Tempting fate [Tirdarius]

[NightSister]

The galaxy really held no end of information to be uncovered in one's spare time, of both Light and Dark, good and evil. Studying the Sith and their vast history had made Aria feel somewhat guilty on previous occasions, but the opposing sides had such a closely bound tale that as long as her research pertained solely to history, she had stopped considering such research as such a crime. Besides, the history of the Force in both its sides was like a very long, complex and altogether ridiculous novel, which happened to be Aria's favourite kind.

Wanting to read the next chapter, Aria had gone off to a remote planet that while not holding any fascinating Sith research, did house a temple that so long as she kept her guard up, would satisfy her desire for knowledge without any danger of leaving converted. When the weekend had finally rolled around she had taken a starship, as she so frequently did when the desire arose to explore, and set off.

The temple was unexciting in comparison to the massive, ominous buildings shown in Jedi encyclopedias, but held Aria's interest simply for what it was. There had always been a strange beauty to the buildings the Sith constructed as places of worship, which even someone as firmly Lightsided as Aria could appreciate close up. It was almost a pity that the Sith had to be so...well...evil.

[member="Tirdarius"]

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Aria Vale"]

Row upon row of dusty tomes sat idly upon shelves that had been little disturbed with the decades that flew past, ignored and largely forgotten, destined to be little more than a space-filler in a place so long bereft of warmth or light. Flimsiplast, books of durasheet, the odd rare leather-bound paper, even wooden tablets inscribed with ancient Sith glyphs - all could be observed, waiting there in the darkness as they had for years. To imagine such a treasure having simply been lost...

It came as little surprise, in truth. For millenia had the Sith fought amongst themselves, even reaching the point where only two existed at any one time. And much of what we had possessed and known before those times was lost, left unknown to those who survived the atrocity that decimated our ranks. There was little doubt that many such places existed that were left hidden, forgotten, waiting in darkness and silence to be uncovered again. And each with dangers of their own to be navigated.

Rumours of this Temple had circulated among Sith intelligence for some time, but only recently had knowledge of the location come to light. And far too late, in truth. The report had carried a warning with it: the discovery was not theirs, but had already been made by the Jedi. No doubt the co-ordinates went into their Archives and were promptly forgotten. Once, the notion of an existent Sith Temple would have made those dusty old Masters sit up and take notice, concerned for the safety of their own kind. Now...what is an old Temple compared to the hundreds of active Sith in the galaxy? Little at all, at least to the Jedi.

To the Sith, it was an entirely different story: here lay opportunity for knowledge, the possibility of uncovering lost secrets unknwon to those who had taken up the Sith mantle.

He had come alone, as was his custom, a single scout in place of a full team. The researchers and archaeologists would follow, no doubt - it would take a team of them years to catalogue the full contents of the library alone. Sith Temples were not mere shrines, to be kept pristine and benign. Many of them are veritable death traps for the unwary. Small sense in sending forth the non-Force Users the Sith employed if they would only add their corpses to the pile.

A faint smile curved the lips of the Sith Lord as he stared appraisingly at the many cases arrayed within this library - in his youth, he would have happily spent hours simply browsing all the titles, looking for something of interest. Those days are long past, however. There were greater concerns at hand - he would leave such pursuits to the younger Sith, and insist that they report any interesting finds. That was for a later time, though, when the Sith returned in full to retake ownership of the facility. And we must be patient for such a moment. There's no rush.

Of course there were no computers in here, no central database capable of showing what was on offer. The Sith way demands that knowledge comes only with sacrifice. Anyone wanting specific information from this place would have to find it the old-fashioned way: by looking. A student unwilling to dig through the records was unworthy to lay claim to the knowledge within them. It was a simple enough understanding.

I am not alone here. Tirdarius' head jerked slightly, his senses pulling him away from his pleasant reverie as something drew his attention elsewhere. A small moon with little in the way of life ensured plenty of privacy, but also ensured that the addition of others would become obvious. In a dark room, even the dimmest of lights changes the landscape. He could sense one such now: there was another here, one that had not come by his invitation.

Provided Intelligence had not failed again, such a thing could mean but one thing: the Jedi were coming. Such a thing is a desecration, he reflected. They will find more in this place than dusty books and ancient memories. He would see to that.

 

[NightSister]

Though she would have happily sat and admired the architecture of the temple from the inside, Aria felt that if she was going to go somewhat against conduct she might as well get some knowledge out of it. She could sense a heightened Darkside presence at one end of the temple, but the nature of the building was such that she wrote it off almost entirely.

Slowly Aria began working her way through the rooms, idling here and there to peruse whenever a book or an artifact caught her attention but keeping herself to herself. Somewhere or other along the long and bumpy path that was her training, Aria had learned how to conceal her Force-signature, but she wasn't much good at it and suspected besides that it would have little effect against anybody here - the temple was all but abandoned; in relation to Sith, only those who had already visited the important ones and experienced the typical Sith explorations, whatever those might be, would come to visit - the ones at a higher level of power. That or they lived here and had no other means of enriching their knowledge. Or they were curious Jedi. Always the possibility of a curious Jedi.

What she had been most curious about was to see how the vast array of books would portray the Jedi, whether they would spin it into a black-and-white depiction or something else altogether - it slightly embarrassed her to be surprised at how differently different Sith wrote about their long-held enemies. Of course not all Sith were the same and would not all view their ancient war with the Jedi in the same light, but even with experience wrangling with the Dark Side it was hard for Aria not to see them as a collective: evil. It made it so much easier, she supposed, to group them all together and label their every move as evil; made the Dark Side seem more out of reach, easier to resist. It was offensive stereotyping, but it kept her a Jedi, didn't it? Aria closed the book shut, shaking her head as if to clear her mind of such thoughts, and went into the next room.

Big mistake. The heightened Darkness had meant something after all: somebody was here, and not another curious Jedi. Far from it - very far indeed. Though the possibility had been there all along, Aria had gone for several hours undisturbed and of course had assumed that her peace would continue.

Well, this was convenient. She would have just left right there, but the door had made a noise and caught his attention.
"Apologies," she murmured, moving to slip back out.

[member="Tirdarius"]

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Aria Vale"]

The door moved, manipulated not by a stray air current, but by motion generated by another sentient being - the light he had sensed approaching. A flash of brown hair, the swirl of Jedi robes, a soft voice offering comment and then disappearing again, beyond the threshold he could visibly observe. How very curious. Perhaps the girl that had dared to invade this sanctuary had recognised her mistake and hoped not to provoke the wrath of the Sith. It's not nearly that simple, however.

Dropping the book he had been perusing onto one of the dusty tables that had served to allow students to sit and read at their leisure, his robes fluttering as he stalked over to the door that had served as the Jedi's impromptu exit. She had not gone far - he would have sensed her departure from the Temple. Perhaps she imagines her brief civility means that she will be left unhindered to plunder our secrets. She would be sorely mistaken on that score. Sith Temples are no place for the light.

"No amount of running will protect you from the dangers here, girl," he called in a clear voice down the hallway that the two of them had stepped into. The silence that was so pervasive here was broken by such, but allowed his words to carry perfectly throughout the empty corridors, difficult to avoid. "Have your Masters not taught you this? The Light and the Dark mix only with disasterous results," the Sith Lord noted, his tone slightly mocking. It was an absurdity, a simplification that ultimately boiled down to a lie, but he knew the Jedi teachings as well as he suspected this one would. "She who seeks to claim our secrets will gain them only through sacrifice."

