There ain't no limit (Xiangu)

[Arage Bao]

Feel the tides, Matsu. Feel how it shifts beneath our scrutiny. In the metaphysical sense of the word there is no difference between the art of the Current, Sith Magicka and the simple push and pull of a Jedi Padawan- they are all the same for the Force. The siphoning of energy, converting it from one state to another to accomplish one effect or another.

Yet there are men who cannot move a spoon with their mind, though can manifest a plague on the surface-side of a planet, making people believe in make-belief symptoms to such a degree that they actually succumb to them.

Yet there are women who can speed up a phrik ballet that can rip through the fabrics of time and reality itself- I am overstating, but you catch my drift, but cannot lift themselves up in the air and fly.

The common trend that we see here is one of limits within limitless forces.

The Force is unlimited, but we ain't, aye?

Feel the tides, Matsu. Let go of the anger, the hatred, the regrets and desires that anchor you to simple existence, forget about the people you have met, the people you have left behind and the people you still meet.

They are irrelevant, I am irrelevant, the annoying itch on your lower back is irrelevant- stop scratching it, girl.

All that matters in this single defining moment is the river… the river and you.

Open yourself to it.

They sat in a darkened chamber, legs crossed and facing each other, eyes closed and expressions placed in relaxed contemplation.

‘Least, that was the purpose.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She allowed him his teaching, knowing that despite all the progress she’d made – the woman she’d become in her own right after stepping out from under his wing – she would always be his student. She had come in to knowledge she’d never even dreamed of, but he would always have some little truth to enlighten her with, still warn her of something with a cocky smile exhaling a cloud of smoke.

But this was the first time in a long time they had sat like this, gone somewhere else besides the darkened room they’d settled in. She would not pass up the opportunity.

At first when he speaks of tides she smiles, recalling their talks of control without clutching, mastery without holding so tight you ruin yourself in the process. Effortlessness. She dips in to the tide, the water swallowing her as she gives herself to the river he paints – like silk, like nothing at all as she floats downstream.

Let me show you something Master.​

She does not wrestle him or exhaust herself in a pointless show of power as she once might have, years ago, before he’d shown her a different way. She reaches her hand in to the vision and pulls – softly, gently, change the scene in its own time, work so quietly it all seems perfectly natural, stay inside – slowly changing the scenery to the roaring silence of space.

​

Do you recognize me then?​

A planet, its surface torn by war, spun on an axis unnaturally tilted – dangerous, off-kilter and like to fly out of orbit, never to be seen again. It had begun its death, swallowing itself at the core and shooting streams of plasma and dust in orange-glow arches. It was a fantastic thing, beautiful to behold. When it exploded it would be magnificent – one final explosion of catastrophic power before it slowly faded over thousands of years. Dying. Forgotten. Like every other star in the Galaxy.

And do you recognize me now?​

The perspective shifts, a one-hundred-eighty degree turn to face what lay behind the planet that had held their attention. A black hole, absolutely massive, drawing everything near it towards its clutches. The light of stars bent around its core, the gravity threatening to ruin them. There is no sound in space but the sheer power surrounding this long-dead supergiant, a roaring pressure in the ears in the wake of its existence. In front of this stellar giant, they are absolutely nothing.

[SIZE=12pt]You can’t see inside.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Nothing escapes.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]I devour everything in time.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=18pt]I am forever.[/SIZE]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]
​

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

The Sith Lord did not do anything to hide the pride that radiated from his essence with the intensity of a thousand suns, which heat was quickly siphoned off by the black hole centered in the middle of the scene- nobody missed the implication in that particular choice of words, even when teaching a lesson Ovmar was a jerkass.

Don’t mind him, he really can’t do anything about it.

It’s just the way he are~

A whisper came from his mind, curling up through the galaxy, finding the fringes and cracks, settling itself into the spirit of the soul. It spoke quietly, but the command wrapped up in a request was unmistakable.

‘Show me what you have encountered in your recent travels, Matsu. Show me... what you have learned.’

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

If she hadn’t been so deeply involved in her vision, traveling slowly along the solar current and watching the ebbing contraction and expansion of the dust rings surrounding the black hole, she might have managed to give him the hardest eye roll the Galaxy had ever seen.

He should know that he didn’t need to command. He could ask, and she would give. She wanted to – for some strange reason she liked him. Call her masochistic. But if he kept testing her patience she might show him just what she’d ‘learned’.

