Together, We Will Learn [Seroth]

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa sat cross legged on the mat facing out to the vast black sheet that was space, pinpricked with diamonds of light. Given another time she would have enjoyed its beauty, but time was slipping through her fingers and with so little time to sleep since Omni had attacked Croscant, she was instead deep in meditation while she waited for her new student.

Seroth Ur-Rahn, raised at the Jedi Temple, she had a feeling that she would learn just as much from him that he would from her. If Truth be told she was apprehensive about the training. Seroth was to be her first padawan and with so little experience herself she was worried that she would fail him.

The sooner the thoughts had crept into her mind, however, she had squashed them. She would do everything she could to develop the boy, she would follow the example Darron had set her and they could learn together. She had experience in life, she could share that with him if nothing else, but first she needed to meet with him, to see what he needed to learn, what he wanted to learn.

So she waited for him to join her in the training room aboard the Teferi, using the time she had to absorb as much energy as she could from the force.

@[member="Seroth Ur-Rahn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

His demeanor was practiced, touched with natural and purposefully relaxation. His mind, though, buzzed incessantly and Seroth found it currently difficult to quiet his thoughts. The Force could not be heard above a tumult of conflicting noises generated by an anxious mind. The Padawan paused in his step, paced himself through a taught relaxation exercise and diluted his thought process to just a peaceful echo. Later meditation would allow his trains of rumination to resume. Hopefully, a touch of inner insight would allow him to open up to some needed answers.

Coruscant... The Padawan knew the ancient accounts of the Republic Capital suffering repeated sackings. Yet, what this 'machine uprising' unleashed was more in tune with the old wars waged with the Vong clans: xenophobic annihilation, enslavement, assimilation. This 'Omni' was using the pretext of some kind of galactic ascension as excuse for casual destruction. Against this array of cold calculation and premeditated massacre, there was this strange texture of... folly. As though this AI, Omni, had more akin to the average 'meatsack' than it dared consider.

Again, the noise came. Seroth again paused in the vessel corridor, ran the mental exercise once more and nerved himself for his first meeting with Master Mazhar. This assignment, handed down from the high office of the Grandmasters, had caught him off-guard. He expected a return to his sheltered training in the Tython jungles. Seroth was a novice yet, untested, untried. He didn't lack gratitude for the gracious consideration... But there was a plague of doubt. The Living Force had a grander scheme of things; how did this fit and how would it play through?

The queries would wait. He'd dallied long enough and they were running off of borrowed time. The Padawan rang politely at the chamber annexe doorway and strode through when the maglocks disengaged. Seroth took careful note of the especially pretty Jedi Knight sitting in a patient meditation squat, bowing respectfully as he approached and sat down against his folded knees. "Master Mazhar," He said in his customary smooth baritone.

@[member="Rosa Mazhar"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

She felt him coming, long before he got to her. She wrapped her empathy around him and tried to get a feel for Seroth in the force. There was doubt in him, but nothing that gave her any real concern for which she was truly grateful. After the onslaught of emotions she had felt on Coruscant, the last thing she needed was a padawan who was emotionally wild.

She opned her eyes as he entered, turning her head to smile at him as he joined her on the meditation mat. She chuckled at him calling her a master. "I'm not sure if I like being called that. Knight Mazhar will do, Seroth. Though I would prefer Rosa." She tilted her head to oneside as she studied him.

"Before we get into the swing of things, I believe I owe you a thanks for your timely arrival on Coruscant. How are you holding up?"

 

[Seydon of Arda]

The chamber was modest, with unadorned bulkheads and a wide plastisteel view-port that showcased space's vast expansion. Seroth looked past Rosa's shoulder a moment and caught the endless flashes of many, nameless stars, the stark emptiness complimenting the spartan aesthetics that seemed to dominate so many facets of Jedi life. The Padawan smiled, reminded of his quiet, bare quarters back at the Tython Compound; dark, basalt walls, a tool bench, cot for resting and the usual cleanly amenities.

"You needn't thank me," He said suddenly, grey eyes like wet sea-stone, turning to his Teacher with undivided focus. "I... I was simply there, when I was needed. As was intended, if the Force had any say." The Padawan smiled.

"Though..." Seroth went on, holding out his hand flat between them. It was perfectly still, from fingertip to the shoulders, rigid as a tree trunk. Then, as the Padawan relinquished his usual focus, a tremor showed in the knuckles and his face grew drawn with long lines of trouble. "I dream and I see the dead screaming through sheets of long, cold lights. My nerves are a little frayed, Master Rosa."

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze before moving it back to his lap. "Your an empath." she said softly with a sad smile. Rosa was still undecided if those with the gift empathy were blessed or cursed. There was still the matter that he was calling her a master. though having been raised in the temple it would take time to wear that formality away so for now, she let it be.

"I understand better than most what you're going through. Truth be told its takes years to master controlling empathy while awake, and even longer when you sleep. I share your images Seroth, only they come to me when i'm awake" she gestured at her own tired features. "Hence the less than pretty state. I wouldn't advise however, following in my steps and avoiding sleep all together, it does nothing to help your nerves."

Rosa had spent hours since they had fled Coruscant building up her metal barrier. Keeping busy where she could and occupying her mind for the moment her mind quietened she was assaulted, and this was while awake, never mind when she slept. She realized she had been silent for a moment, her forehead creased into a thoughtful forwn. "Sorry," she said shaking her head and bringing herself back to the present.

