Two-Fold Lesson

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The day was early. The sun’s light had barely crept over the horizon, casting long shadows over the landscape behind even the shortest of hills and structures. Alongside its great mountain, only the highest floors of the taller buildings spread throughout Estle City were lit by the rising sun. The city’s nightlife was dying down quickly, while the general populace would be waking soon.

Already up and about, Eilen scaled her way up the side of a multi-floored shop in the midst of the city’s middle layer. She stopped only for a few seconds when she was high enough for the sun’s like to reach her. Looking over her shoulder, she had just the right angle to see a sprawling scape of rooftops leading toward the edge of the city, all sharing what light was cast upon them for now. With the sun itself crawling up over a distant range, it was quite the sight.

Definitely worth the look…

Not wanting to be any later than she already was, Eilen turned her attention back toward the roof of the building, not much further up. A few relatively secure footholds helped her jump and hoist her way to the top, where she finally pulled herself over the ledge. The hybrid rolled onto her back with a huff - just a quick rest before starting the real work. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ruka sitting not far away, gazing over the city, himself.

Her Mirialan master turned to face her. “There you are. You’re a little late, hermanita. I said before the sun was up.”

“Eheh…” Eilen pulled herself back to her feet and walked to Ruka’s side, opting to sit with him. She really didn’t have an excuse to defend her tardiness. “...Sorry.” Even sitting, her head was still above his own.

Ruka took a deep, calm breath. “That’s fine, Eilen. Missing sunrise is on you, not me.” A slight upward curve graced his lips for an instant before he turned his gaze back toward the sunrise. A hand lifted, gesturing toward it. “...But, forget about that. Instead, I want you to give yourself a moment, and take all of this in.”

Though she’d already taken the time to enjoy the sights on her way up, she didn’t stop herself from looking out yet again. “...I, uh… kinda already did,” she admitted.

“Not like this,” Ruka retorted with a grin. He turned back toward her, having to look up to meet her eyes. “This is a lesson, hermanita. You remember talking about connections in the Force?”

Eilen nodded. She spoke almost in recital. “Everything is connected. The Force exists within and between all things. It binds the universe together.” A lesson Baro had taught her long ago.

“Yeah. Good.” Ruka looked down at the buildings before them, and gestured out again with both of his hands. “And this, right here, is a small pocket in the universe, where there are many lives, many things, all happening at once. Yeah, you can see it all from here… but now, I want you to look with more than your eyes.”

Eilen nodded, thinking she understood what he meant. Finding a comfortable position, she rested her hands on her legs and closed her eyes. A deep breath, in.. then out.

“Reach out with your senses, Eilen,” Ruka said quietly, “and tell me what you see.”

The furred girl took in another long, deep breath. As she exhaled, she let her physical senses begin to fade from her awareness. The soft ambience of a waking city below quieted to nothing more than a faint hum. Behind closed eyelids, her blackened vision somehow further disappeared. Even the gentle warmth of the sun’s light on her face was almost numbed away. In place if it all, however, a different form of feeling slowly arose. It wasn’t one that she could explain, but it seemed to encompass the presence and state of all things. With her mind quieted, she could begin to hear the Force speaking to her.

“...There’s so much here,” Eilen muttered for Ruka. “...Families, waking their loved ones. Animals chasing each other, for play, and for food. Vehicles, starting, stopping, rolling… flying. Things coming, and things going… The streets, and… so many feet hitting them, yet still so quiet. The day is still new.”

Her feeling sense began to hone in on the people of the city. “There is… There is excitement, yet… sadness, and strife, and conflict. The city is suffering… Its people are recovering, from terrible change. B-but, there is also goodness, and… new beginnings, for the new day… They are carrying onward.”

Eilen stopped for a moment to breathe. She tried to expand her senses. “...There is more than the life. There are things not in motion, too. Buildings around everything… ancient, with marks of histories - a-and new, some so very new and young. They are tall, so high on the mountain… The mountain, more ancient than them all. It’s… It’s basking in the sun, and the mountains all around are with it. There are trees, and grass. They are standing taller, and taller, with the light of the sun, and… and… Wait.”

Something shifted. It pulled her attention inward again.

