Vodo nodded, and leaning on his walking stick, motioned for Cor-si to lead the way. As they walked, Vodo reached out to the Force and used it to take in his surroundings, as he always did when coming to a new place.

The walked in silence for about ten minutes, Vodo hobbling along at his characteristic slow pace, and Cor-si politely walking slower to stay in step with the Jedi Master. Finally Vodo broked the silence with a point-blank question, "Did you have a dreamless sleep?"

It took several minutes for Cor-Si to understand how Master Baas could know how his night had been and a further few for him to find a way he could describe it. He had been expecting a question like this since they had landed and was grateful that Vodo had brought it up. He still remembered the fear he felt as the troopers burst in, the anger as they shot the woman who had tried to save him. These were dark emotions, that thought troubled him almost as much as the dream did.

"I... did not Master. I was greatly troubled by a nightmare, or a vision I suppose you could call it. It is a consistent one that I have experienced a great deal of times in the past." Cor-Si began to explain what he had seen, how he had felt and how often it had happened. When he had finished his tale he looked down at his masters face, expecting to see a stern expression. The bemused expression was perhaps even worse. Cor-Si had greatly hoped that the wizened Jedi Master would be able to help him.

Vodo listened intently, the same bemused expression on his face as they walked. Cor-si went into a dark tale of fear, anger and death, which disturbed Vodo deeply, but he let none of it show outwardly.

"That was no mere dream, my friend." Vodo said, "It was a vision. Of the past."

He went on, "I think what you are seeing is an event from your childhood. Did something like this happen when you were an infant?"

"To my recollection? No! Does that mean anything though? Who knows? I've always had the feeling that memories shouldn't be trusted. If you spend too much time dwelling on them then their snare will catch you. Eventually they'll twist you into a resembelance of a human that wallows in times gone." Without realising it, anger began to seep into Cor-Si's voice. How could he be expected to know what had happened? Had he not said that he saw this thing happening when he had no controll over himself?

Mild and twisted a small amount of rage crept through Cor-Si's veins. Where it had come from or why he felt it he knew not but it was most definatley there. Curling his fist into a knuckled ball Cor-Si pushed the anger from his body. Across the way from him a row of flowers shrivelled and died. The life from them sucked out and pushed back into the Force.

The waves of sick and the feeling of being ashamed washed over Cor-Si before he had even acknowledged what he had done. Hours ago he had tried so hard to reach out with the Force calmly, but to no avail. Now, when anger ran through him, it was such an easy task. How could he have allowed his first experience to be tainted with dark? His knees trembled and buckled beneath him.

Looking up from his prayer like kneeling on the floor, Cor-Si turned pleading eyes towards the powerful Jedi who wore a bemused expression. "What is wrong with me Master?"

Vodo regarded the kneeling apprentice as he reached into the Force and probed Cor-si's mind, trying to understand the pain he was going through.

He could sense that Cor-si had experienced a deep trauma when he was younger, and Vodo was convinced the Force was giving Cor-si a vision of that trauma.

He kneeled down in front of Cor-si, "The reason you cannot feel the Force so openly, Cor-si, is that you are blocking it." Vodo said before smiling boadly, "And we are going to figure out why."

He offered his hand, "Lets get going."

Accepting the alien hand, Cor-Si pulled himself off the metal walkway and brushed the dirt from his knees. Anwsers, that's what it all fell down to. Could this Jedi really help him find the anwsers he needed, could he rid Cor-Si's mind of the terrible nightmares that had plauged his sleep for so many years?

For several minutes they walked in silence before Cor-Si piped up the question that had stumped him the most. " How can I be blocking the Force when I don't even know how to use it? I have trouble even sensing it."

Vodo looked at Cor-Si deeply in the eyes. Cor-Si could feel the masters mind reaching into his own, testing and probing for information that may be relevant to his question. It was a few minutes before this finished and Vodo had just opened his mouth as if to anwser when they turned the last corner of their journey. The look that spread across Cor-Si's face could only be described as a cross between pure horror, and complete devestation. Where once had stood a beautiful house with rose gardens, lay a ruin of scorched metal, blackened walls and crumbling roofing plates. Peaceful training forgotten, Cor-Si ran forwards to the door to the house, burst through and froze in his tracks.

If the outside of the once happy building could be described as wrecked, the inside wasn't far short of a Tie bombers practice zone. Everything from flimsi-pads to dining chairs lay strown across the floor. A half ruined holo picture of Cor-Si and his family lay blinking by the corpse of his nine year old sister, her hand still curled around the frame, clutching it to her chest. Scooping her head into his hands silent tears began to stream down his cheeks to fall on her broken body. Her hair was a bare resembelance to the golden curls it had once been, now burned almost crisp and turned a sickened black. Four holes punctured her young chest showning the stained carpet upon which she lay. Behind him, Vodo stood in the doorway, an unreadable expression on his alien features. Was it anger? Concern? Caution perhaps? What did it matter, nothing could change this unreal nightmare that had somehow found it's way into a very real world.

Picking her up in his arms Cor-Si begun to quietly hush a lullaby his mum had song for him so many years ago. Walking straight past Vodo he laid her shell of a human on the green ground and ventured back into his home. It took nearly an hour to recover his parents body from the consistent mess around the once clean rooms. Whilst his mother had been sparred much pain and recived only one laser bolt to the head his fathers body resembled something that looked more like an inside out body than anything human. More cuts and bruises covered his body than could be counted, and it took a further hour and a half to bring his faceial features back into the formerley loving look that had blessed the mans life.

