Seia Zadar was somehow even more demanding of a teacher than Lorash had imagined, with the full knowledge that the woman was sith. It was inventive evil, too. The sith had taken pieces of heavy durasteel and had them cut into weights that she forced Lorash to wear during practice. The forms that Vori had taught her were utterly insufficient to deal with the raw power of Seia moving with just her body as a weapon or with a springy length of wood.

"I know enough of the art of the double-blade to teach you well. My father preferred that weapon and style, so I combatted it often when he trained me," Seia said as Lorash sagged against the wall, drinking from the cup of water she'd left. "Your staff techniques are the basics of the style, but only that: basics. Nabeila was fond of it as well. It is the sixth form, Niman. It requires balance."

"Is that why you keep pushing me over?" Lorash panted. They'd been sparring for nearly two hours now and she was ready to collapse. Everyone aboard had agreed that they needed to lay low before heading to Naboo, so Eso had taken them to a very out of the way space station in the Rim. He intended on making some easy credits by picking up some cargo, but hadn't found anything yet. This was her fifth day of being hounded by Seia's demonic energy.

"Balance is everything in Niman," Seia said. She tossed Lorash's staff to the padawan. "Try again."

Lorash grabbed it and approached, slowed by the weights. "What does a sith know about balance?"

"Rage is useless if it is blind. Vengeance is fangless if clumsy." Seia raised her stick again. The springy wood raised welts on impact, but it functioned fairly well for a training saber. "I will tell you what Nabeila explained to me. Your limbs, your body, they are like rushing water around a focused center. However you flow, the center must stay together, must stay focused. For a sith, that means channeling your rage and burning away all distractions. Many who follow that path also delve deeply into the Force, perhaps more so than others. That is something we can explore in time."

"I can barely move, Seia," she said, gripping the staff all the same.

"One more."

"I can't."

Seia scowled at her. "All things are possible through the Force. One more."

Lorash sucked in a deep breath, battling the anger she could feel surging upwards. She was frustrated with the demand, but also how hard it was for her to meet it. She wanted to be good, to excel, to prove to the sith that the Light Side was just as capable as her darkness. She wanted the feeling of security that came with being able to protect herself and the people she cared about.

When she opened her eyes, she realized Seia had stepped closer, stopping just in front of her. "I can feel your hate," the sith said. "It could make you stronger."

Lorash took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, allowing the feelings to flow through her and then out of her. "I don't hate you, Seia."

"Perhaps you should."

The jedi padawan shook her head. "I'm just frustrated. You're so much better at this than I am."

Seia leaned the stick against the side of her neck, one hand on her hip as she studied Lorash intently. "I have only ever known strife and combat. That provides one with ample practice."

Lorash cocked her head to one side, allowing curiosity to force out the last of the frustration. "What was your training like?"

"If you do well enough in this last bout, I will tell you." Seia's lips quirked into a faint smile. "Presuming you feel up to it. If not, we will end our combat practice for the day."

Despite her exhaustion and aches, Lorash gripped her beskar staff. It was heavy and powerful, but it had yet to break Seia's stick. She moved into a combat stance, trying to focus on her center. She took the second that Seia gave her to immerse herself in calm, allowing her awareness of the Force to flood into her being. Suddenly everything in her body was connected, like a flow of water in tides in and out of her limbs as she moved.

Seia did not have the courtesy to ask her if she was ready. Instead, the stick whipped at Lorash's head with speed, enough that the padawan barely blocked with her staff, weighted limbs slowing her significantly. They were just heavy enough to tire her without hurting her.

Lorash focused on her breathing as she moved, letting that overtake the burning in her limbs. Her staff flowed from block to block, barely keeping Seia at bay.

"You must attack, Lorash," Seia rasped harshly as she hounded Lorash backwards. "It is not enough to defend. If you do not take the initiative, you will eventually slip and it will be over."

The padawan nodded, sucking in a deep breath. She waited for the next blow and caught it with one end of the staff, immediately swinging forward with the other half.

Seia ducked the blow and brought her blade at the back of Lorash's knee, but the padawan sensed it coming and dropped the tip of her staff to pin the stick to the ground. The sith's answer was a rising elbow to Lorash's solar plexus, dropping the padawan gasping to the ground.

