Salek Fallanai

Salek Fallanai

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The Force is peace. Do not meet power with power, but instead with gentleness.

The words flowed through Salek Fallanai’s mind as he meditated in the Jedha Temple’s crystal garden. He thought back through the previous hour’s lightsaber precision drills, how he had clumsily hacked through them. His ability to sense things through the Force had increased dramatically over the last nine months, but he could still barely make out anything inorganic. The rocks and crystals around him seemed like sighted people would use terms like ‘hazy’ and ‘translucent,’ though he could only guess at how similar the experiences were. Salek had tripped over a piece of broken drone on the way out of training and almost fallen down the stairs.

What he could sense, though, was power. The steady glow of the life around him, the intense searing burn of ignited lightsabers. The quiet bustle of the temple around him was a constant draw on his attention. It was like trying to recite a speech in a room full of other people talking. But it was so wondrous; Salek spent a lot of his meditation time simply marveling at the sight, drinking in the beauty of a sense he had never thought he would have.

Of course, not everything was lovely. He could feel the teachers humoring him. Whenever he fell, he could tell how they stacked one more brick atop the wall of ‘this young man means well, but he’ll never be useful in a fight’ that closed him in. He could feel the snickers even more than he could hear them. The shame burned within him, and he gritted his teeth and redoubled his effort to clear his mind.

He succeeded for a while, but then the emotional background buzz grew louder. He could sense a general state of…consternation? Irritation? And undertones of shame at having those emotions. That was somewhat rare in the temple, but even more rare was for a large, concentrated group to have it at once. Something was happening near the main entrance, and that emotional ripple was rapidly approaching the garden. Salek gathered his feet under him in a kneeling position, eyes still closed and seemingly at peace. This was a posture he had been taught to assume in times of danger, seemingly still and at peace but ready to spring to his feet instantly. Not that it would do him much good; the crystal garden was a bouquet of sharp edges and trip hazards, and he would cut himself to ribbons trying to run through it quickly.

The gate to the garden opened, and the dull hum of voices suddenly popped into sharp clarity.

“…stand that, but you’ve no right to-“ Master Maedwin’s clipped, business like tone was saying before a rough male voice cut her off.

“I have every right. The council gave me the title of Master, and that means I am entitled to take apprentices.”

“You train apprentices, you don’t take them, Len,” Maedwin said in a tone of exaggerated patience.

“If you had your way, I wouldn’t do that either,” the man’s voice snapped back in a fierce whisper. Salek’s delicate ears picked up the sound easily from across the garden, and he could tell they were drawing nearer to his alcove. Master Maedwin’s presence comforted him, and he settled down into a more relaxed posture. The voice continued even more quietly, “I’m not having this argument again, Mae. Now stand down and don’t undermine my authority in front of the students, or I’ll start returning the favor. You know I have plenty of ammo.”

A spike of outrage shot all through Master Maedwin, so hot and sudden that it made Salek flinch back. She mastered it quickly, but the very presence of that emotion in someone so perfectly calm and collected left him stunned. Who was this stranger who could break the control of a Jedi Master with just a few words?

The pair rounded the last bend and stood a couple of meters from Salek. He held still, keeping himself calm and peaceful the way he had been taught. He caught a hint of approval from Master Maedwin, while the stranger just felt murky, indistinct, like sound muffled through a thick pillow. He barely even felt the warning from the Force when one of the nearby crystals flew up and smacked him in the back of the head. He tried to spring to his feet at the attack, but the blow had thrown his balance forward, and he wound up stumbling into a large and particularly spiky crystal bush. He fell backward again, trying to get away from the sharp edges, and lay there as warmth began trickling from gashes along his hands, wrists, and one on his face.

“How DARE!” Master Maedwin shouted, and Salek heard her oddly melodic lightsaber snap to life. She stood over him, facing the stranger while protective instincts, resolution, and anger whipped around inside her like a hurricane. The stranger looked back, statue still and completely silent. The pain faded enough for Salek to start thinking again, and he watched the two through the Force. They weren’t speaking, but it seemed like much was being said between them. He wished he could make out faces, see their expressions.

After several tense moments, the anger faded, and Master Maedwin disengaged her lightsaber. She lowered her head and stepped to the side. Her emotions were barely settled, but they had shifted to a blend of regret, shame, and…relief? Odd.

The stranger stepped forward and held out his hand to Salek.

“On your feet, son,” the voice said. Through that muffling pillow, Salek could feel one thing in the man: stone-hard determination. This was not a suggestion, it was a command with the weight of a world behind it. He could feel the blood on his right hand, and he considered for a split second about awkwardly using his left, or getting up on his own. But that sense never wavered, and he had an instinct. He reached out, ignoring the blood on his hand, and gripped a calloused and solid hand tightly. The man pulled Salek to his feet, effortless despite Salek’s considerable height and build. Salek was quite a bit taller than this man, but suddenly he was sure that wouldn’t matter much.

“My name is Lentus Tavano,” the man said, and he turned the bloody grip into a handshake.

“Pleased to meet you, M-Master Tavano,” Salek said, casting his eyes down in a little bow.

“Master Lentus,” the man said. “In my culture, you only call someone by the last name if you’re about to kill him or you just did.”

“Noted, Master Lentus,” Salek replied quickly.

“Better. Now face up, let me see you.” Salek raised his eyes. “Huh. Miralukan?”

“No, Master,” Salek said with a shake of his head.

“That’s weird. No implants. Why?”

“They didn’t take.”

“Will of the Force maybe. Okay. Who told you to come to the Jedi Academy?”

“An Ithorian named Resias,” Salek replied. “I ran across him on Herdship Omedalia.”