And not in a fun way.

But instead she switched the scene, giving him what he asked for.

Tracking Krius, knowing his every move though he felt invisible.​

Fighting two Jedi on Svivren.​

Letting Kail Ragnar sacrifice himself to save her, only to turn him away crippled.​

Facing off with Alen Na’Varro on his homeplanet, the expanse of ice behind them.​

A stand-off with Ashin Varanin on Alderaan, words of approval from the Empress herself.​

Peeling back the walls of Lasedri’s mind, experimenting on her, terrible things…​

Fighting off mercenaries intent on capturing and killing her, and killing every single one with precision.​

Knowing a Jedi was stalking her, and waiting for just the right time to turn around and gut him.​

Journeying to Malrev VI and seeing the ghost of a Sith Lord long dead – the source of her Sith Magic.​

​

Everything.​

​

[member="Jared Ovmar"]​

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

Ovmar could only mentally grin at the annoyance of the girl, forgive the guy- he really can’t help himself, sometimes he simply needs to be an asshat for old time’s sake.

With pleasure and more pride he watched her adventures, there were more jests and quips on his tongue, which quickly froze up when he witnessed her experiments on… her. Any humor was immediately gone, it was replaced with purpose, calculation and determination.

The Sith Lord brought back the image of this… Lasedri and looked at Matsu.

‘Tell me more about this girl, Matsu. This might be important.’

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

There had always been, even in the darker parts, a sense of teasing and joking in their partnership. To feel the laughter escape their floating, a tether to reality unwelcome and sharp pushing through their journey, caught her attention.

The heterochromic vision of the girl he brought back floated slowly in front of her as she lay on her back in space (or at least, she imagined it was her back as up was down and down was up and there was no direction in the stars). She contemplated the few times she’d met with the woman and wondered what the woman could have done. Her rampant paranoia pointed to having done something, or continuing to do something, that would get her in trouble but Matsu had never bothered to ask why. She could have taken it from the woman’s mind, but she didn’t care and she wasn’t a threat.

Or maybe she was.

“I know her as ‘Echo’ Lasedri, though that’s not her real name. I’ve met with her a few times for training in simple mind tricks and shielding herself in exchange for the use of her mind as an experiment.” She paused, considering her Master’s tone. “What has she done?”

[member="Jared Ovmar"]​

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

‘Piquing my interest.’ the Sith Lord replied smoothly and that was all that it took. Men and women such as Ovmar and Xiangu didn’t need anything more than that, they were the players of the Galaxy, the metaphorical Gods whereas Lasedri wasn’t anything more than a plaything, granted one who was aspiring to some vague notion of greatness and an even vaguer notion of grandeur.

What else could there be when she was guarding her identity with such a ferocity, but the closer Jared came to disclosing her real identity, the less intrigued he was?

‘I want her captured, Matsu. She might be a nobody, or she might be someone trying to upset the meticulously crafted balance me and mine have crafted.’ Ovmar gave her one of his grins. ‘Want to do this for me?’

It wasn’t a question if she could or couldn’t do this, he had trained her personally, Jared knew what she was capable of. The question was if she had a problem with betraying a woman she may or may not have grown a business relationship with.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] Did she want to do this for him?[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She had no particular ties as far as business went with Lasedri. True, Mrrew might be a little displeased that she was going to throw away someone he’d sold goods to, but Matsu wasn’t in the business of worrying what others needed and wanted unless they were close to her. Her money came through hunting beasts and from seeing to parts of Neuro-Saav, to nurturing Ovmar's brainchild when he was out falling from mountains and gathering yet another artifact.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] The question was whether she wanted to play Judas – if she wanted to pretend to nurture Lasedri, play fair, uphold her end of a bargain only to stab her in the back. (A Judas kiss, to betray someone to whom you’d appeared so trustworthy. She reached out, touched his mind gently, created the illusion of her touch along the slope of his neck, a soft whisper of her fingers.) Lasedri wasn’t foolish enough to believe that Xiangu wasn’t dangerous – she’d made no attempt to hide what she was even if she’d never disclose it and the things she’d taught the nameless woman had made evidence of what she was capable of. Or at least some.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She would always play Judas Iscariot for him. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] “Sure. Just give me some time.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt][member="Jared Ovmar"][/SIZE]​