He paused, coming to an abrupt halt, staring dispassionately down the corridor, his hands resting at his side, palms open, clearly indicating that he was unarmed. True, his lightsaber hung on his belt, but he was not some impetuous Acolyte to draw it simply because they could smell a Jedi. Such reckless action served neither faction, and only fed the Dark Side's insatiable need for death and chaos. Undisciplined behaviour that does little to advance our cause. Quite the opposite, in truth...

"Few are brave enough to wander our halls alone, even among our own kind," he remarked cooly, his tone conversational and non-threatening - he might, perhaps, have simply been discussing the weather. "You must want something of us, to risk the retribution and death that so often comes to your kind when they step into our domain," the Sith continued, though he intended no harm unless the Jedi first sought to offer some. And that would be a losing proposition, in a place such as this. "What brings you to the Sith, Jedi?"

 

[NightSister]

Aria stopped in her tracks as a voice called after her, warning her of her mistake. He wanted to talk; well, that was just perfect, wasn't it? If it wasn't for the silence echoing down the hallways, Aria would have cursed under her breath, but she had a feeling he would catch it.Feeling somewhat intimidated, Aria wheeled around to see a tall man, who, while not attacking her as was her idea of the usual Sith way, radiated Darkness in such a calm and controlled way that it made Aria's skin crawl. Best not to upset him.

"Your religion has an interesting history," Aria remarked as the beginning statement to her explanation; though she was certain he could sense her fear through the Force, she determinedly kept her nerves from showing in her facial expression and body language. "Textbooks found in Jedi temples only have the facts presented a certain way; I wanted to learn about the Force as a whole, so I came here. I wasn't aware it was rarely done by either side; I came simply for knowledge. I figured it was safer than hunting down a knowledgeable Sith and outright asking him, though I have heard of such a thing being done by Acolytes and Padawans both." She was going off in an entirely different direction now; stupid Aria, the point wasn't to start a conversation over how things were done by Sith and Jedi alike. Force knew how quickly things had gotten out of hand the last time she'd been foolish enough to try that.

"I didn't mean to disturb or offend you," she continued in a cautious tone of voice, nervously avoiding meeting his eye. "I certainly didn't come in the hopes of... retribution and death. Though if you're suggesting that I should expect that, I can leave," she offered, feeling that being kicked out would without a doubt be easier than staying and conversing with a menacing Sith Lord. Less exciting, yes; but even an adventurous soul such as Aria could only take so much of this sort of excitement before moving to Dagobah and becoming a hermit.

[member="Tirdarius"]

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Aria Vale"]

Seeking after a broader understanding? That was a very interesting thing - and not a state of mind many Jedi used, much though they so often spoke of needing to keep an open mind. As so often happens among families, the open-mindedness stops as soon as you speak of that cousin that you simply don't speak to anymore, for reasons best left unexplained. He'd observed it himself among the Jedi: the Sith were often a taboo subject, something Masters would warn their Padawans away from, fearing that curiousity might be explored, and temptation would thus cross their path. The eternal irony is that the Jedi do not truly fear corruption: they simply fear to have their students open their eyes.

The Sith had illusions of their own, it was true: they saw all Jedi as weak, tainted by a lesser philosophy and lacking the will to do that which was necessary to see true peace established. The oft-present irony was that the animosity between the two was that which had caused what little peace that had existed over the past several thousand years to evaporate like smoke on the wind. Perhaps this Jedi had started to see that for herself, was beginning to recognise the futility in their pointless war - or perhaps she simply wished to understand her enemy, the better to fight them. Does it truly matter as to her motives? Probably not.

"You do not fear to be corrupted by our views and our teachings?", Tirdarius asked, his Coruscanti accent laced with urbane tones, conversational rather than confrontational. "Are we not the monsters you warn your children about? Behave, or the Sith will come for you?", he added rhetorically, offering a soft laugh of amusement at the idea. And yet we all have such absurd bedtime stories, don't we? "Perhaps had you encountered one of the others, a monster is what you might have found. Many of my brethren respond to Jedi in much the same way as we are reacted to by your kind: with violence. It seems so few understand that to simply be what we are is not a crime."

That much had always bothered him: the fact that merely to be Sith was a crime punishable by death, at least according to many Jedi. He'd oft found himself threatened or attacked when his persona slid away and his true self was revealed, his life endangered solely by his allegiance, irrespective of his actions. No matter what our sense of ethics, we are but the enemy to many among their kind. As they are to us. It was a thoroughly exhausting thing to have observed over the years, an absurdity perpetuated for generations, and all derived from that same family argument started millenia ago, for reasons which none of those now living had observed or remembered.

"The history of the Sith is the history of the Jedi, all intertwined and bloody, made so by foolishness and an unwillingness to admit wrongdoing, by either side," the Sith Lord remarked, his expression slightly distant, as if looking beyond the girl and into that long distant past. "You needn't fear me, however," he continued, bringing his thoughts back to the present moment. "The only Jedi I have ever raised a hand to are those that chose to struck first, or who harmed others in their quest for 'justice' against my kind. Stay, if you wish, talk, study, and when you are done, you will leave freely and unharmed." That much was the least he could offer: a simple exchange of thoughts. There need be no violence here unless you bring it with you, Jedi, he told her silently.

"I cannot, however, guarantee that your convictions will remain as they are," he asserted calmly, staring at the young woman with those appraising grey eyes. "Few who look in the mirror find themselves the same afterwards."

 

[NightSister]

Stay, talk, study? Leave unharmed? Aria's previous prejudice against Sith had been challenged previously by others she had encountered - though she was still yet to meet a Sith she didn't either find creepy, unrelentingly annoying or both - but seeing the obviously civil approach the man in front of her was taking completely went against the picture of Sith she held in her mind. It was close-minded to assume that all Sith wanted was to oppose Jedi in every way at every time, but that made it no easier to comprehend when she was shown such a clear example of the opposite.

"The Jedi are hardly without flaws in their way of life, and we're definitely not blameless in our wars against you," Aria agreed, still taking great care over how she phrased her sentences: no matter what he said, she retained a level of caution that was in part due to respect but mostly due to anxiety. "I'm in no hurry to join your ranks, but I don't fight Sith for being Sith." Well, in truth she tried not to fight anyone without doing so out of self-defense, as was the Jedi way, but Aria was generally not the sort to pick fights without reason. She found it easy to dislike Sith, but only because the traits found in typical followers of the religion clashed with her own - strongly - and besides, there was a wide gap between disliking Sith and starting wars with them, though history might beg to differ.

"If the mirror is not a reflection of who you are, then either you or it are incorrect in their perceptions," she went on, "but you are welcome to explain to me what motivates you to remain with the Dark Side. I'd be very interested, in fact." Was she playing with fire here? It was possible, but she was there to learn about the ways of the Sith, and what better to so than to exchange words with one so clearly experienced with the Dark Side?

[member="Tirdarius"]

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Aria Vale"]

That the girl did not intend him violence at least boded well enough for her own survival. He would have regretted having to kill her, as he so often did when circumstances pushed him to aggressive acts, but he would at least have taken solace in the fact that there was one less foolish Force User out there to cause more problems for the galaxy. Her self-restraint was sufficient to prove that she was not of that ilk, and that warranted a fair amount of civility between them - there might remain a war between their kind, but it was not one he cared to perpetuate today.

