Private What it takes to be a Jedi

[Dreidi Xeraic]

Location: Coruscant
Outfit: This
Tag: Kahlil Noble

Dreidi had been given the chance to meet and talk with Master Kahlil Noble. Husband of Master Valery and from what she had gathered, many had thought dead or at least not around in the living galaxy. His recent return had caused many stirrings of gossip, rumours and people getting very excited. Dreidi hadn't really paid much attention to any of that. She wasn't that interested in relationship dramas and gossips of those natures, what she did find curious was his background. He was the son of Carnifex, a name that still sent shivers down her spine and cause a couple of nightmares. To be related to the Sith Lord and still be a Jedi, from what she had learned, Kahlil had been a Sith once but now embraced and seen as a Jedi. A Jedi Master as well. It was the ability to have people still see him as a Jedi, a true Jedi with no snarky comments or dismissing him that had Dreidi curious. How had he done it? What did Dreidi need to do to prove that she had the makings of a Jedi and avoid being dismissed as an outsider.

Her nerves were big, if there was something she couldn't change, if it was due to something just broken or corrupted in her forever. Then how would she ever live up to the reputation her parents held as Jedi Masters. Arriving at the meeting point, Dreidi was wringing her hands, fidgeting as she tried to expel the nervous energy. However, she knew there wasn't really anything she could do to settle the nerves until the conversation started or her questions answered. Breathing slowly, she attempted the relaxing techniques her therapist had taught her, she couldn't let her emotions and fears take over. She was stronger than that and she knew it. Just had to breathe. Breathe and everything would be okay.

That's where Kahlil would find her, standing, breathing and attempting to calm her anxieties.

 

[Kahlil Noble]

Kahlil entered the room without any kind of fanfare or craziness. Just walked through the sliding door, idly glancing through a datapad. Reports on Dreidi. Things she's done, the issues she's had. That kind of thing. A lot of people had written her off from the Jedi because of her choices, which made sense. To someone who hadn't been on the other side. He glanced up, letting his eyes meet hers for a moment.

"Oh boy. C'mon, lets go get some Caf. The cafe here isn't too bad, I've learned."

Dreidi Xeraic

 

[Dreidi Xeraic]

He looked at her for a brief moment then decided to move things to the cafe. Was her nerves that clear? Dreidi was never good at hiding emotions and she had always been told the negatives of doing such things. Letting out a sigh, she jumped forward and walked close to him from behind. Allowing him to take the lead towards the cafe. Caf was always nice and she always needed some come morning.

"Urm... Master Noble, I got some questions. Hopefully you can give me some directions and advice?" Dreidi asked in a curious tone as she followed him towards the cafe.

Kahlil Noble

 

[Kahlil Noble]

Kahlil raised a hand as they walked, just to stop her from continuing the question.

"Caf first. We can talk over some warm drinks. Or cold, your choice. But yeah, caf first."

He gave her a patient smile. There was no need to treat this so seriously. Yet, anyway. He lead the way to the Cafe, ordered his own drink before glancing to her with a brow raised just to wait for her order. Then, with drink in hand, he found a table in the corner to sit down and take a sip from. Get comfortable. Relax. Hopefully she would relax too, before they got into it.

"So, what's up?"

Dreidi Xeraic

 

[Dreidi Xeraic]

As soon as he raised his hand, Dreidi fell silent. She was use to being too eager, too many questions flooding out and people needing her to slow it down and just take in the moment. Caf first, caf first sounded good. She followed and listened to his order then looked. "Strong, black and bitter." She would joke that she liked it bitter like her soul but wasn't too comfortable around Kahlil to say it, so the server was surprised that she didn't say her bad joke as usual. Dreidi gave a small, sheepish grin.

Taking her hot drink, she held it in her hands to help warm her from the cold morning. She sat down and looked around the room, wanting to make sure that they wouldn't be overheard and avoid a potential scene that others would hold over her. Breathing out slowly, "I..." Dreidi started before hesitating and unsure where to begin.

"I started in the CIS, that became the Ascendancy. I trained around Sith, Sith who are different to the ones we fight now. But I always called myself a Jedi, my Master called herself a Jedi and my parents were Jedi. I never felt un-Jedi until I came here. Until I worked with Jedi here, people who criticised, judge and stated that I was no Jedi." Dreidi explained a little of her history. "I resisted, argued and stood my ground because I knew what Sith were, I knew I wasn't that and I wanted to fight for peace, galactic peace, like Jedi wanted..."

