Ask Yavin IV Fearless: Trial of Spirit

[Alexandria Voran]

Fear was the path to the Darkside, but not in the way most Jedi understood. There was no shame in being afraid…no shame in feeling fear. It was what often came after that push even the most stalwart Jedi towards the Dark. Fear could summon the Force in an instant. The path was so easy. That path became easier and easier with each step. Fear fueled the Force, so why not anger, anguish…hate. These fears were not cliché. They were a truth a Jedi must accept. The Darkside was the easy path but it would corrupt without question. A true Jedi did not run from their fear, did not let it control them. No. A true Jedi faced that fear head on and refused to bend. Now more than ever, the Order needed to be certain their number could look their fears in the eye. The Trial of Spirit was administered for that very reason.

Jedi Master Alexandria Voran stood alone in one of the small mediation chambers in the Temple on Yavin. The door was open, and the lights were low. A ring of lit cancels encircled the room. She stood across from the door…waiting. The Trials of Knighthood were not always administered. A Padawan could pass their trials away from the Temple, but the Trial of Spirit was a different test. Alex remembered her own trials. Her mind had nearly folded when faced with her inner demons. This was not a test the Council took lightly. A Master of the Force was always required to ensure the Padawan made it back to them…even if they did not pass.

So, Alex waited for Crix. She knew the young Jedi was ready. She had seen shades of it on medical station. She thought he would make a truly fine Jedi Knight…but better Jedi had failed when forced to confront the darkness inside them. She crossed her arms. Alex looked every inch the Jedi Master. Her robes were perfectly clean, her face a passionless mask. She waited.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Another trial within the old Temple of Yavin IV and another Jedi who had stepped up, when asked, to try and help him make more of himself than just a Padawan, just a learner. There wasn't anything to be ashamed of when it came to being a Padawan, he knew, but that didn't much matter. People were counting on him to advance, to improve himself and he wanted that for himself as well so he would push on.

Clear through whatever stood in his way.

Crix had been told to come to the meditation chamber for the Trial of Spirit and, true to the nature of the test, he arrived wearing his Jedi robes but devoid of anything else. The armor inserts had been removed, his belt was replaced with a plain one and he had even left his lightsaber behind. None of his gadgets would help him where he was going and his lightsaber was a tool he could not use when the enemy to face was likely to be non-physical.

They could be both for all he knew - he had met Alexandria Voran before but he did not claim to know her. She had been both a tough but fair Master during their mission together and he appreciated that. It helped his nerves that there was a Master of such skill and determination on hand for this particular trial.

Entering the room, Crix stood opposite Alex before bowing at the waist, eyes trained on the floor.

"Master Voran - I stand ready to face a trial of your choosing."

The amount of formal language in these trials was a little bit annoying but even someone as naturally laid-back as Crix knew better than to try and snub that particular brand of tradition.

@Valen Pelora

 

[Alexandria Voran]

Alex kept her face still when Crix arrived. A small wave of her hand closed the door. She smiled softly as the young Jedi carefully followed protocol. There were some things that deserved formality. Alex was not certain this trial was one of them. She would act the dutiful Master for now. “The Trial you face today is beyond any challenge you have faced before…it is the most difficult hurdle any of us are asked to climb.” She began to plunge her mind into the Force. “There is no greater enemy than our own darkness.” The Light began to build in her chest. “Today you face that darkness.” Alex’s mind reached out and touched Crix. “The Trial of Spirit.” She gently wrapped her presence around the young Jedi.

“Close your eyes…open your mind.” The Morellian Master voice softened. For a moment, she left protocol behind. “You must face the Trial alone, I cannot help you, but you are not alone Crix.” The Trial of Spirit was truly dangerous. Skilled Jedi had lost their nerve when confronting their own fears and self-doubt. This was far different than showing courage or honor. No, only those meant to follow the Light could survive. “I will be there with you, should you need me.” Alex’s voice returned to cold formality.

“Submerse yourself in the Force and look inward.” As Crix would begin his mediation, she would press on the edge of his mind…pushing his thoughts deeper. There was no true method to testing your spirit. The Force would guide her hand and show Crix his deepest darkest fears. She would be there beside him. The Trial of Spirit was deeply personally and nothing Crix saw, did, or said would ever leave this chamber. Alex would lock away everything she had seen. She would pass no judgment.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

While the other Trials had their own kind of reputations, Crix had to admit that the Trial of Spirit was known to be one of the toughest that could possibly be faced… to some. Some Jedi reported that the Trial of Spirit was fairly easy but his research had confirmed that those same Jedi that found it easy were the same Jedi less likely to have negative emotions. Certain kinds of species simply did not feel and emote the same way as the rest of them did, making it harder for the Dark Side to take hold.

