"To walk forward is not to leave the path.
It is to find where the path becomes many."
The morning was quiet, but not still.
Coruscant's light filtered through the high stone slats of the meditation garden just off the northern spire, where moss and polished stone drank in the hush of early sun. The Temple above hummed faintly, as if exhaling from deep within its walls. Birds flickered between distant rafters. Far below, speeders crossed in silent lines, their motion distant and unintrusive.
Elai stood near the center of the garden, bare feet pressed into warm stone, his twin hilts set gently on the mat beside him. Seryth lay under the silverleaf tree nearby, awake but motionless—watching.
He felt it before Kcaj arrived.
The air shifted.
The Master approached without sound. His robes barely moved. His expression was unreadable—serene, but something deeper hid behind the lines of his brow. He did not speak at once. He merely stood across from the boy, hands folded behind his back, and watched Elai finish a final form: a slow, spiraling motion of the left arm that ended with a turn of the head, as if listening to something behind.
"Elai," Kcaj said.
The boy stilled. He turned, not startled.
Ready.
"Yes, Master?"
Kcaj stepped forward. He did not sit.
"The Council met yesterday. They asked for a formal update on your training."
Elai didn't reply, but his shoulders drew subtly straighter.
"I gave it," Kcaj continued, "but that wasn't the end of the conversation."
He circled slowly, not as a predator, not as a teacher—just as a thought in motion.
"They've watched you grow for nearly two years. From the child who arrived barefoot with a soulbound crystal… to the one who speaks five languages, memorized seven hundred forms, and built silence into strength. But knowledge is not the same as knowing."
Elai's eyes stayed steady.
Kcaj stopped before him.
"And I am not the only one you can learn from."
The pause was not heavy. It was respectful. As if the Master waited for Elai to understand before continuing.
"You are ready to begin something different," Kcaj said. "A path not of foundation—but of refinement. Specialization. Application."
He let the word sit in the air.
"There are skills I do not have. Others do. And they've agreed to teach you—if you seek them with purpose."
Elai frowned faintly.
"Who?"
Kcaj gave a faint smile.
"That is your task. You must ask. Watch. Choose. Every Jedi leaves an echo in the Force… but not all teach the same song."
Seryth blinked slowly from the shade. Her tail twitched once.
Elai's voice was quiet.
"So you're not my Master anymore?"
Kcaj knelt—suddenly, fully. His presence folded downward, not diminished, but made level.
"I never was," he said gently. "I was your witness. Your first breath in this place. But not the one who'll carry your voice forward."
Elai's throat tightened slightly, though his eyes remained calm.
"Do I come back?"
"Yes," Kcaj said. "But not to train. Only when you are ready to teach me."
A breeze passed through the garden.
The boy looked down at the stone beneath his feet. Then back up at the only teacher he had ever truly known.
Kcaj rose.
"One more thing. Count Dooku was present yesterday."
Elai didn't react. But something in the way he still suggested he already understood the weight of that name.
"He was… interested," Kcaj said. "He requested to be first. And I accepted."
Elai looked away—just for a moment.
"Will he test me?"
Kcaj nodded.
"Yes. And you will learn. Not just from him—but about him. Every Master you meet will leave something behind. Some will show you what to become. Others will show you what not to be."
He placed a hand briefly on the boy's shoulder. It wasn't a command, nor a goodbye. Only truth, placed gently on his shoulder.
"The Temple doors are open now, Elai. Walk carefully. Listen deeply. Learn not just what they teach… but why they teach it."
Elai closed his eyes, just once.
Then opened them.
"I understand."
"No," Kcaj said, with the faintest trace of warmth.
"But you will."
The Temple did not echo with the news.
It breathed it.
From the lowest archive alcoves to the outer spires where the wind howled between meditation towers, the knowledge passed. The knowledge passed not in records, but in glances. Through brief conversations half-halted at hallway corners. Through the stiller silences between lightsaber drills. Through the questions younglings weren't supposed to ask.
"Elai isn't with Master Kcaj anymore?"
"Is he in trouble?"
"No. I think… he finished."
"…Finished?"