For the first time since they had arrived at the building Cor-Si spoke to his master. "They were all I had Vodo," if Master Baas noticed the informal way in which Cor-Si addressed him he had the good sense not to mention it, "all I ever needed. All I ever wanted. How can I survive without them? Look at what they did to Shassen, she was nine. Nine for Vader's sake! Who could butcher a child so merclessly?" Tears flowed freely from his stinging eyes.

"I remember once when me and Shassen were playing in the valleys near here. You know, the one we walked through on the way. She was five at the time, I was seventeen. I now it's a large age gap but there's few children around these areas so I always took her out when she was bored. After a short while she asked if we could go to the rocks by the lake. Begged me to take her there. How could I say no, she had a pleading look in her eyes? I took her and we walked around for ages. I think we'd been there for an hour when it happened. She slipped on some moss and banged her head against a particually sharp rock. I was frozen to the ground, didn't know what to do. I grabbed her up and sprinted back to the house. I thought she was dead, her body was all limp and she wasn't making any sounds. My mother tended to her wounds and she was awake a few hours later. When she awoke she kept crying for me so I went and sat with her by her bed. I promised her then and there that I wouldn't let anything bad happent to her ever again. I never dreamt that I could break that promise like this. I've failed her, she looked up to me, idolized me. How could I have failed her so badly?"

Cor-Si could no longer controll his grief and broke down on the threshold of the doorway, his back slumped against the metal frame. What point was there to finding anwsers now?

Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear.

Devestation.

Anger.

Rage.



Hate.


These were the emotions that Vodo could feel the strongest when he touched the house through the Force.

At an early stage, apprentices were taught that emotions, particularly strong ones, always left an imprint or residue on a certain object in the Force. And Vodo felt these imprints and residues all too easily.

And now he felt a new one forming:

Sorrow.

It came off the young apprentice like smoke.

Vodo had never really comforted anyone before, so he wasn;t sure what to do. But the role of teacher came back to him easily.

"Do not feel any sorrow over the dead." Vodo said quietly, "They cannot hear you anymore."

Cor-si looked as if stricken, "That isn't very comforting."

Vodo wanted to shrug, "There is nothing I can say that will ease your grief, Apprentice. But as a Jedi, you must learn to not only deal with it, but to understand the very essence of it. Perhaps you should realize that, though they are gone, they are in a much better place. Perhaps you should be happy that they have attained the peace that all of us search for, but few ever find."

He pointed his cane at the body of the small girl, "She was a happy child, that much I can sense. But even though she is gone, her spirit lives on..." He poked Cor-si's chest, "Within you."

He tapped his cane on the ground, "Remember their lives, and hold that spirit within your heart."

Barely recognisible as human, the snort that came from Cor-Si's nose was as much a howl as anything else.

"Within your heart! WITHIN YOUR BLOODY HEART!!! How can you even say things like that?!!?" Cor-Si could not conceal the mass amounts of anger in his voice, " You know nothing!! You're not even human!!! You probably eat your dead or something!!! Maybe if you were human you might understand that what I'm feeling right now hurts!!!"

Before Cor-Si even realised he had stood up he was striding across the way to Vodo. Where once he might have looked upon the alien with mild amusement at the strange features, his expression now held nothing but contempt. For nearly ten minutes they stood in that position, anger pouring from Cor-Si, calm from his wizened Master. Had it not been for a sudden appearance they might have been there for hours.

Cor-Si's head snapped up as the litle girl emerged from behind a rock. Twisted curls in black hair, she was no older than Cor-Si's sister Shassen

"You! Stop where you are!!" Cor-Si's voice carried across the lengthy garden where the girl suddenelly started to sprint away. Hand stretching out, Cor-Si called on the Force which came so much easier now. Without realising he had done it the girl began to float just above the ground. Legs kicking at the invisible grip she was held in.

"You know what happened here don't you? DON'T YOU?!?!" Cor-Si screamed the last two words as the girl sobbed in the air. "Tell me everything you know or I promise I will not be hold responsible for my actions!"

Behind him, Cor-Si could sense his Master approaching. The calm that washed over Cor-Si did nothing to stump his anger. He was beyond soothing for now.

EDIT: wrong account

OOC: Get rid of that huge sig, lol





IC:







WHACK.





The little girl, and Cor-si hit the ground in unison, the girl landing deftly on her feet, while the apprentice fell flat on his face.



Vodo leaned on the cane that he had used to whack Cor-si, and looked at the now-crying girl. He reached out to the Force and flooded her with calm feelings, and after a moment she stopped crying. He gave her a brave smile and she began to back away.



"It's okay." He said, smiling. The girl was a little afraid at first, but soon moved back toward the small Jedi Master, "No one is going to hurt you."



She nodded warily and moved to his side.



Cor-si picked himself up off the ground and looked at Vodo somewhat meekly. In the face of the Jedi Master's overwhelming sense of resolve radiating in the Force, Cor-si calmed himself.



Vodo stared at him for a long while, "I am severely dissapointed. That was a direct misuse of your abilities, and I had better never see it again."



Vodo knew his words would sting, but that was the purpose. Cor-si was acting like a child, so he needed to be spoken to like one.



"Now. Apologize." Vodo said.