The Emotional Battle

[leethal]

Yeah.. And that's what throws me off in sitcoms and soap operas. The way people just stop thinking when they start feeling just drives me up a wall. and then down again like a bomb.

[JediKaren]

well I promise not to torture you all with too much love, but all stories need love.

[leethal]

i don't mean to suppress your story, madam. Please do as you wish.

[JediKaren]

The room went half silent as I walked back in. Some people were still fighting, but Roan and Nield were looking at me. A smile formed on my lips when Irini managed to hit a not paying attention Nield.

“Master Ti, would you allow Karen to switch partners with Irini?”

My smile disappeared when Master Mirmo said that. A certain dread filled me as I realized I could no longer continue my quest to become Roan’s girlfriend. The lightsaber teacher gave my master a bit of a strange look for just a second, but recovered quickly.

“Of course, Mirmo. Irini, please fight with Roan. Class, please continue practicing. Remember to open yourself to the Force. Let the Force flow through you and help you. Look for weakness in the other person. Listen to the Force.”

The class went back to their fights and I half looked up at Nield. His face was a grin and I saw a trace of sweat on his forehead. This was good. Perhaps, he was a bit worn-out and would make this fight easy. Well, easy wasn’t the accurate word. Easy and Nield didn’t associate with each other. With the best of luck, the Force, and skill, I could hope to wipe that proud grin off his egotistical face, but I did not permit my hopes to ascend to that high of an expectation.

I lifted my chin, straighten my back, and strode towards with an air of confidence. I would not dare give him any implication of self doubt before starting our battle. He bowed at me and although the move was customary, I knew he did it in mock respect.

“Ladies first, if you wish.”

A fierce, raging temper flamed my being. I lifted by wooden sword and studied him. Unlike my poor, but lovely Roan, he angled his blade to cover most of his upper body. He was a smart fighter. I noticed his two hand grip and the fact his right hand came first, implying that he was right handed, but if he was truly a smart fighter, this could very well be a lie. My suspicion grew when I saw his left foot was closer to me than his right. His knees were bent; a good position to start from if you knew nothing or little of your opponent. In conclusion, I didn’t have a clue as where to start.

“If you want, I’ll make the first move.”

I gritted my teeth. This would do at all. It was better for me to make the first move and possible gain control of the situation, but before I could fumble around for an excuse, he charged at me.

Normally, I would consider this a tackless move, showing recklessly and lack of skill, but the way Nield caught me in surprise, I was forced admit it worked well. He was not far from me to start with and the short sprint gave him strength and speed. He brought his sword underhanded from his right as if to cut off my left arm. I raised my sword, realizing I was too slow and too much in shock and too a step to my right to dodge him. This shift did not fool him in the slightest and he brought his stick upward and to my right. I parried the attack and stood my ground. He stepped back and brought the sword around and angled an upward blow to my left. I met his blade and tried to slide him off. His sword moved down mine enough to make me think I had won that round, but he withdrew his sword and aimed a stab to my left side. My ability in sensing the blow saved me from being touched and I realized I was sucking in my belly. With a hard breath, I relaxed my body and backed away from him.

This was getting worse. In about a minute, he had show far superior talent than me and I was going to lose.

“Tired already? I was going easy on you, you know.”

Easy! This was easy! Oh, I hate to see what was hard. My hands were trembling. I was trapped. I had already lost without a second round.

“Karen, Nield, why have you stopped?”

Nield turned around to face the teacher and politely informed her that he was just giving me a second to catch my breath.

“Do not stop until I have told you all to halt your fighting. Please continue.”

Nield gave a short bow and I silently cursed him. I instantly resolved to win this fight no matter what. A little humility wouldn’t hurt him at all.

