Reality

[Zesiro]

Shaking her hands slightly, Zesiro put her saber back on her hip. It was still odd to her to have the red blade after all these years. It was a link to her past and she wanted to move passed that. Before she began to start trying to meditate, she looked at Sol with a raised hand to indicate for just a moment.

"Master, where do I get a crystal for the lightsaber? I want to make a new one for the me that is now, not this one that wasn't even mine to begin with."

She had taken it from her first master after killing him. He wasn't her first or her last kill, but he had been the person that had made her who she was. That Zesiro needed to die and her hiding out on Kesh had only been a start to that.
​
Taking a seat on the ground, she looked for the cube he had brought yesterday. Not wanting to look through his bag, she raised an eyebrow slightly before speaking again.

"May I borrow that cube again? I think I understand more what you meant."

[member="Sol Damerin"]

 

[Sol Damerin]

"Crystals?" He asks and considers. "You can find them all over the place but they are rare. Depends on what kind of crystal you want really. Kyber and Adegan are the most common, you could probably buy one from a specialty goods shop. Any other kind would take a lot more work." He shrugs his shoulders. "Can't blame you for wanting to change saber colors, lot of stigma with red." He wielded a red saber that offset his white one in interesting ways. When she asks for the cube he doesn't respond with words. Just reaches into the bag and tosses it to her without comment as he takes lotus position.

[member="Zesiro"]

 

[Zesiro]

Listening to what Sol said about the crystals, Zesiro nodded.

"I will have to look up if any are here on Kesh. If not, then find out where I can find them. Thank you."

Catching the cube from the air with ease, she sat in a position similar to his. Only her hands held the cube and he did not. While he had said yesterday to clear her mind and not actually focus on the cube or solving it, that was what she wanted to try. Not with her full focus, but most of it.
​
Not thinking of meditation through her anger, she instead focused on the task of solving the cube. At first it was difficult for her, but after trying for what might have been five minutes or five hours she found a sense of balance and peace. Not quite the same as Sol, but close enough that she felt a connection through the Force to him. Not on a conscience level though.

[member="Sol Damerin"]

 

[Sol Damerin]

Sol actually faintly smiled when she managed to fall into meditation playing with the cube. It looked like she was finally listening which was a nice change of pace. The following weeks would see the day following a similar pattern. Kata practice, sparring, meditation. He slowly taught her everything he knew about Ataru, which wasn't as much as he'd like. Then he'd ensured she practiced what he knew to perfection. Until finally one day when she showed up he opened the day not with Kata practice but with something else. "We've exhausted what I can teach you about Ataru, so continued work on that form will be done through your practicing the katas solo and sparring. Which means it's time to move on to the next part of your training. That means we are going to do mostly practice fights in the morning now and the afternoon we will focus on polishing your abilities with The Force. Questions?"

[member="Zesiro"]

 

[Zesiro]

Fully expecting to run through more practice, Zesiro already had her saber in her hand, but it wasn't ignited. She listened to what Sol said and nodded. So far other than meditation, they had yet to touch any lessons in the Force. Now here was an area where she was a fast learner.

"I have no questions at this time, Master. Well, maybe one. Do you want to know what I already have as skills?"

They were all of a dark variety, but she could still perform them. One she thought of as more neutral and knew nothing of any light side skills.

[member="Sol Damerin"]
​

 

[Sol Damerin]

"Couldn't hurt." He says with a shrug gesturing to indicate she should proceed. At the same time, he takes ready position for their spar. In his opinion, it was always best to start with physical training. Once you were tired it was easier to relax into meditation and therefore commune with The Force. Once she is ready they would begin to fight going slowly at first so she can talk before he gets to explaining today's lesson.

[member="Zesiro"]

 

[Zesiro]

There were a couple of skills she had gotten good at, at least in her mind. One of them was Force Stasis, which might be considered something simple, but more than some people knew. Another, she didn't know what it was called, but it caused a feeling of being ill or sick for a few minutes. Enough to take a person out of a fight unless they had resistance for it. Her trump card though was Force Projection.

It was sort of an illusion, but the image left behind acted like she did in battle and could even take hits.

Nodding to Sol, Zesiro clipped her saber hilt to her belt. She moved to stand in front of him and looked him in the eye. The next thing he would know was that she tapping him on the shoulder while the standing image remained in front of him.

"That one is unique to me as I've never seen it done by anybody else."

