Post by Squee on Sept 15, 2008 22:51:41 GMT -5
Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society. - They trifle with the best affections of our nature, and violate the most sacred obligations.-
~ Crabbe ~
~ Crabbe ~
Name: Tesa Yarum
Race: Humanoid (Background: Mother: Kiffar, Human, some Firrerreo; Father: Human, Kiffar, some Fondorian)
Age: 21
Height: 5'8
Weight: 146
Birth place: Corellia, Coronet
Faction: Sith
Rank: Apprentice
Appearance:
To the respected artist: *omupied
Tesa is a bit of a narcissist. She believes she’s pretty and does a lot to manage her appearance so that she may even appear prettier. Beneath any make up, wig, or any temporary skin color/complexion alteration she may endure for a task, Tesa is still a pretty young woman with her own natural flaws. Naturally, her skin color is a darker, golden/tan hue due to Firrerreo background, as well as her mother being fairly golden/tan herself. Her hair is dark, almost black, thick, wavy, and made possible by her human and kiffar genes overriding her Fondorian bloodline. However, she has a high forehead that embarrasses her, because it may make her look slightly bald. She hides this by sweeping long bangs to one side. Her complexion is smooth and young, just as most women her age. She has full lips and high cheekbones, thanks to her father. Tesa dislikes her lips and she tries her best not to make them bigger than they already appear to her. Her stretched, oval shaped eyes are sandy in color. Unfortunately, she has a slightly disproportionate small nose, which she also dislikes because to her, it seems smaller than it really is.
She has a few scars, here and there, from nicks and scrapes or unfortunate happenings. The only one with a story, however, is the three scraggly, fairly parallel lines from temple to cheek.
Tesa has an mesomorphic body type, with good, strong bone and light muscle tone beneath her skin. She is not the idol for a perfectly in-shape body; the majority of her muscle tone comes from training. Since she would rather spend her time with mental and force exercises, she tends to forgo a lot of physical exercise if she has a choice in the matter. Her arms and legs are long, as well her fingers, and her torso is short, but not awkwardly so. She has a good set of hips, and her bosom is attractively proportionate to those hips.
Personality: Tesa has a brilliant mind, and she’s quite aware of it. A lot of her intelligence is based on her ability to recognize, understand, analyze, and accept a matter within minutes. Her brain soaks up knowledge and stores it in her mind; rarely does she forget something. She considers herself very intelligent, very clever, and very logical. While the first two are heavily true, the last may be questioned, and sometimes Tesa can be logical to the point of being illogical or just plain boring. Her mind works in a twisting web that tries to recognize everything, and by trying to recognize everything, she thinks far too much. She’ll say something somewhere, and then maybe four minutes later, contradict herself. By trying to accept any and all options, she tends to be quite hypocritical. However, she has knowledge of her hypocrisy, and while she wants to adopt a more sound mind, Tesa is currently incapable of doing so. Her hypocrisy and recognition of too many things frustrates her to no end in the mean time, since it often makes her feel very scatterbrained.
One of Tesa’s concrete beliefs is her perception of stupid people, whom of which she has barely any toleration for. She’s formulated her idea of a perfect universe, and works on it whenever outside the Sith Temple, treating it somewhat like a side-quest for now. While Tesa understands that her perfect universe will never come true, she does still attempt to sculpt it so. It is something to live for right now, and it keeps her mind thinking. She intends on making her “big splash” in the universe.
She also knows that, despite everything, she truly hates being alone. While she is not fond of people, she finds that she cannot solitary confine herself. She has an almost basic need to be in a surrounding where people go by, even if she never interacts with the people. She rarely partakes of any kind of social gathering, because she knows there is a required amount of socializing involved if she does. Instead, Tesa prefers to sit by herself and observe her surroundings and its people, determining what she will. She speaks with few words to people, and more words to her FAMILIAR, Insanus, who she considers an intelligent metal box. Since she found the Familiar, the trips she often makes alone have become more bearable. However, most of the time that she is by herself, she just wants to be around people again.
She is bitter and disdainful on a regular basis to normal people, and exceptionally contemptuous to people she considers beneath her. It helps scare people off and want to avoid her, which is what she wants. This is true unless she plays the role of another, such as she does on business trips. She has no lack of courtesy and respect for those above her, however. If someone could chew her up and spit her out, she is her kindest (which is saying something). She has no problem lying to others however, be the person lower, same level, or higher than her. In fact, lying has become an exercise of her own, just too see how many stories of herself she can remember, which details she’s given to whom, and constantly cover her true purpose or personality.
Tesa is also an absolute control freak. She loves to set up the situation and direct the people in it. Loss of control, of a situation or of herself, is abhorring. Yet one the same token, in order to fully direct her Force abilities, she must first lose control and then make it obey her. While liking control, she a slave to her emotions, and an addict to others, particularly fear and pain. This cycle makes her feel like she’s constantly at war without herself, and she is attempting to find a solution so she feels more sane.
She is choosey when it comes to people she will actually allow into her life. Intimate interaction have been limited with one other person since she was eight. She still has some memory on what it was like to live in a family, of what it was like to be nice, and play with other people. She chooses to be cruel and nasty to people now because it gives her the emotions and the sort of “aloneness” that she desires. If she grew close to someone, she would worry about their imminent death. Besides her family, all the other people in her life who have cared for her or mentored her have passed away, leaving her with grief that she still hasn’t figured out how to overcome.
