Private Legacies

[Tydeus of Tion]

The boy frowned. "That makes sense. Explains why what you described was more of a vignette. You're far more practiced." The gray eyes flashed. "For now. Ask me again in two months and we will see."

He opened his hand in a dismissive shrug. "You, Bernard, Kyric. Other Jedi i've met. Always so surprised that I spend so long training." He was faced with an impossible task: kill the unkillable. Once already he had failed, no doubt there would be more. He would continue to try. Even from the grave.

"What else would I do?" Unspoken in those words was the implication. Tydeus did not have a life outside of his mission, his continued purpose for existence. "Would that I could live as a fisherman or farmer. A simple - if hard - life, honest and true. That is a distant dream. It is not my destiny. And so I train."

Tydeus eyed her. "Does the small art require delving into memories? On a cellular level?"

Tansu Treicolt

 

[Tansu Treicolt]

​

"Alright, it's a date. See you in two months and all the memories you've accumulated from now to then." She stuck out her hand to shake. Just shake. No palm readings.

Kyric! He knew cousin Kyric!

"From one extreme to the next." Tansu shook her head when he leap frogged from warrior to farmer. "I ain't a life coach, and I ain't gonna tell you what works and what doesn't, how am I to know?

All i said was you were very focused. From what I saw, and what you've said since we met, your goals are clear. If what you're doing is working for you, who cares what I or they think?"

It just sounded awfully lonely. And that sentiment made it difficult for Tansu to reconcile as a proper way to live. Alone was the word she feared most. The youngest from a family of five, born to a companion and mirror image, she thrived in constant company — so of course Tydeus' life choices made her flinch. She could never make the decisions he did. Isolation was her worst nightmare.


"You got it." Tansu lied, keeping her expression as sagely as possible. To further her phoney impression of a great teacher she continued with syntax she'd read once under Master Pryce's guide: "To the point of dissecting how a memory resilient enough to be recalled is built, so one can understand those which affect them."

Smiling pleasantly, she rest her hands on her knees and rolled her shoulders once.

"Shall we begin?"

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Tydeus of Tion
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[Tydeus of Tion]

A snort at her quip, then a shake of the hand - against his better judgment lest she should probe his memories once more. She jested, but he was quite serious. With a focused mind, relentless drive, and untrammeled time, one could achieve any number of goals.

What she said about not caring what others thought, true enough if one had a family to lean on. Tydeus knew himself well enough to know why. Knew that the loneliness of his path caused him to dwell overlong on those near enough to perhaps be friends. Knew too that he only did so to find reason to push them away.

A sword did not have kith or kin. A sword had only its purpose: to kill.

Hard eyes, hard as iron - and brittle as it too - watched her. A bead of sweat trickled down his brow and he blinked it away. He was already concentrating so hard on suppressing the Wound. But he would push through. He always did.

"Hmm... very well. Yes." He had merely been theorizing and did not quite understand the slew of words she recited, as if from memory. He learned by doing. Deeds, not words. "You've done this before?"

Tansu Treicolt

 

[Tansu Treicolt]

​

"Yeah I have, back home, helped my mama with makin' some of the no-good soils good again. I try 'n use it for healin' too when the time calls for it, but it's a little trickier. The human body's a complex thing."

So ready to go, he didn't even clock her completely false description of Art of the Small. Of course he didn't; how could he? He didn't know how it worked. It was a good reminder that Tydeus had hunted her down for one purpose.

"I was only teasin'." She pat his knee reassuringly, giving him a quick once over. He looked almost uncomfortable, back to the restaurant. But they'd come so — oh right. Her mind traced back to what he'd said about the deaths, and his work suppressing the wound that was his Force presence.

"Ackshully," she started, and pushed herself up to stand "You take a minute or two to let loose. Take up some space while I grab something that'll help our lesson out."

With an ambiguous gesture that seemed like a plea to wait, she moved from her mat and scuttled to an unseen place just beyond the sparring chamber.

Beyond sight, Tansu rummaged through the meek set up of a kitchen. It had the basics and the basics only. Everything canned and nowhere near delicious looking. But she took her time. She'd seen the effort salted on Tydeus' brow, and he'd need to be uncoiled for Art of the Small to work. Especially for his first time.

Taking herself out of his presence also gave her a moment's reprieve. It was subtle, because he'd done a good job dampening his impact, but she felt a flush of vitality course through her. And with that breath of strength, the slow-dawning realization of what she had signed up to do.

Become an accessory of murder.

She'd be naive to think it anything else. And preachy to ask him to make it something else. And she didn't want to be either.

The question remained: Which was the lesser of two evils? This boy had committed his life to one cause. She couldn't deny him a tool that could be helpful. With the way he was, the best she could do was help him, not deny or deviate him.

Finally, she found what she was looking for. Two water containers.

Back on the mats, she folded her legs again and handed him the bottle of water.

"For you, but don't finish it just yet. It'll be somethin' you work with when we get started.

I think you'll be good at this, given yer familiarity with suppressing your presence. I'm not sure how this is gonna go, because it's sort of an all-in kinda power." She bit her lip, considering how to best explain this and where to start.

