Faction Tutaminis (All Jedi)

[Zaiya Ceti]

Outfit: x x x x x | Equipment: x x x x x x | Weapons: x x x | Companion: Domxite
Interacting with: Mak Ondor Tilon Quill

Zaiya listened quietly as Master Ondor spoke, each word settling into place like pieces of a puzzle.

Right, don't force it... just let it flow.

"Thank you, Master," the Lovalla Padawan replied quietly, appreciative for the Ithorian Master's guidance. A flicker of light blue shimmered at the corners of her eyes, and her markings began to glow in hues of citrine and teal in understanding and growing excitment.

She turned to recenter herself, but paused when she noticed the aqua hued tall boy nearby. He had very pretty magenta hair. Honestly, he was so pretty and vibrantly hued that the Lovalla couldn't help herself.

He was shiny. In the way a Lovalla could only appreciate the vibrancy of his skin and hair color.

Zaiya blinked. She hadn't seen him before, definitely not in any of the other lessons. Her skin shifted again, the colors melting in soft pulses of friendly curiosity.

"Hello!" she called with a little wave. "I'm Zaiya."

Then Master Vanagor spoke again before she could say more, offering more advice. Afterwards, Zaiya glanced between Master Ondor and the other teen.

"If you want," she offered Tilon Quill with a friendly genuine smile, "we could practice together. Might be easier to figure it out with someone else trying, too."

Her palm still tingled from the earlier burn, but the determined bright orange and cobalt flecks that rippled over her mottled spots and stripes over her cheeks and down her arms said she was ready to try again!

 

[Tilon Quill]

"If you want," she offered Tilon Quill Tilon Quill with a friendly genuine smile, "we could practice together. Might be easier to figure it out with someone else trying, too."

"That sounds worth trying for sure. I'm Tilon," he added, since he hadn't reciprocated her introduction before the latest round of instruction. "I gave the sphere exercise a couple of tries and I think I've got the hang of it; I was going to try the brazier next." The brazier's green fire was closer to how he'd first learned this some years back with candle flames and a fireplace hearth, at the Selabite archive on Pagodon. "Is the fire something you're feeling ready to try? If we go at it shaking hands, we might be able to be each other's heat sinks or safeties, which could be a useful spin on it. I've done it with small fires before, but only solo. No worries if not, just an idea."

 

[Zaiya Ceti]

Outfit: x x x x x | Equipment: x x x x x x | Weapons: x x x | Companion: Domxite
Interacting with: Tilon Quill

"Great! Nice to meet you Tilon!" The Lovalla Padawan beamed out, the edges of her mottled spots and stripes over her rosy golden skin along her cheeks and forehead giving a subtle teal flurry in happiness at meeting someone new.

The teenager bit her lower lip, then scrunched her lips as she pondered the offered brazier.

"Yeah, okay. Let's try the Braizer." She confirmed, her multicolored hair giving a quick confident nod. Now that they had the extra guidance from Master Ondar it should work better right?

"Okay, how should we do it?" since he said he had done it before with small fires Zaiya was immediately intrigued. Any application that this could be used for would be super helpful. She'd only seen Aris use it before to block a saber with his bare hand, and that had been rather crazy and neat to see.

Any useful or out of the box application would be great in Zaiya's mind!

 

[Tilon Quill]

"Okay, how should we do it?"

"Here's what I'm thinking, tell me if you're comfortable with this. We shake hands over here beside the fire, then move our hands toward it - your fingertips and the back of my hand. We go slow, see how close we can get to actually having our hands in the fire. Call it an exercise in, say, giving someone a hand to climb up in a high energy environment. Yank them up out of an explosion.

"If you'd prefer something else, you could try touching the brazier itself. It's hot metal underneath. Flames can move around, you could get in contact with a hot spot unexpectedly; the brazier wouldn't have that risk. The downside is that it's all the heat all at once, so we're either ready or we blister. Totally up to you. I'm fairly sure I can compensate to 'soften the landing' for you if it doesn't work out, but fairly sure isn't certain.