Skills:
- Manipulation
- Acting
-Piloting (decent, though she wouldn’t survive a sustained fight)
Equipment:
- Lightsaber
- Poison in tiny cylinder vials
- Several datapads with vital information to her businesses
- Personal datapad: Journal, holovids, readings, personal achievements/researches
- Stock of clothes – Formal and informal: dresses, slacks, blouses, vests, trousers, belts, shoes, tops, make-ups and wigs
Lightsaber: Single blade (Single-phase)
Color: Red
Practiced Lightsaber forms:
Shii-Cho: 5
Makashi: N/A
Soresu: N/A
Ataru: N/A
Shien / Djem So: 1
>>Sub-form Backhanded: 1
Niman: N/A
>>Sub-form Jar-kai, or duel Weild: N/A
Juyo / Vaapad: N/A
Double Bladed Combat: N/A
- Unorthodox grip
Force-Sensitive Abilities or practices:
Telekinetic: 5
Telepathic: 6
Body: 5
Sense: 2
Protection: 1
Healing: 3
Destruction: 2
Specialized Skills: N/A
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 4
Intelligence: 8
Speed: 5
Leadership: 1
Unarmed: 2
Melee Weapons: 1
Ranged Weapons: 1
Bio:
It All Began with a Little “I Love You”
An Angel’s Song
An Angel’s Song
The city her parents that grew up in was Coronet, raised well by their own parents. It was here her parents dated while they were growing up. It was here that they whispered their first I Love You’s and where they were married. It was here they made their home, it was here they worked, and it was here that Herth, the woman, gave birth to a child that Jona, the man, would be fond of through her infanthood and beyond.
Tesa was the first born and the last. Herth had been instructed, before Tesa was a thought, that she should not try to have children of her own due to medical reasons. It was Herth’s determination to have at least one daughter of her own flesh and blood, and the others she and Jona could adopt. Herth went through a difficult pregnancy. She refused to abort her child because she wanted the child, even when the doctors said the actual birth would kill her and the child would likely be of the miserable sort – health issues due to genetic means. Since she didn’t miscarriage (much to the surprise of the doctors) Herth gave birth to Tesa, and then died.
And so did Jona love his daughter Tesa dearly upon first sight and upon first hold; a product of a love and ultimate sacrifice out of love. He promised then and there that Tesa would be cared for greatly and raised properly, and would one day know of her mother. Therefore, when the tests of her midichlorian count came back, showing her eligibility for the Jedi, Jona dismissed them. He was determined to keep his daughter and his last connection to his wife.
Growing Up: Baby Mink
The Good, the Bad, the Ugly
First Days – Eight
The Good, the Bad, the Ugly
First Days – Eight
Coronet was Tesa’s birthplace as it was the place of her parents’ childhoods and marriage, life and death. The infant years passed without much to be dubbed of importance, other than Jona had needed to hire a baby-sitter often and for extensive periods of time as he continued his time demanding career. He was a businessman, and was rather successful in his job. A linguist to a certain degree, and held a high position in the company he worked for: one that manufactured and sold speeders, both land and air.
Jona did find love again three years after Tesa’s birth. She was a Teevan woman who went by the name Sernma, who had a six year old son, Syu, from a previous marriage. Sernma also worked for the speeder company, an engineer, and she was married into Tesa’s toddler life. This is the woman Tesa would call mommy and run to when she felt she needed protection. Sernma actually grew to quickly love Tesa after the toddler had almost instantly trusted her as a mother.
The only problems within the family were Tesa versus her new step-brother Syu. Syu, used to being the only child with all the adoring affection he could desire, had difficulties sharing his mother with young Tesa. He harbored jealous feelings whenever Tesa sought cuddles from Sernma, or Sernma played with Tesa, or accepted Tesa’s crafts or drawings with great enthusiasm. So, on the occasion, Syu would smack Tesa, and her tears and loud crying would draw the attention of the adults. Syu disliked his punishments, since he believed they were all Tesa’s fault – her fault for being younger and the newest “favorite” and etc. But after two or three years, Syu came to accept his younger step-sister.
Per the usual course, Tesa was sent to school, a public one, at five. The first year passed without much significance, other than Tesa did well with her schoolwork the first half of the school year and then… she simply stopped. She was quiet in class, and never wanted to answer any questions – so she didn’t. Her behavior marks went down in some areas, like interaction with others and participation. Her father tried punishment and then he tried enticing her to do well in school, but it didn’t help. By the end of the first school year, she had poor marks in academics, but had changed her mood to earn decent marks concerning respect and people.
The second school year began with a bang. Tesa worked diligently upon returning for the first semester, except she was marked down for behavior. The second semester… she neglected her academics and turned her behavior to… mediocre decency. She was seven when she began her third year of public school. Again, she did well with academics and abandoned active interactions with people. In the second semester, Tesa continued to pursue her academics, but was known as a bitter, unfriendly child in the classroom. Her parents tried convincing her to be nice and outgoing, but Tesa replied that she didn’t want to, and therefore she was an isolated child. Though it did not seem to bother her.
During the summer, her father suggested putting her through a program to help Tesa become more social. And if she couldn’t be made social, what was preventing her? Tesa hated those visits. Some lady would speak to her in a fluffy, white-angel tone in attempt to entice her to play with dolls and various other toys. At first, Tesa was able to escape most of it by sitting in some corner of the room (if one was available) and read. Then they took her stories away. Rebellion instinct increased, and Tesa was all the more bitter to the people and glad when it was time to return home.
