Stop looking at her lips. Stop looking at her lips. Stop looking at her kriffing lips, you invalid!
Seraiah yelled at the top of his mental voice, but his obstinate body refused to obey. He was standing at the other end of the mat from Hanna Ding, an arkanian girl—a pretty arkanian girl— who looked rather bemused by his inability to focus. She had no idea what his problem was, thank the stars. She just knew the same thing that Seraiah new; they had an audience, they had visitors in the audience, and the audience was here to observe the tryouts. He should be focused.
The tryouts were for the remaining positions in the tournament led by Master Xan. 'Ironhand', they called her. The purpose of the tournament was to further the progress of the lightsaber studies, made necessary by the war. This had been the case for the better part of a year, increased emphasis on combat, tactics, strategy, you name it. If it could be applied in war or a skirmish, it was on the list of things to learn. All the younglings knew that this was not right; the masters stressed time and again that a Jedi is not a soldier, nor a commander of armies, nor any sort of component in war. The Jedi served the greater good, the 'will of the Force'. They were supposed to be guardians of justice, keepers of the peace. Seraiah's generation was one prepared to face conflict, instead of prevent it. It was not right, and the masters knew this, as well as the younglings. But it was necessary. War forced such things on the governments that waged it. And the Jedi protected the Republic. Thus, they protected it in war as well as peace.
Spast, Seraiah shifted his feet. Now I'm depressed and distracted.
Master Xan inhaled to give the command to begin, and Seraiah made a last ditch effort to focus. He stared into the silver light of his blade, remembering the Room of a Thousand Fountains that it was built in reverence of, the place he first learned to calm himself. He centred himself in the Force as best a youngling could be expected, though he felt Hanna was even more so. Master Xan gave the word, and Seraiah side stepped an acrobatic flash of green from overhead. He turned to face Hanna, who landed on the other side of him. He bent his knees and coiled his muscles in preparation for a back-handspring, the counter for the coming high or low slash that Hanna would perform. Hanna came through with the former, and Seraiah launched himself back. His muscles did their job, executing the flip efficiently, ending with a tidy landing back into the Ataru ready stance. He sidestepped another slash, and then a lunge, Hanna leaving no time for him to make a counterattack. She made another lunge, this time making a mistake, leaning to far forward. She passed directly in front of him, leaving the back of her neck open. Seraiah drew a breath for the strike—
He caught a whiff of her hair.
He numbly saw Hanna somersault away to regain her footing, while he stood dazed with a heat in his cheeks. Hanna charged again, using an elegant flourish to drive Seraiah's blade out of centre. It worked. Seraiah tried to block every swipe and weave of the green web woven before him, exposing his arm to a quick downward slash from his opponent. The sharp heat made him wince, and Hanna delivered two more strikes. She had won. Seraiah had lost.
Master Xan politely congratulated her victory, before cautioning her on her that miss-performed lunge. Master Xan then sent her to the sides, where more congratulations were waiting for her from her peers, before standing over Seraiah. Seraiah tried to look her in the eye, but couldn't lift his eyes off the ground. He could feel the purple in his blue cheeks.
"Valchio." She said, adopting a quieter voice so only he could hear. "Youngling." She said a little more sternly when he still did not look at her. Seraiah brought his face up, but still struggled to make eye contact. He could see some of the other younglings looking at them, whispering amongst themselves as to what Master Xan may be talking to him about.
"Seraiah, you are young, as you have been told many times, but this is not an excuse." Seraiah knew what she was talking about; his infatuation with Hanna was not news to the elder Jedi in front of him. In fact, things like this were never of very much relevance. Divorcing emotion and attachment was required to become a Jedi, but not for learning to be one. Learning to be a Jedi was where you finished distancing yourself from connection. But like she had just said...
"You have been given all the advice and direction that you require. Overcoming this is dependent on you exercising self control. Do or do not."
"...There is no try." Seraiah finished. Yoda had said it on occasion enough for it to be known around the Temple. Master Xan was right though; Seraiah had to take charge of this. He had to detach himself from this childhood passion. If he couldn't master the impulses of a boy, then how would he restrain the wants of a man?
His plight seemed dire to only him, though, his plight being he did not want to rid himself of this. The smell of her hair, the soft look of her lips...it was all so good. And no matter how sad knowing he could never have her reciprocate this, he could not bring himself to deaden himself to it.
He shuffled through the halls of the Temple with tears dripping from his downturned face. He turned his head to the side whenever someone passed, but he doubted he was fooling anyone, the Jedi being able to sense emotion and thought through the Force. He turned the corner to the males dormitories and stopped. It was large enough to house a platoon of men and boys, but most of it was eerily vacant. Another visible scar of the war, Seraiah's instructors had said. He remembered how, years ago, this place was abuzz with Jedi of all ages, all species, all backgrounds. He remembered the Jedi who had given him the silver crystal for his lightsaber. She was an arkanian, like Hanna. She had always been very understanding of Seraiah, and had chosen him as her apprentice when she had given him the silver focusing crystal six years ago, and had taught him to build it herself. She had died the very next year protecting another two Jedi from a mob of Iridonians incited by some people called 'Nightsisters'. The similarities between her lightsaber and his were the only part he had left of her, her lightsaber being pu away somewhere out of reverence. He was an orphan. An orphan in need of a parent. He was alone. So very alone. And the one person he was drawn to, he could not have.
Tears rained from eyes that were closed tight with pain. His body trembled.
It wasn't fair.
