This comes before...the other stuff

[SonLee]

Before she could do anything else, SonLee wanted to expand her sensing capabilites. She believed that these would be a great asset for the rest of her training, and she entered the training quarters, looking for a teacher, or possibly another student. It felt as if noone was there, until she felt the tiniest glitch of a presence far behind her in the room.

[Shade Magus]

Shade walked up to the young woman and nodded. The Knight looked up at her and smiled.

"Afternoon. Can I help you with anyhing?"

[SonLee]

"Yes. I am searching for a Master to teach me the ways of the Force. Dasquian directed me here." SonLee bowed in respect. "I must warn you however that I am a DarQuarth Witch...I do not believe, however, that this will interfere in my training, will it not?"

[Shade Magus]

"I am not familiar wit the term DarQuath Witch, but I see no way that anything should interfere with your training if you o not wish it to."

Shade circled the young woman and looked her over. He could sense the potential in her.

"You ay you are looking for a Master. If you wish I would be willing to train you."

[SonLee]

SonLee smiled at her soon-to-be-Master. "I would be honoured if you could teach me the ways of the Force."

[Shade Magus]

"Very well then. Let's begin. Tell me what you know of the Force and of your abilities so far?"

[SonLee]

"The Force is the making and being of us, and determine us as good Jedi, or bad Jedi, depending upon how we wish to use it. It is the essence of life that holds the universe together. It is one of the most powerful energies I have come across in my travels."

She paused.

"So far, without using my Witch powers, I can sense presences in the room. I could faintly sense you when you first arrived. I am good at combat, and can defend myself calmly. I rarely lose my temper with the enemy."

[Shade Magus]

"Good, good. You say you can sense others in the room. I can as well, but much better than you. Try and reach out and sense their emotions. Tell me how I feel and what kind of thoughts are on my mind, if you can. Do not try to hard and strain it may hurt you. This kind of stuff may take a while to learn."

[SonLee]

SonLee nodded, and closed her eyes, trying to reach out to Shade and find a connection with his mind. Then she remembered something that someone had told her long ago...there IS no TRY! Do it, or do not.

She breathed in deeply, letting the Force stir within her, feeling its universal fabric shroud her with a positive sense of energy. Again, she reached to the door of her mind to gain a connection with Shade's, and felt a faint sense of contact, him urging her to do her best and please him. Him sensing a great sense of potential in her. She began to open the door...

But then she stopped, as she felt something that wasn't meant to be there. The image in her mind blurred to that of a planet with a scarred landscape, scattered with rubble from a past civilisation.
DarQuarth she whispered, taking it all in, as she saw distant laserfire hitting the ground and sending torrents of molten lava into the sky, leaving it to fall all about her. Her planet was tearing itself to death, surrounding her with its cry of pain, with the cries of 17 million people still on it, leaving a few hundred to flee. With her. [Such cowardice!] she thought. [i should have stayed!] Yet, the mystery was solved. She knew who she was, and where she came from. It was a memory she'd wanted to forget, yet Shade had found it. Maybe the scars of a life forgotten were meant to be found, and either confronted, or stored in another part of the mind, either to be forgotten, or referred back to later, to help someione else who was in that situation.

Like herself.

She opened her eyes wide, and looked at Shade. "Why did that happen Master? Why did one of my darkest memories come into the light?"

[Shade Magus]

"Without the past, there can be no future. You must realise it to move forward. Tell me more about it. I only caught a glimpse, but I can tell it holds you to something."

[SonLee]

"Without the past, there can be no future."

SonLee considered this, and pushed the door in her mind the whole way, willing Shade to enter and see her despair.

"The enemy and my kind had been at war for many generations...and no side could remember why it had begun."

Again, she could hear the screams of the dying, the corrupted, burning from the intense radiation from their dying sun and planet. She shivered, and then screamed as she saw the face of herself...

[Shade Magus]

Shade sent out a Force wave that enveloped SonLee. It enclosed her and pulled her from the memories.

"This may help. I will only allow you enough power as you desire, until you are able to control it yourself. Does that appeal to you?"

[SonLee]

"Yess...anything..."she stammered. "Anything to keep me away from...that...." She shivered, and looked up with her big blues eyes into the face of her Master. "Thankyou," she whispered. "I don't know what part of my mind that came from..."

