Out of Time [Star Wars Story]

26. Training Begins

Nothing in the universe is still, Lorash. All things are change, all things are motion. Harmony is the cultivation of balance amongst competing demands and desires, order naturally arising out of what seems chaotic.

With Nabeila's latest lesson to contemplate, Lorash settled into her position on the little island she'd found for herself. Corr's ship was nearby the lake, but here she had distance from the splashing of the twins and the various other people hustling about a small camp in the forests of Tython. The lake had a shallow pathway out to the central island, but it was still under three feet of water. The twins hadn't found it yet, thankfully. She had enough to worry about without them clambering all over the place.

The Force was everywhere on the surface of the verdant world, a placid and peaceful blanket surrounding her. But even then, just as Nabeila had described, there was movement: like little ripples in the surface of the pond itself, it reflected the people who moved through it. The beautiful serenity came not in conflict with the rushing of the wind through the leaves or the stirring of fish in the waters, but because of it.

Here, surrounded by reeds and under the shade of weeping trees, Lorash finally felt solitude sink in. Nabeila was somewhere deep beneath the surface of her thoughts, leaving her privacy enough to feel all the things that needed to come up. None of the others knew where she was to pester her.

Once she felt appropriately grounded, Lorash turned her attention to the small handful of pebbles she'd collected on the way, pulling them out of her satchel. She set each one beside the next, letting her thumb graze the surface of each in turn, smooth and cool. Nabeila's task seemed easy on its face, to stack the pebbles and hold them in alignment without using her body. Unfortunately, it was targeting probably her weakest area in the Force: anything with physicality.

Even as weak as Lorash's grasp on motion using the Force was, on Tython it seemed much more achievable. She closed her eyes, trying to attune to her surroundings just as she'd reached out to the lightsaber crystal. These stones, however, did not sing back. Lorash sighed a little as she settled into her lotus meditation position. At least she could be comfortable while she flailed at the task.

She frowned as she focused on the first pebble. There was no sense in trying to grasp all of them at once, not when each would be stacked atop the other. She knew that was beyond her. How to encourage a stone to float? That was not its natural state of being, nor was raw willpower her own strength.

It is like a muscle, she heard Seia's voice coaching her, a memory from one of their sparring sessions when her grasp of sense was being honed. It takes time to develop any power in the Force. You do not run before you can walk.

In the absence, the comfort of just feeling that connection to Seia for a moment was like a taste of honey after bitter ashes. Lorash felt a little jolt of focus hit her, a reminder that this was not leisure: she needed to learn. She turned it on the pebble, willing it to rise.

It felt like trying to lift an eight-hundred pound boulder. She gasped and dropped the tiny rock. How the hell had Seia managed to hurl herself in that Force-empowered leap at Dren?

You are thinking too small, Nabeila coached softly, words rising to the surface of Lorash's mind.

"I don't understand," Lorash muttered.

Connect to what is larger than yourself and make small your burden. Let the Force carry it, not your will. After all, it is already moving. Your combat training with Seia taught you many times that it is easier to redirect power than generate it.

Lorash opened her eyes, studying the pebble. It looked perfectly still on the ground, as if silently mocking her with her inability to lift it. "But it isn't moving."