Private What makes you worthy?

[Jem Fossk]

Kyber arch.

Not all Jedi felt the call to try and cross it. Jem did. She was six the day her and her brother were found on the streets. The temple presented a safe haven and a future, none of which she could comprehend those first days. Everything felt so overwhelming and dangerous, but this chamber... this chamber calmed her that first night. She didn't try to cross it then. She just... beheld the arc of gleaming crystals, their energy thrumming through the air.

She had been at this temple for a decade now. She never attempted to cross it. She couldn't admit why. The arch was composed of the kyber crystals belonging to fallen jedi-- hundreds if not thousands of warriors that trained, lived, and died for the cause.

She wanted to be them. So badly.

A lump swelled in her throat as she let her training saber roll out of her hand. Its heat resistant plastic bounced lightly across the ground-- built to learned on, but weightless without a kyber of its own.

She watched it roll towards the edge of the platform, half-heartedly willing it to fall.

The bench she sat on laid open.

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

Kai slowly entered the chamber, his neck craned as he stared up at the glittering Kyber Arch. The facets of its countless crystal matrices reflected and refracted the light that streamed through the windows of the meditation chamber, prisms sending out rainbows.

He stood as if in a trance, utterly transfixed the moment he laid eyes upon the Arch. It reminded him of the Marble Forest from which he had been born.

A Twi’lek student was attempting to scale the Arch, lekku swinging as he climbed. Kai didn’t know people were allowed to do that. He walked around the monument to get a better perspective of the Twi’lek’s progress. Still looking up, he nearly tripped over a training lightsaber that had rolled across the floor toward him.

He bent to pick it up. It was made of plastic and extraordinarily light even when compared to a real lightsaber. He looked around, holding the hilt up and shaking it a little to try and draw attention to it. If its owner was still there, they’d probably want it back.

Jem Fossk​

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem looked quickly away, full of guilt of tell tail awareness as look at anything but the jiggling saber awaiting its owner.

She sighed when she felt the jedi's gaze linger on her a moment too long. She was the only padawan in sight. She stood no chance. She jammed out her hand, accepting it back.

"You should watch where you're going," she deflected, as if she hadn't just nearly tripped the guy with her weapon. How anyone could keep their eyes on the ground in a room like this was unknown, but she didn't want to hear another lesson on 'proper weapon handling'.

The tell-tale sound of a body hitting the ground grabbed her attention. Her head snapped up, too late to see if the twilek had finished the crossing or had fallen himself. She frowned and churned in her spot to see if he would try again.

 

[Arlo Renard]

The girl on the bench near the Arch had escaped his notice before. Now she held out a hand to take the training saber from him. She was wearing an expression like someone had licked her lollipop right in front of her.

Kai had no idea why she was so sour-faced, but he smiled and gave her the saber.

<I was looking at the big crystal thingie,> he said, pointing over his shoulder at the Arch. <It’s very pretty.>

Since he was a newer student, he had no knowledge of the history or purpose of the Arch. His attention was drawn by the thump of the Twi’lek’s body hitting the ground. <Are you okay?>

“Yeah.” The Twi’lek’s voice was muffled. Rising to his knees, he shook himself off.

<Why are you climbing on it?> Kai asked. When he got no answer, he turned back to the girl on the bench and asked her. <Why are people climbing on it?>

Jem Fossk​

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem sighed and tucked the saber into her beltline. It wasn't nearly as cool as the real deal but from far away, it looked alright enough.

She repositioned it just right .

"They aren't climbing on it, they're trying to cross it. It's a meditation exercise. Requires the force or... something to do it," she answered vaguely. Truth be told she didn't know what it took to cross it, or why it felt so important for her to. She had crossed plenty of obstacle courses before, but it was the heavy force presence here that made it... different.

Any jedi she asked about it wouldn't give her a straight answer. She half wondered if they were hiding something from her. Visions, or a test, that laid unseen to the overlooking on watchers.

"Some people just feel the call," she shrugged, dismissive in her answer.

She blinked, then double looked at the stranger that spoke in her head. "Hey!

 

[Arlo Renard]

His curiosity piqued, Kai watched as the Twi’lek tried again. He never quite reached the top of the Arch before slipping and falling once more.

<Does something up there push you off?> Kai asked him.

“Nah,” the Twi’lek replied, shaking his head. “At least, I don't think so. I just keep losing my grip.”

Approaching the bottom of the Arch, Kai touched a hand to the kyber. He expected it to be cool, but it seemed to be warmed by an inner source of heat. He closed his eyes, listening…

His eyes flew open at the girl’s outburst. Blue eyes flicked toward her, startled. <Huh?>

Jem Fossk​

 

[Jem Fossk]

It was more a protest than outburst, but it earned her a look all the same. Jem's lips pursed, the girl looking over the stranger with a set up angular brows.

