Lost In the Sway of Things Meaningless

[Jacques]

Of course, Arek's purposeful stride was just a ruse. He still had no idea where the hell he was going, even after twelve years of constantly visiting the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. He had hoped that being rebuilt after being destroyed would be a fantastic reason to admit not knowing the layout, but the place was almost exactly the same. Almost the same as the one on Tython, or Empress Teta, hell, even the training halls on the Light of the Force looked similar to the temples, just without the air of being ancient of prophetic. The only difference between the two Coruscant Temples was that the old one held the air of false confidence and discreet mayhem, and the newer one offering a slightly worse air of hopelessness, regret and inaction. The Jedi Order had nearly doubled its amount of Grand Masters in the past year the Tusken remarked to himself with a sarcasm that just seemed plain sour to him now.

Where the hell was the Library? Or his Quarters, he'd barely found them before , he'd be lucky to find them again after he was done in the Library. He'd been lucky enough to survive the bombing of the Temple, although of course his Master had not but things had to be moved on from, which they had. Arek just wished he had a map, or had been provided a map as a thanks from the crew who rebuilt the place for not having to clean up another body.

Arek realized that he was barely a Jedi anymore. He'd spent more time on Coruscant wining and dining with politicians lately than he had fighting in the war being fought by his Order. But he cemented himself as a diplomat, and no longer believed that getting a whole squadron and himself killed would be a good way to be made into a Knight. The Order had enough of those who were much better at it than he was, even though he'd much rather be stabbed three times by a lightsaber than eat with a politician, that was just the path he'd chosen as a Jedi. Though as he finally reached the Library, not even trying to take note of the bleak designs of the Temple interior, he felt himself more of a Historian than a Diplomat, seeing as how he didn't even like people. The Tusken didn't even carry a lightsaber anymore, or wear robes, he wore just his regular Tusken Attire and nothing further, no blaster at the hip or arsenal of weapons around his body. If he would have to defend himself, he'd rely on the Force alone.

Without realizing it, the Padawan was sitting down at one of the desks in the Library, holding open a book about the Old Republic, specifically, political mindsets of specific, popular Jedi from the Old Republic, a book he had not even thought about taking. But it was there in his hands, so he read on from where he had caught himself with that particular book, and noticed he was thirty-four pages in. Setting it down for a moment, he cupped his Tusken-wrapped head in his Tusken-wrapped hands and sighed. Everything was routine and everything was pointless, and meeting somebody interesting was about as common as a credit chip falling from space in front of his feet and holding twenty million credits.

And it was only three in the morning on Coruscant he noticed and remarked to himself, glancing over at the book in disgust before picking it up again to read.

 

[Kiro]

After having been assigned to Grand Master Ratler as his Padawan and unofficial assistant, Kiro had enjoyed a greater access to the impressive Library and Archives of the Coruscanti Jedi Temple. Obviously her access was still lower than that of a Knight or a Master, but still, Kiro wasn't one to scoff at any new source of knowledge, no matter how small. And she loved to learn and to read. So that was why Kiro was in the Temple Library at three in the morning. She was treating herself.

The dark-haired Padawan was sitting at a desk, her eyes dancing back and forth over the holographic texts on her datapad. Kiro was perhaps one of the very few in the Jedi Order whom studied lightsaber combat and the Seven Forms through reading and literary studies. She did practice in the more physical ways as well, of course, but reading, and on ocasion watching holorecordings, and listening to audio snippets from it's practicioners helped just as much, in her mind. She could imagine it in her mind just as easily.

Tough, when she attempted to study her own chosen form, Makashi, she often became frustrated. Several sources and texts frequently stated one Count Dooku, a Jedi of the Order of the Old Republic, as one of the finest practicioners of Form II, but whenever she attempted to enter the entries of 'Dooku, Count', she was constantly blocked, not having the required access. It made her suspicious, and with her stubborn streak, she only tried to dig harder. She knew Dooku had left the Order after having been recognized as a Master, but little more than that.

She sighs, before she smiles a bit. She was still not completely used to being able to breathe normally, or sighing without a wheeze or a ragged cough, or being doubled over in crippling chest pains. Thanks to Master Ratler, she had a new life. A second chance to be a propper Jedi, instead of some weakling whom was half an inch from being shipped off to the AgriCorps.