[member="Sol Damerin"]

 

[Sol Damerin]

Sol didn't jump instead he let the hilt of the training sword slide down in his hand, ramming it into her stomach. Not hard enough to knock the wind out of her but she'd feel it. "I told you we would be sparring." He points out as he adjusts his grip. "That is a Force Illusions, works better on another Force user if you also know Force Stealth. That however, is a lesson for another day. I need to teach you the most important skill for any Force Wielder to know. Now take your ready stance." He orders waiting for her to do as she is told.

Once she is ready they would exchange blows for a few moments before he simply plucks her training blade from her hands with The Force. He sends it spinning away and looks at her with a serious expression. "Today's lesson is Force Shield. It's the single most important thing to know when fighting with a lightsaber to avoid exactly that."

[member="Zesiro"]

 

[Zesiro]

"Yes, Master. You had said you wanted to see what I knew though, so I assumed I should show you now."

It was all she said and took the now familiar stance. ​After an exchange of a few blows and strikes, Sol pulled her hilt from her hand and sent it flying away. His look was totally serious when he spoke of learning a Force Shield.

"How can a shield prevent my saber from getting plucked from my hand like that?"

[member="Sol Damerin"]

 

[Sol Damerin]

"How can a Force shield stop someone from using The Force from taking your lightsaber?" He asks giving her a flat look and then he shrugs. "Well, why don't you try and take my training staff with The Force right now." He says raising his eyebrows. Should she try she'd find that her manipulation of The Force hit an invisible wall when it got close to his body. There was some slight sense of give, the suggestion that sufficient force could break through but it would be more than she could bring to bear at this time.

[member="Zesiro"]

 

[Zesiro]

"I don't know how."

She couldn't look Sol in the eyes when she said she didn't know how to grab something through the Force or at least nothing that small.
​
"My training was of a more physical and mental thing. The few skills I learned on my own are more Force related like affliction and beast control. I can work with larger items and move them around, not much the smaller ones."

Zesiro still stood in her ready position, but didn't look at him directly.

[member="Sol Damerin"]

 

[Sol Damerin]

"Well, we will have to cover that as well won't we?" How bad had her other teachers been that they hadn't covered moving things with The Force? It was the simplest expression of The Force, most students did it by accident. "Alright, well a Force shield is essentially just covering yourself in Force energy to stop your opponent from using The Force to directly manipulate your body. Stops them from just grabbing you and tossing you into a tree, though, if someone is sufficiently strong they can overwhelm your shield. We will start with it but apparently, we also have to cover Force push, pull, and movement."

Rubbing his face he explains the principals of Force Shield again. It was rather easy you just reached out with The Force and guided it to wrap around your body holding it in place with your will. The hardest part was doing it until it became second nature so that you could do other things while you had Force Shield up. So once she got the basics of it he told her she needed to keep it up, all the time, for as long as she could while doing other things. Even in her off hours.

[member="Zesiro"]

 

[Zesiro]

Letting out a sigh at her lack of actual training, Zesiro nodded. Sol explained what the shield could do and one piece surprised her.

"I already know about using the Force to move! I mean I've used it to dash away from fights when I was a coward and ran all the time. We already talked about that though so don't need to cover that again, Master. I'm curious though how a barrier would prevent somebody from throwing me against a tree? As for moving objects, I can push things around just fine. It's just working with finer detail is what I lack."

Though the day was just beginning, it was getting warm and she lowered her ready stance and take a quick drink while waiting for Sol to answer her one question.

[member="Sol Damerin"]

 

[Sol Damerin]

Sol rubs his face. Sometimes it was obvious that Zesiro didn't listen very well. "One of these days when I explain a thing to you, you'll listen to it the first time." He says with a sigh. "What did I just say a Force barrier is? A way to stop people from using the Force to directly affect your body. It is a layer of Force energy you wrap around your body to oppose any Force energy your enemy throws at you. You say you already know how to move big objects?" He was staggered that she somehow understood how to move a big object but couldn't do small ones, that was odd. "Well, what do you think would happen if you tried to move me?" The answer was nothing, she didn't possess the strength or control at the moment to overwhelm his Force shield. "Now stop making me repeat myself and do what I asked please." He says with a sigh as he gets ready to start testing her Force shield. They had a long few weeks ahead of them.

[End Scene]

[member="Zesiro"]