A/N: I really need to get back to everyone who reviewed - thank you all and much love. I've been offline most of today because I had to bring my grandma to the cataract clinic, but I wrote this in the waiting room. :)
Oh, and I've posted a playlist to this story, with a song per chapter, to my tumblr. Just look on the sidebar and click "playlists for my fics".
EDIT: Mistyped Feemor's last name for another fic's version of him - I'd been thinking about that when I was writing. Edited now!
An Old and a New Blade (Part 2)
"Left!" Feemor shouts.
Huei bares his teeth in a growl.
In the space of an instant, Huei has reversed his grip on his lightsaber hilt and brought the howling blade up towards his master's – but there is no dischordant clash of lightsabers against each other, and only emptiness.
And the steady hum of a lighstaber blade at his throat.
"And that's a point to Master Ner'iah," Kit calls from the sidelines, with a barely-stifled sigh, "again."
The blade at Huei's throat is withdrawn with a sharp, deactivating snap.
"This isn't going to work," Feemor mutters, from somewhere above the level of Huei's head.
Huei remains silent, and deactivates his lightsaber with what he knows to be a perfect flourish – but what use is that when he can no longer see his opponent's blade in combat?
A hand finds his shoulder. "Take a break," Feemor says, quite calmly. "We'll figure this out. And give yourself some slack – I've something like thirty years' experience on you. I doubt that you could have done anything about it, even with the aid of sight."
"Yes, Master," Huei murmurs. Despite his best efforts, he cannot prevent the frustration that edges his voice.
Their training bond flares into a glow that suffuses his mind with warmth.
"Meditate," Feemor says to him, before his footsteps move away.
Huei stands there blankly for a moment. He is well aware he has been given the mental equivalent of an affectionate pat on the head, but he cannot decide whether he should smile or scowl about it.
It is not as if he has experienced the like, before.
Over to his right, Kit's Force-signature glimmers with amusement, before spiking slightly. Judging by the thud and sharp "Hey!" that follows, Feemor has given him a friendly punch in retaliation.
Huei folds himself down to the hardwood floor of the training hall, and closes his eyes to meditate. He does not necessarily need to, now, but he does so out of habit.
"Ideas?" Feemor murmurs to Kit, once Huei's Force-signature has smoothened out into the still pool of meditation.
"None yet," Kit grimaces. "I'm sure we'll think of something."
"Hm."
They wait in contemplative silence until Huei surfaces from the eddying currents of the Force and rises to his feet, trotting over to them. There is no trace of his previous frustration on his sweat-slicked face, now.
"Good," Feemor says warmly, as Kit nudges Huei's elbow with a canteen.
Huei feels for the canteen absently. Kit turns to speak to Feemor, and releases it a moment too soon; Huei's fingers have barely touched the metal surface before gravity takes hold and the canteen begins to slip towards the ground.
Huei's fingers slide forward in a quick flicker of motion and in an eyeblink, the canteen is secure in his grasp. He raises it to his lips without comment, as Kit pats him on the shoulder in apology and continues to speak.
"Wait," Feemor interrupts, eyes fixed on the canteen in his padawan's fingers. "Huei, what just happened?"
"Hm?" Huei responds, around a mouthful of water.
"Indulge me for a moment," Feemor says, taking the canteen from Huei and screwing on the cap. "I have an idea."
"Oh, good," Kit says. "I thought you might have had an apoplectic fit for a moment. Your eyes are twice as big as they were before."
It is a testament to Feemor's excitement that he does not respond to this jibe, and instead nudges the canteen against his padawan's elbow again, in mimicry of Kit's actions moments earlier.
Huei is wearing an expression that Feemor has begun to label the-face-I-wear-when-people-are-being-idiots-but-they-outrank-me-so-I-can't-comment, but the young Nautolan humors his master and feels for the canteen with his opposite hand.
Feemor deliberately loosens his hold just as Huei's fingertips brush the pitted surface of the canteen.
And once again, Huei's wrist tilts with smooth efficiency to grasp the canteen before it slips more than a few centimeters towards their feet.
Feemor crows victory towards the ceiling, so loudly that the chamber echoes with it.