Younglings of the Bear Clan gathered near a reflection pool where, only weeks earlier, Elai had knelt with them during philosophy studies. Their instructor, a Mon Calamari Knight with a gentle voice and strict eyes, answered the questions with careful neutrality.
"Master Kcaj believes Elai has reached the edge of what he can offer. The Council has permitted him to learn from others."
"But why just him?" asked a small Togruta girl. "Why don't we all get to train with different Masters?"
There was no answer.
A few looked toward the entry steps, where older Padawans had gathered in tight formation after lightsaber drills, their tunics dark with sweat, their conversations quieter than usual.
"He's not a Padawan," one murmured.
"Not yet," another replied. "But you've seen the way they look at him. The Masters. The Knights. He walks like he already is one."
A pause.
"Do you think he'll get to choose who trains him?"
"He always chooses. Even when he listens, it's like he's the one doing the teaching."
In the Archives, beneath ancient pillars where light fell in soft shafts between stacked tomes, two Archivists exchanged a hushed conversation over a scroll Elai had once annotated.
"It's unprecedented," said the older one, a human with white streaks in his beard. "Even the chosen ones had never been guided like this—shared, not stationed."
"The Council didn't oppose it."
"No. But that doesn't mean they weren't shaken by it."
He gestured toward a long scroll case.
"Kcaj trained him differently. It wasn't the curriculum that shaped him. It was a presence. Now they want to see what happens when presence meets pressure."
"Or perhaps," said the other, "they want to see if he breaks."
—
Far above, in the Council Tower, the mood was less speculative. It was heavy.
Yoda sat near the center of the curved chamber, his hands resting upon the armrests of his seat, his ears lowered slightly in thought. Across from him, Mace Windu stood by the window—arms folded, gaze far beyond the skyline of Coruscant.
"He will not be the same after this," Windu said quietly.
"None are. From shadow to shadow, a mark, each step leaves." Yoda replied.
"He doesn't have a Master."
"Many, will he have, now."
"And none will claim him."
Yoda tilted his head.
"Claiming is not our way."
Windu turned fully.
"But shaping is. We guide, Yoda. He's learning without guardrails. Kcaj gave him space to breathe—but now he walks among storm winds."
Yoda's eyes half-closed.
"Tests, storms are. The river's song—less clear, it is not, when it meets stone.""
"You're poetic today."
"Poetic, the Force is."
There was silence between them—heavy, but not contentious.
Then Windu added, "I'm not opposed to what Kcaj suggested. But I am wary of what it will invite."
"You fear Dooku."
"I watch Dooku."
—
And Dooku, far below the Council spire, walked slowly along the polished training halls, flanked by no one. His cape drifted like slow ink behind him. His eyes, sharper than most gave credit, caught the shift in atmosphere without effort.
Knights bowed when they passed him.
Some younglings stilled mid-conversation.
The Temple felt like it was leaning inward.
He approved.
In his private chamber, Dooku sat before the flame of a quiet burner and watched the recording once more. Elai's duel with the older Padawan. The absence of fear. The rhythm of his breath as he bled, and chose to continue.
"He does not move like one of ours," he murmured.
Then he smiled, just faintly.
"Which is why he may survive what we do not."
—
In the Temple's lower garden, Master Luminara walked with her Padawan, Barriss, along the stone trail beside the meditation fountains.
"Elai will be trained by others now," Barriss said, unsure whether it was a question or statement.
Luminara nodded.
"He will see many truths. Some will contradict."
"Will that harm him?"
"No.Only if he listens.."
Barriss hesitated.
"Should I do the same?"
Luminara's gaze softened.
"You are not him. And that is not lesser."
—
Whispers moved through the Temple like mist.
"He'll ask Master Nu for the archives."
"Too traditional."
"He might go to Master Tiin. lightsaber flow."
"What about Depa? She taught in the outer sectors. She'd understand him."
"Maybe he'll choose someone no one expects…"
—
And beneath it all, in a quiet room where the windows let in the slow golden turn of Coruscant's daystar, Elai sat with Seryth.
He said nothing.
She did not need to.
The Temple waited.
And the next step would not be given.
