Rock me ama-Draiya

[Draiya Naaianeya]

The training grounds were mercifully clear from distractions as Draiya stepped through them. It was still early in the morning and too soon for padawan training velocities to begin, which left Draiya Naaianeya plenty of time to work on more embarassing shortcomings. She wore her black-on-black training tunic and her hair pushed up roughly into a ponytail. Her twin shoto sabers, recently constructed, hung from her belt. She didn't plan on using them today, but ever since she'd put them together she felt naked without their comforting weight on her left side, and that little metal clink they made when she walked. As much as she relished putting her blades to the test, she had brought something with her to the training grounds that would prove a more daunting challenge.

The hunk of sandstone carried under her right arm weighed a good four kilograms. It was craggy and lumpy, and heavy enough to provide more than a match. Carefully pacing the open grounds, Draiya eased the stone onto the ground, took a good three strides back, paced around a few steps, and sat cross-legged.

"Alrright."

Serious-faced, Draiya rested her hands on knees as she stared down her opponent. She took a big breath, letting it out in short puffs.

"You've met yourr match today. I'm Draiya Naaianeya, and I'm going to defeat you."

For what seemed an eternity, she just stared at it. The world around her lost its light and form. All she saw was the rock in front of her. Dark eyes narrowed. She sneered, then stilled her mouth into a taut line.

"Now...move!"

[Kyle Krogen]

The shrill of the alarm woke him from the shallow, dream filled slumber. His hand snaked out from underneath the single blanket and silenced the device. Blue eyes peeled open and took in the room, examining each of the four blank walls of the small chamber. No threats, no tricks, but still he rolled over and tapped his knuckles on the floor just to make sure. Solid. There was no bed in his room. Too soft. The thin mat that replaced it was easily rolled up and set in the corner. The blanket folded along with it. A few objects were scattered around the room. A few clothes, trinkets, and of course his lightsabre, which was never out of arms reach.

He didn't even bother showering first. He would do that after. Instead he struggled into his clothes, grabbed his lightsabre, attempted to mold his bed head into something resembling social acceptance but ultimately gave up. The doors whooshed open and he stepped out into the cool morning air. The sun was just beginning to rise and everyone would be asleep for some time, and that was just the way he liked it. There were a few others that rose this early, but it was generally easy to avoid them and get his day going alone.

First things first, he warmed up his body by jogging around the dormitory once and then he was off, sprinting full force for the great hill in the distance, his eyes set on the antenna array at the top he could just make out in the rising light. Over the river and through the trees, all the way to the top, pushing off the ground and seemingly flying through the air and on to one of the struts of the array, where he stopped for only a moment before back flipping off it and falling back to the ground. Moving downhill back toward the camp was even faster, requiring him to dodge the trees. Every once and again he would jump and push off a tree, flying to another one and continuing until he ran out of the necessary momentum to keep himself airborne.

Back in camp, nestled at the edge of the training grounds, he traded his quick movement and acrobatics for silent, still exercise. Hanging upside down in a handstand, eyes closed, concentrating on maintaining his balance before bending at the elbows and carefully lowered himself down a few inches, holding, and then pushing himself back up. He continued this once every five minutes until a sound caught his attention. Opening an eye and bending his neck he looked out at the grounds and spotted a padawan sitting with a rock. How odd to see a padawan up so early.

Balancing his weight on to one hand, he lifted the other one and reached out toward the large sandstone, his fingers going taunt as he split his concentration between maintaining his balance and moving the rock. He gave it just the slightest tap, wiggling it in place, a little mischievous smile creeping across his face as he did so.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Her eyes widened suddenly. SHE DID IT! Wait, no...

"HEY!!"

She glowered at the older Jedi training a distance away, able to sense his reaching influence focused around her training rock. She reached a hand out to it...then both hands, eyes narrowing on a precise point in the stone as if to distill her entire will onto it and command it to do as she said. It continued moving under Kyle's control unabated.

"Ugh!"

Standing up in frustration, she balled her hands up at her sides as she shouted him down.

"Otherr people arre trrying to use this rrock, you know!"

[Kyle Krogen]

Kyle chuckled at the youngling's frustration. A simple bend of his body and he was back right side up. "You can't force the rock to move. You have to ask it to, whisper nice like to it, give it a little nudge sort of thing." The man with the Coruscanti accent spoke as he grossed the distance between him and the girl. "You're pushin' it too hard. Try again, but softer. Don't push it all at once. You'll make your eyeballs pop out of yer head if you try keep pushin' like that."

