Duel The Dance of Blades (Razh vs Issar/ Spectators allowed)

[Razh Sho]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple, Training Hall

The training hall's ambient hum softened as Razh Sho stepped into the center of the polished circlarium floor, the cool glow of overhead lights glancing off his curved-hilt saber. He let the bustle of other duels fade from his awareness, drawing the noise of the Temple into a single point of calm focus.

With deliberate slowness, he drew the saber from its belt—his left hand sliding around the pommel as if greeting an old friend—and raised it before him in one smooth motion. The blade ignited with a crisp snap‑hiss, its blue arc ascending in perfect vertical alignment, bisecting the air like a line drawn in light. Razh held the saber's emitter plate level with his sternum; his right arm locked, elbow slightly bent, wrist firm yet relaxed. His left hand came up behind his back, fingertips grazing the base of his opposite lekku, completing the Makashi salute in which the blade was offered not as threat but as invitation.

He paused there, blade humming in measured resonance, every muscle and joint aligned in patient attention. His shoulders were square but not stiff; his head tipped just enough to acknowledge Master Issar Rae'Velis across the ring. In that moment of stillness, Razh's silver‑grey eyes drank in the four‑armed serpent‑bodied master before him—and the Force pulsed between them, ready to flow.

Then, in a single seamless shift, Razh Sho transitioned into the Form II ready stance: his rear foot pivoted inward, front foot stepping out to create a strong L‑shaped base; hips angled to minimize target area. His blade dipped low and forward, tip tracing a deliberate line toward Issar's heart, while his left hand remained poised, palm lightly open, fingers curved as if balancing an invisible sphere of energy. His torso turned laterally, weight distributed evenly but ready to spring; eyes cropped the subtle tenses in Issar's coils.

The chamber fell silent. Razh Sho's blade hissed in soft invitation. He exhaled once, and in that breath lay the promise of a duel not born of conflict, but of precision, balance, and the timeless dance of blade against blade.

Issar Rae’Velis and anyone who wants to watch. PS: Remember, it's in the Jedi Temple. Only those with permission to be inside or who are guests in good standing can be here.

 

[Tilon Quill]

Fresh from several rounds of punishing Soresu with an old friend, a Selkath of the New Jedi Order, Tilon rested on a bench and let his heart calm down. His friend had to hurry to some briefing or other, which worked out well. Tilon was tired.

He raked sweaty violet hair out of his eyes and drank electrolyte fluid that hit his stomach with an acidic wrench of leftover tension. These seemed to be dangerous times. More and more, 'good enough' wasn't, not with a lightsaber and not with so many other skills. You couldn't be good at everything, true enough, and yet he felt that his own unique skillset left him so far behind the curve in so many ways. He'd made Jedi Knight years and years back, but only barely. The auxiliary corps life would have been a better fit, if he'd been the institutional type.

Some of that mood was just a product of getting his tail handed to him by a hundred-pound Soresu practitioner five times out of five. Tilon leaned back against the wall, sipped his electrolyte drink, and watched people gather for what looked like some kind of Masters' exhibition duel. Not a bad example to watch if you wanted to really get into the spirit of the thing.

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Open

​

Braze practically lived in the training halls when he wasn't busy on a missive. He often watched others, drinking in visual information about many of his jedi Peers and betters.... and occasionally the young ones too. Today was no different.

He was interested in learning new tricks, some like he had been pleasantly surprised by the old dog Garric Wrennar . Perhaps He would gather some interesting new ideas from watching Razh Sho .

If not... well... Tilon Quill still looked cute. He leaned over the banister of the second floor's observation balcony, resting a cheek against a hand, curious to see how things un folded below.

 

[Issar Rae’Velis]

Issar Rae'Velis did not bow. He did not ignite his blades in answer. For a long moment, he simply breathed.

Coiled low, the Hysalrian Jedi looked more like a guardian statue than a man. Four arms rested in deliberate stillness, two crossed over his chest, two palms down at his sides. His lower body curved behind him in a loose spiral, each layer of scale positioned with subtle precision. He did not 'rise'. He unfurled.

With one fluid exhalation, his body uncoiled upward like a living spiral. Robes marked in mystic embroidery flowed around him in time with the movement. Four hands reached outward in harmony, each drawing a saber hilt from within the folds of his belt. Four curved violet blades hissed to life in a rising cadence, forming a pattern like turning constellations around him. No blade mirrored the other exactly; their positioning followed not symmetry, but balance.

He took no formal stance. He simply began to move. Each motion flowed into the next, not choreography, but a spiral unspooling with perfect calm. Two sabers rotated in sweeping outward arcs, slow and patient. The other two remained tighter to his centre, weaving the space around his form into a silent geometry of defense.

He circled once, never rushing, never faltering. A coiled cyclone not yet released. The training hall watched. The Force grew hushed. At last, the silence broke, not with movement, but with voice. It came low and slow, as though rising from beneath still water. Each syllable carried the weight of deep places and deeper time, shaped by the rounded vowels and strange cadence of a Hysalrian tongue. Issar Rae'Velis did not speak loudly. He did not need to.

"We move not for victory," he said, his purple lightsabers humming in quiet orbit around his form. "But for those who have yet to move."

And just like that, the silence returned, richer now. Filled not with expectation, but invitation, as he awaited his opponent's first move.

The turning of the spiral had begun.

Razh Sho​

 

[Razh Sho]

Razh Sho did not blink. He stood rooted, lightsaber poised in its perfect line, his free hand steady behind his back. The stillness of his body masked the activity of his mind, which followed every ripple of Issar Rae'Velis' movement like a scholar reading sacred text—absorbing the language without speaking, noting the subtle weight of every uncoiling gesture.

This was not flourish.
This was philosophy in motion.

His eyes narrowed slightly—not in suspicion, but appreciation. Issar's form was not shaped by posture, nor trained for display. It was born of something older than Forms, older than stances. This was the Spiral Way—a tradition that did not break lines but flowed around them, turning structure into breath.

The twin arcs of violet light swept past like orbiting stars. Razh felt the pull of them, not physically, but in rhythm. Four blades. No redundancy. No waste. All purposeful, all woven into the calm tension of a living storm.

He breathed in through his nose, then exhaled slowly through parted lips, grounding himself not in the past, but in this moment.

And then—his voice came, quiet but honed.

"Your spiral turns in harmony, Master Rae'Velis. I wonder—" he shifted his footing slightly, blade drifting into a sharper angle, like a brush readied at canvas "—if it bends… when pressed."

He inclined his chin once, faintly.

Then moved.

Not with speed, but with definition. A single, precise step forward, blade extending in a minimalist thrust—not to strike, but to speak, to announce the duel's language: timing, control, elegance.

Makashi did not demand the center. It claimed it only when the opponent had given it away.

The match had begun.

And Razh Sho, the long-sleeping blade reborn, was ready to see what the Spiral would reveal.

Issar Rae’Velis

 

[Tilon Quill]

Tilon forgot to drink with the bottle against his lower lip. The two Jedi Masters, with five blades among them, had started moving. Communicating, frankly.

An idea struck. He had a knack for comprehending speech with the Force, was developing it into a speciality, and he drew on that skill now. He got the immediate but vague sense that they were tacitly announcing heritages and values as much as posturing. He felt he'd like to communicate like that, but after five failed bouts in a row it seemed as far away as fluency in Shyriwook.

 

[Neriamel Loraya]

Neriamel sat quietly, as she would to meditate, among the Jedi who had convened to witness the practice duel between Masters Sho and Rae'Velis. It was only natural that as Master Sho's Padawan learner, she should be here and observe his technique.

She had not had the chance to do any research beforehand and looked with interest at the strange Master Issar Rae'Velis. He was not of a species she had hitherto encountered.

A four-armed Jedi was a frightening notion to consider. Most beings with hands had two of them. Some of them chose to use both of them to wield a lightsaber, and Neriamel had never felt that it gave them an outsized advantage. She had sparred with practitioners of this technique many times and found that each of their two blades was individually much less threatening than that of a fighter with a single blade. It was almost as if they were wielding two half-blades that just about happened to add up to a full one. The problem, she surmised, was attention - the mind was not capable of attending to two lightsaber at one time with the same clarity that it had when directed only at one. Whether they coped with it through rapid switching or simply operated with a fuzzier view of things, it put additional strain on the practitioner and led to inevitable sloppiness in execution. Sometimes, she found, these people positively tied themselves up in their own nets, struggling to coordinate more than they were made to coordinate.

But that was the thing: it stood to reason that the mind of a being with four arms was organised differently. Perhaps he could not use all four arms at the same time, but it was likely that where a human could only use one hand at a time to full effect, this one could at least use two. And that would make a world of a difference. He would pose a wholly new kind of challenge. Not the same one as fighting two opponents at one time, either: two fighters could position themselves independently, but they could coordinate more or less well and never perfectly. If her hypothesis was correct, this fighter would have perfect coordination between more than one lightsaber acting in unison, while occupying one position - which was, on the one hand, a compensating disadvantage, but on the other hand, it meant that you couldn't even isolate any one lightsaber, as you would in a duel with two opponents.

