Waiting...(Ta'lin Aijati)

[aelei]

Aelei sighed, mostly to clear the sound of her own thoughts that invoked random, uncontrollable chemical reactions within her mind and body. The Council had claimed that there was already another Jedi Knight interested in teaching her, that she had nothing to worry about, in fact, they could send for him right now, just wait on this bench, and there she was outside the building in one of the gardens, and shouldn't she feel relieved? Aelei sighed again, trying not to analyze her own emotions.

But a job in the Service Corp wouldn't have been so bad, the young girl thought randomly. Aelei could imagine herself placing healing hands on the victims of war. Was that what this was? Thwarted ambition? She could just as well see herself as a Knight. She could see herself wherever the Council decided to put her. These stoic, swimming thoughts, the pressure in her head, obviously had to do with Aelei's capture and her mentor's subsequent death. Aelei took another deep breath, this time humming a little through her nose, allowing tension to drain, and soon that pressure dissipated and the only sound in her head was the distant roar of Coruscant's traffic. She turned her face towards the intense solar light and took a few minutes to enjoy it, because she wasn't immortal. The heat caused her skin to shrink, tighten, and her clothing warmed. She smiled a little, glad for the temporary silence in her mind.

There were several people moving around the garden, Jedi and their apprentices, people passing, trekking towards the Council Spire. No one was approaching her, though, except a human Jedi female who passed Aelei's bench without acknowledging her. After several minutes, Aelei was sweating slightly, and she felt an unpleasant feeling that she identified as 'impatience' until she allowed it to disappear.

As her leg began to tingle from lack of use, Aelei felt that pang of that 'impatience' again, followed by a wave of something else that swept her up in panic. She took another deep breath, remembering what Kei said, that emotions were just bad reactions to upsetting happenstances, which was what Kei was now--an upsetting happenstance. Aelei began to swing her legs to encourage blood flow. Shouldn't her new master have attended the meeting? Wouldn't that just make everything much easier? Aelei sighed, this time heavily.

Did this have to do with grief? It seemed to go on and on forever, amplifying every negative emotion. Aelei missed the traffic and the calm. She took another deep breath, stilled her swinging, tingling legs, and hummed again, remembering the meditation tricks Kei taught her--and how long would it take for her to think that name without cringing internally? She inhaled, exhaled, in and out, and those unidentifiable emotions began to melt away. Aelei focused on counting her breaths, focused on the sound of them.

Just when her impatience disappeared, the 'sight' of two figures approaching her separated Aelei from her thoughts. The messenger who had told her to 'wait here' was approaching with a human male, well-muscled, who Aelei assumed was her new teacher. Aelei felt anticipation, and tried not to. She breathed in her nose and out her mouth, calming herself, even though a part of her was still unable to believe that so much had changed.

[kagemusha]

In the past, many had criticised the Jedi order for its failure to respond quickly to the pressing needs of the Republic in times of warfare and strife and viewed it as something of an insular and monastic order. The council had developed something of a reputation for being populated by vascilating old wizards, plagued by constant indecission in the face of desperate need for Jedi intervention against foes both internal and external, quite ineffectual in meeting its mandate of protecting the order and peace in the galaxy. In fact, many recalled bitterly that when jedi did take swift action it was usually to start civil wars and bring the republic to its very knees as Revan and Malak did, and as Exar Kun did before them. However, much as the order's naysayers may deride the council for its failure to react in the critical moments of the republic's past, they could not possibly fault the order for a lack of involvement in the day-to-day affairs of the republic or accuse its members of extended periods of innactivity.

For his part, Ta'lin Aijati had been a very busy man over the past few days. Three days ago he'd returned from a disappointing research expedition to an asteroid belt in the outer-rim territories, thought to harbour crystal formations suitable for use in lightsaber construction, but which had yielded very little in the end. Following the delivery of a report on his mission, he'd seen to the resolution of countless minor local disputes that need not have concerned the Jedi but which had embroiled the young jedi knight in any case and now he had been asked to take on his single greatest responsibility since becoming a fully-qualified member of the order.

