At the same time, Kiros, Expansion region
Arya woke up to Tureq shaking her as usual.
"What now?" she mumbled.
"Good morning, Miss drowsy-head," Tureq said, his voice low and calm. "Aunt Ni'Dea is calling. It's time for your training."
Arya got up from her bed, brushed her hair and scuttled to the temple, the cool morning air waking her up. Seer Ni'Dea was waiting for her there.
"Good morning, Seer," Arya greeted. Even though the Tribe Seer was her aunt and had never insisted on anyone addressing her formally, she still acted formal with her during the training.
"Good morning, young Arya. Are you ready for today's training?" Ni'Dea asked. Arya nodded, excited.
"All right then. Let's continue from where we left yesterday," the Seer told and gestured towards a bowl of water. "Remember that at this point you just ask. Asking is the first step for control."
Arya nodded again and concentrated on remembering the words she had learned yesterday: the words of the language of Water with which one asked water to float in the air.
"Reach to your core and find your connection to the Water," Ni'Dea steered. Arya reached, only feeling some kind of burning which was very, very distantly cooled by Water.
Suddenly, as if controlled by someone else, she raised her hand and spoke the words with a powerful certainty. Water rose to float as an answer to that request.
"Hmm, very good, Arya, very good. It seems that good night's sleep helped," Ni'Dea said. She had doubted the girl's capability to continue training this soon after the death of her mother, but at the same time she knew that everyone got over their loss the best if they returned to their routine.
"Can I try the next step already?" Arya asked, enthusiastic. One of the girl's vices was to try to continue forward too early.
"The next step is control. Don't get overconfident after one success; you have to repeat the exercise," Ni'Dea said quite sternly. Staying strict seemed to be the only way to restrain the girl's zest – if even that was enough, that is.
"Okay," Arya said without becoming discouraged. "But if I do well, can I at least try?"
"Yes," Ni'Dea agreed. Arya smiled widely and spoke her request, once again full of enthusiasm.
However, some time later Seer Ni'Dea came to the conclusion that Arya's skills were not advanced enough to try control. After all, it was usually taught when a child was about ten years old instead of five like Arya was. The girl held an immense potential both in spirit and power, but she was still a long way from surpassing her peers.
When the Seer was sought to help on a sudden illness, Arya was left alone in the room. She would wait for her aunt to return.
Arya did not know the words she needed, but she still somehow knew them somewhere deep within, like they were deep within her, waiting for the right time to arise. When she was left alone, she reached to her core, feeling once again the burn and the distant cooling of Water. She raised both of her hands and spoke a simple word, the simplest of orders in the language of Water, "Plika!" Arise!
Arya opened her eyes when she felt a strange surge of energy go through herself and gasped as she saw that she kept water in the air. She started to move that ball of water around the room, heart full of joy. She had done it! She controlled water!
After relishing her success enough, Arya concentrated on some meditation her aunt had taught her while she kept the water in the air. The burn inside her did not feel so strong anymore, just cozily warm. Arya felt like she was sinking and drifting in some kind of a tide that seemed to go through the whole galaxy and so many people all around it outside of the village she called her home, and soon a vision rose to her mind...
A man with neck-length auburn hair woke up in a cold and dark place. He seemed like he had gotten a hard hit, but he recovered quickly despite of that and started to look around himself. He checked his belt and found something he had not expected to find there. However, there was something else he did not find, something he was looking for. He closed his eyes but soon he opened them again. He looked the ceiling and spoke only one word in desperation, "Degu."
A door opened, and the man looked to its direction. He saw something Arya did not see.
"Where is my apprentice?" the man asked, his strong bass voice unwavering. It echoed in Arya with confusing familiarity, a feeling of belonging she did not understand. It felt like she knew this man even though she had never met anyone like him.
"On Ec Pand with the governor," a gruff male voice answered.
"Where am I then?" the man asked.
"You don't need to know that," was the answer. The answerer threw a moldy-looking piece of bread to the man and left, banging the door shut. The man picked the piece of bread up but found that it had grown moldy to the point of being unsafe to eat.
"Degu... Please try to fare without me for a little while," the man said with longing. Arya wanted to reach out to him, reassure him that everything was going to be all right...
...Seer Ni'Dea's voice reached Arya's consciousness, shouting, "Arya, what are you doing?!"
Arya startled and lost all her concentration. The water fell to her lap, soaking her clothes.
"Did you... did you control the water?" the Seer asked.
"Yes, Seer. And I... I think I saw a vision, too," Arya answered. She told about the vision she had just seen, trying to understand the strange feeling she had gotten during it.
"Interesting. I have never heard of anyone seeing visions when practicing control for the first time even though visions during deeper practice are not rare at all," Ni'Dea said.
"Do you know what it could mean?" Arya asked.
The Seer looked at her, contemplating.
"No. I sure don't know," Ni'Dea said, withholding the possibility she wished to be the right reason for that vision: that Arya truly had her own path somewhere outside of the village. The Tribe Seer verily wished that the man whom Arya had seen in her vision was the person who could lead Arya to the right path. And that the man would arrive there before it would be too late...
/Author's note: Star Wars (c) Lucasfilm, any characters you cannot find on Wookieepedia, Veledos, Veledosians and their language (c) Me/
