Private Into the Living Stone

[Kallous]

Kallous stood up from his brief morning exercises as she approached the fire when she was done with her own. "I suppose that's fair. I'm sorry to hear that the forest assaulted you so. And I commend you for withholding your righeous anger and proportionate vengeance."

He glanced her way as she expressed her eagerness to get back to the search. And he shrugged. "If you're so motivated, feel free to go and look. I can make the caf in your stead. And by the time you get back breakfast should be well on the way. So please, if you feel that now is the right time to go and find it, then go. Trust your instincts, they'll do you more good than you'd think."

Kallous could easily get them some food for the morning. He was sure there were some fish in the river he could get his mitts on without too much trouble. And while not the perfect breakfast meal, they would do nicely nevertheless, and it wouldn't be so difficult to do quickly either, so the Caf would not remain unattended to.

Meaning Veyla was free to continue her mission if she so pleased.

Veyla Krinn

 

[Veyla Krinn]

Veyla considered the offer for a moment before slowly shaking her head.

"No..." A thoughtful smile touched her lips. "Yesterday taught me enough not to chase it."

She crouched beside the fire, watching the first tiny bubbles begin to form in the heating water. The rich scent of caf had already begun to mingle with the cool morning air.

"If it's going to ask me to be patient..." she said quietly, "I should probably listen."

Rather than reaching for her spear, she settled herself comfortably beside the fire, crossing her legs as she'd practiced countless times on Concordia. Her hands rested loosely on her knees, and after one last glance toward the forest, she closed her eyes.

The forge returned, its presence unfolding in a single, seamless sensation. The steady breath of the bellows, the warmth of the coals, and the quiet, measured rhythm of a hammer striking steel blended into a calm, familiar cadence.

She didn't search for another smith this time. She didn't try to force a conversation or listen for an answer that might not come. She simply sat with the familiar rhythm, letting it exist around her as naturally as the nearby river.

"The caf first," she said with a faint smile, her eyes still closed. "Then breakfast."

A quiet breath escaped her.

"After that..." she murmured, "I'll let the Force decide when I start walking."

Kallous

 

[Kallous]

"Fair enough." Kallous said with a shrug, "In that case I'll go get us something to eat. I'll be back soon."

True to his word he wasn't gone long. After making his way towards the water's edge he was there only a few minutes before he came back with a pair of fish he'd taken from the river. It did not take him long to catch, and it did not take him any longer to fillet and begin cooking the meal he'd caught for them. Tossing the guts back into the water so that other creatures might feast on what they couldn't digest. Before long their breakfast was cooking.

"I must say Veyla, I'm surprised at your progress. You've gone further than I thought you would by now. I had anticipated more difficulty, but you've proven to be an attentive student. I commend you for that." He told her, genuinely impressed by her rapid progress. "It took me years to learn the level of patience that you're showing. It's impressive."

Veyla Krinn

 

[Veyla Krinn]

Veyla opened her eyes as Kallous returned, watching him move with the same quiet confidence he'd shown the night before. She rose to help where she could, setting the mugs aside and taking one of the fillets once it was ready.

She thought about his compliment for a long moment before answering, taking her first bite of breakfast.

"Can you think of why that might be?" she asked sincerely. It wasn't a challenge so much as an invitation to consider it with her. "Nothing about this has been perfect. That's impossible." She smiled to herself. "I've stumbled through almost every lesson you've given me."

Another bite disappeared before she continued.

"The difference is..." She shrugged lightly. "...I keep trying." Her emerald eyes met his. "Eventually it starts making sense."

A faint grin tugged at the corner of her mouth.

"Remember how difficult it was for me to find the Force in the beginning?" She lifted an eyebrow knowingly. "I was convinced I was doing something wrong." She gestured lightly with the fish in her hand. "Now I know I wasn't. I just wasn't ready yet."

She took another bite, chewing thoughtfully before giving an approving nod.

"This is great, by the way." A quiet laugh followed. "You're going to make it very difficult for me to complain about eating fish for breakfast."

Kallous

 

[Kallous]

"Perfect, no. But still your progress is remarkable. And you might have had trouble, but you still made it through faster than many do. It took you... two weeks about to be able to take the dive and hear the Force's voice on command. It wasn't immediately sure, but some students take months to reach that point. You should be proud of your speedy progress."

