Renso stood again and beckoned them to the center of the room, the duo taking up positions as Chwuq muscled her way to lie down between them. Aria could feel the tomb beast’s muscles quivering in her flanks with each minute growl or grunt she emitted, her crimson gaze not leaving Renso as the Sith Master exhaled softly and shut his eyes. Aria and Yerbol did the same, slowing their breathing rates and allowing the bond that existed between them to open up fully.
The images Renso showed them were horrifying enough to make Aria break out in a cold sweat, her dark eyes flying open at around the same time that the two men both surfaced from the visions themselves. She could feel Yerbol’s gut churning almost as if it were her own and was silently grateful that she had a strong stomach due to growing up on Korriban.
“You...you experimented on them.” Aria pointed out, trying to keep the skepticism out of her tone so as not to anger the ancient Sith. “...you could hardly expect them NOT to get angry as Force about it…” though to go down the full route of mass genocide as Bracknell had attempted before...that of course, was overkill. Renso made no initial acknowledgement of her comment, and instead began to explain why he had called them all the way out here to Wild Space again, imploring them to allow him to tutor them so that they could pass on the teachings to others in known space.
She could feel his guilt, his desperation to repair the mistakes he had made before his time ran out, which Renso was painfully (literally) aware was drawing closer with each passing day, his contempt at himself for not being able to see past his own youthful ignorance to prevent all of this from occurring…
Aria and Yerbol were his LAST chance to put things right before he had no physical grasp on the world any longer. As her partner looked towards her and asked her opinion, she let out a sigh of her own:
“...We have to help him.” shaking her head, Aria added. “It’s not like we’d be going against our beliefs or what we learnt working together to stop Bracknell, so why not?”
___________________
Renso’s teaching methods were...intensive, his urgency came across in the way he barked instruction at them every time they made a mistake or did not grasp a concept as quickly as he had hoped they would. Despite being in such close proximity to the Sith, which meant that their connection to him through the Force bond should have felt stronger than before, the link seemed to grow weaker with each passing day. It didn’t take them long to figure out why. He was dying. Somehow, that spurred them on to work even harder to try and soak up every bit of knowledge the Sith alien could offer them. They HAD to. They would be the only ones left in the galaxy, once he was gone, that would remember it…
Their lightsaber skills he polished even further, correcting errors in their footwork and berating them for sloppiness of form:
“Are you trying to get your own hand sliced off? Put your grip backwards like that again and I’ll start zapping your wrists with lightning until I’ve trained you out of it!” he had scolded Aria, who thought he was simply over-exaggerating, and paid the warning no mind until she had in fact received a sharp shock to both wrists during the next morning’s scheduled work through of lightsaber techniques.
When she glared at him and made a vehement protest to the treatment (which was somewhat backed up by a flustered Yerbol), Renso simply grinned back at them and proclaimed:
“I warned you.”
In retort, Aria vehemently protested that Roan had used a very similar grip and never come up short before (until the duel with Bracknell, of course…).
“Well, your father’s not here now, is he? Not even Shien Masters use the reverse grip anymore because is IS flawed. I’m trying to teach you a lesson, you’d do well to stop being stubborn and follow it.” she had sighed and let him off for the snide comment because he was getting frail and he was doing his best to teach them as patiently as he could.
Their Force combat skills he expanded upon vastly. Though they had received quite extensive training from Roan and Voldon in particular during their short training sessions on Zinuthra, even those techniques were nothing compared to the vast trove of knowledge that Renso had to impart to them. Not only did he tutor them in ways to sharpen their current skills: such as properly directing her previously uncontrolled Force screams to make them even MORE effective (Force help anybody who ever tried to win an argument with either of them by the end of it!), how to channel the flows of the Force even better to give them even MORE speed or strength, better ways to work together as a team to do various things including remaining unseen if they so wished, or how to stretch their senses out further and to be aware of the life forms moving around them even if they were further away (to hopefully avoid any more Xiis ambushing them again!); but Renso also imparted NEW techniques to them that were so old and long-forgotten that no other Master alive would have any inkling of them. To Yerbol he taught techniques even Aria admitted she didn’t fully comprehend, something to do with severing or lessening a being’s connection to the Force, something like simulating the effect that strong sedative drugs had on a person, and sharpened the barrier ability he had already picked up which they had used to defeat Bracknell. To Aria, he taught the ability to use her powerful emotions to fuel her fighting strategies, to allow determination and passion to fuel her when her own stamina seemed to be failing or her muscles ached so much she doubted they could move another inch. She had attempted such techniques before under Roan and Cheriss’ urging but had found the process altogether unachievable, but with Renso’s methods….this could become something she could use.