Well he had a mouth.

Looked like he had a tongue too. She would have called him out on the intrusion then and there, but Saan'an voice cut through her like a stern crack. Don't be a bigot. Of course that wasn't the way he had first phrased it to her, but after several more serious episodes it had come out cold and hard.

Her nostrils flared.

"Nothing."

 

[Arlo Renard]

Kai smiled in relief, though he sensed Jem was still in a bad mood. He didn’t know why, though, and figured it wasn’t any of his business. <Okay good, okay fine.>

Thud. The Twi’lek had fallen again. “I give up,” he said breathlessly, mopping sweat from his brow. “There’s just no getting across. Although I guess it is my fault… my master said no one could cross it on their own. But I saw someone do it...”

<Who?> Kai asked, his head canting to one side.

The Twi’lek shrugged. “I dunno. Somebody I’ve never seen around the Temple before.”

<Maybe it was someone new.> Turning back toward the Arch, Kai placed his hand on it again and listened.

“I don’t think so,” the Twi’lek continued. “I think it was a trick.”

<Why would someone want to trick you?>

“I don’t know.” The Twi’lek grunted as he stood up, dusting himself off. “Or maybe I just imagined it.”

Still wiping perspiration from his face, the Twi’lek left the chamber. Kai continued to study the Arch, utterly fascinated.

<It’s very strong in the Force,> he commented. <But the power comes from each individual crystal rather than the whole thing. Like a chorus is made up of many voices.> He gestured broadly with his arms for emphasis, then glanced back at the girl. <If no one can cross it on their own, do you think you and I could do it together?>

Maybe that was being a bit too forward, considering that they had just met and didn’t even know each other’s names. But Kai wanted to cross the Arch, and he didn’t really know anyone who would be interested or have the time to accompany him in the endeavor. So why not a stranger?

Jem Fossk​

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem's eyes widened in subtle shock.

"You want to... climb it," she reiterated, skepticism subduing her words. It wasn't as if it was an odd statement, that was the purpose of this room, Jem had just... never tried before. She hadn't come here braced to cross that bridge and she doubted highly that she was ready to do it now.

Or was that just her own fears holding her back.

Fears had no place in the battlefield. Jedi were calm. Collected. The whole arc was meant to be a meditation exercise, and an attack rarely gave you day's heads up to prepare.

If the whole point of mediation was to let go and become one with the force, maybe preparing at all was the reason so many failed.

A spark of excitement jumped in her chest, the girl nodding in abrupt confidence.

"Ok. But uh... you first." And use your damn voice.

 

[Arlo Renard]

Kai grinned and gave her a thumbs up. She seemed to mirror his own excitement about the endeavor.

He coiled his body around the base of the Arch, enthusiastically attacking the kyber monument. After he had climbed up a little ways, he stopped and turned to look back at the girl, holding out his arm. If she did take his hand, she’d find he was sporting enough superhuman strength to easily haul her up to his spot with one arm. No wonder why he didn’t find it difficult to ascend… so far, anyway.

<My name is Kai. What’s yours?>

Jem Fossk​

 

[Jem Fossk]

The magnitude of the arch overwhelmed her as she took her first step up. The energy of the crystals sufficed her, their presence clashing in a cacophony of noise.

Jem tried to balance herself as she stepped up, a task that was unusually hard as their energy revertibrated through her soles.

No wonder so many fell. It was disorienting. She took a a deep breath and tried to center herself, not like she would in the middle of an intense sparring session.

The chaos grew quieter. She opened her eyes and took the hand.

“it’s more than just climbing it,” she noted, her voice restrained.

“it’s like…” the energy pulsed against her, a foreign entity.

Her equilibrium woobled.

“like we don’t belong.”

(phone post)

 

[Arlo Renard]

Now it was Kai’s turn to give her an odd look. He had asked her what her name was, and she seemed to have completely ignored the question.

Her statement was interesting, however. Kai had not felt it when he first began to climb, but now he felt something reminiscent of pressure all around him. It wasn’t painful, but it was… persistent. It made his movements feel slow and sluggish.

<I guess you’re right,> he said. <I wonder why it feels that way?>

All the same, he continued to climb, finding another spot higher up to stop and wait for her. The pressure was steadily mounting the farther he went, but he kept fighting back against it. Whether out of ignorance of the futility of the task he was attempting, or simple stubbornness, he wasn’t giving up yet.

Jem Fossk​

 

[Jem Fossk]

character shift to make up for recent events

The path was wide at first but she could see up ahead how the fused crystals grew more and more precarious. The crest must have been a few millimeters at most. She understood why one would need the force to cross it, but at this moment it only felt physical.

She grunted at the boy's words, her arms pulling her up the steepening crest.

"I'm really gonna ya to stop-- with my head-- if we're gonna concentrate. You have a mouth, use it--" She huffed as her foot slipped, the rubber sole sliding over a rounded edge and jolting all the weight onto her hand. Her knuckles flushed white at the exertion. She kick and scrambled her way back into the ledge.

"As I was saying," she grumbled, the sunset bleeding through the overhead windows. It reflected off the kyber and sent its light all around the chamber.

 

[Arlo Renard]

Kai’s frown deepened. It was true. He did have a mouth. But he didn’t like using it. At least, not that way...

Given how she had acted toward him so far, perhaps it was best if he didn’t talk at all. She didn’t seem in the mood to converse. Or maybe she just didn’t care.

The girl lost her footing and slipped. Kai did make a move to help her, but the action was delayed, hesitant. Like she was an animal he was afraid would bite him. By the time his hand started to reach toward her, she had already pulled herself back up.

Turning his head away from her so that he looked like he was gazing at the setting sun, he set his jaw (pouted, really) and let the girl pass him by, remaining safely couched in the groove he had found among the crystals. That is, if she kept moving without him—which he suspected she would.

He told himself he was just waiting for her to finish or fail. Then he would go on his own. Yet as he sat there, refusing to look at her, it no longer seemed to matter. Never mind that he was the one who suggested they try to cross the Arch together in the first place...

Jem Fossk​

 

[Jem Fossk]

She kept on climbing, vaguely aware of his pouting and ignoring it. Jem wasn't one to care, not when she thought they were in the wrong. The arc grew narrower with each foot she climbed, the once easy path now harrowing and strenuous. It would take all of ones concentration, and a bit of the force, to balance their way through it.

As life had it, there was one thing she did care about. She felt someone watching her. She glanced down, just for a moment, and then she was kissing air.

Jem fell to fast to catch herself, but another meditating Jedi did.

She floated for a harmless moment above the ground before she was released an inch above. She huffed as blood flooded to her cheeks.

 

[Arlo Renard]

The girl fell. Someone caught her with the Force, cushioning what would’ve otherwise been a painful impact with the floor.

Any sympathy he might have felt for her was quashed by his irritation with her attitude. He glared down at her, then turned his gaze upwards—and decided he was done playing around, the consequences be damned.

The doppelganger stretched out his hand. The flesh of one finger grew and lengthened, becoming like a cord, and wrapped around the millimeter or so of crystal at the top of the Arch. Kai sprang upwards, launched forward by that fleshy grapple, and perched on top of the Arch.

Up there, the Force weighed down on him to the point where it felt like he was being attacked by spiritually hostile forces. He felt his balance teetering, as though he were being shoved over the narrow knife’s edge. He extended his pliable flesh again, catching hold of a jutting crystal on the other side of the Arch, and started to propel himself towards the opposite side like a rubber band. But he was already in freefall at that point. The result was that he didn’t cross the Arch so much as he swung across it, and rather clumsily at that.

But he had done it—sort of—and she hadn’t. Granted, she didn’t have a pliable physiology that would allow her to “cheat” such an obstacle, but pettiness told him he ought to be proud of himself anyway, if only in hopes of annoying her.

Landing on his feet, Kai straightened. A few people were staring, but most of the others in the chamber minded their own business. He turned to the girl and raised his chin.

<I guess some of us work better alone.>

Jem Fossk​

 

[Jem Fossk]

Hot anger flared in her gut, a voice entering her mind that she had never heard before.

Punch his face in, show him whose better.

The burning words earned a small degree of shock, but not enough to stop the scowl that drew across her lips. There was something unnatural about the padawan, and it wasn't just the way he moved or invaded her mind.

He didn't belong here,

But before the voice could convenience her to remove him, another jedi stepped forward from their meditation map to offer her a hand up. Their tired eyes filled her attention and pleaded down at her, wordlessly trying to coach a struggling padawan through emotions that twisted in the force.

But they weren't just emotions, were they? Jem's expression softened into shock.

They were the darkside.

She scrambled onto her feet, scattered and disheveled. "I'm fine," she insisted, straightening herself out. She could barely even cast Kai another glace, but when she did it was heavy with emotions that did not have a name. Hate? Mistrust, or fear? It remained coiled in her core as she turned and left.

She was stupid to come here. She didn't belong.