She would certainly have to do some reading about the man and his species afterwards.

When the masters began to move, Neriamel noted with interest and not small amount of surprise that Master Rae'Velis approach was something very unique and altogether different from anything she had expected. He appeared to have an altogether different mode of thinking. The motion of his arms, and of his blades as their extension, was neither independent - it was interwoven. It formed a highly complex whole - and no doubt it was a powerful unity, ready to envelop or roll over any resistance. But did that mean one could poke it and cause it to fall apart? How would it cope? There was no doubt that Master Sho must be having the exact same thought.

She looked on expectantly.

 

[Ilaria Morvayne]

Chapter Two: A Mask of Death and Shadow - Part One: The Dance of Blades

---

Coruscant, Jedi Temple, Training Hall

She stood at the upper level of the observation ring, half-shadowed by one of the tall arching support columns, hands folded loosely in front of her. The training hall was vast and luminous, a place of elegant precision — mirrored walls and reflective circlarium flooring casting light in subtle currents across the chamber. But her eyes weren't drawn to the architecture. They were fixed on the two in the ring.

Razh Sho and Issar Rae'Velis.

An uncommon pairing.

Makashi versus Spiral.

She tilted her head, just slightly, as if adjusting the focus of her gaze. Razh moved like a stylus across glass—precise, contained, and impossibly clean. Every motion was an expression of restraint refined into threat. The elegance of Form II was in its economy, and Razh wielded it like a man carving space out of time. His presence wasn't aggressive, but absolute. One line, held without apology.

Then there was Issar.

The Hysalrian did not fight. He flowed. The Spiral Way was not a form in the traditional sense—it had no numbered velocities, no sanctioned stances. It was an answer to the space around it. The four sabers moved as if tied to invisible threads, never intersecting, yet never alone. Defensive without being passive. Predictive without being arrogant. A geometry of curves and waves, endlessly recursive.

She studied the contrast not just with interest, but with hunger.

Makashi sought dominance through refinement. Spiral sought equilibrium through surrender. Both were truths.

And yet—how narrow they were.

Her eyes traced the meeting point as Razh delivered his opening thrust. A precise declaration. A flawless gambit.

Issar answered with an evasion so fluid it looked accidental. But it wasn't. His body spiraled down and away, a blade angled like a crescent moon to intercept the returning guard, while another curved behind him in a mirrored arc. It wasn't counterstrike—it was response. Like wind curving around a blade.

To the untrained eye, this was art. A dance of philosophies.

To her, it was something else entirely.

A catalogue.

She was watching more than styles. She was watching habits. Tendencies. Rhythmic tells. The flex of the right heel before an inside deflection. The micro-rotation in a spinal joint before a Spiral reversal. She watched the second blade in Issar's low left hand—never used, only reserved. A coil never struck. Why?

Not a gap.

A reserve.

And Razh? His lead foot was always the announcer, not the blade. His reach extended from the shoulder, not the core. His pivot was impeccable. But it cost him half a second in close.

Noted.

She didn't smile.

But she watched.

Quiet, composed, unobtrusive in her Padawan robes.

And beneath it all—learning.

Every breath of it. Every twitch. Every strike.

Every identity in the room was known.

Except the dagger at her side.

​

 

[Braze]

Braze gently hopped over the low wall of the balcony and landed with all the grace of a cat on his feet making no sounds what so ever. He padded over to Tilon Quill "Fun to see that many blades at once isn't it?"

 

[Tilon Quill]

"Fun to see that many blades at once isn't it?"

Drinking, Tilon glanced the silent-moving young man's way once, twice, and put the electrolyte bottle down on the other side of the bench, leaving room for Braze to take a seat.

"Not my usual evening, I'll go that far." He flapped the neck of his sweat-dark clothes away from his collarbones for a breeze. "You're Braze, hm? The blademaster-to-be? What do you see when you look at this?"

 

[Issar Rae’Velis]

The Spiral answered.

Master Sho's thrust reached toward his centre, precise, elegant, a Makashi blade asking a question. But the space it sought was no longer there.

Issar moved, not away, but around. One lower arm crossed low, its saber catching the strike not with a clash, but with a subtle re-direct, just enough to guide the blade past him, like a leaf nudged by the current. At the same instant, his body coiled and tilted, the motion cascading through his spine and tail; not in retreat nor evasion, but simply turning, twisting.

The upper arms followed, one saber orbiting high in a wide arc behind him, the other sweeping across his body in a mirrored crescent. The movements were not aggressive, nor defensive. They were transitional; flows without tension, like spirals inscribed in air.

Where Makashi drew lines, Issar drew circles. Where one stepped forward, the other spiralled inward.

