Sleeping in the Light

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

V O S S
The Silver Temple

From high atop the mountains overlooking the pastoral valley of Voss-Ka, the picturesque views and serene landscape supplied so tranquil an environment that it shocked the young Anzat to think back on the Jedi Order that had been and realize that they had never even known such a treasure existed. Out here, in the Outer Rim.

A Jedi Sentinel as an apprentice, a Jedi Archaeologist in knighthood, the tow-headed youngling had studied the cultures and histories of the Outer Rim for longer than some Jedi had been alive. And, yet, he'd overlooked Voss every time before.

But his had been a different time. A different galaxy. All stars burned as one, with the galactic map centered on Coruscant and the Galactic Senate. A convocation of people from all across the known Rims, united together in a Grand Republic that brought together the Trade Federation, the Techno Union, the Banking Clans, and any number of assorted political powers that had never before allied themselves.

And the Jedi Knights had been the guardians of peace in the Old Republic.

Apparently, they had failed that stewardship. And now Sor-Jan was living, 800 years later, in a galaxy divided into chaos. With not one, but several organizations laying claim to the title of 'Jedi Order'.

But, this was the galaxy they were living in now.

The youngling's green robe fluttered over a moss-covered rock, as the boy levitated in quiet contemplation of the horizon. The grand view of the valley below was a sight that reminded him of his home, the Corellian hamlet of Bela Vistal. Coming here always brought him back to those memories. Warm recollections that spoke of home, and quieted doubts.

The Silver Council had talked of a Korun padawan who had arrived on Voss, searching for answers.

In all truth, Sor-Jan doubted that he would have any answers for the padawan. But, if the Korun desired, the Anzat would walk with him along the journey. And perhaps be able to help show him the way.

[member="Marcus Undal"]​

 

[Marcus Undal]

Korun do not like being ambushed, either by military force or words. It bothers them truly, as it is naturally an insult to have been ambushed by possible prey. This rang true for Marcus, especially when he led troops on Haruun Kal. Being ambushed meant you failed your whole squad, and their deaths weighed heavily on the effort of the tribe. Because of this, Marcus made sure to study all angles of whatever lay before him, preparing to never have to deal with an ambush ever again. Now however, Marcus's life had changed completely and he was no longer looking for military ambushes. Instead, he was looking for those that would ambush him socially.

The council, before assigning him a training session with Jedi Knight Sor-Jan, had briefly warned him. The young jedi was not what he seemed apparently, and Marcus set off to train immediately. On the way there, he did all he could to learn more about Anzat and their characteristics. A native of Haruun Kal, Marcus had never seen such a remarkable species in his life, and was honestly anxious to meet the Knight. Arriving on Voss, Marcus received information on where to meet the child Knight and set off quickly.

Voss was beautiful in comparison to Haruun Kal, and its natural valleys, rivers and trees fascinated Marcus. It was liberating, being so far from the horrid landscape of Haruun Kal and its poisonous atmosphere. When arriving at the high mountain of Voss, the Jedi Knight Sor-Jan was finally visible. He was small in stature Marcus admitted, and looked no older then ten years. Even so, Marcus did not judge the small child, as children had fought alongside Marcus before. Smiling the first time in a long time, Marcus bowed to the child when he finally was close enough. He was unsure of Jedi customs, especially when in regards to superiors, but Marcus did his best to convey respect. "Master Sor-Jan, it is a pleasure to meet you." His voice curt and rough, Marcus bowed low to the child, eager to learn more of Pelakotan's mysteries.

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

Master Sor-Jan.

Now that was a name he had not heard in a long time.

Briefly, the face of a young Twi'lek flashed though the small knight's mind. It's memory blurred by time and too short a season in which near-humans quickly aged. A youngling. A boy. A padawan. A man. A knight.

And a good friend.

Master Sor-Jan.

Hopping down from the telekinetic ledge on which he'd been meditating, the child dropped back to the earth as the Korun greeted him. The boy wore a green robe over the Sasori attire of the modern Jedi. Quite different from the garb he'd worn alongside the Jedi of the Old Republic. The silvery hilt of a lightsaber now just shy of 900 years old hanging at his side.

Smoothing out the front of his robes, the tow-headed youngling returned the padawan's bow with a formal and deep gesture of respect in kind. "Padawan Undal," the boy surmised aloud. As he straightened back up, the boy crossed his arms in front of him, tucking his hands inside the broadly cut sleeves of the sage-colored robe.

"Just Sor-Jan, if you please," the boy requested quietly, with a nod in deference for the fact that the padawan had followed the proper protcol. But, Sor-Jan was a Corellian. To feth with protocols. "The older I get, the more I realize there is no master," the enigmatic Anzat opined aloud. It was an opinion he suspected many Jedi would not agree with. And they didn't have to. "The student becomes the teacher. And the teacher learns from the student."

Removing one hand from the sleeves of his robe, the boy stretched one arm out to the side, slowly bringing it forward in a slow, sweeping gesture. As he did, a smoothed stone rose and moved from the mountain side to a spot behind the Korun man as though the boy was pulling out a chair for the Korun.

"Join me," the Consular offered, dropping down to sit cross-legged on a smaller stone.

"Tell me of Haruun Kal," the boy inquired curiously. He knew of it. Or, rather, he knew of Mace Windu. But the Korun master's homeworld wasn't a place that the boy had the pleasure or opportunity to have seen for himself.

And to be quite honest, a planet full of Mace Windu's was a little chilling to think about.

"...and what question weighs on you so?"

The precocious empath, the boy found the Korun before him to be very guarded. And yet, there was a curiosity of sorts there.

And perhaps a touch of sadness.

[member="Marcus Undal"]​

 

[Marcus Undal]

The knight adjusted himself after gracefully landing after levitating. Briefly, Marcus saw the silver lightsaber hanging from his belt. Marcus had seen the holovids of Jedi, the beam of light surging from their hilts for defense or attack. It was fascinating and dangerous all at the same time. Noting its small size and caliber, Marcus couldn't help but curse at its efficiency. Such a small weapon had torn down the greatest of men.

Marcus nodded and replied with another grin. "Sor-Jan it is then." Korun liked their titles, but Sor-Jan was no Korun and that idea made Marcus happy. Titles obviously meant nothing to the Jedi, just as titles meant nothing to Marcus. Meaningless precursors to a name, and nothing more was how Marcus saw them.

In a single sweeping gesture, the Anzati had pulled a rather comfortable chair for Marcus. Those that would offer a chair like this were either overly friendly or had a dangerous goal in mind. This was the mindset of a Korun. Sitting silently, Marcus respectfully nodded as he made himself comfortable as possible. He had to remember that he was no longer a Korun but a Padawan of the SSC. Sor-Jan was not an enemy, but an ally, and a powerful one at that. Breathing a sigh of relief, Marcus looked out from the mountain at the beautiful vista below.

"Haruun Kal is a violent world of change and death. Korun do not leave it often, mostly due to them dying before they can. An inhospitable planet of poisonous gases and creatures, I am happy to have left it behind for the time being." Marcus continued to look out at the vista, his memories of his home tarnished by the stain of war. His voice had lost some of its roughness as his tension melted away, something he probably had to assume was the planet's fault.

Turning towards Sor-Jan, Marcus replied to his inquiry without delay. "All Korunnai are sensitive to Pelekotan." A deity in its own right, Pelekotan was a version of the Force that all Korun paid tribute to. Some saw it as a deity of extreme power that demanded struggle, while others believed Pelekotan was an embodiment of the jungle, destructive but full of life. "We believe it to permeate all, and there are even Korunnai that are dedicated to it, much like your Jedi." Jedi, from what Marcus understood, revered this permeating Force as a living force that flowed through all. "I wish to harness Pelekotan and tame it. Shamans on my planet misuse Pelekotan, and I know of others in the galaxy that misuse it as well."

Marcus had many goals in mind when it came to the powerful abilities of the Force. He would tame it. He had to.

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

The way Marcus described the Korunnai homeworld was every bit of how the boy would have imagined the planet that had given birth to a man known to break advanced battle droids with his bare hands.

"It sounds a challenge," the boy observed with a somewhat cryptic smile. In truth, he was surprised Haruun Kal hadn't been on his former master's list of places to drag the unruly Anzat padawan as part of their survival adventures. But then, Sor-Jan's training had been cut short by the arrival of the Stark Hyperspace War. So, perhaps it had been. And just time or circumstances had gotten in the way.

By the sound of it, Marcus' home was every inch the kind of place Azul Gol would have loved to have dragged the boy. "But, no matter what the conditions, our homes are what shape us."

Sor-Jan had spent most of his five decades on Coruscant, at the Jedi Temple. And yet, he'd never considered himself Coruscanti. And didn't know of any Jedi from the period who did. He was Corellian. It was as much who he was as it was where he was from.

The boy listened quietly as Marcus spoke of Pelekotan.

