Private The Lighthouse

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

VARUNDA IX
EDGE OF THE UNKNOWN REGIONS

A broken lighthouse, little more than a circle of jumbled stone, stood on a hill at the ocean's edge. The old first floor of the lighthouse made a platform no more than seven paces across. Ashin set down a backpack and shrugged out of her coat.

"The storm won here," she said to Mercy apropos of nothing. She cracked her neck and turned to the significantly larger, significantly younger woman. "A useful place to remember the costs of being less than indestructible. Mercy, I would like you to punch me as hard as you can."

 

[Mercy]

Ashin Cardé Varanin

Mercy peered up towards the lighthouse with a furrowed expression. It must have been a gorgeous thing once upon a time. When it was young, first made and shining its light across the ocean. Now it was broken, detritus and a waste of space. Was there an analogy here? Ashin seemed to confirm it only a moment later.

"But the 'tower can't maintain itself. It needs people for that." She countered as she glanced down towards Varanin. If the expression was furrowed first then it was positively scrunched next. "Um," But then remembering that she had asked to be taught.

She was almost positive this was going to end badly for her, but how much worse could it get? She survived the Gorog. "Sure."

There was no other warning before Mercy went from static to violent motion. Doing her utmost best to smash her fist through Ashin's chest. Anything less than her best would be an insult to the Sith Lord.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"This isn't—"

Feth but the kid could hit. Mercy's fist crashed into Ashin's chest, or more precisely into Ashin's longtime favorite way to command the Force: a tight full-body shield. Air blurred around Ashin, snug against her skin, a hard distortion that blunted the impact.

Ashin slammed into and through the precarious stone wall. After a moment of pondering clouds, she picked herself up and cracked her neck.

"—a metaphorical lesson."

She positioned herself in the middle of the broken lighthouse.

"How much do you know about Force shields?"

 

[Mercy]

Oof.

Like hitting reinforced concrete or durasteel.

She assumed there was some treachery afoot. A punch that was immediately reversed before being thrown into the ocean. Where she'd have to fight six eldritch creatures an' then some. Instead Ashin was sent off into the wall, but Mercy couldn't help but shake her hand to get some feeling back into it after that punch.

"Oh, good, I dun' get those anyway. Whole 'if a bantha an' a draugr race, who is faster' type o' chit." A grin there as Mercy finally felt the feeling return to her hand.

"Uh. Enough to say hi and bye. I think I used it a bit... when uh... we fought the big arse walking meat popsicle. But I 'aven't been able to do it again without yar fancy device powering me up."

But Mercy looked hungry.

Then her stomach growled slightly and she had enough decency to look a bit sheepishly. "Since I 'ad that evil tree-stew, I am hungry practically all da time." Apologetic tone as she pulled out a nutrition bar in the middle of the lesson.

Did Ashin ever have to deal with this chit with Avalore ?

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Do what you need to do, just pay attention."

A bubble surrounded them briefly, a standard Force shield that most acolytes could create — to one level of strength or another. It grew less tangible and tightened to exclude not just Mercy but also most of Ashin's body, until it covered just her forearm and fist. She held up the fist in question, took a long step, and punched the nearest wall. The jumbled stone shivered gently but didn't move.

"Think of this kind of shield like a gauntlet: it spreads out some portion of the impact all around your fist and up your arm, so you can hit as hard as you want without breaking your hand or your wrist. I think you're capable of hitting me harder than you did. When you're ready to try, go ahead."

 

[Mercy]

And Mercy was paying attention as she chewed.

A lot of attention.

Chew.

In fact, she kinda looked constipated. In truth Mercy barely paid attention to anything. All casualness and relaxation. This though? This mattered. It was a path to more power.

Chew chew.

"Oh, damn. That's some classic chit. I read how ya used it. Lujo? Or was it Annaj? Karking dropped off a tower without breaking so much as a toe." Sure, Varanin was a bit of a mother hen these days and Mercy didn't think as much of her as prior to meeting her.

But still. Damn impressive.

The bubble flashed up around her. Just as with Varanin. She began shrinking it down. Inch. Inch. Inching it back. And here the problem was already occurring.

"Feth me, I hate these 'precise' exercises..." growled as she pulled the bubble back all the way... and it popped instead of shrinking to her fist.

"Ah force damnit."