"Better, when you were attuned." Seia picked up her stick as Lorash struggled to breathe. "Your lack of aggression is a problem, however. There are times when you must attack. Otherwise, you will only tire and that will kill you." She leaned down and undid the weights on Lorash's arms, core, and legs.

Lorash felt the relief immediately as she sat up. It was as though she had just stepped onto a mercifully low gravity moon. "I hate those."

"You will thank me for them later. They are how I learned to move with power and speed. When the weights no longer bother you, we will take them off and work at your true pace." Seia tossed the stick aside and rolled her neck, perfectly relaxed. "You have already improved, and it has only been a short while."

"Thanks." She looked up at Seia. "So...what was your training like?"

"I trained on a world called Korriban. It is a hot, red desert barren of all comforts, filled with the tombs of ancient sith. The Academy there trained many, but before I even set foot within it, I was already upon the path." The sith warrior took a seat on one of the crates. "My father wanted me for his apprentice. He was a slave who fought his way into the position of a Darth, in the days of the Dark Council and the Empire I knew. He trained me savagely."

"What do you mean?" Lorash asked softly, sitting down on the crate across from Seia. She could feel emotions radiating from the sith, anger and pain, but also appreciation and almost fondness.

"I would follow footwork patterns until I could not stand. Then I carried weights until my body collapsed, every day another pound. Soon basic technique followed. My father hounded me relentlessly, constantly berating me, battering my will with his own. He destroyed my belongings, shuttered me away from others, denied me sustenance when I refused to obey. He knew how best to stoke the anger in me, a master of sense and manipulation."

"I'm sorry." The padawan couldn't imagine the grueling training and general suffering imposed. Seia seemed to be taking it much easier on her than the sith had received herself.

Seia laughed at that, grey eyes sincerely amused. "Why apologize? He made me strong, willful, fearless. By the time I was introduced to his other apprentices, I was cunning and skilled despite my youth. I was not quite threat enough to kill, at first, but I surpassed them quickly. They probed my defenses, sought to turn my mind against my father, but his advice lingered with me. I refused to break, to bend as pleased them, and so I became an enemy and not a pawn. My hatred of them protected me. I left the Academy undefeated."

"But it had to have hurt you," Lorash said.

Seia shook her head. "I have always been a tempest. I took to the lightsaber form of juyo like a fish takes to water, my father said. After he died and I left the Empire, I became far more interested in the Force itself and the techniques that go beyond merely sensing and combat. I favor the bind, it comes naturally to me. I sense other strengths in you."

"Really?"

The sith nodded. "I can feel it when you are desperate and floundering. When you reach out to the Force in that space, at least when you are focused, I can feel it answer you in much the same way Nabeila used it. She was a master of misdirection. It always made our fights enjoyable. I had to focus with everything I had just to prevent myself from being deceived."

Lorash heaved out a sigh and almost slumped over. "Master Vori told me to stay away from that," she said softly. "He said it could lead easily to the Dark Side."

"I am not suggesting that you use it to warp people's minds," Seia said firmly. "But to deceive the senses in combat, to seem in one place but actually be in another, that manner of technique would no doubt be of great use. Particularly if you insist on only attacking when I berate you into it."

"Can you teach it?"

Seia shrugged. "To a degree. Much of it you will have to hone yourself."

Lorash nodded, carefully stretching out her aching limbs. "I need a rest day, or I'm going to break," she admitted.

The sith paused, considering that. "Then we will alternate," she said firmly. "One day will be combat training, the next lessons on the Force, then combat training again. We will repeat until you are able to defend yourself adequately."

Despite the aches and bruises, a thrill of excitement burned through Lorash's body. For all of her flaws, Seia seemed much more interested in teaching her how to channel her power than Master Vori had. His focus was always on philosophy and he had only ever taught her the basics of combat. It made her hesitate for a moment. "Master Vori said that to a warrior, all things look like a battle. He just wanted me to be able to defend myself and get away."

Seia shook her head and huffed, "Jedi." She crossed her arms as she regarded Lorash, watching as the padawan stretched out her aching muscles. "It is always better to have such skills for the times that they are needed. Without them, you will only succumb to fear and death."

"What did Nabeila say of it? You said she had the same fighting style and maybe the same strengths in the Force."

"She always said that even the hand that tends the garden must know the saber," Seia said. A sudden flash of warmth crossed Lorash's senses, radiating unhidden from the sith. "There may come days when those who would burn the garden to its roots make their strike. Without the saber, all you have is ashes."

