Private Light Fingers

[Jacen Voidstalker]

Jacen didn't travel very heavily. Most of his things had been left behind when the Alliance had collapsed. The betrayal had been absolute, sith in the highest echelons of the Alliance.

Fortunately he had changes of clothes; the cake had not entirely come out of his shirt. He didn't know what they had used to colour the icing.

"Have you ever picked up on someone else's thoughts or feelings?" he asked her as he closed his case.

"In the same way you felt the rock we need to do the same with finding another mind. You must be able to do it, because you can lash out at a mind. This time no throwing rocks...or crushing people's thoughts...we can start with the people in the room next door. "

 

[Serya Talith]

Serya looked over at him, brows raised. "What if there isn't someone in the next room?" Came the harmless challenge. "How would you know?" She turned on her heel, her lips upturned. "Are you snooping?"

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

Jacen brought his hand to his forehead and slowly and dramatically dragged it down his face. A jedi has patience and wisdom, he silently reminded himself.

"I can sense everyone around us. Even without intruding on anyone's thoughts - or snooping - I've got a rough sense of how many people there are. Two next door for a start. I think they're packing."

 

[Serya Talith]

The smile grew into a knowing look, her eyes alight with teasing mischief.

"One should know better than to snoop in a hotel, least you want to start hearing beds knocking into walls," came the almost poetic vocabulary from the street rat.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

That brought his attempts to teach her grinding to a halt. Jacen looked as if he had an entire second spiel lined up before it was whisked away.

Jacen was an experienced soldier. Little usually phased him. He just hadn't expected that from the apprentice. He looked towards the wall then back to Serya.

"Well that's not the case here so can carry on."

 

[Serya Talith]

Serya broke out into laughter, the first of its kind. "You checked," she taunted, hints of her age shining through as she sat into the chair besides his bed.

The laughter continued to bubble from her unhindered, the noise light and almost a giggle as she calmed herself down in the chair. "How do I do this?" She prompted again, her train of thought lost.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

"I double checked," he said firmly. He was at least responsible enough to have made sure she wasn't about to soak up a whole world of nasty from the minds beyond that wall. What she had suggested was down the list of things he was concerned about her overhearing.

"What is it like to reach out and influence someone?" he asked.

"And please don't answer that question by using that ability to remind yourself..." he tacked on quickly.

He was, at least, starting to learn too.

 

[Serya Talith]

Doh.

She stopped herself from trying, her brows furrowed as she tried to think back. "I dunno," she answered honestly. "It's not like I ever... knew what I was doing. I just wanted to get something and it felt good to make it happen. Like a draw, almost? A nice pull."

She paused, then asked tactfully. "What's it like for you?" She looked up at him from behind her hair, worried there might be something broken about the way she went about it.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

Jacen decided that too many lectures would tip the scales. He needed her to listen to his advice, not to resent it. He decided to brush past the talk of a pull for now. There was a thin line to be walked when controlling someone's thoughts. Easily crossed.

"Maybe it's experience, but I'm more aware of someone's mind before I make the effort to trick them. Living beings are like...bright spots in the ebb and flow of the Force. Almost like...junctions in a Web. I don't feel a draw, but I focus hard on the suggestion I want and force it down that link. You'll need to learn the first part. Seeking out people's thoughts and feelings without changing them."

 

[Serya Talith]

"Is this.... like pulling memories from the rocks?" She hazard, a half hopeful edge to the guess she made. Truth be told, she liked learning. Her eyes sparked for it. Her mother always told her knowledge was power.

In a galaxy that liked to eat people like her for breakfast, she could use all the strength she could get.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

"Sort of. Yeah, that's not bad. So try and recreate how you reached out to the rocks and felt them. But a living thing isn't just an...object. You should feel a difference. It's like...I don't know. The difference between studying something with your eyes or by touch alone?"

Jacen was certain he had explained these things a thousand times, but that felt like a life time ago now.

 

[Serya Talith]

Serya took this in, her eyes closing for a spare moment as she tried to bridge the connection he spoke of. Her eyes snapped back open almost immediately, her brows pulling in as she hit a wall that most beginners did.

"But I can't see or touch them."

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

Jacen waited a few seconds. There was a chance that she might stumble across the answer without him. Sometimes it payed to be patient and silent rather than to give constant instruction.

"Try this: close your eyes and focus on my presence. It should be much brighter than anything else. Then try and stretch out and find the other lights. Nothing else is as connected to the Force as life. Especially not old bricks."

 

[Serya Talith]

She squeezed her eyes back closed, her frustration only existing for herself, not his lesson. She didn't like being slow and she got the distinct feeling that she was. Jacen's patience endured, no comment made as he waited for her to try again.

She let out a stressed breath, then relaxed her face, trying to focus in on him first. The change in tactic was all it took, a gasp pulling from her lips as his presence lit up in her mind's eye.

"Oh," was all she said, the noise of understanding belaying her success.

It's like junctions on a web.

His words urged her forward, her mind stretching out past the walls. They didn't stop her, not like she expected, instead the visual in her head expanded two-fold, several more pin pricks of life sketched out on the mental plane she studied. He said it looked like a web. She saw it differently.

"It's like the nervous system."

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

"The Force flows through all living things," he stated. A statement he had made so many times back at the academy.

"It flows through everything else too, but its life that makes it possible. So you can touch a rock, lift it even, but a living being is far easier to reach out to. Far harder to manipulate, which is probably why when you did find the rock you nearly took out an airspeeder with it..."

"Can you sense anything different about those bright junctions?" he asked her. "Just finding them is a big step."

 

[Serya Talith]

"I-" She tried to keep herself focused, distracted by his reassurance that she had taken a big step. She resisted the urge to open her eyes and check if he was teasing her, her will power alone keeping her on task. She wasn't going to let her progress slip away to paranoia. She let out a long breath, trying to read the nerve endings like she had read the bricks.

"One is... angry," she murmured flinching as the sensation rippled through her mind. She turned away from it, letting out a yawn.

"The other tired?"

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

"I think more fed up than tired actually," Jacen said.

Realising that she had taken a big step and that pointing out her errors to start wasn't very positive, he added: "But that's very good."

"It is a sense you'll learn to explore more and more. One day you'll be able to pick up on anyone harbouring bad intentions in your direction."

 

[Serya Talith]

Her eyes opened, a grin splitting across her face.

"Now that is handy." In just a day she had gained more skills to the protect herself than she had ever had before-- sensing enemies? Chucking rocks through them. She felt more empowered in that moment than she ever had before.

"Is that how you found me? Can you like-- treat it like cctv or- track people like that? How far does it go?" Their train would be soon, but this was all that was on her mind.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

"If people form a bond, it can cross most of the Galaxy, but otherwise a few hundred meters? You might sense a familiar presence from further, but you'd have to be much more powerful than me to read more."

"And yes, I cheated to track you down. I left enough space that you wouldn't see me but didn't let you out of my range."

Jacen stopped to look around the room. She had bought a few more clothes, but she had precious little to pack and take. He suspect by now that she hadn't always been on the streets, but hadn't worked himself up to ask. Questions for another day.

" We should get going really. Also, no questions when I'm taking off please. I'm bad enough at flying when I'm concentrating..."

 

[Serya Talith]

She snorted in amusement, life's belongings carried easily inside a shop's bag. She walked out of the hotel with more spirit than she had walking into it the day before, practically a different girl as she followed him out and to his ship.

"Can you teach me?"