#ikrit

Luke stood there as instructed, confused, then glanced at Ben’s spirit.

“Do you know what this means?” he asked. “Was he always this odd?”

“Not really, no,” Ben replied. “He’s really been able to focus in the last few months.”

Yoda came back out of his hut, holding a fuzzy animal.

“Here,” he said, putting it down. “A travel sized Jedi Master, this is.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that, Master,” the animal replied, shaking out his long ears. “Good day. I am Master Ikrit.”

“Small enough to fit in your ship, he is!” Yoda said, with a nod. “A pacifist, he also is.”

“I can explain myself, Master,” Ikrit replied.

“...have you been there all along?” Luke asked.

“I was actually on Yavin Four,” Ikrit said. “Meditating on the Force. I… lost track of time a bit.”

“Missing for four hundred years, you were,” Yoda pointed out.

“I said I was sorry, Master,” Ikrit replied. “I did skip the whole… massacre thing, though.”

His tail flicked slightly, then he launched himself in a Force-guided leap that placed him neatly on Luke’s shoulders.

“As my old teacher says, I am a pacifist,” the lapine-feline Jedi Master said. “Fortunately, the World Between Worlds does not involve violence. Do you have a backpack?”

Luke blinked, confused.

“...a backpack?” he repeated, carefully.

“I will be your emergency evacuation mechanism,” Ikrit told him. “Through my four hundred years of meditation on the Force, I became aware of the ways in which distance itself is an illusion. A very persistent illusion, to be sure, but I can take you from one place to another in an instant.”

His ear bounced. “...so long as I already know the destination, that is. Distance is an illusion, but getting lost is not. I only got here by following my padawan bond with Master Yoda.”

Luke still felt confused.

“What’s a padawan?” he asked.

“An old term, it is,” Yoda supplied. “A Jedi term. A term for the one who learns while a Knight or Master teaches.”

Around a day later, Yoda was humming to himself and cooking when there was a thump outside.

“Master?” Ikrit called. “Do you know how to heal? I’ve got Luke and his hand, but… there’s an and there.”

“Always rushing around, young kids these days are,” Yoda grumbled, taking his cane and stumping out of the house. “Lost, you did?”

“I don’t think so,” Luke replied, staring at the stump of his hand, then winced as Yoda began making passes over the gap and lifted his severed hand to intersect with the stump. “I lost the fight, but… Leia and the others escaped. I can feel it. I won.”

“Good,” Yoda said. “You did learn the lesson.”

“...does that whole process of going from world to world involve hallucinations?” Luke asked, looking at Ikrit and away from the healing process going on with his missing hand. “Because I swear I saw a really big wolf.”

“Oh, that’s Dume,” Ikrit said. “I’m… not really sure what’s up with him. He’s nice but I’ve not spoken to him much. I think he used to be human?”

His ears flicked. “Sorry I didn’t catch the lightsaber.”

“All right, that is,” Yoda said, firmly. “Make a new one, we will.”