He stood on the far side of the rock, opposite the girl. He bent down on his hunches and tried his best to sound encouraging, although he didn't exactly have a lot of experience with children, or teaching, and his own master had been a rough hermit who had to resort to beating his stubborn head against a wall on more than one occasion.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Nonsense. Draiya's expression darkened at the notion of rock whispering. This wasn't a mind she was trying to touch, it was an inanimate object. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction!

She paced around the rock, her arms crossed tightly around her as she brooded.

"You want me...to whisperr...to a rrock?"

Draiya paused, suddenly extending a hand to the stone. Her face as hawkish as ever, her hand squeezed at air, drawing in to a fist. When she could still not budge the stone, she bounded towards it and punched it, knocking it a few feet away.

Now her knuckles were bleeding, and she felt no less foolish.

"This is lunacy!" She shouted at no one.

[Kyle Krogen]

"That's one way t'do it." Kyle let out a snort at the youngling's impulsive behavior. It reminded him a little bit of himself back in his youth. Back then punching things solved just about everything. The bigger the kids in the street the harder he put them down. The Jedi teachings had been a hard lesson to learn. His brash attitude never went away, but he learned to keep it in check. Sometimes the answer was to headbutt your way through any obstacle, but this was not one of those times.

"A wise old man once told me that focus lies somewhere in between rage and serenity. You don't want to get frustrated, nor too calm. You lose focus." Standing back up he walked over to the stone and picked it up, weighing it in his hands before setting it back down in front of the girl. "Try it again, but this time be gentle, and try to calm your mind. It's not like picking it up with your hands. The harder you push does not equal the harder you lift. The force is a delicate conduit. Let yourself flow through it."

The old man's words in his mouth, echoing words that had been spoken many years ago to a confused blond haired teenager.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Draiya tried to parse the easygoing Knight's words. They made sense from a lay perspective, but in practice Draiya perhaps didn't feel the way the world moved around her the same way that he did. The same way that anyone did.

She raised another hand to the stone, thinking about Serena's lessons in the forest. About the all-binding connection of the world she was a part of. Her eyes fluttered shut. That special way of sensing the world through the force alone was beautiful chaos. Living energy radiant and bound to everything she could feel. And that was part of the problem. She could get lost in that inviting radiance. It was her wild beautiful playground, and all the mundane that flowed in the space between seemed so dim to her.

Focus.

Draiya's eyes tightened shut as she tightened her hand into a fist, letting it go slack and trying to find the unremarkable in her midst. Kyle's life force was so incredible. A kaleidoscope of distractions. Each fleeting moment she found her mark, it disappeared in the radiance. Impatience gripped her in the middle of the maelstrom, and Draiya threw her intent like a farmer scattering seed on furrowed earth.

The rock didn't move, but a blasting migraine suddenly pounded on the door of Kyle's head.

[Kyle Krogen]

Kyle watched in apt attention as the youngling grew quiet; concentrating no doubt. Then it hit him. It started so subtly, a pressure behind his face and then it blossomed into horrible pain as if his sinuses were trying to pass a bantha. He gurked loudly as doubled over, grabbing his face with his hands even as his mouth framed a cry. The pain was intense, and spreading through his entire head. It left as quickly as it came, leaving throbbing pain in it's wake.

"Goddamn rebel scum!"

The words were hissed through clenched teeth and muffled by his hands. Hands that lowered, curling into fists; revealing a face twisted with anger. The rock, stationary and unaffected, suddenly lifted up, hovering a few inches off the ground for a moment before shooting straight up into air and then dropping with all the force of an bomb, heading straight for Draiya before diverting at the last moment and smashing into the ground; shattering into pieces that peppered the pair with pebbles. Fists uncurled, eyes softened, and Kyle fell back on his buttocks. A moment ago he could have swore he was looking his enemy in the eye, intent on killing it, but that feeling was gone now. Alien.

"I... I don't know what came over me. That was odd..."

[Draiya Naaianeya]

"Haa'tei nau ko'a shaa!"

Draiya startled, falling back as she barely shielded her face from the spall. Did she do that?!

"What the hell was that?!"

The Syragori began to fastidiously dust herself off, looking at Kyle. No, it wasn't her.

"Masterr Krrogen?"

[Kyle Krogen]

"You, uh, affected me instead of the rock, you see?" He stammered a bit as he spoke, his head still reeling a bit. "I'll be okay. Is my nose bleeding?"

