The Council chamber was quiet in the way that made Yoda's ears twitch. Coruscant roared outside, lanes of traffic, towers humming with power, a whole city stacked on itself. Yoda sat in his seat, small and still, a gimer stick lay across his knees. He was not meditating. Not really. His eyes were half closed, his mind hovering between focus and waiting.
It had been a few days since Adi, Ki-Adi-Mundi, and Plo Koon had met with Dooku on Serenno. A full day since the first report came in: The woman Shmi Skywalker is safe. The girl is real. A full day of letting the currents of the Force wash past him, trying to feel what shape this new thing might take.
The soft chime of an incoming transmission cut through the chamber. Mace Windu's eyes opened at once in the seat beside him. Shaak Ti's lekku twitched. Oppo Rancisis coiled his tail a little tighter around the base of his chair. "Here they are," Mace murmured.
The central holoprojector flickered to life. Blue-white light rose up, coalescing into three small figures: Adi Gallia, straight-backed and composed; Ki-Adi-Mundi, hands clasped behind him; and Plo Koon. Even in miniature, Yoda could see the travel weariness in the set of their shoulders.
He opened his eyes fully. "Masters," he said. "Returned, you are. Much to tell, you have, hmm?"
Adi bowed at the waist, even as a projection. "Master Yoda. Master's," she said, voice crisp. "We're transmitting from our ship in Serenno's upper atmosphere. Our debrief will be thorough."
"Start with what we tasked you with," Mace said. "Shmi Skywalker. The child. Any sign of other Force-sensitives in Dooku's care."
"No other children," Ki-Adi said at once, taking the lead on that part. "We verified as much as was diplomatically possible. The household is large, but we felt no other presence with comparable strength. No hidden enclave. No gathered group."
Adi nodded. "We are confident Liora Serenno is the only child of that kind in the estate." Yoda's fingers flexed around his stick. "And Shmi?" he asked. Plo's head turned slightly toward him. "She is physically safe," he said. "Given proper clothing, food, and a room of her own. She is still adjusting; years of slavery do not vanish with one kind act, but she is not being harmed. Count Dooku's sister seems genuinely invested in her well-being."
A quiet ripple of relief moved through the chamber. Even Oppo's shoulders dropped a fraction. "Good, this is," Yoda said softly. "Suffer, she has, enough."
Mace leaned forward a little. "And the girl?" he asked. "Liora." All three holos shifted almost imperceptibly. Adi's mouth pressed into the faintest line. Ki-Adi's gaze sharpened. Plo's posture, if anything, went even more still. "Very strong in the Force," Adi said. "That much we all felt immediately. That, and something… unusual, in the way she carries herself."
Ki-Adi's voice was dry. "She is six years old in body. In manner's, she is not."
"Explain, hmm?" Yoda prompted. Ki-Adi inhaled, nostrils flaring just slightly. "She moves like an adult in some ways," he said," and when she does speak, it is with the diction of someone far older. Her vocabulary, her awareness of social placement, her ability to read unspoken cues, none of it fits a normal six-year-old."
"Dooku's training," Mace said. No surprise there. "Partly," Ki-Adi agreed. "He has clearly drilled etiquette and presentation into her. But there's more. The way she observes, the way she… chooses when to sound like a child and when not to.... it suggests she is actively controlling how people perceive her."
Adi nodded once. "She does not babble. She does not fidget in the usual ways. She watches. She listens. She thinks before she answers." Shaak Ti's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Precocious perhaps?" she said. "That is not a crime."
"No," Ki-Adi said. "It is not. It is, however, a factor when assessing how much of what she says is simply parroting Dooku, and how much is her own judgment." Yoda's gaze slid to Plo's holo. "Spent time alone with her, you did," he said. "Heard her words, unfiltered, you have. Tell us: the girl's mind, her thoughts, her own, they are? Or Dooku's, only?"
Plo dipped his head. "I requested permission to speak with her privately," he said. "Count Dooku agreed, under her aunt's supervision, through a window. We spoke on an open balcony. It was… not a short conversation."
Mace gave him a look. "You have a concern with long conversations now?" Plo asked mildly. "I have a concern with getting charmed by the subject of the investigation," Mace replied. "We sent you to observe."
A faint ripple of amusement brushed Yoda's sense from Plo, quickly suppressed. "If we are to decide what to do about her, it is important that you understand how she thinks." Ki-Adi folded his hands a little tighter behind his back. "Then begin with the most concerning piece," he said. "Her discussion of the Order."