 

[Jacques]

The sounds of a datapad in motion and a person with troubled breathing. Right on the opposite side of the bookshelf to Arek's immediate left. Between the books and the dusty, metallic shelves that held them in place, was a girl's physique. Small and fragile, with long hair and such, but he couldn't see much more than the obvious; A Jedi girl, because she couldn't be a Sith. At least he hoped she wasn't a Sith. The Tusken could hear faint robotics whir as the breathing went on, and the padawan couldn't help but wonder what had happened that cause artificial limbs or the like to be brought into the ordeal. But for a little while, he continued to read. The book was pretty boring, really, but that was the way politics was. If one wasn't actively participating in a political campaign, than there was really nothing exciting about the job field. But it was something to do, though talking with politicians was doing about as much as stabbing one's self in the leg for Arek those days.

Ten minutes passed, and the girl with the datapad continued to read same as he. But Arek put the book away, in a random spot, and walked about looking for more. He could do the same thing as the girl, pick up the datapad offered right at each desk, and sift through the Library collection in less than a minute and get a thousand good books to read out of it with a simple search, but he preferred to get up and look around. It was normally better to have a purpose than it was to press a button pretending to have one.

Slowly he made his way around the bookshelf from the end of the politics section over to the lightsaber combat section, which the Tusken always noticed was ironically accurate in a way. Not as ironic as a Tusken Raider being a diplomat, but it was still funny to him. With an index finger Arek personally sifted through the collection of books on that side of the shelf, from books on Shii-Cho and Makashi and Soresu, the last being his preferred form of combat, and moving past that. Books about mixing combat techniques and books written by famous practitioners with lightsabers, such as Count Dooku and the Revanchist, as well as Luke Skywalker and Tionne Solusar, one even by her brother. The further along he moved the newer the books got, fro, Vodo Siosk-Baas all the way down to Kyle Katarn and beyond. The Library did have a collection of books written by those one would not expect to write, often helped along by the Jedi Historians of their time no doubt, their knowledge necessary for future Jedi to use. And not everybody could make a Holocron.

Finally he approached the area where the girl was and got a better look at her. Well kept, pretty, studious, deeply involved with whatever she happened to be reading on her datapad at the moment. Or searching for, as she seemed to grow more and more furious with each attempt at doing something before eventually calming down. He tried not to be noticed as he slipped a couple books from their shelves, a look on the philosophical aspects of lightsaber combat, the balances between light and dark that happen when Jedi and Sith fight. Arek rolled his eyes at the concept, but it was written by Mace Windu, and like he thought it had been written with the help of Jocasta Nu. But it'd been written. Another book was one by the Revanchist, Darth Revan, who went into detail on the necessities of the lightsaber combat. The rest were manuals on Soresu and Shii-Cho, authored by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Kit Fisto respectively, both through the help of Jocasta Nu.

He set the five books down on the same desk as the girl, across from her, and tried to put a tone of happiness in his voice but failed miserable, "Hey there," He said with a smile beneath his mask, one the girl couldn't see. She'd probably be scared away by a man wrapped in Tusken clothes, talking like a human, but it's what he did best, "Mind if I join ya pretty lady?" Arek wasn't a smooth talker or even that interested in women. He just knew that women felt better when they were complimented off the bat, more likely to be receptive to who one was. Even if that 'one' was dressed like a Tusken Raider. The Jedi were a fair bit more lenient than regular people though, luckily.

Looking between his books to decide which one to read, feeling awake all of a sudden, Arek couldn't help but ask her as well, "And what're you reading?"

 

[Kiro]

Kiro blinked at the sudden voice intruding upon her quiet studies. She peers up at the speaker curiously, and as she does her eyes widen in surprise to see the masked and utterly concealed creature seated opposite her. Her initial instinct was to reach for for the blaster holstered in her jacket, but she hesitated slightly. That was until he complimented her, that is. When he called her a "pretty lady", her mind ground to a halt, her mouth hanging open in shock, while she blushed as crimson as a Sith's lightsaber. Nobody had ever complimented her on her looks before.

"I... uh... it's..." She stutters, her eyes blinking and fluttering open and shut at hyperspeed, before forcing them shut and taking several deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. "I'm trying to read up on the theories and philosophies of Makashi, and trying to find information on one Count Dooku, but it always comes up that I don't have the right clearance."

She peers curiously over at the strangely garbed creature opposite her, frowning faintly. He looked utterly bizzare. Draped head to toe in what looked like stained and dirt-tainted bandages, with several spikes, and some grotesque mask. But he -sounded- friendly enough. Bored and miserable, sure, but friendly at least. And she couldn't sense any danger or hostility within the Force, especially nothing eminating from him.

"Usually, they only restrict what they think might be too sensetive or dangerous for Padawans and the younger members to view. Like if someone fell to the Dark Side, or how to use and channel Dark Side techniques." She shakes her head a bit and puts down her datapad and rubs at her eyes, before moving to rub at her temples. She had been down in the Archives for far too long.

