Sor-Jan Xantha
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3QW8PVyyNM
L O T H A L
Temple of the Jedi
Many years ago...
Before Palpatine's Galactic Empire. Before the Clone Wars. Before the Hyperspace War, a young Jedi had been introduced to an ancient set of artifacts that were known as the Muntuur Stones.
Then, the stones had been on Coruscant, in the Kuddaka Chamber. That had been the time of the Old Republic. When Sor-Jan had arrived in the present century, and found his Jedi brethren survived as part of a New Republic, he was re-acquainted with the stones again. This time on Ossus.
He was meeting them again, for a third time. Now on Lothal. To some Jedi, a new temple might seem odd. Particularly this far from Republic space. But with everything that had been going on with the exercise of 'democracy,' the teenage Anzat could appreciate the spectre of neutrality this location gave the Jedi. In his day, the Jedi had allowed themselves to become too embroiled in the politics and wars of petty men. And, in so doing, waltzed into their own demise, and the death of democracy, unwitting pawns in schemes of the Sith.
Slowly, elegantly, the boy moved through a series of movements which might have resembled lightsaber dulon exercises -- a series of moves as though one were fighting an imaginary opponent -- except he carried no lightsaber with him. While the motions, themselves, could be recognizable from Soresu, the execution of the movements was slow. Methodical. Deliberate, almost intimate.
It was a meditative exercise known as Alchaka. Finding his center, achieving a state of mental clarity, by opening his body to the Force.
"There is no emotion, there is peace."
His master's voice, still echoing through his mind hundreds of years after their last conversation. Extending out one hand, the Anzat turned his attention to the largest stone in the room. Most weighed only a single ton. This? This was the test of a Jedi Knight, weighing in at over five tons.
Slowly, the boy stretched out with the Force, bringing his hand up slowly as the massive stone began to tremble.
"Ignorance, yet... yet knowledge."
The voice of a child. The memory of a little boy. A Rutian Twi'lek. He'd been Sor-Jan's first padawan. The memory triggered a smile, and a tear in the boy's eye all the same time.
There was emotion. And it was a convoluted mix of them.
As his will faltered, the stone that had just started to wiggle free of the ground instead settled back in a scattering of small pebbles. Exhaling with halted breath, the young Anzat swallowed as went through another cycle of Soresu orbits. Trying to regain his focus. Chasing all the demons of the past, and reconcile with all the ghosts he'd left behind.
"Passion, yet harmony. No... wait. Serenity!"
Stretching out his hand a second time, the young knight applied his will to the Force. Again, the stone trembled. Again, he slowly raised his hand upward. In his minds eye, he could see his master doing the same. A Thisspiasian. Four stones levitated as the serpentine master held all four of his arms outward.
His padawan. His friend. The best Jedi Knight that Sor-Jan had ever known. And a better man than the Anzat could have ever hoped to have become. The first time he'd managed to lift one of the Muntuur Stones, he'd been grinning like a school boy.
Sor-Jan's hand went up through the air. So came the large stone, hovering in the air several meters off the ground. The boy opened his eyes with a gasp. He could feel the Force. As his master had. And his master, before him. As his padawan had.
The boy's head jerked to one side. The memory of a clone trooper -- 3X238, though they'd called him Eyes -- clipping Sor-Jan in the side with a blaster bolt. They had fought beside each other for the better part of a year. And suddenly the clones had turned on him.
On all of them.
Except, Sor-Jan had lived. He'd been out here. Near Lothal, as a matter of fact. He hadn't been there, on Coruscant, when the temple had been sacked. He hadn't been there, when his padawan had met whatever fate that befallen him. And that was, perhaps, the saddest part of everything. Dilly had been the best part of Sor-Jan's life. And he had no idea what had happened to that happy, little boy that he'd been so blessed to watch grow into a Jedi Healer.
"The Force will be with you, always. And so will I."
Pulling his arms back into another Soresu orbit, the Anzat went through a series of breathing exercises. Repeating to himself, emotion, yet peace. Emotion, yet peace..
Stretching out with his other hand, the Anzat grabbed hold of a second stone, and felt a tremor through the ground as it's weight was disturbed. Slowly, it ascended above the ground as Sor-Jan trembled with the pressure he could feel mounting through the Force. His heart racing. His breath echoing in his ears.
"In returning this lightsaber to you, I return your trust."
The motions of earlier were different now. Shien, not Soresu. Aggressive. Forward. As the boy bowed down, he balled his hands into fists and came up from the ground as though a dead-lifter struggling with an overwhelming challenge. The garden trembled as the young Jedi stretched out to the stones once more. The two stone levitating in the air dipped, even as the third began to shudder.
The veins were standing out along his neck and forehead. "I am a Jedi Knight..." the boy uttered aloud, gritting his teeth as sweat ran down his brow. "...as my master was before me." Azul Gol, the Thisspiasian Jedi Watchman, four stones levitated at his command.
He would not be bowed. There would be three stones!
Hunger.
It came without warning. Without mercy. Without remorse.
Not the Dark Side of the Force, but an instinct. Primal and raw. It was the shadow of his soul. A feeling like that of a man who had gone a day without eating. Natural, yet wrong. Very wrong.
The boy dropped to a knee, struggling as he held both hands out and managed to hold the two stones in the air tenuously... mere centimeters above the ground now.
Kill and eat.
Coming up from the ground, the young Jedi let loose a howl as he shoved both hands upward. And three of the Muntuur Stones rose with him. Staggered, the boy tried to find his footing as he held himself aloft, arms raised as if in victory's repose, as he trembled in awe of the power that was now holding up more than seven tons.
His master had been able to lift four. Sor-Jan was struggling to maintain his control or concentration with two, three was pushing himself to the absolute limits of his resolve.
Feed me.
With a gasp, the teenage Jedi collapsed to the ground.
The stones dropped with a boom that echoed throughout the temple, and sent tremors through the adjacent chambers. And left him there, huddled in the dust as it settled, laboring to catch his breath.
The Force was strong in him. But was it strong enough?
[member="Noriko Ike"]
