The Monk and The Soldier

[Sangga]

Jakpo, one day you will find someone that is such the opposite of you, you we be balanced - Master Sasfus, Sage of the Jedi Order, and Jakpo's Master
​

These dips in the dunes, caused by outcrops were perfect. The rocks cast shadows that gave respite from Jedha's glare. The natural conduit gave the air a brief increase of speed that was something to be relished after a long stint of meditation. No Initiates had found him as of yet, he always changed where he would meet, they could track his speeder... well they should be able to track his speeder.

He recalled his days as a Padawan to Master Sasfus. By the Force! The human male relished in challenging, not just the young Bothan's mind, but his body and instincts. There in the desert, the long haired, older male chuckled to himself heartily; in stark contrst to the lifelessness of the dunescape. His chuckle grew as he recalled the events of the Bantha Fodder on Tatooine. His Master caked in the stuff to fool the heightened sense of smell a Bothan has. That was not long before they parted, Jakpo got over the arid heat of deserts after that mission.

He'd gone on to the trials not long after. But those memories were for another time. The benefit of this desert now was the isolation, the lack of sound. So, while his other senses strained, he could openly observe the flow with very little effort. Something, ripple was too small a word, a great bow wave was evident in the flow. Something was on its way, that something was going to meet the older, hairy, slightly hungry, and some would say odd, Bothan. A student, another Jedi? Only the Force knew, and viewing up the flow woukd ruing the surprise... but something was coming... and quickly. He remained still, and then figured he had time to eat a rusk of wheat bread from his pack; so moved to start on that.

@Recrus

 

[Recrus]

Though it had been five years since he'd joined the Jedi, Recrus was still amazed at what there was to learn. Being a Jedi was different than being a military officer, a fact that the chiss was reminded of on a daily basis. Gone were the commanding officers and regulations that kept him moving forward, polishing his skills to perfection. Now, he was in charge of his own training.

“Keep an eye on the scanner B2,” the chiss spoke to the droid sharing the cockpit of the bantha-class freighter with him. “I want to know as soon as we see anything.” As he piloted the vessel, his eyes scanned the desert below, taking in the alien landscape. So hot, so dry, nothing like his home world of Csilla.

Shaking off the rising depression that seemed to take hold more often when he thought of home, Recrus focused on the task at hand. Moments later, the astromech droid beeped at him, and scarlet eyes checked the scanner. “That's a small vehicle, likely a speeder. Put us down a hundred yards away from it. If it's the right one, we might be here a while.” His orders given, he rose from the pilot's seat and made his way to the port cargo hold, which had been converted to his own quarters.

The chiss felt the slight bump as the ship landed. He was dressed in his short sleeved variation of traditional jedi robes. His armor was left in the locker at the base of his bed. The heat out there would likely fry him in it anyhow. His vibrosword and maser were left as well. From what he'd heard, this Jakpo wasn't like the majority of knights in the order. He was a byproduct of the older jedi order, a being of peace.

Closing his eyes as he pulled the hood of his robes over his head, Recrus thought of what he knew as the ramp descended, opening his ship to a blast of heat from Jedha's dry air. He'd only caught second hand information from other initiates. What was known was that Jakpo was a bothan, and stood out in the order for his stance of devout non-aggression. He also liked to meditate in isolation. Rumor had it that he was a master of “seeing through the force”. Recrus was unsure of what that meant exactly. However, there had been times, prior to his exile, when he would have sworn that he felt what was going to happen prior to it happening. It was for this reason that he had sought out the reclusive jedi.

Moving across the desert, the chiss didn't try to disguise the controlled rhythm to his walk that marked him as former military. Nor did he slump away from the heat and sun. It didn't take long before he reached the shade that the jedi knight sat in. His legs folded at the knees, sitting comfortably on his heels. Reaching up to his remove his hood, Recrus looked at the jedi before him.

