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.​