Lentus nodded thoughtfully. “Good,” he said. “You’ll do. I will be your Master from now on. You’ll do as I say, you’ll listen intently, and you’ll hesitate at your own peril. Get your clothes, we leave in one hour.”

“Leave?” Salek asked, confused.

“The temple life doesn’t suit me,” Lentus replied. “And frankly, they’re more comfortable around here if I’m gone. Now hurry, I’m used to shorter hours than galactic standard.”

“Umm…” Master Maedwin nodded to him, pushing out a little pulse of emotion. “Yes, Master,” Salek finished with another small bow. He picked his way carefully along the garden path, hissing quietly at the pain from his cuts. He had cleaned off his hands and shoved half of his clothes into a bag before he realized that Lentus hadn’t even bothered to get his name. That thought seemed to dispel some sort of trance, and Salek realized that he hadn’t thought to question a single thing. Thoughts now swirled around his head. Who was this guy? What had Salek been shoved into? And why hadn’t Master Maedwin protected him?
 
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Salek Fallanai

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Salek awoke with a quiet whimper. Every morning he woke up wishing that he was coming out of a nightmare, but the pains in his body quickly dispelled the illusion. It was about to start again: the impossible commands, the beatings, the steady stream of increasing torments as he failed to get up and continue. Lethus was a demon; a Sith masquerading as a Jedi, drawing students away to destroy them one by one. He had tried to get a message out two days before, but Lethus had intercepted him. His wrist was still in a splint, and the bruises from that day covered his body in dark purple streaks, where it wasn't covered by weeks of sweat and grime.

"Up."

Such a simple word to cause so much heartache. But Salek snapped to his feet, terrified that he might earn a punishment for ignoring a command. His head swam for a moment, and he almost fell back to the floor. He rested his weight on his left leg to avoid the stabbing pain from his sprained right ankle.

Lethus walked in a slow circle around Salek, studying him. When he reached the front, he grunted quietly.

"Your wrist is still broken. Why?"

"Umm..." Salek stammered. "I'm sorry, we had just started learning to heal when you took m-...when you picked me up. I don't know how to heal bones, Master."

"I see," Lethus said thoughtfully. "First, see to your other wounds. Your flesh healing is still slow, those bruises should be gone. Check for internal bleeding, your blood pressure is low. Then we'll spend this week working on bonecrafting. We'll just need to break them until you get it right."

Salek would have huddled in on himself with terror, but he was too tired. Numb. This would be the worst week yet, but he couldn't bring himself to care. All he could focus on was getting himself ready to handle it in whatever way he could. He didn't know if he could survive this psychopath long enough to escape, but his only chance was to play along until an opportunity came up.

The young Jedi tried to sink slowly to his knees, but his legs gave out with a burning, tearing pain, and he fell to the floor. That was as good a place as any. He began cycling through the Jedi meditation methods he had learned, submerging himself in the living Force.

He could sense it all around him, flowing through every part of his body. Though he was still slow, over the past weeks he had learned how to focus it into certain regions. Instead of generally increasing this body's metabolism, he'd had a couple of breakthroughs that allowed him to drive his body's resources to one particular region and heal it specifically. Every night he was forced to sleep with the injuries he had earned that day, and every morning he was given an hour to heal as much as he could to prepare for the next day. He was still falling behind, but not as far as he had been. He could get himself mostly functional, and exercise would work some of the pain out.

One day, he would get good enough to actually begin recovering. Then he would have to fake the pain. Keep pretending to be real, so Lethus Tavano didn't suspect. He could handle a beating for being slow to learn; those were never as bad as for disobeying. One day, Lethus would drop his guard, and Salek would be healthy. Watching. Waiting.
 

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Salek slashed out with his saber, but he missed the tiny pebble bouncing around him. It was organic and so small that he could barely see it. He only got a solid sense of where it was from the Force warnings when it zipped in to strike him, leaving a small puncture before flying back out to continue its orbit. It would have been annoying if it had been an hour of training, but he had been at it since before sunrise, and his stomach twisted violently with hunger. The frustration boiled over, and he swung out wildly with a snarl. His injured knee twisted wrong, and he collapsed.

“Pathetic,” Master Lentus remarked. “It’s no wonder the Jedi didn’t want you. That’s the most pathetic showing I’ve ever seen, and you’re not the first blind kid I’ve beaten up.”

It was too much for Salek. He turned his face up to Lentus, veins popping out of his forehead.

“What do you expect?” Salek asked in a growl. “You torture me for months, barely feed me, don’t let me sleep, and work me to exhaustion every day. What do you think I’m going to do? What do you want from me??”

The last question had a note of pleading in it, and a tiny bit of him had enough strength to feel a little shame for showing weakness in front of this monster.

“I want you to do better,” Lentus replied in his commanding bark. His voice changed to a taunt, and Salek could hear the sneer. “Aww, you’re tired? Poor little thing, come sit on my lap for story time and nappies. It’s no wonder Mae begged me to take you off her hands. I shouldn’t have wasted my time, you’re such a useless piece of half-baked trash. Can’t even see a rock flying at your face, and you think you’re going to become some noble warrior? The only thing you’re good for is making the people around you laugh.”

Lentus had insulted him plenty, but never with this tone of absolute scorn. Salek felt a pounding throb grow in his head until he heard a choked gurgle come from his throat, and then he was on his feet. All pain disappeared as he charged Tavano, lightsaber in a white-knuckled grip. Stones flew at him from all directions, but he duck-spun out of the way of most and intercepted the rest with a swipe of his saber. That swipe turned into a slash at Tavano’s neck, which the Master ducked easily. Salek saw the counterattack coming; normally it would be too fast for him to do anything about, but he gritted his teeth and responded anyway. Tavano’s hand shot out to get hold of his saber wrist, but Salek dropped the lightsaber and telekinetically spun it at his enemy’s torso as it fell. Tavano was no pushover, though, and he drew his own saber and deflected the spinning blade in one smooth motion.

