Arc 2 Chapter 17

It was with great trepidation that Anaïs climbed the stairs of the Circle’s central tower, summoned as she was by Headmaster Draconis. Her legs felt leaden, each step difficult, as dread sat heavy in her heart, which she knew, as a Jedi, she should be above, but try as she might she couldn’t push past the all encompassing feeling of failure that rested on her shoulders like a durasteel yoke.

It’d been almost two months now, nine weeks, and she still hadn’t managed to find a way to create things from the Force itself, one of the most basic components of Bhoyarian Wizardry. Her skill with her Telekinesis had grown, trying to copy what others did, but in that as well she knew she was failing, not making the stone, or water, or air itself move, but gripping them with constructs of pure force and carrying them about to fake it. The only real progress she’d made was with Plant Surge, her ability to grow and control flora developing into its own skill, though it was nothing that Lucian would call ‘proficient’.

It had been truly enjoyable, working with Senara, learning from her as much as the Force Adept was learning herself. The alien woman had improved her own craft as she’d watched the Padawan’s bumbling attempts to recreate the niche Jedi skill from memory, and the few mentions of it from records she’d looked over years ago. The women’s two styles were very different, but in some ways, especially their tendencies to call upon others for support, even if the pale woman turned to her ancestor spirits while the Jedi reached out to the Force itself, they were also very similar.

However, while Anaïs had learned the various ‘runes’ of Bhoyarian Magecraft, even knowing they were nothing more than concentration aides, in the classes that she couldn’t complete assignments through memorization of concepts in or fake her way through using approximations via Jedi techniques, she knew she was failing. Two of her instructors had made it clear that she would not last the semester, openly wondering why she was even here at all, though Professor Fatswani let her lack of progress in his Elementalism course pass without word, even as the Jedi could literally feel Chiku’s pleasure at her inability to manifest the smallest drop of water, or spark of flame, behind her in every single one of those classes.

Reaching the top floor, Anaïs approached the headmaster’s ornate door, lifting a hand to knock, only for it top silently open on its own, a faint stirring in the Force telling her that the man himself had done so as she’d neared it. Walking inside, she felt the man’s Draconic Presence languidly flick out, closing the door behind her as the elderly Mage sat at his desk.

A little extra force made the door slam behind her, and she just looked at him, a little confused as to why he would do that.

The white-haired man sighed good naturedly. “Ah, yes, you could feel me doing that, couldn’t you? Ruins some of the fun of teasing the youngsters when you can see the strings,” he smiled, waving his hand to the chair set up opposite of his desk. “Come, sit, there is something that has been brought to my attention, and that we must discuss, young lady.”

The Jedi winced, her fears confirmed. “I’m sorry,” she quickly apologized. “I’ve been trying to replicate what you do, without actually doing it exactly the same, as Master Lucian has told me not to, but I don’t know what I’m doing wrong!” she complained, knowing she was just making excuses, but with every passing week her task seemed ever-more impossible.

“I’ve tried asking the staff, but the way the teachers view things, they’ve been no help, the ones that don’t just tell me to ‘copy the others’ that is. And I’ve been making sure not to say you don’t need runes, because you told me not to, but there’s no way to explain it otherwise, and I can’t even turn to the Force to help, because I’m trying to use the Force, so it’s like using a laser-caliper to measure the laser-caliper itself, and Senara’s been helping a bit but I’m learning more about her discipline than yours even though I’m supposed to be here learning your discipline, only doing it without the Presence defining effects, which I can’t explain because everyone’s just like ‘of course I feel like a tree, I’m Plantae!’, but I can literally see the effects between the students of different years and no one knows why that’s weird, and Senara can do all of your stuff, but Senara just actually does it instead of trying to filter it since she’s using a branch from a holy tree from her homeworld and I’ll I’ve got is my lightsaber and I know that might work but I can’t because that’s exactly what Master Lucian told me not to do, but I don’t know what else to do, and every time I try and fail the others just look at me, and I know as a Jedi I’m supposed to be above that, and Jabari and the others were right about me not staying around, but even then I should be doing something, and I’m sorry, but please don’t kick me out, at least until Master Lucian returns, whenever that is!” she practically begged, the emotions slipping from her, her control failing, just like she failed everything else, the feelings far deeper than she’d realized, all of them coming out in a deluge she could barely manage.

