First Reply Saved by the Bell, Almost

[Elionwy Tlestri]

| Open to a High Republic Jedi Padawan |​

"The Force does not possess intent."

Elionwy allowed the statement a moment to connect, though she held little hope it would. "We assign intent to it because uncertainty makes us uncomfortable. We say the Force wanted something. That it guided us. That events occurred according to its will." Her gaze travelled slowly across the assembled Padawans. "Convenient. It relieves us of the burden of asking whether we simply made a choice and disliked its consequences."

There should have been questions. Instead, someone near the back was watching the chrono. Elionwy noticed, as she always did.

"Consider precognition. If you glimpse an event and act to prevent it, have you defied the Force? Obeyed it? Or have you merely observed one possible consequence and selected another?" She folded her arms. "And before anyone says the will of the Force is unknowable, fully embrace that and you may as well not ascribe intent in the first place."

Another student glanced toward the chrono. Then another.

Elionwy exhaled through her nose. "Yes. Time continues to function. A remarkable discovery."

Several eyes snapped dutifully forward. One Padawan had the decency to look embarrassed. Elionwy stared at them for another moment before conceding defeat to the far more compelling philosophical proposition of class ending soon.

"For tomorrow, I want eight hundred words on whether obedience to a perceived will of the Force is compatible with individual moral responsibility. If your argument relies upon the phrase the Force works in mysterious ways, I will return it unread."

The chime sounded, and Elionwy winced. The transformation was immediate. Datapads disappeared, chairs shifted, and Padawans began filtering toward the door with considerably more enthusiasm than they had demonstrated for metaphysics.

Elionwy remained beside her desk, watching them go. And waiting to...she raised two fingers. Not toward the class. Toward one particular retreating student. A small curl of those fingers followed: come here.

She waited until the others had passed beyond the doorway before lowering her hand.

"Your last two assignments were late." Her expression remained composed, more inquisitorial than angry. "Why?"

 

[Congen Rintenne]

Congen sat quietly in the back of the room as Master Elionwy Tlestri gave her lecture about the force, her hands moving across the datapad to take notes for later. She hadn't made any friends at the temple and she didn't think her brief contact with Rathir counted as a real friendship. When the bell rang, she quickly joined the other students leaving the room in hopes to slip away down the hall without anyone seeing her.

She was almost at the door when the Master pointed at her and called her over. Congen stopped suddenly in her tracks, feeling her stomach start to drop as she turned around, worried that she had done something wrong, and her mind began racing with the worst possible outcome. She stood still, wincing as the woman explained the late assignments in a rather unfriendly tone.

She touched the back of her neck with nervous fingers and gave a small, shy smile to cover up how fast her heart was racing. "You see, I... well, there was an angry rancor running loose on the streets of Theed. Very dangerous, you know... and it happened twice, actually," Congen said. Her voice sounded hopeful as she tried to explain away her late work with the best excuse she could come up with. When the quiet in the room showed that her excuse wasn't working, Congen dropped her hand from her neck, and her small smile vanished right away.​

 

[Elionwy Tlestri]

Elionwy regarded the young woman for several long seconds, her expression shifting by degrees from suspicion into something altogether more dangerous...concern. "Twice?"

She straightened, gathering her datapad from the desk with sudden purpose. "Well, that changes matters considerably. You should have said something sooner."

There was a knowing glimmer behind those brilliant blue eyes, but Elionwy offered no accusation. Instead, she stepped around the desk and gestured for the Padawan to follow her toward the door. If Congen wished to construct the gangplank, Elionwy was perfectly content to see how far across it she was willing to walk.

"Since the Netherworld attacks, the Service Corps have been especially vigilant regarding displaced and unusually aggressive creatures across Naboo. A rancor loose in Theed once would warrant investigation. Twice suggests either negligence or a recurring containment failure." She glanced back, every inch the concerned instructor now. "Come along. Quickly."

Elionwy waited at the doorway with an expectant, almost matronly tilt of her head.

"We'll report it together. You can show them precisely where you encountered it, describe the creature, and provide the dates and times. I'm certain they will want a very thorough account."

Her brow lifted, impatience growing more evident.

Congen Rintenne​

 

[Congen Rintenne]

Congen stared down at her boots, her heart pounding as she waited for Master Elionwy Tlestri to respond. The silence was almost unbearable. If the Master figured out she'd made up the entire story, she'd be in far more trouble than if she'd simply admitted why her last two assignments were late.

When Congen finally looked up, she was surprised to find that Master Elionwy wasn't scolding her but actually taking the story seriously. Worse, the Master was already heading for the door to report the incident to the Service Corps. Congen froze, her mouth going dry as she realized she'd trapped herself in her own lie.

"I... well, there's no need to bother them, Master," she stammered, nodding a little too quickly. "I already told uh...Master Bal-Boren about it, and he said it's being handled." She took in a small breath, desperately searching for a way out before adding.

"No connection to Master Sal-Soren, of course..." A nervous laugh followed as she wrapped her arms around herself and took a small step back, hoping the Master wouldn't notice how badly she was sweating.​

 

[Elionwy Tlestri]

A slow breath escaped through her nostrils. Not quite a sigh, but perilously close to one. Her eyes briefly closed as though summoning some reserve of patience that had already been thoroughly depleted by the day's lessons.

