Jedi Brat!
Braze knelt in the dim training chamber, its stone walls bare save for the faint etchings left by countless hands before his. A strip of dark satin cloth dangled loosely from his fingers. His breath was steady, measured, as he prepared to plunge himself into silence and shadow.
Blindfolding himself was no longer the challenge it once was. Darkness had become a familiar companion, a comforting void where the Force sharpened in place of his sight. With a practiced motion, he secured the cloth over his eyes, tying it snug at the back of his head. The room vanished into darkness. The contours of the chamber, the faint glimpses of light reflected on the watery floors all vanishing from view.
In their place came the ever-present embrace of the Force, the delicate threads of existence filling his awareness. It whispered to him of the room’s shape, of the floor’s rigidity beneath his knees, of the shifting waters ahead. He stretched out, not physically, but through that deeper sense, feeling the world around him ripple in his mind’s eye like water disturbed by a pebble.
Blindness would not be the focus of this exercise today. Today would be the final step of his long practiced mastery of Faalo's Cadences, enveloping himself in a shroud of silence. The absence of voices, the lack of direction that sound provided. He reached for the small, modified earplugs at his side, their smooth surface cool to the touch. Hesitating, he exhaled. For all his comfort with the void of sight, silence still unnerved him. He slid one plug in, then the other.
The world shifted again.
The chamber's faint echoes, the distant hiss of air through vents, the sound of his own breath—snuffed out. What remained was an abyss, a terrible stillness that made his chest tighten. He opened his mouth, instinctively seeking a sound—any sound—but none came. The sounds of the room’s life, always present, now lay hidden from him.
The initial sensations swelled, oppressive and strange. The silence wasn’t absence; it was weight. It pressed in on his ears, his mind. He could feel the pulse of his blood in his head, a rhythmic thud that filled the void, foreign and loud. The movement of his throat as he swallowed felt amplified.
Braze stilled himself. He inhaled deeply, letting the Force guide him through this queer quietude. There was a hesitation in his first attempts—like groping through a mist he could neither see nor hear—but soon he found it. The faint ripples of life. His awareness expanded, slowly, finding harmony in the overwhelming silence.
This was his goal: to move without sight or sound, to trust the Force fully. To hear its quiet direction in the absence of all else. He moved to stand and stepped up on to the tight rope with only the Force to guide him.
