A rock pulled from a nearby cliff face is lifted, and tossed. It slams into the side of one of the mandalorians, sending him flying with a sickening crunch. The second fires her blaster at Zalea, who slaps it aside, sending it into the third mandalorian, who crumples. A blast of concussive forces flies out of the Togruta, slamming into the final mandalorian, sending them spinning backward, and hammers him into the same cliff. Her lightsaber turns off with a hiss, as she looks around, the heads up display on her helmet showing no severe damage. She continues on her way to the Jedi temple.
She quickly makes her way through the temple proper, giving waves, and greetings to the few people she runs into, before heading back, towards the settlement. She pops her helmet off, and holds it under her arm, as she makes her way to the waterfall she often went too, to be alone. Once she arrives she places her helmet on the ground, and sits, cross legged, looking out over the water.
It takes her only a moment to sink into meditating, breathing in, and breathing out, allowing the force to flow through her, and allowing her senses to expand, as as she sits, still staring ahead at the water. Eventually, her eyes slowly drift down, to a single tuft of wild grass in front of her. She focuses forward, and the grass starts to slowly grow, climbing higher and higher. Images flash through her head as she does. Knives, sickening smiles, spice, people crying in the dark, an empty bed. She shakes her head, and continues to concentrate.
Eventually, the images become too much, and the plant starts to droop, dying instead of growing. Zalea suddenly focuses hard, and the plant goes from tall and healthy, to a wizened, dead husk, as it droops down from standing tall and proud over the rest of the greenery near the waterfall, into nothing but a small pile of dead plant. Zalea stares at the dead grass for a moment, before giving a sigh, and closing her eyes.
Am I healthy? Yes. I’m healthy. I have friends, family, people I love. A full, fulfilling life with people I care about, and a job that allows me to help others. She had never been this happy in her life. So why was she still so troubled? Passions, pleasure. Why sadism? What is wrong with me. What else is lurking in the background, that I have not found, or not paid attention too. How far away from the darkside am I really? Is that even a constructive question to ask? No. Probably not. Just another thing that’s going to bother me.
But, it still needed to be thought about. Both of my teachers use the dark side, to some extent. And so do I. Lighting and zaps of electricity. Things seem to have ended up rather strangely.
Pure, and utter control. How much joy had that given her? Using the force like how the Jedi. teaching me to use the force came so naturally. Because she had spent the better part of 30 years learning how to tightly control her emotions, herself, and only act in a way that she wanted, not what her emotions told her to want. Now it only seemed like doing that was hurting her. Following her wants, her desires, her passions and emotions. Was that so bad?
Fear. That scared, starving little girl she had been before she left her parents. She was still her, in many ways. Afraid of herself, and what she might do to the world. Refusing to allow her emotions control over her actions, because she was afraid it would hurt herself, or others. But It hadnet, had it? Not recently. No, it had brought nothing but joy into her life, without hurting others.
Her eyes scrunch closed, as she feels a sudden wave of negative emotions. Anger, hate, sadness, depression, obsession. Instead of turning her mind into a fortress, she starts to break that fortress down. All of the emotions she had been allowed to crash against her mental barriers slam into her, knocking the wind out of the Togruta. She focuses, not building up armor, but turning herself into a bowl, allowing the emotions to fill her essence and mind, and then calm down, turning from a whirlwind to a calm, still pool of water.
Her eyes snap open, and she looks around. There was a small circle of dead grass around her. She reaches down, and runs her hands through the brown, crumpled leaves, dried and brittle. She snaps off a single leaf, and brings it up to eye level, and looks it over. Her eyes drift closed again, and she looks inward. Those negative emotions sat in that internal, mental bowl. They were still there, but they were still, no longer swirling around, sloshing out, intermingling with her entire essence. She reaches into that bowl, and pulls something out. Fear. Fear of what? Of being weak. Of being helpless, of not being able to match up to expectations. Of being hurt, or hurting others, or allowing others to be hurt.
And that feeling of helplessness, it wound itself all the way back. Why did she like hurting others? Because it makes her less helpless. Why did she demand such strict control over herself? Because she was afraid her emotions, these emotions, would take control, and make her helpless, unable to control herself. Why did she hide herself? All of the above. Because she refused to accept that feeling of helplessness for even a second. What was she going to do about that?
