This is never-ending [E&P] (Valcor)

[Thaddeus]

“Remember there issss only the purpossse of thisss moment, no future, no passst, only now.” The words echoed off the high stone walls of the wadi. Twin suns cast long shadows along the dry and dusty ground with each mesa and rock having a dark twin. “There isss only the Force.” A sound of crunching gravel from up high followed.

Balkk looked down and watched Shorza make his way through the wadi training sword in hand. It had been a little over a month since he had taken the boy in and training him to understand himself and the Force. It had been a slow process as Balkk firmly believed that to teach an idea required that the person was of a disposition to receive the idea. But Shorza had learned much, and the improvements in both his understanding of the Force and of himself were noticeable - and a cause of much joy in Balkk, he was glad to see the young Zabrak transformed for the better by the Force. Of course he still had far to go. As Shorza was competitive and wanted to prove himself to Balkk, and also to wipe away something from his memory. Balkk still had not discovered what the boy hid so deeply and darkly within him, but he was not troubled as in time all things would be as they were meant to be; he trusted in the Force.

Balkk leaped from the crag upon which he had been perched and landed gracefully, silently, on the ground. Standing motionless like a statue the Trandoshan spoke and his echoes made him seem everywhere. “The Code.” The command he had uttered over and over again for the all the days past for Shorza to recite aloud the Jedi Code resounded through wadi. A boulder the size of a human head went flying toward the young Zabrak, with Balkk watching and sensing in the Force closely the boy’s reactions and emotions.

Another crunch of gravel and Balkk had moved once more. With each line of the Code that Shorza repeated Balkk would send a boulder careening at the boy, and then move to some other unseen spot. “The Code.” And with that the whole process would continue, over and over again Balkk pushed Shorza harder and longer. The suns were setting by the time he stopped and stepped out shaking off the dust from his robes.

With the dust settling and the suns all orange and pink Balkk’s lightsaber thrummed to life, the blue clashing with the brown of the planet. “What is the true victory?” Balkk’s sabre hung in the air and he awaited Shorza’s response.

[Valcor]

    Shorza kept his focus despite the large boulders constantly crashing closer and closer to him, dodging and flipping around each expertly.  "There is no-hmpf- emotion." the Zabrak grunted out as he was forced to deflect another rock with his training saber to keep from being crushed.  "There is peace." Shorza exhaled in the small break he was getting before continuing to advance once more through the training area.  

    The last month had been grueling for Shorza, but he never second guessed his decision to go through it.  Despite being one of the hardest months of the child's life, he had never been happier.  For the first time in Shorza's life, he was doing something truly good.  He wasn't slaving, or murdering, or hunting bounties, he was becoming a Jedi.  For once, Shorza was proud of himself, proud of what he was becoming, and for now, he was happy.  

    In the time Shorza had spent with Master Balkk, he had learned more than he had ever dreamed.  He learned how to feel the force around him, to trust it, and to let it flow through him.  It was difficult at first, as the Zabrak struggled to truly relax to something so alien, but in time he began to allow himself to be at peace.  There was only one thing preventing Shorza from truly controlling and using the force, his own past.

    Every time Shorza meditated or called upon the force, it tugged at his inner darkness, calling it out and pleading to bring it to light, and every time, Shorza cut himself off.  Despite how much Shorza wanted to trust his master, and indeed the force as well, he could not shake the fear that they would reject him if they knew who he was and what he had done.  This fear kept the red Zabrak from utilizing his abilities fully, and forced him to compensate in his blade work.  Where Shorza failed to meditate, he sparred, where he struggled to lift simple objects with the force, he simply destroyed them with his blade.  It was brutish, but it was all the child could do if he wanted to prove his worth to both Balkk and himself.  

    "There is no ignorance!" Shorza yelled as he leaped over another large boulder, diverting it's path away from where he had just been with a slash of his blade.  Another exhale, and another line of the code, "There is knowledge."  This repeated over and over until Shorza had completed reciting the code, finishing by responding his master's question, "The-uh Force."  Shorza was still a little fuzzy on the lesser tenets of the code, but tried his best to understand them just as much as Balkk did.  Even if it took forever.