Private Padawan Panderings

[Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais]

The Jedi Temple of Coruscant
Lily Decoria

​

It was a new day on Coruscant.

Yesterday, Jaitre met a Godoan girl called Loomi who seemed quite interesting and kind. Perhaps the closest person to a potential friend that the Zeltron boy had made so far in his time at the Jedi Temple. The young teen was still struggling to come to terms with the sheer size of the facility, not to mention the enormous amounts of people that came and went by. The constant turmoil of emotions, especially from the younger students or visitors to the Temple who weren't trained to be mindful of such things, thereby influenced Jaitre's empathic sensitivity and did little to ease his nerves.

Life had changed so drastically over the last year, almost two actually. After being bounced from household to household in the government system back home on Zeltros, someone had actually taken the time to get to know him, and to his astonishment went the distance and adopted Jaitre as if he were one of their own children. They were a Jedi Knight, and also served out of Coruscant for the majority of their time these days but had decided to first get him settled at the Temple on Mnemosyne before organizing an exchange-student kind of program where he could travel from Jedi Temple to Enclave and learn from all different kinds and groups of Jedi.

So far it had certainly been interesting, if not a little crazy for all that had happened and changed in his life so suddenly. Of course, it was still so much better than being a nobody.

Today, however, Jaitre once again found himself wandering the halls of the training wing and popping his head into the entrance of each dojo, curious to see what other Padawan were doing. Some were training with their peers while others had Master's that trained them exclusively. Jaitre's Master was Elias Edo who the boy had first met on Svivren at the Enclave there but was also flexible in getting about the Galaxy and being able to train Jaitre from any location, apparently. They were still getting to know each other, but so far Elias had seemed like another kind Jedi, giving the boy the impression that all Jedi were kind and considerate like he and Loomi had been.

Finally deciding to brave entering into one of the sparring dojo, Jaitre watched from the side of the room as two students went at it with their lightsabers. Clashing against one another in a training match, they made it look very competitive and impressive, performing all kinds of strikes and flurries, fancy moves and flips to evade each other's strikes. Jaitre's mouth had opened slightly in awe of their skill, standing there unable to take his gaze off of the pair.

 

[Lily Decoria]

Location: Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Outfit: Training Gear
Tag: Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais

Waking that morning, Lily switched the alarm by her side off, shifting out of her cot. She held a smirk on her lips, her morning routine was kicking in and she got the chance to take a slow, relaxed breath. Lily shifted and wandered around her room, getting dressed as she prepped herself for heading out to the training grounds, she chuckled to herself. It had taken some time but Lily was starting to relax and feel her place on Coruscant and at the New Jedi Order. She wasn't fully sure that she deserved to be there but the environment had been so welcoming and supportive that Lily couldn't help but settle in and get more prepared for her Force training.

The Force was something that she was unsure about. It still seemed to be elusive and wild, she couldn't control it in a way that she wanted to and it was still threatening others with outbursts and such.

Arriving at the training grounds, she was quickly adjusting to the many hallways and able to navigate herself around. Lily held her hands behind her as she looked around the rooms. Checking out the others that were training. Her eyes were keenly observing them, letting her mind assess their strengths and weaknesses in fighting. Each person had their own skills and failures, it would take more than a single watch for her to truly assess a person's skill and be able to predict the fighting with the mastery of an Echani fighter held. However, she could observe movements that were missed opportunities or attacks were poorly timed. It wasn't just assessing them and critique others, Lily felt that watching others allowed her to understand her own skills and limitations.

As she moved around, just observing the training that was going on before she attempted her own meditative training that Master Valery Noble had demonstrated to her. It hadn't been a brilliant success and Lily knew she was never going to be seen as a prodigy in the Force but she was slowly getting better. Lily noticed there was another person, someone new to the area, also observing the training that was going on. Lily stepped up to them, they were much younger than she was but seemed to be a fellow Jedi Padawan.

"Hey, I'm Lily. What do you think of the training?" Lily asked, curious to see what this new person would have observed and their thoughts on the Jedi training.

 

[Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais]

"Hey, I'm Lily. What do you think of the training?"

Jaitre blinked and turned to look at Lily Decoria , clearly not having heard her arrival until she had literally started talking to him. "Uh, hey" he smiled a little awkwardly, suddenly feeling like a fool for not having paid attention to those around him. He quickly glanced the other way to make sure he hadn't missed someone else's arrival before glancing back to the girl, meaning to answer her question with a little more focus; "They all make it look so easy, really" He frowned as he looked back to the students within the centre of the room, "I'm Jaitre by the way" he introduced himself.

Truth be told, he hadn't done much training at all. Aside from a few generic-seeming classes, he felt like he was at something of a disadvantage compared to the younglings who started training early on in their lives. Jaitre was a thirteen-year-old, and frankly believed he was less capable than some of the Jedi there that were half his age. "They kinda make me wish I had started doing this way sooner" he admitted, voicing his feelings.

"What about you?" He asked, looking back to Lily Decoria curiously. She looked a fair bit older than he was, maybe around her 20s if he had to guess. Human as far as he could tell, or near enough to be human. There were far too many people in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, and it felt like he was meeting a whole lot of new faces with each passing day. Force knows he was having trouble remembering everyone's names.

 

[Lily Decoria]

Location: Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Outfit: Training Gear
Tag: Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais

Lily chuckled softly, she looked at the different people sparring. They were not terrible but she had seen Masters in fighting and knew these were no Masters of their craft. "Well, they do seem to have more practice than us but I don't think they found it as easy as they do now. We start somewhere." Lily stated, she knew from her experiences with the Echani martial art forms that one was never as capable as they wished when they began their training. She breathed in deeply and allows herself to analyse the fighters, "they are doing well, they do not fight fully I find, most Jedi always seem to be holding back something within. Attempting to be emotionless when in combat, feels very droid like at times. However, that is just the Echani in me." Lily mentioned.