Startled, Huei drops the canteen. The cap comes loose as it hits the floor with a thunk, and splashes cold water over all their boots.
Kit leaps back, hissing in surprise.
"Padawan!" Feemor shouts, delighted.
"What?" Huei says, nonplussed, as Feemor grabs him around the shoulders. "What is it, Master?"
"I've got it!"
"Lost it, more like," Kit mutters, aside.
"Kit!" Feemor makes a grab for him, which Kit avoids with something that looks suspiciously like Soresu footwork. Feemor is too estatic to care.
"Master?" Huei says, doubtfully. "Are you quite all right?"
"I'm a fool with bantha turds for brains," Feemor jabbers, grabbing Huei's arm and dragging him towards the centre of the training room again. "I know how to solve the problem."
"That is a somewhat contradictory statement," Huei comments, as he is told to stand at a particular spot.
"Thank me later," Feemor shushes, aware that a delirious grin is beginning to grow on his face. He sprints over to a weapons rack on the wall and snatches up two long wooden dowels, and a shorter one about two-thirds the length of the previous.
Huei's face, when he returns, is faintly amused and tolerant in equal parts.
"Here," Feemor says, pressing a long dowel into Huei's sword-hand, and the shorter one into the other, reversed in a shoto grip. "Hold these."
"Yes, Master." Huei intones, testing their weight. "A shoto?"
"Yes," Feemor replies, swinging his own long dowel experimentally. "But not just any shoto."
"Indeed," Huei says, face studiously blank, even as his Force-signature flickers with humour.
"You won't be laughing for anything other than joy after this," Feemor retorts. "Now, blades up. I'm aware you don't have much experience in Jar'Kai, but do the best you can. Kit?" he calls, the last part directed towards the watching Knight.
"Right," Kit answers, from the side. He appears just as confused as Huei seems to be, but he calls the start of the match as he is supposed to.
Feemor sends his dowel in a lazy curve towards Huei's left shoulder. Huei's dominant arm twitches, but then the Force glimmers and he raises his secondary weapon to meet Feemor's strike, head tilted to listen for the prompting of the Force. It almost seems painfully slow for a moment, but the two dowels meet with a sharp clack of striking wood.
Feemor tilts his wrist, as if to withdraw, and feels the pressure against his fingers decrease as Huei prepares to draw back his own weapon, as any Jar'Kai user would in disengaging a block. It is one of the first lessons taught to the younglings in their lightsaber lessons; strike and block quickly, and withdraw with equal or faster speed, to allow for adaptation to the opponent's next move, or a strike of your own. Any overextension of a block leaves one vulnerable.
What Feemor is about to suggest completely contradicts all of the above.
But that is exactly the point.
"No!" he shouts. "Keep your shoto on my blade!"
Huei nearly falters in surprise, and the dowel in his left hand slips and judders against Feemor's as he reverses his previous motion, but he follows through and keeps the short length of wood pressed against Feemor's longer rod.
Feemor moves back, as though to slide his weapon away and disengage, and Huei follows, shoto rotating around Feemor's makeshift blade but never leaving it.
"Keep going!" Feemor says, looping his dowel over and around Huei's to get inside his block.
Huei takes a hurried step back, shoto sliding along the longer dowel, and ducks under his master's weapon as it pushes towards his head.
Off to the side, Kit makes a noise of startled understanding.
The knot of concentration in Feemor's chest blossoms into a bright nebula of wild hope.
Huei senses it, and opens his mouth to speak, but then Feemor presses his advantage and he is forced to pivot aside, arm perpendicular to his master's as he brings up his right hand, longer primary weapon scything towards Feemor's head.
And then Feemor shouts, "Halt!" and Huei freezes in place, his right arm outstretched, his left still holding the shoto to Feemor's blade.
"Huei," Feemor says, quietly.
Over the sound of his own breathing, Huei pinpoints where Feemor's voice is coming from.
He nearly drops his right dowel. The length of wood hits something as it dips; Feemor grunts.
Feemor's shoulder.
Huei's mouth drops open. His primary weapon, apparently, had been an inch from knocking out his master's brains.
Which begs the question, of course – how did he know where his master's head even was?