Kallous appreciated Veyla's offers to assist with the cooking, though ultimately there wasn't much for her to do aside from passing a spice or two that he'd mistakenly left beyond his immediate reach. This was going to be a simple meal, nothing overly fancy, but prepared well enough for them to have a decent breakfast that morning. Before long she had her share on a plate, ready to be eaten.

Her compliments to his cooking soon followed, which earned an amused chuckle from the man. "Thank you. It's far from my best work, but I've been studying the art of cooking in the field for some time. I have a dear friend to thank for teaching me its secrets. Sometimes I feel it took more patience than learning the force did."

He took a bit of his own morsel. "I look forward to figuring out how to use a stove and oven next. What sort of mysteries are those things hiding from me I wonder."

Veyla Krinn

 

[Veyla Krinn]

Veyla smiled at the thought of Kallous treating an oven the same way he'd once treated salt and pepper.

"Well..." She took another bite before continuing. "I can't promise to unravel the mysteries of an oven." A quiet laugh escaped her. "I don't spend much time with one myself."

She motioned toward the little fire between them.

"But I can teach you how to cook over a camp stove." She nodded matter-of-factly. "That's a little closer to what I know." Her smile grew warmer. "Different heat, different timing, different tricks...but the principles aren't so different from what you're already doing."

She looked around their campsite for a moment before her gaze settled back on him.

"Seems fair, doesn't it?" she said. "You teach me how to hear the Force." She tapped the side of her plate lightly with her fork. "I teach you how not to burn breakfast when civilization isn't nearby."

Another bite disappeared before she added with an amused grin,

"Between the two of us, we might eventually become functional adults."

Kallous

 

[Kallous]

Kallous chuckled. "I certainly hope so. Such enlightenment has been far beyond my grasp, and I worry that I will never reach it. I can, nevertheless, hope to one day be more than I am."

"Though I will say, the greatest challenge is learning how not to burn breakfast in civilization's midst. I can handle a cookfire just fine, a cooking stove sounds to be not too difficult to learn. What I fear is the almighty oven. Such an arcane device is far beyond my feeble wisdom to utilize. Nevertheless, I'm certain that with enough effort, and hopefully minimized collateral damage, I can learn how to not turn it into a bomb."

He sighed contently as he finished his meal, then took a final sip of the Caf that had been provided to him.

Veyla Krinn

 

[Veyla Krinn]

Veyla smiled to herself, unable to help picturing Kallous standing cautiously in front of an oven as though it were some ancient Sith relic waiting for the wrong button to be pressed.

"An oven, huh?" A quiet laugh escaped her. "We can work on that together, too." She shrugged lightly. "Between your campfire and Force lessons. Then whatever I can remember from a kitchen, I'm sure we can keep you from accidentally destroying one."

A contented sigh followed as she finished the last of her breakfast, enjoying both the meal and the peaceful morning surrounding them.

"Do you want me to wash the dishes?" she asked, reaching for her plate. "It'll only take a few minutes."

Her gaze wandered toward the forest beyond the river, where somewhere among the trees a crystal still waited.

"Besides..." she said quietly, a thoughtful smile settling on her face, "there's no reason to rush."

Kallous

 

[Kallous]

"I appreciate it. Your safety net will prove indispensable in preventing armageddon."

Her offer to clean the dishes for them earned a chuckle from him. "If you'd like, I'm certainly not going to get in your way. Though if you'd rather continue your search, I can handle all business here until you're done."

That and there wasn't much else for him to be doing besides. He was, by and large, going to be waiting for most of the trip until she'd found what she was looking for. So he had no issue with doing the campsite chores while she did her searching. Though he likewise wouldn't refuse her assistance if offered.

And who knew? Maybe she would have an epiphany when she was scrubbing the remains of their meal from the utensils they'd used to eat it.

Veyla Krinn

 

[Veyla Krinn]

Veyla smiled as she gathered her plate.

"I'll handle the dishes." She glanced toward Kallous with an easy grin. "Besides, if I leave you alone with an oven one day, I should probably prove I can be trusted with a pan."

She carried her plate to the river's edge, kneeling where the current flowed gently over smooth stones. The water was cold enough to bite at her fingertips, carrying away the remnants of breakfast with little effort. For a few quiet moments she simply listened. The river. The breeze moving through the pines. Birds greeting the morning.