She then looked at Kahlil, "how did you go from Sith to Jedi? How did you get others to see you as a Jedi?" Dreidi asked, she was desperate to know.

Kahlil Noble

 

[Kahlil Noble]

The Ascendancy, huh?

Kahlil nodded slowly. He'd read the reports.

"The Ascendancy was run by Sith. My brother in law, actually. Or uncle in law? Families too large to keep track of, really. I don't know about your Master, but from what I've read, you've done questionable things. And when confronted, you've been unwilling to accept that maybe what you've done isn't Jedi at all. I didn't become a Jedi when I left the Sith. I left it all behind, became a spacer. Learned who I was without my family or the Sith or Jedi trying to define me. Someone decided I had to be a Jedi to fight my Father. So I tried to become one."

He took another sip before shrugging. "I was a terrible Jedi at first. I always argued with the others. Demanded my way was the right way because it was about peace. But I was wrong. You want to be a Jedi? Try listening to what people are saying. Realize that using the Dark is never the answer. That violence is only ever a last resort. Be willing to unlearn what you did in the Ascendancy."

Dreidi Xeraic

 

[Dreidi Xeraic]

Dreidi sighed, sinking into her chair. There it was. The thing she had dreaded. It was only at the end of the insight he offered but it was there nonetheless. It was something like 13 year old Dreidi had thought was correct, that she had a panic attack over because something came out that she held no control over. Dreidi didn't want to use the Dark Side, in fact there were two, linked, powers that she held any Dark Side powers over and she never truly wanted to hold skill.

"I have known what I wanted to be for years now. I chose to learn Magick because I did not want to learn the Dark Side, I wanted pour my skills into Magick because I believe it a completely separate entity that no Jedi could argue made me a Dark Jedi, evil or Sith. Especially since I have met all types of witches, some evil, some neutral and some trying to use Magick for good." Dreidi stated, "there is only one Dark Side power I can use. Only the one that I have taught how to use and that I practiced. Force Scream, and Force Bellow, but that wasn't something I sought out." Dreidi explained, there was pain in her eyes, she didn't want to fail to be a Jedi and she needed to stress this point. "I practiced, I learnt more because I have some natural affinity for the power that is completely out of my control. I nearly deafened a fellow student when training in the CIS because my emotions, my frustrations exploded out of me."

She took a sip, "I was 13, I was terrified to learn it was a Dark Side power, because I thought it made me evil. It meant I could never be a Jedi. But I had to learn how to control it, how to use it and the natural affinity I have for the power makes it the strongest skill I have. A skill that I don't try to use if I can help it anymore. How can I be a Jedi if you are telling me that I have to not use a power that for some reason beyond my knowledge is something I am naturally skilled at?" Dreidi asked, she feared that it would be that she could never be a Jedi.

"I also will never give up Magick. I don't care if others see it as evil, it isn't, it is all dependent on how a person uses it. And shouldn't that be all that matters as a Jedi, not the powers you use but the actions you do with those powers?" Dreidi queried. "I am willing to learn anew, to try and reserve violence as a last resort. I know I have been inflexible in the past but no one knew me, no one could understand the life I had that had given me the perspective I held. And I was defensive of those I consider family to being bad mouthed by others." Dreidi admitted, she knew that her stubbornness and refusal to criticism caused rifts with some. But she was trying now, it had taken a year or so, but she was trying and listening.

Kahlil Noble

 

[Kahlil Noble]

"So because you're good at it you want to keep using a power that uses your raw emotion to hurt and kill others?" He raised a brow, slowly. Frowned, even.

"Your magics? No, I'd never tell you to give those up. They're not the Dark. But to continue to use the raw emotion and pure darkness that is a Force Scream? You are a Padawan, Dreidi. No Jedi, let alone a Padawan, should use such a power. Not without control. Not without finding your center. I was skilled at sorcery. Necromancy. Runes. They were my greatest strength, the spells I could cast. But they were dark. Wrong. It doesn't matter how naturally skilled you are, the Dark is not something easily resisted, and I do not think you are capable of resisting it's temptations."

