Slowly he placed the stone once more in the ground and closed his eyes again. The memories relived were vivid and he drank in the reality that he had achieved. A knowledge that balance could be gained. A blending of rage and peace, fear and hope, love and hate. A being could not have one without the other and retain their balance. It was at that moment that he had learned that balance was something he could have if he so wanted it.
But he had not, not then.
Reaching out with his left hand he slowly opened an aged cloth that revealed withered blossoms. Gently he plucked some from the cloth and again surrendered to the memories that aimed his senses and brought him to Voss with a meeting with a Silver Jedi Master.
He stood there seeing, hearing, and feeling what he had experienced. This was a time when he knew he was broken, the pieces of who he was sharp and brittle, drawing blood from friend and foe alike. He knew he was wounded and shattered, the pieces of who he was threatening to be scattered but by a strong wind. Yet stubbornly he had held to who he had been, afraid of change and surrendering to the realization that he was not trapped in the path he walked.
Glowing, blue eyes took in the pleasant form of [member="Coci Heavenshield"] who had offered to assist him in his journey, if he truly wished it. Her words echoed in his ears and mind stirring his core now just as it had then. "Peace, in any form is a journey we take to achieve but never do. But it is the journey that leads us ever closer that we must embark on and in so doing we shall find calm and hope. I am sure you would have heard the old Jedi Code line of, There is no emotion, there is peace? and I am equally sure you understand it as well, not like those that do not think on the words and what they might mean, who believe we the Jedi, rid emotions from our very souls and become nothing in the process, no. It is the control of emotions in order to control our actions and when we do act, it is informed. I do not have the problem of instability you do, but Jedi fight each and every day for this control because we are but sentient beings like the rest and so we have failings and 'demons' we must face as well. Those that think we do not, are foolish whether those that think this are Sith or Jedi alike."
A sigh escaped him as he let the petals drift back to the cloth before enclosing them in it's protective embrace once more. That day he had learned it was something he wished, to be whole. And though he inevitably fled from the planet and the woman's administrations and offer to help, the truth remained. He wanted to be whole, to find a balance within.
Closing his eyes again he turned the inner eye within. Life and it's experiences had changed him. Despite claiming to care nothing but for his own pleasure he had grown close to some. Arabella, Dresdin, Atin, Gabe, Ijaat, Arrbi, Anija, Mirshko, Ginnie, Derek, Kentarch, Sol, and Jia. He had felt commraderie, love, and loss. Yet he tried to bury himself in his rage and hate, not to become a force against those that were arrayed against but rather to protect himself.
Looking at the different aspects of who and what he had been he accepted them into himself. Murderer, warrior, son, Sith, friend, brother, lover, killer, mando'ad, soldier, protector, Witch, shaper, Confederate, enemy, Shaman, father .... As the different aspects of himself swirled around and finally coalesced into him his eyes opened.
He was the quiet in the storm, the darkness in the light. He was the killer of his enemies, the shield for those under his protection. He was the madness within the sanity, a voice of reason in times of unrest. He was neither evil nor good, for a distinction such as that was incomprehensibly false. He was what he had been, and what he feared to be.
He had found balance in the savior and destroyer.