Aguarl 3: Putting faith in faith

[Tyl Ro]

A paradox. Any inclusive statement, proposition, or situation where two exclusively contradictory elements both held true. An impossible conundrum to be able to consider. Accepting one side or the other as fact is simple. Logic dictates as much. However, accepting that the opposite is also fact is not a logical course. If two things are exclusive, they hold separate meaning and function entirely. So how then can a paradox exist? The case in point was isolation versus unity. The former implied a total separation from a select, or complete, group; the latter, a total cohesion. Was it possible for both constructs to exist in reference to the same source?

On a rocky outcropping by the ocean, Tyl sat. Her slender legs were crossed, though her long, robe-like skirt flowed loosely over the woman's bottom half, concealing the positioning of her limbs. The Kaminoan's long arms draped languidly, with her hands resting palms up on her knees. Tyl's eyes were closed. She breathed slowly, imperceptibly. The waves of the ocean crashed loudly against the cliffs around her. She had chosen the location for its remoteness, the nearest human settlements several kilometers southwest along the shore; the nearest Mon Calamari and Quarren, several kilometers east, submerged beneath the undulating water. Where she sat, she could be left to her thoughts, left to her feelings, alone to meditate in tranquility.

As the surf collided with the rocks below, droplets of water and foam shot in every direction. Some of the beads made their way towards the Kaminoan, sitting not more than two meters from the edge. When a particle managed to reach a certain proximity from her, she halted their trajectory mid-flight with the Force, then started the water on a new path, orbiting around her. More and more globules approached Tyl as she sat and meditated. Each time she caught a drop, the woman would combine the new drop with the one already encircling her by revolving the drops simultaneously at different speeds relative to their size. Eventually, the smaller drops would appear as if they were absorbed by the larger sphere. The longer she meditated, the larger that sphere grew. At times, it would appear as if she had a cloud of moons revolving around her. Others, a single large blob slowly circuited, its amorphous form jiggling as it went. The randomly occurring pattern of when the waves sent excess into her territory tested Tyl's focus more than it would if the water came at regular intervals. Keeping the sizable collection of molecules together in a single object without compressing those molecules, allowing them to keep their liquid form was also an accurate test of the Jedi's concentration.

She had removed herself from watchful eyes in order to meditate. Her meditation was based on creating a unified whole. Tyl found the analogy of the form her meditation had taken to the situation with which she was faced to be appropriate. Though she used her mind to control the manipulation of the water, she allowed the process to progress on its own through her subconscious, as her thoughts and feelings blended with the Force.

 

[Tyl Ro]

Her dilemma: this was not her galaxy, not her time. Though she recognized the names of places, though the Jedi Order existed, though she even recognized names throughout this galaxy's recorded history, it was entirely foreign to her. She was nearly six hundred years into the future. Any trace of the Church of the One Force was either completely erased, or the events that had led to its creation had never occurred. Regardless which, the beings that Tyl had known weren't just gone, they had never existed. No matter what galaxy the Kaminoan found herself, there would be no way she would ever be able to return to her own time.

The nebulous bubble floating around her faltered for a fraction of a second. Tyl caught the ball of water again, calmed herself, and returned to her pondering. An onlooker wouldn't have been able to notice the slip, but Tyl knew. She accepted her fallibility.

In some ways, being a Jedi was rewarded by achieving certain levels of solitude. Whatever way a Jedi pursued their enlightenment, there were indubitable benefits to removing oneself from attachments. Without attachment, there was no want, without want, there was no greed, no envy, no personal desire. Thus, the dark side could be staved, harmony could be achieved. However, in some ways, the notion of complete solitude was a fallacy. If a Jedi was completely without attachment, they would also be without loyalty, without loyalty, there would be no Order, without the Order, there would be no Jedi.

