The Fabric of Minds (Self-Training)

[Yasha Cadera]

I'm hanging by my neck over 200 stories up. @[member="Meret Blackmoon"] is scoffing at her beau and I'm losing my peripheral vision. In the dream @[member="Mikhail Shorn"] lets go, and I tumble into a sea of purples and blacks.

It has become abruptly clear that I'm unsafe here. Inside the Fringe's borders I've found impetus for nights to make me shudder and days to give me hope. I wake up wherever I end the night before and realize I'm still somewhere within the borders. Something's keeping me here and it's scaring me that it might be my serendipitous spot on the Council.

As I sit in a hallway full of people, I feel the tumultuous becoming, that fragmentation of me for a random selection of the strongest, nearest, most compatible persona around. I feel it and it lingers, the congruence of many minds slicking up, sidling into my forehead and rooting around for a place to stay. 'Here, push this memory over, tame this sentiment, rule that emotion' until I wake up days later unaware and fleeting.

I'm more spirit than man.

It's time the spirit learned enough tricks to stay alive. I'll never be a fighter, not built for it. Too Naboo. It hit me at the party that there's strength in the subtle flow and current of emotions. If others can manipulate mine unawares of their effect on me, why can I not do the same to them? For the moment I sit, elbows on my knees and attempt in some frail way to maintain the running monologue of Anders in my conscious head.

Breathe in. Pause. A woman of metal and bone: A shiver rolls down my spine, I feel jilted, raw as if these wounds won't close around the bionic necessities. That bastard, hope he catches his death. Exhale. That's not me.

I'm not jilted and I've got all my limbs intact. My green eyes flicker around to find the culprit. I see a couple of women, but there's one with a limp gripping a lightsaber hilt like it's the last ticket home. I press my scoping mind toward her, pinging off it. My eyes snap shut. Ow headache.

Worth it. I strike out again, slick against her subconscious just to get a feel. He kept my ring. Bastard. I'll gut him and empty his poisonous spleen on the swamps of Dagobah. I want to pick up the nearest rock and bash someone's head in. I flex my fingers, knuckles bent inward, I clutch my knees one by one and grit my teeth.

My name is Anders, I'm 22 years old, I was born on Naboo and had good parents. My name is Anders, I'm 22 years old, I was born on Rigos and my father was a prick…a cloud of fog folds over this brain, cleansing and writing over the individual now.

My thumb flicks for an ignition switch on a lightsaber I don't own. I open my eyes. Put me down. Let me go, go about your hate wounded woman. Leave us…. no. Me. Leave me.

She stumbles, blinks, looking around for the ghost beside her shoulder telling her to let me go, to go about her business, to release the hate. Release him he's not worth it. I dig my fingers into my knees, bunching the fabric of my trousers and my jaw hurts for how I've clenched it. I'm Anders Sivas, dammit. I'm not going to flutter away without a fight.

No more getting swung around.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

In the null space, Anders becomes a reverberating, living meaning. The wronged woman walked off and I still exist as the twenty-two year old boy from Naboo. Another score of people continue to walk by living their lives unaware to the mental leech sitting on this bench grabbing at his knees. The amount of humming pressure in my brain builds and thunders, and like a sudden drop in barometric pressure I feel it.

The next symbiosis. It rattles into my ribcage with the basso of the confident male. A draping sweep of confidence splays across my field of inner vision, wiping away years of incredible fear. Powerful man am I, righteous and vindicated ready for war. The billowing underlings trotting to my heels clip clop across the decks of starships so vast cities were built in less space. A basking resolution folds over this fragile personhood and for a fleeting moment I wish it would stay. I wish I could make this bit stick, steal it and shove the insecurities of Anders on the Confident Male.

Wouldn't you love me now, if this is what you see?

My eyelids form over the sparking orbs of my vision and I drag my mind from right to left, sweeping a figurative broomstick across the Confident Male and pushing him down and to the left, down and out. Away. I'm Anders, I'm twenty two years old and I was raised outside Theed. I went to an art school, I studied theatre, music, fine art. Never woken with bloody knuckles, but I've woken in many beds beside many peoples. Humanoids all, men, women, ambiguous sensuality it became me because they became me. The Me replaced with the We, the ultimate self-lover, I give where they need.

I shudder. The Confident Male is draining from my brain and I lean tired and empty on the bench's back. I did it. I resisted of my own accord. My mouth works open and closed as my eyes adjust to the blaring light. Feels like a Nexu's rattling around in my brain. The symbiosis would be easier. Better. . . less painful maybe?

