Control The Uncontrollable // The Acolyte

109. Don't Let It Manifest

"What do you see in the darkness, my Padawan?"

The words reached you like an echo carried by the win, as you had sat here for hours.

You sat at the edge of the cliff, knees drawn close, the grass bending and swaying around you as the evening air wrapped itself gently around your shoulders. Your eyes had been closed for hours, breath steady but heavy, tears pressing forward despite your attempts to hold them back. The voice of Master Sol felt both distant and painfully close—like a memory stepping into the present.

Your elbows rested on your knees, hands lifting slowly to brush away the tears as a faint, tired smile found its way to your lips. Even without turning, you sensed them: Sol's calm presence, steady and familiar, and Bell beside him, quieter but no less real.

"Sometimes I wish I could go back," you said softly, a dry laugh slipping out. "Back to just being a Padawan."

You didn't need to look to know that would make Sol smile.

"May we sit with you?" he asked gently, as though approaching something sacred.

You lowered your hands from your face and glanced over your shoulder, offering a small, weary smile. "Of course."

They approached slowly, respectfully, their footsteps barely disturbing the grass. Sol settled to your right, Bell to your left, their presence easing into the space around you like the wind itself—familiar, grounding.

For a moment, none of you spoke.

And yet, the silence felt full.

Being near them again after so many years stirred something you had long kept quiet inside yourself. Over a decade had passed, and though you had built a life rich with love and purpose, you could feel the distance you had carried from the Order—the absence of shared meditation, shared silence, shared understanding. For a group sworn to avoid attachment, the community had always been its own kind of sanctuary, a structure that held you upright when faith alone faltered.

Living outside of it had required a different kind of strength.

An apostate walked alone with belief as their only anchor. And faith, alone, could be both salvation and danger.

"How have you been, Master?" Bell asked, ever polite, a soft smile resting on his face.

You turned toward him, offering one of your own. "Good," you said truthfully.

Bell smiled back, but his gaze lingered.

There was something gentle in his eyes—an unmistakable tenderness, a quiet concern that went beyond the simple courtesy of seeing an old Master again. He knew you too well. He could see the difference between someone who was fine and someone who was simply capable of carrying whatever they felt without letting it show.

And you had been good.

Better than good, in ways you had never imagined your life could be. The years away from the Order had given you things you had once been taught to live without: a home that was truly yours, a husband who loved you without condition, and two sons who had filled your days with a kind of purpose no doctrine could have ever given you. They had become the reason you could look at your own destiny without bitterness. The Force had given you years with them—years you had cherished completely. If, one day, it asked you to let them go, then you had always believed you could do so peacefully.