2/8/14

Yoda



The swamp held many secrets, Yoda among them. He recognized those mysteries from the second his small escape pod landed on the desolate planet of Dagobah. The little creature sat silent on the shore of the swamp. All around him, the natural chaos of animal and plant life danced in a never ceasing pattern. Since arriving on the planet 19 years before, Yoda had fallen in line with the pattern.

His green hands, cracked and bruised, swayed out over the water. Yoda spent most of his days deep in mediation with the Living Force. 

Different is the Living Force, he thought, reminiscing on the vast understanding he'd gained during his years of self imposed exile. Yoda discovered that the Force was deeper than Light and Dark. There was also Living and Dying. Living Force grew, Dying Force destroyed. The Jedi, in all of their wisdom, never fully understood the Force.

Their need for order, as much as the Sith's need for chaos, clouded their judgement. Their reasoning that Midi-Chlorians dictated an individual's connection to the Force was misguided. Their dissociation with love was in error and their desire to protect the galaxy was incorrect. There was no good or bad. No Jedi or Sith.  There was only living and dying. Growth and decay. Beginning and end. Dagobah was full of both. 

Yoda exhaled deeply, traveling further into congress with the binding nature of the Galaxy. Here on Dagobah, the force was so thick around him he could walk upon it as if it were solid ground. He stepped out and shifted his slight frame onto a pocket of energy that bounced gently yet sustained his weight. Now in the late stages of his life, the old Jedi Master relied on the Force for most of his movement.

He let his fingers reach out toward a gathering of rocks and called for them to join him. He sensed the Force leave his hand, surround the rocks, and lift them off the swamp shore. The 900 year old being flicked his wrist and sent the rocks in different directions. He then brought his hands together and floated back to a cross legged position.

Why do you still train, a viperous voice said from his subconscious. Your failure has ruined everything you ever knew.

Yoda shook the thought away. Long had he pondered the arrogance of the Jedi and all of the problems it had caused the Galaxy. Long had he known they should have never established the temple on Coruscant... so far away from the Living Force. These regrets did him no good now.

Suddenly, a loud crash tore him out of his meditation. Yoda's eye shot open, dilating quickly. The Force found his cane and brought it to his hand. Sensing the direction of the crash, he ran across the swamp on bubbles of Force energy until he reached the other side.


The forest ahead of him was dense with thick green branches and moss covered trunks. Yoda slid the cane into his robe over his shoulder and leapt onto the nearest log, digging his claws on his feet and hands into it. Memories of his childhood washed over him. He'd been young once, headstrong and defiant. The Force was abundant on his home world, but there was debate on the merits of using it. Most elders refused to explore it calling it witchcraft, an abomination and perversion. Yoda and his closest allies revolted against the establishment there and were close to upheaving the entire society, when the Living Force first called out to him.

It began as a low murmur in the back of his mind, telling him to move on from his home planet. Some things weren't worth disrupting. Some places needed to stay the way they were. Some truths should remain truths from a certain point of view. The Living Force beckoned him to something bigger, something more important than changing a small planet on the outskirts of the Galaxy. Yoda was pulled to play a larger role for the Force.

To Coruscant he went, becoming a Padawan at an older age than the Jedi Council deemed appropriate. Yoda continued his life living by the Code of the Jedi and therefore considered the influence of the Living Force less in order to serve them. And so for almost a millennia, he shut out the low murmur in the back of his mind and trusted the Council in all matters.

Yoda heard a series of metallic beeps and whirls and knew it at once to be an astromech droid. He ducked under some low hanging branches and saw a Starfighter stuck in the swamp. A humanoid, in an orange and white flightsuit hopped out of the ship into the water. The radical change to his world filled Yoda's mind with memories. The war, the clones, Sidious.   

Immediately, he thought of that last battle against the Sith Lord. A twinge of anger wanted to grow in his gut, but Yoda had mastered that emotion 700 years before and paid it no mind now. He knew Sidious would fall, just like all the others who craved power. Power consumed itself. Eventually, the Dark Lord would die. Either by Vader's hand or the Children of Skywalker. He knew it, The Living Force told him so.

But for now, Yoda felt the Force calling for an introduction with the weary traveler and his astromech droid...


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