Exploring whatever they could of the midnight black surface of the planet was thrilling. From examining the multiplicity of stars that spanned across a crystalline sky to observing the bioluminescence of the creatures around them, Yerbol could feel an almost child-like joy flow through his body, excited to discover what other possibilities lay before them. While he actually felt like he was happy in their planetary exploration, there were brief flashes of thought and emotion that he knew weren’t his own, but nonetheless added to his emotional state. He would observe to his wife a few hours after they had launched back into slipspace that names were coming to the tip of his tongue that he had no familiarity with, yet had overwhelmingly positive feelings associate with them. He had wanted to call the names out, to push further into the pitch black to see where they were. Those names, just like the emotions and thoughts, vanished just as quickly as they had come. Yerbol would speculate with Aria about what he had experienced, but decided ultimately he would have to dwell on the matter more significantly when they were settled into the second leg of their journey. Their first had gone uneventful, a week of passing through the ship, playing virtual reality sims, reading and small bits of conversation. The second would prove to be a bit more revealing. 

“Hey, ah, can we talk?” Yerbol had situated himself on a workbench not too far from the scorched shuttle that somehow survived Malachor and was tinkering with the hilt of his saber when Ethan had approached, the Champion looking up to find that his apprentice’s normal bravado was tempered, a look of sincerity in his eyes that Yerbol hadn’t seen in their time together. It was refreshing. 
“Yeah, of course.” Ethan sat on the opposite end of the bench as Yerbol continued to adjust the emitter in the middle of the saber, cursing under his breath as it sparked. 
“You would think that a saber given to you by a True Sith Lord would have a quality emitter.” A light laugh followed Yerbol’s statement, but nothing from Ethan, who sat in morose silence. After a few more moments of micro wrenches and spanners being the only sounds audible, Ethan flatly proclaimed:
“I wasn’t trying to embarrass us.” Ah, so they were going to talk about this now. Good.
“I know.”
“And I didn’t WANT to end up in that position.”
“Yep.” Ethan turned to the Champion as he continued:
“I fought alongside Alliance troopers on Quesh, ran war games on unknown outer rim moons, contributed to Alliance Spec Ops operations across the galaxy.”
“Quite the resume.”
“Which was why I got chosen to be a Champion, Yerbol. I HAVE what it takes.” Yerbol glanced over at Ethan, whose eyes were now blazing with righteous indignation.
“Never said you didn’t.” 
“Then why did you treat me like a child?! You acted like my frakin dad, dragging me by the ear like a stupid teenager who went out on a bender!”
“Well…you kinda did.” 
“Not the point! I deserve to be treated better than that, especially after all I’ve been through.” Yerbol let out a snort of laughter, gingerly connecting the separated hilt together until a satisfying click confirmed that the saber was indeed back together. 
“So what would you have wanted me to do?”
“I dunno…just not that. I earned my spot here and I want to be treated like that is all, especially if I’m expected to be your equal someday.” A quiet sigh escaped the Champion’s lips, placing his weapon on the ground before meeting Ethan’s somewhat softened gaze.
“I’ll admit to this: I overreacted and I-“
“Exactly, see-“
“Let me finish.” The soft but firm delivery of the statement prompted the young man to comply.
“I did overreact, but allow me tell you why.” He motioned to the shuttle.
“What we did on Malachor, what we’re doing now? This isn’t something we earned the right to. I don’t want to be here, Ethan. I really don’t. You know what I’d rather be doing? Spending my days in a non life-threatening career with Aria, going out to see plays, worrying about taxes, grumbling about traffic patterns and lawn mowers going out.”
“But you’re in such an important position!”
“Not by choice, but by necessity. Yes, we’re doing important work and yes, we’ve worked very hard, but not because we wanted to BE important, but to make sure that we never have to do this again.” Ethan’s brow shot up.
“But the Qyaari trains us in combat, to fight-“
“No. The philosophy of balance that the Qyaari strive to implement isn’t to beat the galaxy and all our enemies into submission, to ‘earn’ our place. We are dedicated to bringing balance and harmony to a galaxy that desperately needs it. Once that harmony is achieved, our job is complete and we can focus our efforts elsewhere.” Afraid he wasn’t being clear enough, he added:
“I’ve said all that to enforce that your belief that you somehow deserve to be ‘treated equally’ is rooted, in my opinion, in how you perceive the position you’ve been appointed to. You believe you earned your place and now you’re one of the ‘big guns’, exempt from having to look inwardly at yourself because you’ve ‘made it’.” He shook his head.
“You haven’t ‘made it’ anywhere, Ethan; you’re just getting started on a lifelong journey of learning how to achieve harmony in the Force from within yourself and channeling that to help others. Once you take that approach, you’ll understand why I was infuriated that day and why I haven’t thought of the incident since you brought it up.” Yerbol stood up, a slight smile creasing his features:
“I’ll do my best to ensure that I don’t overreact to mistakes, but I’ll need you to meditate on what we’ve talked about. I’m hoping that’ll give you some clarity.” Ethan opened his mouth, but Yerbol held up a hand as he told him:
“I know I’m not being completely clear, but I won’t spoon feed you lessons you need to learn on your own. Meditate, think, train, then come find me when you’re ready to talk more.” Silently hoping that he had done his job effectively, Yerbol walked across the bay, clambering up the metal stairs, leaving a very befuddled apprentice. 

____

Their conversation wasn’t mentioned again; in fact, Yerbol barely saw the boy except at a few meals or in the cockpit talking to Neta about who knows what. This gave the Champion hope that he was actually doing what he had asked him to do, which in turn allowed Yerbol to focus on resting in preparation for their next emergence into regular space. Six days went by with no events, Yerbol finding himself reclining on a couch next to Aria, who was talking to Kira about a host of subjects when Neta’s voice rang clear across the comm system’s speakers:
“Approaching the second set! Be ready, kids!” The party assembled in the CIC, which also featured a handy viewport on the west side of the room, Ethan positioning himself on the right hand edge of the port as they dropped into regular space to find themselves gazing at a planet which had three rings of blazing flames that wrapped around the northern, southern and middle portions of the surface. Scans done from the cockpit along with actually circling the rock confirmed that the rings were indeed continuous lines of fire that separated the planet. Oddly enough, Yerbol noted that the CIC was picking up heavy storm activity between the northern and middle portions of the planet’s surface, respectively. 
“This almost reminds me of Quensu’s strange weather patterns, although these rings of fire…these can’t be natural, can they?”
“We can always try to find out.” Kira shot him a challenging smirk.
“Do we really want to take the chance of descending into a potential Malachor situation? I mean, the eternal night planet was one thing, but this…” Ethan trailed off, shrugging his shoulders before gazing at the planet once more.