First lessons (Sejah Haversh)

[Helenias Evenstar]

I had come early into the Bar and Grill, making sure I got a good booth - one with a fair bit of space, good table and resonably secluded. Not, I noted as I came throught the doors, that I needed to claim one in this place - I had no real idea how fast the soldiers on guard, the staff and even the patrons would have responded to me.

It was an eye opener, for up to now titles had meant nothing to me. I had been just another Jedi Knight, if just was a label that could be applied to any Jedi. Seeing the leap to attwntion of the soldiers, the attntiveness of the staff, the way other patrons gave me a clear berth - not just because of a firece reputation, but because I, Helenias Evenstar was now not just Senator of Arcan IV, but also one of the nine whom were on the Jedi Council itself.

It was rather startling to realise just the width of influence I now commanded. While many in the Senate hated me (A Jedi was not a good thing to scheme near) others had heard my speeches about the things I truly cared about - the poor, the weak, the underprivledged and had, I understood, began to turn me into a focal point of anti corruption and greed actions - bringing me reluctantly to the fore and turning me into some sort of leader for their causes.

I personally didnt like that. Still didnt stop me a few days ago from facing off a Trade Federation Senator and forcing him to withdraw legislation that blatantly favoured him. The fact I had, with a great deal of violene stopped three assasination attempts with my own hands also grew my statue in the eyes of those looking for a leader.

Poor excuse for one I would be. Something I would have to deal with one day soon, for I did not to lead. I was happy to do my part, but not leading.

Today, thankfully, it was behind me. I was here to begin the training of a Padawan. Well, maybe not exactly begin his training, but... well... whatever. He was my Padawan and I was about to start training him.

"Haversh better not be late" I muttered. "I dont get out of bed before noon for just anyone"

[Sejah Haversh]

That time, Sejah wasn't late. And he also wasn't dressed like a scrub, either. Instead he made his way into the B&G sporting more jedi-like attire, and left his lightsaber and handgun at the door as usual.

His sleep had been fitful, memories of his time on Nehantish not leaving him. He doubted thet ever would, but they had not kept him up at night as much as they had lately. He was tired from not being able to get much sleep, and it showed badly in his eyes and the way he walked that morning. As much as he would have loved to have slept in, though, the Nehantite knew he had important things to attend to. Cheifly the meeting with his new Master.

"Good morning, Senator," he said as he took a seat across from Helenias after locating her in the Bar and Grill, "I apologize if I kept you waiting."

[Helenias Evenstar]

"Good morning... not much of a morning being either?" I said. "That's all right, I'm not either. If it wasn't for other things, I would have preferred a noon sleep in. Well"

I reached under the table and bought out a fairly largish box.

"Your first lesson from me. Inside this box is a jigsaw puzzle of about 2000 pieces. Feel up to solving it in an hour?"

[Sejah Haversh]

"Is there enough desk space?" Sejah asked, smiling, then chuckled as he picked up the box and removed the lid.

Scanning the pieces, he set it back down and leaned back. "Even if you gave me a week I couldn't solve that one. There's a piece missing."

[Helenias Evenstar]

"Then you dont you show me which piece is missing - by putting the rest of it together" I said smiling sweetly, knowing full well there wasn't one missing.

[Sejah Haversh]

Sejah chuckled and leaned back forward, tipping the box out and picing up nothing, but making it look like he had a piece. "This one, it's not here." Knowing that was about as far as he could carry the joke, the mongoose smoothed out the set and then looked at his watch.

"One hour, huh? Well, I'm not sure if I can do it, but, I'll give it a try," he said, cracking his knuckles, then flipping the box lid back over to see what the picture of the puzzle was supposed to be. It was a sickeningly cute picture of three kittens in a basket. But, he made no comment about the image, just focused on getting the edge pieces together. A puzzle of that many pieces would be incredibly difficult to do in one hour, especially when the kittens looked so much alike in their fur. Sejah had also never been much for jigsaw puzzles, so it was incredibly taxing work, but he went at it anyhow, knowing that Helenias must have some kind of reason for it.