It would have perhaps amused the Jedi to know that he shared her beliefs about violence: that such was only to directed against those who wielded it themselves. True, the Sith would be far less forgiving than the Jedi, but they didn't feel the need to occupy the moral high ground in so doing: their role was that of the pragmatist. If one life had to end for others to flourish, that was the price that had to be paid. The Jedi would see even that one life as a precious jewel, however, and thus would be willing to allow hundreds to perish needlessly if they could see to it that the one life survived, provided they weren't directly responsible for those that died. Merely allowing it to happen is atrocity enough, however.

"Come along then, Jedi," he remarked calmly, beckoning her to follow him as he turned around and entered a nearby room, one where they might be more comfortable. Since this forgotten place was largely a library, there were many reading rooms that had been set up to allow the occupants to sit at their ease and study. Such would allow them to sit and talk in a civilised fashion. At least we should be glad to note that the cleaning droids have not neglected their duties here. Otherwise the place might be covered in thick layers of dust that would be uncomfortable to inhale.

Taking a seat upon a metallic chair, cushioned softly to provide comfort, Tirdarius regarded the Jedi with a critical eye. She was certainly far younger than he was, and it was unclear how long she had been with their Order. Indeed, he did not know if she was a Padawan, a Knight or one of the younger generations of Jedi Masters that occasionally popped up every now and again. She had a disciplined, trained mind - that was clear from her presence in the Force - but there were very few clues available to him to give him a sense of precisely whom he was talking to. I will learn such in due time, he reflected.

"I imagine the Jedi have taught you to see the Dark Side as a threat, something that could harm and corrupt you if you allow yourself to open your heart to it," he remarked, beginning their discussion by responding to her initial query to him. "Even the Sith see it as such, but we recognise it as a potent force that we can wield if we so dare, whether as weapon or tool. The Dark demands that we recognise it within ourselves, rather than try to banish it." The Sith Lord shrugged slightly, recalling those days among the Jedi when they would speak of emotions as a dangerous thing to play with, noting that they opened the door to the Dark. That acting upon them is often reckless came as a lovely lesson that warned against the darkness. "As with your lightsaber, the Dark Side can cut both ways, depending on your level of discipline and practice."

It wasn't nearly that simple, and perhaps it would be worth explaining to her that even the Sith ultimately succumbed to the Dark Side if they did not practice care and caution - but so too were the Jedi at threat of corruption from the Light, if they sank too deeply into it. Not that the Jedi care to hear of such taints. He'd seen it before: that rigid belief in the rightness of your cause, such that you'd see those who disagreed with or opposed even the smallest doctrine as monsters, enemies to be eliminated. Many of the militant Jedi suffered from this, and were incapable of seeing the shades of grey that rested between her world and his. We both struggle with it, girl. We simply acknowledge it, while yours brethren deny that such a thing is possible.

"I was given to the Sith as a teenager, pulled away from my training as a Jedi, subjected to pain and torment," he said calmly, as if they were merely talking about the weather. "The Jedi taught me to resist pain, but the Sith taught me to embrace it. They don't care for suppression of natural drives. There is much power in our natural state, in the emotions we feel, in the motivations that push us forward. Is it right to deny these, do you think?"

 

[NightSister]

Caution still evident in her face and posture, Aria hesitantly followed as the Sith started down the hallway, reaching a stop before a decent-sized, comfortable reading room. No matter how easy it was to write Sith off as soulless creatures of destruction - something Aria was still, at times, guilty of - the devotion they had to preserving and building on their information was admirable.

She took a seat opposite the man, listening as he begun the discussion referring to the threat Jedi considered the Darkness as. It was true: she had been taught from a young age that the Dark Side was to be feared; that it was a deadly and infinite void one could spend their life falling down without ever finding their way back up. Even having matured in her approach towards those who called themselves Sith or Dark Jedi, Aria feared their alignment - if she didn't, remaining a Jedi would prove perhaps a more difficult task. One could call it emotional manipulation or indoctrination, and from a certain perspective it was true - but it couldn't be denied that the same was true of Darksiders, or at least Sith. And where Aria would be had nobody tried to sway her one way or another, had she grown in a family deaf to the Force and upon discovery of her powers had been left to find her own way? She wasn't sure, but she didn't like that idea. Whether it was advice or indoctrination, without some guidance it was difficult to progress in a way that was at all positive. Of that much she was certain.

"What the Jedi do is not to deny emotions," Aria countered, reluctant to oppose his argument but even more so to not defend and explain the Jedi and their teachings. "Repress maybe, keep in check; it makes it easier to achieve what the Jedi work towards, in ways that uphold Jedi law. What we don't do is let emotions dominate or motivate what we do or how we do it, because it's dangerous. Emotion may be what makes us human but it's also what makes us impractical, and illogical, and unpredictable. As for pain..." Aria almost laughed. "I assure you, we feel pain just as strongly as any Sith. Perhaps more so. It's more dangerous than any other emotion, but as a Jedi you're not supposed to resist it; you're supposed to overcome it, come to terms with what has hurt you and keep going instead of letting it fester, or using it as a weapon. It makes you powerful, certainly: but not in the way Jedi are supposed to be." That she knew as more than something she'd read or been taught.

[member="Tirdarius"]

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Aria Vale"]

Listening to the young woman, Tirdarius almost chuckled at her assertion that the Jedi did not deny their emotions. Let go of your feelings, push them aside and focus on the objective reality. No Sith would do such a thing: they would feel their disconsolate sadness, indulge in their fiery rage, express their innermost happiness. These they would do freely, and express them in turn - to conceal them spoke to a darkness far greater than anything the Force might offer. It signals denial of the self for a flawed cause. It was all very well and good being willing to make sacrifices for the benefit of a greater whole, but the sacrifice of one's individual freedoms was never worth it, to his mind.

That the Jedi felt as she did regarding emotion spoke only to the lack of true understanding: certainly emotions made one reckless, and risked impetuous actions that were dangerous and ill-conceived, but such a thing was vital to growth and new experiences. We teach our children to learn from their mistakes, and this refers to emotion as much as to anything else: from such moments would a sense of moderation develop. Reasonable actions only stemmed from those times when emotions were felt, acknowledged and used as a platform for appropriate action.

The Jedi did not entirely disagree with such, but they had a natural prejudice against emotions, and sought rational objectivity above anything else. And so they deny themselves in an effort to place their actions above that of the common man. It was hardly surprising, then, that the Jedi so often seemed strange and out-of-touch to others, ascetic and far removed from the ordinary citizenry. And so the people may come to value the Jedi, but they must always know that will never truly understand them.

"That is where the Jedi fail to take the essential step," the Sith remarked, commenting now on the young woman's thoughts on pain. To acknowledge and overcome it fails to learn the most valuable of lessons. "You let go of what hurts you, allowing it to wash over you and be pushed aside, recognised by largely ignored thereafter." Tirdarius shook his head, simply reflecting the danger in such a thing. To detach yourself from pain is to separate yourself from what makes you sentient. "Sith embrace pain, not because it is pleasurable or even empowering, but simply because it forces us to fully absorb the consequences. We cannot be above it, for it is only through sacrifice that progress is made."

That much was something the Jedi had never truly acknowledged: to them, sacrifice was only ever about their lives. It is sweet and noble to lay down your life for others. There was simplicity in that, a fallback to those days of noble patriotism when millions would die to protect their ideals, their families, some absurd abstract they were persuaded to believe in. True sacrifice requires that you be able to accept the consequences. He had no illusions on that score: the Sith were often hated for doing what was necessary to preserve the Galaxy. If we take a life to avert a war, we are reviled as murderers. But if one Jedi dies attempting to prevent a war, failing to do so, they are revered as heroes that sacrificed all for a lofty goal. Never mind those who die as a consequence thereafter...