Plo's masked face angled just a hair. Yoda could almost hear the sigh he did not let out. "She has been reading about us," Plo said. "Histories. Records of past interventions. She is aware of the Code in broad strokes. She has also, by her own efforts, not Dooku's prompting, been reflecting on what it means to only ever learn about the Force from one place."
Oppo's tail twitched. "That sounds a bit like Dooku and Qui-Gon Jinn," he muttered. "It does," Plo acknowledged. "But I have known Dooku a long time. The girl's metaphors and examples were not his. She spoke of stories, old tales, instead of academic texts. Her critiques were simpler. Rougher. Less… polished, but no less pointed."
Mace's fingers drummed once on the armrest. "What exactly did she say?" he asked. Plo shifted his weight slightly, as if settling the memory. "She described a general," he said. "An old soldier who had spent his life studying different people. Different nations, worlds. Different philosophies. This man told his nephew that if you only ever drink tea from one pot, you start to think that is the only way tea should taste. If you only ever study one culture's wisdom, your mind becomes stiff. Then, when something appears that does not fit your understanding, you lash out, instead of bending."
Shaak Ti's mouth quirked faintly. "A colorful analogy," she murmured. "It made her point clear," Plo said. "She worries that we, as an Order, have become too certain that our way of understanding the Force is the best way. Not just a way. The way. She asked if we truly learn from other Force traditions, or if we simply categorize them and then dismiss anything that does not align."
Ki-Adi exhaled sharply. "This is Dooku's and Qui-Gon Jinn's rhetoric," he said. "Spoken with a child's voice. We have heard it before. 'The Order has grown rigid.' 'We are blind to other paths.' It is nothing new." Plo's head turned toward him. "The concern may not be new," he said, "but the fact that a child outside our halls can voice it with that clarity should give us pause."
"Or," Ki-Adi countered, "it should remind us that Dooku is an excellent teacher of his own discontent." Yoda tapped his stick lightly on the floor. "Agree, you do, with her?" he asked Plo. "One, only pot of tea, drink we do?"
There was a faint pause as Plo considered his words. "I agree that we are in danger of it," he said. "We do send envoys to other Force traditions. We do meet with sects and sages. Some of us sit with them, meditate with them. I have, on Dorin, with the Baran Do. But at the Council level, I cannot deny we have grown wary of integrating doctrines outside our own."
Mace's jaw tightened slightly. "We have to be wary," he said. "We are not talking about swapping recipes. We safeguard peace for the entire Republic. If we start folding in every belief we encounter, we risk diluting the very discipline that lets us hold the center."
"And yet," Shaak Ti said softly, "discipline without the ability to adapt can become brittleness."
"We are not brittle," Ki-Adi snapped. Then he visibly reined himself in. "We are careful. There is a difference." Yoda watched them quietly, listening more to the currents under their words than the words themselves. Fear in Ki-Adi, veiled as logic. Frustration in Mace, weighted with responsibility. Plo, standing in the middle, trying to carry both loyalty and discomfort at once. "She is a child," Oppo said. "We are the Order. We have centuries of thought behind us. That one small girl notices a pattern we already know exists does not grant her special insight."
Plo inclined his head. "I am not saying we bow to her judgment," he said. "Only that it is telling that even from a Noble's balcony on Serenno, the impression we give is one of unbending certainty. That should matter to us, if we care how the galaxy sees our role."
"We are not politicians," Mace said. "Our duty is not to be liked, but to do what is necessary."
"And yet," Adi put in quietly, "our ability to mediate relies on trust. On being seen as fair. If too many view us as rigid and deaf to other voices, they will turn elsewhere. To warlords. To senators with private armies. To… darker solutions." The word hovered unsaid, but every mind in the room went to the same place. Yoda let them sit with it for a moment, then shifted the topic with a small thump of his stick. "Spoke, she did, of more? Stories, " you said," he said. "Tell of this, Plo. Curious, I am."
Plo nodded once. "She spoke of a warrior," he said. "A man who trained constantly because he wanted to be the strongest. No matter how hard he pushed, it was never enough. He only truly transformed, found the strength he had been chasing when someone he loved was in danger and there was no one else to stand between them and death. In her words: 'The power didn't answer his want to be the best. It answered his need to protect.'"
Shaak Ti's brow rose slightly. "That is… not so far from some of our own teachings," she said. "The Force responding in moments of crisis. When one acts selflessly."
