Mountaintop Training

[LilyNion]

Kheera walked over to the edge of the boulder field and nervousness hit her. With a rather cartoon-like gulp, Kheera's hand began to sweat. While she knew the concept of a Force Jump, she has never done it before because of her wings. You see, flying was easier for Kheera and 'waaaayyyy' more fun! She slowly looked over at Cappi as Khelsea demonstrated how to get down with the use of Force. Cappi just stood there and nodded at Khelsea as she made a couple of tricks.

"Hey, Cappi. Will you catch me if I fall?" Her voice had cooled down, in fact, she sounded a bit afraid. "Please?" Her eyes became big, as a puppy that was begging for food.

Then it was Cappi's turn to go. He started with a handstand but quickly fell down caused by the weight of his backpack, shifting around. Kheera rushed towards Cappi but was too late. She saw him fall like a brick after making this quite odd sounding noise. Kheera decided to cover her eyes with her hands, yet couldn't resist taking a peek between her fingers, at Cappi's clumsy falling. It looked rather painful, her guts flipped around a couple of times in her stomach as he hit yet another rock. But then, the young Jedi's awkward expression changed. As if adrenalin suddenly hit him, he made a corkscrewing movement above Khelsea's head and landed behind her. It was impressive, none the less. Kheera clapped for a second as Cappi stood there, safely on his feet.

And then it hit Kheera, it was her time to go. She moved closer to the edge and strapped the backpack tighter around her body. Luckily enough for her, her backpack became less heavy as a couple of sandwiches were already eaten. With a deep sigh, she kneeled a bit down towards the ground, getting ready to jump up in the air. She followed the concept of a Force jump and guided the Force towards her feet, which, in theory, should give her a better and more powerfull jump. It seemed like a good working concept, Right? But in reality she jumped up in the air with a normal jump, falling off the edge and headed towards the first rock below her, face first. A loud and high pitched scream was heard while Kheera dropped in the air as an anvil. In a quick response, she pushed her hands towards the rock to catch the damage. She landed on the balls of her hands, causing a shockwave of impact flow through Kheera's body. It wasn't a pleasant feeling at the least, but there was no time for recovering. The rock she landed on wasn't stable and she had to keep moving before it came loose. With a couple of elegant moves - as if she was doing some ballet - she pushed her body upwards from the rock and stood up on the front of her feet, balancing on the tip of her toes.

While standing on the rock as if it was a skateboard, she took a look around to spot a rock to land on. A couple of meters ahead of her was a fine and flat-looking rock, so she decided to aim for that rock. While the boulder below Kheera's feet began to shift under the weight, Kheera guided her Force back towards her feet. After knowing how her first jump went, it felt rather like a leap of faith then a Force jump, but she had no time to doubt in her Force. She pushed her feet away from the shifting boulder below her and leaped off the boulder. This time, the Force jump worked. In fact, it worked a bit too well. Kheera had this unlucky 'habit' where she has no control over her Force in strength, whenever she did something the first time. This caused her to overshot the jump and leap right over the boulder she was aiming for. As a bird, Kheera flapped her arms in the air in panic. She noticed how many builders she passed and how close she came towards the ground. "I didn't plan for this!" she screamed while crashing towards the two Jedi.

Her landing was everything but smooth. While her big backpack blocked her wings, she still tried to flap her wings. As a butterfly that has a seizure, she managed to flap the upper part open and closed, causing her to slow down a bit in the air. She barely missed Cappi as she crashed into the dirt beside him. And like a crashed plane, she slid forwards in the dirt and slowed down until a tree came into her way, causing her rampage to stop. That is, unless decided to be sweet to Kheera and save her ass.

Drained from her Force, Kheera just layed there, out of breath. She used all her Force in one go and was on the edge of collapsing because of it. "This thing.. has to stop.."

