An open invitation

[ezra_of_lothal]

WHO: Ezra, other Jedi Temple residents, visitors, and spectators
WHERE: The Temba Jedi Temple and the area around it/former museum area
WHAT: Lightsaber practice and mingle OTA
WHEN: Several days after Billy’s spell breaks
WARNINGS: TBD (label threads if you can, please!)



Having his connection to the Force fully restored is strangely disorienting and unbalancing for Ezra, and he was never completely cut off from it. He can’t really imagine how his fellow Jedi, who now remember entire lives without sensing the Force, feel. So, for a few days, he does his chores, mediates a little, visits other people, and tries not to hover while the residents of the Temple area regain their inner footing.

Eventually, though, he gets a little restless. Maybe some focused movement with a purpose would help the other Jedi, too.

Network - Text

Lightsaber practice in the open area by the Temple area, early afternoon today. Myself and Master Kenobi at least, still working out details. I guess it’s never actually been said – people are welcome to come watch! It’s polite to stay quiet when there’s actual instruction going on, of course. Also, we’re usually working on lower power, but for safety please stay well back while blades are ignited.



It starts a little slow, warming up with katas, demonstrating and talking through sequences. Ezra’s particularly interested in learning more about Soresu, the defensive form for which Obi-wan had once been well known in the Order. He’s learned the fundamentals from Kanan, but getting to see Master Kenobi go all out in the salles at the Coruscant Temple had been enlightening.

Eventually they get around to the really fun stuff – practice duels. They should really do this on some varied terrain at some point, but for right now, it’s flashing blades, jumps, twirls and flips around the flat ground. Perfect for others to come watch and talk amongst themselves.

Ezra'a soon clearly in a much better mood, beaming as he extinguishes his green blade for a break.

Comments

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ezra doesn't always wear the very traditional cream tunics and tabards and leggings - he's just as likely to be spotted in the bright colors he grew up wearing, although he's taken to throwing a grey-brown robe on as a top layer. But today, as a reminder to himself, and solidarity to the other Jedi, he's going with the traditional garb to which he came late.

During a break, he wanders over, drawn as much by the wolf as the woman accompanying him.

"Hello," he greets. "I'm Ezra. I haven't seen you around before. Did you get here recently?"

[holtfinder]

"Yes, I've only just arrived." She nods, one hand resting on Steadypaw's back. "I'm Moonshade. I hope you don't mind me watching; I've never seen anything like that before."

[ezra_of_lothal]

"We don't mind," he reassures her, with a smile.

"I invited people to come watch, this morning, over the communication network. We hadn't had a chance to do a lot of training all together yet. The four of us, here, I mean, who have training in...our particular tradition. We call ourselves Jedi, and the weapon is called a lightsaber."

[holtfinder]

"Ah, I didn't...the message, I couldn't understand it." There's something a little sheepish about that. "But, I'm glad I got to see it anyway. Is the lightsaber, um, some sort of magic?"

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ezra frowns a little at the part about not understanding, but doesn't persue that immediately.

"It's...sort of?" How to explain. "Or, I guess, partly yes, but not entirely. The heart of the blade is a crystal I did a...trial - some people might call it a vision quest - to bond to it. The crystal is the focus of the blade, but it's also a focus for how I...connect with all of the energy around us."

[holtfinder]

She nods slowly. "I'm familiar with the power of magic crystals. Our people arrived on the world we inhabit after flying there in a crystal palace, one we've fought the humans of our world and other enemies to recover. I've never seen ours do anything like this. But...you say you connect with the energy around us? How does that work?"

[ezra_of_lothal]

"It's an ability I was born with, although I didn't know exactly what I was doing until I crossed paths with someone with training," Ezra says with a shrug.

"The Jedi call it Force sensitivity. And Force is what we call the energy that flows through...everything. I feel particularly itstrongly as the connections between living beings."

He lifts a hand towards the wolf and sends a very light mental greeting. It doesn't occur to him there might be some kind of etiquette to it; some animals reject such overtures for various reasons, but they strangely never seem surprised by them.

[holtfinder]

This wolf is familiar with a mental touch, reacting with a burst of curiosity, immediately moving closer to sniff at Ezra. Moonshade, meanwhile, tilts her head to one side; the mental contact hadn't been meant for her, but because she's bonded with Steadypaw, she felt an echo of it.

"Is...the Force also involved in what you just did?"

She gestures between the wolf and the man to make clear what she was talking about.

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ezra holds still to be sniffed, sending another gentle nudge of warm encouragement.