I copied Nield’s entrance into the first fight and ran full head at him, suppress a war cry. Nield turned his head just in time and managed to put a foot out from under me and I nearly fell. He drew his stick and smartly hit me on the butt. I yelped in light pain and anger. My eyes blazed, blood pounded in my ears, and my cheeks burned. When this was over, I was going to punch my master for this little idea of his. What did he have in mind pitting me against someone who I couldn’t win? Furthermore, why set me up with someone who I couldn’t stand? Did he want me to learn emotional control? I knew that was a popular lesson for Jedi students to learn.

“Are you to fight or are you going to anger Master Ti?”

I spat at the floor in disgust and shot a look of death to Nield. I told him to shut up. He looked at me in surprise of my rude comment and said nothing. Still steaming, I raised my blade and attacked from the left, aiming for his left. He moved to block it. I was expecting that, and lowered my blade to smack his knee. I drew my sword near me and quickly attacked again, not giving him time to recover from the shock of the blow, and with a step to the right, hit his arm. His eyes closed in pain, but his sword moved and hit my now open left arm. We both looked at each other, questioning the motives behind our moves, and deciding it was all fair in the name of war. Instantaneously, we brought our sticks together and met half way between the distance between us and the length of our swords. The impact of the blow was so strong, I nearly let go of the sword, just to stop the sting that was traveling up my arm.

“Stop”

There was a distance voice in the room saying something about stopping. I didn’t pay attention to the sound, because all my focus was on Nield. He trilled his stick around in a flashy move, meant to distract me, and came in from the lower right. I ignored the false move and waited a tenth of a second before blocked the real blow from the upper right. I tapped lightly, leaning my weight back to gather myself lower. I sprung upward, feet leaving the ground, hardly noticing that Nield had down the same. Suddenly, I felt a strange feeling like a hand, grabbing my feet downward, and forced me to crash on the floor. Stunned, I looked up from the mats to see a similar image of Nield sprawled out on the floor.

“Impressive as the aggressive fight was, when I mean stop, I mean that instant.”

I struggled back to my feet, glancing around at the students. They had all watched our fight, or at least the second half.

“Class dismissed.”

I put away my stick and headed to my master, who was in a corner. He looked at me, showing no thought or emotion.

“It was aggressive, but that was a real fight. I expect more effort in the rest of our classes. But, I think you need a shower and time to think”

I nodded, dripping in hot, stick sweat, and walked to nice shower.

[mrdarkness]

Lol I like this

[JediKaren]

good, because I'm sick of sword fights.

[leethal]

why? sniff.. I wish i had someone to fight with.. The only person that fought me now turned inwards in some manner and stopped talking with me. He does, however, still call himself my friend, so I'm a bit...

[psidan]

Of course. Your sick of sword fights. Especially when you know you have a lightsaber... Heh.
Yeah. Hope to see that..er jerk. get a lesson.
Keep typing.

[JediKaren]

sorry for the lack of updated...life with my mom is not doing so well and I kinda fell apart. I promise to write more when I can function again. Thank you for your patiences....or lack there of

[JediKaren]

A few days later I was found in Lyn’s room, a small room like mine containing a bed, a desk with a computer, a lamp or two, a few attempts of her art lessons, and a dresser full of clothes provide by the Jedi. I was sitting on her bed and her on the floor, trying to copy one of my drawings of a horse. There had been a peaceful silence between us for a good ten minutes, except for the angry comments coming from her, as she struggled to get the curve of the horse’s back just right. I was ignoring her, lost in deep thought and worry.

“Arg, that’s it. I give up. Your animal is impossible to draw.”

She threw the pencil to the ground, shoving her drawing away, and looked at me for a distraction. She was filled with unJedi like and very uncharacteristic anger at the drawing, which was strong enough to pull me out of my thoughts and pay attention to her. I told her the picture was not impossible to draw, seeing how I drew it in the first place. She glared at me, still annoyed and disbelieving. I took her attitude as a challenge, shrugged a bit, and grabbed the drawing with the pencil in hand. I erased many of her dark, jagged lines, and studied my own work. I took a deep breathe and sketched a perfect flowing curve of the horse’s top part of the back and handed the drawing back to her. I couldn’t possibly resist telling her that it wasn’t impossible, she was just being angry.