Nothing more. Nothing less. She rinsed the plate one final time before standing.

"Sorry..." she called back over her shoulder with an apologetic smile. "I didn't get yours."

Before Kallous could answer, something stirred. Not a voice. Not a thought. A feeling.

It slipped past her as gently as the current itself, and without questioning it she found herself walking upstream. Boots splashed into the shallows as she waded through the crystal-clear water, her attention fixed somewhere just beyond conscious understanding.

Then she stopped. Her brow furrowed.

Turning slowly, she crouched until the water lapped against her greaves, emerald eyes searching the riverbed beneath the dancing sunlight.

"It was just here..." she whispered, more to herself than anyone else.

She closed her eyes, drawing in one slow breath and then another as the forge took shape in her mind, the bellows breathing steadily while the hammer rested untouched, and instead of striking, she simply listened.

When she opened her eyes again, the uncertainty had vanished. Without hesitation, she reached beneath the rippling surface, fingers disappearing between smooth stones before finding something that felt...warm.

Her hand emerged from the water holding two crystals.

One rested comfortably across her palm, long and flawless, its size perfect for the heart of a lightsaber.

Nestled beside it was another, smaller crystal. No less beautiful, but better suited to a weapon of a different purpose.

Water streamed from both as she stared at them in silent disbelief.

For several heartbeats she simply stood there, the river flowing around her boots, the morning sun catching the facets of the crystals as though they had been waiting beneath the current all along.

Kallous

 

[Kallous]

Kallous had been about to answer Veyla when she called back to him with her apologies. But there was a ripple, the slightest trembling in the waters that stopped him. Only a moment before there was a sudden change in focus from the woman, her attention turning from him to the waters beneath her. Kallous remained silent, even as he stood up from his seat to go and see what she had found.

He knew before he got there, but he kept himself in check and kept his distance. He didn’t want to interrupt her as she pulled her hand from the water with the crystals in hand. A bigger one had split perhaps? Or maybe two separate crystals had called to her? It was hard to say, and ultimately irrelevant. Kallous could only beam proudly as she collected the kyber, her patience being rewarded.

He couldn’t help but grin as he leaned against a tree a short ways from the riverbank. Leaving Veyla to inspect her prize as she liked, and letting her decide when she would like to step out of the water, figurative and literal.

Veyla Krinn

 

[Veyla Krinn]

Veyla couldn't move. The crystals rested in her palm, water dripping steadily back into the river as the morning sunlight caught their facets. They weren't imagined. They weren't another lesson. They were real. She had found them...or perhaps they had found her. A breathless laugh escaped before she could stop it, equal parts disbelief and overwhelming relief. Her gaze lifted from the crystals to Kallous, standing quietly beneath the trees with that unmistakable smile of quiet pride. "I...I actually did it."

Without another thought, she hurried back through the shallows, sending small splashes of water around her boots. The larger crystal remained carefully secured in one hand while the smaller rested safely against it. Before she had the chance to think better of it, she wrapped her free arm around Kallous in a brief, grateful embrace. It wasn't planned. It wasn't even conscious. It was simply the first thing her heart told her to do.

Almost as quickly as it had begun, she stepped back. A faint warmth rose into her cheeks as the realization of what she'd done settled in. "...Sorry." The apology came with a sheepish smile and a quiet laugh. "I got carried away."

Her eyes dropped once more to the two crystals glimmering in her hand before lifting to meet his again. The wonder hadn't faded in the slightest. "Thank you, Kallous." Her voice carried a sincerity that needed no embellishment. "For believing I could do this before I believed it myself."

Kallous

 

[Kallous]

Kallous watched the scene unfold with an unmistakably pleased expression. This young woman who had relied on his guidance on these matters was succeeding. It was good to know that she was doing well, because it meant that he wasn’t leading her wrong.

His musings however were interrupted by an unexpected development. The Mandalorian Woman approached him with excited haste, and wrapped an arm around him to pull him into an impromptu hug. He blinked a couple of times as he tried to compute the events. Each time his brain gave him an error message. The event simply did not compute.

Her apology and explanation, therefore, was accepted without further thought. He supposed this was an exciting moment for her, so that excitement could bleed over into quite a bit. So he figured it would do no good to dwell on it.