These were things all things on which Tyl had already been meditating when she had been considering the Order aboard Haven. She had never been able to gain a clear answer, neither when she was among the Order, nor when she had left in an attempt to discover some of these very problems. She felt that she had started down the right path when she discovered Jedi Master Dantarius, but in retrospect, perhaps that notion was simply a projection of her feelings on traveling alone and on being pursued by the Church. She didn't have those worries now, and being separated from them, it was easier to look on them objectively. Tyl wasn't sure where the answers she sought lay, but dwelling on the past would not help her solve anything. Nor could she help the situation that she had been thrust upon. The Kaminoan had always been too practical to be a mystic like so many others that came before her amidst the Jedi Order. But still, she recognized that the Force could not always be explained by scientifically analytical means. Tyl would simply have to place her faith in the path that the Force had now chosen for her.

Despite her initial feelings of loneliness, feelings that were slowly resolving and melting away, there was an incredibly odd sense of unity that Tyl felt, a unity with the Force unlike anything she had ever experienced in her lifetime. Throughout the years of darkness that her galaxy had suffered, all the war, trial, and strife, the Force had dwindled. Or at least that was how it felt: elusive, scarce, perhaps erratic; as if the Force was the water in a great ocean and a drought had come over the galaxy and more and more, as the Jedi, blind to their course, attempted to swim amidst the waves, they found themselves beached on the seabed time and time again.

But this place, this galaxy was not that way. It was, in her mind, unbalancing. At first, when she had come out of hyperspace to wherever she had arrived, Tyl felt as if she had stepped onto land for the first time, her sea legs not used to the same kind of gravity she was now under. And yet, though it came uneasily, feeling the Force so fully was refreshing. The Jedi could bask in its abundance, a relief from her sporadic upbringing with the Force. Her meditation served not only as a way to relieve her doubts of leaving behind her old galaxy and to allay the fears of arriving to a new galaxy, but also in order to connect with and rebalance herself with this sensation of the Force.

Nearly eleven hours after Tyl had begun her meditation, her eyes opened, green and translucent. The sphere hung there, its slow orbit ceased from continuing its circumnavigating path directly before her face. The light of morning shone through the water at an angle. Remaining seated, she pushed the sphere straight out over the cliff, over the water, until the globe she had created appeared no bigger to her than the drops now freely splashing around her body. With a gentle exhale, she gradually released the molecules, the wind carrying enough force to blow the water, dispersing the blob in infinitesimal particles to return the liquid to its naturally free-flowing state.

 

[Tyl Ro]

The Kaminoan Jedi had landed on Aguarl 3 three days prior to her extensive meditation session. She had managed just enough of a HoloNet connection aboard the starship in which she arrived to the galaxy to be informed of basic details concerning the local star map and various news and affiliations of the nearby systems. Without food or supplies, and the understanding that she was off the map as far as her previous pursuers were concerned, Tyl had judged it was best to learn about her new surroundings while planet-side. This decision was aided by seeing that the majority of the surrounding systems were neutral as far as whatever larger galactic conflict occurring was concerned.

By some stroke of fortune, or by the Force, Tyl considered them one and the same, the drives aboard the vessel had been largely undamaged whatever by phenomenon that threw the ship to another galaxy. So she had made for a relatively backwater, aquatic world not too far off from established space routes. The relative functionality of the ship, aside from some signs of battle, a couple of scorch mark from laserfire, meant that she could sell the ship with relative ease and gain some native galactic currency with which she would be able to support herself.

The woman then made for the hall of records in the human settlement. Being a Kaminoan walking around turned a few heads, but no one paid her much mind as she sat and read briefly into galactic history. She still wore garb that was closely associated with the Kaminoan people, and her lightsaber, the only possession she maintained from her ship, was well shrouded beneath the layers of her skirt. She was far from inconspicuous, but then no one was looking for her. As far as this galaxy was concerned, she didn't even exist. Had her record started the day her citizenship to the galaxy began, she would have been born as a forty-two year old. But it wasn't her own records in which Tyl was interested.

