padawannabes | [open post] Training camp/barracks

The transmission came through on a quiet evening when, the Jedi-in-training were out on individual meditations all night and Luke was holding down the fort in case something went wrong.

Not that anything was going too--he'd made sure the place was pretty safe and everyone he'd sent out had basic survival, as well. So when the signal came from a ship dropping out of hyperspace in the vicinity, it took him a moment to realize there wasn't actually anyone else around to look into it.

Luke dropped into the chair at the small communications station and checked the readout. Personal ship, one occupant, in orbit. He clicked open a hailing frequency, and hailed the ship. Best to be careful, after all. There were plenty of people in the galaxy who weren't all that excited by the prospect of a new Jedi order, though if this was one of them, they were going to find themself outnumbered.

"This is Homebase calling unidentified ship in orbit. Please identify yourself."

Ah, look at that. Just who he was looking for.

He needs refueling. Honest. He didn't come here on purpose looking for Luke or anything, and even if he did, it's completely justified. (The little freighter is absolute junk, Sinjir's shocked it's still spaceworthy, and his piloting doesn't really do it any favors.)

He keys the comm.

"Homebase?" he asks. "Might need a better name. Speaking of bad names, this is the good ship Meatball, requesting permission to land, and while this ship's name might be worse than Homebase, at least it's creative."

Luke chuckles into the comm, not because Sinjir is actually funny or anything but because Luke's a little stupidly grateful to hear his voice. He's surrounded by youth in this place, and while he's still pretty young himself it's a relief to hear from someone who's not going to pretend they haven't just been staring at him with their jaw on the floor.

Besides, and not that he's allowing himself to actually think about this, there's a tingling sense-memory of warmth he stuffs down because he's well aware that was just a one night thing and that's a thing people do, when they're bored and horny. Just because it was a first time thing for Luke doesn't mean it meant anything more.

"Come down here and tell me a better one," he says. "You've got clearance, and coordinates." Which is basically, Luke knows you're here and no weird Force things are going to happen if you land.

"Most anything would be more creative." His hands flick over the controls. He zeroes in on the coordinates. Atmospheric entry he does in a careful, orbital slide, though he can still see the readouts as it heats up the hull. "Call it 'Planet'. Dirt. Landing. Trees. Pick your favorite nearby geographical feature, and, bam, there's a name."

The planet is gorgeous, Sinjir must say. How Luke found one in the habitable zone with such a temperate climate, and no one living there, he has no idea.

He doesn't say anything personal. On purpose; you never know who might be listening in.

"I was naming my location, not the planet itself. I'm assuming you, of all people, know where you are."

No names, though, nothing identifying. But he rises, reaching out to sense the perimeter, the life signs close by. Everything is as it should be, and he runs a hand through his hair, bouncing a little on his toes.

Sinjir probably just needs fuel, but... He closes his eyes, centers himself, and waits.

"What, you don't think a small settlement should be called Planet?" returns Sinjir. "Whyever not?"

A little smirk is audible in his voice.

He sweeps the ship in over the forest, over the perimeter beacons. Slow velocity, engage repulsorlifts, and he gently settles the ship down in the large, open area near the stone buildings. Maybe takes a little long to actually get the thing on the ground, but that's because he's not really a good judge of these things, and he'd rather tap it down than slam it down.

He starts flipping through engine shutdown sequence. Sighs; it's been a while sitting in the cockpit.

Blaster on his hip (reflex), scuffed jacket on, scruffed beard on, Sinjir strides down the open ramp. His emotions twist in the air around him, though he gives no physical sign of it; he wants to see Luke. Wants to look at him, as simple as that is.

"I'm surprised your ship isn't named Ship," Luke smirks into his comm. And then he realizes the lights had all been off, so he turns a few of them on in the common area, avoiding calling attention to the door to his private chamber.

By the time Sinjir lands, Luke is lounging in the doorway, watching. Trying not to have any feelings one way or the other about this, but unable to help the hint of curiosity at Sinjir's presence.

