He seemed fairly lifeless beneath the poking, as if he had fallen unconscious, or as though she were prodding someone sunk into a deep sleep. Simply because he had. The unique saber crystal he had engaged made the blade completely and totally harmless, yet it still left a lethargic, icy-cold touch, robbing a person of their strength. It left no mark, no searing edge, no wound where it touched. He did not even seem to be breathing for a few long moments.
That was, until she started to poke him with the stick.
Suddenly, his chest drew in a large breath of air as white eyelashes fluttered open, as though he were only now becoming physically conscious once more. He had remained mentally aware as his body fell asleep, and had heard every word she said.
That was not an apology with any real substance, but Braze could tell she wished to regain her own pride.
Braze could not hold that against her. Prior to himself, he had only known of Vernestra being knighted at so young an age. His own knighting had come upon the field of battle, and with the protection of several young padawans at that. It had been do or die, a trial by fire with real lives placed in his care. He could not expect her to know any of that, only to judge him by what she saw. Nor could he fault her for not understanding the convoluted reasons why he had been sentenced to a sort of partial self-exile for matters that had ultimately been beyond his control.
He sat up, grabbing the end of the stick and pushing it away. Then he turned those pale jade-green orbs directly toward her as the faint sentiment of humor drained from him at the outcast comment. He was silent for a few uncomfortably long moments.
"Just an Outcast?" he echoed softly.
The words came without any real heat or anger.
"Mm… perhaps..."
He rose to his feet and plucked the snapped branch lightly from where it had prodded him, turning it once between his fingers before letting it fall aside.
His eyes settled on her then.
"I do not mind being corrected. I mind being dismissed by someone clever enough to know the difference."
His expression softened after that, though only slightly.
"And for all your learning… you may wish to be more careful about which dead voices you go inviting close to your ear. Not every ancient thing that knows a truth means you well."
Braze drew a slow breath, some of the theater draining out of him.
"I will gladly concede that you are more widely read on this than I am. What I dispute is the leap from one form of a weapon to another, as though resemblance alone makes them the same invention. Ancient history does not pass cleanly through the ages. It is copied, conquered, misremembered, argued over, and dressed in the pride of every hand that carries it forward. By the time it reaches us, one is often holding fragments and calling them a chain. Even if the Sith refined one older form of the weapon, that does not make every earlier precursor the same thing as a lightsaber, nor does it make the later lightsaber theirs."
His gaze settled on her, calm and intent.
"And I think, perhaps, you mean self-contained… not self-powered. A lightsaber still requires a power source. The older designs drew from an external pack worn at the hip, but later hilts housed the power cell within the weapon itself. That made them cleaner, easier to wield, and far less cumbersome, yes… but not self-sustaining."
With a small motion of his fingers, Braze lifted one of his sabers into the air between them. The hilt parted under the careful guidance of telekinesis, its pieces separating with surprising delicacy rather than force. Bit by bit, its workings revealed themselves until a small power cell rested suspended among the opened components.
"There," he said softly.
"The crystal does not spare the weapon from needing power; it helps focus and shape that power into the blade. Modern hilts are simply better at conserving what they carry. Efficient is not the same thing as self-powered."
The pieces hovered for a moment longer in the air, gleaming faintly in the light, before he drew them gently back together with that same precise care.
