Private Fiyapowah

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Rayia Si

Back on Cathar. Jonyna wanted to allow Rayia to get used to the planet she would call home. One day, she wanted to take Rayia back to her own world, but that would come later.

For now, she had spent the last week teaching her daughter the ins and outs of tree-surfing, and mapping out the area for her. One of the keys of tree-surfing after all was knowing what came next, and the jungle was often a maze. However, today was something different.

Today, she wanted to pass on her own ability that she had mastered.

She wanted to teach Rayia pyrokinesis.

Sitting on a wet branch, Jonyna looked to her daughter with a smile. "So, you ready? I got us deep enough into the rainforest, we shouldn't be able to burn anything."

 

[Rayia Si]

Jonyna Si

---

Rayia had been on Cathar for quite a while now. And she was starting to get attached to the tree interspersed Savannah’s of her mother’s home planet. She still hoped to see her species’ original homeworld someday, as well as to show Jonyna around Weik. But Ran Dom Kuun was home now too. She had enjoyed being taught the ins and outs of tree-surfing. ‘Maybe I’ve graduated from a wobbly kit to somewhat of a decent climber,’ Rayia thought to herself.

Rayia had a bit of a surprise for Jonyna as well. After some slight pestering on her part, Rayia had managed to convince one of Ran Dom Kuun’s real estate agents to let her browse some of the available spaces towards the lower sections of the trunk. Some of them looked rather nice, even in the archaic fuzziness of Rayia’s communicator. Far enough from everyone else that Rayia could still have her own space. ‘Illuna knows I need it,’ Rayia finished mentally. But still close enough for Rayia to be near her home.

That was a matter for another day however. Tucking her communicator into her vest and joining Jonyna on the wet branch, Rayia considered Jonyna’s question for a moment. When Jonyna had first approached Rayia about learning this hereditary skill, Rayia wasn’t sure how she would do. Fire was an element notarious for blazing out of control without discipline. And well, she was already fighting two battles.

But she wanted to learn it. Not only because it would bring her closer to Jonyna, but also for herself. Maybe if she learned to harness the blaze outside herself, she would be able to harness the beast within. A different type of blaze altogether.

“I am ready. What must I do?”

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Rayia Si

"Focus on what you need." Jonyna started with, holding up a hand. "Fire isn't an element of want. It doesn't do what you want. It doesn't care. But what it will listen to, is your needs. You need to get to that next branch or else you'll fall? Fire can do that. You need to start a flame to survive the cold night? Flame can do that." She held out her hand, a flicker of flame forming from it.

"I need to show you how this works. The Force is always about asking the will of the universe a favor. To make fire, you tell it what you need. When I first used it, I needed to catch up to a speeder that was flying away. Next moment, I was flying 30 miles an hour with flame shooting out of my feet."

 

[Rayia Si]

Jonyna Si

---

Rayia’s eyebrows drew together as Nonyna explained that the first step was to focus on what you need. Perhaps it was the setting of their little lesson but, admist the dew dappled leaves of the Cathar rainforest, Rayia was feeling a little introspective. ‘You’ve never been good at knowing what you need. If you were, that mess with mother wouldn’t have devolved as it did,’ Rayia couldn’t help but think to herself.

Rayia’s golden eyes followed Jonyna’s hand as the Cathar lifted it, explaining that fire doesn’t do what you want, but what you need. Rayia tilted her hand to the side. “Sorry, but aren’t need and want two sides of the same thing? In the examples that you chose, wouldn’t I also want to reach that next branch? How can I tell them apart?” Rayia asked, flinching a little as the spark of flame ignited in Jonyna’s palm.

The Felacatian was feeling bad enough for being already puzzled when the lesson hadn’t even truly begun. But what was worse were the sudden twitches of anxiety spiking through her in the face of the flame. The stress it caused roused the sleeping half of Rayia’s mind. Deep within, the bestial side of her stirred against its chains as the prickle of instinct surged in her veins. Rayia’s tail lashed once, bristling as it scanned the area for the vibrations of movement.

When all she could feel was her and Jonyna’s own breaths, Rayia settled. She closed her eyes and imagined herself in Illuna’s warmth. Fire might be scary, but heat was comforting. Back on Weil, the sun’s heat had long been used in various healing rituals. The Felacatians sought to stimulate their natural healing factor. Recalling those rites reminded Rayia of her connection to the sun. It was why she didn’t mind Light Fang’s intense heat. And if she conquered heat, she could conquer her fear of the flame too.