He crosses the landing field, approaches stripping off his gloves. He wears them by habit on ship, in case he needs to patch something together. He's not the best technician, but he can usually keep the thing going.

Stuffs the gloves in his jacket pocket, and he greets Luke with a little smile. Glad to see him, genuinely, which surprises Sinjir. He's not really the kind of person who likes people.

"Someone else named the ship," he says, by way of greeting. "For your information."

"Meatball? Really?"

Luke's smiling, trying not to blush, grin or both.

"I guess you think I should call this place Secret Jedi Facility? Bomb Here if You Don't Trust Skywalker?"

He's not sure what the greeting is for their non-relationship, so he doesn't do anything but step aside to let Sinjir in. There has to be a reason for him to be here, Luke thinks. But he'd almost like to pretend he gets social calls.

"Can I get you something?" he asks as the door slides shut.

Sinjir pulls a bottle out of the bag on his shoulder. "Corellian," he says, "berry-wine. I wanted a drink, didn't know if you'd have any intoxicants on a planet full of young and untrained Jedi."

And/or untrained, really; he knows that not all of them, perhaps not even most of them, are young.

(He's actually a little flattered that he knows about this at all. This is a very high-level secret. But he's been in place helping erase any obvious tracks, so.)

"You can provide the cup." A pause. "Or cups." He's not entirely sure how to navigate this either.

He follows Luke in. "I thought I might drop by," he says. "I need refueling, and I don't think you lot bring in a lot of shipping, so you can have first pick of the cargo I'm running. I'm not usually a shipper, but while I'm hopping between planets..."

Maybe it is a social call, after all. At least, Sinjir's willing to make it one. Okay. Luke follows, waving to the low couches and moving to the galley area to grab two glasses.

"Decent of you," he says. "And you guessed right--I don't have anything like that in stock, but I've sent everyone out for the night."

The implication being, along with the extra glass, that Luke is willing to join him, since it's on offer. There are... other potential implications to we're alone tonight he's not touching lest his face or other things give him away.

"What brings you this way?" he asks casually, and he returns to the sitting area. The building isn't fancy, it's for training after all, but it's clean and comfortable, if spare.

Sinjir has draped himself on a chair in a way that would be somewhat inappropriate in any remotely formal setting. Leg over an armrest, something like that.

"How goes the training?" he asks, accepting the glass, taking a long sip. It's rather alcoholic, for wine. This is a plus, as far as Sinjir's concerned.

The question he's really asking is how Luke is doing with all of this responsibility. Sinjir has his doubts about Luke's capability, right now, and not because he thinks Luke is inadequate. This is just not something that should be put on one man, especially one who has only recently and with a great deal of difficulty won any wisdom and power in the Force.

Besides, didn't Jedi Masters have some sort of creed about a lack of passion? Sinjir doesn't think that's translated well to this generation, given what he saw of Luke that night.

Luke's posture is less casual, but he doesn't mind Sinjir taking his ease. He's just been unable to truly relax, since this began. Or, no, it's not exactly that. He's felt unable to be entirely himself, is more like it. He has to be a Jedi Master, for this to work.

Whatever that actually means, he has to command some kind of respect.

So instinctively, he doesn't sprawl, just sits opposite Sinjir and takes a sip of his wine. And then glances at it--it's more powerful than anything he's had lately, but he welcomes the deviation from routine. He raises his eyes to lift one eyebrow at the other man.

"You came to check up on me?" he asks, faintly amused but feeling a slight sting that's less about Sinjir and more about the number of times he's been asked if he's ready for this. By perfectly well-meaning people (Han and Leia, specifically) who knew him before. They might not even be wrong to worry, but he's not sure what choice there is. There are people out there whose potential will, at best, go unused. At worst? Destroy lives. Someone needs to help them. "It's fine. Slow going, for some of them. It's not like I have a manual."

Or, you know, a complete training. He's working with what he's got, trying to hold it all together himself.

