A Student and a Sister

[Sleven]

The spartan training rooms of Coruscant’s temple harbored little more than space and automated provisions suited to a variety of training regiments. The tarnished steel walls and opaque plastics gave little color to the austere temple environment. Caleb stood at the center of the expanse with his eyes drawn towards the large windows yet lost in another world’s horizon. Engrossed in the depths of his own consciousness he breathed from his pipe rhythmically, smoke clinging to the already cinereous scene.

He was here to meet his new Padawan for the first time and continue her training as a Jedi. Her name was Orianna: a young Coruscanti girl with a sorrowful past and a taste of the galaxy’s harsh realities. In many ways their shared grief-stricken pasts left them with somethings in common. Perhaps the Council had hoped their likeness would serve as both a foundation stone upon which to build their relationship and a keystone to hold it all together.

Continuing to whittle away at the fumes of his pipe, Caleb thought to himself of the kinds of training she would require, passively diverting his attention to his own. He had taken up smoking not long ago to practice the finer arts of Curato Salva and healing through the Force. Each breath that gave way to deathly soot was met by a resurgence of life. Hmmm, he tapped his pipe for a brief break in his meditative trance, recalling the time he first met his own teacher. He tried to place himself in her position, reflectively thinking of how he would react to himself. It only made him wonder what Orianna would be like.

 

[Jake]

((This thread takes place around two years in the past, long before the invasion of Coruscant.))

Orianna's mind was elsewhere as she wandered the quiet halls of the temple, eyes fixed on her datapad, absorbing the weekly release of a fantasy fanzine she found utterly bewitching. The cold, sterile quality of her surroundings rekindled old memories buried deep in her subconscious: blurry portraits of an Echani temple high atop a snowy peak, of her mother's sisters in arms. Memories of the only time she had seen her mother cry. Orianna pulled her sweater closer to herself as a sudden chill went down her back. She kept reading, however, and in no time at all her sad reminiscences disappeared beneath adjective-soaked images of the adventures of Kyp Durron and Kyle Katarn.

She didn't know much about her master-to-be. His name was Caleb, born on Dathomir. She'd read comics about the Nightsisters, knew them as witches and sorceresses who worked succubus spells upon the minds of men. After she found out who she was to be entrusted to as a pupil, she'd asked all her friends about the man. Most of her acquaintances had been with the Jedi for much longer than Orianna, but all they knew of him was that he'd struck a polarizing impression upon the Jedi at large. He was a man of much mystery, they said, and little was known about his past, which only made all the gossips at the temple orders of magnitude more curious about what trials his handsome face had weathered before arriving at the temple.

She stepped into the room a little timidly, pushing the door open a crack, datapad hidden now in the voluminous robes which draped over her. She unfastened the oversized cloak and left it on a pile of cushions off to the side where it wouldn't be a bother, eyes at all times focused intently on the floor, cheeks flushed a shade of scarlet only a few hues lighter than blood. With one hand she idly twirled a long white lock of hair, slowly raising her gaze to see her teacher. He stood at the center of the room, peering off into the cityscape panorama outside the clear glass windows which constituted one of the spartan chamber's walls. A lazy halo of smoke traced itself over head as he took long, rhythmic breaths on his pipe.

He was... very good looking, she realized with a start and a skip of her heart. She'd been told that her expectations of a wizened old sage whose face was a labyrinth of wrinkles and old secrets would be shattered, but never like this. With a slight stab of curiosity as she noticed his white hair and deep blue eyes, she realized that they were rather similar in appearance. Maybe the Council had had some ulterior motive in placing them together. Her mind briefly wandered back into the daydreamy fields of her stories and she wondered for a moment if they might even be siblings, estranged at birth. She chuckled out loud to herself, cutting the laugh short as she realized what a fool she must seem.

"U-um, hello. I'm Ori-Orianna, I presume you're Caleb?" she asked, struggling to keep her voice steady. She'd never been this nervous the first time she met anyone before.

