Temple Training Terrible (and other T-words) (lmr)

[Dean]

It was yet another hot day on Korriban, the weather never seemed to change. Ara didn’t exactly know that for sure since she had only been here for a few months but judging from all the sand around her she guessed that the climate was pretty dry. The day had seemed to melt into one big lapse of time as the only thing she did was sit around and wait for something to happen. Up till now the war had been pretty boring on her.

She had never before lived in a war but she had always imagined it to be a matter of urgency where you would see people running from one place to another the whole time in anticipation of victory conquest and general mayhem. This war however was rather disappointing in that regard. She didn’t care for the people that had fallen already and just waited for the moment where she could shine. She was still an initiate in the ranks of the Sith and she wasn’t used to people being in much higher ranks than she was.

The only thing she had really been able to do all this time was train. Not even new techniques, just keeping up with her old skills was what she did all day. She didn’t know if she was unlucky or people actually did die in this war, but the training room she frequented was empty every time. She missed the action she had gotten while she was still a Jedi, funny enough she had done more killing there than she had while being a Sith.

She got up from the ledge she had been sitting on and left the view of the valley behind her. That big empty valley with fallen grace. She turned around and walked inside the temple where the air got less dry and the climate was better. Letting out a sigh of relief she walked to the training room that she had begun to see as her domain. She could feel the weight of her lightsaber on her hip and was anxious to start her training routine.

She entered the training room and with a mere thought the lightsaber floated towards her hand. She could see some light cracks that she had made in the floor when she was practicing her force repulse a few days ago. More proof that no one ever was in this room. She didn’t bother to report that little damage. She would use it until some poor chum actually would have to work on it. With another thought she activated the droid that was used to practice lightsaber battling with. The droid was laced with cortosis and had a sign around his neck that said ‘’Don’t use the force on me’’ She understood the sentiment. It couldn’t have been cheap and it was useful towards a purpose that made it worth existing.

The droid came on to her and she fell into the soresu stance. Deflecting its blade again and again until it left an opening and she could land a hit on the droid. She switched to her favorite style and started to go into the offence using the powerfull strikes of djem so to push the droid backwards. She switched this back and forth a few times until sweat was running down her face and she was satisfied by the results. She shut off her lightsaber and started doing pushups without using the force to make it harder.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Bare red feet carried a woman along a long corridor inside the Sith Temple, and that was usually indicator enough as to who the woman was. Naraka was generally the only one odd enough to go barefoot on Korriban, but she'd never worn shoes for more than ten minutes in four decades, and she wasn't about to start yet. Perhaps if she wound up on Hoth or Tatooine.

She'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

The Togruta Sith Master felt the desire to do something today. She was a little restless, and felt confined in the Temple. That sense of confinement hadn't helped when she went out into the dry heat of the dead world, and she'd resisted the urge to go to Dreshdae so far. It wasn't as if she drank, and her tastes in food were simple enough that going to a cantina for food wasn't too appealing.

Naraka continued her prowl through the long halls of the Temple, finally deciding to head in to an isolated training room in the hopes of finding someone to toy with in some way.

As she entered, the Togruta woman frowned a little. It was a woman rather than a man, which made sexual manipulation less fun. Naraka herself was only interested in men, though her mind was always open to experimentation. Regardless, women were less fun in her estimation.

The woman was doing push-ups on the floor, and Naraka leaned up against the wall, her wide third headtail pinned between the stone and the small of her back. She didn't say anything just yet though, instead folding her arms over her ample breasts and smiling a little.

Yes, she'd let the woman exercising start the conversation.

[Dean]

At around eighty pushups she started to need to force and as she called on it she could feel someone walking towards the training room. It wasn’t before long that the distinct sound of a barefooted humanoid came to her ears. It was the same sound that one hears after taking a shower, walking towards the place where you would put on socks. While she reached a hundred she felt the woman entering the room and looked to the side.

