Emotionally Compromised

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

"We have arrived at the Citadel, Lady Vissica."

The Selonian's bowed head raised. From her sitting position on the deck, she was beneath eye level of the stormtrooper corps officer who had brought the news. It was a notice that required no response, so Vissica gave the man only silence as she pushed off her haunches. On four feet, the Selonian trotted down the broad debarking ramp of her Delta T-3C shuttlecraft, remaining on all fours until she cleared enough headspace to rise to two. Another officer awaited her on the tarmac - Commander Kulrenn.

"Welcome back, my Lady. I've sent word to the Cadets to prepare for scheduled instruction."

"Cancel all of my lessons." Vissica responded in her typically terse manner, maintaining a brisk stride toward the entry.

"I beg your pardon, my Lady?" Kulrenn nearly stammered. It was an extremely unusual response from the Selonian. His following pace flagged as a result, and he nearly had to trot to close the distance again.

"My command was clear." The tension in the Knight's reply was enough to cause hair to stand.

"Shall I..." Kulrenn swallowed, "shall I state a reason for the cancellation?"

"I must meditate."

"Meditation?"

The questioning tone was enough to break the levee, and Vissica turned on the officer, catching a handful of his jacket in each paw as she hoisted him off his feet.

"I must meditate. I have no reason to explain myself to you. Question or delay me again and I will throw you off the tarmac ledge and into the city chasm!"

The outburst was visceral, punctuated by a rattling snarl. It turned the head of others present at the Citadel tarmac and the adjacent parade ground. Kulrenn, for his part, had blanched. Lady Vissica never used such a statement as a metaphor.

"My apologies, my Lady. My...deepest apologies. Please..."

Vissica unhanded the Commander with an irritated growl, tumbling him onto the pavement. She continued on her way.

[Rossos Atrapes]

"Milord, may I speak with you?"

Atrapes turned, regarding one of the higher level students in the Cadet program.

"You may speak."

"I have... well, I have concerns, sir, about Lady Vissica."

Atrapes turn to face the young man fully; the teenager almost quailed, but held admirably still.

"Well, sir..." he paused, and gathered the inner strength to continue, "we've noticed that Lady Vissica seems to be more... well... wild, sir. More dangerous than she usually is. Today, she cancelled her scheduled classes, and we heard that she nearly choked one of the Stormtrooper commanders to death at the landing pad. If this were Sir Jibral's class or Lady Iscandar's, more than a few students would be disappointed, and make complaints. But no one's made any notes about it in the mess or in the community halls, sir. In fact, I'd say most of the students are relieved."

Atrapes continued his silence.

"...Well, uh, sir. I was hoping you could speak with Lady Vissica about this. She runs the command and combat higher level classes and without those many of us will fall behind. Thank... thank you sir."

The Cadet bowed and smartly spun on his heel before marching away as quickly as his could without walking.

The Knight-General turned and walked on, gesturing to a nearby protocol droid.

"Yes milord? How may I be of service?"

"Summon Knight Vissica to my office."

"Right away, Lord Atrapes!" the droid said, watching the man walk on. "Oh dear. The first task personally assigned by Lord Atrapes, and I have a seventy-five percent chance of being terminated! Oh dear, oh dear. Just my luck."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

She could not cage it. Not anymore. The rage. The fury. It was fed by a spark. The Dark Side. Power seemingly without limit that used the passions as a catalyst. The allure of the power aroused hunger. It compelled one to return to it again, and again. For all the power the Dark Side promised, it threatened to undermine her control. Her iron will, the integrity and rule of order that governed everything Vissica ever knew. The fear of losing control filled the Selonian with shame. What good was she if she could not hold herself accountable to the truth of her words and deeds? What good was she if she became subsumed by the avalanche? A spark birthing a firestorm she could not control or use to any benefit?

The inky dark of the meditation chamber split open, letting in the light of the outside from between parting clamshell doors. At the center of the room, Lady Vissica sat on her haunches, propped by her broad, splaying forepaws. Her head angled toward the floor, signaling a state of deep repose and calm. It was fleeting. Beneath the veneer of wiry fur, the Selonian's muscles flinched and tightened. She peeled open a single eye, the nictating membrane sliding back horizontally to reveal glossy black.

"Leave."

Vissica's flews peeled back, revealing teeth as a warning. The chamber filled with a persistent low rumble.