And how did he know where to duck under the strike, earlier?
There is a gentle tap of wood against wood as Feemor withdraws his own dowel, and Huei understands.
He understands with such a starburst of radiant clarity that for a moment, he almost believes he can see his master's bright grin in front of him.
Huei had known hope to be this beautiful, before – when Feemor had asked him to be his padawan, for example – but this is electric, otherworldly, like a sphere of liquid light shattering over his head and racing down his spine.
"The shoto," he says, voice hoarse.
Calloused fingers close around his left hand and the short piece of wood clenched there.
"Yes," Feemor says. "By keeping your shoto pressed lightly against my weapon at all times, you knew where my blade was pointed, and what my next motion would be. With more practice, you will be able to guide my blows away from your person, and reserve your dominant hand for strikes."
Huei drops both rods. They clatter to the floor by his feet, but he does not bend to retrieve them.
"Like so," Feemor says, casting his own dowel aside with a loud clang and lifting up Huei's left hand to chest level, palm up. He presses the side of his own left wrist against Huei's, hard ulnar ridges against each other. "Try to stop me from touching you," he says. "But do not counter force with force. Give, but guide."
"Yes, Master," Huei murmurs automatically, mind reeling.
"Very well. Go."
Huei feels Feemor push gently against the outside of his wrist as the Jedi master reaches towards his chest, so he swivels his arm on instinct and guides his master's wrist away, altering the course of the push degree by degree until Feemor's hand halts, arm fully extended, by Huei's side.
Their wrists are still touching, though Huei's forearm has rotated to face the ground, and his palm rests lightly against the back of Feemor's wrist, as though to grasp it.
Feemor is radiating such affected pride that Huei feels as though the bond might burst.
"Yes," Feemor says. "Exactly like that. Train enough, and eventually, you'll be able to sense where an opponent is simply through the direction and force of the blade against yours. You can use it to draw them into overreaching their attacks. You can misdirect them, trap them, disarm them, and hold them – and all the while, your blade against theirs in an unbroken block. It is a shield and a scout all at once, and with enough practice, a weapon, too."
Huei cannot see Feemor's face, but knows he is smiling, nonetheless.
Something is building inside Huei's chest. He has never, in all his life, felt an emotion as strong as this; it is like a galvanising current that dances at his fingertips.
It is the thrill of knowing that this is a vast, unexplored world of pure, Force-born possibility, and that he will come out of it not only better than before, but attuned to his blades like the Force itself.
The Jedi is the crystal of the Force.
Huei steps forward, hand outstretched, and when his fingertips come into contact with the rough cotton of a Jedi tabard, he throws himself at it.
Feemor makes a muffled noise as Huei's face collides with his chest, but then lean arms wind around his middle and Feemor lets out a laugh as he returns the hug, settling a hand on Huei's head and another around wiry shoulders.
"We'll have to see about designing a new shoto," Feemor murmurs down at the mop of dark blue head-tresses. "And I think a trip to Ilum is in order."
Silence.
Huei, for all his usual impeccable Jedi reserve, does not seem to want to let go any time soon.
Kit is making indescribable noises in his corner. Feemor glances over at him, to confirm that he has not whipped out a holorecorder. He wouldn't put it past Kit to do so.
Huei mumbles something unintelligible into his master's tabards.
"You're very welcome, my young padawan," Feemor replies, smiling.
A/N: And that, my friends, is how Huei's silver shoto comes to be. The method behind this way of fighting comes from Tai Chi, which I've learnt to some extent. Tai Chi follows a concept of redirecting energy and using an opponent's strength against them - always moving in circles, to lessen power increment by increment until the opponent is trapped by the limitations of their own body (arm locked in full extension, joint unable to rotate further, etc) and you can then strike. You can actually make someone backhand themselves using this method, simply by figuring out when their strike no longer has any power - in that moment you're doing the equivalent of flinging their arm back at their face as though the arm was a whip.
Soresu has some of the same principles, but this is an extension of them.
Once he masters the art, Huei will be nigh on invincible. It is, I think, as close to Vapaad as Soresu can be.
Next up: Obi-Wan in the same Clone Wars future as chapter 2. Order 66.