It was a female Tortuga, older than she was although it was difficult to tell. Other species were hard to read. She had heard about the Tortuga and liked them as a race, their bodies gave them advantage while fighting even without the force that was certainly a plus. Ara also remarked that this one was beautiful. If she had only liked women apart from the times that they were useful…

When she reached the hundred fifty mark she got up and looked her company in the eye. Smiling slightly. She was sweaty so she had nothing even close to appealing going for her at the moment. Calling on the force to make her body relaxed she felt her heart slow down to the usual pace and her breath slowed with it.

’’I was just thinking about making friends, and here you are!’’

It lead her to wonder about the nature of the force, had she used it to somehow lure this woman toward her? Unknowingly maybe. Or had it been a result of the force bringing them together like something that was destined to be. She dismissed that idea right away, she was the master of her own destiny and used to force to do what she wanted, not the other way around. It was the way of the darkside after all.

Lately she had enough time to think about things like that and it was hard to switch from the jedi mindset she had lived by for over thirty years to the sith mindset. Jedi believed in the force being their ally. A true sith however viewed it as a tool, that’s why she had chosen the winning side.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"Friends?" Naraka said drily. "My, we move fast today, don't we?"

She was, as she frequently was, greatly amused by the speed with which this woman proposed friendship. Either she was new to the Sith and had some kind of idealism, or else she wanted something.

Both were valid options, as some of the fallen Jedi Naraka had seen since coming to Korriban had these tendencies to want to get along. And of course she wasn't exactly unknown in the Temple, and it was possible a newer Initiate wanted some kind of mentor who provided instruction in telekinesis, or Jar'kai.

Frankly, it didn't bother her either way. She could find ways to use the former, and she could do much the same with the latter. Besides, friends usually meant a degree of devotion or at least compliments, and Naraka thrived off of those.

"But," She said smoothly, "Perhaps."

All she was in a position to provide right now was a maybe. It was possible she'd simply hate the woman the more she talked to her, or it was possible that there were other reasons why they wouldn't make good friends. Despite that though, she was open to it.

The Togruta woman continued to lean against the wall as she waited for some better kind of response, perhaps a proper greeting or some flattery. Anything would do really.

[Dean]

Ara was amused by the dry tone of the womans reply. She needed allies, yes this much was very true, but she wouldn’t just trust in the good nature of any Sith. If she herself couldn’t even trust another being how could she expect to be trusted by anyone else. This was ofcourse a great strength in the Sith way but could also and had let to the downfall of it. Jedi were taught that the greatest weakness of the sith was infighting and that was a truth undeniable.

She spread her arms to indicate the training room and shrugged a little to project little confidence. She decided that this woman could maybe prove a useful ally going only by the fact that she was younger than the alien.

’’If you would like you could maybe teach me a few things?’’

She hated her voice as she said it, it was nothing like the cool demeaning tone she had grown to love over the last few months. That other humanoid alien that she had encountered had tried to learn her a lesson in humility, she had not picked up on it. She was as a matter of fact still very mad at him for making her do some boring lightsaber classes. She could feel her heart go a little bit faster and the force trembling up inside her when she thought about it. Her time would come, oh yes it would. But first, Allies.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Naraka chuckled.

If she liked.

Training wasn't something she did for charity reasons, and she didn't do it for random initiates. When she did provide instruction, it was usually to groups in the form of a class now and then. Her own time for one on one instruction was limited.

Chiefly because she limited it. Indeed, Naraka wasn't the woman to spend every waking hour at work. She had her own meditation to attend to, as well as sleep and sex. Then there was food, and a long shower. Yes, she was very busy. With important things.

"You could wait until I'm instructing a class, or else you could make it worth my while."

The Togruta woman swung her legs off of the floor and remained hovering in the air, folding them up to sit cross-legged, lifting herself telekinetically a few feet above the ground. She continued to watch the woman, and when she spoke, her voice was considerably less seductive than usual, possessing more of an idle curiosity than anything else.

"Why should I teach you anything? After all, I don't even know you."

[Dean]

She got shot down, of course she got shot down. She should have figured by now that everyone here was at least as seasoned as she was and that the goodness of someone’s heart wasn’t a reason for training around here. She didn’t want to go to public classes though. She loathed showing her skills in a class. Showing everything you had to everyone seemed like a stupid thing to do. It would be even more useless if you held back while training cause you wouldn’t improve. Her time was better spent pondering the questions of the universe.

