Prelude: Acceptance

17 ABY, Yavin IV, forests outside of the Jedi Praxeum

It was a quiet, dark night on Yavin IV. It was scarcely past the day's changing. The students at the Praxeum slept soundly, preparing for another day of study and training. Their master, however, was not among them.

Jedi Grandmaster Luke Skywalker walked slowly through the forests of Yavin IV, softly making his way off of one the many beaten paths. He looked around cautiously, though not as one does when expecting an ambush - his surveillance was more amicable, as though making sure he did not miss any detail the wondrous scenery might offer up. The forest was a sight a behold during Yavin IV's spring season. Globular, luminescent insects swarmed about the moss-rich tree trunks, giving the appearance of hundreds of tiny, floating lanterns lighting a wanderer's path. Luke reached over his shoulders and took of hold of his brown, tattered robe, pulling the garment's hood over his head, shielding him from the light rain that made its way through the precipitous forest canopy.

He treaded an improvised route through the dense, wooden scenery - nevertheless, he moved with a sense of purpose. An observer would not have doubted that Luke knew exactly where he meant to end up. Finally, the Jedi came to a clearing, a small sanctuary having the appearance slightly of a swamp, but absent the unpleasant facets of such a terrain. Luke lowered his hood now, pausing his walk momentarily to examine the scenery again. He took a few careful steps forward, to the edge of large pond serving as the sanctum's centerpiece.

Luke looked down to the idle, dark water expectantly. Literally rising to the occasion, a cerulean form approached the surface, growing in size as it neared the waterline. Finally, the large water serpent reared its head, departing just enough to bring itself at eye level with the shorter human Jedi. Luke smiled warmly to the Dur Sabon, placing his palms endearingly on the sides of the being's face.

"There you are, old friend. I thought I might run into you out here, Akea."

Akea replied with what might best be described as a guttural noise, a primal sort of greeting among his kind. The Dur Sabon was a senior Jedi Knight in Luke's New Jedi Order. He had spent the prior two years studying at the Praxeum, having lost the five before that to a fruitless search for a cure.

Akea had once been desparate. Victim of a cellular degenerative of unknown origin, Akea's body would slowly degrade over time, leading him to an early, painful death. The immediate severity of the symptoms fluctuated - sometimes it was difficult to notice the presence of the disease, and at other times, it was incapacitating. After re-emerging from a self-induced bout of amnesia, Akea left his hideaway on the planet Sembla and traveled the galaxy, in a search of some remedy. It was only two years ago that he realized the unlikelihood of such a thing.

And so Akea had returned to the Praxeum, admittedly with some reservations, to continue his studies and assist in the rearing of the New Jedi Order. It was a restless two years - Although Akea focused on the tasks at hand, his condition was always in the back of his mind, distracting him, taunting him. Despite his best efforts to check his emotions, a part of him felt cheated - of all individuals to be cursed with a terminal illness, that it should be a survivor of an age past and forgotten, a font of first-hand experience and knowledge that would serve the fledgling Jedi Order all too well. Why, Akea thought, must this be his fate? Given his strong belief that the destiny is guided by the hand of the Force, this was a particularly troubling notion.

These were harmful thoughts, however. Akea knew this. A few weeks ago, he'd left the Praxeum again, though he'd voiced his intent to remain on Yavin IV. He understood that he could not continue to divide his attentions if he was to properly serve the Order. Akea was contemplating his fate. That, no doubt, was the topic at hand.

Before Akea had a chance to initiate the greeting questions of courtesy, Luke spoke again.

"It's strange, you know. It's not often addressed. Most of us look the other way, or gloss over the subject - Lifespans. You're older now than I'll likely ever be. Even with your condition, you probably have more time left in you than I - and yet somehow, in the time we're given, we all manage to find our way. That relativity, it's interesting, wouldn't you agree?"

Akea sank back into the marsh slightly as he thought, grumbling almost imperceptibly. The old Jedi was smart enough to know that Luke was baiting his response, but if the conversation was to continue, it was Akea's. He returned to his original position, his head considerably elevated above the water line, now eye-level with Luke.

"I will admit that I cannot put fully behind me some degree of resentment. It is as though the old age was meant to perish, that everything associated with it must decay prematurely and fall into obscurity."

Luke had grown quite comfortable arguing with Akea, smiling before he replied.

"Perhaps it was meant to end. It is not so difficult to imagine that when the status quo allows darkness to contaminate its very core, the natural course of things would see that status quo erased entirely."

Akea was willing to maintain the argument for the sake of conjecture, although he understood it was tangent to the conversation's true purpose.

"And the years of suffering that followed?"

Luke bowed his head, somewhat sombered.

"Suffering teaches us many things. Often, it is suffering that teaches us what changes must be made if we are to thrive once again. I suppose that, then, is the issue at hand."