The rain had started to come down, she could tell it was one of those rare storms, soon the pressure would increase in the atmosphere, intensifying gravity, and send down the heavier, rain infused with metallic particles, but she was determined to confront him. The moments after her release of regret, her conscious regained dominance and her anger surfaced. She marched to his quarters and didn’t find him there. She closed her eyes and sensed his presence; she whispered a spell to detect its location.
In the cave past the meadow she found him pacing. Instinct led her hand to her waist even though she knew their lightsabers were with Master Luke.
“What were you doing out there?” She interrupted his brooding.
“What about you? A witch! Infiltrating the Force with your spells.” She clenched her teeth together; her hand without a saber grasped its absence tightly.
“It’s not witchcraft. You have no understanding. All your talk about evolving the Jedi, changing the order, drawing on the diverse powers of this galaxy, this universe to strengthen the Force, and you’re questioning that I draw on unconventional resources to enhance the Force?”
He retreated into the cave as the air pressure became denser. She, using a spell remained outside, cornering him in his retreat, the metallic rain beading off of the shield she conjured around her. The pressure of the atmosphere pushed him down to the stone floor. Angry as she was, she felt sympathy as he struggled with the the pressure. She entered the cave and altered the pressure. She smiled, acknowledging how she could set the spell and relinquish her control as opposed to the Force where she had to keep energy focused on what she made it control. At least for now that was the limit of her control with the Force.
“Thoughts on my abilities, now?” She stood over him as he regained composure. He looked up at her; his pupils dilated, eyebrows raised and she sensed the pulse of his heartbeat so strong it felt as if it was directly pressed against her own. Her gaze penetrated through his as she took a deep breath, elongating her posture, entrenched in the moment of this immense control, the power she felt over him, a power she had never felt over anyone. And then it became a weakness as he Force-pushed her and her arrogant stare back. Her spell broke and so had the rains. The pressure of the atmosphere had returned to a state acceptable for their species. The remnants of the metallic downpour streamed into the cave pooling around her as she sat prone on the ground.
“Your complacency with those obscure spells is your weakness.” He stood over her now, but only momentarily as his statement returned her anger to her and she hopped up from the ground. Insults about her heritage were unnecessary, but she was prepared to return them.
“Your aspirations to be your grandfather is yours.” Saberless, she tried to pierce him with these words; they locked in a stare but both shared the fear of what any attempts to control the other with the Force or what hand-to-hand combat might lead them to. He was no longer the lanky awkward adolescent for which she felt a silly girlhood crush for; he was a young man, body built and cut by intense training, and she was surprised at her lack of power to resist being drawn to him, into him....
She sat upright next to him, drenched by perspiration that streamed down her bare chest, awakened from a vision of the metallic rain, a disturbance, masked figures. She focused on making her breath short deep gasps into slow breaths. She glanced back down over her shoulder at him, certain he would have felt such a tremor in the Force, but he lay vulnerable in his stripped slumber, cloaked only in such comfort she glimpsed for a moment the innocent boy emerging from the loneliness and isolation of his time in training. Such comfort his peace gave her that she lay back down on his pale, bare chest and slept until uninterrupted by the late rising of the eastern suns cutting through the redwoods and into their shelter. Impulse requited.
She had devoted a portion of her strength controlling her impulse to use some of the forbidden arts of her culture. She wanted to learn the ways of the Jedi, pure, unaided by ancient spells and powers. Training was getting more difficult as was her ability to keep this skill set repressed. She was proud as she excelled past those with whom she had begun training, even after her injury, and often detached from the moment wondering how much farther she could excel if she had allowed herself to use those powers. The distraction was so disabling but it set a great contrast to those moments that she could clear that from her head and allow the Force to flow throughout her, she felt more powerful than any spell ever made her. She worked on forgetting her past, the traditions, her mother’s teachings to keep her mind consistently clear. She made a deal with herself to stay away from the archives just until she could have complete control of thoughts of her culture, then she promised herself she would return to her research.
Ben and she had found other places to meet. He saw the acceleration of her control of the Force and on hiatus from their research, they would test each other in their secret meetings. He had a such a surge of the Force that she wanted to match; it seemed more powerful sometimes that he could not control it. She began to imagine that she could match his power if she returned to her culture’s craft, that ability would help her equal the surge of the Force in him. And soon, the memory of being intimidated by him became distant and implausible.
In their training with Master Luke, she and Ben were paired up to spar. She feared that Master Luke would sense her use of that craft but more feared losing a match to Ben. She exploited his confidence and lack of control over the immense Force flowing through him. She held back on using any of her familial arts for half the spar; he had seemed to be holding back; he feared any similarities in their methods could reveal their secret training, and then he became unpredictable. Luke cautioned Ben on the the feelings he sensed, confused about the fear he sensed Ben was trying hard to conceal. She decided to provoke him, to push him to reveal that fear because it would give her an advantage.
In spending time together, she could push taunting him. He revealed good humor and patience with her contrary to the rumors she had heard about him reacting strongly to any attempts to reveal his vulnerability. She had seen glimpses of it in his training with Luke who knew the potential Jedi inside of Ben, pushing him harder, testing his temper.
Suddenly in sync, the flow of the Force released any control that she felt, including drawing forth her craft, the act of defeating Ben no longer required her conscious thought. He seemed to move in increasingly slower movements, she could see the molecules vibrate with each of her moves, her saber leaving trails with each movement. Then she felt a shattering in the Force, and Ben no longer moved in slow movements but in erratic, fierce pulses. The swings of their sabers left intertwining glowing trails in the air as they no longer sparred but fought. As they charged for each other and locked sabers, their master held them in place forcing them to stare at each other, to fix on the expression of the other, to silence the growls of their attempts to use mind tricks against each other. Their muscles began to burn frozen in this stance and Master Luke shut off their sabers and took possession of them and pushed them away from each other, both falling to the ground. He looked back and forth between them, finding a moment of weakness as the adrenaline drained away.
As she felt her thoughts slip from her control, she felt Ben panic at her slip then felt his anger at her use of her culture’s spells and those thoughts became clear to Luke. “Much more training do you both require.” He turned and walked away. Vulnerability on display brought a surge of relief and she began to cry; there was no need to expend any more energy on these secrets. She wiped her tears and stood up and looked across at Ben. She knew that anything between them had to end, had to be let go in the flood of regret between them.
Her chin rested on the force field and her shoulders dropped as she sighed; she turned the pages of the ancient manuscript protected beneath. Her touch separated by millimeters of field -- so close to feeling the delicate pages that held so much power -- a power granted by its rarity, ability to survive a purge to hide the positive accomplishments of a man many planets urged its people to see as a demon, to be feared not revered. She pressed more for her face into the field to get closer, her fingers pressing hard onto the page an incomplete, interrupted caress of the page. She rested her head on her arm on the field, an exhaustion from the late hour and from the realization that what had been constantly challenged and denied to her in this place but shared with her as a child back home, ideas and points of view vehemently rejected lay in truth, millimeters from her touch. Jedi were willingly following lies about the Sith, perpetuated by the galaxy. A myth glorifying, denying, hiding the other points of view, pushing an incomplete picture of the truth.