When she’d finished, the headmaster stared at her for a long moment.

“I, um, I’m sorry,” she repeated, flushing in shame.

“No,” the older man disagreed, waving a negating hand, “that has obviously been weighing on you, young lady. There have been a few complaints,” he admitted, and she winced, but he didn’t stop, “which were quickly retracted when I suggested those doing so face you in the sparring arena, if they thought you so lacking in talent, that they wished for me to remove you from my Circle. Let me ask you a question, Ms. Vand-Ryssa: Are you learning?”

The Padawan blinked, “Y-yes? But not what I should be!” she objected.

“And what is it that you should be learning?” the Headmaster inquired, with nothing more than honest interest.

The answer, to her, was obvious: “How to do what you do!”

At her heartfelt decleration, Draconis laughed in her face, practically guffawing as she stared, worried, confused, and a little offended.

For three solid minutes.

When he finally finished, the old man sighed, wiping tears from his eyes. “Thank you, young one, I haven’t laughed that hard all year. I would be worried, if I did not know that the Shadowed Light would never ask that of you. Little Jedi, understand that even he cannot do what I do, though he may come close, just as I can barely hold a torch to what that ancient terror is capable of, in what I dearly hope is his specialization.”

“But, but we were only supposed to be here for a month,” she tried to argue, “and it’s been almost two! And, ‘Shadowed Light’?” she asked, having a feeling, but needing to be sure.

“The title your Master earned, given to him by my great grandfather,” the old man confirmed, “Just as I am sometimes referred to as the Inferno Wyrm. For one such as you, who sees a Wizard’s Aspect as clearly as an Archmage, I’m sure you understand why he was given that appellation, Crystal Fire.”

Anaïs looked at him, confused, but then she remembered what Jorel had told her, that her Presence felt like, a comforting, silver, gemlike flame, and nodded. “It’s his Presence, but, if people want me gone, why am I still here?”

“Because I will it. That is reason enough,” the dragon Presenced man remarked with a toothy smile. “But if you need another, it is because your Master has found a deeper rot than even I had thought existed. You will be with us for a few more weeks to come, before his grim task is done.”

She frowned, asking something she’d thought about more and more as the days had stacked up without word from the man in charge of her training, “But what is he doing?”

“If I were to describe it, I would say he is stopping the birth of a godling,” the man smiled, and she just stared at him, not bothering to hide her disbelief. “If he were to do so, he would likely say he is preventing some idiotic children from making a grave mistake, or perhaps even that he was ‘taking out the trash’ or something amusingly understated.”

“That, that doesn’t tell me anything, not really,” she objected.

“Know, then, that Mages’ power comes from themselves, and their own command of their own mana, while on the other continent, their power comes from the masses,” Draconis explained. “When willingly donated, that is no issue, but ‘willingly’ is a nebulous term, and not even a true requirement. And with enough mana, miracles can be made manifest, but so can nightmares, and the brightest lights can hide the most twisted of horrors.” The headmaster sighed, “But that is why you are here, protected, while he accomplishes what I cannot. Not if I want to keep my own treasures safe,” he stated, glancing out the window, as students walked about the campus, small from this height, but numerous.

“But, If Master Lucian’s doing that, why haven’t I felt. . .” Anaïs started to object, before pausing, not sure how to explain a Padawan Bond to someone who used an entirely different method of accessing the Force.

However, the old man just nodded, understanding regardless, “That connection you Jedi have with your teachers? I suspect he has been keeping that closed, as much as possible.”

