LL1 24 Training Begins

Kess tore into the living room, gasping for air. Scared witless, she went for the only person in the room, Han, and sat down right next to him. "Where's your blaster?"

Han looked at her and heckled. "The hell happened to you?"

Her eyes went everywhere, seeing figures in the corners of her eyes, watching for moving shadows. "You wouldn't believe me... It's crazy." She realized her actions and stood up. "This is crazy!"

Han returned his attention back to the periodical in his hands. "Hey, around them two, nothing's crazy." He crossed his feet at his ankles with a murmur, "You think it's bad now? Wait until the pepper starts levitating across the table."

As if on cue, Luke erupted out his bedroom voicing concern, "What happened?"

Kess backed out of the sitting area to the wall of window. "I um… I think I just saw the ghost of my grandfather."

Luke's brows shot into his forehead. Stepped carefully toward her, he fought a grin. "Take a deep breath."

Even with him still on the other side of the room, Kess stepped backward away from the man and fell against the window. "They can do that?" She snapped at him like it was all his fault.

He smiled reluctantly. "Yes, they can."

She gritted her teeth and side stepped away from his approach. "You just stay away from me."

Luke stopped his advance, grinned more, and spread his hands. "What did he say?"

Kess laughed madly at all this, "He uh, said something about duty and..." she huffed, "trusting you." She cussed under her breath and accepted the debate was over. And she lost.

Her jaw went crooked, still not wanting to admit it. "How am I supposed to know it wasn't just some trick you pulled?"

Luke took careful steps to follow her retreat. Quick movements would only spook the poor girl more. "I guess you're just going to have to trust me on that."

The message from the 'ghost' weighed heavily on his mind even though it weighed in his favor. Her grandfather must have been a Jedi, otherwise he would not have been able to appear to her. The grand scheme of things must depend on her training, otherwise he would not have appeared at all. Luke saw Obi-Wan rarely after his death, saw Master Yoda twice, and his father only once. Dead Jedi don't show up just to visit.

She slunk quickly around the dining table from him and Luke began to feel like he was herding a wildcat.

Brown eyes drilled into his, "What are you not telling me?"

Luke could only smile more, "There's a lot I'm not telling you. You keep insisting you don't want to know."

The gears were visibly crunching as they tried to work this out in her head. She watched his every move. "This is a really bad idea."

He took another sneaky step around, "Not training is a worse idea."

She rolled her eyes and argued weakly, "You've known me for less than a week and you've already picked me as your next apprentice?"

"You're my first apprentice," he corrected, "And I know you better than you think." Luke held out a hand in offering.

Kess tightened her jaw, not fully convinced this was the right decision, but accepted she couldn't debate herself out of it. She'd always wanted to be a Jedi, even though she was never sure what 'being a Jedi' really meant. She studied the woolen fabric of his black uniform and looked up at his face.

Kess decided she could convince her father that becoming a Jedi on purpose is better than becoming a Sith by accident. Her father was going to have her hide, but at least she'd be able to defend herself when he did. As if he had a magnet in his fingers, her hand was drawn to take his. "All right. You win."

Luke was so thrilled he wanted to hug her, but he only smiled. He dropped her hand to lead her to the elevator and walked behind her to it, requesting a car.

The reflective doors slid aside. He walked in and leaned his back to the wall, crossing his arms and crossing his ankles. She silently followed with her head bowed in a kind of defeat. Folding her arms tightly at her chest, she stared at the floor and leaned her back against the opposite wall. The doors slid closed.

A heavy silence filled the enclosed air. Luke sensed she was still having trouble with her decision and hoped she wouldn't change her mind. He also recognized that there was more to his desire to get her to train than the simple need to make more Jedi Knights. His sights fell to the elevator's carpet. He wanted company.

"How long will this take?" her meek voice echoed in the close confines.

Luke looked up again, thinking, and shrugged. "An hour maybe."

"No, no." She squared her shoulders and adjusted her feet, "I mean the whole training… thing?"

The commitment lifted a light in Luke's eyes. When the doors slid open, he stood on both feet, dropping his arms, and admitted as if he liked it, "I have no idea."

Her brow furrowed at him as she followed.

Luke looked both ways and went left. He strolled down the hall. The lobby was the same blue and lavender as the suite. Polished walls of the ground floor had no windows. The sitting areas, the small bar, and the gambling tables, were all cleaned for the next day and void of human, alien, or droid. He stopped in front of the exit doors and turned curiously at her. "Does it matter?"

"Well," Kess stopped in front of him with a shrug, "Do we get paid?"

Luke flashed a smile of humor and turned his feet to head for the door. "Not exactly, no."

Kess slapped her thighs again to follow him out. "Then I guess it doesn't matter."