Make sure she was never helpless again, or accept that feeling of helplessness, and allow herself to be comfortable with it. Allow herself to life with it, inside her own head. She couldn’t never be helpless again. Or was that the fear talking. It had not even been an hour since she had killed 3 mandalorians as easy as breathing. She had been fighting in the war she found herself entrenched in for months and months. Killing sith soldiers, sith themselves, droids. All of them. She had been able to fight those people for almost that entire time. She had just spent the last few days slaughtering her way through tusken raiders, collecting their weapons for the new bounty offered on them.
But, more than violence, she was in control of her life. Had her apprenticeship with Sandra put her at danger from the Revanites? Yes, But she had that handled. She grabbed the problem by the horns, and worked to fix it. Made friends, made allies, put herself in a position where she could be protected from them. She had been succeeding at incredibly demanding training since the very first day she had started with her Master. Her helplessness was all an illusion. Something she had cast over her own vision. Maybe to protect herself. Maybe because that’s all that she ever did. Make herself feel helpless, and run from it. She had spent her entire life moving from planet to planet, running from… something. Something that even she didn’t know, until now.
–
She was putting on her heavy armor, swapping from republic issue to something without markings. She finished putting on the last plate, and headed out into the blistering heat. She closed her eyes, and focused, drawing that energy into herself, holding it, preparing something. She left anchorhead, and made her way towards the Tusken camp.
Electricity pulsed through one of the raiders. A second was sent flying, spinning, before slamming down into tents, two more where engaging Zalea in melee. She slammed her lightsaber down, bisecting one of the sand people. She sidestepped the swing from the second, and snapped her lightsaber up, removing her head. She deflected two blaster shots from another one, and tossed her lightsaber, cutting two more in half. The tuskens right around where all dead. She went about collecting their weapons, stuffing them into her bags. Her thoughts drifted back towards that meditation by the waterfall, as she looked down at one of the smoking corpses. She poked it with one of her feet, rolling the headless body over. She looks out over the camp, Tuskens in the distance who had yet to recognize that she was there.
She squatted down, next to the body, and grabbed the head, placing it on the stump it used to be attached to. She stared at it for a very long time.
Fear had been controlling her life for so long. She didn’t need to let it control her any more. She was not that helpless girl any more. Zalea Raji, student to Sandra Mana and Althea. Chief Petty Officer in the Republic Navy. Skilled pilot. She had credits, she had friends, she had power. She was not going to starve, or be forced to run away. She was stable. She was healthy.
So… was there any reason to be afraid of her passions? Of her emotions? To hide from them like she had for so, so many years. No.There really wasn’t. She was not about to fall under the sway of horribly negative emotions, or fall to the dark side. What did she feel? Love. Happiness. Empathy and sympathy.
She deflected a blaster shot aimed at the back of her head, lifted the tuskens body, turned, and threw it at the one now shooting at her. The body and living tusken impacted, and they both were sent flying, crumpling, and not standing back up. Maybe this was not the best place for these thoughts.
She was turning in the tuskan weapons for a healthy profit. She reached her mind out to the merchant. Happiness to be able to resell these weapons for more than they were bought for… Fear… Other things she couldn’t fully pick up. She collected her credstick, slotted it into her datapad, then stuffed it into a pocket in her armor. She headed back to the sunrise,and dug around in the freezer, pulling out a tub of ice cream. She moves to her rickety table, and sits down with a spoon, starting to eat.
Give up her fear. Give up her helplessness.
She ate some ice cream.
Give up her fear, give up her helplessness. Allow her emotions to show. Allow them some control. She was not a bomb that was about to explode. I’m not a bomb thats about to explode.I’ll keep telling myself that, until it gets through my thick skull.
And what would that lead to? Being a shit Jedi. Maybe she was already a shit Jedi. The dark side? Maybe. She hoped not. Her will wasn’t so weak that she was about to give up all she gained for something so stupid. The sith liked to whine about how free they where, while chaining themselves down, through their own organizations, and through their own slavery to emotions. Maybe she could find some actual freedom. From herself, from fear, from the utter control she forced herself to stay under. To allow her to be herself, without exploding, or imploding. Allowing her to live, and breath, and act, and let what comes, come.
Zalea continues to eat her ice cream, mind drifting from these troubling topics to drinking with Kelian and Althea a few nights ago. Things would turn out well. She was sure of it.