Private Not By Chance

[Avalore]

Avalore couldn’t help the little grin that grew across her features, enticed. The force was much more tempting in concept, when it wasn’t flowing through her in all its frightening, raw potential. That paradox would be a bridge for her to cross another time; it all kept coming back to that one word.

“How much time?” She pushed, her fingers flexing under the amulet.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"I started Jedi training when I was your age, and that was, oh, maybe forty-five years ago. I was a Master by twenty-eight, which is average to quick. Buckle yourself in for a long road, dear. The Force is a lifetime pursuit. But that's not to say you can't acquire significant strength rapidly; there's a reason the Jedi disdain the Dark Side as the 'quick and easy path.' That said, they're only half right. There's nothing easy about what I'm teaching you, as you might have guessed by now."

She opened a drawer and took out a small metal box with no lid, just a hand-sized slot on the side.

"This is a Tonkutaji - 'bitten by lightning' in a dead Sith dialect, not quite the one I gave to you. It's a Sith training tool of my own design. You're not ready to use it yet, but it's a reasonable goal within a couple of years. You put your hand inside-" She half-closed her eyes and did so. "-and electrified steristeel needles attempt to inject a toxin of your teacher's choice into the back and palm of your hand. Your job - my job, in this case - is to keep both the needles and the electrical arc from hurting me. Lose concentration-"

She allowed her hand's protection to lapse. Electricity sizzled and snapped inside the box. The needles bit in, fogging her brain and freezing her body. By long experience she fought back the electricity's paralysis and the toxin's brain-fog. From Avalore 's perspective, Ashin would look like she was having a mild seizure there in her chair.

 

[Avalore]

Avalore didn't want to wait fifteen years to get back at Andre. Even their current pace felt frustratingly slow. She just needed to work harder. Her bruises throbbed as she shifted forward, mocking the reality she hadn't accepted.

"-There's nothing easy about what I'm teaching you, as you might have guessed by now."

She her lips pinched, a dour expression casted at her legs. "Hmph," came the heavy sigh, the topic not pushed further. She glanced up to see the box pulled out, her pout turning to interest as Ashin explained.

"...Ashin?" She cried out in alarm, the Sith Lords convulsions sending a jolt of shock through her. Was this a- a prank? No. No it clearly wasn't. She shot off the bed, trying to pry the device off the woman's hand. If the needles caught in flesh, she'd simply take the file off the desk and jam at the device's sides instead, trying to pull it apart at the seems.

Chit chit chit. She gave a worried glance at the woman's face.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Between Ashin's long practice at this and Avalore yanking the Tonkutaji free, the Sith Lord pulled herself back into her chair soon enough, hands shaking. "Thank you," she said. "I hope I've impressed on you just how much is at stake when using my training gear and the other equipment in the house. It's not a safe place, you understand." She looked down at her hands and willed them to stop shaking. "My daughters are nearly adults now, so the house isn't as...coddling...as it was."

 

[Darth Daiara]

oops

 

[Avalore]

Avalore sat back on her heels, breathing heavily as she gaped at Ashin with nothing short of horror.

"O-ok," was all she could initially say, unuse to such blunt methods being used to make a point. It would be a lie to say it wasn't effective. She sat in a stunned silence for a moment before offering almost weakly, "I promise to stay very far away from that box."

She eyed Ashin's shaking hands, two specks of blood welling where needles had pierced skin. Her attention sharpened, reminded at once of a snake bite.

"Are you poisoned?"

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Not for long. It's a simple one - confusion, mild convulsions - and I'm used to neutralizing it. An extraordinarily valuable skill to develop."

Over the next half hour, she explained the technique and led Avalore through its basics in practice, using a harmless toxin that caused a mild, itchy rash. Not everything in the house was crippling or lethal, after all.

 

[Avalore]

Scratch marks marred Avalore's chin, the girl's skin finally clearing of all bumps. "Where were you when I fell on a dagger thorn?" She grumbled, itching her arm for good measure.

"How can you do that when you're in pain? Or can't... think. I mean the itching was bad enough, you said that addled your brain." She stopped short, blinking over the word that fell easily from her lips.

Addled.

Where did she get that from?

She rubbed at her face, last night's reading session weighing heavily under her eyes.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Practice. If you're prepared, it's possible to think clearly while your body is panicking and locking down. Next time we attempt detoxification, we'll do it with a panic poison so you can start learning that particular kind of resilience..."

She trailed off.

"You said a dagger thorn? Those are lethal. How did you survive - medical care, or might it have been some kind of nascent Force use? Many of us find our abilities awakening during a traumatic incident."

Avalore

 

[Avalore]

Avalore's shrug caught. There it was again-- nascent. How did she know that? She was quickly coming to realize the depth to which Ashin had heightened her mind. A hungry thought came to pass, the girl wondering if Ashin could do the same-- but with books.

She could learn much more quickly that way.

The idea went unexpressed, Ashin's new revelation leaving her pausing.

"I-... don't know," she answered honestly. "No one helped me. I was on the jungle floor for three days before I managed to crawl back home. Andre." Was her one-worded explanation, venom in her tone.

"He and his friends didn't tell any of the adults I was out there. Even though they knew. My sister says sometimes ... you can just burn through it." She paused, then added. "She's very stupid though."

