right became sun.
The old rhythm of Shii-Cho had vanished.
This was something else now.
Not a Form.
But a Voice.
In the quiet hour before the evening meal, the Temple cast long shadows through its northern courtyard. Pale light filtered between columns of stone and vine, gilding the floor with patterns like the memory of stars.
Elai sat there, silent.
Seryth lay curled at his side, head resting on her forepaws, ears flicking softly at the distant hum of Temple life. She did not speak. She did not need to. Her presence, as always, was a horizon he could touch.
On Elai's knees rested the twin hilts.
Unlit. Unmoving. Still warm from morning practice, but now they waited—not as weapons. As questions.
Across from him, on a smooth stone bench half-covered in old moss, sat Coleman Kcaj. The Master's hands were folded in his lap. His gaze wasn't fixed on the lightsabers, or the boy. It drifted somewhere between, as if listening to a silence deeper than either of them could name.
"You're not afraid of the blades," Kcaj said quietly.
"No," Elai replied.
The word came without pause. But not without weight.
Kcaj tilted his head slightly.
"What are you afraid of?"
Elai didn't answer right away.
Instead, he reached—not to either hilt, but to the space between them.
His fingers hovered there for a breath.
Then he said:
"That they'll make too much noise."
Kcaj's eyes closed, just for a moment.
A small breath escaped him—closer to relief than surprise.
"Good," he said. "That means you're still listening."
The courtyard settled deeper into its quiet.
No birds sang at that moment.
No initiates passed through the far doors.
The silence was whole.
The final stretch of Elai's training that year was not marked by the things others measured.
There were no sparring tallies.
No victories.
No new forms mastered.
It was marked by absence.
Kcaj no longer demonstrated.
No angles, no rotations, no mirrored guidance.
He didn't circle Elai's practice ring.
He didn't correct a stance or a misstep.
He simply stepped back.
Sometimes far—at the edge of the garden's overgrown path.
Sometimes not there at all.
And Elai continued.
He moved through the morning with his blades unlit.
He moved through the day as though each breath was a lesson waiting in silence.
When the lightsabers did ignite, it wasn't for a drill.
It wasn't for performance.
It was because the moment asked for them.
They didn't strike to warn or wound—they moved in rhythm's call.
Each blade traced the air like ink in water.
One led. One followed.
One danced low like a shadow.
The other lifted like the sun.
They didn't clash.
They didn't echo Shii-Cho anymore.
That form had been shed like skin.
This was something else now.
This was no stance. It was an expression.
A voice that did not speak through strikes.
But through restraint.
Through spacing.
Through stillness.
And when Elai moved, there was no triumph in it.
Only a question:
Can you hear it, too?
Master Kcaj appeared behind him—no fanfare. No ritual. Just a quiet presence, as always.
Simply there.
No footfall across the stone. No shift of robe.
Only the quiet sense of a tide returning after a long, slow withdrawal.
Elai didn't startle.
He knew.
He had felt the moment arrive before the sound.
He finished his motion—an open spiral of the right arm, the twin hilt returning to stillness in his palm—and lowered both blades to his sides.
Kcaj stood with arms folded, gaze steady, but not heavy.
He wasn't judging.
He was observing.
As if the moment, not the movement, held the meaning.
"You've stopped asking what's next," the Master said.
Elai turned to face him fully.
His breath even.
His eyes are calm.
"I'm listening now."
Kcaj nodded once—deep and slow, as though affirming something older than either of them.
"You've found what cannot be taught."
Elai blinked.
There was no pride in his eyes.
No confusion either.
Only stillness.
Like someone hearing their own echo for the first time.
"Was that the test?"
"There was no test," Kcaj replied. His voice was low, but resolute.
"There was only space to become."
He stepped forward then—not close, but near enough to gesture.
Toward the twin lightsabers.
Still. Unlit. Waiting on the mat.
"You are ready," he said, "to shape your Form."
A pause.
"Not to master the ones that came before. Not to repeat what others carved into memory. But to listen. And from that listening—speak."
Elai knelt beside the lightsabers.
His hand hovered—waiting, not for power, but for purpose.
