The Preserve - Saturday

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan still had misgivings about this whole sparring thing, but he'd agreed and there was no real good way to wriggle out of it. He had a half-hope that Kanan wouldn't show, but - he knew better. So Kaidan had thrown on his guard and some loose clothing, loaded some protective gear into a duffel and headed to the preserve.

A teal deer wandered by, incurious about the human and his bag of stuff. Kaidan snapped a picture of it and texted it to Kanan. "Aw look, it matches your eyes."

Then, to burn off nerves, he began doing a warm up set of stretches.

[OOC: expecting 1, open to others if you have reason to wander by. Kanan's thread to be chrono last.]

Comments

[spectre_alenko]

"Research for me, then, on the blood test," Kaidan said, "I'll see what I can find out about it." Since Atton hadn't really seemed adverse to talking about it. It would mean divulging his biotic status but since nobody here seemed to give a shit anyway, that wasn't a chore.

"Force-sensitive kids, then," Kaidan corrected, "They get obvious. When you were in the temple, did any of the other kids talk about it? About how they were found?"

Thinking of something, he asked hesitantly, "Are Jedi able to ..feel Sith if they're nearby?"

Part of the talking was just to keep Kanan talking. Kaidan had way more experience with PTSD than he wanted; he knew not to let him go catatonic.

[uncertain_dume]

It took Kanan another few moments to come up with words, again.

"I don't know. Maybe. There might be... cold. Never really met one before."

Well. Vader had ended up in the diner once. But Kanan had been blocking himself off from the Force so much at the time he'd almost resorted to hiding in the damn freezer. Somewhere near the back. Behind the bear and the thing with tentacles.

"It's possible to hide one's presence in the Force, though. It's what I did."

[spectre_alenko]

"Was that instinct, or was it something you were trained to do?" Kaidan asked, thinking.

[uncertain_dume]

"Took me a year to figure it out."

So, neither.

"It's the opposite of instinct. It involves cutting it away. Like..." And here he was going to draw on an analogy Master Kenobi had given to him before going back to... wherever he had been. "... Like amputating a limb."

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan winced. He knew that feeling. That was how it had felt the first time John..died. Like having part of himself just ..cut away. Exactly that feeling.

"So, not something the average Force-sensitive kid is going to know how to do," Kaidan extrapolated, "and not something a Force-sensitive adult would do without a really good reason."

Like surviving a $%^$@#$%^@$ purge.

"Talk to me, Kanan. What's going on in your head right now?" Kaidan asked quietly, done with the inquisition for the moment.

[uncertain_dume]

"Too much," Kanan replied quietly. "Too many thoughts at once, I can't finish any one of them."

He closed his eyes. Bowed his head. Only vaguely let himself become aware of the arm around him. How had he missed it before?

He'd been drowning.

"I'm trying, and I want, and I need, and they need, and I can't. I... I can't breathe."

[spectre_alenko]

Yeah, well, it's still there. Kaidan isn't releasing contact until you shake him off.

"Kanan, how does it go? There is no emotion, there is peace.. What's the next line?"

[uncertain_dume]

"There is no ignorance," Kanan replied shoulders bunching up that little bit more. "There is knowledge."

He opened his mouth to take a breath, and on his exhale, he added, "There is no passion, there is serenity..."

[spectre_alenko]

Oh good. He was breathing again. Kaidan knew the next line. Kanan had all but growled it at him. "There is no chaos, there is harmony.."

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan murmured along with that line, too.

And then, the final line came up, and he all but sobbed it out, feeling something, in him on the razor's edge of a breaking point, but refusing to let himself fall over it.

The result was a quiet, bruised, ragged, "There is no death, there is the Force," which was followed, almost immediately, by a shudder and a shake of his head. He was breathing, now. That was more than he really felt up to doing. But he was breathing.

[spectre_alenko]

"Kanan, say it again," Kaidan said quietly. He kept reinforcing the name on purpose.

[uncertain_dume]

"There is no death," Kanan murmured, shaking his head. "There is the Force."

And he knew it. He knew it was true. The island had given him his Master back for a weekend. He could feel her influence through it, guiding him, from time to time.

Death, yet the Force.