"Yes," says Sinjir, frankly. If the night with Luke taught him anything about dealing with the Jedi Master, it was to use honesty. Not unkindness, but honesty. "You got a terrible deal in all of this. Three years from farmboy to teaching a bunch of raw wizards isn't my idea of a simple, helpful life trajectory."

It seems to Sinjir to be a reasonable thing to say. He's not surprised Luke is a little stiff. He probably has to be.

"Though I'm not sure a manual would do you much good," he says. "If all the Empire said about the Jedi was propaganda, the Republic couldn't have fallen the way it did."

"Four years," Luke corrects vaguely, as if 24 is any different from 23, but it is. At least as far as how his own personal galaxy has changed. He scrubs at his eyes, feeling like that year is worth ten, in terms of how old he feels, and about five minutes, in terms of any wisdom he actually feels he's learned. Earned. Whichever.

"Anyway, I never wanted to be a farmboy. I got what I wanted, Sinjir, just... more of it than I'd bargained for." The honesty seems to be working, inasmuch as Luke's unthinkingly reciprocating. "I just wish I knew something, anything about the old Order. Even if it's just to avoid making the same mistakes."

The last thing he wants is to create a new Vader, even if he'd never think to characterize Obi-Wan that way.

"I'm sorry," he says, looking up and running a hand through his hair and smiling before taking another sip. It's a genuine smile, even if the shadows behind his eyes remain. "You're offering concern, and I... appreciate that. But neither of us are in the simple life trajectory business, I'm afraid."

They've both been directly affected by the actions of a few men, the same men. Maybe that's what lets Sinjir talk to him this way--the way their paths have come to the same place from opposite sides. It's one of the reasons Luke feels he can trust the other man. He's just afraid he'll chase him away with whining.

Sinjir is silent for a long moment. Not offended, but thinking it through. He hasn't quite put his mind to this puzzle, before, and he finds that his conclusions are fairly sharp and fairly quick.

Though, he reflects, perhaps not fairly welcome.

"If you would like my input, you may ask," he says. It is an offer, placed out there, and if Sinjir's tone makes it sound a little imperious, that's only because most of what he says sounds a little imperious. He means it; he'll shut up if Luke doesn't want to hear it.

Now both eyebrows rise, and Sinjir's core worlds accent is coming out in full force which definitely has Luke's attention.

"If you're offering, of course," he says. He's never thought to ask, really. And if it's unwelcome advice?

Luke's ignored that before.

"Forget the Jedi," says Sinjir, with a wave of his hand. "Forget the Sith. Forget all you think you know about this. What do you have?"

He shifts, so he's facing Luke. Leans forward.

"You have a group of people with power. A power that can be drawn from good, or drawn from evil. A power that can be a weapon. How do you think it should be used?" Sinjir snaps his fingers, trying to recall. "What is it you always say - knowledge and defense, never attack? Well, that's all well and good, but what does defense mean against - say - a refugee fleet that will bring a terrible disease? Or make a million people starve to death? What does defense mean, when two species are at war and neither are at fault? Put your lightsaber between two men shooting at each other, and, for the moment, no one's going to die. But when you leave, they might kill each other. Does defense mean killing one first? Does it mean shooting down the first refugee ship that tries to land? How about killing one race so that the other may live without war?"

He leans forward. "How long, Luke? How long before the power you have leads you to take a step too far? With two men, you can nudge them into a more peaceful frame of mind. With refugees, you can lean on a planet's leader to allocate food more efficiently. With two fleets, and millions of lives at stake, and you have in your hands the power to just reach out and stop them... what do you do?"

He shakes his head. "Knowledge and defense isn't enough of an answer, and the more responsibility you assume for the galaxy, the quicker you're going to slip into violating the principles you hold dear. People deserve the right to choose - that, inevitably, means that you must allow them to choose wrong."

Which... Sinjir, perhaps, doesn't entirely accept. A certain amount of the rule of law and government, for example, is to stop people from choosing too wrong. But that's the thing, isn't it? Jedi can't be the government.