Others had declared that the Trial of Spirit was the single hardest thing they had ever done before in their lives. Many a Knight had gone on record saying that their time during the Trial of Spirit was harder to work through that even many of their adventures as Jedi Knights could claim to be. The spirit would be reflected.

The fear.

The anger.

The hatred.

The suffering.

All of it would be reflected and he would be forced to confront and overcome them – at least that was what his research had come to conclude. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he sat down on the floor in front of Master Voran. As a rule - Crix disliked lowering the mental shields he had built around his mind. The idea of having someone else in his mind, touching his mind, filled him with unease due to his experiences but he did so anyway, lowering his shields and baring himself to the Master.

"I'll see what we find deep inside Master Voran..." he muttered quietly as he began to relax, "Lets see if I've grown at all since coming here..."

Sinking into his mind, with the gentle guidance of Alex, he felt it as the physical world fell away. Drawing himself and Alex into his mind, they 'fell' deeper and deeper into himself and as they went the sound of drum beats grew louder.

Four beats in quick succession, repeating over and over again in the darkness as they sank.

The only sound.

Four beats, deep and booming like a drum.

Until it wasn't the only sound anymore, alongside it came the high pitched beeping of machinery at work. Machinery that Crix had become so very intimately familiar with. The darkness receded somewhat, a hospital bed faded into clear and vibrant color - Trys Aran laid up in the bed with the machines attached to her. A vision of Crix stood by her bedside, holding one of her hands in his own.

It felt like a memory but it wasn't; some of the machines hooked up to Trys she hadn't ever been hooked up to during her time in the hospital. Machines that helped her breathe - a half life that she would never have wanted. Forced to live because the machines kept going.

Crix knew what the vision was going to be even as the vision of himself stepped away from the bed and reached down for a power socket.

"I know what this is..." he whispered through his mind, the vision playing out in front of a projection of him and of Alex, "Fear... fear of loss..."

The sound of the machines in the vision abruptly changed with the flicking of a switch, the tone he had dreaded for so many weeks and months resounding clearly through his mind. Flat-line. Except the vision continued and before Crix's eyes the vision of his mother seemed to come awake, frantically trying to remove a tube from her throat, the wires from her veins and brain. The vision of Crix himself was gone and it was him that his mother was looking to, her eyes wide, panicked and pleading - her hands reached out to him desperately as she died, his 'own' hands having turned off the machines forcing her to stay alive.

Swallowing thickly, tears pooling in his eyes, Crix walked over to her bed and took her hands in his own. He held them tightly as he looked her in the eyes. It would have been easier to look away, easier to search for the socket he knew didn't exist even in this vision any longer. But he didn't. The vision of his mother dying had captured one thing right above all others - her eyes. So he looked into her eyes as he held onto her squeezing hands.

The tears in his eyes trickled slowly down his cheeks as he spoke.

"Mom... I love you." he whispered gently, managing to speak around the lump in his throat, "Every minute of my life I love you, mom. I never won't love you but... but one day you're going to go and I... I know you'd want me to accept that. To be able to live a life where you're no longer there, no longer able to have my back, to be my rock. This...?"

He looked around at the hospital bed and its accompanying machines.

"This wasn't where you died and I am so glad... so... so happy that I didn't do it. That Hans found a way when I couldn't." he smiled at her, seeing how her struggles were gone and the light in her eyes was fading, causing the drum-beat of four in the background to grow louder even as he felt a curling sense of dread in the pit of his stomach, "W-when you go mom... I'll miss you but I will love you enough to not let it end me. Love you enough to k-keep being the son you wanted me to be. The man you wanted me to be."

The knot in the pit of his stomach began to unravel as he spoke words he knew he'd eventually have to say, the lead weight of fear and dread coming undone and disappearing. Words he hoped he'd have many decades before he actually had to say for real, with the same finality as he was about to use with them right now.

"Goodbye mom..."

In between his fingers, the hands he had held disappeared and so did the bed, so did his mom and so did her eyes. Leaving him kneeling in the midst of darkness with only Master Voran's projection beside him. He knelt there for a second longer before slowly pushing himself to his feet.