He followed on behind the messenger that had been sent by the council to fetch him and introduce him to the student he'd agreed to take under his tutelage and train in the Jedi ways, blinking as they emerged into the bright sunlight of one of the temple's many tranquil gardens from the comparitively soft light of the interior. As they meandered their way along the pathways of the garden, Ta'lin could easily spot his first apprentice sitting solitary on a bench amongst the veritable patchwork quilt of agricultural plots which kept the temple occupents fed throughout the year. Aelei was so thin and frail looking as she sat there swinging her legs that Ta'lin couldn't help but wonder if she had lost all appetite since the unfortunate death of her master, causing her to waste away until she looked positively ill. The Master he'd talked to about choosing a padawan had noted the sympathetic demeanour Ta'lin had adopted when he'd heard why this promising young miraluka was without a teacher. Indeed, it had struck a cord with the human jedi, who had been robbed of his friend and mentor, Jan Carrel, in recent times, albeit in far less traumatising circumstances. As they neared Aelei, he could sense that loss intermingled with her other feelings of impatience and anxiety, making him all the more sympathetic to her plight and completely convinced that he'd made the right choice in selecting the miraluka to be his padawan.

"Good afternoon, padawan. I am Ta'lin Aijati and unless I'm very much mistaken, you must be Aelei." he said politely as he came within earshot of the bench.

[aelei]

As her new master approached, Aelei found herself sitting up straighter, perhaps subconsciously worrying about a first impression. She noticed that she wasn't merely 'looking' at him, either, she was noticing his upright attitude, his muscular limbs and his functional clothing as if wondering what they might mean for her. He was a fighter; probably excellent body control; would he be able to teach her telepathy? Amazing, Aelei thought, what her mind would do without her consent. Already her mind was supplying possible future scenarios, the two of them on assignments to distant planets, and hoped that his shapely physical condition and probable fighting prowess meant that he wouldn't die on their first mission together.

When he approached her, she stood up respectfully and gave a short, quick bow. "Very pleased to meet you, Master," she responded formally, her face tilted up towards his eyes for his sake. Many people had commented that she never appeared to look anyone in the face, had told her that they found it unsettling. They would usually make this comment before the realization that she had no eyes, and then they would become embarrassed every time they saw her. She was often given the advice by fellow Miralukans that she should turn her face towards the other person when speaking; even if they couldn't see her eyes, Aelei was assured, the gesture would be accepted as 'eye contact'. 'Eye contact', she had argued confusedly, was impossible, as she had no eyes, but apparently human reactions weren't concerned with minor details, because someone who didn't look a human in the face was unsettling even if that person was technically 'blind'. Blindess itself, apparently, was also unsettling to humans, which explained the elaborate measures some of her people took to hide their empty sockets.

Aelei was suddenly overwhelmed by a moment of awkwardness that left her mouth gaping open for several long seconds before she finally remembered what she was going to say, or at least found something purposeful-sounding that would fill the silence.

"Thank you for choosing me as your apprentice," she said, wholly unaware if her words were insensitive or graceless, and worrying if they were. If there was anything in the universe that made Aelei uncomfortable, it was social situations, especially important ones, especially when someone was dead and hanging between the two of them, in the air. She sighed, noting her new master's sympathetic tone, and decided to stop treating this introduction as if it was one of the Jedi Trials. “I suppose I was nervous about meeting you, Master, because of the circumstances,” she continued in her usual soft monotone, “But I am very relieved now. I am a quick learner and I won't let you down.”

A calm radiated through her when she realized that she was speaking the truth. For some reason Aelei suddenly felt relieved and self-assured, as if she had been doubting her own abilities and had just confirmed her own identity. She hadn't known she'd been so worried about staying a padawan. Her own emotions would forever confuse and confound her, and she realized that she would never even attempt to analyze them if Kei hadn't assured her that analyzing or acknowledging them was the key to making them disappear.