[Helenias Evenstar]

In a few minutes it was obvious Haversh wouldn't have a chance to complete the task in time. As I expected, it was impossible for anyone.

Except a Jedi.

I reached over to the box, closing my eyes as I did so, going deep into the Force. When I felt the rightness of it, my hand dipped, picked up a piece and placed it in the exact correct place - right in the middle of nowhere. Again my hand moved and in a few secnds another piece was on the table. Unerringly, I kept at it for 3 minutes, placing 50 odd pieces on the table without puase - a couple of the scattered pieces clicked together, showing this wasn't random.

"Don't look at this with your eyes, Padawan. Look at this problem with your mind, with the Force. Trust the Force to guide your hand as it just did for me"

[Sejah Haversh]

Sejah's experience with being trained in the Force was limited, and he had a hard time understanding what Helenias meant. She put him to shame with the simple ability, and he sat rather glumly in his seat.

Watching for a bit, he tried to do what she expected of him, though in a way he hoped would work. He coudln't see the whole puzzle in his mind, but he could see the fibers of the paperboard the pieces had been stamped out of. Picking one up, he searched for another that the fibers matched to. Surprisingly, it popped out at him, and he picked it up, snapping the two pieces together. Then another match was found, and another. He didn't build the puzzle in random sections as Helenias did, but gathered as many pieces as he could to his own center section and continued to add on to it.

Occasionally he would hit a dead end where the fibers didn't match to anything else, so he would pick up a new piece and set his assembled section aside, starting anew. It was a tactic he had never heard of anybody else using, bue he presumed that that was how it was done. Silently, Sejah continued his work, eventually piecing together an entire kitten, and a portion of the basket.

[Helenias Evenstar]

Strange. He is not doing it the way I did, yet it still works.

"Stop. Would you please inform me how you are doing this?"

[Sejah Haversh]

Sejah stopped, looking up almost af if he felt he were in trouble. Gathering his composure, the mongoose turned over the piece in his paw, exposing the brownish paperboard side.

"Paper fibers," he explained. "The pieces are made out of shreds of paper that are pressed into flats, then cut, right?" Finding the next matchign piece, he pulled it out of the pile and continued, "So, if I can find out what shreds of paper are in this one, I can look for the same fibers in another piece, and," he psused to click them together, "they fit. I know that's probably not the right way, but, it's the only way I could figure out, really."

Looking down at the puzzle, he attached his two new pieces to a section he had already been working on, then looked back up with a light smile, hoping he said the right thing.

[Helenias Evenstar]

A raised eyebrow was all I need to express that I was impressed. That was a pretty unconventional way to do this.

"Not quite the way I wanted you to learn, but interesting and impressive none the less. Tell me more of this ability you have"

[Sejah Haversh]

Sitting back in his seat, Sejah looked over the puzzle again, trying to think of how to say what he needed to.

"I have...promblems, you could say, witl sensing and telekenisis. I can't see things as wholes." Seeing he wasn't quite getting it across right, he pushed forward a completed chunk of the puzzle; the one kitten.

"See, where you might see a kitten, I see proteins in the fur, fatty acids, blood cells, and calcium molocules. I don't see the kitten, I see this," He pulled a piece from the puzzle and held it up, "I see pieces. And because of that, if I tried to lift this kitten, it might end up looking like that," he pointed to the pile of loose pieces, a glum smirk on his face.

"So, in response to how I do the puzzle, I look for similar paper fibers or molocules. When I find a match, they go together."

[Helenias Evenstar]

"The only Jedi I have heard with molecular control of telekinesis" I said, "is Marcus. I could never do the things he could. This will be something we will look harder at later and to be encouraged. But, it is not the way I wanted this puzzle solved."

"The point of this" I continued, picking up a stray jigsaw piece and placing it casually on the table, right where it was supposed to go, "is an exercise in allowing the Force to guide your hand. It is a way to encourage foresight skills, plus learning to trust The Force. Now, what I want you to do is close your eyes. Dont feel the molecules, dont even feel the piece you pick up. Relax and ask... where does this piece go? Do not place it where you think it should go, allow The Force to tell you. The way you will know is to be calm, at peace, then you will feel the rightness or wrongness of your move. Trust your feelings and what they tell you"

[Sejah Haversh]

Sejah closed his eyes and waited for a minute or two, holding his paw over the box of pieces, then pulled it back and opened his pink eyes again, looking at Helenias and shaking his head.