 

[Sleven]

As Orianna entered the room timidly, Caleb heard the rustling of Orianna’s cloak as it fell to the side of the door, waking him from his dream. In his peripheral he noticed her eyes appraising him with each darting pass they made over his figure. Removing the pipe from his mouth as she approached he licked his finger and smothered the embers of plant fibers lazily, before tucking it away within the folds of his clothes.

Coming to face her fully now, Caleb’s melancholy eyes told of a deep hurt and forlorn past. They revealed his sensitivity and magnanimity as a person, paradoxical to his stalwart and sinewy wire frame harden by a veteran’s sense for battle.

She stumbled with her words, the aura of nervousness projecting itself through her voice. “Yes, I am Caleb,” he spoke calmly while outstretching a hand, “it is a pleasure to meet you.” His voice was reassuring and his presence in the Force soothing to match his genuine desire to put Orianna at ease, "I'm going to be your teacher, not your master. I look forward to overseeing your training and helping you understand the ways of the Force and any questions you may have about its mysteries."

 

[Jake]

Orianna's expression brightened visibly at Caleb's words. As he turned to look at her, she realized their resemblance ended at the superficial level. Even his eyes were different, warped by years of sorrow and pain layered onto them. Nevertheless, the way he carried himself was oddly soothing, and he almost spoke to her as an equal and not an irritation. Her teacher, not her master. That was a relief. It meant that, if nothing else, Orianna would not have to deal with some condescending old fart for an instructor for the next... however long her apprenticeship would last. For an instant, Caleb's hand hung unreceived in midair as Orianna stumbled towards a response. Then, realizing her error, she grabbed his hand far too quickly, trembling a little all the while.

Taking a deep breath, however, she composed herself quickly. "It's my pleasure to meet you, si- er, maste- er... Caleb." In the Force, Caleb felt like a smooth stone at the bottom of a river, over which the water could course without parting itself to allow his passage. Orianna, in her clumsy probing into the ebb and flow of the Force, tried to latch onto that presence and emulate it as best she could. "There are so many mysteries though... everything is so strange. When I was younger I would find myself concentrating really hard and all of a sudden my toys would be levitating around my head, or I would be talking to my mother without moving my lips, or... all those things. I guess they're normal. But really, I don't even know where to begin."

Now it was her turn to look distant, gazing across the cityscape of Coruscant, though her eyes were fixated on a far more distant horizon. "It's all so vast."

 

[Sleven]

Caleb met each of Orianna’s stuttered words and nervous trembling with a reassuring smile and soothing aura in the Force. This was the first time he had taught a student so delicate, and he did not want to make her feel anything less than at ease. Listening carefully to her words, Caleb looked deep into her eyes, feeling the unspoken intricacies behind her words. In many ways he could relate to them. Caleb had been born into the Force, and instructed in it since before he could walk, but the feelings evoked by the mysteries of it never changed no matter how deep one’s connection became. “I know what you mean, and I’ve been training with it since birth,” Caleb spoke softly.

Gently letting go of Orianna’s hand and placing it comfortably at her side, Caleb moved gracefully behind her as she peered out the window at the planet’s endless cityscape. Guiding her to stay in place by keeping her at ease with both of his hands placed lightly on her arms, Caleb spoke calmly, “Let’s start with a basic exercise to get you accustomed to feeling the Force both in and around yourself.”

Removing a clean cloth that had been wrapped around his forearm, Caleb folded it twice before placing it delicately over her eyes, tying it behind her hair. Moving discreetly from behind her, the sound of Caleb’s steps seemed to fade from existence as he quieted them to inaudible levels. He spoke to her now telepathically, so as not to give away his location by means of the physical world. “For starters, try and find me in the room,” pausing for a moment to recall the name of something foreign to him, “Have you ever played the children’s game [insert SW equivalent of Marco Polo]?” Caleb asked, even though he had never played the game himself as a child. “We will begin like that, with me letting out fragments of my presence in the Force, and you trying to find me in the room.”

With that, Caleb drifted effortlessly about the room, emitting his soothing presence with each positional shift.

