Picking Yourself Up Again (Draiya)

[Serena Laran]

Serena sat quietly in her house, a simple wooden structure that had replaced her tent, similar to the one she had occupied for years in exile. She was grinding dried herbs into powder, and waiting for her padawan to arrive. Carefully upending the mortar, she put the powder into a glass jar, carefully labeled with name and useage. Rhianna's gift of native plants from Dhomanda Alainn was replenishing her stores, and she looked out her window to the garden, green with herbs.

A noise outside the door drew her attention, and she called out, "It's open." Draiya entered slowly, her arm in a cast for at least another week. Serena had purposeful not offered any healing, knowing the girl had to bear then consequences of her actions. "Please, sit." She indicated the stool near her, and then placed some more leaves in the mortar, setting to them with the pestle.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

The robust purples and blacks of bruising on Draiya's face had reduced to just a few splotches of darkness against her tan skin. With the use of one hand for the time being, her routine had changed. Her hair, for instance, hung down each shoulder in a center part - an uncharacteristic look for the Syragori who preferred a more action-capable ponytail.

The padawan did as she was instructed, carefully negotiating the stool with her right arm. The room they were in drew the abundant natural light of Ossus in warm hues, illuminating the herbalist work taking place. Scents assaulted her even a distance from the mortar. Earthy, peppery, piquant, and citrusy in differing measure. It reminded her of the spice bazaars on Syragor.

For now, Draiya watched her master work at turning nature into remedy. Making good the energies of the living force in practical means.

[Serena Laran]

Serena gave the pestle another practiced grind, and then set it aside, brushing her hands off and placing them in her lap. "How are you feeling today, Draiya?" The question went beyond mere health, inquiring into her padawan's emotional state as well.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

"Fine."

Draiya spoke of physicality at first, shrugging her shoulders with a blank expression on her face as she continued to look at the herbs. The Syragori was buying time, and as she tackled what the real question was about, her expression turned more ponderous.

"I'm unsurre of wherre to go now."

Acknowledging her dangerous skirt with pride may have literally saved her life, but in a way, abandoning it altogether left her feeling like a sailboat on a still day.

"Masterr, is that norrmal?"

[Serena Laran]

Serena watched her padawan think, wishing she could lift the burden from her shoulders. If only life was so easy. "Yes, it is. If you were certain of your path already I would ask you to reconsider. Your paradigm has shifted, and you are seeing your life through new eyes. Wiser eyes, I hope."

Serena turned to her workbench and carefully tipped the ground herb into it's container. "Let us talk through it. Where were you headed, before? What did you want to do?"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Considering Serena's question, the Syragori looked beyond her and out the window over her shoulder. Her dark eyes seemed elsewhere as she considered larger matters.

"What I wanted to do?"

It seemed an odd question to her. A person with gift and dedication wanted to become a Jedi. But from there?

"What I want to do seems less imporrtant than what I'm called to do. A Jedi should be prreparred forr many things. I wanted to be rready to answerr any call, and to be the best in whateverr I set out to do."

Draiya shook her head.

"It was impossible forr me to see how blind I was by the drrive I felt. But now, I fearr that without that drrive that I may do the Orrderr yet anotherr disserrvice."

[Serena Laran]

"Do you feel that you can no longer be a Jedi, then? Is it your calling still? Or will you allow this hard learned lesson to go to waste?" Serena reached down under the work table and pulled out a basket with skeins of yarn in it. She pulled out a dark blue one and motioned to Draiya. "Hold your hands out." The girl did so, and she slipped the skein over her hands, pulling out the loose end and wrapping it around her own fingers tightly.

"Having drive is not the problem, Draiya." Serena kept wrapping the yarn, forming a small ball that quickly grew in size as she worked. "Being arrogant about your ability while you are on your journey was the problem. Did you ever think that Drax is wasting his time here? Yet his calling to be a Jedi is as valid as yours."

[Draiya Naaianeya]

"Of courrse I don't believe that."

Did she appear so callous? Draiya was mildly aghast, then her expression returned to inward uncertainties.

