Private Temple of My Secrets

[Daiya]

The expression on her face plain, Daiya's soul was open and bared to the Zeltron woman. Normally, the teen was reticent to expose herself like this. Already she felt self-consciousness creeping back up; even though Yula had snapped back at her earlier, the woman still showed her more understanding than most. Far more than Daiya had expected.

She still couldn't help thinking that this was the moment the rug would get pulled out from under her.

Instead, Yula gushed right along with the girl. Daiya's cheeks flared with rosy delight, bringing her hands together in a percussive clap that echoed in the small garage. She ducked her head at the sound, giggling unabashed at the results of her error. It didn't matter, self-doubt washed away again as Yula's praise rained over her, and the girl grinned back at the use of her favorite word. "Damn straight I'm a-mazing!"

Daiya felt it, with every bone in her body. A thrill coursed through her, pumping through her veins like the spark she'd felt in the datapad's battery. She could still feel it if she pressed her hand to the device. The feeling jumped in response to her, a pet waiting for attention. Her pain from earlier faded until it was easier to ignore, almost easy to forget.

Her grin didn't fade so easily when their tone turned serious. Yula was the teacher again, her voice steady and controlled. Underneath her euphoria, Daiya felt a pang of jealousy. That was control she craved. The teen nodded along, trying to calm her own nerves as she placed her hand back on the battery.

"Right, multiply." She giggled at the reference to her terrible metaphor, trying to cut herself short. She needed to focus. The teen breathed in like she saw Yula do, holding it for a few seconds. Her stomach lurched in another giggle, and her eyes smoldered for a moment again as she lost the breath and concentration at the same time.

Biting her lip, Daiya tried again.

This time, the girl could feel the spark within the battery once more. Her head throbbed a little stronger, a pain that she didn't resist this time. It was wrong, for everything Daiya knew that pain was a harbinger for visions of terror and a burden to seek their truth. That welcoming it was the key to moving past the curse, as the girl had described it to Yula, felt like the worst thing she could do.

She welcomed it nonetheless, and her world broadened again. Daiya's breath staggered for a second, her body instinctively fighting the new sensations. She bit harder on her lip, almost breaking the skin, battering down her own urge to resist. She had to let it come, and when she did, the spark seemed to dance under her palm.

"It's not doing anything..." Daiya confessed, shifting her hand on the datapad. She could feel the energy inside the battery, but when she pushed toward it, the spark dance away from her. Behind her sore lip, the teen gritted her teeth, trying again and again until she looked up to Yula with a plaintive look on her face. "I can feel it, but it's not multiplying."

"C'mon!" Daiya told the datapad. Her success simmered just below the surface, she could feel it there. Waiting, just out of reach. If only she could just tap into it like Yula suggested. It couldn't really be that easy, could it? "Was it this hard for you when you started?"

Yula Perl​

 

[Yula Perl]

"Was it this hard for you when you started?"

"Not really."

Yula scratched at her head, trying to figure out a way to explain it. She was lucky—her Force sensitivity had been caught at an early age and nurtured by her mother. Joza had refused to give her children over to any Jedi Order, preferring instead to teach them the bare necessities of control. Later on, Yula came to realize the wise decision to let them live as typical children for what it was.

"I didn't really try. It just sort of happened. Uh," No, no, that wasn't what she meant to say. Well it was, but it wasn't what she'd meant to imply. Her words and intention were getting muddled, and Yula elected to take a proverbial step back. "I started out tinkering with things when I was a kid, you know? Fixing the toaster, things like that. When I'd get frustrated things would…kaboom." She made an explosive gesture with her hands, curling her fingers together then unfurling them outwards.

"Technopaths weren't super common in the Outer Rim, you know, so it took a few years for me to get it under control. I learned a lot more from Jedi in the Core. They had the training I didn't have."

Yula's skill development would likely have been a lot more linear if she'd stuck to the Jedi path. Things had been too inconsistent in the Outer Rim, but she'd picked up more than a few valuable skills from smugglers, rogues, and scoundrels. 'Rim engineering wasn't pretty, but it was functional in interesting ways.

In short, she didn't know how to teach Daiya beyond words of encouragement. It was dumb luck on Yula's end that the girl had figured out how to sense electrical currents.

"It might be easier if I just show you what I mean." Another step forward carried her closer to the datapad. "Skooch over, will ya?" Shooing Daiya's hand to one edge of the flat battery, Yula placed her fingertip to the opposite side. The currents leaped at her touch, and the Zeltron focused on igniting the charged particles within. Make them faster, make them more numerous—the quicker things moved, the more heat they generated. The stack of prize credits grew steadily and deliberately so that Daiya would have time to immerse herself in the change.

"You can feel it, right?" Looking up from the exposed guts of the datapad, Yula locked her gaze onto Daiya. "We'll do it together." She'd guide the teen the best she could.

Daiya

 

[Daiya]

"What a let-down..."

Daiya wasn't trying to be petulant, though her wistful remark carried a dose of it anyway. The expression faded on her face, the thin line of her mouth deepening to a frown while Yula recounted her natural aptitude at the skill. Something gnawed at her stomach, she teetered so close to success that hearing it could take her years to get anywhere tore raw straight through her gut.

It took her everything not to hurl at the next comment. The teen's nose wrinkled at the thought, "Jedi?"

Her stomach flipped at the thought of the Force Wizards and their reputation. Daiya had never considered them so great, not like the way other beings tended to worship the ground they walked on. If the Jedi were so great, then how could they let a world right on their borders be such a cesspool? From the sound of it, even the kind Yula encountered didn't bother with empire building like the ones next door. Still, by association alone, the Jedi were a fethed-up bunch she'd rather stay far away from.