"It started as a power for cloaking oneself entirely. Shrinking your whole self down to the size of a teeny tiny atom. Once you're down there, you can stay itty bitty and call it a day, or, the more hella advanced, like my Grandmama and mama, start to rework the molecules around them. Changing from one thing to the next."

She tapped his water bottle. "Like altering the states of stuff from liquid, to solid, to gas. Or boilin'.." she couldn't stomach saying blood "..water."

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Tydeus of Tion
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[Tydeus of Tion]

Tydeus looked at the water container, dubious. He would not say he was good at suppressing his presence as no matter how hard he tried, he could not fully dissolve the Wound in the Force. Only dampen it slightly. Still, he was familiar with the basic principle.

When she finished talking, he nodded once.

"Shrink your presence, but really your mental focus, to an atomic level. Rework molecular structures. In this case, boil the water through convection, as opposed to conduction or radiation."

He knew that there were techniques to heat objects using a focus on conduction, or altering the light waves to cause heat via radiation. Tydeus had experimented with some of these powers, in particular the Disciples of Twilgiht.

"There's a Force sect from Dyspeth, they focus on warping light waves. I've been trying to focus those waves, concentrate them into an irradiating ray. Like a solar flare in miniature. But this Art of the Small seems far more advanced."

Gray eyes looked from the water bottle to Tansu.

"The amount of focus to alter things on a molecular level in the heat of battle... Your grandmother was incredibly skilled."

Tansu Treicolt

 

[Tansu Treicolt]

​

He seemed to know so much. Had such rich experiences from other cultures.

"Maybe you could show me that later." She wiggled her fingers, suggesting she take the information from memories rather than a full lesson.

"Yeah." A corner of her mouth ticked up, and she sounded distantly dreamlike.

​

Kiskla and her mother had never been close, and anytime Loske spoke of her grandmama it was always a little strained. The girls hadn't been deeply curious about their histories, or their family tree, too focused on what trouble they could get into next — but if she took even fifteen seconds to reflect on it, the impact of her bloodline within the galaxy was not something forgotten.

She didn't want to be like Kyric, who wore his bloodline's burden like a brand, but it was something she shouldn't forget about either. Insofar as trusting herself to be more than just capable.

"Alright, we can fangirl after, let's get some headway while the sun's still up hm?" She flinched. "Not that there's any real sun on Denon."

Her posture loosened and she sat still, closing her eyes and hoping he'd do the same.

"Let's start with drawin' ourselves in. Like a big 'ol house gettin' ready to brace against the storm. All the lights are off, doors're' slammed shut, and we're goin' underground to the basement." Was that a good analogy? She'd never taught anything before. And she couldn't remember what her mother had said.

She exhaled through her nose, and then inhaled, and followed her own advice. Peeling her awareness back from everything that stimulated her, and in, in, in. It felt like a gentle collapse, like an expert atrisian folding paper into a delicate, tiny, interwoven shape. Eliminating margins of space and filling each with more of herself.

At the smallest point, she exhaled, and stretched her awareness out beyond herself. Prodding that which she did not recognize. It would have had to be Tydeus. She could sense him, sense the structure to him, layers interpenetrating like shadows casting shadows, throbbing, tidal, deep and painful.

A stark contrast to the way her metaphysical appeared, she could understand that much.

Once more, she stretched out, amplifying her thoughts to resonate in the patterns of his shape.

Find the spaces between atoms. That's where the Force lives when it's got nowhere big to be. You see it yet?

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Tydeus of Tion
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[Tydeus of Tion]

He smiled weakly at her joke, inwardly panicking about what she might see if she did indeed seek out his memories again.

Fine. He would just seek to avoid skin-to-skin contact with this girl, since that's how she absorbed them. Or, at the very least, he would need to keep his mind guarded should they spar again. What a dangerous power.

Tydeus tried to follow her instructions, closing his eyes and falling deep into a meditative breathing routine. Lights off. Doors shut. Going underground.

He had always striven to make himself harder, faster, stronger, taller. Better. Better than any Jedi. Better than Kaine. Now... he needed to make himself small. Small as an atom.

A presence swept across his mind. Summer wind, fields of wild wheat golden in the sunlight. Tansu. She spoke into his mind.

He concentrated, focusing, drawing on all of his training to find the Force. Yes, it was all around him, permeating everything. But where did it live? He went looking for it, driving deeper and deeper. Smaller and smaller. His head throbbed.

"I see it."

Tansu Treicolt

 

[Tansu Treicolt]

​

Absolute giddiness bled into her existence and bloomed out, joyful at his affirmation. He saw it! She knew he would. She shimmered a version of woohoo his way.

Did that mean her instructions had been clear? She'd have to keep note of that analogy, since it had seemed to work enough for him to grasp and instantly succeed with.

Try'n do somethin' with it. Anythin. Turn it over. Feel it. Shimmy on over to where you sense the water down here. Give it a poke or prod and see how it responds before you do any changin' or messin' with it.

