Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Probation

[member="Adele Adonai"]

His eyes suddenly found the pattern in the table cloth of interest. Jacen found himself quite abashed that he had once again upset her. It was always the hands that gave away her state of mind where those formidible mental defences held firm. She was a conundrum he could not unravel and that perturbed him. A will to scratch beneath the surface was counterbalanced by a desire to impose himself on the generous healer as little as possible. To prod and poke and throw her off kilter seemed a poor way to repay her kindness.

He met her eyes again briefly before finishing off his own cup, hoping she hadn't noticed the change in his body language. "A bit of good hard graft sounds good," he said. "Thought I'm going to need to try and meditate and settle the mind later. Any tips you have would be gratefully received." he said. The timbre of his voice revealed how much he was still struggling with coming to terms with recent events. Whilst he read others well, he was hardly skilled at covering his own emotions and thoughts. "Oh, I have some biscuits if you'd like something?" he asked plainly, trying to keep the conversation casual.
 
No matter how much one so desires; one cannot run from the sins of the pasts. Much the less the actions that are often wrought into muscle memory. Glacial eyes would pick up on tiny cues. The drop in his gaze. The shift in his seat. The subtle strain in the tenor of his voice, sheepish and edged in harrow. Familiar a burden and as much a weight upon her shoulders as his own.

The pink tip of A’dele’s tongue went sliding across the fullness of her lower lip, a tick of focus. Shoulders rose then settled in a calming breath, as if she were seemingly in the middle of enjoying her tea. Oh but there was always more than met the eye. It was a steeling of the nerves. A fortification of mental defenses.

“As you wish,” she told him simply, answering his query towards advance lessons in maintaining his center of focus.

“Please.” came her subsequent answer to the offer of biscuits. Whether she would actually eat them was another matter, but it seemed that keeping busy was an action that would settle the Jedi Investigator.

“How go your mental exercises?” her soft query would draw the focus back upon Voidstalker, the safety of him as the topic of focus a necessity.
 
[member="Adele Adonai"]

Taking a moment to compose his thoughts, Jacen found a plain tin of simple shortbread. Battered and dented, the small tin had been with him for many campaigns. He’d purchased it in a tourist trap when on field exercises as a young officer in training. The paint had long since faded and those dents and scratches were all that decorated its surface. Much like him, the tin wore its bruises like watermarks.

In mind he heard the sound of a glass brick cracking. The corner of one eye twitched.

"Following the time you came into my cell I think I've been able to find...a new focus," he said. He drew out each word as he spoke, as if testing it out before continuing. There was a pause as he decided whether to carry on with the train of thought.

"I've had trouble in the past. Dealing with...bumps along the way. I don't think I've ever really, oh how do I say this? I don't think I've ever really looked back at the past and swallowed it. That probably doesn't make much sense, sorry," he added. For once, he couldn't bring himself to plainly speak his mind: I've suffered long bouts of depression and never really come to terms with each of my failures along the way.

"I think I need to find that peak of focus, look back on my past objectively," he said, his brow furrowing as he tried to find the words. Jacen had never been the most eloquent man. The language of a career soldier wasn't the most flowery, despite the vocabulary he had developed at the Jedi Academy in his youth.
 
[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]

A'dele graciously took the offered tin. Her motions were exact, perfect. She set it down beside her saucer, slender delicate fingers lightly tracing the edge of the tin. Carefully, as he spoke, fingers curled, then tightened. A whitening of her knuckles as the lid was lifted.

Sugar biscuits were revealed. Their little papers scattered, some crinkled. A few were broken, and perhaps, a bit symbolically so considering their owner.

"What is your first step then?" she would ask him, lifting her attention from the sugary cookies towards the Jedi Investigator. It was as much a process of self awareness as it was one of guidance. Jacen Voidstalker had his own demons to slay; and he was the only one who held the proverbial saber or words to do so.
 
[member="Adele Adonai"]

Jacen's face screwed up for a moment in concentration. The expression revealed lines that could be traced out from his eyes and across his forehead. Time and war had weathered this face and the lines told stories as much as his scars. "When we were meditating before, when I built that wall. There was a point - and it was like standing on a point, all too easy to fall from - where I felt I could look at the world objectively. Peer out at it and filter it to something...how do I say this. Sort of like turning a coloured image to greyscale. The emotion was less raw, yet for that the details were more clear, more sharp. I think I need to try and settle back to that state, try and look back at the mistakes I've made. I think...I think that way I can try and deal with them."

Jacen picked up his cup and went to drink from it, forgetting that he had already drained it. Some part of him had wanted to do something that gave him a moment to compose his thoughts. "Does that even make any sense?" he asked. His right hand went to the back of his neck, a gesture she might come to realise was as revealing as her fingers grasping the hem of her robes.
 
[member="Jacen Voidstalker"]


Her fingers would lightly dribble across the tin again. It was a tick, something to do. In the past decade, A'dele Adonnai had made a living at suppressing her emotions and instead focusing on serenity and attempts at tranquility. The body often does not follow the wishes of the mind, so it can manifest itself in subtle cues and clues for those who would be the wiser.

Observation of these nuances were what a wallflower like Knight A'dele was well used to. Being on the sidelines and with her history.. well, it allowed a measure of keen appraisal few would ever realize the Jedi Healer had.

Crystal blue eyes traced the rub of his neck, the gestures of his hands, and sensed the desire to keep himself busy. It troubled him, those sins of the past. No one other than Voidstalker would be able to overcome those.