 

[Jacques]

With a slight chuckle, the padawan reached over and patted the girl's hand with his own, wrapped-up hand, gently, saying to her, "Count Dooku was a Jedi Master who turned to the Dark Side some time after the re-emergence of the Sith under Darth Palpatine." He replied casually, and then pointed over at her datapad. "One of the disadvantages of those datapads there are that they're programmed to filter out anything about Jedi who've turned to the Dark Side, or even books they've written."

Standing up, he motioned for her to wait a moment, and walked back down the aisle, several rows of books down from where they were sitting. He'd known he'd come across a book written by Dooku, he just hadn't an interest in Makashi personally, and had just glanced right past it.The Finer Points of Swordfighting, Form II: Makashi, The Contention Form. It was a simple, textbook/manual style book with essays written by Dooku himself in between, talking about, as the title promised, the finer points of the second style of lightsaber combat. After several moments of looking for it, the Tusken came upon the text and grabbed at it, needing both hands to take hold because of its size. No wonder why he remembered the name, one could see it from space. Returning to where the girl sat, he placed the large book on the table, needing to move his own treats aside.

"If this thing made up the Temple when it had been bombed so many more people would have been saved," He remarked with a sense of humor that might have been too grim for the girl, the only time emotion ever seemed to pop in his voice. Or maybe it was the migraine headache and the bright lights that made him want to carve his eyes out. But he needed something, or someone to concentrate on. "Dooku sure knew how to write I guess, though not particularly my style. Nobody ever reads the manuals."

 

[Kiro]

"Ah, thank you!" Kiro beams at the masked creature as he dumps the heavy tome, for there was no other way to describe a volume of such girth and weight, onto her desk. "I've been looking for this for ages. Everything I've read stated that Dooku was a master of Makashi. And as a student of that Form, studying the mind and style of it's greatest masters has to help, right?"

She gives the strangely garbed man a grin, before leaning down to blow some dust off of the cover, before flipping it open in order to start reading the ancient tome written by the Jedi Master turned Sith Lord, but not before pulling on a pair of reading gloves. It was standard practice when handing the actual books. You didn't want to risk tainting or destroying the ancient, precious, volumes.

She didn't know what Master Ratler would think of her reading Dooku's book, considering his rather... strong, feelings regarding the followers of the Dark Side. But at the moment, she didn't truly care. She couldn't feel any danger or Dark Side radiating from the tome at any rate, so she assumed it was safe enough. Besides, the Jedi had decided to save and store it for over a thousand years, even after the Temple having been destroyed, lost, corrupted countless times. And still the book was here, having survived several cleansings.

"Well, he was a activist, politician, Jedi Master, and a noble, so I wouldn't have expected any less. Men and women like him tend to be quite passionate authors. They always feel a need to preserve their views and skills somehow. Through holocrons, writing, holoflicks, statues, political reformation..." Kiro replies, her gloved fingers gently brushing over the ancient pages. The Library's temperature was always ten degrees lower than the rest of the Temple, and the recycled air was permanently laced with anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, chemicals to ensure that not a single tome or scroll or piece of parchment was contaminated or tainted with milldew or degraded in any possible way.

 

[Jacques]

"When I'm reading a book I need a little bit o' flare to it, gimme something to get interested in y'know? I'm not particular to taking history classes often, cause usually you're told thing directly from a large text and nothing gets added to it." Arek studied the tome up and down, almost sourly, and held up another book from the same era, only on Soresu. It had too much information for a book that small, that was the only way the Tusken could describe it. "This is a book written from the same time period as that one, only by Obi-Wan Kenobi. A practitioner of Soresu, granted, much different from Makashi, but if you were to read it, you wouldn't feel like you were just learning the movements. You're taught a great deal by the book, but he tells you to keep your mind open to other forms, and work them into your own style. Don't do what you're told, question what you're told and find out what works best for you. At the same time, all the basics he teaches to you, though Shii-Cho is basically the basic movements of every form in one. Then he goes on to define the greater parts of the form, such as the angles and movements you need to block blaster bolts, and how to analyze which direction they'll be coming from using the Force, and eyeballing where the bolt is headed for specifically on your body..."

For someone who wasn't much use with the weapon, Arek knew too damned much about lightsaber combat. Makashi not so much, but he could go on all day about Soresu, having read the many different texts and books Kenobi gathered all the information he did before cramming it into a short, three hundred page book.