He took another sip before raising his hand. Traced the faintest glimmer of a rune in the air. "You are a Padawan. If you want to be a Jedi, you must first learn how to exist in the Light. How to meditate, control your emotions. Find ways to change what you have learned to the Light itself. I will never use my spells again, but my runes I've learned how to bring them not from a place of darkness, but of serenity and light. When I started as a Jedi, I did not use the Force. Not until I learned how the Jedi did. So learn how to be a Jedi before you try to bring your Magics into it."

Dreidi Xeraic

 

[Dreidi Xeraic]

There was a relax in her shoulders when he said that her Magicks did not have to be given up, that had always been her biggest fear. But he did not trust her, did not believe she held the skills to control herself and her emotions to use such a power. "I did not say I wanted to use the power to kill or hurt. I learnt to control it to prevent that. If I never learnt how to use Force Scream, or Force Bellow, then it would have been raw emotion that would be bursting from me whenever I was overwhelmed. Now it comes, when I want it to come and the strength of it can be from disorientating to lethal. But at least it isn't a power that I have no control over anymore..." Dreidi wanted to make sure to she was explaining herself properly. "I can not use it, I can do that, I only learnt how to use because I feared that I would do more harm with it unchecked."

"I know how to control my emotions. I have dealt with the loss of a loved one, the abandonment of my mother, losing contact with majority of my family in fact. I have nearly died trying to save lives that others told me to abandon. I have fought your father with your brother, Jax." Dreidi wasn't sure if Kahlil knew Jax was his brother, "I saw Jax embrace the Dark Side and thought he died, leaving me to fend for myself." She took another drink, "I am not trying to brag, I am just saying I am not just a Padawan. My rank isn't everything I am, and considering Jax fell to the Dark Side as a supposed Jedi Master and I resisted temptation surrounded by Sith for over a decade as a Padawan, shouldn't that be taken into consideration?" She asked, there was no malice or arguing in her tone, just a need to understand.

Placing her cup on the table, "I don't think I am going to resist temptation better than others, I don't think exploring the Dark Side more than learning how to control my powers to prevent harm is what I want. I am just saying, I come from a very different background, surrounded by very different kinds of people than the average Padawan. But I also know now, that I have my own shortcomings, that I can be more callous, cruel and uncaring in comparison to other Padawans. And I want to work on that."

She hoped that she had explained that she wasn't trying to use the Dark Side knowledge beyond controlling herself from harming herself and others.

Kahlil Noble

 

[Kahlil Noble]

"And that is why no one will accept you as a Jedi."

He raised his drink again, sipping slowly.

"You have too much pride. You are not immune to the Dark. The fact my brother fell should be enough reason for you to be warry. Not sit there and tell me that somehow you're special because you haven't. You are different, because you know the Dark. And that makes you much more likely to fall without even realizing you have. You asked how I became a Jedi. By accepting that I am and will always be at risk of falling and working every day not to. You are a Padawan. If you're here trying to get special treatment because of what you've gone through, you're not going to get it."

Dreidi Xeraic

 

[Dreidi Xeraic]

Dreidi paused and blinked, "I just said that I didn't think I was special, that I would resist it better than others..." She wasn't sure if this was a joke or if he had not heard her. "I am aware I could fall, I know my triggers and weaknesses, I discuss them in therapy because I am deeply aware of how I could fall to the Dark Side." Dreidi stated.

"I didn't come to you for special treatment, I came to you for understanding and at least some sympathy that it is not easy having a connection to the Dark Side, willingly or not, and facing judgement from other Jedi who do not understand that. I did not choose to be naturally connected to Force Scream and Bellow, I don't aim to make them skills I use as a Jedi. And I understand that I am not immune to the Dark Side, even if I was surrounded by it from a young age." Dreidi sighed, perhaps she just wasn't good at talking to people because she always seemed to be misunderstood.

Kahlil Noble

 

[Kahlil Noble]

"Then what are you saying? Without all these bloated excuses. Because that's all you keep going back to. Justifying yourself, trying to say you understand with dozens of examples of why. That's not understanding. That's bragging. Plain and simple."

Dreidi Xeraic

 

[Dreidi Xeraic]

She stood up and paced for a bit, trying to collect her thoughts and ensure she could get her point across. "I wasn't trying to brag. I said I wasn't trying to brag. I was telling you what I have been through, because no datapad can give you a better explanation than I can. It is never the same on paper as to hearing what matters to me."