After the woman told her to attend a class or make it worth her while she rose in the air, using the force and sat down. Ara raised an eyebrow, that was a pretty impressive feat, although she could see little practical use for it, unless ofcourse if you were out of chairs. But to each their own, she could make cracks in buildings and solid rock, but that was of very little practical use in a one on one confrontation with a force user too.

She thought about what she could bring to this woman, there were a few answers but she decided to put some of her cards on the table. Maybe it would prove useful and maybe it wouldn’t. She was bad in the actual long term planning, she was only really apt in the grand ideas that she actually needed people for.

’’ To be perfectly honest, we all need allies. On one hand we need those stronger than us to teach us things and on the other we need people to do the things we need done. And I could rock your world in that last regard.’’

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Naraka laughed.

It was a high and mirthful sound, not particularly cruel or mocking, but typical honest laughter. That was for the very simple reason that this human woman saying she'd 'rock her world' was very amusing.

"Rock my world?" She repeated in an amused tone.

What did this woman know of Naraka's world to begin with? They'd never even met before, and she lacked the proper frame of reference. Very few people got to know her in fact, certainly very few could be called friends.

In fact, Dervin was the only one she could call a friend, and he was still more of a colleague despite the fact she'd known him for decades. That was just proof she didn't generally let people close.

But, she could pursue this a little.

"So what exactly are you going to do for me, Miss...?" Naraka prompted for a name, not because she particularly cared about names, but because it was probably useful to remember this particular one.

She rested her hands on her bare knees, and closed her eyes as she awaited what she hoped would be a delicious little proposal.

[Dean]

Ara had to hold back a sigh, no one ever reacted the way you thought they were going to react, well beings attuned to the force that was. The inferior ones pretty much always left you bored. But surely power came with wisdom. It was all too clear that this was not an easy task at hand. She would have to play this the right way, straightforward but never giving away to much.

The woman had at least sounded honest in her amusement, that was something. Never take away the value of a good laugh. She could feel herself get a little uneasy though, she was quite used to getting her way and when that didn’t happen she was uncomfortable. She pushed the feeling away and decided on a reply while the woman was repeating her question and angling for her name.

’’ You can call me Ara for now. I haven’t decided what I want to be called in the future yet.’’

Her lips formed a smile to convey something that might look like goodwill. She was aware though that in this temple goodwill was a dead entity just lurking around and preying on the weak. She reached out with her arm and from her robe sprang the bottle of water she had taken with her. She had planned on training longer, but talking in this dry air made drinking all that more important.

’’As for what I could do for you; pretty much anything. I think that between two force users there is little that cannot be done. Especially when you use it and try to capture those rare moments where you can use the force to surf towards greatness. You might argue that the dark side doesn’t work in teams and that is true, but sailing alone without an anchor seems to be a foolish effort’’

This was actually a big part of the things she had thought about in her time alone.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ara. Nice name, if it was indeed an actual name. Naraka had the distinct idea however that many of the Sith she'd met lately weren't giving out their actual names. She might have minded had she used her own actual name, but she hadn't even mentioned it in a year or two.

Dervin still called her Kalima, but he was different. Probably the closest to family that she still had.

The Togruta woman had to admit it was tempting to go to Shili again and hunt down her old village, seeking out whatever was left of her family after how many decades? Four? It was possibly her parents were dead by now. To be honest, she couldn't really remember their names. Her mother had been Raana?

Her little nostalgia trip would wait until later, when she was alone.

For now, she had the opportunity to have a minion of sorts. It might be amusing to have a follower. The idea of treating her as an equal was laughable, but for this was a pleasant novelty.

Yes, the Togruta woman was sure this could be an interesting experience.

"Very well. I could use an assistant. To begin with, I want you to find me a bottle of wine. Sweet I think. Oh don't worry, you'll be rewarded with my personal attention, and that's quite valuable."