It would be taken.
Elai walked.
Not to reach anything.
Not to find anyone.
But because the Temple itself seemed to wait for him to move before it could breathe again.
He walked barefoot, as he always had, the soft tread of his soles barely touching the polished stone corridors. Seryth followed at a quiet distance—not as a guardian, but as a presence. Unspoken. Steady. Watching as much as walking.
It was the third morning since Kcaj had told him.
"You'll walk among other voices now. But no one can choose which ones matter."
And so he walked.
Through the training halls where the smell of sweat and wood lingered after sparring drills, where a Mirialan Knight paused mid-swing with a Padawan to glance over. When Elai's steps slowed at the doorway, the room quieted. The quiet didn't come from authority. It came from presence.
He stood there a moment.
Watching.
Listening.
Then turned without entering.
The Knight lowered his blade.
The Padawan whispered:
"Did he see something?"
—
In the Archives, Elai passed rows of whispering knowledge.
Master Nu wasn't present. But three archivists paused in their restoration work when Elai's shadow crossed the threshold.
He stood before a glowing holomap of ancient Force traditions.
His eyes lingered on the sections dimmed by the Council—non-Jedi paths long archived, rarely studied. The edges of the map flickered with forgotten names.
One of the archivists, older and quiet, watched the boy's expression shift. His expression didn't twist with doubt. He was listening, deeply.
Then Elai moved on.
And the archive felt just a little dimmer behind him.
—
At the Temple's east courtyard, where lightsabers met stone in open sparring matches, Elai stood beneath the broad arches and watched two Knights duel.
They didn't stop.
But their rhythm changed.
The older one—a Zabrak with precise form—lost his center line. His footing slipped.
Because Elai wasn't watching the blades.
He was watching the space between them.
After a moment, he stepped away.
And the younger Knight lowered her lightsaber slowly, almost reverently.
"He sees what we miss," she said under her breath.
—
He passed by a quiet meditation garden.
Master Luminara was seated among the younglings, guiding a slow circle of breath and movement.
Elai stood in the shade of a flowering tree.
Didn't speak.
Didn't interrupt.
And yet, Luminara's eyes opened.
Just for a moment.
Their gazes met—teacher to someone else's student, seer to one who listens too deeply.
She inclined her head.
Elai returned it.
And moved on.
Her Padawan, Barriss, looked between them.
"What did he want?" she asked.
Luminara smiled faintly.
"Nothing. That's how you know it matters."
—
By the fourth circuit of the Temple, whispers had grown thicker.
"He's not looking for strength."
"No—he's looking for what strength listens to."
A Rodian Padawan followed him at a distance for nearly half a hallway, just watching.
When Elai finally stopped in front of a large training chamber, where Master Shaak Ti taught breathing forms to a group of older initiates, he stood there for longer than usual.
Shaak Ti looked up once, and met his gaze.
And smiled—but did not call him in.
He watched as the group moved like waves, like wind.
Then turned.
Shaak Ti's expression did not fall.
But the one closest to her—an attentive human Padawan—noticed.
"Did you want him to join?"
"I wanted to see if he would," she replied.
—
At the fountain near the Council's Hall, a pair of Temple guards stood silent.
Elai passed them, and though they did not move, something shifted behind their visors. A flicker of awareness. One reached a hand to their staff—but not in threat. In reflex. Like a response to a current they could not name.
Elai paused at the fountain.
His eyes met the water.
He didn't seek his reflection—he watched for the stillness to break.
When it didn't, he turned away again.
And for the first time in many days, one of the guards spoke.
"I've never wanted to take off this helmet before," he said quietly.
"I wanted to see what he was looking for."
—
Later, in the high walkways of the meditation spire, Master Yoda stood quietly at the edge, watching the sky.
Wind curled around the building.
Footsteps approached from behind.
Mace Windu.
"He still hasn't chosen," Windu said.
"No. Chosen, not yet," Yoda murmured.
"He's walked the whole Temple."
"Yes."
"And left without speaking to a single Master."
Yoda turned his head slightly.
"Because he speaks already. Loud, it is. Not in words. But in waiting."