"To know the road ahead, ask those who are coming back." perhaps the proverb was a bit too revealing for A'dele's comfort, but the Caamasi saying would reflect her understanding of the situation.

"Trust in the Force, maintain your meditation, and you will be able to view your past objectively. That you have already done so, even for a moment, is good progress."

Her hands left the tin to drift over towards her cup of tea.

"Do not fear going forward slowly; fear only standing still."
 
[member="Adele Adonai"]

She had his complete attention as she spoke. The cup was settled back down in front of him and he placed his chin in his hands as he watched her intently. "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood," he said when she had finished, echoing one of the proverbs she had used at their first meeting. As he had been shown to do, his mind traced back over their previous conversations.

What was that word, the one beginning with ‘b’, he thought to himself. For some reason he had a strong desire not to appear stupid to the Iridonian. He idly wondered when he’d started to concern himself with her opinion of him in this acute manner. “You always seem to have the right proverb to hand,” he added with a smile. “Sticking with them almost belies the degree of wisdom you’ve demonstrated through them. I imagine it’s sometimes easy for people to mistake them as rhetoric, I think I took that same attitude the first time you spoke to me, which was unfair.”

His hands reached across to pull the tin back across the table by the lid. Lifting out a biscuit for himself, but pausing before taking a bite. “Tell you when I did fear going forwards: when I was stood outside that damned dark side ziggurat on Javin. You were there weren’t you?” he asked. “When we went in and took that artefact which we dropped under the crust of Sullust. Didn’t recognise your presence at the time, but you helped us keep going forwards,” he said. There was a deferential nod of the head. If he kept thanking her it was going to end up as background noise.
 
That struck a nerve.

The corners of her mouth gave a slight purse. She remembered it well. A bit too well. The tips of her fingers lightly would rap against the side of her teacup. Her lids fell, lashless eyes seemingly quietly contemplating the contents of her tea.

“All involved did their part,” she said simply, giving a ghost of a smile that appeared slightly awkward for the Jedi Healer. Perhaps embarrassed to be placed on the spotlight, one would muse. Certainly the Iridonian Jedi Knight was noted for her perceived humble nature.

None would know the truth of the matter; or more aptly, discern what really lay under the mask of humble cordiality.

“Much like you, Knight Voidstalker,” she would add quietly, taking her cup of tea in hand, bringing it up to her mouth to take a small sip.
 
“Yes, yes I suppose so. That was a dark, dark place,” he said slowly. There was a quick flash of a lopsided smile as his own eyes found something else to look at for once. Jacen wasn’t a man prone to embarrassment, but even the small complement from A’dele caused a small warm glow down in his belly. “I quite vividly recall the artefact we found. Couldn’t even touch the thing. It was like…I don’t think I can even think of the words to describe what it was like being near that thing. Sometimes it’s easier to keep pressing on when you haven’t got the time to think on it too much,” he said, as much to himself as to the Iridonian healer.

Got to move on, got to keep moving forwards, he thought to himself. The small return of a complement had lifted his spirits slightly. He sighed, the legs of his chair squeaking against the floor as he stood up. Chewing on a biscuit, he turned to wash up his cup. “I suppose we’d better get on with the gardening then,” he said, looking over his shoulder with a warm smile. For a few moments Jacen was certain that he would get through this, come out stronger and go back to trying to make a difference. She was right. Though expressed in a series of proverbs, the point had been made: you’re holding yourself back. He’d let himself down. Let the darkside creep in when he should have been aware of its touch. Now he knew it and A’dele had to tools to help him avoid that happening again. It was time to stop feeling sorry for himself.

Easy to tell himself. Hard to truly swallow.
 
The more he spoke about it, the more uncomfortable it made A’dele. It was a good thing she had her cup of tea to keep busy, that sensation of restlessness washing over her. Relief came when he spoke of them moving forward with their day's objective.

“Indeed.” she agreed, setting her now empty cup of tea upon the table. “We best make haste.” she continued. Pale, ice blue eyes would lift to meet the slightly strained expression of the Jedi Investigator. There was inner turmoil that darkened in his brown eyes, furrowed a tightness over his brow.

“One cannot build a fortress in a day, Knight Voidstalker,” she would remind the man, quietly putting the tin lid back in place for the sugar cookies. “Trust in the Force, in the code. It will guide you towards the goal you desire.” she affirmed.

There was a slight pause as her fingers snapped the lid over the tin shut with a slight push. “It is an ongoing quest, but you shall reinforce that sanctuary therein.”
 
[member="Adele Adonai"]

The quiet noise the lid of the tin made seemed far more resounding the Jacen. Like the lid on this chapter being closed firmly shut. In a way it had been. He thought back to that shadowy ziggurat. It had been Knight Voidstalker who led the team into that building. In the last two years he'd faced so many horrors: Yuuzhan Vong fanatics; Sith acolytes invading his mind; the brutality of the First Order. It was the story of his life. He got knocked down, he picked himself back up again. Every time it hurt more, yet he had no real choice but to press on.

Regardless of how much it hurt to look back, of how much he risks falling back into one of those...back into depression. There was no point thinking of it in other terms, that was what it had been. People looked up to him now, far more was at stake than his own health. There was a slow intake of breath as he filled his chest with air. A curt nod as he breathed back out. He held her gaze for just a moment.

"The slow path, the hard path...the right path," he whispered.

Without warning he clapped his hands together, stepping forward briskly to clear the table. "Right then, digging!"
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom