Scholarly Warr- Padawan

[Haytham Kaze]

Haytham didn't do much in his free time except train. Sometimes he went on adventures, and it seemed like that was happening more frequently. The supposed safety of the Academies weren't something that Haytham was particularly interested in staying the rest of his life.

There was a whole world, no, galaxy out there waiting to be explored, and yet, he knew little of it outside of the Jedi Order, and the Outer Rim. Some things, Haytham knew he had to explore on his known, but there were also things that you needed people to teach you. More experienced people.

Probably one of the reasons as to why Haytham was on Ossus instead of at Ruusan. He had an 'appointment' with [member="Taeli Raaf"] at the front of the Temple. Hopefully, she was going to be willing to explain some things to him... So he waited for her there, he had come a little early, as he usually did when meeting with someone.

Only a few minutes now...

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

Taeli smiled a little as she walked through the quiet hallways of the Ossus temple. It certainly was a nice change of pace for her, although she usually was either in the archives or the lab. She just had so much research to do before she started to go on field missions again, or just went about other business. She had been rather surprised when a Padawan had requested to meet with her, but who was she to turn down helping them in some way.

Emerging out onto the steps of the temple, she spotted the Padawan in question and walked down to where he was, her sky-blue dress and lab coat still on.

"Padawan Kaze yes?" she said, finally reaching him. "How can I help you?"

 

[Haytham Kaze]

He rose from the bench that he rested on when he heard [member="Taeli Raaf"]'s approach. She had arrived just when she needed to, and Haytham was glad that she was one to be punctual. Turning his body around to face her, he folded his upper body and bowed to her. She was a Jedi Master after all, or was at least as strong as one. "Uh, yes. Do I refer to you as Master Raaf, or Taeli?" He asked suddenly, just as she asked if he were Haytham. His eyes widening when he realized his mistake, he rubbed the back of his head and quickly amended his mistake. "I didn't mean any offense, it was just a question." He smiled to show he was actually sincere.

"I wanted to have a more philosophical point of view on the ways of the Sith. What you did... And things. If you want of course. I just wanted a better understanding...of... yeah."

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

"Just Taeli if you don't mind, " she said, smiling a little as she sat down. "No need to be embarrassed, and no offense taken. I'm following my sister's example in how to be addressed and I'm not anyone's master right now."

As he explained why he asked to meet with her, she could only nod to herself as she understood. Some Padawans and even some Jedi Knights might not fully understand their ancient enemy and how exactly they thought. It was a useful insight to have, and one that just might save someone's life or help subdue an enemy.

"I'd be perfectly happy to answer any questions you might have about the viewpoint of the Sith," she said, patting the step next to her for him to take a seat. "It always helps to understand your opponent first before you actually run off, lightsaber blazing, to fight them. That can lead to problems for you and others."

 

[Haytham Kaze]

Haytham nodded his head. What had happened only moments ago left in the past as he listened to her words. He knew everything there was to know about the ancient Sith, why they existed, why the Jedi existed, and why this age long war had started, but why it continued... He didn't really know why. There wasn't a reason to in his mind. Why either side still existed was the question, were neither capable of destroying the other?

So many questions...

"Yeah," he said in agreement. He had learned on Telti. But the same could've been said for his opponent. "Uh... What do they think of their Yuuzhan Vong counterparts? Are they just servants, or are they actual equals?" He felt as if he already knew the answer, but he had asked anyway.

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

"It all depends on which Sith you ask," Taeli replied to his first question. "Some Sith would say they are merely servant and warriors to fight and develop things for the Sith while others would say they are an integral part of the One Sith's empire. Even then, others just ignore the Yuuzhan Vong because they deem them beneath their notice. Now the Vong themselves, well I wouldn't say they exactly agree with the One Sith all the time, but they had gained power and influence in the galaxy again because of the Sith."

Tapping her chin in thought, she added, "I assume you ask about the Vong because you've encountered Sith that used something from the Vong?"

 

[Haytham Kaze]

He took her words in; listening carefully to everything that she had to say. He knew that if the Republic had the same sort of tools, just a little less destructive sort of ally compared to what the One Sith had, maybe this war would be going a little bit easier, but what did he know?

"I would think neither of them would be where they are without each other. I don't know every single detail about Galctic History..." Yet. "But, I know the Yuuzhan Vong had been given some planet on the edge of the known galaxy, right? And I know that there were some communities in the known galaxy, like the Omega Protectorate... Maybe. I can't really remember." If he had read it, then he definitely would, but he had only heard about that, and that was a long time ago.

"No. The only encounter that I've had with the Yuuzhan Vong are their snake weapons. Those things have a mind of their own... They're annoying. First time I encountered them was on Prakith." He remembered the Republic's forward camp. After he had landed his starfighter, within minutes hundreds of amphistaff descended upon the camp.

There had been less than twenty Republic personnel there. The majority engineers.

"What did you think about them as allies? And now, as enemies."

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

"Oh how to put this," she said, chuckling a little bit at the second question. "I was never a big fan of my former colleagues, I kept to myself mostly unless I was taking part in military operations. I was never a Sith that enjoyed the wanton displays of power, pain, and death other Sith love to cause. As allies, I disliked them. As enemies, I still dislike them, but maybe a little more now. That is not to say I didn't have a few I actually got along with, my former master for one. That said, even the Sith I got along with I wouldn't stop for a moment in apprehending and subduing, and I never trusted them enough to consider them a true friend. Sith don't have Sith friends, they have temporary allies and rivals."

At this point, she really wanted to see the Sith implode into infighting again, but that wouldn't happen yet. The Sith would actually need to suffer a few defeats and setbacks before the finger-pointing and backstabbing took place.

 

[Haytham Kaze]

He nodded. She didn't like when they were her allies, and she clearly liked them less now that they were enemies. "Did you think it was weird that you couldn't sense them with the Force or something? Or were t hey too... Hostile or something?" He was curious to know how the Republic's two enemies interacted with each other. If there was clearly this much dissent towards the Yuuzhan Vong in the higher echelons, then it'd only be a matter of time until a group of Sith tried to destroy the Yuuzhan Vong, or get rid of them in some way.

It was... Interesting to say the least, and he definitely wanted to learn more about it.

"So, what is your take on the Sith Code?" He turned in his sitting position to face her more, "and what's it like compared to the Jedi Code?"

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

"It was weird, I'll certainly say that," Taeli said. "But one got used to it eventually, especially if you were someone like me who wanted to actual study the Vong. I implanted myself with a Vong coral seed to access Vongsense while I was among the Sith, but that's by the by. Most of the Vong with the Sith are under the command or protection I guess, depending on how you look at it, of the Wrath of the Dark Lord. Dissent might be there, but no one is going to be crazy enough to give up the advantages they grant in combat against the Sith's enemies."

His second question was a bit more personal, but all the more interesting to answer.

"My take on the Sith Code is a bit different than others," Taeli began slowly. "I was always about never letting your emotions rule you, you had to control your emotions. Harness them, but don't let them harness you. That covered peace is a lie, there is only passion. It also covered passion giving me strength, but for me, it was always a controlled strength and one that could be controlled better than uncontrollable rage. Power to me though was always about gaining knowledge, not actual power in the dark side. Victory for me was obtaining the knowledge, with the more knowledge I gained, the more the chains broke."

Taking a breath, she continued.

"The Sith thrive on negative emotions; anger, hate, jealousy, greed, etc. and those are the emotions that the Jedi Code tells us to not let into us. Positive emotions such as love or happiness are fine to have, but one can't let them be too overpowering or cloud one's judgment from doing what one must in service to life and the galaxy and the Force. Being in control of yourself is key to both Codes, but the big difference between the two is one is about power and domination, the other is about ... well ... I suppose the Jedi Code is about serenity and serving and protecting life where we come across it."

 

[Haytham Kaze]

Haytham shrugged.

"I guess that makes sense." But he recalled that she had mentioned someone... Wrath of the Dark Lord? What kind of fancy titles do the Sith have? He rubbed his chin in thought for a moment, before he opened his mouth and said, "do all Sith have fancy titles like, 'Wrath of the Dark Lord?' Or is it only like... A handful of members? And who is this guy? Are there more like him?" At first he didn't really realize that he was firing questions off so fast, at that point he was just ranting, something that he rarely did really, but he wanted to know as much as he could, as soon as he could.

It was still the morning, but he was sure that he had enough questions to last them for the whole day.

"Were there others who studied the Yuuzhan Vong with you? Or, were you like their 'Chief Scientist' of it all?" He held up his fingers as if they were air quotations for emphasis. More as a joke if anything, because he was smiling. "Did you experiment and invent stuff?"

When she went through how she defined the Sith Code, he started to laugh a bit. "It sounds like you and I would define it in the same way. Maybe, you were always a Jedi in the body of a Sith Lord!" He exclaimed. "But, yeah, I get it. Knowledge is power, I always try to learn things, it doesn't matter how insignificant that piece of knowledge is, I want to learn everything, if only to be as cultured about the Galaxy." He shrugged. "Also, isn't it some sort of offense to say 'Vong' instead of Yuuzhan Vong?" Ranting.