"I don't think it works for me the same way as it does for you, Master Evenstar," he explained apologetically. "I see nothing, and get no feel when I attempt to do it your way. My feelings told me to do it the way I knew the first time. I can't explain it, but, that was my instinct."

It wasn't that he wished to argue with his new master, Sejah just couldn't do it the way she did; it wasn't how he worked. When he had held his paw over the box, he felt nothing, no direction whatsoever. He knew he could do it his one way, and that would still work as a standby, but, inwardly he began to wonder if there was something wrong with him that he couldn't properly do what probably was an easy task.

[Helenias Evenstar]

"To learn how to do this is the point of the exercise Sejah. It matters not to me that you dont know - we are here to learn how"

Thinking quickly, I continued.

"Have you not felt the need to do something in the past? A knowing what you must do? Done some thing that you could not explain why you took the decision to do that?"

[Sejah Haversh]

"Like how I decided to put the puzzle together the way I did?" he countered, picking up another piece. "I mean no offense, but isn't it possible that the Force might speak to me a little different than it does to you, Master Evenstar?"

Snapping the piece into place, he went on, "It was my original intent to try and put it together in the normal fashion, but, I got the notion I should do it the other way. Be that intuition, or the Force guiding me, I don't know. But I did accomplish the task, didn't I?"

[Helenias Evenstar]

"The Force speaks to us in very dfferent ways Sejah Haversh - but this is a specific skill I wish to impart to you. All Jedi have this sense of connection, this ability. It's my task to impart it and teach you - or else I would be deficient. The reason for doing this is to begin for you to be used to guidance. How do you think a Jedi is so easily able to block a blaster bolt out of air, or sense impending danger? What we have here may look like a game but it is not - it is the basis of many Jedi skills you need to learn"

"I dont expect you to be able to know the drunk five booths down will fall over in about 30 seconds" I added, "but I do expect you to eventually be able to dodge a blaster bolt fired at your back"

[Sejah Haversh]

"Tust me, I'd like very much to be able to dodge one if it were fired at my back, Master Evenstar," Sejah replied, "And I'd like to know how to see things like you do, but the base understanding is what I have trouble with."

Selecting another puzzle piece, he turned it over in his paw , then clicked it into place and added. "I don't wish for pity or lught treatment, Master Evenstar, only that you know that I don't understand how to do what you're asking of me. To feel in the Force is quite vauge. I used to blow up rocks, walls, and assorted fruits and vegetables when I tried to feel in the Force before."

He looked at the puzzle and was quiet for the moment before he said, "There goes your drunk."

[Helenias Evenstar]

"No... no. Your listening to the Force in this. Yoru not reaching out like in telekinesis. There is quite a difference.

[Sejah Haversh]

Sejah wanted very much to ask a barrage of questions, but didn't want to sound snippy. So, he took a breath and tried to speak in the calmest voice possible, though hits of frustration were still inflected in his words. "Master Even star, how does one listen to the Force? I do not feel it with my paw as I feel other objects, I do not see it with my eyes as I see you before me. What part of me am I to use to listen to it? I don't understand."

[Helenias Evenstar]

"I dont know how you will listen to it or how it will speak to you. With me..." I reached into the box and pulled out another piece, "It simply confidence something is going to happen. Tell, ever have those times when you know for certain that something is about to happen, it does, and yet, there was no way you should have known?"

[Sejah Haversh]

Sejah thought back to the time he spent back on Nehantish for the Rho'istaan tournament, and specifically to an attack made by a beast with a spear. But he was not convinced it was the Force that had spoken to him, then. After all, his fencing master had a sort of sixth sense when it came to danger, as did many who were well trained in fighting arts. He had jsut attributed it to that, not the Force.