[ OOC: I quickly want to say that Kheera still doesn't control the Force jump. It was just luck that it worked the second time. ]

 

[Veloster Turbo]

Khelsea had originally expected them to come down to her and then work on their jumping via the uphill path, which was a much safer alternative. However, things didn't always go as planned and unfortunately, it got messy right from the start. She groaned as she watched Cappi tip over from the weight of his belongings. He slid a bit, and hit a few things here and there. It was a marginally controlled descent, but it definitely wasn't the safest. Khelsea watched to make sure he didn't smack his head on a rock, but despite the blunders he was never completely out of control. As he approached her, Khelsea recognized Cappi's forward movement as a threat to his safety and with a gentle nudge through the Force she slowed his descent just a tiny bit. It seemed that helped, and he didn't even hit the ground that hard. Khelsea gave her best disappointed look at Cappi, and turned her eyes upwards to discover Kheera was already on her way down.

A piercing scream echoed throughout the valley, and at the last second Khelsea saw Kheera extend her arms and save herself from a full face plant. After that, Kheera seemed to be doing quite well. Khelsea could tell she wasn't completely sure of herself judging from her body language, and could feel a hint of doubt through the Force. Unfortunately, it didn't end the way Kheera had intended and she found herself not in control of her airborne body. Khelsea was prepared, but at the speed Kheera was descending, it would hurt her to completely stop her forward movement. Thus, she had to slow her crash a bit, and as she was sliding Khelsea used the Force to stop her from sliding too far.

"Well. I'm sure the next part will be a breeze for the two of you after that." Khelsea pointed forward and upwards, and the trail led to the second peak. "I thought we were starting the lesson down here, but I guess you guys had other ideas. Anyway, there's plenty of chances to practice jumping. Start slow, and if and when you start feeling comfortable, you can try adding in a little bit of speed. It's important to let the Force guide your actions. The people who taught me the art of movement could easily make it down those boulders blindfolded." This time, Khelsea stayed at the back so she could be there to catch them in case they slipped or chose a loose boulder as a landing spot. As for any comments she had for Cappi and Kheera, she kept them to herself for now and would let them know how to improve as they practiced.

For almost an hour, the Jedi practiced and made their way upwards; until they eventually reached the peak once again.

 

[Lamper]

Cappi didn't stand idly by. Kheera's words echoed in his head. Will you catch me if I fall? And he did just that, without a thought of hesitation. Combined with Khelsea's use of the Force to slow Kheera's descent, Cappi dove under Kheera and cradled her fall. With this alteration, Khelsea had even more success cushioning Kheera's fall. Cappi grunted from the dig his pack gave his back. But all in all, a safe landing for them both. Cappi ended on his side with Kheera in his arms. And he felt kind of chill-mantic, getting the chills for how awkward it was to be sacrificially romantic; even if it was more in the sibling sort of way. He did his best, for her sake, to hide how stupid he felt. This was not what Cappi Tremaine was about. This protective, tender friendship thing was not on the menu. But he bit the bullet and buried the embarrassment.

"Hey. You're alright. We gotcha."

He smiled as gently as he could, got up, and offered a hand to help her up. Once done, he turned away to recollect his dignity and manhood. He couldn't believe he'd done that. It was completely unnecessary. She needed to feel that pain to remember not to fall like that again. Least that was how he saw things. But apparently not this time.

Cappi face-palmed. Seriously? They weren't even supposed to start bouncing around until AFTER they got down here? This day kept mutating into the worst naked baby picture hall of fame ever. Surely one day Khelsea would turn to Cappi, in a moment of pride, and say, hey, remember that time when... He didn't even want to envision it.

"Roger," he answered blandly, throwing a half-assed peace sign.

Figuring he might as well get things started, Cappi swung his arms back, bent low, flushed the Force through his legs, and shot up into the air. A straight A to B jump, he made it safely to the first ledge with much less enthusiasm than before. A dead jump like that was easy enough. Though he did realize that he'd jumped pretty damned high. So he decided his first goal was to test how high he could jump and push the mark. He tried again. Higher. Then got into it with a couple steps running start. Then he went for distance, zigzagging a little more. He kind of started feeling like he could fly. He felt lighter each time, building on his limits with each attempt. His stationary time in between started to shorten. Even a little bouncy between jumps. It was fun. Then he started adding flips, twists, and combined free-climbing; latching onto hand holds after jumps to push off and soar. Before he knew it he was, through repetition, envisioning where he'd land before he got there, favoring instinctual blindness to visual aim. And he was thinking less and less about where was best to go and just going. Faster and faster he pushed himself, bending the resistance against his movements through the Force. Until he slipped. He caught himself though. It caused him to stop for a sec. He looked back down to see if anyone saw that misstep. Indeed Khelsea had. Embarrassing.

