I was still sleeping in my bed when the air pressure lock on my door suddenly opened; my eyes immediately widened. I jumped out of bed with my lightsabers in hand already ignited. The silver light was shining in the gloomy dark room.  I was somewhat confused, still half asleep, but I was ready to counter any attack. I was waiting, and waiting, but no attack came; my mind began to clear as my adrenalin-powered tunel vision weakend. Now, with a much more self-aware mind, I was able to look around to search for any possible adversary. I also reached out with the force to find the reason why my door suddenly opened. There was a small, obviously frightened presence in the corner of my room. It was somewhat familiar. Where had I sensed it before? I walked towards the spot where the presence was hiding when I reached close enough for my saber to lighten up the dark corner. I saw a small human form, with black hair, Rika? 

- Is that you Rika? - I asked.

- Yeah... - came a weak and obviously scared answer. 

I did not sense any lie in her voice, and the force presence was familiar, even if I hadn't memorized it perfectly. I decided to turn off my blade and stop scaring the poor girl even more. I walked to her side; she was very small even compared to me, and she was trembling like a single leaf in the middle of a storm. I picked her up, as she buried her wet face into my neck, hugging me and saying that she was sorry to walk into my room in the middle of the night... She also mumbled something about her master and that he would be disappointed, if he knew... I was not sure about that, but my hands were currently full with trying to calm the terrified child with constantly patting her head and back to make her feel some comfort. 

- Rika, did I scare you that much? I am sorry, I was trained to be on guard even in my sleep, but I am not angry with you, do you understand? You can come over if you need to, but please knock on the door or something next time. Okay? 

- Yes, and sorry... 

- There is nothing to be sorry about, you see? - I sat down on my bed, placing Rika in my lap. She was still hugging me like I was her lifeline. 

- Look at me; Rika, - she hesitatingly raised her face to meet mine - I was also scared of you; that was why I jumped out of my bed that fast! Did you see how big of a jump I did, even half asleep? I only jumped that high, because I was so scared of you, the fearless Rika bane of all sleeping padawans. 

She giggled a little; that was what I wanted to hear! I patted her head to relieve her from some of the stress.

- Now, that's what I like to hear. I bet your master would also prefer to hear your bell-like laughter.

She tried to object to telling me something that I already knew. I stopped her. 

- No need to tell me, I knew. Rika, your master loved you; he didn't want to leave you behind; he fought for what he thought would make the world safer for you. He wanted to stop the war, hoping that you would have no need to fight; it was his only wish. He died hoping that you would not face the same challenges as he had to. 

Rika began to cry and tremble again, after I told her what I sensed from siphoning the dark miasma around her room, while I was there yesterday.

Her story was not even unique; there were many other padawans just like her around the temple. The self sacrificing nature of the jedi was well known to me; there were fanatical extents to it, but in this case it was most likely naive stupidity. There is no heroism in jumping before a blade, blocking it with your body, when the blade wouldn't hit anyone in the first place. Sometimes the jedi would want to be remembered as heroes taking unnecessary risks showing off their level of self-sacrifice. Think you fools, how many padawans did you leave behind without guidance. 

- I... I never asked him... to die for my sake! 

Her voice came back alright; she shouted that last part in my ear protrusion... I agreed with her, the selfish selflessness of a parent, or a parent figure, I guess. They try to shelter someone even when there is no need for it. Sometimes, a parent needs to learn how to accept help from their children, not just to give it away. 

- You are right about that, - I sighed - but you see, you never had to ask him. He decided to do it on his own. Was it the right thing to do? I don't know, but we should at least respect his decision. 

She sniffed, and I saw her head nod weakly as the first sunlight shined through the window. I hugged her close as I lay down back into my bed, with her already half-asleep form still clinging to me. I pulled the blanket over both of us. I dropped my lightsaber handle under the bed next to my computer device. Damn, it's not even five AM; I guess I will have to sleep too, she will wake if I try to leave anyway. I looked at the now much more relaxed form of the little human girl, she was holding onto my right lekku with her left hand while she was clinging to my torso with the other. Is this some kind of death grip technique? I smirked, it surely made me stop moving. Oh, boy, what am I thinking again... This is all because of those stupid wrestling videos I watched yesterday. What were their names? Ah, their race was besalisk; they had four arms, no kidding. One of them was called Dreadnought, yeah, while the other? Dead Fet or Fat Death, eh... yawn... he was kind of skinny, so Dead Fat most likely... Anakin is so lucky, he wouldn't have to think about what his wrestling name should be... I would love to see his costume though... 

A few hours later I was rudely awakened to the sound of heavy knocking on my door. To be more precise, both of us were awakened to this noise. I was still half asleep, but somehow managed to crawl out of my bed and open the door. Ahsoka was standing outside looking quite frustrated when she saw me; she was both relieved and even more frustrated for some reason. 

- Yawn... eh Miss Tano, how could I help you...? 

- Don't miss Tano me here you... you nudist! 

- What?  

I looked down at my body; I was in my undies, so what of it? Oh, man, she scared me a bit there for a second; I really thought that I was butt naked. 

- What? I am in my undies, you, dummy. That is not what you should call a nudist. I didn't get a pajama in the first place, and I am not allowed to leave the temple.  

