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It’s been awhile since I’ve spoken to Ehlial face to face.

I really ought to remedy that yet, at the same time, it’s good for him to get used to not always having his Master at his side for advice, for pulling him out of trouble—or even really for support.

At some point, he will need to learn to stand on his own, which will require me to keep a proper distance. Not so much that he would feel abandoned, but not so little that he would feel he could be careless as he’d know I’d be right there to swoop in and set things right.

For the time being, I’ve been present, yet not present.

He is traveling with two people who could be dreadful influences on a young Padawan, but he still holds himself with clarity and strength. To be entirely fair, one of the two is kept on an exceptionally short leash by me, but that is for everyone’s safety, considering man is a Force using supposed “ex-Sith” Pureblood who has no interest in becoming a Jedi.
The Council may have approved and may somewhat trust him and his story, but I do not; perhaps when Ehlial is a proper Knight, but even then, I would be wary.

I DO find myself hoping that when Ehlial is transitioned away from being a Padawan it is when he is ready and not due to his Master’s death. Given the current climate throughout the Galaxy, it may be more likely that it will be the latter.

Elihu managed to get himself right back into trouble after deciding he wanted to leave Tython and my, of course, allowing him to do so.

Lost his lightsaber, or so he says; I suspect he sold it for spice, but that’s beside the point.

I travelled to Nar Shaddaa to assist him in either finding it or getting a new one, and he insisted that I give him mine. Clearly, that was not a viable option. Elihu moved from confidence, to appearing as a frightened child, and when none of that really worked, he tried to rob me.

It’s rare that I ever am all that aware of my lekku, they simply exist, I’ve had them for the vast majority of my life, but they’re also a bit of a ‘weak’ point when it comes to combat; they’re quite easy to injure. Elihu knows this, of course, and when he tried to rob me, he started with an attempt to momentarily stun me by digging his fingers into my lekku and both squeezing and pulling as hard as he could. 

That was quite painful, there is no denying that, however, I’m well conditioned to have very little outward response to pain, if at all possible.  We ended up in a proper fight, though I didn’t use my lightsaber at all; Elihu is a child, and he was unarmed, save for the Force.

Which he was using.

I think I still have debris in one of my ears. 

Ended up knocking him over and holding him in place using the Force until he’d calmed to the point that he wasn’t in a blind rage. I can’t say it was even a proper fight; Elihu is skilled, of course, he’s had some measure of training, but I have several decades of it on him and only let him drag it out so he could expend some of his energy.

After I’d mended the minor bruises and cuts that both he and I had received, he agreed to let me help him look for his lightsabaer. That was, as I suspected, an excuse to go to the Slippery Slopes for him. On the way, I suggested that, perhaps, I could work with him in the construction of a new lightsaber. I’m well versed on the topic, and Elihu has some interest in it (mainly in the crystals) as well.

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Ehlial seems to be fully recovered; I shouldn’t keep him here any longer.

It’s just as well, he needs to get back to training.

I wish I could say that I wasn’t looking forward to letting him go, but I am. Once he’s off the ship, I plan to sleep.

When I wake up, I plan to sleep some more.

To say that I’m completely wiped out, mentally and physically, after the events of the past month or so would be an understatement, but I will not trouble my Padawan with it. He already has a slight habit of feeling guilty for things that aren’t his fault, and I have no desire to encourage that trait.

If Jude decides to pay the ship a visit, I do hope he lets me be, but I somehow doubt that he will.

Ehlial, I think, ran into his first real stumbling point in his training.

He came face to face with a Sith Lord who, thankfully, could not get at him directly, but who managed to shake the poor kid to his core.

Told my Padawan things along the lines of being able to see the “darkness within him”, that he’d been “touched by darkness”, and other such nonsense.

Ehlial was in quite a state when I got to him. I already knew that something was wrong—that something had frightened him terribly, and I was admittedly proud when I saw how well he was managing to keep himself under control, even if it was just barely.

The Sith, of course, had been lying; I know my own Padawan, and he doesn’t even possess shadows, let alone actual ‘darkness’. Another Jedi happened to overhear and confirmed what I already knew and what I’m sure Ehlial knows as well.

Even so, he was quite shaken; the first time confronting a Sith, especially one markedly more powerful, is difficult. I asked him if he’d feel more comfortable staying on my ship for a day or two and, quite frankly, even if he had refused, I’d have simply turned it into an order. He went back ahead of me, and was asleep in the ship’s medbay when I returned.

Depending on how he seems later in the evening, I may take him back to Tython for a few days to give him proper time to recover.

I don’t know quite where to begin.

I can’t say that I know Jude; I don’t. I met him once, while escorting a friend of his—Sanderson, I think—back to his ship after Sanderson kept threatening to start throwing bombs in a cantina. Needless to say, the man was just slightly full of spice and wasn’t fit to be out in public, even by Nar Shaddaa standards.

Jude seemed convinced that I was trying to harm his friend and followed us. Briefly, he ranted to me about how he was leaving the Jedi Order and the Republic to become Sith. I don’t know if he was looking for me to get upset, or attack him, or what. All I did was stand there and let him yell and, in the end, told him I was sorry that he felt the Order had failed him. Eventually, he tired of ranting at me and left with his friend.

I thought nothing of it until recently, when a Sith apprentice made it known that Jude, for some reason, wished to meet my Padawan. The group of us met on Alderaan, away from any civilians. I am not stupid, and was not about to allow Ehlial to meet a Sith (apprentice or otherwise) alone, especially since it could have been a trap.  

Evidently, one of Jude’s new keepers felt the same as, not long after his arrival, a Sith Lord appeared.