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Tydeus of Tion
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[Tydeus of Tion]

He started to. He did. His attention pivoting, as though a turning telescope gazing up at the stars. But he passed over something he should not have.

"What."

The boy looked closer, concetrating. He, of course, was looking at himself - his own presence. And within that, a vortex. At first it appeared as merely a dark fuzz in his mental eye, lit by something though he did not know what. The closer he peered, the more it drew him in. As it did, the vortex crystalized. It became an amorphous hole of energy in the Force, an impenetrable cimmerian core that drank in all of the light around it. About this core pulsed a thousand, thousand voices. Millions of them, their presences humming. Echoes of what once was, what had been.

"No."

He tried to pull away, but found he could not.

The Wound in the Force grew, encompassing his presence with a power as inevitable as gravity. The echoes of loss tore through him and he felt it ring him to his core. Again he felt the emptiness, the loneliness, the barren wasteland of ash and pain and misery. In this place between places, the Wound's event horizon began to siphon off energy from Tansu Treicolt . Tydeus recognized the effect at once, remembering how Meliant had tried to drain the Force from him. Only this was far worse.

The Wound sought to consume her, to feed upon her essence in the Force. And he did not know how to stop it.

"Tansu!"

Tansu Treicolt

 

[Tansu Treicolt]

​

It started as a tug.

Just Small. Subtle. Like the storm she'd spoken about had only manifested as a breeze. Tansu stiffened, but didn't yet panic. Her awareness remained low, still molecular, still in the current, still watching his. And when it got closer, she didn't suspect anything; just thought maybe he was lost, strayed from the water.

Then something scraped across her sense, all wrong and jagged. A cold hunger without teeth or shape, only pressure. And when she instinctively reached toward the pull, just to see what it was, she felt it.

And it felt her back.

Tansu had only ever experienced the Force as breath, motion, rhythm something living. But this wasn't alive. This was rot.

Black dread seeped through her, answering her instinct with gravity. Heavy, pulling, and overwhelming. Her breath hitched.

No—no, no, no she flinched, fingers curling tight into fists as if that might anchor her. But there was nothing to grab on to.

And it reached deeper than the initial scrape at the surface of her mind. It went for the soft, unseen parts, the parts made of light, of laughter, of the warmth she carried into every room—and it snuffed them. No smoke, no sound. Just gone.

"Wh—" Her mouth formed a word she didn't get to say. Fear rose up in her throat. She could feel the light dimming inside her.

And it was the scariest thing she'd ever felt.

Stop! she gasped, barely able to speak. Her voice was hoarse, frayed with panic. You have to stop, please stop.

She didn't know what to do.

The Force had never felt like this. Never cold, never greedy. It had always been a current to ride, but this, this was like a riptide dragging her under, fully intending to make her drown. It clawed at her light, peeled it back, and devoured it piece by piece. The world around her dimmed. There was no floor, no ceiling, no horizon, only that gravity and black dread and she had nowhere to pull back to. Her safety slipped away as the wound closed around her, swelling like a bruise.

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Tydeus of Tion
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[Tydeus of Tion]

Power flooded into him and he felt strength unequaled. As if he could reach out his mind and at a thought collapse the building, or punch through beskar. He brimmed with it, until it permeated every fiber of his being. So much power in the Force that he felt he might explode. And all of it, coming from her, ripped from her as a tsunami drags out the tides from the shoreline.

A hunger crawled into him then, an enjoyment for the hideous might from which he supped, even at so terrible a price. She began to grow cold. He could feel it. Draining her dry.

"No."

All she had done since they'd met was try to help him, despite her every misgiving. And this was the price for her aid, him ripping out her very life force?

Horrified, Tydeus battled with the Wound, pulling against the siphons that drank up her strength with every ounce of will he could muster. Sweat poured from his brow and matted his hair to his head as he clenched his eyes shut, pushing through this nightmare.

An echo drifted to the surface. One which he still saw in his dreams.

He cradled the body of his sister in his arms, her body blackened by fires beyond recognition, her skin crumbling to his touch. The boy rocked back and forth upon the boarding ramp of the family shuttle, clutching her body and sobbing, his voice raw and ragged. Overhead, obliterated satellites and orbital stations fell like smoldering tear streaks across the skies. The three moons of Tion hung like great glowing eyes, refineries and industrial complexes incandescent with the flames of their ruin. All this wealth and splendor, in a moment, all utterly ended.

If he did not stop the wound, Tansu's corpse would be the next body he cradled.

I. WILL. NOT.

The Force tremored with the strength of his will, of his single-minded purpose. The Wound gaped at him, a yawning black hole, infinite and terrible.

You are just the Echo. Thought the boy as sweat trickled down his face, and his whole body shook with the effort of his concentration. I am Tion's son. I am the heir of this agony.

And I will NOT LET

ANOTHER
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SUFFER IT
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Reality tore. The siphons wrenched free from Tansu, dissipating, and Tydeus slumped sideways onto the mat, eyes blinking open, sweat stinging his eyes.

Tansu Treicolt