Let the gods be terrified

[Ayden Quell]

Ayden had been busy practicing his powers of observation for almost an hour. A way to listlessly pass the time. The Theed spaceport on Naboo was as good a place as any for it. It was full of busy subjects, a steady and undying flow of sentient traffic. Mostly humans, he'd observed. Their boisterous clamor was music to his ears, sweet sounds of Basic he'd sorely missed. The transport shuttle he took from Lothal was captained by a strange man named Loroke who barely spoke a word of Basic and instead chose to communicate using the heavy drawl of his native tongue, Balosur. Ayden wasn't particularly pleased, but he didn't complain. Having a gratuitous excuse not to idly chitchat was as welcome as a warm summer day for him.

So far, with his eyes peeled to the commotion around him, he'd counted almost two dozen nose pickers.

The reason he was braving the looming threat of boredom and counting bugger miners was because he was waiting for a man--a Jedi Knight going by the name Sor-Jan Xantha--who had promised to train him on the finer parts of Form III, among other things. Ayden didn't know much about the other Jedi as they'd never met in person. Their only form of communication was through the Jedi Academy's communications hub. Naturally he'd heard whispered rumors along the grapevine. Apparently Master Xantha wasn't a man at all, but a mere boy. To have some of the more uninformed younglings tell it, their voices filled to the brim with envy, it was undoubtedly true and he was the greatest thing they'd ever seen.

Ayden was incredulous of course, finding the younglings' rumors rather dubious. They usually were. There was no way the Council would bestow the rank of Knight upon a child, right? If so, he'd have to be one extraordinary child. He realized that idea piqued his interest and excitement more than the idea of training did. Funny, that.

The young Human took a cursory glance around. Another nose picker, who'd have guessed. A Zeltron by the looks of things. Ayden rolled his blue-gray eyes and shifted them to his chronometer. Well, man or boy, Master Xantha sure seemed to take his time.

[member=Sor-Jan Xantha]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

If [member="Ayden Quell"] was looking with his eyes, he would quite possibly miss the teenager moving through the crowd.

He wasn't dressed as a Jedi. He rarely did these days, and then it was usually just a green cloak over his usual clothing. No, the boy was dressed as a true son of Corellia. Selonian half-boots, dark trousers with yellow pipping down the sides, a light shirt, and an open jacket. A blaster pistol was secured in a drop-leg holster along his right thigh. A silver cylinder hung from his belt, the one mark that could give him away.

But as with so many things, it was what was unseen that was the most revealing about the person.

Passive, subtle even to a trained Force observer, ripples carried through the Force in all directions from out of the tawny haired youth. Like a form of echolocation, these sensory waves traveled until it made contact with another sapient mind and, when it did, flowed back toward the boy. In so doing, it made the youth aware of the presence of those around him.

He was empathic at the very least.

It was an Anzat trait. The principle means by which the species hunted. An adult Anzati could cover whole parsecs with their Force sense; in contrast, the boy’s was much more limited in scope. No doubt developing, but a formidable ability nonetheless. Save against those whose talents lent themselves to obfuscating the senses of even a trained observer.

Born on Corellia, raised on Coruscant, a Jedi of the Grand Army of the Galactic Republic, one thing that Sor-Jan had never had to do was mask who or what he was. The very idea was alien to him, to how he carried himself. Simply by being who and what he was, without being any more conscious of his actions than one might be of their breathing or heart beat, the near-human child was sending a message and said it loud: Force-User and proud.

Even just walking through a crowd, a nondescript body in a sea of faces, the boy was a beacon. Like a radio tower, waves of the Force radiated from him in all directions. Touching the minds of those around him. He was aware of them, but at the same time seemed to exhibit some restraint; as though guarding himself from actively intruding upon the minds of the people around him.

It was always fascinating to him to stand outside of a star port and simply listen. The population density changing like the ebb and flow of a tide. The people of a different breed; spacers, merchants, and businessmen of all legitimate and illegitimate ends. Strolling through the star port, Sor-Jan could close his eyes and feel himself adrift on a sea of emotions. A man in the far corner in an argument with his office. A pair ushering their children along on their way to board a starliner. A death stick addict tweaking over a cup of caf.