[Rossos Atrapes]

The sound of the protocol droid's servos were the only audible noises for a moment, until the black plated droid's head popped into sight.

"Ahem. Yes, apologies esteemed Lady Vissica..."

The growling grew louder.

"Lady... Lady... oh my. I'm doomed. You're... your presence is re... requested..."

Vissica turned and began to slowly stalk forward.

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

The rumble in Vissica's chest rose to her throat as she padded forward. With a body made of lithe steel cable, every step moved in a wave down her flexible spine.

"Who requests me, droid?"

The beast of her rage rattled the bars of her fortitude, each vying to assert themselves in reality. Vissica's flews lowered to conceal her fangs. The growl petered into an annoyed snort of exhaled breath from the Selonian's nose.

[Rossos Atrapes]

"Lord Atrapes, milady," the droid said, lowering its arms from covering its head and turning to face the Selonian Knight. "He personally requested your presence in his office."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

He knows.

The fear. The shame. They redoubled in intensity. Vissica shrank back a half step, her small ears falling flat on her head. What am I if not the keeper of my oath? The Knight shrank back another few steps with her front paws, rolling up to stand on two legs. She stared down at her open hands, feeling lost and adrift. The Selonian willed her hands to close into fists, which quavered under roiling emotion until they slowly fell to her side.

Anger. Fear. Aggression.

Black eyes pivoted in their orbits, fixating on the messenger.

Control.

With a deep exhale, Vissica pushed the droid aside, moving to pass.

[Palara Iscandar]

Wrong account!

[Rossos Atrapes]

"Ah, I'm sure you know the way!" the droid called after the Selonian, raising one shiny black hand to its vocabulator in one of its more odd programming quirks.

The doors slid closed, and the protocol droid stood there in silence for a moment, as if waiting. Finally, it seemed to relax.

"Oh dear, I thought I was going to spring a leak," it gasped to itself. "I don't know how you do it. Maybe it helps you don't have an easily crushed form."

A reverberating brrt noise echoed throughout the room.

"Oh, don't take that superior tone with me," the droid called, turning to leave the room. "I swear, everyday the computer system just gets more and more impudent. A memory-wipe is called for at this rate."

Another reverberating brrt echoed.

"Excuse me? Well, I never! Go ahead and be like that you formless scrap of code! See what happens if you keep this up. You'll be replaced in a year, and don't come to me for help! You won't get it. Honestly, using such language."

The doors opened and closed on the droid, leaving the room in silence once more.

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Vissica passed through the halls, withdrawn into her thoughts. She'd tamped the fire down to coals. Once again, she felt the relative assurance of control. Her will steered her, tempered by her oaths and discipline. And while that was the case now, Vissica could not lie to herself. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to direct her anger in it's intended direction. The bitter frustration of Loklorien s'Ilancy's elusiveness had been compounded by further setbacks. While her mission to crush the resistance on Feriae Junction had been a near-total success, the Selonian could not help feel like the seeds of her nemesis were cast into the wind no matter how complete an effort to crush them she made.

The doors to Rossos Atrapes' office slid open. With a focused expression, Vissica dominated her feelings, crossing the threshold to stand before her superior. The giantess dipped down upon her haunches, splaying a forepaw to the ground as her head bowed.


'You summoned me, Knight General."

As she'd done many times before, Vissica stretched out with her feelings. Atrapes gave her nothing for her query. He was a great empty. A singularity.

[Rossos Atrapes]

For one long moment, while Vissica bowed before him, Knight-General Atrapes did nothing but stare at her from behind his desk.

And then, his frigid Force presence extended out, enveloping the Selonian's own, prodding and calmly inquisitive, and for all that it was still opaque, as if a piece of the deep black of space had been implanted into this man's soul.

"How do you feel, Knight Vissica?" were the Knight-General's perhaps surprising first words. His presence continued to penetrate hers, as if searching. "I do not have to ask you to be honest. I know you will not lie. Do not hinder this process by obfuscating the truths I seek with others."

Atrapes stood.

"I will know."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Lord Atrapes had been the one to discover Vissica. He had nurtured her natural ability. Shaped it. Gave it purpose. As the Selonian felt the presence of his mind inhabit hers, it did not surprise her that he too could compel a mind along a path of his choosing. What always surprised Vissica was how opaque, how alien that presence felt. It had taken her a long time to find the discipline to not recoil from the feeling.

How did she feel? To be forced to kneel here and subject herself to this cold mental vivisection from her patron?

"I am angry." she replied with a calm, husky voice, fixing her eyes upon a spot on the floor.

"I am fearful."

Pride might have closed the lips of someone else. Vissica's pride was subjugated to her oath. It drew strength so long as she could fulfill it, and she would make every effort to do so.

[Rossos Atrapes]

Atrapes did not nod, or even move. There was no need.

He continued to look down upon the Selonian like a hawk's piercing gaze upon the fields below it.

"You have passion. And loyalty. But you do not have control, Vissica," the Knight-General said, walking around his desk to stand before the still kneeling Knight. "Do you understand what happens when you do not have control of yourself?"

Vissica opened her mouth after a moment of silence to answer, but Atrapes continued to speak.

"I do not think you do." He said. "Beyond the consequences of your own inner code and the fear of losing your place as an arbiter of the will of the Queen of your Queen."

Another moment of silence.

"Allow me to educate you on the true consequences."

For a moment, there was nothing. Then, without warning, the room seemed to lose all its warmth; or rather, there was a black hole, drawing every last bit of joy and happiness and heat into itself, gorging yet never sated.

At its centre was Atrapes, unflappable and as cold as the very darkest void between galaxies.

When all the ambient life in the room was drawn in, the cold enveloped the Knight completely, freezing and boiling her veins, ripping the very essence of her being from herself into the chasm which awaited only a scant few feet away.

"This is the consequence, Vissica," Atrapes spoke, and his voice thrummed through the cold and into her mind. "A mindless phenomenon, heedless of ally or foe, seeking only to sate itself; yet, it cannot be sated. Ever it hungers for more, until it consumes itself."

The Knight-General's exposed Wound continued to tear at Vissica's life like an ephemeral hound tearing into flesh.

"It accomplishes nothing. After it dies, the galaxy continues. It may feel inescapable, Vissica. It may feel as if its hunger could consume everything. But it lies to you, Vissica."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

There came a sense of powerlessness. Futility. It manifested in sense as cold, stealing away what anger had delivered. Vissica responded viscerally. Her sleek coat of fur stood on end, and the Selonian recoiled from her kneeling position, falling back in a reflexive snarl. Her first instinct - perhaps one born out of dependence, was to draw upon the wellspring of the dark side. More anger. More hatred. The growing howl of fear in her belly at portents of her failure.

It was all for nothing.

The Knight General took from her without ceasing. She wanted to make it stop. To make him stop. She wanted to kill him. To paint the walls of this place with his blood! For every ounce of her desire, Atrapes equaled it with the abyss. There was no escape.

A quavering paw raised over her head. Vissica's eyes squeezed shut as she keened.

"Make it stop!"

[Rossos Atrapes]

The vortex of nothing disappeared, or rather, it dissipated. Atrapes' will smothered the Wound, anchoring it within himself once more.

Light seemed to pour back into the room, and with it warmth and heat and sound. Atrapes stood before her, unmoved. He had not even moved his hands. That such a force could come from such a man was incongruous; he looked plain and indistinct, save for the scar down his face. And there were more than a few serving the Empire with worse scars.

"Do you understand?" he asked, and there were still wisps of that nothingness swirling about him. "That is what you will become should you continue to give yourself to the Force, rather than chaining it to your will. You will turn on your Empress. You will turn on your Queen. There will be no sating that anger, that fear."

Atrapes walked forward, closing the distance between himself and the shivering Selonian.

"You will become everything you most hate. If you do not learn control."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

To look at the Selonian would make one think she had been mortally wounded. Her chest heaved in rapid breaths, a paw clutched at the cuirass that covered it, reflexively attempting to pull it free, as if the release of pressure could sustain her life. Her eyes were wide, unusually emotive and almost plaintive.

"My will has never faltered, until now. The Dark Side has pushed to my limits. I do not know how to constrain it further!"

She felt weak. Beaten. Exhausted. But the monster inside still rattled the cage. How could she be so affected?

"Teach me how to control this! What good is power without order?"

[Rossos Atrapes]

"Power without order is nothing."

Atrapes stopped in front of the Knight, his blue cloak brushing the ground.

"You feel anger. You feel fear. Why are you angry? Why are you afraid?"

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Her quickened heart slowed a measure, giving the Selonian pause enough to consider the question. Still inclined on her back, Vissica regained a measure of dignity, rolling forward to sit on her haunches.

"I am angry because I have enemies that remain unconquered. I am angry because their defiance incites further disorder."

Her eyes closed.

"I am angry because my anger is a weapon. I am angry because the Empress wishes for me to be angry. And I fear most of all, that my anger will fulfill no purpose."

[Rossos Atrapes]

"You have given me one good answer," Atrapes said shortly.

He took another step toward her.

"Aside from your answer about your fear, you have been only partly honest with me, Knight Vissica," he explained. "Emotions are rarely so intense when based on logic, on reasoning. And they are not only logical in your case, I sense."

He turned away.

"Dig deeper. Why are you angry that your enemies remain unconquered? Why does their disorder infuriate you? Why do you fear your anger is purposeless?"

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Atrapes' taunting merited thunder. The Selonian's ears pinned back in an instant, her eyes drawn tight as obsidian arrowheads as her muzzle peeled back in a show of teeth.

"BECAUSE LOKLORIEN S'ILANCY DOES NOT KNEEL BEFORE THE EMPRESS IN CHAINS AS SHE MUST!!"

[Rossos Atrapes]

So we come to the heart of it.

"Why must she kneel in chains before the Empress?"

Atrapes fixed Matatek Sel Vissica in place with his eyes. Despite the size difference and the inferno blazing inside the Selonian, he seemed unruffled.

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Forced to stare into the sun of her hatred, Vissica's fur stood on end with rage. The howl of the Dark Side again rattled the chains, and she channeled her anger, righting the ship into focus.

"Her defiance on Manaan merits it, Knight General. I rightfully declared her arrest. Were it not for Comrade Iscandar's leniency, Imperial justice would already have been meted out!"

[Rossos Atrapes]

"You promised her arrest, and were denied. You continue to be denied. How weak a desire you must have for defeat to break your will."

He walked around her, forcing her to turn to keep him in sight.

"And you make excuses, so your will remains weak."

Atrapes made one full revolution around Vissica, and stopped.

"You, as you are, do not serve the Empire," he said. "You serve yourself, and the Empire is the vehicle that allows you to do so."

He could feel Vissica's rising anger, but its heat seemed unable to affect him.

"Tell me: if Iscandar arrived here with s'Ilancy as her prisoner, would you be satisfied?"

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

She could feel the heat of her fury threatening to burn through her. Vissica's jaw quavered, drawing in shallow breaths in an effort to maintain her clarity in the moment.

"I would." She spoke with certainty. "It is unimportant whose hand does the Empress's bidding. Only that her bidding is done."

[Rossos Atrapes]

"Yet even as you say the words, I sense your hate, Vissica. You wish s'Ilancy to kneel before you, to know that it was you who brought her to justice."

Atrapes fixed his subordinate with another look.

"There is a point to this, Vissica. You are not incapable. Do not blame Iscandar. Do not blame s'Ilancy. Do not blame me. Get to the heart of your hate. When you know it, you control it. Shall I continue to lead you through this exercise?"

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Vissica turned the knife of her hate inward, thrusting it to her heart. Her eyes widened in unanticipated clarity.

"There is a part of me that wishes her capture to be at my hand."

She spoke softly, words laced with guilt. Averting the eyes of her master, Vissica's head bowed to the floor in shame.

"I cannot avoid this. It may not matter who is responsible for her capture to satisfy my oath, but her defiance has grieved me."

The Selonian keened in a faint pitch, her eyes squeezing shut.

"I am ashamed to admit this failure."

[Rossos Atrapes]

"It is only failure if you allow it to become one."

Atrapes stepped back, allowing Vissica some room now that she'd come to the conclusion she'd needed.

"The problem is that you lack control," he hummed lowly. "Not that you hate. What will give you control may not necessarily be what grants such to others. But it is always a matter of will; a matter of chaining your hate to be your tool, rather than your master. What we have done up to now has bared from where your hate and deepest anger flows. With that knowledge comes the ability to grasp your hate while it is an ember rather than an inferno."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

She had become fixated upon Loklorien s'Ilancy. That anger had infected her, distorted her purpose. Sullied the purity of her oath, so that Vissica had made the task a personal obligation. Only by the wisdom of the Knight General could she find the perspective to see the problem. She could now see herself, and her error. Deep in thought, the Selonian tugged at her chin fur with an index finger and thumb, a dull rumble droning in her chest.

"My will has failed because it has not kept pace with the power I hold."

The rumble became a low growl. Vissica's teeth bared slightly before her flews lowered again.

"A shortcoming I do not wish to repeat."

Her eyes flicked up to meet the Knight General's cold gaze.

"I have become more than Queen Matatek's warrior. I must become a suitable vessel to control and focus the anger that gives me power. Teach me the means of this control, and my failure will not be revisited."

[Rossos Atrapes]

"There are many ways. Meditation on your hate and its core. The goal with such an exercise is to not stoke your passion but to understand it so deeply it does not control you. Such a programme will take months, if not years, depending on the strength of your anger and how deeply you have deluded yourself. This is the most controlled of the Sith disciplines. It is fraught with danger to those undisciplined."

Atrapes walked back to his desk and tapped a few buttons; the closed viewport emitted a resounding clack, and the shutters began to open, letting the previously dark and white-lit room become awash in golds and reds.

"The Jedi path is to work to overcome and release your anger, much in the same way as the Sith discipline, though it emphasises more self-discipline and requires one to let go of those emotions which cloud one's ability to sense the Force in its wider aspects. It is the reason the Jedi were victorious throughout their long history of wars against the Sith, for the Sith were as a whole unable to achieve the discipline necessary to keep their hate from controlling them. However, the Jedi path will at some point stymie you. For the Force has its own flow, and at times it will be difficult to perceive whether an action follows the needs of the Empire or the flow of the Force. It will prod you in its own direction.

"There are many others. My own practice is utilitarian meditation, the gearing of oneself to a goal or vision and using it as the compass to navigate and defang one's passions. This is inherently devoid of a bent towards either light or dark, as it depends upon the vision. However, it is particularly capable of self-delusion. Along with these are methods of meditation or clearing one's mind. The physical, the spiritual, the mental. Each has its uses, as well as obstacles and difficulty."

The Knight-General was silhouetted against the huge viewport, seemingly becoming smaller as he walked closer to it and the scale of the planet in relation to himself was made clear.

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

As the Knight General enumerated the paths before her, Vissica found her needed guidance and illumination. She raised a palm, staring into it as she slowly closed it into a fist.

"The path of the Sith, I reject. Their apostasy aggrandizes the self, setting personal gain above all."

Her eyes narrowed.

"It can only end in usurpation. Treason."

She took in the view just over Atrapes shoulder, drinking the sunset.

"Nor can I rely on the Jedi path. One cannot serve two masters. I will not place myself in a position to compromise my service to the Empress to fulfill the mysteries of the force. To do so would be arrogant."

At the elimination of two paths, one became clear. Obvious. A choice that Vissica was surprised she had not come to without guidance herself. She affixed Atrapes with an expression of certainty.

"Yours, Knight General, seems the most fitting way to control anger and passion. I wish to learn as you did."

[Rossos Atrapes]

"Mine is the way I have become what I am," Atrapes answered, settling himself before Vissica in a military posture, with his arms behind his back. "First, you must choose your goal. It must be more than a signpost onto more achievements. It will be the driving force of your life, of your power. You will orient your whole being to its consummation. It will become the lens through which you will look at everything."

Even as the sun continued to dominate the horizon, night began encroaching upon the sky, the light darkening and making shadows loom noticeably.

"This is no small thing to accomplish. Like earlier, you must dig within yourself to find the vision beneath your goals and ambitions. Ask yourself why those are your goals and desires. Then subject the answer once more to the question of why that is so, until you can go no deeper. I do not expect you to achieve this state of self-knowledge quickly, and I expect that you will grow frustrated with such an internal exercise. You must remember that it is the internal that drives you to act, and knowing those drives instead of merely accepting without question the correlating goals and ambitions that they engender enables you to act much more efficiently and with clarity of mind.

"Shall we begin?"

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Vissica took the question as an invitation, and she rose to her full height. Drawing in a full breath, she let it out in slow release through her nose as she looked down at her leader. The mysteries of the force and beyond that Rossos Atrapes held may never be fully known to her, but Vissica knew she would always have a stake in the Empire. It was more important than ever that she now cement it.

"At once, Knight General."

[Rossos Atrapes]

"Walk with me, Vissica," Atrapes said, and turned to walk away from the viewport and the oncoming night. As they left the office, the viewport's shutters were nearly closed.

He'd noticed she had not questioned the discrepancy between his first explanation on choosing her goal and his subsequent words on finding what her vision would be within herself.

"We will begin with choosing your vision. If you do not mind, I will speed this process along with a few questions." He did not wait for her permission. "Loklorien s'Ilancy. Why is it her defiance which has engendered such frustration? You, and the Empire, have been defied before."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Vissica followed Atrapes with a loping gait, her relatively-shorter hind legs moving faster to keep pace with the Knight General as her head and broad shoulders bobbed with each stride. She tracked her teacher and his question with a focused expression on her face.

"It is not simply a matter of defiance, Knight General. I am oath bound to enforce Imperial rule, of course, but the Jedi s'Ilancy eluded me after I declared her arrest."

She thought over the matter, doing her best to chain her passions and consider the course of events as they were.

"Her continued status as a fugitive not only confounds Imperial justice, but also renders an oath unfulfilled."

Vissica's chest rumbled as she continued to work at clarifying her thoughts and intentions.

"It is difficult to explain these things to an offlander, Knight General. An oath unmet renders the keeper dissolute. It is a crisis of the soul. A mortal sin."

[Rossos Atrapes]

"And it means nothing if it pushes you to abandon your oaths to Queen and Empress, which is the path you were walking. I have been lenient to your conduct thus far concerning your subordinates. Their deaths did nothing to defray your anger towards s'Ilancy, to Iscandar, to myself; that makes their deaths a waste of the time, energy, and expense the Empire put into their formation. Do not waste the resources you are given. You will not always have recourse to more."

Atrapes did not look at Vissica while he spoke, and paid no mind to the Knights and clerks that stepped to the side of the terraced walkway and bowed stiffly as they passed.

"Continue. Is it merely a desire to remain pure, to avoid incurring such a spiritual stain? That does not seem to be the end of it."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

"I have abandoned nothing!" Vissica snapped pointedly with exposed teeth, which concealed themselves a moment later. She reigned in further outburst, bowing her head to bear the cold outrage of her superior. The Selonian drew in a deep breath, and held it. There was much to consider in Atrapes' question.

"If I do not do as I say I shall do, I risk minimizing what I volunteered freely to the Empress. My devotion to the orthodoxy depends upon unbreakable integrity. If I infect myself with untruth, I risk losing my Speech."

Vissica looked to Atrapes, a momentary pang of fear in her expression.

[Rossos Atrapes]

Atrapes turned into a turbolift, one of the newer additions to the Citadel in that they were made with one way panelling, allowing the occupants to see inside but those outside instead saw a gleaming black mirrored surface.

"I do not need your explanations for what you do, Vissica," Atrapes said as the lift drifted down silently. "I ask these questions not for my own understanding, but that you will see what drives you. Before you can navigate your passions, you must have a goal behind which you place your entire being. You have your belief and cultural background to condition you to a certain answer, but without an emotional judgement or drive such a vision is too weak to serve to control your more violent outbursts."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

It took a moment for the Selonian to abandon the rote responses she'd clung to as mantra. The tension in her expression relaxed slightly.

"I fear that I may fail. That the Empire may fail. That everything we have worked so hard to uphold may fall apart. My anger fuels my will to push against the shadow."

Vissica took a breath, staring ahead at the closed turbolift door.

"The galaxy is entropy, Knight General. We are order. The Empire is more than another oath. It is the logical extension of every oath."

[Rossos Atrapes]

Atrapes nodded.

"A good beginning. The more you focus on your vision the deeper your understanding will become. If it does not, consider your vision lacking."

The lift stopped, the doors slid open, revealing the entrance hall to the many training facilities the Citadel boasted.

"Now you must use this vision as your focus in meditation. In this, you are best served using a practice that does not cause you to dwell on the issues that hamper your focus."

They entered a training salle, and before them Palara Iscandar had a lightsaber and an electrowhip activated in her hands on the platform, standing opposite of Baastian Cain. The chaotic noise of the whip proved a contrast to the steady hum of the lightsaber.

With little more than an exhaled breath as an indicator, Palara leaped forward, her whip arcing in to strike at the human Knight, while her lightsaber was held to her side and slightly behind to keep from accidentally harming herself.