- I will get you one later! Now go inside you, you... shameless person. I will close the door behind us, move!

Am I really shameless? Hmmm... I guess I have no valid objection to that. I looked at Ahsoka; she was getting pretty angry... 

- Okay, okay, relax, I am going to get dressed!

I pulled up my pants while she was constantly throwing knives into my back with her angry glares. What a primadonna jeez. 

- By the way, what did you want to ask? 

She looked at me, then turned to the sleeping form of Rika on my bed. 

- She was the reason. We were searching for her with a few other padawans, when Vokara came to check on her in the morning; but the room was empty. She didn't leave behind any massage, so we thought that maybe something bad had happened. After searching for a while, I remembered that you said, you met with Rika and ate togheter in the cantina. I rushed here to check if she came over or something. Thankfully I was right, but that is no excuse for your shameless behaviour, finish dressing up already! 

- Shhh... stop shouting, she is still asleep. 

What's wrong with these kids, or is this a jedi thing? Probably. While I finished dressing up, Ahsoka called Vokara on her wrist communicator; now I want one too, and told her, that she had found the missing padawan. While I discretely listened into their conversation, I also learned that Rika's sleep is usually troubled by bad dreams. She is in need of someone to rely on while she heals mentally. This was clear to me. She will never get over the loss entirely, but it will be bearable, much easier with time. It seems that I was the only one she opened up somewhat; guess I could handle children better than any jedi. Some of my masters actually had their own families. It was not a taboo, but it was still complicated. So most of the masters never bothered with it, anyway; what matters is that I had the knowledge to raise children. That was something that cannot be said for the jedi. They generally treated children like small adults, with rare exceptions like Yoda. They never really knew how to deal with children; they were used to handling them in the way they were handled when they were young.

I couldn't blame them for this; it was just sad. 

Well, I will help Rika, if that is what it takes. Not like I have anything better to do, except maybe buy a pajama, and a few more clothes. 

- Ej, do you have a sewing droid or something? 

- Yeah, we will go and order you more clothes after Rika wakes up. You did say something that your clothes were stolen by that droid you found in a ruin, yeah? 

- With my ship and my credits too, but I will catch and rewire it, so not that big of a problem really. 

- You sure have confidence in finding a small ship in the galaxy. 

- Humph, I have a feeling that the droid will come to me, and I will not have to lift a finger. 

- How can you be so sure? 

- Because, he will get bored on it's own. 

Ahsoka looked at me with obvious confusion in her eyes. 

- Are you still talking about a droid. 

- Yeah, you will understand if you are unlucky enough to meet with it. 

- Hmm... but how did you end up in a ruin in the first place? 

Ugh... that is... what should I tell her? That I lived there, in a ruin on Hoth... I may as well tell her that I was living with the Wampas. I will just drop a few partial truths, I guess. 

- It was one of my trials. 

- Trials, what kind of trials? Did you succeed? Was it hard?

I had to face my master while he tried to lure me to the dark side; then he turned me into a holocron containing all of the sixteen different masters memories that came before me... 

- It is a secret of my order. Yes, I succeeded, and it was pretty hard. 

- Ehh, always with the secrets, but congratulations on your success, I guess. 

- Thank you...

- Is Master Vokara angry with me? 

Sounded a third voice in the room. We turned to the already woken Rika. She was only pretending to sleep, hmm, I should have known. 

- Nah, she doesn't seem to, at least for me. - I answered.

- No, not that much, but she will give you a rant for not leaving a note behind. - Warned Ahsoka.

- Well, I guess I will go and apologize right away... 

- Hop to it, then, if you want to come over again, just knock on the door, now we should go to eat something. 

- Well, it is kind of late to that already, so you should probably wait for lunch. 

- What time is it? 

- Ehm, 10:37 AM you guys overslept. 

- What? So when can I eat? 

- At noon of course. 

- Well, then I am going to wait for the food, but until then would you like to play chess? 

- Chess? With carved figures of wood? 

My eyes glinted. 

- Yes, but this version is boosted a bit. 

- I saw that she was hooked. 

I picked up my holo communicator computer from under my bed.

Than placed it down in the middle of the table, pushed a few buttons, and a chess table suddenly appeared in the form of a hologram hovering in the air. Ahsoka was pretty surprised by this; she walked to the other side of the table and sat down. Soon the figures also appeared; I had many skins for this game. The currently activated one was a custom one created by assigning already existing characters to specific figures. I created the battle of light and darkness. The black figures were represented by real historical characters from the Sith Empire. While the light side was the old republic jedi. Not all of the units where jedi or sith lords, mind you, but the King and the Queen were. On the dark side, the queen was Darth Traya, while the king was Darth Malak. On the light side was the brainwashed Revan as the king and Bastila Shan as the queen. The other units were random infantry troops from that time. 

I smiled widely. 

- Are you ready for a few rounds of battle chess? I am with the dark side just saying. 

- Wow, this looks cool. Is that a jedi, and a sith?

- Right on point, I will tell you about them while we play, oh, the rules are the same as in normal chess. 

- Okay.

Rika was watching our antics for a while, then after a few minutes she stood up and silently walked out of the room, going to the infirmary to apologize to Vokara, for needlessly worrying her.