The program also ran Tesa through some tests, verbal or written. Psychologists studied her responses and discovered that it wasn’t a condition that made her so anti-social: it was purely her choice of comfort. Tesa was a massively intelligent child and capable of going far beyond the standards currently held her to, and, while she didn’t interact with people, she could study and learn of them from afar. They called her everything short of a child “genius”.
It was a relief and excitement for Jona and Semma, and this information allowed them to reach the conclusion to enroll Tesa in a private school. As she began school again, the school ranked her, separated her into categories of her highest understanding to her lowest, and shuffled her into classes that would hopefully meet her level of intelligence.
Break time rolled around, and school was suspended for a couple of weeks. Jona, for once, was home for a couple of days during Tesa’s break. When he received call for a trip off-world, he decided he’d his eight-year-old daughter with him to show her a bit of the universe. A trip?! It excited Tesa to her core to be off Corellia. The space-ride could have used some entertainment, but Tesa kept her nose pressed to the pane, gazing at stars and becoming nauseas at the spin of hyperspace. It was during this trip that Tesa learned that different planets had their own unique smells and groupings of alien races. Corellia was so comfortable, and being away… she felt enormously exposed but the differences between her home world in this one captivated her.
She spent most of the time on planet split between the hotel room and the meeting room. It was either boredom with the holos or boredom with a spinning chair. However, her father bought her a number of stories and they preoccupied her when she wasn’t staring at ithorians, zeltrons (they were really strange), quarren, and other. Or this one man in the meeting room with a fearsome brow, a dark, clean goatee, and fascinating eyes.
Their hotel had a young twi’lek girl across the way. Tesa’s only concern with the girl was her skin color and head tails. When she requested to see if the girl could play, it shocked her father, but he too readily agreed to ask if the girl could play in the hallway. The girls were allowed to play and, with the doors of both rooms cracked open to hear them. Tesa played nice, asked a lot of questions, and tried to pretend that she liked to play with the twi’lek’s dolls. Soon enough, they were playing a game of tag. Other children from down the hall and around the corners joined, meshing a form of hide-and-seek with tag.
She ran, giggling, right into the man with the bold brow. He looked just as surprised to see her, but his hand grabbed the back of her shirt and hauled her into the turbolift he’d just come from. Tesa’s squeal was silenced midway by one hand while the other punched for the ground level. But he leaned close to her, whispering a hush that lulled her mind to obey, and she caved after some struggle. A quirky smile under satisfied eyes and a pat on the head, Tesa followed him quietly from the hotel, around the block, where he inserted a syringe in her arm that made her very sleepy…
First Encounter
Loss of Innocence
Eight - Thirteen
Loss of Innocence
Eight - Thirteen
She awoke to yelling and fighting while lying on a comfortable bed and a soft glow from a little light. A large bang against the closed door both startled her and piqued her curiosity. From the bed she rose, slunk to the closed door, and pressed the button for it to open…
The door was locked, so the girl pressed her ear to the door, hoping to determine what was going on. The eight year old couldn’t discern many things, but she could tell they were fighting over her, much like her step-brother had with her step-mother. It was the kidnapper and his apprentice, and the apprentice was very jealous that his master had brought another pet of sorts. The apprentice resented Tesa – her presence, her child-like attitude, everything. His master, by the name of Birloc, would only invest quite a bit of time in a child, a child who knew nothing, unlike himself.
When the door was opened the first time, Birloc introduced himself and his disgruntled Trandoshan apprentice, Ghanak. Tesa asked to go home. Birloc denied her of course, wishing to train this brilliant minded and Force talented young girl into an apprentice to be reckoned with. But Tesa simply wanted to go home, proclaimed as such, and the door shut on her again.
Countless times this man Birloc refused her, and she did not understand. He was nice to her, though, bringing her food and allowing her to bathe and be hygienic, just as Mommy and Daddy had taught her. Her room was cleaned, and she was allowed a couple of toys. While she stayed in the room, and the nice man with his grumpy reptile stayed on the other side of the door, she continued to wonder when she was going to be taken home.
Birloc grew tired of the girl’s questioning. And soon began to tell her she was not going home. She had no other home left to go to. Her parents were gone. There was only him; him and Ghanak. This was as much home as she was going to get. Unwary of what was happening, Birloc was rehabilitating Tesa’s young mind using the Force. He would dredge up memories of her home, only to tell her it no longer existed. She had no home. Her parents were gone. This was home.
The image of home slowly faded from the young girl’s mind. Birloc would entertain her with floating toys, often encouraging the stubborn eight-year-old to try it out herself. She didn’t want to, though. She always wanted Birloc to do it. Asking for home became a question seldom heard when it finally sunk in that she was not going home. There was no home. There were no parents waiting for her. The night she reached the conclusion, the conclusion Birloc had been influencing for a some months, she cried herself to sleep. And the next couple of days, Birloc’s tricks barely amused her, and he didn’t come on the third day. The lack of the Dark Jedi’s presence left a bored Tesa sitting around, who then began trying to figure out how to move the toys herself, to create some fun. To take her mind off of no home.
And the next day, she asked Birloc to teach her when he came in the room. This question made him smile.
Birloc started to pay a large amount of attention to the approaching nine year old girl, instructing her on the basics of the Force and lightsaber combat. Ghanak’s hatred for her became all the more real because she could see it. It was like her step-brother disliking her, only multiplied several times. She took away from the much older apprentices’ training, since Birloc now needed his attention in two different places. And Tesa had a lot of catching up to do.