A sentiment brushes against my mind, warmth and glowing it feels like the breath of heaven. Another potential symbiosis. Sweet, alluring, a female with arms of mercy. I could go for some of that, wouldn't mind spending a few days in the mental thrall of a lonely woman who for a passing week finds comfort and grace in the strange attractive man who 'gets her'.

No. I can't be ruled by beauty just as I cannot be ruled by fear. Push it away, pull up a breath of my own self. It's not enough to drift from connection to connection. . . how much more can I take?

 

[Meret Blackmoon]

Meret’s hands trembled as she tried to resolve the conflict within her soul. She stared in the mirror and saw a mask that cloaked her true self. There were expectations, responsibilities, and the proper image, commitments that weight her spirit down. Crying did not help. It only made her eyes red and puffy…not a pretty sight. Alcohol was not an answer.

She lit a candle and placed it in eyesight. She took in deep breaths and soon was in deep meditation.

A gold ring spun in sunlight. It sprouted leaves and thrived. A hand grabbed the ring and stole it’s energy. The leaves died and sadness filled the garden. The sorrow lingered until Meret looked back to see him, a brother from Naboo. She remembered him, and treasured him. Her spirit rested comfortably in his arms. They would always be connected, locked in an embraced, in the garden with azure blue skies and crisp white clouds. The Whisties sang sweet treble songs and they lingered tête-à-tête. She nuzzled his cheek with her nose kissing him for the last time. “Know this, you are loved.” The circle was complete. The gold ring spun in the sunlight reflecting all his energy. It was done.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

Time spun out of my control. Why control? Who can control time, measure and mete it out for the masses in drips like water from a constant faucet. There is no proper time, just as there is no proper Anders. Perhaps I tried too hard, as I fade, caterwaul away from the present, I feel my shoulder hit the bench, knees curl up to my chest and my ribs heave. I feel heavy, as if time's sands had poured down upon me and left no room for oxygen and flitters of nitrogen, like Whisties flittering between the conglomerate of oxygen and other gasses both noble and obscene which strike the heart of every breathable atmosphere.

Meret. The arms of mercy. The last I feel is my head striking the bench. I'm gone in a field of yellow and gold, the drenching emerald of light diffused through Endor's trees. Ephemeral fingers brush against the blushing cheeks of a compatriot who found me, gentle and fleeting, and made stick a sensation of weight and dignity. I dangle, halo-like and resting inside the memory of her, the edging sympathy of my blonde comfort. I reach, near begging.

'Please. Who am I? Let me stay the better man.' the voice is timid, underlined by a strength I haven't had the luxury to experience anywhere but here, in this moment. If time was a measured entity to be controlled, I would fix this down, cling to it and wear it cloak-like over my olive skin. Meret's pink lips mash lovingly against my cheek and I feel it, that wearable garment of affection.

Love is the answer to time. It fixes and controls it, fixates our minds on stretches of eternal merit. Within these arms is joy. Peace floods, where fear had once and I lose the bitter necessity to control the emotions of others. It is enough to know, to feel and reside within the happy affections however ill fated that cling to my cheek where she kissed it once. My sunlight energy wraps around this breaking woman, bundling her up in the arms of my far off presence.

I started this day with the desire to shift the emotions of others, and here the Force has lent me the task at hand. I have to help Meret find peace with her situation. Heavy lies the burden of a person's inner choices. There are many reasons marriage tames the wild of heart, and for all the reasons Meret had to union with the Lord Cordel, I install within her the sheer and utter atomic joy of her company. Within her gaze I became myself, and how shocking this man has become.

There is a strength in my mental dominion fortified by her gift to me. I, Anders Sivas, am worthy of all grace and love. I feel and am felt, I am more than a whisp of fog fading come noon, until the next installation of dew and nightly thunder on the Japha Plains and Seas of our home world. I am loved not for my symbiosis, but for the vertebrae which solidify along my singing spinal chord.

Anders Sivas, the golden light which found berth on Endor, sends a measure of sun to @[member="Meret Blackmoon"], instilling it, filling it from lightyears off with a feeling. An emotional quality. A sign. 'Dry your eyes, beloved woman. Cherished, noble Lady. My essence to thine, be loved.'

A young man curled up on a park bench feels the pressure of cool metal on his side. Many people wander by, strong and weak alike, and slowly - ever slowly, some walk by with a faint smile crossing their lips for no reason they remember.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

I stir with a floating memory. A child with streaming blonde hair laying in a sunny field. Flower petals are stroked into the air by the wind as it rises and picks up of its own accord. My hands push against the hard bench and I remember the grass in my childish fingers. Alone in the field, it was the first time I felt Anders rise. Pressed into the greenery, I pushed my hands through the sprouting buds of grass and wildflowers and felt a lone pace froth at the black rise of ballast in my skull. Far off the instinctive feel of my parents were receding. I could feel the bile in Dad's throat. 'Leave him be, Galana, let the goddess-da**ed boy rest'. Curled onto my side, I pushed my face in the grass.