"She really was your friend," Lorash murmured, stunned.

Seia's expression hardened and the darkness rose to the surface, obliterating any fondness. "Was." The sith stood up, clearly shutting herself away.

"If she was the woman she sounds like, I don't think she meant to keep you trapped there for so long."

Seia let out a sharp, short hiss of breath. "Perhaps." She turned and held out her hand to Lorash, to help her up from her seat on the crate. "Go get cleaned up. Eso and Yyrfhojarrr should be back soon with food. You need to eat if you want to continue at the pace we have been."

Lorash accepted the hand gratefully, embarrassed by the fact that she was basically moving like an old woman as she struggled not to stiffen up. She kept stretching as she followed Seia up the stairs towards their rooms. "Seia?"

The sith paused, looking back over her shoulder. "What?"

"I appreciate you training me. I...don't know what I would do if I was on my own."

Seia laughed. "You would die."

Lorash fought the urge to stick her tongue out. There was something far more interesting to the hints of more than just anger she sometimes felt from the sith. In moments like this, however demanding Seia had been during training, Lorash could swear she saw hints of softness. It made the experience of having the daylights beaten out of her a little more tolerable.

She stepped into her room and stripped, headed straight for the shower. The beating of hot water pulses on her muscles went a long way to helping her stay limber and it felt amazing to be rid of the sweat that plastered her clothes to her body. She stayed under the water for longer than usual, gradually relaxing her perception back to normal again. The normal fatigue hit her, but it didn't seem quite as bad. She'd been using it more and more just to keep up with Seia.

The sith said that using Force techniques was like exercising a muscle: it grew in strength the more it was used. She was beginning to understand what Seia meant.

By the time she was dressed and poking her head out of her room, she heard Eso and Yyr moving around the kitchen. She wasn't quite close enough to hear what was being said, but she didn't like the tone. They both sounded...worried.

Lorash hurried their way, realizing that Seia was there as well, seated at the small table bolted to the floor.

"...I find it rather flattering," Seia said, studying a face on the holoprojector that jutted up from the center of the table. She flicked her fingers, shifting to the next image. "Unfortunately, due to the angle of the camera, Lorash's features are much clearer than mine."

"Yeah, they've mostly just got, uh, the side of your head," Eso agreed.

The padawan took a seat at the table, looking around at the three. "What?"

Seia turned the image for her to see. There, in frightening clarity was Lorash's face, clearly stressed but trying to keep her calm. The text around the picture was clear.

Wanted dead or alive. 200,000 credits.

"I guess the Imperials got access to the one security camera in the cantina," their pilot said, hazel eyes concerned. "They got a blurred bit of Seia, but mostly you, Lorash."

"That's a lot of money," Lorash mumbled through numb lips.

Yyr was slicing up a fruit with his claws, chewing pensively on each piece. The mechanic mostly stayed to himself, but now and then he poked his head out. He was friendly when he decided he wanted to be around people, though. Lorash found his quiet confidence rather soothing most of the time, so the tension in his posture did nothing to make her feel better.

"Not as much as, uh, that krayt dragon pearl is worth, at least," Eso said. "You're fine." It sounded like he was trying to make a joke, but it came out strained. "This could make hitting Naboo real hard."

The wookie made a soft sound in his own language, a low growl.

Eso shook his head in disagreement. "I don't think this one is going to die down, bud." He sucked in a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. "I, uh, know we agreed this wasn't a no-questions little trip, so I want some answers, you two."

"Ask and you may get them," Seia said almost indifferently.

"I don't know what the hell is going on, but I'm not a complete idiot. If I were in Lorash's shoes, I'd want all the blaster training I could get, but, uh, you've been playing with sticks," Eso said, clearly gathering his courage as he went. "And I, uh, saw the video of what happened in that cantina. Friend who's a, uh, slicer picked it up for me off the suppressed part of the holo-net. Those stormtroopers died at a little motion of your hand, Seia. What the hell?"

Seia's gaze hardened as it focused on him, prompting the mirialian pilot to shift uncomfortably. "The answer you are asking for may put more of a target on you than you realize. It will make it very difficult for you to keep your head down."

"I'm pretty good at running."

The sith undid the loop holding her lightsaber to her belt and raised it in one hand, held sideways to avoid the hanging lamp. "This is your answer."