The wind picked up, bringing the smell of hot exhaust into the garden and giving Aelei a momentary picture of the Temple's floor plan as the wind vibrated against the spires. She turned her chin up towards her new master, as if implying that she was open to instruction at any time.

[kagemusha]

While other humans, even some Jedi would find the blindness of the miraluka species odd or even unsettling, Ta'lin was not put off by the knowledge that underneath that long, sleek fringe of hair Aelei was looking up at him with empty, sightless sockets that all miraluka hid behind scarves, veils and other concealing items. When Jan Carrel had begun to teach Ta'lin to perceive the world around him not with his eyes but through the force, the Jedi Master had told him of a species inherently force-sensitive who's need for visual sensitivity had been lost for thousands of years, leading to the complete atrophy of eyes amongst them, to be replaced by the ability to "see" through the force. Ever since then he'd been distinctly intrigued by the prospect of meeting one of these people, so that he could attempt to more fully understand this aspect of the force. He did, however, note with approval that his new Padawan seemed eager to please and knew that certain mannerisms would make integration into a primarily sighted society easier.

"Yes..." Ta'lin began but hesitated, unsure now that what he was going to say was appropriate as one who was to be a teacher of the Jedi ways.

He wanted to tell her that he understood her sense of loss and that he too had grieved deeply for his master when he passed, but he knew that attachment to anything was discouraged by the order and that as Aelei's new master it wouldn't do to encourage any such tendencies or even to let her dwell on Kei Lusai's death in private.

"...yes, I was informed of Master Lusai's unfortunate passing. In fact it's part of the reason I chose to be your mentor, Padawan, rather than take on one of the other students." he continued and sat down on the bench to talk for a while with Aelei. "I felt that it would be a cruel blow to be accepted by a master, only to have your potential career as a Jedi taken away from you in the most unfortunate of ways."

To be fair to Ta'lin it wasn't a complete lie to say that the sad truth of a Padawan being without a master, thus being forced to join the service corp, had made him decide to take on Aelei. Although the service corp was an important part of the Jedi's contribution to the republic and there was no shame in taking a career in agricultural planning or in the exploration of the galaxy as a non-Jedi, the young Jedi Knight was critically aware that there were nearly always too few Jedi to handle all of the duties that fell to the order and to service all of the requests that the council received for intervention and intermediation on a daily basis. Every Padawan not taken on to be trained to knighthood was another missed opportunity to alleviate to shortages of trained members of the Jedi order and to increase the order's ability to meet its responsibility to serve and protect the republic. However, choosing one student didn't solve the problem of having too few masters to train all of the potential Jedi at the temple and by selecting Aelei, it didn't change the fact that some of them would become service corp workers instead. No, his motivations were centred more on his shared experience of losing a mentor and to a lesser extent, his curiosity about the miraluka's unique means of perception and spatial awareness.

”I have to be honest with you though, apprentice, I have not been a knight for very long and I doubt I will prove as experienced a master as Kei was.” he said and then gave a heart-felt smile. “This will be as much a learning experience for me as it will be for you, my young friend, although I will try hard to be the best teacher that I can be.”

[aelei]

Aelei bent her knees when her master did, and looked up at him as she sensed that he was about to speak. When he actually began, however, Aelei almost reeled back in surprise. She didn't, however she exercised whatever amount of restraint it took to repress her reaction. Her eyebrows flew up though, climbed her forehead, and she had to will the muscles to relax.

She had never thought of her career in such a light, with cruel blows and all. When he spoke, though, Aelei nodded, unsure of what to say. She wasn't sure if it was the mention of Kei that bothered her, but Aelei was aware that her new master was something that made her uncomfortable. Perhaps it was his accuracy describing Aelei's feelings? She didn't know, as she didn't fully understand her own feelings about most things, let alone her career, which rested in the benevolent hands of the Jedi Order, wholly outside her own control.