"It's just...I grew up with nothing. No money, no opporrtunity, no frreedom, no hope. I know what it feels like to have nothing and to feel like that's the best it's going to be. And when I came herre..."

The Syragori girl watched Serena ply the yarn and her jawline tightened a little.

"I rrealized the Jedi arre people who can give. Maybe above anything else, I want to be the perrson I wish watched overr me then."

[Serena Laran]

Serena looked at Draiya as she wound the yarn, the thick woolen thread a cord connecting them both...even as the Force connected them. "You are still on that path, Padawan. You have it in you to be a great Jedi...if you choose to continue your training."

[Draiya Naaianeya]

"My desirre to walk this path hasn't waverred, Masterr."

Resolute, Draiya kept her eyes on Serena as she worked with the yarn between them.

"And I'm rready to take whateverr the next step may be. I may get knocked down again. But I will get back up."

[Serena Laran]

"Good," Serena said, still winding the ball of yarn. "Do you know how to knit, Draiya?"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

"No."

The Syragori replied plainly, and then clarified with awkwardness.

"I know how to patch. We got thrree outfits a yearr. If we got holes in 'em, we had to fix 'em."

Memories of ugly hodgepodge repairs and schoolyard mockeries. Draiya could never remember a year where the knees in her pants were even made of the same pattern of fabric. In the meantime, those impeccably-dressed Meera'in girls...walking around like they were in another universe.

[Serena Laran]

Serena smiled gently, sensing the spike of jealousy, shame, and resentment that her padawan's memories had brought forth. The girl did not wallow in them, however, merely feeling them and carefully setting them aside to continue the discussion. A good reaction.

"When one knits the goal is to create something - a sweater, a blanket... something whole using a single strand of yarn. The base components exist here," she held up the growing ball of yarn in her hand, "and if you put in the work you will end up with a finished product.

"Sometimes a stitch gets dropped. Perhaps you don't even notice it at first, as you keep going, knitting row after row, and then you suddenly see that your blanket has a hole appearing, or that your stitch count is off and the pattern you intended has become warped into something else.

"The entire project is threatened by this unintended weakness. As simple as a dropped stitch..." Her voice trailed off, and then she continued. "You cannot ignore the dropped stitch, Draiya. You could throw out the blanket: deem it beyond repair and move on. Or you can pull on the yarn, undoing what you have knitted until you reach the source. Pick up the stitch... Start over."

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Draiya parsed her master's metaphor, her own latchkey past forgotten as Serena moved on to speak in practical and constructive terms. Don't throw the cub out with the bathwater, her grandmother used to say. Not literally talking about the washtub, but rather on understanding how to deal with small problems instead of scrapping something larger and good in essence.

"One of the firrst things I learrned was to rretain wholeness of self and to not succumb to the prressurres of the univerrse arround. It's an easy thing to say and believe you know. And I thought I knew this forr fact. I think now, I'm rready to rreturrn to the lesson, even if it means to unlearrn what I may have learrned past that moment."

The notion of starting over was a painful consideration to make, but one that Draiya felt a degree of liberation in admitting. There were things in her soul pulling her in another direction, and she needed to let go.

[Serena Laran]

She sounded older than her thirteen years. Serena wondered if it was her upbringing on Syragor, or her singular focus on becoming a Jedi that was causing Draiya's girlhood to melt away. She knew what too much focus could do to a person. Abarai Loki had a twisted way of regarding the world - seeing any sentiment as frivolity, compassion as so much extraneous fluff that clouded the mind from solving the problems in front of it.

Serena did not wish that for Draiya...but one makes their own choices. "Unlearn what you have learned. Yes. Exactly." The last bit of yarn loosened from Draiya's hands, and Serena finished wrapping the ball. "You do not need to fear starting over, Draiya. I will support you, teach you...every step of the way. True character is revealed not in the fall, but in how you get back up again."

[Draiya Naaianeya]

True character is revealed not in the fall, but in how you get back up again.

Hearing the appeal to her dogged perseverance, Draiya nodded in full understanding. One thing she did know was how to never surrender. The yarn slipped her hands, and the Padawan lightly flexed her fingers in new-found freedom of movement.

"I'm rready to take that jourrney, Masterr."