The destruction of a city on Korriban by the Jedi's own followers was evidence enough of that, to his mind: had the Sith been responsible, they would have acknowledged their actions, had reasoning there to support it, whatever that might be. In the end, we would embrace the sacrifice of being hated, of knowing that we had committed such horrors for grander purpose. The Jedi had trained and appointed the one responsible, and yet had back-pedalled ever since, maintaining the actions to be of a rogue agency only loosely affiliated with them. They failed to own their mistakes, as they have ever done. It was a complacency that had ever made them unfit for their purpose.

"Our training is unpleasant," he added, putting it mildly, seemingly on a tangent, but with a clear sense of where his point was going. "We are forced to endure torment, pain, deprivation. We are stripped down to our core, not to build a new foundation on the ruins, but rather to force us to see ourselves as we truly are." He'd known Sith who had failed to go through the process, and ever found them butchers, cowards and murderers without purpose. Such beings had to be destroyed, their potential for harm rendered inert through decisive action. "You must sacrifice all that you are, everything you have, everything you might be. Only when the strong are willing to do what must be done will the galaxy ever know peace. All else is chaos."

The Sith Lord paused for a moment, allowing his words to sink in to the Jedi girl's consciousness. No doubt she would be formulating a rebuttal - the Jedi had never believed in the idea of rule, had never sought it for their own, feeling that such would usurp the natural rights of those who lacked their capabilities. To impose your will on others, you must be willing to do anything necessary to serve. You must be willing to make the unpleasant decisions, be feared by those that would threaten harm to the society, must be willing to impose justice upon those who fail to abide by the rules that protect the whole. The Jedi had never been capable of that: it required them to act against their warped sense of ethics. It makes them weak: they will protect others with their lives, but that is the least thing they could give.

"You've always been taught that your powers exist to serve others, yes?", he asked, remembering those endless lessons on the need to display selflessness and humility. Even the clothing we wore was designed to remind people that we were just like them: humble, standing apart but never above. "Saving a life or averting a crisis is indeed a service, but it maintains the status quo, forces things to remain as they are." And when things remain the same, they stagnate. Growth comes only from change: the opportunity to develop into something more than you are. Without that, life simply withered. "Do you not feel that you have more to offer than simply your life?", he inquired, arching an eyebrow inquisitively. "To live and die in service of the Order's ideals often seems wasteful, if you'll forgive me for saying so. I was fortunate to be freed from it."

 

[NightSister]

It still felt surreal that Aria and the Sith, whatever his name was, were able to converse in such a calm and civil fashion about probably the two most conflicting Orders within the galaxy and their flaws and benefits - though in a funny way, Aria liked it; that the two opposites could have an interaction that didn't constitute of manipulation or attempted murder. What would life be like, she wondered, if Jedi and Sith could always approach their differences in this way?

And of course, the Sith had his own thoughts about how to deal with pain. Aria had dealt with pain in what to her was the extreme: she felt that she had definitely 'absorbed' it, though whether or not that had been for her own good was debatable. For her it was simply difficult to do anything with her wounds other than wallow in them or overcome them - to embrace it in any way, make it permanently a part of you, was a frankly appalling prospect. No amount of power or ability or consequence or whatever it was that brought the Sith to do so themselves seemed worth it.

"But what progress can be made through pain?" Aria asked, not trying to challenge his words but honestly attempting to make sense of his philosophy. "How can somebody be improved through sacrifice of that sort, of that measure? It might progress one as a Sith, I guess, but it's as far from progression as a Jedi could get. Uh, if you don't mind my saying."

Sacrifice had always been one of those concepts that caused Aria some concern at times. Giving up something of value to you so that something else could flourish or otherwise improve; that was what she believed the word to mean - what made her confused over the matter what worth each had to hold for it to be considered a sacrifice or simply stupidity. Mostly what she thought over when such notions floated into her mind was what she'd be able to bring herself to do, what would be expected of her as a Jedi; when would she be expected to die for another? When expected to do so, would she? She knew that such caused debate amongst the rest of the Jedi too, but she remained worried over the day when such an occasion arose.

"All training is unpleasant," Aria countered. "All training that holds any value, anyway. But certainly the Sith have a... unique approach to shaping their Acolytes." That was putting it mildly. Aria did know that. "Giving up your entire being to become a true Sith is what makes all within your Order seem like carbon copies of each other. It's not what's true, but it isn't a million parsecs off."

Then again, with the notion of sacrificing one's life for the protection of others. His words rung a bell within her head; she'd heard such an opinion before.

"Many among the Jedi would agree with you. I've heard Jedi, Masters even whom I respect, say that sometimes it's of more value to the Order, to the galaxy, to let others die so that you can continue to live and give your talents to the Order, or that it's pointless to die if your death won't put an end to the threat. I... don't know what I think myself."

[member="Tirdarius"]

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Aria Vale"]

Training. Such an odd term, really, different from teaching and tutoring, placing a considerable focus upon the individual and their learning needs. Truth be told, all life was effectively a training experience by that definition: experiences that changed and shaped a being into becoming something other than what they were, preparing them to cope with new challenges and ensure that they survived the obstacles in their path, whatever those turned out to be. Though she's quite mistaken to imagine that such creates carbon copies. No two people will ever overcome a problem with the exact same solution. That was the beauty of it: training allowed for creativity.

"Jedi do not train in the same way?", he asked, looking mildly intrigued, though in truth, his question was intended rhetorically: of course he knew the answer to that. I was, after all, a Padawan myself, once upon a time. "You give up your own lives to become Jedi: surrendering your familial ties, your loyalties, giving it all up for homespun robes and a lightsaber, thereafter moulded into a shape demanded by the Order," the Sith Lord observed, recognising his own cynicism, but also knowing it wasn't far off the truth. "Your training did not turn you into a cookie-cutter Jedi; nor do our methods, though they are much more...selective," he added with a wry smile.

The attrition rate on new Acolytes was atrocious, he had to admit that. The Sith didn't bother compiling the statistics, but it was fair to say that perhaps only a quarter of those newly inducted into the ranks survived their first year of training. Ironically, it's very rare that such beings die by our own hands. More often, such beings died in contest with each other, or as a consequence of the training exercises that they simply failed to endure successfully. Training is a dangerous business, but you cannot allow the incapable to progress further up the pyramid if they lack the ability to keep it from toppling down on those beneath.

"The sacrifices we each endure all have a purpose," he assured her, noting that she lacked the same vitriolic approach to debate that so many Jedi had offered him when engaging in such discussions. Someone clearly has a handle on their sense of inner serenity, though Tirdarius was not foolish enough to imagine that there were not strong emotions quietly simmering beneath the surface. "Suffering is an excellent way of placing your life into perspective: recognising your own mortality, if you will. In doing so, we gain a better insight into what others must suffer. Life is often cruel, dangerous, painful. We must embrace this fact, even as we struggle against it."

Not that the Jedi would ever imagine that such a thing was possible: to them, the Sith stood at the very height of arrogance, immune to criticism or reason, imposing their will where they could, reaping havoc around the galaxy with what often seemed to be an indiscriminate whim. And yet all of us begin by learning obedience to our cause, humility through service and through pain, recognising that we are nothing even as we struggle to become something more. As he recalled, the Jedi learned a few of those same lessons themselves, but the emphasis was very different. And yet we are more alike in that regard than we allow ourselves to believe.