The sabers never stopped moving, a blur of brilliant purple. The pressure had come, and the Spiral had not broken. It had curved... and continued.

Razh Sho​

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Tilon Quill

Braze felt a flicker of surprise that someone he'd never met seemed familiar with both his reputation and ambitions, briefly wondering how, or from whom, Tilon had learned so much about him. Alongside this curiosity came a faint sting of embarrassment at his own ignorance, realizing he knew next to nothing about the man standing before him.


Braze didn't look away from the ring when he answered. His posture was relaxed, but the tension in his voice gave away how closely he was watching.

"I'm certainly learning quite a bit... You know; It takes a lot to be able to mentally use four limbs with dexterity like that. You've got to be wired different to keep that many weapons coordinated without folding over yourself, or be very well trained to handle the stream of thought and hand eye coordination."
He paused watching the match take place...

"But I wouldn't call this a duel, however...At least not yet."

Braze shifted his weight from one foot to another.

"That Hysalrian is not fighting.... It's not aggression, nor is it even redirection. It's more like endurance, kind of like Soresu with extra limbs and a few posturing motions to make the swings more... Stylish. Presently it's passive. Nothing's being risked."

His gaze then tracked Razh.

"And Makashi? That's not a form you just perform. It is the form best for dueling... You exploit the instant someone hesitates... It's a chess match of techniques and quick divisive decisions, executed by a trained body. The Twi'lek's foundation is clean, but he's not really testing anything. It's like he's waiting for the Hysalrian to give him permission to engage properly."

He snorted softly.

"I mean, it's pretty. Balanced. And they're both talented. But it's not a fight...it's like spar dressed up like a brief poem between friends.... more like a kata turned velocity really...or a velocity turned kata being made up as they go...Like posturing for the fun of it... "

Then, with a dry glance sideways at Tilon:

"I'll be more impressed when someone is actually trying to win.... I'm sorry you seem to know me... But I haven't met you yet. Might I have the pleasure of knowing your name?"

 

[Tilon Quill]

Braze 's analysis lined up with Tilon's less-acute impressions. Though he'd been a Jedi Knight for quite a few years, and was likely the older of the two, he had much less experience at this kind of thing.

"Oh, I'm old friends with Vameil Tore. I'm here visiting her. She mentioned you." She was a Selkath Jedi Knight based from this temple, small-framed but more than skilled enough at Soresu to mop the floor with Tilon repeatedly. The serious duellist scene in the NJO, at the experienced-knight level, wasn't a large one.

As they talked quietly against the wall of the training hall, he kept watching the lightsaber exhibition.

"Tilon Quill. I'm a Knight but not with the Order, and not much of a saber user or temple-goer. I'm always out translating for expeditions to places where droids don't have languages on file."

 

[Razh Sho]

The blade missed. Not through failure of technique, but because the target had ceased to exist in the way Razh had defined it. Makashi was a language of angles. Precision. Lines. One cut forward. One cut back. The discipline prized economy over exertion, elegance over dominance. But Issar Rae'Velis did not answer in lines. He answered in curves.

Razh pivoted lightly as his saber was guided aside—not struck, not blocked, but redirected, as if the Force itself had whispered that resistance was unnecessary. He adjusted with a duelist's instinct, never overextending, never chasing.

Control was not recovery. It was response.

The moment turned.

Issar moved with liquid inevitability, arms orbiting in mirrored arcs, sabers spinning in quiet defiance of symmetry. His serpentine form twisted not to evade but to invite, not to break tension but to reveal that it had never been there to begin with.

Razh saw it clearly now. The Spiral did not oppose the blade. It absorbed it. Transformed it. He shifted his stance—subtle, minimal. The blade lowered half a degree, spine drawn tall, shoulders square. Not to retreat. Not to escalate. To adapt. The next move would not be a test of form, but of philosophy.

"You do not meet an edge," Razh said aloud, calm to Issar as their blades turned like twin pendulums. "You unfold around it."

There was no bitterness in his tone, no frustration. Only recognition, the kind that passed between craftsmen who had studied different instruments and now found themselves playing in the same key. Razh stepped not forward but aside, circling, his blue saber held close, reading the movement not as a threat but as an invitation to understanding.

"Very well," he murmured, adjusting his blade to a lower guard, the inside line exposed but ready. "Let us draw circles, then."

He re-entered the dance, this time, not with a thrust, but a feint. The blue blade flicked outward, then twisted inward, sliding under Issar's lower sabers toward the narrow space near his left flank. Not a committed strike. A 'second question'. A test not of guard, but of principle. Razh moved deliberately now, shoulders aligned, spine tall—his entire form a composition of restraint and intention. The guard he chose was open, his inside line exposed yet controlled, welcoming an exchange of philosophies, not just sabers.

Issar Rae’Velis

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Tilon Quill

Braze perked up at the way Tilon framed himself. Understated, and unassuming. That always made things more interesting.
He straightened slightly, shifting his weight again. A funny sentence popped in to Braze's mind... but perhaps it wasn't polite to say something quite like that quite this soon...

"So you're the elusive Tilon Quill," he mused, tone thoughtful but still light. "Knight, translator, and rogue linguist. You make it sound like you're trying very hard not to be impressive."

His gaze lingered studying the man.

"I've always found that people who say they're 'not much of a saber user' tend to have something hidden under the surface. Words, if not blades." he paused unable to offer a smirk with the jaw prosthetic before adding, "Should I be worried?"

 

[Tilon Quill]

Tilon kept on watching the exhibition. His body was calming down now from the training duels. He mostly felt tired and unpleasantly clammy, but tired and clammy didn't mean oblivious.

"Oh, you caught the false modesty? I wasn't hiding some massive trick for winning duels, I'll tell you that for free." He slouched back on the bench and laced his fingers over his belly. "No, I was a comms officer on the Longjumper's Mark. Bargain water from the Chazrach a million parsecs away? Sure, that's all me. Fight a Sith? Maybe I'm giving Braze a call."

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Tilon Quill

"Oh... I wouldn't count yourself out so easily... In my experience… most Sith are undisciplined, egocentric toddlers on a rampage; easy enough to control with a well-placed quip. Very few have ever posed a real challenge."

He paused, voice flattening just slightly.

"That said, I wouldn't recommend squaring up with the ones who've stopped talking. The ones who've learned to listen, to wait. They're the ones who kill without a speech. No theatrics, and no warning... "

He said thinking about Darth Carnifex for a few silent moments.

"Thankfully, most still can't resist the sound of their own voice. Just about every Sith I've met has some per-rehersed monologue to cope with and justify their actions and poor decisions."

He continued to watch the fight ahead of them as well. He moved to stand next to Tilon off to the side.
"The Sith I've encountered rarely bother to refine martial arts. Too direct. Too disciplined. In terms of challenge… they've mostly left me disappointed. Which, I suppose, is a relief in its own way."

He trailed in an almost detached manner...

"They tend to favor dishonorable, desperate methods. The kind of tactics you'd expect from gutter scum. And when they're not scheming for an easy win, they're desecrating corpses, playing scientist without ethics. Like children mistaking cruelty for strength."

A pause.

"Most of them care for nothing but their own power. And even that, they squander...Some of them claim to be righteous... Clinging to some macabre, twisted idea of justice; like freeing slaves while serving monsters worse than their masters. They pretend it's noble."

A cold exhale, like the thought physically disgusted him.

"But the Sith mistake power for depth...like a child thinking shouting makes them wise. They seek shortcuts. The Force is just a mirror to them, that they can then spend their lives admiring their own reflection in... They like to wear their pain like it's armor, but it's really more often than not just a costume. Strip away the drama, and you're left with a coward who never learned discipline. They just burn what they hate and call it freedom."

He shook his head briefly.

"The real tragedy? They think falling makes them interesting."

He exhaled through his nose briefly, a sound that might've been a laugh if it had any warmth to it.

"But that's enough Sith 'slander' for the day. You're not here to hear me gripe about philosophy. How's your footwork? Do you even like fighting? "

 

[Tilon Quill]

"No, no, philosophize away. It's not griping, it's tactical instruction."

There were enough people around, watching the exhibition, that Tilon felt fairly sure their quiet chat off against the back wall had been within the bounds of good taste — but he didn't want to push it too far. More pressingly, he still felt grimy.

"I was just going to duck out and freshen up. What are you doing later? I'm shipping out tonight but not, you know, immediately."

Braze

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Tilon Quill

"I'll be taking my Padawan, Kaelos Vryn , to Tython tomorrow morning. Thought it was time for some focused training, and a proper education in the Jedi's history, not just field work and damage control.... I've been auditing classes and watching those free training in case I find any one else whom I might like to teach.... "

He glanced over, back to Tilon then.

"If you're free this evening... would you allow me to share a meal with you? Nothing formal. Just a chance to talk, if you're interested."

​

 

[Tilon Quill]

Tilon tore his gaze off the saber exhibition and offered Braze a surprised grin. "I can make that work. Be seeing you."

He got up off the bench and headed out behind the crowd, loathe to miss the rest of it but also feeling in dire need of a shower. The perils of public exercise.