Ashla was sparring against several Clan Ross warriors when she walked into the dojo.

She was doing quite well. As Serana watched, she managed to disarm one and knock down another. A third tried to use a grappling line against her and she slashed through it and kicked him in the chest, sending him flying. The first one had managed to retrieve his weapon and he hit her in the back. She fell with a cry and lost her grip on her weapon. She got hold of it and pushed herself to her feet and he came at her again and she used the Force and the fight froze.

His weapon stopped in mid-air. He tried to pull it back, to no avail. Ashla clenched a fist and all three of them started levitating. She snapped her weapon into a guard position and each of them was thrown backwards, slamming into the wall hard enough to crack it.

"Hey!" she called, seeing Serana. "Just getting some practice in."

"So I see," Serana said, raising an eyebrow. "Have you begun constructing your own lightsaber yet?"

"A few bits," she replied. "Have you made a decision?"

"I have," Serana said. She pointed to the guards. "Clear the room. I need some privacy." Everybody filed out, leaving Serana and Ashla alone.

"I've decided that I will teach you," Serana said. Ashla beamed. "Saying no only guarantees that you'll try it by yourself." She sat down in the middle of the dojo. "Sit." Ashla sat down opposite her. "Close your eyes. Breathe deeply, in and out." She did so. "Nightsister magick isn't like how Jedi use the Force. It's not as dangerous as it once was, not since the clans of Dathomir reconciled with each other, but it's still a powerful tool." A faint green light began to play around her fingers. "Can you feel it?"

"I…" Ashla frowned. "What is that? It's…"

"Magick has a different way of working," Serana explained. "The Jedi way, you're actually using the Force, you're tapping into it and using it to create the desired effect. Magick… it's more like you're attracting the Force, and guiding it, rather than actually tapping into it yourself. It's a lot harder to master, but it can produce lasting effects, and it can be learned by anybody. You don't have to be Force-sensitive to use magick." The glow intensified. Green mist began to drift down from her fingers, evaporating before it hit the ground. "You can sense it. Try and copy it."

Ashla's face furrowed with effort.

"Not like that," Serana said. "Don't try and force it. Breathe. Relax. Let it flow. If you try and make it work, it won't."

She tried. Unconsciously, she let her mind expand. She could sense everybody, the life, the energy pumping through them. It wasn't all that different to the Force, really. She could sense the city itself, people going about their daily routines. There was a pulse to it, a rhythm. She started humming to it softly. The beat was inside her, driving her. She changed the tune she was humming, ever so slightly, and the energy pulsed along with it. Subtle changes, guiding it, and then she realised what she was doing and in an instant she lost it.

"Keep going," Serana encouraged. "You nearly had it then."

"It's hard," Ashla complained. "How can you make it work if trying to make it work makes it fail?"

"The same way that you can walk around," Serana said. "If you try and think about how you walk, it doesn't work, does it? You have to do it unconsciously. The instant you start thinking, you trip. Clear your mind. Don't try. Don't think. Just do. Close your eyes. Let everything fall away…"

She tried. She kept trying all afternoon. She could do it, up to a point, but as soon as she realised what she was doing, she couldn't do it anymore. It was an exercise in frustration.

The sun was going down. Serana held her breath as a spark of green light flickered to life above Ashla's hands. It flickered and sputtered before stabilising, the faintest of embers, before vanishing as Ashla opened her eyes.

"I can't do it," she grumbled. "Every time I get near, it slips away. Doesn't magick involve rituals and chants and stuff? Can't we learn those?"

Serana shook her head. "Rituals and chants are the crutches of lesser witches. A Nightsister needs no such aids." She stood up and helped Ashla to her feet. "You had it there, at the end. For a moment, just before you opened your eyes."

"I did?" She smiled. "I actually did it?"

"You've still got a long way to go," Serana warned. "It gets easier from now on, though. Come on, let's go get something to eat."

Their days quickly fell into a routine. Serana insisted that Ashla continue training her Force powers, so that took up most of the morning. Over lunchtime, she would practice her lightsaber skills. Several of the Mandalorians pitched in to help. They were much easier to defeat than Serana, although they could gang up on her, and they had a ton of gadgets hidden in their suits. Afternoons were spent trying to learn Nightsister magick. It was easier when she had something to distract her, so she wasn't focusing on what she was doing. After a couple of weeks, she could reliably tap into it and make her hands start glowing, and Serana started showing her how to use it.