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Rayia Si

"It's not that you want to reach the next branch, it's that you don't want to fall. You need to not fall." Jonyna explained. "The Force is all about perspective. It's alive, just like the jungle and the animals. It's your job to convince it what you need it to do." To find a balance, to learn to trust the Force and it's ways. "Right now, I need to teach you. To pass on my legacy to the next generation. Else, the knowledge will be lost."

 

[Rayia Si]

Jonyna Si

---

Rayia closed her eyes, sucking air through her fangs. She could already feel the mounting pressure behind her eyelids. This talk of perspective and the difference of want and need was likely to give her a headache. ‘I need to show Jonyna that I’m worthy to carry on that legacy. Or…is that what I want?’ Rayia thought to herself. She shook her head, squeezing her eyelids tighter as she curled her fingers slightly. ‘I’m just confusing myself,’ Rayia thought.

She had always been surrounded by heat. From her time as a little kit on the Weikian plains bathing in Illuna’s grace to the construction of Light Fang, her constant companion. She felt it even now, an all-encompassing, immolating heat, burning in her veins as the beast within rattled its shackles with displeasure at the prospect of fire. What if she simply gathered it up and guided that to her palm?

Tugging on the pinpricks of heat with ethereal fingers, Rayia began to coalesce them into her palm. She hissed as she could feel a burgeoning heat blooming in her palm. Opening one eye, she was surprised to find her palm glowing with a faint orange hue. Her pupil narrowed into a slit and she shoved her hand away from her as weak, slithering tongues of flame sprung up and crept about her palm in search of nourishment.

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Rayia Si

Jonyna watched her daughter find her own way with a patience, smiling at the sight of a weak flame engulfing Rayia's arm. "There ya go. Now you need to direct it. Give it somewhere to go. Where do you need it to go?"

It sounded like a simple question, but Jonyna wanted Rayia to find out her own way the complexity of it.

 

[Rayia Si]

Jonyna Si

---

‘Out? That sounds too simple though,’ Rayia thought. She wondered if that was the point of the lesson. Still, if she didn’t try it, she would never know. Golden eyes shimmered in the weak firelight as they glanced at the tongues of flame drooping from her palm. Rayia began concentrating on pushing those little sparks to the palm of her hand faster, drawing them up like thin wires.

Her skin began to steam and the fire flared, leaping wildly. It was fortunate that Jonyna had brought her to a waterlogged part of the tree. At least Rayia didn’t have to worry about setting any forest fires. Gritting her teeth, Rayia blinked away the tears that sprang to her eyes.

‘I must be doing something wrong. It’s not supposed to hurt this much,’ Rayia thought. She had never seen Jonyna wincing against the power after all. Rayia grabbed a towel from her satchel in her other hand, extinguishing the flame in a blur as she smothered her hand with it.

Rayia stared at her towel-wrapped fingers for a few heartbeats. She knew she couldn’t afford to be afraid of the fire if she wanted to control it. She could still feel part of herself squirming away from it. ‘Probably pushing it away faster just to get away from it,’ Rayia thought.

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Rayia Si

Jonyna reached over, taking the flame herself from Rayia's hand. "You're trying too hard, daughter." She said simply, The flame danced from Jonyna's palm, up her hand and to the tip of her pointer finger. "You're trying to force it. It's not about telling the flame what to do, it's about...asking nicely." The flame flickered before putting itself out, and Jonyna then snapped her fingers, and it reignited. "Flame is not a tool. The Force is not a tool. It's your friend. Your ally. The more you treat it as such, the more you realize how easy it is. Just...relax, and allow the Force to do the work for you."

 

[Rayia Si]

Jonyna Si

---

A subtle shift in Rayia’s expression was all that hinted at an old weight draping itself around her shoulders as Jonyna…took the flame from her. A slight fraying of the corners of her mouth, gone in a flash. Numb fingers lingered for a moment in the air before she relinquished the flame. She couldn’t disagree with Jonyna’s assessment however.

She was trying to force it. She had always been trying to force it. Her discovery of the force had been a hasty, stumbling cascade. ‘And, if I’m being honest, maybe a last ditch effort to escape myself,’ Rayia thought. It was a ludicrous thought, now that she better understood the force. Now that she had met so many different beings who had found their own path.

But it was a wall moving forwards that she would have to hurdle, if she wanted to progress. Just as her desire to be worthy was a hurdle to her right now. Closing her eyes, Rayia tried to summon the pinpricks of light again. As she concentrated on feeling the sensation of heat weaving together, there was one question she wanted to ask. “<Why fire, Mother? What connects you to it?>” Rayia felt a sort of kinship to the flames. Surrounded by things it could take if it was not careful. She wondered if it was the same for Jonyna.