Unsure of how to begin, Recrus spoke calmly. “Knight Jakpo, I am Recrus. I have questions that I believe you can help me answer.”

 

[Sangga]

Such a raucous arrival, fancy bringing an entire freighter out into this peaceful spot. Jakpo finished his wheatbread and reached out to see if he could sense the occupants. Softly, his perception extended past the dip in the ground and out near his speeder. A large, craft had landed. Full of wiring, fuel, and noise. Then he noticed some of the wiring move. He perceived a conscious, simple and rigid. One that contained much knowledge of many things. Then some more metal moved elsewhere. Another rigid, artificial mind. So who ever this was had droids, or some droids had come across him. Another series of movements caught his gaze, this was more the ship itself, a ramp lowered and he saw what he had sensed from a greater distance. A Force user, a strangely rigid mind. Not like the droids, this mind had been molded; not built. A mind preoccupied with thought, and traditions. A mind that looked forward, that was hard and complex.

It approached. They sat down. Then they talked. All this was observed by the Bothan, the mirth of his memories was just that, another memory. This Initiate was already a soldier, a learned one, but a soldier. Their discipline was admirable, and yet the eccentric in him could've smirked at it. Jakpo was resting one arm on his knee the other loose to the side of an extended leg. He nodded slowly to the near-Human's comments. "Is that so, you choose your words carefully. Good... excellent. I can indeed help you answer your questions." He grinned, his hand lifting to stroke one of his moustache tendrils. "After all, you have come out all this way, made good your transit... and found that which you seek..." he rose and began to walk out of the rent in the rock and dune. How would the soldier react? What intelligence had they gathered? What plans had been made? He stopped as he reached the 'surface' of the dune, turning his head over his shoulder. "... how do you expect to learn, if you do not follow?" He walked up the dune, to it's peak. His boot's soles were smoothed with canvas to help in walking over loose sand.

Once the pair were at the top, he breathed deeply, and with a uniformed rhythm. It would be lear that the well-built Bothan should not be out of breath, stocky would be another word for the Knight. Before them stretched mile after mile of dunes, rock and heat. There was no shade here, and the sunlight was fierce. Two robed figures, the Chiss had opted for a suitably shortsleeved robe. While Jakpo wore a short sleeve inner robe, with an outer robe and hood over it. His wrists, covered by the long sleeves of the outer robe, were encased in bracers. He placed his thumbs in his belt and continued his steady breathing, a pause to reflect and to allow the view to be absorbed in. He then raised one arm and waved to the landscape before him. "Tell me, what do you see?"

@Recrus

 

[Recrus]

Recrus struggled slightly against the shifting face of the dune, his boots digging trenches into the sand. However, he soon stood beside the bothan. His hood was back in place, hiding his face deep within the shade provided by the brown cloth cowl. Recrus shook his head slightly, dislodging an annoying sweat drop from his brow. If only the shade cut through this heat.

Exhaling slowly, the chiss pushed his discomfort form his mind. As he did so, he focused on the question posed to him by the bothan. What did he see? The question resounded within the confines of his mind as he gazed across the desolate landscape.

The easy answer, and the first that came to his mind was nothing. Of course, as limited as his learning within the order had been, he knew one thing for sure. The correct answer was seldom easy. Rather than answer immediately, Recrus remained silent and studied the land scape around him.

Recrus was reminded of the words of his father, Theus. “A truly wise man listens twice as much as he speaks.” Closing his eyes, he inhale deeply, listening to the world around him. He could feel the wind stirring his robes, lifting the grains of sand against his skin. He could hear it sweeping across the tops of the dunes, plunging into the shallow valleys between them.

As the wind stopped, the silence became almost overwhelming. The only sound was the breathing of the two jedi. A blue brow furrowed as something, not quite a sound, began to be heard. “No,” Recrus whispered so softly that he barely heard himself, “not heard, felt.” The only way to describe the experience was as a steady hum that seemed to come from everywhere.