From what she had read that was possible, if rare. Mentally reaching out to her Master, she realized his Presence was almost non-existent. It was like there was something that had blocked her off, isolated her so thoroughly, and so subtly, that she didn’t even notice it had formed. A feeling of isolation, of vulnerability surged within her, and she reflexively reached out for Master Lucian, pushing through the blockage, to make sure she still could, to make sure she wasn’t truly alone.

For a second, it flared open, and she felt him, and a deep sense of sadness tinged with resolve, and beyond that a hungry, angry whiteness that tried to tear at him, held in place by tendrils of black shot through with gold. That whiteness seemed pristine, but felt. . . wrong, like the empty void of space incarnate, only with its colors inverted, and it lunged, snapping at her tentative Presence through the bond, as she reached out to her Master, and she recoiled, almost falling backwards in her chair in Draconis’ office. It tried to follow her through that connection, only for a shield of glowing shadows to surround her, gently pushing her Presence back and away, and sealing off the bond once more.

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“I. . . what?” she asked, not expecting an answer, not sure what just happened, only for a sound to chime, the Headmaster pulling out a commlink as if he expected it.

“Yes?” the man asked, guilelessly, winking at the Padawan.

“What did you do?” Master Lucian’s voice demanded, annoyed.

“What makes you think I did anything?” Draconis questioned, almost sounding hurt.

There was a short pause. “Anaïs, are you there?”

“Yes, Master. I’m sorry!” she apologized, once again, finding herself doing that a lot today.

“Don’t try that again. It’s not safe,” the elder Jedi informed her, which from her experience a moment ago now seemed to be alongside ‘don’t poke the lightsaber blade’ in terms of unneeded warnings, “And Lizard? Why?”

“Your student misses you,” the headmaster replied drolly. “And believes it is her duty to wield our magics well enough to graduate from the Circle.”

“What!?” the Master Jedi spat out, confused. “Anaïs, I-” a guttural, tri-tonal screech tore out of the commlink’s speakers. “Give me a moment.”

There was a click as Lucian disconnected, and the Padawan just sat there, not sure what to do. A minute later, the device chimed, and Draconis reopened the line.

“Sorry about that. This isn’t the best time. Anaïs, you’re there to get ideas, not master their magics. You haven’t been using them directly, have you?” he questioned, but not accusingly.

“No, but some of the things they do, they’re. . . they’re difficult to understand,” she admitted, wincing at her own inability, at her own failure.

“Okay.”

She blinked. “Okay?” she echoed.

“You said some. That means other things you do understand,” her Master clarified. “Anything specifically you’ve made progress with?”

“I, um, I think I’ve figured out Plant Surge,” she offered. “Mostly from memory, but I’ve made a friend, and she’s been really helpful, especially with how to speed growth.”

The Padawan could hear the sounds of blasters, then a blade, then screams cut short. “Ah, you’ll have to explain it to me when we leave then,” Lucian remarked, and she could practically hear him smile. “Every time I try, they just explode. You don’t mind staying there for another month or two, do you?”

“It is truly that bad?” Draconis demanded, pouncing on the statement, and visibly worried for the first time in their conversation.

“It is,” Lucian replied seriously. “They almost made a self-aware vergence, but they don’t know what they’re doing, thank the Force. However, the more I stop them, the more desperate they get. You know how it is.”

The old headmaster nodded solemnly. “I do. Unfortunately.” He turned to look at Anaïs, “You do not mind continuing to stay here, do you?”

“I mean, if it’s something that bad, shouldn’t I help?” the Padawan asked.

“No/No,” both men answered, nearly as one.

“I would not send my own staff into such a place,” Draconis stated with conviction, “and certainly not one so young, even if you are gifted enough in combat to survive, and perceptive enough to avoid becoming. . . tainted.”

