When fear makes your choices for you, no security measures on earth will keep the things you dread from finding you. But if you can avoid avoidance - if you can choose to embrace experiences out of passion, enthusiasm, and a readiness to feel whatever arises - then nothing, nothing in all this dangerous world, can keep you from being safe.
- Martha Beck
Tython
"Calphayus, is that you?""Calphayus, no time for slumber.""I am awake... Witch.""Calphayus, do not use their names. They use words to describe that which is beyond description. I am older than Title or Name.""You are old enough to have been forgotten. As it should be.""Are you certain you are Calphayus? I did not recognize you without your face?""That is not my face, Witch. It was a mask. A shield. A symbol of one who failed. I hear you, yet not see you. You may just be another memory from the past.""I am of the Past. I am Now. I will be with you for what comes Next. Tell me Calphayus, how long has it been since you shed your old face for your new?""It has been... it has been... it has... it is a year now. Yes, my vision clears more each day.""Poor Calphayus. It has been nine years, as they measure space, and time.""Nine? No, not possible... it has only been... ""It is possible, because it is true. It is true, because it is already in the past. We can only see the Past Calphayus, not revisit it, not relive it, not revise it.""We can regret it.""Why Calphayus? Why regret that which cannot change? Do you fear the past? Only the Jedi know such fears. Fear to repeat mistakes long passed. Fear to forget loves long gone.""The Jedi control their fear Witch, even you know this.""Do they Calphayus? Is that what guides their hands now? Confidence? Surety? Conviction. No, they are not so certain.""Only a Sith holds his fear close. I know this well. It gave me power.""The bond with your fellow Masters gave you strength, yet it was fleeting, limited. You used it to destroy, yes, but look at you now. Broken, alone. You have forgotten as many years as you reigned, and you are losing time now, even as we speak.""Then tell me why we speak, Witch. I know these lessons already. I speak of them with the Jedi. We deconstruct each moment, each choice, until we find wisdom, and serenity. I enjoy those moments. They are fleeting. Then we begin again, and the darkness returns.""Poor Calphayus. So many years, and still you do not understand. They did not bring you to their celestial body to teach you.""They gave me mercy, Witch. Through their instruction, I remember, I heal. I do not want to spend my remaining years, few as they are, in darkness and pain.""Calphayus, if it is redemption you seek. Forgiveness, perhaps? You need not atone. You need only to speak. You are their instructor. Only you can teach them how to survive what is coming.""Your riddles betray you, Witch. Your mind is as lost as mine.""Calphayus. Brother. There is no riddle here. Only a warning. They are few, and the end is coming. Their numbers dwindle, their attachments disturb, and their rivalries distract. Jedi, Sith. The Light. The Dark. These are constructs. You gazed into the heart of the Phobis. Your mind survived. Revealed to you was past, present, and future. They were as One once before, and to survive, to endure, they must become as One again.""If they cannot, Witch? I have not known you to gloat or grovel. You neither find peace nor seek harm. What cause have you in their survival?""I have dwelled long on the Past Calphayus, perhaps this Old Witch as you say it, has her own regrets. The End is coming, and with it, all of their accomplishment, knowledge, and potential will be gone. It slips away now, each day, as fewer and fewer of them remain to resist it.""Change cannot be avoided, Witch. Loss cannot be prevented. Those that stay, endure. Those that wander, may never return. Those that fall, are remembered. There is no Death, there is the Force.""No Calphayus. Not death.""What then?""Can you not feel it brother?""Dread."