"Oh. Yes, please!" The dramatic subject change soothed Daiya's rough sentiments, she was happy for the excuse to think of better things.

Yula bumped into her hand, prompting a moment's giggle to spill out of her lips as she felt an electric shock between them again. The teen gave the woman some space, watching her pink fingers work. From the tips of her own fingers, Daiya could feel a change in the spark underneath them. It felt different now, no longer just a state of being. Now it was doing, jumping and dancing in excitement under Yula's ministrations. She felt the spark become a current, growing and flowing with the Zeltron's guidance.

"Oh...yeah..." Daiya's revelation came softly, not entirely sure how she understood it herself. She had missed something, or rather had been missing something. Her eyelids fluttered as she tried the same, that familiar pain in her head needling her again. The teen bit into her lip once more, and let it come.

She drew in a breath at the mix of sensations. A spasm beneath her temple, but a dance beneath her fingertips. At last, Daiya could feel the current responding to her efforts, her direction. At last she could feel the prize credits growing, and her giggle returned once again.

"Feth yeah," the young shadowrunner crowed, wearing a grin on her face despite the effort. A moment of distraction might destroy everything still, but for now Daiya was holding steady. "Let's do this chit!"

Yula Perl​

 

[Yula Perl]

Daiya's skepticism of Force users was not unheard of. The Jedi-Sith dichotomy had heaps of nuance upon nuance, and even that depended on who you asked. It was easier, and often safer, to sort space wizards into one box.

For her part, Yula shrugged. She tended to cover her ears when talk of dogma came up, because that was easier for her. "I'll put you on the mailing list for our next cult meeting."

Now that the current had started flowing, it would be easier to maintain under a steady hand. Yula's gaze lifted from the datapad to focus on Daiya. The girl's face was tensed in concentration, and she swore there was a twitch at her temple, beneath the skin.

C'mon, Daiya. You got this!

The teen lifted her head, meeting Yula's eyes with a steely look of her own. It was plain that she was pushing through something, but Yula didn't know what, nor did she understand how deep it ran.

In that moment, all she knew was that Daiya was here. She was here, and she was ready.

"Let's do this chit!" Parroting the kid, Yula's voice lifted as the current beneath her fingers whirred faster, generating small arcs of electricity around the flat plane of the battery's casing. The datapad was hot to the touch, too hot, but the painful sensation of heat mingled with the excitement of manipulating and misusing the flow of energy.

"Pull the trigger, kid."

Daiya

 

[Daiya]

Sparks and jolt of electricity bloomed around the datapad battery as both Yula and Daiya prodded the device. Current rippled around her hand, while something else rippled through her hand. The tingling warmth slithered down from its pulsing nexus near her mind, a fusion of her moxie and something magic. What might have held anxiety for her in another moment, now only served to fuel the teen's euphoria.

Daiya found her emotions mimicking the energy of the datapad, the swirling dance within each reaching a fever pitch.

"Pull the trigger, kid."

A smile grew upon the teen's face, while a confidence grew within her. That elusive spark within the battery, the same elusive control within herself, both lay within her reach now. The words of Yula's encouragement settled fondly on her ears, driving her onward, sending further ripples of intent into the datapad. She ignored the tolerable pain behind her eyes, the rivulets of sweat on her brow, knowing that success was just a heartbeat away.

"Blow the feth up!" The words reflected her intent as Daiya grappled the source of her curse into a new source of power. Power that flowed through her and into the datapad, blowing all the thresholds of its safety margins and material tolerances. Like the knot unwinding within herself, unleashing warmth and adrenaline directly into her veins, the stability of the battery unraveled, sending it into a cascade failure.

The flesh of her fingertips sizzled beneath the fiery hot device, causing the teen to withdraw them quickly. As she nursed the tender digits in her mouth, the hem of her shirt leaned too far over the datapad and began to smoke along with the decomposing device. Daiya let out a gasp and jumped back, patting out the burn of her ruined shirt. Her eyes searched with frantic movements, every piece of her body told her the datapad was going to blow up right in their faces, and it was going to hurt!

"AHHHH!" The panicked tone of the teen sent her free hand flailing, fingers tucking so deftly under the corner of the smoking datapad. She flipped it up, batting at it again to send it skittering toward the other end of the garage, sputtering and smoldering the whole way.

There the datapad finally erupted in flame and a momentary fountain of battery acid as the whole device melted beyond comprehension.

Her chest heaved with gasping breaths, but a crooked smile spread across her face as Daiya turned to Yula. She clasped the woman's pink arms with her hands, giddiness driving her to bounce from the tips of her toes. "Oh my stars, Yula, that was A-MAAAAAAZING! I never knew I could do that. I really don't think I could have without you. Thank you!"

With that, the teen pulled her new idol into a deep embrace. Emotions rolled off her skin like waves, elation and relief and an immense satisfaction. Daiya pulled back, realizing that her eyes were damp again. She wiped at them with incredulous fingers, some of them still tingling from the burn, as she looked up at Yula with a grin. "I guess you can tell it's been a long time coming."

Daiya swallowed, wiping her eyes dry and made a clearing sound with her mouth. Her limbs still tingled with the remnants of magical power, her mind still in awe of the display, yet a lingering desire nagged at the teen. She glanced down to the charred hem of her shirt, its ruined collar, her blown-up datapad. Then Daiya turned back to her Zeltron teacher of the day, the implacable grin still riveted to her face. "Well, I need that shopping trip now. I feel like burning some credits too, gotta celebrate, y'know?"

She began to dance away from their teaching session, beckoning to Yula to follow with one last remark for the pink woman. "And don't think I forgot about the shirt, you are buying me a new one!"

With that, Daiya giggled her way back out into the alley and onto their next adventure.

F I N

Yula Perl​