"I think starting my training with the Force at a younger age would have prepared me more." Lily stated honestly, "the fighting, that was never going to be an issue with myself, I spent years learning to fight and training my body so the Jedi forms are not complicated for me." Her hands slid behind her as she kept her focus on the fighters, observing their moves, predicting the next movement and attack. Each one was insight in the fighter and provided her information about who she was observing.

Looking over to Jaitre after a pause, "I can offer you some advice when you are learning to fight if you would like?" Lily gave a small smile to the much younger Padawan, he looked to be about 5 or so years younger than herself and she remembered how eager she had been to learn new things at that age.

 

[Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais]

Attempting to be emotionless in combat. The statement stuck out at him with a gnawing feeling. Jaitre didn't know what it was like to not have or be emotional. He was either always in his own feelings or mistakingly being affected by the feelings of those around him. His adopted father had tried to help him a little but despite being told what he needed to do to protect himself better, speaking and actually doing a thing were very different concepts.

"Huh, sounds like you came here already knowing a lot" Jaitre replied, glancing back to Lily Decoria curiously. Compared to her, he was sort of at rock bottom. He didn't know any special abilities or even where to begin. He'd only used his training lightsaber a little, and nothing to the extent as these students were performing. She had offered to give him some advice however and this piqued his interest, feeling somewhat more enthusiastic at the woman's generosity; "That would actually be really great. I could use all the help I can get!" he agreed happily.

"I haven't really had a lot of fights before" he admitted, "Back home there were some guys that were kinda dicks. There were probably only two or so times when they wouldn't leave me alone and so I fought back but there were more of them than there were of me, so it never went very well" he explained, thinking of his birth-world Zeltros. Despite being of the Zeltron people, he had never felt like he had fit in there, mostly because he had never had his biological parents to teach him how to be one of the people.

 

[Lily Decoria]

Location: Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Outfit: Training Gear
Tag: Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais

Lily shrugged her shoulders, "no more than other Echani." She confessed since she was not here to brag as an amazing fighter when she knew there were better and stronger warriors than herself. "Combat is our language, the very fibre of culture, so I bring a lot of that with me when it comes to combat training. The Force, however, I come in very blind." She didn't want the younger Padawan to think that she was above him in skills or in training, she knew her place and was never going to brag or believe herself better than anyone.

Seeing his eagerness, Lily gave a small smile, "It is never about being the biggest, strongest or even the fastest. It is knowing what is an enemy's primarily weakness, knowing how to exploit that and then use your skills to win." Lily instructed, her strength and speed was never going to outmatch her opponents, it was her ability to assess, analyse and predict that was always going to help her win. "Practising your skills till you can master them, and always be prepared to fail and lose, each loss is a lesson on how to survive next time."

Noting an empty training room near them, "I can show you a couple of tricks I learnt at your age to ensure I could hold my own against people bigger than myself." Lily offered, the experiences of being bullied was surprising for Zeltros, a planet renowned for a sense of peace and joy, amongst other things. "I was fortunate to never face trouble in that way but I had to face tougher, bigger opponents. Can show you what I learnt." Lily stepped towards the training room, stretching her limbs to avoid cramping.

 

[Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais]

Jaitre eagerly followed Lily Decoria as she suggested teaching him some things about fighting. It was almost intimidating to hear there was an entire race of people that were focused on fighting, and he couldn't help but wonder why this was. Did they have a lot of enemies or bullies like he had once had? Even for a Zeltron, Jaitre often felt on the outside of his people, never really knowing his place and for younglings, that was a very big target of vulnerability for others to pick on if they didn't think kindly of him. He had learned that there were mean people everywhere if you looked hard enough, and if they didn't want to like you, then they wouldn't.

It was difficult to be someone, without really knowing how, or never having been taught or shown the way. Perhaps that was why it was so easy for Jaitre to simply assimilate the emotions and moods of others to get by, to fit in with a certain crowd when being himself just made him feel anxious or inadequate.

"I don't know if I'm exactly good at this kind of stuff, but I like the sound of being able to beat bigger stronger people than I am," Jaitre remarked as he followed the older girl on into the training room, looking around the place and wondering if he had just volunteered to get beat up. She didn't seem like the sort, of course, but it was a natural habit to question himself when walking into completely unfamiliar territory.

 

[Lily Decoria]

Location: Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Outfit: Training Gear
Tag: Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais

She placed her training saber to one side. Looking at Jaitre, she could tell his body language was screaming anxious and there were some fears about her own intentions with this training. Lily breathed out calmly, she knew her aunt could use the Force to settle a person's emotions and reveal her own intentions to them but Lily had no understanding of how to use such abilities so instead, she decided to stand opposite Jaitre and offer a smile. "Don't worry, this is going to be a simple technique, simple but effective. I tend to find they are the most useful in situations, especially if they are super versatile as well." Hoping her words would give some ease.

Stepping closer to Jaitre, she shifted to be in line with him, "So, I'll give a brief demonstration on what the move looks like, we'll go over that a couple times, then you can practice on me. I would demonstrate on another person so you can see how it looks first but just the two of us for this." Lily did not see any point in demonstrating on Jaitre, it wouldn't provide insight on the technique and wouldn't show him how it worked on larger beings since she was bigger than him. It was better to train the move then try it on her, that would provide more effective results she figured.

Though this was also the first time she was really attempting to teach anyone how to fight.

"So, watch my movements, my feet are especially key in this since it all about adjust your weight and positioning." Lily went through the movements slowly, one at a time. Allowing Jaitre the time to observe how he would need to move and shift his balance around. It was a simple movement to take someone down but she didn't want to presume too much in Jaitre's skills.