In honesty, he was fascinated now. Haruun Kal was definitely a world he wanted to see for himself. Visit their libraries. Read their histories. Their stories.

That was what made the galaxy such an interesting place to live in, the many varied stories.

"To tame the Force, you must first tame yourself," the youth noted somberly. It was the backwardness of it all. In seeking to master the Force, one had to first master themselves. In that, the small Anzat knew of no more difficult task.

"The Force is all around us," the boy noted, using both arms to gesture and indicate the world around them. Placing his hands back in his lap, the child added, "When you are calm, your mind focused, you will begin to experience Pelekotan for yourself."

Closing his eyes, the boy radiated a serene presence as he assumed a meditative pose. "Close your eyes. Empty your thoughts. Breathe."

[member="Marcus Undal"]​

 

[Marcus Undal]

Empty his thoughts? Sor-Jan could of asked Marcus to lift the entire world of Voss, and he may actually have had better results. Even sitting so still and watching the beautiful vista before him, Marcus' mind was on overdrive. These things were common when you lived on a hellish planet full of enemies. Still, Marcus knew his training had to be done this way. Jedi, no matter the type, were a calm and collected type of people. He had to be the same.

Pelekotan was something of a fierce deity back home, or at least, in Marcus' village. They revered the deity as a monstrous, consuming form of power, that took everything from you, but enabled you to truly become powerful in your own right. Even with his years of apprenticeship to a local shaman, Marcus had never felt the truly calming aura of the Force. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, something that Marcus' mind begged him not to do, Marcus attempted to finally relax.

It was difficult to say the least. Whenever Marcus finally did relax, visions of war and death always clouded his mind. They always came screaming in his mind's eye; the countless corpses, the screaming families. Naturally, he fought these visions tooth and nail in his mind. It never honestly worked, fighting against the images of a brutal war. Attempting to do so again, Marcus felt no relief as he sat on a smoothed stone in front of a Jedi centuries old.

At last, Marcus re-positioned himself, took another breath, and relaxed. Instead of fighting the visions like he always had, he did something so simple. He let it go. Sor-Jan had said something not 5 minutes prior that resonated within Marcus deeply. Homes shape the person, and though Marcus could never forget the truly harrowing images on Haruun Kal, he could simply let it go and find relief in the Force itself. Finally relaxing after several minutes of quick thought, Marcus lightly grinned. This was a fantastic feeling.

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

The small boy meditated silently, allowing the Korun to take the time he needed to still the thoughts weighing on his mind.

"Good." the youngling noted, in recognition of the first step in harnessing the Force. Calm. At peace. Being aware of the Force rather than a manipulator of it. An agent of change, but not the catalyst for it.

What was different here was that what the Anzat had said was not something that could be heard in the traditional sense. It was, rather, the echo of a stray thought. Passed from Sor-Jan's mind to that of the Korun male. Telepathy and telepathic communication was something that Marcus would have likely read in the file on the Anzati. The mindfields were the savannas on which the predatory creatures were known to roam.

But such machinations were not some inherent psychic ability or extra-sensory perception, but subtle attenuation to the Force around them. The invisible threads which connected all living beings. Marcus to the rock. The rock to the grass. The grass to Sor-Jan. Sor-Jan to Marcus.

"Now I want you to look at me, but not with your eyes," the young knight remarked cryptically. Even as he did, the edges of his mouth pulled back in the slightest hint of a cherubic smile. He remembered a boy, just a little older than Dilly had been. The apprentice of a Jedi named Qui-Gon Jinn. Recalling something that this future High General of the Clone Wars would say, the boy recalled aloud, "A Jedi I once knew would say, 'your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them.'"

So how was Marcus to see without sight? "Follow the sound of my voice," the youngling coached softly. "Focus. The Force surrounds us. Penetrates us. And binds us together. Feel the connection between us."

There was no way for Sor-Jan to preface or prepare Marcus for what he might see. The present, perhaps. The Anzat sitting in modern Silver Jedi robes on a hillside. The past, a boy in a youngling tunic at play in the Temple of the Jedi on Coruscant. Or cradling the body of a Thisspiasian Jedi as he died on Yinchorri Prime. Or watching a Twi'lek padawan grow from a boy into a man.

Force forbid that he should glimpse the future, for all the myriad of possibilities it contained there were only two options for the boy. He would either contain his predatory instincts, or else become the enemy to everything he had fought for in the decades and centuries behind him.

[member="Marcus Undal"]​

 

[Marcus Undal]

Marcus had spent his whole life trusting his eyes. The shadow that barely moves is an enemy that deserves to be shot for attempting to ambush your comrades. That glint in the background of the jungle is a sniper, hoping to pick you off and effectively behead the leadership of your squad. He had trusted them ever since he had become an apprentice, and now he was being told by a superior to not trust them in the slightest. It's harder then it sounds.

Still relaxed and breathing efficiently, Marcus focused on the Knight in front of him. The Anzati child had been around for hundreds of years, and Marcus actually trusted him. Focusing on his surroundings as much as possible, something awoke in Marcus that allowed him to see everything around him all at once. Never before had he ever been able to do this, even as an apprentice to the lor pelek of his village.

Able to glimpse his surroundings in almost slow-motion, Marcus could feel every bit of wind light hit him in the face. Marcus could feel every blade of grass, swaying in the breeze as the sun slowly fell from the sky. For years, the jungle had choked and throttled the life from Marcus. Only now did he feel truly free from it all.

Grinning, Marcus extended himself forward, being perfectly able to visualize Sor-Jan even with his eyes closed. His abilities were still weak, and nowhere near the amount of power that Sor-Jan had, but still. Marcus could feel every thread that connected to him, and it was absolutely memorizing.

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

The first step on any journey was the most important.

The physical action, however simplistic, set into motion an intent. It made manifest the will of the traveler, and in that learning was no different. They thing about learning was that it was the first step was also the cornerstone. The most basic technique was the foundation upon which each successive skill was built upon. A Jedi's power in the Force was only as strong as his ability to sense the Force under a myriad of conditions.

"Let go your conscious self," the boy's gentle voice echoed. Achieving this state of spiritual awareness was easy on a quiet, pastoral mountainside whose greatest threat was that a pack of younglings might interrupt a Jedi's meditation by accidentally knocking a Forceball out of the athletic field.

Achieving this state in the moments of most dire need, and sustaining that tranquility, that was the true test of a Jedi's ability.

Sor-Jan had done it twice in his lifetime. The first was the Battle of the Line, the seminal battle on Yinchorr Prime in which his former master had been killed and Sor-Jan, with his own padawan behind him, was left to marshal the Republic's Judicial Forces in a counter-offensive in which they had been outnumbered four-to-one.

The second had been Order 66. A far less successful endeavor for him. Whereas he had been hailed a hero at Yinchorr Prime, there had been no winning against the Empire. At the human cost had been far greater than he'd ever allowed himself to fully cope with. Rancor. Doc. Sixes. Clones, all of them. And good men. Good soldiers, who'd found with him for more than a year.

They had tried to kill him.

He had killed them.

And, one by one, little by little, he'd begun to lose the battle. Not with the clones, but with himself. Fatigue, doubt, confusion, fear. One by one, poisons in the mind that dissolved his control and broke his focus, until the boy had laid broken and bleeding, waiting to die.

"When you are at peace. Your mind focused. Your senses open to the possibilities around you..." the boy noted, as he drew in a breath, banishing the memories and focusing his mind once more to the task. "This. This is where a Jedi draws his strength."

​

[member="Marcus Undal"]​

 

[Marcus Undal]

Peace was a hard thing to achieve when blaster bolts, slugs and missiles were flying about you. If Jedi operated in this way during their battles, focusing on their inner peace, Marcus had more respect for them then ever before. Achieving tranquility during battles and war must have been impossible, but ultimately powerful in the end.

Was his mind truly at peace? Perhaps. This would be the perfect place to feel that peace. The rolling hills, the laughing children in the background. It was a peaceful planet, filled with happiness and content people. The threads of life that tied themselves to the Force were strong here, pulling every which way. Marcus could feel the very life echoing from Voss, and it didn't feel like the cold hand of death that bled from Haruun Kal. This was tranquil.

Focusing on himself and his thoughts, Marcus continued to relax while sitting on the soft stone. Marcus could feel uneasiness in his Master, memories clouding him for a short time. It seemed even Jedi Knights were not impervious to the destructive thoughts on memories and the past. This oddly comforted Marcus, knowing that even an accomplished Jedi Knight fought with his past for short times. Drawing strength from the moment, Marcus couldn't help but feel good.

Was he at peace now? Possibly. He felt better about himself as he sat there, soaking up the wonderful air and sunshine. Focusing on the threads of the Force around him, Marcus felt like he was learning more about it by the second. The Force felt different then Pelekotan. To be honest, he enjoyed the tranquil feeling more then the uneasiness Pelekotan brought him during war.

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]