Anxiety, stress, anticipation, joy... fleeting joy, like that when child was presented with an ice cream.

All was in motion.

All was the Force.

Opening his eyes back, the young vampire realized he'd allowed himself to move on instinct and now found himself several meters away from where he'd thought he was. Glancing up, the youth found himself looking up a man. Human, by the look of him.

...and with a presence in the Force.

An air of... impatience. He was waiting for someone. That seemed to confirm that the Anzat had, indeed, arrived when and where the Force required him. "Greetings, Padawan," the hundred year old boy offered politely.

 

[Ayden Quell]

If there was a medal given for how well someone was able to disguise their emotions, Ayden's name would fall to the bottom of the list. But he knew that well enough. In fact, he went out of his way to be candid and sincere. There was no shortage of futility in him even trying to be socially guile. So when the adolescent-looking Jedi approached, there would be obvious signs of surprise; a not-so subtle raising of his brow, a special clarity of surprise in his eyes - and all the other tell-tale signs.

"Greetings, master," Ayden replied deferentially. He noticed Sor-Jan was dressed in unusual garb for a Jedi. The only dead-giveaway was the lightsaber hanging from his belt, and of course the aura of Force sensitivity that surrounded him. The pleasant feeling derived from the familiarity of another Force presence, particularly after a long absence on foreign soil, couldn't be understated. This was especially true for Ayden who spent most of his time in the bowels of the Jedi Academy. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Padawan Quell." The young Human bowed his body. Old habits died hard, even in the middle of a bustling spaceport. "If you don't mind me saying, I didn't expect you to be so young. Turns out the younglings were right."

He assumed Sor-Jan Xantha got that a lot. So maybe it was in bad taste for Ayden to repeat it here. But he found it captivating that such a young man was a Knight of the Republic; after all, in a strange galaxy where oddity is the norm, when something is fascinating, it's really fething fascinating.

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

A ghost of a smile played across the youth's face.

"Master Xantha..." the teenager echoed softly, as though -- for just a moment -- lost in the memory of some other time he'd been addressed as such. With a blink, the moment or memory was gone and the boy returned his attention to the man before him now. "That's a name I haven't gone by since..." the young Jedi began, before he trailed off and the hint of some sad, wry grin again cast a shadow like that of the Cheshire Cat across the boy's face. "Well, before you were born."

Which wasn't really an answer to the greeting. "Sor-Jan will be fine," the youth supplied finally, as he motioned for the taller man to walk with him. Strange. When he'd been a padawan, he'd anxiously awaited the day that he'd become a Jedi Knight. And, then, when his master had presented him for the Trials, had felt as though he wasn't ready. Now he'd been a Jedi Knight for longer than many had been alive, and he realized... they were all padawans. The true masters were not those who taught, but rather those who continued learning.

Bowing his head, the youth's long hair shielded from view the full smile at the comment as to his age. It wasn't unlike a similar remark that [member="Coci Heavenshield"] had bestowed upon him recently. He'd laughed then. Now, he merely took it in stride. "Like so many things we cling to, youth is a matter of perspective," the boy noted, glancing up at the man as the pair walked from the star port. "Among Wookiees, I am quite young. Among humans, quite old."

As the two arrived at a droid operated air speeder, the boy motioned for the padawan to be the first to board. "For my part, I must express some jealousy, Mister Quell," the youth offered, as he waited to board the speeder after the padawan. "Puberty for your race is but a handful of years. For my people, it can be several hundred."

An awkward age for any species, no doubt. Save that, at least in Sor-Jan's case, his adolescent fantasies dealt more with a sudden attraction to brains than to members of any particular gender. Which, perhaps, made an already awkward period in a young man's life all that more awkward.

Dropping down onto the seat next to the man, the boy signaled for the pilot droid to take off. "Come, tell me of Lothal and the trip here," the Anzat remarked, making conversation as the speeder began to take them toward the shores of Lake Paonga. "Any difficulty getting into Techno Union space?" the youth inquired, curiously.

[member="Ayden Quell"]​