It wasn't, and he knew it, but it seemed the right thing to ask as he stood back up and dusted himself off. His black tunic was a pleasant shade of rock dust gray now.

"Knight. Knight. Call me Kyle, please. I'm not a Master. No honorary. Mr. Krogen would be my father, if I have one."

Everything was a blur. Everything hurt. He could not focus, his mind was wandering in all sorts of directions. He was vaguely aware of the youngling across from him, of where he was, but at the same time lost in memories and sensations.

"What happened to the rock?"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

"Okay...Kyle."

Draiya gawked a little at the informality as a squirrel head peeped out of a pouch on her belt. She didn't have time to deal with Nak's protests. He was a survivor. She watched as Kyle cleaned himself off, and felt very little at ease at the quaking conflict beneath the surface.

"The rrock?"

She glanced down to the mess.

"We'rre wearring it."

[Kyle Krogen]

"Huh."

The last few seconds were a bit foggy. He vaguely remembered seeing the rock falling and pushing it aside, but how it got up there in the first place was a mystery to him. He was really at a loss for words, so he latched on to the one thing that caught his eye.

"Have you chosen a sabre style?" He inquired, nodding toward the twin sabres hanging from her belt. He noted they were shoto blades by their shorter handles. His own blade hung against his thigh, a handle tarnished with age, with grime and dirt hiding in the nooks and crannies where a good cleaning just could not reach.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Draiya's look of concern didn't diminish much. The brilliance of his life energy read clean through her senses, though it seemed there was something latent and unknown beneath the surface. Mindful of her master's teachings, Draiya resisted the temptation to pry, though she felt it important to be mindful.

"My style?"

On cue, the Syragori reached to her belt to remove her blades. The grips were short and knurled, with a sleek bevel to the emitter housing and slightly overbuilt pommels. Contrasting to Kyle's own well-used blade, Draiya's were freshly constructed and spotless.

"Atarru best fits my instincts."

[Kyle Krogen]

"Ataru." A grin tug at the corners of his mouth. "I too practice Ataru. I focus on the Sokan principle; an emphasis on traversing the environment and using it to your advantage in combat. Always on the move. Strike fast. Hard. When I was a padawan on Coruscant you had only two options; end the conflict as soon as possible or run and fight another day." Until you get caught by multiple opponents, then Ataru is at a great disadvantage. It took a large force, in the heart of Coruscant, for his Ataru to finally fail him. He would never forget the running, flipping, and diving as he avoided death and capture. For a time. The memories that followed were best forgotten.

"Ataru is hardly the form of choice for a padawan. It can be dangerous. You must like the challenge."

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Challenge would have been Djem So. Draiya considered the difference, making an uncomfortable face at every attempt she'd made to stand stock still and batter a sparring opponent into submission. Or Soresu with the patience necessary to erode stone with water. Those were challenges. Foolish ones, to her surmising.

"I think it pairrs strrength to application. You've seen how rrotten I am with moving things physically. But I could convince a crrowd I'd moved that same rrock and they'd swearr it was trrue."

The Syragori illustrated with subtle sleight of hand gestures, flourishing an unseen stone in her hand and then passing another hand over it to remove it from play.

"Deceive the eyes and senses. Choose my opponent carrefully. Strrike fast and win."

[Kyle Krogen]

"That is a fitting combination." Kyle remarked after watching the illusion pass before his eyes. Illusions. Lies. Secrets. Shadows. He could never bring himself to so much as practice the art. Deception was not in his arsenal. Especially after what the Inquisition put him through. Lies. They whispered them in his ears while he slept, while they ripped his body apart, and especially while they mended it back together. So much so that he found himself mirroring their words while he tended to his own injuries. Lies. All of it lies.

"If you ever need any help or pointers with your Ataru feel free to ask me anytime. I'm afraid I must retire. That blast has left me a little shaken." A smile and a bow before stepping away and leaving the training circle. The buzzing was back and now louder than ever, and he feared the memories and nightmares that would resurface with it.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

"I underrstand, Kyle."

Draiya metered her words carefully. Point in fact she didn't understand, at all. He was fine one moment, and a tumult of strong emotion and distress the next. The Syragori couldn't be sure, but she was worried that somehow this had happened because of her.

"You'rre okay, rright?"

Her face broadcast her concern, and wondered what Master Laran would do in this situation. Matters of the mind should be broached carefully.