"Indeed," Plo said. "She went on to say she believes the Force responds to genuine need more readily than to desire. That chasing power for its own sake leads nowhere, but that when there is a true gap, a life that must be saved, a balance thrown out, the Force moves."
"That sounds like something we have all seen," Mace admitted slowly. "Jedi accessing strength they never touched in training drills when innocent lives are at stake." Ki-Adi folded his arms. "Or like a convenient excuse," he said. "'I needed more power, so I took it.' We have heard this too, from Sith. From fallen knights. 'It was necessary.' 'It was needed.' When someone is convinced their need is great, they can justify anything."
"Exactly," Oppo said. "Desire can dress itself up as necessity very easily." Plo inclined his head. "I do not disagree," he said. "I told her as much. That the danger lies in how we define 'need.' She seemed to understand that. She did not claim that need would excuse anything. Only that she'd noticed a pattern: the more people grasp at power to fill their own emptiness, the less the Force seems to answer. When they act for others, it does."
Yoda's ears lowered a touch in thought. "Mmm. True, this can be," he said. "Seen it I have. Small padawans, great feats accomplished, when friend in danger is. Masters, fail, when for glory, they reach." He lifted his gaze back to the holos. "Agree, I do, partly," he said. "Yet forgotten, we must not, that even in service of others, corrupted, one can be. 'For the greater good,' say many, while great harm, they do."
"Which brings us back," Mace said, "to structure. To rules. To a Code that stops every individual deciding that their personal sense of 'need' justifies whatever means they choose." Plo gave a small nod. "That was part of my pushback as well," he said. "I told her that while her observation of how power manifests holds some truth, the Order cannot rely on that alone. We need discipline to guide those moments, or we risk slipping into the dark side."
"And how did she respond to that?" Shaak Ti asked. "She accepted the point," Plo said. "She did not argue that discipline was useless. Only that if we train people to ignore their own feelings and only ever obey external rules, they might freeze when the moment of true need comes, or might even be pushed by others to the dark side because they have never been allowed to listen to their own heart."
Ki-Adi snorted again. "'Listen to yourself,'" he said. "The mantra of every young one who thinks they know better than their elders."
"Sometimes new perspectives, bad are not," Yoda said quietly. Silence followed that for a beat. Mace cleared his throat. "Let's talk about something more measurable," he said. "Her midichlorian count. Did you get a reading?"
Adi's expression tightened slightly. "We requested a simple blood analysis," she said. "Nothing invasive. Dooku hesitated, but refusing would have looked like an admission of something worse. He agreed, with the condition that the results remain confidential within the Order."
"And?" Mace prompted. Even through the holo distortion, Yoda could see the way all three offworld Masters had reacted to the number. They had argued about it already, he guessed. The edges of that debate still clung to them. Plo answered this time. "Approximately twenty-three thousand," he said. The chamber went very still. Shaak Ti's hand actually paused halfway through a small habitual movement. Oppo's fingers curled in against his beard.
Mace's eyes narrowed. "Exceptionally high, second only to Skywalker," he said. "Yes," Plo said. "Higher than any recorded in the Archives besides Skywalker," Ki-Adi added, voice tight. "That we know of." Oppo hissed softly between his teeth. "That is… beyond rare," he said. "That is… unprecedented."
Yoda said. "Strong, she is. Very strong in the force. But many factors, there are."
"But we cannot ignore it," Mace said. "A child hidden from us on Serenno, under the direct tutelage of a former Jedi Master who already distrusts the Order, and now nobles moving to restore his family to royal status? This is not a small thing."
"You confirm these nobles' efforts?" Oppo asked, glancing toward Adi. Adi inclined her head. "There was talk in the court," she said. "Nothing announced yet, but the pattern is clear. Serenno's great houses are… unsettled. They see the Republic's reach expanding. They see Dooku as a rallying point, noble, Force-trained, disillusioned with Coruscant. There is a bloc forming that would like to elevate House Serenno to a royal standing again. King, queen. Something with more weight than 'Count.'"
"And this girl," Shaak Ti said quietly, "would be heir to that." Adi nodded. "Yes. A future queen with twenty-three thousand midichlorians and a father who knows every weakness of the Jedi." The weight of it pressed down on the room like added gravity. "Take her, we could," Oppo said. "We'd have reason. That count alone would justify bringing her to the Temple for training under our supervision."