"I don't know what it will sound like."
"That's how you know it's yours," Kcaj said.
And for the first time, he stepped away—not in silence.
But in respect.
That evening, as the Temple's lights softened beneath the coming night, Elai sat beside Seryth under the northern arch.
He said nothing.
His lightsabers lay beside him.
He did not touch them.
The Force moved through the stones beneath him, and in the wind curling between towers.
And it sang softly.
It did not sing for him—it sang beside him.
The sky above had turned from flame to indigo, and Coruscant's distant traffic hummed like a fading echo beyond the spires.
He said nothing.
His lightsabers lay beside him, cradled in soft cloth, untouched.
He didn't avoid the sabers from fear or doubt—but from a sense of wholeness already found.
Seryth stirred only once, ears flicking toward some distant motion—then stilled again, her breath slow and steady.
She understood too.
This was not a time for movement.
It was a time for remembering.
The Force moved through the stones beneath him—old, weathered, filled with countless echoes.
It moved in the wind that curled between the towers—whispering not of danger or destiny, but of presence.
And it sang.
Softly.
The Force offered no command—only companionship.
A sound without sound.
A presence without weight.
It did not pull. It did not command.
It simply was—as he was.
Elai closed his eyes.
And listened.
He didn't listen for might or mission. He listened for silence's shape.
And found it waiting, like an old friend.
[System Notice: Age Milestone Reached]
Elai — Age: 6 Years
You have walked further than most dreams at your age.
Your body follows rhythm. Your mind holds memory. Your breath moves with the Force.
"I Age again? Has one year passed already?"
"System, Show me my stat."
[FORCE SYSTEM: INITIALIZED]
Format encoded in memory structure.
Stored through resonance, not hardware.
Access: Soul-bonded interface.
[SOUL RECORD]
Name: Elai
True Name: Ashari
Age: 6 (Biological)
Spiritual Form: Phase One
[BASE STATS]
Strength: 5
Agility: 5
Endurance: 6
Vitality: 5
Reaction: 5
Intellect: 4
Perception: 4
Intuition: 4
Willpower: 5
Focus: 5
Resilience: 4
Stability: 3
Force Pool: 2
Force Efficiency: 2
Force Connection: 4
Force Sensitivity: 4
Natural Harmony: 2
While Elai was looking at his stat, a meeting was convened about him.
The Council chamber was quiet. Not in the way of stillness—but in the way of storm watchers who knew the winds had shifted.
High above Coruscant, the pale stone of the circular chamber caught the morning light filtering through transparisteel windows. The Jedi Masters were already seated—twelve silhouettes arranged in a circle, robes folded, hands calm, expressions unreadable.
But beneath that calm sat questions. Not just as a student.
Of a philosophy.
And standing at the center of the room, robed in deep folds of indigo and grey, was Master Coleman Kcaj.
He bowed once.
He didn't bow deeply. But he bowed without reserve.
Then he straightened, tall and composed, with a stillness that was never empty.
Master Windu was the first to speak. "You've been absent from these halls for nearly a year, Master Kcaj."
Kcaj inclined his head slightly. "At your direction, I took the child in. I remained close to the rhythm of his growth."
Shaak Ti leaned forward slightly. "And has he grown?"
Kcaj's eyes flicked to her. "He has done more than grow. He has become close to a Jedi Knight."
A subtle ripple moved through the chamber.
Ki-Adi-Mundi's fingers taped together once. "We reviewed the early holorecords you submitted. The boy showed aptitude, yes—but no formal instruction. No academic path."
"No Padawan braid," added Adi Gallia. "No assignment. No trials. No declaration."
Kcaj let silence answer them first.
Then: "You asked me to observe. Not to shape."
Yoda's ears twitched faintly. He said nothing yet.
"I followed that request," Kcaj continued. "And I learned something you've long forgotten."
Windu narrowed his eyes. "Enlighten us."
"He does not need shaping."
A longer silence.
Ki-Adi-Mundi. "You believe his path lies outside the Temple?"
"I believe his path lies outside your permission."
That struck. Subtle. Soft. But undeniable.