"What do you think?"

 

[Zaiya Ceti]

Outfit: x x x x x | Equipment: x x x x x x | Weapons: x x x | Companion: Domxite
Interacting with:

Zaiya looked at the fire, thinking it over. It sounded risky… but not impossible.

She remembered what Master Shan had taught her and how to make her skin soft or tough when she needed. And Aris… Aris Noble had helped her learn how to use her strength through the Force with her hands to break stones.

Maybe if she used both those lessons along with what Master Ondor and Master Vanagor taught this could work, she mused, her mottled spots shifting in thoughtful amber and citrine hues. Then a wide beaming smile shone over at Tilon and the Lovalla Padawan gave a nod of confirmation.

"Yeah," she said. "That sounds like a plan. Let's go slow. I think I've got this."

 

[Tilon Quill]

"Yeah," she said. "That sounds like a plan. Let's go slow. I think I've got this."

In settings like this you had to pick up a decent sense of the difference between earned and unearned confidence, or people were liable to get hurt. Zaiya struck Tilon in this moment as someone who had a reasonable expectation of being able to do the thing safely. He let go of anxious mental images of a Padawan shrieking with a burn.

He held out a hand beside the green fire for a handshake. When she was ready, he moved the back of his hand toward the fire and into the edge of it. The heat on his skin ebbed and flowed, ebbed and flowed, as the fire flickered and he tried to shunt its energy away harmlessly. Not through the ground this time but into the air.

"How are you doing over there?" he asked, sweat breaking out, clasped hand largely in the fire.

 

[Zaiya Ceti]

Outfit: x x x x x | Equipment: x x x x x x | Weapons: x x x | Companion: Domxite
Interacting with:

"How are you doing over there?" he asked, sweat breaking out, clasped hand largely in the fire.

Just breathe, feel the flow, Zaiya told herself, the Lovalla Padawan's expression focused as she held hands with Tilon Quill over the braizer. Sense the flow, how it moves, where it is going, where you want to encourage it to.

The intense amount of focus was prompting beads of sweat to grow over her brow, and the fine edges of her mottled spots grew a deep intense amber in concentration.

It was working, although now and then a brief bit of heat would kiss the back of her knuckles.

Trust in the Force. In how it flows.

"Good...." She finally replied, her eyebrows pinching together and the intricate center mottled spots at the center of her forehead gave a sweeping pulsing flutter.

"How about you?" she asked, wanting to make sure he was also okay. Doing it like this reminded her a bit of the training regarding the trust fall. In her mind's eye, she was encouraging the heat to spread and disperse outward.

 

[Tilon Quill]

"Far as I can tell," he said, eyes locked on their handshake in the green fire, "a good portion of the Jedi experience comes down to beating otherwise healthy instincts. I don't think our minds will ever be able to accept putting a hand in the fire as normal. So on that level there's some challenge. But I'm not in pain and I don't think you are either, so this seems to be going well."

He was, however, sweating like a shaak, either from stress or from shunting out the thermal energy in some way that didn't cook him in the process. Or was heat being converted to Force energy and then released as heat again? Bigger question than he had the bandwidth for.

"It's almost like with pain control, trying to suppress shock without getting in the way of all the healthy things shock's needed for."

Zaiya Ceti

 

[Zaiya Ceti]

Outfit: x x x x x | Equipment: x x x x x x | Weapons: x x x | Companion: Domxite
Interacting with: Tilon Quill

Zaiya kept her hand steady with Tilon's, the heat from the green fire licking close to their skin but so far not burning. Well, at least not yet. The Lovalla Padawan's skin gave off a soft citrine glow, with little flickers of cobalt weaving through the amber stripes along her wrist. Honestly, it was hard to maintain it, with every instinct telling her to pull back her hand.

But she didn't.

"Yeah," she said quietly, eyes still on the flame. "My brain's definitely not thrilled about this."

She risked a glance at Tilon and let out a soft squeaky laugh.

"You okay? You're kinda sweating like you ran five laps."