Windu frowned.
"He's unsettling the others."
"Unsettling, yes. But not unbalancing."
"You're sure of that?"
"No," Yoda said, finally turning to look directly at his old friend.
"From those who follow the lines, balance does not always come."
They both turned their gaze downward.
Far below, a child and a white wolf walked into the shadows again.
He didn't vanish into shadow. He stepped into it to see more clearly.
It had been days.
Days of quiet feet, wandering steps, and curious glances.
Elai still hadn't chosen.
He passed the same halls, the same Masters, the same watching eyes. He wasn't wandering. Nor was he resisting. He was simply waiting. As though the right moment would unfold not from thought, but from something deeper. Something felt.
And the Jedi Temple, for all its silence, had begun to murmur.
Questions spread.
Would he choose Master T'ra Saa, whose presence moved like roots through the Force—able to feel the grief of lost children across whole systems? Or Adi Gallia, who had spoken of diplomacy as an extension of listening? Or perhaps Shaak Ti, whose serenity was a form all its own?
Each Master had noticed him pause outside their chambers. Each had sensed that moment of stillness. Each had wondered.
But no door opened.
No voice called.
Because Elai had not knocked.
Until this morning.
Count Dooku watched him from the upper level of the archive rotunda, long fingers clasped behind his back, cloak still as midnight stone.
Elai stood below, unmoving, gazing up at an etched star-map. He looked not like a student seeking knowledge, but like someone searching for a place to fall into.
Dooku descended quietly. His steps made no sound against the marble. He stopped at a pace beside the child and lowered his voice—not cold, not distant, but thoughtful.
"You do not lack discipline," Dooku said.
Elai looked at him.
"You do not lack instinct either. So I wonder... Why the confusion?"
Elai did not answer right away. But his eyes, steady and unafraid, met Dooku's own.
"I don't know what the Force is asking me yet," Elai said simply.
Dooku tilted his head. "Do you believe it must always speak?"
"No," Elai replied. "But I know when it hasn't yet."
Dooku smiled faintly, something more genuine than most had ever seen from the elder Master. He gestured for Elai to follow, and together they stepped toward the garden courtyard just past the archive wing.
They walked in near silence, the older Jedi's presence like a slow tide. Measured. Deep.
"I've watched you," Dooku said. "So has everyone else. But where others wonder who you'll choose... I wonder what you're still listening for."
Elai looked ahead. "It doesn't feel like a blade. Or a lesson. Or a code."
"Then what does it feel like?"
Before Elai could answer—
The silence shattered.
A loud clang echoed from down the hallway—followed by bickering.
"—I told you the rotation coupler needs a full decoupling cycle before you reseal the conduit—"
"Oh, and you're the engineer now? Maybe I should just step aside and let you patch the dorsal stabilizer with tape."
"Anything's better than your soldering, tinhead!"
The voices belonged to a gruff mechanic with oil-stained robes and a squawking protocol droid juggling a datapad, a hydrospanner, and what looked like a broken stabilizer module.
Elai's head turned.
Sharp.
Drawn.
Dooku raised a brow.
"Elai?" he asked.
But the boy was already stepping away.
His feet carried him toward the sound like the pull of gravity itself.
The mechanic looked up as Elai approached, eyes narrowing. "Uh... kid? This area's off-limits."
Elai didn't seem to hear.
He was already crouching slightly beside the droid, tilting his head, examining the tool in its hand.
"You're calibrating for class-seven engine cycles," Elai said calmly, "but that stabilizers from a freighter that runs cold-core venting. You'll overload the feed."
The droid blinked. "I told you!"
The mechanic stared at him. "How do you know that?"
"I saw it in the dock bay three days ago," Elai said. "And I listened."
He turned.
"I want to learn from you."
The mechanic blinked. "Wait—what?"
"I want an apprenticeship," Elai repeated. "With you. Or your supervisor. Whoever can teach me."
"I—look, kid, I'm not a Jedi," the mechanic said. "I fix ships. I yell at droids. I drink bitter caf."
"I don't care," Elai said. "You build things that carry people. That brings them home."
The mechanic turned to the droid.