It seemed that my presence caused the Sith Lord’s restraint. I can’t, in good faith, say that his presence had the same effect on me, as I never once had the urge to make a hostile move. While, on some level, I do pity Jude, he made his choice and it is not my place to attempt and force him back. I do suspect that the Sith, whether he would admit it or not, was able to sense that I had no hidden (or blatant, for that matter) hostile intentions.

The conversation that was had was, by and large, mundane. Jude and Ehlial chatted for a bit—they’re near the same age—they dueled once, a friendly sort of duel, of course, considering both myself and a Sith Lord were present. There was a Rattataki named Onekal as well, but, I suspect we bored him half to sleep, and he did not say much. A few times, Jude tried to throw my Padawan off balance, usually with an off-color comment, but Ehlial handled it with clarity and grace. He picks up on things so quickly.

Before Jude left with the other Sith, I made certain to tell him, in very clear terms, that the way he was treated by the Order and by his former Masters was not only terribly wrong, but was not at all indicitive of the Order as a whole. I did express regret that he was made to feel as if he were a ‘lost cause’ and that nobody stepped in to help him—and that he was always welcome to return. Obviously, I did not expect him to take that offer.

He told me that it meant a lot to him to hear a Jedi Master acknowledge what had happened and admit that it wasn’t right.

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For as much as I may tire of being asked if I am or was a slave, dancer, ‘entertainer’, or what have you, it never quite reaches the level of mild annoyance that hearing, “Jedi are emotionless droids” manages to hit.

I understand from where the former comes. I am, after all, Twi’lek, and it is most common to see others of my kind in positions of, well, slavery, dancing, ‘entertaining’, or something otherwise borderline criminal.
I know this and accept this, and am not offended by the misconceptions or assumptions of others, though I would think that the robes and lightsaber would give them a bit of a hint.

Still, I cannot fault them for making a presumption that is, more often than not, true of Twi’lek.

To a degree, I understand how those outside the Order might get the mistaken impression that Jedi are “emotionless”. Many people, whether they’re aware of it or not, make a good portion of their decisions based on emotion, which is fickle, and can be dangerous. Jedi—it’s inaccurate to say that we do not, we are people, after all, and prone to having missteps now and again, but we do try to remove personal emotion from the equation in terms of decision making.
Many times, poor choices are made, as the cliche goes, ‘in the heat of the moment’; to put that another way, poor choices tend to be made based on emotion, and not logical, rational thought. 

Emotional attachments, which everyone has to some degree (Jedi or not), can also be a dangerous influence on decision making, which is why we’re meant to keep them from forming in the first place.
It allows to make a decision based on logic and rationality. In that sense, I suppose a droid comparison is apt, however it does not mean that we are emotionless or void of feeling. 

That, I’ve always believed, is impossible to do completely. There will always be some level of attachment to those with whom one works closely. Masters are frequently attached, at least to the degree of being protective of, their own Padawan. The reverse is often true. 
I’ve often thought that that level of attachment has been overlooked or disregarded as it’s entirely impossible to do away with when one is working with sentient beings over droids—and even then, I’ve seen droids with modules installed that allow them some level of attachment and loyalty to their fellow droids.
In that sort of case, it seems to be more a matter of controlling the level of control that attachment is able to exert over one’s self than anything else. 

When I hear Initiates or, worse, Padwans or even those who have been granted the title of Jedi speak about how they feel Jedi are emotionless, droids, ‘dead’, and things of that nature, I will admit that it does sting; my first, base reaction, is to correct them rather harshly. Fortunately, I am more than capable of not reacting in such an inappropriate manner, and either gently correct the misconception or simply let it slide.

We are people.
We do have emotions, we simply strive to keep them in check so they don’t overrun our lives and decision making processes. 

Lately, Ehlial has reminded me of how difficult I found my own training.

That is, perhaps, a bit of an overstatement as, looking back, I can’t say it was actually difficult. I suppose that view comes from having started training as a young child whereas Ehlial was a bit older. Regardless, Ehlial isn’t quite yet seventeen, and I can still clearly recall everything seeming not only difficult but much more—intense—than it actually was, looking back.

It’s not his physical abilities or abilities with the Force that concern me, it’s more that he’s had so little experience outside of his own upbringing and off of Tython; to that end, I arranged for a particularly—obnoxious—Twi’lek to accompany him when I cannot.

Ixo’diz is harmless, at least to me and to Ehlial, but has a talent for getting under one’s skin.
He’s been doing a decent job of pushing Ehlial’s patience to its limit. So far, he hasn’t gone past that limit, but he’s come close. He’s also reported back to me that Ehlial has been getting better and better at dealing with things that happen that may go against the Code.

And there are a lot of them.

Shooting an unarmed, bested through fair combat, man who said he’d surrender in the face comes to mind.

When I first heard of the incident, I have to admit to being taken aback (at least momentarily). However, the justification given, by Ixo’diz of course, did make sense in terms of how he thinks. There were two people who contracted the job: One was a local person of some note, and her orders were execution.

The other was a Republic military official who requested, but did not order, an arrest.

In his mind, the contract was made with the noble, and her stipulation for successful completion of the contract was an execution of the man in question, not an arrest.

While I certainly do not agree with Ixo’diz’s rationale, I am also aware that he is not part of the Order and is not bound to its rules. The incident was, as I’d originally planned, an excellent opportunity for Ehlial to learn first hand what “There is no chaos, there is harmony.” actually means. The situation was, as I understand, quite chaotic, and my padawan kept his mind clear and did not act or react based on the base emotional response that Ixo’diz’s actions initially caused.

Ixo’diz mentioned to me that his ‘aura’ was gray, according to Ehlial. 
I cannot say for certain that it’s true, as I don’t see the way a Miraluka sees, though based on Ixo’diz’s actions, I would strongly suspect that it’s accurate.
That Twi’lek’s behavior surprises me more often than not.