[D5 EA] Mindfulness and Massacre

[Tethys Carrack]

"It's not that Jedi see things all in black and white," Tethys explains. She rolls her neck and shifts her seat a little--it seems possible not much meditation is going to happen this afternoon, but an open conversation is good too. "We just can't afford to indulge ourselves with soaking in those emotions. It's..." not for the first time, an analogy from her childhood studying for the technical academy comes to mind, "...like handling wires with high current. Or being the wires, that might be more accurate. Shortcuts lead to more shortcuts, and every corner you cut risks starting a fire."

She lifts her head and meets Lady Massacre's eyes steadily. "Yes. Not with premeditation, but yes. I've touched the darkness from time to time. It's almost always happened in moments of chaos and danger, when I didn't really have time to think." She shakes her head slightly. "I practice against those moments, like all the Jedi, but sometimes anger backed by fear still works strongly on my instincts. The best I could do then was work to make sure one mistake didn't become a pattern."

[Dapper Dog]

Lady massacre responded, “That seems a fine line to tread. How do you know when some thing like that becomes a pattern. Among the Blackguard we see the world in terms of service to our Lord and our enemies. Being ruthless to our enemies is of value to us, and all actions in pursuit of that are allowable. But we do so only because we must be fearsome to our foes.”

“But we do not revel in it. Perhaps they are not so inimical as the Jedi believe?”

[Tethys Carrack]

"From all I've observed... many people can't tell when relying on the dark side has become a habit, until it's too late." Tethys's brows draw together, a vertical crease appearing above the bridge of her nose for a bit. "On the other hand, if you are not deceiving yourself, you know when you've drawn from the darkness. There's no mistaking it once you've learned to recognize it. The temptation then is to tell yourself it was only once, that it doesn't mean anything, or it was for a good reason..." she signs. "I've seen people do that for a long time before they would admit to themselves that they were out of balance. If they ever could admit it."

"So... I don't try to walk some kind of line. I had rather stay clear of it. Cultivate the instincts and habits I need to have, and not leave room for the destructive hind to grow."

She tilts her head a little, thinking. "If I may be honest with you, your world view seems much starker than a Jedi's to me. With enemies and liege lords the only two poles in the world, and no difficult choices to make about what you're fighting for or how."

[Dapper Dog]

“Perhaps that might be true, I try to steer clear of philosophical choices, everyone is either an asset to the House or an enemy to be removed. I suppose that does keep things simple, but we do so because service is fulfilling. It gives us, those that were rudderless, a destination to stay true. Every member of the Blackguard came to us because they sought a direction, a way out of tragedy or darkness as it were,” she said.

[Tethys Carrack]

"Serving someone else isn't exactly a destination, is it?" Tethys asks mildly.

"You're all still in motion, and each single step is still your own choice. When one is in great pain, feeling lost and uncertain, I can see the appeal of letting someone else make the decisions. Of not being responsible. But..." she shrugs. "It's an illusion, a self-deception really. We always have a choice. Beings who think they are avoiding 'philosophical choices' are still making them."

She closes her eyes for a moment, then blinks them open again, gaze acute as ever.

"They just do so... blindly. Stumbling around with eyes closed, all too likely stepping into sinkholes."

[Dapper Dog]

"Are you not defined by your service to the Jedi Order?" she asked.

[Tethys Carrack]

Tethys considers this carefully, letting a pause open in the conversation.

"Yes... and no. When you strip away everything else, the Order is just a group of people who share the same principles. It's the principles I serve, not the Council of Masters or some abstract organization." She lifts a hand, opening it at heart-level. "I decide what that means, every day. My senses, my judgement. My responsibility."

Her lips quirk a little. "It's not solitary, of course. We help each other find the way. The Order and its resources makes it easier for us to do that. But we each own our choices."

She tilts her head a little to one side, watching the other woman's reaction. "Does that make sense to you?"

---
OOC: About how old does Lady Massacre look to be, minus her helmet like this?

[Dapper Dog]

“In a sense, yes,” she replied as her helmet popped and hissed as she removed it. She continued, “We are not so cavalier with our allegiance, we have chosen our fealty to House Thul and for good or ill it shall be thus till our dying day. To betray that sacred oath is to betray our Honor.”

“We do not have the luxury of daily negotiation of our duty to the Blackguard.”

OOC: Mid to late 30's, perhaps early 40's.

[Tethys Carrack]

"Honor isn't something the Force understands, really," Tethys says thoughtfully. "It's a very... humanoid idea, to put so much of one's self-value into another person or thing. But it's not always harmful, necessarily." She purses her lips slightly and considers her next word sfor a moment.

"Then I suppose my advice is... don't lose sight of the kind of person your acts in service are forming you into. Even while you serve someone else, you always have choices. Making yourself into an indiscriminate force of destruction--indiscriminate is the only kind there is, in the end--I can't imagine that benefits House Thul as much as a wise servant."

In a slightly more relaxed vein, she adds, "Some of your past predecessors seem to have been very independent-minded, actually. I was curious, so I asked some scholarly friends to share what they know about the history of Black Guards and Black Circles... but that might be a conversation for another day."

[Dapper Dog]

She smiled and said, "Checking up on us, master Jedi?"

[Tethys Carrack]

Tethys smiles and spreads both hands. "You make yourselves into quite a mystery. You can hardly blame me for being curious, especially when I heard Jedi may have been involved in those days."

[Dapper Dog]

Tethys smiles and spreads both hands. "You make yourselves into quite a mystery. You can hardly blame me for being curious, especially when I heard Jedi may have been involved in those days."

"I was not aware of that, would it be impertinent to ask what you learned?" she questioned with eager curiosity.

[Tethys Carrack]

"Professor Rist and Dr. Boxy at the Royal Alde Museum have been the primary investigators," Tethys explains. "They've shared some of the background and a little bit of their newest findings, though. The Black Circle group they've been looking into was an independent one, wiped out around the time of the old Mandalorian wars."

She tilts her head a little to the side, mentally sorting through the relatively little concrete information they'd found thus far and picking out bits likely to be relevant.

"They pitted themselves against the Queen at the time, apparently with some Jedi allies. I'm sorry to say the story doesn't seem to have ended happily, for the Black Circle or the Jedi Knights involved, but Professor Rist still has some work to do on his sources, so the context isn't quite clear to me yet. He says in a few days he may have more to share."

[Dapper Dog]

"I had heard of the Black Circle and knew tales of a Lady Massacre from the past, hence the name but this is all rather new. Thank you," she said with interest.

[Tethys Carrack]

"If I learn anything else about them from Professor Rist and his colleagues, I'll be happy to share," Tethys says with an open-hand gesture. "It sounds like those were much darker times."

--

OOC: should I let Lady Massacre get on with her day soon? Considering you have a giant pile of D8 things to run?

[Dapper Dog]

She nodded and was grateful for the time spent.

/scene