 

[Jake]

Orianna stayed perfectly still as Caleb tied the blindfold around her eyes. She was confident about this game. Even her early forays into the Force had revolved around similar exercises - subconsciously knowing where a friend was during hide and seek, lifting the answer to a math problem out of a classmate's mind without really trying, convincing the angry alcoholic at the candy store to give her her favorite Corellian Corona chocolate bar even though she was three credits short. As Caleb's footsteps softened into silence, however, she found herself unsure. All she could hear was the soft sputter of the airscrubbers keeping the environment sterile and cool. Sometimes in situations like this old memories resurfaced, like ghosts come back to haunt her. She latched onto the soothing aura which Caleb had left permeating the space they shared, however, and she felt none of the telltale throbbing in her head before one of her panic attacks.

Instead, she set to completing the task set before her. Full lips slightly parted, a lone bead of sweat rolling down the side of her face as she entered a state of deep concentration, she threw herself into the Force. It rushed around her like a tributary coursing towards one almighty river, which in turn flowed into others, and so on and so on in an infinite cycle. For a moment the scale was so breathtaking that it felt almost as if she might lose herself in the currents as they swirled endlessly about her, but her body was a familiar anchor to keep her grounded in reality. Many Padawans would have trouble comprehending such a complete view of the Force, but Orianna had always been a curious child, and her previous, more cautious expeditions into this aspect of the Force's mystic nature left her well prepared.

Her index finger traced patterns in the air like a dowsing crystal as she plunged back into the tiny eddy of the Force which filled the room. For a moment her finger hung still in the air as Orianna latched onto the most familiar presence to her, then cut a jagged line as she made a quick pivot. Sure of herself, she strode briskly forward until she grabbed something solid and, sliding the blindfold up her brow, saw it to be Caleb's arm. She blushed a little as she realized what she was doing but played it off, releasing her teacher's arm and smiling broadly.

"That was easy. I used to do these kinds of things all the time before I came to the temple. But what you said before made me curious, you said you've been training since birth? Are your parents Jedi or something?"

 

[Sleven]

Monitoring Orianna carefully to decipher her familiarity with the Force, Caleb felt the brief lapse of uncertainty before she gave herself fully to the Force. It wasn’t much, but it was there: something for Caleb to work on with his new student. For now he would only mention it tactfully, she was still young and it was normal for a girl of her age to have some doubts.

Refocusing on his student’s convergence with the Force, Caleb felt the breadth which she was able to achieve despite her youth. She could already detect her own body amidst its currents, the next step Caleb was planning to take her to. As he felt her trace the thin lines of his presence in the Force, he thought it best to ask where she needed refinement, rather than waste her time on basics she had already taught herself.

As she found him, removing her blindfold, Caleb returned her smile, courteously pretending not to notice her errant blush. Removing the blindfold from her brow and tying it back to his forearm as she spoke, Caleb nodded to assure her he was listening to her questions.

“No,” he replied softly, his voice quieting slightly to match his recollection and thought, “They were---from the planet Dathomir.” A dark twinge in the Force strained him ever so slightly, the remnants of a scar left by his mother. “My mother was a powerful Witch who taught me much of the Force. I never knew my father,” he stated plainly.

Caleb allowed a brief moment for her to respond, or probe further with her line of questioning. Although he had experienced many horrors during his time on the planet, Caleb had long since come to terms with them as a person.

“While we speak of this, let us also continue your training,” he began, while taking her non-dominant hand and placing it in the palm of his in order to more closely monitor her use of the Force. “This is an ability known as tutaminis. It is a path to many abilities within the Force. Since you already know how to identify yourself in the Force, you have completed the first step. To perform the basics of the technique, you must focus almost exclusively on your own presence, opening it up to the world around you, allowing the energies of both the physical and spiritual world to enter yourself uninhibited. Once you are able to do this we will move onto the next step, feel free to continue with any line of questioning as we delve into our training. It helps to break up some of the insipid lulls of the process.” He said, pausing for a moment before giving a brief smile, “And it helps us to get to know and trust one another, a crucial part of a student and teacher’s relationship.”

