Learning in the Depths (Sionann/Kalia)

[Emerald Iris]

Naboo, always a place of bustling activity, a world where no one knows who is in control anymore, where civilization just seems to move on regardless of the time. It was much the vast wilderness that surrounded the many populated areas, moving along at its own natural pace, just like the rest of the world. Nothing was the same save for one spot, one dark spot that was far from any prying eyes, surrounded by forest and a consistent low fog. This spot remained the same as it did eleven years ago. Trees never grew here, grass stayed low and a deep green color, as if it took in too much water. A few bare patches were within this clearing, zigzagging in patterns that had no rhyme or reason, scars made without control, by the Force. It was here that she sat on the cold ground in meditation, waiting.

This would mark one of the first times that anyone had seen the sage knight in quite a while after her failed mission Black Fall that ended up costing her vision in her left eye due to an accident with the weather. The wound would heal in time, but right now she had a a silken patch over her eye. Sionann's mind had wandered into the depths of the Force at this point, still searching for answers, answers to questions only she could ask. Those answers flashed by her all the time like bolts of lightning, too fast to catch, too fleeting to understand. Perhaps she wasn't ready, perhaps it was just a matter of time? Sionann tried to reach for one but all that appeared in her hand was a bolt of her own lightning, to her the purest expression of the Force.

Closing her hand around the crackling electricity, Sionann snapped out of her meditation and back into the real. The air was crisp as she took a deep breath in an out, the echoes of the dark acts that occurred here all of those years ago flashing through her mind just like every time she focused on the landscape around her. Another breath and she relaxed, keeping rising nerves from getting the better of her. It was getting easier each time she came back here, but the tug of the Dark Side was still just as real now that she thought about it, and more importantly why did she bring someone here who wasn't prepared for this? Was it poetic that Kalia is just as old as Sionann was when the events that took place here happened? No, it was a necessary lesson, a lesson to remind one of their own mortality and realization that being Jedi didn't mean being immortal.

Rising to her feet, slowly, Sionann stood to her full height, looking around. Kalia would be finding her any moment at this point, a warm up run through the woods to find the silver haired knight, with plenty of twists and turns involved. Of course, she wasn't callous enough to let Kalia be completely alone in finding her teacher. Neve was following from a safe distance to insure the padawan's safety, just in case, but Sionann had faith she would be found. "Trust your instincts and know in the Force no one is truly impossible to find," the last words that Sionann had spoken to Kalia before rushing into the woods to this very spot. She could only imagine how annoyed that the teenage padawan probably was at the sage knight, it brought a quiet grin to her face just as she felt a nearby approach. A left hand reached inside her dark gray cloak and against her robes, clutching the cold hilt of her lightsaber lightly, just in case. If it was Kalia, their next phase of training would begin.

 

[Prudence]

Kalia leaned against a tree and let out a series of short hot pants, as she also pulled her robed arm across her face to wipe away the sweat from her face. She leaned her head back, her scalp thudding into the thick rugged bark of the tree behind her. She dropped the backpack off of her back and half heartedly tossed it away, but it only made it half a foot or so before it thudded to the ground. She sank down into the ground, as she felt the bark from the tree dig into her back and scratch it until her ass hit the ground and sunk into the damp ground around the tree. She sat there for a moment, sucking in air as hard as she could, and then she unclipped her water canteen from her belt and took a long swig from it. A bug bit at her cheek and she slapped at it, a frustrated emotional moan coming from her as she thought about how hard the journey had been. She just wanted to give up. Reattaching it she pulled herself, "By the karking stars could she have picked a farther spot."

She quickened her step as she walked forward until she was back into her jog that she had assumed earlier. She ducked under branches and past trees until suddenly a sharp pain in her scalp stopped her dead in her tracks, her hair had snagged in some briars. She slowly began working them out of her hair for the 3rd or 4th time. As she did so the thorns cut into her fingers and her hand, producing small trickles of blood. Ultimately she pulled away hard enough that the briar stem broke, leaving a few strands of her hair in what was left of the plant, and a chunk of its thorny stem in her hair. Kalia let out an annoyed, frustrated groan. She could feel Sionann more or less now, close by. She jogged again, towards the spot she felt the Jedi master at, and could barely glimpse what looked like a clearing through the trees. Pushing forward she was almost there when she felt a tree branch she had accidentally let go of thud her directly in the stomach and sent her rolling/falling into the clearing. She looked up to see the Jedi master standing there. She glared at the older woman, a mild look of annoyance and frustration on her face. "Master Sionann... I already know how to use the force and stuff, and I know the Jedi code, save innocent people, don't abuse the force, the sith are evil, don't use the dark side, etcetera. We could just go back to Theed now. We don't have to tell anyone, you can go find a spa and get some hair dye... and I could take a shower and tell them I'm trained! Make me one of those Knights!"