"I'm good. I'm good." He waved a hand high for her to see.

Then he dusted off his hands and got ready to go again, to build up to what he had going, slowly with a bit of lingering humility. It would pass. It's a process. And eventually, he'd reach the top. Safe and sound.

 

[LilyNion]

Kheera just stared at Cappi as they both landed on the ground, with her in his arms. She felt how his protective and quite muscly arms clung around her back. Did he really just catch her in such gentle ways? Big guy Cappi, who couldn't stop with teasing her? Speechless, she just layed there until Cappi stood up with a rather gentle smile and offered her a helping hand. She kindly accepted his reaching hand and got up from the ground. Thousands of thoughts and questions crossed her mind as Cappi turned away from her. At first, she wanted to hug him as a sign of thankfulness, yet she figured that Cappi wasn't the guy who appreciated hugs.

After recollecting her thoughts, she softly whispered "Thank you Cappi" before wandering off to Khelsea. "And thank you too, Jedi knight!" She laughed brightly at her and give her shoulder a thankful pet.

After a short walk away from the crew, Kheera leaned back against a tree and swung her backpack off her shoulder. Out of her backpack, she grabbed a bottle of blue liquid. Her failed Force jump drained a big amount of energy, but that wouldn't stop her from joining this training. With big gulps, she drank the whole bottle empty in less than a minute. As quick as an energy drink could be, energy and life hit Kheera's body and while it wasn't permanent a permanent boost, it was long and strong enough for her to join.

A light laugh could've been heard when Cappi facepalmed his own head. While throwing her bottle back in her bag, she strolled over to the two Jedi and smiled brightly. "Let's do this!"

It was a short wait before Cappi was far enough for Kheera to join. She decided to first get the Force jump under control. She had done it before, she knew the concept, just not quite how to control it. She guided the Force towards her legs, and flew up into the air. This time, it was a rather small jump compared to her first one, yet big enough to reach the first ledge. She repeated this process a couple of times, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding. Khelsea was luckily there to make sure she didn't fall or slip, yet she had her hands full with Kheera's mistakes. After the sixth jump, she began to gain more control over her Force jump and from that point on, it went easier. She began to dare to jump further and higher, traveling bigger distances. The landing also became smoother and in fact, she actually began to enjoy it. Hopping around on the rocks, she thought less about her jumps and just went with the flow. It became more and more like an elegant solo dance as she reached for the top.

At the top of the second peak, Cappi was there already, waiting for Kheera and Khelsea. Kheera joined him and showed him a thumbs up. "Went just fine! Ignore my knees being all red!"

 

[Veloster Turbo]

Khelsea watched as the pair worked on their various techniques. She was impressed and pleased to see that they had improved. Cappi seemed to be enjoying himself, and despite his flip Khelsea could tell that he had a good grasp on the basics of the art of movement. Kheeraa started slow just as Cappi had, but soon she was experimenting and making larger and more ambitious jumps.

At the top, Khelsea looked up at the sky and saw that the day had passed quickly between their talking and training. There was definitely time for another lesson though, and telekinesis was a vital skill for any Force user. Having around three to four hours of good daylight left, Khelsea wondered how fast they would learn. She would ideally leave an hour to two hours for them to descend the mountain safely, which left two to three hours of training and practice. However, a little praise needed to be given out before they started the next lesson. "You two looked like you were almost flying by the time you got up here! I'm impressed."

