Outlying Lands (General Ossus Thread)

[Jace]

The grin vanished from his face as soon as it appeared and he was left with his default bored look. “Well, so long as the braid stays I get to call you Master.” By the tone of his voice he made it clear there was no room for argument on the matter. “I’ve been practicing with a lightsaber for a while now. I’m actually pretty good with it. I’ve never touched a blaster though so I’m more likely to shoot you with that then hit you with the saber. But whatever you say, Master.” A hint of a grin played at his face just for a moment as he spoke the honorific.

[Mez-Jid Fie'r]

The look she gave him for this was rather pointed.

"Assume for a moment that you're a spy. Now assume that all somebody has to do to give away your real identity is to call you by the title you earnt some years ago."

She gestured him to a table in the mess hall, and waited for him to sit before continuing.

"With your two assumptions in place, I would like you to consider carefully why I don't want you - or anybody, really, but at this moment, especially you - to get into the habit of calling me 'Master', kiddo."

She smiled lightly. "I'll get you some food and water. You look like you've walked a lot to get here. Then you can come follow me to one of the classes I'm teaching this afternoon and from there onto the range. If you want to stick around with the 'being my padawan' thing, kiddo, you're going to learn at the very least basic blaster usage."

[Jace]

He sat down and took in everything she said. While it did make sense it’s not like they were on a mission now so what did it matter if he called her Master here? Besides if she wouldn’t remove his braid it seemed to him he should be able to call her Master, at least when they weren’t on a mission. Still, she was his Master and if she didn’t want him calling her that shouldn’t he listen to her? There was also the fact she was an adult, and as much as he hated to admit it, he was still a child which she seemed to want to keep reminding him.

“Fine, I won’t call you Master. I won’t even get mad at you for not cutting my braid off but stop calling me ‘kiddo’. I’m thirteen and a Padawan, not some youngling who doesn’t even know how to control the Force.”

When the food came he was actually surprised to find he was hungry. He scarfed down the bantha burger and his water then stood up abruptly and looked at her expectantly. “What are you waiting for? I thought you had a class to teach.”

[Mez-Jid Fie'r]

"You ate rather quickly. We don't need to think about getting up for at least half an hour yet. Sit back down and tell me something about yourself, as you've decided, for reasons which are still beyond me, to be my apprentice."

She paused, and took a sip of her own water, then added. "Also, if you want me to not call you 'kiddo', you should learn to ask politely. Jedi have acquired a reputation for arrogance, which I find important to dispel - or at the very least, manipulate."

[Jace]

Begrudgingly he sat back down and started playing with the utensils on his plate. “There’s nothing much to tell. My mom found out I was Force sensitive when I was a baby and gave me to the Jedi. End of story.” He looked up at her and dropped the utensils which made a rather loud ‘clanking’ sound against his plate. “Please don’t call me kiddo.” He was quiet for a while longer before finally speaking again.

“I want you to be Master so I can finally become a Jedi Knight. As much as it may not seem like it I do want to actually help people. I mean I’ve been here since I was a baby, the whole ‘help people and protect the weak’ is kind of what I've been taught to do. How can I do those things if I’m a Padawan?”

[Mez-Jid Fie'r]

She nodded slowly, and agreed.

"I'll not call you 'kiddo', unless it's important at the time. Which it might be. I try not to make total and blanket promises, especially about names."

Resisting the sudden urge to reach out and ruffle his hair, she continued, aiming for the exact opposite of 'mystical Jedi' with her tone of voice and hoping that she hit it.

"All beings can help and protect one another. Naturally, some choose not to. The point is, you don't need to be a Jedi, or even a Padawan, to help."

She leant back for a moment, and considered not telling him, but decided to stick with honesty.

"Matter of fact, one of the people I've known best for being protective of others - overprotective, in hindsight, which probably explains her fall - was a Sith. There's something to be said for free will, and you can't always protect people from themselves. ...Well. Not very well. But let's try an easier one, and then you can ask me any question of your choosing. What's your favourite food?"

[Jace]

That was the last thing he expected to hear about a Sith and he wasn’t entirely sure he believed it. Still he supposed it might be possible but he’d never heard of a Sith killing people by being over protective. It also didn’t make sense that she’d lie about something like that. He shrugged it off and decided in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t important right now.

He was puzzled by her question but didn’t hesitate in answering, “It’s a tossup between bantha steaks or burgers. Some of the people back at the Temple say I must be from Tatooine because I eat bantha all the time.” Several different questions float to his mind and it was a minute or so before he decided on one.

“How come the old Jedi weren’t allowed to have wives or husbands and kids and now it’s okay?”

[Mez-Jid Fie'r]

"Force, you really wanna ask about ancient history? Okay... Most of this, I only know from records of what Holocrons had to say. I'm not as old as all that, I've not lived through any of it."

"Time was, Jedi quite often got fell in love, got married, had kids, none of that necessarily in that order. But there was.... oh, an unusually high incidence of Sith in those days too. I guess one day somebody decided that attachment was one major reason - it's why people who're Jedi don't often get to know their parents, too. And from attachment, often comes passion - and vice-versa. Passionate love was forbidden, but compassionate love wasn't - the expectation that all Jedi would love and respect and feel empathy for all beings in equal measure. Which is a remarkably fine line to tread."

