Managing the Shadows (Star Wars Legacy - AK, After Krayt, Part 1)

Chapter 1: Managing the Shadows

MANAGING THE SHADOWS

The white circle designs of the pot looked broken and disfigured as the black shards lay scattered on the floor. The pieces began to shake. Then they started to lift- slowly. Traya's mind followed the jagged edges, sensing where the white circles were supposed to meet when the pot was whole.

Traya tried to fill her mind with a sense of healing, a process her master had tried to describe to her numerous times before. In her mind the edges of the pot glowed with blue shine. In her mind's eye she saw four hands molding and sculpting the black clay. She watched three hands hold the pot in place while one more held a brush painting on the white interlocking circles that surrounded the neck of the pot. She felt the joy of her Master as the pot was handed to him a gift. In each piece she felt love, in each piece the image of another bond; the friend, the mother, the father, the uncle, the lover. But in each gap she felt pain. The pain of loss. The fear of the death of those loved. The urge to end oneself. And in the pain she heard a whisper: you are mine. Mine. All mine!

The floating pieces of the pot now scattered to the floor. Her long blond hair, which had been floating around her, fell down around her shoulders as Traya got up and punched a wall.

Cade opened the door. He had felt the frustration from outside. "It's no use master! I'm not strong enough." Traya shouted.

Cade moved beside Traya, laying one strong and calm hand settling on her shoulders and the other reaching up towards the pot. "It has nothing to do with your strength," Cade cautioned. The pieces of the pot began to shake. "You must allow yourself to give in to the wish of the force." Slowly the pieces of the pot arose, coming together and joining. The white rings all linked together now making a chain around the neck of the pot. "Calm. And once there-" Cade launched his hand out of a fist to fingers outspread.

The pieces of the pot flew across the room. One piece struck the wall hard enough to bury itself about an inch deep into the solid Ceramisteel metal walls that made up the training room. "Controlled power."

Traya huffed like a child. Cade couldn't help, but smile, he knew the childish frustration too well. He may be a fair bit older than her, but it was only recently in his life that he had calmed his own tempestuous nature.

"The pot is imbued with both light and dark side energy. The will of the light side force within the pot wishes to heal. However, the dark side force-"

"-feeds on your desire to bend the will of the force to fix the pot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know." Traya began pacing.

The pot was a Jedi training tool Cade had created to help youngling Jedi control their dark side urges and desires. The pot had both a desire to heal and shatter into pieces by sensing the type of force exerted upon it by a force side user. Only once one had truly surrendered themselves not to simply do, but to capitulate to the will of the force could an individual return the pot to its original form.

Although Cade considered this to be one of his achievements that he was most proud of, when he had brought the test to the Jedi Council, it had been considered too unorthodox to be allowed as a tool of training within the general Jedi population. It did indeed contain dark side power within it.

Traya stopped pacing and stared daggers at her Master.

"Master, I don't have time for these frivolous lessons. We know Darth Nihl, Lady Maladi, and Saarai are still at large. They were nowhere to be found when our forces finally captured Korriban six years ago, and they still evade us even now."

Cade was worried about Traya's obsession with the remnants of Krayt's dark side leadership. It didn't help that she still refused traditional Jedi garb. She wore a black robe that fell just over her knees with a tight wrapping around the waist. Her legs had boots that came up over her knees. She barely revealed any skin, except between her sleeveless arms, and the long leather gloves that revealed striking biceps. Traya cared little how others saw her. All that concerned her was that they knew her strength.