When it came to history, there wasn't much to read. Not unlike her own galaxy, this galaxy had undergone galaxy-wide conflict to the point of a complete collapse. Most of the history Tyl could uncover was of Aguarl's, and none of that was particularly pertinent to her understanding of where she was. Tyl found more success with current and more recent galactic affairs. The multitude of factions and subdivisions floating around and the galactic conflict still in full effect were also not unlike her former home. However, the plentiful Force Sensitive related material and the lack of a truly major and overarching superpower like the Church of the One Force were absent.

The information was all superficial, of course, but it was a start. Tyl didn't suspect she would be acclimated within a day, and she certainly wasn't going to come to much understanding on Aguarl 3. But before she could think about what her next step would be, the Kaminoan needed some sort of guidepost. And even just a basic understanding of the political climate was part of that guidepost. After learning as much as she felt she could in a day's time, the woman purchased some provisions for herself, researched various fees associated with travel offworld, and made her way to the coast, stopping frequently along the way to keep herself rested and her energy up. Tyl knew that she would need it for however long her meditation would take her.

 

[Tyl Ro]

After completing her meditation ritual, Tyl felt it was time to move on. Where to move on to, however, was a problem she had yet to consider. Though, since the walk back to the small seaside spaceport would take her half of a day, the Kaminoan had plenty of time to think about it before even having the opportunity to figure out a way off of Aguarl 3. So, standing from the picturesque vista she had chosen as the site for her solitary, deep thought, she picked up the sack containing the remainder of her provisions, slung it over her shoulder, and made back for the port.

She moved slightly inland as she walked, preferring to feel the tall grasses under her feet after having spent so long sat on the rocky surface. The soil was still quite hard, but the roots of the plant life broke the rocky composition of the ground enough to make the softness noticeably different. Her skirt, heavily pleated to allow for a wide range of mobility, lightly brushed aside the strands of grass threatening to send ticklish shivers up her slender legs. The sound of the grasses parting around her blended gently with the swift breeze coming in from the sea. The Kaminoan looked out at the ocean, its waves constantly being broken and rebuilt, stretching as far as her eye could see.

She smiled, marveling at its tranquility. The woman reined her thoughts back to her quandaries, allowing the vibrations of nature soothe her, but not enrapture her, putting them into the background. In many ways, Tyl was simply at a loss. These were not her people. She could go anywhere, free of any attachment. But that was not who she was. Tyl Ro was a Jedi. And that meant something, no matter where she found herself. Whether she had a loyalty to a specific place, or people, or government was never a concern. Tyl simply would not feel right sitting idly by on her hands when she could be doing something, anything.

The problem remained: where? In her research, she found that not only was there a Republic with a Jedi Order attached to it, but there were other autonomous Jedi faction, such as a group that referred to themselves as the Order of the Silver Jedi. With so little information on the outside of these factions to go from, Tyl was unable to fathom much concerning any of the groups. She supposed, then, that her only course of action was to get closer in some way. Tyl also knew that there were plenty of Sith aligned organizations and governments throughout the galaxy, so keeping a low profile while she moved about was key. She counted herself fortunate that learning Force concealment techniques in her home galaxy was a necessary part of survival training for every Jedi.

Continuing to mull over the philosophical routes she had available from which to choose, she arrived back in the port just as the sun began to set. The Kaminoan made for the public transport service, she booked a space flight for the next voyage to Gamor. If she was going to travel using civilian transit, she figured it best to keep herself to the major space lanes. While they were more conspicuous, they were also more consistent, and less likely to be preyed upon, or put into a situation where Tyl would be forced to defend herself in armed combat. The further she could go in the galaxy without drawing her sword, the better.

The Kaminoan rented a small room for the night. The flight would not leave until morning and she had not had a full night of uninterrupted sleep for some time. Her credits were still plentiful enough for her to take several more stops before needing to find additional funding. All of those concerns were for another time. As she lay her head down to rest, her thoughts, her questions, her concerns all dissipated into a peaceful slumber.

End thread...​