“<>” = Catharese

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Rayia Si

<I asked the same thing when I was a padawan, under my mother.> Jonyna smiled. <My affinity for it has to do with my personality. To put it simply, fire thinks I'm funny.> She chuckled, wrapping an arm around Rayia. <The Force is alive just like you and me. We're all connected to it, and it listens to us if we're nice.> Jonyna flicked the flame from her finger, sending it across the jungle, and lighting up a branch ahead of them, causing it to fall and plummet down to the floor before. The flame quickly went out, but the fruit on the branch would find a new home. <Everything has a purpose. A place where we're meant to end up. It's just...often not where we expect, ya know?>

 

[Rayia Si]

Jonyna Si

---

Rayia smiled a genuine, if small, smile at that. Some of the weariness lifted from her eyes. Their golden discs almost sparkled in the light as Rayia turned to look up towards Jonyna. “Fire…thinks you’re funny?” Rayia repeated, hesitantly. She knew ritemasters back on Weik who claimed Illuna spoke to them sometimes.

Rayia hadn’t been entirely sure what to make of them. Afterall, it wasn’t as if Illuna was an intangible concept like the Force. Her bones were present on Weik, if a little… unusual. ‘Understatement of the century,’ Rayia chided internally. But the imagery of those ritemasters had stuck with her.

They described Illuna as a usually gentle soul, never mind her fiery temper, draped in the sun’s flames. ‘Certainly an appropriate depiction for an ascended Felacatian with the moniker Mother Flame,’ Rayia had to admit.

Rayia’s tail twitched, fur bristling as it sensed the vibrations of Jonyna’s movement in the space around her. And the vibrations of the fruit, as it dropped from the branch Jonyna had affected, colliding with the branch below and sending it shuddering with movement as well.

Rayia’s ear twitched at the solid, slightly slick thunk the fruit made as it spattered the lower branch with strangling, orange pulp. As her mother wrapped an arm around her, the shorter Felacatian rested her head against Jonyna’s shoulder.

Her last statement had Rayia’s shoulders shaking as the Felacatian chuckled. “Oh, of that I am aware,” Rayia laughed. She could still marvel at the emphatic gentleness with which Jonyna corrected a mistake. Not all mothers were of that mind.

“I was going to wait until things were a little more finalized, but uhm…,” Rayia paused as she deliberated whether or not she should reveal this surprise. Her tone of voice suggested nonchalance, but Rayia was anything but. Her shoulders were taut under Jonyna’s arm, seemingly spring loaded. Finally, she said, “…I’ve been looking into spaces on Ran Dom Kuun. Something a little more permanent when we’re not on the Reaper.”

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Rayia Si

"Oh?" Jonyna inquired. Rayia hadn't talked to her about moving out, but it was only natural she wanted her own place at some point. "I mean...the old Si House is still open if you want to move in. I don't use it very often, and it would give you a place to stay here..."

It was slightly bittersweet to talk about. Ko Vuto had already moved out the Reaper, even if he was a Knight now, it felt saddening to see her children leave the nest.

Still, knowing Rayia wanted to stay on Cathar, stay close, it was heartwarming to see her grow fond of the planet Jonyna had grown up on.

 

[Rayia Si]

Jonyna Si

---

Rayia blinked and nodded at Jonyna’s inquiring tone. “Might be a good idea…,” she responded to Jonyna’s proposition to potentially using the old house. Detecting the bittersweet pang in Jonyna’s tone, Rayia pushed herself up to look at her mother. “Hey, Hey. I’m not moving out. I’m still gonna stay on the Reaper. I just figured it would also be nice to have a… place to myself as well for the future,” she said.

Realizing that she had stalled the lesson with her tangent, Rayia quickly closed her eyes. Concentrating on the sensation of warmth emanating from herself as well as the warmth pressing into her from Jonyna, Rayia opened her palm again to embrace the flickering flames. Slowly, she began concentrating on the sensation of passing that warmth, that flame from one palm to the other. As she did, Rayia began speaking, “You’ve been kinder to me than anyone I know, Mother. I want to be there for you, in the future.”

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Rayia Si

"I hope so. I need to introduce you to my new girlfriend after all." Jonyna chuckled, "She has an adopted daughter too. I hope you two can get along. Family might be getting bigger soon." She watched as Rayia practiced with the flame. "You're doing pretty good. Took me a month to get that level of control. AT first I was just...well...I guess the best way to describe it would be 'exploding'."