Tesa learned how to push, pull, lift, and throw things from Birloc, who took things slow despite Tesa’s obvious excitement to know more about this unique power. He encouraged her excitement toward sense of power, made her pay attention to the thrill it gave her. While sometimes the Force training pushed her to her limits, she always wanted more from it. Occasionally, Birloc had to order the girl to take a rest and forbid her from practice lifting objects in her room.
There was something about lightsabers that she disliked, but Birloc promised it was important to her well being, so she ground through infuriating training sessions. Though many lightsaber sessions made her turn off the training saber and chuck it across the room in a fit. Never, in her life, had she had to deal with such a learning curve. The Force came as easy and math and science to her. She hated the way practicing lightsabers made her tired and sweaty, to the point that she couldn’t think about anything but how hot she was and how achy her lungs were.
Tesa was about ten and a half when Ghanak finally erupted in anger during a training session with Birloc. She’d been sitting on the sidelines, watching the hand-to-hand combat commence, and studying Ghanak’s growing tension. There was a comment from Birloc about paying attention; Tesa did better than he did and she was a ten year old child. While both Tesa and Ghanak took that as an insult, Tesa knew better than to rise against her mentor. Ghanak launched himself at his master, viciously assaulting the man with deadly bombardments of claws. Blood from Ghanak’s attack splattered the ground, horrifying Tesa, but she could feel Ghanak’s anger. It permeated the air, choking in, his hisses and yells and insults entwined with the passions of rage. The fight took a wrong turn, and Birloc ended up on the ground. In the moments that Birloc was scrambling back up, Ghanak had turned his anger on Tesa.
When Ghanak charged across the room for her, Tesa knew she was in trouble. She shriveled away, her fear tightening around her, unsure of what to do. She was a brat, he snarled, before striking her across the face. It knocked her to the side, and she shrieked when she felt the warm blood on her face, between her fingers. Birloc engaged his apprentice again, and Tesa crawled, then ran out of the training room, leaving a trail of blood drops and smears of red across the wall. Making her way to the bathroom, Tesa only freaked out more, seeing the gashes. She was in a bad spot, she knew, and what was it… what was that her… Daddy always said to her? Get help. Yes, get help.
Tesa scrambled madly to get out of the mansion-like house. She found herself in the middle of a yellow-gold grass plain (Naboo). Where did she go? What did she do? No where she could see had help anywhere close. She crashed around to the other side of the house, and still did not see anything but the waving of yellow-gold grass. She had her shirt pulled up and pressed against her bleeding face. She stood there, still bleeding, trying to think of some way she could get help. Tesa didn’t move or act until she heard Ghanak’s shout demanding to know where she was. In an instant, Tesa was running across the grassy fields, heading out to put as much distance between her and the bad Ghanak as possible. Anything to keep him from coming after her. When she tripped over a hidden rock, she decided it was best just to stay down, hugging the ground, and hope Ghanak didn’t come after her.
After so long, she heard and saw Birloc’s only ship lift away. Her eyes were groggy, and she had blood crusting on her hands, neck, and shirt. She didn’t want to go back to that house, though. She was scared Ghanak might still be there, or if he was in the ship, come back. Picking herself up, she crept further into the grasses, though her body was tired and her face was burning and she knew that her face was gory. When the tears began to fall, they stung the wounds, and she collapsed again, balling up, shirt pressed to her face, scared beyond anything and hopelessly alone.
She was discovered by a couple of hunters bringing in the day’s game, and they were immediately frightened for her because of her wound and questioned why she was all by herself. While they bandaged her face, Tesa’s only thoughts were only on how Birloc had explained that she couldn’t tell anyone who they were or what they did. So, Tesa told a story. She told the hunters about a killer coming in and killing her daddy and using that to explain the deep cuts on her face. It didn’t seem like they bought the story, but one chalked it up to the child being under severe pain and stress. They would learn the real story later. One hunter took Tesa home with him to be cared for by his wife, who treated Tesa and managed to wrestle out where Tesa had been living. After treating the wound well enough, the wife demanded she be taken to a care facility in town because Tesa needed stitching.
The hunter paid for Tesa’s stitching. He was firmly in the belief that it was more likely her father had beaten her than some killer. The hunter sent for the local authorities, who found a dead Birloc. It was further assumed that Birloc was Tesa’s father, since she wasn’t confirming or denying it. Though Birloc being dead meant she had no where to go. No home to go back to. And the nurses comforted the ten year old when she cried through the following nights.
Tesa was shuffled from care facility to an orphanage, where Tesa proved to be an isolated figure just as she had been in school. She was often reprimanded for her rude and nasty behavior toward other children. But the lectures ceased when the other children began to avoid her more and more. They would whisper about her, make fun of her behind her back, but Tesa rarely heard them. The caretakers also discovered that Tesa was smart, she loved to read, and had a tendency to get bored. When she was bored, she practiced her telekinetic Force talents without knowledge of the consequences. Soon the adults were discussing on whether or not to notify the Jedi, until someone remembered she was too old. But one of them had a friend who was once a Jedi and it was decided this former Jedi should come and look over Tesa.
