Knights of the New Republic

Session 9 - Q'aleane's Journal


Through order, I find peace.
Through peace, I sense the force.
Through the force, I perceive chaos.
Through the chaos, I feel.
Through my feelings, I act.
Through my actions, I create order.
Through order, I find peace.

Why is it when I need to center most, that intonation is what I center upon? I am not even sure where I learned it, I think I have always just known it.

Perhaps I should start with how the last few… days?… have affected me. Normally my emotions are like a mist on a lake under the light of Ashala. They are there, they help move me but they are ephemeral and do not control me. I can appreciate them the same way I appreciate a piece of music that moves me. Then there was the other day.

Q’ayla has been having difficulty with the incident with Alema and the council. Her tenaciousness as always is daunting. The situation has happened, nothing we can do can go back and rewrite it yet her soul clings to the injustice of it. She needed to let it go. All this I understand. I have spent enough time with my sister to know how she processes her emotions. This was a big one, and despite everything, I have never been able to help her through her process except by being there.

Thats where things changed this time. She has grown close to Irsin. Amusing when you consider just how close she was to killing him when we first met. But she decided to go to him for help. From what I imperfectly understand, the Sith way of dealing with emotions is to revel, no not exactly revel, but … amplify them. In order to let go of her anger, she would have to feel rage for example. I guess it is the emotional equivilent of feeling tired after a large workout. SO they sparred. At first I could feel the sparring, it was like every other time my sister sparred. It was the comfortable backdrop to my existance, the music I could listen to while I worked. Then the tone changed. At a certain point it stopped being about skill and art and became a discordant clang of rage, fear and chaos tinged with desparation. She was dying, I could feel her mind grow distant even as the rage grew louder.

She who I could trust above all others to feel the world and help me to feel it. She without whom I could not exist in this world. Being killed by one I thought I could trust.

This would not be.

I am not sure I have ever felt emotion like this, the chaotic storm that blows through peace, obliterates order. I am pretty sure I would remember it if I had. I became the storm for a time. I acted. How could I not act. If I had tried, the storm would have carried me and I would have acted regardless. I was the totality of the storm, I could have killed them both. Luckily I think Irsin realized this and answered dispassionately, even so a part of the storm that was me called out for him. I chose to not act on it. It seems in retrospect I might have had some control after all, though it didn’t feel like it at the time.

When my sister recounts Bespin, I feel an echo of that storm like hearing rain through a window. It is much different being in the storm, no being the storm. I could feel the power there. I suspect I could have held them even without the ship’s help.

I could feel the storm’s, no make that my desire to destroy everything and leave nothing but chaos. I chose not to act. I chose to find order and through order, find peace. I chose to create an eye in the center of the storm. It took me days to do but I was able to find order again through the chaos.

But I am still left with a knowledge I never had. I am the storm. even now. Even though I am the eye of the storm, the whole of it is not far should I choose to be it.

I am not sure how my sister does it.

Luckily dealing with it doesn’t feel like others have described it to me, it doesn’t feel like I am struggling to contain something external to me trying to take over. It is different. Why would I contain it, I am it. Like the noise I quiet in my mind when I meditate, it is a part of me. I choose to quiet it, to find order and peace. But a part of me keeps wanting to play. It is like that last bit of a song, stuck in your head despite all attempts to quiet it. Like that bit of song, its not like I am forced to sing it… but it is still very distracting.

I wonder if, like meditation, it gets easier to do with practice. I remember struggling to clear my head of equations, puzzles, curiosities for hours as my master looked at me. He always saw through me in that way. He knew when I was sitting there controlling my breathing but working on a puzzle and when I was letting the puzzle go. Now it takes barely a moment for me to find that quiet. I wonder if this storm can be like that.

I am not sure I can afford to practice.

I scared my sister. At a time where she was vulnerable and injured, I couldn’t help. I had to rely on my connection with the ship to get her the help she needed. I can’t afford to take myself out of commission long enough to experiment. I hope she can forgive me for doing it this time.

She seems… all right?… now.

I can feel the rush of her confusion, giddyness, embarassment and something stronger through our link. I must be getting better at feeling parts of the link and not the whole as I can feel her thoughts just under the surface of my own. Stronger than our previous link. I know I can simply look and I will see them. I am tempted to actually peek in, but I get the feeling that now might not be the… best timing on my part.

I need to remember to spend some time talking to Bastilla and the others about the storm. Just as soon as I figure out how I am going to convince a rancor to help us out. Talk about riding a storm.

Until then I will leave the strong emotions to my sister.

Until then I will be the eye of the storm instead of the whole of the storm.

Until then I will be the order that brings peace.