 

[Jake]

Orianna was familiar with painful pasts. She didn't pry into the subject of Caleb's mother, though the idea of a witch was entirely too fascinating to her. With every moment her teacher seemed to become more and more a subject of interest. He had lived such a full life! Seen so many worlds, so many sights, and even his control of the Force was acute and intriguing to her. In those brief instants her presence had brushed his Orianna realized the depth of the individual sharing this small room with her, as if she had dipped her hand into a pool within whose murky waters she could see no bottom. She would have plenty of time to talk to Caleb, however. She had the feeling this was the start of a long and fruitful friendship, and that thought filled her with warmth: the only fixture in her life thus far had been her mother. Besides her, there had been no family, only friends who she had known in the various moments of transition between living spaces: little stars waxing their way across the walls across the sky-ceiling of the long night of her life, which had only recently given break to a bright day.

Orianna had never practiced controlling the flow of energy before, but it was still a fairly simple application of the Force. She visualized the same unseen power she used to levitate objects and tried to focus on the image, building a bridge between it and reality. She associated the image with her left hand, pressed gently now into the palm of Caleb's own, and let that energy drift in and out of her body. Her mind's eye peered deep into the spiritual world throughout the process, superimposing onto the physical realm moving images of creatures beyond imagination, of fractal patterns in sequences that made sense only in the hidden language of the Force, which her mind could not quite translate into any expression. The secret tongue of the galaxy itself, overlaid onto the metal walls and glass windows and corrugated skyscrapers who like the fingers of sunken gods rose up to bruise the sullen sky.

Mouthing that ethereal language, even as with her left hand Orianna applied Caleb's words and let energy flow through her body, her right turned palm up. She imagined the wind, hot and cold currents of air mingling, swirling together, forming first an eddy and then a vortex that spun itself into a hurricane. She applied the same thought to the Force, manipulating with uncharacteristic ease the flow of its path in the space directly above her hand. Albeit only for an instant, a spark of energy ignited itself there, the beginning of a concussive sphere of the sort that Jedi and Sith in ages past had used to destroy each other. The spark repeated itself several times, flickering in and out of existence, while Orianna watched it with a forlorn, distant glint in her eye.

Her other hand had begun to draw far too deeply on the energies of her surrounding. Like a hungry black hole at the center of the Maw, she had begun to try and draw on Caleb's own energies, plucking at the chords of his life force. It was clumsy, the strumming of a novice on their first instrument, but nevertheless the talented Jedi Knight would have no choice but to notice it... and certainly, to be disturbed by it. His Padawan, following a simple inference from his explanation, had begun to practice an alarmingly dangerous technique with neither permission nor guidance. At the same time she tried to drain energy from the world around her to fuel that ability, to raise into flame the cinders she had kindled.

Images of her father swirled in her mind - her father, staring into the muzzle of a blaster, helpless before one of the countless assailants sent after him. Her mother, helpless then and helpless ever since, blown helplessly from world to world on the temporal winds of fate, trying desperately to shield her daughter from what she could. All of it could be traced to a single, poisonous root, like a weed in the garden: weakness.

"It would be so good to be strong," she muttered to herself. Her eyes focused on something distant, but that grew closer with each ascending step she took. Perhaps the subtle smile she wore would remind Caleb of a danger he had faced in the past - a danger he had faced among the Sith, that had warped his friend Gabriel for the sake of some twisted game, and which had brushed threateningly close to his own life as well in the brief time they had known each other. If so, he would know that he need stamp out the embers of this fire before it had room to grow.

 

[Sleven]

Caleb’s surprise at Orianna’s rapid growth and instinctual understanding of the Force diminished with each momentous display she put forth. But her growth was eclipsed by abrupt flashes of tenebrous energy within her Force signature. A stray spark of Force Lightning and the vampiric suckle of Force Drain. Although innocent, Caleb could not ignore her perversion of the base technique into these darker manifestations. Despite the immediate danger, Caleb kept hold of Orianna’s hand, using the physical connection to bolster his ability to peer into her mind during the moment. He saw what she saw: the flashes of her dying father at the hands of assassins and the helplessness of her mother. Orianna seemed to think them weak, that power was the solution to her problems.

