May The Force Be with Us
A Star Wars fan fiction
He won’t do it again.
Qiyana pushed the hand of Master Mo’antel out of the way, picking herself up using the help of her quarterstaff. He promptly retracted his hand and folded his arms in the small of his back, returning to the spectator’s edge of the training grounds. Before dropping into her battle stance, Qiyana shot another glance at Mo’antel, her eyes burning with a fiery passion.
Resentment.
She turned to face her opponent again, her furious furrowed brow stunted only by her long black eyelashes and tempered bronze eyes. Her opponent — a jedi, mostly, stood before her — with tightly curled kinky hair as white as his robes. There was nothing behind his pink eyes, or so she thought. He was constantly analyzing and anticipating her stance, her movements, her intent. Something was off. He knew he was good, but he was never this good. He could not only read her body, but he seemed to also preconceive her actions by reading her mind — no… her essence.
Impatience.
She charged Kalid, accompanied with a battle cry that could pierce the hum of a thousand star destroyer’s engines at maximum power.
“Left, right, left.” Kalid thought to himself, her moves were foreign to him, but based on her exaggerated movements she was extremely predictable.
CHSSK
The first swing struck like a lightning bolt. The crack of her force pike on his green lightsaber was evident by the explosion of sparks that emanated out from the point of impact. Kalid had to redirect her energy, using the weight of her blows against her. Any head-on impact with her immense strength would be enough to make any wrist buckle.
The second strike never came.
Kalid prepared himself for the next attack to come from the right, and shifted his entire weight as Qiyana spun around. She feinted attacking from the right, to attack from the left again. Surprised, Kalid made every adjustment he possibly could to deflect the new attack now coming from the left, he was going to have to deflect her attack head-on — something he wanted to avoid. She feinted again, and Kalid’s calm demeanor began to crack. A kick, using the blunt edge from her knee, was coming straight for Kalid’s stomach — as she was now in an extremely close melee range, one that would render her force pike useless. He braced himself, he wasn’t going to be able to dodge this one, he was too unprepared, and he wasn’t fast enough. The strike never came. “She’s…She’s toying with me!” Kalid thought to himself, as he was paralyzed, hunched over — waiting for something that would never come. His thoughts were interrupted a split-second later as he felt a pressure on his back. She effortlessly rolled over it — wrapping his neck around her quarterstaff and tossing him to the ground. “Now’s my chance!” she exclaimed, vaulting into the air using her quarterstaff, aiming straight for Kalid who had just barely managed to roll out of the way. Her devastating attack cratered the ground and kicked up a plume of dust, dirt in sand in the training arena. Her next attack seemed to cut through the dust and part it where her quarterstaff struck. Kalid barely got the chance to lift his saber to block it.
CHHSSSK.
He was on one knee, blocking it over his head, adding his other hand for additional support. He felt the pressure let up for a split second, before feeling another impact, then another and another. Qiyana began an unrelenting assault on Kalid’s defense — bashing him until..
CRACK
Anger.
‘W-what?…’ The saber flew from Kalid’s hand, and his wrist went limp. The next decisive strike from Qiyana would have been vicious — had she not froze. Master Mo’antel’s hand was outstretched, fully prepared to stop the fight using the force, but he never exerted himself. Qiyana stood, utterly confused — looking at her wrist. Her left bones were on fire, and she couldn’t move them — she dropped her quarterstaff in fascination.
“You feel it too?” Khalid worked himself up, making sure to quickly grab his lightsaber to reduce whatever chastisement would subsequently follow from Mo’antel from dropping it. Their eyes met with a mixture of apprehension and wonder.
‘That’s all for today.’ The chiss called out from the spectator section. ‘You both have much to learn.’As they gathered their things and began to walk — Master Mo’antel placed a hand on Qiyana’s shoulder. “Why did you stop?…” he asked, more concerned about his padawan than she. She responded with a glare and shoving his hand off her shoulder before continuing the leave. As she walked towards the student’s quarter’s, another man approached Mo’antel.
A meek, humble, silver haired, older human woman walked forward, she bore the robes of a jedi, and had two braided ends of her hair that rested gently on her shoulders, and a tightly wound, neat ponytail.
“We can’t train her…She’s too-”
“Too what?” the woman inquired.
“Too much an individual to become a jedi?” answering her own rhetorical question.
“Too old. She is ruled by her emotions. We cannot train her in the ways of the force.” Mo’antel said, his red eyes peering straight again.
“So don’t.” replied Satele with a casual shrug.
Mo’antel waits a moment, before continuing. “Master Shan. Respectfully. It’s not our responsibility to teach the trash in the galaxy anything.”
Without missing a beat Satele replied, “We taught you didn’t we?”
Mo’antel’s eyebrow twitches. After a brief pause he goes to explain “Master if-”
“Master Mo’antel. We have a responsibility to this young lady. We plucked her from her home with not much more than the clothes on her back. Now, I agree with you — she may never be a Jedi, but her bond with your padawan is something I’ve only even ever heard of once before…”
She then turned to face him directly, while his eyes were still forward going into the halls of the Jedi temple.
“I’m not asking you to teach her to be a Jedi. I’m asking you to be present. She needs this.”
Satele turned to walk away, the opposite of the student quarters.
“Besides…we can’t afford not to.”
Upon hearing the truth, the piercing gaze felt soft, and his jaw unclenched. He knew then exactly what he had to do.