Freedom, sweet and earthy came with a chase of colours rising and sounds receding. I laughed and played, came back to the cabin with holes in my trousers and a ruddy, muddy smile on my seven year old face.

Mom hit like a jackhammer. The second she turned around I felt the symbiosis and it was the earliest memory I have of knowing just what other people did to me. I slept that night with dreams of guilt and fear pushing through the vortex of my childish immune system, and into my cranium. I fought it, pushed at them but to no avail. Mom's always been a strong old queen. Kind, but unwavering. Pushing at the bench, I swear I feel the grass under my hands.

That first bit of knowing's stuck, and I raise up with the smell of Meret's perfume in my nostrils and Anders firmly placed in my head. The cacophony of the passers-by hits with their needle-pinges, tattoos with no ink and I sit forward, hands on my knees again. The differentiation of weak and strong personalities is fracturing to a layer system, separations of oils on waters until I feel myself within the brine. A man is coming my way, his mind docile, kind, simple.

My eyes peer at his chest, I drape my will across him with all the fledgeling righteousness of a bird's first flight. 'Sit with me. Come sit down. Sit down and say space is hot. It's hot like a sun. Sit down. Tell me space isn't cold. Come. Sit. Tell me.' I push the thought at him, unaware of if it'll work, but pushing and pushing nonetheless.

He quivers. Fixes his collar, and lets his bag fall down. 'Come sit, tell me space is hot.' An odd creep builds up my spine, I feel nauseous as if even my stomach knows what I'm trying to do goes against the will of others. 'Come sit, tell me space is hot. Come. Now.' He grabs his bag and rifles through it, pulling it to the bench to sit beside me.

"Can't believe I dropped this thing. Parts, it's parts for a cooling system on my buddy's ship. Hi. Malac. Terence Malac, engineer."

I nod and give him my hand, another push. 'Tell me space is hot, Terence Malac.' He clears his throat, brings out a tool kit and unravels the leather to check on their wear. Confident, he puts them back and brings out a flask. I refuse his offer. 'Tell me space is hot', I push again, feeling the bile rise in my throat.

"Cool in here, not like out there. Deep space. People seem to think space is cold, on board a ship? Not so much, you know, there's nowhere for the heat from our engines to go. Place cooks like a crockery pot on Tatooine. Space is not a cool place. Should've brought a sweater."

I laugh, he thinks I'm laughing about the sweater, that goddess-frakked sweater he left in his cubby on board. "Yeah, man. What ship're you swinging?"

'Say 'Naboo Lifter'.'

"Naboo Lifter… wait, that's not right.. haha! No, I'm running a Corellian skiff. Better cargo space than the lifter, don't know why I said that."

Bingo.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

Living off the high of persuading Terence to say bits and bobs is short lived and euphoric. I can't believe my luck, so once he shoves off I try again. This time, I watch the people going by. There's a woman coming, she's clutching her purse close to her chest and I can feel how uncomfortable she is. 'Come here. Sit beside me.' I call out to her, feel the depression slick on the forefront of her mind. She's rife with it, consumed by a malaise that's purely mental.

"Is.. is anyone sitting here?" She mumbles, nearly dropping her bag. I shake my head, give her a bright smile. "Just you. Take a load off. You okay? Look a bit nervous."

She licks her lips, hands clutching and grabbing at the purse straps and I nudge her mind knocking at her mental door to sneak my way in. I feel the stink of fear, like unwashed laundry hanging on a line across her guarded heart. I see a door slammed shut, locked from the other side and I see a map with no destination. No place to go. 'Speak to me.'

She blinks, searches her bag and takes a sweet out, popping it in her mouth I smell an herbal odour, pleasant and calming, coming from the satchel of sweets. In her mind I begin to see a fog filtering in, as if the auto-immune system is beginning to catch on. I push deeper, see a dog and a windowsill with plants. 'Tell me what's wrong.'

"It's… it's funny. Life and all. You think you're making a foundation in a place. Think you're making a life with a man and boom! The rug gets yanked out from under you. I should have known. Really, it was my fault for not figuring it out."

"You don't really believe that do you? That it's your fault? Can't be blamed for living. If he didn't tell you something was wrong, are you supposed to be a mind reader?"

"Hah! Mind reader! If he had one, I might've bought a dictionary for it."

"See? So what're you worried about?"

"He left me. He ​kicked me out for …. for her.."

