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 Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 8:19 pm
Jiri Yim paced the squared off fight area with long, impatient strides. Her blindfold hung around her neck, and she stared at the lightsaber in her hand. It was a practice saber, with a synth crystal in it. She could barely sense it. This weapon had not been built, it had been manufactured. It felt formulaic and unnatural in her hands.
Soon, she reminded herself, she would build her own. Today, however, her task was merely to use it... against another student. She had spoken briefly to a red haired boy - Edan, she thought his name might be - on the way out of the classroom and was pretty certain they had agreed to work together on the lesson. She had come straight to the training room, and now all that remained was waiting for him to arrive.
Jiri had fought before, bare fisted in the courtyard of the med center back home, but this lightsaber was a weapon. She had felt its burn, still had bands of blisters where her focus had slipped. She was a bit nervous to use it against another person.
She paused and looked to the door, waiting. Her heart pounded in anticipation.
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Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 8:54 pm
Edan winced as he walked, the light movement perfect to cause just enough wind to sting the still flaming red curve from the corner of his left eye to his chin. Had the droid been a real enemy with a real lightsaber, he had no doubt the strike would have sliced his head in two. He didn't even want to start considering how bad off his hands were, the blisters smarting with every twitch that might jostle the flesh and underlying nerves. Of course he had to fight against another student now... because he'd thought he'd just crash in his dorm after his most recent meeting with that droid's stupid weapon, then stumble over to the infirmary. But no, he had to suck it up and make his way toward the training room he'd promised... er, his classmate, he'd meet her at.
Jiri, wasn't it? He groaned, normally so much better with names than this. She definitely wasn't one he could forget visually, that's for sure -Aiden had pale skin, sure, and dark hair, but did not possess the same skeletal-like figure as this Jedi-to-be. What was she? He blinked, recalling his sponsor muttering about a "strange student" during one of their almost daily training sessions in the Courtyard. Was this the strange student she spoke of? Maybe, but then, any non-human students were strange to him, as much as he hated to admit it.
He shook his head lightly, at length coming to the right room. Jin's near silent sounds of whatever mechanics kept the droid aloft was a soft purr in his right ear as he opened the door to the training room, one hand stuffing itself into an inner pocket in his tunic to retrieve the blindfold while the other gripped the deactivated lightsaber a tad tighter.
An automatic greeting, he grinned to the girl upon spotting her, walking to the room as best he could without giving off too many signs of pain. Although, really, he suspected one look at his hands and face would be enough -at least he'd seen other students who looked worse off than him. Jin rose up into the air, well above them both, watching in curious silence.
"Hi! Sorry if I kept you waiting for long." A small signal sounded in his head, and he pulled out the blindfold, placed it in the hand with the lightsaber, and held out the now empty right limb towards her in greeting. "Edan. I'm not too sure I caught you're name before..."
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Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 9:25 pm
"Jiri Yim," the girl replied, shaking his hand, but her eyes were on the droid floating behind him. A strange look - perhaps distaste, perhaps unease, perhaps both - crossed her face for a moment and then vanished, though the blue bags beneath her eyes remained tense. She forced herself to smile and meet the boy's eyes. She knew they'd met before, and that she'd introduced herself, but she didn't mind. She didn't expect a human to recall her name - earlier in life, one had once remarked to her that "all Yuuzhan Vong looked the same."
She motioned to his lightsaber. Her knuckles were just as badly burnt as his, but she seemed to be dealing with it better. Of course she was, Jiri thought triumphantly. She was Yuuzhan Vong. Where other people drowned in pain, she could swim.
"We should start," she said, fiddling with her blindfold.
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 6:22 pm
His smile faltered slightly when he caught a strange look passing over her face. Was something... wrong? He could hear Jin's soft sounds behind him, but no other being seemed to be present. Was that look towards him? Or... Jin? But that didn't make any sense, Jin was being silent and well behaved... why would she give such a look towards him?
Her name sent a spiral of electrical charges through his brain, memories sparking and collecting and solidifying. Jiri..? He could have kicked himself. Hit himself, rather, in the forehead as a classic sign of 'I'm an idiot.' "I'm so sorry! I won't bore you with an excuse, but I really should have remembered you. You and Zain, we'd met at the Courtyard. Sorry about that..." His voice trailed off into silence, both from embarrassment and the growing feeling that the girl before him... wasn't exactly the friendliest person in the galaxy.
What exactly... had he gotten himself into..?
He nodded to her words, holding his lightsaber in the crook of his arm while setting to work tying the blindfold round his head. "How would you like to do this? Each hit counts as a point, and first person to five or ten wins? Or is there another method you'd rather?" It didn't even occur to him this wasn't exactly a game, nor that spending so much time with his sponsor was resulting in her rather nonchalant feelings towards combat to rub off on him. Strange really, seeing as the unapproachable vibe he was getting from Jiri would normally set into play his more cautious, respecting nature. Maybe private lessons was a bad idea...
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 6:39 pm
"It's okay," shrugged Jiri, waiting for him to calm down and then listening to his suggestions. That sounded good to her.
"How about five?" she asked. Getting ten new burn marks seemed kinda stupid to her if all they were doing was practicing. She paced off a bit, turned to face him, and pulled on her blindfold.
"Whenever you're ready," she called, igniting her lightsaber. She could hear the thrum of it, feel the way the force refracted off the blade. When she had her own lightsaber, she would be able to sense the blade itself. In the stories, that was what Lambent blades did.
She grinned and held the lightsaber at ready. Now that she had an opponent, she realized this was the kind of exciting training she had been waiting for. This was like the fights back home in the courtyard.