Khelsea spotted a boulder sitting off to the side where they had gathered on the second peak. It was large, at least six feet in diameter. For a girl her size, it was definitely not feasible for her to be able to physically lift the boulder. However, she had learned that the Force was wonderful and allowed trained individuals to do things beyond their normal physical capabilities. As Khelsea walked over to the rock, she began talking. "The day is moving fast, but we'll work on one more thing at least, depending on how long it takes. Telekinesis is extremely useful for many things, and it's a skill that all Jedi should have a good grasp of." Khelsea hopped onto the rock, and sat down cross legged. Using the Force, she lifted the rock so that she was sitting on a large boulder hovering several feet in the air. "There are many things that telekinesis could be used for, such as lifting or moving heavy objects, or perhaps even disarming and attacking an enemy once you become proficient in it's usage. Or maybe you just want a floating chair, like I do." Khelsea grinned at her own joke. "But talking about the applications can take place later. Show me what you can do, and maybe let me know what you feel like you're struggling with?"

 

[Lamper]

Cappi returned Kheera's thumbs up, mocking her enthusiasm playfully and chuckling, and pressed his thumb to hers.

"KHEEERA HAAS REED KNEEES!"
In one of the rare occurrences, Cappi shouted out to the world from atop this fine mountain peak, that he might hear the echo and call it pleasing.

Afterwards, Cappi followed Khelsea along until finding a good spot to stand and settle his weight into a relaxed stance. Hand on hip, other finding a water bottle to sip out of while he watched the demonstration, Cappi was impressed with the boulder trick. It was just what he wanted to be able to do. He put the water bottle away.

"Yeah. That." He wagged a pointing finger up at Khelsea, dismissing his potential to be able to do THAT. "Well. To be perfectly honest. I think that's what I'd struggle with. That, massive, thing."

He walked over to a few grapefruit sides stones, lowered a hand, telekinetically levied them into the air and juggled their floating forms over each other with some measure of skill. Telekinesis was something he felt pretty confident with, for his level; but on a small scale. Size and weight kind of freaked him out. It was intimidating, despite the fact he'd been trained since his youth.

"I can do some tricks. But I can't get a handle on how you're supposed to just ignore size difference."

 

[LilyNion]

Kheera's cheeks puffed up as Cappi shouted that her knees were red. While it was the truth, Khelsea didn't need to know that! After she gave Cappi's shoulder a poke, she turned around to Khelsea with crossed arms and an overdramatic pouting lip.

With a hop, skip and a jump, Kheera followed the two until they found a good spot and leaned back against one of the bigger stones while following Khelsea's movements. Her mouth fell open as the Jedi knight lifted up the gigantic stone with just her Force. She was amazed by the strength of the woman. Cappi afterward mentioned that he was struggling with the size and Kheera could relate with him. She nodded after Cappi's sentence and followed him up with a simple "I agree!"

Kheera moved her hand gently as she levitated a couple of little stones, up in the air with the Force. With a couple of graceful hand movements, the stones began to dance around Kheera's body. While humming a gentle song, the stones kept moving around, moving up and down in the air until she stopped with the humming and lowered her hand. The small stones fell on top of some other stones in the field. Levitating stones and make them dance in the air wasn't difficult for her, but that big stone? That was a big no go.

"Just as Cappi over there said. Doing some tricks goes just fine. But how will we be able to lift that big of 'em rock? Just looking at it already makes me tired!"

 

[Veloster Turbo]

It was kind of funny that both Cappi and Kheera had the same problem she had faced when she was trying to improve her own skills. It was supposedly an "easier" skill to master, but that would be based on the specific individual. Having been reliant on her own abilities, Khelsea had struggled with learning to trust the Force to help her perform tasks that would otherwise be impossible for her. Such as lifting heavy objects, which she could now do in her sleep.

"Well... to be honest I struggled with the same thing for a long time. For me it was a mental thing, and I had to learn to rely on the Force instead of my own abilities. Large objects which were normally immovable remained immovable, because I had already classified them as impossible to move. Slowly, over time, I had overcome this reliance on myself. It took much encouragement from teachers and friends, and a lot of humbling before I finally understood what it really meant to rely on the Force. But, all that effort was definitely worth it, and I'd gladly go through that learning process again if it meant I could improve even further."