The Tusken Jedi moved from his seat to behind the girl, and he lay a hand on her back as he bent over to read over her shoulder. An introductory page, written by Dooku discussing the overall motive of learning the style of Makashi, mainly for direct lightsaber combat, where Soresu was mainly defense, Makashi was offense. Not so much the brute force of Djem So or flippy-flips of Ataru, but parries and blocks and perfect timing to commit to those parries or blocks, a mental game where one mistake means you're out of a limb at best, your life at worst. He leaned closer down, the wrappings covering his cheek now close enough to the girl's cheek to feel the heat emanating off of her. He was interested to see how uncomfortable she was with relations of a finer nature, having almost lost her mind at a simple compliment.

It sounded cruel in his own head, but she was cute and he was bored, and he'd read almost every book in the Temple Library that he was interested in, twice or more. He always was particular to the nervous types.

"Enjoyin' the book, love?" He whispered into her ear, and followed it with a low chuckle and continued reading over her shoulder.

 

[Kiro]

"Well yes. Kenobi is still considered to be one of the greatest Masters of the classical Form III. The two forms were created at completely different points in time, to adress specific threats. Makashi was developed when there was a surge of Dark Jedi. Soresu is a somewhat more modern form, when blasters were the main threat faced by the Jedi."

When he moved around the desk and put a hand on her shoulder, she froze up like a nuna in a landspeeder's headlights. She trembles and twitches slightly at the touch, her mind grinding to a complete halt. She remains as bright red, her mouth working silently, just staring dumbly down at the book. She shudders, her breath catching a bit as the masked man leans in and whispers, especially with that word, the frozen nuna bolts up out of her chair and scrambles back away from him.

"I... uh.. wh... WHAT!?" She squeaks, a hand reaching down to her lightsaber, her fingers resting on the hilt, but not drawing or activating the weapon, staring in wide-eyed terror and shock at the man, looking at him as if he had transformed into the Sith Emperor himself.

 

[Jacques]

It wasn't exactly the reaction he was expecting, but it was funny nonetheless. He'd expected the kind've freeze up and stuttering, but the little flirtation had really scared the poor thing. No wonder she was partial to Makashi he thought after withdrawing to the other side, attempting to calm her down.

"Don't worry, I was just havin' a little bit of fun, you seemed to get nervous when I called you pretty. Didn't expect you to wanna slice my head off at the slightest little bit of flirting...though I guess I could've put a few more inches between our faces." Okay, so Arek didn't often interact with people, but he still knew he should have taken a little bit longer to jump right into the thick of things, especially with a girl who just oozed an aroma of inexperience with the matter. Especially when, to be honest, he wasn't all that interested.

Sitting down across from the girl he chuckled, "Guess I shoulda at least given you my name before I started playing casanova with you, eh?" He wasn't even sure if she knew what casanova meant...he'd been spending way too much time in the Lower Levels drinking as of late. "I'm Arek, a Tusken Raider if you couldn't tell by the get-up. But don't be fooled, I'm just as human underneath these wrappings as you are." He leaned in a little bit and grinned under his mask, "Though I'm not nearly as cute."

Arek felt like an idiot, but at three in the morning, four in the morning, whatever time it was now, there was nothing better to do than meet new people, even if you scare them away. It's a story to tell, though the way things were going he'd have to end up telling it to the police...but hopefully the girl was as smart as she seemed.

 

[Kiro]

"What kinda disturbed person jokes about stuff like this!?" She hisses, almost snarling at the man, staring at him with wide-eyed disbelief, her fingers eventually pulling away from the hilt of her lightsaber. She frowns a bit as she slowly makes her way over to the desk again, glaring at the man dressed as a Tusken. She sighs and takes a seat before her desk again, trying to ignore the confusion and irritation roiling inside her and instead focus on her book.

That is, until he calls her cute. At that point, she forces her eyes shut and takes several deep breaths to calm herself, her face utterly red again. This time she didn't bolt out of her chair and reach for her lightsaber. Instead, she chose a different route. Opening her bright blue eyes, she narrows them as she draws upon the Force and focuses, staring at the Tusken human's face. She wasn't great with controlling the Force like some Jedi, but she was fairly sure she could pull this trick off.

She smiles with satisfaction as she watches and hears the telekinetic Force slap strikes the Tusken across the face. Nothing that'd hurt him overly much, but just enough to sting and teach him not to toy with women. Smiling, she starts reading the book again, while still drawing on the Force to send the man a faintly static-laced telepathic message, using the skills she had picked up from her lates class on Tython before having been shipped off to Coruscant.

"Try to treat women with respect from now on, please."

 

[Jacques]

The Tusken felt the slap, and though that in particular didn't hurt much, it definitely didn't help the migraine. Slowly craning his neck up, Arek felt the sting of the omniscient lights of the Temple Library, and silently cursed them for their eternal brightness. Sharp glass shattered inside his head and cut him up and he fell further silent with the telepathic message moving throughout his brain like an angry torpedo with a mission. Deciding not to groan out loud about his own misery, Arek blocked himself off from the Force through intense thought for several moments, one hand over the eyes of his Tusken mask as to filter out the light. What he needed was a dark room and some silence, some silence mainly meaning him being able to shut up. But no, that was never possible. Her overreaction was due to inexperience, it was that obvious when she responded to being called cute. She couldn't even be given simple compliments, let alone withstand a full-on flirtation-encounter-deal-y, or so the Tusken decided in his convoluted and messed up mind. And it still was kind of funny.

"I'll learn to respect women when they learn that penetrating another person's mind with the Force is a lower form of respect than simply murdering the poor bugger." He wanted to add, 'especially when they're right across from you.', but luckily he'd dealt with Force-using women who liked telepathy for conversation and had actually added the latter bit when talking to her. He'd been smacked across the face with the manliest hand he'd ever been smacked by that day, and had avoided it the several times it had happened since then.

He'd only ever once run into a man who used telepathy as communication, and that was because he had no vocal chords. Coincidence? Arek thought not.

 

[Kiro]

"It isn't penetrating. It's broadcasting. Penetrating is a completely different aspect, and usually involves a great deal of pain." Kiro explains simply as she fights to keep a faint smile from forming on her lips. She hadn't really wanted to hurt him, but she was finding it hard to sympathize with the man in the Tusken outfit when he had tortured her with the flirting and compliments.

She took a deep breath, calming herself a bit while glancing up at him again, feeling the pain radiating from him, even if he tried to shut out the Force. Emotions would always be broadcast, unless you had the selfcontrol of a Jedi Master. Sighing softly, she places a ribbon in the book, marking her place in it, before closing it, and bringing her blue eyes up to focus on Arek.

"I'm sorry. I didn't really mean to hurt you... are you okay? Do you need to visit the Healers? And sorry, my name is Kiro. Kiro Haas." She rises from her desk and watches him carefully, not wanting him to try anything funny... again, but also not wanting him to suddenly collapse from pain and discomfort.

 

[Jacques]

For a moment the older Jedi had a counter argument for the use of telepathy, or whatever the Jedi called it of late to make it not seem so invasive, but let it drop when the girl rose to his aide. That was what they were all taught to do. Even if the person in pain was someone so sinister as the Dark Lord of the Sith, you offer them help, first through physical aide then through the aide of the light side. Of course, most people those days would stab the Dark Lord through the heart had they the chance, but Arek certainly wasn't that. He was a Jedi, though seemingly perverted and with a sick sense of humor, he still deserved a little smidgen of kindness when he was in pain.

Luckily for him, migraines were as common an occurance as going to Senate meetings with him, and he could hand them. Kiro, as she introduced herself, got up from the table to come to his side, but still kept a bit of distance. Holding his hand up, Arek denies help, and then sets that hand down on her's, not-so-much resting on the table as if being used to keep him calm, while the rest of her self was a minimum distance away, leaning on that hand. The padawan didn't look to see if the girl's other hand was on her lightsaber or not, but he chuckled and shook his head.

"You didn't hurt me, no no, don't worry about me Kiro, beautiful. Just get that worry out of your eyes and smile." The worry was real worry for sure, though it wasn't out of any fondness of him personally, she probably hated him, as he was sure she had repressed a smile at the sight of his reaction to the slap. Though it was much, much worse than she could have imagined, or what the Force was telling her. He was just glad he could keep it to a slight reverberation of the Force instead of a cacophony of noise being thrown around. Apparently, from what he'd been told before, it was pretty bad. "Sometimes karma likes to slap me in the face too, y'see, keep me in line."

The pins and needles digging into Arek's brain lately were some of the worst he'd ever felt. Light seemed like it would blind him, a little cleaning droid whirring down the hallway would carve out bits of his thick skull and suck out chunks of his sanity. But through remaining calm and breathing he washed it away. People always told him to just use the Force, or let them use the Force on him, or get Healers to do something about it, and the Tusken was never sure why he never seemed to be able to just allow himself or the other people to do that. He didn't want every problem to be solved by the Force, sure, though he rarely used the Force anymore. He rarely felt the Force anymore beyond just suppressing his pain. For a while he thought he'd come over it, but with the War clawing at his mind and his eternal Padawan-ship, things never seemed to be getting better, and sad to say, the pins and needles were an easy way to forget all that. To be able to force your entire body to fight back and resist, to think about nothing but the pain and to just concentrate and breath and beat it back. Arek needed it every now and again, and now seemed like a very good time to do just that.