The Jedi lady’s name was Medina, a graying, flame-haired and blue-eyed twig of a woman who also lived out of town, on the edge of the grasses. And she would come in and watch Tesa interact with other children and exercise her abilities. Tesa didn’t know what to make of her when Medina came to talk with her. She didn’t want to talk to the lady. She wasn’t interested in any of the conversations Medina tried starting with her. Until Medina demonstrated she shared the same power as Tesa. Once it became clear Medina knew more about the Force, Tesa asked Medina if she planned on teaching her. Tesa wanted to know more about it. To do more with it. She had a wild passion for the Force, one the Gray Jedi knew she’d have to help the girl control. Medina first fostered, and eventually adopted, Tesa.
At first, Tesa had little love for the redhead except for her knowledge. It was apparent to Medina, but she chose to ignore it for the most part, taking what love she could get. Tesa would remember her life with Medina as strictly a learning experience. It was also the kind of learning Tesa came to hate. It was controlling emotions so they didn’t run haywire, when Birloc had always encouraged her emotions. Tesa found it frustrating and often argued with the Gray Jedi over it, but then lost. So her struggle with emotions began.
Medina also taught Tesa herbs, outside the Force and emotional restraint. Which ones were edible, which could be smashed into poultices (which Medina would sell to the locals), which ones made poisons for rodents and other pests. It became another fascination of Tesa’s, who spent time looking with herbal books as well as strengthening herself in the Force with Medina’s intervention and guidance, of course.
With Medina’s help, Tesa began to take an approach to the healing arts within the Force. The woman was warm and loving, which often clashed with Tesa’s harsher demeanor. It was a horrible time trying to be the healer Medina wanted her to be, because Tesa wasn’t a warm, comforting, assuring person. At first, Tesa rejected healing, because she couldn’t access the ability in the way Medina wanted her too. Time wore on, and Medina’s patience and encouragement allowed Tesa to keep coming back to the practice. While by no means did she ever become skilled, Tesa did learn the basics with Medina.
Then Medina’s sight began to fail her, it failed her rapidly. By now Tesa was thirteen. The Gray Jedi became a bit more dependent on her young student, who had entered a phase of being fiercely stubborn to think she could be independent. The biggest irritation in Tesa’s became the constant asking, “what does this label say?”. Yet Tesa helped the woman. In the last near three years, a bond had been forged, even though Medina was still too nice in Tesa’s eyes. Tesa had accepted Medina. She had grown open to Medina’s advice and way of thinking. So without much prodding, Tesa took over the duties of sight on her adopted parent’s behalf.
It was an accident the day Medina died. The woman had caught something from a patient, and Tesa was determined to show she could care for Medina by her own means and knowledge. Unfortunately, one night, bleary eyed and woken by Medina throwing up, Tesa only glanced at the bottle she believed would calm her mentor’s stomach. The bottle that Tesa had selected, reading the name wrong, actually contained a mixture to cure drying skin. It was toxic if consumed. Medina was dead by the next morning.
Tesa was bewildered at her mentor’s death until she found the bottle. Her first kill, even by accident, and it jarred Tesa into a state of shock for several hours. She sat in a corner, staring at Medina, willing her to wake up from across the room. When the grief began to sink in, so did Tesa’s awareness of how much Medina’s body unnerved her. She finally found the will to act on Medina’s “in case something happens” instructions. After some searching, through memory and contacts, Tesa was able to get a hold of one of Medina’s old friends, Sawnders Hiljek, who promised to come find her. Tesa was too afraid to call the town authorities to collect Medina’s body. What if they believed she had tried to kill Medina on purpose? Knowing that decaying bodies smelled, Tesa took herself outside and made a camp. For roughly a day, she sat by herself, crying over Medina, flipping through herb manuals, and choking on her mistake that had killed Medina.
When Sawnders finally arrived and went into the home, Tesa was so filled with dread and horror of the killing that when the firrereo man approached her, she flung herself at him (he was surprisingly skinny beneath his swaddling loose clothing) and began to weep and fumbled with her words to explain. Sawnders said nothing, only smoothed her hair and moved her belongings onto his ship. He contacted someone to pick up the body and explained the “suicidal” death with Tesa standing by his side. Then, with nothing more to do on Naboo, Sawnders ushered Tesa onto his ship and, thus, cloaked her under his authority.
Tough Love
The Pieces Fall Into Place
Thirteen - Eighteen
The Pieces Fall Into Place
Thirteen - Eighteen
Sawnders Hiljek was a very private man and preferred darker methods that Medina would never approve. A Jedi at some point, Sawnders, like Medina, decided to take on leading his own life. While labeled as a Gray Jedi, the man has a darker side to him.
He had an aura of chilly calmness and his face was always solemn and expressionless whenever Sawnders was himself. He left Tesa alone in her new room for a long time. Tesa didn’t know how long she was stuck in there, with a shattered section of her, trying to cope that she’d killed someone. When Sawnders finally came back to her, he didn’t say anything. He took her two bags of belongings and dumped the contents on her bed. She started to protest, but there was authority in the way he held up his hand. He sorted through her things, picking out the necessities and dropping them back into her bag. But anything personal – baubles, jewelry, even her private datapad – he took and placed in the other bag. He paused over the herb book, flipped through it, glanced at her, and then dropped it in the necessities bag. Then he took all her personal possessions and left a stunned, then confused, and then angry Tesa.
He left her door unlocked though. She finally worked up her courage to steal out of her room and explore the ship… and find her bag of personal possessions. Tesa found it with Sawnders in his, what appeared to be, personal meditation chamber. On a shelf. Out of her reach. He sat on the floor, so she glared at the back of his head, and then left.
