AN: A quick little drabble that gives a sneak peak into the kind of training Zelina was doing on her own in the 19 years she was on Tatooine. There's no particular time I have this set at, besides closer to the first few years she was on Tatooine.

Far in the most isolated depths of the Tatooine desert, under the shelter of plummeting rock caverns that were devoid of any Tusken camps or paths for convoys, Zelina had found her shelter to practice her abilities. Out in the open space of the desert itself had been tempting, but Zelina hadn't wanted to risk any possible overhead ship flying by catching sight of what she would do out here. Though the canyon was narrow, and the caves not as spacious as she would have liked, they kept her isolated from any possible civilization, protected her from eyes above, and there was a minimal chance of anyone coming out here on purpose, or even by accident, given how well the location was hidden by the sand dunes above.

In her mind, she referred to this place as the Canyon of the Desolate.

The sun wasn't as scorching here, under the shade of the rocks, but the air was dry, and the sand hissed across the stone with every movement. While some time ago the hissing of the sand would have been an irritation to her, now it helped her in her focus and her goals.

Zelina's movements started slow and deliberate, the sand hissing beneath her feet with every well-paced movement, her lightsaber humming in the air around her as she moved seamlessly between each stance, each position, a continuous flow of form as she sank gradually into the eddies of the Force. She didn't have to practice lightsaber forms when she participated in her form of moving meditation, but she preferred it. She liked to include stimuli from multiple sources of the outside world to make it more challenging, to get it closer to real life and strengthen her ability to sink into the flow of the Force no matter what was happening around her, to practice establishing this kind of connection whether she was moving or still.

That, and it helped her when she entered this deeper state of thought and connection with the Force before working on her own training.

During this moving meditation, while she sank into the flow of the Force, she also had her lightsaber moving through the forms and making its hum of movement around her, the sound of the sand against the stone with her steps, and the sound of the holocrons playing a few paces out of the way of where she was doing her meditation. By now, she had heard them time and time again, and they were more of white noise or repetition than anything she was actively listening to. This was her time to connect with the Force and to attempt to further her own abilities, keep them sharp and strong so she would be prepared come the day she stepped back into the Galaxy.

For moving meditation, she usually listened to the histories of the Old Republic in connection to Satele Shan and the conflicts she had been involved in that Zelina had taken with her when she fled from the Jedi Temple.

"For centuries, Alderaan stood as a beacon of hope in the Republic. But the Empire came. And with one savage strike, brought Alderaan to her knees. Now, time is running out, as few are left to face the enemy. For those that remain, there is but one choice: We must fight, to victory, or death. While the sacrifices are heavy, we fight knowing that a single spark of courage can ignite the fires of hope, and restore peace across the galaxy."

The deeper Zelina fell into her meditation, the faster her movements became, the more weight there was behind her strikes, and the more complex the patterns, the world becoming a hum of activity around her.

There wasn't much to feel of the Living Force out here in the desert, but Zelina had always been more in touch with the Unifying Force, anyway.

"I fought with Commander Malcom during the Battle of Alderaan. The world was on the brink of destruction, but the brave few who fought to liberate it from the Sith even when it seemed to them that their actions did little to change things, allowed the planet to survive long enough for the Republic forces to arrive and drive the Empire off the planet. Never underestimate the strength of a single person, and the difference that they can make, Force Sensitive or not."

Once she had reached her peak with the lightsaber movements, Zelina factored in her connection to the Force that was currently strengthened by the intensive meditation, starting with minute repulses starting in the form of small ripples across the sand in little bursts out from her feet with every step. She increased the intensity of the ripples gradually, until she reached the point that the sand was constantly roiling outwards from her steps, the sound more akin to waves crashing than the soft hiss of sand.

The next layer she added was soft pushes cutting out with the movement of her lightsabers, soft first so the only evidence of the action was the gust of air and the line of sand disturbed by the wind. As it grew stronger, rock started to rumble and crack, though she made sure not to allow the cutting gusts of air to be so strong as to destroy or greatly damage the cavern she was in. She wanted to practice her control and precision, as well as focus herself and her ability to multi-task and keep her meditation despite a complex environment, not destroy her training sanctuary.

"During the Battle, I fought against many Sith that were ravaging the planet, including the Sith Lord Darth Malgus, who led them. I have created separate holocrons to instruct in some of the more advanced techniques that served me well in this battle against the Sith. Use them to better prepare yourself for the dangers of a Sith adversary, to survive these battles and strengthen your position holding the darkness at bay for the people of this galaxy."

As her meditation came to a crescendo in focus and power, Zelina held her form a few heartbeats longer than she'd been doing until now. Then, slowly, she walked herself back down from the mediation, using less and less of her power, and then slowing down the speed of her lightsaber forms, until she came back to a resting start. She breathed deep, lightsabers on, and held to the center she'd found before opening her eyes, ready to begin her training for the day.