“No,” Caleb spoke, voice booming throughout the room as if to shatter her thoughts with the strike of a hammer. Seeing the wraith-like silhouette of Casimir reflected in that smile Caleb knew all too well of the dangers she opened herself to with the usage of these techniques. The Order may have changed its policy on learning Darkside techniques, but that did not mean the dangers of them were no longer there. “Orianna,” Caleb’s tone changed with the recitation of her name, now reshaping her shattered thoughts with the tranquility of the light, “Power is a paltry dream, a meaningless patch that lacks the ability to mend the wounds of our weaknesses. The very pursuit of it tears at those wounds, until we embody our weaknesses, destroying ourselves and others in the process.”

Drawing on his own extensive knowledge of the Darkside, Caleb addressed Orianna’s dark powers from the experiences of his tainted past, “These powers you have manifested today, remember their associations well. Know how they feel in the palm of your hand, at the call of your mind, the thirst of your tongue. Do not hide from them or forget them, for they are your weakness, know them well. While I will not tell you not to use them, I will remind you of how they change you. If you cannot use them without this change, this lust for power, then you will become their slave.”

Caleb took a moment to allow his words to sift through the webs of memory and weave their way into her mind before speaking once more, “We shall revisit them in the future, for now try and separate the connection to the world you first felt before exerting your own influence upon it. Exist with the world, be at one. When you are not fighting the world, you are using tutaminis. When you juxtapose yourself to its natural state of existence, drawing its power into yourself, that is when you are using drain, a darkside technique. If you are to use drain or lightning, do so without a selfish lust for strength or power. And if you must use them, do so in my presence for now. That is what I am here for: to guide you and catch you when you fall.” With his final words Caleb tightened his lips with a light smile, to put Orianna at ease and remind her that she was not in trouble.

 

[Jake]

Orianna's powers had blossomed like an eldritch flower, growing twisted and dark beneath the light of a black star, and yet Caleb's soothing touch pierced her mind like the soft but insistent light of the moon. His power washed over hers like a sea swallowing a raindrop, enveloping her as if it were a tight embrace. Beneath the weight of that power, not quite crushing and yet uncomfortable all the same, the sputtering sparks of lightning subsided into the scent of burnt ozone; the bubble of concussive force burst like an interrupted dream; the hungry, draining tendrils of energy receded back like the arms of squid into a jet black ocean. An ocean in the center of which Orianna hovered alone, submerged in a tide of powerful memories which buffeted her from side to side, leaving no room to breathe.

And yet steadily, as Caleb calmed her, the apparitions of her mother and father which taunted her for her weakness and loathed themselves for theirs began to fade away. Orianna, who had never left herself so open before, distantly realized that even the slightest poison was magnified a thousand times behind the focusing spyglass of the Force. Darkness crammed itself into whatever hole it could find in her heart, she understood now.

“Power is a paltry dream, a meaningless patch that lacks the ability to mend the wounds of our weaknesses. The very pursuit of it tears at those wounds, until we embody our weaknesses, destroying ourselves and others in the process.”

She would remember those words. She had not expected for her own ghosts to take her so by surprise, but even before then the groundwork had been there, the background whispers urging her to find power to protect herself and the things she cherished.

"You... can you tell me what that was? What just happened? I-- I did what you said, but... that. And now what do I do? I've never felt so one with the universe, but it was like for one moment I was watching everything beautiful in the galaxy and the next I was just trying to save my own soul."

 

[Sleven]

“That was what many refer to as the darkside of the Force,” Caleb began. “When you opened yourself to the Force, it shapes itself in your image,” recognizing the need to clarify, Caleb quickly gave an addendum to what could be misunderstood, “That is not to say that you are a bad person, simply that the Force can quickly magnify emotions. Things about yourself you have not come to terms with. Put simply: when your mind is at peace, so too is the Force; when your mind is filled with emotion, so too is the Force. This is not to say emotion is something that should be purged from oneself; simply that it is not something that should embody our existence. You should learn to come to terms with the loss of your parents.”