Mace's eyes stayed on the holos. "Do you believe," he asked slowly, "that forcibly removing her now would end well?" Adi hesitated. "No," she said. "It would cause a scandal on Serenno. It would confirm every rumor about us 'stealing' children to fill our ranks, which is not true. The Senate would hear about it. And Dooku… would not simply accept it. We might well drive him into open opposition."
Shaak Ti nodded. "We have Anakin. We have our hands full trying to guide one unusually strong child who does not fit easily into our structure. To take another, from a politically explosive situation, against her will… I question our capacity to handle that without further fracture."
"We cannot simply do nothing," Ki-Adi said sharply. "Leaving someone that strong in the hands of a man who already left us is—" "—exactly what we have already been doing with Anakin," Plo said quietly. "Leaving someone that strong in our hands. And we still do not know if we will succeed."
The comparison hung there. Mace grimaced. "This is not the same."
"No," Plo agreed. "It is not. But the fact remains: power, by itself, does not dictate the right response. We chose to train Anakin because he was the chosen one, and we had agreed we would not be taking her in, no matter what we learned. We must now decide whether taking Liora would avert a greater danger, or keep our word."
"Her point about one pot of tea," Shaak Ti murmured. "We are very quick to bring all Force-sensitives into our own pot and call it safety."
"Because historically, it has been," Ki-Adi said. "We could list the wars that came from untrained or unbound Force-users for the next hour." Yoda let the argument circle once, twice, then cut through it gently. "Her, you met," he said to Plo. "Her presence, you felt. Tell us: inclined to darkness, she is? Feel, did you, a shadow close, ready to claim her?"
Plo took his time answering. Yoda appreciated that he did not rush. "There is anger in her," Plo said finally. "As there is in many who have seen injustice. She is fiercely protective of her family. She told me plainly that if anyone threatened them, even us, she would fight. Even if she lost."
Oppo frowned. "Concerning."
"Yes," Plo said. "But her first instinct when we spoke was not aggression. It was curiosity. She asked questions. She listened. She considered pushback. She is not meek. She even seemed excited to speak with me."
Plo dipped his head. "A count that high is a constant temptation. She will face choices that test her balance. That, I have no illusions about. But I did not sense the dark side coiled beneath her skin, waiting for a chance to strike. I sensed a child trying very hard to be careful with something she knows is dangerous."
Shaak Ti's expression softened slightly at that. "Still a child," she said. "Yes," Plo said quietly. "Still a child. Whatever else she is."
"And what does this child think she is?" Mace asked. "Did she say how she sees herself in relation to us? To her father? To the Republic?"
"She does not want to belong to the republic but to her people, her world," Plo said. "Those were her words. Not the Jedi. Not the Senate. Not some imagined enemy in the shadows. She wants to learn from us, from others, and then decide what to do with that knowledge herself."
"Classic independence fantasy," Ki-Adi said. "Many adolescents pass through it. 'I answer to no one.' It rarely survives real pressure."
"I told her as much," Plo said. "That the day would come when our path and her father's path might diverge sharply. I asked her where she would stand."
"And she said?" Yoda prompted. "She said she would stand where she believed the right thing was," Plo answered. "Even if that put her against us. Or against Dooku. She said love did not mean following people into wrongdoing. That is when you love someone, you should be willing to stand against them if needed. To be willing to point out their mistakes and help correct them."
Mace's eyes narrowed a fraction. "Everyone thinks that," he said quietly. "Right up until the moment they are asked to draw a blade against someone they care about. Then they find reasons why 'this time' is different."
"Agreed," Plo said. "That is where my disagreement with her lies. She speaks as if she will always be clear-headed enough to judge. As if the ties of family and gratitude will not weigh on her judgment. I do not think she fully understands how heavy those weights will feel when tested."
Yoda hummed low in his throat. "Hope, she has," he said. "Confidence in her own balance. Wiser, perhaps, to fear herself more."
"Is that not," Shaak Ti asked softly, "what we try to teach our own younglings?"
"Yes," Yoda said. "But teach also, we do, to lean on the Order when their own balance, they doubt. On us, she will not lean. On herself, only. And Dooku."
"And that," Mace said, "is why she must be watched." Heads around the circle nodded, some more reluctantly than others. "We are agreed on that much, at least," Ki-Adi said. "We cannot take her by force. It would cause more harm than it prevents. But we also cannot treat Serenno as just another noble house with a gifted child. She is a variable in a system that is already strained."