"This particular application of tutaminis requires complete and total calm, and can be difficult to practice without harming oneself, so please take all the necessary precautions, and don't cut any corners. You must have a complete sense of inward balance, of focus. In the early stages, you will likely need to redirect the energy that you absorb into healing your own hands if your hold on the ability starts to slip. In practice, remove yourself from the harm as soon as it begins, and restart from the top. This is practice, and we do not want you losing a hand or the functionality in it because you pushed yourself too far too soon."

Practicing her tutaminis skills had been particularly difficult since she arrived on Tatooine. She had no training droids to shoot blaster shots at her, no partner for assistance, no Healing Ward to go to if she messed up. She had to be extremely careful with her practice when it came to expanding beyond her current abilities, and she didn't have much in the way of methods of practice.

She could practically hear the scolding she would have gotten from her many friends and teachers if they could see what she was doing—they likely would have intervened and tried to come up with an alternate method. However…this was how she was going to do it. She was working with the tools she had on hand, and part of her wondered if perhaps taking this method would help her develop the skill she was trying to gain, faster.

She'd done it once before, when she'd received assistance reaching more of her potential. She knew it was possible—she just needed to reach it herself, now.

She sat cross-legged in one of the many shallow caves in the canyon, lightsaber in one hand stretched out in front of her and held so that the blade ran parallel to the ground. The recording of Satele Shan's teaching of this ability was set to run on a loop, so she could continuously hear the instruction and adjust as she focused on this particular skill that was proving difficult to manifest, let alone master.

Her free hand hovered over the blade, coming slowly closer to the humming light in front of her, Zelina holding as still as possible so she wouldn't accidentally weave and cause her blade and hand to come closer than she was prepared. She'd seen the recovery period for a mechanical hand up close, and she doubted she would find as good of treatment and prosthetic out here in the backwaters of Tatooine.

Losing a hand was not something she particularly wanted to risk, as Satele mentioned when stressing caution and baby steps in this practice.

When Zelina started to feel the heat of the blade on her hand, Zelina's focuse sharpened, attempting to absorb and dissipate the energy as constantly as it was being directed towards her by the blade. Right now, she wasn't focused on storing the energy for other abilities, she was just trying to absorb and dissipate it at the rate she needed to properly perform tutaminis on the energy of the blade of the lightsaber.

Then would come the attempt to channel it simultaneously into another Force ability. And finally, she would start working on storing it.

But currently…she was quite a few steps away from that more useful application—she was struggling just to get past this first step. The constant and sustained energy of a lightsaber was much different from a brief blast from a blaster.

The hologram of Satele continued to instruct on how to open oneself up to the energy flowing through you and back out, a concept of flow familiar to her thanks to her brief training in Vaapad, but the concentration it currently required, the struggle she had in consistently channeling it out into the world without harming herself with the sheer amount of energy she was handling—

The blade burned too hot for a second, and Zelina's hand snapped back. She shook it off with a soft sigh, rolled her shoulder, let her arm rest for a few seconds, raised the blade once more, and tried again.

When it came to certain Force abilities that Zelina was attempting to hone during her practice, it was far less about the strength of an ability, as it was concentration, hold, and moderation. Satele's voice echoed always behind her as Zelina moved in a circle around the holocron during the riskiest part of her training.

The point where she went topside, kept her senses strained to pick up on any potential observer, and practiced more risky and larger area of affect abilities like, at present, her Force Blasts.

"The more time and energy you put into these, the greater their strength. However, on the battlefield you may not have the time to hold this ability as long as you would like, which means you may have to put more energy into its execution. If you do not have a significant amount of energy from an outside source, such as energy absorbed by tutaminis, then make sure you do not pour all your energy into this one attack. If you do, let it be your last attack, and make sure it counts, as it may leave you drained and vulnerable if proper energy rationing is not adhered to in its application."

For safety's sake, she could only go topside twice, and only spend time honing two abilities at a time. Right now, it was her Force Blasts. Afterwards, she wanted to put more focus into trying to recreate the shockwave she'd created on Mandalore several years ago for her second practiced ability today.

But for now…

Zelina drew on the heat of the world around her to further power her blast, breathing in deep and tapping into the more basic form of tutaminis to draw heat from her environment as a temperature controller, except instead of dissipating the energy, she held it. Her hands drew inwards, the energy she was gathering starting to ripple and warp between her hands as she sank slowly back into the starting stance. She held the pose, continued holding the energy she was siphoning from the heat of her environment, as long as she could, until the energy started to feel unstable and reached the limits of what she could hold.