On the fourth day, Chwuq had coaxed Taral off the ship and persuaded him to join them once again, the two Tuk’ata watching the training sessions with quiet curiosity from the sidelines until they became bored and leapt between teacher and student to break the intense concentration and initiate some form of play (which usually involved snatching Renso’s lightsaber and running off with it...they seemed to delight in testing their boundaries with the Sith alien). Renso had at first been quite annoyed with the whole display but after a further forty eight hours had passed he was more interested in studying them at closer quarters. The Tuk’ata had been hesitant to approach the powerful being, their ability to sense his strength in the Force warning them that he was even more powerful than Roan had been, and for that reason something to be feared.
“They’re the last of their kind, too.” Aria murmured one evening when Renso had enquired what the dogs were. “Beasts that prowled the tombs on Korriban, my father said they must have been there when your people still populated the planet. They were with him when the planet blew up, so they survived.” she shrugged. “We haven’t found any others…”
Renso smiled indulgently as he watched Taral snuffling at a knot of fur between Chwuq’s shoulderblades.
“Well, perhaps there may still be more Tuk’ata in the galaxy yet.” She hadn’t grasped what he was implying at first, the realization only dawning on her after the next days’ training session.
Aria had attempted to encourage Chwuq and Taral closer by suggesting that she and Yerbol sit on either side of Renso during mealtimes, though the two dogs would eye any food offerings held out towards them by any of the trio with wary mistrust before slinking off to hunt for their own food. At the end of the first week, they had returned carrying specimens of the strange blue-feathered birds Aria and Yerbol had seen on Zinuthra before. As had become habit, Taral had nudged the dead bird with the end of his muzzle and looked in their direction, only wolfing it down after Aria and Yerbol both insisted that they had eaten more than enough of their own meal already. Chwuq, however, had dropped her kill directly in Renso’s lap and sunk down to lie at the Sith Master’s feet, ears perked upwards as she stared intently at him until Renso had cleared his throat uncomfortably.
Stifling laughter, Aria sniggered:
“...She’s going to be VERY upset if you don’t eat that. You should feel honoured, Master, they don’t hunt for people outside their pack.”
_________________
The final lessons Renso taught the duo were to understand the philosophies he had sharpened in his years of seclusion and teaching others like Bracknell and Soto. Even though they had already begun to put them into practise by working as a team despite their initial differences, there was much that they had to work to further understand. Most importantly, he stressed a focus on the FORCE itself rather than trying to segregate it into teachings of “Light” and “Dark”. So he would tell them:
“The Force must be perfectly balanced or it could not exist. That is why there IS a Light and a Dark, because without one the other would have no meaning and no purpose. The codes of honour that your former Orders followed were twisted representations of it’s true nature at best. Because both vehemently denied the existence of the other. What I want you to make sure, when I am gone, is that the others you teach understand this concept of balance that you have learned from me.”
They were able to comprehend what he was saying only because they had both chosen to cast aside their differences at the moment their Force bond had formed on Quensu and to acknowledge that differing opinions didn’t have to be viewed as WRONG just because they were different. Renso kept stressing the importance of the Force, to let it guide one’s actions and to use it in a way that was natural and almost primal, without fearing of straying too far along one part of its spectrum. “Any part of the Force can be a tool to aid you when you know how to use it. You have begun to understand this and now you must teach it to others.” he urged the duo.
Ensuring they could pass that knowledge on would be much more difficult; trying to construct some kind of mantra that acknowledged both approaches without being too confusing seemed impossible to Aria, though Renso had implored patience and insisted that they meditate on the matter and the answer would come to them. In the end, it turned out that they had simply been focusing TOO much on keeping the written expression of the philosophy exactly the same as the previous codes had been, and not enough on presenting it in a way that would echo the simplicity of what they hoped to teach:
The Force is all things, and I am the Force.
The phrase had come to the pair suddenly in the middle of a meditation session, they hadn’t been able to explain how they had both thought of it in unison but had agreed that it clicked and would serve the purpose. Neither Aria nor Yerbol could confirm whether Renso had had anything to do with the phrase’s appearance and if they asked the Sith would simply smile indulgently and reply in some cryptic phrase that insisted he “would do no such thing”.
Train. Eat. Settle Chwuq and Taral down. Sleep. Train some more. It became a continuous cycle that went on for fourteen days, Renso seeming more frail each time they rose from a short period of rest to return to their training. The days blurred into one another until it became hard to distinguish where one started and the other began. They became so focused on their learning that they almost didn’t notice their tutor’s fatigue, until on the last day he became so weak he could hardly rise from his meditation to speak with them again….
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