She was never successful in retrieving her possessions. She once tried when he was in another part of the ship. He stopped her on the way out of his room. Another time she managed to hide it in her room when he was off ship. Upon return, he took it back when he’d sent her planet side to practice collecting her herbs. It was absolutely frustrating.
She even tried negotiating with him. If she did something for him, would he give her back an object from the bag? He’d simply send her back to her room and wait until the next day to make attempts to teach her something new. It became obvious he was going to continuously hold her objects hostage, but she wanted her things, even weeks after being on his ship. But Sawnders exercised a patience that was beyond Tesa’s understanding.
Finally getting fed up with it, she demanded to know what he wanted from her. He replied he wanted her attention. Her short-tempered shouts stating he had it were met with an expressionless face. Her anger welled up and she lost herself in a fit, throwing things around and screaming at him. Sawnders detained her and, for punishment, cracked his hand across the thirteen year old’s bottom. It was utter humiliation and it stopped her dead. Sawnders growled at her lack of discipline, dragged her back to her room, and locked her in there for nearly a day.
The next day he offered a proposition: either she respect him or he would dump her on the next planet (and, no, not with her things). She sulked and felt trapped. Tesa hated Sawnders but if he dropped her on a planet, what would she do? Begrudged, she muttered she’d respect him. And he left for another day with a stiff nod.
The next day he called her to the cockpit, where he began to map out what was what for a purpose that Tesa did not immediately understand. She was thirteen. What purpose was there to learn about the ship? She wished she had paid more attention when Sawnders decided to test her knowledge one day. He smacked her upside the head for each wrong answer.
Sawnders also had Tesa attend him off ship. Over the years he taught her how to haggle, where to find better supplies, and good prices from bad prices. However, he taught this through demonstration with only a few words of advice and a handful of pointers (like a parent bringing their child to the store with them). One of his only pieces of advice was “they’re going to cheat you, every single one of them, so try to beat them to the cheating.” Tesa would make hundreds of these errands, sometimes with Sawnders, and sometimes without. The older she became, the less he accompanied her on supply runs (just as a parent expects the child to learn how to shop by being taken to the store so many times).
Those weren’t the interesting things. Sometimes he’d wake her up with a different face. It scared the hell out of her the first time. Sawnders knew how to change his complexion (eyes, skin tone, hair) using make up and other tools. He had so many jars and tools stacked and in drawers, Tesa couldn’t understand where he knew to find what. He had hundreds of clothing pieces, and he could become anything he wanted to be, sometimes even another humanoid species (physically appearing, that is). Tesa had a strange fascination with his clothes, which ranged from revealing and skintight to fancy dress clothes, casual to business. They could be gaudy, they could be plain. How he could change appearance from the natural Sawnders to someone she wouldn’t recognized fascinated her.
And when he began to teach her how to alter her own appearance, she lost herself among the different faces she could have. She could be almost any bipedal humanoid. And she could be anything within that form: a mercenary, a businesswoman, a laborer, a smuggler, a security officer, a special companion. But Sawnders didn’t just show her how to wear the faces, but how to be the faces. A businesswoman must speak clearly and comprehensively while a laborer might curse and complain. Tesa struggled with accents, so she rarely tries to speak with an accent, preferring her own voice.
There was one thing she didn’t pick up quickly: lying. Before, she had been taught that lying had negative consequences. So when Sawnders demanded she start lying to him, Tesa was hesitant. Of course, she had lied before, as everyone does, but her mentor wanted her to deliberately lie. Except he didn’t want her to be so obvious, she soon found out. When he told her to lie, she did, except her commented on how awful she was.
He began to teach her how to lie. From background stories, to what she likes to do in her spare time, and minor trivial things. He went so far as to teach her how to stand when she was lying, what to avoid, and how to express herself. He helped her practice in large social settings. He sent her to teen clubs and dances. He accompanied her in pristine business settings and in dirty criminal realms, testing her abilities, poking at her mistakes, and uprooting her flaws.
At first it was as infuriating, because of such a high learning curve. Anything Tesa could not get the first time, she hated. The learning curve of math and language did not compare to the tough learning curve lying required. She got into the spirit of it eventually, committing herself to practice to art with her master. They practiced storytelling together, often inquiring each other about the ship randomly, and then actual practice in the field.
Of course, this was all in addition to Force training and lightsaber handiwork. More often than not, Sawnders would take her planetside to lecture and exercise her in controlling the Force, continuing more on track with Birloc’s teachings. Sawnders saw that he controlled the Force, rather than it flowed through him. He also encouraged emotion in Tesa, but also that she had to overcome them at the same time. He would tolerate her having fear if she did not run away from a fight.
Sawnder’s greatest strengths were in telekinesis and telepathy, which he used on his numerous planet side trips for jobs and meetings. They would often exercise her mental strengths by testing her limits and resistance to attack and counter attack. One thing that Sawnders was gifted in was the ability to view memory and manipulate it. He taught Tesa how to invade the mind and receive flashes of a person’s memory. He told her it was a key way of getting the better deal in any situation, and sometimes it’s the best way out of a problem. He also told her that, if she could find the way, she could blank out small, short term memories. He guided her through that process as well, but she only ever practice on other people. He would sometimes bring her people to “interrogate” on the ship or take her someplace where they would corner someone for practice.