She paused. "You're thirteen. Without the life-experiences which might help with some of the history explanation. You've not been... so madly in love that you would do anything, kill in cold blood to protect - or to revenge - the being or beings you're in love with. Or do worse. Fall so far and so fast..."

Mez scrubbed a hand over her eyes. "It was deemed dangerous, passionate love. Then about, ooh, over three hundred years ago, a young boy by the name of Anakin Skywalker was brought to Temple. He was already too old to learn the ways of the Force, supposedly. He had the expectations of both success and failure placed upon him. Success, because he was powerful. Failure, because he was old enough to have learnt attachment to his mother. He fell in love. Other Jedi of that era, in the death of the Old Republic - many, far more than most would think - had fallen in love. Some had even been married. Others had left the Jedi Order entirely to pursue their happiness with the ones they loved. But Anakin Skywalker is important, because he fell in love and was not only willing to do anything to protect the woman he loved, but also was both capable of, and presented with the choice of either doing great and astonishing harm, or losing the woman he loved. He chose to harm. And he lost her even so, which merely goes to prove that you should always look for a third option, and it also points out that honesty towards those around you, especially your Master, is important in a Jedi. I would suspect that if the Jedi Order of the time had been more... open to the idea of Jedi experiencing passionate love, Anakin would not have hidden his love, and would have indeed had that third option."

She stared right at Jace. "Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, whom I expect you've heard about from your history lessons at Temple. But it's his children, Luke and Leia, to whom we owe the concept of the more modern Jedi Order. They both... loved. And it was passionate love. Free from the constraints the Old Order would have placed on them, they grew up like normal beings. They learnt the appropriate social mores of the time, and in time, they each found love, got married, had kids. They had no stigma against attachment and passionate love in their lives, and Master Skywalker had to rebuild the Order essentially from scratch, so he had no idea about the 'no attachments' rule. Master Skywalker and his wife Mara Jade were both Jedi, while Leia Organa's husband Han Solo was a smuggler, then a General."

She managed a smile, trying to imagine what it had been like then, without a few centuries of rebuilt rhetoric behind the Order and its decisions once more. "Master Skywalker felt that it worked for him and his sister. My turn again. Why did you ask that question?"

[Jace]

He knew bits and pieces of the history she’d told him but not all of it. At her question he gave a simple shrug. “I like history but it’s boring hearing it from the holocrons.” He decided after his last question she deserved an easier one.

“If you hadn’t become a Jedi what would you be?” He thought that would be easy enough to answer. “I’d probably be a doctor. I’m not sure what kind of doctor though. Maybe a combat doctor in the Galactic Alliance, that’d be pretty cool.”

[Mez-Jid Fie'r]

She blinked at that question, and started flicking through the bits of her memories she could reach for the answer, and only found cold.

"I would suspect, that had I not been Jedi, I would have been more dead than I am now. I am sorry that I have no other answer for you, Jace."

She considered seeing if she could dig up any other memories, but decided against it. They'd come back if they were going to.

"My turn, I think. What makes you think I'm going to be a decent Master to you?"

[Jace]

He blinked right back at her and furrowed his brow. “Well, that was a disappointing answer.” Maybe he should start asking her more history questions.

He gave a shrug at her most recent question. “For all I know you’re not going to be but like I said earlier it’s either you or I’ll be a Padawan until I’m your age.” He didn’t feel much like playing this game anymore, especially after her last answer. But she was the Master and he the apprentice so he supposed he had to keep at this until she decided they were done. He let out a sigh and thought of another question.

“Why haven’t you ever had a Padawan before?” This was a question he probably should’ve ask a lot earlier but it only dawned on him now.

[Mez-Jid Fie'r]

She took half a moment to analyse his body language, glanced at her chrono, and finished the rest of her water.

"Let's start heading to that class I mentioned, hrm? It's a basic meditation and focus class, for the more Force-Sensitive of the people here. If we're lucky, we'll have enough time before class for you to show me a kata or two."

[Jace]

He didn’t know if she was avoiding his most recent question or if time had simply gotten away from her but he chose to ignore it, for now. He stood up and glanced over at her.

“I thought we were going practice shooting blasters?”

[Mez-Jid Fie'r]

"Class first with the troops, shooting second with just you, me, and one of the shooting instructors." She tilted her head and waited for him to follow her out the room and down the corridor.

Interesting to note that she was already drifting back into walking like a Jedi, with another in the room. Silent and carefully.

"As you asked, it was too dangerous. The sort of work I did. I was not going to take a child with me - and Jedi Padawan granting you legal status as an adult under Galactic Law or no, that's more for speeder and ship licence purposes than anything else, you're still thirteen and it's too easy to- anyway. I gained a Mastership through work outside of teaching Padawans, which was odd, but not entirely unheard of."

She pushed open the gym door and let him in.

"I expect honesty from you, Jace. When you're bored, you say so. When you're annoyed, you tell me. Okay?"

[Jace]

A smile played at the edge of his mouth when she answered his question, he’d thought for sure she wasn’t going to answer. He entered the gym and glanced around, nothing much of interest to note. He glanced back at her and nodded. “Yes ma’am.”