The anger flared up and before she could get a hold of herself she pushed her fist straight through the concrete. When she withdrew it from the hole? Her fist was bloody. Not broken however. And she didn't seem to notice the blood or the scuffed wounds on the knuckles.

"How do ya keep that fethin control? Big chit? Sure. But when I try an focus it to small... I jus' lose the reins."

Ashin Cardé Varanin

Meatmeatmeatmeat

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Truth be told, she didn't remember the incident in question. She'd fallen off a lot of towers.

"Here's an exercise that might help," Ashin said after a moment. "Imagine you have a hand full of breakable things and you close your fist, work it around until they're all pulverized. Now try doing that by tightening a Force shield."

She extended the shield past her hand until it enclosed about a pint of broken rock. The vaguely cylindrical shield tightened hard. Rocks ground against each other and crumbled small.

"Getting a Force shield snug is just about closing your fist. You can close a fist and mean it."

 

[Mercy]

Ashin Cardé Varanin

She stared at that display for a moment.

Then refocused her attention to a pile of rocks nearby. Once more Mercy created a bubble around herself. Easy enough. Then she focused it outwards... and stepped up towards the rocks to make it a bit easier on herself. While chewing on the nutrition bar Mercy managed to extend the bubble far enough to encapsulate the rocks.

This was the easy part.

Her fist tightened.

Around her the shield constricted. More. More. Withdrawing. It was easier when you didn't have to worry about it juuuust settling above your skin. A pile of rocks? Sure, why not. Eyes closed behind the shades and Mercy concentrated. A bead of sweat rolled down her brow. Then crunch. The rocks turned to dust against the pressure being exerted on them.

"Holy feth. It worked!" A big grin flashed towards Ashin. "Why uh... don't folk use this against their opponent tho? You can just karkin' put a shield around someone's head and ... squeeze."

"Ought to be way easier than beating someone to death with yar fists."

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"A few reasons," said Ashin, voice dry. "For one thing, any Force practitioner has a natural aura that makes it more difficult to, say, stop their heart or make lightning sprout from their kidneys. Also it's just a failure of imagination.

"But yes, there's very little difference between this and a Force choke; you could think of it as just another crushing attack, only more complicated, more thorough. In the average fight of Sith against Sith, strength has its day, but simplicity and speed often win out.

"Let me put it this way. Attempting to crush someone's head is a haymaker. Just be sure to practice your jab."

 

[Mercy]

A huh there.

Mercy supposed that made sense. Some Sith had tried to force choke her in the past. It hadn't gone their way. Not Lords, of course, but it explained why they hadn't succeeded even though her mastery of the more subtle defensive Force arts were lacking. "Well, I dun' think anyone is hiring me for my imagination." Mercy retorted just as dryly as she stared at the crunched pebbles. Not as fine dust as Ashin managed, but... it was progress and that was all that mattered.

"Yeah, well, most o' my jabs are haymakers..."

Which was a weakness. Mercy knew that and she had to figure this chit out fast. It had been easy just a year ago even. A big fish in a little pond and it had been great.

The last year though... the pond was getting bigger and bigger. If she didn't grow with it, someone was liable to crush her instead.

"Hit me." Mercy said out of nowhere. Her eyes on Ashin all of a sudden. "Is only fair, since ya let me hit you too."

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"I will hit you," said Ashin without a trace of condescension, "when you're ready. What do you think I'm training you for?"

She took a seat on broken stonework and slapped her knees.

"Alright, then. A shield around yourself, please. I don't care about the form it takes, just make it as strong as you can. And then...hold it."

 

[Mercy]

Ashin Cardé Varanin

She squinted at Ashin.

Jaws clenched and unclenched. It was a fair point- she had thrown a punch hard enough to make a hole in a normal person. Ashin? Didn't even look like she noticed it.

"Dunno. But ya already got yarself an apprentice that is all about the mental chit." A shrug there as she crouched slightly down her knees. It wasn't necessarily strictly speaking, but it helped with her focus. "So, I figure ya want a brick wall too." For the third time Mercy made a bubble. Then... shrunk it down.

More beads of sweat.

Until a slow shimmering field was just an inch or two off her skin. "I..." Jaws tightened again as Mercy poured more into it. "...think that's it." Mercy muttered through clenched teeth.