For the most part, Sawnders would let Tesa practice her telepathy on him. It was through this kind of practice that she and Sawnders grew so close. As she grew better and better at entering his mind, she was able to see some of his memories. He would feed her the memories at first, but the older she became, the more freedom he allowed her. Unfortunately, what came with memory was the emotion – she felt the pain of his lover’s death as she exploded into a fireball on the racing track, the adrenaline through his body as he ran away from some frightful beast, and the comfort he once found in his father’s arms.
They both worked on enhancements to the body – learning how to manipulate bodily functions to benefit a situation. This was in speed, strength, and sense heightening (eyes, ears, smell, touch, taste). These warranted beneficial though exhausting techniques when Sawnders taught her Shien and Djem So, believing she could be strong enough to handle the technique. Both of them practiced enhancing the body to help them through a lightsaber duel in different ways until their energy was depleted.
He did warn her, at one point, that she was more potent in the Force than he was. One day she might exceed his abilities to teach her, depending on the length of time she remained by his side. He would lead her through meditation exercises, which she hated because she was an impatient teenager. Yet, through these aided meditations, she could examine her own abilities in the Force, which she appreciated. They discovered three significant things: Tesa’s near incapability to sense in the Force unless touching the person, her ability to manipulate emotions to her use, and her strange aptitude toward healing.
Tesa’s ability to sense in the Force is nearly non-existent, unless there is a large enough burst in the Force. In order to make up for it, Tesa learned how to subtly touch someone in order to determine their presence within the Force. Once she feels a person’s presence in the Force, she can sense them for a little while. Each person feels a little bit different, lending to their distinguishable presence. Those she is in close proximity for a long time (as in years) become very easy for her to find in the Force.
Tesa’s sensitivity to emotion, especially in others, has helped her adapt a way of using the Force. She sustains her powers on emotion; the longer and more the emotion lasts, the more she can leech and the longer she can hold onto the Force. Emotions make Tesa feel powerful, since she fuses the Force with emotions and controls it that way. It has helped her control her own emotions in an exotic way, and the control helps with her acts and different persons. She is not perfect, however, and she grows frustrated when some emotions rise and she feels she cannot control them.
Because of her already learned abilities, she pursued knowledge in healing. She used Medina’s teachings but twisted them to her new perspective of the Force she shared with Sawnders. Her way of healing it not a coaxing process, or an invitation to let the skin heal. Tesa demands the healing process and forces it to do what she wants. While it still takes some time, and her target will heal, it is none too gentle. Sawnders was encouraging of this healing process: it would get the job done. Tesa paired her healing abilities with her knowledge of herbs, poultices, and poisons. She knew how to cure many aches and pains, and how to treat injuries unless the severity demanded the attention of a hospital.
Around seventeen, Tesa and Sawnders were sharing the cockpit, staring at the orange-ish planet they were orbiting. She folded her hands in front of her, swiveled to her mentor, and asked him a question that had been bugging her: Why? Why all this practice with appearance altering, creating stories, and learning new identities? He tilted his head at her, his expression changing in that vague way Tesa had come to notice, and answered, “Why, you’re my apprentice, Tesa. Is there a reason I shouldn’t teach you?”
Frustrating man. He had a reason.
“My way of doing things is an art, Tesa. I teach you now. I give you access to my contacts. My resources. You take them and you use them as you see fit. Enhance my art. And when you are older, teach what will become your art to a young soul. That way you never die. As long as your art lives, pieces of you live. It is the only way to become immortal. Leave an impact, like a crater on an inhabited planet, only if you can. If not, leave a living fire within someone else. Perhaps they will make the crater in your stead, and you can watch from the afterlife and say ‘I helped do that’.”
It was a little too passive for Tesa, but she nodded anyway. Yet Sawnders knew that she did not believe in his philosophy by one look at her.
“It suits me, even if it does not suit you. You have talent, and a smart mind to couple and bolster that talent. You’re clever. I believe you’ll make the crater I desired to make decades ago. Speaking of brilliance, I believe you’ve been neglecting your studies today. I didn’t buy your language and chemistry texts so they collect space dust…”
She was home schooled during all the years she was with Sawnders. Sort of. Tesa had committed herself more to self-schooling in the years prior and will teach herself throughout her future. After Medina, she had waved Sawnders off, sneering about how she could do it herself. Once she was older, she actually waved him away with saying it insulted her intelligence for him to attempt to help her. There wasn’t a subject she couldn’t grasp the basics of. Other languages she hated, but she learned enough of some of the more popular languages of the galaxy. Thanks to Sawnders, she was able to speak (to some acceptable degree) from informal to formal, from lower class slang to upper class speech. By the time she was eighteen, Tesa was as educated as a twenty-year old person who never stopped schooling.
Eighteen was also the year than Sawnders grew thinner and paler, and perhaps a little moodier than he had ever been. Tesa, having been with Sawnders for years, noticed these changes whereas Sawnders monthly contacts did not. He spent more time in meditation, more time sleeping, and more time in his room in general. Tesa went against his wishes one time and ignored the man as she examined his health. She gave him a medicine for symptoms of a slight cold, only to find out later that he never followed up in taking it. She could not get him to drink or swallow or chew anything to relieve any symptoms that seemed to crop up. Tesa spent her evenings with her head on her potion creating desk poking through ingredients, thumbing through her books, and tipping over full and empty vials alike as she raked her brain for what was wrong with Sawnders. She opened new studies, talked with experts, bought newer books and studies and mixed different things. Yet Sawnders refused it all.