"Her midichlorian count alone," Oppo said, "demands observation. The political pressure around Dooku doubles that. The fact that she thinks like this at six—"
"—like someone older," Mace finished. "Someone who will only get sharper with time." Adi cleared her throat gently. "We have left Serenno on cordial terms," she said. "Dooku did not slam the door in our faces. Liora did not curse us. We have the option to frame future contact as… outreach. Education. Plo, especially, has a connection with her now. We can use that."
"Mentor her from a distance," Shaak Ti said. "Gently. Offer guidance without demanding obedience." Ki-Adi looked skeptical. "And when she rejects that guidance?"
"Then we revisit," Mace said. "We do not carve future decisions in stone today. For now, we set a stance: we do not remove her. We keep an eye on her. We prepare for the possibility that Serenno's politics and her abilities intersect in dangerous ways."
"And Anakin?" Shaak Ti added quietly. "How does he fit into this? He is already… sensitive to how we treat other gifted children." Mace closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. "He doesn't need to know all the details right now," he said. "But if this girl ever comes to the Temple, even as a visitor, he'll feel her. He'll ask. We will have to answer."
Yoda could feel Anakin down below, in the Temple somewhere, bright and restless, moving through sparring drills or pacing his quarters. Always in motion. Always reaching. "Perhaps," Yoda said, "a lesson for us, this is. Two children, we have, now. One within, one without. Both strong. Both watching us, to see what kind of Order, we truly are."
He let out a slow breath. "Trust our ways, we must," he said. "But trust also, we must, that room to grow, they have. Question, they will. Challenge, they will. Answer, we cannot, with anger or fear."
He looked around the circle, at Mace's tension, at Ki-Adi's frown, at Shaak Ti's quiet concern. "Decide, we do," he said at last. "This: Take her, we will not. Watch her, we will. Through Master Koon, through others, children perhaps, bring we should. Visit, she may, if wish, she does. An invitation. And if shift, the currents do, if darkness, we sense, then act, we must, with care and with clarity."
Mace inclined his head slowly. "I can live with that," he said. "I will submit a full written report of my conversation with her," Plo said. "Word for word, as best I can recall. You may examine it at length, pick apart her phrasing, see where you believe Dooku's influence weighs most heavily."
"And your own," Ki-Adi muttered. Plo didn't rise to the bait. "I trust the Order," he said simply. "I also trust what I felt on that balcony. Those two trusts are not in conflict. They are the reasons I am speaking as I am." Yoda's mouth tugged, the closest thing he allowed himself to a smile right now. "Good," he said. "Trust the Order, you do. Trust your senses, also. Both, needed, they are."
Adi bowed once more. "We'll return to Coruscant for further debrief," she said. "But we thought it best you knew the essentials now. There is… much to sit with."
"There is," Yoda agreed. The holos flickered as the transmission ended, the three forms dissolving into sparks of light and then fading. The projector dimmed, leaving only the clear floor and the circle of seats. For a while, no one spoke. The city beyond the windows went on shining and moving, indifferent to Council debates and far-off balconies. Eventually, Mace rose, cloak whispering.
"I'll begin drafting parameters for our… observation," he said. "Define what 'keeping an eye on her' truly means. I'd rather not leave that as a vague promise as well as a list of children who could help bring her to our form of thinking."
"Do so," Yoda said. "Careful, be. Trust, we must not poison, before it grows." Mace's mouth twitched. "I'll keep that in mind." One by one, the other Masters filed out, quieter than they'd arrived. Their minds were already half-turned toward schedules, reports, and training rotations. Life in the Temple did not pause for one child, no matter how bright.
Soon, Yoda was alone in the chamber again. He sat for a long moment, letting his eyes drift shut, letting the Force flow through him. He felt the familiar hum of the Temple. The distant blaze that was Anakin. The dim, disciplined presence of Dooku on Serenno, guarded and closed. And somewhere near him, a sharp bright knot that was the girl Liora, thinking too far ahead for someone so small.
Power answers need, not want, not a desire.
Perhaps. But need, he knew, had a way of reshaping itself in people's minds until it looked very much like desire. "Guide us, you must," he murmured into the quiet, speaking to the great current that held them all. "Blind, sometimes, we are. Clearer, see, we must learn to."
Outside, Coruscant turned and shone. Far away, nobles whispered in Serenno's halls, and a little girl with too-old eyes stood on a balcony, looking out at her own future and making promises she did not yet know the weight of. Yoda felt it all press at the edge of his awareness. He held his stick a little tighter. And he waited, as he always had, to see which way the galaxy would bend.