"Sacrifice is one of the more natural inclinations of a sentient species," he continued, barely pausing in his commentary, knowing that he was doing much of the talking - a rather bad habit he had always had. "Mothers put themselves in harm's way to protect their children, and it is always the natural imperative of an individual to sacrifice themselves for the greater collective," Tirdarius said softly, a sigh escaping him at that thought. Invariably they almost always do so at the wrong moment, alas. "It is arrogance to preserve your life in imagining yourself to have greater value than those who fall in your place, but so too is it foolish to allow your life to be taken when there are alternatives," he murmured, just loud enough for her to hear his words. "As always, such things come down to profit versus loss. What benefit might be gained by your life?"

That was always the question, and it rarely had a satisfactory answer. The Jedi, it seemed, were always willing to throw away their lives in a futile attempt to create a momentary stability, mistaking a noble sacrifice that would create such transitory peace for a deeper sacrifice, the kind that would send ripples throughout a galaxy. And this is where we differ, girl, he told her silently. The Jedi teach you how to die. The Sith would teach you how to live.

Somehow he doubted that he would find her receptive to such a line of reasoning, however.

 

[NightSister]

Finally came the point of outright disagreement. That Jedi had harsh training methods was undeniably true; Aria had come close to giving up on them once before. That the Sith had harsher methods, however, seemed even truer. To Aria at least, it seemed that the Sith had to follow guidelines so strict that a true Sith would always have to be a very specific type of person, perhaps with some variation but overall, not much. Was the same true of the Jedi? Certainly not everyone who called themselves Jedi was worthy of the title, and certainly not everyone within the Order even called themselves Jedi to begin with. Aria did, but on a broad range - it was difficult to forever be upholding the code, she supposed. Perhaps it was simply how much more the Sith used pain as a training method that made them seem so much worse. Definitely the Sith were a lot less forgiving.

"Perhaps once," she argued to his first point, "But the Order I am a part of does not force people to give up their previous life, nor their identity. Maybe then, we no longer are Jedi, but what of it? It's the Order that sets the standard, raises the bar. If we are no longer true Jedi, we are still the closest thing the galaxy has."

Was that true? Was the nature of the Order such that as a whole they were no longer truly Jedi? Under the Silver Jedi, Aria could only be as much of a Jedi as she trained to be, and if she wasn't being trained by true Jedi...that led her down a whole different path, one which scared her more than a bit. Was that the goal? Feth. She was really disoriented now. Quick, find something to disagree over.

​​"So is failure," she suggested. "Learning through sacrifice is dangerous for everyone involved and it won't always result in progress." That said, Aria's only experience with loss had eventually led her back. But he didn't need to know that. "There are ways to put one's life into perspective without such...drastic methods. Dangerous ways even. But less permanent and with less consequence. Though it would seem that your stance on painful consequences varies somewhat from my own."

That sacrifice was inevitable couldn't be argued with. That knowing that you couldn't avoid it meant that you should embrace it, in Aria's mind, could. She did not hold many things to worth, but anything of value to her was invaluable. Her friends, her Master, her surname, her saber. Her friends to ground her, her Master to guide her, her name to remind her who she was and her saber to remind her who she had sworn to be. Stripped of any of those, and Aria could only guess at how she would end up: lost and hurt and confused, and a danger to all those around her. Certainly not progress.

But her life, her life was a different kind of sacrifice. "Yes, all Jedi know that giving your life for the good of the galaxy is more or less expected; but we are taught that our lives have value also. Whether you should die to save others when you would protect more people alive varies depending on who you ask. Whether you ​would ​also changes. I would give up my life if I would protect more people in death than in life; perhaps I would or wouldn't anyway, out of fear, either of death or of seeing others die due to my neglect. I haven't fought with the Order enough times to have to make the choice."

[member="Tirdarius"]

Spoiler

Sorry the text isn't coloured. Damn Edge.

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Aria Vale"]

The girl was proving to be a fascinating foil for such a discussion - contrary to most Jedi of his experience, she seemed neither afraid of him, nor inclined towards violence. Perhaps reassuring her that I mean her no harm served that purpose. Even so, it was unusual to have such an opportunity to converse with one on the opposite side of things without wondering whether he might have to teach them a more visceral lesson. At least proving that the Jedi are still capable of producing balanced minds in addition to zealots. That much pleased him.

Tirdarius could see where she had drawn her conclusions from regarding the Sith being carbon copies, but that was dehumanising: something the Jedi often did to convince themselves that the Sith could not be saved, redeemed or understood. When your enemy becomes a thing and not a person, it remains an infestation to be eliminated, not an opponent to be argued with. The Sith did it, too: they often saw the Jedi as weak, incapable of making the tough choices, and allowing their will to be subverted by ambitious minds that would use them to their own ends. And so each of us becomes worthy only of a merciful death, rather than a productive life.

"Have you ever cut yourself with your lightsaber?", he asked her, going back to her questions regarding pain. It's understandable that she would struggle with such a concept, but that is because it is natural to want to avoid pain and sacrifice. He, too, had once struggled with them - but Silencia had given him no choice but to embrace that path. "It hurts, it can even cause permanent injury, but thus harmed, do you not learn to take better care, to exercise true control until mastery is achieved?"

"Our duty lies to the people of the Galaxy: to rule, to protect, to nurture them and allow them to achieve their potential without it being repressed by ennui," the Sith Lord remarked, folding his hands in front of him, slender fingers carefully interlocked. "Such a thing requires a focused, disciplined and rational mind. We cannot allow ourselves to succumb to pain, cannot be expected to make decisions for millions based solely on our whim, and nor can we deviate in our will." Those who did, of course, were the ones the Jedi railed about: the destructive, whimsical, evil beings that unleashed their powers indiscriminately, not caring who was hurt in the process. "If you flinch at the first touch of the flame, however can you expect to survive an inferno?"

It was a simple enough truth, he had always felt. It was natural to flinch from pain, to run away when threatened, and very few would ever place their personal well-being at stake in order to see peace throughout the Galaxy. The Jedi certainly believed that they did, but they had never been willing to step up to the plate and do what had to be done for the good of the whole. They always try to save the individual, and set their sights too low. Lack of ambition had always been their failure, and it was not something that the Sith struggled with. Too often, our failure is that many go too far in the other direction, subsuming ambition for the galaxy with their own ambitions for themselves.

It was a precarious balance, and that had always felt obvious: the failure of the Jedi was in believing that it was too much of a risk, and thus condemning those that made the attempt.

"In truth, we do not shape our Acolytes: we do not demand that they adopt particular traits, or act in a specific manner," he noted calmly, recalling his own training, and that of the students he had himself directed onto that path - some Jedi, seeking something more, others merely lost souls in need of a place. Jedi training shapes you into something that you are not. Sith training makes you see what you truly are. "We ask but two things. Firstly, that they truly look inside, and see themselves as they really are, both good and bad, holding nothing back. Secondly, that they pledge their service to something far greater than themselves, to the Grand Plan," he murmured softly. "Those who fail in the first do not reach that second. With their powers unlocked, such a being can only be a danger to all."

There was perhaps, at least to his mind, considerable irony in that the majority of the lives he had personally taken over the years had been Sith, and not Jedi. Of civilians, remarkably few for his kind, but Tirdarius had never understood the need to involve collateral in a family feud. Both Jedi and Sith were soldiers of their respective causes: by dedicating their lives to either one, they had placed their lives on the line. It is ever just a question of who takes them. It was better to stop a monster before they could inflict their monstrosity than to take the ethical path and allow them to mature into a true threat. In that respect, at least, he had never had cause to regret such an action.

