Fresh off the Frigate

[Rosalina]

Bosph
Abandoned Farm

Once or twice a year, Alm would travel with her brothers and sisters down from the mountains and into the plains of their homeworld, Manas. They’d stay at the city of Kafez for a week or so, trading pelts and trinkets for food and equipment. By galactic standards, Kafez could hardly be called a city in the face of Sel, the thriving desert capital. Modernization brought great strain to her people, a factor that had always been present in Alm’s life more or less.

The grassy fields of Bosph stretched into the horizon, bringing a sense of comfort and putting anxieties into the back of her mind. It was like home, in a way—except for the startling natives which she had the fortune to not come across frequently. They hardly seemed interested in the young woman as well, which was fine with her. Still, she preferred the mountains to a flat stretch of land…hunter instincts taught her to use her surroundings to hide. Here, there was little to blend into and Alm stuck out like a sore thumb which was great when you were a 6’2” teenage girl with gangly, awkward limbs.

She felt a little better about that as she closed in on her destination, an old abandoned farm with decrepit structures and rusting equipment. The person she was to meet had requested a place of solitude, away from the decorum of temples and prying eyes. Alm could not complain.

Speeder parked, she disembarked and began to meander around what was once likely a barn, not too keen on entering the decaying building. Instead she ran her hand over the corroded metallic surface belonging to a large machine, its frame dilapidated beyond recognition and partially sunk into the earth. Her nails scraped at the rust in curiosity before her head lifted, scanning the farmstead to see if she could sense any new arrivals. She hoped that this one would be nice.

[member="Vereshin"]

 

[Vereshin]

- - -​

A raven cawed sharply across the gentle wind and perched itself on the remains of a machine. Ruffling slick, black feathers, the bird pointed a beak at the young Acolyte and cried in her direction. As the call grew louder, the raven spread it's wings and released it's claws from the rusty surface, taking to the air and disappearing into cloud of opaque smoke. Particles of light dispersed and fluttered down along the wind like texture less ash, before reforming and taking the shape of a figure, a man with hair the same colour and straight surface of the raven's feathers. Vereshin slid his hands into his coat pocket and appeared a few meters away from the eyes of Alm.

"I hope you don't mind the location, I rarely visit the Sith temples." The sorcerer parted his thin lips to reveal teeth turning black and raised a hand to slick over his hair. He wore a long, dark green coat with patches on the sleeves and suit pants tucked inside boots. A scarf was slung casually around his neck and rested over each shoulder. At a first glance, he did not appear a Sith at all, only the sickly hue of his skin and the discoloration around his eyes suggested otherwise. He traveled to Bosph to teach an Acolyte for the first time in his life. Already a formidable sorcerer, had not long received the title of Sith Knight and attempted to mask his nerves with a display of illusions.

"A pleasure to meet you, Acolyte, I am Vereshin. I don't mind if you call me Vi." They met beside a decrepit and forgotten tractor and he slid a hand out into the air and offered it to her to shake. The Acolyte towered over him and he took a step backward with a subtle gulp as his nerves heightened, with some good combat training, she could easily have crushed him. "I sincerely welcome you to the Sith Order and I hope I am able to teach you some valuable skills." Vereshin finished as Alm took his hand to shake. "What you just saw was an act of distorting light. I did not truly turn into a raven, but merely conjured an illusion to take the form of one, while destroying the light matter making my appearance visible." He retracted his hand and slid both of them into his pockets.

"Distorting light is just one of many mental techniques used to confuse an opponent and toy with their perception of reality." Backing away slightly, he gave Alm some space and allowed her to listen. "So tell me, what skills do you seek to learn as a Sith. The Force is vast and can be utilized in many different ways." He felt his glasses loosen slightly and raised a hand to push them up the bridge of his nose.

[member="Alm"]

 

[Rosalina]

The raven’s cry startled her, chin tiling upwards and hand recoiling back from the machine as it landed. Alm blinked as the bird seemed to point at her, wondering if she was imagining the gesture. Before she could have more than a moment to question, the creature seemed to dissolve right before her eyes and reform a few feet below to take the shape of a man.

She simply stared as he spoke, face of stone naturally unreadable yet inside she was wracked with nerves. Would he be cruel? Impatient? It was a relief to see that he had an almost soft, polite look about him but Alm had learned that appearances can be deceiving, especially among the Sith.

“My name is Alm.” Her Basic was still shoddy but she’d learned so much since leaving Manas. In Sel, Basic and Nasvali were interchangeable but out here in the big wide galaxy, she could only be understood if she spoke Basic. “Nice meeting, Vers…Vereshin.” It took her a moment to sound out his name.

“Thank you.” She responded simply to his welcome, quickly extending her hand to meet his own. The height difference hardly registered to her given that she was already getting used to being taller or nearly as tall as most of the other near-humans she’d met so far—and she still had more to grow!