Having taken the train of logic to its conclusion, Sinjir sits back, downing a fair amount of the rest of the glass of wine. "So, first," he says, "this is what I suggest: forget it all. You want to form a new Jedi Order. Do Jedi need Order? It's easy to say that chaos is evil, but look at the Empire: that was order, all the way through, and it was unquestionably evil. Do Jedi need leaders, discipline, and rules? Or do Jedi need the ability to choose for themselves? Is use of power really best trained through learning to fight?

"There's just not any one answer.

"But you cannot force Jedi dogma in their minds, unless you become... well, me. What you can do - if you don't get half the galaxy killed - is show them how you found the guidance in your heart."

Luke sits still, almost too still, through the entire speech. He wants to listen, respects Sinjir's opinion on some sort of principle, but it doesn't follow that it's easy to listen to. The problem is multi-faceted:

First, it's what he knows others have feared of him, of his kind.

Second, it's what he's feared of himself, his dark potential.

Third, and most finally... it's that he simply doesn't know.

What Sinjir's saying is so much of what he's been unable to articulate to himself, but so much more starkly presented, and he resents it as much as he realizes there's a point. And he needs to rise to it as such, but despite all the doubts he's encountered so far, none has been presented in quite these terms.

He's very glad for the glass of wine, which he downs much as Sinjir just has his own. After a moment, he rises to retrieve the bottle and refill both of their glasses, his expression carefully neutral. He doesn't feel in any danger of becoming drunk, the way he's feeling, but he can well see the value of taking some edge off. Besides, it's a brief respite, a bit of nervous movement.

"You think me capable of taking out half the galaxy with me," Luke intones darkly, even as he returns to his chair, drink in hand. As he sits, and faces Sinjir again, his voice and expression lighten slightly, though he's no less aware of the implication of the statement. "I won't attempt to fool either of us in some delusion that I'm not capable of it, because it would do neither of us any credit. Do you think I want to be Vader? Or, let's face it, the Emperor? I have no ambition to... amass an army, control a government, to..." His eyes press closed and his head dips as his free hand massages his temples. "All I want is to prevent more meaningless deaths."

Luke takes a deep breath, centers himself. Sinjir's energy is not hostile, far from it. The support is clear, as is the concern about Luke's current actions. Both are things he can respect. In fact, they are things he's not getting from any other quarter--quarters who tend to be unequivocal in one direction or another.

He opens his eyes, and looks straight at Velus.

"What do you imagine is going on here? They're all out meditating. You're very perceptive, Sinjir. It's one of the things I like about you. But I don't know what you think I think Jedi are."

Like takes a deep breath. "I'm not trying to ,i>force anything."

Sinjir winces.

"You're really not going to like my next sentence," he says. Then, carefully: "Isn't preventing meaningless deaths what Anakin Skywalker wanted?"

Anakin, whom Sinjir now knows became Darth Vader, and wasn't killed as a hero in the final days of the Republic. Sinjir isn't sure he buys that Vader was brought over into the darkness against all that he stood for before. He would believe, on the other hand, that Anakin, as with so many dictators in history, took power because he wanted to use it to fix immutable aspects of the nature of sentient life.

"I suppose I'm suggesting," he says, "that the more you take and use power to eradicate evil, the more you become it. That, in order to be light, you must allow a place for darkness in this world." This is straying into a philosophical place that Sinjir doesn't know if he's comfortable with.

"Or," he says, "alternatively, stop dividing yourself into darkness and light, and embrace the space between."

Edited 2016-01-21 16:01 (UTC)

"I don't know what Anakin wanted." It's not shouted, but the energy is there, and it's not directed at Sinjir exactly but it's one of the things Luke will never know and always wonder. He doesn't know whether to get angry or laugh madly at the absurdity of trying to reconcile his position with Sinjir's objections. So after the short outburst, he quiets, letting the multitude of competing emotions flow through and out. He takes a deep breath, realizes his eyes have drifted shut and opens them, though they're focused on the middle distance as he speaks again, more calmly.