"Pain tells us if they will flinch from the path before them," he continued, as though his thoughts had not interrupted his rhetoric. "A weak person can be manipulated, persuaded, stopped. Only someone who knows the very limits of their endurance will know how far they might be pushed, but will also know how not to be. When a student learns to withstand that which is inflicted upon them, then does their true training begin." And in so doing will transcend the boundaries of those beings that will otherwise seek to test their resolve.

How else could one stand against the conflagration? Failure to understand one's own strength simply mandates submission to anything capable of challenging it. No Sith could truly allow that: there was far too much at stake.

 

[NightSister]

Oh, he was tricky: fusing fact with opinion to make his arguments undeniable. Or was the Sith way just that logically sound? Aria was struggling to find solid ways to disprove that premise other than perhaps, in the same way that the Jedi code inspired zealotrous preachers who claimed to a non-existent moral high ground, many who claimed to the title of Sith used it to unleash destruction and sate sadistic urges. Feth, why did Sith always manage to leave Aria so confused?

"Cutting yourself with a lightsaber is something else," she stated, feeling that that at least she could counter. "That's not emotional pain; it's not self-imposed or even imposed by a Master; it's an error. That you can learn from. The physical and emotional torture regimen that Acolytes are so often put through isn't a learning experience, it's breakage and it's indoctrination. Just like enemy forces torture prisoners to wear them down until they give information, when a Sith uses pain to teach their Apprentice they're eating away at their person. Perhaps it does make them more powerful eventually: but don't claim that learning Sith aren't shaped in order to be made so."

Pain, certainly, Aria feared. Bruises and bumps and broken bones, Aria was better at handling simply through experience with martial arts. Pain that was caused through weapons or the Force or true, emotional hurt, Aria avoided as any normal person would. Though being put through pain of any sort would, by logic, make it more bearable, the greater the pain, the more had to be sacrificed in order to get a handle on it. Logic also agreed with her on that. Perhaps one could use pain to learn, but certainly trying to avoid pain taught just as well, in that it was the only way anybody learned to fight or defend themselves, for one.

Then another concept: Acolytes had to swear themselves to the greater good and see themselves as they truly were? Perhaps, when stripped down to the very bones of each Order, the Jedi and Sith were not all that different. For two heavily opposing brethrens with such different goals, their means were rather similar in many different aspects. Aria had to imagine what could be achieved if the two were to unite and use their differences instead of picking fights over them. Certainly many less would die caught up in their wars, and certainly the two together would be largely unopposed. If their war hadn't been age-old, the idea might have even seemed plausible.

"And there's another thing," she said, for lack of a better way to interject. "Those who fail. Those who fail die, when their failure is with the Sith, do they not? A trainee Sith will continue to be trained until they succeed or until they die. If nothing else, you can't argue that the Sith have far less regard for life. Jedi, for all our faults, place a much greater value on individual lives.

"How were you first trained?" she asked levelly, her tone genuine even as she attempted to make a point. "Did your Master explain to you, when your training was first established, that until you had become something more, you were of no value to them and your life meant nothing to them? There's some logic to prioritizing lives by value, perhaps; the logic ends at giving no worth to lives that don't meet whatever standard of merit they're being held to."

No matter what, to Aria, a life was a life, and should as thus be preserved. That, truly, was why she was a Jedi and not something else.

[member="Tirdarius"]

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Aria Vale"]

A soft laugh escaped Tirdarius, unintended perhaps, but a good feeling nonetheless. The Jedi had a way of asking cutting questions that struck at his private thoughts, the kind that left him feeling that she was opening her mind to alternatives, only to slam that door shut by reverting to Jedi doctrine, the type that allowed for no grey edges: one had to exist either in the light, or in the dark. And that alone is proof of the flaws in the Jedi mindset, he thought to himself. The rest of the Galaxy exists all in the those spaces in-between.

No Jedi had ever thought to ask him about his own training, though: neither that he had received among the Jedi, nor his later conditioning among the Sith. We don't really think of it as training, after all, he reflected. Being a Sith was about becoming more yourself, growing into your powers, understanding and accepting everything that you were: both the refined and the depraved, the civilised and the barbaric. Light and Dark, in everything. Though some of the others wallowed in the Dark, subservient to it in a way they never intended, imagining themselves the master when they were but servants and tools. Those are the ones that fail to see the light even among the shadows.

"To fall is something far more terrible than many realise," Tirdarius remarked in response to the young woman's earlier thoughts on the consequences of failing training. "Among the Jedi, a person who fails either departs the Order for a life of menial service, or departs of their own free will, a 'rogue', or fallen Jedi", he continued, recalling many instances where he had encountered such beings: their powers unlocked and available for them to use, but lacking the discipline and emotional development that their training had failed to provide, since they had discontinued it. "Does the Order not track down such rogues, either killing them or taking them prisoner that they might be reconditioned?", he asked, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.

Undoubtedly that might have been his fate had anyone known where to find him after he had been kidnapped by the Sith all those years ago: taken back to the Temple, to spend time with counsellors and Healers, all of whom would try to 'fix' him, return him to a state of mind appropriate to a Jedi, perhaps even allowing him to return to service within the ranks. Eventually. Such a cleansing would have come at a cost, of course, but no doubt the young woman before him would see that as a gentleness compared to the Sith approach. But when our people fall, the consequences are all the deadlier for it.

"Jedi are kept very sheltered during their training, had you noticed?", he asked, somewhat rhetorically. suspecting that she might even disagree with his assessment. "When you are initiated, you live in the Temple surrounded by your peers and teachers. Only when taken under the wing of a Knight or Master will you leave that comfortable environment, out into the dangerous Galaxy where you are still protected. Still watched." The Jedi knew the dangers of a Force User who had not yet fully adopted their beliefs: such a being might engage in reckless action, act on their passions in the heat of the moment, might fall. "Only when you finally prove yourself a Jedi are you sent out into the Galaxy to do the work of the Council, fully trusted to act in good faith. Not a rogue, but a Jedi Knight."

She counted among their ranks, he was certain of that: few students would have displayed her poise in the face of the 'enemy', would instead have either sought to attack or retreat, imagining that the danger needed to be dealt with one way or another. One confident of their skills, trained to protect themselves against the 'Dark', only one trusted by the Jedi Order to make the right decisions at the right moment - only such a being would face up to a Sith Lord with such assertive curiousity. It was a rare thing, to converse with a Jedi Knight, but she was doing her very best not to live up to her Order's reputation among the Sith. He had to admire her for that.

"Our methods are more open, in some respect: we give our Acolytes considerable freedom, allow them to seek out challenges and test themselves." Of course there was more to their conditioning: they had to experience many trials and pains as they made their way towards becoming Sith, but that was all a necessity, a means of weeding out those incapable of truly acting as Sith. "But our methods involve risk, both to the students and to the Galaxy. What if one of ours should fail, lacking the mental fortitude or willpower to be Sith, instead falling prey to their own weaker impulses? Such a being would become a danger to everyone in their path, not a Sith, but a monster." He shook his head, recalling several such beings that he had encountered in his time. All of them gone now, but not without cost in lives. It had been worth it, though: to end a threat. "Death is the penalty for failure, simply because it is not we who would otherwise pay the cost of their failures", he added calmly.

Standing up from his seat, feeling his long outer robe flowing around him, the Sith Lord turned away from the young woman, his eyes idly perusing the shelves filled with books that had sat behind him. Good to know that there are others as sentimental as I among the ranks, he thought, casually perusing the titles carefully engraved onto the leather bindings, some of them familiar to him, others not so. The Temple that the two of them had inadvertantly used for their meeting was a repository: a storehouse of information that both or neither might benefit from - much as they both were to each other, perhaps.