As Caleb spoke he felt his words failing him with every syllable, cringing with the backlash of his final sentence. He had to remind himself that this was a young girl he was speaking to. While philosophical ideals may work to an extent, he realized their folly in addressing Orianna’s current state of mind: she was still greatly affected by the loss of her parents.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb spoke with a sincerity only one born in sadness could produce, “Losing one’s family is something one does not simply get-over, and I did not mean to imply that it should be an easy task.” Caleb knew all too well. He had once had a family of his own among the Fallanassi and experienced love among their kind. “It may take years, but you ultimately must address your past, and reconcile it with yourself. The past cannot be changed.”

Hearing his final words in his mental dialogue, even Caleb knew them to be insufficient. He didn’t know another way to make Orianna understand that he understood, and that as her friend and her mentor he would be there with her every step of the way. Clasping the hand that sat in his palm he gave it a squeeze. Neurons fired in vibrant displays of a kaleidoscope of emotions as he opened himself up to her in the Force. Through his touch he tapped into deeper aspects of the telepathic arts, showing her the complexity of his pathos and understanding through experiences all his own. Flashes of his time among the Fallanassi played like musical notes, each sound speaking to thoughts that could not be demonstrated in even a thousand words. She would know this part of his past, and even more saliently how he had blamed himself for their deaths. But most of all she would know that he understood, and while he had kept his past and the memories close to his heart, that he had overcome.

 

[Jake]

OOC: Let's continue this! I didn't really know where to go with this so I just threw it up.

The past cannot be changed. It is immutable. A river cannot flow backwards, no matter how many men might will it. Similarly the past cannot be undone, but its impact can be altered. Orianna understood this: she understood that, as the patient on the operating table's heart is sliced with medical precision by the surgeon's scalpel, so too had she allowed herself to be torn so neatly to shreds by that which had befallen her. She had allowed the traumas of her past to fall onto the thin glass of her mind and leave cracks like spiderwebs behind, leave crevices through which the rain could seep in. Magnified beneath the looking glass of the Force, those impulses had escaped the cage of her heart to be manifested through the new and magical realms she was exploring, with Caleb as her guide.

She also understood something else: freedom is power. The freedom to choose your own fate corresponded to a power wielded in the past not even by the mightiest of kings or conquerors, who were doomed by their own blood to walk the roads left open to them. In the past she had lacked the power to save herself from that which now haunted her; in the future she would possess it, and in the present seek it out. Power was what drove Coruscant on its impetus, banished night into day and day into night. The universe and its many galaxy-offspring spun by will alone.

Caleb's heart opened like the petals of a flower in spring. The soothing scent that wafted out aided Orianna as she returned to reality, but somewhere in the afterglow she detected the faintest hint of the same problem she had. Perhaps Caleb too lacked power. Or perhaps the Force's mysteries would change her yet again. Though her past was immutable as a stone, Orianna herself felt as transient as summer on Hoth.

"Of course. I'm very sorry, si-... Caleb. Could we continue on with the lesson? I- to be honest, that h-happened because I'm so inexperienced, I'm sure... every emotion feels a thousand times stronger when I'm enveloped in the Force. It's like sinking in a warm ocean. That's how I describe it, because it feels strangely pleasant, and at the same time terribly dangerous."

 

[Sleven]

OOC: It’s all good, I’ll give you some options here ‘in dialogue’ of where to go from here and leave it up to your character to decide what they practice. Feel free to jumpstart some of that yourself and be proactive with the training progression. Message me if there is anything in particular you would like your character to learn or work towards.

Orianna’s reaction was curious, but not too surprising. While Caleb had opened himself to her to comfort her through the Force he had not forced the images of his past upon her. It was likely that she was too preoccupied with her own emotion to truly see what he allowed her to. While this close to her, Caleb could read her thoughts and feelings like the pages of a bold-print book. A serious concern for Caleb was her fixation with power. If she could not discard it, it would devour her as it had the ghosts of his past. Casamir, Gabriel, Lecchamemnon---and even himself.

Hearing Orianna’s words of apology brought Caleb’s mind from past and future, grounding him in the present. She was just a girl. She was still young. There was still much for her to learn and these lessons would take time.