"I'm going to tell you something I've hardly told anyone," he says, and he's not even certain why he needs Sinjir to know, to understand. "I've known two Jedi Masters in my life. Both died before I could get the kind of training I probably should have. That, you already know. What you don't is that both warned me, time and again, against personal attachments. Against making decisions based on emotion or loyalty. It's easy to understand how anger and fear can lead to the dark, but I could never understand why helping my friends when they were in danger could. And I refused to understand that Anakin was irredeemable. For all intents and purposes, when Ben told me Vader had murdered my father, he believed he was telling the truth. But I could feel him, I could... identify something within Vader that was still my father. In the end, I went with my gut, against what both 'sides' were telling me to do. And looking back... I still think I was right to."

He takes another deep breath, and it feels like climbing uphill, like feeling his way through a sandstorm.

"I don't want to take power, Sinjir. But I have to deal with the reality that I have it. And if I can use it to help others, I have to. And I don't have anyone showing me the way, and yeah, that scares me. But all I can do is feel my way through it. I guess what I'm trying to say is... I'm not sure that I'm not already doing what you're talking about. But I also have no way of knowing."

He feels laid bare, and it's absurd, how Sinjir's capable of doing that to him in more ways than one.

He considers this, nodding slowly.

"Actually," he says, "that lines up with something I've been suspecting. There was a prophecy that someone would bring "balance to the Force", and that prophecy was pinned on Anakin Skywalker. Yes? People in the New Republic, who know about this, now seem to think that someone went wrong with that prophecy. What if it didn't? What if, by killing the Light - and then destroying the Dark - he did exactly what he was supposed to?"

The comment brings Luke out of his head and back to focusing on Sinjir, frowning slightly.

"I don't think I like that type of balance," he says. "It's kind of an extreme course correction, and the last twenty years certainly haven't seen a lot of balance. Order, maybe. Of a kind. But no unity, no... fairness. And you're going to tell me it's not on me or Anakin or anyone to impose fairness on the galaxy, but..." He bites his lip in thought. "I don't know what stock I put in prophecy. Or destiny. Do you know how many Force users have told me what mine is? Do you think anything worked out the way Kenobi or Vader or Yoda said it would?" He shakes his head. "And I guess you could spin any of it to fit what did happen, but then you're back to it being meaningless."

Still. The thought of some type of guidance is attractive. It's just that there are too few people around to correct Luke, if he gets it wrong.

"Not meaningless at all," he says. "The meaning then becomes that neither side was right - both sides weren't entirely wrong, either. What was wrong was the fact that there were sides."

He waves a hand at Luke. "Like I said," he says. "Embrace the space in between., yes, if you'd like to be perfect, avoid attachments; then you'll never get angry, and never go too far to protect someone you love. In the meantime, most people aren't warriors. Who says Jedi can't be farmers, healers, and diplomats? Mechanics? People who get married and have children, or don't, as they please - who can choose to be a part of a government, but don't have to be a part of an Order?"

Luke chews on that for a moment, taking in everything being said, and after a moment, something in his expression clears. It's subtle, but it's almost... relief.

"I think," he says slowly, "that all this time we've actually been agreeing. I don't want to recreate the Order. For one thing, I wouldn't be able to if I tried. I don't need an army. And I'm hardly in a position to object to attachments. My family, my friends... they've always made me stronger. As much as I love Ben, he kept me not just from my family, but from knowing about them. I don't feel capable of making a decision like that. Who am I to say? I... understand your concern. I understand that there's every chance I could slip up. But I'm trying very hard not to be a hypocrite, here. I'm not in the business of starting a religion, Sinjir. I just want people with this kind of power to have somewhere to learn about it safely. I don't want anyone to get here..." He swallows, he doesn't like admitting his life has been hard, because he's Luke Skywalker, and it seems unfair of him to complain. "...the way I did."

[open post] Training camp/barracks

[closed to Luke and Sinjir]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject