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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 1954124" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 121: Heavy Rocks, Weighted Dreams, and Grave NewsJen glared at the rock. Well, it was more like staring intently and trying to force one’s will on an inanimate object, but glaring just felt like the right word. Though it was probably becoming a real glare as the rock wasn’t moving like it should be. Shadow had explained that it was simply a matter of making your will reality. Interesting sounding words, but they didn’t actually explain how she was supposed to get the rock to move without touching it. Jen had tried thinking at the rock. That did nothing. So, she tried thinking around the rock. Despite the paradox in those thoughts, it still didn’t work. Apparently, making no sense didn’t cause the Force to work. Maybe just thinking wasn’t enough?    Behind her, she could feel Shadow’s gaze. It wasn’t prying or even dangerous, just watchful. Waiting. Resisting the urge to turn and look back to the Alraxian, Jen did her best to keep the focus on the rock. Thinking at it wasn’t enough...thinking around it wasn’t enough. Wait. Maybe Jen wasn’t doing the right thing, here. She was thinking about the rock. About it wasn’t at it. Slowly, Jen tried to figure out how to push her thoughts outward. To the rock. She did feel an odd tingle through her spine, but nothing outward reacted. Close. Very close. But not there yet. If forcing her thoughts out to the rock wasn’t enough, maybe trying bringing the rock to her thoughts? Instead of reaching out as it were, Jen attempted to visualize the rock moving to a small circular nothing that represented her thoughts. It was then that she realized her eyes had closed. Trying to hold the focus, she carefully opened one eye.    Just a couple of feet from her face was the rock. It floated at eye level in a somewhat awkward way. A grin came onto her face, and she called over to Shadow, “HA! I did it–OW!”    The break in focus was something Shadow had actually been waiting for. When Jen had yelled out happily, she’d not been ready to divide her focus as much as was necessary. This meant the rock fell. Into her lap. It wasn’t a very lightweight rock, either. Shadow couldn’t help a light smile, walking over to Jen and patting her on the shoulder while the woman manually got the rock off of her, “You figured that one out quickly. Think you’re ready for two yet?”    Jen put the rock down in front of her and looked over her shoulder to Shadow, “And risk more bruises?”    Shadow laughed and had a seat next to the human woman, “You’ll get plenty of those when we get to martial training, might as well get used to them.”    Nodding, Jen looked down at the rock, “I assume it will get easier with practice?”    “Everything does,” Shadow said with a nod, idly playing with the small amount of dirt at the river’s edge behind them.    “So I’m told,” Jen smiled slightly and leaned back a little. Her expression changed and she said quietly, “Something’s bothering you.”    Shadow raised an eyebrow. Jen may not have been catching onto the physical aspect of the Force too well, but she had the more indirect things down almost naturally. She was very good at reading emotions, and that was likely a strong mix of natural aptitude with and without the Force. It was part of the reason that Shadow had focused on teaching Jen the more direct teachings, as Jen was already well versed in the mental. Noticing that Jen was still giving her that motherly ‘You will tell me what’s wrong or else’ look, Shadow shrugged and said, “Its nothing important. What you’re doing now, however, is.”    Jen got the hint. Nodding and not prying anymore, she looked back to the rock that now sat just in front of her. Fine. If she wouldn’t talk, Jen couldn’t force it out. Besides, Shadow was right. This was important. Whatever was bothering Shadow was probably important, too, but at least Akan could deal with that. Well, once he was allowed to move from that bed again. As her focus faded back to trying to move that stupid rock, Jen couldn’t help a grin at thinking about how long Akan would be stuck in that bed. If he’d just stop being so stubborn, it’d be no problem. He was asking for years, though.* * * *Akan had actually fallen asleep this time. It was a good thing, as after getting ill all over Shadow, he still felt like a live womp rat was chewing on his insides. For the last two months, he’d not slept well in the few chances he’d gotten for sleep. At first, he’d continually seen those dreams again...watched Jen fall away. Watched Voort move to kill Shadow...and then the other, seeing Jen killing them all. But those soon got company. Not long after Jen had gotten into a regular training and sleep schedule, Shadow doubled up on her work. As she’d said, she took time to teach Akan in the ‘real’ Force.    Because of his prior knowledge of the Light Side, this was not the focus of the training for him. Instead, Shadow taught him to use(in a controlled manner) the Dark Side. It was more simple exercises to teach him that burying his anger and ‘dark’ emotions was only causing him to tear himself apart from the inside. Shadow taught him to use the emotions to strengthen him. But at the same time, she explained, one must use it in moderation. The Dark Side was not corrupting from the Alraxian point of view. It was not easier, faster, or even stronger. It simply was another side to a coin. In the Alraxian Force tradition, the Light was just as dangerous if one embraced it fully. If you were consumed in Light, Shadow said, it would quiet literally blind you to reality. The Dark was the same, blacking out the real world if you allowed it to be out of balance. That was the key. Balance. With both, true enlightenment would be reached. Not power. Not knowledge. Not anything the Jedi or the Sith associated with the Force. It was strange and horribly foreign to Akan, but he didn’t have much of a choice.    While he had trouble with the balancing act outwardly, the true problems came in his sleep. Dreams that were likely inspired by his own previous fears of the Dark Side. Dreams that just felt like dreams. Not like visions as the ones with Jen did. This, though, did not make them any less worrying. Alraxians didn’t sweat, so he didn’t wake up in a cold sweat. Instead, he woke up in a cold nothing, which was, again, even worse. Nearly half a year as an Alraxian now, and new things were still driving him crazy. Part of him still felt human, and there was always a very strong urge to be human. Yet Shadow had insisted he stick to who he was now. So that also assisted in his sleepless nights. The dreams.     But this time, he didn’t dream. He saw. It was an odd distinction, but one that someone accustomed to such things could understand. It was unique, though, in that he knew it wasn’t real. He knew he’d fallen asleep, and this made Akan feel slightly trapped in this. First, he saw a long, blank landing platform. It would look normal on pretty much any planet, save for the time ‘he’ looked up. Buildings. Thousands of them, stretching up as far as the eye could see. Nearly reaching space, itself. Only one planet ever came anywhere near that. Coruscant. Right. Seeing Coruscant...at this realization, the scene changed slightly. Not in his view, but in the smell. He turned to follow the source of this odd smell but saw nothing. The platform was empty. Had he walked here? There wasn’t a ship...but there was someone near. Or something. Or...well, something.    Something felt wrong, though. He found himself walking down the platform towards the connecting building. The doors opened to reveal a normal receiving room among the large planet’s upper sections. But there wasn’t a docking officer at the small desk right in front of him. Odd. Why was he here? Again, he found himself moving. Walking quickly out to the city itself. When the door to the outside opened, he looked out upon the large, Imperial Plaza. Even after the Empire’s loss of the planet, the name had stayed. At one end, was the gigantic Imperial Palace, now the converted into apartment complexes and officers for higher ranking members in the New Republic. Between where he stood on a large balcony and the Palace, was the gigantic courtyard of the plaza. It was the size of most small cities on other planets. Every single hour of every single day, the plaza was littered with thousands of people moving here and there though the monuments, smaller buildings, and kiosks in that plaza. Every single hour except this one, it seemed. The entire plaza was empty. Unmoving. Dead, as it were.    Slowly, Akan’s ‘eyes’ traveled across all he could see. The Senate building off to the far east, lights still glowing gently in the cloudy sky, but still no movement. Not even an airspeeder in the sky. Nothing at all. No where. As his eyes came back towards the plaza, they locked onto one particular building. It was taller than the towering Palace itself, but shaped more like a great spire in the sky. At the top of the mighty building was a small platform. Somehow, despite the great distance between where he stood and the tower, he could see the details. He could remember it. And then he knew what it was. His eyes went up slightly, looking up at the clouded sky above it and stopping at one point in the sky. Just a minute up after getting into the sky. That was where Mare had been killed. Just in the middle of the cloud blurring his vision.    As the vision itself faded into black, comfortable sleep, Akan felt himself pulled. He needed to go there. Something was there. Even if it wasn’t something tangible, there was something. Shadow had told him more than once that he needed to stop running from that and confront it. What better way than to go there? By the time he’d drifted back into sleep, he’d had a short moment to wonder why the planet was devoid of life. That couldn’t be just for the sake of convenience.* * * *Eyeing the scanners with interest, Titus Voort watched the ship that was coming into orbit. It wasn’t a New Republic ship. Or at least, wasn’t transmitting a NR transponder signal. It could have been a bounty hunter, lucky and stupid to come in so obviously. No, there wasn’t a path to follow here, though. Perhaps a random traveler? Why come to this planet, though? He stopped to think about this. Why were they here? To get away from the galaxy. A good place to hide. Solitude and safety. So this ship could be here for the same reasons. There was a small mining operation somewhere on the other side of the planet, maybe it was a supply ship. They’d seen at least one other in the last month.    He figured there wasn’t really anything to worry about from this ship, but as he’d done with all the others that they had spotted, Titus watched it anyway. Just in case. One couldn’t be too careful, especially when trying to hide from potential bounty hunters and the New Republic military. Something interested him about this YT-2400, though. He was experienced enough to know when the Force was trying to tell him something, and wasn’t the kind to ignore it either. So he watched it even more closely. Not that staring at the screen harder did any good, but at least it made him feel better about it.    And then he got a good reason for his interest. The ship’s course altered just slightly. It was enough for Titus to identify that it was coming their direction. Almost a little too much of a coincidence for his liking. As he considered whether or not to send a signal to the ship, Titus ran through what he knew about the old YT-2400s. Built to replace the older and oddly popular YT-1300. They never caught on for some reason. Smaller, not nearly as much cargo space, and built with only a single top cannon as weaponry. They were fast, yes, but that was about all that they had going for them. If someone didn’t know better, it wouldn’t be hard to confuse the 2400 with the now-famous 1300 model. If not for Han Solo’s YT-1300, the model would likely have fallen into obscurity and been replaced by the YT-2400. But the line was cut short, only a limited number were ever made. So who was this? A lucky bounty hunter was the only explanation that Titus could come up with until the comm beeped.    For a moment, he stared at the gently blinking light off to the side of the co-pilot’s chair to his left. After a moment’s thought, he decided it wasn’t something to ignore. So, Titus reached over and gently flipped the comm switch on. Even before he said anything, he heard a familiar voice, “Took one hell of a time to find you, Titus.”    “Don’t land that thing near us!” Titus growled upon identifying the voice, “And the second you’re down you’ve got some explaining to do, Hansen. First on the list, and had better be answered before you set down, is how you found me. Second, and equally important, is what are you doing here?”    There was a short pause in the transmission. During this time, Titus watched the ship readjust its course to a direction farther north. As the ship entered the atmosphere, Hansen’s voice returned to the comm, “First, Loki’s an easy ship to identify when you know what to look for and I’ve got good instincts. Second, and more important, is that we need to talk,” she paused, and Titus inadvertently looked up out of the cockpit’s canopy. He wouldn’t be able to see the ship coming in, but it was still some odd reaction that most people had when they knew a ship was on its way. The pause ended again and Hansen’s voice sounded a bit more worried, “We finished analyzing all the data from Sadrak’s little base. You’re not going to like most of it.”    “I never expected to,” Titus grumbled to himself, still looking up through the thick canopy of trees. Looked like they were about to lose this nice break from the reality of the galaxy. It was only a matter of time...</blockquote>

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