“...I… There’s something coming. Unforseen, and ready to…” Her ears twitched at something they barely caught. Eilen’s physical senses began to race back as she suddenly grew alert. “Ruka, I--”

A sudden, all-too-familiar sound brought Eilen fully back to herself. It was a lightsaber’s ignition, mere feet away. The hybrid’s eyes shot open and turned to face it. Even though she didn’t know what to expect, what she saw was shocking.

Ruka stood over her, lightsaber in hand, rearing back his arm. Before Eilen could speak, the glowing blade arced around, toward her head.

Disbelief aside, Eilen saw the swing coming moments before it happened. A blue blur of light flashed over her as she dropped onto her back. "WAIT--" she tried to yell out at him, but the image in her mind of a downward strike on her position got the hybrid moving right away. A moment later, it happened, barely missing her as she pulled herself forward and clambered onto her feet. Eilen didn't have the chance to think as she foresaw an upward swing headed for her stomach. With only the ledge of the rooftop behind her, she jumped back and prepared to grab the ledge. Ruka's lightsaber arced right where she had been standing, just as she dropped.

Hanging from the ledge, Eilen quickly found a foothold to secure herself. What's wrong with him? she couldn't help but wonder. Has he gone insane?! "What are you doing?!" she called up to her master, a hint of fear in her voice.

"Never hesitate when you're in danger, Eilen," Ruka stated, looking down to her. "I won't, after this."

Her senses said he was about to strike again. This was far too close for comfort - she needed to put some distance between the two of them. Wait! Her senses told her more than just the moment directly ahead. The buildings surrounding her were so clear and vivid in her mind less than a minute ago. The rooftop behind her was only one story down, and an alleyway across. I can jump that... The next building over was the same height, and had a wide T-shape, and there was a taller structure nearby, with pipelines running up all the sides.

She didn't have time to look, to see if she was right. As Ruka's lightsaber swung down, Eilen hoisted up a foot and leapt backwards from the wall. A blue blur sent sparks flying from where her hands had grappled the ledge.

The agile hybrid twisted herself around in the air, sure enough heading for a rooftop one story down. Okayokayokay-- She'd done this before, no reason she couldn't do it under pressure now. Eilen pulled her legs forward, and kept her joints loose as she braced for the landing.

She hit the rooftop with a hard clatter from her claws and fell directly into an uncontrolled roll. Winding up on her side, she moved quickly to stand, her legs only slightly aching from such a drop. A grunt escaped her as she turned back to where she'd come.

Eilen saw it in her mind before her eyes registered it. Ruka's lightsaber came spinning down like a glowing disk of death. Without so much as a gasp, the half-Selonian threw herself away from it, wheeling around as her hands pushed off the ground ahead. The lightsaber's blade scraped a semi-circle of sparks from her previous position, before suddenly arcing back to its master. By now, Ruka had dropped down to the rooftop, himself. He caught his spinning blade effortlessly as Eilen reoriented and backed further away.

"Don't stop now!" Ruka called forth, rearing back his arm for another throw. "Trust your senses, hermanita!"

What is this, a game?! Whatever her master was up to, Eilen knew his blade was only a second away from a trajectory toward her midsection. Senses...

Her memory of the surrounding buildings kicked in. She was only a few steps from the edge of this rooftop. This structure was the top of a stack of offices, unoccupied. The next building over was a residential complex, its families still waking. Several air filters, solar conductors, and power generators made for obstacles along its roof, while a foot-high railing enclosed its lengthy perimeter. There was an entire street between this building and that one. That was just what she remembered from a minute ago. A lightsaber was on its way to her.

With a deep breath, Eilen poured her concentration into an amplified jump, throwing herself high over the rooftops toward the next building. Her feet arced over her head, giving the hybrid a clear, upside-down view of the street far below, and of the glowing weapon sent spinning across the same gap she was crossing. It continued past her, sailing further onward and out of her sight as her body continued to flip. Ah, karabast...

Eilen's Force-empowered leap ended with an equally aided landing. Staying on her feet this time, the hybrid's knees barely sunk toward the rooftop before she let the inertia push her forward, and bolted into a sprint. Looking to bypass the various objects spread across the rooftop, she hopped onto the perimeter railing and hurried onward. A twitch went through her ears as she heard a whooshing sound from behind, something more than the air brushing against her face. She could sense that Ruka wasn't far behind.