“Stay where you are, Padawan,” her Master ordered. “You’re learning, so this is not time wasted, and I likely would be here, stopping this, anyways, even if I did not take you on as my student. Use this time well, and you’ll return to more. . . active duties later. Alright?”

As dire as things apparently were where her Master was, Anaïs felt. . . weirdly better? As time had gone on, she had lost sight of her reason for being here in the first place. She was making progress in other ways than just Plant Surge, but even that alone was apparently enough to make Lucian proud of her. You were being silly, she told herself. “That’s okay with me. Uh, be safe?”

“I’ll be fine; I always am,” he told her, which wasn’t the same thing. “Now, I think they’ve realized where I am and, yeah, there’s the void spears. At least it’s not meteors again. See you in a bit, and have fun!”

The commlink clicked again, the connection broken, and she looked at the headmaster. “Void spears?”

“The Radiance’s artillery,” Draconis explained. “They are blisteringly fast, but magically ‘loud’, and thus easier for someone like you or your Master to avoid than created attacks hurled through more normal means. Now, I believe we should discuss the original reason I asked you to meet me. Before we were distracted.”

“Oh, sorry,” she winced, all of this having happened because she’d leapt to conclusions in a distinctly un-Jedi-like manner.

The headmaster waved away this apology as well, “It is as I said, it is nothing to worry about. Are you aware of the festival taking place next week? The one classes have been cancelled over?”

Anaïs nodded, smiling. “Ah, yes, that! It looked quite interesting! I heard there were performers that used the Force to create displays that were impressive, even to the teachers. I was hoping that I might be able to learn something from them, actually, even if I know I really shouldn’t participate in the tournament. I was hoping I might have a breakthrough, to be honest.”

“Well, that will be difficult, as you won’t be attending,” the old man noted blandly.

“What? Why?” the Jedi asked. “Are outsiders not allowed? I thought they were.” Senara had talked about attending last year’s festival, after all.

“Outsiders are allowed to attend,” Draconis agreed, “but given how rumors of you being a Sith have spread, despite my own efforts to stop them, there are several different groups that will either seek to kill you, in order to ‘protect’ everyone else, regardless if you are truly a danger, or demand you teach them your secret Sith powers, and they will surely not take no for an answer.”

She frowned, not comfortable with either option, “But I’m a Jedi! I’m not a danger to anyone, well, anyone good, and I don’t have ‘secret Sith powers!’”

“Considering most believe you to be ‘Seeth’, they do not know the difference, nor are they likely to care,” the headmaster remarked. “Many clan elders wear their ignorance of the wider galaxy as a symbol of pride. After all, what else could the galaxy offer them, when Bhoyaria is already the most important planet there is?”

He chuckled at her incredulous look. “It works for them, and they are better than some other clan elder, and that is all they concern themselves with. There is a reason that I lead the Circle of Magic, young lady, instead of a small trading network, farming community, or mining complex. Now, I have very little doubt you’d walk out of whatever traps and ambushes those with more ambition and pride than sense would create, but I believe we both would prefer you not walk fully in your master’s footsteps just yet, leaving a path of corpses behind you, nor matter how justified you may be in doing so.”

She winced, and Draconis sighed, “Too late for that? Yes, you Je’daii do start so young. Regardless, I’d prefer if you did not attend, if only for my sake.”

“I, I won’t,” she agreed, somewhat disappointed, but her earlier relief at having found out how foolishly high she’d set the bar for herself tempered that feeling greatly. “Thank you, Headmaster. Is there anything else?”

The old man lifted an eyebrow, regarding her with one subtly slit pupil. “I do not believe so. Is there anything else you wish to discuss?” Blushing slightly, she shook her head no, and he nodded. “Very well. If something comes up in the future, my door is open. Your Order is a powerful one, and I would be remiss to not offer aid to a rising talent such as yourself.”

“But, I can barely pass most of my classes,” she objected.