Her smile said something else, but her eyes remained passively closed.

[Dean]

Ara was relieved, she had accepted tos ome kind of working together although she couldn’t fantom how much stronger this woman thought she was or if it was visa versa. She just needed and ally to share her ideas with and train with. Possibly even trust in the future, she couldn’t say. Also her scheme of projecting that little confidence couldn’t be held up that long if they were to train together. She was after all pretty much a master herself in skill, just not by name.

The woman requested wine and in turn she would get some alone time with her. Ara started thinking where she could get wine, her eyes shifting a tad as she thought about it. Did she have wine in her room, no. Ship? maybe, she had stripped it of almost all things to eat and drink in the last few months, she didn’t like eating with the others, the chance of getting stabbed in the back outweighed the teambuilding possibilities. It was worth a try.

She gestured with her head. ’’Follow me, I think I have some in my stolen ship, maybe…Never really cared for alcohol myself, it is after all, only usefull when someone you need to be drunk is drinking it.’’

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

If Naraka had eyebrows, she might have raised them. Hadn't she just said to find her one? She wasn't aware that meant 'come along and wait while I look.'

The Togruta woman sighed though, lowering her legs onto the floor and rising to her full, and rather impressive, height. She opened her chocolate brown eyes and looked at the woman.

Blonde hair, about three inches shorter, blue eyes. Probably a few years younger, though it was hard to tell with humans. She didn't seem like a fool, and Naraka didn't sense any ill will rippling off of her. It didn't seem as if her ship plan was some kind of trap.

It was worth a shot.

"All right," The Togruta said calmly, crossing over to the door and passing through it into the hall.

Naraka stretched her body as she waited for the human woman to regain the lead and take her to wherever the ship was kept. She was in no rush, but it was probably wise not to delay too long.

"Lead on," She said softly with a thin smile.

[Dean]

Ara walked out of the training room and walked down the hall, the woman had told her to lead and so she did. This would become very interesting very soon. The Tortuga was already giving her orders like she was actually her superior. Ara was fine with that for now and she would indulge in that until she found out what use they might have for each other. The floating that the woman had displayed was nothing short of impressive but Ara had not yet displayed anything, the only thing she had basically done was acting not confident.

While walking through the hall with less than her usual arrogance and contempt made her feel weak, she hated the feeling and she could just see others picking up on it. She noticed a twi lek male looking at her mockingly. Normally she would be about to kill him for that but that didn’t serve her purpose in this instant so she refraining from doing that. For the first time in months she tried to project something that came close to serenity. It wasn’t hard to block out feelings but it had grown to be unaccustomed.

She took the shortest route to the place where her ship stood. She had stolen it months ago from the jedi and was happy about it. It meant that she had her own means of transportation and thus freedom of some sort. She knew that she wouldn’t leave any time soon but it was good to know that she could leave when she wanted.

It was a little ship with enough room to comfortably pilot, sleep and sit with two people. She walked up to it and punched in her security code to open the hatch. It opened and she walked in. the only imperfection on the ship was the homing beacon that she had made short work of with the force, it was a crumpled metal husk . The fridge on the other hand was working and shining like it had been hardly ever been used. She opened it and reached inside.

’’I only have white, It’s probably sweet’’

She motioned her hand to a cupboard and it sprung open, with a next wave of her hand two glasses floated towards her. This had become an effortless exercise. The force being as much part of her being as her hands were.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Naraka followed the woman through the corridors of the Sith Temple and out to a hangar facility, exchanging no glances with passers-by, though she received quite a few.

The Togruta woman's attire was something that always commanded attention. Strips of black leather, hugging a buxom form, barely covering up her flesh, revealing a great deal of red skin. Almost every man who passed by stopped to look, which was highly gratifying to her.

She wondered if it made the other woman grumpy.

They reached the ship and entered it, the Togruta woman promptly lowering herself to the couch in the living area, though she didn't have much headroom. Sitting, she rested one leg on her knee and waited for the human woman to come to her bearing the drinks.

"White will work," Naraka said nonchalantly with a wave of her hand.