"Do we tell the Council or…? He's not supposed to be here, is he?"
"I recommend we escalate," the droid said primly. "Immediately."
The mechanic scratched his head. "Right. Yeah. I'll talk to Bakar—he's head of technical oversight. He's gotta tell the Council. 'Cause, uh... I'm not signing off on training a Jedi."
Elai bowed faintly.
And walked away.
Not embarrassed.
Not uncertain.
Just... sure.
Dooku stood at the archway still.
He had not followed.
His expression was unreadable.
But he exhaled through his nose once—softly. Not in frustration.
In amusement.
And perhaps, a hint of respect.
Back inside the mechanic's office, the technician stared at his datapad.
"He asked for an apprenticeship," he said again.
Supervisor Bakar looked up slowly, brow raised. "A Jedi child?"
"He wasn't a Padawan—yet he asked without posture or claim. Just intention."
Bakar rubbed his chin. "Then we ask the Council."
"Think they'll approve?"
"I think they'll want to know why they didn't think of it first."
The datapad arrived wrapped in mundane layers.
No emergency stamp.
No red seal.
Just a quiet courier droid entering the wing reserved for senior Jedi Masters, and an administrative aide delivering a short message to the chamber of Master Depa Billaba.
She sat alone at the wide arched window, hands folded behind her back, breath slow. Light from the late morning streamed in through the high transparisteel panes, coloring her dark robes in pale gold.
"From the maintenance wing?" she murmured, not even turning.
The aide blinked. "Yes, Master. Request from Chief Technician Bakar, marked non-urgent but flagged with restricted routing—level three."
Depa held out her hand without rising.
The datapad floated into her palm with a flicker of the Force.
Her brow furrowed slightly as her eyes scanned.
Then lifted.
Then narrowed.
Then — stillness.
She read the message again.
Not because it was unclear.
But because it was so clear, it made no sense at all.
Elai — the child of no world, the survivor of the unknown, the boy who had grown like moss and flame in the quiet tutelage of Master Kcaj — had requested apprenticeship under a ship mechanic.
No Knight. No emissary. Just a man with oil-stained robes and callused hands.
Depa rose slowly.
She turned toward the interior of her chamber and began to pace, datapad cradled in one hand, fingers lightly tapping the edge in thought.
Elai had been the center of curiosity for almost two years now. Few children stirred silence in the Council chamber as deeply as he had. And fewer still walked past the paths laid for them.
But this was different.
He had not requested a mentor to guide him through battle forms or scholarly archives.
He had asked for a man who fixed ships and cursed at droids.
Depa sat once more — but this time at her low table, the datapad resting before her like a riddle.
"This wasn't a rejection.," she said aloud, as if answering a question that hadn't been asked.
It wasn't defiance.
It was focused.
She remembered watching him once, months ago, when he meditated during a storm in the southern courtyard — sitting in the rain as though the water taught him more than the halls ever could.
She'd dismissed it then as sensitivity.
Now, she saw it differently.
A knock sounded at her door frame.
It was Jocasta Nu.
The Temple Archivist didn't enter. She simply stood with her usual expression — curious and busy all at once.
"I heard there's a strange request making the rounds."
Depa tilted her head.
"So it's already whispering?"
Nu smiled faintly. "The Temple whispers about everything."
Depa slid the datapad across the table.
Jocasta picked it up.
Read it.
Then blinked — once, deeply — and sat down without asking.
"You know," she said, "I remember when we refused a Sephi girl admission to the archives because she insisted on shadowing our slicers instead of our librarians. She said slicing was a language no one listened to."
"And what happened to her?" Depa asked.
"She's a systems analyst for the Senate's emergency response grid now. Not a Jedi. But she's saved more lives than half the generals we sent to the Outer Rim."
Depa leaned back slightly.
"He's not a Padawan."
"Yet," Jocasta said, quietly.
"But he walks like one. Lives like one. And now he's asking us for the one thing we say we train all Jedi to do."
Depa arched a brow.
"To follow the Force."
Silence followed that sentence.
But not an empty one.
A full one.
Jocasta passed the datapad back.