 

[Emerald Iris]

It took a little longer than expected, but Sionann felt her hand relax and fold at her waist. There was a light smirk on her lips certainly meeting the gaze of her student seeing as the padawan had definitely taken some of the harder paths in the forest. The words that Kalia let out were certainly true, perhaps to the extent of a padawan fresh out of the temple, but true.

"So you know the code," Sionann responded in a tone that was certainly not of one who was impressed. "You know the basic nature of the Jedi that any youngling could speak back to me verbatim. Everything is true, but those truths are what make you a Padawan, not a Knight." She kept a relaxed stance and approached a few feet closer. "I am not here to teach you what makes a Jedi, I am teaching you to become a Jedi," The sage knight raised her hand to gesture around the clearing. "Here is where you begin. This is where someone around your age almost believed themselves ready to worthy of the trials, but that is when the Force refused to let it happen. Can you feel those echoes? The voices in the darkness?"

There were a lot of personal reasons to be here, it was this very spot where Sionann, eleven years ago, obliterated a Sith with all the prejudice and hate she could have mustered at the time. She knew the Dark Side still echoed here, wailing like creature in the throes of wrath, though she wondered if anyone else could hear that memory, could feel it. it was not exactly a comforting feeling, perhaps downright scary to those who were unprepared.

 

[Prudence]

Kalia looked up from the ground as the Master, in a rather disapproving tone, looked down upon her. Sionann began lecturing her about how what she knew wasn't good enough. Kalia listened to what the woman said, about her purpose for training Kalia, and something about darkness in this spot. She arched an eyebrow as she pulled herself to her feet and gathered her robes up around her. She wore a rather uncomfortable tan tunic that was typical of the Jedi, and her brown robes. As the master droned on she began patting down her clothes, wiping the dirt off. Finally the older woman began to ask a question. She considered snapping back with armfulls of harsh comments and words, but decided instead to open herself up to the force and feel for what the woman was talking about.

She pinched her eyes shut and opened herself up, and heard it. It was like sick whispers, echoes, apparitions. A voice nasty, dark, and malicious calling out to her with words she couldn't hear. More than that, just opening herself to the force here gave her chills down her spine.

"I.. I do."

 

[Emerald Iris]

And that was where she had grabbed the attention of the padawan. Sionann watched as Kalia's body language seemed to change while listening to the echoes of vengeance and rage that continued to ring through the air.

"What do you hear?" The sage knight asked, keeping the focus on the subject at hand. "What do you feel?"

She began to pace as Kalia became more attuned to the area. Sionann kept her eyes focused on Kalia, not moving them for an second, barely acknowledging that Neve had arrived at the outskirts of the clearing. The sage knight was making sure that her padawan didn't drift too far, but also wanted her to understand more of what the Dark Side actually was. This was not about theories, or controlled environments, it was about the Force in its own uncontrolled state. An air of concern filled her heart at this point, but Sionann let it settle down, trusting in her methods and the Force.

 

[Prudence]

Kalia shivered, "I feel cold... and I feel.. hate. It's everywhere... I feel afraid."

What she had said was the truth. She pinched her eyes shut, barely aware of the older woman's pacing. Whatever had been done here had clearly left lasting consequences in the force, as well as the plants in the area, with the natural desolate clearing it had formed.

"What happened here..?"

 

[Emerald Iris]

"Fear and anger come the darkness and the light," Sionann responded not directly answering Kalia's question while the silvery hilt of her lightsaber came to her left hand. "To know fear is to be in the light, to be controlled by it is the darkness. To know anger is to be in the light, to let it control you is to be in the darkness."

The bright cyan blade of her weapon ignited with that last comment, the sage knight feeling it was time to move forward to the next step of their training, now that she had her new padawan focused. Sionann adopted a clearly Juyo stance with her blade raised at a horizontal angle and foot forward, facing Kalia.

"To learn what happened here," She followed up, knowing her aggressive position was going to potentially unnerve her padawan. "You will have to draw your blade, Kalia."

 

[Prudence]

Kalia began eyeing Sioann warily "That.. that's not what they told me. They told me Fear leads to anger.. anger leads to hate.. hate is the path to the dark side..."