She waited for someone to say 'go'.
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Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 8:03 pm
At least she wasn't acting especially cruel or mean... for now, anyways. How would things change once blows began exchanging? For a moment, he felt extremely relieved these were only training blades.
He nodded. "Five's good." Quicker to finish that way. It didn't occur to him less burns would also be gained at first, but then, seeing as his human youngling's pain tolerance was only average, it didn't really matter either way in the long run.
It was a strange sensation to pull on the blindfold and subject himself to impenetrable darkness. It was easy now to bring himself towards that warmth, see the stars and the never ending expanse occupied by life and bodies and the Force. He turned on the lightsaber, the low buzzing reminding him again of an excessive version of Jin's own norm sounds. Perhaps that's why it didn't sound at all menacing to him, but rather comforting and soothing in the relation to a friend. That, and the fact the wounds it caused weren't fatal.
He took a small breath, settling himself into a defensive state, feet spread and knees bent slightly for further support, blade held diagonally before him with the blade pointed towards the ceiling. Most comfortable stance to him, really. That, and he got the strange feeling defense was the best idea against her. She was... kind of scary.
"Ready. Jin?" He didn't see the reason in being the one to start them off, when they had another being in the room who was more than capable of sounding the "starting bell." It gave him the moment to "feel out" the room as it was, feeling the fluctuations in the Force from Jiri. She was... so different. Something didn't feel right in the waves that came and bounced off of her, even as still inexperienced he was with identifying others via only the Force. Jin gave off no heat himself, but the heat that bounced off of him was gentle and non-threatening. The heat that emanated form Jiri was, in contrast... not even really heat. More like cold, the kind you felt if you stuck your hand into a hole in the earth. It wasn't freezing, but it was enough to unnerve him.
Jin's low beeps sounded off as a counter, signaling both combatants to ready themselves.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
"Go."
He blinked. That wasn't Jin. But it came from Jin... how..?
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Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 8:20 pm
At the sound of the word "go", Jiri pushed out with the force, getting an idea of where Edan was, and sprang forward. She didn't attack yet - no, it was better to begin defensively, and fight off your opponent, so when they began to lag you could strike. She bit her lip between her incisors, willing her mind and senses to sharpen like a razor's edge, and pulsed with the Force once more, finding Edan, the hollow space of the droid, the stone floor. She could hear the slightly pulsing hums of the lightsabers, the whirring of the droid, and their breath.
She sank into the defensive position she had adopted in practice, wondering if she would need to make the first move.
After a moment, she realized he certainly wasn't going to, and took another leap towards him, saber raised in attack.
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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 5:09 pm
The air seemed to change around him, tightening and tensing. He was briefly reminded of a snake, one of the random ones he'd find back home while working in the fields. The danger level with those creatures was far higher though, if incorrectly dealt with. A mistake here would only earn him stinging burns.
The cold around her spread, and he frowned. A sort of web it felt like, tangling with the heat of the rest of the Force around them. He felt it near him, and backed up a step in response, though the slight move did little to distance himself from the chill. Was that... her again? It had to be. His grip on the handle tightened, stance hardening as he listened to the various sounds of life and mechanical pulses around them. Bit by bit he ignored the sounds coming from Jin. The droid would stay high and away from them, nothing for him to worry about for now. The hum of the blades was easy to focus on, the distance between them making it easy to tell where hers was compared to his -the temperature change around her was another tell-tale sign for him.
In a moment though, the cold changed, flooding close as he both felt and heard her leap and approach. Automatically he rose the blade in defense against hers, held above his head to block the above attack. The impact made him crouch lower to the ground, knees locking in place to keep him from falling to the ground. The lowered position gave him leverage as he shoved back as he rose, twisting the blade towards where he felt the side of her torso was located. The rib cage? Or more towards the stomach? He couldn't tell where exactly he was aiming, but it was definitely towards her left.
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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 5:55 pm
Jiri ricocheted off of his blade on impact, landing roughly back where she'd started. A moment later, she heard and felt something buzz through the air in front of her, but it didn't hit her. It was a bit off to her left- he was there, then? Blade outstretched, she whirled blindly and clumsily in that direction.
She narrowly avoided tripping over her own feet in the process, regained her balance, but found herself disoriented. Internalizing her focus again, she managed to pulse weakly through the force.
There.
She sliced through the air, praying for contact.
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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 6:15 pm
The missed hit had him stumbling forward, balance shot. It took him a moment to fumble back to where he was before, startled by the fluctuating cold the closer he got to her. Incoming hissings from her saber had him half tripping, half dancing backwards as he fought to focus on where exactly her blade was. He could hear it, sort of feel it with the Force... but couldn't pinpoint it.
His foot stepped down awkwardly in his backwards retreat, the hum of her attack reaching him barely in time to bring his own out to protect himself again. He hit a part of her light saber, but not far enough towards the tip to keep himself from getting the tip hissing against his neck. Yelping at the burning sensation, he hurried to the side, taking a few swipes with his blade in the process towards where the cold and he assumed the source of the burning other blade was.
"Point for you," he winced, annoyed mostly by the pain now throbbing in his neck. And maybe a sliver that she got the first hit... not that it had especially shocked him.
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Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:30 pm
Jiri felt her blade connect with his body, but then he blocked her and she spun away again. She skidded to a halt about a meter and a half away, tried to regain her balance, and stumbled forward a few steps. She'd been careless and lucky so far, but she'd need more than that to win.
She adjusted her grip, grounded her center of gravity, and pressed her awareness outwards, hoping to sense an attack if he tried one.
And then she waited. Fighting was give and take.
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