LL1 25 The Beach
It was a very, very long day.
Kess followed Artoo into the elevator and rested her body against the reflecting walls not really caring if the grease of her coveralls smeared onto the meticulously clean surface. Her eyes drifted closed and open again, paying no attention to the unbelievably alert Wookiee, and reviewed how dirty she had gotten from one day of work on the Falcon.
Her exhaustion didn't surprise her. The morning started out all wrong. Getting in a fight with Luke on the way into the Frakkan System had spent enough of her energy in worry alone, much less the fact that they had been up for 25 hours already. First, the Falcon breaks down in hyperspace, then the Star Destroyers, and then her first taste of the Force...
Kess smiled as she remembered Luke's giddy grin about it (which was after she finally built up the guts to turn around.) In only a half an hour, he began his series of teachings. Kind, firm, and very much to the point, he instructed her on the basics of simply how to sense the Force itself.
But that quiet peace in the courtyard came to a quick end. Chewbacca and Kess were ushered off to begin repairs before the Ambassador arrived. Leia explained the Frakkan government would assume that Chewie and Kess were a part of the negotiating party. She wanted to make it clear on the first day that Kess was in repair and Chewie was posing as the ship's Captain, and both were here strictly to transport the group and fix the Falcon, not negotiate.
Kess shrugged it off knowing the Councilor simply didn't want the gruff and rude Wookiee or the uneducated-in-politics Lieutenant to make any mistakes at the formal breakfast as they probably would have.
She remembered adjusting her ball cap over her braids as she grinned to the polished politicians getting ready for their engagement. "So sorry to put a damper on your awesome plan," she had said sarcastically, "but how am I supposed to pretend Chewie's my Skipper if I can't understand a word he says?"
Han explained matter-of-factly, pointing at each as he spoke. "You understand Artoo, Artoo understands Chewie. Bluff it!"
Artoo swiveled his head toward Kess and warbled pessimistically, "We are going to die."
The droid had more than enough wear on his speakers translating every derogatory comment Chewie made in Kess' direction. Regardless of her argument about the priorities on the repair order list, Chewie ordered her to find all hull breaches and write up a list of the parts therein that needed replacement. She spent the day stuffed into more than a dozen tiny, grimy, unlit cracks, storage compartments, and crawl ways that hadn't seen attention in years.
Kess looked at herself in the reflective elevator wall. The army green jumpsuit was so smeared with black grease and dirt from her collar to her ankles as though the solid-color fabric were deliberately camouflaged for the jungle.
The car stopped and Chewie punched his card key into the slot. The door slid open and sunlight poured into the elevator. Kess stepped out to find that curved wall of window, the one that was taking up one entire side of the hotel suite, wasn't designed for displaying a starry sky.
She stepped closer to the panoramic view of a glorious orange sunset from fifty stories above the ground. The golden circle of Frakkan's star was just touching on a blue-violet linoleum horizon. Awestruck, Kess moved through the sitting area, ignoring the others on her way to the window.
"Strange sight, isn't it?" Luke had already changed into an ivory shirt and tan trousers, leaning his shoulder fearlessly against the wall of glass only a few paces away. He admired the view as well but was now grinning at her reaction to it.
Her focus traveled from the bright star to where the sunlight reflected on a thousand tiny curves of the peacock-colored surface. The blue laminate seemed to cover half the planet, orange reflections at the horizon flickered on a royal blue in the distance and fading to plum then mauve as it reached the reddish sand below. Giant foamy waves of liquid curled over on itself and crashed onto the red beach behind the hotel.
Kess pressed her palms and nose on the glass like a little kid. "Is all that… water?"
Luke chuckled low in his chest.
"It's just sitting there."
Luke's eyes stretched back to take it all in, murmuring passively. "They probably harvest the fresh stuff that doesn't have things living in it."
Kess turned to Luke with eager eyes. "Can we go down and take a closer look?"
Luke tried not to grin at her and shrugged, "Sure."
Kess took a few minutes to scrub herself clean of the grime and change into fresh clothes. She felt rejuvenated despite the lack of sleep. Excited like they were headed for an amusement park, she skipped into the elevator and looked eagerly to the window before the ocean view disappeared.
Luke eyed her strangely, humored, albeit confused, at her antics.
She combed a blond lock away from her temple, crossed her arms, and blurted brightly. "So!" Her voice settled into a placating tone, "How was your day?"
Luke laughed lightly again, "All right, I guess." He folded his arms at his chest and leaned against the wall. Rolled sleeves receded from his muscular forearms. "How was yours?" he returned comically.
She rattled absently, "I'd rather be playing Sabacc." Her attentions focused on his chest. Her eyes moved to his shoulders, then his forearms. Kess angled her head and quizzically looked him up and down.
Luke began to feel a little uncomfortable as the Lieutenant studied his body like some unidentified life form, but he could feel the curious question forming. He waited.
She asked without wording it first. "Why are you in such good shape?"
Luke's squinting eyes dashed to the floor and back at her. He grinned as he stated the obvious, "Because I work out a lot?"
Embarrassment flushed on the Force. She smiled sheepishly, realizing what this must have sounded like. "No. What I mean is, why do you bother? If you can move things with your mind and accent your strength with the Force, why go out of your way?"
He nodded, finally understanding the question. "I don't depend on the Force. I can't use it all the time. So I try not using it unless I have to."
"Why can't you use it all the time?"