"As you know desperate times call for desperate measure and the Order needs as many fully trained Jedi as they possibly can in this time of crisis. I know you spent time with Master Ryori, and having been raised in the temple on Coruscant I think there is little left that I can tech you in the way of battle. I could sit here and test you and make my own decision on what you need to learn but I believe it is important that we are able to identify our own weaknesses."

Her brown eyes settled into his grey ones as she wrapped her mind around him seeking to help calm his frayed nerves. Before asking him "What are your weaknesses Seroth?"

 

[Seydon of Arda]

"They're manifold, unfortunately," Seroth said in a fast chuckle. "Something my teachers were ready to remind me 'round the bend of every accomplishment."

At Rosa's damp, softened touch of her mind lightly plying against his, the youth's demeanor further relaxed. His shoulders slouched as, unconsciously, his right hand flexed and rubbed at the muscle of his left wrist, loosening a slight cramp from his morning gymnastics routine. The Padawan strode in muffled paces around his Teacher and stood a step behind to better observe the wide, starlight panorama.

"...I'm poor for most kinds of subtlety," He began to say at length, looking to Rosa, lips lifted faintly. "I'm told I'm a poor tactician at times, that I don't understand the wider strategy behind my 'base skill'. For everything I do, so I'm reminded that I forgot to consider a thousand secondary approaches."

"What else...?" Seroth mumbled. "So many, many things... I grow absent minded. When it comes to application of Force ability in any given moment. Apparently I trust too much in the strength of my sword arms over the strength in the Light. Mind trickery is a hardship, as is a myriad other supposedly 'subtle' powers. And... character plays into that too, I think."

The Padawan turned about, hands lifted palms upward. "Say for instance, you'd be standing there with a hot firebrand in your hands. From some tech-forge or summat. It'd be a fool's action, to gesture so freely when there's an avid chance you'll bring that melting heat down upon my open hands. But I argue..."

Here now, his eyes quivered with a challenged wonder. "If I'm not able to trust in your goodness, have hope that you'd never commit such a thing, than what Jedi am I? What place has cynicism in our lives? Such is another criticism: that reality has to override principles and I fear, Master Rosa, that I'll never abide letting that happen..."

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa listened to Seroth intently her brown eyes following him as he paced. Tactics, and subtlety came with practice, something he would only gain in the field. The field was exactly where she was taking him but that was information for later in the session. Focus, she could teach him, she could raise his awareness in the force that in turn wold allow him to became more subtle, to see the other options that are blind to him in the heat of the moment.

"That," she said sharply at his last comment "is not a weakness. It is a rare trait that should be treasured. We are fast losing our ability to trust in the goodness of others. I would encourage you to open your palms, to have hope, but I would also encourage you to be aware." she rose from her mat smoothly.

"Centre yourself, Seroth. Quiet your mind and let the force flow through you." As she spoke she moved past him to the centre of the room. "Some people are made to be masters of the blade, others are not. I can help you increase you focus, teach you to raise barriers against the images you speak of, the rest come with practice. When you are ready, extend you senses through the force and tell me what you feel."

As Rosa spoke, she extended her own empathy so she could track Seroth and pick up on what he was missing.

 

[Seydon of Arda]

The boy nodded, pacing his feet out to an approximate shoulder width distance from heel to heel. Meditation, despite his protests to the contrary, was an easy skill that came to the youthful Padawan. He'd been just a little past four when a faceless instructor, their identity and name lost to memory, began the slow lessons of calmly reaching in to reflect the heat that was one's 'center'. Their emotional and spiritual heart. Seroth slowed his breathing, clenched his eyes shut, and kept his hands clasped behind the small of his back.

Without sight and the Force ebbing like a hot tide into his pores, sound and scent took on heightened meaning. The air was laced with a metallic tang and a soft aftertaste of churlish chemicals. Mayhap a byproduct of the vessels recycled atmosphere, the walls being an unremarkable collection of plated, sealed bulkheads and recessed strip glowlamps. There too was a crinkling sensation in the walls, little hisses and snaps of electrodes beaming at near lightspeed to and fro from master circuits out to answering modules and circuit boards. ...Then a softer, but far deeper sensation. Master Rosa's quiet breathing. The dull, heavy palpatations of her heart.

But this was all just mere physical awareness. His brow dipped forward in concentration. Seroth endeavored to peel back the veil that seperated the crude matter of their flesh from the true, luminous quality of their souls. Their life-force. It came slowly, with difficulty, but always gradually. Despite his sight being closed by clenched eye-lids, his vision seemed to 'expand' in an indescribable thought capacity. He could percieve a modest detail in a three hundred degree 'bubble'... he could press his 'vision' past the layers of decking and outer hull, looking into the void and the endless starlight shimmering warmthlessly. Seroth gathered his meditative wits, pulling his perceptions back inwards, seeking out the warm glows and soulful echoes emanating from both himself and his companions aboard.

"I can feel..." Seroth tried saying. "I can feel you, Master Rosa. I can... hear... what constitutes and defines you as 'yourself'. And outside... Outside, there's the ringing of starlight. The chill of the void, its eternity. Yet, it all feels... distant. Like behind a veil of glass. I can't tell if that's a barrier my own senses have erected, or just one that's naturally there."

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa smiled. He picked up on the jist of things, but he lacked details. "In time of distress we raise a barrier to protect ourselves, often subconsciously. The barrier is your own."

She clasped her hands behind her back as she watched Seroth. "Lower the barrier Seroth. There is nothing to fear on this ship."

[OOC: sorry its short ]