At that point, Zelina stepped forward into the next stance, pushing outwards with both hands. A light bluish-purple circle of translucent energy ripped from her hands and left waves in the sand beneath it as it sailed out in a straight line until it blasted into a sand dune a couple dozen meters in front of her, sand blasting upwards into the air outwards in a large circle before raining back down to the ground.

She would have to take care to smooth the sand back over before she left, but for now…

Again.

Images played through her mind's eye, as well as echoes from a past long behind her now. Wisdom and teachings from old teachers, lessons learned from the Jedi she used to rub shoulders with, experience from her duels with Sith and with her companions. Zelina's training with the lightsaber was no longer a simplistic one, as from the very start she'd never really used just one style and had only added more aspects from different forms over the years.

By now, she should just create her own lightsaber Form and call it good, instead of referring to all these different pieces from all these different forms. She should just come up with new names and techniques to dub the blended moves and styles that she'd developed over the years in the Clone Wars, and now during her time on Tatooine trying to keep her skills sharp and repair her mistakes of the past battles with intense practice based off memory and what holocrons she managed to leave the temple with. She could call it the Adaptive Form, way of the…something.

Maybe. Creating a new form was not light work, and it would take some time and study and meditation, not to mention all the practice.

That wasn't even counting the fact that there was one form she was still trying to learn, one that would have otherwise ended up extinct instead of just lacking in imparted knowledge if she'd never convinced Windu to teach her.

"Vaapad can be dangerous, Du'ahn. Its very essence is channeling the flow of light and dark energy through yourself, accepting the darkness in yourself and your opponent, and redirect it to fuel your attacks and turn your own opponent's darkness against them. It requires an acceptance of your own inner darkness without being consumed by it."

She had the holocrons Windu had created to help her learn outside the dojo when he'd accepted her, but all those were focused on basics, on the emotional aspect, the part with the Force. The more advanced stuff…

Well, she had one holocron she'd snagged on a whim but hadn't opened before the Fall of the Jedi that was Windu's own recordings of some of the more advanced lightsaber techniques. It was nowhere near what a full training would have been, but…but the emotional and Force aspect had been the part she needed and wanted to learn the most when she'd asked him, anyway.

She didn't have the full instruction, that had been lost with the death of Master Windu and the fall of the temple. But she did have what she needed, and that was the important part.

Vaapad was the last thing she trained in when she did her lightsaber drills, partially because of how hard she trained herself in it, needing to be hyper aware of every one of her own slip ups and correct them instantly, not allowing any mistake to go by unaddressed and forcing herself to start from the beginning every time she made the mistake.

It was a dangerous form, and complex one, and she was determined to give it the respect that Master Windu had demanded in the short time he'd been able to train her in it.

Furthermore…she had not progressed to figuring out how to use it with two blades. Not yet, anyway. She was still working on mastery of the one, her violet blade swinging rapidly through the air with a speed that she was proud was climbing.

A speed she demanded of herself after her failed fight against Sidious.

Her concentration slipped, emotions falling out of balance for a split second, and Zelina cursed, lightsaber halting midair once she felt the falter as she stepped back and repositioned herself back at the starting point. Any falter, no matter how brief, could be exploited with how the form left its user open to attack if their concentration wavered at all. If this had been the fight with Sidious, she would have just given him the upper hand again.

"Never let your concentration slip when using this form. The results can be deadly. Even if you recover physically in your attack, you could open yourself to the dark side, and be consumed by the form instead of retaining the necessary control to master it. Every time your concentration breaks while practicing this form, start again. Vaapad demands perfection in execution if you are to turn your inner weakness into your strength without being consumed by it."

The last part of her practice was unassisted by holocrons. It was simple, quiet, relaxing, and at least half of it was silent. To close her training, she would partake in some blaster practice before finishing up with a little still meditation.

Even though the blaster she used to practice with wasn't her favorite, it was better to have some practice than none at all. She didn't have any set up targets, and she didn't practice on womp rats. She simply picked a point far away to shoot at and did some moving practice in the caves where she marked random points in the wall with some white powder without any rhyme or reason, and then after finding a center point and taking some time to calm down again with her eyes closed, would try to re-find and hit ever spot as she turned in place as quickly as possible.

It was no military training, or anything she could get in a proper shooting rink or training grounds, but it was better than nothing, and kept her quick and familiar with blasters.

As for the meditation…well, she would sit in the quiet solitude of the cave and simply listen to the silence, trying to accept it rather than be crushed by it. She would try to calm her emotions, to keep from being consumed by her more painful emotions that had hovered over her since the fall of the Jedi, to find a little peace, as difficult as it may be, before she headed back out into the desert world around her and focused on getting through another day.

Some days she was more successful than others.