"I am not trying to brag, argue or justify why I am not failing as a Jedi. I know I am failing because that is all everyone tells me here." She was fed up of being told she was the worst Jedi ever. Or at least that is how it felt at times. "I just want to be accepted, I want friends, I want to feel a part of this Order. But all I hear is that I can't be a Jedi because I know a power that I haven't even used in years. Years, Kahlil."

Dreidi took a seat once more, her sadness on display as she looked at him, "I want to learn, I want to grow stronger to resist the Dark Side and keep others safe. But I keep feeling dismissed as a dark Jedi or something that I am not, held back by a past I am trying to move forward from. Yeah, I am making mistakes, and I have defended my poor decisions and mistakes in the past, and I am sure I will make more, but I trying to be more willing to learn from them. Willing to change. I just don't feel like people believe that I can be a Jedi. A good Jedi."

Kahlil Noble

 

[Kahlil Noble]

"You beheaded a man in cold blood to scare others into not fighting."

Kahlil took another long sip.

"You've not made mistakes. You've done terrible things. And you need to accept that you have. If you can't, how can you expect others to look past it?"

Dreidi Xeraic

 

[Dreidi Xeraic]

She sighed and shook her head. Finishing her drink, she looked at him. "That was a judgement I made some time ago as a calculated risk. I thought the loss of one life would prevent the loss of many more. I was still fresh from Ascendancy and that action would have been commended, not admonished so I had no reason to believe it was wrong at the time."

"Do I think it was the right decision now?" She paused. "I shouldn't have paraded the head. That was a step too far. I admit that was not the way a Jedi should be. I killed him to end the fight and to survive since we were outnumbered. A decision many Jedi make when in a battle, which was the case in that incident."

She had to talk about the whole incident endlessly already. "There were perhaps other options, I have thought on it plenty, on what I could have done things differently." She sighed, "I am not going to be forced to linger and prostrate myself for it though. I live with the burden. The guilt. The shame. I accept that. But people don't continually drag up your actions as Sith, the terrible things you have done. I am attempting to atone, but all you Jedi focus on is that single, single action, I did when I still heavily influenced by the Sith I was surrounded by."

"If all you have is to tell me to feel bad for a single instant that I already hold guilt over, then I should just leave since you are no helpful than any of other Jedi here, continually to judge me when I am trying to atone." Her tone was sharp, she was tired of being attack for a single action that happened a fair time ago for her.

Kahlil Noble

 

[Kahlil Noble]

But people don't continually drag up your actions as Sith, the terrible things you have done.

"Because I never claimed to be a Jedi while I did them."

Kahlil let out a sigh before standing up. Frowning.

"You've gone back to explaining and defending yourself while trying to say you're not who you were then assuming I'm judging you. It's not my place to. But your peers are going to, especially when you talk to people like this. Try to listen to what someone is saying before jumping to the conclusions you are. Especially before you try to insult them."

Then he turned to leave. She missed the whole point of what he was asking her. He didn't care about her reasons, he didn't care how she felt now. Only that she was willing to learn and accept.

"Let go of your ego and who you think you are and just be, and you'll make a great Jedi."

Then he left.

 

[Dreidi Xeraic]

"Or you could try listening to what I am saying." Dreidi said. "I am trying to atone, I said that. I am not defending what I did but I am not going to have it held over my head. I realise now that the Jedi around here don't consider those actions to be Jedi and I accept that and wish to learn more."

"But there are people out there who call themselves Jedi that would have said my actions were good, or I should have killed all the bandits because they were evil. I am not defending my position by hiding behind them, I am merely pointing out that there are a lot of different views on what is considered to be a good Jedi action." She shook her head, he acted no different to Iris. She was trying to understand, trying to be better.

As he turned to leave, "well, if you feel insulted at least you know how I feel. I am trying to be open and honest, and all you are saying is that I am hiding behind excuses, claiming that I have too much pride and think of myself as special directly after I say I am no better than anyone else. Oh, you then also judged one action I have done while here. Ignoring the fact I have tried to change my ways since, that I have tried to seek alternatives."

"How can believe that changing my ways will redeem me when I am currently trying to do that and all you want to focus on is how I failed in the past?" Dreidi pointed out.

Not waiting to see if he decided to stick around and answer, she left.

Kahlil Noble