“You’re impossible!”

We both laughed at me, a cheerful, friendly laugh that came from the month of being together, sharing tales of classes, discussing rumors, and making fun of Mirmo behind his back. For me, the laughter died abruptly as I remembered my pervious conclusion. A pang of anguish and hesitation snaked through me. I must have been showing my feelings, for Lyn stopped laughing seconds after me.

“What’s wrong?”

I told her it was nothing but silly worry, nothing for her to get concerned about.

“Oh no you don’t. I’m not letting you side track this time. Come on, tell me. What are friends for if we don’t share our ‘silly worries’?”

I managed a half glare at her. She was right. I explained to her of the up coming Force class and that we were going to start telekinesis.

“That’s a really fun subject. It’s not easy getting started, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be floating all sorts of stuff around. In fact, it will get kind of annoying with people shooting stuff around the hall and at the dining hall. It gives the teachers an excuse to assign wish washing duty to people they can’t stand.”

I shook my head, fearing she may take this worse when she understood my worry.

“Come on, you’ll do fine. Everyone talks about how you are advance in most of the classes and especially when it comes to the Force. I bet you already know how to do this, and are just trying to down play how well you’ll do.”

She hit the mark closer to the problem than I would have liked. The problem was I could do telekinesis and I was considered the best in the class in the Force studies. I had training back on my home planet. I trained myself, with the help of various how tos I found online, but I never practiced much and never insinuated any talent at the skill. At my best, I could cause a bit of paper, balanced on needle to spin, stop, and wiggle at will, but I lacked fine control and speed. On my planet I was not considered the best amoug the Force users, but scarcely above a beginner when it came to telekinesis. My shame at the failure at the skill was the reason why I rarely practiced and never for long. I was not looking forward to this topic at the Jedi academy. I had become a legend amid the students and I did not want to ruin their fantasies about me. I knew this was unhealthy, a sign my ego had gotten too big, but I would not bring myself to envision the disappointment on their faces, as they watched me struggle to move a bit of paper. I related these thoughts to my friend and watched her expression and reaction carefully. She would be the first of many.

“Oh Karen, don’t worry. Really, I mean it. You aren’t the first to struggle with the skill, nor the last. I mean look at Master Corran Horn. He’s great at mind control, yet you are already ahead of him. Here, I’ll help you practice. Maybe if you just got into a regular habit of practicing the skill once a day, you would improve a lot faster.”

I looked at her with bleak hope. I didn’t tell her that each time when I peaked over the last highest skill level, I would ultimately grow weaker, usually a matter of days, and come to a complete halt, unable to move anything, no matter what I tried. Well, she would find out and maybe have an answer to that problem.

“Come on, if you can teach me how to draw this blasted horse and get me through your private art class, the least I can do to teach you how to move things with your mind and get your through your class.”

With that comment, she turned her glaze on the pencil, laying still on the drawing, which was on my lap, and slightly raised her hand. The pencil jittered a little, and slowly with a bit of wobbling, rose about half an inch off the paper. The pencil hovered in its spot for a few seconds, as if to make a point, and floated over to her now out stretched hand. I stared in amazement, seeing how this was my first show of telekinesis here. I burned with desire to be able to do that, now realizing, moving a rock truly was possible. If she could break through my block, whether mentally or skilled based, I would be ever grateful towards her and teach her all I knew of art.

“So how do you get the back leg looking like that?”

I smiled, got off the bed, and worked with her.

[JediKaren]

Here's a nice long chapter for you all. Comments are more than welcomed.

I have found that when I do not dream of nightmares, I generally dream of silly, nonsense events that never make sense. In rare dreams, very rare that is, I have been known to dream a solution to a problem, or find a hint to something that had been bothering me. Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, the night before the Force class, I had dreamed of performing telekinesis. I was in shoe store that I use to work, back when I was living on my planet. I was looking at the lid of a shoe box that had been sticking up, wanting to use the Force to make the lid go down. I fixed my glaze on the shoe lid, gathering the Force around me and directing the energy on the lid, willing the lid to go down. To my astonishment, the lid obeyed my silent orders. I decided to push success and have the whole box flip over. Once again, the box complied with my desire.

It was in the early morning that I woke up, filled with a strong feeling of renewed hope and an answer. The dream had been vague with details of how simple will and the Force was suppose to push me pass my current strength in telekinesis, but that did not phase me. If I could do this feat in my dream, I could not be far from reality. I went about my usual morning routine. At breakfast, I hurried over to Lyn to tell her excitedly of my aspiring dream. Lyn seemed to share my hope, if not more than me.

“That’s really great. Let’s hope you dreamed of the future, even if didn’t take place at the academy. Have you told your master of this dream?”

I shook my head. So far, my master knew nothing of my troubles with this upcoming class. I didn’t want another lecture, or worse, him to worry over me. There are some things that are best told and solved with friends and not teachers.

“I think you should tell him. He’s your master and should have a right to know. Maybe he can tell you some advice.”

Silently, I thought for a moment and told Lyn of my new idea. I would tell Mirmo after the class. This way if I did alright he would be proud, but if things went badly, at least I could say I gave it a try on my own.

“Sounds good. Well, it’s fifteen minutes until classes start. We better get going. I’ll see you at dinner, hopefully with good news.”

Impatiently, I went through the morning exercises, which had taken a nasty turn to a lot of running and other activities that required sweating far too much for my tastes. I forced myself to swallow and hide my yearning for the Force class and silence my presence during Mirmo’s meditation class. He had little to say to me in his class, and had taken up to bringing up the less talented student to par with the class. I wanted to skip lunch so badly and go straight to the Force class, but hunger would only distract me. I at little and spent most of the time, staring at the clock, and not at Roan. Finally, when I was at the end of my nerves, the time for the class came.

I was not the only one filled with excited anticipation and speculate. Unlike me, many of the students had taken a path of fantasy of what they would be able to do by the end of the class. Dack had stoutly stated he would be so good that he would levitate himself a meter of the floor. I slightly shook my head, holding back a laugh at his foolishness. Others had decided they would be Force throwing objects at each other. Lyn’s prediction may come true yet, if these were the pranks being planned out already. Honestly, I had no idea how the class would do. On my home planet, with the Force sensitive teens that I spent hours teaching and helping, most struggled quite a bit just to spin paper. It would be interesting to see if these students were any different from the ones I knew.

The customary silence came over the class when the teacher entered. She had a dark cloth bag, containing something I couldn’t guess. She looked over us and began her talk.

“Today, as you know, we will be start on telekinesis, the ability to control matter with the Force. Telekinesis is a different and harder skill than any you have learned so far. It just not matter of looking and willing a object to move, but a finer, more subtle control of the Force and serve focus of the mind. You will find that no matter how much energy you gather around you or the object, your results will be null if you do concentrate. You will also find that pure force of the mind or emotions will get you no where. A calm, blank mind will do wonders. So, we will take five minutes and conduct a quick mediation.”

The class was no happy to find this information out, but Master Mirmo had taught them well. Soon, the feeling of tranquility and stillness was so strong, I could nearly taste it. I was one step ahead of the teacher. I reached into the back of my mind, where the ability to do telekinesis laid, and emptied it of all wants and needs. I looked up at the teacher, hoping she would reveal what was in the bag.

“Now that we are mentally prepared to do this, let me hand you out a small black ball that you will be practicing on.”

We each were handed a small ball, smaller than a tennis ball, that was made out of something like a light rubber and very smooth. I did not like her choice of color. I preferred the ball to have some type of marking, so that I could tell if I have moved the ball just a little.