"He's not confused," she said. "He's listening. I wonder how many others would do the same if they thought they were allowed to."
Depa Billaba looked again at the words.
It wasn't a step upward. It was a step sideways—toward something truer.
Just—
Requesting apprenticeship with Technician Haro.
A boy who had fought with wooden blades for nearly two years, who moved like water and shadow, who knew peace before aggression, and clarity before action…
…had asked to learn how to repair what others left broken.
She rose.
The datapad remained on the table.
"We don't need a vote yet," she said, voice distant.
"But we'll need a new question."
Jocasta stood as well. "Which is?"
Depa Billaba looked out toward the garden spire.
"What if the Force doesn't want to be wielded?
What if it wants to be understood?
One piece at a time."
The morning hangar still smelled like coolant and weld-scars.
A low buzz from hovering lifters shimmered in the filtered air, but most of the crew hadn't arrived yet. The skylights above—long panes choked with carbon streaks—let in fractured light, casting the workshop in angled slashes of gold and gray.
Technician Haro stepped in through the side gantry, coffee in hand, datapad slung under one arm.
His boots paused on the threshold.
Someone was already here.
Small frame. Still.
Sitting cross-legged atop a grounded refueling crate like it was a meditation stone.
Barefoot.
Robes simple but neatly arranged, posture precise.
The boy.
Elai.
No one had brought him. There were no escorts. No Knights hovering near. No droids trailing behind.
Just the boy, seated in perfect quiet, looking not at the tools or the ships—but at the open engine of a partially stripped transport in front of him, as if it were a scripture.
Haro said nothing.
He didn't move closer.
He just stood, blinking.
The child didn't fidget.
Didn't react.
Didn't greet him.
Only observed.
Not the room, but the silence of it.
A plasma cutter clicked somewhere in the back, triggering its auto-warmup cycle from a night setting. Elai didn't look away.
His head tilted just slightly as a light breeze filtered down from the venting ducts above. Dust drifted through the shaft of morning light that crossed his shoulder. He blinked once, slowly.
Still didn't move.
Still didn't speak.
As if he had always been there.
As if the hangar had been built around him.
Haro stepped inside, slower now. Set his coffee down.
He didn't announce himself. Didn't know if he had to.
He simply walked to his workstation, began pulling tools into their racks, boots scuffing the floor like an echo too loud for a cathedral.
The boy said nothing.
He wasn't watching Haro.
But somehow, Haro still felt observed.
Not judged. Not questioned.
Witnessed.
The child wasn't eager.
He wasn't impatient.
He was simply... waiting.
And Haro, for reasons he couldn't explain, found himself placing the broken stabilizer core more gently onto the bench than usual—like he was already being tested for something no one had told him about.
He didn't understand it.
Not yet.
But he knew, without words, that something was beginning.
And that maybe—for the first time in the hangar's long, noisy history—he might have to speak less, and listen more.
The silence held for a long while.
Then the torque-wrench slipped.
It clanged against the floor—not loudly, but sharp enough to bounce in three clattering spins before it settled.
Haro winced.
He glanced toward the boy.
Elai hadn't flinched. But he had turned his head slightly now. Not toward the sound.
Toward Haro.
Their eyes met for the first time.
No curiosity. No demand. Only full presence, as though he'd always known.
Haro scratched the back of his head.
"Uh… you don't talk much, do you?"
Elai gave a slight shrug. Not rude. Not evasive. Just a gentle acknowledgment of truth.
Haro exhaled, stepped over, and crouched to pick up the wrench.
"I'm not used to Jedi kids wanting to learn how to weld a heat-shield," he muttered.
No response.
He stood again, set the tool on the bench. Looked at the boy.
"Do you know anything about ship diagnostics?"
Elai blinked.
Then nodded once.
Haro squinted. "You do? You sure? Because if you're just good at looking like you do, you're already better than half my crew."
A faint curve touches Elai's lips—not quite a smile.
Haro sighed. He gestured at the open stabilizer array beside the crate.
"Well. I was told to expect you. I just didn't think the Council would actually approve it. You've got Temple clearance. Even got your own training code added to the daily logs. Don't know who signed off on that, but… here you are."