The move had forced Tavano to release his grip, and Salek drew the fallen saber back into his hand. He reached out with the Force and choked his enemy, hoping that the momentary distraction would create an opening. Tavano merely held his breath and attacked, and every ounce of Salek’s concentration became devoted to a desperate defense. Tavano’s efficient, short duelist strikes forced the young Jedi back into a defensive position, and his rage began to give way to a growing sense of fear.

“Good,” Tavano said quietly, eyes steady on his furious apprentice. “You can feel how the anger has made you strong, can’t you? No pain, no hesitation. You didn’t even try to see the stones, you merely reacted. You can sense its power. If you give in enough, you might even defeat me. Listen to its whisper, and it will tell you deep secrets.”

The words began to cut through the smothering blanket of Salek’s emotions, and he began thinking again. He had thought he’d been abducted by a Sith, but hearing Lethus speak of it openly was a shock to his system.

"You’re talking about the Dark Side,” he whispered quietly. Fear gripped his heart, but he had spent nights awake planning for an event like this. Keep him talking. Time was the most important thing, time and comfort. Play along.

“Of course,” Lethus replied steadily. “There is great power in the Dark Side. Power to kill. Power to destroy what you hate.”

“I don’t want to kill. I don’t want to hate anything.” Wait, that was the wrong response. He was so tired, he couldn’t keep his thoughts straight. His knee throbbed. Blood dripped onto the ground at his feet.

“Not even me?” Tavano asked.

Salek pressed his hand to his forehead, trying desperately to clear his thoughts. His voice came unbidden, speaking truth. “I want to escape the pain. I don’t want you to hurt me anymore.”

“Do you hate me?”

“…Yes.”

“And you would kill me to stop the pain,” Tavano said mildly. Salek was silent. He couldn’t deny it; he had just attempted to do exactly that, for that precise reason.

“Good,” Lethus said with a mild, thin-lipped smile. “You may go. You’re no longer interesting to me.”

Just like that. The psychopath had broken his toy, and now he was discarding it. No, it couldn’t be, this was just a new wrinkle in the sick game. Salek didn’t put away his lightsaber. But the hope was insidious, and he found himself backing slowly away from Lethus, towards the training room door. Lethus, for his part, disengaged his yellow saber and clipped it back to his belt. He watched Salek back away, arms folded speculatively. The door opened behind Salek, and he prepared to run, whatever it did to his knee.

“Just one more thing,” Lethus spoke up at the last second. Oh no. “Just a parting thought. Now that you’ve escaped, I’ll need to find a new toy. Who at the Temple would you like to get a little revenge on?”

“I’ll warn them,” Salek said uncertainly. “There will be a warrant for you throughout the whole Alliance.”

“Eh,” Lethus waved that concern away. “I’ll be there and gone again before you find a ship to take you back. It was probably the last visit I could get away with anyway. So what’s the name? Who do you want gone when you return?”

It was hard to tell which was more painful: the shame of realizing how quickly a couple of names came to Salek’s mind; or the realization that, if he left, this monster would escape and hurt somebody else the way he had hurt Salek. The thought of somebody else – anybody – going through that ripped at his heart. But what could he do? He couldn’t defeat Lethus. He couldn’t delay him long enough to go get help. All thoughts of clever tricks and ruses failed him; Lethus would see through anything he could come up with. He could flee, escape the nightmare. But could he live with himself, having damned someone else?

There was only one path open to him. Try to take Lethus Tavano with him.

Salek stepped away from the door with a heavy sigh. He stretched his shoulders forward and back, settled into an awkward dueling stance, and faced Lethus across the room.

Lethus watched him for a long minute, sharp blue staring into Salek’s blank white eyes. He raised his hands, and Salek tensed, trying to sense every direction to see where the first attacks would come from. But instead Lethus merely clapped slowly.

“Marvelous, my apprentice,” he said warmly. Warmly! Salek’s head spun with confusion. “Come to the dining room, let’s get some bacta in you and then we can talk. Do you like caf?”

“Wait…what?!” Salek demanded. There’s no way Lethus could be surrendering. He could finish Salek off without breaking a sweat, and they both knew it.

“Oh yes, formalities first. Though you will remain my apprentice, I officially promote you to the rank of Jedi Knight. Wear your lightsaber with pride, Knight Fallanai. Now come, you must be exhausted.”
 

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As they sat at the table, a medical droid carefully tending to his many small hurts, Salek’s brain tried hard to calculate what was happening. Was this what Jedi went through? No, there’s no way, none of the others had shown any signs of this sort of experience. And “What about the trials?” his mouth spoke his next thought.

Lethus chuckled. “Do you think that anything those milquetoast wimps could come up with would be harder than what you just went through? If they push the issue, you can skate through that, but as far as I’m concerned you’re a Knight.”

“But I’ve barely learned anything. I can’t fight, I still can barely even see!”

“Skill will come with time, now that you’ve proven yourself worthy to learn,” Lethus assured him. “But you’ve shown something far more important: the heart of a warrior, and the soul of a protector. You would face death in the slim hope that it could save somebody else. To me, that makes you a Knight more than any Force tricks.”

The two were quiet for a long time as Salek processed this. He sipped caf, which it turned out he didn’t like at all – but he wasn’t going to turn down the first gesture of kindness he’d ever had from his Master. He sprinkled some more sugar into it, though, just in case that would help.

“You drove me to the Dark Side,” he said finally. “Why?”

Lethus leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. Though his iron curtain of discipline still shrouded him, he seemed to have let his guard down, and Salek could feel deep emotions running beneath the surface. It was a confusing mix. Old hurts, new pride, deep regret and sorrow that seemed to pervade his entire being like an odor. But over it all, pure determination.

