“That’s why you gave him your lightsaber? So he wouldn’t feel threatened?”

I shook my head, and for a moment I was tempted to smile. “No, I would have let him cut it up.”

“You would?”

“If it would make him more comfortable with letting me stay? Of course. A lightsaber can be repaired or rebuilt. But I admit, Depa’s idea was a stroke of genius.”

She smiled at me. “I am a bit proud of myself for that.”

Nick again expressed his confusion, and I explained. “Even with the Force, I can’t pick Kar out from the jungle around us. He is so much a part of it, and it of him, that he is practically invisible. My lightsaber, on the other hand—”

“I get it!” Nick breathed. “As long as he carries it—”

“Exactly.” I could feel it even now: I knew without thinking its precise position relative to my own. “It is a bell collar that Depa managed to buckle onto a singularly ferocious vine cat.”

“Wow. I mean, wow. Y’know, everybody hears about how scary Jedi are—but those stories aren’t the half of it,” he said. “Your real powers don’t have anything to do with lightsabers or picking up things with your minds …” Nick shook his head uncomprehendingly. “It’s not natural—not just taking the beating, but bowing down like that … and being able to come up with stuff like giving Kar the lightsaber—”

“It requires a certain detachment of mind. When your emotions are not involved, answers are often obvious.”

“It’s still not natural. Can I just say, here, how much you two creep me out?”

“When I was Mace’s student,” Depa mused, “he would often remind me that nothing about being a Jedi is natural.”


- Shatterpoint, Chapter 12