[Shade Magus]

"It comes from where it has always been. Now let's try again. Reach out with the Force and I will narrow your feild of view so that it will be easier to control and next time you do this without my aide you will be able to know what you are searching for. This in turn will help you control. Now reach out again and try and find some wildlife out that door. tell me if it is small or large for now."

With a motion of his hand the door swung open and allowed sunlight and fresh air into the room.

[SonLee]

"I hear the sound of Cheena birds, and feel a Sqeeth Rat run over my foot. It is warm, and the smell of Chiv Trees wafts in the air. The sky is bright purple, and the two suns shine upon a big grassy foresty knoll."

[Shade Magus]

Shade nodded with an impressed face.

"Now reach out and tell me the feelings of those people around us."

[SonLee]

"Calamity. None here are sad. This is a place of joy and renewal."

[Shade Magus]

"Good......good..........now for the last test before I let you have more control over yourself, tell me the nature of my physical being.....tell me if I am hungery, tired, or maybe even ill."

[SonLee]

"You are not tired, and you are quite full after a large lunch. I don't feel that you are ill, and I feel a great sense of curiosity coming from you. Many things have happened in your past, yet you can put them aside and not let them worry you until they are needed." She cocked her head for a moment, looking curiously at Shade.

[Shade Magus]

"Very good..."

Shade closed his eyes and then opened them, letting go of some of the control he had over SonLee.

"Now for an even harder task....tell me what is inside of you.."

[SonLee]

"Guilt". The first word that came from her mouth. The episode she remembered whilst talking to Vishalla. The DaHesian spy that had entered the DarQuarth homeworld, and 'befriended' SonLee...extracting seemingly harmless information from her...the info that caused them to destroy her home planet...

[Shade Magus]

Shade sighed. He too had felt the young girl's guilt. He had hoped that he had been wrong though.

"Tell me.....why do you feel guilty."

[SonLee]

"If I had have known he was a DaHesian spy, DarQuarth still would be around now. I told him everything, from the planets scematics, right down to our defence systems. I was too stupid to realise that he was asking me for a specific reason... to destroy the planet..."

[Shade Magus]

"Yes then...if you had know then it would not have happened......IF though is something we cannot judge ourselves by. IF I had know my brother was in the group of Sith that I fought a long time ago I would not have killed him. IF I had not become a Jedi I would have fallen into darkness. IF my father had not been killed, I would never have been able to live with my brother for those years after my parents death. You see we cannot judge ourselves whn the word if is involved. IF you weren't the one tricked then another would have been and you would not be here talking to me now."

[SonLee]

SonLee considered his words, and saw that they were true.No," she said, "I wouldn't be."

[Shade Magus]

"Then gilt you should not feel. I understand that it is natural, but you mustn't blame yourself."

[SonLee]

"It's hard not to...but I will do my best."

[Shade Magus]

"Good. Now let's take five and then when we get back to training I have something I want you to do, but until then take a set and rest. Ask me any questions if you have them."

Shade sat down on the ground as he said this and crossed his legs, opening himself up into the Force.

[SonLee]

She didn't have any questions, yet she had a million. She watched her Master, and hopefully he'd answer them in due course. She wasn't sure of them yet.

She leaned back against the tree, and closed her eyes, feeling a soft, silky blanket shroud her. The Force. White hot power of the Force. Her protector, her power, her Witch powers expanding, and she snapped out as a rock in front of her exploded.

"Did I do that?"

[Shade Magus]

"Yes. You did."

Shade opened his eyes and smiled.

"This is the power of the Force. It was only a small amount, but the Force nonetheless. That is why we must learn to control it, so that it does not control us and destroy us."

[SonLee]

"How can a small thing like that destroy me?" she asked, all curiosity, and looking at the rock with distrust.

[Shade Magus]

"Because what you did to that rock you could easly do to yourself....or i a more Jedi sense, you could do to another and then the guilt from that incident would destroy you. It could tear you apart until very little of what and who you are remains."

[SonLee]

SonLee shivered. Explode herself and others, let alone a rock? She didn't ever realsise that the force was THAT powerful. Maybe she should watch herself.