 

[Rayia Si]

Jonyna Si

---

Rayia smiled as Jonyna said that she wanted to introduce her to her new girlfriend. She was glad that Jonyna had managed to find happiness again. ‘That she is still willing after all the bitterness,’ Rayia thought. That more than anything convinced Rayia of the determination and character she knew Jonyna held. And as they say, good things come to those who persevere.

“It’s because I have such a good mentor,” Rayia chuckled back lightly nudging Jonyna with her head. “That and… it feels familiar. Burning in my veins. It’s odd. It feels a little like the sensation before I shift,” Rayia hold aloud, musing over the similarities. The way her surroundings seemed to open up as bone, sinew, muscle, and thundering, molten blood poured into her.

Jonyna’s comment caused Rayia’s ear to twitch nervously. Rayia’s fingers shook as she stared up at Jonyna, before biting out, “E-explode? That can happe-“ She managed to get out before the fire in her palms sucked into a single point and imploded in a bloom of smoke. Thick and heady, the plume of smoke settled into Rayia’s fur, leaving her to paw at her now gritty tongue fruitlessly. “Achhk. Wwhhhyy?,” Rayia wheezed, as a slithering snake of smoke coiled from her mouth.

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Rayia Si

"Like that, yes." She chuckled, "First time it happened to me, I was chasing down this airspeeder. Couldn't catch it on foot, but...well, I reached out in the force and...my feet went boom. Sent me flying. But, I did catch the speeder." she laughed. "It can be useful for small bursts of speed, or simply changing your direction mid-air. I still use it sometimes to get from one tree to another."

 

[Rayia Si]

Jonyna Si

---

Rayia coughed once again, expelling a final tongue of smoke. She shook her head good-naturedly at Jonyna’s story. ‘I can’t exactly imagine being doused in soot and smoke to be a good thing,’ her expression seemed to convey. But she liked hearing of Jonyna’s exploits, taking pride in them. An idea came to her then, when Jonyna mentioned navigating the tree branches.


Rayia imagined every Cathar child could navigate the branches, making somewhat of a game of it. That game had probably led to tree-surfing, inventing the preferred method of travel amongst the branches. ‘Even if they didn’t have the chance to spontaneously combust,’ Rayia thought.

But she could probably try something along the same principle. Something simple to help her train. Standing up, Rayia stretched luxuriously in the dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy. Then with a grin, she turned towards Jonyna. “Ready? Catch,” she said, dropping the weakly glowing ember she can conjured into the Cathar’s hands. Then, jumping a few branches away, Rayia turned back indicating Jonyna should follow and pass it back to her.

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Rayia Si

Jonyna watched as her daughter tossed her an ember, and took off.

Tree-hot-potato. Alright. It seemed like her daughter was picking up on Jonyna's prefered training methods. Action, over explanation. Jonyna was quick to catch it, before taking off after her. Jonyna took a moment to slide across the branch, before launching herself along the jungle air, landing on another branch, sliding across it.

In the process, she pushed a little bit more energy into the ember. Made the flame just a tad bigger. Then she tossed it back. If they were gonna play hot potato, then she'd make it worth their time. Every pass, the fire would become bigger. She wanted to push Rayia to control it.

 

[Rayia Si]

Jonyna Si

---

Rayia had always been the type to learn better if she was actually doing something related to her goal. If the scholars on Weik had cared to classify it, they would have called her a kinesthetic learner. But they hadn’t, so Rayia simply figured that she was doing what she always did. All the better that her new mentor and mother, Jonyna, shared that same trait.

That being said, Rayia did not plan on forfeiting this game of tree-hot-potato anytime soon. Oh, sure, she eventually figured that she would be doing her best impression of a char-grilled nerf skewer. Jonyna had much longer to practice flame shaping than Rayia after all. But that wasn’t the point.

Rayia wasn't trying to prove something. ‘Okay, no. That’s a lie. I still want Jonyna to think I deserve to learn,’ Rayia realized, catching the ember as she rode the bark of the tree and circled the trunk. But she was actually enjoying learning this discipline. So, why not make it somewhat of a game? Her claws bit in to the tough bark, carving neat furrows into it as she descended to the branch below.

Rayia’s fingers and ears twitched as she stared at the ember floating in her palm. She lifted her gaze to glance at Jonyna then back again. ‘It’s definitely bigger than…’ Rayia trailed off.

The corner of her mouth twitched, into a smirk. ‘Cheeky,’ she thought realizing Jonyna’s play. And the fact that her mother had decided to push her today. Feeling weightless as she jumped to a crooked nook nestled in the next tree’s crown, Rayia tossed back the ember.