"Magick can be used for many things," she said. Images sprung up in the air around her. "Illusions are the most famous, of course, primarily because they are so useful." Her appearance shimmered and changed. Ashla jumped as she turned into an exact duplicate of her.

"It helps if you know the thing you're trying to create an illusion of," Serana continued, resuming her own form. "The Nightsisters of old could create illusions and visions so strong that even a Jedi master couldn't distinguish them from reality. Their use nowadays is... a little more constrained." As she finished speaking, she turned invisible. "Give it a try. Try and create an illusion. Something small, something that you're familiar with."

Ashla relaxed her mind. She knew what she wanted, and she tried to guide it, channel it towards that goal...

An image shimmered in the air in front of her, a picture of the white Loth-cat that followed her around sometimes. She smiled at her success.

"Good," Serana said, becoming visible again. "Step over here for a moment, will you? Keep the illusion where it is."

Curious, Ashla moved over. It was immediately apparent what Serana wanted her to see. The illusion she'd created was only two-dimensional, like a photo. It vanished when seen from the edge. Nobody would ever mistake it for a real thing.

"You did good for a first try," Serana said. "Everybody makes this mistake. You need to think of the illusion more as a sculpture, rather than a photo. Solid, three dimensions." Ashla nodded. "Do you want to try it again?"

"I –" A wave of tiredness hit her and she staggered slightly. "Maybe later."

Serana nodded. "Get some rest. I need to go and check the library."

The next day, she found Serana alone in the dojo, holding a practice sword.

"You need to learn how to use it in a fight," Serana explained, before she could say anything. "Get ready."

Ashla pulled her staff off the wall and settled into a guard position. She and Serana began circling each other slowly. Serana charged at her. No, Seranas charged at her, there were three, ten, twenty of her, and Ashla yelled in surprise and lashed out wildly. The figures dissolved into light and green mist as she slashed through them and the illusions vanished as the real Serana smacked her behind the knees and toppled her to the ground.

"That wasn't fair," Ashla grumbled, as she climbed back up.

"What have I told you about fights?" Serana replied smoothly.

Ashla sighed. "Fighting isn't fair. Rules are secondary to staying alive."

Serana nodded. "Exactly."

Ashla closed her eyes and let her mind expand. She could feel everything around her. She could sense Serana coming at her again. She could sense the illusions popping up around her, but each one was distinct, unique, and she could tell the difference with ease. She thrust a hand forward and the shockwave scythed through the illusions, tearing them apart, and slammed Serana backwards. She grunted, digging her heels in until the shockwave passed.

Ashla created an illusion of herself.

Serana charged. She dodged the first attack and manoeuvred the illusion to counter. It was hard, like trying to move two bodies. Serana slashed at the illusion and the real Ashla jabbed at her, and she only just managed to get out of the way in time. It was getting easier. In fact, she could almost...

There. She could see through the eyes of the illusion. She didn't have to tell it what to do, she could just do it. Serana backed off, looking at them. They charged. Each of them attacked and Serana blocked one, dodged the other. Ashla drifted, focused on both the illusion and herself. She was losing track of which one was which. They both felt so real.

Then she slipped and Serana managed to get past her attacks and she came in with a strike that Ashla couldn't dodge, couldn't block, and it wouldn't hit because she knew, knew with an absolute certainty, that the person Serana was attacking was the illusion.

The strike hit. The illusion dissolved into smoke as Serana's practice sword carved through it. Ashla whacked her on the back of the legs with her staff and she fell to her knees.

She realised that her eyes were still closed.

"How did you do that?" Serana asked. "I was sure that that was you."

"I... I don't know," Ashla confessed. "What even was it that I did?"

"I think you might have teleported. Swapped places with your illusion."

Ashla's eyes went wide. "Is that even possible?"

"Oh, it's possible, but the technique's been lost for over a millennium. No-one's been able to figure it out." She cocked her head sideways slightly. "Do you think you could do it again?"

Ashla closed her eyes. Five minutes passed. Ten. Twenty.

"I've got nothing," she said eventually.

"Worth a shot. Are you ready to continue?"

She raised her sword.