The initiate opened his eyes, and the world seemed to briefly shimmer, like heat was radiating off of everything. He blinked against the sudden gust of wind that put sand in his eyes. With that distraction in focus, the hum faded and his vision returned to normal.

Looking to Jakpo, Recrus couldn't hide the brief smile that decorated his face. “For a moment, the world around us seemed alive. I could feel a...” the chiss trailed off as he thought of the word in basic. “A hum, like a small engine that you can't hear, but you can feel it idle when you stand close to it. I could even see a pulse, a rhythm that seemed to encapsulate everything around us.”

The chiss fell silent for a moment, considering his words carefully. He had experienced similar moments before, when he was in the heat of battle, or when he was dueling. Such moments had guided his life, but they had always been just that, moments. His goal was to find a way to extend those beyond moments.

“Jakpo,” Recrus was hesitant to add a title, not entirely sure what would be proper. “I have heard that you know how to see with the force, how to listen to its rhythm. You are said to know how to see and listen to the force and its suggestions, letting them guide your actions in a way that many jedi are ignorant of.” Many would think that statement flattery. For Recrus, he was simply stating a fact.

“Is it possible to teach such a method?”

 

[Sangga]

“For a moment, the world around us seemed alive. I could feel a... a hum, like a small engine that you can't hear, but you can feel it idle when you stand close to it. I could even see a pulse, a rhythm that seemed to encapsulate everything around us.” The Chiss fell silent for a moment, a look of pondering across his face. After a few monts of what must've been deep thought the Chiss focused on the shorter Knight. “Jakpo..."

"Hmm?" He raised an eyebrow, and turned toward his name.

"I have heard that you know how to see with the force, how to listen to its rhythm. You are said to know how to see and listen to the force and its suggestions, letting them guide your actions in a way that many jedi are ignorant of.” Many would think that statement flattery. By the tone of the male's voice, it seemed like he was simply stating a fact. “Is it possible to teach such a method?” Jakpo paced out across the top of the dune and then turned about with his hands placed behind his back.

"That is not what you should be asking, not right now." He began a slow, methodical pace toward the initiate. "Are you ready to experience the sight of the unifying energy that is the Force?" he was only a few paces from Recrus, and what was already a leisurely tempo, became laboured. The first step landed. "Is your mind disciplined enough to not stray?" the second followed. "Are you able to abandon your sense of self, within your idea of the universe." The final step placed him opposite the Chiss, and had his arm slowly raising, to touch the Chiss' side. "Are you willing to expose yourself to the Flow?"

 

[Recrus]

The chiss wasn't accustomed to being told that he had made a mistake. A portion of his psyche rose within him to prepare a rebuttal. It was quickly stamped down as Recrus focused on the questions posed to him. They may have been rhetorical, but he considered them all seriously.

Some of the questions were beyond him. He knew that the force bound all things in the galaxy. He knew that its energy permeated all things, but he wasn't sure how one could see such a thing. The next question was barely worth consideration. Of course he was disciplined. He would prove that.

The third question gave him pause, and something akin to fear flashed through the crimson eyes as he gazed at the bothan. Abandon his sense of self? He was an officer of the Chiss Ascendancy. Exiled, true, but a sworn officer never the less. Could he abandon that? Could he truly step beyond his idea of what he was? Would his oath matter to him if such a feat was accomplished?

His sense of duty and honor struggled against another core part of his being, his desire to learn. In a rare moment for the chiss, his sense of curiosity won out. Perhaps, after spending so much time within the Jedi Order, he was beginning to feel a real drive to better understand the force.

So deep in thought was he that Recrus didn't notice how close the bothan was until the jedi knight had touched his side. Looking at the shorter being, uncertainty shown for the first time on his face since he'd stepped out of his freighter. This lesson wasn't going anything like he'd anticipated it would.