"Life is cheap, just as it is precious," he said, his back still turned, but his voice inflected so that she might hear him all the same. "You see the truth of this yourself: tens of thousands dying every day, a leaf falling from a tree in the autumn breeze. Each one unique, precious, but ultimately irrelevant in a forest full of them." That the Sith so often felt this was undeniable: the casual brutality some of his brethren demonstrated was proof enough of that. "Life must serve a logical purpose, and growth is the key to all of it. Those who live only to stagnate themselves or prevent the growth of others are the weeds which must be plucked from the garden, such that all others can grow unhindered. That is our path."

 

[NightSister]

If nothing else, the Sith was skilled at debating: certainly he appeared much more collected in his arguments than Aria was, though likely he had more experience in declaring and explaining his way to others than Aria did. Such monologues were reserved for when she was had nothing better to do and resorted to mentally writing a thesis on what it truly meant to be a Jedi.

The harsher, more permanent approach to failure was one that distinguished the two sides quite noticeably, Aria reckoned. She knew that if she was to abandon the Order and train as a Sith at this very moment, only to return months later begging for redemption, she would be scolded, perhaps stripped of her Knight rank, but she would almost definitely be taken back in, and in time her rank would be restored and even furthered. Was it a soft approach? Maybe, but eliminating a person while they weren't dangerous just because they had been once or had the potential to be so in the future seemed unreasonable to her.

"Those who depart from the Order aren't treated as fugitives: not until they show that they ought to be," she stated with reasonable confidence. "There are plenty of zealots among us, but those who make the decisions on rogue Jedi have lived enough to have a better understanding. Captured fugitives will be helped to return to the Light if it's their desire, but if they remain a danger then yes, they're imprisoned. I'm not sure what happens if they're not considered dangerous nor want to become Jedi again. It's a rare occurrence, you'll understand. But never killed, no."

In all honesty, Aria hadn't a great deal of experience when it came to such things as imprisoned Rogues, but she had an adequate enough understanding of the policies to make such an argument, partly from research and partly from her Master Connor, whom had taken on most of the political burden when such a Rogue had bombed Korriban under the Order's authority. But she knew for certain that Jedi didn't kill except for in some very extreme situations. That had been a constant for as long as the Jedi had existed; they didn't kill.

"Of course Padawans are under great scrutiny. The first stages of an apprenticeship are when you're at your most likely to lose your way, wouldn't you say? You haven't yet been put to the test, your lifestyle's changed completely; I'd think a lost apprentice with some talent with the Force that they don't know how to control or what to do with could become dangerous very quickly. So yes, Padawans are kept rather sheltered until they have somebody who can help them begin to use their talents. Whether you agree or disagree with our path, it's a much better option than having none at all."

Aria herself had had her fair share of struggles throughout being a Padawan - or Apprentice, as she more often thought of herself during those days, because she truly had not been enough of a Jedi to call herself by their name for an apprentice. She had lacked motivation in the beginning, then lacked a sense of belonging for a long time before finally getting it together and starting down a truly Lighter path towards her eventual Knighthood.

"Don't Sith believe in making the most of potential?" Aria asked, once again with an intended direction but still without the smugness of one trying to win a debate. Wasted potential was certainly a phrase she heard a lot from Sith who spoke derogatively of Jedi; that following such strict codes held one back from what they could be. "Isn't killing somebody liable to be a danger, before they're a danger - isn't that wasting potential? And isn't death a waste of everything a person could've been? Perhaps it's the most foolproof, but it's the most irreversible. Once you're dead, you're dead. Imprisoned, kept cut off from the Force, however you choose to do it, and one day perhaps you can become something else."

Then onto his last point; again with the values of life. It was true that life and death, both, were so plentiful throughout the galaxy that human lives could be considered expendable. That lives without value were thus undeserving of any mercy or merit held a certain cold logic, Aria supposed, but she couldn't agree with it.

"There are too many people in the galaxy who don't contribute to its improvement to weed them out. Those who contribute to its deterioration perhaps should be kept from worsening it, but there are ways to do that without killing them. That life is in no short supply doesn't and shouldn't lessen the value of individual lives."

[member="Tirdarius"]

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Aria Vale"]

Ah, an idealist. Tirdarius supposed he should have expected as much - the Jedi so often coaxed such beings into their ranks, hoping to make a difference and perhaps see the Galaxy towards peace. And doing so with no bloodshed, preferably, as if such complex problems can be solved without one or both parties resorting to violence. It was partly such casual naivete that had prolonged the war as long as it had: ultimately the Jedi simply weren't willing to do what was necessary. They get close, then stop short. It was a cycle they'd seen too many times before.

Perhaps to her, potential wasted or never reached was simply a matter of time and patience, as if such a thing could be recaptured, or perhaps realised later, with appropriate guidance. And while that may be true, we look for different things, he reflected calmly, eyes still silently perusing the book titles before him. And once given a taste of power, how galling would it be to have that snatched away from you, as you found yourself forced into a lesser post that your superiors had deemed you more capable of? Such beings always lash out, unwilling to accept their place, deciding that they alone understand their true place. And how many lives would have to be sacrificed before they were stopped?

That was something the Jedi would never truly comprehend, he suspected: the promise of something greater. Jedi aspired only to be a perfect example of their Order's beliefs and doctrine, serving others and gaining the respect and admiration of their brethren in doing so. Perhaps to ascend to the lofty heights of the Jedi Council was as much ambition as a Jedi might hope for: after all, did they not shed their own sense of ambition, allowing the Order to direct their lives? Thus, a Jedi who seeks power is one who has fallen from their path, and must be corrected. Indeed, the very notion that power was desirable was often anathema to a Jedi. They believe that is it a selfish desire, and thus are naturally distrustful of all who seek after or hold it.

The Sith had always been trained to seek power - not for themselves, no, for such would be mere vanity. It was ever a means to an end, a means by which to serve the Galaxy as a whole. Do we not say that with great power comes great responsibility? That was the key to it: the Sith were willing to take responsibility for the fate of the Galaxy into their hands, to direct the lives of others in order to craft the stability and discipline demanded of a peaceful life. And such responsibility cannot simply be given to those not fit for it.

"There are certainly ways of repurposing such beings, but then failure may be experienced with little consequence," the Sith noted, wondering if the young woman would understand the idea of such motivation. "We gamble rather strongly: the gains are high, but so to are the risks. And the Force does not easily relinquish those sworn to service, even if their service proves inadequate." And so death serves to end that contract, and thus the risk to us all. "Perhaps it is that we simply lack your optimism: we know well that not every being wishes to 'do good', as you would hope."

The Jedi were certainly less cynical: they ever believed that the majority of people wanted to live quiet, peaceful lives, with only a few being 'bad' enough to court chaos. The Sith were naturally more suspicious: understanding well enough what one man would do anything if it meant gaining some advantage over his neighbour. Whether seeking promotion to the boardroom or simply outdoing your competitor in sales, beings always seek a means by which to stand above those they see as competition. The Sith simply played that same game with them: but were capable of keeping it confined to pre-determined limits, which is something the Galaxy sorely needed.

"But a Jedi should not speak of one's potential," he added, a faint smile curving his lips, amused at the thought that had prompted him to express it as he had. "You have plenty, but limit it in fear of what you might become if you step outside those strict rules imposed by your Order." A Jedi was bound wholly to the Light side, living by their rules of austerity and narrow morality, far removed from the lives of the ordinary, to an extent that they might support the lives of others, but always be detached from it. "Surely enforcing the status quo is in itself restrictive? What good is potential if not encouraged through adversity?"