Draconis snorted. “Life is not school, Young Padawan, and if you become even a quarter the warrior your Master is, the heavens themselves will tremble at your passage. But that is not today, and I have paperwork I must complete. Good day, young Jedi, and be well.”

When Anaïs met her friend later that evening, and explained why she couldn’t attend the festival they both planned to explore, the white-skinned girl merely chuckled. “Zat explains dis,” she remarked, reaching into her bag, and pulling out a piece of parchment, handing it to the Padawan.

Looking it over, it was a request for ‘Foci-grade renderable Dreadwings’, with a location description, apparently a cave deep in the forest that the Circle sat next to, and at the bottom was a several-digit reward amount.

“Is this a lot?” the blonde girl asked, pointing at the listed bounty.

Senara stared at her, before sighing, shaking her head. “Jedi, alvays getting what zey want without paying for it,” she remarked, though the annoyance was undercut with a teasing fondness. “Yes, Anaïs, that iz a lot. Worth four hunting trips, at least, but also a prey I vould never try hunting alone.”

“Well,” the Padawan smiled slyly, “I’m free next week, apparently.”

“Indeed,” the Force Adept remarked dryly. “How very. . . fortunate, that I received zis offer today. After you talked with ze headmaster. Who told you not to attend ze festival. Truly it must be zis ‘Will of ze Force’ your people speak of.”

Anaïs rolled her eyes, “So should we not do this?”

“And turn down zis many credits?” the white skinned girl scoffed. “You must be crazy. Besides, learning from books and teachers iz all well and good, but nothing beats practical experience. Too much time indoors does odd things to people, just look at your homeworld.”

“Cambria? But it’s mostly rolling hills and valleys,” the Jedi asked, confused.

This, in turn, confused Senara, her facial markings scrunching up as she frowned, “Do all ze Jedi not come from Coruscant?”

“Oh, yeah, we do, kind of,” Anaïs replied, “But most of us were born elsewhere. You know, the entire ‘taking in kids’ thing.”

“But, you remember zis. . . Cambria?” the Force Adept questioned.

Now it was the Padawan’s turn to frown. “A little? Just impression, you know? I left when I was five. But if you’re talking about Coruscant. . . I suppose so? It might be good to get away from things, a little,” she admitted, “From the others.”

“It vill be a good thing,” Senara stated with authority, pausing, before looking at the Jedi speculatively. “How much do you know of surviving in ze wilderness.”

Anaïs opened her mouth to respond, before pausing herself. “I, well, not that much, actually. I’ve read about it, but most of the time I’ve been in the Temple, and towns, and cities, and places like that. I mean I know how to run through the wilderness, while a pack of angry herbivores are trying to kill me. And, um, how to listen to the Force to avoid ambushes by buried venomous insects that want to kill me. Oh, and how to deal with Force-using flying predators the size of a speeder-bus that try to kill me by shooting fireballs like Jabari does. Better than he does, actually.”

The other girl gave her a skeptical look, just short of disbelieving.

“Okay, so most of my experience with nature has been where things were. . . a little more hostile than normal.”

The look deepened to full disbelief.

“Okay, a lot more hostile.”

Senara just stared.

“Okay, it was a dark aligned planetoid that I was stuck on for a few months, where every trip out of my shelter meant I got jumped by something trying to kill me, and why are you laughing?”

“I’m zorry,” the Force Adept apologized, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “I mean no offense, Anaïs. It iz only that vhat you are describing sounds like my homeworld. No vunder you take to Magick so well,” the white-haired girl smiled. “Regardless, it iz good we have a week. I have much to teach you. Not vhat I thought I vould have to teach you, given vhat we will be hunting, but I am sure there are things your vaunted ‘Jedi Training’ have left out.”

“Thanks,” the Jedi replied sarcastically at the offer, but smiled back at the other woman. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Not be hunting, for one. But think nothing of it, ve are friends after all,” Senara deferred with mock pompousness. “Let us get dinner, and get started. Ve have a lot to cover.”