"That's how I think of it. I reached through the Force to make a connection. Sometimes I think using the words we're most used to confuses thing as much as they help, though." His eyes flick to Moonshade, although he's continued to hold pretty still.

"Like, to me it feels like you and he have a bond. Not just of friendship, but a Force bond, mind to mind," He hadn't realizes that until he reaches out greet the wolf, but not that he has, he can feel echo reverberating. "But I don't know what you'd call it."

[holtfinder]

"We do have a bond--he's my wolf-friend, I've known him since he was a cub. While the wolves can't Send, not like us elves, they can understand and feel us. So you were...Sending to him, just now? I've never known a human who was able to before."

The capital letter is audible, in the word 'Sending'. It's both practical and quasi-spiritual to her kind.

[ezra_of_lothal]

"Sending an emotion, yeah. Elves are...your species? Your tribe?" he asks.

"Jedi are trained to sense emotions, and can most of them can send a thought or feelings. Well. It can depend. Maybe there are exceptions. We all have different gifts. But Jedi come from every species, where I'm from, human included. It's a philosophy, and calling, and the training to go with it."

[holtfinder]

"Elves are my people. My tribe is the Wolfriders." She pats Steadypaw on the back lightly as she says that, because he's the wolf she currently rides. Not that any of the past ones are forgotten, but when your life spans centuries, you don't get just one wolf to keep (unless you're Skywise, but he's special).

Moonshade reaches out with a delicate mental touch, a wordless Sending that's just to see if Ezra can perceive it, coming from her. It's sort of just a "?" sort of sensation.

[ezra_of_lothal]

His expression lights up even more, and he sends back a wordless acknowledgement.

And then, he closes his eyes, sending a little more - the snippet of memory of Loth-wolves from his home planet, and one kneeling down so he could climb onto their back.

"I only got to do it a few times," he murmurs. "The wolves helped me and my friends, because we were fighting people responsible for forests burning and tearing up huge swaths of the ground, faster than ever before, fast enough that soon it might throw off...balance. How life fit together."

[holtfinder]

"I know that sort of fire. Usually caused by humans, in my experience. The conflict between us and them was an ancient one, that spanned the lives of several chiefs, but grew worse during Mantricker and Bearclaw's lives. They burned us out of our forests, when my my son was a young child."

She shakes her head slightly. "The wolves were with us before then. We've always been connected with them, since the arrival of the High Ones."

[ezra_of_lothal]

At that, Ezra sends a wave of compassion/empathy. He knows what losing a home is like, and he suspects showing the feeling this way might carry more weight then rote 'I'm sorry'.

"Who are the High Ones?" he asks, quietly.

CW: bestiality

[holtfinder]

Moonshade casts her eyes upward as she begins to explain.

"The High Ones, sometimes also called the Firstcomers were the first elves on our world. They arrived in a crystal palace from beyond the stars. When they reached Abode, they found the world cruel and hostile. Humans were brutes even then, less willing or less able to communicate, and attacked them on sight. They fled, and found their own ways to survive in the cruel new world. Timmain, for example, took the form of a wolf, and was the first to learn to hunt. She mated with one of the wolves on Abode, and her son, Timmorn Yellow-Eyes, became the first chief of the Wolfriders. Our current chief, Cutter Kinseeker, is blood of eight-and-two chiefs, but we all come from Timmain's blood somewhere along the line."

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ezra ponders that a moment.

"I'm probably not entirely human," He tugs at a lock of his hair that's had a couple of months to begin to grow out from its military style buzz cut, and grins a little. "It's more obvious when my hair gets longer, and it looks more blue. But mixed ancestry's not that unusual where I'm from."

[holtfinder]

"These days, elves only ever mix with elves, though blood mingling across tribe lines leads to individuals with amazing talents sometimes, like Venka, whose father was Rayek of the Sun Folk and whose mother was Kahvi of the Go-Backs. We Wolfriders are mortal because of the wolf blood in us, but children of Wolfriders and Sun Folk vary." She's leaving out a notable elf-troll crossbreed, but she'd rather not talk about Two-Edge. And for that matter, his accursed mother did profane magic to allow her to mate with a troll, so she doesn't count.

She pauses, looking at Ezra's hair for the moment. "What else are you, beside human?"

[ezra_of_lothal]

"I don't know," Ezra admits. "There's a lot of options, where I'm from. Maybe my parents knew, but I lost them when I was pretty young, and there wasn't any other family nearby to take me in who might have known."

Not that he knows of, at least, and since his parents did teach him how to avoid Imperial officers and hide, surely they would have given him instructions about that, too. He knows their first choice of guardian was just too scared to step up.