"Master Evenstar, I mean this not for the point of argument, but, simply to state what I feel and think," he said, looking over the partially completed puzzle. "I have experienced that many times before, but, I know many of my kind who can do the same thing. Tehy sense danger before it comes. Tests have been run, and it has been determined that those of my race have a heightened sense of small and hearing due to our genetics, so, I have usaully attibuted it to that. But, if it were the Force, how could so many others of my race do it too?"

"Perhaps the way I feel it is different, though. I'll do my best to try and understand how I feel next time it happens, but other than that, I don't know how else to try."

[Helenias Evenstar]

There was something telling me there was a communications gap here. He or I was clearly not understanding something. Time to try to work out what.

"And does your race have any known affinity with the Force?"

Small test then. Something he could not smell or hear. A soft sponge, dry of course, rose silently and then as if it was thrown, arrowed it''s way to the back of the Padawan's head. If he could sense anything in the Force like any Jedi could, he would sense something coming.

[Sejah Haversh]

Shaking his head, Sejah replied, "No; I am the first known Nehantite with any kind of connection to the Force. So, that's why I--"

The mongoose was cut off by the soft thunk of a sponge hitting him in the back of the head, and he spun around and looked over the back of his seat to see what it was that had tapped him. "Funny, wonder who threw that?" He said as he picked up the dry sponge and turned back around holding it in his paw and looking it over before glancing back behind him once more to see if anyone might give some sort of sign as to who had thrown the item, but none was found.

"You didn't see who it was who threw this, did you, Master Evenstar?" he asked, completely unaware that it had been her.

[Helenias Evenstar]

"No" I said with a small internal sigh. "I did not"

What in the name of the Force was I going to do here? I was flat out of ideas. There had to be some way to demonstrate when the Force spoke. Maybe...

"Go ahead and keep going with the puzzle" I said, "I'm just going to talk to someone". I closed my eyes, shut out everything else and went into the Force.

Show me how he will know of what I speak. Guide me

[Sejah Haversh]

Nonplussed, Sejah just went back to the puzzle, though it had become easier as he noticed that large chunks were already complete. In the back of his mind, he was getting the feelign that Helenias was displeased with his reactions and answers to her questions, but there was little he could do until he understood things better.

What Helenias did not know quite yet was that his failure to detect the sponge was not a failure of his 'danger sense' at all, but in fact a portion of it he had trained his mind to work differently. The sponge posed no threat, it could not harm him; sort of like taking a glancing blow when it would do no damage. Had she flung something threatening at him, it would most likely have been detected and avoided or intercepted. But, quite frankly, a sponge was little danger to anybody.

Glancing up form the puzzle momentarily, Sejah noticed that his new master was still in some sort of deep thought and he just continued about his work.

[Helenias Evenstar]

Nothing. Not a thing. Too old and too set in his ways. Okay, so what the frell was I going to do now? There had to be someway ...

My thoughts were interrupted as a drunk suddenly pulled a knife he had somehow smuggled in. "Damn Jedi alien scum!" He screeched, flinging the deadly blade at Sejah.

[Sejah Haversh]

As if it were a scene from an action movie, Sejah's head whipped around and he leaned forward, snatching up the now empty Nehi bottle. With crack reflexes, he wheeled about and used the glass container to deflect the incoming knife, and was already out of his seat before the blade hit the floor, dodging his way through tables to get at the drunk.

Once the mongoose reached him, there was no contest to see who the winner would be. Sejah kicked his legs out from under him and then yanked an arm behind his back, pinnign him until security could arrive. Though he did make an unusual move to pull back the neck of the man's shirt to look at the base of the back oif his neck. Evidently, what he was looking for wasn't there, and he released the garment, letting the man's head thunk down onto the floor once more.

Security was quick in coming, and Sejah surrendered the drunk to them, giving a quick report before heading back to his table, though picking up the knife along the way and looking at it as he sat down. "You know, this isn't a throwing knife. If he wanted to kill me, he should have tried to stab me with it. Still, that was a little too close for comfort," he admitted, shaken by the attempt on his life, especially since he had only escaped a death sentence a few weeks before.