She stepped back from the woman, slightly nervous and not quite sure what to say to all of this. Suddenly her master ignited her lightsaber, and told her to do the same, but the blade was already in her hand. At the drawing of the opposing lightsaber Kalia had already picked hers off of her belt and had it in hand. When Sionann told her to draw her blade she let the blue blade of light snap hsis into existence, and stepped back some into a bit of a defensive position.

 

[Emerald Iris]

"When you let fear master you, it becomes hate, when you let anger master you it becomes hate," Sionnan leaned on her forward facing left foot, advising the young padawan. "It is a misconception to deny yourself emotion as a Jedi. You need to feel in order to understand. Feel fear to understand it, feel anger to understand it, and ultimately deny their ability to master you now....React!"

The sage knight did not move at full speed, giving plenty of lead up to her attack so Kalia could defend appropriately, but it was not with the familiar Shii-Cho that the padawan had been exposed to. Sionann sprang off of her lead leg into an aggressive lunge that was like a predator leaping onto its prey, closing the gap between them. Her left hand brought around a fierce, but obvious, horizontal slash hoping that Kalia would parry or dodge. Through her openness with the Force, Kalia would no doubt feel the merciless intent that was behind every swing that Sionann had whenever she relied on Juyo. It was a very un-Jedi like savagery that was with her blade, even if on the outside Sionann looked calm and controlled, making sure her weapon did not make any attempt at a mortal blow just yet.

"Combat brings, no, unleashes these emotions to their fullest extent," Sionann followed up with as she struck again with another horizontal slash that was either reversed or the same depending on how Kalia defended. "Anger and frustration at giving ground, the possibility of losing," A quick lean back followed by a stab that could be easily blocked. "The fear of one's own mortality. Only a few of the many temptations to grasp the power of the Dark Side. Anything to win!"

 

[Prudence]

Kalia gripped her lightsaber a little tighter. What Sionann was saying was something completely contrary to everything she thought she knew. She nodded a little bit, still unsure of the master’s words. The older woman was then on the move, moving quickly, but still fast enough to frighten Kalia. She lunged forward, like some sort of animal, towards Kalia, quickly closing the space between them. She then brought a fierce swing slash horizontally towards the younger girl. Kalia reached out in the force, but the friendly older presence she had once felt had been replaced by a merciless, aggressive beast.


Kalia brought her lightsaber across her, blocking the slash. She listened to her teacher talk about emotions, and then blocked the next sudden swing from the same direction. Her teacher then tried a stab at her and she jumped back.


“H... how do you keep from letting your emotions master you?”

 

[Emerald Iris]

"How do you feel?" Sionann approached with a somewhat faster vertical slash. "You're withdrawing from me. What are you feeling?"

Her words were still calm and controlled, contrary to her movements and impression through the Force. Sionann could be felt like rampaging beast on the inside as she poured her aggression through the Force but there was this element of control, like she had her own self on a leash. She kept advancing in the same fashion as her favored form allowed, focusing on the ferocious offensive capability Juyo allowed, rather than it's not so great defensive aspects.

"Is it fear keeping your from striking back?" The sage knight asked as she advanced again, turning her vertical strike into a rising attack. "Is it confusion? Start there, what do you feel, learn what that feeling is. You must understand what you feel, first."

 

[Prudence]

Kalia heard her teacher talking to her, but didn't know how to answer. Her emotions, her feelings, were a swirl. Like someone had taken every color and every thought known to her and swirled it within her. She felt the darkness, she felt the incoming attacks from Sionann, and she felt confused. She felt more than saw the older woman swing her lightsaber vertically towards her and raised her saber in a block before bringing it full circle in a strong swing towards the Knight's left side.

"I.. I feel confused. I feel everything around here and it scares me... and I don't know how to harness my emotions without letting them control me..."

 

[Emerald Iris]

Sionann felt the parry from Kali and then her padawan answered back with a follow up strike, turning into a full swing, completing a full turn which added extra force behind it. "Fear freezes you, but also gives rise to caution, does it not," The sage knight did not parry the strike from Kali, but rather attacked it in her traditional fashion. She focused her aggression, pains, failures into her hands at this point, striking the padawan's blade with a hard hit a harsh whispering grunt leaving her lips at this point. What was being shown underneath surfaced for a brief instance. Sionann intended to knock Kali off balance with this attack, giving the sage knight time to jump back and end their first exchange.

"But when you think about the emotion, your body recalls its memory," She followed up with a relaxing of her guard, keeping the focus on the subject at hand, not remarking on the attack she just did. "Heartbeat rises, muscles tense, your senses sharpen, you begin to feel it, do you not? But what happens through the Force?" Sionann deactivated her lightsaber at this point and waited for the answer.

 

[Prudence]

Kalia had thought her swing had been clever, but Sionann had been there, waiting for it with her blade. She didn't just block it though, she had swung an all out attack towards the blade itself, as if the plasma of her blade could kill the plasma of Kalia's. She had put so much effort into the attack that the sheer overwhelming force of the parry had sent her off balance and caused her to step back.

She listened to her master speak as the woman jumped backwards. She then posed a question to Kalia as she deactivated her lightsaber. Realizing their exchange was over, the padawan hesitantly did the same "The force feeds on emotions... it strengthens you..?"

 

[Emerald Iris]

Kalia was entertaining a good question, and that made a light smile cross Sionann's face. Her padawan caught on fast to the philosophical pursuit that was Sionann's eternal quest. and that was a great start. "That is an interesting point to entertain, you should certainly reflect on it," The sage knight gestured with her free hand around the entire area. "The Force is infinite beyond measure, energy in its purest form, and through us we give that energy purpose, we change it into light and darkness. We give it that purpose through our intentions and feelings. So you say, for example, you become enraged, the Force feels that rage and in turn gives you strength so you can give it more of your feeling. It makes you powerful, almost unstoppable, but why is that such a terrible thing? It simply does not just lead to just the Dark Side now does it, something worse?"

Sionann asked her questions knowing these were similar questions asked to her once before. She was curious to hear the answers, but she also knew this is where her teachings would be at their closest to violating the code, though hopefully Kalia would hear her out entirely before making any rash judgment.

 

[Prudence]

Kalia tilted her head at the comment "I, I had never thought about that before... that the force wants to feel. It feeds off of that rage enough to blind you. So that all you can see is your disconcerting anger and hatred. That is why a Jedi must have self control, so we can keep ourselves from being blinded by emotion. Then we can have what we want, and what the force wants..."

She was genuinely shocked at the revelation. She had never thought of the force as wanting something, or needing something from her. She had only thought of what she wanted and needed from it. It all began to make more sense to her.

 

[Emerald Iris]

"But then, what happens when you have too much control?" Sionann closed her free hand, bringing it down to her side. "You become deaf to that other part of the Force do you not? What if you let a little of that control lapsed?"

The sage knight focused a little bit, letting a noticeable spark of electricity race around her hand, letting it disappear. All of this while she let out a slow and relaxed breath, maintaining her own control. It was a calm demonstration of what Sionann believed was the purest expression the Force could offer, lightning.

 

[Prudence]

Kalia ran one hand through her sweaty hair, pushing it behind her ear as she listened to her teacher talk. The woman had asked a question that Kalia wasn't sure she knew the answer to. She'd kept up, to an extent, with Sionann so far, but she was unsure of the answer to her question.

"I.. I don't know." she said honestly. It embarrassed her to admit it, but she felt comfortable with the older woman. Right after saying it her eyes jolted as she saw lightning begin to arc around the woman's fingers. She slowly rested a hand on the hilt of her lightsaber, not sure what the woman might be planning to do to her with said lightning.

 

[Emerald Iris]

"Understanding emotion is the first step," Sionnan stepped forward and adopted a stance with her right hand raised and saber hand still lowered. "Accepting it is the second step." She didn't take any further actions other than adopting the ready stance. "Think of the rage that was unleashed here. Listen for it in through the Force and then attack me with your blade,"

It was their next dangerous step in training. It was a baptism by fire situation, and not that Sionann was trying to be malicious in her approach, it is just that she knew emotions were probably the greatest weakness of the Jedi. Nothing could turn a Jedi from their own path like a whirlwind of emotions, and if one could master that storm, control the tempest, falling to the Dark Side would be that much closer to being impossible. The sage knight would like to think that, but it's always wise to aim higher than one could actually achieve. Another calm breath left her lips as she focused on her padawan.

 

[Prudence]

Kalia nodded along with her as she spoke. She understood how to understand the emotion... but accepting rage was uncomfortable. She opened herself into the force and felt the chilling rage, and then let it inside. She felt it permeate her, take over every cell in her body. She became rage, and rage became her, but she controlled the rage. She let go, and felt. She felt her arms rush upward as she drew her lightsaber. She felt her body leap into the air and somersault before coming down towards Sionann's head with a powerful downward strike. If the Jedi Knight were to side step this Kalia was prepared for a secondary strike.