The Dark Side, a talk.(Ols. ask)

[Ru the Boatswain]

The Grandmaster stood in the courtyard outside of the Padawan's rooms. The sun was just crawling above the sky scrapers. On Coruscant this meant it was nearing mid-day, early in the day for his padawan. Colm had been up for hours, his daily routine demanded he be active nearly all hours of the day.

Then she turned the corner. He smiled at the girl who was the likeness of her mother. So very much like her mother...

"Good morning, Natasha."

 

[Ols]

"Master Colm," she replied in greeting, nodding her head reverently. It was late morning, and Natasha made it her business to be sure to be awake and doing something by seven o'clock at least on weekdays. She was wide awake by now. As she had walked from her quarters, where she had been meditating and opening herself up to the force, as she tried to whenever she meditated, to push herself that little bit further along the path, she had contemplated having the grandmaster as a master. Indeed Colm had taken her on as she was an early teen, years before, the usual age for a padawan to be taken, and although he was a councillor the difference when he became grandmaster was an ocean apart. As much as he was her master, he had to lead every Jedi in the galaxy. But for Natasha, she felt this was a good thing. It pushed her to be more independant, and confident.

She was wearing close fitting brown trousers and sleeveless top under a dark coloured cloak, that contrasted strongly with her pale white and pink hue, her gleaming eyes and, hanging just out of the bottom of the sleeves, her slender fingers, with glistening black painted nails. It was hard to believe she was only eighteen.

 

[Ru the Boatswain]

"Indeed. Today we will only talk. We are off to the gardens. He turned to walk and his padawan fell in beside him. "I'll be blunt. Your mother turned to the dark side, that is what we will be discussing today. The Dark side."

 

[Ols]

"I suppose tact isn't in a Jedi master's mandate," she muttered as Colm marched ahead and she followed to the gardens of the temple, ignoring the quip about her mother. Colm mentioned her fairly often, and Natasha rarely rose to his bait. In fact, so far at least, she never had done. Despite being indoors, all of the gardens had the beauty that would rival any of those on Ossus. Lush, colourful and teeming with life, and light streaming down from the ceiling as though sunbeams, it was hard to really believe you were inside at all.

 

[Ru the Boatswain]

"It isn't. I thought you had thick skin, Natasha." They entered one of the hallways between the courtyards. "But she is one of the reasons I wish to talk to you about the dark side today. We have spoken only lightly about this, but today I plan on a more in depth discussion. Have you ever seen a jedi under the influence of the dark side on any of the assignments you have been sent on?" Padawans were often sent on missions to gauge their skill. usually it was to resolve a crime or gather information. Usually they were safe, but sometimes the missions would turn sour.

 

[Ols]

Natasha had to bite back saying, or even thinking, "Apparently I have skin thicker than yours." As cutting and biting the remark was, to highlight such a thing about a Jedi Grandmaster, even in jest, was in poor taste to begin a discussion. Instead she listened and replied, "No I haven't, you know full well I haven't." She sighed softly, continuing to walk.

 

[Ru the Boatswain]

"Indeed you do, you'd make the senators cry." Taking her remark in stride.

"I wanted to make sure. But the reason I bring you here." He halted next to a curved stone bench. He sat down and leaned back. "Here we can watch a man that fell to the dark side." Some distance away, a man sat meditating. The man had dark hair that covered his neck and he wore tight fitting long sleeves that ran down both of his arms.

"That man you see there, he was one of the Jedi who left the order when the Ospion formed. He was a padawan, and he remained an Ospion until he realized that he was not of some new order of the light, but that he had slipped into the darkness. I was trailing him to find the location of more Ospion when he realized I was there. He struck out in anger at me and I was able to defeat him in combat. When he had exhausted all of his energy and was unable to stop me, I spoke to him. I told him why I had come and that he could still return to the light. His reaction was anger and disgust at me. In his eyes I was the dark Jedi, only when I had removed his arms in my defense did he see what he had become."

He looked over at his padawan. "Do you see why I might have told you this story?"

 

[Ols]

((For what it's worth I said she bit back that comment...lol))

"Maybe to try and further drum into my head that the dark side makes you delusional?" she replied with a raised eyebrow, "that you have to be bereft of your arms for you to really realise how ****ed up you've become? I'm not entirely sure master, maybe you're trying to give me a shock as to what you're going to do to me if I don't stop with the cutting remarks," she smirked in the way that Colm knew she was being facetious, she was quite often. Before he could reply she continued, "Master, I'm not an idiot. I know it's easier to become blinded by darkness than by light. I'm not my mother, remember? Just because she made mistakes doesn't mean I will. I have thick skin, remember?" She grinned again.

 

[Ru the Boatswain]

(sorry, I understood that term differently. Doesn't really matter anyway)

"Everything you have said is correct to a degree. I will address each in turn." He cleared his throat and gestured to the once-dark Jedi.

"I would drum such a thing into your head, repeating a lesson helps you to remember that, even one such as this... Ones arms are not necessarily the price of insanity, it can be your life, it can be others lives, the price is quite high."

Then he reached his padawan's point concerning her mother. He smiled at this, "You are not your mother, but you are your mothers daughter. Wile that does not imply flaw, you will run into tough times where you may be faced with similar challenges as she. In those challenges, you will have to make the right choice... And thick skin will have little to do with it." His tone had taken a more serious tone. His voice became more monotone and his head sagged slightly.

"The thing is, Natasha, I think we will see dark times ahead. I don't know what it is, but something out there is stirring. It will rear back and strike like the Hutts, or it will sneak in and plant itself like a weed. It will grow and we will only see it after it has taken root... I fear something has taken root in the galaxy and it conspires against us. It wants us to fear it, its very existence tempts us." He looked over at his padawan, his eyes betrayed his feelings. He was not afraid, but he saw pain on the horizon.

 

[Ols]

"Repeating a lesson is all well and good, but would not the fact that I reached that conclusion on my own suggest that lesson was well and truly memorised?" she suggested. She had no need to respond to the arms comment, she had mentioned it as a light hearted comment, and she more than was aware of the cost of the dark side, she more than most in fact. She cleared her throat to respond about her mother though, "Master, from what I'd heard, was that if she'd been...well stronger, for lack of a better word, she would never have been pushed so far into the darkness. Not that I think anybody really knows the true story."

That fear that she'd had when first hearing the stories, the insecurities bred from it, they had pushed her. Out of pure desire of not wanting to end up a breeding ground of terrible rumour, like her mother, Natasha had forced herself to take things on the cuff, to brush off sharp insults like a steel sword aimed towards a breastplate of beskar.

"And when, not if, when those dark times come," she continued, almost reassuringly, "I'll be ready. It'll be a bad shout for the Jedi Order if I'm not. Think about it, if even the grandmaster has underprepared his padawan then the Jedi Order is more ****ed than we first realised. And I really do not forsee the total eradication of the Jedi, not just yet. I have confidence in you and the force. And I'm wary of the ills of the dark side."

 

[Ru the Boatswain]

"This is good, Natasha. I believe you will go far, and we have spoken of everything I would have liked to. You don't have any questions, do you?"

 

[Ols]

"Not about this, master," she replied. She had nothing to add about the subject, and her tone was quite final, even to the grandmaster. If he wanted to speak of other things, of course she would be willing to, but it seemed they had hit the crux of this topic already.

 

[Ru the Boatswain]

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"I have buisiness to attend to. It appears as though we have a visitor." The Grandmaster stood and with a short wave left his padawan.