His azure face was scrunched up in intense concentration, but he was dripping sweat as if little rivers were carving against his blue skin.

Zaiya took a breath. "Master Shan once told me… instincts are important, but that doesn't mean they should decide everything. We still get to choose."

And right now, that was to not pull my hand away, Zaiya told herself, exhaling a big whoosh of air.

But the longer they did it, the more she realize it really wasn't burning her skin, the easier it became. It was then that a nervous if excited giggle excaped her lips.

She immediately apologized. "Sorry... hahah... just. It's either laugh or cry that it's really working!"

 

[Tilon Quill]

A little laugh got out. "That's a good way to put it. I burned this hand pretty bad on Attahox last month — bounty hunter with a flamethrower — so this is a...relief. That I'd be able to take the edge off next time."

He hadn't meant to talk or even think about that. It was a heavy thing to put on a Padawan and wasn't helpful in the moment. The memory wanted him to lose his focus. The fire licked at his hand a notch past uncomfortable, and he doubled down, tried to stay in the moment.

"What's the motivational mantra? Freedom's on the other side of fear — you ever hear that one?"

Zaiya Ceti

 

[Zaiya Ceti]

Outfit: x x x x x | Equipment: x x x x x x | Weapons: x x x | Companion: Domxite
Interacting with: Tilon Quill

Zaiya let out a flustered laugh just as the heat licked a little too close—too real. Her focus slipped, and the fire nipped at her fingers with a sharp sting.

Eekk!

"Whoa -- okay! Focus, foooo-cus," she muttered, shaking out her hand gently. Her stripes flashed a quick burst of light yellow, then settled back into determined amber.

"I'm so-o not good at doing more than one thing at a time. Need to work on that more," SHe admitted with a sheepish grin, her opal-blue eyes still on the flame. "But no, I haven't heard that one. Freedom's on the other side of fear…"

She tilted her head, trying to think, then cracked a crooked smile.

"But I did hear another one... umm.. um...my battle stance is sixty percent confidence, thirty percent panic, and ten percent please don't explode!"

A small giggle escaped.

"I think we are working on the not explode part!"

 

[Tilon Quill]

Tilon channeled a bit of his anxiety into aping more worry than he actually felt at this point, as a joke. "Wait, nobody said explosions were on the table."

He eased their hands out and let go of the handshake. His hand looked pretty untouched, not even any scarring from the flamethrower last month, thanks to bacta. His rolled-up sleeve was toasty.

"Thanks for that. I do a lot of work on expeditions — always good to run into someone I can count on to keep their head on straight in an unsettling situation."

Zaiya Ceti

 

[Zaiya Ceti]

Outfit: x x x x x | Equipment: x x x x x x | Weapons: x x x | Companion: Domxite
Interacting with: Tilon Quill

"Haha, oh my stars, no no, no explosions here. " Zaiya reassured, seeing the faint panic flash over Tilon's face.

"Sorry, should have picked my words better," She admitted bashfully, also drawing her hand back from the hand shake they had held and shaking it as well. Good thing she took off the bangles off this wrist earlier, she mused, otherwise that would have burned.

Or would it?

Okay, something to practice on later.

"Thank you for helping me out Tilon. You were a great help!" Zaiya beamed out at him, before extending her hand to shake his, but this time in a handshake.

"Well, hopefully we do run into each other in an expedition one day!"

 

[Tilon Quill]

"Well, hopefully we do run into each other in an expedition one day!"

Though it was all said in the context of an ending to their class interaction, he picked up the thread.

"You know, if that work interests you," he said, "you should talk to one of the Starchasers or see if your Master could run you by the enclave on Kattada. They train up a lot of Force-sensitive scouts, navigators, techs. Or there's the professional angle if you want to pursue other parts of your life, not just Jedi work; I signed on with my first big expedition as a comscan officer."

He refrained from his trademark 'more to life than being a Jedi' speech. Not the place, the time, or the appropriate audience.

"Anyways, yes, good to meet you, thanks for this."