Sezela had made some progress in her studies, her determination to succeed and grow stronger a testiment to what she had achieved so far.
But the constant use of the force and channeling and controlling her emotions was starting to take it’s toll. The last Tutaminis practice had required more control than she was used to and she found that the was starting lose her focus, emotions would come unbidden to her, she would feel bouts of anger and rage and… even stranger… a temptation to use them as she felt them… the temptation to give over to the dark side of the force more regularly in her pursuit of finding and honing her own power.
She had started to notice some physical changes too, her skin taking on a slightly lighter hue, her eyes starting to show some yellow pigmentation, subtle, but evidence that her connection to the force was growing. She needed to maintain control, the only way to assert that was to practice her meditation. She took herself to a grove where she had sat with Warrior Sinrae, it was quiet and she felt like she could feel the presence of the warrior, if only the remnants of when she had been there. In a way it helped her centre herself.
She started by remembering the technique taught by Lord Anantasari, she imagined a voice, her own, or a slightly off pitched voice leading her into a void, she focussed only on that voice, allowing herself to drift into a meditative state.
She allowed her senses to open, feeling the force around her… and that temptation… she could feel it also, the beckoning of power, unrelenting power that was hers to control… if only she would reach for it. But she rememberd the lessons, power for powers sake led to self destruction, a permanent corruption of your being. She didn’t want that, sure she sought strength, she was sith! But that didn’t mean that she wanted to lose herself to it. Become… something else…
But she was not going to back away from the temptation, ignore it or block it. She had to try and face it, understand it’s basis, through that she would control it. She believed by doing this she would deepen her connection to the force, allow it to serve her.
She sought out and touched the feeling of temptation with her mind, almost flirting with it, a coquettish feeling of ‘what would you offer me to relent’? Suddenly images filled her, a blur of past, present… Her head reeled for a moment, but she did not break her concentration. Finally the images settled on a familiar scene. The day she was sold…
The Ascendancy had decreed that anyone who was force sensitive was tainted and therefore had to be exiled. Her family had been found to be force sensitive, they hadn’t bothered to check if she was or wasn’t, the shame was enough. She was sent to be sold, to make herself ‘useful’ if she couldn’t serve the Chiss people. A wealthy family were on the look out for a child to be a play mate and eventually maid servant to their daughter. The transaction was done quickly, credits and papers exchanged and she was unceremoniously dumped in a transport and taken to an estate where she would live out her days as the families slave. She was only 4, a small, pathetic, nervous creature, she was taken in, bathed, dressed in clothes that made her look like a doll and introduced to who would eventually be her ‘owner’.
The daughter was a vile, spoilt child, she knew that she was of high station. Sezela was her play thing, if she broke… well… she could always get another. She made her feel like nothing, an object that should be glad that they were given the opportunity to serve. She hated herself…
‘No more…’ it was a strange… hissing voice. She focussed more on it, in response those feelings she had as a house slave intensified, crushing depression, crippling anxiety, a darkness that seemed to permanently hang around her…
‘No more…’ she heard in her head again. Then she realised, this was her worst state, this was who she was… a slave… a thing to be used and cast aside. What she was being offered was the power to break these chains, to make those who had treated her this way pay. The scene changed and what it transitioned into was like something out of a horror vid, the family lay in pools of blood, flesh rended. The daughter laying, her limbs at awkward angles, her mouth open in a silent scream. In the centre was her… a child… power emanating off of her. Is that what she wanted…? For a moment the sense of justice she would have felt if this illusion were true hit her like a sledge hammer… these people deserved this. She could feel the temptation moving closer, comforting her, reassuring her this could all be hers.
But at what cost? She would take the power and lose herself, no, she would be a slave to another master. She would have power and strength, but on her own terms. She did not serve the force, the force served her. She could feel her sense of focus increasing as this one, defining thought filled her very being. She was not the slave… she ‘will’ be the master. The temptation seemed to subside as if it were being deflected. But that wasn’t what she wanted either, the temptation must be there. For it grounded her, made her know what was always going to be on offer should she want to give in to it. It needed to be like a close friend to her, a confidant, always present and a reminder of what her power will be when she realised it. The temptation was that sense of the dark side that she would always accessto. To lose sight of that temptation would make it easy for it to catch her off guard one day.
Finally she opened her eyes, she could feel a stronger sense of control, as she had achieved something, what that was she wasn’t sure but she knew that she had gone that one step closer to being able to master the force. It was always going to be a journey, but it was once that she was determined to follow… on her terms…
Moving meditation: Novice 3/8