May the Fourth Be With The All Skate

[jedi_interrupted]

The bar shifts, or it changed when no one was looking, and now resembles a certain cantina popular with the villainy and scum, as well as more upstanding folks. The air is dryer than usual, and a taste of grit and sand just hangs in the air. It just makes you want some blue milk doesn't it?

Has your character changed? Perhaps...who can tell? The Landlord I suppose but they aren't talking.

[ooc: HI and Welcome to a Star Wars themed All Skate, the best way to celebrate May the Fourth! Party style post. You do not have to interact with any of my characters to play.
The Rules are simple:
- This post, and any post with the subject heading ALL SKATE are open to everyone.
That means old characters, new characters, retired characters, doubles of characters, original characters, non-canon compliant characters.
- We will all play nice and adhere to Wheaton's Law: Don't be a dick.
- Gratuitous behavior, either of a violent or sexual nature, will not be tolerated in the Comm. Take that to an OOM, and then Content Warning the hell out of it before you link it.
- Communication is paramount. Everyone's keyed up, let's just have some fun.]

Comments

[last_kallig]

Ibani actually flushes slightly at the feeling of respect, pleased. She doesn't get respect for her skill often, if only because it is not safe to show it. (Or the people who were witness to it are rather, er, dead.)

The feedback he's getting doesn't translate well to the standard human senses, but the more he pokes it, the more he'll learn.

"This configuration is the most useful to start with," she explains. "You can alter it to prevent even air from getting through, but then you run the risk of nearly suffocating yourself if you hold it up too long." Yes, she had that happen once, it was embarrassing.

[acertainpov]

"I'll try and bear that in mind," dryly. After all, it wouldn't do to go suffocating oneself.

The respect doesn't go away. She's earned it after all.

After a few more moments he closes his hand and withdraws it, every movement slow and deliberate. He takes his focuse away from her sphere, and feels around the Force until he's comfortable pushing at it himself.

It will take many hours of practice before he can make a sphere like hers, but he's just working on the feeling himself. Pushing on the Force itself, rather than objects.

[last_kallig]

Ibani grins at his dry reply and takes her own shield down, just in case it might interfere with the energy he's trying to move around.

"It took me quite a while to learn the technique, and even longer to do it quickly, but it's been extremely useful."

Hopefully it will help him stay safe! There aren't many friendly people in her life, so she clings to them rather fiercely.

There's a feeling of encouragement from Ibani in the Force the first time he 'pushes' in the correct way, rather than words. Hopefully less distracting than speech would be.

[acertainpov]

"I can see where it would be."

'Stay safe' is a difficult concept when it's Obi-Wan Kenobi. 'Not die from his own pigheadedness,' is probably the best she can hope for.

She's right though, speaking is distracting, but part of him can't help it, even now.

His difficulty, as always, is to focus on the physical sensation of the Force itself. Obi-Wan was always stronger on the more emotive side of the Force. Ask him to calm a bantha stampede? Easy. Actually create physical force fields?

After a while, he grins, self deprecatingly. "I can see this will take some practice."

[last_kallig]

"This place is good for that. I could help you work on it more later, if you'd like?"

A flicker of uncertainty in the Force as to how that will be taken by Obi-Wan.

"I'm not in a hurry to go back through the door right now," she adds, tone dry. There's another flicker in the Force, this one of remembered horror and fear as the memory of Darth Zash's attempt to rip her soul out of her body bobs to the surface of her thoughts, unwelcome.

[acertainpov]

"I would like that."

He would! He likes spending time with people, and honestly, he's not in any hurry to go and rejoin the war himself.

(He will, when the sense of responsibility tells him to. But he'll take the time he's given.)

"And in return, I could exchange some of my own Jedi training. Even for a Sith, control of your emotions could come in useful."

[last_kallig]

"I'm quite good at emotional control, when I'm not recovering from nearly having my soul ripped out of my body," Ibani replies, "but extra training never hurts."

"We say 'Ride or be ridden'," she continues. "Learn to use your emotions, control them, or they'll use you. Especially when you're tapping into the Dark Side."

[acertainpov]

The key there is 'when I'm not.' You have to repress them all the time, Ibani, which is what Obi-Wan keeps telling Anakin.

"Well, that's one of the reasons Jedi these days try not ot do that."

Tap into the dark side, that is.

[last_kallig]

From Ibani's point of view, repressing emotions is just a waste of potential power! Also, futile, because you will eventually fail and have to DEAL WITH THEM. Possibly this is why when Jedi Fall they tend to Fall hard enough to leave impact craters?

"It's more effective at certain tasks, but you can get by without it," Ibani replies. "Well, not with force lightning, but everything else seems to work without tapping the Dark Side."

[acertainpov]

"So I don't use Force Lightning," Obi-Wan seems to think this is no great loss. "It looks messy, anyway."

[last_kallig]

"Not as much as you'd think, and it does have applications that don't involve hurting people." Ibani shrugs. "I have something of a knack with it, which is why I was discovered by the Sith." She was using it to kill the man who murdered her mother.

"So far as I know, I'm the only Sith who's discovered that you can use positive emotions to call upon the Light side of the Force instead of using negative emotions to call upon the Dark.

[acertainpov]

"Tell me more about that," Obi-Wan says calmly.

He's much more likely to understand this more emotive use of the Force than be able to master the Force Shield - although he'll definitely be trying that.

[last_kallig]

Ibani tries to think about how to explain. "I'm not sure where to start. I can't remember a time I wasn't aware of the Force. I didn't know what it WAS, but I could....do things, when my need was great enough, when I was terrified or in pain."

"You take the feeling, let it fill you up, burn with it, and your mind and will shape that power in the Force into the effect you want. That's how we access the Force, not through stillness, but passion. 'Through passion, I gain strength,'" Ibani intones, speaking part of the Sith Code. Her belief and her passion echo in the Force.

"The desire to protect, love, the NEED to make things BETTER, they are fire also, fire that creates rather than destroys."

[acertainpov]

Obi-Wan ducks his head, thinking. Listening to her feelings in the Force, but for once not really echoing it with any of his own.

Eventually.

"You think that stillness and passion are contradictions?"

[last_kallig]

"It has seemed to be, to me. Dead air, dead water are still, without attachment or interaction there is only stagnation in them, not life."

[acertainpov]

"And yet in many cases still waters can be teeming with life," he says. "That you can't even see if you stir it up."

[last_kallig]

"Perhaps," Ibani replies. "I was never around much liquid water until very recently. Ilum is all ice, and Korriban is a cold desert."

In Obi Wan's time, Ilum is deserted except for the odd Jedi there to seek a lightsaber crystal or watching over the place. Which raises the question of what in the Force Ibani was doing there.

[acertainpov]

Well.

Khyber.


"Even the harshest desert planet can harbour more life than you'd expect," he says, pushing the metaphor. "Stillness isn't a lack of life."

[last_kallig]

"A poor metaphor on my part, perhaps, "Ibani admits. "But stillness is a poor fit for me."

[acertainpov]

"It can be learned, he offers, "although you seem to be doing a good job of staying alive so far."

[last_kallig]

"I am quite good at staying alive," Ibani replies, her smile turning wry. This time, nothing leaks into the Force to tell of just how much blood and how much pain that has cost.

"Things should be a bit easier now that I am no longer an apprentice."

[acertainpov]

Well done, Ibani. You're learning (terrible lessons)

"And what do you do now you're no longer in training?"

[last_kallig]

Ibani has learned a lot of terrible lessons! From a certain point of view, her entire time on Korriban was one terrible lesson after another.

"I'll be administering part of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge, probably a portion of the Imperial Reclamation Service, the non-Force sensitives who deal with finding and exploring both ancient Sith ruins and other such places of interest."

She takes a sip of her tea. "Although I'm sure there will be other duties tacked on to that from time to time, especially with the War going hot again. Hopefully they won't be sending me in to break Republic bases, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that."

[acertainpov]

"Hopefully at least the first part of that will lead to fewer attempts on your life."

[last_kallig]

"It should," Ibani says after a moment's thought. "Most non-Force sensitive Imperials wouldn't even THINK of trying to kill a Sith, and I'm not important enough to be a target for other Sith."

Ibani's smile turns darkly wry. "Not that we're allowed to murder each other, officially." The trick of course, is getting away with it.