Sor-Jan Xantha
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It seemed odd that there would be a Jedi Academy on Yavin IV.
The jungle moon had a historical connection to the Dark Side of the Force, one touched by the Massassi civilization and tainted by the work of Sith alchemy. Over a thousand generations ago, Yavin IV was the site where one of the greatest Jedi in history had fallen from the light. Only through the combined power of the entire Jedi Order had Yavin IV been purged of the taint of Sith alchemy. The stories and histories that the young Archaeologist had to tell of this world were not at all happy ones. Nor were they stories which the Jedi liked told.
In Sor-Jan's time, in the Old Republic, the temples and jungles of this moon had been left to crumble under the weight of their own legend and the winds of time. The Academy of Jedi Archaeologist might commission of survey here or there. But, by and large, the historical ties to the Sith and the Dark Side were enough that the Jedi stayed away.
Except, at some point, they hadn't stayed away. They'd come to Yavin IV and built a Jedi Academy out of what had been a Sith temple.
It was really quite extraordinary.
The lines and contours of the Massassi architecture, the reliefs carved into the stone, the echoes of the jungle outside. Everything Sor-Jan had been told of this moon was that only death resided here. In contrast, as he meditated, the boy was aware of the woolamanders in the tree. Or the tree bearing fruit.
Or the Shi'ido padawan.
If there was death on Yavin IV, then the life the moon boasted drowned out the sounds or signs of it. It was worlds apart from what he had expected it to be, which was a lesson unto itself.
Everything changes.
The small Anzat was meditating, but not as one might have thought. Just as Yavin IV, which was said to be dead, was instead a vibrant and alive moon so, too, was Sor-Jan meditating without stillness. Instead, he was meditation made manifest. Meditation in motion.
It was called Alchaka.
Like a dancer, the boy moved with a preternatural grace. The green blade of a lightsaber hummed as it moved in time with the motion and rhythm of his exercises.
The boy, the crystal, and the lightsaber.
Three separate entities. And yet the three were also one.
It would be hard to distill a form or style to the way in which the young Anzati moved. It was the nature of Alchaka to be personal to the practitioner and, as a student of Niman, the different forms of lightsaber combat blended naturally into how the lightsaber became an extension of his own being. The direct, simple lines of Shii-cho blended into the subtle the sweeps of Shien. The complex bladework of Soresu morphed into the acrobatic maneuvers of Ataru.
As the green blade dipped and weaved with the motion of the boy's hands, arms, body, and feet, the Corellian youngling patiently waited for the padawan to speak.
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