 

[NightSister]

Aria had to hand him his first point; it was true that Jedi were much more inclined to believe in the goodness of others. It was a flaw that she shared too, in fact, but unlike the Sith, she didn't consider it to be a flaw. There had been a time, over a year ago, when she'd been wary of everyone and anyone, but to her, that was no way to live. Possibly the opposite was a riskier approach to life, but a much happier one, Aria reckoned.

With more maturity than she'd had then, Aria's current stance was that everyone had the potential to do good. Admittedly, she was prone to confusing the potential to do so with the actual desire or motivation, but she remained certain that nobody was so far gone as to be totally incapable of good in any sense of the word. If there were, then perhaps they should be killed, but there weren't. Not as far as Aria wanted to believe.

"Maybe," Aria said evenly as she began to voice her thoughts. "Certainly cynicism a safer route in the long run, but everyone has to take risks at some point, and believing that somebody can be good is one of them. Maybe it doesn't always pay off, but it makes for a happier way of living."

She'd been about to add to the end of her sentence, inflecting to make it a question - albeit a rhetorical one - then had realised how dubious it made her sound to keep turning statements into questions. Instead her tone wavered at the last few words, but she kept it firmly as a statement. It would do her no good to keep seeming so insecure in her proclamations, as though even she was unsure that what she was saying made sense. It did, didn't it? Kark.

Then more on the subject of potential: no matter how much sense the Sith way did or didn't make, it was infuriating how they refused to believe that the Jedi could match them in strength. Perhaps Aria was wrong in her belief - after all, as a Jedi who lived with the Silver Order, she encountered many more powerful Jedi than she did powerful Sith - but it seemed unfair to treat their approach as limiting.

To her, the only way the Jedi could be thought of as less strong was that strength wasn't what they relied on, nor what they strived towards. But it was something that occurred as one progressed through ranks; the ranks of the Jedi, the ranks of the Sith, the ranks of anybody in between. Devoting one's life to a path and following it to the highest level possible made one powerful, no matter the path.

"Again, Sith impose rules too." On this count, Aria would not let up. "Impose them more strictly, in fact, if breaking them results in death. Of course they need to; somebody with the potential and the want to be Sith who cannot restrict themselves won't get very far. Whether our rules limit us more than yours do you is relative; both sides have rules, both sides restrict, in different ways. As for adversity..." she almost laughed, smothering it in order to remain respectful.

"Well, it's very true than Acolytes are far more competitive amongst each other than the Jedi, but the difference is that our goal is harmony. Such competition is beneficial to training Sith perhaps, but our lack of it is beneficial to training Jedi. Our comparative strengths can't be measured in the same way when our aims and means of reaching them are so different."

[member="Tirdarius"]

Spoiler

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Aria Vale"]

The Jedi did well to keep this one from us, Tirdarius noted ruefully, having to admit a moment of admiration for those that were naturally enemies of the Sith. They trained her well, conditioned her superbly, but she is not Jedi, for all that. No doubt they would believe so, but he could sense the whispers within her heart that questioned that purpose. She is a good person, and no Jedi because of it.

That was ever the irony that the Jedi tried so hard to ignore: that truly good people could be part of their ranks. They must take the ones who feel compassion but see beyond it, to a 'greater good'. They had to stand by and watch others suffer, contenting themselves with only little victories, moments where they might save a life, or a handful, but could not ever stem the tide. Because you do not understand the true nature of darkness, the Sith Lord mused. You feel it is something to fight, or reject, or hide from. This rejection prevents understanding, and that which you do not understand, you cannot fight. A Jedi might be a 'good' person, but they were never the ones to fight the darkness.

She could, though, he noted inwardly, silence extending between them. He turned around, observing her once more: the earnest expression on her face, the way in which she so carefully controlled her emotions, ordered her thoughts. She has discipline, principles, a strong inner core that might only be shaken by herself. The Jedi had not failed this one as thoroughly as they had with others: yes, she was held down by their well-meaning principles, but she was not incapable of overcoming them. If she were, she would already be dead. That the girl had not escalated things that far spoke volumes.

"Goodness is never something that a Sith would deny," he said softly, less aggression evident in his tone than there had been before, that disdain for her thoughts less apparent than a moment ago. She wouldn't believe him, of course: Sith could not be good. That much the Jedi were firm on: their ancient adversaries were evil. But the ancient meaning of 'adversary' is a being who questions and challenges. "But no being can be wholly good without also being naive; nor can any being be wholly evil without being irreversibly corrupted. It is an inevitable balancing of the scales that we require."

Of course, her greatest misconception was that it was the Sith who meted out death to those who failed in their training. Thus are we evil at the start: murderers of our own kind. What simpler way to smear the Sith than to paint them in such a way? But it is the training itself that is fatal: one does not immerse themselves in the darkness without risking such a fate. A person swimming might inevitably drown, if they could not force themselves to find a way to exist with the water. When death comes, it is the sweetest of mercies from the fate you must otherwise endure. Perhaps it was that no Jedi had ever offered the release of death as a mercy, but the Sith were all too familiar with the need.

"Harmony reached through suppression of individual tendencies is merely enforced ennui," he remarked cooly, reflecting on the practice she mentioned. Absence of competition is but a path to stagnation: we grow through seeking to challenge ourselves, against each other, and against the obstacles we create within our own minds. The Jedi taught that each individual was their own worst enemy, did they not? But we live the concept: you merely warn yours to avoid it. "Peace is not the absence of conflict, young woman: it is the state one reaches when conflict has been stopped, and pushed aside. The peace of the Jedi is internal, but beyond the reach of ordinary beings: the peace they understand is one where they might grow without a boot stepping upon them."

It is simple ascetism, for the Jedi: peace is not sought, it is merely crafted. Absence of passion, absence of conflict, obstacles pushed aside but never overcome. He shook his head at the foolishness of it. The longer you leave a desire unheeded, the more frustration builds. Cage a man in a prison and he is peaceful, but the longer his incarceration, the greater his desire to escape it. The Sith understood this: one did not craft a peaceful galaxy by removing any conflict, nor by 'keeping the peace'. All beings must have an outlet, that they may see their passions best expressed. Stagnate them for too long, and the resulting explosion will encompass a Galaxy.

"How do you survive it, Jedi?", the Sith Lord asked, turning his attention back to her for a moment, his thoughts feeling oddly disorganised. So many pathways that one might take with this discussion. "Was your training not filled with chaos, obstacles around every corner, questions racing through your mind at every moment, making you wonder if you have chosen the right path?" He smiled faintly, remembering that same conflict. But when we question those choices, we come to understand why we must make them. "Did you not feel most alive when teetering on the brink of death, when surviving a challenge you thought might be your last, when overcoming that difficulty to advance one step further?"

"Perhaps life is meant to be spent in quiet meditation inside the Temple walls," he added, softly expressing a sigh as he turned around and continued his perusal of the books once more. "No challenges, no adversity, no risk. Perhaps that is the perfect life." The tall human shook his head once more, though the Jedi might not notice such. "But we both know that is the greatest of lies. Our mortality has ever been the key to our experiences: knowing that we tempt fate at every turn is the only way we truly ever feel alive, no matter how much we risk death. This is not, you understand, the Jedi way."

Spoiler

You've nothing to be sorry for! Your writing is excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed that. It was worth the wait!