“Before you met me, you thought you knew what suffering was like,” he said slowly. “How does that look to you now?” Salek chuckled bitterly, all the answer that would ever be needed. “We never truly care about things we haven’t experienced. It’s not selfish, it’s just the way we’re wired. Someone who grows up hungry will be far more likely to volunteer at a food bank than someone who grew up well-fed. Passion is born of deciding that others won’t suffer the way you did. That is the core of why I parted ways with the Temple Jedi. They think in theories and abstracts. They shy away from real life, out of fear that it will turn them to the Dark Side. But we don’t. We have faced the Dark Side and won, and the grip that fear holds is broken. We know suffering. We can feel that suffering with others, without obsessing over the state of our precious little souls. Before, you knew what it was like to be different. Now you know what it’s like to be deprived, trapped, hungry, powerless, in agony, and forced to still push onward.”

Salek whispered, “I’m a little terrified by how much sense that makes.”

“I am a hunter,” Lethus said. “To hunt something, you have to know it, how it thinks, how it feels and why. I hunt Sith, people completely lost to the Dark Side, in the hope that I can save them or save other people from them. To do that, you must know what would drive someone to that depravity. What it feels like to give in to your hate. Sympathy does nothing. They’ll kill you if they think you pity them. If you want to save people, you must have empathy, and that can only truly come from experience.”

“So now I understand why they fight, and why I must fight them,” Salek responded, cupping his hands around his mug.

“You’ve taken good first steps in that direction,” Lethus said, “but you have a long way to go. Fortunately. the rest of our training will be quite a bit more constructive. For now, I recommend that you help yourself to the kitchen, then get a good nap and some meditation time. You’ve had a terrible ordeal, my apprentice, and I’m truly sorry for that. You’ll need to process it carefully so that it doesn’t leave scars on your soul. Take your time. Heal. I’ve unlocked all the doors to the complex, and I recommend spending some time outside in the sun. Come to me when you’re refreshed and ready.”

The sheer kindness in his voice was baffling to Salek after living with the torturous drill sergeant. How could this be the same person? But he decided that, even if he went back under the knife tomorrow, the break today was worth dealing with some deception. Lethus took his leave, and Salek turned to the kitchen with a vengeance.
 

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Salek stood in quiet contemplation, his fingers brushing feathery leaves of the dangling willow branch before him. The afternoon sun warmed him as he contemplated the life flowing through the tree, tracing its delicate paths through to the trunk. It fascinated him how only the outer tube of the tree truly lived, yet all that dead tissue within still teemed with the Force. There must be a lesson there. He would contemplate it.

What he had thought was a dungeon actually turned out to be the sub-basement of a rather cozy home. Once the doors were unlocked, he found himself with plenty of room to explore. The outside was an absolute explosion of life, trees and flowers climbing out of every horizontal surface around the house. Insects and small animals of more types than he had heard of clung to branches or hid beneath bushes. He had explored the beautiful garden over the past week, marveling over small wonders or simply enjoying the smell of flowers in bloom. Lentus had disappeared on a mission the day after Salek's trial ended, leaving the young Jedi to relax surrounded by the quiet chirps of forest critters and a voice-activated datapad full of books he was to listen to and report on.

Because of his exploration, Salek knew that the garden ended in an atmospheric shield a mile or so in each direction. He could feel nothing of life beyond that shield, and putting his hand through had been uncomfortable enough to verify that there was no atmosphere. Yet there was obvious sunlight, so not deep space. Lentus had apparently laid down his stake on a lifeless planet out of the way, then made it into a miniature paradise.

That suited Salek just fine. He was physically healed from his ordeal, and the peaceful week had helped him quiet some of the worst emotional fallout. It would be a long time mending; he suspected that the soul healed far more slowly than the body. But it was a start.

The quiet hum of repulsorlifts suddenly popped into existence far overhead. Lentus's ship must have passed through the atmospheric shield and begun making noise. That meant he was back, and it was time to get started. Trepidation and anxiety surged in Salek's heart. His time with Lentus had been horrible, the worst thing he had ever encountered, far worse even than he had imagined before he'd lived it. He knew that more pain would await him. But it wouldn't be the same now. He at least trusted his Master that far. He had to; it was the only option available to him that wasn't abhorrent.

As the shuttle door opened, Salek said to himself, "Here goes nothing," and started toward the shuttle on newly strong legs.
 

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Lentus Tavano shuffled down the shuttle platform, the purposeful spring in his step reduced to a shuffling trudge. He felt weary and full of pain. Though living things were still vague blurs to Salek's senses, he could feel the sharp red agony of a blaster burn through the Jedi's shoulder, and the disgustingly appetizing smell of cooked meat made his stomach twist in empathetic pain. The smell was tinged with a sharper, acrid odor. Burned metal maybe?

As he came alongside the Master, Lentus reached out and gripped Salek's shoulder with his good hand, leaning wearily against him. The blaster shot wasn't nearly his only injury, just the dominant pain in a crowd of other hurts. Salek walked alongside him down the courtyard's stone path. As they walked, he smirked a little to himself.

"So Master, can we start my training now?" he asked in a bright chirp.

Lentus cocked his head, eyeing Salek sideways. Seeing the smirk on the young Jedi's face, he let out a rough, raspy chuckle.

"I guess you're feeling better," Lentus said. "You bounce back fast, kid. Good. Take a right here."

"I know, I found your medical station."

"How'd you do that? Stab yourself with a needle?"

"Yes, but somehow not there," Salek confided. "I could smell bacta, and the room felt cooler and cleaner than the rest of the house."

Lentus grunted in affirmation of the detective work.