Caleb spoke in amiable tones, trying to deliver his lesson in a manner she would be most receptive to, “It’s alright; you will learn to control yourself and your emotions when immersed in the Force through practice residing within it. Try this exercise on your own time: remain immersed in the Force for as long as possible, make this state feel as a natural extension of yourself and no different from living and breathing, experiencing life’s emotions while getting there. At first start small, but build your way up until you are confident in your ability to maintain control. Do not dull your emotions, but mind them, manage them, so that they are not able to wrest control during times of turmoil and Force usage. A Jedi’s life is the Force. You will utilize it in many situations, high pressure situations that will certainly evoke reliance on instinct. Your instinct must become reason, temperance, and self control. While your emotions do you credit, they can also be used against you during times of vulnerability.”

“For now we can carry on with your training as you’d like. Assuming you understand the difference between Force Drain and Tutaminis, I would like to take your training in self control further. The art of Body Control is one of precision and infinite progression. With it one can speed their movements, strengthen their body, extract poisons, survive harsh climates, repair damaged cells, and much much more. The most important element in mastering it is understanding one’s self. Through physical training and experiencing the body’s limitations one can more quickly learn where the body needs assistance from the Force. Through practice refining the Force for use in tandem with one’s physical self one can more easily understand how certain manipulations of the Force will impact the body. The fundamental step to all applications of Body Control is to draw the Force into yourself, allowing it to entwine and become one with the very fibers of your being.”

“To practice this we may also begin your physical training with unarmed combat, acrobatics, conditioning, or even a lightsaber, if you so choose.”

While speaking his last words, Caleb invited Orianna to the practice mat in the center of the room. Here she could empower herself with the Force with little damage to herself or the environment around them.

 

[Jake]

As Orianna took up a cross-legged position on the mat in the center of the room, she had an opportunity to peer out the windows and into the heart of Coruscant. A constant stream of skycars jettisoned past, and spaceships fleeing the concrete leviathan for other worlds painted ion kanji in the sky with their exhaust, like flowing, fleeting calligraphy. Outside of this room, past the low walls of the temple, a trillion lifeforms sang into the Force like a choir, and though some voices rose a few notes higher than the others, they were all tied to destiny by the same bonds; they were all drawn towards the black hole singularity called death, in whose event horizon all life in all places in all the universe lingered, waiting to be devoured.

These thoughts did not disturb the girl as she listened to her teacher's words and reached out to the Force, as a lover strokes their partner's cheek. Starting in her outermost extremities, she allowed it to flow through her, use her as a conduit for its infinite energies. It enveloped her like an ivy, filled her like water in a gourd, supercharged every synapse and gave new meaning to each gesture.

"I would like to learn how to strengthen myself with the Force, yes. I can feel it within and all around me, but how do I transform it into something tangible?"

 

[Sleven]

As Orianna took her place on the mat and spoke Caleb paced about the room, nodding with each sentence she spoke, his head churning with each word’s new insight into what she was trying to say. Looking at his own arm, Caleb examined himself briefly before he brought the Force to bear upon himself like a jolt of lightning. Stabbing his arm into the air with blinding speed, Caleb produced what appeared to be a single jab with little effort, when in reality, it was ten.

This little exercise seemed to provide Caleb some insight, allowing him to verbalize his thoughts. A certain level of rigidity returned to his face as the gears of his mind clicked, shifting from the lucid and cerebral to the articulate and forthcoming, “Think of how a muscle works. It requires sustenance and nurturing. Sugars, proteins, and fats are burnt as they are converted into energy. Similarly, these many different calories can provide energy for cell division that works in muscle building and repair.”

“Like the calories within our body, the Force can be a source of energy. The only difference is that the Force is not destroyed in this process. For more advanced applications one must focus the Force within themselves on a cellular level, and sometimes even smaller.”

“To create a far more ‘explosive’ or ‘tangible’ result then what you already are, try and use the Force like the body would a calorie. If done properly, the difference in energy between your normal calorie and the Force should be akin to comparing a firecracker to a proton torpedo.”

Caleb knew that very few could achieve the level of refinement he was asking Orianna to without a great deal of practice. However, after having witnessed her progress in her training with the rapidity of a true prodigy, he had a sneaking suspicion Orianna would have little trouble.