"... I can see why this trial is the hardest. Saying goodbye like that and meaning... being able to accept something like that as being inevitable? Without giving into the fear and dread of it?" he breathed out slowly as he rubbed the tears away from his cheeks, "Don't suppose you know, Master Voran... does it get easier to say goodbye the more you become a true Jedi?"

@Valen Pelora @Sreeya

 

[Alexandria Voran]

The Force moved. Alex could feel her heart slow as the Lightside worked through her. She was a willing vessel. Her role was simple, she was the guardian who would shepherd Crix on his path. Together the Master and Padawan sunk into the Force. The chamber around them melted away. Slowly, the world was built back around their projections. She did nothing but allow the Force to work. The Force peered into Crix’s heart and created the images around them. Loss. Alex said nothing. It was not her time.

Slowly, the young Jedi began to understand what he faced. The image of his dying mother before him. Everything felt real during the Trial of Spirit. Alex quickly locked away her surprise at seeing the recognizable face of Trys Aran. Young Crix succeed on his own merits, not that of his family. The Jedi Master continued to watch as her charge struggled to come to terms with what he must have felt was inevitable. Death came for them all in time, even those you loved. Still, she said nothing. Alex merely watched while Crix faced the fear of loss head on. She let a small smile form and nodded her head. Well done young one. The Force moved and the images well away.

Now, it was the two Jedi in the voice again. She could feel the Force building towards the next vision. She allowed that soft smile to return. “The truth? It never gets easier.” The part of her mind away in the physical world felt the sharp pain of loss. “And you will lose people you love…but we can learn to accept those losses with our faith in the Force.” Alex shook her head slowly. “But no Crix, saying goodbye will always hurt…It is how we accept that pain that makes us Jedi.” The Force pushed her. Yes, yes, she knew. “Otherwise, we risk giving way to anger.” She waved her hand. The blackness of their minds faded. The Force pushing them into another vision.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

It never got easier?

"Good."

He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and looked off to one side as he breathed out that single word. It felt like he had all but exhaled the word like it was diseased. He wanted to run his hand over the tips of his horns but he resisted the temptation, the nervous tick, purely because he knew it wouldn't actually achieve anything.

After all, they were journeying to the center of his mind - his horns weren't real because his projection wasn't real either.

"If it got easier I think that'd make me start thinking that its normal to start caring less, just cus of the loss that could happen down the line." he admitted with a grimace, "And I don't like the idea of that."

Anger eh?

That was what they said - fear led to anger.

And just as it was so for the quote from a Jedi Master long since dead before Crix was even a sparkle in his mother's eye, the vision of his greatest fear disappeared to be replaced by another. Another vision, a warped and distorted version of a memory from earlier in his life. This time the vision was of Talak Rand, standing in front of him in the way he had all those months ago, when Hannibal had made the reveal.

That his mother was going to recover, that Talak could have done something, that he had led Crix to believe that he could do something and then done nothing for months on end.

The anger that he had felt in the moment, the anger that had caused him to lash out and try and punch the man who had brought him into the Jedi was suddenly inserted right back into his gut. It sat there, like a leaded weight, and all but demanded to be used. To be burned brightly within himself until he reduced the man in front of him to a bloody mess. Like before, like in reality, Crix stood there and felt so angry at Talak.

A betrayal that led to anger.

In reality, in the true memory of the moment, he hadn't thought beyond his own anger and he had lashed out. He had lashed out to try and hurt Talak because he was hurting. Because something Talak had done had caused him pain so his anger demanded that he try and make the older Jedi hurt too.

Perhaps it was distance from the events.

Perhaps Crix had learned from his mistakes.

Perhaps it was a combination of the two but even as the same level of anger roiled within his gut, Crix held back. He held back and he looked at Talak, really looked at him. In the moment, he hadn't taken the time to truly try and understand what Talak had been feeling but now? Now it seemed so simple.

The surprise, the shame, was so clear on Talak's face that he knew that it wasn't fake, knew that it was drawn directly from his memories, that he had chosen to ignore it the first time. He had made the decision to ignore the other man's pain and just focus on the anger.

Still the anger sat there, causing a tremor in his right hand even as he reached out to grab a handful of the front of Talak's robes. The vision looked down, meeting his gaze and causing Crix's throat to sudden become dry. Anger, white hot and artificially replicated to be the same as he had felt that day - it threatened to spew forth from his mouth in a bitter tirade.

"You should have tried harder." he spoke to the vision of Talak, "I... heh, this hurt so much Talak. Back at your funeral I said it then, that I held onto my anger at you about how much this, you, hurt me because I wanted to have it out with you. But I meant was I said then; I forgive you."