Suddenly the spinning lightsaber reappeared in her mind's eye. Sensing it path, Eilen dove between two nearby generators as the blue blade came rushing in from the side. A few sparks grazed off the top of one generator as it rushed overhead. Eilen didn't hesitate to hoist herself over the generator in front of her as soon as it had passed. Rather than returning to the railing, she began hopping from object to object on the roof, ready to drop between any of them again at a moment's notice.

This couldn't go on forever - Eilen needed an escape, if Ruka was going to keep this up. If her senses - and her memory - were trustworthy enough, she had multiple options to drop down to the streets, if not scale her way up to the next rooftop. The next building had pipelines. There was also a fire escape attached to this building, facing the next one. Alternatively, there were wires linking this building to others across the street to its left. That place was another residential complex, shaped like this one except inverted. Left and right were both viable options if she could reach it. That option was dangerous, but crossing a long wire could possibly deter Ruka.

With a quick glance behind, Eilen saw Ruka hop onto the leftside railing to run after her unhindered. He'd have a pretty clear view of the street crossing from there, and probably could reach the end of this building before Eilen could climb over the next. Either gave him a clear shot at another boomerang toss. Fire escape it is.

Her leaps and bounds zig-zagged between a few more rooftop obstacles before Eilen reached the far end of the complex. Playing it safe by upkeeping her option to drop at a moment's notice had unfortunately cost her a bit of time, but at the rate she was going, Ruka should have still been a ways behind. Or, so she thought. The hybrid's ears twitched at the concerning sound of another gust of air from behind.

Eilen stopped in her tracks as she foresaw Ruka hitting the ground in front of her. The hybrid dropped backwards, sliding from her speed, just before his feet hit the ledge in front of her. Lightsaber in hand, Ruka lowered the glowing blade downward as his apprentice slid right up to him. She was trapped. Whatever his game was, he had won it.

Both of them remained still for a few seconds, simply panting, before Ruka finally spoke up between his heavy breaths. "Not bad, hermanita." With that, he raised his weapon away from Eilen, and dropped it beside her.

The blue blade hit the rooftop, but Eilen flinched, as it didn't sink inward. The lightsaber sparked on impact, though rather than burning through, it fell flat with a clatter, as if it wasn't a hyper-dangerous laser sword afterall. The blad quickly retracted, and vanished.

"What the--" Eilen stared at it briefly. It suddenly occurred to her that the hilt wasn't the same one she normally saw Ruka carrying.

"Training saber," Ruka said with a smirk. "You know, the ones with a super-dense containment barrier. It'll still burn and spark, but it takes time to cut through anything. If you got smacked with one of these, it might leave an annoying burn, but not much else, unless it's pressed against you for a while."

Still panting on the ground, Eilen looked back up to her master. "So what the blazes was that all about?"

"The test goes on, Eilen." Ruka extended a hand to the hybrid girl, and helped her onto her feet. "There's always dark and light forces around us. Sometimes the dark shows up unannounced, when you least expect it. When it does, you might only have an instant to take in your surroundings, be ready to react, and either overcome it, or escape." Seeing a look of concern on her face, he patted her back gently. "Don't worry, hermanita. It's not a lesson I should have to teach twice."

Eilen folded her arms, thinking on his words. "Well then... why didn't you just stop after the first couple of swings?"

"It never hurts to see your training in action," Ruka affirmed. "You know of course that our connections with the Force can do more than just tell you what's around you. Your precognition is good. Really good, so far. It seems your senses are progressing very well. And some of your other powers are coming along well." With a more confident grin, he gave her shoulder a shake. "That's not even commenting on your natural agility, hermanita."

A sheepish, but happy grin crossed Eilen's face as her eyes shyly wandered off. "You think I'm doing a good job?"

"You're gonna be flying before you know it." With that, Ruka pushed her away, then willed the training saber back to his hand. "For now, though... My little jig's up, but your training for today is just starting."

Eilen offered him back a crooked grin. Her fingers tapped one another. “Do you mean the senses training, or the run-jump-climb-fall-and-dodge training?”

In Ruka’s hand, the training saber reignited. “Bit of both.”

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