The mention of Kei brought flashes of memory. She only hoped that her new master was somehow more agile, cunning, or impressive than Kei, in order to not die and to teach Aelei how not to get captured. Even though it wasn't certain she would be captured again by such numerous, skilled mercenaries, the galaxy was getting continuously more dangerous, pirates more numerous, and how were two people supposed to go up against one hundred people? There weren't exactly flocks of ancient Jedi walking around, and Aelei's experience, plus stories she had heard, lead her to believe that these interstellar knights didn't live very long lives. Aelei hoped Ta'lin was well-trained.

Her master appeared to pause, as if in thought, before continuing to speak. I have not been a knight for very long, learning experience, will try hard. Aelei wanted to rub her forehead, but the action would be too telling, so she searched her mind for some constrictive, positive response.

"Yes, you'll probably learn a lot," she said. If she had eyes, they would be shifting to the side. "I just hope, you know, no one dies."

Perfect. There was a reason Aelei tried to think about what she said before she said it, because if she didn't she would voice her immediate reaction or opinion or thought or something else that would either put her own foot firmly in her own mouth or cause some unwanted emotional reaction in the person she was talking to. 'You'll probably learn a lot, I hope no one dies'. Yes, brilliant, Aelei, she thought to herself, that isn't insulting at all, and it in no way makes you look like a grief-stricken wreck.

She turned her head away from Ta'lin momentarily and sighed. "Sorry," she said brightly, "I didn't mean...I don't like the way that sounded."

[kagemusha]

Ta’lin understood at once why his Padawan had retracted her statement, perceiving the implied criticism of his lack of experience as a Jedi. However, he also knew that Aelei had spoken without thinking and the insult was in no way intended, so rather than add to the girl’s sizeable embarrassment, he simply chose to gloss over the alternative meaning of what she had said. He was, however, concerned by the sense of melancholy that seemed to permiate her entire demeanour, which was not unexpected but would still need to be addressed.

"The life of a Jedi is not without its dangers, as you well know, but you must try not to dwell on the subject of death. Remember the code: there is no death; there is the force. Upon passing from the mortal realm we become one with the force and so we Jedi must look upon death as just another stage on a long journey.” Ta’lin reminded Aelei but felt somewhat hypocritical for it. Not wishing to berate her, he changed tact. “I cannot promise I’ll never die, but I do promise that no matter how short or long our time together proves to be, I will teach you to let go of your feelings, of attachments. It is a hard lesson sometimes, but it is vitally important to a Jedi.”

Ta’lin stood up again and breathed in the heady mixture of scents that always filled the air within the gardens. Flowers, fertilisers, herbs and fruit: all of them competed for his attention as he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, enjoying the brief moment of tranquillity that always accompanied a waft of that concoction of organic aromas. Rare had been the times when Ta’lin had been allowed to escape the rigours of his Master’s hectic schedule and just relax, but whenever they returned to Coruscant he’d make a point of retiring to the gardens to sit and drink in the pleasant ambience and bouquet, centring himself for another trip into the farthest reaches of known space. Perhaps Aelei could sense it and perhaps she couldn’t, but Ta’lin felt that, more than ever, he needed to take a moment or two to calm his mind and gather his wits for the challenge that lay ahead of him. Training a Padawan was a massive undertaking and responsibility unparalleled by any other in his short time as a Jedi Knight.

“Hmmn, perhaps I should save the lectures for later, before this all gets to be rather heavy going. Besides, you look more in need of a square meal than a lesson in the Jedi Code.” he said with some joviality returning to his voice. “C’mon, we’re going to the kitchens. We can talk more on the way.”

[aelei]

Aelei once again listened intently to her master's words, and the lecture she expected. And of course, she logically knew that her master's life returned to the Force when she died, but Aelei wasn't entirely clear on what that meant. Was Kei sentient somewhere, was her will somehow still alive in a sea of individual dead wills absorbed by the Force? Or was 'gone back into the Force' a way of saying that her energy somehow melted into the rest of the universe? Was Kei's energy now indistinguishable from Aelei's energy? Things like death should not be explained in one-liners, Aelei thought a little cynically.

