Star Wars: The Ancient Force

C H A P T E R . 1 4 -- Lighter

THE DUST STORM'S TAIL was lingering for miles along hills spotted with pale green. Luke and Terigo bring their speeders to a stop among the misty dust around the bottom of the hills.

Terigo says, conversationally, "These things are really intuitive once you ride them for a bit."

With his mind mostly on the hills, Luke smirks, "I used to say that when I was little, but no one understood. They just thought I was reckless..."

He tells her that the person is over these hills, so they start hiking.

Halfway over the hills, their hiking turns into climbing.

Terigo says, "At least these rocks aren't spikey or slippery like at the base."

"Yeah, I think there was less acid rain here."

"And I can feel the person now, by the way. Since about a quarter of the way here on the speeders."

Luke scoffs quietly, smirking with good humor, "You mean you only have a quarter of the sensing distance that I do?" He lets her see his smirk to let her know it was lighthearted, but she was already smirking back. He had forgotten until now that she had always felt his intentions before he could speak.

She says, smirking wide, "You mean when you're Light, otherwise you have a quarter of the sensing distance that I do."

He smirks again and turns his head back to continue climbing, then he smiles to himself from the comfort of having such a close friend.

Approaching unscalable cliffs, they consider walking back a half hour to find another way, but they discuss things before resorting to.

Luke says, "If it wasn't as high, I could jump up there by pushing the ground away with the Force. Are you able to do that?"

"No..." she says with the largest smirk, ohhhh the possibilities! "...But, maybe there are enough boulders here for you to move to make stairs up to each of these smaller cliffs."

"Or maybe we could cut some boulders out."

"Or just cut stairs out of the wall.

"Or," Luke says with finality, "Just get on a boulder and I'll..." but he realizes the same thing that Terigo already was:

"But I can't levitate the boulder you would stand on—"

"Yeah," Luke says, disappointed.

"We should try cutting out stairs; I doubt I could even levitate a pebble up there. It's strangely different, how I had to push the dead essence of the lightsaber rather than connect to a living flow, or ask it, so to speak. I'd never seen or tried such a thing until I left Audinic. Our religions focus on people, not things." She goes to the cliffside to start but looks back for Luke's agreement.

About her pebble doubts, he mumbles: "(Size is irrelevant by the way)," as a side note, busy with thoughts. Luke almost gives the ok, but... "Well, then what about me? Levitate me. Maybe you can do it because of your skill with the Light."

Terigo was already considering how, having read his thoughts before he finished, as usual. "Hmm... Maybe... I could see pulling someone closer, if they wanted to come closer, but not... not away, I don't think. If..." And the answer was simple after that, but Terigo was too busy thinking of the method.

"Then I'll lift you up on the boulder, and you pull me up."

"Provided I can," as she looks for a loose rock to stand on, excited to try new things.