Khelsea hoped that sharing her personal experience would inspire Cappi and Kheera, or perhaps give them an idea on how they could proceed. Right now, they were telling themselves that they couldn't do it, so they were already blocking the idea that they could actually complete what they deemed as extremely difficult tasks with relative ease. She stayed silent, mentally urging her students to give it a try and to open their minds to the many possibilities. There were rocks and boulders of many different sizes, so if didn't matter if they weren't willing to take the plunge and levitate the largest boulder, they could start with something smaller and work their way up.

 

[Lamper]

He had to admit. Wait. No he didn't. But still. He felt a little warm in this harmless back and forth between him and Kheera. He liked messing with her. And he liked the way she poked back. And that feeling snuck through a little curl of his lips, a playful pucker and a peek out of the corner of his eyes. But that was all he'd allow to surface.

"Heh," he chuckled at Kheera's exaggeration of being tired just from watching.

Cappi set the rocks back down as he tried to interpret Khelsea's words of wisdom and experience, pacing and bending his wrists against the back of his hips.

"So whatch'you're saying is, we can't do it because we think we can't. But if we think we can, we will. Hm."

It was a little disheartening, and even a little confusing, to think he had to convince himself he could do something he didn't believe he could. But if he believed he could do something he didn't think he could do, then he'd be able to do it and he'd be convinced that he could all along. ...Wow.

"Alright. This one, then."

He pointed to a boulder, about half the size of Khelsea's; which was slightly bigger than himself, and therefore a pretty huge step above what he'd just demonstrated with the little rocks he'd juggled a moment ago. Then he shuffled a wider stance, dug in, and readied himself like he was about to up his weight limit on a resistance machine in the gym. Arms up, elbows out, he could already feel himself sweating before even trying. And that gave him pause. Wait, he thought. If I'm going to do this, to do what she just said, then I can't be like this. He reasoned the whole approach he'd just taken was all wrong. And he probably looked a little ridiculous. So he dropped his arms and erected into a more upright and relaxed stance with a deep breath to loosen up. One hand, he thought. And so he raised out one left hand, half-extended, and closed his eyes. The key was to not treat the boulder as what it was, but to treat the Force as that much more a massive thing; to which a measly little boulder was nothing in comparison. And to remove himself from the equation as an object of relative measurement. The wrestling match was between the Force and the boulder. It had nothing to do with him, he tried to tell himself. He took another breath. Slower.

He sensed the boulder's surface, touched it's dusty hard edge with his mind. Then he extended his reach through it, like the air itself. He breathed deeper still. There was no ground beneath the boulder. There was no mass to the boulder. No weight. No differentiation between earth and air. He talked himself through everything he wanted to believe. Imagining similarities where mortals might disagree. He wanted to lifted up that silhouette of a sphere in this dark space of imagining. He wanted it to float as dust particles in the air, so small they were undetectable to gravities touch. But nothing happened. There was just the blackness and this empty sphere with no weight to it. It should've worked. He didn't understand why it wouldn't move. He could tell he'd made a breakthrough. But then why couldn't he fling it with ease like a pebble to and fro?

He sighed a discouraged drop of his arm and opened his eyes.

THUD!

Surprise stretched Cappi's face like a double dose of injected botox as he realized that the boulder just fell from under a suspended meter off the ground.

"What? Did that just...? Dude!" He looked from Khelsea to Kheera with jubilant victory.

 

[LilyNion]

Kheera raised her eyebrows as Khelsea explained how it was a mind thing for her. Somehow, she was able to relate herself in Khelsea. She had claimed that those rocks were impossible to move, just as she did in the beginning. Yet she couldn't grasp the idea that once you think that once it's possible, it'll become possible. She crossed her arms and looked over at Cappi with a smirk. She felt in his voice that he was just as confused about it as she was, yet also rather curious.

"Well. That's what she meant, indeed!" She rose her shoulders up, keeping her arms crossed. "How about you try it out first? A big and strong like you should be able to do it. Rigghhtt?" She laughed teasingly towards the Jedi Padawan.

It was interesting to see Cappi, actually trying to levitate the gigantic rock. At first, nothing much happened. Yet once Cappi changed his stance to a more relaxing one, something actually happened! The rock began to move up in the air. Kheera tried her best to hold back a surprised gasp and with amazed eyes, she watched Cappi as he levitated the rock higher and higher. It looked like it weighed nothing, just like a feather. Yet out of nothing, the rock stopped with levitating and the man sighed rather discouraged.

"Cappi, the r-!" And the rock fell in front of Cappi, making quite the noise as the stone broke in half. "Next time, check if the rock isn't in the air before you lower your hands.. You could've hurt yourself, you know! But yes, that just happened!" She smiled warmly at Cappi. "Good job, mister amazing!" She walked over to rock herself, yet she couldn't help herself but to gave Cappi's shoulder a gentle poke as she passed him. Somewhere, deep inside, she felt a bit proud that he lifted that rock. But she just didn't feel like saying that out loud.

"Mhh." She pressed her lips together as she looked at a rather large rock, it was a tinier size than Cappi's rock yet none the less big. "Okay, so I just have to think that I can do it. Right? Right." She closed her eyes, moved her shoulders a bit to loosen up her pose and raised her right hand gracefully towards the rock. With a deep and relaxed sigh, she began to sense the area around her. With that, she also felt the rock that stood in front of her. Kheera decided to use a technique that a Jedi master thought her. It was a rather odd technique, but for her, it worked. She began to imagine that she was standing in a river of water. The water was rushing forwards, forwards to not direction. This was her Force.

Kheera shifted her hand slightly to the right, guiding the 'water' towards the rock in front of her. As the water touched the rock, she began to demand the water to push up the rock. The water climbed around the smooth surface of the stone, grabbed onto it and began to slowly lift it up. "I can do it.." she softly whispered as her hand began to shiver, sweatdrops rolled over her forehead. In her mind, the rock still felt heavy and it was almost an impossible task to do. She became rather frustrated as the rock stayed in place. It was impossible to do, after all. Impossible.. She 'just' had to let go of the impossible! With the water still around the rock, she began to tell herself that it wasn't impossible. Khelsea had told her that it was possible and she had to trust Khelsea on it. Gosh, even Cappi did it!

She took her time to actually believe in herself, that it was possible, that she could lift that rock without breaking a sweat. After five minutes had passed, she began to try it again. This time, with a different mindset. Again, she demanded the water to push up the rock into the air. This time, there actually came some movement in the rock. The once so heavy rock floated slowly up into the air, rolling a bit into place. While it didn't come as high as Cappi's rock, it was there, levitating.

Kheera opened one eye to see if it actually worked. There it was, in front of her eyes, a levitating rock, blocking out the sunlight partly. Out of surprise of her succeeding, she lowered her hand and began to jump up and down. "I did it, I moved 'em rock!" She shouted happily. This caused her connection with the rock to break, allowing the rock fall down towards the ground. The loud bang of the rock hitting the ground scared her for a second, followed up with a "Whhoopsss!"

 

[Veloster Turbo]

Cappi and Kheera had both improved significantly after their attempts. Perhaps it was due to Khelsea's teaching ability, just perhaps. The more likely possibility was that they were both very capable of the task, and the only thing stopping them was their confidence. Either way, it was great to see what they had been able to accomplish.

"Great job guys. It'll be easier every time, now that you know what you're capable of. You also won't be surprised next time, so you won't lose your focus and drop whatever you're moving." Their attempts had taken quite a bit of time, as they had to calm themselves and focus before starting. There were only a few hours of light left, and perhaps it was time to end the day's lessons.

"I think we should head down now, there's not that much time left and we don't want to be stuck up here at dark - even with your newly acquired skills. Thank you for your hard work, both of you. Perhaps we'll meet on day in the future, and go on missions together! I know today was short, and they were just the basics. But with enough practice, you'll be capable of much greater things than you thought you could do!" Khelsea waited till everyone was ready, and started hopping down the trail, confident that Kheera and Cappi were able to descend much better than their first attempts.