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"That sounds like a...formative trauma." Ashin shrugged. "It might or might not have catalyzed your connection to the Force. At minimum I can give you the tools to deal with situations like that. The ability you just learned can scale up to most kinds of poisons and venoms. It goes hand in hand with, and is a stepping-stone toward, resisting disease. That's far more complicated, and I can't do it well; it's more for healers, and precious few Darksiders can heal worth a damn. The energies we work with aren't benevolent."

She sucked her teeth in thought, evaluating her student.

"Someday when you're ready, I'll put you in a desperate, lethal circumstance where only a deep commitment to the way of the Sith can save you. It's a moment that can unlock the ability to use Sith magic - complex, profound Dark Side manifestations - to heal. Painfully, but very effectively."

Avalore

 

[Avalore]

Avalore's brows pulled in, silently questioning whether she'd even allow herself to be put in a lethal circumstance. Though wasn't that what the branch was? Or the icetrooper? For the first time she wondered just how far she'd go. Or better yet-- just how far would she need to go.

Her left hand went up, thumb stroking the carved ivory on her wrist.

"Can't you just expedite all this? Put it all in my brain like you put the words in. ...I know you have me here to help with something. Think of how much faster I could get good. I could hunt, all on my own or- warm this whole palace with tapas myself. You wouldn't have to waste time teaching me. I could be useful."

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"I appreciate your hunger, but no. Reason number one: your ability to use the Force is like a muscle, and you're only starting to exercise it. Two: judgment may not always accompany experience, but it does require experience. You'll learn line upon line, layer upon layer, and develop your judgment in the process. Three: your mind could burn. Four: acquire these powers too easily and you won't appreciate or respect them. Five: learning them the hard way makes them a matter of instinctive use, not just conscious thought. And six: I've learned by sad experience to dole out power when my students are well and truly ready, and not before. I've been failed and I've been betrayed, more than once."

 

[Avalore]

Ashin had given her six reasons as to why her answer was no, but Avalore only heard one of them. Her nostrils flared in frustration, sporadic solutions jumping to mind-- all of them discarded. The weight of Ashin's saber weighed heavily in her pocket, brought with her this morning to return it after yesterday's supper.

Its presence brought to light another purpose-- an initial lesson that she had not been ready for that first day. Well if that was what this was about-- She stood from the bed, pulling the hilt from her pocket. Its weight was solid inside her grip, more familiar than the sticky branch that day outside the tavern.

"You're wrong." She thumbing on the saber, brandishing its length between them like branch the first day.

If you want something you have to make it happen, Avalore.

"I want to be here. I read that whole book, I get it. Do it,” she swore, jabbing the space between them.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin stepped forward without hesitation or tell. The burnt-orange lightsaber jabbed her midriff.

And glanced off. It barely singed her shirt.

She lashed out and grabbed the lightsaber's blade with her bare hand. The handle tore itself from Avalore's grip and settled into Ashin's. She stood there for just a second, holding the saber in one hand and its blade in the other, like a staff. Then she deactivated it and clipped it to her belt.

"Every Sith apprentice worth a damn lashes out at their Master eventually. The consequences are always severe - a harsh lesson is the usual medicine. So tell me, Avalore: what's something you want to learn the hard way?"

 

[Avalore]

Everything.

She took a step back, eyes wild as Ashin held the fire stick with no injury to her person. Impossible. And yet. Ashin's words brought a chill through her, but she didn't let it reach her, her stubborn drive acting like cotton over her senses as they screamed for her to chill the fek out. She pushed forward, reclaiming the ground between them.

"That," she declared, undaunted and without remorse. "I want to do that." She lashed back out, trying to swipe the hilt from Ashin's hands like it was her bag being lorded over her.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Avalore

Ashin pulled her hand back with an eye to letting Avalore's swipe graze the lightsaber blade. A tiny third-degree burn would be educational.

"Then this is step one," she snapped.

 

[Avalore]

Fight back, learn something new. Discovering the buttons of the adult before her was like second nature to the teen. She jolted back the moving blade, its blistering heat earning a spark of respect.

But it was the only restraint she showed in the moment, the girl goading the master further. "What is? Show me. Show me!" A geared instrument went flying off a shelf, its heavy metal body flung by threads of the force, towards the woman's head.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin's bedroom shelves held assorted trophies and memories; the geared instrument that shattered against her skull was one of them.

"Enough."

Lights flickered and died. A web of indigo lightning exploded from her free hand, casting stark and jittering shadows around the bedroom. She wasn't aiming to kill Avalore, of course - but neither was she especially interested in holding back.

 

[Avalore]

Avalore tried to catch it. She didn't know why or how that would help, but she was just so desperate to do more. She didn't want to wait a decade. She didn't want to be this for a decade.

The gesture achieved nothing, her look of determination shattering the moment the bolt pierced her hands. The pain of it stole her breath away, her body unable to do more but lock up and muffle back a scream. By the time she hit the ground, her resistance was over. Her body quaked against her will. No new object came flying.

She peeled her face off the ground, finally feeling fear.

"You said you'd teach me," she accused. As if she hadn't learned so much already.