Alderaan - Love and Intrigue

Tethys's robes swing around her legs as she strides through the House Thul grounds. This time she knows where she's going and is, more or less, an expected guest, though how the afternoon will go is intriguingly unpredictable.

"You return, master Jedi. House Thul welcomes you," she responded turning to the Jedi.

"Thank you," Tethys says with a slight smile. "I value the trust you've extended, especially after the excitement these past few days. I notice whatever security issue had you all locked down here yesterday seems to have passed--that's good, I imagine?"

“It’s better but not by much,” she said honestly turning her gaze to the castle proper.

“But House Thul has nothing nefarious to hide, this is simply slander and typical politics and we shall be vindicated soon enough. We see that some of your Jedi have been busy,” she mused. “I was under the impression such carnal activities were beneath your Order.”

Tethys laughs briefly at that, a chuckle like water running over river rocks. "Not always, but... if you'd met the stars of that piece of video trickery, you would know that whoever fabricated it either hasn't met them, or has a very strange sense of humor." She shakes her head. "Not all Jedi are celibate, of course, but... Layne? Major Organa? Alderaan would as soon grow a new moon out of nowhere." The incredulous tone of her voice is, for Tethys, uncharacteristically emphatic.

"There is a lot of mud in the water at the moment, evidently." She opens a hand palm-up."Thul, Panteer, the Jedi, vague conspiracies... It's a good time to pause and see more deeply."

“Meditation?” she asked.

“I have never engaged in it, but I am willing to try, knowledge is not something to be denied. A Blackguard must be more than a weapon we are symbols, we are servants, and we understand that ignorance can be a murderous.”

"Considering the names you take for yourselves, I'm pleasantly surprised you consider it a bad thing to stumble into murderousness." Tethys's lips quirk.

"For a disciplined student of the Force, meditation is... well, it's fundamental, though people find their way to it by different paths. Jedi learn to listen--to the Force, to ourselves--before we practice other skills." She casts a curious look at Lady Massacre. "Not something your Sith Duke-consort taught you, I take it?

"It was more martial than meditative or overly philosophical. We did not want to be... drawn too deeply into a philosophy that seeks to destroy the Republic," she said honestly.

Tethys raises an eyebrow at that--it's not quite the answer she expected--but nods. "Not just the Republic--its individual adherents court destruction too. But then, I remember you mentioned that yourself, earlier."

She spreads her hands palm-up. "Is there a quiet place to practice around here? It doesn't need to be completely private, but cutting down distractions helps. At any time, but especially if you're just starting."

The woman nodded and guided her to a large structure, that looked newer. Inside it had a large living area and then next to that was a training area and it seems to be the living space for the Blackguards.

Lady Massacre said over her shoulder, "This is where we do much of our training."

"If not meditation and mental discipline... mostly combat drills?" Tethys asks. She looks around with interest as they pass into the Blackguard's domain. Would it be full of spikey black leather decor, or as ordinary a military facility as the old Black Circle base she'd visited with Kat and Kellen? Or it might be somewhere in between the two extremes, of course.

"This should do well," she comments, with a nod, once they pass into the training space. Without much ado, she folds herself gracefully into a crosslegged seat right on the floor. "A chair is fine too, or a cushion. Whatever you prefer. I like it this way."

The interior was sparse and clean and less edge lord black. With tasteful portraits of members on the wall in armor or more personal close ups of their faces. The walls had ceremonial weapons but everything had a clean modern design.

She fetched a pillow and took a seat removing her helmet and said, “How shall we begin, master Jedi?”

Lady Massacre isn't the first person Tethys has instructed in meditation (though she is certainly the most dramatically-named one). Compared to those first few months she spent on Bankor, when wild Force-sensitives had seemed to be appearing from the woodwork at every turn and leaving her at a loss about how to deal with them, six-years-later Tethys has a lot more experience--not just training her padawan Byron, but also teaching Garth and practicing with the Aznuri forest settlers of Bankor, not to mention other occasional encounters with seekers and hermits and lost souls across the Outer Rim.

All of which is to say that she has a pretty good idea of the simplest and easiest way for most people to get started. When she speaks, her voice is slightly quieter and slower than before: "The first step is to listen to yourself. Starting with your physical self." She brushes at the skirts of her robes one last time to smooth them into place and then rests her palms loosely on her thighs.

"Settle yourself in one place, and close your eyes if that helps you be still. Begin to listen to your breathing. Don't try to change the pattern, just observe it. Once you place your attention on the breath, it might be hard not to take control, but--don't. Let it be." Tethys's speech falls into the slow, calm pace of her own breathing, setting a rhythm to help her 'student' stay present in the moment.

OOC: Force roll please.

The Force is turbid and swirling with darker emotions here...

D5 EA--Force: 2eF 2 Dark Side


(dang it!)

The Blackguard only sees fury and darkness. She seems on the verge of accessing this dark power to find her center. The darkness building.

OOC: Lady Massacre Force: 2eF 2 Dark Side

Tethys has practice at this--feeling the frustration and anger when it's hard to focus, feeling the fear of failing--and she knows to hold on to the rhythm of her breath, acknowledging those emotions and then letting them flow past her and away, behind her in the stream of time. If it takes longer to find her way in, if the Force doesn't open itself to her this afternoon at all... well, that's how it is sometimes.

She senses the darkness swirl around and in Lady Massacre too, though, and the other woman doesn't have the benefit of experience, or Jedi discipline. Her voice sounds as calm and steady as she can make it as she says, "Sometimes I can feel the deeper flow of the Force immediately. Sometimes other things get in the way. Thoughts and emotions, other sensations and distractions--don't let them occupy you. It's easier to focus on those things, but the more you try to fight, the more lost you'll become."

Her voice reaches out like a steadying hand between the two of them. "Observe what you feel. Observe your anger, see the darkness clearly. And then let it go."

--D5 EA--Fluffy Discipline: 2eP+2eA 3 successes, 2 advantage

"You don't use that anger to guide you to justice?" she said relenting and letting it go for now. "I find it hard to believe that anger does not plague the Jedi."

"Of course it does." Tethys sighs and lets her eyes float open. "I feel angry at times--I think most Jedi do." She opens her hands, shrugging one shoulder slightly.

"And you're right that drawing on anger and letting it build can make you stronger... for a little while. But has nothing to do with justice, you know. The strength I could get from my anger is just meant to hurt whatever made me angry." Her mouth flattens into a pensive line, though her spine remains straight and her shoulders relaxed. "Today I might be angry about a true injustice, or afraid of what will happen if I let it go unpunished. But anger pulls toward destructive solutions above all else... and anyway, not everything that makes me mad is injustice, you know? If I let anger lead me, I'd be training my instincts to believe everything that indulges my anger is some kind of 'justice.'"

In a more neutral tone, she adds, "As a Jedi's connection to the Force gets stronger, those indulgences in emotion feed back on themselves. The more she lets anger and fear use her, the angrier and more fearful she'll be."

“So have you drawn upon this dark side, as I am told you call it?” she asked. “We do not see things so stark, by comparison.”