"You've done a good job of finding it. I'd imagined you would have had to walked to Dreshdae. Thinking outside the box is always best."

Reconsidering her position, the woman swung both her legs up and folded them ornately, resting her palms on her legs and closing her eyes as she waited. Luckily, however, she could still feel the locations of everything in the room, and detect any motion in it at all. That was one of the advantages to being a Togruta.

[Dean]

Pouring two glasses and gently sending over one of them to the little table that was in between the couch and the little chair that she planned to sit on she studied the woman a bit more, she was beautiful and with the dry heat of this planet she could imagine why she wouldn’t wear a lot of clothes but Ara didn’t think that heat was the reason. She thought that the clothes were to evoke envy in her female colleagues and lust in her male ones.

She had seen others adorn themselves with jewelry for the same exact purpose. She herself however didn’t plan to do things like that. She knew that she was pretty enough to induce the same kind of feelings but she didn’t need it to draw power, she believed that power came from within as the dark side teaches. Drawing power from the outside seemed so, for the lack of a better word, Jedi.

She walked over to the chair and took a sip of the wine, she didn’t care for it much and she could feel the alcohol coming in to her body, it was not a nice feeling if you concentrated on it too much. She again blocked it out, she wasn’t planning on drinking enough to affect body or mind. That was the other woman’s job.

’’Yeah the Jedi have some taste.’’ She smiled a little and raised her glass slightly. ’’So tell me, now your initial test of seeing if I would do as told has been completed. What could you bring to the table?’’

She leant back in her chair and looked at the red skinned alien in front of her.

’’I am here to learn and think.’’

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Naraka sipped the wine as the glass arrived in her hand, and she resisted the urge to laugh at what she considered a rather ridiculous question.

What could she do?

Almost everyone worth knowing in the Temple knew what Naraka was capable of. Her classes proved that easily enough. Her abilities were also proven, and she'd been given the title of Master for a reason. Asking what she could provide easily tipped the hand of ignorance. While Naraka could easily have mocked her for it, the Togruta merely opened her eyes and stared at the gold bracelets on her right wrist, idly spinning them around her arm.

"Clearly you haven't been around the Temple for long. I can instruct you in advanced telekinesis, telepathy, and sense powers. I am skilled with both what the Jedi call 'consitor sato' and Force flight. I also have a way of gathering information if I wish, and if you make it worth my while, I can get a variety of things done."

The Togruta woman took another sip of the wine. It was sweet, but not robust, and not particularly fruity. However, it was still decent. Her request for wine had been arbitrary caprice. She rarely drank, and it was even rarer for her to have it in any quantity. Today her limit would be one glass.

"Now would be a good time for you to offer your guest something to eat, if you want to keep her happy that is."

It was all part of her tactic. Keep the other woman subservient to assert dominance. Subtle, indirect. There were Sith who did more than beat each other up to see who got control. It wasn't entirely a gender divide either.

[Dean]

Ara paid attention as the woman opened her eyes and displayed a little force trick that made her bracelet spin. A padawan could do that, heck sometimes Ara noticed that stuff moved around in her sleep. The most impressive thing she had seen this woman do was float around in the air. That had shown skill.

She smirked at the woman’s comment about not being here very long, it was true, she had not been here for that long, but Ara had to confess that even if she had been in the temple from the start she still would have hardly known this woman from the classes that she taught, or that was what Ara had to presume. The other explanation was that she thought her fame was widely known around the planet.

She listened to the listing of the things she could learn and the other woman could teach and made a little list in her head, she was also advanced in telekinesis, she hadn’t the slightest affinity for telepathic stuff and she had a lot to learn in sensing things, she couldn’t complain, it was just below average and not something she had needed all that hard in her life. She would commonly just bribe or threaten someone to get a location out of someone.

One thing did quite catch her attention. Information was useful and information was power. The more knowledge someone had the more powerful they could become, or so she believed. This partnership might have its merits after all.

’’Hmm, I believe that we are pretty much equals in the force’’ she said after standing up to get something to eat for the woman, she really had little left, saltines were the only thing edible left on the ship. She put them on the table with an apologizing shrug.