She turned about, without saying a word. Elionwy crossed the distance between them with a gait that was measured, and unhurried. She stopped directly before the Padawan, close enough now that Congen would have to endure the full attention of those still blue eyes. Her face remained perfectly composed, almost statuesque, save for the faint narrowing of her gaze as she studied the increasingly elaborate architecture being constructed before her.

She let the silence stretch. And stretch. Her head tilted slightly.

"Master Bal-Boren," Elionwy finally murmured, her voice remarkably even. "Is that Master Bal-Boren the Weequay? Or Master Bal-Boren the Thisspiasian?" Her eyebrows lifted expectantly.

Congen Rintenne​

 

[Congen Rintenne]

Congen took a small step back as Master Elionwy Tlestri closed the distance between them, her heel catching awkwardly against the seam of the floor tiles. She silently cursed herself for spitting out yet another absurd lie, but her brain was completely overloaded with panic. She was still just a Padawan, dishonesty like this was a fast track to getting booted out of the Order, or worse, locked away in some dark cell like a fallen Jedi.

The weight of her anxiety slowly began to crush her, as the edges of the room seemed to spin under the gaze of her instructor. She was left with only one thought constantly repeating in the back of her mind. This is the end of the road for me. "Master Bal-Boren... the runner," Congen blurted out, the words barely escaping past her dry lips.

Before Elionwy could even process the nonsense, Congen's legs took over on pure instinct. She scrambled backward, spun on her heel, and bolted toward the side exit as fast as her boots could carry her. She couldn't fix the disaster she had just created, but she could find a quiet hole to hide in and cry until her head stopped spinning.​

 

[Elionwy Tlestri]

Elionwy watched Congen disappear through the side exit without so much as raising a hand to stop her. For several seconds she remained exactly where she was, arms slowly folding across her chest as the classroom settled into blessed silence around her.

She would see her in class tomorrow. That was the sensible conclusion. Congen had embarrassed herself quite thoroughly enough without Elionwy contributing further, and another evening spent wondering whether her instructor believed a word about rancors and the apparently athletic Master Bal-Boren might even encourage some overdue reflection.

Elionwy turned back toward her desk and reached for her datapad. But her hand stopped just short of it.

The young woman had not merely fled an uncomfortable conversation. She had panicked. There had been something in the way she retreated, the escalating nonsense spilling out faster than she could seemingly think, that left an irritating little thought lodged in Elionwy's mind.

Some students needed to be allowed to make mistakes. Others needed someone to follow them afterward.

Elionwy stared at her datapad for another moment before releasing a slow, deeply put-upon breath through her nostrils. "Wonderful."

She collected it, tucked it beneath one arm, and strode toward the side exit.

"Padawan?" Elionwy called once she entered the corridor, looking first one way and then the other. Her voice had lost some of its earlier severity. "I am not going to punish you. Come back, please."

Congen Rintenne​

 

[Congen Rintenne]

Congen stumbled out the side exit and hit the main corridor at a full sprint, nearly taking out two fellow classmates in the process. Her shoulder clipped a maintenance droid, sending a stack of data tapes across the floor tiles as they were shoved to the side, leaving a trail of noise and destruction behind her for Elionwy Tlestri to follow.

She ran past portrait after portrait of long-dead Jedi Masters lining the stone walls. Their painted eyes seemed to track her every panicked step, staring down with silent disapproval. She knew they were just canvas and paint, but in her head, they were actively judging her, witnessing a Padawan who had lied, lost control, and let fear drown out every piece of the Jedi Code she was supposed to live by.

Her lungs burned, and her legs gave out only a short distance down the hall, completely spent without the Force to push them. She hadn't even made it to another floor, just far enough down the passage to collapse onto a carved stone bench nestled in an alcove. Congen pulled her boots up onto the edge, curled her arms tightly around her knees, and buried her face against her fabric.

The dark thoughts took over completely, the looming threat of expulsion, the shame of being broken, the memory of her late Master and she just started crying, her small shoulders shaking in the quiet alcove as she waited for the inevitable.​

 

[Elionwy Tlestri]

Elionwy found her with little difficulty, and immediately discovered that locating the Padawan had been considerably easier than deciding what to do with her.

She approached without announcement and lowered herself into the space beside Congen, leaving enough distance between them that the younger woman would not feel cornered again. Her datapad remained tucked beneath one arm. For once, Elionwy found herself wishing it contained instructions for something as elementary as speaking to a distressed student.

She could ask about the assignments. No. That had started this.

She could ask why Congen had lied, but interrogation had already produced a rancor, Master Bal-Boren, and whatever precisely the runner was beyond her actually fleeing. Asking what was actually wrong seemed equally likely to send the Padawan disappearing around another corner.

Elionwy stared straight ahead, frown carving creases into her forehead.

She hated this uncertainty. Problems possessed causes, causes could be identified, and once identified they could be understood. Sitting beside someone and simply hoping they eventually provided the missing information felt intolerably passive. Worse, it exposed a deficiency in herself that Elionwy would much rather have classified, studied and corrected privately.

She knew things. She taught things. She was supposed to have answers. Apparently none of those answers included what one said to a frightened young woman who clearly expected punishment.

Her lips parted once, then closed. Perhaps this was not hers to solve. The thought irritated her immensely.

Nevertheless, Elionwy remained exactly where she was, saying nothing and allowing Congen the uncomfortable privilege of deciding what happened next.

Congen Rintenne​