The salty breeze returned to send a blond lock of hair across her cheek. They stepped out to the landscaped courtyard. Brick pathways wound in and out of giant, red-barked trees. Stubby lamps dotted the walk between bushes and flowers. A bird cawed as it flew away. Boots thumped on the brick as they strolled.

Luke started calculating. "Your training will have to come first even though it will seem like an extra-curricular activity. I'm here for the treaty and you're here to fix the Falcon. Even when we get back, I'm still commanding Rogue Group and you're going back to Gold Group."

He led the stroll away from the hotel and toward that continent-sized empty spot in the landscape that made up the suite's gracious view of an unblemished sky. "You'll need to wake up with me every morning. We'll train before work and again after dinner."

He found a little hill off the path rimmed with several big trees. He stopped his feet there. He felt three fluffy-tailed rodents climbing through the brush to their home. There were trimmed bushes and little bunches of planted flowers here. The little spot of nature wasn't strong in the Force, but the pocket of gentle life was stronger and calming than the mess of busy minds in the hotel.

He turned as she approached. "Most of it will need to be practiced during routine events anyway."

Kess stopped with him, not noticing the change in pace. "What do you know about my 'routine events'?"

Luke shrugged his eyebrows and nudged her by the shoulder to pass him by. He led her off the path and guided her to face the wall of trees. He positioned himself behind her as if there was a beautiful view for them both to enjoy. "What do you see?"

Kess shrugged, "A bunch of trees."

Luke nodded. That was what he expected her to say, "Close your eyes."

Kess closed her eyes.

Luke backed away a single pace, "Open your mind."

He let down his defenses so he could feel her emotions during all this. His own nervousness washed over his soul. He was treading on new ground now. Training has begun; no room for mistakes.

As for her, the indecision was dissolving only because of her stronger curiosity, but that was good enough for now.

"Life creates the Force and consumes it at the same time. The Force flows through everything from the vacuum of space, to planets, the people, even the trees in front of you... It binds us all together." He felt unoriginal quoting both of his Masters in the same instruction, but really couldn't think of a better way to put it. "When you move, the Force moves with you, it pushes ahead of you, and it swirls behind you. When you're just standing there, it flows right through you, like it is right now."

She struggled, but tried. "Like water? Or an electromagnetic field?"

Luke stretched his mouth a little, "Sort of. It's that sixth sense everyone feels, it's psychic ability, it's extrasensory perception, it's emotion, it's prayer. It's just being called different things in different religions."

He took a secret step around to spy her expression as she faced the trees. Her eyes were still closed.

Luke bit back his hesitation to do something that should have been rudely forward, but he reminded himself this was training and did it anyway. He snuck inside her mind to sense where her attentions focused.

She had no idea he was in there. Her focus was on smelling the vegetation. She listened to an animal crawling in the brush. She felt the breeze on the skin of her hands and face. She wasn't getting it, but she was trying.

Luke opened his eyes again. "Concentrate on all your senses at once."

The sleeves of her coveralls fluttered against her skin. The tang of salt touched her tongue. The leaves rustled against leaves. Scents of earth and fresh oxygen filled her nose. She even tried to look at the insides of her eyelids.

"Your emotions are a sense too," he guided.

"How can-"

"What are you feeling?" He knew she could do it if she could just break through the confines of the third dimension. She had to open her mind more, except that she didn't know she could.

Kess shrugged, confused, but remained attentive nonetheless.

Luke scratched his earlobe in thought. He decided to try amplifying the Force to call her mental attention to a sense she never knew she had. It was like trying to 'tell' a muscle to move instead of just moving it. It was almost impossible to find such a thing until the muscle was already flexed.

Luke closed his eyes and reached back with his hand, swishing it forward to 'push' the Force swirling through her.

Kess gasped for air.

Her arms rose as though she was standing chest deep in a river of water. Her mouth remained open in shock and her eyes closed in concentration.

Luke smiled. He took a step backward and listened to her mind go wild.

There was more to the wind than air and there was more to the air than oxygen. It wasn't one extra sense, it was- like- twelve! She could feel without using her skin. She could smell without using her nose. She could hear as though nature was using a giant microphone connected directly into her brain. She could see colors in the darkness of her eyelids. She could feel emotions that weren't even hers. And there was this giant glowing glob standing on the path behind her.

She started to lose it when she began to turn—

Luke stepped back farther. "Now say something."

"How co-" She heard her own voice echo in a dozen musical notes in her mind. She talked through an electric organ and felt the vibration of the sound in her heartbeat. "How come I couldn't do this before?"

Wallowing in glee, Luke crossed his arms and dropped a shoulder against a tree. He spoke with only his mind, sending a dozen deep musical notes at her on the Force, "You were doing this before. Only you were doing it much, much louder."