"Sounds like we have the same view point on things, [member="Taeli Raaf"]. Are you my older female counterpart?" He said leaping up from the stairs with a grin on his face. Sitting around all day was something that Haytham simply couldn't do. He had to be active, he had to be moving. Besides, why couldn't they walk and talk at the same time? Extending his hand out for her to take, he said, "let's walk and talk."

He cleared his throat, after she answered, he was probably going to start asking the real personal questions.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

"Okay, I'm going to answer all of those in order," Taeli laughed, happy that Haytham here was eager to learn. "So, first off, there are Voices, Hands, an Eye, and the Wrath of the Dark Lord and those positions are held by the strongest Sith among the One Sith. The Wrath is a man known as Reverance, and he is incredibly powerful, so don't go tearing off to try and fight him."

The last was added as a bit of a joke.

"There are others who studied Vong, but my studying of them was more of a hobby, although I did develop an alchemized crystal seed from a standard Vong coral seed," she continued, accepting the offered hand to stand up so they could walk. "I was always a moderate among the Sith, and it is interesting how people can intrepret things the same way, even if they have never met. I think, and my sister would probably agree, I was going to end up leaving the Sith eventually, even if I never met her. I was too . . . I guess too moral to be a Sith, not that some Sith don't have morals. But, I suppose I was brought up by my parents to be a lightsider in the end."

"And no, I'm not your older female counterpart," she laughed, smiling as they started to walk through the grounds of the Temple. "So what other questions do you have? I'm sure someone like you is always bursting with them."

 

[Haytham Kaze]

Haytham shrugged. "Who are the Arms and Legs then? Is there a 'Torso' as well?" He was only making light of the situation. In an actual battle scenario, who knew what Haytham would say to a Sith Lord, or a Dark Lord of the Sith for that matter. Depending on his mood, the Padawan could have no restraints on his attitude. "Besides, someones going to have to fight this Reverance at the end of the day right? It doesn't matter who does it really." He shrugged again.

"That's great. I was brought up to be a farmer, back home." Or something. Haytham didn't really think about the past anymore. It had happened, he had lived through it, and there were few times that he actually thought back to some 'sad' memory. There was little time for sad memories when training...

"Oh, that's a shame, I was starting to think that maybe you should make your hairstyle like mine." There was the faint sound of chuckling from the Padawan's form.

"Well then, uh, was there ever someone in the Sith that you were close to? Like, who would you say were the 'closest' people to you, those that you may say were friends, and why." There had to have been at least one person, and if so, there would most definitely be a reason as to why they thought of them in such a way.

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

"There were a few Sith I trusted a bit more than the others," Taeli said, smiling slightly. "My youngest sister is one of them, I saved her from a shipwreck and I didn't know she was my sister at the time. If there was a Sith I would trust or was close to, it was her as I also was her Master. I did have an associate I was on friendly terms with and another apprentice I was close to, but that apprentice and I are not exactly seeing . . . eye to eye right now. She doesn't know I joined the Jedi, but we had a bit of a fight and she lost. So she hates me currently."

Oh Sophie, why couldn't you have just listened? It didn't matter anymore, the girl she had trained was long gone, replaced by Darth Raven and her anger. Her hatred. She didn't listen to her when she said emotions ruling you was not the way to go. Oh well.

"I suppose I was somewhat close to my old Master, but she was a sort of person to remain aloof from most everyone," she continued speaking. "Other than them, I wasn't close to any of my Sith colleagues. One can't afford to be too close to a Sith. Betrayal is ultimately the way of the Sith, as they need to have more power, more everything, and nothing will stop them, even erstwhile friends if they have something a Sith wants."

 

[Haytham Kaze]

"There are three Raaf's then? Does she know that you left to become a Jedi." He wondered aloud. How big was this Raaf family? Did Corvus know her family was this big. He wasn't entirely sure, it was the way of the traditional Jedi to leave all forms of family behind when they joined, and Corvus would've had to have gotten that ideal from somewhere...

If [member="Taeli Raaf"] had mentioned Darth Raven in words, he probably wouldn't have had anything nice to say about her. They had battled on Telti, and after a hard fought victory, the Padawan had incapacitated the Sith Knight. It was something he was proud of, but the methods he had employed probably weren't the best for a Jedi Knight, let alone a Padawan such as him.

"Who was your older Master?" He asked with interest. It seemed as if the Master and Apprentice relationships were relative between the Sith and the Jedi... Kinda. "Tell me about them." He said with a smile.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

"There's just the three of us now," Taeli said, not wanting to go into that can of worms. "And no, my youngest sister doesn't know I joined the Jedi. She thinks I went off to learn more about the Force from different groups, which is true actually. I have plans to visit other Force sects to learn more exotic abilities and such."