Salek added, "And your medical droid told me."

"Ah. Did it also tell you not to antagonize me when I'm in pain?"

"Yes," Salek said thoughtfully, "but I thought it was joking."

"I wasn't," a friendly voice chirped from ahead of them. The clinic door was open, and Salek guided Lentus in and sat him down in an examining chair. The droid made a tsking sound, and Salek backed up so it could set to work. Burned and cracked durasteel clanged to the floor as the robot's precise tools cut away armor and clothes.
 

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The master and pupil sat cross-legged on the stone courtyard in the center of the beautiful garden. Insects with big, flappy wings fluttered around Salek's head, and one landed on his ear. He left it there, enjoying the little tickle. Master Lentus took a drink of the hot tea and set the cup back at his side.

"The other Jedi like to do things the old-fashioned way, to make sure their students practice and grow each step before taking the next," he began. "I'm a big believer in efficiency, though."

Salek paused for a moment to think. "How do you mean?" he asked slowly.

Lentus said, "I'm a military man. When you're training new recruits, you have to put them through boot camp to be sure. But after that, you don't start with toy pistols and teach them progressively larger guns and bombs. You give them the tools of their trade and make them practice. Skill comes with doing."

"I see," Salek replied. "So...how does that apply to Jedi training?"

The vague blob of Lentus's face twisted in what might have been a lopsided smirk.

"Meditate with me," he said. "Don't focus on anything. Leave your mind completely open, letting whatever thoughts and feelings you experience come and go as they will."

The young Jedi had some practice at this particular technique; it was one of the beginner meditations they practiced at the Temple during his months there. He slipped into it easily in the quiet of the garden, letting his Force senses contract down until he could only feel himself. He floated there, feeling the texture of the fabric in his shirt, the flat stone surface beginning to hurt his bottom ankle.

After a few minutes, he found himself pondering other things. Vague sensations wandered across his mind, and he let them flow through and back out as he breathed. Over the next hour, those sensations focused, sharpened, becoming a strange sort of feeling that he couldn't put into context. It was chaotic and jumbled, sensory input crammed into strange patterns that made no sense.

And then context came. All of a sudden Salek knew what he was seeing. That he was seeing. He looked at a young man with a shocked expression on his face. His brown hair was growing longer than the normal Jedi cut, and he needed to shave. Understanding came. That was him, looking through Master Lentus's eyes. He watched his mouth drop open in awe, and he eagerly tried to swivel the view around to look elsewhere.

Lentus acquiesced, and Salek gazed around at the brilliant, vivid greens and reds and blues and purples of the garden around them. He looked down at the texture of the stone. You can SEE textures?! he thought in amazement. One of his eyes grew wavy, but it cleared up almost immediately. The vision turned upward.

The sun dominated one horizon in the early morning, but it was not alone. Thousands of brilliant specks of light gazed down at him through the invisible atmospheric shield against a backdrop of deepest black. Black - the color of nothing to most people's eyes - was one of the most intense things Salek had ever experienced. How could there be so much to nothing?!

The sensation was too much, and overwhelmed, Salek broke the meditation and pulled his mind back. He was back in his body, but it felt like he should still be able to look around. It was disorienting, amazing, terrifying, and he put his face in his hands and wept quietly. Master Lentus waited quietly, sipping his tea.

Eventually Salek got himself under control again and looked up. "So that's what it's like, seeing?" he said in a trembling voice.

"So that's what it's like, having never seen?" Lentus mirrored, the corners of his brows wrinkled down slightly.

"It was strange only seeing the outside of things. But there was so much to know just from looking! How do you keep track of it all?"

"Your mind gets used to it with practice," Lentus said. "But we're getting a little off topic. Are you ready to go deeper?"

"What do you mean deeper?"

"I mean that we connected, but you broke off before it could become a true mind connection. We looked at the surface level. Now it's time to dive deeper. But what you just experienced may take some processing, so we can wait if you wish."

"No, let's do it!" Salek said eagerly, all feelings of being overwhelmed snuffed out instantly. "I want to see more!"

"Okay then. Back to the meditation."
 

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This time, Salek was better prepared for the experience to come. He accepted the bond readily and drank in the vision of plants and stars while Lentus prepared himself for the next steps. As minutes ticked by, even stranger sensations began rising from the depths of his consciousness. He felt himself drifting off, almost as if dreaming. But he was still aware, and they were someone else's dreams.

The rush of wind as his drop pod entered the deeper atmosphere, ablative shielding peeling off in the mad rush to reach ground before the anti-aircraft lasers could pick him off.

A harsh jolt as they landed, throwing him halfway to the floor. The door opening, and blaster fire scorching three men next to him in seconds.

A desperate charge for cover. Huddling in the mud, shots blasting dirt and rock splinters across his face. Bombs exploding, men and women screaming.

Must move.

Enemy coming around the corner, doesn't look down. Blast him in the side. Are there more?

Must move forward. Sergeant shouting. Throw grenade, charge behind it.

Climbing inside the turbolaser turret. Everyone dead inside. Grab the controls, turn it on its mate. Great success, this section is safe for landing.

Congratulations and camaraderie. Giant party.

Back in another drop pod. Confident this time. Overconfident. Shot in the leg, dragged back to safety. Retreat.

Another. Cautious. Shooting accurately from cover. Getting good at this.

An invitation to the Special Reconnaissance? What an honor!

Dropping behind enemy lines in a cloaked landing pod. Sneak through the base behind the experienced vets, cutting throats and administering poison. Find the general's quarters. Army won't last long without him.

Spotted by a guard! Desperately try to not be seen, reach out with feelings, can't do anything else - guard walks off, doesn't notice them. Why? How?

Research the Force. Jedi Temple. Could become better warrior. Stay and join command? No, acquire power and bring it back. Master the Force and use it to win the war.