He felt a hard impact against the top of his head, knocking him back to almost fall on the floor. He righted himself to look up at what had knocked him down. He looked up at the fuming face of a human, a few years older than him at the most.
"What?" He demanded. His accent was odd; it was like coruscanti, but very off somewhere. Seraiah stood, wiping his face with the sleeve of his tunic, before looking at him again.
"What?" The human demanded again. Seraiah felt anger at being spoken down to like this.
"Watch where you're going!"
"Me?" The human retorted. "You're the one staring at the ground, boy. Or maybe you were watering it, eh?" He gestured to the patch of floor that Seraiah had been crying over.
"Kriff you!" Seraiah shouted. The humans eyes went wide with indignation.
"What?" He said again, in disbelief this time.
"You heard me!"
"Who the hell—?" The human seemed lost for words for a moment. "What is your problem?"
"What do you care?" Seraiah spat. "You wouldn't understand."
The human scoffed. "Yeah? You're a foulmouthed little brat who was bucketing his eyes out onto the carpet because he lost to a girl. What's to understand?"
"Kriff you!" Seraiah shouted again. "You don't know anything!"
The human narrowed his eyes. "Not yet..." He said, and Seraiah could feel him reach out with the Force. His eyes went wide as he felt the human's mind brush his own. He shook his head, fighting against the invasion of privacy, before lunging forward to shove the offender back.
"Get out!" He screamed. The human shifted his weight to one side, turned, and let Seraiah stumble past. Seraiah turned around and took a swipe at the other boy, only scoring a glancing hit.
"Knock it off, you little twit." The danger in the humans tone went unnoticed to Seraiah.
"You schutta!" Seraiah's eyes were watering up again, out of rage this time. He swung again and missed. "Hold still!"
"Or what? You'll cry me to death?"
"That doesn't even make sense, you murglak!"
"Oh, really? Makes more sense than cussing in the Jedi Temple! I've a right mind to shove a bar of salt-wash down your throat!"
"Try it." Seraiah grabbed his lightsaber, igniting it in front of him. The human just scoffed again.
"Nice nightlight. You use that to chase away the sith-spooks?"
Seraiah swung wildly at him, but the human seemed to disappear from in front of him. But really, he was just ducking and rolling to the side faster than Seraiah had seen from another youngling. Seraiah turned to swing again, but the human had hopped out of range of his blade.
"Losing my patience, lil' mate." The human warned. Seraiah lunged forward, aiming for his face. The human ducked out of the way again.
"Stop that!" Seraiah tried again to land a hit. This time the human stood his ground. Seraiah's brought his blade down from the side, going for the space between the human's head and shoulder. The human stepped forward. Seraiah's eyes went wide as the human grabbed his wrist and pulled him forward, before grabbing Seraiah's belt with his other hand and lifting Seraiah off the ground. Seraiah felt a shout in the Force as he was thrown across the hall. He landed hard on the carpeted duracrete, his instinctive Force barrier protecting him from the worst of the impact.
"You...filthy..." Seraiah climbed to his feet, tears falling from his eyes again.
"What is going on here?"
Seraiah looked through his tear blurred vision at a sleepy eyed Sulustan Jedi, one of the nightwatchman for the dormitories, and a Zabrak day-monitor looking down at him. The Zabrak held out his hand.
"Lightsaber."
Seraiah stood and handed his now deactivated tool over to the older Jedi.
"This little punk took a swing at me!" The human accused
The Nightwatchman turned to the human. "Don't think I missed that throw, youngling." He said flatly. "Or that I didn't sense you invade his mind. Both of you stand over here," He gestured to the large door at the entrance to the males dormitories. "And do not move."
The Nightwatchman moved to the other side of the hallway, turning to watch them as the Day-monitor pulled out his communicator. Seraiah stood in embarrassed dread as the Day-monitor called for the Head of Correction to send someone to collect both Seraiah and the youngling he had been fighting with, while some of the other younglings arrived back to their shared rooms, staring and whispering at the sight of them.
Sithspit...Sithspit, this is bad...
A group of Jedi, younglings, adolescents, and adults, walked through the doors, followed by two elder Jedi, who Seraiah knew could only be the Jedi sent to collect them.
Seraiah shifted his feet and looked at the floor as one youngling from the mixed-age group approached, another human. He saw the feet of the youngling move over to the youngling Seraiah had been fighting.
He heard him say something along the lines of 'what happened?', but couldn't make out the exact words over the din of the returning Jedi. The two Jedi sent for them ushered the other human on, before motioning for Seraiah and the human to follow them.
"This way."
As he fell in behind them, Seraiah noticed something off about the mixed-age group. They seemed unfamiliar with the dormitories, and, now that he was looking somewhere other than the floor, their robes were slightly different from the 'Temple norm', whatever that was anymore. He turned back to the Jedi leading him to the Head of Correction, and then it hit him; they weren't from the Temple. They were from the academy on Almas, visiting the Temple for a study of the deeper traditions of the Jedi. 'Honoured visitors' they were called. There was a rumour that one of them was here to face the Jedi trials, taking the same trials that Master Yoda himself took—
Wait...
Seraiah looked over to his left, at the human. He wore the same robes as the visitors from Almas. He had just rough-housed with an honoured visitor.
Sithspit, sithspit, sithspit, sithspit, sithspit, sithspit...
There you go. Here's hoping you like it.
Notes:
Salt-wash=bar of soap
Schutta=bitch
Murglack=bitch/bastard
Stpast/sithspit=shit
Kriff=f***