She hoped to one day bring Melori into the light, but that might not happen for a time until her sister learned or experienced something about the Sith that would tip her away from them. That had been the whole situation with Alexandra Feanor for her.

"My former Master was a Sith Lady known as Darth Praelior," Taeli answered. "Very tall Zeltron, big ummm assets, cybernetically and alchemically augmented. She is an alchemist and monster breeder, you probably know her from reputation than anything else. She also wasn't the most hands on teacher, I heard to learn plenty of things by myself or from others."

 

[Haytham Kaze]

"Oh, okay." Even he could tell there were some things that she just didn't want to talk about. He could respect that. It'd be rude to pester her about it, so he didn't and he moved on. "Yeah, I've sort of got an interest in them too. Perhaps when you go to do so, you can let me accompany you?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. He only asked for curiosities sake, he doubted she'd truly accept, and if she did now he already suspected it'd be because she was being polite, but still, it'd be interesting to see how she replied...

Haytham wondered if any members of his family were still alive after what the Mandalorians did to Dromund Kaas, but he wasn't bothered. Although they were only farmers and had the sense of simple folk, Haytham really doubted they were as two-dimensional as that. They had to be training me for something, but for what, I've got no idea. He shrugged, more or less to himself rather than anything else. For a moment he was clueless, he didn't have much questions left to ask. Which was why he had already come with a back up clan, but that'd be employed later...

"Is it bad if I say I've never heard of her?" By assets, her had already determined what she meant. He wasn't that ignorant about things. "Yeah me too, the part about the self-learning and training from others. But it's not my Master's fault." He said with a wide smile. Yeah, he still believed Kiskla Grayson was out there. She had never been found, she was still MIA, and the first person he heard say she was dead, well, he would prove them wrong himself, or die trying. "Was it hard, to learn by yourself, or was it fairly easy?" He had already confirmed he was self-taught for the most part and had learned the things he knew from other Masters, but he wondered if she had the same ability as him to remember things perfectly as if it were a picture.

He doubted it though.

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

"Maybe when you're a little further along in your training, I might bring you along to some places," Taeli answered. She wanted to be firmly established as a Jedi herself before she went off to explore and learn more. It would just make more sense to do that than to go harrowing off on some foolish crusade blind.

"And no, it's not bad that you haven't heard of Praelior," Taeli said, observing a leaf that blew across their path. "She likes to keep to herself, more concerned about her experiments and projects than actually being evil or destructive. You won't see her name in lights like other Sith Lords or Ladies."

His question about whether self-training was hard or not for her was something she had never really considered.

"I suppose it was actually rather easy," Taeli replied slowly. "My mind is rather sharp, a photographic memory will do that after all, so I only ever really needed reading material to actually learn how to do something. That isn't to say the technique was easy to actually use, that takes practice just as any other technique. But it pays off in the end."

 

[Haytham Kaze]

Haytham nodded his head. It didn't really sound like a confirmation. He preferred concrete answers, absolutes. In the battlefield, answering with maybe's, and generalizations didn't help your side at all. It wasn't morale boosting. Although they were two different solutions, the young Padawan sighed. "Great." He said with a smile anyway. She'd probably forget he figured. Perhaps when he became a Jedi Knight he'd take a leave of absence and travel throughout the Galaxy to further his learning of the Force and other Force organization's, along with their philosophies. He enjoyed learning about other things, which was why he had asked about the Sith, but he hadn't expected to run through his questions so fast.

"How was your training as a Sith Apprentice then? Was it long and enduring, or did you rush through it? Are there a lot of Sith that rush through their training, like this Reverance you told me about?" He raised an eyebrow in question.

He took note of what she said. Did she also have a memory like him? It'd be interesting if she did, it'd be one of the few things they had in common with each other.

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Haytham Kaze"]

"Let me tell you a few things about my training first," Taeli said, looking at the Padawan now. "On my first day, with hardly any idea of what I was doing, my master tossed myself and a few other hopefuls into an arena with a terentatek and gave orders that only the survivor would become her actual apprentice. Obviously I survived, but that was day one. The next few days and weeks weren't any easier, one mission involving me delving into the Coruscant Undercity and I had to kill an adolescent Sith Leviathan to get something for a concentration amulet."

Sighing a little, she continued saying, "Sith don't believe in easy training. You either live and prove yourself worthy of a Master's time or you die or get left behind to struggle on your own . . . until you die. Survival of the fittest and strongest is usually how it goes among them. One doesn't rush through the training there, or if they do, they are quite powerful students. It is always a test, always some sort of scenario that can kill someone or requires you to kill someone. Thankfully, I never had to kill a being outside of a battle as Praelior didn't believe in that sort of training, but other Sith do."