Training. Victories, losses, friendships, fights, all shooting by in a blur. So much knowledge. So many secrets. Small war fades in importance, hard to think about going back to fight for such a small cause. Such bigger threats out there.

Must protect.


The vision fell away again, and Salek looked through Lentus's eyes at the setting sun, bright against the black skyless horizon. Then back into himself, and he slumped forward. There was so much there! His mind reeled, trying desperately to put everything into some sort of order, but it was too much. He let out a small moan and passed out.
 

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Some time later, Salek awoke in his small bed. Master Lentus was sitting next to it, reading a datapad. He looked up as Salek opened his eyes.

"I know Teras Kasi," he said in an awed whisper.

Lentus gazed at him steadily. "Show me."
 

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Salek and Lentus stood across from one another in the stone courtyard, lightweight stun sticks held ready. They were fuzzy and hard to see, but the energy crackling through their lengths gave them a definite shape in his Force sense. Salek's mind still reeled with all of the techniques and movements that had been drilled into his head, but he settled into a comfortable Soresu stance, ready to defend from attacks from any direction. Master Lentus stood straight and tall, his stun stick held with its point towards Salek. Makashi then, the dueling form. Information about the style flooded into Salek's mind, and he prepared himself for the most common attacks.

Lentus started forward with a feint to the head, then swept his saber down at Salek's forward knee. Salek was drawn in by the feint. He saw the saber sweeping downwards and realized in a rush of insight that his stance was too deep to pull his leg back properly. No, not so soon. Insight bloomed in his mind, and he Force pushed his own leg back, throwing himself up and away from the hit. The swing missed, and he stumbled backwards trying to regain his balance. Lentus pressed the attack, and he desperately parried three strikes in quick succession. He saw an opening and threw out a quick swipe at Lentus's face. It didn't have a chance of hitting, but it backed his opponent off long enough to get his feet under him. He settled back down, saber at the ready.

"Good," Lentus said with a nod. "Improvisation. Not giving into the inevitable. I expected you to be twitching on the ground by now."

"Thank you, Master," Salek said with a glow of happiness at the praise.

"Let's move up to half speed, then."

Wait, what?

There was no time to question. Salek saw the next strikes coming, and he dodged back, trying to buy time to think. Lentus didn't relent, though, and attacks came from all directions, bouncing from low to high, right to left to straight thrusts. Salek's arms burned as he moved to intercept the hits, one after another forcing him to move his attention all over the place. There was only one thing he could do: the unexpected.

Salek ducked under a head-swipe, then used the crouching position to leap into an Ataru-style flip, hoping to leap over Lentus and strike him on the way. Something went wrong, then stars.

Salek felt cold stone on his face. Then on the rest of his body. He lifted himself up, shaking his head.

"Whu...what happened?" he asked.

The grin was audible in Lentus's voice. "You jumped, turned upside-down, and landed right on your head. Don't worry, you've been out for less than a minute."

".......oh. Ow."

"It happens. You've been given knowledge, but your body isn't conditioned to handle it yet. You feel like you can do things, and you know how the moves are pulled off, but your muscles aren't strengthened yet, and your muscle memory isn't prepared. That's where practice and conditioning come in."

"That would explain all the burning in my arms, then," Salek said with a nod. "I don't feel like I should be this tired already, but I am."

"Yup. En garde."

The three hours were a lesson in humiliation as Salek grew progressively more tired and sloppy, leading to dozens of trips to the ground in a twitching heap. However, he began to see the payoff in starting off his training with such rough physical treatment. Compared to what he had been through, a few volts barely even registered on his pain meter, and he was able to spring back up for another round almost as soon as the twitching wore off. He would have passed out long ago, but the mixture of his previous Jedi training and Lentus's...special form of conditioning kept him on his feet until the end. However, he felt like he had forgotten everything he had learned.

"Good first day," Lentus grunted. "I'd like to test some things tomorrow. For now, get some nutrition and spend a little time in meditation to regain your stamina. The afternoon will be telekinesis lessons."

"Oh goody," Salek slurred as he stumbled back towards the house. However, he couldn't deny to himself that he felt a tiny thrill of excitement. Real training, and far more intense than what the Jedi Temple had been fobbing off onto him. He didn't know if they just took things slower for students or if they had humored him due to his handicap, but it felt exhilarating to be treated as a real, capable person who could handle hard challenges. After years of coddling and pussyfooting, he reveled in the new experience. He couldn't see the stars shining down on him from the black noonday sky, but the memory sat comfortably in his head. Perhaps this wasn't hell after all.
 

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Telekinesis class, it turned out, was far less strenuous than saber fighting. Salek, with his natural view of the Force's connections through things, had gotten quite good at the skill in the Jedi Temple, and his Master decided to skip the basics and move right in to practical applications.

Lentus turned out to be a virtuoso of annoying telekinetic distractions. Instead of the broad pushes and pulls that his Temple teachers had shown, Master Lentus used small, focused bursts that were quick and subtle enough to pass by unnoticed, almost like sleight of hand. A flick to the ear right before an attack, pushing a foot out of place mid-step to break a charge, sending small rocks whizzing into the backs of heads - Salek's memories gained from the Master told him about how these tiny distractions had given him a vital edge in war, turning him from a skilled soldier to a fearsome commando. Driven by memories of his life being saved dozens of times by such a simple skill, Salek set to refining his telekinesis with a will, working on juggling multiple rocks and heaving larger and larger stones with zest.

Days passed, and then weeks, then months. Master Lentus would leave for missions occasionally, leaving Salek with a pesky anxiety that - should his Master not return one day - there was no real way for him to escape this rock in the middle of nowhere. It turned out that Lentus had staked a claim to one of the billions of lifeless planetoids floating through empty space, a place that nobody had ever bothered to chart and was only a blip on a couple of the most complete maps. It was his way to find some peace and quiet, something that the veteran soldier valued more highly than any respect or honors.

But he always returned to his haven, always tired but never as hurt as he was that first time. With his newfound understanding of the man, Salek respected that quiet and tended things with few words and light footsteps until Lentus was recovered and ready to teach again. Then the jokes could begin, and Salek found himself feeling more and more like a friend to the taciturn grouch.
 

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One day, a couple of months into their dueling practice, Lentus lowered his stun stick with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"How's your sight doing?" he asked.

"You're holding up three fingers," Salek replied. Lentus only grunted in reply, a sign that he got the joke but wasn't in the mood. Okay, serious time. "It's gotten much sharper since I arrived. It seems like the more I practice with the Force, the more clearly I can make it out. Your face actually has features, and I can tell what expression you're making. Still nothing as refined as real sight, I can't see textures or leaves."

He left out that, while he couldn't see leaves, he could see the root systems under the ground, branching out and tangling with one another beneath the dirt; he could see his Master's heart beating, his jaw bone grinding to make a quiet click when he chewed, a thousand details that no sighted person could be aware of.

"Hm," Lentus said. "So why are you still so bad at combat?"

"I'm new at this!" Salek protested. "Before I started training, I didn't even have a concept of straight lines, or how things moved parabolically when you threw them. Give me some time to catch up."

"Still. Something isn't normal."

"I'm not sure what you would consider normal in a life bubble on the side of a barren rock orbiting a no-name white dwarf."

"Granted. But I'm not always a hermit, and it's still strange. You've gotten strong enough, and your coordination is fine. But it's like you're getting more clumsy as we practice."

Salek gulped. He hadn't wanted to admit to himself that he'd been struggling more in practice, but it was true. He had thought that his Master was turning up the difficulty steadily, but it hadn't felt very convincing. He nodded in agreement.

"So what do we do about it?" Salek asked.

"Go get the cam droid and my lightsaber. I want to record shooting you a while."

That was actually only the third craziest thing Lentus had requested that week, so Salek complied without question. Maybe if he was obedient, his Master would keep the blaster on stun.

He didn't.

"Block the shot as quickly as you can," Lentus said as he turned the blaster to its full setting. He glanced up to make sure the camera was recording, then fired a shot across the courtyard at Salek's face. Salek had the saber ready. He could clearly see the burning-bright energy of the blaster shot streaking towards his face, then bouncing off of the even more brilliant bar of light he held. The shot hissed harmlessly against a cobblestone, shattering a chunk of it.

"Again," Lentus said, and a shot came towards Salek's foot. Instead of blocking it, he slid his foot a couple inches out of the way and let the bolt zing past him. Several more came in rapid succession, and Salek had his saber ready to intercept each one as it approached.

"Switch."

The command took Salek by surprise. He had used his Master's lightsaber on occasion, but he'd never been handed a blaster. He hadn't been joking when he'd said that straight lines were new to him. It wasn't really a concept that came up all that often in the sightless world. But Lentus walked back to the other side of the courtyard, ignited his saber, and waited patiently.

Here goes nothing.

The young Jedi pointed the gun as close to Master-ward as he could figure out and squeezed the trigger. A satisfying jolt of sound and vibration came from the blaster, and he felt the bolt streak across the courtyard. It missed Lentus by three meters and burned through several bushes' worth of leaves before burying itself in the ground. Lentus stared at his student for a silent moment, judging him like crazy, then prepared for another shot.

The next one came closer, and Lentus was able to reach out and bat it away. Salek readjusted his aim and overcorrected the other direction, then fired too low and spit gravel up against Lentus's shins. The Master disengaged his lightsaber and put his fists on his hips.

"Are you afraid to hit me?" he asked in an accusing tone.

"No, Master!" Salek pleaded.

"In that case, good grief, man. I thought your saber fighting was bad!"

Salek shrugged defensively. "We can't all be Rey Skywalker. Some of us miss sometimes."

"Even so..." Lentus stood in silent thought for a minute, then perked up.

The next half hour was spent moving the medical droid out into the courtyard, then trying to convince it that it was okay for it to hold a blaster and shoot at a human, then giving that up when it began having a panic attack. Eventually Lentus just shut the droid off, put the gun into its hand, and pointed it downrange. He took a test shot, then walked to the spot where the bolt had gone.

"Okay," he said to Salek, "pull the trigger whenever you want."

With the immobilized arm of the unpowered medical droid providing a steady support, Salek's shots were far more accurate - a fact that he suspected would come up for the rest of his life. Still, Lentus deflected the shots easily, moving the saber to intercept them just in time. After several trigger pulls, Salek sensed the bolt being deflected right back at his body, and he spun out of the way. Fortunately, he'd been expecting that at some point.

"Good," Lentus said, disengaging his saber. "Let's review."

They sat down together and told the camera droid to replay the holographic footage of the practice session in miniature on the ground before them. Lentus messed with the footage for a little while, presumably putting sections of the holo together for direct comparison.

"There. See that?" he asked Salek.

"Obviously no," Salek replied. "I've never been able to see holo footage."

"Oh yeah," Lentus said. "Geez, that sucks. Sorry."

Salek fluted the closest approximation to "No worries" in Ithorian he could make with only one throat. "So what are you looking at?"

"Your reactions. It's hard to tell when you're just watching, it's too small a difference. But I overlaid my holo onto yours. Umm...I made it appear like we were standing in the exact same place, then timed it so the shots went off at the exact same time."

"I follow," Salek said.

"Good. You're familiar with precognition, of course."

"A Jedi's ability to see a split second into the future and react to attacks before they actually begin," Salek recounted by rote. "It's the way we know where to place our sabers to deflect blasters, and it makes us deadly to any other swordsmen because we can see and react to attacks far quicker than anyone else."

"Frak, did Maedwhin make you memorize that textbook?"

"I couldn't read it later," Salek admitted, "so I made sure I was listening extra hard. Kind of had to get good at that."

"Ah. Well, you get the idea," Lentus went on. "A Jedi sees things roughly a half second before they actually happen, enabling us to be moving at the same time most beings' nervous systems are first getting the signal that something has happened. Well, it's a half second for me. For you, it's closer to a full second. When I replay the holo of you firing the shot that I deflected back, you moved your feet to dodge at the same moment you pulled the trigger. You actually started moving to dodge before I moved to deflect the shot. I've never heard of battle precognition at that level."

"So what are you saying?" Salek asked. "That I can dodge bolts?"

"No, Salek," Lentus said with eminent gravity in his voice. "What I'm trying to tell you is that when you're ready, you won't have to. But more to the point, I think that you're having trouble fighting because you're unaware of this. You're responding to attacks too early, and it gives you away. From now on we're going to practice timing until you can block just in the nick of time. You'll want to hide this from everyone, friend and enemy alike. The fewer people know about an advantage, the better off you are. Afterwards, we'll work on how to turn it to your advantage. I think that, with your ability to sense how your own attack will be countered, you could become a duelist the likes of which the galaxy rarely sees. But it will take enormous practice to handle it, because it will require a lot of mental processing in a very short amount of time."

The full weight of what his Master was saying slowly settled down over Salek, and he found himself sitting quietly with his mouth hanging a little open. He didn't have any words. From being the useless kid in the back of the class just trying to keep up, to now being told that he had potential beyond most people's dreams? He wasn't a generally hopeful person, and he had never allowed himself the luxury to dream big dreams. Reality would just be that much bigger a letdown. But he could actually be great? The thought was almost too big to fit into his head.

"Th-thank you, Master," he finally whispered. "For really looking at me. Even if this turns out wrong, nobody else has even looked closely enough to try and find a gift in me." He wiped away a tear.

Lentus placed his hand on Salek's shoulder, a gesture so rare that his nerves jumped in surprise and excitement.

The Master said, "One of the major conflicts I have with the Jedi Temple is that they focus on the students who show the most potential up front. I think it's a holdover from Rey Skywalker. When your founder was perfect at everything she did the first time she tried it, it sets an unrealistically high expectation. The other Jedi want their disciples ready-made. They don't realize that gemstones look like ugly rocks when you first dig them up."

With that, Lentus strode back down the gravel path to the house, leaving Salek sitting between the two droids, deep in thought. He had an entire perception of the world and his self-identity to reconsider.
 

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The bar of incandescent destruction snapped out and intercepted the final pebble, swatting it out of its wobbling, erratic path in a flash. Master Lentus had gradually ramped up the difficulty of the precision drills, but as Salek's sight grew ever-sharper and he learned to time his reactions, he found himself flowing through the drills easily in the past weeks. He hopped down from the hand-wide spire of rock he was balancing on, landing easily with a combination of newly formed strength and telekinetic control.

"Good," Master Lentus said. "Now spar."

The student had already tossed his Master's lightsaber to the edge of the courtyard and pulled the stun stick over before the words were out. Lentus raised his own, and they began fighting, both in Ataru form. Salek began to enjoy the rhythm of the fight, meeting attacks with parries and ripostes with ease. He began moving into the more acrobatic aspects of the form, which he truly reveled in. It finally felt like his body had caught up to his brain, and that he could make real what he had previously only imagined. The forms had become comfortable sequences that he could perform easily with speed and precision.

His musing was cut short as the stun stick connected with his leg, and he fell to the ground. It still hurt, but that wasn't nearly as bad as the embarrassment of being tagged. Wait- His mind thought back to the last second of the fight.

"That wasn't an Ataru attack," he said out loud. "You switched to Makashi form during your."

"Final lesson on lightsabers," Master Lentus said. "There is no form; there is only what works best in the moment. The forms are there to let you practice and mentally catalog a lot of different moves. These moves are best for dueling, this stance is better for blaster defense, et cetera. But to give yourself over to a single fighting style opens you to weakness from anyone else who knows that style, for they immediately know what you'll be good at and what you're likely to do. Instead, flow like water, and strike like lightning. Listen to your body's momentum and let it determine what your strike will be, not some memorized sequence that everyone else has practiced. That's the only way you stand a chance against a superior swordsman. And there is always a bigger fish."

"Wait, did you say final lesson?" Salek asked in surprise.

"You may have missed out on a couple of the finer points," Lentus replied dryly. "But yes. We'll still practice, but mastery more a matter of time and experience now. Which is good, because we can finally start working on the difficult aspects of being a Jedi. Hopefully, by year's end, you can start being useful in the field."

That thought terrified Salek to his core. He had really begun to enjoy his quiet life of study, training, and contemplation. Lentus had him listening to various books during his down time, then dictating back reports about what he had learned. The fields had varied from engineering to astronavigation to political philosophy to interspecies psychology and sociology. At his Master's order, the week before, he had delivered a memorized speech on the differences between economies of isolated planets, small systems, and larger faction-related governmental systems. Salek was sure he was doing horribly and missing almost all of the important details - it was hard to take notes and refer back to them blind - but apparently the speaking practice was just as important, and Lentus had corrected him more on his posture and intonation than facts.

But what was all this training and education for, if not to go out and serve? Master Lentus was convinced that a Sith presence was growing, and he disappeared on missions more and more often. Surely Salek could do some of that work so he didn't run ragged. Even if the thought left his hands shaking a little.
 
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