Alm listened to his explanation, brows creasing in thought as she had to concentrate for the sentences to make sense. Once digesting that, she nodded, perhaps dumbly. “Like…ah…zakim.” Her people’s word for ‘mirage’. “In desert with heat and tired, see something but something not being there?” She didn’t quite understand the difference between hallucinations of the mind and tricks of the light, but she was curious. She didn’t want to survive on her imposing figure alone.

“Want…ah, want learning more that.” She pointed above Vereshin to where the raven had sat a short while ago, wiggling her fingers to simulate the dispersion of light. “Like bird!” She blurted, quieting immediately and feeling silly, but hoping that he would be able to understand her broken speech and want for an introductory lesson in illusion crafting. He looked smart so he might—it was the deduction she came up with from the clothes he wore. He looked like one of the university students she’d seen on the streets of Sel with the sharp, intellectual look about them. She’d thought them strange at first considering her people were used to loose, flowing clothing. On him though, it seemed to fit.

[member="Vereshin"]

 

[Vereshin]

The girl greeted Vereshin in broken basic and struggled to pronounce his name. He only slid his hands into pockets and offered her a warms smile while silently encouraging her with her new language, nodding every time she stated a word correctly and making a mental note to speak slower. As she described her idea of the illusion, he took a moment to realize she referred to a mirage seen by exhausted travelers in the desert. Growing up in the frozen tundra of Ziost, life in the desert remained a mystery to him.

"Mirage." Vereshin corrected reassuringly, trying to cut back on complicated words to make himself easier to understand. "A mirage and an illusion are not exactly the same." He explained before a pause to allow Alm to understand the sentence. "A mirage is created by the mind, whereas an illusion is a distortion of light created by a sorcerer to confuse the mind of another." The sorcerer finished and smiled at Alm's enthusiasm. He understood enough to know that she wished to learn tricks like the one he previously displayed.

"I can certainly teach you to conjure your own shapes and images." A slight chuckle accompanied his sentence as he began to walk away from the machine, beckoning Alm to follow him. "First we need to start with the basics, I need to teach you how to cloak your form with the Force." He stopped himself when he realized the long sentences might be difficult for Alm to understand. "I need to show you how to become invisible." He tried not to sound too patronizing, only wishing for to take in majority of what he had to teach her. Vereshin turned and walked into the space of the field and outstretched his arms, destroying the light making his form visible and disappearing in a cloud of black smoke. He then walked around the Acolyte and appeared at her side.

"Alright, sit down, at first it requires concentration, but after enough practice it becomes easy." Finding a nice patch of grass that was not too long, Vereshin flared out the back of his coat and sat down in the field, waiting fir Alm to join him. "Take a deep breath and relax, gather all your energy into a singular focus." Once she was settled, he invited her to channel her energy and concentrate. "The light is the energy which makes people see you, use the force to gather the particles and slowly repress them, make them dull and expel them from view." Crafting illusions functioned like telekinesis gripping the matter making up the light and destroying it. Vereshin decided to stop there and allow the Acolyte to practice the technique for herself.

[member="Alm"]

 

[Rosalina]

“Mirage!” She declared with perhaps a bit too much excitement, a quick smile blooming across her face. Her subconscious picked up on the fact that he was encouraging her with little nods as she pieced her sentences together, leading her to get the impression that he was the patient sort. She certainly hoped.

Her face hardened rapidly in concentration, the contrast from her earlier, softer expression stark. After only being off of Manas for a short time, Alm’s basic was improving fast given that it was the only language she could use to communicate. Still, it requited a good amount of concentration, especially when things turned to matters of the Force.

The Nasvali nodded slowly as she did her best to absorb Vereshin’s explanation, watching with wide-eyed fascination as he literally disappeared in front of her eyes in a flutter of light. She jumped when he reappeared, hand pressing against her heart as her face stared to screw up in instinctual irritation. It faded just as quickly as it came, replaced with something more earnest.

Nodding eagerly, the young woman lowered herself onto the grass so that she was facing her teacher. Arranging her long limbs so that she sat cross legged, she listened intently to his explanation, concentration lining her face as she tried to translate it into terms that she already knew. Pyrokinesis was the one skill she had learned on Manas with a bit of air shaping thrown in for old culture’s sake. She was used to gathering energy, speeding up molecules to create heat and eventually fire, so grasping this wouldn’t be too different…right?

Replaying his words over in her head, Alm held a hand out in front of her and stared down at it. She found that gathering the Force into a smaller area allowed her to focus easier, at least when learning a new technique. This was no different as the Nasvali practically glared at her hand, pinpointing her energy over the appendage and willing the particles of light to dim. This caused the light around her hand to flicker in spots, dulling the appearance of her flesh for a moment before she dropped her hand in frustration.

“Hard.” She declared, frowning down at the offending hand that refused to disappear.

[member="Vereshin"]