He paused again, then tapped the edge of the crate.
"You sit here all day?"
Elai finally answered—his voice calm, level. "Until I'm needed."
Haro looked around the empty hangar.
"Well. You're needed."
He took a step forward, grabbing a stripped-down panel interface from the side shelf and holding it out.
Elai didn't rush to take it. He studied the panel first, then lifted it with careful hands and turned it over to examine the damaged relays.
Haro watched him for a moment.
"This ain't Jedi training," he said.
"No," Elai replied. "But the Force is still here."
Haro blinked at that. "In a ship circuit?"
"In the space between sparks," Elai said simply.
The tech scratched his head again.
"Well, alright then. Let's start with stabilizer current flow. After that, you can learn why every droid that tries to fix these gets it wrong."
Elai nodded once, and rose from the crate, stepping lightly beside him.
No title was spoken.
No lesson announced.
But something had changed in the hangar that morning.
And though Haro wouldn't admit it out loud—not yet—he'd already started paying more attention to how he moved, how he explained, how he taught.
Because someone was watching.
And that someone listened deeper than any apprentice he'd ever known.
The hangar's rhythms had begun to settle. Tools hummed. Diagnostic screens flickered. The distant thrum of repulsorlift calibrations echoed faintly against the vaulted ceiling.
Elai stood beside Haro, holding a small tool clamp just as instructed. He hadn't spoken much. He hadn't needed to. Every motion was precise. Intentional. The boy listened in a way that made silence feel useful.
Then—
From deeper in the service corridor came a rising clatter.
Wheels rattling over metal.
A servo-motor wheezing.
Then a voice—too loud, too sharp, too certain.
"EXCUSE ME! INCOMING SENSIBLE UNIT. PLEASE CLEAR THE WALKWAY BEFORE A TRAGEDY OCCURS—PREFERABLY ONE WITHOUT LITIGATION."
A squat droid rolled into view—a boxy mechanic model with four legs and a slightly crooked left optic. Its voice modulator had long since lost subtlety, replaced with a personality upgrade that was… unfiltered, at best.
It wheeled past the nearest bench, beeped twice, and then froze.
Optic sensors swiveled.
They landed on Elai.
It scanned him.
Scanned again.
And let out a sound like a metal sign.
"Oh for scrap's sake—again? Someone left a youngling in the hangar unsupervised?" The droid's head spun toward Haro. "Haro, did you authorize this? Because if this one rewires the calibration grid backwards again, I am not cleaning it up. My servos are still rattling from the last 'prodigy' who rerouted coolant through the speaker system."
Elai said nothing.
The droid pointed one jointed arm at him dramatically. "This child is barefoot. That's an electrical hazard!"
Haro rubbed the back of his neck. "He's not here to break anything, C3-T4."
"Oh, no. Of course not," the droid muttered, spinning slowly. "He's just here to observe, right? That's what they all say. 'Observe' the nav array, 'observe' the reactor matrix, 'observe' a way to make it explode when I'm not looking—"
"He has permission from the Council," Haro cut in, trying not to glance at Elai.
That only made it worse.
"Oh wonderful. So now we're authorizing potential sabotage as educational outreach. What's next? Jedi toddlers in the fusion chamber?"
The droid rolled away, its gears complaining, muttering all the while:
"Just wait until the Jedi need this ship mid-crisis and find their hyperdrive wired to a snack dispenser. But does anyone listen to the only sensible droid on this level? Nooo. Too much logic. Not enough robes."
The sound of it faded slowly—like someone dragging a metal bin over cobblestones.
Elai turned to Haro.
The mechanic coughed awkwardly. "He's… harmless. Mostly."
Elai's expression didn't shift.
But there was something in his eyes—a sparkle of curiosity, maybe even amusement—as he looked after the retreating droid.
"I think he sings when he's angry," the boy said.
Haro blinked.
Then laughed—just once. Short. Surprised.
"Stars. You might survive here after all."
And somewhere, beyond the high rafters, the Temple's great silence exhaled again. The Temple didn't resist. It listened, like a breath held mid-note.