After a few moments, Recrus nodded, determination setting on his features. “I'm ready.”

 

[Sangga]

"Oh you are, huh?" He took his hand off of the Chiss. "In one so accustomed to exactly the opposite of that which you will need." He turned and paced along the crest of the dune, the desert wind making his robes billow erratically. "You lack the... openess to see." He wheeled back on one foot and paced again toward the initiate.

"You want to see it can be perceived... but it is such more than sight. If you think of engines and sounds that is all you will perceive, you must face the unknown with the same, nothing. It is not about facing and finding." He took a pace, the wind made him yell, it was not anger, nor frustration; he yelled to be heard. "Discipline of the mind is not just drills, practises, and debates. It is embracing instinct, it is attuning your sense of empathy. Many a soldier has fallen, a Jedi joins the Flow, but we know there is no Force without life and no life without the Force!" The mantra was yelled, there was no cadence of instruction. But the winds slackened as Jakpo finished his second attempt at the trail. Standing before the Chiss he raised his arm, and his hand hovered over Recrus' solid arm. "When you joined the Order, the Army of Light... the title is irrelevant. When you were brought to the Jedi, you were chosen to be an Initiate. But on your Path you have chosen to find out about the Force... this is good. But your Path lays before you." Jakpo stepped to the side of Recrus and reached an arm to the peak of the dune. The last of the winds died off to show a clean crest, with no footsetps. "Soldier, maybe once. But the flow of the Force has brought you here. So it wants you to know, it does not want the Soldier to know or it would've called him."

Jakpo fell silence and concentrated. His face formed such a mask of calm. Then his hand clasped the hard bicep of Recrus' arm. "See what is guiding you, Recrus." Jakpo reached out to observe the Flow, not something he was unused to, but after the few words he reached out to Recrus with the Force. He enabled his mind, if willing, to see what was merely a hum was a roar. What Jakpo had referred to as a flow was a unfathomably vast current, a series of infintie currents. They all streamed from the life around them, their vision would leave them as they followed the Flow and Jakpo would focus on the image of Jedha. Closing off full exposure to the cosmos for now. The Flow surrounded them, embracing them in unbreakable and unstoppable bonds. Each link of their interactions streamed out from them in all directions. They'd see the streams from the Temple the bright lights of the Knights, and even the Masters. Then Jakpo, fearing that his concentration was waning fully revealed his visual capabilites. A sense of the galaxy itself, nothing focused, a sense of uncountable lives of all shades, and intents. Then his knees buckled and they were pulled out. He was gasping, panting heavily. His knees hit the sand, his hand digging into the hot sand. Soon he grappled with some form of composure, and shakily rose to his feet. A look of satisfaction on his face, a hand rising to his moustache tendril, and stroking it.

 

[Recrus]

Recrus was a being of control. Once he understood the nature of his powers, that being calm and centered in the present moment would grant him glimpses and flashes of force guided intuition. He had endeavored to live his entire life in such a state. The Chiss had crafted an entire military career on being in control and responding to these pushes from the force.

The Chiss had barely had time to process what Jak'po had told him before the bothan grabbed his arm. His pupils constricted to mere pin points as his illusion of control was utterly destroyed.

It was as if all of his senses had been plugged into a single experience. Part of him was sure that the Jedi Knight was sheltering him from the full brunt of the experience, but what he was exposed to would leave a lasting mark on the blue-skinned humanoid.

What he saw wasn't Jedha as he had experienced it flying over it. This was infinitely more complex, more beautiful. This was a sea of light, each being a small pool that was connected to the others, forming a massive inter-connecting web of life that roared with the deafening pulse of the planet itself.

Before he could even adjust to what he was experiencing, his vision broadened, Jedha was lost to the back drop as he realized that it was just a portion of a much larger web, a small instrument in the orchestral pulsing that made up the larger galaxy.