"I need more of an answer than that little, uh, good luck charm."

Seia ignited the lightsaber, bathing the room in a crimson glow. Yyr froze, his hackles rising, and Eso fell over backwards in his chair as he automatically tried to escape. As quickly as she had activated it, Seia extinguished the lightsaber and returned it to its place.

"My mother used to tell stories about the sith," Eso said from the floor. "I didn't think they were true." He turned wide eyes to Lorash. "And you're her apprentice?"

"No," Lorash said quickly. Apparently it was time to lay all the sabacc cards on the table. "Master Vori is my teacher. He is a jedi who escaped the purging of the order. I met Seia on the same planet you did, only about two hours earlier than you. She's been showing me how to defend myself."

"A sith helping a jedi out of the kindness of her heart?" Eso sputtered.

Lorash looked over at the sith. She hadn't been able to figure out why Seia had agreed to help her, so maybe now she would get a clue.

"Hardly," Seia said dismissively. "Until we reach Naboo and go our separate ways, Lorash is more useful as an ally than a corpse. Even more so if she can actually assist in a fight. That is all."

While that answer seemed to make sense to Eso and Yyr, Lorash felt a distinct disappointment.

The pilot struggled up from the floor and righted his chair. "At least you usually ask nicely, for a sith. Or at least, you ask." He narrowed his eyes slightly. "So why aren't you trying to win that bounty? I'm sure you and the Inquisitor have plenty in common."

Seia's lip curled. "I owe no one my allegiance, least of all the Empire. I do not have any intention of becoming a lickspittle or curbing my own power for the sake of some sniveling bureaucrat elevated to high office. To be a sith is to be free, breaking one's chains with the power of the Force. I am not about to compromise that for anything, including credits."

Eso rubbed the back of his neck, studying Seia intently. "Not a fan of people telling you what to do?" he said, some of his usual cheer returning slowly.

"That is what I told you when we first met, and that is not going to change."

Yyr chuckled slightly in his rough way and relaxed his hackles. He growled in his own language again, a long phrase this time. Lorash didn't speak it, but both Eso and Seia seemed to understand.

"That's about where I'm at, bud," Eso agreed. He looked over at Lorash. "He says that as long as it's just the Empire who's pissed at you, we're in good. I mean, it's a lot of credits, but Seia would murder us if we tried and you have to be alive to spend your money."

"And our standards of hygiene are far better than your last passengers'," Seia commented.

It broke the last of the tension, giving Eso a full laugh. "Yeah, your rooms don't send locker smell spilling through the ship every time you open them." He relaxed back into his chair. "Alright, we're all on the same page. Now, uh, we can talk about the deal I've got lined up. See, since we're in bad with the Empire, that opens certain avenues of work."

"Crimelords?" Lorash guessed.

"They're a bit dangerous for anyone with a bounty. Now, uh, rebellions, that's a different story." Eso shifted in his seat. "See, word is that there's some people looking to make, uh, trouble for the Empire around Alderaan. We've got some weapons and armor aboard, but I've got a line to get more and they're, uh, eager to buy anything they can get right now."

"If we acquire enough money, we can likely bribe security forces or criminals on Naboo to gain access to the location we seek," Seia said thoughtfully.

Lorash looked down at her hands. Something in her wanted to jump into Eso's plan wholeheartedly. The Empire had done so much damage and would kill both her and her fellow jedi without a second thought, but there was a darkness to that eagerness. "I don't think Master Vori would approve of me joining a war."

Seia looked over at her. "The Empire has already burned much of your garden, Lorash. Will you permit it to burn the rest?"

"A jedi is supposed to be peaceful."

"Think of balance," Seia said, harshness creeping into her rasping voice. "You cannot have peace without being willing to protect it. You must attack at times, or you will retreat endlessly and fail."

Lorash tensed. "I don't want to kill anyone."

Seia shook her head slightly, almost despairingly. "That is not always the choice you can make, jedi. The world is out to kill you now, or worse. You must learn to adapt."

As much as Lorash wanted to deny that, there was the dreadful truth of experience in Seia's voice. She looked at Eso and took a deep breath. "I'll help," she said. "But I'm not going to kill."

"Be careful with such promises," Seia said before Eso could cut in, standing up from the table. "What happens when you break them may break you."