Even Depa Billaba exhaled slowly. "We are not here to debate philosophy. We asked for your judgment."
"And I offer it," Kcaj replied. "The child—Elai—no longer fits the mold because he never entered it. He learns without needing praise. He corrects his own forms by feeling where the motion turns false. He reads languages the archives misfile as extinct. He listens better than most of us have in decades."
Master Windu's voice turned cautious. "You speak as though he is already beyond the need for a Master."
"I speak as one who recognizes a different kind of flame," Kcaj said. "He does not burn because we feed him. He burns because something ancient lit him before we ever knew his name."
That made even Yoda lift his gaze more fully.
"So," Ki-Adi-Mundi said, "You would let him walk untested?"
"He is tested every time he chooses not to draw the blade when another would. He is tested every time a child whispers about him behind temple walls. He is tested every time the Force sings, and he listens rather than controls it."
"He's still only six," Shaak Ti said quietly. "He shouldn't be carrying all this."
Kcaj's eyes softened. "And yet he does. Without complaint. Without pride."
Yoda finally spoke.
"Mmmm. Different, the child is. But balance… always needed."
"He is balanced," Kcaj said. "Just not in your image."
Windu's gaze was unshifting. "Would you endorse his advancement?"
"I would endorse his sovereignty," Kcaj said. "If you ask me whether he should be shaped into a Padawan and thrust into your path, my answer is no. But if you ask whether he is walking a path the Force itself honors… my answer is already known."
"Then speak it aloud," Windu said.
"I will not tie his form to a code that was never written for him. I will not bind his rhythm to a calendar you designed for initiates who trained since birth. But I will say this: if you try to narrow his steps, you will not break him.
You will simply be left behind."
Silence swept the chamber.
A silence of judgment turned inward.
Yoda's head tilted slightly. "Long have we trained to understand the Force. Rarely, do we stop to let the Force understand us."
"Perhaps," Kcaj said gently, "it just did."
The chamber had gone still.
The tension of Kcaj's last words still hung in the air: You will not break him. You will simply be left behind.
Yet it was not defiance that followed. It was something stranger—consideration.
Kcaj remained standing at the heart of the Council circle, arms folded behind his back, robe heavy with the dust of gardens and training floors, not diplomacy. But his tone, when he next spoke, was not sharp.
It was deliberate.
Measured.
"Let me offer what I believe will serve both the child—and your concerns."
That caught the Council's attention anew.
"I will not alter the path he walks. But I will open it."
Windu leaned forward slightly. "Explain."
Kcaj nodded. "You question his foundation. His breadth. His resilience. Not because you doubt me—but because no single Master should shape a student this rare."
Shaak Ti's eyes narrowed, intrigued.
Kcaj continued: "I will not restrict him. But I will allow him to be tested. Not through trials of force or form. Through application."
He turned, looking from Master to Master.
"There are Jedi in this Order whose expertise exceeds any syllabus. Let them teach him. Not as Masters, but as mirrors. Let him learn from the best of what we are—if only so you may witness what he becomes in reflection."
A pause.
Then: "Let him walk beside those who shape diplomacy. Those who track with the Force across jungle and shadow. Let him train with those who fight not with fury—but with purpose. Those whose minds hold more history than a library droid. Those who speak ten languages not because they must—but because they choose to understand."
Ki-Adi-Mundi raised an eyebrow. "You would have us... share custody of your student?"
"No," Kcaj said, evenly. "You would have the chance to listen to him. You fear the unknown, and so I will make him known."
Yoda's gaze sharpened with interest.
From across the circle, another voice spoke—smooth, resonant, with a clarity that cut like tempered glass.
"I agree."
All turned.
Count Dooku stepped forward from a shadowed alcove, not seated like the others, but standing apart—invited to this session, but not bound by it.
Tall, proud, with the bearing of a statesman and the eyes of a philosopher, Dooku moved with restrained authority.
"Far too long has this Order bent inward," he said, gaze sweeping across his peers. "We speak of caution, of consistency, of tradition. But what I see before us is something older than tradition. A child shaped by the Force before we ever knew his name."