Recrus didn't even have time to try and follow any of the threads he saw. He barely had time to process all of it, to understand even a fraction of what he'd been exposed to, before the vision faded, and he was back on Jedha, on his knees in the sand, his face inches from the ground.

The jedi inhaled heavily, gasping as if he'd just run a marathon. After a few moments, he'd calmed down enough to realize that he was crying. Using the back of his hands to wipe the tears from his face, the jedi initiate slowly rose to his feet.

He felt calm, not quite peaceful, and not in control. It was more akin to the calm of knowing that he had never been in control. He wasn't ready yet to face the bothan next to him. He was still trying to process what he had experienced, to devote it to memory before the experience faded away. “I am Mir'ecru'sabosen, and I am a jedi.” There was a sense of finality to the statement, a casting off of the past. Yes, he had been a soldier, and it still shaped a large part of who he was, but he couldn't let that limit him any longer.

Finally, Recrus turned to the bothan and bowed in respect to the Jedi Knight. “Thank you, Jak'po, for showing me that.” The chiss smiled broadly, genuine joy on his face. “I am currently unsure of what to do about it now.” He lapsed into silence again and looked to the horizon, appreciating it for the beauty he had seen it as before. That experience gave him a new experience to how he now saw it.

He spoke one more, revealing something to the Jedi Knight that he'd never said to anybody since joining the Jedi. “I was exiled by the Chiss Ascendency. Even so, I swore that I'd fulfill my oath to protect the Ascendency. When I came into the galaxy at large, I spent months researching how best to do that. In the end, I joined the Jedi, not out of a sense of personal justice or glory, but because I knew that a sith controlled galaxy would threaten my people. If the jedi can emerge victorious from this war, there is a chance for peaceful interactions with the chiss. Perhaps I have been too focused on that single goal, with no real idea as to how to go about achieving it.”

After another moment of silence, Recrus shrugged. “All I've learned so far today is how little I truly know, and how much I need to learn.”

 

[Sangga]

The old Bothan nodded along with the vocalisation of Recrus' thoughts. "Yes, yes you are. This first and foremost, this is the last thing you are." He flicked his moustache tendril as the thanks was given to him, the Jedi tapped the side of the Initiates arm. "You are most welcome, Initiate." At the lack of assuance, Jakpo began cackling, a series of barks from his throat. "Even the wisest Master Sages struggled to grasp any solid intuition from the Force. You are eager, good, do not fall to haste."

At the confession, Jakpo became more solemn. Stroking his chin and rubbing the short hairs of his muzzle he peered out at the horizon. "While I would say that this is in the past, your exile is giving you focus on your future, and providing a most noble goal. I pray that the Force guides you on this task, remember to look to it, do not set its course out... for that will cause such a conflict in your llife as no other you have yet experienced in a tumultuous existence." Without much of a pause, the Knight began to pace back down the dune, towards the speeder. "Come if we are swift, we could make it back for Evening meal."

 

[Recrus]

The chiss smiled lightly at the offered dinner invitation. Though brief, the grandeur of the vision Jak'po had shown him seemed at odds with something as mundane as dinner. Yet, Recrus mused as he followed the bothan down the dunes, was it not the mundane in which he lived? What good was the Force, if it completely isolated one from the galaxy around them?

Reaching the bottom of the dune, Recrus grabbed his communicator and hailed his ship. “B2, return to our docking bay. I'll be returning with Jak'po in the speeder.” In response, he watched the ramp to his freighter close and heard the engines of the freighter come to life.

As the two approached the speeder, the chiss put a thought that had been plaguing him for some time into words. “The Jedi are supposed to serve the will of the force, not the will of the people. However, when those two missions clash, which calling should we follow? I realize that this question has plagued many jedi, but how does the order make peace with this scenario?”

This question was one that had haunted Recrus since joining the jedi. If the will of the force pushed him against the chiss ascendancy, what would be expected of him as a jedi? More importantly, would he be able to carry out his duty?