The Weakest Jedi

Chapter 44 - Empty Table, Empty Horizon

3rd Person

A philanthropist born into wealth may improve lives, but ultimately remains blind to the plight of those beneath them.

Meanwhile, the do-gooder who escapes the clutches of poverty is always doomed to fail.

Despite short-lived success, their efforts inevitably fuse with the galaxy's vast lattice of genetic wealth and excess.

Because the knowledge, the understanding of that suffering... dies with them.

Adi POV

"Badum... Badum... Badum..."

I awoke to a tarry, viscous dread clogging my veins.

Stiffening my heartbeat... quickening my pulse.

Created from compressed slate and slab, the planet's gravity was so, so heavy...

For the first time in so long, I found it difficult to rise out of bed. Shackled by shadows of my emotions, I merely lay there for a long while...

Sinking into my unease. My own... powerlessness.

Powerless. A word to define a life.

That's how it had always been, hadn't it?

My life, my calling...

...My ...master.

And so I encased myself in an empty facade.

For all my might, my Jedi arts and accolades...

How many times had I been forced to stare into a child's bright eyes, and tell them I could not help?

That I, the mythical, heroic Jedi Master would not be saving them?

...Every inaction justified by some vague alteration of 'it has to be this way.'

With a staggered reluctance, I rose out of bed, my tired, half-opened gaze settling on the scattered components of my lightsaber at the foot of my bed.

Shakily, I raised a hand, and the chaotic nebula converged into a single, silver hilt.

I rolled the weapon across my palm...

Studied its contours, the tiniest of dents...

In my all my tenure as a master of the council, just how many fragments of shattered hope had I scattered across the cosmos?

I slowly treaded into the hut's main room.

"BADUM! --------..."

"Tughh!" I cried out.

Suddenly, my heart had gone silent, and my steps faltered.