“Take a seat and lay the ball still on the floor near you. Turn your mind on the ball, but do not do anything yet. Imagine, clearly as you can, the ball moving from side to side slightly, as if to move, but being held back. With that image in mind, gather the Force around you and extend your awareness to the ball. Do not try or force the ball to move. Concentrate in your mind, the thought of the ball rocking, while sensing the ball. May the Force be with you.”

Her instructions were much like mine, but I feared the class had lost her. I understood, through trail and error, why she wanted us to do this, but the class had never done this. I wanted to watch the class and observer what was going on. At the same time, the need to prove my dream right gnawed at me. I gave in to the excited growing in me and looked at the black ball.

While the teacher said nothing about using your hands, I knew from experience, that keeping my hand near the ball helped me. The hand did nothing in getting the ball to move, but mentally the hand made it easier for me to convince myself this could be done.
I gathered the Force and felt the ball as asked. I felt the solidness of the ball, how it rested on the stone floor, and how it wanted to move. It must sound weird to say the ball wanted to move, but that was the truth. For some unknown reason, the ball was being held still, perhaps waiting for me to give it permission to move. I strongly thought about the ball moving, a simple rocking motion. I was not sure if this would work; due to the fact I was use to spinning paper. Surely, the same process of spinning paper could be used on rocking a ball. In the past, I had been able to rock the paper, but that was rather hard and usually took days of practice before reaching that point in my control.

For a few minutes I stared at the ball, wishing it to rock, with nothing happening. I could feel my spirits fall and my mind want to give up and say this could not be done. I stole a glance around the room for a break and nearly gave a cry of surprise. Nield and Irini had both of their balls rocking, almost rolling. This was hardly fair. Max might have had his ball moving a bit, but it was hard to say. The other students were staring at the ball, determined to move it, even if they had to sit there all day. I blushed pink in embarrassment, hoping no one had looked my way.

I looked back at the ball, trying to drag up that feeling of optimism I usually had when it came to the Force. I retraced my mental steps and looked at the ball. I forced myself away from wanting the ball to move. I buried myself into the Force, and asked the energy, rather than the ball, to do ask I wanted. I didn’t stare directly at the ball, but half divided my eyesight on the ball and the floor. I felt something twitch, like a suggestion of movement coming from the ball. My eyes blinked. Did I just move the ball? The ball didn’t look any different in its position. I sighed and picked up the ball. I scratched the surface with my nail and set the ball back on the floor, somewhat on the scratch. Once again, I blanked out my mind and gave the task half my attention, while asking the Force to obey me. Again, the ball twitched visually and I unconsciously pushed with my mind, hoping to get more of a movement. Aside from the twitch that I was sure I saw, nothing happened. I scold myself for trying to move the ball. Yet, hope rose in me. I tried again, using the same method and the ball moved just a bit move, rocking to my right.

“Alright, we will stop here.”

No! Not just when I got the method done!

“Most of you had the ball moving. Very good. As for those who were less lucky, we will try this next time. Do no despair. You are dismissed.”

I handed back my ball and sulked. I wanted another ten minutes while I still had the feeling of it. I would have to start back from zero. Still, I had moved the ball and that was better than I thought I would do. I headed for the dining hall for the evening meal to tell Lyn of my outcome.

[leethal]

I kick miss Karen's bottom xD

please please don't make me feel pain..

[JediKaren]

sorry for not writing, but it's getting close to moving into college day and things have gotten very crazy...plus I am finally reading Harry Potter, which puts everything else on my list second place

[leethal]

Go ahead. As far as I'm concearned, you needn't apologize. I've been (and surely many have too) gifted with this story.

[snowind]

Sorry for my lack of comments on the last three chapters J.K., But well you know how my life has been lately, a total mess... Anyway, the story is coming great, as someone that also swordfights, Leethal you're not the only one , I think that the sword fight was good, it felt real. I just realized... I sword fight, I use telekinesis(ok, just shake the psiwheel but still...) and have precog!! I'm becoming a Jedi!!!! OMG!!