The elevator door opened. Luke led the stroll out, pondering a way to approach the first lesson. He slid his hands into the thin fabric of his front pockets and walked casually to the same courtyard they visited that morning. "There are two sides of the Force," he began, meeting her eyes and looking away, "the light side and the dark side. The light side is comprised of peace, knowledge, serenity. The dark side is anger, fear, aggression and so on. A Jedi Knight is a servant of the light side of the Force, exercising the ability only at times of peace."
Kess kept up attentively, "So what do you do when you're pissed off and you still have to fight?"
"That's simple." He punched the door control and met her eyes, "Don't get pissed off."
"That doesn't sound so easy to me."
"I said it was simple," he smiled gritting teeth, "I didn't say it was easy."
Kess passed him and marched into the bright daylight.
Luke followed her. "Since it's nearly impossible to control when you will be fighting, concentrations have to go toward controlling your dark emotions. When the time comes, you'll be prepared to defend yourself on the light side."
Short pine trees shaded their path from the twilight. The cool breeze grew stronger as they passed the tiny pocket of trees they visited the night before. The foot walk dribbled deeper into the garden, disappearing into the bushes ahead and heading directly for the ocean.
Kess scanned the plant life of Frakkan as they passed. "So how do you control your emotions?" Suddenly, she smiled, big and embarrassed, remembering his many attempts to calm her down on the trip. "I just figured out my first lesson, didn't I?"
Luke heckled sarcastically, "You have tremendous insight." After strolling a few more paces, he said, "There is a mantra we use to help remind us where our priorities lie, how to tell the good side from the bad, and to calm emotions that are out of control. It's called the Jedi Code. 'There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no death; there is the Force.'"
As they walked, he watched her for her response to that. He could see her mind chewing on it and trying to decide if she liked how it tasted. She scratched her ear as she thought about it and absentmindedly whipped her sandy hair over her shoulder. "It sounds to me like all you need is a good frontal lobotomy and you've mastered it."
Luke fought a smirk, "If the Code is followed to its logical end, that's true. But as a Jedi, you still have enough emotion to care about what you're doing and why. You can still see right and wrong. You can still be happy and sad. You can still have victories and failures. You just need to control the intensity of it."
Kess grimaced, "Sounds boring."
Luke smiled white teeth, "Oh no." He shook his head at the brick beneath his feet. "Being a Jedi is far from boring." He sighed heavily, looking ahead to the path and where it led them. The thin, sculptured forest was about to come to an abrupt halt, "Besides, boredom is an effect of not knowing what to do with peace. A Jedi does not crave excitement, or wealth, or power..." His voice died as he realized she was no longer listening.
Kess' focus was lured to the finish line. She sped up her pace and watched the trees move out of her way to reveal a giant blue-purple ocean. Foamy waves crashed on the shore of rust-colored sand in a powerful, irregular pattern. As the brick path came to an end, her boots sank into the soft mounds. Her eyes filled with wonder as she crossed the wide swath of empty beach. Few patrons dotted the expansive sand in the distance. The sun dipped behind the planet, turning the sky a rainbow of peach and ash orange. Kess stopped where the sand was still wet, afraid to touch the precious liquid regardless of its abundance here. She watched the waves swell to several metres high, curling over and tripping on itself, reaching towards her in a flat sheet of foam, and finally retreat, just to perform the whole thing over and over and over again.
"Why do you want to become a Jedi?" Luke's voice snuck in, deeply curious.
Startled, she turned to find him beside her, watching her instead of the view. She looked back to the ocean, taking it all in. "I'm really more interested in the Force than the title. I know it's there. I've always known it's there and I've always known that I had the ability to touch it..." She reached out ahead of her, touching the sea breeze as it brushed passed her fingers. "I just could never figure out how to do it."
Luke stepped up beside her, adjusting his hands in his pockets. "If you suddenly had the ability to manipulate the Force in any way you wanted... what is the first thing you would do?"
Kess inhaled and stopped. A dozen things rushed to her mind. She wanted to manipulate her father's opinion about it. She wanted to know how Shorkey really felt about her engineering abilities. She wanted to alter Solo's attitude and make him let her into the navicomputer… but the ocean called her with every crashing wave. The water reached for her feet and slowly pulled away, like a giant beckoning finger. She stared out over the water and said in a distant voice, "I'd hear what the ocean has to say."
Luke let himself smile and back up a step. With an open hand to the vast spread of salt water, he offered it to her. "Then, by all means, listen."
For hours, Kess practiced the art of simply sensing things. The ocean, the trees, and the sand were some of the first things she could identify to sense. Then Luke had to turn her attentions onto things that she couldn't see with her eyes: the ants, the mugrats under the sand, crustaceans in the sea, the wind. He encouraged her to hear and smell, to feel different things using few words and none of his own Force tricks to help. She had to explore it on her own.
Concentrating with her eyes closed for most of the exercise, she hadn't noticed that the sun had entirely disappeared for another revolution. The sky was black with pinpricks of stars, satellites, and ships. She yawned.
Sitting next to her in the dry sand, Luke took the hint, and just before he finished the lesson, he taught her one more exercise.
"Meditation?" She echoed with a snarl.
"It's necessary to keep your emotions in check. Every day. As many times a day as you have to but at least every day. Eventually you'll sleep in a thicker version of it but for now it will keep you from having nightmares."
She stretched a brow. "I really don't have nightmares that often."
He stretched a grin. "I really don't care."
The technique was so simple she could have guessed it. Close your eyes, breathe slowly, and think of nothing. Though it seemed stupid to her (besides being nearly impossible to think of nothing), she obliged his instruction and went quietly, tiredly, to bed.