"Seem to me he freed you from a life of suck. Suck and lose."

"I don't know. I'm not the youngest." The windowsill again, this time it's the closest I can see to Spring, the flowers and herbs are flowering and I look out through her eyes to see a city on Annaj. The fog rolls around outside, I feel a calmness, a tight and nearly comfortable homeliness here. Another woman, I don't see anything else before the fog rolls in.

"Not the oldest either. What're you going to do?"

She smacks her lips again, threading her fingers through the purse straps and I shudder. I'm not going to like what she says next. "I'm going to plead. Oh, it's not as bad as all that, even if he is cheating, well, I cook better you see? I do the laundry the way he likes. There are plenty of things I do better. I can… I can get him back. I'm sure he'll take me back."

"Is that your best shot? Going back to a cheating son of a bantha?"

"What else have I got? It's humiliating to go back to my Sister's. She always did lord over me. Always pushed my buttons."

Woe is me, woe and woe. I cross my arms over my chest and raise an eyebrow at her. What's the real problem? I bite my lip and dive into her mind again, threading through the emotions on the surface to see that windowsill. I pull at it. Bring it forward, closer to the surface of her mind. "Go to your sister's."

"Excuse me? Pardon me, but I'll do what I like."

I put my hand on her shoulder, the periphery fades and I see only her. Only this depressed woman. My eyes beam into hers, she's mousy and threatened but as I push and push my mind inside the threat fades for a lull. She's going to ruin her life with this jackrabbit. "You don't want him back."

"I don't want him.. I.. but…"
"You do not want him back."

"I do not want him back." She shakes her head, I clench my fingers in her coat and feel the fog roll in. "You are going to stay with your sister."

"I'm going .. well I guess I .."

"You are going to stay with your sister."

"I am. I'm going to stay with Bette. Maybe she'll let me plant some more herbs in her windowsill garden. She probably will. Always good for that at least. Yes, yes I'm going to stay with Bette."

"Go." I let go of her shoulder and the woman blinks. Her hands have stopped clutching the purse and she's put it over her shoulder and walked away. The fog continues to roll in, and I pass out on the bench as the last I remember is my shoulder hitting the metal with a heavy thunk.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

The fog rolls in with the most intense headache I've ever known. Overworked, much? Yes, I'm beginning to see how baby steps should have been tattooed on my desires today. In this null space, I feel nothing, I see nothing, I'm lying placid and unprotected on a bench in The Pit. What was the point of the exercise? To change that woman's mind?

To save her from a fething bantha's son of a man. Right. Worth it. Who'll be there when I'm not? Who'll be there the next time a man smiles at her at a bar because he's had a few and she's one of the less-thans left over after the pretty women have all left? The idea fades as I fade and I wake up groggily after a considerable amount of time.

Checking my chrono I see it's been hours since the woman toddled off and I've no idea if the thought stuck or if she's on a transport back to suck-land. I sit upright and hold my hands in my lap, searching my fingers for some dousing rod-like clue to her fate and see only shaking. Only the signs of an empath reducing to a fitful mental case on a bench. I heave off the bench and stumble into a bruiser of a man with the harshest voice I've ever heard in my life. "So-sorry. Sorry I..my bad."

"You damn right it's your bad, pipsqueak! You want me to break you?"

"Naw, go take on a Krayt Dragon. More your size."

"Funny man, funny."

"I try." I grin up at him, and his expression goes grey as I tumble backward onto the bench. "Hey, buddy, you not looking so good. Gotta fix up that nose."

"Muh-wuh?" Pushing my fingers at my nose, I feel the crusted blood and tender cartilage. Oh my gosh, I think …. I think when I passed out I landed on my nose. "Oh. My. Gosh. Is it still pretty? Tell me dude! Is my nose still pretty!?"

The man bursts out laughing and hoists me up. "Come on. I'll take you somewhere to wash up." He darn near lifts me up off the ground, and I'm flashing back to a place 200 stories up. My feet are under me before I can say 'wow' and I let him lead me on. He finds a bathroom and I plaster both hands on the counter as the tap turns on. Good Yoda's ghost! There's blood everywhere! All the way down my chin and down my cheek! "I look messed up!"

"Yeah, what happened, you get beat up by a leprechaun?"

"Hah, hah, Betty-Boo. You should see the other guy." The bench. I mean the bench. Shh. The man laughs and I splash water on my face, start gingerly rubbing around my stains as the sink water turns pink. As soon as I'm comfortably woken up and washed, I look down at my clothes. Lucky me, I didn't get too much blood on them. Maybe I won't be changing peoples' minds for a while. I might vent my brains out my nose.