“You’re most welcome. And thank you, Veyla, for being such an attentive student.” The proud smile returned to his face. “Now… shall we stay and camp a while longer? Or shall we head back to forge you your weapons?”

Veyla Krinn

 

[Veyla Krinn]

Veyla's smile remained as she looked down at the two crystals resting in her palm, still finding it difficult to believe that only moments ago they had been hidden somewhere beneath the river. Months of training, frustration, small successes, and more than a few failures had somehow led her here. She curled her fingers carefully around them before looking back to Kallous.

"You're the leader here." There was a touch of amusement in the words as she gave a small shrug. "I'm good either way. We came all this way to find them, but that doesn't mean we have to immediately turn around and leave."

Her thoughts naturally drifted toward what came next. The larger crystal would become the heart of the weapon she had already begun imagining, though the exact shape of it remained unsettled. A saber pike made the most sense with everything she already knew, something that could collapse into a more compact weapon when needed. Then there was the smaller crystal and the possibilities it presented. Her mind could have happily disappeared into designs, alloys, mechanisms, and forging techniques for the remainder of the morning.

Instead, Veyla deliberately pulled herself away from those thoughts and looked around at the river and the forest surrounding them. The weapons would come. There would be plenty of time at her forge to discover what these crystals were meant to become. For now, she was surprisingly content simply being here. "Although..." A small smile returned as she glanced toward Kallous. "I admit I'm curious to see what we can make together."

Kallous

 

[Kallous]

He shrugged, "I guess we can stay a while. We're not in too much of a hurry. We could certainly stand to enjoy ourselves for a little while before heading back."

He turned back to the campsite and took a seat. "Though truth be told, I'm not altogether sure what people do on outings like these. I've been in the wilderness before, sure. Though most of my time was spent in meditation or ponderance. I've never done so for leisure, so I'm afraid my sudden "leader" status will do neither of us any good on that front. Any ideas?"

He was, after all, still new to this whole... living life thing.

Even now just relaxing wasn't so easy, he found himself again thinking of the immediate future. What would happen next and what would come after that. The kind of weapon she would choose to make, and how best he could train her with it. She was already familiar with the use of a spear, though a lightsaber pike wasn't quite the same, with a blade being about as long as a regular lightsabers. Perhaps a little shorter, though not usually by much, a shoto saber usually being the shortest blades on such weapons. And it had far greater cutting capability than the spear she'd used prior, bigger cutting edge, less forward mass sure, but significantly greater leverage than the average saber too. In other words it was a weapon to be feared in the right hands. And with a collapsing haft, which he was certain she would put on it, it could also be used as a regular saber, or something close to it.

He looked forward to sparring with her once she had it in her hands.

Veyla Krinn

 

[Veyla Krinn]

Veyla couldn't help but smile as Kallous admitted his uncertainty. For someone who had guided her through the mysteries of the Force with such quiet confidence, it was strangely comforting to discover there were things outside his experience as well.

"Then I suppose we're both learning something new today."

She settled onto a nearby log, carefully tucking the two kyber crystals safely away before stretching her legs toward the warmth of the fire. For a while neither of them seemed in any hurry to speak. The breeze stirred gently through the trees, carrying the scent of pine and fresh water while birds called somewhere deeper within the forest. It was peaceful in a way few places ever were.

Eventually, conversation returned as naturally as the river flowed beside them. It wandered from one subject to another without destination. Kallous showed her which plants could be gathered safely, which berries to avoid no matter how inviting they looked, and how to recognize the subtle signs of fresh game without ever seeing the animal itself. Some lessons she already knew from Mandalorian survival training, while others came from years of quiet experience that only time spent wandering the wilderness could provide.

She listened with the same attention she had given every lesson before it, though this time there was no pressure to master anything. No expectation beyond enjoying the afternoon and committing another piece of knowledge to memory. It felt... lighter than their training usually did.

When the sun finally began its slow descent, and the shadows stretched longer beneath the trees, Veyla rose and brushed the dust from her trousers. Her hand instinctively rested over the pouch containing the two crystals. They seemed somehow warmer now, no longer distant possibilities but the beginning of something real.

"I think I'm ready." She looked toward Kallous, a quiet excitement returning to her smile. "Let's go build them."

Together they gathered the last traces of their camp before setting off through the forest, leaving the river behind. The journey to find the kyber crystals had come to its end.

The journey they would forge with them was only just beginning.

Kallous