A Lot to Unlearn -For naughtypadawan

[Chriekel]

"I would say that the order left me. But yes, I'm sure they would say that I quit." Lintava took a step closer and pulled a rag from one of his many pockets, offering it to the girl.

"I'll take you to your ship. You need to leave this world."

Even as he spoke he reached out with the force and found what he had been expecting. On every side the coral spires had reacted badly to his use of the force. They were never stable, but when they were disturbed they became truly deadly. There were other things too, things bred deep under the ground. They rarely surfaced but between his own use of the force and the Padawan's flailing, any further provocation would be a dangerous risk. If one of the spires were triggered, that could easily be enough....

[naughtypadawan]

"I can't," Kemi said, struggling mightily against the tears that wanted to fill her eyes. "I crashed."

This was all . . . somebody's fault. She wasn't sure whose, but she was equally convinced that it wasn't hers. She might have blamed Master Torval for not training her properly, if only thinking of him hadn't brought her dangerously close to crying. And she wasn't going to cry in front of this strange, maybe-murderer man. She was not.

[Chriekel]

"....That may be a problem."

Lintava could feel the emotions bubbling up inside the girl. He felt torn, his frustration at her attitude and her very presence fading to be replaced with a desire to just give her a hug.

He closed his eyes, closed himself off to her sadness and steadied himself.

"Then you need to come with me. This place isn't safe."

And with that he turned on his heel and began to walk, aiming for a relatively clear route, overlooked by only a handful of spires.

[naughtypadawan]

Kemi climbed a bit painfully to her feet, with pins and needles consuming the parts of her limbs that had been crushed in the vines' stranglehold. She picked up her lightsaber and limped along after Lintava, looking somewhat anxiously up at the coral spires. She'd seen them spitting lightning from a distance.

[Chriekel]

"What's your name girl?" Lintava said, glancing over his shoulder at her.

In the same moment the nearest coral spire erupted, blinding blue light crawled across its surface and a bolt of force lightning tried to earth itself through Lintava.

Lintava reacted, instinct told him to block the energy with his saber but hard earned experience had taught him that there was a better way. He raised one hand as the coral spire began to discharge and unleashed a burst of force lightning of his own. It was a strange feeling, tapping into the dark side, not the terrifying abyss that his masters had insinuated but still dangerous. Where the light separated you from yourself, the dark sucked you ever deeper.

Power poured from Lintava's fingertips, a wave of lightning that intercepted the bolt from the coral tower in mid flight. For a second the two forces seemed to merge together into a single ball of angry energy, then the ball exploded, bursting apart into a thousand tiny arcs of lightning that zapped and crackled their way to the ground without doing any further damage.

Lintava dropped his hand, his heart was racing.

"So...." He said after a long moment. "Your name?"

[naughtypadawan]

Kemi stared in shock at what Lintava had done. "Are you . . . did you . . . ?" she began, horrified by what she had seen and now feeling frightened of the man. "You fell, didn't you . . . to the Dark Side?"

She wasn't keen on telling this man her name until he made a general accounting of himself.

[Chriekel]

Lintava stopped walking. He turned slowly, aware of the girl's unease and not making any effort to decrease it.

"Who do you think you're talking to girl? A fallen Jedi? A murderous Sith?" He paused, sensing a surge in the weather and waiting for a flash of lightning and a roll of thunder before he continued, softly "A monster?"

He was trying to scare her, and that was in its way cruel but it was also necessary. Her suspicion and fear of him had been there from the second she saw him and to overcome an emotion, it was first necessary to acknowledge it.

[naughtypadawan]

Kemi stepped back from him. Her first instinct was to run, but where? Back to the strangling vines? Back to her wrecked ship?

Her fingertips brushed the saber hilt at her hip. "I can fight, you know," she said, in what she hoped was a confident voice.

[Chriekel]

"Your feelings betray you child. I know that you know that you can't, at least not well enough to protect yourself from me." He did not move at all, simply meeting her gaze. "But when did I say I wanted to fight you? You're afraid of me because I used a Sith technique to protect us both. I have saved your life twice now...but because I use the force and am not a Jedi I am a threat?"

He plucked his own saber from its pocket and held it before him, ready but at ease.

"I am not a Jedi and I am not a Sith. I am a free man and I am NOT a monster. But if your first instinct is to attack anything that you do not understand then please." He ignited his silver blade "Show me how a fool fights."

[naughtypadawan]

Lintava's words left Kemi feeling childish and ashamed, but actually, yes, she had been trained to think of any Force user who was not a Jedi as a threat.

"I guess . . . I guess if you wanted to kill me, you could have before now," she said hesitantly. "You could have let those vines get me. Or the lightning thing." Now that she thought about it, actually, she owed this man a substantial debt. "Thank you," she said quietly.