He finally became bedridden. Tesa took over all the routes to see how contacts were doing and took on minor jobs by herself to either track investments on Sawnders’ behalf or to bring in some extra money. It was surprising the day Sawnders called her into his room and handed her several datapads, telling her to keep his teachings alive. Within five minutes, he died. Sawnders, a man who was thin by his nature, had shrunk to only his bones. Tesa sat by his bed, numb at his death but curious of his datapads.
The datapads were all of his records. Where to buy certain supplies, what the next move was on which companies, which businesses were doing great and which were not. Another kept track of who he was at which companies and business meetings, what he looked like for each visit, and who he had introduced Tesa as at which places. However, her descriptions were left blank for her to fill in herself. Banking accounts, upcoming meetings, even a will, enclosing his wish for his ashes to be launched into space.
She allowed her tears after reading over everything. Of anyone she had known, Tesa had loved Sawnders much like a daughter loves a father. The ship was empty, and quiet, just like most days. When she looked up at the deceased Sawnders, and it was the past all over again.
She was completely alone once more.
The Truth About Solitude
Habitual Life
Eighteen and Nineteen
Habitual Life
Eighteen and Nineteen
Tesa began her loneliness angry. After a week, she was done grieving for Sawnders. Instead she threw an enormous fit based on irrationality. Her mood had deteriorated into anger for his death, for leaving her behind, at herself for not being able to cure him, and for simply being alone with nothing better to do. The galley was the starting points with broken utensils, dinnerware, and utilities. Food was splattered across the walls and crushed beneath her furious heels. Her whirlwind temper usurped the tidiness of her room, which became a toxic wasteland when she broke vials of poisons and cures on top of shattered decorations, split pillows, torn clothing, wasted make-up, and damaged wigs.
She ended up in the middle of the cargo area of the ship, sobbing her heart onto the floor of cold metal. Tesa would admit it. She missed Sawnders. She had loved Sawnders. How was she going to live with a piece of her life missing? She believed she was lost. Hopeless. She wasn’t going to know what she was doing wrong. She had to make the final decision without his council and consent. It was petrifying to think how she might screw up. She had no safety net to fall upon. No back up. She was alone and she hated it.
The motions of her life for the months following Sawnders’ death with almost mechanic. She carried out Sawnder’s work, attending meetings in business, both legitimate and illegal. Most were small, but Sawnders did get himself involved in several large businesses. The man was wealthy, and Tesa, for a while, did try to continue adding to that wealth. Yet it brought nothing to her. It was no comfort. Each new meeting she had to explain the death of her mentor. She lost her position in some businesses, mostly those who had never seen her face. She kept few others solely based on either her role or her connection to Sawnders. As a challenge, she began manipulating businesses of the same planet to begin working together, to allow her an easier time when arriving to meetings. The trick wasn’t getting the two to work together, it was meshing the appearances. Sometimes she went so far as firing (if she had the authority) or eliminating (usually killing them) the current ringleaders in the business in order to create a new identity.
She did it to keep her knowledge and skills in practice. It took her mind off things for a few months, and then no more. After maybe four months, Tesa’s mind was already wandering back to how lonely she was. The ship felt naked, without another presence around. Bare and dry. There was no one to play mind games with.
So, she began going out. Tesa went to bars, and tormented men into cat and mouse games or making them drink themselves stupid to impress her (by merely act of course). She antagonized women into fights over the same man. Tesa helped others cheat in gambling games, which usually resulted in two parties making threats, fighting, or maybe even a death. She got into a few scuffs here and there, when she was found out or someone didn’t buy her game. On the more criminal planets she acted as double agents in two gangs. Set them up against each other and let the bloodshed begin. Tesa humiliated boasting warriors by presenting them in such situations. The ability to control soon became a terrible habit. This went beyond the safeties of watching companies debate and snark at each other. To practice direct authority and control over people… was addicting to Tesa. The hatreds she could stir up. The fear that the weaker ones felt. This was better than intimidation in the business meetings: it was rawer, and Tesa loved it.
By submerging herself into the anger, pain, and fear of these situations, Tesa made herself feel better. Each time was a new person. A new group. A new situation. And each time made her feel powerful. She practiced her Force powers in the presence of these emotions whenever she could, which usually boiled down into body enhancement practice and telepathy. The more she dwelled with the emotions, however, the more they began to affect her. They nipped at her edges of control, taunting her to let go, but her newfound love of control was keeping her back.
This tug of war between emotion and control began to make her feel insane, and she desired for the stability of ultimate control. She loved the emotions and control both too much. For a time, she stopped her planet-side outings and denied cravings to cause discord among people. She stopped herself, fearing a loss of control in her situations and her powers. At first, Tesa attempted researching about it, trying to come up with a solution of her own design. She would go through exercises to feel the emotion and then try so hard to find the stability to control it. Frustration ensued, as the emotions seemed to dance around grasping fingers, slipping away, and begging her to lose control. And then… she couldn’t be alone.
Being alone was terrible. There were no voices. No heartbeats. No breathing. Just quiet. And it was mind-numbing. The quiet was itchy. The quiet was perverse. In the quiet, she had too much time to think. She had too much time to grieve. She needed the presence of another someone. To be around the people. And she couldn’t control herself. She needed the influence of somebody. She needed the knowledge on control, how to gain control, how to stay in control.
She needed a new master.
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((Nineteen is when Tesa began her story on the boards. So, here is the link that links to all threads:
Tesa’s Storyline
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