Any more and she might actually pop an eyeball here.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"As one brick wall to another, keep doing what you're doing. Hold that shield as long as you can.

"Yes, I do want Avalore to learn from training around someone with such a radically different skillset. It makes her a more useful companion for me. I told her after the gorog incident that I wasn't training her to fight beside you, I was training her to fight beside me.

"But that's only half the story. The two of you together could take down...genuinely disproportionate targets, if you can learn to collaborate."

 

[Mercy]

"As one brick wall to another...

A pang of pride in her chest.

No, not now. Her attention almost slipped away. The shield blinked out... and then shimmered back into existence. This time Mercy didn't need to go from bubble to shield to thin-layered armor. That was progress.

"S'long... as you... don't expect us to get married." Mercy murmured absently while focusing on keeping the technique up. It was fething difficult. More difficult than anything she had done before. Every breath that passed she was becoming more aware of her skin. The friction between it, the sheen of sweat trickling down, the layer of shimmering armor pressing down on it.

"While I loved... the... novelization of yar romance with Jacobs... not mah cup. Of. Tea." There the grin popped out.

Oh yes, Mercy was karking with Ashin Cardé Varanin .

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin tended to go through life absently, with her mind on other priorities. Right now Mercy got a rare moment of exclusive focus. High overhead, nervous storm clouds stopped swirling.

"Excuse me, did you say novelization?"

 

[Mercy]

"Oh, yeah..." Still that absent focused tone. "Not as good as the tv show. Way too many side characters in the book." Internally something was begging her to drop the shield. Her elbows were shaking at the sheer tension in her body. It was a wonder her back hadn't snapped from staying in that rigid position.

"Ya want a copy? I gotchu. It's very tasteful."

What did 'tasteful' mean in Mercy's terms though... that was the terrifying question.

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

A section of unstable wall, perhaps ten feet high and made of head-sized stone blocks, chose that precise moment to topple toward Mercy .

Clearly this had nothing to do with the topic of conversation, nor the fuming Sith Lord, nor Mercy's general inability to watch her mouth, nor even the training exercise.

Pure serendipity. Just Mercy's luck.

 

[Mercy]

Ashin Cardé Varanin

A smart person would have rolled out of the way. Stumbled at the very least. Not Mercy however. She paid no attention to fuming Ashin and instead stared the tumbling wall down.

As if a look could whither it out of existence.

Jaw set once more. A grimace as she poured more of herself into the shield. She'd need it. More. More. Something in her eye popped as she shifted her stance just in time for the wall to collide into her. She fell over, but managed to catch herself onto her knees. The weight was everywhere. All consuming and pushing her down.

The rocks crumbled.

The shield? Held.

Mercy wasn't aware of it. All her focus and attention was entirely focused on sustaining the shield. That life-line skin-high. Tooth snapped at the pressure her jaws were exerting on each other.

Still, she held.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin counted, not with numbers exactly, more by heartbeat and a general sense of how long someone should be able to last. As Mercy doubled that threshold, it became clear that for all her oddities she had a truly single-minded will.

That right there was the most important thing Avalore could theoretically learn from Mercy. That ability to double down as a default, not just when pushed to it.

Ashin waved and the rocks tumbled away.

"Enough. Good. Just give yourself a month or two before you try walking through a volcano."

 

[Mercy]

Ashin Cardé Varanin

The moment the weight was gone Mercy let go of the Force.

She toppled forward, but managed to catch herself on her hands. Blood spit, broken tooth too. Damnit not again. Those things were such a pain in the arse when her mouth was teething like a babe. "A volcano?" Haggardly Mercy looked up to Ashin. "Feth me." Then past her towards the broken lighthouse around them.

"Ya could do it, couldn't ya? Stand in the middle of this place, back when it was whole. Have it crumble on top of ya... and ya would be fine. Not a scratch on ya..."

Mercy was objectively awesome. She knew this. Its knowledge seeped into the very fiber of her being. But for the last few years she compared herself solely to those who were weak, stupid and unworthy. A big fish in a small small pond. Looking around her now? She realized the pond was getting larger, but Mercy wasn't sure if she was growing fast enough alongside it.

The expression on her face shifted from one moment to the next as that internal calculation ran its course.

Then she slowly got up to her feet.

"I got a long way to go, don't I?" It was not often that Mercy displayed any amount of self-awareness.