’’However, what I am way more interested in is the ways of thinking about the dark side and how to affect others without directly influencing them. Action, reaction, that kind of thing. The jedi call it the will of the force and have a saying, Where the force closes a door, a window will open. Something like that.’’

She sat down again. ’’I believe we make our own destiny and that we use the force to actually force our own will.’’

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Equals in the Force? There was an amusing little thought, prompting a thin smile. This woman hadn't seen Naraka in action, and hadn't even heard of her. Already she was suggesting they were equals.

How very premature.

The food itself was unsuited to her physiology. Naraka was a carnivorous predator, relying heavily on a diet of meat, supplemented by vegetables. The empty calories of crackers contributed absolutely nothing, and she didn't particularly like the taste. They stayed on the plate, untouched.

Naraka shrugged over the second statement.

The Togruta woman didn't put much faith into the more religious aspects of the Force. Whether she commanded it or it commanded her didn't really matter to her, as the end result was the same. Arguing over it was counterproductive, and too much philosophy served no purpose.

"I don't bother with such beliefs," Naraka said dismissively, with a wave of her hand that made her bracelets jangle.

"Ideology doesn't much matter to me. The Force is all I need. I accept it for what it is. I don't try to rationalize it or reason it away; it is what it is. Why ask anything more?"

She took another sip of wine before returning the glass to the table and stretching, rotating her body from side to side as she awaited whatever response would come from the other woman. Perhaps some sort of protest or effort to convert her to a more rigid ideology than her own naturalistic one.

[Dean]

The crackers stayed on the plate untouched and the only thing Ara could take away from that was a very depressing meal later on in the day, wine and crackers to keep her body going. It was fair she guessed. She could sustain herself on it and still keep her reserves for when the need of them really came to her. She didn’t know what the species of the other woman normally ate. The only thing she did know was that eating while having a conversation was very human, other species didn’t like it all that much.

She heard in the tone of the woman that she didn’t care to much about thinking about the force. This amused Ara and she smiled. In her mind that was saying something along of the lines of, I don’t really care how my lungs work just as long as I can breathe. The problem with that idea was ofcourse that you could never make your lungs work again if you have to use them consciously.

’’Just the difference between being a slave or being a Sith I guess, nothing to complicated but something hardly ever thought of.’’

She noticed it had begun again, she had fallen into her routine of testing how far she could go with someone. She analized it and hoped that this wasn’t a bridge too far, she still had use for this woman, knowledge was power and power led to victory, or so she read.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Rhetoric. How delightful.

So many Sith insisted they were in some pursuit of freedom, setting up the opposing ideology as 'slaves.' Naraka was no fool, and she recognized a propaganda technique when she saw one.

Every idealist liked to pain himself as fighting some noble crusade. For the Jedi it was Peace that they campaigned for, and for this human woman it was opposition to 'slavery.' At best though, it was a way to deceive oneself, and at the worst it was a blatantly manufactured excuse.

The honest ones were like Naraka: neutral beings who took advantage of everything they could and didn't tie themselves down to some set ideology. They were also quite shrewd, as aligning yourself with a different ideology was just as much slavery as the old one.

A rose by any other name.

"How charming," Naraka commented drily, a smug look on her exotic features.

"Let me tell you an old Togruta proverb I heard when growing up," the Togruta woman said, closing her eyes again and summoning the memory.

"There were a pair of Togruta in the scrub, lost from their tribes. One had a bow and arrow, and the other an amulet for good luck. They were hungry from days wandering, trying to make it back to their homes. The first said to the other, 'I will find prey, and we will eat.' He shot a grazing creature and brought it back, but the second man refused to eat. He said 'my beliefs will save me, I do not need your food.' The first tried to persuade him to eat, but to no avail. The second man went hungry day after day, still firm in his belief that his amulet and faith would save him rather than his own actions. He died, and the first man returned to his tribe. 'Brothers,' he said, 'Never allow yourself to rely on a belief and not on yourself.'"

Naraka chuckled softly.

"I hope I don't have to explain the moral."