[Baastian Cain]

Baastian knew better than to watch the whip's sparking tassel, which swayed and spat like a posturing cobra. By the time it started moving, you needed Force-enhanced reflexes to parry it, and those were rather canceled out when your sparring partner had them, too. Instead he watched Palara's core, her footwork, her arm. Something as unwieldy as an electrowhip required impeccable body control, or it was more a danger to its wielder than its target. But this was Palara. Waiting for her to make a misstep was like waiting for a star to die. In either case, typically you died first.

As Palara leaped, Baastian sidestepped, and he snapped his own lightsaber around to drive the crackling length of bundled nanofibers wide of the mark. Sparks flew where the weapons made contact, and Baastian could feel the electromagnetic fields pulling at each other. If he wasn't careful, Palara would snare his blade and reel him in like a fat opee on a hook. He rolled his wrists to free his weapon as Palara drew back her whip, just in time to deflect the next whipcrack, and the next. The electrowhip and its exotic cousin, the lightwhip, were terrifying weapons in the hands of a skilled practitioner, but they had their drawbacks. It was difficult to do anything without broadcasting your intentions, and they were almost useless at close range. So the next time Palara drew back her whip hand for another onslaught, Baastian darted forward with a lunging strike at her midsection.

[Palara Iscandar]

Baastian's lightsaber swung in, and Palara was not foolish enough to continue trying to use the whip in close-quarters. The whip deactivated and retracted into the hilt, while she dropped to the ground in a split, her own white-bladed saber angled to divert the attack away, though the sheer strength of the swing was enough to require a flourish of her own to the side, else she would have sported a neat burn on her face.

She spun, rolling onto her back into a windmill, pivoting on one hand while her legs struck out at Baastian's own to trip him to the ground, ending in a short hop to her feet with her weight on her back leg and her lightsaber held above her head in one hand, as the other was held out before her holding the whip's hilt at the blond Knight.

She was silent for a moment, and then she stood straight and smiled.

"Zank you," she said. "I appreciate you taking ze time to allow me to practice with ze whip against you. I still 'ave some practice before I can consider it viable against a trained enemy zough."

She turned, noticing her mentor and Vissica standing in the entrance of the training salle.

"Ah, Knight-General. Knight Vissica. Do you wish to make use of ze salle?"

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

"Comrade Iscandar. Comrade Cain."

Vissica stood upright with a deceptively cool demeanor, curling the knuckles of her forepaws underneath the bottom edge of her cuirass. She awaited the Knight General to take the conceptual discussion they'd previously shared and put it towards its first practical end.

As she awaited clarity's arrival, the Selonian focused her attention on the Twi'lek. She had not forgotten Captain Merasska's words in passing. It was a curiosity she'd soon need to satisfy.

[Rossos Atrapes]

"I require your and Cain's cooperation," Atrapes answered, walking further into the salle. "Examples of meditation practices and methods of emotional control. We all require a refresher in such techniques, I believe. After the execution, my control has been weakened."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Vissica's posture shifted slightly upon hearing the Knight General's admission. She had no inkling he had been so affected. Though her senses were generally attuned, Atrapes had always been a mystery to peer into. No doubt that was by design.

[Baastian Cain]

Baastian lifted a hand to call a white towel from a rack at the edge the platform, which he used to mop the sprinkling of sweat off his brow. The action helped to cover his surprise at the Knight-General's admission. The execution was difficult for all of them, to be sure, but he had a difficult time imagining anything that could weaken Rossos' legendary poise. Certainly nothing Baastian would be able to master himself.

"Certainly. I think we all need to re-center ourselves once in a while."

He laid the towel over the back of his neck as he descended from the platform toward Vissica and Atrapes. "I guess I look at emotion two ways. You've got the ones that come in flashes, in the heat of the moment. Anger, terror, anguish. And then you've got the slow burning ones, the ones that keep you up at night. Doubt. Regret. Resentment. Those are the really dangerous ones. The first ones can cloud your judgment. The other ones can change who you are."

His blue eyes slid from the Knight-General to Vissica. In a lot of ways she was still an enigma to all of them. He wondered how strongly she identified with any of this.

"When something's gnawing at me like that, I have to shake myself up. If I'm brooding in the dark, I'll go sparring with a PROXY unit. If I'm on ship, I'll go to an obs deck, watch the stars or the hyperspace vortex. I either narrow my focus or I blow it wide open. Either way, it helps to put my problems into perspective. But that's just the first step, really."