He smiled ever so slightly even as the anger began to ebb out of him, being processed by his mind even as he used the same realization he had had before against the trial.

"I'm done holding onto my anger at you and letting it distort my vision of who you actually were. Thanks again Talak... goodbye."

The vision of the Knight faded away and Crix let out a soft breath as he moved back over to Alex for a moment. He managed a thin, slightly strained, smile. Despite himself, the tremor in his right hand didn't go away even as he rubbed at it with his left hand.

"... how does the saying go again Master Voran? Fear leads to anger... anger leads to...?"

@Valen Pelora @Phoenix (Cus of ya boi)

 

[Alexandria Voran]

White hot anger burned in the Force. Intense searing pain boiling underneath. Alex nodded slowly behind Crix. This was not a projection of the future but a memory of the past. The anger leaping from Crix was very real. He had felt every ounce of betrayal the Force showed him now. She remained steadfast behind him. This anger was what they feared in the Order, the type that burned brightly and festered. Anger that still resided within Crix. She had seen young Jedi fail at this very moment, unable to release that anger, unable to forgive. That was the path to Darkness.

Alex watched closely as Crix confronted the anger he still felt. The image of Talak did not move or speak. It was a shade of the past. The Jedi Master’s memory distorted by the Padawan’s anger. Come on. She was meant to be a neutral observer but there was something about the young man that was endearing. A true innocent goodness they rarely found. The Jedi smiled softly when she felt the Force shift. She felt the anger recede in the Force. She felt Crix forgive Talak. The vision faded again, the two Jedi alone in the darkness. Alex’s face remained still. The Trial was far from over. Crix was being pushed to the edge. She could feel the remnants of anger remaining, see the forced smile, the tension. The Trial of Spirit did not require perfection, it required honesty.

“Hate.” The Force was moving again, the next vision building. “You are not alone Crix…remember that.” Her voice contuined to be soft but firm. “The Force is your ally, your brothers and sisters in the Order will always stand beside you.” Alex raised both hands. The Force pouring out, the vision taking shape. “You are not alone.” The Trial only became more difficult. There were no shortcuts, no easy paths.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Hate.

He had known it was the next step even before he asked Alex because it was a fairly well-known turn of phrase amongst the Jedi. It was something that he had had to deal with in the past and he knew he was going to have to deal with it now. Taking a deep breath, Crix could not resist the urge to run a hand over the tips of his horns. Being a projection within his own mind, he didn't actually feel them which robbed the nervous motion of its cathartic release.

Letting out his breath in a sigh, he eyed Alex for a moment before returning his gaze to the darkness around them as it slowly began to fill with colors.

"I know the woman coming up in the vision." he told Alex with a pained expression, "I know because there is hate there... sure I work on it and sure I try and get past it but... its just still there. Deep down inside me, I know the emotion is still there, you know?"

The darkness around them shifted and changed, sunlight coming down around them to reveal row upon row of, well, garbage. Metal and scrap piled high, some of it in usable condition but so much of it not. So much of it not worth the metal it was made of and all of it felt cold and forbidding.

Like walls closing in around him as the Sith stepped forward.

Later he had heard of her again, heard her name and learned more about who and what she was. What she did to the rest of the Galaxy. @Darth Malicia stepped around a corner of trash and scrap to block his path and Crix felt it then. Just upon seeing her standing there, he felt the stirring of the emotion deep inside his chest. His breathing began to grow ragged as he tried to work through the breathing exercises Hannibal had taught him, to help him manage and process the emotion.

To discard it.

Malicia continued to step forward and he could feel her beginning to reach out into his mind. Alex would be able to feel it as well, knowing that the attack was a memory more than an actual action. Crix couldn't defend against it despite his focus on mental defenses since joining the Jedi specifically because of his encounter with the Sith in front of him. Both Jedi would be able to feel it as she began rifling through his memories, tainting each one with the profound sense of violation he had felt originally and every time he thought back to it.

Pain followed and Crix cried out as he fell to his knees even in projected form, tears beginning to roll down his cheeks as he closed his eyes shut tightly. He tried and tried to steer her away from his memories of his mom but she didn't stop, she batted aside even his more developed defenses with ease and she started to pollute his memories of his mom with pain and anger and fear.

By the time the ideas began to enter his head, he was already trying desperately to process the fact that, yes, he absolutely hated the woman in front of him. By the time the idea came? He was ready to accept them. To accept that it made sense, to his mind, that the woman who had torn into his mind had done the same to his mother.

That she had created his worst fear.

That she had been helping the Sith who had taken Talak away - that she had been a part of something that brought him anger every time he thought about it.

That she was everything he hated in the Galaxy.

Her lightsaber appeared in her hand and suddenly his own was in his. The lightsaber he had constructed from the remains of his mothers favorite blaster rifle - when he had been so scared he would lose her. An inarticulate roar without real words tore from his throat as he launched himself up to meet her. His own lightsaber's blade ignited, as red as hers was.

Clashing in the middle of a scrapyard on Corellia, she spoke to him.

"Your mother's mind broke easily."

Their blades flashed brighter, clashing with more urgency with every spoken word.

"Your memories are mine and I poisoned them for you."

The sound of drums beating in the distance was growing louder and louder.

"Your efforts will be in vain and I shall overwhelm everyone who stands between me and my goals."

A flick of his blade, driven by instinct and hatred and power, sent both of their lightsabers flying out of their hands. Rather than attacking with the Force, Crix tackled the projection of the woman he hated to the ground. His hands wrapped around her throat and he just... held them there.

His whole body was shaking with all of the emotions, the fear, the anger and the hatred. All of it running through him so violently that it made him want to be physically sick. Staring down into the eyes of Malicia, he saw them all reflected back at him as she smiled.

"This is the only way you'll ever manage to get strong enough to beat me, to protect all your pathetic loved ones from me. You'll have to keep hold of that hatred you can't seem to shift and do what you've refused to do until now... act on it."

She was right.

The emotion, the hate, had never left him. It sat there like a diamond in the middle of his chest, indestructible no matter how hard he tried to just remove it. All he had ever managed to do was to try and accept it and just never act on it. To have the weight of it sitting atop his hearts and just... not.

"I can't..." he growled out even as his fingers itched around her throat, "I can't...!"

Her eyes flashed yellow.

"Yes! Yes you can! Look at you! All you need to do is take the next step - accept it and act! ACT! You CAN do it!"

Crix felt something snap within himself as he leaned down closer and roared into the face of the projection, into the face of the woman he hated. Who had taken so much from him, poisoned even his most inner self against not only himself but his mother as well. The last family he really had and she had used him to try and take her from him.

"I WON'T!" he roared, hoarse as he pulled back, his hands moving away from her throat, "You don't get to take this from me too... you don't get to poison me anymore! Its there... its a black mark inside of me and I... it doesn't go away..."

He leaned back, looking up at the now black-skies as the projection of the Sith beneath him faded away and he was alone in the darkness again.

"Its never going away..." he whispered to the darkness, his face wet with his tears as he just knelt there, tired in a way he had never felt before as he finally came to accept a part of himself that he had never wanted to, "Its never going away but I am never going to use it... to act on it. Every time it tries to tell me its spiel about how it'll make it better... I'll ignore it... I'll BE better."

Fear.

Anger.

Hatred.

Suffering... to know that he was never going to be able to just rest, to just ease his way through life. That he was going to continually have to struggle to be better, to be good in a way that could make a difference. To know that he had chosen that life, the life of a Jedi, of his own free will and to know that he had done so understanding that every step was going to be harder than the last.

To accept that and to own it and move on with it rather than let it drag him down.

The projections began to faded away and he was suddenly sat down in front of Alexandria Voran in the meditation chamber he had started in. His face was dry and his breathing steady, what had happened in the projection limited to that same, projected, world of being. He let out a slow breath as he took in the physical world around him again for a moment before bowing his head to Master Voran.

He... he'd been laid bare and now it was her choice as to if he was worthy of continuing on to be a Jedi Knight in Spirit.

@Valen Pelora @Dread

 

[Alexandria Voran]

Alex had known this was coming. It was a part of every Trial of Spirit but what each Jedi experienced was exquisitely unique. The Force pulled out the darkest part of your soul and forced you to recon with that darkness. Generations of Jedi tried to understand how the Force could act in such a way. The mystery remained. Instead, Alex watched as Crix faced Malicia. He was overcome with pure hatred. A kind of hate you cannot manufacture. This was real and true. Crix, deep in his heart, felt that unrelenting hate. He wanted to kill the Sith. He would kill her if he had the chance. She knew the feeling. But this was not Alex’s Trial and so her dark corners filled with images of Stolas remained locked away.