What Ta'lin said next was surprisingly reassuring, even more surprising because Aelei had no idea she had needed reassurance. Perhaps her feelings were always a step ahead of her. At any rate, his words had a calming effect on her and she had relaxed considerably--had she even noticed she was tense?-, her shoulders even drooped a little. Wasn't the journey supposed to be more important than the destination? It was, especially when the destination was an end or a beginning or whatever death was. For whatever reason, being reminded of a simple truth was comforting.

The young padawan rose to her feet to follow her new teacher. She felt a growing calm coming from his aura that had moments ago been partly clouded by emotions Aelei could not identify, and was glad that someone older and more impressive than herself needed to take time to clear his thoughts also. Perhaps her painful emotions and the need for clarity could be considered 'normal' for a young padawan--she really wasn't sure, having never observed a similar situation in anyone else.

"Thank you, Master. I am very hungry. I have lost a lot of weight recently."

As she spoke she semi-unconsciously wrapped her hand around her thin forearm, as if confirming the lack of muscle there. Suffice to say that there was a scarcity of food on the rocky, unpopulated plain of Sernpidal where she spent the past several months, save for the tiny animals Aelei allowed her fellow refugees to capture and strangle. It was better, though, than the much more brutal alternative Aelei could tell some of her fellow inmates were coming close to considering when one of them began to waste away. She had to hide the body from the others when he finally left. When did he die, Aelei asked herself, on the fourteenth week? He kept asking for water but there wasn't any, hadn't been for—

Aelei sighed.

"I miss fruit," she said, "Especially pineapples." A youngling passed them eating a pear, and she 'watched' him walk away, his jovial, skipping footsteps making him easy to discern from the crowd of moving younglings he had immersed himself in. Aelei titled her head to the side, as if suddenly confused. "It's my favorite food. I think everyone has a favorite food."

[kagemusha]

Ta’lin nodded and tried to think of his favourite food, which was no mean feat considering the sheer variety of food, both delicious and slightly disgusting, he’d had the opportunity to try in his travels. There were so many that he remembered with fondness, mostly because of the memories of his master that were evoked by the remembrance of the trips to various worlds that resulted in his trying those foods. Eventually he settled on one fruit so difficult to get at that it had been a fine reward to actually be able to eat it at the end of an arduous exercise in problem solving.

"I think it says something about the pair of us that our favourite foods are so hard to get at. Yours has a tough, spiky outer skin and mine is the infamous puzzleflower from the planet Nimban.” he said with a smile. “Have you heard of it?”

[aelei]

Aelei turned her head up up towards him again, this time to return the smile she felt on her master's face. "Yes, I have!" she said, as if her knowledge of the foreign plant would somehow impress him, "Their relationship with the Nimbanels is part of the reason for their cultural dependence on puzzles and their-their advanced problem-solving skills."

Aelei pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, suddenly self-conscious for reasons relatively unknown to her. "Why do you think the flowers are like that? I mean, I don't think they knew that animals were eating them. Maybe they grew alongside really smart beings for thousands of years and at first they had one defense, but the creatures figured it out and were able to eat the fruit, so it developed a different defense, and then another one, and then all of them overlapped or something and the puzzle thing was an accident, you know? That flower couldn't have been like that forever. It doesn't make sense that something is just a puzzle, out of nowhere. Plants develop defenses so plant-eating animals don't eat them, right?"

The young girl would have continued to talk, and talk and talk, if she hadn't just noticed how much she was talking or how animated her voice was becoming. As she didn't know her new master personally yet, she reminded herself to reserve her ramblings about random facts, the cultural history of holograms, the average number of seeds in the average pumpkin, the evolution of puzzlefruit and her unanswerable questions for later. Aelei brushed her hair behind her ear again, that same self-conscious action.

Noticing that she was walking faster than Ta'lin, the young girl slowed her pace and tried to match her master's steps. His footfall was even, graceful, and his weight was efficiently distributed like that of most Jedi, whereas ordinary citizens walked on their heels; everybody had a pretty distinctive way of walking based on their previous life experiences. Aelei had tried to mimic the 'Jedi' way of walking often, but usually ended up bouncing awkwardly on the balls of her thinly tapered feet as if she were trying not to break them.