He looked toward Kcaj. "And a Master wise enough not to chain that shape."
Dooku's eyes turned to Yoda for a fraction longer than necessary.
"I would test him myself. Not through combat. But through presence. There is strength in philosophy. In diplomacy. In the subtleties of voice. If this boy has the makings of something beyond us, then it is our responsibility to ensure he sees what that truly means."
Mace Windu's gaze sharpened. "And what would your tests be, Count?"
"Simple," Dooku said. "Let him sit with me in negotiation. Let him witness how words can build peace—or tear it apart. Let him listen to failure. To pride. To the echo of power misused. If he breaks, he is not ready. But if he listens…" Dooku's voice lowered, thoughtful. "Then perhaps the future may not fall to those who shout loudest, but to those who hear clearest."
Another silence followed. Heavier.
But there was no longer doubt.
It was a consideration.
Possibility.
"Others may do the same," Kcaj added. "Not as his Masters. As his reflections. One month with each. No more. No less. No pressure to remain. No promise to continue. Just presence."
Ki-Adi-Mundi nodded slowly. "There is logic in this."
Shaak Ti followed. "And clarity."
Yoda looked not at them, but at the space in the circle where Elai had once stood.
"Mmmm. Many paths, the Force weaves. Wiser, we would be… to walk more than one."
He lifted his head.
"Approved, it is. Begin, it may."
Kcaj bowed once, the edges of his robe brushing the marble floor.
Dooku did not bow. But he inclined his head, gaze distant, already weighing the first of many conversations he would have with the child who did not yet belong to any of them.
But belonged more to the Force than they ever would.
The great doors of the Jedi High Council chamber whispered shut behind Master Coleman Kcaj.
He did not rush.
His steps through the Temple's high archway were as silent as the chamber had been—measured, focused, but not heavy. He moved like someone who had already considered every next breath.
The light through the upper columns caught the folds of his robe in soft silver. Ahead, the corridor opened toward the northern walk—where the oldest stones of the Temple remembered wind before durasteel.
He did not look back.
But a voice met him anyway.
"Your proposal was bold."
Kcaj paused. He did not turn immediately.
The voice needed no name.
Count Dooku fell into step beside him. Taller by nearly a head, his posture noble, his stride exacting—yet he walked without presumption. The elder Jedi's robe was darker than tradition preferred, the sleeves long and elegant, hands clasped at the small of his back.
"You disapprove?" Kcaj asked mildly.
Dooku gave a half-smile. "I admire it. But admiration does not mean agreement."
Kcaj stopped beneath a skylight where the sun touched ancient marble.
"And yet you volunteered to take him first."
Dooku inclined his head. "I did. Because I see the need. And because I wish to understand him before the others distort what he could be."
Kcaj turned now—fully facing the elder Master. His eyes were still and unblinking.
"That's why I won't allow it."
Dooku arched his brow, but did not speak.
"I will not assign him to any of you," Kcaj said, voice even. "I won't place him by hierarchy or whim—not even by intuition."
"He's a child," Dooku said quietly.
"He's more than that. And so are all Jedi—if allowed the space to listen."
Dooku studied him. "You're letting him choose."
"I'm letting him discover what to choose. He will decide what he lacks. And who best embodies what he must see."
"A dangerous experiment."
"A necessary one."
The silence stretched.
Then Dooku asked, "Will you at least tell him what's coming?"
"Yes," Kcaj said. "Tonight. Our path ends here. I have taught him all I can teach without shaping him. It is time for other voices. Other eyes. Let them offer no molds—only mirrors."
Dooku's eyes darkened—there was no threat in his gaze—only gravity.
"You understand what he may become. This is not a future the Council is ready for."
Kcaj nodded. "Then it is time they prepare."
Dooku turned away first this time, his cloak trailing slightly behind him as he moved toward the lower halls—where shadows touched the archive stair.
Before parting, he called back:
"Let him find me when he's ready. I will not soften the truth. But I will not lie to him either."
Kcaj said nothing.
But his eyes remained calm.
And he breathed, once—deeply—before walking again toward the garden.