Instead, she remained the dutiful Jedi Master. She watched in silence, just as she had with each other vision. Crix must fight these battles on his own. He had to. Alex folded her spectral arms as Crix went to choke the life out of the dark vision of Malicia. You can do better young one. She felt that dark Hate rising in him. The Jedi Master did have faith in Crix, but each moment that ticked by, she wondered if he would find the strength to resist. Suddenly, Crix’s inner light burst forth. The vision faded but the lessons would last a lifetime.

Alex was standing back in the mediation chamber. Her own body dragged down by the sudden ceasing of the vision. Part of the Force’s strength had come from the Jedi Master. Crix was seated before her…suffering vibrating in the Force. Alex let formality slide away. She took a few steps forward before kneeling before Crix. She put her hand under his chin and tipped his head up to meet her eyes. “Chin up young one.” She allowed a large smile to grow on her face. “You now know the truth we all live with…there is no magic wand to wave away our feelings.” Alex nodded slowly. “We are like everyone else. We feel afraid, angry, and even hate but what makes us Jedi is how we confront those feeling.” She stood and walked back to her place in the chamber.

“Our lives are sacrifice. Our lives are suffering, but we face that reality and fight forward. We never given in. That is the difference between us and the Darkness.” Alex’s face resumed Jedi serenity. “The Trial of Spirit is often misunderstood. The Trial is not banishing the darkness but rather accepting what is a part of our soul and having the strength to resist temptation.” A smaller smile this time. “Crix Aran you have proven to me you posses the Spirit of a Jedi Knight…I will be proud to recommend your Knighthood to the Council.” She laughed lightly. “You don’t have to sit anymore.”

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

He was tired in a way that he couldn’t really describe, a bone-deep weariness that had nothing to do with his body. It was an odd sensation to be so weary when he was aware that his own body was still full of energy. Strange to feel like he both wanted to sleep for a week and know, intrinsically, that he had the energy to run a marathon at the same time.

The disparity between his head and his body was staggering.

Crix honestly couldn’t have said if he had passed or not before Alex spoke because he didn’t know if he had – he genuinely wasn’t sure. He had heard stories about the trial of spirit but what did it actually mean? Could he still have those emotions, the fear, the anger and even the hatred… could he still have those in his heart and be a Jedi Knight?

Sure, he was fighting against them whenever they reared their ugly heads but it still felt odd, felt off, to say that he was ready to be a Jedi Knight when he knew he had those emotions just sitting there in his chest. Raising his head, he smiled tiredly at Alex but it was a fragile thing. Standing was something of an experience – he felt like he should ache but he physically didn’t.

“Is it alright if I say I honestly don’t know how to feel about that Trial?”

His voice was quieter than he expected even as he felt a warmth blossom in his chest when Alex told him that he had passed the trial to her satisfaction. She was right, he decided, that the absence of emotion was not the Jedi ideal.

Emotion, yet peace.

“… so the real work starts here, right?” he questioned with a little bit more of his signature grin, “Hopefully my other trails go smoothly so I can get out there and help more than I can at the minute. See if I can improve myself along the way too.”

@Valen Pelora

 

[Alexandria Voran]

She knew the doubt that crept through Crix. The Trials of Knighthood were often straightforward, what one expected. The Trial of Spirit was not. Alex had felt shattered to her core after her Trial. She was confronted with the depths of her parent’s failures and the last scars they left on her soul. Crix was not alone. Nearly every Jedi Knight who walked these halls had felt that uncertainty after confronting their hearts. “I would be concerned if you did feel alright.” Alex met Crix’s eyes again. “This Trial does not come with feelings of success.” In time, Crix may feel he faced his fear, anger, and hate successfully. But it would take time. The Jedi were often forced to confront those emotions again and again.

Alex returned Crix smile. She had no doubt he would pass his other Trials. Soon, he would be among the number of Jedi Knights. “The work never stops but begins now in earnest.” Her voice became serious for a moment. “The Order will expect more of you when you are Knighted…I know you are ready to meet that challenge.” Alex’s head titled to the side as she thought. “How badly you want to help, to fight to make a change.” She held up a finger.

“One last lesson. Being a Knight or Master does not mean you must have all the answers, does not mean you cannot ask for help.” A small smile. “I was fortunate enough to learn a great deal from the kindest man I ever knew before I attained the rank of Master. Remember despite all the expectations…all the accolades…despite everything…you can always ask for help and you are never alone.” The Force rang with a finality. She walked past Crix and patted him on the shoulder. “I am always here, if you need me.” Alex took her changing role in the Order seriously. She owed that to a certain man.

@Nefieslab

OOC: Alex exit.