[kagemusha]

If truth be told, Ta'lin wasn't entire sure how the puzzle-fruit had evolved and he strongly suspected that anyone who claimed to, was merely hypothesising at the root of the plant's ability to make the Nimbanels and other creatures of the planet work for their meal. However, he was prepared to hazard a vague guess, based on what he knew of evolutionary theory and plant development from Master Jan Carrel.

"There are certain plants that possess sentience of a sort, so I suppose it's possible that the puzzle plant has evolved at least a passive form of intelligence that responds to the attempts of animals to gain access to its fruit. However, it is possible that because certain members of a predecessor species possessed a gene that coded for a strange type of growth that made accessing fruit difficult, those plants enjoyed an evolutionary advantage over some others.” he mused, happy to have found a subject which interested his padawan. “What really puzzles me though, is how making your fruit difficult to get to would provide an advantage: the point of fruit is to attract foragers, so that a plant can spread its seeds to new areas. I fear that unless the puzzlefruit evolves a mouth with which to tell us its secrets we may never know for sure.”

“I see I have discovered a subject to which you have given some thought, Padawan. I take it you enjoyed your rotation in the Agricorp as a youngling? Was old Methusilah still working with younglings when you were with them?”

Ta’lin half expected that the old man wouldn’t have been as he was already a very old man by human standards when Ta’lin was one of his pupils almost fifteen years ago, so it seemed quite possible that he might have passed by then. However what fondness the young knight held for the old master caused a small spark of hope that he might still be alive and passing his knowledge onto another generation of younglings.

[aelei]

Aelei furrowed her brow. Yes, she had enjoyed her rotation in the Agricorp. She remembered other younglings who expressed special interests in plants or agriculture, but couldn't remember anyone who would willingly consider a professional career in the Argicorp. Sadly, the reason was probably because Argicorp somehow represented failure, the failure to gain a master by the age of thirteen, the failure to become a Jedi. Was it really that important? In Argicorp or Medicorp, it was very unlikely that one would have to slice living flesh with a searing-hot lightsaber. Sure, there was the occasional talented healer or botany nerd or determined adventurer who requested to become involved in one of the Service Corps, but most were driven by peer-pressure to become Jedi and had to be forced to harvest crops or into a pair of scrubs. It was a sad reality. Aelei thought she would have done well in the Service Corps if the Council had decided to put her there. At the mention of the old master, Aelei paused to remember, but as usual had trouble putting it to words.

"Yes, I believe so, Master. I remember the name because I heard it when I was a child and I-I thought his name was unusual-um, 'weird'. He was, he was old," she said, meaning it to be the explanation she hoped it was. She'd never told anyone about a death or illness before. Better get used to it, Aelei thought, cynical again like she had been ever since Kei's death, Who knows how many times an average person has to do this in their lifetime, let alone an average Jedi.

They turned down a corridor and Aelei felt the vibrations of many feet against the flooring, a great wave of people. Sighted people said that when the sun was hot it was also 'bright', an experience in which the light that allows sighted people to see is very intense and almost painful. Aelei experienced something similar in large buildings such as the Jedi Temple, where the walls were constantly vibrating, where there was the constant thunder of feet traveling through the floor, a kind of sensory overload. Crowds also tended to overwhelm her that way; she had to acknowledge or register every single person in the crowd, and they were no longer just vague outlines, they were all detailed right down to the length and shape of their bones. It was a lot to register, and the overwhelmed feeling usually caused her to temporarily narrow her range of sight and for some reason that bothered her, threw her off balance. And if she were going to appropriately tell someone their friend was dead, or probably dead, she needed appropriate conditions, like a nice quiet room where she could compose her thoughts and find some way to say 'your friend is dead' that was coherent and not at all evasive. So she really couldn't be blamed for what came out her mouth. Coherency wasn't always her strong suit.